mm- 
VOL. XLVIII. NO. 2078. NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 23, i889. 
PRICE, FIVE CENTS. 
$ 2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered According to Act of Congress in the Year 1889 , by the Rural New-Yorker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. CJ 
THE R. N.-Y.’S HYBRIDS BETWEEN 
THE BLACKBERRY AND 
RASPBERRY. 
NOTHER of the R. N- 
Y. ’s blackberry-rasp¬ 
berry hybrids fruited 
during the past season— 
and another chance oc¬ 
curs to record a failure. 
The illustration, Fig. 
278, is a photograph of 
a fruiting stem, and 
shows, therefore, the 
berries true to nature. 
The plant is strong and 
vigorous, with characteristics both of the 
raspberry and blackberry. It resembles the 
blackberry, however, in most respects, 
though distinctly not a blackberry. The 
illustration shows a fair average of the 
fruit—there was not a perfect berry on the 
plant. It is an interesting fact that though 
the drupelets were those of the blackberry, 
the flavor of the raspberry was pronounced. 
We have a dozen of these hybrids which 
have not yet fruited, but those which have 
fruited give little or no promise that any¬ 
thing of value will ever come from'the hy¬ 
bridism beyond the interesting fact itself. 
iiunxl topics. 
RATS! RATS!! 
a 
OF 
II.” 
HOW TO KILL THE PESTS. 
DOGS, CATS, POISONS, TRAPS. 
‘‘How do you proceed to kill rats and 
mice about your farm buildings ? In what 
way do they cause the greatest damage 7 
Are they increasing in numbers 7 
FROM FRED GRUNDY. 
I HAVE fought rats and mice for years, 
and am still hard at it. This season they 
seem to be more numerous and destructive 
than ever. They are everywhere—in the 
stables, poultry-houses, pig-pen, garden 
and open field. The first thing they seri¬ 
ously damaged this season was my straw¬ 
berries. Of these they ruined over a bushel 
by nibbling the seeds off just as the berries 
were ripening, giving them a dirty, rusty 
appearance and rendering them unfit for 
any purpose. They also bit gallons of them 
off the stems while green. A neighbor who 
grows quite a large lot of strawberries lost 
« several bushels in this way. I placed sev¬ 
eral spring and Delusion traps, baite * 
with fried meat, in my patch and caught a 
large number of the little pests, most of 
them being the regular house mice. Both 
rats and mice began on the sweet corn as 
soon as it was out of the milk, climbing 
up the stalks at night and tearing open the 
ends of the husks and eating down the ears. 
One man told me a few days ago that he 
had shot several large rats gnawing away 
at the cars in the day-time. As soon as the 
field corn was out of the milk they began 
on that in the same way. They cleaned up 
most of an acre of very fine com for a man 
who lives near a creek in the suburbs of the 
village before he suspected their presence. 
They are especially destructive in shocked 
corn, sometimes devouring all but a few 
ears on the outside. They burrow holes in 
the ground 12 or 14 inches deep, and eight 
to 12 feet laterally, piling the dirt up two 
or more feet high inside the shock. We 
have neither rats nor mice in the house. 
When it was built the carpenters were cau¬ 
tioned to be especially careful to leave no 
openings through which the pests might 
enter. I have a vegetable cellar outside 
with a double board roof packed with cut 
straw, and they got into that and proceeded 
to clean it out in style. I spoiled their fun, 
.however, by burning sulphur on an oil 
stove placed inside and closing the doors 
tightly. The fumes penetrated every 
crack and crevice and made it so unj)leasant 
that they left in disgust. 
In the stables the mouse crop is kept 
within reasonable bounds by several cats 
that abide there; but they don’t seem to 
trouble the rats. For catching these I use 
an old-fashioned sliding-door trap baited 
with sweet corn, apples, sweet potato, etc., 
and they never get very numerous. I once 
used Rough on Rats for poisoning a large 
colony of mice that had settled in the cow 
stable, and when they came out of their 
holes to expire they were picked up and 
swallowed by my fine Plymouth Rocks. 
The effect of such highly seasoned diet was 
extremely disastrous to the fowls, and I 
bought some more. I have used strychnine 
on crushed sweet corn with emphatic re¬ 
sults. and I consider it superior to any other 
poison for destroying rats and mice in the 
field. My main reliance about the build¬ 
ings, however, is on cats and traps. In 
constructing farm buildings great care 
should be exercised to avoid making rat 
harbors and mouse dens. 
Christian County, Ill. 
FROM PROFESSOR A. J. COOK. 
I use traps in the house and cats in the 
barn. This is for mice. I have trapped 
rats quite successfully. Some years ago 
the pests were quite annoying about our 
house and barn. The red squirrels came to 
live with us. They got into the house 
walls and garrets. We rather enjoyed see¬ 
ing them aud so encouraged their sojourn 
in the house. The only objection to their 
presence was that their early waking and 
gambols sometimes disturbed company and 
they sometimes found and appropriated the 
children’s nuts that were stored in the 
chambers. On the whole, we liked their 
company. After the squirrels came the 
rats all left, and we have not seen a rat 
for years either at the house or the barn. 
I have no doubt that the squirrels 
drove the rats away. If this would work 
successfully every time, then it might pay 
to introduce and encourage the presence of 
red squirrels about the house and bam. 
Three or four squirrels about the barn do 
no harm. So far as I have tried them I 
can recommend red squirrels as the best 
of rat-traps. 
Ingham County, Mich. 
FROM T. B. TERRY. 
Our old house was overrun with rats and 
mice. They did about as they had a mind 
to up-stairs and down cellar. They had 
been “ holding the fort ” for many years, 
and they kept on in spite of us. When I 
built a new house, six years ago, I deter 
mined to occupy it alone. The cellar was 
built of hollow bricks, with a thick cement 
floor, and screens were put over all win¬ 
dows. The wood-shed and all are mouse- 
tight. Two or three times a mouse has 
been carried in with the wood, when throw¬ 
ing it into the wood-shed ; but as there is 
nothing there for mice to eat they can be 
caught in a trap as soon as it is known that 
any are there. These hollow bricks are 
glazed, so that a mouse or rat cannot climb 
up the underpinning and hold on while 
gnawing through the wood-work , neither 
can it by any possibility get through the 
wall. 
It is not so easy to keep these pests out of 
the barn. My granary in the barn-base¬ 
ment is rat-proof, however. It, also, is 
built of hollow bricks, with a tile and 
cement floor, and the sills above are bedded 
in cement on top of the hollow brick walls. 
Then the floor above is made of two-inch, 
matched Norway pine. \Ye tried hard to 
keep the new barn, built some years ago, 
shut up until I could get the old one with 
its numerous inhabitants torn 
down and cleaned up; but enough 
of the rascals got in for a start. 
Since then I have kept two or three 
barn cats, and I haven’t for a long 
while.seen a rat or mouse, although 
for a time the vermin were very 
numerous. When the cats were 
first put in, the rats kept in the 
straw {above and seemed to think 
they were all safe; but after a 
time they wanted a change of diet, 
or some water, and as they could 
uot go down into the basement 
with safety they actually gnawed 
three holes through the siding of 
the barn to get out and I don’t 
think they ever came back. When 
the doors are shut at night they 
cannot get into the barn any more 
than they can get into the house, 
and possibly we could get along 
now without the cats, as there is 
nothing whatever that they could 
harbor in around the barn. Those 
that escaped probably spread the 
uews in the neighborhood that 
water was scarce in our straw loft. 
I believe I have tried, in years 
past, about every way of catching 
rats that was before the public; 
but usually I had to admit that the 
Lord didu’t make me as smart as 
our old rats. I thought I had them 
once when 1 read that if a rat was 
caught aud singed and let go again, 
he and all of his race would leave 
the premises. My man caught an 
old fellow, and removed his hair 
over a burning newspaper and re¬ 
turned him to his friends in our 
old wood-shed. He staid by us, 
saucier than ever, till he died of 
old age. When we were so for¬ 
tunate as to catch any more, we 
singed them clear through. I 
might state, to show how 
THE R. N.-Y. HYBRIDS BETWEEN THE BLACKBERRY AND RASPBERRY. 
From a Photograph. Fig. 278. 
