822 
THE RURAL KfiW-YORKER. 
DEC 12 
country surrounding these’ paper towns 
was to cause a sudden neglect of the or¬ 
chards, gardens, vineyards and fields. 
Every adjoining farm, it was thought, 
would soon he demanded for town lots. 
Now all this is changed; the best thing 
that ever happened to the southern coun¬ 
ties was the departure of the nomadic land 
boomer. 
The books about California are, as a rule, 
very hasty sketches. They are full of curi¬ 
ous blunders. I open one famous traveler’s 
book and there is a page of moralizing upon 
the strangeness of finding a stage station 
in Monterey named “Plato,” after the 
Greek philosopher. If the famous traveler 
had looked out of the window at the station 
he would have discovered that it was an 
old Spanish town, and that the name in 
letters a foot long was “ Pleito.” A small 
matter ? Perhaps so, but when in the next 
chapter the author talks of land values in 
California, and tells the biggest stories he 
has heard, the same lack of observation un¬ 
derlies the whole structure. 
In fact, there are all sorts of lands, all 
grades, at all prices, in this great State of 
California. It is a very mountainous State 
—a Palestine on a large scale. Even the 
immense valleys of the Sacramento and the 
San Joaquin contain vast, rolling expanses. 
The “ foothills ” are the most characteristic 
feature of the State; there are cheap lands, 
and abundant room there. There are timber 
lands, reaching up to a hight. of 8,000 feet 
above the sea; there are swamp and over¬ 
flow lands about the lower courses of the 
rivers and the edges of the bays; there are 
hundreds of small mountain valleys : there 
are high plateaus as yet uncultivated. 
Prices of land vary so much that no one 
would risk attempting to tabulate them. A 
friend of mine bought 100 acres m a north¬ 
ern county, all fit for the plow, for six dol 
lars an acre, went on it, and is doing well. 
At. $25 or $30 there are hundreds of tracts in 
the market, some under water ditches, 
some in regions where the rainfall is abun¬ 
dant. Level valley land within 30 miles of 
San Francisco can be bought for $300 per 
acre, and that price is willingly paid, when 
a piece comes into market, by the farmers 
of the neighborhood. 
For five vears I have watched a process 
of healthy and steady settlement going on all 
over California, and entirely disconnected 
from a “land boom.” It can be defined 
ns a new development of the State by fami¬ 
lies who have come here to stay. By far 
the greatest number came with small 
means and have obtained cheap land from 
the government, the railroad, or by buying 
out pre-emptions. Some of them have set¬ 
tled so far up in the mountains that they 
live in a winter climate as cold as that of 
northern New York, and they are as much 
interested in Dr. Hoskins’s articles on his 
Vermont orchard and garden as if they 
were in New England instead of California. 
To my mind, these poor but energetic set¬ 
tlers who are opening up new parts of the 
State, reviving the old mining counties, 
and making “ small beginnings ” are more 
valuable to us than men who build $50,000 
houses. I have purposely avoided any dis¬ 
cussion of the higher-priced lands of Cali¬ 
fornia. for so much has already been said 
on that subject that it may well rest for 
the present. There is plenty of land in 
northern, central, and southern California 
for sale in first hands at reasonable rates, 
varying, of course, according to soil, situa¬ 
tion, and climate, but the buyer, as I have 
said, should first become familiar with the 
entire State. 
MORE ABOUT THE COST OF LIVING. 
G. A. H., Bellefontaine, Ohio.—I will 
add my item to the facts already drawn 
out by this discussion. The exact cost of 
living on a farm cannot be fully deter¬ 
mined because so much is consumed that 
is raised on the farm and of which we take 
no thought. Should we buy all that is 
consumed, or keep an account of its cost, 
the result would almost frighten a farmer. 
If this could be done I think we could more 
fully realize the independence of the farm¬ 
er so far as eating is concerned. When we 
need potatoes our good wife goes to the 
patch or barrel and gets what she needs. 
If apples or fruit of any kind are needed 
she takes them from the farm, never think¬ 
ing of pay. Chickens and turkeys, cream 
and butter, milk and honey are all home- 
raised, and we might go through a long 
list of other things of which no account is 
taken because they are produced at home 
with little outlay of money care or labor. 
Having for 20 years or more kept an accu¬ 
rate account of all sold off the farm and all 
bought, I can give a correct account of 
what we buy for the household use. 
Our family consists of myself, wife, two 
daughters, over 18 years, and one work hand 
who boards in the family and is here all the 
time, making his home with us. Take the 
year 1888, as the expenses then will come 
the nearest to the cost of living at the 
present time. Indeed the outlay has varied 
but little from year to year, the difference 
depending almost entirely on variations in 
the prices of the different articles bought. 
Our wheat is ground at the mill and 40 
bushels will keep us and pay our toll. Our 
meat is fattened on the farm, and $50 worth 
is sufficient. Dry goods, including all the 
clothes bought for the family, will amount 
to $60 per year; groceries, except sugar, $17; 
sugar $12; shoes $15; coal-oil $4.00. We 
use two wood stoves in the winter and one 
in the summer, and burn about 40 cords of 
wood which sells here in the woods, cut 
and corded, for$l per cord ; but it cost me 
only the outlay for cutting, which is 60 
cents per cord—put the moneyed outlay for 
wood at $25 therefore, then our account 
would stand thus: 
Flour. $30.00 
Meat. 50.00 
Dry goods. 60.00 
Groceries. 17.00 
Sugar. 12.00 
Shoes. 15.00 
Wood. 25.00 
Coal-oil. 4.00 
Total. $213.00 
In the bill for dry goods is included the 
price of a suit of clothes costing $28, for my¬ 
self, which will not occur again in five years 
or more. The sugar bill is small where so 
much fruit is used and especially canned 
fruit. The outlay is cut down by the use 
of maple sirup, as we have a sugar orchard 
of 800 maples and use on an average, 15 gal¬ 
lons of sirup much of it being used in 
sweetening fruit. Taking all things m con¬ 
sideration, the above is a fair estimate per 
year. 
IN DEFENSE OF ENSILAGE. 
H. S. W., Oconomowoc, Wis.—In the 
R. N.-Y. of Nov. 2, page 727, A. T. J. gives 
what would seem to be from his experi¬ 
ence, weighty reasons for discontinuing 
the use of the silo in feeding for milk to be 
shipped for consumption in cities, but as 
there are large numbers who feed their 
cows silage and ship their milk as he does, 
without meeting with similar objections, 
must it not follow as a logical sequence 
that there was about his silage some pecu¬ 
liarity that caused the milk from cows fed 
on it to give forth so offensive an odor? He 
does not describe his method of filling the 
silo—whether it was done rapidly with im¬ 
mature fodder, without allowing time 
enough to elapse between fillings for it to 
heat, thus making sour silage, which would 
be very apt to impart to milk the odor which 
he describes ; or whether his silo was filled 
with well-matured corn between the 
dough and glazing stages, which would have 
produced sweet silage, whether the filling 
was rapid or slow. Such silage when well 
settled and cured makes a feed that will 
not taint milk or cream with any odor that 
the most fastidious would object to. 
While I do not ship milk to the city as this 
correspondent does, I ship cream over about 
the same distance, and this is the tenth 
year in which my cows have been fed on 
silage, and silage alone (for roughage), 
during the winter months, and I have never 
had a complaint. I have been tempted to 
write this because if the trouble this cor¬ 
respondent experienced be capable of a 
satisfactory explanation, it should be given; 
otherwise many who would greatly profit 
by adopting a system of feeding that 
cheapens production by one-half—to put it 
moderately—might be deterred from being 
benefited by it after reading his communica¬ 
tion. He speaks of having been “seized 
with the silo fever while at its hottest,” as 
though it had since cooled down ; but I 
opine that it is a fever that grows hotter 
as the years roll on, and one that will con¬ 
tinue to do so until every intelligent farm¬ 
er in the land has caught it. 
KILLING SMUT IN WHEAT. 
H. B. T., Wallula Junction, Wash¬ 
ington. —I was raised on this coast and I 
have often wondered why so many of the 
farmers of the Eastern and Middle States 
were so long about finding a remedy for 
smut in wheat, (and the same remedy I 
have heard is equally good for oats.) Ever 
since I can remember seeing wheat grow— 
over 30 years—I have seen this remedy used 
for smut in wheat. It is one pound of 
blue vitriol dissolved in a wooden bucket 
of hot water with enough cold water 
added to thoroughly dampen seven or 
eight bushels of wheat. The wheat should 
be placed in a large, tight vessel; edi the 
water and stir the wheat thoroughly. If 
allowed to remain until dry, all the better. 
I know many farmers who use vitriol and 
sow immediately, but more or less smut 
can be found in their crops. I have a little 
seed wheat that was treated with vitriol 
two years ago, and I will warrant that 
every kernel that is not cracked will grow. 
If any readers of the R, N.-Y. are troubled 
with smut I think they will find this rem¬ 
edy an entire success. 
Eastern Washington and Oregon have, I 
think, had the poorest wheat, barley, oat 
and potato crops this year ever known. 
The fruit crop was splendid and brought 
high prices, being shipped as far east as 
Minneapolis. 
SQUIRRELS AS RAT TRAPS. 
G. G. Groff, M D. Pennsylvania State 
Board of Health. —From practical ex¬ 
perience with red squirrels, I considertliem 
only a little less objectionable than rats 
about a barn. Not only will they eat corn, 
but they will carry off and hide much more 
than they eat. Besides this, they gnaw 
buildings as rats do, and, worstofall, they 
destroy all birds’ eggs and young birds in 
the orchard and lawn. This I have ob¬ 
served for years, as I have a grove of 10 
acres near my house, in which no birds at 
all are reared on account of the squirrels. 
I cannot therefore accept Prof. Cook’s rat 
trap. To avoid rats, have no place where 
they can find shelter. To drive them away, 
secure a drove of cats. They will leave in 
a little while if there are six or eight cats 
about a barn. 
CHEESE AND RETAILERS. 
Josiah Shull, Secretary N. Y. Dairy¬ 
men’s Association, Ilion, N. Y.—I in¬ 
dorse every word of what Prof. Wing says 
on page 788 concerning N. Y. State cheese, 
except the clause: “ The vebiil grocers of 
Little Falls and Utica would in all proba¬ 
bility be selling Canadian cheese.” They 
would retail everything that would not 
answer for the best market. They want 
something that can be bought at a low 
figure, and which they can then sell at full 
prices. If they would not cut anything 
but the best grade of goods, probably four 
times as much would be used as now is ; 
and in this case they could cut and retail 
for two cents above the cost, cut three 
cheeses where they cut one now, and conse¬ 
quently make more money than they now 
do. 
NO POTATO BEETLES HERE. 
B. T., Maple, San Juan County, Wash¬ 
ington. —Some time ago I saw a paragraph 
in the R. N.-Y. saying that the only place 
free from potato “bugs” was some district in 
Eastern Canada; but I can inform readers 
of the R. N.-Y. that there is in the United 
States a country freer from the pests than 
any part of Canada. In San Juan County 
the potato “bug” was never seen, and potato 
balls grow to perfection. Indeed I don’t 
think the “ bugs ” have been found in any 
part of the Puget Sound country. I have 
lived in it nearly seven years, and traveled 
over a good share of it, and have never seen 
or heard of a potato “ bug ” here yet. 
SOUR MILK FOR POULTRY. 
C. A. B., Feeding Hills, Mass.—I see 
some of the readers of the R. N.-Y. advocate 
sour milk for poultry and some speak very 
strongly against it. I have fed it for years 
(buying of the Springfield Milk Association 
at two cents per gallon) and always with 
the best of results. For young chicks there 
is nothing so good as corn-meal mixed with 
sour milk, and allowed to stand over-night 
in a warm place, when it will be light and 
foamy like bread dough. I never have 
chicks sick with gapes or anything else 
when fed with it. 
WEIGHTING A SILO. 
Conneautville, Pa.—I cover my silage 
with paper after it has reached a proper 
heat; then I put eight inches of sawdust on 
top of the paper. I have just opened my 
silo and find the silage the best I have ever 
had. I have sweet silage this year. I in¬ 
tend to cover my silo another year with 
dried swamp muck or peat in lieu of saw¬ 
dust and then I will utilize as much as I 
can of it with manure as an absorbent. I 
think this plan will work well. 
E. B. G., Manchester. Pa.— In a late 
issue the R. N.-Y. says: “ The white grape 
Antoinette (Miner) seems to be little known. 
It is one of the hardiest varieties grown at 
the Rural Grounds and its quality is better 
than that of the Concord.” The R. N.-Y. 
is right, and it is better too than a score of 
later introductions. I have often wondered 
why more was not said about this excellent 
grape. Are we not all too prone to let good 
enough alone, especially in fruit, and al¬ 
ways on the alert for something new of 
which we know nothing, and which will 
eventually end in disappointment ? Score 
one more for the “ Antoinette.” 
W. A. M., Amherst, Mass., Creamery. 
—We have tried no test of cream beyond 
occasional sampling by gatherers, trusting 
only to watchfulness on the part of the lat¬ 
ter, to protect us against poor cream. Direc¬ 
tors and patrons would welcome payments 
based upon the amount of butter contained 
in the cream of each, unless the tests oust 
so much that the receipts even of those who 
have the best products would be materially 
lessened by the outlay needed to make 
them. 
The India Rubber Tree.— The “India 
Rubber” or “ rubber plant ” is a familiar 
and cherished object in many houses. 
There is not, probably, a plant among those 
which, during the last 25 years, have be¬ 
come really popular for the embellishment 
of living-rooms and conservatories, which 
is better suited for the purpose; and there 
are few persons now who know anything 
about plants at all who are not familiar 
with the straight stem and splendid great, 
dark-green, lustrous, leathery leaves of the 
“ rubber plant,” which seems able to resist, 
with impunity, darkness, neglect and 
drought, and ev*>n an atmosphere vitiated 
by the gases from burning coals. Plants 
more than 10 or 12 feet high are not very 
often found in our Northern cities, and few 
people, perhaps, who see one of the plants 
flourishing year after year in the narrow 
quarters of an ordinary-sized flower-pot 
realize that it belongs to a race of veritable 
giants, or that the Ficus elastiea, as our 
common “rubber” plant is called by botan¬ 
ists, is, in its native countries, a marvel 
among trees. So says Garden and Forest. 
Ficus elastiea was cultivated in England 
as early as 1815, and whoever first thought 
of using it for house decoration made a 
happy hit. It is really a fig and produces 
little figs precisely similar in structure to 
the figs of commerce. 
Griffith describes a tree 100 feet high, 
covering with its branches an area of 610 
feet, the main trunk 74 feet in girth, 
while the trunk with its supplementary 
stems was 120 feet in circumference. This 
species of fig, like many others found in 
the tropics, is an epiphyte—that is, the seed 
from which it springs germinates upon the 
trunk or branch of another tree. The 
young plant sends down roots to the 
ground, and as these grow they gradually 
smother the host-plant, and form an up¬ 
right stem which in time becomes the sup¬ 
port of the fig-tree. The fruit of this 
species, which is probably never seen out¬ 
side of the tropics, is ovoid, about the size 
of an olive, and greenish-yellow in color. 
Ficus elastiea is 'a favorite ornamental 
tree throughout the tropics, and is largely 
used in the East Indies for shading avenues, 
for which purpose its wide-spreading head 
admirably fits it. It is cultivated in 
Assam, where large plantations offthis tree 
have been made in recent years, for the 
caoutchouc, which it yields in large quan¬ 
tities. 
Feed for Dairy Cows William Cro- 
zier. the well-known dairyman of Long Is¬ 
land (N. Y.), says, in the Albany Cultivator, 
that he does not feed silage; his feed con¬ 
sists of cut corn-fodder, pulped mangel- 
wurzel, bran and ground oats. This is cut, 
pulped, and the coarse bran and ground 
oats, with some fine salt, all thoroughly 
mixed together. He cuts on Saturday 
enough to last to next Saturday, or one 
week. It is put in one heap on the barn 
floor, and covered over with a piece of old 
sail cloth. The mess soon warms up, 
though not so as to become hot. Each 
cow gets a bushel-basketful of this, morn¬ 
ing and night, and when a cow is in full 
milk, or fresh, she gets one pailful of warm 
water, with three quarts of bran and one 
quart of ground oats mixed in the water, 
twice each day. His cows never go out of 
the stable in winter, nor do they get cold 
water—the chill is always taken off before 
they get it to drink. A bushel basketful 
of the mixture weighs about 20 pounds. 
In the midday, after they are watered, 
they get a bunch of hay. This hay is made 
from his erass mixture, as his mowing 
land is seeded down with several mixtures, 
and oue of the mixtur es is Alfalfa, which 
