these special rates after they have sold their 
lands. Before emigrating to these parts of the 
country, therefore, for the purpose of fanning, 
a man should take all these considerations into 
account, and be careful to look well ahead be¬ 
fore jumping. 
produce are bringing at points along the route 
of that road. Now I am informed, through a 
private letter, that out there wheat is selling 
for from 25c. to 40c. per bushel; old corn for 
15c.; new corn, 11c.; pork, He. to 2c.; beef. 1c. 
to IJc.; butter, 4c. to 6c. per pound; eggs. 3c. 
to 4c. per dozen. Now one needs immense crops 
and to do all the work himself in order to get 
along at all with such prices for his products. 
Then, again, the farther west one goes the high¬ 
er become the prices of sugar, tea, coffee, 
a bull calf by Jubilee (2,125). She is now the 
property of Crockett & Johns, Nashville, 
Tenn. Youatt could discover only two similar 
exceptions, which he mentions in his work on 
Cattle. 
Death the surface of the grouud, in precisely 
the same way as it deposits dew on the surface 
of each blade of grass above the ground. A 
double purpose is thus beneficently worked out 
by Nature: the parched soil is dampened and 
the thirsty plauts revived while at the same 
time a large portion of the heat lost by radia¬ 
tion is replaced by condensation, thereby pre¬ 
venting frost, which otherwise would occur on 
every clear, still night, even in midsummer. 
This will become obvious when we take into 
consideration the amount of this 
condensation, and also the fact that 
every pound of water condensed has 
given out to the earth and to the air 
at its surface as lunch heat as is 
required to melt between five and 
six pounds of east-iron. I 
8E0on n: Wells and springs are | 
supplied in a great measure, if not » 
wholly, during droughts, from the 
same source. The air percolates the 
soil and penetrates the crevices of { 
the rucks, leaving its moisture just f 
as it does on Ihe cellar walls, (lie / 
ice-pitcher, and the window pane. /j 
This moisture trickles down among '(jfflA 
the rocks by the force of gravity, jvqSj 
supplying the veins aud under- 
grouud reservoirs, which iu turn 
supply the wells and springs. ' 
Thikd: Many soils ought to be 
greatly benefited iu dry weather by 
the addition of anything which, 
without beiug injurious in itself, ^ 
has a strong physical affinity for w— - 
water—such as chloride of calcium, __ 
refuse from salt works, or even the ^ 
poorest kind of common salt. ' 
Fourth: It seems that water 
should rise in the grouud by capil¬ 
larity only when the subsoil is 
soaked; and then ouly to a very 
limited bight. Water under all cir¬ 
cumstances being subject to the law 
of gravity, cannot possibly rise by the law of 
capillarity beyond that bight where the force of 
the former equals the influence of the latter. 
EXPERIMENTS OX CAPILLARITY. 
It appears that this might he all illustrated 
and mauy important questions concerning the 
whole matter permanently settled, by some 
very simple experiments with glass tubes filled 
with earth. 
I have made several experiments with folded 
strips of bibulous paper, as follows : Place the 
end of (i folded strip of paper of this kind in 
contact with something which is merely damp, 
•■amt no moisture will pass into it by capillar¬ 
ity ; but place it iu a tumbler of water, and ca¬ 
pillarity will carry the water in the paper to 
the higlit of about three inches above the sur¬ 
face of the water in the tumbler, the paper be¬ 
coming quite wet a© far as the water rises in it. 
It, now, water be poured into the tumbler, 
nearly to its top, aud a forked strip of paper 
be made to straddle Its edge, the water will 
capillatc up the inside leg of the fork, aud rise 
about three inches in the strip; at the same 
time it will both capillatc and gravitate down¬ 
wards until it trickles from the outside leg of 
the fork. But experiments performed with 
glass tubes of an ample variety of dimensions, 
aud filled with earth, are the ouly ones that 
•could be considered satisfactory in this con¬ 
nection ; partly because earth aud paper arc 
very different substances, aud partly for the 
reason that solid matter in an extremely flue 
state of subdivision, may possibly be subject to 
the law of capillarity to such an extout that 
water may diffuse itself in it much as it diffuses 
itself iu air; or, per contra, much as air dif¬ 
fuses itself in water. Although this is very im¬ 
probable, it is quite cerium that the air in the 
soil is a medium through which water diffuses 
itself iu all directions iu it. 
Camden Co., N. J. 
In coutinuatiou of the portraits of prize 
cattle exhibited at Paris, we now present a pic¬ 
ture of Mornay. which has beeu crowded 
out several weeks, a three year, one month, 
tweuty-ouo days’ old Short-horn bull, the pro¬ 
WHAT OTHERS SAY 
That Depends. —‘‘Give a sample of fertilizer 
to twenty chemists, and they will agree upon 
its chemical value,” says the Seien- 
^ tilie Farmer. ‘‘Give a fertilizer to 
twenty farmers, and no two will 
value it. alike. One may call it 
v worthless, and no two will assigu 
the same crop production to its use. 
We might as well come to the cou- 
'7 elusion at once that the agricultural 
" value of a fertilizer depends upon 
• who uses it—on the land, on the crop, 
aud on the judgment of the user. 
es-Zj!?** Give a ton of superphosphate to 
this man to grow corn, and let him 
use it on land unfitted for corn, and 
the fertilizer is condemned- Give it 
to thut man who applies it to corn 
land, and it is pronounced good. 
A hundredweight of fertilizer or 
dung applied to one field may pro¬ 
duce double the crop of another 
field upon which one hundred 
pounds of the same fertilizer has 
been strewu.” 
— When to Stop Milking.—P res- 
idcut Hoffman says, as reported iu 
-the Husbandman, that there is as 
1 " — v great a difference in cows a» there 
— - 7 is iu tueu. Some men can work 
three hundred and sixty-five days in 
=*“* the year and, for a time, seem to get 
Si no hurt from continual application 
hut it will be found at last they are 
drawing ou reserved forces that 
sooner or later will be exhausted. So 
there are cows that will give milk 
all through the year, but he was not consider¬ 
ing them. As a rule all cows need rest. If 
there should happen to be in a herd a few that 
would milk clean through to calving again, he 
would uot regard it as an advantage. They 
will wear out sooner. The habit of milking 
close up to calving may be cultivated, but he 
does uot regard it as profitable. 
Duos and Sheep. —“For two years in succes¬ 
sion dogs have- killed our sheep. The tax on 
dogs annually collected iu each town is set 
apart to pay die damages They cause. The 
damages so fur exceed the awards that several 
years will elapse before the tax will pay off 
claims already audited. Any one who keeps a 
dog aud does not give him three “ square ” 
meals every day, ought to be fiued. If this 
were doue there would be but very few sheep 
killed by dogs. Until this is done—or, at all 
events, until dogs are better fed—the starving 
cur will help himself to mutton. He really 
ought uot to be blamed as much as the thought¬ 
less or cruel owner.” So speaks the genial 
Col. Curtis in the N. Y. Tribune. 
Cost. —“ It should never be torgotten,” says 
Mr. Meehan, ** that it costs something to keep 
up a garden as well as to maintain horses aud 
carriages,” which is true with this difference, 
that the plants of a garden cun lie obtained 
without much cost aud can lie left to take cure 
of themselves for considerable periods. Mr. 
Meelmu advises the employment of good gar¬ 
deners, which is good advice lor large gardens 
aud wealthy people. Blit every country home 
should have its garden, large or small, aud it is 
a poor family indeed that cannot find time to 
give it needful care. 
“It is absurd,” says Dr, .Blaekmfer in the 
New Euglund Homestead, “ to suppose that 
we can * keep ouc up' or * run one aloug,’ who 
is prostrate and feeble, ou rum, whisky ox 
brandy. Not only is it theoretically true tka 
an article which is neither digestible nor a pro 
moter of digestion cannot keep one up ver> 
long, but practically it has beeu abundautly 
demonstrated that we can keep one up far bet¬ 
ter ou oatmeal and beef tea and milk.” 
MORNAY 
perty of M. le Comte de Massol, a Souhey, Cote 
d’Or—which took the first prize in the class of 
older bulls at Far is last June. He girthed eight 
feet behiud the shoulders, where he stood fifty- 
five inches high, the belly line then being 
twenty-five inches from the ground. His length 
was five feet two inches from the vertical line 
behind to ihe front of the fore-leg, and six 
inches beyond that iu the front of the bosom— 
a well-made, substantial roan, of admirable 
quality—perhaps somewhat light in his hind¬ 
quarters—very fine forwards, and well filled 
up behind the shoulders. This appeared iu 
the London Agricultural Gazette of Nov. 11. 
calico, cotton goods aud clothing. Moreover, 
those shipping through freight are now getting 
•• special rates,” which arc a “ special ” outrage 
on way shippers. Chicago is a big city : it is 
a fine city; it is a prosperous and growing 
city, and we are all proud of it; but we can 
hardly afford to let it have the life blood of all 
the other cities iu the West to make it grow 
and wax great. 
A leu years ago, we hud in this State a fight 
with the railroads and they hud to suffer from 
the notorious “Potter Law.” That law was an 
outrage 'tis time, aud a reaction therefore set 
in soon alter its passage; but it taught the rail¬ 
roads a lesson, and for a time they were tolera¬ 
bly civil, bat now they seem to be getting ex¬ 
tortionate aud need another lesson. Almost 
every farmer in the West, aud thousands doubt¬ 
less iu the East also, are unhappily familiar 
with their injustice, but for the benefit of the 
few who may yet be iguoraut of the manner iu 
which they themselves are suffering from it, I 
will cite a local instance of their oppression. 
From Chicago to Iskpeming is a distance of 
422 miles; from Fort Howard to Iskpeming the 
distance is 180 miles—less than one-half the 
distance between that town aud Chicago. Now, 
tile former place is right on the through line 
and 242 miles nearer Iskpeming than the latter, 
yet a Chicago man can seud a car-load of mis¬ 
cellaneous freight to Iskpeming for §42. while 
a Fort Howard man for the same class of 
freight to the same place must pay .*52. “ If 
this isn’t "sweetening” us with a vengeance. 
I am unaequaiut-d with that process— ijlO more 
for the same amount of freight over less than 
half the distance on the same track! 
While prices are good and crops fair, the or¬ 
dinary farmer will stand being swindled a 
trifle; but when the crops are poor or prices 
low. aud especially when, as in this year, both 
combine to make it hard for him to pay the 
“tin pur cent,” which the “friend of labor” 
will have if lie can persuade the farmer to bur¬ 
den his place with a mortgage, then the farmer 
begins to look into things, aud after a while he 
and his fellows send to the legislature men who 
enact laws to chock the rapacity of these soul¬ 
less corporations. 
History teaches us that the retributive pas¬ 
sions of those who have freed themselves from 
oppression arc proportiuate to the degree of 
oppression from which they have been re¬ 
leased ; aud so it may happen that these new 
legislators, urged ou by the accumulated 
wrongs of their constituents, may make laws 
against the railroads as unjust as is the dis¬ 
crimination of the latter against the farmers. 
But much of the blame for the injustice of even 
such legislation must be borne by the corpora¬ 
tions whose monstrous exactions may goad the 
agricultural community to misuse the power 
which former experience has taught them now 
rests in their hands. 
Now. when our State legislatures shall “fix” 
the laws so as to prevent this unjust discrim¬ 
ination—aud they certainly will do so—what 
will be the price of produce aud gruiu iu the 
extreme Western States ? Indeed, l very much 
doubt whether, iu any ease, roads will give 
Bl^ck-leu. —A correspondent writes us that 
some years ago he lost several head of young 
cattle by this disease, and as all attacked died, 
despite the use of various nostrums, he is de¬ 
cidedly of opinion that au ounce of prevention 
is better than u pound of euro. He thinks he 
has hit upon a preventive in a recipe recom¬ 
mended by a neighbor. It is a mixture of suit 
aud sulphur iu equal parts, aspoouful of which 
id to be administered to each animal once or 
twice a week during March, April and Muy. 
Since he commenced this treatmeut his stock 
has been entirely Iree from the ailment. While 
we do uot think this prescription has contrib¬ 
uted much to the immunity of his cattle, it 
certainly cun do uo harm, as both its iugred- 
ieuts arc generally beneficial. Keeping the an¬ 
imals away from wet pastures and infected 
cattle, and feeding them well during the winter 
so that they will uot be too much reduced to 
stand against the luxuriant pasturage of genial 
spring, are far better preventives. 
True Here Also. —An English breeder of 
Jerseys brought the question of judging aui- 
mals of that breed up before the Bath and West 
of England Agricultural Society lust spring, 
eompluiuiug—1. That nuue ol the judges 
seemed to know what the characteristics 
of a good Jersey are, aud 2, that while uot 
enough attention was giveu to milking quali¬ 
ties, loo much was bestowed ou color aud other 
fancy points. Iu this respect many Americans, 
as usual, are disposed to ape the fashionable 
English follies, not ouly with regard to the points 
of the Jerseys, but still more, perhaps, with 
regard to those of other high-priced breeds. 
STOCK NOTES 
Theory and Practice. —"A pretty fellow 
you are to instruct the public on rural matters, 
when you can’t supply your own table with 
vegetables, or raise a good head of celery to 
save your neck 1” A faithful report of domes¬ 
tic conversations ou this point between agri¬ 
cultural editors aud their wives would be very 
funny to the public. Thus writes Mr. Cole¬ 
man in his sprightly farm aud garden column 
of the Christian Union. 
Constitutionally Tired.- An instance of a 
man who was born tired is mentioned by The 
Mark Lane Express, tie hired out as coach¬ 
man to an old lady, aud showed his triumphant 
skill as a shirk by cleaning only that side of 
the horse aud carriage that came round iu front 
of the door. 
Great Sale.—A bee-keeper in England, 
wishing to chauge his business, advertised “ au 
extensive sale of live stock, comprising no less 
than 14,000 head, with unlimited light of pas¬ 
turage.” 
Fecund Frbe-Mabtins. —When twin calves 
are produced, one male and the other female, 
the latter, as most farmers know, is called a 
free-mariin. and, as a rule, is barren. Iu such 
eases the internal generative orgaus arc gen¬ 
erally imperfect, partaking of the character of 
both male and female organs, while iu appear¬ 
ance these imperfect females often resemble 
steers. When both twins are of the same sex. 
the reproductive powers are not impaired; 
neither is the male twin-brother of a female, 
sterile. In rare eases, however, the free-mar- 
tin is capable of breeding, having escaped the 
malformation of her reproductive organs cus¬ 
tomary with others of her class. Such excep¬ 
tions are, however, so rare as to be worthy of 
mention whenever they ure well authenticated. 
Uaiupboll Brown informs the Bulletin of the 
American Jersey Cattle Club for this month, 
that the heifer Irene of Short Hills (ate) (5,137) 
fwinued with bull 2,682, dropped ou Nov. 20 
miscellaneous 
VAN’S VIEWS, 
RAILROAD DISCRIMINATION AND WESTERN 
immigration. 
I have just been reading in an agricultural 
paper a communication bopraising the lands iu 
one of our extreme Western States, especially 
those along one of the principal trans-continen¬ 
tal railroads. Now I don't wish to question the 
veracity ot the writer, for 1 do uot doubt there 
is much excellent farming land owned by the 
road; but if he is as disinterested as he claims 
to be, why doesn’t he tell us what price gruiu aud 
