E BUBAL MEW-YOBKEB. 
. JAM.IS. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Address 
RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
78 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, JAN. 18. 1879. 
We will, be pleased, to send one or more copies 
of flu- RuiiAL New-Yorbbk free la any of our 
subscribers sufficiently interested, in its welfare 
U> tje wiiliwj lo hotel them to their neighbors for 
inspection. An intimation by postal card wilt 
suffice. 
Our readers who apply will have the Beauty 
of Hebron potato sent to them separately, lie- 
cause to scud this with seeds makes au awk¬ 
ward package, and also, because the seeds may 
be forwarded at any lime regardless of the 
weather, while the potatoes may be injured by 
frost. We mention this for the reason that our 
friends receiving the potato only, may think 
the rest of their selection has been overlooked. 
We earnestly request that all letters containing 
money, or any communication intended for the 
Business Department of the paper, tje addressed 
to The Rural Publishing Co., and not to any 
irulimlual. We. cannot otherwise guarantee the- 
prompt entry of names upon our books, or the 
acknowledgment of money. 
Our readers are particularly requested to 
read the particulars of our free seed distribu- 
tiou on p. 49, under publisher’s notices, before 
ordering seeds. 
Applicants for seeds will please observe that 
the postage on ANY possible selection of ten 
sorts of seals, is never more Hum five cents. 
A one-CENT stamp suffices for any selection 
of ten varieties exclusive of the Beauty of 
Hebron potato. Peart Millet ami Defiance wheal. 
If the first of these three is iuelwted in the list, 
then a two cent extra stamp is needed, and if 
the secom.l and third are included, an extra two 
cent stamp is also required. 
LARGE OR SMALL FARMS. 
Among the questions frequently dis¬ 
cussed at agricultural meetings and in 
the papers, is that of the comparative 
profits of large and small farms. It is a 
discussion equivalent to the canvassing, 
in a commercial assemblage, of the rela¬ 
tive profitableness of a small or large 
store ; or, among manufacturers, of tire 
comparative advantages of a factory on a 
large or small scale. There can be no 
doubt that men have accumulated consid¬ 
erable wealth from a small commercial 
business, or by a manufacturing industry 
conducted on a moderate scale,—and also 
by the tillage of small areas of land. In¬ 
dustry anti economy, conjoined with busi¬ 
ness capacity and' a good acquaintance 
with the work in hand, will in time 
usually secure a competency in any avo¬ 
cation. By slowly laying dollar to dollar, 
with a shrewd investment of profits, a 
man can make himself independent, and 
even rich, doing but a very moderate 
business all the time. 
For the majority of mankind this is the 
safest, and indeed the only practicable 
method. Out of a thousand men but 
very few have the natural capacity, or the 
acquired ability, to conduct any business 
successfully on a large scale, Napoleon 
declared that there were only two men in 
Europe who could handle an army of 
100,000 men. A similar rule applies to 
every branch of human endeavor. And 
one of the chief elements of success is to 
know uue’s-seJf sufficiently well not to 
undertake more than can be successfully 
carried out. This applies as w ell to farm¬ 
ing as to every other business. 
But farming has never yet been a legiti¬ 
mate business in America. Land has 
been too abundant for that, as well as too 
rich with the accumulated fertility of ages. 
So far, wc may say that there has been 
but little reid fanning done on this whole 
continent. When it comes to true farm¬ 
ing—and itisuow beginning to come to that 
in the older States—it will be neces¬ 
sary that a man calling himself a farmer 
should know something about his busi¬ 
ness, and be, to that extent, a business 
man. 
As a business man his capacity for busi¬ 
ness will regulate the amonut of business 
he will be competent to do. That, and 
the amount of capital he can control, 
will Bettle his status, whether as a large 
or a small fanner. And as farming is 
more and more conducted on business 
principles, the business of farming will 
divide itself into different classes. It will 
then become like other businesses, and as 
in trade there is a place for the large 1 
merchant and the small tradesman, so in 
farming there will be large and small 
farms, and all profitable in proportion to 
the capital and labor intelligently expend¬ 
ed upon them for the production of sala¬ 
ble crops. 
When agricultural business is thus or¬ 
ganized, it will be found, in many cases, 
that the area of land under tillage will not 
so much determine the profits as the 
amount of labor, capital and skill laid out 
in order to force the soil to its highest 
productive Capacity. This, united with 
knowledge of the kinds of crops that are 
most suited to the market, an ability to 
forecast probable demand and prices, 
and a shrewdness in taking advantage of 
sudden turns of the market, will be the 
prime factors of success or failure. 
Near large cities, or in places where 
prompt and ready transportation to large 
markets is obtainable, it may happen that 
a large force of men can be profitably em¬ 
ployed on a few acres, the sales of pro¬ 
ducts miming up to tens oi thousands of 
dollars annually. In this way a large 
business eau be done on a small farm. Tt 
is now so done in many instances, and 
fortunes are acquired by skillful men from 
tlie tillage ol' five and teli-acre farms. As 
competition becomes closer and closer, 
only very skillful men, with a large cash 
Capital, can run even such “little" farms 
successfully. But as yet there arc many 
opportunities for intelligent young men 
of small means to “grow up” into such 
a business—more opportunities we should 
say, than there- are men able and w illing 
to'take advantage of them. 
But besides these “small farms” run 
at a high pressure for the production of 
fine perishable fruits ami choice vegeta¬ 
bles, flowers, trees, plants, etc., etc., there 
must also lie farms of greater area for tlm 
production of breadstuff’s, meat, milk and 
milk-products, wool, cotton, etc. Here 
also, as tire pressure of competition in¬ 
creases anil the money capital oi the na¬ 
tion tends more to flow out into the coun¬ 
try seeking investment there and satis¬ 
fied with safe and moderate returns, the 
kind of earth robbery known as “scrub- 
fanning" will cease by suffocation and 
starvation. It will not take a trained 
business man long to find out what it 
seems impossible to teach the “scrub- 
farmer,” that there is no “ business” and 
Ho profit in average crops of ten and 
twelve bushels of wheat, thirty bushels 
of corn, eighty bushels of potatoes, and 
other Like returns per acre. 
Similarly, the business farmer is not 
going to see any profit in cows so badly 
bred or so poorly fed, housed and man¬ 
aged, as to yield but 125 pounds of butter 
or 250 pounds of cheese in a season. 
Such a man is not going to rest a minute 
while ten or fifteen dollars per head on 
his neat stock and horses are wasted every 
year by the bad management of the ma¬ 
nure. * He is not going to lose the legiti¬ 
mate earnings of industry for want of 
proper implements, or the proper care of 
them, or by unskillful work in preparing 
land for a' crop, or by poor seed, or by 
want of proper knowledge in the choice 
and application of manures. When fann¬ 
ing becomes a business, with business 
men engaged in it, and a money capital 
proportionate to its requirements, we are 
going to see good farming become gene¬ 
ral. Then the ablest man, both in brains 
and money, will do the largest business 
in farming, as he now does in trade and 
manufactures. 
EXTRAVAGANT HABITS. 
One of the social wonders of the world 
in recent times was the ability and readi¬ 
ness with which the French people met 
the enormous tax or fine which their Ger¬ 
man conquerors laid upon them at the 
end of the last war. One thousand mil¬ 
lions of dollars in cash were paid within a 
few months w ithout auy foreign aid and 
without auy efi'urt that was noticeable 
old si tie of France, The secret of this 
wonderful financial ability lay in the long- 
cherished and praeticeu habits of economy 
and saving usual amongst the French 
people. For years past, as to-day, that 
people have been simple in then- habits 
industrious, sober, economical, and when 
they have a lew- francs to spare, they are 
carefully laid away. There is no eager 
grasping alter large profits, large into rest, 
usurious lendings, nor is there that eager 
desire to spend money us soon as it is 
possessed, that is common with us. Nor 
is it from avarice that the passion springs ; 
on the contrary, it is a desire to possess 
some little competence, some store 
against a rainy day, that impels those 
people to exercise those virtues lor which 
they have become noted and which are 
among their most conspicuous attributes 
on personal acquaintance with them. A 
son is to be sent to college or started on 
a small farm, the smallness of which 
would be ludicrous to an American, es¬ 
pecially a Western farmer ; or a daughter 
must be provided with her dot to start 
housekeeping with ; and with habits of 
forethought cultivated for years and pur¬ 
sued with steadiness, there is no “cursed 
thirst for gold " for spending, but a care¬ 
ful husbatuling for future needs. And 
tins homely virtue saved the nation in a 
time of great disaster ; and saves it every 
day from panics, collapses and frequent 
bankruptcies. 
We might take a lesson from this. V\ e 
labor and make money to spend, not to 
save. The desire to spend is innate. The 
child says, “ when I have ten cents I will 
buy this or that with it,” The man or 
woman in the same way has already laid 
out and spent hundreds of dollars in an¬ 
ticipation before it has been earned or he 
has come into possession of a tenth of the 
amount. This destroys thrift and creates 
uneasiness, discontent and dissatisfac¬ 
tion. It makes our every-day plodding 
life unw elcome to us. Our buys inherit¬ 
ing it, crowd to the cities to seek a rapid 
fortune, and our girls dream uneasily 
day by day of a better position. Society 
is to some extent debased by it. I t is 
through this that sheriffs have been en¬ 
abled to retire on a competency after two 
or three years of official life, gathering to¬ 
gether tlie lost fortunes of hapless debt¬ 
ors ground between the millstones of the 
law and exacting creditors. And still wc 
are getting no better ! The hard times, 
now happily past we look at with re¬ 
vengeful feelings,and hail the better times 
at hand because those kept us poor and 
these promise to make us inch. 
What a land and what a nation this 
would be if we could but engraft upon our¬ 
selves some of the Freuch habit of econo¬ 
my and thrift; if, when we made a hun¬ 
dred dollars, wc could be content to let it 
remain in safe-keeping without trying to 
double it by usury or speculation, or use 
it for some more noble purpose. Com¬ 
pare the last fifteen years of our his¬ 
tory with the same period in French his¬ 
tory, and it will be found that the greater 
part of our financial difficulties have 
arisen from our want of the French habits 
referred to. 
MALARIA. 
We have always thought that people 
might live in wnat are now know r n as 
“malarial” districts and yet escape the 
liability to malarial diseases by avoiding 
the out-door night and morning air. The 
following is a conversation between the 
writer and one of Brooklyn's (N. Y.) most 
distinguished physicians : 
Q. Suppose a person remains in the 
house until the buu is well up in the morn¬ 
ing and is careful never to go out after the 
suit begins to lose its power in the after¬ 
noon, is he liable to malarial diseases ! 
A. Yes. The liability to such affec¬ 
tions can not be escaped. 
Q. Then he may disregard the night 
and morning the same as the mid-day air ? 
A. No. Malarial affections assume 
many different forms. It depends upon 
the health, strength—upon the “ consti¬ 
tution,” as it is called, of tlie person—in 
which form the disease will manifest itself 
or whether it will manifest itself at all. 
All other tilings being equal, a person 
avoiding the night and morning ail 1 , might 
resist, the disease, while if lie exposed 
himself to it. ho might l ie unable to do so. 
Q. Then the heat and confined air of 
the house do not kill the malarial germs ? 
A. The air in and about the house is 
the same. Changes out-of-doors are 
quickly felt in-doors. The malarial germs 
are deadened—baked so to speak—after a 
while, but a fresh supply is always at 
hand. 
Q. Then there is no way of living in a 
malarial district and of being secure 
against one or the other forms of malarial 
affections. 
A. No. The precaution you speak of 
merely lessens the liability to, as well us 
tlie virulence of, the attack. The enemy 
is there all the same, but he is not so 
strong or aggressive. 
---- 
A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. 
We have several times referred to the 
Climbing Hydrangea as a “new’ vine 
that, was likely to excite a good deal of 
inter* st. Tin' impression 1ms been made 
that it would probably bear huge pani¬ 
cles of flowers, like the now well-known 
hardy Great-panicle* l Hydrangea of which 
the Bubal has said so much—and this 
alone was enough to have insured it a 
ready side. 
In the Gardener’s Monthly of January, 
Prof. C. S. Sargent says : “Too great 
expectations as to the horticultural 
value of this much-heralded plant will, I 
fear, only lead to greater disappointment 
-anil if it is new to gardens it is only 
because it has never seemed worth in¬ 
troducing into them before. The foliage 
is by no means striking. The individual 
flowers are small and arranged in loose, 
long-branched cymes, but without any of 
the showy sterile flowers which make 
Hydrangeas desirable garden plants. bo 
milcli for Prof. Sargent’s opinion. 
Mr. Peter Henderson says in the same 
journal : “ Like Hydrangea pauieubita 
that, grandest of all our hardy shrubs—I 
think it very probable that when once es¬ 
tablished, the Schizophragma Hydrango- 
oides ”—that iB its charming botanical 
name—“will prove to be one of our fittest, 
hardy climbing plaut.8.” 
It seems that the plant is hardy and 
that it propagates readily from seeds, but 
slowly from cuttings. But its hardiness 
is of little value if it lias no beauty, and 
the less we propagate it the better. We 
are much opposed to the dissemination at. 
a high price, of “ new” plants that are 
not worth a place iu our gardens even if 
they did not cost anything. Anybody can 
do better in the field or woods nearest to 
him. 
BREVITIES. 
A WEED may be defined as a plaut that one 
does not want. 
Among new tuberous-rooted Begonias there 
will soou be a double yellow iu the market. 
The best thing in the world to buy. if one is 
sure of a good article at a low price, is experi¬ 
ence. 
How to make Americans eat more cheese 
and to demand it of better quality and lower 
price is ihe problem. 
Our picture of Finns pouderosa var. peu- 
dula. is taken from the London Gardener’s 
Chronicle of a late date. 
There is no doubt that the Japan Persim¬ 
mon is a success iu California, and there is no 
doubt it is not a success here. 
Tub growing ot Havana leaf instead of Con¬ 
necticut seed-leaf tobacco is strongly advo¬ 
cated by tlie convention of Connecticut Valley 
tobacco growers. 
Ekiantuus Ravenna and Eulalia Jaeo- 
njca Zebkjna. —Of all hardy grasses of which 
we have knowledge, these arts the best. We ad¬ 
vise our readers to procure them next spring. 
We have already spoken of Grindelia squar- 
rosa as a valuable remedy for chills aud fever. 
Its near relative, Greudelia robusta. is now 
used as efficacious ill asthmatic and other 
bronchial affections. 
The California Horticulturist.-—'Y e are 
pleased to see that Air. Charles If. Slrinu has 
become the editor of the above magazine. He 
is $ gen.arouB-bcurted mun and ft hortifiwlurwt 
by nature, education aud practice. 
Many of us know that Asparagus will stand 
u good deal of salt. Who knows from Cipe- 
riment that salt benefits Asparagus ? That Vs,- 
of two {dots treated the same in every other 
way—will the one that is salted yield more or 
better Asparagus than the other t 
Two men talking politics • the poor titan is 
clamorous for more greenbacks ; the rich man 
is equally stubborn for gold ; both appeal to au 
impecunious stranger standing by for his decis¬ 
ion. With stupendous gravity he replies. 
*• I’m for on limited issue—then I may get 
some of it: but if the issue is contracted, ill 
won’t make no difference to me whether coat 
is five dollars or ten cents a bushel.” 
AVk call attention to the Youths’ Department 
this week. We want our young friends and 
their mothers and fathers to lake marc interest 
in this Department thau heretofore. We can¬ 
not do this Department justice without then- 
aid- Young folks want to be entertained as 
well as instructed through reading. Nobody 
is better lilted to do this than parents lueui*'* 
selves. 
Wk see that Pearl Millet is being offered by 
the trade at 60 cents per pint. This is a very 
high price but it ib less than wc supposed it 
would be offered for. Wc want all of our friends 
to try this fodder plant from the seeds we off ci¬ 
thern for the asking, aud to report next fall 
upon the results whatever they may be. We 
shall begin to scud out our seeds to subscribers 
before Alarch. 
\ distinguished gentleman of the West 
writes us: "If forestry concerns any class uf 
people on the American continent, it certainly 
does the hundreds of thousands who have 
moved into the great plains during the past 
year. Can there be anything done by us to 
give this work Hie right direction, or must it 
drift on without auy direction ? ’ An article 
on the Kubjuct from him, issued b rojAtmr* 
will appear next week. 
Gold Neglected. —The return to a specie- 
basis caused scarcely a ripple of excitement, 
here in the financial capital of the country. 
Instead of tlie predieted rush to exchange 
legal-tender notes for gold on Janoaiy >i, tin 
first day of actual resumption, on that day the 
sub-Treasurv in WaU street paid out for such 
notes only *'l:5(UH.)0 gold, while tt took in c t 00,- 
000 gold in exchange for paper. .Since then 
from four to five times more gold has been re¬ 
ceived for notes than has been, paid out for 
them. 
From all we have read and from; all' we have 
irnt from experience, we have tuedbubt that 
ulo not only prefer animal food but that 
cv would die upon an exolusKidv vegut-itile 
et. People taking the opposite view, sarin 
oof of it, that moles go from, Ufll to tn.il. 
Din plant to plant. ** W by do Any do lips if 
it to feed upon tin* roots?” Because, w.w 
swer. ••more animal food (ge'p.'cally can hr 
ji-ins I collect in rich soil than, ifi poor. BIUI. 
e earth is generally made ri (ditty about the 
ots of plants thau elsewhere.” 
