that weighed, alive, 1,250 pounds, and dressed, 
1 100 pounds. They were a cross of Chester 
White and Byfield. 
PEARL MILLET. 
Eds. Rural New-Yorker,— Dear Sirs: In 
your notice of our Catalogue—for which by 
the way accept my thanks—you seem to 
think I made a mistake when I stated that 
Pearl Millet grew with ns to an average 
hlght of 0 feet iu 45 days. No, Sirs, I can as¬ 
sure you that uo mistake or exaggeration was 
made, either in dates, hight, or weight. In 
fact I was so astonished at the result, that in 
every case T had the weights and hights care¬ 
fully tested by my foreman for corroboration; 
and I can further assure you that in every in¬ 
stance we give, they were under, rather than 
over the results stated. But as I said in my ar¬ 
ticle, it was garden culture, and it would not be 
reasonable to expect such yields from the ave¬ 
rage farm culture. 
I have just been talking with a gentleman 
who has most successfully practiced the en¬ 
silage method with grccn-corn stalks, and he is 
now preparing to grow Pearl Millet next sea¬ 
son for this purpose, and thinks with the 
extraordinary growth of the Millet, aud the 
economic advantages of ensilage, that even a 
“little farm well tilled," may prove a gold 
mine to dairy farmers in the vicinity of large 
cities. Peter Henderson. 
New York, Jan. 30, 1879. 
-- 
Possible Disaster from Improved Farm¬ 
ing. —Good butter, prime meat, No. 1 wheat, 
and, in fact, all good things are scarce and 
costly. The fanner who bends all his ener¬ 
gies to produce such crops, grows rich fast. 
Therefore all farmers should at once abandon 
their slovenly, slipshod modes of doing busi¬ 
ness, note well-tested methods of doing bet¬ 
ter, and “go and do likewise.” But suppose 
everybody docs do so; suppose everything 
grown or produced is of the very highest aud 
finest quality possible, will prices keep up? 
No, indeed! they would come down to the 
price of rancid butter. Then, what's the use 
of trying to do better, if it ironly to bring ruin 
upon the whole community!! Fortunately 
there are not many who are trying, it being 
one of those questions not yet perfectly settled 
in the farmer’s mind, whether any effort to 
get above the common herd is worth the troub¬ 
le. From present appearances, the “dreadful 
consequences” may be looked at calmly ; there 
is no danger of such a condition of things cul¬ 
minating in our time, so we may all possess 
our souls in patience. s. r. m. 
-- 
WHAT OTHERS SAY. 
Mysterious Providences. —Mr. W. I. Cham¬ 
berlain, in a thoughtful article to the New York 
Tribune, shows that we arc over-ready to as¬ 
cribe to the dispensations of a Mysterious Prov¬ 
idence what is really due to our own laziness 
or Ignorance. He says: “ 8ome years ago a 
fellow-townsman died of low typhoid fever. 
Both of his sons sickened of the same disease. 
One died, the other ‘recovered,’ shattered for 
life in mind and body. At the funeral the min¬ 
ister made such remarks as one would expect 
from the text: ‘How unsearchable are His 
judgments, and His ways past finding out.’ 
But in this case were the judgments unsearch¬ 
able, and the ways concealed ? As the min¬ 
ister stood in the open doorway of the house, 
there was wafted to him a stench, almost in¬ 
tolerable to untrained nostrils, from the pig¬ 
pen not a hundred feet distant, where a dozen 
huge hogs were fed thrice daily with sour 
whey, and from the barnyard nearer still on 
the other side, where thirty cow6 were milked 
night and morning, trampiug their voidiugs 
deep into the muddy ground. Midway between 
yard and peu was the house well, and the co¬ 
pious summer rains had doubtless 6oaked ty¬ 
phoid germs from both through the level, por¬ 
ous ground into this well, to be drank daily by 
the uuthiukiug victims. And day and night 
the malaria from the same sources unstrung 
their physical systems, aud made them suscep¬ 
tible to the poison. And yet the doctor had 
never pointed out these things, or advised 
their removal.” 
After giving several forcible facts which 
have come under his own observation he con¬ 
cludes : 
“But why multiply examples, as I might do 
from personal knowledge and from books and 
medical reviews ? They give almost countless 
well authenticated and thoroughly tested in¬ 
stances where disease-germs have been filtered 
through the soil from privies, pig-pens, cow- 
yards, grave-yards, buried excrements or 
washed bedding of typhoid patieuts, aud from 
defective 6cwers or drain-pipes aud the like, 
sometimes long distances, into wells and 
springs, aud have given slow poison to indi¬ 
viduals, families, neighborhoods aud even 
whole villages, while bad air has increased the 
evils of bad water. Such facts ought to be 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
known and heeded. Such milking-yards and 
pig-pens as those described ought to exist no¬ 
where, or at worst never near enough to house 
and well to taint air and water. Cheese fac¬ 
tories, too, with scores of hogs fed near by, or 
whey run into the nearest brook, are often 
breeders of ague and typhoid fever. Their of¬ 
fensive features should be abated, by law if 
necessary. In villages, the slop-drains and 
privies often create nuisances and destroy 
health and life. In the village referred to 
above, the instances cited, and other similar 
ones, finally forced the council to pass and en¬ 
force stringent sanitary ordinances. 
“ The doctors in auy community have a duty 
to perform ; aud If. through ignorance, self- 
interest or false delicacy, they fail to perform 
it, why shall not the ministers undertake it ? 
They can do it iu the line of their profession. 
For if our bodies are to be “fit temples for the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit," they certainly 
demand physical care on moral grounds. As 
for “Mysterious Providences,” God does oft- 
times “move In a mysterious way,” no doubt, 
but far more often according to fixed natural 
laws not hard to be understood by those who 
will 6tudy. In such cases what right have we 
to talk of mystery ? What right have we to 
think we are “receiving the chastisements of 
the Lord in meekness," when we are simply 
taking the physical consequences of our own 
negligence or filth ? What right have we to 
submit, to what we can 8tirmount or remove ? 
That is laziness, not piety ; aud ministers will 
do valiant service by telling us so. With tre¬ 
mendous power can they teach from instances 
like those I have given that “whatsoever a 
man soweth that shall he also reap." And few 
incitements to right living are more powerful 
than this law if really believed.” 
Farmers and Politicians.— Editor Rural: 
—I like your caricatures, and I like the idea 
of publishing them. Nothing has a greater in¬ 
fluence with the public than pictorial wit. It 
takes hold of men that argument cannot reach. 
It strikes hard, and to a vital spot, and is fear¬ 
ed by the wrong-doers more than all other 
methods of attacking wrong. Nast's pencil 
broke up the Tweed Ring—pity that pencil has 
been employed so ill since. Nast, the satirist 
of crime in high places, was a great moral 
force: Nast as a mere partisan, is a melan¬ 
choly object. 
The farmers need the aid of the pictorial 
satirist, and are just the men to appreciate 
and applaud his work when done for their be¬ 
hoof. We have had plenty of flattery from 
the politicians, while the same politicians 
were making laws to hurt the farmers. So 
have, come upou us high taxes, the result of 
extravagant legislation; and unequal taxes, by 
means of which an unjust share of the public 
burdens is put upon farming property. 
These wrongs cry loudly for redress. Add to 
this, exorbitant usury (ten per cent, and some¬ 
times more, on the perfect security of improv¬ 
ed farms), and auy one may see that the only 
thing that has kept tens of thousands of farm¬ 
ers from bankruptcy has been a succession of 
favorable seasons that we all know caunot 
long continue. If the Rural will strike for 
the farmers as a farmers' paper should, with 
pen and pencil, you may soon reckon your 
subscribers by the hundred thousand. The 
field stands unoccupied before you. t. h. h. 
Mushroom Culture.— “ We saw a crop last 
Saturday,” say6 the London Gardeners’ Chrou- 
cle, “ that well merited the application of the 
terra ‘wonderful,’ in Mr. Maitland's garden at 
Merton Abbey, Surrey, and which, without ex¬ 
ception, is the best example of mushroom cul¬ 
tivation that has come under our notice. The 
Mushroom-house is 155 feet long, and 12 feet 
wide, and contains five beds, four for mush¬ 
rooms aud one for sea-kale, and each of the en¬ 
tire length of the shed. There is a path down 
the center, about 30 inches wide, and the beds 
are arranged two on one side, three on the oth¬ 
er. aud all averaging about one foot in depth. 
The practice followed is to fill up the beds with 
ordinary ‘ London manure’ beaten firmly down, 
and then left until the heat is on the wane bo- 
fore spawning. When this is done the beds 
are covered with hay for a week to * draw the 
spawn;’ at the end of that time, or as soon as 
it is seen that the spawn is freely on the move, 
about half an inch of soil is lightly placed over 
the beds and merely leveled down. For a week 
or two after soiling the temperature of the 
house is maintained at about 60®, and subse- 
sequently at about 53® or 54®. In this way the 
mushrooms begiu to appear in about thirty 
days, and in about five weeks the beds are iu 
full bearing, as at i>resent, and producing the 
delicious "buttons,” ‘cups,” aud “grillers," 
in perfectly astounding quantities. In ordina¬ 
ry practice it takes six weeks to get a crop, and 
then not often a big one. 
Why does Maize Yield twice as much as 
Wheat ?—Referring to a discussion upon this 
topic in the American Cultivator, Professor 
Beal says: “The two crops are not treated with 
equal fairness. The wheat is usually 6own 
(when it yields fifteen bushels to the acre) and 
allowed to struggle with weeds and a baked 
soil, while the Indian corn, if we consider 
workings in both directions, is cultivated from 
four to six times during its early growth. 
Give wheat good cultivation after the plants 
come up, and we all know by numerous exper¬ 
iments that the yield is very greatly increased. 
Perhaps Mr. Harris has never seen the experi¬ 
ment tried of planting Indian corn and then 
allowing it to fight its own way with grass and 
weeds, with no hoeing by hand or horse. In 
Michigan we have some enterprising (?) men, 
who have tried this valuable experiment on 
corn, whether by design or shiftlessness it does 
not'matter. The result on the maize was 
amazing, and far from gratifying. I have not 
seen the crops measured, but I am certain in 
some cases there could not have been fifteen 
bushels of shelled corn to the acre.” 
Night Soil. —If the pi ivy were treated more 
like an earth-closet, and a barrel of dry sifted 
coal ashes kept convenient for covering the 
excrement as fast as deposited, the health of 
the family and the fertility of the soil would be 
greatly improved. Night soil thus treated is 
handled with as much facility and as little of¬ 
fense to the olfactory nerves, aB is a pile of 
rich barnyard manure.— Alex. Hyde, in the 
New England Homestead. 
TALKS ON TIMELY TOPICS. 
Funding Debts. —The Government of this 
country is rapidly paying off debts contracted 
by it when It was glad to be able to borrow 
xnouey nominally at six per cent, interest, but 
as it had to take the loan in depreciated green¬ 
backs and has now to pay it in. gold, the in¬ 
terest on the amount actually obtained, was in 
reality far more extortionate than the greediest 
money lender would have the face to ask even 
of a farmer. To pay off these old debts whose 
exorbitant interest has for years been a griev¬ 
ous burden on the industry of the country, 
the Government is contracting new debts on 
which it has to pay only four per cent, interest. 
We hear of several farmers, also, who are pre¬ 
paring to imitate this wise economy. To get 
rid of old debts, the interest of 10 or 12 per cent, 
on which has been gradually reducing them 
to poverty, each of them is now on the outlook 
for au opportunity to incur new obligations at 
a much lower percentage, with the proceeds of 
which he intends to clear off his outstanding 
liabilities together with their heavy yearly 
burden. In the near future capital must be 
content with more modest profits than in the 
dayB of inflation ; these men will accordingly 
be able to borrow money at lower rates of 
interest, and after they have by this means 
paid their old debts, though the sum of their 
indebtedness may be as great in the future 
as iu the past, their yearly tax on account of it 
will be much lighter, and therefore more easily 
bearable. _ 
Low Prices and High Expenses on En¬ 
glish Farms. —For at least twenty years, the 
London Live-Stock Journal says, farmers there 
have seen nothing like the hard times that are 
now upon them. Within a year, while high- 
class cheese has held its own, inferior kinds 
have sunk at least $5 per cwt.; butter is from 
12c. to 15c. per pound lower; fat pigs are 
scarcely salable ; wool is about half the price 
it was five years ago; and wheat from 24e. to 
36c. less than this time last year. Then look at 
the burdens which Euglish farmers have to 
boar, and from most of which ours are free. 
At a recent agricultural meeting in Essex, one 
of the farmers, who rented 210 acres, of which 
195 acres ouly were productive, gave the fol¬ 
lowing abstract of his expenditure during the 
year, outside of his rent, all farm and family 
expenses and government, taxes: Tithe paid to 
lay proprietor of the local church “living,” 
$512; ditto to vicar, $148; poor rate, $201; 
sanitary rate, $57.50 ; surveyor’s rate, $35.25; 
school rate, $20; voluntary church rate, $10.25, 
or a total of $985. 
-- 
CATALOGUES, &c., RECEIVED. 
B. K. Bliss <fc Sons’ Illustrated Hand- 
Book for the Farm and Garden and Cata¬ 
logue of Garden, Field and Flower Seeds, 
34 Barclay Street, New York. So-called novel¬ 
ties are offered in abundance every year, as 
being decided improvements upon older va¬ 
rieties of their kinds. And yet those who pur¬ 
chase them find out to their cost that they are 
loo often inferior to the old sorts, and that not 
one in twenty is really worth the high price 
asked. This firm has, we think, been fortu¬ 
nate in the selectiou of new things to offer to 
the public, as the popularity of many which 
they have introduced from season to season, 
through many years, may prove. Among po¬ 
tatoes, the Early Rose, Snowflake. Alpha, 
Peerless and others are widely known and cul¬ 
tivated. The Acme, by many deemed the best of 
all our tomatoes ; also the Conqueror and Gold¬ 
en Trophy; aud latterly the much-talked-of De¬ 
fiance and Champlain spring wheats, have 
been popularized, so to speak, by their enter¬ 
prise. All of our last year’s readers will recall 
our own experiments with Defiance and Cham¬ 
plain spring wheats. Of six different varieties 
planted, Defiance produced the heaviest straw, 
the largest heads and the greatest number of 
grains to the head. Hot weather and frequent 
showers, as we supposed, caused the grain to 
shrink so that the yield was very light. But 
we have never been able to raise Spring Wheat 
profitably, and it is not to be supposed that 
either Defiance or Champlain will succeed 
where other spring varieties persistently fail. 
A month ago we were obliged to pay $15.00 
per bushel for seed of Defiance for our free 
seed distribution. Mr. Bliss informs us, how¬ 
ever, that his supply is now greater than he 
supposed it would be at that time, for which 
reason the retail price has been fixed at $15.00 
per bushel. Mr, Bliss also offers our Beauty 
of Hebron Potato at 60 cts. per lb. He is fair 
enough to admit that “ it is a fine cropper of 
excellent quality, ripens with the Early Rose, 
and is equally valuable as a market variety.” 
His American Wonder Pea was tested at the 
Rural Grounds last summer aud reported 
upon. We can assure our readers that it is of 
excellent quality (as good as the Little Gem), 
of dwarf habit, vigorous and productive. The 
only Wonder to us is that Mr. Bliss should be 
satisfied to present a picture of an English va¬ 
riety as its portrait. Among other new peas 
we see Culverwell’s Telegraph aud Carter’s 
Telephone, the first of which we tested last 
season with results which did not commend 
the variety as worthy of special notice. 
Among a long list of seeds of special plants, 
we see the Climbiug Asparagus offered. It dif¬ 
fers from ordinary Asparagus ouly in its vine’s 
manner of growth. This catalogue of 136 
pages is one of the most neatly executed and 
serviceable to the farmer, gardener or florist, 
published iu this country, 
Third Report of the Montreal Horticultu¬ 
ral Society and Fruit-growers’ Association of 
the Province of Queuec, for the year 1877. 
This handsome compilation contains an un¬ 
usually large fund of useful information on 
many branches of the horticultural art, and is es¬ 
pecially rich in information valuable to fruit¬ 
growers and to the cultivators of flowers. A very 
important point in the teachings of such works 
lies in the fact that they are not the gleanings 
of book-makers, merely compiling wbat others 
have said on-each topic, but the honest lessons 
taught by the experience of those who have 
won a well-earned reputation for efficiency In 
the practical treatment of the plants about 
which they speak. For instance, in this work 
may he found an article by Dr. T. H. Hoskins 
on Apple Culture in the Cold North, aud 
another by Mrs. Annie L. Jack on Currant 
Culture, and our readers know that any infor¬ 
mation cither of these gives on the subjects 
mentioned, is the outcome of actual experi¬ 
ence, aud therefore of no small practical value. 
The pamphlet contains 22 other reports on va¬ 
rious topics of interest and importance to 
horticulturists, equally the results of the expe¬ 
rience of other persous whose names, how¬ 
ever, arc not so pleasantly familiar to our 
readers. The manner in which the work is 
edited reflects credit on the Secretary of the 
Society, Henry S. Evans. 
Jas. J. H. Gregory, Marblehead, Mass. An 
excellent catalogue, free to those of our readers 
who will apply. Among the seeds of the more 
notable plants offered, we see the early Amber 
Sugar Caue, which is uow exciting a deal of 
interest in various sections; White Russian 
Spring Wheat, which, our readers may remem¬ 
ber, is one of the varieties which we tested at 
the Rural Farm last spring. As compared 
with the others it did not take a high rank ;— 
Teosinte (Reaua luxurians), for a description 
and cut of which we refer to the Rural of 
Nov. 2, may prove of value as a fodder plant 
south of Pennsylvania;—American Wonder 
Pea, which, according to our tests, is oue of 
the best second early peus in cultivation;— 
Egyptian Sweet Corn, and au endless list of 
squashes, melons, beans, tomatoes, etc. The 
engravings are exceptionally good and the en¬ 
tire catalogue one of the best. 
E. & J. C. Williams. Descriptive Cata¬ 
logue of trees, plants, vines, etc. Montclair, 
N. J. There arc some nursery establishments 
that it gives us pleasure to refer to, because 
we know our friends ordering of them will be 
faithfully served. The above is oue of them. 
The Messrs. Williams make a specialty of 
small fruits; are the introducers of the well- 
known Kittatiuny Blackberry; are nursery¬ 
men of great experience, aud may be trusted 
to do just whatever may justly be expected of 
them. The pamphlet is free. 
Department of Agriculture, Special Re¬ 
port No. 9. This Report, of 2S pages, is of more 
than usual utility and interest. Iu it arc 
enumerated the different varieties of wheat, 
corn, cotton, oats, barley, buckwheat, pota¬ 
toes, Irish aud sweet; bay, sorghum, tobacco 
and fruit, chiefly cultivated iu each State dur¬ 
ing the past season, together with a pithy 
statement of the success that attended each 
sort. 
Barr & Sugden, 12 King Street, Covent 
Garden, London, W. C. Descriptive Spring 
Catalogue of choice Seeds for the flower and 
kitchen garden. This establishment is well 
known as being one of the most enterprising 
and trustworthy in England. 
