9434 
THE RURAL HEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. I 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. tj 
- gl 
Address RURAU pUBLISHINC CO., 
78 Duane Street, N ew York City. p, 
* ~ v 
SATURDAY, FEB. 22, 1879- fc 
--= £ 
The several statements in our columns to the s 
effect that toe intend to send trial lots of corn to e 
our subscriljers, have brought ns a great member r 
of premature applications. Now ice beg to state t 
that, being in (he wry midst of our other free j 
seed distribution , W can not regard these appli- i 
cations. The announcement in relation to the c 
corn will be made in a few weeks. As we believe, f 
the variety to be offered is the niosl prolific of any \ 
hitherto cultivated. It was for this reason that J 
we have, hastened to secure a quantity sufficient to j 
supply every one of our subscribers who may 1 
apply with enough to give it a fair trial. ^ 
We will be pleased to semi one or more copies 1 
of the Rural NEW-Y r OKKBB/ree to any of our t 
subscribers sufficiently interested in its welfare ' 
to be willing to hand them to their neighbors for 
inspection. An intimation by postal card wM 1 
suffice. _ 
We earnestly request that all lettei's containing 
money, or any communication intended for the 
Business Department of the paper, beaddressed 
to The Rural Publishing Co., and not to any 
individual We cannot otherwise guarantee the 
prompt entr-y of names upon our books, or the 
ackncnoledginent of money. 
SPECIAL NOTICE. 
OF ALL OUR 8PECIAL NUMBERS, NO OTHER 
HAS CREATED AMONG OUR SUBSCRIBERS SO 
LIVELY AN INTEREST AS T1IE CO AUNG CORN 
NUMBER. WE SHALL HAVE AN EX l RA EDI¬ 
TION PRINTED AND WILL SUPPLY, FREE OF 
CHARGE, SPECIMENS TO ANY OF OUR SUB¬ 
SCRIBERS WHO APTLY FOR THEM. WE ARE 
CONFIDENT THAT THIS CORN NUMBER MILL 
DO GREAT GOOD, AND WOULD BE GLAD Ir A 
COPY COULD BE PLACED IN THE HANDS OF 
EVERY FARMER IN THE COUNTRY. IN TTWIi 
SHALL NOT ONLY OFFER TO BEND A TRIAL 
QUANTITY OF SEED (OF THE NEW VARIETY 10 
YVHICH WE HAVE ALREADY CALLED ATTEN¬ 
TION) TO ALL OF OUR SUBSCRIBERS WHO AP¬ 
PLY, BUT WE HAVE DETERMINED UPON OFFER¬ 
ING PREMIUMS TO THOSE YVHO, FROM THIS 
SEED SO SENT, SHALL PRODUCE THE LARGEST 
YIELDS OF CORN. 
_ _ _ 
SUSPENSION OF OUR FOREIGN CATTLE 
TRADE. 
The Privy Council of Great Britain bas 
issued an oi'der that after the third ot 
March all cattle imported from this coun¬ 
try must be slaughtered at the port of 
landing within three days after their m- 
rival. When questioned in Parliament 
last Friday as to the grounds for this or¬ 
der the Government attributed it to the 
arrival in Liverpool of three cases of 
pleuro-pneumonia among American cattle. 
Apprehensions were therefore entertained 
that tlxis disease might be communicated 
to native stock by infected animals m 
future shipments. The British Ambas¬ 
sador at Washington, the British consuls 
at various ports on the Atlantic, the com¬ 
missioners whom tho Canadian Govcin- 
ment sent a few weeks ago among us to 
investigate the matter, had all furnished 
information of the existence of the dis¬ 
ease in several parts of the Eastern States. 
Professor McEachran, the Canadian Com¬ 
missioner, and his associates, Drs. Gad- 
son and Lockhart, are reported to have 
ascertained its existence in "V irginia near 
Lynchburgh and Martinsburg ; in Mary¬ 
land, near Baltimore ; at W ashington, 
near the Capitol; in Pennsylvania at sev¬ 
eral places ; in this State in a number ol 
localities on Long Island, also in Staten 
Island, Kings and Jefferson Counties; in 
Connecticut, near New Haven, and in 
several other parts of the Eastern States, 
he recent action of the Governor of 
eiv York and the reasons he assigns 
therefor afford ample proofs that with 
regard to some parts of this State at least 
the Professor’s report was not without 
foundation. We learn, however, that 
Commissioners appointed by the Gov¬ 
ernor of Virginia, after investigating the 
alleged cases in that State, declare that 
the disease among cattle in both the 
places mentioned, is not pleuro-pneumo¬ 
nia. In many of the other places also, 
there is little doubt but that some other 
diseases have been ignorantly called by 
that name, for there is a natural tendency 
to ascribe all unknown causes of sickness 
among men or stock to any disease about 
which there may be a public excitement 
at the moment, and it is not pretended 
that the Canadians personally investigat¬ 
ed the cases in all these places. 
The check put to our foreign trade in 
live cattle by the action of the English 
Privy Council, Americans are apt at first 
blush to attribute solely to the pressure 
brought to bear upon the Government by 
the farmers and aristocratic land-owners 
with a view to getting rid of the ruinous si 
competition with our cheaper beeves, from in 
which they have lately been Buffering and di 
which threatened to be still more disas- re 
trouB during the current year. This pres- ol 
sure, no doubt, existed and had a good w 
deal to do with the decision arrived at, n 
but it must be borne in mind that there S 
was a counter pressure both by the vast ti 
body of consumers who have been bene- g 
fitecl by the competition, by the English I 
steamship lines and railroads, whose pres- C 
ent meager profits will be rendered still c 
more slender by the interdiction, and by r 
the sticklers for free trade, who are always p 
jealous of any measure that may seem to t: 
infringe upon their principles. More- a 
over, the privilege of importing live cattle o 
from this country was an exceptional one. s 
On the sixth of ‘last September Her Ma¬ 
jesty’s Council issued an order prohibit- a 
ing under all circumstances the importa- a 
tion of cattle from all countries in which 
any contagious disease was anywhere pre- t 
valent among them. The countries held c 
to be infected were Austro-Hungary, Bus- e 
sia, Turkey, Greece, Roumania and Mon- 1 
tenegro—in fact the whole of Eastern Lu- 1 j 
rope. Cattle from the western seaboard i 
of the Continent were admitted, but under 1 
the strictest surveillance, while cattle from t 
Canada, the United States, Denmark, i 
Sweden, Norway, Spain and Portugal 
have hitherto been allowed freer entrance. 
Great Britain has had ample cause for the < 
most rigorous precautions to prevent the 
spread of pluero-pneumonia on her soil. 
It is moderately estimated that, some time 
back, the loss in the British Isles in six 
years from this disease amounted to $60,- 
000,000, and even now, despite the sever¬ 
est measures for its prevention and re¬ 
pression, the annual loss from it is at least 
from five to eight million dollars. 
In view of tliis experience of the Moth¬ 
er Country, Canada also is hardly blam- I 
able for taking every precaution against 
the introduction of the plague within her 
borders. It amounts almost to a certainty 
that she will be a loser rather than a gain¬ 
er by her ow t u und England’s embargo on 
oattle from this country. Her trade in 
cattle with England has been temporarily 
ruined thereby, as she has made no pre¬ 
parations to ship by the St. Lawrence 
before spring. The earnings of her rail- 
roads and canals will be vastly reduced 
by the consequent diminution of their 
traffic. Her dealers have already made 
contracts for enormous deliveries of live 
I cattle across the Atlantic during the pres¬ 
ent year.—a Glasgow authority states 
that they have contracted to deliver 250,- 
000 head—-while of many estimates we have 
seen none that places the number of cat¬ 
tle fatteningior shipment at a higher figure 
than 15,000, and there are good reasons 
for believing that that estimate is twice 
too high. These dealers have been in the 
habit of making large purchases of our 
Western cattle, and wlule at present los¬ 
ing the profits of such transactions, they 
are running a serious risk of being mulcted 
for breach of contract through their ina¬ 
bility to deliver the stipulated number of 
cattle to their foreign customers. On the 
whole, therefore, it is pretty certain that 
the Dominion -will raise her own embargo 
on our cattle and urge the Mother Coun¬ 
try to do likewise, so soon as she is as¬ 
sured that pleuro-pneumonia has been 
thoroughly stamped out in this country. 
It depends upon our own Government, 
• National and State, how soon this desir- 
■ able object is to be accomplished. The 
: interests involved are too important, to 
the welfare not only of the agricultural 
, community, but of the entire population 
of the coxintry to brook a day’s unneces- 
f sary delay. The disease is of the most 
i contagious and insidious nature, readily 
i communicable oven by contact with the 
l clothing of an attendant upon infected 
. animals, days after he had left them. Fo- 
f vorable circumstances "may, therefore, at 
b any time cause an extensive outbreak 
l which might infiict enormous losses upon 
t the country. A month ago an export 
t trade of 100,000 cattle during the cur- 
t rent year, -was deemed by good judges to 
be among tlie probabilities, and a trade 
e of double that number among the pOBBi- 
,t hilities, and although in the event of the 
e continuance of the present restrictions, 
i- our exports of dressed meat will certainly 
>, be far heavier than would bo the case 
a- should the embargo on live oattle be 
y speedily removed, yet the difference in 
y profits to our citizens during the sum- 
!8 mer months, combined with the loss from 
it a decrease in the aggregate exports of our 
it live-stock products, renders prompt ac- 
d tion imperative, 
t- For years the National Government has 
been culpably dilatory in providing means 
n for the extirpation of this very disease, 
h As long ago as 1871 the distinguished 
it English veterinarian. Professor Gamgee, 
re prepared for it an excellent report on the 
iy insidious pest. Twice during his term m 
rs office Gen, Le Due has urged the neces¬ 
sity of liberal appropriations for stamp¬ 
ing out this and similar contagious mala¬ 
dies among stock—and to his reiterated 
representations only the paltry pittance 
of $10,000 Yvas accorded. Ib it only 
-when a long-threatened evil has come 
upon the country that our Washington 
Solons can be expected to take tardy ac¬ 
tion when the agricultural interest, the 
greatest in the nation, is concerned ? 
True, the representatives of farmers m 
Congress, who have neglected to eradi¬ 
cate this plague, may point to the rep¬ 
resentatives of farmers in the agricultural 
press which, with a few r honorable excep¬ 
tions, has been equally remiss in calling 
attention to the necessity for stamping 
out the malady, or, -worse still, have per¬ 
sistently denied its existence. 
Indeed, whenever the danger from in¬ 
attention to it has been referred to by any 
agricultural paper more far-sighted or 
better informed than the bulk of its con¬ 
temporaries, it has been the habit of many 
of the latter to protest against any refer¬ 
ence even to the existence of the malady 
here lest, forsooth, English agricultural 
papers might copy what might be said, 
and our oattle trade with that country be 
thereby possibly endangered. But to 
such reticence might be well applied the 
mot of Talleyrand to Napoleon, apropos 
of the execution of the Due d’Engliein, “It 
was worse than a crime—it was a blun¬ 
der,” for not only did it partake of the na¬ 
ture of a crime on the same principle as 
does the conduct of the owners of diseased 
cows who conceal the condition of the lat¬ 
ter in order that they may sell their milk 
and finally their carcases, so endangering 
the health and life of their customers; 
but it also partook of the nature of a 
blunder, inasmuch as not only have the 
risks of contagion been thereby multi¬ 
plied, but our trans-Atlantic customers 
must have discovered its existence; and 
now that they have done so, it is only 
natural that the very efforts made here to 
conceal it have given them exaggerated 
notions of its extent and severity. L p- 
wards of three weeks ago Commissioner 
Le Due, speaking from the records of his 
office before tire Senate Committee of Ag¬ 
riculture, among other reasons why our 
export trade in live cattle should not bo 
interfered with, urged that sporadic casas 
of pleuro-pneumonia had existed for near¬ 
ly half a century here and there among 
our cattle, and that neither the number 
nor severity of such eases at present were 
bo exceptional as to afford special cause 
for apprehension. . 
Candidly, we are strongly inclined to 
the same opinion, and we have never 
been among those who, from selfishness 
or ignorance, have foolishly attempted to 
conceal the existence here of a few widely- 
scattered cases of the disease. But, in 
view of the recent action of tho British 
Government and of the magnitude of our 
interests affected thereby, even these few 
cases must, be extirpated ill tile speediest 
possible manner ; precautions must be 
taken against the spread of the malady, 
and some means devised by which our 
trade in live cattle with Great Britain may 
be speedily resumed, without exposing her 
herds to the slightest risk of contagion. 
On these points we shall have some sug¬ 
gestions to off er in our next issue. 
FES. 
it were cleansed from the ignominy that 
unscrupulous men have brought upon it. 
This will be done when every farmer be¬ 
comes, as he should, a politician. 
Universal education is the boast of this 
country. The good, sound sense of the 
common people is admitted ; the honesty 
and economy of the governments of the 
towns and counties in the rural districts 
as compared with the knavish extrava¬ 
gance of cities, States, and the general 
government, oro conceded. Take any 
district school - meeting, for example. 
The people understand there how and 
why they vote, and realize that every dol¬ 
lar'expended is to be paid by themselves. 
There is one thing every farmer can de> 
—he can decline to give his vote to any 
man in whose honesty and capability lie 1 
has no confidence. If a candidate is one 
to whom you would uot. trust the manage¬ 
ment of your OYvn affairs, do not give 
into his charge the affairs of your tov/n. 
and county. First make personal Yvorth, 
character and integrity indispensable 
qualifications of every man for whom you 
vote. Next satisfy yourself that he will 
speak, act and vote in such a way as will 
serve the interest of yourself and your 
fellow-farmers. If the interests of others, 
Yvhether manufacturers, traders or pro¬ 
fessional men are antagonistic, they must 
yield precedence. Your motto should 
be “ the greatest good to the whole num¬ 
ber.” Beware of smooth speeches and 
false logic. Try all things—prove or de¬ 
termine for yourself—that which is good. 
We will close by just one bit of definite 
advice. Vote for no Representative in 
Congress who will not promise to use his 
best endeavors to raise the agricultural 
interests of the country to the position 
their importance deserves, and the first 
step towards this iB to promote the officer 
in charge of the department to the posi¬ 
tion of Secretary with a seat in the Cab¬ 
inet. 
FARMERS AS POLITICIANS. 
The government of the United States 
is supposed to be a government of the 
people, for the people and by the people. 
A large majority of the voters are farm¬ 
ers, and it consequently devolves upon 
this class to determine wliat laws shall be 
made and. wlio shall make them, 
being the case it becomes the duty of 
every one to so inform himself of the 
neects of the body politic that he may use 
this right of suffrage intelligently and for 
the best interests of the whole, of which 
he is so small a part. To do this, he 
must needs know at least the fundamental 
principles that underlie the science of 
government, and in so far as he does this 
he becomes a politician. 
It is sad, but none the less true, that 
this term, in common conversation, has 
come to denote one who gives his time and 
attention to the furtherance of the inter¬ 
ests of this, that, or the other party with 
which it has seemed best for him to con¬ 
nect himself. A politician, as the word 
is used, is one who has in some way gam¬ 
ed an influence over voters, who can com¬ 
mand the support of a certain set, clique, 
or ring, and consequently demands nom 
his party a prominent position for him¬ 
self or others whom he sees fit to name 
one who believes that “ to the victors be¬ 
long the spoils,” and to whom the control 
of the distribution of government offices 
with their attendant salaries and per¬ 
quisites, whether national, State, county, 
or township, seems to be the chief: 
object of party success. The name has 
become an unhonored one, and it is time 
N. Y. STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.. 
We see that there is to be an effort to’ 
institute a Board of Agriculture for New 
York; and it would seem reasonable that 
5,000,000 of people should have a bureau 
to keep a watchful eye over their greatest 
interest. The State Agricultural Society 
has been quite successful in holding an¬ 
nual fairs Yvithout the aid of a horse trot. 
Its greatest good has resulted from its 
display of stock and new farm machinery* 
thus allowing farmers to judge of im¬ 
provements presented to the eye. But in 
dairy products—the largest specialty of 
agriculture in the State—it has uniformly 
presented a row of tubs of butter and 
boxes of cheese, which may have been in¬ 
structive to coopers, but would have been 
equally useful to visitors had they been 
I sropty, since their contents are never ex- 
libited. This Society has been and will 
jontiune useful in its way, but this great 
itate requires a Board with broader views 
>f its agricultural needs—that will exert 
ui influence in organizing and developing 
.ts neglected resources—that will take an 
ntelligent supervision of the great inter¬ 
ests of agriculture. Pennsylvania, Ohio- 
ind other States are some years in ad¬ 
vance of New York in this respect, 
.- - —- -- 
The fence question is rapidly solv¬ 
ing itself under the pressure of circum¬ 
stances. A few years ago it was thought 
one of the inalienable rights of slip-shod 
farmers to let their stock run in the road 
to annoy their neighbors, but the sum¬ 
mary road law, of New York and some 
other States, has put an end to this mu- 
sance ; and now, moral philosophers 
among the farmers are beginning to ask 
the question whether any one has a right 
to require his neighbors to build fences 
to protect themselves against his stock. 
Tlie Pennsylvania Board of Agriculture 
has solved this nice moral question in the 
draft of a bill to repeal existing fence 
laws, reoognizing the principle that 
every farmer must be responsible^ for 
keeping his own stock at home. -This 
will enable the farmer who soils his ani¬ 
mals to build only such fences as lie re¬ 
quires—and leave his neighbors as inde¬ 
pendent as himself. 
--- 
BREVITIES. 
Mr. Geo. C. Woolson writes us : “ I see in 
a recent Rural an account of Hibiscus coc- 
cineus. This species from the Southern States 
is, as you sav. not hardy; hut we have a plant 
from Japan, apparently the same thing, which 
I have strong hopes of being hardy. it so, it 
will certainly prove a great acquisition. 
ir you have rheumatism, eat celery—it is 
said to he a right-down, sure cure-if you eat 
enough ol it. But even if you haven t rheu¬ 
matism, we advise you to eat it all the same. 
(I is a most delicious vegetable when properly 
grown and blanched, and farmers ought to raise 
one hundred bunches where now they raise one. 
