Some say yes—some no. One can find out by 
trying, which is the thing we propose to do. 
Horticultural experiments, many of them at 
least, require a world of patience and indus¬ 
try. And then, after all, the results may be 
told iu a word or so, which does not, by any 
means, pay the editor, who must fill his col¬ 
umns weekly. No doubt ‘the pages of the 
Rural alone would more than suffice to chron¬ 
icle the results of all the horticultural experi¬ 
ments which are being tried in every part of 
the world. We have often thought that, if the 
members of horticultural societies were as fond 
of making and recording experiments as they 
are of reading essays, their “ Transactions " 
would prove more instructive to all hands, 
while the secretaries would find their tasks 
greatly lightened. 
The area of our new hen-yard is about 25 x 
300 feet. Of Pears and Apples we have planted 
dwarfs only, viz., of Pears: four Duchess, four 
Seckel, six Louise Bonne, four Tyson, four 
Howell, six Bcarre d'Anjou, and four Law¬ 
rence. Of Apples (all on Paradise stock), one 
each of Baldwin, Gravensteiu, Hub. Nonsuch, 
audited Astraclian. These we have already 
planted. The Plums, owing to the lateness of 
the season, we concluded to leave until spring, 
the holes and soil being already prepared for 
them. In order to prevent the fowls from 
scratching the earth over the roots, we made 
for each tree a lath frame, as shown iu the 
sketch, first covering the ground with salt hay. 
These frames may be tacked together in a few 
minutes. An opening may be left as shown iu 
the figure, so that they can be removed when 
digging or cultivating about the tree is deemed 
needful; or a perfectly square frame may be 
made, iu which case the frame can be tilted up 
during cultivation. Five years lienee, life 
spared, we may tell our readers to wbat ex¬ 
tent fowls are helpful in keeping down curcu- 
lios, codling moths, bark lice, etc., etc. It is 
something to look forward to, kind readers. 
--- 
FARM WORK FOR DECEMBER. 
PROFESSOR W. J. BEAL. 
Attending Society Meetings. 
There are granges, clubs, and institutes to 
attend. There are special conventions of va¬ 
rious kinds for the purpose of considering 
some breed of cattle, the dairy interest, horses, 
sheep, swine or poultry. These must not be 
neglected. Before going, the farmer may think 
it will not pay to attend, aud hunt up various 
reasons for not doing so or taking an active 
part, yet, if lie ignores these obstacles and joins 
in the work, bu will fill his head and note¬ 
book with new ideas which he will wish to 
try next year. Besides learning something 
and keeping up with the times, a farmer is 
likely to return from such a convention think¬ 
ing more of himself and his brother farmers, 
with broader and higher views, and with more 
enthusiasm for his occupation. Do not for¬ 
get or neglect these gatherings for improve¬ 
ment. They willnot interfere wit h the rest which 
is so much liked iu the winter months. Man 
was not made like a coon, a hear or a mud- 
turtle to hibernate in the coldest of the year. 
Have Things llandy. 
At this season of the year iu the Northern 
States, the chief occupation of the farmer is to 
“ do the chores.” If former hiuts have been 
heeded, some attention has been given to mak¬ 
ing every thing as convenient as possible. 
Labor is costly ; time is money. The barns, 
doors, sheds. pig-penB etc., should be arranged 
inside and out to save neeillesB steps, aud lift¬ 
ing of materials. 8tudy to save labor in keep¬ 
ing the stables iu good order and iu supplying 
the water. It would naturally seem to be a 
loss of labor to omit digging a well, aud drive 
the cattle all winter to some 6tream or to a 
“ cat-hole” where the ice must be frequently 
cut and the filthy water dipped up by hand 
for the Btoek to drink. A good spring or a 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
rapid brook near by is a great convenience; 
but its place may be well supplied with a wind¬ 
mill. The worst arrangement is a shallow 
pond where the cattle, tread up the mud and 
spoil the water with their droppings. If water 
can come fresh from a well, spring or cis¬ 
tern where it is several degrees above 
freezing, it is much better for all kinds of 
stock. Cattle are like buumn beings—a little 
inclined to be lazy. They will often staud 
about the yard and suffer for hours instead of 
venturing out in the cold wind or rain through 
an unbeaten track for a drink in a distant 
brook. 
Roots ami Oil-meal. 
It is a great change for cattle or sheep to go 
from tile pasture where they get green food 
aud plenty of exercise, to a stable or yard 
where they are deprived of both. Dry food— 
hay, oats, corn and meal—produce costive¬ 
ness. The hair shows it; the animal is un¬ 
easy and not likely to be thrifty. As a san¬ 
itary measure, people eat coarse food, apples, 
berries aud other fruits. Their value cannot be 
measured by the amount of fat or nitrogen or 
starch they contain. Just so with green food for 
all sorts of stock, even to poultry. This is the 
chief value of mangels, rutabagas, carrots and 
potatoes for domestic animals. Roots in win¬ 
ter keep the bowels loose; they prevent a too 
sudden change from green to dry food. Oil 
meal fed in small quantities, is a very good 
substitute for roots. I quote an idea to the 
point from the National Live Stock Journal. 
“Every dairyman, so far as he cau, should 
supply himself with a pint of oil meal for each 
cow per day, or a half pint of llax seed, which 
should he boiled to jelly aud given with her 
other food. Oil-meal is worth all it costs for 
food, besides being a most excellent preven¬ 
tive of disease. We have never had any trou¬ 
ble with cows at calving when led a small 
quantity of oil-meal during winter. The 6inall 
quantity of oil left in it seems to perform the 
same office as a little grass or carrots aud 
beets would to cleanse the bowels." For a 
similar purpose I know of some promiuent 
men who use liuseed iu some form or other for 
their sheep iu winter. 
Improve the Stock. 
For about half the year we have to fodder 
cattle and sheep. Shall they grow while young 
steadily all the time till they are mature ? Or, 
shall they he fed and sheltered by a 6traw 
stack or a rail fence j ust enough to hold them 
iu place during winter aud let them do all their 
growing during a part of the warm months? 
As the country gruws older, competition be¬ 
comes greater iu everything. It requires bet¬ 
ter management to make money. Poor stock, 
poorly managed, cost more than it will bring. 
Witbin a few years the prices of choice ani¬ 
mals have declined, till they are within the 
reach of every man who keeps stock. Now is 
a good time to select a good, well bred bull 
for use next season or later. The prices will 
be lower now thau in the spring when such 
animals are most salable, A thoroughbred 
male, of course, pays his way when used with 
pure-blooded females; but iu a still more 
marked degree does he pay his way when 
used with grade or common stock. These 
are points which are well established beyond 
controversy. 
EMBELLISHMENT OF COUNTRY SCHOOL 
GROUNDS. 
CHAS. W. GARFIELD, SEC’Y. ETC. 
At the winter meeting of the Michigan State 
Pomological Society, a very suggestive essay 
upon “The Improvement of Country School 
Grounds ’’ was presented by W. C. Latta, of 
Mason. The discussion which followed awak- 
eued in rue a desire to carry on the discussion 
farther, and, if possible, get at some practical 
method of accomplishing some work in the 
matter. It is a great deal easier to write es¬ 
says, deliver addresses and talk fluently in 
conversation upon this topic than it is to ac¬ 
tually grapple with the difficulties to be over¬ 
come, aud to carry out some plan that shall 
really awaken in school patrons a practical 
interest in the work, that will bear fruit iu 
making the places where country children at¬ 
tend school, better than the average farmer’s 
barn. 
In traveling over Michigan it is very rare to 
find a school-house situated upon a piece of 
grouud larger thau a quarter of an acre, and 
it is still more rare to find a single example 
of neatness aud taste in the Interior and exter¬ 
ior arrangements. We pass over the Slate by 
highway or railway, aud when we find a neigh¬ 
borhood of tasty houses with good oul-build- 
iugs, we know it is a thrifty community; the 
laud is good aud the right kind of farming 
has made an independent, thrifty people. 
Should we, by Borne strange dispensation in 
our travels, pass by a school-house built iu 
good taste, nicely arranged iu its appoint¬ 
ments, having neat out-houses and a yard 
deftly planted to trees, shrubs and vines, with 
a beautiful lawn as a foundation, we should, 
with reason, remark: “This neighborhood 
takes an interest in education. The people 
have broad views of what school training 
should do for their children, and they evidently 
believe that the richest inheritance they cau 
give their boys aud girls, is an education ac¬ 
quired under the tuition of pleasant, associa¬ 
tions as well as good instructors." 
But, if we judge of the interest that Michigan 
people have iu the best and purest education 
that can be given their children, by the ap¬ 
pearance of the places where the business of 
giving that education is carried on. what must 
be our judgment! (Jan it be doubtful that this 
is a proper gauge to measure by? We judge 
the tree by the fruit which it bears. We judge 
the man by the company he keeps. We say 
that the books one reads are his associates aud 
friends aud have as much to do with the mold¬ 
ing of his character as have the people with 
whom he associates aud converses. We say, 
too, in speaking of ihe home, that the lives of 
people are influenced very largely by the sur¬ 
roundings and associations of childhood’s 
home. We believe these to bo facts. Why do 
we not apply them to the places that stand 
next to our homes in influencing the minds 
and hearts of children ? These are at school 
over half of their waking hours. They go 
there for the avowed purpose of learning. 
They go from homes provided with music, 
pictures aud all sorts of beautiful tilings, to a 
bare, often untidy, uupleasant school-room, 
and a mujority of them don’t like to go there, 
aud their parents wonder why it is their chil¬ 
dren are so anxious to do anything rather than 
attend eohool. 
The school-house should be the center of at¬ 
traction iu every country district. It should be 
a model in its inner arrangements and outward 
embellishments. We have now to deal more 
particularly with the latter, because these come 
within the realm of horticulture. In the same 
way that a museum of specimens is collected 
for instruction withiu-doors, there should be 
a collection of trees aud plants about the 
house. Pupils should be made familiar with 
the growth of plants, shrubs, aud trees by 
immediate and constant coutact with them at 
school, and they will become especially in¬ 
terested iu any that are placed under their care 
aud protection. The idea that the school 
grounds are simply a romping place is erro¬ 
neous. There is nearly as much to be learned 
in the yard as in the house from May until 
October, aud the material brought into the 
yard should be protected as carefully as maps, 
charts, globes, etc., iu-doors. 
Thu first and greatest objection that will be 
made by the majority to the use of the school 
yard for purposes of instruction, is that the 
children must have a place to run and play 
games without the danger of continually in¬ 
juring something. They must have fun, and he 
cannot appreciate the necessities of childhood 
who would so hedge about its sports as to take 
all the activity from them. This objection is 
easily met by the assurance that it is in the 
power of any teacher of gumption to originate 
and assist in maintaining such spoi ls as will in 
no way conflict with the growing of plants, 
shrubs and trees, and even annual flowers iu 
the school-yard. Because hoys desire to play 
“ long-ball" or “ ante over” is no argament in 
favor of doing without windows in the school¬ 
room. If these games break window lights, 
there must be a substitution of a less objection¬ 
able game. Some one has suggested that the 
school grounds should be beautifully plauted 
and everything placed in the best of order 
before the children arc allowed there, and then, 
when school opens, the maudate should go forth 
that everything in the yard is for pnrposes of 
instruction, and must be used as globes aud 
maps are used, and eared for in the same 
manner. 
This is wrong iu principle and policy. It 
were better to begin with bare school-house 
aud grounds, aud let evory addition he made 
by the pupils under the judieious guidance of 
the teacher. Each scholar should feel an Interest 
aDd pride In the development of the work, aud 
this state of feeling can only be brought about by 
having their hands do the work. Just so soou 
as the pupils appreciate the fact that they are 
partners in the possession of each added tree 
or vine, a detective force if at once formed for 
the preservation of the property. But just so 
long as the feeliug is engendered that the 
school-house aud grounds are district property, 
with no responsibility, save iu a Board of 
Trustees, there will be coustaut difficulty iu 
maintaining the property iu presentable con¬ 
dition. 
Again, aside from the use of the appoint¬ 
ments of the school yard as means of giving 
instruction in the names and habits of plants, 
the school premises should ho a model for the 
neighboring homes, and, if proper attention is 
given to the matter, this wilt be the case with¬ 
out any endeavor to make it such. The work 
done in the school yard will bo the inducement 
to work at homo, and there is no doubt that 
in a decade, wondrous changes might be worked 
throughout the country in the ornamentation 
of the exteriors of our homes,if the work could 
only be started about the school-houses. It is 
said that public opinion must be manufactured 
before anything cau be done of worth in the 
ornamentation of school-yards; but may not 
the work done by the aid of pupils, under the 
direction of the teacher, be the manufacturer 
of the public opinion ? 
The expense iu ornamenting school grounds 
should he nothing in cash. The work should be 
all a donation, and the plants and trees should 
be from the woods near at hand, or from the gar¬ 
dens of the patrons, aud the teacher who will 
not take, hold of a work like this as earnestly as 
of the teaching of geography and grammar, 
lacks an important element the possession of 
which should aid him in securing a certificate. 
The subject is one of grave importance to our 
country people and worthy of an important 
place jn our family papers. Tapers like the 
Rural, that are received as members of so 
many households, can by giving space to a 
discussion of this topic, so awaken thought 
regarding it that people will sec that some¬ 
thing ought to be done. I confess that the 
teachers should initiate the work, but the 
people should support them coidially iu any 
efforts like those suggested above. 
Grand Haplils, Mich. 
WHAT SHALL BE DONE WITH THE 
SHEEP ? 
JONATHAN TALCOT. 
To-day the snow is falling steadily and as 
wet as raiu, although it does uot melt quite as 
fast as it comes. Iu the Rural New-Yorker 
for October 25, page 085, Col. F. D. Curtis 
says: “The flock should never be exposed to 
the storms of autumn, winter or the early 
spring. Such exposure will surely enfeeble 
the constitution of the sheep, and so wash the 
wool and the skin that, instead of the fleece 
being soft aud lustrous, it will be harsh aud 
dingy.” The Colonel gives other reasons why 
sheep should be housed from the storms of 
autumn, winter and early spring, that to me 
are conclusive, and which every owner of a 
sheep in this latitude should heed, not only for 
the welfare of the sheep, but for the extra 
profit that will arise to the owners of all flocks 
thus cured for. While, the writer concurs in 
the statemeuts made by Mr. Curtis in regard 
to the need of protection for flocks frittn the 
6 forms of fall, winter and spring, and thinks 
the problem at the head ol this letter fully 
answered in his own mlud, others may be iu 
doubt as regards the necessity of shclteriug 
their flocks iu such weather, thinking that 
they will be more hardy if permitted to “rough 
it," or seek shelter where they cau best find it, 
if, indeed, they cau liud auy at all. 
For iastauce, iu the Rural of November 8, 
page 723, “G. G." says: “1 think that Colonel 
Curtis, in his article on the proper care of 
long-wooled sheep, in the Rural of October 
25. has exaggerated a trifle with regard to the 
necessity of sheltering them,” etc. G. G. tells 
us where he was boru, aud gives some of his 
experiences iu early life, but he gives no argu¬ 
ment to prove that the sheep, even on his 
native hills, would uot have been better off for 
housing in cold, wet storms; which, no doubc, 
they would have been. G. G,, iu conclusion, 
says: “Lu the Northern States, however, I 
concede that sheep require winter shelter." 
If sheep require winter shelter, they certainly 
do fall and spring shelter, as our storms of fall 
and spriug are much more trying to animals 
thau those duriDg the winter. 
If I understand Colonel Curtis aright, it is 
during the rain storms of fall aud early spring 
that sheep should be more particularly cared 
for and kept dry. A sheep with a dry fleece 
cau, if well fed, stand the cold of winter as 
well as auy animal on the farm; it is only the 
sheep that has a wet fleece on its back that is 
suffering from such exposure, aud all such 
sheep suffer more or less whether they are 
loug-wools or short-wools, only the former 
varieties suffer most, from the fact that their 
wool is more open, and therefore they are 
more susceptible of getting wet through to the 
skin more quickly than the short-wooled sorts, 
whose fleece is deuser. 
Iu the early life of the writer, sheep were 
not cared for as mauy good farmers now cure 
for their flocks, and an opeu shed, under which 
they could go at will, was then considered all 
that the sheep ucoded. Aud if they would go 
uuder their sheds iu all inclement seasons, 
that arrangement would do very well, but it 
unluckily happeus that they will uot do so 
always when it rains, so that they ure liable to 
get wet and take colds from their exposure. 
The only safe measure, therefore, is to furnish 
a place where they can be shut iu out of the 
storms of fall, winter and spring. 
For the benefit of some new beginner, I will 
give my method of caring for the few sheep I 
have on the farm, and the reason therefor:— 
