702 THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
CONDUCTED BY 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
78 Dliana Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, DEC. «, 1879. 
We are having many calls fiotn all parts of 
the country for electros of our engravings. 
Months ago we offered to sell them for twelve 
cents the square inch. Our object in making 
the price so low was to place before as many 
interested readers as possible portraits true to 
nature, that might basteu an appreciation of 
valuable faun and garden plants. As, how¬ 
ever, wc arc obliged to hoar the expenses of 
the original drawings and engravings — a 
heavier item of cost than many may suppose— 
we felt that the Rural New-Yorker should be 
credited when such cuts were used in other 
journals. Such credit, however, has not, as a 
rule, been given, for which reason, and for 
others which need not be specified, wc re¬ 
spectfully decline to sell our original cuts in 
the future for less than 25 cents per square 
inch, while we shall require the payment in 
advance. Wo cannot send proofs of our en¬ 
gravings to anybody. 
When the size, and quality or thi3 journal are 
considered; its accurate illustrations from na¬ 
ture ; the standing of its world-renowned con¬ 
tributors ; its exclusion of untrustworthy adver¬ 
tisements ; its Free Plant and Seed Distribu¬ 
tions; its market and Special Reports from 
all parts of our country; Its Experiment 
Grounds; its independence of all merely per¬ 
sonal interests, we submit that it is by far the 
Cheapest Country Home Journal in the 
World. It will be sent from now until Jan., 
1881, for Two Dollars. 
We would state to the readers and subscrib¬ 
ers of the Rural New-Yorker that wc would 
be happy to send them specimen copies, free 
of charge, in uuy numbers that, they would 
kindly distribute among their friends, upon 
receipt of a postal card makiug the request'. 
If any of our subscribers do not receive the 
Rural New-Yorker promptly, they will con¬ 
fer a particular favor by advising us of the 
fact. 
The Rural New-Yorker will be sent from 
now until January 1st, 1881, for $2.00. 
HIGHWAY FENCES. 
This subject is attracting considerable 
attention. What is justice to laud-own- 
ers, and what to the traveling public ? 
Are existing laws and usages just, or 
did they grow up under circumstances 
that seemed to justify them, but which 
have changed? Do these changes re¬ 
quire, or justify, a change in the laws? 
If so, what ? If the farmer does not 
himself need road fences, has society a 
right to make him build them ? If he 
chooses to “ soil ” his own cattle, or use 
his fields that border on the highway for 
grain fields or meadows, cau the public 
require him to fence such fields along the 
highway to keep out their cattle ? Be¬ 
tween himself and his neighbor each 
farmer builds half Of the line-fence. 
Can you ask him to build more than half 
between himself and the public? Can 
you require him to build any ? Has the 
public any cattle and sheep? If so, 
should it not own a farm? Or is the 
whole highway the farm of the public ? 
Each farmer buys (in most States) the 
highway bordering his farm. It his 
farm lies on both sides, he buys and 
owns the whole road. The public, for 
good and sufficient reasons, reserves tho 
right to travel on it. Does it reserve 
any other right ? Has it any other that 
it can reserve ? Each farmer not only 
owns his highway land ; but, in most 
States, pays taxes on it, ju6t as on tho 
rest of bis land. Not only that, but a 
part of his whole tax goes for road im¬ 
provement. If he ‘‘works out” his 
road tax, it is deducted from liia tax 
total. 
For his owning, tax-paying, and work¬ 
ing of his own highways, he receives a 
part of his equivalent every time he 
drives to town or city over the roads 
similarly owned and kept in repair by 
other farmers and property-owners, and 
in a year he receives his full equivalent. 
But if the. public claims the right to use 
the highway as pig-pen or cow pasture, 
or for any other purpose than for travel 
and the necessary driving of stock, how 
can tho individual fanner get his pay for 
this use of his land ? 
Take another aspect:—In general, the 
highways are uow fenced. Most of the 
fences are now made so as to harbor huge 
snow-drifts in windy stretches of laud, 
that often completely .block the highway. 
Has the public a right to object to this? 
Has it a right, as oue correspondent, him¬ 
self a farmer, suggests, to compel land¬ 
owners to build wire fences that will not 
harbor drifts ? or, to give him the right, 
as another correspondent snggests, and 
as tho N. Y. law actually does, to lay his 
road-feuces fiat each fall, rebuild in 
spring, and commute, to the amount of the 
actual cost, for his next year’s road-tax ? 
Has it a right to compel this ? But thus 
to level and rebuild stone-w all or board 
fence would cost, in labor and damage, 
ten times the annual road-tax, and to 
level a hedge is to destroy it. 
Take still another aspect:—Suppose 
all road fences removed, as our corres¬ 
pondent suggests, and the ground culti¬ 
vated on each side to the ditch that marks 
tho line of actual necessary travel: can 
law keep the traveling public within 
those lines in muddy weather, or wall 
men ride and drive on the less muddy 
turf of the adjoining meadows ? Or, in 
summer, cau cattle be driven on the high¬ 
way without rushing through the grain 
fields aud meadows that tempt them on 
either side ? 
These and similar questions are doubt¬ 
less more easily asked than answered. 
One tiling is certain :—the burden of 
road-side fencing, and the waste of un¬ 
tilled, uncropped road-side land, are im¬ 
mense. They amount to millions of dol¬ 
lars each year. Has the law a right to 
perpetuate this burden and this waste, 
unless both are absolutely necessities ? 
-■♦♦♦-— 
NATIONAL AGRICULTURAL JOURNALISM. 
Probably there is no other agricultural 
or horticultural journal published whose 
circulation is more evenly distributed 
over our entire country than that, of the 
Bubal New-Yorker. Our reports, un¬ 
der the department of “ Everywhere,” 
show this to our readers, no less than our 
subscription lists show it to us. The 
present managers have labored to make 
this journal more and more national > so 
that, though published in New York, its 
readers should feel that its comprehen¬ 
sive views were as well adapted to the 
West aud Far West as to the East; as 
well to the South as to the North. We 
do not care much for any interests that 
are so local that they cannot be made to 
unite with those underlying principles of 
agriculture which are everywhere the 
same. Whether we speak of fruits or 
grains; of grasses or vegetables; of 
Bhrubs or trees ; of cattle or any other 
farm stock; of agricultural implements 
or of methods; of markets, domestic, 
or literary matters, we address neither 
individuals, sects, parties, nor States ;— 
we write for all who are interested in the 
Farm, Garden, Orchard and Country- 
Home — Everywhere . We print our 
paper in New York because it offers to 
enterprise facilities offered by no other 
city in the country. But our contributors 
live iu Eugland, in Canada, in other for¬ 
eign countries, and in every State in the 
United States. If persons, interested in 
so doing, would examine wherein sectional 
farm journals aro peculiarly adapted to 
the North, South, East, or West., it would 
be found, we think, that one column 
weekly would suffice to present, iu full, 
the agricultural methods peculiar to that 
section. County and State journals are 
valuable to residents, as they present 
facts which are interesting from associa¬ 
tions, or an intimate knowledge of people 
and events. But those who would stand 
foremost in the art and science of agri¬ 
culture, must free themselves of every 
vestige of sectional prejudice; must 
study the world’s progress, and stand 
ready to seize upon that which, upon 
their own farms, may enable them to 
produce more with the same, or a less, 
amount of labor. 
.- -+■*-+ -- 
SELF-SUSTAINING EXPERIMENT 
GROUNDS. 
We have been reading, in the Trans, 
of the Wisconsin State Agricultural So¬ 
ciety, a discussion as to whether State 
Experiment Farms should be expected to 
maintain themselves from the products of 
the experiments. The object of an ex¬ 
periment is, as might be supposed, to 
discover something not previously known, 
or, at least, to prove something respect¬ 
ing which doubts previously existed. 
The past fall wo have sown over twenty 
kinds of wheat. We do not believe that 
there is one of them that will pay us as 
well as Clawson, which we have cultivated 
for years. But we cannot know this 
without comparative tests. And theso 
comparative tests, made in a small way 
necessarily, and for the most part by 
hand-work, let the harvest be what it 
may, could not possibly pay for the time 
and expense of conducting them. We have 
triedmany different kinds of spring wheats, 
all of which were failures. Our “culti¬ 
vation ” of wheat was a failure, though 
it cost us a good deal of time and putter¬ 
ing. East season an acre of our best land 
was prepared with the greatest eare for 
new vegetables, not one of which proved 
to be equal to better-known sorts. An¬ 
other plot was trenched two feet deep, 
and the soil loaded with fine, rich, old 
manure, and planted to mangels. A four- 
teen-pound mangel was the heaviest of 
the yield, while the yield of another plot, 
prepared with ordinary care, was better. 
We might multiply snch instances, to 
show that we learn nothing, except what 
failures teach, from most of the experi¬ 
ments we make, and the loss attending 
them is such that they cannot, be con¬ 
ducted if a monr.y-profit is to be counted 
in the results. Yet it is by faithful aud 
intelligent experiment alone that solid 
advances ai'e to be made, and we have, 
therefore, little to expect from those ex¬ 
periment stations which are fettered by 
the condition that they must prove self- 
sustaining. 
--♦ -—— 
The farmers of the country may be 
divided into two classes, according to age 
and experience,—the old and the young. 
While, there are many exceptions, as to 
each class, it must be admitted that the 
old aro too prone to continue old ways 
aud methods, and the young are too 
ready to disapprove of the old, and risk 
their interests on what is comparatively 
new. The true policy is, to cling to any 
custom until something better is learned; 
but to be sure, while clinging, to be on 
the alert for any improvement. Much of 
the life and interest of farming arises 
from its being a progressive work. Many 
important truths have been developed 
during the last few years, causing im¬ 
portant changes in the means and meth¬ 
ods of ngricultnre. Those who disregard 
these developments must, of necessity, 
fail to compete successfully with pro¬ 
ducers who judiciously adopt what is 
good in the new, and hold to that only 
which is good in the old. A plain, mid¬ 
dle-aged farmer tells us that, iu his com¬ 
munity, the younger men are succeeding 
much better‘than the older, because the 
former are using more of the fruits of 
recent experience. 
--- 
Mb. Bobinkon, the editor of the Lon¬ 
don Garden, referring to the several arti¬ 
cles concerning the distinctions between 
good and scientific farming, that have ap¬ 
peared in these columns of late, writes 
as follows :— 
“I was going to write to you some 
time ago, in sympathy with a mau who 
held that good farming was scientific 
farmiug. I am no farmer, but I am often 
annoyed by this misuse of words, and 
such an expression ns right, theoretically 
and wrong practically is to me nonsense. 
I am sure such expressions arc very 
much against progress in our art, aud iu 
all others, and I know they are wrong 
scientifically. They are declared to be 
so by Herbert Spencer, in one of his 
books. No man can be right in theory 
and wroDg in practice, or vice versa. 
The real question is, right or wrong.” 
--- 
Our trees have never been so much in¬ 
fested witli the bark louse as during the 
past two years, and—what i8 something 
unusual—the thriftiest trees are as much 
infested with them as those which 
have made little growth. We have been 
experimenting carefully with kerosene 
and other washes, in tbe hope of finding 
a remedy. In reply to a question, Mr. 
Charles Downing writes us as follows :— 
“ I have not had any experience with 
kerosene, aud would not like to risk it. 
I have found potash, dissolved iu water, 
a good remedy,—one pound of potash to 
one-and-a-half gallon of water—put on 
with a paint brush ; and now is a good 
time, 'when the leaves are off, or any time 
before the buds begin to swell in spring. 
The trees should be washed as far up as 
there are any insects, even to the ends of 
the branches.” 
- - - 
We find that several of our readers, 
accepting our suggestion, are working to 
produce a variety of tomato that shall 
keep better than any at. present known 
iu the market. One of our friends in 
Ohio has a cross between the Acme ami 
Trophy, that will keep well for from 15 
to 20* days. We ourselves, as before 
stated, have been selecting seeds for two 
or three years with this object solely iu 
view. In another season we hope to 
be able to report our progress. Iu 
breeding for a better-keeping sort, we 
should u<?ver lose sight of productive¬ 
ness, and that quality, so valuable in the 
Acme, of ripening about the stem. 
BREVITIES. 
The Plymouth Rock among fowls is just 
about what the Concord is among grapes. 
Subscribers will now please send in their 
reports for corn premiums as soon as possible. 
The Prairie Farmer says that “so far the 
Illinois Industrial University has only been 
playing with agriculture”! 
We have received from Mr. John S. Collins, 
of Moorestown, one of the Kieffer ‘‘hybrid" 
rear trees, the fruit of which was illustrated 
in a late Rural. 
Among our collection of Raspberries there 
are two sorts which hold their leaves still, for 
the most part, green One is the Gregg, tho 
other the Guthbert. Nov. 29. 
Sutton’s Magnum Bonum potato has proven 
so productive aud so disease-resisting in Eng¬ 
land aud Irelaud that we propose importing a 
sufficient quantity another season to give it a 
trial here. 
Those intending to make new strawberry 
plantations in the spring, cannot do bettor 
than to plow or spade up the soil now. The 
grubs of May Beetles, so destructive to this 
plant, will thus be exposed to frosts and 
killed. 
Our next original portrait will be that of 
Ex-Gov. Furnas, of Nebraska, who. as we are 
informed, has devoted the greater part of his 
life to tho interests of pomology in tho Far 
West, and the greater part of his fortune as 
well. 
We have twice tried to raise plants from 
Rbus glabra var. laciniata. Not less than 50 
seeds were planted, but all failed to germinate. 
It would be interesting to know if seedlings 
from it would resemble most the variety or the 
species. 
We have been eating some of our spriug 
Plymouth Ilock6 and Black Cochins. All de¬ 
cided that the meat of the latter is sweeter, 
more juicy, aud more tender. But there is 
more breast meat iu the Plymouth Rocks of 
the same age. They mature earlier and lay 
earlier. 
We have no longer any doubt as to the iden¬ 
tity of Henrietta and Belle de Fontenay. The 
leaves dry up and adhere precisely in the same 
way. The petioles cling in the same way. 
Canes of the same stage of maturity assume 
the same color, etc. There arc certain charac¬ 
teristics which, at this season, serve better 
than at any other to identify varieties. 
In pruning trees, all stems half an inch or 
more in diameter, should be covered with 
some water-proof substance like grafting-wax 
or shellac, of the consistency of cream. The 
bark and outer wood will thus be preserved 
aud the wound will in a season or so be cov¬ 
ered with new bark. If this precaution bo not 
taken, the end of the branch will decay from 
exposure to wind, ralu, heat and cold. 
It is a mistake, that some of our contempo¬ 
raries have fallen into, to suppose that ico in 
cellars will mitigate frost, or in any degree 
6crve to prevent plants from freezing. Tubs 
or pails of water will exert 6ucb an influence. 
The heat is given off during the process of 
freezing only. If the temperature of a cellar 
is above 32 u , ice would servo to make the air 
colder in being converted from solid to liquid 
matter. 
Within the past week we have received 
must melou seeds from Mr. Isaac Alter, of 
Lake Co., Cal.; sample of wheat from J. Mil- 
len, Topeku, Kansas: an apple from Mr. 
Charles Downing, which Is being engraved, 
several new shrubs and trees from the Kisseiia 
Nurseries, of Flushing, Long Island; half a 
dozen packages of corn starch from G. Gil¬ 
bert, of Buffalo, N- Y. ; several potatoes, one 
fine specimen of Blount’s corn, and several 
specimens of grasses for name—all of which 
will receive due attention in due time. 
In considci ution <*t the fact that the Holi¬ 
days are close at baud, we suggest that our 
readers send to us for one of our Premium 
Lists, wherein over 100 articles are described 
suitable for holiday presents. We do not sell 
any of these articles, but would be very happy 
to vxjhange them for subscribers. We should 
much like to have these memeutoes in tho 
homes of our readers aud (by the way!) the 
subscribers’ names upon our hooks. Again, 
“by tbe wav”—and this to our wealthy pa¬ 
trons (!) :—\Vould It not be a capital idea, in¬ 
stead of purchasing perishable preseuts, to 
subscribe to the Rural for a few hundreds of 
the needy farmers and gardeners and fruit¬ 
growers living about you! 
It is a pity that there is no word iu common 
use that comprises both agriculture and horti¬ 
culture. If we speak of the Rural as an agri¬ 
cultural or farm journal, we feel wo do not do 
it justice, since It gives as much attention to 
horticulture as to agriculture, aud the constant 
uso of both words is out of the question. It 
does not seem that the word lerraeulturq, 
though the right one by derivation, will ever 
come into general use. To speak of terracul- 
tural colleges, stations, and newspapers, would 
sound funny enough. Horticulture is properly 
gardeu culture, but it is now accepted as in¬ 
cluding fruit culture and flowers, shrub and 
ornamental tree culture also. We want one 
popular word that shall comprise everythin" 
that is meant by both agriculture und horti¬ 
culture. 
Mu. Charles Downing says of the Winter 
Nells, engravings of which from nature appear 
on page 707, as follows: “It holds in our esti¬ 
mation, nearly tho same rank among winter 
pears that the Seekel does among the autumnal 
varieties. It Is a very hardy and thrifty tree 
and bears regular crops of pears which always 
ripen well. Jn perfection iu December and 
keeps till the middle of January.” The speci¬ 
men from which our engraving was made, was 
grown in California and purchased in Wash? 
ington Market this city. It was by no means 
the finest specimen wo could find, as it was 
selected with reference to show average rathey 
than the maximum size. This pear sold readily 
for the high price of 60 cents a dozen. 
