THE fJU’ftAl. ^EW-¥OEKEB. 
DEC. 43 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
CONDUCTED BY 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
78 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, DEC. 13, 1879. 
Final notice is given that those competing 
for the Corn Prizes offered by the Rural 
New-Yorker, must send in their certified re¬ 
ports prior to January 1st. The prizes shall 
be awarded thereafter as soon as we can deter¬ 
mine who are entitled to them. 
SPECIAL NOTICE. 
Those who are interested in extending the 
circulation of this journal for 1880 are solicited 
to send for specimen copies, premium lists and 
posters—any or all—which will be forwarded 
promptly without charge. It is our wish and 
intention to make the Rural New-Yorker for 
the coming year more attractive, more valu¬ 
able thau ever before, whether its circulation 
be increased or remain at its present number. 
We ask of our present subscribers that, for 
the benefit of agriculture and horticulture, 
they will state to their friends, at fitting times, 
the estimation in w hich they hold this journal, 
whether such estimation be one of approbation 
or disapproval. It is a plain duty that rests 
upon us all to encourage that which seeniB 
worthy of success; and the duty is equally 
plain that we should not countenance any pub¬ 
lic enterprise which does not strive to promote 
the welfare of the public it professes to serve. 
The art and science of agriculture and horti¬ 
culture have assumed in our country an en¬ 
grossing magnitude far beyond anything we 
could have d reamed of a few years ago; and 
among our most urgent needs are represent¬ 
ative journals that, original, conscientious and 
independent, 6hall forcibly construe and ad¬ 
vance the interests involved. 
We would state to the readers and subscrib¬ 
ers of the Rural New-Yorker that we would 
be happy to send them specimen copies, free 
of charge, in any numbers that they would 
kindly distribute among their friends, upon 
receipt of a postal card making the request. 
Attention is called by M. J. Poisson, 
of France, to our Western plant, Ment- 
zelia ornata, as a belieader of flies. Some 
of tlie leaves secrete a viscid matter 
which attracts insects. But there are 
other bristles (harpoon-like), that though 
they present no obstacle to the introduc¬ 
tion of the fly’s proboscis, prevent its 
being withdrawn. The by, in distress, 
asses round and round until he twists 
is head off. Professor Gray requests 
those who have good opportunities of 
obtaining Mentzelia ornata, or its more 
common relative M, nuda, to investigate 
the matter and* ascertain whether this 
charge of cruel behavior is well founded. 
We are glad to see quite a large num¬ 
ber of papers, agricultural and politi¬ 
cal, now supporting the views we ex¬ 
pressed a year ago, with regard to the 
necessity of the Government’s appoint¬ 
ment of skilled veterinarian inspectors of 
live stock, not only at the ports of ship¬ 
ment to foreign countries, but also in 
each district in which contagious diseases 
of a dangerous nature are known to pre¬ 
vail. Some advocate one method by 
which such provision should be made : 
some, another; but having no private 
axe to grind, looking solely to the inter¬ 
ests of agriculture, we care little by what 
agency the needed measure is effected, 
or under what department of Government 
it may aet. The only care we have is, 
that a provision 60 beneficial to our vast 
live stock interests should be made at 
the earliest moment. 
-- 
Oue correspondent, Mr. James Taplm, 
tells us that as an insecticide he has 
found nothing better than acetic ether. 
This will destroy all sorts of greenhouse 
insects, while it does not harm the most 
delicate plants, probably on account of 
its exceedingly volatile nature. The mealy 
bug, that disgusting pest of house-plants, 
is killed instantly by acetic ether, while 
several applications of alcohol often fail. 
It may be supposed, also, that it would 
kill the scale insects. It is at least wor¬ 
thy of trial. Mr. Taplin says that lime, 
with enough glue to make it somewhat 
adhesive, is the best wash he has ever tried 
for scale upon fruit-trees. It should, ac¬ 
cording to his experience, be applied 
thick, for the reason that the insects be¬ 
neath the soales are killed by being 
smothered. He disapproves of oil for 
this purpose, as it sometimes kills aud 
often injures the parts to which it is ap¬ 
plied. 
- 4 -*-*- 
“ When people are determined to quar¬ 
rel, a straw will furnish the occasion,” is 
an old-time adage as true of fault-finding 
as of the quarreling to which it often 
leads. The other day a lady down in 
Florida had the satisfaction of using 
some home-grown coffee, the product of 
the first coffee-berries that had ever rip¬ 
ened in the open air in this country. 
Straightway, upon this text, some of our 
“ irreconcilable ” journalists indulge in 
would-be-humorous gibes at the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture in general and its 
present head in particular, one of them 
even insinuating that the Florida coffee- 
plant might have been grown and its 
berries ripened in the conservatory at¬ 
tached to tlie Department at Washington, 
and then surreptitiously transported to 
the Land of Flowers, for the purpose of 
adding to the eclat of Gen. Le Duo in 
his efforts to introduce other branches of 
agricultural industry into this country. 
Yes, truly, “ when people are determined 
to quarrel, a straw will furnish the occa¬ 
sion.” 
We leam from various sources that the 
culture of the Tea plant is promising in 
some parts of the South. Gen, Le Due 
does not expect that home production, if 
successful ultimately, will make itself 
felt in the foreign commerce of this arti¬ 
cle for many years to come. Under fa¬ 
vorable ciroumstances, the trees yield 
but few pickings the third year after 
planting, and not until the fifth year may 
we look for enough leaves from the 50,- 
000 tea plants which the Department of 
Agriculture has sent out, to commence 
“ in earnest the manufacture of tea for 
commercial purposes." In raising Tea 
plants, it is important to shade the young 
plants from the direct rays of the sun. 
When sown in greenhonses and covered 
with glass, this being slightly shaded, 
the seeds germinate in about four weeks 
and grow thriftily. In the open ground, 
however, the first growth will dry up as 
soon as exposed to the sun’s rays, and it 
is, therefore, necessary to select shaded 
positions for seed-bedB, or else cover the 
ground with straw or some other airy 
protection. The Tea plant seems to re¬ 
quire plenty of moisture, though it will 
not endure wet, heavy land. For detailed 
information the reader is referred to our 
illustration from nature, upon our first 
page, and to the accompanyiug article. 
-- 
The National Association for the Pre¬ 
vention of Adulteration iu Butter, held 
a meeting at the Butter aud Cheese Ex¬ 
change, in this city, last Friday. This 
Association was formed about two years 
ago, to resist the encroachments on the 
sale of genuine butter by the manufac¬ 
turers of oleomargarine. As noted iu 
these pages at the date of its passage, 
about two years ago, a law of this State 
provides that each package of grease 
butter must be distinctly marked with the 
word, oleomargarine, plainly stamped or 
written upon it, under penalty of a fine. 
Many of the packages of this stuff', how¬ 
ever, found abundantly in every grocery- 
store in this city, are marked so imper¬ 
fectly that often a magnifying glass 
would be needed to detect the stamp or 
writing. It is proposed by the Associa¬ 
tion to take prompt steps towards prose¬ 
cuting every house selling adulterated 
butter or grease butter in a manner con¬ 
trary to law, and to raise a fund of 
$5,000 to supply the wherewithal to 
prosecute the offenders. As to the merite 
or faults of oleomargarine, there is no 
need here to discuss them ; but every 
honest man will zigree in insisting that 
the article, whether good or bad, should 
be sold on its merits, and not, as is too 
often the case, be palmed off' upon the 
ignorant or unwary as genuine dairy 
butter. 
-+ ♦ ♦ - - 
The Cane Growers’ Association held 
its annual meeting at St. Louis, on 
Thursday last. Our telegraphic reports 
give every encouragement to the expecta¬ 
tion that we shall, ere long, be able to 
supply our homo demand for sugar by 
manufacturing it all over the Northern 
States from the juice of some varieties of 
Sorghum. Mi 1 . A. J. llussoll, of Chrys- 
tal Lake, 111., manager of the largest 
works in the country for the manufacture 
of sorghum sugar, turned out 45,000 
pounds of splendid sugar the pash sea- 
Bon, from very inferior juice, obtained 
largely from unripe cane. His experi¬ 
ence convinced him, as he said in an 
“Everywhere” in the Bubal four or 
five weeks ago, that with proper ma¬ 
chinery and juice weighing 10 degrees 
Baumd, cane can be ground one day and 
the sugar from it be ready for market the 
next, day, instead of, as frequently hap¬ 
pens now, carrying stock six months be¬ 
fore the sugar is ready for sale. Samples 
of juice, tested by Mr. G. W. Belcher, 
the Association’s expert, polarized from 
4.47 to 12.86. Polarization in Cuba rates 
14 to .16, and some kinds of sorghum 
have polarized as high as 14}. The high 
prices of sugar the coming season, due 
in a great measure to the shortage in the 
beet sugar crop of Europe, and to the 
fresh outbreak of civil war in Cuba, wall 
doubtless have a favorable influence 
upon the development of this new agri¬ 
cultural industry. 
--- 
AN INJURIOUS PRACTICE. 
The practice of eating snow and ice, 
so common among the school-children of 
the Northern States, is a fruitful cause 
of catarrh. It is common to see boys 
and girls devour a snow-ball as though 
it were an apple, or an icicle as eagerly 
as a bit of candy. The hard palate which 
forms the roof of the mouth also forms 
the floor of the nostrils, and is no thicker 
than pasteboard. The chilliug effect of 
snow and ice brought freely in contact 
with this thin partition, the upper cover¬ 
ing of which is a sensitive secreting mem¬ 
brane, made up almost wholly of fine, 
blood-vessels and nerves, produces a con¬ 
gestion, often succeeded by chronic in¬ 
flammation. As a consequence, these 
snow and ice-eating boys and girls almost 
always have * 1 colds iu the head ” and 
running noses. This is the foundation 
aud origin of one of tlie most disagreea¬ 
ble, persistent and incurable affections 
to which tlie people of the North are 
subject—nasal catarrh. Catarrh is said 
to lead to consumption. Whether this is 
so or not, the chilling of the nasal mem¬ 
branes, a part of whose function it is to 
warm the air in its passage to the lungs, 
cannot but injure those organs, particu¬ 
larly in people of a delicate constitution. 
“BUD HYBRIDS.” 
In the Bubal of November 22 we called 
attention to what seemed to us the absur¬ 
dity of producing “ hybrids” from unit¬ 
ing split buds or grafts. We solicited 
the opiuiou of one of our first pomolo- 
gists (whose name we do not feel at lib¬ 
erty to print), and the following is his 
reply:— 
‘•I have heard occasionally, for many 
years past, the assertion that the sweet- 
and-sour apple originated by placing two 
split buds together; but I never yet 
found the man who had performed the 
operation. I have often seen the sweet- 
and-sour apple, aud have always regarded 
it as something like the ribbon-grass,— 
the sweet, or light-colored part, less de¬ 
veloped in size and flavor, it is rather 
insipid thau sweet. If it were possible 
to make the halved buds grow together, 
it is quite obvious what the result, would 
be—oue side of the tree would be one 
kiud and the other the other kind. 
“But is it possible to cut two buds 
exactly through the axis, and make each 
part uuite aud grow ? I would almost as 
soon think of cutting two animals through 
the center and making a compound of 
them. In common grafting, all we have 
to do is to make a mass of vessels and 
cells adhere by advancing growth ; but 
the vital point in a seed or bud is a dif¬ 
ferent thing. It is quite possible to make 
two halved grafts adhere, for it would be 
nothing more than grafting the one to 
the other ; but each half would remain 
as distinct from the other half, as the 
giaft and stock are distinct in common 
grafting. It might be that, in an ex¬ 
treme case, one half might modify tem¬ 
porarily the other, just as the stock, in 
rare instances, modifies the character of 
the graft; but the opiuion that a hybrid 
could be thus produced, is contrary to all 
analogy and fact. In the millions of 
trees grafted and bud led m nurseries, 
such a change was never effected. ” 
- 4-*~4 - 
THE TOMATO OF THE FUTURE. 
Oub “ Everywhere ” reports furnish 
very trustworthy evidence that the Acme 
is, at thepTeseut time, the best tomato iu 
cultivation. Its shape, evenness and so¬ 
lidity are its main merits. As compared 
with the Trophy, which, notwithstanding 
the scores of varieties that have of late 
years been introduced, still holds the 
second place, the Acme has the advantage 
ol uniformity of size, freedom from deep 
seams, and of ripening fully about tlie 
stem. I t ripens earlier also. The Trophy 
has the advantage, from a market point 
oi' view, of being larger and far more 
prolific. Size, however, in tomatoes, as 
in potatoes, as well as in apples, pears, 
etc., is a characteristic we shall value 
less as people learn that large size and 
excellent quality rarely go together. 
Taking the Acme as perfect in size and 
form, we want a variety that shall be as 
prolific as the Trophy, aud possessed of 
such keeping qualities that we can send 
it to England and have ten days to sell 
it in her markets before it begins to sof¬ 
ten or decay. Is this impracticable? 
Isn’t the tomato susceptible of so great 
a change? The fact is, that this grand 
fruit grows with us so freely—with so 
little care of any kind; it sells in our 
markets for a price so feebly remunera¬ 
tive to the producer, that few have set 
about to improve it in a way that, was 
likely to produce any good results. Many, 
it is true, have selected seeds from year 
to year ; but only with a view to precipi¬ 
tate an early maturity, the last thing to 
be thought, of, if real improvement is to 
be aimed at. Our earliest sorts are our 
poorest. We may, perhaps, obtain them 
still earlier ; but, except in name and ap¬ 
pearance, we shall find ourselves further 
thau ever from those qualities for which 
the tomato is most esteemed. 
Iu the improvement of the tomato, we 
want our horticulturists to make dis¬ 
criminate and systematic experiments, 
the same as have been made in other 
fruits, and we are glad to know that our 
suggestions for the past year or so in 
this direction, have been followed by 
some of our readers. In due time, we 
hope to make it appear that we have our¬ 
selves, the while, been practicing our 
own teachings, and that if we do not ac¬ 
tually succeed in producing the tomato 
that can be shipped to and sold in Eng¬ 
land, we shall be able to present one that, 
while it equals the Acme in general ex¬ 
cellence, shall prove a long way ahead of 
it in keeping qualities. 
- 444 - 
The Gardener’s Monthly is never timid 
about speaking its mind. We value, ac¬ 
cordingly, the following little compliment 
from its accomplished editor, in the cur¬ 
rent number of that journal ; 
“ The Rural New-Yobker, as it is 
now, will compare favorably with any 
agricultural serial issued, to say the 
least of it. ” 
BREVITIES. 
“Nagging” at our hired help discourages 
the honest worker. 
Turn over the earth in the hen-yards. It 
will purify it and set the poultry to scratching. 
One of the fears entertained in England is 
a ;permanent depreciation of all farm property. 
The plan adopted by our City Horticultural 
Society of awarding money premiums aud theu 
accepting them from the prize-taking com¬ 
petitors to pay the expenses of the Society is— 
novel, to 6iiy the least of it. 
The Report of the Commissioner of Agricul¬ 
ture for 1878, just received, is oue of the most 
interesting amljinstruetive documents of the 
kind we have seen. We shall make several 
references to it in the future. 
Dr. Warder and Mr. M. B. Bateham were 
appointed by the Governor of Ohio to represent 
that state at the. (Re&ll) National Convention 
to he. held in this city the 10til inst. But the 
thirteenth annual meeting of the Ohio S. H. 
8., of which the first named gentleman is Pres¬ 
ident and the second Secretary, will be held in 
Canton, the 10th, 11th aud 12th inst. Heuce 
they were constrained to stay at. home. 
An American writer states, in the London 
Agricultural Gazette, that there arc no farmers 
in the world who manifest such indifference to 
modern discoveries and new By&tems as those 
in the United States, and that, relying chiefly 
on the labor they do themselves and can drag 
out of hired men, they nearly all abhor scien¬ 
tific or •'book-farming.”—It 6eeius tous that 
there are, in the three distinct assertions iu Lbe 
above paragraph, at least three distinct errors. 
President Hates says it is a sound policy 
that has brought uboutgood times. This in a 
letter to a friend uieaut for the public. In 
the numerous addresses he has made during the 
past season at agricultural fairs all over the 
country, wc have a distinct recollection that 
lie constantly attributed the return of good 
times mainly to the results of the agricultural 
labors of our farmers. But, after all, he 
may mean good farming by the phrase, “ sound 
policy,” although it looks mightily as if he 
referred to John Shermau’s financial opera¬ 
tions. 
Last Thursday Mr. Atkins, of Tennessee, in¬ 
troduced a bill into the House of Represent¬ 
atives giving the Commissioner of Agriculture 
a seat in the Cabinet. The measure is to be 
voted upon to-day. We hardly expect better 
success for this salutary proposition uow thau 
it met w ith when made during the last session 
of Congress. Reforms are made slowly by the 
Anglo-Saxon race, especially when they take 
the shape ol an innovation on an established 
system and when there ig no strong pressure 
of public opinion in their favor. The farmers 
of the country do not yet seem fully awake to 
the importance of having a representative 
among tlu' chief executive olflOers ol the 
nation, any more than they are yet fully alive 
to many other rights which their number aud 
standing entitle them to. The day, however, is 
not far distant when the agriculture of this 
country—incomparably the most important in¬ 
terest in it—will be duly represented in every 
department of the government. 
