THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JUNE 28 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Address 
RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
78 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, JUNE 28. 1879. 
THE MARKETS FOR OUR SURPLUS 
CEREALS. 
This week we pulish a large number of 
supplementary crop reports from various 
parts of the country. A few of them 
were received just as the last issue of the 
Run al was going to press, and the re¬ 
mainder have reached us daily since then. 
While furnishing fuller information with 
regard to the outlook for the next har¬ 
vest, they do not materially alter the out¬ 
come of our last week’s summary. The 
later, however, the date at which they 
were written, the more jubilant are the 
views the writers take of the crop pros¬ 
pects. Of late the weather nearly every¬ 
where has been highly favorable to the 
farmers’ hopes, and should it continue so 
for a few weeks longer, the prices of agri¬ 
cultural products, not their quantity, will 
alone be matters for anxiety. As there is 
but little doubt that the yield of our va¬ 
rious crops will in the aggregate be at 
least as heavy this season as last, and as 
the home consumption cannot have been 
materially increased, our surplus for 
exportation will probably be fully as 
great from the present as from the pre¬ 
ceding harvest. It is therefore a matter 
of no small importance to learn what are 
the prospects of crops in those countries 
whose agricultimd products come into 
competition with our own in the markets 
of the world. 
Throughout nearly the whole of Europe 
the past winter was the severest for the 
past twenty years ; while the spring and 
early summer have been more backward 
than at any time within forty-two years. 
Violent storms of rain and wind have 
greatly injured all crops here and there 
throughout the British Isles and along 
the Atlantic coast of the Continent; while 
disastrous floods have desolated large 
areas of country in France, Italy and 
Austria. Although owing to the back¬ 
wardness of the season and the unusual 
variability of the weather this year, it is 
as yet too early to form any definite opin¬ 
ion with regard to the crop prospects on 
the other side of the Atlantic; still it can 
readily be inferred from all reports from 
that quarter that the harvest will be con¬ 
siderably below an average in Great 
Britain and Italy; somewhat below in 
France and Austria; fair in Russia, our 
great competitor in wheat, and also in 
Spain and Portugal; much below the 
average in the wheat-growing regions 
along the Lower Danube, as well as in that 
granary of the ancient world, Egypt. 
Bismarck’s measures for protecting home- 
raised agricultural products iu Germany, 
by imposing a tax on all foreign imports, 
have stimulated the farmers of the Fath¬ 
erland to unusual efforts ; but there also 
the season has been so unfavorable that 
little if anything more than an average 
crop can be expected. On the whole, 
therefore, while the European consump¬ 
tion of cereals will be fully as great this 
year as last, the supply furnished from 
domestic resources will, most likely, be 
considerably less, and the market for our 
own surplus therefore be proportionately 
better. 
Moreover, it is only within the past 
year or two that our wheat has foimd en¬ 
trance into France, Spain and Italy, but 
in the absence of adverse legislation, it 
is more than probable that it has secured 
a permanent market in all these countries. 
A habit of importing grain once formed 
by any country can seldom be broken. 
Either foreign competition lessens the 
home production, or the low prices of the 
commodity and its consequent abundance 
induce a larger general consumption, or, 
instead of raising grain, the native farm¬ 
ers engage in fresh industries, the profits 
on which compensate the country for the 
national loss of money entailed by the 
importations. 
This view of the European agricultural 
outlook lias, doubtless, had. some influ¬ 
ence iu holding the prices of wheat at 
the present high figures throughout the 
West. But, inasmuch as the specula¬ 
tive movement which has led to the pres¬ 
ent “ bull ” operations in wheat at Chi¬ 
cago, Milwaukee, aud the tributary ter¬ 
ritories, was inaugurated a considerable 
time before any idea could be formed of 
what the coming trans-atlantio harvest 
would be, the high prices now ruling 
must be greatly due to the approaching 
culmination of the “ corner ” which Mr. 
Keene and his associates have been in¬ 
dustriously forming since the beginning 
of the year. The vast amount of capital 
at the command of the combination, to¬ 
gether with the extraordinarily low rates 
of freight to the seaboard it has obtained 
from the railroad companies, doubtless 
enables it to keep up prices temporarily, 
especially in view of the gloomy prospect 
across the water; but with the arrival of 
the new harvest in market, prices must 
sink, at least at the outset, so that it 
would probably not be unwise for those 
of our friends who are holding back grain, 
to unload during the present era of high 
figures. 
A comparison of our own crop reports 
with those in our European “exchanges” 
is an abundant source of gladness and 
thankfulness. On the whole, our crop 
prospects are prosperous, our markets 
promising, our farmers buoyant. Of 
course, there are a few exceptions, hut a 
perusal of our reports will bear us out in 
this statement. Our agricultural com¬ 
munity is toiling manfully out of the 
slough of distress in which the nation 
has been floundering of late years, and 
bearing on its broad shoulders or dragging 
behind it the rest of the population. Well 
may our farmers be proud of the past and 
hopeful of the future, and these senti¬ 
ments frequently find unconscious ex¬ 
pression in little “asides” in their re¬ 
ports. Across the water, on the other 
hand, whenever the farmer speaks of the 
outlook in his paper, he either grumbles, 
frets, or despairs. The whole agricul¬ 
tural world there is “out of joint,” with 
no risible means of setting it right. 
WHERE THE PROFIT GOMES FROM. 
Not many farmers know enough about 
the details of cost and expenditure in their 
own business, or bestow upon the subject 
sufficient study and thought, to know 
where the profit of farming comes from, 
or what direction their efforts should take 
in order to increase that profit. The phi¬ 
losophy of farming is little understood 
or written upon. Most of us stumble 
along, working by guess or “rule of 
thumb,” without any clear comprehen¬ 
sion of the elements with which wu must 
deal in making the farm pay, far less 
with any real mastery over the elements. 
We set it down as a principle, though 
few may accept it as such at first, that,— 
unless for a short time upon new soil— 
a farmer’s profits do not come from his 
land. It is very easy for a man to be 
“land-poor.” That is what ails most 
farmers at this present time. If it were 
established as a law that every young 
farmer should begin with five on ten 
acres, and be allowed no more land until 
be had brought that to a high state of 
profitable productiveness, we should sen 
very different farming from that which 
now surrounds us on every side. Land, 
indeed, is only valuable as it affords an 
opportunity to apply labor, and the accu¬ 
mulated product of labor—capital. With¬ 
out these, land will yield no profit; and 
just in proportion as labor and capital 
are judiciously expended upon it, can 
land be made a means of adding to our 
wealth—that is, to “pay.” 
It is mainly for lack of the knowledge 
of this fact—or of faith in it—and for 
want of the practical knowledge how to 
act upon it, that farming fails to pay, or 
pays poorly. There is nothing that so 
thoroughly demonstrates a poor farmer 
as to hear one say he “ cannot afford” to 
employ the labor or tbe money necessary 
for the thorough tillage and handling of 
his crops. One who thinks thus and can 
not be made to think differently, ought 
to quit farming,—and the quicker he 
quits it the better it will pay him. 
It is pitiful to see how men act in these 
matters. They have not the least faith 
in honest dealing with the soil. Their 
effort is to cheat the land—cheat nature 
—out of a living. They have as little 
faith in the natural reward of good agri¬ 
culture as sinners have in the spiritual 
reward of good moral culture. They fear 
to trust the soil to return them fair pay 
for good treatment. They fear that if 
they should properly manure and prop¬ 
erly till a field, they would lose both 
manure and labor. Why is this timidity ? 
Part of it, no doubt comes from consci¬ 
ous incapacity for the business in which 
they are engaged. But this is not always 
so. Men who are capable of raising large 
crops, and raising them with profit, will 
not habitually follow that kind of farm¬ 
ing. Having done it once—having dared 
once to sufficiently fit a field for gram or 
roots or grass, and haring received their 
reward, they seem to stand frightened at 
the result, to doubt its reality, to regard 
it as though it were a prize drawn iu a 
lottery, an event of chance, that could 
not be relied on to repeat itself. It is 
sometimes two or three years before they : 
s umm on courage to renew the experi¬ 
ment. Sometimes they never repeat it, 
but content themselves for the rest of 
their lives with telling about that big 
crop of corn or hay or potatoes they once 
raised. 
Now, this is not farming. Farming is 
a legitimate business; not a hazardous 
speculation. We have a promise which 
cau be relied upon that seed-time and 
harvest shall not fail, and a world-wide 
record of experience to show that the 
faithful, earnest labor of the husbandman 
is always rewarded. Either one or the 
other of two things upon tbe farm is 
true—that tbe labor, care and manure ex¬ 
pended upon a crop to bring it to a high 
degree of perfection will pay, or that no 
less outlay of either will pay. If the 
use of one load of manure where there 
ought to be two, and of one day’s work 
where there ought to be two, will pay a 
profit, the second load and tbe second 
day will pay a greater profit up to a cer¬ 
tain limit. If it pays a man to put out 
his own labor on a piece of land, and that 
labor is not all the crop requires to per¬ 
fect it, it will pay him still better to hire 
another man to help him. The second 
man’s labor in such a case always pays 
better than the first’s. If the result will 
not pay for both, it does not pay for 
either, and the first man onght to go at 
something else. And it is just the same 
of manure as of tillage, and just the 
same in the care and feeding of live stock. 
An insufficient expenditure in either of 
these directions is a wasteful, losing ex¬ 
penditure, whether it be of labor or of 
capital. 
The greatest cause of this kind of bad 
farming is the possession of too much 
land in proportion to capital. A farmer 
cannot bring himself to reduce his laud 
under tillage in proportion to his ability 
to supply manure and pay for labor, be¬ 
cause he fears that he “ cannot get a liv¬ 
ing from so little land.” And here, as we 
began by saying, is the fundamental mis¬ 
take. iVe do not get- our living from 
the land ; wc get it from the labor and 
capital laid out on the land. This con¬ 
centration of effort upon small areas of 
soil is something little understood in 
America. If it were, we should today 
see fewer mortgaged farms, and fewer 
sad-faced men and women toiling hope¬ 
lessly upon them. From this point of 
view, we cannot but think it would bo 
better if we had no legalized credit sys¬ 
tem iu America. Then the young farmer 
could buy no more land than he could 
pay cash for, aud would have to make 
the money from that before he could buy 
more. What a lesson this would be in 
economy aud agriculture! What a reve¬ 
lation it would be of possibilities hith¬ 
erto unbelieved iu ! What an opening it 
would be to many a young man who has 
in him the making of a good farmer, but 
who, buying more, land than he can pay 
for, lias all life and ambition and capacity 
for progress crushed out of him by the 
burden of an usurious debt. From a 
freeman with a freeman’s spirit he is 
made a slave, and acquires the stolid 
thriftlessness of slavery. 
-—♦♦♦-- 
PROBABLE DEVELOPMENT OF CHOICE 
ANIMALS. 
The Ayrshire (Scotland) Agricultural 
Association holds an annual spring show 
for the exhibition of three-year-old cows. 
The entries for this show are made when 
the animals are calves, and out of one 
hundred and eighty-eight entries, eighty 
cows entered the ring the present season. 
This shows the proportion of animals 
which develop favorably to their owners’ 
expectations. Of course no entries are 
made, or at least, few owners go to that 
trouble aud expense, except for such 
calves as promise, from the excellence of 
their dams or their pedigree, to become 
choice cows. The fact that less than half 
of the animals entered came to the show, 
proves that “although many be called 
yet few are chosenaud probably the 
result is better than the average fruition 
of the holies and expectations of breed¬ 
ers. Blood and breeding are great helps, 
but there are sports in animal life, as well 
as in vegetable, and it is not always that 
a sport perpetuates its special peculiari¬ 
ties. 
Nevertheless, to know that out of one 
hundred and eighty-eight calves from 
choice cows, one-half hold out the prom¬ 
ise of their breeding, is a sufficient proof 
that merit does not come bv accident, and 
that the breeder’s skill does raise the 
quality and value of the material upon 
which he exercises it. Besides, these 
eighty cows are the cream of the Ayr¬ 
shire stock, and unless each was so excel¬ 
lent as to give hope of success, she would 
not have taken a place in the exhibition. 
Moreover, the fact that the first-prize 
cow of the year is full sister of the first 
cow of last year, is sufficient to prove that 
breeding is of value as a test of quality. 
Lastly, we are of opinion that the pro¬ 
portion of first quality of cows reared 
from a certain number of good calves, as 
shown in this example, has very rarely, 
if ever, been surpassed by any other 
breed, although some similar and con¬ 
spicuous instances might be pointed out 
of excellence becoming hereditary in all 
well-bred animals. 
to:young readers. 
We have been told by one who was 
quite successful as a city merchaut, and 
who has been very successful as a farmer, 
that the average merchant, both clerk and 
proprietor, works much harder than the 
farmer. He says, "If the well-to-do farmer 
would educate his sons as well as does 
the well-to-do city merchant., they would 
lead far happier and more prosperous 
lives as farmers than as city merchants.” 
And we have; no doubt that it is so. Young 
girls and boys who read the Rural, we 
urge you to study hard to fit yourselves 
to be farmers and farmers’ wives. Farm¬ 
ing is susceptible of being the noblest 
pursuit of man. It is man who degrades 
it, and it is for you so to educate your¬ 
selves as first to appreciate the fact and 
then to assist in altering it to its highest 
sphere. 
-- 
BREVITIES. 
There is much less rust upon our cultivated 
wheat than upon that 6own broadcast. 
Roe's “Early Ruby " Gooseberry is now in 
bearing. The berries are half grown, and 
there is as yet no sign of mildew. 
The Western Rural says that it has grown 
Prickly Comfrey for trial, aud has not found 
an animal that would do more than smell of it. 
Cows need exercise as well as men or any 
other animals. The practice therefore of soil¬ 
ing constantly in close quarters is evidently a 
bad one. 
As fowls are usually kept by farmers, we 
think it will be found that the greater uumber 
of hens, the smaller ihe uumber of eggs from 
each hen in a given time. 
Manx thanks to many friends for the assist¬ 
ance they have offered in euabliug us to pre- 
6 eut oue of the most extensive and trustworthy 
crop reports ever presented by auy American 
journal. 
Mu. James Hogg tells us that 44 years ago, 
upon land that is now tbe northeast corner or 
10 th St., running up to 11th St., in this city, ho 
saw Pearl Millet (Cat-tail) growing vigorously. 
The patch was about 25x100 feet. No, Pearl 
Millet is not a “new” plant! 
Mu. I. K. Fkloh states in the American Cul¬ 
tivator that the superiority of the Light Brah¬ 
mas has been conceded by three-fourths of the 
whole number now interested in poultry. Do 
the sales of eggs and fowls show that? If so 
or if not so, we place ourselves in the one- 
quarter minority. 
Much less is gained by starting tomato 
plants in the house and setting them out about 
the middle of May thau is by many supposed. 
Self-sown plants will often overtake them, 
prove healthier and bear better crops. About 
nine iu ten sot out tomato plauls too early. 
Tbe 1st of June is quite early enough. 
Conn nights, impregnated with a dash of 
frost, have killed most of our squash vines 
which were just beginning to make rough 
leaves. For tbe same reason, corn has made 
little growth during the past week. A good 
deal planted late that had not made a growth of 
more than two or three inches, has been killed. 
We have to-day (Juue 20) dug our first 
Beauty of Hebron potatoes. The largest of 
them measure about seven by six inches in 
circumference. They were planted late (the 
date has escaped us}’and the season has been 
eohl and backward. We shall welcome all 
reports of luis variety, good, bad or indiffer¬ 
ent. The specimens sent us from Mississippi 
are among the finest wc have ever seen. 
Farmers need not ever expect to have beau¬ 
tiful front gardens and lawns until they are 
willing to invest in lawn-mowers. The Phil¬ 
adelphia, Buckeye, New Excelsior and others, 
are lirsl-ntie machines, aud with care will last 
for from three to live years, aecordiug to the 
amount of work they are called upon to per¬ 
form. Any of them cau be bought for from 
$15 to $85, and to those who appreciate a vel¬ 
vety lawn and a neat, bewitching garden, they 
will quickly pay lor Ihemselvcs. 
In planting late cabbages, even though the 
ground is moist, it is best to twist off at least 
one-half of each leaf. If auy oue at this time 
will try tbe experiment ol planting two rows, 
say of fifty plants each, in one ot which the 
plants are set entire while iu the other they 
arc cut or twisted in two, he will be convinced 
that the trouble of tbe latter method is more 
tbau repaid by the results. These young leaves 
will die in auy event, and they serve only to re¬ 
tard the establishment of the roots by expos¬ 
ing a larger evaporating surface thau the 
roots can possibly supply with moisture. 
How tilings come and go—among plants as 
among all tbiugs else! We are thinking of 
Ibe beautiful “ Til-color Geraniums " that but 
a few years ago farmed a considerable part ot 
our greenhouse stocks, as well as our beddiug 
plants. They were so beautiful that people 
would buy them or propagate them year after 
year iu spite ol failure upou failure as soou as 
exposed to tbe sun aud hot winds of summer. 
Madame Bollock was among the first of these 
tri-colors, and it Is strange that of the thou¬ 
sands since produced by cross-breeding or 
otherwise, this is still by far ihe best. But 
Mad. herself, is only lit for the greenhouse. 
