All©. 30 
sheds or open spaces about 20 feet wide, with 
wide avenues between. 
2. Entries are required to be made some 
weeks in advance of the show, thus giving op¬ 
portunity for making the classification and for 
issuing a catalogue giving information which 
enables any visitor to examine the entries 
without questions and at his convenience. 
These catalogues arc sold at a shilling or six¬ 
pence each; sometimes they have advertise¬ 
ments inserted, and the sale would serve to 
meet the cost. 
3. The awards are generally all made and 
announced on the lirst day of the show. The 
public is admitted, but a special high price is 
charged. At tlio larger show’s the judging of 
horses and cattlo is done in “rings” specially 
prepared for the purpose, each with a post in the 
center on which the number of the class being 
examiued is pasted,as well as the numbers of the 
animals receiving prizes in llieir proper order. 
At Kilburn and Perth special prize-list cata¬ 
logues were issued and on sale the morning of 
the second day. The j edging impressed me as 
being very carefully done; in cattle the age 
not being considered snllicicut, the animals 
being haudled to determine their quality. 
4. The programme is carried out on time—if 
the weather permits. 1 do not remember acase 
in which judging or a parade was commenced 
ten minutes after the time announced. 
5. Prominence is given to daily parades of 
horses and cattle. They are brought out by 
classes, each bearing its number and the prize- 
takers marching at the head in their order. 
The procession moves slowly once or twice 
around the ring. At Perth there were two 
parades daily'. These give an excellent oppor¬ 
tunity for examining and comparing the 
animals, and for commending or dissenting 
from the awards made. 
G. There is no ‘’special ling.” Neither at 
Kilburn nor Perth did I see a horse show in 
harness. At Leeds some special prizes offered 
by the local committees were competed for by 
single horses or carriage teams. At Perth and 
Kelso arrangements were made for testing 
the ability of haulers in jumping hurdles and 
ditches. 
7. Except for a rather wide range of articles 
in the machinery and implement classes, the 
shows are very strictly agricultural. No side 
shows are admitted into the grounds. The 
classes do not cover a wide range. Farm crops 
are nearly or quite ignored. Except in the fine 
displays made by seedmen, i have not seen a 
bushel of graiti or of grass-seed, or a speci¬ 
men of roots, vegetables or fruits. Even dairy 
products had no place at Leeds. 
8. Most of tbe sheds and buildings are can¬ 
vas-covered. Without the disadvantage of 
ordinary tents, those sheds are light, easily 
put up, turn even heavy rains well, and give 
an opportunity for usiug the same material at 
different shows. The horse sheds are hoarded 
tight on cither side, with a wide covered space 
back of the stalls, aloug which visitors can 
walk and examine the animals at any time. 
9. The refreshment stands furnish good food 
at rather high prices, and Intoxicating liquors 
in great variety. The societies do not seem to 
recognize the probability that any one would 
like to driulc water. Soda and other mineral 
waters are sold, as well as tea uud coffee ; but 
many prefer, if they must pay for drink, to 
buy beer, wine or whiskey. Hut little druuken- 
ncsB is seen, and the good order is quite notice¬ 
able. 
Among prizes not common in America, I 
have noticed, at one or the other of these 
shows, the following: “For farm laborer’s 
cow; for stallion to make the next season in 
the district where the show is held, and at a 
fixed low fee; for the best collection of farm 
horses, to include half of the working force on 
the farm; for “ families " of cattle. 
11. Much 6eems to bo made of banquets and 
dinners, at which toasts arc made and re¬ 
sponded to, sometimes at much length. At 
one I attended at Perth thero were 38 speeches 
in proposing aud responding to toasts, taking 
some three hours for tjreir delivery. In most 
eases a nobleman is president of the society. 
At each of these shows the weather has been 
bad, more or less rain falling. The attendance 
has been good, however. With nearly con¬ 
stant rain here, 31,000 persons attended the 
Yorkshire show yesterday. Leeds is a large 
city, and the attendance was much increased 
by the townsfolk. 
As a whole, I have been much pleased with 
each of these shows, and think I have learned 
useful lessons at each. 
llistcllaucons. 
MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 
8. ItUrUS MASON. 
Gardeners’ Talk. 
Ask a gardener what kind of soil you should 
use for such and such plants, and lie will re¬ 
ply, a “loose, mellow, rich and well-drained 
one.” It matters little what plant, bush or tree 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
5S3 
you speak of, that’s the condition the soil must 
be in. Take any soil on your place, sandy, 
clayey, loamy, gravelly, or even stony; make 
it as above, and the plant must do well. Hero 
is the whole secret of successful and profitable 
growth. 1 f yon are. building a house for your¬ 
self, plow, suksoij, drain, manure, plow again, 
burrow the garden fine, and drain with tiles if 
necessary, but let it, before planting, possess 
the four cardinal virtues, and there cau be no 
such word as fail. The best farms are but fac¬ 
similes of this. 
Lime for Poultry, 
T^erc are a hundred ways proposed to ob¬ 
tain lime for egg shells, bones, etc., for our 
hens. Some of these are of the most curious 
kind. One would suppose that lime was one 
of the rare substances in this world. Burnt 
oyster or clam shells, burnt bones, even egg 
shells themselves, are recommended. Teach¬ 
ing a hen to eat her own eggs is best done by 
throwing the shells to her. How many folks 
in the country have oyster or clam shells ? 
Then again, gravel—hen’s teeth—is not us 
often supplied as it ought to be. A late writer 
actually recommends pouuded bils of glass, or 
queeusware as being better than gravel. How 
strange to sec people going so far out of the 
lino of common sense! Now, both of these 
very difficult things to accomplish for the 
health of our feathered bipeds are easily done 
by making a mortar of small gravel and lime, 
in the manner of stone masons, and when the 
mortar becomes hard, breaking it up small with 
an axe. Keep this little piece of "necessity” 
always before the hens aud burn all egg shells, 
and the moral and physical character of the 
hens aud their husbands will he in the ascend¬ 
ant. 
Young Chickens. 
This season has been remarkably dry. Young 
poultry have had a fine chance, and could for¬ 
age for themselves without trouble. I have 
not fed a brood this year. Too much soft feed 
of the mush sort does not make the chicks 
grow in a healthy manner. They depend upon 
us for food, lounge around anil do not get ex¬ 
ercise enough. In wet weather they should be 
fed, but do not encourage laziness or begging 
amoug poultry. My stock of hens—60 in all—' 
have given us 3,387 eggs since January 1. We 
have used all wc wanted—about 500—and the 
sales of the balance have paid 150 per cent, on 
the value of the stock, and besides, we have 
raised a good lot of young. They are never 
fed, except in extremely unfavorable weather, 
are good foragers, and nothing eatable in their 
line—grain, seeds, worms, grubs and insects 
in general—escapes them. They are always fat 
enough to kill; their combs are of a brilliant 
red; they slug all day, and are as happy as 
clams at, high water. I use no nostrums to 
destroy hen lice; give them a dry house; keep 
no dog to annoy them; teach the eats to respect 
them, and have never had disease among them. 
They are a cross between a Iioudan rooster 
aud Light Brahma hens. 
“ All Hilled by the Frost.” 
What a common remark this is every spring! 
while it is not true in one time out of fifty. 
Trees, plants, etc., etc., which are naturally 
hardy, die every winter, because the cultivator 
violates an important law of nature. No plant 
can live through a cold winter without suffi- 
eieut moisture at the roots to keep it ulive 
and in working order. During September, 
October, November and December, the usual 
droughts and high winds exhaust all the moist¬ 
ure from the soil about the roots, leaving 
them nearly dead from that cause alone. It is 
little wonder, therefore, that frost fiuishes 
them. Now, Nature mulches everything so 
well that the moisture is retained, the plant 
lives aud grows all winter. It takes a very low 
temperature indeed, to kill a tree, if the roots 
can still perform their duties. Now is the time 
to mulch everything, the more tender the 
plants, the more protection they require. 
Scientific Terms* for the Million, 
It is quite common among a certain class of 
agricultural writers to use terms not under¬ 
stood by farmers, and as books of reference 
are seldom found in a farmer’s 'ibrary, the 
whole article becomes valueless. It is quite com¬ 
mon for agricultural editors thcmselvos to copy 
from foreign journals accounts of crop yields 
expressed in the weights and measures of the 
country where the crops grow. Here is another 
difficulty which few can surmount. Even 
sums of mouoy are deceptive if given in for¬ 
eign currency. Everything should be in plaiu 
English; money, weights and measures should 
be reduced to our terms, and theu if the reader 
could not understand, he should go one more 
quarter to night school. 
FIRE INSURANCE. 
In the Rural of Aug. 2 I notice an article 
headed, “l)t>es Insurance Against Fire Cost 
Too Much?” in which the writer goes onto 
show that, notwithstanding tbo enormous losses 
by fires In large cities, and the great expeuse 
attendant upon the management of stock com¬ 
panies, in the shape of officers’ salaries, agents, 
etc., the average rate of dividends of such 
companies is from to 14 per cent. He cites 
one company, with a capital of less than 
$200,000, whose president and secretary re¬ 
ceived each a salary of $15,000 a year, and 
adds, “The trouble is, it costs too much to run 
the business.’’ 
Now, why do uot farmers insure themselves? 
Why should rural property, which runs hut 
small risk of loss by fire or lightning, pay the 
losses in large cities? If farmers would or¬ 
ganize mutual insurance companies in which 
to insure their property, the cost to them 
would not be a tithe of what it is in the stock 
companies. This is not theory, for it has been 
demonstrated repeatedly. In the town of Rip¬ 
ley, Chautauqua county, N. Y., there has been 
such a company in existence nearly or quite 
25 years, and although property in the village 
is also included, there have been but two fires 
during the existence of the company, amount¬ 
ing in the aggregate to $1,000. The whole cost 
to the insured for the 25 years has not been 
more than ouc-twenticth of one per cent. 
In several counties of the State the Grange 
has organized lire relief associations, in which 
the insured agrees to pay his pro-rata assess¬ 
ment of all losses which may occur; and al¬ 
though there had been no laws which would 
oblige one to pay until they were passed by 
the last session of the Legislature, 1 have yet 
to learn of a single instance in which the loss 
has not been promptly paid, and this, too, 
without the interposition of adjusters, and the 
cutting down of just claims, as is frequently 
the case in stock companies. 
We have such an one in this county, which 
lias been in existence two years, with some¬ 
thing over $200,000 insured. Wo have recently 
had. one flfty-dollar fire, the loss by which has 
been promptly paid. The cost of insuring is 
extremely small, being one-seventh, onc- 
eiglith, one-ninth and one-tenth of ouo per 
cent., according to the class of building and 
exposure to risk. The insurance runs for five 
years, instead of three, as in most of the stock 
companies. Aud this is all the expense, unless 
a loss occurs. The property Is taken at a low 
valuation, as it is thought if each man carries 
a part of his own risk, it will have a tendency 
to make him more careful, and the company 
does not intend to offer any premium for ras¬ 
cality. Then, if a loss occurs, the assessed 
have the consolation of knowing that each 
man’s money goes directly to relieve the neces¬ 
sities of a brother, and not to build marble 
palaces, or to pay $30,000 a year for salaries 
of two men, or to bay whisky and cigars for 
agents. 
Our last Legislature passed an act, in May, 
to legalize the formation of mutual insurance 
companies, in both town and county, with 
power to collect assessments; and now all 
that seems necessary to secure cheap insurance 
is to organize under this act. There is a la¬ 
mentable. lack of confidence in farmers, not 
ouly toward each other, but in their own busi¬ 
ness ability. Here the Grange, together with 
such papers as the Rural and other first-class 
agricultural publications, comes in as a great 
educator, slowly but surely lifting the masses 
out of ignorance and prejudice and teaching 
them to look to themselves for protection 
against sharpers and swindlers of all kinds, 
aud to trust in their own ability to carry out 
such business projects as concern themselves 
alone. g. 
Jamestown, Chautaqua Co., N. Y. 
Brockwurlli Psrk and Bonne D'Ezee Pears. 
The pear sent out from England a few years 
since and heralded in this country with a sound 
of trumpets as a uew variety under the name 
of Brockworth Park, is an old sort, Bonne d’ 
Ezce, or Bonne de Zees. This has been proved 
to the satisfaction of pomologista in this sec¬ 
tion from the garden of Mr. Jas. H. Ricketts 
aud the orchard of Mr. T. S. Force, north of 
this city. a. a, b. 
Newburgh, N. Y. 
-♦♦ » 
WHAT OTHERS SAY. 
Raspberries. 
Mn. E. Williams, of Montclair, communi¬ 
cates the following to the Cincinnati Horticul¬ 
tural Society: “ We are trying the Gregg, but 
must wait till next season before we can form 
any opinion. The Ganargua is large, but the 
color being neither red nor black, it is of little 
account. The New Rochelle of same color 
but larger, makes a splendid show at first, but 
tbe color would kill It as a market fruit, and the 
quality is only medium, or below. Highland 
Hardy is very early nnd good, but too soft and 
perishahle for a distant market. The Thwack 
was introduced here some years ago as the 
best that ever was. We invested $2 in them, 
but “ nary” a plant grew ; killed in advance, 1 
suspect; plenty of like experience hereabouts; 
have not heard favorable accounts enough of 
it since to induce us to try it again, but it 
seems Mr. Ohmor regards it favorably. 
A word as to the identity of Miami and 
Mammoth Cluster. It was originally sent 
East by Western parties as Miami Black Cap. 
but when prices declined and they were slow 
of sale, certain parties moved it to New York 
State, aud re-christened it Mammoth Cluster, 
made a great ado about it, and no doubt 
made money by the operation. It was not 
until the trick was discovered and exposed 
that an effort was made to cover up the fraud, 
by pretending that there was a smaller berry 
from Southern Ohio known as the old Miami, 
to which the name properly belonged. We 
bought some of tbe newly-baptized infant at 
$20 per 100, and they proved the same thing 
we were selling £t $5. We have discarded 
them both. They are identical—a week later 
than Doolittle, a little larger, bnt not as good. 
Contradictory stories as to Pearl Millet ap¬ 
pear in other journals as well as in the Rural. 
We extract the following notes from the Coun¬ 
try Gentleman : 
Pearl Millet. —Having heard a great deal 
in favor of the Pearl Millet as fodder for cat¬ 
tle, I sent for a very small quantity of seed last 
spring and sowed it in drills in a good spot 
It lias not come up. I am sorry, as I was quite 
anxious to know how it looked. I think, no 
doubt, the Pearl Millet will do well in Africa 
and some of the Southern States. o. u. a. 
Charlotte, vt., July 28 . 
I bought eight dollars’ worth of Pearl Mil¬ 
let seed, and sowed it May 20th, in drills. 
Directions were followed to the letter, with 
great care. The last of June I plowed up one- 
half of it, and planted corn for fodder. Tho 
Millet is a total failure. D. n. 
Waukesha, Wls. 
My experiment with this valuable forage 
plant has been a success. I get more feed from 
40 cents, lhan I ever saw, on a plot of ground 
30 by 300 feet, sowed in drills two feet apart. 
The second growth, where cut July 15th, is 
now two feet high. I think, from my small 
experiment this season, that I have learned 
something about growing Pearl Millet. Peter 
Henderson tells a good story about Millet, but 
I have reason to believe that., uuder proper 
cultivation, it cau be realized. i. u. c. 
Old Westbury, L. I., Aug. 1st. 
-» »♦ 
We have just learnt that Messrs. Smith & 
Powell, of Syracuse, New York, have import¬ 
ed 24 additional Holsteins, while Mr. W. B. 
Smitb will leave Holland in a few days with 50 
more, making 110 in all imported by them 
within a twelvemonth. Six carefully selected 
Clydesdale stallions will also accompany Mr 
Smith on his return. 
■ ■ -♦»» - 
PAMPHLETS AND CATALOGUES. 
Catalogue and description of Wier’s new 
hardy Seedling Cherries and other fruits aud 
plants grown from seed by Daniel Wicr, pro¬ 
prietor of the Lacou Nurseries, Lacon, Mar¬ 
shall Co., Illinois. We have heard much— 
first and last—of Mr. Wicr’s seedling cherries 
(we have given an account of some of them in 
these columns), aud arc glad to know that 
they arc offered for sale. The introduction of 
Wier'e seedlings may serve to recall an in¬ 
terest in cherry culture, so much neglected of 
late years. 
Dutchess Nurseries— Summer list of Straw¬ 
berry plants, pot grown and layers, W. P. Fer¬ 
ris, Prop., 387 Main St., Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
Mr. Ferris succeeds to the late firm of Ferris 
<fe Minard. 
Industrial Jinjilniunts. 
HAY CAPS AND STACK COVERS. 
The hay crop has become such an important 
one, and at the same lime prices for tho staple 
rule so low that it is to a farmer’s best interests 
to husband every pound, aud try to avoid the 
reproach of carelessness in handling it. Now, 
if ever, it is the many a mickle that makes tbe 
muckle. A great source of waste, both of 
time, money and material, is the wetting cured 
hay is likely to receive while in eoeks. or being 
stacked, because of sudden rains. This i6 easily 
prevented by the use of canvas covers that 
are adjusted iu a few minutes, and act as 
an eflieieut protection. Wo have frequently 
had inquiries where to get them, and we were, 
at ouu time, asked by a Grange to purchase a 
quantity of duck and make some up for the 
convenience of our readers. Wo have seen, 
recently, some covers, both for stacks and 
eoeks, made by a Chicago firm, Gilbert, Hub- 
hard A Co., which are cut in the proper size 
and nicely finished with an eyelet and rope in 
each corner, which render their fastening easy. 
They are sold at reasonable prices, and made of 
the best material. 
