THE RURAL HEW-YORKER. 
OCT.25 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
CONDUCTED BY 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
78 Duans Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY, OCT. 25, 1879. 
Applicants for seeds are requested not to 
stick their stamps to the letters. This prac¬ 
tice causes us much trouble and the stamps 
are often destroyed in the attempt to sever 
them from the paper. Leave them loose in the 
letters. 
INHERITANCE. 
From time immemorial, until com¬ 
paratively of recent date, the possessions 
of a father, on his death, descended to his 
posterity, in some cases all to his oldest 
son, in others to all children, but in 
different proportions, and in others still 
to wife and children in equal amounts. 
Innovations on this custom were made 
at different periods, and the State or the 
king claimed a portion of every estate, 
the rest being distributed. In still later 
years a person while living w r as permitted 
to dispose, by will to take effect at his 
death, of one-third of his property, the 
rest being divided between his widow and 
the king. The right of the king to any 
portion was afterward contested, but that 
of the widow to her dower still remains 
intact, while the remainder, in case no 
will is made, is divided among the blood 
relations of the deceased in such way as 
is by the law provided. 
Where property haBcome into the pos¬ 
session of a person by inheritance it 
seems right that it should pass down in 
the blood as it is termed, but wherein 
children or other relatives, the wife ex¬ 
cepted, have any right to the property 
accumulated by another by his labor, 
skill, or business capacity, we fail to see, 
and the fact that the law admits of a 
parent’s right to dispose of his property 
without consulting his children, shows 
the growth of public opinion in the right 
direction. The children, however, do 
not seem to see it in that light. They 
appear to feel that, the parent’s duty is to 
roll up a competence, by hard labor if 
need be, that they may live lives of ease 
and luxury. Hence it is that we have so 
many contested wills and disputes about 
estates occupying the time of the courts, 
at great expense to the public who have 
no interest in the matter. 
It iB true that children do not come into 
the world of their own volition, and the 
responsibility of the parents is recog¬ 
nized in that they are obliged to support 
them during their infancy. It is sup¬ 
posed that every child is an expense until 
rt arrives at the age of 10 or 12 years. 
From this age, for three or four years, it 
is considered able to earn its own support, 
and after that until the age of 21, to earn 
enough more than its necessary expenses i 
to refund to the parents what they may 
have been out of pocket ou its account 
during its infancy. In the present con¬ 
dition of society, the parent is usually 
considerably out of pocket when the 
child attains its majority, but that is, per¬ 
haps, not the fault of the child. The law 
supposes the account to be adjusted and 
the books balanced when the child is 21 
yews old and sets out in the world for 
himself. 
But whatever may be right as to inher¬ 
itance of property, there are inheritances 
of other kinds that the child has an inher¬ 
ent right to demand from its parents, aud 
which if they neglect to provide they do 
an injustice and a wrong that cannot be 
made good either in this world or in the 
next. First, and most important of 
these rights, is that of a good consti¬ 
tution, for ou this one thing depends 
mainly the child’s chances of success in 
all things. Above all money valuation is 
a sound mind in a sound body, and with¬ 
out the latter the former is seldom found. 
It is therefore the most Bolemu duty of 
the parents to so live, and obey the 
laws of their physical being that their 
children shall inherit none of the ills that 
flesh is heir to, but be strong and vigor¬ 
ous. Further, it is now the universally re¬ 
ceived belief that children inherit from 
their parents mental as well as physical 
qualities, and that even to the third or 
fourth generation the peculiar charac¬ 
teristics of the ancestors can be found 
with more or less clearness in their off¬ 
spring. 
Has any parent a moral rigid to make 
his child* a thief or drunkard? But 
thousands are so living to-day that child¬ 
ren yet unborn will be what the lives of 
the parents now live will make them. 
"We may not be able to trace depravity 
so far back as Adam, but au honest sou 
is pretty good evidence of au honest 
father. .Just so sure as the inordinate 
use of tobacco, alcohol or opium in a 
parent begets a love of stimulants in his 
children, is it that the improper use of 
any of the moral or mental faculties will 
prove injurious to coming generations. 
Wc can only touch on these points ; but 
are glad to be able to refer those inter¬ 
ested in the subject to many valuable 
•works now easily procured and which 
should be generally read. 
Another inheritance parents should be 
proud to leave, is a good name. How¬ 
ever much they may be lacking in world¬ 
ly possessions, or vigor of mind or body, 
this is always within their reach. Rec¬ 
titude and righteousness every man can 
have if he will; if he have them not, he 
deprives his children of a birth-right of 
no little value, beside weighing them 
down with a load that it may take a life¬ 
time of earnest endeavor to get rid of. 
Parents, think of these things, and for 
your own sake-s as well as that of your 
children, live wisely, think rightly, act 
nobly and you will leave such inheritance 
that your children will rise up aud call 
you blessed. 
--♦ ♦-»- 
THE FIELD FOR VETERINARIANS. 
It is a noteworthy fact that while on the 
other side of the Atlantic veterinary sur¬ 
geons are almost as numerous, and we 
may say, considered relatively as indis¬ 
pensable as doctors of medicine, they are 
practically unknown in the United 
States. The whole number of educated 
and skilled veterinarians in this country 
at present, it has been asserted on good 
authority, does not exceed three hundred, 
at the most liberal estimate. It is only 
in the large cities where great numbers 
of domestic animals are congregated, 
such as car-horses and dairy-cattle, that 
there has been made any skilled effort for 
the prevention and cure of diseases from 
which these animals may sutler. 
This almost total absence of veterin¬ 
arians is not due to a lack of "work for 
them, but rather to a want of appreciation 
of what they might accomplish in saving 
animal life. 
The live-stock interest and its relation 
to veterinary practitioners may appear 
clearer when put in figures. In 1870 the 
total value of the live-stock in the United 
States was estimated at two thousand mfl- 
liou dollars, while since then it has in¬ 
creased by hundreds of millions. During 
the three’first months of the current year, 
when lives-tock trade was at its slackest, 
the exportation^ of live animals amounted 
to $1,764,568. Yet it is a fact that this 
enormous quantity of perishable pro¬ 
perty, from which this country is pre¬ 
pared, to a great extent, to supply the 
markets of the world with beef, mutton 
and pork is, practically left unprotected 
against the inroads of disease, by a lack 
of skilled veterinarians. At the opening 
on the 2nd inst., of the American Vet¬ 
erinary College of this city, the President 
stated that the loss of animals by disease 
in the State of New York alone, had for a 
single year run as high as $10,000,000. 
The built of this sum might have been 
saved, had proper treatment been avail¬ 
able. But especially is the lack of vet¬ 
erinarians felt when contagious diseases 
make their appearance. The dreaded 
pleuro-pueumonia infecting the cattle on 
the Atlantic coast, and which a few 
months ago threatened to be so destruc¬ 
tive both to commerce and animal life, 
could never have gained so tenacious a 
foothold had there been men qual¬ 
ified to discern and stamp out 
the disease from the first. But not 
only from a financial point of view 
is veterinary^ skill needed; humane 
considerations* also demand that means 
should be provided to relieve the suffering 
animals that now are either subjected to 
the barbarous operations of ignorant 
quacks in the profession, or drag out a 
miserable existence till they finally drop 
and die. 
Here is a field of work for energetic 
young men—a field, too, that offers as 
honored a position, and as good compensa¬ 
tion as that of medicine or better. Should 
one in three of those who now study to 
cure the afflictions of the genus homo, 
turn their attention to animal diseases in¬ 
stead, we believe that the veterinary field 
would, for a quarter of a century to come, 
only be partially filled, while the doctors 
of medicine would still increase in undue 
proportion to the population. 
-- - 
THE YIELD OF OUR BLOUNT CORN. 
The mistake which we made in our 
Blount com test, was in the selection of 
a plot on the supposition that the season 
was to be a dry one. The plot had been 
in pasture for a number of years, the 
ditches had become obstructed so that 
when the heavy storm of early summer 
visited ns, the water remained in places 
long enough to kill many plants and so 
to weaken others that they never 
amounted to anything afterwards. A 
frost also killed a number of plants whUo 
few of those from the second planting 
had time to mature. We beg to state that 
we h ave no interest in Blount’s corn or 
in any other corn, seeds or plants what¬ 
soever, beyond what their merits justify. 
But it is ‘ only fair that the palpable 
causes should be stated why our yield of 
Blount's corn was not considerably 
greater tlian it turned ont to be. The 
plot was an exact quarter of an acre, i. e. 
82 ix 132 feet. Ten loads of coarse barn¬ 
yard manure were plowed under, and 100 
lbs. of Baugh k Son’s superphosphate 
Bownbroadcast. ^Then it was harrowed and 
rolled each three times. One kernel was 
planted every 14 inches in the rows, the 
rows four feet apart. We have harvested 
from this plot 18 bushels of shelled com, or 
at the rate of 72 bushels per acre, which, 
when the disadvantages under which the 
crop was grown are fully considered, 
proves this in our estimation to be the 
most prolific variety of com we have ever 
cultivated. Whether this opinion of ours 
is or is not well founded, will soon be de¬ 
termined by the reports of the thousands 
among whom our seed was distributed. 
-- 
SOLUBLE AND INSOLUBLE PHOSPHATES. 
Fon the first orop it is often supposed 
that soluble phosphate ( i. e. super-phos¬ 
phate or bones or mineral phosphate dis¬ 
solved in sulphuric acid) is nearly twice 
the value to a crop that insoluble phos¬ 
phate is. 
During the past three years this ques¬ 
tion lias been the * subject of a very 
thorough investigation in Aberdeenshire, 
as we learn from the London Gazette, 
and the results are by no means in accord¬ 
ance with the above supposition. On com¬ 
paring the dissolved with the undissolved 
phosphates, the superiority of the former 
has been found to be “ only slight” and 
not maintained at all the stations where 
this series of experiments has been car¬ 
ried on, The importance of a fine state 
of division is strikingly illustrated by the 
differences shown in the crops grown by 
bone powder and bone flour. The first 
crop from the Hour is heavier by about a 
fourth than that grown by the powder, 
though the first contained the same quan¬ 
tity of phosphates as and rather less nitro¬ 
gen than the latter. It would appear from 
these experiments that the costly process 
of dissolving is for some soils, at least, 
altogether unnecessary. It is very hard 
to get at the “ true inwardness” of the 
action of concentrated fertilizers. 
--- ♦» »- 
Salt and the Pear Blight.—What 
can our readers tell us about the prob¬ 
able benefit of salt around pear trees ? 
Does it prevent the blight ? Are the 
t rees near the salt ocean coast as liable to 
be injured as those in the interior ? H ave 
any tried the effect of sowing salt thickly 
under and around the trees? The in¬ 
quiry is prompted by information in 
regard to the matter, that suggests fur¬ 
ther investigation. 
--- 
BREVITIES. 
Give the potato ashes, lime, superphos¬ 
phate, bone flour or plaster. 
Tub Jerusalem Artichoke is recommended as 
the next best thing in England to make amends 
for the loss uf the potato crop. 
It seems there are many now who agree 
with onr correspondent) Mr. I.ovett, viz. that 
Cuthbert and Queen of the Market are the 
same Raspberry. 
Thanks for one experiment. “ Clinton,” who 
may be trusted, gives the results of his test 
with weevil-culen peas, printed on last page of 
this issue. 
The experiments of Dr. Voelcker go to show 
that the most valuable manures for potatoes 
are phosplioric-acid aud nitrogen, aud that 
potash is only occasioually helpful. 
There is probably no better time in the 
whole year than the present for pruning and 
cutting back grape-vines, all sorts of fruit 
trees and ornamental trees and shrubs. 
Sir Garnet Wolseley has bad a new encum¬ 
ber named after him. It produces cucumbers 
in abundance, of a pale green color, “of ex¬ 
cellent flavor," 20 inches long and of the same 
thickness from end to end. 
Ill eke is one matter that most farmers 
neglect viz., to have a largo quantity of coarse, 
pure sand in their cellars or out-houses where 
roots etc., arc wintered. There is not a root 
or fruit that we know of that will not keep 
better in sand than out of it. 
Tub specimen of the Wiuter St. Lawrence 
apple received from Dr. Hoskins, and illus¬ 
trated on page <188. was very handsome, with 
firm, line-grained tiesb, and spicy, subacid 
taste, though it is uot yet iu eating, and there¬ 
fore a reliable judgment of its qualify cannot 
bo given until later iu the season. 
Tub editor of the California Horticulturist 
mentions the fruiting of Akebia quinataon his 
place as something worthy of record, as he 
deemed it dioecious and there was but oner 
blooming plant. Our own vines have never 
fruited, but we have often noticed both male 
and female flowers upon the same plant. 
M Erwood sends us a basket of leaves and 
fruit of his Erwood’s Everbearing Raspberry. 
We bavc had several plants pf this variety for 
several years. The Derry is of medium size, 
red and of fine flavor. But the vine is not an 
abundant bearer with us at any time, though 
after the regular early fruiting, it continues 
to ripen a few berries until frost. 
In Hillsboro’ N- C., we learn there was au 
orange tree growing under a large tree of the 
Osage Orange. When the fruit of the true 
Orange was produced, it revealed a remarkable 
combination of the qualities of the fruits of 
the two trees which are so similar in name but 
so distinct in nature. The case is well-estab- 
lished — having been closely observed by those 
who were intelligent. But we cannot believe 
the phenomenon due to the contiguity of the 
trees. 
Thottoh the United States are pre-eminently 
characterized by their numberless companies 
and organizations of all kinds, Europe is 
ahead this time. Denmark has an insurance' 
company against damage to crops by hail¬ 
storms. Hailetorms are quite frequent in the 
spring of the vear in the countries around the 
Baltic, though* it is only occasionally that the 
hailstones are large enough to do severe 
harm. The company is said to be liberally 
patronized by the farmers. 
Mr. L. S. Hardin says in the London Ag. 
Gazette. spcakiDg of our great International 
Dairy Fair that “It is to be hoped that the 
dairymen of England will send over their best 
goods, and, as they will find both the markets 
aud awards remunerative, we hope they toll 
take full advantage of the opportunity, and 
send us shiploads of exhibits. We would be 
glad to see a much more extensive exhibit of 
dairy utensils than was shown last year. 
Whatever is done, we hope it will be by early 
and energetic action. 
In Centennial days a great splurge was made 
over standard Currants and Gooseberries. All 
the finest European sorts could thus be suc¬ 
cessfully grown upon the Missouri currant 
stock. They would resist mildew and borers. 
Engravings of plants loaded with fruit were' 
published in the leading papers. Two dollars 
each were charged for single plants, and many 
were sold. The Rural bought six, as we re¬ 
member. Except thut they arc interesting to 
strangers, few who have tried these standards 
would care to purchase them again at any 
price. 
The French are, almost proverbially, poor 
colonists. In a new settlement they perform 
all the early duties of a colonist excellently, 
and conciliate the natives better perhaps than 
people of any other nationality, but their col¬ 
onies do not {increase. The fact is that the 
French inhabitant of a city seldom emigrates, 
and the French peasant or farmer, never— 
well hardly ever. It is a trifle strange there¬ 
fore to hear that a body of 259 small farmers 
are now on the way to settle in this country. 
Well French farmers are the thriftiest in the 
world ; aud may in this respect teach most of 
our farmers a useful lesson. 
The Duke of Beaufort and Mr. Walter, M. 
P., proprietor of the London Times, are among 
the latest prominent public characters in Eng¬ 
land who have declared their belief that Great 
Britain canuot compete with this country in 
wheat production. They advise, native farmers 
to plant less wheat and pay more attention to 
products in which there is less to be feared 
from foreign competition—such stock rtus- 
ing In reality, however, it is by no means 
improbable that with the rapid improvement 
of our herds here, American meat will ere long 
be as powerful a competitor of home-raised 
meat in the British markets as American wheat 
is now of home-grown wheat. 
One important consideration anent English 
agricultural depression, seems to a correspon¬ 
dent, of the Loudon Agricultural Gazette, to 
have been overlooked. It is that truth lies at 
the bottom of a well. Now, he thinks most 
of the inquirers arc busily engaged upon the 
surface, reporting the state of farms and so 
forth. Mr. Jenkins has gone to Denmark. 
Messrs. Pell and Read to America, entrusted 
with the office of investigating the agricultural 
resources and methods of various sections of 
the country —bnt nobody has been commis¬ 
sioned to go down the well where the whole 
truth of the matter lies hid. Soouer or later 
somebody must, go down this wbII. It canuot 
much longer be shirked. 
Seedsmen and others inquire of us for seeds 
of the Goldeu Rural tomato. We have none 
to sell—none to give away. The entire stock 
is in the hands of onr subscribers. We have 
several distinct varieties of red tomatoes 
which, in the course of u year or so—life 
spared—wc hope to offer to our subscribers. 
We have been breeding for two years for a 
better keeper, while yet the new sort shall 
preserve the medium size, round, seamless 
contour aud solidity of flesh which character¬ 
ize the good Acme. As regards selling seeds, 
it is necessary we should repeat that we have 
never yet, iu a single instance, sold a seed or a 
plant. Our old friends must excuse ns for re¬ 
peating this bo often. They know our rule, 
but our new (fiends do not. 
A novel system of agriculture has for a 
number of years beeu practiced on a farm in 
Hertfordshire, England. The owner, Mr. t rout, 
instead of harvesting the cops himself, di¬ 
vides the Adds into lots when the gram begins 
to ripen, and the crops are sold upon their 
roots at public auction. No live stock is kept, 
aud tiie fertility of the soli is entirely kept up 
by anificiul manure. For the thirteen years, 
since 1806, the average expenses of ruiimiig 
the farm have yearly amounted to 
and the net iucome for the same period lias 
yearly averaged 10 per cent, of that sum, or 
la,(540. It has thus proved a decided success, 
while numberless farms cultivated by the 
ordinary method, have beeu barely able to 
pay expenses, aud many have run behind¬ 
hand. 
