THE RURAL ftEW-YORKER. 
bine bloom; flesh tender, juicy and sweet, 
with a rich aromatic flavor. 
$amt topics. 
AUTUMN WORK. 
Preparing lor Winter. 
Last week we suggested some general prin¬ 
ciples that might help to decide the method 
and order of fall work on the farm. Wc now 
call attention to certain minor items of work 
apt to be neglected, or put off too long. 
Fall work naturally divides itself Into three 
classes: 1, harvesting the crops of the scasou ; 
2, puttiug things to rights before snow and 
steady cold come, and 8, permanent improve¬ 
ments, or work for the coming year or years. 
The first of these is of first, importance, and 
should be well finished before the others are 
begun, unless, indeed, the weather be such as 
to permit work on them, aud not on it. The 
second, as intimated, is of a kind most likely 
to be deferred or neglected. Much of if is 
small, ‘’fussy,” unpleasant, and apparently 
not remunerative. You don’t seem to he ac¬ 
complishing anything when at work at it. 
When you harvest aud market the season’s 
crops, and with the proceeds make much- 
needed purchases, or forever wipe out some 
annoying debt, j t ou feed as if you were ” doing 
something.” Work of the third class, too, 
brings the same feeling in a slightly different 
form. If you thoroughly tile-drain a field of 
stiff clay, you feel that you have doubled the 
value of the land for tillage, and that under 
proper cuttimalion tbo cost of labor aud mate¬ 
rial will be repaid, net, by one or two succeed¬ 
ing crops. If you have cleared a rough uud 
half-productive pasture of its stones, grubbed 
its useless bushes, trees and slumps, and plowed 
the whole, your work,except the plowing, will 
never have to be repeated. Such jobs as this 
and the draiuiug are permanent improvements. 
They have a certain fascination about them. 
They make you feel that you are “getting on,” 
doing something that shall last, and show, aud 
pay every year of your life, and bless others 
When you are dead. You have a good right to 
like such work. 
But work of the second kind has little fas¬ 
cination about it. It may be necessary to 
bauk cellars, strip bean poles, clear eaves- 
troughs. repair barn doors, nail loose battens, 
set broken glass and “ fix up” for winter, but 
it is not inspiring. You dislike to let your 
horses lie idle while you potter” over it. 
And so the strong tendency is to keep at work 
on the “ big ” and “ important ” jobs, and neg¬ 
lect these smaller matters. Hence the need of 
special reminders in regard to them. Aud yet 
we prefer to suggest some general principles, 
aud present some considerations that may help 
to remove the feeling of dissatisfaction, that 
comes over one when engaged in this “pot¬ 
tering" work, rather than to give minute and 
specific hints aud exhortations. For “nag¬ 
ging,” as Dr. John Hall Calls it, is bad both for 
mau and beast. Constant “ clucking,” Lwiteh- 
ing of the reins, aud small whipping will spoil 
the freest horse. The best parents suggest 
rather than command. The best teachers 
teach little. They put their pupils in the way 
to learn. They make them think for them¬ 
selves. We once heard a wise college president 
quaintly say that he “ never believed in chew¬ 
ing a boy's bread-and-butter for him." 
Now farmers feel in the same way. A feel¬ 
ing of disgust comes over them as they glauce 
down three or four columns of minute “In¬ 
structions for the Mouth ” for “ farm, garden, 
orchard and nursery,” arranged alphabetically, 
perhaps, and prepared by some city editor w’ho 
does not know half so much of the rnimdue. of 
farm work as the farmers themselves do. And 
so we prefer to suggest general principles, as al¬ 
ready intimated, and illustrate by a few spe¬ 
cific examples. And we beg pardon in advance 
for the somewhat dictatorial tone induced by 
our effort to secure conciseness. We trust we 
shall never forget that we are writing for in¬ 
telligent farmers, some of whom have far 
greater knowledge of detail than, perhaps, we 
can ever hope to possess. 
First, then :—Be fore-handed. “ Fore-armed 
is well aimed.” Take pleasant weather, too, 
if possible, for this kind of work. There is 
nothing more disheartening than to see the 
belated farmer rush about in the first snow- 
stonn, mending barn doors, windows and floors 
ready to stable bis shivering cows. Even if 
the cows arc not stabled at milking time all 
summer— as they should be—the stable should 
at least be in perfect readiness for them, as feed 
shortens and winter approaches. 
The cellar should be banked, if necessary, 
and the double windows and storm-doors put 
up in the dwelling house, before, they are 
needed. A shrewd satire on many fanners, 
and many other men, too, is the story of the 
shiftless but witty fiddler. He was playing 
beneath his leaky cottage roof, and a passer¬ 
by who tried to share his shelter (?) said, 
“ Why don’t you mernd your thatch ?" ” Why. 
man, I should get wetter yet iu doing that!’ 
“Yes, but I mean why don't you mend it when 
it doesn't rain ?” “ Why, man, it doesn't leak 
then!” 
SecondDo such work yourself, and don’t 
let it stop the team work, either. Don’t trust 
this “pottering” work to hired man or boy. 
They will not do it well or expeditiously. Set 
them at work on steady jobs with teams— 
plowing, drawing manure, or something of 
that kind—where they will do as touch as if 
you were there—or if not, you can know it— 
and yourself do this kind of work. It needs 
ingenuity and good judgment. A hired man 
seldom has these—a man fit to be a farmer 
must have them. 
Third:—Aim at permanence, even iu such 
work. Not all of it needs constant or even 
annual repetition. Avoid make-shifts, pateh- 
Wdrk. “Once well done is twice done.” Make 
barns, fences, etc., thoroughly, and they will 
seldom need repairing. When tbej’do, repair 
them thoroughly, and it W’ili not soon need to 
be repeated. Cellars, too, need not be “banked 
up” every year. Tan-bark and sawdust all 
around the cellar, held in place by boards and 
stakes, are unsightly and expensive. They 
must he taken away iu spring and renewed 
each fall. If the grading is properly done, 
they are needless. If not properly done, do it 
this fall. Set men and teams at it, aud man¬ 
age it yourself. Put "dump-boards” on your 
wagons and draw good dirt and make a slope, 
or terrace if necessary, up within half a foot 
of the sill or clapboards all around IheTiouse, 
and turf it firmly and neatly. It will never 
need to be done again, and the cellar Will not. 
freeze if It has double windows and a good 
double door or hatchway, unless it freezes 
down from above through a cold house or 
room. 
So, too, if the caves-troughsget stopped with 
leaves, cut away the limb or tree that shed the 
leaves. The roof should not he shaded. A 
damp house is an unhealthy one. OP again, 
if the outlets of tile drains tend to stoppage, 
they should be bricked or stoned up well, aud 
a wide, open ditch, with well-beveled sides, be 
dug till it shades off at the surface of the 
ground. It will last for years, if made deep 
enough and protected from the tramping of 
animals. Illustrations might be extended in¬ 
definitely, and they all say, “work for perma¬ 
nence. or aim at thoroughness.” 
Fourth:—Do not let such work accumulate. 
As soon as a thing breaks or gets out of repair, 
mend it. As soon as you are done with tools 
or implements or machines, house them, and 
as soon as you are done with each for the sea¬ 
son, store it snugly for the winter. It is easier 
to keep things iu order than to keep putting 
them in order. Don’t let things get into a 
condition—like Aunt Dinah’s kitchen in “ Un¬ 
cle Tom”—to require a grand “el'ar’n up.” 
Finally, settle it well iu your mind that even 
this kind of work pays. It certainly does, and 
you can have no heart in it unless you believe 
it does. It pays iu comfort, aud in cash, too. 
In comfort, for any neglected duty brings un¬ 
easiness, and its performance brings relief. 
And the smaller the duly and the less time re¬ 
quired for its performance, the greater the 
folly of its neglect. An unhoused mowing- 
machine, or a row of beau poles with their 
dry vines whistling in the winter wind, is a 
constant “ thorn in the flesh,” unless your 
flesh is dead and yourself “lost to sense and 
hope." Tull out the thorn and take the re¬ 
sulting comfort. Don’t endure weeks of tor¬ 
ture with an aching tooth when three seconds 
of “cold iron” will end it. 
This kind of work, too, pays in cash. Dr. 
Franklin's Poor Richard said: “A penny saved 
is a penuy earned.” This is both true and 
false; true as he meant it; false as some peo¬ 
ple understand it. True if the penny is saved 
from waste or foolish expenditure; false if it 
be hoarded and kept from wise use. Miserly 
laziness is not as good as productive industry. 
The writer’s good father used to tell of a rich 
mau who would dismount, in riding, to pick 
up a nail, because “he could save it quicker 
than he could make it.” But if his time was 
worth anything, he was a fool for doing so. 
If he couldu’t make it quicker, some one else 
could; aud if he couldn't make it quicker, he 
could earn it quicker. The real cost of the 
nail was its infinitesimal value as iron, plus 
the click of a machine that turns out about 
three hundred to the minute. Its cost to him 
was tbe labor of a whole minute. If you can¬ 
not save a thing, oven from waste, quicker 
than you can “make” or “earn" it, then do 
not save it. But iu the kind of work we are 
speaking of, you can. It pays even under this 
close test. You can save more by housing im¬ 
plements, and getting — or keeping—things 
snug aud tidy and iu repair, and ready for 
storm or winter, than you can earn iu the 
same time in any other way. The tidy farm¬ 
ers are the ones that make the money. It 
costs less to house a mower or reaper In the 
barn or tool-house than in the fence-corner. 
“ Housed ” there, it will not last half so long, 
and will break in harvest aud binder all your 
hands. It will cost less even to pull and 
house your beau poles, as soon as they have 
done their season’s work, than to let them rot 
in storm aud mud until next May. You can 
cut and house your year’s stove-wood at the 
proper time far more cheaply than you can 
bake your bread with green or wet wood. 
We are sure this second class of autumn 
work pays, both iu cash aud comfort. 
- 4 -*-*-- 
THE TRUTH ABOUT IT. 
[The object of articles under this heading is 
npt so much to deal with “ humbugs” as with 
the many unconscious errors that creep into 
the methods of daily country routine life.— 
Eds.] 
SHALL HE BE A PRACTICAL OR SCIEN¬ 
TIFIC FARMER1 
Much good may be done by asking a ques¬ 
tion. A question fitly put, may set in action a 
world of thought, and lead to most important 
results. The question above proposed by the 
Editors of the Rural New-Yorker, in the 
issue for August 10, cannot be answered with¬ 
out a great deal of deliberation ; and might 
well serve as a text for an essay. To develop 
all its points would require many columns, 
hut every reader may study the question with 
profit, who studies the pages of the Rduai.. 
The remarks upon my former reply, published 
in the Ritual for October 11, leave the ques¬ 
tion where it was originally, but still more 
loaded down with difficulty, for they have used 
words in an unusual sense. 
What is art, and what is science ? Science is 
either pure science, as mathematics; or it is the 
basis upon which art is founded. Take a ship¬ 
builder, for instance. A practical carpenter can 
buildsomc kind of a ship, and,in doing so, exer¬ 
cises an art. But a steam-ship or a clipper is 
scientifically built. The plans arc all drawn by 
thescientific builder, from abstruse calculations 
of the resistance of fluids to moving bodies; of 
the proper form to insure stability, capacity 
and strength. These plans arc given piece¬ 
meal to different artisans by whoso art the ship 
is put together. Those work in the dark; they 
know not if the slip is to sink or swim; but 
tbe builder can tell to a minute, how many 
knots she will sail under given circumstances. 
The mau who makes a sloop from patterns his 
father constructed, and which he has followed 
for a lifetime, dare not vary his plan, lest his 
boat go over when floated. Here are a practi¬ 
cal ship-builder and a scientific one. The 
parallel holds good as to the farmer. There 
are experimenters in ship-building as well as 
iu farming, who figure out new forms, calcu¬ 
late the lines, resistances, floating capacity and 
what not. and consult with or suggest to the 
builder; but the experimenter is purely scien¬ 
tific, and never practices the art of building. 
So with agricultural experimenters. I feel 
sure that Mr. Lawcs would not claim to be a 
farmer. A farmer is cne who works a farm 
for a living or for profit. It is a business with 
him and not the pursuit of knowledge. Mr. 
I.awes has Fpent his time, talents and rnouey 
in scientific Investigation. He is an original 
investigator. Can no man be a scientific man 
but an original thinker or worker? If so, our 
scientific men aro few indeed. No. A man 
may become scientific by studying the works 
and the results wrought out by others. There 
is not one scientific man living at this time, 
otherwise ; for is not the bulk of our knowl¬ 
edge inherited ? “ There is no science in mak¬ 
ing use of the discoveries of others ” you say. 
Then where are our scientific astronomers, 
chemists, physicians, physiologists, etc., etc. 
Why, the larger portion of their knowledge 
comes down from the discoveries of men who 
lived centuties ago. One man's life is too 
short to discover everything, and so one gen¬ 
eration inherits the labors of the former oues, 
and bequeaths all it lias to the next one. I do 
not advocate that every farmer should become 
a chemist, or use laboratories or a rain gauge; 
(a raiu gauge might usefully be on every farm 
and would greatly interest a farmer to use it, 
but there is no science about that), or dupli¬ 
cate or imiltiplicate what has already been done 
for him better than he could do it, aud of which 
he may learn by proper study in one hour what 
it required years of scientific labor to discover. 
What I advocate is what I try to practice, to 
study the principles of my art. the basis of 
science upon which the practice is founded, so 
that I can work understandingly and profit¬ 
ably, aud in addition, find that intense enjoy¬ 
ment in my work and its results, that makes 
even the cleaning of a stable and the loading 
aud spreading of manure, a work of interest, 
by reason of the results which I look for from 
it in addition to the mere value of the crop. 
I desire that every farmer should do as much, 
at least, aud more. 
I would not use names, but as many of the 
contributors to the Rural are public property, 
I will ask if E. W. Stewart is not a scientific 
farmer, although most of what he knows of 
feeding stock and the use of feeding stuffs 
may have been acquired by study and proved 
by practice. Is not W. I. Chamberlain another 
scientific farmer ? You say lie is a scientific 
man, aud he is a farmer—the rest follows of 
course. We may find good farmers w r ho never 
read a book or a paper. Some of the best- 
farmed localities in the eouutry arc occupied 
by such. They farm by rote, as their fathers 
worked and taught them. They plant by the 
moon, and their wives and daughters work 
barefoot in the fields and barnyards. They 
have fine barns, and stock, and crops, and live 
in hovels, and have bonds and mortgages hid 
away under the rafters. They are. good, prac¬ 
tical farmers—I have lived among them and 
kuow them—but I want a farmer to he able to 
answer all the questions put to a studeut of an 
agricultural college on his graduation, and 
then use. that knowledge in a good business 
way; and I will call him a scientific farmer, 
and his wife and daughters may enjoy all the 
comforts and case that culture can afford, and 
never be called to do more than they wish to 
do of the farm work. 
In all industries whatever, it is the scientific 
worker alonrs who can fully succeed ; the prac¬ 
tical man is the laborer, the scientific man the 
employer. This is so invariably, and all those 
industries and arts which depend upon scien¬ 
tific knowledge for the best practical working, 
employ experts whose sole business it is to ex¬ 
periment aud investigate and discover im¬ 
provements. But these are merely investiga¬ 
tors—nothing more. The wonderful aniline 
dyes have thus been brought into existence in 
the laboratory, have been tested by the scien¬ 
tific dyer, and have been worked up by his 
practical artisans. Ids so in brewing, work¬ 
ing metals, tauuing, mining, navigation, 
milling, aud, more than all, in farming. The 
agricultural colleges, if successful iu their 
purposes, ought to turn out some scientific 
farmers, aud there are some educated business 
and professional men, who have adopted farm¬ 
ing as their employment, who are, or will be¬ 
come, scientific farmers. And hundreds of 
young farmers whose tastes for knowledge 
have been quickened and developed by agri¬ 
cultural literature, and who are busy studying 
the science of their art, will in time become 
scientific farmers. And the more of this kind 
there are, the better will be the world for it. 
Henry Stewart. 
SELECT LIST OF APPLES AND PEARS. 
TRES. T. T. LYON. 
Were we considering the question, “ What 
to plant,” our first thought would be to deter¬ 
mine definitely the special purpose for which 
such planting is to be done. A farmer, with 
ample space for the purpose, will, as a matter 
of course, be likely to desire a supply of fruit 
throughout the season ; and, if he—as will nat¬ 
urally be the case—aims to provide the best of 
each season, both for dessert aud culinary 
purposes; and if, at the same time, lie shall 
be ambitious to provide tbe variety ueedful to 
suit a contrariety of tastes, as well as to meet 
the multifarious wants of a household, the 
selection of varieties possessing the requisite 
qualities in the highest degree, and at the same 
time equably distributed over the season, be¬ 
comes a matter of no littlejnotnent; aud, at the 
same time, one upon which a very considerable 
amount of pomutogical knowledge may be very 
profitably' employed. 
The purposes for which market or commer¬ 
cial orchards are planted are so essentially 
distinct, that I leave them, for the present, out 
of the case. The accompanying lists, are, 
therefore, to he considered as having strict 
reference to the supplying of the home want. 
The varieties are named as nearly as practica¬ 
ble in the order of their ripening. I confine 
myself to the Apple aud the Pear, as by far 
the most important fruits, while at the same 
time, their use is well-nigh universal. 
List of Fruits for u Fuuiily Orchard. 
Dessert Apei.es.— Early Harvest, Primate, 
Buffington's Early, Early Strawberry, Summer 
Rose, Early Joe, Garden Royal, American 
Summer Pearmain, Chenango Strawberry, Por¬ 
ter, Mexico, Hawley, Dyer, Ohio Nonpareil, 
Melon, Shiawassee Beauty, Jonathan, Peck’s 
Pieasaut, Poirnne Grise, Northern Spy, Golden 
Russet, Red Canada. 
Cultnasy Apples. —Red Astraclian, Duchess 
of Oldenburgh, Gravcnsteiu, Lowell, Alexan¬ 
der, Keswick Codlin, Fall Pippin, Yellow Bel- 
tiower, Rhode Island Greening, Baldwin, Rox- 
bury Russet. 
Sweet Apples.— Large Yellow Bough, Gold¬ 
en Sweet, Jersey Sweet, Munson’s Sweet, Eng¬ 
lish (RamsdeU’s) Sweet, Bailey Sweet, Talmau 
Sweet, Lady's Sweet. 
Penrs. 
Madeleine, Doyenne d* Etc. Bloodgood, Ty¬ 
son, Roeticzer, Sterling, Fondante d’Automue, 
Clapp’s Favorite, Bartlett, Washington, Beurrd 
Bose, Howell, Sheldon, Seckel, Onondaga, 
White Doyenuc, (where it does not crack), 
Beurre d’Anjou; Lawrence, Winter Nelis, Co¬ 
lumbia. 
I doubt the value of culinary pears, aud 
therefore omit them. The above lists are given 
with reference to Michigan more especially, 
