r 
Vol. XLV. No. 1878. 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 23, 1886. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by the Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
HIS grape, shown at Fig. 2.5, 
was received from J. B. Moore 
it Sons, Coucoad, Mass. The 
cluster weighed one pound. The 
leaf was I3t£ inches in extreme 
diameter, and 10 inches in 
length; thick, leathery, aud the 
under-<dde thickly covered with 
a heavy brownish-yellow down more so than 
Moore’s Early. Bunch, very broad, compact, 
double-shouldered; berries very 
bag, and who shared my grapes the past sea¬ 
son, will testify that my Concords were delic¬ 
ious from the first of August to the first of No¬ 
vember, and our climate is very productive of 
grape rot. m, t. earle. 
Cobden, His. 
51)cc}) IjitsbantHTj. 
from the #nvm 
FEEDING LAMBS. 
WHAT FORAGE TO USE 
for lamb.feeding, is a question of prime im- 
albuininoids, or those elements from which the 
muscle or lean meat and the wool are so largely 
produced; and this is much more important 
when we attempt, to feed a lot of lambs that 
have been shoru. and which we wish to force 
into the production of a second fleece of wool. 
Wo have tried millet, peas and oats sown to¬ 
gether aud cut early, and Hungarian Grass as 
well as corn fodder aud other forages, but 
ljave never found anything to take the place 
of, or equal to clover hay. We have also ex¬ 
amined the reports of many feeding experi¬ 
ments in England, Germany and in this 
country, and in all, it is clearly shown that 
clover hay is by all odds the best of all fodder 
crops as a sheep food, aud doubly true is this as 
branches, while the main stalks will be entire¬ 
ly rejected. Although the.bulk of their fodder 
should consist of clover hay, yet when highly 
graiued, and with foods rich in albuminoids, 
the lambs will readily eat a portion of coarser 
stuffs, such as corn-stalks or straw or meadow 
bay, though we have found their craving for 
a variety fully and easily satisfied with good, 
clean, barn- housed straw. Our adv ice, then, 
to the lamb feeder would be to provide an 
abundance of clover hay; by all means to cut 
it early, certainly as soon as in full “color 
to cure it in the cock, and for an addition to 
this, in the way of variety, to feed straw; and 
it will pay any one to have a bam large 
enough so that his straw can be housed. 
large, some as much us one inch 
in diameter, round, jet-black, cov¬ 
ered with a heavy blue bloom; ad¬ 
heres firmly to the stem. Seeds 
from one to lour, quite large. Skin 
thin, quite tough, so that it would 
carry well to market, but with 
no bad taste when eaten close, l'ulp 
quite large, tender aud separating 
freely from the seeds, dissolves 
easily in the mouth. The pulp is 
surrounded with a large amount 
of u very agreeable juice, which, 
though not as rich ns that of the 
Concord,has much less of the native 
odor, and is,withal,very agreeable. 
While the berries of this grape are 
fully as large as those of Moore’s 
Early, and the clusters as large as 
those of the Concord or Worden, 
the berries have little of that bard, 
unyielding pulp that characterizes 
most large grapes. We speak of 
this grape solely from an examina¬ 
tion ol' a single cluster and a single 
leaf: but Jwe ha\ e a siugle vine 
for growth and comparison upon 
our own grounds, and if it sustains 
its present promise, it must prove 
a very desirable acquisition to the 
hardy black grapes. 
EXPERIENCE IN 
GRAPES. 
BAGGING 
JOTTINGS. 
OtiR good friend, J. A. Saxton, 
of Canton, Ohio, writes us calling 
attent ion to the desirability of giv¬ 
ing burns greater ldght. He says 
“With the present facilities for 
getting hay and grain or straw into 
the upper ) >arts of barns, it is very 
poor economy to build them with 
lt» or 20-foot posts when you can 
add .50 per cent to their capacity, 
at an extra cost of not over 10 per 
cent,, by making the posts 27 to 
30 feet high. It is the lower part 
of the mow that is the most valu¬ 
able for storing produce, aud when 
the posts are lengthened it is equiv¬ 
alent to add mg so much at the bot¬ 
tom of the barn all round. A barn 
•50x40, with I s-feet posts, has a ca¬ 
pacity of 30.000 cubic feet, while 
the same barn, with 28-foot posts, 
would have a capacity ot .50,000 
feet, and could not cost one-tenth 
a lditional. 
The new barn on the Western 
New York Farm has the same 
defect, aud by your Jottings in the 
Jan. 2d Rural, I should judge you 
have found it out . flow much more 
would it have cost if *ou hud built 
it with 28 or 30-foot jiosts instead of 
20 ? 
I have had considerable experi¬ 
ence in bagging grapes for the last 
five yearn. In contrasting the 
bagged fruit with that exposed to 
the air, it has been observed by all 
my family that tjio bagged fruit 
has much more delicate skiti and 
superior flavor. It is invariably a 
little later. To those who have 
been unsuccessful in this method 
of protecting grapes, the following 
suggestions may be of service. 
In localities where the rot is very 
prevalent, it is important to do 
the work very early, as soon as the 
berry is plainly formed, if the 
weather is dry and tine during this 
early stage of growth and the 
bunches are protected before 
warm, damp weather, success is 
almost certain. Before commenc¬ 
ing bagging where the fruit has 
rotted badly, a thorough cleaning 
up is very useful. Where one has 
only a few vines for family use, it 
will repay not only to prune rather 
closely ami burn all the wood which is removed, 
but also to wash the remaining canes with a 
rather strong alkaline wash. If to this is add¬ 
ed the farther labor ot scraping away the sur- 
laee soil and covering with fresh loam, so many 
sources ol infection will have lieen removed 
that it will lie easy to secure good fruit for the 
coming season. My neighbors, who did not 
EATON GRAPE. From Nature. 
portauce to the feeder. While lambs are good 
eaters and not dainty, they air quite largely 
influenced by the forage which constitutes the 
bulk of their feed. Although they may be 
wintered, after a fashion, on com fodder, 
meadow hay and other such foods, yet to do 
their best, there is a necessity for them to have 
something with a much larger proportion of 
a lamb food, We have also found, by our own 
experience, that there is a difference of nearly 
or quite one-half in the value of clover cut 
early and late. While t at cut when only in 
full bloom, or a little before, will be eaten 
almost clean, that cut later or when half or 
more of the heads have matured, will be 
stripped of its leaves, heads and more tender 
Some years ago I built a barn 
.50x80 feet, with 24-foot posts, and 
two years ago I had to build an¬ 
other 10x75, und I made the posts 
28 feet, aud neither is too high.” 
Our friend is quite right in call¬ 
ing attention to this matter. As 
a rule, barns are built much too 
low. It is a fact that a barn with 
24-foot posts, while having only 
about 50 per cent, more room than 
one with posts 10 feet, will hold 
nearly twice as much grain or 
other produce. This is owing to 
the much closer packing of the 
lower part of the mow, by reason 
of the weight of the upper portion. 
But the bight should depend to 
a great extent upon the shape of 
the roof. Our new barn is 50 feet 
wide, and has a gambrel roof with 
the lower section of the rafters 
nearly perpendicular, so that the 
ridge of the barn is over 50 feet a- 
bove the floor, and this is quite as 
high as we think it profitable to 
work a horse fork, and certainly 
as high as we cure to put the straw when 
thrashing. But were we to build, with 
the ordinary double roof, we should cer¬ 
tainly not make the posts less than80 feet, and 
even higher would be preferable. Every one 
planning to build a barn nexr season should 
consider this matter now. 
We are just through cleaning the sheep pens 
