sms 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
next barrel, and so on till all are filled. It 
would be well to have the first barrel a trifle 
higher than the next, and so on with the 
mense utility in farm work. They are of very 
early maturity. They can be put to work 
without fear of injury when they are from 
IS months to two years old. These horses now 
bring fair prices and are selling for farm work 
for from $160 to $200—the horses being four or 
five years old. Now there is no farmer in 
Massachusetts, Mr. Russell thinks, who can 
raise horses and take the risk on on“ or two colts 
for any such price as that. He has raised a 
good many colts, and cannot raise a colt in 
Massachusetts and pay the interest on the 
money and the municipal taxes and all the 
burdens that lie so heavily upon agricultural 
shoulders, unless he can get from $300 to $500 
for a colt when he is four years old. Farmers 
don’t get high prices for anything, but they 
have to pay high prices, even if they don’t get 
high prices for their own products. 
Buying Horses. —In buying horses, one of 
the old troubles of the buyer was that he was 
liable to buy an old horse. In Mr. Russell’s 
time that was the thing to be guarded against. 
You were almost certain, ingoing to market, 
to be stuck with a hors# that somebody had 
turned off either on account of his temper or 
age, and did not want him any longer. This 
is not the case with horses brought here from 
the West to our farmers for sale. They are 
young horses almost invariably, and have not 
lived long enough to have their temper spoil¬ 
ed. That is a very great advantage. In the 
first place, they are young, because the breed¬ 
ers do not want to pay for keeping any longer 
than necessary; and in the next place they are 
sound, because they have been examined once 
already. Those who have bought them are 
very careful about running the risk of buying 
unsound horses and paying the freight here 
wher3 they are to be sold again; so that you 
have the advantage of first-class judgment- on 
those horses already on the part of the horse 
buyer. But there is another thing which you 
must look out for. You must be sure that you 
don’t get stuck with a young horse—although 
that is only a temporary defect. Mr. R. has 
exarniued horses that were offered for sale in 
Boston as six years old when they were only 
throe. He has seen splendid animals offered 
for coupe purposes, for a single heavy carnage, 
that were actually just coming three years old 
this Bpring. Youth is a defect, however, that 
is very easily remedied. There is nothing that 
is so readily cured by time. That applies as 
well to horses as to boys, and if you give them 
time they will get over it. Many times have 
young horses been put to work just at the per¬ 
iod when digestion aud their whole system are 
affected by the fact that they must change 
their set of teeth. For a horse does not get a 
full set of permanent teeth until he is five 
yeais old. Consequently he should never be 
put to coutiuuous hai’d labor until he has 
reached that age. 
the bone and stature that Nature would have 
allowed if you had given generous feed. 
bundles of seeds, varying in size from thos 
which hold several quarts of grain, down to 
the dainty little package of flower-seeds. These 
packages are directed to favorite constituents, 
franked to secure their free transmission 
through the mails, and strewn broadcast over 
the land, with the expectation that each one 
will bear at least one vote. There are grave 
objections to this free distribution of seeds, 
Mr. Poore is well aware, especially those of 
seedsmen, who fancy that their sales are in- 
tei’fered with. But he thinks this is a mistake. 
Many a man who would not have a vegetable 
patch or a flower-garden, is economically 
moved to cultivate the seeds sent him, rather 
than to have them wasted. It is a pleasant 
thing for a farmer living almost out of civil¬ 
ization to receive these remembrances from 
his Senator or Representative at Washington. 
They cost a good deal of money, he admits, 
but the seed purchased is mostly grown in 
this country, the paper and twine are made 
here, and the poor women and boys who put 
up the packages are often thereby enabled to 
keep families from starving. 
Farmers Should not Try to Raise 
“Trotters.”— When the colt is three years 
old, it occurs to our farmer to see what horse¬ 
manship can do for him, and he generally 
sends him to some local trainer to be broken 
and “developed for speed.” But usually the 
most practical thing about the trainer is his 
bill, and his time is the least valuable of any¬ 
thing which he has to give. Usually before 
the trainer begins the farmer thinks that the 
colt will lie worth about as much as Maud S. 
or Dexter, but by the time he is through and 
the bills are paid, he finds that $150 is all he 
will bring, or $250 at the outside. If a farmer 
is a sufficient horseman he will give up the 
idea of breeding that phenomenal creature 
which is known, not as a horse, but as a 
trotter. There are two or three kinds of 
horses. One is a trotter, but that is not mere¬ 
ly a horse. It is an animal that has an apti¬ 
tude to learn a certain trick which is called 
trotting. It is not natural especially, any 
more than it is natural for dogs to be born 
with stumpy tails. If the roads are smooth 
enough, and if the wagon or sulky is light, 
and if the weights on the feet are properly ad¬ 
justed, and if the animal at the other end of 
the reins has got the right sort of hand and 
won’t give it away to somebody else, the horse 
may make a phenomenal record. But this is 
not one of the pursuits of the farm, aud any 
farmer or farmer’s boy that; links himself in 
any way with the husiuess has deviated from 
the true and straight course that belongs to 
legitimate agriculture or husbandry. 
Handling the Colt.— There must be no 
jerking, no loud words, nothing quick in the 
movements about the colt, but everything 
slow in motion. There must lie no loud shout¬ 
ing or anything of that sort. The horse has 
got to be gradually familiarized with the work 
which he has to do, and his muscular strength 
must bo developed at the same time. With 
young horses there is no better plan for break¬ 
ing them than to put them at work before the 
plow. Mr. Russel thinks that there is no 
way in which the horse's temper can be better 
developed than by putting him on the plow 
when he is about three years old, and teaching 
him how to be patient of the obstacles that 
have to be met in that work. That is the way 
he trains his colts, and they know how to step 
into the furrow or out of it when they are 
told, and they recognize “Haw” and “Gee ” 
With this practice they get a splendid train¬ 
ing, and it affects the whole after life of the 
horse. They expect that obstacles will be 
met when they are in the carriage, and they 
realize that they are to be quiet. For instance, 
when the plow strikes stumps, or roots, or 
stones, aud brings everything up suddenly, 
the young horse, expecting something of that 
sort, will stand until the trouble is righted 
and everything starts smoothly again. They 
will remember this. He would not allow his 
family to use carriage horses that were not 
familiar with the plow, and that would not 
mind “Ilaw” and “Gee” in the carriage, if 
necessary. His wife’s carriage horses, when 
they are lightly worked, are occasionally put 
upon the plow and made to do a few hours’ 
work. The result of this experience is that 
they are not alarmed at noises behind them 
and the suddeu briuging up at a root or con¬ 
cealed stone; they become more attentive to 
the voice of the driver, and every way wiser 
and safer. 
Exaoerattng Poultry Profits.—O. S. 
Bliss says, in the New York Tribune, that a 
specialist located in a densely populated sec¬ 
tion of country, in close proximity to numer¬ 
ous manufacturing and commercial cities 
where every egg ami chick he raises is in quick 
demaud at fancy prices, with no commissions, 
no freights, no breakages or other losses, real 
or constructive, to be deducted from the ac¬ 
count of sales, can unquestionably net $2 per 
hen from a flock kept for the production of 
eggs, chickens and fowls, leaving entirely out 
of question all fancy stock breeding. But 
when such a man in a meeting of farmers de¬ 
liberately asserts that “ every farm of 70 or 
100 acres cau carry 100 hens or upwards at a 
net profit of $2 per hen, the assertion is mis¬ 
leading aud harmful. If the average farm¬ 
er, remote from local retail markets, and com¬ 
pelled to sell his products through the regular 
channels of trade, as the great majority of 
them are, can net $1 per hen ho does well. 
The National Seed Distribution.— Tlve 
city of Washington, says Ben Perley Poore in 
the Cultivator, is just now a great seed estab¬ 
lish meut. Iu the entryway of every hotel aud 
boarding-house where a Congressman lodges, 
are large mail-bags filled with packages of 
seeds, each done up iu a great quantity of 
brown paper, aud securely tied with strong 
twine. Go to the room of a Seuator or a Rep¬ 
resentative, and you find^whole.stacksjof these 
Fig. 212. 
others; but as this can be effected by piling 
earth under the barrels, there is no reason 
why they should diminish in size, as shown iu 
the cut. Indeed, as water seeks its owu level, 
if the connecting spouts were horizontal, the 
water would flow along easily from one barrel 
to the next, as soon as it had reached the level 
of the spout in the discharging barrel. 
THE LATEST AND BRIEFEST. 
Morgan Horses. —The Mass. Ploughman 
is deserving of credit for the accuracy of its 
short-hand reports of the excellent proceed¬ 
ings of the Farmers’ Meetings held in. Boston 
weekly. Some weeks ago John E. Russell, 
Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agri¬ 
culture, talked about horses, The Morgan 
was a remarkable family of horses. It was 
not a breed or a race, hut a family. It was 
descended from one little horse, named Justin 
Morgan, that was taken by a Vermont credi¬ 
tor for a debt. This horse was taken from 
West Springfield, or certainly from Hampden 
County in Massachusetts, where he was bred, 
into the State of Vermont, and fortunately 
retained an entire horse, and was the progen¬ 
itor of that splendid family of horses that we 
all of us know, and that so many of us re¬ 
member as the Morgan stock of Vermont, as, 
indeed, of all New England. That little 
family of horses brought into the State of 
Vermont more reputation aud more money 
than any other thing, unless it was the Merino 
sheep, and probably more than these. Sec. 
Russell, as a boy, remembers those short- 
coupled, short-jointed, full-breasted, fiue- 
headed, pointed fox-eared horses, weighing 
from 950 to 1,000 pounds, rarely more than 
15 1-1 hands high, not quite high enough, but 
of splendid and enduring qualities, with a 
domesticity of character that he has never 
seen or known equaled in any family of 
horses. What has become of them? In the 
first place, it was a family of horses in which 
the blood was all iu the male line. There was 
no re-infommient of anything to keep that 
family running over two or three genera¬ 
tions. The foal from the first cross is one half 
Morgan. The second cross is >/; the next, 
>«; the next, 1-16; the next, 1 32; the next, 
1-64; the next, 1-128; the uext, 1-256 part. 
Where is your Morgan stock after it. has gone 
through so many changes? Your name is 
there, but your blood is gone. The blood of 
any popular sire, where there is nothing but a 
family and not a race, is goue. We have 
heard of the old English stock, but we have 
not got the blood of any original progenitor. 
It is divided up and lost iu the crosses. So it 
is with the Morgans. The blood has not had 
any re-inforeemeut aud, therefore, the family 
never could run beyond a very short time 
without giving out. 
It seems that M. Pasteur has treated about 
800. Of these 38 persons had been bitten by 
wolves—the others by dogs. Of those bitten 
by dogs only one died. Three of those bitten 
by wolves have died of hydrophobia. M. 
Pasteur is of the opinion that there is no dif¬ 
ference in the poison of the mad wolf and 
mad dog; but the severity of the wolf bite is 
far greater..... 
A writer in the American Garden suggests 
that early peas aud tomatoes may well be 
grown together. The peas may be gathered 
before the tomatoes have made much growth. 
Mr. Parker believes that by spraying ap¬ 
ple trees with London-purple, they may be 
rid of the codling moth and the “whole crowd 
of insects” that infest them. He prefers 
London-purple to Paris-green because it is 
much cheaper and because it does not settle 
in water, needing one person to stir it as one 
drives along with the foi’ce-pump. Mr. Rath- 
bone who has experimented a good deal finds 
that half a pound of the purple to 60 gallons 
of water is plenty. The purple should be wet, 
forming a paste, before putting it in the bar¬ 
rel, Then it will mix readily and not float on 
the water............ 
The Farm Journal wants farmers’ wives to 
strike for fewer hours of labor aud better 
pay. Good! If they would boycott the din¬ 
ner table a few times, there would be a sud¬ 
den call for an “arbitration meeting.”. 
A country Geutleman writer tried the 
experiment of hauling manure from the 
bara-yard in Winter, and placing it in heaps 
on a steep hillside to see how much of the 
value would be washed out of it by rains. 
The result was that the increased growth of 
the grass from the washing did not extend 
five feet below the heaps. The winter spread¬ 
ing of manure has given excellent satisfaction 
with us—but our land is level. 
L. F. Allen finds a dairy cow quite to his sat¬ 
isfaction in a cross-bred Guernsey, the progeny 
of a Guernsey bull and a Shorthorn cow. Such 
animals arc of good size and flesh, and gentle 
and kind. Their yield of milk is continuous 
and the percentage of cream is quite equal 
to that of the Jersey. 
Mr. Joseph Harris wants to know why it 
is necessary to make the laud so rich for 
onions, and, also, why early sowing is abso¬ 
lutely essential to success? Mr. E. S. Goff 
answers, in the American Garden, that the 
roots of the onion occupy far less space in the 
soil than those of any other vegetable. The 
roots take complete possession of the soil be¬ 
neath them, forming a circle about eight 
inches in diameter and for a depth of but 10 
inches. Hence it is that the soil must be 
rich. Hence it is that we may grow them so 
closely together. Hence it is that early sow¬ 
ing is necessary. The roots must be made 
before the summer drought occurs. 
James Rankin says breeding for the 
Standard is one thing and breeding for the 
market is another and quite a different 
thing. Many of the ’‘points’” so-called, re¬ 
quired by the Standard are worthless when 
breeding for the market. 
He might use as an illustration the feathers 
on the second toe of the Light Brahma, or the 
black tail of the Wyandotte. 
He says a cross between a Plymouth Rock 
cock and a Light Brahma hen produces the 
best chickens for the early market, giving 
early maturity with plump bodies aud meat 
of excellent quality. 
He has not, however, been able to success¬ 
fully perpetuate the cross, as the produce de¬ 
teriorates rapidly, aud a large proportion of 
the eggs prove infertile. 
Philander Williams says that one breed 
of poultry is about all any man can success 
Care of Colts.— When a colt is born on a 
farm every farmer ought to know how to treat 
his mare so as to increase her flow of milk- 
He should give the colt all the nutrition that 
is possible, aud keep it growing as well as he 
can while it is still upon the dam’s udder. 
Many of these old mares are poor milkers, and 
all that cau lie done is to increase the flow of 
milk, aud that is a matter that all farmers 
understand thoroughly in dealing with their 
cows. The same tiling that produces a good flow 
of milk in a cow will produce a good flow iu a 
mare. If the uiare is put where the colt can 
get at the feed, within two or three weeks the 
colt will be eating freely of bruised oats aud 
sweet hay. Foals should come iu April or 
May, or lute in the Fallafter fly time. Young 
things need to grow aud to sleep. The flies in 
one of our summer pastures torment a young 
foal beyond endurance. There is no more dis¬ 
tressing sight than a young foal at. pasture iu 
August or September. If a foal is dropi*ed 
at that time it may be kept with its dam in a 
loose box or dark stable during daylight, 
otherwise it will make a poor start in life. 
There is uo pedigree or royal lino of equine 
blood that can stand the torment of flies. It 
is an old English proverb that half a horse 
goes down his throat. You must have a good 
appetite hi the animal if you ever expect to 
have stamina aud vigor of constitution. A 
colt wants to be kept eating and growing and 
exercising and anything except fatteuiug, as 
long ns he has a time assigned him by Nature 
to grow. You can starve an old hoi-se. You 
can turn him out somewhere upon a barren 
pasture or a rough hill-side to fight the flies 
in the Summer aud battle with the elements, 
and if you bring him back in the Fall aud put 
him iuto the barn and give him good keeping, 
you can get him in good condition again, ami 
Nature will restore the waste and make him a 
strong horse again. But if you stint a young 
animal during the growing period of life, you 
have lost the precious time that will never 
again come to you. This opportunity lost is 
never regained. When you have once made 
a stunted animal, you can never again make 
Bush’s Messenger. —Pedigrees in our road 
horses, when they go back 25 years, are as 
mystical as the history of the heathen gods. 
There is a name that has been made much of 
in the pedigree of horses brought from Maine, 
viz., “Bush’s Messenger.” This- was a horse 
owned by Pbilo Busli, from whom he was 
named. Bush cared little for road or trotting 
horses; he was a trainer of thoroughbred race 
horses, and 20 years ago had charge of the 
race horses belonging to Mr. Leonard Jerome. 
He said that the horse called “Bush’s Messen¬ 
ger” was named “Messenger” by him, and he 
had not the least knowledge of the horse's 
origin, nor a high opinion of his value; yet 
this horse was for years considered the last 
repository of the blood of imported Messenger, 
and his name is a red letter in many of the 
trotting pedigrees. 
Pkrciteuunk.— Mr. Russell paid a well mer¬ 
ited tribute to Mr. M. W. Dunham of Illinois, 
who has imported from France so many of the 
Percheron breed. This is one of the most im¬ 
portant breeds of horses raised m the known 
world. They are very much like our Morgan 
horses of 46 years ago, except that they are 
two or three sizes larger. They look just as the 
Morgan horses would if they were of ideal 
size. They have their quick action that no 
other family of large horses that he knows of 
have had. These Percheron horses are of im- 
