THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
rapidly as the European Larch is to be found 
Many of these facts relating to the behavior 
of European trees in this country are now well 
known to nurserymen and other experienced 
planters. Probably where one native tree is 
now planted in Massachusetts, five foreign 
trees are planted. The cause of this unfortun¬ 
ate condition of things will be found in the 
ignorance and indifference of planters, and in 
the shortsightedness of nurserymen who sup¬ 
ply them with trees. The fault, if fault, there 
is, in this matter, lies with the purchaser, 
however, rather than with the seller. The 
nurseryman, ns long as he cau find a market 
at good prices forcheaply-growm foreign trees, 
can hardly bo expected to sacrifice immediate 
profits in creating a demand which docs not 
now exist for bettor material, wise as such a 
policy would doubtless be for him in the long 
run. 
Massachusetts, in spite of her many sins of 
omission and commission, has made some sub¬ 
stantial progress in the art of sylviculture. 
Her most instructive plantations, however, 
arc not those which have been made upon the 
European fashion, or rather with European 
trees, by men who have studied the sub¬ 
ject in Europe or in European books upon 
forestry, instructive and valuable as all such 
plantations have certainly been in showing 11 s 
what to avoid. The real progress in sylvicul¬ 
ture in Massachusetts has boon made by the 
farmers of Barnstable and Plymouth Counties, 
who have taught us lio\v to plnnt and raise 
forests successfully and profitably under the 
most favorable conditions. The secret of 
their success must.be sought where they sought 
and found it, not in foreign treatises, unsuited 
to the requirements of this community, but in 
the native woods, in full view of their own door¬ 
steps. whieh told them what to plant and 
supplied them with material for planting. 
It has been demonstrated in Barnstable 
County that a crop of Pitch Pino can be raised 
from seed with as much certainty as a crop of 
corn, and with much less expense; and that 
the loose and shifting sands of Cape Cod, use¬ 
less for every other purpose, can, with the aid 
of this tree, be made to boar valuable crops 
of wood. 
Not less interesting, certaiuly, and perhaps 
even more suggastive of future development 
towards the true policy for New England 
forest, management, are the White Piue plan¬ 
tations made 40 or 50 years ago in Middle- 
borough. Raynlmm, Bridgewater, and other 
towns in that part of Massachusetts. 
These plantations were made upon barren, 
sandy soil, entirely exhausted by long culti¬ 
vation, with seedling pines dug in the neigh¬ 
boring woods. The young trees are set in 
shallow furrow's, at odd times, without inter¬ 
fering with other farm work, and so with 
little expense to the farmer. A distance vary¬ 
ing from five to twelve feet in different plan¬ 
tations was left between the trees, which, after 
planting, received no subsequent care or thin¬ 
ning. These trees, with few exceptions, have 
grown rapidly and with great vigor, and are 
now worth, ou the stump, $60 to $75 an acre; 
and men are still living iu these towns who 
have cut and sold White Piue saw-logs at the 
rate of $150 an acre, from seedling plants set 
by themselves. 
These plantations are valuable, not in the 
great amount of timber which they have pro¬ 
duced, but because they show how our farm¬ 
ers, with a trifling outlay, cau improve their 
farms by covering worn-out and unproductive 
land with a valuable crop, which, if left to 
mature, will coutinue to increase in value for 
generations. They show that White Pine, the 
most valuable tree in New England, can be 
successfully and profitably cultivated; but, 
unfortunately they do not yet show the 
method of culture which can best be adopted 
in order to make this tree yield the greatest 
returns. 
There are other trees, besides the White Pine, 
whieh the farmers of Massachusetts can culti¬ 
vate with profit. The wood of some of the 
native trees of Massachusetts is in great de¬ 
mand, and will soon become rare and expen¬ 
sive everywhere. The best hiekory has al¬ 
ready been cut, and ns no wood has ever been 
foiu*l to take the place of hickory for the 
particular uses to which that wood is applied, 
and as there is no hiekory except iu the United 
Stales, the value of any farm can now be in¬ 
creased by a plantation of hickories. White 
Ash of good quality has ulso become verv 
scarce, aud there can he no loss in planting 
this tree wherever good land can be spared 
for it, or in protecting and encouraging the 
young plants wherever they have sprung up 
spontaneously. Chart.out, too, must always 
be iu demand for railway ties aud fence posts, 
aud there are rocky and unproductive hills iu 
every town in the State, which might profit¬ 
ably be covered with groves of this tree. 
Hay -Making. —Mr. James Howard, in an 
address before the English Farmers’ Club, ou 
hay-making, took the ground that in order to 
avoid loss, both in quantity and quality, pas¬ 
tures should be cut when the grasses are in 
flower, and that of two evils, cutting too soon 
and cutting too late, the latter is the greater. 
In very heavy grass where there is danger of 
lodging, it is unwise to wait even for the 
flowering stage. As a rule, farmers wait too 
long before cutting bay. They are anxious to 
secure an added bulk, forgetting that much of 
this bulk may be tough, woody fibre. The 
component parts of grasses mostly fitted for 
nutrition are those soluble in water, and the 
great object should be to secure the crop when 
it contains the greatest amount of gluten, 
sugar and other matter soluble in water. 
This stage is reached, in most grasses, when 
the flowers are well formed aud before the 
seeds ripen. As a practical test, Mr. Howard 
watches the sorrel iu his fields. When this lie- 
gins to ripen he begins to make preparations 
for cutting. As to cutting, he thinks the ex¬ 
tra bulk of bay obtained through the closer 
and more level cutting of a good machine is 
nearly sufficient to pay the cost, of cutting. At 
the same time, nothing is gained by the prac¬ 
tice of close shaving, as the roots of the grass¬ 
es are always injured by this practice. Of 
all farm operations, none calls for quicker 
work than hay making. The most successful 
manager makes and secures his hay in the 
shortest time, and the quicker the work is ac¬ 
complished, the less it will cost. Mr. Howard’s 
plan is to cut a small area and at once put 
the tedder at work upon the cut grass, keeping 
the machine in motion all the time, if necessa¬ 
ry tossing and re-tossing the hay. It was the 
old fashion in hand cutting to let the hay dry 
in the swaths. It would have paid even then 
to scatter and turn the hay by band. Nowa¬ 
days the employment of hand labor is to be 
avoided as far as possible. The object of a 
good hay maker is to get bis hay into cocks as 
soon as possible, as it is safest aud most easily 
handled in that condition. For this purpose 
the heavy horse rakes with the dumping (lone 
by the horse, are admirable. The hay Ls 
drawn into windrows and then the rake is run 
lengthwise of these, drawing the hay into 
piles which by a few strokes from the fork 
are easily turned into well shaped cocks. 
SPICE. 
A correspondent of the Iowa Homestead 
thinks he has discovered a new way of milk¬ 
ing that increases the flow of milk. He used 
to milk with “one hand up while the other 
was down.” He uow milks with “both bauds 
up and down together, instead of alternately.” 
The correspondent referred to thinks he has in¬ 
creased the flow of milk from one cow by the 
simultaneous movement of both hands at least 
eight or 10 per cent, and from another, four 
or five per cent. The above note we And in 
the Chicago Livestock Journal. 
E. P. Roe says, iu June Harper’s, that he 
once saw the driver of a stage load of ladies, 
bound out of his vehicle to kill a garter-snake 
—the palid females looking on meanwhile as 
if the earth were being rid of some terrible 
and venomous thing. They ought to have 
known that the poor little rei»tile was as 
harmless as one of their own garters, aud quite 
as useful in its way. 
Mr. Roe, one October day, took a stone pot 
of the largest size and put in first a layer of Is¬ 
abella grapes, theu a double thickness of 
straw paper, then alternate layers of grajies 
and paper until the pot was full. A cloth 
was next pasted over the stone cover so as 
to make the pot water-tight. The pot was 
then buried on a dry knoll below the reach 
of frost, and dug up again on New Year’s. 
The grapes looked, and tasted as if they had 
just been picked from the vine.... 
The man who can allow a cow to kick him 
over three times and come up smiling each 
time, and refuse to retaliate, can cure a kick¬ 
ing cow, says L. S. Hardin in the Weekly 
Press..... 
Prof. A. J. Cook much prefers tobacco to 
Mr. Woodward's lard and kerosene for lice on 
cattle, and be speaks from “abundant experi¬ 
ence.” For poultry' he has found lard and kero¬ 
sene or sulphur and kerosene excellent. He 
always keeps such a mixture in the poultry 
house, and every few weeks iu Summer rubs 
the roost polos with it. aud occasionally at 
night under the wings and tails and about the 
breasts of bis birds. Such use Ls not untidy, 
takes little time and does effectually destroy 
the vermin. But on cattle or horses this mix¬ 
ture is disagreeable. The greased hair does 
not become smooth for days, and catches much 
dirt Again, it is difficult to use so that a 
single application will suffice. On the other 
hand, ho has fouud five minutes enough to 
make a thorough application of the tobacco 
decoction. It is not unpleasant to apply, aud 
if used ou a warm day, and the animal is blan¬ 
keted well for an hour, it is attended with no 
danger. 
Prof.^Cook always ’observes'theJast precau¬ 
tion. Chilling a cow in Winter may produce 
abortion or induce an ague, which should al¬ 
ways he avoided. Tbe very next morning af¬ 
ter tobacco treatment, tbe animal can be cur¬ 
ried and i ts hair made as smooth as ever. He 
has found a single washing to be wonderfully 
efficient.....,. 
Not one of the so-called agricultural col¬ 
leges in this country has accomplished desir¬ 
able results without the compensated, obliga¬ 
tory student labor system, says Prof. F. A. 
Gulley in the late Report of the Agricultural 
College of Mississippi. 
Two axioms connected with the breeding of 
stock are frequently heard among those who 
are interested in the subject, says the London 
Live Stock Journal. One is that “like pro¬ 
duces like,” and the other that “breeding is a 
lottery.” Both cannot possibly be correct, 
and it may be said that neither is absolutely 
and invariably true.. 
It seems never to strike breeders that before 
allowing a mare to be served they should at 
least take the trouble to ascertain if the horse 
is in good health, for it cannot be taken for 
granted that because when robust and in 
strong exercise a stallion has fathered an 
Eclipse or a St. Simon, be will be capable of 
begetting similar stock when ill and uncared 
for........... 
The Journal further says that most breed¬ 
ers are familiar with the case of Lord Morton’s 
Arabian mare, which to a quagga, or species 
of wild African ass, prod need a hybrid having 
distinct marks of the quagga, and which in 
1817, 1818 and 1821, having in these years been 
mated with an Arabian horse, gave birth suc¬ 
cessively to three foals, all of which bore un¬ 
equivocal marks of the quagga. Still if cer¬ 
tain considerations are constantly kept in 
view, it will he found in most cases that the 
maxim that like begets like is much nearer 
the truth than the other, that breeding is a 
lottery and altogether beyond the control of 
the stock owner ... 
A writer in the Poultry Yard caught a 
troublesome mink by setting a steel trap just 
atThe edge of the stream where the mink came 
out. A chicken was killed aud the blood 
sprinkled about the trap. Theu the body was 
suspended on a stake just over the trap. 
The Herald of Health calls attention to the 
foolish though very general habit of making 
the back of tbe vest of the very thinnest stuff. 
The back of the vest should be made as thick 
and warm as the front. The first sensation 
of chilliness always comes at the spine. The 
lungs are protected in front by layers of 
muscle, fat and ribs, while at the back they 
come much nearer the surface. Many persons 
seek to wear “chest protectors,” when the real 
protection is needed at the back. This could 
be supplied by a thicker back to the vest. 
Our good friend. Dr. T. H. Hoskins, says, 
in the Vermont State Journal, that, practi¬ 
cally speaking, good manure is too rich in 
nitrogen, and needs to be extended by the 
addition of both phosphoric acid and pot¬ 
ash, especially the former. For use with 
manure there is no need of buying a nitro¬ 
genous superphosphate, for a plain super¬ 
phosphate is much cheaper and quite as good. 
Along with this, use 10 or 15 bushels of 
unleaehed hard-wood ashes to the acre, and a 
half dressing of manure will give far better 
results than a full dressing used alone. We 
guess that the above is quite sound advice.. 
The Massachusetts Experiment Station 
says that a bushel of average hard-wood 
ashes is worth, for the potash aud phosphor¬ 
ic acid alone, 18 cents, taking tbe commer¬ 
cial price of these ingredients as a standard. 
Sunflower seeds are especially good for 
fowls when fed in proper proportion with 
grains, says Mr. Armstrong of the Husband- 
mau. They are very oily, having somewhat 
the nature of flaxseed. The usual estimate of 
yield is a gallon of oil to a bushel of seed, 
and t he oil is said to be of superior character 
for many mechanical uses, and, when suit¬ 
ably refined, is used on the table. 
The farmer who sits down to his break¬ 
fast of fried pork and potatoes through the 
mouth of June, while his neighbor revels in 
strawberries, doubtless flatters himself that 
tbe strawlterries cost more labor than the 
pork did, and that ho is thus on the right 
financial ride. But he isu’t. The Orange 
Co., Farmer thinks that he never made a 
greater mistake in his life. If the absence of 
fruit only punished the man who is responsi¬ 
ble for it, wo should not much care, but the 
trouble with it is that the wife and children 
must suffer for his sins of omission as well as 
himself... 
The horse which cau plow an acre while 
another is plowing half an acre, or that which 
can carry a load of passengers 10 miles while 
another is going five, independent of all con¬ 
siderations of amusement, taste, or what is 
generally ealled^fancy, is absolutely worth 
twice as much to his owner as the other. So 
says Mr. H. W. Herbert. The Live Stock 
Journal (Chicago) takes the view that double 
the speed in traveling considerably more 
than doubles the practical value of the horse 
There is just as much trouble and expense in 
raising the slower horse. It is really working 
for less than half pav either to raise or use 
him. No fanner can afford this. So let us 
see if wo can not, by proper selection, breed¬ 
ing, and breaking, improve the walking 
gait, and increase correspondingly the value 
of the general business horse. 
We fancy that Director Lazenby. of the 
Ohio Ex. Station, in his trials of chemical 
manures upon corn, has made the mistake of 
selecting plots which were already well fur¬ 
nished with plant food. His fertilized plots, 
taken as a whole, give no increase of grain 
over those not fertilized. It is a. pity the same 
careful experiments might not have been con¬ 
ducted on an impoverished soil. 
Mr. Lazenby says that the name “rust¬ 
proof,” as applied to a variety of oats, has no 
significance. It is as subject to rust as any 
other.. .5.. 
Referring to the Bohemian oat fraud, he 
says that these oats are commercially not 
equal to common oats in value. 
Of 34 different kinds of earliest potatoes 
tested. Stray Beauty was five days ahead of 
any other. It was planted May 4t.h, ripening 
July 20. Beauty of Hebron, Charles Downing, 
Early Durham, Early Gem, Early Harvest, 
Early Ohio. Early Pearl, Gardner's Early, 
Prince Edward’s Early Rose, and Vanguard 
came next, ripening the same day. July 25. 
We are surprised that the Early Ohio is in this 
list. At the Rural Farm it is a week earlier 
than B. of Hebron. 
The yield of the above was as follows:— 
Early Harvest 336 bushels: Earlv Durham 3.35; 
Early Ohio 824: Chas Downing 319; Beauty of 
Hebron 287; Prince Edward's 274; Gardner’s 
Early 270; Early Pearl 285 ; Vanguard 195.... 
Lee's Favorite, ripening two days after, 
yielded 422 bushels, the greatest yield: and 
Clark’s No. 1, ripeuingfive days later. 3&3 bush¬ 
els, the next largest... 
Of the secoud-early. Cullum’s Superb, Pride 
of the West aud Weld’s No. 22 gave the best 
yields of marketable potatoes, while Pride of 
the West shows the best, total yield. Quality 
ooor. Of late kinds James Vick, Perfect Gem 
and Red Star head the list for marketable 
yield, and Jumbo for total yield—James Vick, 
second, being 451 and 449 bushels respectively. 
The Mammoth Pearl planted six inches deep 
yielded 329bushels; eight inches 247; 10 inches 
210; 12 inches 175. The yield of small tubers 
decreased with the depth the same as in the 
Rural experiments. 
(L* 11 m) iii here. 
TRANSCONTINENTAL LETTERS.—LII. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
The Lower Columbia River; Astoria; Sun¬ 
day there; an early settler; back to 
Portland. 
On the morning following our arrival in 
Portland, we boarded, at six o’clock, one of 
the steamers of the Oregon Railway and Navi¬ 
gation Co., which run from Portland to Asto¬ 
ria. for the purpose of seeing the lower Colum¬ 
bia. Readers of the Rural who have fol¬ 
lowed our wanderings as detailed in this series 
of letters, mav remember our trip up the Co¬ 
lumbia to The Dalles, and appreciate our de¬ 
sire to see the lower river as well, which fur¬ 
nishes a scenic panorama of an altogether dif¬ 
ferent character. The morning was foggy and 
it was fully nine o’clock before the fog lifted, 
after which the entire day was of the most ra 
diant description, and the soft and graceful 
foliage of the river banks aglow with the bril¬ 
liant hues of Autumn, borrowed added bril¬ 
liancy from the blue-greeu color of the stiff 
pines that clothed the mountains rising in the 
distant background, and which in the extreme 
distance lav like so many undulating banks of 
hazy purplish hue against the roseate horizon, 
for it had a roseate tinge throughout the day. 
Occasionally an island, beautiful in vegeta¬ 
tion, lay in the river—the rocks along a near 
shore were exquisite in mosses and vines, and 
as we sat on deck looking out from the stern I 
busied myself in making some sketches in color 
of some of the more striking views. An occu¬ 
pation of this kind invariably elicits a certain 
interest in the minds of one’s fellow passengers, 
and “Iwish I could sketch” is an exclamation 
I have many times heard. That an “accom¬ 
plishment” of this character, which can be so 
readily acquired, is not a part of the education 
of every man and woman is one of the sur¬ 
prising things in this surprising world. As I 
sat at my work a young girl came and looked 
over my“shouldei\and askedjf IJived in Asto- 
