THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JUNE 
palliative. I seriously doubt whether any 
flock was ever entirely cured of the scab by 
its use. And again, its proper application re¬ 
quires steeping kettles, dipping vats or tubs and 
drainage pens or tables, and is, in every way. a 
costly, slow, nasty and disagreeable “job.” 
There are many remedies much preferable to 
this, namely, Little’s or La wford’s sheep dips. 
Though perhaps costing more than the tobacco 
and sulphur, their eflicacy depends upon the 
penetrating and cleansing properties of coal 
tar and its extracts, and they are sure cures. 
There is still another remedy which should 
lie most widely known. It is plentiful and 
cheap, aud, when its virtues are known and it 
is called for, it will be obtainable in every 
region where sheep are kept. I allude to 
CRUDE PETROLEUM. 
It can now be had at most drug stores, and 
is a sure destroyer, not only of the scab, but 
of every other insect that infests domestic ani¬ 
mals. It also cures all classes of skin diseases 
as we) I. Ordinary “coal oil” or kerosene, such 
as is used for lighting our houses, will kill, 
though not quite as surely or quickly, but it 
lias the grave objection of blistering and tak¬ 
ing off the wool or hair. This is not the case 
with the crude oil. It may be freely applied 
by a brush or “swab,” or may be poured from 
a can having a small spout, and if the sores 
be rubbed so as to break up all “scabs," it will 
penetrate to the remotest depths, and not an 
insect will survive its deadly influence, and if 
applied to the most delicate skin it has only a 
beneficial effect. On the Western New York 
Farm it is always kept in quantity, and ap¬ 
plied freely to any animal infested with lice, 
scab, or mange, and also to the interior of the 
hen-houses. It is also used as a lotion in case 
of wounds or scalds on man or beast; nothing 
can be better. It is time that agricultural 
writers and the press should make its virtues 
more extensively known, and no longer recom¬ 
mend the use of such a nasty, poisonous, and, 
withal, uncertain a medicine as tobacco. 
Clover meadows are beginning to show 
“their colors.” Thus far there is no appear¬ 
ance of the midge. It looks good to see them 
once more as bright as a l>ed of roses, and it 
will seem good if we can ouco more grow our 
own clover seed; yet I very much doubt 
whether it will pay me to grow any for mar¬ 
ket at present prices of seed and hay. T cut 
all my meadows twice and some of them three 
times, getting at each cutting a good crop of 
hay, and the extra hay is of nearly or quite as 
much value for feed as the money the seed 
would sell for in the market, and then the 
crop is not nearly so hard on the land as when 
fed, nearly all the abstracted fertility goes 
back. 
I shall, however, if the midge does not put 
in an appearance later, raise what seed I want 
for my own seeding. I pride myself on hav¬ 
ing clean fields, and weed my farm over twice 
each year, and when I raise my own seed I 
know just what I am getting. This is never 
the case when I buy seed. 
Western New York farmers are meeting 
much loss aud are greatly annoyed by finding, 
after planting, that their seed corn was bad. 
Thousands of acres have been planted the 
second time, making it quite late, besides the 
extra expense. Last Fall was very rainy and 
with but little sunshine, and corn, even when 
husked and cribbed early, scarcely seasoned 
at all before cold weather. The result of 
freezing in this condition was the destruction 
of the vitality of the grain, even when show 
ing no sign of injury hi appearance, hence so 
much failure. My seed corn was selected and 
husked early and at once put into crates and 
placed directly over the heating stove in the 
room where the men spout their evenings; it 
got perfectly dry before cold weather; every 
kernel has grown, and we have a fine stood to 
reward us. It would pay to give a little more 
care to the selection and keeping of the corn 
for planting. J. s. woodward. 
Niagara Co., N. Y. 
Xju 
DAIRY NOTES. 
T. D. CURTIS. 
RANK FOODS MAKE RANK MILK. 
It has long been a mooted question as to 
whether cabbages, turnips and other rank¬ 
smelling vegetables can be fed to milch cows 
without their taint being imparted to the milk. 
Some say they can be safely fed in small 
amount; others say that if they are fed just 
after milking, all bad effects will disappear 
before next milking time; while others say 
they will always taint the milk more or less, 
according to the amount fed. 1 suspect the 
latter are right, and that the longer as well 
is the more these rank vegetables are fed, the 
more injurious the effects. In a short time 
the cow will become saturated with their odor 
and flavor, and these will appear in the milk 
until they are eliminated from the cow’s sys¬ 
tem. There are other foods that are more 
suitable for milch cows, leaving the rank ones 
for other stock, so that it is not worth while 
to take the risk of feeding them to dairy 
stock. Beets are much preferable, aud make 
nice, sweet milk. Carrots are favorites with 
some, but if fed in large quantities they im¬ 
part a sort of smoky flavor to milk. 
MILK-PRODUCING AND BEEF PRODUCING. 
These are two quite different things, yet 
beef producers often consider themselves 
dairymen. Hence it is that we hear so much 
said about the desirability of beef aud milk from 
the same auirual. With the beef producer, 
milk is an incident, a by-product; but, of 
course, the more he gets of it, the more it adds 
to his profits. His eye, however, is mainly to 
beef, and for this reason be is not properly a 
dairyman, but a beef-producer. But who 
wants to eat cow beef ? Nobody who can get 
better. It is used mostly for canning purpos¬ 
es, when not sold by city retailers in cheap 
quarters. Cow beef will never amount to 
much unless we slaughter the cows at seven to 
nine years of age, as they do in Holland, in¬ 
stead of keeping them until they are 12 to 15 
years old, and drying up their milk because 
their teeth get so poor that they cannot eat. 
Really one should uot look for beef in a milch 
cow, for it will be of very poor quality, aud 
she ought to pay her way with the milk she 
gives. What is wanted is a breed that will 
turn out good beef steers, and good beef heif¬ 
ers when rejected as milkers. This several of 
the breeds will do. But the first consideration 
with the dairyman should be milk. Veal and 
beef are bis by-products. 
SALTING BUTTER. 
Anent the salting of butter without work¬ 
ing, a correspondent writes that he does it in 
the churn. He uses a “square-oblong” churn. 
After washing—one washing being in brine 
with “a handful or two” of salt thrown in—he 
lets the butter drain. Then as it is evenly 
spread over the bottom of the churn, he 
sprinkles over it nearly half the salt required 
—au ounce to the pound, made flue by rolling 
or otherwise, if not already so. Next, he un¬ 
hooks the chum, and gives it a quick flop to 
throw the butter on the side next to him. 
Nearly all the remainder of the salt is then 
sprinkled ou, when “another flop of the chum 
tho other way will take the butter out of the 
cornere not before reached.” The balance of 
the salt is now sprinkled on, none of the 
granules being smashed by dipping out, and 
he finds it secures very even salting. The 
chum is now slowly revolved until the butter 
is gathered into a solid mass. After this it is 
taken out aud allowed to stand and drain an 
hour or more, when it is slightly worked aud 
ready to pack. If the buttermilk is well 
washed out and the butter well drained before 
the salt is sprinkled on, the butter will be 
ready to pack directly from the chum, with¬ 
out taking out and draiuing and working. 
STRONG BUTTER, WEAK IN FACT. 
TnE strong quality in butter is its weak 
point, notwithstanding this may seem para¬ 
doxical. If rank, it does not improve its 
standing. The trouble is usually in the man¬ 
ufacture, although good butter is very sensi¬ 
tive to surrounding influences, and is often 
spoiled by the way in which it is kept—or, 
rather, is not kept. Says Col. McGlinsky: 
“Look at a dozen packages of farm butter and 
you will see a dozeu shades of color, from the 
immaculate white- to the brick-dust red; and 
from the solid boring, grainy specimen to the 
salvy grease; some will be as salty tts a last 
year’s codfish, while others will be as free of 
salt as spring water. Some of it will be as 
streaked as Jacob’s cattle, and possibly twice 
as strong.” Every one who Las frequented a 
country store will recognize the truthfulness 
of the picture. A preponderance of all the 
butter made in the United States is made in 
small, private dairies, in which no sort of pro¬ 
gress is made,aud honest thoughtlessness turns 
out only abominable stuff, and imagines it ex¬ 
cellent. As the ow ners of such dairies do not 
read dairy papers or utteud dairy conven¬ 
tions, how can they be reached? Shall it be 
by itinerant instructors, as in Europe? Can 
we get a little chemistry of everyday life into 
our common schools, and reach the rising 
generation in this way? Something ought to 
be done, for this is te>o expensive a way to 
supply the demand for grease. It would be 
far preferable to keep all bogus butter grease 
iu its natural state to supply the grease mark¬ 
et. Economy demands that something be 
done. But what? 
butter is considered best the world over, and 
this has a beautiful yellow tint, hard to imi¬ 
tate, but w'hicb is closely approximated. 
Everybody likes to see it, and the bogus butter 
men are ready to gratify tbe eye. Their pro¬ 
duct, however, is a counterfeit. Not so the 
genuine butter, except so far as its color is 
concerned. This, then, is au innocent cheat— 
a practical “white lie”—on the part of the 
dairyman. The color adds nothing to the 
quality, nor does it take auything from it, if a 
good color preparation is used. The amount 
is almost infinitesimal. But the color is a 
fraud—a harmless fraud—which all manufac¬ 
turers of butter color are interested in keeping 
up. It enables the dairyman to make butter 
of about the same color the year round. He 
can do this iu another way. Early-cut hay 
and eoru-meal. with oats, middlings, wheat, 
corn, or something else to make up the balance 
of nitrogenous material, will do it, if the cows 
have proper cart* and shelter. It w-ill even 
impart some of the June flavor. This is an 
excellent way of coloring butter, aud I can 
coinmend it without any disposition to injure 
the butter-color men—notwithstanding they 
are powerful accessories in the manufacture 
of counterfeit butter. 
ONE RURAL COMFORT. 
GEN. WILLIAM H. NOBLE. 
SHOULD BUTTER BE COLORED? 
This is a mere matter of taste— not so far as 
the palate is concerned, but the eye. Juno 
Fine poultry brings joy and profit to the 
farm. The cock’s crow in the watches of the 
night aud bailing the dawn, the turkey’s gab¬ 
ble, the goose’s call and the quacks of ducks are 
tho out-door home music of rural life. I 
would as soon have the farm without garden, 
barns or fruit as bare of a well stocked poul¬ 
try yard. 
What a comfort to the little aud the big of 
the household, are the peeps and busy food- 
search of the chicks, the plaintive call of the 
turkey mother and her brood’s response, the 
waddliugs and the washings of the downy duck¬ 
lings, the cackling concert of the barnyard 
over the new-laid egg. These make up one 
great joy of rurul life. 
Then, if the farmer listens to the great 
poet’s counsel: “Put money iu thy purse, Ho¬ 
ratio,” he cannot quicker load his pouch than 
from the poultry-yard. As a food supply to 
bis own table, how nicely it varies the steady 
drag and array from the pork barrel and the 
smoke-house. How joys tho festive board 
with chickens broiled aud fricaseed, with the 
well-browned turkey’s savory roast, and in 
the luscious tenderness of the grass-fed gos¬ 
ling and the ducks. The puree joys when thus 
the meat wagon’s daily call is saved. 
Then when you look to the markets for pro¬ 
fit on your stock, how much sooner can “Ho¬ 
ratio put mouey in his purse” out of his 
poultry -yard than from the swine, beeves aud 
sheep in his pens, stalls aud pastures. Pound 
for pound, how much greater the profit! 
Four to six eeuts per pound will limit the 
average of the latter. The poultry price will 
run up into the teeus.and never be much or long 
below in tbe biggest wholesale marts. Be¬ 
sides, with decent care of food, housing and 
feeding range, poultry can he profitably 
marketed at as low figures as the beeves, mut- 
tou aud porkers. Is there auy doubt of this? 
I speak now merely of the flesh food. 
But when you figure on the egg crop of the 
poultry-yard. I believe this alone will yield a 
profit equal in ratio to that of the stalled ox 
or swine, or from the wool aud flesh of sheep. 
In no case will fullness come to the purse but 
through that care and sense, without which 
no proflt comes to any line of Industrial pro¬ 
duct. I should only claim this egg proflt from 
good, healthy, laying strains, well cored for as 
to food and shelter. As to either eggs or flesh, 
there is a good deal to bo said about breed and 
breeding. To these, hi auy line of farm stock, 
the average farmer takes little heed. It is 
pretty much of this sample with all he raises 
on the farm—flesh, grass, grain or fruit. 
He runs in ruts, as a rule, or does not ruu at 
all. Yet, thank God! for him and our coun 
try, by the help of such journals os yours, he 
mends his pace slowly. 
You ask will the farmyard poultry pay 
shut up? No, not as a business. To amount 
to much more than a supply for your own 
table the poultry crop wants to be in propor 
tion to your domain and your other products. 
No city-yard style will do on tho farm. Its 
like will never make a paying branch of farm 
industry, for several reasons. 
First, because tbe farmer has enough to do 
without such paltry care as Bhut-up fowls de 
maud. 2. Because all poultry is healthiest, 
better flushed aud more profitable with a 
range of feeding ground. In these days wire 
netting will so cheaply corral a flock, so pro¬ 
tect your garden aud near-by plow laud in 
the crop season, that no farmer should think 
of putting poultry in a close pen. 
Poultry, when given a chance, feed as much 
on grass as grain. They throughout the year 
consume great quantities of greeu or half 
deoavod vegetable food, and will eat bay in 
Winter almost like a stalled ox. Besides, “all 
is grist that comes to their mill,” which they 
can swallow. No end of insect life is squelched 
and held back by their endeavors. A skirm¬ 
ish line of turkeys through a stubble or new- 
raowu field, equals hi order aud array that of 
soldiers advancing to a fight. The w’hole 
poultry tribe are great foragers. Whenever 
anything is to their liking, to nibble or to dig 
for, they are sure to find it. 
I say, therefore, to tbe farmer, don’t call 
yourself such unless you make poultry care 
anil culture a feature of your life; never, ex¬ 
cept for discipline, keep your poultry shut up 
in narrow quarters. 
I never would buy a farm, or teuaut one, 
through, or skirting which sonic rippling 
1 irook or good stream, with pools and rapids, 
did uot run. At auy rate. I should not choose 
any where an ample and clean supply of 
water could not lie had for all the needs of 
poultry life and taste. 
You pictured some years since hi your jour¬ 
nal this joy of the poultry tribe: A cheap dam 
of stones held back a pool and made a minute 
waterfall on a swift brook; on and around this 
gamboled, or quietly sailed, tho aquatic tribe. 
Others Searched along the shallows of its brink 
for tid-bits of bugs or worms, or tiny fish. 
Lot all farm life cherish as its proper be¬ 
longing and loveable feature and profitable 
charge the poultry tribe. Arrange to feed 
this stock well with the least possible care. 
Get good breeds for flesh aud egg production 
combined. Then improve them by studying 
the points of your stock, and only breed from 
the best. 
Within 20 years the quality of poultry stock 
and its egg product have vastly increased. The 
origination of now breeds combining both of 
these aims with hardy constitutions and adap¬ 
tation to our climate, have helped the beauty 
and profit in this part of farm industry. Iu a 
class of animal life on which improved crosses 
tell so markedly and quickly, there is hope 
for vast gains under skillful mating. 
Grxpmtncnt of the sttutal 
gUiu-Uorkcf. 
THE YELLOW WOOD—CONTINUED 
FERTILIZER EXl’ERIMENTS UPON 
POTATOES IN A POOR SOT L—THE 
RURAL’S RYE-WHEAT HYBRIDS. — 
PEA TESTS. _ 
The Yellow Wood Again.— The writer 
is sitting under the specimen of Yellow Wood 
so often alluded to iu these columns. It is the 
7tb of June. It was planted about 11 years 
ago, and is now 3G feet in diameter at the 
base, for the branches nearly sweep the turf. 
We wish our readers could see it now, and 
then tell us if we have said a word too much 
iu its favor. Its drooping panicles of pure 
white pea blossoms from six inches to a foot 
in length, are so numerous as to fairly divide 
the graceful tree between green and white. 
This tree is grace itsul f and—life. Its branches, 
long and slender, respond to every breeze, 
swaying slowly up and down, more slowly 
uow, indeed, from tho weight of its thousands 
of snowy blossoms. There are many trees, 
like tho big, stubby-limbed horse-ehustnuts, 
that are dull, heavy, stupid-looking. Except 
in a gale, their leaves alone move. They ex¬ 
cite no admiration or affection. We do not 
care to talk and associate with them. But we 
could not part with our Yellow Wood. Wo 
admire its wide-spreading, gently-swaying 
branches, its soft, green foliage, its airy, 
sprightly grace as if they were the charms of 
a friend. Aud yet this trees has its faults. It 
will not stand contact with any other tree, or 
scarcely close proximity. Many of tho inner 
leaves turn yellow early in Summer, and keep 
dropping. Occasionally a small branch dies 
without apparent cause, though not to the dis¬ 
figurement of the tree, so far as we may yet 
judge. The bark of the tree is ul ways smooth, 
and the items are not attacked by borers, as 
are the locusts. We should be gliul to hear 
from our friends who have siugle trees of the 
Yellow Wood 20 years or more old. 
FERTILIZER EXPERIMENTS UPON POTATOES. 
Such experiments often contradict ono au 
Other, and yeare are required before auy def¬ 
inite conclusions can be drawn. The experi¬ 
ments made here two yeare ago were not con¬ 
tradictory. They all told tho same story, 
viz., tluit the land needed complete fertilizers 
and that a good crop could not be grown 
without them. The present experiments, 
upon the same unproductive soil, point to tho 
