THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
UL 
foundation would be very unreliable—about 
like quicksand for the foundation of a build¬ 
ing. It would take a long while to fix the 
type, even if we secured a good one, and get 
up to where we might begin by selecting thor¬ 
oughbreds for a foundation. It is always best 
to start with the best. Even then, obstacles 
enough will arise. 
Sugar in Butter. — I sec it stated that 
“Prof. Stewart recommends salting butter 
with one-fourth of white pulverized sugar and 
three-fourths in weight of fine salt, one ounce 
of the mixture, for every pound of butter.” 
What Stewart we are left to guess. But I 
think there must be some mistake about this. 
traditions and notions, and science teaches 
me that a line of breeding founded on corn 
and fat will run out any breed of people, 
cattle or hogs, and cholera seems to confirm 
this view; for it revels in just these conditions. 
A number of Western men have told mo that 
the Poland-China pigs are apt to be weak 
when they come, and I have no doubt of it. 
That Mr. Young, or his careful neighbor, had 
strong pigs and lots of them would not dis¬ 
prove this. They may be the exception. A 
great many shippers told me that the losses 
with Polaud-Chinas, in shipment, were exces¬ 
sive; that they did not “stand up” well in 
shipment. I do not doubt this at all, and the 
fact that one could walk 15 miles in a day. 
desired in a fowl, and are therefore one of the 
best breeds for the farmer. Their glossy, 
greenish-black plumage, bright red rose combs, 
heavy beard and stylish carriage make a flock 
an ornament to any yard or lawn.” 
REMEDY FOR ROUP. 
I have lately had several cases of roup 
among my poultry, and have cured every one 
discovered iu time—bad attacks too—by simple 
remedies. First, give a bread pill containing 
Cayenne pepper and red horse-powder, and at 
night a teaspoouful of the best castor oil. 
Also wet the nostrils well with kerosene oil 
during the day—twice if the attack be severe— 
and let the birds breathe fumes of the flowers 
pollens from different varieties give only neg¬ 
ative or noncommittal results. The drought 
pinched the fruits severely on removing the 
plants from the greenhouse to the garden, and 
they ripened prematurely; but the story told 
is a repetition of that of last season. Berries 
of Crescent fertilized with pollen from Lennig’s 
White, were not perceptibly lighter in color 
than the same fertilized with Wilson pollen. 
Flowers fertilized on one side with pollen from 
Lennig's White, and on the other with that 
from Sharpless, gave berries colored all alike. 
Flowers not fertilized at all, unless from the 
pollen imperceptibly carried through the air 
from neighboring plants in the greenhouse, 
produced a few berries which boro apparently 
Sugar is a very unstable compound, when in 
a diluted form, and very bad for both butter 
and cheese. It plays the mischief in the 
cheese-vat, if the maker is not careful to 
guard against it and get rid of it as soon as 
possible, and 1 have always considered it ob¬ 
jectionable in butter. The more completely it 
is washed out, the better and t he longer the 
butter will retain its flavor, which will be 
cleaner without the sugar than with it. To 
add sugar to it—and especially common pul¬ 
verized sugar, with all its impurities—is to in¬ 
vite rapid loss of flavor and the development 
of a bad one. The sugar will surely decom¬ 
pose, if oxygen gets to it—and it is difficult to 
keep it away. It is much easier to keep the 
sugar out of the butter. Pure butter, free 
from all foreigu ingredients, and flavored 
with pure salt, is the most palatable aud will 
keep the longest. Don’t doctor your butter 
with sugar, saltpeter or anything else. There 
is too much adulteration. 
Costs and Values. —Prof. I. P. Roberts 
finds it costs him cent per quart to pro¬ 
duce milk on the Cornell University farm, and 
the value of the manure he estimates at 
cents a day per cow. This was in an experi¬ 
ment to test the value of the manure by special 
feeding for the purpose. Only the manure of 
well-fed milch cows could be so valuable, and 
to secure or retain this value, the manure 
must lie carefully housed. There ought to be 
profit iu producing milk at 1 >j cent per quart, 
even in these times of low prices. 
-» ♦ • 
Big Milk Record. —Up to May 1 last, 25 of 
our heifers had closed their two-year-old 
records which commenced iu the Spring of 
1885. The weight of each milking of every 
animal was carefully aud accurately kept, aud 
testified to by the milkers in a manner satis¬ 
factory to the Superintendent of the Advanced 
Registry, The record of the entire lot aver¬ 
aged, for the year, 12,409 pounds eight ounces. 
This average so far surpasses all previous herd 
averages for heifers of the same age (two- 
years-old) that its publication will be of inter¬ 
est to all breeders. 
SMITHS, POWELL & LAMB. 
Syracuse, N. Y. 
*l\)z BwirutyttiJ. 
THE VOICE OF THE DUROC-JERSEYS. 
I like the article of Mr. R. J. Young, St. 
Joseph Co., Mo., published in the Rural of 
June 5, for its general fairness and its entire 
brightness. Mr. Young lias done well with a 
bad case. Lawyer-like, he made his premises 
to suit himself, and went away back into the 
legends of the past to get Ins specimens of red 
hogs on which to found his argument, and 
repeated the old, old squib of the corn-crib 
breeders, about “rail-splitters." I wonder 
what the Poland-China perfectionist would do 
if he could not call up this antiquated jibe 
when he towers in indignation at a little good 
advice about his line of breeding and feeding 
aud the dangers attending it. People have 
been blind before and suffered woefully for it. 
None of us is too wise to learn, and the breed¬ 
ers of the Du roc-Jersey hogs have lived and 
learned and improved them hogs wonderfully; 
and I have heard it said that Poland-China 
breeders were afraid of them. 
I will say again that I think the Poland- 
Chinas “are as nearly perfect as they can be.” 
They have got all the Berkshire in them they 
can veiy well get, aud the road is ended in 
that direction, and now I generously suggest 
to them to travel with us and try the Duroc- 
Jersey blood. When perfection is reached, or 
rather if “improvement” is reached which has 
been aimed at, which is called sometimes 
“early maturity,” aud means getting fat all 
the time, then comes a good time to change 
aud put in some new blood before deterioration 
sets in too strongly. It doesn’t seem to have 
dawned upon the average Poland-China 
breeder that when a thing is finished, it is 
done—when a thing is ripe the next step is 
decay. Breeds have run out in the post, and 
they may be running out in the presont, and 
they will in the future. 
Science has exploded a great many old 
though it weighed 700 pounds, w on’t, upset the of sulphur. I take a pan of ashes, put live 
statement. This was another notable excep¬ 
tion. No one ran convince mo that all corn 
and fat in fathers and mothers for genera¬ 
tions will put strong bone and stamina in the 
offspring. I have not lost one pig this Spring 
from weakness or disease, and one sow had 11 
pigs in an open field in the night during a cold 
rain storm. It. is a common thing for Duroc- 
Jersey pigs to dress more than 800 pounds 
when eight to ten months old; but I am 
aware “that simple assestion will not give 
hogs stamina or lots of pigs;” but new and 
strong blood with plenty of muscle and bone 
and a variety of food will, and that is what 
we want. f. d. curtis. 
A HOG LIFTER. 
It is often necessary to carry hogs from 
place to place. A sow with a litter of pigs is 
the most uncomfortable thing imaginable to 
drive when she takes a notion to go in another 
direction. Large hogs can be driven from the 
pen, up a board, into a wagon, but little pigs 
are hard to manage in this way. When the 
w r hole brood are driven into a box it requires 
several men to load it into the wagon. Mr. 
H. J. Beck, of Sanilac Co. Mich., sends us a 
coals on it, then sprinkle sulphur on the fire 
and move the pan under the roosts in the 
evening when the fowls ore on them. Cara 
must be taken not to allow it, to be too strong. 
I have used compounds made by long recipes, 
and have not found them nearly as effective 
as the above remedy. I would no more be 
without this than I would go without camphor 
and cough medicine or ointment in the house. 
Durand, Ill. G. s. 
DOES IT PAY TO KEEP POULTRY? 
Some deny it, I kept 27 liens the past 
Winter. From Dec, 21, 1885, to April 26,1886, 
inclusive, they laid 1,272 eggs, or 106 dozen, 
which sold for from 18 cents down to 10 cents 
per dozen, and averaged 14 cents or more. At 
14 cents, they netted 814.84. The birds were 
fed wheat screenings with corn and boiled 
vegetables occasionally. The entire feed did 
not cost 85. They were Plymouth Rocks, 
Black Jnvas aud Brown Leghorns. Of the 
last we had five pullets. They began to lay 
when five months old (this is no guess-work), 
and between the above dates they laid 450 
eggs. No doubt many can beat this, but it 
answers the above question. c. s. 
Plover, Wis. 
A HOG LIFTER. Fig. 275. 
sketch of a contrivance that must add greatly 
to the ease of such a shipment. While visiting 
a neighbor he saw a sow and her pigs loaded 
into a wagon with so much ease that lie made 
a note of it at once. A large box with a slid¬ 
ing door and rings at the corners—like that 
shown in the illustration—was placed on the 
ground. By means of a little feed, the sow 
and her vugs were induced to enter. Then the 
slide was dropped, leaving the pigs prisoners. 
Then the long pole shown iu tho picture was 
lowered so as to fasten the chains and hooks 
as shown. Then by pulling on the longer arm 
of the lever, the whole thing was lifted and 
fastened so as to hang high enough to enable 
a wagon to be backed under it. With an im¬ 
plement of this kind one man can lift a very 
heavy load. 
BLACK RUSSIAN FOWLS. 
Mr. E. Haley, of New London Co., Conn., 
sends us the following information regarding 
the Black Russians, shown at Fig. 278, p. 481; 
“ This rather odd but beautiful breed of fowls 
is supposed to have been originally imported 
from Russia. They are a trifle odd, because 
they haven’t a vestige of crest; t hey have full 
beards or whiskers, which give them a pecu¬ 
liar look. They are naturally very hurdy, 
and being very fully feathered, they are well 
adapted to cold weather, hence they are great 
egg layers through the winter months, and 
also good summer layers. Their bones are 
rather small for their weight, for they have 
full, plump breasts and bodies. Though they 
have dark-colored legs, they have yellow fat 
and skin and are fine table fowls, their weight 
being from six to eight pounds. They are 
quiet and gentle and easy to manage. They 
feather and mature quite young, and pullets 
commence to lay when about fire months old. 
They have all the good qualities that could be 
One way of flanking our insect foes is to 
change our planting ground. Plants of squash¬ 
es in an old garden wore besot by au army of 
cucumber beetles as soon as their seed-leaves 
appeared above ground, while on a pint a few 
rods distant, on which no cucurbit® had been 
grown for years, the plants were scarcely mo¬ 
lested at alL Potato plants on soil devoted to 
potatoes three years were eaten back to the 
ground by the Colorado Beetle, while on 
ground that lias seen no potatoes recently the 
foliage is scarcely injured. 
I have received little if any benefit from the 
much lauded kerosene emulsion. Used for 
aphides in varying degrees of strength, it 
greased tho foliage, 1 >ut did not kill the lice. 
Used very strong for the cabbage maggot, it 
has not stopped, if it has checked tho injury. 
An emulsion containing one-fourth in bulk 
pure kerosene did not kill tho maggots im¬ 
mersed in it. Used for tho codling moth, it 
injured the foliage, hue did not decrease tho 
wormy fruits. Who has a better record for 
it? 
I find that transplanting may be accom¬ 
plished with excellent success, even in very 
dry weather, if it is properly done. Make a 
hole with the dibber or trowel, aud fill it with 
water. A few minutes afterward, set the 
plant, placing the roots deep, puck the earth 
tightly about the roots and stem, and cover 
the surface with mellow earth. Plants of cab¬ 
bage, egg plant, tobacco and pepper set in 
this way, huvo scarcely withered, though no 
rain hus fallen since, nor for many days be¬ 
fore the setting. 
Another season’s careful experiments iu fer¬ 
tilizing the blooms of the strawberry with 
normal seeds, though the blooms bore no vis¬ 
ible filaments or authors. One effect of the 
cross-fertilizations, however, was visible. The 
percentage of berries secured in tho crossings 
was clearly in proportion to the abundance of 
the pollen yielded by tho flowers used. That 
is to say, the Lenuig’s White and Sharpless, 
which yielded more pollen than the Wilson, 
gave a larger proportion of berries than did 
the latter. e. s. goff. 
Geneva, N. Y. 
Arm U opits. 
THE DARK SIDE OF FARMING.—II. 
HENRY STEWART. 
There are a great many misfits in this 
world. A bright, witty woman once remark¬ 
ed of those married couples who sought dis¬ 
union in tbe courts, that they were misfit 
couples, and surely this term may be applied 
to those farmers who have got into a business 
uusuited to their character and habits, aud in 
which they chafe themselves, aud live under 
the dark shadow of discontent. Contentment 
is a spring of happiness, and happiness in 
one’s vocation is the secret of success. Riches 
and the means of extravagant, liviug are not 
often possible to the farmer: a plain suffici¬ 
ency, abundance even of all the necessaries 
and many of the comforts of life a farmer 
may have, but the empty superficial pleasures 
of society, the gossip, and the frivolous em¬ 
ployment which some call “ society,” are 
scarcely consistent with farm life. When 
these are thought to be the sum of happiness, 
then one pines in what has bccu called tho 
dreary isolation of farm life, and contentment 
vanishes, with ail the brightness which it 
brings to the life. There is no dreariness or 
isolation when a farmer and his family “shut 
up in measureless content” find within their 
narrow environments all tliat is pleasing to an 
intelligent mind, in the contemplation of all 
the beauties and wanders of nature, in the 
pure air breathed, iu the wholesome varied 
exercise of the field and garden, in the studies 
and pleasing discoveries which are made day 
by day, and In the “sweet restorer, balmy 
sleep” which is enjoyed nowhere else so fully 
as on a farm. 
Tho man or the woman who is a misfit farm¬ 
er or farmer’s wife is to be pitied, not because 
farm life is not desirable, but because the dis¬ 
position to enjoy it and make the most of it 
is wanting, and this casts a dark shade over 
the life, however one may be situated. Once 
1 suw a cross child given a bright toy; it was 
one that opened with a spring and let loose a 
gayly dressed figure. The child in its petu- 
lonce threw the toy from him with forco 
enough to looseu the cover, and out burst the 
figure. Hera was a revelation, a discovery of 
something which startled the mind and gave 
rise to pleasurable surprise. Tho child in¬ 
stantly changed from frowns to smiles; the 
tears were dried, aud with a cry of joy, the 
cast-off toy was picked up and examined and 
its nature pried into and every discovery was 
a pleasure, Just so in a large way the misfit 
farmer may at some time, and generally does 
sooner or later, make the discovery that lie Ls 
ut, fault, and that he has been casting from him 
in disgust many enjoyable Opportunities and 
privileges which he could find nowhere else. 
He lias been living in darkness because ho has 
shut his eyes to tho light. Sometimes this is 
true of the farm wife, uud with her all 
the family are made miserable. The children 
then look forward with hope and anticipation 
to the time when they can flee from the farm 
house which has been dark and dreary to 
them, and by and by one by one they disappear, 
mid the old couple alone, seek enjoyment iu 
their own misery aud pass their old age, like 
Runyan’s Giant, blind and helpless, but full of 
spite and rage, because every passer-by seemed 
happy and was beyond his reac h. Such a life 
makes the boys leave the farm, and the girls 
are in haste to follow them. It is not the laud 
or thes oil; it is the men, who have been mis¬ 
fitted to it, or perhaps the women, who have 
made their labors doubly hard by their own 
discontent and fretting aud have worn out 
their life iu misery. 
