few times, and they will learn to take the feed 
with a good deal of milk. He has never known 
this plan to fail. He has taught colts and 
horses in thin flesh to take skim-milk in this 
way, and found the milk very effective in re¬ 
storing condition. It would bo better that 
the milk should be warmed.. 
The Iowa Homestead says you can’t steal 
from j r our land or from your calf without be¬ 
ing caught in the act. Uneven crops and thin 
ribs will not lie driven out of sight. 
Willis P. Hazzard names the Guernsey 
as the best “general-purpose” cow. She has 
the butter qualities of the Jersey with a tougher 
constitution, larger size and better feeding 
qualities. She is the happy medium between 
the butter Jersey aud the huge Holstein, with 
the good qualities of both and the defects of 
neither.... . 
Too many farmers still consider skim-milk 
simply a waste. Mr. R. H. Gage, of Wiscon¬ 
sin, thinks otherwise. He bought 10 calves, 
grade Short-horns, from one to three days 
old. and put them on to a skim-milk diet with a 
little oil meal and hay as soon as they desired 
it. In six months these calves weighed 8.500 
pounds. Figuring hay and oil meal at regular 
prices, the skim milk brought in $101.85. That 
is, it enabled the farmer to turn a certain 
amount of bis work into that much cash. 
That sum is four per ceut. on 82,500. 
A half-starved calf, saysthe Am. Dairy¬ 
man. is in just the condition to invite all kinds 
of diseases, aud especially those chronic lung 
complaints that occasionally do so much dam¬ 
age in herds of dairy cattle. Remember it— 
you who seem to grudge every quart of milk 
that goes down the calf’s throat. ..... 
Prof. Olin says, in the Industrialist, that 
it is becoming clear to the American people 
that strikes, lockouts, boycotts and mobs are 
not remedial agencies. The old-fashioned 
conviction is forcing itself upon the political 
and social world that if you sow corruption, 
there will spring up crime; if you plant sedi¬ 
tion you will gather rebellion; if you scatter 
mob law. you will harvest mobs; if you sow to 
the winds of socialism and anarchy, you will 
reap the whirlwind of destruction aud death.. 
Capital oppresses labor while sustaining it. 
This is all wrong. But it is the suicide’s solu¬ 
tion of the problem to destroy capital. 
Ho question is settled until settled on the 
basis of right, not force; and in this settlement 
an ounce of common sense is worth barrels of 
dynamite...*.•.. 
The London Ag. Gazette says that there are 
individual cattle, sheep and pigs which inevit¬ 
ably pick your pockets. The Breeder’s Gazette 
says that there is a whole gospel in the above 
sentence. The moral is: Supply their places 
w ith better ones, and the sooner done the bet¬ 
ter. 
Prof. Goessman thinks the feeding of our 
home-raised fodder is as important a question 
as the raising of it. Fertilization, or the science 
of feeding plants, has made rapid ad vaneement 
of late. Cattle feeding should be studied just 
a-s carefully . . 
Every farm house should have a supply of 
lemons on hand during the hot weather, says 
the Kansas Farmer. You can make lemouade 
at one cent per glass. You will get five cents’ 
worth, of benefit out of it. There you make a 
clear profit of 40fl per cent... 
Rev. Canon Bagot, the Irish dairy expert, 
asserts that 100 dairy factories will be estab¬ 
lished this year in Denmark. Unions are 
formed much as our farmers combine to estab¬ 
lish creameries. Separators will be used al¬ 
most exclusively. Butterine drives the 
dairyuieu into combination for mutual pro¬ 
tection..• . 
There are many men, says the Live-Stock 
Indicator, who are proud to possess 81,000 or 
$5,000 cattle, just as there are men who pay 
$10,000 to $40,000 for a noted horse, but as a 
business speculation , the last buyer is always 
the laser ...... 
The Journal of Agriculture says that the 
country has been flooded with a cheap lot of 
pedigree Short-hom stuff that are a disgrace 
to the name of thoroughbred cattle, and the 
same parties who have thrown them upon the 
market this year will have others for sale next, 
and more of them. If there is no way out of 
this difficulty the end is near at hand on all 
Short-horns... 
A writer in the Kansas City Indicator 
suggests taxing bulls at so much per head, 
and says the effect would lie to kill off all the 
scrubs whose only service is to get cows with 
calf when the stock is not worth raising, and 
which thus do great, injury to stock interest.. 
The American Dairyman says that the 
dairyman who buys a big cow with a view to 
selling her carcass for beef when through with 
her in the dairy, has been aptly likened to the 
man who bought an engine several tiuu* too 
large for the work he had to do, with a view 
to selling it for more as old iron when worn 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JULY 3 
out than he could a smaller engine. The 
waste of food in carrying the extra carcass of 
the big cow is similar to the waste of fuel in 
running the engine that, was too large for the 
work to be performed. There is a comical 
Idleness too in the money value, for fattening 
purposes, of the carcass of the old cow and 
the merchantable value of the old worn-out 
engine.....,,...* 
A writer in Hoard's Dairyman cured the 
worst case of caked bag he ever saw in about 
four horn's by thoroughly soaking and rubbing 
with the juice of pie plaut. 
According to several speakers at, a late 
meeting of the Central N. Y. Farmers’ Club, 
as reported in the Cultivator, in rearing ani¬ 
mals we should begin right. Select from the 
best parents. Feed properly, and keep the 
calf growing. When milk is short, feed some¬ 
thing else. Oats are good. When the calf is 
a year old keep it on grass in the Summer, 
aud give extra food in the second Winter. 
Do not let a dairy shrink in July and 
August. Heavy lasses are sustained by not 
keeping the stock well through the dry season. 
One successful dairyman cuts his corn fodder 
and mixes it with as much early-cut hay to 
feed in dry weather. 
A good ration for feeding is four parts of 
shorts, two parts of ground oats, and one part 
of corn-meal. The above is a good ration for 
quantity of inilk. Of course nothing iu the 
way of feed is quite as good as fresh grass. 
When sowed corn is fed green and immature, 
Mr, Hoxie does not think it helps the flow of 
milk very much... 
Harris Lewis says that in establishing a 
dairy breed, the farmer should go back to tbe 
calf and have a bony structure well developed. 
Guard against having a heifer very fat before 
she comes in. - Oats aud wheat shorts are 
splendid food to produce cattle, but when you 
feed cornmeal or cottonseed meal for that pur¬ 
pose, it is a mistake. 
The Popular Science News relates the fol¬ 
lowing as occurring between a Chicago ma u of 
a statistical turn of mind and a companion:— 
“Do you see that man over there? Well, he’s 
a farmer down near Elgin. There he goes 
with a friend. They are going to got a drink; 
the farmer will pay for it. Now, let me see: 
that man will sweat half an hour next 
Spring to plow enough ground to raise one 
bushel of corn. The bushel of corn he will 
sell for 30 cents. He is going iu there now to 
spend the 30 cents for two drinks, therefore 
the farmer and the corn have parted.”. 
The Michigan Farmer says that a year ago, 
Messrs. Merrill & Fifield made a strong effort 
to buy the Hereford bull Hotspur, one of the 
most noted sous of Lord Wilton. The price 
asked was $5,000, which the firm considered 
too strong for them. But they wanted that 
bull, and wanted him bad. Finally, early 
this season, they decided to take him at the 
price named, and he was shipped to them. 
The voyage was a rough one, and the animal 
worried himself to death. It was found im¬ 
possible to quiet him, and he never ceased his 
struggles until he had worn himself out. He 
was insured, we understand, for $3,000. 
Cpfujuiljcrc. 
TRANSCONTINENTAL LETTERS.—LV. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
From Ashland to San Francisco; a wet start; 
an agreeable stage companion; over the 
SisMyou Mountains; in California; the 
Klamath Valley; the dry, brown , blazing 
Summers; an inconsiderate pie-maker; a 
despoiled creek; Mount Shasta. 
As no train leaves Portland for Ashland on 
Sundays, there are usually fewer passengers 
for the stage on Monday morning than on any 
other day in the week, and for this reason the 
stage agent had advised us to w ait until that 
day—a day that I endured with much disquiet, 
fearing that our long succession of brilliant 
days would end in rain: for, indeed, it was 
rarely that the Fall rains had held off so late. 
So you may judge of my disgust upon. our 
arising at four o’clock on that eventful morn¬ 
ing, to find a gentle drizzle descending! To 
make this stage journey with any degree of 
pleasure or profit required clear weather, and 
we had been anticipating it for a 3 T ear. It 
was our first encounter with “ill luck” since 
leaving home, and 1 swallowed my breakfast, 
and bundled myself inside the stage, in a mood 
which might aptly be expressed “os mud as a 
hornet.” It was five o’clock aud barely day- 
break. Anaximander and the laddie, in rubber 
coats and rain hats, went, on top with the 
driver. There was but one other passenger, 
and he came inside—a fine-looking man who 
proved to bean ex-Uuited States Senator from 
Oregon, aud who had lived in Portland for 25 
years. He was inclined to be chatty, told me 
that he had crossed the continent 27 times, by 
rail and stage; had been a week at a time in 
the latter; had often made the stage ride we 
had just set out upon: had never been in the 
stage when it was stopped by highwa 3 'men, 
but had only missed them upon two occasions 
by being a da 3 - behind or before them. That 
we were liable to be waylaid by robbers at 
any time, was an incident of which I had not 
seriously thought, but the possibility added a 
spice of danger to the undertaking. However, 
a year and a half had elapsed since the last 
robbery, aud the Senator said that the robbers 
rarely disturbed passengers, hut confined their 
seizures to tbe mails and packages of the ex¬ 
press companies. Even now, Wells, Fargo & 
Co., send an armed messeuger on certain days 
in the week to guard their treasure box. If 
he is quick iu getting ills revolver up before 
the robbers take aim, the latter take to their 
heels, or are shot; but if vice versa , there is 
nothing better to do than to submit to their 
demands. The stage drivers go unarmed— 
there are five employed on the route and they 
are paid each $100 a month, with board. The 
stage fare for the entire distance—125 miles— 
is $15. Only a limited amount of baggage is 
carried free, what is over weight is charged 
eight ceuts a pound. A through unlimited tick¬ 
et between Portland aud San Francisco can he 
had for $30—a limited ticket for $32. The 
distance is 738 miles. Four cents a mile is 
the highest rate railroads can charge in Ore¬ 
gon—according to a recent railroad enact- 
men. The legal rate of interest is 10 per cent., 
but the law is easity evaded, and much money 
is loaned for even a higher rate. 
For an hour or so we rattled along over the 
hard road on which the rain had only laid the 
dust, but if there was a rough place or a 
stretch of corduroy, the driver drove over it 
with increased speed, until I was “fairly 
jolted to death.” This was a small coach— 
none of them have springs—aud it was lightly 
loaded. Then we stopped at a farm for break¬ 
fast and made a change of horses, taking on 
six instead of four, and soon after began the 
ascent of the Siskeyou Mountains, crossing 
them iu a pass at the south, at the bight of 
6000 feet. It had taken us two hours to make 
the last six miles. All the way We drove 
through the mountain forest,, magnificent 
trees of Sugar Pine with beautiful bark, while 
on many of tbe oaks were great, dark-green 
pendent branches of a parasite, here called 
mistletoe, which gave a peculiarly luxuriant 
and wild effect to the forests. Near the sum¬ 
mit the Senator pointed out the spot where 
the stage had been stopped in daylight by 
bandits. Near by the road I saw in bloom 
the Torch Plant, sometimes called “Red-hot 
Poker,” and it was the only place in which I 
have seen it growing wild. Just as we 
crossed the summit the clouds had liegun to 
break and disperse, and high up through a rift 
appeared a great, snow-capped mountain peak. 
It was Shasta, and at the next halt the driver 
made, 1 climbed up to my place on his seat, 
where I sat, with my little boy between us, 
until half past, six o’clock the next morning. 
Down the mountain we rattled with the speed 
of a Jehu, and thence on for miles and miles, 
through the Klamath Valley, crossing Klam¬ 
ath River on a ferry propelled by the current 
of the stream. 
Meantime, the sky continued to clear until 
not a cloud remained. We bad crossed the 
State line into California, aud the laddie 
seemed disappointed that we could not see the 
line; that there was not even so much as a 
stream of water or u. fence to mark the division 
between the Web-foot, aud the Golden States. 
I have read that a post with a rag waving 
from the top was planted by the roadside, but 
I failed to see it. On our high seat, wo soon 
began to feel the scorching effect of the glaring 
California sun. No rain had fallen here, and 
the dryness and dust increased all the wa 3 r . 
The Klamath Valley is not of great width, 
and was very sparsely populated along our 
route. There was not a green field to be seen; 
everything w as in the brown of Summer, the 
rolling foot-hills on cither side bearing scrub 
oaks, clumps of grease brush, ehapparel and 
sage brush. Some variety was given to the 
color of the landscape by occasional fields of 
grain stubble, the stubble being peculiarly 
bright, probably because of the dryness of the 
atmosphere. I have never 3 ’ct mot with a 
Californian who did uot like, or pretend to 
like, tbe long summer season without rain, 
and to lay marked stress upon the conveniences 
aud advantages of not being obliged to make 
provision for a downpour. But I love the 
rain, aud ! am sure that I should wear out 
nervously in the long, dry Summers and piti¬ 
less sunshine of the interior valleys in Cali¬ 
fornia, where one finds two or three of the 
twenty or more climates with which this great 
State is blessed, aud if one will look on a map 
he will find that California is nearly as long 
as from Massachusetts to Georgia, aud has 
just as man 3 r climates. 
At half past eleven we stopped for jehange of 
horses and for dinner. The eating stations 
along this part of the route are merely farm 
houses—one-story buildings, “long and low,” 
planted long distances apart, and set around 
with shade aud fruit trees—locust and Lom- 
bardy Poplars, being favorites for shade. The 
farmerine at the dinner station was a little be¬ 
hind with the rnenl. giving as an excuse that it 
was Monday—the Chinaman had been wash¬ 
ing, and she herself hail a toothache. We had 
soup and roast, beef, baked beans, potatoes, 
nice honey in the comb—from hives on the 
ranch—and pie, two kinds—always pie without 
a thought, seemingly, that there are people in 
the world who regard it as an insult to fruit, 
to put it between piecrust dough. Our next 
spin was over a hard and level road to Yerka, 
which wo were to reach at three o’clock with 
four horses. The driver was very reeticent, 
briefly answering questions, and occasionally 
venturing a bit of information. All the time 
at intervals, we had view's ot t.he top of Shas¬ 
ta which we were gradually nearing “Yon see 
that post thereby the road-side with the stones 
packed around the bottom?” observed the 
holder of the ribbons: “Well, that marks the 
grave of a stage robber. A messenger shot 
him on that very spot, and ho was buried there 
Them messengers make quick work of ’em. 
He was from Illinois; all those fellows are gen¬ 
erally escaped convicts from the East.” As 
w'e were driving along a stream of water for 
some, miles he said, “That’s a noted creek.” 
“What is it called?” “The Cottonwood.” 
“And for what is it noted?" I continued, “For 
the number of men who’ve been drowned in it, 
and horses, and for the gold that’s been taken 
out of it—millions of dollars. They used to 
just pick out the clear nuggets of gold. 
But its all taken out now, I s’pose.” It 
was a most innocent aud coinmon-place- 
looking creek, with cattle at intervals chink¬ 
ing in it, and with cottonwood, trees growing 
sparsely along its banks. The road lay through 
the open valley with rarely a fence on either 
side; the hills brown, reddish-brown or mouse- 
brown—they all had a varying tint—continued 
to bear their orchards of scrub growth, and 
further back and higher up, occasional planta¬ 
tions of pines. We met the stage coming from 
the opposite end of the route, and had passed 
probably three or four wagons in the 50 miles 
we had come. Finally, we came into the 
Shasta Valley with Mt. Shasta looming up in 
front of us; from base to summit, and for 
fully 13 hours, we were iu full view of it, but 
from no place ivas the view' so fine as from 
the Shasta Valley. The mountain had less 
snow on it than usual, because of the un¬ 
usual dryness and heat of the Summer; but 
absence of snow below the summit revealed 
what ordinarily cannot lie seen—the extent of 
volcanic action. On one side of the mountain 
a crater was evidently built up almost as high 
as the peak, and some views of Shasta, partic 
ularly taken from Straw tier ry Valley, shoiv 
two peaks of about equal magnitude. One of 
the foot-hills of the mountain is called Black 
Butte, and it is quite a mountain in itself, 
and all in the foreground and clustering about 
the base of tbe mountain are a multitude of 
conical mounds of varying bight and size, but 
as regular in outline osif thrown up “toorder.” 
The mountain is wooded part way up. The 
nearest approach we made to it was within a 
distance of 18 miles, and it did not look to bo 
over five. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Dakota. 
Alexandria, Hanson Co., June 10.—I 
planted the Alaska l'ea, sent in the 
Rural’s F. S. D, on April 21; to-day there 
are peas read 3 ' to cook— quickest time iu the 
world, I think. American Wonder, (a good 
pen) aud Salner’s Earliest and Best are more 
than a length behind. Salner’s so-called Ear¬ 
liest and Best is a very poor yielder. Frequent 
showers and hot weather are rushing things. 
T. H. Y. 
Kao nan. 
Lyons, Rice Co., June 12.—Prices for the 
crops of 1885 have been very low. Wheat sell¬ 
ing for 25 cents to 00 cents a bushel; corn 15 
ceuts to 10 cents a bushel; oats 17 ceuts; old 
potatoes 40 cents. No rain since May 6; 
weather very warm aud dry. Wheat w'ill be 
40 per cent, of a full average crop; oats half a 
crop, should there bo rain to enable them to 
till out. Corn very promising; as nearly all 
was “listed,” the dry weather was very severe 
on it; it is fully two weeks behind the average 
growth. 1 don’t think there is more than half 
a stand. Hny very light. Sorghum hala- 
pemaft came through the Winter well and is 
growing nicely. Trees were killed very badly 
last Winter, especially peaches and apricots. 
E. s. J. 
Ohio. 
Dayton, Montgomery Co., June 15. —The 
weather has been favorable here for growing 
crops, some barley is harvested, and wheat 
and oats promise to be of more than average 
