4836 THE ftURAL NEW-YORKER. 437 
jfmJust’l % ocuius. 
MICHIGAN STATE HORTICULTURAL 
SOCIETY. 
(RURAL special report.) 
Spring strawberry planting preferred to 
fall ; loo many pistillate plants; best vari¬ 
eties for market; matted vows better than 
hills; mulching; picking; how to eat 
strawberries; raspberries for market; 
picking and marketing; blackberries; 
“ plant patents" ; grapes for market; mil¬ 
dew; cucumbers. 
The summer meeting of this Society was 
held in Lansing, beginning June 15 and hold¬ 
ing through the 10th. The program was very 
full and interesting, most!) discussions. 
“ Strawberries for Market” was the first gen¬ 
eral topic. All the growers oresent preferred 
spring to fall planting. In Spring the plants 
are more likely to live, as the weather is more 
congenial and a crop can be had as soon as 
from fall planting. President Lyon remarked 
that we should plant as early as possible; a 
gain of a week is usually verj" marked in its 
effects. There was some expression of dis¬ 
favor concerning the introduction of so many 
pistillate varieties. Perhaps the using of pis¬ 
tillate plants as mothers in crossing for new 
sorts has a tendency to increase pistillate vari¬ 
eties. Best varieties for market in general 
are Wilson aud Crescent. Wilson often blights 
and Crescent overbears. Mr. Scott, a very 
successful grower at Ann Arbor, on heavy 
soil finds Mt. Vernon the very best market 
berry. Matt-eel rows, a foot to fifteen inches 
wide, are preferable to hills for incest markets 
and most varieties. Bidwell and Sharpless do 
best in hills. A. G. Gulley, South Haven, 
said that his Wilsons and C’resceuts in matted 
rows are as good as those in hills. 
A letter from Parker Earle, of Hlinois, re¬ 
commended planting in spring. He has 
mostly Crescents, three rows to one of some 
perfect-flowered sort. He cultivates clean in 
matted rows, mulches with straw which is 
not removed until after harvesting, and ships 
in 24-quart crates. It was generally agreed 
that the proper way to mulch is to cover the 
plants lightly and the ground between the 
rows heavily, and leave the mulch on until 
the berries are picked. Rome burn off the 
mulch. Strawberries demand intensive cul¬ 
ture. Most growers use tickets for berry- 
pickers and pay a cent and a-half a quart, 
although that is too much for Crescents. Ber- 
ines must be sorted by a careful man before 
they are put upon the market. Most growers 
pay pickers once a week, although some do 
not pay until the end of the season. It is best 
to use four-quart berry-carriers, and to make 
pickers Gil their carriers before leaving the 
field, Fast pickers may take two carriers. 
Do not allow pickers to snap off the berries or 
to tread down the vines. 
Few people know how to eat strawberries to 
advantage. The flavor of the different sorts 
is always disguised when the berries are 
smothered in sugar and cream. They are 
usually bast to cultivated palates when eaten 
with the addition of a little sugar aud water. 
The poorer the berries, the more sugar aud 
cream we use. Sec. Garfield has the best sorts 
brought to the table with hulls on, aud eats 
them from the hand. 
An interesting feature of the first evening’s 
program was a series of short talks, illustrated 
by charts, by students from the botany classes 
of Dr. Beal, of the Agricultural College. For 
market, red raspberries seem preferable to the 
black-caps. Turner, Cuthbert, Marlboro, 
Brandywine, Tyler, Souhegan, Shaffer, Ohio, 
Mammoth Cluster and Doolittle were men¬ 
tioned as leading market sorts. For market, 
the first desideratum is firmness. Fall plant¬ 
ing was generally preferred for reds, aud 
spring planting for caps. Price paid for pick¬ 
ing varies from one-and-n-lmlf to two-aud-a- 
half cents. Pint boxes with sloping sides are 
generally preferred. E. A. Scott uses tickets 
for one, two, three, four, six and eight quarts, 
and as these accumulate, they are taken up 
aud the picker receives 20-quart tickets. 
Pres. Lyon despairs of finding a hardy black¬ 
berry. lie prefers to plant the best sorts and 
lay them down for Winter. 
A communication was read from Jacob 
Moore, asking that the society consider the 
question of plant patents, the advisability 
of endeavoring to protect the originators of 
new fruits. A committee, consisting of Presi¬ 
dent Lyon, Prof. Tracy, Prof. Bailey and Sec¬ 
retary Garfield, was appointed to consider the 
matter, and report at some future meeting. 
The leading grapes for market prove to bo 
Worden, Concord and Moore, with much 
promise for Early Victor, Ulster aud one or 
two others. Prof. Bailey thought that resist¬ 
ance to mildew is fully as important as hardi¬ 
ness. Even hardy sorts winter-kill wheu_in¬ 
jured by mildew. He said that the sulphur 
and other remedies which are used for mildew 
in France are not likely to prove satisfactory 
here, as our mildew is not the same as the 
European oidum, Delaware is going out of 
date on account of mildew. 
Prof. Cook recommended the brand of pyre. 
thrum known as bubach above ordinary sorts 
as an insecticide. For application to trees 
with a fountain pump a tablespoonful is mixed 
with a pail of water. 
Prof. Tracy gave his experience concerning 
cucumbers. For general purposes it pays to 
plant in the open ground. Plant in drills and 
the losses from bugs will not be felt. Of all 
vegetables it is most important that cucum¬ 
bers be fresh when eaten. Soaking in water 
will usually remove bitterness. Pick early in 
the morning. Do not turn over the leaves. 
Always pick clean. 
Wednesday evening a number of Prof. Bai¬ 
ley’s students from the Agricultural College 
presented the results of their work in horti¬ 
culture. One reported upon the effects of 
chemicals in hastening germination; another 
upon experiments with various stocks for 
grafting; another upon pea trellises where wire 
was found to be cheaper than brush; another 
upon the effects of last winter upon fruit aud 
ornamental trees, aud others upon a success¬ 
ful fire hot-bed, upon the botany of raspber¬ 
ries and blackberries, and upon points in land¬ 
scape gardening. ilex. 
FARM WISDOM IN SHORT.PITHY PARA¬ 
GRAPHS. * 
Kindness to all around you is the corner¬ 
stone of happy farm life, and pays in every 
way. 
The fanner who makes it a rule to hurry 
his work for the sake of getting through in 
time for an hour’s play spell in the evening, 
will drive a poor horse, carry a lean purse, 
and mast likely a heavy mortgage too. 
The best calculating a farmer can do as to 
time, is to so plan his work as always to have 
enough to do, and never to ho overdriven. 
The farmer should realize that farming has 
not yet reached perfection; that improve¬ 
ments are possible in a thousand things: and 
his constaut study and careful observation 
should be to discover the better plan. 
The farmer’s motto should be, “Learn some¬ 
thing new every day.” Never rest satisfied 
with hearsay, but find out for yourself. Ex¬ 
periments poorly tried are like wet weather in 
haying; and to rely altogether on hearsay is 
like frost in June. 
Make all your experiments fairly, faithfully 
aud effectually; measure and weigh with ex¬ 
actness, and keep a true account of all the 
details. Let your experiments be on a scale 
so small as not to injure you in case of 
failure. 
Get your ground in good order, and plant 
and sow good seed in good season, and faith¬ 
fully attend to all after requirements of the 
crop, and never mind the moon. 
It is better to make two small loads and go 
twice, than to take all at one load and break 
down. 
Avoid extremes, aud always seek that happy 
medium in which the least outlay shall bring 
the greatest proportionate returns. Avoid 
law-suits and quarreling with neighbors. 
Mind your own affairs more, and your neigh¬ 
bors’ less. Quarrels are like bail weeds in the 
garden, and law-suits like a drought. 
Have a eai'oful eye on fences, gates, aud 
barn doors, and attend to nil such things as 
soon as you see they need it. Have as good 
and convenient a place for your cattle to drink 
at as is jKvssible. 
Accustom yourself to habits of regularity 
and method. Be regular iu all things. 
Have regular hours for rising, for meals, for 
feeding, aud generally be us regular as you 
can in all things. 
When away from home keep your eyes open 
to see how much other farmers may lie in ad¬ 
vance or in the rear of you iu matters pertain¬ 
ing to farming. 
When tired rest; when thirsty drink, and 
treat your horse in these respects as you treat 
yourself. 
Be sure that your calculations are not larger 
than your means or your strength, for less 
well done, is better than more poorly done. 
Labor with your mind as well as your 
hands, and do not over tax either, for to be 
successful you will need both. 
Have a placo for your tools, and have your 
tools in their place. 
Keep good tools, and keep them in good 
order, for poor tools make hard work, which 
is unprofitable. 
Cleanliness is a promoter of health and good 
morals. 
Clean stables and bedding help to make 
horses sleek aud cattle look well. 
I have never known the fanner who did his 
work neatly and in good season, visited by 
constables or burdened with a mortgage. 
Slovenly farming tends to draw a farmer 
down hill, and slovenly harvesting is to be un¬ 
thankful for what did grow. Slovenly hands 
in the field are like rats in the wheat bin. 
The fanner who does his work neatly will find 
it less difficult to pay heavy, than the sloven 
will to pay light taxes. 
The fanner who keeps good fences is likely 
to prosper, live at peace with his neighbors 
and have something to give to the poor; but 
the farmer who keeps poor fences will have 
his crops destroyed, have quarrels and law¬ 
suits and nothing, except harsh words, to give 
to anybody. 
A man may so improve his farm as to lose 
it. 
A farmer who doesn’t exercise sound judg¬ 
ment is like a ship at sea without a rudder. 
First improve upon what'you already know, 
and learn as much more as you can. 
Yon may read pithy sayings all day and 
admire them in the evening, but your work 
will not be done unless you “lay your shoulder 
to the wheel” and push. There is no helping 
those who will not take counsel and help 
themselves. 
To have many bad neighbors is a sign you 
should reform. 
To hurry and flurry to get our work done 
shows much wind in the garret, but little 
brains. 
The man who cannot learn from his neigh¬ 
bors' mistakes, will teach his neighbors by his 
own. 
To have more stock than we have pasture 
for, is to save a spoonful and lose a shovelful. 
To pasture our meadows in Spring is to 
borrow hay of Winter. 
What is not worth taking pains with is not 
worth a place on the farm. 
The farmer who ts often caught In bed by the sun 
Will see his neighbors have money while he has 
none. 
Buy what you can pay for, if you need it, 
and stop there. 
Show me where lives the farmer who makes 
it a rule to borrow tools, and I will show you 
broken gates, lousy calves and dirty stables. 
The wagon that stands out over Winter is 
drawn by poor horses. 
The man who cannot get the lice off his 
calves thinks of going West. He thinks he 
knows all about farming. 
Pigs that are well fed, and Have a warm and 
dry bed, are a good breed. 
When anything is ready to be done and you 
can do it, then is the time to do it. The best 
time to do a thing comes only once. 
Never calculate on a mild Winter because 
you are short of feed. 
Never enter into partnership with, or leave 
your business in the bauds of an “unlucky” 
man, for by reason of his careless habits you 
might suffer loss. He who cannot manage 
his own affairs is not fit to manage yours. 
Details are the nails that, hold the house to¬ 
gether, and if neglected the house will go to 
pieces. 
System is the groundwork of success, and 
the soul of good planning. 
You may vote without talking politics, and 
you can be pious without long arguments on 
religion, 
A pig is a pig, put him where you will; even 
in the parlor he’d be a pig still 
In Summer prepare for Winter, aud in Win¬ 
ter prepare for Summer. 
Always do what you can first, and leave 
the rest to Providence. 
Keep your eyes and ears open and your 
mouth shut. 
Remember that that which costs the least is 
not always the cheapest; nor that which costs 
the most always the best. 
Treat your hired help with respect, feed 
them well, pay them well. If you cannot do’ 
so, keep none. daniel rupert. 
Crawford Co., Pa. 
MORALITY AND TRADE. 
GEN. CASSIUS M. CLAY. 
RELIGIOUS SYSTEMS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 
Morality may be defined as the science or 
art of human happiness. Religion is not the 
basis of morality; but it may be an aid or 
motive power. The first religious of the race 
were polytheistic, when great objects and 
qualities iu Nature were held and worshipped 
as gods. Polytheism then was the germ which 
ripened into a higher unity and philosophy of 
pantheism of the unity of the creative power 
—of the two forms one holding to theism, and 
the other to nature. Iu theism the divisions 
of polytheism continued, but iu a vastly di¬ 
minished number. Each sect held to one god, 
but by individualizing him, he was not the 
same. True theism nevertheless exists in the 
thought of the highest meutal structures, 
whilst it may for all practical purposes be 
held the same'as Nature. Religious sects have 
under the theistic idea been as numerous as 
those original polytheism produced, and the 
consequences have been the same; not the 
unity of the human race, but its severance. 
These systems have but. little influenced mor¬ 
ality—the science of human happiness. No 
one, therefore, need be alarmed at the decay 
of religious creeds, which have never advanced 
morality, and therefore cannot obstruct its 
progress. The higher theism is stronger to¬ 
day than in any former age, and morals being 
based upon eternal laws, just as physics, have 
now full vent for surer and more permanent 
establishment. With these postulates we are 
prepared to consider 
MORALITY AND TRADE. 
The greatest summary of moral duty in trade, 
as in all our acts concerning others, is con¬ 
tained in the Christian aphorism, “Love thy 
neighbor as thyselfor “Do unto others as 
you would have others to do unto you.” 
Trade may be said to be the exchange of com¬ 
modities and values. The violation of the 
golden rale is most frequent in 
FRAUDS OF APPEARANCE. 
If the conductor of the Rural should send 
out a specimen copy to induce subscriptions, and 
then after receiving the money asked, should 
continue a very inferior publication, that 
would be a fraud. So the farmer who should 
sell fruit by sample, and fill the bill with in¬ 
ferior fruit, would commit a fraud; and simi¬ 
lar action on the part of the merchant or 
toader would be fraud. But when the parties 
trading are all present and have the means 
of examining the commodity" exchanged, a 
similar fraud may be perpetrated; for if the 
fruit vender should put the best fruit on the 
top of the fruit basket, inducing the 
belief that the whole mass was equal; or if 
the merchant should sell sized cloth for real 
thick goods, or should show the first good yard 
of a bolt of goods, the others being faulty, it 
would be equally a fraud, though the vender 
should make no statement about the qualities 
of the fruit or the merchandise. 
If the commodity is defective, it makes no 
difference whether it is falsely conceived by 
the buyer, or falsely represented by the seller, 
by word or device, it is, all the same, a fraud. 
The legal distinction of fraud, must come 
short of the moral; but both agree as far as 
they go on the same road. 
PRICE. 
When there is no concealed defect in the 
commodity, is it worth all it will bring? Not 
always. As a general rale it is; but there are 
exceptions:—Suppose I sell gun-powder which 
is high because of an existing war, and I have 
heard of the peace, and the buyer who expects 
to sell to the army has not been informed of 
the cessation of arms: in law I may charge 
war prices, but uot iu morals. I should first 
tell the buyer of the peace, and then sell. 
When all the events which make price, and all 
the investment of money, mind, labor, etc. 
entering into the product, are known, then 
the thing is worth all it will bring. For a 
thing is more valuable to one man than to an¬ 
other, of which the buyer only can judge, else 
there would be no such thing as trade. 
ADULTERATION AND IMITATIONS. 
Having fixed the idea of frauds, we come to 
consider some of the most common instances. 
A very common fraud is the adulteration of 
products: the mixture of a cheaply grown 
seed with others more valuable, as seed of 
weeds with clover, or any other prime seed; 
cabbage seed with mustard, rye or chicory 
with ground coffee, etc. So adulteration runs 
through all the materia medica, all the com¬ 
mercial eatables, as glucose or corn sugar in 
cane sugars; pebbles iu coffee; deleterious 
coloring in teas; water iu milk; log-wood in 
port; cider champagne; terra alba in flour, 
etc. So vicious mixtures are sold for vinegar, 
and 'vines and brandies; oils and oleomargar¬ 
ine made of filthy beef tallow for butter, etc. 
The adulteration and fraudulent imitations 
are bad enough: but what shall we say of the 
poisons which are used without stint in these 
infernal frauds of trade? Not only should 
fine, imprisonment and exile, but death be 
summarily inflicted upon these destroyers not 
only of the happiness, but of the lives of the 
human family, 
FRAUDS OF LIVE STOCK BREEDERS. 
The fraud here most common is selling one 
breed under the name of another, or the same 
breed under the record of false parentage, or 
claims of qualities which do not exist, as speed, 
size, weight Of carcass, wool, health, and all 
that. But the greatest fraud under the pre¬ 
sent enlightenment of the laws of species and 
breeding, is the humbug of new breeds made 
by some Solomon, within his own short life 
and brain, wiser thau all the lives and all the 
brains of all the ages! Some of the lesser ac¬ 
complishments of these shams are prints of 
animals not taken from life, but made by rule 
and line to k suit the] idealjfancy oQthe times. 
