452 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
THE 
RURAL- NEW-YORKER, 
A National Journal for Country and Suburban Homea 
Conducted by 
EtBEKT S, CARMAN, 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, JULY 10, 1886. 
Judging from the bloom of the chest¬ 
nut trees about the Rural Grounds, chest¬ 
nuts will be scarce this Fall. There is 
the usual quantity of male flowers appar¬ 
ently, but very few pistillates. 
There is no oat that we have received 
better accounts of, both from the West 
and East, than the Welcome, or White 
Australian. Both names are wrong. It 
is an old oat, and never could have ox-ig- 
inated in Australia, which is not a 
country in which oats thrive. But it is 
known now as Welcome, and Welcome it 
had better remain. It is now at the R. 
G. the most promising of*the many kinds 
now on trial. 
Is it true that dried fruit fumed with 
sulphur is in any way unwholesome, or 
usually obnoxious to any sense? In some 
cases possibly the fruit may be over sul¬ 
phured so that some of the mineral may 
coudense upon it and affect its flavor, but 
the grocers say they have not heard and 
do not know of any such a case, or of any 
objection being brought against the 
bleached “schnitts.” In other lines sul¬ 
phur is found very beneficial, especially 
in destroying minute life that often imper¬ 
ils or distresses our own; as in throat and 
nose and skin diseases. Miners consider 
the presence of sulphur in a mine especially 
healthful, and in cider and wine coun¬ 
tries the practice of pouring the liquor in¬ 
to vessels filled with sulphur fumes in or¬ 
der to bar germs of mold and of ferment, 
and to reduce the amount of oxygen in¬ 
cluded, is so old and so extensive as to 
have a special word in the language to ex¬ 
press it—the verb to ‘stum. 1 TlieAmeri¬ 
can dispensary attributes no harmful effect 
to sulphur taken inwardly in the usual 
dose. 
A natural question which most of our 
visitors ask before seeing the rye-wheat, 
hybrids is, “ What do you expect to gain 
by the cross?” To this question no intel¬ 
ligent answer could be given, beyond the 
statement that it was merely an experi¬ 
ment which, if it didn’t give us varieties 
of grain of economical value in one way 
or another, would certainly prove of 
scientific interest. We now find there are 
many plants with large heads bearing in 
each breast or spikelet an average of four 
kernels. In some there are five and even 
six. Other heads bear double spikelets, 
which are crowded upon the rachis os 
closely as possible. Among the purely 
wheat crosses there are splendid heads 
much thicker and longer than any we 
have ever seen grown in this climate. 
The Rural is entitled to have met with 
some success in it* wheat crosses since the 
work was begun 10 years ago, and though 
diligently followed up, little of value was 
produced until the Surprise, Fultzo- 
Clawsou and Diehl-Mediterranean were 
used as the male plants. 
Stimulated by the success of the Miss¬ 
issippi Agricultural College, various 
Southern States have made strong efforts 
to establish live industrial schools. These 
efforts have for the most part resulted in 
dismal failures. It would be wmll if the 
promoters of these schools would study 
the real causes of the success of the Mis¬ 
sissippi College. There are two chief rea¬ 
sons. Tt is not attached to any literary 
institution, but dignifies agriculture to 
the extent of classing itself as a farmer’s 
school pure and simple. It rigidly en¬ 
forces the labor system. Every student, 
as we know from actual observation, is 
obliged to work on the farm. The col¬ 
lege owes its success more to the strict en¬ 
forcement of this policy than to anything 
else. Should it relax its vigilance and 
enthusiasm, we believe it. would quickly 
lose much of its influence and power for 
good. The trouble with many of the 
Southern agricultural colleges, is that 
the trustees put. a mouth-piece in the 
chair of agriculture. They appear to be¬ 
lieve that a man can talk an unpopular 
institution into favor. This cannot be 
done. It is more work and less talk that, 
is needed and the longer it takes the au¬ 
thorities to recognize this fact the harder 
the work will be. 
ROTATION OF CROPS. 
The correct, theory whicli underlies and 
explains rotation of crops is not yet de¬ 
termined. The farmer finds it an advan¬ 
tageous thing to practise, yet does not 
surely know why. It was considered of 
leading importance by the Romans, and 
many explanations of its use have been 
imagined and successively given up. 
De Candolle tauglit that the roots of each 
kind of plant gave off excreta poisonous 
to itself, while harmless or nutritious to 
some others. But Tull and Smith, of 
Lois Weeden, and later Sir J. B. Lawes, 
have grown the same crop in succession 
for many years, with no sign of such 
effect, and it has been commonly done in 
our own western culture. Gardeners fre¬ 
quently continue the same crop year after 
year. These facts disprove also another 
theory, viz., that minute insects and para¬ 
sitic growth peculiar to each plant get the 
upper hand when it succeeds itself too 
continuously. Probably rotation is justi¬ 
fied more by convenience than by any 
absolute necessity for it. Beginning with 
the turning down of a coarse sod, the 
farmer finds a strong free-growing plant 
best adapted to the rough bed. and the 
time of plowing, convenience of applying 
manure, etc., guide him in arranging the 
further succession. Plants that root 
deeply and bring nutriment within reach 
of shallower rooting cereals, should natu¬ 
rally precede them. But even that item 
of theory is hardly yet established. An¬ 
other consideration is that crops sown in 
the Fall favor certain winter and spring 
weeds, which a plowing for any summer 
crop destroys. Here we find a very im¬ 
portant advantage in alternating these, 
instead of repeating the same crop on the 
same land, additional to the advantage of 
famishing out parasitic organisms. 
SPECIAL 
CROP NUMB ICR. 
THE OUTLOOK FOR HARVEST. 
In this issue we present to our readers 
specimens of over 3,000 reports received 
between June 25 and July 1 from practical 
farmers in all parts of the country with 
regard to the comparative area, condition 
and outlook for farm, garden and fruit 
crops in their respective neighborhoods. 
A careful analysis of nearly all hitherto 
received, published and unpublished, indi¬ 
cates a very bountiful harvest. There 
appears to be no noticeable shortage of 
any crop, wdiile none, except, perhaps, 
strawberries, is extraordinarily large. 
Here and there, there are, of course, local 
shortages or even failures of certain crops, 
as always must he the case in so extensive 
a country subject to so many vicissitudes 
of location, soil, storm, flood, insect 
depredations and climatic influences; but 
these mishaps, due to local conditions, 
however disastrous to particular individ¬ 
uals or locations, do uot materially affect 
the outcome of any crop in the whole 
country. “Diversified agriculture” 
throughout the nation at large is evenly 
balanced, and all branches are thriving. 
As in individual cases of “mixed farm¬ 
ing," a fair measure of success with the 
various crops goes far toward making the 
owner prosperous; so the good fortune 
that appears to attend all the chief crops 
of the country this year should greatly 
help to render the farming community 
prosperous, and to give an impetus to 
every industry and branch of business: 
for in this pre-eminently agricultural 
country, the prosperity of every calling 
and of every class depends mainly upon 
the prosperity of agriculture. 
Wheat, the great money crop of the North 
ns cotton is of the South, is a fairly good 
crop. The area of winter wheat is 24,- 
727,087 acres against 22,148.543 acres 
harvested last year, when 25,975,659 acres 
were sown, of which nearly 4,000.000 
acres were either plowed up or not har¬ 
vested owing to the poorness of the crop. 
The yield is variously estimated at. from 
280,000,000 to 300,000.000 bushels. Our 
own estimate, formed from information 
from our own reports and from a multi¬ 
tude of other sources, is 295,000,000 
bushels, against 212,000,000 bushels in 
1885. Kansas has suffered severely from 
drought and insect pests; and the crop will 
not be much over 50 per cent, of an aver¬ 
age. Michigan, which last year had the 
best, cron in quantity and quality, falls 
awavbehind in both respects this year; 
while Illinois which suffered most severe¬ 
ly in 1885, has a fine crop in 1886; 
California, however, appears to be 
the “banner” wheat State this year. 
Spring wheat has been seriously damaged 
by a protracted drought, and later rains 
havc'only partially made good the injury. 
The yield, on a somewhat smaller area than 
last year, is likely to be not over 140,000,- 
000 bushels, making the aggregate wheat 
yield 435,000.000 bushels-78,000,000 
more than last year’s output. It. is prob¬ 
able the wheat crop will move to market 
unusually early this year, because the 
harvest is from one to two weeks earlier than 
usual: and also because the short crop of 
last jear left farmers short of money, and 
they wish to realize on this year’s crop as 
soon ns possible, and, moreover, the stocks 
on hand are unusually small, especially 
at interior points, and millers will take 
the wheat readily as soon as they cun get 
it. More than usual has already passed 
from the farmers’ hands, chiefly for mill¬ 
ing purposes, and reports are general that 
the quality of the grain is better than us¬ 
ual. August 1 should be considered the 
beginning of the crop year, rather than 
September 1. 
Corn, by far our most important cereal 
crop, promises a largo yield per acre; but 
it can hardly be as large as the phenomen¬ 
al output of 1,936,000,000 bushels last 
year. Then the yield was 26V bushels 
per acre on nearly 74,000.000 acres—the 
first full average in the rate of yield since 
1880. 
Last year the oat crop was the largest 
ever grown—629,000,000 bushels on 23,- 
000,000 acres. On a slightly increased acre¬ 
age, the crop will be much less this year 
—probably not. over 600,000,000 bushels 
—as it has been seriously injured by 
drought and insect pests in many parts 
of the country, but especially in the West. 
Rye, which is grown in both Avinter 
and spring wheat regions, for grain chiefly 
in the North and for pasture mostly in 
the South, will be a somewhat larger crop 
than last, year. The area of barley has 
increased considerably, especially in 
Kansas, Minnesota, Texas, Tennessee and 
California. The average is high, especi¬ 
ally in New York, Wisconsin, Minnesota 
and California, which States are by far 
the heaviest producers. Both rye and 
barley appear to be among the surest of 
cereal crops. 
In New England there is a considerable 
decline in the area under potatoes, always 
one of the most important products of 
that section. The low prices of the 
tubers and the great prevalence of rot 
the past two seasons, have induced the 
farmers of Massachusetts aud Rhode Is¬ 
land to substitute hay to a considerable 
extent, whMe those of New Hampshire 
and Vermont appear to prefer corn. The 
crop, however, in the country at large is 
likely to be heavy, especially that of early 
potatoes, and prices can hardly be high. 
New England will have a large crop of 
apples, hut the crop in the. rest of the 
country is not likely to be very heavy on 
the trees. Owing to the cool weather the 
trees remained in bloom a long time, and 
from every quarter come complaints of 
the dropping of the young fruit. The 
crop is likely to be low throughout the 
South, and orchards were greatly iniured 
by the severity of last Winter and late 
frosts in Spring in the Ohio Valley and 
the Northwest. As this is generally the 
“hearing” year, however, and a large 
number of apple trees have of late been 
annually planted, there is no fear of a 
scarcity of fruit Pears are a poor crop, 
and tin; same might be said of peaches 
were it not that there is a cheap abund¬ 
ance every year in the markets in spite 
of repeated reports of great damage or 
utter ruin to the peach orchards. Straw¬ 
berries every where extrpmelv plentiful, so 
superabundant,indeed,that in many places 
it would not pay to pick and market 
them. In some places the beds have been 
thrown open to Hie public; in others the 
berries have been fed to swine, while in 
others they have been allowed to rot on 
the ground. Tn many places pickers put 
up t.heii prices in spite of the low mar¬ 
kets, so that growers could not afford to 
gather their crops. Tn spite of low 
prices, however, probably more money 
than ever before has been realized from 
the crop. Other small fruits are abundant. 
Grass, the king of crops, for pasture 
and hay, has suffered greatly from 
drought in various parts of the country, 
chiefly in Texas, the West aud Northwest. 
Injury from freezing is also reported from 
many quarters. The greatest damage 
has been done on old meadows, new seed¬ 
ing having generally done well. The 
season has been quite favorable to clover, 
and though there are reports of injury to 
this also, they are not nearly so numerous 
or widespread ns those relating to grass. 
Increase of area has been quite extensive 
both in clover aud the “tame” grasses, 
especially in the South and West where 
clover has to some extent taken the place of 
Timothy. Last year the hay crop was 
47,000,000 tons; it is not likely to be 
very muchness this year. 
Although tobacco has hardly been a 
profitable crop for the past year, about 
the usual area has been planted, chiefly 
because it is difficult to get out of a long- 
continued routine, and because no other 
“money crop” can be so easily raised by 
the growers. The outlook is reported 
fair, though it is much too early yet to 
speak definitely. Hops have been a very 
unprofitable crop the past year. While it. 
costs from 18cents to 14'^ cents a pound 
to raise and handle them, they have been 
selling for all the way from four and one- 
half to 12 cents. There lias been some 
decrease in acreage, chiefly by the plow¬ 
ing up of old yards and the dropping out 
of those who were not regular growers.but 
who were induced to enter the business 
by the high prices that ruled a few years 
ago. Until a few days ago reports from 
all the hop-growing sections were exceed¬ 
ingly favorable, and a continuance of over¬ 
production and low prices seemed inevit¬ 
able; but for a few days complaints have 
been coming from Otsego County and the 
ad joining hop-growing parts of this State 
to the effect that the yards were in 
danger of destruction from insect pests 
aud 4 ‘honeydew” on the vines. 
A slight decrease in the area of cotton 
in some of the older States is more than 
counterbalanced by the increase in the 
new States, especially Texas, and to a less 
extent, Arkansas, Every year resolutions 
are passed in public assemblies, and reso¬ 
lutions made in private to curtail the area 
under the staple, and devote more attention 
to food crops. Planters realize the advan¬ 
tages of raising their own provisions; but 
each waits for his neighbor to make the 
desired change. Even the low prices for 
cotton of late, instead of inducing a cur¬ 
tailment of the crop, have tended to pro¬ 
duce an expansion; for as the planters are 
generally in debt to their commission 
men, they have to procure a certain 
amount of money, and the less they get 
for the product of an acre, the larger the 
area they have to plant. The present 
area is about 1V per cent, greater than 
last year, but the condition is considerably 
poorer. 
BREVITIES. 
Plant a few Savoy cabbages for home use. 
Those who have not raised their own celery 
plants may now purchase them of seedmen 
For main crop, anv time before the middle of 
August, will answer. 
We doubt very much if there be any real 
profit in farmers or farmers’ men working 
hard during hot weather immediately after 
dinner. Ami remember the homes, too. 
Wk are now (Julv 1st) spading un the soil 
between our strawberry plants that have been 
growing in matted rows, leaving only one 
foot, it) width of plants. Later, the inverted 
soil which will he enriched by the plants 
turned under, will be covered with stable man¬ 
ure, two inches or more in depth, and after 
frost, the plants will also be covered though 
not so heavily. 
In the pamphlet entitled “How to Grow 
Celery” by the Kalmazno Celery Co., we find 
the following as to Perfection Heartwell Cel¬ 
ery which was sent out in the Rural’s Seed 
Distribution several years ago: “A strong 
growing variety, not so desirable as some 
others, though it answers for light and poor 
soils.’’ We have grown it every year since its 
introduction.on moist., rich and rather heavy 
soils ami we know of no better variety as 
raised under the same conditions. 
Professor Augiiey found, by careful test, 
that prairie soil, which had boon broken up 
by plowing, contained, immediately after 
rain, nine times n> much moisture as adjoin¬ 
ing unbroken soil, and this seems to explain 
the extension of the rain bell westward. Lot 
such broken-np soil become covered with 
shrubs ami trees, and annually mulched by 
their falling leaves, and it will continue ab¬ 
sorbent. and retentive of moisture without 
losing any of its substance ami its fertility, ns 
it is always liable to do when turned over and 
left bare, excepting, perhaps, iu the compara¬ 
tively scarce level alluvions. 
The Sheffield (Eng,) School Board, after 
some experiments in supplying to the schools 
the “silent ministry' of flowers.’ 1 has ordered 
10.000 plants—geraniums, fuchsias, petunias, 
and other sorts most, easily and generally cul¬ 
tivated. They are all in pots of the same size 
and kind, and stamped with S. The pots 
weigh foar-and-o-half tons, and take 12,000 
gallons of soil. Thev will lie delivered in 
equal and good condition, and distributed 
among the children, who will keep them about 
six weeks and then exhibit them to compete 
for prizes. Certainly an interesting experi¬ 
ment. all through. 
The R. N.-Y. always tries to respect the 
opinions of those who write from experience, 
how widely soever such views nmv differ from 
its own. But there are many who own and 
work neither gardens nor farms who write 
either for the sake of writing or for the pay 
they receive from equally inexperienced pub¬ 
lishers, who value such communications, as 
they are written in a plausible, interesting 
manner. Previous to ex|>erienee, it is hard to 
see how such writers cau sift the grain from 
the chaff, let. them l>e ever so gifted iu con¬ 
structing theories and writing them in a forc¬ 
ible way. Thus it is. in great part, that, 
worthless plants and silly methods are often 
advocated. When once started,'they “go the 
rounds,” and it seems next to impossible to 
head them off. Hundreds rood the statements 
where scores read the contradictions. 
