the east and west rows were found to have 
produced the greatest average weight of 
leaves per plant, while the north and south 
rows produced the heavier roots, and roots of 
a better quality for sugar making, the per¬ 
centage of sugar being greater and the amount 
of impurities less. The experiments with 
other crops were less extensive and gave less 
decisive results. One with coni indicated 
that for the production of fodder an east and 
west direction was to lie preferred. Obvious¬ 
ly, however, the practical application of these 
results would require good judgment. Ou a 
soil inclined to be dry, for example, or with a 
crop which flourishes best in a moist soil and 
moderate temperature, the east and west di¬ 
rection might be preferable. Ou the other 
hand, the ripening process for grain and 
fruit , and the development of seed rather than 
stalks or leaves, might be favored by a north 
and south direction of the rows, especially 
upon moist laud. 
Working Tex Hours on tiie Farm.— “If 
you should call on its aboutseven o’clock some 
evening this Hummer, and see our young meu 
all dressed up, you would Lardly think we 
were farmers who had been at work in tbe 
dirt all day, perhaps. If you suspected from 
the color of our hands aud faces that we were 
farmers, you would certainly think that we 
were ‘expecting company.' Our boys visit 
the bath-room after work is done aud sleek 
themselves up, often putting on clean clothes 
entirely, aud then go in for a good time until 
nine or 1iJ o'clock. 1 ' Ho writes Mr. T. B. Terry 
to the Albany Cultivator. He insists that 
farmers may lie just as neat and tidy, when 
the day’s work is over, as though they lived 
in town or city. 
Ou a dairy farm one cannot make the ten- 
hour system work as well, on account of the 
milking. The morning milking must, be done 
outside of the 10 hours; but all work may be 
closed up at night soon after six. usually, uu- 
less one has to go to the factory. 
Mr. Terry’s men have only to feed and care 
for the horses aud milk the cows before break¬ 
fast, at 6:80, so as to begin work at seven. 
They often get a little time to sit down aud 
read the papers or magazines, a good supply 
of which is taken, aud at night they can 
have three hours to read if they wish. 
Of course, ou every farm there will be times 
• when we have to work a little later than six 
o’clock. One cuts a little too much hay to get 
through in time, or there are only two or three 
rows more potatoes to cultivate to finish the 
piece. But Mr. Terry notices that his meu 
‘‘let out. a link’'to get through in time if it is 
possihle. If they let out a little too much aud 
get through at 6:30, or even five o’clock, they 
are not asked to do any more that day, aud 
they know they will not be, so there is encour¬ 
agement to hurry up. Even grantiug that, 
those farmers who work from sun to sun do 
accomplish more, cannot enough be done now- 
a-days in ten hours ? Can we not take a little 
more time for restand recreation and reading, 
now that machinery has made it possible for 
us to accomplish so much more thau our 
fathers did in the same time. Must we put iu 
as many hours a <lay as they did when they 
had to mow and cradle by hand, now that we 
can mow im acre in 30 minutes, plant an acre 
of potatoes in two hours, one man and team 
doing all the work of marking out, dropping 
and covering, or dig the same ground in about 
the same time? Let ns use machinery so as to 
make farm life a little mare pleasaut by hav¬ 
ing more time for recreation. The time has 
come when the former and his men can be, 
and should be, more social as well as reading 
aud thinking beings. The reports from the 
cities, for sometime past, must show a thinker 
that, ou the farmers largely depends the future 
welfare of this great country; hence, farmers 
should well-balanced and posted men—that 
they may overbalance the evils of the city and 
take more hand in the making and executing 
of our laws. 
Editor Ciieever says, iu the New England 
Homestead, that Mr. Isaac A. Carver, of Leeds 
Center, Me., writes that he has obtained 
very satisfactory results from crossing Callo¬ 
way cows with Jersey and Short-born bulls. 
Five years ago he began with five Galloway 
cows, using a Jersey bull for one and a Short¬ 
horn for the other four, ljist year he patron¬ 
ized a pure bred polled Angus, and has a fine 
lot of black polled eutt.la of various ages, from 
calves upward. The grade cows have proved 
very good butter-makers, and Mr. Carver’s 
milk is admitted to be t he liest that goes to t he 
cheese factory in the Vicinity. Ho is very 
much pleased with the results of his experi¬ 
ments iu breeding grade polled dairy cows. 
Pkok. Jordan, of the Maine Experiment 
Station, makes the following good point in 
reguid to the comparative value of chemical 
fertilizers: 
There Is one point in connection with the excess of 
selling price, to which attention should be called, 
which is that the same excess of selling price over 
valuation in two cases does not necessarily mean that 
one fertilizer is sold as cheaply as the other. This can 
be lllustrated as follows.- A's fertilizer Is sold for Sic 
per ton, and values at S3'- 1 . B's fertilizer sells for <21 
per ton, aud has a valuation ot glfi. The excess of sell¬ 
ing price is <S in both eases, bur. this Is only 25 per cent, 
of the money value of the Ingredients In A's fertilizer, 
while H Is 50 per cent, of a similar valuaiion of H's for 
tilizer. Iu other words. B Is charging the farmers 
twice as mueh as A for handling a given quantity of 
plant food. 
The Rural New-Yorker on Gapes.— The 
editor of the Rural New-Yorker, says the 
Poultry Keeper, has been at work among a 
brood of “gaping” chicks, and after experi¬ 
menting coines to the following conclusion: 
It Is probably true thnt the disease known as •■gapes” 
kills more chickens than any other. Most of the reme¬ 
dies offered are uncertain, such, e, U-, as obliging the 
ailing fowls to inhale lime dust and tobacco smoke. 
Will kerosene kill the worm that causes gapes? Will 
It- kill the chicken if a drop of kerosene be dropped In 
the trachea? We can answer "no” to the latter ques¬ 
tion, and front a single experiment we are inclined to 
say "yes" to the former. The writer dipped a small 
feather (about two inches long) Into kerosene, and 
then carefully pushed it down the windpipe, carefully 
turned twice or thrice and then withdrew It. The 
chicken which had the gapes recovered in a few hours. 
The experiment is worthy of repetition. 
The editor of the Poultry Keeper comment¬ 
ing ou the above, says that the remedy is a 
simple one, and that he has tried it with suc¬ 
cess, and also used spirits of turpentine with 
benefit, but the kerosene is the safest material. 
What is desired is to avoid the use of the 
feather. To thus handle several hundred 
chicks is quite a job. 
Interest on Farm Investments.— Editor 
A. W. Cheever remarks, iu the New England 
Farmer, that Secretary Gold was right when 
he stated in a public agricultural meeting that 
the returns from labor expended are both 
greater and surer iu agriculture than in min¬ 
ing. And Secretary Russell was right, too, 
when he said, in another agricultural meeting, 
that a farmer ought, to be ashamed of himself 
if he could not get a bigger interest for his 
capital than the four per cent, the savings 
banks are now rather reluctantly paying their 
depositors. A cow, a hog, a sheep, or even a 
hen, ought to pay more thau four per cent, 
interest on capital invested, and it will in the 
hands of any intelligent, willing worker who 
has faith in his business. 
Several Varieties of Oats and Wheat. 
—Mr, C. S. Plumb, whose dilhgent, thorough 
work at the N. Y. Ex. Station is the kind 
to do good service to farmers, talks of wheat 
and oats in a late issue of our respected con¬ 
temporary the Albany Cultivator. Of the 
nuaiy varieties of the oat that he has tested, 
none show a weakness of stem equal to the 
White Australian or Welcome. Of 79 so- 
called varieties, but few have had serious dam¬ 
age done them, excepting the White Austra¬ 
lian, on his plot. It has been, he says, the 
same all through Western New York, and m 
1885, front Geneva to Niagara Falls, exten¬ 
sive fields of this variety were to be seen lying 
fiat on the ground. Admitting that the White 
Australian Oat has a splendid grain, and is a 
good cropper, it most certainly cannot be as 
profitably grown as other varieties, Mr. 
Plumb says. Auy variety whose straw is so 
weak as not to enable it properly to uphold 
the head of grain in an average storm, has a 
very great weakness. Hence he freely con¬ 
demns the White Australian for a grain va¬ 
riety, though for an early fodder crop for soil¬ 
ing, its soft, succulent stem, aud its very 
foliaeeous growth, make it especially desir¬ 
able. He is aware that this oat is being boom¬ 
ed extensively; yet he insists that au oat crop 
that has to ripen lying Hat on the ground, aud 
be cut with a scythe, cannot tie cultivated 
with profit. 
The Rural New-Yorker raised a quarter 
of an acre of the White Australian before it 
was introduced. The laud was good, the sea¬ 
son favorable. We remember that Henry 
Stewart visited the farm jutf as it was well 
headed out, Mr. Stewart is not a tall man 
certainly, but he could not see over the grain. 
It promised to yield, he thought, over 100 
bushels to the acre, A storm a few days after 
lodged the most of it. Again we sowed a 
five-acre field to Russian White, Washington, 
White Australian, Probsteier aud Schoeneu, 
giving equal parts of the field to each. The 
season was favorable and the Australian stood 
as well as auy. In our plots of the past sea¬ 
son, the Welcome (White Australian) stood up 
as well as any, ripened aud yielded as early as 
auy. At the Rural Farm (Izmg Islund, N. 
Y.) we sowed, hist Spring, four acres of Cly¬ 
desdale. The seed sown weighed plump 40 
pounds to the bushel, and the grain harvested 
was the heaviest we have ever raised, though 
less thau 40 pounds. The plants stood up 
quite well, though lodged iu places. If there 
is any difference between the Clydesdale aud 
White Australian or Welcome, we eau not 
distinguish it. 
Mr. Plumb has raised, this year, what is 
without doubt the finest collection of oat 
varieties ever grown at one time in the United 
States—nearly 80. Among these, he says, 
tbe strongest and best growing are the 
“Horse-mane” or “Side-head” oats. As in past 
years, they this year resist wind and rain far 
better than the open-pauicled varieties, and 
certainly experiments thus far have not shown 
them second-rate yielders. He. advocates this 
type of oat for general farm use, because he 
believes it the most profitable one a farmer 
can grow. Mr. P. says that with plenty of 
manure and good soil, no matter what the 
variety, so long as it be a “side head” oat, 
other things being equal, it will give better 
results than the opefi-panicled. 
In this we must disagree with Mr. Plumb. 
All the side oats that we have raised are later 
than the spreading-panicled oats, and will not 
do as well, on our laud at least, in unfavorable 
seasons as the latter. Besides, there is more 
chaff and less kernel. The best yield, it is 
true, we have ever raised was of the Mold’s 
Black Tartarian, a side oat; but the season 
was just right. The oats weighed, per bushel, 
about 2fi pounds. 
Mr. Plumb considers the question of how 
much seed wheat should be sown to the acre. 
They have at the Station four experimental 
plats of one-twentieth acre each, situated side 
by side. Alternately they were seeded with an 
ordinary gram drill, at the rate of one and 
two bushels per acre. They passed the Win¬ 
ter equally well, and at the time of Mr. 
Plumb’s writing it would have been difficult 
to say which plats would yield the most. At 
the Rural Farm we sowed on six plats all the 
way from half a bushel to four bushels per 
acre. The plot which received a bushol-and- 
a-half yielded most. 
Mr, Plumb praises the Mediterranean Hy¬ 
brid ibetter call # it Diehl-Mediterranean) 
Wheat as a vigorous grower, with very erect 
habit; head brouze, bearded and very com¬ 
pact, though short; averaging about ‘2}{ 
inches long; grain plump, short.atnber-colored 
and fairly heavy. 
He says of the Landreth (Armstrong) that 
it is one of the more recent and best candidates 
for public favor. Heads white, beardless, 
having a loose tendency; grain white or 
slightly amber color, of medium size and 
plump. This variety has a very erect growth 
he says; much more so thau any other that is 
at present prominent before the public, ex¬ 
cepting Martin's Amber, which it much re¬ 
sembles in almost all respects, au l one is about 
as meritorious as tne other. 
As we were examining the heads of our 
Martin’s Amber a few weeks ago we were 
struck with this close resemblance. Are they 
not the same? 
Mr. Plumb says that the Washington Glass 
“Issynonymous with the Surprise, which was sent out 
in the Seoil Distribution of the Rlrai. New-Yorker 
several years ngu. It is a white, beardless wheat of 
great excellence. The head Is compact, and the 
Bplkelets produce more grains than the average 
wheat, often yielding four. The grain is light amber, 
very large and plump." He Is sure more farmers could 
grow this wheat with profit. 
Wo raised a lot of the Glass Wheat about 
eight years ago from seed secured from the 
Ag. Dep. at that time. The heads were of the 
shape of Clawson or Armstrong, i, <>., not 
larger at the top thau at the bottom. The 
Surprise is partially 'lab-headed with the 
spikelets crowded towards the top. Again, 
according to Mr. Wysor, the originator, the 
Surprise came from the same head as did the 
Fultzo-Clawson. 
FULL AS A TICK. 
Many think favorably of the Lucretia Dew¬ 
berry, and therefore dissent from the Rural’s 
estimate of it. Wo are glad of it... 
Have you occasion to dig up any sods along 
the roadside, under the fences or in any part 
of the garden? Save them. Spread a layer 
of sods and sprinkle on it a light dressing of 
potash (ashes) autl bone; then another layer of 
soils, then ashes aud bone, etc., until the heap 
is completed. This will give you a perfect 
soil for flower pots. 
Ten or a dozen young ewes and lambs would 
be enough for a start on most places, says a 
writer in the Farm Journal. A good ram 
should be hired or purchased, and about the 
first of December, placed with the flock. Do 
not try for early lambs the first year! May 
is the safest and easiest month, aud a very 
large per cent, of all the lambs wifi live if the 
ewes have been runniug about iu the pasture 
a month, while a large per cent, will die if 
dropped in February , under ordinary care.... 
Take your children to the fair? Yes, by 
all means, unless horse-racing aud lager beer 
selling, etc., are allowed. If so, keep them at 
home, aud stay at home with them. 
Much is suid at present about using the rol¬ 
ler ou land which is being fitted for wheat. 
The roller is good to pulverize and firm the 
soil. But futrrou’ after rolling. That is our 
experience. 
Slug-shot is recommended by one of our 
esteemed contemporaries as sure death.to the 
cabbage-worm. It may be, but is it safe? Its 
killing property is arsenic in one form or an¬ 
other .... 
The Japan Chestnut. Don’t forget it, 
friends, in the Fall. We have been talking 
with many who have been raising seedlings 
since our late pressing advocacy of this tree, 
and have nothing to take back. The Japan 
Chestnut, or the liest varieties of it, will have 
its day—a near day and a long one, unless we 
are greatly off the track. Our con tempo raries 
will come in line after a time. 
The N. Y. Times says that pasturing cows 
has been found a wasteful practice, and will 
soon be abandoned for a better way. “What 
would be thought if we were to walk over our 
bread and butter?” said Sydney Smith, speak¬ 
ing of cows grazing in pastures. “ The cow’s 
tread, unlike that of the sheep, does not turn 
the land to gold, but often destroys an im¬ 
mense amount of fine pasture.” Sydney 
Smith took a very reasonable way of looking 
at the unclean and wasteful practice, and 
mauy a farmer will confess that pasturing 
cows ought to be obsolete as being the reverse 
of economical. 
Prof. Goessmann, of the Massachusetts 
Agricultural Experimental Station, says that 
as lung as the vital energy of an annual plant 
is still essentially spent in the increase of its 
size, as a rule, but a comparatively small 
amount of valuable organic compounds, as 
starch, sugar, etc., accumulates within its cel¬ 
lular tissue...... 
The amount of vegetable matter in a given 
weight of green fodder corn, cut. at the be¬ 
ginning of the glazing of the kernel, is known 
to be not only nearly twice as large as com¬ 
pared with that contained in an equal weight 
of green corn fodder cut when just showing 
the tassels; it is known to be pound for pound 
more nutritious, for it contains more starch, 
more sugar, more of valuable nitrogenous 
matter, etc. 
In the Orchard and Garden. Mr. D. B Wier 
mentions the American chestnut as an ex¬ 
ample of an individual tree ripening and shed¬ 
ding all its pollen six to fourteen days before 
there are any stigmas on the tree mature 
enough to receive it Young, isolated trees, 
as a rule, he says, do not become fertilized 
therefore, but bear great crops of burrs with¬ 
out nuts in them. According to the past sea¬ 
son's observations of the writer upon a few 
trees, the earliest catkins do bloom before the 
stigmas of the cone-iike female flowers seem 
to be receptive, while the later ones bloom and 
shed their pollen at the same time. We know 
of single trees far away from others that bear 
full crops..... 
Dr. Hoskins thinks that one of the strang¬ 
est of the mauy strange trade conditions of 
this country is the importation of potatoes. 
We have a duty of 15 cents a bushel, or at 
present prices in New York,82 per cent ad va¬ 
lorem , yet this does not prevent the importa¬ 
tion of an average of about $4,000,000 worth 
every year. England. Germany, Bermuda 
and Nova Beotia are sending potatoes into this 
country every day, and at the same time our 
farmers cannot get a remunerative price for 
this product. What is the cause? The same 
cause that is deciding many other agricultural 
problems in this country against the agricul¬ 
turist—internal transportation. It costs more 
to take a bushel of potatoes by rail from Al¬ 
bany to New York, thau from Liverpool to 
New York by steamer.... 
Galvanized barb wire, which costs five 
cents a pound (75 cents will buy 220 feet), is 
acknowledged by all scientists to be a very 
good conductor of electricity. Double the 
wire and twist into a cable, which will make 
it four ply, or four strands. Rut one end in 
the well, cistern or moist earth, aud carry the 
other up over your buildings aud along the 
gables, passing over the chimney or highest 
points of the building. Fasten to the wood¬ 
work with common fence staples. The elec¬ 
tricity will not leave as good a conductor as 
galvanized wire to follow dry lumber. Thus 
you have the best lightning rod that can be 
m ,de for less than $1.00, all told. So says the 
Vermont Watchman... 
Du. Marckek is quoted by Prof. Johuson 
as saying that since by the absorption iu the 
soil all potash salts pass into combination with 
silica, it is of uo consequence as far as supply¬ 
ing a deficiency of potash is concerned, 
whether muriate or sulphate is used. Fre¬ 
quently, therefore, the cheapest form of pot¬ 
ash is the best ... 
Dr. Marckf.r also says that there is no 
reason to believe that the potash salts contain¬ 
ing chlorine are injurious to vegetation; on 
the contrary, the muriate is often to be pre¬ 
ferred because its potash is more thoroughly 
diffused iu the soil. Ho excepts, however, 
potatoes anil sugar boots, since their starch or 
sugar production is decreased by muriates. 
Tobacco is also injured by muriate of potash. 
| Low-grade,, ralts, Dr.‘ Marcker says,.or.,the 
