THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
ANatlonal Journal for Country and Suburban Homes, 
Conducted by 
ELBERT S. CARMAN. 
Address 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
No. 84 Park Row, New York. 
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1886. 
We can confidently recommend our 
readers to try a plant or so of the Earhart 
Blackcap Raspberry. In the way of so- 
called ever-bearing raspberries we ccitain- 
ly have never seen anything to compare 
with it. Even though it bore but a first 
crop, we should value it for its produc¬ 
tiveness. 
We do not hesitate to state that we 
have had 20 different samples of Tread¬ 
well Wheat sent to us as so many new va¬ 
rieties. In some cases it is found in a 
field of Clawson, Fultz or Mediterranean; 
in other cases it is said to be the result of 
a cross I Much of this is owing to the 
fact that samples of Swamp, Silver Chaff, 
etc., sent out by the Washington Seed 
Dep’t, were mixed with Treadwell. 
Those in the Middle and Northern 
States who have not tried the Longfellcnv 
Flint Corn, should do so. The ears with 
us average 12 inches long, eight rows, and 
60 kernels to the row. Ears .14 inches 
long are not uncommon. The plants in a 
rather poor soil grow from six to seven 
feet high, suckering somewhat, bearing 
from one to three ears. Among flints it 
maybe called a second early,"requiring 
about 105 days in which to mature. The 
rows of kernels are always straight and 
close together—the cob small. For a 
main crop flint corn we know of no bet¬ 
ter variety. 
Sept. 21. The first frost at the R. G. 
—a light one. Now we are ready to sow 
wheat—or plant it rather, since every ker¬ 
nel is dropped by hand in drills a foot 
apart, and varying in the drills from one 
to 10 inches, according to the quantity to 
be planted. We have now 100 or more 
crossbreeds or hybrids to plant in this 
way—all to be kept separate with great 
care; each to have its stake and name and 
a full record to be written in our record- 
book. It is very tedious work: still we 
enjoy it. If the way of the experimenter 
were altogether delightful, the market 
would be overstocked. 
Some farmers seem to think they can es¬ 
timate the value of manure by smelling of 
it. Perhaps they can if they learn to dis¬ 
criminate between smells, but not while 
the idea holds that the stronger the smell 
the richer the manure. Sulphuretted hy¬ 
drogen, found in rotten eggs and other 
decaying substances, is one of the worst 
odors, yet it indicates no particular fer¬ 
tilizing value. Manure may he so malod¬ 
orous that a man enu hardly work it, and 
yet ho of little value as plant food. The 
peculiar odor of ammonia is easily de¬ 
tected. When that is detected about a 
manure pile we are safe to conclude that 
the manure is valuable, but that it is los¬ 
ing its life, and that we need to apply plas¬ 
ter or take other measures to hold the 
ammonia. 
The Bertrand Grape, illustrated on the 
first page of this issue, is an accidental 
seedling found by Mr. J. B. Jones, of 
Herndon, Burke Co , Ga. A report of it 
will be found in the Trans, of the Am. Pom. 
Soc,, session of ’85, page 17. “Bunches 
medium; berries medium, round, blue- 
black; pulp dissolving, exceedingly juicy, 
vinous and of delicate aroma. Skin thin, 
quality best. Maturity middle of August. 
It belongs to the Cordifolia type, of which 
it is perhaps the best offering brought to 
notice. Vine exceedingly vigorous and 
healthy. Fruit has never decayed or 
dried up on the vine—a valuable variety.” 
Mr. P. J. Berckmans writes us that he 
saw the vine this Summer and was struck 
with its remarkably healthy appearance. 
He says the foliage denotes more of the 
^Estivalis than Cordifolia type, and that 
the bunches this year are much above 
medium. 
The farmers of Michigan will have 
small business to complain about politi¬ 
cians if they neglect to elect Cyrus G. 
Luce this Fall. If they had scoured the 
country they could hardly have selected 
one who more completely represents the 
farm and farmer, What do you propose 
to do about it, Michigan farmers? Now 
that you have forced one of the' great 
parties to select as its standard bearer, a 
man from your own ranks, do you propose 
to elect him or not? For years there has 
been a cry that the fanner has been neg¬ 
lected in politics, that helms been a voter 
and nothing hut a voter. We have list¬ 
ened long enough to the sneering answer 
that the fanner doesn’t know enough to 
fill an office, that lawyers and professional 
men must take care of him. Michigan 
farmers have a chance to prove the falsity 
of this answer or to add to its strength, 
hist as they wish. Let us see what they 
will do. 
■ i « - - 
There is a lull in the conflict against 
oleomargarine. We have won the. first 
round and now there seems to be a gen¬ 
eral desire to wait and see how badly the 
enemy has been hurt. It is idle to sup¬ 
pose that he has been exterminated. He 
has plenty of life yet, but if we have 
forced him out of the dark, and obliged 
him to fight in daylight under his own 
flag, we have made solid progress. One 
thing is certain. What the farmers of 
this country have done once they can do 
again with interest. If this law'docs not 
give farmers their rights, -we will have 
one that will, if it is necessary to defeat 
every Congressman who depends upon an 
agricultural community for his election. 
The sooner Congressmen appreciate the 
fact the more worry they will be saved. 
But while we are waiting, friends, let us 
keep busy. Let us improve the herds, im¬ 
prove the methods, improve the feed and 
improve the butter. Good butter will 
always be sold, and the better the butter 
the better the price. Taxing oleomarga¬ 
rine will never make a market for poor 
butter. 
THE BEST WHEAT. 
Many kinds of wheat have been and 
are still offered for sale this season with 
the promise that bv sowing them farmers 
may “double their crops.” Our advice 
is to try them in a small way. In this 
matter the Rural begs to say that its ad¬ 
vice ought to be entitled to some consid¬ 
eration, for we have tried during the past 
ten years nearly every kind that could be 
procured, and have, from time to time, 
placed before our readers the results of 
our trials; and now' we see some of the 
poorest varieties so tried lauded in the 
highest terms by people that offer them 
for sale. 
When with a great flourish a “new” 
wheat is offered that “was found ’’ grow¬ 
ing somewhere or other in a field or along a 
hedge, the chances are 19 against 20, if 
not 99 against 100, that it is an old kind 
—that is, one that is 8077?<?where well- 
known. We have raised not less than 50 
different lots of wheat sent to us as crosses 
between this, that and the other, that we 
have found identical with old varieties. 
In several cases a correspondence with 
the originator (?) has revealed the fact 
that he didn’t know “beans” about 
crossing wheats. 
We have told our readers a dozen times 
within a year what kinds of wheats do 
best at the Rural Farm. But the fact 
that they are the best kinds there is no 
;>m?/'that they will succeed in Maine, In¬ 
diana or Oregon. The only way for a 
farmer to find out what varieties of wheat 
will “double his crops,” is to obtain trial 
quantities of the kinds that thrive best in 
other places and select the best. 
SWEET DISEASE. 
- « 
The health officers of this city in their 
search for adulterations find a fruitful 
field for investigation in the common can¬ 
dies which are in universal use. Manu¬ 
facturers have been detected in using seve¬ 
ral absolutely poisonous substances, while 
others in common use, if not directly in¬ 
jurious, are decidedly unwholesome. 
There ought to be a war waged against 
impure candy until the stuff is driven out 
of the market. We believe it to be a 
fruitful source of disease. There is some¬ 
thing absolutely filthy in the way in which 
much of our ordinary candy is handled 
and sold. Every day in the cities hun¬ 
dreds of pounds of it are eaten after being 
handled over by dirty hands and subjected 
for hours to the dust and fumes of the 
street. We have seen, in country stores, 
candy lying for weeks in dirty jars or in a 
heap* in some filthy counter close to ill¬ 
smelling products of all kinds. Such 
candy, made of damaged sugar and starch, 
and colored with some cheap poison, was 
bad enough when fresh, but after a few 
months of the ordinary treatment becomes 
too filthy to throw away. It is strange 
that intelligent men will take such stuff 
home to their children. Tf they wanted 
to ruin the teeth and the stomachs of their 
little ones, they could hardly make quick¬ 
er work of it than by giving this cheap 
candy. Children demand sweets, but it 
is poor kindness to gratify them by feed¬ 
ing disease. Honey is the purest and 
most healthful sweet food, and where 
children can have it to spread upon their 
bread, like butter, there will he far less 
demand for cheap candy. We would 
gladly see the candy trade spoiled by an 
increased consumption of honey. The 
health of the children of the country would 
be greatly benefited could such a result 
be brought about. 
-♦ » ♦ 
TnE new Premium-List of the R. N.-Y. 
is available to all who send yearly subscrip¬ 
tions at the regular price, viz., $2.00. 
It is a matter of choice whether they re¬ 
tain the cash commission of 50 cents for 
each subscription in clubs of five or over, 
or select any of the articles from the Pre¬ 
mium-List, which are scaled so as to allow 
an equivalent of from one to two dollars 
for each subscription, according to the 
arrangement which we have been enabled 
to make with the manufacturers of those 
articles. 
CONTAGIOUS PLEURO-PNEUMONIA IN 
CHICAGO. 
Several months ago a commission 
agent at the Chicago stock yards bought 
a Jersey cow, now supposed to have come 
from one of the places where pleuro-pneu- 
monia was prevalent among cattle last 
year,and turned her in with a herd of over 
i 00 other cows on the outskirts of Chicago. 
After some months of illness she went dry 
and was butchered and a post-mortem ex¬ 
amination showed that she was affected 
with contagious pleuro-pneumonia. This 
is supposed to be the origin of the disas¬ 
trous outbreak that at present affects be¬ 
tween 2,000 and 8,000 cows fed at three or 
four distilleries at Chicago. The matter 
first attracted the attention of Dr. Case- 
well, the State Veterinarian about a fort¬ 
night ago. During the past week all the 
distillery-fed cattle have been carefully ex¬ 
amined and several of them have beeu 
slaughtered for post-mortem examination 
by Casewell and his assistants and Drs. At¬ 
kinson and Murray, State Veterinarians of 
Wisconsin and Michigan, Dr. Salmon, 
Chief of the National Bureau of Animal 
Industry, and a large number of other vet¬ 
erinarians having no official status, as well 
as by several physicians connected with the 
Board of Health,and all unanimously agree 
that there is no doubt whatever that the 
disease is contagious pleuro-pneumonia. 
It is of the utmost importance that not 
a shadow of doubt should rest on this 
point, and so far as veterinary skill in 
this country can be relied on, no shadow 
of doubt can rest on the matter, A num¬ 
ber of animals that have died of the dis¬ 
ease and a number of others that were 
picked out as affected and slaughtered, 
exhibited, in pleura and lungs, all the in¬ 
dications of the disease. Among all the 
veterinarians who examined them there is 
no doubt or hesitation on this point. 
Governor Oglesby and Attorney-Gener¬ 
al Hunt and the members of the State 
Board of Live Stock Commissioners, after 
a thorough investigation ou the ground, 
have decided slaughter all the infected 
cattle, as well as all those that have been 
exposed to contagion, numbering “near¬ 
ly 3,000 bead,” this morning’s tele¬ 
gram says. The loss will be over $100,- 
000. The State has $49,000 with which 
it can pay for healthy cattle killed as a 
precaution to prevent the spread of the 
disease after they have been exposed to it; 
but it has no funds to pay for affected an¬ 
imals that may be slaughtered for the 
same purpose. It pays for sound beasts 
at their market price for beef or the dairy. 
The National Bureau of Animal Industry 
has $100,000 to pay for infected cattle 
slaughtered by its direction, with the 
concurrence of the State authorities; 
but before the present outbreak it was 
proposed to expend most of this appro¬ 
priation in an attempt to erad¬ 
icate the plague from the States 
East of the Alleghauies. It is prob¬ 
able that only a small proportion of 
the animals to ho killed are really dis¬ 
eased, and the question is still unde¬ 
cided how to dispose of the flesh of the 
slaughtered beasts. The Governor and 
other officials wish that, after a post-mor¬ 
tem examination,all diseased cattle should 
be cremated, and all healthy beasts sold 
to the highest bidder. By this means a 
part of the great expense to the State 
would be defrayed, while if the carcasses 
were taken to the rendering tanks, the 
returns to the State would be insignificant. 
On the other hand, the stock-yard people 
insist that millions of dollars would be 
lost to the packing interests of Chicago, 
if the report went out to the world that 
beef from the infected distilleries, wheth¬ 
er healthy or not, was shipped from that 
city. 
In a scare like that now prevailing in 
Chicago, there is always a strong inclina¬ 
tion on the part of some to exaggerate the 
evil, and on the part of others to belittle 
it. There are rumors that some iufected 
cattle and still more of those that have 
been exposed to contagion, have been sold 
to persons in various parts of Illinois and 
the. adjoining States, where they are likely 
to spread the plague. It is known that 
the. disease must have existed at the dis¬ 
tilleries for six mouths or more. Early in 
its course an affected cow dries up, and it 
lias always been the custom to send such 
beasts at once to the shambles, hence the 
existence of the plague remained so long 
undiscovered. The stock-yardmen are 
still loud in the assertion that not a case 
of genuine contagious pleuro-pneumonia 
exists in any part of the country. Their 
busiucss is likely to be seriously injured 
owing to the present outbreak, and very 
naturally they minimize the danger. 
There are reports that other States will 
soon schedule Illinois, and in that case the 
Chicago stock-yard business would be very 
disastrously affected, for some time at any 
rate. 
BREVITIES. 
Love your home; love your family. 
If you don’t, run away and stay away. 
“You never will be missed.” 
Home is tbe dearest spot on earth to any man 
that isn’t crazy', or wicked, ora fool, or a vic¬ 
tim of an abominable condition of things for 
which he is in no way responsible. In any 
case, we repeat our advice—“Run away.” 
Of all tbe varieties of Spanish chestnut pro¬ 
bably' that known as Marron dr Lyon is the 
best. Its nuts are very large—as large as a 
borsechestnut—and it bears in two or three 
years. 
Dr. R. P. Greenleak, of Delaware, sends 
us a black seedling grape that ripens with him 
two weeks before Concord. The quality is 
good, and if the vine should prove strong and 
healthy it will prove a fine acquisition. 
Mr. O. H. Alexander, of Vermont, says 
that he, too, finds Yankee Prolific Oats the 
same as White Russiau. He thinks that the 
Welcome or White Australian Oat is some¬ 
what. different from the Badger Queen. 
The reason why the lower or white portions 
of the stems of asparagus are less tender thau 
the upjxfr or green parts is that they' are older, 
The stems grow from the top, not the bottom. 
As the shoots increase in age, the woody fiber 
increases. 
Try the Frederick Clapp Pear. The fruit 
is fine-grained, very juicy, rich aud excellent. 
It ripens in October. Those who want a showy 
pear in place of the great KieiFer, as well as 
one that may be enjoyed, will be pleased with 
the F. C. It has not as yet been tried suffi¬ 
ciently to enable us to say where it will suc¬ 
ceed. 
We can sell our small potatoes at 81.00 per 
barrel at the yeast factories. Many good 
Western farmers never pick up the small po¬ 
tatoes. There is no sale For them and farmers 
think their feeding value will hardly equal the 
trouble of picking and handling. Atone dollar 
er barrel there is no profit in small potatoes, 
ut we can turn our work into cash, which is 
a great item. 
We are sorry to learn (through a private 
letter) that a certain railroad is about to be 
run through the seedling vineyard of T. V. 
Munson, of Dennison, Texas, our first grape 
authority. This may occur, it seems, before 
lie can transplant or propagate the vines. In 
any case it will require three years or more 
before they would again bear. Mr. Munson’s 
grape experience has already' cost him dearly. 
Thousands of dollars are thrown away 
every year by farmers and their families who 
haven’t sufficient strength of mind to resist 
the solicitations of the fakirs at the fairs. It 
is hard to undeixtand why an association of 
farmers will for a paltry sum sell privileges 
that will permit tho swindling of their fami¬ 
lies or employes out of considerable sums of 
hard-earned money. 
In the way of improving tomatoes, what we 
want is a variety that will resist rot; that will 
keep longer than any kind now offered for 
Bale. It must, however, be smooth and of 
goodly size. We have selected tomatoes for 
the past 10 years with the above object al¬ 
ways in the foreground. Before the writer, on 
a table in his office, is a tomato that has been 
there three weeks without tho appearance of 
rot. It is shriveling the same as a native per¬ 
simmon. 
The raising of turnip and cabbage seed has 
proven very profitable, aud added materially 
to the income of the farmers ou tho East end 
of Long Island. One fanner near Mattituek 
is said to have cleared $1,200 from cabbage 
seed aloue. Another made $120 from turnip 
seed raised ou a small plot. Tho main crops 
in that section are cauliflowers, cabbages, aud 
potatoes, and the raising of seed has hereto¬ 
fore been subsidiary to these crops, but it has 
proven so profitable that many farmers have 
gone into it largely. 
Last year with a tremendous crop of melons 
we did not average much over one dollar per 
barrel. This year with about 60 per cent, of 
last year’s crop the price averaged nearly 
$2.00. Tomatoes ran about the sumo. Beans 
were lower, but sweet corn was decidedly 
higher. Potatoes ran small and will be n little 
lower in consequence, while cabbage bids fair 
to be higher, fee it goes, a' big crop cuts down 
prices while a poor crop sends prices Up. One 
thing seems plain that w hen one depends upon 
a city market it pays to grow a variety, and 
to’shift the different crops abqut to different 
parts of.the farm. 
