im RUBAI. $IEW"¥f>RKIR. 
WQV 20 
tie profit some years, when everybody else i 
in it, but they will make money when others 
fail through ignorance of the business or be¬ 
cause of periodical under-produetiou. It is 
the earnest workers and steady plodders, after 
all, who come out ahead in the struggle for 
existence. 
The Germ Theory.— In his opening address 
at the Royal Veterinary College. Professor 
Robertson remarked that in both human and 
veterinary medicine the elaboration of the 
germ theory of Pasteur iu its earlier triumphs 
in the department of surgery is likely to be 
• surpassed by what we may reasonably expect 
will yet be achieved in the domain of medi¬ 
cine. In preventive medicine as applied to 
animals the recognition of the specifidity of 
many of those diseases which have at'racted 
attention through their destructiveness, has 
given us a solidity of basis iu dealing with 
them which was unattainable while they con¬ 
tinued to be regarded as the result of variable 
influences, sanitary and dietetic; while the 
doctrine of the production of a protective ma¬ 
terial. by the cultivation or modification of 
the specific virus of these diseases, although 
not yet undoubtedly demonstrated in all its 
fullness, has, from what has been already 
wrought out. clearly indicated that a new 
field in pathological inquii y has been opened 
out, and that results of marvelous aud far- 
reaching influence, almost beyond our con¬ 
ception. seem shadowed more or less distinct¬ 
ly around us. He touched upon the relations 
of these speculations and ideas to the practical 
application of medicine to men and animals, 
and showed that if disease is to he treated, or 
its causes investigated with a view to preven¬ 
tion, work of essentially similar nature re¬ 
quires to be douo, whether men or cattle are 
the subjects of our operations. 
A Nkw Method of Glazing Sash.— Peter 
Henderson says that it is well known that all 
glass now (both iu portable sashes aud iu fixed 
greenhouses), is simply imbedded in putty, and 
kept in place by glazier’s points, no putty now 
being used on top, as was formerly done. It 
has been found that when the glass lies on the 
sash-bar thus imbedded the putty soon rots or 
wears out, and water gets in aud not only loos¬ 
ens the glass hut rots the bar as well. A most 
simple plan to obviate this is to pour along the 
junction of the bar with the glass a thin line 
of white lead in oil, over which is shaken drj 
white sand. This hardens and makes a cement 
that effectually checks all leakage. It is 
quickly done. 
RURAL LIFE NOTES. 
Annie L. Jack, of Ontario, Canada, writ¬ 
ing to Our Country Home, says that she val¬ 
ues Brinckle’s Orange the most of her yellow 
raspberries. This is tender in the Northern 
States if not protected by snow. The new 
Golden Queen, she says, bids fair to rival it, 
having stood the Winter well. 
W. H. BrLL, of Massachusetts, according to 
the New York Tribune, raises water-cress in 
the greenhouse for market during the Winter, 
putting it up iu bunches weighing about two 
outiCCS or loosely in quart strawberry boxes, 
the former bringing 00 cents a dozen aud the 
latter about 10 cents eaeh. He takes cuttings 
from brook plauts in the Fall, aud roots them 
in the well-enriched earth of the greenhouse 
bench. These root at once and if well watered 
yield a succession of tender cuttings all Win¬ 
ter....... 
WALDO F. Brown expresses the Opinion, iu 
the above paper that there is no more con¬ 
temptible meanness practised than the one of 
making misrepresentations as to the profits of 
the silk business and the ease with which it. 
can be managed, that they may induce poor 
widows to send their hard-earned dollars, when 
the result is almost certain to be loss and dis¬ 
appointment ... 
He cites several cases: A farmer near him 
in Ohio owned three acres of laud. These he 
filled with mulberry trees. Hesent off for eggs 
and hatched out a large quantity of worms, 
turning his house into a cocoonery. His in* 
come from them was represented by a 0, aud 
it cost him half the price of his laud to grub 
out the mulberry trees.. 
For several years past we have never fed 
oar poultry either shells or lime, ami they are 
always confine!. Bone meal answers every 
purpose We never have soft-shelled eggs 
and rarely have a case of sickness. 
A writer in the Indiana Farmer holievos 
that while there is a place for all breeds, the 
Herefords may claim a first place for cheap 
beef, early beef and best beef. He considers 
them the poor man’s beef cattle. 
Mr. Stahl says that he knows of many 
daughters, hard-working and economical, 
whose hardest tusk is to ask the father for 
money for a pair of sb oes or a d ress .., — 
A farmer near the Rural Grounds has lost 
a number of pigs this year. He has fed 
them a great deal of sweat corn that was 
caught by the frost last year, aud w r as. conse¬ 
quently, somewhat decayed aud decidedly 
musty. He does uot attribute their sickuess 
to this food, however, but to the wicked work 
of witches. This is the truth: and he is looked 
upon, not only as a hard-working, industrious 
man, but as a farmer of very good judgment. 
I think it Is a perfect shame that all the 
illustrated papers portray the farmer as such 
a distressed ignoramus. So says Mrs. A. E. M. 
Carman .......i. . .... 
Steep the shingles in thin lime-wash for a 
few hours. Each bundle of shingles may be 
immersed in the lime and then taken out to 
drain, when they will hove absorbed enough 
of the lime to coagulate the albumen of the 
wood, which is the part that decomposes first.. 
So says Henry Stewart. Or the shingles may 
be steeped in crude petroleum, it. pays well.. 
CROWDING animals ill dose quarters is al¬ 
ways conducive to disease, whether the ani¬ 
mals he swine, sheep, fowls or human beings. 
Overfeeding is another foremost cause of dis¬ 
ease—and finally faulty breeding. 
Dr. Lori no, at a late farmers’ meeting, as 
reported in the New England Farmer, takes a 
somewhat gloomy view of tlio situation of the 
Massachusetts dairy farmer. He says it lias 
come to the point that cows are kept for the 
manure they make rather than for their other 
products, just, as the Connecticut river tobac¬ 
co growers formerly fed oxeu at a loss of $12 
per head ■©very Winter to got manure to run 
their farms with in Summer. Animals are 
usually, he says, a costly necessity on New 
England farms. He would himself keep but a 
single coi\ for family use if be could keep up 
the fertility of his laud by other means,. 
Dr. Loring thought the old average of 
about five quarts per day per cow by the year 
had uot been much advanced these later years, 
and at present prices for milk the business 
cannot pay except in the manure. The great 
yields of 30 quarts per day and over were 
rather above his comprehension. He would 
gladly go as far as San Francisco to pay his 
respects to a cow of that, description. Making 
veal Is poorer business tbau making milk. He 
•would prefer his own cows would never have 
calves, but they are a necessary evil. 
He thinks no better butter or cheese can tie 
made by machinery and modern methods than 
the old farmers’ wives of former generations 
made by their simple methods. He has seen 
repeated evidences of this in his own county, 
Where wealthy merchants farming for plea¬ 
sure aud with all their modern methods, had 
failed in taking the prizes at the cattle shows 
away from the old women of the farm duiries, 
who had never so much as heard of a ther¬ 
mometer. but stuck their fingers iu the cream 
to test the. temperature. 
The Holstein cow. according to Mr. Hough¬ 
ton’s statement, as also reported in the N. E. 
Farmer, could convert a greater portion of 
her food into milk aud butter than cows of 
other breeds; and if fed as they should lie, 
with a liberal hand, the Holsteins would give 
much larger profits. The two-year-old heifers, 
he says, give more than mature cows of the 
average farm herd. They excel the Jerseys, 
both us milk-producers aud as butter-makers. 
They are small eaters for their size. 
Oil the harness now. . 
' The Farm Journal says that in setting a 
gate post it is a good plan to fill the hole with 
gravel anil small stones and then run in thin 
cement mortar. “The post will never rot.” 
We dou’t care much whether the hole is filled 
with gravel, sand or soil. Pack it firmJy aud 
fill in at the top with lime, heuping it some¬ 
what about the post. This will preserve the 
post as well as cement. 
If a calf, colt or pig is placed iu a dark stall 
or box at u distance from the light, and there 
is put alongside a young, growing plant, we can 
rest assured, says the Indiana Farmer, that 
the dwarfed aud sickly aspect sure to over¬ 
take the plant will as surely, though to the 
average observer less obviously, overtake the 
youug animal ... 
Mr. J. McLain Smith, of Ohio, having in 
the Ohio Fanner said that the only breeds 
the cows of which were entitled to the appel¬ 
lation of “general-purpose cows” wore the 
Short-horns. Devons, Holstein -Friesian, and 
Red Polls, another correspondent of the same 
paper held that he ought to admit to the ring 
the Hereford*. This would leave among the 
“special-purpose breeds” only the Jerseys, 
Guernseys aud Ayrshires. The classification 
is a mere question of opinion for which no 
man can be called to account, nny more than 
for his tastes . . . 
With regard to docking horses, the (London) 
Live Stock Journal says that there can be no 
doubt tbat. iu order to lie performed in a way 
that causes a m i ui m u m of cruelty the operation 
must be conducted by a thoroughly trained 
veterinary surgeon. The other day at Chor- 
ley,England, two parties were fined for cruel¬ 
ty in docking a horse—the ground of thi 
judgment being tbat the operation had not 
been shown to'be necessary. 
A standard for a good cow is said to be 
600 gallons of milk a year, and of this there 
should be 10 per cent cream. 
Strong unbleached muslin is excellent in 
place of glass for poultry houses or chicken 
runs, and is much less expensive. 
Plenty of rubbing will produce a good 
coat on your horse. “Elbow grease” opens 
the ]K>res. softens the skin and promotes the 
general health. 
A genius iu Troy. N. Y.,has just invented 
a stove that saves tree-quarters of the wood, 
while the ashes it makes pay for the remain¬ 
der. Name? Can't give it yet. 
0vcn)uil)crf, 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Arizona. 
Dudleyville, Pinal Co., Oct. 2(1.—We are 
having nice weather here. We had frost on 
October 14, but we have uice peaches on the 
trees yet. Crops good. Times are hard; but 
we expect better now because the Apache 
war is over. None on the war path now 
in Arizona. My farm joins the reservation, 
aud I know. vv. a. L. 
Illinois. 
Chicago. Cook Co., Novemlier 10.— One of 
the largest movers of grain iu Central Iowa 
writes me to-day to this effect: “We are buy¬ 
ing wheat every day, much of it under f>0 
cents a bushel, which leaves the farmer a very 
small margin for his labor, aud it seems to us 
that with this condition of things he will have 
very little money to spend.” In some portions 
of Central Dakota the crops are so poor that 
fanners have a hard lookout for a hare exis¬ 
tence this Winter I have another report made 
from Lacrosse as a base and covering a dis¬ 
tance of 40<> miles through Southern Minnesota 
aud into Dakota. For the first 200 miles the 
report says the farmers are not depending on 
any one kind of grain, but they raise a good 
deal of stock, are generally out of del it, and ap¬ 
parently get along about as well as ever: but 
for the next 200 miles the situation is 
different. A very large class of the set¬ 
tlers are iu debt for their land uud 
machinery. The flax crop has been a great 
help to them for the past two yesrs, but the 
present price is so low that farmers will not 
attempt to grow it in the future as they have 
in the past. Railroad freights have declined 
considerably the past year, and everything 
the farmer buys is reduced to u price which 
has had the tendency to keep him aud meet 
the low price of grain. But my correspond¬ 
ent sums it all up that if there is not a change 
for the better in the prices of grain, seeds 
and live stock, the average farmer, in the 
far Northwest at least, will have to go to the 
wall. Four-fifths of the flax, nearly all the 
Timothy seed and fifty per cent, of the wheat 
is in. We look for good receipts of grain as 
soon as the ground freezes up. and do not 
think farmers liuve held back on the crop on 
account of prices at any time. It is now 
nearly four weeks since we have had any rain 
that amounts to anything; but we huve not 
had any general rain iu the Northwest this 
Fall. A year ago at this date the ground was 
thoroughly soaked everywhere, and up until 
to-day the whole State of Illinois is as 
dry as it, was in July and August. We have 
had a period of remarkably fine weather for 
gathering the corn crop, and fora series of 
years it was uever probably iu as dry a condi¬ 
tion to crib and ship us it is to-day. Ohio and 
Indiana are the freest shippers of new corn. 
There seems to be very little disposition at 
present among farmers in the other States in 
the corn belt to move new corn. The strike 
at the stock-yards of Chicago among the pack¬ 
ing-houses is completely demoralizing the 
stock interests of the Northwest. Farmers 
cannot ship, packers do nob want to buy, and 
the general stock trade is at a standstill. 
There is uot the slightest doubt but that the 
packing interests will bo successful, and that 
when business resumes again it will be a long 
time before another strike occurs. r. n. 
Elgin, Kane Co.. Nov. 8.—Butter was a 
little firmer to-day uuder light offerings and 
colder weather. Regular sales on the Call 
Board were made at 27' 2 to 27J^ cents. Fart 
skim cheese at it 1 cents; full cream Cheddars 
lib, to 12 cents; flats at 101 , to lib, cents, 
closing firm for all grades, s. A. T. 
Iowa. 
Osage, Mitchell Co., Oct. .31. —Borne say 
the crops of grain and vegetables were fair, 
though the straw was light and short. Others 
think the. crops very light, save only corn. 
At our county fair very few vegetables were 
on exhibition, became they failed to grow to 
an ordinary size. Potato crop very short. 
The prices rule so low- that some charge it to 
poor crop*, that is, the crops look lighter than 
they are. Ours is largely a dairying section. 
Grain raising will meet the wants of the family 
with a little to spare. Prices unchanged. All 
Summer there was a drought. l. s. e. 
New York. 
Albany. Albany Co., Nov. 3. —There is an 
improvement in the live stock business of the 
East. The receipts at West Albany during 
October were the largest of the year, number¬ 
ing 3,594 car-loads. Old-time buyers are 
again seen about the stock-yards, and new- 
life seems to move an interest that a year 
ago was on the decline. The receipts of cars 
for months of August, September and October 
of last year were 7,726, agaiust 9,4;>1 for the 
corresponding months this year. A large 
part of the Increase is of cattle. The demand 
for the same as dressed beef is becoming lar¬ 
ger constantly. A fresh complication lias 
arisen which will call for action by the 
Knights oi Labor. It relates to the slaughter¬ 
ing of cattle for dressed beef depots, and is an 
outgrowth of the great Chicago strike. Satur¬ 
day aud yesterday 4U car-loads of live cattle 
were received at West Albany (rum ! hieago. 
billed to this city, Troy aud points in New 
England. Agents of the dressed beef firms 
instituted a search, and after some little 
trouble found that only one butcher would 
kill stock for them. It is thought that if the 
strike iu Chicago, which has caused the for¬ 
ward iug of cattle ou the hoof by these firms, 
continues, they will have difficulty in finding 
accomodations in the East for the killiug oi 
their stock. The Klights of Labor are bound 
to support their striking brethren in Chicago 
and will uot kill any cattle for the dealers, and 
they will also bring their influence to bear to 
prevent others from slaughtering for them. 
The live stock dealers will also use their best 
endeavors to prevent, Eastern butchers from 
accommodating their business adversaries, l. 
W heeler, Steuben Co., Nov. 1.—We have 
had an unusually good season iu this locality. 
Hardly in years have our crops been more 
generally good than they have been this year. 
Ila.y was an average crop, of the best quality, 
and put up in good order. Winter wheat 
was good, but uot very heavy-strawed. Bar¬ 
ley a fair crop, but, not much raised. Buck¬ 
wheat, generally good and giving about 25 
bushels to the acre. Oats are splendid, and 
very heavy, Cora as a rule is a magnificent 
orop—the best we have for some years. Po¬ 
tatoes were a very large crop, and the quality 
above the average. Apples are a l air crop, 
and only bring 81 per barrel in market. Feed 
has been plentiful anil so are stock, and prices 
have been low. About the same acreage of 
wheat and rye was sown this Fall as usual, 
ami both are looking splendid. J. 'V. R. 
\ irgiuin. 
Richmond, Henrico Co., Nov. s.—The past 
week this tobacco market showed but slight 
variation from the preceding week. Common 
grades depress the market, and as almost 
every dealer has more or less of these and 
will be slow getting rid of such stock, it is 
not expected that an improvement can be 
reported for a long time. Receipts of new 
and loose tobacco are almost nothing, and it 
is well it is so. for new would almost surely 
bring the farmer in debt. I he sovereign 
remedy for the present low prices is the 
heroic one ot lessening the production, and it 
would seem as if plauters would lie forced to 
acknowledge and heed this advice. Tobacco 
was high and advancing when the necessaries 
of life and other products were very low and 
getting lower. Stimulated by this state of 
affairs overproduction came a little later, but 
surely, hence the plethora. Anything iu tine 
shipping, stripping or bright* may bring 
comparatively high values this season, but 
the great bulk and average crops, it is feared, 
will bring this section as well as others iu 
debt. The assurance of a very small plant¬ 
ing may help prices later in next year’s trans¬ 
actions. There may be something in the 
abolition of the tax. The people favor it ou 
general principles. T. H. m. 
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and address of the writer to Insure attention, Before 
asking a question, please see If It I* not answered In 
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one time. PUt question* on a scenrau-plree of paptr- 
NAVICULAR DISEASE. 
J. C. M.yiNew Alexandria, Pa .—A valuable 
horse becomes lame in his left front leg after 
