784 
feet of wading birds, are carried long distan¬ 
ces; 4, sticky seeds which attach themselves 
to the feathers of birds; and, 5. the agency of 
the wind. The latter is considered most effect¬ 
ive. Dust particles from the Java eruption, 
of greater weight than many seeds, were 
found on the decks of vessels 1,000 miles dis¬ 
tant at sea. The plants introduced were 
mostly light-seeded ones. Prof. Wallace esti¬ 
mated that if a single seed per square mile of 
territory were deposited once per hundred 
years, it would be sufficient to keep up the 
stock and to maiutain the purity of the 
species. 
The St. Louis Stock-Yards Scheme.—A 
movement is on foot by the International 
Range Association to establish a large cattle- 
yard at St. Louis. The object, it is said, is to 
overcome the alleged monopoly resulting 
from the combinations between the stock- 
yards and dressed-beef men in Chicago, which 
is stated to include the stock-yards in East 
St. Louis, Chicago, Kansas City and Denver. 
The proposed yards at St. Louis will be con¬ 
trolled by the rangemen, with close relations, 
however, between them and commission men. 
PULL AS A TICK. 
PUCK says that some of the New York dail¬ 
ies publish their flood-ti le eirculatiou, If they 
would also publish their ebb-tide circulation, 
the public would be amazed at the mighty 
flow between. ..... .- ..... 
Och friendly contemporary the Canadian 
Horticulturist, says that the Marlboro Rasp¬ 
berry. which was so highly pulled some time 
ago, is uow set down by many as uot bearing 
out its good reputation, especially’ after the 
first two or three seasons.. 
We see that the Iowa State Agricultural 
College (Ames) has 80 > students, male aud fe¬ 
male. The total number of graduates is 853. 
No charge is made for tuition to Iowa students; 
to those from other States only £15.00 per 
term. All other charges are extremely m d- 
eratc. The catalogue for 1SSG is now ready... 
One of the interesting uovelties of which we 
read is the Spaulding Cureulio-proof Plum. 
This is said not to belong to the Chickasaw 
species and to offer some resistance to the cur- 
culio on account of its thick skiu, but for some 
reason the egg of this horrible little creature 
fails to hutch aud so there is uo grub or larva 
to work auy mischief. The female makes a 
mistake aud deposits her egg in a bad place. 
The Spaulding it seems is a close relative of 
tie Green Gage, Lombard, etc. It is claimed 
to be very productive, a remarkable grower, 
with leathery, large leaves, ripening its fruit 
in late August. 
“ Life” says that a great deal of the poorest 
“copy” in a newspaper office comes from pro¬ 
fessional contributors. ... 
Dr. Holmes says that nobody eau do any¬ 
thing to make his neighbors wiser or better 
without being liable to abuse for it.He 
also says that he finds the great thing in this 
world is not so much where we stand, as iu 
what direction we are moving. To reach the 
port of Heaven, we must sail sometimes with 
the wind and sometimes against it,—but we 
m ist sail, and not drift, or lie at anchor. 
The N. E. Farmer, so much improved under 
its present publisher, says that many farmers 
grow strawberries for home use by “ fits and 
starts” as it were. After considerable teasing 
by other members of the household a few straw¬ 
berry plants or raspberry bushes are purchased 
or begged from a neighbor, and planted iu the 
garden. They are well cared for till one crop 
of fruit is taken aud greatly enjoyed. Rut 
no provision is made for crops every year. 
The old beds get full of weeds and finally the 
plants are all dead, aud nice berries on the ta¬ 
ble are things only in memory . . 
The most skillful poultrymau that we know 
of provides his hen-houses with perches nearly 
three inches wide, slightly oval or rounded on 
the upper surface. Tuey arc only is inches 
from the floor... 
It was intended, says the American Garden, 
that our Department of Agriculture should 
test new varieties aud toll us what to buy: but 
the seed business has developed into an en¬ 
tirely different thing—an electioneering in¬ 
strument, antagonistic to seedsmen and grow¬ 
ers rather than helpful to them. 
Our Champion Quince this year bore as 
usual a large quantity of fruit, no larger than 
Rea’s Mammoth or the Orange, and later. It 
will be remembed that the R. N.-Y. was 
sharply criticized for its comments upou this 
quince in past years. But a longer trial shows 
that we did it no injustice. In some parts of 
the South this quince is preferred to the older 
kinds. As to Meeeh’s Prolific, everything that 
we have said regarding it ih about correct 
J. T. Lovett, of Little Silver, N. J., adver¬ 
tises the Japan Giant Chestnut. He says that 
trees but three years plautel bore abundantly, 
and that some of the burrs contained six large 
chestnuts. “Many clear-headed farmers are 
planting it largely for profit.”. 
Our friend, Sec. E. Williams, a careful and 
conscientious horticulturist, tells the Weekly 
Press that the berries of the Worden are in¬ 
variably larger than those of the Concord, the 
clusters generally longer and the quality bet¬ 
ter-sweeter and more juicy. It generally 
ripens before Concord, but varies in this re¬ 
spect. He hardly thinks it will supersede the 
Coucord as a market grape, because it cracks 
more easily, having a thinner skin. 
The cultivation of pecan uuts in the South 
is said to lie profitable, notwithstanding they 
grow wild in great quantities in Texas aud 
other parts of that sectiou. A correspondent 
of the Baton Rouge Truth, who says he lost 
money growing cotton, now declares he is go¬ 
ing to get rich from his pecan trees. The Sa¬ 
vannah News also records that, pecans are be¬ 
ing successfully grown in the coast country 
of Georgia. It is a crop which requires no 
work after the trees are fairly started, aud 
would be just the thiug for a lazy man, who 
could reap the kindly fruits of the earth with¬ 
out laboring for them. 
An Illinois farmer sent a quantity of honey 
to a Chicago commission merchant, and, iu 
order to test the latter’s honesty, visited the 
city and bought his own honey, paying L4 
centsu pound for it. When the returns from 
the consignment came track it was represent¬ 
ed that the honey had been sold for 15 cents a 
pound. This idea need not be altogether 
thro mi away. It might be worth while act¬ 
ing upon it occasionally by those who consign 
farm produce of various kinds to large mar¬ 
kets for sale on commission. 
Testimonials are cheap things, says the 
Western Rural. You can buy them at about 
50 cents a hundred. Every patent hniubug 
is well supplied with them, and the greater 
the humbug the more testimonials , .. 
A whiter iu the N. Y. World calls atten- 
tentionto the benefit of a good supply of char¬ 
coal in fattening turkeys. Two turkeys were 
fed on meal, boile 1 potatoes aud oats. Two 
others of the sen „■ br.io.'l vv re also at the 
same time confined in aimth *r pen and fed 
daily ou the same food, but with one pint of 
finely pulverized charcoal mixed with it. 
They had also a plentiful supply of charcoal 
in their pen. The four were killed on the 
same day and there was a difference of one 
aud one-half pound each in favor of the 
fowls which had lieen sjppled with charcoal, 
they being much the fattest and the meat 
beiug greatly supei ior. 
There is one crop, suggests Waldo F. 
Brown in the Farmers’ Review, that grows 
faster in Winter than in Summer—the ma¬ 
nure crop. .. 
A writer in the ('urnliill Magaziue says 
that the Moor is expressly commanded to be 
kind to the horse, but nothing is said about 
the donkey. As a consequence, the poor don¬ 
keys are battered and bruised, and are forced 
to absorb all the ill temper and cruelty their 
masters possess, while the horses go free. Hus 
anybody noticed anything ol this spirit about 
scrub farmers? Do they hammer their stock 
at random, or do they pick out a few animals 
to practice upon? As a rule, the hens are 
forced to take a good share of the abuse. 
The .Scientific American gives u mode of 
fire-proofing wood, which may lie available 
for shingles or sidiug. Soak 87. parts by 
weight of sulphate of ziuc, 11 of potash, 25 of 
alum and 11 of maugauic oxide m lukewarm 
water in an iron boiler aud gradually add 11 
parts by weight of (to per cent, sulphuric acid. 
The wood is tube completely covered with this 
liquid for three hours and then air dried. 
In an old book, written some Hd yeara ago, 
an account is- given of a horse dealer who 
whipped Ids horses as a mutter of business. It 
gave them life, as he claimed. When he 
cracked his whip in the presence of a cus¬ 
tomer the Irightuued horses gave every evi¬ 
dence of activity and a desire to get. out of the 
way. Ho thought he had the same right to 
whip his horse that anv other tradesman hud 
to show off auy article to advantage. We 
would interfere very seriously with such an 
arrangemeut iu this day. . 
A mule iu California, which had for yeara 
had the reputation of being a gentle beast, 
was terrorized almost to insanity by the smell 
of blood, fmm sonic fresh beef. The. Pacific 
Rural Press says that the mule’s scuse of smell 
is us acute ivs that of a dog. Men who have 
been engaged iu slaughtering should give 
horses aud mule* a wide berth until their 
clothes can be aired or changed. 
Dr Ames says that in Montana they geucr 
ally consider the Holsteiu-Friosiaus as their 
most valuable breed both as milk producers 
aud butter makers. They are of a desirable 
size for beef. So he states iu the Massachusetts 
Ploughman... 
Prof. Henry, the Farmers’ Review says, 
dehorned a vicious bull which cared so little 
about it that iu tou minutes after the opera¬ 
tion he went to grazing as quietly as if nothing 
unusual had happened. 
Cvmjwljm'. 
TRANSCONTINENTAL LETTERS— LXX. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
The rood out of the Grand Canon; the 
Sphinx; a cliff eave; Westminster Abbey; 
Temple of Jupiter Ammon; arrival at 
Peach Sprint/; the Mojave Indians; arriv¬ 
al at Los Angeles. 
In riding out of the Grand t’afiouthe road 
lies for 10 miles betw een walls whieb range in 
bight from 2,5000 feet, to 4,800 feet above the 
road-bed. For reasons, atmospherical and 
otherwise, this mighty wall which did not 
particularly impress ns ou our downward 
way seemed during tile past 54 hours to have 
grown thousands of feet iu bight, and sudden¬ 
ly to have become thronged with enormous 
undreamed of sculptures. “I don’t point out 
these things going down,” explained Farlee, 
“because so much depends upon the point of 
observation, and they are all seen to better 
advantage on the outward ride.” 
When about four miles from the hotel we 
w-ere nearly opposite the Sphinx which is 
(1.000 feet high. The outline of the top of this 
portion of the left wall, considerably over a 
mile high, is so curiously like that of the 
Egyptian Sphinx, as to merit its name. On the 
right-hand side we noticed a cave w ell up to 
the top of the wall—Anaximander remarking 
that it was not common to see caves in red 
satuistoue rock. Farlee tried our guessing 
powers in measuring the distance from the 
top of the wall to the cave, us well as its out¬ 
ward dimensions. In his various iuvestiga- 
tious iu the c fum. he had at one time with au 
exploring party, hud himself let down from 
the top of the wall by a rope in front of this 
cave, aud fouud the distance to lie 850 feet, 
and the entrance to the eave 05 feet high. 
But his experiment proved what was uot 
visible to the eye—that the top of the wall 
projected considerably, and when iu front of 
the cave, he was so far removed from it that 
he was unable to find any means by which he 
could swing lllnisel^iiito it, so it still remains 
unexplored. Four miles from the Sphinx is 
the little pile of rocks called Westminster 
Abbey—so named by an English womau for 
its remarkable resemblance to that, historic 
structure,—and it is every whit as beautiful. 
The real Abbey is overgrown with ivy. while 
this is draped w ith vines and pendant grasses 
growing in the crevices of the rocks, and so 
arranged us to produce the effect of windows, 
doors, and exquisite architectural designs. 
For some distance before coming to the 
Abbey, and on the same side of the cauofi my 
eyes had feasted oil what to me was iu effect, 
the grandest feature of the Great Wall—of 
immense hight and size, marvelously sculp¬ 
tured, the facade having a center-piece full oi 
carvings. Farlee said it had uever bren 
named and that l had better christen it on the 
spot! The structure seemed so much more 
colossal than auy name 1 could imister,thut for 
the nonce we called it the “Great Temple of 
Jupiter Anuuon.” On the opposite wall were 
various groups like sculptured human figures 
—ouo had been mimed “Moses Strikiug the 
Rock:” auother wo culled the Profit at Prayer. 
But over and above all the striking, peculiar 
features of this tributary of Peach Spring 
Cailon, the Great Wall Itself, on our right, 
was most impressive; its immensity in every 
way a mighty breastwork against which all 
the shot and shell in the world might jielt. in 
vain for centuries. 
From nine o’clock until we reached Peach 
Spriug .Station, nearly throe hours later on, 
we were sensible of a considerable degree of 
cold, although well provided with warm 
cloaks uud coats. But not a particle of dew 
fell, and there was no dampness in the air. 
However, we enjoyed the brisk wood lire 
which Farlee had lighted tor us iu his house, 
w here wo were to lodge for the remnaut of the 
night, and in w hich he had lately fitted up a 
neat sleeping room for stray tourists. He 
awoke us next morning at seven o’clock with 
the announcement that the train was in from 
the East and that wo hud half an hour in 
which to breakfast.. As it. turned out., the 
train was held there for several hours, as the 
road west of the station was blocked with a 
wrecked car. Meantime, the passengers be¬ 
guiled the time in making expeditious out 
upon the foot-hills near by, gathering strange 
flowers, while the Hualapais Indians, loafing 
around the train, were quite a source of inter¬ 
est—being made up chiefly of hair, beads mid 
dirt. 
From Peach Spriug west, to a station called 
“The Needles,” so named for the high, sharp 
pointed rocks that here abound, the country 
abounds in cacti, with jagged, picturesqe 
mountains on either side. At The Needles we 
crossed the Colorado River, aud here is the 
headquarters of the Mojave Indians, who 
rarely go cast of the river, owing to a super¬ 
stitious belief that if they should die while 
away from home, they would never livable to 
join their kindred iu the land of the Hereafter. 
I have seen Indians au 1 Indians—aud while 
the Alaska Indians display more skill and ca¬ 
pability tkau auy others, still 1 have seen none 
that I liked so well upon a short acquaintance 
as these Mojaves, The tribe now nuinlirsonly 
two or three hundred—they receive uo aid 
from the Government, uud uo missionaries 
have invaded their realm They wear very 
little clothing—the little they do wear being 
chiefly decorative. Their bodies are superb, 
their teeth of dazzling whiteness, and they dis¬ 
play a seuse of good humor and affection un¬ 
usual among red men. They have sun-dried 
pottery for sale, and the women were not 
above keeping their pappooses hidden unless 
[raid five cents for showing them! Whenever 
the trains stopped at the Needles in daylight 
hours, the Mojaves reaped quite a harvest for 
their wares, including bows and arrows. 
They were a happy, gentle-lookiug race, 
quite tidy in appearance, although some of 
the women had t heir hair bound tight around 
the head, and theu plastered over with a 
thick coat of clay—this for the purpose of 
killing the lice in the hair. Indians generally 
liavea great aversion to the barber’s art, and, 
like the Chinese, attach much importance to 
the hair. 
The next morning found us back again at 
Mojave Junction,where we breakfasted, waited 
for the overland train from San Francisco, 
and went speeding southward toward Los 
Angeles, which city we reached iu the middle 
of the afternoon. Before leaving the Mojave 
desert we saw a number of mirages—those 
beautiful but delusive sheets of water that of¬ 
ten are seen in deserts. We saw them en¬ 
circling tbe mountains which rose out of the 
apparent water like islands, and the water re¬ 
flected the masses of color produced by flowers 
on the mountain slopes. We went through a 
tunnel 7.0UO feet in length cut through the San 
Raphael Mountains, and while the desert gave 
way to farming lauds, the appearance of the 
country on to Los Angeles was not attractive. 
We suw some fields of w heat aud grass, some 
ln*e ranches, but the country was rugged and 
broken, with au arid, infertile look for the 
most part. (luce landed in a clean hotel in the 
City of the Angels, we bathed, dined and went 
to bed—tired out seven times over, that fifoh 
day of April. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
Illinois. 
Chicago, Cook Co.. November Ui.—Rain is 
greatly needed in Dakota, in Iowa, and all 
over Illinois, where, iu mauy places, there has 
been uo rain to amount to anything since last 
June. It is uot quite us dry in Missouri; but 
Kansas complains, and is crying for water 
more than auy other. Fall plow ing has been 
prosecuted under great difficulties. Wheat 
lauds have not been gotten into order as well 
as they ought, to have been, and my a lviees 
from Tennessee aud Kentucky as late as Sat¬ 
urday iudii atc six weeks of dry, clear weather, 
with not enough moisture in the ground for 
wheat to sprout. So far. with the exception 
of Kansas, there does not seem to have been 
auy injury to the growing crop. The opiuiou 
is very general that winter wheat ought to 
have good soaking raius before a general 
freeze-up takes place. Where the winter 
wheat crop was the [toorest in 1885, there I 
find that Uni reserves of the crop of 188li have 
been marketed the closest. As fall plow ing is 
now over and as the country roads are good, 
it is now generally thought that the market¬ 
ing of wheat will continue free, irrespective of 
price. The dry weather bus proved exception¬ 
ally flue for the gathering of corn. Fully two- 
thirds of the crop has been secured iu an un¬ 
usually line condition, but farmers do not seem 
to care to part with their corn with the same 
degree of freedom as they have their wheat. 
This side of the Missouri River, in the majority 
of large corn growing districts, corn is 
worth for home consumption from three to 
live Cents a bushel more than it, will pay to 
ship to the great grain centers of the country. 
In Michigan and Ohio the clover anil Timothy 
seed crop is more or less varied in yield; Kan¬ 
sas, Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa are short, 
and as the tendency and the demand every 
Spriug by farmers to sow clover for the en¬ 
richment of the land is on the increase, w r e 
are likely to see a large demand for clover m 
the Spring. Up to this time the demand in 
Europe for clover has been practically 
uothiug. The strike at the stock yards 
has completely fizzled out, but no one 
has auy conception, except those who are 
directly interested as packers or os contribu¬ 
tors to these vast interests as stock growers 
