THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 6 
158 
The Rural New=Yorker. 
TEE BUSINESS FARMERS' PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Etstablwhed 1850. 
Elbert S. Carman. Editor-In-Chief. 
Herbert W. Collengwood, Managing Editor. 
John J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
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8 s. 6d., or 8!4 marks, or 10% francs. 
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of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents per line. 
Reading Notices, ending with “ Adv.," 75 cents per 
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Ad vertisements inserted only for responsible and honorable houses 
We must have copy one week before the date of Issue. 
Be sure that the name and address of sender, -with name of 
Post-office and State, and what the remittance Is for, appear in 
every letter. Money orders and bank drafts on New York are the 
safest means of transmitting money. 
Address all business communications and make all orders pay¬ 
able to THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
Corner Chambers and Pearl Streets, New York. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 1897. 
Please turn to page 162 and read the list of books 
under the heading “ Reward.” See how easy it is to 
get one without costing you a cent. Also read the 
reference to watches and chains at the bottom of the 
book list. Surely no one need be without books, or 
watch and chain ! 
0 
We would like to have our friends read about our 
premium offers on the top left hand corner of page 
162, this week. If you don’t want any of this cash 
yourself, just mention it to some one in your neigh¬ 
borhood, who will be glad to make a little money 
during the next two months ! 
© 
The Westminster Kennel Club may now be said to 
have attained its majority, as it has just held its 21st 
annual bench show. The number of dogs shown was 
larger than ever before, and the quality high. The 
value of the dogs on exhibition was said to be in the 
neighborhood of $250,000, that is, estimated at cata¬ 
logue valuations. One dog was priced at $15,000, a 
number at $10,000, and several more at $5,000. The 
attendance was good, and the show may be called a 
success. We shall give some further notes about it 
next week. 
© 
Imp. Bretonne 3660, a Guernsey cow of the Ellerslie 
herd, gave in one year 11,219 pounds of milk with an 
average of 5.37 per cent of fat in it. This means a 
total of 709 pounds of butter in one year. This cow 
is 12% years old. Between such a cow and the poor 
scrub that yields less than 200 pounds of poor butter 
fat per year, there is a golden gulf fixed. How do 
you bridge such a gulf ? The chief timbers are feed 
and breed. It means rejection rather than selection. 
Selection of the unlike and rejection of the like is 
the motto for dealing with the children of a scrub. 
O 
It is quite surprising to notice the number of farm¬ 
ers who are using buckwheat as a crop for bearing 
orchards. It is sown late in the summer and makes a 
fair growth before frost, enough to cover the ground 
fully. In one sense, this is true scientific manur¬ 
ing. Buckwheat has the ability to thrive on the 
coarsest food. It can utilize raw phosphate rock and 
ground leather. In fact, this is one way in which an 
orchard may be cheaply manured. The trees might 
not thrive on this tough plant food, but the buck¬ 
wheat could make use of it and, in turn, feed the 
trees. At the Geneva Station, peas and buckwheat 
make the best mulch of any grain combination yet 
tried. 
© 
The problem of disposing of bones on the farm so 
as to make them into an available fertilizer, has al¬ 
ways been a puzzling one. The value of bone meal 
depends largely on its fineness, and most farmers 
lack the facilities for crushing the large bones. Sul¬ 
phuric acid is dangerous stuff to handle, and we do 
not advise the novice to attempt to use it. The pro¬ 
cess of “ reducing ” the bones by packing them in 
layers of wood ashes is slow and often unsatisfactory. 
Burning is easy, but this means the loss of all the 
nitrogen. The best way is to steam the bones and 
then grind them in a mill, but this means an ap¬ 
paratus more expensive than the average farmer cares 
to buy. Mr. Putnam, on page 152, gives the best sub¬ 
stitute for steaming we have yet recorded, and those 
who have large iron kettles and plenty of cheap fuel, 
might well try the plan. Some years ago, a lot of 
old salt kettles were advertised in The R. N.-Y. at 
about the price of old iron. Such kettles would be 
excellent for boiling bones, and some enterprising 
farmer in almost any neighborhood could obtain 
cheap phosphoric acid by gathering up waste bones 
and treating them as Mr. Putnam suggests. 
9 
WE-judge from a number of letters at hand that many 
gardeners were troubled last season with ‘ 1 club foot” 
in cabbage and turnips. This disease is due to a fun¬ 
gus which multiplies in the cells of cabbage or turnip 
roots, and thus produces an unnatural growth. The 
only known effective way of treating this disease is 
to use lime on the soil. It has been found quite 
effective to use 75 bushels of slaked lime to the acre. 
This lime is broadcasted upon the soil—fall being the 
best time to make the application. Still it is not too 
late to try it now on soil where the disease has pre¬ 
vailed in former years. 
© 
A congressman is said to have introduced a bill re¬ 
quiring proprietors of hotels to print their bills of 
fare in English. His argument is that he recently 
went to a hotel where the bill of fare was printed in 
French. After a careful study, he picked out five 
high-sounding dishes, and was astonished when the 
food reached him to find that he had ordered potatoes 
cooked in five different styles ! He will hardly be 
able to get potato growers to join in support of such 
a bill. If the French language will encourage such 
a lavish use of potatoes, let us parlez vous Francain 
with all our might and on all occasions 1 
© 
Luther H. Tucker, editor and senior member of 
the firm of Luther Tucker & Son, publishers of the 
Country Gentleman, died Tuesday evening, February 
23, of Bright’s disease. His death was sudden, though 
he had been in ill health for 10 years or more. He 
was in the 63d year of his age. His father, Luther 
Tucker, was the founder of the paper, and the son 
became associated with him in 1855, the firm being 
Luther Tucker & Son, the title it still retains, though 
the father died in 1873, since which time the subject 
of this note has been at the head. During his earlier 
editorial career, he made an agricultural tour of 
Great Britain, and during 1860, embodied some of the 
results of his tour in a course of lectures delivered at 
Yale College. A few years later, he was appointed 
Professor of Agriculture in the then newly created 
college of agriculture at Rutgers College, but his 
duties at home took him from here after a brief 
period. For about 15 years he was treasurer and 
acting-manager of the New York State Agricultural 
Society. For many years past, he has been little 
known outside of his editorial work. He was accom¬ 
plished, yet unassuming, preferring the quiet, 
uneventful, yet influential work of the editor, to the 
more active work of the world. 
© 
The southern towns seem to be well supplied with 
apples this year. At such places as Norfolk and 
Richmond, Va., they are fully as cheap as in New 
York, while the quality is excellent. Few of these 
apples seem to come from the North—they are mostly 
from Virginia or North Carolina. These cheap apples 
make themselves noticed in the food served at hotels 
and restaurants, and hundreds of travelers are learn¬ 
ing to eat them for breakfast in place of bananas and 
other fruit. In one sense, the present low prices for 
apples will prove a profitable advertisement for this 
excellent fruit. Tempted by the low price, thousands 
of consumers will acquire the apple-eating habit, and 
will continue to demand the fruit for years to come. 
© 
The discussion regarding a registry bureau for new 
plants recalls the methods adopted by specialist 
florists in a similar line. The American Rose Society, 
the American Carnation Society, and the Chrysanthe¬ 
mum Society of America, all request introducers of 
new varieties in their several lines to send names and 
descriptions to the society, that an accurate record 
may be made. The Chrysanthemum Society has, 
during the past two years, appointed committees of 
experts at New York, Boston, Philadelphia and 
Chicago, whose duty it is to pass upon new varieties 
submitted to them. Worthless or too-much-alike 
varieties are so characterized, while worthy novelties 
receive the society’s certificate. This weeds out the 
poorer varieties, since buyers do not want a novelty 
that falls below the official scale. Introducers are 
also dissuaded from duplicating existing names. The 
Carnation Society is active in similar lines. It would 
seem that a similar course might be pursued very 
profitably by some of the existing nurserymen’s 
societies. 
© 
Doubtless, many of the troubles that occur in the 
dairy work in the winter, are due to neglect to sup¬ 
ply the cows with salt daily. The rule should be, two 
ounces of salt every day, for a full-sized cow. We 
must always think that every animal parts with a 
large quantity of salt in the various secretions and 
excretions of the system, daily ; there is this constant 
loss going on, even through the skin, the perspira¬ 
tion from which is saline, thus inducing animals not 
properly supplied with salt to lick their fellows, and 
even eat such injurious and disagreeable filth as 
horse manure. These things are even more so in a 
cow giving milk, in which there are 12 to 16 ounces 
of mineral matter, consisting largely of salt, in every 
100 pounds. Of course, a cow giving 20 pounds of 
milk daily, parts with all this mineral matter to the 
extent of three to four ounces, and this is all to be 
supplied in the food. Sometimes, the proportion of 
salt in milk is sensibly increased, so much so as to 
give it a strong, salty flavor ; then, of course, the 
cow’s system is drained of salt, and we do not know, 
in fact, what troubles in the dairy may not occur from 
this drain from a cow which is not supplied with it 
every day. But reason and common knowledge go 
to suggest the fact that premature souring of the 
milk, foaming of the cream in the churn, and other 
difficulties in getting the butter; with defective flavor, 
with early over-ripening leading to premature ran¬ 
cidity, may all most easily follow a deficiency of salt 
—one of the most effective antiseptics and preserva¬ 
tives we know of—in the milk. Besides this, we may 
be sure that the large quantity of salt existing in 
every animal secretion, in the blood, too, of course, 
is such that two ounces a day really seem to be some¬ 
what short of the actual necessity. It is a little thing, 
but one of the kind which has very much to do with 
success or failure in the dairy business. 
© 
BREVITIES. 
Air: Ben Bolt. 
Oh! always remember Miss Clover, old boy, 
Miss Clover with blossom so fair, 
Who longs for the chance to be calling for you, 
Young Nitrogen, out of the air. 
Though the soil may be sterile and thin, old boy, 
Little Clover will cause it to dance 
At the crop she will coax it to lay at your feet, 
If you give her but half of a chance. 
And don’t forget Potash, Miss Clover’s best friend, 
Old Potash, good-natured and fat; 
Without him, Miss Clover will soon drop her smile, 
And run out her claws like a cat. 
There’s Sulphate and Muriate, Kainit, too, 
Wood ashes, unleached—let us see 
Which will come for least money and labor for us, 
That’s the one for our home family. 
And Phosphoric Acid, oh! don’t forget him ! 
Miss Clover’s a young thing at best; 
She’ll need all the solid backbone he can give, 
To hold Nitrogen as her guest. 
In bone or in rock, he will serve you, old boy. 
Add lime if the soil is too sour; 
Let the three serve Miss Clover, both Crimson and Red, 
And the harvest will come like a shower ! 
The capon never capers. 
Plant pie and raise dyspepsia ! 
Size of a cow’s stomach—page 165. 
A deep rest condition—sound asleep. 
Don’t get a weakness for strong drink. 
A dead “beat” is better than a live one. 
Saved by the grace of grease—the wheel. 
Wheels in the head for a strawberry barrel—pageJ154. 
Read Mr. Van Deman’s interesting notes on tree planting. 
One-half the world seems to care little how the other half lives 
Why cultivate a peach orchard less than you would a corn 
field ? 
A “balanced ration” for a winter’s evening—pop com and 
apples. 
A good way to get “ iron in your blood ” is to work it in over 
the buck saw. 
Our friend—page 146—told us that the buttermilk brings more 
than the butter. 
Give slaves their beer and sick men whisky; drink Adam’s ale 
—keep ever frisky. 
A debtor— the hen that lays a dozen summer eggs and then 
becomes a “setter”. 
Don’t know his trade—the Southern farmer who won’t make 
use of Crimson clover. 
Pneumatic horse collars on the principle of a bicycle tire are 
the latest French novelty. 
When a live farmers’ club puts its foot down on a fraud, it is a 
case of club foot that benefits agriculture. 
The money may not all be lost, although it’s out of pocket, if 
your experience is filed on Judge Remember’s docket. 
The sweet potato grower is a root seller at present prices, the 
white potato grower comes near to being a tuberous beg owner. 
Just consider the weight of duck meat Mr. Pollard produces on 
an acre of ground, first page. Is there any other animal be¬ 
sides the duck that can equal it ? 
Yes, sir ! We would add phosphoric acid and potash in. some 
form to the stable manure for the same reason that we would 
add grain to ensilage or hay—to balance it. 
Now we want some man—wise beyond his generation—to come 
forward and tell us why a crop of green cow peas plowed into the 
soil will injure it, while a crop of Crimson clover will not. 
Ten thousand farmers fight for years with mortgages and go 
down. Who cares? Two human brutes want to fight with their 
fists. The State of Nevada hastens to accommodate them by 
making their fight legal. This is near the end of the Nineteenth 
Century ! 
