54o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 14 
Attention, Subscription Agents! 
O F course you remember that last week, on page 525. we made a remarkably 
good subscription offer. You were told how you could earn a check for $50 
and a $60 Bicycle, with a chance for a sweepstake premium, by obtaining trial 
subscriptions for The Rural New-Yorker. During the week it has occurred to 
us that, if you had the bicycle, you might be able to obtain subscribers to better 
advantage than you could by walking or driving old Gray. Therefore, we have con¬ 
cluded to make another offer : If you will obtain 250 names, we will trust you with 
the bicycle, provided you agree to go on and obtain the other 250 names after securing 
the wheel. Of course we will send the check for the cash part of the premium 
after the contest closes on September 30. But if you will send the first 250 names, 
you can have the wheel as quickly as the manufacturers can get it to you. Here 
is a picture of the wheel—men’s style. We will furnish either this or a lady’s 
wheel, as desired. We will guarantee that these wheels are made by one of the 
best houses in the country, and that they are perfect in every way. 
Now, friend, here is a chance for you if you want a wheel. Roll up your 
sleeves and get right straight out at work. Send us 250 subscriptions for the rest 
of this year, and say that you are going to work for 250 more, and your wheel 
will come rolling to you without delay. Of course you understand the terms of 
this arrangement. We will send The Rural, New Yorker the rest of this year 
for 25 cents. You keep 10 cents of this, and send us 15 cents. Therefore, your 250 
names will net you $25 to start with. Then you have a $60 bicycle on which to 
ride while chasing the other 250 subscribers. When you have run these men down, 
you will have $25 more in commissions, and we are to send you $50, $40 or $30, 
according to your rank in the size of your club. In addition to this, you have a 
chance to secure a share of the extra $100. 
Now, friends, we wish that you would write and tell us what more you want. 
You see that we are disposed to give you every possible chance and every advan¬ 
tage to get hold of the wheel and the cash. Of course, you will understand that, 
if you have never done any work for us before, and if you are not known to us, 
we will want to have references before sending the wheel, to make sure that you 
will go on with the work after you secure it. Our old friends and agents who have 
worked so faithfully for us in the past, do not need to send references because, so 
far as we know, all subscription work done by them has been satisfactory. 
This is what we will do toward securing a wheel for you—will you do the 
rest? We pause for a reply, and we do hope that that reply will come in the 
shape of a good big list of trial subscriptions. There is no need for us to go on 
and tell you anything about The Rural New-Yorker. We do not believe that 
there is a human being in this country who will deny that The R. N.-Y. for the rest 
of this year at 25 cents is just about the greatest bargain that ever was known in 
agricultural journalism. Why, it is worth that much to your wife to put on the 
pantry shelves, let alone the vast amount of information which you can glean out 
of it before it is needed for that purpose. Some member of your family wants a 
wheel. We do not mean that you need any more wheels in your head, but you 
want a wheel that is going to take you over the roads right up to the town of 
“Get There”. We take it for granted, also, that a small bit of cash would not 
be out of place in your home. As for ourselves, we have a place on our subscrip¬ 
tion list that ought to be filled. See if we cannot put these wants together. We 
have done our share—now we are waiting for you. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, New York. 
A FEW BOOK NOTES 
We saw a grown-up man the other 
day who was so busy reading Robinson 
Crusoe that he nearly forgot to get off 
when the train stopped at his railroad 
station. That man had lived nearly 45 
years without reading that great book. 
He ought to be a happy man if he has 
been unable to read the great classics of 
the English language. What a wonder¬ 
ful treat he has in store. What hours 
he will spend with Shakespeare, Dickens, 
Irving, Thackeray, Hawthorne, Longfel¬ 
low and all the rest of the great men of 
letters. We sometimes hear people say 
that they did not acquire the reading 
habit while they were young, therefore 
they did not read good books. Now 
they think that they are too old. What 
a mistake that is ! Their very age and 
experience will be useful to them in 
their reading. It is, certainly, a won¬ 
derful thing to have so much good read¬ 
ing ahead of you. 
That is true also of agricultural books. 
Our readers would be surprised to see 
how the better class of rural books are 
being sold*. We have just sent a copy of 
The Fertility of the Land to one of our 
subscribers in Bombay, India. He is 
talking now of Storer’s Agriculture. 
One farmer has just bought a $20 outfit 
of farm books for his sons, and another 
is figuring on a lot that will cost $60. 
Some of these men are just beginning to 
realize that a new era in farm literature 
has arrived, and that real and true rural 
books are now being printed. 
This little note from a reader in Mis¬ 
souri shows how people are acting : 
The nursery book I bought of you several 
years ago is Al. I have learned to bud and 
graft, and could start a nursery should I wish. 
The book is by L. H. Bailey—a fine little book 
worth the price many times. 
This man is now ready for the American 
Fruit Culturist, by Thomas, which, cer¬ 
tainly, ought to be found in every home 
where fruit growing is made a part of 
the farm business. Prof. Bailey has 
written a new book on fruit culture, and 
there are dozens of volumes that are 
sound and practical. Good books are 
good friends. The It. N.-Y. did not take 
up the book business expecting to make 
any great amount of money out of it, but 
we feel that many of these farm books 
will prove useful and valuable in con¬ 
nection with the paper. 
FRUIT NOTES FROM MAINE. 
I have for plums, Moore’s Arctic, Lombard,Mari¬ 
anna, Burbank, Pond’s Seedling, Niagara, Reine 
Claude, Red June, Abundance, Chabot, and Ger¬ 
man Prune; for gooseberries, ludustry, Lanca¬ 
shire Lad,Red Jacket, Pearl, Downing,and Smith’s 
Improved; for pears, of the new kinds, Willard, 
Idaho, and Keiffer. The Abundance plum has been 
set three years; no fruit as yet, but the trees are 
thrifty and do not winterkill, although the ther¬ 
mometer is sometimes 20 degrees below zero. The 
aphides, that are badly afflicting the Lombard 
and Moore’s Arctic, do not touch the Japan sorts. 
Moore’s Arctic is a medium thrifty tree, also 
Marianna, which stood our cold winter all right, 
although I was afraid they would not; they have 
made a good growth this summer. Pond’s Seed¬ 
ling lived through the winter alive to the tips, 
and has made a great growth this summer. 
Niagara is a thrifty tree, but a poor bearer. 
Reine Claude killed back some, but is coming on 
well now. Red June, set last spring, is making 
a great growth of wood, as is Chabot. I take 
great interest in my little plum orchard of 50 
trees, and am testing them for myself to see what 
kinds do the best here, and am doing the same 
in gooseberries. 
The Industry is doing well for me, bore quite 
heavily this year, and has had no mildew as yet. 
The crop has been in the preserving jars about 
three weeks. Smith’s Improved bore well for the 
second year, and is, I think, a good kind. I shall 
set more this fall. I am in favor of fall planting 
every time, a9 I have far better results as to the 
plants living, and they make so much better 
growth the next season. The Lancashire Lad 
gooseberry bore a very few large berries. Pearl, 
Red Jacket, Downing, and others have not fruited 
as yet, but are thrifty, with no mildew. 
I have, within the past month, made a trip of 
150 miles through the farming region, and find 
the fruit prospect outside of pears very poor. 
Apple trees are in bad shape, and numbers are 
dead. In one orchard on flat land that I saw 
which contained, perhaps, 100 trees, at least 25 
were dead. I went with the owner thinking that, 
perhaps, I could And the reason of the trees 
dying, but could not, unless it was the long-con¬ 
tinued rains last spring. The trees were six to 
eight inches through, and were smooth and 
thrifty looking, with the exception of no leaves. 
My own apple trees, although not dying, are not 
thrifty, and the foliage is dying on some branches 
and looks curled and poor. 
I am testing the Sir Walter Raleigh potatoes 
sent me against the Early Norther and Early 
Oxford. I will send a report later. Haying is 
late, and plenty of poor hay will be homed 
Potatoes aud hoed crops are looking well. I am 
much pleased with The R. N.-Y., and wish that I 
had taken it before. s l. p. 
Bath, Me. 
CRIMSON CLOVER. CELERY 
AND STRAWBERRIES. 
In my market garden, my rotation of crops is 
strawberries, followed the same year by late cel¬ 
ery. The next year, the ground is set to early 
celery, and the next year to strawberries again. 
In this rotation, I think that I have found a place 
for a catch crop of Crimson clover, which will 
make a cover crop during the winter, and also 
add plant food to the soil and reduce the fertil¬ 
izer bill. To grow marketable crops, I have been 
obliged to apply a heavy dressing of stable 
manure to my land each year. As I had to buy 
the manure, draw and spread it, this was a heavy 
expense to me. In one ton of manure, as it will 
average, there are said to be 25 pounds of plant 
food. The remainder is vegetable matter, the use 
of which is to furnish the soil with humus. Of 
course, it is much cheaper to grow it on the soil 
just where it is wanted, in the form of clover, and 
also get the nitrogen in the clover at a very small 
cost. About August 1, I shall commence to mar¬ 
ket the early celery. As fast as the ground is 
cleared, to October 1, I shall sow it to Crimson 
clover. If there be sufficient moisture at the 
time of sowing, it will germinate and start to 
growing very soon, and on the rich garden soil 
grows so rapidly that it will make quite a large 
growth before cold weather. If it winterkill, it 
will be worth much more than it costs as a cover 
crop and fertilizer. If it survive the winter, I 
shall commence to plow it under when it is a few 
inches high, and set the ground to strawberries, 
using no other fertilizer except, perhaps, a little 
commercial fertilizer in the rows. The next win¬ 
ter, the strawberries will be mulched with stable 
manure, which will, also, make the ground rich 
enough for the crop of celery to follow. By this 
plan, the manure is used as a mulch for the 
strawberries, and is applied only every alternate 
year, instead of every year as before. If the 
strawberries did not require mulching, it, per¬ 
haps, would be cheaper for me to use only clover 
and commercial fertilizers. 
A few years ago, when living on a dairy farm, 
the rotation of crops was corn for ensilage, oats 
and clover. The stable manure was applied as 
a top-dressing to the clover which, after about 
two crops, was cut and the ground was planted 
again to corn. The plan I have in the market 
garden is somewhat similar, for the manure is 
used to mulch and furnish food for the straw¬ 
berry plants instead of the clover, and the two 
crops of celery take the place of corn and oats in 
the rotation. But the Crimson clover may be so 
used as a catch crop that a garden crop may be 
taken from the ground every year. Where the 
two crops of celery are not grown on the same 
ground in one year—and in the method of close 
planting which I practice it cannot be well done 
—I think this plan of seeding the fields where 
early celery has been grown, will be of great 
value to celery growers. When celery is grown 
every year, perhaps the ground could not be put 
in good condition for setting plants, if a large 
growth of clover is plowed under. Then so much 
green clover in the soil might decompose so 
slowly that it would be of little use to early 
celery. 
My plan of plowing the ground when the clover 
has made only a small growth, from what I have 
learned, I think, is the better one. Much has 
been written about growing Crimson clover on 
the farm, but I have read little about its use in 
the garden. In many gardens, early crops, such 
as peas, early potatoes, sweet corn, beans, etc., 
are taken off during the summer months, and the 
ground left to grow to weeds the rest of the year. 
A much better way is, as soon as an early crop 
is removed, to seed the ground to Crimson clover 
immediately. Strawberry beds which are not to 
be fruited another year, and on which a late crop 
has not been planted, should be at once plowed, 
finely harrowed, and Crimson clover sown. 
Delaware County, N. Y. w. h. jenkins. 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH'S FIRST 
REPORT. 
In common with many other readers of The 
R. N.-Y., I last spring sent for a tuber of the Sir 
Walter Raleigh potato. On its arrival, the scales 
figured its weight at just two ounces. It was then 
placed in an empty glass fruit jar to make sure 
that neither rats nor other depredators could in¬ 
terfere with the slumber of the distinguished vis¬ 
itor in an upper berth of our comfortable cellar. 
As planting time drew near, the potato was ac¬ 
corded the light and warmth of the greenhouse. 
Here it had to remain somewhat longer than I 
had intended, owing to a very backward spring. 
Nice, stubby sprouts made their appearance, and 
I found that there were 10 eyes in all. The potato 
was cut into as many pieces, and these were 
planted the usual distance apart in soil of only 
medium fertility and sandy loam in texture. The 
weather continued cool and frosty, and on sev¬ 
eral occasions, the 10 plants had to be covered 
with stone jars to prevent their being bitten by 
frost. The growth was very rapid, and they be¬ 
gan to bloom surprisingly soon. No seed balls 
were formed, and the bloom vanished almost as 
quickly as it came while the plants grew apace. 
The tillage they received was rather less than 
they deserved, but my object was to test them 
under average conditions of field culture, and not 
The murderer who, at dead of nig 
creeps, stealthily out to bury the dead and 
mangled body of his victim inspires men 
with horror and dread. There is a murderer 
abroad who yearly slays one-sixth of all the 
human race who go down to untimely deaths. 
This dread monster is called consumption. 
The approach of consumption is slow and 
insidious. First there is a slight disorder 
of the digestion. The appetite is poor and 
the nourishing properties of the food are not 
properly assimilated. The blood becomes 
thin and impure. The body begins to starve. 
Old tissues of the body are not properly re¬ 
placed by new. The lung tissues are not 
properly nourished and are inert and half 
dead. In this condition they offer a good 
soil for the germs of consumption which 
invade and attack them. 
This operation is promptly reversed by 
Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery. It 
invigorates the digestion and appetite and 
makes assimilation perfect. It builds up 
and purifies the blood. It makes new and 
healthy tissue to replace the old, inert mat¬ 
ter which it causes to be carried off. It 
drives out all disease-germs. Thousands of 
cases given up as hopeless have been cured. 
Miss Laura Piersel, of East Bethlehem, Wash¬ 
ington Co., Pa., writes: "I must write you tel¬ 
ling you of the great benefit derived from the use 
of your ‘ Golden Medical Discovery.’ Last sum¬ 
mer my friends thought I was surely going into 
consumption, and having tried doctors with no 
satisfactory results and hearing your medicine so 
highly spoken of, I took one bottle. My cough 
left me together with all the distressing symp¬ 
toms, and in fact the cure seemed almost mirac¬ 
ulous to all who saw me.” 
Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Pellets are tiny, 
sugar-coated granules that are an unfailing 
and permanent cure for constipation. 
New York State Veterinary College 
ESTABLISHED AT 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY. ITHACA, N. Y. 
By Chapter 163, Laws of 1894. 
The best equipment for scientific and practical in¬ 
struction for undergraduates and postgraduates. 
Most varied practice for students in the free clinics. 
Regular graded course three years of nine months 
each Highest requirements for matriculation and 
graduation. Entrance by Regents’ “ Veterinary 
Student Certificate,” or by examination September 
14, 1897. Instruction begins September 23. 1897 
Tuition free to New York State Students. 
For e> tended announcement address 
Prof. JAMES LAW. F. JR. C. V. S., Director 
N. Y.STATE FAIR, 
SYRACUSE, N. Y. 
August 23 to 28, 1897. 
$25,000 in Premiums. New Buildings. 
New Water Plant. Great Attractions. 
Premium Lists now Ready. Apply to 
JAS. B. DOCHARTY, Sec’y, Albany, N.Y. 
Special Railroad Facilities, Reduced Rates and 
all exhibits unloaded from cars on Fair Grounds. 
