636 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 25 
AS WE GO TO PRESS. 
WHERE ARE THE NINE? 
NEEDED TO MAKE THE TEN. 
Some of our club raisers have not yet 
sent in any subscriptions for the rest of 
this year. Others have sent in just a 
few names. It is to these two classes 
that we want to say a word this week. 
Just remember that $100 in cash will be 
divided October 1 among the 10 agents 
who have sent the next largest 10 clubs 
after the bicycles and big cash premiums 
are disposed of. Now you can yet be 
one of the 10, even though you have not 
yet sent in a name. Nearly two weeks 
yet left, and you need not work all the 
time either. Just take an hour or two 
every evening among your neighbors, 
and you will secure enough names to 
put you in the list of 10 for a share of 
that $100 in cash. The time, however, 
is getting short, and no more should be 
lost. Go at it in earnest, and we will 
guarantee that you will be pleased with 
the result. Shall we send you some 
samples ? 
The Rural, New-Yorker, New York. 
‘•ANDERSONVILLE.” 
I understand that there is a movement 
on foot to turn the old prison ground at 
Andersonville, Ua., into some sort of a 
memorial park. I hope that the scheme 
will fail. There seems to me no good 
reason why memories of that horrible 
spot should be kept alive. Two years 
ago, on a hot July day, I walked all 
over the old prison ground, and talked 
with black men and white men who re¬ 
membered the time when men died there 
like sick sheep. Of all the ghastly, God¬ 
forsaken, haunted places of which I ever 
heard, that little road or lane leading 
down over the brook from the station at 
Anderson is worst of all. Down this 
road, under the trees, tramped the pris¬ 
oners on their way to the stockade. The 
road winds off to the left as it reaches 
the ruins of the old fort, marking the 
trail over which thousands of dead men 
were carried to the graveyard. 
There was, to me, a horrible fascina¬ 
tion about the spot. My father’s regi¬ 
ment was shut in Andersonville for 
months. At twilight, after the sun went 
down, I walked along that haunted road¬ 
side, and seemed to see in the shadow 
of the trees, drawn up in ghostly array, 
the poor fellows who cast away hope as 
they marched into the prison. Two ne¬ 
groes, coming home from the field, 
stopped to drink from the brook that 
trickled over the road, and then hurried 
on through the gathering darkness. In 
an old-fashioned cabin near the main 
entrance to the prison, lived an old 
Scotchman who helped build the stock¬ 
ade, and who had lived for years in its 
shadow. He told me, in the most cold¬ 
blooded fashion, stories of the old prison 
and its inmates and guards. The very 
air of the place oppressed me. It seemed 
as though the whole region was cursed 
by God and man. Yet there was little 
left to tell the old story. I found only 
two posts of the old stockade. “Provi¬ 
dence spring ” still bubbled up from the 
roots of the pine tree, but other land¬ 
marks were gone. As a result of some 
strange whirl of fate, a negro was culti¬ 
vating crops of corn and cotton in the 
old prison field. 
It is not generally known that our 
friend, J. H. Hale, atone time came near 
buying the old prison for a peach orchard! 
I wish that he had done so. I wish 
that some one would wipe out all the 
hateful old marks except “ Providence 
spring, ” and bring a blessing to the place 
by making it fruitful and productive. 
Better an experiment farm than a 
memorial park ! Blot out the saddest 
page of the war, say 1—paint it out with 
a green covering that shall show the 
best that Georgia soil is capable of pro¬ 
ducing. Let loose the possibilities for 
agriculture that are prisoned in that 
field. Who would seek to keep alive the 
memories of an awful dream ? Blot out 
the disgrace. It is one of the things we 
may safely leave to the past. 
There you have my sentiments about 
Andersonville. There are many other 
things — agricultural and otherwise— 
that might well be blotted out. I have 
made mistakes in farming—so have you. 
I have kept cows when I should have 
kept hens, raised weeds when I should 
have raised potatoes, plowed when I 
should have cultivated, and used my 
fingers when a horse would have done 
the work. I did these things chiefly 
because I didn’t know any better, and 
got so tied up that I couldn’t help it. 
Andersonville started well enough, but 
they were swamped by the crowd of 
prisoners. We—you—I—started prop¬ 
erly, but were crowded too hard. What 
would have set us right ? Some good 
man, who knew better, coming right in 
the nick of time to punch us up with a 
forcible suggestion or bit of advice. 
Now, then, you see what we are get¬ 
ting at. The R. N.-Y. comes 52 times 
each year with just such hints and bits 
for your benefit. Some of the best men 
in the country supply the hints and, 
sometimes, kick them in. The paper 
may be new to you. Try it a year ! We 
shall not rake up any of the things that 
ought to be plowed under. We hope to 
get them out of sight, and grow new 
and better crops from them. If you are 
a prisoner to bad farming—why not try 
to get out of jail ? We’ll try to help 
you ! Your dollar 1 It will pay for 52 
issues of The R. N.-Y. ! We would like 
to see the color of it. 
SCIENCE FROM THE STATIONS. 
REVIEWS OF IMPORTANT BULLETINS. 
Values of Ashes. —Bulletin 48 of the 
Massachusetts Experiment Station (Am¬ 
herst) gives the analyses of fertilizers 
sold in that State and, also, of other sub¬ 
stances. Considerable space is devoted 
to ashes. So much has been recently 
said about the value of lime on acid 
soils, that ashes of all forms of wood 
are being considered with special favor 
for fertilizing. Lime-kiln ashes which 
contain, in one ton, 800 pounds of lime, 
25 of potash, and 20 of phosphoric acid, 
might well be advertised and sold with 
profit. These ashes are obtained by 
burning limestone with wood. They 
are very useful on crops like clover or 
grass, and farmers who live where they 
can be obtained, can well afford to pay 
$3.50 per ton and haul them home. As 
for ordinary unleaehed wood ashes, they 
should never be bought by the bushel. 
They should be bought not only by 
weight, but on a guaranteed analysis of 
potash and phosphoric acid. The Massa¬ 
chusetts Experiment Station chemists 
found all the way from 1 to 35 per cent 
of water in different samples of such 
ashes. It is folly to buy ashes by the 
bushel when 20 per cent or more of the 
bulk is nothing but water. The potash 
and phosphoric acid found in wood 
ashes have, pound for pound, about 
equal commercial values. Dealers some¬ 
times state only the sum of both instead of 
the amount of each. This is well enough 
in figuring the money value of the ashes; 
but the buyer should demand, in addi¬ 
tion, a definite statement of the amounts 
of potash and phosphoric acid as separate 
ingredients. Let us not burn our money 
in buying ashes. 
Great Value of Cow Peas —In bul¬ 
letin No. 46, of the Arkansas Experi¬ 
ment Station (Fayetteville), Prof. R L. 
Bennett has made a valuable contribu¬ 
tion to the literature of southern agri¬ 
culture. All through the South, one 
may find wornout corn and cotton fields. 
Many of these fields have been aban¬ 
doned. They have been washed and 
leached until, frequently, there is noth¬ 
ing left but the subsoil. The most im¬ 
portant problem in southern farming 
to-day, is how to restore these worn 
soils at the least expense. Prof. Ben¬ 
nett’s experiments show that most of 
these soils, especially the darker ones, 
do not need large quantities of potash. 
On the sandy pine soils of south Ar¬ 
kansas, both potash and phosphoric acid 
are needed. He concludes that the two 
chief needs of such soils are nitrogen and 
vegetable matter. To supply nitrogen, 
cotton seed and cow peas are, by far, the 
least expensive for the southern States. 
Either in the form of crushed whole 
seed, or cotton-seed meal, nitrogen can 
be obtained cheaper than in any other 
form. The cow pea has been found, on 
the whole, superior to any form of 
clover in restoring these worn soils. It 
is now pretty generally agreed that 
clover requires reasonably good soil in 
order to produce a fair crop. The cow 
pea, on the other hand, will produce a 
heavy crop where clover would be a 
dwarf. It has also been shown that one 
may sow cow peas on poor soil, cut a 
fair amount of hay during the summer, 
and then secure a large enough second 
growth for green manuring, to provide 
nitrogen enough for one crop each, at 
least, of corn and cotton; then if the 
cow-pea hay be fed to stock, and the 
manure applied to the field, excellent 
results will be obtained. Among other 
results obtained from these experiments, 
are the following : On poor, sandy soil, 
wheat, with nothing in the way of fer¬ 
tilizer, produced five bushels to the acre. 
With 10 loads of horse manure per acre, 
the yield was 15% bushels. With peas 
planted July 31, and turned under green 
October 10, the yield was 16 bushels and 
53 pounds. In another trial, the yield 
was 18 bushels 10% pounds per acre. 
With cotton, the yield on land which 
had been for three years in cotton, 
yielded 650 pounds of seed. Where 
corn and pea vines had been formerly 
grown, the yield was 1,106% pounds 
Corn on four-years cotton land, yielded 
16 bushels per acre, while on land in 
which a crop of pea vines had been 
plowed, the yield was 39 7 bushels. So 
(Continued on next page.) 
There are bandits 
nowadays as well 
as in the days of 
old. Business men 
have to meet what 
are known as 
business - bandits. 
They may not 
commit vio%t»ee 
with knife k-»d 
pistol, but the>. re¬ 
sort to all manner 
of dishonest biLai- 
ness methods, and 
the honest business man must be brave, 
strong and steady if he would meet and 
overcome them. The modern business man 
needs above all other qualifications—good 
health. Without good health, he may be 
naturally shrewd, bright and capable, but he 
will eventually fail. It takes a keen brain 
and steady nerves to be successful. Impure 
blood will befog the brightest brain and 
6hake the steadiest nerves. 
The greatest known blood - maker and 
purifier is Dr. Pierce’s Golden Medical Dis¬ 
covery. It corrects all disorders of the di¬ 
gestion, tones the liver, makes the appetite 
keen and assimilation perfect. Consequent¬ 
ly the blood is plentifully supplied with 
the elements of nutrition and the body is 
properly nourished. It cures 98 per cent, 
of all cases of consumption. All good 
druggists sell it. 
H. Gaddis, Esq., of No. 313 8 . J. Street, Tacoma, 
Washington, writes: “ I was taken ill in Feb¬ 
ruary, 18 ^ 2 , with headache and pain in my back. 
I called in a doctor and he came three times. 
He said I was bilious, but I kept getting worse. 
I took a cough so that I could only sleep when 
propped up in bed. My lungs hurt me and I got 
so poor that I was just skin and bone. I thought 
I was going to die. I tried a bottle of Doctor 
Pierce’s Golden Medical Discovery and it did me 
ao much good that I tried another one and it 
made me strong and well. It saved my life.” 
The People’s Common Sense Medical 
Adviser. A large book of 1,008 pages over 
300 illustrations. Every woman should 
have it. It is full of the information that 
women should possess. The best medical 
book ever published. It saves doctor’s bills, 
worry of mind, and, more than all, days, 
weeks and months of sickness in every 
household where it finds a place. Whoever 
wants a copy of this book in strong paper 
covers may obtain it absolutely free by 
sending 21 one-cent stamps—to pay merely 
the cost of mailing—to World’s Dispensary 
Medical Association, Buffalo, N. Y. If a 
binding of cloth is preferred, send 10 cents 
•xtra — 31 cents in all. 
The Thrice-a-Week World 
gives you all the news of the whole world 
every other day. It is the next thing to a 
great daily paper—18 pages a week, 156 papers 
a year. It is independent, fearless and al 
ways with the plain people as against trusts 
and monopolists. We can send ii in combina¬ 
tion with Tub Rural New-Yorkrr, both one 
year, for only $1.65. 
REWARD 
FOB GETTING US 
NewSubscriptions 
Any person sending us new subscriptions may 
select the books or other rewards mentioned be¬ 
low for the number of names sent. They are not 
given to the subscriber direct, but as a reward 
for the work done by our friends in getting new 
subscriptions. The full dollar must accompany 
each subscription, and we send the rewards post¬ 
paid. We fill subscriptions now for the rest of 
this year for 50 cents, and two such subscriptions 
will count as one yearly. 
For One New Subscription. 
The Nursery Book. Paper. $.50 
First Lessons in Agriculture. Cloth. 1.00 
American Grape Training. Flexible cloth... .75 
Horticulturists’ Rule Book. Cloth.75 
The Business Hen. Paper.40 
The New Potato Culture. Paper.40 
Chrysanthemum Culture for America. Paper .60 
Ensilage and Silo.20 
Syraying and Crops.25 
How to Plant a Place.20 
Sheep Farming.25 
A Fortune in Two Acres.20 
Landseaoe Gardening.50 
Country Roads.20 
Fruit Packages.20 
Asparagus Culture.50 
Cabbages.30 
Cabbage and Cauliflower, How to Grow.30 
Carrots and Mangold Wurtzels.30 
Fertilizers.40 
Melons—How to Grow for Market.30 
Onion Culture, New.50 
Onion Raising.30 
Onions, How to Grow.30 
Squashes.30 
Rural New-Yorker Handy Binder.25 
Literary Gems. Noted Books of Noted Authors 
All Handsomely Bound in Cloth. 
Hyperion.30 
Outre-Mer. 30 
Kavanagh.30 
The Scarlet Letter.30 
The House of the Seven Gables.30 
Twice-Told Tales.30 
Mosses from an Old Manse.30 
The Snow-image.30 
A Wonder-Book for Boys and Girls.30 
Early Life of Lincoln.50 
For Two New Subscriptions. 
Popular Errors About Plants. Cloth.$1.00 
Plant Breeding or Cross-Breeding and Hybri¬ 
dizing. Cloth. 1.00 
Insects and Insecticides. Cloth. 1.25 
Practical Farm Chemistry. Cloth... .. 1.00 
Improving the Farm. Cloth. 1.00 
Tne Cauliflower. Cloth. 1.00 
For Four New Subscriptions. 
Horses, Cattle, Sheep and Swine.$2.00 
Our Farming. Cloth. 2.00 
Feeding Animals. Illustrated. 2.00 
Any Two For One New Subscription. 
Landscape Gardening. Long.$ .50 
The New Botany. Beal.25 
Accidents and Emergencies. Groff.20 
How to Rid Buildings and Farms of Rats, 
Mice, Gophers, Prairie Dogs, and other 
Pests. 20 
Milk ; Making and Marketing. Fowler.20 
My Handkerchief Garden. Barnard.20 
Insect Foes. Long.io 
Fertilizers and Fruits. Colling wood.20 
A Fortune in Two Acres. Grundy.20 
Fertilizer Farming. Collingwood.20 
Trees for Street and Shade.20 
Ensilage and Silo. Collingwood.20 
Insect Supplement. Long.10 
Canning and Preserving.20 
Cnemicals and Clover. Collingwood.20 
Spraying Crops. Weed.25 
Cooking Cauliflower.20 
How to Plant a Place. Long.20 
Tuberous Begonias.20 
The Moditication of Plants by Climate. 
Crozier.25 
For Ten New Subscriptions, 
A handsome Waltham watch, men’s size. 
The works contain seven jewels, compensation 
balance, safety pinion, stem winding and set¬ 
ting apparatus, and all the greatest improve¬ 
ments. The case is open face only, and is made 
of a composite that wears just like silver. The 
case is made by the Keystone Watch Case Com¬ 
pany and guaranteed in every respect. The case 
is made on the thin model plan. Price, $5.50. 
We will send it for awhile for a club of 10 new 
subscriptions. 
For Four New Subscriptions. 
This cut represents a section of a handsome 
rolled gold watch chain warranted for 10 years. 
It is strong and durable without being too heavy. 
We will send it free for four new subscriptions 
with $4. If not satisfactory send it back and we 
will pay you for your time. 
For Fifteen New Subscriptions, 
Ladies’ Solid Silver Chatelaine Watch, Waltham 
or Elgin, seven jewels, and all improvements. 
The front case is cut, and a heavy crystal is in¬ 
serted so as to see the dial without opening the 
case. It is called “ skylight.” Price, $8. We 
will send it postpaid for a club of 15 new sub¬ 
scriptions to The RuralNew-Yorker, and return 
the price to any one who is not satisfied with it. 
The Rural Nkw-Yobkeb, New York. 
