VOL. XLIX. NO. 2087. 
NEW YORK, JANUARY 25, i89o. 
PRICE, FIVE CENTS. 
$ 2 .oo PER YEAR. 
rEntered According to Act of Congress in the Year 1890 by the Rural New-Yorker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.] 
ijumwcm. 
BRICK WILKES. 
HIS young stallion, shown at 
Fig 20, attracted much at¬ 
tention at the last New York 
Slate Fair, as he is a horse of 
considerable style, showing 
powerful trotting action, 
though he is wholly unused to a track. 
With Brick Wilkes were shown five of his 
get, mostly yearlings, among which were 
the premium filly, Brickdust, and two 
pacers, one of w r hich, called Burdock, can 
show a 2:40 gait at the age of 15 months. 
The sire of Brick Wilkes is Alcantara (2:23), 
by George Wilkes (2:22). The dam was 
bought by her owmer as a virgin trotter 
and given a record while in foal under the 
name of Biddy Brick. She was afterward 
identified as Nora Belle (2:29). She is also 
shown to have figured as Rose at Cumber¬ 
land Mills, Maine, where, it is stated, she 
was driven against time 20 miles in an hour. 
The pedigree of Brick Wilkes shows a 
combination of speed, gameness and endur¬ 
ance. He was foaled on August 9, lb83. He 
is a hard bay with some white on three 
ankles. He is at present owned by Mr. G. 
H. Carpenter, Lebanon Springs, N. Y. Our 
picture is taken directly from a photograph. 
Only those who have tried to obtain a good 
photograph of a nervous horse know what 
a great undertaking it is. 
POINTED, PRACTICAL, PITHY. 
A Wide Range of Thought. 
“ DISCUSSIONS.” 
NOTES ON No. 2070, SEPTEMBER 28. 
J. W. NEWTON. 
Mr. Terry’s tools teach a lesson to farm¬ 
ers; but why does he not use a reversible 
sulky plow ? It saves miles of weary walk¬ 
ing and can be easily drawn by tw’O heavy 
horses. 
Why not breed dairy cows once in 13, 14, 
or 15 months? I think it would pay in 
some cases, but all the writers omit to men¬ 
tion it. 
Hot linseed oil is justly praised. I have 
lengthened the usefulness of old w r heels 
several years by its use; but I am told the 
makers of fine carriages cannot use it, as the 
varnish will not adhere. 
Nature, common sense and experience 
teach that poultry should have a variety of 
food. All the writers overlook the fact that 
corn is not corn. Flint corn will fatten 
w'here dent corn will not. 
It does not do here to put a heavy dress¬ 
ing of stable manure on grain. The grain 
is sure to lodge, and not fill well. But none 
of the writers mention this. 
My father raised potatoes for 60 years, 
and taught me to keep manure away from 
the tubers. What Prof. Halstead says 
(page 643) shows how manure may induce 
rot, and in “ Brevities ” (page 646) the nail 
is hit on the head. We should use stable 
manure in the fall broadcast, and fertil¬ 
izers in the spring in the drill. As to what 
D. C. L. says (page 643), seed from farms 
where there was no rot gave as many rot¬ 
ten potatoes on my land as seed from a field 
that had rotted badly. 
TheR. N.-Y.’s fruit reports are invaluable. 
The voice from California and Charles 
A. Green show the dark side of pioneer life, 
and the Rural may save much sorrow to 
many homes by telling the plain truth in 
this r, atter. 
The Rural Special Reports are a 
valuable feature. I am glad to learn 
that food stuffs are not generally adulter¬ 
ated, but bran is occasionally with chaff, 
screenings, etc. I saw a sack of bran com¬ 
posed of wheat chaff mixed with a little 
fine feed. 
It will be a sad blow to many farmers 
that horses should be as low in price as 
other farm products, but the market quo¬ 
tations point that w T ay. 
Little starch is now T made in this part of 
Vermont. Five factories were running 
near here 30 years ago. Not one of them 
has done anything for several years. Gluten- 
meal has a fertilizing value of about $17 
per ton. 
The mice and rats make havoc with un¬ 
thrashed oats, but Hoard’s Dairyman says 
that if they are cut up, straw and grain, 
with a cutter, and stored in bam bays, 
the mice cannot work in them. 
It certainly would pay to cook hotel 
swill slop. 
That was a sensible article on pasturing 
meadows. On some soils pasturing does 
no injury if not carried too far. 
The Bordeaux Mixture is a simple weapon 
against a powerful foe. 
Pans can be and are made for milk.which 
are more convenient than cans, the butter 
is just as good, and unless the temperature 
of the cans is kept low, there will be little 
difference in butter production, if the milk 
in the pans is kept at about 60 degrees. 
The color depends partly on the food, but 
more on the cow. F. H. puts the matter 
of coloring butter in a true light, but is 
pretty severe on W. P. W. 
There is good advice ingeniously arranged 
in the alliterative article. 
It is a good thing that Mr. Terry can 
write as well as work. 
The wool manufacturers did not, as I un¬ 
derstand, declare for free trade. 
H. G. L. should read Prov. 16. 32. 
Curd is an excellent food for chickens. 
How much the little busy bee amounts 
to: 120,000,000 pounds of honey in the U. S. 
annually ! 
Those tomato notes will be handy when 
ordering garden seeds. 
Secretary W. is a man who writes from 
experience. 
So the KeifEer is good for something ! 
Many a farmer’s son has started on the 
road to ruin behind a fast horse. 
Secretary Rusk ought to introduce that 
Russian almond. 
Salt sometimes show s good results here 
in Vermont. 
Is there any advantage in extra-early 
wheat ? 
It is cheaper to buy coal than to produce 
wood on land worth $100 per acre, cheaper 
often to buy flour and raise another crop 
instead of wheat. 
There is a place for reform in the Statis¬ 
tical Division of the Department of Agri¬ 
culture. 
Very many farmers think grape vines too 
much bother. 
Kainit is a blessing to peach growers. 
He would be a foolish milkman who kept 
Jersey cows. 
The wheat-growing craze has ruined 
many a county in the United States. 
American agriculture seems to have made 
some show at Paris. 
The R. N.-Y. need fear no rival. 
No, hay is not hay. 
Planting wheat by hand must be “ atedi 
ous job.” 
And this copy of the Rural sells for five 
cents ! 
Great possibilities are before this nation. 
Fifteen or more good points in “Brevi¬ 
ties.” Too bad the rain spoiled that fair! 
Pity that Ohio fair could not close without 
a horse race. Some of the things counted 
as costing nothing cost a great deal. Has 
the Observer ever studied up the matter in 
the New Testament? “Not as the world 
givethgive I unto you.” Prof. Atwater 
shows that oysters are a costly food. Alas 
for the evil power of fashion. Most of the 
dishes are too rich. The Cutaway Harrow 
premium is most excellent, so is the Ideal 
fountain pen. The “ Planet Jr.” tools are 
unexcelled. That corn-planter is a good 
tool. So is the bone mill. Every family 
needs scales. 
Lamoille Co. Vt. 
NOTES ON NO. 2071, OCTOBER 5. 
BY BENJAMIN BUCKMAN. 
In regard to the dressed-beef controversy, 
although I myself raise a few cattle for the 
market yet I consider it an advantage to 
the country at large that a system with 
economy as its rudder should be able to 
place dressed beef on the table at low 
prices, and I place the idea of resisting 
such a system side by side with the idea of 
the laborers who destroyed the thrashing 
machine because of the tendency to 
cheapen labor. 
We must raise, manufacture 
and handle cheaply if we expect 
anything to export. Still I think 
that the main cause of cheap cat¬ 
tle is overproduction. For a half 
century cattle and money were 
synonymous terms. Whoever 
handled cattle made money. The 
first ambition of the farmer’s boy 
turning 21 was to “ feed a bunch 
of cattle.” The West was filled 
up with these boys, now cattle¬ 
men—some of them “cattle kings,” 
—who went there with the all- 
prevailing idea in view, to raise 
cattle. Is it any wonder that,when 
the Great West finally proved it¬ 
self so well adapted to this busi¬ 
ness, the business has been finally 
overdone. Other new lands—the 
Argentine Republic as an in¬ 
stance—have cut off much of the 
foreign demand that we once had, 
and again, the whole world is at 
peace and producing instead of 
consuming alone. Now if the 
W est with its cheap virgin ground, 
after adding transportation 
charges, can raise cattle, corn, etc., 
for the Eastern States cheaper 
than we can, we must find some¬ 
thing else to do—that is all there 
is about it. 
This anthracnose, treated on 
page_660, is getting to be our most 
troublesome disease both on grapes 
and raspberries. I thought to 
abandon the cultivation of he 
black raspberry entirely; but 
BRICK WILKES. From a Photograph. Fig. 20. 
