i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
151 
Enrol topics. 
COGITATIONS ON THE ADVERTISE¬ 
MENTS ON PAGE 103. 
The advertisements in a good periodical 
always furnish some interesting reading. 
To look over a journal like the R. N.-Y. or 
one of the great monthlies without also ex¬ 
amining the advertising pages is to miss a 
great treat and much valuable information. 
The man who scorns to read advertisements 
is simply a simpleton. The advertiser en¬ 
deavors to call the attention of the public 
to his wares, and in this endeavor he inva¬ 
riably puts his best foot forward, so to 
speak, and the plainest condensed state¬ 
ments of fact are to be found in the “ads 
Most of them read so easily and smoothly 
that many people think it would be mere 
pastime to concoct them. Try it. Write a 
good, plain,convincing “ad,” offering your 
head for sale and see how it reads. 
In looking over the “ ads ” on page 103 I 
was led to cogitate somewhat as follows : 
One cent a dose for sarsaparilla is cheap 
dosing. When one feels unhinged, as it 
were, and decides to take somethin’, the 
cheapest, sweetest and most harmless med¬ 
icine is generally the best. But, after all, 
nourishing food well cooked, enough work 
to create a good appetite and tire without 
wearing out, plenty of sleep, oceans of 
fresh air and sunlight and freedom from 
worry and sinfulness are the cheapest and 
best medicines in the world. 
If “condition powders” will make hens 
lay better than a variety of food, pure 
water and plenty of exercise, supplemented 
with granulated bone and gravel, I want 
some. These powders make hens lay be¬ 
cause they contain certain elements nec¬ 
essary to the formation of eggs, which in 
some soils are almost entirely absent. If 
hens cannot obtain these elements from the 
soil, or from the water supplied to them, 
and are fed almost exclusively on corn, 
they will not lay. Supply these elements 
in powders or in such food as contains them 
and the hens lay. 
A good, mild cough medicine is an excel¬ 
lent lubricator for a sore throat, but the 
best remedy for a cold is exercise in the 
open air. I have slept out-of-doors with 
nothing between me and the soil but a rub¬ 
ber blanket, and a couple of woolen blank¬ 
ets over me and never caught cold; then I 
have slept on a feather bed in a room 
warmed by a stove one night and caught 
the worst kind of a cold. Wherefore was 
this? 
We have taken the Ladies’ Journal for 
some time. It is a very good journal for 
those who like that sort of a journal. 
Sandwiched between installments of novels 
are to be found some really good articles. 
Its publishers thoroughly understand the 
use of printers’ ink. 
Most farmers will not buy a tool they 
can get along without. A hay-tedder costs 
money, but its use will often enable a man 
to save enough hay in one season, by has¬ 
tening the curing process, more than to pay 
for it. The hay crop must be handled 
rapidly from the time it is cut until it is 
safely in the stack or mow, and a farmer 
cannot miss it by bringing to his aid any 
implement that will expedite the work 
even an hour. 
There is no question that a good fur- 
rower and marker is a very useful tool, es¬ 
pecially to a farmer who grows acres of po¬ 
tatoes, peas, etc. Like the hay tedder, it is 
one of those implements which are in use 
only a short time each season, and which if 
taken apart and snugly packed away in a 
dry place as soon as done with will last a 
life-time. 
In the years gone by I have many a time 
Assisted the ladies to wrestle with washing 
machines. Some of them worked pump- 
handle style, othei’s around like a grind¬ 
stone, and still others see-sawed back and 
forth. Every one of them caused the per¬ 
spiration to flow freely, and I couldn’t see 
that they expedited matters much. A 
vague impression always pervaded my sys¬ 
tem that when I manipulated the mill the 
work was much more thoroughly done than 
at other times. The hapless hired man who 
is occasionally placed at the disposal of the 
ladies of the household is morally certain 
to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. 
The more vigorously he pitches into the 
work the better pleased they are, and the 
harder they’ll work him. There are many 
articles such as coats, overalls, quilts, blan¬ 
kets, etc., that can be more thoroughly and 
easily washed by a machine th an by hand. 
I think that hog cholera can generally be 
prevented by feeding a variety of food and 
providing pure drinking water and warm 
shelter. Whether it can be cured is a ques¬ 
tion. The careful breeder will watch his 
pens closely and instantly remove to dis¬ 
tant quarters any animal that seems to be 
ailing. When pigs are not doing well it Is 
very evident that a change of food is needed, 
and probably a change of quarters also. I 
have seen more miserable, rough-looking 
pigs marketed this winter than for years. 
Inquiry always elicited the fact that they 
had been feeding for months exclusively on 
soft corn, and were marketed light because 
they “did not seem to be doing well.” I 
sometimes wonder that hog cholera is not 
more prevalent than it is. 
Most of the horse, cattle and poultry 
foods sold in cans and packages are simply 
“condition powders” under another name. 
The idea that fowls should have medicine 
in the winter and that horses need it in the 
spring is all fol-de-rol. I have seen horses 
that had roughed it in the roughest man¬ 
ner all winter taken up, placed in a warm 
stable, dosed with condition powders, sup¬ 
plied with an abundance of good, nourish¬ 
ing food and thoroughly groomed, improve 
so rapidly as to surprise everybody that 
saw them. But I always had an idea that 
the food and care had more to do with their 
improvement than the powders. 
Mr. Munson seems to think that the 
Parker Earle is the berry. If it proves to 
be adapted to all the leading berry-growing 
sections it will be an acquisition indeed. 
Of all of Livingston’s tomatoes only the 
Acme succeeds with me. It is good enough 
ALASKA POTATO. 
for anybody. I have tried many others, 
but all failed to ripen enough sound fruit 
to pay for growing them. 
Not many years ago garden-seed buyers 
used to turn up their noses at Western seed 
houses, but that feeling has all passed away. 
We now have good seed houses located as 
far west as Kansas and Nebraska. Noth¬ 
ing shows plainer than this how rapidly 
the West is improving. 
I CAN see fine orchards, beautiful, stately 
evergreens, and groves of maple and ash 
any day, all of which came from F. K. 
Phoenix’s nursery at Bloomington, when 
the old gentleman lived there and wliooped- 
up things horticultural in his peculiar 
style. I know men who sent the old man a 
sum of money and asked him to send them 
an orchard, and verily he did it. These 
orchards are monuments he may well be 
proud of. 
Seed houses like Rawson’s, Bridgeman’s, 
and Ferry’s are “as good as wheat.” They 
do business in a business-like manner and 
a person can rely on them. F. grundt. 
Christian County, Ill. 
ONE TOWNSHIP SETTLES THE 
ROAD QUESTION. 
Good roads are a convenience, a comfort 
and a profit to the public, and indicate the 
enlightenment and enterprise of a com¬ 
munity. In some favored localities good 
country roads may be constructed at little 
expense; in others the undertaking entails 
much labor and outlay. In a general way, 
where t.he soil is so productive as to afford 
the farmer the largest amount of products 
to be carried to market, the roads are nat¬ 
urally the poorest and the facilities for 
making them the scantiest. Nobody in a 
grain-producing section is so directly in¬ 
terested in good roads in the way of ex¬ 
pense and profit as the farmer; for good 
highways lessen the cost of marketing at 
least one-half. Some years ago this town 
resolved to improve its roads, which had 
for a long time been in a bad condition. 
We first purchased two improved road 
scrapers at a cost of $150 each. These were 
used under the direction of the commis¬ 
sioner in turnpikmg, grading and smooth¬ 
ing the road-beds throughout the town. 
We then voted a tax of $1,200 for the pur¬ 
chase of a stone-crusher. It was manufac¬ 
tured at Chicago, and has been in success¬ 
ful use during the past three years. It is 
operated by a thrasher’s 10-horse engine, 
and crushes stones of any kind to about 
the size of hens’ eggs and less, as fast as 
two men can throw them in. Money for 
drawing and crushing the stones is raised by 
tax, and the road district draws them and 
bu ilds the road. The stone is used in nearly 
the same way as gravel, in a layer from six 
to 12 inches thick. On loose ground or 
where the road-bed is not firm, a founda¬ 
tion of cobblestones is laid one foot deep, 
more or less, as required. The main thor¬ 
oughfare through the center of the town 
leading to the village of Brockport, our 
market place, is now completed and many 
of the cross-roads where most needed are 
partly so. On these roads during this open 
and muddy season teams can draw a load 
or carriages can run as easily as in the dry 
season of the year. Our commissioner has 
built several miles of road the past season, 
our farmers being always willing to draw 
the materials on to the road whenever it is 
ready without regard to road tax levied on 
them. With much heavy travel on the 
roads they will wear out and need recover¬ 
ing ; but the work will entail less expense 
From Nature. Fig. 47. 
and can be done with the common road 
ta x. We think the hard, blue limestone rock 
m ikes the most durable road. F. P. R. 
Sweden, Monroe County, N. Y. 
An experiment in fattening Vermont 
Spanish Merino ewe and ram lambs; 
rapid increase in weight on a small 
grain but a fine hay ration; value of 
sheep manure from different feeds. 
The fattening of coarse-wooled sheep for 
the market has received a new impulse of 
late and all facts throwing light upon the 
most economical methods of feeding are of 
interest. The science or art is an old one in 
England ; accurate data are less common in 
this country. But it is not my purpose to 
treat of mutton sheep at this time; but to 
narrate a simple experiment in feeding the 
Spanish Merino sheep of Vermont, and no 
where else is the Spanish Merino so scien¬ 
tifically bred and cared for. The following 
is a small experiment; but it was carefully 
and accurately conducted with a view of 
ascertaining the noimal growth and devel¬ 
opment of this breed of sheep w hen moder¬ 
ately fed and properly attended to. 
Twenty ewe lambs, small, oily, wrinkly, 
woolly specimens, were selected. Their 
average weight on January 2nd, was only 
52 3-20 pounds. They were confined to a 
comfortable shed, in which was running 
water, and were regularly fed with hay 
three times each day, while the grain ra¬ 
tion, given at noon and night, consisting 
of oats, bran and a little cracked corn, 
weighed only one-third of a pound to each 
sheep per day. At the end of 30 days, or on 
February 1st, the lambs w*ere re-weighed (at 
the same time of day as before) and showed 
an average gain of 5 3-5 pounds each in 
weight. This is apparently nothing ex¬ 
traordinary ; but it is really an increase of 
over 10 per cent, on their original weight in 
30 days. The grain ration, it will be ob¬ 
served, was very small indeed, and de¬ 
signed for a healthful growth, and not for 
fattening purposes. Mutton sheep are fed 
at least four or five times as much grain, 
and that of a more carbonaceous nature, 
when they are being fitted for the market. 
But a lot of ram lambs fed and treated in a 
similar way did even better. They made 
an average gain of exactly seven pounds 
each, or nearly 11 per cent, on their original 
weight. One lamb—a small one weighing 
but 54Xpounds—made the phenomenal 
growth of 10 pounds, or an increase of over 
18 per cent, in the 30 days. 
Does my high esteem for the constitu¬ 
tional vigor and power of assimilation of 
food in the Spanish Merino sheep mislead 
me in believing that the instances are rare, 
where, with so small a grain ration any 
breed of mutton sheep has made so credit¬ 
able a feed record ? The grain fed to each 
sheep cost less than one-third of a cent per 
day. It is claimed that the manurial value 
of bran is $13 a ton ; and that the larger 
part of this value remains in the manure. 
The latter statement would apply in the 
feeding of oats, but not so fully to corn 
which, however, is not a good or safe feed 
for sheep, as a rule, and may well be dis¬ 
pensed with. It was used in this experi¬ 
ment only to “ strengthen ” the oats which 
were light. I believe the cheapest way to 
purchase chemical fertilizers is to feed 
wheat bran largely. It would, however 
be stating the truth but partially, not to 
add that the lambs were fed the best hay 
possible for sheep. This consisted of rowen, 
Alsike Clover, a few daisies and some mixed 
grasses all nicely cured and in every way 
palatable. Their feed, as a whole, both of 
grain and.hay was quite nitrogenous. Not 
only this experiment, but repeated obser¬ 
vations in caring for sheep, induce me to 
believe that sheep demand for their best 
development both in carcass and wool a 
close feed ration. L. w. peet. 
Addison County, Vt. 
EXPERIENCE WITH FERTILIZERS. 
FERTILIZERS remain in the soil. 
Does the soil retain any of the fertility 
imparted by commercial fertilizers? This 
question has been an important one to 
farmers for several years. Fifteen years 
ago the best farmers in this section were 
using large quantities of commercial fer¬ 
tilizers, and the most intelligent and ob¬ 
serving among them regarded these fer¬ 
tilizers as stimulants necessary indeed to 
the successful growth of wheat and clover, 
but not increasing the real fertility of the 
soil. I accepted this conclusion as correct; 
but the incident I am about to relate con¬ 
clusively changed my opinion. In the 
spring of 1876 I had occasion to break up a 
piece of land that had been idle for several 
years, too poor for profitable tillage. The 
subsoil of most of this ground was a red¬ 
dish clay, though one portion was nearly 
clear sand to an indefinite depth. About 
half the plot was covered with well rotted 
horse and hog manure. Aftercareful prep¬ 
aration corn was planted at equal distances 
and in each hill was scattered one-third of 
a large handful of Lister’s superphosphate 
—composed largely, I think, of dissolved 
bone-black. The results as regards the corn 
crop were satisfactory. The following 
spring the same plot was plowed and sowed 
with oats and clover, no fertilizers being 
used. When the oats had headed out, all 
over tfie plot could be seen the locations of 
the last season’s corn hills quite as plainly 
where manure had been spread so heavily 
the previous season as elsewhere. The oats 
were one foot higher and much heavier. 
The next season in the first and second 
growths of clover the same marked differ¬ 
ence was presented and attracted much at¬ 
tention, as it was plainly proven that the 
small quantity of fertilizer applied to the 
corn had imparted enough fertility to the 
soil to show its effects in four different 
crops. In September, 1881, 1 came into 
possession of a tract of land already in 
corn. I harvested five bushels of shelled 
grain per acre from the plot. I have since 
grown four crops on this plot, using no 
animal manures but fertilizing each crop 
at the rate of 600 to 700 pounds of a home 
