THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MARCH 8 
154 
gar, but sales are so slow and the price so 
low —10 to 11 cents—that there is little 
profit to the shipper. 
P. O., Oswego Falls, N. Y. —What is 
the fertilizing value of buckwheat hulls ? 
ANSWERED BY DR. PETER COLLIER. 
I cannot find any analysis of the ash of 
buckwheat hulls. I find the hulls to have 
this composition: 
Water. 
Ash. 
.... 1.96 
it 
Albuminoids. 
... 4.86 
(i 
a 
Crude Fiber. 
... 50.71 
a 
it 
Carbohydrates:... 
... 34.13 
u 
u 
Fats. 
.84 
u 
It 
^ 100 . 
0. C. Y., Port Jervis, N. J. —1. I wish to 
plant about six different varieties of grapes 
in a sandy loam soil; what varieties of 
good quality and hardy, fruiting continu¬ 
ously from early till late in the season, 
can be recommended? What is the qual¬ 
ity of the Yergennes? 2. What hardy 
peaches of good quality and size, early, 
medium and late, would be likely to do 
well here, and how many different varie¬ 
ties should be planted? 
ANS.—1. The Worden, Eumelan, Brigh¬ 
ton, Delaware, Empire State and Niagara 
are six good varieties. Eumelan is by all 
odds the very best black grape, as it is 
grown by a friend of ours in the above sec¬ 
tion. being an immense bearer, hardy, with 
good-sized clusters and do pulp. 2. Large 
Early York, Stump the World and Craw¬ 
ford. The many new varieties may be 
good, but they are no improvement on the 
above for the three varieties. 
C. C. P., Brooklyn, N. Y.—Three years 
ago I set out about 100 apple and pear trees. 
They all lived and grew well; but last June 
two of the apple trees began to turn yel¬ 
lowish-brown and get very loose in the 
ground. They soon broke off. The lower 
end of the tree was yellow and rotten and 
full of small, hard-shelled beetles, with 
many legs—not borers at all—and on dig¬ 
ging the roots seemed to have rotted. Sat¬ 
urday I found several more trees were 
getting loose in the ground, though appar¬ 
ently perfectly healthy otherwise. They 
were planted quite deep, the junction of 
the roots about six inches below the surface 
of the ground; diggings and a careful 
examination could not discover a trace of 
any cause for the trouble. What is the 
cause, and is there a remedy? 
ANS.—The symptoms seem to indicate 
that the roots of these trees were killed by 
water settling around them, and freezing, 
thawing and freezing repeatedly during 
the winter. This is more likely to occur in 
open winters, especially where there is not 
perfect surface drainage. The insects prob¬ 
ably belonged to a species that attacks dead 
or diseased wood. 
Discussion. 
WHERE IS THE MONEY? 
K. L. R., VANLUE, Ohio.— We see by the 
papers the “Farmers’ Federation,” some 
months ago, called a convention to meet at 
St. Louis, also that it had, or proposed to 
have, a capital of $20,000,000. With this it 
is to bring the millennium to the farmers of 
17 States in the Mississippi Valley. If all 
the other States contributed an equal pro¬ 
portion of capital, the aggregate would, in 
round numbers, be $60,000,000. No doubt 
such a combination could get from the 
transportation companies clubbing rates 
that would very materially reduce the 
expense of shipping agricultural produce. 
This convention also proposed to save the 
farmers of these 17 States $9,000,000 a year 
by taking the business of the commission- 
men away from them. Again, some time 
ago, it was reported that a Chicago firm 
had formed a great dressed meat “trust,” 
with $50,000,000 capital. Then a Kansas City 
firm had started with 10,000 acres of land 
and $25,000,000 to compete with the Chica¬ 
go concern. People wondered at the invest¬ 
ments of such large sums of money, and 
farmers thought that if they had control of 
just a very small fraction of the amount 
it would help them amazingly; in fact, 
they were disposed to grumble at these 
money kings, and tried to concoct plans to 
wreck their dressed beef trade. As vast as 
these sums are, I propose to show that they 
are very insignificant compared to that 
which is yearly worse than wasted, and I 
am sure it will benefit the farming com¬ 
munity vastly more to pay attention to this 
matter than to use their time and strength 
in a useless effort to stop a legitimate bus¬ 
iness that happens to tramp on their toes 
a little. A few figures and a little thought 
will show the farmer where the reasons 
for the hard times from which he suffers, 
may be found. The tariff argument has 
been: “ Let us build shops, and manufac¬ 
ture everything we need at home: and in 
that way we will aid in building towns 
and cities and so create a demand for the 
produce of the country, and so also 
enhance the value of the land from 
which the produce is derived.” Immense 
shops have been constructed. We have 
manufactured what the people have re¬ 
quired. Towns and cities have steadily 
gained in population by increase and in¬ 
flux of people at the rate of from 50 to 100 
per cent, every 10 years since 1860, and yet 
our farms have also steadily decreased in 
value in the same proportion at least for 
the last 10 years. What is the matter ? 
How can the unfortunate fact be ac¬ 
counted for ? The cheapness of the lately 
occupied lands in the Far West will doubt¬ 
less afford a part of the explanation, but 
not the whole. The real solution of the 
difficulty is found in the fact that the 
money of the town that ought to go for 
the produce of the country goes into the 
saloon. The brewer and saloon-keeper get 
what properly belongs to the farmer, and 
what the farmers would get were it not for 
the saloon-keeper. It is not the over-pro¬ 
duction of the necessaries of life, but their 
under-consumption owing to the saloon, 
that has caused the difficulty. On the one 
hand, our annual drink bill is not less than 
$900,000,000; on the other, not less than 
3,000,000 families are robbed of much of 
their living by the saloon through intem¬ 
perate husbands, fathers and sons. Be¬ 
sides paying for their scanty living and 
wretched homes, what a quantity of pro¬ 
duce could not those 3,000,000 families buy 
from farmers were their money not spent 
in the saloons ? They could annually 
buy and pay cash for: 
9,000,000 bbls. flour, 3 bbls. for 
each family @ $6 per barrel. $54,000,000 
9,000,000 bbls. potatoes @ $2 per 
barrel. 18,000,000 
3.000.000 bbls. pork @$15 per bbl. 45,000,000 
150,000,000 lbs. butter @ 20 cents. 30,000,000 
150.000,000 doz. eggs @ 18 cents... 27,000,000 
75 000,000 lbs cheese @ 10 cents.. 7,500,000 
6,000,000 bbls. apples @ $3. 18,000,000 
Grapes, pears, peaches, plums, 
berries, etc. 9,000,000 
Milk. 30,000,000 
Beef. 50.000,000 
Chickens. 20,000,000 
Turkeys... 18,000,000 
Vegetables. 3,000,000 
Lard. 12,500,000 
Total to the farmer $342,000,000 
This would be, in round numbers, $350,000,- 
000 annually, or $3,500,000,000 every 10 years. 
There, my farmer friend, is found the rea¬ 
son why our produce, and consequently 
our lands, are depreciating at the rate of 
from 25 per cent, to 50 per cent, every 10 
years, while the towns are increasing in 
population at about the same ratio eveiy 
decade. The $3,500,000,000 that the farmer 
ought to have every 10 years for his pro¬ 
duce go into the saloons, and that way of 
spending the money increases his taxes, 
and also tempts and imperils his children 
whenever they go to town. While these 
$900,000,000 are being spent for liquor those 
that are spending it are wasting another 
like sum in time, to say nothing of lost 
health, etc., etc. Here is a loss of $1,800,- 
000,000 every year. When I say we are los¬ 
ing this vast sum every year I am not over¬ 
stating the facts. Dr. Talmage says: 
“ Give me the money that the working 
classes have spent for rum in the last 30 
years, and I will build for every working 
man a house, and layout for him a garden, 
and clothe his sons in broadcloth' and his 
daughters in silks, and secure him a policy 
of life insurance so that the present home 
may be well maintained after he is dead.” 
Farmers, here is a great leak in our good 
ship ; shall we stand aloof and say we can 
afford to sink if the rest of them can. or 
shall we do the calking ? “ Civilization 
must destroy the liquor traffic or be de¬ 
stroyed by it.” 
BUTTER NOTES. 
F. T. R., Medina County, Ohio.— Tn 
the RURAL of February 8 th, O. H. S. tells 
us his method of keeping milk in a well. 
I have made “creamery” butter by this 
method during the past three years. I use 
three cans, and let each hang 24 hours be¬ 
fore skimming. They are ordinary tin 
cans holding five gallons each, with tight 
covers. Each is attached to a rope, having 
an iron hook on the other end, which I 
hang over a stout stick, placed across one 
side of the top of the well. I draw up and 
lower the cans by hand. Last season I 
punched a few holes in the center of the 
covers, and thought it an improvement, as 
then the animal heat^had a chance to 
escape. I am well satisfied with this man¬ 
ner of raising cream in the absence of a 
creamery and ice-house. 
As to the different methods of storing 
butter for long keeping, I have been ex¬ 
perimenting for the past seven years. I 
have never sold any through the summer 
during that time. I keep it until fall, and 
market the whole of it at one time. The 
best plan I have tried so far is to pack fresh, 
sweet butter into new first-quality crocks 
to within an inch of the top, cover with a 
thin cloth, and then fill up with dairy salt; 
tie up closely with paper, place a cover 
and weight on top and set the crocks in the 
coolest part of the cellar. Last summer, I 
tried keeping a few crocks by the method 
recommended by T. S. Strohecker in a late 
Rural, viz : burying the whole package in 
salt. I filled six single gallon jars with 
fresh butter, having a thin layer of salt on 
top, and put them in a 20 -gallon meat 
crock, packing salt firmly around and over 
them, and securely covering the top. I was 
disappointed with the result. The butter 
did not keep well. There were specks of 
mold on the top, which had never hap¬ 
pened in any of my experiments before, 
and I had to take off a good share of the 
top before selling. I shall not try the plan 
again. I have another to try the coming 
summer, and if it is successful, I will report 
to the R. N.-Y. I like to make experiments 
every year with butter as well as eggs, in 
order to find out the best way of keeping 
them. I would not make much in the 
dairy business if I did not store the product 
for fall prices, as the price of butter is 
rarely above 10 cents per pound here dur¬ 
ing the summer months, and I always get 
the price of new butter in the fall. 
AN EXTRA IDEA. 
W. S. W., Exton, Pa.—To my mind, 
“ The South Jersey Farmer ” begins wrong 
in making his manure fine by rotting, and 
by doing so suffers a great loss. The man¬ 
ure should be fine for farm purposes when 
it leaves the stable. The saving of labor in 
loading and spreading is great. Then, good 
mechanical and chemical effects are pro¬ 
duced by the fresh manure rotting in the 
soil, instead of in the open air. If he will try 
cutting his straw and corn stalks for bedding 
his animals, using a fodder cutter, he will 
find that the plan will bring about an econ¬ 
omy of materials, important enough to pay 
for the labor, and his manure will be ready 
for work at once. My method is, to cut 
the bundles of good fodder into two parts, 
xising a carpenter’s broadaxe, cutting above 
the tie. The tops are cut fine for mixed 
feed, and the butts coarser for bedding. 
Any musty bundles are cut entirely for bed¬ 
ding. The pithy parts of the stalks are a 
very good absorbent for the liquids of the 
stable. Every foul day is thus utilized in 
getting a deposit ready for “the farmer’s 
savings bank ’’—the manure pile. 
LASTING EFFECTS OF ASHES. 
J. S B., Oakfield, Ohio.— I don’t be¬ 
lieve that anything else in the way of fer¬ 
tilizers is so lasting in its effects in the soil 
as ashes, leached or unleached. On this 
farm, in one field, where father had ap¬ 
plied leached ashes a number of years ago, 
I could see how far the ashes were put for 
12 or 13 years after they were applied. 
They had been put on one side of the field 
12 years, and on the other 13, but a person 
could see to the dead-furrow, on either side, 
how far they had been applied. In a field 
a little south-east of our house there used 
to be a sugar-camp 60 or 70 years ago, and 
there are three places where the sugar- 
makers used to boil the sap in the old-fash¬ 
ioned way, with" the iron kettle hanging 
from a pole, and a big back-log on each 
side. When that field is plowed at the 
jjresent time, and a crop of grain is put in, 
those spots can be distinguished very plain¬ 
ly, and they can be seen in the soil as plain¬ 
ly as in the crops. 
ENSILAGE FOR HORSES. 
G. J. K., Janesville, Wis.—D arby’s 
opinion of the injurious effects of silage for 
horses expressed on page 4 of the Rural 
for 1890, does not agree with my experience 
in the matter for the past two years. I feed 
a bushel once a day of the poorest of my 
silage to my horses, mares and colts, and 
no ill effects have been produced unless a 
swelled leg for a week in one of the three- 
year-olds can be attributed to it. One 
should be cautious, however, not to feed 
too much of it at first, but I see no danger 
in feeding it if the horses are at work or 
have sufficient exercise. 
H. L. H., Lansing, Michigan.— For the 
benefit of stockmen and farmers who read 
the R. N.-Y., I wish to describe the way 
we drive cattle — steers especially—that 
have not been halter-broken: One end of 
a rope, long enough to enable the driver to 
go behind the animal if necessary, is tied 
around the horns, the knot being placed 
under that on the right side; thence it 
passes down through the mouth around 
the under jaw and between the head and 
the rope from left to right, thus forming a 
noose that will slack and tighten as the 
strain is put upon or taken off the rope. 
When one is once familiar with the noose 
the correct way is to make the loop first, 
then slip it into the mouth. With the de¬ 
vice adjusted in this way, a man can hold 
a large steer with one hand, and a quarter- 
inch rope is as large as we have found nec¬ 
essary to use. A sudden pull on the rope 
when the steer sets out for a race or a gap 
in the fence, once or twice repeated, is usu¬ 
ally sufficient to bring him down to a 
steady gait. 
MULTUM IN PARVO. 
Ellwanger & Barry give much promi¬ 
nence in their catalogue, to the Windsor 
Cherry, a colored plate of which is present¬ 
ed. The cherry is large, liver-colored and 
very firm. It ripens after the Tradescant. 
In the Duke class, Montmorency Large- 
fruited is one of the best. It is large, light- 
red, tender and sub-acid. 
The fruit of Montmorency Ordinaire is 
much the same, except that its color is red 
and it is a greater bearer. 
Ellw anger & Barry offer the promis¬ 
ing Idaho Pear first brought to their notice 
by the R. N.-Y. They describe it as of the 
best quality. 
Among newer fruits, try the AndrA Des- 
portes, Frederick Clapp and Wilder Early 
Pears; among apples, the Arabskoe. Prin¬ 
cess Louise, Sutton Beauty, Yellow Trans¬ 
parent, Titovka and Paul’s Imperial Crab.. 
Among tree novelties we would commend 
a trial of the following, most of which may 
be seen at the Rural Grounds: 
Memminger’s Horse-chestnut, the Japan 
Weeping Cherry, the Weeping Cornus 
florida, the Variegated-leaved Tulip, the 
Golden-leaved Oak. 
AMONG shrubs the following comparative 
novelties are worthy of trial: the Double¬ 
flowering (atrosanguinea) Japan Quince, 
Prunus Pissardii, Rhodotypus Kerrioides, 
Spiraea Bumalda, Xanthoceras sorbifolia 
and Albert the Good and Princess Alex¬ 
andria Lilacs. 
Careful experiments made by the Ohio 
Experiment Station (W. J. Green) to deter¬ 
mine the earliest varieties of cabbage show 
that if we take as a standard the per cent, 
of the crop gathered at first cutting, the re¬ 
sults are essentially the same, there being 
a slight difference in favor of the Early 
Wakefield. A. better standand of compari¬ 
son is found in the per cent, of crop matured 
at a given date. A variety of cabbage or 
tomato cannot be ranked as “earliest” 
simply because it gives a few mature speci¬ 
mens at an early date, but the number of 
specimens must also be considered. The 
Early Wakefield gave a greater per cent, of 
entire crop within 10 days from the first 
cutting than either the Express or Etampes. 
The trials, both in 18S8 and 1889 show, in 
every case, that the Early Wakefield yields 
a larger per cent, of its crop at any given 
early date than Etampes or Express and al¬ 
so matures its entire crop earlier... 
About half onlv of the Express and Et¬ 
ampes were marketable, while all of the 
Jersey Wakefield heads were solid and fit 
for market. 
Of the All-Seasons (Gregory) Cabbage, 
Mr. Green says that it is a reliable sort, 
having been brought up to a high de¬ 
gree of perfection by careful selection. 
Deep Head is pronounced one of the most 
reliable of the second-early sorts. 
Buist’s Earliest is pronounced a strain 
of Etampes, and no better. So, also, is Ex¬ 
tra-Early Advance (Burpee.) So, also, is 
Everitt’s Earliest of All. It is simply 
Etampes under another name. So, also is 
Faust’s Earliest of All. So, also, is John¬ 
son and Stokes’s Earliest. 
Henderson’s Premier is like Etampes, 
but dwarfer in growth. Rawson’s Volun¬ 
teer is the same as Etampes. 
Salzer’s Earliest was mixed : Sslzer’s 
New Lightning was Early Wakefield. 
