322 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
MAY 17 
THE 
Rural New-Yorker, 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
ELBERT S. CARMAN, 
HERBERT W. COLLINGWOOD, 
EDITORS. 
Rural Publishing Company: 
LAWSON VALENTINE, President. RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
THE AMERICAN GARDEN, 
EDGAR H. LIBBY, Manager. OUT-DOOR BOOKS. 
Copyright, 1890, by the Rural Publishing Company. 
SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1890. 
Eggs are not necessarily spoiled by the 
simple act of putting them all in one basket. 
We lose when we neglect to watch that 
basket as we should. “ One basket ” is a sort 
of trust. Concentration of effort requires 
concentration of thought. 
Novices who set out to plant their new home- 
grounds with “novelties”—plants not seen in the 
grounds of every neighbor—will usually find in a 
year or more that they might have done better if 
they had selected those to be seen everywhere. 
“Common” plants are, in fact, the choicest of all 
S lants known. They are “common” because they 
ave been well tried and not found wanting. 
There has never been a time in the history of the 
dairy business when so many able investigators 
were giving their best thought to the subject of 
successful cream raising and churning. A well 
known chemist writes us as follows : “I am con¬ 
vinced that several old notions regarding milk and 
its treatment will soon be relegated to the company 
of the mythical membrane that was supposed to 
surround the fat globule.” 
The R. N.-Y. was the first journal to illustrate 
the Parker Earle Strawberry and to give a full ac¬ 
count of its behavior in the North. Vigor of plant, 
productiveness, and quality considered, as judged 
from a first year’s trial, it was the best berry ever 
placed on trial at the Rural Grounds. It was not 
the best in quality or the most vigorous or the most 
productive, separately considered, but it combined 
those qualities in a higher degree. We are glad to 
be able to state that the vines now (the second year) 
are very thrifty and blossoming in a way to promise 
another season of abundant fruit-bearing. 
We are told that Paris green and London-purple 
are rendered somewhat soluble when used with the 
Bordeaux Mixture. Paris green and water is a me¬ 
chanical mixture—not a solution. It is assumed 
that London-purple and water is also a mechanical 
mixture; but it seems quite probable that water in 
which London-purple has been soaked contains ar¬ 
senic that cannot be taken out of it by mechanical 
means. The use of the arsenites in the Bordeaux 
Mixture will require careful experimenting if, as is 
stated, the mixture contains soluble arsenic. We 
are also told of a recent process for dissolving Paris- 
green in ammonia. Have any of our readers ever 
tried Paris green in salt water? 
From this year’s experiments with eggs for 
hatching the R. N.-Y. strengthens its belief in 
several old time “ notions.” It pays to set hens as 
close to the ground as possible. We made the mis¬ 
take this year of trying to hatch eggs in a dry 
upper room. Many of the chicks died in the eggs, 
being unable to make their way through the dry, 
tougn shells. Eggs should be set as soon after they 
are laid as possible. They are frequently “ killed ” 
by exposure to a temperature considerably above 
the freezing point. Indeed, if they are to be kept 
for any time, a warm place is better than a cool 
place for storing them. An egg is a very delicate 
article. It will not stand rough treatment of any 
sort. Next week we shall have more to say about 
the structure of an egg. 
The late unlamented “Commissioners of Agri¬ 
culture ” were severely criticised for allowing pol¬ 
itics a paramount influence in the management of 
the Department. Sometimes this line of action was 
forced upon them; sometimes it was voluntarily 
adopted; but the fact remained that the offices in 
the gift of the Department were ever considered 
merely as sops for unregenerate politicians. Now, 
however, the welcome report comes to us from an 
unprejudiced observer of political faith opposite to 
that of the Administration, that Secretary Rusk, 
himself an active and able politician, has in large 
degree swept the old-time Department of its polit¬ 
ical filth and is rapidly creating a Department that 
will prove a real aid to agriculture. The attempt 
of a strong man to establish at Washington an 
honest administration of the United States Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture is worthy of honor and praise, 
and the Rural New-Yorker will uphold his every 
effort in this direction. To free the appointments 
from political favoritism; to cut off the Con¬ 
gressional jobbery in the use of his force and money 
for the distribution of seeds among their consti¬ 
tuents to buy votes; finally, after 30 years, to start 
the Department on its proper mission for the ad¬ 
vancement of agriculture; to defend the dignity 
and business rights of this greatest of all indus 
tries; to reorganize the government experiment 
stations into a harmoniously working body, stamp¬ 
ing out useless work and fostering that which 
promises well: the accomplishment of these re¬ 
forms will be enough to place the name of Rusk 
in the annals of agriculture beside' those of Wash¬ 
ington, Jefferson, Wilder and Morrill. 
Two boys were dropping potato-seed in a field near 
the R. N.-Y. Farm. The farmer was very particular 
that the seed pieces should be at regular distances 
apart at the bottom of the trench. The bottom was 
hard and when dropped directly upon it the seed 
pieces would roll out of place. After studying the 
matter one boy decided that the right way to do it 
was to bend his back and drop the seed pieces only 
a few inches. The other boy found that by drop¬ 
ping the pieces in the loose soil at the side of the 
trench, they would roll down to the bottom and 
stay in place. One boy proposed to lessen the force 
with which the seed pieces struck the bottom by 
bending his back. The other let the loose soil do it. 
The human back will give out before the loose soil 
will. Make your head save your back. Study your 
lazy neighbor and add speed to his labor-saving 
methods. 
“The tariff makes you a market. It enables us 
to build up a vast business and employ many hands 
at good wages. These hands must be fed and it 
follows that they must buy the food which you 
produce.” This is what the manufacturers who de¬ 
mand a tariff say to the farmer. Under this ar¬ 
rangement the manufacturer’s benefit is a direct 
one, while the farmer’s is indirect. Suppose our 
friend the farmer should now come forward and 
say this:—“It is our turn now to receive this 
direct benefit. Let us have tariff and other laws 
framed for the special purposo of increasing the 
prices paid for farm products and making farming 
more prosperous generally. This will put more 
money in our pockets and enable us to buy more of 
your goods. You will thus have a much better 
market.” Would the manufacturer agree to this, 
do you think ? 
The R. N.-Y. ventures to say that the communi¬ 
cation from Prof. S. W. Johnson, printed on page 
286, was a surprise to many readers. The following 
note from Sir. J. B. Lawes is of interest in this con¬ 
nection : “I have been much interested in the 
growth of the 200 bushels of corn per acre. The 
quantities of nitrogen applied appear to have been 
very great; but when you talk of bushels of farm¬ 
yard dung it is rather difficult to calculate the in¬ 
gredients. A parallel experiment in which all the 
minerals were applied without the nitrogen would 
be of great value, as it would prove conclusively 
whether nitric acid is the source of the nitrogen of 
corn as it is of other grain crops. I have little or 
no doubt upon the subject, but what we require is 
the actual proof. If I could have grown corn I 
could have established the fact long ago.” 
Many of our good readers are much exercised in 
spirit over the cider question. They realize that 
hard cider is a potent cause of intemperance in our 
country, and that much of the prevailing misery, 
pauperism, degradation and crime in rural districts 
is traceable directly or indirectly to its use. But 
what are they to do? The two main uses of cider 
are as a beverage and an element in the manufac¬ 
ture of “pure cider vinegar.” The latter use re¬ 
quires but a small part of the product of the cider- 
mills. By means of acids, a spurious article is so 
cheaply and quickly made, and can be so readily 
sold that the sale of the pure article is greatly cur¬ 
tailed. The price at which the latter can be sold in 
this or any other large market is so low as to be 
unremunerative. Quite a profitable business is be¬ 
ing done in some parts of the country in the manu¬ 
facture of apple jelly from cider, but the amount 
used in this way is small. The larger part of the 
cider manufactured is used as a beverage, either di¬ 
rectly or in the various forms of apple-jack, 
champagne cider, etc. This fact certainly is de¬ 
plorable, and the farmers are usually the greatest 
sufferers, for the use of cider as a beverage is more 
general in the country than in the city where liquors 
are more easily obtainable. But the farmers of this 
country have the remedy in their own hands. What 
business has an orchardist to grow cider apples? 
Many of the old orchards of the country were largely 
“ natural fruit.” These are rapidly disappearing, 
and orchards of grafted fruit are taking their 
places. Rightly treated, these will yield choice 
fruit that will sell at remunerative prices, and the 
proportion of apples fit only for cider will be very 
small, probably no more than enough to supply the 
demand for vinegar and apple jelly. Viewed in 
this light, the matter becomes a personal one, and 
individual effort is all that is needed to do away 
with a strong element in the forces of intemperance. 
Why raise cider apples? 
Not since the notorious Dred Scott case, 33 years 
ago, has any decision of the United States Supreme 
Court caused so widespread a sensation or provoked 
hot indignation among so large a proportion of our 
most respectable citizens as that rendered the other 
day with regard to the constitutionality of the Iowa 
prohibitory laws. The opinion was rendered on 
April 28, but the official text was published only 
yesterday, so that wide differences of opinion pre¬ 
vailed as to its scope. It turns out that it is more 
sweeping in its effects than was anticipated by any¬ 
body. In it the Supreme Court has driven a beer 
wagon through all the State legislation affecting the 
liquor traffic. According to it, no State can forbid the 
importation of intoxicants from any other State or 
forbid their sale by the importer in the original 
packages however small, or require licenses to be 
taken out for their sale, or otherwise regulate or in¬ 
terfere with their disposition. The decision enables 
the liquor dealers to defy all State laws relating to 
prohibition, local option and licenses of all kinds. 
In a word, it paralyzes the powers of the State to 
deal with the liquor traffic, and for an orderly 
excise system substitutes anarchy and chaos. 
According to the opinion of some of the best law¬ 
yers in the country it is squarely opposed to several 
former decisions of the same court. The old doc¬ 
trine was that originally the States reserved for 
themselves their police powers, and that all laws for 
the restraint and punishment of crime, and for the 
preservation of public peace, health and morals came 
within this category. Surely the regulation of the 
liquor traffic was included in this broad classifica¬ 
tion. Good may, however, yet come from the ob¬ 
noxious decision. All over the land the Prohibi¬ 
tionists are aroused and intensely active. They are 
reinforced by hundreds of thousands who have been 
indifferent to prohibition, but who are firmly of 
opinion that the State should regulate the liquor 
traffic. From being merely a State issue the liquor 
question has become a burning problem in national 
politics. Already the Prohibitionists’ sentiments 
with regard to the matter have found expression in 
a bill introduced into Congress by Representative 
Boutelle of Maine. It proposes to add to the inter¬ 
state Commerce Act the following section :—“That 
nothing contained in this act shall be construed to 
authorize the sale or traffic in intoxicating liquors 
in any State contrary to the laws thereof.” The 
Supreme Court in its decision concedes that Con¬ 
gress may give permission to the States to make 
such laws as they may deem necessary, in the exer¬ 
cise of their police powers, for the suppression or 
regulation of the liquor traffic. Congress should 
act promptly in the matter, and at once grant this 
power. Good citizens of all parties in every section 
of the country should not lose a moment in emphati¬ 
cally letting their respective Senators and Represen¬ 
tatives know their wishes in the matter. 
BREVITIES. 
Our temper runs away at time?, as everybody knows 
We say thing? while wo’re angry. that we won’t say In repose. 
To show the truest penitence, this little maxim keep : 
Just make It up before you go to sleep! 
Don't let the darkness find you with a sword of anger drawn 
To make some fond heart suffer till the breaking of the dawn. 
Come, let your an-' r vantsh ; knock your pride Into a heap 
Just make It up before you go to sleep! 
Who knows where you will wander when the shades of night 
depart ? 
Don’t enter that dim country with hot anger in your heart! 
Don’t mind the provocation—as ye sow so shall ye reap. 
Just make It up before you go to sleep ! 
More haste, more waste. 
The deep bay holds the hay. 
Give your canary birds clover every morning. 
Unless you make up your mind to stay at the head, don’t 
try to get there. 
The best way to do things by halves is to do each half 
thoroughly well. 
You had better try that plan of feeding sand iu the 
poultry food spoken of last week. 
The wet weather is apt to bring out the visible spirit of 
whine which men let out of their mouths to make the world 
sour. 
Because sheep will do better than other stock on rough 
land is no reason why they are not good enough for good 
pasture. 
Low wagon wheels make things easier for the pitchers 
and. harder for the haulers. Are you a pitcher or a hauler 
this year ? 
We worked our oat ground while it was a little too wet. 
As a consequence, the surface is lumpy. A plank drag 
would have paid for itself twice over on that Held. 
Some 350 years ago Martin Luther said : “ The sparrow 
should be killed wherever found.” Can it be said that the 
sparrow agrees with the great reformer as regards a “ diet 
of worms ?” 
Mr. John Lewis Childs has not yet tokl us why he paid 
a thousand dollars a plant for the “ Childs’s Japan Wine- 
berry,” when for years past he might have bought it for less 
than 50 cents a plant. 
CAN a farm hand earn the present “ going wages” by 
working only eight hours per dav ? Men who have risen 
from the mechanic’s bench to the manager’s desk were 
glad to work overtime. 
PUT a hay-cap on top of a hay-cock and you save your 
hay. Put the cap under the hay and you spoil your hay 
and save your cap. The cap is made to wear out in sav¬ 
ing the hay. Success means letting the right thing wear 
out. 
If you put a baby in a box and then nail on the cover 
you can hardly expect it to burst the cover off. Plant a 
seed and then let the soil cake and pack hard around it, 
and you are foolish if you expect it to make a strong’ 
growth. 
RURAL readers, we want you to try this season, to excel 
in something— one thing—iu which you have never excelled 
or tried to excel before. The endeavor will do you 
good next to the achievement, It will flt you for future 
successes, 
