338 
TflE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
MAY 24 
FARMERS’ CLUB-DISCUSSION. 
More About Grain Hay. 
C. N., Petaluma, California.— I read 
to-day in an editorial in the Rural for 
April 26, that it proposes to experiment 
with grain hay. It is about the only kind of 
hay we ever have had in California. 
Wheat hay is always considered the best 
for all purposes. Black oats (a variety 
called Napa wild oats) come next and then 
white oats, and barley hay is last of the 
pure grain sorts. 
Volunteer hay or cow hay, is, as its name 
indicates, used mainly for cows. It usually 
consists of self-sowed grain, Cheat (a coarse 
California grass) different kinds of weeds 
and burr clover, a trailing, yellow-flower¬ 
ing annual kind, whose seed-pod is rolled 
into a small prickly ball, the size of a pea, 
a very valuable clover that ought to be 
tried in the Eastern States. Barley hay, 
as a horse hay, is objected to on account of 
its beard, which in hot, dry weather be¬ 
comes very stiff and works into the gums 
of some horses. White oat hay, when 
new, is said to scour horses somewhat. One- 
third white oats and two-thirds wheat sdwn 
together make good horse hay. All oat hay 
is apt to grow somewhat coarse; our black 
oats less so than white, which is also more 
apt to rust. Wheat hay always brings 
the best price. Both wheat and oat hay 
is inclined to rust in some seasons and in 
some localities, which spoils it more or 
less. All grain hay is easily spoiled by 
rain. The cutting and curing of it are also 
very important matters. 
W. C. C., Union, Oregon.—I have grown 
and fed grain hay every season for the last 
17 or 18 years. I think I can get the best re¬ 
sults by sowing wheat and oats together. 
These make the best feed for all kinds of 
stock; oats alone are good for cattle, but they 
seem to make horses slobber. Barley has 
one objection; the beards, when it is fed to 
some horses, will cut their mouths so badly 
that they will scarcely eat it, while others 
will eat it all winter with perfect impunity. 
Perhaps if the barley were cut quite green, 
the beards would do no injury. A year ago 
last summer I put up nearly 100 tons of 
barley hay for sheep. They were fed upon 
it for about two months and the owner 
said his sheep had never done better. I fed 
rye hay last winter to a team with satisfac¬ 
tory results. The rye grew very tall and 
coarse; but the animals ate it all and did 
well. Those who should know best here 
say rye should stand until it is nearly ma¬ 
ture before it is cut for the best hay. This 
accords with my own rather limited ex¬ 
perience, though contrary to what one 
would expect. 
Can It be called “Winter-Killing.” 
B. B., Farmingdale, III.—The past 
winter here has been extremely warm and 
wet. Twice at least the fruit buds of the 
peach and apricot were nearly ready to 
burst into bloom, when a change of tem¬ 
perature killed the most advanced; yet at 
no time has the thermometer indicated a 
temperature lower than 10 degrees below 
zero. Now an apple tree with wood well 
ripened in the fall should not be damaged 
by the above degree of cold according to 
the popular idea; still I find that the bark 
of many of my young trees is entirely dead 
at a point a few inches above the surface of 
the ground; and in some cases it has 
bursted. Below this point the tree is 
sound. Above, the leaves come forth, use 
up the material stored in the tree, wither 
and die. The question is, why is this a 
weak point in the apple tree ? It seems 
evident that a continued warm spell in the 
winter is equivalent to poorly fall-ripened 
wood. Varieties grafted on Whitney stock 
have not been thus affected, but many 
kinds outgrow this stock and the second 
question comes—do any of the apple va¬ 
rieties outgrow the Whitney enough to 
damage the tree, and if so what stocks are 
we to substitute; or must we find a slow, 
a medium, and a vigorous, hardy stock to 
accommodate the different varieties ? 
Injury to Eggs by Transportation. 
Henry Stewart, Macon Co., N. C.— 
This matter, suggested in the editorial page 
of the Rural of May 3, is very much 
cleared of its common fogginess by a con¬ 
sideration of the manner in which an egg 
is formed. An egg is not simply a mass of 
yelk surrounded by a layer of albumen and 
inclosed in a shell, but consists of a vitalized 
germ imbedded in a mass of yellow yelk 
composed of several layers and surrounded 
by a tough membrane, known as the vitel¬ 
line membrane, which is shown in the ac¬ 
companying drawing. Fig. 103, the yelk 
at 1 and the inclosing membrane at 2. 
This yelk is the fertile part of the egg and 
is developed in the ovary. As it descends 
the oviduct, it becomes inclosed in a thick 
layer of albumen, consisting of three dis¬ 
tinct films, each of a different density 
(2, 3 and 4 in the figure), and these are 
deposited around the yelk at three different 
periods during its descent along the 
oviduct. This albuminous covering is in¬ 
closed in a double lining membrane of a 
tough, fibrous character, which is the cover¬ 
ing of those imperfect eggs known as soft- 
shelled eggs, and which are without any solid 
shell. Immediately over this and attached 
to it, is the outer shell,which consists chiefly 
of carbonate of lime. This outer shell con¬ 
sists of several layers of fibrous tissue 
woven together, and its opacity is due to 
air contained in the meshes of the inter¬ 
laced fibers. It is porous and admits the 
passage of air freely through the tissue. 
At 6 is shown a spiral albuminous liga¬ 
ment attached to the vitelline membrane 
on each side, and also to the testaceous 
membrane or the fibrous inner covering of 
the egg. This membrane is drawn down 
at the obtuse end of the egg, forming 
a space (7) between it and the shell, 
which is known as the air-space, and this 
forms an elastic cushion for the support of 
the yelk while the spiral ligaments called 
the chalazahe, act as a spring to protect the 
_ 8 
yelk against injury and support it as it 
floats in the albuminous layers. The cica- 
tricula, a yellowish-white disc, seen in the 
surface of the yelk of a fertilized egg and 
shown at 8, contains the germinal ves¬ 
icle and is connected by a canal with the 
center of the yelk, which is formed of white 
globules, while the rest of the yelk is made 
up of yellow granulations, designated 
vitelline globules. 
Such being the character of an egg, it is 
seen to be made up of the most fragile ma¬ 
terials, inclosed in a comparatively strong 
protecting shell and supported by springs 
from the jars to which it may be naturally 
subjected by the movements it may un¬ 
dergo in the nest during incubation. But 
nature has made no provision for artificial 
conditions, as transportation by railroads 
and wagons, and the jars and jolts which 
occur in such transportation, and as the in¬ 
terior of the egg is balanced in a very deli¬ 
cate manner only to meet natural condi¬ 
tions, it is by no means prepared for those 
unnatural ones to which it is subjected 
when eggs are carried hundreds or thous¬ 
ands of miles over railroads in freight cars 
which are jostled and jarred and bumped 
forcibly in transit; consequently it is very 
easy to destroy the vitality of an egg by 
shaking it, and I have met farmers who, 
when forced to dispose of the eggs of costly 
pure-bred fowls to the stores, killed them 
by holding them in the hand and jar¬ 
ring it smartly on the palm of the other 
one. Such a jar would evidently rupture 
the spiral ligaments and set the yelk free, or 
possibly rupture the delicate covering mem¬ 
brane of the yelk, or disturb its several 
layers and displace the attachment of the 
germinal vesicle, which is the seat of the 
vitality of the egg. 
Water transportation is the safest for 
carrying eggs, as it is free from the solid 
snocks which occur when freight cars are 
bumped together or jolted over the uneven 
rails. But it is not difficult to arrange a 
box supported by springs or elastic cushions 
for carrying valuable eggs to be used for 
hatching. I devised one some years ago in 
this way:—a small box was used for packing 
the eggs, which were wrapped in paper and 
packed in dry sphagnum moss. This box 
was then fastened to an inner box by the 
strongest rubber bands made, so that it 
was suspended freely in the center. The 
space was filled in loosely with the dry moss, 
and a leather strap handle was nailed to 
the box to serve as a handle for lifting it 
to insure as far as possible its being kept 
right side up. Eggs sent in this way traveled 
1,500 miles by steamer and railroad without 
any damage. 
The facts above given I think go to show 
that eggs are and must be quite frequent¬ 
ly injured for incubation by the shocks met 
with in transportation, and it is to this in¬ 
jury that disappointment in hatching is 
due. I cannot conceive how an egg that 
has been so roughly treated as to have the 
contents so delicately constructed all mixed 
up, can be reconstructed by a few days’ rest 
any more than a person who has been 
mashed to a jelly in a railroad collision 
could settle back to his proper condition by 
being put into a soft easy bed in an hospital 
for a few days. Such shaking up and mix¬ 
ing would be fatal to the egg and must be 
avoided by preventing any possible injury 
during transportation. No doubt some of 
the gentlemen in the experiment stations 
are sufficiently well versed in this branch 
of anatomy to be able to detect the cause of 
failure to hatch, and if it be due to defect 
of vitality or to injury. An egg boiled 
hard will exhibit all the various peculiari¬ 
ties of structure on dissection, and if it has 
been mixed up the injury will be plainly 
apparent. I believe, however, that the 
fault is mostly due to want of vitality in 
the egg, and that this is caused by the 
manner in which fancy poultry is kept, 
cooped in yards, for inst ance, and generally 
overfed and having too little exercise, and, 
possibly, sometimes too closely bred; but 
no doubt some of it is due to rough treat¬ 
ment during transportation. 
E. P. Powell, Clinton, N. Y.—In a late 
Rural “doubt” is cast on my statement 
that the Catalpa will bloom as a bush. In 
my shrubbery there are a dozen from five to 
15 feet and each is loaded with bloom every 
year. These include speciosa, Kasmpferi 
and Teas’s Hybrid purple and golden. I 
have lindens 15 years old that are inside of 
six feet in diameter each way, that form 
complete balls of bloom. 
“How To Win Fortune” is the title of 
an inspiring, forcible article which, at first 
appearing in the N. Y. Tribune, is now 
published in a little pamphlet of four pages. 
Further allusion is made to it on pages 340 
and 347. Andrew Carnegie is the author. 
Happily for mankind, says Mr. Carnegie, 
experience proves that man cannot work 
more soil profitably than he can till himself 
with the aid of his own family. 
He dwells upon the total absence of the 
college graduate in every department of 
affairs. He has inquired and searched 
everywhere in all quarters, but finds 
scarcely a trace of him. Nor is this sur¬ 
prising. The prize-takers have too many 
years the start of the graduate ; they have 
entered for the race invariably in their 
teens—while the college student has been 
learning a little about the barbarous and 
petty squabbles of a far-distant past, or 
trying to master languages which are dead, 
such knowledge as seems adapted for life 
upon another planet than this, as far as 
business affairs are concerned—the future 
captain of industry is hotly engaged in the 
school of experience, obtaining the very 
knowledge required for his future tri¬ 
umphs. He does not speak of the effect of 
college education upon young men training 
for the learned professions, but the almost 
total absence of the graduate from high 
position in the business world seems to 
justify the conclusion that college educa¬ 
tion as it exists, is fatal to success in that 
domain. The graduate has not the slightest 
chance, entering at 20, against the boy 
who swept the office, or who begins as ship¬ 
ping clerk at 14. The facts prove this. 
It is, no doubt, infinitely more difficult to 
start a new business of any kind to-day 
than it was. But it is only a difference in 
form, not in substance. It is infinitely 
easier for a young practical man of ability 
to obtain an interest in existing firms than 
it has ever been. The doors have not closed 
upon ability; on the contrary, they swing 
easier upon their hinges. 
Mr. Carnegie believes that the partner¬ 
ship conducted by men vitally interested 
and owning the works, will make satisfac¬ 
tory dividends when the corporation is 
embarrassed and scarcely knows upon 
which side the balance is to be at the end 
of a year’s operations. The great dry goods 
houses that interest their most capable men 
in the profits of each department succeed, 
when those fail that endeavor to work with 
salaried men only. Even in the management 
of our great hotels, It is found wise to take 
into partnership the principal men. In 
every branch this law is at work, and con¬ 
cerns are prosperous, generally speaking, 
just in proportion as they succeed in inter¬ 
esting in the profits a larger and larger 
proportion of their ablest workers. Co¬ 
operation in this form is fast coming in all 
great establishments. And the farm will 
prove no exception. 
The day of the absent capitalist stock¬ 
holder, who takes no interest in the opera¬ 
tion of the works beyond the receipt of his 
dividend, is certainly passing away. The 
day of the valuable active worker in the in¬ 
dustrial world is coming. Let, therefore, 
no young, practical man be discouraged. 
On the contrary, let him be cheered. More 
and more it is becoming easier for the 
mechanic or practical man of real ability 
to dictate terms to his employers. The 
enormous concern of the future is to divide 
its profits, not among hundreds of idle 
capitalists who contribute nothing to its 
success, but among hundreds of its ablest 
employees, upon whose abilities and exer¬ 
tions success greatly depends. The capital¬ 
ist absent stockholder is to be replaced by 
the able and present worker. 
We often hear men complaining that they 
get no chance to show their ability, and 
when they do show ability that it is not rec¬ 
ognized. There is very little in this. Self- 
interest compels the immediate superior to 
give the highest place under him to the 
man who can best fill it, for the officer is 
credited with the work of his department 
as a whole. No man can keep another 
down. It will be noticed that many of the 
practical men who have earned fame and 
fortune have done so through holding on 
to improvements which they have made. 
Improvements are easily made by prac¬ 
tical men in the branch in which they are 
engaged, for they have the most intimate 
knowledge of the problems to be solved 
there. 
Alluding to the dangers which beset 
young men, Mr. Carnegie says that there 
are three great rocks ahead of the practical 
young man who has his foot upon the lad¬ 
der and is beginning to rise. First, drunk¬ 
enness, which, of course, is fatal. There is 
no use in wasting time upon any young man 
who drinks liquor, no matter how excep¬ 
tional his talents. Indeed, the greater his 
talents are, the greater the disappointment 
must be. The second rock ahead is specu¬ 
lation. The business of a speculator and 
that of a manufacturer or man of affairs, 
are not only distinct but incompatible. 
No man should place his name upon the 
obligation of another if he has not 
sufficient to pay it without detriment to 
his own business. It is dishonest to do so. 
Men are trustees for those who have trusted 
them, and the creditor is entitled to all his 
capital and credit. 
One great cause of failure of young men 
in business is lack of concentration. They 
are prone to seek outside investments. The 
cause of many a surprising failure lies in so 
doing. Every dollar of capital and credit, 
every business thought, should be concen¬ 
trated upon the one business upon which 
a man has embarked. He should never 
scatter his shot. It is a poor business which 
will not yield better returns for increased 
capital than any.outside investment. No 
man or set of men or corporation can man¬ 
age a business man’s capital as well as he 
can manage it himself. The rule, “ Do not 
put all your eggs in one basket,” does not 
apply to a man’s life work. Put all your 
eggs in one basket, and then watch that 
basket, is the true doctrine—the most valu¬ 
able rule of all. While business of all kinds 
has gone, and is still going rapidly, into a 
few vast concerns, it is nevertheless dem¬ 
onstrated every day that genuine ability, 
interested in the profits, is not only valua¬ 
ble but indispensable to their successful 
operation. 
When the young man, in any position or 
in any business, explains and complains 
that he has not opportunity to prove his 
ability and to rise to partnership, the old 
answer suffices: 
“ The fault, dear Brutus, Is not in our stars, 
But In ourselves, that we are underlings.” 
RAYS. 
Mr. E. P. Powell, an experienced grape- 
grower, mentions, in Garden and Forest, 
Brighton, Gtertner and Salem as his choice 
of red grapes. 
For white grapes he does not hesitate to 
take Diamond for the head of the list. He 
thinks it has been sufficiently tested aud by 
the best judges in all parts of the Union. 
He has not seen one severe stricture on its 
quality, growth, habit or bearing qualities. 
Lady, at last, he is compelled to discard. 
It yields no crop to speak of. It is his ideal 
grape in quality, but it will not prove itself 
even a decent vineyard grape for cropping. 
Niagara he classes with Diamond. But 
Hayes is very fine indeed and perhaps we 
shall learn to rank it first or second, for 
Niagara mildews very easily. Duchess he 
should not hesitate to include in the list, 
