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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FAIR. 
The fifty-ninth annual exhibition at the 
American Institute building, on Third Ave¬ 
nue, this city, just closed, was an interest¬ 
ing and instructive exhibit. It included a 
great variety of building materials, furni¬ 
ture of all kinds, various mechanical con¬ 
trivances, all sorts of new food products, 
new systems of heating and plumbing, 
pictures, statuary, etc. Special exhibits 
of fruits and flowers were also held at 
different periods during the exhibition. It 
afforded an opportunity to study a greater 
variety of articles under one roof than was 
probably to be found anywhere else. 
The number of exhibitors of fruits was 
small. Eilwauger & Barry, of Rochester, 
had a small collection of pears and quite a 
variety of grapes. Among the latter was a 
new seedling, Calypso, of fine appearance. 
Some Jeffersons were exhibited, which 
were very handsome. Some of the largest 
Wordens we ever saw attracted much 
attention. The Niagaras were noticeable 
for their large clusters, and the Mills also 
made a good showing. The same firm 
also exhibited some attractive hot-house 
grapes. 
There is a growing demand for a four- 
wheoleddump wagon. Such vehicles are in 
use to some extent in the city, but have 
never been introduced very extensively in 
the country. There were two on exhibition 
that appear to be what is wanted in this 
direction. 
Another device is a self-sharpening plow¬ 
share, made with a reversible slip point, so 
that when the point becomes rounded it 
may be slipped out and turned over, thus 
presenting a sharpened edge again. This 
appears to be a good thing. 
The visitor was assailed with invita¬ 
tions to purchase all sorts of articles, from 
tooth powder, pills and chest protectors to 
boats and portable houses. He could have 
his picture takeu by dropping a nickel in 
the slot, have his cranium examined while 
he waited, or lunch on flapjacks or various 
cereal preparations, washed down by tiny 
draughts of cocoa or chocolate, all free. 
He will probably also be importuned to 
recline on some of the various easy chairs 
on exhibition, but only for a brief season. 
He must move on. The exhibition closed 
November 29. 
COMMENT COLUMN. 
Weare apt to grumble about taxes; there 
is no tax that rests so heavily upon our 
shoulders as that laid by ignorance. Every 
year oily-tongued agents take from our 
people, for which nothing is given in re¬ 
turn, more money than State, county and 
town taxes combined amount to. One of 
the most common of these agents is the 
man with the patent churn.—Prof. W. A. 
Henry. 
Correct. There is a perfect mania just 
now to invent a churn that will bring the 
churning time below Axtell’s record. Let 
them alone. 
I admire good cattle of all breeds, have 
animosity toward none, not even the scrub 
when he is in the right place.—Breeders’ 
Gazette. 
The right place for the scrub is in the 
barnyard of a scrub man. 
On Butte Creek, a few miles this side of 
Chico, a farmer has some trained cats that 
catch gophers. These cats live almost ex¬ 
clusively in the fields and make their living 
catching the gophers. The latter are very 
destructive to the roots of the Alfalfa, so 
that each cat that is a good gopher-catcher 
is estimated to be worth $20 to the farmer. 
—Pacific Rural Press. 
Trained cats at $20 each would pay better 
than $00 steers. Where is that genius in 
Connecticut who proposed to train mice to 
catch flies ? 
It is extremely probable that the sale of 
public lands within the next few years will 
dwindle down and finally become very 
small; so small that my own judgment is 
that when Congress finds there is not suffi¬ 
cient for the experiment station aud the 
additional land grant, they will cut off the 
experiment station first and put that upon 
the land grant colleges to be maintained by 
them out of the fund that is appropriated 
for the increased endowment of such col¬ 
leges.—Senator Morrill. 
All the more reason then why you should 
give your agricultural college strength now. 
Lose no opportunity of gathering to¬ 
gether the leaves and weeds on the farm 
and in the adjoining woods. If gathered 
dry they will form valuable additions to 
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the bedding material for the pens and 
stables. If not needed for this purpose, 
make them into heaps when damp and 
sprinkle them with lime as thrown up to 
assist them in decaying. — Southern 
Planter. 
You can spend your time more profitably 
at some other work than in raking leaves. 
The boys in District 3 at Wilbraham, 
Mass., ranging in ages from seven to fifteen, 
held their first “ agricultural fair ” on the 
Green, recently. The display of stock, 
poultry, vegetables, flowers, etc., was very 
good. Wilbur Rice, nine, exhibited a pair 
of steer calves which he drove double and 
single, showing wonderful discipline, and 
obtained the first prize. A tent was erected 
aud supper served, about 100 sitting down. 
—Springfield Republican. 
This is one of the ways to “ keep boys on 
the farm.” Cannot the boys in your town 
get up a fair ? Help them. 
Here is another outcome of Commis¬ 
sioner Valentine’s “wretched” Swedish im¬ 
migration scheme : A Swede from Stock¬ 
holm has bought and paid $1,800 for 400 
acres of land in Jamaica. The tract is 
made up of three or four farms adjoining. 
The purchaser will settle on one of these 
himself and colonize a thrifty, industrious 
Swedish farmer and his family on each of 
the others. 
Keep up that Immigration Bureau and 
advertise, Vermont. 
The discovery of the fact that the insect 
plant louse passes the winter in the egg 
state on the cabbage leaves has an import¬ 
ant economic bearing. It suggests as one 
of the best ways of preventing the injuries 
of this pest, the destruction during winter 
of the old cabbage leaves with the eggs 
upon them, instead of leaving them undis¬ 
turbed until spring, as is too often done. 
Another chance for winter work for the 
gardener, that will pay well. 
If every Alliance in the Southern States 
would make it a point to insist upon arbi¬ 
tration between it3 members, and urge 
them never to carry a grievance against a 
brother farmer into a court-house for set¬ 
tlement, we would soon see the hordes of 
country lawyers, who are now and have 
from time immemorial been sucking the 
life-blood from the poor farmers of the 
land, obliged to do manual labor for a live¬ 
lihood.—Southern Farm. 
And they would not do enough work to 
“ depress the labor market ” either. 
Without claiming that keeping bees is 
one of the royal roads to wealth, yet I have 
no doubt that a great many persons would 
be enabled to add to their incomes and. 
comfort by keeping a few colonies of bees, 
—Florida Agriculturist. 
Unquestionably. But a person must be 
part bee in order to succeed with these in¬ 
sects. A similar thing might be said about 
poultry, cows or horses. 
