9o6 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
DEC. 27 
“ Rough on Rogues.” 
LOOKOUT 
ALMANAC 
LOOKING OUT FOB NUMBER ONE. 
DECEMBER. 
Look out for the “ American Ex¬ 
port and Trading Company,” a 
2 9 . 
new concern which is loudly call¬ 
ing for investments. It claims to be doing 
a great trading and banking business with 
South America and Mexico, and offers pe¬ 
culiar advantages to “young men with $3,- 
000 to $5,000.” An enormous rate of inter¬ 
est is promised. Let it alone. There are 
hundreds of similar concerns springing up 
all the time, hoping, by offering high rates 
of interest, to trap the unwary. * * * * 
Look out for a new scheme of the bunco 
men. A fellow went to two farmers near 
Ashland, Ohio, and offered to sell them a 
recipe for making a medicine that would 
cure all diseases. The farmers saw a chance 
to make a fortune, as lots of their neighbors 
were sick. They loaned the scamp $150 
while he went to town to purchase some 
drugs to make his medicine and left his 
grip-sack for security. At present the 
farmers have the grip-sack while the 
sharper has the money. 
Tnesdav A w ^°^ e P a S e might he written 
’’ about the making and selling of 
3°* medicines. The writer has had 
quite a little experience in this matter. 
When a boy he lived with a farmer who 
made gallons of “ Walnut Extract” every 
spring and peddled it about the country as 
a “ cure-all.” It would “ cure anything ” 
from a toothache to “bad blood.” Later 
in life the writer worked for a man in 
Michigan who made and sold “ague med¬ 
icine” with great success to his pocket- 
book. The fact is that the country is filled 
with people who imagine they must guzzle 
medicine continually in order to keep the 
wheels of life going. Shrewd men are quick 
to see this propensity and use it to drain 
hard earned dollars out of their pockets. 
Among the list of those who own over 
$5,000,000, we find the maker of a “ stomach 
bitters.” A store-keeper in our town had 
a teamster who persisted in getting drunk 
in spite of all efforts to keep liquor away 
from him. It was found at last that he 
was in the habit of stealing bottles of these 
stomach bitters to get drunk on. This is 
a fact, and we know there was rum enough 
in the old “ Walnut Extract ” of boyhood 
to turn an old soaker’s head. Many a 
sanctimonious model of teetotalism tries 
to obfuscate his own conscience and deceive 
his neighbors by tippling on “ pure vege¬ 
table bitters ” whose insidious merits de¬ 
pend, in a great measure, on the proportion 
of alcoholic liquors they contain. 
* 
» * 
The Orange Judd Farmer tells 
us of a fraud in Ohio who is 
31 . trying to sell a roof paint 
which he calls “ Asphaltan,” which he says 
will make old roofs as good as new and 
last a lifetime. The paint does the roof 
more harm than good. Notes which the 
fellow obtains from farmers are at once dis¬ 
counted at 10 to 20 per cent. * * * The 
president of that Inter-State Publishing 
House of Chicago has been arrested for ob¬ 
taining money under false pretenses. He 
advertised for book agents and offered ex¬ 
travagant inducements, always ending by 
demanding a big cash advance. 
JANUARY. 
ThnKflaV Look out how you begin the 
lliuiauajf New year. Don’t make too many 
I. good resolutions and promises 
because you will only lay out too big a 
job for yourself and neglect the very things 
you ought to carry through. The coming 
year ought to be the best year the world 
has ever known—the best in helpfulness, 
the best in charity, the best in kindly feel¬ 
ing, the best in all that we consider beauti¬ 
ful,’good and true. What are you going to 
do in order to help make this possibility a 
reality? It is your duty—it ought to be 
your pleasure—to contribute your full 
share to the manufacture of the world’s 
good. I would like to call up the laggards, 
the snails and the moral cripples, and call 
to them so loudly that they would be 
startled into a better view of life. I fear 
though that this would necessitate a call 
so loud that it would split my lungs and 
make me whisper for the rest of my life. 
Come, now, be alive during 1891. 
• • 
• • 
Friday An Indiana man has just been 
^ swindled by means of a new phase 
2* of an old dodge. Two smart fel¬ 
lows came to buy his farm. He put the 
price at $1,600 and took in payment a note for 
$2,000, secured by what purported to be a 
mortgage on some property in Indianapolis. 
The farmer paid the men $400 in cash—dif¬ 
ference between the note and the price of 
the farm, and off went the men. The mort¬ 
gage now turns out to be bogus ; the note, 
of course, is worthless. The two sharpers 
have the cash and the farmer still has the 
farm, plus $400 worth of sad experience in 
human gullibility. 
* 
♦ * 
Saturday It is well enough to look out 
* for the “ Daisy Implement 
U - Company;” “The Correspond¬ 
ent,” a matrimonial paper ; “ The Western 
Pearl Company ; ” “Dr. J. G. Morrow; ” all 
who advertise “Dr. Koch’s Remedy,” and 
“Babcock & Co.” * * * Look out that 
you make war upon the English sparrow. 
This pest has become so bad in Australia 
that the poets are turning loose on it. This 
•is a sample of their work : 
"What means this sadly plaintive wall. 
Ye men of spades and harrows ? 
W hy are your faces wan and pale ? ” 
"It is the everlasting sparrows. 
‘We may demolish other pests 
That devastate the farm and garden ; 
But spoiled by these voracious guests, 
Our prospects are not worth a farden.” 
Now if you don’t w^nt to listen to such 
“poetry” on this side of the water—go 
forth and kill! 
The turkey beats the duck as an econom¬ 
ical bird. That’s because of her stout legs. 
Poultry Yard. 
FARMER, DAUGHTER, HEN & CO. 
Some of the best advice ever given to the 
farmer through agricultural papers told 
us how to keep the boys on the farm But 
where are the girls ? Are they not as im¬ 
portant as the boys ? Shall they leave the 
farm to seek employment in the cities ? 
Can they not be interested and supplied 
with good paying work at home ? As the 
family increases the larger children move 
out to work and earn their board and 
clothes elsewhere, and let the smaller ones 
have a chance. But could not the farmer 
enter into a partnership with his elder 
children ? He could then undertake more 
work. He should let his children have a 
share of it and of the outcome from it, and 
thus keep them at home and let them have 
a chance to earn their board and clothes, 
and make some money under its influence. 
The boy is given a pig, a horse or a patch 
of land to ’tend to interest him and keep 
him on the farm; hut the girl—what inter¬ 
est has she ? The housework soon becomes 
monotonous, with only her board and 
clothes for pay. No paper is taken for her 
to read, and no wonder she longs for a city 
life, or to work in some shoe factory or to 
do sewing. But if she is wise she will stay 
at home and do the housework, even if the 
pay is poor, for it is wealth compared with 
the pay employment in the city can give, 
and then she will not encounter the low 
class of girls city employment will throw 
her into. 
If she is ambitious there are many open¬ 
ings on the farm where she could use her 
time and energy to good account. Are the 
chickens well taken care of, or are there 
any chickens at all? Is the income from 
the few that may be loitering or playing 
around the yard very great? Let her ask 
herself these questions, and if the answer is 
yes, then there is no opening there; but if 
the answer is no, then there is a chance for 
her. There is always a demand for young 
chickens. In winter eggs bring a fancy 
price. A good poultry paper or a general 
agricultural paper, like TnE Rural, with 
a good poultry department, will be indis¬ 
pensable to start off with, while many 
things must be learned by experience. 
Nice, well dressed turkeys always sell well 
and bring good prices, and if the farm con¬ 
sists of many acres, it would be profitable 
to raise them. Some trouble will be exper 
ienced in getting them started, for they are 
less hardy than chickens; but when once in 
good growing order they may be allowed to 
range the fields at will. Grasshoppers, bugs 
and grain will already be scattered for 
them by the lavish hand of Nature, and 
these will be sufficient feed for them until 
fall, when the addition of grain is necessary. 
Two or three weeks before they are kiUed 
they should have all the grain they can 
eat. 
To accomplish anything, the girl must 
be thorough. If she attempts the hen busi¬ 
ness she must have patience and careful¬ 
ness. Everything must be well done, for 
an old hen will repay neglect by giving a 
small income, and a turkey by dying right- 
away—that is, a young turkey. With 
neglect and poor feed an old turkey can 
make some pretty tough, blue meat. As 
Mr. Terry would say: “ To make success in 
life you must be thorough in everything.” 
farmer’s girl. 
A San Francisco commission merchant 
traveling in this county last week pur¬ 
chased 3.200 turkeys in one day. The prices 
ANOTHER HAND-BOOK FOR THE RURAL-GARDEN FAMILY. 
NOVEL—CONCISE—PRACTICAL. 
THE NURSERY BOOK. 
A Complete Hand-Book of Propagation and* Pollination. By L. H. Bailey. Uniform in Size and Style with 
Rule-Book of 189 1 Edition Profusely Illustrated. 
AITI.K TREK TOf-GRAFrEP 
T HIS valuable little manual lias been compiled at great pains. The author has had 
unusual facilities for its preparation, having been aided by many experts in 
many directions. The book Is absolutely devoid of theory and speculation. It 
lias nothing todo with plant physiology, nor with any abstruse reasons of plant growth. 
It simply tells plainly and briefly what every one who sows a serd, makes a cutting, 
sets a graft, nr crosses a flower wants to know. It is entirely new and original in 
method and matter. The cuts number almost 100, and arc made e peclally for It, direct 
from nature. The book treats of all kinds of cultivated plants, fruits, vegetables 
greenhouse plants, hardy herbs, ornamental trees and shrubs and forest t r ees. 
CONTENTS. 
Chapter I.—Seednge. 
Chapter 11.—Separation nnd Division. 
Chapter 111.— Lnyernge. 
Chapter IV.—Cuttnge. 
Chapter V.- Grnftage. Including Grafting, Budding, Inarching, etc. 
Chapter VI.—Nursery List 
Tnls is the great feature of the book. It Is an alphabetical list of all kinds of 
p'ants, with a short s atement telling which of the operations described in the.flrst 
flve chapters are employed tn propagating them. Over 2,000 entries are made In 
the list. The following entries will give an Idea of the method . 
ACER (Mapi.e). Sapindacm. Slocks are grown from stratified seeds, which should 
be sown an inch or two deep; or some species, ns A dasycarpum, come readily 
If seeds are simply sown ns soon as ripe. Some cultu-al varieties are laye ed, 
but better plants are obtained by grafting Varieties of native species are 
worked upon common or native stocks. The .lapai.es - sorts are winter- 
worked upon imported A polymorphum stocks, either by will]) or veneer 
grafting. Maples can also be budded in summer, and they grow readily from 
cuttings of bom ripe and soft wood. 
1*11 V I.l.OCACTUK PHY LLOCEK KLK. D1SOCACTUS 1 Leak Cacti si. Cactew. 
Fresh seeds grow readily. Sow In rather sandy soil, which is well drained, 
and apply water as for common seeds. When 1 he seedlings appear, remove 
to a light position. Cuttings from mature shoots, three to six inches in length, 
root readily in sharp sand. Give a temp* rature of about BO degrees, nno apply 
only sufficient water to keep from flagging, ir the euttiugs are very juicy, 
they may be laid on dry sand for several days before planting. 
GOOSKI1KH R V. Seeds, for the raising < f new varieties, should be sown as soon ns 
well cured, in loamy or sandy soil, or thev may be stratified and sown 
together with the sand in the soring. Cuttings, 6 10 K inches long, of the 
mature wood, Inserted two thirds their leng h, usually grow rea lly, 
especially If taken in August or September and store 1 during winter. 
Stronger plants art* usually obtained by lay< rs, and the English varieties tire 
nearly tilwavs layered in tills country. Mound layering is usually employed, 
the English varieties being allowed to remain in layerage two years, but the 
American varieties only one lElg. "7). Layered plants are usually set in 
nur-crv rows for ayear after removal from the stools Green-layering during 
summer Is sometimes practiced tor new or rare varieties. 
Clinpter VII.—Pollination. 
This book is now completed, and it will be on sale promptly by January 1st. 
A FLOWER OK " NICOTIAN A AFFINIS,” AND ONE PREPARED FOR POLLINATION. 
Price, in library style, cloth, wide margins, $1.00; Pocket style, 
paper, narrow margins, 50 cents. 
THE RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
TIMES BUILDING, NEW YORK. 
A BEGONIA UrRtGHT LEAF CUTTING. 
Will be ready for mailing in Decembdr. Orders filled consecutively as received. 
