1896 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
645 
DARK DAYS FOR HORSE BREEDERS. 
Prices Have Depreciated in Indiana. 
Horse breeding, comparatively speaking, has ceased 
in Indiana. In this part of the State, at least, few 
colts can be seen on farms the past two years. Stal¬ 
lions have been sacrificed until there is really a 
scarcity. There are still more than enough for the 
demand as it exists, and since there is no visible 
prospect of a greater demand, the sacrifice goes on. 
There is nothing encouraging in sight to the farmer 
breeder, that I can see, in any line of live stock, and 
I believe that every domestic animal produced in this 
latitude, thrown upon the market as it now is, will 
bring less than cost. This statement is meant to 
apply, only in general terms. Individual success is 
in the man, as in all other branches of business. I 
fully realize the criticisms this will bring from breed¬ 
ers, for the wounded bird flutters, and breeders try 
to keep up the hope that a bright day is dawning, or 
“ our boom is just now on,” etc., etc. 
I read in the sheep journals, “ The breeders of cattle 
and hogs are selling out, and are investing in sheep ” 
The same tale is in hog journals and other especial 
champions of certain kinds of live stock. Facts do 
not bear out these statements ; they are delusions, 
are intended to and do deceive individuals to invest, 
and in a large majority of cases, such investment 
causes the investor a loss. I believe that the unfair 
and untrue statements of some breeders of fancy live 
stock of all kinds, that are breeding animals to sell 
the farmers at fancy prices to improve their stock, 
have caused the farmers of the country more loss than 
profit. They are thus induced sometimes to pay a 
fancy price for an animal whose merit, if it had any 
in nature, was lost in the changed conditions, and in 
the hands of the inexperienced new owner. These 
variations are as the numbers of the men engaged in 
it, and like other conditions of life, the successful are 
held up as examples. The 10 or 20 that fail in the at¬ 
tempt to follow their lead, lose all they have, and 
drop from sight. To all breeders of fancy animals, 
has come a depreciation ranging all the way from 50 
to 90 per cent. Prices have fallen from 50 to 90 per 
cent. The common good animal produced and always 
sold at shipper’s prices, has fallen about 50 per cent; 
the purebred registered stock that has been sold for 
years for breeders, have fallen in price 75 to 90 per 
cent. Is not the lesson plain ? I realize what this 
will bring from those trying to keep up the seance ; 
but these are stubborn facts susceptible of proof in 
every neighborhood in the land. There are thousands 
of exceptions, I know. I am writing in general terms, 
and of the majority. Horse breeders can only be 
hopeful that, when conditions change, so that other 
live stock pay for production, horses will also be 
profitable to raise. The tendency now to try to pro¬ 
duce the large, active horse that can till any place, is, 
certainly, the road to follow. Since, at least, 100 
horses have left the State by sale or death, for every 
five colts born the past two years, it would seem as 
though there must soon be reaction in prices. 
W. W. LATTA. 
Horse Breeding in New Hampshire. 
The almost general statement would be that, for 
this neighborhood, the business of horse breeding is 
dead. Ten, even six years ago, fairly good, and some 
very good stallions were to be had, and did a living 
business. Many farmers bred their mares to trot- 
ting-bred stallions, with varying results, depending, 
mainly, upon the quality of the mares and the skill 
shown by the owners in raising and training the colts. 
Some wise men took a little more trouble to find and 
patronize a first-class Percheron or French Coach stal¬ 
lion, getting colts that cost no more to raise, much 
less to train, and were far more salable at a fair price 
when four or five years of age. Now the stallion that 
earns, in fees, more than the cost of his feed is, I 
think, the exception. Farmers, when asked to bring 
their mares, will say, “ What’s the use when lean buy 
a young, sound, serviceable horse for from $35 to §75?” 
I think that I am within bounds in the claim that, 
to breed and raise a colt which has size, style, good 
disposition, good bone, and is well developed, say one 
that will stand 15.2 to 16 hands, and weigh 1,050 to 
1,100 pounds at four years of age, will have cost 
nearly, or quite, $50 a year here in New England. 
Count what the hay, grain, milk, etc., would cost if 
bought or sold. A colt may be kept alive for four 
years on pasture and poor hay ; but buyers will not 
be running after it. For the past two or three years, 
very few farmers have been able to get $200 for a colt, 
or even half that sum; many well-bred colts have 
been sold for $25 or less. 
Farmers, in this neighborhood, are not enthusiastic 
about horse-breeding. There is, however, another 
side to this question. Ordinary horses can hardly be 
given away—really good ones are, and always will be, 
in demand, at fair prices. One man from New York 
told me, this summer, that, hearing on all sides that 
horses could be bought for little or nothing, he put 
$300 into his pocket, and started out to buy a first- 
class road horse for his own use, but discovered, to 
his sorrow, that he must add $400 to the amount to 
get what suited him. A man from Boston was look¬ 
ing about here for a horse, and when asked why he 
came so far, when the city, according to reports, was 
full of horses having every desirable qualification, 
which he could buy for $100 or less, replied that he 
had been unable to find such. These men did not de¬ 
mand extreme speed or great style, but wanted ani¬ 
mals of good size and color, prompt, cheerful drivers, 
sound, well-broken, of good disposition, and for such 
were willing to pay a good price. 
While breeders are not, as a rule, hopeful for the 
future, there are some who believe that this is a good 
time to begin. Good mares and stallions may now be 
bought at reasonable prices. When any industry is 
depressed, there are always men in it bound to get 
out at any sacrifice—and four or five years later, when 
these colts are old enough to sell, they will be in de¬ 
mand. Breed nothing but the best, and let feed, care 
and training equal the breeding. w. d. 
POTATO OUTLOOK IN NIAGARA CO., N. Y. 
After a thorough personal investigation of the 
present state of the potato crop in various parts of 
this county, I have come to the conclusion that pota¬ 
toes will be a scarce article hereabouts. The plant¬ 
ing, in some places, was as large as it was last year, 
in others considerably smaller. On a 70 mile drive 
through the county, I saw none of the large fields, 
then so thrifty at this time of the year, and those 
that I did see, were mostly dried up, burnt up, eaten 
up. I have seldom seen two seasons of very large 
planting in succession, and never two successive sea¬ 
sons of very large general yield. Evidently, the sea¬ 
sons of 1895 and 1896 will be no exception to the rule. 
Between drought, early blight and potato bugs, there 
is now very little left of the vines all around here, 
and the yield is very light, indeed. 1 ask about every 
farmer I meet concerning the outcome of his potato 
crop, and nearly every one estimates his yield at less 
than one-third of that of last year. My own impres¬ 
sion is that there will be only one-fourth the amount 
of potatoes here available for market that there was 
last fall. 
I lost nearly my whole planting of Carman No. 1 
and No. 3, about an acre. The seed pieces were cut 
large, but being put into rather warm and dust-dry 
soil (soil well prepared, too), they dried up, or dry 
rotted, and only a portion of them sent up weakly 
sprouts that never amounted to much. This is the 
first experience of the kind I have had. Many other 
fields around here were handled and came out in the 
same way. 
Potato beetles have never before appeared in such 
vast numbers, so late in the fall, in western New 
York, so far as I can remember. The nearest ap¬ 
proach to it, in my experience, was nine or ten years 
ago while I lived in New Jersey. After most of the 
potato vines had matured, or were burnt up with the 
early blight, the adult beetles came in large numbers, 
and fell upon egg plants, tomato plants, and the few 
very late potatoes that had yet a green leaf on them, 
and stripped many of these plants to the ground. 
The beetles are doing that here now, and have been 
doing a vast amount of damage. As it seems imprac¬ 
ticable to poison them, there is a good prospect of a 
large crop of potato bugs again next year. 
The only man that told me of a large yield of 
potatoes, is Mr. Jacques, of Woodward & Jacques. 
His “Money Makers” go about 300 bushels to the 
acre. Both Mr. Woodward and Mr. Jacques tell me 
that Carman No. 3, grown on their sandy soil, is the 
best potato in quality they have ever grown ; and of 
course, like the rest of us, they find it one of the 
heaviest yielders. t. greiner 
TWO NEW NOTES. 
Mr. H. M. Stringfellow, of Texas, tells, in his 
book, “ The New Horticulture,” how he came to 
realize the value and importance of potash in fertil¬ 
izers. He was growing cabbage and melons, and 
using vast quantities of manure, bone, cotton-seed 
meal and other fertilizers rich in nitrogen and phos¬ 
phoric acid. After a year or two, the crops failed for 
some reason for which the local soil doctors could not 
account. Near Mr. Stringfellow’s home was a powder 
house in which were about five tons of gunpowder 
which had been damaged by wet. It was proposed to 
throw this powder into the bay. Mr. Stringfellow 
remembered that gunpowder contains a large per¬ 
centage of nitrate of potash. He also realized that 
his manuring, thus far, had been one-sided in the 
fact that he had used a large excess of nitrogen and 
phosphoric acid. He got the gunpowder for the haul¬ 
ing, and at once spread the five tons on four acres of 
land, harrowed it in, and set out cabbage. The result 
was the biggest crop of cabbage ever known in that 
part of the country. That was, probably, the most 
forcible manuring ever known in the history of horti¬ 
culture. When those five tons of powder exploded 
into cabbage heads weighing 15 pounds and more, the 
force blew Mr. Stringfellow into a potash crank, and 
he has been one ever since. He says that cabbage 
and melons obtain more benefit from potash than 
any other crop that he has grown. 
O 
The English Mark Lane Express gives some re¬ 
markable facts about the condition of the Eng¬ 
lish dairy farmers. About a year ago, a coopera¬ 
tive creamery was started in Australia for the 
purpose of making butter to send to the English 
market. Starting with a daily supply of 1,000 
gallons, this creamery is now using 4,000 gallons 
of milk per day. The farmer averages 6% cents per 
gallon with the skimmed milk returned. In the Eng¬ 
lish market, the butter has averaged a little over 20 
cents a pound. This is about the same as the price 
obtained by the Irish dairymen who ship from Cork 
to London. It is a wonderful thing that Australian 
dairymen can ship butter half around the world and 
compete with dairymen only 500 miles away ! Of 
course, you will say that the Australian dairyman has 
cheaper food, cheaper labor and a finer climate, be¬ 
sides the great advantage of cooperation ! That is all 
true, but it does not cover the chief reason. A man 
only 100 miles from London may be charged three 
times as much to ship his butter over the railroad, as 
is charged to ship a pound from Australia to London. 
In fact, the great advantage in favor of the Australian 
is the heavy freight or express rate charged the Eng¬ 
lishman. The foreigner sends a pound of butter half 
around the globe cheaper than the home farmer can 
send it on a half-hour’s journey. Now that is very 
much the situation we have in this country. The cost 
of short hauls over our railroads is out of all propor¬ 
tion as compared with the rate for long hauls. It is 
the excessive cost of shipping and handling produce 
that gives the farmers such a small proportion of even 
the present low prices. There is another thing about 
this Australian butter trade which will put a yellow 
streak on the horizon of the American dairymen. 
The more England eats of Australian butter, the less 
can she take from this country. Our trade abroad 
has been hurt already by men who sent bogus butter 
and filled cheese, and now, right at the time when our 
dairy goods have a bad name, comes Australia with 
her tons of good creamery butter ! 
BUSINESS BITS. 
Wills A. Seward, Budd’s Lake, N. J., will sell at auction ou 
Trenton Fair Grounds, October 2, 25 head of Berkshires. He is 
making room for breeding stock to bupply the export trade. 
Tuere have been great improvements in green bone and vegetable 
cutters since they have come into such general use. The Roche 
cutter combines so many of these that it is a well nigh perfect 
machine. Full information will be given by the Standard Green 
Bone and Vegetable Cutter Co., Milford, Mass. 
The manufacturers of the De Laval Baby separator have just 
issued a new catalogue of their different sized and priced 
machines. It illustrates the separators, and gives considerable 
useful information about them as well as their advantages. If 
you are at all interested, they will be glad to send the catalogue 
on your application for it. Address the De Laval Separator Co., 
74 Cortlandt Street, N. Y. 
An important thing to consider on stumpy farms, is the work 
and cost of grubbing and clearing the land. This, however, can 
be accomplished so rapidly with a good, reliable stump puller 
that the cost is made very slight, and the work easy. In clearing 
timber land, the wood alone, in many cases, will pay for one of 
these machines, and you have the machine left, and the best land 
on which to growcabnndant crops. In working stump land, the 
breakage to farm implements may cost a good part of the price 
of the stump puller. The Hawkeye Grub and Stump machine is 
thoroughly reliable, easily operated, and will clear two acres at 
one setting. The makers, Milne Mfg. Co., Monmouth, Ill., wid send 
catalogue and prices of this and other appliances for clearing 
timber lands, if you ask for it. 
The ever-returning wash day with its invariable rub, rub, is 
one of the banes of woman’s life on the farm. The Horton Mfg. 
Co., Portland, Mich., are now making Terriff’s Perfect washing 
machine, and say that it is giving such general satisfaction that, 
even in these times of depression in trade, they are meeting with 
the greatest success. Their success is directly attributed to the 
fact that their machines are sold under a positive guarantee to 
wash as clean as can be done on the wash board, and the unquali¬ 
fied offer to refund the money if found not to be as represented. 
This position makes easy work for their agents, as every one is 
anxious to lighten the labor of wash day. Agents ought to find 
this pleasant and profitable work. 
□ The Chautauqua Reading Circle is widening the scope of its 
four-years’ plan by the introduction, this year, of French his¬ 
tory. What is called the French Greek year, opens up a most 
attractive field for the student. The books are all prepared by 
specialists who are not only fully acquainted with the subjects, 
but have skill in presenting them in an attractive manner. The 
readers of Chautauqua books are thoughtful men and women, so 
that the subjects are treated, not in the fashion of school books, 
but with the special needs of these Chautauqua students in mind, 
The growth of the French nation, and its influence upon modern 
life and thought, are subjects full of interest to the intelligent 
American, always a sympathetic observer of French attainments, 
and Chautauqua students are to be congratulated upon the en¬ 
largement of their opportunities 
