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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 12 
The Rural New=Yorker. 
THE BUSINESS FARMERS' PAPER. 
A National Weekly Journal for Country and Suburban Homes. 
Established 1850. 
Elbert S. Carman. Editor-In-Chief. 
Herbert W. Collingwood, Managing- Editor. 
Joun J. Dillon, Business Manager. 
SUBSCRIPTIONS. 
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8s. 6d., or 8!4 marks, or 10 V% francs. 
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of 10 or more lines, and 1,000-line orders, 25 cents per line. 
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We must have copy one week before the date of issue. 
Be sure that the name and address of sender, with ntme of 
Post-office and State, and what the remittance is for, appear in 
every letter. Money orders and bank drafts on New York are the 
safest means of transmitting money. 
Address all business communications and make all orders pay 
able to THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
Corner Chambers and Pearl Streets, New York. 
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1896. 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH POTATO. 
Small tubers of this excellent potato will be sent 
to all subscribers who apply for it and send a two- 
cent stamp. The potatoes will be sent next February. 
O 
We have often called attention to the feeding value 
of the bran and “ polish ” obtained in preparing rice 
for market. Large quantities of this refuse are pro¬ 
duced in Louisiana, and for many years little effort 
was made to utilize it at home or to find a market for 
it abroad. Now a new stock food composed of rice 
bran and waste molasses, so mixed as to be com¬ 
paratively dry and easily handled, is to be introduced. 
Such a combination ought to be a good one, and if 
honestly prepared and advertised at a fair price, it 
ought to become popular. Turn the wastes to good 
account. How about that waste nitrogen in the air 
above your farm ? Is Crimson clover saving it for you ? 
0 
The public was shocked last Wednesday to learn 
that Prof. Lodeman of the Cornell Experiment Sta¬ 
tion had taken his life. Though a comparatively 
young man, Prof. Lodeman was one of the most reli¬ 
able horticulturists in the country. In matters per¬ 
taining to spraying and the cultivation of orchards, 
he took a high rank, and as a teacher and lecturer, 
he will be pleasantly remembered by hundreds of 
students and farmers. His death is a distinct loss to 
American horticulture. The R. N.-Y. has now on 
hand a report of his last experiment in fertilizing 
apple orchards. His sad act was, probably, induced 
by despondency due to overwork and study, and his 
fate should be a warning to ambitious young men 
who seek to cover, in a few short years, what Nature 
meant should be left to a lifetime. 
© 
Mr. Van Wagenen’s interesting article on milk, 
page 826, will be read with interest by many dairy¬ 
men. We venture to say that lots of men who have 
fed and milked cows all their lives, do not know just 
what milk is. The “inside works” of a cow are won¬ 
derfully intricate. Think of the marvelous and deli¬ 
cate work required to turn hay or ensilage and grain 
into the complex mixture we call milk. It is easy to 
see how skillfully and carefully the cow must be fed 
and watched in order to keep this machine up to its 
finest work. You will notice that the fat comes into 
the milk last of all, and that it is determined a good 
deal by the cow’s nervous condition. That gives you 
an idea of what happens when the hired man kicks or 
swears at a nervous cow like a Jersey. Of course, 
you would never dream of swearing or kicking butter 
right away from your own bread ! It is always that 
hired man who does such work. 
O 
When E. W. Bull tamed the American wild grape 
and produced the Concord, he did a great service to 
the American people. We may safely say that he 
did more for his country than any of those who have 
made improvements in firearms or other weapons, and 
while Mr. Bull failed to receive a just share of the 
money which his patient work brought into circula¬ 
tion, his memory is safe so long as the Concord grape 
is grown. It is hard for us to realize, in our day, 
what the Concord meant to American grape growers. 
Before its advent, fresh grapes of good quality were 
a luxury—about as much so as are Christmas straw¬ 
berries at the present time. The story of the Con¬ 
cord grape has been often told and need not be re¬ 
peated here. It is a singular fact that this first success 
of Mr. Bull was so great that through all the two score 
years that have elapsed since its introduction, our most 
skillful horticulturists have been unable to produce 
a variety that will actually take its place. Go into 
the great commercial vineyards and you will be 
astonished to see how large a proportion of Concords 
are still grown and sold. Mr. Geo. W. Campbell tells 
us on page 814, that after 20 years of patient work, 
involving the testing of thousands of seedlings, he has 
won the greatest success of his life in producing a 
variety which possesses “every good point of the 
Concord without any of its faults or weaknesses ” ! 
We understand from that what a high standard was 
set by Mr. Bull in the first place. Mr. Campbell may 
well be proud of the fact that he will leave to the 
world an improved Concord grape. 
0 
The Ontario Agricultural and Experimental Union 
is a Canadian association which aims to secure 
cooperation between the Ontario Agricultural College 
and the leading farmers of the province. Coopera¬ 
tive experiment work is a leading feature of this 
Union. In 1886, it secured the interest of 12 farmers 
who were ready to give a part of their farms for ex¬ 
perimenting. This year, there were 2,260 experi¬ 
ments with over 11,000 plots of ground in cultivation. 
These plots were scattered all over the province, and 
embraced all sorts of soil. It is easy to see how 
valuable a fertilizer or variety test will be when one 
may compare the averages of 500 or more trials in a 
single season. Similar cooperative work is done in 
live stock, horticulture, dairying, etc. Each year a 
meeting is held at the agricultural college for a gen¬ 
eral review of the season’s work. The meeting this 
year will be held on December 11 and 12. This plan 
of cooperative work is an excellent one. It brings 
farmers closer to the college, and widens the scope of 
every experiment, for an average of 100 experiments 
is always more reliable than a single one. There 
ought to be a similar union in every State in this 
country. 
0 
Every boy who uses a pop-gun knows something 
of the power of compressed air. The air is elastic, 
like a spring. Push it into a small space, and it 
exerts a constant and powerful pressure to expand 
and get back to its usual condition. This force, like 
the expansive force of steam, can be made to turn a 
wheel, and, from that, is turned to almost any desired 
form of labor. In this city, heavy street cars are 
running every day on the force of compressed air. 
They carry a tank of air which may be filled at each 
trip. In France, compressed air is actually taking the 
place of electricity for street-car motors, and for use 
in many factories. The air is forced through long 
tubes or pipes, often miles in length. These immense 
pop-guns, so to speak, are tapped at intervals, and the 
force may be applied to almost any work. The air 
force is cleaner and safer than steam or electricity, 
and does not require skilled engineers to direct it. 
There are fewer break-downs, and results are said to 
be more certain. For all purposes except lighting, 
this compressed air would seem to be better than 
electricity for farm neighborhoods. The French have, 
thus far,, done most in the way of developing this 
new application of power, and some of their results 
are so promising that we may confidently expect im¬ 
portant results from their experiments. 
O 
Agricultural writers are fond of saying that the 
manure pile is the farmer’s bank, and in many ways, 
the comparison is a true one. On a large proportion, 
if not a majority, of American farms, the manure 
pile and, possibly, a clover sod are the only fertiliz¬ 
ing credits to offset the debits of crops taken from 
the soil. About the only plant food that is actually 
brought to such farms is the bran or cotton-seed meal 
that is fed to the stock, and is thus indirectly used to 
fertilize the soil. No man could prosper who per¬ 
mitted half a dozen people to handle his bank account 
as they saw fit. No farmer can hope to keep up the 
fertility of his farm who permits any considerable 
part of the manure pile to leach or wash away from 
a cropped field. The problem of saving and applying 
the manure so as to obtain the greatest value from it 
is a vital one with most farmers. The notes printed 
on another page are useful chiefly because they show 
the practices of good farmers in different parts of the 
country. Mr. Barns speaks of using kainit on the 
manure. The R. N.-Y. has, for years, advocated the 
plan of “ feeding the manure pile.” Where manure 
is to be used on fruit farms, we should always use a 
peck of kainit and a bushel of ground bone or dis¬ 
solved rock to each load of manure. Our opinion is 
that such “feeding” will pay on fruits or vegetables. 
Mr. Rice calls attention to the fact that the silo has 
changed the methods of manuring on many dairy 
farms. The manure is now crowded on the corn fields, 
and the rotation has been shortened so as to bring 
the corn fields as close to the barn as possible. In 
many cases, the outlying fields are seeded to Timothy 
and fed with fertilizers entirely. The Timothy is 
sold to buy grain, while the level lands near the barn 
produce corn and clover—the manure being all used 
on the clover sod to produce ensilage corn. It is 
evident that western farmers are paying more atten¬ 
tion to the saving of manure than they did 10 years 
ago, and in spite of the present low price of corn, we 
believe that it will pay them to study how best to 
prevent the loss of both solids and liquids. Land can¬ 
not be made too rich for a well-cultivated corn crop. 
There is, however, reason in what Mr. Watson says 
about sheltering manure when 1,000 feet of lumber 
represent 100 bushels of corn ! 
a 
While the breeder continues to develop his sheep, 
cattle and swine in the lines most profitable to him, 
the commercial florist has followed out, quite as 
closely, the development of his stock to a higher or 
more fixed type, with a greater risk of reversion to 
the primitive form. During the past 40 years carna¬ 
tions have been “bred” with extreme care, producing 
the large, double, symmetrical fragrant flower now 
seen in commercial greenhouses, yet in a large batch 
of seedlings, one constantly sees the single or semi¬ 
double purplish bloom of southern Europe that 
Theophrastus called the “Divine Flower” some 2,000 
years ago. The present ideal carnation must be clear 
and distinct in color (any of the purple shades being, 
as a rule, discarded) ; it must be very double, with a 
firm calyx and long, stout stem. The number of the 
purple and magenta shades among seedlings shows 
the persistence of the primitive type, since this color 
is scarcely ever used as a breeder. Striped varieties, 
charming as they often are, are not in demand in this 
country, though they hold a recognized place abroad. 
At the present time we find a wide range of choice in 
white and pink varieties, but there are few good yel¬ 
lows. There appears to be no perfectly pure yellow, 
entirely free from flakes or stripes of red, in general 
cultivation, and it is held by most cultivators that no 
clear yellow yet produced has sufficient vigor to be of 
value commercially, while none of the existing yel¬ 
lows flaked with red or pink has yet proven entirely 
satisfactory to the grower. The ideal yellow carna¬ 
tion is yet to be found. 
O 
BREVITIES. 
I had to laugh ’way back in '93, 
When big Sam Perkins up an’ says to me, 
“ I’m gonter take a fifty-dollar bill 
An’ take that World’s Fair in an’ git my fill 
Of good siglit-seein’ once afore I die.” 
When he come home, “Well, what’d ye see ?” says I. 
He kinder scratched his head, “Weil, sir 1” says he 
“ I started in that picter gallery 
An’ run across a picter that some way, 
Jest held me stuck—I couldn’t git away. 
I jest hung ’round it—that was all I see. 
No live stock, fruit, grain or machinery, 
But jest a picter ! Fifty dollars lost 1” 
An’ yet it paid him every cent it cost, 
For that air picter growed right to his mind. 
An’ all through life at every turn he’ll find 
Its presence like a salve for memory’s sore 
An’ life is sweeter than it was afore ! 
Who has the choice of the chores at your place ? 
A man is known by the company he says “ no ” to. 
Things must boil up before you can boil them down. 
An “ ear muff ” is evidently a failure to “ catch a sound.” 
What’s the matter with the hack writer ? He’s all write— no 
real experience. 
The conscience of the man who gives or takes a bribe is clothed 
in a cash smear dress. 
Get a big air space between yourself and the devil. Warm 
yourself by exercising in good deeds. 
The R. N.-Y. will continue its “campaign of education” for 1897. 
Tickets of the entire course (52 issues) $1. 
Mighty few weed seeds in cow manure made from ensilage, 
clover hay and grain. Most of the weed seeds are in the Timothy’ 
Sell it! 
We advise you to carry a weapon in your hip pocket. Not a 
pistol or a flask, but a good note book. Use it freely ! Pull it on 
the scrubs ! 
The parts of the body where “ colds” creep in, are nape of the 
neck and the lower shin, the wrist and the back— “cold” drops its 
“pull” when wrist, fool, back are ail clothed with wool. 
The scrub bull is half the herd. If he heard half the things said 
about him at the institute, he would be found dead the following 
morning. He would thus serve his master’s best interests. 
The famous or infamous freeze gave Florida a bad set-back. 
Old Winter gave her a foul blow below the frost belt. She is com¬ 
ing up again. The Florida orange is the best orange grown. 
Years ago, we used to recite at school the great story of Ber¬ 
nardo Delcarpio. He ordered the King to “ put life in this cold 
frame! ” The gardener’s daughter (page 817) might have carried 
out the command ! 
No man could make a living in this age growing such potatoes 
as Sir Walter Raleigh first took to Ireland! They were scrubs 
but they make one end of the liue of improvement that reaches to 
the present Sir Walter Raleigh potato. 
Thousands of farmers have, evidently, decided to wait for “ dol¬ 
lar wheat.” In other words, they wish to hold their wheat until 
the price in New York reaches $1 a bushel. This figure is likely 
to be reached if farmers can hold back their grain and not pour it 
in too freely. 
What happens when a man tries to lift 200 pounds when he 
knows that he can lift only 150 ? A lame back and “ kidney dis¬ 
ease.” What happens when a man without grinding teeth eats 
food that requires chewing ? Dyspepsia and “ stomach trouble.” 
If you can’t chew, use softer food! Substitute cooking for chewing! 
