1874.] 
AMERICAN AG-RICULTUR 1ST. 
165 
DO YOU 
WANT ONE 
OF THE VALUABLE 
PREMIUMS ? 
TWO MONTHS MORE. 
May ami June are the two months remaining, dur¬ 
ing which any person who wishes to obtain one or 
more of the useful and valuable articles offered in our 
Premium List (of which a copy will be sent free to any 
applicant, see page 199) can easily get them. This has 
already been done by more than 14,000 persons, who dur¬ 
ing years past have tried with success the raising of 
Clubs of Subscribers for our papers, and availed them¬ 
selves of the liberal offers of Premiums made by the 
Publishers. 
We invite all our Subscribers to take hold of this 
work and secure a Premium while the offer is open. 
Specimen copies of both papers will be sent to any wish¬ 
ing to show them for this purpose. 
*-—«>>»-- 
containing a great vaiiety of Items, including many 
good Hints and Suggestions which we throw into smaller 
type and condensed form, for want of space elsewhere. 
IS emitting Money: — ('liccks on 
New York City Banks or Bankers are best 
for large sums : make payable to the order of Orange 
Jiidd. Company. Post-Office Money Orders 
for $50 or less, are cheap and safe also. When these are not 
obtainable, register letters, affixing stamps for post¬ 
age and registry; put in the money and seal the letter in 
the presence of the postmaster, and take his receipt for it. 
Money sent in the above three methods is safe against loss. 
Postage : On American Agriculturist, 12 cents 
a year, and on Hearth and Home , 20 cents a year, in ad¬ 
vance. Double rates if not paid in advance at the 
office where the papers are received. For subscribers in 
British America, the postage, as above, must be sent 
to this office, with the subscription, for prepayment here. 
Also 20 cents for delivery of Hearth and Home and 12 
cents for delivery of American Agricidturist in New 
Yo k City. 
Itaimd Copies of Volume Thirty- 
two are now ready. Price, $2, at our office ; or $2.50 
each, if sent by mail. Any of the last seventeen volumes 
(16 to 32) will also be forwarded at same price. Sets of 
numbers sent to our office will be neatly bound in eur 
regular style, at75 cents per vol. (50 cents extra, if return 
ed by mail.) Missing numbers supplied at 12 cents each. 
Cluhs can at any time be increased by remitting 
for each addition the price pa d by the original members: 
or a small club may be increased to a larger one; thus; 
a person having sent 10 subscribers and $12 may after¬ 
ward send 10 more subscribers with only $8 ; making a 
club of 20 at $1 each ; and so of the other club rates. 
The German Agriculturist is pub¬ 
lished at the same price as the English edition, and is 
mainly a reproduction of that paper, with a special de¬ 
partment edited by the Hon. F. Mlinch. Will ourreaders 
kindly mention this to their German friends ? Perhaps 
some who employ Germans as gardeners, laborers, etc., 
would be glad to supply them with useful reading matter 
by subscribing for the German edition for them. 
Gardening' for Profit.— New and en 
larged edition. The success of Mr. Henderson’s work 
has been something unparalleled in the history of rural 
literature. No work of its class has in this country, and 
probably not in any other, had anything like the sale 
this has met with. The reasons for this are tttat it met a 
want which no other book did, and the author told all 
the secrets of the business without any reservation. 
The publishers intended to bring out a new edition next 
fall, but the demand during the past few months has 
been such as to make it necessary to produce it at once 
Several new chapters have been added, and, in the selec¬ 
tion of varieties, much has been changed, though the 
plan of the work is the same as before. The new edition, 
now in press, will probably be ready by the time this 
reaches our readers, or a few days after. Though over 
thirty pages larger the price will remain the same, $1.50 
by mail. 
Our Western Office.— Our friends in 
the West are reminded that we have an office at No. 4 
Lakeside Building, Chicago, 111., in charge of Mr. W. II. 
Busbey. Subscriptions to American Agriculturist and 
Hearth and Home are taken there, and sample copies 
of the papers and chromos are delivered, and orders re¬ 
ceived for advertising on the same terms as in New York. 
All our looks are on sale at the Western Office. Please 
call and examine, buy, subscribe, and advertise. 
Prize Essays on Laivu Manage¬ 
ment. —The makers of the “ Philadelphia Lawn Mow¬ 
er ” offer prizes for the best essays on the management 
of lawns. There are nine prizes, amounting in all to 
$368. The competing essays must he received at the 
office of the makers, 631 Market street, Philadelphia, 
before the first of June. 
Slack: Asia Slaasagles.— “A Constant 
Reader,” West Shelby, N. Y. We know of nothing that 
will prevent black ash shingles from warping ; it is their 
nature to warp. If we bad no choice but to use this tim¬ 
ber we would work it up into what are called “shakes,” 
strips two feet long, eight inches wide, and three quar¬ 
ters of an inch thick at the butt, and use them. 
EsslaTUage fbs- “ Croat.—“II. C. C.,” 
Adams Co., O. Any hard-headed 'cabbage is used for 
making sauer-kraut. The Flat Dutch and Bergen Drum¬ 
head are used about New York, but anyone adapted to 
your soil will answer. 
Bugs <>u ttrapc-Tinc.—E. O. Wetteyer. 
The insects that eat off the blossoms of your grape arc 
no doubt rose-bugs. The only remedy is to shake off 
early in the morning, catch in a dish with water, and kill. 
Tlie Michigan Bee Association will 
convene at Kalamazoo, May 6th, 1S74. Arnd C. Batch is 
President. 
Tl*e Ifforticsaltus-al Exhibition otf* 
Lyons, France, is now one of the most important 
held in Europe; a note from tlie Secretary of the Cercle 
Ilortxole informs us that the next annual exhibition 
will be hel l in September next, 17th to 20th. 
Buried Pork.-“C. W. N.,” Essex Co., 
Mass., in digging a cellar, disinterred a fat hog which he 
ha 1 buried four years before, and found it in a state of 
almost perfect preservation, no asks why it did not de¬ 
cay. Fat buried in this manner decays very slowly in¬ 
deed, and there was probably enough to protect tlie other 
parts of tlie animal. Oily seeds, when buried deeply in 
the soil, are preserve 1 for a very long time. It often 
happens that fat, and even flesh, when buried, is con¬ 
verted into a peculiar substance called adipocere, and 
in this state bodies are found after very many years, with 
their form almost perfectly preserved. 
Size of am Acre.—“J. D.,” Brooklyn, 
N. Y. A piece of land 210 feet on one side and 207 feet 
5 inches on the other, will make an acre. If an exact 
square is desired the side will be 208 feet 8 inches and 
% 0 of an inch. Upon newly broken prairie sod a crop 
of 20 bushels of wheat is a fair yield ; with every favor¬ 
able circumstance this yield may reach 25 to 35 bushels 
per acre. Even more than this has been occasionally 
raised. 
Sending Plants l»y Mail.— “ A. C. S.,” 
Factoryville, Pa., writes—“I sent some strawberry, rasp¬ 
berry, and other plants to my sou in Washington Terri¬ 
tory by mail, packed in the following manner. 1 took 
common quart oyster cans, cut out one end to make room 
for packing, moistened the plants, filled the cans, putting 
some damp moss on top. Cut a piece of tin the right 
shape to cover the end of the can, and soldered it tight. 
Put. paper around tlie whole for convenience in directing. 
Although they were nearly four weeks on the way, yet 
they arrived in good order, and nearly all lived.”—This 
will answer in cold weather with dormant plants, hut 
had the weather been warm, or the plants in a growing 
state, they would have been decayed and useless. 
Newburgh Bay Horticultural So¬ 
ciety. —This wide-awake society announces its annual 
exhibition for September 22d to 24th. Aside from the 
great shows at Boston and Philadelphia such a fine dis¬ 
play of fruit can not be seen elsewhere. 
SI NI>K V HUMBUGS.—In fulfilling 
our duty in looking over the mass of humbug material, 
one is reminded of a certain resemblance those affairs 
have to plants. We hope the plants will excuse us for 
mentioning them in such company, but it is only in the 
matter of duration that humbugs resemble them. Some 
plants perform their career in a day, others take weeks 
and months. Again, some endure for a year and two 
years, while many continue from year to year indefinitely. 
The humbugs arc many of them too lovely to last, and 
have almost the evanescence of the mushroom. Of this 
kind is the Magnolia (Iowa) “ Library Concert,” run by 
the promising Maynard. We mentioned last month its 
removal to Chicago, but before the article reached our 
readers the “moral” youth was stopped; the hard¬ 
hearted officers, who had no “ music in their souls,” ar¬ 
rested Mr. Library-Concert-man, and thus this affair went 
out almost as rapidly as a puff-ball n :der a hot sun. Of 
the annual kind the majority of the quack medicines are 
good examples, as the average duration of these is not 
more than a year. Now and then one of these turns ont 
a perennial, but they rarely flourish after the first winter. 
The most lasting humbugs are those which are on the 
border line between rascality and respectability. Tb-s 
Kentucky Public Library Lottery is an example in which 
a scheme is kept along by the aid of names that have 
heretofore been considered respectable. This is a peren¬ 
nial, the existence of which depends upon the season. 
So long as there are showers of greenbacks every few 
months this disgraceful affair will survive, but when peo¬ 
ple become tired of throwing away money upon it there 
will be an end. 
THE CRIES OP THE WOUNDED 
after a battle is one of the saddest things about war, and 
it is really tie sober side of onr humbug matters. How¬ 
ever vexed we may feel that a person should he so 
stupid as to trust bis money to swindlers, whose prom¬ 
ises every sensible person must know can never be made 
good, yet after all we read the letters of the victims with 
sadness. There is often a touch of the pathetic in the 
complaints of those who could ill afford to lose; but 
there is hope for them, as they generally request us to 
publish their cases as warning to others. The victims of 
the Union Furnishing Co., of Chicago, have not yet 
ceased to cry out. All the consolation we can give them 
is that Geo. B. nodge & Co. are closed, and that they 
have thousands of companions in suffering. These lefc- 
tvrs are sad, but one from a man in Vermont is 
A nOUSE OP ANOTHER COLOR. 
This gentleman likes the Agriculturist because it ex¬ 
poses humbugs, but he is on the lookout for a “ gift en¬ 
terprise” that is reliable. He sends us a circular of one 
which claims to have done business for ten years, and 
says, “If I could see any one who ever drew anything of 
any account, or a large sum of money and got it, I might 
have some faith.” Faith in a gift enterprise 1 Here is a 
confiding gentleman. Why, bless your dear Green Moun¬ 
tain heart, the object of these men is to get money, not 
to give it. There are many things in which one may 
have “faith.” To take no higher view, you may have 
faith that honest work will bring honest money, that a 
dollar earned will do you in the end more good than a 
hundred dollars cheated out of other people, as it would 
he if you drew it in a lottery—but “ faith” in a “gift 
enterprise” never I.Here we have it: 
“DOCTOR MAUSTELLUS IMPROVED MAGNUM OPUS.” 
What Dr. M.’s “big work” was 1 efore he improved it 
we don't know, hilt now it is a “chemical preparation 
for making all explosive fluids non-explosive.” What 
mischief this will play with the nitro-glycerine business. 
And then “ this preparation not only save lamps from 
exploding, but prevents chimneys from cracking and 
breaking.” It will not mend a cellar door and put a baby 
to sleep yet, but when this “ magnum opus ” gets “ im¬ 
proved” a few more times we can’t say what it may do. 
Such tilings as these are hawked about the country by 
plausible, glib-tongued fellows, who can convince nine 
people out of ten that the claims are true, and appar¬ 
ently prove it by experiment. 
Gumption is not an elegant word, but it is the only 
single one that we know of that expresses in short “ an 
intelligent and practical knowledge of matters and things 
in general.” If gumption could be imparted at schools, 
if a majority of people had it, these multitudinous hum¬ 
bugs would have “ no show.” Alas! the lack of gump¬ 
tion. Once in a while these venders meet the wrong 
customer. The chap with the "magnum opus” hap¬ 
pened at Tiffin, Ohio, to meet with a man with gumption 
—but we will let him tell his own story: “ This evening 
a young man called at my house selling a compound (see 
the inclosed circular). After putting some of his prepa¬ 
ration into the lamp, he lighted the wick and stuck it in 
the lamp, but coal-oil of the proper standard will admit 
