■She RURAL NEW-YORKER 
57 
All Sorts 
The Care of Opossums 
I nin raising opossums for pets and also 
for their meat, which we are very fond of. 
How many females should be kept with 
a male? I find the Virginia opossums 
very easy to raise. I keep them in a bar¬ 
rel or box of leaves and change bedding 
once a week and feed them on all kinds 
of fruits, cornbread and milk and boiled 
cabbage; also fresh meats sometimes. I 
would be glad of any information on “pos¬ 
sums also muskrats. Of the latter, I 
had a dozen for pets this Summer. What 
time of year do they have young? 
Virginia. G. g. c. 
Quarters for opossum.s should be well 
shaded in Summer. I)ry woods or groves 
of trees in field or jjasture are excellent 
places to build them. Each female should 
have a .vard at least six or eiglit fe<*t in 
diameter. 'The fence may be of hoards, on 
end. or of wire netting. Netting for this 
purpose should not he coarser than %- 
inch mesh, otherwise the young will es¬ 
cape. A six-foot fence, with a board 
overhang IS inches wide extending inward 
at the toil, will he sufficient. A floor, 
preferably of netting, covered by a few 
inches of earth, is necessary to prevent 
undermining. Nest boxes should be 
weather-proof ami large enough for plenty 
of hediiing in cold weather. There should 
be an air space between the box and 
ground to prevent djimpness. 
Opossums eat a variety of food, as 
meat. eggs. milk, fruit, bread, cooked veg¬ 
etables. .soft nuts, insects, crawfish, and 
mice. On a farm the cost of feeding is 
very little. In tlie wild state they 
iisuall.v fast while tlu‘ giound is covered 
with snow. 'J'his animal is very prolific. 
The number of young in a litter is .some¬ 
times as high as l.'l. and in the SotiCheru 
part of its range it is said to produce 
three litters a year. The period of gesta¬ 
tion is about l.'S days. One male will 
serve several females. Except while the 
females are carrying young, it is gener¬ 
ally fea.sible to allow the members of a 
breeding group to run together, either in 
a large encbisure having a number of 
nest boxes or in a series of adjoining pens 
connected by open doors. 
R. N.-Y. The above information is 
given by E. W. Nelson, chief of the Bio¬ 
logical Survey at Washington. There is 
ipiite a little business in raising opos.sums. 
The meat is good and skins are worth 40 
cents to $1. The Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment issue.s a good bulletin on the musk¬ 
rat, and it seems that “muskrat farming” 
is increasing. 
Excrescence on Rabbits 
What is the matter with my rabbits? 
'Phey have a large bunch under the throat 
wliich grows gr.'idually and is now ahoTit 
the size of a hen's egg. 'I'hey seem to eat 
nil right. I fee<l them carrots, turnips, 
corn and bran, vines and all the water 
they want. P. Ii. 
Bernard’s B>ay, N. X. 
T am unable, from the meager informa¬ 
tion which you furnish, to diagnose the 
trouble. I conclude, however, that your 
r.abbits are either suffering from abscesses, 
or else the bunch under the throat is a 
dewla)!. which many rabbits acquire, par- 
ticul.arly breeding does of advanced age. 
If the bunch is hard it is tirobably an ab¬ 
scess and should be lanced and thoroughly 
disinfected. Abscesses on rabl)its are 
comparatividy freiiuent, and my experi¬ 
ence is that when an animal once sufTers 
from them it is difficult to cure them en¬ 
tirely. for they seem to'become inoculated 
with the germ and the abscess will break 
out after it has been apparently cured. 
If the bunch is soft and flabby it is prob¬ 
ably dewlap. This is more pronounced 
on New Zealauds .ind Flemish (iiants 
than on Belgian hares, although all breeds 
are likely to ac«iuire it. The dewlaj) does 
not ajipear upon young animals and gen¬ 
erally is more jironounced on old breeding 
does. F. f. 1). 
The Law in Delaware 
A neighbor owns a small farm, and his 
ajiplc orchard has been his main interest 
and means of making bis living. llis 
farm is posted and well fenced. This Fall 
men from the city eight miles distant, 
three of them in an automobile, stopped 
by the orchard, two of them got over and 
gathered fruit. The owner sliot at them 
with a shotgun and hit one of them. Then 
the three of them got to him and beat 
him up pretty badly. The owner was ar¬ 
rested and later tried in court, and tJie 
.judge fined him .jtlOO and cost of jtrosecu- 
tion. Yet he had not gone off his own 
property, .and the thieves were onl.v half 
an hour from their cit.v home at most and 
could not have been very hungry, nor were 
they poor. I have felt sorry ever since 
that such a decision should disgrace Dela¬ 
ware’s court records. a. e. r. 
Newcastle To.. Del. 
Bath-tub for Hogs 
Some time .ago R. N.-Y. readers gav’e 
their experience in removing the hair 
from dressed hogs. Here is my little bit. 
<fet a cast-iron^ bathtub, stand it on its 
legs, build jilatform so it fits irnder flang¬ 
ing on incline end. fill tub half full of 
water. Now build fire under bathtub; 
j’ou will only need a big armful of wood 
to .scald six or eight hogs up to oOO-lb. 
porkers. Don’t blame me if the w.ater 
gets toO' hot ; cool it down. The gasoline, 
<ir the old-time .scalding tub man will ask 
why the Hope Farm man did not think 
this out long ago and jiass it along. My 
bathtub is now out among the neighbors 
“doing its bit.” as I shall not need it be¬ 
fore next corn planting time. Be sure to 
empty out water after using, so it won’t 
, J, n. Jr’./VHSTEB. 
Maryland. 
Trespass in Missouri 
T have thought it would be a pleasure 
to rebuild a worn-out farm in the East, 
but if this locality is subject to tres¬ 
passers. as correspondents indicate, I 
would be mighty shy of it. We do it dif¬ 
ferent. D. B. 0. 
^Missouri. 
How do you do it in Missouri? We all 
want to know. The big factory towns of 
the East have developed a lawless cla.ss of 
ne&Vut feuuBis 
Reproduced from the N. Y. Evening Telegram 
peojtle who roam about and trespa-ss at 
will. The auto gives them a double chance 
to get off with the spoils. Tell us how you 
do it. 
Clover Seeui.xo. —I like Mr. Shirley’s 
style and his originality, but I have 
])roved more than once, for my part, that 
his system of sowing oats, at least on the 
snow in M'inter, siiells failure. .Tack 
Frost may be a very good cultivator and 
all that, but the gentleman (?) is by no 
means as good and satisfactory as the 
jilow, cultivator and harrow. His .system 
might do for sowing Alfalfa, 'but ev’en 
with .\lfalfa one would exjiect a surer 
crop if the ground were plowed and har¬ 
rowed in the jirevious Fall, same as Fall 
wheat is. As 1 said .some time ago. the 
Tate Col. Curtis advocated sowing oats in 
mid-Winter. I do not think his teaching 
and examiile were very generally followed. 
I have no doubt, however, that the prac¬ 
tice is good for the sowing of White clover 
when the seed is not .scarified, and I have 
obtained recently some White clover with 
the intention of sowing it some time 
quite soon now. With regard to getting 
.stands of White clover and Alfalfa, I be¬ 
lieve we all make a mistake in not sow¬ 
ing mixtures of the various clovers. .sa.v 
,‘l lbs. W'Jiite clover, lbs. Alfalfa and 8 
lbs. Red or Alsike. In this -way we would 
gradually get into one at least of the.se 
clovers the one most suited to our respec¬ 
tive lands, and undoubtedly the kind best 
suited to our l.aml is the be.st for that par¬ 
ticular band. .1. .\. m’do.xai.d. 
I’rince Edward Lsland. 
T'se of STU-^rl> I’ri.LERS.—We have a 
small pear orchard which stands between 
two ajjplc blocks in such a way that it is 
hard to spray or cultivate. It is a source 
of annoyance and does not produce good 
(a-oi)s or large crops. We have decided 
to jnill out all but the Bartlett pears and 
(ill in with apples in rows to match one 
of the lilocks next to it. On the cultivat¬ 
ed part of the block we h ave been using 
one of the “one-man” stump-i)ullers. 
Whei-e the ground is not too much frozen 
two men can pull .seven or eight large 
Sheldon trees in two hours. With the 
ground frozen to a depth of three or four 
inches it takes four men to do the same 
amount of pulling. One man with a 
shovel and an axe can do a great deal to 
make it easier pulling by cutting roots as 
they show. At the best it is a heavy job 
and if I had much of it to do I should 
tiy to get the use of vne of the better 
hor.se-type pullers. a. c. w. 
The world’s greatest 
Gatalod of music 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 West Thirtieth Street, New York 
