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Binding,..^ ^^l^lff^.*^ Z^fifa(r:..^T 

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Residence, „ 

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/To  BUbHcribers  in 
(       the  county. 


f  CITY  U9T 

Lane  Agri  &  Ilorlioiiltural 

3^i'fJ -w-i-i^^'io  CENTS. 


To  BubBoribern  out  of  >     dri    OC5 
the  county.  ('     Cpl.^O. 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  JANUARY  15,  1877. 


LINNiEUS  EATHVON,  PuMisher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


imir 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Hade  a  promiiient  feature,  with  special  reference  to  the 
wants  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit-Grower. 


Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 

Edited  Tjy  Trof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


The  Lancastrh  Farmer  having  completed  its  eighth 
year  under  various  viciseitudes,  now  commences  its  ninth 
volume'  under,  it  is  hoped,  more  favorable  auspiceB  than 
attended  its  former  volumcB.  When  the  publishers  of  the 
last  two  volumes  assumed  the  responsibilities  of  its  publi- 
cation, it  WU8  with  a  determinatiou  to  make  such  iinprove- 
meuts  HS  would  place  the  farmer's  organ  of  tins  gieat  iipri- 
cnltural  county  in  the  very  front  rank  of  agricultural  jour- 
nalism.  That  this  has  been  accompliBlied  wo  think  our 
readers  will  bear  cheerful  teetimony.  If  reason  bly  sus- 
tained, our  aim  is  to  make  it  stiD  more  interesting  and  iu- 
Btructive  under  te  new  proprietorship.  In  this,  however, 
we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  friend  of  the  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor,  Prof.  Uathvon,  on 
subjects  connected  with  the  science  of  farming,  and  partic- 
ularly that  specialty  of  which  he  is  bo  thoroughly  a  master — 
entomological  science— some  knowledge  of  which  has  become 
a  necessity  to  the  successful  farmer,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  than  the  price  of  this  publication. 

The  Farmer  will  be  published  on  the  15th  of  every 
month,  printed  on  good  paper  with  clear  type,  in  con- 
venient form  for  reiuling  and  binding,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
Bcribers  on  the  following 

TERMS  : 

To  Bubscribers  residing  within  the  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,   ---.-.  $i.oo 

Six  Copies,  one  year,     -  -  ,  .  .  _        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -----_.        7.50 

To  subscribers   outside  of   Lancaster  county,  including 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  publishers : 
One  Copy,  one  year,    -  -----  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       -        .        .  -  .        .         5.00 

All  subscriptions  will  commence  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otherwise  ordered. 

All  cuminunications  intended  for  publication  should  be 
addressed  to  the  Editor,  and,  to  secure  insertion,  should  be 
in  his  hands  by  the  first  of  the  month  of  publication. 

All  business  letters,  containing  subscriptions  and  adver- 
tisements, should  be  addressed  to  the  pubUsher. 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 


LINNiEUS  RATHVON, 

32  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATES  OF  ADTERTISING  —  Ten    Cents   « 
line  for  each  Insertion.     TweWe  lines  to  the  inoh. 


To  the  Public, 1 

To  our  Readers,        .-.---  1 

After  Thoughts, 1 

Sparrows,          .---•--  2 
Parsnips,        ...-----2 

Green  Manuriug.    A.  B.  K.,    -        -        -        -  2 

Essay  on  Tobacco  Culture.    Pbter  8.  Rbist.    -  3 

The  Care  of  Hogs.     John  B.  Ebb.          .        .  3 

The  Tarn— Sweet  Potato.     Old  Cultivator.    -  4 

AreForests  aBenefittoFruit-Growing.  L.S.R.  -  4 

Egypt,           ..--.-..  4 

Twenty  Millions  in  Beef,         ....  5 

Blackberries,         --.....6 

Choice  Winter  Flowers,    .....  7 

French  Land  Owners,  -.----  8 

A  Model  Farm,          .......  9 

Clearing  Land  by  Dynamite,        ....  9 

Farming  vs.  Profession,     -        .        .        .        .  9 

Pennsylvania  State  AgricuU.ural  Society,    -        -  9 

Pennsylvania  Fruit  Growers'  Association,       -  10 

Our  Local  Organizations,    -----  11 

Proceedinge  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural 
and  Horticnltnral  Society. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,         ...  13 

The  Linnasan  Society,   ------  lH 

Recipe  for  Cleaning  Wool,        -        -        -        .  12 

Poetry— To  My  Friend  Lena.  MaryL.Groff.  -  13 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Bread  Making, ..13 

A  Word  to  Housewives,        .....  13 

How  to  Pour  Tea, -  13 

Origin  of  Dessert,         ......  13 

Valuable  Recipes,      -.-...  13 

LIVE  STOCK. 

Hens  in  Winter,     -        -         .....  13 

Raise  Your  own  Cows,      -----  14 

Ayrshire  Cows,      -        .--...  14 

The  Leghorn  Fowls,          ....        -  14 

Facilitating  Draught  of  Horses,  -        -        -        -  14 

How  to  Buy  a  Horse,        .        -        ...  14 
Farm  Horses,        -------14 

Balky  Horses    -------  14 

Management  of  Geese,  -        -        -        -        .14 

Rats  and  Mice,           ------  14 

Salt  for  Chickens,         - 15 

Feed  Horses  Regularly,    .        -        ...  15 

Make  Feed  Raeks,         ......  15 

To  Keep  Chickens  Clean,          -        -        -        -  15 

Safeguards  Against  Rats,     -        -        -        .        .  15 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Lime  as  a  Fertilizer, 15 

A  Broadway  Farm,       -....-  15 

Sowing  Clover  on  Grass,  ....        -  15 

Good  Yield  of  Corn,      --....  16 

HORTICULTURAL. 

8orae  Hints  on  Grafting,  .....  15 

Snecession  of  Fruits,    --....  15 

Heat  for  House  Plants,     .....  16 

Thinning  Fru  t, 16 

Tar  on   Fruit  Trees, 16 

Grafting  Currants,       ......  16 

Apples  in  England,    ------  16 

Literary  Notices,         ......  16 

Advertisements.       -        -        -        -        -        ii,  iii,  iv 


THE  PUBLISHER  TO  THE  PEOPLE. 

Having  assumed  the  publication  of  the  Lan- 
caster Farmer  in  obedience  to  the  wishes  of 
many  of  its  former  friends  and  patrons,  I 
confidently  look  to  the  agricultural  com- 
munity in  general,  and  to  Lancaster  county  in 
particular ,f  or  those  supports,  in  subscriptions, 
contributions,  advertisements,  and  moral  in- 
fluence, which  are  the  essential  elements  to 
success  in  any  enterprise.  I  have  undertaken 
the  task  before  me  at  a  period  of  great  busi- 
ness depression  thi-oughout  our  wide  extended 
country,  and  my  main  object  in  doing  so — 
aside  from  the  moral  necessity  of  having  a 
local  journal  as  a  representative  of  the  farm- 
ing interest  of  our  great  county— is  to  fur- 
nish just  so  much  more  labor  to  a  mechanical 
interest  which  is  acknowledged  as — "  the  art 
preservative  of  all  arts" — and  which  hasteen 
sorely  aft'ected  by  the  present  stringency  of  the 
times. 

The  friends  of  progressive  agriculture  in 
tlie  county  and  elsewhere  feel  confident  that 
a  local  journal  devoted  to  their  calling,  con, 
and  owg^t.  to  be  sustained;  and  whatever  ef- 
fort of  mine  may  be  necessary  in  making  it 
creditable  to  the  profession,  to  the  people,  and 
to  our  rich  agricultural  domain,  will  be  faith- 
fully and  unstintingly  accorded.  I  am  sure  I 
have  the  loill  and  I  believe  I  have  the  ftbilily 
to  meet  the  expectations  of  its  friends  and 
patrons,  if  I  am  sustained  by  those  material 
means  through  which  alone  eitlier  will  or 
ability  can  be  successfully  mainfested.  The 
Farmer  has  already  attained  an  advanced 
position  in  the  ranks  of  agricultiu-al  journal- 
ism, and  I  propose  to  improve  it  as  a  rapidly 
as  the  sustaining  means  will  possibly  allow. 
Therefore,  if  it  fails  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  its  patrons  and  the  community,  it  will  not 
be  for  a  lack  of  effort  on  the  part  of  either  its 
editor  or  its  publisher.  All  communication 
and  contributions  should  be  addressed  to  the 
editor.  No.  101  North  Queen  Street,  Lancas- 
ter, Pa;  and  subscriptions  and  advertisements 
may  be  sent,  either  to  the  same  address,  or  to 
the  publisher,  No.  22,  South  Queen  street, 
office  of  the  Examiner  and  Express. 

LiNN.«;us  Rathvon. 


We  call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to 
our  scale  of  adtxrtisiwj  in  another  column  of 
this  issue  of  our  journal  ;  and  also  to  the  ad- 
ditional fact  that  our  subscription  list  has 
been  greatly  enlarged  ;  and  con.sequently,  our 
efficiency  as  an  advertising  medium  has  cor- 
respondingly increased.  All  having  articles 
for  sale,  and  that  they  wish  brought  to  the 
notice  of  the  public,  will  find  that  through 
our  columns,  they  will  reach  as  staunch  a 
class  of  people  as  any  in  the  country  ;  and 
therefore  it  will  be  to  their  interest  to  make 
use  of  them  in  making  their  wants  known, 
either  in  buying  or  in  selling. 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


Tr>EI«i>i«TI.V.4NIA  H 

1        Traius  LEAVE  the  Dep 

WE   TWAUD. 
Pacific  Eipreas" 

.AII,R0.40 

ot  in  this  city, 

Leave 

Lancaster. 

2:40  a.  m. 

4:50  a.  m. 

9.35  a.  m. 

9:40  a.  m. 
11:20  a.  m. 
11:20  a.m. 
11:29  a.m. 

1:55  p.  m. 

2:00  p.  m. 

6:10  p.  m. 

7:20  p.  m. 

7:25  p.  m. 

9:25  p.  m. 
11:30  p.  m. 

Lancaster. 
12:40  a.  m. 

4:10  a.  m. 

7:35  a.  m. 

9.28  a.  m. 

1:20  p.  m. 

2:00  p.  m. 

3:05  p.m. 

5:50  p.  m. 

SCIIEDVI.K 

18  follows : 
Arrive 
Harrisburg. 

10-40  a   m 

York  Accommodation.    ... 
Mail  train  via  Mt.  Joy 

Col.  10:10  a,  m 

1:00  p.  m. 

1:20  p.  m. 

1:.30  p.  m. 

3:10  p.  m. 
Col.  2:35  p.  m 

8:10  p.  m. 

8:00  p.  m. 

8:40  p.  m. 
10:.50  p.  m. 
12:45  a.  m. 

Philadelphia. 
3:10  a  m 

Sunday  Mail 

Fast  Line' 

Frederick  Accommodation. 

Columbia  .Accommodation.. 
Earriebuig  Express 

Cincinnati  Express* 

EASTWARD. 

Philadelphia  ExpresBt 

Harrieburg  ExpresB 

Columbia  Accommodation.. 
Pacific  Exijress* 

7:00  a.  m. 
10:00  a.  m. 
12:30  p.  m. 

3:45  p.m. 

5:00  p.  m. 

6:00  p.  m. 

9:00  p.  m. 

Johnstown  Express 

Harrisburg  Accom 

The  York  Accommodation,  west,  conuects  at  Lancaster 
with  Niagara  Express,  west,  at  9:35  a.  m.,  and  will  run 
through  to  Hanover. 

The  Frederick  Accommodation,  west,  connectsat  Lancas- 
ter with  Fast  Line,  west,  at  1:55  p.  m.,  and  runs  through  to 
Frederick  without  change  of  cars. 

The  Pacific  Express,  east,  on  Sunday,  when  flagged,  will 
stop  at  Middletown,  Elizabetbtown,  Mount  Joy  and  Landis- 
ville. 

•The  only  trains  which  run  daily. 

tRuna  daily,  except  Monday. 

Fruit  and  Ornamental  Trees, 

Vinea,   Plants,   Bulbs,   Roses,    Honey  Locust    »nd    Osage 
Orange,  very  fine 

APPLE,  PEACH,  PEAR  AND  CHERRY  TREES, 

A  splendid  lot  of 
SIL,TEK  AIKB  i^VeAR  BIAPIL,E9 

for  shade  trees.    Fine  Eterqrben  and  8hbi7BBERT. 
Address  B..  M.  BltGLJS  S:  SO:y, 

»-l-2m.  Marietta,  Pa. 

SIGN  OP  THE 

BOOKS,  STATIOBTERT, 

Gold  Pens,  Fancy  Goods,  School,  College,  Law,  Theological, 
Medical  and  Miscellaneous  Books.   Subecriptions  for  all 

PERIODICALS,    MAGAZINES    AND    PAPERS 

at  Publishers  prices. 

J.  M.  WEKTHAEFFER, 

V-l-2m  57  North  Queen  Street. 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTUBEE    OF 


FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS 

FOR 

OENTl.EMESr. 


FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

FOR 

L,AI>IES. 


No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


DUNBAR'S   CHILD'S  SHOES 
9-l-ly 


A  SPECIALTY. 


TO  CONSUMPTIVES. 

The  adverti4er  having  been  permanently  cured  of  that 
dread  dinease,  Consumption,  by  a  Bimjile  remedy,  is  anxious 
to  make  known  to  his  fellow  suffereis  the  means  of  cure. 
To  all  who  desire  it.  he  will  send  a  copy  of  the  prescription 
used,  (free  of  charge),  with  the  directions  for  preparing  and 
using  the  same,  which  they  will  find  a  sure  Cure  for  Con- 
sumption, Asthma,  Bronchitis,  Aic. 

Parties  wishing  the  prescription  will  please  address, 

Rev.  E.  A.  WILSON,  194  Peun  St..  Williamsburg,  N.  Y. 
9-l~fim] 

e'^e^^g**^e\?n  Broom -Corn. 

A  new  variety,  never  gets  red.  Long,  straight,  and  free 
from  curl.  Ripens  early,  yields  better,  and  will  bring  \^ 
more  than  any  other  kind.  Bv  mail,  50c  per  qt.;  by  express, 
$1.50  per  peck;  $4  per  bushel.'  Address  SAMUEL  WILSON. 
Mechanicsville,  Bucks  Co.,  Pa.  [9-1-^t 


NOKPARETL  FARM  MILLS 


For  criudiog  CORN  and  COB  CORN-MEAL.  OATS. 
ornnv  kind  of  Grain,  eoarte  OT  firu ;  10  SIZES,  forHAi^D 
or  POWI^R.      V  :utlrnlfii  Pam.ph''t  Frf. 

Ij.  J.  MliLER.  181  E.  Front  St..  Cindnnatl,  O. 

BRRORS  OF  YOUTH. 

A  GENTLEMAN  who  suffered  for  years  from  Nervous 
Debility,  Premature  Decay,  and  all  tbe  effects  of  youth- 
ful indiscietiou  will,  far  the  sake  of  suffering  humanity, 
send  free  to  all  who  need  it,  the  receipt  and  direction  for 
making  the  simple  jemedy  by  which  he  wiis  cured.  Sufl'er- 
ers  wishing  to  profit  by  the  advertiser's  experience  can  do 
80  by  addressing  in  perfect  contidence, 
9-l-6m]  JOHN  B.  OODEN,  42  Cedar  St.,  New  York. 

CTTTTrp    T?T3T?PT   ^^^   you  mention    this 

uJulN  i      r  XbJZjiJ  !     P^/^-ER,  a  circular  of  ANEEE'S 

KiNQ  OATS.  Address  J.  H.  ANDRI,  BiDglam's,  Tioga  CO..  N.  Y. 

9-1 

SEND  25c.  to  G.  P.  ROWELL  &  CO.,  New  York,  for  Pam- 
phlet of  100  pages,  containing  lists  of  3,000  newspapers, 
and  estimates  showing  cost  of  advertising. 


BEST  HOLIDAY  GIFT. 

Of  Constant  and  Permanent  Value. 
THE  BEST  ENGLISH  DICTIONARY. 


"iSlTlONAFX. 

WEBSTER'S  Unabridged. 

"  Every  farmer  should  give  hie  soi  8  two  or  three  square 
rods  of  ground,  well  prepared,  with  the  avails  ot  which 
they  may  buy  it.  Every  in<>c9ianic  should  put  a  receiving 
box  In  some  conspicuous  place  iu  the  house,  to  catch  the 
stray  pennies  for  the  like  purpose . 

"Lay  it  upon  your  table  by  the  side  of  the  Bible  -it  is  a 
better  expounder  than  many  which  cliiim  to  be  expounders. 
It  is  a  great  labor-saver — it  has  saved  bs  time  enough  iu 
one  year's  use  to  pay  for  itself;  and  that  must  be  good 
property  which  will  clear  itself  once  a  ye?LY."— Massachusetts 
Life  Boat. 

Four  Pages  Colored  Plates. 

M ERRIA9IS,  Publishers. Sold  everywhere. 


PATENTS 

OBTAIKEB  BEST  AM  CHEAPEST  BY 

LOUIS  BAGGER  &  CO. 

SOLICITORS  OF  PATENTS. 


itW Address  aU  letters  to  P.  O.  Box  444. 


7-3-12m 


THOS.  M.  HARVEY, 

WEST  GROVE,  CHESTER  CO.,  PA., 

Rreedor  and  Shipper  of 

GnEEMSEYISaBDTTER  STOCK, 

Yorkshire  and  Berkshire  Pigs. 

Dark  Brahma  Chickens  from  the  best  imported 
blood.     Also  Bronze  Turkeys. 


PUBLIC  SALE  BILLS 
FOR  REAL  ESTATE  OR  PERSONAL  PROKERTY, 
Printed  expeditiously  and  cheap  at  the  ofBce  of 

THE  LANCASTER  FABMER. 


Rates  »f  Advertisings  in  the  Farmer.  S 

8  in. 


1  mo.... 
3  mo.... 

3  mo 

4  ino 

6  mo 

5  mo 

1  year. 


1  iu.  1   '2  iu. 

3iu. 

4  in. 

5iu. 

$1.00l$  2.00 

$  3.00 

%  4.00 

$  6.00 

2  00 

4.00 

6.00 

.3.00 

12. Oo 

2.60 

4.50 

6.76 

10.00 

13.50 

3.00 

6.00 

9.00 

12.00 

18.00 

4.50 

9.00 

13.60 

IS. 00 

27.00 

6.00 

12.00 

18.00 

24.00 

36.0) 

9,00 

18.00 

2T.C0 

30.00 

54.00 

$  8.00 
16.00 
18.00 
24.00 
36.00 
48.00 
72  00 


II^~Siiiecial  and^buBiness  notices  15  cents  per  line. 


*     i 
%     = 

|b 

a 

a 


"automatic 
Knitter 


3 

-  ? 

'  » 
5  I 


A  Family  Knitting  Machine. 

Now  attracting  universal  attention  by  its  astoriBhing  per- 
formancea  and  its  great  practical  value  for  every-day  family 
use.  It  knita  every  poBsible  variety  of  plain  or  fancy  work 

■WITH  ALMOST  MAGICAL  SPEED, 

and  gives  perfect  shape  and  finish  to  all  garments.     \\  will 

knit  a  pair  of  socks   in  fifteen   minutes  1       Every   machiuA 

WARKANTED  perfect,  and  to  do  Just  what  ia  represeTited^ 

A  complete  instruction  book  accompanies  each  machine. 

No.  1  Family  Machine.  1  cylinder,  72  needles,  $30. 

No.  3       '*  -'2         "     72  &  100     •'         40. 

A  sample  machine  will  be  sent  to  any  part  of  the  United 

States  or  Canada,  (where  we  have  no  agent)  express  chargM 

prepaid,  on  receipt  of  the  price. 

AoKNTS  wanted  in  every  State,  County,  City  and  Toim, 
to  whom  very  liberal  discounts  will  be  made.    Address, 
BICKFORD  KNITTING  MACHINE  MFG.  CO., 
7-11-tf]  Sole  Manufacturers,  Brattleboro,  T*. 


DBAXBBS  IN  ALL  KINDS  OP 

FAMILT  and  I.I91E-B17RNINO  COAI.1 

Orders  received  at 

Office,  No.  15  East  King  street,  ?nd  at  the 
8-l-12m]    Yard,  No.  618  NORTH  PRINCE  STREET. 


GEORGE  D.  SPRECHER, 

DEALER  IN  ALL  KINDS  OF 

OFFICE  : 

No.  15  EAST  KING  STREET, 

8-l-12m  LANCASTER,   PA. 


ROOT'S 

fl-arden  JVfanual. 

Is  filled  with  topics  of  interest  to  every  owner  of  a  garden — 
is  POINTED,  PRACTICAL  and  THOROUGH,  and  contains 
one-half  as  much  as  $1.50  books  on  the  subject.  GARDEN- 
EKS  throughout  the  couutry  commend  its  practical  labor- 
saviug  methods  as  invaluable  to  them. 

C^^^Sent  for  lU  cents,  which  will  be  allowed  on  the  first 
order  for  seeds.      Address, 

J.  B.  ROOT,  Seed  Grower, 

ROCKFORD,  Illinois 


Peabody  House 

COR,  OF  LOCUST  AND  NINTH  8TS., 

PHILADELPHIA.  PA. 


Convenient  to  all  places  of  amusement  and  car  lines  in 
the  city.    No  changes  to  and  from  the  Centennial  grounds. 

Col.  Watson,  proprietor  of  the  Henry  House,  Cinciimati, 
for  the  past  twenty  years,  and  present  proprietor,  has  leased 
the  house  for  a  term  of  years,  aud  has  newly  furnished  and 
fitted  it  throughout.  He  will  keep  a  strictly  first-class  house, 
and  has  accommodation  for  300  guests.  Terms,  only  $3 
per  day. 

No  bar  has  ever  been  kept  in  the  Henby  HotrsE,  nor  will 
any  be  kept  at  the  Peabody.  8-6-5 

GOOD  SEEDS,  GROWN  WITH   CARE,  FROM  Se- 
lected Stocks,  always  pay.  Try  mine.  Catalogue  free. 
J.  B.  V.  HAWKINS,  Goshen,  N.  Y. 


"  THE  FARMER  IS  THE  FOUNDER  OF  CIVILIZATION."— WEBSTER. 


A  MONTHLY  JOURNAL: 


DEVOTED   TO 


AGRICULTURE  AND  HORTICULTURE,  PRACTICAL  ENTO- 
MOLOGY, DOMESTIC  ECONOMY  AND  GENERAL 

MISCELLANY. 


EDITED  BY  PROF.  S.  S.  RATHVON. 


VOLUME  IX.-1877, 


i_aMt>f 


LANCASTER,  PA.: 

LINN,<EUS  RATHVON,  PUBLISHER. 

1877, 


CONTENTS!  OF  VOLUME  NINE. 


AfleiTlioiifchte,     1 

Are  Forests  a  Beuetit  to  Fruit  Grow- 
in;;  ?    -t 

A  Moelel  Farm,     9 
A  WorJ  to  Ilousewifes,    13 
Ayrceliire  Cows,     14,  58,  79 
A  Broadway  Farm,     15 

Apples  iu  Eiislaud,     10 

A  Special  Ajipeal,     17 

A  Successful  Farm  Operation,     ^9 

A  Momentous  Question,    33 

Ants  ami  Ant-eaters,     o5 

A  Queer  Calf,     48 

April,    49 

Answers  to  Correspondents,    53 

Annual  Address,    54 

A  Xew  A^frieultural  Plant,    63 

A  Kemiiider,    <J3 

American  Vomological  Society,    60 

A  Voice  from  the  South,    65 

Aijrieultural   and  Horticultural  Socie- 
ty,    73,  <)l),  WO,  187 

A  Farm  that  Kuined  the  Owner,     77 

A  Wonderful  Book,    81 

A  Xew  Insecticide,    82 

A  Lcssou  AVorth  Learning,     83 

A  Cholera  Cure,    83 

Aliout  Froffs,     84 

Archaeological  Communication,     87 

At  the  Head  of  His  Class,    89 

A  Hood  Fertilizer,     92 

About  Milk,    94 

Against  the  World,    95 

A  Word  of  Caution,    95 

A  Bettor  Civilization,    97 

Abiix — Spruce  Fir,     102 

A  Farm  Roller,    108 

Apples  and  the  WayTto  Keep  Them, 
109 

American  Fruit  iu  F.urope,    109,  141, 
UK) 

A  Milk  Diet,    110 

A  Good  Mare,     110 

All  81  vies  of  Chicken  Coops,     112 

A  Muddled  Tolwcco  Leaf,    114 

Apple-tree  Insects,     116 

Adulteration    of    the   Necessaries   of 
Life,     119 

A  Bountiful  Harvest,     127 

A  SiUKUlar  Potato,     132 

Artiticial  Butter,     133 

Around  the  Farm,  134,  153,  16S 

A  Propagating  Secret,     140 

A  Lanih  with  a  Cow  Mother,     142 

Age  of  Sheep,     142 

A  Beet  Hard  to  Beat,     146 

American     Pomological    Convention, 
165 

Autumnal  Coloration  of  Leaves,    169 

A  Root  Cellar  or  House,    175 

A  Cheap  Smokehouse,     175 

Advice  to  Drivers,    79 

Au  Admiralilc  School  Book,     177 

Around  the  Farm,     180 

Address,     181 

Age  of  Nursery  Trees,     190 

A  Cure  for  Diptherla,    191 

Blackberries,    6 

Bread^Iakidg,     13 

Balky  Horses,     14 

Hy  Uail  to  Frederick,  Md.,     21 

Build  Bird-houses,    21 

Baked  Corn  and  Eggs,    26 

Boiled  Dinners,    tO 

Blue  Glass.    33 

Bottle  Grafting,    45 

Bitter  Cream,    47 

Better  Prices  for  Seed-Leaf,    60 

Book-Keeping  by  Farmers,    70 

Bee  Keepers'  Association,    75 

Beef  Extract,     78 

Barn  Wash,    78 

Birds  vs.  Hopijers,    85 

Blackberry  Culture,    93,  109 

Black  Teeth  in  Hogs,    110 

Bees-Wax,    111     " 

Budding,    117 

Black  Bass  and  Bass-Bait,    131 


Bafand  Bot-Flies,     142 

Bees  Stinging  Fruit,     145 

Buy  Your  Trees  at  Home,     163 

Blue  Glass,    41 

Breeding  of  Silk- Worms,    25 

Buckeye  Grain  Drill,     133 

Bark-Lice,     178 

Budding,     190 

Choice  Winter  Flowers,     7 

Clearing  Land  by  Dynamite,    9 

Cultivation  of  Clilckory,     29,  .36 

Covering  of  Strawberries,     29 

Coldslaw,     33 

"Collier,"    37 

Corn  Fodder,    45 

Celery,     40 

Care  of  Dairy  Cows,    48,  79 

Crowded  Out,  50 

Corn  Cultivation,    57 

Culture  of  Broom  Corn,    77 

Clean  Out  the  Weeds,     77 

Cherries,     77 

Cleaning  Silk,    78 

Chickens  Fit  to  Eat,     79 

Cure  for  Chicken  Cholera,    80 

Cress,    82 

Correction,    85 

Compost  for  Corn,    93 

Changing  the  Bearing  Year,    93 

Correspondence,     100 

Crops  iu  North  Carolina,    102 

Cutting  and  Curing  Tobacco,     105 

Culture  of  Tobacco,     105 

Carting  Out  Manure,     108 

Cut  the  Weeds  While  Small,     108 

Catching  H.iwks,     113 

Colorado  Beetle  in  England,     116 

Cultivating  Wheat,     127 

Culinary  Contributions,     132 

Compost,    140 

Coal  Ashes,     140 

Cracking  Pears,     140 

Cleaning  Feathers,     141 

Cleanse  the  Manger,     142 

Codling  Moth,     143 

Change  of  Color  or  Moult,     143 

Caponizing,    144 

Chicken  Cholera,     144 

Cattle  Disease,     148 

Convenience,     1.59 

Charcoal  and  Lime,     100 

Continental  Strawberry,     149 

Cinderella  Strawberry,     166 

Care  of  Slock,     176 

Cooked  Meat  for  Poultry,     176 

Cleaning  the  Hen-house,    176 

Clubbing,    177 

Curing  Meats,    187 

Cracked  Pears,    190 

Caring  for  Stock,    191 

Canada  Cheese,     191 

Domesticating  the  Buffalo,    48 

Does  the  Water  Strike  Through?    70 

Does  Buckwheat  Poison  Sheep?    79 

Durham  Cows,     79 

Don't  Omit  the  Turnips,    93 

Dried  Potatoes,     94 

Dried  Eggs,     110 

Dead-Shot  onlPoultry  Lice,     112 

Does  it  Rain  Toads?    115 

Does  the  Shad  Bite,  or  Take  a  Bait?  117 

Ducks— Setting     Eggs    and    Rearing 

Young,     123 
Description  of  a  Roman  Coin,    134 
Dew  and  its  Cause,    136 
Do  Swallows  Emigrate?    140 
Do  Bees  Cut  the  Skins  of  Fruit?    161 
Domestic  Recipes,    175 
Devon  Cattle,    176 
Essay  on  Tobacco  Culture,    3 
Egypt,    4 
Experiments  on  Nutrition  of  Domestic 

Animals,    SI 
Early  Spring  Salads,    45 
Exports  of  Tobacco  from  New  York, 

76 
Essay  on  Wheat,    86 
Effects  of  Climate  on  Soil,    93 


Extcrmiu.ation  of  Parasites,    95 

Explanation,    98 

Echoes  from  the  Public  Press,    100 

Extracted  Honey,     111 

Effects  of  Cold  Storms  on  Poultry,    111, 

143 
Eggs  and  Ways  of  Using  Them,     143 
Errors  in  Poultry  Keeping,     144 
Efl'ect  of  Tea  on  the  Skin,     159 
"England's  Imports,     174 
Eggs  fur  Export,     176 
Early  Prolific  Raspberry,     181 
Economy  in  the  Use  of  Fuel,     191 
Extravagance,     191 
French  Land  Owners,     8 
Farming  vs.  Profession,     9 
Facilitating  Draught  of  Horses,    14 
Farm  Horses,    14 
Feed  Horses  Regularly,     15 
Fish,  Flesh  and  Fowl,    ilO 
Farmers  vs.  Sportsmen,     32 
Fruits  of  Kansas,     30 
Farm  Sacks  00  Years  Old,     46 
Facts  Worth  Remembering,    40 
Fruit  as  a  Medicine,    47 
Food  for  Fowls,    47 
Feeding  Fowls,    47 
Fattening  Poultry,    47 
Fine  Test  Potatoes,    50 
Fertilization,  Preventive  and  Cure,    50 
Florida  and  its  Oranges,    04 
Farm  Profits  in  America,     77 
Fruit  Prospects,     78 
Fencing  and  Soiling,    38 
Farmers  Grindstone,    94 
From  Nebraska,     102 
Floating  Melon  Gardens,     109 
Flemish  Beauty  Pear,     135 
Fall  Plowing,     140 
Full  Feeding,     142 
Farmers  and  the  Country,     145 
Fine  Tobacco  Leaves,     146 
Forests,  Their  Destruction,  &c.,     152 
Forests  and  Kain-fall,     170 
Freshman  vS  Brothers,     110 
From  North  Carolina,     179 
Facts  not  Generally  Known,    186 
Forest  Planting  in  France,     190 
Green  Manuring,    2 
Good  Yield  of  Corn,     15 
Grafting  Currants,     16,  30 
General  Readers,    17 
Golden  Rules  for  Bee-Keeping,    32,  43 
Garget  iu  Cows,    95 
Gapes  in  Chickens,    90 
Good  Cows,     110 
Grammar  in  a  Nutshell,    115 
Gapes,    144 

Gravenatein  Apple,    151 
Grafting  and  Its  Effects,    15S 
Good  Farming,    174 
Grapes  and  Bees,    ISO 
Gypsum,     183 
Grape  Yield  in  Ohio,    190 
How  to  Pour  Tea,    13 
Hens  in  Winter,    13 
How  to  Buy  a  Horse,     14 
Heat  for  House-plants,     16 
Hog  Cholera,    25 
How  to  Make  a  Hot-bed,    SO 
Handy  Men,     30 
Healthful  Beds,    31 
Horse-Growers,    31 
Hell's  Ten  Acres,    33 
Hay  for  Hens,    39 
Harrowing  Wheat  in  Spring,    45 
How  Much  Lime  to  an  Acre,    56 
Hints  to  Farmers,    63 
How  Shall  we  Know  How  to  Plant?  69 
How  Lancaster  County  Forced  to  the 

Front ,    76 
Haying,    77 
Horse  Hay-fork,    83 
How  to  Ease  a  Cough,     53 
Hungarian  Millet,    93 
Hot  Beds,     93 
Household  Recipes,    78,  94,  109,  127, 

141, 159,  191 


Hanging  au  A.vc,    94 

Healthy  Cattle,    94 

Half-bred  Buffaloes  iu  the  Dairy,    95 

How  to  Keeji  Our  Boys  at  Home,     100 

How  to  Begin  Bee-Keeping,     111 

Have  No  Lights  in  the  Barn,     128 

Humbugs,  Swindles,  Frauds,  6ci;.,    135 

How  to  Have  Healthy  Pigs,     142 

How  to  Fit  Horse-Collars,     14i 

How  the  Price  of  Cows  has  Risen,    142 

Hard  Times,     1.53 

Home  Manures,     158 

Hungarian  (irass,     158 

Hints  to  Tobaccd-Growers,     158 

How  to  Break  Colts,     159 

How  to  (irow  Pi^rs,    1.59 

How  to  Make  a  Well,     1G3 

How  to  Make  Paris  Green,     165 

Horticulture  and  Education,     107 

Hubbardston  Non-Such,     163 

How  to  Keep  Cabbage,     175 

Hay  Tea  for  Calves,     175 

How  Long  Will  the  Forests  Last  ?    18:« 

How  Jacob  Taylor  Grows  Plums,    190 

Influence  of  Reading,    23 

Ink  for  Horticultural  Labels,    30 

Insects  as  Food,    40 

Incidental  Suggestions,     71 

Is  Wheat  Culture  Declining.'    70 

Intelligence  of  Cows,     110 

Italian  and  Native  Bees,     111 

Industry  of  Ants,     143 

Italian  vs.  Black  Bees,     152 

Improvement  in   Cultivating    Wheat, 

104 
Improvement  in  Farming,     168 
Is    Hungarian    Grass    Safe    Feed    for 

Horses?    190 
Interesting  Facts,    190 
Jottings  Suggested  by  a  Circular,    41 
Japanese  Persimmon,    77 
Keep  Good  Cows,    48 
Kerosene  Lamps,     110 
Keep  Horses'  Feet  Clean,     110 
Knowing  Horses,     192 
Lime  as  a  Fertilizer,     15 
Literary  and  Personal,     16,  32,  48,  64, 

80,  96,  112,  128,  14-t,  160,  170,  192 
Leak — Allium  pornm,     20 
Lice  on  Currant  Bushes,    22 
Letter  from  Daniel  Webster,    '24 
Lumps  on  Udders,    31 
Lettuce — Ladnva  Saliva,    35 
Leading  a  Colt,    48 
Large  or  Small  Potatoes,    51 
Lime  and  Bark-Lice,    6(5 
Lancaster  County  Peaches,    68 
Landscape  Gardening,    73 
Liquid  Mamire,     77,  108,  189 
Look  at  Your  Orchards,    77 
Large  Strawberries,    78 
Lemonade  for  Invalids,    78 
Look  to  the  Chicks  iu  May,    79 
Lice  on  Poultry,    SO 
Late  Potato  Planting,    97 
Large  Farms  vs.  Small  Farms,    102 
Legal  Rates  of  Interest,    104 
Letter  from  Florida,     119 
Letter  from  North  Carolina,     119,  153 
Lancaster   Countv    Agricultural    and 

Horticultural'  Society,    U,  27,  43, 

137,  61,  73,  90,  106,  134,  155,  171 
Lime  Dust,    144 
Liquid  Excrement,     158 
Lancaster  County  Tobacco,    167 
Lancaster  County  Cotton,    174 
Letter  from  Cockej-sviUe,  Md.,    177 
Management  of  Geese,    14 
JIake  Feed  Racks,    15 
Managing  Queens,    32 
Minnesota  Wheat  and  Flour,    44 
Monthly  Reminders,    65,  81,  147,  165 
Manuring  Lands,    66 
Millions  for  Middlemen,    71 
Measuring  Corn  in  Bulk,    77 
-Manure  on  Frozen  Ground,    77 
JlUd  Diet  for  Cattle,    79 
More  about  the  Lociuts,    82 


IV-: 


INDEX. 


More  Pollen  Needed,    93 

Milk  Diet,    110 

Manure  for  Fruit  Trees,     126 

Management  of  Fruit  Trees,     140 

Mice  and  Young  Trees,    190 

Mr.  Kurtz's  Pumpkin,    178 

More  about  Bees,     178 

Newspaper  Making,    19 

New  Yoak  Tobacco  Trade,    76 

Nebraska  Notes,    86,  I'H 

New  Feed — Buckeye  Grain  Drill,    133 

Non-Sitters,    143 

Number  of  Hens  to  a  Cock,    144 

Notice  Extraordinary,     161 

Nafonal    Bee   Keepers'     Association, 

178 
Our  Local  Organizations,    11,  27,  43, 

61,  15.5 
Origin  of  Dessert,     13 
Otter  of  Roses,     23 
Oyster-shell  Bark-louse,    67 
Origin  of  Prairies,    105 
Oliver  Dalrymple's  Farm.     131 
Our  Local  Organization  and  Ourself, 

131 
Original  Seckel  Pear  Tree,     158 
0:a  Frames,    159 
Our  Delinquent  Subscribers,     161 
ObUuary,    164 
Opposition  to  Potatoes,    189 
Our  Prospects,     180 
Oleomargarine  Butter,     183 
Parsnips,    2 

Penn'a  State  Agricultural  Society,     9 
Pennsylvania  Fruit-Growers'  Society, 

10,  161,  177 
Poetry— To  My  Friend  Lena,    13 
Planting  and  Care  of  Trees,    46 
Perfected  Butter  Color,    46 
T'itris  Rapa,    .53 
Pennsylvania  Wheat  Crop,     76 
Profit  in  Good  Soil,    77 
Potatoes,    78 
Peas  in  Missouri,     78 
Profits  in  Almonds,    78 
Preserving  Figs,     78 
Pa'nting  Buildings,    78 
Pay  Attention  to  Live  Stock,     79 
Protection  of  Useful  Animals,    83 
Prospects  for  Farmers,     89 
Potatoes  a  Profitable  Crop,    93 
Poultry-Keeping  by  Boys,    95 
Plymouth  Rock  Fowls,     95,  160 
Patrons  of  Husbandry,     99 
Purification  of  Hen-houses,     111 
Potatoes  Without  Paris  Green,     121 
Proceedings  of  Society,     124,  171 
Propagating  Secret,     140 
Potomac  Fruit-Growers'    Association, 

154 
Packing  Poultry  for  Market,     160 
Pruning  Roses,     175 
Preparing  Poultry  for  Market,     176 
Propagating  Rabbits,     192 
Queen  Bees,    32 
Queer  Calf,     48 
Queries   and   Answers,    85,   101,   117, 

132,  149 
Questiins  and  Answers,    92 
Recipe  for  Cleaning  Wool,    12 


Rats  and  Mice,     14 

Repairing  Leaky  Cellar  Walls,     80 

Rearing  Lambs  by  Hand,    48 

Reminder,    65 

Raising  Onion  Sets,    77 

Re-cooking  Meat,     94 

Raising  Geese,    96 

Reminder  for  July,    98,  115 

Report  of  Agricultural  Department, 

108 
Raspberries  from  Cuttings,     109 
Refrigerators,  &c.,     110 
Royal  Cow,     110 
Red  Pepper  and  Poultry,     112 
Recipe  for  Butter,     128 
Recipe  for  Decorating  Eggs,     147 
Rest  Before  Eating,     159 
Root  Cellar  or  House,     175 
Raise  Your  Own  Cows,     14 
Reminder  for  December,    178 
Sparrows,    2 
Salt  for  Chickens,     15 
Safeguards  Against  Rats,     15 
Sowing  Clover  on  Grass,     15 
Some  Hints  on  Grafting,     15 
Strange  Substance  in  a  Horse,     19 
Symptoms  of  Rabies  in  Dogs,    31 
Sentimentalisms,    33 
Saving  Manure,    45 
Sap  and  Plant-Life,     56 
Shipment  of  Apples,    64 
Six  Months  for  an  Owl,    66 
State  Board  of  Agriculture,    66,  92 
Shite-Poke,  (Butorides  Viresceus')  68 
Seed  Wheat,     69 
South-west  Missouri,     70,  150 
Small  Fruits  in  Gardens,    77 
Safety  From  Rats  and  Mice,    79 
Strawberry  Culture,    85 
Strawberries,    67 
Stocking  and  Feeding,    96 
Sweet  Potatoes  for  Hogs,    94 
Soft  Eggs,     112 

Supply  Your  Chickens  with  Milk,     112 
Strikes  and  Riots,     113 
State  and  District  Fairs,    117 
State  Fair,    131 
Singular  Potato,     132 
Sugar  Corn  vs.  Hungai'ian  Grass,     140 
Shall  Old  Orchards  be  Plowed?    141 
Soot  as  a  Garden  Fertilizer,     141 
Setting  Milk  for  Cream,     141 
Simple  Cure  for  Earache,     141 
Shaker  Pickles,     141 
Stumbling  Horses,     142 
Smcych's  Seedling  Peach,     147 
Splenetic  Fever,     148 
Salt  as  a  Fertilizer,    158 
Synopsis  of  Crops  of  1877,     104 
Special  Premiums  for  187S,     165 
Sour  Bread,     175 
Special  Premiums  for  1878,     177 
Splenetic  Fever  of  Cattle,     182 
Something  About  Dragon-flies,     186 
Saving  Sweet  Potatoes,     1K9 
Silver  Hull  Buckwheat,     190 
Setting  Trees,     190 
To  the  Public,     1 
To  our  Readers,     1 
The  Care  of  Hogs,    8 


The  Yam  Sweet  Potato,    4 

Twenty  Millions  in  Beef,    5 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,  12,  27, 
62,  74,  90,  107,  173,  125,  138,  150, 
188 

The  Liunsan  Society,  12,  28,  63,  75, 
91,  108,  120,  139,  1.58,  173,  189 

The  Leghorn  Fowls,     14 

To  Keep  Chickens  Clean,    15 

Thinning  Fruit,     16 

Tar  on  Fruit  Trees,     16 

To  Subscribers,     17 

The  Ayrault  Cattle,     17 

The  Fire-fly,     18 

The  Guava,     18,  51 

Table  Costumes,     18 

The  Dangerous  Quail,     19 

Tobacco,'    24,  46 

The  Fodder  Value  of  Apples,     29 

The  English  Hop  Trade,    30 

The  Horse-Growers,    31 

The  Country,     33 

The  TobEcco  Worm,    .37 

The  Thurber  Peach,    45 

Tree  Planting  in  Minnesota,    46 

The  Pekin  Ducks  as  Layers,    47 

The  Colorado  Bug  Abroad,     50 

The  Park  Association,    50 

The  Weather  and  Grouud-Hog,     50 

The  Lancaster  Tobacco  Crop,    60 

Transplanting  Large  Trees,     64 

To  Advertisers,     65 

The  European  War,     65 

Tobacco  Stems,    65 

The  Seuer  Apples,    68 

The  Lancaster  Farmer,    68 

The  Exchange  List,    68 

The  Permanent  Exhibition,     69 

The  Time  to  Spread  Manure,     77 

The  Peach  Crop,    78,  127 

Twenty-Ounce  Apple,     78 

To  Keep  a  Fowl  House,    79 

The  Moving  Season,     80 

This  Paragraph,     81 

The  Hopper,    81 

The  Seventeen- Year  Locust,  SI,  90 

Tobacco  Pests,     85 

Toulouse  Geese,     87 

The  Best  Method  to  Destroy  Cut- 
worms,   87 

The  Garden  of  Pennsylvania,     89 

Tobacco  Culture,    92 

The  Egg  Plant,    93 

To  Exterminate  Parasites,     95 

The  First  Food  for  Chickens,    96 

Trees  Killed  liy  Salt,     98 

The  Elm  Tree  Beetle.    98 

The  Horse,     103 

Thoroughbred  Southdowns,     104 

Tobacco— A  New  Pest,    104 

The  Turnip  Crop,     105 

Tree  Planting  in  Minnesota,     190 

Take  Care  of  the  Horses,     192 

To  our  Patrons,     177 

The  Celebrated  Horse,  Jenifer  Ara- 
bian,   177 

The  Omnivorous  Caterpillar,     184 

The  Cherry,    185 

Ten  Rules  for  Farmers,    186 

To  Make  Butter  Hard,    110 


The  Royal  Cow,    110 

Turkeys,    112 

The  Ichneumon  Fly,     114 

The  Locust,     115 

The  Turbine  Wind  Engine,     118 

The  Crops  We  Raise,  "121 

Tobacco  Fertilizers,     122 

The  Tobacco  Fly,     123 

The  Grape  Leaf  Folder,     123,  130 

Transplanting  Evergreens,     123 

Treating  Manure  with  Lime,     127 

The  Spare  Bed,     128 

The  Tobacco  Bug,     129 

The  Cucumber,     129 

The  Stings  of  Insects,     129 

The  Codling  Moth,     130 

The  Grape  Procris,     130 

The  Flemish  Beauty  Pear,     1.35 

The  Potato-bug  Abroad,     142 

The  Cattle  Disease,     148 

The  Gravenstein  Apple,     151 

The  Bee-Keepers'  Society,     1.57 

The  Cow  for  Small  Farms,     1.59 

To  Preserve  Eggs,     160 

To  Our  Delinquent  Subscribers,     161 

The  Application  of  Fertilizers,     166 

The  Tobacco  Trade,     174 

To  Keep  Cabbage,     175 

Unpublished  Letter  of  Henry  Clay,   53 

Utilizing  Coal  Dust,    63 

United  States  Commissioner  of  Agri- 

culture,    98 
Valuable  Recipes,     13,  31 
"Varmints,"     24 
Very  Curious  Experiments,     41 
Valuable  Cows,    45 
Vienna  Bread  and  CoflTee,    47 
Value  of  Roots  for  Stalks,    48 
Valuable  Formulas,    63 
Value  of  Salt,     94 
Varieties  of  Celery,    109 
Vermin  on  Poultry,     111 
Value  of  Early  Apples,     127 
Varieties  of  L.ate  Turnips,     129 
Ventilation  of  Closets,     141 
Vii-ginia  Tobacco,     190 
Wholesale  Death  of  Honey  Bees,    32 
Words  of  Cheer,    .50 
Written  Receipts  by  Mail,     50 
What  Soil  Consists  Of,    63 
What  the  Birds  Accomplish,    65 
Wheat  and  Chess,     77 
Water  Your  Cattle,    79 
Wonderful  Book,    81 
Working  Crops  Early,     92 
Words  of  Caution,     95 
What  is  a  Practical  Farmer?    99 
AVar  LTpon  Insects,     113 
What  Causes  Rust  in  Wheat,     120 
Wheat  Crop  of  1877,    132 
Working  Land  on  Shares,     140 
Watering  Trees,     141 
Wax  for  Cans,     141 
Wheat  and  Its  Culture,     151 
Wheat-growing  in  America,     1.5S 
Weight  of  Milk,     1.59 
Worms  in  Flower-pots,     175 
Water  ng  Horses,     191 
What  Shall  We  Teach  Our  Girls?    185 


INDEX  TO  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Imported  Berkshire  "Collier," 
Ayreshire  Bull  "Casper,"     58 
Toulouse  Geese,    87 
Southdown  Sheep,    104 


37 


Apple  Tree  Borer,  a.  b.  and  c,    116 
Buckeye  Grain  Drill,     1.33 
Flemish  Beauty  Pe.ar,     135 
Continental  Strawberry,    149 


Griivenstein  ^Ppl'^i     151 
Cinderella  Strawberry,     166 
Hubbardston  Nonsuch  Apple,     168 
Turbine  Wind  Engine,    118 


Game  Fowls,     39 
Early  Prolific  Raspberry, 


181 


^ 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  JANUARY,  1877. 


Vol.  K.  No.  L 


TO  THE  PUBLIC. 
The  fanneis  of  Laiic;islfi-  county,  to  tlieir 
own  iiuiun-ishable  credit,  have  .seemhifjly  felt 
that  they  could  not  afl'oril  to  let  their-  local 
joui'ual  die,  without  making  a  manly  ellb.-t  to 
resuscitate  and  sustain  it  ;  and  hence  it  be- 
comes our  pleasing  duty  to  announce  to  the 
public  that  their  noble  resolve  has  beeu 
crowned  with  a  larger  degree  of  success  than 
could  have  been  expected  in  the  present 
peculiar  and  unsettled  state  of  ihe  times  ;  and 
hence,  also,  we  extend  to  them  these  our 
friendly  greetings. 

How  often  does  it  hap]ien  that  we  bave  a 
friend,  a  relative,  perchance  a  wife  or  mother, 
who  is  quietly,  perseveringly,  and  it  may  be, 
arduously  laboring  for  our  moral  and  phj'sieal 
comfort,  but  whose  lalwrs  we  seeniijigly 
uurecjuite  or  unappreciate  until  we  suddenly 
become  conscious  that  they  are  about  to  die. 
Then  they  immediately  are  accorded  a  recog- 
nition that  liad  never  been  vouchsafed  before  ; 
then  we  begin  to  realize  the  vacuum  in  our 
social  life  that  their  absence  would  create  ; 
then  we  make  a  frantic  ellbrt  to  recall,  restore 
and  sustain  them,  that  we  had  never  made 
before,  and  which,  had  it  been  timely  made 
along  their  rugged  pathway  in  life,  their 
health  might  not  have  become  impaired,  and 
their  usefulness  might  have  continued  on  to 
the  evening  of  a  yretn  oVd  wje. 

Analogous  to  ihis  had  been  the  life  and 
pecuniary  condition  of  the  Lancaster  Farmer. 
It  had  exhausted  its  constitution,  and  for  the 
past  year  had  been  "running  on  the  by-laws  ;" 
and  therefore  when  it  became  manifest  that  it 
was  about  to  die,  its  fi'iends  and  patrons — the 
friends  of  agricultural,  social  and  domestic 
progress — became  solicitous  about  its  appar- 
ently approaching  demise.  They  therefore,  in 
solemn  conclave,  vowed  that  it  should  not 
pass  away  from  the  things  that  ore,  if  their 
united  ellorts  could  prevent  it.  There  is  a 
wonderful  potency  in  the  human  will,  which, 
if  rightly  conceived  and  intelligently  and  per- 
severingly carried  out,  must  .avail ;  and  when 
tliese  elements  constitute  its  substratum,  if  it 
does  not  avail,  we  may  clearly  actpiit  our- 
selves, and  interpret  the  result  as  an  indi- 
cation that  our  elVorts  in  the  matter  ought  to 
submit  to  the  dictates  of  astill  "higher  law." 
Under-  these  circumstances,  and  with  a  deep 
sense  of  our  responsibilities,  we  again  launch 
our  craft  upon  the  sea  of  journalism.  We  do 
not  ask  for  much — we  do  not  expect  much — 
but  we  should  greatly  underestimate  the  far- 
■  mers  of  the  great  county  of  Lancaster,  if  we 
concluded  that  they  could  not,  or  would  not, 
sustain  a  local  agricultural  journal  among 
them.  Such  a  conclusion,  we  feel,  would  do 
them  great  injustice  at  home,  and  misrepre- 
sent them  al)road. 

Having  then  signalized  the  beginning  of  the 
second  century  of  oiu"  political  being,  by  a 
worthy  determination  to  sustain  a  local  journal 
amongst  them,  we  trust  this  worthy  intention 
may  be  more  than  realized  ;  but  to  assure  such 
a  result,  we  look  for  a  liberal  support  in  the 
way  of  pecuniary  i).atronage,  Agricultural  and 
Horticultural  contributions,  essays,  communi- 
cations, and  judicious  selections.  In  short, 
we  wish  to  reflect  the  moral,  physical,  finan- 
cial, domestic  and  agricultural  condition  of 
our  growing  county.  We  do  not  claim  to  be 
an  oracle,  nor  a  dictator  in  matters  of  rural 
industry  and  economy  ;  hence,  our  situation 
must  necessarily  be  that  of  a  Medium  between 
the  farmers  and  the  public.  We  therefore  need 
their  thoughts  and  experiences  to  stamp  our 
journal  with  that  <lpgree  of  interest  to  them, 
which  is  so  much  desired  by  a  progressive 
people.  Having  this  support,  we  will  see  that 
their  ideas  are  clothed  in  such  language  as  will 
make  them  intelligible  and  useful,  as  well  as 
a  credit  to  their  authors.    Judging  from  the 


past  we  feel  assured  that  they  possess  the  in- 
tellectual and  physical  power  to  make  their 
representative  journal  a  lirst-class  publication. 
It  is  true,  that  our  country  at  this  time,  is  de- 
piessed,  and  that  all  ourdomestic,  mechanical, 
agricultural  and  connnercial  interests  are  in 
travail  ;  but  then  we  must  remember,  that  the 
greatest  blessings  to  the  human  family  are 
often  secured  only  tiirougli  travail.  It  wan 
through  travail  a  hundred  years  ago  that  our 
.s((((!(.v  as  a  free  and  independent  people  was 
secured  ;  and  it  was  through  the  direst  travail 
that  nearly  nineteen  hundred  years  ago  the 
Christian  religion  was  established  on  earth. 
We  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  present 
unpropitions  times  are  only  a  transition  period 
that  sooner  or  later  must. pass  away,  and  that 
a  "good  time  is  coming."  The  self-denial 
that  each  farmer  will  becalled  upou  to  exercise 
will  be  small  indeed,  when  it  is  compared  with 
the  good  which  may  be  done  in  sustaining  the 
Lancaster  Farmer,  at  so  small  an  outlay.  This 
good  will  live  after  us,  and  its  influence  will 
be  felt  among  our  children  and  our  children's 
children  down  along  the  stream  of  time,  and 
they  will  rise  up  and  call  us  blessed.  With 
these  sentiments  as  our  support  and  guide, 
and  a  desire  to  merit  your  favor,  we  emerge 
forth,  hoping  tliat  you  all  may  experience  a 
prosperous  and  ^^ Happy  New  Year." 

TO  OUR  READERS. 

We  are  obliged  to  throw  ourselves  upon  the 
kind  indulgence  of  our  friends  and  patrons  for 
the  late  apperauce  of  our  journal.  Adverse 
and  almost  uncontrollable  circumstances  pre- 
vented its  issue  at  the  regular  period,  in  the 
beginning  of  the  year  ;  and  then,  we  thought 
that  the  next  be.st  thing  we  could  do,  was  to 
issue  a  double  number,  covering  the  months 
of  January  and  February.  But  this  was  over- 
ruled by  our  friends,  and  the  more  practical 
suggestions  of  the  publislier  and  his  friends. 
Inorder,  therefore,  to  cover  the  whole  ground, 
and  prevent  a  historical  vacuujn  in  its  .series, 
we  have  concluded  to  issue  the  January 
number  separate,  under  its  proper  date,  and 
immediately  follow  it  with  tlie  February 
number.  The  March  number  will  be  issued 
at  its  regular  period,  and  from  tlience  for- 
ward  we  expect  to  be  regularly  "on  time." 

We  feel  that  long  before  the  end  of  the  year, 
our  patrons  will  have  forgotten  these  un- 
pleasant irregularities,  and  that  in  ten  or  a 
lumdred  years  hereafter  (but  for  this  necessary 
record)  "no  body  will  be  the  wiser  of  it."  We 
have  received  many  verbal  and  written  com- 
mendations from  our  brethren  of  the  agricul- 
tural press,  which  it  will  give  us  pleasure  to 
notice  in  due  time  ;  but  for  the  present,  we 
cannot  resist  the  impulse  to  express  our 
hearty  thanks  for  the  kind  words  we  have 
received  from  the  editor  of  the  American 
Farmer,  puVilished  at  Xo.  0  North  street, 
Baltimore,  ]Md.,  one  of  the  best  and  most  ably 
conducted  agricultural  jounials  in  the  Union. 

Baltimore,  1877. 
Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

Dear  .Sir  :  I  take  the  liberty  of  sayinsr  that  I  wae 
sorry  not  to  have  the  opportunity, wlien  in  Lancaster, 
of  exprcssinsr  to  you,  in  person,  the  rettrot  1  feci  at 
your  withdraw!  IViiin  llie  control  of  a  journal  so 
etliciently  workinsr  in  the  licld  of  airricultural  litera- 
ture, as  did  the  one  under  your  editorial  manage- 
ment. That  important  cause  can  ill  afford  to  lose 
the  services  of  nun  so  intellitcent,  so  active,  and  so 
disintercsted^and  while  no  douhl  it  is  to  you,  in- 
dividually, a  relief,  it  is,  to  my  mind,  no  less  a  dis- 
aster to  the  true  interest  of  agricultural  journalism  ; 
in  the  ranks  of  which  are  too  many  who  take  up  the 
work  only  as  an  expedient,  or  to  subserve  personal 
aims.  Assurini;  you  of  my  great  respect,  I  beg  to 
subscribe  mvseJf,  very  truly  your  friend, 

W.  B.  Sands. 

In  conclusion,  we  admonish  our  friends  who 
have  subscription  lists  or  advertisements,  to 
send  them  in  without  delay. — Ed. 


AFTER  THOUGHTS. 

And  now,  here  turns  up  before  us  a  postal 
card,  bearing  date  June  1,  187.5,  whicli  we 
do  not  remember  having  seen  before,  buried 
as  it  has  been  among  a  multitude  of  letters 
and  promiscuous  papers,  containing  the  fol- 
lowing : 

"The  young  duck  swims  at  once,  the 
young  snajiping  turtle  bites  when  taken  from 
the  egg,  and  a  harmless  serpent,  without  fang 
or  rattle,  will  vibrate  its  tail  like  a  rattle 
snake,  producing  a  similar  soinid  among  dry 
leaves." — IIaldejian,  in  the  Jcono'jruphic 
Fiicychpcedia,  New  York,  185U-zoology,  p.  G. 

"The  Latin  adjective  'exilis'  means  slender, 
but  'exile'  is  akin  to  'exilium,'  banishment, 
'exul,'  one  bayxished." 

"The  Pennsylvania  canal  from  Chickies  to 
Bainbridge,  and  perhaps  farther,  has  many 
dead  and  dying  lisli,  such  as  chubs,  minnows, 
suckers,  black  bass;  also  cattish  and  eels, 
which  seem  to  be  hardier  than  the  others. 
The  caii.se  is  probably  due  to  i)umping  out 
the  Lykens  Valley  coal  mines,  after  the  long 
strike,  which  allowed  the  waters  to  take  up 
an  unusual  amount  of  deleterious  salts  and 
acids.  I  have  been  told  that  frogs  are  dying 
with  the  fish  I" 

"The  article  in  the  Intelligencer,  May  31, 
1875,  does  not  state  distinctly  whether  the 
ground-hog  plugs  his  hole  or  not." 

None  of  the  above  paragraphs  are  too  tran- 
sient to  go  on  permanent  record;  because 
they  all  relate  to  those  facts  which  may  be 
consulted  with  profit  at  any  time;  notwith- 
standing they  have  been  inhuiued  for  nearly 
two  years.  The  first  paragraph  illustrates 
that  instinctive  mimicry,  which  also  dis- 
tinguishes so  luany  of  the  the  tiny  subjects 
of  tlie  insect  realm,  in  which  they  exhibit  all 
the  activity  and  intelligence  of  adults,  the 
very  moment  they  evolve  from  their  pupal 
sleep.  The  little  MirriKjaster  comjregata, 
which  is  parasitic  on  the  bodies  of  the  "Giape 
Sphinxes,"  the  moment  its  head  protrudes 
from  the  upper  end  of  its  little  rice-sh.Tped 
cocoon  (which  stands  erect  on  the  body  of  the 
Sphinx)  begins  to  maniptilate  its  antenna  as 
deftly  as  a  "fiddler's  elbow,"  and  looks  as 
briglitly  and  as  cunningly  at  you  as  if  it  an- 
ticipated some  sinister  intent  towards  it;  and, 
as  soon  as  the  whole  body  is  extricated  it  will 
run  or  fly  with  all  the  agility  it  ever  aeepiires. 
And  that  is  not  all;  if  the  slightest  drop  of 
honey  or  treacle  is  placed  upon  a  fresh  leaf, 
by  the  aid  of  those  same  little  antennte  it  will 
find  it  and  appropriate  it  as  dexterously  as 
if  it  had  been  specially  educated  to  it.  And 
when  its  nuptials  are  accomplished,  it  knows 
exactly  where  to  go  to  oviposit. 

Thesfcodd  paragraph  involves  a  philological 
(piestion  that  is  altogether  unquestionable. 

The  third  paragraph  involves  a  historical 
fact,  that  was  patent  at  the  time,  and  sug- 
gests a  rational  conjecture  as  to  the  cause. 
Such  mortalities  in  the  animal  world  are  fre- 
quent; and  doubtless  are  the  effects  of  differ- 
ent causes.  During  the  "heated  term"  of 
1870  we  heard  of  one  or  two  such  cases,  as 
occurring  in  lakes  or  other  large  bodies  of 
water,  but  we  cannot  now  specifically  recall 
them. 

In  regard  to  i\\e  fourth  paragraph,  we  have 
not  easy  access  to  the  record  alluded  to;  we 
therefore,  cannot  recall  what  was  said  there, 
in  regard  to  the  habit  of  the  ground-hog,  in 
plugging  the  hole  of  his  den  during  the  win- 
ter season;  but,  in  a  paper  of  prior  date,  we 
made  the  statement  (on  the  authority  of  Dr. 
John  Godraau)  that  the  ground-hog  did  retire 
to  his  winter  sleep,  and  plug  up  the  door  of 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  January, 


entrance  to  his  lair.  Tliis  was  questioned 
by  Mr.  W.  B.,  who  states  that  he  had  explor- 
ed the  burrows  of  one  of  these  animals,  and 
that  he  did  not  recognize  anything  in  the 
form  of  a  plug,  by  which  its  burrow  was 
closed.  This  statement,  to  our  mind,  did  not 
involve  a  question  of  veracity  between  these 
two  men,  both  of  whom  were  intelligent  and 
also  reliable.  The  fact  is,  they  were  both 
right.  We  subsequently  learned  that  Mr.  B. 
meant  the  hole  at  the  outer  end  of  the  burrow, 
and  doubtless  Dr.  Godman  meant  the  hole  at 
the  inner  end,  and  there  the  matter  since  has 
rested.  Of  course  it  would  be  folly  to  at- 
tempt to  set  an  arljitrarj^  limit  to  the  knowl- 
edge that  is  every  day  being  developed  on  all 
subjects  relating  to  natural  and  physical  sci- 
ence, and  therefore  many  cases  must  provis- 
ionally remain  open  subjects. 


SPARROWS. 


A  man — or  a  simpleton — named  Henry 
Euth,  in  Reading,  Pa.,  professes  to  have  dis- 
covered that  the  highly  useful  little  bird — the 
English  sparrow — whose  almost  incessant 
vocal  strains  impart  life  in  our  gardens, 
groves  and  forests,  summer  and  winter  alike, 
destroys  the  buds  of  the  trees  and  the  embryo 
fruit.  He  says  that  he  has  noticed  the  birds 
pecking  the  blossoms  on  peach  trees,  and  that 
they  have  pecked  the  buds  off  other  trees,  so 
that  they  did  not  bear  any  fruit.  Last  year 
he  had  no  currants,  and  he  charges  the  spar- 
rows with  pecking  out  the  eyes  of  the  bushes. 
He  has  no  doubt  they  destroy  the  buds  of 
grape  vines,  and  he  is  convinced  that  the 
little  sparrows  do  a  great  deal  of  harm  and 
very  little  good,  and  he  thinks  it  was  a  great 
mistake  to  import  them.  Having  put  up 
boxes  for  them  to  house  in,  he  has  torn  them 
down,  and  now  stones  the  sparrows  whenever 
they  come  upon  his  premises.  Mr.  Ruth  is 
entirely  mistaken  in  his  theory.  He  must 
have  seen  them  pecking  about  the  buds  for 
the  larvaj  secreted  there,  and  the  bird  may 
have  injured  a  few  buds  in  its  efforts,  but 
they  do  not  thus  subsist  in  winter,  as  he  as- 
serts, on  buds,  but  upon  the  larvse  and  insects 
secreted  on  the  bark  of  trees,  and  feed  on  the 
seeds  of  plants  and  such  food  as  may  be  given 
them,  because  they  seek  the  haunts  of  civiliza- 
tion, and  are  great  lovers  of  good  society.  In 
summer  their  principal  fijod  is  insects,  of 
which  one  will  devour  avast  number  in  a  day. 
One  of  these  useful  birds  may  be  heard  any 
day  along  the  hillside  in  Saltsburg,  uttering 
the  most  lively  notes,  the  coldest  morning 
never  being  cold  enough  to  check  the  utterance 
of  his  ever-changing  song. — Salisbury  Press. 

There  appear  to  be  much  "  fuss  and  feath- 
ers" developed  throughout  the  country  in  re- 
lation to  the  "English  sparrows,"  but  we 
opine  that  the  people  would  have  a  more 
practical  and  powerful  illustration  of  their 
benefits  to  the  vegetable  kingdom  by  their  ab- 
sence, than  by  their  presence.  More  things  in 
this  world  are  M?idfir-estimated  than  are  over- 
estimated,  and  one  of  the  former  are  the 
English  sparrows.  We  distinctly  remember 
the  time  when  the  small  "woodpecker," 
known  under  the  name  of  "sap-sucker,"  was 
universally  and  unquestionably  voted  a  great 
enemy  to  the  apple  tree,  because  everybody 
professed  to  have  seen  them  peck  holes  into 
the  trunk  or  branshes  and  suck  out  the  sap, 
and  it  must  be  confessed  that  there  were  ajj- 
pearauces  which  seemed  to  corroborate  this 
opinion.  But  it  transpired,  in  the  course  of 
time,  that  these  little  birds  were  in  pursuit  of 
insect  grubs  that  were  boring  under  the  bark 
of  the  trees,  to  their  great  injury.  This,  we 
believe,  will  also  become  manifest  in  relation 
to  the  sparrows.  Whatever  the  adult  birds 
themselves — under  a  stress  of  circumstances — 
may  be  compelled  to  eat,  still  sparrows,  and 
many  other  graniferousand  frugivorous  birds, 
almost  invariably  feed  their  young  on  slugs, 
grubs,  worms,  larvae,  and  the  softer-bodied 
insects,  and  during  a  season,  too,  when  no 
other  food  is  accessible,  and  when  tlie  founda- 
tions of  the  future  colonies  of  destructive  in- 
sects are  laid.    In  this  field  of  use,  the  benefits 


of  insectivorous  birds  are  inestimable,  and,  if 
there  never  had  been  a  bird  of  this  character 
at  all,  there  would  not  have  long  remained 
either  fruit  or  vegetation.  Insects  are  almost 
infinitely  more  prolific  than  the  estimate  of 
qiiails,  as  exhibited  in  another  article  in  this 

paper. 

^ 

PARSNIP. 

Pastlnfica  Stltivfl* 

According  to  Johnson,  the  botanic  name 
Pastinaca,  is  derived  from  the  Latin  word  for 
a  dibble,  pastinum,  in  allusion  to  the  long, 
tapering  shape  of  the  root.  This  is  a  very 
hardy  biennial,  of  which  the  original  is  prob- 
ably the  common  wild  parsnip  of  southern 
Europe.  In  its  natural  state,  it  is  of  small 
size,  woody  and  poisonous.  It  has  been 
greatly  improved  by  cultivation,  and  is  at  the 
present  time  much  esteemed  for  culinary  pur- 
poses, being  found  nutritious  as  well  as  whole- 
some. It  is  particularly  valuable  on  account 
of  its  power  of  standing  severe  frost  without 
injury,  and  continuing  good  for  use  until  the 
latter  part  of  spring.  The  varieties  are  not 
niunerous,  and  the  IloUowed-crowned  is  un- 
doubtedly the  best  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the 
family  gardener. 

Culture.  In  regard  to  soil,  the  parsnip 
has  a  preference  for  one  that  is  dry  and 
mellow,  rich  and  of  considerable  depth.  A 
good  sandy  loam  seems  to  be  most  suitable  ; 
while  only  poor  crops  can  be  expected  from  a 
gravel  or  tenacious  clay.  Depth  and  fertility 
are  particularly  necessary,  because  thereon 
depend  the  length  and  size  of  the  roots.  In  the 
latter  part  of  autumn,  or  the  very  commenc- 
ment  of  spring,  the  ground  selected  for  the 
bed  should  be  spaded  or  trenched  two  spits 
deep,  and  if  it  be  not  sufficiently  rich,  some 
well  decomposed  manure  ought  to  be  dug  in 
with  the  lower  spit.  Sea-weed,  decayed  forest 
leaves  and  bird's-dung  have  been  highly  re- 
commended as  fertilizers,  as  being  less  liable 
to  affect  the  quality  of  the  roots,  than  common 
stable  dung.  In  spading,  care  is  to  be  taken 
to  break  up  all  the  clods  or  large  lumps  of 
dirt,  and  to  remove  the  largest  stones. 

Sow  in  drills,  twelve  inches  apart,  in  April 
or  May,  according  to  the  forwardness  of  the 
season.  One  ounce  of  seed  is  sufficient  for 
rather  more  than  a  rod  of  ground.  Drop  the 
seed  thinly,  and  cover  it  nearly  an  inch  deep. 
In  dry  weather  vegetation  will  be  hastened 
by  rolling  the  surface  of  the  bed,  or  by  tread- 
ing down  the  drills  with  the  feet.  When  the 
plants  have  taken  a  good  start,  they  are  to  be 
weeded  and  thinned  out  in  the  drills  ;  but,  it 
is  not  until  they  become  firmly  established, 
tliat  they  should  receive  their  final  thinning. 
To  ensure  the  formation  of  large  roots,  they 
ought  to  have  plenty  of  room,  and  stand  not 
nearer  together  than  six  inches.  It  is  a  bad 
plan  to  crowd  vegetables  like  the  carrot  and 
parsnip.  Make  frequent  use  of  the  hoe,  as 
well  to  keep  the  ground  free  from  weeds,  as 
to  prevent  its  becoming  hard  or  baked. 

Parsnips  do  not  attain  maturity  until  cold 
weather  is  near  at  hand.  They  will  be  found 
fit  for  use  as  soon  as  the  leaves  decay,  in  the 
month  of  October,  but  their  sweetness  and 
agreeable  flavor  are  much  improved  by  frost. 
This  fact  is  so  well  understood,  that  many 
cultivators  are  accustomed  to  let  the  roots  re- 
main in  bed  through  the  winter  ;  or,  at  least, 
to  take  up  only  a  number  sufficient  for  the 
wants  of  the  family  while  the  ground  is 
closed,  and  to  harvest  the  balance  of  the  crop 
in  the  spring.  They  ought  to  be  dug  very 
carefully,  without  being  cut  or  bruised  by  the 
spade  any  more  than  is  unavoidable  ;  and, 
for  preservation,  must  be  packed  in  layers  of 
sand,  in  a  shed  or  cool  cellar. 

For  seed.  Some  of  the  best  plants  should 
be  left  in  the  bed  where  grown  ;  or  else  set  out 
in  a  border,  some  time  during  the  earlj'  part 
of  spring.  They  ought  to  be  in  rows,  about 
two  feet  apart  each  way.  In  continued  dry 
weather,  it  will  be  found  of  advantage  to 
apply  water  every  three  or  four  days.  Lay 
the  tlower-heads  upon  a  cloth,  and  suffer  them 
to  get  fully  dry,  before  you  attempt  to  thresh 
out  the  seed. 


Use.  The  parsnip  has  many  valuable 
qualities,  which  commend  it  to  Ijoth  the 
farmer  and  gardener.  It  is  thought  highly  of 
for  feeding  to  domestic  animals.  Hogs  and 
bullocks  are  fattened  upon  it  in  a  very  short 
space  of  time,  and  the  flesh  is  considered  of 
superior  flavor ;  while  in  cows  it  produces  an 
extraordinary  yield  of  milk,  having  a  rich 
color,  and  affording  butter  of  an  excellent 
quality.  Its  cliaracter  in  the  kitchen  is  well 
established.  Although  disliked  by  some  per- 
sons on  account  of  its  peculiar  sweetish  taste, 
it  is  certainly  wholesome,  and  proves  very  ac- 
ceptable at  that  season  of  the  year  when  in 
perfection,  and  when  other  vegetables  are  so 
few  in  number.  It  excites  appetite,  and 
physicians  think  it  wholesome  for  convales- 
cents. It  is  sometimes  manufactiu'ed  into 
ardent  spirits,  wine  and  marmalade  ;  while  in 
Ireland,  it  is  used  with  hops  for  brewing  a 
kind  of  beer  much  liked  by  the  peasantry. 
The  seeds  are  occasionally  employed  in  in- 
termittent fevers. 

To  BOIL.  Wash  and  split  the  roots,  lay 
them  in  a  stew-pan  with  the  flat  sides  down, 
and  just  cover  them  with  boiling  water,  into 
which  a  little  salt  has  been  thrown.  When 
they  are  quite  tender,  pare  and  butter  them, 
and  carry  immediately  to  the  table.  Cold 
boiled  parsnips  are  good  when  cut  into  thin 
slices,  dipped  into  butter,  and  fried  brown. — 
ScheiicVs  Oardener's  Text-Book. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
GREEN   MANURING. 

This  is  a  term  that  is  now  applied  to  the 
plowing  under  of  any  green  vegetable  sub- 
stance for  the  .pm-pose  of  adding  fertility  to 
the  soil. 

The  common  red  clover  is  considered  tlie 
best  of  all  farm  crops  for  this  purpose,  and  it 
is  so  undoubtedly  from  two  very  different 
causes.  In  the  first  place  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  clover  is  very  rich  in  nitrogen, 
which  it  is  said  to  appropriate  not  only  from 
the  soil,  but  also  from  the  air  to  a  very  great 
extent,  while  all  other  plants  available  for 
this  purpose  derive  very  little,  if  any,  from 
that  source.  In  the  second  place,  clover  has 
very  long  tap-roots,  which  penetrate  through 
the  soil  directly  into  the  sub-soil  and  drawing 
on  whatever  fertilizing  materials  such  sub-soil 
may  contain,  carries  them  up  into  the  stems 
and  leaves,  and  the  upper  part  of  the  root 
itself,  the  latter  becoming  very  thick  near  the 
surface  and  containing  a  large  amount  of 
vegetable  substance  to  the  acre.  I  do  not 
believe,  however,  that  the  amount  thus  drawn 
from  tlie  sub-soil  is  as  gr^t  as  some  would 
make  it  appear,  as  the  root  is  not  very  thick 
at  eight  or  ten  inches  below  the  surface,  what- 
ever its  length  may  be.  It  must  still  be  given 
its  proper  credit  in  this  case,  for  all,  or  mostly 
all  other  crops  used  for  green  manures,  have 
only  surface-roots,  and  draw  very  little  of  the 
materials  requisite  for  plant-growth  from  the 
sub-soil. 

Clover,  however,  is  a  very  unhandy  crop 
for  this  purpose,  as  it  must  be  sowed  one 
spring  and  cannot  be  plowed  under  before  the 
next  spring,  and,  as  in  common  rotation,  this 
would  not  work  very  well,  some  other,  easily- 
raised  crop  must  be  looked  for,  and  among 
the  handiest  are  rye,  oats,  buckwheat  and 
corn. 

Eye  is  for  some  purposes  the  handiest  of  all 
crops  for  this  purpose,  as  it-  can  be  used 
where  no  other  kind  could  be,  except  wheat, 
and  in  this  the  price  of  the  seed  is  much  great- 
er, and  no  better  result  obtained.  The  rye 
can  be  sowed  on  corn  stubbles,  where  it  is  in- 
tended to  plant  some  crop  that  is  put  out  late 
like  tobacco,  or  perhaps  a  second  time  in  corn, 
as  is  done  in  some  places.  For  the  two  crops 
mentioned,  the  rye  need  not  be  put  out  very 
early  if  other  work  is  pressing,  as  it  has  time 
to  grow  in  the  spring  until  the  middle  of  May 
or  the  beginning  of  June,  but  when  it  is  sow- 
ed very  late  a  larger  quantity  of  seed  is  need- 
ed to  the  acre.  I  have  seen  lye  that  was 
sowed  in  the  beginning  of  December  do  very 
fair,  but  it  would  not  do  good  every  year 
sowed  so  late  as  this.    The  late  J.  B.  Root,  a 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


seedsman  of  Uockfm-d,  Illinois,  said  that  one 
of  tlie  best  crops  of  set'il  (Mulon,  I  liclicvi')  he 
ever  raised  was  a  field  of  rye  ho  rented  and 
turned  down  in  the  hi  jjinnins  of  June,  this 
U'iui;  all  tlie  manure  the  lield  received. 

If  in  the  fall,  work  is  too  pressint;,  .so  that 
rye  cannot  be  got  out,  oats  would  probably  do 
very  well  for  croi)s  that  are  put  out  late,  such 
as  tobacco,  which  is  sometimes  not  planted 
until  the  middle  of  June,  or  a  cpiick  growing 
corn,  like  Kaily  t^anada  or  One  Hundred  Day 
Deut,  which  can  also  be  delayed  until  the 
Idlh  or  l."ilh  of  June. 

In  place  of  letting  a  piece  of  ground  intend- 
ed for  wheat,  lie  tallow,  buekwiieat  is  some- 
times sowed  and  [ilowed  under  twice  before 
seeding  time,  and  is  found  to  be  very  good 
for  the  purpose, as  it  keeps  the  ground  mellow 
and  free  from  weeds,  the  buckwheat  being  of 
very  rapid  growth  and  smolheriug  all  weeds. 
There  is  objection  made  against  it,  that  in  a 
dry  .season  it  makes  the  soil  so  dry  that  unless 
a  rain  comet  on  at  seeding  time,  the  wheat 
will  not  germinate  very  readily. 

I  have  never  seen  corn  tried,  or  heard  of 
its  being  tried,  but  I  think  thatan  oat-.slubble 
])lowed  up  and  seeded  very  thick,  broad-cast, 
to  coru,  would  make  a  suilicient  growth  and 
prove  very  good  for  wheat.  There  are  but 
few  crops  "for  which  corn  could  be  used,  but  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  such  ca.ses  it  would  do 
nearly  as  well  as  anything  else,  with  the  ex- 
eeiition  of  clover. 

Any  green  vegetable  substance  j)lowed  un- 
der is  good  for  this  purpose,  even  if  it  be  only- 
weeds,  but  with  these  it  is  very  important  to 
plow  under  by  blos.soming  time  or  before,  as 
if  the  seed  is  allowed  to  ripen,  the  harme  done 
will  more  than  overbalance  the  good  resulting 
from  the  decaying  vegetable  matter. 

Green  manuring,  with  the  exception  of 
clover, does  not  really  a^d  any  fcrtlizing  mate- 
rial to  the  soil,  as  with  the  exception  men- 
tioned, they  draw  none  or  so  very  little  from 
the  air  as  to  be  inappreciable,  and  all  the  ma- 
terials that  the  soil  receives  from  the  plants, 
had  been  taken  by  the  plants  from  the  soil,  and 
so  the  soil  is  neither  richer  nor  poorer  tliau  be- 
fore, but  the  green  vegetable  mat  ter  plow-ed 
under  decays  m  a  short  time  and  leaves  the 
fertilizing  materials  contained  therein  in  the 
very  best  condition  for  them  to  be  taken  up  by 
the  crop  which  is  now  put  in.  It  also  makes 
the  soil  loose  and  mellow,  the  very  condition 
for  the  roots  of  most  plants,  which  have  thus 
all  opportunity  for  penetrating  to  every  part 
and  appropriating  the  materials  which  have 
been  made  ready  for  them  beforehand. — A. 
B.  K.,  Safe  Harbor. 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Fakmer 
THE  CARE  OF  HOGS. 
Hogs  are  animals  that  require  more  than 
coru  and  slop  to  satisfy  them.  They  have 
cravings  when  they  are  penned  up  that  can't 
be  .satisfied  unless  \Ye  give  them  the  material 
to  do  it  with.  You  will  notice  how  they  root 
and  work  down  throui^h  dung  and  everything 
else  to  get  at  the  dirt,  and  they  will  have  it  if 
it  is  in  their  power  to  get  it.  And  again,  we 
sometiiues  hear  and  see  them  scraping  the 
boards  and  pen  to  pieces.  We  should  try  to 
give  them  something  to  satisfy  this  desire  and 
craving.  But  not  like  the  man  that  took  his 
club,  and  every  time  the  hogs  scraped  the  pen 
or  boards  he  would  pound  the  hogs  for  doing 
so.  I  knew  an  old  colored  wonum  who  did 
not  be  so  cruel.  Whenever  her  hogs  tore  at 
the  pen,  she  would  throw  in  a  rotten  log  to 
satisfy  them.  Again,  we  often  notice  the 
hogs  chewing  leaves,  husks,  fodder,  and  some 
of  their  bedding,  if  they  have  any.  This 
shows  us  that  they  need  something  to  mix 
in  with  their  corn  and  slsp  for  wadding,  &c. 
Now  we  claim  that  tlie  domesticated  hog  de- 
serves a  more  generous  treatment  than  it 
usually  gets.  The  hogs  should  be  treated  with 
some  luxuries  to  mix  with  their  food  and  quiet 
those  cravings  and  uneasiness  which  is  caused 
by  their  being  shut  awav  from  dirt  and 
various  kinds  of  herbage 'that  they  would 
otherwise  get,if  running  at  large,  according  to 
nature,  as  of  old.    When  the  Prodigal  was 


sent  into  the  fields  to  feed  sw'inc,  lie  '•  would 
fain  have  filled  his  belly  with  the  husks  that 
the  swine  did  eat,"  &c.  Now  I  will  mention 
some  things  that  will  lu-li)  to  satisfy  them  (but 
not  without  the  cory  and  slop,  also).  Give 
them  ev(>ry  few  days  S(Uiie  wood  or  coal 
ashes,  with  bits  of  coal  in  it  ;  sods  when  you 
can  get  them  ;  husks,  fodder,  tree  leaves,  or 
any  other  kind  of  lierbag<',  green  or  dry  ;  weeds 
and  rubbish,  chij)  dirt,  rotten  wood,  straw  or 
hay;  a  few  raw  or  sweet  )iotaloes,  squashes 
or  other  veiretables.  A  little  soajisiids  some- 
times, is  good  for  them,  but  sometimes  the 
slop  has  enough  soap  in  the  dish  water 
to  answer  the  imrpose.  I  don't  mean  that 
my  plan  is  the  best,  but  I  think  it  is  none  of 
the  worst.  It  has  given  entire  satisfaction  .so 
far,  and  I  have  not  had  a  hog  butchered  for  a 
number  of  years,  with  a  diseased  liver.  When 
they  are  small  I  use  the  fine  white  shorts,  or 
middlings,  scalded  for  slop.  When  they  get 
a  little  older  I  use  some  corn-choii  along  with 
it.  Next,  bran  and  chop,  and  some  whole 
corn,  but  not  much  at  first,  but  increase  the 
quantity  as  they  grow  up,  but  not  as  much  in 
hot  weather  as  in  cold  winter.  I  use  two 
slop  barrels  in  summer  for  shoats,  always  put- 
ting the  clio()  and  bran  to  soak  and  sour  a  lit- 
tle while  before  filling  up,  using  the  slop  in 
the  other  barrel  first.  For  shoats,  or  large 
hogs,  1  use  a  little  salt  in  a  barrel  of  slop,  and 
all  the  milk  and  dish  slojis  I  can  get.  When 
the  weather  is  set  iu  very  cold  I  change  to 
scalding  the  chop,  &c.,  for  a  warm  slo]). 
Keep  them  well  sheltered  from  the  cold  winds 
and  rain  or  snow,  &c.  Have  their  pen  clean 
and  a  dry  nest.  Look  if  they  have  lice;  you 
can  soon  tell  if  they  have  any;  take  a  little 
lard  and  a  bit  of  tar  mixed  with  it,  rub  some 
back  of  their  ears.  Fix  a  rail  slanting  across 
the  out  pen,  for  them  to  scratch  at.  Card 
them  .sometimes  and  see  how  they  like  it,  and 
if  they  are  very  scruffy  along  their  backs, 
■  swab  them  with  buttermilk  right  well  along 
the  back,  and  it  will  loosen  and  come  off 
without  much  trouble.  If  any  look  sickly 
use  some  good  cattle  powder  in  their  slop. 
Now,  I  take  it  for  granted  that  nearly  every- 
body knows  something  about  feeding  and  fat- 
tening hogs;  yet  for  the  benefit  of  those  that 
are  anxious  to  learn,  I  have  thrown  out  these 
hints,  and  still  hope  others  may  give  us  more 
information  on  the  suliject.  I  would  like  to 
know  whether  ground  bone  or  ground  hay 
would  be  any  benefit  for  feeding  hogs,  &c. — 
John  B.  Erb,  Lime  Valley. 


ESSAY   ON   TOBACCO   CULTURE.* 

It  is  an  encouraging  sight,  aiKl  it  affords  me 
a  peculiar  pleasure,  to  see  the  husbandmen  of 
our  great  county  assendiled  together  for  the 
purpose  of  elaborating  and  discussing  jilans 
for  growing  tobacco,  which  is  becoming — if  it 
has  not  already  become — one  of  the  most  pro- 
fitable crops  of  Lancaster  county.  But  in 
order  to  "make  it  pay"  in  the  entl,  we  must 
manage  to  grow  it  without  impoverishing  the 
soil — yea,  even  increasing  the  fertility  of  our 
land. 

We  should  remember  that  tobacco  leaves 
nothing  in  the  soil  for  manure,  and  therefore, 
under  ordinary  circumstiuices,  it  is  not  profit- 
able to  the  land,  and  should  be  grown  with 
considerations  having  reference  to  this  fact. 
Those  farmers  who  are  not  making  and  using 
more  than  an  ordinary  amount  of  maiuue, 
noraiiplying  any  nioretlian  an  ordinaiy  quan- 
tity of  lime,  should  limit  themselves  "accord- 
ingly, or  they  may  eventually  lose  in  other 
crops  what  they  gain  iu  tobacco.  Without  an 
effective  forearming  in  obedience  to  this  fore- 
warning, a  time  will  surely  couic  when  far- 
mers will  realize  that  iu  their  anxiety  to  ob- 
tain the  "golden  egg,"  they  have  destroyed 
the  prolific  "goose."  Nor  should  any  farmer 
put  out  more  tobacco  than  he  can  well  attend 
to,  as  one  good  acre  is  worth  more  than  two 
bad  ones,  and  one  good  leaf  is  worth  as  much 
as  five  bad  ones. 

Out  of  the  320,000,000  pounds  gi'own  on 

•  Read  before  the  Tob-icco  Growera'  Afisocjation  of  Lan- 
caster Couuty,  November  20,  1S76,  by  Peter  8.  Keist. 


427,000  acres  of  land,  and  realizing  S1(),IKI0,- 
(K)0,  which  was  the  tobacco  ))roduct  of  the 
United  States  for  one  year,  I'ennsylvania  pro- 
duced comparatively  a  small  (piantity  ;  Vir- 
ginia very  largely  taking  the  lead.  "Locally 
considered,  Lancaster  county  takes  tiie  lead 
of  any  other  similar  district  in  the  United 
.States  iu  its  production  of  tobacco.  The 
Miami  Valley,  in  t)hio,  produced  12,000,000 
pounds,  worth  more  than  S2, 000, 000.  Coun- 
ties in  smaller  tobacco-growing  localities,  as 
In  Connecticut,  Virginia  and  A^irtli  Carolina, 
are  increasing  very  rapidly.  Brazil,  South 
America,  exports  over  100,000,000  pounds 
annually. 

A  iiamphlet  written  by  a  gentleman  in  Vir- 
ginia, on  the  culture  and  curing  of  tobacco, 
describes  a  steaming  process  to  fix  the  color 
of  the  plant,  which  increases  its  value  nearly 
one  hundred  jier  cent.  An  article  on  the 
subject  from  .lapan  .states  that  in  that  country 
they  raise  4,000  pounds  on  an  acre,  which 
sells  at  four  cents  a  pound,  realizing  $100. 
They  use  twenty  dollars'  worth  of  manure  to 
the  acre,  subsoiling  their  land,  and  picking  it 
three  times. 

In  the  successful  cultivation  of  tobacco,  the 
three  leading  essentials  are,fr.flh/,  good  land  ; 
seronill;/,  good  tillage  ;  and  thirdly,  a  good 
season.  The  proper  prei)aration  of  our  tobacco 
land  retpiires  good  barnyard  manure,  or  almost 
any  other  good  kind  of  fertilizer,  and  lime  ; 
barnyard  manure  being  the  cheapest,  and  is 
one  of  the  greatest  advantages  of  our  Lancas- 
tes  couuty  farmers,  who  feed  their  grain  into 
their  stock,  and  thus  keep  up  the  fertility  of 
their  lands.  Those  who  can  burn  their  own 
lime  with  coal  at  $2.50  per  ton,  have  an  ad- 
ditional advantage. 

Hauling  the  manure  on  the  land  in  the  fall, 
and  jilowing  it  under,  and  about  one  hundred 
bushels  of  lime  to  the  acre  in  the  spring,  also 
ploughed  under,  is  now  advocated  veiy 
strongly,  as  a  ueces.sary  preparation  of  the 
soil.  About  two  weeks  before  planting  time, 
the  ground  should  be  cultivated  and  rolled,  as 
the  saying  is,  "like  a  garden."  It  should 
then  be  ridged  and  marked  off — as  each  one 
may  think  best— about  3i  feet  by  30  inches  to 
be  ready  by  the  first  of  June. 

Plant  at  such  times  when  the  sun  is  not  too 
hot ;  and  should  a  "dry  spell"  take  place,  I 
would  recommend  covers  made  ol  small 
boards.  I  would  here  mention  that  some  of 
my  farmer  neighbors  have  about  2,000,  what 
they  call  "little  houses,"  made  of  thin  boards, 
with  the  use  of  which,  they  were  very  success- 
ful. When  the  plants  are  jiroperly  started, 
keep  the  weeds  down  with  hoe  cultivation,  or 
any  other  implement. to  make  the  ground  loose 
and  mellow.  Top  your  tobacci*  from  the  tenth 
to  the  twentieth  leaf,  according  to  the  season 
and  growth,  so  that  the  top  leaves  may  be  the 
largest.  When  ripe,  cut  it  with  a  hatchet  or 
a  cutter,  as  a  knife  will  be  very  apt  to  make 
your  hand  sore.  The  precise  ripening  period 
1  will  not  attempt  to  instruct  you  in  ;  but  I 
judge,  l)y  the  yellowish  spots,  and  the  yellow- 
ish tinge  of  the  whole  leaf. 

After  the  plants  are  wilted,  we  string  them 
up  on  inch  by  half-inch  laths,  and  hang 
them  on  a  scaffold  in  the  fields  for  about  two 
days,  when  we  haul  them  home  on  a  scaffold 
w'agon  that  will  hold  about  one  hundred  laths. 
I  prefer  to  sort  it  into  three  qualitiesorkinds, 
and  pile  it  up  in  a  proper  place,  when  in  my 
estimation  the  yrower''s  work  terminates,  ex- 
cept to  sell  it  to  the  packer,  and  to  deliver  it 
as  soon  as  it  is  sold.  It  is  perhaps,  unnecessaiy 
to  say  that,  as  a  general  thing,  tobacco  should 
not  lie  handled  in  very  dry  weather,  or  at 
least,  not  when  the  idant  becomes  dry,  crispy, 
or  brittle  ;  as  much  of  it  may  become  lost  or 
damaged. 

Much  might  be  said  yet  in  regard  to  seed- 
beds ;  the  best  kinds  of  fertilizers;  preparing 
the  land  ;  jilanting  and  cultivating  ;  sncker- 
ingand  topping;  cutting  and  curing;  shipping, 
selling,  etc.,  which  I  will  leave  to  the  special 
experience  of  the  grower.  I  may  suggest, 
however,  in  conclusion,  that  Lancaster 
county  and  Pennsylvania  have  advantages 
not  possessed  by   any  other  locality  in  the 


4 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  januai'y, 


Union,  on  account  of  their  lime  and  barn- 
yard manure  facilities,  and  wliich  are  made 
and  abound  to  a  greater  extent  here  than 
elsewhere. 

Of  course,  every  tobacco  grower  will  have 
his  own  individual  experiences  to  guide  him 
as  to  the  best  plan  to  pursue  in  reference  to 
his  own  particular  locality  ;  for,  like  growing 
any  other  crop,  different  situations  may  sug- 
gest some  variations  in  culture  and  general 
treatment.  Thanking  you  for  your  attention, 
I  will  bring  my  remarks  to  a  close. 


THE  YAM- 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
-SWEET   POTATO. 


They  seem  to  be  too  large  for  some  people. 
We  have  been  raising  the  white,  or  yellow 
and  red  yams — both  yellow  when  cooked — and 
dry  and  sweet,  if  raised  in  sandy  soil  that 
lays  not  too  low,  a  great  many  from  one  to 
five  pounds  in  weight;  we  can  manage  them; 
but  some  of  our  good  housewives  in  the  city 
seem  to  be  afraid  of  them.  I  have  sent  seve- 
ral barrels  of  them  to  the  city,  and  I  must 
always  sort  out  all  the  large  ones  to  keep  at 
home.  They  say  it  takes  too  long  to  cook 
them.  Well,  perhaps  it  does,  if  they  leave 
them  whole;  but  try  our  plan  once.  Pare 
them  raw,  slice  them  thin,  as  you  do  the  com- 
mon potato  when  you  fry  them  raw  stew  or 
fi-y  them  about  tlie  same  way,  season  to  suit, 
and  if  done  about  right  you  will  say  they 
don't  eat  bad.  Xow  this  is  one  of  the  quick- 
est ways  to  cook  big  sweet  potatoes;  but,  as 
I  am  no  cook,  I  will  leave  others  to  tell  how 
to  do  it,  so  dont  be  backward,  but  give  us 
your  plan.  Sweet  potatoes  should  not  be 
planted  in  heavy  clay  or  wet  land;  this  is  one 
reason  why  many  of  the  country  sweet  pota- 
toes brought  to  market  are  not  good,  and 
townspeople  don't  trust  to  buy  them.  I  don't 
blame  them,  for  I  have  tried  both,  and  find  a 
great  difference  in  the  quality.  Sweet  pota- 
toes aud  other  potatoes  are  much  better  if 
raised  in  middling  dry,  sandy  soil.  The 
yams  should  not  be  planted  as  close  as 
the  others.  I  set  the  plants  from  1.5  to  18 
inches  apart  in  the  row.  When  making  the 
rows  I  make  them  a  little  heavier  than  I  want 
them,  so  that  the  hoe  can  be  used  freely  to 
scrape  the  grass  before  the  vines  are  too  long; 
I  keep  them  clean  aud  let  theiij  run.  Per- 
haps there  is  a  better  way,  and  some  one  will 
tell  us  how  to  do  it.  One  thing  more — never 
take  diseased  potatoes  for  sprouting,  it  affects 
the  new  tubers,  and  although  they  may  look 
well,  it  can  be  detected  in  the  quality. — Old 
Cultivator,  Lime  Valley. 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Fariiek. 
ARE  FORESTS  A  BENEFIT  TO  FRUIT- 
GROWING? 

This  question  presented  itself  to  my  mind, 
■when  Mr.  Hiller  and  others,  at  the  last  meet- 
ing of  the  "  Pennsylvania  Fruit  Growers' 
Society,"  spoke  of  how  fruit  could  be 
raised  forty  years  ago,  when  fruit-trees  were 
healthy.  Now,  even  cherries  won't  do  as  well 
as  they  did  formerly— the  trees  dying  in  low 
localities. 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  our  country  was  not 
so  denuded  of  its  forests,  aud  our  fruit-trees 
were  more  or  less  protected  by  forests,  or 
shelter  belts,  as  a  screen  for  fruit-trees. 

The  climate  lias  not  changed  as  much,  if 
any,  as  some  suppose,  but  the  cold  and  freez- 
ing north-west  winds  are  more  severe  in  the 
absence  of  wind  breaks.  There  is  a  difference 
of  from  five  to  ten  degrees  between  the  north 
and  the  south  side  of  a  forest.  It  was  that 
protection,  which  made  fruit  growing  more 
successful  then  than  now.  Then,  the  pear, 
and  all  kinds  of  stone  fruit  became  more  per- 
fect in  the  towns  than  in  the  open  country. 
The  "Reading-Pear"  comes  to  perfection  in 
the  City  of  Reading,  but  outside  of  it,  it  is  a 
failure.  Pears  and  Plums  do  very  well  in 
Lancaster  City,  all  of  which  is  due  to  the  pro- 
tection afforded  by  the  buildings.  Grapes  do 
much  better  when  sheltered,  especially  the 
Catawba,  which  will  succeed  almost  every- 
where, on  a  trellis  close  to  the  south  side  of  a 
house.    Why  not  then  speak  a  good  word  for 


forest-culture  ?  Ten  percentum  of  all  arable 
lands  ought  to  remain  in  forests.  The  inordi- 
nate and  almost  universal  demand  for  more 
clear  land,  has  been  the  greatest  injury  to 
farmers  and  orchardiste.  Ten  acres  out  of 
every  hundred  now  cleared,  ought  to  be  given 
back  to  forests.  The  ninety  acres  left  should 
be  improved,  and  can  be  made  fertile  enough 
to  grow  as  much  as  a  hundred  now  yield,  and 
forty-five  to  grow  as  much  as  fifty,  or  twenty- 
two  as  much  as  twenty-five,  and  so  on  down 
to  lesser  quantities  proportionately.  Farmers, 
by  planting  a  slielter-belt,  or  a  screen  on  the 
northern  borders  of  their  farms  would  be- 
vastly  benefited.  It  would  protect  their  crops 
from" the  piercing  north-west  winds,  and  the 
freezing  out  of  their  young  clover. 

It  would  protect  their  trees  from  freezing 
in  their  trunks  and  branches — from  freezing 
during  their  blo.ssoming  periods.  The  apple 
and  pear  tree  borers  would  be  apt  to  more 
readily  find  a  natural  nidics  in  the  forests,  in 
which  to  deposit  their  eggs,  instead  of*  apple 
wood.  The  curculios  and  the  apple  tree 
borers  might  find  some  tender  place  or  some 
congenial  growth  in  which  to  deposit  their 
eggs,  instead  of  in  the  apple  or  the  locust 
trees. 

It  is  for  this  reason  that  the  -'borers"  de- 
stroy all  the  locust  trees  in  the  west— they 
have  nothing  else  to  attack.  I  have  thrifty 
young  locust  trees,  that  are  free  from  borers 
and  other  insects.  I  have  }roung  second 
growth  timber  lands,  which  I  find  occasional- 
ly attacked  by  borers,  and  the  branches  bro- 
ken off  them  as  the  natural  effects,  but  they 
do  not  do  any  very  material  damage,  and  I 
beheve  they  save  my  locust  trees  and  my 
fruit  trees.  Forests'would  also  be  beneficial, 
in  inducing  birds  to  harbor  in  them  and  mul- 
tiply, and  then  come  forth  on  foraging  excur- 
sions among  our  fruit  trees  in  pursuit  of  in- 
sects. It  would  afford  a  convenient  cover 
for  the  birds,  and  decrease  the  insects,  while 
it  would  increase  the  number  of  birds.  It 
would  improve  the  farm,  and  become  a 
pleasure  park  for  the  farmer's  family  during 
the  hot  summer  months.  It  would  also  con- 
duce to  the  health  of  the  people,  and  it  would 
facilitate  rain  falls.  It  would  eventually  re- 
turn us  two-fold  on  what  we  planted,  and 
would  make  our  lands  more  valuable.  It 
would  make  our  homes  more  attractive,  and 
would  afford  more  home  enjoyment,  and  more 
home  entertainment,  and  make  country  life 
far  more  pleasant  than  town  life. — L.  S.  R. 
Oregon,  1877. 


EGYPT. 


Alexandria,  .Ian.  1,  1877. 

Egypt  is  a  very  old  country,  dating  back 
far  beyond  history.  It  possesses  some  natural 
advantages,  but  owes  all  its  prosperity  to  the 
grand  old  Nile  river,  which  has  never  failed 
for  at  least  nearly  seven  thousand  years,  or  as 
long  as  we  have  any  record,  to  bring  down  a 
flood  of  warm  water  every  year  from  tlie  south, 
overflowing  the  land,  making  the  heart  of  the 
husbandman  glad  with  bountiful  crops,  and  all 
the  people  rejoice,  for  they  are  entirely  depend- 
ent on  the  Nile  river  for  the  water  so  necessary 
to  sustain  life.  The  Arabs  say  this  water 
comes  from  heaven. 

They  never  have  any  rain  in  Egypt,  of  any 
consequence,  except  along  the  sea-coast.  At 
Alexandria  they  may  have  six  or  eight  rainy 
days,  while  at  Cairo,  they  will  only  have  three 
or  four  light  showers  during  the  year,  and  once 
in  eight  or  ten  years  having  a  heavy  rain  storm. 


*  The  striped  "apple  tree  borer,"  (Saperda  bioittata) 
originally  bred  in  the  hawthorn,  aud  there  is  every  reason 
to  believe  that  an  apple  orchard  surrounded  by  a  Hawthorn 
hedge  would  be  greatly  protected  by  such  a  hedge.  Or,  if 
this  was  not  desirable,  then  clusters  of  hawthorn  planted 
at  suitable  points  in  the  orchard,  or  in  proximity  to  it, 
would  no  doubt  have  a  beneficial  efiect.  The  first  specimen 
of  this  borer  we  ever  obtained  (about  thirty  years  ago)  we 
captured  on  a  hawthorn  hedge,  and  there  is  the  place  we 
usually-  looked  for  them.  We  also  believe  that  wild  cherry 
trees  and  gum  trees  would  attract  curculios  and  birds  to 
feed  upon  them,  and  thus  afford  protection  to  our  domestic 
fruits.  We  have  often  seen  the  wild  cherry  fourfold  more 
infested  by  the  curculio  than  we  ever  did  the  cultivated 
kinds.  Such  trees  would,  at  least,  atl'ord  these  insects  a 
place  of  resort  if  we  molested  them  by  the  application  of 
domestic  remedies,  and  prevented  them  from  returning  and 
resumiug  the  attack. — Ed. 


They  have  many  canals  intersecting  the  coun- 
try, and  depend  entirely  on  the  Nile  to  supply 
the  water  for  irrigation,  to  protluce  the  crops. 

I  was  up  the  country  in  Egypt  during  high 
Nile.  It  was  a  great  novelty  to  me  to  see  a 
great  flood  covering  nearly  the  whole  country, 
where  it  seldom  rains.  Tlie  Nile  begins  to  rise 
the  last  of  .Tune,  attains  its  height  about  the 
middle  of  September,  when  it  slowly  falls  dur- 
ing three  months.  The  difference  between 
high  and  low  Nile  is  aljout  twenty-eight  feet. 
It  was  a  singular  sight  to  see  many  large  vil- 
lages entirely  surrounded  with  water  ten  or 
twelve  feet  deep  for  three  or  four  months. 
When  the  water  retires  it  leaves  the  land  very 
rich,  and  the  hu.sbandnian  is  sure  of  a  good 
crop  if  he  half  works,  for  the  sky  is  always 
bright,  and  the  sunshine  warm  all  the  year 
round.  In  most  sections  of  the  delta  of  the 
Nile  the  water  covers  the  land  about  two  feet, 
for  a  short  period  during  high  Nile.  After  the 
water  retires,  during  the  month  of  November, 
they  put  in  their  wheat,  which  grows  all  winter, 
and  is  ready  to  harvest  in  April  or  May.  They 
sometimes  grow  two  or  three  crops  on  the 
same  land,  during  the  season.  If  it  were  not 
for  the  noble  Nile  river  this  whole  coimtry 
would  be  one  vast  drifting,  sandy  desert,  desti- 
tute of  vegetation  or  inhabitants,  for  the  only 
land  that  can  be  cultivated  is  along  the  bottom 
land  of  this  river. 

Cotton,  corn,  wheat,  barley  and  sugar,  with 
dates,  oranges  and  bananas,  are  the  chief 
products.  Cotton  is  perhaps  the  most  valuable 
product  ;  has  only  been  cultivated  in  this 
country  some  fifty  years,  and  yet  there  is  a  large 
amount  grown,  and  mostly  shipped  to  Eng- 
land. Some  good  cotton  is  raised,  but  the 
large  portion  I  should  say  is  not  equal  to  our 
Arnerican  cotton,  but  they  can  grow  first-class 
cotton  here  ;  the  stalk  is  used  for  fuel.  They 
do  not  know  how  to  grow  corn.  They  "rough" 
it  in  by  sowing,  do  not  generally  cultivate  it 
and  work  among  it  as  we  do  ;  consequently 
they  have  very  small  ears,  and  they  cultivate 
only  the  smair,hard  flinty  variety.  Their  wheat 
is  splendid,  with  a  fine  plump  kernel,  always 
producing  a  good  crop,  and  strange  to  say,  I 
never  have  seen  a  good,  bright,  clean  lot  in 
market.  It  is  always  mixed,  more  or  less, 
with  dirt,  owing  to  threshing  the  grain  on  the 
ground,  and  cleaning  it  by  throwing  it  up 
against  the  wind,  which  leaves  more  or  less 
lumps  of  dirt  among  the  grain.  These  people 
have  not  money  to  buy  a  fanning  mill,  nor 
have  they  sense  enough  to  use  one  if  it  was 
given  to  them.  No  threshing  machines,  no 
mowers  and  reapers,  nor  any  barns  to  put 
tliem  in  if  they  had  them.  They  have  a  thing 
they  call  a  plow,  which  is  enough  to  scare  the 
cows.  It  is  constructed  as  follows  :  A  straight 
piece  of  timber  some  eight  inches  square  and 
about  three  and  a  half  feet  long,  with  a  kind 
of  a  shovel  on  the  end,  about  six  or  eight 
inches  broad  ;  the  beam  is  a  crooked-stick 
framed  iii,  extending  and  fastened  to  the  yoke 
of  the  cattle  or  buffaloes,  which  are  always 
used  in  plowing.  A  straight  stick  with  a  pin 
stuck  through  and  standing  perpendicular 
almft  the  beam,  finishes  the  plow.  With  this 
thing  they  plow  backward  and  forward  on  one 
side  of  the  land,  rooting  up  the  ground  some, 
about  two  or  three  inches  deep.  A  few  of  our 
enterprising  western  hogs  would  do  a  far  bet- 
ter job  of  rooting  up  the  land.  Well,  no  mat- 
ter about  the  plowing,  the  Nile  water  will 
bring  them  a  crop  anyhow.  It  would  be  of  no 
use  to  give  these  people  good  agricultural 
machinery,  for  they  have  not  sense  enough  to 
use  it. 

After  the  Nile  has  fallen  and  the  crops  put 
in,  the  land  must  be  irrigated  with  water  at 
once.  All  through  the  delta  of  the  Nile  they 
have  canals  and  ditches  convenient  for  water- 
ing the  crops,  which  is  generally  drawn  up 
with  a  bucket  aud  sweep  into  a  small  ditch 
about  one  foot  higher  than  the  land.  Then 
water  is  let  on,  enough  to  soak  the  land  well, 
which  must  be  repeated  several  times  for  each 
crop  during  the  season.  This  takes  time  and 
labor,  but  makes  a  sure  thing  of  a  good  crop, 
for  the  sun  shines  warm  every  day  the  year 
round,  with  no  cold,  soiu-  weather  to  trouble 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


the  husbandman.  These  Ejjjiitians  do  about 
the  .saiiu-  kind  of  fainiinj;  at  the  present  day 
that  was  (Uine  by  their  forefathers  four  or  five 
tlioiisand  yeans  aj;o  Manure  is  used  for  fuel 
-not  put  an  llie  land. 

The  eaniel  is  the  most  valuable  donie.stic 
animal  ;  in  faet,  the  cmly  one  whieh  ean  suc- 
cessfully cress  these  vast  deserts.  They  are 
healthy,  re<iuire  no  shoeing;  their  feet  are 
very  elastic,  spreading  right  out  when  they 
come  to  the  ground.  They  are  faithful,  ready 
and  willing  io  go  anywliere  at  all  times  ;  will 
carry  about  seven  Imndrcd  pounds  ;  will  easily 
travel  from  twenty  to  thirty  miles  a  day,  and 
more  it  neees.saj^'  ;  a  homely,  good  animal, 
always  obedient  to  their  Arab  masters.  A 
little  donkey  generally  leads  the  head  camel 
of  a  caravan.  This  honesl,  intelligent  little 
animal  will  go  straight  ahead,  and  never  turn 
to  tlie  right  or  left.  They  are  the  principal 
riding  animal  in  the  cities,  and  quite  pleas;uit 
to  jog  along  on  ;  besides,  they  will  carry  a 
good  load. 

Of  the  horned  cattle,  tlu^  bntl'alo,  native 
lireedjis  the  most  valuable.  Heavy  built,  with 
scarcely  any  hair  on  his  black  hide,  black 
liorns,  sloping  back,  they  make  very  good, 
hardy  oxen.  They  like  to  go  into  the  water 
durimr  the  middle  of  the  day  and  lay  a  long 
time  with  only  their  nose  and  eyes  out  of  the 
water.  When  in  the  herd  they  do  not  asso- 
ciate with  other  cattle.  This  breed  is  quite 
healthy,  while  other  cattle  die  with  the  mur- 
rain. "  This  is  not  a  good  cattle-growing  sec- 
tion. The  market  beef  is  of  poor  quality. 
Tliey  have  a  few  large,  coarse  wool,  black 
sheep,  which  make  fair  mutton.  Poultry  is 
easily  gi-own  in  this  warm,  dry  climate,  but  I 
think  the}'  have  more^poultr}'  than  corn,  for 
they  are  generally  quite  poor.  The  Egyptians 
are  surrounded  with  live  stock,  counting  in 
fleas,  mosquitoes,  lice,  bugs,  and  other  insects 
of  this  kind  too  niunerous  to  mention. 

The  agricultural  class  of  the  delta  of  the 
Nile  live  in  comiiact  villages  of  mud  hovels, 
which  are  very  tiirht,  with  .scarcely  any  light, 
built  on  a  bit  of  land  raised  a  few  feet  above 
high  Xile.  While  living  in  a  very  rich 
country  of  land,  they  are  tlie  poorest  and  most 
ignorant  class  I  have  yet  seen.  The  Arab 
Egyptians  are  a  tall,  well  built  people,  who 
have  never  been  hampered  by  the  rules  of 
civilized  society.  These  iVrab  women  in  their 
loose  flowing  dresses,  which  are  tight  only 
around  the  neck,  have  nothing  to  prevent  that 
round,  full  development  of  figure  .which  is  so 
much  admired  in  civilized  life  and  so  rarely 
seen.  It  is  wonderful  to  see  these  tall,  straight 
Arab  women  carry  a  heavy  water  jar  full  of 
water  on  their  heads,  whitdi  they  carry  a  long 
distance,  barefooted,  with  that  easy,  graceful 
motion  which  cannot  be  imitated  by  tlie  high- 
heeled  beauties  of  our  own  country. 

The  finances  of  Egypt  are  worth  the  study 
of  our  pcoi)le.  The  present  Khedive  of  Egypt, 
Ismail  Pasha,  succeeded  to  this  title  in  1863. 
He  was  educated  in  P.aris  with  lofty  ideas, 
and  his  will  is  the  supreme  law  of  tile  laud. 
Egypt  nominally  owes  allegiance  to  Turkey, 
but  is  practicallv  independent  by  paying  the 
heavy  sum  of  $UOO,OU(J  per  year. 

Upon  assuming  the  title  of  Khedive  he  em- 
barked in  all  the  grand  enterprises  of  the  day, 
by  constructing  raihvays  and  canals,  running 
steam  vesseLs,  the  Grand  Hotel  at  Cairo,  sugar 
plantations,  etc.  All  this  business  done  on 
foreign  capital,  borrowed  at  a  heavy  rate  of 
hiterest,  some  of  it  at  10  and  12  percent;  the 
English  contractors  securing  fat  jobs  ;  the 
flood  tide  of  prosperity  running  high;  every- 
body making  money  ;  never  was  such  times 
known  in  Egypt  before.  Foreigners  embark- 
ed largely  in  the  business  of  the  country  when 
business  was  so  good  ;  rents  advanced  rapidly, 
and  livins:  was  high.  But  pay-day  came  at 
last,  and  the  Khedive  could  not  pay  his  in- 
terest, nor  could  lie  get  any  more  money,  for 
it  was  soon  ascertained  that  he  had  swamped 
the  country  iu  a  hopeless  indebtedness.  Then 
came  the  cra.sh.with  many  failures,  and  Egypt 
is  now  suffering  sorely  from  misnianageraent. 
It  will  never  recover  its  former  prosperity. 
The  population  of  this  country  is  only  7,000,- 


000,  and  the  richness  of  the  country  has  been 
overrated.  There  is  only  a  strip  of  land  along 
the  Nile,  not  very  wide — excepting  the  delta 
of  the  Nile,  which  is  from  M  to  l.'id  miles  wide 
— that  is  rich.  All  the  rest  of  the  country  is 
a  howling  desert. 

I  have  been  on  the  top  of  .several  of  the 
highest  cathedrals  of  Eurojic,  ami  in  some  low 
places  too,  yet  have  never  had  such  a  splendid 
view  as  wlien  standing  on  the  top  of  the  great 
jiyramid  of  Cheops,  the  highest  in  the  world, 
vvith  fully  ten  miles  of  water  in  front  ;  many 
large  villages  surrounded  with  deep  water  ; 
the  date  palm  seen  all  around,  with  some  speci- 
mens nearly  KM)  feet  high.  The  grand  old 
Nile,  with  its  i.slands,  coidd  be  seen  a  long 
distance  iu  the  clear  atmosphere  ;  some 
twenty-five  pyramids  in  full  view,  and  here  I 
saw  the  great  howling  desert  wilderness  for 
the  first  time,  which  was  a  great  curiosity  to 
me  ;  the  blowing  sand  was  drifting  all  around 
below  us— a  solitary,  dismal  looking  place  in- 
deed. 

These  pyramids  are  old  settlers,  according 
to  the  estimate  of  M.  Mariette,  who  has  de- 
voted a  lifetime  to  the-  study  of  Egyptian 
antiquities,  in  the  emplo}'  of  the  Khedive. 
He  has  collected  and  arranged  the  museiun  at 
Cairo,  the  most  valuable  collection  of  Egyp- 
tian antiquities  in  the  world.  The  Engli.sh 
residents  and  all  other  clas.ses  consider  him 
the  best  authority.  According  to  his  calcula- 
tion the  great  Cheops  pyramid  was  built  4'i.3.5 
years  B.  C.  The  first  known  king  of  Egypt 
lived  .5004  years  B.  C.  In  addition  to  other 
evidence,  recent  discoveries  appear  to  confirm 
these  figures.  This  pyramid  covers  twelve 
acres  of  land,  and  is  460  feet  high;  construct- 
ed solid,  of  heavy  block  stone,  some  of  which 
are  thirty  feet  long,  three  feet  thick,  and  six 
feet  wide,  of  a  beautiful  white  limestone. 
The  inside  chamber  is  constructed  of  heavy 
blocks,  each  weighing  several  tons,  of  red 
granite,  and  fitted  together  as  closely  as  i)os- 
sible.  They  were  brought  from  the  Upper 
Nile,  over  .500  miles.  There  are  about  100 
])yramids  scattered  along  the  banks  of  the 
Nile,  inside  of  fifty  miles.  Two  or  three 
others  are  nearly  as  large  as  this  one,  but 
many  are  small.  One  hundred  thousand  men 
Were  occupied  ten  years  in  getting  ready,  and 
;560,000  men  spent  twenty  years  in  building 
the  great  Cheops  pyramid.  The  mind  can 
scarcely  comprehend  the  magnitude  of  this 
great  heathen  temple. 

According  to  the  hieroglyphics,  in  the  days 
of  the  pyramids,  Egypt  conquered  all  the  sur- 
rounding nations,  and  placed  her  frontier 
wherever  she  pleased.  Slie  has  since  been 
conquered  seven  or  eight  times,  and  at  the 
present  day  is  hardly  capable  of  self-govern- 
ment. These  people  are  not  wanting  in  intel- 
lect. The  whole  secret  of  the  matter  is,  the 
masses  of  the  people  are  not  educated.  This 
is  a  lesson  that  our  American  jieople  should 
leant  over  and  over  again — to  educate  the 
working  classes. 

After  living  among  these  dark-skitmed 
Turks  and  Arabst  over  four  mouths,  I  long  to 
once  more  get  among  the  white  Christian  na- 
tions, and  my  course  now  will  be  in  that  di- 
rection. 

A  happy  New  Years  to  the  readers  of  The 
F All M Eli.  They  may  all  thank  God  that 
they  live  in  our  own  blessed  country. — D.  C. 
Michmond- 


TWENTY    MILLIONS   IN  BEEF. 


The  Ups   and  Downs  of  Cattle  Raising  on  the 
Plains. 

A  special  correspondent  of  the  New  York 
World  writes  from  Denver,  Col.: 

A  good  share  of  the  best  beef  in  the  western 
markets  comes  from  the  plains  of  Colorado 
and  Wyoming.  The  supply  is  increasing 
overy  year,  ;is  the  shipments  from  the  cattle 
yards  at  Cheyenne,  Denver.  Deer  Trail,  Las 
Animas,  and  "other  points  show.  The  best 
ranges  are  now  largely  occupied,  and  the  val- 
leys of  the  Platte,  Republican  and  Upper  Ar- 
kansas fairly  swarm  with  cattle.  Some  of  the 
best  known  Texas  drovers  have  removed  their 


herds  from  the  Bed  Biver  country  to  the 
Platte.  John  Hittson's  great  ranch  on  the 
Bijou,  a  tributary  of  the  Platte,  where  his 
herd  of  40,000  are  grazing,  and  the  ranches  of 
.John  W.  Ilili;  .1.  P.  Farmer  and  other  "cattle 
kings,"  now  located  in  Colorado,  are  ex- 
amples. The  .State  auditor's  books  show  that 
there  are  a  half  million  head  of  cattle  witiiin 
our  borders,  and  over  200,000  in  Wyoming. 
As  large  numbers  escape  assessment  l")y  being 
transferred  over  the  line,  back  and  forth,  at 
the  proper  season,  it  woidd  be  a  fair  estimate 
to  say  that  tliere  are  around  million  of  cattle 
grazing  in  the  two  territories.  They  are 
worth  from  SlO,000,000  to  $12,000,000,  and 
when  marketed  at  Kansas  City  or  Omaha, 
twice  that  sum.  Last  year's  shipments  from 
( 'olorado  were  estimated  at  00,000  head,  worth 
in  market  $2,700,000 ;  and  the  shipments 
from  the  Laramie  plains  in  AVyoming  over 
25,000— showing  in  round  numbers  a  jjroduct 
of  about  $.'i, 500,000  in  beef  raised  for  market 
on  the  western  borders  of  the  "  Great  Ameri- 
can Desert." 

The  shipping  season  is  generally  from  Au- 
gust to  November.  Sometimes  the  drovers 
hold  back,  as  they  did  this  sea.sou,  for  better 
prices,  resulting  in  a  great  rush  for  the  mar- 
ket the  latter  half  of  October  and  the  first 
two  weeks  in  November,  taxing  the  railroads 
beyond  their  cai)aeity.  There  are  now  await- 
ing shipment,  between  Denver  and  Kit  Car- 
son, on  the  Kansas  Pacific,  from  Pueblo  to 
Las  Animas,  on  the  Atchison,  Topeka  and 
Santa  Fe,  and  from  Cheyenne  to  .Julesburg, 
on  tiie  LTnion  Pacific,  thirty  or  forty  thousand 
head  of  cattle,  wliicli  will  be  got  into  market 
as  rapidlv  as  cars  can  be  provided.  During 
October  there  were  460  car  loads  taken  east- 
ward from  points  on  the  Uiuon  Pacific  rail- 
road, most  of  them  being  loaded  at  Cheyenne 
aud  .Julesburg,  and  coming  from  the  herds  on 
the  Laramie  plains  and  Platte  valley.  For 
the  four  months  ending  with  October,  1,.561 
car  loads  had  been  shipi)ed  from  these  points. 
The  shipments  by  the  Kansas  Pacific  from 
Denver,  Box  Elder,  Biver  Bend,  Deer  Trail, 
Kit  Carson  and  Las  Animas  during  the  past 
two  months  have  been  very  large.  One  hun- 
dred and  fifty-three  ear  loads  were  shipped 
from  Las  Animas  alone  during  October.  The 
total  .shipments  for  the  sea.son  from  the  above 
stations  have  probably  been  20,000  head.  The 
Atchison,  Toi)eka  and  Santa  Fe  line  has  stock 
yards  at  Pueblo,  West  Las  Animas,  Granada 
and  one  or  two  other  points  within  Colorado. 
Their  slijpments  have  been  considerable,  but  I 
could  not  obtain  the  figures.  Last  season  they 
took  8,043  head  from  Las  Animas  and  8,074 
from  Granada.  Large  numbers  bound  for 
the  eastern  markets  were  driven  out  of  the 
State,  feeding  leisurely  along,  and  finally 
loaded  on  the  cars  at  Dodge  City,  Great 
Bend  or  AVichita,  from  which  stations  there 
were  forwarded  in  four  months  .17,875  head. 
It  seems  probable  that  there  will  have  been 
shipped  out  of  Colorado  and  Wyoming  during 
this  season  over  one  hundred  and  twenty-five 
thousand  fat  beeves  for  the  markets  of  the 
Missouri  and  Jilississippi  valleys.  Had  better 
prices  prevailed,  especially  the  past  month, 
the  exports  would  have  been  much  greater. 
Shipping  dressed  beef  to  market  is  carried  on 
at  two  or  three  points,  and  is  a  business  of 
some  magnitude.  The  slaughter  houses  at 
West  Las  Animas  put  up  and  sent  into  east- 
ern markets  over  twenty  thousand  head  in 
this  way  last  winter.  The  prospects  are  that 
very  large  shipments  will  be  made  during  the 
next  tluree  months.  It  will  depend  on  the 
markets.  Beef  is  now  low,  and  all  who  are 
not  obliged  to  tinn  their  beeves  into  money, 
will  hold  on  for  better  times.  Good  steers 
bring  2.}  cents  per  imund  on  the  hoof,  from 
one-half  to  one  per  cent,  less  than  last  sea- 
son. Ordinary  Texans  rule  so  low  that 
neither  buyer  nor  drover  cares  to  market 
them.  The  drovers  on  the  i)lains  are  giving 
a  good  deal  of  attention  to  "breeding  up." 
Large  numbers  of  thoroughbred  bulls  have 
been  introduced.  The  old  Texas  stock  is  fast 
disappearing,  and  the  young  improved  half- 
breeds,  which  make  choicest  beef  and  are  far 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[January, 


more  marketable,  take  their  place.  As  a  re- 
sult, there  is  an  increasing  demand  for  the 
plains  cattle.  The  Texas  herders  see  this, 
and  out  of  last  season's  "  drives"  from  the 
Red  Elver  country,  numbering:  about  350,000 
head  of  cattle,  about  one-third,  instead  of 
being  marketed,  were  driven  westward  to 
feed  until  another  season,  and  then  to  be 
shipped  east  as  Colorado  or  Laramie  plains 
beef. 

While  five  or  six  3'ears  ago  cattle  in  this 
section  were  herded  in  sufficient  quantities 
only  for  the  limited  local  demand,  such  as 
comes  from  the  scattering  settlements  and 
military  posts,  and  the  business  did  not  at- 
tract much  attention,  it  is  now  grown  to  such 
importance  that  it  seems  likely  in  a  few  years 
to  be  more  extensive  and  profitable  than  gold 
or  silver  mining.  The  returns  are  large,  and 
it  is  noticeable  that  a  greater  share  of  the  cap- 
ital that  has  come  this  way  during  the  last 
year  has  been  put  into  stock  as  the  safest 
and  best  investment.  There  are  large  num- 
bers of  moneyed  men,  out  of  health,  who  have 
their  cattle  ranch  on  the  plains  or  in  the  parks 
and  are  getting  the  double  returns  of  restored 
health  and  multiplied  ducats. 

The  tendency  to  go  into  the  cattle  business 
in  a  large  way  seems  to  be  growing.  The 
amount  of  capital  represented  in  some  of  the 
herds  is  sufficient  to  run  a  national  bank. 
Five  hundred  or  a  thousand  cattle  are  looked 
upon  as  of  verv  small  account,  although  from 
$10,000  to  $-20^000  is  represented.  The  aver- 
age herds  run  from  1,000  to  3,000  head. 
There  are  manv  having  from  8,000  to  10,000, 
and  several  from  20,000  to  40,000.  At  only 
SIO  through  and  through  here  is  from  .$200,"- 
000  to  S400,000  in  a  single  herd,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  corrals,  the  hundreds  of  ponies,  the 
hired  "cow-boys,"  the  grain  and  feed  in  store, 
and  the  reserve  fund  necessary  in  handling 
such  a  "bunch"  of  cattle.  While  most  of  the 
herds  are  owned  by  individuals  and  firms,  the 
capital  invested  is  larger  than  that  actually 
employed  bv  companies  in  working  some  of 
the  most  extensive  gold  and  silver  mines  of 
the  Rocky  mountains. 

It  is  estimated  that  there  are  40,000  square 
miles  of  grazing  lands,  fit  for  herding  and 
nothing  else,  west  of  the  Kansas  borders,  be- 
tween the  Union  Pacific  and  Atchison,  To- 
peka  and  Santa  Fe  railfoads.  Owing  to  the 
rapid  increase  of  cattle,  many  of  the  best 
ranges  have  been  eaten  off,  so  that  new 
ranches,  bandy  to  water,  are  at  all  times 
sought  for.  The  sheep  men  have  baen  grad- 
ually invading  this  field.  Grazing  as  they 
both  do  upon  the  public  domain,  the  only 
right  one  has  over  the  other  is  priority  of 
settlement.  The  states  and  territories  cannot 
legislate  upon  the  matter.  Quarrels  have  at 
times  come  up,  and  at  one  time,  two  years 
ago,  there  was  such  a  bitter  feeling  that  con- 
siderable numbers  of  sheep  were  killed  by  the 
cattle  men,  followed  by  retaliation  in  kind. 
The  two  interests  seem  to  be  antagonistic, 
and,  as  if  by  common  consent,  the  sheepmen, 
at  least  those  doing  business  on  the  largest 
scale,  are  operating  south  of  the  Arkansas 
and  in  the  San  Luis  valley.  Northern  New 
Mexico  is  a  kind  of  paradise  for  them,  though 
there  is  occasionally  trouble  from  the  fact 
that  cattle  men  are  also  carrying  on  a  large 
business  in  some  parts  of  tliat  territory.  It 
may  not  be  generally  known  that  stock  rais- 
ing is  an  extensive  and  profitable  business  in 
the  slow  territory  of  New  Mexico.  The 
largest  herds  are  to  be  found  there.  One 
man  owns  forty-two  townships,  which  he  has 
stocked  with  60,000  head  of  cattle.  New 
Mexico  cattle  are  of  an  inferior  grade,  as  no 
attention  has  been  paid  to  breeding  up.  This 
is  also  the  case  with  sheep,  wliich  in  some 
districts  seem  to  cover  the  country  for  miles. 
A  limited  number  of  families,  mostly  pure 
Castilians,  have  absorbed  and  own  nearly  all 
the  flocks,  prominent  among  whom  may  be 
named  the  Armijo  family,  who  have  2.50.000 
sheep.  They  drive  to  Denver  every  spring 
from  10,000  to  20,000  for  market. 

To  return,  however,  to  our  subject — a  talk 
about  cattle.    It  seems  as   if  the   next  few 


years  were  to  lai'gely  change  the  beef  supply 
of  the  East.  Instead  of  coming  from  Texas, 
as  novf,  the  best  and  most  will  come  from  the 
old  buffalo  ranges  in  Western  Kansas,  Color- 
ado and  Wyoming. 

There  are  now  more  cattle  on  the  plains 
than  ever  before.  Large  numbers  from  the 
Texas  "drives"  instead  of  being  marketed  at 
once  are  driven  westerly  over  the  ranges  to 
feed  a  few  months  before  being  sold.  Generally 
cattle  winter  well,  without  shelter  or  much  if 
any  feed  beyond  what  they  get  by  grazing. 
Last  winter  was  open  and  mild,  without  any 
hard  storms  or  severe  weather.  But  the 
winter  before  that  was  unprecedentedly  cold 
and  thousands  of  cattle  perished.  On  the 
average  the  stockmen  take  chances  and  come 
out  without  much  loss  from  exposure  ;  but  it 
is  found  best  to  be  prepared  for  storms  and 
extreme  weather,  and  it  is  now  customary 
among  tho  most  experienced  herders  to  have 
shelter  and  feed  for  their  flocks  during  the 
winter. 

The  plains  cattle  men  are  not  wholly  de- 
pendent upon  the  ups  and  downs  of  eastern 
markets.  Some  of  them  have  a  regular  de- 
mand for  their  beeves  from  the  markets  of 
Denver,  Cheyenne  and  the  large  towns  of 
Colorado  and  Wyoming,  and  large  numbers 
are  driven  into  the  mountains  to  supply  the 
miners'  camps.  The  sales  to  butchers  in 
Denver  last  season  amounted  to  $15.(J00,  and 
to  the  mountain  trade  $165,000.  During  the 
past  summer  there  has  been  a  brisk  demand 
from  the  San  Juan  country  and  from  the  new 
towns  in  the  Black  Hills.  There  has  been  a 
good  deal  of  risk  and  much  loss  in  trying  to 
drive  cattle  into  the  latter  region,  owing  to 
the  frequent  Indian  raids  and  stampeding ; 
but  where  a  man  could  get  through  safely  he 
had  no  trouble  in  disposing  of  his  beeves  at  a 
high  price.  Fat  cattle  are  worth  8.  cents  per 
pound  on  the  hoof  at  Deadwood.  At  the 
older  settled  towns  along  the  line  of  the  rail- 
ways in  Colorado  and  Wyoming  the  price  of 
beef  is  moderate,  but  high  enough  to  give  a 
good  profit  to  the  drover.  At  Denver  the 
price  is  from  2^  to  3  cents.  It  retails  in  the 
butcher-shops  at  10  cents  for  round  steaks, 
and  15  for  sirloin.  The  market  is  easily  af- 
fected, in  an  upward  direction,  by  an  over- 
shipment  to  the  East,  leaving  a  supply  of 
marketable  beeves  short,  or  by  a  stampede  in 
the  winter.  Very  often  a  cold,  windy  snow 
storm  will  be  followed  by  an  advance,  as  for 
instance,  last  spring,  when  beeves  advanced 
to  5  cents  per  pound  on  the  hoof,  and  for 
some  weeks  retailed  at  the  butcher-shops  at 
20  to  25  cents  jier  pound. 

But  at  the  low  prices  for  beef  cattle  now 
prevailing  the  plains  drovers  have  no  very 
discouraging  outlook.  What  deiiresses  the 
Texas  drover  and  entails  upon  him  heavy 
losses  has  very  little  effect  upon  the  Colorado 
drover.  The  cost  of  raising  beeves,  and  the 
losses  by  stampede,  thieving  and  Indians,  are 
not  nearly  so  great  as  in  the  Red  River 
country.  The  Colorado  drover  can  at  any 
time  get  his  beef,  fat  and  sleek,  into  the 
Kansas  City  market,  right  off  the  range,  in 
flye  days'  time,  and  thus  take  advantage  of  a 
rise.  On  the  other  hand  the  method  of 
marketing  Texas  cattle  is  to  drive  them 
across  the  country,  north,  to  the  Kansas 
Pacific  and  Atchison,  Topeka  and  Santa  Fe 
railroads,  taking  generally  two  months'  time, 
and  then  holding  them  at  considerable  ex- 
pense for  feed,  at  the  shipping  points  until 
prices  are  favorable.  A  hurried  glance  at 
how  the  Texas  drover  has  fared  in  this  way 
ma^'  be  taken.  He  is  always  more  or  less  at 
the  mercy  of  the  si)eculators,  wlio  every 
spring  go  down  early  into  the  cattle  districts 
and  spread  the  most  doleful  accoiuits  of  the 
prosi)ects  for  the  coming  season's  ti'ade.  If 
the  times  are  dull  and  the  drover  hard  up 
they  have  all  the  better  chance  to  frighten 
and  sipieeze  him.  The  result  is<  large 
contracts  for  beeves,  to  be  delivered  at 
such  a  time  to  certain  shipping  points. 
::  Whole  herds  have,  during  the  past  few  sea- 
sons, often  been  bought  up  at  $3  per  head,  or 
culled  out  at  $5  per  head.     This  is  from  25  to 


.30  cents  per  100  pounds  gross.  From  the  year 
I860,  when  what  is  known  as  the  annual 
Texas  cattle  "drives"  began,  until  this  year, 
the  business  has  been  a  series  of  ups  and  downs, 
more  particularly  the  latter.  Take,  for  in- 
stance, the  experience  of  1866,  when  the 
Southwest  was  undergoing  the  pinch  of  hard 
times.  Everybody  was  anxious  to  sell.  Money 
was  scarce.  Some  who  could  count  their  long 
horns  by  the  tens  of  thousands  could  hardly 
raise  cash  enough  for  their  ordinary  wants.  In 
fact,  a  man's  poverty  was  almost  according  to 
the  size  of  his  herd.  The  "  drive"  of  1866  into 
western  Kansas  numbered  260,000  head. 
The  drover  went  forward  with  visions  of  betr 
ber  times  and  big  pay  for  his  beef  but  was  des- 
tined to  meet  with  unlocked  for  difficulties. 
Bands  of  outlaws  infested  the  "trail,"  and  if 
they  could  not  by  some  nieans  make  away 
with  the  drover  and  steal  the  whole  herd, 
would  at  night  time  stampede  the  cattle  in 
every  direction,  and  seize  the  opportunity  to 
gather  up  and  hniiy  off  what  they  could. 
His  lo.sses  were  fearful,  and  many  of  the  ris- 
ing cattle  kings  were  "  .snuffed  out."  In  later 
years  the  Texas  drover  has  been  put  to  great 
annoyance  and  loss  by  the  laws  of  Kansas 
legislature  establishing  "dead lines, "and com- 
pelling shipments  each  year  to  be  made  at 
points  much  further  west,  lengthening  the 
drives  and  turning  them  into  sections  where 
food  is  short  and  dear. 

During  the  past  eight  years  about  3,000,000 
Texas  beeves  were  put  upon  the  mai'ket.  In 
1874  450,000  head  were  handled,  the  cost  value 
of  which  at  the  shipping  points  in  Kansas  was 
only  §5,000,000  ;  and  when  finally  sold  to 
butchers  and  packers,  $2,000,000.  This  was  a 
poor  year  for  the  business.  The  grasshopper 
plague  depressed  everything.  There  was  no 
feed,  and  so  the  drovers  hurried  to  market, 
the  supply  being  so  great  and  the  quality  so 
poor  that  prices  were  down,  down. 

The  cattle-men  of  the  plains  sutler  none  of 
these  drawbacks.  Stock  is  easily  raised,  mul- 
tiplies fiist,  and  is  of  better  quality  and  gen- 
eralty  in  better  condition  for  market  than  the 
Texans;  the  drovers  and  old  hands  at  the 
trade  give  a  good  deal  of  attention  to  impro- 
ving the  breeds  and  are  carrying  on  their 
business  in  a  methodical,  business-like  way, 
and  have  good  markets  at  their  command,  all 
of  which  seems  to  point  to  the  "Great  Ameri- 
can Desert"  as  the  Texas  of  tlie  future. 


BLACKBERRIES. 


Price  of   Berries. 

Blackberries  have  sold  readily  for  several 
years  past  at  from  12}  to  15  cents  per  quart. 
They  will  be  likely  to  sell  well  for  many  years 
to  come,  as  they  can  be  used  in  so  many  ways, 
and  the  demand  will  increase  with  the  supply. 
Some  patches  will  be  planted  on  unsuitable 
soil,  and  will  not  pay  cost  ;  others,  in  the 
most  favorable  locations,  will  be  suffered  to 
grow  at  random,  becoming  large  and  rank 
and  producing  but  little  fruit. 

How  to  Raise  Bountiful  Crops. 

To  insure  good  crops  requires  close  atten- 
tion ;  the  canes  should  be  kept  thin  and  well 
headed  back  ;  and  on  jioor  land  an  occasional 
dressing  of  manure,  muck,  or  fertilizer  of 
some  kind, adds  to  the  quantity  and  quality  of 
the  fruit. 

There  is  no  necessity  for  the  market  to  be 
overstocked  with  the  fruit,  as  it  pays  well  to 
make  it  into  wine.  Three  quarts  of  black- 
berries and  three  pounds  of  sugar,  with  the 
addition  of  a  little  water,  will  make  a  gallon 
of  excellent  wine,  highly  recouunended  for  its 
medicinal  properties,  and  worth  $2.00  per 
gallon,  while  new  ;  and  its  value  increases 
with  age.  All  the  poorer  berries,  those  that 
are  too  ripe  to  ship  to  market,  may  be  pro- 
perly converted  into  wine  at  home  ;  and  only 
the  finest  and  most  perfect  fruit  sent  to  mar- 
ket, which  will  always  command  a  fair  price. 
What  Kinds  to  Plant. 

Having  tested  over  thirty  varieties  of  black- 
berries, besides  many  seedlings  of  our  own 
growing,  we  would  name  as  those  which  axe 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


best  estalilished  :  Wilson's  Early,  Dorchester, 
Kittatiuiiv  aud  New  Unohelle. 

The  Siiythn-,  more  ro(3eiUly  introduced,  is 
remarkably  hardy,  a  stron;;,  vigorous  grower, 
very  productive,"  though  rather  small,  com- 
jiared  with  several  of  the  preeediug  varieties, 
yet  beiug  hardy  and  productive  may  always  be 
relied  on  for  a  full  crop  of  fruit. 

The  llnosac  Thoruless,  so  highly  recom- 
mended on  account  of  having  no  thorns,  may 
be  rated  with  Dodge's  Thornless,  Newman's 
Tliornless,  and  all  others  of  that  class,  which 
have  no  other  merit,  their  fruit  being  too  in- 
signilicant  to  claim  attention.  The  white,  red, 
and  puriile  blackberries,  such  as  Crystal 
White,  Col.  'Wilder  and  Dr.  Warder,  all 
novelties  iu  their  way,  but  of  no  iiractical 
value  in  point  of  profit  to  fruit  growers,  have 
been  discarded. 

Clarkson's  Early,  of  vrhich  we  received  a 
box  of  ripe  fruit  on  the  'J7th  of  June,  a  few- 
days  before  ^\'ilson's  were  ripe,  may  prove 
to  be  a  valuable  variety.  15ush  and  upright 
grower  of  medium  size  and  very  productive. 
Berries  fair  si/.e,  being  three-quarters  of  an 
inch  in  diameter,  or  over  two  inches  in  circum- 
ference ;  ripens  uniformly,  the  whole  crop 
comingoff  ina  short  time.  Like  the  Amsden, 
Alexander,  and  Beatrice  Peaches,  their  great 
value  consists  iu  their  carliness.  Being  first 
in  market  gives  an  increased  value  to  any 
good   fruit. 

Wilson  Jr.,  is  a  seedling  from  the  Early 
Wilson,  raised  in  1S72,  which  has  fruited  two 
years.  Being  so  well  pleased  with  its  great 
productiveness,  large,  early  and  luscious  fruit, 
we  had  the  plant  taken  up  in  the  latter  part  of 
November,  ISiVti,  the  roots  cut  into  pieces  and 
bedded  oiii,  and  now  have  over  1,000  strong 
plants  growing,  which  are  from  one  to  three 
inches  in  height,  and  from  which,  in  thecour.se 
of  another  year  we  hope  to  plant  a  field  of 
them.  The  fruit  is  quite  equalKo  its  parent  in 
earliness,  size,  and  other  good  qualities,  and 
being  at  leasi  25  years  younger,  or  a  quarter 
of  a  century  later  since  it  started  from  the 
seed,  w'ill  be  likely,  by  having  a  more  vigorous 
constitution,  to  resi.st  the  attacks  of  insects, 
winch  probe  the  canes  of  the  Wilson's  Early, 
causing  enlargements  and  obstructing  the  flow 
of  sap,  and  to  escape  the  fruitless  double  blos- 
soms so  abundant  on  the  old  and  weakly  Wil- 
son bushes. 

The  California  blackberry,  with  its  long, 
mulberry-shaped  fruit,  very  early,  sweet  and 
delicious,  would  be  a  great  favorite  if  the 
canes  would  endure  our  climate,  but  being 
only  half  hardy  they  must  be  protected 
through  the  winter,  which  will  be  a  serious 
drawback  to  its  extensive  cultivation  in  this 
vicinity.  It  sends  up  no  suckers,  but  propa- 
gates by  tips,  same  as  Doolittle  raspberry. 

The  Dehiware,  a  seedling  from  the  New 
Rochelle,  is  very  large,  and  an  excellent  black- 
berry; ripens  with  the  Kittatinny;  bush  a  very 
strong,  vigorous  grower  of  the  largest  class, 
and  appears  to  be  perfectly  hardy. 

The  Sable  Queen,  Sinclair,  Ilolcomb,  Cum- 
berland, and  many  others  tluit  we  have  fully 
tested  here,  were  not  found  to  be  equal  to  the 
four  varieties  first  named,  and  were  dis- 
carded. 

Origin  of  the  most  Valuable  Varieties. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  that  all  the  most 
valuable  varieties  in  cultivation  have  been 
found  growing  wild,  and  were  selected  and 
saved  on  accoimt  of  their  superiority  over 
others,  and  from  the  thousands  of  seedlings 
raised,  none  have  yet  proved  superior  to  their 
pareids.  May  it  not  be  attributed  to  the  fact 
that  sullicient  care  has  not  been  taken  to  mix 
the  pollen  of  difierent  varieties  ? 

Having  growni  seedlings  for  many  years 
without  favorable  results,  we  have  now 
adopted  the  plan  of  planting  some  of  the  be.st 
varieties  near  each  other,  and  drawing  the 
branches  of  diff<Tent  kinds  together  and  tying 
them  with  tarred  rope  yarn,  so  as  to  insure 
the  admixture  of  the  pollen  of  many  flowers, 
thereby  combining  qualities  in  their  seedlings 
which  could  in  no  other  way  be  found  in  the 
same  fruit. 

If  as  much  care  and  attention  were  bestowed 


in  selecting  and  propagating  new  seedling 
blackberries  as  have  been  with  the  strawberry 
and  grape,  we  might  yet  obtain  varieties  even 
superior  to  those  that  are  now  cultivated. 

Yield  and  Profit. 
The  yield  and  juice  of  blackberries  vary, 
like  other  fruit  crops,  with  the  surrounding 
circumstances.  We  have  known  some  i)lanta- 
tions  to  yield  aninially  ^400  per  acre,  and  up- 
wards, for  several  years  in  succession,  while 
others  did  not  pay  more  than  lialf  that 
amount.  Having  kept  a  record  of  the  yield 
and  sale  of  our  blackberries  for  fourteen 
years  past,  we  find  the  average  to  be  about  as 
follows,  viz:  Price  fourteen  cents  per  ipiart, 
and  yiehl  2,200  <iuarts  per  acre;  which  gives 
the  following  results : 

Commission  .it  10  per  cent g'lO.SO 

Piekiiig  2,200  quarts  at  11.^  cents 33.00 

Use  of  boxes 10.00 

Frunins;,  cultivating,  &c .34.20 

Net  profit  per  acre 200.00 

Gross  sales  3,200  qts.  per  acre,  at  He §308.00 

Sometimes  we  hear  of  extravagant  reports, 
calculated  from  the  product  of  a  small  lot  up 
to  what  ten  or  twenty  acres  under  similar  cir- 
cumstances woidd  yield.  A  safer  rule  is  to 
take  the  acres  and  see  what  they  have  jiro- 
duced.  By  refererencc  to  tlie  report  of  tiie 
West  Jersey  Fruit  Growers'  Association,  who 
appointed  committees  to  collect  the  returns 
from  all  tlie  fruit  growers  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, it  will  be  found  that  770  acres  of  land, 
in  strawberries,  raspberries  and  blackberries 
produced  the  sum  of  nearly  8200,000,  or  about 
$2.50  per  acre. 

The  cultivation  of  blacliberries  should  al- 
ways have  strawberries  and  raspberries  to 
precede  them,  as  the  same  pickers,  crates  and 
baskets  will  serve  for  all,  and  there  is  less  dif- 
ficulty in  keeping  the  pickers  to  finish  up  the 
raspberries  where  there  is  a  field  of  blackber- 
ries ready  to  enter  when  the  others  are  done. 
—  Wm.  Parry. 

CHOICE  WINTER  FLOWERS. 


A  Ramble  through  the  Newport  Greenhouses. 

Tons  of  Blossoms — How  they  are  Grown, 

and  the  Prices  Paid  for  Them. 

Newport,  R.  I.,  Jan.  0,  1877. 
We  hear  much  of  Newport  in  summer,  but 
of  Newport  in  winter  little;  and  yet  the  at- 
tractions of  one  season  are  quite  equaled  by 
those  of  the  other.  The  flowes  uo  longer 
bloom  on  the  lawn  or  around  the  doorstep, 
but  they  are  still  liere  in  the  greatest  abund- 
ance. The  conservatories  are  all  full,  many 
of  them  to  repletion.  Those  that  are  owned 
by  florists  are  well  patronized,  and  the  con- 
servatories of  non-residents  are  taxed  to  meet 
the  owners'  wants  in  town.  From  tlie  latter 
boxes  of  flowers  are  sent  to  the  city  mansions 
on  regular  days  the  winter  through — superb 
boxes  of  roses,  carnations,  lilies  of  the  valley, 
violets,  heliotropes  and  other  flowers,  valued 
alike  for  their  fragrance  and  their  color  ;  and 
like  boxes  are  daily  sent  by  florists  to  their 
customers — dealers  in  the  larger  cities.  The 
quantity  of  flowers  raised  is  marvelous,  and 
the  deniand  is  never  .slack  till  the  advent  of 
spring  and  the  return  of  blossoms  in  the 
garden. 

The  Newport  Greenhouees. 

In  these  conservatories  will  be  found  all 
that  is  rare  and  beautiful  in  horticulture. 
From  the  rafters  hang  orchids  from  tlie 
jungles  of  Asia  and  the  swamps  of  South 
America ;  and  in  the  shady  spots  will  be 
found  the  most  delicate  ferns.  Here  is  a 
banana  rejoicing  in  a  wealth  of  broad  leaves 
and  a  pendant  bunch  of  fruit  that  will  be  slow 
to  ripen  ;  tubs  of  azaleas  not  yet  in  bloom, 
for  they  will  be  kept  back  till  Easter ;  a 
scarlet  passion  flower  hanging  in  festoons 
overhead,  heliotropes  trained  to  run  on  a  wall 
like  a  vine,  and  orange  and  lemon  trees,  in 
fruit  or  flower  at  one  and  the  same  time  ;  with 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  other 
plants  that  are  equally  beautiful  and  are  sure 
to   attract    attention.      But    there    are    uo 


flowers  more  admired  than  the  orchids  when 
they  are  in  bloom. 

(Jrchids  are  supposed  to  require  a  great  de- 
gree of  heat — so  great  that  it  has  been  found 
necessary  by  persons  who  would  cultivate 
them  to  any  extent  to  build  houses  for  tlie 
express  purpose,  the  heat  required  being  too 
great  for  otlier  plants  .save  the  iiiucapple  and 
banana.  But  a  fmv  years  ago  the  idea  was 
broached  in  I'higland  that  the  thing  was  over- 
done, and  that  while  orchids  from  the  hot, 
damp  jungles  of  Asia  might  need  excessive 
heat,  those  from  Brazil  and  the  Andes,  on  the 
contrary,  did  better  with  a  cool  treatment, 
and  bloomed  mor(;  freely  in  a  temperature  of 
40  degrees.  Experience  has  not  confirmed 
this,  but  it  has  been  found  that  tliey  will  do 
well  in  the  atmosphere  of  an  ordinary  green- 
house. 

Some  Statistics  of  Flower  Selling. 

But  the  florists  who  raise  flowers  only  for 
the  market  give  little  heed  to  the  culture  of 
other  than  jiaying  plants — ]ilants  that  yield 
a  direct  return  for  the  time  and  trouble  ex- 
pended on  them  ;  and  so  large  has  the  busi- 
ness become  that  men  engaged  in  it  find  it  to 
their  interest  to  take  u))  one  or  two  varieties 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  One  florist,  for 
example,  makes  a  specialty  of  lilies  of  the 
valley,  raising  them  in  the  greatest  quantities, 
while  others  only  raise  enough  to  meet  a  local 
demand.  Another,  who  is  also  a  great  grape 
grower,  devotes  himself  iiarticularly  to  roses, 
and  has  si)ared  no  expense  to  jjcifect  his  col- 
lection, having  made  repeated  visits  to  Europe 
to  secure  all  that  is  desirable  in  his  depart- 
ment. A  third  divides  his  time  between 
violets  and  roses.  Some  notion  of  the  business 
may  be  formed  from  the  number  of  flowers 
sent  from  here  to  market  in  Boston,  Provi- 
dence, New  York  and  Philadelphia,  but 
chiefly  New  York,  between  the  first  of  Novem- 
ber and  the  first  of  May.  In  1871  there  were 
.shipped  about  flfty-six  hundred  dozen  rose 
buds  at  an  average  wholesale  price  of  one 
dollar  twelve  and  a  half  cents  per  dozen  ;  in 
1872  about  eighty-five  hundred  dozen  at  an 
average  of  one  dollar  a  dozen  ;  in  1873  about 
twelve  thousand  dozen  at  an  average  of 
eighty-seven  and  a  half  cents  ;  in  1874  about 
seventeen  thousand  dozen  at  an  average  of 
seventy-five  cents;  in  1875  about  twenty  thou- 
.sand  dozen  at  an  average  of  sixty-two  and  a 
half  cents,  and  during  the  present  season  about 
twenty-five  thousand  dozen  at  an  average  of 
fifty  cents  per  dozen.  Thus,  with  a  constant 
decline  in  the  price,  there  has  been  a  rapid  in- 
crease in  the  quantity  raised.  Of  violets 
there  are  a  hundred  thousand  raised  and  for- 
warded, one  florist  supplying  one-half  that 
number ;  of  carnations  fifty  thousand ;  of 
lilies  of  the  valley  more  than  one  hundred 
tiiousand  ;  and  of  mixed  flowers  from  fifty 
thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand.  This  is 
exclusive  of  flowers  raised  for  this  market,  and 
exclusive  also  of  theyield  of  private  conserva- 
tories, which  are  sent  to  the  owners  as  often 
as  once  a  week,  and  frequently  at  shorter  in- 
tervals. 

The  Flowers  that  are  Sold. 

It  is  the  bud  of  the  tea  rose  that  attracts 
most  attention.  Formerly  it  was  the  jajionica 
that  stood  the  -highest,  but  the  latter  is  now 
only  cultivated  to  form  a  variety,  for  it  has  no 
market  value.  One  house  iu  England  has 
been  engaged  in  raising  camellias  for  fifty 
years,  having  for  that  purpose  a  house  two 
hundred  feet  long,  eighteen  feet  wide  and 
fourteen  feet  high,  stocked  with  Chandlerii, 
Elajnns  Formosa  and  other  leading  varieties, 
some  of  them  ten  and  twelve  feet  high  and 
producing  two  thou.sand  buds  hi  the  course  of 
a  season. 

The    Rose   Tree  Jungles. 

One  who  has  not  seen  these  beds  of  roses 
can  have  no  idea  of  their  size  and  beauty. 
There  are  long  liouses — liousc  after  house — 
filled  with  bushes.  In  some  of  these  houses 
the  bushes  are  so  massed  together  as  to  seem 
almost  like  a  jungle— tea  roses,  as  high  as  one 
can  reach,  and  covered  with  the  greatest  pro- 
fusion of  buds  all  fresh  and  vigorous  and  free 


8 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[January, 


from  blemishes  and  insects,  the  roots  fed  with 
a  rich  compost,  and  the  water  witli  wliich  they 
are  showered  warmed  by  steam  to  the  proper 
temperature.  Tliere  is  not  only  art  in  culti- 
vating the  rose,  but  also  skill  and  experience 
in  bringing  the  buds  into  market  in  a  salable 
condition.  A  full-blown  or  even  a  half-blown 
rose  has  no  market  value.  It  is  only  the  bud, 
just  ready  to  open,  that  finds  many  admirers. 
We  may  well  imagine,  then,  that  the  plant  is 
carefully  watehed,  and  the  bud  cut  the  mo- 
ment it  is  sufficiently  developed.  When  cut, 
it  is  put  into  a  chest,  where  it  can  be  kept 
moist  and  at  a  low  temperature  till  it  is  time 
to  pack  the  daily  yield  in  moss  and  cotton  and 
forward  it  to  its  destination.  Treated  in  this 
way  the  buds  will  appear  on  the  dealer's 
counter  in  a  distant  city  as  fresh  as  when  cut 
from  the  parent  stem. 

Some  of  the  Favorite  Roses. 
Additions  are  made  every  year  to.the  list  of 
popular  roses,  which  soon  give  way  to  others. 
Comparatively  few  run  through  a   succession 
of  years.     Here  and  there  one  comes  into  no- 
tice with  qualities  that  enables  it  to  hold  its 
own  against  all    competitors;    the  Noisette 
roses,  Marechal  Niel  and  the  Gloire  de   Dijon, 
for  example;  the  one  yellow  and  the  other 
buff',  which,  though  they  have  been  known 
for  a  number  of  years,   are  in  such  demand 
that  they  readily  sell  at  twenty   five   dollars 
per  hundred  at  wholesale.     Some  of  the  old 
favorites  that  are  still  marketable  at  fifty  or 
sixty  cents  per  dozen,  are  the   Bon    Silpne,   a 
pink  bud;  Pauline  Labout,  flesh  color;  Isabella 
Sprunt,  orange  yellow;    Madame  Falcot,   or- 
ange, and   Niphetos,    pale    lemon    to    white. 
Some  of  the  choicest  new  varieties  are   the 
Prince  Camille  de  Rvkan,  a  rich  dark  maroon; 
Monsieur    Paul   Venin,   a  pale  soft  rose,   of 
great  size  and  very  full;    Madame  Lacharme, 
the  most  popular  white  hybrid,   and  CajJtain 
Christy,  tlie  best  blush  hybrid.     These  all  sell 
readily  at  twenty-five  dollars  a  hundred.     Of 
tea  roses,  the  favorites  are  the  Duchens  of  Ed- 
inburg,  very  pale  flower,  and  quite  new;  Em- 
press of  Russia,  pule  pink;  Perk,  de  Lyon,   so 
large  and  fine  that  it  requires  a  good  judge  to 
distinguish  it  from  the  Marechal  JSiel,    Corne- 
lia Cook,  a  large  white  rose,  and  Jean  Ducher, 
a  large  and  fine  salmon,  inclining  to  yellow. 
These  command  twenty  dollars  per  hundred. 
The  Rose  in  History  and  Tradition. 
In  certain  districts  in  Italy  the  red  rose  is 
looked  upon  as  emblem  of  early  death,  and  to 
scatter  its  leaves  on  the  ground  is  tliought  to 
be  an  evil  omen.     In    the    reign    of  Henry 
VIIL,  "to  smell  the  Redde  rose  and  to  washe 
the  temples  with  the  water  of  the  Redde  rose" 
was  accounted  "an    evell    to    the    brayne;" 
which  superstition  probably  grew  out  of  the 
belief  that  the  oil  of  the  red  rose  was  an  as- 
tringent and  that  of  the  white  rose  a  laxative. 
On  the  10th  of  June    the    Jacobites    wore  a 
white  rose  in  their  button  holes  to  mark  the 
birthday  of  the  Pretender — a  custom  that  was 
continued  down  to  a  very    late    date.      The 
rose  was  once  used  as  a  token  of  office,   and 
as  such  was  worn    by    ambassadors,    as    ap- 
pears from  the  state  papers  of  Edward  VI. 
Violets. 
There  are    many    varieties    of    the  violet 
known  to  the  fiorists,  but   the  Neapolitan  is 
the   favorite   for   winter    culture.       It    is    a 
strong,  healthy  grower,  very  prolific,  and   of- 
fers a  full  double  flower,  highly  scented.      Its 
treatment  is  very  simple,  but  withal  it  is  ex- 
acting, and  if  its  requirements  are   not  met 
the  returns  will    be   small.      It    needs   light, 
some  warmth  (bottom  heat  is  best)  and  a  dry 
air.     Dampness  is  fatal  to  it.     When   coming 
forward,  preparatory  to  blooming,  it  should 
be  watered,  but  when  in  flower  it  does  better 
if  the  surface  of  the  soil  is  kept  dry.      Air  it 
needs,  and  it  is  usual  to  give  it  an  ample  sup- 
ply when  the  temperature  will  allow.     At  no 
time  after  it  begins  to  bloom  should  the  light 
be  shut  off.     Wlien,  in  the  spring,  the  rays  of 
the  sun  become  so  powerful  as  to  fade  out  the 
color,  .some  judgment  must  be  used  in  screen- 
ing it  at  midday.     If  violets  are  left  immers- 
ed in  water  for  a  time,  they  will  throw  off 


their  fragrance  and  impart  it  to  the  water; 
and  an  ancient  Gaelic  receipt  makes  the  vio- 
let even  more  potent:  "Anoint  thy  face  with 
goat's  milk  in  which  violets  have  been  infus- 
ed, and  there  is  not  a  young  prince  upon  earth 
who  will  not  be  charmed  with  thy  beauty." 
Athens  was  called  the  "violet-crowned  city," 
and  Napoleon  was  known  not  only  as  "the 
Little  Corporal,"  but  also  as  "Papa  la  Vio- 
lette."  Violet  is  the  flower  of  the  Napoleon 
family,  and  is  worn  by  its  supporters.  So 
great  was  the  demand  for  violets  at  Chisel- 
hurst  at  the  time  of  the  death  of  the  late  Em- 
peror that  the  ordinary  penny  bunch  sold 
readily  for  six  pence  and  even  a  shilhng.  Of 
native  violets  there  are  eight  or  ten  varieties 
in  this  country,  and  while  they  are  more  or 
less  fragrant  their  odor  is  not  to  be  compared 
with  that  of  tlie  cultivated  plant.  One  has 
little  difficulty  in  finding  in  the  moist  places 
in  the  woods  in  early  spring  the  spade  leaf, 
the  hood  leaf,  the  arrow  leaf,  the  white  and 
other  varieties  with  which  we  have  been  fa- 
miliar from  childhood. 

Carnations  and  other  Flowers. 
Mrs.  Quickly  said  of  the  dead  Falstaff  that 
he  did  not  like  carnation  ;  possibly  he  felt  that 
it  did  not  suit  his  complexion.  There  are 
many  varieties  of  carnations,  but  they  may  all 
be  classed  under  three  heads — Flalce,  Bizarre 
and  Picotee.  The  Plal-es  are  striped  in  two 
colors  on  a  white  ground ;  as,  for  example, 
the  Attila,  which  is  scarlet  and  white.  The 
Bizzarre  has  irregular  stripes  on  a  plain 
ground,  and  the  Picotecs  have  a  border  with  a 
narrow  margin  of  a  darker  color,  or  one  pro- 
fusely dotted  with  small  spots.  Its  edge  is 
serrated,  or  cut.  In  colors  we  have  the  Bella 
Zora,  or  salmon  pink,  striped  and  mottled 
with  crimson  ;  the  Cassandra,  a  bright  cerise  ; 
the  Union,  a  crimson  and  white,  and  many 
others.  To  have  the  carnation  in  perfection 
the  petals  must  be  symmetrically  arranged, 
the  colors  bright  and  clear,  the  contrasts 
strong  and  marked,  and  no  blending  of  color 
with  another.  The  white,  wherever  it  ap- 
pears, must  be  of  spotless  purity,  and  there 
must  be  no  splitting  of  the  full  and  well-de- 
veloped pod.  This  last  is  difficult  to  manage. 
Cultivators  who  raise  but  a  few  may  tie  the 
pod  to  prevent  the  splitting  when  it  is  ready 
to  bloom  ;  but  this  cannot  be  done  where  car- 
nations are  raised  in  considerable  quantities. 
The  lily  of  the  valley  blooms  readily  in 
winter  under  proper  treatment.  The  bulbs 
are  kept  in  a  dark  place  till  wanted,  and 
when  brought  out  they  must  be  gradually 
accustomed  to  the  light,  for  a  sudden  exposure 
injures  them,  A  week  is  required  to  bring 
them  from  the  darkness  of  a  cellar  to  the 
strong  light  of  the  forcing  house.  When  they 
are  wanted  they  are  subjected  to  a  bottom 
heat  of  sixty  or  seventy  degrees.  The  art  of 
raising  lilies  for  market  in  winter  is  so  well 
understood  that  a  florist  can  take  an  order  for 
a  given  day  with  the  certainty  that  he  can  fill 
it,  for  he  knows  exactly  how  long  it  will  take 
for  the  bulbs  to  blossom.  It  is  only  the 
flower  that  we  get  in  forcing  lilies  of  the 
valley,  for  the  leaf  does  not  come  forward 
when  the  jilant  is  subjected  to  this  treat- 
ment. 

But  something  green  is  wanted  to  bind  up 
with  flowers,  whether  lilies,  roses  or  carna- 
tions. To  this  end  the  rose  geranium  is  cul- 
tivated, for  its  leaves  attbrd  a  delicious  per- 
fume with  the  desired  color.  Smilax  is  also 
highly  esteemed,  for  it  is  very  graceful  and 
has  a  bright,  fresh  color.  At  one  time  there 
was  a  great  demand  for  smila.x,  not  only  for 
ordinary  use,  but  also  to  loop  up  dresses, 
wreath  the  hair,  and  add  to  the  charm  and 
grace  of  baskets  of  cut  flowers.  It  will  not 
easily  go  out  of  fashion,  for  its  place  cannot 
be  filled,  but  it  is  not  so  much  called  for  as  it 
once  was.  The  culture  requires  care  and  at- 
tention, for  every  shoot  must  have  a  string 
on  which  to  clhnb,  otherwise  the  vines  .would 
soon  become  hopelessly  tangled.  Attention 
is  also  paid  to  forcing  lilies,  callas  and  azaleas 
— all  white  flowers — for  wliich  there  is  at 
Easter  a  great  demand.  They  are  all  beauti- 
ful and  fragrant,  particularly  the  white  Uly, 


which  will  fill  a  house  with  its  perfume. — 
Champlin. 


Christmas  Blossoms. 

In  the  interesting  letter  concerning  the 
flower  trade  between  Newport  and  this  city, 
which  we  iirint  to-day,  the  writer  says  that 
"it  is  only  the  flower  that  we  get  in  forcuig 
lilies  of  the  valley,  for  the  leaf  does  not  come 
forward  when  the  plant  is  subjected  to  this 
treatment."  This  reminds  us  of  the  result  of 
a  recent  experiment  in  floriculture  in  thiscily. 
About  two  weeks  before  Christmas  one  of  our 
German  fellow  citizens  cut  one  or  two  branch- 
es from  a  lilac  bush  growing  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  the  High  Bridge.  These  branches  he 
brought  home  with  him  and  placed  them  in 
his  living  room,  in  water,  which  was  made 
warm  tlu'ee  or  four  times  a  day.  Under  this 
treatment  the  lilac  branches  put  forth  several 
bunches  of  blossoms,  and  by  Christmas  day 
these  had  assumed  all  the  characteristics  of 
the  familiar  lilac  fiower  except  tlie  color — the 
purple  was  lacking,  the  flowers  being  wholly 
white.  No  leaves,  however,  strange  to  say, 
had  appeared — the  forcing  process  in  this 
case,  as  in  the  case  mentioned  by  our  corres- 
pondent, aft'ecting  the  flower  sooner  than  the 
leaf. 

By  the  same  method  our  friend  also  pro- 
duced cherry  blossoms,  thus  adding  the 
charm  of  nature  to  the  artificial  devices  by 
which  our  German  fellow-citizens  add  so 
much  to  their  celebration  of  the  day  of 
"Christ  Kindel."— -Editor  Post. 


FRENCH  LAND    OWNERS. 

In  France,  an  area  about  half  as  large  again 
as  the  United  Kingdom  is  owned  by  nearly 
5,500,000  proprietors  of  agricultural  land,  of 
whom  5,000,000  of  peasant  farmers  own  one- 
third  of  the  whole  area,  with  what  result  is 
every  day  becoming  better  known  and  more 
fully  recognized  in  this  country.  The  indus- 
try and  thrift  of  these  peasant  owners  are 
marvelous,  and  spread  their  effect  through 
the  whole  society  of  France.  The  gross  farm- 
ing ]iroduce  of  France  may  not  be  so  great  as 
in  England,  but  this  is  equally  observable 
when  comparing  the  large  farms  of  France, 
of  which  there  are  more  than  130,000,  with 
the  large  farms  of  this  country.  As  compar- 
ed with  the  small  farmers  of  France,  hiring 
the  lands  of  others,  the  small  owners  unques- 
tionably are  vastly  better  in  every  i-espect, 
and  they  hold  their  own  even  beside  the  large 
farmers.  There  may  be  some  defects  in  the 
system  of  small  owners;  the  process  may  be 
carried  too  far  in  France;  but  at  least  it  has 
raised  the  status  of  the  lower  classes  there, 
has  almost  abolished  pauperism  in  the  rural 
districts,  and  has  endowed  the  people  with 
such  universal  habits  of  thrift  as  are  almost 
unknown  in  the  people  of  the  same  class  in 
this  country.  It  is  not  the  fact,  as  commonly 
stated,  that  the  peasant  proi)rietors  of  France 
are  loaded  with  debt ;  the  average  mortgages 
on  these  farms  are  known  to  be  no  more  than 
10  per  cent,  on  their  value  ;  while  the  best 
evidence  that  they  are  able  to  accumulate 
money,  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the 
peasants  have  been  the  main  subscribers  to 
the  great  loans  which  have  been  raised  in 
France,  and  that  at  the  present  time  the 
French  debt  to  the  amount  £1,000,000,000  of 
our  money,  is  held  by  4,000,000  of  persons, 
while  British  consols  to  the  amount  of  £700,- 
000,000,  are  held  by  not  more  than  250,000 
persons.  It  will  be  said,  of  course,  that  the 
climate  and  soil  of  France  differ  from  Eng- 
land so  much  that  no  comparison  can  be 
drawn  between  them.  This  may  be  admitted 
as  regards  the  central  and  southern  parts  of 
France,  where  the  cultivation  of  the  vine  and 
olive  is  specially  suited  to  peasant  owners  ; 
but  its  northern  and  western  provinces  are  in 
no  way  different  from  the  greater  part  of  Eng- 
land. The  garden  of  France  is  unquestion- 
ably Normandy,  the  climate  and  soil  of  which 
differ  in  no  essential  quality  from  those  of  the 
south  of  England, and  which  especially  resemble 
such  counties  as  Kent  and  Somersetshire.    In 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


9 


Noimaiidy  there  is  a  greater  variety  in  the 
ownership  of  projicrty  than  in  any  other  part 
of  France  ;  larpe  estates  with  resident  owners 
an'  nnnierous,  but  still  more  so  are  small 
properties  ;  there  are  an  innnense  number  of 
peasant  proprietors,  but  tliey  do  not  monopo- 
lize the  land  as  in  some  par{s  of  France.  "If 
1  had  to  point  out  the  happiest  part  of 
France,"  says  Monsieur  de  Lavergne,  "I 
sliould  not  hesitate  to  select  Normandy." 
Population  there  increases  slowly  in  proiwr- 
tion  to  wealth  ;  wliile  its  wealth  has  increased 
four-fold  since  ITS'.t,  its  population  has  in- 
creased by  one-third  only.  In  many  rural 
commmies  there  is  not  a  single  pauiier.  The 
writer  adds  :  "Lu  pliqiurt  dif  yonuands 
n'ont  }>us  ?u  Maltliun,  miiis  ils  pratique  in- 
stinctivnnent  scs  cniisrih.^^  The  case  of  Nor- 
mandy is  especially  instructive,  as  it  shows 
what  "is  the  result  of  a  happy  coml)ination  of 
every  variety  of  large  owners  and  small 
owners,  of  land  farmed  by  tenants,  and  of 
peasants  farming  their  own  land.  In  the 
more  northern  provinces  of  France  property 
is  even  more  divided,  and  gives  admirable  re- 
sults, though  perhaps  the  net  produce  aft(!r 
taking  into  account  the  number  of  cultiva- 
tors is  not  so  great. — Fiirtnujhtly  Bcview. 

A     MODEL   FARM. 

In  taking  a  sleigh  ride  a  few  days  ago,  we 
passed  through  a  portion  of  Manor  township. 
If  there  is  anything  that  will  make  a  I.ancaster 
countian  feel  proud  of  his  county,  it  is  to  dri\c 
through  such  portions  of  it  as  Manor-twp.  and 
notice  tlie  unmistakable  evidences  of  thrift  and 
prosperity  that  greets  the  eye  on  all  sides. 

Our  drive  took  us  into  the  neighliorhood  of 
Washington  borough;  from  Lancaster  to  the 
Sus(iuehaniia,  over  the  Manor  turnpike  to 
Millersville,  and  from  thence  to  Washington 
borough  by  the  direct  road.  AVe  cannot  recall 
a  single  farm  or  residence  which  did  not  bear 
evidence  of  the  thrifty  habits  of  our  Lancas- 
ter county  peopk',-  no  tundile-down  buildings 
or  fences,"  that  are  the  rule  rather  than  the  ex- 
ception in  some  sections  of  the  country. 

The  mild  damp  weather  of  Friday  and  Sat- 
urday promised  to  i)ut  the  tobacco  hanging  in 
sheds  into  condition  to  handle,  and  as  a  natu- 
ral consequence,  tobacco  was  the  prevailing 
theme  of  conver.sation,  which  is  not  a  matter 
of  surprise  when  we  reflect  that  we  are  in  the 
midst  of  a  small  area  (less  than  half  of  Lancas- 
ter county)  that  furnishesthe  markets  of  the 
world  with  about  one-fourth  of  all  the  leaf 
tobacco  grown  in  the  United  States. 

Prominent  among  the  large  and  successful 
tobacco  growers  in  this  district,  we  might 
mention  Mr.  .lohn  S.  Mann,  whose  tine  farm 
lies  about  li  miles  from  the  river.  Mr.  Mann 
produces  annually  froni  fifteen  to  twenty 
acres  of  the  weed,  and  as  an  example  of  the 
quality  and  quantity  per  acre,  we  might  say 
that  from  a  lot  sold  by  Mr.  Mann  to  a  New 
York  lirm,  this  season,  through  their  agent, 
Mr.  Isaac  Kaullman,  of  Miumtville,  he  real- 
ized at  the  rate  of  if  (iSO  per  acre,  strict  measure. 

It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  in 
order  to  continue  the  successful  culture  of  to- 
bacco, the  farmer  must  employ  means  to 
counteract  the  exhaustive  influence  of  tobacco 
cropping  on  the  soil.  This  can  only  be  done 
by  the  liberal  use  of  stable  manure,  "and  since 
this  article  cannot  be  purchased  here  in  large 
quantities  for  love  or  money,  the  farmer  must 
resort  to  means  for  producing  it  on  the  farm. 

A  visit  to  Mr.  Mann's  stable  convinced  us 
that  he  is  a  man  (n)  "  that  don't  do  things  on 
a  small  scale. "  Thirteen  milk  cows  furnish 
the  dairy  products  for  the  family,  the  surplus 
going  to  tlie  Columbia  market.  Twenty-five 
head  of  fattening  steers  that  will  rival,  in 
point  of  size,  the  Centennial  prize  cattle  by 
the  time  Mr.  M.  puts  them  on  the  market, 
grace  his  stable.  Among  his  horses,  which 
are  all  of  the  best,  we  noticed  a  promising 
looking  Percheron  stallion,  three  years  old,  and 
weighing  1,1500  pounds,  having  been  exhibited 
by  Mr.  M,  at  the  late  State  fair  held  in  this 
city.  Proceeding  to  the  pig-stables  we  find 
them  stocked  with  improved  Berkshires,  whose 
clean,  sleek  appearance  is  suthcient  evidence 
that  they  receive  all  the  care  and  attention  the 


most  fastidious  pig  could  desire.  In  short,  all 
that  came  under  our  observation  in  a  brief  visit 
of  a  few  hours  gave  evidence  of  lirst-cla.ss  farm- 
ing combined  with  good  business  nianagt- ment. 

Returning  to  the  hou.se  from  which  wc 
started  on  our  tour  of  observations,  and  which 
we  have  allowed,  rather  inadvertently,  to  oc- 
cupy the  last,  but  not  least  place  in  our  re- 
marks, we  find  it  presided  over  by  Mrs.  M., 
ably  assisted  by  her  accomplished  daughters, 
whose  reputation  tor  hospitality  is  so  well 
known  as  to  require  no  comment. 

There  are  other  faims  and  farmers  that 
may  be  the  subjects  of  further  commmiica- 
tituis  ;  the  example  of  Mr.  Mann  as  a  model 
farmer  ami  business  man,  is  one  deserving  of 
notice  and  worthy  of  emulation  by  young  men 
and  others  engaged  in  the  same  line  of  busi- 
ness. If  there  are  other  tobacco  farmers  who 
can  show  a  better  yield  per  acre  than  that  re- 
ferred to  by  us,  we  will  be  glad  to  hear  from 
them.  — Intelligencer. 

CLEARING   LAND   BY  DYNAMITE. 

Experience  at  clearing  lands,  both  in  re- 
moving stumps  and  large  boulders  with  dyna- 
mite in  .Scotland  has  been  a  success.  The 
following  account  is  given  of  a  late  trial  in  an 
Edinburgh  paper  : 

"A  spadefiU  of  earth  was  removed  from  the 
side  of  a  stum])  and  a  hole  driven  into  the 
stump  with  a  crowbar.  Into  this  hole  a  cart- 
ridge of  dynamite  was  pressed  by  means  of  a 
wooden  ramrod,  then  a  detonating  percussion 
cap,  with  a  fuse  attached,  was  scpieezed  into  a 
small  cartridge  or  primer  of  dynamite,  and 
inserted  into  the  hole  in  the  stump  in  contact 
with  the  charge.  The  hole  was  tilled  up  with 
loose  earth,  about  a  foot  length  of  the  fuse 
being  left  bare.  A  match  was  next  apjjlied 
to  the  fuse,  and  suflicient  time  was  taken  for 
the  powder  to  reach  the  percussion  cap  to 
allow  the  operatives  to  retire  a  safe  distance. 
When  the  explosion  occurred  the  trunk  was 
literally  blown  out  of  the  ground,  some  of  the 
fragments,  weighing  nearly  twenty  pounds, 
being  thrown  to  a  distance  of  over  a  hundred 
yards.  The  destruction  of  the  stump  was 
complete.  In  breaking  up  big  boulder  stones^ 
the  dynamite  was  simply  placed  on  top  of  the 
stone,  covered  with  wet  sand,  and  fired  with 
the  fuse  in  the  ordinary  way.  The  result  was 
the  reduction  of  the  boulders  to  fragments  the 
size  of  a  walnut.  It  was  effectually  proved 
by  the  experiments  that  land  can  be  speedily 
cleared  of  formidable  obstructions  to  good 
cultivation  by  the  use  of  dynamite,  and  the 
committee  of  the  society  who  watched  the 
operations  expressed  themselves  as  highly 
satisfied  with  the  results. 

FARMING  VS.  PROFESSION. 

The  Maine  Mirror  gives  the  testimony  of  a 
New  Hampshire  boy,  now  a  resident  of  Wis- 
consin, a  fine  scholar,  a  graduate  of  Dart- 
mouth, and  a  law  student  in  Merriniac  coun- 
ty, who  just  previous  to  his  admi.ssion  to  the 
bar,  took  a  cold  which  rendered  him  very 
deaf,  and  no  medical  skill  wan  able  to  restore 
his  hearing.  The  affliction  compelled  him  to 
give  up  his  chosen  profession  and  lie  went 
west  very  much  broken  down  in  spirits.  For 
ten  years  he  has  been  farming,  cultivating 
about  'iOO  acres  of  prairie  land,  and,  as  he  ex- 
pressed it,  making  a  good  living  and  salting 
down  something  every  year.  And  he  declares 
that  if,  knowing  what  he  now  knows,  he  was 
to  begin  his  active  life  over  again,  he  would 
do  just  as  he  was  compelled  to  do  .so  unwill- 
ingly ten  years  ago  ;  that  is,  he  would  throw 
aside  his  profession  and  settle  down  upon  a 
farm.  Said  he,  "  There  isn't  nnich  glory  on 
a  farm,  Imt  you  get  a  good,  sure  living.  You 
are  your  own  master  ;  you  can't  starve  or  be 
turned  out  of  business ;  and  as  far  as  the 
work  is  concerned  in  these  days  of  horse 
power,  a  man  needn't  kill  himself  farming 
any  more  than  at  any  other  business.  It  is 
brains  that  win  on  a  farm  as  well  as  every- 
where else,  and  the  smart  man  is  going  to 
ride,  while  the  stuivid  one  goes  a-foot  in  the 
corn-field  as  well  as  in  the  bar  or  pidpit.  I 
should  like  to  have  my  hearing  again,  but  I 
wouldn't  leave  my  farm  if  I  had  it." 


PENNSYLVANIA  STATE  AGRICUL- 
TURAL   SOCIETY. 

Tliis  snoicly  lioUi  its  regular  mecthip  at  Hurrls- 
btirK,  on  January  171  li.  Dr.  .1.  A.  M'Crea,  of  I'liila- 
(U'lphia,  was  cliosen  Presidcnl  ;>ro  tcm.^  on  account, 
of  tlic  (loath  of  Hon.  ttcorijo  .Scott,  llic  late  preslJing 
ofBccr.  .\fter  a  report  relative  to  the  appointment  of 
a  eoniinittec  to  nieniorialize  the  Lefrislutun;  for  the 
passage  of  an  act  lor  the  protection  of  sheep  from 
(loKB,  ami  some  oilier  routine  buKiuess,  the  committee 
appointeil  to  ilraft  resolutions  relative  to  deceased 
colleatrues,  rejiortcd  as  follows  : 

"The  Kxecutive  Committee  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Slate  Aftricultural  Society,  in  Jxhall  of  the  whole 
society,  is  callcil  upon  to  express  profound  regret  at 
the  loss,  liy  death,  of  three  of  its  members — one  of 
whom  was  its  highest  ollicer— all  of  them  active, 
prominent  and  intelligent  memhcrs  of  this  commit- 
tee ;  all  called  away  from  the  pursuits  of  life  since 
our  last  meeting.  It  is,  therefore,  our  duty,  ujjon 
this  occasion,  to  express  the  sincere  sorrow  we  feel 
at  this  unusual  bereavement. 

"  .Mr.  (leorge  Scott,  of  Columbia  county,  previous 
to  his  election  as  president  of  the  society  In  IsT."),  had 
filled  with  credit  many  important  pogitlons.  During 
his  administration  of  our  affairs,  no  word  of  com- 
plaint was  heard.  Often  these  are  troublesome,  and 
happy  the  incumbent  who  escapes  them.  The  duty 
imposed  upon  our  late  colleaiL'ue  was  so  prudently 
performed  and  so  efliciently  discharged  as  to  win  the 
praise  of  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact.  He  gave 
his  time  and  means  with  liberality  to  further  the 
success  of  this  society. 

"  Mr.  Alexander  Speer,  of  -Allegheuy  county,  was 
chosen  a  vice  i>residentin  ls74.  A  gentleman  largely 
engaged  in  manufactures,  modest  in  the  expression 
of  Ills  unusually  correct  views,  ])opular  and  courteous 
in  intercourse  with  his  colleagues,  and  attentive  and 
correct  in  the  performance  of  his  duties,  the  loss  of  a 
gentleman  of  his  high  character  is  greatly  to  be  de- 
plored. 

"  Mr.  Benjamin  G.  Peters,  of  Dauphin  county,  was 
for  a  long  period  a  member  of  the  Kxecutive  Com- 
mittee Always  prompt  and  energetic  in  the  dis- 
charge of  every  trust  assigned  to  him,  a  decided  yet 
courteous  counselor,  he  was  called  away  in  the  midst 
of  an  aciive  and  prosperous  business  career,  by  a 
sudden  and  shocking  accident.  His  death  is  most 
regretted  by  those  that  knew  him  best— a  tribute  of 
tlie  highest  character.  This  Executive  Committee 
therefore, 

liinolve,  That  this  expression  of  regret  at  our  loss 
be  entered  upon  the  minutes  of  the  society,  and  that 
copies  of  it,  under  the  seal  of  the  society,  signed  by 
I  he  president  and  secretary,  be  transmitted  to  the 
representatives  of  the  families  of  Messrs.  Scott,  Speer 
and  Peters." 

The  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted. 

The  committee  appointed  to  offer  premiums  at  the 
Centennial  Exhibition,  reported  that  as  the  awards 
had  not  yet  been  reported  to  them,  no  money  had 
yet  been  paid. 

.Mr.  Smcli.  offered  the  following: 

'' llcxolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  appointed 
whose  dutv  it  shall  l)c  to  examine  what  legislation 
exists  in  o'ther  States,  not  found  in  ours,  upon  the 
subject  of  agriculture — such  as  fences,  roads,  etc., 
and  other  matters  interesting  to  farmers,  and  make 
report  to  this  society." 

Jlessrs.  Snnill,  Kennedy  and  Eglc  were  appointed 
as  such  committee. 

The  following  resolution  was  adopted  : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  tender  made  by  The  rrnetical 
Farmer,  a  publication  issued  in  Philadelphia  in  the 
interest  of  agriculture,  to  publish  the  proceedings  of 
this  society,  and  other  matters  of  interest,  in  a  con- 
densed form,  is  thankfully  accepted,  and  that  the 
secretary  be  requested  to  furnish  the  same." 

At  the  evening  session  the  act  creating  the  State 
Board  of  Agriculture  was  read  before  the  Executive 
Committee,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  con- 
sider the  matter,  and  to  devise  ways  by  which  this 
society  can  best  aid  the  new  State  Board  in  its  efforts 
to  promote  the  cause  of  agriculture  and  the  interests 
of  the  farmers  of  the  State,  and  Mr.  Khey  read  a  pa- 
per relalive  io  the  productive  interests  of  the  country. 

On  Thursday  morning,  after  the  discussion  of 
some  miscellaneous  matters,  the  anuual  election  of 
officers  was  held,  with  the  following  result: 

President — .Jno.  \V.  Hammond. 

Vice  Presidents— Jas.  A.  M'Crea,  Geo.  Blight,  A. 
L.  Kennedy,  \Vm.  S.  Bissell,  A.  D.  Levering,  D.  U. 
Bran.son,  Wni.  S.  Holstein,  Tobias  Barlo,  S.  S. 
Spencer,  Daniel  H.  Neiman,  Joseph  P.  Conner,  Ira 
Tripp,  J.  S.  Keller,  John  A.  Smull,  James  E.  Car- 
nialt,  J.  B.  Potter,  S.  Baker,  John  S.  .Miller,  Daniel 
O.  (uhr,  L.  A.  .Mackey,  Geo.  Khey,  John  Murdoch, 
Jr.,  \Vm.  Speer,  John  .M'Dowell,  J.  B.  Lawson,  J. 
D.  Kirkpatrick,  Thos.  J.  Edge. 

Additional  .Members  Executive  Committee  —  A. 
\Vilhelm,  Abner  Kutherford,  John  H.  Ziegler, 
William  Taylor,  K.  S.  Allen. 

Ex-Presidents  .Members  of  the  Board — Frederick 
Walts,  D.  Taggart,  .Jacob  S.  Haldeman,  Thomas  P. 
Knox,  A.  Boyd  Hamilton,  Amos  E.  Kapp,  John  C. 
Morris,  J.  K.  Eby. 

Treasurer — John  B.  Ruthcrlord. 

Corresponding  Sec'y — Elbrldge  M'Conkey. 


iO 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  January, 


Recording  Secretary — D.  W.  Seller. 

Chemist  aud  Geologist — S.  S.  HaWeman. 

Assistant  Chemist'and  Geologist — Hugh  Hamil- 
ton. 

Librarian— W.  H.  Egle. 

The  following  was  then  adopted  : 

"Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  (including 
the  President  and  two  .Secretaries)  be  appointed  by 
the  President,  to  whom  shall  be  intrusted  the  general 
charge  of  the  society  during  the  interval  between 
the  stated  meetings  of  the  Executive  Committee,  in- 
cluding the  invitation  of  proposals  for  holding  the 
next  annual  fair  of  the  society — the  selection  of  loca- 
tion, inclusive  of  the  dates  thereof,  the  issuing  of 
premium  list  and  general  arr.angemeut6  for  said  ex- 
hibition. Also,  that  when  this  committee  adjourns 
it  adjourn  to  meet  on  the  third  day  of  the  next 
annual  exhibition,  at  such  hour  and  place  as  may  be 
designated  by  the  official  head  of  the  society." 

A  circular  from  the  National  Agricultural  Con- 
gress, which  is  to  meet  in  Chicago  in  September 
next,  was  read,  aud  Messrs.  Smull,  Kennedy  and 
Knox  were  appointed  delegates  to  attend  the  meet- 
ing. 

Dr.  Kennedy  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted  : 

"Resob'ed,  That  we  regard  the  instruction  in  theo- 
retical and  practical  agriculture  allbrded  by  the 
Pennsylvania  State  College,  as  the  distinguishing 
feature  of  the  institution. 

"Jiesohed,  That  we  cull  upon  the  authorities  of  the 
college  to  perfect  said  institution  t«  its  fullest  extent, 
and  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  correspond 
with  them  on  the  subject,  and  report  to  the  Exe- 
cutive Committee." 

Messrs.  Kennedy,  Rhey  and  Kirkpatrick  were  ap- 
pointed as  a  committee  on  the  subject. 

After  the  passage  of  a  resolution  authorizing  the 
Executive  Committee  to  employ  a  competent  person 
to  canvass  the  State  to  secure  exhibits  at  the  annual 
exhibition,  and  some  other  miscellaneous  business, 
the  society  adjourned. 


PENNSYLVANIA      FRUIT      GROWERS' 
ASSOCIATION. 

The  eighteenth  annual  meeting  of  the  Pennsylva- 
nia Fruit  Growers'  Association  was  held  at  Lancas- 
ter on  January  17th  and  18th ,  in  the  Board  of  Trade 
room.  Tables  reach ine  the  ent  re  length  of  the 
room  were  well  covered  with  fine  apples,  several  of 
which  were  comparatively  unknown  and  attracted 
great  attention,  particularly  the  "Ewalt,"  from  H. 
M.  Engle,  and  the  ".Major"  from  A.  S.  Sheller. 
The  meeting  was  called  to  order  at  two  o'clock,  p. 
m.,  by  the  President,  Mr.  E.  Satterthwait,  of  Jen- 
kintown.  H.  M.  Engle,  of  the  general  fruit  com- 
mittee, read  a  very  iiileresting  report,  in  which  he 
noted  the  fact  that  the  first  meeting  of  the  socety 
was  held  in  Lancaster  seventeen  years  ago,  and 
some  extracts  were  given  from  the  inaugural  address 
of  the  first  President,  in  which  the  work  to  be  done 
was  outlined. 

Mr.  Engle  reported  the  apple  crop  of  1S76  as  be- 
ing one  of  the  largest  for  many  years,  Kambo,  York, 
Imperial  and  Smith's  Cider  having  been  among  the 
best  varieties;  but  that  notwithstanding  the  large 
crop,  apples  are  now  being  shipped  into  the  State  in 
large  quantities.  The  pear  crop  was  reported  as 
badly  injured  by  blight;  peaches  were  good  in  some 
sections,  and  their  cultivation  should  be  encouraged, 
especially  in  the  valley  of  the  Susquehanna  river; 
Mixon,  Stump,  Early  and  Late  Crawford  and 
Smock,  are  among  tlie'best  varieties.  Plum  culture 
was  reported  as  on  the  increase,  but  the  curculio 
manages  to  have  his  "trade  mark"  in  almost  every 
orchard.  Grapes  were  abundant,  with  Concord  as 
the  most  popular  variety,  and  Martha,  Telegraph 
and  Ives  constantly  growing  in  favor;  other  small 
fruits  were  generally  abundant. 

The  greatest  enemy  to  the  fruit  crop  is  the  apple 
tree  borer,  for  the  destruction  of  which  the  knife  and 
wire  were  recommended.  But  little  has  been  done 
to  cheek  the  codling  moth,  which  is  a  grave  mistake. 
After  the  reading  of  the  report,  the  best  method  of 
destroying  the  moth  was  pretty  fully  discussed,  and 
the  general  opinion  seemed  to  be  that  almost  the 
only  eflTectual  method  of  killing  the  insect  is  to  trap 
it  while  in  the  pupa  state,  by  placing  bands  around 
the  trunk  of  the  tree,  and  killing  the  insects  found 
under  them. 

The  subject  of  changing  the  name  of  society  from 
the  "Pennsylvania  Fruit  Growers' Society"  to  "The 
General  Horticultural  Society  of  Pennsylvania,"  was 
then  taken  up,  and  after  an  animated  discussion  was 
decidedly  negatived. 

Mr.  W.  P.Brinton,  of  Christiana,  then  read  a 
very  interesting  and  exhaustive  essay  on  "  Peach 
Culture"  In  "the  discussion  which  followed,  Mr. 
Briuton  said  that  he  would  always  plant  his  tree? 
on  high  ground,  and  plant  shallow.  Mr.  Brady  said 
he  would  dig  a  hole  two  and  a-half  feet  square,  and 
one  and  a-half  feet  deep,  so  the  roots  would  have  an 
abundance  of  mellow  soil ;  he  would  not  plant  the 
tree  deep,  and  would  prune  off  all  the  branches. 

Mr.  Engle  said  a  verv  common  reason  for  plant- 
ing deep  was  to  keep  the  tree  from  being  blown 
over,  but  that  the  roots  would  hold  the  tree  more 
firmly  if  planted  in  their  natural  position. 


Mr.  Gkover  said  that  in  fixing  upon  the  depth  at 
which  to  plant,  we  should  follow  nature  as  seen  in 
the  seedling,  and  plant  the  trees  at  about  the  same 
depth  at  which  they  had  grown. 

Mr.  Meehan  objected  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
peach  orchard.  His  own  orchard  is  in  grass,  which 
is  mowed  twice  during  the  year,  and  receives  an  an- 
nual top-dressing,  and  always  bears  well. 

For  the  best  varieties,  Mr.  Brinton  recommended 
Crawford's  Early,  Old  Mixon,  Stump  and  Crawford's 
Late. 

Mr.  Killer  had  found  Old  Mixon  and  Crawford's 
Late  the  most  profitable ;  Crawford's  Early,  Ward's 
Late,  Troth's  Early,  Hale's  Early  aud  Susquehanna 
had  all  done  very  poorly  with  him. 

After  some  further  discussion,  the  society  adjourned 
until  evening,  when  the  subject  of  pruning  peach 
trees  was  taken  up  and  pretty  thoroughly  discussed, 
the  general  opinion  being  that  about  one-third  of  the 
previous  year's  growth  should  be  taken  off. 

Mr.  Meeh.in  advocated  close  pruning  on  weak 
trees,  but  less  upon  stronger  growers. 

Mr.  Satterthwait  pruned  histrees  to  make  them 
grow  fan-shaped,  so  that  he  could  cultivate  between 
the  rows,  but  shortened  in  the  branches  but  little. 

After  some  further  talk  during  which  the  "yellows" 
and  the  effects  of  frost  were  touched  upon,  the  sub- 
ject of  "  Blackberry  Culture"  was  introduced,  and 
an  essay  ou  the  subject  by  Wm.  Parry  was  read,  and 
will  soon  be  published  in  the  Farmer.  The  essay  was 
so  complete  and  exhaustive  that  little  remained  to  be 
said  on  the  subject,  and  Mr.  Meehan  proceed  to  give 
a  report  on  "  Fruits  at  the  Centennial."  Although 
Pennsylvania  is  one  of  the  best  fruit  growing  States  in 
the  Union,  she  made  almost  no  display  at  the  Cen- 
tennial, but  Lancaster  county  made  the  finest  display 
from  the  State.  The  speaker  then  gave  a  very  in- 
teresting outline  of  the  work  which  had  been  accom- 
plished in  improving  our  fruits  during  the  past  cen- 
tury. One  hundred  years  ago  we  had  no  strawberries 
excepting  a  few  inferior  English  varieties. 

Among  the  first  of  the  improved  varieties  was 
Ilovey's  Seedling,  introduced  about  fifty  years  ago. 
Longworth  did  much  for  the  improvement  of  the 
strawberry  by  the  discovery  of  the  pistillate  and 
staminate  varieties,  and  caused  almost  a  strawberry 
mania — but  the  later  discovery  of  the  Wilson's 
-\lbany,  a  hermaphrodite  variety,  caused  a  great  re- 
volution. Many  excellent  varieties  have  been  in- 
troduced recently,  but  the  Wilson  still  holds  its 
place.  Among  currants  the  Ked  Dutch,  although  it 
has  been  propagated  by  cuttings  for  more  than  3,000 
years,  is  still  the  best.  One  hundred  years  ago  we 
had  none  but  wild  blackberries,  and  even  thirty  years 
ago  few  were  noted  in  the  nurserymen's  catalogues. 
The  present  fine  varieties  have  been  developed  entirely 
within  the  last  century,  and  much  the  same  may  be 
said  of  the  raspberry.  Gooseberries  and  peaches 
have  been  impioved  but  little,  though  some  advance 
has  been  made  in  peach  culture  by  the  introduction 
of  earlier  and  later  varieties.  Pears  have  been  im- 
proved more  than  any  other  fruit ;  the  varieties  of 
1776  having  almost  entirely  disappeared.  American 
grapes  are  the  product  of  the  century,  and  varieties 
now  in  cultivation  equal  any  of  the  foreign  ones.  In 
cherries  but  little  improvement  has  been  made,  and 
plum  culture  has  been  abandoned  in  many  part  of  the 
country  on  ticcount  of  the  curculio.  Apples  have  im- 
proved but  little  in  quality,  but  many  new  varieties 
have  been  produced,  which,  by  their  adaptation  to 
particular  localities,  are  of  great  value.  Crab  apples 
are  due  to  American  cultivation,  and  chiefly  to  the 
.attention  given  them  in  the  Northwestern  States, 
where  many  valuable  varieties  have  been  produced. 

On  Thursday  morning.  President  Calder,  of  the 
State  College,  gave  an  interesting  account  of  the 
present  condition  and  work  of  the  college,  and  Mr. 
Carter  of  the  work  done  on  the  Experimental  Farm 
at  West  Grove. 

Mr.Stauffer  then  read  an  essay  on  "Noxious 
Weeds,"  which  elicited  considerable  discussion. 

The  report  of  the  Centennial  Committee  was  then 
presented.  The  committee  held  several  meetings, 
and  applied  to  the  Legislature  and  to  the  State  Cen- 
tennial Board  for  a  small  appropriation,  to  pay 
freight  on  such  fruits  as  should  be  sent,  the  com- 
mittee offering  to  give  their  time,  aud  to  defray  their 
own  expenses  while  making  the  display,  but  no  aid 
was  granted  them  and  consequently  no  display  was 
made.  The  report  concluded  as  follows  :  "We  at- 
tribute our  failure  to  the  usual  indifference  of  our 
State  Legislature  as  a  body,  in  regard  to  all  agricul- 
tural and  horticultural  Interests"  —  words  which 
should  make  every  member  of  the  Legislature  blush 
with  shame. 

A  letter  was  read  by  Mr.  Hoopes,  asking  the  society 
to  state  what  legislative  action  should  he  taken  to 
encourage  the  planting  of  forest  trees,  but  the  mem- 
bers differed  so  widely  in  their  ideas  on  the  subject 
that  the  matter  was  dropped,  with  the  understand- 
ing that  at  the  next  meeting  Mr.  Meehan  should 
read  a  paper  against  legislative  action,  and  Presi- 
dent Calder  one  in  favor  of  it.  ' 

The  "Apple  Tree  Borer"  was  then  talked  of  at 
some  length,  the  general  experience  being  that  the 
knife  was  the  only  remedy,  though  Mr.  Bissell  said 
he  had  succeeded  in  protecting  his  trees  by  the  use 
of  a  thick  wash  made  with  soap  suds,  clay  and  lin- 
seed oil,  applied  each  spring. 


At  the  opening  of  the  afternoon  session,  Mr. 
Sands,  Secretary  of  the  MaryLand  Horticultu-al  So- 
ciety, on  behalf  of  his  society,  invited  the  Pennsyl- 
vania society  to  meet  with  them  at  the  next  meeting 
of  the  American  Pomological  Society,  to  be  held  in 
Baltimore,  on  September  12,  13  and  14.  The  invita- 
tion was  accepted,  and  a  committee  was  appointed 
to  collect  fruits  for  an  exhibition  at  the  time.  The 
following  officers  were  elected  for  the  ensuing  year  : 

President — .Josiah  Hoopes,  of  West  Chester. 

Vice  Presidents — H.  M.  Engle,  of  Marietta;  Geo. 
H.  Small,  of  Harrisburg  ;  John  I.  Carter,  of  West 
Grove. 

Recording  Sec. — E.  B.  Engle,  of  Marietta. 

Cor.  Sec. — W.  P.  Brinton,  of  Christiana. 

Treasurer — Geo.  B.  Thomas,  of  West  Chester  ;  and 
the  place  for  the  next  annual  meeting  was  fixed  at 
Williamsport. 

"Cheap  Fruit  Houses"  were  then  discussed  and 
several  plans  for  their  construction  were  proposed, 
but  all  agreed  in  the  necessity  for  having  ice  to  keep 
the  temperature  low.  Mr.  Lint  aud  others  had  suc- 
ceeded in  keeping  fruit  well  in  a  common  spring 
house. 

On  the  subject  of  "Trees  for  Windbreaks,"  the 
society  was  pretty  evenly  divided,  some  members 
valuing  them  highly,  while  others  thought  them  a 
disadvantage. 

After  some  talk  on  the  best  methods  of  keeping 
winter  vegetables,  the  potato  question  was  taken  up, 
most  of  those  taking  part  in  the  discussion  regarding 
the  Early  Rose  and  Peerless  as  the  best  varieties. 

At  the  evening  session  Prof.  Rathvon  read  a  very 
interesting  essay  on  "Insect  Longevity"  and  Mr. 
Miller  one  on  "Fruit  Culture,"  both  of  which  we 
shall  give  to  our  readers  soon.  The  remainder  of  the 
session  was  occupied  by  a  miscellaneous  discussion. 
The  meeting  was  one  of  the  most  interesting  ever 
held  by  thesociety,  the  attendance  being  large,  aud 
the  essays  and  discussions  unusually  interesting. 

Mr.  Hiller,  of  the  Committee  on  Fruit,  submitted 
the  following  report  : 

Apples  :  H.  M.  Engle  &  Son,  20  varieties  ;  Prof. 
I.  S.  Geist,  1 ;  Levi  S.  Reist,  22  ;  all  from  Canada, 
and  11  varieties  of  his  own  growing;  Peter  Lint,  1  ; 
A.  S.  Sheller,  3  ;  Hiller  &  Son,  0;  John  Brady,  3  ; 
James  Huber,  2  ;  Dr.  J.  P.  Eshlemau,  6  ;  J.  Frank 
Landis,  plate  of  fine  home-raised  lemons;  Thomas 
Harvey,  1  variety,  for  a  name  ;  Geo.  D.  Stitzel, 
pound  pear  ;  Reuben  Weaver,  4  varieties  apples  ;  ,J. 
N.  Engle,  2  varieties  for  name.  The  Rome  Beauty 
is  a  very  showy,  desirable  fruit.  Ewalt  is  the  finest 
apple  in  apperance  on  exhibition,  and  is  worthy  of 
planting.  The  York  Imperial  has  no  superior  in 
this  section,  in  bearing  and  keeping  cjualities.  The 
".Millport  Sheep-Noses,"  from  Mr.  Reist,  are  a 
beautiful  apple  of  medium  size,  and  are  extra- 
ordinary yearly  bearers.  The  "Major"  fully  retains 
its  reputation  as  to  quality  of  fruit  and  annual  bear- 
ing ;  it  is  especially  worthy  of  further  trial. 

Casper  Hiller, 
Alf.  S.  Sheller, 
Henry  M.  Engle. 

The  report  was  unanimously  adopted  and  the  com- 
mittee discharged. 

Mr.  Hoopes  oflTered  the  following  resolution 
which  was  unanimously  adopted. 

Resolved,  Th.at  the  thanks  of  the  society  are  due 
and  are  hereby  tendered  to  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society  for  their 
kindness  and  hospit.ality,  not  only  to  the  individual 
members  of  our  .association,  but  to  the  Society  at 
large,  for  furnishing  us  with  a  commodious  and  com- 
fortable room  to  meet  in,  aud  every  convenience  for 
displaying  our  fruits.  Also,  to  the  press  of  Lancas- 
ter city  for  so  kindly  noticing  our  meetings  and  the 
very  tliorough  and  courteous  manuer  in  which  they 
have  reported  our  discussions. 

President  Satterthwait  ca,lled  upon  Professor 
Rathvon  to  give  a  history  of  the  codling  moth  saying 
that  there  was  no  subject  of  deeper  interest  to  pom- 
ologists  than  the  destruction  of  this  moth.  The 
Professor,  in  response,  spoke  at  length  as  to  the  ori- 
gin and  habits  of  the  moth,  saying  that  he  believed 
it  difficult  to  catch  them  when  fully  matured.  I 
will  briefly  relate  its  history.  Those  that  survive 
the  winter  are  in  the  pupa  or  quiescent  state,  spun  in 
a  sort  of  cocoon  under  the  loose  scales  of  bark  on  the 
trunks  of  trees,  or  any  other  cover  that  is  accessible. 
These  evolve  in  early  summer,  as  soon  as  the  fruit 
is  as  large  as  a  common  "marble,"  in  the  form  of  a 
small  moth.  When  the  femalt  becomes  fertilized, 
she  seeks  the  young  apple  and  deposits  one  or  more 
eggs  in  the  lower  end  of  the  fruit.  There  they 
hatch,  and  one,  sometimes  two,  enters  the  apple 
from  that  point  and  feeds  therein  until  its  larval 
condition  is-fully  matured.  At  first  it  is  a  minute 
white  worm,  but  as  it  approaches  its  pupal  period 
it  becomes  of  a  pinkish  color.  It  then  cuts  its  way 
out  of  the  apple,  whether  it  is  hanging  on  the  tree 
or  lying  on  the  ground,  and  seeks  a  shelter  under 
which  to  pupate.  Then  is  the  time  to  set  a  trap  for 
it.  whatsoever  the  form  may  be.  A  straw  band 
around  the  trunk  of  the  tree  affords  a  good  shelter 
for  pupation.  This  is  renewed  about  every  ten  days, 
and  the  old  one,  containing  the  pupw,  is  burned. 

For  this  straw-band  some  have  substituted  a  band 
made  of  any  kind  of  old  woolen,  linen,  or  cotton 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


id 


cloth,  wrapped  nroumi  tlie  tree  in  such  a  way  as  to 
form  a  frood  artificial  shelter,  and  this  is  taken  ofF 
pi^riodieally  and  passed  throni^h  a  elolhes'  wrine:er, 
which  crushes  the  pupse.  (.Not  a  saturated  cloth 
by  any  means,  they  like  a  dry  jilacc.)  There  are 
successive  Inoods  of  these  ''codlinKs,"  but  not  so 
many  as  there  appear  to  be.  The  lemales  do  not 
deposit  their  e^i;s  all  at,  the  sanu'  time,  nor  in  the 
same  place;  and,  therefore,  the  same  brood  will  be 
found  in  ditl'erent  staues  of  development.  Surround- 
ing circumstances  will  materially  alter  the  normal 
process  of  development,  hence,  we  may  tind  the 
worm  in  tlie  apple  sometimes  in  mid-winter,  and  we 
may  also  find  the  moth  emerijinir  from  the  jiupa 
long;  before  there  is  even  a  flower  or  leaf  on  an  ajiple 
tree.  The  temperature  of  the  surrounding  atmos- 
phere, either  out  in  the  open  air  or  in  a  warm  cellar 
or  chamlier,  will  produce  this  ettect.  These  moths 
often  spin  and  pupate  in  bins,  barrels  and  t)oxes 
containing;  apples,  and  I  have  seen  them  come  forth 
from  such  places,  in  the  moth  form,  in  the  spring  of 
the  year,  or  in  early  summer. 

It  is  not  certain  that  they  may  easily  be  caught  In 
a  sugar  trap  of  any  kind.  I  have  never  caught  any 
by  such  means.  They  belong  to  a  family  allied  to 
the  house  moths,  many  of  which  never  partake  of 
food  of  any  kind  in  the  moth  state.  Some  years  ago, 
Mr.Shaell'er,thcn  president  of  the  Pcnn.sylvania  Hor- 
ticultural Society,  of  Philadelphia, sent  me  about  one 
tfiousand  of  miscellaneous  insects  which  he  had 
caught  in  wide-mouthed  bottles  containing  sweetened 
water, which  he  had  hung  on  his  trees,  and  out  of  the 
whole  number  there  were  none  that  I  could  distinctly 
recognize  as  a  "coddling."  There  were  various  species 
of  flies,  hornets,  wasps,  bees,  yellow  jackets,  beetles, 
lace  wings  and  nocturnal  moths  ;  but,  I  remarked  at 
the  time,  that  there  were  no  curculios,  and  only  a 
very  few  that  might  possibly  have  been  coddlings, 
but  these  were  so  completely  washed  with  the  liquid 
that  they  could  not  be  recognized.  But  the  genera 
Ari:tiay  Aygtttis^  Xuctita,  Sjtilot^otita  and  Any^opteryy 
were  well  represented.  I  have  known  them,  how- 
ever, to  hover  around  and  dash  against  a  brilliant 
light,  fended  by  a  glass  globe  or  chimney.  The 
remedy  above  alluded  to  is  about  as  good  as  any  in 
use,  although  there  are  other  forms  of  it.  Anterior 
to  this,  however,  is  gathering  the  fruit  as  fast  as  it 
falls,  and  scalding  it  or  feeding  it  to  swine. 

The  foregoing  very  brief  and  imperfect  synopsis  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Fruil  Cirowers'  Society  is  taken 
partly  from  the  Practical  Farmer,  of  Philadelphia, 
and  partly  from  the  Examiner  and  Express,  and  the 
InleUificncer,  of  Lancaster.  Our  journal  was  in  a 
state  of  "suspended  animation"  at  the  time,  and 
therelbre  our  intentions  to  publish  the  proceedings 
in  full  could  not  possibly  be  carried  into  eflect.  As 
the  proceedings  will  be  published  in  book  or  pam- 
phlet form,  wcdo  not  deem  it  essential  to  publish  any 
morcof  it  inourpaper,  except,  perhaps,  the  essays,  as 
soon  as  we  find  space  and  opportunity  to  do  6o.-^Eu 


OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings    of   the    Lancaster  County  Agri- 
cultural and    Horticultural  Society. 

The  regular  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society  was  held  on 
Monday  afternoon,  .Jan.  1st,  in  the  Athenaeum  rooms. 
The  following  members  were  present  : 

President  Calvin  Cooper,  Secretary  Alex.  Harris; 
P.  S.  Keist,  Henry  M.  Engle,  D.  s!  Smeych,  S.  P. 
Eaby,  Jacob  Bollinger,  \Vm.  McComscy,  Ephraim 
Hoover,  John  C.  Linville,  Casper  Hiller.I.  L.  Lan- 
dis,  J.  B.  Erb,  .Martin  Kendig,  Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon, 
E.  K.  Hershey,  .John  (iingrich,  Elias  Hershey,  Levi 
Pownall,  Peter  C.Hiller,  J.  Frank  Landis,  Christian 
Espcnshade,  Henry  Buckwalter,  .John  Huber. 

No  report  was  made  by  the  committee  on  crops. 

John  C.  LiNvii,LB,read  an  essayon  "Tobacco  and 
its  abuses."  He  gave  a  history  of  the  introduction 
of  tobacco  into  England  ;  of  the  unavailing  eflbrts  of 
the  king  and  others  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  use 
of  the  weed;  of  the  almost  universal  adoption  and  use 
of  it  among  moderns  ;  of  the  filth  attending  smoking 
and  chewing;  of  theelTect  it  has  in  blunting  the  finer 
senses,  and  causing  a  taste  for  coarser  food  and  more 
stimulating  drinks.  He  regarded  it  as  a  great  curse, 
causing  the  user  a  greater  expense  thau  that  for 
food.  Although  it  is  the  most  profitable  crop  that 
can  be  grow  n  in  Lancaster  county  he  discouraged  its 
cultivation  and  hoped  there  was  a  sulHcienlly  high 
sense  of  morals  among  our  farmers  to  eventually 
bring  about  its  extirpation  from  the  soil.  It  was 
generally  admitted  that  it  exhausted  the  soil,  and  a 
continuance  of  its  growth  would  no  doubt  render 
farm  land  almost  worthless.  He  urged  smokers  and 
chewers  to  give  up  the  habit  they  had  contracted  as 
tobacco  was  neither  food,  drink  nor  clothing. 

Mr.  Pownall  spoke  of  the  excuse  made  by  those 
who  use  tobacco  that  when  the  habit  is  once  acquired 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  discontinue  it.  He  said  he 
had  living  with  him  an  old  colored  woman,  who  had 
used  tobacco  more  than  40  years.  She  quit  smoking 
six  years  ago.  He  thought  if  she  could  reform  so 
sad  a  habit  at  her  great  age,  that  younger  white  men 
could  do  the  same. 


Mr.  J.  S.  EitB  knew  that  when  the  habit  of  using 
tobacco  was  once  ac((uired,  it  was  very  hard  to  break 
otf.  One  of  his  own  tenants  had  vainly  tried  to  dis- 
continue the  use  of  if,  and  found  it  impossible  to  do 
so  without  greatly  alfecting  his  health. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis,  thought  tobacco  was  like  almost 
everything  else.  It  might  be  used  advantageously  or 
it  might  be  abused.  It  is  the  same  way  with  food  or 
beverages — those  who  use  them  to  excess  suffer  for 
their  indiscretion.  He  was  interested  in  the  growth 
of  tobacco  because  of  its  great  commercial  value  to 
the  county.  The  revenue  derived  from  its  sale  in 
Ibis  county  exceeds  that  of  any  other  crop.  It  tends 
to  keep  the  balance  of  trade  in  our  favor.  While 
many  other  sections  of  the  country  were  sulfering 
fro[n  stagnation  of  business,  Lancaster  county  was 
comparatively  prosperous,  and  this  prosperity  was 
largely  owing  to  the  value  of  the  tobacco  crop. 

Sir.  KiiNino  thought  the  Iiabit  of  chewing  a  very 
disgusting  one  ;  though  he  did  not  think  moderate 
smoking  to  be  of  any  great  harm.  He  raised  tobacco 
because  he  made  money  by  it ;  as  soon  as  people 
ceased  buying  it  he  wo\dd  ceasing  raising  it.  He  be- 
lieved the  raising  of  tobacco  impoverished  the  soil, 
and  that  our  farmers,  unless  they  were  careful, 
might  ruin  their  farms,  as  has  been  done  in  the 
.^outh,  though  our  farmers  were  much  more  practi- 
cal and  scientific  in  their  farming  than  the  Southern 
planter,  and  the  danger  was  therefore  not  so  great. 

.Mr.  Engle  could  not  agree  with  .some  of  the 
speakers.  From  a  moral  stand[)oint  tobacco  was  an 
evil  and  nothing  but  an  evil,  and  from  a  moral  stand- 
point akme  we  should  view  all  such  matters.  The 
abuses  of  tobacco  are  patent  to  all,  and  he  had  never 
yet  been  able  to  see  any  of  its  uses.  It  is  a  virulent 
jjoison,  and  if  a  large  dose  will  kill,  a  small  one  can 
do  no  good.  All  will  concede  that  the  (irst  chew  or 
smoke  will  m.ake  a  boy  or  man  sick  ;  the  appetite  is 
then  in  a  normal  condition,  and  that  is  the  time  at 
which  a  person  is  most  competent  to  judge  of  it.  It 
is  only  after  the  appetite  has  become  perverted  that 
tobacco  will  be  endured  and  finally  craved.  It  bene- 
fits nobody  except  the  grower,  manufacturer  and 
tralficker.  But  how  many  families  have  been  brought 
to  want  by  the  use  of  it,  and  how  many  others  have 
had  their  health  impaired  or  mined  ?  As  to  the 
argument  that  large  revenues  are  derived  from 
tobacco,  it  may  be  replied  that  a  still  larger  revenue 
is  derived  from  intoxicating  liciuors,  and  yet  there 
are  none  that  will  advocate  the  manufacture  and  use 
of  these  from  a  moral  standpoint . 

Mr.  LiNVlLLE  said  there  could  be  no  doubt  that 
tobacco  growing  exhausted  the  soil.  He  further 
argued  that  chewers  and  smokers  interfered  with 
the  rights  of  others,  particularly  in  halls,  cars  and 
other  indoor  places.  He  said  a  railroad  conductor 
once  attempted  to  put  him  in  a  smoking  car,  telling 
him  it  was  a  first-class  car,  when,  in  reality,  it  was 
not  a  first-class  pig  pen. 

Other  members  argued  that  tobacco  exhausted 
the  soil,  and  the  discussion  was  dropped. 

Mr.  Enc;le  stated  that  the  rainfall  for  the  past 
month  was  i  1-lG  inches.  The  lowest  point  of  the 
mercury  was  zero,  the  coldest  average  day  lO'i  de- 
grees above  zero,  and  the  average  temperature  for 
the  month   oO  degrees  above  zero. 

The  question  of  flesh  vs.  vegetable  diet,  postponed 
from  last  meeting,  was  resumed. 

.Mr  Ekb  believed  in  meat-eating.  He  recited  the 
story  of  Cain  and  Abel,  and  referred  to  AbeTs  sacri- 
fices of  animals  as  being  acceptable,  and  Cain's  veg- 
etable sacrifices  unacceptable  to  the  Lord. 

Mr.  Epn.  Hoover  said  he  was  last  month  report- 
ed as  saying  that  he  would  banish  pork  from  tlie 
earth.  What  he  meant  to  say  was  that  he  would 
banish  it  from  his  own  table.  Ho  would  even  quali- 
fy this  statement  by  saying  a  good  word  for  well 
made  and  well  cooked  sausage.  He  thought  that 
persons  engaged  in  indoor  work  never  needed  nor 
would  be  benefited  by  the  use  of  pork  as  a  part  of 
their  food. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  presented  a  sample  of  hickory 
nuts  of  a  superior  quality  grown  on  a  farm  in  .Mau- 
heim  township.  He  asked  members  to  take  some  of 
the  nuts  and  perhaps  they  could  cultivate  them. 
The  tree  on  which  they  grew  was  very  prolific  and 
seldom  failed  to  bear. 

Mr  P.  S.  Heist  presented  seven  different  kinds  of 
grasshoppers,  from  Kansas;  or  rather  grasshoijpers 
in  seven  different  states  of  development. 

Mr.  E.  K.  Heksubt  presented  a  gavel  for  the  use 
of  the  president. 

President  Cooper  read  a  short  address,  this  meet- 
ing being  the  last  of  the  year  for  which  he  was  elect- 
ed. He  recounted  the  .action  of  the  society  and  the 
general  events  of  the  Centennial  year,  so  far  as  they 
related  to  agriculture  and  horticulture. 

The  address  was  received  with  applause,  and  Mr. 
Engle  followed  with  some  further  reiHarks,  recom- 
mending among  other  things  that  a  course  of  lec- 
tures be  added  to  the  proceedings  of  tlie  society. 

A  brief  discussion  took  place  as  to  the  best  day  of 
the  week  on  which  to  hold  the  stated  meetings  of  tlie 
society  and  the  best  means  of  increasing  the  mem- 
bership. 

Mr.  Euu  said  as  the  Lancaster  county  Farmer  was 
about  to  be  discontinued,  he  thought  the  society 
should  take  some  measures  to  have  their  proceed- 
ings published. 


Mn.  Heist  proposed  the  appointment  of  a  com- 
mittee to  wait  upon  Prof.  Hathvon,  editor,  and  Mr. 
John  .\  Hiestand,  publisher  of  the  Fauur,  and  ascer- 
tain if  some  means  cannot  he  devised  to  continue  the 
publication.  He  understood  that  the  subscripton  list 
was  about  six  hundred,  and  the  publishers  wanted 
not  less  than  a  thousand  to  make  it  pay  expenses. 

Mk.  Kendio   endorsed  what  .Mr.  Heist  had  said. 

Mii.  Exoi.E  said  he  would  obligate  himself  to  re- 
ceive fifteen  new  subscribers  to  the  Farmer  for  1877. 
He  would  like  to  know  how  many  others  would  labor 
to  secure  subscribers. 

Pnor.  Hatiivon'  said  that  financially  considered 
he  would  not  have  cared  if  tin;  Farmer  had  gone 
down  seven  years  ago.  He  had  never  received  one 
cent  for  his  editorial  services,  but  his  local  pride  and 
love  of  labor  had  induced  him  to  stick  to  the  work. 
The  late  publishers  had  not  made  any  money  out  of 
the  Farmer,  but  had  continued  to  jxiblish  it  in  hope 
that  it  would  pay  hereafter.  The  present  owner  of 
the  Farmer  was  willing  to  continue  the  publication 
if  one  thousand  hona  ./irfc  subscribers  were  secured. 

Mn.  EuY  again  urged  the  ap|Mjintmcnt  of  a  com- 
mittee to  wait  upon  the  publisher  to  see  if  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  publication  could  not  be  secured. 

Mn.  Enole  had  no  objection  to  the  committee,  but 
thought  the  only  way  to  accomplish  the  end  in  view 
was  to  pour  in  upon  the  publisher  new  subscribers. 

Mk.  Ek»  suggested  that  this  society  guarantee 
the  publishers  one  thousand  subscribers,  and  then  go 
to  work  and  get  them. 

Mn.  Lan'dis,  Pkof.  Kathvon,  Mr.  Erb,  Mb. 
Pownall,  Mk.  Heist  and  several  others  spoke  in 
favor  of  sustaining  the  paper.' 

Mu.  Hbist  said  that  a  person  cannot  judge  of  the 
value  of  a  paper  by  the  number  of  subscribers  it  has. 
The  very  worst  paper  in  Pennsylvania,  a  papar  whose 
editor  has  no  less  thau  twenty- five  libel  suits  pending 
against  him,  has  a  larger  circulation  in  Lancaster 
than  any  other  paper  in  the  stale. 

[This  unexpected  hit  at  the  Philadelphia  Timet 
caused  quite  a  titter  among  the  members  who  did  not 
seem  to  share  Mr.  Heist's  opinion  of  the  merits  of 
of  that  great  daily.] 

The  motion  of  .Mr.  Keist  to  appoint  a  committee  to 
wait  upon  the  publishers  of  the  Farmer  and  as- 
certain if  it  cannot  be  continued,  and  if  not,  whether 
some  other  publisher  will  not  undertake  its  publi- 
cation,was  adopted,  and  the  chair  appointed  Peter  S., 
Heist,  I.  S.  Landis  and  H.  M.  Engle,  said  committee. 

The  election  of  officers  for  the  ensuing  year  being 
in  oriler,  tlie  society  proceeded  to  make  nominations. 

Mk.  Engle  moved  that  Calvin  Cooper  bo  re- 
elected by  acclamation. 

Mr.  Cooper  hoped  the  motion  would  not  be 
pressed  but  that  he  would  be  excused,  and  some 
other  member  chosen. 

Mk.  Cooper  was  not  excused,  and  was  re-elected 
by  acclamation. 

A  committee  of  five  was  appointed  to  select  can- 
didates for  the  other  offices. 

The  committee  reported  the  following  : 

Vice  Presidents — Henry  M.  Engle,  Levi  S.  Heist, 
Israel  L.  Landis,  Casper  Hiller,  Levi  I'ownall. 

Hecording  Secretary— Johnson  Miller. 

Corresponding  Secretary — Alexander  Harris. 

Treasurer — Levi  Groft'. 

Executive  Committee — M.  D.  Kendig,  Ephraim 
Hoover,  John  C.  Linville. 

Librarian — Simon  P.  Eby. 

Botanist — J  Stautfer. 

Entomologist — S.  S.  Hathvon. 

The  selections  made  by  the  committee  were  con- 
firmed, and  the  gentlemen  named  unanimously 
elected. 

President  Cooper  announced  that  the  Pennsyl- 
vania fru  t  growers'  society  would  meet  in  the  board 
of  trade  rooms,  this  city,  on  the  17th  of  this  month. 

Casper  Hiller  asked  whether  hickory  nuts  can 
be  propagated  by  grafts  or  buds.  He  knew  they 
would  not  grow  true  from  the  nut.  He  had  never 
had  success  in  grafting.  The  chestnut  tree,  how- 
ever, is  very  easily  grafted. 

Mr.  ExGLE  had  never  tried  grafting  or  budding, 
but  he  h.ad  heard  of  its  being  successfully  done.  He 
read  an  article,  cut  from  a  newspaper,  on  the  value 
of  the  chestnut  tree  and  the  manner  of  transplanting 
them. 

A  bill  of  Jacob  Heline,  janitor,  for  J:i,  ordered  to 
be  paid  ;  also  a  bill  from  Alexander  Harris  for  $12 
for  one  year's  services  as  recording  secretary. 

As  .Mr.  S.  P.  Eby  refused  to  receive  any  compensa- 
tion for  a  very  considerable  amount  of  writing  done 
for  the  society  by  him,  he  was,  on  motion  of  Mr. 
Engle,  elected  an  honorary  member  of  the  society. 

Several  specimens  of  apples  presented  by  Henry 
M.  Engle  and  Jacob  Bollinger  were  tested. 

H.  .St.  Engle,  Jacob  SlaulTer  and  Israel  Landis 
having  contributed  books  to  the  library  of  the  so- 
ciety of  greater  value  than  $10,  were  in  accordance 
with  the  rules,  elected  life  members. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  by  Mr.  M. 
D.  Kendig  : 

What  per  cent  profit  of  theii;  market  value,  do  our 
farms  pay  ? 

Is  any  certain  color  of  a  cow  indicative  of  superior 
milking  qualities  ?    Referred  to  II-  M.  Engle. 


12 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[January, 


The  Tobacco  Growers. 


The  monthly  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  County  To- 
bacco Growers'  Association  was  held  iuthe  Athenaeum 
on  Monday  afternoon,  January  15. 

In  the  "absence  of  President  Kendig,  Mr.  John 
Brady,  of  Millersville,  was  called  to  the  chair. 

The  following  members  were  present  :  John  Brady, 
W.  L.  Hershey,  I.  L.  I.andis,  Peter  S.  Heist,  J.  F. 
Landis,  John   M.   Stehman,   Harry   Keist,   Andrew 

Lane.  j,      ,       , 

The  following  new  members  were  elected  :  Jacob 
S.  Witmer,  A.  H.  Teager,  J.  M.  Johnston,  A.  L. 
Andes,  Owen  Bricker. 

A  large  number  of  visitors,  most  of  them  tobacco 
growers,  were  present.  Among  them  we  noticed  15. 
L.  Hershey,  J.  Frank  Landis,  Andrew  Landis, 
Samuel  Leupold,  Christian  Eshenshade,  Henry  Erb, 
Michael  Landis,  Harry  Hostetter,  Philip  Dotesman, 
Jacob  Hyland,  George  Hyland,  Daniel  Forry,  Henry 
Keneagy,  Jacob  Fuhrman,  Jacob  Snavely,  Jacob 
Freeman,  and  Andrew  K.  Peters,  of  Chester  county. 
The  minutes  of  the  last  meeting  having  been  read, 
the  secretary  read  the  constitution  and  by-laws  for 
the  information  of  those  present. 

The  condition  and  prospects  of  the  crop  being 
called  for,  Mr.  I.  L.  Landis,  East  Hempfield,  said 
there  had  been  no  change  in  his  neighborhood  since 
last  month.  Little  or  no  tobacco  had  been  prepared 
for  market,  and  he  knew  of  no  sales.  The  farmers 
were  anxiously  waiting  for  a  season  of  dampweather 
that  they  could  prepare  the  crop  for  market. 

Mr.  John  Bkady,  of  Millersville,  stated  that  a  few 
sales  had  been  made  in  his  neighborhood.  He  had 
heard  of  one  lot  that  had  been  sold  at  HO  cents  round, 
another  for  '.;•-',  and  another  for  '.6  round,  and  another 
at  20  for  wrappers  and  5  for  tillers.  All  of  these  lots 
were  good  tobacco  and  were  well  prepared,  and  there- 
fore sold  at  good  prices.  Growers  and  packers  were 
alike  waiting  for  good  weather  to  prepare  the  leaf 
for  market,  and  he  thought  from  the  present  appear- 
ance of  the  weather  that  they  would  not  have  long  to 
wait. 

Mr.  A.  Lane,  of  Manheim,  said  the  severity  of  the 
winter  had  kept  back  the  work  of  preparing  for  mar- 
ket.    He  had  heard  of  no  sales  since  last  meeting. 

Mr.  W.  L.  HERSHET,of  Landisville,knewof  a  few 
lots  that  had  been  sold— one  at  -2%,  and  another  at 
23%  round.  The  growers  were  waiting  for  damp 
weather  to  strip  and  prepare  their  stock  for  market. 
The  tobacco  in  his  neighborhood  was  of  fine  quality. 
Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  suggested  that  as  the  essayist 
(Mr.  Groff)  was  not  present,  the  subject  of  his  essay, 
"  How  should  tobacco  be  stripped,  and  in  how  many 
grades  should  it  be  assorted,"  might  be  informally 
discussed  at  the  present  meeting. 

The   suggestion  being   agreed   to,  Mr.  Brady  said 
that  he   thought  it  unnecessary  to  assort  tobacco  in 
more   than   two  grades,  if  the  crop  was  good  and  of 
uniform   growth,  but   where  the  growth  and  quality 
were   irregular,   it   had    better    be   sorted   in   three 
grades,  wrappers,  seconds   and   fillers.     In  handling 
the  tobacco   great   care  should  be  exercised  to  avoid 
tearing  or   in    any  way   damaging  the  leaf,  and  in 
tying  it  up  care  should  be  taken  to  sort  it  in  hands  of 
equal   weight   and  length .     More  money  can  be  got 
out  of  it  in  this  way.    The  dealer  that  purchased  one 
or  two  crops  from  a  farmer  and  found  liis  tobacco  to 
be  properly  put  up  and  of  good  quality,  would  never 
afterwards   have   any   trouble   in   selling   it  at  good 
prices.     Dealers   can   seldom  be  deceived,  and  if  de- 
ceived once,  they   will   have   nothing   further  to  do 
with   the   deceiver.     Mr.  Brady   said   he  knew  a  to- 
bacco grower    (and   a  preacher   at  that)  who   had 
sorted   his   tobacco   and   put   all  the  short  and  bad 
hands    out    of    sight    in    i-anks   against    the   wall, 
and   when   the   buyer   came   showed   him   the  good 
tobacco,  which   was  in  the  front  rank,  but  the  buyer 
immediatelv    reached   back    and    pulled  out  the  bad 
tobacco  by  handfuls,  to  the  groat  discomfiture  of  the 
seller.     If  there's  a  bad  hand  of  tobacco  in  a  bale, 
that  is  the  very  one  the  buyer  is  apt  to  pull  out,  and 
then,   of  course,  he   has   no  faith   in   the  man  that 
baled   it,  and   will  not  buy  except  at  a  figure  so  low 
as   to   assure  him  against  being  cheated.    In  sorting 
tobacco  honesty  is  the  best  policy.     In  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Washington   there  are  growers  who  are  so 
careful   in  growing,  curing  and  sorting  their  tobacco 
that  dealers  have  entire  confidence  in  them,  and  buy 
their  tobacco  at  the  highest  prices— sometimes  with- 
out even  seeing  it. 

Mr.  Lee  agreed  with  what  had  been  said  as  to 
the  importance  of  using  great  care  in  stripping  and 
sorting  the  leaf.  He  had  been  growing  tobacco 
seven  years  and  never  separated  it  in  more  than  two 
sorts,  wrappers  and  fillers. 

Mr.  I.  L.  LANDrs  read  an  article  on  stripping  and 
packing  tobacco,  (recently  published  in  tlie  Intelli- 
gencer,) and  commended  the  rules  there  laid  down 
to  the  careful  consideration  of  the  members. 

Mr  Brady  said  a  neighbor  of  his,  Jacob  Warfel,  a 
noted  tobacco  grower,  always  planted,  cut  off,  strip- 
ped and  marketed  his  tobacco  at  the  earliest  possible 
period,  and  always  got  good  prices.  He  said  he  put 
no  less  than  200  bushels  of  lime  per  acre  on  his  to- 
bacco lands,  and  wherever  the  lime  was  most  plenti- 
ful the  tobacco  was  the  largest.  He  plowed  down 
the  lime  with  barnyard  manure.  Other  farmers  had 
derived  equal  advantages  from  heavy  liming. 


John  M.  Stehman  said  he  thought  he  had  one  of 
the  best  tobacco  farms  in  the  county  and  he  was 
sure  he  had  one  of  the  best  tobacco  farmers  (E.  M. 
Bricker.)  Each  succeeding  crop  was  better  than  the 
preceding.  He  thought  he  was  doing  pretty  well 
when  he  got  1.5  and  5  for  his  crop,  but  he  could 
now  get  30,  15  and  5.  He  manured  heavily;  say 
fifteen  four-horse  loads  of  barnyard  manure  to  the 
acre.  His  farmer  was  not  only  careful  in  planting, 
but  in  cultivating,  in  cutting,  in  stripping  and  in 
sorting.  In  cutting  and  hanging  up  the  leaf,  care 
was  taken  that  it  should  not  be  bruised;  and  in 
stripping  great  deliberation  was  used,  not  more  than 
four  hundred  stalks  being  stripped  in  a  day,  and 
every  leaf  being  carefully  examined  and  sorted,  and 
all  defective  and  worm-eaten  leaves  being  placed  by 
themselvesi 

Mr.  Stehman  had  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Lan- 
caster county  tobacco  would  soon  rank  higher  than 
Connecticut.  We  have  a  richer  and  a  deeper  soil 
and  we  have  plenty  of  manure  behind  it,  while  the 
worn  out  soil  of  Connecticut  has  to  depend  largely 
on  manufactured  fertilizers. 

Mr.  Bkadv  made  mention  of  a  farmer  that  kept 
his  men  at  work  in  the  harvest  field  while  he  neg- 
lected his  tobacco,  and  the  result  was  his  tobacco 
was  almost  worthless.  Tobacco  should  never  be 
laid  down  after  it  is  cut  oflf;  it  should  at  once  be 
carefully  put  upon  the  scaffold.  He  had  heard  that 
extreme  cold  weather  injured-tobacco,  and  had  been 
told  by  a  buyer  that  the  present  crop  would  suffer 
on  this  account.  He  thought  all  tobacco  houses 
should  be  furnished  with  a  deep  and  damp  cellar, 
with  some  water  in  it,  if  possible,  so  that  by  opening 
the  trap  door  the  tobacco  in  the  shed  above  would 
become  damp  enough  to  strip  at  almost  any  time, 
without  waiting  for  damp  weather. 

Mr.  Witmer  agreed  that  great  care  should  be 
exercised  in  the  growing  and  curing  of  tobacco.  He 
had  suffered  by  entrusting  to  "the  girls"  the  strip- 
ping of  a  small  lot,  and  they  had  made  a  bad  mess  of 
it ;  they  did  not  properly  assort  it ;  tied  good  and 
bad  leaves  together  and  the  result  was  it  was  not 
marketable.  A  neighbor  of  his,  who  had  tried  to 
raise  a  little  tobacco,  neglected  it  and  it  was  almost 
eaten  up  with  worms.  Mr.  Witmer  suggested  that 
a  local  company  should  be  organized  to  sell  the 
tobacco  raised  in  the  county,  and  thus  avoid  the 
great  waste  of  time  and  money  resulting  from  the 
employment  of  eastern  buyers. 

Mr.  a.  H.  Yeager,  of  East  Lampeter,  had  grown 
a  little  tobacco,  but  was  well  aware  that  he  could 
not  compete  with  the  western  townships.  Manor 
and  Hempfield  could  get  10  or  15  cents  a  pound 
more  than  Lampeter,  though  the  soil  of  Lampeter 
was  in  no  respect  inferior.  He  believed  it  was  be- 
cause the  western  townships  had  learned  better  how 
to  grow  and  handle  the  crop.  He  was  pleased  with 
this  association,  believing  that  it  would  accomplish 
good  work. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  recommended  great  care  and 
strict  honesty  in  assorting  and  putting  up  tobacco. 
He  believed  our  soil  was  unsurpassed  for  its  growth 
and  all  that  was  now  necessary  was  to  attract  buy- 
ers by  fair  dealing.  He  had  spoken  at  a  former 
meeting  of  the  advantages  which  would  result  from 
having  a  fine  display  of  tobacco  at  the  Centennial 
Exhibition,  and  he  had  used  his  best  endeavors  to 
secure  such  display.  He  had  collected  such  speci- 
mens and  had  at  his  own  expense  procured  a  show 
case  to  display  them  in  ;  but  the  exhibit  fell  far 
short  of  what  Lancaster  county  should  have  shown. 
And  now  the  question  arises,  liow  shall  we  bring  our 
tobacco  to  the  attention  of  the  world  1  We  may  talk 
about  it  among  ourselves,  but  there  are  no  buyers 
here  to  hear  us  Very  full  reports  of  our  proceed- 
ings are  made  in  the  newspapers,  but  even  this  is 
not  enough.  Having  missed  the  grand  chance  of 
making  a  fine  display  at  the  Centennial,  should  we 
not  make  application  for  sufficient  space  in  the  per- 
manent exhibition  soon  to  open  at  Philadelphia? 
Kentucky,  with  her  coarse  tobacco,  made  a  display 
at  the  exhibition  which  cost  $15,000  or  $.0,000.  By 
concert  of  action  Lancaster  county  can,  at  a  very 
small  cost,  make  a  fine  display  at  the  permanent  ex- 
hibition. The  space  will  cost  nothing  ;  there  will  be 
no  expense  except  the  furnishing  the  tobacco  and 
the  proper  cases  in  which  to  display  it.  He  pro- 
posed the  appointment  of  a  committee  to  inquire  into 
the  expediency  of  making  the  exhibit. 

The  chair  appointed  Messrs.  I.  L.  Landis,  John  M. 
Stehman  and  Peter  S.  Keist,  as  said  committee. 

Mu.  W.  L.  Hershet  presented  a  hand  of  very  fine 

tobacco  leaf,  which  was  much  admired  by  members. 

On    motion    members   were   requested    to    bring 

samples   of  their  tobacco  to  the  next  meeting  of  the 

society. 

On  motion  the  question  of  stripping  and  assorting 
tobacco  was  Continued  for  discussion  at  next  meet- 
ing. 

The  chair  appointed  Mr.  Jacob  M.  Frantz  to  de- 
liver an  essay  before  the  society  at  its  next  staled 
meeting.  ' 

Adjourned. 


The  Linnaean  Society. 

A  state  meeting  of  the  Linnaean  Society  was  held  on 
Saturday,  the  37th  of  January,  President,  Rev.  J.  S. 
Stahr,  in  the  chair.  Six  members  present.  The 
minutes  of  the  prexious  meeting  were  read  and  ap- 
proved and  dues  collected.  The  few  donations  to 
the  museum  were  examined.  In  one  bottle  a 
common  mouse  {Mus  musculns)  differing  from 
others  simply  in  the  absence  ,  of  all  signs  of 
a  tail  ;  also  a  beetle  allied  to  the  meal-worm 
beetle,  {IphlMnus  Pensylvanicnss) ,  per  Mrs. Gibbons. 
A  long  and  stout  specimen  of  a  sugar  cane,  {Sae- 
charum  Offlcinarmn  L)  from  Mr.  Wm.Blickenderfer, 
grocer,  North  Queen  street,  taken  from  a  hogshead 
of  New  Orleans  sugar.  A  fine  bunch  of  the  heads  of  ■• 
the  "Clawson  White  Wheat,"  and  a  bottle  of  the 
cleaned  seed,  by  the  Lancaster  County  Horticultural 
Society.  A  fine  fossil  (  Terrain-alula  risca)  from  the 
Miami  Valley,  per  Kev.  J.  H.  Dubbs. 

The  American  Almanac  for  1830,  No.  7  of  Field  and 
Forest,  Patent  Office  Gazette,  an  account  of  the 
"Buck-shot  war"  of  1830.  Part  II  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Science,  Philadelphia 
up  to  September,  1870  ;  the  3d  annual  report  of  the 
Zoological  Society,  of  Cincinnati. 

To  the  historical  department  five  envelopes,  con- 
taining 56  scraps  from  papers  ;  also,  (omitted  in  last 
month's  report,)  two  genuine  bank-bills  of_^  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  one  of  §20,  the  other  $100, 
per  Mr.  Blickenderfer. 

The  following  papers  were  read :  On  the  sugar 
cane  and  its  botanical  relations  and  history,  per  S.  S. 
Rathvon,  No.  5.56  ;  Mr.  D.  McN.  Stauffer  gave  a  de- 
scription of  the  mode  of  cutting  the  cane,  boiling, 
crushing,  and  the  evaporating  process,  as  witnessed 
by  him  in  Louisiana.  Mr.  Rathvon  read  a  paper  on 
tlie  locust  leaf  mining  beetle,  with  a  natural  locust 
leaf  glued  to  the  paperto  illustrate  the  effects  of  the 
insecl— the  Europlata  S^i.turalis,  No.  557.  A  com- 
munication of  some  length,  with  illustrations  (and 
very  interesting) ,  from  Mr.  A.  F.  Berlin,  of  Reading, 
Pa.,  in  which  he  refers  to  the  finding  of  two  kinds  of 
"  stone  pestles,"  among  ancient  tribes  of  Europe  and 
America,  and  mentions  certain  customs,  that  lead 
him  to  think  the  one  kind  were  only  used  for  crush- 
ing corn,  the  other  in  a  species  of  religious  ceremony, 
wiiich  was  new  to  the  members  present.  Rev.  Prof. 
Dubbs  also  read  a  letter  from  Mr.  Berlin,  in  which 
illustrations  are  given  of  the  similarity  of  fishinur  im- 
plements used  by  the  early  Scandinavians  and  North 
American  Indians,  as  well  as  other  things  relating  to 
the  stone  age,  in  which  he  called  the  attention  of  the 
Society  to  several  interesting  facts.  An  illustrated 
Paper,  showing  the  remarkable  delineations  of  frame 
work— of  agricultural  arrangement,  surrounded  with 
immense  plumes  of  fern  like  crystals  and  scrolls,  the 
skillful  work  of  Jack  Frost,  on  the  large  plate  glass 
window  of  Messrs.  Rathvon  &  Fisher's  clothing 
store,  northeast  corner  of  North  Queen  and  Orange 
streets,  as  witnessed  on  the  morning  of  January  4, 
1S77.  The  straight  (or  slightly  curved)  long  hori- 
zontal lines,  shaded  perspectively,  and  beset  at  right 
angles,  like  windows  or  door  frames,  between  them, 
was  a  new  feature  in  frost-work,  which  is  often 
highly  ornamental  in  fern-like  leaves  ;  but  this,  for 
its"  peculiarity,  was  truly  remarkable,  and  deemed 
worthy  to  be  put  upon  record  by  a  description  and 
drawing,  per  J.  Staufler. 

Mrs.  P.  E.  Gibbons  gave  a  verbal  statement  of  how 
tho  tailless  mouse  was  caught,  and  how  it  suggested 
Darwinian  ideas,  as  it  seems  to  never  have  had  a 
tail.  This  led  to  the  mention  of  other  malforma- 
tions, which  had  nothing  to  do  with  Darwin's  no- 
tions. She  also  stated  that  she  had  arisen  early  m 
the  morning  to  notice  the  late  conjunction  of  the 
planets.  The  members  present  having  indulged  in 
their  morning  naps,  confessed  to  not  having  wituess- 

A  motion  was  made  that  Dr.  Walter  J.  Hoffman, 
of  Reading,  Pa.,  be  elected  a  corresponding  member 
of  the  society.  His  zeal  in  natural  science  and  high 
standing  in  several  societies,  was  well  known,  and 
on  motion  he  was  unanimously  elected,  and  notified 
of  the  same.  The  recording  secretary  was  remind- 
ed to  notify  members  of  the  arrearages  of  dues.  No 
further  business  offering,  on  motion  adjourned  to 
Saturday,  February  2i.         


Renew  your  subscription  for  The  Farmer  for 
1877,  as  we  intend  to  make  it  one  of  the  best  agricul- 
tural papers  in  the  comUry. 


Recipe  to  Cleanse  Wool.— Hunt  Bros.,  of  the 
"North  Bloomfield  custom  woolen  mill,"  New  York, 
once  gave  the  following  recipe  for  cleansing  wool  : 

To  two  pailfuls  of  water,  add  a  quart  of  soft-soap 
and  half  a  pint  of  common  salt.  Heat  from  150  to 
180  degrees— or  a  little  warmer  than  the  hand  can 
bear.  Put  in  all  the  wool  that  will  stir  conveniently, 
and  let  it  remain  fifteen  minutes,  moving  it  in  the 
kettle  occasionally.  Then  take  it  out ;  let  it  drain  ; 
return  the  drained  liquor  to  the  kettle,  and  add  all 
the  water  needed.  Repeat  the  process,  and  occasion- 
ally add  a  little  soap  and  salt.  After  the  wool  is 
sufficiently  drained,  simply  rinse  it  out  in  cold  water, 
and  you  will  have  it  white  and  soft.  Never  let  wool 
boil  in  the  liquid,  as  that  will  fix  the  gum,  render 
the  fibre  stiff  and  gray,  and  unfit  to  make  soft,  flex- 
ible yarn.  Fine  wool  needs  more  time  in  the  kettle 
than  coarse.  Taggings  may  be  cleansed  in  the  same 
manner,  by  clipping  off  all  the  hard  matter  that  can- 
not readily  be  compressed  between  the  thumb  and 
linger,— .fiwrai  New  Yorker. 


1877.1 


TH£  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


13 


Fur  Trk  I.ANi'AsrER  Fabmeb. 
TO  MY    FRIEND    LENA. 

"Deaipst  friend,"  callest  thou  mc; 
Would  that  I  misht  enrol  free 
Notes,  that  all  unuttereil  dwell 
In  my  heart's  deep  inner  cell, 
I  would  warble  unto  thee 
Strains  of  sweetest  melody. 

But  the  ehoieest  gcu^s  of  thoufflit, 
Stay  within  the  mind  unwroui,'ht, 
For  their  lustre,  holy  lirifjht 
Shrinketli  from  the  crimson  light, 
As  the  gentle  violets  hide 
Far  away  from  pomp  and  pride. 

"nearest  friend,"  thou  namest  me, 
Listen  while  I  sinp  to  thee, 
For  thy  words  of  friendly  cheer. 
Spokei'i  kindly  in  mine  ear. 
Wake  sweet  music  iu  my  heart. 
Courage  to  the  lay  impart. 

Ilence  what  e"er  my  lot  may  be, 
Sailing  o'er  life's  changeful  sea, 
'Twill  my  lonely  hours  engage. 
Turning  to  sweet  memory's  page, 
There  to  trace  those  words  of  thine, 
Breathed  in  eloquence  divine. 
■Mary  L.  Groff,  Orecnwood  I'arl,-,  Jan.  1,  1877. 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Bread  Making. 

I  do  not  generally  have  "  luck"  making  yeast 
bread  in  cold  weather.  If  I  set  the  sponge  the  night 
before,  it  chills,  and  the  bread  is  only  tolerable,  not 
heavy  nor  sour,  but  dark,  and  soon  dries  out.  For  a 
few  times  I  have  made  salt  rising  bread,  and  find  it 
a  delightful  substitute — fine  and  white  and  light, 
quite  as  good  as  hop  yeast,  only  for  the  insipid,  in- 
nocent taste. 

One  of  my  neighbors  says,  "Salt  rising'  who  told 
youhctw  toniake  it  ?"  just  as  if  I  had  not  always 
known  how  it  was  made.  I  wrote  down  my  recipe 
for  her,  and  I  append  it  here,  hoping  that  some 
woman  may  be  benefited. 

Put  a  pint  of  lukewarm  water  into  a  large  earthen 
bowl,  then  add  half  a  teacupful  of  new  milk,  a  good 
pinch  of  salt,  an  even  teaspoonful  of  soda  and  a 
large  spoonful  of  sugar.  When  dissolved  stir  iu  su- 
gar enough  to  make  a  thick  batter,  beat  it  well  and 
place  the  bowl  iu  a  pot  of  warm  water,  cover  it  up 
and  let  it  stand  in  a  warm  place.  Be  watchful  that 
the  water  is  kept  at  the  same  temperature.  Stir  it 
occasionally  for  a  couple  of  hours,  then  let  it  stand. 
If  this  is  done  early  in  the  morning,  say  five  or  six 
o'clock,  it  will  be  up  to  the  brim  of  the  bowl  about 
noon — if  not  set  until  seven,  or  later,  it  may  not  rise 
till  two  or  three  o'clock. 

If  water  comes  on  top  of  the  rising,  stir  in  a  little 
flour.  Let  it  ferment  until  it  reaches  the  very  top  of 
the  bowl,  then  have  your  pan  of  flour  warmed  ready, 
and  wet  it  up  with  lukewarm  milk  and  water.  Do 
not  make  the  dough  too  stiff;  if  you  do  the  bread  will 
incline  to  dry  out  soon. 

Set  the  loaves  in  a  warm  place  to  rise.  I  mix  and 
mould  out  Into  loaves  immedialely.  Do  not  hurry 
too  fa«t;  let  the  pans  rise  full  before  putting  the 
loaves  in  the  oven  bake  with  a  moderate  fire  and 
you  will  be  delighted  with  your  nice  loaves  and  their 
delicate  brown  color. 

This  is  a  pleasurable  change  from  yeast  bread,  es- 
pecially if  your  yeast  has  not  stood  the  cold  weather 
and  was  touched  with  the  chill  that  has  been  so  mer- 
ciless and  so  cruel .  1  do  not  say  that  my  way  of 
making  salt  rising  is  the  only  and  best  way— nearly 
every  woman  has  a  plan  of  her  own;  any  of  them  is 
good  if  it  will  make  good  lively  yeast  and  good  bread . 
My  mother  used  to  make  e.vcellent  bread,  and  I  re- 
member very  distinctly  that  she  made  the  yeast  of 
barely  lukewarm  water,  flour,  and  a  pinch  of  salt. 
I  think  the  soda  and  sugar  hasten  or  assist  fermenl.a- 
tion;  it  looks  reasonable  that  it  should. 

If  one's  patience  is  tired  by  a  sack  of  poor  flour,  a 
very  good  quality  of  breail  may  be  obtained  by  the 
use  of  salt  rising  when  hop  yeast  would  fail.  Or, 
try  bran  rising — made  by  stirring  up  clean  bran 
and  warm  water  at  night,  the  same  as  for  cow  feed; 
set  it  in  a  warm  place,  and  in  the  morning,  or 
soon  after,  it  will  putl'  uji  with  very  lightness;  then 
strain  through  a  coarse  cloth,  and  use  the  bran  wa- 
ter to  wet  up  your  Hour;  proceed  as  with  salt  rising 
bread,  and  you  will  be  delighted  with  a  very  fine- 
grained, sweet,  nutritious  bread.  The  elements  of 
Graham  bread  are  all  in  it.  It  is  well  to  experi- 
ment in  bread  making  and  just  see  what  gratifying 
results  will  follow  your  efforts.  You  will  find  a 
great  many  new  new  things. 


A  Word  to  Housewives. 
My  symjiathy  for  all  who  are  compelled  to  bear 
the  burden  of  the  management  of  '  servants"  is  very 
great,  indeed  ;  but  how  few  housekeepers  there  are 
who  take  the  course  so  necessary  to  interest  the 
"  hired  girl"  In  doing  the  work  of  the  kitchen  thor- 
oughly and  well !    My  experience  has  compelled  me 


to  learn  the  important  lesson  of  personal  supervision; 
especially  in  the  preparation  of  the  pastry,  as  most 
girls,  if  left  to  this  work  unaided,  are  either  incom- 
[letent  or  become  careless  and  negligent.  There  are 
few  who  will  do  it  well.  Not  only  is  the  cake  heavy 
and  the  pies  hard  and  indigestible,  Imt  extravagance 
and  waste  is  often  the  case  in  this  department  of  the 
culinary  art,  if  left  to  the  girl.  I  do  all  my  pastry 
cooking,  anil  enjoy  it .  Some  time  ago  a  friend  of 
mine  called  my  attention  to  a  new  invention  which 
has  aided  me  very  much  in  my  work,  being  tired  of 
the  drudgery  incident  to  the  inconvenience  of  having 
any  materials  stored  away  in  storerooms  and  pan- 
tries. .\fter  having  seen  this,  I  saiil  to  myself 
"  F.nreka,"  and  decided  to  have  one.  It  is  now  a 
pleasant  task  for  rne  to  stand  beside  this  ingenious 
kitchen  storehouse,  which  occupies  no  more  room 
than  a  kitchen  table,  and  contains  all  the  implements 
and  materials  used  in  doing  my  work,  without  mov- 
ing one  step,  and  with  little  fatigue  I  accomplish  my 
task.  Bridget  sees  me  enjoy  these  daily  duties,  anil 
is  inspired  by  my  jiresence  to  make  extra  exertions  to 
do  her  work  ;  and  the  result  is,  we  get  along 
pleasantly,  and  I  have  everything  as  I  desire  it. — 
Chicago   Tribune. 


How  to  Pour  Tea. 

There  is  more  to  he  learned  about  pouring  out  tea, 
and  coffee  than  most  ladies  are  willing  to  believe. 
If  those  decoctions  are  made  at  the  table,  which  is 
by  far  the  best  way,  they  re<iuire  experience,  judg- 
ment and  exactness  ;  if  they  are  brought  on  the 
table  ready  made,  it  still  requires  judgnu-nt  so  to  ap- 
portion them  that  they  shall  prove  sufllcient  in 
quantity  for  the  family  party,  and  that  the  elder 
members  shall  have  the  stronger  cups.  Often  per- 
sons pour  out  tea  who,  not  being  at  all  aware  that 
the  first  cup  is  the  weakest,  and  the  tea  grows 
stronger  as  you  proceed,  bestow  the  poorest  cup 
upon  the  greatest  stranger  and  give  the  strongest  to 
a  very  young  member  of  the  family  who  would  have 
been  better  without  any.  Where  several  cups  of 
equal  strength  are  wanted  you- should  pour  a  little 
into  each,  and  then  go  back,  inverting  the  order  as 
you  fill  them  up,  and  then  the  strength  will  be  ap- 
portioned properly.  This  is  so  well  understood  in 
England  that  an  experienced  pourer  of  tea  waits  till 
all  the  cups  of  the  company  are  returned  to  her  be- 
fore she  fills  any  a  second  time,  that  all  may  share 
alike. — Housekeeper. 


Origin  of  Dessert. 

The  service  of  sweets  and  fruits  at  banquets  origi- 
nated in  Milan  in  tho  fifteenth  century.  It  was  un- 
known in  France  under  Louis  XIV.  No  dessert  at 
all  appears  in  Moliere's  picturesque  descriptions  of 
the  banquets  given  by  the  Grand  Monarque  in  1604 
and  16fiti,  and  so  far  as  we  know  the  first  dessert  ever 
put  upon  a  great  table  in  France  was  at  the  marriage 
festival  of  Louis  XV.,  when  his  poor  little  Polish 
bride,  Marie  Lecszinka,  was  brought  from  her  simple 
home  at  Weissombourg  to  share  the  first  throne  in 
Europe.  Under  the  first  Napoleonic  empire  the 
dessert,  as  we  now  know  it,  was  developed  and  estab- 
lished by  three  great  artists  whose  names  should  not 
be  suffered  to  die,  Desforges,  Delorme  and  Dutfoy. 
It  was  by  the  last-named  of  these  that  the  pyramids 
of  iced-cream,  then  known  as  '^ froinaqen  (jtacci<,*^ 
were  first  served  ;  but  he  was  careful  always  to  serve 
with  these  and  the  other  confectioneries,  puddings 
and  sweets  of  all  sorts,  genuine  cheeses,  "  for  the 
benefit,"  as  he  tells  us  candidly,  "  of  those  who 
need  a  second  thirst." 


Valuable  Recipes. 

Worms  on  Ti-rnips. — Ashes  scattered  over  old 
soils  will  commonly  operate  against  the  inroads  of 
worms  upon  turnips  planted  in  them. 

Renderixg  Lari).— We,  at  the  suggestion  of  a 
neighbor,  took  the  "sugaring  oft'  pan"  to  try  our 
lard  in,  and  found  it   more  expeditious  than  kettles. 

Bkide  Cake. — Whites  often  eggs  beaten  till  hard 
2  cups  of  pulverized  sugar  ;  1  cup  of  Hour ;  1  tea 
spoonful  cream  tartar  ;  put  all  except  the  eggs  into 
a  sieve  and  sift  them  on  the  eggs. 

Fruit  Cake— Superior.— 1  lb.  flour  ;  1  lb.  sugar  ; 
1  lb.  butter  ;  I'i  eggs  ;  4  lbs.  raisins  ;  4  lbs.  currants  ; 
1  lb.  citron  ;  2  wine  glasses  brandy  ;  2  wine  glasses 
wine  ;  1  nutmeg  ;  1  tablespoon  cloves  ;  I  tablespoon 
cinnamon  ;  1  lables|X)on  molasses  ;  will  make  ten  or 
twelve  loaves  of  good  size. 

To  Ekadicate  Dandri;fk.— Wet  tlie  head  with 
lukewarm  water,  then  rub  on  enough  good  castile 
soap  to  make  a  stift"  foam;  rnb  it  in  well  with  the 
ends  of  the  fingers,  then  wash  out  in  two  waters. 
Do  this  at  least  twice  a  week  until  a  cure  is  effected. 
You  should  never  touch  the  head  with  a  fine  comb, 
and  should  bear  on  very  lightly  with  a  coarse  one. 

Sore  Tiihoat. — Soak  a  small  piece  of  bread,  about 
the  size  of  a  hazel-nut,  and  then  take  a  pinch  of 
Cayenne  pepper  ;  mix  and  roll  up  in  the  form  of  a 
pill,  which  the  patient  must  swallow,  when  in  about 
three  hours  he  will  be  relieved  from  all  pain.  In  a 
severe  case  a  second  dose  may  be  requisite,  which  has 
never  been  known  to  fall. 


Iron  DrKiNii  Moii.tino.— A  good  article  to  use 
in  the  water  given  your  mounting  fowls  to  drink  Is 
the  tincture  of  iron.  It  is  very  handy  and  cheap,  and 
sliould  be  accessible  constantly  cluring  the  critical 
time  when  old  fowls  are  elianiring  their  plumage.  It 
is  strengthening,  palatable,  and  works  like  a  charm 
in  its  way  as  a  stomach  tonic.  A  tablespoonful  of 
the  tincture  to  a  quart  of  water  is  sutHeient.  To  be 
had  at  any  drug  store. 

Veoetahi.e  Sol  r. — Take  four  potatoes,  three  tur- 
nips, one  carrot  and  three  onions  ;  cut  them  into 
small  pieces  and  put  them  into  a  slew  pan,  with  a 
cjuarter  of  a  pound  each  of  butter  and  ham,  and  a 
bunch  of  parsley  ;  let  them  remain  ten  minutes  over 
a  brisk  fire,  a<ld  a  large  teaspoonful  of  flour  ;  mix 
well  in,  moisten  with  two 'jtiarts  (jf  broth  and  a  pint 
of  boiling  milk  ;  bnil  u|i,  season  with  salt  and  sugar, 
run  through  a  hair  sieve,  put  into  another  stewpan, 
boil  again.     .Skim  and  serve  with  fried  bread  in  it. 

Indian  Hui'.An. — Kosella  gave  us  a  receipt  "as 
our  graMdmcithrrs  made  it,"  but  it  isn't  as  rny 
grandmother  makes  it,  and  I  don't  believe  it  is  near 
as  good.  Here  is  my  grandmother's  recipe  :  One 
quart  of  corn  meal  and  one  teacui)ful  of  molasses  or 
sugar,  .scalded  together;  cool  with  water  until  milk 
warm,  and  then  add  one  pint  of  rye  meal  or  Hour, 
and  one  cup  of  yeast;  mix  and  let  it  rise  three 
hours,  then  stir  it  well  and  put  in  a  small  pan. 
Bake  tliree  hours.  If  you  use  milk  risings  it  will  not 
need  to  stand  more  than  half  an  hour  before  baking. 
If  it  gets  too  light  it  will  fall. 

Couoii  Svuci'. — This  is  the  season  for  coughs  and 
colils,  and  1  feel  as  though  anyone  knowing  a  good 
cough  medicine  should  make  it  known.  Cough 
syrups  are  plentiful,  but  they  soon  wear  out ;  and  you 
don't  always  know  what  you  are  taking.  We  know 
the  following  is  good  :  White  pine  gum  and  lard 
equal  (|uaritities;  disolve  or  melt ;  strain  if  any  bark  ; 
then  a<ld  three  times  as  nuudi  sale  sugar  ;  simmer 
twenty  minutes,  sliriug  frequently  ;  take  it  off  and 
stir  till  cool.  Take  a  pill  of  it  after  coughing  spells. 
White  pine  gum  can  be  purchased  at  any  drug  store. 
Now  don't  think  your  cough  is  so  slight  it  will  cure 
it.self,  or  so  bad  this  won't  relieve  it.  But  people  of 
weak  stomachs  can't  all  keep  it  down. 

Freckles. — The  following  is  cli[)ped  from  an  ex- 
change. We  recommend  caution  in  using  any 
mjiterial  on  the  face  or  skin  as  more  harm  than  good 
may  result :  In  many  females  of  a  sanguine  tem- 
perament, freckles,  even  if  removed  for  a  time,  will 
be  sure  to  return,  and,  therefore,  may  be  said  to  be 
incurable.  But  in  nine  out  of  ten  cases  the  following 
will  effect  a  cure  r  In  the  morning  on  rising,  take  a 
teaspoonful  of  lac-Euli)hur  in  a  few  teaspoonfuls  of 
milk.  Then,  for  external  use,  apply  the  following  : 
Corrosive  sublimate,  four  grains;  alcohol,  one  ounce. 
Mix.  Kemember,  ladies,  that  the  latter  mixture 
ought  not  to  come  in  contact  with  the  lips.  After  a 
few  days'  using  the  skin  will  begin  to  very  slowly 
peel  off,  and  the  freckles  disappear.  Twice  daily  is 
sullicient  to  apply  it.  .\  French  dermatologist  re- 
commends the  following  for  the  same  purpose  :  Take 
muriatic  acid,  one-half  ounce;  alcohol,  one  ounce  ; 
rain  water  seven  ounces.  .Mix,  and  apply  well  with 
a  sponge  three  times  daily.  When  in  England,  a 
gipsy  woman  informed  me  tliat  she  used  horseradish, 
boiled  in  milk,  for  removing  freckles.  She  cured  a 
number  of  young  girls,  but  whether  or  not  she  told 
me  the  real  secret  of  the  means  employed  1  am  un- 
able to  say,  having  never  given  the  preparation  a 
trial. 


LIVE   STOCK. 


Hens  in  Winter. 

Every  personwho  keeps  hens  for  profit  is  exceed- 
ingly anxious  that  they  should  furnish  eggs  during 
the  winter,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  then  more 
scarce,  insullieient  to  supply  the  demand,  and  conse- 
quently high  priced. 

There  are  several  conditions  necessary  to  attain 
these  desirable  ends;  the  first  is  to  obtain  a  desirable 
variety  or  breed  of  fowls.  This  is  a  ditlieult  matter, 
for  many  of  the  breeders  of  fowls  are  profuse  in  their 
recommendation  of  the  i>erpctual  or  winter  laying 
qualities  of  the  particular  breed  in  which  they  are 
interested,  all  of  which  is  exceedingly  confusing  to 
the  innocent  farmer  who  has  no  time  or  opportunity 
to  study  the  good  qualities  of  any  breed.  If  possible, 
it  is  safe  to  get  a  hardy  breed;  the  White  Leghorns 
are  a  good  fowl  and  reasonably  good  layers,  but  are 
a  little  inclined  to  be  tender.  A  poultry  breeder  of 
careful  observation  considers,  for  farmers'  use,  a 
cross  between  the  White  and  Brown  Leghorn  pre- 
ferable to  any  other  variety.  There  are  those,  how- 
ever, who  believe  the  Partridge  Cochins  arc  the  best 
breed,  for  the  reason  that  they  are  said  to  be  good 
winter  lavers. 

But  aside  from  breeds,  another  essential  to  suc- 
cess in  winter  keeping  is,  that  the  fowls  have  warm 
quarters.  This  is  absolutely  necessary,  for  there  is 
no  breed  of  hens  that  can  be  expected  to  furnish  eggs 
if  allowed  to  shift  for  themselves,  and  secure  such 
quarters  as  an  open  shed  or  old  barn  affords.  They 
are  exceedingly  averse  to  severe  cold  weather  and 
also  continuous  moisture  ;  for  this  reason  they  should 


14 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[January, 


be  provided  with  a  warm  and  protected  shelter  for 
winter  where  they  may  be  contined  except  upon  ex- 
ceedingly pleasant  and  warm  days.  Their  houses 
should  have  a  southern  aspect  so  that,  being  supplied 
with  windows,  it  may  receive  the  heat  and  light  of 
the  sun.  It  miirht  not  be  an  unprofitable  thing  to 
have  a  fire-place  and  chimney,  that  in  extremely 
cold  and  damp  or  frosty  days  a  tire  may  be  built  for 
the  additional  comfort  of  the  fowls.  At  all  events 
the  room  should  be  reasonably  warm,  if  possible, 
above  the  freezing  point,  not  only  for  the  safety  of 
such  eggs  as  might  be  laid,  but  also  to  admit  of  the 
introduction  of  dry  gravel  and  lime,  plaster,  ashes, 
etc.,  in  which  the  fowls  can  dust  themselves  or 
obtain  substance  for  shellingtheireggs.  Thisshould 
be  away  from  the  roost,  where  it  would  become 
mixed  with  the  droppings  of  the  roost,  and  after  be- 
ing used  a  time  may  be  used  to  sprinkle  with  the 
manure  to  preserve  all  its  good  qualities  as  well  as 
to  serve  as  a  deodorizer.  The  saving  of  the  manure 
of  fowls  is  no  small  item,  and  will  go  far  toward 
payment  for  the  keeping. 

Finally,  very  much  of  the  laying  qualities  of  hens 
depends  upon  the  keeping.  In  the  first  place,  es- 
pecially if  hens  are  allowed  to  run  at  large  in  the 
summer,  it  must  be  remembered  that  they  are  de- 
prived of  such  share  of  animal  food  as  they  are  able 
to  secure  during  summer;  then  to  meet  this  demand, 
they  should  be  provided,  occasionally,  with  scraps, 
pieces  of  meat  or  something  of  that  nature.  Then 
there  should  be  a  variety  fo  food,  such  as  scalded 
meal,  perhaps  wet  up  with  milk,  buckwheat, 
oats,  corn,  chopped  cabbage,  apples,  boiled  potatoes, 
and  in  fact  anything  that  will  give  a  relish  ;  and  oc- 
casionally, to  warm  up  the  system,  in  using  the  wet 
up  Indianjmeal,  stir  in  a  little  ginger  or  ground  pep- 
per or  mustard  ;  it  is  also  a  good  thing  to  give,  oc- 
casionally, a  little  sulphur  in  order  to  insure  the  good 
health  of  the  fowls.  Old  scraps  of  grease  will  have  a 
very  happy  effect  upon  the  confined  animals,  as  their 
music  after  eating  will  fully  demonstrate.  The  prin- 
cipal secret  of  success  in  keeping  hens  in  winter  is 
contained  in  four  letters  combined  in  the  word  cure. — 
WilUam  M.  Yeomaits. 


Raise  Your  Own  Cows. 

A  writer  in  the  Berks  and  Schuylkill  Journal  says' 
Many  dairymen  sell  their  calves,  and  buy  cows  when 
wanted,  but  that  is  not  a  good  practice,  as  I  claim 
that  cows  can  be  raised  cheaper  than  they  can  be 
bought — that  is,  really  good  cows,  which  have  a  large 
flow  of  milk,  and  are  a  breed  or  grade  valuable  for 
beef.  Dairymen  should  breed  from  stock  that  is 
extra  valuable  for  milk.  Such  cows  are  obtained  by 
degrees.  They  may  be  grades  of  pure  bloods  ;  but 
■when  obtained  it  is  very  unwise  to  sell  the  calves  of 
such  cows  to  the  butchers,  because  in  a  few  years 
one  runs  out  of  such  good  stock  if  he  sells  his  calves, 
and  then  he  is  compelled  to  take  cows  of  an  inferior 
grade,  as  first-class  cows  are  seldom  offered  for  sale. 
It  does  not  follow  that  when  good  cows  are  obtained 
their  calves  will  always  make  equally  good  milkers ; 
but  like  generally  produces  like,  and  farmers  can 
keep  up  the  good  qualities  of  their  dairy  stock  better 
by  raising  than  by  purchasing  their  cows.  For  milk, 
and  also  for  beef,  a  short-horn  and  Ayrshire  grade,  or 
a  short-horn  grade  crossed  on  Ayrshire  cows  make  a 
very  valuable  dairy  stock.  An  old  and  feeble  cow 
should  never  be  bred,  if  her  calves  are  to  be  raised,  as 
disease  is  hereditary.  In  regard  to  the  points  of  a 
good  cow,  in  order  to  perpetuate  a  healthy  constitu- 
tion in  her  offspring,  I  annex  the  following  from  the 
journal  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  of  England: 
"The  head  small;  muzzle  fine  and  tapering  ;  nos- 
trils large  and  open  ;  tho  eyes  full  and  lustrous ;  the 
ears  small  and  not  too  thick  ;  the  head  well  set  on 
the  neck  ;  the  distance  between  the  ear  and  the  angle 
of  the  jaw  short,  but  the  width  behind  the  ears  con- 
siderable (no  dairy  cow  should  have  a  short  thick 
neck);  the  chest  wide  and  deep  ;  the  girth,  taken 
immediately  behind  the  shoulder,  should  correspond 
with  the  length  from  behind  the  ears  to  the  rise  of 
the  tail ;  the  carcass  of  a  barrel  shape,  for  a  thin, 
flat-ribbed  animal  eats  largely,  thrives  badlj ,  and  is 
usually  liable  to  diarrhoea  ;  there  should  be  but  little 
space  between  the  prominence  of  the  hip  and  the  last 
rib  ;  the  quarter  large  ;  the  measurement  from  the 
prominence  of  the  haunch  backward  to  the  rise  of 
the  tail  and  downward  to  the  hock  as  great  as  possi- 
ble ;  the  lower  part  of  the  haunch  thick  and  broad  ; 
the  hide  thick  and  pliant ;  smallness  of  bone  is  a  sure 
indication  of  early  maturity  and  aptitude  for  fat- 
tening." 

^ 

Ayrshire  Cows. 

The  report  of  the  Ayrshire  agricultural  association 
gives  the  following  points  as  the  standing  of  superi- 
ority in  Ayrshire  dairy  cows  : 

Head  short,  forehead  wide,  nose  fine  between  the 
mnzzle  and  eyes,  muzzle  moderately  large,  eyes  full 
and  lively,  horns  wide  set  on,  inclining  upward  and 
curving  slightly  inward. 

Neck  long  and  straight  from  the  head  to  the  top 
of  the  shoulders,  free  from  loose  skin  on  the  under 
side,  fine  at  its  junction  with  the  head,  and  the  mus- 
cles symmetrically  enlarging  toward  the  shoulders. 

Shoulders  thin  at  the  top,  brisket  light,  the  whole 


forequartcrs  thin  in  front  and  gradually  increasing 
in  depth  and  width  backward. 

Back  short  and  straight,  spine  well  defined,  espec- 
ially at  the  shoulder,  the  short  ribs  arched,  the  body 
deep  at  the  fianks  and  the  milk  veins  well  developed. 

Pelvis  long,  broad  and  straight,  hock  bones  (illium) 
wide  apart  and  not  much  overlaid  with  fat,  thighs 
deep  and  broad,  tail  long  and  slender,  and  set  on  level 
with  the  back. 

Milk  vessels  capacious  and  extending  well  forward, 
hinder  part  broad  and  firmly  attached  to  the  body, 
the  sole  or  under  surface  nearly  level,  the  teats  from 
two  to  two  and  a-half  inches  in  length,  equal  in  thick- 
ness, and  hanging  perpendicularly  ;  their  distance 
apart  at  the  sides  should  be  equal  to  about  one-third 
of  the  length  of  the  vessel,  and  across  to  about  one- 
half  of  the  breadth. 

Legs  short,  the  bones  fine  and  the  joints  firm. 

Skin  soft  and  elastic,  and  covered  with  soft,  close 
woolly  hair. 

The  colors  preferred  are  brown,  or  brown  and 
white,  the  colors  being  di&tinctly  defined. 

Great  value  is  attached  to  the  above  form  and 
points  by  the  dairy  farmer,  and  he  quickly  takes  them 
in  when  effecting  a  purchase,  so  that  a  mistake  is 
rarely  made. 

^ 

The   Leghorn   Fowls. 

Undoubtedly  this  breed  produces  the  most  prolific 
layers  known  ;  and  as  the  sale  of  eggs  at  the  prices 
they  have  been  bringing  is  far  more  remunerative  than 
that  of  chickens,  it  follows  that  the  Leghorn  stock  is 
the  most  profitable  to  keep.  The"  White  Leghorns," 
however,  are  to  my  mind  the  most  desirable ;  in 
beauty  of  form  and  plumage  they  far  excel  all  others. 
The  purity  of  their  plumage,  contrasting  so  strikingly 
with  the  large  and  brilliant  combs  and  wattles,  and 
thir  proud  and  graceful  creatures .  There  can  be  no 
mistaking  the  points  of  a  pure  White  Leghorn,  while 
the  brown  is  open  to  doubt  as  to  its  purity,  ibr  the 
latter  resembles  in  many  points  common  fowls  so 
closely  as  to  require  the  judgment  of  an  expert  to 
detect  the  difference.  As  egg-producers,  the  white 
are  even  superior  to  the  brown,  numerous  instances 
being  shown  where  accurate  account  has  been  kept 
of  hens  exceeding  the  production  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  eggs  in  one  year. 

As  to  the  crowing  of  the  young  cockerels  at  the  age 
of  six  weeks,  I  am  not  prepared  to  vouch,  for  I  think 
that  is  putting  it  rather  strong ;  but  I  am  satisfied 
the  white  mature  quite  as  early  as  the  brown. 

There  is  no  investment,  either  for  pleasure  or  pro- 
fit, that  yields  a  larger  percentage  than  this  ;  and 
the  wonder  is,  that  so  many  persons  who  possess  all 
the  facilities  for  raising  fowls,  are  content  to  buy  the 
stale  and  too  often  spoiled  barrel  eggs  at  the  store, 
when  by  a  little  outlay  of  time  and  means  they  could 
at  all  times  have  an  abundant  supply  of  good,  fresh 
eggs  ;  and  the  pleasure  derived  from  raising  and  at- 
tending fowls  would  more  than  compensate  for 
the  trouble. —  White  Leghorn,  in  Oermantomn  Tele- 
graph. 

^ 

Facilitating  Draught  of  Horses, 

A  number  of  careful  experiments  have  been  made 
on  this  subject  during  the  bast  summer  in  Switzer- 
land and  Germany.  It  has  long  been  known  that  a 
"dead  pull,"  that  is,  the  drawing  of  an  inelastic  and 
rigid  body,  was  harder  than  were  the  body  was  elas- 
tic. In  the  experiments  just  mentioned  an  iron 
tube  was  filled  with  circular  pieces  of  rubber,  alter- 
nating with  discs  of  sheet  iron.  The  circles  of  rubber 
and  those  of  iron  were  perforated  in  the  centre,  ad- 
mitting the  passage  of  an  iron  rod  attached  to  a  cap 
at  one  end.  These  tubes  were  interposed  at  the  at- 
tachment of  the  shafts  or  else  were  placed  between 
the  collar  and  the  tugs,  with  the  effect  that  the 
horse,  instead  ofieing  obliged  to  "throw  himself 
into  the  collar,"  starts  the  vehicle  by  a  gradual  ef- 
fort. 

The  force  required  to  start  and  also  that  required 
to  pull  a  vehicle  were  carefully  measured  by  a  dy- 
namometor,  both  with  and  without  the  elastic  tubes. 
It  was  found  that,  for  steady  traction,  the  gain  with 
the  tubes  amounted  to  seventeen  per  cent;  whilst 
for  stai'ting,  the  necessary  effort  was  diminished  by 
over  twenty  per  cent.  Similar  experiments,  in 
which  cooled  spriners  were  used,  gave  analogous  re- 
sults. In  view  of  the  great  advantage  obtained  by 
this  simple  means,  it  should  come  into  general  use. 
One  object  of  this  publication  is  to  diffuse  the  infor- 
mation and  prevent  this  useful  principle  from  being 
hampered  by  a  patent — J'hiladelphia  Ledger. 


How  to  Buy  a  Horse. 

It  is  recommended  that  in  purchasing  a  horse  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  there  is  a  direct  relation 
between  the  horse's  forehead  and  his  disposition  and 
qualities.  The  face  must  be  very  broad  between  the 
eves,  but  it  should  taper  a  little  as  it  approaches  the 
ears.  If  the  breadth  is  carried  all  the  upwards,  the 
top  of  the  head  will  be  too  wide,  the  ears  ill  set,  and 
the  horse  probably  sulky.  As  in  the  human  being, 
so  in  th9  horse,  a  great  "deal  of  the  expression  of  the 
countenance  depends  on  the  eye.  It  is  a  most  mar- 
velous index  to  the  working  of  the  mind  within.  A 
glance  at  it  will  often  reveal  the  benevolent  ,feei- 


ing,  the  surly  disposition,  or  the  vicious  propensity 
that  is  about  fo  manifest  itself.  The  reason  of  all 
this  must  be  most  obvious,  when  we  remember  that 
it  is  in  direct  communication  with  the  brain — the 
material  instrument  through  which  the  mind  ope- 
rates. The  eye  of  the  horse  should  be  kindly,  strong, 
bold  and  fiery,  yet  gentle-looking.  It  should  not 
show  much  white,  as  that  often  indicates  a  vicious 
disposition.  A  horse  that  is  looking  back  so  far  as  to 
expose  the  white  of  his  eye,  is  generally  on  the  alert 
for  mischief,  and  is  not  to  be  trusted  with  his  heels. 
The  eye  gives  a  strong  indication  both  of  the  temper 
and  temperament  of  the  animal  ;  and  it  is  easy  to 
judge  from  it  whether  activity  or  sluggishness  pre- 
vails most. 

^ 

Farm  Horses. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  animal  on  the  farm  more  in- 
dispensable than  the  horse  of  all  work — to  plough, 
to  mow,  to  rake,  to  go  to  the  mill,  or  meeting  on 
Sunday, orthedoingof  other  things  quite  too  numer- 
ous to  mention — when  Dobbin  must  be  harnessed, 
notwithstanding  we  have  the  declaration  of  Holy 
Writ,  that  "A  horse  is  a  vain  thing  for  safety." 
How  to  breed  horses  that  combine  good  work  qual- 
ities with  good  road  qualities,  is  a  question  that 
deeply  concerns  farmers,  and  one  that  should  be 
more  thoroughly  and  skilfully  discussed  in  our 
agricultural  journals.  While  columns  are  filled 
with  the  art  of  breeding  trotters  and  runners,  little 
is  said  of  the  art  of  breeding  such  horses  as  we  have 
described  above,  or  in  other  words,  the  horse  of  all 
work,  the  kind  of  horses  that  all  farmers  want, 
must  and  will  have,  if  there  be  skill  enough  de- 
veloped in  the  art  of  breeding  to  produce  them  ;  and 
if  not,  to  demand  it  forthwith,  for  them  it  will  be 
forthcoming  ;  for  that  demand  creates  supply,  is  law 
in  the  world  of  commerce.  Shall  we  hear  from  our 
numerous  readers  and  contributors  on  this  very  im- 
portant subject — something  that  is  practical  and 
shall  tend  to  diffuse  light  where  darkness  now  so 
universally  prevails  ? 


Balky  Horses. 
There  is  a  great  deal  said  just  now  about  the  balk- 
ing of  horses,  the  causes  of  it  and  the  remedies.  As 
long  as  we  can  remember,  this  singular  fit  of  obstin- 
acy of  the  horse  has  been  discussed,  and  all  sorts  of 
plans  for  overcoming  it  given.  But  what  will  answer 
for  one  horse  may  not  for  another.  The  cause  of  it 
is  doubtless  neglect  and  ill-treatment  of  the  colt  or 
when  and  after  it  is  broken  to  harness.  Sometimes 
stopping  a  few  moments  will  be  sufficient  to  start  the 
animal  again  freely  of  his  own  accord.  Kind  words, 
pattihg,  a  handful  of  grass,  an  apple,  or  a  little  pep- 
per put  upon  the  tongue  will  induce  him  to  go  ahead 
as  if  nothing  had  been  the  matter.  Whipping  at  all 
times,  and  especially  in  this  case,  is  the  worst  resort. 
We  have  ourselves  induced  balky  horses  to  start  by 
some  of  the  means  above  recorded.  Sometimes  the 
mere  turning  of  the  head  and  letting  the  animal  look 
in  a  different  direction,  then  rubbing  the  nose  with 
ths  hand,  has  answered  ;  so  has  tying  a  string  around 
his  foreleg,  below  the  knee,  and  drawing  it  very 
tight.  Various  resorts  of  this  kind  should  be  tried, 
but  never  force. — Germantown  Telegraph. 


Management  of  Geese. 

Three  or  four  geese  to  one  gander  are  all  that  are 
advisable,  and  a  less  number,  even,  is  perferable. 
They  commence  laying  in  -\pril,  though  sometimes 
not  until  May,  and  require  for  a  nest  a  box  about 
three  feet  square,  with  a  few  inches  of  soil  on  the 
bottom.  Soft  meadow  hay  forms  a  good  lining  for 
it.  Each  goose  requires  a  nest,  otherwise  the  eggs 
must  be  gathered  daily. 

After  the  goose  has  laid  her  litter  (from  ten  to 
fifteen) ,  she  will  arrange  her  nest  in  sitting  order  and 
line  it  with  feathers.  If  the  eggs  have  been  taken 
from  her,  they  should  now  be  returned  and  she  al- 
lowed to  cover  them.  As  the  process  of  incubation 
is  of  considerable  length — from  twenty-eight  tothirty 
days — she  must  be  encouraged  to  leave  the  nest  often 
for  food  and  exercise.  A  supply  of  clean  water  and 
vegetable  food,  raw  and  cooked,  should  be  given,  to 
keep  her  in  a  healthy  state.  An  occasional  visit  to  a 
pond  of  water  can  do  no  harm,  provided  it  is  not 
prolonged  till  the  eggs  become  chiWei.— Poultry 
Journal. 


Rats  and  Mice. 

The  invasion  of  rats  and  mice  is  really  getting  to 
be  a  serious  infliction.  Walls  are  undermined,  drains 
are  converted  into  channels  or  thoroughfares  to  gain 
admittance  into  cellars,  and  so  into  the  house  ; 
granaries  heretofore  considered  rat-proof  are  sud- 
denly invaded  and  their  contents  confiscated  with- 
out leave  or  license.  There  seems  to  be  little  use  in 
waging  war  upon  them,  as  their  numbe  rs  only  in- 
dicate an  increase  after  each  assault.  Should  there 
be  a  heavy  fall  of  snow  with  prospect  of  staying 
long,  it  would  be  well  for  fruit-growers  living  where 
these  pests  abound  to  protect  the  bodies  of  young 
trees  by  stamping  the  snow  about  them.  This  will 
prevent  the  mice  from  gaining  access  to  the  trees, 
and  break  up  their  run-ways  under  the  snow. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


i5 


Salt  for  Chickens. 
A  writer  in  llie  Cultivator  and  Cuiintry  Qentleman. 
strongly  recommendB  salt  us  a  remedy  for  chickens 
suirerinir  ft'oni  ffaps.  He  asks  wliat  ilo  we  use  salt 
for  in  almost  everytliing  we  eiit  ?  It  not  only  fur- 
nishes no  nutriment,  pleasure,  or  anything  else,  liul 
Is  absolutely  a  poison  ;  and  that  the  reason  we  take 
it  is  to  prevent  undue  germination  of  worms  within 
us.  The  old-time  Hollanders  used  lo  punish  their 
criminals  by  giving  them  unsalted  food, and  they  were 
thus  soon  literally  devoured  by  the  worms  which 
engendered  in  their  own  stomachs.  Now,  what 
causes  gapes  in  chickens  ?  ^\'orms.  What  is  given 
to  animals  to  prevent  Ibis?  Salt.  Hut  all  the 
books,  etc.,  say  salt  will  kill  ehiekens.  So  it  would 
ifyou  took  too  much,  as  they  often  do  through  the 
habit  of  bolting  their  food  without  mastication  anil 
tasting.  In  brief,  and  in  fact  when  the  weather  is 
damp  and  eool,  always  put  about  as  much  salt  in 
chick's  feed  as  you  would  in  your  own  liread,  and  I 
will  answer  for  the  life  of  every  one. 


Feed  Horses  Regularly. 
Almost  of  more  importance  than  the  form  in 
which  food  is  given  to  horses  ar(^  the  frequency  and 
regularity  of  their  meals.  The  horse's  digestive  or- 
gans arc  not  constructed  for  long  fasts.  Long  inter- 
vals witliout  food  produce  hunger,  and  hunger  he- 
gets  voracity;  food  is  boiled,  and  indigestion  and 
colic  follow  1  This  is  doubly  true  and  dangerous 
with  horses  doing  hard  work.  They  come  to  their 
long  deferred  meal  not  only  hungry  but  exhausted; 
not  only  is  the  food  bolted,  but  the  stomach  is  in 
such  a  state  as  to  be  incapable  of  thoroughly  active 
digestion,  and  is  overpowered  by  half  the  amount 
of  food  it  would  otherwise  digest. 

Make  Feed  Racks. 

A  stormy  day  improved  by  making  a  few  racks  to 
hold  hay  and  fodder  I'or  cattle,  sheep  and  horses,  will 
return  "large  profits  before  suiunier  comes,  in  saving 
the  feed  from  being  trampled  under  foot  and  in  the 
mud,  and  thus  wasted  and  destroyed.  Plenty  of 
feedins;  racks  about  the  barnyard  is  an  evidence  of  a 
careful,  painstaking  farmer — and  only  such  can  make 
anything  now-a-days.  It  is  not  those  who  make  the 
most  that  thrive  best,  but  it  is  those  who  save  the 
most  of  what  they  do  make.  The  secret  of  success 
Is  in  saving  all  that  can  economically  and  wisely  be 
saved. 


To  Keep  Chickens  Clean. 

Powdered  or  broken  charcoal  is  invaluable  in  the 
poultry  house  in  keeping  it  wholesome  for  fowls, 
and  making  a  most  valuable  manure.  The  fowls 
will  consume  a  part  of  it,  and  are  not  so  liable  to 
disease  as  where  the  premises  are  limited  and  con- 
fined. Wash  your  roosts  occasionally  with  kerosene. 
This  prevents  the  accumulation  of  lice  in  the  poultry 
houses,  and  fumes  of  this  pungent  oil  permeate  the 
feathers  of  your  fowls  at  night  and  drive  the  vermin 
from  their  bodies.  Or  sprinkle  a  little  carbolic  pow- 
der on  the  roosts. 


Safeguards   Against   Rats. 

Rats  are  accomplished  rope-walkers,  and  are  able 
to  make  their  way  even  along  very  small  cords. 
Conseijuently  so  long  as  they  eau  mount  upon  the  line 
nothing  edible  susjiended  therefrom  is  safe  from  their 
attacks.  A  correspondent  of  the  Jloston.  Jourual  of 
Cfiemistnj  use  wires,  upon  which  circular  pieces  of 
tin  are  strung,  and  hangs  his  meat,  grain  etc.,  be- 
tween the  tin  pieces.  "The  rats  cannot  pass  the  tin 
circles,  because  as  they  attemjit  to  climb  over  them 
after  walking  out  ou  the  wire,  the  pieces  revolve. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Lime  as  a  Fertilizer. 
Lime  is  a  necessity  in  agrieulttu-e,  and  if  the  soil  is 
destitute  of  it,  it  must  be  supplied,  or  the  ground  be- 
comes hard  atul  lumpy,  and  ceases  to  produce.  Some 
writers  claim  that  lime,  of  itself,  gives  no  fertility, 
but  this  is  a  mistake,  for  I  have  seen  good  results 
from  its  use  where  it  has  been  applied  on  old  roads 
and  worn-out  fields  where  there  was  almost  no 
vegetable  matter  in  the  soil.  A  neighbor  had  a  piece 
of  land  which  was  a  high  chestnut  ridge,  and  so 
poor  that  it  would  not  produce  mullein  stalks  or  rag- 
weed. He  first  applied  fifty  bushels  of  lime  per  acre, 
and  sowed  in  wheat  and  seeded  with  clover.  The 
wheat  crop  was  not  very  good,  but  the  clover  did 
well,  and  when  it  was  full  grown,  it  was  plowed 
down  and  the  land  sown  in  w  heat.  That  was  six 
years  ago,  and  the  field  has  produced  good  crops 
ever  since.  Last  winter,  about  the  first  of  February, 
I  commenced  to  haul  slaked  lime  on  to  an  old 
meadow  sod ,  for  corn.  On  the  first  acre  I  put  one 
hundred  and  twenty-five  bushels  ;  then  I  thought 
that  too  thick,  and  on  the  rest  of  the  field  I  put 
eighty  bushels  per  acre.  I  planted  the  field  in  corn 
in  May,  and  where  the  lime  was  the  thickest  the 
corn  came  up  of  a  better  color,  and  kept  ahead  all 
through  the  summer,  and  when  I  came  to  husk  it,  I 


could  tell  the  very  row  where  the  hundred  and 
twenty-fiye  busbies  were  spread  ;  the  fodder  was 
heavier,  and  the  grain  deeper  on  the  col)  than  where 
only  eighty  busbies  were  applied.  I  have  seen  wheat 
fields  where  only  one-half  of  the  field  was  limed, 
and  the  other  half  manureil  with  barn-yard  manure, 
without  lime,  and  lould  tell  to  the  very  drill  row  on 
that  part  of  the  field  that  was  limed  ;  the  straw  was 
stiffer  and  the  grain  larger  than  on  the  part  where 
no  lime  was  applied.  I  could  give  many  instances 
in  favor  of  lime  as  a  manure,  and  when  the  farmers 
of  this  country  u.si'  as  much  lime  as  tli<'y  do  barn- 
yard manure,  there  will  be  less  complaining  about 
poor  crops.  I  hope  that  some  of  your  many  readers 
will  give  their  views  and  e.Kperienee  with  lime. — J. 
y.  7>.,  SUj)])eyy  Rock,  l*a. 

^^ 

"A  Broadway  Farm." 

Stewart,  Astor  and  Vanderliilt  are  goue,  and  now 
the  richest  representative  of  the  old  families  of  New- 
York  is  Peter  Goelet,  an  eccentric  old  l)achelor  who 
lives  on  the  corner  of  Broadway  and  Nineteenth 
street,  in  the  most  expensive  section  of  the  street, 
r.oclet's  wealth  is  estimated  at  from  twenty  to  thir- 
ty millions,  the  most  of  it  having  been  made  by  his 
great-grandfather  and  grandfatlier  in  the  hardware 
trade.  It  is  the  old  story.  \  French  emigrant  com- 
menced the  hardware  trade  before  the  revolution, 
and  by  hard  work  m,a<le  monc'y.  Every  dollar  made 
was  invested  in  farming  land's  a  mile  or  more  from 
the  store  down  town,  and  for  three  generations  this 
has  been  the  rule.  What  were  farming  land  then 
is  covered  with  six  story  buildings  now,  and  what 
the  first  Goelet  bought  for  twenty  dollars  an  acre  is 
worth  to-day  hundreds  of  thousands.  There  are 
two  left  of  them,  Peter,  the  bachelor,  being  the  best 
known.  He  occupies  several  lots  on  the  corner  of 
Nineteenth  street  and  Broadway  for  a  residence; 
the  property  being  worth,  probably,  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  and  he  keeps 
it  that  he  may  have  room  for  a 
cow,  a  dozen  guinea  hens,  a  stork  or  two  and  a  fine 
lot  of  chickens.  "  Uncle  Peter,"  as  he  is  called,  has 
a  passion  for  this  kind  of  farming,  and  he  keeps  this 
splendid  property  idle  that  he  may  indulge  his  whim. 
He  dosen't  put  a  dollar  into  pictures  or  books  ;  he 
has't  a  single  piece  of  sculpture  ,  he  never  takes 
part  in  any  public  enterjirise  ;  but  the  money  that 
other  men  put  into  such  things  he  squanders  on  his 
cow  and  chickens.  Counting  interest,  it  costs  him 
twenty  thousand  dollars  per  year  to  keep  that  cow, 
which  makes  the  milk  come,  I  should  supjiose,  at 
about  a  dollar  a  drop.  It  is  a  queer  sight — a  cow 
feeding  quietly  in  the  busiest  part  of  New  York.  But 
this  is  (ioelet's  whim,  and  perhaps  it  is  as  sensible  as 
many  other  men's  whims.  lie  is  over  seventy,  and 
has  not  a  child  to  leave  his  vast  estate  to.  His  ne- 
phews  and  niece  are  all  very  ricli,but  as  they  have  not 
"  Uncle  Peter's"  quiet  tastes,  they  will  not  object  to 
adding  his  millions  to  their  own. 

^ 

Sowing  Clover  on  Grass. 
The  agricultural  editor  of  the  Reading  Timea  and 
Dcspatcli  says  :  Farmers  may  succeed  in  making 
clover  grow  on  grass  land,  if  the  sod  is  not  thickly 
covered  with  grass,  open  in  places  between  the  tufts, 
so  as  to  adroit  of  harrowing  in  the  seed.  Sow  the 
seed  quite  thick  as  early  in  the  spring  as  the  ground 
will  admit,  and  be  dry.  Then  run  a  fine  tooth  har- 
row over  the  land  till  the  seed  is  covored,  or  the  most 
of  it  mixed  with  the  loosened  earth;  then  roll  the 
land,  and  in  due  time  a  crop  of  clover  will  appear ; 
but  it  will  be  in  danger  of  being  smothered  by  the 
grass,  perhajis  ;  and  if  it  lie,  when  the  grass  has 
grown  high  enough  to  be  cut  by  a  mower,  it  should 
be  cut  and  fed  green  to  stock  :  and  if  plaster  be  sown 
on  the  land,  as  soon  as  the  clover  appears,  it  will  get 
such  a  growth  in  a  few  weeks  that  the  grass  cannot 
check  it.  Fields  that  are  not  wellcovered  with  grass, 
may  be  improved  in  this  manner,  or  other  grass  seed 
may  be  sown  instead  of  clover,  and  several  kinds  of 
grass  seed  would  be  better  than  one  kind.  Perhaps 
it  would  be  better  to  pasture  such  lands  till  the  new 
seeding  gets  a  good  growth,  ratherthan  cut  the  grass 
when  it  is  but  a  few  inches  high.  There  is  no  good 
reason  why  farmers  should  not  experiment  in  this 
way  sometimes.  Then  let  them  seed  down  a  ijlowed 
field  to  grass  next  spring,  without  the  usual  grain 
crop.  I  have  known  a  good  crop  of  hay  to  be  cut 
the  first  season  on  fields  thus  seeded  ;  and  be  sure 
that  you  seed  with  several  kinds  of  grasses,  which 
produce  a  firmer  sward,  and  one  that  will  stand  the 
frosts  of  winter  better  than  one  kind  will. 


Good  Yield  of  Corn. 

Wm.  Lambie,  Ypsilanti,  Mich.,  reports  a  yield  of 
900  bushels  of  ears  of  corn  on  ten  acres,  at  a  cost  per 
bushel  of  7  cents  in  the  car.  The  interesting  feature 
is  the  cost  per  bushel,  rather  than  the  yielil  per  acre. 
As  the  land  was  a  reclaimed  marsh,  and  was  quad- 
rupled in  value  in  the  process  of  producing  corn  at 
7  cents  per  bushel,  it  may  be  considered  a  sample  of 
first-class  farming. 


Subscribe  for  The  Farmer,  the  cheapest  Agricul- 
tural Paper  published.    See  terms  on  first  page. 


HURTICULTURE. 

Some  Hints  on  Grafting. 

Sometimes  disease  will  fasten  itself  on  to  a  tree 
and  jjcrvade  its  whole  system;  and  when  grafts  are 
taken  from  such  a  tree  the  trouble  goes  with  It.  In 
this  way  a  diseased  condition  is  often  distributed 
quite  unconscioiisly  by  the  propagator.  Sometimes 
this  peculiar  condition  <loes  not  produce  actual  dis- 
ease, but  there  is  a  sort  of  lack  of  vigor  wliich  leads 
to  inferior  results.  For  instance,  we  often  find 
people  with  .Seekel  pear  trees  that  have  hut  moderale 
sized  or  small  fruit;  and  other  people  who  are  aide 
to  boast  ol  their  large  Seekel  pears.  If  grafts  are 
taken  from  these  they  generally  continue  to  produce 
large  or  snmll  pears  as  the  case  may  be.  Yet  we 
know  that  all  these  came  from  one  original  Seekel 
pear  tree  and  that  in  some  way  the  degeneracy  or 
improvement  came  about  witliout  any  seminal  agen- 
cy whatever.  The  whole  ditlerence  has  been  made 
general  by  propagation.  Now,  some  people  say 
when  a  person  has  a  large  or  fine  Seekel  pear,  the 
land  or  the  culture  just  suited  it:  and  if  the  grafts 
are  taken  to  other  trees  undi'r  other  circumstances 
the  excellence  fails  and  the  fruit  reverts  to  Its  origin 
nal  inferior  condition.  But  it  is  not  always  so.  In- 
deed, it  is  but  seldom  that  the  large  and  perfect 
form  fails  to  carry  its  excellence  with  it,  when  the 
graft  goes  to  a  distant  stock. 

Now  this  fact  shows  how  very  careful  we  should  be 
in  selecting  grafts,  to  take  them  only  from  the  best 
known  specimens  of  the  kind  we  can  get.  It  may 
also  be  a  question  whether  it  will  not  pay  sotnetimcs 
to  graft  over  again  with  the  suine  kind,  when  it  is 
approved,  but  a  tuttertree  exists.  For  instance,  with 
the  Seekel  pear.  .Supposing one  has  atree  that  gives 
but  a  small  fruit,  and  a  neighbor  has  one  which  Is 
large  and  fine,  gi-afts  from  that  will  give  the  large 
kind  ;  and  it  may  be  worth  while  to  sacrifice  a  year 
or  two  of  poor  fruit  in  order  in  time  to  get  much 
belter  ones. 

Independently  of  all  this,  there  are  often  fruit 
trees  on  one's  place  that  arc  so  |>oor  as  to  be  better 
to  have  the  whole  character  of  the  tree  changed,  and 
this  is  the  blessing  which  the  art  of  grafting  confers. 

It  may  be  as  well  to  say  at  this  season  that  graft- 
ing is  generally  more  successful  when  the  grafts  are 
taken  off  early.  As  the  season  progresses  the  sap 
accumulates  in  vessels,  as  every  one  knows  who  has 
pruned  a  grape  vine.  If  cut  late  in  the  spring  the 
vine  bleeds  ;  but  it  does  not  if  cut  now.  Pear  trees  do 
not  exactly  ''bleed"  if  cut  late,  Imt  there  is  much 
more  sap  in  the  branches  in  spring  than  there  is  now. 
We  cut  early  to  avoid  this,  and  bury  the  scions  in  the 
earth  or  anywhere  where  they  will  be  absolutely  at 
rest  without  being  absolutely  frozen. — GermaiUoivn 
Telegraph. 

^ 

Succession  of  Fruits. 

The  so-called  small  fruits,  occupy  quite  a  large 
place  in  the  general  list  of  fruits  for  every  month. 
Those  wlio  have  never  enjoyed  the  luxury  of  a  dish 
of  fully  ripe  strawberries  of  such  varieties  as  the 
Charles  Downing,  Boydens'  No.  .'W,  or  even  the 
Wilson— which  may  be,  and  should  be,  on  every 
man's  table  in  .May  and  June,  with  the  usual  ac- 
companiments of  cream  and  sugar  —  are  to  be 
pitied,  especially  if  it  is  not  by  their  own  negligence 
that  they  lose  one  of  the  most  delightful  exercises  of 
a  well  furnished  table.  In  natural  succession  the 
strawberries  are  followed  by  the  various  sorts  of 
raspberries,  red,  black  and  yellow,  all  very 
"pleasant  to  the  eye  and  good  to  the  taste,"  and 
these  in  turn  are  followed  by  the  blackberries  ;  and 
although  these  fruits  ripen  through  the  summer 
months,  and  are  best  relished  when  fresh  from  the 
vines  or  hushes,  we  can  have  them  almost  as  good 
during  the  late  and  all  the  winter  mouths,  even 
uniil  they  are  supplanted  by  crops  of  the  succeed- 
ing year."  The  old  system"  of  preserving  fruits  in 
sui/ar,  pound  for  pound,  as  the  old  rule  had  it,  has 
been  entirely  superseded  by  a  process  of  canning, 
which  preserves  much  more  of  the  real  flavor  and 
quality,  costs  less,  and  is,  therefore,  superior  to  the 
fiiriner  Uiode. 

In  addition,  and  for  variety,  we  have  during  the 
summer  months  the  delicious  cherry.  Who,  that 
has  tieen  favored  as  jour  humble  servant  has,  on 
more  than  one  occasion,  to  visit  when  the  fruit  was 
at  its  iirinie,  orchards  like  those  of  the  late  Dr.  Hull, 
of  well-merited  horticultural  fame,  and  to  have  the 
choice  without  limit  of  nearly  or  quite  twenty 
varieties  of  sweet  cherries,  can  ever  forget  such  an 
event?  And  who  can  deny  the  exquisite  flavor  aud 
gratefulness  to  the  palate,  of  a  dish  of  Karly  Rich- 
mond pitted  cherries,  as  we  have  them  for  side 
dishes  at  Thanksgiving,  Christmas,  New  Years' 
dinners  or  supjwrs  ?  Indeed,  I  like  them  and  have 
them  home-grown  much  oftener  than  on  such  festive 
occasions . 

As  the  months  roll  on  we  have  the  apricot,  the 
nectaTine,  the  peach  and  the  plum  in  varieties  for 
the  mouths  of  August  and  September,  and  with  these 
and  for  the  balance  ol  the  year,  the  pear  and  the  king 
of  fruits,  the  apple,  and  the  last  named  in  almost  in- 
finite variety  and  of  various  flavors,  sweet,  acid,  sub- 
acid, and  mild  sub-acid,  etc.,  to  suit  the  differeut 


i6 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  January,  1877. 


tastes  of  men,  women  and  children.  If  varieties  of 
apples  are  well  chosen,  we  may  have  them  from 
July  to  the  succeedina;  July,  for  it  i.s  a  very  common 
thing  to  see  on  our  fruit  stands  the  Golden  Russet 
of  the  preeedinfj  year  with  the  Early  Harvest  or 
Carolina   Red   June   of  the  present  season. — C.  W. 

MUBTFELDT,  BEFORE  THE  K.\NS.\S  HORTICUL- 
TURAL SOCIETT. 


Heat  for  House  Plants. 

Most  of  our  plants  are  injured  by  too  much  heat. 
For  a  general  collection  of  house  plants,  it  is  not  best 
to  allow  the  thermometer  to  be  above  seventy,  and  if 
they  could  be  kept  in  a  room  where  the  thermometer 
would  usually  range  much  above  sixty-five  it  would 
be  much  better.  In  the  night  time  fifty  is  enough. 
Give  a  little  fresh  air  every  fine  day,  and  all  the  sun- 
light attainable.  An  effort  should  be  made  to  give 
moisture  to  the  atmosphere,  for  our  own  good,  as 
well  as  the  health  of  the  plants.  This  can  be  done 
in  various  ways  by  evaporating  water  :  but  when 
plants  are  In  a  separate  apartment,  likealittle green- 
house, it  can  be  done  more  conveniently  and  effectu- 
ally, although  this  separate  apartment  be  only  a  bay 
window,  with  glass  doors,  separating  it  from  the  liv- 
ing room.  In  this,  water  can  be  used  freely,  by 
sprinkling,  etc.,  and  a  moist  atmosphere  preserved. 
The  temperature,  with  this  arrangement,  can  be  kept 
lower  than  would  be  comfortable  in  the  living  room, 
and  the  plants  are  saved  from  dust  and  many  evils 
which  we  manage  to  endure  and  live,  but  which 
generally  prove  too  much  for  the  plants. —  Vick's 
Guide. 

Thinning  Fruit. 

Additional  facts  come  before  us  every  day,  showing 
the  importance  of  thinning  fruit  on  the  trees  early  in 
the  season.  E.  Mood,ofLockport,  New  York,  stated 
Bome  years  ago  that  while  the  large,  handsome 
peaches  on  his  thinned  trees  brought  a  dollar  and 
a  half  per  basket,  the  same  sort  on  crowded  branches 
sold  for  only  half  a  dollar.  More  recently,  Mr.  Dyck- 
man,  of  White  Haven,  New  York,  has  cited  instances 
where  his  thinned  crop  readily  brought  two  dollars 
and  a-half  per  basket,  and  unthinned  only  one  dollar 
and  a  quarter.  There  is  less  difference  when  the 
trees  are  young  and  bear  large  specimens,  but  as 
they  become  older  and  more  productive,  the  differ- 
ence becomes  very  distinct.  But  the  increased  price 
is  not  the  only  advantage.  An  overloaded  tree  is 
soon  exhausted.  A  large  orchardist  in  Ohio  lost 
3,000  trees  by  the  cold  of  winter,  after  a  very  heavy 
crop  ;  while  trees  which  had  not  borne  were  unin- 
jured. It  is  much  easier  to  thin  out  poor  specimens 
early,  than  to  hand-pick  all,  and  then  assort  them. 


Tar  on  Fruit  Trees. 

According  to  the  experience  of  Mr.  Henry  Rey- 
nolds, of  Montgomery  county,  N.  Y.,  tar  is  a  perfect 
remedy  for  scarred  and  sun-cracked  ajiple  trees. 
He  says  that  by  coating  with  new  tar  the  trunk  of  a 
favorite  fruit  bearer  that  was  cracked  and  so  de- 
cayed that  the  bark  was  dead  and  would  peel  o9',  he 
has  restored  it  fully.  He  applies  it  to  all  the 
branches  that  show  signs  of  decay.  Since  practic- 
ing this  cheap  remedy,  he  has  not  been  troubled 
with  insects.  By  applying  tar  to  the  trunk,  and 
clearing  away  the  surface  at  the  roots  so  as  to  let  it 
run  down  on  them,  peach  trees  badly  damaged  by 
borers  are  fully  restored.  Replace  the  dirt,  and  you 
will  have  no  more  trouble  with  the  tree  for  two  years 
or  more.  If  the  tar  is  applied  to  young  trees,  the 
borers  will  not  trouble  them  at  all.  He  states  that 
the  coating  should  be  applied  in  the  winter,  or  early 
in  the  spring. 


Grafting  Currants. 

The  Rural  New  Yorker  says  :  Lovers  of  the  cur- 
rant and  gooseberry  have  reason  to  feel  jolly  over  the 
success  which  seems  to  attend  grafting  them  upon 
the  Missouri  currant  (Ribus  aurcum),  which  is  not 
liable  to  the  attacks  of  the  borer.  Besides,  they  are 
exempt  from  mildew.  And  thus  by  a  single  happy 
hit  the  two  great  drawbacks  to  currant  .and  goose- 
berry cultivation  have  been  overcome.  The  beauty 
of  these  little  trees  when  loaded  with  their  pretty 
berries,  as  displayed  at  the  Centennial,  is  of  itself 
enough  to  secure  their  general  cultivation.  It  would 
be  well  for  those  who  iutend  experimenting  with 
grafting  currants  to  bear  in  mind  that  there  is  a 
great  difference  in  the  varieties  of  the  Missouri  cur- 
rant, some  making  better  stocks  than  others. 


Apples  in  England. 
The  London  Garden  says  that  Convent  Garden 
market  is  piled  high  with  barrels  of  American  ap- 
ples, which  are  more  abundant  now  than  ever 
known  before.  The  English  apple  crop  was 
small  the  past  season  and  apples  being 
very  abundant  here,  they  have  poured  into  the  Lon- 
don market.  There  are  large  supplies  also  from 
France  and  from  Holland,  the  former  be  ng  sold  at  a 
dollar  per  bushel,  and  the  latter  lower.  American 
apples,  if  good,  sell  much  higher. 


LITERARY  NOTICES. 

Oakland  Stud  of  Peroheron-Normam  Horses. 
M.  W.  Dunham,  importer  and  breeder,  Wayne,  Dn 
Page  county,  Illinois,  thirty-five  miles  west  of 
Chicago,  on  the  Freeport  division  C.  &  N.  W.  R.  R. 
This  is  simply  a  royal  octavo  pamphlet  of  thirty-two 
pages,  being  an  illustrated  catalogue  of  the  horse- 
stock  of  Mr.  Dunham,  the  enterprising  and  widely 
known  importer  and  breeder  of  the  famous  Percheron 
Normans,  which  are  becoming  so  popular  in  this 
country.  The  pamphlet,  which  is  beautifully  gotten 
up,  opens  with  a  splendid  illustration  of  "Success," 
the  first  Percheron-Norman  stallion  imported  to 
Illinois  from  France,  by  Mr.  Dunham,  which  is  fol- 
lowed by  "Mignonette,"  "Jean  Bart,"  "Cardinal," 
"  Tempest,"  "  Primate,"  "  Duke  of  Perche," 
"Apollo,"  "Napoleon  III.,"  "Viola  and  "Adelaide," 
all  of  whom,  with  descriptive  notices,  will  appear  in 
our  journal  during  the  course  of  the  coming  year. 
This  stud  consi.sts  of  seventy-eight  individuals,  in- 
cluding stallions  and  mares,  of  foreign  and  American 
breeds.  We  must  confess  that  we  are  not  a  con- 
noisseur in  horse  flesh,  but  to  our  eye  there  is  some- 
thing beautifully  grand  in  the  apperance  of  N'a- 
lioleon  III.  After  the  first  outlay,  it  perhaps  costs 
as  little  to  keep  a  good  horse  as  a  bad  one,  save  the 
ditlerence  between  efflcient  grooming,  and  absolute 
neglect.  Eighty-six  of  these  horses  have  been  sold 
since  August,  1S74,  at  prices,  the  lowest  of  which 
was  Si50.00  and  the  hiahest  ?.5,.5OO.O0,  but  seventy 
were  from  S1,000  to  4,.500.  This  is  a  fair  exhibit  of 
their  value,  and  illustrates  their  appreciation  by  the 
stock  owners  of  our  country,  from  Maine  to  Wis- 
consin and  Iowa.  If  our  farmers  desire  good  work- 
ing and  pleasure  stock,  we  commend  them  to  the 
stud  of  Mr.  Dunham. 

Tub  NEW  Guide  to  Rose  Culture.  The  cata- 
logue of  the  Dingee  and  Conard  Company  of  Rose 
Growers,  West  Grove,  Chester  county.  Pa.,  is  a 
royal  octavo  pamphlet  of  47  pages,  and  many  illus- 
trations, on  fine  cerulean  tinted  paper,  and  excellent 
type,  and  Is  now  before  us.  The  catalogues  of  the 
various  floi'ists,  seedsmen  and  nurserymen  of  our 
country,  constitute  the  cheapest,  most  practical 
and  accessible  treatises  on  flower  garden,  lawn,  field, 
forest  and  vegetable  garden  botany,  of  anything  that 
is  published  on  that  subject,  and  the  one  before  us, 
on  its  specialty,  is  not  inferior  to  the  best  of  them. 
The  study  of  these,  aided  by  a  Botanical  Text  Book, 
is  sufficient  to  impart  as  much  popular  knowledge 
of  the  subject  as  is  of  interest  to  the  masses.  Here 
we  have  lists  of  37.5  roses,  alphabetically  arranged, 
including  ever-blooming,  hybrid,  perpetual,  moss 
and  climbing;  40  of  which  are  entirely  new;  with 
short  descriptions  and  modes  of  culture. 

The  Naturalist's  Directory,  containing  the 
names  of  naturalists,  chemists,  physicists  and  mete- 
orologists, arranged  alphabetically,  with  an  index 
arranged  according  to  departments.  By  .Samuel  E. 
Cassino,  and  published  by  the  Naturalists'  Agency, 
at  Salem,  Mass.  This  is  an  exceedingly  well  exe- 
cuted pamphlet  of  75  pages,  interspersed  with  about 
the  same  number  of  blank  pages,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  additions  and  corrections.  It  is  a  demi  8vo. 
in  form,  and  printed  on  fine  calendered  paper,  with 
tinted  covers.  It  is,  perhaps,  as  perfect  as  such  a 
work  could  possibly  be  made,  under  all  the  circum- 
stances, in  a  first  edition,  and  in  order  to  make  future 
issues  more  complete,  the  author  and  compiler  re- 
spectfully solicits  notices  of  omi.?sions  that  occur  in 
the  present  issue.  Also  notices  of  scientific  societies 
wherever  they  may  exist  in  North  America,  to  add  to 
a  new  edition  which  will  be  published  in  December, 
1877. 

"Report  of  the  Geographical  and  Geological  Ex- 
plorations and  Surveys  west  of  the  one  hundredth 
meridian,  in  charge  of  First  Lieut.  Geo.  M.  Wheeler, 
corps  of  engineers,  U.  S.  A.  Under  the  direction  of 
Gen.  Humphreys,  Chief  of  EngineersU.  S.  A.  Pub- 
lished by  the  War  Department,  in  six  volumes. 

Our  acknowledgments  are  due  to  our  distinguished 
fellow-citizen  and  Congressional  Representative, 
Hon.  A.  Herr  Smith,  lor  a  copy  of  the  fifth  volume 
of  this  admirable  work,  the  contents,  material,  and 
execution  of  which  reflects  as  much  credit  upon  the 
government,  its  officer  and  employees,  as  any  work 
ever  published  by  Congress.  This  volume  is  a  solid 
quarto  of  1,0-0  pages;  it  is  devoted  exclusively  to 
zoology,  and  includes  mammalogy,  ornithology,  her- 
petology,  ichthyology,  entomology,  conchology,  &c., 
properly  and  beautifully  illustrated. 

An  Essay  on  Pear  Blight,  read  before  the  Poto- 
tnac  Fruit  Growers'  Association,  W^ashington,  D.  C, 
by  John  Brainard,  together  with  an  introductory 
note  by  J.  P.  Kirtland,  M.  D.  This  is  a  royal  octavo 
pamphlet  of  IB  pages,  on  a  most  interesting  subject, 
and  one  that  has  exercised  the  minds  of  fruitgrowers 
for  a  century,  at  least.  This  little  work  is  well 
gotten  up,  and  is  illustrated  by  six  wood-cuts,  in- 
cluding fourteen  figures,  representing  healthy  parts 
of  the  pear  tree  and  also  those  infected  by  "  blight." 
It  bears  date  September  .5th,  ls7(i,  and  therefore  con- 
tains the  latest  views  upon  a  most  intricate  subject. 
If  it  does  not  contain  all  the  truth,  it  at  least  makes 
a  nearer  approximation  to  it  than  anything  we  have 
yet  seen  on  blight. 


Potato  Pests.  Being  an  illustrated  account  of 
the  Colorado  potato-beetle,  and  the  other  insect  foes 
of  the  potato  in  North  America,  with  suggestions  for 
their  repression  and  methods  for  their  destruction. 
By  Charles  V.  Riley,  M.  A.,  Ph.  D.  State  Entomolo- 
gist of  Missouri. 

Published  by  the  Orange  Judd  Co.,  245  Broadway. 
New  York. 

Price  .50  cts.  in  paper,  7.5  cts.  in  boards.  This  is  a 
handsomely  printed  little  12  mo.  of  IDS  pages,  con- 
taining also  a  map  of  North  America,  illustrating  the 
original  home,  the  territory  occupied,  the  territory 
invaded,  and  the  most  direct  line  of  march  of  this 
notorious  pest;  with  40  figures, illustatlng  this  and 
others  insects  injurious  to  the  potato,  as  well  as  those 
carnivorous  and  parasitic  species  which  iufest  and 
prey  upon  the  Colorado  Beetle.  It  should  be  in  the 
hands  of  every  farmer  and  gardener  in  the  country. 
And  now  here  we  have  before  us,  No.  1,  volume 
1 — January  1877,  of  the  Xebraska  Farmer,  Me- 
Bridc  <fc  Clarkson  editors  and  propi'ietors,  published 
monthly  at  Lincoln,  Nebraska,  at  $3.00  in  advance 
per  annum.  This  is  a  remarkably  well  gotten  up 
quarto  of  24  pages,  not  iucluding  four  extra  pages 
of  advertisements,  and  additional  covers.  It  is 
printed  on  fine  calendered  paper,  faintly  tinted,  and 
everything  looks  fresh  and  new.  Its  literary  quali- 
ties are  unexceptionable,  and  located  as  it  is  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  State  Agricultural  College,  it 
must  IP  necessarily  be  the  reflector  of  the  best 
agricultural  thoughts  of  the.State.  We  cor- 
dially welcome  it  to  the  ranks  of  agricultural 
journalism,  and  heartily  wish  for  it  a  long  and 
successful  career.  This  first  number  impresses 
us  very  favorably,  and  we  have  already  appropriated 
a  valuable  paper  from  its  columns.  Communica- 
tions of  all  kinds  to  be  addressed  to  The  Xebraska 
Farmer,  Lock  Box  41,  Lincoln,  Nebraska. 

Potter's  American  Monthly,  an  illustrated 
magazine  of  history,  literature,  science  and  art; 
1877.  John  E.  Potter  &  Co.,  Philadelphia,  Pa.,  S-i.OO 
a  year;  25  cents  a  number.  This  is  a  demi-quarto  of 
SO  pages,  and  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  work  in 
all  that  relates  to  American  history  especially.  Its 
material  and  typographical  execution  are  unexcep- 
tionable. The  February  number  is  before  us,  but  it  is 
slightly  mutilated,  having  lost  the  147th  and  14''th 
pages  (department  of  "notes  and  queries."  We 
understand  one  of  the  pages  contained  a  paragraph 
inquiring  about  the  "Old  Barracks"  of  Lancaster, 
and  we  presume  it  was  appropriated  for  the  purpose 
of  answering  it.  We  are  writing  not  100  yards  from 
the  ground  on  which  the  Old  Barracks  stood.  Oc- 
casionally an  old  bvttoH  of  the  British  soldier's  uni- 
form is  found  on  or  near  the  spot — one  in  1873. 

Descriptive  seed  catalogue,  for  1877,  William 
Rennie,  Toronto,  Can.  A  beautifully  illustrated 
octavo  pamphlet  of  SO  pages  in  tinted  calendered 
paper,  ahd  finely  embellished  covers.  Containing  a 
description  of  the  managment  of  hot-beds  and  cold- 
beds,  together  with  introductory  and  explanatory  re- 
marks for  the  information  of  his  patrons,  price  lists, 
ete.,  and  an  index.  This  little  work  contains  a  vast 
amount  of  botanical  agricultural,  horticultural,  and 
general  information  relating  to  fruits,  fiowers,  field 
crops  and  garden  vegetables,  condensed  in  a  small 
space,  together  with  fine  illustrations  of  fields,  lawn 
and  garden  implements  of  all  kinds,  with  the  name 
and  the  prices  of  each  attached.  Since  we  have 
been  to  the  Centennial  we  have  great  faith  in  Canada, 
and  Mr.  Rennie  seems  to  be  a  fair  representative. 

R.  H.  Allen  &  Co's  descriptive  catalogue,  con- 
taining complete  lists  of  vegetable,  fiower  and  field 
seeds,  roots,  plants,  and  garden  requisites,  189  and 
191  Water  Street  New  York.  This  is  a  demi-octavo 
pamphlet  of  64  pages  on  fine  calendered  paper  and 
tinted  cover.  The  few  illustrations  it  contains  are 
implemental  and  finely  executed,  and  moreover  of  the 
latest,  most  improved  and  useful  kinds.  Nothing 
can  more  forcibly  exhibit  the  progress  that  is  being 
made  in  the  agricultural  world,  than  the  full  and 
splendid  catalogues  that  the  nurserymen  and  seeds- 
men send  out  annually  to  their  customers;  and  more 
can  be  learned  of  them  about  practical  botany  (ex- 
cept scientific  classification)  than  can  be  from  most 
works  on  that  special  subject   unillustated. 

We  call  the  attention  of  those  of  our  readers  who 
contemplate  purchasing  seeds  or  plants,  to  the  ad- 
vertisement of  Peter  Henderson  &  Co.,  of  New  York. 
The  greenhouse  establishment  of  this  firm  covers 
two  acres  of  greenhouses,  and  employs  upward  of 
fifty  hands.  Millions  of  plants  are  shipped,  by  ex- 
press and  mail,  every  year,  to  every  State  and  Ter- 
ritory in  the  Union.  Their  Seed  warehouse  is  the 
most  extensive  in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  every 
order  received  is  certain  to  be  filled  promptly,  with 
the  very  best  quality  of  seeds  or  plants,  and  as  they 
are  producers  as  well  as  dealers,  everything  for 
the  garden  will  t5e  sold  at  low  rates. 

We  respectfully  call  the  attention  of  our  readers 
to  the  advertisements  in  this  number  of  the  Farmer, 
.and  would  admonish  them  that  our  journal  is  now 
the  best  and  most  widely  extended  advertising  med- 
ium published  in  Lancaster  county,  and  comes  into 
the  hands  of  the  most  moral  and  financially  substan- 
tial citizens  of  our  commonwealth,  as  well  as  of  the 
country  at  large. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMERS 


HI. 


My  annuat   Cntuht{ftie  *»/'   Veg'-tahffi   and    Vlotcr 

M'-^it  for  lS7it,  rich  in  eueriiviiiRa,  will  In-  ready  in  Janu- 

nrv,  ;iud  8Put  FKEK  to  all    who    Hpply.     C'ustounTs    of  lii8t 

-■  ;isoQ  nred  not  write  for  it.     I  offer  mio  of  the  larpeHtcol- 

1   '  ti-'iiaof  VfRcttiblf  eec(!  evi-rweTit  on(  by  uiiy  seed   houHC 

■      V'liericrt,  u  larjjo  j^ortion  of  which  wore  growu  on  my  six 

i  furiiiH.     /tinted  directions /or  ntHicafion  on  rach  pack- 

All  sped  tvarrnn(,^d  to  W  both  frenh  and  true  to   nam*-; 

ir,  that  Hhould  it  i-rove  otherwise.  /  xrill  refill  the  order 

v.     ThooriKinal   iiitmduefr   of  tht»    Uubburd    Squash, 

hiiey'B  Me'On,  Miirbleheart  CiibbaEPH,  Mexican  C'orn,  and 

ri  ■  of  otlier  vej-fetnbh'fl,  I  Invite  the  iiatrrjuii^je  of  at/  who 

n-  <uixiou-s  fo  have  thetr  need  directly /rom  (he  grower,  freshf 

'   '  \  and  i\f  the  verxj  heMs  Kfrain. 

New  Vegetables  a  specialty. 

JAMKS  .1.  n   OKKflORY. 
U'-10-4n)]  Mnrbleliead.  MaPS. 

on    trial   for   three   months.      The   Home 
(JuKST  is  deelared  the  best  family  paper 
now  published.   Each  number  coutdius  nn 
illustrated  Fashion  Department,  a  depart- 
ment on  Writing  aud  PeninauBUip.  edited 
by  Prof.  Gu«kfll.  aUo  a    column   of   Chat 
with  Ueaderfl,  Puzzle  Department,  Letters 
il.li.ii.  UomuBtic  Keeeiptr",  History.  Poetry,  Hiogra- 
\,  :;nd  a  hoMt  of  reiidlnff  to  interest    and    instruct.     The 
le,  iucludiiiK  a  copy  of  the  most  beiutiful  chromo  of 
i!:iy.  on  trial  three  months  for  only  yO  cents. 
\  idress  the  i  ublishcrs, 

J.   LATHAM   &  CO., 
419  Wishington  Street,  Boetou.  Mass. 


E.  R  O. 


r  EURErtA  It  V  i)!^,  lis /orli/  ili-firer.-i  lu'(jfirr  fire  fc.st  than 
•11**  taxo  reijttires',  c-'.f\  be  liurneil  lu  auy  LAM t*  where  the 
.chiniiiey  Imnier  i8  used,  is  warranted  nut  to  exptode,  iiucler 
forfeiture  of  $1110. 

t2r"F.Xl"'I.I'SIVE   COUNTY   RIGTITS  fnr   sale   by 
P.  J.  FITZUEHALD,  Solo  I'nipiletor  and   Itauufacturer, 

103  ami  1115  >J    Fi)Ur:h  at.,  I'hilad'a. 

AIbo,  WHOI.ESAI.K  DKALEU  IN  UEAD  LIGHT,  COAL 
OILj.iid  IllUiXINU  r'LUID. 

N.  B.  A  laiKC  afisnrlinout  Intent  Mvleso!  CHANDELIERS, 
BKACKKTS.  imoNZE  LAMl'S.  BilUNKHS,  &c..  .to.,  cou- 
gtantly  on  h:MKl.  lii-;i-Om 

WEST  jliRSm    NURSERIES! 

GIBSON  &  BENNET.  . 

100,0011  Fel'on's  Early  Prolific  aud  Reliance  Rasiiljerry, 
■200,0<)0  C'indrella  alid  Ouulitiemal  Strawberry  I'l.AXT.S 
■direct  from  the  oviglual  stock.  Millions  of  other  Plants, 
Trees,  &u.,  &c. 

rBr~New  descriptive  Circulars  now  ready. 

10-9-3m 

PATENTS 

Obtained  for  luventitors,  in  the  United  States.  Canada  and 
Europe,  at  reduced  rates.  With  our  principal  office  located 
at  WaeUinKton,  directly  opposite  the  United  Slates  Patent 
Office,  we  arc  able  to  attend  to  all  Patent  Busincfia 
with  greatev  proniptuesB  aud  des'/atch  and  less  cost  than 
otlier  patent  .ittorufys,  who  are  at  a  distance  fiom  WasU- 
iugtou,  and  who  have,  therefore,  to  employ  **  associate  at  - 
torneys,"  We  make  preliminary  examinatioua  and  furnish 
.-opiiiious  "Slo  pateu*ability,  free  of  charge,  and  all  who 
are  interested  in  new  inventions  aud  Patents  are  in%'ited  to 
send  lor  a  copy  of  our  **Unido  lor  Obiaiuing  Patents," 
which  is  sent  iree  to  auy  address,  and  contains  complete  iu- 
structions  how  to  obtam  Pateuts,  and  other  vahiabie  matter. 
We  refer  to  the  German-American  National  Bank,  Wash- 
ington, D.  C;  the  Itoyal  S  ved:sh,  Norwegian  and  Danish 
Legations,  at  Wii«hmg'..ou ;  Hon.  Joseph  Casey,  lute  Chief 
Justice  U.  S.  C  JUrt  of  Claims  ;  to  the  Offieials  of  the  U.  S 
Patent  Office,  aud  to  Senators  and  Members  of  Cougress 
from  every  State. 

Addiess:  roriS  RifJORR  A  Co.,  Solicitors  of 
Patents  and  Attorneys  at  Law,  Le  Droit  Buildiu^^,  Wash- 
ington. D.  C. 

<|Jpr  X  -   (IJOn  P"^^  '^^y  *^'  home.     Samples  worth  So  free, 
WU   UU  u)^U  Address  Stinson  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 


LISTEN  TO  THE  MOCKING  BIRD.-The 

Prairie  Whistle  and  Animal  Imitator  can  be  uwed  l)y  a  child. 
It  iM  made  to  imitate  the  song  of  every  bird,  the  ncigU  of  a 
horse,  the  bray  of  an  as",  the  grunt  of  a.  hog;  biids,  beasts 
and  snakes  are  enchanted  and  entrapped  by  it.  Is  used  by 
Billy  Birch,  Charley  White,  and  all  the  Minstrels  and  Warb- 
lers. Ver.triloqulsm  c-n  be  learned  iji  three  days  by  its  aid. 
Sent  upon  receipt  of  10  cts.,  :j  for  ys  cts.,  7  for  .Ml  cts.  15  for 
$1.  Address,  J.  W.  COTTRELL  &  CO.,  218  Fulton  Street, 
New  York.  10-5-lm 


TRINITY  HALL. 


BEVERI.Y, 

.\KM     JKKSEY. 

Established   1867      English  and  French   Home-School  for 
Young  Ladies.    Valied  advantages  of  the  highest  otTler. 
Number  of  impils  limited.    Fall  term  begins  Sept.  19. 
For  circular  address  Miss  R.  0.  HUNT,  Principal. 

10-S-l!m] 


uo«»oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 

006000000000000000000900000000000 

go       A  $5.00  PREMIUM  GIFT  ! 
g|  SOLID  SZLVBH  PLATESD 

oS  -^  ■■  ^^ 

OO 
OO 

ss 

OO 

8^  Consisting  of  an  Elegant  Set  of  Solitl  Silver  riated  SpooilN,  retail  price  S4.00, 

%r  and  an  Elc;',ant  Holifl  Kilvcr  FUied  Kutter-Kuiro,  rci.iil  price  6^&.00,  making  a 
^^  most  valuable  and  useful  l*reinitliii  C«ift  to  every  subscriber. 
^^2%  Arrangements  have  been  made  with  the  old  established  and  reliable  I>OU$;1aN  Hilver  ^^ 

^M^0  P]atin«;  Company  to  supply  every  subscriber  of  this  paper  with  this  valuable  Silver  ^P' 
n  A  Tableware  as  a  Premium  Gift.    Tills  JBlC£;ant  Set  of  OO 

lO       SOLID  SILVER  PLATED  SPOONS  AND  BDTTER-OIFE       JO 

P^y  Is  of  the  latest  "Rose**  pattern,  making  the  most  useful  and  beautiful  Gift  ever  offereJ  to  ^P^^ 

©subscribers.     To  secure  ttiis  valualilc  Premium,  you  have  merely  to  cut  out  the  following  J%^% 
.   _    uremium  order,  and  send  it  to  the  WoUKlas  Silver  Platiiic  <'OiiinafiV.  C'liioago.  jf  jf 
til.,  for  redemption,  together  with  amount  necessary  to  pay  actual  cost  of  packing,  post.tyc  or  ^^f^ 

0~    expressare,  etc.      Under  our  contract  this  SilverAVar©  is  to  co.^t  you  nothing  ^a 
except  the  actual  cose  of  packing,  postage  or  cxpressagc,  cic-i  which  you  are  required  to  send  ^m\m 
\^%  with  the  premium  order,  and  the  Silverware  is  th:n  -  ^^^% 


FOR  £VERT  SUBSCRIBER  OF  THIS  PAPER  I 


8 


WiPREMM  ORDER! 


i-/'(.LT  OUT  ■>.! 

DOUGLAS 


IS  O'l'if  U.  iS  IT  IS  WOUTI!  $5.00.. 


SILVER    PLATING-    CO., 

II  I  ^1  S8  Randolph  Street,  Chicago,  111. 

Enclosed  find  $i.oo  to  pay  actual  cost  of  packing,  postage,  or  expressage,  etc.,  upon  a 
I  full  set  of  your  Solid  Silver  Plated  Spoonsand  Liittcr-Knife*  and  1  agree,  upon  receipt  of 
"  e  same,  to  show  them  to  my  friends  and  argitajnt.Tnces  in  my  neighborhood.  


•i 


Ik^^  Cut  out  the  above  premium  orde."  to  show  that  you  are  a  subscriber  of  ihis   p.ipcr,  and 

w9  enclose  it,  with  $i.oo,  to  DOUGLAS  SILVER  PLATING  CO.,  88  Randolph  St.,  Chioafto.    And  '      =^ 
^^A  you  vvill  receive  a  handsome  set  of  solid  Silver  Plated  Spoons  and  Butler-Knife  by  return  ouul.  ^9^9 

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lent  for  HI  cents. 


-1 /^    pictures  of   actresses   and   pingers 

Ivy  Nation.^l  MoNTHiv,  Wa^hiuijfou.  D.  (', 


PATENTS 


procured. 
K.)\ve  h  <•■" 


A<lviee        irt-c.        AddrcHS, 
Box  174  Wushiiit'ton,  D.  r.. 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 


A   NEW  BOOK. 


How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 


A  IIAND-HOOK  OF 


HARDWARE  fruit  culture, 


BUILDII^G  HAEDWAEE, 

GL,AS.«i, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  FUMPS, 

TERRA  com.  IRON  aiiiLEAB  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Agrents  for  tlie 

*'  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mo^o^er, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
Fairbank*s  Scales, 
Dupont's  Po^wder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &c.,  &c. 


We  have  the  largest  stock  of  Reneral  Hardware  In  the 
Ktate,  and  our  prices  are  as  low  aud  terms  as  liberal  as  can 
be  found  elatwbere,  9-1-tf. 


BCINO  A  OriDE   TO  THE   PROPER 

Culilvation  and  Mann'jemenl  of  Fndt  Trees,  and 
of  Grapes  and  Small  FruitSj 

with  condeusetl  depcriptions  of  many  of  the  l>e8t  and  moat 
po]tular  varjetien,  with  upwards  of  one  hundred  eugravinga. 
IJy  Thomas  Gri-  oo.    Price  $1  00. 

"a  bLiok  wt)ich  should  be  owned  by  every  pereon  who  owna 
a  rod  of  available  laud,  and  it  will  serve  to  secure  success 
whe'-e  now  there  in  nothing  but  failuv.  It  overs  the 
ground  fully,  without  teehnicaliiioH,  aud  is  a  work  ou 

Fruit  Culture  for  the  Miilion. 

It  t^lls  of  the  roH*,  how  to  plant,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
traimi  lant,  loc.iiion,  soil,  selection,  diseaws,  insects,  borers, 
hiightt*.  cultivation,  how  to  prune,  mauuhng,  layering, 
budding,  graft  uig,  etc.,  including  ftiU  description  aud  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Fruit,  such  as  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricots,  Nectarines,  etc.  It  la 
a  most  complete 

Guide  to  Small-Fruit  Culture. 

with  many  illustrations  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari- 
eties of  Orapes,  Sirawbt^rries,  lilackbcrries,  llaspberries, 
Gooseberries,  Cuirants.  etc. 

Thoworkshows  the  value  of  Fntit,  and  how  lo  use  it. 
Seut  by  mail,  post-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Farmer  and  How 
to  raise  Fruits,  will  be  furnished  at  $1,(1>.    Address 

I.,  It  iTIIV<»V. 
22  Soiitli  <)iie<*ii  Ml  .  I.)iii<-:isti*r,  I'n. 

Scribner's  Lumber  and  Log-Book. 

OVER  HALF  A  MILL'ON  SOLD.  The  most  complete 
book  of  ilH  kind  ever  laiiilinhtd.  (iives  correct  meas- 
niemeut  of  all  kinds  of  lumber,  I'gM  and  plank  by  Doyle's 
Eule,  cuhical  contents  of  square  and  round  tJinbrr.  slave 
and  heading  bolt  tables,  wages,  rent,  board,  capacity  of 
cisterns,  cord-wood  tables,  interest,  etc.  Standard  Book 
throughout  United  Hiates  and  Canada. 

Ask  your  bookseller  for  it,  or  I  will  send  oue  for  35  cents, 
post-paid. 

<;.  M-.  FISHER, 

10-2-3m]  P.  O.  Box  238,  Kochcsler,  N.  T. 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER. 


[December,  1878 


1878 


SPRING  AND  SLWMEB. 


878 


RATHVON  &  FISHER'S 

CHEAP  CLOTHING  STORE, 

Cormr  Sorth  (|iieon  and  Orange  Sts., 

LANCASTER.,  PA. 

Good  all  wool  Business  Suits  from  $12  to  $20 
Fine  Cloth  or  Worsted  Dress  Suits,  15  to  20 
Fine  Cassimere  Pants,         -  -  4  to     10 

Fine  Vests,     -         -         -         -         -3  to        6 

CUSTOM  WORK  A  SPECIALTY, 

and  salisfuctiuu  guaranteed. 

READY  MADE  CLOT^jING 

And  Furnishing   Goods 

of  all  kindfl,  very  cheap.  Cottonades  as  low  as  $2.50  a  suit. 
Cloths,  Cassimeref,  W'oi  pficgs,  Suitings,  Coatiuge  aud 
VeBtings  in  a  full  liue,  and  made  prompily  to  order. 

KATHVON  &  FISHER, 

3.878  PRACTICAL  TATLORS.  XS'78 

ESTABLISHED   1832. 


a.    SEXEK    &   SONS, 

Mauufacturers  and  dealers  iu  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
fiuished 

Ttiebest  Sawed  SHI^GT.KKiu  fbe  country.     Also  Sash, 
Doors,  Bliude,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  wbieh  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  i'OAI.  coustautly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-sts., 

LANCASTKR,  PA. 


ART  OF  PROPAGATION. 

A  consise  practical  work   on  the   rapid  increase  and  mul- 
tiplication of  stock — amply  illuslrated. 

Price  pre-paiti   by  mail.  50  cents. 

PUBLISHED   BY 

Winona,  Columbiana  Co.,  Ohio. 
SEND  FOR  IT,  AND  FOR  FREE  CATALOGUE. 
By  a  Bpecial  arrangement   with    the  piiblisherB,  we  offer 
tiie  above  work  at  40  cts.  per  copy.      It  has  teceived  the  fa- 
vorable notice  of  over  1000  leading  pax  eis  of  the  country, 
be  sent  to  this  office. 
9-10  L.  liATHVON. 

AND 

Thoroughbred  Short-Horn  Cattle; 

Bred  and  For  Sale  by  the  undersigned. 

OF  THE  BEST  MILKING  STRAINS, 

and  at  prices  to  suit  the  times.  Herd  cnen  to  i-ispection  by 
strangers  at  all  times  (Sundays  excepted.)  I  will  be  ple;i8ed 
to  show  my  herd  to  visitors,  aud  any  informntion  iu  regard 
to  the  cattle  will  cheerfully  be  given,  by  letter,  as  desired. 


10-2-ly] 


A.  M.  RANK, 

Bird-in-Hand,  Lancaster  co.,  Pa, 


J.  STAUFFER, 


LANCASTER,  f ENN'A. 
235  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


All  matters  appertaining  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CJ^NA- 
DIAN  PATENTS,  TRADE  MARKS,  aud  COPYRIGHTS, 
promptly  attended  to.  His  experience,  success  ad  faithful 
atention  to  the  interests  of  those  who  eng^.ge  his  services 
are  fully  acknowledged  aud  appreciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  made  for  him  by  a  reliable  As 
sistant  at  Washington,  without  extra  charge  for  drawing 
or  descrijjtiou.  [9-1-tf 

prtT  T^  Any  worker  can  make  $12  a  day  at  home.    Costly 


1 0-2-1 y* 


(  Outfit  free.    Address  True  &  Co.,  Augusta,  Me. 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 


DEALKB    IN 


AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY! TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

Repairing  strictly  attended  to. 

$66''Ta1r^s/THr.Irx?-&crPo\trd,°Ml^^^^^^^  !  North  Queen-st.  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster.  Pa. 

lU-2-ly»  I      9-4-ly 


MINERALS,  SCIENTIFIC  AND    MEDICAL   BOOKS, 
SHELLS,  FOSSILS,  BIRDS'  EGGS, 

And  all  objects  of  NATURAL  HISTORY  are  bought,  sold  and  exchanged 

By  A.  E.  FOOTE,  M  .D., 

1223  Belmont  Avenue,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


Specimens  sent  to  any  part  of  the  world  bj  mail  Specimen  copy  of  an  illustrated  monthly  bulletiu  of  IG  pages  sent 
free.    Subscription  50  cents  a  year;  for  club  rates  see  each  monthly  Issue. 

I  received  the  highest  award  given  to  any  one  at  ihe  Centennial  Exposition  for  1876,  and  the  only  award  aud  medal 
given  to  any  American  for  "  Collection  of  Minerals." 

My  Mineralogical  Catalogue  of  50  pages  is  distributed  free  to  all  customers,  to  others  on  receipt  of  10  cents.  It  i» 
profusely  illustrated,  aud  the  printer  and  engraver  charged  me  about  $900.00  before  a  copy  was  struck  off.  By  means  of 
the  table  of  species  and  accomi  auyiug  tables  most  species  may  be  verified.  The  price  list  is  an  excellent  checklist, 
containing  the  uames  of  all  the  species  and  the  more  common  varietiee,  arranged  alphabetically  aud  7ireceded  by  th& 
species  number.  The  speHes  number  iudicates  the  place  of  any  mineral  in  the  table  of  species;  after  it  will  be  found 
the"  specie^  name,  composition,  streak  or  lustre,  cleavape  or  fracture,  hardness,  specific  gravity,  fusibility  and  crystal- 
lization.   I  have  very  many  species  not  on  the  price  list,  and  some  that  I  had  in  1876  are  no  longer  in  stock. 

COLLECTIONS  OF  MINERALS 

Tor  Students,  Amateurs,  Profossers,  Pbysiclans,  and  other  Professional  Hen. 

The  collectioiis  of  100  illustrate  all  the  principal  speciea  and  all  the  grand  subdivisions  in  Dana  and  other  works  on 
Mineralogy;  every  Crystalline  System;  all  the  principal  Ores  and  Minerala  iu  which  have  been  found  every  known 
Element.  The  colUections  are  labeled  with  printed  label  that  can  only  be  removed  by  soaking.  The  labelp  of  the  $5.00 
and  higher  pi-iced  collections  give  Dana's  sjecies  number,  the  uame,  locality,  and  in  most  cases,  the  composition  of  the 
Mineral.  All  collections  accompanied  by  my  lUustrated  Catalogue  and  table  of  species.  The  sizes  given  are  average  ; 
some  small  -r,  many  larger. 


Number  of  Specimens. 


Cryet  als  and  fragments 

Student's  size,  larger 

Amateur's  size.  2i^  in.  x  IJ^ 

High  Schooler  Academy  size,  2^x3)^  in.,  Shelf  Specimens. 
College  size,  3>(;'x6  in..  Shelf  .Specimens 


25 
iu  box 


$    50 
1  60 


50 
in  box 


$1  00 
3  00 


100 
in  box 


$1  60 
6  00 


100 


200 


$1  00  12  00 

6  00  10  00 

10  00  26  no 

25  00  50  00 

50  00  1 150  00 


300 


$3  00 

25  00 

50  00 

100  00 

300  00 


I  have  now  over  thirty-tive  tons,  and  over  $40,000  worth  of  Minerals,  mostly  crystaUized,  in  stock.  It  is  well  recog- 
nized that  my  prices  are  lower  and  my  specimens  moie  accurately  labeled  thau  those  of  any  other  dealer  in  the  country. 
This  is  mainly  due  to  the  immeuse  stock  I  carry  (the  largest  iu  minerals  of  any  in  the  country)  and  my  system  of  printed 
labels  attached  tDthe  s/ecimeue.  I  can  refer  to  the  following  Gentlemeu  aud  Colleges,  all  of  whom,  with  th  nisands  of 
others,  have  bought  specimens  of  me;  most  of  them  have  given  me  especial  permission  to  use  their  names  as  reference. 

Prof.  S.  F.  Baird.  Prof.  F.  V.  Harden;  Dr.  Joseph  Leidy,  Prof.  F.  A.  Genth,  Prof.  J.  D.  and  E.  S.  Dana,  Prof.  G.  J. 
Brush,  Prof.J.P.  Cooke,  Prof  N.  H.  Wiiicbell,  Prof.  S.  F.  Peckham,  Prof.  T.  Eggleston,  Prof.  J.  S.  Newberry,  Prot.  C.  F. 
Chandler,  Prof.  K.  H.  Richards,  Mrs.  Prof.  Ellen  S.  Kiehards,  Prof.  Maria  8.  Eaton,  Prof.  T.  Sterry  Hunt,  Prof  Henry 
How,  \Vm.  S.  Vaux,  C.  S.  Bemeuf,  N.  Spang,  T.  A.  Greeu,  Prof.  J.  W.  Mallett,  Prof.  E.  A.  Smith,  Prof.  .J.  Lawrence 
Smith,  Prof.  G.  A.  Koenig,  Dr.  T,  M.  Chatard,  Ph.  D„  Prof.  H.  B.  Cornwall,  Prof.  P.  T.  Austen,  Laurence  Malheiro,  Lis- 
bon, Portugal ;  Prof.  Orton,  Prof.  Ira  Reniseu,  General  A.  Gadoliu,  Imp.  School  of  Miijes  St.  Petersburg,  Russia  ; 
Prof.  A.  E.  Nordenschiold.  Koyul  Museum.  Stockholm,  Sweden  ;  Dr.  Nic  »lo  Moreira,  Imjierial  Museum,  Rio  de  .Janeiro, 
Brazil  ;  British  Museum,  Royal  Museum,  Berlin  ;  Dr.  P.  E.  Defferari,  Italy  ;  Harvard  Unibersily,  University  of  Minne- 
sota, Yale  College,  Wisconsin  University,  Columbia  College,  Michigan  University,  Wellesley  College,  Illiuois  Industrial 
Uuiversity,  Massachuattts  Institute  of  Technology,  Col.  School  of  Mines,  University  of  Virgiuia,  University  of  Missouri, 
Eutger's  College,  University  of  Notre  Dame,  Princeton  College,  University  of  Nashville.  Johns  Hopkins  University, 
Uuiversity  jf  Georgia,  Waco  University,  Texas ;  University  of  Oho,  and  many  others  iu  Missisaippi,  Alabama,  Oregon, 
Washingtou  Territory,  California,  Iowa,  Canada,  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Indiana,  Kentucky,  Chili,  England, 
Brazil,  Germany,  Australia,  &c.,  &c. 

Catalogue  of  2,600  species  of  Shells,  made  for  me  by  Geo.  W.  Tryon,  Jr.,  who  has  labeled  nearly  all  my  shells,  3  ots., 
printed  on  heavy  paper  with  genns  label  list  10  cts.  I  have  purchased  one  or  two  of  the  most  celebrated  ooHections 
ki  own,  aud  have  now  over  2,000  lbs..  3,1100  species,  and  30,000  specimens  of  Shells  and  Corals  iu  stock.  Catalogue  of 
Birds,  Eggs,  Eyes,  Skins,  &c.,  &c..  3  cents.  Catalogue  of  Books,  Natural  History,  including  Zoology,  Botany,  Agricnl- 
ture.  Horticulture,  &c..  10  pp.,  3  cts.  Medicines,  &c.,  10  pp.,  3  cts.  Geolog.v,  Mineralogy,  Mining  aud  Metallurgy,  Stiite 
Surveys,  Travels,  &c.,  16  pji.,  3  cts.  Chemistry,  Physics,  Astronomy,  Meteorology,  &c.,  16  pp,,  3  cts.  A  large  stock  of 
Fossils  and  Rocks,  Plants,  Ferns  and  .Ugee  on  hand.  While  I  hive  made  Mineralogy  a  specialty,  as  is  evtnred  by  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  specimens  of  Amazon  Stoue,  Rulile,  Brookite.  Perofskite,  Amethyst,  Smoky  Quartz,  Green 
Wavellite,  Gothlte,  Variscite,  &c  ,  &c.,  that  I  have  sent  all  oveFthc  world  at  from  one-half  to  one-tenth  the  price  they 
were  ever  sold  at  before.I  furnish  collections  of  Shells.  Rocks, &c.,  at  nearly  as  low  rates.  The  Society  for  the  Encourage- 
ment ol  Studies  at  Home  has  for  a  long  time  recommended  their  corsespoudents  to  get  their  collections  of  Rocks  and 
Minerals  of  me.  As  the  correct  naiuiug  of  the  specimeus  will  be  the  important  point  to  most  persons,  I  feel  justified  iu 
mentioning  that  I  have  be  n  a  collector  of  Minerals  for  fifteen  years  ;  that  I  was  a  student  under  Prof.  Wolcott  Gibbe,  at 
Cambridge,  aud  Prof.  A.  Hoffman,  at  Berlin,  I  was  also  Instructor  at  Michigan  University,  aud  Professor  iu  the  Iowa 
S.  A-  College  iu  Chemistry  and  Mineralogy  for  six  yeaas. 

Send  for  the ''Naturalist's  Leisure  Hour,"  giving  full  particulars.     Specimen  copy  free.    You  will   confer  a  double 
favor  by  handing  this  to  some  physician,  or  other  person  interested  in  science. 

A.  E.  FOOTE,  M.  D  , 

1228  BELMONT  AVE.,  PHILADELPHIA,  PA., 

Professor  of  Chemistry  and  MIneralogry, 

Fellow  of  the  American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science  ;  Life  Member  of  the 
Philadelphia  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  and  of  the  American  Museum 
10-10-3m]  of  Natural  History,  Central  Park,  Hew  York. 


$1  a  Year 


(To  anbBcriberB  in 
\      the  county. 


SIITGLS  COFZSS  10  CENTS. 


To  subscribern  out  of  ) 
the  county.         j" 


$1.26. 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  FEBRUARY  15,  1877. 


UNNSUS  EATHVON,  Publisher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Hade  a  prominent  feature,  with  Bpecial  reference  to  the 
wants  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit-Grower. 


Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 

Edited  by  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


The  Lanoabtbb  Fakmfb  havius  completed  its  eighth 
year  under  various  viciBsitudes,  now  commences  its  ninth 
volume  under,  it  is  hoj^ed,  more  favorable  auspices  than 
attended  its  former  volumes.  When  the  publishers  of  the 
last  two  voImncB  assumed  the  responsibilities  of  its  publi- 
calion,  it  wiis  with  a  deteiminatiou  to  make  such  improve- 
ments as*  would  place  the  fuimer's  organ  of  th  s  great  agri- 
cultural county  in  the  very  front  rank  of  agricuUural  jour- 
nabam  That  this  has  been  accomplished  we  think  our 
readers  will  bear  cheerful  teslimony.  If  reason  bly  sus- 
tained, our  aim  is  to  mako  it  still  more  iu'eresting  and  in- 
Btniclive  under  te  new  pioprietorshij*.  In  this,  however, 
we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  friend  of  the  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor.  Prof,  Rathvon,  on 
Bubjecle  connected  with  the  science  of  faiming,  and  partic- 
ularly that  specialty  of  which  he  in  so  thoroughly  a  master- 
entomological  science— some  know  ledge  of  wlUcU  has  become 
a  necessity  to  thesuccessful  farmer,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  than  the  price  of  this  \  ublication. 

Thk  Farmer  will  be  published  on  the  l-iith  of  every 
month,  i>rinted  on  good  paper  with  clear  tyjie,  in  con- 
venient form  for  reading  and  binding,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
■cribers  on  the  following 

TERMS: 

To  subscribers  residing  withiu  the  county- 
One  Copy,  one  year,    -.--__  $1.00 
Six  Copies,  one  year,     -            -          -          -          .          .  c.qo 
Ten  Copies,  one  year.    ------_  jcq 

To  subscribers  outside  of  Lancaster  ooonty,  including 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  publiaUers: 

One  Copy,  one  year,    -  .        -         -         .         ,         $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       -        -        .  .  .        .         5.00 

AU  subscriptions  will  commence  with  the  Janoftry  num- 
ber unless  otherwise  ordered. 

All  cwramunic^itious  intended  for  publication  should  be 
addressed  to  the  Editor,  and,  to  secure  insertion,  should  be 
in  his  hands  by  the  first  of  the  month  of  publication. 

All  business  letters,  containing  subscriptions  and  adver- 
tisements, should  be  addressed  to  the  publisher. 


LINN^US  RATHVON, 

32  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATE.S  OF  ADVERTISINO—Ten    Cents    n 
line  Tor  each  Insertion.     Twelve  liuea  to  the  inoh 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 


General  Readers,           ------  17 

A  Special  Appeal,             -----  17 

To  Subscribers,              17 

To  Our  Canvassing  Friends,      -        -        -        -  17 

The  Ayrault  Cattle,      ------  17 

The  Fire  Fly,     -------  18 

The  Guava,  --------  IS 

Table  Customs,          ------  18 

Newspaper  Makiug,      ---...  19 

Strani^e  Substances  in  a  Horse's  Stomach,       -  19 

The  Dangerous  and  Terrible  Quail,      -        -        -  19 

Fish,  Flesh  and  Fowl,        -----  20 

Leek.  Allium  rorum,           -        -        -        -        -  20 

Gleanings,  A.  B.  A'.,         -----  21 

By  Rail  to  Frederick,  Md.    H.  M.  Englb           -  21 

Build  Bird  Houses.    J.  B.  Erb.        -        -        -  21 

Lice  on  Currant  Bushes.     Old  CuLtlvATOB.     -  22 

Otter  of  Roses, 22 

Farmers  vs. Sportsmen.    F.R.Diffenderffr  -  22 

Influence  of  Reading,        -----  23 

Tobacco,        -        -        - 24 

Letter  from  Daniel  Webster  to   the   Farmer   in 

Charge  of  his  Marshfield  Plantation,         -  24 

The  Breeding  of  Silk  Worms,       .        -        -        -  25 

Hog  Cholera,     -------  25 

The  Arabian  Horse,       ------  26 

Baked  Corn  and  Eggs,      -----  26 

Our  Local  Organizations,     -----  27 

ProceediDgs  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural 
and  Horticultviral  Society. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,         .        -        -  87 

The  Linnoean  Society, -28 

AGRICULTURAL. 

A  Successful  Farm  Operation,          -        -        -  29 
Deerport    Farm — The   Virst    EBsay — About  the 
PeUH — CharacteriBticH   of    the    Busiuess — The 
Market  Suiiplied— Other  Details— The  Dairy. 

The  Fodder  Value  of  Apples,        -        -        -        -  29 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Cultivation  of  Chiccory,             -        ...  09 

Covering  of  Strawberries,    -        -        .        .        .  19 

Fruits  oi^  Kansas,       ------  SO 

How  to  Malic  a  Hot  Bed, SO 

Ink  for  Horticultural  Labels,    -        -        -        -     •  SO 

The  English  Hop  Trade, SO 

Grafting  Currants,    --....  30 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Boiled  Dinners,     ----..  30 

Repairing  Leaky  Cellar  Walls,         ...  .30 
Handy  Men,           .-.-...30 

Hpiiliiiful  Beds, 31 

Valuable  Recipes,         .---..  31 

LIVE  STOCK. 
Experiments  on  the  Nutrition  of  Domestic  Ani- 
mals ------ -31 

The  Hcrse  Growers,      ------  31 

Symptoms  of  Rabies  in  Dogs,            ...  31 

Lumps  on  Udders, 31 

BEE  CULTURE. 

Queen  Bees, -        -  32 

Managing  Queens,        ------  3;i 

Golden  Rules  for  Bee-Keeping,         -        -        -  32 

Wholesale  Death  of  Honey  Bees,         -        -        -  Si 

Literary  Notices,       ------  32 


S.  H.  ZAHM.&CO., 

SECOND-HAND  BOOK  STORE. 

33  South  Queen-st., 
LANCASTER,  PENNA. 

Buyers  of  all  kinds  of  Boukt^,  new  or  Be«ond  hand.      Also, 

for  sale  a  large  stock  of  Books  very  low. 

OIVE  U8  A  CALL. 


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DRY  GOODS  AND  GROCERIES, 

I'Ifap  unil  no'iil  GItT  GOODS 

GROCERIES,  GL^SS  AND  QUEENSWARE, 

Cakes  aud  Couficlioiis,  TriBamiiiRS.  fcc,  at 

KLEIHS'  FA  MILY  STORE, 

on  the  Northwest  Corner  of  North  Queen  and  Janic»-ets  . 
LANCA8TFK,  PA. 
9-2-It]       All  fresh  uid  new,  good  and  cheap. 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


Rntes 

»f  Advertising  In  the  Farmer. 

1  iu.  1 

3iu. 

4  in. 

Sin. 

8  in. 

$1.00  t  2.00 

t  3.00 
6.00 
6.75 
9.00 
13.50 
18.00 
■27  (0 

$4.00 
8.00 
10.00 
12.00 
18.00 
24.00 
30.00 

$  6.00 
12.00 
13.. nO 
18,00 
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36  01 
54.00 

$  8.00 

2  00 
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j.-.n 

6.00 
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S  mo 

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48.00 
72  00 

J3?~S^ecial 

and^bUBinesB  notices  15  cents  per  Hue. 

PENNSYLVANIA  RA 

Traina  leave  the  Depot 


WE   TWARD, 

Pacific  Ex^iress" 

"Way  PaBBeijgert   

Niagara  Express 

Toik  Accommodation.    ... 

Mail  train  via  Mt.  Joy 

No.  2  via  Columbia 

Sunday  Mail 

Fast  Line" 

Frederick  Aecommodatiou. 

Harrieburg  Accom 

Columbia  Accon-modation.. 

Harrisburg  Expiess 

Pittsburg  ExpresB 

Cincinnati  Express* 


EASTWARD, 

Atlantic  txpress" 

Philadelphia  Expresst 

Harrisburg  Express 

Columbia  Accommodation. 

Pacific  Exp)  ess* 

Sundiiy  Mail 

Johnstown  Express 

Harrisburg  Accom. 


NCIIKUIJJLE. 

as  follows : 

Arrive 

Harrisburg. 

4:05  a.  m. 

7:50  a.  m. 

10:40  a.  m. 

Col.  10:10  a.  m. 

1:00  p.  m. 

1:20  p.  m. 

1:30  p.  m. 

3:10  p.  m. 

Col.  2:35  p.  m. 

8:10  p.  m. 

8:00  p.  m. 

6:40  p.  m. 

10:50  p.  m. 

12:45  a.  m. 

Philadelphia. 
3:10  a.  m. 
7:00  a.  m. 
10:M0  a.  m, 
12:30  p.  ra. 
3:45  p.m. 
5:00  p.  m. 
6:00  p.  m. 
9:00  p,  m. 

The  Yoik  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancaster 
with  Niagara  Express,  west,  at  9:35  a.m.,  and  will  run 
through  to  Hanover. 

The  Frederick  Accommodation,  west,  connectsat  Lancas- 
ter with  Fast  Line,  west,  at  1:55  p.  m.,  and  runs  through  to 
Frederick  without  change  of  cais. 

The  Pacific  Express,  east,  on  Sunday,  when  flogged,  will 
fltop  at  Miildletowii,  Ebzabethtown,  Mount  Joy  and  Landis- 
ville. 

•The  only  trains  which  run  daily. 
tRuns  daily,  except  Monday. 

Fruit  and  Ornamental  Trees, 

Vines,  Plants,   Bulbs,  Roses,    Honey  Locust    and    Osage 
Orange,  very  line 

APPLE,  PEACH,  PEAR  AND  CHERRY  TREES, 

A  81  leudid  lot  of 
STI.VER  AJfD  .'»lieAR  IWAPtES 

for  ehuAe  trees.    Fine  Evzrgbeen  and  Shrubbery. 
Address  H.  31.  El\OhEi:  SON, 

9-t-2m,  Marietta,  Pa. 

SIGN  OF  THE 


ii.ieoA» 

iu  this  city, 

Leave 
Lancaster. 

2:40  a.  m. 

4:50  a.  m. 

9.35  a.  m. 

9:40  a.  m. 
11:20  a.  m. 
11:20  a.  m. 
11:89  a.m. 

1:55  p.  m. 

2:00  p.  m. 

6:10  p.  m. 

7:20  p.  m. 

7:25  p.  ra. 

9:25  p.  m, 
11:30  p.m. 

Lancaster. 
12:40  a.  m. 

4:10  a.  m. 

7:35  a.  m. 

9.28  a.  m. 

1:20  p.  m. 

2:00  p.  111. 

3:05  p.  m. 

5:50  p.  na. 


BSIS  B^^  B-OOK 


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■nscd,  ifree  of  ch-irg.>).  with  the  direclions  for  preparing  and 
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9-1 -'^m] 

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ERRORS  or  YOUTH. 

A  GENTLEMAN  who  sufifeied  for  years  from  Nervous 
Debility.  Premiiture  Deciiy,  and  all  the  effects  of  youth- 
ful indiscretion  will,  for  (he  sake  of  sufferinR  humanity, 
«endfreeto  all  who  ueed  it,  the  receipt  and  direction  for 
making  the  simi  le  lemedy  by  which  he  was  cured.  Suffer- 
ers  wishing  to  profit  by  the  adve  tiser's  experience  can  do 
BO  by  addressing  iu  perfect  conf\deuce, 
«-l-6m]  JOHN  B.  OGDKN,  42  Cedar  St.,  New  York, 


CANVASSERS  WANTED 


TO  TAKE  SUBSCRIBERS 


FOR  THE 


Farmers'  Sons  and  other  Young  Men 
during  their  leisure  hours 


CAN  MAKE  GOOD  WAGES. 


We  want  a  thorough   canvass  of  every  district,  and  will 
pay  good  canvassers  liberally.      Address 


LINN^US  RATHVON,  Publisher. 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  FEBRUARY,  1877. 


Vol.  IX.  No.  2. 


GENERAL  READERS. 

It  does  not  follow  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
the  general  reader,  or  those  i)ersoiis  not  in  any- 
way ensaKeil  in  agricultural  jnirsuits,  will  lind 
nothing  to  interest  or  benefit  them  in  the  col- 
umns of  au  agricultural  paper.  Indeed,  it 
may  be  truly  said  that  the  entire  community 
has  a  direct  "iuterest  in  the  success  of  agricul- 
ture. It  is  the  basis  of  all  the  other  interests 
of  any  district,  .State  or  nation  ;  and  where 
agriculture  cannot  be  successfully  pursued— 
save  in  a  very  exceptioual  case— no  other  iu- 
terest will  prosi>er.  Therefore,  all  have  a 
moral  or  material  interest  in  it,  whether  they 
are  mechanics,  merchants,  commercialists, 
professionalists,  or  retired  gentlemen.  Daniel 
Webster  lias  truly  said,  "  Tlie  farmer  is  the 
founder  <if  civilization  ,•"  for  if  no  tarming  were 
done  in  the  world,  it  would  truly  be  an  incom- 
parably poor  and  impoverished  place  for  any 
humaii  being  to  sojourn  in,  under  the  present 
constitution  of  human  society,  and  would 
carry  us  back  to  that  primitive  age  when  men 
lived  in  huis  and  caves.  Coeval  with  the 
very  creation  of  man,  he  was  commanded  to 
"  dress  the  garden  of  Eden  and  keep  it,"  and 
when  he  fell  from  his  original  integrity,  the 
injunction  to  "  eat  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of 
his  brow"  was  wisely  imposed  upon  him,  all 
of  which  involved  the  occuiiatiou  of  agricul- 
tural labor. 

Had  our  forefathers,  when  they  first  settled 
in  this  country,  confined  themselves  to  the 
building  of  cities,  towns  and  villages,  and  con- 
ducting all  their  affairs  therein,  and  had  not 
gone  forth  and  scattered  over  the  laud,  felling 
forests  and  tilling  the  soil,  and  had  continued 
thus  to  the  present  time,  our  country  would 
have  made  a  meagre  show  at  the  "Great  Cen- 
tennial Exposition,"  if  it  would  have  been 
able  to  survive  the  wreck  of  time  at  all. 

True,  a  few  fishing  towns  on  a  barren  coast, 
or  a  Venice  "  built  in  the  sea"  may  occasion- 
ally tlourish  for  a  time,  but  even  these  could 
not  long  exist  if  it  were  not  for  the  agricul- 
tural productions  which  they  receive  from  else- 
where in  exchange  for  their  own  local  produc- 
tions. All  the  material  which  supports  com- 
merce, manufactures,  mechanics,  and  what- 
ever other  interest  that  is  necessary  for  the 
development  and  progress  of  the  human  fam- 
ily, comes  out  of  the  soil,  and  is  directly  or 
indirectly  related  to  agriculture  ;  and-  surely 
an  occupation  wliich  is  so  intimately  connected 
with  the  welfare  of  human  soc'iety,  must  be  of 
sufficient  interest  to  human  beings  to  elicit 
some  recognition  of  its  liter.ature  that  is  more 
than  merely  passive — a  literature  that  is  prac- 
tical, useful,  beautifying,  ennobling  and  hap- 
pifying. 

There  are  fruit,  floral,  vegetable,  domestic 
and  economical  questions  discussed  in  agri- 
cultural papers,  which  reach  into  every  house- 
hold, whether  in  town  or  country,  and  wheth- 
er the  occupant  cultivates  a  farm,  a  garden, 
or  only  a  single  flower-pot  in  the  window; 
and  it  may  well  be  regarded  as  an  indolent, 
a  selfish,  or  a  shiftless  family,  where  these 
things  are  entirely  ignored.  There  is  no 
"hub,"  or  general  centre  where  all  the  know- 
ledge on  any  subject  is  monopolized.  Knowl- 
edge is  ditVusive,  and  although  in  its  ditl'usion 
much  may  get  abroad  that  is  trivial,  or  even 
worthless,  yet,  it  all  may  contain  more  or  less 
grains  thai  are  useful  to  some  one;  and,  if 
people  will  bestow  a  reasonable  degree  of 
culture  u])on  their  minds,  they  will  soon  be 
able  to  sift  the  subjects  brought  before  them 
in  reading — be  al)le  to  gather  and  ai>propriate 
the  wheat  and  blow  the  chatf  away.  The 
earth  produces  nothing  that  does  not  contain 
more  or  less  dross  -  nothing,  a  portion  of 
which  is  not  rejected  as  useless.  This  seems 
to  be  a  condition  of  the  things  incidental  to 
fallen  humanity,  and  therefore  it  is  not  sur- 


l)rising  that  many  useless  things  should  get 
into  print.  But,  oven  under  these  circum- 
stances, it  often  transpires  that  what  is  not 
useful  or  interesting  to  one,  may  be  not  only 
usefid,  but  of  great  importance  to  another. 

Many  important  enterprises,  sublime  ideas, 
great  events,  and  useful  inventions  have  been 
suggested  and  subsequently  elaborated, 
through  some  small  hint  received  in  reading 
a  newspaper,  a  magazine,  or  a  book— .some 
practical  thought  that  was  in  harmony  with 
the  experincc  of  the  reader,  but  which  he 
felt  too  diffident  to  make  known,  and  might 
have  abandoned,  but  for  such  sui)port.  It  is 
even  so  in  domestic  economy;  in  the  different 
professional  callings;  in  matters  relating  to 
popular  science;  in  agricultural  affairs,  and  in 
mechanics,  manufactures  and  in  commerce. 

Many  long  years  ago  we  heard  of  a  yovnig 
man  learning  the  first  rudiments  of  a  profes- 
sion— which  he  subsequently  applied  himself 
to  and  followed  during  his  whole  life — in  an 
occupation  which,  as  a  whole,  had  no  relation 
to  it  whatever.  It  is  thus  that  the  readers  of 
an  agricultural  journal  may  find  something 
in  its  columns  that  may  be  useful  to  them,  no 
matter  what  their  secular  occupation  may  be. 
On  the  platform  of  domestic  economy,  at 
least,  the  whole  civilized  portion  of  the  hu- 
man family  is  in  sympathy,  and  fii;ds  a  com- 
mon ground.  This  is  so  because  of  the  ho- 
mogeneity of  their  physical  wants,  and  their 
mutual  dependence  upon  each  other.  Think 
of  this  and  subscribe  for  the  Farmer. 


A  SPECIAL  APPEAL. 

From  the  very  peculiar  situation  in  which 
we  have  been  placed  for  the  last  month  or 
two,  we  are  compelled  to  make  an  apology  to 
our  readers  for  not  only  our  late  appearance, 
but  also  for  the  absence  of  our  usual 
quantumo  of  original  matter  and  contri- 
butions from  our  friends.  Being  now 
fairly  on  our  feet  again,  we  shall  en- 
deavor hereafter  to  be  "up  to  time"  with  our 
readers.  And  here  we  woidd  respectfully  ask 
our  contributors  to  lend  us  their  generous  aid 
in  making  the  Farmer  the  reflex  of  the  senti- 
ment of  the  practical  men  of  the  county — in- 
cluding agriculturists,  horticulturists,  flori- 
culturists, gardeners,  tobacco  growers,  bee 
keepers,  millers,  mechanics,  machinists,  cheese 
manufacturers,  dairymen,  miners,  lime- 
burners  and  industrial  pursuits  in  general. 
We  entertain  a  becoming  pride  of  our  name, 
our  locality,  our  resources,  our  wealth,  and 
our  productions,  and  we  desire  to  have  them 
properly  represented  abroad;  and  if  we  can 
succeed  in  doiuir  so,  we  feel  that  they  will  not 
be  to  our  discredit.  That  has  heretofore  been 
our  aim,  and  we  will  endeavor,  with  the  aid 
of  our  friends,  to  continue  it  so.  Then,  gen- 
tle patrons,  please  "bear  a  hand,"  and  help 
us  on.  And  we  would  respectfully  desire  to 
impress  the  fact  ujion  the  farmers  of  Lancas- 
ter county,  and  our  readers  in  particular, 
that  in  order  to  sustain  their  local  journal  as 
it  ought  to  be  sustained,  as  their  rejiresenta- 
tive  in  the  agricultutal  interests  of  the  county 
and  the  country,  they  ought  to  continue  their 
efforts  to  increase  our  suKscription  list. 
There  is  no  reason  why  Lancaster  county 
should  not  be  a  leading  county  in  agricultural 
literature,  as  well  as  she  is  in  her  public  and 
private  .schools;  her  iron,  zinc  and  nickel 
mines;  her  tobacco  culture;  her  dairy  produc- 
tions; her  fanning  mills  and  other  imple- 
ments of  husbandry;  her  flour  mills,  and  in 
her  general  domestic  produce.  She  is  an  em- 
pire in  herself,  and  she  ought  to  aspire  to  the 
literary  dignity  of  an  empire.  She  need  not 
necessarily  withhold  her  patronage  from  other 
worthy  journals;  but,  under  any  circumstan- 
ces, she  sliould  extend  a  liberal  patronage  to 
her  own  home  jouiiial.    We  disclaim  egotism, 


or  we  could  satisfactorily  illustrate  that  the 
whole  county,  as  an  agricultural  district,  has 
been  enhanced  in  general  esteem  abroad  by 
the  existence  of  the  Farmer. 

TO  SUBSCRIBERS. 

As  the  publisher  of  the  Farmer  has  com- 
menced the  enterprise  without  any  surplus  of 
pecuniary  means,  and  as  material  and  lalior 
are  tilings  that  demand  ra.s/i,  he  respectfully 
admoni.shes  his  ]iatrons  that  their  subscrip- 
tions will  be  thankfully  received;  therefore, 
they  will  confer  a  sjiecial  favor  by  calling 
upon  the  editor,  corner  of  North  (^ueen  and 
Orange  streets  or  at  the  Examiner  and  Ex- 
press odice.  No.  22  Soutli  Ciueen  street.  Money 
liy  mail  should  only  be  sent  hy  a  post-office 
order,  but  where  this  medium  is  not  accessi- 
ble, they  can  avail  themselves  of  the  visits  of 
their  resiionsible  friends. 

Those  outside  of  a  jirinting  office  have  a 
very  imi)erfect  conception  of  the  difficulties  of 
"making  both  ends  meet'-'  in  conducting  a 
journal  on  a  limited  subscription  list.  Where 
the  issues  are  comited  by  tens,  twenties,  and 
thirties  of  thousands,  there  is  "plain  sailing." 


TO  OUR  CANVASSING    FRIENDS 

We  feel  a  sperial  thankfulness  to  our  fiiends 
Messrs.  Henry  M.  Engle,  Israel  E.  Eaudis, 
Peter  S.  Reist,  Levi  S.  Reist,  Calvin 
Cooper,  Martin,  D.  Kendig,  A.  B.  Kise 
and  D.  Resh,  for  the  zeal  and  the 
persevering  industry  they  have  exhibited 
in  procuring  subscriptions  for  the  Farmer. 
The  efforts  of  twenty— in  Lancaster  county — 
of  such  men,  would  put  our  journal  on  s\ich  a 
footing  as  would  be  a  pleasure  in  conducting 
and  improvini:  it,  and  place  its  pecuniary  con- 
dition beyond  the  reach  of  financial  di.saster. 
We  hope  those  good  friends  and  others  who 
take  an  interest  in  the  moral  and  material 
progress  of  our  county,  will  continue  their  la- 
bors, as  opportunity  may  ofier.  Everyone 
can  do  a  little;  if  it  is  only  the  obtaining  of  a 
single  subscriber,  and  these  "little  things" 
will  ultimately  become  the  aggregate  of  an 
efticient  sustaining  power. 


THE  AYRAULT  CATTLE. 
Some  of  our  readers  may  be  able  to  recall 
these  fine  animals,  which  were  on  exhibition 
fora  short  jieriod  at  the  Sorrel  Horse  hotel, 
West  King  street,  Lancaster,  in  the  early 
part  of  the  jnesent  year,  and  which  were  rep- 
resented as  "the  two  heaviest  and  Ijest  cattle 
ever  exhibited  in  America."  The  "  Queen" 
was  a  heifer  seven  years  old,  and  weighing 
.■!,700  pounds,  and  the  "Champion,"  an  ox 
four  years  old,  and  weighing  3,300  pounds. 
These  cattle  were  owned  and  raised  and  fat- 
tened by  Mr.  Geo.  Ayrault,  well  known  as  a 
cattle  grower  and  breeder,  of  New  York 
State,  and  had  been  on  the  return  from  the 
Centennial  Exhibition,  where  the  proprietor 
had  offered  $500  to  any  one  who  could  excel 
them,  or  either  of  them.  To  our  view  the  ox 
was  a  fine  and  symmetrically  formed  animal, 
but  the  heifer  seemed  imwieldy,  as  all  she 
things  are  when  they  attain  gigantic  propor- 
tions. If  excessive  larire  size  is  an  es.sential 
qualification  in  the  estimate  of  catte,  these 
certainly  possessed  tliat  merit;  and  with  all 
our  fine  stock,  we  dont  think  anybody  in  Lan- 
caster county,  j!(st  nnw,  can  take  uptliat$.500; 
and  perhaps  they  don't  care  about  doing  so. 
Large  as  they  are,  there  is  probably  more 
profit,  as  a  general  rule,  in  cattle  of  lighter 
weight. 

Tf  every  subscriber  of  The  Farmer  would 
just  try  and  make  an  effort  to  add  a  new  one 
to  our"  list,  it  would  soon  put  us  on  a  sound 
footing. 


i8 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  February, 


THE  FIRE  FLY. 

Newport,  Perry  co.,  Pa.,  Jan.  31,  1877. 
Dear  Sir  :  We  have  found  a  "  Firefly"  in  our  fern- 
ery, which  is  covered  by  a  glass  shade,  and  it 
UlumiDates  very  nicely  in  the  evenings.  Please  tell 
me  if  it  was  likely  to  have  been  lying  dormant  when 
the  ferns  were  removed  in  the  fall,  or  if  it  has  been 
hatched  from  eggs  laid  on  the  plants  last  summer.  I 
think  it  quite  a  curiosity,  and  would  like  to  increase 
the  stock  next  summer,  if  it  is  possible.      M.  B.  E. 

You  may  liave  taken  into  your  fernery  last 
fall  either  a  dormant  (cM-i'a,  impa,  or  an  imago 
of  this  insect,  but  hardly  its  eggs.  The  time 
would  have  been  too  short  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  beetle,  even  if  you  had  taken  in 
the  eggs^  which  are  not  likely  to  be  extant  in 
the  fall.  It  is  well  known  that  these  insects 
normally  appear  during  the  month  of  June, 
which  is  their  nuptial  season,  and  before  the 
end  of  July  they  have  all  disappeared.  After 
the  females  are  fertilized,  they  lay  their  eggs 
on  the  ground,  fastened  to  some  object,  as 
moss,  roots,  grass,  and  protected  from  the  sun. 
Both  the  laixw  and  the  mature  insects  are 
carniverous,  feeding  on  other  soft- bodied  in- 
sects, and  especially  on  small*  snails ;  and 
here  would  come  in  the  difficulty  in  attempting 
to  raise  them.  By  the  time  fall  comes,  the 
larvm  are  well  advanced,  if  not  mature,  or 
changed  to  impa ;  so  that  you  may  have  taken 
your  subject  into  your  fernery  in  one  of  those 
forms.  The  development  of  insects  depends 
more  upon  the  surrounding  temperatm^e  than 
upon  the  season  of  the  year. 

Many  species  which  we  only  find  in  the 
spring  and  summer,  will  evolve  in  mid-winter 
when  the  normal  conditions  are  favorable. 

In  passing  up  North  Queen  street  on  the 
3d  of  February,  we  found  a  group  of  men 
standing  opposite  the  Keystone  Hotel,  look- 
ing at  a  swarm  of  bees,  which  three  or  four 
years  ago  located  itself  under  the  eaves  of 
the  roof.  They  were  out  and  on  the  wing  in 
thousands,  and  as  lively  as  they  are  in  sum- 
mer; but  as  the  weather  has  changed  to  ex- 
treme cold,  you  might  look  in  vain  for  them 
to-day  {17th. )  In  their  vital  energies  they  are 
governed  by  lieat,  and  not  by  days,  or  mouths 
or  seasons. 

A  distinguished  foreign  entomologist  dis- 
covered that  some  species  of  "Plant-lice" 
[Ajohids)  would  produce  fourteen  generations 
in  a  season,  and  then  deposit  the  necessary 
eggs  to  carry  them  over  to  the  next  season ; 
and  hence  the  books  told  us  that  this  was  the 
limit  of  their  viviparous  producing  power. 
But  another  foreign  entomologist  removed  a 
colonv  to  a  green-house,  before  they  had  pro- 
duced their  oviparous  brood,  and  found  that 
they  continued  to  produce  viviparously  as 
long  as  the  normal  temperature  was  supplied, 
even  up  to  the  twenty-sixth  or  thirtieth  gen- 
eration. Of  course,  not  having  seen  your  in- 
sect, we  cannot  tell  exactly  what  species  you 
refer  to,  (for  we  liave  more  than  one  lumin- 
ous species)  but  we  presume  it  is  the  "com- 
mon firefly,"  Photinui  scintillans,  Say,  of  which 
our  meadows,  wardens,  lawns,fields  and  woods, 
become  so  luminously  gemmed  during  early 
summer;  and  the  larvcB  of  which  must  neces- 
sarily destroy  millions  of  minute  noxious  ani- 
mals. 


THE  GUAVA. 


"  This  tropical  fruit  is  now  becoming  quite 
extensively  disseminated  over  the  Gulf  States, 
with  the  prospect  of  proving  quite  remunera- 
tive to  its  owners.  The  genus  Psidium  of 
Linnaeus  contains  several  species  very  dif- 
ferent in  their  characters  and  flavors.  The 
fruit  varies  in  size  from  a  plum  to  an  orange, 
and  ripens  continuously  for  nine  mouths  in 
the  year.  Considering,  among  other  good 
qualities,  the  rapid  growth  of  the  tree,  its  early 
fruiting  and  large  crops,  I  presume  there  will 
be  little  difficulty  in  .supplying  the  demand.  A 
correspondent  in  Florida  states  that  the  best 
four  varieties  for  cultivation  are  P.  pyriferum, 
L. ;  P.  aromaticum,  Aubl. ;  P.  pomiferum,  L. ; 
and  P.  lineatifolium,  Pers.     Surely  the  time 

*  On  one  occaeion  Mr.  Geo.  Hensel,  of  this  city,  found 
about  two  hundred  of  the  common  firefliee  banqueting  on  a 
large  suail,  in  his  garden,  and  we  found  about  fifty  so  oc- 
cupied, on  our  owu  premises. 


is  rapidly  approaching  when  our  northern 
markets  'will  be  supplied  with  all  manner  of 
tropical  productions  from  our  own  shores." — 
JV.  T.   IVihxme. 

Bring  them  along ;  but  until  they  arrive,  let 
us  have  a  little  more  talk  about  them,  to  see 
whether  we  shall  like  them  or  not  when  they 
do  come. 

"  This  genus  of  tropical  fruits  belongs  to 
the  natural  family  Jf?/rfacce  and  the  Isosandria 
Monngynia  of  Lin." 

"There  are  seven  or  eight  species  of  the 
guava  known  to  botanists— some  natives  of 
Asia  and  others  of  tropical  America."  (Rind 
367.) 

"  The  White  Guava — '■'■  Psidium  pyriferum— 
is  the  best,  and  also  the  most  abundant  in  the 
West  Indies.  When  wild,  the  white  guava  is 
a  shrub,  rather  than  a  tree,  as  it  seldom  ex- 
ceeds eight  or  nine  feet  in  height ;  but  when 
introduced  into  gardens,  it  attains  the  size  of 
an  ordinary  apple  tree,  with  a  trunk  about  six 
feet  high  and  six  inches  in  diameter.  The  wood 
isveryhard  and  tough;  the  leaves  are  from  two 
to  three  inches  long,  and  grow  in  pairs  oppo- 
site each  other  ;  the  flower  is  white,  and  has  a 
very  agreeable  flavor  ;  the  fruit  is  rather  larger 
than  a  hen's  egg,  of  a  sulphurous  yellow,  very 
smooth,  and  has  a  peculiar  smell ;  it  is  cov- 
ered with  a  rind  of  some  thickness,  witliin 
which  are  seeds,  contained  in  a  pulp  without 
a  shell.  The  pulp  is  flesh-colored,  sweet,  aro- 
matic, and  very  grateful  to  the  palate.  It  is 
used  as  a  desert  fruit,  and  also  preserved  with 
sugar  ;  and  guava  jelly  is  esteemed  one  of  the 
finest  conserves  that  come  from  the  West 
Indies.  By  proper  culture  it  may  be  brought 
to  be  a  large  and  handsome  tree ;  but  when 
wild,  it  remains  shrubby,  and  overruns  the 
land. 

"The  Red  Gna,va,— Psidium  pomiferum— is 
a  much  larger  tree  than  the  white  ;  tlie  trunk 
often  attaining  the  height  of  twenty  feet.  On 
])oor  soils,  however,  it  is  apt  to  be  rugged  and 
shrubby.  The  leaves  are  of  a  light  green  ; 
the  flovsrers,  white  ;  and  the  fruit  shaped  like 
a  pomegranate,  and  having  an  agreeable  odor 
when  ripe.  As  a  fruit,  however,  many  of 
the  authorities  represent  it  as  very  inferior  to 
the  white  guava  ;  but  it  is  probable  that  they 
have  found  it  in  the  wild  state,  for  it  appeared 
to  be  much  improved  by  culture." 

"The  mountain  guava,  found  in  the  woods 
of  Jamaica,  is  not  luuch  esteemed  as  a  fruit 
tree,  but  it  grows  to  a  large  size  ;  the  wood 
is  of  a  beautiful  dark  color,  finely  curled, 
easily  worked,  susceptible  of  a  high  polish, 
and  therefore  much  valued  as  a  timber  tree." 
In  a  paper  read  to  the  Horticultural  Society 
(England)  Mr.  Cattley,  of  Barnet,  gives  an 
account  of  a  previously  undescribed  species  of 
guava.  The  fruit  is  nearly  spherical,  of  a  fine 
deep  claret  color,  grovv'ing  at  the  insertion  of 
the  leaves,  and  contains  from  twenty  to  thirty 
seeds,  inclosed  in  a  pulp,  which  is  sweet,  and 
slightly  acid.  Independently  of  the  value 
and  beauty  of  the  fruit,  this  is  a  highly  orna- 
mental plant,  may  be  propagated  freely  by 
cuttings,  and  bears  at  the  age  af  eighteen 
months.  It  is  understood  to  have  come  from 
South  America,  and  has  an  external  texture 
resembling  the  fig:  its  internal  consistence  and 
flavor  bear  a  considerable  resemblance  to  those 
of  the  strawberiy.  With  proper  treatment,  it 
is  one  of  the  most  free  growing  of  all  tropical 
fruits." 

"This  guava  which  has  received  the  name 
of  'Cattley 's  "guava,'  {Psidium  cattleyanum) 
promises  to  become  a  very  valuable  addition 
to  stone-fruit  both  for  its  appearance, 
and  its  flavor,  merits  attention.  There 
is  a  specimen  in  one  of  the  hothoiuses 
belonging  to  the  Horticultural  society, 
which  is  a  thriving  and  elegant  tree.  It  is 
about  ten  feet  high,  and  trained  something 
in  the  shape  of  a  fan,  till  the  outside  branches 
have  a  width  of  sixteen  feet.  The  bark  is 
a  soft  ash  color,  with  a  very  slight  trace  of 
brown,  and  smooth,  but  not  glossy.  '  Tlie 
leaves  are  beautiful,  the  blossoms  abundant. 
That  the  fruit  would,  properly  managed,  come 
to  the  same  maturity  in  the  average  of  sit- 
uations of  this  country,  as  in  those  places  of 


which  it  is  a  native,  there  caimot  be  the  least 
doubt:  and  it  has  this  advantage  over  most 
other  fruit  trees,  whether  indigenous  or  ex- 
otic, that  it  produces  two  crops  in  a  3fear." 

From  all  we  have  read  upon  the  subject, 
the  fruit  of  the  guava  is  destined  to  become 
as  plentiful  in  this  country  as  oranges,  hence 
we  admonish  our  readers  in  advance. 


TABLE   CUSTOMS. 


I  want  to  add  just  a  few  words  upon  this 
subject,  which  I  think  worthy  of  more  con- 
sideration than  is  generally  accorded  to  it. 
How  well  I  enjoy  being  with  a  family  where 
the  dining  table  is  made  a  place  of  pleasant 
social  enjoyment.  In  looking  back  to  my 
"childhood  home,"  there  is  no  time  remem- 
bered with  more  pleasure,  than  the  bright 
happy  faces  and  social  good  times  around  oiu: 
family  board.  A  pleasant  meal,  enjoyed  by  a 
cheerful  company — how  much  life  and  health 
there  is  iu  it  !  But  an  untidy  meal,  eaten  in 
silence,  how  much  dyspepsia  and  bad  temper 
in  it !  It  is  not  so  much  what  is  put  upon  the 
table,  as  the  way  in  which  it  is  prepared  and 
arranged. 

This,  m}-  dear  sister,  depends  upon  us.  Do 
not  try  to  get  a  great  variety.  A  few  dishes, 
nicely  prepared,  so  as  to  cultivate  a  fine  taste, 
aud  not  thrown  together  and  seasoned  until  the 
condiments  are  all  you  can  discriminate.  The 
farmers  eat  too  much  fried  food.  It  is  con- 
ducive to  dyspepsia,  which  has  a  great  train 
of  evils.  So  let  me  beg  of  you  to  use  the 
kettle  and  oven  more,  and  the  griddle  less. 
There  is  no  finer  art  than  cooking,  and  not 
one  that  is  so  terribly  murdered.  But  I  am 
getting  too  far  from  the  case  in  point. 

Give,  if  possible,  the  table  a  festive  look — a 
few  flowers,  if  you  have  them  cultivate  the 
finer  feelings — a  dish  of  nice  ripe  fruit,  clean 
linen,  bright  glass  and  silver,  with  a  few 
dishes  nicely  prepared,  are  within  the  reach 
of  all.  So  many  think  it  makes  little  differ- 
ence how  things  come  up,  if  the  family  only 
are  present  ;  but  when  "company"  comes, 
work  themselves  tired  trying  to  have  things 
nice,  and  do  not  enjoy  the  society  of  their 
company  from  being  out  so  much.  This  is 
not  as  it  should  be,  If  we  want  only  some- 
thing good  to  eat,  let  us  go  to  work  and  get 
it  at  home.  If  we  want  a  good  social 
visit  with  a  friend,  let  us  have  her  spend  the 
time  with  us,  instead  of  in  the  kitchen  and 
dining-room.  "But,"  says  one  si.ster,  "it  is 
too  much  work  and  trouble  to  have  things  in 
trim  all  the  time,  I  wouldn't  get  anything  else 
done."  Not  .so.  There  is  nothing  that  saves 
time  so  much  as  order  and  regularity.  Learn 
to  economize  time,  by  keeping  ahead  of  yoiu- 
work.  This  can  be  done  by  proper  manage- 
ment, aud  saves  confusion,  hurry,  and  many 
steps.  You  will  have  time  for  thought,  then, 
which  is  necessary  in  order  to  do  anything  as 
it  should  be  done.  We  want  to  live  ;  but  the 
mere  animal  necessity  is  lifted  up  and  glori- 
fied when  the  charms  of  pleasant  conversa- 
tion and  mutual  courtesy  surround  the  custom. 
There  is  a  spiritual  life  that  is  to  be  fed  and 
sustained  ;  and  it  is  starved  where  there  is  no 
grace,  not  only  before,  but  during  a  meal. 

One  great  trouble  with  the  farmer  is,  he  is 
in  too  much  of  a  hurry.  If  there  is  any  place 
where  he  should  leave  cares,  and  the  press- 
ure of  business  behind,  it  is  when  he  enters 
the  dining  room.  When  there,  he  should 
take  his  time,  and  feci  at  rest.  "But,"  says 
one,  "we  cannot."  Let  me  whisper,  it  is 
habit,  make  your  arrangement,  both  in  work 
and  mind,  to  spend  at  least  one-half  hour  at 
your  meals  ,  in  bright,  genial,  sparkling  talk; 
while  you  refresh  the  "physical  man," 
vou  can  do  it  better  by  also  refreshing  the 
"spiritual  man."  Let  the  children  join  in 
the  conversation.  There  is  no  sense  in  com- 
pelling an  intelligent  child  to  sit  like  a  deaf 
mute  at  a  table,  though,  on  the  other  hand, 
they  should  not  monopolize  the  conversation, 
and  be  allowed  to  ask  strings  of  questions. 
Teach  them,  bv  example  as  well  as  precept, 
to  make  their  appearance  at  table,  neat  and 
tidy.  Smooth  hair,  clean  hands  and  nails, 
the  general  appearance  inviting;  and  each  try 


1877. 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


19 


to  be  as  agreeable  as  jiossiblo  to  each  otlier. 
Fathers  and  motliers,  this  will  do  more  than 
you  dreain,  in  inakinr;  your  children  "rciw  up 
real  gentlemen  and  ladies.  Sisters,  let  us 
hear  from  yon  on  these  home  subjects  more. 
They  arc  ot  vital  iniportanee  to  us.  We  can 
learn  niueh,  if  we  only  will,  from  each  other, 
thron^h  this  "Home  Circle  Department." 
We  can  make  it  worth  a  great  deal  to  us,  if 
we  will  only  use  it.  Let  lis  all  write  for  it, 
and  give  free  e.^pressiou  to  our  views. — M.  L. 
Mart/. 

We  lieartily  endorse  every  line  of  the  above 
able  paper— on  a  most  inipm-tant  moral  and 
domestic  subject- -which  we  find  in  a  recent 
number  of  Co/ma/i's  i^(m/  Worhl;  and,  al- 
though we  have  entertained  similar  senti- 
ments for  many  years,  yet,  we  confess  we  have 
never  yet  been  "fortunate  enough  to  realize 
them  in  ultimates;  for  the  reason  that  they 
occui)y  a  hiijher  and  more  cultivated  plane 
than  that  which  ol)taiiis  among  the  masses  of 
our  people,  even  where  they  are  "well  to  do 
in  the  world."'  The  God-appointed  meal— 
whether  at  morning,  noon  or  evening,  or  at 
any  other  orderly  and  convenient  period — is  not 
made  the  occasion  that  it  ought  to  lie,  either 
morally,  socially,  or  physically,  and  probably 
never  will  be,  until  a  race  of  refined  and  prac- 
tically educated  women  assume  the  absolute 
control  of  the  domestic  ariangements  of  the 
household.  Never  until  the  meal  is  more  or 
less  characterized  by  a  spiritual  realization  of 
that  presence,  which  nearly  nineteen  centur- 
iesago  enunciated  the  divine  injunction — "Eat 
this  in  reinenibrance  of  Me."  Not  merely 
eaten  thus  on  special  or  set  occasions,  but, 
"As  oflen  as  ye  eat  it."  The  maternal  head 
of  a  house  who  is  only  solicitous  about  setting 
an  orilerly  and  tastefully  arranged  table  for 
occasional  or  transient  visitors,  and  not  hab- 
itually lor  her  own  family,  notwith.standing 
all  her  slavish  labor  and  her  morbid  anxiety, 
may  be  doing  less  to  tit  her  fen-  that  beatitic 
realm  where  "order  is  the  first  law,"  than 
she  thinks  she  is.  And  even  if  she  is  doing 
lier  very  best,  so  far  as  she  knows  how,  and 
she  is  cursed  with  a  profane  or  perverse  fam- 
ily who  severally  drop  down  into  iheir  seats  at 
irregular  periods — from  sheer  habits  of  self- 
indulgence — and  then  irreverently  "bolt" 
their  food  and  hasten  away  again,  without  a 
recognition  of  the  wants  of  anybody  outside 
of  themselves,  if  she  possesses  those  refined 
sc  nsibilities  which  are  so  essentially  the  dis- 
1  iiiguishing  characteristics  of  a  true  woman, 
sill'  must  regret  that  she  diil  not  cultivate  and 
inculcate  these  iiriueiples  when  her  children 
were  young. 

It  is  true,  that  many  women — perhaps  most 
of  them — are  constantly  burdened  with  do- 
mestic labors,  and  so  constantly  "behind 
time"  with  their  work;  that  they  have  little 
opportunity  to  practice  tidiness,  and  there- 
fore they  ""rough  it"  through  in  the  most 
"shilly  shally"  kind  of  way,  and  pay  little  at- 
tention to  doniestic  order,  and  especially  ta- 
ble order.  But,  this  state  of  things  is  more 
the  result  of  misconception,  shiftlessness  and 
illiteracy,  than  of  fwt.  They  fail  to  make  a 
proper  discrimination  between  essentials  and 
non-essentials.  The  meal  is  often  deferred, 
half  an  hour  perhaps;  without  any  compunc- 
tion whatever,  merely  because  it  is  fancied 
that  there  is  something  else  that  ought  to 
claim  their  first  attention.  Nothing  would 
disgust  a  family  of  lioarders  more — esjiecially 
if  tliey  were  eini)loyed  by  tht^  day,  and  had  a 
specific  period  allowed  for  the  consumption  of 
their  meals—  than  such  a  wanton  delay.  Are 
our  obligations  to  our  families  less  imperative 
than  they  are  to  those  wlio  are  total  stran- 
gers 'i—Ed. 

NEWSPAPER-MAKING. 

It  isn't  boy's  play,  reader,  to  make  a  news- 
paper. Everyl)()dy  can't  do  it,  although  most 
people  think  they  "can.  Jlore  excellent  quali- 
ties of  head  and  heart  are  recpiired  in  an  edi- 
tor than  in  any  other  calling  or  profession  in 
the  world.  lie  talks  to  more  people  than  the 
pulpit  does,  and  talks  to  peojile  of  all  grades 
of  life  and  of  all  shades  of  belief.     If  con- 


scientious— and  no  man  who  is  not  has  any 
business  in  the  editorial  chair— be  feels  the 
responsibility  of  his  jiosition  as  if  it  were  a 
inonntain  on  his  soul.  He  knows  that  the 
welfare,  moral  growth  and  peace  of  the  com- 
munity deiiend  largely  upon  his  daily  or  weekly 
utterances.  Many  times  does  he  draw  his  pen 
through  lines  which  express  his  sentiments, 
but  which  he  fears  may  be  misunderstood,  and 
do  harm  to  some  of  those  whom  he  desires  to 
make  better,  and  not  wor.se.  11  is  not  an  easy 
position — it  is  scarcely  a  desirable  one  ;  and 
yet,  if  he  happens  to  express  a  sentiment  which 
iloes  not  suit  the  reader,  the  latter  is  uncharit- 
able enough  to  lose  no  time  in  censuring  him. 
The  editiu-  does  not  always  think  as  the  reader 
does  ;  he  can't.  If  he  did,  and  never  expressed 
a  sentiment  except  such  as  the  reader  cher- 
ished, what  would  be  the  object  of  taking  his 
paper  y  It  is  certainly  foolish  to  pay  for  a 
journal  which  simply  contains  a  rehash  of  what 
we  have  long  before  thought  of  ourselves. 
But,  reader,  when  you  are  induced  to  find 
fault  with  the  editor"  because  he  says  something 
that  doesn't  suit  you,  remember  that  you  can't 
get  a  paper  under  the  sun,  if  it  amounts  to 
anything,  that  will  not  sometimes  say  things 
that  you  cannot  agree  with. —  Weslern  Rural. 
The  above,  from  the  Rural,  is  so  well  and 
.so  appropriately  said,  that  we  can  find  but 
little  to  add  ;  and  yet  it  does  not  recount  one- 
half  of  the  responsibilities  which  rest  upon  the 
head  and  heart  of  an  editor.  Even  if  hi^  did 
not  write  a  line  of  original  matter,  there  are 
onerous  laliors  attached  to  his  function,  of 
which  the  outside  world  has  very  little  know- 
ledge or  appreciation.  The  labor  of  looking 
ove'r  two  or  three  scores  of  exchanges  and 
culling  therefrom  what  may  be  best  adapted 
to  the  localities  of  the  greatest  numlier  of  his 
readers,  involves  more  time  and  research,  by 
far,  than  is  occupied  in  writing  original  papers  ; 
and  when  he  thinks  he  has  catered  to  the  high- 
est and  most  substantial  interests  of  his  pat- 
rons, some  trivial  objection  will  be  made  by 
the  superficial  or  morbidly  critical  reader. 
Somebody  has  said,  "  the  man  who  attempts 
to  please"  everybody  is  a  fool"— and  perhaps 
there  is  no  sphere  in  which  the  folly  of  such  an 
attempt  would  become  more  manifest  than  in 
that  of  an  editor,  however  desirable  such  an 
end  might  be. — Ed. 


STRANGE  SUBSTANCES  IN  A  HORSE'S 
STOMACH. 

Sonn^what  over  a  year  ago  Mr.  Henry  Ben- 
ncthuni,  stove  dealer,  of  Reading,  was  com- 
pelled to  kill  a  horse,  which  had  been  under 
medical  treatment  for  some  time,  suffering 
with  an  unknown  disease.  A  post-mortem 
examination  was  made,  and  there  was  found 
in  the  stomach  and  intestines  of  the  animal  a 
number  of  stones  of  different  shapes,  of  a  cal- 
careous nature,  and  exceedingly  hard,  which 
had  been  worn  smooth  and  become  highly 
polished  by  constant  attrition.  How  the 
stones  came  there  was  a  subject  of  much  con- 
jecture. By  manv  it  was  sujiposed  that  they 
had  been  mixed  "with  the  hay  or  feed  and 
swallowed  by  the  animal  accidentally.  The 
composition  of  the  stones,  however,  exploded 
that  theory  and  the  matter  remained  as  mucli 
of  a  mystery  as  ever 

More  recently  about  a  peck  of  stones,  of  the 
size  of  turnips,  bearing  a  close  resemblance  to 
that  vegetable,  were  found  in  the  intestines  of 
a  horse  by  Mr.  Daniel  Levan,  city  scavenger, 
of  Reading.  These  were  supposed  by  some  to 
have  been  petrified  turnips,  although  a  subse- 
(luent  examination  of  them  showed,  that  they 
must  have  formed  inside  of  the  stomach  in 
small  lumi)s  which  gradually  increased,  hard- 
ened, and  finally  found  their  way  into  the  in- 
testines causing  death.  To  show  that  these 
phenomena  are  not  the  only  ones  of  the  kind 
that  have  been  discovered  in  this  country,  we 
reproduce  the  following  taken  from  the  Troy 
(iV".  Y.)  Press: 

.John  Brown,  superintendent  of  the  Troy 
and  Lansingburg  horse  railroad,  has  in  his 
possession  two  specimens  of  natural  phenome- 
na which  our  scientists  would  do  well  to  ex- 


amine, and,  if  possible,  render  some  lucid  ex- 
planation of. 

One  is  a  large  round  stone  liaving  the  apjiear- 
anee  of  a  highly  polished  piece  of  marble  mot- 
tled in  a))p(tarance  and  b(,'autiful  in  color.  It 
is  as  hard  as  Hint,  and  exceedingly  dillicult  to 
scratch  or  mar  in  any  wav,  and  weighs  one 
and  one-half  pounds,  'fhis  was  taken 
from  the  intestines  of  a  horse  that  died  some 
time  ago,  and  is  probably  formed  from  secre- 
tions of  dirt  and  dust  that  had  gathered  in 
the  stomach  of  the  animal  and  which  by  tlie 
process  of  time  had  become  formed  and  hard- 
I'lied  into  this  beautiful  seinhlance  of  i)olished 
marble.  It  had  jias.sed  from  the  stomach, and 
in  itsfiassage  through  the  intestinal  channels 
had  lodged  an<l  caused  the  animal's  death. 
Another,  more  singular  still  in  its  shape  and 
formation,  was  taken  from  the  intestines  of  a 
horse  that  (lied  at  Cohoeslast  week.  This  cu- 
riosity is  as  large  as  a  man's  clenched  fist,  and 
has  the  appearance  of  a  calcerous  substance. 
In  size,  shape,  and  general  appearance  it  re- 
sembles a  i)etritied  sponge.  This  also  caused 
the  aninial's  death  in  the  .same  manner  as  the 
preceding.  The  only  theory  advanced  thus 
far  in  the  explanation  of  this  stone  is,  that  at 
some  time  the  horse  had  swallowed  a  piece  of 
sponge,  and  it  had  laid  in  His  stomach  and  in 
time  had  petrified. 

We  are  sometimes  surprised,  when  we  read 
such  notices  as  the  above— not  at  the  phenom- 
ena, however,  but  at  the  great  wonder  mani- 
fested at  them,  just  "for  all  the  world"  as  if 
such  things  had  never  occurred  before.  As 
early  as  18:!8  we  had  the  half  of  one  of  these 
concretions  in  our  coUectiim  of  curiosities, 
which  had  been  taken  out  of  the  .stomach  or 
intestines  of  a  horse.  A  horse  had  died  in 
Donegal  township,  out  of  which  three  or  four 
were  taken,  about  the  size  of  goose  eggs,  and 
tw-o  of  them  came  into  the  posse.ssion  of  an 
intimate  friend,  who  sawed  one  of  them  trans- 
versely through  and  presented  us  with  one- 
half  of  it.  These  were  almost  spherical  in 
form,  and  the  outer  surface  was  quite  smooth. 
The  face  of  the  transverse  section  exhibited  a 
series  of  concentric  layers,  something  like 
would  be  the  appearance  of  an  onion,  cut 
horizontally  through.  In  the  centre  was  a 
hollow  cavity  which  contained  several  crushed 
oat  grains.  '  These  seemed  to  be  a  nucleus 
arouiid  which  the  substance  that  composed 
them  seemed  to  be  deposited  in  concentric 
layers,  the  result,  probably,  of  a  number  of 
years.  They  were  almost  as  hard  as  a  marble 
when  they  became  perfectly  dry;  and  they  ef- 
fervesced" very  freely,  as 'if  they  were  com- 
posed of  a  large  proportion  of  the  carbonate  of 
lime;  and  I  think  this  was  the  baseof  thesub- 
stance.  In  color,  they  were  something  like 
clay,  faintly  tinged  w"ith  blue.  AVe  gave  it 
away  many  years  Ago.— Editor. 

THE  DANGEROUS  AND  TERRIBLE 

QUAIL.* 
Each  pair  of  quails  produce  an  average  of 
ten  chicks  per  year— many,  in  favorable  sea- 
sons, hatch  out  "sixteen  in  a  brood,  and  then 
hatch  a  second  brood.  If  we  estimate  only 
the  small  number  of  500,000  quails  in  Indiana 
to  start  with  (though  there  are  probably  ten 
times  that  number),  and  take  ten  per  year  as 
the  produce  of  each  pair,  the  figures  will 
sinifily  be  stupendous,  and  we  present  them  to 
the  Indiana  Legislature  for  consideration  : 

First  year,  total S,00n,000 

•Second  year,  total 1S,0<IO,000 

Third  year,  total  '^^'2?2'^ 

Fourth  year,  total ?***'  „?'??? 

Fifth  ye'ar,  total 3R,8*«,000,000 

We  would  have  to  station  an  army  along  the 
Ohio  river  to  prevent  an  invasion  of  Kentucky 
after  these  birds  had  eaten  everything  visible 
in  Indiana.  There  wouldn"t  be  a  bug  left  in 
that  state,  and  the  birds  would  require  grain  to 
five  upon.  Estimating  a  gill  of  irrain  per  day 
for  each  bird,  it  would  require  1.->,00U,(IU0  bush- 
els per  day  to  feed  them.  We  enter  our  protest 
in  advance,  and  shall  demand,  if  Indiana  does 
not  pass  the  law,  that  the  state  shall  raise  the 

•From  a  Speech  by  Senator  Harris  in  the  Senate  of  lo- 
diana. 


20 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[February, 


grain  to  feed  the  birds,  and  shiill  put  up  a  bird 
net  300  feet  high  along  the  Ohio,  to  keep  their 
inhabitants  from  invading  Kentucky. 

The  bill  was  defeated. 

Some  people  in  Indiana  seem  to  have  -'quail 
on  the  brain  ;"  at  any  rate,  the  state  seems  to 
have  "too  much  quail."  When  the  children 
of  Israel  were  in  need  of  flesh,  as  they  traveled 
through  the  wilderness,  the  Almighty  sent 
them  quails  as  a  needed  blessing.  AVhat  a 
pity  that  Indiana  could  not  be  invaded  by  an 
army  of  flesh-hungry  Israelites,  to  consume 
her  surplus  quails,  and  thus  save  the  time  and 
wind  of  her  legislators.  Fifty-flve  thousand 
laboring  men,  in  New  York  alone,  are  now 
out  of  employment,  and  no  doubt  would 
be  glad  to  receive  daily  consignments  of 
Indiana  quails.  AVhy  cannot  these  quails 
be  utilized  ?  Why  not  organize  a  quail- 
line  as  they  some  years  ago  did  an  "oyster 
line  ?  or,  why  not  send  them  packed  in  ice  to 
Europe,  or  to  such  parts  of  the  United  States 
as  have  no  quails  ?  Texas  is  sending  mil- 
lions of  pounds  of  fresh  beef  to  Europe,  and 
we  are  of  the  opinion  that  it  would  be  as  easy 
to  send  cargoes  of  quails.  If  quails  are  as 
abundant,  and  as  prolific  as  the  above  state- 
ment indicates,  we  should  think  it  as  good  a 
crop  as  any  that  could  be  raised  in  any  State. 
Here  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  we  are 
constantly  regretting  that  our  laws  are  not 
stringent  enough  to  [irotect  our  quails,  whilst 
in  Indiana  they  appear  to  have  too  much  of 
that  "sort  of  thing."  Send  on  your  surplus 
quails.  We  have  not  had  a  quail  on  ourtable 
for  more  than  twenty  years. — £d. 


FISH,  FLESH  AND   FOWL. 

The  following  from  a  Baltimore  paper,  may 
help  to  illuminate  the  minds  of  the  people  of 
Indiana  as  to  what  disposition  to  make  of 
their  "terrible  quails,"  in  order  to  diminish 
their  numbers  profitahly : 

"  The  exportation  of  fresh  meats,  fish,  game 
and  oysters  has  during  the  last  ten  years  be- 
come an  important  element  in  the  trade  of  the 
coast  cities.  The  experience  gained  in  this 
time  in  preparing  these  perishable  commodi- 
ties for  transportation  has  been  very  valuable, 
and  has  converted  what  was  once  a  doubtful 
venture  into  an  assured  success.  The  market 
abroad  is  rapidly  becoming  a  very  desirable 
one,  especially  in  England  and  France.  Some 
small  trade  is  done  with  Germany,  but  the  in- 
habitants of  the  fatherland  do  not  take  eagerly 
to  this  class  of  American  delicacies.  In  the 
exportation  of  fish,  all  the  principal  cities  of 
the  coast  jiarticipate  in  varying  amounts, 
Baltimore  is  the  largest  market  for  fine-grained, 
delicately-flavored  fish,  though  she  does  not 
send  du-ectly  abroad  so  manj'  as  New  York. 
Salmon,  shad,  bay  mackerel  and  salmon  trout 
flourish  in  the  waters  of  her  bay  and  its  rivers, 
which  seem  admirably  adapted  to  produce  the 
finesf  varieties  of  these  flsh.  The  fish  are  pre- 
pared for  transportation  by  being  frozen. 
Barrels  or  other  suitable  vessels  are  filled  with 
the  fish,  and  are  then  placed  in  a  refrigerator 
until  thoroughly  frozen.  When  shipped,  they 
are  placed  in  similar  refrigerators  on  board. 
The  freezing  does  not  appear  fo  injure  the 
flavor  of  the  flsh,  though  some  have  claimed 
that  it  does.  One  of  the  largest  dealers  in 
Baltimore  has  a  very  neat  refrigerator  barrel, 
in  which  he  puts  up  all  the  fish  he  sends  any 
distance.  The  barrel  is  lined  with  zinc,  and 
between  the  lining  and  the  wood  there  is  a 
narrow  air  space,  as  well  as  a  layer  of  hair 
packing.  This  arrangement  very  effectually 
prevents  great  changes  to  temperature  in  the 
inside  of  the  barrel  when  closed  up.  Inside 
of  the  metal-lined  barrel  is  a  galvanized  iron 
can  in  which  the  fish  are  placed.  Around 
this  can  a  freezing  mixture  of  ice  and  salt  is 
placed,  which  is  renewed  as  fast  as  the  ice 
melts.  The  water  runs  off  by  a  pipe  at  the 
bottom  of  the  barrel.  Fish  packed  in  this 
manner  can  be  shipped  with  the  greatest 
ease  to  any  clime,  and  kept  any  length  of  time. 
"In  the  shipping  of  oysters  in  the  shell 
great  care  is  exercised  in  packing.  A  layer 
of  the  oysters  is  placed  in  the  barrel  with  their 


mouths  up.  They  are  then  packed  with  sea 
grass  which  is  very  jjorous  and  holds  large 
quantities  of  sea  water,  which  provides  par- 
tial nourishment  for  them.  Over  this  layer 
of  oysters  corn  meal  is  sprinkled.  On  the 
corn  meal  another  layer  of  the  oysters,  packed 
in  tlie  same  manner  is  placed,  and  so  on  until 
the  barrel  is  filled.  By  this  arrangement  the 
oyster  can  feed  nearly  as  well  as  if  he  were  on 
his  bed  on  the  river  or  bay  bottom.  The 
grass  will  hold  its  nourishment  from  a 
month  to  six  weeks,  a  sufficient  time  to 
make  the  longest  voyages.  Tlie  extent  of 
this  trade  is  difficult  to  estimate,  as  it  is 
wholly  retail.  No  house  abroad  has  yet 
entered  into  the  trade,  receiving  regular 
consignments  from  Baltimore,  but  negoti- 
ations are  now  pending  to  effect  such  a  result. 
Caterers  in  London  and  Paris,  and  American 
residents  abroad  are  large  consumers,  and 
they  order  directly  from  Baltimore,  or  indi- 
rectly through  New  York.  An  attempt 
to  plant  American  oysters  in  foreign  waters 
jiroved  a  complete  failure.  Some  Ave  years 
ago,  through  the  influence  of  the  Turkish 
consul  residing  in  Baltimore,  a  number  of 
gentlemen  were  induced  to  try  the  experiment. 
A  vessel  was  loaded  with  them,  packed  in  the 
same  manner  as  they  are  on  the  pungies 
which  bring  them  to  the  market — that  is  not 
packed  at  all — aud  of  course  nearly  all  died 
on  the  way.  Satisfied  with  what  they  lield  to 
be  a  proof  of  the  impossibility  of  transporting 
them,  these  parties  did  not  repeat  the  experi- 
ment. In  the  face  of  the  fact  that  oysters  are 
being  sent  across  every  day,  which  arrive  in 
the  best  condition,  it  would  be  ridiculous  to 
deny  the  feasibility  of  the  project.  Whether 
the  oysters  will  thrive  in  those  waters  is  an- 
other question,  only  to  be  determined  by  ex- 
periment. 

Terrapin  are  shipped  from  Baltimore  both 
alive  and  canned.  When  sent  alive  they  are 
simply  packed  in  boxes  or  barrels,  without 
food,  ice,  or  any  other  accompaniments.  Be- 
tween the  months  of  September  and  March 
they  do  not  eat  anything,  and  this  is  tlie  time 
during  which  they  are  shipped.  Those  put 
up  in  cans  are  boiled  and  then  hermetically 
sealed,  the  same  as  other  canned  meats.  Those 
sent  abroad  go  exclusively  to  England  and 
France,  where  they  are  highly  prized.  Soft 
crabs,  fried  and  put  up  in  oil  cans,  are  quite 
largely  sent  to  foreign  markets.  In  game 
the  principal  export  is  canvas-back  ducks.  A 
common  way  of  i)acking  them  is  to  tie  them 
by  the  feet  around  the  edge  of  a  circular  bas- 
ket. This  keeps  the  birds  separated,  and 
leaves  a  space  in  the  centre  for  ice,  if  neces- 
sary. The  basket  of  ducks  is  generally  placed 
in  a  refrigerator  and  frozen  before  they  are 
shipped.  This  method  of  packing  them  has 
proved  remarkably  successful.  One  dealer 
affirms  that  he  has  not  lost'a  single  basket  in 
five  years." 

LEEK. 
Allium  Porntm. 

The  leek  is  a  member  of  the  onion  family, 
and  has  been  cultivated  from  time  immemo- 
rial. It  has  always  been  regarded  with  par- 
ticular favor  by  the  Egyptians,  who  eat  it  raw 
with  their  bread,  or  as  sauce  for  meats.  It  is 
frequently  associated  with  the  name  of  St. 
David,  the  patron  saint  of  Wales,  for  the  rea- 
son that  Welshman  are  accustomed  to  sport 
leeks  in  their  hats  upon  his  festival,  the  first 
of  March.  This  is  a  very  ancient  custom,  and 
we  find  frequent  mention  of  it  in  the  old 
writers.  Some  persons  have  thought  that  it 
commemorates  the  introduction  of  the  plant 
into  that  country  by  St.  David  ;  but  more 
probably,  as  Sliakspeare  says,  in  liis  Henry 
the  Fifth,  it  is  "worn  as  a  memorable  trophy 
of  pre-deceased  valor. "  According  to  "ancient 
tradition,"  in  a  celebrated  victory  of  the 
Welsh  over  the  Saxons,  in  the  sixth  century, 
the  former  imder  the  prelate's  directions, were 
distinguished  by  leeks^which  they  gathered 
near  the  battle  ground.  As  he  was  supposed 
to  have  power  to  work  miracles,  it  is  not 
strange  that  their  glorious  success  should  have 
been  attributed  to  this  cause.    Whatever  may 


be  the  origin  of  the  custom,  it  would  be  quite 
as  remrakable  to  find  a  Welshman  without 
his  leek  on  the  first  of  March,  as  it  would  to 
discover  a  genuine  Hibernian  without  a  sham- 
rock in  his  button-hole  on  St.  Patrick's  day. 
For  certain  purposes  the  leek  is  preferred  to 
the  onion.  The  varieties  most  worthy  of  cul- 
tivation, and  perhaps  of  equal  excellence,  are 
the  London  and  the  Scotch. 

Culture.  —  Sow  the  seed  in  March  or 
April,  as  soon  as  the  ground  becomes  open, 
and  the  weather  settled.  One  ounce  of  seed 
will  yield  between  two  and  three  thousand 
plants.  Select  for  the  bed  a  warm  sheltered 
border,  and  sow  in  drills,  three  quarters  of  an 
inch  deep,  and  eight  inches  apart.  When  the 
plants  have  become  established,  they  ought  to 
be  thinned  out  to  distances  of  about  two 
inches  in  the  drill.  Frequent  and  thorough 
hoeing  is  of  the  first  importance,  while  an  oc- 
casional application  of  water  during  a  dry 
time,  proves  of  great  benefit.  As  soon  as  the 
seedlings  acquire  a  height  of  eight  or  nine 
inches,  they  are  fit  for  transplanting. 

The  leek  is  best  suited  with  a  mellow  loam, 
which  has  been  deeply  dug,  and  made  rich  by 
the  application  of  old  dung  or  compost.  The 
sub-soil  should  be  dry,  and  the  exposure 
rather  open.  Make  shallow  trenches  across 
the  bed,  one  foot  distant  from  each  other,  for 
the  reception  of  the  plants,  which  are  to  be 
drawn  from  the  seed  bed,  either  during 
showery  weather,  or  after  the  soil  has  been 
rendered  yielding  by  the  application  of  water. 
Some  should  be  allowed  to  remain  at  the  dis- 
tances of  six  inches  asunder  in  the  drill. 
Shorten  the  extremities  of  the  tops  and  roots 
of  those  which  are  taken  up,  and  insert  them 
in  the  trenches,  by  means  of  the  dibble,  eight 
inches  apart.  They  ought  to  be  inserted  just 
so  deep,  that  the  centre  leaves  and  buds  shall 
not  be  covered  with  earth. 

In  dry  weather,  give  water  freely  ;  and,  at 
all  times,  during  the  season  of  their  growth, 
make  good  use  of  the  hoe.  The  soil  must  be 
kept  mellow,  and,  every  now  and  then,  a  little 
should  be  drawn  up  around  the  stems.  Some 
gardeners  cut  oft' the  tops  of  the  leaves,  at  in- 
tervals perhaps  of  tliree  weeks  or  a  month,  in 
order  to  increase  the  size  of  the  roots.  A 
portion  of  the  crop  can  be  raised  as  wanted 
for  use,  by  the  beginning  or  middle  of  autumn. 
The  plants  will  stand  the  winter  well ;  but, 
on  the  approach  of  hard  frost,  it  is  customary 
to  store  in  sand  a  quantity  sufficient  for  the 
wants  of  the  family  until  the  ground  opens. 

For  seed.  —  Remove  some  of  the  best 
plants,  in  spring,  to  a  warm  sheltered  border. 
The  flower-stems  should  be  supported  by 
stakes,  or  tied  to  the  fence,  to  prevent  their  be- 
ing broken  down  by  the  wind.  Cut  the  heads 
when  they  turn  brown,  with  a  portion  of  the 
stems  attaclied,  by  which  they  are  to  be  tied 
together  in  bundles  of  three  or  four,  for  con- 
venience in  hanging  them  up  to  dry.  When 
the  seed  becomes  perfectly  hardened,  it  can 
be  beaten  out  at  any  convenient  time. 

Use. — From  its  mild,  agreeable  taste,  as 
well  as  on  account  of  its  liardiness.  the  leek  is 
by  many  preferred  to  the  onion.  The  whole 
plant  is  used  in  various  ways,  such  as  being 
boiled  plain  to  be  eaten  with  meat,  in  soups, 
stews,  etc. — Schenck''s  Gardenerl'i  Text-Book. 

It  is  nearly  forty-five  years  since  we  first 
saw  the  le(k  in  the  Philadelphia  markets,  or 
knew  it  to  be  used  in  soups,  or  in  dressing  for 
"Fish,  Flesh  aud  Fowl ;"  and  yet,  in  propor- 
tion to  other  vegetables  used  for  the  same  or 
a  similar  purpose,  it  cannot  be  considered 
common,  in  the  markets,  nor  in  the  culinary 
preparations,  of  Lancaster  county.  Stewed 
leeks  are  certainly  as  healthful,  and  to  many 
as  toothsome  us  stewed  asparayus,  and  never 
subject  to  that  objection  to  the  latter  which 
grows  out  of  its  stringy  or  woody  and  bitter 
toughness;  and  which  sometimes  so  deceitful- 
ly distinguishes  the  very  finest  specimens  of  it, 
to  the  great  disappointment  of  the  un- 
sojiliisticated  purchaser,  or  the  patrons  of  the 
hostelry. 

^ 

Can't  you  induce  your  neighbor  to  subscribe 
for  The  Farmer?    Try  it  f 


i 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


21 


For  Thk  Lancawter  FAUMEn. 
GLEANINGS. 


$56.50 
5G.00 
61.50 


Prices  of  Fertilizers. 

No.  1  Peruvian  Guano  10  per  cunt,  am- 
monia standarJ  per  ton 

No.  1  Peruvian  Guano  10  per  cent,  (guar- 
antee, per  ton  

No.  1  Peruvian  Guano,  10  per  cent,  rec- 

titied,  per  ton    

Mapee'    Nitrogenizcd    Supcrphoepliate, 

perton 40.00@50.00 

Mapes'  Bone  Superphosphate,  perton  ..  40.00@45.00 
Fisli  Guano  (crude  in  barrels)  per  ton..  18.00 

Bone  Flour  per  ton 40.00@45.00 

Ka>v  Bones,  Ground  (pure),  perton .'J3.00@40.U0 

German  Potash  Salts  (.;5@;)5per  cent.) 

perton 25.00@30.no 

Gypsum,  Nova  Scotia,  ground,  per  ton..      8.00(5j!).O0 
Nitrate  of  I'otash  (li.'j  per  cent.)  jier  lb.  Q^O'ic 

Sulphate  of  Potash  (^0  per  cent.)  per  lb.  o'j(sii4c 

Chloride  of  Potass  (Muriate  of  Potash, 

80  percent.)  per  lb ^%®^c 

Nitrate  of  Soda  per  lb 4J^(gl5c 

Sulphate  of  Ammonia    (25   per  cent.) 

per  lb 5@5}^c 

— American  Agricidturi.il. 

Rye  turned  under  is  the  cheapest  manure. 
It  comes  in  ju<t  timely  so  as  to  leave  the 
ground  nut  an  hour  idle. 

Use  your  lime  on  old,  rich  ground  ahiiost 
sodden  with  its  repeated  manuring.  It  sweet- 
ens and  enlivens  it,  releases  all  unassimilated 
fertility — cuts  it  as  alcohol  does  oil. 

If  clouds  are  noticed  coming  up  against  the 
wind,  in  drought  or  other  times,  it  is  a  pretty 
certain  indication  of  rain,  and  my  observation 
is  that  by  such  storms  are  our  long  droughts 
usually  first  broken. — liooVs  Gardtn  IlamaiL 

Our  position  that  cultivating  and  stirring 
the  soil  as  being  the  best  kind  of  mulching,  is  in 
answer  to  those  who  enquire  about  mulching 
entire  surface.  We  have  always  advocated 
mulch  close  to  and  under  plants  and  bushes, 
and  cultivate  between.  Some  persons  suppose 
that  heavy  mulching  over  the  entire  surface 
will  keep  down  the  weeds,  and  make  abun- 
dance of  fruit.  No  doubt  but  what  a  suffi- 
cient depth  of  such  would,  but  it  is  better  to 
use  the  mulch  usually  put  on  close  to  and  un- 
der the  plants  and  bushes,  and  cultivate  be- 
tween the  rows.  Strawberries,  if  not  thus  heavi- 
ly mulched  between  the  rows,  may  be  run 
through  between  the  rows,  with  a  light  drag- 
tooth  harrow,  just  to  stir  up  the  suttace  until 
fruit  begins  to  turn.  You  made  a  mistake  in 
spading  ground  between  the  rows,  for  by  so 
doing  you  cut  off  innumerable  small  roots.— 
Fruit  Recorder. 

[The  above  in  reply  to  a  correspondent 
whose  crop  failed  after  spading  in  place  of  a 
mulch.  When  cultivating  the  soil  to  act  as  a 
mulch,  it  should  not  be  stirred  deeper  than 
about  an  inch,  and  less  will  do.  When  the 
soil  is  thus  stirred  up  in  summer  time,  the 
earth  so  loosened  up  will  dry  out  and  act  as  a 
mulch.  Should  it  be  stirred  to  the  depth  of 
three  inches  there  will  be  three  inches  of  dry 
soil  and  be  vety  close  to  the  roots  of  many 
plants.] 

Do  Plants  Poison  the  Air  we  Breathe. 

There  is  a  notion  prevalent  that  the  presence 
of  growing  plants  in  the  sleeping  or  living 
room  is  detrimental  to  a  lualtby  atmosphere 
by  their  giving  out  poisonous  carl)onic  acid  gas 
in  the  night  time.  The  investigation  of 
chemists  demonstrate  that  growing  plants  do 
exhale  an  almost  imperceptible  ciuantity  of 
carbonic  acid  gas,  w^hich,  in  very  small  pro- 
portions, is  necessary  in  the  air  we  breathe. 
They  also  show  that  the  quanity  exhaled  at 
night  is  but  one-sixteenth  part  of  what  the 
same  plants  absorb  from  the  atmosphere  during 
the  day,  and  convert  into  nearly  its  own 
weight  of  oxygen,  thus  rendering  a  poisonous 
gas,  that  derives  its  origin  from  various 
sources,  into  one  of  the  principal  elements  of 
pure  air. 

If  carbonic  acid  gas  is  emitted  from  plants 
in  dangerous  quantities,  it  certainly  would 
exist  largely  in  the  night  atmosphere  of  a 
close  greenhouse,  heated  to  a  tropical  tempera- 
ture and  crowded  from  tioor  to  rafter  with 
rank  vegetation.  Yet,  in  my  experience,  I 
have  never  known  the  slightest  ill  effects  to 
be  realized  from  night  work  iu  greenhouses, 


neither  in  cases  that  have  frequently  occurred 
of  workmen  making  the  warm  greenhouses 
their  sleeping  quarters  of  a  night,  aiul  evrn 
for  an  entire  winter,  which,  to  my  satisfac- 
tion, affords  practi(;al  proof  that  the  notion  is 
a  fallacy  ;  and  the  fact  that  perhaps  no 
liealthier  class  of  men  can  be  found  than 
greenhouse  operators,  who  work  constantly  in 
an  atmosphere  where  plants  are  growing, 
would  prove,  instead,  that  living  plants  exert 
a  beneficial  influence  upon  the  air  we  breathe. 
— Home  Florisl.~By  A.  B.  K. 

For  Thk  Lanoabteu  Farm Kn. 
BY  RAIL  TO  FREDERICK  CITY,  MD. 

Scenes  by  the  Way— The   Tillers  of  the    Soil. 
Immigration  Southward  and  Westward. 

To  get  away  from  home  lor  a  brief  period, 
far  enough  not  to  see  your  own  chimney 
smoke  does  one  good  once  in  a  while.  At 
least  it  changes  the  monotony  which  fixes  it- 
self ujion  us  by  contiimous  routine.  To  take 
a  seat  in  a  railroad  coach  at  (Jolurabia,  and 
be  in  Frederick  City  in  three  hours  and  fifteen 
minutes,  with  as  little  jolting  as  if  you  rode 
on  the  main  stem  of  the  Pennsylvania  rail- 
road, is  a  satisfaction  hardly  thouglit  of  ten 
years  ago.  Whether  equal  accommod;itions 
would  be  afforded,  if  the  Hanover  Junction 
and  Susquehanna,  or  any  other  railroad  com- 
pany had  control  of  said  line,  is  not  in  the 
province  of  this  article  to  discuss.  Suffice  it 
to  say,  the  Pennsylvania  railroad  company 
is  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  things  by  halves. 
Traveling  at  the  rate  of  twenty  to  twenty- 
five  miles  an  hour  does  not  attbrd  opportunity 
for  close  observation;  yet  sufficient  to  say  that 
the  crop  of  winter  wheat  has  emerged  from 
under  its  covering  of  snow  in  good  coadition. 
except  on  low  and  wet  lands  where  there  has 
been  considerable  heaving  up  by  tie  recent 
freezing  and  thawing,  which,  should  it  continue 
until  spring  fairly  opens  would  put  a  less 
promising  appearance  upon  the  prospects  of 
the  coming  crop,  which  may  be  considered 
fair,  by  way  of  the  line  of  said  railroad.  The 
soil  and  geological  formations  through  said 
section  is  somewhat  varied,  but  the  greater 
part  is  red  shale,  embracing  southern  York 
county,  the  entire  width  of  Adams,  thence 
through  Maryland  to  within  about  fifteen 
miles  of  Frederick  city;  the  latter  being  sur- 
rounded by  a  beautiful  and  naturally  as  fer- 
tile a  section  of  limestone  laud  as  can  be 
found  in  the  Keystone  State.  Throughout 
the  red  shale  region  many  of  the  farmers  are 
no  doubt  land  poor,  i.  f.,  they  cultivate  more 
land  than  they  can  do  with  profit. 

Horace  Greeley's  advice  will  emphatically 
apply  to  the  farmers  of  said  region,  i.  e.,  to 
apply  their  labor  and  expenses  to  half  the  area 
they  now  skim  OTe^vand  fertilize  their  soil  to 
twice  its  presen^^Pfitli.  It  has  often  been  a 
query  with  the  w'riter,  why  in  that,  as  also  iu 
other  sections  of  only  partially  fertile  soil,  we 
see  so  many  large  and  complete  barns,  in 
many  cases  superior  to  those  of  much  more 
fertile  regions.  Another  matter  is  observable, 
and  which  is  of  too  general  application,!  e., 
the  large  number  of  barns  devoid  of  spouting. 
The  prevalent  custom  of  building  bank  barns 
is  no  doubt  admitted  to  be  equal,  if  not  su- 
perior, to  any  otiier  plan,  but  with  the  man- 
ure bed  in  front,  declining  from  the  barn,  and 
in  addition  to  the  rain  and  snow  falling  on 
the  manure,  all  the  rain  falling  upon  tlie  half 
of  the  roof  in  addition  is  drained  through  the 
manure  pile,  a  drain  that  no  larmer  can  af- 
ford imless  his  land  is  too  rich.  We  may 
safely  calculate  tliat  2.5  per  cent  of  the  rich- 
est fertilizing  ingredients  of  the  manure  pile 
is  in  many  cases  annually  carried  into  the 
nearest  stream. 

The  various  methods  of  farming  in  the  diff- 
erent sections  of  country  are  not  always  ob- 
servable at  sight.  Several  visits  to  Frederick 
City  ami  its  surroundings,  and  also  throuwli 
Shenandoah  Valley,  conversations  on  farm 
and  other  topics,  with  a  number  of  intelligent 
citizens,  has  satisfied  the  writer  that  there  is 
much  room  for  progress  in  agriculture  and 
horticulture  in  that  section. 


It  is  doubtful  whether  there  is  an  equal 
area  to  thu  Monocacy  valley  in  Lancaster 
county  that  would  bear  the  exhaustive  sys- 
tem of  farming  so  long,  and  continue  to  yield 
such  crops. 

The  custom  almost  without  exception  is.  to 
sell  all  they  can  pos.sibly  spare  from  the  farm, 
i.  e.,  "rain,  hay,  straw,  and  even  manure. 
The  Tatter  is  not  a  general  custom,  but  a 
Penn.sylvanian  who  moved  there  after  the  war, 
purchased  lot)  loads  of  manure  from  a  neigh- 
bor farmer,  an  old  resitUnil,  which  the  new 
comer  liberally  applied  to  save  his  own  land, 
part  of  which  he  double  cropped.  The  re- 
sult was  the  second  crop  paid  for  all  the  ma- 
nurt.  besides  leaving  the  land  in  very  fertile 
condition.  He  could  however  buy  no  more 
manure  from  that  neighbor.  In  order  to 
continue  cropping,  large  quantities  of  com- 
mercial fertilizers  are  annually  applied,  gen- 
erally from  .flUO  to  %oW  worth,  according  to 
size  of  farm.  By  this  method  fair  crops  are 
grown,  but  the  general  difficulty  is,  that  each 
successive  crop  requires  heavier  doses,  to  give 
satisfaction.  AVliere  the  continuation  of 
such  a  course  of  tillage  will  lead  to.  some  in- 
dividuals who  have  been  using  patent  medi- 
cines for  a  succession  of  years,  might  per- 
haps solve  the  problem  in  advance.  If  there 
is  a  single  and  cheap  remedy  for  the  ills  to 
which  such  lauds  have  fallen  heir  to,  that 
remedy  is  clover. 

A  Pennsylvanian  who  moved  southward 
since  the  war,  conceded  to  the  writer  that  he 
had  to  some  extent  adopted  the  practice  of 
his  neighbors,  but  seceded  a  few  years  ago  by 
plowing  down  a  heavy  crop  of  clover,  which 
seemed  peculiarly  suicidal  at  the  time,  but  in 
pointing  out  the  field,  said,  "the  soil  seems  to 
have  changed,  no  failure  of  crops  since  the 
clover  was  plowed  down,  besides,  she  soil  has 
lost  its  former  tenacity  and  is  now  much  more 
friable;  can  plow  it  when  the  other  fields  will 
clog."  That  similar  effects  would  result  in 
all  soils  by  plowing  in  clover,  is  hardly  proba- 
ble, but  we  may  safely  say,  four-fifths  of  the 
lands  in  anv  section  of  our  country,  that  have 
been  run  down  by  the  above  exhaustive  meth- 
od, would  be  benefited  by  the  same  cheap  rem- 
edy, at  least  where  clover  will  grow  at  all. 

The  question  is  still,  which  way,  with  many 
who  wish  to  move  on  cheaper  lauds.  These 
can  be  had  either  west  or  south.  If  the  laws 
and  customs  of  caste  could  be  wiped  out  of 
existence,  the  south  would  have  advantages 
not  to  be  found  elsewhere  in  the  Union.  But 
since  the  settlement  of  the  colonies,  but  es- 
pecially since  the  enactment  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line,  the  affiliation  between  the  north- 
ern and  southern  people  of  the  country  has  at 
no  time  been  of  that  fraternal  nature,  like 
that  of  east  and  west. 

Some  time  after  the  war  the  tide  of  immi- 
gration seemed  to  preponderate  southward, 
but  h.as  changed  into  its  former  westward 
current  as  formerly,  and  until  the  south  will 
exhibit  a  progressive  spirit  similar  to  that  of 
the  west,  the  latter  will  retain  the  lead  in  the 
race  for  population.  However,  until  a  spirit 
will  be  inaugurated  toward  less  land  and  bet- 
ter tillage,  instead  of  more  acres  and  closer 
skimming,  the  process  of  impoverishing  our 
best  lands  will  continue.  Sometime,  how- 
ever, a  change  will  be  inevitable. — U.  M.  E., 
Marietta,  Pa.,  Feb.  24,  1877. 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Fabmxb. 
BUILD    BIRD  HOUSES. 

This  is  one  of  the  little  odd  jobs  that  should 
be  attended  to  about  evervbody's  dwellings. 
We  all  like  to  see  plenty  of  nice  fruit  and 
vegetables,  &c.,  now  1  am  confident  that  if 
we  would  give  them  (the  birds)  more  care  and 
protection,  they  would  help  us  in  a  very  great 
measure  to  protect  it  from  the  ravages  of  in- 
sects, and  also  be  a  considerable  pleasure  to 
us  in  other  ways.  I  wont  .say  what  shape 
you  shall  make  the  boxes.  Any  Imix  about 
from  .5  to  8  inches  will  do  for  "small  birds. 
They  need  not  be  very  neat,  but  shold  be  well 
made,  and  put  up  so  that  they  don't  tumble 
down,  and  so  that  the  cats  don't  disturb  the 
birds.     The  hole  for  the  entrance  should  not 


22 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[Februarj', 


be  too  near  the  bottom,  and  not  too  large 
either;  there  should  be  a  stick  below  the  hole 
for  the  birds  to  light  on  and  look  in.  The 
roof  should  extend  out  over  the  hole  so  as  to 
keep  out  the  rain,  &c.  Don't  be  afraid  that 
you  will  have  too  many  birds  about  the  prem- 
ises; they  are  the  greatest  :little  bug  and  in- 
sect catchers  to  be  found,  and  it  will  pay  to 
encourage  them  to  stay  about  the  premises. 
Better  do  without  dogs  and  cats  than  without 
birds.  There  are  plenty  of  dogs  and  cats 
kept  that  cost  more  in  a  year  to  feed  them 
than  it  would  cost  to  have  a  few  bird  houses 
and  the  Lancaster  Farmer  besides.  Money 
expended  for  either  of  these  objects  is  not 
lost;  the  birds  will  reward  you  for  the  trou- 
ble and  expense,  so  will  the  Farmer  tell  you 
how  to  live  better,  and  make  more  money. 
It  keeps  you  well  posted  in  every  improve- 
ment pertaining  to  horticulture,  agriculture, 
the  garden  and  farm,  aud  of  general  import- 
ance to  your  prosperity  or  welfare.  But  I 
have  wandered  off  from  my  subject,  and  I 
will  refer  to  it  again  by  saying  :  Be  kind  to 
the  birds.— Jo/ui  B.  Frh,  Lime  Valley. 


For  The  LancAsteb  Fakmkr. 
LICE  ON  CURRANT    BUSHES. 

What  shall  I  do  with  them  ?    I  want  to  set 
out  a  new  lot,  and  I  find  most  of  the  bushes 
infested  with  the  bark  lice.     I  did  not   exam- 
ine the  roots,  but  I  notice  the  lice  or  scales 
along  the  stems  and  down  close  to  the  ground; 
some  stems  have  only  a  few,  while  others  are 
nearly  covered  with  them.  Could  a  liquor  or  lye 
be  made  to  dip  the  sprouts  in  before  planting, 
so  as  to  kill  the  lice  and  yet  not  injure  the 
sprouts  ?    I  mean  to  dig  out  a  lot  of  the  old 
bushes,  and  part  them  aud  only  save  the  best 
young  sprouts  that  have    a    little    root,    for 
planting.     I  cut  the  tops   off    about    a    foot 
from  the  root,  and  if  plants  are  scarce   I  use 
the  young  canes  without  roots  to  make  plants. 
In  setting  out  cuttings  of  any  kind,  I  always 
pack  the  "soil  very  tight  for  a    few    inches   at 
the  bottom;    setting  them  about  six  inches 
deep;  leaving  one  or  two  eyes  above  ground. 
Last  season  my  currant  bushes  looked  miser- 
able; the  tops  were  nearly  all  half  dead   or 
very  "scrnnty,"  and  not  much  fruit  on  them. 
This  was  not  caused  by  the  lice,    (they  might 
have  been  frozen  in  the  wood;)  other  seasons 
my  bushes  looked  well  and  were  full  of  fruit, 
and  even  the  lousy  bushes  were  full,  but  not  so 
large.     But  I  generally  thin  or  cut  out  in  the 
spnng  all  the  scrubby  old  wood,  and   all   that 
are  vrormy  or  very  lousy,  and  give  them  a 
top  dressing  of  manure  scrapings,  or  compost 
of  hen  dung.     I  intend,  if    I    live    to  plant 
fruit,  to  be  more  careful  about  planting  bush- 
es and  trees  or  vines,  so  as  to  have  them  free 
from  vermin    or  mildew.       I    have    seen  a 
great  many  pear  and  apple  trees  ruined  with 
lice.     Last  spring  I  cut  the  tops  off  several 
young  apple  trees  that  were  full  of  lice,  and 
grafted  clean  grafts  on  again,   and   rubbed 
lard  from  the   grafts  down,  to   keep   the   lice 
from  getting  on  the  new  wood.     Xow  the  tops 
are  as  clean   as  they   need  be,   and  if  I  had 
used  the  same  care    in    years    gone    by,   I 
might  have  saved  a  good  many  trees  to  bear 
good  fruit.— 0;d  Cultivator,  Lime  Valley. 

[Just  as  you  treated  your  trees,  so  treat 
your  currant  bushes,  aud  they  will  also  be- 
come "as  clean  as  thev  need  be."  Nothing 
is  better  for  these  "Bark-hce"  or  "Scale-in- 
sects" than  lard-oil— applied  in  a  liquid  state, 
and  when  the  temperature  is  not  low  enough 
to  congeal  it.  It  will  not  injure  the  plants, 
and  by  the  time  it  is  washed  off,  the  Ucewill 
go  with  it. — Ed. 


OTTAR  OF  ROSES. 

Where  the  Most  Delicate  of  all  Perfumed  Es- 
sences is  Obtained— When  the    Rose 
Leaves  are  Gathered— The  Yield. 


Among  the  many  exhibits  at  the  Centennial, 
which,  no  doubt,  attracted  a  large  share  of  at- 
tention and  proved  especially  interesting  to  the 
ladies,  was  the  perfumery.  Of  course  that 
princeliest  of  perfumes,  "Ottar  of  Roses,"  was 


much  sought  after.  Everybody  who  could 
afford  it  purchased  a  vial  as  a  souvenir  of  the 
great  exhibition.  This  perfume  was  sold  in 
oblong  vials  containing  about  four  drops  of 
the  essence  at  SI. 2.5  per  vial.  The  vial  isnev- 
er  opened,  but  intended  to  be  laid  away  in  a 
bureau  drawer,  where  it  will  perfume  the 
whole  room  in  a  short  time. 

Home  Versus  Foreign. 
The  most  delicious  of  all  perfumed  essences 
is  obtained  by  the  simple  distillation  of  rose 
leaves.  In  our  chmate,  roses  are  not  sufficient- 
ly highly  scented  to  produce  the  properly  odor- 
iferous essence  or  oil;  and  all  the  druggists 
can  produce  from  rose  leaves  is  rose  water, 
which  in  fact  is  water  slightly  impregnated 
with  the  essence  or  oil,  which  is,  to  a  small 
degree,  soluble  in  it.  The  most  favorable 
country  for  the  production  of  the  most  high- 
ly scented  roses  is  the  middle  portion  of  Eu- 
ropean Turkey,  at  the  base  of  the  southern 
slope  of  the  Balkan  Mountains,  where  the 
roses  are  protected  against  all  winds  except 
those  from  the  south,  and  the  flowers  thus  at- 
tain a  luxuriance  in  perfume  and  in  growth, 
as  well  as  in  size,  of  which  those  who  have 
not  visited  these  regions  can  hardly  form  any 
idea. 

The  Centre  of  the  Trade. 
The  town  of  Kezenlik,  situated  in  the  pro- 
vince of  that  name,  is  the  centre  of  the  field 
of  cultivation  and  distillation  of  the  rose 
leaves.  The  leaves  are  gathered  all  over  the 
province,  which  is  40  miles  long,  and  is  water- 
ed by  the  river  Thungha  and  the  many  moun- 
tain streams  which  discharge  into  the  same, 
furnishing  the  water  necessary  for  the  distilla- 
tion. To  give  an  idea  of  the  extent  which 
this  industry  has  attained,  we  need  only  say 
that  there  are  in  that  province  128  different 
villages  of  which  the  inhabitants  are  all  em- 
ployed in  the  culture  of  the  beautiful  flowers. 
These  all  live  in  peace  together,  Turks  and 
Christians,  and  they  prosper,  having  become 
wise  by  experience,  finding  that  it  is  better  to 
work  than  to  waste  tkne  in  religious  and  po- 
litical quarrels. 

Plantations  of  Roses. 
Almost  all  the  country  is  occupied  in  rose 
plantation  and  only  a  comparatively  small 
portions  is  devoted  to  raising  rye  and  barley, 
for  the  subsistence  of  the  inhabitants  and  their 
cattle.  The  rose  grows  best  on  those  parts  of 
the  slopes  where  the  sun  shines  most,  and 
which  is  the  least  northern  in  exposure.  A 
litrht  soil  is  best,  and  the  planting  is  done 
during  the  spring  and  summer,  in  parallel 
ditches  three  inches  deep  and  five  feet  apart. 
In  these  ditches  shoots  from  old  rose  trees 
are  laid  ;  they  must,  however,  not  be  cut  from 
the  tree,  but  torn  off,  so  that  each  shoot  has 
some  portion  of  the  root  or  bark  of  the  root 
adherent.  They  are  then  covered  with  earth 
mixed  with  a  little  manure. 

How  They  are  Cultivated. 
If  the  laud  is  horizontal,  and  a  mountain 
stream  can  be  diverted  so  as  to  inundate  it, 
this  is  done  to  hasten  the  growth  ;  at  the  end 
of  six  months  shoots  are  seen  coming  up  all 
along  the  furrows,  and  at  the  end  of  a  year 
these  shoots  are  three  or  four  feet  high,  form- 
ing regular  hedges  ;  at  the  end  of  the  second 
year,  "roses  appear,  but  not  in  suflicient 
abundance  for  them  to  be  gathered.  The 
gathering  is  commenced  in  the  third  year, 
after  wh'rch  they  produce  largely,  the  hedges 
being,  at  the  end  of  five  years,  six  feet  high. 
The  bushes  produce  flowers  until  fifteen  years 
old  when  the  field  is  worn  out,  and  must  be 
plowed  up.  They  do  not  prune  the  rose 
bushes  at  all,  as  we  do  ;  but  they  cut  off  every 
year  in  the  late  fall  or  winter  the  dead 
branches. 

The  Great  Harvest  Time. 
The  great  harvest  commences  about  May 
1.5th,  and  lasts  until  June  2d  or  10th;  the 
gathering  is  done  daily  in  the  morning  before 
sunrise,  and  the  distillation  is  done  before  12 
noon,  so  as  to  have  the  benefit  of  all  the  fresh- 
ness of  the  flowers,  which  is  at  once  driven  off 
by  the  heat  of  the  day.     In  hot  seasons  the 


roses  open  more  rapidly,  and  the  crop  may 
last  but  for  ten  days;  but  in  wet,  cooler  sea- 
sons, the  progress  is  slower  and  the  crop  may 
last  for  twenty-five  days;  but  then  the  daily 
harvest  is  smaller  in  proportion,  so  that  the 
final  result  is  about  the  same.  However,  cool, 
slow  weather  is  preferred,  as  it  eases  the  daily 

labor. 

About  the  Distillation. 

The  stills  used  are  of  the  roughest  kind, 
and  small  ;  they  hold  from  200  to  240 
pints  of  water,  and  are  carried  to  the  rose 
bushes  to  be  filled.  To  twenty  pounds  rose 
leaves,  200  pints  of  water  are  added,  and  the 
whole  is  distilled  at  a  gentle  heat  until  twen- 
ty pints  of  water  are  distilled  off.  This  quan- 
tity contains  nearly  all  the  perfume  of  the 
leaves,  which  are  then  thiwvn  away  with  tlie 
remaining  water,  and  the  still  is  again  filled 
with  20  pounds  leaves  and  1(50  pints  of  water. 
This  operation  is  repeated  until  all  the  leaves 
have  been  used.  The  water  thus  distilled  off 
is  a  strong  rose  water;  and  the  result  of  eight 
or  ten  distillations  is  put  into  a  still  and  sub- 
mitted to  a  second  distillation,  when  a  strong- 
rose  water  is  obtained;  so  strong,  indeed,  that 
it  is  unable  to  contain  the  essence  in  solution, 
and  the  latter  floats  on  the  top  of  the  water. 
Experieuce  has  shown  that,  for  every  ounce 
of  ottar  of  roses,  3,000  pounds  of  rose  leaves 

are  required. 

The    Annual    Production. 

The  total  yearly  production  of  eight  districts 
into  which  the  IGO  villages  of  the  province  of 
Kezeulik  are  divided,  is  on  an  average  of  3,500 
pounds  of  ottar  of  roses,  of  which  the  district 
in  which  the  Capital  is  situated  produces 
half.  Some  years  ago,  however,  the  bushes 
were  exceptionally  prolific.  Thus,  in  1806 
6,000  pounds  were  produced,  but  in  1872  only 
1  700  pounds  could  be  obtained.  We  ought 
to  add  that  every  rose  farmer  has  his  own 
stills  for  producing  ottar  of  roses  immediately 
after  picking  the  flowers;  and  thousands  of 
industrious  workers  are  thus  occupied,  earn- 
incr  in  a  single  short  period  of  twenty  days 
the  products  of  a  year's  labor  in  preparing  the 
soil,  planting,  and  taking  care  of  the  grow- 
ing plants. 

Ready  for  the  Market. 

When  the  distillation  is  over  the  farmers 
come  from  all  parts  of  the  province  to  the 
Capital  to  sell  their  products,  those  who  have 
larse  quantities  selling  directly  in  the  great 
commercial  centers,  such  as  Constantinople 
and  Adrianople.  At  present,  however,  an 
enterprising  firm  in  Kezenlik,  considering  the 
delay  to  which  the  trade  with  the  last  named 
cities  is  subject,  and  the  chances  of  adultera- 
tion, have  established  a  depot  in  Paris,  France, 
from  which  this  delicate  and  expensive  per- 
fume is  now  distributed  over  Europe  and  all 

the  world. 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
FARMERS  VS.  SPORTSMEN. 
The  lack  of  harmony  between  fiirmers  and 
sportsmen  is  so  well  known  to  every  one,  and 
the  points  of  difference  that  have  sprung  up 
between  them  so  wide,  that  it  would  seem 
almost  like  a  piece  of  impertinence  either  to 
state  them  or  offer  any  plan  of  conciliation. 
There  was  a  time  when  this  was  not  so,  nor  is 
that  period  such  a  very  distant  one,  but  latterly 
this  antagonism— for  such  it  may  be  correctly 
termed— has  grown  with  much  rapidity,  and 
has  now  reached  a  stage  of  open  and  undis- 
guised hostility. 

Although  not  personally  a  sportsman,  I  had 
frequent  opportunity  of  witnessing  the  dis- 
atrreements  between  these  two  classes  of  the 
community  during  the  past  season  ;  they  were 
neither  pleasant  nor  agreeable  to  either  party, 
and  will  continue  to  become  more  so  with  each 
succeeding  season,  unless  an  attempt  is  made 
to  arrive  at  some  mutual  understanding. 

It  will  hardly  be  denied  that  nearly  every 
farmer  upon  whose  plantation  game  is  to  be 
found  has  been  more  or  less  annoyed  by  the 
intrusion  of  so-called  sportsmen.  Fences  have 
been  throwm  down,  rails  broken,  gates  left 
open  cattle  scared,  and,  what  is  worse,  some- 
times shot,  through  carelessness.    This  is  no 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


23 


light  catiilo^ue  of  evils  registered  against  the 
gunners,  ami  when,  in  adiUtion,  the  gan)e-bag 
of  tlie  pot-lumtur,  as  is  too  often  tlie  case,  is 
fillc'ci  witli  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  barn- 
yard poultry,  the  cup  of  the  farmer's  wrath  is 
justly  filled  to  overtlowing.  And  when  he 
uiidertakes  to  stem  the  tide  of  accumulating 
evils,  he  has  not  oidy  the  sympathy  and  co- 
operation of  his  fellows,  but  of  all  other  rea- 
sonable men,  whether  they  be  farmers  or  not. 
As  a  legitimate  conseiinence  of  these  annoy- 
ances, he  comes  to  look  with  suspicion  upon 
every  man  who  approaches  his  premises  with 
a  gun  upon  his  shoulder.  He  no  longer  wails 
to  draw  distinctions  between  these  obnoxious 
visitors,  but  regards  them  one  and  all  as 
nuisances — as  a  pest  and  an  enemy  whom  he 
desires  to  see  as  rarely  as  possible,  and  to  get 
rid  of  whom  becomes  for  the  time  being  the 
chief  object  of  his  wishes. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  the  imiumerable 
series  of  hand-boards  and  warnings  which 
ornament  every  prominent  tree  on  his  prem- 
ises, and  oftentimes  e-xceed  the  number  of 
quail  that  lind  shelter  on  his  acres.  And  when 
even  these  notices  to  trespassers  are  ineffec- 
tual, a  disgraceful  bout  of  words,  and  oftimes 
a  personal  collision  is  the  result,  lean  hardly 
be  wrong  in  saying  these  things  are  not  desired 
by  either  party.  The  farmer  bears  with  him, 
as  a  conse([uence,  a  rulHed  temper,  while  the 
gunner  has  oft  to  mourn  the  loss  of  a  favorite 
dog,  and  goes  away  full  of  wrath  and  breath- 
ing vengeance. 

Perhaps  in  a  majority  of  cases  the  farmer  is 
not  so  much  impelled  to  take  the  course  he 
does  from  his  desire  to  protect  the  game  which 
finds  shelter  in  his  fields  :  that  I  believe  is  fre- 
quently a  secondary  consideration,  (juail, 
rabbits,  woodcock,  squirrels,  and  other  game, 
are  not  such  important  things  in  his  eyes  as 
they  are  in  those  of  the  hunter.  A  desire  to 
protect  his  premises  from  this  undesired  intru- 
sion, and  his  property  from  unnecessary  de- 
struction, are  generally  the  objects  he  has 
most  at  heart.  If  he  has  pleasure  in  hearing 
Bob  White's  pleasing  pipe,  and  is  aware  that 
the  songster  is  insectiverous,  as  well  as  gran- 
iverous,  and  in  this  way  capable  of  rendering 
very  important  services  during  the  spring  and 
summer,  he  may  feel  like  affording  him  pro- 
tection for  the  good  he  is  able  to  do.  I  hardly 
think,  however,  this  utilitarian  view  of  the 
case  very  often  influences  the  farmer  ;  oftener 
he  regards  the  upland  minstrel  in  the  light  of 
a  dainty  morsel  for  his  table,  and  therefore 
worthy  of  his  protection.  If,  liowever,  this 
opinion  does  not  guide  him,  and  he  is  swayed 
solely  by  the  desire  to  see  this  handsome  game 
bird  increase  without  any  hindrance  what- 
ever, he  might  in  the  course  of  time,  if  his 
views  could  be  carried  out,  see  them  Ijecome  a 
pest  requiring  abatement,  just  as  the  hare 
sometimes  becomes  in  Nevada  and  the  adjoin- 
ing territories.  There  is  a  possible  danger 
that  under  certain  contingencies  we  might  have 
too  much  Bob  White,  instead  of  too  little,  as 
seems  likely  at  present,  in  consequence  of  con- 
flicting interests. 

So  much  for  the  farmer.  The  sportsman 
also  claims  a  hearing.  When  confronted  with 
the  long  list  of  grievances  the  farmer  brings 
forward,  he  says  in  reply,  they  are  general  and 
sweeping,  instead  of  being  limited  to  a  class 
insignificant  in  numbers.  The  sport.sman  wor- 
thy of  the  name  deserves  no  such  reproach  ; 
he  alarms  no  household  and  maims  no  cattle 
with  his  random  shooting  ;  he  does  not  wan- 
tonly destroy  the  husbandman's  property ; 
neither  does  "he  commit  theft  upon  any  stray- 
ing poultry.  Should  he  through  accident  in- 
jure anything  belonging  to  the  granger,  he 
does  not  endeavor  to  cover  np  the  fault,  but 
honorably  pays  tlie  damage  that  has  been  un- 
willingly inflicted.  That  the  pot-hunter  is 
sometimes  guilty  of  the  excesses  previously 
mentioned,  he  admits,  but  he  himself,  as  much 
as  anyone,  is  the  enemy  of  this  class  of  offend- 
ers, wlio  shoot  game  in  season  and  out  of  it, 
and  whom  he  is  as  anxious  to  suppress  as  the 
farmer  can  possibly  be. 

He  claims  to  be  more  interested  in  the  pre- 
servation and  increase  of  game  than  the  far- 


mer. He  has  been  instrumental  in  procuring 
the  passage  of  game  laws  and  theorgiiniz;ition 
of  siiorting  clubs,  which  have  for  their  object 
the  protection  of  game  during  the  period  of 
nidilieation  and  reproduction,  against  the  as- 
.saults  of  hunter  outlaws,  who  would  as  soon 
shoot  ilrs.  Bob  Wliite  while  engaged  in  the 
pleasing  cares  of  the  nursery,  as  on  a  frosty 
morning  in  December.  He  does  not  call  the 
farmer  ignorant,  churlish  and  exacting,  who 
sees  fit  to  deny  him  the  right  to  kill  game  on 
his  premises  ;  he  oftener  asks  permission  to  do 
so  than  attempts  it  without  license  ;  and  when 
refused,  does  not  pau.se  to  bandy  words  with 
the  proprietor.  Under  these  circumstances, 
he  thinks  the  farmer's  refusal  not  warranted 
by  the  stale  of  the  case,  but  seeks  efsewhere  to 
find  that  pleasure  which  has  here  been  denied 
him. 

He  joins  issue,  also,  with  the  farmer  upon 
the  question  wliich  the  latter  very  generally 
claims  as  of  right — the  ownership  and  exclu- 
sive proprietary  rights  in  all  game  that  may  be 
found  on  the  latter's  domain.  On  this  point  1 
believe  the  farmers,  as  a  rule,  are  mistaken. 
How  can  they  substantiate  their  claim  to  the 
covey  of  quail  tliat  may  to-day  be  feeding 
ai'ound  their  grain  stacks  'i*  Did  he  breed  or 
raise  them  V  Can  he  identify  them  if  they  are 
with  any  others  ?  Do  they  bear  any  peculiar 
marks  that  may  serve  to  establish  ownership'i' 
(Jan  he  take  and  dispose  of  them  at  will,  like 
any  other  property'i'  And  when  they,  in 
search  of  fresh  feeding-ground,  fly  over  his 
fence  into  his  neighbor's  field,  are  they  still 
his  'i*  If  he  went  to  bring  them  back,  would 
he  not  be  as  much  of  a  trespasser  as  the  veriest 
l)ot-hunter  that  bags  his  spring  chickensV  Be- 
yond all  doubt  he  would.  As  well  might  the 
riparian  owner  claim  the  fish  in  the  navigalile 
water  course  that  flows  by  his  broad  acres. 
Game  in  this  State  that  is  not  pieserved  in 
enclosed  parks,  or  is  not  in  some  other  way 
directly,  constantly  and  continuously  under 
control,  is  in  law  devoid  of  ownership.  An 
enclosed  and  preserved  trout  pond  implies 
ownership  and  proprietary  rights,  but  to  whom 
belongs  the  flock  of  wild  ducks  that,  in  their 
semi-annual  voyage,  either  from  hunger  or 
weariness  alight  and  pass  an  hour  or  two  on 
its  quiet  surface?  All  game,  whether  of  fur 
or  feather,  is  governed  in  the  matter  of  habitat 
entirely  and  exclusively  by  the  question  of 
food  supply.  So  long  as  that  is  plentiful,  they 
perhaps  remain  when  unmolested,  but  when  a 
time  of  scarcity  comes,  migration  comes  with 
it,  and  what  then  becomes  of  your  exclusive 
ownership?  Your  property  takes  wings  like 
the  riches  in  the  parable,  and  flees,  you  know 
not  where  !  I  have  not  inquired  into  the  law 
on  this  point,  but  it  is  very  evident  to  me  it 
does  not  pretend  to  confer  ownership  iu  pro- 
perty that  is  not  identifiable  and  which  no 
number  of  statutes  can  secure  to  him.  Such  a 
law  would  carry  signs  of  absurdity  all  over  it, 
and  while  our  State  legislators  have  never  im- 
pressed the  community  deeply  by  the  brilliancy 
of  their  lecislative  capacities,  I  am  neverthe- 
less persuaded  nothing  so  illogical  or  fallacious 
has  ever  emanated  from  that  collective  body 
of  wisdom. 

So  stands  the  case,  then,  between  these  two 
classes  of  the  community.  Instead  of  healing, 
the  breach  widens  yearly.  The  point  that  re- 
mains to  be  considered  is,  whether  there  are 
no  means  whereby  these  diflferences  can  be 
satisfactorily  adjusted.  I  believe  such  a  thing 
possible  in  most  cases.  Farmers  are,  as  a 
rule,  very  honorable  men — none  more  so. 
When  met  in  the  proper  spirit,  they  are  not 
the  unreasonabh^  lieings  hunters  suppose  ;  and 
when  approached  in  the  proper  manner,  mis- 
understandings soon  give  way.  Hunters 
must  understand,  in  the  first  place,  that  the 
right  of  every  man  to  control  and  enjoy  his 
own  is  absolute  and  indisputable,  and  when- 
ever any  one  attempts  without  permission  or 
purchase  to  enjoy  this  right  ahmg  with  the 
rightful  owner,  he  becomes  a  trespas.ser.  What 
shadow  of  right  has  the  sportsman  on  the  far- 
mer's acres  'i  AVhere  does  he  get  such  a  right? 
A  man's  land  is  a.s  much  his  property  as  his 
house,  and  the  law  calls  that  his  castle.    If  he 


may  defend  that  he  certainly  can  the  former. 
Both  farmers  and  sportsmen  are  agreed  upon 
one  point,  and  that  is  the  ot'cessity  and  strict 
enforcement  of  the  game  law  ;  they  canjneet 
upon  this  common  ground  of  agreement,  and 
unless  they  co-operate  heartily  in  enforcing 
such  laws,  no  amount  of  legistation'willjpre- 
servo  tlie  game  in  any  district :  unrestricted 
shooting  soon  clears  a  country  of  ita|feral 
occupants. 

Of  late,  sportmcn's  clubs  have  sprung  up  in 
every  State.  They  cannot  become  too  numer- 
our,  and  if  they  are  as  choice  and  careful  iu 
their  membership  as  many  other  associations 
are,  they  will  be  composed  of  gentlemen. 
There  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  be 
such  in  reality  as  well  as  in  name.  I  believe 
it  would  not  be  a  diflicull  matter  for  such  an 
as.socialion,  known  to  be  compo.sed  of  honor- 
able men,  to  come  to  an  agreement  with  simi- 
lar associations  of  farmers  living  near  each 
other,  securing  the  right  to  hunt  during  the 
proper  .season,  under  certain  restrictions,  and 
for  a  fixed  renumeration.  The  farmers  would 
not  be  loth  to  increase  their  revenue  from  this 
source,  if  it  could  be  done  without  damage  to 
their  property.  Suppose  a  sportsmen's  club 
was  to  secure  by  purchase  the  right  to  hunt 
game  over  a  tract  of  2,000  or  ;j,(JOO  acres  ; 
would  it  not  then  be  to  the  interest  of  the  far- 
mers, no  less  than  that  of  the  hunters,  to  afford 
the  game  on  the  land  thus  rented  or  lea.sed  all 
the  protection  possible?  If  the  game  was  not 
preserved,  but  wantonly  destroyed,  the  sports- 
men would  decline  to  rent  again,  and  the  reve- 
nue of  the  farmers  be  consequently  curtailed  ; 
but  if  it  became  more  abundant  from  year  to 
year,  as  it  no  doubt  would  with  proper  care, 
the  proprietors  would  be  justified  in  asking  in- 
creaseti  compensation,  and  might  in  time  de- 
rive a  handsome  reveime  from  a  source  hitherto 
unprofitable  and  the  cause  of  innumerable  vex- 
ations. While  I  hold  the  farmer  can  no  more 
lay  exclusive  claim  to  the  game  on  his  farm  than 
he  can  to  the  moon  or  stars  that  shine  down 
upon  it.  Justice  demands  that  he  be  compen- 
sated for  all  the  care  and  supervision  he  may 
bestow  upon  it. 

To  many  it  may  seem  to  be  carrying  the 
thing  too  far  to  pay  for  what  they  have  always 
had  for  the  taking.  Granted  ;"  but  the  time 
will  surely  come  when,  without  .some  such  ar- 
rangement, the  sportsman  will  be  compelled 
to  forego  his  pleasure  and  pastime  in  the  set- 
tled districts,  and  betake  himself  elsewhere  in 
search  of  sport,  and  that,  too,  at  a  far  greater 
expenditure  of  money  .and  time  than  the  plan 
I  have  proposed  would  cost.  It  seems  to  me 
the  only  fair,  reasonable  and  jwssible  solution 
of  this  vexed  question.  The  conflicting  in- 
terests of  both  sides  would  be  merged  into  a 
mutual  one ;  game  would  be  better  preserved, 
and  the  game  laws  better  observed,  because 
both  parties  would  unite  their  efforts  to  that 
end.  At  all  events,  the  plan  is  worthy  of  trial ; 
it  can  certainly  not  make  matters  worse  than 
they  are,  and  may  perhaps  furnish  a  solution 
to  the  existing  difficulties. — J^.  R.  D.,  Lancas- 
ter, Feb.  22,  1877^ 

INFLUENCE  OF  READING. 

In  our  last  i.ssue  we  mentioned  the  necessi- 
ty of  having  a  certain  amount  of  good  reading 
form  a  part  of  the  occupation  and  pleasure  of 
well-spent  winter  evenings.  But  it  is  not 
merely  for  the  "fim  of  the  thing"  that  we  de- 
sire all  people  to  make  a  point  of  reading 
sometliing  each  day;  on  the  contrary,  the 
main  reason  for  so  doing  is  found  in  the  direct 
and  powerful  influence  which  reading  will 
have  ui)on  your  per.sonal  character  and  life. 

We  suppose  and  will  venture  the  assertion, 
that  all  minds  are  moulded  and  guided  more 
by  what  they  read  than  by  what  they  hear. 
There  are  only  two  principal  methods  of  influ- 
encing our  own  or  other  minds;  one  is  by 
means  of  oral  speech,  and  the  other  by  writ- 
ten language.  And  no  less  a  person  than 
President  Porter,  of  Yale  College,  has  said, 
that  in  this  view,  ''a  good  book  is  of  more  val- 
ue than  a  good  man."  We  think  this  opin- 
ion can  be  justified  by  good  and  sufficient  rea- 
sons.   One  or  two  occur  to  us  now. 


24 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  February, 


First,  when  a  man  speaks  to  another  upon 
any  topic  wliich  has  not  received  a  great  deal 
of  previous  thought  at  his  hands,  his  talk  or 
speech  will  he  very  likely  to  have  in  it  a  con- 
siderahle  quantity  of  crude,  undigested,  hast- 
ily-prepared substance.  With  some  grains  of 
good  wheat  there  will,  and  must  be,  necessa- 
rily, more  or  less  chaff.  And  sometimes  the 
proportion  of  the  chaft'  to  the  wheat  is  very 
large.  The  man,  perchance,  is  on  his  feet  be- 
fore an  audience.  He  is  compelled  to  think 
rapidly  and  speak  correctly.  What  time  has 
he  then  to  weigh  matters  or  canvass  probabil- 
ities, or  look  upon  different  sides  of  any  sub- 
ject? None  whatever.  He  must  speak  the 
thoughts  that  come  first  to  him,  whether  val- 
uable or  worthless. 

But  when  a  man  sits  down  to  write,  on  the 
other  hand,  he  has  time  and  opportimity  for 
the  most  careful  reflection  and  consideration. 
He  must  think  before  he  can  write  to  any  ad- 
vantage or  profit  to  himself  or  others.  Be- 
sides, in  writing,  the  mind  seems  to  be  raised 
to  its  highest  power  of  productiveness.  It 
condenses  and  intensifies  itself.  Consequent- 
ly, whatever  is  good  in  writing  is  doubly 
good,  whatever  is  bad  is  doubly  bad.  And, 
furthermore,  what  is  written  can  be  changed, 
if  necessary,  befor.^  being  sent  out,  but  spoken 
words  can  never  be  recalled. 

A  second  reason  for  this  judgment  lies  in 
the  fact  that  when  a  man  sits  down  to  listen 
to  a  speaker,  the  speaker's  personality  and 
his  own  come  into  collision  with  each 
other.  The  hearer  is  either  moved  to  sym- 
pathy and  admiration  for  the  speaker  person- 
ally, or  else  aroused  to  secret  or  open  antag- 
onism. In  both  cases,  the  presence  of  theman 
himself  detracts  from  the  force  of  his  words,  con- 
sidered  per  se. 

Quite  frequently,  the  influence  of  the  man 
is  much  greater  than  that  of  his  words ;  in 
which  case  we  are  sure  to  remember  the  per- 
son, and  equally  sure  to  forget  what  he  said. 
But,  on  the  contrary,  when  a  person  sits  dowu 
to  read,  the  attitude  of  his  mind  is  more  pas- 
sive than  active,  more  receptive  than  ener- 
getic. He  feels  the  need  of  information  or 
guidance.  He  longs  for  principles  and  ideas 
on  which  to  build.  And  so  he  throws  open 
the  doors  and  windows  of  his  nature  to  what- 
ever book  or  paper  is  before  him,  aud  says 
practically,  "Come  in  and  occupy."  Hence 
the  contents  of  a  book  or  paper  fall  into  the 
soul,  as  seeds  into  the  soil ;  and  after  the  pro- 
per time  they  germinate,  spring  up,  bear  fruit 
and  cover  the  ground,  and  the  result  is  that 
indestructible  thing  we  call  character, 
which  consists  in  part  of  mental  thrift  and 
healthy  growth.  So  much  for  the  mere  in- 
fluence of  reading. 

^ 

TOBACCO. 


A     Legend    Concerning    its     Introduction    in 

Europe— What   the  \A^eed  Has   Been 

Known  to  Do. 


An  Irishman  who  had  a  termagant  wife, 
quieted  an  outbreak  of  ill-humor  by  presenting 
the  lady  with  a  short  pipe,  of  which  the  cost 
was  one  half-penny ;  and  as  he  did  so  he  re- 
marked, with  Quaker-like  simplicity,  that 
peace  was  a  good  thing  at  any  price.  There  is 
much  peace  in  tobacco.  A  legend  even  relates 
that  it  was  introduced  into  Europe  by  a  man 
whose  profe.?sional  business  was  peace-seeking. 
It  was,  or  was  not— for  doctors  difl'er— a  cer- 
tain M.  de  Nicot,  French  Embassador  at  the 
Court  of  Portugal,  who  brought  tobacco  under 
the  notice  of  Catharine  de  Medicis,  in  the  year 
1560,  or  thereabouts  ;  whereas,  it  was  proba- 
bly known  in  London  1585.  In  France  tobacco 
was  therefore  called  nicotiane,  or  "  the  Queen's 
weed  ;"  in  England  it  got  its  more  enduring 
title,  because,  says  tradition,  Francis  Drake 
carried  away  the  first  samples  from  Tobago. 
It  was  the  wild  man  who  taught  his  civihzed 
brother  the  calm  delights  of  smoke. 

The  Best  Tobacco 
in  the  world  for  cigars  is,  perhaps,  that  found 
in  Cuba,  and  the  best  tobacco  in  Cuba  is  grown 
at  Yuelta  de  Abajo.    The  best  snufi' comes 


from  Macouba,  a  village  at  Martinique,  where 
the  Empress  Josephine  was  born.  The  best 
Turkish  tobacco  is  that  raised  in  Macedonia. 
Tombeki,  which  is  exclusively  smoked  in 
narghilehs.  comes  from  Persia.  When  good, 
it  looks  like  new  shoe  leather  used  for  soles. 
Tombeki  should  be  washed  at  least  three  times 
before  smoking.  It  is  diflicult  to  understand 
the  source  of  pleasure  derived  from  tobacco. 
If  it  came  from  the  sense  of  smell,  we  might 
engage  servants  to  smoke  for  us  and  preserve 
the  vvhiteness  of  our  teeth,  as  well  as  the  inof- 
fensiveness  of  our  hair  and  clothes.  If  it  de- 
pended on  taste,  we  should  get  more  joy  out 
of  a  quid  than  out  of  a  cigar.  It  cannot  be- 
long to  the  touch,  because  chocolate  pastiles 
and  some  needle-cases  feel  like  cigars  in  hand. 
The  sight  seems  to  have  part  in  our  delec- 
tation, because  tobacco  is  almost  deprived  of 
its  perfume  by  darkness  ;  yet  if  its  savor  de- 
pended wholly  on  light,  suggests  a  sage  who 
has  lost  all  mental  coherence  of  smoky  thoughts, 
tobacco  would  give  more  pleasure  in  the  sun- 
shine than  in  the  shadow,  and  no  true  smoker 
has  ever  piped  assent  to  such  a  statement. 

Von  Helmont,  traveling  in  desert  places, 
avers  that  tobacco  protected  huu  for  long 
periods 

Against  Hunger  or  Fatigue, 

and  he  declares  that  he  could  make  immense 
journeys  on  foot  with  no  other  sustenance. 
Dr.  Stephenson,  an  American  physician,  ob- 
served that  tobacco  may  be  almost  counted  on 
as  a  specific  in  certain  forms  of  inflammatory 
erysipelas.  He  covers  the  iuflamed  surface 
with  wet  tobacco  leaves,  and  keeps  them  there 
till  nausea  supervenes.  A  member  of  the 
College  of  Medicine  at  Stockholm  avers  that 
the  dried  leaves  of  the  potato  plant  would 
answer  the  same  purpose,  and  that  far  better 
smoking  ingredients  may  be  made  from  them 
than  from  the  coarser  kinds  of  tobacco  in 
common  use.  Much  of  the  tobacco  sold  at 
Hamburg  and  Bremen  is  mixed  with  potato 
leaves.  The  tobacco  which  comes  from  Mary- 
laud  is  the  only  sort  which  can  be  smoked  in 
short  pipes  without  danger  to  the  mucous 
membrane  of  the  mouth.  It  mingles  imper- 
ceptibly with  the  potato  leaf,and  the  adultera- 
tion can  hardly  be  detected.  A  learned  man 
declares  that  we  are  grievously  in  error  who 

talk  of 

"Meerschaum"  Pipes, 

we  should  say  "Kummer"  pipes,  and  com- 
memorate perpetually  our  obligations  to  the 
discoverer  of  a  compound  which  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  sea  nor  with  its  foam.  Anselm, 
who  has  written  a  profound  work  on  pipes,  in- 
structs mankind  that  they  should  be  of  the 
simplest  forms,  so  as  to  be  easily  cleaned,  and 
that  there  never  should  be  any  wood,  metal, 
caoutchouc,  or  horn  connected  with  them. 
Kummer  pipes  may  be  discreetly  cleansed  by 
pouring  streams  of  boiling  coffee  through 
them.  It  is  a  wise  course  to  bake  clay  pipes 
in  a  hot  oven— after  the  dinner  has  been  taken 
out  of  it.  Pipes  have  their  names,  hke  swords 
—names  born  of  love  or  glory ;  and  one  is 
known  to  history  as  "Ahastasia;"  one  as 
"Paradise."  The  first  belonging  to  a  poet, 
the  other  to  Omar  Pasha,  who  had  a  name  to 
conjure  with  among  the  Turks.  Tobacco  is 
believed  to  have  destroyed  the  art  of  conver- 
sation ;  but  perhaps  it  has  only  improved  it. 
Smoking 

does  not  render  talk  impossible,  or  even  diffi- 
cult; but  it  condenses  it  and  makes  it  senten- 
tious. Tobacco  compresses  a  long  winded 
discourse  into  an  epigram.  It  is  at  the  bottom 
of  the  diflerence  between  the  Welchman's 
prayer  and  that  of  Mawworm.  "Good  night, 
sir,"  he  remarked  to  his  patron  saint,  "few 
words  are  best,"  whereas  Mawworm  has  nev- 
er done  with  words,  and  would  let  his  pipe  out 
in  more  ways  than  <me,  while  that  of  the  more 
ancient  and  acute  Briton  would  keep  alight. 
The  smoker  wants  no  other  furniture  than 
some  German  tinder.  If  he  begins  to  burden 
himself  with  amber  mouthpieces,  clips,  and 
pincers,  he  ceases  to  be  a  man,  and  becomes  a 
cupboard.  Directly  the  first  ashes  falls  oft'  it, 
the  flavor  is  impaired,  and  the  smoke  becomes 


hot,  acrid,  and  unwholesome.  Smoking, 
which  has  greatly  increased  in  recent  years, 
is,  at  all  events,  much  better  than 

Taking  Snuff, 
which  disgraced  the  very  waistcoats  of  our 
forefathers.  "Had  our  noses,"  mused  a  phi- 
losopher, "been  intended  tor  dustholes  they 
would  have  been  turned  the  other  way." 
Possibly.  And  it  is  by  no  means  clear  to  logi- 
cal intellects  that  our  mouths  were  intended 
for  chimneys,  or  could  with  more  fitness  have 
been  opened  at  the  top  of  our  heads,  and  every 
man  might  have  served  as  a  barometer  to  his 
neighbor,  who  could  have  forseen  the  state  of 
the  weather  by  noting  whether  his  neighbor 
was  blinded  by  his  own  smoke  or  otherwise. 
Youth  and  love  depart  from  us.  Tobacco  re- 
mains, and  perhaps  it  consoles  us.  It  is  the 
only  form  of  happiness  which  is  left  to  some 
whom  the  world  has  treated  unkindly.  Je  te 
laise  mofemmeet  mapipe;  jeterecommande 
bien  ma  pipe,"  were  the  last  words  of  Gavar- 
ni's  vagabond. 


1 


LETTER  FROM  DANIEL  WEBSTER  TO 

THE   FARMER   IN   CHARGE  OF   HIS 

MARSHFIELD     PLANTATION. 

This  fine  letter  of  Daniel  Webster,  writ- 
ten 44  years  ago,  and  just  now  in  season,  will 
be  welcomed  as  a  most  agreeable  and  instruc- 
tive lesson  by  city  as  well  as  country 
TP3,d.Grs  * 

Washington,  March  13,  1822. 
John  Taylor :  I  am  glad  to  hear  from  you 
again,  and  to  learn  that  you  are  all  well,  and 
that  your  teams  and  tools  are  ready  for 
spring's  work,  whenever  the  weather  will  al- 
low you  to  begin.  I  sotnetimes  read  books  on 
farming,  and  I  remember  that  a  sensible  old 
author  advises  farmers  "to  plow  naked  and 
to  sow  naked."  By  this  he  means  there  is  no 
use  in  beginning  the  spring's  work  till  the 
weather  is  warm,  that  a  farmer  may  throw 
aside  his  winter  clothes  and  roll  up  his  sleeves. 
Yet  he  says  we  ought  to  begin  as  early  in  the 
year  as  possible.  He  wrote  some  very  pretty 
verses  on  this  subject,  which,  as  far  as  I  re- 
member, run  thus  : 

"While  yet  the  spring  is  young,  while  earth   unbinds 
The  frozen  hosom  to  the  western  winds; 
While  mountain  snows  dissolve  against  the  sun, 
And  streams  yet  new  from  precipices  run — 
E'en  in  this  early  dawning  of  the  year, 
Produce  the  plow  and  poke  the  sturdy  eteer, 
And  goad  him  till  he  smokes  beneath  his  toil, 
And  the  bright  share  is  buried  in  the  soil." 

John  Taylor,  when  you  read  these  lines,   do 
you  not  see  the  snow  melting  and  the   little 
streams  beginning  to  run  down  the  southern 
slopes  of  your  Punchbrook  pasture,   and  the 
new  grass  starting  and  growing  in  the   trick- 
ling water,  all  green,   bright  and  beautiful  ? 
And  do  you  not  see  your  Durham  oxen  smok- 
ing from  heat  and  perspiration  as  they  draw 
along  your  great  breaking-up  plow,   cutting 
and  turning  over  the  tough  sward  in  your 
meadow  in   the  great  field  ?     The  name  of 
this  sensible  author  is  Virgil,  and  he   gives 
farmers  much  other  advice,   some  of  which 
you  have  been  following  all  this  winter  with- 
out even  knowing  that  he  had  given  it. 
"But  when  cold  weather,  heavy  snows  and  rain 
The  laboring  farmer  in  his  home  restrain, 
Let  him  forecast  his  work  with  timely  care, 
Which  else  is  huddled  when  the  skies  are  fair  ; 
Then  let  him  mark  the  sheep,  and  whet  the  shining 

share. 
Or  hollow  trees  for  boats,  or  number  o  er 
Hie  sacks,  or  measure  his  increasing  store  ; 
Or  sharpen  stakes,  and  mend  each  rake  and  fork, 
So  to  be  ready  in  good  time  to  work  ; 
Visit  his  crowded  barns  at  early  morn  ; 
Look  to  his  granary,  and  shell  his  corn  ; 
Give  a  good  breakfast  to  his  numerous  kine,  ^^ 
His  shivering  poultry  and  his  fat'ning  swine." 

And  Mr.  Virgil  says  some  other  things 
which  you  understand  up  at  Franklin  as  well 
as  ever  he  did  : 

"In  chilling  winter  swains  enjoy  their  store, 
Forget  their  hardships,  and  recruit  for  more  ; 
The  farmer  to  full  feasts  invites  his  friends. 
And  what  he  got  with  pains,  with  pleasure  spends, 
Draws  chairs  around  the  fire,  and  tells  once  more 
Stories  which  often  have  been  told  before  ; 
Spreads  a  clean  table  with  things  good  to  eat, 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


25 


And  adds  some  iiioisteniuij  to  his  fruit  and  meat. 

They  praise  his  liospitality  and  feel 

They  shall  sleep  better  after  such  a  meal." 

Jolui  Taylor,  by  tin-  time  you  have  got 
through  this,  you  will  have  read  cnouf,'!!.  The 
sum  ofall  is,  be  ready  for  your  siiriiif;  work  a.s 
soon  a.s  tlie  weather  becomes  warm  enough, 
and  then  jiut  your  liaud  to  the  plow  and  look 
not  back.  Daniel  Wkhstei;. 

— Philadelpliia  Lnhjcr. 


THE  BREEDING  OF  SILK  WORMS. 


Large  Shipment  of  Eggs  from  Japan  to  Eu- 
rope via  America  —  The  Trade   Increas- 
ing Yearly —  Peculiarities  of  the  Worm, 
and  How  it  is  Cared  For. 
A  large  cargo  of  silk  worms'  eggs  was  ship- 
ped from  Vokohama  on  the  steamship  City  of 
Peking,  and   reached   San  Francisco  on   tlie 
14th  instant ;  thence  they  were  sent  by  rail 
across  the  Continent,  and  airived  last  Friday 
at  the  Union  Line  Dock,  Jersey  City.     About 
half  the  cargo   was  shipped  by   the  City  of 
Berlin,  via  Liverpool,  for  Havre  and  Paris. 
Tlie  remaining  portion  \s'\\\  be  forwarded  ne.xt 
Saturday  by  the  steamship  Labrador  direct  to 
Paris  and  Havre,  where  the  eggs  will  be  dis- 
tributed through   different  parts  of  France, 
Italy  and  Switzerland.     The  eggs,  which  are 
placed  in  1,872  bales  or  cases,  occupy  seven 
cars  and  their  value  is  estimated  at  |.3,0I10,- 
000.     The  agent  of  the  Union  Pacific  Hail- 
road,  Mr.  Nolan,  says  that  the  cargo  arrived 
in   good  condition,  and   that    the    eggs   are 
healthy,  and  have  not  been  injured  by  their 
long  journey  to  this  city.     A  regular  trade  in 
the  trau.sportation   of    silk   worms  has  been 
established  for  several  years  between  Yoko- 
hama  and    Europe.      The    steamer    Gaelic, 
which  arrived  at  San  Francisco  from  Yoko- 
hama on  the  6th  in.stant,  had  on  board  a  cargo 
of  287  bales  of  the  silk-worms'  eggs,  en  route 
to  Europe.     Large  as  these  consignments  are, 
the  trade  is  increasing  daily,  and   the   supply 
of  silk-worms  shipped  this  year  exceeds  that 
ot  any  previous  year.     This   is   owing  to  the 
fact  that  there  has  been  a  great  shortness  of 
the  crop  in  the  silk-worm  producing  countries 
of  Europe.     The   decrease   in   France  within 
the  present  year  has  been  at  least  one-half, 
and  the  supply  in  Italy  has  fallen  off  fully  one- 
tenth,  making  a  short  crop  of  .30,0(X)  bales  of 
silk  in  Europe  this  year.     This  failure  is  at- 
tributable to  frosts  and  wet  weather,  and  lias 
increased  the  value  of  the  raw  material  fully 
one  hundred  per  cent.     What  is  known  as 
"the  silk  worm  disease''  broke  out  in  Europe 
with  great  virulence  last  year  and  destroyed 
a  large  number  of  the  worms.     The  silk-worm 
seed  shipped  from  Yokohama  for  the  European 
niafket    is    round,    slightly     flattened,    and 
as  small  as  a  turnip  seed.     The  .seeds  will 
stick  wherever  they   have  been   laid  by  the 
female  moth  as  if  glued  on  pasteboard,  paper, 
cloth,  or  even  the  very  cocoon.     But  the  seed 
of  other   breeds    will    not   adhere,   such  as 
those  that  come  from   the  Caucasus,  Persia, 
and  European  Tmkcy,  among  which  are  the 
white  of  Adrianople  and  the  yellow    of  Cau- 
casus, from  Nouka.     The  eggs  are  by  natural 
law  submitted   to  a  period  of  seemingly  life- 
less inaction,  and  so,  during  the  whole  sum- 
mer, they  will  stand  a  degree  of   heat  much 
greater  than  the  one  needeed  to  hatch  them 
in  the  spring.     But  after  December  it  becomes 
possible,  by  giving  them  the  same  amount  of 
heat,  to  secure  nearly  perfect  hatching.    Theie- 
fore,  if  silk  worms  were  kept   in  winter  in  a 
heated   room,    there   is   no   doubt   that   they 
would  hatch  or  spoil.     In   shipping  them  by 
railroad  or  steamboat, care  must  be  taken  that 
they  are  not  placed  in  heated  cars  or  too  near 
the  boiler.     The  most  intense  cold  does  not 
hurt  them,  and  there  would  be  less  danger  in 
having  them  buried  in   ice   than  in  exposing 
them  to  a  high  degree  of  heat  after  the  month 
of  Octol)er. 

Mr.  Franklin  Allen,  Secretary  of  the  Silk 
Association  of  America,  related  to  a  reporter 
some  curious  facts  connected  with  the  habits 
and  peculiarities  of  the  silk  worm.  He  ex- 
plained that  there  are  five  diflerent  ages  in  the 


life  of  the  silk  worm,  from  the  hatching,  accor- 
ding to  the  number  of  tinu'sthey  changi' their 
skin.  These  ages  arc  al.so  termed  inoulliMg 
or  sleep.  Nature  gave  the  worm  the  liicully 
ofspimiing  the  .sulld  cocoon  in  which  it  wraps 
itself,  secure  ai:ainst  all  dangers  that  might 
hurt  it  as  .soon  as  it  is  transl'orined  into  a  chrys- 
alis— a  state  of  insensibility  which  it  preserves 
from  eight  to  twenty  days,  according  to  breed 
and  climate,  before  it  emerges  as  a  moth.  The 
age  of  silk  worms  is  counted  by  the  number  of 
meals  they  have  eaten  and  not  by  the  days 
spent  from  their  birth.  At  each  moulting  the 
worm  changes  the  whole  of  itsouter  envelope. 
When  just  hatched,  it  is  not  one-twelfth  of  an 
inch  long,  but  from  the  instant  of  its  birth, 
even  before  its  lirst  meal,  it  begins  to  s[)in. 
When  the  eggs  are  on  the  point  of  hatching, 
they  undergo  a  marked  change  of  color;  they 
pass  from  dark  lilac  to  ashy  lilac,  and  become 
(piite  while  when  the  worm  is  out.  They  eat 
more  or  less,  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of 
activity  imparted  to  them  by  the  beat.  At 
a  cold  temperature  they  are  benumbed,  and 
eat  little  or  nothing.  Hence  it  is  ueces.sary  in 
warm  weather  to  feed  them  frequently. 

Some  leading  breeders  maintain  that  tire,  air 
and  leaf  are  the  three  e.ssential  requisites  to 
sustain  the  silk  worm.     Great  care,  as  well  as 
punctuality,    should    be   observed    in  feeding 
them.     The  mulberry  leaves  should  l)e  spread 
very  evenly,  so  that  one  worm  cannot  eat  more 
than  another.     After  eighteen  meals  most  of 
them  will  be  buried  beneath  the  leaves.     The 
others,  as  many  as  can  be  seen,  will  have  short, 
thick-set  bodies  and  large  heads.     By  and  by 
the  worms  begin  to  thicken,  and  in  eighteen 
hours  they  will  all  come  out  if  the  temperatm-e 
be  warm.     At  every  moulting  the  color  of  the 
worm  grows  dimmer  and  wliitens  gradually. 
At  the  fourth  and  last  age,  the  worm  is  lean 
and  feeble.     As  .soon  as  it  is  well  o\it  it   is 
necessary  to  give  them  a  light  meal  with  wild 
leaves.     Later  on,  plenty  of  leaves  should  be 
supplied  them  three  times  a  day.      When  this 
is  done,  a  noise  similar  to  a  heavy  shower  tail- 
ing on  foliage  is  heard,  which  is  produced  by 
their  chewing  the  leaf,  which  they  gnaw  close 
to  the  wood.      For  eight  days  they  require 
constant  attention.     Six  days  after  the  last 
silk  worms  have  come  up,  the  collecting  of  the 
cocoons  may  be  commenced.     The  first  thing 
is  to  take  ai)art  the  bushy  cabins  where  the 
worms  first  climbed  up.     The  most  important 
points  necessary  to  breeding  and  to  prevent 
disease,  are   attention   to   cleanliness,  proper 
ventilation,    regularity   in   feeding,  and   care 
against  cold  draughts  of  air  or  sudden  changes 
of   temperature.      The   mull)erry   silk    worm 
being  partially  domestic  in  its  habits,  requires 
greater  care  than  the  hardy  race  of  worms  that 
arc  independent.      During   their    torpor   the 
worms  require  no  food  ;  but  their  appetite  in- 
creases after  each  moulting,  and  in  the  fiftll 
age  it  may  be  called  voracious.     As  they  ap- 
proach their  torpor  they  raise  their  heads"  with 
a  waving  motion,  and   their  ap|)etite  ceases. 
The  worm,  arrived  at  matmity,  diminishes  in 
size  by  discharging  its  excrementitious  matter, 
and   becomes   transparent.     As   soon  as   the 
worms  begin  to  give  out  the  silky  fibre,  they 
should  be  put  on  the  bush  or  branches  pro- 
vided for  them  to  spin  their  cocoons.  In  three 
days  the  worm  completes  ifs  cocoon,  which  is 
left  ujKin  the  bush  about  five  days  longer,  to 
season   it.     Twelve  or  thirteen  "ounces  of  co- 
coons will  produce  one  ounce  of  seed  or  eggs, 
unless  the  males  be  too  many  in  proijortion' to 
the  females,  or  the  moths  liot  all  very  robust 
(stout).     Finally,  lOU  females  can  give  40,000 
eggs,  whicli,  if  they  all  come  out  well,  would 
produce  VM  pounds  of  silk,  and  more  for  .some 
breeds,  in  which  200  cocoons  make  a  pound;  it 
would  then  be  200  poiuids.  It  is  to  be  undei-stood 
that  these  figures  can  only  \m  approximative, 
still  they  often   prove   to  be  correct  in  small 
breeding.     The  moths  live  for  about  twelve 
days  from  the  breaking  out  of  the  cocoons.   If 
the  seed  has  not  been  impregtiated,  it  remains 
ever  yellow  and  after  a  while  dries  up,  while 
that  which  has  acquired  the  lilac  color  stays 
round,  slightly  flattened,  but  always  full  till 
the  next  spring.    It  is  left  to  dry  where  it 


was  laid,  for  .some  days,  when  it  is  removed  to 
a  place  cool  and  dry. 

The  series  of  transformations  or  changes  of 
skin  which  the  ijilk-w<irm  undergoes  are  like 
those  of  any  other  caterpillar;  it  inclo.ses  it- 
self in  the  most  admirable  tissue,  and  becomes 
a  chry.salis  aiul  then  a  butterfiy.  Examined 
with  a  niagnil'ying  glass,  the  insect's  head, 
its  mandibles,  its  thread-s))inning  apparatus, 
legs,  skin,  and  all  its  organs,  external  and  in- 
ternal, are  curiously  and  wonderfully  fashion- 
ed. A  marked  swelling,  covered  with  wrin- 
kles, at  the  fore  part  of  the  body  looks  like 
the  woiiu's  head,  but  has  only  the  appear- 
ance of  it,  and  contains  a  greitsy  liquid.  The 
hanl  part,  which  forms  the  snout,  i.s  the  true 
liead;  it  is  composed  of  indented  mandibles, 
.set  side  by  side,  hard,  strong,  movable,  very 
lit  to  take  hold  of  the  leaf  every  way,  making 
the  lii-st  cut  on  the  sides  as  well  as  in  the  mid- 
dle, fi-oni  their  veiy  birth;  the  other  i)art  of 
the  head  is  the  liliere  or  threader,  a  kind  of 
membranous  apparatus,  set  with  muscles, 
which  Dresses  as  they  pass,  and  strongly  joins 
together,  by  means  of  a  gummy  substance, 
two  silk  threads  .so  adherent  that  they  can 
be  severed  only  by  means  of  powerful  chemi- 
cal ageiiLs.  These  two  silk  threads  are  slip- 
ped out  of  two  inner  reservoirs,  full  of  a  trans- 
parent liquid,  which  hardens  in  the  air  and 
becomes  thread  liy  a  i)hase  of  natme,  easier 
recorded  than  explained.  Two  black  points 
adorn  the  head  of  the  silk  worm;  some  [teople 
think  they  are  eyes,  some  say  they  are  not. 
The  feet  are  articulate,  membranous  and 
fitted  with  hooks,  who.se  princijial  use  is  to  fix 
the  insect  in  any  position.  There  are  six  of 
them  in  front,  artiinilate,  used  for  motion; 
and  eight  at  the  back,  membranous,  whose 
principal  u.se  istofixthe  insect  in  any  position; 
they  are  called  false  feet,  and  are  lengthened, 
taken  in  and  expanded,  according  to  the  in- 
sect's wants.  Twelve  ringsalternately  widen- 
ing or  Hearing  each  other,"are  used  tor  loco- 
motion; last  of  it,  upon  the  extreme  back,  is 
a  protuberanc'e,  a  kind  of  tail,  the  use  of 
which  is  unknown.  At  each  side  of  the  body 
there  a/e  nine  black  points.  They  are  aper- 
tures which  supply  constantly  to  the  larvae 
the  large  amount  of  air  which  it  needs  so 
much.  Inside  nearly  o.oou  nniscles  have  been 
counted,  used  for  locomotion.  The  intestinal 
tube  extends  in  straight  line  along  the  whole 
length  of  the  body;  it  presents  many  inside 
divisions,  and  is  "externally  surrounded  with 
many  small  channels,  used  for  digestion.  On 
each  side  of  that  tube  are  the  two  long  reser- 
voirs which  contain  the  silky  liquid;  they  ex- 
tend to  the  head,  where  they  unite  with  th« 
threader  or  filiere,  thus  forming  two  threads 
that  join  on  the  outlet,  as  we  have  before  said. 
It  was  an  error,  very  generally  received,  that 
the  silk  thread  was  already  formed  inside  of 
the  worm,  but  it  is  now  proved  that  it  is 
nothing  but  a  liquid,  which  hardens  as  soon 
as  it  comes  in  contact  with  the  outer  air. 


HOG   CHOLERA. 


The  disease  so-called  is  really  a  kind  of  ty- 
phoid fever,  characterized  by  great  heat  of 
bowels  and  rectmn— cosliveliess  or  dian'hoea, 
either  one.  The  symjitoms  vary  with  the 
creater  or  less  poison  the  animal  h.as  absorbed. 
This  article  is  an  abstract  ofall  that  has  been 
learned  on  the  subject  in  Europe  and  America 
bytenyearsofclo.se  observation  by  scientific 
and  practical  men.  The  disease  is  the  very 
one  now  prevailing  in  Holt.  It  is  caused 
by  an  intense  poison  evolved  from  the  body  of 
the  hog  where  large  ntmibers  are  confined  to- 
gether in  tilth.  It  is  the  mosteontagious  pois- 
on known,  and  is  carried  in  a  thousand  unsus- 
pected ways,  by  chickens,  birrls,  wind,  streams, 
of  water,  feathers  and  straws  l)lown,  old  lum- 
ber or  troughs  carried,  hogs  running  at  large 
and  smelling  around  pens  where  others  are 
confined.  A  bird  or  chicken  may  alight  where 
a  diseased  hog  has  been,  and  carry  the  infec- 
tion on  its  feet  or  wings  great  distances. 
Crows  and  blackbirds  have  carried  it  fifty 
miles.  Occasionally  some  animals  can  remit 
it,  just  as  some  people  can  remit  small-pox 


26 


THE  LANCASTER -FARMER. 


[February, 


and  measles.  The  poison  may  remain  for 
mouths,  even  years,  in  some  dry  dirt  or  filth, 
whicli,  when  touclied  by  the  hog,  conveys  the 
disease.  So  no  animal  can  be  safe  e.xcept  by 
the  same  means  as  are  used  to  ward  off  dis- 
eases among  human  beings.  Remember  the 
symptoms  vary  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
poison  in  the  system,  so  that  we  may  be  mis- 
led if  we  do  not  consider  this.  The  ordinary 
symptoms  are  slight  dullness,  wrinkling  of 
the  skin  of  the  face,  shivering  chilliness,  loath- 
ing of  food,  thirst,  heat  and  redness  of  skin  in- 
side of  fore  and  hind  thighs,  and  along  the 
belly.  Red  mottled  spots,  slightly  raised,  on 
breast,  belly  and  ham,  which  fade  on  pressure 
of  the  finger.  Sometimes  dark  or  black  spots. 
Tongue  covered  with  a  brownish  fur.  The 
animal  is  sore,  and  sensitive  to  the  touch.  It 
moves  feebly,  stitHy,  unsteadily,  and  grunts. 
There  is  sometimes  a  watery  mucous  flow,  and 
after  a  cough.  Bowels  confined  at  first,  become 
ofteu  very  loose,  and  discharges  very  offensive 
at  the  last.  Post  mortem  examination  shows 
various  appearances,  too  many  to  mention 
here.  A  few  are  specified.  Bluish  color  of 
skin,  which  grows  deeper  in  a  few  hours;  fat 
colored  snout  blue,  with  spots;  tongue  furred, 
but  deep  red  at  base;  stomach  pink  or  red;  in- 
testines congested,  a  deep  red  or  black,  ulcers 
or  scales.  Spots  are  common  over  tlie  various 
internal  organs,  lilood  or  mucus  in  the  cavi- 
ties, spleen,  large  and  dark. 

As  to  prevention  :  Knowing  how  contagious 
is  the  disease,  such  means  should  be  taken  as  are 
used  in  cases  where  epidemics  prevail  among 
human  beings.  I  will  just  say  here  that  more 
wealth  has  been  destroyed  within  the  past  ten 
years  from  letting  animals  run  at  large  than 
it  would  cost  to  fence  up  in  forty-acre  fields 
the  whole  United  States.  That  poor  man's 
hog  we  used  to  hear  so  much  about  some  years 
ago,  when  it  was  proposed  to  have  a  stock 
law,  has  come  near  to  makmg  poor  devils  of 
all  of  us.  He  is  a  poor  man  indeed  who  can- 
not take  care  of  the  few  pigs  and  the  cows  he 
has  got.  It  is  about  time  the  men  who  are 
men  in  energy  and  ambition,  shall  take  hold 
of  this  thing  in  earnest,  and  either  have  a 
stock  law  adopted  in  Missouri,  or  else  emi- 
grate to  Nebraska,  where  brains,  and  not 
whining,  move  the  law-making  power.  Hav- 
ing done  this,  if  you  would  keep  this  disease 
from  being  introduced,  act  so  in  regard  to- 
every  movement  connected  with  your  hogs — 
buying,  selling,  breeding  and  feeding,  as  if 
you  feared  every  other  hog  about  had  the  dis- 
ease, and  as  if  the  least  filth  would  generate 
it  anew.  Consult  the  nature  of  the  animal  ; 
give  it  an  opportunity  to  rub  itself  by  having 
rough  parts  and  corners  accessible.  Let  it  have 
variety  in  its  food,  and  access  to  lime  ashes, 
coals,  copperas,  salt,  and  a  little  aloes  oc- 
casionally. Change  your  pens  or  yards  ofteu. 
Pure  well  water,  for  you  know  not  where  sick 
hogs  have  been  at  the  stream  above.  High 
ground,  for  you  know  what  deadly  effluvia  or 
poison  is  sucked  down  the  hollows  ;  keep  but 
few  together,  and  none  where  that  "poor 
man's"  wandering  pig  may  whisper  death  in 
a  pig's  whisper  through  the  rails.  At  the 
first  sign  of  sickness  in  a  hog,  away  with  it 
from  possibility  of  contact  with  any  others. 
"When  sick  give  it  a  tablespoonful  or  less 
twice  a  week  of  the  following  mixture,  viz  : 
Two-thirds  nitrate  potash,  one-third  chlorate 
potash,  and  a  very  slight  pinch  of  jalap,  twice 
a  week.  But  if  you  do  as  told  above,  you 
will  not  likely  ever  be  troubled.  This  is  a 
great  deal  of  trouble,  but  show  me  a  man  that 
ever  made  money  without  a  world  of  trouble. 


THE  ARABIAN  HORSE. 

The  first  thing  that  strikes  one  in  the  true 
Arabian,  setting  aside  what  may  be  termed 
his  personal  beauty,  is  great  general  length. 
What  reach,  what  stride  these  horses  must 
have  1  They  are  born  racei\s  !  were  the  thoughts 
that  flashed  across  our  mind.  Next  to  the 
length,  a  general  appearance  of  character  and 
of  blood,  or  high  breeding,  is  conspicuous. 
The  head  is  not  particularly  small  or  short  in 
proportion  to  the  size  or  height  of  the  horse  ; 
it  is  not  a  small,  neat,  pretty,  meaningless 


head.     The  frontal  bones  and  the    parietal 
bones  or  walls  of  the  skull  above  are  large, 
bold,  often  prominent,  and  the  brain  cavity  is 
capacious  and  well  developed,  giving  an  ap- 
pearance and  power   almost    human.      The 
nasal  bones,  on  the  other  hand,  are  fine  and 
subservient  to  the  frontal,  and  of  a  delicate 
and  graceful  outline.     The  orbits  of  the  eye 
are   large   and   prominent.     The   eye   is  full, 
large  and  lustrous  ;  it  is  very  beautiful ;  the 
beauty   is   not   so   much  dependent  upon  the 
size  of  the  eye  as  derived  from  its  depth  and 
expression  ;  and  when  the  animal  is  excited  it 
displays  much  fire.      The  lids  are  particularly 
fine,  and  the  lashes  long  and  silky.      The  lace 
is  lean  and  full  of  fine  drawing.      The  muzzle 
is  particularly  flue,  the  lips  long  and  thin,  the 
upper  lip  well  cut,  the  lower  lip  small,  com- 
pressed and  terse.     The  nostril  in  a  state  of 
repose,  very  long,  beautifully  curled,  delicate 
and  thin  ;  when  the  horse  is  in  action  or  ex- 
cited the  nostril  opens  very  wide,  and  gives  a 
bold,  square  appearance  to  that  part  of  the 
face.     The  lower  jaws  are  fine  and  clean,  the 
upper  part  of  the  lower  jaw  toward  the  neck 
is  very  deep,  and  the  jaws  are  set  wide  apart. 
The  cheek  bones  are  sharply  cut.     The  ears 
are  well  cut,  pointed,  and  well  placed,  and 
when  pricked  point  inward  in  a  peculiar  man- 
ner which  is  considered  a  mark  of  great  beauty 
and  a  great  sign  of  high  breeding.     The  neck 
is  of  moderate  length  and  of  a  graceful  curve 
or  gentle  arch  from  the  poll  to  the  withers  ;  it 
is  a  muscular,  light  neck,  and  the  splenius 
muscle  is  well  developed.     The  junction  of  the 
head  and  neck  is  very  graceful.     The  head  is 
well  set  on.     The  withers  are  sufficiently  high 
and  run  well  back,  but  are  not  too  thin.    The 
back  is  short,  the  loins  are  powerful,  the  croup 
high,  the  haunch  very  fine,  the  tail  well  set 
on,  and  the  dock  short.      The  quarters  are 
both  long  and  deep  ;  the  gaskins  are  sufficiently 
full  and  muscular  without  being  heavy,  pon- 
derous or  vulgar  ;  the  thighs  are  well  let  down, 
the  hocks  are  clean,  well-formed,  well-placed, 
large,  and  near  the  ground.     The  shoulders 
well-placed,  long,  and  of  a  good  slope,  and  the 
base  of  the  scapulae  broad  and  well  developed; 
the   arms   are    long,  lean  and  muscular ;  the 
elbow  is  well  developed  ;   the   trapezium  or 
bone  behind  the  knees  is  prominent.     The  legs 
are  short,  deep,  and  of  fair  bone,  tendons  and 
ligaments  large  and  well  strung  ;   the  fetlock- 
joint  is  large  and  bold  ;  the  pasterns  are  large, 
long,  sloping  and  elastic  ;   the  feet  wide  and 
open,  and  low  rather  than  high  at  the  heels  ; 
the  chest  is  deep  and  capacious  ;   the  ribs  are 
arched  (and  in  this  point  the  Arabian  differs 
considerably  from  any  other  horse)  ;    he  has  a 
fine  barrel ;  he  is  short  above  but  long  below  ; 
he  stands  over  a  deal  of  ground.     Thejine 
shown  from  the  withers  to  the  setting    ofthe 
tail  is  short  as  compared  with  the  ground-line. 
The  skin  is  fine,  soft  and  delicate  ;  the  hair 
short,  soft  and  silky  ;    and  the  skin  is  seen 
through  the  hair  to  a  greater  degree  than  is 
seen  in  other  horses  of  high  blood.     The  mane 
and  tail  are  long  and  fine.     The  whole  of  the 
hinder  parts, from  the  haunch  to  the  heels,  taken 
collectively  or  in  detail,  display  great  length. 
His  general  appearance  indicates  the  highest 
breeding  and  nobility.  He  is  of  high  courage, 
easily  excited,  and  of  a  nervous  temperament, 
but  his  fire  and  courage  Ave  tempered  by  his  sa- 
gacity.    The  Arabs  are  very  particular  about 
three  points  in  connection  with  the  head  of 
their  horse.     The  djebheh,  which  is  a  forma- 
tion of  the  frontal  and  parietal  bones,  if  not 
pecidiar  to,  is  most  marked  in,   the    Arabian 
horse;  it  can  scarcely  be  too  large  or  too  bold. 
The  shape  and  size  of  the    djebheh    gives    a 
large  brain  cavity.  It  adds  also  to  the  beauty 
and  nobility  of  expression;    and    here,    as  in 
other  points  of  the  Arabian,   usefulness  and 
beauty  are  combined.     It  is  usually  somewhat 
different  in  the  horse  and  mare;  in  the  latter 
it  is  rounder  and  more  prominent,  often  strik- 
ingly so,  and  descends  in  a  graceful  and  easy 
line  to  the  nasal  bones.     The   mitbth   is  the 
graceful  curl  of  the  windpipe  (which  is  toler- 
ably detached  from  tlie  neck)  as  it  rufis  in  lie- 
tween  the  jaws,  which  gives  a  fine  carriage  to 
the  head,  allows  it  to  be  brought  in,  and  'Will 


enable  the  horse  to  extend  the  head  almost  to 
the  same  line  with  the  neck  and  the  ears, 
which,  to  be  perfect,  should  turn  inward  in 
the  manner  already  described.  lathe  mares 
the  ears  are  longer  and  more  open,  in  the 
horse  smaller  and  more  pricked.  There  are 
a  few  other  points  that  struck  us  as  worthy 
of  observation.  As  a  rule,  the  point  of  the 
hock  (os  calcis)  is  large,  well  defined  and  pro- 
minent, often  to  such  an  extent  as  to  lead 
many  at  first  sight,  to  suppose  it  was  enlarged 
from  accident.  The  tendon  runs  down  in  a 
well-defined  way,  and,  as  it  were  free  from 
the  hock  and  giving  a  particularly  clean  look 
to  that  joint.  This  formation,  I  venture  to 
submit,  acts  in  the  horse  with  an  advantage 
similar  to  that  gained  by  a  well  formed  heel 
and  arched  instep  in  the  human  subject. 

We  were  struck  by  the  general  development 
of  the  fetlock  joint,  pasterns,  and  feet,   all  of 
which  are  pre-eminently  good;  it  is  not  suf- 
ficient   to  say  the    pasterns    are  long   and 
elastic;  all  these    points    appear    larger  and 
stronger  and  more  adapted  for  use  than  those 
of  other  horses;  the  feet  are  strong  and  open, 
and  placed  more  in  advance  ofthe  leg  than  is 
usually  seen  in  other  horses,   and  the   upper 
and  lower  pastern  bones    by    their  direction 
and  conjunction  with  the  foot   (os  pedis)  ap- 
pear to  act  with  greater  advantage;    there  is 
great  depth  of  leg  at  the  sessamoid  bone,   and 
the  head  of  the    shank    bone    is   also    large. 
There  is  a  marked    combination    of  strength 
and  elasticity  in  all  these  complicated  joints 
which  is  peculiar  to  the  Arabian  horse,  which 
gives  great  freedom  besides  more  easiness  in 
his  paces,  which  enables    him    to    grasp    the 
ground  and  to  gallop  down  hill  as  easily  as  on 
the  flat,  and  moreover,  we  thought,   accounts 
for  his  tjeing  so  sound.     Again,  although  the  ■ 
hind  leg  of  the  Arabian  may  be  deeper  below 
the  hock  than  the  fore  one  is  below  the  knee, 
we  noticed  that  there  was  not  so  great  a  diff- 
erence in  size  between  the  hind  and   fore  legs 
as  is  often  to  be  seen  among  our  race  horses. 
On  reflection,  this  struck  us  as  an  admirable 
adaptation  of  parts  to  the  respective  and  dis- 
tinctive kinds  of  work  they  have  to  perform; 
for  strength  and  depth  in  the  fore  legs  are  evi- 
dently required  to  receive  the  weight  of  the 
horse  and  the  force  thrown  upon  them  by  the 
impetus  given  by  the  hind  extremities   when 
the  horse  is  in  rapid  action.     And  if  any  part 
of  the  Arabian  horse  could  he  said  to  be  ex- 
aggerated,   it  would  be    the  length  of  his 
haunch  and  hinder  parts  generally  (necessary 
for  high  speed),  but  which  we  thought  is   am- 
ply provided  for  and  counterbalanced  by  the 
formation  of  the  various  parts  of  the  fore 
legs,  as  I  have  endeavored  to  describe;  indeed 
throughout  his  whole  form  it   is  the  natural 
appearance  of  the  horse,  the  beautiful  balance 
of  power  and  symmetrical  adaptation  of  parts 
that  cause  the  Arabian  to  be  so  perfect  an  an- 
imal.    It  must   not,    however,    be  supposed 
thai  in  every  true  Arabian   all    these  points 
are  to  be  seen  to  perfection,  but  in  some  they 
are  to  be  found,  and  these  must  be  considered 
perfect  animals;  yet  in  all  these  points  they 
are  to  be  recognized  in  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
and  beyond  those  in  other  horses. — Fraser''s 

Magazine, 

^ 

BAKED  CORN  AND  EGGS. 

B.  r.  J.,  the  Illinois  correspondent  of  the 
Cmintry  Oentleman,  writes  to  that  paper  as 
follows  :  The  steady  cold  weather  since  the 
middle  of  November,  and  some  tasks  begun 
and  finished,  have  kept  me  so  constantly  at 
home  that  I  have  been  able  to  give  an  hour  or 
two  every  day  to  observing  the  effects  of  some 
kind  of  food  for  the  winter  production  of  eggs. 
I  had  heard  it  repeatedly  said  that  for  produc- 
ing eggs,  for  stimulating  the  appetite  of  horses, 
swine  and  cattle,  "olf  their  feed,"  and  for 
other  unmentioned  purposes,  there  was  noth- 
ing like  a  daily  ration  of  parched  corn.  Hav- 
ing been  so  much  of  the  time  absent  during 
October  and  November,  my  fowls  had  little 
else  but  corn;  and  the  time  having  come  for 
winter-laying,  and  they  not  responding,  about 
the  first  of  December  I  began  giving  a  daily 
ration  of  baked  com,  and  with  the  happiest 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


27 


results:  for  I  call  llioso  results  liap()y  ones 
when  hens  will  lay  with  the  uu-iciny  at  zero, 
and  one  can  have  fresh  egi,'sto  eat  and  to  sell, 
when  epgs  are  40  cents  per.  doz.,  as  they  art 
at  the  present  time. 

But  what  puzzled  nie  in  the  business  was, 
why  baked  corn— that  is,  corn  put  in  a  stove 
oven  and  subjected  to  beat  enough  to  brown 
and  <'arbonize  it,  say  -IHI  def;.  to  ■J.Vjdeg.C'ent.. 
or  :i',Cj  ileg.  to  4S-J  deg.  Fah.  (the  temperature 
for  bakin;;  bread)— stimulates  egg  production, 
or  the  animal  economy  otherwise,  more  than 
raw  corn  or  corn  cooked  in  the  usual  manner. 
I  remend)er  to  be  sure,  I  wanted 
my  mush  cooked  two  hours  certainly,  and 
longer  if  possible;  that  the  New  Knglanil  deli- 
cacy, for  I  will  call  it  such,  of  baked  Indian 
pudding  owes  a  great  deal  of  its  merit  to 
standing  from  10  to  V2  hours  in  the  old  fash- 
ioned bi'ick  oven;  and  tliat  the  same  is  true  of 
Boston  brown  bread,  which  is  never  seen  in 
perfection  beyond  the  broad  basis  of  the  Berk- 
shire hills.  But  how  the  improvement  pro- 
duced in  these  dishes  by  prolonged  subjection 
to  heat  could  possibly  change  the  eonslitnent 
element  in  corn  or  cornmeal,  I  could  not  see 
or  understand.  The  ternary  or  qnarternary 
compomids  are  so  hxed  in  corn  .and  all  similar 
substances,  that  an  attempt  to  change  one  in- 
to another  results  in  the  destruction  of  both. 
Gluten  can  never  be  changed  into  starch  or 
sugar  or  oil,  or  the  reverse;  but  sugar,  starch, 
and  oil  are  nearly  identical  in  composition, 
and  so  are  albumen,  gluten,  and  libriue.  All 
this  I  knew,  and  became  more  and  more  puz- 
zled over  the  problem  ,  when  I  slumliled  on  a 
solution,  whicli  1  ran  across  in  the  concluding 
paragraphs  of  a  paper  on  Le  Jlle,  la  Farinc  ft 
le  Fttiu  (wheat.  Hour,  and  bread),  by  J.  A. 
Barral,  the  propietor  and  publisher  of  the 
Journal  dc  V  AgrkuHure,  of  Paris,  a  gentleman 
who  stands  in  the  same  relation  to  the  farm- 
ers of  France,  as  the  late  Luther  Tucker  did 
to  those  of  North  America. 

Says  M.  Barral :  "In  course  of  ascertaining 
the  comparative  amountof  nitrogen  in  bread 
crusts,  and  the  crumb  or  soft  part,  we  arrived 
at  unexpected  results  ;  always  that  the  crust 
is  the  richer  in  nitrogenous  matter  than 
the  crumb  of  the  same  loaf,  and  that  these 
nitrogenous  matters  have  a  much  greater  de- 
gree of  solubility.  One  might  say  that  those 
persons  who  eat  hard  crust  in  preference  to 
the  soft,  take,  in  the  same  weight,  food  doubly 
nitrogenous,  more  easily  soluble,  digestible, 
or  assimilable,  and  very  probably  twice  as 
nourishing.  This  explains  the  preference  we 
should  give  to  hard-baked  bread  over  that  less 
thorougldy  done  ;  why  physicians  recommend 
a  pa])  to  be  made  of  bread  crusts  ;  why  toasted 
bieadso  much  better  satisfies  the  appetite, 
and  why  toast  water  is  so  grateful  and  nourish- 
ing ^o  invalids  and  convalescents.  One  sees, 
indeed,  that  the  loss  of  organic  matter  accom- 
plished in  cooking  consist  in  the  carbonaceous 
constituents  of  flour— starch,  sugar  and  the 
.  like — and  the  result  is  a  concentration  of  the 
nitrogenous  matters  in  the  crusts. 

"It  is  a  very  important  fact  to  be  able  to  state 
that  bread  crusts  are  more  soluble  in  water  than 
the  crumbs  ;  and  a  more  important  one  to  be 
aVile  to  afhrm  that  the  nitrogen  in  the  crust  is 
much  more  soluble  than  the  cooking  of  the 
crust,  under  the  double  inlluence  of  a  tempera- 
ture of  200  to  -220  deg.  C.  (882  to  4r)8  deg.  Fah  ), 
produced  in  the  ovens  and  from  the  vapor  issu- 
ing from  the  body  of  the  loaf,  transforms  the 
gluten  of  the  flour  into  a  soluble  substance." 

Now,  apply  these  singular  facts  to  the 
whole  grain  of  Indian  corn,  and  the  culinary 
compounds  of  cornmeal,  and  we  see  how  it  is 
that  parched  or  baked  corn  is  quite  a  different 
thing  from  tlie  raw  article,  and  why  the  long 
boiling  of  mush  and  the  protracted  cooking  of 
baked  Indian  pudding  and  Boston  brown 
bread  have  their  reason  to  be.  In  the  case  of 
egg  production,  it  seems  baked  or  parched 
corn  is  not  only  more  soluble — that  is,  more 
digestible  than  raw  corn — but  it  also  contains 
a  greater  proportion  of  the  egg-makinu  sub- 
stance, gluten,  for  the  reason  that  the  baking  or 
roasting  has  carbonized  and  diminished  the  nou- 
«gg-making  constituents,  sugar,  oil,  and  starch. 


OUR   LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings   of  the    Lancaster   County    Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

Tlie  resrular  iiioijtlily  meetiner  of  the  Lanoastcr 
County  Airricultural  niiil  Horticultural  Sooicly  was 
held  on  MomUiy  aflprnoon,  Keliniary  ."itli,  in  tlie 
.VMu'iKiMMu  room,  I'rcsitlent  Coo[)(-r  in  the  chair. 

Tlic  (bUowinir  nuMiihi'rs  wore  prcBOiit  ;  McsBrs. 
Calvin  Coo|«t,  Henry  .\I.  Eniflc,  JolniBon  Miller,  I.,fvi 
.■<.  Itei.st,  \Vni.  MoCoinBOV,  Mr.  Ilershcv,  .Martin  D. 
Konilis-,  S.  S.  Hallivon.  jl.  Hcnpilict,  Israel  I,.  I.an- 
ili.s,  C  I..  Uuni'i'ckiT,  l.cvi  I'ownall,  .loliii  H.  Krip,  .1. 
Frank  bandis,  I'olcr  S.  Keist,  J.  W.  Hess,  Mr,  Miller, 
Simon  P.  Kliy,  Henry  Krb,  John  Gingrich,  Harry  F. 
Hosletter,  David  (J.  Swartz. 

Kohert  Crane,  of  Columbia,  and  Samuel  HeBS,  of 
I^plii-ata,  were  elected  mendxTB  of  the  Bociely. 

The  eonimillee  on  revisiuf;  the  eonetitution  and  by- 
laws of  the  society  were  di^eharjred. 

.Mr.  Enoi.k  reported  the  amount,  of  rain-fall  for 
tlie  nionlh  of  .January  as  H  .5-10  inches. 

Mr.  KKNDiii,  of  .Manor,  said  the  wheat  looks 
healthy.  Tobacco  was  very  good.  Some  sold  for  1!0 
and  oO  cents  per  poiuiil. 

The  committee  ap|)ointed  at  the  last  meeting;  to 
consult  with  the  [mblislier  of  77«  Latwayfcr  Farinci- 
ill  regard  to  its  conlinuatioii  and  to  canvass  for  sub- 
scribers for  the  same,  was  called  upon  to  report.  .Mr. 
Israel  L.  Landis  said  he  succeeded  pretty  well,  havinj^ 
reci'ivcd  between  tift.v  and  .sixty  subscribers  in  ten 
days,  but  when  he  discovered  that  none  of  the  rest  of 
the  committee  were  making'  any  elforts,  lie  droj^ped 
the  matter,  and  has  dime  nothing' since.  If  the  mem- 
bers would  take  hold  of  the  matter,  he  felt  sure  the 
necessary  subscribers  could  be  secured. 

Mr.  ENiiLEsaid  al  tlic  last  meeting  he  pledged  him- 
self to  secure  twenty-live  subscribers.  He  liad  got 
twenty-eight,  and  would  further  pledge  himself  to 
raise  the  list  to  forty.  He  hoped  the  members  would 
not  lot  r/i*: /ar//itr  die  from  starvation.  Every  niem- 
ber  should  pledge  himself  to  raise  a  list  of  at  least 
eight  or  ten  subscribers. 

I'ETEK  S.  Keist  reported  twenty-live  subscribers, 
most  of  which  he  got  while  attending  sales.  He 
would  pledge  himself  to  raise  the  list  to  lifty.  If  a 
Hrf  man  would  take  hold  of  The  Farrnt^r  and  make  a 
thoroutih  canvass  of  this  county,  he  felt  sure  .5,000 
subscribers  could  be  secured  without  much  clfort. 

After  considerable  discussion  in  regard  to  the  con- 
tinued publication  of  The  Fanner,  Mr.  llathvon 
arose,  and  said,  on  account  of  the  seeming  embar- 
rassment it  caused,  he  would  ofl'er  the  following  reso- 
lution, which,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Engle,  wns  ordered 
to  be  laid  on  the  table  : 

liesolvcd,  That  the  consideration  of  the  publication 
of  The  Laitctisfer  Fartiier  be  withdrawn,  and  that  all 
committees  relating  thereto  be  discharged. 

.\lr.  McCoMSEV  thought  the  only  way  to  secure 
the  requisite  number  of  subscribers  was  to  employ  a 
suitable  person  to  canvass  the  county.  He  suggested 
that  the  society  pay  such  canvasser  one  mouth's  pay, 
and  that  be  go  to  work  at  once. 

The  question  was  further  discussed  by  several 
other  members,  when  it  was  moved  by  Mr.  Engle  to 
oHcr  a  premium  to  those  receiving  subscribers,  to  re- 
port iu  eight  or  ten  days,  when,  if  a  sullii-ieut  num- 
ber could  not  be  secured,  the  matter  should  be 
dropped. 

H.  M.  Eno.i.e,  Israel  L.  Landis  and  Wm.  Mc- 
CoMSEY  were  appointed  to  prepare  a  premium  list  for 
the  canvassers. 

The  following  bills  were  ordered  to  be  paid  :  John 
H.  Barnes,  printing  constitution  and  rules  of  order  of 
the  society,  together  with  directory  of  Lancaster 
county,  8jo  ;  rent  of  room  for  meeting  of  Fruit  (i  row- 
ers' Society  and  janitor's  services  at  same,  5^12.0.5. 
The  list  submitted  by  the  Coinuiittee  on  Premiums 
is  as  follows  :  For  the  largest  list  of  subscribers  to 
The  Fanner,  not  less  than  thirty  copies,  $.5,  or  life 
membership;  second  largest  list,  S-i ;  third  largest 
list,  $'.; ;  lists  of  lifteen  subscribers  or  upwards,  one 
copy  of  Farmer  for  1S77.     Adopted. 

Mr.  Engle  made  the  following  answerto  the  ques- 
tion, "  Is  any  certain  color  of  a  cow  indicative  of  su- 
perior milking  qualities  :"  The  tfuestion  was  re- 
garded by  Mr.  Engle  as  not  being  deliuite;  the  answer 
must  necessarily  be  conditional.  Some  cows  are 
copious  milkers,  but  their  milk  is  of  poor  quality  ; 
others,  that  yield  half  the  quantity  of  milk,  produce 
more  butter.  Again,  a  few  produce  a  large  quantity 
of  both  milk  and  butter,  while  far  too  great  a  number 
produce  neither  milk  nor  butter  sullicient  to  pay  for 
their  keeping.  Copious  milkers  are  found  among  all 
colors  of  cattle,  but  very  rich  milkers  are  very  seldom 
lound  amongeitherwhiteor black.  The  intermediate 
colors  furnish,  as  a  rule,  the  best  milkers.  A  good 
.iudge  will  relv  upon  other  marks,  among  which  is  a 
rich  yellow  skin  without  much  regard  to  color  of 
hair.  The  Uuenon  system  well  understood  is  pro- 
bably the  most  reliable  method  by  which  to  judge  the 
milking  qualities  of  a  cow. 

Mr.  Enole  staled  that  the  Board  of  Agriculture 
of  this  State  met  at  Harrisburg  last  week,  to  which 
he  was  delegated  by  this  society.     He  said  that  the  i 
society  will  some  day  make  its  mark,  as  some  of  the  j 
best  and  ablest  men  of  the  State  are  members.  There  i 


I  is  now  in  the  Senate  a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  liounty 
allowed  local  societies.  He  would  like  the  opiuionof 
I  the  members  of  the  society  on  this  subject. 
I  Israel  b.  I.andis  hoped  prompt  measures  would 
j  be  taken  at  once  by  the  society  to  defeat  the  bill. 
I  Mr.  ,MeCoM.SEV  moved  that  our  representative  at 
Harrisburg  be  reiiuesled  to  use  all  fair  and  honorable 
j  means  to  prevent  the  repeal  of  the  bill. 

.Mr.  Mii.i.EH  moved  to  amend,  that  a  copy  of  the 
resolution  be  sent  to  each  Senator  and  liepresenta- 
tive.     .Adopted. 

J.  W.  Hess  presented  some  York  Imperial  apples 
and  three  yellow  apples  for  a  name,  nitfercnt  other 
varieties  of  apples  were  also  placed  upon  the  table 
for  inspection.  H.  M.  Engle,  bevi  I'ownall  and  J.  B. 
Erb,  were  appointed  as  a  committee  to  lest  the  fruit 
and  report  to  the  Society. 

The  following  questions  were  offered  for  discussion 
at  the  next  meeting  ; 

By  E.  K.  Hekshey,  "How  much  lime  ought  to  bo 
applied  to  the  acre  to  secure  the  best  possible  re- 
sult ?" 

By  John  B.  Eitn,  "How  shall  we  bnild  a  good  and 
cheappump-hou.se,  with  fruit  cellar  undenu-ath." 

By  I'ETEH  Heist,  "In  selei'ting  seed  corn,  is  it  ad- 
visable to  take  only  the  middle  grains  on  tlie  ear?" 

By  Johnson  Milleh,  "When  is  Hie  best  lime  to 
sow  clover  seed  ?" 

The  following  jiroposed  by  M.  D.  Kendig,  was  re- 
ferred to  S.  S.  Hathvon,  to  answer  at  the  next  meet- 
ing : 

"Will  the  unusually  large  crop  of  tobacco  worms 
the  past  year  be  likely  to  produce  a  comparatively 
abundant  progeny  the  coining  season?" 

Several  bags  of  seeds  from  the  aL'ricultural  dc. 
partmcnt  at  Washington  were  distr  buted  among  the 
members. 

Adjourned. 

The  Tobacco  Growers. 

The  Lancastar  County  Tobacco  (irowers'  Society 
met  in  the  rooms  of  the  Athenieum,  City  Hall  build- 
ing, on  Monday  afternoon,  February  1:^. 

The  following  members  were  present :  Messrs.  M. 
D.  Kendig,  president;  Jacob  M.  Frantz,  I.  L.  Landis, 
A.  Lane,  John  Brady,  Washington  Hershey,  P.  8. 
Keist,  H.  Yeager,  W.  L.  HerBhey,  Colin  Cameron,  J. 
M.  Stchman,  Henry  .M.  Mayer,  J.  M.  Johnston, 
Harry  Hostetter,  A.  H.  .Summy,  A.  H.  Landis. 

The  following-named  visitors  were  also  present: 
Henry  L.  Landis,  Joseph  Milton,  Levi  (iross,  Peter 
Esbenshade,  Samuel  Weidler,  Adam  Bear,  Jacob 
Bear,  Michael  Landis,  David  Hess,  Benjamin  Kittcr, 
Adam  Shoenberger,  Henry  F.rb,  .Martin  Miller,  .M. 
Shitluer,  John  .VI .  Suavely,  F.  U.  Feustermacher, 
John  Diireiibaeh. 

After  the  minutes  had  been  read  and  approved,  I. 
L.  Landis,  from  the  committee  to  inquire  Into  the 
matter  of  having  the  soi'iety  properly  represented  In 
the  permanent  exhibition  at  Pbiladeljibla,  reported 
that  it  was  very  desirable  that  the  society  should 
make  a  jiroper  display  of  Lancaster  tobacco.  He 
urged  memliers  to  make  contributions  of  choice  leaf 
for  tins  ]iurpo8e,  and  described  the  kind  of  cases  that 
he  thoutrht  best  suited  for  displaying  the  tobacco. 
The  cost  of  the  proposed  exhibit  would  be  compara- 
tively small,  and  he  thought  great  good  would  result 
to  the  growers  of  the  county  if  they  made  a  credit- 
able display. 

Colin  Cameron  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted  : 

Jfexuhied,  That  we  now  go  into  an  election  of  an 
executive  committee,  to  consist  of  five  members, 
whose  duties  shall  be  hereinafter  described  in  the 
laws  of  this  association. 

Messrs.  I.  L.  Landis,  J.  N.  Frantz,  P.  8.  Relst, 
Harry  .M.  Mayer  and  Colin  Cameron  were  nominated 
as  members  of  said  committee,  aud  on  motion  of  John 
.M.  Stebmau,  who  was  nominated  but  declined  to 
serve,  they  were  unanimously  elected. 

Crop  reports  being  in  order,  Hakrt  Myeks,  of 
East  llem[)ficld,  reported  the  crop  in  his  section  as 
being  very  satisfactory.  It  averaged  from  1,^00  to 
2,0tK)  pounds  per  acre ;  the  grenter  part  of  it  was 
sold  at  good  prices,  and  a  good  part  of  it  had  been 
delivered  to  the  buyers. 

1.  L.  Landis,  of  .Manheim  township,  reported  about 
one-third  of  last  year's  crop  sold,  the  lowest  figure 
being  three  cents  for  tillers,  and  the  highest  HO  cents 
for  wrappers.  Nearly  all  that  has  been  sold  has 
been  delivered.  Perhaps  one-fourlh  of  the  crops  re- 
main on  the  poles  to  be  stripped. 

P.  S.  Keist,  of  .Manheim,  said  that  five  cents  for 
tillers  and  L'o  cents  for  w-appere  were  the  outside 
figures  iu  his  neighborhood.  He  knew  of  one  acre 
that  had  produced  '.^,'JI)U  {>ounds,  and  some  others 
that  did  not  produce  more  than  1,000  pounds.  The 
average  product  he  estimated  at  from  1,.500  to  1,800 
pounds  per  acre. 

President  Kendig,  of  Manors,  re|)orted  the  flguras 
about  the  same  in  his  neighborhood.  The  crop  was 
fully  1,.500  |K)unds  to  the  acre,  and  he  thought  about 
one-half  the  crop  was  yet  upon  the  poles. 

Mr.  Yeaoeu,  of  East  Lampeter,  estimated  the 
crop  in  that  township  at  l,fiUO  pounds  per  acre.  The 
highest  price  paid  for  wrappers  was  21'^  cents,  the 
lowest  12  cents,  while  fillers  brought  five  cents. 

J.  M.  Fbantz,  of  Lancaster   township,   reported 


28 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[February, 


that  Mr.  Bausman's  crop  had  been  sold  at  25  cents 
round.  Another  crop  had  brought  2332,  14  and  5, 
and  others  20,  10  and  5.  About  one-half  of  the  crop 
in  his  township  had  been  sold. 

Mr.  Hershet,  of  East  Hempfleld,  said  that  aliout 
one-fourth  of  the  crop  in  his  neishborhood  was  yet  on 
the  poles;  about  one-third  had  been  sold,  at  good 
prices;  some  of  it  at  30,  10  and  .5.  Some  farms 
yielded  2,000  pounds  per  acre;  the  average  was  per- 
haps 1,700  pounds. 

Mr.  M.  ShiFFNER,  a  dealer  from  Leaenck,  said  the 
average  price  for  wrappers  was  from  18  to  'jS  cents.- 
Much  of  the  tobacco  in  that  section  was  very  poor, 
being  of  short  growth  and  much  cut  up  by  the  worms. 
Many  of  the  farmers  didn't  understand  their  business 
and  handled  the  tobacco  very  badly.  They  had  yet 
a  great  deal  to  learn  about  tobacco  growing,  and  the 
sooner  they  applied  tliemselves  to  a  regular  appren- 
ticeship the  better.  At  least  one-fourth  the  crop  was 
yet  on  the  poles. 

Mr.  A.  H.  SuMMT  reported  a  fair  crop,  most  of  it 
already  stripped,  and  some  of  it  sold  at  20,  10  and  5. 

Mr.  A.  H.  Landis  reported  the  highest  prices  at 
25, 10  and  5. 

Mr.  W.  L.  Hershet,  of  Rapho,  had  seen  sales 
made  in  three  grades;  at  25,  10  and  5,  and  20,  12  and 
5.    One-third  of  the  crop  sold  in  his  vicinity. 

Mr.  Jacob  M.  Fhantz  next  read  a  very  interest- 
ing essay  on  tobacco  growing  and  the  importance  of 
the  tobacco  interest.  After  a  few  prefatory  remarks 
the  essayist  gave  an  illustration  of  the  important 
part  tobacco  plays  in  maintaining  our  foreign  ex- 
changes. The  agricultural  and  commercial  statistics 
of  our  country  show  that  during  1875  the  crop 
exclusive  of  seed  leaf  aggregated  -75,000  hogsheads, 
valued  at  $29,400,000.  Of  seed  leaf  the  stock  on 
hand,  January,  1875,  was  180,000 cases,'grown  eh  efly 
in  New  England  and  Pennsylvania.  After  describ- 
ing some  of  the  varieties  of  seed  leaf  tobacco,  he 
proceded  as  follows  : 

I  believe  in  big  leaves  and  therefore  usually  get 
seed  from  the  largest  plant  in  the  field.  If  I  happen 
to  be  somewhat  Icnirthy  on  this  part  of  the  treatment 
you  must  be  charitable  ;  thirty  years  experience  has 
perhaps  made  me  somewhat  of  an  enthusiast  on  the 
subj.ct  of  raising  plants.  But  you  cannot  raise 
tobacco  without  having  plants,  and  to  raise 
them  in  proper  time  and  of  proper  quality  is  not  only 
the  first,  but  the  most  difficult  and  uncertain  feature 
in  the  business  of  tobacco  growing.  I  often  found 
parties  having  their  ground  well  selected  and  well 
prepared,  but,  failing  to  raise  their  own  plants,  failed 
in  securing  a  good  crop.  It  is  almost  impossible  to 
describe  on  paper  or  convey  orally,  how  to  prepare 
and  treat  a  plant  bed  properly.  You  must  "see  it 
to  believe,"  and  to  do  it  right  an  apprenticeship  is 
almost  indispensable.  But  let  me  try  to  tell  you. 
Select  a  spot,  and  not  a  small  one  either,  of  the 
richest  ground,  one  previously  used  for  hoed  crops 
preferable  ;  ground  exempt  from  weeds  ;  cultivate  it 
thoroughly  late  in  the  fall ;  and  again  as  early  in  the 
spring  as  the  ground  will  admit  of,  say  from  March 
20  to  April  1 ;  sow  the  seed,  a  tablespoonful  to  50 
square  yards.  I  usually  mix  seed  with  plaster  paris 
or  ashes,  to  make  bulk,  to  enable  a  more  even  dis- 
tribution; rake  in  light  and  roll  or  pad  with  back  of 
spade,  to  thoroughly  incorporate  the  seed  with  the 
soil.  I  find  that  a  covering  of  the  bed  with  the 
bristles  of  the  hog  promotes  the  protection  and  ger- 
mination of  seed  and  the  young  plants  against  frosts 
and  drought  to  an  extent  that  is  marvelous.  Indeed 
I  would  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  you  cannot  grow 
plants  with  certainty  in  any  other  way  that  is  at  all 
desirable.  Hot  house  plants  seldom  do  well.  After 
the  plants  are  started  the  applicat  on  of  light  manure 
frequently  is  of  the  highest  importance  ;  then  observe 
a  proper  location.  A  south  exposure  is  profitable 
and  if  skirted  by  a  close  fence  will  benefit  the  grow- 
ing plants.  By  proceeding  thus  you  may  have  your 
plants  ready  to  transplant  by  the  20th  of  May,  and 
be  ready  to  plant  at  any  seasonable  weather  that  fol- 
lows that  period.  I  realize  from  a  plant  bed  of  the 
size  I  named,  $'i0  for  plants,  from  men  that  don't  be- 
lieve in  going  to  the  trouble  of  raising  their  own,  or, 
going  to  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  but  in  default  of 
having  the  knowledge  of  the  little  details,  fail  to  suc- 
ceed. 

Having  the  plants  we  get  the  tobacco  ground 
ready.  To  get  ready  means  not  merely  plowing, 
harrowing  and  ridging,  but  heavy  manuring  early  in 
the  season,  the  previous  fall  if  possible,  and  not 
later  than  April  10th.  Plow  down  the  manure,  cul- 
tivate the  ground,  and  after  the  space  of  six  or  eight 
weeks  plow  again,  harrow  and  pulverize  the  soil 
thoroughly ;  ridge  rows  3Ji  to  i  feet  apart,  plant 
twenty-six  to  thirty  inches  apart  in  the  row.  This  is 
done  from  the  25th  of  May  to  the  15th  of  June,  de- 
pending upon  the  condition  of  the  weather.  I  prefer 
planting  about  June  1st,  if  the  weather  is  adapted. 
After  this  you  have  plain  sailing  for  about  six  weeks  ; 
cultivating  the  ground  and  destroying  the  weeds  are 
the  only  requisites  demanding  your  attention.  While 
this  requires  physical  effort,  there  is  no  particular 
skill  necessary.  Top  when  the  plant  attains  a  proper 
size,  leaving  from  twelve  to  sixteen  leaves,  depend- 
ing upon  the  season  as  too  wet  or  too  dry.  From 
this  period  suckering  and  worming  claim  attention, 
and  just  in  proportion  as  you  attend  to  the  latter  will 
the  crop  pan  out. 


The  product  may  be  increased  or  diminished  in 
value  from  ten  to  fifty  per  cent,  by  inattention  to 
this  part  of  the  business.  About  three  weeks  from 
the  time  of  topping,  the  plant  witl  mature.  At  this 
stage  of  the  growth  good  judgment  is  required,  to 
know  just  when  to  cut  it.  My  observation  and  ex- 
periences would  lead  to  the  opinion  that  it  is  better 
to  cut  a  little  too  soon  than  too  late,  for  good  wrap- 
pers. Curing  is  the  next  process.  In  removing  from 
the  field  to  the  shed  the  ereatest  care  should  be  ex- 
ercised not  to  bruise  the  leaf;  various  means  are  em- 
ployed ;  when  convenient  to  shed,  a  sled  covered 
with  carpet  to  protect  the  leaf  will  answer  a  good 
purpose.  A  frame  arranged  on  the  running  gears  of 
a  wagon,  so  as  to  receive  the  plants  strung  on  laths, 
betweenframesof  light  timber,  is  a  more  modern  plan 
and  is  popular  with  those  using  it.  Any  way  that  will 
deliver  the  plant  to  the  shed  without  bruising  and 
will  do  it  speedily  is  a  good  way.  I  have  not  time  to 
speak  of  the  different  or  even  the  most  approved 
plans  of  shed  or  curing  house,  but  would  recommend 
to  all  who  intend  to  build  to  avail  themselves  of  the 
opportunity  of  seeing  some  of  the  best  arranged 
houses.  C.  B.  Herr,  king  of  Manor,  and  his  son, 
Bachman  Herr,  have  probably  the  most  complete  as 
well  as  artistic  arrangements  in  the  county.  Means 
of  ventilation  and  ease  in  regulating  it  are  the  great 
requisites.  Properly  cured,  and  your  labors  are 
nearly  ended.  The  process  of  stripping  is  one  that 
wants  care  and  attention,  but  as  this  is  the  subject  to 
be  discussed  by  Mr.  Cameron,  I  will  not  encroach 
upon  his  theme.  I  can  hardly  close  after  all  this 
talk  about  the  attention  necessarily  bestowed  upon 
an  article  to  develop  its  best  qualities,  without  saying 
a  few  things  about  the  result  in  store  for  those  who 
work  diligently  all  through  the  campaign,  and  the 
importance  of  the  crop  in  a  local  interest  point  of 
view. 

With  reference  to  the  first  I  would  only  say  that 
the  product  of  an  acre  varies  from  1,000  pounds,  the 
yield  being  from  1,000  all  the  way  up  to  2,400  pounds, 
those  being  perhaps  the  extremes,  and  the  value  in 
money  from  |_00  to  $600  per  acre.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  the  nominal  value  can  be  raised  to  $800,  and 
perhaps  $1,000.  Now,  as  to  the  local  influence  of  a 
crop  that  amounts  in  the  aggregate  in  this  county  to 
from  ?.', 000,000  to  $3,000,000  a  year  and  all  labor, 
and  labor,  too,  that  employs  everybody  from  10  years 
upward.  No  raw  material,  imported  and  to  be  paid 
fsr  in  gold,  enters  into  the  business.  In  the  tobacco 
areas  of  Lancaster  county,  you  find  no  poor  people  ; 
all  make  money  and  are  happy. 

The  area  of  lands  adapted  to  the  growth  of  fine 
tobacco  is  so  small  that  an  overproduction  is  almost 
impossible,  and  while,  perhaps,  some  wild  adventur- 
ers attempt  to  get  rich  all  of  a  sudden  by  putting  out 
ioo  much,  the  experience  awaiting  them  in  their  ne- 
gotiations with  the  keen-eyed,  tender-fingered  tobacco 
buyer  will  usually  bring  them  not  only  within  proper 
limits,  but  often  drives  them  out  of  the  business  in 
disgust  after  a  single  season's  practice. 

Would  time  allow,  I  would  for  the  benefit  of  those 
not  so  familiar  with  the  resources  involved  in  this 
subject  give  them  an  idea  of  the  contrast  between 
this  county  and  others  in  the  State  and  elsewhere, 
where  they  have  not  the  advantage  of  soil,  etc.  The 
farmers  of  the  tobacco  areas  of  Lancaster  county 
know  of  panicx  only  by  name,  and  are  utilizing  the 
fruits  of  their  toil  not  only  in  supplying  the  demands 
of  the  physical  man,  but  the  home  comfort,  the  im- 
proved school  house,  the  patronageof  our  institutions 
of  learning,  all  bear  testimony  that  while  they  don't 
encourage  the  indulgence  in  costly  luxuries,  they  are 
not  unmindful  of  this  attention  to  the  cultivation  and 
development  of  the  higher  faculties. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  thoroughly  endorsed  the  views 
of  the  essayist,  and  moved  that  a  vote  of  thanks  be 
tendered  Mr.  Frantz  for  his  valuable  paper.  The 
motion  was  unanimously  agreed  to. 

Mr.  J.  M.  Stehman  asked  Mr.  Frantz  to  state 
whether  his  experience  showed  that  there  was  any 
advantage  in  planting  tobacco  in  ridges  four  feet 
apart  rather  than  three   and  a  half  feet. 

Mr.  Frantz  said  it  made  very  little  difference.  If 
the  rows  were  only  three  and  a  half  feet  apart  the 
plants  should  be  set  rather  farther  apart  in  the  rows. 
He  believed  that  twenty-two  inches  was  the  proper 
distance  between  the  plants  if  the  rows  were  four 
feet  apart. 

Mr.  John  Brady,  of  Millersville,  said  that  Mr. 
Shuman,  who  farmed  for  Mr.  Bausmanthe  fine  crop 
already  referred  to,  laid  out  his  rows  four  feet  apart, 
and  set  the  plants  twenty-eight  or  thirty  inches 
apart,  in  good  strong  land  the  plants  grow  vigorous- 
ly and  the  leaves  have  room  to  expand  and  become 
very  large.  He  named  another  farmer  who  put  his 
rows  five  feet  apart  and  raised  immense  tobacco. 

Mr.  Kendig  believed  the  leaf  would  be  finer  and 
better  if  not  so  large,  if  it  were  planted  closer. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  said  he  would  like  to  hear  the 
views  of  some  of  the  growers  as  to  the  variety  of  to- 
bacco they  preferred  for  planting. 

Mr.  Kendig  thought  it  difficult  to  determine  the 
several  varieties.  They  have  been  SQ  much  hybri- 
dized it  is  almost  impossible  to  distinguish  them. 

Mr.  Lane  presented  specimens  of  the  broad-leaf 
Connecticut  and  also  of  Connecticut  seed  leaf.  He 
preferred  the  latter,  as  the  leaves  obtained  a  greater 


length,  and  were  equally  fine.  In  planting  he 
marked  out  his  rows  Sl^  feet  apart,  and  run  them 
north  or  south,  so  that  the  sun  can  better  get  at  the 
plants,  which  he  has  heretofore  set  24  inches  apart. 
This  year  he  will  set  his  plants  from  18  to  20  inches 
apart.       He  believes  he  will  thus  get  finer  tobacco. 

Harrt  Mater  presented  some  fine  specimens  of 
broad-leaf  Connecticut,  which  he  preferred  to  any 
other  variety. 

Mr.  P.  S.  Reist  asked  the  essayist  whether  hay 
would  not  do  as  well  as  bristles  to  cover  and  protect 
the  young  plants  in  the  seed  beds;  whether  there  waB 
any  difference  in  the  quality  of  tobacco,  cured  in  dif- 
ferent states  of  the  weather. 

Mr.  Fkantz  answered  that  neither  hay  nor  straw 
were  fit  to  use  in  tobacco  beds.  He  had  found  noth- 
ing so  good  as  hog  bristles.  They  protect  the  young 
plants  from  both  frost  and  snow,  prevent  the  ground 
from  dying  out,  and  yet  allow  the  plants  sufficient 
air  to  encourage  their  growth.  The  bristles  can  be 
used  for  four  or  five  years  in  succession.  His  plan  is, 
after  he  takes  them  from  the  bed  in  spring,  to  stow 
them  away  in  barrels,  and  before  he  again  uses  them, 
he  loosens  them  up  by  running  them  through  a 
threshing  machine.  In  answer  to  Mr.  Reist's  second 
question  he  would  say  that  tobacco  cured  much  bet- 
ter where  there  were  frequent  changes  of  the  weather 
than  when  there  were  few  changes. 

The  manner  of  preparing  tobacco  beds  was  fur- 
ther discussed  by  Messrs.  John  Bhadt,  M.  D.  Ken- 
dig, A.  H.  SuMMT  and  I.  L.  Landis. 

Messrs.  Levi 'UrosS,  Mr.  Shiffneb  and  Peter 
S.  Keist  endorsed  the  broad-leafed  Connecticut  as 
the  best  variety.  The  last  named  gentleman  was 
glad  to  see  the  interest  that  was  beginning  to  be 
manifested  in  the  proper  modes  of  growing  tobacco. 
He  wished  that  every  grower  in  the  country  would 
make  it  a  point  to  attend  these  meetings,  and  learn 
how  to  grow  tobacco.  He  would  recommend  new 
beginners  to  commence  with  a  very  small  crop,  not 
more  than  half  an  acre,  so  that  if  they  failed  their 
loss  would  not  be  serious.  It  is  a  dangerous  under- 
taking to  commence  with  a  large  crop,  to  the  exclusion 
of  other  staples  and  then  perhaps  lose  it  all  for  want 
of  knowledge,  or  from  the  ravages  of  worms  or  hail 
storms.  Let  growers  first  learn  just  how  to  do  it, 
and  that  one  good  leaf  is  worth  more  than  half  a 
dozen  poor  ones,  and  then  they  can  safely  go  more 
largely  into  its  culture.  In  conclusion  he  thought 
the  meeting  of  the  society  should  adjourn  as  early  as 
4  o'clock  BO  as  to  allow  members  from  the  country 
ample  time  to  get  home. 

Mr.  Cameron  oflered  the  following  amendment  to 
the  by-laws  : 

"The  duties  of  the  executive  committee  shall  be 
as  follows  :  To  take  charge  of  all  the  business  of  the 
association  that  is  entrusted  to  their  care,  and  report 
in  full  and  in  detail  at  the  meeting  following.  The 
committee  shall  incur  no  expense  without  the  ap- 
proval of  the  association  at  its  regular  meetings." 

The  amendment  was  agreed  to,  when  on  motion 
the  society  adjourned. 


The  Linnaean  Society. 

On  Saturday,  February  24,  the  society  met  with 
President  Kev.  J.  S.  Stahr  in  the  chair.  Five  mem- 
bers were  present.     Opened  in  due  form. 

The  donations  to  the  museum  consisted  of  an  im- 
perfect stone  axe,  from  William  McKeown. 

The  additions  of  the  historical  collections  were  five 
envelopes,  containing  about  forty  clippings  from 
sundry  papers,  referring  to  historical  events.  Also 
an  impression  from  both  sides  of  a  coin — deemed  a 
curiosity  by  the  owner.  This  was  submitted  to  the 
inspection  of  Prof.  J.  H.  Dubbs,  who  from  the  date, 
"1560,"  and  letter  N,  and  its  resemblance  to  German 
coin  of  that  period,  supposed  it  a  coin  of  Nuremberg. 

The  additions  to  the  library  were  volume  xv  and 
the  missing  portion  of  volume  xvi  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  American  Philosophical  Society  of  Philadel- 
phia ;  the  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education 
for  the  year  1875,  and  a  copy  of  the  Public  Libraries 
of  the  U.S.  of  America;  Special  report,  1876;  a 
bound  copy  of  the  "Three  Earls,"  per  F.  R.  Diffen- 
derffer,  esq ;  number  of  pamphlets  embracing  "Fi- 
nance of  Lancaster  city  to  June,  1876,"  catalogues 
of  Books  and  Papers  and  sundry  publications,  both 
in  Europe  and  America. 

S.  S.  Kathvon  read  a  lengthy  and  interesting  paper 
on  "Insects  as  Food."  J.  Stauffer  made  some  verbal 
remarks  on  the  Cunila  and  the  Russian  and  Cali- 
fornia 80-called  Frost  Plants — and  referred  to  his 
article  on  the  subject  published  in  No.  8,  for  Feb- 
ruary 24,  1877,  in  the  Sciejttijic  Americait . 

Under  the  head  of  scientific  miscellany,  Mrs.  Gib- 
bons referred  to  the  late  lecture  and  labor  saving  ma- 
chinery A  letter  was  then  read  from  the  correspon- 
dent member  elected  at  last  meeting,  M.  I.  Hoffman, 
of  Reading,  thankfully  accepting  the  same. 

As  there  are  about  forty  volumes  at  the  binder's, 
the  finance  question  loomed  up — and  as  no  act  on  was 
had  by  delinquent  members,  from  the  hints  thrown 
out,  it  is  persumed  they  wait  for  the  notice — which 
it  is  always  a  task  to  give  and  by  no  means  pleasant. 
No  further  business  offering,  adjourned  to  meet  on 
Saturday,  the  31st  day  of  March,  1877,  at  two  o'clock, 
p.  m. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


29 


AGRICULTURE. 


A  Successful  Farm  Operation — Deerfoot  Farm. 

Mr.  Edward  Burnett  Is  proprietor  of  :i  furm  in 
Southhoro',  Mass.,  with  tlie  above  fanciful  name.  It 
contains  '■W^  acres,  and  is  like  the  averufre  of  farms 
In  Massachusetts.  Mr.  Burnett  Is  a  vounfr  man,  just 
started  in  life,  as  one  might  say,  and  a  few  years  ai;o 
seriously  entertained  the  idea  of  eniiirratinL'  to  some 
point  West,  to  emhark  in  some  sort  of  farming  there. 
Other  counsels  prevailed,  ami  instead  he  iiroceeded  to 
occupy  "  Deerfoot,"  makinir  its  possession  and  work- 
in?,  however,  second  in  the  line  of  operations  he 
adopted.  Mr.  Burnett  had  a  likiiis  for  and  believed 
In  fine  stock,  particularly  tlioroUL''hbred  pl^rsand  cows. 
Moreover,  he  had  such  insiirhl  Into  the  principles  of 
trade  that  he  thoui^ht  he  saw  plainly  the  fact  that  in 
an  article  so  "  uncertain,"  in  a  particular  sense,  as 
pork,  combiniuij  under  this  head  all  the  various 
forme  which  piff  takes  in  marketinir,  much  was  to  be 
gained  by  huildinc  up  a  trade  which  should  have  for 
its  first  element  the  establishment  of  thorough  eonti- 
denee,  sustained  by  the  very  best  article  possible  to 
produce.  The  idea  was  a  definite  supply  for  a  definite 
want,  prices  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
The  First  Essay. 

So,  with  his  farm  and  a  stock  of  six  pigs,  Mr.  Bur- 
nett commenced  business  five  years  ago.  By  show- 
ing the  iKtsition  this  year  the  two  exiremes  will  be 
contrasted.  Mr.  Burnett  has  now  on  hand  400  pigs; 
will  kill  iJOO  the  present  year,  and  bis  commodities 
are  already  famous. 

The  pigs  raised  and  killed  at  Deerfoot  are  of  the 
Berkshire,  Essex  and  small  Yorkshire  breeds.  Mr. 
Burnett  believes  in  thoroughbreds  for  pork,  because 
such  fat  more  quickly,  have  smaller  stomachs,  and 
do  not  eat  so  much  as  coarser  varieties,  have  a  thin, 
clear  skin  and  make  better  looking  pork,  which  is  a 
recommendation  if  they  had  no  other  good  qualities. 
In  the  Berkshire  a  larger  streak  of  lean  meat  is 
found  in  the  bacon  than  in  other  varieties;  the  Essex 
is  peculiarly  adapted  for  thick  pork  at  seven  or 
eight  months  old,  cutting  five  or  sx  inches  on  the 
back,  and  three  inches  on  the  helly,  the  meat  being 
also  very  firm.  The  xniall  Yorkshire  has  the  princi- 
pal characteristics  of  both  the  above  breeds,  besides 
being  white  and  more  attractive,  the  fresh  pork  be- 
ing unusually  fine. 

About  the  Pens. 

At  Deerfoot  the  pig  liecomes  a  handsome  creature, 
and  there  is  a  pleasure  in  looking  at  him  wliich 
forms  part  of  a  surprise  at  the  contrast  he  offers  with 
the  animal  as  usually  seen.  The  largest  piggery 
here  is  a  succession  of  pens  under  one  roof,  ranged 
on  either  side  of  a  long  passageway,  the  building 
warm,  neatly  painted,  and  as  clean  as  a  corn  crib. 
By  the  way,  cleanliness  is  the  great  desideratum  at 
Deerfoot.  From  beginning  to  end,  in  every  depart- 
ment, absolute  and  immaculate  freedom  from  nasti- 
ness  is  insisted  upon  and  enforced  far  beyond 
the  bounds  generally  thought  possible.  Five  pigs 
occupy  a  pen,  usually,  though  sometimes  more  are 
allowed.  The  whole  are  fed  three  times  a  day  regu- 
larly, one  feed  being  cracked  corn,  and  the  other 
two  of  warm  hasty  pudding,  with  a  few  oats  thrown 
in.  For  the  big  piggery  mentioned  above,  JiOO  gal- 
lons of  this  mush  is  given  out  every  day,  and  about 
600  gallons  in  all.  The  inevitable  consequences  of 
such  feed  and  such  feeding  as  this  will  be  seen  at 
the  slaughter  house.  The  pork  is  as  hard  and  as 
clear  and  fine-grained  as  can  be  accomplished  by  the 
Ingenuity  of  man,  working  with  and  assisting  nature. 
The  commodity  thus  produced  is  as  distinct  from 
that  usually  seen  as  is  the  fine-Heshed,  melting,  lus- 
cious pear  of  the  grafts  from  the  scrub  swamps. 
Here  the  first  requisite  is  compassed;  the  pork  is 
made  desirable,  the  perfection  of  meat. 

Characteristics  of  the  Business. 
These  pigs  are  all  killed  young,  seven  or  eight 
mont'.is  being  extreme  old  age  with  them.  The  pork 
is  all  "pig  pork,"  no  specimens  killed  weighing  over 
2.50  ]K>unds  alive,  put  all  being  in  thorough  con- 
dition when  brought  to  the  knife.  The  pork 
house  contains  a  slaughtering  room,  in  which  the 
pigs  are  bled  and  dressed,  and  in  various  rooms  and 
apartments  the  work  of  curing  and  packing  the  pork 
in  every  part  is  accomplished.  About  >00  pounds  of 
lard  arc  made  weekly,  and  packed  in  tins,  weighing 
5,  10,  and  iS  pounds.  Like  all  good  lard  this  is  not 
perfectly  white,  the  latter  being  a  production  often 
resulting  from  the  addition  of  mutton  tallow;  but  the 
excellent  quality  is  incontestable.  The  hams  aud 
sides  are  cured,  the  latter  dry-salted  and  packed  in 
cloths.  The  jowls  are  smoked  and  are  very  much 
in  demand.  Four  hundred  pounds  of  sausages  are 
made  daily,  the  meat  chopped,  not  ground.  The 
feet  are  nicely  pickled.  Every  part  of  the  creature 
In  fact,  is  utilized  hi  the  manner  with  which  all  are 
familiar.  A  peculiarity  of  the  thoroughbred  pigs 
thus  raised  is  the  almost  entire  absence  of  bristles, 
so  that  by  a  careful  scalding,  performed  just  right  as 
It  is,  not  a  vestige  of  hair  is  left  in  the  rind  of  the 
pork,  which  is  clear  as  parchment.  The  .'arae  re- 
gard for  cleanliness  is  observable  in  the  |K)rk  house 
as  elsewhere,  and  the  most  fastidious  ladies  may 
and  do  witness  the  operation  of  pork-packing  here, 


in  all  its  departmente,  without  the  slightest  repug- 
nance. 

The  Market  Supplied  . 

Now  for  the  practical  result  of  this  plan  of  opera- 
tion. It  must  be  fairly  understood  at  the  outset  that 
.Mr.  Burnett  receives  lor  every  pound  of  his  pork  thus 
raised,  in  no  case  li'ss  than  3.5  per  cent  in  advance  on 
market  prices  for  the  articles  as  usually  sold.  His 
sales  are  made  without  solicitation,  and  iic  has  never 
been  able  to  supply  the  demand.  The  Astor  House 
and  Fifth  .\  venue  Iioti^ls  order  largely  of  hs  sausa- 
ges and  smoked  jowls  weekly,  and  will  have  no 
other.  Parker's  and  Young's  hotels,  in  Boston,  use 
his  products  everyday,  to  the  extent  of  several  tons 
in  a  year.  His  lard  is  in  such  demanil — the  prices 
must  be  borne  in  mind— that  it  Is  ordered  from  as 
far  away  as  Detroit,  .Michigan,  parlies  having  seen 
his  articles  at  the  great  hotels  becoming  customers. 
Numerous  visitors  who  have  heard  of  his  establish- 
ment, call  al  Deerlbot  to  satisfy  curiosity  and  verify 
reports.  The  whole  enterprise  is  as  successful  as 
success  can  make  it,  antl  proves  the  position  alluded 
to  at  the  commencement  of  this  writing.  Pork  must 
always  lie  had,  and  such  pork  as  this  will  always  sell, 
no  matter  what  the  state  of  the  market,  whether 
glutted  or  otherw  se,  and  retain  an  independent  place 
as  regards  prices,  at  the  control  and  option  of  the 
producer.  Is  there  no  incentive  to  productive  in- 
dustry in  these  facts  ? 

Other  Details. 

Only  about  200  of  the  pigs  here  are  raised  at  Deer- 
foot. From  a  stock  sent  sometime  ago  into  Vermont, 
Mr.  Burnett  now  obtains  a  supply  of  grade  breeds, 
having  a  man  to  watch  their  growth  and  feeding, 
aud  transfer  them  to  Deerfoot  for  the  finishing  of 
their  pork.  Nothing  but  the  best  ever  arrives  here, 
and  the  pigs'  last  days  in  life  are  spent  in  reveling, 
according  to  a  pig's  ideas,  whatever  may  have  been 
his  former  life.  No  deterioration  or  variation  from 
the  strict  rules  is  ever  allowed.  Everything  is  meas- 
ured by  the  standard,  and  nothing  found  wanting  is 
passed. 

The  Dairy 

But  thus  far  no  mention  has  been  made  of  another 
principal  feature  at  Deerfoot.  The  dairy  is  as  im- 
portant and  as  characteristically  managed  as  any  of 
the  departments  shown. 

At  Deerfoot,  a  herd  of  35  Jerseys  are  milked  the 
year  round,  and  from  the  milk  from  100  to  175 
pounds  of  butter  are  made  weekly.  These  cows  are 
well  worth  looking  at.  One  of  them  gave  '-0  quarts 
daily  during  June  last;  and  a  half  dozen  others  give 
from  IB  to  is  quarts  daily.  These  are  valued  at 
from  $400  to  $800  each.  Their  heifer  calves  bring 
from  8100  to  $  00  each,  at  one  year  old.  They  are 
bred  on  the  farm.  The  degree  of  excellence  is  in- 
infiexibly  applied  here  as  in  the  pork  establishment, 
and  the  results  are  apparent  in  this  ;  not  a  pound  of 
I'Utter  brings  less  than  75  cents  to  the  farm  at  any 
season  of  the  year,  and  during  the  winter  not  less 
than  HO  cents.  Fifty  pounds  of  butter  at  90  cents 
for  every  pound,  was  lately  ordered  from  Detroit  by 
one  man.  In  the  liarnyard  stand  a  herd  of  grades 
from  Vermont;  which  are  for  sale  rather  than  home 
use. 

So  the  enterprise  has  become  established  and  grows 
stronger.  It  is  no  longer  alone,  finding  imitators  in 
sundry  places  throughout  the  State.  Is  there  not  a 
hint  in  it  of  possibilities  for  hundreds  of  young  men 
of  the  present  generation  ?  It  cannot  be  accomplish- 
ed without  work,  nor  can  anything,  excepting,  per- 
haps, speculation,  and  the  prefeent  state  of  things 
does  not  illustrate  that  as  being  a  very  satisfactory 
occupation.  Mr.  Burnett  works.  The  farm  has  75 
acres  under  cultivation,  though  no  fancy  crops 
are  raised.  Only  such  things  as  contribute  to  the 
departments  we  have  mentioned  receive  attention. 
Four  thousand  bushels  of  roots  are  harvested,  and 
1-5  tons  of  English  hay.  But  the  round  of  work  is 
unceasing,  though  it  brings  its  reward,  and  gives  as 
substantial  and  decided  a  social  position  to  its  direc- 
tor as  any  man  could  wish,  since  it  is  both  honorable 
and  lucrative,  and  besides,  it  will  stand  every  test  of 
commcm  sense,  morals  and  economy. — Cor.  Boston 
Herald. 


HORTICULTURE. 


Cultivation  of  Chiccory. 
During  1K75  we  imported  818,000,000  worth  of 
chiccory.  We  have  land  in  every  Stale  In  the  Union 
on  which  it  may  be  profitably  cultivated.  If  our  far- 
mers in  Illinois  and  Iowa  and  other  States  would  each 
devote  annually  a  few  acres  of  gooil,  rich  soil  to  the 

!  cultivation  of  chiccory,  they  would  not  oulv  find  It  a 
profitable  crop,  but  save  the  lountrv   millions  that 

j  now   go  to  (iermany,  France  and  other  countries  for 
an  article  of  everyday  use. 

The  Stockton,  Cal.,  Independent  has  the  following 
interesting  observations  on  chiccory,  its  character  and 
uses  : 

"  The  production  and  manufacture  of  chiccory  for 
Its  use  as  an  ailulteration  of  cofl'ee  Is  carried  on  quite 
extensively  in  this  country,  the  factory  where  it  is 
ground  and  put  into  marketable  shape  being  located 
on  the  bank  side  ol  the  San  Joaquin  river,  a  few 
miles  southeast  of  Stockton.  A  large  area  of  land  in 
that  vicinity  is  yearly  devoted  to  the  growth  of  chic- 
cory, and  the  rich  alluvial  soil  seems  to  be  particularly 
well  adapted  to  its  luxuriant  growth.  The  chiccory 
grows  in  wild  profusion  along  the  lanes  and  byways 
in  England  and  most  parts  of  Europe.  It  is  a  species 
of  dandelion,  or  rather  it  beloiigs  to  the  same  Ijotan- 
ical  family  as  the  dandelion,  and  there  is  a  great  re- 
semblance in  the  shape  of  the  leaves  of  the  two,  al- 
though those  of  the  chiccory  are  much  the  larger, 
coarser  and  darker  color.  The  root  of  the  chiccory  Is 
fleshy  and  milky,  and  grows  about  the  size  of  a  pars- 
nip or  carrot.  They  mature  in  October,  when  they 
are  taken  Irom  the  ground  and  spread  out  to  dry  on 
raised  platforms.  A  few  days'  exposure  to  the  hot 
sun  makes  thcni  suflicicntly  dry  for  the  roasting  fur- 
nace, w  hich  is  made  in  the  shape  of  a  cylinder  sus- 
pended over  a  hot  fire  and  kept  revolving  until  the 
roots  are  parched  to  a  crisp.  This  and  the  drying 
process  reduces  them  about  one-fourth  in  bulk.  After 
roasting,  the  roots  are  put  through  a  mill  and  ground 
like  cotfee,  then  barreled  anil  sent  to  market.  There 
seems  to  be  a  good  demand  for  all  the  products  of 
the  factory  of  which  we  speak,  and  it  is  no  doubt  a 
profitable  and  remunerative  speculation.  The  bever- 
age made  from  pure  chiccory  is  unpleasant  to  t  he  taste 
a  though  chemical  analysis  proves  it  to  possess  few 
of  the  elements  in  common  with  collee  and  very  little 
of  the  nutritive  properties  commonly  ascribed  to  It. 
In  cases  where  it  is  used  for  a  long  lime  itsetfects  are 
often  deleterious,  especially  upon  the  nervous  sys- 
tem. One  variety  of  the  chiccory  is  cultivated  In 
England  as  a  salad,  the  tops  having  a  pleasant,  pun- 
gent Havor,  and  even  the  common  variety  is  some- 
times eaten  here  when  other  salads  are  scarce,  but  is 
\'<:ry  coarse  and  strong,  and  :ather  too  suggestive  of 
the  diet  upon  which  Nebucdiadnezzar  was  for  a  time 
compelled  to  feed." — CUicitijo  Jonrnat  of  Commerce. 


The  Fodder  Value  of  Apples. 

In  his  investigation  of  the  fodder  value  of  apples 
Professor  Storer  confirms  the  observation  of  other 
chemists,  to  the  effect  that  apples  are  very  poor  in  ni- 
trogen. The  flesh  of  Baldwins  and  Russets  yielded 
15.7-17.5  per  cent,  of  dry  organic  matter  (the  rest  be- 
ing water  and  mineral  matters),  and  only  0. •.'1-0.37 
per  cent,  of  albuminoids;  apple  pomaced  23.3  per 
cent,  of  dry  organic  matter,  0.98  per  cent,  of  account 
the  dry  matter  of  the  flesh  of  apples,  while  the  dry 
matter  of  potatoes  has  8.54  and  the  pumpkin  17.:i2 
per  cent,  of  albuminoids.  From  these  facts  two  in- 
teresting conclusions  are  to  be  drawn.  First  the 
small  amount  of  nitrogen  explains  at  least  one  rea- 
son for  the  low  value  of  apples  for  food  and  for  ma- 
nure; and  to  make  economical  fodder  from  apples 
or  pumace,  food  rich  in  nitrogen  should  be  added. 
In  this  way  not  only  the  sugar,  but  also  the  peetoe, 
of  which  apples  are  largely  composed,  may  be  econ- 
omlcall;  utilized  as  feed. 


Covering  Strawberries. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  inform  our  readers  that  al 
strawberries,  no  matter  how  hardy  they  are  reported 
to  be,  winter  better  by  being  covered  before  the  se- 
vere weather  of  winter  fairly  sets  in,  or  even  after- 
wards, if  before  the  first  thaw.  Evergreen  branches 
have  one  important  advantage— they  may  be  put  on 
before  winter  begins  without  any  danger  of  smother- 
ing the  green  plants.  We  have  found  a  very  thin 
covering,  if  only  enough  to  hide  the  ground  below,  of 
decided  licnent,  the  plants  coming  out  a  fresh,  bright 
I  green  in  spring,  instead  of  the  dull  green  or  brown 
when  exposed.  The  crop  is  earlier,  the  plant  begin- 
ning to  grow  vigorously  at  the  first  warm  weatliftr. 
The  evergreen  branches  may  be  placed  in  regular, 
even  lines,  lapping  like  shingles  the  branches  length- 
wise with  the  rows,  giving  the  beds  a  |>osiJively  orna- 
mental appearance,  instead  of  the  rouj;h  look  caused 
by  the  use  of  straw,  litter  or  coarse  manure.  (Jn  large 
plantations,  evergreens  cannot  often  be  used  to  advan- 
tage, and  straw  must  be  employed.  In  wbiih  case  rye 
straw  Is  the  best,  on  account  of  Its  stiffness,  wlill* 
soft,  flexible  straw,  as  of  oats,  is  ol>jeetionalile,  as  it 
settles  compactly  when  wet,  and  tends  to  smother 
the  plants.  Even  corn  stalks  efl'ect  a  valuable  ser- 
vice, if  spread  so  thinly  that  half  the  surface  Is  sure, 
by  shielding  from  sun  and  wind,  and  holding  the  sur- 
face snow.  In  providing  any  kind  of  eoverin(;,il 
must  be  borne  in  miml  that  a  green  growth  of  leaves, 
like  those  of  the  strawberry,  are  easily  injured  by 
smothering,  and  that  whatever  protection  is  employed, 
it  must  be  pervious  to  air.  Farmers  understand  this, 
as  a(iplied  to  green  wheat  plants,  which  are  killed  by 
deep  drifts  of  snow.  This  precaution  is  not  so  neces- 
sary in  case  of  shrubs  which  have  dropped  their 
leaves  or  of  herbaceous  perennials  or  bulbs,  the 
leaves  and  stems  of  which  ilie  down  before  winter. 

Country  residents  often  have  a  number  of  evergreen 
trees  planted  about  their  dwellings  that  are  either 
extending  their  limbs  too  far  and  interfering  with 
other  growth,  or  else  becoming  distorted  as  they  in- 
crease in  size.  Cutting  off  portions  of  these  limbs  at 
a  fork  (so  as  not  to  leave  a  dead  stump)  will  improve 
them,  and  afford  a  quantity  of  **  brush"  which  is  just 
the  thing  forthe  straw  berry  beds.  Evergreen  screens 
often  receive  more  or  less  cutting  back,  in  which  case 
an  abundant  supply  of  protecting  material  may  be 
obtained. 


30 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  February, 


Fruits  in  Kansas. 

The  following  varieties  of  fruits  were  recommend- 
ed by  the  KansaB  Stirte  Horticultural  Society,  at  its 
recent  meeting  : 

The  committee  on  condensed  fruit  list,  omitting 
the  apple,  Dr.  William  W.  Howsley,  chairman,  re- 
ported the  following  : 

Pears. — Bartlctt,  No.  1;  White  Doyenne,  1;  Flem- 
ish Beauty,  1;  Duchesse  de  Augouleme,  1;  Winter 
Nelis,  1;  Seckel,  2. 

Peaches. — Hale's  Early,  No.  1;  Crawford's  Early, 
1;  Stump  the  World,  1;  Heath  Cling,  1;  Yellow  Al- 
berge,  'J;  President,  'I. 

Plums — Uinkley  or  Minor,  No.  2;  Wild  Goose,  2. 

Cherries. — Early  Richmond,  No.  1;  Maj  Duke,  1; 
English  Morello,  No.  2. 

Apricots. — Breda,  No.  1. 

Grapes. — Concord,!;  Dracut,  2;  Clinton,  2. 
Kaspberries, — Miami,  No.  4;  Doolittle,   2;    Philadel- 
phia, 2. 

Blabkberries. — Kattatinny,  No.  1;  Lawton,  2. 

Gooseberries. — Houghton,  No.  1. 

Strawberries. — Wilson's  Albany,  No.  1;  Chas. 
Downing,  1;  Downer's,  1. 

Committee  for  the  southern  fruit  district,  D.  B. 
Skeels,  assisted  by  J.  S.  Williams,  reported  the  fol- 
lowing: 

Apples. — Early  Harvest,  Red  June,  Red  Astrachan, 
Cooper's  Early  White,  Lowell,  Maiden's  Blush, 
Chenango  Strawberry,  Fall  AVine,  Buckingham 
Wine  (synonym  Pennsylvania  Red  Streak),  Jona- 
than, Winesap,  Rawles'  Janet,  Ben  Davis,  Missouri 
Pippin,  Willow  Twig. 

Pears. — Bartlett,  Duchesse  de  Angouleme. 

Cherries. — Early  Richmond,  Belle  Magnifique, 
English  Morello. 

Grapes. — Concord,  Delaware,  Dracut,  Amber. 

Blackberries. — Lawtou,  Kittatinny. 

Raspberries. — Miami  Black  Cap,"  Doolittle  Black 
Cap. 

Gooseberries. — Houghton. 

Additional  varieties  by  J.  S.  Williams. 

Apples — Summer — Summer  Rose,  Early  Pennock. 
Autumn — Fameuse.  Winter — Wagoner,  Yellow 
Bellflower,  Dominie. 

Crab. — Hysop  and  Transcendent. 

Peaches. — Hale's  Early,  Large  Early  York,  Stump 
the  World,  Old  Mixon  (free  and  cling),  Crawford's 
Late,  Smock,  Heath  Cling. 

Pears. — Flemish  Beauty,  Belle  Lucrative,  Seckel. 

Plums. — Hinkley  or  Minor,  Wild  Goose. 

Apricot. — Breda . 

Grapes — Delaware,  Clinton. 

Strawberries. — Chas.  Downing,   Wilson's   Albany. 

Mr.  Shinn  endorsed  the  report. 


druggist  will  put  up  a  small  quantity  of  this  mix- 
ture for  a  few  cents,  as  all  the  ingredients  are  inex- 
pensive. Labels  written  with  this  ink,  and  bearing 
the  date  l>>.5fi,  can  be  seen  in  the  orchard  of  one  of 
my  neighbors,  as  legible  as  the  day  they  were  writ- 
ten. This  is  proof  enough  of  the  value  of  the  ink. 
Ztnc  labels  are  now  advertised  for  sale,  but  any  one 
can  make  them  with  the  aid  of  a  pair  of  tinner's 
shears — a  tool  that  every  farmer  should  possess. 
From  a  strip  of  zinc  four  inches  in  width,  cut  off 
labels  half  an  inch  broad  at  one  end,  and  tapering 
to  a  point  at  the  other.  By  cutting  the  broad  end  of 
the  label  at  each  edge  alternately  of  the  zinc  strip, 
nothing  is  wasted,  and  each  cut  gives  a  label.  The 
name  and  date  (and  the  latter  should  never  be  omit- 
ted) are  writteu  on  the  broad  end  of  the  label,  and 
the  other  end  twisted  loosely  around  a  twig 
of  the  tree  to  be  marked.  This  is  some  trouble,  but 
not  too  much  when  the  work  is  to  last  a  lifetime. — 
^1.  H.  Chi'^terj  in  Country  Ge?Uletnan. 


How  to  Make  a  Hot  Bed. 

A  good  hot  bed  may  be  made  upon  the  surface  of 
the  ground,  piling  up  the  manure  from  two  feet  six 
inches  to  three  feet  high,  and  at  least  six  inches 
wider  all  around  than  the  frame.  This  extra  width 
tends  to  preserve  the  heat  within  the  frame  ;  and  if 
it  be  a  foot  wider  than  the  frame  it  would  be  better 
than  six  inches.  The  situation  should  be  where  the 
soil  is  dry  ;  and  the  bed  should  front  to  the  south, 
or  as  nearly  south  as  the  location  will  permit.  The 
sashes  should  either  he  procured  before  the  bed  is 
made,  or  their  exact  size  should  be  known  when  the 
frame  is  made ;  and  the  frame  may  be  made  to  hook 
closely  together,  so  as  to  he  removed  and  easily  stored 
away  when  not  in  use.  Fresh  horse  duns  is  the  best 
manure  to  produce  heat.  It  should  be  thrown  into  a 
heap  and  wetslightlv  aluuit  a  week  before  it  is  placed 
on  the  bed  and  turned  over  once  or  twice  before 
using  it  to  increase  the  heat.  When  put  on  the  bed, 
tread  it  down  tirnily,  and  cover  it  about  six  inches 
deep  with  light,  rich  soil,  and  ascertain  the  degrees 
of  heat  when  you  desire  to  sow  your  seeds,  by  plung- 
ing a  thermometer  into  the  soil  ;  and  if  too  warm, 
wait  a  day  or  two  for  the  bed  to  cool.  Seeds  will 
stand  a  heat  of  90  degrees  very  well.  Sometimes 
seeds  are  sown  in  jjots  and  jians,  which  are  plunged 
into  the  manure  without  any  covering  of  soil ;  but  in 
such  a  case,  it  should  be  covered  three  or  four  inches 
deep  with  sand  or  ashes  to  retain  the  heat.  Wooden 
boxes  six  inches  deep,  made  of  very  thin  boards, 
about  two  feet  lonsr,  and  one  foot  wide,  would  be 
better  than  pans  and  pots  for  some  kinds  of  plants. 
The  bottom  might  be  zinc,  or  galvanized  sheet  iron, 
perforated  with  small  holes  to  allow  water  to  pass 
through  them,  if  the  watering  should  be  too  copious. 
Such  boxes  could  be  packed  in  without  any  waste  of 
room  ;  and  they  could  be  easily  removed  to  fork  up 
the  bed  anew  to  increase  the  heat,  or  to  allow  a  new 
bed  to  be  made,  when  the  heat  of  the  old  one  is  too 
much  exhausted. 

Ink  for  Horticultural  Labels. 

There  is  so  much  inquiry  lately  for  ink  for  writing 
on  zinc  labels,  that  a  good  receipt  for  such  an  article 
may  benefit  some  one.  It  is  an  old  one,  and  has 
probably  appeared  in  your  columns  long  ago,  but  it 
is  worth  repeating.  It  is  as  follows  :  Powdered  ver- 
digris, 2  parts;  sal  ammoniac,  2  parts;  lampblack, 
1  part;  water,  20  parts.  A  quill  pen  will  be  neces- 
Bary,  as  it  will  corrode  a  steel  pen  very  quickly.    Any 


The  English  Hop  Trade. 

A  correspondent  of  the  Mark  Lane  Bxprexs  esti- 
mates the  English  production  as  follows:  Mid  Kent- 
district,  17,000  acres  and  119,000  cwt.;  East  Kent, 
12,000  acres  and  78,000  cwt.;  West  and  North  Kent, 
4,000  acres  and  12,000  cwt.;  Weald  of  Kent,  10,000 
acres  and  60,000  cwt.;  Sussex  11,000  acres  and  .5.5,- 
000  cwt.;  Worcester  and  Hereford,  9,000  acres  and 
i;!,. 500  cwt.;  Surrey  and  Hants,  5, .500  acres  and  33,- 
000  cwt.  The  total  area  is  given  at  68,500  acres,  and 
the  aggregate  product  .S70,.5O0  cwt.,  or  5.41  cwt.  per 
acre."  The  writer  quotes  a  recent  circular  of  a  lead- 
ing firm  of  brewers,  stating  that  crops  on  the  conti- 
nent are  everywhere  short;  in-Bohemia,  especially, 
tliere  is  a  general  failure.  An  average  crop  on  the 
whole  continent  would  produce  from  1,000,000  lo 
1,200,000  cwt.,  whereas  the  actual  yield  is  supposed 
not  to  exceed  from  260,000  to  300,000  cwt.,  while  the 
actual  consumption  is  between  .5.50,000  and  600,000 
cw^.,  and  the  stocks,  remaining  over  is  supposed  to 
be  between  150,000  and  lS0,O0O'cwt.  In  England  old 
stocks  are  remarkably  low. 


Grafting  Currants. 


The  Rm-id  Nem  Yorker  says  :  Lovers  of  the  cur- 
rant and  gooseberry  have  reason  to  feel-  .jolly  over 
the  success,  which  seems  to  attend  grafting  them 
upon  the  Missouri  currant  (Hibes  a-iircvui),  which  is 
not  liable  to  the  attacks  of  the  borer.  Besides,  they 
are  exempt  from  mildew.  And  thus  by  a  single, 
happy  hit  the  two  great  drawbacks  to  currant  and 
gooseberry  cultivation  have  been  over  come.  The 
beauty  of  these  littletre.es,  when  loaded  with  their 
pretty  berries,  as  displayed  at  the  Centennial,  is 
of  itself  enough  to  insure  their  general  cultivation. 
It  would  be  well  for  those  who  intend  experiment- 
inir  with  grafting  currants  to  bear  in  mind  that 
there  is  a  great  ditl'crence  in  the  varieties  of  theMissouri 
currant,  some  making  better  stocks)  than  others. 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Boiled  Dinners. 

The  degeneracy  of  the  modern  stomach  spoils  the 
application  of  some  of  the  best  of  our  series  of  gas- 
tronomic essays.  To  write  of  pies,  or  puddings,  or 
hot  buckwlieat  cakes,  or  boiled  dinners,  or  any  other 
hearty  and  generous  food,  for  this  generation  of  dys- 
]-)eptics  and  in-doors  men,  is  like  descanting  upon 
skating  and  rowing  in  ahospital  forcripples,  or  dilat- 
ing upon  music  and  oratory  in  a  deaf  and  dumb 
asylum.  There  are  so  many  "tea  and  toast"  chaps, 
.and  oatmeat  and  bran-bread  lunatics,  and  gastric- 
juiceless  individuals  who  devote  their  time  to  finding 
out  what  "doesn't  agree  with  them,"  that  one  can- 
not count  upon  the  sympathy  of  his  readers  when  re- 
viving one  recollections  of  good  living. 

Nevertheless,  we  deem  it  a  duty  to  do  our  part  to 
prevent  the  abolition  of  the  old-time  "sutiptantials." 
Chief  among  these  we  must  ever  rank  the  boiled 
dinner,  which,  if  the  cooks  keep  on  refining  it,  will 
soon  be  "though  lost  to  sight,  to  memory  dear." 
For  a  boiled  dinner,  like  baked  beans,  cannot  survive 
"style."  A  genteel  boiled  dinner  is  to  the  real  article 
what  a  gas  fire  in  a  gilded  cast-iron  back  log  is  to  the 
old  glowing  brick  fireplace.  As  the  first  innova- 
tion, the  potatoes  were  mashed  ;  then  the  beets  were 
omitted  ;  then  sweet,  juicy,  home-made  corned  beef 
was  supplanted  by  a  leathery  "remnant"  from  the 
butcher's;  then  each  article  was  cooked  separately  ; 
;in<l  finally  the  cabbage  was  banished,  because  it 
"scented  up  the  house"  in  cooking — though  a  boiled 
dinner  without  cabbage  is  like  a  "roast  turkey  with- 
out stullhig,  or  the  play  of  ham  and  eggs  with  the 
ham  left  out.  A  piece  of  boiled  salt  beef,  flanked 
with  a  few  regulation  vegetables,  cooked  as  they  are 
for  any  other  meal,  doesn't  constitute  a  boiled  dinner 
any  more  than  a  fricasseed  fighting  cock  makes  a 
game  supper. 

For  the  genuine  boiled  dinner,  such  as  did  good  to 
the  stomachs  and  souls  of  the  sturdy  men  who  "made 
and  preserved  us  a  nation,"  you  want,  first,  a  good 
piece  of  corned  beef — not  the  lean,  brown,  bony  slabs 
that  are  commonly  set  apart  for  that  purpose,  and 


eventually  go  to  the  hash-bowl,  but  a  thick,  tender 
cut,  with  liberal  streaks  of  fat  and  lean.  We  confess 
to  a  preference  to  the  home-pickled  meat ;  but  if  you 
can't  have  that,  select  a  piece  fresh  and  have  it  put 
in  your  butcher's  barrel  with  a  pinch  of  saltpetre 
added  to  give  it  color.  Then  take  Savoy  cabbages — 
about  one  more  than  you  think  you  will  want ;  some 
white  French  turnips — to  be  boiled  with  the  beef, 
cabbage  and  potatoes,  and  served  hot,  in  slices. 
Select  potatoes  that  will  boil  dry  and  tender  without 
falling  to  p  eces.  Beets  boiled  separately,  and  served 
in  hot  vinegar  and  butter,  complete  the  list.  The 
condiments  are  not  a  slight  matter — nothing  is, 
about  a  good  dinner.  To  some  people  any  colored 
fluid  that  is  a  trifle  sour  is  vinegar  ;  but  the  instructed 
taste  knows  better,  and  craves  the  genuine  article  on 
its  boiled  dinner.  The  mustard  should  be  mixed 
fresh,  for  those  wdio  like  it ;  an  ancient  pot  of  mus- 
tard is  as  bad  as  salt  that  has  lost  its  savor.  There 
should  be  no  dessert  after  a  boiled  dinner,  unless  it 
be  fresh  fruit.  Nothing  is  more  incongruous  or  un- 
necessary than  a  lot  of  pastry  or  sweetmeats  after 
such  a  repast. 

Of  course,  everybody  can't  safely  eat  such  a  meal. 
But  let  none  such  imagine  it  is  the  dinner,  r.ather 
than  their  stomach,  or  mode  of  life,  that  is  at  fault. 
A  man  who  huddles  into  a  crowded  street  car  and 
hurries  to  his  business,  bends  over  his  desk,  or  perch- 
es on  his  stool,  or  stands  at  his  counter,  all  day,  with 
not  a  breath  of  fresh  air  in  his  lungs,  or  exercise 
enough  to  stir  his  slugish  blood — who  dashes  out 
for  ten  minutes  to  swallow  a  hasty  lunch,  and  brings 
a  fagged  mind  and  listless  body  to  his  hearty  meal 
late  in  the  day — who  robs  himself  of  sleep  only  to 
continue  his  w-ork,  or  seeks  recreation  in  the  vitiated 
air  of  a  crowded  theatre  or  hall — such  a  man  cannot 
be  expected  to  really  relish  any  hearty  food.  But  he 
should  not,  in  justice,  berate  the  articles  that  others 
find  wholesome.  "Because  thou  hast  suddenly  be- 
come virtuous,  shall  there  be  no  more  cakes  and 
ale?"  or,  to  paraphrase  the  quotation  to  meet  the 
case.  Because  you  have  not  the  stomach  of  a  man, 
shall  there  be  no  more  boiled  dinners? — Golden  Rule 


Repairing  Leaky  Cellar  \A^alls. 
The  season  now  at  hand  is  the  one  most  important 
for  making  cellars  dry  and  cleanly.  In  fact,  the  re- 
liairing  of  leaky  cellar  walls  should  never  be  delayed, 
since  the  crevices  are  continually  widened  b.v  the 
water  soaking  through.  Cement,  tar  and  water-glass 
are  the  best  materials  for  the  purpose,  but  the  last 
two  can  only  be  used  as  a  time  when  the  cellar  is  dry, 
as  iu  wiuter,  perhaps  even  in  September,  or  after 
drying  and  airing  it  in  winter  by  artificial  means. 
When  nearly  dry,  the  leaky  portions  of  the  wall  can 
be  readily  recognized,  and  should  be  marked  with 
charcoal.  Holes  and  cracks  should  first  be  filled  with 
hydraulic  cement.  The  marked  places,  when  dry, 
should  be  coated  three  or  four  times  w  ith  a  solution 
of  one  volume  of  commercial  water-glass  in  two  of 
water,  and  finally,  after  becoming  perfectly  dry,  with 
a  solution  of  one  volume  of  water-glass  in  one-half 
volume  of  water.  Instead  of  the  solution  of  water- 
glass,  tar,  kept  quite  liquid  by  heating,  may  be  laid 
on  a  number  of  times.  If  cement  is  to  be  employed, 
the  marked  portions  of  the  wall  should  be  cut  out 
wedge-shaped,  and  carefully  filled  with  a  cement, 
rather  thickly  made  up,  with  one-half  sand.  If  the 
cellar  cannot  bedried,  the  moist  places  should  be  cut 
out  somewhat  deeper  (4  to  6  inches),  and  filled  with 
cement  by  placing  a  tube  of  material,  about  as  thick 
as  a  finger,  in  the  middle,  and  packing  the  cement  in 
tightly  around  it,  and,  if  necessary,  holding  it  in 
place  with  a  board  until  it  hardens,  while  the  water 
escapes  through  the  tube  without  exerting  any  pres- 
sure upon  it.  After  20  or  30  days  the  opening  may 
be  plugged  up. 

^ 

Handy    Men. 

Next  to  a  good  mousing  cat,  a  faithful  watch-dog, 
and  a  good  family  chestnut-colored  horse,  is  a  handy 
man.  Now  don't  misunderstand  me,  and  say  that  I 
compare  a  man  with  either  of  my  favorites  in  the 
speechless  world,  not  at  all.  Man  is  the  noblest 
work  of  God,  except  a  woman;  but  really  a  handy 
one  1  am  un.able  to  class.  Conceive  of  anything 
about  a  home  more  desirable,  when  circumstances 
have  compelled  you  to  neglect  home  duties,  or  rather 
postpone  them,  than  for  a  man  to  fill  the  surcease 
by  being  able  to  wash  dishes,  make  beds,  sweep, 
make  bread,  and  in  straightened  times  darn  his  own 
stockings,  sew  on  his  buttons,  and  preserve  his  hab- 
itual good  humor.  If  so,  there  is  no  rufHe  or  splash 
in  the  home  life  in  consequence  of  the  inability  to 
maintain  the  order  and  comfort  of  the  household. 
Of  course  the  season  of  the  year  favors  the  demon- 
strations of  handy  men.  We  should  not  expect  him 
to  leave  his  plough,  harrow,  or  mowing  machine,  to 
help  iu  the  kitchen,  but  if  he  came  to  eat,  and  had  a 
mind  to  place  the  chairs,  fill  the  ice-pitcher,  or  pare 
the  potatoes,  it  might  contribute  wonderfully  to  the 
comfort  of  the  tired  housewife;  not  only  by  saving 
steps,  but  the  feeling  of  appreciation  that  cheers  up 
many  a  tired  worker,  and  braces  them  up  for  the 
numtierless  duties  about  a  home.  Handy  men  are 
generally  fortunate  in  getting  good  wives,  and  any 
woman  is  fortunate  who  has  a  handy  husband. — 
Misa  Ruby,  in  Maine  Farmer . 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


31 


Healthful  Beds. 

Germany  excels  any  country  with  which  I  am  fa- 
miliar in  the  cleanliness  of  its  l>e<ls.     It  seems  as  much 
A  part  of  yearly  house-eleanintr  with  them  lohavellie 
hair  renioveil  from  the  mattress,  to  have  it  well  hcut- 
en  and  sunned,  and  the  cover  washed,  as  it  is  u  iili  us 
to  hare  the  carpets  whijipod  and  freed  from  their  dis* 
eaee-be^ettinc  dust.     1  i^rant  that  it  would  l>e  a  dilli- 
eult  and   expensive   undertakiiii^   for   an    Aincriean 
housekeeper,  for  skilled  laborers  are  rare,  and  when 
I  found  must  be  well  paid,  as  they  should  lie.   Knowinir 
the  obstacle,  then,  in  tlie  way  of  thorou^'li  renovalicin 
j  of  our  beds, we  shouUl  take  all  the  nit>recare  to  protect 
and    air   them.     Kvery    bed    should    have  especially 
'  made  for  it,  tlie  size  of  a  tick,  a   widte,  lacked  coin- 
I  forter,  not   too  thick  so  as  to  be   unmanacfeable  in 
I  washinp ;  over  this  the  sheet  is  spread.     Every  bed  in 
j  daily  use  should  be  subjected  to  the  purifyini;-  rays  of 
I  the  sun  at  least  once  a  week,  and  should  be  left  open 
I  for  the  reception  of  air  and  litrht  some  time  hel'dre 
beinp  made  up.     Beds  not  frequently  used  are  often 
found  very  musty  and  disajjrceable  to  guests.     The 
parlor   beds   that   swallow    their  own  contents    by  a 
masric  touch,  are   fair   witliout,  but   in  time,  for  the 
lack  of  proper  airinp,  they  become  foul  within. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


Valuable  Recipes. 

Cramp. — Take  of  water  of  ammoida  or  of  spirits 
of  hartshorn,  one  ounce  :  olive  oil,  two  ounces. 
Shake  them  toirether  till  they  unite,  and  use  as  a  lin- 
iment to  rub  well  on  the  afllicted  part. 

SrET  Pudding. — Three  quarters  of  a  pint  of  chop- 
ped suet,  one  pint  of  milk  or  water,  one  eirir  beaten, 
one-ha!fteas|)Oonsalt,andenouirli  flour  to  make  a  stitT 
batter  but  thin  cnouijh  to  pour  from  a  spoon.  Put  in  a 
bowl,  cover  with  a  cloth  and  boil  three  hours.  The 
same,  a  little  thinner,  with  a  few  raisins  added  and 
baked  in  a  well  jireascd  dish,  is  excellent. 

Sauck  for  Stkaks  and  Stews. — For  one  quart, 
cut  into  dice  one  carrot,  two  onions,  one  head  of  cel- 
ery, and  two  turnips,  fry  lijrhtly  in  a  small  quantity 
of  butter;  stir  to  prevent  burning;  aild  sullicient  of 
browti  sauce  to  make  the  required  quantity;  boil 
slowly  until  thevctjctables  are  done;  put  in  a  pinch  of 
sugar,  a  little  pepper  and  salt,  and  it  is  fit   to  serve. 

Mince  Pie. — Seven  pounds  round  beef,  lean,  two 
pounds  stoned  raisins,  two  pounds  currants,  two 
pounds  beef  suet,  one  peck  apples,  four  pounds  pow- 
dered sutrar,  one-half  pound  citron,  one-half  ounce 
of  powdered  cloves,  one-half  ounce  powdered  mace, 
one-half  dozen  nutme^rs,  one  ounce  of  cinnamon, 
scant,  three  teasi>oonful6  salt,  one  pint  brandy. 
Chop  all  tine  tojrether;  when  makinif  pies  mix  a  little 
cider.     This  will  make  fifteen  good-sized  pies. 

Spiced  Beef. — X^ke  some  nice  suet,  or  three  or 
four  slices  of  pork;  fry  in  a  pot  until  it  is  a  light 
brown;  then  lay  in  a  piece  of  raw  beef;  brown  it  on 
both  sides;  tliencover  it  with  water  and  let  it  stew  over 
moderate  fire  five  or  six  hours,  according  to  the  size 
of  the  beef;  add  an  onion,  two  hay-leaves,  lialf  a  tea- 
spoonful  of  mace,  a  teaspoonful  of  whole  cloves  and 
allspice  mixed;  pepper,  salt,  and  vinegar  to  taste;  add 
water  as  it  boils  away,  so  that  there  may  be  enough 
to  make  gravy  when  the  meat  is  done. 

RcBT  Cake. — Beat  to  a  cream  one  pound  of  su- 
gar and  one  pound  of  butter;  add  eight  well-bcatcn 
yolks  of  eggs  and  one  grated  nutmeg,  and  stir  in  the 
coloring  matter,  made  as  follows,  (irate  a  beet  root 
to  fine  shreds,  with  a  very  little  water;  let  it  stand 
one  day  and  squeeze  through  a  linen  cloth.  One 
wineglassful  of  this  essence  should  be  added  to  the 
other  ingredients.  Then  stir  in  one  pound  of  flour; 
lastly  the  whites  of  the  eight  eggs,  beaten  to  a  still' 
froth. 

QnEEN  Pudding. — Take  one  pint  of  fine  bread 
crumbs,  (or  their  equivalent  in  bread  soaked  and 
rubbed  through. a  colander,)  one  quart  of  milk,  one 
cup  of  sugar,  the  yolks  of  four  eggs  beaten,  a  piece 
of  butter  the  size  of  an  egg,  and  the  grated  rind  of 
one  lemon;  beat  the  bread,  milk,  and  eggs  light,  then 
beat  in  the  other  ingredients,  and  bake  until  done,  but 
not  watery;  whip  the  whiles  of  the  eggs  to  a  still 
froth  with  a  cup  of  sugar  and  the  juice  of  one  lemon, 
on  top  of  the  pudding  spread  a  layer  of  jelly  or  jam, 
then  the  whites  of  the  eggs:  brown  slightly  and  serve 
hot.  It  may  be  made  without  jelly,  and  eaten  with 
hard  sauce. 

Making  Cider  Vineoar.  -A  correspondent  of 
the  Country  GenlUmaii  gives  directions  as  follows  : 
".Make  the  cider  as  early  in  the  season  as  possible. 
When  the  barrel  is  filled  let  it  remain  where  the  sun 
can  shine  on  it  part  of  the  day.  Leave  the  bung 
out  and  insert  the  neck  end  of  a  bottle.  This  will 
let  the  air  in,  while  it  will  keep  the  flies  out.  Put 
into  each  barrel  one  sheet  of  foolscap  pa|)er,  a  half 
pint  of  white  beans,  and  a  half  pint 
of  good  brewers'  yeast,  or  other  yeast  that  is  as 
good.  Also,  if  you  choose,  put  in  a  pint  of  molasses. 
.Manage  in  this  way  and  you  will  have  vinegar  in  six 
weeks.  Remember  that  good  eider  will  make  good 
vinegar. 

^ 

Wanted— 500  subscribers  to  The  Fau.mer  ;  the 
cheapest  and  best.agricultnral  paper  in  the  country. 
See  terms  on  the  1st  page  of  cover. 


Experiments    on   the    Nutrition   of  Domestic 
Animals.  . 

In  conducting  the  feeding  trials  at  the  German  sta- 
tions, where  nearly  all  of  the  later  experimenting  in 
this  line  has  been  done,  neat  cattle,  sheep,  goats, 
horses  anil  swine  receive  dilferent  foods  in  varying 
proportions  and  mixtures,  and  the  etfccts  are  accurate- 
ly noted.  Among  the  questions  whose  solution  has 
been  sought  are,  the  cliemical  composition  of  different 
I'ciod  materials,  and  the  proportions  of  food  ingredi- 
ents in  each,  as  albuminoids,  carlioliydratcs,  and  fats, 
which  are  digested  by  dilfeiVnt  animals;  the  parts 
they  play  in  the  animal  economy,  which  elements 
are  the  "  flesh  formers"  and  wliicti  the  "  fat  form- 
ers;  which  make  the  fa.l  (butter),  and  which  the 
casein  (curd)  of  the  milk  ;  wliicli  produce  heat  and 
muscular  force,  i^:e.;  in  what  proportions  and  mix- 
tures the  animal  will  digest  most  fully  and  use  most 
economically  the  food  ingredients,  and,  finally,  what 
amounts  of  each  will  be  needed  and  utilized  to  the 
best  advantage  by  differenl  animals  and  for  difl'crent 
purposes. 

The  care  and  patience  and  thoroughness  with 
which  these  experimcuts  arc  conducted,  the  amount 
of  labor  and  lime  and  money  they  cost,  and  the 
ways  that  their  results  are  applied,  would  be  quite 
astonishing  to  most  American  farmers.  Careful 
weighings  and  analyses  are  iliade  of  the  food  the 
animals  consume,  the  milk  they  produce,  the  excre- 
ment and  urini'  they  voiil,  and  even  the  air  they 
breathe.  A  single  experiment  often  requires  the 
hard  and  unremitting  work  of  several  chemists  day 
and  night  for  .several  weeks  or  months.  "The  ac- 
counts of  the  experimental  iuveslig.ition  on  the  sub- 
ject cif  animal  nutrition  that  have  been  published 
during  the  last  fifteen  years  in  the  (ierman  language 
alone  would  make  what  most  peojde  woiil*  call  a 
good  size  library.  The  experiments  thus  described 
are  luimbcred  by  hundreds  and  even  thousands,  each 
one  of  which  has  cost  the  labor  of  days,  weeks,  or 
montlis.  They  have  called  in  requisition  the  service 
the  ablest  scientific  men  and  the  most  successful 
farmers.  They  have  involved  an  incalculable  aiuount 
of  thought,  care,  and  toil  in  the  laboratory,  the 
stable,  and  the  study.  The  latjor,  much  of  it  of  a 
mental  sort,  has  been  performed  willingly,  even  en- 
thusiastically, by  those  to  whom  it  has  brought  not 
wealth,  but  only  meager  support.  Nor  has  the  work 
been  in  vain.  These  investigations  have  done  a  vast 
deal  to  settle  the  (|uest.ions  about  stock-feeding, 
which  occupy  so  much  space  in  the  papers,  and 
>vhieh  are  as  perplexing  as  they  are  important  to 
millions  of  farmers  on  both  sides  of  the  .\tlautic. 
Combined  with  the  results  of  daily  farm  experience, 
they  have  shown  for  what  purposes  different  kinils 
of  fodder-materials  are  best  fitted,  and  how  much 
each  is  worth.  They  have  taught  the  farmers  how 
to  make  valuable  fodder  out  of  poor  hay  and  straw  ; 
how  to  employ  lucerne,  seradella,  clover,  and  other 
forage-crops  to  the  best  advantage;  how  to  utilize 
waste  products  such  as  flaxseed  and  cotton-seed  and 
the  oil-cake  made  from  them,  also  the  refuse  from 
the  manufacture  of  sugar  from  beets,  and  of  alco- 
holic spirits  and  starch  from  potatoes  and  grains. 
They  have  shown  in  what  proportitms  these  and 
other  fodder-materials  should  be  mixed  and  useii,  so 
as  to  get  the  greatest  benefit  at  the  least  cost."  In 
brief,  this  sort  of  work  is  supplying  (Jerman  farmers 
with  just  the  information  they  need  in  order  to  keep 
their  stock,  and  produce  meat,  dairy-products,  and 
whatever  else  comes  from  the  maintaining  of  domes- 
tic animals,  most  rationally  and  with  the  largest 
profit. 

^ 

The  Horse  Growers. 

Going  into  Orange  county,  New  York,  j-ou  find  on 
every  hunilred  acres,  a  neat  and  ca[)aci<ius  white 
house,  with  well  kept  fence,  a  few  rose  bushes,  a 
convenient  garden,  ample  barns.  Inside  these  houses 
you  will  be  apt  to  find  a  wliolesome,  handsome  wo- 
man and  four  good  children — that  is  theaverage.  If 
this  woman  docs  hot  know  what  good  butler  is,  and 
how  to  make  It,  good  bread  and  how  to  make  it;  if 
she  does  not  know  a  good  horse  or  cow  when  she  sees 
it,  a  good  farmer  as  soon  as  she  puts  her  eye  on  his 
land,  It  will  be  surprising.  If  every  woman  in  every 
house  does  not  own  and  wear  a  good  silk  dress,  if 
there  is  not  in  every  house  a  newspaper  or  two,  a 
magazine  or  two,  and  twenty  good  books,  it  will  be 
more  surprising  still.  These  houses  are  furnished 
with  good  carpets  and  good  beds,  and  in  manv  of 
them  stands  a  piano,  which  some  daughter  can  use 
passably  well.  On  Sumlays  and  on  fair  days,  these 
men  and  women  and  cliililren  have  a  good  carriage 
and  a  horse  or  two,  with  which  they  can  ride.  They 
are  as  well  olT  as  mankind  can  be,  and  they  ought  to 
be  content. 

For  myself,  I  should  like  to  see  introduced  here 
the  English  fa.shion  of  fortnightly  market  days, 
where  at  the  central  town  on  a  particular  day,  buy- 
ers and  sellers  should  meet,  the  one  with  productions 
the  other  with  money,  for  mutual  exchange.  I  be- 
lieve this  would  promote  and  satisfy  the  social  feel- 
ing, which  now  may  sometimes  go  hungry,  and  I  am 
sure  it  would  be  pecuniarily  beneficial.  Five  good 
farmers  can  start  it  in  an;  district,  and  I  trust  they 


will  In  Orange  county.  The  ^^lnclpal  products  of 
this  rich  county  are  butter,  cheese,  milk,  cattle,  hay 
and  horses.  It  is  with  the  last  that  we  have  to  do. 
Three  great  stud  farms  are  to  he  seen  tlierc;  and,  be- 
sides these,  good  horses,  in  ones  anil  twos,  are  bred 
on  nearly  every  farm.  This,  indeed,  lias  been  the 
usual  method  until  within  a  few  years,  when  capital 
lirain  and  experienie  comliined,  have  organized  great 
businesses,  as  to  which  I  only  propose  to  report 
progress. 

On  these  great  farms  are  to  be  seen,  running  loose 
on  the  snow-covercd  fields,  henis  of  yearlings  and 
two-year  olds,  rough,  uidieked,  hmg-lialred.  It  la 
not  easy  for  the  uninitiated  to  believe  that  some  of 
these  unkempt  creatures  are  worth  morethana  thou- 
sand dollars  as  they  stand.  But,  with  singular  con- 
fidence, they  come  up  to  you,  they  put  their  noses 
into  your  hand,  they  wish  to  nip  at  your  coat,  they 
have  no  other  idea  than  that  you  arc  their  friend. 
Then  you  begin  to  see  that  they  have  brood  faces, 
great,  intelligent  eyes,  quick,  flexible  ears,  and  con- 
lidenee.  You  arc  pointed  to  the  depth  of  chest,  which 
indicates  lung-power  and  large  hearts.  You  sec  that 
they  are  even  now  strongly  developed  behind,  where 
the  great  propelling  power  of  the  trotter  lies.  You 
see,  too,  that  the  stifles  are  wide,  and  that  the  mus- 
cles  <reep  well  down  toward  the  hock-joint,  which  is 
low  on  the  leg.  Very  soon  you  begin  to  lielievc  that 
these  uncondicd,  wild-looking,  but  gentle  colts  are, 
indeed,  worth  money,  and  that  they  are  the  stock 
from  which  is  to  be  "developed  the  gentlemen's  road 
horse  of  eastern  .Vmcriea  in  the  coming  time.  You 
go  into  the  open  yards  and  find  in  groups  of  Ave  or 
six,  the  brood  mares,  as  rough-looking,  as  unpromis- 
ing as  their  children;  but  you  learn  that  most  of 
them  have  racing  blood  in  their  veins  :  are  descend- 
ants of  Mambrino  or  At>dallah  or  Clay  or  .Star,  or 
some  ether  of  the  noted  horses  ;  anil  nearly  all  have 
made  their  mark,  have  done  their  nu'le  in  'Ji.'iO,  •J:40 
or  'J.i\0,  and  so  have  won  their  places  as  mothers  of 
noted  olfspring.— Ot(r  Great  Fartnerf,  lnj  C.  W. 
Elliott ^  in  Galaxy. 

Symptoms  of  Rabies  in  Dogs. 

A  dog  previously  of  lively  disposition,  shows  sul- 
leuness.  His  eyes  change  from  a  dull  to  a  sharp, 
glaring  expression.  He  walks  most  of  the  time  with 
the  tail  hanging  down.  If  he  has  the  privilege  of 
the  house,  he  will  walk  around  and  sniflT  at  different 
objects  of  furniture,  raise  his  hind  leg,  and  allow 
him.^elf  privileges  which  he  never  did  before.  If  he 
has  a  rug  to  lie  on,  he  will  scratch  it  in  a  heap,  and 
lie  on  it  with  his  chest,  and  not  on  his  side.  His 
mouth  is  hot  and  dry,  his  pulse  beats  hard  and 
quick;  he  is  always  thirsty,  and  drinks  a  good  deal 
of  water.  He  will  sometimes  come  up  to  his  master, 
look  him  in  the  face  with  glaring  eyes,  as  if  he 
wishes  to  tell  him,  "There  is  something  the  matter 
with  me."  -\  dog  like  this  should  be  securely  chain- 
ed, and  closely  watched.  Within  eight  days  he  will 
commence  to  chew  with  his  mouth,  froth  will  issue 
from  it,  spasms  set  in,  during  which  he  will  lie  on 
his  side  and  roll  around  in  a  circle,  yelping  and 
frothing  from  the  mouth.  After  the  spiisms  subside 
he  will  stagger  away,  as  much  as  possible  in  a 
straight  line,  till  his  head  strikes  an  object,  when  he 
will  liite  and  turn  in  a  diHerent  direction,  till  he 
strikes  again  and  dies. 

The  two  senses  of  hearing  and  vision  are  gone, 
only  the  sense  of  feeling  is  unimpaired.  He  will  walk 
into  fire  as  well  as  into  water  till  he  touches  it  and 
turns.  He  will  attempt  to  bite  into  stone  or  any 
other  object,  as  well  as  into  living  beings.  If  not 
killed  quickly,  tetanus  (lockjaw)  will  soon  set  in  and 
end  his  trouble,  and  danger  to  man  and  beast.  The 
bite  of  any  dog  is  dangerous,  as  he  only  bites  under 
nervous  excitement,  which  bite  may  produce  hydro- 
phobia in  a  nervous  person,  but  the  bite  of  a  dog  as 
above  described  is  always  fatal  sooneror  later,  accord- 
ing to  the  nervous  condition  of  the  person  so  bitten. 
After  a  person  has  been  bitten  by  a  dog  or  cat,  the 
first  thing  to  do  is  to  quiet  the  nervous  system  with 
ether  or  other  an;estheties.  put  them  to  sleep  and 
keep  all  excitement  from  them.  (Jet  the  root  Tetut 
foeted  (skunk  cabbage)  if  it  can  be  had  fresh,  grate 
it  or  iTOund  it  to  the  soft  consiatency  of  a  poultice, 
incise  the  punctured  wound  if  not  lacerated  and  put 
the  poultice  on  it  and  renew  it  every  three  hours. 
If  fresh  roots  cannot  be  had  obtain  the  pulverized 
preparation  from  the  druggist  and  moisten  with  water 
to  a  poultice  consistency.  This  remedy  has  been 
employed  in  eases  of  snake  bites,  especially  rattle- 
snakes and  vipers,  with  good  results,  as  I  am  credit- 
ably informed  by  men  who  had  been  bitten  and 
could  show  the  marks  of  the  bites  plainly.  As  the 
eft'eet  produced  by  the  bites  of  rabid  dogs  and  rep- 
tiles is  the  same,  except  in  type  and  time,  and  the 
root  grows  in  all  our  swamps,  the  remedy  may  easily 
be  employed  In  Iroth  cases.  Yours  truly. — Dr.  H.  A. 
Rotenthal,  V.  S.,  in  Turf,  Field  and  Farm. 


Lumps  in  Udders. 

Take  poke  root  and  chop  it  up  fine  and  beat  it 
into  pumice;  take  a  teacupful  and  put  in  a  quart  of 
meal,  and  feed  to  a  cow  whose  udder  has  lumps init, 
and  they  are  removed  at  once.  The  remedy  Is  infal- 
lible. 


32 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  February,  1877. 


BEE    CULTURE. 


Queen  Bees. 

We  find  in  the  London  Journal  of  Horticulture  the 
following  entertaining  speculations  respecting  queen 
bees  : 

The  more  I  learn  about  bees  the  more  conviction 
forces  itself  on  me,  that  many  statements  recorded 
and  repeated  acaiu  and  again  about  them  are  falla- 
cious. I  do  not  accuse  observers  of  willfully  dece  v- 
iug,  but  some  new  or  wonderful  occurrence  is  seen, 
or  believed  to  be  seen,  when  it  is  at  once  recorded  as 
a  habit  of  the  bee.  Mrs.  Tupper  has  said  "bees  do 
nothing  invariably;"  nothing  could  be  more  true,  and 
sometimes  they  do  things  which  at  the  time  are  to  us 
wholly  unaccountable.  To  exchange  a  queen  is  a 
common  operation  with  me,  and  my  experience  is, 
that,  as  a  rule,  to  release  one  six  or  seven  hours  after 
caging,  would  be  found  a  dangerous  proceeding. 
Last  month,  when  the  weather  was  very  cold  and 
likely  to  continue  so,  I  risked  the  introduction  of  two 
queens  without  any  caging,  simply  because  I  did  not 
want  the  stock  chilled.  The  first  stock,  which  had 
been  queenless  some  time,  killed  theirown  sovereign; 
the  second,  where  I  merely  took  out  their  own  queen 
and  dropped  the  other  in  her  place,  accepted  her  all 
right,  and  she  lives  still.  Now,  had  my  opinion  been 
asked  as  to  what  would  occur  I  should  just  have  re- 
versed the  events. 

The  introduction  of  a  strange  queen  into  a  hive 
where  one  already  reigns,  I  do  not  believe  troubles 
the  latter  whatever.  I  have  put  in  scores  and  find 
the  result  as  follows:  The  first  bee  which  discovers 
the  intruder  seizes  her  by  the  leg  or  wing  and  holds 
on,  and  then  comes  another  and  another  until  she  is 
covered;  stili  the  bees  crowd  on,  holding  to  one  an- 
other until  a  solid  ball  as  big  as  a  bantam's  egg  is 
formed  with  the  queen  in  the  midst.  A  vigorous 
hissing  is  kept  up,  and  so  intent  are  the  bees  on  their 
attack  that  the  ball  of  bees  may  be  taken  up  into  the 
hand  without  any  fear  of  stinging.  At  the  Alexan- 
der Palace  Bee  Show,  I  several  times  caused  the  for- 
mation of  such  a  bee  ball,  which  was  handed  a7nong 
the  spectators  from  hand  to  hand.  I  find  the  work- 
ers rarely  sting  a  strauire  queen;  they  will  keep  her 
encased  until  she  dies  or  their  fury  abates,  and  then 
release  her.  I  have  known  one  confined  in, this  man- 
ner for  a  fortnight,  when  she  dies;  it  is  certain  they 
must  at  least  sometimes  feed  the  prisoner,  for  a  queen 
will  die  of  starvation  in  twelve  hours.  So  eager  are 
they  to  encase  a  new  queen,  that  if  the  latter  be 
held  by  the  wings  with  the  thumb  and  finger,  the 
bees  will  gather  there  in  a  ball.  I  have  said  work- 
ers rarely  sting  a  queen,  but  they  do  sometimes.  I 
have  seen  almost  the  first  bee  that  perceived  her, 
jump  on  her  back  and  sting  her  in  an  instant  when 
she  would  quickly  die — not  always  however,  for  twice 
have  I  seen  a  queen  stung  and  the  sting  left  in  her, 
and  yet  no  fatal  result  occur. 

Managing  Queens. 

Remembering  the  old  tale  of  how  the  reigning 
queen  would  seek  oul  an  intruder,  some  two  or  three 
years  ago  it  occurred  to  me  what  an  easy  way  it 
would  be  to  extract  the  old  queen  from  a  skep  to  sub- 
stitute a  new  one  if  I  first  caged  the  latter  in  the 
hive.  I  tried  it  several  times,  hut  in  no  instance  did 
I  ever  find  the  old  queen  come  to  my  bate.  Several 
times  when  wishing  to  pre.serve  a  queen  for  a  few 
days  I  have  caged  her  in  the  midst  of  a  populous 
hive,  where  she  obtained  food  and  warmth.  I  never 
found  a  reigning  queen  trouble  herself,  although  the 
cage  would  be  sure  to  be  tliickly  covered  with  the 
excited  workers.  I  am  also  skeptical  as  to  the  in- 
variableness  of  fighting  to  the  death  between  queens 
which  meet.  If  we  jtut  two  queens  under  a  wine- 
glass, and  watch  the  result,  we  see  them  seize  each 
other,  wrestle  and  fitrbt  like  two  gladiators,  and 
sometimes  one  receives  a  sting  and  dies,  but  more 
often  they  separate,  again  eomc  together  for  another 
battle  with  still  a  negative  result."  This  is  repeated 
until  they  get  tired  of  fighting  and  let  each  other 
alone. 

Twice  this  year  I  came  across  instances  of  two 
queens  in  a  hive,  but  I  do  not  think  in  either  case 
they  were  both  fertile.  In  the  first  instance  the  old 
queen  was  evidently  worn  out.  She  had  bred  an 
inordinate  number  of  drones — no  hope  of  a  swarm; 
yet  instinct  guided  the  bees  to  raise  a  young  queen, 
which  soon  took  the  place  of  the  old  one,  which  I 
found  thrown  out  of  the  hive.  I  once  divided  a  hive 
by  a  diaphragm  of  perforated  zinc,  filled  each  half 
with  combs  and  a  swarm,  gave  entrance  to  one  col- 
ony in  front,  and  to  the  other  at  the  back  of  the 
hive.  It  was  no  use.  One  queen  went  on  with  her 
maternal  duties,  the  other  was  encased  by  her  own 
bees.  I  caged  and  released  her  several  times,  but  in 
vain,  the  bees  had  evidently  made  up  their  minds  it 
was  one  hive,  and  therefore  they  would  not  have  two 
queens. 

^ 

Golden  Rules  for  Bee-Keeping. 

Rev.  J.  W.  Shearer  furnishes  the  Jice-Keeper's 
3Iagazine  with  the  following  rules  : 

1st.  For  success.  Thesuccessful  bee-keeper  should 
be  firm,  fearless,  prompt,  provident,  persevering, 
systematic  and  self-reliant. 

2d.  For  situation.      The  apiary  should  be  in  a 


sheltered  position,  near  a  small  stream,  and  where 
a  variety  of  honey  plants,  some  of  which  yield  abun- 
dant and  others  constant  supplies  of  the  nectar. 

3d.  For  removing  bees.  Allow  for  abundant  ven- 
tilation, close  up  firmly,  invert  and  place  in  a  spring 
wagon  so  that  combs  run  with  and  not  across  the 
wagon.  Unless  removed  a  mile  or  more  hives  should 
he  moved  by  degrees,  only  a  foot  or  two  at  a  time, 
or  many  bees  will  be  lost, 

4th.  Forhives.  The  general  advantages  of  manu- 
facture, simplicity,  capacity,  wintering  and  adapta- 
tion to  the  requirements  of  the  particular  apiarian 
are  to  be  considered.  It  is  essential  that  every  hive, 
frame,  box,  and  movable  part  be  of  the  same  size  so 
that  each  will  fit  with  all. 

5th.  For  handling.  Move  gently  and  without  sud- 
den or  violent  motions  in  all  work  about  the  apiary. 

6th.  For  subduing.  "Bees  filled  with  liquid  sweets 
do  not  volunteer  an  attack."  Hence  cause  them  to 
fill  themselves  witH  honey  by  smoking  or  drumming. 

7th.  For  smoking.  Use  dried  buffalo  chip  from 
the  cow  pen.  It  costs  nothing,  is  the  best  material 
and  when  lighted  lasts  a  long  time. 

8th.  For  protection.  Use  a  bobinet  vail  sewed 
up  at  both  ends,  one  fastened  with  rubber  around  the 
hat,  the  other  secured  under  the  coat  collar. 

9th.  For  sweeping  bees.  Use  a  green  twig  or 
bunch  of  asparagus,  never  a  feather. 

loth.  For  stings.  Do  not  flinch  if  stung.  Scrape 
the  sting  out  with  a  knife  or  finger  nail,  pinch  the 
wound  and  apply  soda,  hartshorn,  or  whatever 
alkali  is  found  best  by  the  particular  party. 


^VholesaIe  Death  of  Honey  Bees. 

R.  F.  Criley,  residing  at  Isabella  station,  Wil- 
mington and  Reading  railroad,  was  the  owner  of 
six  large  hives  of  bees  that  stored  a  great  deal  of 
honey  last  year,  but  at  present  he  is  fearful  he  will 
lose  his  entire  bee  family.  Those  in  two  hives  are 
already  dead,  and  all  the  others  are  in  a  dying  con- 
dition. Hesaysthathe  had  not  taken  any  honey 
from  them  since  last  spring,  and  the  hives  are  full 
of  honey,  showing  that  tliey  are  not  starving.  He 
took  the  combs  out  of  one  hive  and  examined  them, 
without  finding  a  single  worm  or  indications  of  any- 
thing else  being  wronir.  There  were  18  combs  11 
inches  wide,  filled  with  honey,  but  all  the  bees  were 
dead.  The  bees  are  in  patent  hives  against  the 
southern  side  of  a  board  fence  and  protected  from 
the  northern  winds,  occupying  the  same  location 
they  did  a  year  ago  and  flourished  exceedingly  well. 
The  cause  of  the  death  of  the  bee  is  unknown. 


LITERARY  NOTICES. 

Thirty-two  impekial  quarto  pages  weekly,  (8 
of  which  are  BU|iplemeutary)  constitute  the  super- 
ficies of  the  Af/ricultural  Gazette,  "an  illustrated 
journal  for  land-owners  and  tenant  farmers,"  publish- 
ed at  No.  7  Catharine  street,  Covent  Garden,  Lon- 
don, England,  by  Alexander  K.  Bruce.  Printed  on 
faintly  buff  tinted  paper  of  superior  quality,  and  re- 
markably well  finished  and  plainly  impressed  type. 
Its  "make  up"  is  very  x-ompact,  its  contents  of  a 
superior  quality  and  of  a  diversified  scope  ;  in  short, 
it  is  a  perfect  vadc  raecum  to  the  agriculturist  and 
rural  economist.  It  contains  valuable  weekly  market 
reports  ;  discussions  of  farmers'  clubs  and  societies  ; 
weather  diagrams;  tabulated  statistics;  synoptic  par- 
liamentary proceedings,  in  addition  to  the  usual 
matter  found  in  agricultural  papers  ;  and  last ,  not 
least,  each  number  contains  nearly  one  hundred  ad- 
verlisemeuts  from  five  lines  to  a  whole  column.  We 
are  intensely  American — ftom  the  heels  of  our  boots 
to  the  crown  of  our  hat — and  we  have  always  reposed 
the  greatest  faith  in  "Yankee  Doodle;"  but  such 
spectacular  manifestations  as  The  Agricultural  Ga- 
zette, The  London  Times,  and  especially  our  visits  to 
our  late  Centennial  and  Internat  onal  Exposition,  ad- 
monish us  that  our  country  does  not  occupy — either 
physically  or  intellectually — the  whole  of  the  largest 
circle  which  can  be  drawn  within  a  square,  and  all 
other  parts  of  the  world  only  the  outside  corners. 
And  in  the  spirit  of  this  metaphor  we  are  in  sympathy 
with  the  editor  of  the  Gazette  in  his  strictures  on  the 
Queen's  speech,  which  practically  includes  all  other 
interests  of  her  realm  within  a  similar  circle,  and 
pushes  the  interests  of  agriculture  out  into  the  corn- 
ers, if  she  recognizes  them  at  all.  We  are  much  in 
the  same  category  on  this  side  of  the  water. 

The  following  from  the  supplement  of  the  Gazette, 
taken  from  the  Irish  Favnier,  on  "American  Beef," 
will  be  good  news  to  our  countrymen  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  exportation  of  that  article  of  commerce: 

"The  first  supply  of  American  beef,  60  quarters, 
equal  to  1.5  live  beasts,  direct  from  shippers,  Messrs. 
Bell  t&  Sons,  Glasgow,  arrived  in  Dublin,  per  Duke  of 
Argyle,  on  'Tuesday,  at  the  North  Wall,  and  was  im- 
mediately conveyed  to  the  appointed  agents,  Messrs. 
Tieman  &  Hogan,  41  Talbot  street,  Dublin,  and  was 
at  once  disposed  of  by  this  eminent  firm  by  public 
auction  to  the  vitualing  trade.  The  following  were 
the  principal  purchasers :  Messrs.  Case,'  Bruton, 
Dunne,  Byrne,  Moouey,  Daly,  Lawler,  O'Loughlin, 
and  others.  Competition  was  spirited — forcquarters 
realizing  from  5%  to  6!,id.  per  ft.;  hindquarters  8  to 
S%i.  per  lb.    The  quality  was  rich  and  good,  the 


meat  in  good  preservation,   remarkably   well   killed, 
and  perfectly  free  from  discoloration  and  smell." 

The  farming  population  that  can  sustain  such  a 
journal  as  the  Agricultural  Gazette,  must  be  more 
than  ordinarily  a  reading  people;  therefore,  what- 
ever progress  we  may  be  making  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  in  the  establishment  of  public  schools,  and 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  we  may  find  that  they 
are  keeping  pace  with  us  in  the  old  world.  They 
probably  have  not  as  7iany  readers  as  we  have,  in 
proportion  to  the  population,  but  there  may  be  more 
of  that  practical  "John  Bull"  solidity  about  their 
reading  than  we  possess.  If  we  permitted  ourselves 
to  descend  to  selfishness,  we  might  envy  the  Gazette 
its  liberal  advertising  patronage.  If  any  of  our  read- 
ers desire  to  patronize  a  foreign  journal,  in  addition 
to  their  own  local  paper,  we  commend  to  them  the 
Agricultural  Gazette,  as  one  that  would  be  likely  to 
realize  all  their  expectations,  and  would  cost  them 
less  than  $3.00   per  year. 

Arithmetic  made  east.  Ropp's  Easy  Calcula- 
tor is  a  new  publication  that  must  prove  of  incalcu- 
lablebenefit  to  farmers, mechanics  and  business  men. 
It  is  so  rapid  and  origiyial  as  to  startle  the  most  schol- 
arly, and  yet  so  simple  and  practical  that  the  most 
illiterate  in  figures  can  instantaneously  become  his 
own  accountant.  It  enables  thousands  to  accom2}lish 
in  a  minute  what  they  could  not  learn  to  calculate 
in  many  months. 

The  first  part  contains  an  entirely  neiv  system  of 
tables  which  show  at  a  glance  the  exact  value  of  all 
kinds  of  grain,  stock,  hay,  coal,  lumber,  merchan- 
dise, etc.,  from  one  pound  to  a  ear  load,  and  for  any 
price  that  the  market  is  likely  to  reach;  the  interest 
on  any  sura  for  any  time  at  6,  7,  8  and  10  per  cent.; 
correct  measurement  of  all  kinds  of  lumber,  saw 
logs,  cisterns,  tanks,  granaries,  bins,  wagon  beds, 
corn  cribs,  time,  wages  and  many  other  valuable 
tables. 

The  second  part  is  a  practical  arithmetic  and  em- 
bodies a  simple  mathematical  principle  which  ena- 
bles any  one  familiar  with  the  fundamental  rules  to 
become  a  lightnin.g  calculator;  and  by  which  over 
tieo-thirds  of  the  figures  and  labor  required  by  the 
ordinary  methods,  and  fractious  with  their  intrica- 
cies, are  entirely  avoided. 

The  work  is  nicely  printed  on  fine  tinted  paper, 
is  well  and  elegantly  bound  in  pocket-book  shape  and 
is  accompanied  by  a  silicate  slate,  memorandum  and 
pocket  for  papers.  It  is  by  far  the  most  complete, 
comprehensive  and  convenient  pocket  manual  ever 
published.  Prices  :  bound  in  Russia  leather,  gilded, 
¥-.00;  morocco,  §1.50;  fine  English  cloth,  |1.00 

The  American  Farmer  for  February,  1877,  a  royal 
octavo  of  32  pages,  published  by  Samuel  Sands  & 
Son,  No.  9  North  street,  Baltimore,  Md.,  at  $1..50  a 
year.  This  excellent  agricultural  journal  was  estab- 
lished in  1819,  hence  it  is  now  in  its  58th  year,  ripe  in 
years,  ripe  in  agricultural  literature,  and  ripe  in  gen- 
eral usefulness  ;  and  from  the  fact  that  the  number 
before  us  has  '1\  pages  of  advertising  matter  in  it,  we 
may  infer  that  its  status  as  a  circulating  medium, 
and  a  diffuser  of  useful  knowledge  is  appreciated  and 
fully  recognized.  We  in  Lancaster  county  shake 
hands  with  "My  Marj'land"  across  ".Mason  and 
Dixon's  line,"  and  also,  because  personally  those  dear 
to  us  by  the  ties  of  blood  are  domiciled  within  its  bor- 
ders, it  seems  nearer  than  other  States.  This  jour- 
nal is  exceedingly  well  conducted,  able  in  its  com- 
position and  compact  in  its  "  make  up,"  containing 
more  that  s  really  useful,  and  condensed  n  a  smaller 
space,  than  is  given  by  any  of  our  exchanges. 

Our  Exchanges,  among  which  are  such  standard 
pub  ications  as  the  American  Agriculturist,  the  Na- 
tional Line  Stock  Journal,  the  Gardeuer^s  ^funthly, 
the  Catiada  Farmer,  the  Sanitarian,  the  Penn  Month- 
ly, the  Lau'S  of  Life,  the  Herald  of  Health,  the  Kansas 
Farmer,  l\\Q  Semi- Tropical,  the  Bee-Keepers'  Maga- 
zine, the  Practical  Farmer,  Wallace's  Monthly,  and  a 
number  of  others  for  1877 — and  all  entitled  to  a  more 
special  notice — regularly  appear  on  our  table,  and  to 
whom  we  can  now  only  extend  a  general  greeting. 
Here  they  are  all  around  us,  and  seem  like  old  friends. 
They  are  all  well  known  to  the  reading  public — all 
worthy  of  support,  and  none  of  them  need  our  com- 
mendations to  entitle  them  to  recognition.  Of  them 
in  detail  anon. 

An  Essay  on  New  South  Wales,  the  mother- 
colony  of  the  Australia,  by  G.  H.  Reid,  Honorary 
Member  of  the  Cobden  Club.  A  royal  octavo  of  171 
pages,  with  many  maps  and  charts.  Those  intending 
to  visit  New  South  Wales,  Sidney  City,  or  any  of  its 
settlements,  would  do  well  to  consult  both  of  these 
volumes,  especially  as  recent  inducements  have  been 
held  out  to  those  who  desire  to  migrate  to  that 
country,  on  account  of  the  demand  for  laborers. 

We  call  the  attention  of  the  readers  of  the 
"Farmer"  to  the  the  advertisement  of  "Bufi'alo  Ferti- 
lizer Co.,  in  another  column.  Their  claim  to  make 
"  Honest  Fertilizers"  is  well  established,  and  no  one 
who  deals  with  them  or  gives  their  article  a  fair 
trial  will  be  disappointed  or  dissatisfied. 

Hepoetof  the  Railways  of  New  South  Wales, 
their  construction  and  working  from  1^73  to  1875 ;  a 
fine  volume  of  1^8  pages,  full  of  statisticals  and  maps, 
and  8'j  by  19'^  in  size,  by  John  Rea,  A.  .M.,  Com- 
missioner of  Kailways,  presented  to  Parliament  by. 
command,    Sidney,  i»76. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


Ill 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO, 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 


BUILDING  HARDWARE, 

tH.AHS, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TEREA  com,  IRON  and  LEABPIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 

SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Agents  Tor  tbe 

^'  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mo'wer, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
I  Fairbank's  Scales. 
Dupont's  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &c.,  &o. 


We  have  the  Inrgeet  stock  of  general  Hardware  Id  the 
State,  ntid  our  prices  ar«  as  loir  and  terms  aa  liberal  as  can 
"be  found  el8( where.  9-1-tf. 

Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -      $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 

Stockiflp,  SflspeMers,  HaaflkercMefs, 

liftnpn  and  Pnper  I'ollHrs  an'l  CnfiH 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

E.  J.  EEISHAH'S. 
No.-  no    North    Queen    Street, 

Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 

i     9-i-iy 


J.  STAUFFER, 


T       »      t      f      t      »       t- 


I. 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 
CI-OXHS, 

CASSIMERES, 

COATINOS,    ■WOnSTERDS, 

VESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Ohiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  aliiped  and  diiiRonal.for  Spring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailorlntf  and  ClotUlnR  Stoioof 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Established  in  the  year  1840), 

Corner  of  North  Queen  and  Orange-Sts., 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

Extra  fluiahcd  and  trimmed.  Ready-made  Clothing,  for 

MEN  AND  BOTS, 

and  clothing  out  or  made  to  order  in  the  moat  eatiafactory 
manner. 

A  fine    line    of     GENTS'  KURNISHINQ    GOODS,  and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
9-l-ly  PracUcnl  Tailors. 

M.  HABERBUSH, 

MAMUKACTHRER  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

N.ADDLKK. 

COLLARS,   WHIPS,  <fec., 

ALSO    DKAI.EU    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  KOBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-t-ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


LANCASTER,  fENN'A. 
235  EAST  ORANGE  ST 

All  matters  HrrertaininR  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CANA- 
DIAN  PATENTS.   TUADE  MARKS,   and    COPYUIOHTH. 

pronivtly  attended  to.  Ilia  exjerience,  Buccefis  ii  d  faithful 
ateiition  to  the  interests  of  those  who  engage  bis  servicea 
are  fully  i:cknowledgod  and  appreciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  niude  for  him  by  &  reliable  Ab 
cistnnt  at  »v'iiBhingtoti,  without  extra  charge  for  drawing 
i.r  dtj-criiitioii.  [9-1-tf 

WANTED     IMMEDIATELY 

y  y    ~1    Young    Men    nnd  Women    to   learn  Ti^LE-    X 
GUAPHY.  Situations  guaranteed.   Salary  while 
practicing,     AddresR.  with  stam]'.  Nhorinnn 
TolHcrni*!!  <"<»..  Ohcrlin.  Ohio.  8  9-6t 

E.  IT.  FEESKMAN  &.  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 

186  W.  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Are  aathorizi*(l    lo  ronCract  Tor  ndvertislnic 
iu  this  paper. 

Estimates  fnmlslied  free.  Send  (or  a  Cucnlar. 


H.  Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  O.  RH0AD3. 


ECONOMY  I  HI  FERTILIZERS  I 

HOMHAEE  CHl^MICAL  MANHRES, 

The  uio»t  Effective  nnd  ChoapeHt. 

Buy  reliable  Chemicals  and  make  your  own  Fertilizers 
AT  HOME.  Write  for  circular,  giving  full  information  on 
thi8  subject. 

We  make,  or  import,  all  kinds  of  Eertiliziug  Chemicals, 
Including  : 
Oil  »f  VHrol,  DisHolved  Bones, 

<Jrniin<l  Bones,  I.and   J»l«ster, 

HnlpliHte  or  Polasli,  Nisrute  of  so<ln, 
Attrirnltural  Snll,      SulpSiale of  Ammonia, 
Muriutool  Potiisii,     Bonv  «  liareoul, 
SulpliHte  of  Soda,       Snlplmtc  of  ina^ncsla. 

Address    HARRISON  BROS.  &  CO., 

105  South  Front  Street,  rJtitnttrlphia. 

Established  as  M  luufaoturers  of  Fertilizing  Chemicals 
In  1793.  9-l-'2m 


My  annual  Cataln^nio  of  Vegetable  and  Flower  Seed  for 
1877  will  tii*  reridy  by  Janu;iry,and  pent  /rre  to  all  who  ap- 
l>ly.  CustomoiH  of  last  ae;:fl.;u  need  not  write  for  it.  I  offer 
one  of  the  1  irgeRt  collection/i  of  vegetable  seed  ever  sent  out 
by  any  seed  house  In  America,  a  large  portion  of  which 
were  gr-wn  on  my  six  ceed  farms.  Printed  direction* /or 
cultivation  on  ever;/  package.  Ail  seed  sold  from  my  catab- 
liahment  warranted  to  be  both  fresh  and  true  to  name;  so 
far,  that  should  it  prove  otherwise.  I  will  jeflU  the  order 
gratis.  As  the  original  introducer  of  the  Hubbard  and 
Marblehead  Sqnushep,  the  Marblehead  Cabbages,  and  a 
score  of  oitier  new  veKOtsbles,  I  invite  the  patronage  of  alt 
who  are  anxious  to  have  their  sced/t  freth,  true,  and  of  the 
T-cry  beat  strain.  Nfw  vkoktadleb  a  Specialty. 
8-U  5t]  JAMKS  J.  H.  OUEGORY,  Marblehead.  Mass. 

n   day   at   Home.      Agents     wanted.      Outfit    and 
terms  free.     TBUK  4  CO.,  Augusta,  Maine.  [8-3-ly 


$12 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Wholesale  and  Retail  Dealera  Id 

EUMONDS,  WATCHES,  JEf  ELRY, 

SILVEEWAEE,  SFECTACLES, 

EroBses.  Clocks  and  Watcliniakers'  Material:. 


Jobbers  in  Amei^ican  Watches. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injporlations  iij  -Foreign  Goods. 


9-1 -ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


ABE  PLANTED   BY    A    MILLION    PKOPLE     IN    AMKBXCA.     8«« 

Vick's  Catalogue— 300  Illuilrationa,  only  2  ceata. 
7  Viclis  Floral  Guide,  Quniterly,  25  ceuta  a  year. 

Vick's  Flower  and  Vegetable   Garden,  60  cents;  with 
elegant  cloth  love.ip,  $1.00. 

All  my  I  ublications  are  pi-inted  in  Enplish  and  German, 
Adarcss,  JAMES  VICK,  Rocbestor,  N.  Y. 

9-2-lt 

SPOONS  and  FORKS. 

BUY  DIRECT 

OfMannfacturers,  at  Wliol«>snlo  I'rlces.    Made 

of  Steel,  jilatcd  with  while  Alabala  Metal.  They  will  wear 
like  silver  and  list  ton  years.  Six  Tcoai  ooua,  4«P.  ;  Six 
Tablespoons,  60c,:  Sii  Table  Fork.^,  7«c.  By  mail  on 
receipt  of  price.  Olive,  Oval  and  Tipped  patterns.  Sample* 
and  terms  to  Grangers  or  Pi-.troiis.  5nc. 
8-12-2t)  ELECTRO  PLATE  CO.,  Northford,  Conn. 

FARMS 

For  Sale     Knn^•inl,-  frnni  2<>  to  r,UU  Aere». 
Apply  to  t.   MAI..OniE,  Salisbury,  Md- 

9-1 -at  


■  SEEDS. 


Our 
Combined 


CATALOGUE    .sn. 


EVERYTHING 

l-OU  THE 

e  ABBE  If 

Nnmberiog  175  pages,  with  Colored  Plate, 

SENT  FREE 

ZZ  To  our  customeraof  past  ye;iie.  aij.l  to  all  parchaaer* 
H  of  ottr  books,  (-ilhor 

W  Gardening  for  Profit,     Practical  Floriculture, 
W  Qj.  Gardening  for  Pleasure, 

(Price  $1.50  each,  prepaid  by  mail,) 

To  others  on  recei]>t  of  26c. 
IMaln  Plant  or  Seed  Catalogues  without  pl«t«,  free 

to  all. 

Sfedamrn,  Market   (innlnu-r.i  ami  Fluri.ils, 

35  Cortiandt  St ,  New  York. 

i^i^^^Bl  PLANTS.  I 

»-l-3t 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER, 


[  February,  1877. 


LADIES! 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


GUN  BAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

I4TORE, 

A   NEW  LOT  QF 

HAMBDEGEMBROIDEEEI)  EDGINGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  TEE  VERT  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kid  GIoTes, 

:E3:osiE3:E=L^sr, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CRA.PB  VKIX.S. 


CEAPE  BONNETS  &  HATS, 

KUCHINGS, 
all  etjrlea  and  widths,  and  cTerythiDg  elae  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WSAS, 
that  ia  good,  deairable  and  cheap. 
Give  ns  a  call  at 

los.  142  &  144  North  Qnfen-st,  Lancaster.,  Fa. 

9-1 -ly 


DON'T  FAIL  TO 

USE  THE 

Buffalo  Honest  Fertilizers 

ON  ALL  SPBING  CKOPS. 
Ammoniated  Bone  Super  Phosphate,' 

AND 

PURE  GROUND  BONES. 

The  purity  of  these  goods  ib  griarauteed,  and  their  stand- 
ard proved  by  regular  aui,ly6J8  of  Prof.  G.  A.  Liebig  of 
Baltimore,  and  other  emiijeut  chemi8*'8. 

Highest  Premium  and  Medal  of  Honor 
awarded  by  tlie  <'enfeiiuiat  <'oinmi«»Kfon  of 
Ihe  International  Ksposition.  I'liiia.,  1876. 

Send  for  new  Spring  Circular,  containing  full  directions 
and  Testimonials. 
9-2-3t.]  Office  252  Washington  St.,  Buffalo,  N  Y, 

RATHVON  &  STAIR, 

DEALEKS IN 

DRY ■ GOODS 


NOTIONS, 
Ko.  163  LOCUST  STEEET, 

COLUMBIA,  "PA. 


(JJCf"  ±  .  C^n^  ^  Wiek  to  Agdit^.    $10  OutAt  Free. 


P.  O.  VICKERY,  Augusta,  Maine, 


AMOSMILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MAKUFACTUBBE  OF  AND  DEALER  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars, 

Bridles,  Whips,  &c.       Alec  a  fine  lot  of  Ti  units.  Valises, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buffalo  Kobes, 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 

»-l-ly 


FRESH  AND  RELIABLE 


-pjlLOWli:!*  SEEDS— all  imported  from  the  best  and  most  celebrated 
fi       French  Gro'wers. 

"VT^EGETABLE   SEEDS — the  best  and  most   desirable  varieties — 
V        both  imported  and  grow^n. 

■  jlIELD   SEEDS— 6  packages  free  as  samples  for  two  3-cent  stamfiB.  i 
Jji       Trees,  Plants,  Implements,  &c. 

OUR  NEW  CATALOGUE  of  the  above,  ready  January  Ist,  will  be  mailed  iiost  free  .o  all  applicants. 


ibjmOOImEU  IaIvk  stock. 

Our  elegant  new  Catalogue  is  just  out— Prioe,  «0  coixts.  It  contains  48  large 
octavo  double  column  pages,  besides  separate  pages  of  cuts  from  life  of  ->ur  finest  imported 
and  prize  stock.    Every  farmer  should  have  it. 


Addbesb 


BENSON  &  BURP££, 

223  Church  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


p 

o 

H 

O 
< 

CO 

W 

W 


in 

O 

X 
m 

en 
H 
O 
O 


H 


TO 


^ 

o 
^ 

(i 

t—\ 

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H 

02 

W 

k 

K 
Q 

< 


mm 


# 

-   ill  be 

...ailed 

to  all  Hpplj- 

.  .,nt8  oti    re- 

r  i-rjpt  of  25  ct8. 

This  is  one  of  the 

.nrgest  CAT1L0€IJEB 

piibl itched,    contnitiH 

Ml>out  2.W   pu^es,  over 

0  fine  engravings,  two 

^    ...^BTint  colored  plates,  and 

■  gives  full  descriptiona,  prices 

r     and    directioDB    for    pliuiting 

over   ISW  v:»ri»'tieB  of  Vegetalile 

'  and  Flower  Seeds,  Bedding  PluntB, 

UoRe»,    Slz.,  and    te    invaluahte    to 

.rnier.  Gardener  &  Florist.    Address, 

D.  M.  FERBY  &  CO.,  Detroit,  Uich. 
Our  AbriJjfJ  Priced  Calalofni  FREE  to  ill  AppIianU. 


FZMFZiBS. 


I  will  mail  (Free)  the  receipt  for  preparing  a  simple  Veg- 
etable Balm  (bat  will  remove  Tan,  Freckles,  PIMl  LES 
and  BLOTCHES,  leaving  the  siin  soft,  clear  and  beautiful- 
also  instructions  for  producing  a  luxurijnt  growth  of  hair 
on  a  bald  head  or  smooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vaudelf  & 
Co.,  Box  5P.il,  No.  6  Wooster  St.,  N.  Y.  ,[9-l-6m 


FOUR  BRAND  PRIZE  MEDALS  AWARDED  DDR 
EXHIBIT  AT  THE  CENTENNIAL. 


Bliss's  Illustrated  Seed  CnialoBue  and 
Aiiiatenr's  Guide  to  the  Flower  and  Kitchen 

Garden.  200  pasres,  including:  several  hundred 
finely  executed  enKrav-inps,  and  a  beantiialiy 
colored  Litlioernph.    33  Cents. 

Bliss's  Illnstrated  Gnrdenei-'s  Almanac 
and  Abridueil  Cntnlosnie.  ISBi.aws.  Embraces 
a  Monthly  Calendar  f.f  Oierat'oiis.  and  a  Price  List 
of  all  the  leading  Gnrden,  Field  and  Flower 
Seeds,  profusely  illustrated,  with  brief  directions 
for  their  culture.    10  Cents. 

Bliss's  llliistrnted  Potato  Catalotiie  con- 
tains alist  of  SOO  Varieties,  and  niudi  useful  infor- 
mation upon  their  cultivation,    1 0  Cents. 

Regular  ctt»tcmers  supplied  gratis.    Address 
P.  O.  Box.          B.  K.  BLISS  At  SONS, 
No.  5712.            54  Barclay  St.,  New  York. 
9-1 -2t 

ESTABLISHED  18S2. 


G.    yKNlHjK    &   SOISTS, 

Mauufaciurere  and  dealers  in  all  kiuds  of  rough  and 
fitiisbed 

The  best  Sawed  SIII  ^  <JI..ES  iu  the  country.     Also  Sash, 
D'loip,  Bliiide,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and   PATENT  BLINDS,  wh'ch  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  btet  4'OAI.  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFirE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Comer  of  Prince  and  Walniit-8ts.t 

9-l-ly 


I 


Q    'V/aQT'    /To  mibscrlbera  in 
cl      I  Cal      \       the  county. 


SZITGLE  COPIES  10  CENTS. 


To  BQbioiibera 

tb«  coum 


',;°""}  $1.28. 


Prot  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  MARCH  15,  1877. 


LI1T1T2;U3  BATHVOH,  Publisher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


{l|e  ^umin 


fmm 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Hftde  a  proruiiieut  feature,  with  special  reference  to  the 
wante  of  the  Farmer,  the  Qardeuer  and  Kruit-Grower. 


Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society. 

Edited  ty  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHYON. 


The  Lanoahtbu  Farmkb  haviug  completed  its  eighth 
year  uuder  variouD  vicifieitudee,  now  cjramences  its  Dinth 
Tolome  under,  it  ie  hoped,  more  favorable  auHpicee  thuu 
atteuded  itB  former  voluniea.  Wheu  the  publiehere  of  the 
last  two  volumes  assumed  the  respoueibilitiea  of  its  publi- 
oatlon,  it  was  with  a  determiuatiou  to  make  such  improve- 
ments as  would  pluce  the  farmer's  organ  of  this  great  agri- 
Goltural  county  In  the  very  front  rouk  of  agric\iltural  jour- 
nabsm.  That  this  has  been  accumpliehed  we  think  our 
readers  will  bear  cheerful  testimony.  If  reason,  bly  siis- 
tained,  our  aim  is  to  make  it  still  more  interesting  and  in- 
structive under  Is  new  pioprietorsbip.  In  this,  however, 
.  we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  friend  of  the  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor,  Prof.  Rath  von,  on 
■ubjectB  connected  with  the  science  of  farming,  and  partic- 
ularly that  specialty  of  which  he  is  so  thoroughly  a  master — 
entomologicil  8cience--Bomo  knowledge  of  which  has  become 
a  necessity  to  the  Kuccessful  fanner,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  than  the  price  of  thiH  publicatiou. 

Ths  Farmeb  will  be  pubWehed  on  the  15th  of  every 
month,  printed  ou  good  i)aper  with  clear  type,  in  con- 
venient form  for  reading  and  binding,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
scribers on  the  foj^wing 

TERMS: 

To  subscribers  revidlng  within  the  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,   ------  $i.oo 

Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -  -  -  .  _        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -------        ^,50 

To  subscrilrijrs  otitside  of  Lancaster  county,  including 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  publishers: 

One  Copy,  one  year,    -  -        -  -  .  .  $1.35 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       -        -        -  -  _        .         5.00 

All  subscriptions  will  commenoe  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otherwise  ordered. 

All  commuuicatiuuB  iuteuded  for  pnblioation  should  be 
addressed  to  the  F.ditor,  and,  to  secure  iusortiou,  should  be 
in  his  hands  by  the  first  of  the  month  of  publication. 

All  business  letters,  containing  subscriptions  and  adver- 
tiseuieuts,  should  be  addressed  to  the  publisher. 


LINN^US  RATHVON, 

32  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 


RATES  OF  AnVERTISING — Ten    Cents   n 
line  for  eacb  insertion.     Twelve  line*  to  the  Inoh 


The  Country,        - 33 

Blue  Glass, .33 

Hell's  Ten   Acres, 33 

Sentimentalism,         ---.-.  .S3 

Coldslaw, 33 

A  Momentous  Question,   -        -       ...  33 

"  Varmints," 84 

Lettuce.    Lactuca  Sativa,         ....  35 

Ants  and  Ant-Eaters,    -       -        -        -        .        -  35 

Cultivation  of  Chiccory.     J.  Stauppbb.        .  36 

"Collier,"    -        .        - 37 

The  Tobacco  Worm, 37 

"Game  Fowls," 39 

The  Wild  Turkey, 89 

Hay  for  Hens,       -------  39 

Insects  as  Food,        --.-..  40 

Jottings  Suggested  by  a  Circular.     A.  B.  K.       -  41 

Very  Curious  Experiments,  .  -  -  -  41 
The  Sick  aud  ttic  Alllictcd  (;ured— A  Great  Bless- 
ing Conferred  u]jou  the  fiumiiu  Family  without 
Cost— Blue  and  Sun  LighU — Cast  a  Blue  Ray  of 
Light — Blue  LighL  uiuin  Animals — Various  Sick 
Persons — Wife  of  a  Philadeliihia  Physician — 
Two  Major  Generals — Violent  Hemorrhage  of 
the  Luugs-'SaviDgthe  D^inghter's  Life— Hope  for 
the  Bald-Headed — Gen.  Pleasonton's  Explana- 
tion— Newtoniun  Theory  of  Gravitation — Who- 
ever Desires  to  Eii-erimeut — A  Step  in  Advance. 

Golden  Rules  for  Bee-Keeping,    -        -        -        .  43 

Our  Local  Organizations,          -        -        -        -  43 
Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural 
and  Horticultural  Society. 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Minnesota  Wheat  and  Flour,        -        -        -        -  44 

Harrowing  Wheat  in  Spring,     -        -        -        .  45 
Corn  Fodder,        -.---.-45 

Saving  Manure,         --...-  45 
Valuable  Cows,    --.-..-45 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Early  Spring  Salads,         -        ....  45 

Bottle  Grafting, -  45 

The  Thurber  Peach,         .....  45 

Celery, --46 

Tobacco,    --------46 

Planting  and  Care  of  Trees,          -        -        -        -  4<i 

Tree  Planting  in  Minnesota,      -        -        -        -  4(3 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 
Farm  Sacks  over  Sixty  Years  Old  and  in  Constant 

Use  Still  Doing  Good  Service.     E.  L.  K.      -  46 

Facts  Worth  Hemembering,      -        -        -        -  46 
Perfected  Butter  Color,        -        -        -        -        -Hi 

Vienna  Bread  and  ColTee,         -        -        .        -  47 

Fruit  ae  a  Medicine,      ----..  47 

Bitter  Cream,   -        -        .        ...        -  47 

THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

Food  for  Fowls, 47 

Feeding  Fowls,          ......  47 

The  Pekin  Ducks  as  Layers,        -        .        -        .47 

Fattening  Poultry, 47 

LIVE  STOCK. 

Care  of  Dairy  Cows,    -        -        -        .        -        -  48 

Leading  a  Colt,        ---...  48 

Value  of  Roots  for  Stalks, 4s 

A  Queer  Calf, 48 

Domesticating  the  Buffalo,         -        .        -        -  4S 

Rearing  Lambs  by  Hand,        ....  48 

Keep  Good  Cows,        -.--..  48 

Literary  and  Personal,      -----  48 


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RATHVON  &  STAIR, 

DEALERS  IN 

DRY    GOODS 


NOTIONS, 
No.  163  LOCUST  STREET, 

COLUMBIA,  PA. 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


Rat«a  «»f  Advertising:  In  the  Farmer. 


1  mo.... 

2  mo.... 

3  mo 

4  mo.... 
e  mo.... 

5  mo.... 
1  year . 


1  iu.  [ 

Sin. 

4iu. 

5  in. 

$1.00'$  2.00 

$  3.00 

$  4.00 

$  6.00 

2  00      4.00 

6.00 

8.00 

12.00 

2.50 

4.51) 

6.75 

10.00 

13. ,".0 

3.00 

6.00 

9.00 

12.00 

18  00 

4.50 

9.00 

13.60 

18.00 

27.00 

6.00 

li.OO 

18.00 

24.00 

36  01 

9.00 

18.00 

27  CO 

36.00 

64.00 

iiu. 

S  8.00 
16.00 
IS.  00 
24.00 
36.00 
48.00 
72  00 


tt^~S>»ecial  and^busineea  notices  15  cents  per  line. 


lENNSYLVANIA  RA 

Trains  leave  the  Depot 


WE  TWAHD. 

Pacific  ExpresB" 

"Way  Passengert   

Niagara  Esprees 

York  Accommodation,   ... 

Mail  train  via  Mt.  Joy 

No.  2  via  Columbia 

Sunday  Mail *. . . 

Fast  Line* .    

Frederick  Accommodation. 

Harrisburg  Accom 

Columbia  Acconjmodation.. 

Harrisburg  Express 

Pittsburg  Express 

Cincinnati  Express" 


EASTWARD. 

Atlantic  Express* 

Philadelphia  Expresst 

Harrisburg  Express 

Columbia  Accommodation,. 

Pacific  Express* 

SuDd:iy  Mail 

Johnstown  Express 

Harrisburg  Accom 


II.ROAD  SCHEDUJLi:. 

in  this  city,  as  follows  : 

Leave  Arrive 

Lancaster.  Harrisburg. 

2:40  a.  m.  *  4:0S  a.  m. 

4:50  a.  m.  7:50  a.  m. 

9.35  a.  m.  10:40  a.  m. 

9:40  a.  m.  Col.  10:10  a.  m. 

11:20  a.  m.  1:00  p.  m. 

11:20  a.  m.  1:20  p.  m. 

11:29  a.m.  1:30  p.  m. 

1:55  p.  m.  3:10  p.  m. 

2:00 p.m.  Col.  2:35  p.m. 

6:10  p.  m.  8:10  p.  m. 

7:20  p.  m.  8:00  p.  m. 

7:25  p.  m.  8:40  p.  m. 

9:25  p.  m.  10:.'i0  p.  m. 

11:30  p.m.  12:45  a.  m. 

Lancaster.         Philadelphia. 
12:40  a.  m.  3:10  a.  m. 

4:10  a.  m.  7:00  a.  m. 

7:35  a.  m.         10:00  a.  m. 
9.2S  a.  m.  12:30  p.  m. 

1:20  p.  m.  3:45  p.  m. 

2:00  p.  m.  5:00  p.  m. 

3:05  p.m.  6:00  p.m. 

5:50  p.  m.  9:00  p.  m. 

The  York  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancaster 
■with  Niagara  Express,  west,  at  9:35  a.  m.,  and  will  run 
through  to  Hanover. 

The  Frederick  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancas- 
ter with  Fast  Line,  west,  at  1:55  p.  m.,  and  runs  through  to 
Frederick  without  change  of  cars. 

The   Pacific   Express,  east,  on  Sunday,  when  flagged,  will 
Stop  at  Middletowii,  Elizabethtown,  Mount  Joy  and  Landis- 
ville. 
*The  only  trains  which  run  daily, 
tRuns  daily,  except  Monday. 

Fruit  and  Ornamental  Trees, 

Tines,   Plants,   Bulbs,   Roses,    Honey   Locust    and    Osage 
Orange,  very  fine 

APPLE,  PEACH,  PEAR  AND  CHERRY  TREES, 

A  splendid  lot   of 
SILVER  AND  J»II«AR  MAPI.ES 

for  shade  trees.    Fiue  Eveegbeen  and  Shrubbebt. 
Address  H.  M.  ElyGLE  •&  SON, 

9-l-2m.  Marietta,  Pa. 

SIGN  OF  THE 

BOOKS,  i^TATIONKRY, 

Gold  Pens,  Fancy  Goods,  School,  College,  Law,  Theological, 
Medical  and  Miscellaneous  Boohs.   Subscriptions  for  all 

PERIODICALS,    MAGAZINES    AND     PAPERS 

at  Publishers  prices. 

J.  M.  WK.STHAFFFER, 

9-l-2m  57  North  Queen  Street. 

A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTUBEtt     OF 

FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS    FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

FOR  FOU 

©ENTI^EMEN.  LADIES. 

No.  36  West  King  Street, 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

DUNBAR'S   CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 
9-l-ly 

TO  COlTSrMPTIVES. 

The  advertiser  having  been  permanently  cured  of  that 
dread  disease,  Coiisuni]  tiou,  by  a  fimjile  remedy,  is  anxious 
to  make  linowu  to  his  fellow  sufferers  tUc  menuH  of  cure. 
To  all  who  de.sire  it,  he  will  send  a  copy  of  the  prescription 
need,  (free  of  charge),  with  the  directions  for  preparing  and 
tisitig  the  same,  which  they  will  find  a  bube  Cuke  for  Con- 
sumption, Asthma,  Br(inchitik,  &c. 

Parties  wishing  the  preBcri]itiou  will  please  address, 

Rev.  E.  A.  WILSON,  194  Peiiu  St.,  Williamsburg,  N.  Y, 
9-1  -'Im  ]  


i^ilS^iF^  Broom -Corn, 

A  uew  vaiiety,  ijcver  pete  red.  l.oiit,',  straighf,  aud  free 
frcm  curl.  Kireiis  early,  yields  better,  and  will  bring  ;j 
more  thau  any  utberkiud.  By  mail.  5^0  per  qt.;  by  exfiress, 
11.50  1  er  lef-k;  S4  lier  bushel.  Address  SAMDEL  WILSON. 
Mechanicsville,  Bucks  Co.,  Pa.  [9-l-3t 


BRRORS  OF  YOUTH. 

A  GENTLEMAN  who  suffeied  for  years  from  Nervous 
Debility.  Premature  Decay,  and  all  the  effects  of  youth- 
ful indiscretion  will,  for  the  sake  of  suffering  humanity, 
send  free  to  all  who  need  it,  the  rrceipt  and  direction  for 
making  the  simple  remedy  by  which  he  was  cured.  Suffer- 
ers wishing  to  profit  by  the  adveitiser's  experience  can  do 
BO  by  addressing  in  perfect  contidence, 
«-l-€mj  JOHN  B.  OQDEN,  42  Cedar  St.,  New  York. 


1760.       ESTABL'iiSHED       1760. 


GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDIl^G  HARDWAEE, 

M'LXHS, 

PAINTS,   OILS,  PUMPS, 

TEEEA  com,  ISONaM  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 

SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Ag^ents  for  tbc 

"  Ohio  "   Reaper   and  Mo"wer, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont's  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails.  &c.,  &o. 


We  have  the  largest  stock  of  general  Hardware  in  the 
State,  and  our  prices  ar*;  as  !ow  and  terms  as  liberal  as  can 
be  found  elsewhere.  9-1-tf . 


S      £2 


D      S 


FIELD,  GARDEN,  FLOWER 

EAND  BIRD  SEEDS,  Bf 

Herd,    Orchard,  Green  and   Blue  Grass,  Flax,  g^^ 
HuuKarian, 


CLOVER  and  TIMOTHY. 

Also,  GRASS  SEED  MIXTURE,  for  Lawns  and 
I  Grass  Plots, 

WHOLESALE   AND    RETAIL, 
BT 


E 


2D  W.  D.  SPRECHER&SOn.    23 

No.  31  East  Kiiig-st.,  I.nncastei',  Fa. 

9-S-2m 

S      £2      E      D      S 


FOOR  GRAND  PRIZE  MEDALS  AV^ARDED  OUR 
EXHIBIT  AT  THE  CENTENNIAL. 


Bliss's  Illnstrnted  Sn-<"d  Cnlnlosiie  and 
AinHteur'a  Guide  to  the  Flower  and  Kitchen 
Garden.  200  imj.'es,  includinif  several  hiindrpa 
finely  exoentcd  euf.-ravinK^.  and  a  beautilully 
colored  Litliocrnpli.    33  Cents. 

niias's  Illii'lrnted  Gardener's  Alinnnnc 
and  Abrlileed  Cnlnloirne.  ISUiaKec  Enibracoa 
aM'inthly  Calendar 'f  Oi  erat'TP.  nnda  Prire  LiEl 
nf  all  the  leadinp  Gnrilen,  Field  and  Flower 
Heeds,  profusely  illustrated,  with  brief  directions 
for  their  culture.    10  Cents.  * 

niixs's  lllnstrnted  Potnto  Cntnloene  con- 
tains aliet  of  nOO  Varieties,  and  mii'h  useful  infor- 
mation upon  tlieir  cultivation,    10  <!ents, 

licoular  customers  suvplicd  oralis.    AddresB 
P.  O.  Box,  B,  K.  BI,1SS  &  SONS, 

No.  S713.  S4  Barclay  Ht.,  New  Vork. 

9-l-2t 


Great  Stock- Breeder's  Monthly. 

,THE  NATIONAL 

LIVE-STOCK 
JOURNAL, 

Publisbcd  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS 

THIS  GREAT  MONTHLYis  univereallyaoknowl- 
ledged  to  be  without  a  rival  in  its  department  of 
Journahem.  Each  number  contains  48  large  pages, 
three  columns  to  the  page,  itith  a  handsome  cover, 
and  is  Beautilully  Illustrated  with  elegant  double- 
plate  engravings.  It  is  the  only  paper  in  the  world 
devoted  exclusively  to  live-stock  and  the  dairy.  It 
discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  merits  of  the 
various  breeds,  the  most  ai3i>roved  methods  of  feed- 
ing and  handling,  and  everything  j  attaining  to  the 
successful  management  of  livestock  on  the  farm. 
During  the  year  1877,  Prof.  James  Law,  the  eminent 
veterinary  of  Cirnell  University,  ^^-ill  contribute  a 
series  of  articles  upon  llie  lnwsof  health  aud  disease 
as  applied  to  Domestic  Animals,  that  cannot  fail  to 
be  of  great  value  to  Fanners  aud  Stock  Breeders 
every  where.  It  contains  separate  Departmenta, 
devoted  to  HOUSES,  CATTLE,  SHEEP,SWINE  and 
the  DAIUT,  sud  its  corps  of  editors  are  recognized 
throughout  the  entire  country  as  the  Most  Thor- 
ough, Able  and  Practical  writers  in  the  separate 
departments,  that  ciii  be  found  in  America.  No  ex- 
pense is  ST  ared  ou  the  ]>art  of  its  publishers,  to 
make  it  a  hiijh-ton^d ,  reliable,  practical  and  iustrjic- 
tive  Journal,  just  such  as  every  intelligent  farmer 
aud  stock  breeder  will  find  worth  ten  times  its  cost 
each  year. 

TERMS. — Single  copies,  one  year,  postage  paid, 
$2.15;  Clubs  of  five,  postage  paid,  .*Jl-00  ;  Clubs  • 
of  ten,  with  au  extra  copy  free  to  person  making  up 
club,  postage  pre-jiaid,  §1.05.  Handmmely  Illus- 
trated postern  mailed  to  all  who  will  get  up  clubs.  Ad- 
dress It  Iters,  registering  those  containing  money, 
unless  iti  shape  of  Postal  Order  or  Draft,  to 

STOCK  JOURNAL  COMPANY,  Publishers. 

Likeside    Building.  CHICAGO,  ILLS. 
tySKND  20  Cents  fob  Specimen  Copt.      [9-3-3m 

A  CpVASSER  WpTED 


IN 


EVERY  TOWNSHIP  IN  THE  COUNTY 


TO  TAKE 

SUBSCRIBERS 


FOR  THE 


FiRHEIL 


Farmers'    Sons    and    other 

Young  Men  during  their 

leisure  hours 

CAN   MAKE 

GOOD  WAGES, 


i 


We  want  a  thorough  canvass  of  every 

district,  and  will  pay  canvassers 

liberally. 

Address, 

L.  HATHVOIT,  Publisher, 

I<ANCAST£R,  PA. 


I 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA..  MARCH,  1877. 


W..  IX.  No.  3. 


THE    COUNTRY. 

The  "lonpt  ngonj"  tliat  lias  a;;itateJ  the  po- 
litical inti'icsts  of  this  cipuntiy  ever  since   tlie 
Presitleiilial  noiiiiiiatioiis,    is   now   over,    and 
although  the  result   may   not   be   satisfactory 
to  all  of  the  people — anil    perhajis   never   will 
I  be— yet,  under  all    the  eileunistances,   events 
I  may  have  been  permitted  ti>  transiiire,  that  in 
I  the  end  will  be  overruled  for  good.      Indeed, 
j  the  seeming  end  that  has  been   Ihially   altain- 
I  ed,  attests  that,  aside  from  all  bombast  or  na- 
I  tional  egotism,  ours  is  an  extraordinary  coun- 
try, and    we  an    extraordinary    people;    and 
forcibly  illustrates  that  ''the   race   is  not   al- 
ways to  theswift,  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong. " 
Peradventure.  it  is  written,  that    ''Evil  shall 
slay   the    wicked;"    tlierefore   let   those   who 
have  done  the  evil  "stand  from   under,"   for 
surely  in  all  that  relates  to  the  moial  welfare  of 
the  human  family,  llure  is  One  whose  will  will 
ultimately  "brinn  ii  to   pass."      The   nation 
requires  and  desires  tran(iuillity,  and  whether 
or  not  that  is  too  dearly  iiurchasid,  is  not  onrs 
to  judge,  but  must  now  be  committed   to  the 
wisdom  of  i/mi  who   alone   can  see   the   end 
from  the  beginning,  and  under  whose   benign 
government  it  is   almost   daily   demonstrated 
among  men,  that  "thus  far  shalt  thou  go  but 
no  farther." 

We  must  be  an  extraordinary  people,  for  in 
no  nation  on  earth,  where  the  people  are  politi- 
cally so  nearly  equally'divided  in  numbers,  in 
power,  in  wealth,  and  in  intelligence,  couUi 
such  a  transition  have  been  effected  as  that 
which  has  recently  characterized  our  people, 
without  a  terrible  and  bloody  war. 

Through  our  centennial  exultation  and  our 
political  fervor,  we  have  been  in  somi-  measure 
divertedfromthesuffering  interests  which  have 
surrounded  us  for  the  past  two  years  or  more, 
and  which  can  never  prosper,  save  under  the 
auspices  of  peace,  conlidence  and  tranquillity. 
Farming  interests  have  not  been  aliected  to 
the  same  extent  as  mechanics,  day-laborers, 
professionals,  and  those  who  depend  upon  the 
patronage  of  these  classes ;  but  still,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  their  prices  and  their 
profits  have  diminished,  whilst  their  labors 
have  been  the  same  as  in  prosperous  times. 
This  is  ii  further  illustration  of  the  importance 
of  farming  as  a  fundamental  factor  in  the 
constitution  of  society.  Men,  by  stringent 
necessity,  may  effect  a  sort  of  compromise  with 
their  heads,  their  bodies,  their  feet,  and  even 
with  their  minds,  but  it  is  impossible  for  them 
to  do  so,  except  to  a  very  limited  extent,  with 
their  stomachs,  withoutsubjecting  themselves 
to  disease,  to  sutlering  and  to  sorrow,  if  not  to 
absolute  starvation. 

The  farmers  are  the  feeders  of  the  civilized 
world,  and  in  a  country  where  "  general  peace, 
general  iilenty,  and  general  satisfaction" 
reign,  there  is  little  danger  of  "war,  jiesti- 
lence  and  famine. "  These  are  all  more  or  less 
within  the  province  of  the  farmer's  occupa- 
tion, and  he  could  entirely  control  them  for 
good,  if  he  made  the  same  effort  to  enlarge 
his  mind  that  many  other  professions  do. 
Still,  take  him  as  he  is,  he  is  none  the  less 
"  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  country,"  as  well 
as  the  great  civilizer  of  the  race,  the  hope  of 
the  State,  and  "  the  bulwark  of  the  nation." 
In  carrying  out  his  mission  on  earth,  all  he 
asks  is,  "itf  us  /uirf  peace." 


BLUE  GLASS. 
We  publish  on  i  age  41.  a  paper  on  the 
theories  and  experiments  with  "Hlue  Glass," 
which  is  going  the  "  rounds"  of  the  public 
press,  not  because  we  endor-se  it,  for  in  good 
"troth"  we  know  little  or  nothing  about  it— 
but  because  the  attention  of  the  public  is  more 
or  less  directed  towards  it,  and  because  the 
author   or   discoverer   of   this   phenomenon 


nuikes  his  statements  with  so  much  confidence, 
and  the  Source  of  the  doctrine  is  so  intelligent 
and  respectable,  that  we  feel  compelled  to  i;ive 
him  a  hearing.  Jloreover,  we  sincerely  be- 
lieve that  there  are  occasions  when  there  is 
wisdiim  in  "going  behind  the  returns, "  and 
deciding  the  merits  of  the  case  upon  fviWoi'f, 
whatevermay  bi;  the  linal  result.  If  the  thing 
is  based  on  J'wt,  that  fict  will  be  linally  ulii- 
niated  ;  if  upon  /'iHcy,  that  fancy  will  be 
eventually  di.ssipaied.  Already  a  deniaud  for 
bliie  glass  has  been  excited,  and  the  trade  in 
it  so  far  stimulated  as  to  encourage  the  manu- 
facture of  it  in  this  country  ;  and  our  manu- 
facturers are  already  able  to  successfully  com- 
pete with  those  of  France  and  England,  where 
it  had  been  heretofore  suppo.sed  it  ccmld  only 
be  produced.  But  su|)pose  it  does  (inally  turn 
out  to  be  imaginary,  the  objects  subjected  to  it 
as  a  remedy  for  tliecure  of  existing  evils,  can- 
[lot  be  worse  off  than  the  horse  whose  owner 
placed  green  spectacles  over  his  eyes  and  fed 
him  pine  shavings,  which  he  ate  and  imagined 
to  be  corn-fodder,  and  throve  upon  it  just,  the 
same  as  if  it  had  been  real  tbdder,  and  in 
which  he  by  no  means  stood  alone,  but  had 
his  sympathizers  in  the  human  family. 


HELL'S  TEN  ACRES. 

There  is  a  locality  in  Breckinridge  county, 
near  the  Hardin  line,  containing  some  eight 
or  ten  acres,  in  which  no  animal  can  live  any 
length  of  time,  owing  to  the  strong  miasma. 
A  short  time  since,  the  owner  of  the  ground 
undertook  to  clear  it,  and  with  his  son  pro- 
ceeded to  the  work.  The  sun  was  overcome, 
and  it  was  with  dilficulty  that  the  father,  af- 
fected as  he  was,  could  get  himself  and  son 
out.  A  calf  was  turned  into  the  place,  and 
soon  after  he  died.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
looks  of  the  place  or  the  smell  of  the  atmos- 
phere to  indicate  the  deadly  miasma  hover- 
ing over  it.  All  the  above  is  amply  vouched 
for  in  every  particular.— £h'2ai/e£/ilou;n  (Ky.) 
JSTcws. 

"Is  that  so  ?"  "We  would  like  to  hear  some- 
body from  "Breckinridge,"  or  the  "Hardin 
line,"  speak  up  on  the  Subject.  In  our  boy- 
hood we  had  read— and  lor  many  years  there- 
after believed— the  wonderi'ul  account  of  the 
celebrated  "Bohon  Upas"  tree,  in  a  certain 
valley  in  the  Island  of  Java,  which  had  a  fatal 
effect  upon  any  living  thing  that  ventured 
into  it  ;  but  sub.sequent  accounts  have  gone 
very  far  towards  exploding  the  theory  of  that 
story  altogether.  That  Breckinridge  tract,  not 
only  illustrates  that  "ten  acres  are  enough," 
but  that  it  is  entirely  too  much,  to  be  whole- 
some to  calves  and  their  owners.  If  ever  the 
"Colorado  Potato-beetles,"  and  the  "Rocky 
Momitain  Locusts,"  get  near  that  region,  we 
would  suggest  the  driving  of  them  within  the 
territorial  limits  of  those  ten  acres,  as  the 
grandest  insect  trai)on  the  continent  of  North 
America.  We  cannot  say  that  we  are  very 
seriously  affected  with  incredulity,  but  at  the 
some  time,  before  we  come  to  fixed  conclusions 
on  the  subject,  we  would  like  to  examine  the 
"vouchers."  We  n.ay  be  just  a  little  demoral- 
ized on  this  subject  ;  but,  we  still  could  be 
more  fiee  in  the  affirmative  of  the  question,  if 
we  had  a  more  satisfactory  demonstration. 


SENTIMENTALISMS. 

A  while  ago  a  farmer  in  Virginia  lost  his 
wife,  and  out  of  love  for  her  memoiy  called 
his  estate  "Glenniary."  A  neighbor  having 
met  with  the  same  affliction,  and  eqlially  de- 
sirous of  keeping  before  him  the  image  of  his 
dear  departed,  followed  his  example,  and  his 
farm  is  known  by  the  name  of  "Glenhetsy." 

If  such  an  exhibition  of  scntimentalisin  had 
occurred  in  Lancaster  county,  we  might  have 


attributed  it  to  a  waut  of  poetical  discrimin- 
ation ;  but  coming  up  from  the  classic  ground 
of  the  "Old  Dominion,"  we  hardly  know  what 
ought  to  be  said  abonf  il.  Under  any  circum- 
stances, we  quesiinn  whether  the  latter  indi- 
vidu;il  was  a  thorougbbred  /aimer— a  fancy 
farmer,  perhaps,  who  had  no  very  definite 
concejition  of  the  fitness  of  thinus.  He  may 
possibly  have  been  a  relati\e  of  tlie  famous 
Mrs.  Partington,  if  not  her  hopeful  son 
"  Isaac"  himself.  He  evidently  seems  to  have 
been  affected  with  "romance  on  the  brain  ;" 
soinelhing  like  the  man,  not  versed  in  Scrip- 
ture, who,  nevertheli  ss,  was  determined  his 
son  should  have  a  .Sriplure  name,  and  there- 
fore called  him  BcehOiub.  Althnugh  our  text 
does  not  .Say  he  was  a  farmer,  yet,  from  the 
fact  that  he  iiosscssed  a  farm,  we  may  legiti- 
mately infer  he  was.  "Gienmary"  is  a  very 
pretty  name,  but  "  Glenhetsy"  is  simply  shock- 
ing, and  does  iKjt  sound  halt  so  euphoneous  as 
"Betsy  Glen."  Afterall,  "what'sin  a  name," 
since  we  know  "a  lose  by  any  other  name 
would  smell  as  sweet,"  and  in  a  trial  before  a 
coetic  tribunal,  with  that  precedent  in  evi- 
dence, OlaihcUij  might  take  a  verdict  without 
the  jury  leaving  the  box;  therefore.  Hurrah 
for  "Gleubetsy." 


COLDSLAW. 


Yolks  of  two  eggs;  a  tablespoonful  of  cream; 
a  small  teaspoontui  of  mustard;  a  little  salt; 
two  tables])oonfuls  of  vinegar.  If  cream  is 
not  used,  put  in  a  small  lump  of  butter  rubbed 
in  a  little  tlour.  Cut  the  cabbage  very  fine; 
heat  the  mixture,  and  pour  it  on  hot. 

No  doubt  the  foregoing  would  result  in  a 
capital  condiment— indeed,  we  knoxcil  would, 
for  we  have  often  tried  it— all  except  the  cold- 
slaw,  when  it  is  served  up  hot!  Why  not  at 
once  call  it  /lofslaw?  Let  shiw  be  its  eeneric 
designation,  and  cold  or  /lot  its  specific  name. 
If  we  must  blunder  on  in  our  names  of  things, 
let  our  blundering  be  suflicienily  systematic  to 
leave,  at  least,  the  appearance  that  we  are 
consistent,  and  have  a  thorough  knowledge  of 
our  meaning.  In  fact,  the  term  "coldslaw" 
is  a  corruption;  and  although  wc  believe  there 
are  a  great  many  people  who  may  know  from 
what  root  or  roots,  il  has  been  corrupted,  we 
also  believe  there  are  many  more  who  have 
not  that  knowledge. 

CnhhiKje,  is  said  to  have  been  first  introduced 
into  (iermaiiy  and  England  by  the  Romans, 
under  the  name  of  kale,  ca/f  orco/e;and  known 
by  other  similar  names,  by  different  nations, 
as  kahl  or  cmcl,  aial.  kohl,  etc.,  etc.,  and  all 
the  varieties  of  Brassica  now  cultivated  are 
from  that  original  stock,  which  did  not  pro- 
duce the  solid  head  that  is  now  produced. 

In  short,  our  .Saxon  ancestors  made  a  salad 
of  it,  which  was  called  knle-solladt,  and  in 
time  perhaps  by  the  Anglo-Saxons  kohl-salladt 
ovcole-saludt,  which  was  gradually  contracted 
into  c/)?(:-.<sa'«fJ  and  finally  coW-s/aiJ.  OfcouiBe 
these  names  would  have  been  the  same,  and 
Would  have  had  the  same  meaning — with  their 
know  edge  of  the  original  composition  of  the 
dish — whether  it  was  hot  or  cold. 


A  MOMENTOUS  QUESTION, 

Whether  we  regard  the  question  involvintr 
the  insect  world  in  reference  to  the  bcneJUs  it 
confers  upon  the  human  family— as  in  the  pro- 
duction of  silk,  honey,  wax,  galls,  lac,  dye 
stuffs,  and  medicines— or  in  reference  to  the 
i}ijnrifs  which  man  directly  and  indirectly 
sustains  from  the  pre.sence  of  these  pests  in 
preponderating  numbers,  as  in  the  destruction 
of  our  potato,  tobacco,  grain,  fruit,  tield  and 
garden  crojis,  our  trees  and  shrubberies,  we 
find,  on  looking  intelligently  into  the  face  of 
it,  that  it  is  a  most  momentous  question,  and 


34 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  March, 


that  no  amount  of  apathy,  indifference  or  ridi- 
cule can  divest  it  of  its  importance  in  the 
sphere  of  domestic  and  rural  economy.  It  is 
the  province  of  many  people  to  "pooh-pooh'' 
the  subject  as  one  beneath  their  special  con- 
sideration. Few  people  are  in  the  habit  of 
viewing  things  in  their  aggregates,  and  hence 
they  never  form  an  adequate  conception  of 
the  gains  or  the  losses  which  may  accrue  to 
society  through  the  presence  or  the  absence  of 
insects.  The  following  essay  by  Prof.  Aughey, 
of  the  State  University  of  Nebraska,  first  pub- 
lished by  the  State  Journal,  and  afterwards  in 
the  Nebraska  Farmer  (from  the  latter  of  which 
we  copy  it),  is  so  much  to  the  point  on  this 
subject,  and  so  experimentally  practical  in  its 
details,  that  we  give  it  entire— especially  as  it 
also  involves  the  question  of  birds  and  bird- 
destroying  agencies,  in  their  remedial  relations 
to  the  insect  world — and  we  ask  for  it  a  care- 
ful perusal  by  our  readers  : 

Our  Danger  and  Our  Remedy  from  Insects. 
I  wish  to  add  some  facts  and  suggestions  to 
what  the  press  has  been  saying  on  the  subject 
of  our  danger  from  insects,  and  the  remedy. 
There  can  be  no  question  about  the  increase 
of  our  insect  enemies.  Even  the  chinch  bug 
has  been  increasing  on  the  whole  during  the 
last  ten  years.  I  saw  more  butterflies  of  the 
army  worm  during  the  last  summer  than  ever 
before  in  our  history.  It  only  requires  a 
favorable  season  and  conditions  for  this  insect 
to  become  a  formidable  foe  to  our  agriculture. 
Tree-borers  are  also  alarmingly  on  the  increase. 
I  noticed  them  in  large  numbers  in  ihe  groves 
during  the  last  season  where  they  were  never 
seen  before.  Many  more  instances  of  the 
same  kind  could  be  given.  Tlie  vast  numbers 
of  grasshoppers  that  occasionally  sweep  down 
on  our  jilains  are  too  familiar  to  need  discus- 
sion. It  should  be  recollected,  also,  that  the 
amount  of  damages  done  in  a  year  throughout 
the  United  States  by  insects  is  not  less  than 
four  hundred  miUions  of  dollars.  IlUnois 
aUme  has  suffered  to  the  amount  of  seventy- 
three  millions  in  a  single  year.  The  poverty 
and  retardation  of  settlement  in  Nebraska, 
produced  by  grasshoppers,  is  familiar  to  all. 
In  fact,  these  insect  plagues  bear  heavily  on 
every  one. 

We  do  not  need  to  go  far  to  ascertain  the 
cause  of  this  general  increase  of  insects.  The 
balance  of  nature  has  been  interrupted  in  Ne- 
braska. Insects  arc  increasing  with  the  de- 
crease of  our  insectivorous^birds.  This  de- 
crease of  birds  is  iraced  directly  to  the  agency 
of  man.  As  a  few  persons  deny  the  agency  of 
birds  in  keeping  down  insects,  I  will  give  a 
few  examples  from  my  note  book.  In  May 
and  June,  1875,  I  examined  the  stomachs  of  a 
great  many  prairie  chickens,  which  I  had  shot 
for  that  purpose,  to  ascertain  definitely  the 
nature  of  their  food.  No.  1  had  58  grass- 
hoppers and  13  other  insects  in  its  stomach. 
No.  2  had  til  grasshoppers  and  16  other  insects 
and  worms.  No.  3  had  75  grasshoppers  and 
9  other  insects.  Besides  these  insects,  there- 
was  a  large  mass  of  the  same  kind  of 
materials  that  was  too  much  macerated 
to  be  counted.  The  stomachs  of  quails 
contained  40  to  50  grasshoppers  and  other 
insects,  besides  a  large  m:iss  that  could 
not  be  distinguished.  In  previous  years,  when 
the  migrating  grasshoppers  were  not  in  the 
State,  the  contents  ot  the  stomachs  of  these 
birds  were  still  largely  made  up  of  various 
kinds  of  insects. 

No  families  of  birds  are  so  little  appreciated 
for  their  insectivorous  qualities  as  plovers  and 
snipe.  They  are  represented  in  Nebraska  by 
at  least  sixteen  species.  The  number  of  in- 
sects which  they  destroy  is  enormous.  I  liave 
found  tbirly  to  thirty-five  insects  and  worms 
in  the  stomachs  of  one  small  species  {^gialUis 
semipahnatt(s).  Many  of  these  plovers  and 
snipe  spend  tbe  cold  months  in  the  Gulf 
States,  and  come  north  in  the  spring  to  hatch. 
Formerly  they  were  exceedingly  abundant  in 
the  State,  but  they  are  now  becoming  reduced 
very  fast  by  murderous  hunters. 

Our  thrushes,  blue  birds,  wrens,  swallows, 
etc.,  all  feed  almost  entirely  on  insects.  The 
blackbirds  and  orioles,  that  are  charged  with 


confiscating  so  many  grains,  will  be  found  on 
examination  to  make  insects  at  least  nine- 
tenlhs  of  their  food. 

Now,  suppose  the  insectivorous  birds  were 
left  to  increase  until  there  were  1,000  lo  a 
square  mile  ;   each  bird,  at  a  low  calculation, 
vv-ould  require  100  insects  for  food  each  day  ; 
this  would  destroy  100,000  insects  per  day  on 
each  square  mile,  and  in  a  month  3,000,000, 
and  in  five  months,  15,000,000.     But  insectiv- 
orous birds  really  consume  nearer  200  than  100 
insects  each  day,  and  at  this  rate  500  such 
birds  to  a  square  mile  would  accomplish  the 
same  result.     If  birds  are  increased  to  the 
number  proposed,  there  will  be  insects  enough 
to  furnish  them  food  for  many  years.    When 
once  the  insects  are  properly  reduced  in  num- 
bers, the  birds  will  of  their  own  accord,  if  left 
alone,  betake  themselves  to  other  regions.     If 
they  must  be  killed  by  carnivorous  man,  let 
the  point  of  over-supply  be  first  reached.    But 
let  it  be  remembered  that  our  forests  and 
cultivated  trees  in  Nebra.ska  alone  are  preyed 
on  by  about  140  siiecies  of  inserts.     Apple, 
pear  and  plum  trees  have  about  ILIO  species  of 
insect  enemies.     Fifty  species  of  insects  inter- 
fere with  grape  culture.     There  are  at  least 
35  insect  eiiemies  of  our  gardens.     Most  spe- 
cies of  insec's  have  a  marvelous  fecundity  : 
one  pair  of  grain  weevils  will  produce  6,0li0 
young  between  Apiil  and  August.     Accord- 
ing to  Reaumer,  one  aphide,  or  plant-louse 
(these  aphide  are  found  on  almost  all  kinds  of 
plants),  may  become  the  progenitor  in  a  single 
season  of  six  thousand  millions.     The  female 
Wiisp  produces  in  one  season 30,000 (Packard.) 
The  white  ant  deposits  eggs  at  the  average 
rate  of  sixty  to  a  minute.     Our  ovi'n  wild  silk- 
worm {Attaciis  cecropi(t),  v/hich  feeds  so  largely 
on  our  wild  plums,  produces  from  6C0  to  1,000 
eggs  per  season.     But  I  need  not  multiply 
these  common  instances  of  the  enormous  in- 
crease of  insects.     The  entomologist,  whose 
eye  is  accustomed   to  look  for  insects,  sees 
almost  every  foot  ot  ground  swarm  in  summer 
time  with  insect  life.      If  the  naked  eye  does 
not  perceive  them,  the  microscope  brings  them 
to  view.     No  one  need,  therefore,  to  fear  that 
such  an  increase  ot  insectivorous  birds  as  is 
proposed   would    produce    a    famine   among 
them.     The  fact  is.  we  must  get  them  or  suffer 
immeasurably  more  in  the  near  future  from 
insect  depredations  than  we  have  ever  yet  done 
in  the   i^ast.     But  what  liinders  such  an  in- 
crease of  insectivorous  birds  as  would  save  us 
from  insect  depredations?      The    hindering 
cause,  as  every  one  knows,  is  the  barbarous 
custom  of  killing  birds.     No  agent  of  destruc- 
tion   is  so  potent  as  bird  dogs  ;  they  do  im- 
measurably more  damage  than  traps.      When 
trapping  was  made  illegal,  hunting  birds  with 
dogs  should  also  have  been  forbidden.     The 
farmer  is  seldom  able  to  hunt  during  thebu.sy 
summer,  and  when  he  can  go  gunning  on  his 
own  fields  the  young  game  has  been  so  reduced 
in  numbers  and  made  so  wild  by  men  and  dogs 
that  little  can  be  obtained.      Better  forbid  by 
statute   the   killing   of  birds  by  any  method 
for  at  least  three  years,  and  after  that  permit 
it  only  for  a  month,  by  shooting  without  the 
aid  of  dogs.     The  use  of  dogs  in  hunting  and 
traps  should   be    prohibited   forever.       This 
would  make  all  equal  before  the  law  on  this 
subject,  and  work  unspeakable  good  to  the 
State.     Surely,sporting  men  will,  for  the  sake 
of  the  public  good,  be  willing  to  abandon  their 
favorite  amusement. 

The  objection  is  sometimes  made  that  a 
large  increase  of  prairie  chickens  and  quails 
would  endanger  the  crops  of  the  farmers.  I 
believe  that  this  is  a  mistaken  view.  In  ex- 
amining the  stomachs  of  these  birds  that 
were  killed  on  wheat  stubble  after  harvest,  I 
almost  invariably  found  more  insects  than 
grains  of  wheat.  Tbe  only  exception  to  this 
experience  was  the  occasional  finding  of  an 
almost  exclusive  meal  made  on  prairie  grass 
seeds  and  berries.  But  surely  the  few  seeds 
and  grains  that  they  confiscate  wjll  not  be 
grudged  to  them,  in  view  of  the  many  insect 
enemies  which  they  destroy. 

[This  also  bears  heavily  upon  the  "Quail 
question"  of  Ohio  and  Indiana,  and  equally 


upon  the  "Partridge  question"  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  their  grauiverous  propensities. 
Our  wheat  harvests  occur  in  July,  and  before 
the  wheat  is  ripe,  we  believe  no  complaints 
against  partridges  as  destroyers  of  that  crop 
have  been  made.  Nor  yet  are  they  seriously 
charued  as  destroyers  of  the  corn.  They  are 
not  climbing  birds,  and  therefore  whatever 
grain  food  they  appropriate  must  be  that 
which  has  been  left  by  the  gleaner,  and  is 
lying  on  the  ground.  These  birds  pass  the 
whole  year  with  us,  and  between  one  wheat 
or  corn  harvest  and  another,  nearly  a  whole 
year  elapses,  and  during  that  period  the 
partridges  must  eat  something,  and  until  winter 
sets  in,  that  something  is  largely  composed  of 
insects  ;  and  their  habits  bring  them  nearer 
to  certain  species  of  these,  than  climbing  or 
perching  birds. 

^ 

"VARMINTS." 

A  rather  curious  "varmint"  was  killed  on 
the  farm  of  J.  B.  Boyce,  in  New  Madrid 
county,  several  days  ago.  It  is  a  snake,  some 
thirty-two  inches  long  and  four  inches  in  cir- 
cumference, of  a  dark  color  and  smooth  skin. 
It  has  four  very  small  feet,  two  iu  front  about 
three  inches  from  its  nose,  and  two  about  eight 
inches  from  the  tip  of  its  tail.  In  its  upper 
jaw  are  four  rows  of  teeth. 

Whenever  an  animal  is  found,  out  of  the 
ordinary  occurrence,  and  people  in  general 
have  "never  seen  the  like  before,"  and  there- 
fore do  not  know  what  it  is,  they  forthwith 
call  it  a  "va7-»/(Mit,-"  a  "thingumbob;"  a 
"Gosh  curious  thing  ;"  a  "queer  animal,"  or 
something  of  that 'kind,  according  to  the  pe- 
culiar phraseology  ot  the  special  locality  ;  and, 
without  some  casual  remark  in  its  description, 
the  reader  can  scarcely  tell  what  animal  it  was 
between  a  mouse  and  an  elephant.  But,  in 
the  above  description  the  writer  says,  un- 
quahfiedly,  "It  is  a  snake."  If  then  his  cap- 
tion had  been  "a  queer  snake,"  or  a  "queer 
reptile,"  he  would  atonce  have  so  far  classified 
the  animal,  as  to  have  assisted  in  determining 
what  it  was.  Varmint,  is  a  "Davy  Crocket- 
ism,"  a  general  term  which  that  distinguished 
backwoodsman  applied  to  a  variety  of  animals, 
including  bears,  wolves,  "coons,"  panthers, 
badgers,  "catamounts,"  &c.,  whatever  the 
last  named  may  be.  The  term  "varmint,"  is 
not  defined  in  any  of  the  dictionaries,  and 
probably  is  derived  from  "vermin,"  a  term 
which  ill  itself  is  very  uudeterrainate,  and  is 
applied  to  many  animals  that  are  noxious  in 
their  character,  from  a  minute  insect,  up  to 
an  alligator,  not  excluding  mammals  and 
fishes  ;  it  is,  however,  generally  applied  as  a 
plural  [rermine,]  and  generally  means  charac- 
ter rather  than  kinds— numbers,  rather  than 
single  individuals- as  rats,  mice,  cockroaches, 
lice  and  maggots. 

This  animal  seems  to  have  been  killed  on 
the  farm  of  a  Mr.  Boyce,  in  New  Madrid 
county,  and  although  the  state  is  not  men- 
tioned, we  presume  it  means  the  south-east 
corner  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  but  it  is  not 
said,  whether  it  was  killed  on  land  or  in  water. 
But  no  matter  about  that;  the  smooth  skin 
removes  it  from  the  snakes,  (Ophidians,)  and 
also  from  the  lizards,  (Sauri.^ns)  and  locates 
it  among  the  irogs  and  newts,  (Batra- 
CHIANS,  j  in  close  proximity  to  the  Proteans. 
Of  course,  from  a  brief  newspaper  description, 
it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  name  an 
animal  specifically,  unless  we  had  previously 
seen  a  similar  animal  ourselves  ;  but,  from  the 
size,  texture,  and  structure  of  this  reptile,  we 
may  inferentially  set  it  down  as.a  specimen  of 
Amphiuma  tridactyhan,  of  which  there  are 
two  species  known  to  inhabit  the  stagnant 
pools  "and  ditches  of  Louisiana,  Florida, 
Georgia  and  South  Carolina;  and  that  it  should 
have  been  found  as  far  north-west  as  New 
Madrid,  is  not  more  remarkable  than  that  its 
congener,  Menopoma  allcghaniensis,  (Hell  Ben- 
der) which  sixty  years  ago  was  not  known  to 
exist  east  of  the  Allegheny  mountains,  should 
have  been  found  in  the  waters  of  Lancaster 
county  in  1870. 

It  is  said  that  the  species  we  have  mention- 
ed sometimes  attains  to  three  feet  in  length, 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


35 


ind  tliat  great  minibers  of  them  arc  often 
fouivi  in  cleaiiiiif;  out  ponds,  buried  dei;p  in 
the  mud  at  the  bottom,  and  also  tliat  tliey 
have  been  known  to  come  (lut  on  marshy 
|ands,  in  dark,  cloudy  or  rainy  days. 

The  "Proteans,"  to  whicli  Ihey  are  allied 
)y  family,  Pro(d(s  sa»(7ia)iti.>i,for  iiis(ance,have 

flattened  tail,  only  two  toes  on  the  hinder 
feet,  and  a  kind  of  external  j^ills  on  each  side 

Ef  the  neck  ;  and  arc  said  to  have  been  a  deli- 
ious  edible.  When  Cortez  invaded  i^Iexico 
I — according  to  Air.  ]$iillock,  an  Enirlish 
author— the  lakes  surrounding  the  city  of 
Mexico  were  full  of  an  alhed  genus,  (Siredon 
nisrlforme,)  and  were  esteemed  such  a  great 
luxury,  that  for  some  time  that  renowned  in- 
\  ;uler  fed  his  army  upon  tliem  ;  and  that  long 
■ifterwards,  when  the  city  of  Mexico  came 
under  Spanish  rule,  thousands  of  them  were 
icxposed  for  sale  in  the  imblic  markets. 
\Meuobranrhux  lateralis,  found  in  the  great 
lakes  of  North  America,  is  said  to  attain  a 
lengtli  of  three  feet.  The  "Sirens."  an  allied 
family, have  two  feet  in  front  and  none  behind. 
I  Thisissayingagreatdeal  about  a  "varmint" 
but  such  newspaper  paragraphs,  usually  treat 
ixn  interesting  subject  so  flippantly,  that  in 
many  instances,  and  to  the  mas.ses  of  the  peo- 
ple, they  do  not  afford  the  least  enlightenment, 
in  consequence  of  their  very  indefinite  no- 
menclature. 


LETTUCE, 

Litctttru  Sitliva. 

'  Lettuce  is  a  hardy  annual,  of  which  the 
original  country  seems  to  be  unknown.  It  has 
been  found  wild  in  many  different  parts  of  the 
Ift'orld,  and  was  first  cultivated  in  England 
^bout  the  year  1.5tJ2.  It  is  divided  into  two 
families, called  the  Cos  and  the  cabbage  lettuce. 
The  first  —  distinguished  by  an  upright 
^rowth — was  introduced  from  the  island  of 
;Uos  ;  and  the  second, — the  habits  of  which  are 
pomewhat  indicated  by  its  name, — from  Egyi>t. 
pur  climate  is  not  altogether  favorable  to  the 
Cos  family  ;  or,  at  least,  we  find  the  other  one 
much  more  thrifty  and  worthy  of  cultivation. 
For  the  information  of  tlie  curious  reader  ; 
\t  is  well  to  stale,  that  the  botanical  term 
\Lactucn  is  derived  from  Iw.  the  Latin  word 
for  milk,  in  allusion  to  the  milky  juice  which 
exudes  from  the  stem  when  broken.  This 
tuice,  when  the  plants  are  young,  contains  but 
B.  small  quantity  of  the  narcotic  principle  ;  but 
It  gradually  acquires  a  strong,  bitter  taste, 
and  becomes  notably  sedative.  "  This  property 
feeems  to  have  been  known  at  a  very  early 
period,  and  a  lettuce  supper  was  thought 
fiighly  conducive  to  repose.  The  varieties 
and  sub-varieties  are  numerous,  and,  as  is 

fisual  in  such  cases,  a  very  few  include  the 
eading  merits  of  the  whole. 
The  best  soil  for  lettuce  is,  undoubtedly,  a 
I  jmellow  loam,  deep,  rich,  and  founded  upon  a 
■  "ry  substratum.  It  should  be  fertile,  and  it 
pt  so  naturally,  must  be  supplied  with  a  good 
uantity  of  old  dung,  some  time  previous  to 
he  sowing  of  the  seed.  This  is  better  done 
n  autumn,  than  in  the  spring. 

CuLTuuE.  .  By  the  exerci.se  of  a  little  fore- 
jtbought,  the  family  gardener  can  keep  his 
liable  supplied  with  lettuce  throughout  the 
kear,  at  a  very  trifling  expense.  To  have 
fearly  plants  for  sprhig  use,  the  first  sowing 
must  be  made  either  in  the  nrevious  autumn, 
Drelse  in  the  latter  part  of  winter,  ujion  a  hot- 
bed. The  first  plan  we  consider  decidedly  the 
best,  as  the  plants  are  hardier,  and  better  able 
to  bear  removal  to  the  open  ground,  than  those 
Dbtaiaed  by  artificial  heat. 

This  sowing  may  be  between  the  first  and 
the  middle  of^  September,  upon  a  bed  of  liglit, 
rich  soil,  having  the  benefit  of  shade  at  mid- 
day. The  best  varieties  are,  the  Large  Green- 
head,  the  Brown  Dutch,  and  the  Early  Cab- 
bage, together  with  such  others  as  are  capable 
of  standing  severe  winter  weather.  From 
nine  to  twelve  thousand  plants  have  been 
raised  from  a  single  ounce  of  seed.  Sow  rather 
thinly  in  drills  eiyht  inches  apart ;  cover  the 
seed  lightly,  and,  in  a  dry  time,  press  the 
surface  of  the  bed,  by  patting  it  with  the 
spade,  or  by  walking  upon  a  board.     When 


the  plants  crowd  one  another  in  the  drill,  thin 
tlieni  out  to  distances  of  two  or  three  inches, 
allowing  them  just  suflicient  8i)acc  ti>  secure  a 
good  .stocky  growth  before  cold  weather  sets 
in.  Such  as  arc  inilled,  can  be  set  out  in 
another  |ilace,  perhajis  on  the  sjiot  to  be  en- 
closed by  the  cold  frame.  The  soil  should  be 
kept  light  and  clean. 

In  the  latter  part  of  October  the  plants  are 
to  be  furnished  with  their  winter  i)rolection. 
Some  of  the  hardy  varieties,  which  are  intend- 
ed for  early  crops  can  be  set  out  one  foot 
apart,  upon  the  south  side  of  ridges,  that  will 
be  covered  with  straw  during  severe  weather. 
The  princijial  iiart,  however,  should  be  re- 
removed  to  the  cold  frame  or  box,  and  there 
dibbled  as  closely  as  they  will  stand  without 
interfering  with  one  another.  The  covering, 
lie  it  of  glass  or  plain  boards,  must  be  often 
ojiened  in  mild,  pleasant  days,  for  the  admis- 
sion of  fresh  air.  Look  out  for  the  attack.s  of 
earth-worms  and  slugs  ;  dusting  the  leaves 
with  soot  is  somewhat  of  a  preventive.  Or, 
instead  of  using  a  cold  frame,  the  seed  bed 
can  be  covered  with  mats  ])laced  over  bent 
hoops.  Whatever  may  be  the  jilan  adopted, 
do  not  omit  regular  ventilation  in  all  pleasant 
weather. 

Where  the  sowing  was  not  made  in  autumn, 
according  to  the  above  directions,  and  early 
plants  are  wanted,  they  must  be  obtained 
from  a  small  hot  bed,  built  in  the  latter  part 
of  winter.  No  great  amount  of  heat  is  re- 
quired, but  care  should  be  taken  to  prevent 
any  bad  consequences  from  the  want  of  jiure 
air.  For  general  directions  upon  the  forma- 
tion and  management  of  hot-beds,  the  reader 
must  refer  to  an  article  on  "Forcing  Vegeta- 
tion." 

Taking  it  for  granted  that  the  gardener  is 
supplied  with  plants,  which  have  been  safely 
kept  through  the  inclement  season,  let  us  fol- 
low their  subsequent  growth.  At  the  mo- 
ment that  frost  leaves  the  ground,  a  small 
nimiber  ought  to  be  transplanted  to  a  very 
warm  border,  liaving  the  full  benefit  of  the 
sun's  rays,  and  protected  from  cold  winds  on 
the  north  side.  They  will  for  some  length  of 
time  require  the  friendly  shelter  of  hand- 
glasses, until  they  become  "gradually  accustom- 
ed to  the  change  of  quarters,  and  until  the 
progress  of  tl)e  season  permits  their  exposure 
with  imi)unity.  A  second,  third,  or  fourth 
removal  of  these  jjlants  can  be  made  in  the 
same  way,  at  intervals  of  seven  or  eight  days. 
By  such  a  course,  a  great  advantage  will  be 
obtained  in  the  regular  maturity  of  the  crop. 

The  first  spring  sowing  in  the  open  com- 
partment, should  take  place  as  soon  as  the 
weather  and  ground  will  permit — perhaps  be- 
tween the  middle  and  beginning  of  March. 
For  the  bed  select  a  warm  border  in  a  shelter- 
ed situation,  and  mark  out  the  drills  twelve 
inches  apart.  The  varieties  well  adapted  f(n- 
this  sowing,  are  the  Brown  Dutch,  the  Early 
Cabbage,  and  the  Drumhead.  Sow  thinly, 
and  in  dry  weather,  press  the  earth  in  close 
contact  with  the  seed.  When  the  plants  are 
two  inches  high,  they  are  to  be  thinned  out  to 
distances  of  four  inches  in  the  drill,  and  those 
wliich  are  pulled  can  be  easily  inserted  in 
another  bed.  At  this  time  transplanting  can 
be  practiced  successfully,  but  when  the  sea- 
son is  further  advanced,  they  seldom  head 
well  if  removed  from  the  seed  bed.  When 
tliey  are  four  or  five  inches  high,  they  should 
be  so  thinned  as  to  stand  one  foot  apart  each 
way.  Water  ought  to  be  given  freely  at 
evei'j'  removal  performed  in  a  dry  day,  and 
regularly  afterwards  until  the  roots  are  estab- 
lished. The  hoe  must  be  used  frequently  be- 
tween the  drills,  not  only  for  the  purpose  of 
eradicating  weeds,  but  also  for  the  sake  of 
keeping  the  surface  soil  light  and  porous. 

Another  sowing  can  be  made  about  a  month 
later,  and  a  third  in  August  for  the  late  sum- 
mer croi).  The  best  varieties  are  the  Indian, 
the  Royal  Cabbage,  and  such  others  as  are 
able  to  withstand  the  intense  heat  of  summer. 
Sow  in  drills,  at  the  same  distance  apart  as 
before,  and  thinly,  so  as  to  avoid  transplant- 
ing.    It  will  be  recollected   that  lettuce  sel- 


dom does  well  when   transplanted  in  warm 
weather. 

Tlie  winter  crop  is  to  be  sown  in  the  latter 
part  of  Septendjer.  Tlie  Early  Cabbage  is  an 
excellent  kind  for  this  purpose.  In  the  fol- 
lowing month,  when  the  weather  becomes 
cold,  the  plants  are  to  be  removed  to  a  hot- 
bed, or  the  forcing-pit.  The  mould  should  be 
some  eight  or  ten  inches  below  the  gla.ss. 
Take  the  roots  up  very  carefully  by  means  of 
the  trowel,  and  set  the  halls  of  earth  iu  rows, 
nine  inches  ajiart  eacli  way.  Water  ought  to 
be  given  in  muderate  quantities  from  time  to 
time  through  the  winter,  and  the  siishes  shad- 
ed at  midday  until  the  roots  have  taken  hold. 
Air  is  to  be  admitted  freely  m  all  pleasant 
weather,  while  in  a  severe  frost  the  i)rotection 
of  mats  upon  the  gla.s.s,  as  well  as  of  a  bank  of 
earth  around  the  frame,  will  be  necessary. 
Decayed  leaves  must  be  removed  as  soon  as 
they  are  discovered,  (iood  heads  for  eating 
may  be  obtained  in  December,  and  through 
the  remainder  of  the  winter. 

In  this  elinuite,  the  Cos  lettuces  are  far  from 
being  as  succes.sf'ul  as  in  Europe.  They  can 
be  sown  in  autumn,  and  protected  through 
the  inclement  season,  to  l)e  transplanted  into 
the  open  ground  in  spring.  They  are  blanch- 
ed by  being  tied  up  like  the  endive,  a  week  or 
ten  days  before  wanted  for  use. 

Foil  SEEU.  Select  some  of  the  best  plants 
of  the  autumn  or  spring  sowings.  Put  them 
in  rows,  eighteen  incheji  apart  each  way,  and 
do  not  omit  to  keep  the  varieties  separate. 
When  two  or  more  kinds  are  suftiered  to 
bloi^som  in  the  vicinity  of  each  other,  a  mon- 
grel will  surely  be  the  result.  Sujiport  the 
flower-stems  by  .stakes,and  izather  the  branches 
as  the  seed  ripens,  instead  of  wailing  for  a 
large  portion  to  be  wasled  on  the  ground. 
That  borne  by  stalks  which  have  run  up  pre- 
maturely, cannot  be  depended  upon.  Place 
the  branches  on  a  cloth  or  a  large  newspaper, 
spread  in  the  shade,  and  then  let  them  get 
perfectly  dry  before  you  attempt  to  thresh  out 
the  seed. 

Use. — Lettuce  may  be  considered  as  be- 
longing to  the  very  best  class  of  salads,  and 
perhaps  it  is  superior  to  all  others.  It  posses- 
ses a  mild,  agreeable  taste,  while  it  is  wliole- 
some  and  easy  of  digestion.  It  is  also  some- 
times used  in  soups.  It  is  largely  cultivated 
for  the  extraction  of  its  narcotic  properties, 
which  are  somewhat  similar  to  those  of  opium, 
but  have  not  the  constipating  effects  of  that 
drug.  The  stalk  is  cut  just  before  the  flower 
is  ready  to  open,  and  the  crust  which  forms 
upon  the  top  is  carefully  gathered.  The  stalk 
is  cut  again  and  again,  until  the  milky  juice 
ceases  to  exude. 

To  Dkess  a  Salad.— This  seems  to  be  a 
convenient  iilace  for  giving  directions  how  to 
dress  a  salad,  which  is  a  general  name  for 
certain  vegetables,  such  as  lettuce,  endive  and 
mustard,  prepared  so  as  to  be  eaten  raw.  They 
should  be  well  washed  and  cut  into  small 
pieces.  An  egg  is  boiled  hard,  and,  when  it 
becomes  cold,  the  yolk  is  to  be  taken  out  and 
broken  on  a  plate.  Then  put  with  it  a  large 
teaspoonful  of  cold  water  and  near  a  teaspoon- 
ful  of  salt.  Rub  all  this  together,  by  means 
of  a  spoon  or  fork,  till  the  egg  is  a  thick  paste, 
free  from  lumps.  Next,  add  and  mix  a  table- 
spoonful  of  salad  oil  or  cold  melted  butler  ;  and 
after  this,  add  at  least  a  tables) >oonful  of  good 
vinegar.  When  these  are  all  well  mixed,  the 
dressing  is  made,  and  is  either  to  be  put  im- 
mediately with  the  salad,  or  be  sent  to  the 
table  in  a  separate  dish.  The  top  of  the  salad 
may  be  ornamented  with  small  pieces  of  the 
while  of  the  egg  and  slices  of  pickled  beet. 


ANTS    AND    ANT-EATERS. 

Having  read  the  following  account  in  a 
book  about  ants  and  ant  -eaters,  I  thought  it 
would  interest  the  readers  of  tiie  Lancaster 
Farmer.  A  traveler  in  South  America  says: 
"We  rode  over  hills  used  as  pasture-ground, 
which  were  literally  dotted  with  the  upright 
and  fallen  columns  that  had  hocn  erected  by 
the  Termites,  or  white  ants.  These  curious 
edifices,  and  their  still  more  curious  archi- 


36 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[March, 


tects,  have  always  had  a  great  attraction  for 
the  naturalist.  Tliu  hillocks  are  coniwil  in 
their  shape,  but  not  with  a  broad  base  and 
tapering  point  as  those  built  by  the  termites 
of  Africa.  E.'iposure  to  the  sun  has  rendered 
them  exceedingly  hard,  and  doubtless  many 
that  are  iu  the  ujilands  of  San  Paulo  and  Mi- 
nas-Geraes  are  more  than  a  century  old;  for 
houses  whose  walls  have  been  built  from  the 
same  earth  are  still  in  existence  were  built 
by  early  settlers  in  the  seventeentli  century. 
Sometiuies  the  termites'  dwelling  is  overturn- 
ed by  tbu  slaves,  the  hollow  scooped  out  and 
made  wider,  and  is  then  used  as  a  bake-oven 
to  parch  Indian  corn.  In  my  ride  over  (Sol- 
dade  I  saw  a  number  of  very  large  vultures, 
who  during  the  rain  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
houses  tlmt  had  been  vacated  by  ihe  white 
ant.  These  insects  do  not,  however,  always 
dwell  in  columnar  edifices  of  three  and  six 
feet  high.  1  have  seen  in  some  portions  of 
Brazil  the  ground  ploughed  up  to  the  extent  ot 
lUO  feet  in  circumference  by  one  nest  of  white 
ants.  Again,  they  will  climb  trees,  carrying 
building  material  with  them,  and  erecting  a 
small  archway  (resembling  what  carpenters 
call  an  inch  beail.)  over  them  for  protection 
against  their  sworn  enemy,  the  black  and 
brown  ant;  and  on  the  loftiest  branches  they 
will  construct  their  nests.  My  introduction 
to  the  cupim,  or  wliite  ant,  was  in  the  house 
O  our  former  Consul,  ex-Governor  Kent.  A 
box  of  books  sent  out  by  the  American  Tract 
Society  was  placed  in  a  lower  room,  and  the 
next  morning  it  was  announced  to  me  that  the 
cupim  had  entered  my  property.  I  liasten- 
ed  to  the  room,  and  turning  over  the  box, 
beheld  a  little  black  hole  at  the  bottom,  and 
white,  gelatiuous-lookiug  ants  pouring  out  as 
though  very  much  disturbed  in  their  occupa- 
tion. I  opened  the  box,  and  found  that  a 
colony  of  cupim  had  eaten  through  the  pine 
wood,  and  had  pierced  through  "Baxter's 
Call,'  'Doddridge's  Rise  and  Progress,'  un- 
til they  had  reaceed  the  place  where  "Bun- 
yan's  Pilgrim"  lay,  when  they  were  rudely  de- 
ranged in  their  literary  pursuits.  On  another 
occasion,  I  saw  a  Brussels  carpet,  under  which 
cupim  had  insinuated  themselves,  and  had 
eaten  on  I  nearly  all  the  canvas  before  the 
proprietor  had  made  the  sad  discovery.  The 
writer,  at  Campinus,  witnessed  the  depreda- 
tions of  the  white  ants  iu  the  taipa  houses. 
They  insinuate  themselves  into  the  mud 
walls,  and  destroy  the  entire  side  of  a  house 
by  perforations.  Anon,  they  commence  work- 
ing in  the  soil  and  extend  their  operations  be- 
neath the  foundations  of  houses,  and  under- 
mine them.  The  people  dig  large  pits  in  var- 
ious places,  with  the  intent  of  exterminating 
tribesofanls  wliich  have  been  discovered  on 
their  march  of  destruction.  Mr.  Suuthy 
states,  on  the  authority  of  Manod  Felix,  that 
some  of  these  insects  at  one  time  devoured  the 
cloth  on  the  altar  in  the  convent  of  St.  An- 
tonio, at  Marasham,  aud  also  brought  up  into 
the  church  pieces  of  shrouds  from  graves  be- 
neath tlie  floor;  whereupon  the  friars  prosecu- 
ted them  according  to  due  form  of  law  eccle- 
siastical. What  the  punishment  or  sentence 
was  in  this  case,  we  are  unable  to  learn. 

"The  white,  and  other  ants,  have,  however, 
enemies  far  more  tangible  than  bulls  of  ex- 
communic.ition  in  the  Mernyomecojihaya,  or 
the  great  'Ant-eater,'  the  Taiuandua  and 
the  iittle  Ant-eater, '  of  which  the  last  two 
have  a  prehensile  tail. 

"The  great  aut-eater  is  a  most  curious  ani- 
mal, but  well  a<lapted  to  the  purposes  for 
which  he  was  designed  by  the  Creator.  Its 
short  legs  and  long  claws  (the  latter  doubled 
up  when  in  motion)  do  not  hinder  it  from  run- 
ning at  a  good  pace;  and  wheu  the  Indians 
wish  to  calcli  it,  they  make  a  pattering  noise 
upon  the  leaves  as  if  they  were  falling;  upon 
which  the  Myniitcophaya  cocks  his  huge 
bushy  tail  over  his  body,  and,  standmg  per- 
fectly still,  soon  falls  a  prey.  In  tlie  northern 
part  of  Minas-Geraes,  a  naturalist  once  came 
suddenly  upon  the  great  ant-eater,  and  know- 
ing the  harmless  nature  of  its  mouth,  seized 
it  by  the  long  snout,  by  which  he  tried  to 
holdit,  wheu  it  immediately  rose  upon  its  hind 


legs,  and  clasping  him  around  the  middle  with 
its  fore  paws,  it  would  not  release  its  hold,  till 
a  pistol  ball  was  lodged  in  its  breast.  When 
the  great  ant-eater  sleeps,  it  lies  on  one  side, 
rolls  itself  up  together  and  covers  itself  witli 
its  bushy  tail.  In  this  way  it  may  be  easily 
taken  for  a  lieap  of  hay.  The  Indians  of  the 
upper  Amazon  positively  assert  that  the  great 
ant-eater  sometimes  kills  the  jaguar  by  tightly 
embracing  the  latter,  and  tlirusting  its  enor- 
mous claws  into  the  Jaguar's  sides.  The  abor- 
igines also  declare  (hat  these  animals  are  all 
females,  and  believe  that  the  male  is  the  'cu- 
rui)ira'  or  the  demon  of  the  forest.  The  pe- 
culiar organization  of  this  animal  has  proba- 
bly led  to  this  error."— P.    W.  Mee. 

The  foregoing  interesting  paper  we  copy 
from  tlie  February  number  of  IIarclw!cke''s 
Sdcnre  Gosaip,  where  it  appears  in  the  dejiart- 
ment  of  "Notes  and  Queries,"  in  which  is  re- 
corded the  current  questions  and  answers  on 
scientific  subjects  that  occur  among  its  readers. 

We  have  also  in  the  United  States,  insects 
allied  to  the  "ants"  alluded  to  in  the  above 
paper,  and  also  "ant-eaters";  but  they  very 
materially  differ  from  the  Brazilian  animals. 
As  these  insects  have  been  so  long  and  so 
widely  designated  ants,  and  white  ants,  it  per- 
haps would  be  folly  to  attempt  to  give  them 
any  other  popular  name  now;  but  iu  reality 
they  are  not  ants  at  all,  and  have  no  generic 
or  family  relation  to  what  are  generally  rec- 
ognized as  ants  in  North  America.  The  most 
proper  name  for  them  is  Termites,  and  they 
are  so-called  by  most  authors  of  ability.  The 
insects  we  popularly  call  ants  belong  to  the 
order  Hymenoptera-  (a  Greek  compound 
signifying  insects  furnished  with  four  mem- 
braneous wings)  and  the  family  Formicid^, 
from  the  Latin  Formica,  which  simply  means 
an  ant;  and  of  which  we  have  many  species. 

But  the  ants  we  have  been  writing  about  in 
our  extract  from  "Science  Gossip,"  belong  to 
the  order  Neuroptera, section  PsEUDO-NEU- 
OPTERA  (nerve  winged  insects)  and  the  tam- 
ily  TepvMITIdvE  from  the  Latin  Termis,  which 
means  a  wood-borer,  and  of  which  we  have 
at  least  two  species  iu  Pennsylvania.  For 
fully  twenty-five  years  we  have  noticed  one 
of  these  species  (Termes  frontalis,  Hald.)  issu- 
ing from  two  frame  (or  log)  houses,  on  the 
east  and  west  sides  of  North  Queen  street, 
about  midway  between  Lemon  and  James 
streets,  in  tlie  city  of  Lancaster,  about  the 
end  of  May  or  the  beginning  of  June.  They 
contiuuedto  come  forth  from  small  aiiertures 
under  the  door  and  window  sills,  and  along 
the  overlapping  of  the  weather  boarding,  for 
several  days  in'succession — say  from  three  to 
five  days,  according  to  the  temperature  of  the 
weather,  which  also  influenced  their  time  of 
appearing. 

At  each  succeeding  return  of  these  periods, 
we  also  notice  the  "ant-eater,"  the  liveliest 
throng  of  eaters  to  be  seen  during  the  year. 
These,  however,  were  not  of  the  class  mamma- 
lia,no  ignoble  and  unwieldy  earth -grovelors — 
they  belonged  to  the  dainty  ''feathered  tribes" 
—  they  Were  swallows  (chimney  birds)— C/i'ie- 
tura  pdasyin,  iinri— that  gathered  in  from 
their  domicils  in  the  surrounding  blocks  of 
buildings  by  hundreds.  They  were  honora- 
ble sportsmen  that  took  their  quarry  on  the 
wing,  one  at  a  time,,  and  did  not  envelop 
them  in  a  viscid  secretion,  and  take  them  in 
by  scores  with  their  snaky  tongues.  They 
swooped  around  in  a  vertical  circle  the  lower 
arc  of  which  was  low  down  where  the  "Ter- 
mites" emerged  forth,  while  numbers  of  them 
were  gyrating  through  the  air  in  pursuit  of 
those  insects  that  had  reached  a  higher  alti- 
tude, and  had  scattered.  These  insects  have 
been  so  long  located  in  these  two  old  houses, 
that  we  would  like  to  be  piesent  if  they  should 
ever  be  torn  down,  just  to  see  what  progress 
they  had  made  in  tiie  work  of  destruction  in 
twenty-five  years. 

Mr.  Geo.  Hensel  informs  us  that  he  bad  a 
small  colony  of  Termites  a  year  ago,  in  his 
green  house.  He  had  inverted  a  plant  pot  on 
the  earthen  floor,  and  set  another  pot, 
containing  a  plant,  upon  it,  so  that  they'were 
bottom  to  bottom,  the   holes   iu  the   bottoms 


opposite  each  other.  In  one  night  a  colony  of 
Termites  came  up  out  of  the  ground  under 
the  inverted  jiot;  built  a  gallery  up  the  inner 
side,  across  the  bottom  to  the  hole  and  up 
through  both  holes  and  into  the  pot  above; 
from  thence  across  the  bottom  and  up  the 
inner  side,  and  through  the  earth  in  the  upper 
pot,  and  scattered  over  the  vegetation,  after 
the  manner  of  the  foreign  species,  without 
having  done  much  harm  otherwise,  however. 
We  were  not  fortunate  enough  to  see  the  in- 
sect, but  Mr.  Stanffer  says  it  difl'ers  irom  fron- 
talis, and  probably  isflavipes. — JEd. 

Foi'  The  Lancaster  Fabmek. 
CULTIVATION   OF  CHICCORY. 

The  article  in  the  February  number  for 
1877,  on  iiage  20,  copied  from  the  Ckicago 
Journal  of  Omimerce,  stating  that  "during 
187.T  we  imported  #18,UU0,00U  worth  of  chic- 
cory,"  is  certainly  a  startling  piece  of  in- 
formation. Then  follows  a  statement  from 
the  Stockton,  Cal.,  Indcpendeni.  on  "the  pro- 
duction and  manufacture  of  chiccory  for  its 
use  as  an  adulteration  of  coffee."  This  led 
me  to  inquire  more  particularly  into  the 
nature  and  character  of  the  plant.  The 
Cichorium  Intijhas,  L.  is  the  wild  succory  or 
chiccory  in  question  ;  the  Germans  call  it 
Wcyiwart.  Being  considered  a  coarse  weed, 
and  common  in  numerous  localities  iu  our 
county,  I  need  not  describe  it  here.  Dr. 
Darlington  in  his  agricultural  botany, (publish- 
ed in  1847,)  on  piige  98,  observes  that  "This 
foreigner  is  becoming  extensively  naturalized. 
Some  European  agriculturists  recounnend 
it  as  a  valuable  forage  plant,  though  they 
admit  that  it  gives  a  bad  taste  to  .the  milk  of 
cows  which  feed  upon  it.  In  this  country,  it 
is  generally,  and  I  believe  justly,  regarded  as 
an  objectionable  wecrf,  Avhich  ought  to  be  ex- 
pelled from  our  pastures.  The  roasted  root 
has  been  used  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  as 
a  substitute  for  the  coffee-hrry  ;  but  those  who 
delight  in  the  aromatic  beverage,  are  not  likely 
to  tiike  much  interest  in  this  or  any  other  sub- 
stitute for  the  genuine  article."  Thecicliorium 
endivia,[vi\\d)  thesatira,  D.  C.  is  called  Endive 
or  garden  succory,  Oerman—Die,  Mndivie — 
currupfed  into  ''andifte,"  cultivated  for  the 
young  radical  leaves,  which  are  etiolated  or 
blanched,  like  celery,  by  the  exclusion  of  light, 
and  used  as  a  salad.  Theophrastes;  lib  7, 
chap.  7,  and  Pliny,  have  written  upou  it  long 
before  the  time  of  Linnteus.  In  lieese's  old 
American  encyclopedia,  I  find  it  stated  that 
the  whole  plant  is  bitter,  and  "when  cultivated 
it  is  much  more  branched  and  rises  to  the 
height  of  5  orb  feet,  with  longer  leaves,  less 
deeply  cut  and  almost  smooth.  "i<  is  then 
cichorium  sativum  ;  Bauh.  Pin.  125,  Tourn. 
479,  Lob.  Ic,  l-.ii). 

Lewis  says  it  is  a  "very  useful  aperient, 
acting  mildly  and  without  irritation,  lending 
rather  to  abate  than  increase  heat,  and  which 
may  therefore  be  given  with  safety  iu  hectic 
and  inflammatory  cases.  Taken  freely,  they 
keep  the  body  open  or  produce  a  gentle  diar- 
rhoea, and  when  thuscontuiued  for  s  me  time, 
have  often  proved  salutary  in  beginning  ob- 
structions of  the  viscera,  in  jaundices,  cachexies 
(this  latter  term  simply  means  a  bad  slate  or 
habit  of  the  body),  and  other  chronical  dis- 
eases." "The  expressed  juice  taken  in  large 
quantities,"  Dr.  Woodward  says,  "  his  experi- 
ence warrants  him  in  recommending  as  an 
efficacious  remedy  in  phthisisand  pulmonalis." 
"The  juicemixed  with  rhubarb,"  according  to 
Du  Tour  (Nouveau  Dictionaire),  "  is  an  excel- 
lent vermifuge  syrup  for  children."  This 
much  is,  and  much  more  might  be,  quoted 
from  medical  authorities. 

It  was  commonly  eaten  by  the  Romans,  and 
when  blanched  is  still  used  in  France  in  soups 
or  as  a  salad.  Wc  learn  that  "in  Italy  it  has 
long  been  cultivated  on  a  large  scale,  and  es- 
teemed, either  green  or  dry,  as  an  excellent 
fodder  for  horses,  kiue  and  sheep."  It  was 
first  introduced  into  France  by  Crette  de 
Tallael,  and  into  England  by  the  well-known 
Arthur  Young,  but  the  moist  atmosphere  of 
England  is  less  favorable  to  its  being  made 
into  hay.  "  The  wild  succory,"  says  Du  Tour, 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER 


37 


"will  grow  in  any  kind  of  soil,  but  tlirives 
best  in  a  j;ood  one  well  manured,  and  is  culti- 
vated at  a  small  expense."  It  sustains  droiiglit, 
excessive  rains  and  severe  cold,  and  as  it  rises 
early  in  the  year,  affords  an  excellent  sprini; 
supply.  Its  growtli  is  so  rapid  tliat  it  may  be 
cut  tliree  or  four  times  every  year,  or  more 
frequently.  Its  produce  in  bulk  and  in  weight 
is  superior  to  tliat  of  trefoil  and  even  of  lu- 
cerne. Tliere  is  no  need  of  preparing  cattle  to 
use  it  as  food.  It  is  as  wholesome  as  it  is 
abundant,  sweetens  their  blood,  and  preserves 
tliem  from  disease.  In  particular,  it  causes 
cows  to  give  more  milk  without  communicat- 
ing any  of  its  bitterness,  and  furnishes,  eight 
months  in  the  year,  an  excellent  resource  for 
the  farmer,  affording  the  lirst  lierbagc  for  cut- 
ting in  the  spring  and  the  last  in  autumn." 
Tills  is  conied  verbatim  from  Du  Tour,  who 
was  deemed  good  authority.  I  give  it  because 
it  conflicts  with  Dr.  Darlington's  opinion. 
Hence,  if  a  xcccd,  its  growing  qualities  make 
it  the  more  objectionable  ;  but  if  Du  Tour  is 
correct,  it  may  deserve  some  attention  from 
our  formers,  who  will  make  an  experiment 
and  test  the  matter,  apart  from  its  adulteration 
in  coffee.  Very  respectfully  submitted  for 
further  examination,  by  J.  Stauffer. 


other  part  of  the  body  does  not  argue  im- 
purity of  blood,  yet,  it  is  to  be  discouraged, 
in  oi'clerthat  a  luiiformity  of  color  may  be  at- 
tained by  the  breeders.  White  upon  one  ear, 
or  a  bronze  or  copper  spot  on  some  other  part 
of  the  body,  indicates  no  impurity,  but  rather 
a  reappearing  of  original  colors,  but  wliite  mark- 
ings other  tlian  those  aforenamed  are  suspic- 
ious, and  a  pig  so  marked  should  be  rejected, 
i^ace— short,  line  and  well  dished,  broad  be- 
tween the  eyes.  Ears — generally  almost  erect, 
but  sometimes  inclining  forward  with  advanc- 
ing age  ;  small,  thin,  soft  and  showing  veins. 
Jowl — full.  iVt'cA;— short  and  thick.  !:ShoHlilc,- 
— short  from  neck  to  middling,  deep  from  back 
down.  Back — broad  and  straight,  or  very 
little  archc<l.  liibs—loug  and  well  sprung, 
giving  rotundity  of  body,  short-ribs  of  good 
length,  giving  breadth  and  Icvelness  of  loin, 
j'f/p.s —  of  good  length  from  point  of  hips  to 
rump  Hamx — thick,  round  and  deep,  hold- 
ing their  thickness  well  back  and  down  to  the 
hocks.  Tail— fine  and  small,  set  on  liisih  up. 
Lrgs — short  and  fine,  but  straight  and  very 
strong,  with  hoofs  erect,  legs  set  wide  apart, 
size  medium,  length  medium  ;  extremes  are  to 
be  avoided.  Bone— fine  and  compact.  Offal 
—very  light.  Hair — fine  and  sol't,  no  bristles. 
iSiii!— pliable. 


which  can  be  marketed  in  from  f>  to  18  months. 
They  are  very  liardy,  with  higli  vital  powers, 
but  guard  against  those  with  lomj  snouts. 


For  The  LAKOtsTEB  Fabhxb. 
THE  TOBACCO  WORM.* 

"Will  the  unusually  large  crop  of  'Tobacco- 
worms'  the  past  year,  be  likely  to  jiroducc  a 
correspondingly  abundant  progeny  the  com- 
ing season  V" 

This  question  was  referred  to  me  for  answer, 
at  the  February  meeting  of  this  society  ;  and, 
as  tobacco  growing  is  becoming  one  of  the 
leading  agricultural  interests  of  Lancaster 
county,  it  is  very  natural  that  those  engaged 
in  it  shoidd  manifest  a  reasonable  solicitude  in 
all  that  relates  to  its  success  or  failure. 

In  reply,  permit  me  to  say  that  a  redundancy 
of  noxious  insects  in  one  season,  may  po.tsihhj 
be  the  iirogenitors  of  the  same  or  an  increas- 
ed number  the  season  next  following  ;  yet,  it 
is  not  always  jirohable,  nor  is  it  by  any  means 
a  matter  of  course. 

There  are  jirior  conditions  ;  intermediate 
casualties ;  and  subsequent  contingencies, 
which  are  more  or  less  related  to  the  case,  ana 
which  ex<  icisc  a  modifying  influence  over  it. 
If  there  had  been  ten  thousand  tobacco-worms 


IMPORTED  BERKSHIRE.  THE  COLLIER.     Owned  by  BENSON  &  BURPEE,  Philadslpha. 


"COLLIER." 

This  fine  Berkshire  is  two  year.'!  old,  and 
Wiis  the  winner  of  six  honors  and  first  prizes 
in  England  Inst  year,  previous  to  his  importa- 
tion in  August.  ISTfi. 

Bred  by  B.  St.  J(>nN  AcivER.s,  Esq.  Pink- 
mar.sh  Paik,  Gloucester,  Ensland,  and  is  now 
owned  by  Benson  L.  Burpee,  Philadelphia, 
Pa.,  (see  our  advertising  columns).  Aeeord- 
intrto  a  report  of  a  committee  of  the  "Nation- 
al Swine  Breeder's  Convention,"  the  first  im- 
portation of  Berkshire  pigs,  of  which  they 
could  find  any  record,  was  made  in  the  year 
182.'?,  by  Mr.  Frenfnall,  an  English  farmer, 
who  settled  in  New  .Tersnv.  The  second  im- 
portation was  made  in  1832.  bv  Mr.  Hawes. 
another  English  farmer  who  lived  in  Albany.  N 
T.  and  others  in  the  United  Slatesand  Canada 
soon  followed  with  Inrser  importations.  All 
those  eai'ly  imported  Berkshires  were  substan- 
tially the  same  in  size,  quality,  .style  and 
niarkinir.  as  the  best  of  the  present  day. 

According  to  the  same  report  the  following 
standard  characteristics  and  marks  were  re- 
cognized as  belonginsTto  the  pure  Berkshires. 
Color — black,  with  white  feet,  face,  and  tip 
of  tail,  and  an  occasional  splash  of  white  on 
the  arm.    While  a  small  spot  of  white  on  some 


The  committee  further  says,  that  in  one  re- 
spect, the  Berkshires  may  be  said  to  excel  all 
other  breeds  with  which  they  are  acquainted, 
and  that  is  in  the  superior  weight  and  quality 
of  hams  and  shoulders,  these  yielding  a  much 
greater  proportion  of  tender,  lean,  .juicy,  well 
marbled  meat,  in  comparison  to  the  fat,  than 
can  be  found  elsewhere.  The  sides  all  par- 
take of  the  same  admirable  qualities  and  are 
therefore  of  superior  excellence  for  bacon. 
Considering  these,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  we 
Americans,  at  least,  will  never  attempt  to 
alter  the  breed  by  crossing  other  swine  upon 
it.  for  the  only  result  will  be  deterioration. 
The  Berkshires  can  improve  most  other  breeds, 
but  none  can  improve  them. 

The  experience  and  observation  of  Messrs. 
Benson  and  Bupee,  corroborate  the  views  of 
the  committee  alluded  to,  and  they  also  say 
that  as  the  Berkshires  are  exceedingly  active, 
and  will  readily  shift  for  themselves,  yet  when 
it  is  desired  to  fatten  them  they  will  necessari- 
ly consume,  projiortionally,  more  food  than  a 
quiet,  lazy  hog-enthusiastic,  but  prejudiced 
fanciers,  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  who 
claims  more  flesh  for  the  -same  amount  of 
feed,  than  any  other  hogs.  The  sows  are 
good  Bucklers  and  bring  forth  large  litters, 


in  an  enclosure  last  year,  and  every  one  of 
them  had  been  destroyed,  and  had  not  been 
permitted  to  burrow  into  the  ground,  you 
would  have  much  less  reason  to  ai)prehend  an 
increased,  or  even  the  same  number  this  year, 
than  you  would  have,  had  you  onlv  had  ten 
worms,  all  of  which  you  had  permitted  to  go 
into  thegroimd  and  pupate  there  ;  for,  it  is  in 
this  manner  that  the  broods  are  carried  over 
from  one  season  to  another.  There  are  per- 
haps few  insects  that  fall  an  easier  prey  to 
careful,  vigilant,  and  persevering  "hand-pick- 
ing," than  the  tob.acco-worm  ;  and  this,  under 
any  circumstances,  is  i)erhaps,  the  best  remedy 
that  can  be  adopted  for  their  extinction  ;  but, 
this  course  .should  be  pursued  by  all  growers, 
for  one  indolent  or  indifferent  cultivator  may 
permit  a  sulficient  ninnbertoi)erpetuate  them- 
selves, to  stock  a  whole  neighborhood,  no 
matter  how  industriously  his  co-cidtivators 
may  be  employed  in  destroying  them.  AVhile 
this  insect  is  in  the  larva  or  caterpillar  state, 
it  is  a  slow  and  .sluggish  traveler,  and  makes 
no  effort  whatever  to  effect  its  escape  ;  more- 
over, when  it  is  a  little  advanced  in  its 
growth,  it  is  sufliciently  conspicious  to  attract 

•Read  before  the  AKricullnral  »nd  HortlciiHuroI  Soolatj 
of  Lancaster  county,  Much  6, 1877,  by  S.  S.  BatbvoD, 


38 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  March, 


the  attention  of  any  ordinary  observer.  To 
many  people  they  are  more  or  less  repugnant, 
but  this  repugnance  is  soon  overcome  by  tliose 
accustomed  to  them ;  especially  when  they  have 
a  direct  interest  in  their  destruction.  No 
fears  need  be  entertained  as  to  their  stinging 
or  biting,  for  this  they  nevermake  any  attempt 
to  do,  notwithstanding  their  formidable  as- 
pect ;  and  here,  allow  ine  to  mention  one  -or 
two  examples  of  carelessness  in  tobacco  cul- 
ture, which  are  important  factors  relating  to 
the  increase  or  decrease  of  the  tobacco-worm, 
and  are  more  or  less  related  to  the  injury 
■which  is  the  subject  of  this  pajjer.  Some 
tobacco-growers,  when  the  time  comes  to  cut 
off  the  crop,  merely  shake  off  what  worms 
may  be  on  the  plants,  and  pay  no  other  atten- 
tion to  them.  ■  Tliey  may  perhaps  have  had  a 
surfeit  of  worms,  and  now  rejoice  that  they 
are  to  have  a  surcease  of  tliat  disagreeable 
labor,  and  therefore  their  whole  energies  are 
devoted  to  harvesting  and  curing.  Now,  such 
a  course  may  be  absolutely  suicidal ;  because, 
the  mature  worms,  thus  .shaken  off  will  bur- 
row into  the  ground,  and  change  to  impa ; 
and  the  immature  ones,  will  finish  their  larval 
career  on  the  young  "suckers  ;"  and  finally 
will  also  disapjjear  "under  ground.  Another 
careless  habit  is,  to  let  the  stump  stand  in  the 
field,  which  sometimes  realizes  what  is  termed 
a  "second  crop."  If  this  crop  is  left  growing 
without  paying  the  same  care  to  it  that  was 
paid  to  the  first  crop,  it  may  be  the  prolific 
source  of  an  increased  "crop  of  worms"  the 
following  year.  Of  course,  you  all  must  know 
better  than  I  do,  how  far  you  may  have  per- 
mitted this  state  of  things  to  exist,  and  this 
may  afford  some  light  upon  the  possibility  or 
probability,  of  an  increased  or  diminished 
number  of  worms  the  coming  season.  Their 
general  immolation,  and  hence  the  prevention 
of  their  pupal  transformations,  are  mainly  the 
prior  conditions  to  which  I  have  alluded.  But 
they  are  also  subject  to  parasitic  infestations 
to  a  limited  extent,  and  the  more  eft'ectively 
these  conditions  are  brought  to  bear  upon 
them  in  any  season,  the  less  number  will  be 
transmitted  to  the  following  season. 

These  parasitic  infestations  are  caused  as 
far  as  known  at  present,  by  two  little  "clear- 
winged  flies,"  and  one  or  two  species  of  "two- 
winged  flies,"  not  much  unlike  some  of  onr 
common  "horse-flies."  The  little  clearwings, 
so  far  as  they  go,  I  consider  the  best  friends  of 
the  tobacco  and  grape  grower.s.  They  are 
very  bright  and  active  little  insects,  not  more 
than  a  tenth  of  an  inch  in  length,  and  one 
female  will  deposit  from  fifty  to  one  hundred 
eggs  on  the  body  of  a  single  tobacco-worm. 
As  soon  as  the  eggs  are  hatched  the  tiny 
little  larva  bury  themselves  in  the  fleshy  parts 
of  their  host,  and  these  feed  on  its  substance, 
until  their  larva  period  is  completed.  They 
then  work  their  way  out  to  the  surface  of  the 
tobacco-worm,  and  there  spin  each  a  little 
white  or  yellowish  cocoon,  one  end  of  which 
is  attached  to  the  skin  of  the  worm,  and 
crowded  together,  like  so  many  grains  of  rice 
standing  on  end.  In  two  or  three  days,  some 
times  a  longer  period,  these  little  grubs  will 
have  passed  through  their  pupal  period,  when 
they  will  cut  off  a  little  lid  from  the  upper  end 
of  the  cocoon,  and  emerge  forth  a  fly,  like 
the  one  that  laid  the  eggs. 

Doubtless  some  of  yoii  may  have  noticed 
tobacco-worms,  tomato-worms  and  grape- 
worms,  covered  with  the  cocoons  of  these  little 
parasites,  and  when  you  do  see  them,  don't 
disturb  that  worm,  lest  you  also  destroy  your 
little  friends.  You  need  entertain  no  fears 
about  a  worm  so  infested,  for  he  will  never  eat 
any  more  tobacco  after  he  is  so  microgaftfr- 
ized.  A  few  days  thereafter  you  may  find  him 
adhering  with  a  death-grasp  to  the  old  spot, 
and  his  body  hanging  flabbily  down,  either 
dead  or  dying.  The  maggots,  however,  of  the 
Tachinized  worms,  or  two-winged  flies,  re- 
main in  their  bodies,  and  are  carried  with 
them  under  ground  and  destroj'  them  in  their 
pupal  form,  so  that  the  imago  or  moth  of  such 
a  worm  never  is  developed  nor  sees  the  light 
of  day.  These  are  some  of  those  "intermedi- 
ate casualties"  to  which  I  have  alluded. 


But,  should  the  worm,  through  neglect,  in- 
advertence, or  ignorance,  be  allowed  to  per- 
fect its  larval  development  and  so  into  the 
ground  to  pupate,  it  will  come  forth  the  fol- 
lowing season  about  the  time  the  "Jimson- 
weed"  is  in  bloom,  in  the  form  of  a  large  grey 
moth,  and  these  moths  may  be  noticed  in  the 
evening  hovering  around  these  plants,  draw- 
ing the  nectar  out  of  their  trumpet  shaped 
flowers  ;  and  when  they  are  so  engaged,  they 
may  be  struck  down  with  a  wooden  bat  or 
paddle,  or  be  caught  in  a  bag-net  with  a 
handle  attached  to  it,  and  thus  be  prevented 
from  depositing  their  eggs  on  the  plants. 

Another  mode  of  destroying  these  moths,  is 
by  poisoning  them.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
tobacco  moths  are  partial  to  the  nectar  in  the 
flowers  of  the  jimson-weed,  and  visit  these 
plants  in  the  evening  twilight,  for  the  purpose 
of  drawing  it  out  of  their  flowers  with  their 
long  tongues,  which  are  coiled  up  like  the 
mainspring  of  a  watch,  below  the  forpeart  of 
Ihe  head,  between  their  marillce..  Now,  if  a 
strong  solution  of  arsenic, or  corosive  sublimate, 
which  are  almost  tasteless,  is  mixed  with 
honey  and  a  drop  or  two  is  introduced  into 
each  flower  of  this  plant  during  the  after- 
noon, when  the  moths  suck  it  out  in  the  even- 
ing, they  cannot  survive  it  long,  but  will  die 
sometime  during  the  night,  or  wherever  tliey 
may  secrete  themselves,  after  they  leave  the 
tobacco  field.  If  I  have  been  correctly  inform- 
ed, this  plan  has  been  successfully  tried  by 
several  tobacco  growers  in  the  state  of  New 
York  and  also  in  Virginia. and  the  Caroliuas. 
Indeed  I  am  informed  from  an  intelligent  and 
practical  soiu'ce,  that  this  remedy  has  been 
tested,  to  a  limited  extent,  in  this  county 
with  entire  success. 

Although  this  poison  remedy  could  have  no 
possible  effect  upon  the  eggs  that  had  been 
deposited  by  the  moth  before  it  had  partaken 
of  the  poison,  yet  after  that  event,  it  would 
deposit  its  eggs  "never  more,"  unless  there 
had  been  some  radical  defect  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  remedy. 

These  pupa  are  greedily  devoured  by  pigs, 
skunks,  chickens,  crows,  "and  birds  in  general 
— when  they  can  get  at  them.  Plowing  tlie 
ground  late  in  the  fall  or  early  in  the  spring, 
will  bring  them  to  the  surface  and  expose 
them,  not  only  to  the  animals  which  feed 
upon  them,  but  also  to  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
weather;  for  although  insects  generally  can 
withstand  almost  any  degree  of  continuous 
cold — under  conditions  of  their  own  instinct- 
ive selection — yet,  alternations  of  heat  and 
cold,  wet  and  dry,  freeze  and  thaw,  js  very 
generally  destructive  to  them.  I  have  often 
duj  them  up  in  the  spring  of  the  year  within 
the"  depth  of  a  common  garden  spade,  but  it 
is  probable  that  they  bury  themselves  deeper 
than  that  when  they  first  pupate.  They  have 
the  power  to  wriggle  themselves  upward  to- 
ward the  surfiice  of  the  ground,  by  the  flexi- 
ble hind  ends  of  the  body,  but  I  do  not  think 
they  could  work  themselves  downward  again, 
and  as  the  moth  appears  late  in  the  season,  it 
might  be  advisable  to  plow  the  tobacco  ground 
late  in  the  season  at  about  a  spade's  depth, 
which  would  give  crows,  blackbirds,  chickens 
and  other  animals  an  opportunity  to  feed  upon 
them.  It  might  also  furnish  an  opportunity 
to  pick  them  by  hand.  Insects  naturally  in- 
crease in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  their 
natural  food-plant,  although  they  sometimes 
■decrease,  from  contingencies  of  which  we  have 
not  a  clear  knowledge. 

The  "Tobacco  worm"  belongs  to  the 
Sphinx  family.  It  was  so  named  by  Lin- 
naeus, because  of  a  remote,  or  i)erhaps  fan- 
cied resemblance  to  the  Egyptian  Sphinx, 
when  the  worm  is  in  a  state  of  repose.  All 
the  larvae,  or  worms  of  this  family,  when  they 
are  not  feeding,  support  themselves  by  the 
feet  on  the  hinder  part  of  the  body,  and  raise 
up  the  front  part,  and  thus  remain  for  hours 
lierfectly  motionless;  unless  they  are  annoyed 
by  their  pigmy  persecutors— the  little  para- 
sites tliat  approach  them  to  deposit  upon 
their  bodies  their  tiny  little  eggs,  and^  the 
presence  of  which  they  instinctively  ackn'owl- 
edge  by  the  rapid  turning  of  the  front  part  of 


their  bodies  from  side  to  side  with  a  sudden 
jerk.  But  it  is  all  in  vain,  for  the  little  per- 
severing creatures  never  relinquish  their  task 
until  it  is  accomplished. 

There  are  two  prominent  species  of  Sphinxes 
that  attack  the  tobacco  crop,  named  Sphinx 
Carolina  and  Sphinx  quinque-maculata,  respect- 
ively. In  the  imago,  or  moth  state,  to  'which 
I  have  already  alluded,  they  are  called  "Hawk 
moths,"  and,  somewhat  indiscriminately  also 
"Humming-bird  moths,"  from  their  habit  of 
poising  themselves  on  the  wing,  like  a  hum- 
ming-bird, while  they  are  in  the  act  of  suck- 
ing the  nectar  out  of  the  flowers.  These  two 
species  of  Sp/u')ix  may  properly  be  called  the 
"Southern  Sphinx,"  and  the  "Northeastern 
"pliinx."  In  the  southern  States  the  Sphinx 
Carolina  or  "Carolina  Sphinx"  prevails,  and 
the  northern  species  is  almost  unknown; 
whilst  in  the  northeastern  States  the  S.  5 
macidata,  or  "five-spotted  Sphinx"  prevails, 
and  the  southern  species  is  almost  unknown. 
But  here  in  the  intermediate  region,  or  Mid- 
dle States,  we  have  both  species.  Although 
the  distribution  of  insects  is  more  or  less  local, 
yet  their  limitations  are  not  distinguished  by 
a  fixed,  or  abrupt  line;  but  on  the  contrary 
there  is  an  overlapping  of  one  district  upon 
another,  and  hence  such  an  overlapping  belt 
will  produce  species  that  respectively  belong 
to  either,  or  both.  In  districts  where  no  to- 
bacco is  cultivated,  and  often,  even  where  it 
is  cultivated,  the  "Five-spotted  Sphinx"  at- 
tacks the  potato  vines,  and  the  "Carolina 
Sphinx,"  the  tomatoes.  I  have  a  knowledge 
of  these  insects  existing  in  the  county  of  Lan- 
caster long  before  the  tobacco  plant  became 
an  object  of  cultivation  in  it.  I  had  dug  the 
chrysalids  out  of  the  ground,  even  in  my  boy- 
hood, more  than  fifty  years  ago;  and,  as 
neither  tobacco  nor  tomatoes  were  cultivated 
then,  they  must  have  fed  upon  the  potato 
vines.  There  is  something  about  the  form  of 
these  chrvsalids  that  is  very  peculiar,  and  is 
calculated  to  make  an  impression  upon  the 
minds  uf  those  who  are  given  to  habits  of  ob- 
servation, that  is  not  easily  erased.  They  are 
large,  smooth,  spindle-shaped  objects,  J  that 
have  an  appendage  at  the  anterior  end,  which 
is  turned  around,  like  the  handleof  a  jug,  and 
hence  we  bovs  locally  called  them  "brown 
pitchers,"  or""brown  jugs."  This  handle  is 
merely  a  tube  in  which  the  long  spiral  sucking 
tongue  lies  concealed  in  the  pupa  state. 

The  moths  of  the  tobacco  worms  are  crepus- 
cularioiis  in  their  habits;  that  is,  they  fly 
forth,  feed,  and  deposit  their  eggs  during  the 
evening  twihght,  and  on  moonhght  evenings 
perhaps  later  into  the  night.  During  the  day 
they  are  perfectly  quiet  and  lie  concealed,  and 
from  their  plain  and  inconspicious  coloration, 
they  are  often  jiassed  over  without  being 
perceived.  Although  there  appears  to  be  sev- 
eral broods  of  them  during  the  season,  yet,  in 
reality,  there  is  only  one  in  this  latitude. 
This  appearance  arises  from  the/act,  that  like 
the  "Colorado  Potato  beetles"— the  females 
do  not  deposit  all  their  eggs  at  one  time,  or  in 
one  day,  nor  yet  in  one  week;  but  very  prob- 
ably occupy  several  weeks,  depositing  them 
"here  and  there,"  in  small  patches  upon  the 
plants.  These  eggs  being  deposited  at  differ- 
ent times,  are  hatched  out  at  different  times, 
and  hence  there  appears  to  be  dift'erent  broods, 
but  they  are  all  of  the  same.  Each  female 
moth  will  deposit  from  three  to  five  hundred 
eggs  during  her  life,  and  may  exceed  that 
number.  On  one  occasion  I  took  out  of  a  fe- 
male over  three  hundred;  but  she  may  have 
already  deposited  some,  as  she  flew  into  a 
window  and  was  struck  down  and  captured 
in  the  evening,  when  she  was  perhaps  on  the 
way  to,  or  was  returning/rojn,  a  tobacco  field. 
Thanking  you  for  your  attention,  I  with  these 
remarks  close  this  essay. 


Those  of  our  subscribers  who  do  not  reside 
in  Lancaster  city,  but  who  have  given  that  as 
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pay  postage  at  transient  rates  on  those  sent 
to  the  post-oflice,  which  we  can  ill  afford. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


39 


"GAME   FOWLS." 

In  the  freneral  demand  foi-  novelties  in  the 
"poultry  line,"  the  nuwer  and  more  fashion- 
able varieties  liad  for  a  time  occupied  the  fore- 
ground, and  had  pushed  tlie  (tAMIcs  of  our 
boyhood,  to  a  jzreat  extent,  in  tlie  bickuround. 
These  biids,  liowever,  the  noble  pluek  of  which 
had  been  the  adinir.itiou  of  our  youth,  as  con- 
tradisthiETuislied  from  the|)usillaniniily  of  the 
"dunirhills,"  have  always  had  their  admirers 
aside  fronj  those  who  bred  and  reared  them 
solely  to  gratify  their  love  for  the  cruel  sport 
of  the  "  pit ;"  and  now,  again,  tlie  game  fowls 
are  looming  up  and  receiving  a  new  appre- 
ciation of  those  excellencies  of  character  wliicli 
had  been  nearly  eclipsed  by  their  newer  rivals. 
Of  these  excellent  birds  Afessrs.  Benson  & 
Burpee  thus  discourse  in  their  catalogue  for 
1877 :  "  Tlie  thoroughbred  game  hen  is  an 
excellent  layer  of  tlie  very  richest  and  most 
delicately  flavored  eggs.  As  a  mother  none 
can  equal  her.  The  game  cock  is  vigorous, 
watchful,  and  a  sure  getter  of  stock.  They 
are  comparatively  small  eaters,  and  if  allowed 
tlieir  liberty,  are  excellent  foragers.  As  a 
table  fowl  "tliey  are  ne  ;jf'M  icHra,  beincr  un- 
eqiialed  in  the  rich,  gain'i  II  ivor  of  their  llesh. 
All  in  all,  they  are  worthy  of  general  culti- 
vation as  a  fowl  for 
beauty,  utility  and 
profit,  even  by  those 
who  would,  and  right- 
ly, most  strongly  con- 
dcmu  the  pit  and  its 
uses.  We  are  breed- 
ing DEAD  GAME,  that 

for  courage,  brave  and 
noble  carriage,  beauty 
and  compactness  of 
pUiniage  and  general 
good  qualities,  cannot 
be  excelled." 

Among  the  varieties 
imported  and  bred  by 
this  enteri)rising  lirrii 
are  '"Brown  Hed 
Games,"  -Black  Red 
Games,"  "Sumatra 
Games,"  "Duck wing 
Games"  and  "Game 
Bantams." 

It  is  not  distinctly 
clear  when  or  whence 
the  game  fowls  orig- 
inated. Some  writers 
allege  that  they  are 
descendantsfroin  Son- 
nerat's  common  jun- 
gle fowl  {GaUus  Son- 
nera(ti)  of  continental 
India,  where  it  in- 
habits the  woods  ;  it 
exceeds    in    size   the 

"  Bankiva"  [GaUus  Bankiva),  from  which  our 
"  Bantam"  is  supposed  to  have  sprung,  and  is 
very  beautiful,  both  in  symmetry  and  plumage. 
The  Mussulman  natives  of  India,  wlio  eairerly 
engage  in  the  barbarous  sport  of  cock-fighting, 
highly  prize  this  bird  for  its  great  courage  and 
determination.  It  is,  however,  easily  domes- 
ticated. Two  strongly  marki^d  varieties  are 
found.  In  the  valleys,  about  2.000  feet  above 
the  sea,  Sonnerat's  species  is  found,  "stand- 
ing higli  on  its  legs  ;"  and  in  belts  of  woods 
on  the  sides  of  mountains,  at  an  elevation  of 
4,000  feet  above  the  sea,  a  short-legged  variety 
is  found,  and  who  knows  but  our  "  Crcepies" 
have  come  from  thi:;  stock.  Captain  Skinner 
records  the  curious  fact  that,  in  their  native 
wilds,  these  birds  have  the  same  habits  as  our 
domestic  poultry,  in  their  sexual  relations.  "A 
cock  struts  at  the  head  of  a  bevy  of  hens  and 
keeps  a  strict  watch  over  their  safety,"  so 
that  this  ])olygainous  habit,  after  all,  does  not 
Seem  to  be  tlie  result  of  domestication. 


instinct  of  their  own.  In  the  fall  they  direct 
their  course  in  great  numbn'S  to  the  rich 
b  ittoin  lands  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississipi)i. 
Their  food  consists  of  grains,  grasses,  acorns, 
bi'rries,  fruit  and  insects  ;  neitherarc  tadimles, 
young  frogs  and  lizards  despised.  When  there 
is  an  abundant  crop  of  acorns,  flocks  of  turkeys 
may  be  expected.  It  often  occurs  that  rivers 
are  to  be  crossed  during  'these  migrations. 
When  arrived  at  tlie  banks  they  assemble  on  tlie 
highest  eminences  and  there  remain  for  hours, 
and  even  days,  as  if  in  consultation,  or  perhaps 
to  recruit  tlieir  strength  for  the  undertaking. 
While  thus  waiting,  the  miles  employ  their 
time  in  gobbling  and  strutting  about  with  ex- 
panded tails  ami  lowered  wings,  in  iking  with 
the  latter  a  drumming  or  booming  sound. 
Even  the  females  often  imitate  these  raove- 
mentss.  At  last,  mounting  the  trees  and  .high- 
est eminences,  at  a  given  signal  from  the 
cliosen  leader  they  wing  their  way  to  the 
opposite  shore.  The  old  birds  easily  cross, 
but,  should  the  stream  be  wide,  the  young  anil 
feeble  frequently  miss  the  goal  desired  and  fall 
into  the  scream  wlien  they  swim  ashore.  They 
swim  with  no  litMe  dext'M-itv  by  closing  their 
wings  and  expan  ling  their  tails  for  support, 
striking    out   rapidly    with    their    long   and 


THE  WILD  TURKEY. 

This  noble  bird  may  be  considered  as  both 
migratory  and  gregarious,  migrations  arising 
mainly  from  scarcity  of  food  or  of  greater 
abundance  elsewhere,  to  which  they  are 
gradually  led  by  finding  the  supply  increase  as 
they  advance,  rather  than  from  any  particular 


"GAME  FOWLS." 
powerful  legs.  When  the  banks  are  steep,  as 
is  frequently  the  case,  many  are  unable  to 
ascend,  and  falling  back  from  their  repeated 
and  unsuccessful  attempts,  are  overpowered 
by  fatigue  and  perish  in  the  water. 

The  nest  is  a  very  rude  structure,  being  a 
straight  hollow  scraped  in  the  ground  in  some 
dry  and  sheltered  place,  and  filled  with  with- 
ered leaves  or  dry  grass.  These  are  usually 
found  in  rising  ground  at  the  edge  of  marshes, 
slushes  or  thickets,  evidently  for  the  security 
the  latter  give  the  young.  In  one  case  1  knew 
of  a  wild  turkey  building  her  nest  in  the  top 
of  a  stub  some  eight  feet  from  the  ground,  the 
stub  being  protected  by  a  thick  top  of  a  fallen 
tree.  The  nest  contained  only  six  eggs.  These 
were  carefully  removed  and  placed  under  a 
sitting  hen,  which  hatched  them  all  seven 
days  later.  As  the  nest  of  a  wild  turkey 
usually  contains  from  ten  to  eighteen  eggs,  Tam 
led  to  believe  that  this  unusual  selection  of  a  site 
for  a  nest  was  due  to  former  ones  having  been 
destroyed.  The  females  alone  incubate,  care- 
fully "concealing  the  nest,  apiiroaching  it 
always  with  great  caution  and  from  a  differ- 
ent point,  and  covering  the  eggs  with  dry 
leaves  when  leaving  in  search  of  food,  and 
bravely  defending  them  against  all  depredators. 

It  is  said  that  three  or  four  females  will  lay 
in  one  nest,  one  always  remaining  as  a  guard 


while  the  others  seek  food.  This  I  am  inclined 
to  doubt ;  and  unless  the  turkey  is  far  more 
astute  than  supiiosed,  there  would  be  some 
dithculty  in  dividing  the  progeny,  particularly 
it  one  or  two  eggs  failed  to  hatch,  and  would 
cause  no  small  amnunt  of  tin  key  talk,  to  bo 
settled  by  some  grave  old  gobbler  capable  of 
acting  tiie  Solomon.  P.jssibly  tliey  may  pool 
progeny  as  well  as  eggs.  'I'he  eggs  arc  of  a 
dull  cream  color,  splotched  with  red.  The 
young  mil  as  soon  as  liatched.  and  are  covered 
with  a  delicate  hairy  down.  They  are  very 
tender  and  easily  killed  by  cold  or  wet.  To 
guard  against  the  latter  catastroplie,  the  first 
night  of  the  brood  is  usually  passed  In  the  nest, 
after  which  the  hen  lea<lstliein  to  dry,  elevated 
places,  carefully  shielding  them  at  night  be- 
neath her  outspread  wings  until  they  ar(!  two 
weeks  old,  when  they  roost  upon  the  broad 
branches  of  trees,  still  ])rotecU'd  by  the  wings 
of  the  parent.  The  fetnile  calls  her  young  by 
the  well-known  cluck.  They  run  very  fiust, 
and  when  pursued  trust  more  to  their  legs 
than  their  wings  for  escape. 

HAY  FOR  HENS. 

T/ie  Poultry  World  advises  the  use  of  hay  in 
the  diet  of  fowls  in  winter,  as  they  eat  gra.ssto 
advantage     in     sum- 
mer.    "  Bulk  in  food 
is  required  for  health 
^  as  well  for  poultry  as 

'manor animals.  Rich 
and  concentrated  food 
is  not  readilydigested 
and  invites  disease. 
Some  think  a  craving 
for  bulky  food  is  one 
chief  cause  of  feather 
eating  in  winter,  or 
among  fowls  confined. 
Now,  just  try  and  se- 
cure a  good  supply  of 
second  crop  hay,  short 
and,  if  possible,  con- 
taining clover.  Cure 
only  enough  to  pre- 
serve, and  your  fowls 
will  eat  a  portion  of 
it  all  winter  when 
they  would  turn  away 
from  stale  cabbage. 
What  is  not  eaten  will 
furnish  untold  amuse- 
ment in  scratching 
over.  Remember  in 
winter,  if  poultry 
stand  on  one  leg,  un- 
employed all  day,  they 
are  disposed  to  have 
tlie  blues.  Idle  medi- 
tations lead  always  to 
bad  habits  ;  while  a 
healthy  mind,  in  a  vigorous  b  xly,  suggests 
business,  which,  with  fowls,  means  winter  eggs 
and  early  chickens.  Secure  your  rowen  in 
September,  or  early  in  October  of  each  year, 
or  before  frost,  if  possible,  for  it  is  injured  in 
quality  by  being  frost  biten." 

The  above  advice  is  good,  although  few  sup- 
pose hens  would  eat  hay  if  given  them,  but  this 
is  because  they  have  not  watched  the  habits  of 
their  poultry.  We  have  noticed  them  often 
picking  short  bits  of  cut  hay  of  almost  any 
variety,  and  hay  cooked  for  cattle  is  eaten 
greedily  by  them.  We  advise  short  clover 
well  boiled  for  them.  Clover  is  better  than 
anyollierhay,  because  it  possesses  egg-making 
nutriment,  besides  fibre  to  separate  the  particles 
of  grain.  It  is  not  bulk,  as  mere  quantity, 
that  is  needed,  but  coarse  fibre  to  .separate  the 
concentrated  food  in  the  stomach,  so  that  the 
gastric  juice  can  circulate  through  the  mass. 
The  stomach  cannot  well  manage  solid  food. 
Only  a  few  minutes  will  be  required  to  prepare 
this  hav  for  a  large  number  of  poultry. — Na- 
tional Live  Sliock  Journal. 


One  hundred  canvassers  wanted,  to  so- 
licit snb.scriptions  for  The  Farmer.  Good 
inducements  offered.  Send  for  prospectus  and 
specimeu  copies. 


40 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  March, 


For  The  Lancaster  Fabmeb. 
INSECTS  AS  FOOD.* 

Perhaps  it  iiiiRht  be  shocking  to  your  gastro- 
nomic sensibilities  if  I  were  to  assert  tliat  by 
the  time  we  celebrate  the  second  centennial  of 
anniversary  of  American  independence,  the 
bills  of  fare  at  the  most  frequented  restaurants 
may  contain  such  edibles  as  ws(cts,  dressed  in 
various  forms— including  the  soup,  the  stew, 
the  roast,  the  fry,  the  friccassee,  and  the  pie — 
and  why  not  V  Especially  such  as  feed  on 
fresh,  sweet  and  healthy  vegetation.  If,  then, 
it  should  ever  become  necessary  to  compro- 
mise the  question  between  vegetarians  and 
"carnivarians,"  it  seems  to  nie  that  insect 
diet  would  be  the  only  platform  they  could 
possibly  meet  upon.  Again,  I  ask,  why  not  V 
Insects,  spiders,  centipedes,  crabs,  lobsters, 
shrimps,  prawns,  and  hundreds  of  other  simi- 
lar iinimals,  all  belong  to  the  great  class 
Ariicidata,  and,  as  a  class,  are  infinitely  more 
clean  in  their  feeding  habits  than  the  great 
class  Vertebrala,  at  the  head  of  which  stands 
man,  the  crown  of  the  animal  creation — taken 
as  a  whole.  Take,  fur  instance,  pigs,  chick- 
ens, ducks,  and  many  of  the  fishes  caught  at 
the  outlets  of  the  sewers,  along  the  wharves 
of  all  large  cities.  So,  also,  we  might  mention 
the  frog,  the  snappinLj-turtle  (Uliehjdra  serpen- 
tina), which  derives  its  specific  name  from  its 
resemblance  to  a  serpent,  the  Iguanns  of  South 
America — a  large  species  of  lizard — all  of 
which  are  vertebrates,  and  the  latter  belong  to 
the  sub-class  REPTiLiA.f  Now,  although 
these  animals  are  all  more  or  less  preferred  to 
other  animals  that  seem  more  clean,  I  do  not 
mean  to  saj-  that  they  are  ])Osltive!y  unclean ; 
for,  fundamentally  considered,  the  maxim  may 
be  true  that  "  there  is  no  such  thing  as  dirt" 
— that  all  such  substances  are  merely  chemical 
combinations  of  miiterial  elements  having 
affinities  for  each  other ;  and  we  may  also 
infer  that  neither  plants  nor  animals  will 
normally  absorb  or  appropriate  any  other  sub- 
stance than  that  which  is  clean  and  is  neces- 
sary in  the  formation  and  development  of  its 
physical  tissues.  It  is  true  that  many  of  the 
substances  which  animals  feed  on  impart  a 
peculiar  flavor  to  their  secretions  or  their 
flesh,  ye^  if  they  ore  ill-favored,  or  even  poi- 
sons, they  are,  notwithstanding,  clean. 

When  naturalists  first  began  to  classify  ani- 
mals, they  included  crustaceans,  insectans, 
arachnidans  and  myriapodans  all  in  the  one 
great  class  called  Articulata,  from  the  in- 
sected  or  articidated  structure  of  their  bodies; 
but  the  simplest  and  most  marked  distinction 
between  vertebrates  and  articulates  is,  that 
the  former  have  their  skeletons  inside  and 
their  muscular,  adipose  and  cutaneous  tissues 
outside;  whilst  the  latter  have  their  skeletons 
outside  and  their  muscular  and  adipose  tissues 
inside.  We  may,  therefore,  rationally  infer 
that  there  is  no  great  difference  in  the  ele- 
mentary substances  which  compose  the  differ- 
ent tribes  of  articulates.  There  may  be  a 
difference  in  flavor,  in  texture  and  nutrition, 
owing  to  locality,  habit  and  food  ;  but  in  their 
elementary  substances  they  may  be  all  the 
same.  A  dish  of  boiled  shrimps  and  a  dish  of 
boiled  grasshoppers,  divested  of  their  external 
members,  will  present  nearly  the  same  appear- 
ance, and,  if  seasoned  alike,  will  have  nearly 
the  same  flavor ;  and  if  people  could  so  far 
overcome  their  prejudices  as  to  make  a  trial, 
they  would  nearly  taste  alike,  perhaps. 

In  the  month  of  July,  1875,  I  made  a  small 
collection  of  crustaceans  along  the  shores  of 
Delaware  Bay,  consisting  of  crabs,  shrimps, 
prawns,  sand-fleas  and  others,  which  I  im- 
mersed in  alcohol.  I  also  made  a  collection 
of  grasshoppers  (locusts)  on  the  sand  flats 
some  distance  in  from  the  beach,  which  I  also 
immersed  in  alcohol.  About  twenty-four 
hours  after  their  immersion,  all  these  animals 
turned  red,  just  as  crabs  and  lobsters  do  when 
they  are  boiled,  and  on  looking  at  them  I 
could  not  but  reflect  that  these  animals  were 
all  very  similar  in  substance,  and  tliat  the 
chemical  affinities  which  produced  this  uni- 

•Read  before  the  Liunwan  Society,  February  24,  1877,  by 
S.  S.  RathTon. 
tTo  wUcli  alao  belong  tlis  snakes  and  toads. 


form  discoloration  musthaveheen  substantially 
the  same.  Indeed,  I  have  it  directly  from  the 
mouth  of  an  intimate  friend,  who  on  several 
occasions  visited  the  '"Digger  Indians"  dur- 
ing liis  residence  in  California,  and  who  ate 
of  gras.shoppers  as  they  were  prepared  by  these 
Indians,  that  they  were  pleasantly  flavored  and 
palatable,  even  in  the  simple  manner  in  which 
these  children  of  nature  prepared  them — not 
much  unlike  shrimps,  and  quite  as  agreeable  to 
the  sight,  and,  if  properly  prepared  by  civilized 
hands,  might  have  been  »s  good  as  shrimps. 

Many  long  years  ago  I  had  a  youthful  friend 
who  went  as  cabiu  boy  in  a  trading-vessel  to 
the  West  India  Islands,  and  when  he  returned, 
boy-like,  he  had  many  things  to  say,  espec'ially 
about  the  fruits  and  other  edibles  he  found  in 
the  markets  ;  and  amongst  them  was  a  certain 
delicacy  called  (jrugrus,  which,  compared  with 
other  articles,  whs  expensive,  and  highly  es- 
teemed, but  he  did  not  seem  to  know  exactly 
whether  they  were  animal  or  vegetable.  Long 
years  afterward,  when  I  began  to  read  works 
on  entomology,  I  learned  that  gruyru  was  the 
name  applied  to  the  larva  of  the  "palm-wee- 
vil"—  Calandra  pahnarim — which  was  eaten 
by  those  who  could  alford  to  buy  them,  and 
that  some  of  the  English  officers  became  ex- 
ceedingly fond  of  them  and  esteemed  them 
great  luxuries  ;  and  also,  that  the  early  ex- 
l)anding  buds  of  the  "  cabbage-palm" — Areca 
oleracea — or  rather  within  the  leaves  which 
constitute  the  summit  of  the  trunk,  a  solid 
head  lies  concealed,  which  is  white,  soft  and 
about  two  feet  in  length,  and  this  is  eaten 
either  raw  or  cooked.  The  trunk  of  this  palm 
is  infested  by  the  palm-weevil,  as  thick  as  a 
man's  thumb,  and  three  inches  long,  so  that  it 
affords  a  dish,  perhaps  more  savory  than  our 
"  beef  and  cabbage."  Now,  the  practical  les- 
son I  desire  to  suggest  by  this  paper  is  to  this 
effect.  We  are  often  injured  in  our  crops  of 
diflerent  kinds  by  the  infestation  of  hordes  of 
destructive  insects,  in  some  instances  so  nu- 
merous and  so  gormandizing  in  their  appetites 
as  to  destroy  all  vegetation,  and  leave  nothing 
but  barrenness  and  squalid  want  in  their 
train,  and,  but  for  legislative  provision  and 
the  general  dictates  of  charity,  would  often 
result  in  famine.  With  the  return  of  almost 
every  summer  season  our  vastly  expanded  ter- 
ritory sufiers  from  the  infestations  of  some 
one  or  more  kinds  of  destructive  insects  ;  and 
these  are  frequently  so  sudden  in  their  advent, 
and  so  voracious  in  their  demands,  that  a 
whole  crop  may  be  destroyed  before  a  remedy 
can  be  applied,  even  if  a  certain  lemedy  were 
known  ;  and  this  is  especially  the  ca.se  with 
tiie  incursions  of  the  "  Rocky  Mountain  lo- 
cust," or  "rascal  grasshopper"  (Caloplinus 
spretus),  to  say  nothing  about  those  so  destruct- 
ive to  special  crops— such,  for  instance,  as  the 
"chinch  bugs,"  the  "Colorado  potato  beetles," 
the  "white  earth-grubs,"  the  "curculios," 
and  others,  that  infest  wheat,  corn,  potatoes, 
grasses,  fruits  and  other  species  of  vegetation. 

Waiving  all  speculation  as  to  the  oriyin  of 
insects,  I  think  we  may  safely  concede  that 
their  existence  has  been  permitted  in  the 
universal  economy  of  the  Creator,  for  some 
use,  for  the  punishment  of  some  abuse,  or  for 
the  prevention  of  a  greater  rejZ.  We  probably 
would  have  a  dull,  monotonous  and  pestilential 
world,  it  tliere  were  no  insects,  and  it  is  very 
certain  that  the  presence  of  certain  species 
have  always  been  regarded  as  a  special  blessing 
to  mankind  ;  and  even  those  noxious  species, 
in  some  countries,  have  been  utilized  or  con- 
verted into  blessings,  which  in  other  countries, 
have  been  only  esteemed  as  a  curse.  Can  any 
one  doubt  that  the  versatile  and  gastro- 
noniically  fertile  French  would  have  esteemed 
a  daily  shower  of  locusts  during  the  late  "siege 
of  Paris"  as  less  a  blessing  than  did  the  childreu 
of  Israel  the  manna  in  the  wilderness  ;  or  that 
they  would  not  have  preferred  them  to  cat- 
stews,  dog-pies,  and  monkey-hash.  Nor 
would  they  have  been  at  all  singular  in  this, 
for  these  and  other  insects  have  been  used  as 
food  from  very  ancient  times,  and  are  still  so 
used  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  and  this,  too. 
not  from  necessity,  but  from  choice,  ^-n'l 
wherever  they  have  been  tested  by  intelligent 


and  unprejudiced  moderns,  the  almost  univer- 
sal verdict  has  been  that  their  taste  and  flavor 
have  been  far  preferable  to  many  of  the  culinary 
preparations  brought  to  the  tables  of  modern 
civilization— Limberger  cheese,  for  instance. 
Many  of  you,  no  doubt,  have  read  tliC  recent 
accounts  going  the  rounds  of  the  newspapers, 
of  the  banquet  of  Rocky  Mountain  locusts, 
served  up  under  the  auspices  of  Prof.  Riley 
and  a  cordon  of  scientific  gentlemen  in  the 
west,  the  details  of  which  were  very  interest- 
ing and  to  the  point.  I  am  not  suggesting  a 
resort  to  insect  food  in  a  time  and  in  a  land  of 
plenty,  and  yet  a  period  in  our  domestic  his- 
tory may  come,  when  we  will  make  use  of 
them  as  a  matter  of  choice.  But,  when  they 
make  their  advent  in  vast  clouds,  and  destroy 
every  green  thing  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth,  I  think  we  should  so  far  overcome  our 
prejudices,  and  compensate  ourselves  by  feed- 
ing upon  them,  rather  than  suffer  from  starva- 
tion and  pinching  want ;  and  herein  may  also 
be  found  a  practical  remedy.  It  is  wonderful 
how  the  price  advances  and  how  scant  the 
supply,  when  the  taste  becomes  cultivated  to 
the  appropriation  of  certain  articles  as  human 
food.  Less  than  fifty  years  ago  tomatoes 
were  regarded  with  disgust  or  repugnance,  if 
not  as  poisonous ;  but  how  does  the  matter 
stand  in  regard  to  this  popular  edible  to-day  ? 
Tomatoes  instead  of  remaining  a  mere  or- 
nament, became  a  subject  of  use,  and  hence 
the  supply  was  provided  through  careful  cul- 
tivation. Not  so,  however,  with  some  other 
things.  When  I  was  a  mere  lad,  some  five 
and  fifty  years  ago,  the  ponds,  the  creeks,  the 
dams,  and  even  tlie  rivers,  were  all  pretty 
well  stocked  with  frogs,  and  they  often  made 
night  hideous  with  their  cries  of  "More  rum" 
and  "Blood  and  nouns,"  to  the  great  terror 
of  juvenile  night  walker.s.  Nobody  then 
dreamed  of  using  them  as  food.  At  length 
an  instructed  epicure  located  in  the  town, 
who  soon  commenced  a  war  upon  the  frogs, 
and  oflfered  to  purchase  all  that  were  brought 
to  him  at  a  penny  a  piece — sometimes  as  low 
as  eight  and  ten  cents  per  dozen.  For  awhile 
his  table  was  well  supplied  and  he  and  his 
guests  fairly  rioted  in  the  luxury.  Finally 
other  citizens  liegan  to  relish  frogs,  and  be- 
fore mail}'  years  the  race  became  almost  ex- 
tinct. Frogs  have  very  little  brain,  but  what 
little  they  have,  we  boys  soon  tliscovered, 
they  so  far  cultivated  as  to  serve  the  purpose 
of  self-preservation.  To  capture  them,  we 
used  a  fishing  rod  with  a  short  piece  of  line  at 
the  end,  to  which  was  attached  a  hook  baited 
with  a  "bit"  of  red  flannel,  and  at  first  they 
were  just  stupid  enough  to  greedily  snap  at 
the  flannel,  and  allow  themselves  to  be  hooked; 
but  they  soon  found  out  the  nature  of  the  de- 
coy, and  refused  to  bite  at  it.  They  would  sit 
and  look  at  us,  and  allow  us  to  dangle  the  de- 
coy about  their  heads,  or  across  their  mouths, 
but  they  would  bite  no  more.  Then  we  tied 
two  or  three  hooks  together — back  to  back — 
like  a  miniature  anchor,  and  hooked  them 
with  a  quick  upward  jc^rk,  whether  they  bit 
or  not;  but  they  soon  learned  to  evade  this 
dodge  by  increasing  the  distance  between  us 
and  them.  Their  advance  in  scholarship  was 
remarkable.  If  they  were  just  an  inch  or  two 
beyond  the  length  of  our  rods,  and  we  tied  a 
foot  or  two  to  the  lower  end,  by  the  time  we 
were  ready  to  use  it,  the  frogs  were  just  that 
much  farther  out  in  the  stream.  Then  we 
were  compelled  to  resort  to  powder  and  shot, 
and  then  too  the  frogs  began  to  dive  under 
the  water  at  our  approach.  Claiming  your 
indulgence  for  this  digression,  allow  me  to 
say,  that  it  was  the  fashion  of  eating  frogs 
that  occasioned  their  depletion  and  almost 
extinction.  A  similar  use  of  insects  would  go 
very  far  toward  diminishing  their  numbers, 
and  who  knows  how  soon  the  time  may  come 
when  such  a  use  will  be  made  of  them,  both 
as  a  remedy  against  their  incursions,  and  as 
an  article  of  commerce.  Even  if  it  should  be 
made  manifest  that  insects  are  a  nutritious, 
healthful  and  pleasant  food,  there  would  ne- 
cessarily be  exceptions,  just  as  there  are  ex- 
ceptions among  vertebrated  animals;  for,  not 
many  people  hanker  much  after  owls,  crows 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


41 


and  buzzards,  .Tiiy  more  tliaii  they  do  after 
wild  cats,  wolverines  ami  skunks,  but  there 
niiglit  be  those  who  would  prefer  them  to 
more  delicately  constituted  animals.  Nor 
could  the  use  of  insects  as  food  be  claimed  as 
a  modern  discovery,  for,  without  j^oiu^j  biek 
to  the  iii'ehistorie  ages  of  the  human  family, 
and  s|>eculatinK  upon  their  Kiislrouoniic  hab- 
its, we  have  numberless  instances  rec'orded 
npon  the  paijes  of  ancient,  mediievaland  mod- 
ern history  that  they  were  used  as  Iniman 
food.  The  Greek  ai'ul  K'lman  epicures  of  the 
2d  century. —and  both  <'arlier  and  later  than 
that  period— were  in  the  habit  of  eating  the 
larvce  of  several  coleopterous  insect:;,  and 
highly  relished  tlieui,  according  to  iElian, 
Pliny  and  others;  which  were  probably  those 
of  palm-weevils,  and  certain  large  species  of 
Lotiyi-corniaus.  Pliny's  coasus  probably  was  a 
Prionus.  AVliat  we  know  of  cossiis  now,  is, 
that  it  is  very  offensive,  and  would  liardly  be 
used  as  food";  but  the  two  edible  species 
named,  as  well  as  the  white  grubs  of  certain 
Laniellicornian  insects,  were  eaten,  and  re- 
garded as  great  luxuries  by  the  people  ;)f  Suri- 
nam, South  America,  and  the  West  Indies, 
and  are  very  probably  eaten  liy  those  people  to- 
day. The  larvie  of  a  large  species  of  Ceram- 
liiClD^E  {Prionus  duiiilcnnns)  was  in  great  re- 
quest at  the  principal  tables  in  J  unaica,  and 
a  similar  one  in  Mauritius,  and  also  allied 
species  in  various  parts  of  Africa.  The  whites 
as  well  as  the  negroes,  in  the  latter  country, 
are  said  to  be  greedily  fond  of  the  laritr.  of 
Cock-chafers  and  Rhinoceros  Beetles  (Oi-yctcs 
naskomls).  Among  the  OitTHOi'TEHA,  lo- 
custs have  been  considered  almost  a  staple 
food  ainone  various  nations.  St.  John  the 
Ba))tist  made  a  repast  of  "locusts  and  wild 
honey"  in  the  wilderness,  and  among  the 
Ethiopian  tribes,  and  the  Parthians,  as  well 
as  the  Arabians,  locusts  were  a  common  arti- 
cle of  food,  and  from  this  circiunstance  some 
of  these  trilies  were  called  Acrilnphagi  (locust 
eaters)  from  Acridum,  a  genus  to  which  some 
of  the  largest  species  belong.  Tlie  larijest 
species  of  locust  in  our  laiitude  is  tlie  Acrid- 
ivm  Americaiuini,  and  is  common  in  Lancaster 
county. 

1  might  (ill  many  pages  in  quoting  the  in- 
stances throughout  the  world  where  insects 
have  been  resorted  to  as  an  article  of  human 
food,  and  this  not  from  necessity  alone,  but 
from  choice.  Not  only  the  orders  Col&ipUiu 
and  Orthapter",  hut  also  the  Lipidoptera,  the 
Honwptera,  the  Hijmcnoptcra,  the  Diptern  and 
the  ^;3t' rn,  have  furnislied  subjects  for  tlie 
sustenance  of  tlie  human  family.  The  Greeks, 
the  Romans,  the  Parthians,  tlie  American 
Indians,  the  East  Indians,  the  Hindoos,  the 
Egyptians,  the  Mahrattans,  the  Brazilians, 
the'Swedcs,  the  Hottentots,  the  New  Caledon- 
ians, the  French,  the  Ceylonese,  theilarguer- 
itans,  and  even  others  of  the  most  polished 
among  the  European  nations,  have  at  various 
times  been  more  or  less  given  to  the  use  of 
insect  food,  and  these  instances  have  been  co- 
piously set  forth  by  such  authorities  as  Aris- 
totle, Pliny,  Piso,  Homer,  Aristophanes,  /El- 
ian, Raumer,  Scopoli,  Lattreille,  Humboldt, 
Rose],  and  many  others,  anl  to  lead  the  de- 
scriptions of  the  relish  with  which  many  indi- 
viduals, both  male  and  female,  refined  as  well 
as  vulgar,  partook  of  them,  is  almost  sutlieient 
to  excite  an  apjietite  in  those  who  have 
'•never  been  there." 


to  the  amounts  of  such  fertilizing  materials 
removed  from  the  soil  (as  per  tal)le  by  Prof. 
Atwater  in  American  AgricuHnrist)  it  costs  in 
these  materials  to  produce  one  bushel  of  wheat, 
:i3{c. ;  one  bushel  rye,  '2Tic. ;  one  bushel  oats, 
llic. ;  one  bushel  corn,  ^.i^c. ;  one  bushel  buck- 
wheat, 18c.;  one  bushel  jiotatoes,  7_tc.;  one 
ton  meadow  hay,  $8.75;  i)\u:  ton  timothy  hay, 
.•51-2.l:i;  red  clover  hay  would  seem  to  remove 
•Sl'i.Sl,  but  as  the  clover  ajipropriates  the 
greater  |)art  of  the  nitrogen  from  ihe  air,  the 
materials  removed  are  probably  not  worth  over 
fti.oO  per  ton  of  hay;  wheat  stniw  per  ton, 
82.70;  rye  straw  per  ton,  82. .')7;  oats  straw 
per  ton,  $3.37;  corn  fodder  per  ton,  $4.43; 
taliaceo  iier  101)  lbs.,  81.20. 

Now  if  by  applying  a  certain  amount  of  fer- 
tilizers, a  certain  increase  is  the  result,  and 
that  increase  costs  less  for  fertilizers  and  extra 
laV)or  involved  than  the  market  value  of  the 
increase,  it  is  surely  to  the  interest  of  the  far- 
mer to  use  them.  The  i)reparation  of  the  land 
is  the  same,  the  tilhige  liardly  ever  more, 
sometimes  less,  on  account  of  the  luxuriant 
growth  of  crop  that  smothers  any  late  weeds 
that  may  start,  and  the  only  increase  in  cx- 
pen.sc  may  be  that  the  harvesting  will  cost 
more,  on  account  of  the  larger  crop  ;  but  har- 
vesting usually  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  ex- 
pense. 

Unfortunately,  the  result  from  the  appli- 
cation of  fertilizers  (stable  manure  being  no 
exception)  will  not  always  be  satisfactory,  for 
if  the  sea.son  is  very  dry  there  will  be  little  ap- 
liarent  benelit,  and  even  in  some  cases,  where 
they  were  not  applied  in  a  jiroper  manner, 
may  be  a  positive  injury.  But  as  in  most 
cases  the  cost  of  the  increase  is  only  from  one- 
half  to  one-sixth  of  the  market  value  of  such 
crops,  we  believe  it  wcudd  pay  to  use  the  fer- 
tilizi  rs  more,  iiroviding  it  was  made  a  regular 
practice  ;  for  if  used  only  semi-occasionally, 
the  result  would  iirobably  be  about  as  .satis- 
factory as  if  stable  manure  was  applied  in  the 
same  manner. 

The  crops  wliicli  would  seem  to  pay  best  by 
an  ai)|)lication  of  fertilizers  in  the  order  from 
the  best  paying  to  those  that  pay  less  for  the 
expense  involved  are  tobacco,  potatoes,  wheat, 
rye,  oats  and  corn.  In  these  the  ratio  between 
the  value  of  the  materials  removed  and  the 
market  value  of  the  crop  is  the  greatest. 

Timothy  is  probably  the  crop  that  is  least 
able  to  sland  an  application,  for  one  ton  of  hay 
removes  44i  lbs.  ammonia  (30.0  lbs.  nitrogen), 
14;,^  lbs.  phosphoric  aciii  and  41  lbs.  jxitasli. 
costing  over  812  at  the  warehouse,  to  which, 
if  freight,  expense  of  applying,  interest  and 
taxes  on  land,  and  labor  of  making  hay  be 
added,  it  would  ruu  Uf*  the  cost  of  the  hay  to 
about  S21  per  ton. 

From  the  circular  mentioned  we  glean  that 
in  beets,  carrots,  tobacco,  timothy,  and  all  the 
srains  except  buckwheat,  ammonia  is  most 
required,  phosphoric  acid  next,  and  potash 
last. 

In  turnips,  ruta  bagas,  sorghum,  sugar  cane, 
cotton  and  buckwheat,  phosphoric  acid  is  most 
required,  pot.ash  next,  ammonia  last. 

In  Irish  potatoes,  clover,  peas,  beans  and 
lucern,  potash  and  phosphoric  acid  are  most 
required,  ammonia  last. — A.  B.  K. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
JOTTINGSSUGGESTED  BY  ACIRCULAR 

One  of  the  prominent  dealers  in  fertilizers 
has  put  out  a  circular  which  it  might  be  well 
to  study.  As  he  is  generally  recognized  as  a 
fair  dealer,  and  the  figures  that  are  iriven  of 
the  composition  of  crops  and  fertilizers  are 
ttiken  in  nearly  all  cases  from  standard  works 
on  chemistry,  the  calctdations  that  may  be 
reduced  will  be  in  the  main  reliable. 

In  making  the  prices  of  chemical  manures, 
he  gives  the  following  rates  for  the  fertilizing 
materials  contained  in  the  same  : 

Ammonia,  17ic.  per  lb.;  (nitrocren,  2H;) 
phosphoric  acid,  9c.  per  lb  ;  potash,  7^c.  per  lb. 

If  we  now  take  these  figures  and  apply  them 


VERY  CURIOUS  EXPERIMENTS. 

The    Sick   and  the  Afflicted  Cured— A   Great 

Blessing  Conferred  upon  the  Human 

Family  without  Cost. 

Some  months  ago,  a  number  of  the  i»ipers 
in  the  country  criticised,  generally  with  some 
degree  of  facetiousncss,  a  book  written  by 
Gen.  A.  J.  Pleasontou  of  Philadelphia,  en- 
titled "Blue  and  Sun  Li^zbt;  their  inlhience 
npon  Life,  Disease,  etc."  Some  of  the  ideas 
set  forth  by  Gen.  Pleasonton  are  calculated  to 
-startle  reading  and  thoushtfid  persons,  and 
failing  to  comprehend  his  theories,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  the  critics  poked  considerable  fun 
at  them.  My  attention  was  recently  directed 
to  the  "blue  glass"  treatment  by  an  old  friend 
who  recommended  its  use  in  case  of  sickness 
in  my  family.  Having  confidence  in  ray  friend 
I  wrote  to  Gen.  Pleasouton  regarding  it,  and 


in  reply  received  a  copy  of  his  liook,  and  in- 
strudions  regarding  the  application  of  the 
blue  light  in  the  case  I  recited  to  him.  Hav- 
ing practical  evidence  before  me  of  the  bene- 
fits to  be  derived  from  the  application  of  the 
"blue  light,"  I  propose  in  thi.s  letter  to  give 
some  general  Idea  of  Gen.  Pleasonton 's  the- 
ory regarding  the 

Blue  and  Sun  Lights. 
To  promise,  then.  Gen.  Pleasonton,  the  au- 
thor of  the  book  in  question,  was  not  the  fa- 
mous ciivalry  leader  during  the  war,  as  has 
b^en  quite  generally  supposed,  but  hit<  elder 
brother.  The  cavalry  leader  is  (im.  Alfred 
Pleasonton,  while  the  discoverer  of  the  blue 
lii;ht  theory  is  Gen.  Augustus  J.  Pleasonton. 
He  is  agraduiite  of  West  Point,  was  in  tlie 
reguliir  army  for  .some  time,  from  which  he 
resigned;  during  the  war  he  was  a  Brigadier 
General  of  Pennsylvania  militia,  and  was  se- 
lected to  organiz(f  a  body  of  10,(J00  men  with- 
in the  Stat(!  for  use  in  emergencies.  He  is  a 
lawyep>f  iirominence  in  Philadelphia,  a  gen- 
tletnan  of  culture,  wealth  and  refinement. 
Owning  a  farm  outside  of  the  city,  he  in  1800 
commenced  to  ex|)evinient  upon  his  theory  re- 
garding the  different  colors  in  the  sun's  rays, 
and  their  ellects  upon  vegetable  and  animal 
life.  Experiments  made  in  Eiu-ope  had  al- 
ready demonstrated  that  the  blue  rays  of  the 
sun's  light  had  greater  chemical  powers  than 
any  of  the  others,  developed  a  greater 
amount  of  heat,  and  were  espt^cially  stimulat- 
ing to  vegetation.  But  these  ex])criments 
had  been  barren  of  practical  results,  and  Gen. 
Pleasonton  was  left  to  his  own  resources  to 
carry  out  his  own  ideas.  He  built  a  large 
grapery,  covered  with  gla.ss.  every  eighth  row 
of  which  was  blue.  By  this  arrangement,  the 
sun  ill  making  its  rouiids, 

Cast  a  Blue  Ray  of  Light 
upon  every  plant  and  leaf  within  the  jrrapery. 
In  April,  1801,  he  set  out  twenty  varieties  of 
grape-vines  in  his  grapery,  all  of  the  cuttings 
being  one  year  old,  the  size  of  a  pipe  stem, 
and  cut  close  to  the  ground.  The  vines  soon 
began  to  show  a  most  vigorous  growth,  and 
in  a  few  weeks  the  urai'cry  was  filled  with 
vines  and  foliase.  By  September— or  tivc 
months  after  setting  -the  secdman  who  had 
furnished  the  cuttings  made  measurements, 
and  found  that  the  vines  had  grown  forty-five 
feet  in  length,  and  were  an  inch  in  diameter 
a  foot  aliove  the  ground.  These  vines  at- 
tracted great  attention  in  the  neighborhood, 
but  it  was  predicted  that,  owing  to  this  un- 
usual growth,  they  would  not  bear  fruit.  Next 
year,  liowever,  the  vines  displayed  the  same 
vigor  )us  growth,  and  in  addii ion  bore  over 
1,2(K)  ])ounds  of  luscious  gnipes  of  unusual  size. 
This  was  more  astonishing  to  horticultur- 
ists than  the  grow'th  of  the  vines,  but  from  that 
day  to  this,  the  vines  have  kept  up  the  same 
vigorous  growth,  beini:  entirely  free  from  dis- 
ea.se  and  destructive  in.'^ecls,  and  b.'aring  with 
I>roportioiiate  iirolificness.  How  remarkable 
this  result  is  will  be  appreciated  when  it  is 
known  that  in  gra|ie-growing  countries  the 
vines  do  not  bear  fruit  until  the  fifth  or  sixth 
year.  Having  been  so  successful  in  his  first 
experiment  with  vesretable  life.  Gen.  Pleason- 
ton next  tried  the  effect  of 

Blue  Light  upon  Animals. 
His  first  experiment  was  with  a  litter  of 
pigs,  which  he  placed  in  a  pen  which  was 
placed  in  a  pen  which  was  lighted  by  blue  and 
plain  glass  inserted  in  the  roof  in  equal  pro- 
portions. This  litter  gained  wonderfully  in 
weight,  size  and  strength,  and,  at  the  end  of 
a  few  months,  were  found  to  weiLrh  very  much 
mora  than  a  similar  litter  raised  in  the  usual 
way.  He  next  experimented  witli  an  Alder- 
nev  bull-calf,  which  was  so  puny  and  weak  at 
its" birth  that  the  manager  of  tlie  farm  said  it 
could  not  live.  It  was  put  under  blue  glass, 
and  in  twenty-four  hours  it  was  able  to  stand 
ui>,  and  was  taught  to  drink  milk;  in  four 
months  it  was  a  perfectly-devc-loped  bull, 
strong  and  vigorous,  and  was  turned  in  with 
the  lurd  of  cows,  and  has  since  fulfilled  every 
exiiectation  regarding  him.  Subsequently 
other  experiments  gave  him  confidence,  and 


42 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  March, 


now  all  his  cattle  are  raised  under  blue  glass, 
showing  great  vigor  and  the  most  surprising 
precocity.  A  heifer  beeonies  a  mother  wlien 
14  months  old,  and  the  cow.s  and  their  proge- 
ny are  healthy  and  strong,  and  the  former 
are  great  milkers.  It  is  generally  held  that 
heifers  should  not  bear  young  before  they  are 
four  years  old,  but  under  the  influence  of  blue 
glass,  they  do  so  without  injury  when  18 
months  old,  thus  saving  the  expense  of  keep- 
ing them  tlirough  two  and  a  half  years.  The 
beneficial  efft'Ct  of  the  associated  plain  and 
blue  rays  of  the  sun's  light  upon  vegetable  and 
animal  life  having  been  demonstrated,  to  the 
wonder  and  amazement  of  all  who  had  ob- 
served the  experiments,  their  eftect  was  tried 
upon 

Various  Sick  Persons. 

The  most  astonishing  results  have  been  ob- 
tained, which  are  certified  to  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  leave  no  doubtregarding  them.  Com- 
modore Goldsborough,  who  had  read  some- 
thing regarding  Gen.  Pleasonton's  di.scovery, 
relates  the  case  of  a  lady  who  prematurely 
gave  birth  to  a  child,  which  was  weak  and 
puny,  weighing  but  three  and  a  half  pounds 
at  birth.  There  were  blue  curtains  to  the 
windows  of  the  room  in  which  the  cliild  was 
reared,  and  those  were  arranged  so  that  the 
light  entering  the  room  came  about  equally 
through  tlie  blue  curtains  and  tlie  glass  of  the 
windows.  Tlie  child  began  to  thrive,  devel- 
oped a  tremendous  appetite,  while  the  lacteal 
system  of  the  mother  was  greaily  excited,  and 
her  supply  of  milk  greatly  increased.  The 
child  grew  rapidly  in  health,  strength  and  size, 
and  at  the  end  of  four  months  weighed  twen- 
ty-two pounds.  Commodore  Goldsborough  ex- 
perimented with  two  broods  of  chickens,  plac- 
ing one  under  blue  glass  and  the  other  in  an 
ordinary  coop.  The  former  soon  showed  the 
stimulating  effects  of  the  blue  glass,  their 
growth  being  almost  visible  from  day  to  day, 
and  their  strength,  size  and  vigor  far  exceeden 
that  of  the  chickens  in  the  ordinary  coop.  This 
is  testimony  f i  ora  a  gentleman  of  high  stand- 
ing who  is  in  the  habit  of  carefully  weighing 
his  words.     The 

Wife  of  a  Philadelphia  Physician 

was  suffering  from  a  complication  of  disorders, 
and  the  medical  fraternity  of  New  York  and 
Philadelphia  could  do  nothing  for  her.  Her 
husband.  Dr.  Beckwith,  writes  that  she  was 
suffering  from  nervous  irritation  and  exhaus- 
tion, wiiicli  resulted  in  severe  neuralgic,  and 
rheumatic  pains,  depriving  her  of  sleep  and 
appetite  for  food,  producing  great  debility  and 
a  wasting  away  of  the  body.  The  lady  and 
her  husband  had  abandoned  hope  of  her  re- 
covery. Gen.  Pleasonton  recommended  the 
trial  of  the  blue  glass,  and  accordingly  Dr. 
Beckwith  arranged  one  sash  of  a  window  with 
alternate  panes  of  blue  and  common  glass. 
His  wife  then  exposed  to  the  effect  of  the  as- 
sociated rays  of  blue  and  plain  light  those  por- 
tions of  her  body  which  were  affected  by  neu- 
ralgia. In  three  minutes  she  experienced  re- 
lief, and  in  ten  minutes  the  pains  disappeared. 
With  each  application  of  the  associated  lights, 
her  pains  became  less,herappetite  and  strength 
returned  and  in  three  weeks  she  was  restored 
to  h'^r  normal,  healthful  condition.  This  lady 
had  been  losing  her  hair  in  consequence  of  her 
sickness,  there  being  several  bald  places  on 
her  head.  Under  the  stimulating  effects  of 
the  blue  glass,  the  hair  began  to  grow  vigor- 
ously, and  tlie  bald  places  were  soon  covered 
with  a  luxuriant  growth  of  hair.  Dr.  Beck- 
with, in  relating  this  case,  says:  "From  my 
observations,  of  the  blue  and  sunlight  upon 
my  wife,  I  regard  it  as  the  greatest  stimulant 
and  most  powerful  tonic  that  I  know  of  in 
medicine.  It  will  be  invaluable  in  typhoid 
cases,  cases  of  debility,  nervous  depression, 
and  the  like." 

Two  Major  Generals, 
old  friends  of  Gen.  Pleasonton.  were  afllicted 
with  rheumatism  in  their  forearms,  from 
their  elbow-joints  to  their  finger-ends,  so  se- 
vere at  times  that  they  were  unable  to  hold 
pens.  They  determined  to  try  "Pleasonton's 
blue  glass,"  and  accordingly  obtained  a  piece 


of  blue  glass  and  set  it  up  loosely  in  one  of 
their  windows.  For  three  days  they  bared 
tlieir  arms  and  held  them  in  the  associated 
blue  and  sun  light  for  thirty  minutes.  Each 
day  brought  them  relief,  and  at  the  end  of 
three  days  the  rheumatism  had  disappeared. 
Two  years  later  they  both  informed  Gen. 
Pleasonton  that  they  had  not  had  a  return  of 
rheumatism  in  any  form.  A  little  child  that 
had,  from  its  birth,  scarcely  any  use  of  its  legs 
was  taken  to  play  daily  in  a  room  where  blue 
glass  formed  a  portion  of  one  of  the  windows. 
In  a  very  short  time  it  obtained  the  use  of  its 
legs  and  learned  to  walk  and  run  without 
ditliculty.  Numerous  other  cases  are  men- 
tioned in  Gen.  Pleasonton's  book  showing 
that  there  can  be  no  question  of  the  stinmlat- 
ing  and  curative  effects  of  the  as.sociated  blue 
and  sunlight.  But  I  prefer  to  give  my  own 
experience,  and  then  follow  with  Gen. 
Pleasonton's  explanation.  A  lady  of  my 
family,  about  si.x  weeks  ago,  had  a 

Violent  Hemorrhage  of  the  Lungs, 
and  for  ten  days  raised  more  or  less  blood  dai- 
ly. She  was  very  much  weakened  by  the  loss 
of  blood,  and  considerably  frightened  withal. 
I  obtained  some  blue  glass  and  placed  it  in 
the  window  where  she  was  in  the  habit  of  sit- 
ting, the  blue  glass  constituting  one-half  the 
lower  sash  of  the  window.  The  lady  sat  dai- 
ly in  the  associated  lights,  allowing  the  blue 
rays  especially  to  fall  upon  the  nerves  of  the 
back  of  the  neck  for  about  an  hour  a  day. 
The  second  day,  the  sun's  rays  being  unusu- 
ally strong,  she  got  "too  much  blue  glass," 
and  at  night  felt  peculiar  sensations  in  the 
back  of  the  neck,  among  the  nerves,  and  an 
unpleasant  fullness  in  the  head.  Tliese  sen- 
si"  tions  wore  off  next  day,  and  since  then  she 
has  not  remained  so  long  at  a  time  under  the 
blue  glass.  But  from  the  first  she  began  to 
grow  stronger,  her  face  soon  gained  its  natur- 
al fullness,  and  in  a  week  she  was,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, as  well  as  ever.  Of  course  she  was 
not  cured  of  the  trouble  in  her  lungs  in  so 
short  a  time,  but  the  soreness  in  her  chest  has 
passed  away,  and  she  begins  to  feel  well  again. 
After  sitting  in  the  associated  light  a  week, 
a  large  number  of  red  pimples  came  out  on 
her  neck  and  shoulders,  an  indication  that  the 
treatment  was  bringing  to  the  surface  the  hu- 
mors of  the  blood.  In  a  letter  to  me  Gen. 
Pleasonton  says:  "I  am  satisfied  that  if  this 
treatment  shall  be  continued  through  the  winter 
and  spring,  any  tuberculous  development  that 
may  exist  in  the  lungs  will  be  arrested,  its  pus 
absorbed  into  the  circulation,  and  then  thrown 
off  from  the  blood  in  the  e.xcretion  (as  has  oc- 
curred already  in  the  spots  on  the  body),  the 
wounds  of  the  tubercles  will  be  cicatrized 
and  the  lady  restored  to  a  condition  of  good 
health."  InthesaineletterGen.  Pleasonton  re- 
lates an  agreeable  incident  whicli  occurred  to 
him  but  a  few  weeks  since.  A  lady  and  her 
daughter  called  to  see  him,  and  announced 
that  they  had  come  from  Corning,  N.  Y.,  to 
Philadelphia,for  the  express  purpose  of  thank- 
ing him  for 

Saving  the  Daughter's  Life. 

Four  years  ago  she  was  afflicted  with  a  vio- 
lent attack  of  spinal  meningitis.  Her  sufferings 
were  indescribable,  but  continuous.  Every 
conceivable  remedy  had  been  resorted  to  diu'- 
ing  these  four  years,  but  the  patient  received 
no  benefit.  Her  nervous  system  at  last  be- 
came so  disordered  that  the  slightest  sound  or 
the  most  gentle  agitation  of  the  air  threw  hi'r 
into  the  most  agonizing  sufferinsr.  vShe  was 
wasted  away  in  flesh,  could  not  sleep  at  night, 
had  no  appetite,  and  her  life  was  despaired  of 
Hearing  of  Gen.  Pleasonton's  discovery  in 
associated  lights,  her  parents  determiiwd  to 
try  it.  A  bay  window  was  fitted  with  alter- 
nate panes  of  blue  and  plain  slass,  and  the 
young  lady  sat  daily  in  the  light  which  stream- 
ed tliDUgh  them.  Her  physicians,  of  course, 
laughed  at  the  idea,  pronounc -d  the  whole 
thing  a  humbug,  etc.,  as  is  the  habit  of  pro- 
fessional gentlemen  whenever  any  new  idea  is 
broached.  The  physician  was  dismissed,  and 
the  young  lady  relied  wholly  upon  the  blueglass 
treatment  for  her  restoration  to  health.    The 


lady  says  that  on  entering  the  room  thus 
lighted,  the  pains  from  which  she  was  suffer- 
ing almost  immediately  ceased.  They  would 
return  in  a  modified  form  on  leaving  the  room, 
but  grew  less  from  day  to  day.  Very  soon 
her  condition  began  to  improve,  her  appetite 
returned,  and  with  it  her  strength;  she  be- 
gan to  gain  tiesh,  her  sleeplessness  disappeared, 
and  in  short,  she  was  speedily  restored  to 
health. 

Hope  for  the  Bald-Headed. 
A  singular  feature  of  this  young  lady's  case 
was  that  her  hair  all  came  out  and  she  became 
as  bald-headed  as  an  egg.  Her  physician  ex- 
amined the  scalp  with  a  microscope,  and  de- 
clared that  there  were  no  roots  of  hair  remain- 
ing, and  that,  consequently,  she  would  never 
again  have  a  natural  head  of  hair.  This  au- 
noimcement  to  a  young  lady  was  worse  than 
wotild  have  been  the  reading  of  her  death  war- 
rant. Better  the  cold  grave  and  its  attendant 
worm  than  to  go  through  life  with  a  wig.  Under 
the  blue  glass  treatment,  the  hair  did  begin 
to  grow,  the  young  lady  discarded  her  wig, 
and  when  she  called  upon  Gen.  Pleasonton 
she  showed  him  a  luxuriant  growth  of  hair 
which  any  young  lady  might  envy.  She  was 
profusely  gratefid  to  the  General  for  having 
restored  her  hair,  and  incidentally  saved  her 
life.  So  much  for  examples  and  illustrations. 
These  and  numerous  others  which  I  might 
cile  if  you  had  space  to  print  them,  show  that 
the  blue  associated  with  the  sunlight  have  a 
wonderfully  stimulating  effect  upon  both  veg- 
etable and  animal  life,  and  have  cured  some 
diseases  with  which  the  human  family  is  af- 
rticted.  If  they  will  do  this,  everybody  ought 
to  know  it,  for  the  treatment  costs  nothing, 
and  is  a  great  saving  of  doctors'  bills.  Now 
for 

Gen.  Pleasonton's  Explanation 

of  the  curative  effects  of  the  associated  lights. 
In  his  letter  to  me  he  puts  it  thus  tersely: 
"Sunlight  passes  through  plain,  transparent 
glass  with  very  slight  obstruction,  as  it  does 
through  the  atmosphere  and  ether  of  space;  it 
produces  no  heat,  for  the  glass  remains  as  cold 
as  the  outside  atmosphere  while  the  sunlight 
passes  through  it.  When,  however,  the  ad- 
joining sunlight,  moving  with  the  same  veloc- 
ity as  the  first  mentioned,  viz.:  186,000  miles 
per  second, falls  upon  the  blue  panes  of  glass,six 
of  the  seven  primary  rays  of  sunlight  are  sud- 
denly arrested  by  it,  only  the  blue  rays  being 
permitted  to  pass  through  it  into  the  apart- 
ment. The  sudden  stoppage  of  these  six  raj's 
of  light,  with  its  enormous  velocity,  produces 
friction;  this  friction  evolves  negative  electri- 
city, which  is  the  electricity  of  sunlight  pass- 
ing throtigh  the  ether  of  space  and  our  cold 
atmosphere,  both  of  which  being  negatively 
electrified  impart  their  electricity  by  induc- 
tion to  the  rays  of  sunlight  as  they  pass.  The 
blue  glass  is  oppositely  electrified.  When  the 
opposite  electricities,  thus  brought  together, 
meet  at  the  surface  of  the  glass,  their  con- 
junction evolves  heat  and  magnetism;  the 
heat  expands  the  molecules  of  the  glass,  and 
a  current  of  electro-magnetism  jiasses  into 
the  room,  imparting  vitality  and  strength  to 
any  animal  or  vegetable  life  within  it.  When 
the  atmosphere  of  the  room  becomes  thus 
electro-magnetized,  its  inhabitants  i-aunot  fail 
to  derive  the  greatest  benefit  from  being  in 
it."  Gen.  Pleasonton's  book  is  devoted  to 
the  scientific  discussion  of  bis  theory,  and  to 
the  recital  of  proof  to  sustain  him.  He  bold- 
ly combats  many  theories  which  have  been 
acceiited  as  established  principles,  and  atily 
puts  forward  his  own  as  a  substitute.  For 
instances  lie  denies  the 

Newtonian  Theory  of  Gravitation, 
affirming  that  there  is  no  such  thing.  He 
holds  that  electricity  is  the  all-controlling- 
force  of  nature,  and  by  and  through  it  we  live 
and  have  our  being,  the  earth  revolves,  the 
planets  are  sustained  in  their  several  places, 
and  all  that.  He  further  denies  the  accepted 
theory  that  the  sun  is  an  incandescent  body, 
throwing  off  heated  rays,  and  that  there  is  any 
heat  in  the  sunlight.  He  argues  that  the  earth 
is  siu:rouaded  by  an  envelope  of  atmosphere 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


43 


and  ether  which  has  been  provcc]  to  be  of  a 
temperature  minus  one  liuiiuied  and  forty-two 
degrees  centigrade,  and  tliat  it  would  he  ali.so- 
solutelv  iniiiossiblc  for  the  sun's  rays  to  pene- 
trate tiiis  cold  envelope  for  a  distance  of  il2-, 
000,000  of  miles  and  preserve  any  portion  of 
heat  whatever.  According  to  Pleasonton, 
all  our  heat  is  evolved  from  the  earth,  and 
the  heat  and  cold  of  our  atmosphere  are  regu- 
lated by  the  dislance  of  this  cold  envelope 
from  the  earth,  Not  being  a  scientist,  and 
not  having  much  time  or  space  at  my  disposal 
I  shall  not  pretend  to  explain  Gen.  Ploason- 
ton's  ideas.  Let  those  who  wish  to  read  his 
book  send  to  Scribner  for  it,  inclosing  S'J,  and 
they  will  get  it.  Hut  "the  iiroof  of  the  pud- 
ding is  in  the  eating."  While  I  cannot  ex- 
plain scientilically  the  operation,  I  know  that 
the  blue  light,  in  conjunction  with  the  ])lain 
light,  has  i)roduce(l  wonderful  effects,  both  in 
curing  disease  and  otherwise.  It  costs  noth- 
ing to  try  it,  for,  although  a  patent  has  been 
issued  to  Gen.  Pleasonton  for  his  discovery, 
he  has  not  sought  to  profit  by  it.     Let 

Whoever  Desires  to  Experiment 

with  it,  whether  upon  vegetable  or  animal 
life,  go  ahead.  If  upon  vegetable  life,  the 
proportion  of  blue  glass  to  transparent  should 
be  about  one-eighth;  if  upon  animal  life,  let  it 
be  about  equal— one-half  blue  and  one-half 
transparent.  The  glass  used  is  a  dark  pur- 
plish blue,  and  can  be  obtained  almost  any- 
where. Get  a  few  panes  cut  to  the  size  of 
your  window  panes,  and  insert  them  alter- 
nately in  the  sash,  and  then  let  the  lame,  the 
halt,  and  the  blind  sit  within  its  influence. 
It  is  soon  tested,  and  at  a  trifling  cost.  The 
results  already  obtained  and  certified  to  by 
men  of  known  character  and  standing  are  sntli- 
cient  to  make  ridiculous  the  one  who  would 
cry  '■humbug."  Facts  are  facts,  and  cannot 
be  wiped  out.  Whatever  one  may  think  of 
Gen.  Pleasonton's  theories,  or  his  explanations 
of  the  results  obtained  by  his  cx]ierinients,  no 
one  who  reads  his  book  can  doubt  but  these 
results  have  been  obtained.  In  France,  his 
book  attracted  the  attention  of  the  best  scien- 
tists, who  are  now  experimenting  with  the 
blue  glass.  What  results  have  been  obtained 
is  not  known.  All  scientists  admit  that  elec- 
tricity is  a  force  regarding  which  very  little  is 
known.  They  are  all  striving  to  learn  more 
regarding  it,  and  to  make  it  more  subservient 
to  the  will  of  man.  Perhaps  Geu.  Pleasonton 
has  got 

A   Step  in  Advance 

of  all  of  them,  and  holds  the  key  of  the»pnzzle 
in  his  grasp.  I  should  add,  however,  that  he 
is.exceedingly'niodest  regarding  hisdiscovery, 
and  says:  "I  do  not  profess  to  teach  any  one; 
but,  as  a  human  atom  among  the  masses  of 
mankind,  for  whom  all  knowledge  should  be 
"disseminated,  I  venture  to  imi)art  to  the  pub- 
lic the  conclusions  to  which  I  have  arrived  on 
these  subjects,  and  that  the  public  may  attach 
to  them  whatever  value  they  please."  When 
I  see  a  near  and  dear  relative  daily  advancinc 
from  sickness  to  health,  gaining  strength  and 
vigor  from  the  application  of  his  theory,  I  for 
one  attach  very  considerable  weight  to  it.  In 
the  hope  that  others  may  be  induced  to  exper- 
iment in  this  dir8f;lion,  where  no  possible 
harm  can  follow  and  raueh  good  may  result, 
I  have  written  this  letter. — Qhicago  Tribune. 


GOLDEN  RULES  FOR  BEE-KEEPING. 

1.  For  success.  The  successful  bee-keeper 
should  be  firm,  fearless,  promjit,  provident, 
persevering,  systematic  and  self-reliant. 

2.  For  situation.  The  apiary  should  be  in 
a  sheltered  position,  near  a  small  stream,  and 
where  a  variet}'  of  honey -plants,  some  of  which 
yield  abmidani,  and  others  constant  supplies  of 
the  nectar. 

3.  For  removing  bees.  Allow  for  abund- 
ant ventilation,  close  up  firmly,  invert  and 
place  in  a  spring  wagon,  so  that  combs  run 
with,  and  not  across  the  wagon.  Unless  re- 
moved a  mile  or  more,  hives  should  be  moved 
by  degrees,  only  a  foot  or  two  at  a  time,  or 
many"  bees  will  be  lost. 


4.  For  hives.  Tlie  general  advantages  of 
manuf.acture,  simplicity,  capacity,  wintering 
anil  adaptation  to  the  requirements  of  the 
particular  apiarian  are  to  be  considered.  It 
is  essential  that  every  hive,  frame,  box,  and 
movable  part  be  of  the  same  size  so  that  each 
will  lit  with  all. 

5.  For  handling.  Move  gently  and  with- 
out sudden  or  violent  motions  in  all  work 
about  the  apiary. 

C.  For  subduing.  "Bees  filled  with  liquid 
sweets  do  not  volunteer  an  attack."  Hence, 
cause  thcin  to  fill  themselves  with  honey  by 
smoking  or  fii^hting. 

7.  For  smoking.  Use  dried  buffalo  chip 
from  the  cow  pen.  It  costs  notliii>g.  is  the 
best  material,  and  when  lighted  lasts  a  long 
time. 

8.  For  protection.  U.se  a  bobinet  vail 
sewed  up  and  open  at  the  both  ends,  one 
fastened  with  rubber  around  the  hat,  the  other 
secured  under  the  coat  collar. 

9.  For  sweeping  bees.  U.se  a  green  twig 
or  a  bunch  of  asparagus,  never  a  feather. 

10.  For  stings.  Do  dot  flinch  if  stung. 
Scrape  the  sting  out  with  a  knife  or  finger- 
nail, pinch  the  wound  and  apply  soda,  liarts- 
horn,  or  whatever  alkali  is  found  best  by  the 
particular  party. 

11.  For  increase.  Rear  queens,  or  have 
queen  cells  ready  from  nuclei  before  the  swarms 
are  made.  Make  but  few  swarms  if  honey  is 
desired. 

12.  For  nuclei.  Use  the  regular  frames 
and  hive  with  division  hoards  to  diminish  or 
increase  at  pleasure.  No  extra,  useless  comb 
is  then  needed,  and  they  are  easily  increased 
to  stands. 

18.  For  inserting  queens.  She  should  be 
fertile,  the  bees  aware  of  their  loss,  no  queen 
cells  started,  the  same  scent  given,  and  the 
bees  quiet,  when  she  is  released. 

14.  For  strength.  Keep  only  prolific  queens, 
feed  in  times  of  honey  drought,  check  undue 
swarming  by  destroying  queen  cells,  and  if 
neces.sary,  by  inserting  combs  of  capped  brood 
or  uniting  stocks. 

15.  For  honey.  Keep  the  hives  very  strong 
if  much  is  desired.  The  neater  the  box,  or 
jar.  the  better  the  price. 

1(1  For  a  queenless  colony.  Give  it  a 
qui'en,  queen  cell  or  eggs  at  once,  or  unite  it 
with  another  colony. 

17.  For  queens.  Raise  queens  from  select 
stocks.  Keep  only  prolific  ones,  and  supersede 
the  third  year  after  the  close  of  the  spring 
honey  harvest. 

18.  For  record.  Keep  a  record  of  the  age 
of  each  queen,  all  examinations  and  condi- 
tions of  the  hive,  on  a  card  or  tablet  fastened 
conveniently  in  the  top  of  each  hive. 

19.  For  using  extractors.  Use  sparingly 
except  in  the  midst  of  a  honey  harvest,  or 
directly  thereafter,  to  give  the  qiieen  room  for 
laying. 

20.  For  comb  guides.  Use  sharp  angles, 
or  strips  of  comb  in  the  centre  of  the  frames, 
and  tip  the  hive  forward  at  an  angle  of  25 
deg. 

21.  For  worker  comb.  Have  combs  built 
in  colonies  which  have  young  queens,  and 
always  near  the  centre  of  the  hive,  or  use 
artificial  foundations. 

22.  For  raising  drones.  A  square  inch  or 
two  of  drone  comb  is  sufficient  in  a  hive  to 
prevent  the  rearing  of  useless  drones. 

23.  For  cleansing  comb.  If  dry,  first  soak 
and  then  direct  a  stream  of  water  from  a 
syringe  iqion  the  comb  so  inchned  that  tiie 
water  carries  away  the  filth. 

24.  For  feeding.  Time— after  sunset,  with 
tepid  syrup  if  cool.  Season— liquid  food  in 
sununcr  and  fall,  and  solid  candy  in  winter. 
The  syrup  should  vary  from  eijual  part.s,  by 
measure,  of  .sugar  and  water,  for  summer,  to 
two  of  suijar  to  one  of  water,  for  fall  feeding. 
Alittle  vinegar  may  be  added  in  summer  to 
prevent  storage,  and  a  little  cream  of  tartar 
in  autumn  to  prevent  crystallization.  Freshly 
ground  oat.s  and  rye  for  pollen,  fed  in  a  diy, 
sunny  i)lace  in  spring. 

25.  For  removing  propolis.  Alcohol  cleanses 
it  from  glass,  benzine  dissolves  it,  but  the  best 


way  to  remove  it  from  quilts  is  by  rubbing  iu 
colil  weather. 

For  wintering.  Stocks  should  be  strong  in 
bees,  heavy  with  stores,  prottcled  from  sud- 
den changes  and  depredators,  with  veutilation 
according  to  temperature. 

27.  Against  moths.  Strong  colonics  with 
fertile  queens. 

28.  Against  robbers.  Contract  the  en- 
trinces  —  entirely  if  necessary.  Leave  no 
sweets  exposed. 

29.  Against  ants.  Pour  coal  oil,  or  car- 
bolic acid  into  their  haunts.  Seal  honey  in 
jars  or  jjlace  it  on  a  bench  or  swinging  shelf, 
with  a  good  wiile  chalk  mark  around  the  sup- 
ports. Ants  cannot  cross  a  fresh  chalk  mark 
if  wide  and  continuous. 

30.  I-'or  general  success  in  all  points. 
Keep  your  stocks  strong  I    Stuong  I  I 

Four  things  to  lie  learned  : 

1.  How  to  succeed  in  artificial  fertilization. 

2.  How  to  coax  bees  to  use  old  comb  in 
constructing  new. 

3.  How  to  prepare  pollen  for  use  in  the 
cells. 

4.  How  to  make  comb  foundations  that 
will  not  stretch. 

Yea  and 

5.  How  to  winter  successfully  without 
comb. — Bee-Kecper''s  Magazine. 


OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings   of   the   Lancaster   County    Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural   Society. 

A  stalcii  moetine  of  Hie  Lancaster  County  Agri- 
cultural ami  horticultural  .Society,  was  held  in  tlie 
rooms  of  tlic  Linn;pau  Society,  on  Monday  afternoon, 
March  .5,  the  following  named  gentlemen  being  pres- 
ent : 

Calvin  Cooper,  president;  Johnson  Miller,  eccre- 
tarv;  D.  \V.  f{ancl<,  Henry  ,M.  En;rle,  Reuben  Wea- 
ver, Martin  D.  Kendip,  John  C.  Linvillc,  Levi  W. 
firotf,  Mr.  Hitler,  Levi  Pownall,  E.  K.  Hershey, 
John  B.  Erti,  Jacob  B.  (iarber,  Simon  P.  Eliy,  C.  L. 
Hunsccker,  Prof.  S.  S.  Hathvon,  Peter  S.  Heist,  John 
Buslions;-,  Christian  Coble,  Georse  W.Sehroycr,  John 
.Miller,  Adam  Shreiner,  Levi  S.  Relet,  Jacob  R.  WIU 
mer,  Klias  Hershey. 

Crop  reports  bcin?  called  for,  Mr.  Esole  stated 
that  there  was  very  little  to  report;  frequent  frecz- 
inir  and  thawinp  had  browned  the  wiuter  wheat 
somewhat,  but  had  not  hurt  it.  Some  of  the  peach 
buds  had  been  liilled  by  the  severity  of  the  winter, 
hut  there  were  enouerh  unhurt  to  insure  a  i;ood 
yield.  The  lowest  temperature  during  the  season, 
at  tiis  place,  was  C  decrees  below  zero.  The  lowest 
during  the  past  month  was  is  above  zero,  and  the 
highest  fi.5.  Tlie  rain  fall  during  the  past  monlb 
was  2'.c  inches. 

Mr.  HiLi.EK,  of  Conestoga,  said  the  fruit  in  his 
neightiorhood  was  unhurt.  The  thermometer  at  no 
time  marked  a  lower  temperature  than  2  degrees 
atxjve  zero. 

Mr.  J.  B.  Err  had  noticed  that  the  winter  wheat 
was  in  some  places  injured  by  repeated  freezing  and 
thawing. 

President  Cooper  had  examined  a  great  many 
peach  buds  and  found  them  all  kilted.  The  lowest 
temperature  was  6  decrees  lielow  zero. 

Mr.  E.  K.  Hersiiet  read  an  Interesting  paper 
on  the  question  referred  to  him  at  last  meetinEr: 
"How  much  lime  should  be  used  toanacreof  landf" 
He  said  agticullural  chemists  greatly  dilTeiecl  as  to 
the  utility  of  lime  on  laud.  Some  say  that  the  con- 
stitueiilsof  lime,  if  they  at';  not  already  in  the  soil, 
must  be  put  there  by  the  farmer.  Others  regard 
lime  as  of  very  little  account  under  the  best  circum- 
stances, while  sometimes  it  did  alisolute  harm.  Mr. 
Hershey  thought  that  its  chief  utility  is  its  quality  as 
an  alkaline  re-agent.  He  thought  many  farmers 
used  entirely  loo  much  of  it.  He  recommended 
from  15  to  30  bushels  per  acre,  according  to  the  na- 
ture of  the  soil,  and  to  lie  employed  annually  as  a 
top  dressing,  in  as  line  panicles  as  possible,  after  be- 
ing slaked.  As  the  application  ol  lime  as  a  fertil- 
izer was  a  question  on  w  hicli  farmers  greatly  differ- 
ed, he  urged  members  of  Ihc  society  to  make  experi- 
ments and  lay  the  r  res-jlts  lielbre  the  society. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Ej)«i,E  lliouiht  too  much  lime  was 
generally  used;  smaller  quantities  more  freqliently 
applied  will  do  more  cood  than  the  large  quantities 
sometimes  used;  some  farmers  use  from  100  to  15o 
liuslicls  per  acre;  this  is  too  much. 

.Mr.  J.  C.  I.ixviLi.E  said  some  soils  would  hear 
from  100  to  .00  bushels  per  acre,  while  others  would 
not  bear  M  bushels.  Where  the  soil  is  not  more 
than  six  inches  deep  and  one-half  gravel,  it  will  not 
fake  up  much  lime;  it  should  therefore  be  put  on 
sparingly.  In  clay  soil  it  may  be  put  on  more  heav- 
ily.   Where  there  is  not  much  vegetable  matter  In 


44 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


[  March, 


the  soil,  lime  will  do  more  harm  than   good.      As   a 
manure  it  is  of  very  little  value. 

Mr.  HiLLER  paid  the  tobacco  growers  in  his 
neighborhood  limed  very  heavily — from  100  to  lOO 
bushels  jjer  acre — and  in  addition  added  large  quan- 
tities of  barnyard  manure,  and  plowed  both  in  to- 
gether. In  this  way  they  raised  immense  crops  of 
tobacco. 

Mr.  Levi  W.  Groff  did  not  have  much  faith  in 
lime.  Some  years  ago  he  bought  a  quantity,  and 
spread  it  on  a  strip  of  ground  through  the  centre  of 
a  field,  at  the  rate  of  EOO  bushels  per  acre.  He  sow- 
ed his  seed,  and  when  the  crop  ripened  it  was  im- 
possible to  see  any  difference  in  the  yield.  It  was 
neither  better  nor  woi-se  than  in  the  parts  of  the  field 
that  were  not  limed.  The  whole  field  was  manured 
heavily  with  barnyard  manure.  Mr.  Groff  said  he 
would  like  to  know  whether  a  useful  kind  of  phos- 
phate might  not  be  made  by  adding  lime  to  green 
sawdust.  Would  not  the  lime  deprive  the  sawdust 
of  its  acid  and  assist  in  rotting  it? 

Mr  S.  P.  Eby  thought  not.  The  lime  would  have  a 
tendency  to  preserve  rather  than  destroy  the  sawdust. 
We  whitewash  fences  and  buildings  to  preserve  them. 
Mr.  Eby  gave  an  illustration  of  the  value  of  lime  on 
gravel  soil— instancing  a  farm  that  was  compara- 
tively valueless  until  lime  was  liberally  applied. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Engle  thought  the  action  of  lime  when 
mixed  with  the  soil  might  be  very  diflerent  from  its 
action  when  applied  to  wood. 

Mr.  E.  K.  Hershey  suggested  that  gypsum  would 
be  better  than  lime  to  mix  with  the  sawdust  spoken 
of  by  Mr.  Urolf. 

Mr.  J.  C.  LiNViLLE  had  not  much  faith  in  either 
plan,  but  would  use  lime  in  preference  to  gypsum  to 
compost  the  sawdust,  and  would  then  use  the  saw. 
dust  very  sparingly.  It  is  well  known  that  lime  will 
preserve  wood  when  it  is  kept  dry,  but  will  not  pre- 
serve it  when  it  is  in  a  moist  soil,  as  may  be  seen  by 
the  rotting  of  whitewashed  posts  and  fences  at  or 
under  the  surface  of  the  ground. 

Mr.  HiLLEK  said  if  he  had  a  pile  of  sawdust  such 
as  Mr.  Grotl's,  he  would  rot  it  with  liquid  manure — 
with  the  draiuage  from  the  manure  pile  in  the  barn- 
yard. 

President  Cooper  said  he  had  successfully  used 
gypsum  by  spreading  it  over  the  manure  pile,  es- 
pecially when  there  were  a  great  many  cornstalks  in 
it. 

Mr.  Maktin  D.  Ken-diS,  referring  to  Mr.  Groff's 
statement,  that  he  could  see  no  diSerence  in  a  limed 
strip  of  land  from  the  land  that  was  not  limed,  said 
he  knew  of  a  strip  of  land  that  was  limed  ten  years 
ago,  at  the  rate  of  100  or  150  bushels  to  the  acre, 
and  that  the  good  re.<iults  of  liming  can  yet  be  seen 
by  the  increased  crops  grown  on  that  strip. 

Mr.  E.  K.  Heksuey,  in  answer  to  a  question,  said 
that  air-slaked  lime  is  not  as  good  as  water-slaked 
lime,  because  the  former  contains  more  carbonic 
acid  than  the  latter. 

Mr.  J.  C.  Lixvii^LE  thought  the  best  time  to  ap- 
ply lime  was  after  the  wheat  has  been  harvested, 
and  the  best  niode  was  to  distribute  it  in  as  small 
particles  as  possible.  Phosphates  he  thought  were 
of  little  or  no  value.  He  had  covered  strips  of  land 
with  them  and  failed  to  see  any  advantage  resulting 
therefrom. 

In  applying  lime,  Mr.  Engle  favored  putting  it  in 
small  heaps  covered  with  earth  before  spreading  it. 
The  various  propeities  of  the  lime  are  thus  preserved 
and  absorbed  by  the  soil. 

Mr.  Levi  Pow.\all  believed  that  crops  might  be 
doubled  by  the  judicious  use  of  lime.  He  believes 
that  it  loses  i.(me  of  its  virtues  by  lying  unused;  in- 
deed the  lime  in  old  mortar  seems  to  be  better  than 
fresh  slaked  lime.  As  an  illustration  of  the  value 
of  lime  he  spoke  of  what  used  to  be  known  as  the 
"barrens,"  in  the  southeastern  part  of  the  county, 
which  have  been  made  fruitful  farms  by  the  liberal 
use  of  lime.  These  barrens  were  partly  slate,  partly 
gravel,  and  partly  limestone  land,  and  all  these  soils 
had  been  equally  benefited  by  lime.  He  had  used 
phosphates  and  thought  he  had  in  some  cases  re- 
ceived benefit  from  tliem,  but  as  a  general  rule  he 
had  been  cheated  in  them. 

Mr.  Christian  Coble  said  before  he  commenced 
liming  h  s  land  he  could  raise  only  12  or  15  bushels 
of  corn  to  the  acre;  now  he  raises  from  75  to  100 
bushels.  He  uses  on  clay  sod  from  100  to  1.50  bush- 
els per  acre,  every  four  years,  and  is  certain  he  de- 
rives great  benefit  from  this  method. 

Mr.  Peter  S.  Reist  said  that  L5  or  30  years  ago 
his  father  applied  from  ICO  to  100  bushels  of  lime 
per  acre  to  part  of  his  land.  Scarcely  any  difference 
could  be  seen  at  the  time  in  the  crops  on  the  limed 
and  unlimed  parts  of  the  farm.  But  a  great  ditter- 
ence  can  be  seen  now;  where  all  was  sterility  then, 
all  is'fertility  now.  Those  who  use  lime  have  good 
crops  and  those  who  don't  have  not.  All  good  farm- 
ers now  use  lime  and  their  farms  have  advanced  in 
value  from  .00  to  oOO  per  cent. 

The  question,  "  VVheu  is  the  best  time  to  plant  clo- 
verseed"  gave  rise  to  a  long  discussion  and  almost 
every  month  in  the  yearwas recommended,  and  half- 
a-dozen  different  modes  of  putting  in  the  seed  were 
advocated. 

President  Cooper  would  sow  the  seed  on  top  of 
the  snow. 


Christian  Coble  would  sow  it  on  the  ground 
when  it  was  hard  and  dry  and  cracked  open  by  bak- 
ing. 

Levi  W.  Groff  would  sow  on  wheat  stubble  and 
trust  to  wet  weather  for  crop. 

Levi  S.  HeIst  sowed  in  April  and  failed  ;  some  of 
his  neighbors  sowed  in  the  spring  with  no  better  re- 
sult and  some  did  well  by  sowing  on  wheat  stubble. 

John  B.  Erb  sowed  during  harvest  and  failed. 

M.  D.  Kendig  sowed  after  harvest  with  good  re- 
sult. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Engle  thought  spring  was  the  best  time 
to  sow,  but  the  weather  had  much  to  do  with  the  re- 
sult. He  believed  the  ground  should  be  as  well  pre- 
pared for  cloverseed  as  for  any  other  crop.  The  best 
clover  he  had  was  when  he  sowed  the  seed  with 
his  oats. 

Mr.  Levi  PowNALL  had  sown  seed  in  well  culti- 
vated ground  and  also  in  wheat  stubble,  and  the  one 
turned  out  just  as  well  as  the  other.  Spring  sowing 
might  be  done  from  the  middle  of  March  to  the  last 
of  April. 

Mr.  Levi  S.  Reist  in  sowing  seed  used  about  four 
quarts  to  the  acre. 

Mr.  E.  K.  Hershey  suggested  as  an  experiment, 
first,  that  the  seed  should  be  sown  and  harrowed  in; 
and  second,  on  another  plot,  the  ground  should  be 
harrowed  the  seed  sown  afterwards.  The  harrow 
should  be  made  of  a  piece  of  plank  with  20-peuuy 
spikes  driven  through  it. 

Mr.  Levi  W.  Groff  said  he  intended  to  experi- 
ment by  sowing  cloverseed  on  young  wheat,  and  fol- 
low the  seeding  with  a  drag,  a  kind  of  sled  without 
teeth.  He  feared  that  teeth  would  injure  the  roots 
of  the  wheat. 

"How  shall  we  build  agood  and  cheap  pump  house 
with  a  fruit  cellar  under  it?"  was  a  question  proposed 
by  Mr.  John  B.  Erb. 

A  debate  followed  in  which  several  gentlemen 
agreed  that  a  pump  house  would  not  be  a  fit  place  for 
a  fruit  cellar,  as  the  dampness  from  the  well  would 
injuriously  affect  the  fruit.  Mr.  Erb  was  of  a  d  ffer- 
ent  opinion.  The  cellar  under  his  house  was  too  dry 
lor  fruit,  and  as  a  consequence  the  fruit  shrank.  He 
thought  the  dampnefs  of  a  properly  constructed 
pump  house  would  not  injure  the  fruit.  He  had  fre- 
quently buried  apples  in  the  ground  covered  with 
straw,  and  they  kept  very  well. 

Mr.  Hershey  had  done  the  same  last  fall,  and  had 
examined  his  buried  apples  a  few  days  a^o  and  found 
them  in  good  condition,  while  those  in  his  cellarwere 
rotten. 

Mr.  Engle  would  not  hnild  such  a  fruit  cellar  as 
that  proposed  by  Mr.  Erb,  nor  bury  his  apples  as 
pnpposed  by  Mr.  Hershey,  as  buried  apples  are  apt 
to  have  an  earthy  flavor.  The  common  plan  of  pack- 
ing winter  apples  in  barrels,  and  keeping  them  as 
near  the  freezing  point  as  possible,  is  a  good  plan. 
Barreled  apples  will  stand  several  deerecs  below  the 
freezing  point  without   material  injury. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Rathton  read  a  very  interestin?  paper 
in  answer  to  the  question:  "Will  the  unusually 
large  crop  of  tobacco  worms,  of  the  last  season  be 
likely  to  produce  a  correspondingly  large  crop  of 
worms  next  season?"  See  page  37  in  this  number  of 
the  Farmer. 

Mr.  P.  S.  Reist  read  a  paper  in  answer  to  the 
question  as  to  whether  it  was  an  advantage  to  select 
seed  corn  from  the  middle  of  large  and  well  devel- 
oped ears.  He  said  it  had  been  his  custom  to  select 
the  largest  and  best  grains  for  seed,  but  some  of  his 
neighbors,  who  were  not  so  particular  in  this  respect 
raised  just  as  good  corn  as  he  did,  and  as  much  of  it. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Engle  made  a  stronsr  argument  in  fa- 
vor of  selecting  the  best  seed  for  corn,  as  well  as  all 
other  crops.  He  exhibited  .'e.'er,nl  very  fine  ears  of 
corn,  and  advised  that  in  selecting  seed  the  lai-gist 
and  most  fully-developed  grains  should  be  chosen, 
and  the  grains  near  both  ends  of  the  cob  rejected. 
He  also  exhibited  some  fine  specimens  of  pe.-re  ^, 
snowllake,  and  Brownell's  beauty  potatoes,  and  re- 
commended that  the  largest  and  best  potatoes  should 
be  selected  for  seed,  on  the  same  principle  that  the 
largest  and  best  cattle  and'horses  are  selected  for  the 
propagation  of  fine  stock. 

Mr.  P.  S.  Reist  reported  that  he  had  obtained  75 
subscribers  to  the  Lancaster  FARiitR  and  hoped  to 
increase  his  list  to  100.  He  spoke  a  good  word  for 
allou'  local  newspapers  and  hoped  his  fellow  mem- 
bers would  subscrilje  for  as  many  as  they  could  read 
and  pay  for,  without  regard  to  sect  o\  politics. 

Mr.  Geo.  H.  Becutel,  by  permission  called  the 
attention  of  the  society  to  the  merits  of  a  patent  seed 
cleaner  and  separator. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  for  discus- 
sion at  next  meeting; 

„  What  is  the    best    method    of   exterminating  the 
peach  tree  borer?     Referred  to  H.  M.  Engle. 

Is  there  any  advantage  in  selecting  the  larger 
grains  of  wheat  for  seed  ?     Referred  to  P.  S.  Reist. 

Is  it  not  dangerous  and  criminal  to  use  Paris  green 
on  cabbages  and  vegetables  or  fruits  for  market  ? 
Referred  to  Johnson  Miller. 

"Corn  culture  and  its  best  varieties"  was  selected 
for  discussion  at  the  next  meetins:. 

Levi  Pownall  was  selected  for  essayist  at  the 
next  meeting,  * 

Mr.  Levi  W .  Gboff  presented  samples  of  "mam 


moth  rye,"  the  grains  of  which  are  unusually  large 
and  of  a  fine  amber  color. 

The  librarian  was,  on  motion,  directed  to  have  the 
library  brought  from  the  court  house  to  the  rooms 
of  the  Linnsean  society. 

On  motion  the  society  adjourned  to  meet  on  the 
last  Wednesd.ay  in  March. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Minnesota  Wheat  and  Flour. 

The  American  Miller,  an  able  periodical  of  Chica- 
go, devoted  to  the  milling  interest,  contains  an  article 
on  the  great  staple  of  Minnesota,  which  is  of  consid- 
erable interest.  The  superiority  of  the  flour  manu- 
factured in  this  State  is  acknowledged,  as  is  also 
the  fact  that  the  lime  is  not  remote  when  all  the  ex- 
ports of  breadstuffs  from  Minnesota  will  be  in  the 
shape  of  flour,  instead  of  in  the  raw  material  as  here- 
tofore. The  American  Miller  then  continues  its  com- 
ments, which  are  particularly  commended  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  agriculturists  of  .Minnesota,  as  follows: 

The  rapid  growth  of  Minnesota  as  a  wheat  pro- 
ducing State,  and  the  building  up  within  her  bound- 
aries of  a  milling  interest  scarcely  less  than  that  of 
Hunu'ary,  has  naturally  given  rise  to  much  gratuitous 
prophecy  and  criticism  on  the  part  of  competing  sec- 
tions of  the  country.  In  their  zeal  to  disprove  that 
Minnesota  can  ever  become  the  milling  center  of  the 
country,  many  have  even  asserted  that  the  flour 
made  in  her  mills  is  of  a  really  inferior  quality,  and 
only  needs  time  to  demonstrate  its  unfitness  for  gen- 
eral use  in  the  culinary  department  of  home."  A 
statement  so  erroneous  hardly  needs  to  be  disproved, 
for  it  is  well  known  that  th.at  Minnesota  flour  is  un- 
usually strong  and  possesses  all  the  elements  of  nu- 
trition to  a  superior  degree.  But  there  is  one  declar- 
ation which  has  been  uttcr.'d  which  really  seems  to 
have  a  foundation  in  fact.  It  has  frequently  been  as- 
ser  ed  tha'-  the  soil  of  .Minnesota  is  too  light  to  stand 
the  continuous  production  of  wheat  as  a  remunera- 
tive crop,  and  that  she  would  soon  go  the  way  of 
her  older  sister  States,  and  adopt  some  other  gr.ain 
as  her  staple.  This  statement  and  prophesy  have  in 
a  measuie  been  verified,  if  it  is  fair  to  take  a  single 
year  as  a  ciiterion.  We  find  it  stated  on  standard 
atiricultural  authorities  that,  the  soil  of  Minnesota 
alriady  shows  signs  of  exhaustion,  and  that  the  aver- 
aire  crop  in  most  sections  of  the  State  last  year  was 
only  a  little  over  eight  bushels  to  the  acre.  Much 
of  this  decline  in  her  crop  is  directly  attributable  to 
other  causes,  but  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  that 
the  best  days  of  wheat  raising  have  passed  away  in 
many  sections  of  the  State.  If  it  is  true, as  assert- 
ed, tliat  the  soil  of  Minnesota  is  already  becoming 
weak,  a  steady  decline  in  the  average  production  of 
wheot  per  acre  may  be  expcc'ed,  though  the  supply 
may  be  quite  as  lar^ic  as  heretofore  owing  to  the  in- 
creased numberof. acres  which  may  be  putinto  wheat. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  scientific  farming  would 
hardly  pay  in  a  State  so  youn  r  as  iSIinnesota,  the  in- 
quiry naturally  su'isests  itself,  "What  will  become 
of  her  SDlcndid  milling  industry  if  her  supply  of 
wheat  fails?  '  We  do  not  anticipate  that  any  disas- 
trous r^sul's  would  accrue  to  the  millers  of  Minne- 
sota, even  if  the  supply  sh.ould  become  inadequate. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  a  c'ood  share  of  Minne- 
so'a's  annual  wheat  crop  is  shipped  out  of  the  State 
to  be  maniifiiclured  at  other  mills.  This  margin 
clearly  would  be  available  to  the  millers  nearest  the 
wheal  field,  and  all  the  more  so  since  these  fields  are 
at  a  distance  from  our  exporting  centres,  and  only 
sent  there  because  i's  superior  excellence  commands 
a  superior  price.  Moreover  it  must  be  remembered 
that  wheat  was  first  planted  in  Minnesota  as  an  ex- 
periment, and  it  has  not  yet  been  satisfactorily  de- 
i.erniined  how  far  north  the  limit  of  the  sprinr  wheat 
section  may  extend.  The  millers  of  Minnesota  may 
yet  render  the  future  wheat  fields  of  Dakota  and 
Manitoba  tributary  to  their  mills.  One  point,  how- 
ever, has  more  force  than  all  o-hers  looking  to  the 
perpetuity  of  the  millinT  industry  of  Minnesota,  and 
that  is  the  superior  enterprise  and  skill  of  her  mill- 
ers. Raw  material  always  seeks  those  places  of 
manufacture  where  these  two  qualities  are  displayed. 
Great  Britain  and  Mew  Enirland  do  not  raise  a  pound 
of  cotton,  and  yet  they  manufacture  cotton  itoods 
for  half  of  the  world.  The  superior  skill  manifested 
in  these  two  localities  has  naturally  made  them  the 
factories  of  the  two  continents,  and  Minnesota  mill- 
ers would  supply  themselves  with  wheat  from  Texas 
or  Oregon  if  nece.'^sary  to  the  existence  of  their  mills. 
Manufacturing  centres  do  not  change  so  easily  as 
those  of  airriculture,  \vliich  change  their  location  nat- 
urally as  the  soil  becomes  poorer.  Costly  apparatus 
arc  not  abandoned  in  the  first  struggle;  and  having 
already  made  a  world-wide  reputation,  the  millers 
of  Minnesota  will  stand  for  years  to  come  in  the  van- 
guard of  the  niillins  industry  of  our  country.  It  is 
not  likely,  however,  that  any  perceptible  diminu- 
tion of  the  wheat  supply  will  occur  for  some  time  to 
come  from  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil.  Minnesota  is 
yet  a  young  and  undeveloped  State,  and  we  see  no 
cause  for  dark  prophecies  respecting  the  future  of 
her  grain  supoly  until  the  unwelcome  fact  is  demon- 
strated by  the  failure  of  more  than  one  crop. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


45 


Harrowing  Wheat  in  Spring. 

The  advantafreof  harrowinj  wheat  laii'ls  thorouffli- 
ly  in  the  spi-  n;r,  as  the  srroiind  Ix-conics  dry  eiioueh 
to  preven'  the  horses  'roin  sinkiiv.;'  into  it,  is  known 
to  many  farmers  wlio  have  praclieed  it,  liut  is  un- 
known to  tlie  majority.  Wheat  is  usually  -sown  in 
September,  upon  well  prepared  land.  This  land  is 
left  there  snlijeet  to  all  the  slornis  of  rain  ami  snow, 
and  the  weather  in  sueecedinLr  spring,  until  after  the 
wheat  is  harvested.  In  eonsequenee,  the  land  be- 
comes in  .May  and  June  nearly  as  hard  as  a  meadow. 
At  a  sca^on  of  the  year,  svben  the  plants  are  in  the 
greatest  vicor  of  irrowtli.  the  land  is  so  hard  as  not 
to  give  one  half  the  nour  sliment  it  would  if  kept 
mellow  by  any  process.  Suppose  for  inslanee,  eorn 
should  he  planted  intlie  fall,  undersiniilareondilions 
with  wheal,  and  that  the  winter  did  not  injure  it : 
and  that  it  were  left  without  eultivalion  of  any  sort 
uniil  harvesting' ;  it  is  evident  that  the  yield  would 
be  diminished  over  one-half ;  n  fact  the  yield  would 
probably  be  so  light  and  poor  as  to  be  almost  worth- 
less. 

Now,  wheat,  from  many  experiments  in  itecultiva- 
tion  by  hand  in  Enirland,  shows  as  irreat  sensitive- 
ness as  eorn  ;  the  yield,  by. careful  hand  cultivation, 
beina;  increased  to  fiO,  and  in  some  instances,  SO 
bushels  per  acre.  Now,  a  thorough  liarrowinGf  of 
wheat  in  the  spring,  in  a  very  inexpensive  manner, 
performs  the  cultivation  nearl}'  as  well  as  when  done 
by  hand.  If  the  crust  formed  by  the  winter  snows 
and  sprin?  rains  is  thorouuhly  broken,  and  eround 
to  the  depth  of  two  or  more  inches  well  pulverized, 
the  effect  upou  the  wheat  is  almost  like  inagie.  It 
starts  in!o  the  most  vigorous  srrowth,  and  in  a  few- 
weeks  lias  nearly  or  quite  doubled  in  size  the  wheat 
not  harrowed.  In  pieces  of  wheat  which  have  come 
under  the  writer's  observation,  which  was  harrowed 
in  strips,  that  is,  one  strip  not  harrowed  at  all,  and 
the  other  strips  on  each  side  I hoi-oni;hly  harrowed, 
in  the  early  part  of  June,  tlie  harrowed  wheat  stood 
fully  one  foot  higher  than  the  unharrowed  at  each 
side,  and  in  every  way  was  strikingly  ranker  aud  more 
vigorous. 

Mr.  Robert  J.  Swan,  of  Ilose  Hill  Farm,  Geneva, 
N.  Y.,  who  has  heavy  clod  land,  says  he  has  harrow- 
ed his  wheat  for  four  years  with  the  Thomas  harrow 
and  finds  the  yield  to  be  increased  fully  ten  bushels 
per  acre.  Byram  Moulton,  of  Alexander,  Genesee 
county,  N.  Y.,  haivested  from  fifty  acres  1,000 
bushels  of  wheat.  His  neighhors  only  obtained  about 
ten  bushels  per  acre.  The  only  difference  in  land  or 
treatment  was  that  Moulton's  wheat  was  thoroughly 
harrowed  with  the  same  implement  in  the  spring,  and 
his  neighbor's  was  not. 

The  efteet  produced  by  harrowing  barley  and  oats, 
after  they  have  obtained  a  growth  of  four  or  five 
inches  is  equally  as  marked.  1  have  observed  many 
instances  where  fully  twenty  bushels  per  acre  increase 
in  consequence  of  thorough  harrowing  was  obtained. 

These  facts  and  many  others  of  similar  character 
show  clearly  the  great  profit  which  farmers  may  de- 
rive from  a  thorough  cultivation  by  harrowing  of 
wheat,  oats,  barley  and  other  sown  crops. 


Corn  Fodder. 


A  correspondent  of  the  Chiciign  Tribune,  in  a  letter 
on  steam-feeding,  gives  the-  following  directions  in 
regard  to  raisin^::  — 

Last  winter,  owing  to  the  failure  of  the  hay-crop,  I 
kept  over  my  entire  stock,  consisting  of  twenty 
horses,  about  twenty  head  of  cattle,  and  between 
•1,600  and  1,700  sheep,  without  a  pound  of  hay,  and 
they  came  into  spring  in  better  condition  tbau  they 
have  ever  done  on  dry  feed. 

The  sheet  anchor  of  steam-feeding  is  the  fodder  of 
Bowed  corn  or,  in  short,  fodder-eorn.  Perhaps  your 
readers  will  be  interested  in  the  plans  followed  here 
in  sowiuL',  harvesting,  and  curing  this  crop,  as  they 
differ  in  some  respects  Irom  Ihose  pursued  and  re- 
commended by  other  practical  farmers. 

The  ground  is  prepared  the  last  week  in  May  by 
ploushing,  and  a  sufficient  number  of  harrowings 
and  rollings  to  brim  it  into  good  tilth.  The  corn  is 
sowed  the  first  week  in  June  with  a  Bilckeye  wheat 
drill  all  the  hoes  down  and  working — at  the  rate  of 
two  bushels  per  acre.  Nothing  more  can  be  done  to 
the  crop  till  the  latter  part  of  August  o'r  first  of  Sep- 
tember, when  it  is  ready  for  harvesting. 

This  is  done  with  a  Champion  table-rake  reaper, 
riffged  as  lor  cutting  wheat.  The  reaper  is  driven 
around  the  field  as  in  cutting  wheat,  and  delivers  the 
fodder  in  gavels  at  the  side.  Eight  mtn  follow  the 
machine,  arranged  in  four  pairs,  each  pair  havin.r,  of 
course,  onc-lburlh  of  the  circuit  of  the  field  for  a 
"  station,"  and  a  light  two-legged  corn  "  horse,"  like 
those  in  common  use  lor  shocking  corn.  Each  pair 
after  taking  its  station,  carries  its  "horse"  past  two 
gavels,  sets  down  the  "horse,"  stands  four  gavels 
into  the  four  angles  formed  by  the  "horse"  and  its 
cross-pin,  brings  the  tops  ofthe  shock  neatly  together, 
and  ties  them  with  wool  twine,  draws  out  the  cross- 
pin,  and  is  ready  for  another  shock.  For  the  eight 
followers,  the  team,  driver,  and  machine,  eight  acres 
Is  a  fair  day's  work.  The  stalks  themselves  may  be 
used  for  tying  the  tops,  but  twine  is  lound  to  be  suf- 
ficiently mure  expeditious  to  compensate  lor  the  cost. 


.^fter  standin?  ten  to  fifteen  days,  till  the  fodder  is 
nearly  cured,  and  is  in  a  lough  stale,  the  shocks  are 
taken  down,  and  each  tied  into  four  or  five  sheavcsor 
bundles,  the  stalks  them.'elves,  in  this  condilion, 
making  excellent  bands,  and  twelve  or  more  bundles 
made  into  a  largo  shock,  the  topsbelngsecured  either 
with  fodder  bands,  or  with  the  twine  used  In  the  first 
instance.  The  shocks  stand  in  the  Held  till  they  are 
wanted  for  use. 

Just  here  comes  the  most  serious  objection  to  the 
feeding  of  fodder  corn.  There  arefimesin  the  winter 
when  both  weather  and  roads  are  bad  ;  when  a 
deeply-ploughed  cornfield  is  anything  l)ut  an  agree- 
able road  beil  f)r  the  hauling  of  heavy  loads  ;  when 
the  fodder  itself  is  wet,  or  covered  with  sleet,  ice,  or 
snow,  or  its  lower  end  perhaps  tiirhtly  glued  to  the 
ground  by  frost.  But  the  fodder  is  so  cliartred  with 
rich  saccharine  matter  that  howeverdry  itmayseem, 
and  however  cold  the  weather  may  be,  there  is 
danger  that  if  stored  in  bulk  in  a  mow.  or  even  In 
stacks,  it  will  ferment,  heat  and  spoil.  Atsuch  times 
it  is  well  to  have  other  feed  under  cover  to  depend 
upon. 

An  experience  covering  three  years,  and  the  growth 
of  over  700  tons  of  fodder,  seems  to  warrant  the  fol- 
lowing conclusions  : 

1.  The  fodder  grows  from  five  to  twelve  feet  In 
heiffht,  and  averages  from  seven  to  Dine  feet,  de- 
pendinir  on  soils  and  seasons. 

2.  Fodder  grown  on  land  of  good  average  fertility 
stands  better  feed  than  on  soil  too  rich, "where  the 
growth  is  too  fall,  rank  and  coarse. 

o.  The  pi'oper  time  for  cutting  is  before  frost,  of 
course,  and  when  the  lower  six  or  eight  inches  of  the 
stalk  assumes  a  yellow  tinire.  It  is  then  ripe.  If  cut 
sooner,  there  is  danger  of  its  moulding  in  the  shock  : 
if  later,  the  fibre  is  more  woody,  and  there  is  risk  of 
frost. 

4.  It  is  vastly  less  dependent  upon  the  weather  for 
its  curing  than  hay.  The  idea  that  fine  weather  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  its  curing,  and  the  fear  that 
a  little  rain  would  spoil  all,  was  expressed  by  others, 
and  felt  by  myself  at  first,  hut  turned  out  to  be  a 
"bugaboo."  During  the  cutting  and  curing  of  the 
two  largest  crops,  very  rainy  weather  was  encoun- 
tered; yet  not  one-fif,  h  of  1  per  cent,  of  the  fodder 
that  slood  in  the  shock,  and  was  kept  from  lying  on 
the  ground,  moulded.  After  it  is  well  secured  in  the 
small  shocks,  neither  rain  nor  frost  seems  to  damage 
if;  as  indeed  they  do  not  usually  do  the  large  fodder 
that  has  matured  corn. 

5.  A  ton  of  bright  fodder-eorn  is  worth  more  than 
ihree  Ions  o(  corn  fodder  that  has  matured  grain, 
and  as  much  as  an  equal  weight  of  good  hay 

fi.  An  average  crop  of  fodder-corn  on  good  land  is 
stifoii.S'  per  acre. 

7.  It  may  be  grown  at  a  cost — not  including  Inter- 
est on  price  of  land,  nor  expense  of  carrying  from 
the  Held  to  the  barn — including  expense  of  prepar- 
ing the  ground,  seed,  sowing,  cutting,  binding  and 
shocking,  of  about  §1.30  per  Ion. 


HORTICULTURAL 


Saving  Manure. 

In  speaking  ofthe  above  subject, an  exchange  says: 
Probably  but  few  farmers  exist  who  have  not  read 
articles  in  the  papers  advising  them  to  keep  their 
stable  manure  under  cover  in  a  cellar  under  the 
stalls,  or  under  a  shed;  but  in  both  places  dung  is 
liable  to  become  too  dry,  and  the  straw  among  it 
will  not  decompose  as  rapidly  as  it  will  when  it  is 
exposed  to  rains;  or  if  it  be  all  horse  dung,  it  will 
"fire  fang,"  and  will  be  greatly  injured.  A  cellar 
under  the  stable  stalls,  into  which  all  the  manure 
and  urine  of  the  stocK  is  received,  is  a  good  thing, 
but  it  would  be  a  good  deal  better  if  the  manure 
could  be  thoroughly  wet  once  a  month  from  a  pump 
adjoining  or  near  the  cellar.  The  same  can  be  said 
of  manure  under  a  shed  when  piled  in  deep,  it  must 
be  kept  moist  or  it  had  better  be  kept  in  the  open 
barnyard.  Indeed,  we  are  of  the  opinion  that  when 
a  barnyard  is  made  concave,  with  no  drain  to  it, 
manure  can  be  kept  in  it  from  fall  to  spring:  without 
anv  loss.  Some  farmers  think  that  much  of  the 
virtue  of  manure  in  open  yards  pass  down  into  the 
soil  and  are  lost;  but  such  is  not  the  case,  and  it 
will  be  found  on  removing  it  in  the  spring  that  the 
soil  under  it  has  become  colored  but  two  or  three 
inches  deep.  Now  we  claim  that  if  an  abundance  of 
litter  be  used  upon  the  surface  of  the  manure  to  re- 
fain  moisture  and  to  prevent  evaporation,  all  that  a 
farmer  makes  i-au  be  as  well  preserved  in  his  open 
barnyard  as  under  cover;  and  we  would  prefer  to 
have  our  manu'c  spread  over  the  yard  occasionally, 
and  covered  with  straw,  than  to  have  it  thrown  into 
heaps  by  the  stable  door  and  through  windows  back 
of  the  stalls,  and  to  remain  all  winter,  with  much  of 
its  virtue  washed  away  and  lost. 

^ 

Valuable  Cows. 
The  history  ofthe  Shorthorn  cow,  Duchess  (56th, 
which  sold  in  IS.^S,  at  Earl  Ducie's  sale,  in  England, 
to  Col.  Morris,  of  Fordham,  for  700  guineas,  or  $!,- 
67.5,  is  remarkable  as  showing  the  actual  value  of  a 
good  breeding  animal.  Fiom  this  cow,  which  was 
calved  in  November,  18.50,  there  may  be  traced,  in 
direct  descent,  a  number  of  animals  which  have  sold 
lor  about  $500,000. 


Early  Spring  Salads. 
As  a  nation  we  do  not  utilize  the  great  resources 
or  the  small  blesslnte  that  are  spread  so  lavishly 
around  us.  And  while  spring  is  some  months  away, 
and  we  feel  no  nee.l  of  appetizers  in  the  luxury  of 
fruits  and  veeetables  around  us,  still  providence 
would  suggest  that  we  prepare  for  the  days  when 
we  shall  wish  for  soniethintr  fresh  and  green.  The 
autumn  days  are  the  ones  in  which  to  prepare  some 
fine  and  choice  salads,  such  as  our  neighbors  over 
the  water  never  fail  to  have.  When  dandelions  ap- 
Dcar  in  the  spring,  and  before  they  arc  a  half  linger 
long,  these  tiny  leaves — carefully  picked  or  the 
crown  cut  just  below  the  surface  of  the  ground — 
washed  and  cut  up  sll.'htly,  and  dressed  with  a 
dressing  of  vinegar,  half  a  cup;  butter,  tablespoon- 
ful;  cream,  lablespounlul,  or  more  if  wlshuil;  salt, 
pepper,  and  a  bit  of  mustard,  heated  and  poured  over 
the  salad  as  it  is  sent  to  the  table.  This  will  be 
found  a  S|ilendid  and  healthy  appetizer.  To  do  this 
you  must  co  to  the  pastures  In  the  fall,  before  frost, 
and  take  up  the  rcots  and  make  a  bed  of  t-ood  rich 
loam  and  leaf  mould.  Your  dandelions  will  tie  finer 
and  earlier  than  in  the  pastures,  and  you  can  gather 
them  without  wandering  a  mile  or  two  in  the  early 
spring  mud.  The  only  caution  is,  do  not  let  the  bed 
be  neglected  and  no  to  seed;  this  is  easily  attended 
to,  when  the  blossoms  only  come  In  the  lime  when 
you  will  be  often  in  your  earden,  and  the  briu'ht  yel- 
low blossom  can  be  easily  picked  off.  And  there  ore 
the  oUtcabbai;estumi)K  usually  throw  tothejiiirs.  Ah! 
how  many  a  L'arnish  for  a  dinner  of  early  spring  rests 
in  their  undeveloped  eyes.  In  the  fall  put  a  barrel  of 
good  garden  earth  in  the  corner  of  the  vegetable  cel- 
lar, and  in  March  spread  it  against  the  cellar  wall, 
set  the  cabbage  stunii»s  in  this,  cover  the  roots  only, 
and,  no  matter  aliout  the  liiiht,  in  a  few  days  the 
pale  yellow  or  white  shoots  will  come  out,  and  are  as 
tender  and  as  crisp  as  any  celery  or  salad  you  ever 
saw.  And  to  tho.se  fond  of  "greens"  a  little  care  in 
the  autumn  will  insure  that  very  healthful  potagc, 
while  yet  the  snow  lingers  by  the  fences, and  tlie  gar- 
dens are  yet  brown  and  icy.  Take  a  box  two  feet 
deep  and  cover  eight  or  ten  Inches  with  horse  manure, 
over  this  put  six  or  eight  inches  of  good  earth,  and 
plant  the  box  full  of  beets,  place  It  where  some  light 
comes  ill  at  the  cellar  window,  and  you  can  have  beet 
greens  while  your  neighbors  look  In  vain  for  the  first 
"eowsli|)s  as  large  as  a  half  dollar."  There  are 
many  other  cheap  and  easy  ways  of  having  spring 
salads  which  ingenuity  may  suggest,  but  perhaps 
here  are  enough  to  try  experiments  on,  and  success 
will  come  without  severe  labor,  in  either  of  these 
suggestions. —  WcKteni  titock  Journal. 

Bottle  Grafting. 

This  modification  of  inarchinj  or  grafting  by  ap- 
proach may  often  be  successfully  employed  when 
other  methods  fail.  In  inarching, properly  socalled, 
two  branches  or  stems  on  their  own  roots  are  spliced 
together  and  kept  in  contact  uniil  a  union  is  efiectcd, 
and  if  the  plants  be  in  pots,  or  otherwise  [lortable, 
this  method  is  practicable  enough.  It  often  happens, 
however,  that  subjects  to  be  grafted  are  planted  out, 
and  that  the  scion  must  be  severed  from  the  parent 
plant.  It  is  in  cases  like  this  that  bottle  grafting  be- 
comes useful.  The  scion  with  two-shoots  Is  cut  from 
tne  plant  and  splice-grafted  on  to  the  stock,  where 
it  is  bound  firmly  in  the  usual  manner.  The  base  of 
the  scion  is  then  inserted  in  a  bottle  of  rain  water, 
which  is  ke|)t  at  the  required  height  by  a  forked  sup- 
port, but  sometimes,  when  the  stick  is  stout  enough, 
the  bottle  is  supported  by  it.  The  stock  headed  back 
to  a  shoot,  which  is  left  to  draw  the  sap  up  past  the 
point  of  union  between  stock  and  scion. 

Oleanders,  camellias,  myrtles,  and  many  other 
plants  may  be  grafted  successfully  in  this  way,  and 
iu  some  cases  the  scion  not  only  unites  with  the  stock, 
but  also  pushes  out  roots  into  the  water  ;  in  that  ease 
the  part  below  the  union  may  be  removed  and  planted 
as  a  cutting. 

There  are  one  or  two  modifications  of  this  method 
grafting  ;  the  Japanese,  for  instance,  who  employ  it 
of  largely,  use  a  bag  of  wet  earth  or  earth  and  moss, 
instead  of  the  water  bottle,  and  propagators  often 
obtain  the  same  results  by  pushing  the  base  of  the 
scion  into  a  potato  or  turnip. 


The  Thurber  Peach. 

This  is  a  new  variety,  to  which  the  attention  of 
cultivators  is  directed  by  F.  J.  Berckmans,  of  Augus- 
ta, (ia.,  by  an  article  to  the  Xovemhcr  AgricullurM. 
The  Thuiber  peach  is  the  result  of  an  attempt  to 
improve  the  Chinese  cling,  and  is  a  seedling  of  that 
variety,  the  result  of  a  series  of  experiments  by  Dr. 
L.  E.  Berckmans.     It  is  described  as  follows  : 

Fruit  large  to  very  large,  often  measuringtcn  Inch- 
es In  circumference:  round  or  slightly  oblong.  Skin 
creamy  white,  beautifully  mottled  or  marked  with 
carmine  on  a  faint  cheek.  Flesh  white,  extremely 
juicy,  dissolving,  sweet  and  highly  perfumed; quality 
exquisite.  Unlike  the  Persian  strain  of  cllng-stono 
peaches,  the  flesh  ofthe  Chinese  type  is  of  a  (wcullar 
tine-grained  texture,  which  dissolves  without  leav- 
ing  any   sediment,  and  the  Tliurbcr  peach  possesses 


46 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[March, 


this  quality  in  a  high  degree.  Maturity  from  July 
15th  to  August  1st,  in  fieors'ia.  Although  this  va 
riety  matures  at  a  season  when  peaches  are  in  great 
abundance,  its  transcendent  quality  and  appearance 
will  always  give  it  the  front  rank  among  the  best 
varieties  of  its  freestone  period  of  maturity,  and  it 
will  at  no  distant  day  become  one  of  our  best  known 
sorts,  whether  for  market  or  amateur  culture. 

Nearly  four  hundred  seedling  peaches  have  been 
submitted  to  the  writer  of  this  uotice  during  the 
past  three  years.  Many  of  these  were  of  excellent 
quality,  but  either  reproductions  of  our  well-known 
varieties,  or  lacking  some  slight  requisite  to  compete 
with  those  already  known.  Out  of  this  large  num- 
ber of  selected  seedlings  three  only  have  been  re- 
tained. Foremost  among  these  we  rank  the  Thur- 
ber.  In  bringing  this  new  peach  before  the  public, 
we  have  no  hesitation  as  regards  its  ultimate  popu- 
larity. We  have  fully  tested  its  merits,  as  we  did 
those  of  the  Piquet,  now  recognized  as  the  best  yellow 
freestone  peach  of  its  season,  and  which  has  super- 
seded all  the  older  varieties  of  its  class  when  grown 
together  with  them. 


Celery. 

Success  in  growing  celery  depends  much  upon 
what  variety  is  grown  and  when  it  is  wanted  for  use. 
Any  good  loamy  or  rich  sandy  soil  will  grow  good 
celery.  It  should  be  plowed  very  deep  at  first,  then 
the  rows  furrowed  out  deeply  and  two  inches  of  well 
rotted  manure  mingled  with  the  bottom  soil.  Cover 
with  soil  two  or  three  inches  deep,  and  set  the  plants 
about  eight  inches  apart  in  the  row,  and  rows  two  or 
three  feet  apart.  If  the  dwarf  varieties  are  grown, 
two  feet  is  enough,  but  if  tiio  giant  white  is  grown, 
three  feet.  The  Boston  market  and  Henderson's 
dwarf  white  are,  perhaps,  the  best  early  dwarf  vari- 
eties, and  these  will  need  no  earthing  up  until  nearly 
full  grown.  When  the  earthing  up  is  done  for  the 
purpose  of  bleaching,  care  should  be  taken  that  it  be 
perfectly  dry,  and  let  the  heads  be  so  carefully  held 
together  that  no  dirt  can  get  between  the  stalks. 
The  giant  white  is  most  generally  used  for  winter, 
but  the  dwarf  is  equally  good,  though  not  of  as 
long  growth.  For  early  crop  the  plants  should  be 
set  early  in  May,  but  the  w  nter  beds  need  not  be 
planted  till  July.  Plants  can  be  bought  cheap,  or 
they  are  easily  grown  in  a  gently  heated  frame. 
They  should  be  once  transplanted  in  the  frame  be- 
fore  going  to  the  field  or  garden. — Practical  Fartner. 


Tobacco. 
Of  the  new  crop  of  1876,  Messrs.  Gans  &  Co.,  say  : 
The  new  crop  which  we  had  estimated  in  our  issue 

of  the  1st  of  November  last  at    ICO, 000    cases,   may, 

accoVding  to  the  latest  informatioii,  fall  shortof  that. 

The  following  are  the  corrected  estimates: 

New  EiiRlaud 30,000  ciiseB,  beluw  ;iv.  qu  lity. 

PeiiUBjlvauia 40.000     "    An  excellent  crop. 

NewYoik 15.000    ■'        FuUy  up  to  uv. 

Ohio 31,000    " 

Wiscoiiein.  etc 20,000    '* 

140.0i'0     " 
To  which  add  old  stock 60,000    " 

Total  ;9O,CO0    " 

The  above  figures  show  that  Lancaster  county  fur- 
nished more  seed  leaf  tobacco  than  any  State  in  the 
Union,  and  more  than  one-fourth  of  all  that  is  grown 
in  all  the  States.  Quotations  of  prices  show  that  our 
tobacco  brings  as  high  prices  if  not  higher  on  an  av- 
erage than  New  England  tobacco,  the  figures  for 
PennsyWania  selections  being  ."5@45  and  for  assorted 
lots  licoi.S. 

^ 

Planting  and  Care  of  Trees. 

The  following  condensed  rules  are  given  by  F.  K. 
Phoenix,  of  Bloomiugton,  111.: 

Most  planters  are  so  careless  !  Friends,  if  you  want 
trees  to  thrive,  plant  early,  in  dry,  deeply  plowed 
ground.  Keep  roots  from  the  sun,  air  and  frost, 
burying  in  the  ground  again  as  soon  as  possible.  If 
shriveled,  bury  tops  and  all  in  moist  ground  for  ten 
days.  Thin  out  and  shorten  in  tops  before  planting, 
to  balance  the  loss  of  roots  in  digging.  Dig  large 
holes,  three  feet  across  and  two  deep,  or  better  still, 
plow  out  a  very  deep  furrow,  filling  up  with  the  best 
soil,  so  that  trees  shall  stand  only  as  deep  as  in  the 
nursery.  Stiaighten  out  p.ll  roots  in  natural  order, 
fill  in  with  best,  fine,  moist  earth,  and  then  tread 
down  thoroughly,  watering  well  if  dry,  before  filling 
up.  Then  mulch — that  is,  cover  with  earth  two  feet 
each  way  from  stems  with  coarse  manure  or  straw 
six  inches  deep. 

^ 

Tree  Planting  in  Minnesota. 
There  is  one  State  in  the  Union,  at  least,  which 
Las  taken  to  tree  planting  with  a  vigor  that  promises 
the  best  results.  The  farmers  of  Minnesota  set  out 
during  the  past  year  over  ten  millions  of  cuttings, 
most  of  which,  it  is  reported,  are  doing  well.  The 
young  trees  consist  largely  of  cottonwoods  and  white 
willows,  but  there  is  also  a  liberal  sprinkling  of  ma- 
ple, larch  and  white  oak.  Minnesota  does  not  need 
planting  nearly  so  much  as  California.  It  is  not 
subject  to  drouths.  But  planting  for  all  that  is  a 
wise  policy.    It  beautifies  the  waste  places.     The 


main  effect  to  be  expected  from  the  movement  in  the 
State  in  question  is  a  reduction  of  the  temperature 
in  summer  and  an  elev.ation  in  winter — changes 
generally  conceded  to  be  very  necessary.  If  our 
farmers  could  be  induced  to  begin  tree  p  anting  on 
a  large  scale  there  is  not  much  doubt  but  that  we 
should  hereafter  have  fewer  drouths. — Jjiilletia. 


The  cultivation  of  peanuts  appears  to  be  on  the  in- 
crease in  those  States  where  this  plant  succeeded  best. 
The  crop  in  North  Carolina,  Virginia  and  Tennessee 
for  1S7.5-76  is  reported  to  have  reached  nerrly  800,000 
bushels,  and  it  promises  to  be  still  larger  for  ls77. 


The  Massachusetts  Agricultural  Society  hasofiered 
several  prizes,  the  highest  of  which  is  $1,000,  for  the 
best  five  acres  of  trees,  to  be  planted  in  the  spring  of 
1877  and  awarded  in  1887. 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Farm  Sacks  over  Sixty  Years  Old  and  in  Con- 
stant Use  Still  Doing  Good  Service. 

Mr.  E,  L.  Resh,  of  East  Lampeter,  one  of  our 
most  intelligent  farmers,  has  a  number  of  grain  bags 
in  use,  which  ajrtly  illustrate  the  kind  of  material 
and  workmanship  our  fathers  and  mothers  put  into 
goods  of  home  manufacture,  as  well  as  their  careful 
and  economical  habits  in  the  use  of  perishatjle  arti- 
cles. Among  the  earliest  recollections  of  the  writer 
are  the  "flaxbreak,"  the  "scutching  machine,"  and 
the  "heckle"  on  which  the  flax,  grown  on  the  farm, 
was  prepared  for  spinning  and  weaving,  and  the 
spinning  wheel,  and  the  loom  itself  in  theold  kitchen 
on  which  the  elder  sister  wove  the  stuff  for  our  sum- 
mer trousers,  which  even  the  wayward  "Boy,"  so 
graphically  described  by  Col.  Arms,  might  outgrow 
but  could  not  wear  out.  Then  everything  the  "Boys" 
wore  was  made  at  home  except,  perhaps,  his  head- 
gear. The  shoemaker  went  round  in  the  fall  mak- 
ing the  shoes  for  each  family  out  of  leather  manu- 
factured from  the  hides  of  beeves  killed  on  the  place. 
Many  a  "Boy"  had  to  suffer  with  cold  feet  on  the 
frosty  ground  because  the  shoemaker  was  late  in 
journeying  his  way.  In  going  to  bring  in  the  cows 
in  the  morning,  it  was  not  unusual  for  him  to  chase 
up  a  cow  and  stand  on  the  place  where  she  had  lain 
until  he  got  his  feet  warm;  and  if  he  was  a  pious 
boy  of  the  goodey-coodey  kind,  he  would  improve  the 
occasion  by  invoking  a  "blessing"  upon  the  tardy 
shoemaker. 

But  we  are  digressing.  Old-time  memories  are 
running  away  with  the  diamonds  on  the  point  of  our 
gold  pen,  and  we  must  beg  our  friend,  Mrs.  GiLi- 
bons'  pardon  for  not  sooner  introducing  herself  and 
neighbor,  with  his  old-time  farm  sacks,  to  our  read- 
ers. 

^Well  Preserved  Farm  Sacks. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Examiner  and  Express  : 

Having  heard  mention  of  some  well  preserved  farm 
sacks  at  the  place  of  a  worthy  neighbor,  I  requested 
information  upon  this  and  kindred  subjects,  from  a 
younger  branch  of  the  family,  and  received  the  fol- 
lowing excellent  letter,  which  you  may  publish  if 
you  wish. 

I  can  scarcely  agree  with  my  young  friend,  that 
the  most  remarkable  occurrence  is  the  adaptation  of 
means  to  ends  in  the  first  manufacture;  for  it  is  won- 
derful that  anything  so  perishable  should  have  been 
preserved  through  so  many  hands;  that  they  were 
not  allowed  to  lie  in  the  stable  entries  to  be  nibbled 
by  rats  and  mice;  hung  over  the  doors  and  chewed 
by  cows;  left  lying  on  the  ground  and  partly  devour- 
ed by  hogs;  or  half  buried  and  rotted  in  the  manure 
of  a  farm  yard. 

In  the  elements  of  wor'dly  success,  enumerated  by 
Franklin,  (is  it  not?)  as  industry,  economy  and  in- 
tegrity, our  "Pennsylvania  Dutch"  farmers  may  be 
considered  to  excel. 

We  know  that  they  are  not  Dutch,  but  so  long  as 
they  continue  to  use  the  language  of  their  ancestors, 
we  cannot  consider  them  entirely  Americanized. 

Tours  truly,  p.  E.  G. 
Bird-in-Hand,  Jan,  131877, 

Mrs, P,  E,  Gibbons  Dear  Madam:  We  have  in 
use  some  six  or  eight  grain  bags  marked  with  the 
name  of  the  owner  in  lsi;6,  also  about  the  same 
number  marked  in  181,5,  and  a  few  evidently  older 
than  these  but  without  date.  These  last  bear  a  close 
likeness  in  quality  of  material  and  other  respects  to 
some  we  had  until  a  short  time  ago — now  worn  out 
— which  were  marked  in  1S07,  and  without  doubt, 
made  about  that  time.  They  have  all  been  in  con- 
stant use  s  nee  they  were  manufactured,  which  was 
about  the  dates  they  respecti%'ely  bear.  By  constant 
I  do  not  mean  daily  use,  but  such  use  as  bags  are 
put  to  on  a  farm  in  carrying  the  yearly  product  of 
grain,  potatoes  and  apples  to  market,  making  the 
journey  to  .and  from  the  mill,  and  such  other  uses 
as  those  familiar  with  the  life  of  a  farmer's  grain  bag 
can  readily  imagine. 

Those  of  1M5,  though  bearing  the  marks  of  an  oc- 
casional mishap,  from  protecting  splinter  or  obtru- 
sive nail,  and  worn  thin  in  places  by  the  pressure  of 
overgrown  tubers  or  refractory  ears  of  corn,  can  with 
ordinary  care  last  twenty-five  years  longer.    I  need 


hardly  say  they  were  literally  manw-factured;  that  is 
hand  made,  at  home,  from  flax  and  hemp  grown  on 
the  farm  where  they  have  always  been  in  iise.  The 
fact  that  they  were  home-made,  accounts  for  their 
existence  at  the  present  time.  Though  they  are  but 
grain-bags,  their  pi-eservation  through  so  many  years 
of  use  aflbrds  not  only,  as  you  remarked,  a  good  il- 
lustration of  the  economical  habits  of  farmers  in 
some  of  the  older  settled  sections  of  our  country,  but 
it  impresses  me  more  with  the  proofs  it  furnishes  of 
the  good  judgment  shown  by  those  who  made  them 
sixty  years  ago,  in  the  selection  of  material  for  their 
purpose  and  the  thorough  manner  in  which  they  did 
their  work. 

All  these  characteristics  were,  I  think,  possessed, 
in  full  measure,  by  the  people.  Somehow  and  some- 
where misnamed  Dutch,  iu  whose  hands  the  largest 
part  of  Lancaster  county  has  become  what  it  is. 

I  am  quite  sure  that  plenty  of  instances  could  be 
found,  did  we  make  a  point  of  looking  for  them,  tend- 
ing to  show  this  yet  more  fully  than  these  grain-bags 
of  ours — about  which  I  have,  I  believe,  given  all  the 
facts  vou  desired. 

Very  Respectfully,  E.L.R. 


Facts    Worth  Remembering. 

Gout. — An  English  medical  writer  states  that 
rheumatism  and  gout  can  be  cured  by  the  free  use 
of  asparagus. 

To  Bend  Glass. — Fill  glass  tubes  with  fine  dry 
sand,  close  at  both  ends,  and  they  will  bend  easily 
alter  heating. 

Warm  Feet. — The  New  York  S««  says  that  a 
handful  of  sawdust  worn  in  each  stocking  will  keep 
the  feet  as  warm  as  toast. 

Warts. — Apply  creosote  freely,  and  cover  over 
with  a  piece  of  sticking  plaster.  Follow  this  treat- 
ment every  two  or  three  days  until  the  wart  disap- 
pears. 

Frosted  Feet. — They  may  be  cured  as  follows: 
White  oak  bark,  taken  fresh  and  boiled  in  water  for 
a  stronsr  liquor.  Bathe  the  feet  in  the  liquor.  It  is 
pronounced  the  best  of  all  remedies. 

To  Polish  Tins, — First  rub  your  tins  with  a  damp 
cloth;  then  take  dry  flour  and  rub  it  on  with  your 
hands;  afterward  take  an  old  newspaper  and  rub 
the  flour  Wf,  and  the  tins  will  shine  as  well  as  if  half 
an  hour  had  been  spent  rubbing  them  with  brick 
dust  or  powder,  which  spoils  the  bauds, 

Windows, — Ventilation  would  be  more  eas  ly  ac- 
complished and  more  certainly  performed,  and 
rooms  kept  with  purer  and  healthier  air,  if  windows 
were  made  to  slide  easily.  If  not  hung  by  pulleys 
and  weights,  let  a  carpenter  add  good  freely-working 
catches.     Never  permit  a  broken  pane  in  the  house. 

Cellars. — Cellars  should  be  kept  constantly 
clean,  as  much  so  as  your  parlor.  It  is  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world,  if  you  attend  to  it  daily,  and  only 
becomes  a  heavy  task  when  you  allow  a  month's  ac- 
cumulations to  remain  undisturbed.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  add  that  fevers  have  been  contracted  by 
breathing  the  miasma  created  in  an  ill  kept  cellar. 

Colds, — Hot  lemonade  is  one  of  the  best  remedies 
in  the  world  for  a  cold.  It  acts  promptly  and  effect- 
ively, and  has  no  unpleasant  after  effects.  One 
lemon  properly  squeezed,  cut  in  slices,  put  with  su- 
gar, aud  covered  with  half  a  pint  of  bo  ling  water. 
Drink  just  before  going  to  bed,  and  do  not  expose 
yourself  on  the  following  day.  This  remedy  will 
ward  off  an  attack  of  the  chills  and  fever,  if  used 
promptly. 

Doors. — Never  allow  a  door  to  creak  for  want  of 
oil,  or  to  shut  so  hard  as  to  require  slamming  to 
make  it  latch.  For  this  purpose  pass  round  once  a 
week  at  some  regular  time,  say  Saturday  evening 
or  Monday  morning,  with  a  drop  of  oil  on  a  feather, 
or  on  the  tip  of  the  finger,  and  give  every  rubbing 
part,  latch,  hinge,  etc.,  a  touch.  Scissors,  which  are 
inclined  to  work  hard,  can  also  be  greatly  improved 
in  this  way. 

Exercise. — Friction  of  the  body  is  one  of  the  gen- 
tlest and  most  useful  kind  of  exercise,  either  by  the 
hand,  a  piece  of  flannel,  a  tolerably  coarse  towel,  or 
a  flesh-brush.  Friction  cleans  the  skin,  promotes 
perspiration,  and  increases  the  warmth  and  energy 
of  the  body.  In  rubbing  the  stomach,  perform  the 
operation  in  a  circular  direction,  as  that  is  the  most 
favorable  to  the  course  of  the  intestines  and  their 
natural  actions. 

Chilblains, — Bathe  the  feet  for  half  an  hour 
in  water  hot  as  can  be  borne;  add  hot  water  after 
the  feet  have  been  in  a  few  moments,  as  they  will 
bear  more  than  the  first.  Let  the  water  be  as  hot 
when  the  feet  are  removed  as  when  put  in.  This 
draws  the  inflammation  out  and  allays  the  itching 
which  is  so  very  painful.  Dry  with  a  cloth;  then 
bathe  well  with  hemlock  oil,  (which  can  be  got  at 
any  druggist's  at  a  trifling  cost);  dry  it  by  the  fire. 
Repeat  the  application  three  or  f^our  nights  if  needed. 
Care  should  be  taken  not  to  chill  the  feet  immedi- 
ately. 

Perfected  Butter  Color. 

Occasionally,  during  the  past  two  years,  we  have 
received  for  trial,  samples  of  butter  coloring  prepa- 
rations from  Messrs.  Wells,  Richardson  &  Co.,  of 
Burlington,  Vt.,  with  the  request  that  they  should 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


47 


be  tliorousbly  tested  and  criticised  as  to  the  merits 
and  demerits.  Knowins  the  firm  wtre  strivins  to 
make  tlie  best  preparation  possible,  and  tliat  they 
intended  to  stop  at  notbini;  short  of  porrcrtion,  we 
have  been  free  to  find  all  the  fault  tliat  could  pos- 
sibly be  detected. 

Tlie  first  sample  received,  however,  was  quite  su- 
perior to  any  other  preparation  of  aniiatio  that  we 
had  ever  used.  It  was  perfectly  clear  of  sediment, 
free  from  odor,  and  gave  a  bright,  clean  color  to  the 
butter,  while  it  was  sold  cheaper  according  to  its 
strength,  than  aiiythiiiij  we  had  previously  bo«s;ht. 
But  it  was  not  warranted  to  keep  throuirh  the  whole 
year,  without  beins  injured  by  freezing  in  winter,  or 
moulding  in  summer.  A  later  sample  proved 
equal  to  these  tests,  and  showed  greatly  increased 
strength  of  the  coloring  principle.  Having  tested  it 
for  several  weeks,  we  Informed  the  proprietors  that 
we  could  find  no  fault  with  it  whatever.  As  now 
made,  it  is  the  strongest,  cleanest,  purest  ami  cheap- 
est butter  and  cheecse  coloring  substance  we  have 
ever  found,  and  for  all  we  can  see,  ia  is  absolutely 
perfect.  It  will  bear  heat  or  cold,  and  does  not  fade 
when  exposed  to  the  light.  It  should  entirely  super- 
sede carrots  for  coloring  butter,  and  also  all  the 
crude  preparations  of  annatto,  as  formerly  put  up 
by  drugeists. 

Since  Wells,  Richardson  <fc  Co.,  commenced  the 
manufacture  of  their  "Perfected  Butter  Color,"  the 
prejudice  against  the  use  of  artificial  coloring  in  but- 
ter has  been  swept  away  at  a  rapid  rate,  not  only 
among  butter  niakerf,  but  also,  among  the  dealers 
and  iheir  consumers.  Being  perfectly  harndets, 
simple,  cheap,  and  easily  used,  it  has  become  one  ot 
the  staple  articles  of  the  dairy  room,  as  much  as  salt 
or  rennet.  For  ten  cents  the  proprietors  will  send 
any  one  a  sample.     Let  all  the  butter  makers  try  it. 


Vienna  Bread  and  Coffee. 

These  were  general  favorites  during  our  Centennial 
Exhibition,  aud  the  bread  is  now  supplied  to  all  who 
desire  it  in  our  cities  by  bakers  who  do  an  extensive 
business.  Louis  Fleischman,  of  New  York,  describes 
bis  preparations  and  process  thus  : 

On  the  baseuient  tloor  are  six  large  Dutch  ovens, 
twelve  feet  each  in  diameter,  with  a  baking  capacity 
of  ten  barrels  of  Hour  each  day.  These  ovens,  when 
once  thoroughly  heated,  retain  sufficient  warmth  for 
baking  purposes  for  eighteen  hours.  On  the  same 
floor  are  immense  troughs  for  kneading  dough,  and 
wonderlul  little  machines  for  cutting  it  to  the  proper 
size.  "1  use  nothing  in  making  my  liread,"  he  said, 
"but  the  purest  and'whitest  flour,  milk,  mixed  with 
water  and  salt.  In  bakinir,  the  oval  shape  of  the  top 
of  the  oven  brings  an  equal  heal  to  bear  on  all  parts 
of  the  bread,  so  that  a  crisp  crust  is  alike  on  top, 
bottom,  and  sides." 

"Now,  let  me  show  you  how  I  prepare  my  coffee," 
he  said.  "We  toast  it  according  to  the  general  prac- 
tice, but  in  grinding  we  use  stones  instead  of  iron. 
The  stones  are  arranged  in  the  same  way  as  mill- 
stones. Where  iron  is  used  in  grinding  the  coffee  it 
becomes  heated,  and  in  this  state  robs  the  cotfee  of 
Its  aroma  while  imparting  a  smack  of  its  own  flavor. 
The  ground  coffee  is  placed  on  top  of  a  tight,  fitting, 
finely  perforated  piston  head  at  the  Lortomof  a  large 
cylinder.  Boiling  water  is  then  poured  upon  it,  and 
by  means  of  a  screw  the  piston  is  slowly  drawn  tothe 
topofthecylindcr.  This  aetioucreates  a  vacuum  at  the 
bottom  of  the  cylinoer,  which  the  clear  cotlee  rushes 
In  to  fill  throuah  the  infinitesimal  holes  in  the  piston 
head.  In  this  way  we  get  pure,  undulterated  coffee. 
The  cream  we  use  is  all  whipped  into  a  light,  frothy 
Blate.  There  is  no  reason  for  having  anything 
adulterated  when  it  is  so  easy  to  have  it  pure." 


Fruit  as  a  Medicine. 

The  irregular  eating  of  unripe  fruit  is  well  known 
to  be  unwholesome.  The  regular  and  moderate  use 
of  well-ripened  fruit  is  not  so  widely  appreciated  as 
contributing  to  health.  Residents  in  regions  where 
more  or  less  malaria  prevails,  have  discovered  that 
nothing  is  a  more  sure  preventive  of  its  deleterious 
efiects  than  a  regular  supply  of  fruit. 

But  fruit  will  not  only  prevent  disease,  but  in  some 
Instances  it  has  proved  one  of  the  best  medicines  to 
cure  it.  Many  years  ago  a  chronic  cough,  which  had 
excited  a  good  deal  of  uneasiness,  was  cured  by  daily 
eating  ripe  raspberries,  recommended  by  a  medical 
writer  of  high  authority  as  an  excellent  expectorant. 
Severe  colds  are  more  apt  to  occur  on  the  first  cool 
and  damp  days  of  autumn  than  at  other  seasons. 
We  have  often  cured  these  diseases  on  their  first  at- 
tack, by  eating  copiously  of  ripe  watermelons.  The 
beneficial  efTects  ot  drinking  freely  of  cold  water  on 
such  occasions,  are  well  known.  Watermelons  sup- 
ply a  larger  quantity  than  one  could  easily  swallow 
in  any  other  way. — Country  Oentleman. 


count  of  the  small  quantity  of  cream  accumulatlnir. 
The  summer  practice  is  reversed  in  the  winter. 
There  being  too  little  milk  to  require  frequent  churn- 
ing then — say  one,  and  sonn'tlmes  two  churnlh'.'S  a 
week — we  account  readily  for  the  evils  comphiined 
of.  The  fore  part  of  the  season  when  milk  is  in 
greater  quantity,  necessitating  more  frequent  churn- 
ing, I  bear  of  but  little  complaint.  It  matters  not 
how  good  the  feed  is— if  the  tenderest  hay  and  roots 
are  added,  makinir  an  approach  to  summer  feed  ;  nor 
how  clean  the  milk  is  kept,  the  most  perfect  milk  if 
set  beyond  three  days  will  be  hurt.  The  writer  of 
this  has  filled  the  vessel,  leaving  barely  space  enough 
for  a  cloth  to  be  stretched  over  without  touching  the 
milk,  and  a  snug  lid  put  on,  keeping  the  air  out,  but 
all  to  no  purpose.  So,  in  the  purest  air,  in  all  the 
temperatures,  it  is  the  same." 


THE  POULTRY  YARD. 


Bitter  C.eam. 
Cream  becomes  bitter  by  keeping  it  too  long  before 
It  is  churned.  A  butter  maker  says  :  "In  summer 
there  is  little  bitter  milk  or  cream,  because  the 
cream  is  churned  sooner  than  in  winter,  seldom  reach- 
ing the  third  day.  Sometimes,  where  tliere  is  a  single 
cow  kept,  I  have  known  the  bitter  to  show  on  ac- 


Food  for  Fowls. 

As  to  food,  and  several  queries  for  the  "best,"  we 
repeat  once  more,  there  is  no  best.  The  great  ex- 
hibitors do  not  owe  success  to  any  particular  food. 
All  good  meal  and  all  good  grain  is  good  in  its  place. 
The  only  ceneral  rules  we  would  lay  down  are,  that 
on  the  whole  it  is  better  to  mix  with  raw  meal  some 
portion  of  one  or  other  of  the  excellent  cooked  meals 
now  so  largelv  advertised,  which  is  both  liked  and 
prevents  the  food  hecomina:  clogged;  and  secondly, 
that  much  grain  should  not  be  used  for  the  young 
ones,  but  pretty  much  reserved  for  the  last  feed  at 
nisht,  when  it  will  tempt  a  hearty  meal  which  will 
remaiti  in  the  crop  and  give  support  through  the 
niiiht.  Kspeciully  should  care  be  taken  not  to  give 
wheat  or  other  tempting  grain  just  after  soft  food, 
which  olten  causes  a  eorging  that  is  most  injurious, 
and  will  even  kill  delicate  breeds  without  any  ap- 
parent cause. 

For  the  staple  we  would  take  half  of  any  good 
cooked  meal,  and  mix  in  turn  with  barley-meal,  oat- 
meal, ground  oats,  or  even  now  and  then  maize- 
meal,  though  this  is  too  fattening  to  be  freely  used. 
The  meal  can  be  mixed  with  minced  grass  with  ad. 
vantaL'e,  as  this  enables  a  quantitv  to  be  kept  fresh 
and  cool  longer  through  the  day.  Barley-meal  mix- 
ed with  sharps  makes  a  good  food  also,  and  so  does 
porride-e;  and  a  variety  of  plain,  wholesome  food 
like  this  pushes  the  birds  on  faster  and  better  than 
all  the  nostrums  in  the  world.  Bone-dust,  which  is 
very  valuable  for  lar>re  breeds  that  have  not  excel- 
lent range,  should  be  added  to  the  soft  food  in  the 
proportion  of,  say  about  one-tenth  to  one-twentieth 
of  the  dry  meal,  or  it  may  be  first  boiled  and  the 
meal  mixed  with  the  soup.  A  little  meat  or  greaves 
minced  and  soaked  may  be  added  with  advantage, 
and  the  great  breeders,  many  of  them,  use  meat 
largely  to  get  the  immense  size  of  their  largest  birds. 
But  tliis  both  coarsens  the  comb  and  head,  and— 
well,  these  immense  birds  are  very  seldom  chosen  to 
breed  from. 

In  grain  we  have  barley,  wheat,  buckwheat,  dari, 
and  40-pound  white  oats.  A  little  hemp  seed  and 
canary  seed  help  the  very  young  ones;  but  hemp  is 
too  heating  and  canary  too  dear  to  keep  on  with. 
Grits  are  srrand  food,  but  expensive,  and  we  use  little 
since  we  tried  dari.  We  repeat  that  this  is,  as  we 
find  it,  one  of  the  most  useful  articles  one  can  have, 
both  for  fowls  and  pigeons.  Barley  is  good,  but  tlie 
chicks  will  not  eat  it,  at  least  not  enough  to  do  them 
good  ;  but  we  find  them  eat  up  dari  and  buck- 
wheat as  eagerly  and  very  nearly  as  early  as  they 
will  grits,  while  it  is  about  the  cheapest  grain  there 
is.  As  a  rule,  we  generally  feed  for  about  a  week 
with  bread-crumbs,  oatmeal,  a  hard-boiled  chopped 
egg  and  some  cut  grass,  mixed  together  and  moisten- 
ed with  milk  ;  add  with  grits  lor  a  change — after 
that  they  come  down  to  plain  mixed  meal,  as  above, 
and  dari  or  buckwheat.  We  use  cut  grass — cut  in 
small  chaff  with  large  scissors— even  when  there  is  a 
grass  run ;  the  chicks  eat  more  and  rarely  get  di- 
arrhoea. But  we  repeat  again,  it  really  matters  much 
less  what  they  eat,  than  that  they  get  some  change 
to  tempt  the  r  appetites,  and  aie  fed  regularly  aud 
with  judgment. 

This  last  is  perhaps  the  great  point.  It  istoo com- 
mon to  feed  all  alike,  and  this  is  wrong.  As  they 
get  older  the  times  of  feeding  should  be  carefully 
graduated,  coming  down  from  six  or  seven  times  a 
day  to  four,  and  by-and-by  to  three.  This  is  very 
important,  lor  without  it  the  chickens  gradually  lose 
appetite,  and  are  very  apt  to  get  liver  complaint, 
which  anuually  carries  off  many.  Another  cause  of 
this  is  giving  loo  much.  All  ought  to  be  cleared 
clean  away  in  ten  minutes  ;  and  till  experience  is 
gained  to  guess  the  quantity,  it  is  best  logo  round  at 
that  time,  after  feeding,  and  clear  all  remains  of  the 
feed  away.  Then  by  the  next  visit  they  will  be  ready  ; 
whereas,  if  it  be  left  to  them  to  "mess  with,"  they 
never  get  any  real  appetite  at  all.  Cool,  clean  water 
is  the  only  thing  that  should  be  left  by  them.  This 
is  very  simple,  but  this  is  the  only  "secret"  in  rear- 
ing;  it  is  the  one  particular  patent  process  which, 
joined  with  wholesome  food  and  reasonable  change  of 
diet  now  and  then,  makes  line  birds. — London  Live 
Stock  Journal. 


Feeding  Fowls. 
A  correspondent  of  the  Poultry  .Va/ion,  says  OD 
this  point ;  ".My  experience  In  feeding  fowls.  Is  that 
medium  sized  hens  will  consume  about  one  and 
three-fifth  gills  of  grain  and  vegetable  matter  each, 
daily,  in  winter,  when  In  active  laying  condition;  and 
also  that  it  makes  no  dilfercncc  as  to  the  amount  con- 
sumed, whether  food  is  kept  constantly  before  them, 
or  whether  they  are  fed  twice  or  thrice  daily  pro- 
viiU'd  they  are  allowed  all  they  will  eat  up  clean. 
For  the  past  two  years  circumstances  have  com|«'lled 
me  to  feed  but  twice  a  day — morninirand  afternoon — 
but  I  find  that  the  fowls  get  very  hungry  before  the 
afternoon  meal,  and  will  bolt  their  food  like  hogs, 
and,  if  allowed  all  they  will  eat  np  clean,  are  liable 
to  overeat,  and  become  diseased  in  consequence. 
Then  it  sometimes  happens  that  hens  are  on  the  nests 
to  lay  at  the  time  of  feeding,  and  cannot  be  coaxed 
off  to  eat,  and  they  must  either  be  fed  on  the  nest  or 
go  hungry  until  the  next  meal,  which  in  cold  weath- 
er seems  a  little  unmerciful.  Heretofore  I  have  be- 
lieved in  and  advocated  regular  feeding— twice  or 
three  times  a  day— far  all  breeds,  but  my  experience 
during  the  past  two  years  Inclines  mc  to  the  opinion 
that  unless  the  smaller  varieties  can  be  fed  thrcq 
times  a  day,  it  Is  better  to  keep  food  constantly  by 
thcin. 


The  Pekin  Ducks  as  Layers. 

The  sensation  made  last  fall  among  the  fanciers  at 
the  jioultry  exhibitions,  by  the  extraordinary  size  of 
these  new  ducks, is  likely  io  be  equaled  this  season  by 
their  remarkable  record  as  layers.  Two  of  the  im- 
ported birds  last  year  laid  respectively  l.H  and  V>1 
eggs.  They  have  done  much  better  the  present  season. 
One  of  the  old  birds  commenced  laying  on  the  .7th  of 
Februrary  and  laid  17.S  eggs  In  18J  day.i,  missing  but 
tour  days.  The  other  did  nearly  as  well.  This  is 
three  or'four  times  as  many  eggs  as  we  ordinarily 
get  from  Kouens  or  Aylesburys.  What  is  more  re- 
markable, one  of  the  young  ducks,  hatched  in  April, 
began  to  lay  in  August,  and  laid  seven  eggs  by 
the  first  of  September.  Such  early  laying  Is  all  that 
we  expect  of  the  best  varieties  of  gallinaeeoMs  fowls. 
The  Pekins  as  much  excel  in  fecundity  all  other  va- 
rieties of  ducks  with  which  weare  acquainted,  as  they 
do  in  size.  They  have  had  the  advantageoftborough 
breeding  for  centuries  for  their  Hesb  and  eggs,  and 
we  predict  for  them  in  this  country  the  front  rank 
among  our  useful  aquatic  fowls. — Agrieulttirisl. 


Fakmehs  frequently  have  occasion  to  sell  turkeys 
by  live  weight,  and  wish  to  know  what  is  the  fair 
relative  price  between  live  and  dead  weight.  In  tur- 
keys dressed  for  the  New  York  market,  where  the 
blond  and  feathers  only  are  removed,  the  loss  s  very 
small.  For  the  eastern  markets  the  heads  are  taken 
off  and  the  entrails  are  taken  out.  This  makes  a 
loss  of  nearly  one-tenth  in  the  weight.  A  large  gob- 
bler was  recently  killed  weighing  ol'S  pounds.  Af- 
ter bleeiling  and  picking  he  weighed  -.yVi  pounds,  a 
loss  of  two  pounds,  or  about  one-fifteenth.  When 
ready  for  the  spit  he  wei^jhed  -iS'X  pounds,  a  loss  of 
;?><^  pounds  which  is  nearly  one-tenth  of  the  weight. 
When  the  market  requires  the  New  York  style  of 
dressing,  and  the  price  is  fifteen  cents  a  pound,  live 
weight,  or  less,  if  he  counted  the  labor  of  dressing 
anything.  In  the  other  style  of  dressing,  if  the  price 
we're  -0  Cf  nts,  he  could  sell  for  !.■<  cents,  or  less,  live 
weight,  without  loss.  Farmers  who  nevertestcd  the 
loss  of  weight  in  dressing  sometimes  submit  to  de- 
duction of  three  or  four  cents  a  pound  for  the  middle- 
men, who  are  interested  in  making  this  large  differ- 
ence. 

^ 

Fattening    Poultry. 

The  London  Field  says  poultry  properly  fed  will 
acquire  all  the  fatness  needed  for  marketing  pur- 
poses in  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  at  most.  Their 
diet  should  be  Indian,  oat,  or  barley  meal,  scalded  in 
milk  or  water;  the  former  is  the  best,  as  it  will  ex- 
pedite the  fattening  process.  They  should  be  fed 
early  in  the  morning,  at  noon,  and  also  in  the  even- 
ing, just  before  going  to  roost,  and  given  a  plentiful 
supply  of  pure,  fresh  water,  and  plenty  of  gravel, 
sliced  cabbage  or  turnip  lops.  If  the  fowls  arc  re- 
quired to  be  very  fat,  some  trimmings  of  fresh  mut- 
ton suet  mav  bechopped  up  and  scalded  with  their 
other  feed,  or  they  may  be  boiled  in  milk  alone  and 
poured  to  the  meal.  This  renders  the  flesh  firmer 
than  it  otherwise  would  be.  When  fit  to  kill,  feed- 
ing must  be  slopped  for  twelve  hours  or  more,  so 
that  the  intestines  may  becomecomparatively  empty. 
♦ 

The  Poultry  World  says  the  Influence  of  the  food 
of  poultry  upon  the  quality  and  flavor  of  their  flesh 
and  eggs  has  not  been  taken  into  consideration  ;  but 
it  is  now  well  ascertained  that  great  care  should  be 
exercised  in  regard  to  this  matter.  In  some  instances 
it  has  been  attempted  to  feed  poultry  on  a  large  scale 
in  France  on  horse-flesh,  and  although  they  devour 
this  substance  very  greedily,  it  has  been  found  to 
give  them  a  very  unpleasant  flavor.  The  best  fatten- 
ing for  chickens  is  said  to  be  Indian  cornmeal  and 
mUk  ;  and  certain  large  poultry  establishments  in 
France  use  this  entirely,  to  the  advantage  both  of  the 
fiesh  and  the  eggs. 


48 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  March,  1877. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


Care  of  Dairy  Cows. 

John  B.  Tomlinson,  of  Fountain  farm,  near  New- 
town, writes  as  Ibllons:  "I  have  seen  in  your  paper 
a  eooil  d^al  about  irilt-efiseJ  butter  and  cleanliness 
anJ  other  things  connected  with  the  dairying,  but 
nothins:  about  lieepin^:  tlie  cows  clean.  Mv  method 
is  to  grade  the  stable  floor  a  little  back  from  the 
manger;  put  one  plank  lengthwise  under  the  hind 
feet  of  the  cows,  one  foot  wide,  and  fill  with  clay  up 
to  the  manger,  having  a  drop  of  five  inches  at  tlie 
plank.  Then  plank  the  remainder  to  the  back  wall, 
having  tlie  rear  a  little  the  highest  so  as  to  throw  all 
the  wet  toward  the  drop  plank.  Then  you  have  a 
dry  walk  behind  the  cows,  and  the  stables  are  easily 
cleaned.  My  cattle  in  the  yard  do  not  look  as  if  they 
had  been  stabled  at  all.  In  very  cold  weather  I  do 
not  let  them  out  at  all,  hut,  water  them  in  the  stable. 
In  the  monn'ng  as  soon  as  ^ve  can  see  we  give  all, 
milkers  and  dry  cows,  a  little  meal;  a  little  hay  and  a 
sheaf  of  corn-fodder  after  breakfast;  toward  noon, 
two  bushels  of  chaff  and  more  corn-foJdcr,  and  at 
ni^ht  hav  and  meal  again.  The  milkers  have  four 
quarts  of  meal  twice  a  day.  When  the  weather  is 
mild  they  pick  the  chaff,  straw  and  fodder  in  the 
barn  yard,  and  go  into  the  stable  as  full  as  ticks.  I 
stable  all  my  stock  and  think  it  pays." 


Leading  a  Colt. 

Put  on  the  war-bridle,  and  place  yourself  at  the 
point  against  his  hips,  but  six  or  eight  feet  out,  and 
say,  "Come  here  !"  so  as  to  be  distinctly  understood. 
Give  a  sharp  pull  on  the  ox  war-bridle  which  will 
cause  him  tn  step  towards  you.  Then  say,  "Whoa  !" 
and  caress  him,  which  is  the  same  as  saying  to  him 
that  he  did  all  you  desired  of  him.  Change  from 
side  toside,  repeating  the  movements  until  he  answers 
the  word  of  command  without  the  pull  on  the  cord  ; 
he  will  soon  learn  your  desire  and  act  accordingly, 
and  you  must  bo  satisfied  with  even  a  step  towards 
you,  and  be  sure  to  pet  him  evey  time  he  answers 
your  call.  Repeat  this  from  side  to  side  until  he  will 
follow  anywhere  you  desire,  punishing  his  mouth  at 
any  lime  with  a  light  yank  of  the  war-bridle,  if  he 
stops  or  refuses  to  follow  you  when  you  start  off  and 
say,  "Come  on,  sir  !" 

In  this  way,  if  patience,  carefulness  and  persever- 
ance are  practiced  a  colt  may  be  taught  to  follow  any- 
where the  same  as  a  dog  and  to  mind  your  word  of 
command  the  same  as  an  ox  or  a  yoke  of  oxen. — 
Jo/m  M.  Tuttle. 


Value  of  Roots  for  Stalks. 

The  following  views  of  Mr.  Willard,  of  the  Rural 
New  Yorker,  on  this  subject,  are  sound  ones.  He 
says  : 

"In  comparing  roots  with  other  kinds  of  cattle 
food,  like  corn,  bran,  etc.,  we  get  better  results, 
practically,  from  the  roots  than  analysis  would  seem 
to  show.  That  is  to  say,  a  bushel  of  roots— though 
containing  a  lower  percentage  of  nutritive  elements 
than  a  bushel  of  corn — may  be  so  fed  in  connec- 
tion with  the  corn  as  to  give  as  good  results  as  when 
the  same  quantity  of  corn  is  fed  in  place  of  the  roots; 
but  from  numerous  experiments  at  the  manger,  the 
roots  always  show  a  better  result  than  their  analy- 
sis would  indicate.  Roots  assist  digestion  and  pro- 
mote a  more  thorough  assimilation  of  other  food. 
They  improve  the  health  of  stock  in  winter  whendrv 
food  is  the  chief  dependence;  and  as  the  improved 
health  of  stock  is  an  important  element  in  dairy  man- 
agement, the  dairyman  will  find  it  of  advantage  to 
grow  roots  for  his  stock." 


A  Queer  Calf. 

Mr.  James  McManus.a  resident  of  Fool's  Hill,  Ne- 
vada, who  is  engaged  in  mining,  owns  a  cow,  which 
eight  months  ago  gave  birth  to  a  calf.  The  calf  was 
kept  up  so  as  to  induce  the  mother  to  return  home 
in  the  evening  to  be  milked  and  suckle  it.  About  six 
months  after  she  gave  birth  to  the  calf,  failing  to 
come  home  as  usual,  Mr.  McManus  instituted  search 
and  found  her,  she  having  just  given  birth  to  an- 
other calf  of  a  queer  species,  not  being  larger  than  a 
young  fawn.  With  the  exception  of  its  ears  being 
small,  its  head,  legs,  and  tail  are  those  of  a  deer, 
the  body  and  hair  covering  it  like  that  of  a  calf.  It 
was  quite  spry,  and  the  mother  seemed  to  be  very 
fond  of  it.  There  has  been  no  trouble  so  far  in  rais- 
ing it,  and  it  is  now  two  months  old  and  thriving 
splendidly.  It  is  beginning  to  show  signs  of  horns, 
which  are  covered  with  velvet,  like  a  deer's.  A  good 
many  persons  have  been  to  see  this  really  remarkable 
cur.osity,  and  it  presents  a  problem  for  the  scien- 
tists to  solve. 


A  connESPOXDENT  of  the  Lv'e  Slock  and  Farm 
Journal,  mentioning  that  a  Jersey  heifer  fifieen 
months  and  eighteen  days  old,  had  just  dropped  a 
handsome  calf— the  ediicr  remarks  that  this  early 
maturity  is  not  unusual  with  the  Jerseys,  and  says  ; 
"In  this  community,  the  Jersey  heifer,  Nellie  Curtis 
(3,371)  has  been  in  the  dairy  since  she  was  1-t 
months  of  age,  although  she  calved   a  little  prema- 


turely. If  properly  cared  for,  early  maternity  ap- 
pears favorable  to  the  development  of  the  lacteal  or- 
gans." The  following  is  a  statement  made  by  Mr. 
J.  Milton  .\Jackie,  president  of  the  American  .lersey 
Cattle  Club,  in  1-70  :  ".My  yearling,  Hebe  4th,  out 
of  Hebe  1st,  dropped  a  calf  last  month,  when  she 
was  only  14  months  and  J  days  old.  She  calved 
without  trouble,  l)ehaved  well  in  every  respect;  has 
given  six  quarts  of  milk  per  day.  She  is  thrifty,  and 
I  don't  think  the  labors  and  duties  of  maternily,  so 
early  imposed  upon  her,  will  injure  her  giowih  in 
the  least.  The  calf  is  of  fair  size,  thrifty  and  hand- 
some." 


Domesticating  the  Buffalo. 

A  correspondent  of  the  Tjirf,  Fiehl  and  Farm 
sends  some  interesting  facts  regarding  the  domesticat- 
ing of  the  buffalo  in  Nebraska.  He  began  with  two 
cows  and  a  bull,  which  he  kept  with  his  tame  stock. 
In  the  spring  the  cows  calved,  and  in  three  years  the 
calves  became  mothers,  yielding  an  average  of  14 
quarts  of  the  richest  milk  daily,  for  an  average  of 
five  months.  The  buffalo  strain  now  extends  through 
a  large  part  of  Howard  county,  in  the  above  State, 
and  of  the  half  and  quarter  beef  animals  are  found 
to  be  very  hardy. 

Our  contemporary  adds,  that  sufficient  experiments 
have  been  made  in  crossing  the  buffalo  with  native 
and  grade  short  horned  cattle,  and  have  been  at 
tended  with  such  successful  results  that  the  most 
skeptical  people  cannot  fail  to  be  satisfied  as  to  the 
advantages  and  value  of  the  intermingling  of  breeds. 


Rearing  Lambs  by  Hand. 

S.  M.  T.  writes  to  the  Pradicnl  Farmer  :  As  I 
have  raised  numbers  and  had  good  success,  I  give  my 
plan  of  feeding  them.  If  old  cow's  milk,  I  dilute  one 
pint  of  milk  with  half  a  pint  of  water  and  teaspoon- 
ful  of  West  India  molasses  ;  but  if  new  cow's  milk  I 
give  it  just  as  it  comes  from  tne  cow,  and  feed  two 
tablespoonfuls  once  an  hour  through  a  patent  nurs- 
ing bottle,  or  a  common  bottle  with  rubber  nipple. 
As  the  lamb  increases  in  strength,  I  give  a  larger 
quantity  and  not  so  often.  I  have  in  this  way  raised 
lambs  that  at  three  months  weighed  fifty  pounds. 
At  two  or  three  weeks  old  I  have  taught  them  to 
drink. 


Keep  Good  Cows. 

There  is  no  use  in  trying  to  disguise  the  fact  that 
there  is  no  profit  in  the  dairy  without  good  cows. 
Look  at  the  difference.  One  cow  will  make  150 
pounds  of  butter  during  the  year,  worth  8.5  cts., 
$36. .50.  Another  will  make  -SOO  pounds,  worth  §7  i. 
The  first  yields  no  profit  whatever,  and  all  that  you 
make  comes  from  the  good  cow.  It  would  be  much 
better  to  keep  one  cow,  and  keep  her  well.  It  is  the 
same  loose  method  which  makes  all  our  farming 
operations  so  fruitless.  As  a  general  rule,  two  acres 
are  tilled  to  get  a  crop  that  ought  to  grow  on  one. — 
Practical  Farmer. 


LITERARY  AND   PERSONAL. 

At  the  last  meeting  of  the  Academy  of  Natural 
Sciences;  a  resolution  was  adopted  authorizing  the 
officers  of  the  Academy  to  sign  a  memorial  to  his  Ex- 
cellency the  President  of  the  United  States,  recom- 
mending Dr.  John  L.  Le  Conte  as  Commissioner  of 
Agriculture,  on  account  of  his  eminent  scientific  at- 
tainments and  executive  ability. 

We  clip  the  above  from  the  Public  Ledger  of  the 
8th  inst.  This  is  as  it  ought  to  be.  We  feel  that  this 
appointment  would  reflect  credit  upon  any  admistra- 
tion  that  made  it,  and  any  country  that  sustained  it ; 
and,  would  also  be  a  practical  recognition  of  those 
claims  of  natural  science  which  are  so  often  ignored 
in  public  appointments.  Dr.  Le  Conte's  executive 
abilities  would  bring  to  the  support  of  the  depart- 
ment, as  aids,  the  elaborations  of  the  best  minds  of 
the  country,  and  secure  it  from  imposition.  We 
know  whereof  we  speak. 

Benson  &  Burpee's  illustrated  manual  and  de- 
scriptive catalogue  of  imported  and  thoroughbred 
live  stock;  also,  Benson  &  Burpee's  priced  catalogue 
of  reliable  seeds — including  field,  garden  and  flower 
seeds,  trees,  plants,  implements  and.  fertilizers,  for 
1^77,  are  on  our  table.  This  enterprising  firm  of  im- 
porters and  dealers,  are  the  successors  to  W.  Atlee 
Burpee,  and  their  agricultural  warehouse  and  live 
stock  office,  is  located  at  2,B  Church  street,  Phila- 
delphia. We  call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to 
their  advertisemenl  in  the  columns  of  this  journal; 
and  for  full  particulars  in  relation  to  the  details  of 
the  articles  they  deal  in,  we  would  recommend  them 
to  send  at  once  for  their  catalogues,  and  consult  them 
thoroughly  belorethcy  look  elsewhere.  Illus'rations 
and  specific  descriptions  ol  the  finest  of  this  slotk 
will  appear  in  the  columns  of  the  Lancaster  Fanner. 

OuK  FOLIOS.— Among  the  folio  exchanges  which 
have  regularly  reached  our  table  are  many  that  are  a 
credit  to  the  country,  the  age,  and  to  agricultural 
journalism,  many  of  them  being  of  such  a  high  order 
and  such  essential  institutions,  that  uo  progressive 


farmer  will  consent  to  be  without  one  or  more  of 
them,  and  therefore  they  may  be  considered  as  estab- 
lished in  their  affections,  and  their  continuance  and 
and  prosperity  assured.  What  farmer  having  fairly 
tried  them,  can  dispense  with  the  Ofrtnantuien  Tele- 
graph; the  Prairie  Farmer  ;  the  Farmers'  Uuion  ; 
the  i\>iti  York  Rural;  the  Country  Gentleman;  the 
Massachusetts  Ploughman  ;  and  a  number  of  others 
which  will  receive  attention  as  the  months  move  on- 
ward. Besides  the  claims  of  agr  culture  are  recog- 
nized more  or  less  by  all  the  folios  in  our  own  county  : 
the  Examiner  and  Fx/ire-'s  ;  the  In/iuircr  ;  the  Man- 
hei/n  .Sentinel ;  the  A't-/"  Holland  Clarion;  the  Colum- 
bia fferalii  ;  the  Jllarietta  Register  ;  the  Lancaster 
Intelligencsr,  and  others,  of  which  more  anon. 

Catalosue  of  one  hundred  and  seventy  p^ire  Jer- 
sey cattle,  imported  and  bred  by  William  B.  Dins- 
MOiiE,  Of  Staatsburg,  Duchess  county,  N.  Y.  number- 
ed to  correspond  with  those  in  the  American  Jersey- 
Cattle  Club  Herd  Register;  issued  Jan.  1,  1877.  All 
communications  in  reference  to  the  herd  should  bead- 
<ires6ed  to  Timothy  Hcrrick,  atthc  aLovenamed  place. 
This  is  a  12  mo.  pamphlet  of  .3  pages,  but  between 
its  covers  is  a  record  of  stock  as  valuable  as  a  gold 
mine.  Some  of  these  cattle  are  not  now  for  sale,  but 
one  hundred  and  fourteen  are  marked  for  sale,  of 
which  a  few  are  already  sold  or  were  sold  a  few 
weeks  ago;  and  the  prices  range  from  §75  00  up  to 
§.500.00,  but  fully  two-thirds  are"  from  $200.  to  $i00; 
short  descriptions,  as  well  as  pedigrees  and  names, 
are  given  of  each  animal.  Therefore  if  any  of  our 
patrons  desire  good  Jersey  stock,  they  should  avail 
themselves  of  the  opportunity  immediately. 

Swine. — Notwithstanding  the  adverse  views  of  the 
physiologists,  hygeists,  and  sanitarians,  in  regard  to 
the  use  of  swine  as  human  food,  perhaps  there  has 
not  been  a  period  in  the  domestic  history  of  our 
country,  in  which  more  money  has  been  invested  in 
swine  breeding  and  swine  slaughtering  and  packing, 
than  at  the  present  time;  and  never  before  has  it 
produced  finer  stock  of  that  animal.  The  Berk- 
shires,  the  Yorkshires,,  the  Chester  Whites,  the  Po- 
land Chinas,  and  the  ISssex,  are  prominently  brought 
before  the  public  through  the  various  agricultural 
journals  of  the  country.  The  first  prizes  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition  of  Swine,  were  awarded  to  T.  S. 
Cooper,  "Linden  Grove,"  Coopersberg,  Lehigh 
county.  Pa.,  for  a  Berkshire  sow  and  boar.  Between 
the  20ch  of  November  1875  and  the  1.0th  of  Novem- 
ber 1-7H,  that  distinguished  breeder  sold  two  hun- 
dred and  three  Berkshire  pigs,  which  netted,  in  the 
aggregate,  ^i0,70-',  averaging  g  00 .-50  per  head. 
In  several  instances  he  realized  81,000,  lor  a  single 
pig.  The  lowest  price  was  5-5.00— the  largest  num- 
ber from  .$100  to  S500. 

We  call  the  attention  of  our  readers,  and  especi- 
ally those  out  of  employment  in  our  community  who 
dt'sire  to  make  an  honest  livelihood,  to  the  advertise- 
ment of  Geo.  Stinson  &  Co.,  art  publishers,  Port- 
laud,  Maine,  which  they  will  find  in  another  column 
in  this  issue  of  the  Lancastek  Fakmek.  It  aflords 
us  pleasure  in  being  able  to  say,  from  occular  de- 
monstration, that  the  works  putjlished  by  this  com- 
pany are  of  the  highest  artistic  order,  and  such  as 
would  be  likely  to  find  a  ready  sale  among  people  of 
any  appreciative  intelligence  and  refineraeut  what- 
ever. 

Mnsic  CHART. — We  admonish  professors  of  vocal 
and  instrumental  music,  and  also  school  boards  and 
school  teachers,  that  Prof.  J.  B.  Harry,  of  Chambers- 
burg,  Pa.,  has  invemed  a  chart  which  he  recently 
exhiijited  to  us,  embracing  the  fundamental  principles 
of  vocal  and  instrumental  music,  in  a  very  compre- 
hensive and  yet  simple  manner;  and  which  seems 
destined  to  atlurd  a  greater  aid  in  imparting  a  tho- 
rough kuowledge  of  the  scientific  priuciples  of  this 
accomplished  art  to  pupils,  than  anything  that  has 
yet  appeared  before  the  public.  This  chart  is  over 
four  feet  by  over  five  feet  in  size — intended  to  be 
hung  up  in  the  school  or  class  room— and  embraces 
the  whole  musical  "score,"  from  the  highest  alto 
to  the  lowest  bass,  illustrating  the  scales  of  the 
human  voice  and  tlie  different  kinds  of  musical  in- 
struments, and  the  relations  they  bear  to  each  other. 
Teachers,  keep  an  eye  on  this  chart. 

We  invite  the  attention  of  our  readers— farmers 
and  housekeepers  especially— to  the  announcement 
made  this  week  in  our  columns  by  Mr.  J.  G. 
Koehler,  of  50  J  North  Second  Street,  Philadelphia. 
Air.  Koehler  is  the  patentee  and  manufacturer  of  an 
improved  Butter  Tub,  with  Cooler  attached  to  each 
end,  the  latter  consisting  of  removable  tin  chambers, 
thus  f.icilitatiiig  the  removal  of  ice,  water,  etc. 
These  tubs  vary  in  carrying  capacity  from  0  to  200 
pounds.  Constructed  of  white  cedar— well  seasoned 
—and  bound  in  galvanized  iron  and  brass  hoops, 
their  whoic  appearance  indicates  that  they  have  been 
substantially  constructed,  as  well  as  neatly  finished. 
They  are  guaranteed  to  keep  or  carry  butter  in  the 
hoitcst  weather,  in  prime  condition.  For  particulars 
send  for  circular  as  above. 

We  wish  to  call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to 
the  prospectus  of  that  valuable  monthly,  The  Ka- 
riojAa/.ii/'c  .Siyc'i: /o'(rj/«/,  which  appears  in  this  is- 
sue of  our  paper.  We  will  furnish  The  Journal  with 
our  paper  lor  $..50  per  year. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


III. 


E.  F.  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron. 

Has  uov«r  been  known  to  fail  in  the  cure  of  weakncBB,  at- 
tended with  BvinptoniB,  iudiRpositiou  to  exortion,  loss  of 
meraorv,  dimculty  ol  breathing,  general  weiikueaH,  horror  of 
diseHRp^  weuk,  nervous  trembling,  dreadful  horror  of  death, 
night  sweats,  cold  feet,  wcaknesH,  djumesHof  vision, languor, 
universal  laesitudo  of  the  niuioulur  Ryateni,  cnormouH  np- 
potite,  with  dysppptic  system.  |hot  huudH,  flushing  of  the 
bodv  dryness  of  the  skin,  piiUid  countenance  and  eruptions 
on  the  face,  purilying  the  blood,  pain  in  the  b.iok,  heaviuosa 
of  the  eyelids,  frequent  black  spola  flying;  before  the  eyes, 
with  t-'uipcr.iryaufl'uaioii  and  loss  of  sight, want  of  atteulion, 
etc.  These  syniptome  all  arise  from  u  weckneas,  and  to 
reinedy  that,  use  E.  F.  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron.  It 
never  fails.  Thousands  are  now  enjoying  health  who  have 
used  it.  Get  the  genuine.  Sold  only  in  $1  bottles.  Take 
only  E.  F.  Kunkel's. 

Ask  for  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron.  This  truly  vnlunblo 
tonic  has  been  so  t  horoughly  tested  by  all  cliist^es  of  the  com- 
munity that  it  is  now  deemed  indisHpnaable  as  a  Tonic  raed- 
Iciue.  It  costs  but  lutle,  purifies  the  blood  and  gives  lone 
to  thestonmch,  renovateethosystem  and  j-roluugslife. 

I  now  only  "sk  a  trial  of  this  valuable  tonic.  Price  $1  per 
bottle.  E.  F.  KITNKEL,  Sole  Proprietor,  No.  2r.9  North 
Ninth  Street,  below  Vine,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  Ask  for  Kun- 
kel'B  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron,  and  take  no  other.  A  photograph 
of  the  proprietor  on  each  wrapper,  all  others  are  countorieit. 

Beware  of  couuterfeits.  Do  not  let  your  druggist  sell  you 
any  but  Kunkel's,  frhich  is  put  up  only  as  above  iei>reBeut- 
ed.  You  can  get  six  bottles  for  five  doll.. ra.  All  I  ask  is 
one  eimjile  trial. 

Tapeworm  Removed  Alive. 

Head  and  all  complete  in  two  hours.  No  ffe  till  head 
pnBses.  Seat,  Pin  and  Stomach  worniB  lemovi.d  by  Dr. 
Kunkel,  259  Noi-th  Ninth  Street.  Advice  free.  No  fee  until 
head  and  all  passes  in  one,  and  alive.  Dr.  Kunkel  is  the 
only  Buccessfu)  )ihysiciau  in  this  country  for  th^  removal  of 
Worms,  and  his  Worm  Syrup  is  pleasant  and  safe  for  chil- 
dren or  grown  persons.  Send  for  circular,  or  ask  lor  a 
bottle  of  Knnfcpl's  HV/rm  Si^rup.  Price  one  dollar  per  bottle. 
Get  it  of  your  Diuggist.     It  never  fiiila.  9-H-Ini 


To  the  "WorUiiisr  Cla^w. — ^^Ve  are  now  prepared  to 
fnrniBU  all  cheseB  with  constant  empljymeut  at  home,  the 
whole  of  the  time,  or  for  their  spare  moniei'lB.  Business 
new,  light  and  pi  ofltable.  Persons  of  either  sex  paaily  earn 
from  50  cents  to  $5  per  eveniug,  and  a  proportional  sum  by 
devoting  their  whole  time  to  t)ie  business.  Boyi  andgiils 
earn  nearly  as  much  as  men.  That  all  who  nee  this  notice 
may  send  their  adkresB,  and  test  the  business  we  make  this 
tjuparaUeled  offer :  To  such  as  are  not  well  siitiBfind  we  will 
eend  one  dollar  to  pay  lor  the  trouble  of  wiiting.  Full  par- 
ticulars, samples  worth  several  dollars  to  communce  work 
on,  and  a  copy  of  Home  and  Fireside,  one  of  the  largest  and 
best  Illustrated  Publications,  all  sent  free  by  mail.  Header, 
if  you  want  permanent,  profitable  work,  address, 

9^;!— Im  Gkorgk  Stinson   k  Co.,  Poitland,  Maine 

not  easily  (arued  :u  Ih'  6  ^  tiniO'  ,'iut  U  cuu  bo 
made  in  three  moutlis  by  any  one  ot  either 
sex,  in  any  part  of  the  country  who  is  v.'illing 
to  work  steadily  at  the  emjiloyment  that  we 
furnish.  $66  jier  week  in  your  owu  town.  You 
need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.  You  can  give  your 
whole  time  to  the  work,  or  only  your  spare  moments.  It 
costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  55  Outfit  free. 
Address  at  once,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-::-ly 


$7771 


s:b3:i:f\.ts  i 

Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -      $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 

Sloclinp,  Siispenfers,  HafldtercMefs, 

Itiiipii  aud  I'nper  Collars  anri  CiiCTh 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

AT 

E.  J.  ehishan'S, 

No.  llO    North    Queen    Street, 
Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 


J.  STAUFFER, 

mimt  i  mm, 

LANCASTEE,  i'ENN'A. 
235  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


All  matters  appertaining  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CANA- 
DIAN PATENTS,  TRADE  M.\PKS,  and  Cf »PYIUGIITS. 
proniptly  attended  to.  His  experituro,  sncccHs  a  d  faithful 
atontion  to  the  interests  of  those  who  engage  his  Bcrvicea 
are  fully  ackuowledged  and  appreciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  made  for  him  by  a  reliable  As 
sistant  at  Wushiugton,  without  extra  charge  for  drawing 
or  dencniifion.  ffl-l-tf 


E.  IT.  FRESHMAIT  &  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 

186  W,  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Are  antborlzvcl   to  rontract  Tor  advcrlising 
In  tbls  paper. 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 

CI-OTHS, 

CASSIMERES, 

COATINGS,  :WORK'I-ERDS, 

TESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Chiviota  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striped  and  diagonal, for  Spring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  CMothlng  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Eetsblisbed  Id  the  year  1840), 

Corner  of  A'ortli  Queen  and  OrauKC-Sts., 

LANCASTER,  PA. 
Extra  flaiahed  aud  trimmed,  Uocdy-made  Clothing,  for 

MEK  A'NJ)  BOYS, 

and  clothing  cut  or  made  to  order  iu  the  most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A   fiuo    line    of     GENT.S'   FUItNISUING    GOODS,   and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  oi  i  lece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

9-l-ly  Priiclioal  Tftilors. 

M.  HABERBUSH, 

MANUI-ACTUREIS  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

SA]>I>I.RS. 

COLLARS,   'WHIPS,  &c., 

ALSO    DEALER    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  R0BE9, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-l_ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


H.  Z.  RH0AD3. 


CHAS.  Q.  RHOADS. 


Eslimates  furuisM  Iree. 


Seul  lor  a  Circular. 


ECONOMY  I IV  FERTILIZERS  ! 

HOME-MADE  CHEMICAL  MANURES, 

The  most  Effective  and  C'lieapeNt. 

Buy  reliable  Chemicals  and  make  your  own  Fertilizers 
AT  HOME.  Write  for  circular,  giving  lull  information  on 
this  subject. 

We  make,  or  import,  all  kinds  of  Fertilizing  Chemicals, 
including  : 
Oil  of  Vilrol,  niswolvfU  BoncM, 

^-rikiiixl   ISoiies,  lijiiid  l*la*4tcr. 

Sulpliut*'  oT  B'olnMli,  Nitralc  of  soda, 
A;;rir-iilliirHl  Sii!(,      S)il|itiii«c of  Ammonia, 
Muriat<-'Ol   I'ofit.sli,     Itoii*-  «  linrcoiil, 
Sulpliiiio  of  Soda,       Kiil|»li;tte  of  Magnesia. 

Address    HARRISON  BROS.  &  CO., 

/05  .South  I'rottt  Strtrt,  J'JiHafitlp/iia. 

Established  as  Manufacturers  of  Fertilizing  Chemicals 
in  i7o:^.  if-i-':;m 


My  annual  Catalagno  cf  Vegetable  nnd  Flower  Seed  for 
1877  will  be  re.idy  by  January,  and  sent  frt-f  to  nil  who  (ip- 
ply.  CuBtomers  of  last  Heasjii  need  not  write  for  it.  I  offer 
one  of  the  Urge-^t  coUectionR  of  vegetable  seed  ever  sent  out 
by  any  seed  house  in  America,  a  lurco  jiortion  of  which 
were  gr  wn  on  my  b'x  seed  fnrms.  I*rinffd  direction.t/or 
cuKivationon  eocrt/ packane.  All  seed  Bold  from  my  estab- 
lishment warriinted  to  be  bo'h  fresh  and  true  to  name;  so 
far,  that  should  it  prove  otherwise,  I  will  aefiU  the  order 
gratis.  As  the  original  introducer  of  (he  Hubbard  and 
Marblehfad  Pqnaahep,  the  Marblehead  Cabbages,  and  a 
score  of  other  now  veiietablea,  I  invite  the  patronage  of  all 
who  are  anxious  to  bar-e  their  xeedn  fresh,  true,  and  of  the 
t^ry  bent  Strain.  New  vkoktableb  a  Specialtt. 
&-r2  51]  JAMES  1.  H.  OREQORY,  Marblehead,  Mass. 


R  day   at   Home.      Agents    wanted.     Outfit    and 
terms  free.    TBUK  k  CO.,  Augusta,  Maine.  [S-Z-lj 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Wholesulo  and  Retail  DealerB  In 

fflAMOK,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 

SILVESWARE,  SFZOTACLES, 

Bronzes,  Clocks  and  Watckakers'  Uiteriah. 


JOCBKI\S  IN  A^IEI\IGAN  WaTCI^^ES. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injportations  iij  Foreign  Goods, 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


9-1 -I y] 


Tvarietiea  of  either  Flowor  or  Vegetable  NF.Kn.S  for  25 
centB,  post  paid.    "  rlorsl  TributB"  16  cenlR. 

E.  E.  JOItn.W. 
9-3-2m  29  Savamiah-Ht.,  Ilocbewlor,  N.  T. 


$12 


ABE   PLANTKD    BY    A    MILLION     PEOPLK     IN    AMEBIOA.      SEB 

Vick's  Catalogue— 300  lUustratioue,  only  2  cents. 
;  Vick's  Floral  Guide,  Quarterly,  25  ceute  a  y©»r, 

Vick's  Flower  and  Vegetable   Garden,  60  cent e;  with 
elegant  cloth  coveip,  $1  00. 

All  my  I  ublications  are  printM  in  English  and  Oerman. 
B!|         Adaress,  JaMF.S  VK'K.  Uochoster,  N.  Y. 

FARMS 

For  Sale     K;inffinf  fr.<m  a<>  1"  ."iOO  Acri-1. 
Apply  to  I..    MALiOIVE,   Sallabury,  Nd. 


IS  EEDS. 

co^L'La  CATALOGUE    /«". 


EVERYTHING 

VOK  THE 


Numbering  175  rages,  with  Colored  Plate, 

SENT  FREE  « 

To  our  costomerBof  past  years,  and  to  all  purchaBors  f' 
of  our  books,  either  ^ 

Gardening  for  Profit,     Practical  Floriculture,  4] 

or  Gardening  for  Pleasure.  >J 

(Price  $1.50  each,  prepaid  by  mail,)        ^ 

To  otbers  ou  receipt  of  25c. 

Plain  Plant  or  Seed  Catalogues,  without  pUte,  free 

to  all. 

Seedsmen,  Market  (hirdnierx  and  Florists, 

35  Cortlandt  St.,  New  York. 
^■■■■■B  PL  ANTS.  Hi^HBBi^H 

9-l-3t „ 

WANTED     IMMEDIATELY 

Y  T    77    YounR   Men   and  Women    to   learn   Ti  Lhj-    X 


YounR  Men  aUL 
GRAPHY.  SituatiouB  (fuaranteed.  Halary  while 
practicing.  Address,  with  etatnp.  Sherman 
Teleffrapb  Co.,  Oberlio.  Ohio.  8 


9-M 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR  FARMER. 


[  March,  1877. 


LADIES  ! 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


GUNDAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 


STORE, 

A  KEW  LOT  OF 

HAMBUBG  EMBROIDERED  EBGIBGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  TEE  VERY  LOWEST  PRICES.    AIk), 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Ktd  GIOTea, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CRAPE  -V-KXX.S. 

OEAPE  BONI^ETS  &  HATS, 

BUCH1K38, 

all  styles  and  widths,  and  everything  else  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDBEN'S     WEAB, 

that  is  good,  deBirable  and  cheap. 

OiTC  nB  a  call  at 

K08.I42  &,  144  North Qneen-st, Lancaster.,  Pa. 

9-l-ly 

DON'T  FAIL  TO 

USE  TBE 

Buffalo  Honest  Fertilizers 

ON  ALL  SPKING  CE0P8. 
Ammoniated  Bone  Super  Phosphate,' 

AITD 

PURE  GROUND  BONES. 

The  purity  of  these  goods  is  guaranteed,  and  their  stand- 
ard proved  by  regular  analysis  of  Prof.  G.  A.  Liebig  of 
Baltimore,  and  other  eminent  chemiate. 

Hlgrtaest  Premium  and  Medal  of  Honor 
swarded  by  tbe  <'entciiiiinl  Commission  of 
tbe  International  JExpoKition.  Phila.,  1876. 

Send  for  new  Spring  Circular,  containing  full  directions 
and  testimonials. 
9-2-3t.]  Office  SBSWashington  St.,  Buffalo,  H.  Y. 


FROM  ONE  TO  SIX-HORSE 


FARM  &  FREIGHT  WAGONS. 

The  beet  proportioned,  best  ironed,  lightest  running  and 
cbeapeBt  Wagons  in  the  market. 

W.  D.  SPRECHER  A  NOW, 

9-3-2m  31  East  King-Bt.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

♦  CCT  +«  <t^^  a  Week  to  AgfntB.    $10  Outfit  Free. 
wOO  X<0  4>  I   I  f  •  O-  VICKERY,  Augusta,  Maine, 

8-8-ly 

AMOS  MILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANDFACTURBR  OF  AND  DEALER  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars 

Bridles,  Whips,  &c.      Also  a  fine  lot  of  Truuke,  Valises, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buffalo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 
»-l-ly 


SEEDS 


^^isriD  :Fi.:E]i_,i.i^^LEi 

For  the  FI.OWER  and  TEOETABLE  GARDEN  and  the  FARM. 

Our  1877  Combined  priced  Catalogue  of  Seeds,  Plants  and  Blooded  Live  Stock  and  Fancy 
Poultry  Free  to  all. 

BFtE:E:D£:Fi'S   -NLA-VSTJ aji^. 

The  Philadelphia  Practical  Farmer  of  Dec.  30,  notices  our  Catalogue  as  follows:  "We  have  received  an  illustrated  man- 
ual and  descriptive  catalogue  of  imported  and  thoroughbred  live  stock,  Aldecney,  Ayrshire  and  Short  horned  Cattle,  Ches- 
ter White,  Yorkshire,  Berkshire,  Essex  and  Poland  China  Hogs,  Cotewold  and  South^wn  Sheep,  land  and  water  Fowls, 
fancy  Pigeons  and  Dogs,  owned,  bred  and  for  sale  by  Benson  &  Burpee,  of  Philadelpma. 

This  is  emphatically  the  best  and  most  complete  live  stock  Catalogue  we  have  received.  It  contains  not  only  illustrationa 
and  price  lists  of  stock,  but  gives  in  addition  a  large  amount  of  valuable  practical  information  on  the  breeding  and  man- 
agement of  different  varieties  and  is  very  useful  as  a  reference  book.  Messrs,  Benson  Jc  Burpee  have  now  on  band  a  very 
fine  lot  of  breeding  stock,  and  we  feel  confident  that  customers  will  be  well  pleased  with  purchases  made  from  them. 

Price  20  cents. 


JITST  OUT  I    THE  POULTRY  YARD.     How  to  Fubnibh  and  Manage  It.    By  W.  Atlee  Burpe<t.      A  new  and  prac- 
tical treatise,  at  a  popular  price,  for  every  farmer  and  amateur  in  poultry  breeding.    It  treats  of  Poultry  Houses  an  d 
fixtures,  nests,  yards,  &c.,  poultry  at  liberty  and  in  confinement,  the  best  breeds  for  various  purposes,  selection  of  stock, 
mating  for  breeding,  feeding  of  adult  fowls  and  young  chicks,  condiments  and  general  care  and  atteution^requisite  to  suo- 
cess  in  this  often  neglected  branch  of  rural  industry. 
It  also  contains  practical  hints  on  the  raising  and  management  of  Tuikeys,  Geese,  Ducks  and  Quineas. 

Beautifnl  Colored  Frontispiece  of  a  trio  of  Fowls.    Price  50  ots.,  post  free. 


EGOS  FOR  HATCHING  of  all  choice  varieties.    LAND  AND  WATER  FOWLS.    Also  very  fine  Chester  White, 
Yorkshire,  Berkshire,  Essex  and  Poland  China  Pigs;  Cotawold  and  Southdown  Sheep,  Alderney  and  Ayrshire  OattU 
and  calves  now  for  sale. 

A'>'>«-"  BENSON  &  BURP££, 

Seed  'Warehouse,  223  Chvirch  St.,  Philadelphia,  Fa. 


MAMMOTH  CORN. 

Every  farmer  send  for  package  of  Mammoth  Corn,  whlob 
in  ordinary  ground  will  yield  125  bushel  per  acre,  besides 
ripens  much  sooner.  It  is  perfect  flour  com,  grows  thre» 
ears  on  each  stalk.  Club  together  and  send  for  one  dozea. 
packages.     It  is  put  up  in  packages  at  the  following  price: 

One  package 35  cts. 

Two         "  50 

Six  "  1.40 

One  dozen  packag'cs 2.30 

Two       "  **  3.70 

Send  at  once  to 

CASEY'S  SEED  CO., 

9-3-3in  HarrisonvilM,  Meigs  co.,  Ohio, 


YOUR  NAME  PRI!«TEn  on  40  Mixed  Cards  for 
lOo.                    STEVENS  BROS.,  Northford.  Conn. 
9-3-lm. 

ESTABLISHED  18S2. 


Prize    Medal  Awarded    by  the  C'entcnHlal 
Coniini»!4ion  to 

IMPROVED  BUTTER  TOBS  AND  COOLERS. 

With  movable  Ice  Cham- 
bers, Patented  Jan.  12, 
1ST5.  Best  in  the  market. 
Are  made  of  white  cedar, 
buuud  with  galvanized 
iron  or  brass  hooj  s. 
Within  thetub  ia  fitted  a 
tin  Cooler,  having  a 
movable  Chamber  for 
ice  at  each  end.  On  the 
till  is  constructed  a  se- 
rieH  of  ledges,  on  which 
rest  the  shelves  for  sup- 
porting the  butter  (Print 
Butier);  are  used  without  shelves  for  Roll  Butter.  Can  be 
locked  for  shipping.  Hinges,  Hasps,  and  Fixtui  es.  are  tinned 
to  render  the^  rust  proof.  J.  G.  *-■  OEII1.ER, 

9-3-3m  Msnufacturer,  No.  503  N,  8econd-st.,  Phila. 


FXMPZiSS. 


I  will  mail  (Free)  the  receipt  for  preparing  a  simple  Veg- 
KTABLE  Balm  that  will  remove  Tan,  Freckles,  PiMi  LES 
and  BLOTCHES,  leaving  the  skin  soft,  cltar  and  beantilul; 
also  instructions  for  producing  a  luxuriant  growth  of  hair 
on  a  bald  head  or  smooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vandelf  & 
Co.,  Box  5121,  No.  5  Wooster  St.,  N.  Y.  .[9-1-Gm 


SENEK    &  SONS, 


Manufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 

finished 


r.x7]y[B£:fi, 


Also  Sash, 


The  best  Sawed  SHI^'GLEM  iu  the  country. 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &o. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  COA  I.  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YAKD  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-stg., 

9-l-ly 


$1  a  Year 


'To  (iHhRcriberB  tn 
'l       the  county. 


SINGLE  C0PI3S  10  CENTS 


To  flubBcriberii  out  of  | 
tUf  cnuiity,  ( 


$1.23. 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  APRIL  15,  1877. 


UNNSnS  BATEVOK,  FabUsher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC    ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  prominent  feature,  with  special  reference  to  the 
wautB  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit-Grower, 


Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 

Edited  by  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


The  Lanoastkk  Farmer  having  completed  its  eighth 
year  under  VHrious  viciseitudeB,  now  commences  its  ninth 
volume  under,  it  ik  hoped,  more  favorable  auspices  than 
attended  its  tormer  volumt'H.  When  the  publisiiers  of  the 
last  two  volumes  HHSumed  the  reBpousibilitieB  of  its  publi- 
cation, it  WHB  with  ii  delerrainatiou  to  make  ench  iniprove- 
ments  as  would  place  the  farmer'e  organ  of  this  great  agri- 
cultural county  in  the  very  front  rank  of  agricnltural  jour- 
naliBm,  That  this  hsB  been  accompliehed  we  think  our 
readers  will  bear  cheerful  testimony.  If  rejison.bly  bub- 
taiued,  our  aim  is  to  make  it  Btill  more  interesting  and  iu- 
Btructivo  under  ts  new  proprietorship.  In  thip,  however, 
we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  friend  of  the  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor,  Prof.  Rathvon,  on 
BUbjectB  connected  with  the  science  of  farming,  and  partic- 
ularly that  specialty  of  which  he  iB  so  thoronghly  a  master — 
entomological  science— some  knowledge  of  which  has  become 
a  necessity  to  the  fluccessful  farmer,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  than  the  price  of  this  publication. 

The  Farmer  will  be  published  on  the  15th  of  every 
month,  printed  on  good  paper  with  clear  tyjie,  in  con- 
venient form  for  reading  and  bimUng,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
Rcribers  ou  the  following 

TERMS: 

To  subscribers  residing  within  the  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,   -----_  $i.oo 

Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -  -  -  .  .        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year,    -------        7.50 

To  subscribers  outside  of  LAUcaster  county,  including 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  publishers: 

One  Copy,  one  year,     -  .        -  -  .  .  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       .        -        .  .  .        .  5.00 

All  Bubscriptions  will  commence  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otherwise  ordered. 

All  communications  intended  for  publication  should  be 
addressed  to  the  Editor,  and,  to  secure  insertion,  should  be 
In  his  hands  by  the  first  of  the  month  of  publication. 

All  business  letters,  containing  subscriptions  and  adver- 
tisements, should  be  addressed  to  the  publisher. 


LINNyEUS  RATHVON, 

aa  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


KATF,S  OF  ADVERTI8IXO — Ten    Cents    a 
line  Tor  eikeb  Insertion.     Twelve  liae«  to  the  mob 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 


April, 49 

Fine  Test  Potatoee,           .        -        ...  49 

Words  of  Cheer,  -        - 50 

The  Colorado  Bug  Abroad,      ....  50 

Written  Receipts  by  Mail,   -----  50 

Crowded  Out, 50 

Fertilization,  Preventive  and  Cure,      -        -        .50 

The  Park  Association,       .....  50 

The  Weather— The  Ground  Hog,         ...  50 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

The  Guava, 51 

Pieris  Rapae,         .......5.3 

Unpublished  Letter  of  Henry  Clay,         -        .        53 
Answers  to  Correspondents,         .        .        .        .    5S 

Annual  Address,       ......        54 

Reud  before  the  '•Lancaeter  County  Agricultural  and 
Horticultural  Society,"  Jaiuary  let,  1877.  by  ihe  Pres. 
fdeut,  Ciilviu  Coojer. 

Largeor SmallPotatoe8,F.R.DiFFENDEBPER,  .    54 

Essay         ........55 

Head  before  the  "Lancaster  County  Agricnltural  and 
Horticultural  Society,*"  March  2G,  1877,  by  Levi  Pow- 
uaU. 

How  Much  Lime  to  the  Acre,      .        -        .        -    5G 
ltf;id  before  the   "Laucaeter  County  Agricultural   and 
Horticultural  Society,"  IrlKrcb  2d,  1877,  by  E.  K.  Her. 
ehey. 

Sap,    Etc. — Plant   Life    and     Molecular    Force, 

J.  Stauffeh, 50 

Corn  Cultivation,  J.  G.        .        -        -        .        -    57 
Ayrshires,  ......        .58 

Gardening  for  Farmers,  J.  S.  Harris.        .        -    58 
Location    of    the  Garden — Soil — Hot.Bede — Staaon  or 
time  for  Planting — Fruits. 

Better  Prices  lor  Seed  Leaf,      ....        60 

The  Lancaster  Tobacco  Crop,       -        -        -        .    60 

Our  Local  Organizations,  ....        01 

Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricnltural  and 

Horticultural  Society — Crop  Keporte — Agriculture  of 

the  Country — Growing  Potatoes. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,         .        -        -        C2 
The  Linnaian  Society,  ......    03 

Additions  to  the  Library — Pai>ors  Head. 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Valuable  Formulas, 63 

Utilizing  Coal  Eust, 63 

What  Soil  Consists  of, 63 

A  New  Agricultural  Plant,           .        .        -        .63 
Hints  to  Farmers, -        fti 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Florida  and  its  Oranges,      -----  C4 

Transplanting  Large  Trees,      -        -        -        .  64 

Shipments  of  Apples,    ......  64 

Literary  and  Personal,     .....  64 


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ELIZABETH  STOCK  FARMS. 


To  the  getter  up  of  a  club  of  5  subscribers,  at  $1 .00 
a  year,  we  will  mail  a  copy  of  The  Faruer,  for  one 
year  free. 


Registered  Pure-Bred  and  High  Grade 

Jersey  Bull^  Cows  and  Calves^ 

<'on»laiitlj  on  Hnnd  and 
l-'or  Nalp. 

BERKSHIRES  BRFD  WITH  CARE. 
COLIN  CAMERON, 

»-*-lyl  Briekerville,  Lanra-iter  co.,  Pa. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


^c:? 


fiSl 


COIM==SILVER 

— Aim 

Gold  Premiums 

GIVEN  AWAY 

^^  To  Every  Subscriber  of  This  Paper!! 

CONSISTING  OF 

Elpgant  «s:<ra-plate<l  TAKLK  SirVERWARE, 

surh     as     87.00    ('aslorM,    Knives   S6.00    per   set. 

Forks  $3.00,   Spoons  $4.S0  per  set,    Xapklii- 

llingrs  82.ao  a  pair,    Su^ar-Kowls,  goia- 

lined,  all  of  latest  style  of  pattern, 

TO  EVERY  SUBSCRIBER  FREE. 


SiIvrrandGoMgoorls  furnished  underthis  Premium  Proposition  are  from  the  well  known 
and  reliable  Kasle  Gold  and  Silver  Plating  Company,  Cineinnati,  uliio.  Undt-r  a  very  favor- 
able proposition  from  the  above  well  known  house,  all  regular  patrons  of  this  paper  can  se- 
cure a  useful  and  beautiful,  a-s  well  as  a  verv  valuable  Premium,  in  the  shape  of  a  hand- 
some set  of  EXTRA  PLATED  SILVER  SPOONS,  equal  to  the  iwst  artiele  of 
the  kind  sold  in  this  counlry  lor  fl.Sll  per  set.  And,  in  addition,  EACH  SPOON 
^^Va?^  '^i^'!(P^°'"^,>7,^?NCRAyED  WITH  YOUR  MONOCRAWl 
INITIAL.  AH  who  are  entitled  to  receive  this  elegant  and  uselul  Premium  can  do 
so  on  compliance  with  the  following  conditions:  Send  your  name  and  post-offlce  address, 
with  your  express  office,  to  the  EaEle  Gold  and  Silver  Plating  Company,  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 
together  with  the  following  Premium  Order,  and  inclose  with  your  order  75  cents  to  pav  cost 
ot  engraving  your  initials,  express  charges,  boxing,  and  packing,  and  vou  will  receive  by 
return  express  ior  mail,  if  youliave  no  express  office)  a  full  set  of  extra  plated  Silver  Spoons 
FREE  OF  ANY  CHARGE.  All  express  and  packing  charges  are  covered  by  the  75 
cents,  and  the  Spoons  will  be  delivered  to  you  FREE.  H  you  do  not  desire  to  have  the 
Spoons  engraved,  you  are  only  required  to  send  60  cents,  to  pay  cxpressage  and  boxing. 
I  Ihe  order  must  in  all  cases  be  .sent,  to  indicate  that  you  are  entitled  to  this  Premium  as  this 
very  liberal  oiler  is  not  extended  to  any  who  is  not  a  patron  of  this  paper.  The  retail  price 
of  this  set  of  spoons  is  S-J.50,  as  the  following  letter  will  show : 

-,  „      u      ,v         .       .      Opfics  of  Eagle  Gold  and  Silver  Plating  Company.  Cincinnati.  Omo. 

wo  As.ure  all  aabscHbers  that  the  poods  C£.ntr^lcd  for  are  flrat-clasg  in  eren  respect,  aud  thai  our  retail  price  for 
ine  S[)ooa9  IS  S4.o0  per  .set.  We  will  in  no  case  retail  them  at  a  less  price  or  send  them  in  slDgle  sets  10  anT  one  who 
does  not  send  the  required  •' Order,"  showing  thai  the  sender  is  a  patron  of  thi,  paper.  ^ 

Cj^  All  orders  must  be  sent  to  above  flrm.  Eaolb  Gold  and  Silvbb  Platinq  Compant. 

!      J^EAn  «'AREFI7I.I.Y.— If  you  prefer  as  n  Premium  our  87.00  CASTOR,  or  S5.00  I 
st-t  of  SIX  FORKSi  we  will   furnish  you  with  the  Castor  on  receipt  of  SI..'*,  and  the 

l-orks  upon  receiptor  Sl.OO;  this  includes  the  cost  of  packing,  boxing,  postage,  aud  express 
churL:es;  or  we  will  furnish  you  any  of  the  other  goods  named  on .sixme  terms.    Tliusde-  I 
livenng  to  you  the  goods  free  of  any  expense,  as  a  Premium,  at  cost  of  packing  and  ex- 
press charges,  etc. 


^  PREMIUM    SILVER    ORDER. 

fi^'Premium  Silverware:  Warranted  Extra  Silver  Plate, "^^ 

T  >  Ihe  Eaele  Oolcl  and  Silver  I»latinar  Co.,  Cincinnata,  O.:  Thi9  is  to  certify 
iMat  .  .imasubscri^i-Tof  lUe  [cper  liMin  wlirch  I  have  cut  tfiia  Order,  amJ  :im  entitled,  under  vour 
pr.-nuiim  aiTan';emenl,  to  a  full  set  of  extr-i-plated  Pilver  Si-oona,  with  my  initials  engraved 
ih*-ieon,  or  other  Silverware  which  I  may  order  herewith.  I  inclose  herewith  75  cents,  to  pav 
expr^-sia,  packing,  boxing,  and  engravinj^  charges.  ' 


fl®-On  receiptor  tl.is  Order,  we  hereby  agree  to  return  to  the  sender,  expreM  or  niailinir 
ohars-es  prrpaaU  in  fulJ,  a  full  set  of  six  of  our  extra-plated  .Silver  spoons    with  the  initials  "f 

i^T^,'"'  "'■=\''y*".'\^5''"'''-^l5deaired.  engraved  thereon  or  onr$7.i>n(-a,^tnr  on  receipt  Of  SI  .50. 
-»  ^V  ^^  V,\  ^'""  ^^  hon-^red  by  us  for  ninetv  daya  from  the  date  of  this  paper  after  which 
It  Will  be  null  uiulvnrd.  [Siiinedl  Eiri.k  Gold  and  Su.veh  Pi.ATlNfs  Co.,  Cinrinnati.  O. 


At  no  time  in  tl 

.    fiimili'-.v     ThU 

I   to  [homseKes  the  imtin^ 


ilver  Platx-d  Ware  atuined  so  hii;h  a  porfectiun  an  at  the  present  I 
IT  aa  pcioil  13  Koliil  Silverware,  ami  much  preferred  by  niaiif 

[   :"■■■■■■  "■■    , ""■-,'   -" '■  '""*  "=  ""'"'  "I";"-     "insB  whu  desire  them  are  urgird  to  immediaielv  .send  and  secure 

to  [hemsehes  the  immt^Uve  ndvantdgoa  olT-rert  bj-  thi-*  company  f^r  s,>ciiring  Ih.-  h^-n  Silver  Plot-d  W-.r^  yi  ofr»red    ' 
on  8iich  ravor:»hle  term*.      CCT  Address  kll  ordera  to  Eagle  tJold  and  Silver  I'lutlne  Co  ,  Clnolnnoti.  Ohio. 


ory  '-r  iiiaiiuri>-ttire'<  bus  Sil 
[■■■aruii..'e  iitid  foi-  prrv-.-tical  \ 
not  k.n({  be  held  ope 


Kntett  Mf  Advertising:  in  ihe  Farmer. 


l^mo 

2  mo.... 

3  mo.... 

4  mo 

6  mo 

8  mo 

1  year. 


1  m. 

a  in. 

4  in. 

5  in. 

$1.00 

$  2.00 

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6.75 

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4.50 

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$  8.00 
16.00 
IS. 00 
24.00 
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72  00 


»JP  apecial  and  business uoticefl  15  cents  jter  line. 

S      E      B      D      S 

FIELD,  GARDEN,  FLOWER 

E  AND  BIRD  SEEDS,  Mq 

Herd,    Orchiird,  Greeu  and    Blue   Grass,  Flax.  JC^ 
Huiigiirian, 

CLOYER  and  TIMOTHY. 

EAlso,  GRASS  SEED  MIXTURE,  for  Lawns  and    tt\ 
Grass  Plots,  *■ 

WHOLESALE   AND    RETAIL, 

33  W.  D.  SPRECHER&SON,    13 

So.  31  East  King-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


S      S      E 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTDftEB    OF 

FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS  \  FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

5-OK  FOU 

GENTLEHEiy.  I  I.ADIF.8. 

No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


DUNBAR'S 
9-1-ly 


CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 


TO  CONSUMPTIVES. 

The  advertiBer  having  been  permaoeutly  cured  of  that 
d  read  diaeaHe,  CoTisuniptioii,  by  a  flimj  1p  remedy,  is  anxious 
to  make  kuowTi  to  his  t'ellow  sufforets  the  me:tiiB  of  cure. 
To  all  who  deifire  it.  he  will  seud  a  coxiy  of  the  prescription 
used,  (free  of  charge),  with  the  directions  foi'  preparing  and 
using  the  same,  which  Ihey  will  find  a  sure  Cube  for  Con- 
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Parties  wishiug  the  prescription  will  please  address, 

Rev.  E.  A.  WILSON,  394  Peun  St..  Wiillameburg,  N.  Y. 
9-1 -flm] 

ERRORS  OF  rOUTH. 

A  GENTLEMAN  who  suffeied  for  years  from  Nervous 
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80  by  addresaing  in  perfect  confidence, 
9-l-6m]  JOHN  B.  OODKN,  43  Cedar  St.,  New  York. 


Great  Stock- Breeder's  Monthly. 

~    ^THE  NATIONAL 

LIVE-STOCK 


JOURNAL, 

Published  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS 

THIS  GREAT  MONTHLY  is  univereally  acknowl- 
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During  the  year  18T7,  Prof,  James  Law,  the  eminent 
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unless  in  shape  of  Postal  Order  or  Draft,  to 

STOCK  JOURNAL  COMPANY,  Publiahera. 

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My  annual  Catalague  of  Vegetable  and  Flower  Seed  for 
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cultivation  on  every -package.  All  seed  sold  from  my  estab- 
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far,  that  should  it  prove  otherwise,  I  will  jetiU  the  order 
gratis.  As  the  original  introducer  of  Ihe  Hubbard  and 
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score  of  othn-  new  veuetnbles,  I  invite  the  patronage  of  all 
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8-12-51]  JAMES  J.  H.  OREGOKY,  \<arblehead,  MaSB. 


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E.  N.  FUESHMAN  &  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 

186  W.  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Are  autborizcd   to  rontract  for  advertislnc 
In  tttia  paper. 

Estmates  fumisM  free.  Seid  loi  a  Ciicnlar. 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  APRIL,  1877. 


Vol.  IX.  No.  i. 


APRIL. 

Had  the  lot  fallen  to  us — in  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  in  tin-  niiiklle  of  tlio  noitli-tora- 
perute  zone — to  anauRi'  the  festivals,  the  sec- 
ular periods,  the  nionths  and  the  seasons, 
doubtless  we  would  have  oiiened  the  year  witli 
its  vernal  period,  on  or  about  the  first  of 
April;  for,  really,  as  a  general  tiling,  there  is 
no  openini';  Unit  ^can  be  much  depended  on 
before  thai  jieriod;  and  even  then  we  often 
realize,  intervals  of  "winter  HnKering  in  llu; 
lap  of  spriiiL;. "  March — "in  like  a  lion  and 
out  like  a  lanili"--  is  always  more  litful,  and 
often  meteorologically  more  unfriendly,  than 
February;  and,  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, is  lint  a  snow-heavcu'  and  an  ice- 
breaker for  the  month  of  April-  a  sort  of  pre- 
cursor to  s])rini;,  without  exhibiting  any  of 
the  nncpialilied  elements  of  spring. 

And  yet  the  month  of  March,  when  divest- 
ed of  its  lickleness,  and  its  oi^posite  extremes, 
js  charged  with  very  essential  functions  in  the 
economy  of  the  season's  su<'Cessions.  It 
"breaks  the  back  bone"  of  winter,  and  "lets 
down"  more  easily  the  thrall  of  Kebruary  upon 
the  plane  of  April.  Its  furious,  moist-absorb- 
ing winds  dry  up  the  long  and  excessively 
satmated  soil  of  winter,  and  jirepares  it  foi' 
the  ploughshare  of  the  thrifty  husbandman; 
and  if  it  rested  here,  its  benign  ollice  would 
tic  universally  acknowledged  and  extolled;  but 
not  content  with  tliis,  it  is  ever  changing  to 
and  from  all  the  climatic  points  of  midwinter 
and  advanced  spring.  One  day  a  blustering 
"borean  railer,"  the  next  an  Oriental  zephyi', 
if  not  sandwiched  by  a  day  or  two  of  cold, 
drivinu  rain  between,  anon  indulging  in  a 
succession  of  "blows, "  with  a  violence  that 
not  only  divests  the  soil  of  its  superabun<hint 
moisture,  but  blows  away  the  soil  itself  and 
all  it  ciiiiiaiiis. 

But,  this  untowardncss  of  March  is  eventu- 
ally succeeded  by  "showery,  flowery,  bowery" 
April;  and  although  we  are  always  pri-tty 
sure  of  the  sJiOwcr;/,  yet  it  often  occurs  that 
the  flnu-er>i,  and  especially  the  hntceri/  do  not 
come  until  after  the  first  of  May.  The  name 
of  AriuL  is  derived  from  the  Latin  njiTilis 
which  itself  is  a  contraction  of  Aperilis,  from 
uperinr,  which  means  to  open,  as  the  month 
in  which  the  earth  opens  foi'  new  fruit;  when 
the  trees  and  plants  generally  unfold  their 
foliage,  and  the  womb  of  nature  opens  with 
yoimg  life;  and,  as  it  is  physicnlly  and  often 
nieteorologi.ially  the  opening  of  the  .year,  in 
our  latitude  of  the  temperate  zone,  it  easily 
could  be  made  so  civilly  and  conventionally, 
if  it  were  not  for  a  great  nonconlorniity  in  the 
climate,  and  that  makes  all  the  difference. 
We  could  not  expect  much  of  an  opening  up 
about  Beliring's  Straits  on  the  first  of  April, 
and  down  in  Central  America  it  woidd  be 
quite  too  late,  in  a  physical  point  of  view. 

The  first  of  ^Vpri!  has  been  long  and  very 
widely  considered  "All  Fools  Day" — longer 
and  wider,  perhaps,  than  we  "in  our  philoso- 
phy dream  of."  The  allusion  is  to  the  cus- 
toin  of  making  fools  of  each  other  on  the  1st 
of  April;  and  among  some  peojile  "J/;/  April 
mnrii  was  eiiuivalcnt  to  my  tccddhuj  day,  for 
on  that  d.ay  I  w^as  made  a  fool  of."  In  Ilin- 
dustan  similar  tricks  were  played  at  the  Ilnli 
festival,  which  occurred  on  the  .'ilst  of  March, 
or  on  "April  eve."  From  this  it  would  ap- 
pear that  ",\pril  fool"  cannot  refer  to  the  un- 
certainly of  the  weather,  nor  yet  to  the  mock 
trial  of  oin-  Saviour,  in  one  of  which  events 
the  custom  is  said  to  have  had  its  origin. 
Rev.  Cobham  Brewer  says  :  "I  am  inclined 
to  think  it  refers  to  traditions  about  the  flood, 
when  the  fcifilifh  were  left  to  the  jiitiless  pelt- 
ing of  the  forty  days  rain,"  a  eonclMsiouqiute 
as  abstu-d,  and  fully  as  irrational  as  either  of 
the  other  two.  in  fact  we  cannot  tell 
from  what  or  from  whence  this  custom  origi- 


nated; and,  it  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  to 
us  now,  from  whence  it  sprung  or  what  its 
object  was. 

Still,  with  few  or  no  contingencies,  April  is 
the  genial  season  of  the  year — taking  it  all 
tlu-ougii,  from  beginning  to  cn<l — and  among 
that  contingent  few  is  the  general  "Hitting 
day — a  day  in  the  liurri/skurry  of  wliich,  sn- 
per-ollicions  'helps'  often  carry  out  a  i)illow 
and  gently  lay  it  down,  and  perhaps  the  next 
moment  toss  a  looking-glass  out  of  the  win- 
dow, from  a  mere  love  of  making  themselves 
usrful.  Meteorologically  as  well  as  domesti- 
cally our  1st  of  April,  in  Lancaster  county  at 
least,  corres])ond8  to  New  York  "May  day," 
on  which  occasion  every  family  in  Gothain 
seems  to  be  "on  the  move,"  and  Franklin's 
maxim  that  "three  removes  arc  as  bad  as  a 
burn,"  has  no  appreciation  whatever.  Indeed 
with  us,  there  are  .some-people  who  are  just 
"ninnies"  enough  to  believe  that  they  inusi, 
and  of  right  iiuijhl  to  "move"  on  the  1st  of 
A|n'il — would  be  unhappy  if  they  did  not 
move,  and  who  would  coniiilain  and  grumble 
half  tlie  year  if  they  had  not  moved.  Well, 
if  that  kind  of  variety  constitutes  their  "spice 
of  life,"  it  is  their  concern  alone,  and  perhaps 
they  ought  to  be  let  "alone  in  tliidr  glory." 

April  bc'ing  then,  practically,  the  upcning  of 
the  New  Year,  in  all  that  relates  to  human 
husbandry ;  the  farmer,  the  gardener,  the 
orchardist  or  the  nurseryman  will  find  enough 
for  his  toiling  hands  to  do.  Then  he  will  be 
engaged  in  a  multitude  of  occupations  that 
will  have  no  end  until  he  nuu'kets  his  crops, 
and  gathers  with  his  I'aniilyaround  his  Christ- 
mas fire.  Then  the  country  s(Miool-liouse  is 
closed  for  the  season,  and  his  children  eschew 
their  nursery  rhymes  of 

"  Rain,  rain,  go  away, 
Come  attain, 
April  ilay, 
Little  Jolniuy  wants  to  play." 

for,  uidikc  the  pinched  and  idle  denizens  of 
the  town,  big  and  little,  old  and  young,  al- 
ways find  something  for  willing  hands  to  do, 
and  consequently  can  eat  freely,  sleep  soundly 
and  be  happy. 

An  old  and  well-informed  cotemiwrary,  in 
his  calendar  of  the  months,  writes  in  regard 
to  this  month,  as  follows  : 

"There  is  no  period  of  the  year  of  greater 
activil-y,  nidess  it  be  high  harvest,  than  the 
month  of  April.  Every  farmer  knows  the 
importance  of  being  well  np  with  the  season, 
and  he  who  lags  behilid  at  this  important 
juncture,  may  as  well  withdraw  from  the 
"strife  of  life  " — he  has  mistaken  his  profes- 
sion. The  farmer  is  now  busy  breaking  up 
his  corn  ground,  if  he  has  not  broken  it  up 
before." 

In  our  latitude,  now  is  the  time  to  plant 
and  sow,  if  we  would  expect  to  reap.  But 
the  exact  time  when  these  things  should  be 
done,  nmst  be  left  to  the  judgment  of  the 
farmer  and  gardener,  for  they  are  more  or  less 
inider  the  influences  of  the  nature  of  the  soil, 
the  temiicratme  of  the  weather,  and  the  al- 
titude of  the  particular  locality — its  protec- 
tions and  exjiosures,  as  soon  as  practicable. 
The  roots  and  seeds  that  should  be  planted 
and  sown,  during  this  month,  are  artichoke, 
asparagus,  beans,  beets,  broccoli,  cabbage, 
carrots,  cauliflower,  celery,  cress,  horse- 
radish; hot  beds  may  be  made;  and  leeks, 
lettuce,  majorum,  mustard,  nasturtions, 
onions,  parsley,  jiarsnips,  peas,  jiotatoes,  rad- 
ishes, sage,  salsify,  spinnaeh,  thyme,  toma- 
toes, turnips,  &c. ,  put  in  the  ground,  because 
this  is  the  season  for  the  main  planting  and 
sowing. 

The  particidar  variety  of  pljints  and  seeds 
selected  must  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
farmer  or  gardeuer,  for  soil  and  situation 
have  much  to  do  in  their  success,     So,  also, 


in  relation  to  the  times  and  modes  of  culture. 
In  fact,  cultivating  the  soil  is  analogous  to  cul- 
tivating the  mind;  tlu;  results  of  eillier  or 
both  are  niadi'  manifest  through  tiie  products 
of  rultuie.  When  these  do  not  become  visi- 
ble to  rational  recognition,  we  may  infer  that 
there  has  been  no  real  culture,  but  only  the 
semblance  of  it.  Tln^  powers  and  functions 
of  nature  as  nltimated  through  the  ollices  of 
April  have  not  been  iixcd,  but  a6u,«d. 


FINE  TEST  POTATOES. 

After  the  adjournment  of  the  February 
meeting  of  our  local  Agricidlural  Society,  the 
potatoes  which  Mr.  II.  M.  Engle  had  on  ex- 
hibition, he  kindly  donated  to  us,  and  desired 
us  to  test  thiir  relative  (jualities.  Without 
laying  any  special  claim  to  sujierior  judgment 
in  such  a  matter,  we  nevertheless  cheerfully 
assented  ;  for,  if  nothing  else  resulted,  we 
could  sec  at  least  three  "  square  meals"  of 
good  potatoes  in  it,  which  promised  a  teni- 
IHirary  relief  from  the  inferior  articles  we 
iiad  been  consuming  all  winter,  with  only  a 
few  e.xceptions,  and  those  were  foreign  to  the 
County.  Three  varieties  were  submitted  to 
us,  namely  :  the  Pccrltss,  the  Imperial  Beauty 
and  the  Snoirflake.  AVe  venture  no  opinion 
vipon  their  modes  of  culture,  or  their  iirolific 
qualities,  but  simply  upon  their  culinary  ii.se, 
and  their  alhliations  with  the  human  palate. 
The  first  we  had  preiiared  was  the  "  Peerless," 
(three  fine  solid  tubers,  aggregating  three  and 
a  half  pounds)  and  compared  with  the  general 
"  run"  of  jicitatoes  of  last  season,  their  quality 
was  very  sujierior.  From  their  large  size  and 
lateness  of  the  season,  we  had  supposc-d  they 
might  have  been  strong  and  hollow  in  the 
centre,  liiit  the  residt  was  quite  otherwise  ; 
they  wert^  finely  flavored  all  through,  and 
reasonably  dry  and  mealy.  We  consider  the.se, 
in  comiiarison,  VEUV  good.  The  next  in 
([uality — Init  not  in  trial — w.as  the  "  Imperial 
Beauty,"  (three  tubers  weighing  two  pounds.) 
These  in  color  and  flavor  were  very  similar  to 
the  Peerless,  but  more  yielding  and  easier  re- 
duced to  a  "mash,"  and  perhaps  somewhat 
drier  and  more  granular.  These  we  voted 
HETTEI!.  After  tliese,  in  point  of  excellence 
— to  our  mind — was  the  "  Snowflake,"  (four 
tubers  weighing  two  pounds.)  Tliese  were 
very  white,  very  mellow,  aixl  very  mild, 
faintly  recalling  our  remembrance  of  the  "old 
fiercer,"  before  its  degeneracy.  These,  with- 
out qualification,  we  deemed  Bkst,  notwith- 
standing we  have«named  them  last.  The 
difference  in  size  may  jio.ssibly  have  had  .some 
influence  uiion  the  quality — the  Snowflakcs 
being  the  smallest,  the  Peerless  the  largest, 
and  the  Imperial  Beauty,  intermediate.  Per- 
haps the  fairest  test  would  be  to  take  tubers 
all  of  the  same  size. 

Whatever  may  be  the  personal  opinions  of 
others  in  regard  to  these  three  varieties  of  po- 
tatoes, like  the  Irishman  and  "Mrs.   Mull- 


rooney's  pig. 


'  we  ate  thiin  and  Shot's  the 


ind  of  it ;"  and  we  would  further  suggest  that 
we  have  no  objection  to  be  considered  a  com- 
mittee of  one  to  test  potatoes  for  the  balance 
of  the  season,  and  we  will  make  no  charges 
for  our  services,  only  suggesting  that  the 
ijiinntnm  itiffirit,  of  each  variety,  to  reach  an 
intelligent  verdict,  is  about  two  poimds. 

If  we  arc  correct  in  our  impressions,  these 
three  varieties  of  the  jiotato  originated  in 
New  York  State,  and  if  so,  they  are  an  im- 
mense improvement  on  the  potatoes  brought 
down  the  Su.sfpiehamia  from  that  State  some 
twetity-five  years  .ago,  and  also  at  a  later  date. 
We  can  pretty  distinctly  recall  some  varieties 
brought  down  from  that  State,  in  our  Ixiyhood, 
tliat  were  almost  as  black  as  charcoal,  as 
strong  as  cotlfish,  and  as  rough  as  sandstone, 
but  of  very  large  size,  and  externally  smooth 


50 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  April, 


■ — especially  by  the  time  they  reached  us  in 
early  spring  ;  but  their,  fine  large  size  always 
commanded  for  them  a  market  in  comparison 
■with  the  "  poor  things"  Vve  then  cultivated  in 
Lancaster  county. 

One  remarkable  "glut"  in  the  market  we 
well  remember,  when  these  fine  potatoes 
would  not  bring  ten  cents  per  bushel,  and  one 
large  dealer  shoveled  three  hundred  bushels 
out  into  the  river  rather  than  sell  tliem  at  less 
than  that  price.  Some  people  thought  that 
when  the  river  fell,  they  could  get  potatoes 
for  nothing,  but  when  that  time  came,  most 
of  the  tubers  liad  been  carried  down  the 
stream,  and  those  that  remained  were  wortli- 

less. 

•^ 

WORDS   OF  CHEER. 

Friend  Editnr. — Yours  of  the  27th  ult.,  and 
a  copy  of  the  Farmer,  were  duly  received. 
It  was  like  taking  an  old  friend  liy  the  hand, 
for  I  began  to  think  it  was  "all  over"  with 
our  local  journal,  and  should  have  thought  it 
a  great  pity  that  this  great  county  of  Lancas- 
ter, the  acknowledged  "  Garden  of  tlie  Key- 
stone State,"  could  not  as  much  as  support 
one  farmers'  paper  in  it. 

I  am  very  glad  it  has  not  "gone  down"  yet ; 
and  I  hope  it  will  live  long  yet,  and  do  a  great 
deal  of  good.  The  amount  of  the  subscrip- 
tion, as  you  say,  will  lie  little  felt  by  the 
thrifty  farmers  of  our  county  ;  for  they  often 
spend  more  than  one  dollar  within  a  week  or 
two,  for  things  useless,  and  which  often  do 
them  more  harm  than  good.  Then  why  n(5t 
deny  the  body  a  little,  and  bestow  something 
on  that  mind  which  is  immortal  V  Some 
people  are  very  foolish  in  this  respect,  and 
labor  only  for  "  that  meat  which  perisheth." 

Country  people  generally  have  a  very  im- 
perfect conception  of  city  life.  They  think 
that  most  of  those  who  live  in  cities  and 
towns,  live  entirely  in  "clover  and  honey," 
whilst  it  is  more  often  "  briers  and  thistles." 
I  have  experienced  both. 

I  will  do  the  best  T  can  for  the  Farmer, 
with  what  success  you  soon  shall  liear,  though 
I  trust  I  may  have  good  success  ;  and  I  will 
try  and  contribute  sometliing  to  your  columns 
during  the  approaching  summer. 

Hoping  you  may  long  live  and  enjoy  the 
fruit  of  your  labor.  1  remain  as  ever  your 
friend,  Leolin",  EUz'tlKthtmon,  March,,  1877. 

We  thank  our  fair  correspondent  for  her 
high  appreciation  of  our  journal,  and  her  sym- 
pathies in  our  behalf,  and  would  tliat  others 
would  do  "likewise." — Ed. 


THE  COLORADO  BUG  ABROAD. 

London,  March  13. — The  British  customs 
commissioners  announce  that  the  Colorado 
potato  beetle  has  been  discovered  alive  at  Bre- 
men on  goods  brought  from  Xew  York.  The 
commissioners  have  issued  a  circular  to  the 
collectors  of  customs  in  the  United  Kingdom 
directing  that  the  instructions  already  given 
for  detecting  the  beetle  be  ajiplied  to  potatoes 
imported  from  Bremen  or  any  German  port. 

The  above  paragi"aph  we  clip  from  a  copy 
of  The  Sun,  (Bait.)  issued  March  14th,  1S77. 
Aside  from  tlie  extraordinary  feature  of  mak- 
ing such  announcements,  one  day  in  London 
and  the  next  day  in  Baltimore,  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the /act,  in  relation  to  the  bug,  that  has 
not  been  for  some  time  anticipated;  and  the 
measures  adopted  to  circumvent  it  are  of  that 
short-sighted  policy — in  relation  to  the  impor- 
tation of  potatoes — that  has  been  characteris- 
tic of  the  precautions  of  our  transatlantic 
brethren  ever  since  the  advent  of  the  "Color- 
ado potato  beetle"  in  those  States  lying  on 
the  eastern  borders  of  our  Union.  The  "bug" 
seems  to  have  "been  discovered  alive  at  Bre- 
men on  r/nods  brouglit  from  New  York,"  and 
the  "wisdom-chests"  of  Great  Britain,  as  a 
preventive,  recommend  the  non-importation 
ofpotapies  from  Bremen.  There  is  usually  a 
commercial  distinctiim  made  between  goods 
and  produce.  If  the  insect  reached  tlie  conti- 
nent on  "goods,"  why  not  interdict  the  im- 
portation of  goods  instead  of  only  potatoes  ? 

The  insect  in  question  has  no  particular 
partiality  for  potato  tubers — never  deposits 


its  eggs  ujwn  them — and  is  never  found  eat- 
ing them,  unless  it  can  get  nothing  else  ; 
therefore  for  one  beetle  that  would  be  likely 
to  reach  the  continent  of  Europe  or  England, 
on  or  among  potatoes,  fifty  would  be  just  as 
likely  to  reach  those  localities  in,  or  on,  some 
other  article  of  bulky  commerce,  so  that  its 
circumvention  would  involve  total  non-impor- 
tation. The  best  plan,  in  our  view,  would 
be  not  to  trouble  themselves  about  commercial 
n(m-intercourse,  but  to  institute  a  strict  quar- 
antine, for  a  limited  period  on  all  vessels  com- 
ing from  infested  countries;  but  even  this 
might  be  obviated  liy  the  institution  of  a 
thorough  examination  of  vessels  during  the 
voyage,  and  this  should  be  extended  to  all 
packet  vessels,  with  as  much  vigilance  as 
to  trading  vessels.  About  the  period  when 
imtatoes  are  usually  shipped  from  the  Uniteil 
States  or  Canada,  ihe  most  dangerous  brood 
of  tliese  insects  will  be  in  a  state  of  winter 
hibernation,  and  therefore,  not  likely  to  be 
among  them  at  all. 


WRITTEN   RECEIPTS   BY   MAIL. 

We  hope  our  patrons  will  not  require  us  to 
send  them  written  recei])ts  by  mail  for  sub- 
scriptions, except  to  clubs  of  six  or  more. 
The  Httle  labels  pasted  on  their  papers  will 
indicate  to  them  whether  their  money  has 
been  received  or  not.  For  instance,  those 
marked  "Jan.  77,"  or  simply  "77,"  show 
that  their  suliscriptions  are  paid  up  to  the 
first  of  January,  1877,  and  that  they  owe  us 
for  the  present  year.  Those  marked  "Jan. 
7S,"  or  simply  "  78,"  indicate  that  their  sub- 
scriptions are  paid  up  to  the  first  of  January, 
1878.  We  cannot  send  them  a  loose  receipt 
without  an  expenditure  of  tlirce  cents  postage, 
besides  the  cost  of  envelope,  paper,  and  the 
labor  of  writing,  unless  we  resorted  to  a  iios- 
tal  card,  to  which  man}'  people  object.  We 
hope,  too,  that  they  will  exonerate  us  from 
answering  letters  by  mail,  except  such  as  can- 
not be  answered  through,  the  columns  of  the 
Farmer.  We  will  cheerfully  make  any  reason- 
alile  concession  in  cxcejitional  cases,  but  as  a 
general  rule,  it  involves  more  labor  and  ex- 
pense than  we  are  able  to  undergo. 

Remittances  for  advertisements  are  of  a 
quite  different  character,  and  are  governed 
by  a  quite  dillerent  rule. 


If  some  of  our  contributors  do  not  find 
their  productions  in  the  present  number  of 
The  FAKMEn,  it  will  be  because  they  have 
been  unavoidably  crowded  out.  Having  more 
manuscript  on  hand  than  we  could  accommo- 
date with  space,  we  were  obliged  to  give  the 
preference  to  priority  of  date,  excejit  in  cases 
where  postponement  would  invalidate  the 
usefulness  of  the  article;  moreover  several  pa- 
]iers  which  should  have  appeared  in  our  January 
and  February  numbers,  only  "turned  up"  a 
month  ago,  and  we,  therefore,  publish  them 
in  this  number  as  the  next  best  thing  we  could 
do.     They  will  be  duly  attended  to. 


FERTI,LIZATION,    PREVENTIVE     AND 
CURE. 

The  following  has  been  clipped  from  the 
editorial  columns  of  the  Philadephia  Press, 
by  a  correspondent,  and  sent  to  us  for  inser- 
tion in  the  Farmer.  If  any  of  our  suli- 
scribers,  in  their  reading,  meet  an  article 
relating  to  Agriculture  or  a  kindred  subject, 
that  they  wish  to  have  more  permanently  re- 
corded— and  also  more  conveniently — than  it 
would  be  in  a  large  folio  which,  perhaps,  they 
do  not  file,  if  they  cut  them  out  and  .send 
them  to  us,  we  will,  in  due  time,  give  them 
pulilicity  in  the  Farmer.  In  the  matter  of 
recuperating  the  soil,  or  forestalling  or  de- 
stroying noxious  insects,  any  remedy  within 
the  bonds  of  probabilit}' is  worthy  of  consid- 
eration and  trial. — Ed. 

Experiment  is  constantly  making  inven- 
tions and  applications  of  the  greatest  value  to 
agriculture,  which  is  itself  a  science,  and  the 
very  earliest,  of  no  small  importance.  '  He 
who  makes  two  blades  of  grass  grow  where 


there  was  only  one  before  is  a  public  lienefac- 
tur,  according  to  the  well-known  proverb.  The 
substance  called  paratln  oil  is  well  know  for 
its  value  when  used  to  lubricate  machinery, 
owing  to  its  power  of  resisting  the  oxydiziiig 
action  of  the  atmospliere,  and  by  its  very 
slow  evaporation.  There  now  is  the  an- 
nouncement that  parafin  oil  is  a  substitute  for 
the  b-  st  guano,  becoming  a  clean  and  fructi- 
fying manure  when  poured  over  dry  earth  or 
sand,  which  should  be  used  as  guano  is.  More 
important  still  is  the  announcement  that 
grain — corn,  wheat,  oats,  barley,  beans,  peas, 
&c. — when  steeped  for  a  short  time  in  a  pre- 
paration of  parafin  liecomes  repulsive  to  rats, 
mice,  and  the  various  insects  that  prey  upon 
these  seeds  in  the  earth.  The  plan  is  to  mix 
4  oz.  of  parafin  oil  through  six  gallons  of  rain 
water,  and  sprinkle  it  on  the  soil  before  sow- 
ing or  planting,  and.  at  a  later  period,  wlien 
germination  has  pal]>ably  begun,  water  be- 
tween the  rows,  with  the  above  solution. 
Seeds  of  all  sorts  should  be  steeiied  in  or 
sprinkled  with  the  parafin.  It  is  reported  as 
the  result  of  eight  years'  experience  that  this 
substitute  for  guano  is  a  remedy  for  wire- 
worm,  grul),  and  all  garden,  field  "and  vinery 
jiests.  Bii'ds  avoid  ground  thus  treated,  and 
Hies,  wasps,  and  other  disagreeable  winged 
pests  equally  avoid  it.  As  a  hydro-carbon 
paratin  oil  thus  acts,  and  being  chemically 
inert',  will  not  injure  the  seed,  though  it  gives 
it  temporary  flavor  which  drives  away  the  in- 
.sectsand  other  pests  that  prey  uiion  the  grow- 
ing produce.  Possibly  it  might  successfully 
deal  with  the  Colorado  beetle,  which  has  lately 
caused  so  much  alarm  and  done  so  much  in- 
jury. It  is  somewhat  singular  that  the  e.xper- 
imeiits  whose  results  are  here  stated  were 
made  in  Australia,  where  cereal  jiroduce  is 
wondrously  large — where,  as  Douglas  Jerrold 
says,  "you  have  but  to  tickle  the  eartli  with 
a  ploughshare,  and  it  smiles  into  a  harvest." 
— Press. 

THE   PARK  ASSOCIATION. 

At  the  annual  meeting  of  the  stockholders 
of  the  Lco^caster  County  AgriruHwal  Park  As- 
sociation, held  at  the  Stevens  House,  the  re- 
ports of  the  Dii'ectors  and  Treasurer  were  pre- 
sented and  adopted,  and  tlie  following  Board 
of  Directors  was  elected  for  the  jjresent  year  : 
Robert  A.  Evans,  H.  Z.  Rhoads,  A.  C.  Kep- 
ler, R.  J.  McGrann,  George  Youtz,  Abram 
Hiestand,  Levi  Sensenig,  W.  S.  Shirk,  Jno. 
Murphy,  George  Styer  and  James  Stewart. 


THE  WEATHER— THE    GROUND  HOG. 

A  correspondent  writing  over  tlie  name 
"Doubting  Thomas,"  and  who  says  he  has 
read  our  "exhaustive  and  almost  exhanstless 
panegyrics  on  the  weatlier-wisse  woodchuck," 
asks  us  to  "  account  for  the  difference  be- 
tweenSthe  mild  weather  promised  by  the  wood 
chuck  and  the  hyperborean  lilasts  that  have 
been  chilling  us  to  the  marrow  for  the  past 
few  days,  with  the  mercury  at  zero."  The 
answer  is  easy  :  the  ground  hog  iiromiscd  us 
six  weeks  of  warm  and  pleasant  weather, 
commencing  February  1.  Tlie  six  weeks  ex- 
Iiired  on  Thursdaj*  last.  The  ground  hog's 
contract  was  then  fulfilled  to  the  letter,  and 
like  a  nolile  beast,  as  he  is,  he  gracefvdly  slid 
into  his  hole  to  give  Sts.  Patrick  and  Sheelah 
a  chance.  You  see  it,  Thomas  ?  "  Blessed 
are  they  that  have  not  seen  and  yet  have 
believed." 

The  above  paragrajih  we  clip  from  the 
columns  of  the  Intelligencer  of  March  19,  1877, 
as  one  among  the  many  that  have  ajipeared 
on  the  same  subject,  in  various  journals  the 
jirescnt  season,  and  especially  in  the  e(junty 
of  Lancaster,  where  it  is  somehow  supposed 
that  there  are  more  believers  in  the  ground 
lioij,  as  a  weather  prognosticator,  than  else- 
where. Anioi>g  all  these  paragraphs,  there 
has  been  a  want  of  entire  harmony,  something 
of  a  departure  from  the  original  theory — in- 
deed, we  may  say  that  the  matter  has  gotten 
somewhat  "mixed  up,"  if  not  absolutely  de- 
miualized  ;  and,  in  order  to  get  it  righted  we 
must  go  back  to  the  "  doctrine  of  the  fathers. " 


1S77.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


51 


And  even  the  doctrine  of  the  fathers  was 
capable  of  a  two-fold  construction,  and  there- 
fore had  two  schools  of  believers  amont;  its 
adherents  ;  so  that  evini  among  tlieni,  tliere 
■was  by  no  means  a  unity  upon  ils  fundamental 
principles.  Five  and  lifty  years  a^jo— and 
jicrliaps  nnieh  lonj;er — it  was  said,  "  If  the 
Ground  liog  conies  out  from  his  winter  lair 
on  the  niRht  of  the  second  of  February,  or 
'  ('andUinas,'  and  sees  his  shadow  rellccted 
by  the  light  of  the  moon,  he  innnediately  re- 
turns to  it,  niul  does  not  come  forth  again  for 
six  weeks  ;"  whicli  is  taken  as  a  certain  indi- 
cation that  we  shall  have  a  six  weeks  con- 
tinuation of  winter  weather  ;  Imt  whether 
seven  or  eight  weeks  was  a  litenil  verilication 
of  the  iirophecy,  never  was  clearly  established. 

Per  Coiilnt — '"If  he  comes  out,  as  liefore 
related,  and  decs  nal  see  his  shadow,  then  he 
will  remain  out,  and  from  that  time  forward 
the  weather  will  moderate,  and  we  shall  iiave 
an  early  and  a  pleasant  Sjiring.  Six  weeks  of 
niil<l  weather  succeeding  the  I'd  of  February, 
and  then  changing  to  "cold  as  (Greenland," 
would  not  have  been  regarded  as  a  litrrul 
veritieatinn  of  the  prophecy,  live  and  lifty 
years  ago,  by  any  means.  That  is  a  modern 
perversion—  very  re('ent,  and  very  local.  Hut, 
among  the  fathers  there  was  a  "hitch,"  out 
of  which  grew  the  two  schools  we  have  ad- 
verted to.  It  was  not  clear  what  was  tw  be 
regarded  as  "  the  night  of  the  second  of  Feb- 
ruary," because,  a  whole  day  was  sandwiched 
betw'een  the  two  halves  of  that  night.  When 
the  clock  struck  V2  at  midnight,  on  the  1st  of 
February,  the  next  moment  thereafter  the  2d 
of  February  began.  At  0  o'clock  58  minutes 
A.  ^I.,  the  sun  rose,  and  as  the  moon  sets 
about  7  o'clock  A.  M.,  at  that  period,  there- 
fore the  Ground  hog  would  have  six  hours 
and  lifty-eight  minutes  in  which  to  come  out 
and  s(C,  or  mil  «(,  his  shadow,  according  to 
pending  meteorological  cimtingeneies.  The 
moon  rises  on  that  day  about  10  o'clock  F.  II. 
and  the  sun  sets  about  5  o'clock,  so  that  the 
animal  woidd  have  two  hours  in  which  to 
mak(^  his  ap|iearance,  and  see  or  not  see  his 
shadow. 

^."ow,  it  will  be  perceived  that  thediflerence 
between  these  schools  was  as  between  Omand 
nearly  scrot.  The  liberal  constructionists 
contended  that  he  came  out  between  12  and  7 
A.  M.,as  the  most  likely,  because  at  that  time 
he  would  be  less  liable  to  casual  interruption 
of  any  kind  ;  but  the  strict  constructionists 
contended  that  he  came  out  between  10  and 
12  F.  M.  mainly  for  the  reason  that  the 
Ground  hog  never  was  remarkable  as  an  early 
riser. 

That  was  the  ^talm;  of  the  question  fifty, 
sixty,  or  perhaps  a  hundred  years  ago,  if  not 
longer,  although  there  were  then  ali'cady  in- 
novations upon  the  ancient  doctrine,  especially 
in  local  districts.  15ut  in  later  years  the  old 
doctrinal  landmarks  became  almo.st  obliterat- 
ed, and  now  it  is  almost  universally  stated 
thus:  "  If  the  Gromid  hog  comes  forth  from 
his  winter  (piurlers  on  'Candlemas'  (Feb. 
2nd),  and  sees  his  shadow,  he  will  innnedia- 
tely return  to  them,  and  will  not  come  forth 
again  for  six  weeks  ;"  and  this  is  an  indica- 
tion that  w'e  shall  have  a  continuan<-e  of  cold 
winter  weather  for  that  length  of  time.  Lax 
constructionists  give  him  from  sunrise  to  high 
noon,  but  the  rigid  constructionists  contend 
that  he  immediately  returns,  and  that  the 
cold  weather  continues  six  weeks,  and  by  no 
means  any  longer. 

Per  Coiitru. — "If  he  comes  forth  on  theday 
afore-named  and  docf:  not.  see  his  shadow,  he 
remains  abroad,  and  we  shall  have  an  early 
and  genial  Sjiring." 

The  2nd  of  I'ebruary,  187(i — in  the  morning 
— was  cold,  bright  and  sunny,  although  before 
night  it  became  cloudy.  Of  course,  it  was  said, 
''the  Ground  hog  saw  bis  shadow,"  and  re- 
turned to  his  winter  (piarters  to  remain  there 
six  weeks  longer.  Although  the  weather 
which  followed  February  2nd,  1870,  was  not 
intensely  cold,  yet  the  seven  or  eiiilit  weeks 
which  followed,  were  not  such,  we  think,  as 
would  invite  forth  the  Ground  hog  ;  therefore, 
to  the  literal  constructionist,  a  prophecy  that 


is  more  than  verified,  is  not  verilied  at  all. 
The  morning  of  the  2nd  of  February,  1S77| 
was  cloudy,  and  hence  ''Old  Monax"  could 
not  see  his  shadow,  but  the  weather  which 
has  since  followed  has  not  been  such  as  can 
be  fairly  construed  into  a  verilication  of  his 
prophecy.  Even  if  six  weeks  of  inilil  weather 
iiad  followed  the  2ncl  of  Februaiy,  and  then  a 
period  of  cold,  foul  and  dreary  weather  had 
succeeded  it,  it  would  not  have  been  a  fullill- 
ment  of  the  (iround  hog  proi;nostication,  be- 
cause that  prediction  means  the  advent  of  a 
mild  and  early  Spring  ;  and  that  the  month  of 
March  will,  in  /(trt,  as  well  as  in  name,  be  a 
Spring  month,  whereas  it  has  been  much  more 
winterish  than  the  month  of  Februaiy,  the 
Iiresent  year. 

Hut,  viewing  the  whole  subject  from  a  prac- 
tical standpoint,  there  seems  to  be  a  primal 
qualification  in  tlu^  whole  theory  which  en- 
velope's it  in  doubt.  It  is  .said — "7/"  the 
ground  hog,"  iS:c.,  &c.,  which  fairly  implies — 
"maybe  he  iciH,  and  maybe  he  mou'i  "  most 
likely  he  UKinH. 

Dr.  (iodinan,  one  of  Pennsylvania's  dis- 
tinguished naturalists,  who  kept  these  ani- 
mals as  pets,  on  several  occasions,  and  who 
in  a  very  interesting  maimer  tells  "what  he 
knew  about  (Jround  liogs,"  says  :  "At 
the  coininencement  of  cold  weather,  the 
"marmont"  (ground  hog)  goes  into  his  win- 
ter quarters;  liaving  blocked  up  the  door  from 
within,  he  there  remains  until  the  return  of 
the  warm  season  revives  him  again  to  reiunv 
his  accustomed  mode  of  life;  "  and  we  be- 
lieve he  would  remain  there  until  the  first  of 
May,  or  longer,  if  the  weather  remained  cold 
so  long  ;  and  also  that  he  might  come  out  on 
the  first  of  .January,  or  earlier,  if  the  temper- 
ature was  high  enough  to  revive  him  to  renew 
his  accustomed  mode  of  lil'e" — candlemas  or 
no  candlemas.  His  accustomed  mode  of  life 
is  to  excavate  a  burrow  of  from  six  to  ten  feet 
or  mon^  in  the  ground,  in  such  a  situation  as 
will  leave  the  entrance  im-liniiig  downward  in 
order  to  prevent  the  ingress  of  water  during 
a  rain,  and  making  an  ample  nest  for  himself, 
his  mate,  and  his  family  of  from  four  to  six 
or  more  youngsters,  periodically. 

Futhcrmore,  his  habit  is  to  feed  voraciously 
on  vegetation,  and  especially  on  young  clover, 
and  it.  is  said  that  a  score  of  them  can  cut  a 
swartli  through  a  field  as  clean  as  a  patent 
mower,  and  devour  it  as  they  go  forward, 
lie  is  not  distinguished  as  an  early  riser,  and 
l>refers  midday  as  the  period  of  his  foraging 
operations;  for  so  cunning' is  he.  that  he 
knows  that  the  farmers  have  retired  from  the 
fields,  and  are  then  taking  their  midday  meals 
and  rest.  On  such  occasions — like  the 
''Prairie  dogs" — one  or  more  will  keep  watch, 
while  the  others  are  feeding,  and  at  the 
slightest  distiibance  he  gives  the  alarm  .squeak, 
and  they  all  make  a  precipitate  retreat  to 
their  holes.  They  also,  sometimes,  come 
forth  to  feed  on  bright  moonlight  nights,  and 
under  varying  circumstances,  at  other  times 
also.  Jy'ow,  if  by  some  diversion  in  the  reg- 
ular revolution  of  the  planets  it  should  trans- 
l)ire  that  winter  should  be  displaced  by  sum- 
mer, can  any  one  suppose  that  the  (iround  hog 
would  lie  dormant  until  candlemas  before  he 
ventured  forth  from  his  winter  (piarters  in 
.Search  of  food  ?  Not  he.  The  demands  of 
his  stomach  would  become  too  pressing  to  long 
resist  them.  Or,  if  suniiner,  or  any  portion 
of  it,  was  displaced  l)y  Arctic  cold,  that  he 
would  not  hie  him  to  his  winter  den,  and  be- 
come semi-torpid  V  Heat  is  the  medium 
through  which  the  living  power  of  the  uni- 
ve.se  is  exercised,  and  its  vital  energies  are  , 
manifested.  Without  heat,  everything  would 
be  cold,  and  chill,  and  liarren,  and  inert, 
and  so  would  be  "old  ?»0)iax"  for  ever  and 
ever. 

If  the  sunshine  or  clouds  of  candlemas 
have  any  meteorological  significance  at  all,  it 
must  be  Zodiacal,  and  has,  in  our  opinion,  no 
relation  whatever  to  the  habits  of  the  (rround 
hog.  1870  was  in  contradiction  to  the  ancient 
traditions,  and  so  was  1S77,  in  this  locality 
at  least.  If  the  tradition  is  now  niisstatedand 
misinterprated,  and  night  is  the  time  when  he 


o.stensil)ly  comes  forth  and  sees,  or  does  not 
see  his  shadow,  it  involves  the  question  with 
additional  difficiiltiea,  because  of  the  barriers 
it  would  interpose  to  personal  ob.servalions  on 
the  subject ;  and  perhaps  it  is  the  existence  of 
these  difficulties,  which  has  kept  the  (lucs- 
tion  so  long  an  o|)en  one.  Under  any  cir- 
cumstances, however,  a  belief  or  disbelief  of 
the  doctrine  can  wr)rk  no  material  harm  at 
the  present  day,  for  the  light  fif  intelligence  is 
becoming  so  widely  and  so  thoroughly  (liflused 
that  no  one  of  ordinary  intelligence  would 
base  the  chances  of  success  or  failure  of  an 
enterprise  upon  the  8ui)p08ed  habits  of  the 
Ground  hog,  and  if  there  are  yet  any  such,  we 
would  resiiect fully  recommend  them  seriously 
to  pray  for  '^Light,  rtvire  light  slilU'' — Ed. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


The  Guava. 

Prnf.  S.  S.  liutlirem:  Seeing  an  article  in  the 
February  numberof  Tli?;  Fakmkk  in  relation 
to  the  G'l/HVK,  but  as  you  give  no  credit  from 
where  you  copied  it,  some  readers  might  sup- 
|iose  this  tree  ct)uld  be  grown  as  a  fruit  tree 
in  our  climate— as  some  have  already  made 
enquiries,  where  the  fever  tree,  Ewalyptus 
(Ih'ljulosa  could  be  i)rocnred,  with  the  inten- 
tion of  idanting  it  as  a  tVnest  tree.  Now 
neither  the  (iuava  or  Knealt/jitus  will  live  in  a 
climate  where  there  is  the  least  degree  of  frost. 
Kven  in  our  most  Southern  States,  both  these 
trees  occasionally  are  injured,  or  kille<l,  by  a 
more  then  ordinary  cold  spell.  In  Galifornia 
th(!}'  are  ))lanting  largely  of  the  Eucalyptus. 
They  are  both  very  interesting  when  grown  in 
(ireen-honses,  where  the  trees  are  dwarfed  in 
pot  culture,  out  of  the  reach  of  frost.  Mr. 
Ileusel  has  the  Ewaluptiis  growing  finely  in 
his  (Jreeu-house.  This  tree  is  said  to  be  of 
great  value  as  a  medicinal  plant.  By  making  a 
tea  of  the  leaves  will  cure  many  of  the  "ills 
that  llesh  is  heir  to."  l?y  its  vigorous  growth 
it  digs  up  the  swanqis,  thus  destroying  the 
malaria,  and  making  the  climate  more  healthy. 

The  Guava — Psidium  Catleijanimi — I  have 
fruited  for  many  years;  it  is  a  ideivsant  sweet 
and  acid  fruit,  and  some  people  are  very  fond 
of  the  fruit,  size  of  a  large  cherrj'.  Another 
species  of  the  Guava,  called  "sour  sop,"  from 
Florida,  I  have  not  yet  fruited.  This  is 
said  to  be  a  larger  fruit. 

Both  these  trees  grown  in  pots,  so  as  to 
dwarf  them;  could  be  grown  in  an  ordinary 
sitting  room,  where  no  frost  enters,  and  are 
very  ornamental  and  interesting.  J. 
B.   G.,  Crilmnhia.  March   2S,   1877. 

By  referring  to  the  article  in  our  February 
number  again,  our  friend  will  find  that  the 
text  is  from  the  New  Yeirk  'JViltmie,  and  the 
context  from  RincVs  Vegetable  Kingdom,  page 
:!()7.  W^e  inserted  the  article  in  order  to  draw 
out  something  practical  in  regard  to  its  out- 
door cultivation  in  this  and  more  southern 
latitudes,  as  we  found  it  going  the  rounds  of 
both  Agricultural  and  secular  papers.  We 
thank  our  friend  for  his  .suggestions. 


Editor  of  The  L.vncaster  F.mjmer. — 
Dear  Sir :  You  asked  me  some  days  ago  why 
I  don't  attend  the  meetings  of  the  Agricultu- 
ral and  JJortlrultural  S'leiettj  anymore.  Well, 
I  was  a  member  at  one  time,  and  pretty  regu- 
larly attended  the  meetings,  but  was  com- 
pelled to  discontinue  attending  them.  The 
reason  for  iloing  so  was  not  owing  tfi  a  want 
of  interest  in  tliem,  or  in  the  cause  of  agricul- 
ture, but  because  of  my  inability  to  lose  so 
much  time.  The  fact  is,  I  attend  regularly 
the  Wednesday  morning  market,  and  when 
the  market  is  over,  I  transact  what  business 
1  have  in  the  city,  and,  if  at  all,  I  then  could 
also  attend  a  meeting  of  a  society;  but  I  can- 
not afford  to  leave  my  work  and  go  to  town 
exprcs.sly  for  that  purpose  on  Monday.  No 
man  who  himself  cultivates  his  farm,  cares 
about  losing  double  time,  and  incurring  dou- 
lile  expenses  to  attend  a  town  meeting,  espe- 
<ially  when  he  participates  in  no  fancy  specu- 
lations, by  means  of  whicli  he  expe<'ts  tocom- 
liensate  hiin.S(df  for  loss  of  time.  I  entertain 
the  greatest  respect  for  all  who  claim  to  be 


52 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  April, 


farmers,  whether  that  claim  is  real  or  assum- 
ed, and  I  also  feel  an  interest  in  all  that  re- 
lates to  the  real  success  of  farming,  but,  what- 
ever may  be  the  status  of  the  society  tvoio,  it 
seemed  to  me  that  those  who  exercised  a  con- 
trolling influence  in  its  proceedings  when  I  at- 
tended, were  not  what  I  considered  practical, 
or  working  farmers.  Except  perliaps  in  a  few 
cases,  they  were  not  the  men  who  follow  the 
plow;  and  therefore,  although  honorable  men, 
they  were  not  at  all  congenial  to  me,  and  I 
didnot  feel  at  home  among  them.  Some  of 
them  have  farm.s,  and  good  farms  too;  nice 
and  clean,  and  well  cultivated  perhaps,  but 
they  do  not  cultivate  them  themselves.  They 
get  hired  men  to  do  the  work,  and  they  are 
out  on  some  speculation;  and  the  society 
meeting  on  Monday,  it  just  suits  that  class  of 
farmers;  but  I  am  not  in  that  line  of  business, 
and  therefore  it  would  be  inconvenient  for  me 
to  attend.  I  have  nothing  against  them,  how- 
ever, for  as  I  said  before,  they  are  honorable 
and  respectable;  but  formers  like  I  am,  want 
to  be  at  home  as  much  as  possible,  and  ought 
to  be.  They  can  not  leave  home  and  farm, 
and  spend  an  additional  day,  and  money  also, 
to  attend  the  monthly  agricultural  meetings. 
—Yours,  &c. — J.  G. 

[Our  correspondent  is  a  plain,  unobtrusive, 
industrious,  and  withal  an  intelligent  farmer, 
and  has  been  a  constant  subscriber  to  our 
journal,  and  also  a  reader  of  it,  from  its  ori- 
gin. We  well  remember,  when  he  attended 
the  meetings  of  our  local  society  some  years 
ago,  that  he  usually  sat  from  their  opening  to 
their  close,  without  once  leaving  the  room,  all 
the  while  manifesting  au  interest  in  the  pro- 
ceedings, without  any  divided  thought  outside. 
And  when  he  rose  to  speak,  which  he  fre- 
quently did,  he  was  always  listened  to  with 
profound  respect,  by  the  most  intelligent  and 
practical  mernbers.  Situated  as  he  is,  his  rea- 
sons for  not  attending  now,  seem  conclusive. 
We  knoio  he  is  not  alone  in  these  sentiments 
in  respect  to  the  day  of  meeting,  and  we  know 
also  that  other  members  of  the  society  have 
suggested  a  change,  but  it  seemed  questiona- 
ble whether  any  other  day  would  not  be 
equally  objectionable  to  other  members,  and 
finally  the  matter  was  dropped.  As  to  the 
rest,  time  may  eventually  develop  some 
ground  upon  which  all  can  meet  in  harmony. 
—Ed.  

BiRD-rN-HAND,  Pa.,  March  8th,  1877. 

Mr.  S.  S.  RATnvON — Dear  Sir :  I  found 
the  accompanying  insects  yesterday  while 
cleaning  a  bedroom  upon  the  first  floor.  I 
lifted  out  tlie  fireboard  and  laid  it  upon  its 
face  on  the  front  porch.  Beginning  to  sweep 
off  some  of  the  adhering  matter,  I  foimd  a 
cluster  of  tliose  insects  gathered,  I  think  at 
one  of  the  crevices  in  the  board.  Are  they 
the  Galerucce,  which  feed  upon  the  elm  V 
Respectfully  yours. — P.  E.   Gibbons. 

Although  the  insects  alluded  to  in  the  above 
comnaunication  are  somewhat  darker  in  color 
than  those  that  infested  the  elm  tree  last  sum- 
mer in  Lancaster  city,  yet  they  are  of  the 
same  size,  and  are  otherwise  marked  exactly 
like  them.  The  diflerence  in  color  is  no  doubt 
due  to  the  fact  that  we  bred  all  our  specimens 
last  summer  from  larvce  and  piqxe  that  we 
secured  as  they  were  coming  down  the 
trunks  of  the  elms,  and  killed  them  within  a 
day  or  so  after  their  final  evolution,  and  be- 
fore they  had  partaken  of  any  food,  or  had 
acquired  their  full  coloration;  and  therefore 
we  have  little  hesitancy  in  saying  that  they 
are  the  genuine  dm-leaf  beetle ;  and  which 
Harris,  and  Fitch,  and  Emmons,  and  Morris, 
and  even  Prof.  Riley  in  his  late  little  work  on 
"potato  pests,"  liave  alluded  to  as  Galeruca 
calmariensis,  but  which  we — according  to  Ste- 
•  phens — could  not  identify  with  that  species, 
and  hence  referred  it  to  xanthomrelena,  Schon. 
in  which  we  were  sustained  by  Dr.  Le  Conte. 
(See  Lancaster  Farmer,  page  131,  Vol. 
VIII.)  According  to  Stephens,  calmariensts 
feeds  on  aquatic  plants  in  London  district, 
Bottisham,  Weston,  Bristol  and  Swansea. 

When  received,  the  insects  were  all  alive, 
and  must  have  souglit  the  place  you  found 
them  in,  as  a  convenient  cover  for  their   hi- 


bernation. If  J' on  have  any  elm  trees  on  j'our 
premises  there  is  wliere  they  came  from,  and 
"there  is  wliere  they  wiU  go  to  as  soon  as  they 
are  in  foliage  this  spring,  therefore  destroy 
them  wherever  you  may  find  them. — Ed. 


Safe  Harbor,  Pa.,  March  24, 1877. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Ratiivon — Bear  Sir:  Am  glad 
to  see  The  Farmer  on  its  feet  again,  and 
sorrv  I  could  not  do  more  toextend  its  circula- 
tion" My  name  should  have  been  omitted  as 
one  of  those  specially  named. 

In  looking  over  some  of  the  numbers  I  am 
struck  with  the  amount  of  labor  it  devolves  on 
you.  In  fact  I  think  you  do  entirely  too  much, 
and  if  in  yoiu^  place  you  would  dun  some  of 
the  patrons  personally,  or  by  post,  as  conve- 
nient, for  articles  that  are  suitable  for  the 
coming  season,  they  might  assist  you.  Cer- 
tainly such  persons  as  Casper  Hiller,  11.  M. 
Engle,  L.  S.  Reist,  Johnson  Miller  and  many 
others,  have  a  little  time  to  spare  for  the 
preparation  of  articles  which  would  do  some- 
body good  to  read. 

In  current  (March)  number  I  find  that  you 
prepared  or  culled  all  but  two  and  a  quarter 
rohmins.  This  is  too  liad,  and  you  sliould,  at 
the  "peint  of  the  pen"  make  somebody  "toe 
the  mark."  Tell  that  "somebody,"  in  plain 
words  that  by  the  first  of  each  month,  you  ex- 
pect an  article,  and  if  not  received  in  three 
days  thereafter  you  will  Ije  under  the  painful 
necessity  of  reminding  them  that  they  did  not 
come  up  to  the  "chalk." 

Hoping  that  you  will  be  able  to  lighten  your 
laboi's;  I  remain  yours  respectfully     ^1.  B.  K. 

We  appreciate  our  correspondent's  senti- 
raentsjof  sympat]iy,and  feel  thankful  for  them, 
and  furthermore  we  commend  his  suggestions 
to  all  those  "whom  it  may  concern."  As  to 
labor,  it  has  become  a  kind  of  "Second  Na- 
ture" to  us,  and  we  feel  a  reward  in  being 
able  to  labor;  nevertlieless  as  we  are  getting 
old,  we  would  not  object  to  a  little  more  of 
the  Substantial. 


Pittsburg,  March  21,  1877. 

Ed.  Lancaster  Farmer — Bcur  Sir :  I 
having  offered  a  premium  of  your  paper,  for 
one  year,  at  our  last  Poultry  Exliibition,  viz.: 
The  Weslern  Pennsylvania  Poullrij  Socicti/, 
and  it  having  been  won  by  D.  B.  McLean, 
Mansfield  Valley  P.  O.,  Allegheny  county. 
Pa.,  you  will,  therefore,  please  forward  the 
same  to  his  address  for  the  term  above  stated, 
.and  inclosed  please  find  SI. 25  in  paynient 
thereof.     Yours  truly,  C.  B.  E. 

We  publish  the  above,  not  merely  to  show 
the  appreciation  of  our  journal  outside  of  Lan- 
caster county,  but  as  a  suggestion  of  what 
might  be  properly  and  conveniently  done 
— during  the  approaching  Exhiliition  season — 
by  the  State  Society,  by  county  Societies,  and 
especially  by  our  own  local  Society — when 
they  make  up  tbeir  own  premium  lists — to- 
wards encouraging  the  Agricultural  journals 
t)f  the  State,  and  elsewhere.  Doubtless  there 
are  many  exhibitors  wlio  would  by  far  ratlicr 
receive  such  a  journal,  than  to  receive  a  .SI. 00 
or  .f2.00  premium,  as  the  case  may  be,  es- 
pecially, since  under  the  present  postage  laws 
the  mail  expenses  thereof  are  paid  by  the 
imblishers,  and  in  no  case  by  the  subscril)ers. 
Committees  on  j'remiums,  will  please  "stick  a 
pin  in  this." — Ed. 


Mr.  Editor. — Allow  me  to  offer  the 
following  as  my  report  on  canvassing  for  The 
Lancaster  Farmer,  and  the  number  of 
subscribers  I  have  obtained.  The  members  of 
the  Society  are  aware,  that  at  first  I  made  no 
])roraise  as  to  what  I  umuld  do,  or  could  do. 
Upon  a  second  thought,  however,  and  finding 
that  some  of  our  more  liberal  and  energetic 
memliers  were  quite  successful,  and  that  it 
was  either  "  life  or  death"  to  our  representa- 
tive journal,  I  iiromised  (wenti/,  and  these  I 
soon  obtained.  I  then  promised  fifti/,  l)ut  now 
have  obtained  seventy-Jive,  and  expect  to  in- 
crease the  number  to  one  hundred. 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  tender  my  sincere 
thanks  to  all  those  who  have  so  liberally,  and 
with  such  good  motives  given  me  their  names 


and  influence,  and  I  ask  to  be  excused,  for  my 
apparent  importunity,  by  those  who  could  not 
see  the  propriety  of  giving  me  their  names,  or 
who  could  see  no  benefits  accruing  from  a 
subscription  to  the  Farmer  ;  assuring  all 
that  we  are  receiving  no  pecuniary  comjiensa- 
tion  for  the  labor  we  have  been  performing, 
hut  have  been  doing  all  for  the  advancement 
of  Agricultural  literature,  and  the  good  of  the 
conmiunity. 

I  would  also  respectfully  beg  leave  to  state, 
that  a  number  of  our  good  people  declined  to 
subscribe,  because  they  already  received  a 
newspaper.  This  I  invariably  urged  them  to 
continue ;  but  if  they  could  add  another 
thereto,  let  that  one  be  The  Farmer.  I 
also  admonished  them  to  patronize  the  local 
papers  of  our  county,  without  regard  to  sect 
or  politics. 

My  experience  in  canvassing  has  been  simi- 
lar to  that  of  some  other  members,  in  that, 
as  a  general  thing,  I  have  less  difliculty  in  ob- 
taing  subscribers  from  among  those  who  were 
already  taking  one  or  more  papers,  tlian 
among  those  who  do  not  take  any. 

In  conchision  allow  me  to  say,  that  we  may 
consistently  feel,  tliat  The  Faiimer  is  the 
"  farmer's  paper  " — that  it  stands  or  falls 
upon  its  own  merits — and  that  it  offers  no 
tempting  premiums  for  subscriptions,  but 
relies  upon  the  moral  intelligence,  and  the 
good  will  of  the  people,  for  its  support.  In 
literary  composition  and  mechanical  execu- 
tion, it  compares  favorably  with  any  in  the 
country;  and  any  farmer  who  takes  a  copy, 
preserves  it,  and  has  it  bound,  will  refer  to 
it  with  pleasure  in  after  years. — P.  S.  B. 


LiNN^us  Rath  VON,  Esq.— Dear  Sir:  I 
am  really  glad  that  The  Lancaster  Faiwier 
has  been  resumed,  and  is  to  be  continued. 
And  as  a  native  of  the  county,  and  living  ou 
a  fine  farm  in  this  "  garden  of  the  State," 
I  sometimes  feel  ashamed  that  my  fellow- 
farmers  are  so  slack  in  sustaining  so  valuable, 
a  journal — and  one  so  essential  to  their  in- 
terests, and  their  reputation  abroad.  And  I 
blame  myself,  too,  for  not  attempting  to  do 
the  little  that  I  can,  in  contributing  memo- 
randums of  my  observations,  experiences  and 
experiments — in  planting,  pruning,  and  culti- 
vating— to  its  columns. 

This,  however,  is  little  to  my  present  piu'- 
pose,  which  is  toacknowledge  my  remissness  in 
attending  to  another  and  paramount  duty — 
namely,  paying  up  for  my  last  year's  and  the 
present  year's  subscriptions.  Assuming  that 
I  owe  you  this  much  (for  I  can  find  no  "slip" 
to  indicate  that  point  definitely)  I  enclose 
S3.. 50,  and  the  additional  name  of  Robt.  II. 
Gamble,  Bridgewater,  York  county,  as  a  new 
subscriber,  beginning  with  1877,  and  will  re- 
mit any  balance  I  may  yet  be  in  arrears,  on 
being  made  known  to  me. 

And  here  I  would  respectfully  suggest,  to 
my  fellow-farmers,  that  they  would  do  well 
in"  sustaining  their  Home  journal — at  least 
every  subscriber  should  feel  it  incumbent  upon 
himto  send  at  least  one  name  in  addition  to 
his  own,  for  the  volume  of  1877.  One  dollar 
seems  a  small  sum  for  the  matter  it  contains 
during  the  year. 

Wishing  abundant  success  to  The  Farmer, 
I  aril  yours  truly  /.  H.  M.,  Columbia,  March 
1.5,  1877. 

We  feel  grateful  towards  all  for  the  efforts 
that  have  recently  been  made  in  behalf  of  the 
Farmer,  but  when  their  eftbrts  are  accom- 
jianicd  by  sucli  words  of  appreciation  and  en- 
couriigemeut  as  the  above  (backed  up  by  the 
material)  we  feel  doubly  grateful.  Our 
journal  has  now  fairly  started  upon  its  9th 
volume  (a  longer  period  than  that  of  any 
former  enterprise  of  the  kind  in  the  county), 
and  we  are  determined  to  carry  it  tbrougli  the 
year,  whether  we  are  pecuniarily  sustained  or 
not.  Having  been  born  and  brought  up  in 
the  county  of  lianeaster,  with  an  ancestry  in 
it  dating  back  to  1740,  we  are  a  descendant  of 
a  pre-Rcvolutionary,  and  claim  a  Inrthright  to 
its  jirivileges  of  citizenship.  Having  spent 
five  or  six  years  of  our  early  boyhood  delving 
on  a  farm  (without  professuig  to  be  a  farmer). 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


53 


aiifl  liaviiift  now  obtained  tlu!  a^i!  of  sixtii-five, 
with  syniiiatlicticiiroclivitics  town  ids  faiining 
inton-sls,  wc  do  not  dwni  it  at  all  |)risuiiip- 
tuoiis  in  us  to  asl<  tlie  I'arinfi-s  ot  I>ancast('i- 
county  to  su.stain  a  local  journal  amongst 
tliein.  Taking  a  birds-cyp,  view  of  I.ancastei- 
county,  fioni  almost  any  t'livalion  in  it,  the 
beiioldcr  is  struck  with  llic  idea  nf  untold 
wealth  that  must  still  lie  undiVfloi"d  in  her 
soil,  and  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  beneath 
it.  Whatever  wc  may  be  able  to  do  towards 
the  develo]iment  of  that  weallh,  and  to  ex- 
pand and  elevate  the  minds  of  tlmse  who  arc 
its  Ictiititnate  custodians,  will  (iiid  a  ready  vx.- 
position  in  the  columns  of  our  journal.     Ed. 


Our  scntimentsareentirely  in  harmony  with 
our  friend  S.  I'.  K.,  Esii..  who  has  \Ai\rri\  the 
following  in  our  hands  for  insertion  in  the 
Fa  KM  nit. 

Mii/roM  Gnovic,  Mardi  12,  1S77. 

Mi;.  E.— /)f((i-  .Sic;  WhiU^  looking  over 
the  pa^jes  of  the  Lanrastcr  liKjitircr,  I 
saw  the  i)roeeedings  of  llie  Lnxi-anter  At/rind- 
tural  and  IhirticulUoyd  Societi/,  in  which  I 
find  the  members  of  that  society  diller  very 
mucli  on  tlie  (juestion  of  lime  as  a  fertilizer. 
1  tiKiUiiht  I  ouf^ht  to  write  yon,  notmy  r.rjKri- 
tncr,  but  my  olisirvatiniis  from  my  childhood 
up  to  the  jii-esent  day,  on  my  father's  farm.  I 
stiall  begin  with  what  the  farm  had  previously 
been.  Sly  father  bought  the  I'arni  alioiit  forty- 
eight  years  ago,  and  the  lanil  was  very  poor. 
He  coiunienced  burning  lime,  not  only  for  his 
own  use.  but  also  for  saU';  and  coutinueU  ap- 
plying some  of  it  to  our  farm  until  within 
about  twelve  or  lifteen  years  ago.  Since  that 
time  no  lime  has  been  applied  to  the  farm. 
I  can  very  well  recollect  that  about  thirty-six 
years  ago  we  had  a  lield  of  19  acres,  which, 
for  three  years  in  succession  only  yelded  frr 
loads  of  hay  in  iu  a  season.  Now  it  will  yield 
thill;/  loads,  or  more,  iu  a  season,  and  ibis  is 
the  result  of  the  aijplication  of  lime.  1  also 
recollect,  that  about  the  same  period  we  had 
a  Held  of  rye,  which  we  only  cut  in  some  of 
the  best  iilaces,  because  it  would  not  pay  to 
go  over  the  whole  lield,  bnt  for  the  last  twenty 
years  we  did  not  sow  rye  in  it,  because  it 
grows  too  ranlv — no  grains,  bnt  an  abundance 
of  rank  half  rotten  straw,  so  that  it  don't  i)ay 
in  rye.  In  applying  lime  we  generally  put  it 
on  the  sod  in  the  latter  part  of  summer,  or  in 
autumn,  and  plowed  it  down  for  corn.  We 
hardly  ever  put  any  lime  on  for  wheat  now, 
only  occasionally  for  experimenting,  but  it 
does  not  jiay.  In  putting  on  lime,  in  order 
to  realize  tlie  speediest  and  largest  return  of 
profit,  put  your  lime  on  gi'ass  or  sod,  at  least 
one  year  before  planting  in  corn.  On  hilly 
land,  the  rain  will  not  draw  as  much  lime 
from  the  gra.ss  or  sod  as  it  will  from  a  txire  or 
plpwed  lield.  In  imtting  lime  on  grass,  in 
either  winter  or  spring,  or  at  any  time,  it  will 
pay  the  lime  in  grass  the  first  year,  and  yon 
will  have  a  stronger  sod  to  plow  under  for 
corn,  and  it  will  also  plow  so  nnich  the  easier. 
Wc  apply  lime  to  the  same  field  every  six 
years,  about  one  hundred  bushels  to  an  acre. 
Yours  very  truly. — A.  II.  G. 

We  commend  the  above  to  the  attention  of 
the  members  of  oiu-  local  Society  ;  because,  it 
seems  to  be  the  practical  result  of  many  long 
years  of  experience  and  local  observatioTi. 
As  Tun  Lancaster  Fakmeii  now  imlili.shes 
the  full  proceedings  of  the  AfiriruHund  mul 
HortkuUural  Socicti/ ;  the  Tnhac.ro  Groirers' 
Socvtij  ;  the  Bee-Kteptrs''  Society;  the  MilUrs^ 
Socktij  and  the  Limxran  Society,  and  also  the 
Essays  read  before  those  societies  ;  it  is  a  per- 
fect vade  mecmn  to  the  progressive  cultivators 
of  the  soil  in  our  county,  and  ought  to  be  in 
their  hands,  and  read  by  then\.  It  has  many 
advantages  over  large  unwieldly  folios, in  this, 
that  it  is  printed  on  better  jiaper  and  iu  clearer 
type  ;  is  more  compact  and  easier  referred  to  ; 
is  not  so  li.able  to  be  destroyed,  and  is  annual- 
ly accomiianied  by  a  copious  alphabetical  in- 
dex. At  the  end  of  the  year  it  can  be  divested 
of  its  transient  advertising  pages  without  in- 
terrupting its  numerical  order,  and  then  lie 
bound  into  an  interesting  volume,  for  futu.e 
reference.    ($1  a  year  postage  paid.) 


We  ho)ie  soon  to  .see  A.  II.  G's  name  among 
the  list  of  our  subscribers,  and  to  occasionally 
receive  from  him  such  practical  contributions 
as  tlie  above. 


Gei!mant()\v,\  NuitsEitiKs,  March  21,  lf<77. 

I'l.'oi'EssoH  liATiiVdN.- -  7>fi)-  Sir:  (Jan 
you  tell  me  the  name  of  tlie  enclo.sed  (ly  i*  I 
am  anxious  to  know,  in  connectl(»ii  with  my 
studies  in  relation  to  insect  fertilizatinn  of 
llowers.  It  makes  a  pretty  little  oval  outline 
whenat  rest,  or,  pcu'liajis,  1  may  say  spathulate 
—the  head  giving  it  the  narrowest  end  of  the 
oval.  Tli(;re  were  two  other  species  in  IIk; 
woods  with  it ;  all  iu  large  numbers,  which  I 
could  not  catch — one  with  antinmr,  the  Jiair 
being  as  long  as  (he  body,  (lerhaps  not  a  I)ll'- 
Tsnors  insect.  It  was  too  active  to  catch, and 
)ierhai)S  one-half  smaller  th;in  the  one  1  send. 
The  other  a  yellowish  bronze  lly,  similar  to 
tlie  one  which  always  seems  to  come,  as  if  by 
instinct,  to  fri'sh/ccii  deposits,  but  apparent- 
ly narrow.  I  am  particularly  interested  in 
these  dies,  because  the  theinionuter  has  been 
very  much  below  Uw.  freezing  point,  up  to 
vvitiiin  four  hours  of  the  time  tiiese  dies  were 
so  nuinerons,  wlu^n  it  was  45  '.  Very  truly 
yours,  T.  M. 

AVe  regret  to  state  that  wc  are  unable  to 
give  our  correspondent  the  information  he  de- 
sires ;  /irst,  because  the  specimen  he  sent  us 
was  so  biully  crushed  in  impaling  a  small  sub- 
ject on  a  larger  jiiii  (like  impaling  amoiisc-  on  a 
(u-owbar)  that  we  could  not  get  a  good  idea  of 
its  form;  and  .svcomZ,  because  we  i)arted  with 
our  collection  of  Diptercv  before  tiie  Kebid- 
lion,  and  have  not  had  time  or  opportunity 
since  then  to  make  another  ;  moreover,  our 
literature  in  local  species  of  Dipterous  insects 
has  always  been  exceedingly  scant.  W(!, 
however,  do  not  think  this  species  would  as- 
sist him  much  in  the  study  of  the  "  fertili/a- 
tion  of  tlowers  "  by  insects.  The  mouth  and 
feeding  organs  seems  to  be  "ob.solele,"  but 
w(!  lost  the  head  before  we  had  completed  our 
observations.  The  wings  were  hyaline  and 
beautifully  iridescent.  It  is  not  unusual  for 
dies  to  evolve  in  winter,  even  when  there  is 
snow  on  the  ground.  The  larva  is  probably 
stereoraceous  in  its  lial)ils,  and  pupates  in  the 
ground.  Send  a  specimen  to  Osten  Sacken, 
Russian  Legation,  N.  Y.,  or  to  Prof.  Kiley. 


Pieris  Rapae. 

A  friend  has  called  my  attention  to  a  copy 
of  a  Michigan  newspaper,  in  which  is  a  eom- 
muuication  from  -'Prof.  A.  J.  C'o(di,  of  the 
Agricultural  College.'"  The  conununication 
is  headed  "Imported  Cabbage  Bulterlly,  I'icn.i 
I{up((C,''''  &c. 

The  writer  says  that  in  1875  he  had  slated 
that  this  latest  arrival  from  England  was  fast 
nearing  their  own  beloved  State,  Michigan. 
He  now  reports  that  it  is  sorely  vexing  the 
gardens  along  the  eastern  and  soutli  eastern 
conlines. 

This  foe,  he  adds,  lias  few  if  any  equals.  One 
of  the  many  princii)les,  he  continues,  estab- 
lished by  the  adherence  to  the  doctrine  of 
natural  selection,  is  the  fact  that  plants  and  an- 
imals when  introduced  into  anew  country, find 
the  "struggle  for  life"  less  severe,  and  as  the 
fittest  survive,  usually  thrive,  even  at  the  ex- 
pense, and  freiiucnlly  to  the  utter  extermina- 
tion of  the  natives.  "This  fact,  so  amply  sus- 
tained by  our  experience  with  the  Hessian  (ly, 
wheat  midge,  codling  moth,  currant  saw-(ly, 
etc.,  is  no  pleasing  one  in  view  of  our 
subject.  I  can  only  answer  in  the  lan- 
guage of  one  Patrick  Henry,  "ice  iiiiu<t 
fight,''^  nor  can  we  hope  to  vanquish  our 
foe,  even  in  eight  years.  This  imported 
species,  when  scarcely  half  a  dozen  years  on 
tins  side  the  ocean,  was  .said  to  destroy  an- 
nually, about  the  single  city  of  Quebec,  $240,- 
000  worth  of  cabbages. 

It  was  first  observed  and  taken  by  a. Cana- 
dian entomologist,  in  185'.),  at  Quebec.  From 
this  it  has  spread  rapidly  to  the  West,  and 
more  rapidly  to  the  south. 

The  remedies  .suggested  are  the  catching  of 
butterflies— which  are  lazy— in  a  net ;  children 


should  always  liave  these.     He  says  they  will 
do  the  work  cheaply  and  greatly  enjoy  it. 

As  the  insect  propagates,  or  goes  into  the 
chrysalis  form,  under  some  projection  of 
building,  fence  or  tree,  keep  the  garden  free 
from  ridibish,  and  place?  boards  horizontally 
about  three  or  four  inches  from  the  ground, 
between  the  cabbage  rows,  and  the  insects 
suspended  beneath  may  Ik-  collected.  He 
also  says  "  Paris  (ireen  and  AVliite  Hellebone 
will  kiil  the  caterpillar,  but  they  will  also  kill 
any  oni?  who  eats  the  cabl)age  ;  esiiecially  as 
th(?  Paris  Green  cannot  be  washed  off  .so  as  to 
remove  the  danger."  In  re|)ly  to  this,  I  may 
refer  to  my  experiments  of  last  year  with 
Paris  (Jreen,  as  reported  to  yon,  fellow-mem- 
liers  of  the  Liimaan  Society.  If  ajjplied  early 
it  will  nip  the  insects  iu  the  biiil,  and  lie 
washed  off  by  the  rains  before  the  cabbage 
matures  ;  at  least  it  injured  no  one  in  our 
family,  although  it  was  aiiplied  a  number  of 
times.  Still,  I  recoinmeiid  caution. — I'liebe 
I'J.  Gibbons,  March  2:i.  1877. 

Lanca.stkr,  March  14th,  1877. 

Professou  MKTUSOS.  —  Diur  Sir:  1  en- 
close a  copy  of  a  letter  of  Henry  Clay,  the 
original  of  which  is  in  my  possi-ssion.  It  has 
occurred  to  ine  that  you  miglit  be  plea.sed  to 
publish  it  in  TliE  FAit.MEit,  as  illustrative  of 
the  great  interest  which  the  great  statesman 
continued  to  take  in  his  farm  and  cattle  while 
engaged  in  important  affairs  of  the  State.  It 
is  also  somewhat  curious  that  Mr.  (-'lay  .should 
write  from  Wasliingtoii  to  his  son  in  Ken- 
lucky  without  saying  anything  about  his  own 
health,  or  making  inquiries  aliout  that  of  his 
family.     Yours  truly, ./.  If.  D. 

Unpublished  Letter  of  Henry  Clay. 

Wasiiinotox,  Jan.  2,  183(5. 

'^jifi/lMu-  Thonins:  I  received  your  letter  of 
Ihe  2otli  ultimo.  You  may  say  to  Mr.  Head- 
ley  that  I  have  no  wish  to  rent  the  house  at 
Mansfield.  I  could  get  no  price  for  it  that 
would  compensate  me  for  the  iiiconvenience 
of  having  tenants  there. 

"1  have  two  Durham  bulls;  one  that  is  gone 
out  is  an  imported  bull,  and  he  is  an  uncom- 
monly line  animal,  showing  high  blood,  and 
good  at  all  points.  His  pedigree  I  have  not 
yet  received.  His  name  is  Orozimbo.  The 
other,  nearly  white,  named  Hector,  was  got 
by  Malcolm  out  of  Delight,  an  imported  cow 
purchased  iu  England  by  Mr.  Wliitaker  and 
selected  by  the  "editor  of  the  Herdsbook. 
Hector  was  raised  by  Col.  Powell  and  pre- 
seiiled  to  me. 

"They  are  both  fine  bulls.and  each  would  be 
preferred  by  different  people.  Hector  having 
got  his  feet  very  tender  in  traveling  from 
Philadi  Iphia  to  "Shepherdstown,  I  have  de- 
tained him  until  February  or  March,  by  which 
time  he  will,  I  hope,  recover. 

"I  wish  if,  as  I  lequestAl,  you  offer  to  Major 
Smith  one-half  of  l)on  Manuel,  you  would 
say  to  him  that  the  price  at  which  I  offer  the 
half  must  be  regarded  as  confidential  between 
us.  I  have  a  prospect,  if  he  declines,  of  get- 
ting more  for  liim. 

"You  will  tell  iMr.  Ileadley  to  let  you  have 
one  of  the  stacks  ot  oats,  if  he  thinks  we 
can  spare  it. 

"I  wish  you  would  inform  me  how  Magnum 
Uomim  is  attended  to  by  Aaron.  Your  affec- 
tionate father,  H.   Clay. 

"Mh.  Thomas  H.  Clay." 


Answers  to  Correspondents. 
IL  M.  E.^Mnriettn,  Pa.  The  little  green 
"hoiiiier"  which  you  say  you  caught  on  the 
nth  of  February' last,  is  a  juvenile  specimen 
u(  Tragocejihida'ciridij'aciata,  or  the  "green- 
faced,  goat-headed  locust,"  and  is  very  com- 
mon in  pa.sture  lands,  from  June  to  Septem- 
ber, but  never  to  our  kiuiwledge,  numerous 
enough  to  be  jiarticularly  destructive.  This 
individual  is  still  in  that  developmental  con- 
dition which  corresponds  to  the  larrtrof  other 
orders  of  insects— beetles  and  butterflies  for 
instance— and  is  one  of  those  late  broods 
which  are  overtiiken  by  cold  weather  Ijefore 
they  have  had  time   to   complete    their  full 


64 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[April, 


growth,  and  which  go  into  their  winter  hiber- 
nation immature,  and  finish  their  develop- 
ment the  following  spring.  During  the  cold 
weather  they  are  in  a  state  of  suspended  ani- 
mation, but  are  capapble  of  being  revived  at 
any  moment  of  supervening  heat,  and  during 
such  periods  they  will  come  forth  and  feed — if 
they  can  find  anything  to  feed  upon — no  mat- 
ter what  particular  mouth  it  may  be  in.  We 
have  known  cateri)illars  and  cut-worms  to  do 
the  same  thing  in  mid-winter.  To-day  the 
thermometer  was  nearly  down  to  zero  (March 
10)  and  "hoppers"  quiet." 

/.  W.  M.  Adams  Hxpress  Office.  The  large 
Spider  you  found  in  llie  Express  wagon,  from 
which  you  were  delivering  IJaltimore  oysters, 
seems  to  be  a  species  of  Dolomedes,  although 
it  differs  from  any  figured  or  described  by 
Prof.  Hentz,  whose  work  on  spiders  is  all  to 
which  we  liave  access.  Prof.  Hentz  considered 
it  allied  to  Lijcosa,  the  genus  which  contains 
the  famous  "Tarantulas."  It  is  represented 
as  a  wanderer,  biding  under  stones,  and  some- 
times diving  under  water.  The  mother 
spiders  of  this  genus  construct  an  orbicular 
cocoon,  which  contains  her  eggs  or  young, 
and  which  is  usually  attached  to  the  posterior 
portion  of  her  body,  or  is  carried  on  her  back, 
and  which  she  often  bravely  defends.  We 
have  allied  species  in  Pennsylvania,  but  we 
have  seen  none  so  large  as  this,  which  was 
likely  brought  from  Maryland  in  a  cargo  of 
oysters.     It  is  a  very  handsome  specimen. 


ANNUAL   ADDRESS.* 

To  the  vieinhers  of  the  Lancaster  County  Ag- 
ricultural and  Horticultural  Society — Gentle- 
men :  As  has  been  the  custom  of  my  prede- 
cessors, it  becomes  my  duty  to  address  you,  at 
this,  the  last  meeting  of  the  year  to  which  I 
was  elected  as  your  Chairman.  The  duty  I 
assure  you  is  not  a  pleasant  one  to  me.  It  is  not 
my  forte  to  speak  in  public,  nor  to  make  an 
address, therefore  I  trust  you  will  accept  thefew 
remarks  I  shall  make,  with  due  allowance  for 
my  inexperience. 

Our  society  has  passed  through  another  year 
of  its  history,  the  many  valualale  hints,  and 
the  observations  and  experiments  so  freely 
given  by  the  practical  men  enrolled,  have  been 
sought  and  digested  by  others,  who  as  yet  have 
not  taken  interest  in  the  public  good,  to  join 
our  roll,  and  assist  us  in  disseminating  Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  knowledge.  Our 
existence  as  a  society  now  is  only  due  to  a  few 
who  have  labored  earnestly  and  well  for  the 
perpetuation  of  our  little  band  of  workers.  Let 
the  unbiased  judgment  of  those  who  have 
observed  the  records,  pass  upon  our  merits  or 
demerits. 

The  year  just  closed  is  one  long  to  be  re- 
membered as  the  great  Centennial  of  our  na- 
tion. Is  it  not  a  fitting  time  at  this,  the  open- 
ing of  the  new,  to  look  back  upon  the  past, 
with  thankful  hearts  to  an  all-ruling  Provi- 
dence, for  the  bounteous  provisions  of  his 
goodness,  for  tbe  great  success  of  our  country 
as  a  nation,  for  the  peace  existing  between  us 
and  all  other  nations,  for  the  bountiful  crops 
that  have  VAcssed  the  labor  of  the  husband- 
man, and  encourage  us  to  renewed  energy  in 
pursuing  our  respective  callings. 

The  great  success  of  our  country  as  a  nation 
has  struck  wonder  and  admiration  in  the 
hearts  of  many  foreigners  who  have  visited  us 
the  season  just  passed,  seen  the  great  show  at 
Philadelphia,  and  were  amazed  at  its 
magnitude.  It  becornes  us  as  Americans  to 
begin  now  anew,  as  the  great  anniversary  has 
but  just  passed  intobistory  ;  and  we  have  just 
ushered  in  the  new  5  ear,  like  the  new-born 
haVje  in  its  mother's  arms,  unable  to  foretell  its 
destiny.  Therefore,  let  us  start  afresli  on  the 
broad  track  of  honor  and  integrity,  that  our 
posterity  may  revere  in  memory  dear  the 
foundation  laid   for  the  next  National  Jubilee. 

I  have  the  pleasure  of  congratulating  you 
through  the  information  of  Mr.  H.  M.  Engle, 
and  the  research  o£  Simon  P.   Eby,  esq.,  the 

"Head  before  the  "Lancaster  County  Agricultural  and 
Horticultural  Society,"  January  1st,  1877,  by  the  President, 
Calvin  Cooper. 


discovery  of  an  Act  of  Assembly,  granting  an 
annuity  from  the  county  in  amount  equal  to 
the  annual  contributions  to  the  society,  pro- 
vided the  sum  does  not  exceed  one  hundred 
dollars.  The  necessary  papers  having  been 
prepared  by  Mr.  Eby,  and  filed  in  the  Com- 
missioners' Office,  the  sum  of  thirty-two  dol- 
lars was  realized,  that  being  the  amount 
voluntarily  contributed  the  past  year.  Since 
we  have  some  accessions  to  our  treasury  from 
the  county,  it  seems  to  me  some  action  might 
he  taken  by  this  society,  by  which  the  greatest 
good  may  result  to  Agriculture  and  Horti- 
culture, for  instance,  the  aualyzation  of  soils 
and  fertilizers,  with  a  view  to  supply  the  cx- 
liausted  field,  with  ingredients  necessary  for 
certain  crops.  The  examination  of  seed,  to 
discover,  if  possible,  its  freshness  and  puritj', 
and  prevent  the  sale  of  millet  and  other  un- 
desirable, and  even  mineral  matter,  in  clover 
and  othei-  seeds,  offered  by  unprincipled 
dealers,  who  are  ever  ready  to  take  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  unwary,  as  the  fine  crops  of 
"  fox-tail"  and  other  fall  grasses  give  abun- 
dant testimony  of  the  adulteration.  Science 
is  one  of  the  farmer's  most  valuable  servants, 
and  is  ever  ready  to  do  detective  service  for 
the  watchful  luusbandman.  By  a  statement 
from  the  State  of  Connecticut,  a  fertilizer 
was  sold  for  $55  per  ton  ;  the  analyzation  at 
the  State  Experimental  Station  proved  it  to 
be  nearly  one-half  sand,  and  to  have  a  com- 
mercial value  of  S8  per  ton. 

In  the  same  journal  I  see  that  detective  busi- 
ness is  carried  on  to  discover  false  and  impure 
seeds.  Numerous  and  ingenious  adulterations 
liave  been  found  in  the  common  seeds  sold  to 
farmers.  Among  them  have  been  found  old 
seeds  that  have  lost  their  power  of  germinat- 
ing, seeds  of  useless  and  injurious  plants,  and 
pieces  of  quartz  rock,  ground,  colored  and 
sifted,  to  imitate  genuine  seeds. 

Can  the  soil  withstand  the  persistent  tillage 
as  followed  in  our  section,  and  not  become 
exhausted  ?  The  falling  oft'  and  irregular 
crops  of  wheat  and  other  cereals,  have  been  a 
source  of  anxiety  to  the  farmer.  The  consu- 
mer, too,  begins  to  enquire  from  whence  come 
the  supply  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  a  rapidly 
increasing  population.  Many  cast  a  wistfiil 
look  over  the  blasted  field  and  wonder  why 
we  are  not  blessed  with  a  yield  as  of  vore. 
Let  science  answer.  I  therefore  recommend 
for  your  consideration  the  appointment  of  a 
committee  with  authority  to  take  such  action 
as  may  secure  and  result  in  the  greatest  good 
to  the  community. 

There  is  also  much  room  for  improving  the 
common  "slip-shod"  way  of  wintering  stock. 
The  thin,  gaunt  form,  with  hair  on  end,  and 
back  elevated  15  or  20  degrees  above  its  natu- 
ral level,  ever  on  the  outlook  for  some  luscious 
bit  to  gratify  the  craving  appetite  created  by 
the  piercing  blasts  of  our  northeastern  winter 
storms,  remind  us  there  is  something  wanted 
to  compete  with  the  well-rounded  form  and 
sleek,  glossy  coats  of  the  herds  of  our  modern 
fiirmers  and  stock  breeder  of  the  day,  who, 
with  his  improved  labor-saving  machinery, 
cuts,  steams  and  uses  such  means  as  scientific 
experiments  and  observation  have  convinced 
him  are  as  necessary  to  prepare  and  cook 
food  for  his  stock  as  for  himself.  And  in  the 
spring,  after  having  wintered  20  to  30  per 
cent,  more  stock  from  the  same  number  of 
acres,  than  his  old  fogy  neighbor,  and  hay  to 
sell  besides,  while  "slip-shod"  has  been  saving 
all  winter,  and  in  the  end  has  to  buy  to  keep 
his  hungry  herd  from  starving. 

In  Horticulture  we  have  the  gratifying  in- 
dications that  the  many  enemies  to  our  fruits 
are  gradually  diminishing,  and  encouraged  us 
to  hope,  by  the  vigilant  protection  of  all  in- 
sectivorous birds,  that  we  may,  ere  long, 
I)luck  bountiful  crops  of  luscious  fruits  from 
our  own  vineyards  and  orchards,  and  furnish 
a  supply  for  the  incoming  demands  of  a  rap- 
idly increasing  population.  The  well-filled 
orchards  of  a))i)les  and  peaches  give  the  dis- 
heartened fruit  grower  such  encouragement  as 
to  hope  for  abundant  remuneration  for, the 
labor  and  money  expended  on  his  fruit  garden. 
Had  it  not  been  for  the  great  storm  from  the 


east  last  fall,  our  markets  now  would  be  sup- 
lilied  with  luscious  home  grown  apples.  Even 
plums  and  gages,  that  have  so  long  been 
strangers  on  our  markets,  are  beginning  to 
make  their  appearance  on  the  stall  to  tempt 
the  palate  of  all  lovers  of  the  delicious  pulp 
that  underlies  the  skin  of  a  well  ripened 
"  Green  Gage,"  or  a  Washington  Plum.  The 
little  hard-shelled  "curculio,"  with  its  crooked 
proboscis,  (the  great  destroyer  of  all  smooth- 
skinned  fruits)  is  slowly  disappearing  from  our 
midst,  and  I  trust,  ere  long,  will  be  among 
the  things  that  were. 

The  revised  constitution  and  by-laws,  re- 
commended by  j'our  committee  and  adopted 
by  the  society,  otter  a  broad  platform  for  use- 
fulness, which,  I  trust,  the  members  will  em- 
brace, and  create  an  organization  that  every 
on«  interested  in  Agriculture,  Horticulture 
and  Floriculture  will  feel  that  they  cannot 
afford  to  be  absent.  I  find,  as  your  chairman 
for  the  last  year,  that,  at  times,  there  is  a 
great  want  of  interest  in  the  proceedings.  A 
little  more  promtness  on  your  part  in  disposing 
of  the  different  topics  under  consideration 
would  greatly  assist  in  making  the  meetings 
both  interesting  and  instructive,  and  facilitate 
the  chair  in  carrying  out  the  routine,  laid  down 
by  the  rules  of  order,  with  the  dispatch  that 
is'  always  advisable  in  public  meetings. 
Another  matter  I  will  take  the  lil)erty  of 
calling  your  attention  to  here  is  the  habit  of 
some  of  the  members  of  waiting  to  be  called 
on  to  express  their  views  on  the  various  sub- 
jects under  discussion.  I  find  it  impossible 
to  iiifuse  spirit  or  life  in  a  meeting  while  there 
is  a  tendency  to  withhold  opinions  and  obser- 
vations ;  and  a  little  more  free  expres- 
sion would  ofttimes  bring  about  a  spirited 
and  instructive  debate. 

In  conclusion  allow  me  to  return  my  kind- 
est acknowledgments  for  the  courtesy  and 
respect  you  have  shown  me  during  our  meet- 
ings, and,  if  aught  has  been  done  or  said  on 
my  part  to  wound  the  feelings  of  any  one,  I 
humbly  ask  pardon.  Hoping  you  will  believe 
that  it  has  been  my  endeavor  to  be  impar- 
tial in  my  rulings  of  all  subjects  under  my 
control,  and  ever  cherishing  the  very  best 
interests  -of  the  society  and  its  memliers,  I 
have  the  pleasure  of  wishing  you  a  very  happy 
new  year.  Most  respectfully  submitted. — Cal- 
vin Cooper. 

[An  apology  is  certainly  due  from  some 
one,  that  the  foregoing  excellent  annual  ad- 
dress of  the  worthy  President  of  the  Ayricul- 
tural  and  Horticultural  Society  should  have 
met  with  such  an  unjustifiable  delay  in  its  pub- 
lication ;  but,  the  fact  is,  that,  notwithstand- 
ing our  frequent  inquiries  about  it,  it  was  not 
placed  into  our  possession  until  the  26th  ulti- 
mo, ten  days  subsequent  to  the  issue  of  the 
March  number  of  The  FAESiEn,  whereas  it 
should  have  api)eared  in  our  January  number. 
Without  indulging  for  a  moment  in  any  kind 
of  censure,  and  willing  to  regard  it  as  a  mere 
act  of  inadvertence,  we  cheerfully  do  the  next 
best  thing,  by  inserting  it  in  our  April  num- 
ber, and  in  making  this  explanatory  record,  as 
the  only  compensation  we  can  make  for  a  de- 
reliction that  was  entirely  beyond  our  control. 

—Ed.] 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
LARGE  OR  SMALL  POTATOES.' 

The  oldest  business  in  the  world  is  farming. 
Exactly  how  old  it  is,  it  would  be  unwise  to 
say  in  these  daj's  when  geologists  are  settling 
and  unsettling  things  regulary  every 
twelvemonth.  But  even  they  let  us  go  back 
over  5,000  years,  and  that  is  sufficient  for  the 
purposes  of  any  argument.  Agriculture  is  a 
science  as  truly  as  chemistry,  astronomy  or 
mathematics  ;  and  as  more  good,  common 
sense  individuals  have  been  at  work  on  it  than 
on  all  the  rest  put  together  half  a  dozen  times 
over,  we  have  a  right  to  expect  that  it  ought 
to  be  so  systematized  and  understood,  that 
its  canons  and  princiiiles  should  rest  on  such 
sure  and  immovable  foundations,  that  acqui- 
esence  therein  should  be  universal  and  not 
excepti(mal.  In  the  wide  world  of  Art  and 
Literature,  we  recognize  certain  unchangeable 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER 


55 


conditions  wliicli  govern  and  rt'iiulate  tht'lr 
in-odiK-tions,  aiul  which  fix  llicir  de^iivc  of 
iiu'i-it  or  dcuicril.  15ut  whon  we  cnuie  down 
to  farniini,',  at  wliicli  (■(Hintless  niilHons  liavc 
tuiU'd,  we  ol'tontinn'S  liiid  that  I  lie  divuriifncu 
of  opinions  on  jioints  so  often  and  so  re^^nlarly 
lironi,'lil  to  tlie  1'arnier's  attention,  i.s  as  wiile 
as  it  well  can  he,  and  I  lie  real  issue  as  unde- 
ciih'd  as  when  Adam  delved  and  Eve  spun. 

To  one  of  these  disputed  i)oints  I  jiropose 
to  call  attention.  The  question  whether 
farinevs  shall  plant  larije  or  small  jiotatoes  is 
an  old  one,  and  as  hmi;  as  it  is  old,  and  will 
no  dmht  continue  to  a.ijitatc  tlie  agricultural 
mind  for  a  long  time  to  come.  If  every  the- 
orist on  this  queslion  would  convert  liitnscW 
into  an  experimentalist,  the  ease  would  not 
he  long  in  doul)t,  hut  nnfoitnnately,  the  more 
(un-  favorite  theories  are  assailed,  the  more 
we  feel  disposed  to  stick  to  them.  Farmers 
are  |ierh.aps  the  most  conservative  jieople  as  a 
rule,  in  the  connninuty,  and  lids  a|iplies  to 
things  within  (he  liiK^  of  their  calling  even 
more  than  to  outside  maltei's.  They  are  apt 
to  hold  on  to  that  which  experience  lias 
taught  them  produces  satisfactory  results, 
and  too  infrequently  refu.se  to  better  what 
seems  to  them  already  good  enough. 

Every  reader  knuws  farmers  who  jilaiit  only 
small  potatoes,  not  from  necessity  but  from 
choice,  and  others  who  select  the  choicest  of 
their  crop  for  planting  purim.ses.  If  the  former 
succeeds  in  gathering  a  large  crop  of  line 
tuhers,  he  is  confirnu-d  in  his  theory  that  .size 
has  notlnng  whatever  to  do  with  the  matter, 
and  if  his  crop  i)roves  short  in  (piantity  and 
interior  in  (piality,  an  abnndan(x>  of  reasons 
drawn  from  the  season,  cfindition  of  the  soil 
and  what  not,  are  always  at  hand  to  sustain 
his  original  view.  Paradoxical  as  it  may 
seem,  the  man  who  has  iilanted  the  very  hest 
article  in  his  cellar,  aiiplies  this  identical  line 
of  argument  to  his  own  system,  no  matter 
W'lu'tlier  failure  or  success  has  attended  it. 
The  result  is  nothing  is  proved,  and  each 
party  is  as  strongly  wedded  to  his  theory  as 
ever. 

My  father  invariably  planted  small-sized  po- 
tatoes, and  was  careful,  when  nonesuch  were 
to  be  had,  to  cut  the  large  ones  imtil  no  ]>iece 
contained  more  than  a  single  eye.  He  had  a 
neighbor,  a  brother,  whose  rule  through  life 
in  this  matter  was  the  exact  opposite.  The 
fields  adjoined,  and  in  so  far  as  anything 
could  be  discovered,  there  was  no  difference 
whatever  in  either  the  quality  of  the  .soil  or 
method  of  cultivation.  Vet  tliere  were  fail- 
ures and  successes  on  both  sides,  as  often  on 
the  one  as  on  the  other,  and  an  experience  of 
50  years'  potato  growing  left  both  satisfied  as 
to  the  soundness  of  their  individual  views, 
without  any  other  perceptible  difference  ex- 
cept that  my  father  had  the  satisfaction  of 
eating  his  finest  iiotatoes,  while  my  uncle 
dined  on  small  ones.  This  is  but  a  single  in- 
stance by  way  of  example,  and  everyone  will 
remember  plenty  of  others  in  his  own  expe- 
rience.    . 

Last  year  a  somewhat  similar  experience 
fell  to  my  own  share.  I  had  about  half  an 
acre  of  ground  to  plant.  I  imt  down  Peerless 
and  Early  Rose,  mostly  small  ones,  freely  cut- 
ting the  large  ones.  Finding  several  rowsun- 
planted  when  night  came  and  being  anxious 
to  finish,  these  were  planted  with  very  large 
Peerless,  whole,  for  I  would  not  lake  the  time 
to  cut  them.  The  result  was  that  this  last  lot 
was  the  most  uu.satisfactory  of  the  whoU;,  al- 
though I  atn  not  luepared  to  say  this  was  in 
consequence  of  having  iilanted  entire  potatoes. 
Several  years  ago  a  lot  of  mere  parings, 
planted  in  the  rich,  mellow  soil  of  the  gar- 
den, gave  unusually  line  results. 

If  there  remains  attached  to  the  eye,  mere- 
ly sufficient  of  the  substance  of  the  potato  to 
sustain  its  vitality  until  it  has  had  time  by  its 
contact  with  the  soil  to  throw  out  rootlets, 
which  it  quickly  does,  everything  has  been  at- 
tained which  need  be  asked  for;  the  .soil,  with 
all  its  component  parts,  must  do  the  rest. 
The  old  potato  furinshes  sustenance  merely 
until  the  growing  eye  makes  arrangements, 
so  to  speak,  to  find  other  and  more  substan- 


tial nourishment  to  support  its  growth. 
What  is  drawn  from  the  potato  is  at  most 
only  a  matter  of  a  few  days,  while  on  what 
is  taken  up  out  of  the  soil,  and  that  oidy,  de- 
pend our  ex|)ectations  of  a  vigorous  growth 
and  a  prolilahlc  crop. 

Is  not  this  view,  in  all  its  bearings,  abun- 
dantly confirmed  l)y  thi;  inamier  of  planting 
resorted  to  by  those  who  have  planted  small 
lots  of  potatoes  in  conqietitiou  tor  iirizes.  If 
Mr.  II.  (J.  Pearson  had  |)lanled  his  single 
jMiund  of  the  '"Alpha"  variety,  without  cut- 
ting the  tubers,  how  nnuiy  would  he  have 
obtained  by  the  experiment  V  Most  likely  his 
crop  would  have  lieen  17  pounds  instead  of 
171)7,  and  his  lilW  jiounds  from  a  single  pound 
of  "  Huby"  would,  in  all  probability,  have 
dwindled  down  to  a  figure  which  half  a  dozen 
hungry  farm  hands  could  have  demoli.shed  at 
a  single  meal.  When  a  single  eye  of  a  potato 
can  he  divided  and  subdivided  until  ten  or 
more  parts  have  been  obtained,  and  these 
]ilaided  and  cultivated  until  the  result  is  ai\ 
increase  of  nearly  •iOOl)  per  cent.,  I  aiiprehend 
the  advocates  of  whole  i)otato  planting  have 
very  little  ground  left  in  the  way  of  argument, 
to  stand  upon. 

Instead  of  being  beneficial,  planting  whole 
potatoes  can  hardly  fiul  to  result  in  direct 
injin-y.  Some  potatoes  have  more  eyes,  some 
less,  but  the  avei-age  is  anywhere  from  six  to 
a  dozen.  Were  all  these  to  grow  and  thrive,  it 
would  of  itself  elfectually  demolish  the 
"  whole"  planting  theory  ;  for  that  number  of 
plants  or  shoots,  all  drawing  nourishment 
from  so  limited  and  eircuinscribed  a  space, 
would  literally  star\'fc  and  the  expected  crop 
prove  a  failure. 

There  can  bo  little  room  for  doubt  but  that 
sound  healthy  potatoes;,  when  iirojierly  cut 
into  pieces  and  planted,  will  yield  the  best 
results.  That  being  done,  other  most  essen- 
tial factors  step  into  the  foreground,  and  con- 
trol the  size  of  the  croj),  and  its  quality.  The 
soil  must  be  rich,  light  and  jiroductive : 
thorough  and  constant  cultivation  nnist  be 
liracti<'ed,  and  when  all  this  has  been  done, 
one  thing  more  remains  to  do,  and  unless.that 
is  done  in  season,  and  elfectually,  neither  rich 
soil,  careful  cultivation,  whole  potatoes,  or 
anything  else  will  liring  good  results — you 
must  exercise  eternal  vigilance  against  the  as- 
saults of  the  Colorado  beetle,  for  at  that  price 
the  potato  croi>  nuist  now  be  purchased. — F. 
It.  I).,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

^ 

ESSAY  * 

The  year  just  closed  ended  the  first  century 
since  the  indeiiendence  of  the  country,  ami 
the  second,  since  the  first  settlers  landed  on 
the  banks  of  the  Delaware,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  this  State  tlieir  home. 

They  found  the  valleys  of  Eastern  Penn- 
sylvania wooded,  and  the  hills  clear  of  timber. 

These  they  called  barren,  and  considered 
them  unfit  for  cultivation. 

Their  rude  houses  were  built  by  springs 
and  running  streams,  everywhere  found  in 
abundance,  and  the  work  of  opening  farms  in 
the  wooded  timber  connnenccd. 

Those  who  have  no  exiierience  in  clearing 
land  for  cultivation,  have  but  little  idea  of 
the  labor  re([uired.  But  the  early  settlers  had 
been  inured  to  toil,  and  year  after  year  saw 
the  tindier  disappear  and  fresh  acres  of  thi' 
virgin  soil  added  to  their  farms,  to  take  the 
place  of  those  that  ha<l  become  exhausted  by 
continued  croi>ping.  During  this  time  the 
old  Indian  custom  of  hiniting  the  scanty  veg- 
etation on  the  hills  had  been  di.scontinu<'d, 
and  they  had  grown  up  with  a  vigorous 
growth  of  yoimg  timber  ;  and  when  the  cen- 
tury closed  the  order  was  reverse<l.  The 
valleys  were  cleared  and  the  hills  were 
wooded. 

At  the  opening  of  the  second  century  there 
were  causes  oiierating  to,  in  a  nu^asure, 
change  the  habits  of  the  lieople,  which  led  to 
.some  improvement  in  their  agriculture.  Many 
of   the  first  settlers,  in   all   our   new  Slates, 

*  lEead  before  the  **  T.snca8ter  County  Agricultural  ftud 
Horticultural  Society,"  Murcli  26,  1877,  by  Levi  Powuall. 


have  been  nomadic  in  character,  and  those  of 
the*  old  were  no  exceptitm  to  this  rule. 
From  1725  to  the  close  of  llie  century,  Vir- 
ginia and  North  ('arolina  fin-iiishcd  an  out- 
let to  the  wanderers  from  this  State.  When 
the  hmds  in  those  Slates  were  occupied,  their 
attention  was  turned  to  the  Northwest  Terri- 
tory; hut  the  Indians  had  beconur  jealous  of 
the  encroachments  of  the  pale-faces,  and  dis- 
posed to  dispute  their  right  to  extend  their 
.settlements. 

This,  for  a  time,  checked  cinigralion,  and 
turned  tlu;  attention  of  the  peoph'  to  the  im- 
jirovement  of  their  buildings  and  the  land 
already  occupied  and  under  cultivation. 

In  making  thesi' improvements,  the  people 
for  the  first  time  discovered  their  mistake  in 
destroying  their  hest  timlMjr.  To  remedy 
their  error  the  land  covered  by  the  growing 
timber  on  the  hills  was  taken  up  and  added 
to  tlieii'  farms,  and  from  this  time  till  the  in- 
troduction of  coal,  the  tindx  r  was  carefully 
pre.servetl.  After  th('  introduction  of  coal  a 
large  ixirtion  of  the  remaining  timber  land 
was  cleared  and  brought  under  cultivation, 
llow  far  this  action  was  wise,  this  and  future 
generations  will  have  to  settle.  Independent 
of  the  <iuestions  of  rain  fall  and  the  failure  of 
springs  now  being  di.scus.sed,  there  are  othera 
that  in  the  end  may  prove  of  greater  import- 
ance :  Timber  belts  for  .screens  or  wind 
brakes,  their  infiueuce  in  regulating  the  tem- 
])erature  of  our  climate,  and  their  elfect  on 
the  cultivation  of  fruit.  Their  attention  was 
also  directi;d  to  the  use  of  water  for  the  pur- 
poses of  irrigation.  They  had  depended  on 
the  grass  growing  on  the  meadow  land,  for 
hay  and  pa.-ture.  To  enlarge  the  area  and 
increa.se  the  supply,  ditches  were  made  to 
convey  the  water  from  a  higher  level,  and  the 
marks  indicating  th(^  lines  of  those  oldditches 
still  remaining  on  our  farms,  attest  the  indus- 
try and  perseverance  of  our  ancestors  to  ac- 
complish their  purpose.  Farms  with  water 
rights  for  purposes  of  irrigation  were  in  de- 
mand at  a  premium,  while  those  without  were 
a  drug  in  the  market.  In  17ilS  cloverseed 
was  introduced  and  .sown  in  this  section  of 
the  State. 

Greeley's  Saying,  "that  the  man  who  makes 
two  blades  of  grow  where  one  grew  before,  is 
a  public  benefactor"  if  true,  would  entitle 
the  man  who  first  introduced  cloverseedin  a  ten- 
fold sense,  to  til  IS  appellation.  At  the  lime  of  its 
introduction  the  farm  land  had  gradually  de- 
teriorated. The  cultivation  of  many  acres 
that  had  once  been  fiatileaiul  productive,  had 
been  abandoned.  The  growing  of  this  plant, 
and  the  practice  commenced  near  the  same 
time,  of  using  lime,  made  the  turning  ))oint 
in  our  agriculture.  Clover,  in  connection 
with  timothy,  grew  so  well  on  our  uplands 
that  they  took  the  place  of  the  meadow  grass 
fiir  hay,  anil  the  ditches  that  were  dug  with 
so  much  lalior  and  expense,  were  in  a  few 
years  abandoned. 

After  the  defeat  of  the  Indians  in  1794,  the 
Xorthwest  Territory  was  open  for  settlement; 
the  (ioverninenl  («fferiug  inducements,  not 
only  to  our  own  citizens,  but  also  to  those 
of  Europe,  to  occupy  the  laud  at  a  nominal 
price. 

The  i)opulation  rapidly  increa.sed,  and  the 
surplus  lu-oducts  harvested  fnmi  the  fertile 
soil  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  waited  for  the 
means  of  transportatitm  to  a  distant  market. 

The  eastern  cities  siiw  the  importance  of 
this  trade,  and  their  capital  and  energies 
were  directed  to  secure  it.  But  the  distance 
was  great.  The  ways  and  means  of  over- 
coming the  ditliculties  to  be  encountered  were 
not  yet  devised. 

In  those  days  civilization  and  settlement 
were  in  advance  of  the  means  of  transi)orta- 
lion.  In  the  meantime  the  now  crude  |)ro- 
ilucts  of  the  vegetable  kingdom  walked  to 
our  eastern  markets  in  the  shape  of  cattle 
and  swine,  and  for  the  first  time  wo  had  a 
competitor  from  a  distance  in  our  markets  for 
those  liroducts.  I  need  not  enumerate  the 
different  enterprises  contemplated  by  our 
commercial  cities  of  the  cast  to  control  and 
direct   the  course  of  the  internal  commerce 


56 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[April, 


between  the  States.  How  eastern  and  foreign 
capital  was  largely  expended.  How  a  canal 
leading  to  the  lakes,  and  railroads  over  the 
mountains  were  constrncted.  How,  when 
extended  and  completed  to  all  portions  of  the 
west,  the  rival  lines  carried  western  products 
for  less  than  cost  of  transjjortation,  and  made 
up  the  deficiency  on  their  eastern  traffic. 
How  farmer.s  in  the  eastern  section  of  the 
State  had  to  change  their  farming  operations 
to  meet  the  altered  circumstances  under 
which  those  improvements  in  transportation 
bad  place  them. 

These  are  matters  of  history,  and  for  us  to 
examine  and  see  if  we,  as  eastern  farmers, 
have  been  the  gainers  or  losers  by  our  public 
improvements. 

Looking  fi'om  the  standpoint  of  an  old- 
time  farmer,  when  all  the  profits  of  the  farm 
■were  derived  from  the  sale  of  beef  and  grain, 
we  would  constantly  be  the  losers.  But, 
looking  from  another  standpoint,  we  may  be 
able  to  see  some  compensating  features. 

The  construction  of  lines  leading  to  the 
coal  regions  of  the  State  ;  the  organization  of 
companies  to  develop  the  other  mineral  re- 
sources and  of  our  various  manufacturing 
interests— made  possible  by  cheap  coal— and 
whose  extensive  works  now  line  all  our  high- 
ways of  public  improvements— paying  into 
our  State  Treasury  a  sufficient  amount  in 
taxes  to  relieve  our  farmers  from  State 
taxation. 

The  increased  trade  brought  to  our  cities — 
causing  a  rapid  increase  in  population  and 
making  the  last  twenty  years  an  era  of  city 
building,  east  and  west— creating  a  market 
for  perishable  articles  and  dairy  products. 

In  the  souiliern  part  of  the  county  we 
have  fonnd  our  compensation  in  the  increased 
demand  for  the  products  of  the  dairy.  A 
few  years  ago  raising  grain  and  feeding  cattle 
were  the  rule  with  fanners,  and  the  dairy  in- 
terest was  of  small  importance.  It  has  now 
grown  to  be  the  main  reliance  to  make  both 
ends  meet  at  the  end  of  the  year. 

Here,  in  the  northern  part  of  the  county, 
growing  tobacco  appears  to  be  the  paying 
business.  Either  dairying  or  raising  tobacco 
will  prove  more  exhausting  to  the  soil  than 
the  old  .system  of  grain  raising  and  feeding 
cattle  ;  and  in  making  the  change  we  should 
be  careful  that  we  bring  no  discredit  to  the 
reputation  our  county  has  gained  of  being  the 
"Garden  County  of  the  State." 

We  have  now  entered  the  third  century  of 
our  history.  In  taking  a  review  of  the  past, 
we  cannot  claim  that  the  agriculture  of  our 
country  has  been  a  success.  It  is  true,  we 
have  always  had  a  surplus  of  agricultural 
products  to  export,  but  this  has  been  accom- 
plished by  bringing  new  laud  under  cultiva- 
tion, not  by  increasing  the  productive  power 
of  that  already  occupied.  Our  statistics  show 
that  the  average  yield  per  acre  of  the  different 
grains  raised,  has  decreased  in  nearly  all  the 
States.  The  reason  for  this  decline,  I  think, 
can  be  traced  to  the  natural  fertility  of  the 
soil,  and  the  abundance  of  unoccupied  land 
that  could  be  obtained  at  a  mere  nominal  cost; 
and  those  causes  have  been  operating  to  the 
injury  of  our  agriculture,  all  through  our 
histoi-y.  The  policy  of  the  Government  of 
holding  out  inducements  for  the  settlement  of 
new  ten-itory,  has  been  an  injury  to  the  older 
States,  and  no  advantage  to  the  new. 

As  remarked,  many  of  the  first  settlers  of  a 
State  are  nomadic  in  character.  This  class 
make  no  permanent  improvements  and  leave 
the  land  less  productive  than  they  found  it. 
They  rob  the  soil  of  the  elements  of  its  fertility 
and  making  no  return,  move  on,  finding  fresh 
fields  to  repeat  the  same  process.  You  can 
trace  their  progress  through  the  States  like  a 
tidal  wave  from  the  east  to  the  west — im- 
pairing the  productive  power  of  the  country 
to  an  extent  that  will  require  years  of  careful 
tillage  to  restore.  They  committed  the  wrong 
through  ignorance  of  the  truth  that  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  soil  are  the  basis  of  our  national 
wealth,  and  the  foundations  of  our  mutual 
advancement.  By  im]iairiug  its  productive 
power  they  were  striking  a  blow  at  their 
country's  prosperity. 


HOW  MUCH  LIME  TO  THE  ACRE.'- 

The  practice  of  liming  laud  has  been  pur- 
sued for  many  years  in  Lancaster  county,  and 
the  question  is,  did  we  apply  it  in  a  scientific 
manner  or  not  ?  The  question  also  ari.ses, 
whether  the  fertility  of  this  section  of  the 
State  is  owing  to  this  practice. 

Farmers  are  not  all  agreed  as  to  the  way 
in  which  lime  acts  on  the  soil.  Some  argue 
that  it  is  a  direct  fertilizer,  while  others  con- 
tend that  its  fertilizing  qualities  depend  on 
its  chemical  action  on  the  soil. 

If  the  first  argument  is  correct,  we  may  at- 
tribute the  present  generally  ricli  condition  of 
our  fields  to  the  free  use  of  lime. 

However,  agricultural  chemists  are  not 
agreed  as  to  the  manner  in  which  lime  acts. 
Some  have  claimed  that  as  lime  is  found  in 
the  ashes  of  most  crops,  it  is  one  of  the  essen- 
tial constituents  and  must  therefore  be  found 
in  the  soil  naturally,  or  applied,  in  order  to 
supply  the  proper  elements  to  the  plants. 

But  does  this  explain  its  action  '}  A  single 
illustration  will  give  a  conclusive  argument 
on  this  point.  The  neighborhood  where  we 
were  brought  up,  though  a  diluvial,  or  loam 
soil  on  the  surface,  rests  on  limestone  rocks 
which  often  protrude  through  the  surface. 
The  well  and  spring  water  is  so  saturated 
with  lime  as  to  yield  a  thick  coat  of  it  in  the 
tea  kettle  in  a  brief  time.  Yet  lime  applied 
in  the  usual  way  seemed  to  benefit  that  soil 
as  much,  if  not  more,  than  clay  or  slate  land. 
On  this  point  we  also  wish  to  add,  that  chem- 
ists tell  us  that  in  analyses  of  samples  of 
water  from  different  localities  and  qualities  of 
soils  they  found  lime  enough  to  supply  the 
wants  of  any  crop,  in  every  one  of  them. 

With  these  and  other  facts  in  view,  we 
rather  favor  the  doctrine  that  the  chief  utility 
of  calcined  lime  is  in  its  action  as  an  alkaline 
re-agent  to  neutralize  the  acidity  of  the  soil 
and  to  decompose  organic  or  vegetable  sub- 
stances and  fit  them  for  food  for  growing 
plants. 

Those  who  are  familiar  with  chemi.stry  will 
remember  the  fact  that  a  compound  is  more 
readily  decomposed  if  there  is  a  substance 
present  which  has  a  sti-ong  affinity  for  one  of 
the  elements  liberated.  Thus  all  vegetable 
substances  in  rotting  produce  a  considerable 
amount  of  carbonic  acid,  and  this  has  a  strong 
affinity  for  lime.  Hence  the  presence  of  lime 
in  a  soil  hastens  the  destruction  of  dead  grass, 
roots,  manure,  etc.,  and  sets  the  elements  at 
liberty  to  act  in  direct  or  indirect  nourish- 
ment to  the  growing  crops. 

May  not  lime  also  extract  ammonia  from 
the  atmosphere  ?  We  think  it  does,  for  its 
sulphate  (gypsum)  does  so  in  a  remarkable 
degree. 

With  the  above  theory  of  the  action  as  an 
alkaline  reagent  we  may  conclude,  viz.: 

That  on  new  soils  where  there  is  an  abun- 
dance of  vegetable  matter,  and  some  sourness, 
an  application  of  lime  will  hasten  the  pre- 
paration of  the  natural  manure,  and  should 
not  be  applied  in  greater  quantities  than  1.5 
to  .30  bushels  per  acre,  but  every  year. 

On  dry,  sandy  soils  lime  is  beneficial  in  re- 
taining the  moisture  by  compacting  the  soil. 
In  this  case  lime  acts  mechanically  by  cemen- 
ting the  soil. 

On  heavy  clay  soils  lime  is  often  beneficial 
in  the  same  way,  but  care  is  necessary  not  to 
apply  it  largely,  as  it  sometimes  cements  the 
clay  and  is  deleterious. 

The  best  form  of  application  is  in  a  freshly 
slaked  state,  in  the^»jfst  condition  possible,  and 
immediately  stir  it  with  the  soil.  The  farmers 
in  our  section  of  the  county  (Manor  township) 
have  a  practice  of  hauling  their  lime  on  large 
heaps  of  from  .50  to  200  bushels,  during  the 
winter.  This  we  do  not  favor  as  a  general 
thing  for  the  following  reason: 

If  the  spring  is  wet  it  will  be  apt  to  drown 
and  in  this  condition  it  benefits  the  land  very 
little  as  it  can  not  be  mixed  as  intimately  with 
the  soil,  as  it  is  lumjiy ;  covering  the  heaps  after 
they  are  slaked  with  straw  or  boards  will  be 
better. 

■Read  before  the  LancaBier  County  Agricultural  and  Hor- 
ticultural Society,  March  2d,  1877,  by  E.  K.  Herebey. 


We  have  always  marked  out  land  after  it  is 
plowed  in  the  spring,  in  squares  of  six  steps 
and  put  one-half  bushel  on  the  intersection, 
and  as  soon  as  slacked,  spread  and  mixed  with 
the  soil  immediately,  with  good  results. 

As  per  quantity  per  acre  soil  must  be  taken 
into  consideration,  some  soils  taking  more 
than  others,  but  we  are  inclined  to  believe  too 
much  is  applied  at  a  time  and  not  often  enough. 
One  hundred  busliels  applied  on  a  light  soil 
may  deconipo.se  all  the  vegetable  matter  in  it, 
and  be  used  the  first  year  and  render  it  sterile, 
while  a  less  quantity  might  just  decompose 
enough  to  benefit  the  first  cro'p  and  the  roots, 
leaves,&c.,of  this  crop  may  benefit  a  succeeding 
crop.  We  do  not  fitvor  plowing  it  down,  as 
lime,  as  every  observant  man  knows,  has  a 
tendency  to  sink.  It  should  always,  in  our 
opinion,  be  applied  as  a  top  dressing. 

And  now  a  word  to  the  fiirmers  of  Lan- 
caster county  :  There  is  large  room  for  ex- 
periment in  regard  to  this  lime  question,  and 
I  hope  you  will  not  let  the  matter  rest,  but 
try  it  on  your  land  in  every  possible  way — 
twenty-five,  fifty,  seventy-five,  one  hundred, 
and  even  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  bushels 
to  the  acre,  and  determine  which  is  best;  also, 
befoj'e  and  after  planting  a  crop,  plowed 
down  or  top  dressed,  and  let  each  one  make  a 
record  and  bring  it  before  the  society,  and 
theu  we  may  arrive  at  more  definite  conclu- 
sions. 

[The  same  inadvertence  wliich  delayed  the 
publication  of  the  President's  annual  address, 
has  been  instrumental  in  withholding  this 
paper  from  our  March  number,  namely,  it  was 
closed  up  between  the  lids  of  the  Secretary's 
records.  We  would  suggest  that  hereafter  Es- 
sayists keep  their  papers  in  their  own  posses- 
sion, afterthey  have  been  read,  and  hand  them 
directly  over  to  the  editor  of  The  Farmer. 
If  it  is  desired  to  publish  a  synopsis  of  them 
in  the  body  of  the  proceedings,  Eeporters 
can  obtain  that  privilege  from  him.  We  have 
lao  desire  to  enjoy  a  monopoly  of  these  things, 
but  we  do  desire  to  obviate  uuneccessary  in- 
advertence, indifference,  delay  or  neglect, 
wherever  and  whenever  we  can. — Ed. 


SAP.ETC- 


For  The  Lancastek  Faemeb. 
-PLANT  LIFEAND  MOLECU- 
LAR  FORCE. 
What  a  wonderful  labyrinth  we  find  in  seek- 
ing knowledge  tlirough  what  is  termed  scien- 
tific investigations.  The  things  we  learned  at 
one  time  or  period  of  our  lives  we  have  to  un- 
learn ;  as  subsequent  enquiries  have  brought 
new  facts  to  light,  tlie  old  theories  would  no 
longer  explain  the  phenomena,  and  new  ones 
had  to  be  devi.sed,  onlj'  to  give  place  to  modi- 
fication and  changes  as  other  investigators 
made  new  discoveries.  The  trouble  is,  men 
see  in  part,  as  through  a  glass,  darkly,  then 
jump  at  conclusions,  and  advance  their  theo- 
ries, and  being  an  F.  R.  S.  or  M.  D.,  or  the 
like,  of  course  minor  lights  must  reflect  the 
brilliancy  of  these  luminaries,  and  laud  them 
for  their  effulgence.  It  is  nevertheless  true 
the  varied  experiments  lead  to  new  discovery 
and  new  truths  are  brought  to  light  and  made 
available,  although  the  theories  founded  are 
often  delusive  and  too  hastily  arrived  at. 

I  am  led  to  those  reflections  on  reading  an 
abstract  of  a  paper  read  by  Mr.  Andrew  Mur- 
ray at  the  last  meeting  of  the  Scientific  Com- 
mittee of  the  Royal  Horticultural  Society,  in 
which  he  combats  the  theory  of  a  descending 
current  of  sap  at  any  period  or  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. He  maintained  that  absolutely 
no  proof  whatever  has  hitherto  been  adduced 
of  a  descent  of  sap,  nor  would  he  admit  of  an 
assimilating  process  in  the  leaves  and  a  trans- 
ference of  food  thus  prepared  to  where  growth 
is  taking  place,  or  where  under  certain  condi- 
tions growth  would  take  place.  His  views 
are  based  upon  the  experiments  of  Herbert 
Spencer  (Linna'an  Society's  Transactions,  vol. 
XXV. )  and  since  repeated  and  extended  by 
Prof.  W.  R.  McNab.  It  is  essentially  declar- 
ed that  the  ascending  sap  deposits  the  wood 
as  it  rises,  and  the  surplus  water  is  evaporat- 
ed through  the  leaves  into  the  air.  Now  re- 
fer to  "Gray's  school  and  field  book  of  Bot- 


187?.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


57 


any,  1870,"  ]iaa;e  168,  .section  4S5.  Of  the  .sap 
he  say.s  :  "Altjiougli  containeil  in  cells  with 
closed  walls,  nevertheless  the  Ihiitls  taken  in 
l)y  tlie  roots  are  carried  np  thron^li  tiii!  stem 
to  the  leaves  even  of  the  to|iinost  hciuph  of 
the  lallist  tree.  And  the  sap,  after  its  assim- 
ilation liy  the  leaves,  is  carried  down  in  the 
liarkof  the  canibinm-layer,  and  distributed 
IhroULrliont  the  plant,  or  else,  is  conveyed  to 
llu^  points  where  growth  is  taking  jjlacc,  or  is 
accumulated  in  roots,  stems,  or  wherever  a 
deposit  is  being  stored  u|)  for  future  use." 
This  is  wliat  Messrs.  Murray,  McXab  and 
.Si)encer  tlatly  contradict.  Dr.  Gray's  tlieory 
is  the  one  accejited  l)y  all  the  most  eminent 
vegetabU'  i)liysiologists,  and  yet  it  cainiot  be 
denied  that  there  exists  a  difference  of  opin- 
ion as  to  the  functions  of  the  tulmlar  vessels, 
which  liermeate  vegetable  tissue,  from  the  tiji 
of  the  roots  to  the  petals  and  pistils.  Some 
allirni  that  they  contain  air,  others  tluids, 
other  gases,  etc.  I  liiid  that  Herbert  Spencer 
has  .shown  that  these  vessels  are  not  only 
charged  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year  with 
lluid,  but  that  they  are  intimately  connected 
with  the  formation  of  wocid;  ai\d  from  exper- 
iments with  colored  tluids  ca]iable  of  entering 
the  tissues  without  impairing  vittility,  not 
only  in  cuttings  of  pl.ants,  but  in  individuals 
in  which  the  roots  were  uninjured,  that  th(! 
sap  not  only  ascends  Ijy  the  vascular  tissue, 
but  that  the  same  tissue  acts  in  its  turn  as 
absorbents,  returning  and  distributing  the  sap 
which  has  been  moditied  in  the  leaves.  This 
view  of  Spencer  certainly  gives  no  foundation 
for  the  broad  assumption  of  Itlr.  Murray. 
That  the  tissue  acts  some  important  jiart  is 
clear  from  the  constancy  with  which  it  is  pro- 
duced at  a  very  early  stage  in  adventitious 
buds,  establishing  a  connection  between  the 
tissue  of  the  old  and  new  parts.  According 
to  M.  I)c  Monchy,"Comptes  Kendus,"  March, 
18t)8,  the  sap  of  vegetables  contains  large 
numbers  of  grannies  haviiiir  an  oscillating 
motion,  called  by  botanists  "movable  glob- 
ules." The  same  granules  iiave  been  noticed 
in  the  pollen-bearing  utricles,  in  the  liquids 
of  insects,  especially  in  the  eggs  and  larv;B  of 
lei)idoptera,  and  in  the  posterior  part  of  the 
body  of  spiders,  also  in  the  pigment  layer  of 
the  choroid  coat  of  the  eye.  His  experiments 
there  detailed,  show  that  these  o.scillating 
granules,  from  all  the  above  sources,  are  or- 
ganisms acting  powerfully,  like  ferments,  on 
the  matters  with  which  they  are  naturally  in 
contact.  They  act  on  cane-sugar,  starch, 
and  gelatine  as  ferments,  transforming  them 
more  or  less  quckly  and  completely  into  glu- 
cose. 

TJie  function  of  these  granules  is  to  assist 
the  ripening  of  fruits,  and  in  both  the  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  kingdom  to  elaborate  cer- 
tain matters  for  the  nourishment  of  germs 
and  the  incessant  regeneration  of  organs. 
Leydig  says  :  "  We  may  state  absolutely  that 
what  we  call  'elements  of  iforniation.'  are 
preceded  by  a  series  of  creations."  These 
experiments  are  important,  and  the  results 
furnish  much  desirable  materials  for  the  study 
of  cellular  physiology. 

Much  is  said  about  'Molecular  force.'  Prof. 
Tyndall  in  his  address  on  the  subject  bef(U'e 
the  Physical  Section  of  the  Briti.sh  Associa- 
tion, says  many  good  things,  and  some  rather 
equivocal, — when  he  says,  comparing  a  grain 
of  corn  with  a  crystal—"  the  architecture  of 
the  grain  resembles,  in  some  degree,  the  arch- 
itecture of  the  crystal.  In  the  corn  the  mole- 
cules are  also  .set  in  definite  positions,  from 
which  they  act  upon  light.  But  what  has 
built  together  the  molecules  of  tlie  corn  i*  I 
have  said,"  he  continues,  "regarding  crystal- 
line architecture  that  yon  may,  if  you  please, 
consider  the  atoms  and  molecules  to  be  placed 
in  position  by  a  iwwer  extenial  to  themselves. 
The  same  hypothesis  is  open  to  you  now. 
But  if,  in  the  case  of  crystals,  you  have  re- 
jected this  notion  of  an  external  architect, 
you  are  boimd  to  reject  it  now,  and  to  con- 
clude that  the  molecidcs  of  the  corn  are  self- 
posited  by  the  forces  with  which  they  act 
upon  each"  other,"adding — "  It  would  be  poor 
philosophy  to  invoke  an  external  agent  in  the 


one  case,  and  to  reject  it  in  the  other."  We 
would  infer,  from  his  notion,  that  there  is  no 
architect  or  creator  wanted  in  any  depari- 
ment  of  nature,  -  that,  like  the  school-boy's 
excu.se  for  whistling,  saying  it  "whistled  it- 
.self  " — as  if  he  had  no  purl  in  it.  Furtlier 
on  he,  Mr.  Tynilall,  says,  "Mow  tlu're  is  no- 
thing in  this  |)rocess  winch  neccs-sarily  eludes 
the  (lower  of  mind  as  we  know  it.  An  intel- 
lect the  same  in  kind  as  our  own  would,  if 
ONLY  suFFiciKNTLY  KX I'.VNDKU, "  (The  Un- 
derscoring is  mine.  He  continues)  "  be  able 
to  follow  the  whole  process  from  beginning  to 
end.  The  duly  exiianded  mind  would  see  the 
process  and  its  consummation,  an  instance  of 
the  play  of  molecular  force.  It  would  see 
every  molecule  plaeed  in  its  position  by  the 
specific  attractions  and  reiudsions  exerted  be- 
tween it  and  other  molecules."  *  *  *  "A 
nrcisxitii  rides  here  similar  to  that  which  rules 
the  |ilauets  in  their  circuits  round  the  sun." 

But  Mr.  Tyndall  continues  :  "But  I  must 
go  still  further,  and  atlirm  that  in  the  eye  of 
science  the  animal  body  is  just  as  nuicii  the 
product  of  molecular  force  as  the  stalk  and 
ear  of  corn,  or  the  crystal  of  salt  or  sugar. 
Many  of  the  parts  are  obviously  mechanical." 
Well,  if  innnij  of  the  parts  are,  what  of  tiie 
tillur  parts  that  are  not  mechanical  ? — he  re- 
fers to  Trevethyck's  walking  engine,  that  de- 
rives motion,  like  the  aiumal  from  its  food, 
from  the  fuel  in  the  furnace  of  the  engine — 
declaring,  "As  regards  matter,  the  animal 
body  creates  nothing  ;  as  regards  force,  it 
creates  nothing,"  and  yet  man,  plants,  etc., 
grow  and  live. 

Prof.  Tyndall  actually  saj'S  :  "  I  think  the 
materialist  will  be  able  finallj'  to  maintain 
this  position  against  all  attacks  ;  but  I  do 
not  think,  as  the  human  mind  is  at  present 
constituted,  that  he  can  pass  beyond  it.  I  do 
not  think  he  is  entitled  to  say  that  his  mole- 
cular groupings  and  his  molecular  motions 
explain  everything.  In  rpditi/  it  cxp'aius 
?io</n'H;/."  Just  the  conclusion  we  had  arrived 
at.  Finally  lie  sums  up  the  matter  thus: 
"  The  utmost  he  can  atlirm  is  the  association 
of  two  classes  of  iihenomena,  of  whose  real 
bond  of  union  he  is  in  absolute  ignorance. 
The  problem  of  the  connection  of  body  and 
soul  is  as  insoluble  in  its  modern  form  as  it 
was  in  the  )ire-scientific  ages. "  Just  so.  But 
what  is  a  molecule  ?  in  a  chemical  sense,  it 
means  the  smallest  quantity  of  an  element  or 
of  a  compound  that  can  exist  in  the  free  state, 
pei'haps  a  single  atom  ;  for  instance  ammonia 
(N".  lis.)  is,  chemically  considered,  both  a 
molecule  ami  an  atom  ;  but  the  molecule  of 
elements  is  said  to  consist  of  two  atoms.  Now 
what  is  an  atom  ?  The  definition  is:  "Apart 
so  small  as  not  to  be  divisible;"  that  is,  if 
you  can  conceive  that  there  is  an  upside  or  a 
downside,  it  must  be  divisible,  and  not  an 
atom.  This  Atomic  and  ^folccular  f<irce 
theory  is  as  vague  as  that  of  the  monadic 
theory  of  Leibnitz  and  his  school.  A  monad 
(nomosa  unit)  is  exiilained  as  "  a  simple  sub- 
stance which  has  no  parts  ;  a  compound  sub- 
.stance  is  an  aggregate  of  simple  substances, 
or  of  monads  !  Monads  having  no  iiarts,  are 
neither  extended,  figured,  nor  divisible.  They 
are  the  real  atoms  of  nature  ;  in  other  words, 
the  elements  of  things."  Every  monad  is  a 
living  mirror,  rejiresenting  the  Univer.se,  ac- 
cording to  its  jiarticular  iioint  of  view,  and 
subject  to  no  regular  laws,  as  the  univer.sc 
itself  !  Every  monad  with  a  particular  body 
makes  a  living  substance  !  Such  we  find  is 
the  ground  work  of  the  monadic  theory  or 
systems  of  philo.sophy  of  Zeiio,  Leucippus, 
Democritus  and  Epicurus  ;  but  Leibnitz  was 
the  first  who  reduced  it  to  a  system. 

Thus  alas,  we  find  ourselves  quite  incom- 
petent to  annex  any  precise  idea  to  siK'h  sys- 
tems of  ])hilosopliy.  And  in  spite  of  such 
profound  teachers  as  Huxley,  Tyndall,  Dar- 
vin,  Leibnitz,  et.  al.,  we  prefer  to  hold  on  to 
revelation,  and  the  inductive  or  inspirational 
intuitions  of  a  spiritual  clement  outside  of 
and  acting  upon  matter,  to  a  purpose  founded 
in  wisdom  and  ]irompted  by  love,  and  bound- 
less in  power.  This  All-wise  and  All-power- 
ful, we  call  God,  who,  hke  an  independent 


.sovereign,  governs  the  mighty  univer.sc,  an  my 
miiiil,  in  a  limited  sense,  governs  the  motion 
of  my  pen  in  setting  forth  what  arises  in  my 
mind,  so  that  my  thoughts  become  visible. 
That  God-given  <-[ement  of  mind  or  soul  uses 
the  brain  through  the  nerves,  to  operate  the 
muscles  of  my  arm  and  lingers— but  the  brain 
in  itself  no  mon;  thinks  tlian  the  eyes  s<!e — 
ajiart  from  an  indwelling,  immortal  element, 
nor  does  it  signify  whether  that  cloneul  is 
composed  of  nuitcriili a,  at'imx  or  mrmwlii,  since 
we  have  as  clear  a  conception  of  the  one  as  of 
the  other;  and  the  spiritual  in  us  and  outside 
of  us,  when  rightly  understood,  links  us  with 
the  great  first  cause  in  a  more  intimate  and 
loving  relation.  This  is  ItcichUian,  if  not 
(Science. — ./.  tilauffur. 

CORN  CULTIVATION. 

Now  is  the  time  to  (ilow  and  make  ready 
for  corn  plantin.:  ;  a  good  many  farmers  plow 
their  corn  ground  in  the  lall. 

Tliere  is  an  argument  sometimes,  as  to 
which  is  the  be.st  time  to  plow  for  corn.  This 
depends  a  great  deal  upon  the  soil,  and  the 
season  of  the  year.  A  still  clay  soil  ougiit  to 
be  plowed  in  the  fall,  so  as  to  have  the  action 
of  the  frost.  The  fall  plowing  should  not  be 
too  early;  if  jilowed  so  early  it  settles  too 
much,  by  the  heavy  rains  Ixfore  winter  sets 
in.  A  loo.se  .soil,  such  as  gravel  or  band,  or 
sandy  loam,  is  best  plowed  in  spring.  If  a 
farmer  has  too  much  on  his  hands,  that  he 
can  do  it  in  time,  I  prefer  winter  plowing  ; 
but  we  cannot  dejiend  on  that ;  it  is  very  often 
impossible. 

This  last  winter  I  visited  a  farmer  in  Leba- 
non county;  he  said  Ue  i)lowe(l  no  com  ground 
in  the  fall  ;  he  also  .said  he  gets  more  wheat, 
if  the  corn  gi-ound  w;is  plowed  in  the  spring, 
than  if  it  was  plowed  in  the  fall : — that  is,  he 
plows  the  sod  and  puts  in  the  corn  ;  the  next 
year  be  plows  the  corn-.stubble  and  puts  oats 
in  ;  after  the  oats,  he  puts  wheat  in,  and  he 
gets  more  wheat  where  he  jilows  in  the  spring 
than  where  he  plows  in  the  fall.  Only  trv  it. 
Plow  the  half  of  the  held  in  the  fall,  and"  the 
other  half  in  the  spring.  Now,  about  the 
cultivation  of  the  corn :  I  plant  with  acorn- 
planter  that  throws  the  dirt  on  ijoth  sides  and 
makes  a  deep  furrow,  which  is  regulated  by  a 
wheel  under  the  lieam  ;  the  tube  where  tiie 
corn  drops  through  is  a  foot  behind  the  plow  ; 
some  loose  soil  rolls  into  the  furrow  before 
the  corn  leaches  the  ground;  then  a  small  har- 
row behind  to  cover  it.  The  furrow  is  left 
open  a  few  inches  deep  :  after  ))lanting  I  roll 
the  field  lengthwi.se,  over  tht  rows,  if  nice 
and  f"ry  ;  then,  in  about  eight  days,  or  just 
before  it  comes  nj),  if  dry  enough,  I  harrow  it 
with  a  common  spike  harrow  once  over  each 
row  ;  those  spikes  on  the  row  only  .should 
touch  the  sround  a  little;  if  they  run  too  deep, 
they  may  be  raised  a  little.  This  breaks  the 
crust,  loosens  the  soil  and  destroys  weeds  that 
are  germinating. 

Three  years  ago  I  went  out  one  morning 
with  one  of  the  boys  to  start  him  to  harrow 
corn.  While  he  was  driving  around  I  walked 
over  the  field  and  saw  a  good  many  corn 
plants  out.  When  the  boy  came  round  I 
stopped  him  and  said,  "this  wont  do.  There 
is  a  good  deal  out  already,  and  tliis  covers  it, 
and  smothers  that  which  is  out."  The  soil 
was  very  fine  and  loose.  We  took  the  haiTow 
and  went  home.  It  was  raining  and  was  too 
wet  to  harrow  any  sooner. 
■  But  that  row  got  ahead  of  the  others  all 
summer,  and  couhl  iie  seen  from  a  half-mile 
off  until  the  whole  field  had  the  tops  out.  It 
would  be  well  if  all  the  farmers  would  experi- 
ment about  tho.se  cultivations,  and  a  good 
many  others. — J.  G. 


An  experiment  was  recently  made  in  Sidney, 
New  South  Wales,  by  way  of  utilizing  the  blood 
from  an  abattoir  outside  of  tlie  town.  A  five- 
acre  lot  adjoining  the  abattoir  was  prepared 
for  a  crop  of  barley,  the  waste  blood  being 
used  instead  of  manure.  In  eight  weeks  the|ljar- 
ley  was  four  feet  in  height,  remarkably  heavy, 
and  giving  promise  of  an  extraordinary  crop. 


58 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


t  April, 


AYRSHIRES. 

Ayrshires  are  justly  famous  for  their  supe- 
rior milking  qualities.  For  a  milk  dairy  no 
other  kuown  breed  of  cattle  can  equal  them. 
They  give  the  largest  quantity  of  milk  of 
very  flue  quality.  For  butter,  while  an  Ayr- 
shire will  not  make  as  much  from  the  same 
quantity  of  milk  as  an  Alderney,  yet  an 
Aryshire  cow  giring  so  much  more  milk  will 
make  per  week  fully  as  m;iny  poiuids  of  but- 
ter as  a  first-class  Jersey  or  Guernsey.  They 
keep  in  fine  condition  on  a  comparatively 
small  amount  of  food.  They  are  unsurpassed 
as  family  cows,  being  more  than  any  other 
breed,  naturally  very  (|uiet  and  docile.  As  to 
quantity  of  milk,  a  writer  quoted  by  Youatts 
says  :  "To  sum  up  into  one  sentence,  I  now 
repeat  that  hundreds  and  thousands  of  the 
best  Scotch  dairy  cows,  when  they  are  in 
their  best  condition  and  well  fed,  yield  at  the 
rate  ol  2000  Scotch  pints  (equivalent  to  1000 
gallons)  in  one  year  ;  that  in  general,  7i  to  8 
pints  (3J  to  4  gallons)  of  their  milk  will  yield 
a  pound  of  butter,  county  weiglit  (H  pounds 
avoidupois)  ;  that  55  pints  (27i  gallons)  of 
their  milk  will  produce  one  stone  and  a  half 
(3G  pounds)  imperial  weight  of  full  milk- 
cheese." 

Ayrshires  have  been  bred  in  America  for 
over  forty  years,  and  have  proved  well  adapted 
to  the  soil  and 
climate.  On  the 
Kew  Jer.sey  Ag- 
ricultural Col- 
lege farm,  the 
greatest  yield  of 
milk  reported 
from  one  Ayr- 
shire cow  in  a 
year  was  4558 
quarts,  another 
cow  of  only 
medium  excel- 
lence yielded 
2957  quarts. 
There  are  nu- 
merous  in- 
stances  on  re- 
cord where  the 
milk  of  an  Ayr- 
shire cow  an- 
nually exceeded 
the  entire  live 
weight    of   the 


cow. 

The  follow- 
ing facts  speak 
for  themselves : 

Daisy  (No. 
3.30),  in  1870 
weighed  970ft, 
and  gave  dur- 
ing the  year 
6953fc  of  milk. 

Beauty  (No.  240)  the  same  year,  weighed 
9551b,  and  gave  8011tti  of  milk. 

The  ordinary  yield  of  Ayrshire  cows  is  30 
to  50ft  of  milk  per  day,  but  a  committee  un- 
der oath  testified  that  one  Ayrshire  cow  of  a 
New  York  herd,  gave  85ft  of  milk  per  day, 
for  several  days  in  succession. 

Ayrshires  are  also  superior  for  beef. 

Sufficient  facts  have  already  been  given  to 
fully  demonstrate  that  for  milk  all  the  year 
round  none  are  so  profitable  as  the  thorough- 
bred Ayrshire  ;  but,  in  order  to  more  fully 
demonstrate  their  adaptability  to  this  country, 
we  quote  the  lollowing  trial,  made  during  the 
year  1875  with  a  thoroughbred  Ayrshire  cow, 
belonging  to  the  Roadside  Herd  of  this  city  : 

Hensie  (213  N.  A.  A.  K.,  Vol.  1),  height, 
4  ft.  10  in.,  weight,  830ft,  girth,  5  ft.  7^  in. 
In  the  year  1875,  by  weight  reduced  to  meas- 
ure, gave  3000  quarts  or  7745ft  of  milk— more 
than  nine  times  her  weight.  Too  much  can 
scarcely  be  said  in  praise  of  the  Ayrshires. 
Kindly  in  disposition,  beautiful  and  attractive 
in  appearance,  they  are  agreeably  diversified 
in  color.  "  In  general  they  have  large  lus- 
trous eyes,  symmetrical  head,  well-developed 
chest,  deep  fiauk,  broad  across  the  hips,  bag 
reaching  well  forward,  milk  veins  large  and 
of  handsome  curvature  and  neck  graceful, 


to  which  may  be  added  a  straight  spine,  whip- 
like tail,  bushy  at  end,  full,  convex  rump,  and 
well  defined  milk  mirror  " 

We  give  herewith  illustration  from  life  of 
our  first  prize  Ayrshire  Bull  Casper,  4th  vol. 
American  and  Canadian  Herd  Register.  He 
won  first  in  strong  competition  at  tlie  Bur- 
lington Comity,  N.  J.,  Fairs,  1875  and  1870. 
In  concluding  our  remarks  on  this  variety 
we  append  the  recognized  standard  of  points 
of  excellence  for  judging  an  Ayrshire  Cow  or 
Bull : 

.  80 
.  40 
.  10 
.  30 
.  120 
.  00 
.  40 
.  10 
.  10 
.      10 

1000 


Now  is  the  latest  time  to  destroy  the  co- 
coons of  the  "Drop-worm,"  hanging  on  the 
naked  branches  of  the  trees,  in  a  few  days  it 
will  be  too  late. 


Head, 

.       40 

Ribs, 

Nose, 

.       20 

Rumps, 

Eye, 

.       20 

Tail, 

Ear, 

.       40 

Legs, 

Horns, 

.       20 

Udder, 

Neck, 

.       40 

Handling 

Shoulder,  . 

.       60 

Hair, 

Chest, 

.     120 

Color, 

Crops, 

.       40 

Carriagr, 

Brisket,     . 

.      40 

Quality, 

Back, 

.      80 

Pelvis,       . 

.      40 

Quarters,  . 

.      60 

YOUNG  AYRSHIRE  BULL,  CASPER.     Owned  by  Benson  &  Burpee,  Philadelphia.'Pa. 

GARDENING    FOR   FARMERS. 


Paper  by  J.  S.  Harris,  of  La  Crescent  at  Meet- 
ing of  the  State  Agricultural  Society, 
February    6th   and  7th,    1877. 

There  are  but  few  thinking  farmers  who 
will  not  concede  that  a  good  vegetable  garden 
is  both  convenient  and  profitable,  and  it  would 
seem  that  people  possessing  all  the  conveniences 
that  they  have,  as  regards  land,  and  leisure  to 
take  care  of  a  garden,  would  consume  the 
largest  amount  of  vegetable  food,  but  tl-.e  truth 
is  that  more  is  used  in  villages  and  cities  than 
by  the  same  number  of  land  owners.  Take  a 
look  among  the  farmers  and  it  will  be  found 
that  one-half  of  them  have  no  garden  at  all, 
or,  at  most,  only  a  little  corner  in  some  grain 
field  which  is  over-run  with  weeds.  Some  have 
a  place  set  apart  for  the  purpose,  but  put  off 
planting  it  until  the  bulk  of  the  form  crops  are 
put  in,  thereby  making  it  too  late  to  secure 
any  early  vegetables  on  those  that  require 
early  planting.  The  reason  usually  given  for 
being  without  one  is,  that  they  have  no 
time  to  attend  to  it.  With  many  the  truth 
is  that  it  requires  a  little  attention  ,  al- 
most daily,  and  demands  thought,  pa- 
tience    and      system     in    order    to    secure 


success  and  profit  ;  and  they  would  much 
rather  attend  the  larger  crops  where  the  horse 
furnishes  the  muscular  power,  and  machinery 
enables  them  to  get  over  acres  of  ground  in 
a  da}'.  It  is  a  well  established  fact  that  a 
single  half  acre  devoted  to  garden  culture,  and 
which  may  be  planted  and  attended  without 
encroaching  very  much  upon  the  farm  work, 
economizing  odd  spells  while  waiting  for  teams 
to  feed,  &c.,  aside  from  health,  comfort  and  re- 
finement, would  annually  produce  more  profit 
than  four  or  five  acres  in  any  other  crop  on 
the  farm. 

Without  a  garden,  the  winter  diet  of  a 
farmer  must  be  mainly  confined  to  bread, 
meat,  and  potatoes,  or  a  large  draught  must 
be  made  upon  the  profits  from  tlie  sale  of 
farm  crops  to  purchase  the  extras  that  are 
essential  to  good  living.  This  kind  of  living 
may  be  tolerated  in  winter,  but  when  the 
warm  weather  returns  the  system  requires 
less  stimulating  food,  and  the  appetite  craves 
cooling  and  juicy  vegetables  and  fruits  fresh 
from  the  garden,  and  the  stomach  of  the 
weary  and  hungry  farmer  is  apt  to  revolt 
against  salt  pork  and  soggy  old  potatoes  in 
the  season  for  green  peas,  string  beans,  early 
potatoes,  radishes,  cucumbers.  &c.,  and  when 
company  is  expected  how  it  taxes  the  inge- 
nuity of  the  good  wife  to  ggt   up  a  passable 

meal.  These 
early  vegeta- 
bles are  luxu- 
ries within  the 
reach  of  every 
farmer's  family 
at  a  very'  trif- 
ling outlay  of 
time  and  mon- 
ey, and  if  he 
must  procure 
the  suiiport  of 
his  family  from 
his  farm,  wliy 
not  give  them 
the  most  health 
ful  support  as 
long  as  it  is  the 
cheapest. 
Location  of  the 
Garden. 

The  garden 
should  be  near 
the  house,  so 
that  it  may  be 
readily  accessi- 
ble and  and  un- 
der theconstant 
supervision  of 
the  household. 
H  o  use-keepers 
do  not  always 
have  time  to 
go  to  a  distant 
corner  of  the  farm  to  gather  its  products 
for  the  dinner,  and  if  it  is  near  by, 
a  great  many  leism'e  moments  may  \i& 
spent  in  weeding  and  taking  care  of  it. 
It  should  be  so  enclosed  with  hedge  or 
fence  that  neither  fowls  or  stock  can  enter  it. 
It  is  not  reasonable  to  expect  success  if  cattle 
occasionally  break  in  and  the  poultry  are  al- 
lowed a  free  range  in  it  at  all  times,  as  their  in- 
stinct leads  them  to  the  freshly  moved  soil  for 
some  of  their  most  essential  food.  They  are 
always  ready  to  scratch  where  the  gardener 
has  formed  his  new  beds  and  planted  his 
choicest  seeds.  A  garden  is  better  for  con- 
taining a  variety  of  soils  and  if  it  can  be  so 
located  that  it  will  embrace  high  and  dry  soil 
and  that  \which  is  more  moist,  it  will  beau  ad- 
vantage, as  early  vegetables  need  a  warm  and 
dry  situation,  while  some  that  are  later,  as 
cabbage,  cauliflower  and  celery,  thrive  in 
moister  locations.  For  early  vegetables  a 
gentle  southern  slope  is  desirable  on  account 
of  its  getting  the  more  direct  rays  of  the 
sun  ;  and  if  it  is  sheltered  on  the  north  by  a 
hill,  blutt',  grove  of  trees,  or  a  high  close 
board  fence,  it  is  afforded  a  protection  which 
most  early  vegetables  will  appreciate  in  their 
early  stages  of  growth. 


1877.1 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


59 


Soil. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  sii|)])Osc  that  somo  specific 
soil  is  iiidispensaljlc  to  success.  Good  i^anlciis 
liave  been  made  on  i-ocky  liillsides,  on  arid 
sand  banks,  and  on  lieavy  clay  s(tils,  but 
neillier  of  tlie.se  are  desirable,  and  there  are 
very  few  farms  in  Minnesota  Unit  cannot 
furnish  us  a  lietter.  Tlie  very  hest  soil  is  a 
sandy  loam  which  will  work  easy,  dry  ofl' 
(piieklv  after  a  rain,  and  yet  ri'tain  sullieieiit 
moisture  to  withstand  drouth,  and  the  soil 
should  be  brought  into  a  liiL;h  state  of  fertili- 
ty by  deep  plowiiiij  and  the  incorporation  of 
animal  manures.  If  sand  predoininates  to 
excess,  it  will  he  benefited  hy  the  addition  of 
lime,  ashes,  clay  and  muck.  If  too  still'  a 
clay  it  will  become  more  arable  by  suh-soiliu!.; 
and  the  application  of  ashes,  sand  and  man- 
ure. On  clay  soils  jjood  drain.Mt;e  must  be 
secured  or  it  will  t)ecome  sour  and  sodden, 
and  seciu'c  hut  little  benelit  from  fertilizers. 
Every  fall  after  the  cro|)  is  gathered  in,  all 
rubbish  should  be  cleared  off,  and  a  liberal 
coat  of  well  rotten  manure  spread  over,  and 
Iilowed  under.  Plow  again  in  the  springwhen 
dry  enough  to  work  well.  During  the  sum- 
mer no  weeds  should  he  allowed  to  grow  and 
mature  (heir  seeds  and  afford  lierbs.for  nox- 
ious insects. 

We  will  now  sujipose  that  we  have  located, 
fenced,  and  manured  a  spot  for  a  garden. 
What  shall  we  plant  in  it,  and  how  sliall  we 
manage  it  V  I  would  lay  oil  a  border  all 
around  next  the  fence,  six  or  eight  feet  wide, 
separate  from  the  rest  of  the  garden  by  a 
walk  three  or  four  feet  wide,  and  u|ion  this 
bonier  I  would  make  permaneut  plantation 
of  fruits,  etc.,  as  follows  : 

First,  on  the  north  side  commencing  at  the 
end  nearest  the  dwelling.  leave  room  for  hot 
beds,  cold  frame,  and  early  lettuce  and  rad- 
ishes, plant  a  few  roots  of  horseradish,  rhu- 
barb or  pie-plant,  and  occupy  the  rest  of  the 
border  with  grape  vines,  set  three  feet  from 
the  fence  and  ten  feet  apart  in  the  row,  finish- 
ing out  the  border  with  an  asparagus  bed. 
East  and  west  borders  I  would  plant  to  cur- 
rants and  strawberries,  and  the  south  to 
strawberries  and  ra.spberries.  Through  the 
centre  one  way  leading  from  the  house  I 
would  have  a  road  or  walk  six  or  eight  feet 
wide,  and  this  walk  I  would  have  bordered 
with  shrubs  and  flowers,  always  keeping  it  a 
straight  and  narrow  and  flowery  way,  so  in- 
viting that  it  would  tend  to  lead  my  children 
to  virtue  and  peace,  and  also  tempt  the  feet 
of  visitors.  This  arrangement  will  leave  an 
amijle  plat  on  each  side  hetween  the  borders 
ami  the  walk  for  the  raising  of  the  supply  of 
vegetables.  These  plats  after  each  spring's 
plowing  may  be  laid  off  according  as  fancy  or 
convenience  dictates,  and  planted  with  such 
vegetables,  and  in  such  quantities  as  the 
wants  of  the  family  may  ie(piire;  and  always 
bear  in  mind  that  it  is  more  pleasure  to  cul- 
tivate a  tasty,  well  laid  out  garden  than  one 
where  things  are  mi.\ed  up  and  hap-hazard. 
The  essential  vegetables  for  the  farmer  to 
grow  are,  string  beans,  Lima  beans,  beets, 
cabbage,  cauliflower,  celery,  cucumbers, 
sweet  corn,  lettuce,  radishes,  early  potatoes, 
onions,  tomatoes,  turnips,  etc.,  in  some  of 
their  varieties. 

Hot-Beds. 

It  is  aggravating  to  know  that  one's  neighbor 
has  radishes,  lettuce,  cucumliers,  tomatoes, 
etc.,  before  us.  Market  gardeners  fully  ap- 
preciate the  importance  of  being  the  tirst  in 
the  market  with  these  things,  and  use  every 
available  means  to  hasten  tliem  forward,  and 
resort  to  artificial  shelter  and  iirotection  as 
atlbrded  by  liot  beds,  cold  frames  and  hand 
glasses.  But  few  farmers  are  able  or  willing 
to  incur  the  expense  and  use  the  time  that  is 
necessary  for  their  construction  and  success- 
ful management;  but  even  a  cheap  and  rude 
hot-bed,  that  could  be  watched  and  attended 
by  the  younger  members  of  the  faniih',  would 
bring  forward  a  supply  of  lettuce,  cucumbers, 
cabbage  and  tomato  plants  several  days  in  ad- 
vance of  those  started  in  the  open  ground. 
Sashes  about  two  and  one-half  by  five  feet  are 
a  convenient  size  to  use  for  covering  the  bed, 


and  they  can  be  made  by  any  ordinary  car- 
Iienter,  or  purcliased  at  a  sash  factory,  and 
ought  not  to  cost,  gla/.ed  and  painted,  more 
than  $l.M  each,  and  if  housed  when  not  in 
use,  will  last  many  years.  Four  of  them  will 
cover  a  bed  of  sullicient  size  to  start  all  the 
plants  that  will  lie  reipiired  for  a  half  acre 
garden,  and  furnish  a  few  messes  of  lettuce, 
besides  starting  a  few  flowers  for  the  wife  and 
daughters.  A  frame  of  inch-hoards  is  re- 
(piiied  which  the  sash  will  just  cover— the 
front  side  to  he  twelve  inches  high  and  the 
back  eighteen,  to  give  slant  for  carrying  off 
water  and  admit  the  more  direct  rays  of  the 
sun.  The  frame  being  ready,  dig  out  a  i>it 
(which  should  always  face  the  south)  six  or 
<ight  inches  larger  eveiy  way  tlian  the  frame 
and  about  mw  foot  deep.  Fill  this  pit  wilh 
fresh  litter  and  manure  from  tiie  horse  stable, 
that  has  commenced  heating  and  has  been 
lireviously  forked  over,  shaking  it  on  evenly 
to  the  depth  of  twenty  iiiclu'S  or  two  feel, 
tramp  the  whole  down  (irmly  with  the  feet, 
put  on  the  fr;inie  and  sash,  and  hank  \i]i  the 
outside  with  c<iarse  manure.  After  tlu'  heat 
is  up,  which  will  be  in  a  day  or  two,  cover 
the  bed  inside  the  frame  at  least  six  inches 
deej)  with  good  mellow  soil,  and  after  raking 
out  the  lumps  put  on  the  sash  again,  and  in  a 
day  or  two  more  it  will  be  warmed  tlirou<:h 
and  ready  to  receive  the  seed,  which  should 
be  sowed  in  rows  about  three  inches  ajiart, 
scattering  a  littk!  lettuce  seed  along  the  lower 
edge  of  the  bed  where  other  iflanls  would  be 
spoiled  from  the  shade  and  drip  of  the  sash. 
The  fermenting  manure  will  kec])  the  soil 
warm  at  the  bottom  and  the  sun  will  warm 
the  surface,  furnishing  a  congenial  iilace 
where  the  seeds  will  come  u|i  quickly  and  the 
plants  will  grow  strong  and  thrifty,  an<l  be 
ready  to  transplant  by  the  time  they  could  be 
brought  uj)  if  planted  in  the  open  ground. 

In  this  lattitude  about  the  first  of  Ajiril  is 
early  enough  to  start  a  hot  bed.  The  bed  will 
need  watering  whenever  it  begins  to  get  dry, 
and  the  water  should  be  applied  through  the 
fine  nose  of  a  watering  pot,  and  should  be  as 
warm  as  it  would  get  by  standing  in  the  sun 
during  the  day.  The  sash  must  be  opened  or 
taken  off  upon  bright,  clear  days,  and  replaced 
at  night.  Keep  the  bed  closed  in  cold,  stormy 
weather,  unless  the  bottom  heat  is  greater  than 
the  iilants  will  bear.  About  a  week  before 
the  time  to  take  the  plants  out  for  transplant- 
ing, keev>  the  bed  open  night  and  day,  to 
harden  up  the  plants.  If  sash  and  glass  are 
not  available,  a  few  days'  time  may  be  gained 
in  raising  plants,  by  making  a  bed  of  fine  rich 
soil  well  filled  with  warm  compost,  under  the 
shelter  of  a  close  board  fence,  wall  or  huililing, 
covering  it  nights  and  during  cold  storms  with 
boards  or  matting.  Another  method  which 
may  be  adopted  to  get  plants  of  early  toma- 
toes and,  where  hot  beds  are  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, is  to  sow  the  seed  about  the  20tli  of 
March,  in  good  soil  in  .shallow  boxes,  keejiing 
tliem  in  a  warm  jilace  near  the  stove  until  thej- 
come  up,  and  then  set  them  on  a  bench  or 
table  inside,  and  close  to  a. south  window,  giv- 
ing them  air  whenever  the  weather  w-ill  iier- 
mit,  transplanting  the  plants  about  two  or 
three  inches  apart  into  other  boxes  of  fresh 
soil,  before  they  begin  to  get  crowded  and 
spindling,  and  if  when  they  are  large  enough 
for  the  garilen,  the  weather  is  not  favorable 
for  planting  them  out,  another  transplanting 
will  be  found  beneficial.  They  should  be 
transplanted  at  evening,  or  shaded  for  a  few 
hours,  to  allow  the  roots  to  take  hold  of  the 
soil.  Such  plants  if  properly  hardened  off,  are 
sniicrior  to  hot-bed  plants,  and  if  carefully 
taken  up  with  the  soil  adhering  to  the  roftts, 
can  be  transfered  to  the  garden  and  scarcely 
feel  the  change. 

Season   or  time  for  Planting. 

Peas,  onions,  beets,  lettuce,  and  radishes 
for  the  earliest  crop,  should  be  jilanted  as  ear- 
ly in  the  spring  as  the  gnmml  can  be  worked, 
and  they  will  come  forward  faster  if  under 
the  .shelter  of  a  fence  or  wall.  The  fall  crop 
of  onions  will  do  better  if  sowed  early  and  a 
few  early  potatoes  should  be  planted  as  soon 
as  the  frost  is  out  of  the  ground; 


It  is  useless  to  plant  beans,  corn,  cucum- 
bers, s<pi;ishes,  and  tomatoes  in  tlie  oi>en 
ground  until  about  the  first  week  in  May,  or 
until  the  ground  beconies  somewliat  warm 
and  dry.  ('ncmnbers  may  be  hastened  a  few 
days  hy  in'otecting  them  with  hand  gla-s-ses  or 
a  box  without  top  or  bottom,  ten  or  twelve 
inches  scpian^  and  six  inches  deep,  covered 
with  a  light  of  glass  for  each  hill.  (.'ucuin- 
bers,  melons,  and  Lima  beans  for  early  use 
may  be  started  hy  taking  quart  Iwrry  boxes, 
filling  them  with  .soil  and  planting  in  each 
four  or  five  seeds,  and  setting  them  in  the 
hot  bed,  and  afterwards  transplanting 
them  ill  the  open  ground,  cutting  the  l)ot- 
toms  of  boxes  away  to  allow  the  roots  to  run 
out  in  search  of  nourishment.  Carrots  and 
Jiarsuips  do  the  best  when  planted  early  in  May. 

Ueets,  peas,  string  or  snap  beans,  sweet 
corn,  radishes  and  lettuce,  should  Ik-  jilanted 
at  intervals  of  two  or  three  weeks  until  the 
first  of  .July. 

('abbage  and  caulillower  for  early  use  may 
usually  be  transplanted  as  early  as  the  plants 
are  ready,  and  lor  late  and  winter  use,  about 
the  -JOIh  of  .lune.  Celery  from  1.1th  of  .lune 
to  l.">tli  of  .Inly.  Tomatoes  from  loth  of  May 
to  lidth  of  .June.  Turnips  may  be  sown  in 
July  after  ]ieas  and  early  potatoes. 

The  following  according  to  my  experience, 
which  extends  over  thirty  years  as  a  market 
gardener,  are  the  best  varieties  to  grow  for 
family  use. 

y>'c((.v. — Egyptian  Turniit  Rooted,  Dewey's, 
Early  Hed  and  I.oiig  Blood. 

Biaus  for  snaps.  Early  Valentine,  Hlack 
Wax,  and  .Striped  Cranberry.  For  shell 
beans.— Large  Wliite  Lima,  Dutch  Case 
Knife. 

Cabbmie. — Early  Jessie,  Wakefield,  rol- 
ler's Improved  Drundiead,  I'remluin  Flat 
Dutch,  Silver-leaf  Drumhead. 

Carrol.  —  Early  Horn,  Improved  Long 
Orange. 

Cauh'Jliwcr.—VMr\y  Dwarf.  Erfurt,  and  Le- 
norniand's  Short  Stem. 

Celery. — Sandriiigham,  Dwarf  White. 

Corn. — Early  Minnesota,  or  Campbell's 
Sixty  Days,  an<l  Stowell's  Evergreen. 

CttCKmhcrs. — Early  White  Spine,  Short 
Green,  and  (iieeti  Prolific. 

Leidftc— Early  Curled  Simp.son,  and  Large 
India. 

Musk  Melons. — Green  Citron,  Casaba,  and 
Yellow  Canteloupe. 

Waltr  Melon. — Mountain  Sweet,  Phinncy's 
Early,  and  Black  Spanish. 

O/u'ox.v.  —  Top  Sets,  Extra  Early  Bed, 
Large  Bed  AVethei-sfield  and  Yellow  Danvers. 

Parsnips. — Student  and  Guernsey. 

Peppers. — Sweet  Mountain,  Long  Red  Cay- 
enne. 

Peas. — Carter's  First  Croi>,  Champion  of 
England,  and  Marrowfat. 

Potatoes. — Extra  Early  Vermont  and  Early 
Rose. 

Eadish. — Early  Short  Top,  Long  Scarlet, 
and  French  Breakfast. 

.SV;»a.s/i.— Yellow  Bush,  Scallop,  Boston 
Marrow  and  Hubbard  or  Marblchead. 

Tomatoes. — Canada,  A'ictor,  Trophy  and 
Green  Gage. 

3iinii'/<.s-.— Early  Red-Top,  Strap  Leaf,  and 
Yellow  Scotch. 

Asa  garden  is  not  comjilete  without  sweet 
and  pot  herbs,  .sage,  caraway,  fennel,  dill, 
sweet  marjorum,  summer  savery,  tanzy,  and 
thyme  will  be  found  among  the  most   useful. 

The  tools  used  to  the  best  advantage  in 
garden  work  are  the  usual  ])low  and  harrow 
of  the  farm,  a  bright  Ames  spade,  a  spade 
fork,  a  manure  fork,  steel  rake,  .steel  hoe, 
wheelbarrow,  garden  trowel  and  a  line  and 
ten  foot  pole  and  a  few  stakes. 
Fruits. 

If  a  few  varieties  of  fruit  are  to  havea  place 
in  the  iHirder  the  following  are  recommended 
as  most  likely  to  prove  the  liest  :  Concord  and 
Delaware  (Jrapes  ;  Red  Dutch  and  White 
Grape  currants;  Doolittle  or  Seneca  Blai-k  Cap 
and  Turner's  or  Philadelphia  R<-d  Raspberries; 
Wilson's  Albany,  and  Charles  Downing 
Strawberries. 


60 


THE  LANCASTER  EARMER. 


t  April, 


To  insure  Rood  returns  from  small  fruits 
they  must  be  cultivated  and  kept  free  from 
weeds.  Strawberiy  beds  are  not  profitable  to 
stand  more  tlian  thi-ee  years,  therefore,  a  bed 
should  be  planted  every  year,  and  after  the 
third  year,  a  bed  may  be 'dug  up,  or  plowed 
under  each  year.  Sprhii;  is  the  safest  and  best 
time  to  set  them.  To  piepare  the  ground  for 
a  strawberry  bed  it  should  be  liberally  en- 
riched, and  plowed,  and  hairowed,  and 
smootlied  over  with  a  rake.  Set  the  jilants  in 
rows  two  and  one  half  feet  apart  and  two  feet 
in  the  row.  No  fruit  should  be  allowed  to 
mature  on  them  the  first  season,  and  by  fall 
they  will  mostly  cover  the  ground.  Keep  a 
space  between  the  rows -just^wide  enough  to 
step  in  clear  of  plants  and  allow  no  weeds 
among  them.  Grapes  will  require  pruning 
and  laying  do-mi  every  fall  any  tying  up  to 
stakes  or  trellis  every  spring  and  cultivation 
sufficient  to  keep  gra.ss  and  weeds  down. 

Currants  appreciate  cultivation,  liberal 
manuring,  and  mulching,  and  if  some  of  the 
old  wood  is  removed  occasionally  to  give  place 
for  new,  and  too  many  sprouts  are  not  allowed 
to  come  from  the  roots,  a  plantation  of  them 
will  last  for  a  great  numlier  of  years. 

Raspberries  are  greatly  Ijenefited  by  mulch- 
ing. The  young  canes"  should  be  pinched 
back  about  the  first  of  July  to  induce  them  to 
throw  out  side  branches,  and  the  old  canes 
sliould  be  removed  each  year  after  the  first 
has  all  ripened,  as  they  have  fulfilled  their 
mission,  and  will  not  live  to  bear  again.  I 
had  intended  to  give  detailed  instructions  for 
the  growing  of  Asparagus,  as  I  hold  it  to  be 
■a  valuable  article  of  food  that  can  be  grown 
with  vei-y  little  trouble  or  expense,  hut  as  the 
paper  is  already  too  lengthy,  I  will  leave  it 
for  some  other  occasion.     Respectfully, 

John  S.  Harris. 


BETTER  PRICES  FOR  SEED  LEAF. 

Excepting  in  a  few  favored  localities,  and  for  a 
few  favorite  growth.?,  growers  of  seed  leaf  tobacco 
express  dissatisfaction  with  the  prices  that  are  offer- 
ed, or  are  likely  to  be  offered,  for  their  crops,  old 
and  new.  Between  the  prices  which  they  are  now 
receiving  and  those  which  they  have  been  accustom- 
ed for  a  few  years  past  to  receive,  tl'.ere  is  in  many 
instances  a  marked  diflerence,  and  it  is  accordingly 
not  surprising  that  they  do  not  take  kindly  to  the 
altered  circumstances  by  which  their  profits  have 
been  and  are  being  gradually  diminished— reduced, 
in  fact,  here  and  there,  below  the  point  at  which 
any  profit  at  all  enures  to  them.  But  if  they  have 
reason  for  dissatisfaction ,  so,  too,  have  dealers  in 
that  variety  of  leaf.  With  them,  as  with  the  growers 
retrospection  conjures  up  other  than  delightful  emo- 
tions, for  they  also  have  tasted  and  are  tasting  the 
bitterness  of  declining  profits,  the  draught  "being 
made  all  the  more  unpalatable  by  the  many  losses 
which  they  have  patiently  endured. 

Seed  leaf,  like  all  other  kinds  of  tobacco,  and  all 
other  commodities,  has  declined  in  value  in  con- 
formity with  a  general  law  of  trade  which  is  teudinjr 
toward  an  adjustment  of  prices  upon  a  legitimate 
basis.  Fictitious  values  are  yielding  to  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  times  and  the  logic  of  events,  and  tobacco 
growers,  tobacco  dealers  and  tobacco  buyers  have  to 
accept  for  the  time  being  the  inevitable  as  they  find 
It.  In  the  existing  condition  of  business  it  is  vain  for 
growers  to  expect  the  prices  for  their  tobacco  that 
w-ere  formerly  paid,  for  though  the  demand  is  un- 
abated, other  circumstances  combine  to  render  their 
payment  impracticable  and  impossible.  These  cir- 
cumstances might  be  enumerated  here  in  detail,  but 
It  is  unnecessary  to  do  so  as  they  will  be  readily 
recalled  by  every  one.  Growers,  however,  though 
they  can  not  wholly  recover  the  past,  yet  have  it  in 
their  power  to  materially  increase  the  prospective 
gains  not  only  of  themselves,  but  of  dealers  as  well. 
A  review  of  some  of  the  statistics  of  the  .Seed  leaf 
trade  discloses  the  fact,  as  will  presently  be  seen, 
that  by  a  moderate  decrease  in  the  amount  of  plant- 
ing, growers  can  exercise  a  vei-y  great  influence  upon 
the  prices  of  the  stock  now  available,  and  every  year 
hereafter  they  may  do  as  much  if  thev  see  fit.  How 
necessary  or  even  desirable  it  may  be  to  diminish  the 
aggregate  annual  volume  of  tobacco  we  do  not 
undertake  to  volunteer  an  opinion,  and  if  we  assumed 
that  to  do  60  would  in  all  ways  be  better,  it  is  not 
likely  our  assumption  would  be  greatly  regarded. 
So  long  as  farmers  can  turn  a  dollar  more  readily  by 
raising  tobacco  than  by  raising  corn  or  other  farm 
products,  they  will  continue  to  produce  it,  despite 
suggestions  to  the  contrarj  ,  whether  they  realize  as 
mTjch  as  they  hope  from  it  or  not.  This  is  only 
natural,  and  there  can  be  no  objection  to  their  free- 
dom of  choice  in  the  premises,  unless,  possibly,  it 
can  be  clearly  demonstrated  that  by  producing  less 


they  might  produce  better  tobacco  than,  on  the 
average,  is  now  obtained— a  consummation,  all  will 
agree,  much  to  be  desired.  Our  purpose  here  is  not 
to  debate  atiitract  propositions,  but  to  draw  con- 
clusions from  statistical  data  at  hand,  deferring  to 
other  occasions  the  consideration  of  other  phases  of 
our  subject. 

The  estimated  production  of  Seed  leaf  tobacco  for 
the  years  1871  to  1875,  both  years  inclusive,  was  as 
follows  : 

1871 180,000  cases. 

1S72 173,1100  cases. 

18i3 1411.000  cases. 

1874 80,000  oases. 

ISio 10.5,000  cases; 

an  annual  average  of  135,600  cases.  The  domestic 
comsuniption  for  1S72  to  1876,  the  first  and  last  year 
inclusive,  was  : — 

|f72 71,785  cases 

18i3  80,059  eases 

l?i* 89.140  cases 

J^'j; 71,785  cases 

1'''° 68,789  cases; 

averaging  76,431  cases  annually.  The  exports  for 
the  same  period  were  : — 

1*72 96,349  cases 

18.3 3.3,617  cases 

1874 81,301  cases 

1875 35,015  o:i8es 

1876 61,426  cases  ; 

showing  a  a  yearly  average  of  59, .541  cases.  Com- 
bining the  tables  of  domestic  consumption  and  ex- 
port, and  comparing  them  with  the  production  of 
the  five  years  oreviously  shown,  the  following  re- 
markable result  is  revealed  : — 

1871  to  1S75.  1872  to  1876. 

Production  Consumption  and 

Cases.  Export.     Cases. 

180,000 -168,134 

173,000 114,276 

140,000 170  441 

80,0110 106,800 

105,0''C -....120,215 

678,000  ~67936C; 

the  total  appropriation,  it  appears,  having  exceeded 
tlie  total  production  for  the  period  by  1,866  cases. 
The  average  annual  -appropriation  for  the  years  1872 
to  1876  seems  to  have  been  135,973  cases,  while  the 
average  annual  production  from  1871  to  1875,  as  be- 
fore indicated,  was  135,600  cases,  an  apparent  deficit 
by  an  average  or  373  cases  per  annnm. 

As  previously  observed,  these  figures  disclose  a  re 
markable  result,  and  might  very  well  tend  to   recon- 
cile tradesmen  to  the  surplus  volume  of  stockusually 
deemed  a  dead  weight— carried  to  each  January  in- 
ventory.    As  compared  with  the  period  from  1860  to 
1870— five   years— the   production   of   Seed   leaf  in- 
creased  in   the   five  years   beginning  with  1871  and 
ending  with  1875,  one  hundred  and  thirteen  per  cent, 
plus  ;  and  during  the  same  two  periods  the   increase 
in  the  exports  of  the  same   material  was   one   hun- 
dred and  twelve  per  ceunt.  plus.     That  there  was  a 
still  greater  increase  within  those  ten  years,  as  di- 
vided,  in   the   domestic   consumption   of   Seed   leaf 
tobacco   no   one  familiar  with  the  matter  will  doubt. 
It  follows  from  all  that  has  been  shown   that   our 
own  and  the  rest  of  the  world's  needs  of  this  tobacco 
keep  pace,  and  are  likely  to  keep  pace,  if  good   and 
reasonable  in  price,  with  our  capacity  to  produce   it 
even  if  we  extend  the  area  of  its  growth.  The  availa- 
ble home  supply,  old  and  new,  on  hand  on  January  1 
was  estimated  at  190,000  cases,  andif  to  this  estimate 
we  apply  the  average  annual  requirement  as   above 
deduced,  namely,  135,97:1  cases,  it  will  be   seen  that 
the  apparent  surplus  stock  for  the   calander  year   is 
.54,027  cases.     On  this  surplus,   and   this   alone,   the 
influence  of  growers  can  be  impressed,   and   as  they 
elect  to  plant,  so  will  be  the  degree  of  the   influence 
imparted  by  them.   The  NewlEngland  States  are   be- 
lieved to  have  iiroduced  in  1876   about  30,000   cases, 
Pennsylvania  40,000,  New  York  15,000,  Ohio  35,000, 
Wisconsin  and  other  States  L'0,000;  total  140,000.     In 
1875  they  respectively  produced  :  New  England  40,- 
000   cases,  Pennsylvania  30,000,   New  York   10,000, 
Ohio   15,000,   Wisconsin    and   other   States   10,000  : 
total    105,000 ;     and    if    in    1877    the     production 
should    be     made     equal     to     that    of    1875     the 
existing  surplus  would  be  practically  reduced  thereby 
to  19,000  cases  above   actual   necessities.     Prices,   it 
will  thus  be  perceived,  are  entirely  at  growers' option 
if  they  can  agree  to  avail  themselves  of  their  privi- 
lege.    But  they  can  not,  and  this   probably  is   well. 
As  a  rule,  it  will  pay  them  best  in   the   end   to   raise 
all  the  tobacco  they  can  so  long  as  it  is  of  desirable 
quality,  remembering   meanwhile,  that  though   ap- 
propriation follows,  as  seen  above,  closely  upon   pro- 
duction, what  we  do  not  use  at  home  m?(s(  go  abroad, 
and  to  get  it  abroad  buyers  must  have  to  be  allowed 
the  option.     Assuming  our  figures  as  here  collated  to 
be  approxim.ately  correct,  llie  strong  position  of  the 
Seed  leaf  interest  everywhere  at  this  moment  is  made 
strikingly  manifest. 


THE  LANCASTER  TOBACCO  CROP. 


Names  of  the  Principal  Buyers. 

The  Lancaster  correspondent  of  the  U.  S.  Tobicco 
Journal,  a  gossipy  and  decidedly  long-winded  fellow, 
writes  a  rattlin^g  letter  of  three  and  a-half  columns, 


to  that  journal,  wherein  he  tells  all  that  he  has  seen, 
heard  tell  of,  or  imagined  during  his  visit  to  our  in- 
land city.  We  make  room  for  the  following  ex- 
tracts from  his  letter  : 

A  great  many  of  the  transient  tobacco  buyers  are 
quartered  in  the  Cadwell  house,  Stevens  house  and 
Franke's  hotel.  Especially  the  latter  is  crowded 
with  tobacco  operators.  Before  the  first  glimmer  of 
the  day  appears,  the  tobacco  buyers  are  up  and  hur- 
riedly take  their  breakfast,  after  which  their  driver 
with  a  horse  and  buggy  whirl  them  away  into  the 
country— a  hunt  for  the  almighty  dollar.  Some 
stay  away  for  several  d.ays,  but  as  a  rule  they  return 
to  the  hotel  when  nightfall  comes. 

The  reporter  of  the  United  Stales  Tobacco  Journal 
visited  several  of  the  tobacco  raisers,  and  the  ware- 
houses of  most  of  the  local  as  well  as  the  transient 
tobacco  packers  in  Lancaster.  These  packers  are 
all  happy,  no  care,  no  fear  of  ultimate  unprofitable 
result  is  expressed  by  their  language,  action  or  look 
And  why  should  they  ? 

The  tobacco  has  not  been  bought  at  such  extreme- 
ly high  figures  ;  the  tobacco  in  general  is  fine,  silky, 
spongy ,without  any  white  or  heavy  veins;  no  frost  or 
poleburn  is  perceptible  in  the  leaves,  the  burning  is 
excellent  and  when  in  bulk,  it  is  easily  heated,  an 
undeceiving  sign  of  early  and  successful  fermenta- 
tion. With  the  exception  of  a  portion  of  the  '76  Con- 
necticut crop  there  are  hardly  any  competitors  to  the 
new  Pennsylvania  in  the  market;  the  stock  of  old 
and  useful  tobaccos  in  the  markets  of  the  United 
States  is  small;  business  and  consumption,  even  if 
it  does  not  increase,  will  certainly  not  decrease.  The 
quantity  of  this  new  Pennsvlvania  crop  does  not  ex- 
ceed 40,000  cases;  from  8,(J00  to  10,000  of  these  wilt 
go  to  the  Pacific  coast  and  New  Orleans  without 
touching  and  therefore  influencing  other  markets. 

A  few  thousand  cases  will  certainly  be  sold  for  ex- 
port ;  therefore  the  deluge  of  Pennsylvania  tobacco, 
so  much  talked  about  early  in  the  season,  will  be  but 
a  light  shower— just  sufficient  to  make  business  in 
this  article  grow.  Of  the  40,000  eases  raised,  over 
:;0,000  are  already  sold. 

Lancaster  county  is  the  most  popular  tobacco 
raising  district  in  Pennsylvania.  Bucks  county  also 
produces  a  very  desirable  plant,  but  the  great  central 
point  for  tobacco  packers  to  congregate  is  Lancaster 
city.  A  stately  old  place,  with  a  mass  of  two-story 
red  brick  buildings  with  marble  steps  and  marble 
trimmings,  so  characteristic  with  most  Pennsylvania 
towns.  In  the  business  portion  of  the  place  are 
many  elegant  stores  and  imposing  warehouses  ;  an 
air  of  solid  wealth  hovers  over  the  town,  and  the 
flush  of  health,  prosperity  and  contentment  is  de- 
picted in  almost  every  fiice. 

In  her  most  happy  days  Hartford,  Conn.,  has  not 
seen  such  an  .astonishingly  large  number  of  transient 
tobacco  buyers  assembled  at  one  time  as  Lancaster 
counts  within  her  walls  at  present.  New  York 
city,  though,  has  contributed  the  largest  quantum,  as 
will  be  seen  in  the  list  of  firms  below  : 

NEW    YORK. 

Fatman  &  Co.,  represented  by  Mr.  Strasser. 

Emanuel  Hoffman  &  Son,  by  Mr.  J.  Hoffman. 

H.  Shubart  &  Co.,  by  Mr.  Aaron  Shubart  and  Mr. 
Friedman. 

N.  Lachenbruch  &  Bros.,  by  M.  and  N.  Lachen- 
bruch. 

Chas.  F.  Tag  &  Son,  by  Mr.  S.  Moore,  jr. 

Kerbs  &  Spiess,  by  Mr.  Spiess,  Mr.  Meyer  and  Mr. 
Reblas. 

Rosenwald  Bros.,  by  Mr.  Sig.  Rosenwald  and  Mr. 
Schultze. 

Havemeyer  &  Vigelius,  by  Mr.  Levy  and  Mr. 
Rohrer. 

Hirshhorn  &  Co., by  Mr.  Feldman. 

Gerschel  Bros.,  by  Mr.  M.  Gerschel. 

A.  S.  Kosenbaum  &  Co.,  by  Mr.  Rosenmeyer. 

Jos.  Mayer's  Sons,  by  Mr.  M.  Davis. 

Lemon  <&  Ottenberg,  by  Mr.  Ottenberg. 

Schroeber  &  Bonbon,  by  Mr.  Hilke. 

E.  ct  L.  Wertheimer  (New  York  and  San  Fran 
Cisco),  by  Mr.  Frank  Baer. 

M.  H.  Levin,  by  Mr.  Cahn  and  Mr.  Lederman. 

Arckenburg  &  Co.,  by  Mr.  Conklin. 

N.  Spitzner,  by  Mr.  Charles  Schuberth. 

Strohn  &  Keitzenstein,  by  Mr.  Reitzenstein. 

Bunzel  6i  Dormitzer,  by  Messrs.  Fridy  and  Mosser. 

S.  Rossin,  by  Mr.  Altshul. 

Levy  &  Newgrass,  by  W.  G.  Schinder. 

Mr.  Ruppel. 

PHILADELPHIA. 

Teller  Bros,  by  Messrs.  R.  .and  D.  and  L.  Teller. 

L.  Bamberger  by  Mr.  McCloughlin. 

Moore  &  Hay  by  Mr.  J.  De  Haven. 

Samuel  Moore,  jr. 

N.  Sterner. 

J.  Mayer. 

BALTIMORE. 

Becker  Brothers,  represented  by  special  buyers. 
Barker  ct  Waggner,  by  Mr.  Waggner. 
Parlett  &  Co.,  by  Mr.  Owens. 

NEW    ORLEANS. 

Hernsheim  &  Co.,  by  Mr.  Fink. 

ST.  Lonis. 
Mr.  Benson. 

CHICAGO. 

Rothschild,  Schroeder  &  EUiel,  by  Mr.  Rothschild. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


61 


POTTSVILLE. 

Mr.  Wetzel. 

PAN  FRANCISCO. 

E.  &  L.  Wcrllilieimcr  by  Mr.  Knink  Baor. 

Eeberg,  Bacliman  &  Co.  by  Mr.  Ehrmau  and  J. 
Shirk. 

Falkcnstein  &  Co.  [also  N.  Y.]  by  Mr.  Falken- 
stcin. 

Scbocnfcid  Bros,  by  Mr.  Alleluil. 

A.  S.  Hoscnbaum  &  Co.  [also  N.  Y.J  by  Mr.  Ro- 
scuniayer. 

PITTSBlinC,  TA. 

Prctzfeillcr  \-  Bros.,  roprrsrnU'il  by  variciiis  partiee. 

LOCAL    KIHMS. 

Skllee  &  Frey,  Frey  it  Weidlcr,  and  various  small 
operators. 

OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings   of   the   Lancaster    County    Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

Tlio  rcirulnr  stated  mectinfr  of  the  Agrirultural 
and  Ilorlioiiltural  Socioly  was  held  on  .Monilay, 
March  -fi,  at  tlie  Atliemvum  room,  the  President, 
Calvin  Cooper,  in  I  lie  chair. 

Tlie  followinu:  members  were  present  :  Messrs. 
Calvin  Cooper,  H.  .M.  En^'Ic,  M.  D.  Kendis:,  Cas|K'r 
Hiller,  Levi  I'ownall,  John  llvitier,  Levi  W.  (irolf, 
Levi  S.  lieist,  Simon  P.  Eljy,  Ephraim  Hcjover,  Isrrcl 
L.  Lanilis,  Peter  .S.  lieist,  I'rol.  S.  S.  Ilatlivon, 
Johnson  Miller,  .Tolin  M.  Stclunan,  Wm.  McComscy, 
Peter  Hiller,  David  G.  Swarlz,  L.  C.  Lyte.   . 

In  the  absence  of  the  Secretary,  .M.  D.  Kcndig  was 
called  to  the  chair  ;  the  reading  of  the  minutes  were 
dispensed  with. 

Crop  Reports. 

Levi  PownAi.i  i  of  Sadshury,  reported  g:rain  im- 
provinjr,  and  that  it  looks  very  good.  Prospects 
jjood.  Clover  and  timothy  not  so  good,  but  hopas 
for  a  good  crop. 

Casi'Ek  Hiller,  of  Conestoga,  said  crops  was 
about  the  same  .as  in  the  above  neiirhborhood.  Mr. 
Ensle  said  that  the  crops  in  his  vicinity  were  also 
about  the  same.     Nothing  important  to  report. 

Levi  S.  Keist,  of  Manhcim  township;  Latewheat 
looks  better  than  that  early  sown. 

Johnson  .Millek,  of  Warwick,  reported  the  con- 
dition of  crops  as  pretty  fair.  The  late  sowing 
looked  the  best.  This  was  the  case  last  fall,  when 
the  wheat  was  attacked  by  the  Hessian  Fly.  His 
fields  have  a  poor  appearance  this  spring.  Grass 
fields  look  remarkably  well,  altliouffh  in  some  cases 
it  has  been  frozen.  Clover  is  better  than  last  year. 
The  old  crops  are  generally  all  sold.  More  tobacco 
will  be  raised  this  year  than  last.  He  recommended 
the  rolling  of  grass  and  wheat  fields.  Fruit,  such  as 
apples,  peaches,  and  some  smaller  fruits  he  thought 
were  injured  by  the  intense  cold  of  the  winter. 

Levi  Pow.nall  read  an  essay  on  the 

"Agriculture  of  the  Country." 

The  essay  was  a  very  interesting  one  and  was  a 
general  review  of  the  Agricultural  history  of  the 
country.  He  first  gave  an  account  of  the  early  set- 
tlers and  the  hardships  they  endured  in  clearim; 
lands  and  emigrating,  which  was  followed  with  an 
account  of  the  first  experiments  of  irrigation  and 
the  raising  of  tiraotliy  and  clover,  the  timothy  beinsr 
principally  grown  on  the  uplands.  The  eflects  of 
commercial  enterprise  was  commented  upon.  In 
those  early  days  the  chief  sources  of  profit  to  the 
farmer  were  derived  from  the  sale  of  1  eef  and  grain. 
The  dairy  interests  was  then  of  small  importance, 
but  now  it  is  a  source  of  great  income  in  the  south- 
ern sections  of  this  county.  In  this  district  the 
raising  of  i;rain  and  the  feeding  of  cattle  are  now 
the  main  reliance  to  make  both  ends  meet.  In  the 
northern  districts,  tobacco  seems  to  be  the  paying 
product.  These  two  systems  were  regarded  by  the 
essayist  as  more  exhau.sting  to  the  soil,  than  the  old 
system  of  raising  wheat  and  feeding  cattle.  In 
making  this  sudden  change,  great  care  should  be 
taken,  for  our  reputation  m.ay  not  always  be  known 
as  the  garden  spot  of  the  country.  In  reviewing  the 
past,  the  agriculture  of  our  country  cannot  be 
claimed  as  a  success.  The  reason  we  have  always  a 
surplus  of  agricultural  products,  was  because  new- 
land  was  always  being  brought  into  cultivation,  and 
not  by  the  increased  cultivation  of  that  already  cul- 
tivated. Statistics  showed  that  the  average  yield 
of  dilferent  grains  raised  has  decreased  in  nearly  all 
the  States.  The  policy  of  the  government  of  hold- 
ing out  inducements  for  the  settlement  of  new  terri- 
tory, was  attributed  as  an  injury  to  the  older  States 
and  a  benefit  to  the  new.  The  essayist  closed  by  ad- 
vocating that  an  earnest  feeling  should  be  taken  in 
the  restoration  of  our  lands,  and  that  it  could  only 
be  done  bv  careful  tillage. 

A  vote  of  thanks  wa.s  tendered  the  essayist. 

The  essay  was  discussed  both  pro  and  con  by 
Messrs.  Simon  P.  Eby,  Levi  S.  Keist,  Casper  Hiller, 
H.  M.  Engle,  Israel  L.  Landis  and  others. 

H.  M.  Enule  read  an  essay  on 

"Growing    Potatoes." 

In  opening  his  essay,  Mr.  Engle  read  the  following 
paragraph  ; 

"Among  the  anecdotes  related  of  Sir  Walter  Ra- 


leigh, (who  is  supposed  tohave  introduced  the  potato 
into  Ireland  in  l.'">>4)  is,  that  when  his  gardener  at 
Yout^hall,  in  the  county  of  Cork,  had  reared  to  the 
full  maturity  of  "apples,"  the  potatoes  which  he  had 
received  from  the  Knii;ht,  as  a  fine  fruit  from  Amer- 
ica, the  man  brou^i^hl  to  his  master  one  of  the  apples, 
and  aski'd  if  that  were  the  "fine  fruit."  Sir  Walter 
having  examined  it  was  so  dissatisfied  that  he  or- 
dered the  weed  to  be  rooted  out.  The  gardener 
obeyed,  and  in  rooting  out  the  weeds  found  a  bushel 
of  potatoes." 

In  concluding  the  above,  tlio  essayist  continued  by 
reading  the  following  : 

Ever  since  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  made  a  wry  face 
over  his  first  bite  of  potato,  the  tuber  has  risen  in 
importance  and  its  area  of  cultivation  extended. 
AUIioukIi  originally  found  in  South  America,  near 
the  tropics,  experience  has  proven  that  it  is  most 
successfully  grown  in  the  lii;i:hcr  latitudes.  From 
its  insignificant  debut  as  an  esculent  it  has  become 
one  of  the  most  important  of  crops,  over  a  large  ex- 
tent of  the  earth. 

In  the  United  Slates  the  crop  of  187-")  was  over  IfiO,- 
000,000  of  bushels,  valued  at  (W.dOO.OOO  of  dollars; 
and  now  we  arc  importing  of  the  surplus  crop  of 
Ireland,  a  country  whose  citizens  we  helped  to  save 
from  starvation  some  years  airo,  when  their  crop 
had  failed.  Alllujuirh  not  of  so  much  importance  in 
our,  as  in  some  otln-r  countries,  it  is  over  half  that 
of  our  wheat  crop,  in  bushels.  .Should,  therefore, 
the  jmtato  crop  at  any  time  fail  in  the  Ignited  States, 
we  would  no  iloubl  cxpcrienc«  an  ordeal  similar  to 
that  whicli  Ireland  passed.  tliruuL'"h  in  l'S4't.  The 
country  being  so  rapidly  overrun  with  the  C'ohtrailo 
beetle,  it  has  made  the  crop  a  feeble  one.  Now  for 
a  judicious  antidote,  Paris  green  is  no  doubt  the 
cheapest  remedy.  That  the  potato  bug  came  anionic 
us  to  remain  is  evident,  bill  the  indications  are  now 
that  he  has  enemies  that  will  help  to  keep  him  with- 
in bounds;  but  will  not  likely  exti^rminate  him.  It 
is  therefore  conclusive  that  the  potatato  can  hence- 
forth not  be  grown  with  (he  same  labor  and  expense 
as  formerly.  The  demand,  even  at  the  high  prices, 
is  evidence  that  few  are  willing  to  disi)ense  with  it 
altogether;  consequently  the  im])Ortance  of  the  crop. 

It  is  not  the  olijeet  of  the  essayist  to  enter  into 
details  of  planting,  inanui-iriLT,  cultivating,  varieties, 
itc,  which  the  importance  of  the  subject  deserves, 
but  more  especially  tt)  point  out  one  fundamental 
principle  which  is  generally  overlooked  by  many 
planters.  Farmers  in  this  section  generally  plant  a 
few  as  early  as  the  ground  will  permit,  but  "the  main 
crop  is  put  out  about  corn-i)lanting  season,  and 
although  the  early  crop  is  almost  invariably  the 
lietter,  the  common  custom  has  been  contimicd 
withal.  Tlie  Colorado  Beetle,  however,  has  caused 
a  change  which,  after  all,  may  prove  him  a  blessing 
in  disguise.  His  ravages  have  brought  about  the 
disposition  of  early  plaiitinic  in  order  to  liirhl  him 
more  effectually.  This  will  likely  cause  the  main 
crop  to  be  planted  early,  when  it  will  grow  while 
the  soil  is  moist  and  cool,  and  before  the  greatest 
heat  will  set  in. 

These  conditions  are  always  more  congenial  to  the 
potato,  and  will  produce  a  larger  crop  and  of  better 
quality,  than  when  grown  in  midsummer,  when  heat 
and  drouth  are  generally  greatest.  Our  best  success, 
however,  has  been  with  the  other  extreme,  viz.:  to 
plant  as  late  as  is  safe,  on  account  of  frosts.  The 
main  crop  is  put  out  from  the  middle  of  June  to  Kith 
of  July,  according  to  variety.  Those  requiring  the 
longest  season  we  plant  first  and  vice  versa.  By 
this  method  the  crop  will  mature  during  the  cool 
weather  of  autumn,  at  which  time  the  ground  is 
generally  moist.  In  short,  it  is  the  season  most  con- 
genial to  the  growth  of  the  potato.  Some  of  our 
largest  crops  and  of  best  (piality  have  been  produced 
by  such  late  planting  ;  bcsiiles  they  will  retain  their 
quality  much  later  in  spring  than  the  early  crops. 
In  planting  potatoes  in  midsummer,  the  seed  shoulit 
not  be  exposed  to  the  hot  sun,  and  must  be  well 
covered,  as  extreme  heal  and  dry  ground  will  injure 
the  germ  when  covered  shallow. 

It  is  however  not  to  be  inferred  that  any  other 
necessary  means  pertaining  to  potato  culture  should 
be  dispensed  with,  but  by  taking  advantage  of  the 
season,  in  connection  with  the  best  method  of  cult i- 
uation,  we  need  hardly  ever  fail  of  producing  a  full 
crop  of  best  quality.  In  order  to  prove  the  futility 
of  attempting  to  grow  a  good  crop  of  potatoes  in  dry, 
hot  weather,  we  have  only  to  observe  where  and 
uudei'  what  conditions  the  best  and  poorest  crops  are 
grown. 

"  For  instance  :  In  England,  Ireland,  Canada  and 
our  northern  tier  of  States  and  Territories,  this  escu- 
lent is  grown  to  its  greatest  perfection,  while  in  our 
Southern  States  the  crop  is  insignificant,  as  well  as 
inferior,  aS  a  rule.  It  seems  somewhat  strange  that 
in  the  country  where  the  potato  originated  it  is  of 
so  much  less  importance  that  in  its  iMcscnt  doniaiii, 
but  on  the  table  lands  of  the  Andes  .Mounlains  it 
will  grow  to  probably  as  great  perfection  as  any- 
where. There  is  also  no  question  in  the  mind  of  the 
writer,  that,  even  in  our  Southern  States,  on  the 
high  lands,  bv  taking  advantage  of  the  coolest  part 
of  the  scasonit  may  he  made  a  crop  of  much  greater 
utility  and  importance  than  at  the  present.  There 
are  comparatively  few  in  the  Southern  States,  as 


well  as  In  our  section,  who  are  aware,  at  how  low  a 
temperature  the  potato  will  flourish.  Ourexpcrlence 
is  that  tuliers  will  grow  rapidly  and  of  best  quality 
at  a  temperature  a  little  aliovc  freezinir,  and  that 
mat iiriiu.' in  extreme  heat  It  Is  impossible  to  obtain 
the  most  favorable  results.  It  may  therefore  l)e 
easily  inferred,  what  are  the  essenlhils  to  obtain  the 
best  results,  and  by  whatever  methods  these  may  bo 
obtained,  whether  by  mulcliiiii;,  partially  shading, 
or  by  taxing  advantage  of  the  season,  so  that  It  ha« 
moist  earth  and  a  cool  at niosplieri',  In  connection 
with  all  other  requisites,  the  potato)  crop  need  seldom 
be  a  failure. 

The  essay  led  to  an  animated  discutsion  of  the 
subject  by  several  mem\)er8. 

.^ilt.  McC'oMSEY  was  glad  allenllon  had  been  di- 
rected to  the  import  aiice  of  the  |K>lalo  crop  and 
hoped  the  present  tendency  to  linrease  the  (;rowth 
of  tobacco  would  not  engross  the  altenlloii  of  the 
farmer  so  much  as  to  cause  him  to  nei,'lect  the  po- 
tato. .Mr.  .McCoiusey  gave  his  experience  In  growing 
the  potato,  which  was  in  brief  that  small  seed  pro- 
iluecd  small  potatoes  and  large  seed  large  ones.  He 
planted  early  in  April. 

Casi'KK  iiiLLi'.it  rcirnrdcd  late  planting  as  danger- 
ous. He  had  lost  several  late  planted  crops  by  wet 
viather  setliiu.'  in  while  the  vines  were  growing. 
They  grew  as  ra|)idly  as  hot -house  plants,  and  when 
tin;  sun  shone  out  upon  them  the  liillage  was 
scorched  and  withered,  lie  believed  in  (planting 
early.  With  good  seed,  good  ground,  and  a  favor- 
able season,  he  believed  701)  bushels  of  potatoes 
inii;hl  III' raised  |)er  acre.  He  had  raised  by  actual 
measure  40  bushels  to  one-twelfth  of  an  acre,  which 
is  WO  bushels  per  acre.  He  used  large  peerless 
potatoes  for  seed,  so  cut  that  only  a  slncle  eye  re- 
mainid  to  each  cutting.  Scid  trouml  is  no  doubt  the 
test  Inr  jiotatoes,  but  tanners  cannot  allord  to  turn 
it  down  fcir  that  pur|io8c— ihey  must  keep  it  for  their 
corn.  His  own  plan  was  to  thoroughly  manure  the 
cornstubble  in  the  fall ;  no  matter  how  niueh  man- 
ure is  ap[iiied-;,M)  lonu'  asthcrv|is  enou,'h— plow  it  in 
the  fall.  Ill  t'hc  spring  plow  the  ground  ajraln. 
Plant  early  in  furrows,  not  too  deep,  and  ridge  up 
more  deeply  afterwards.  Cultivate  carelully  to  ex- 
termimite  weeds,  and  with  good  weather  anl  other 
favoiiiiic  cinumstances  tlicru  is  no  reason  why  a 
yield  of  .500  bushels  of  potatoes  to  the  acre  should 
not  follow. 

EiMiiiAiM  Hoover  said  he  reganled  good  seed  as 
necessary  in  (irowiui;  potatoes  as  in  mowing  »  heat, 
eornoroals.  (iood  seed  will  yield  g<M>d  fruit,  and 
poor  sicd  poor  I'ruit.  The  seed  shoulil  lie  frequently 
changed  or  procured  from  a  dillcrent  locality  from 
that  on  which  the  potatoes  are  to  be  grown. 

.VI.  D.  Kendio  said  that  farmers  were  apt  to  defer 
the  cultivation  of  their  potato  fields  too  long.  He 
believed  in  commencing  to  cultivate  as  soon  as  the 
young  plants  show  themselves  above  gr<»und,  or 
even  sooner.  By  this  plan  the  grass  and  weeds  arc 
more;  easily  killed  and  the  potatoes  iret  abetter  start. 

Johii.son  Miller,  secretary,  having  entered  the 
room  cxiilaiiied  the  cause  of  his  absence.  The  train 
on  whicli  he  came  in  was  delayed  by  an  accident. 
He  was  excused. 

L.  C.  Lie. HT  differed  with  most  of  the  speakers. 
He  planted  small  potatoes  for  seed,  Ixdng  careful 
not  to  leave  in  them  too  many  eyes.  He  had  raised 
by  this  kind  of  scedinir  as  iniich  as  400  bushels  to 
the  acre.  His  crop  had  sonielimes  suffered  by  the 
ravages  of  a  small  insect  that  bored  into  the  vines 
and  killed  them. 

Priu--.  liATiivoN  explained  that  the  Insect  was  the 
potato  weevil.  The  parent  insect  lays  its  eirgs  on 
the  vine;  when  they  hatch,  the  young  worm  eats 
into  the  centre  of  the  stock,  and  works  downward 
enervating  or  killini:  the  plant.  Here  the  worm  be- 
comes traiislbrmcd  and  lives  in  the  vine  all  winter. 
The  best  reincdv  to  exterminate  it  it  to  burn  the 
vines.  Prof.  Kalhvon  exhibited  a  sjicclracn  of  the 
potato  weevil. 

P.  S.  Keist  believed  in  planting  potatoes  early, 
ridging  u|i  the  rows  and  then  before  the  young 
plants  come  up,  harrowing  the  ground  thoroughly. 
This  will  kill  the  grass  and  weeds  before  the  potato 
plant  appears. 

I.  L.  Landis  suggested  that  farmers  should  put 
in  a  irood  crop  of  potatoes  this  year.  They  are 
bringing  good  prices  and  as  the  tobacco  crop  will  en- 
gross much  attention,  those  who  plant  iiotaloes  will 
probably  be  well  jiaid  for  them. 

IlE.SRV  M.  Enole  hoped  members  would  make 
careful  experiments  with  large  and  small  seed  for 
IKilatoes.  He  believed  in  using  the  best,  but  ac- 
knowledged that  results  had  sometimes  staggered 
his  failii. 

Casi'ER  Hili.eb  thought  a  principal  objection  to 
the  use  of  small  [xitatoes  for  seed  was  that  there 
were  too  many  eyes  and  consequently  loo  many 
s]inmls.  lie  had  frequently  p-lled  off  the  sprouts 
and  from  them  got  excellent  |  latoes,  but  not  In 
such  great  (luantily  as  from  the  seed. 

Bills  for  removing  the  library  and  for  freight  on 
exhibits  sent  to  the  Centennial  were  presented  and 
ordered  to  be  paid. 

"Corn  culture  and  what  arc  Its  best  varieties," 
was  postponed  for  discussion  until  next  meeting. 

"What  is  the  best  method  of  destroying  the  jwach- 


62 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  April, 


tree  borer  '■"  a  question  referred  to  Mr.  H.  M.  Engle, 
was  answered  by  that  gentleman,  who  said  that  lie 
knew  of  no  more  effective  remedy  than  the  knife. 
Search  for  the  borer  twice  a  year,  sprinsr  and  fall, 
and  when  found  kill  him.  Another  but  not  so  re- 
liable a  plan,  is  to  hank  up  the  butt  of  the  tree  with 
ashes.  It  is  important  to  attend  to  the  borer  during 
the  first  and  second  year  of  the  tree's  growth  ;  after 
that  they  caimot  seriously  injure  the  tree. 

Caspek  Hili,er  said  "an  ounce  of  prevention  is 
worth  a  pound  of  cure."  There  are  two  waj-s  of 
preventing  the  borer  from  getting  into  the  tree  : 
First,  tie  the  butt  of  the  tree  seeurely  with  paper, 
early  in  the  spring,  and  take  it  otf  in  the  fall.  Sec- 
cond,  make  a  mixture  of  cow  dung  and  lime  and  apply 
it  to  the  tree  as  a  paint.  It  soon  hardens  and  is  proof 
against  the  borer. 

Peter  S.  Reist  read  an  intereresting  essay  on 
the  selection  of  seed  wheat.  He  recommended  that 
the  best  portion  of  the  best  field  be  selected  for 
gathering  the  seed;  that  any  stalks  of  rye,  cheat, 
or  other  plants  be  removed  before  Iiarvesting  ;  that 
the  grain  he  then  carefully  cleaned  from  smut  and 
all  other  imperfectious.  It  would  always  pay  to  be 
particular  in  this  respect. 

Messrs.  Engle,  McComsey  and  others  followed  in 
elat>oration  of  Mr.  Keist's  suggestions. 

Levi  W.  Groff  presented  a  sample  of  the  "main- 
stay" wheat — a  new  variety  received  from  Europe. 
The  grains  are  very  large  and  plump.  Mr.  GroB'  was 
requested  to  experiment  with  it,  and  let  the  society 
know  the  result  of  his  experiment. 

Mr.  Groff  said  be  did  not  know  whether  it  was  a 
spring  or  winter  wheat,  but  he  would  plant  half  of 
it  in  the  spring  and  the  other  half  in  the  fall  to  find 
out. 

Mr.  Enole  predicted  it  would  be  bearded,  tall 
and  coarse,  and  would  not  make  good  Hour.  He 
hoped,  however,  his  prediction  miglit  jiroved  untrue. 

Mr.  L.wdis  presented  a  small  bag  full  of  very 
large  shell  barks  or  hickory-nuts  grown  in  Missouri 
from  seed  from  California. 

Prof.  Kathvon  explained  that  the  reason  the 
annual  address  of  the  president  of  the  society  and 
some  other  papers  had  not  appeared  in  The  Farmer 
was  because  he  had  not  received  the  maunscript 
until  to-day. 

Leai  S.  Keist  presented  a  fine  specimen  of  the 
York  imperial  apple. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  for  discus- 
sion at    next  meeting  : 

"How  can  the  fertility  and  productiveness  of  our 
farms  be  maintained  under  our  present  system  of 
croi»iiing  ?" 

"  How  can  we  best  secure  farm  help  ?" — Picferred 
to  E.  Hoover. 

"Is  the  growth  of  Hungarian  grass  for  hay  a  de- 
sirable crop  for  farmers  to  engage  in?" — lieferrcd  to 
Levi  Pownall. 

Adjourned. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association. 

A  stated  meeting  of  the  Tobacco  Growers'  Asso- 
ciation was  held  on  Monday,  .March  19th,  in  the 
rooms  of  the  Athenaeum. 

The  following  members  and  visitors  were  present  : 
Martin  D.  Kenditr,  Manor  ;  ColinCameron,  Elizabeth; 
I.  L.  Landis,  Manheim ;  John  M.  Stehman,  East 
HempHeld  ;  Peter  S.  Keist,  Manheim  ;  Levi  S.  Keist, 
Manheim  ;  A.  L.  Lane,  Manor;  I.  W.  Uroh,  Lebanon; 
W.  L.  Hershey,  Rapho  ;  J.  H.  Yeager,  East  Lam- 
peter; A.  K.  Landis,  Manheim;  Isaac  Leaman, 
Upper  Leacock  ;  Samuel  Bushoug,  Ui>per  Leacock  ; 
Michael  B.  Landis,  city  ;  John  Bo.'isler,  Manheim  ; 
Harry  Shifl'er,  Manheim  ;  Silas  K.  Eshleman,  Para- 
dise ;  Sylvester  Kennedy,  Salisbui'y  ;  B.  H.  Hershey, 
Penn ;  Abraham  Hostelter,  Penn  ;  A.  H.  Y^eager, 
East  Lampeter;  H.  Bomberger,  Manheim;  Martin 
Miller,  Manor. 

President  M.  D.  Kendig  occupied  the  chair, 
and  in  the  absence  of  the  secretary,  Colin  Cameron 
acted  in  that  capacity. 

Crop  reports  being  called  for,  Mr.  I.  L.  Landis, 
of  Maniieim,  said  that  thegreaterpart  of  the  tobacco 
in  liis  neighborhood  had  been  sold  at  good  prices. 
Buyers  were  as  active  as  ever,  but  were  endeavoring 
to  reduce  the  figures,  and  in  some  instances  they 
■were  buying  lower  tlian  they  did  at  the  opening  of 
the  season,  as  some  farmers  found  it  necessary  to 
realize  on  their  crops  before  the  first  of  Api-il.  Two- 
thirds  of  the  crop  has  been  sold,  among  it  being  the 
bulk  of  the  first-cla.ss  leaf. 

Mr.  Hersiiet  reported  fifty  cases  sold  to  a  local 
buyer  in  West  Hempfield,  at  good  prices. 

Mr.  Yeager,  of  West  Lampeter,  said  nearly  all  the 
crop  in  his  neighborhood  had  been  bought. 

Mr.  Eshleman,  of  Paradise,  said  that  not  much 
tobacco  was  grown  in  his  township,  and  very  little  of 
that  sold.  The  prices  asked  for  wrappers  ranges 
from  IK  to  20  cents. 

Mr.  Kennedy,  of  Salisbury,  said  there  was  a  con- 
siderable quantity  raised  in  his  townsliip;  not  one- 
third  of  which  had  yet  been  sold.  Some  of  it  is  of 
•  good  quality  and  some  considerably  injured  by  the 
worm.  Prices  have  ranged  from  '^0  cents  down — 
some  selling  very  cheap.  He  thought  the  reason  so 
little  of  the  crop  had  been  sold  was  because  there 
had  been  but  little  heretofore  grown  ;  the   growers 


generally  have  not  learned  how  to  handle  it  and  the 
township  is  distant  from  the  tobacco  centre. 

Mr.  Bear,  of  Leacock,  said  nearly  all  the  tobacco 
in  his  neighborhood  was  sold.  A  good  deal  was 
raised  about  Enterprise.  The  crop  was  a  fair  one 
and  brought  fair  prices — say  1.5  to  'M  cents. 

Mr.  John  M.  Stehman,  East  Hempfield,  offered 
for  inspection  several  very  fine  hands  of  tobacco 
grown  by  E.  M.  Bricker,  of  Manheim,  on  li  farm 
owned  by  Henry  Hostetter.  Mr.  Bricker  had  sold 
his  crop  at  .'!0  for  wrappers,  20  for  seconds  and  5  for 
fillers.  The  samples  were  of  Connecticut  seed  leaf. 
Chestnut  seed  leaf,  Bastard  and  Florida  seed  leaf. 
The  preference  was  given  by  Mr.  Bricker  to  the 
Chestnut  and  Bastard.  The  Florida  was  only  grown 
as  an  experiment.  Mr.  Stehman  said  that  about 
two-thirds  of  the  crop  in  his  neighborhood  was   sold. 

A  vote  of  thanks  was  returned  to  Mr.  Bricker  for 
his  fine  specimens. 

On  motion  of  J.  M.  Stehman,  the  secretary  read 
from  The  Lancanffir  Fanner  an  article  copied  from 
the  bilctllffd'cer  showing  that  in  the  New  York  mar- 
ket Lancaster  tobacco  had  the  call  over  Connecticut. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  urged  erowers  to  use  the  greatest 
possible  care  in  growing  and  handling  their  tobacco. 
He  had  no  doubt  that  a  great  deal  of  good  Pennsyl- 
vania tobacco  had  been  sold  for  Connecticut  when 
Connecticut  was  considered  the  best ;  and  now  that 
Pennsylvania  was  in  demand,  western  tobacco  is 
being  shipped  in  this  Stale  and  palmed  off  as  Penn- 
sylvania. He  knew  of  one  large  lot  of  Wisconsin 
that  had  been  broturbt  to  this  county,  and  he  sup- 
posed it  would  be  palmed  off  as  Pennsylvania,  to  the 
injury  of  the  Pennsylvania  staple. 

President  Kendig,  of  Manor,  said  the  interest  of 
buyers  in  his  district  had  heretofore  centered  in 
fancy  grades;  there  were  a  good  many  buyers  yet  in 
the  field  ;  about  two-thirds  of  the  crop  has  been  sold. 

Mr.  p.  S.  Keist,  Manheim,  said  two-thirds  of  tlie 
crop  in  that  township  is  sold  ;  the  choice  lots  were 
first  bought ;  liuycrs  are  now  picking  up  second 
quality.  The  farmers  are  considering  the  advan- 
tages to  be  obtained  in  raising  first-class  tobacco, 
and  many  of  them  have  resolved  to  plant  less  next 
year,  and  give  more  attention  to  its  growth  and 
handling. 

Mr.  Cameron  read  a  letter  from  Mr.  C.  P. 
Hughes,  of  West  Chester,  asking  for  information  on 
the  following  points  :  "  What  is  the  average  weight 
of  dry  tobacco  pci-  acre  raised  in  Lancaster  county  i 
Do  you  find  highly  ammoniated  fertilizers  an  advan- 
tage ?  If  fish  guano  is  used  could  it  afl'ect  the  taste 
of  the  tobacco?  In  the  use  of  different  salts  of 
potash,  is  there  any  difference  in  the  burning  of  the 
tobacco  or  in  the  yield  ?" 

In  answer  to  the  first  interrogatory  the  average 
yield  was  variously  estimated  at  i,'JOO  tol,fiOO]ioundR 
per  acre.  In  answer  to  the  second  some  of  the 
members  thought  there  was  and  some  thought  there 
was  not  much  advantage  in  the  use  of  highly  ammo- 
niated fertilizers.  The  other  questions  were  briefly 
discussed  but  no  result  agreed  upon. 

Mr.  Cameron  also  read  a  communication  from 
Hiram  E.  Lutz,  calling  attention  to  a  poudrette 
manufactured  by  him  which  he  claimed  to  be  pecu- 
liarly adapted  to  the  growth  of  tobacco. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  P.  S.  Reist,  Mr.  Lutz  and  other 
manufacturers  were  requested  to  send  samples  of 
their  fertilizers  to  the  president  of  the  society  to 
have  it  tested. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Johnston,  Mr.  Cameron  was 
requested  to  prepare  answers  to  the  questions  asked 
by  Mr  Hughes,  and  read  them  before  the  society  at 
the  next  meeting. 

In  further  discussing  the  question  of  the  best  fer- 
tilizer for  tobacco,  pig  manure,  sheep  manure,  hen 
manure  and  horse  manure  were  each  recommended. 

Colin  Cameron  read  an  essay  on  tobacco  and  its 
cultivation,  of  which  the  following  contains  the  prin- 
cipal points  : 

Every  one  that  has  attempted  to  grow  this  plant 
fancies  that  he  has  learned  enough  from  his  own  ex- 
perience to  not  only  govern  him  in  all  future  opera- 
tions, but  enough  to  supply  all  the  neighbors  and 
friends  from  what  he  looks  ujjon  as  an  endless  quan- 
tity of  valuable  knowledge.  The  less  the  time  one 
has  been  engaged  in  the  business  the  more  garrulous 
be  will  be,  and  the  local  savants  tliat  on  every  occa- 
sion offer  gratis  from  their  store  of  stuff,  almost  in- 
variably make  him  who  hearkens  to  them  repent 
his  folly.  I  believe  with  the  other  essayists  before 
me  that  there  are  certain  fixed  facts  that  it  is  well  to 
ever  keep  in  view,  and  that  there  are  certain  condi- 
tions of  soil  and  j>laut-foud  necessary  to 
the  growth  of  a  full  crop,  but  I  differ 
with  them  in  regard  to  the  manner  of  pre- 
paring the  .soil.  I  hold  to  what  I  consider 
should  be  a  settled  principle  among  advanced  agri- 
culturists, that  no  crop  save  grass  should  be  made 
to  feed  directly  of  the  manure.  And  I  fancy  that  I 
have  noticed  enough  in  my  own  fields  and  in  my 
neighbors'  to  know  this  to  be  the  ease;  especially  in 
tobacco.  I  know  very  well  that  I  bring  down  the 
unfavorable  judgment  of  a  vast  majority  of  tobacco- 
growers  for  the  utterance  of  this  statement,  but  I 
am  so  well  convinced  of  its  truth  that  I  think  I  can 
well  bear  this  judgment  and  wait  for  the  future 'to 
prove  its  correctness  We  all  are  aware  and  ac- 
knowledge that  the  plant  in  its  growth  is  necessarily 


rapid,  and  that  it  absorbs  from  the  manures  some- 
thing scarcely  definable,  that,  to  say  the  least,  af- 
fects the  structure  if  not  the  flavor  of  the  plant,  and 
these  keen-eyed,  tender-fingered  buyers  that  Mr. 
Frantz  speaks  of  are  the  first  to  know  it.  I  could 
not  dwell  upon  the  reasons  entire  that  cause  me  to 
come  to  this  conclusion;  they  are  many  and  long,  and 
so  interwoven  that  to  speak  of  one  necessarily  "intro- 
duces all.  Nor  do  I  consider  heavy  manuring  in  it- 
self essential;  it  might  be  a  desirable  requisite,  but  I 
could  not  allow  it  to  be  considered  any  more  than 
that.  Before  either  plant-bed,  plants  or  soil,  I 
would  place  the  farmer — a  perfect  tobacco  farmer. 

I  have  seen  tobacco  grown  side  by  side  where  the 
soil  was  necessarily  alike,  and  yet  there  was  as  much 
difl'erence  in  the  yield  per  acre  as  Mr.  Frantz  named 
in  his  essay.  I  well  know  that  a  poor  farmer  with 
good  soil  and  plenty  of  manures  may  with  the 
stimulus  of  a  good  growing  crop  get  more  per  acre 
th.an  the  best  farmer  under  unfavorable  conditions; 
but  this  proves  nothing,  and  I  ask  each  one  present, 
thinkers  in  the  field  of  practical  agricultural  experi- 
ment, if  we  ought  to  sustain  any  statement,  without 
qualification,  that  tends  to  bear  one  into  any  channel 
of  thought  that  may  break  up  the  idea  of  personal 
responsibility. 

I  would  like  to  know  something  more  about  the 
statement  made  Ijy  Mr.  Frantz — of  hog  bristles  being 
a  superior  covering  for  the  germinating  seed  and 
growing  plants.  How  many  have  thought  of  this, 
and  what  has  been  the  general  conclusion  ?  Theories 
advanced  here,  or  facts  stated,  if  not  investigated 
are  only  as  shadows.  We  all  well  know  that  as  a 
class,  in  the  production  of  tobacco,  we  are  not  above 
mediocrity,  and  until  the  false  is  separated  from  the 
correct,  and  true  principles  only  promulgated,  can  we 
hope  to  advance  to  a  better  kuowledge  of  the  wants 
of  this  plant.  Many  never  use  the  bristle  ;  some  use 
glass ;  others  condemn  all  and  sow  the  seed  and 
grow  the  plant  unassisted  ;  and  each  one  for  himself 
claims  to  have  the  plan  whereby  the  best  results  are 
attained.  If  the  after-growth  of  a  crop  depends  on 
the  manner  of  its  first  start,  let  us  know  it  and  the 
reason  as  well. 

I  would  always  grow  tobacco  on  sod,  fall  plowed, 
and  plowed  again  as  often  in  the  spring  previous  to 
planting  as  the  weed  seeds  germinate  and  sprout. 
Set  the  plants  in  rows  not  closer  than  four  feet  apart 
and  twenty  inches  apart  on  the  row.  Allow  no 
wecil  to  grow  nor  the  ground  to  become  so  much 
settled  after  a  rain  as  to  even  approach  a  state  of 
being  baked.  I  think  I  know  that  tobacco  once  re- 
tarded in  its  growth  by  the  compactness  of  the  earth 
never  again  regains  its  wonted  rapid,  hut  natural 
growth.  While  speaking  of  ground  in  its  dilferent 
conditiims  afl'ecting  the  plant,  I  wish  to  refer  to  the 
manner  of  planting.  I  believe  all  will  agree  that 
there  is  but  one  correct  way  to  set  a  plant ;  that  is 
to  place  it  in  tlie  ground  that  every  root  shall  tend 
towai'ds  the  bottom  of  the  hole.  I  have  known  each 
alternate  row  of  tobacco  in  a  field  to  vary  a  very 
great  deal,  and  could  find  no  solution  of  the  cause, 
except  attributing  it  to  the  manner  of  sticking  the 
young  plant.  I  would  insist  on  this  mode  of  plant- 
ing as  a  prime  necessity;  its  real  or  imaginary  effect 
is  within  the  reach  of  all,  and  a  few  well  tried  and 
reported  experiments  would  determine  this  in  the 
minds  of  all. 

In  stripping  there  are  several  things  to  be  consid- 
ered at  once;  first,  I  should  never  take  tobacco  from 
the  nails  or  lath  until  it  could  be  handled  in  almost 
any  manner  without  breakage.  If  it  is  taken  down 
bclbre  thoroushly  damp  and  conditioned  you  will 
lose  almost  beyond  belief  in  weight ;  and  no  other 
process,  to  my  knowledge,  can  make  up  for  this. 
The  leaf  stripped  and  bulked  dry  will  ahvaj's  present 
a  dry  and  rough  appearance,  and  will  never  have  the 
soft,  silky  feel  that  those  "tender-fingered  bu^'crs" 
look  for.  I  would  strip  tobacco  into  three  grades 
always,  and  would  never  sort  the  filler  for  seconds, 
but  rather  the  wrappers,  and  each  hand  should  be 
perfect  in  itself.  I  mean  by  this  that  it  should  con- 
tain leaves  exactly  alike  in  shape,  size,  color  and 
condition.  This  is  easy  to  do.  The  leaves  should  be 
pulled  down  in  the  hands  till  the  tips  are  even,  and 
bound  at  the  butts  so  as  to  hide  the  uneveuness. 
This  done  by  the  grower,  saves  the  sprigging  by  the 
buyer  and  makes  it  worth  fi'om  one  to  five  cents 
more  jier  pound.  Then  no  one  can  grade  .as  well  as 
the  grower.  Having  his  tobacco  in  the  shed  as  it 
grew,  each  kind  alone,  he  can  take  it  down,  exer- 
cising due  care,  and  strip  it,  again  using  an  extra 
amount  of  vigilance  to  make  it  perfect.  The  great 
trouble  with  many  parties  is  the  desire  to  he  done, 
not  to  be  well  done.  A  day  or  a  week's  additional 
care  in  this  part  of  the  work  may  add  half  the  value 
to  the  whole  crop.  The  stripper  should  know  the 
exact  condition  of  every  leaf  that  goes  into  each 
hand,  and  those  miserable  shriveled,  short  and 
frizzed  leaves  should  be  thrown  away;  it  will  pay 
much  better  than  to  |iut  them  with  any  other  than  a 
lot  l)y  themselves.  Once  stripped,  each  kind  should 
be  bulked  down  by  itself.  I  would  prefer  a  cool  but 
not  over  moist  cellar,  and  should  always  leave  the 
butts  of  the  hands  exposed,  covering  with  boards 
and  enough  weight  to  keep  it  in  position,  and  to  give 
it  something  of  a  pressed  look. 

Care  should  be  exercised  to  have  each  kind  by 
itself.    For  I  assure  you  if  you  put  a  second  with  the 


1S-7.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


63 


wrapper,  or  a  filler  with  the  eceoml,  the  "tcniler- 
(ingered  follow"  will  pull  it  out  certain. 

After  you  have  raised  a  good  plant,  stick  it  proper- 
ly, grow  it  to  maturity,  harvest  it  without  hums  or 
bruises,  talic  it  down  and  assort  it  jiroperly,  then 
study  to  know  its  value,  and  resolve  never  to  deal 
with  men  whose  honor  is  as  <'heap  as  their  words. 

I  saw  in  Durham,  N.  C,  the  planter  hauling  his 
tobacco  ink)  town  without  the  shadow  of  a  fear, 
well  knowing  that  he  would  get  its  full  market  value. 
Why  can  we  not  do  the  same  ?  Are  all  the  men  in 
the  Iradc  banded  against  the  growers,  or  is  our 
knowledge  of  its  value  so  slight  as  to  enable  them  to 
take  it  at  will?  Or  is  the  sale  of  this  crop  a  matter 
of  chance  rat  lier  than  one  of  square  business  dealing? 

I  hope  to  see  this  organization  prosper  and  attract 
to  itself  the  best  practical  thinkers  and  growers  in 
the  county,  and  as  we  educate  each  other  and  our- 
selves, bring  to  a  higher  level  all  engaged  in  the 
same  avocation. 

On  motion,  a  vote  of  thanks  was  tendered  the  es- 
sayist. 

The  several  points  of  the  ess.ay  were  discussed  at 
some  length  liy  the  society.  Mr.  Heist  said  there 
was  an  old  maxim  that  "every  man  should  be  con- 
sidered a  rascal  till  he  was  proved  to  be  an  honest 
man  ;"  both  tobacco  buyers  anil  growers  had  too 
long  acted  on  this  principle.  Mr.  Reist  believed  the 
maxim  should  be  reversed,  and  that  if  growers  and 
buyers  should  deal  honestly  and  fairly  with  each 
other  they  would  be  mutually  benefited. 

The  best  mode  of  preparing  the  gi'ound,  selecting 
the  best  variety  of  plants,  the  proper  mode  of  grow- 
ing plants  and  other  questions  of  interest  were  dis- 
cussed, but  nothing  new  was  clicteil,  except  that  .Mr. 
I.  L.  Landis  rather  jocularly  suggesled  that  toliacco 
plants  should  be  grown  by  (!en.  Pleaisoulon's  blue 
glass  process  ;  to  whie.h  Mr.  Cameron  replied  that 
he  would  rather  have  an  acre  of  blue  (/rasx  sod  than 
two  acres  of  blue  t/!axs  cover. 

The  question  selected  for  iliseussion  at  next  meet- 
ing was:  "How  to  construct  the  most  convenient 
tobacco  house  for  curing,  stripping  and  sorting 
tobacco." 

Notice  was  given  that  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  .Society  will  meet  next 
Monday,  instead  of  the  Ist  Monday  in  April. 

On  motion  adjourned. 


The  Linnaean   Society. 

This  society  held  theirstated  meeting  on  Saturday, 
March  'My  C'.  A.  TIeinitsb  in  the  chair  ;  si.x  members 
present.  After  the  preliminary  duties,  the  donations 
to  the  museum  were  examined,  and  found  to  consist 
of  a  very  tine  specimen  of  star  lish  (astcrias)  from 
the  Pacific  coast,  California,  presented  to  S.  S. 
Kathvon  liy  .Mr.  Kinzer,  of  East  Walnut  street,  this 
city.  This,  wlien  taken  out  of  the  water  by  Mr.  K., 
while  on  a  visit  to  California,  was  of  a  deep  red- 
searlet  color.  A  large  brown  spider,  found  in  the 
Adams  Express  wagon,  supposed  to  have  come 
among  oysters,  from  "down  the  B.ay,"  which  were 
delivered — presented  by  Mr.  J.  W.  M.  of  the  Express 
office.  It  may  be  a  species  of  Dobnalex,  a  stranger  at 
least  with  us.  "Elm-leaf  beetles,"  found  behind  a 
fire-board  in  the  dwelling  house  on  the  7th  of  Marcli, 
1877,  by  Mrs.  P.  E.  Gibbons  ;  a  queer  place  to  hide 
for  the  Galcrnca.  A  small .  green  grasshopper, 
found  by  Mr.  Engle,  on  the  llih  of  February  last , 
curious,  chieliy  for  being  out  so  early.  Some  good- 
sized  shellbarks,  introduced  originally  from  Cali- 
fornia; these  nuts  were  raised  in  Missouri,  presented 
bjr  Israel  L.  Landis.  Five  fossils,  collected  near 
Pa.ii6,  Edgar  county,  Illinois,  and  given  by  E.  G. 
Reist,  of  Mount  Joy  ;  Spirifer  Tcrdiralula,  and  por- 
tions of  the  articulated  stems  of  the  stone  lily — 
Crinoidcans. 

Additions  to  the  Library. 

Proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences 
of  Philadelphia,  Part  III.  October,  November  and 
December,  lS7fi.  An  essay  with  illustrations  on 
New  South  Wales,  by  G.  H.  Reid,  187fi.  Report  of 
the  Life  Saving  .Service  of  the  Cnited  States  and  its 
operations,  187.5  and  lS7(i.  Copy  of  Firlil  and  Forcul, 
February  number,  per  C.  R.  Dodge.  The  title  page, 
etc.,  to  vol.  X  of  the  Patent  Office  (Inzeltc.  Patnph- 
lets  from  our  correspondent,  Dr.  AV.  .1.  Hoffman, 
read  by  him  before  the  Philadelphia  societies,  viz. J 
Pah-ute  Cremation,  December,  1S74.  Ancient 
Hearths  and  Modern  Indian  Remains.  List  of  Birds 
observed  by  him  in  Dakota  while  surgeon  of  the 
United  States  army.  One  in  pure  French,  by  .M. 
Fernand  Latasta,  on  "  Lk  tetard  Du.  nominator 
Igneus,"  about  the  Branchia  of  "  Frogs  and  Polli- 
wogs."  Mrs.  Gibbons  readily  translated  it  to 
English.  (We,  like  Pat,  understand  French  very 
well  when  spoken  in  English.)  Tin:  Book  Erchanqe 
Monllihj.  The  "  American  Palieozooic  Fossils,"  by 
S.  A.  .Miller,  about  being  published.  The  "  Medical 
Intelligencer."  List  of  new  publications.  The  Lcin- 
eaxter  Farmer  for  February  and  March,  ls77.  From 
our  Representative,  J.  L.  Steinmctz,  esq.,  copy  of 
Industrial  statistics,  Part  III.  Vol.  HI.  Report  of 
the  Superintendent  of  Public  Instruction,  June  1870. 
Annual  report  of  the  Superintendent  of  SoMiers' 
Orphans  of  Pennsylvania,  1870.  A  report  of  State 
Treasurer,  November,  1870.    Message  of  Gov.  John 


F.  Hartranft,  January  3, 1S77.  Reprints  from  papers 
published  in  177l>,  and  of  later  date.  Six  envelopes 
containing  sixty-three  historical  scraps,  cut  out  of 
the  various  papers.  Several  containing  specimens  of 
colonial  bills  and  continental  money — among  them 
lottery  tickets  for  church  benefits,  so  common  in 
those  days. 

Papers  Read. 

J.  Stanffer  read  a  paper — showing  the  divers  opin- 
ions among  men  of  science,  at)out  the  sap  in  plants- 
quoting  Dr.  tiray's  theory  so  dally  contradi<'ted  by 
.Mr.  Andrew  .Murray  in  a  paper  read  at  the  last 
meeting  of  the  Scientific  Committee  of  the  Royal 
Horticultural  Society.  He  also  presented  a  flnedraw- 
ing  taken  groni  what  seemed  to  be  a  double  calla, 
grown  and  given  liirn  by  Ex-Mayor  Zimmerman,  of 
this  city,  .March  1.").  The  white  spatlie  with. its  gol- 
den yellow  spadix  was  like  the  common  Afri<'an 
lily,  only  the  ordinary  green  leaf  in  this  case  assum- 
ed tlie  texture  and  shape  of  the  fiower,  close  to  it,  eo 
as  to  appear  like  two  lilies  on  one  stem,  close  to- 
gether. 

Mrs.  Zcll  read  a  paper  on  certain  observations  in  a 
Zonale  Geranium  under  cultivation  in  the  window, 
which  manifested  a  change  of  tlu^  perfect  stamens 
intd  petals;  in  one  llower  she  found  a  single  jierfect 
stamen,  and  the  lilaments  of  other  petaloid.  This  is 
not  a  very  rare  case;  it  occurs  in  the  water  lily,  and 
other  plants  under  cultivation,  especially  if  iiielined 
to  become  double. 

Mr.  S.  S.  Rathvon  read  a  paper  on  the  several 
donations  made,  in  which  he  speaks  in  high  praise 
of  .Mr.  Kinzer,  and  his  valuable  colleclion  of  objects 
of  Natural  Science;  his  skill  in  mounting  bii'ds,  iV:c., 
aud  his  labors  in  this  field,  so  little  known  to  the 
general  public;  his  collection  with  that  of  ours 
would  form  a  truly  valuable  museum. 

Mrs.  Gil)bon6  read  notes  and  observations  on  the 
Cabbage  butterfiy^hirv^,  and  Paris  green. 

The  following  resolution  was  presented  by  S.  S. 
Rathvon  and  adopted,  viz  : 

"Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  be  instrneted  to 
examine  the  records  and  see  wlio  (under  the  origi- 
nal resolutions,  authorizing  the  same)  are  entitled 
to  additional  certificates  of  the  stock  of  the  museum, 
and  to  issue  the  same  on  the  e(»nditions  named  in 
said  resolutions  and  report  the  same  at  the  next 
stated  tneeting  of  the  Society." 

On  motion  the  Secretary  was  authorized  to  set  up 
a  form  of  notice  to  dcliufpients,  and  have  blanks 
printed,  to  fill  out  and  distribute. 

No  further  business  offering.  Society  adjourned  to 
meet  on  Saturday,  April  1^8. 


AGRICULTURAL. 

Valuable  Formulas. 

Professor  Stockbridge,  of  the  Massachusetts  Ag- 
cultural  College,  Amherst,  issues  the  following  for- 
mulas for  compounding  phosphates,  which  it  might 
be  well  for  Granges  to  paste  in  their  book  of  [uinulcs. 

To  produce  fifty  bushels  of  corn  to  the  acre  more 
than  the  natural  proiluet  of  the  land  use  : 

Nitrogen,  04  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
ammonia; 

Potash,  77  pounds,  in  the  form  of  muriate  of  pot- 
ash ; 

Phosphoric  acid,  31  pounds,  in  the  form  of  muriate 
of  superphosphates. 

To  produce  one  ton  of  hay  per  acre  more  than  the 
natural  product  of  the  land   use  : 

Nitrogen,  30  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
ammonia  ; 

I'otash,  31  pounds,  in  the  form  of  miu'iate  of  pot- 
ash ; 

Phosphoric  acid,  12  pounds,  in  the  form  of  super- 
phosphate. 

To  produce  25 bushels  of  oats  and  the  usual  pro- 
portion of  straw  per  acre  more  than  the  natural 
product  of  the  soil,  and  in  proportion  for  other  quan- 
tities, use  : 

Nitrogen,  10  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
ammonia  ; 

Potash,  31  pounds,  in  the  form  of  muriate  of  pot- 
ash ; 

Phosphoric  acid,  8  pounds,  in  the  form  of  super- 
phosphate. 

To  produce  1,500  pounds  of  dried  leaf  tobacco, 
with  the  usual  proportion  of  stalk,  more  than  the 
natural  yield  per  acre  of  land,  use  : 

Nitrogen,  Hi)  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
ammonia  ; 

Potash,  172  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
potash  : 

Phosphoric  acid,  16  pounds,  in  the  form  of  super 
phoBjihate ; 

Lime,  100  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of  lime 
(land  plaster); 

Magnesia,  38  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
magnesia. 

To  produce  100  bushels  of  potatoes  per  acre,  and 
their  usual  proportion  of  tops,  more  than  the  natu- 
ral proiluetion  of  the  land,  and  other  quantities  pro- 
portionally, use  : 

Nitrogen,  31  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of 
ammonia  ; 

Potash,  34  pounds,  in  the  form  of  sulphate  of  pot- 
ash ; 


PhoRphorle  acid,  11  pounds,  In  the  form  of  super- 
phosphate. 

By  the  use  of  these  formulas,  upon  any  ordinary 
level  lands,  with  a  good  elav  subsoil,  corn  can  be 
raised  at  about  T2  cents  per  bushel  ;  oats,  ^0  cents  ; 
potatoes,  10  cents,  and  tobacco  about  84  per  hund- 
red pounds  (all  of  superior  quality),  couutingln  the 
cost  of  farm  labor. 

These  mixtures  should  be  sown  over  the  land 
broadcast  when  the  ground  is  well  prepared,  before 
planting.  an<l  not  put  in  the  hills,  so  that  the  roots 
may  seek  the  food  and  not  concentrate  and  thereby 
cause  the  plants  "  to  burn  up." 

Utilizing  Coal  Dust, 
.^n  invention  has  been  made  by  .Mr.  G.  K.  Steven- 
son, of  Valparaiso,  for  a  furnace  for  burning  coal 
dust,  which  is  made  In  the  shape  of  a  retort,  of  lire 
brick,  open  at  both  emls,  and  provided  with  radical 
or  inclined  discharge  channels  at  the  upper  parts. 
This  is  placed  in  posillon  on  the  walls,  and  Is  partly 
charged  with  a  quantity  of  wood  and  coal,  and 
lightid.  The  apparatus  by  which  the  jjowdercd 
fuel  is  inlroduied  is  then  placed  in  [msition,  and  the 
fuel  fell  to  the  furnace,  after  the  coarse  fuel  is 
I  liorowghly  ignited  by  the  blast  from  a  blower  used 
ill  connection  tlierenlth.  The  piiwdi-red  fuel  Is  then 
continually  introduced,  care  being  taken  to  remove 
the  ashes  from  beyond  the  mouth  of  the  iiuier  end  of 
the  retort,  which  can  be  done  in  a  few  minutes. 
The  apparatus  may  be  detached  and  replaced,  and 
the  operation  proceeded  with,  without  a  great  de- 
crease in  teiiiiicralnre,  as  the  llrebriik  retort  retains 
some  of  the  heat  from  previous  firing.  The  fuel  Is 
said  to  be  completely  consumed  by  the  addition  of 
air  injected  willi  the  same  into  the  retort,  and  there- 
by a  high  and  unilorm  dcgrej^  of  temperature  Is  kept 
lip,  while  the  fire  may  be  instantly  interrupted  wllh- 
oul  the  loss  of  large  quantities  of  fuel,  and  also  be 
started  again  with  great  rapidity,  so  as  to  facilitate 
the  getting  up  of  bteain  in  boilers. 


What  Soil  Consists  of. 

The  bulk  of  all  fertile  soil  consists  of  three  earths, 
to  wit  :  silica,  alumina  and  lime.  Unmixed  with 
<-lay,  sand,  or  ot  her  organic  or  inorganic  substances, 
lime  c(uisisls  of  the  oxide  of  the  metallic  element 
calcium,  and  as  it  enters  into  the  composition  of  all 
plants,  it  necessarily  occupies  a  large  place  in 
Nature's  laboratory.  Chemistry  tells  us  that  it  has 
an  allinity  for  water  and  ear!«>nic  acid  ;  when  apj 
plied  to  tile  land  it  absorbs  water,  forming  hydrate 
of  lime;  this  hydrate  then  absorbs  carbonic  acid,  so 
th.at  lime,  although  applied  to  the  land  in  the  caustic 
state,  really  exists,  shortly  after  its  application.  In 
the  form  of  carbonate,  along  with  a  little  sulphate 
and  phosphate  as  previously  mentioned.  Lime  has 
for  a  long  time  been  used  as  a  fertilizer,  when  land 
previously  unworked  is  brought  into  cultivation,  or 
when  worn-out  pasture  land  is  broken  up,  lime  is 
Efcnerally  applied.  It  affects  chieliy  the  vegetable 
matter  contained  in  the  soil,  promoting  its  decompo- 
sition, and  thus  rendering  it  available  as  plant  food. 


A  New  Agricultural    Plant. 

A  new  agricultural  plant  for  cattle-feeding  and 
paper-making  has  been  introduced  to  public  notice 
by  Mr.  William  Gorrie.  Rai  Lodge,  Edinburg.  It  is 
a  variety  of  a  tree-mallow,  "  Lavatera  arlorea," 
the  natural  habitats  of  wliich,  in  Scotland,  are  the 
Ba.i's  Hock,  with  other  islets  in  the  Firth  of  Forth, 
and  Ailsa  Craig.  Its  ordinary  heights  vary  from  6 
to  10  feet,  liiit  it  can  be  grown  to  twelve  feet.  It  ll 
bienmal,  but  the  first  year  it  may  he  planted  after 
the  removal  of  any  early  crops  and  matures  the 
following  year.  Chemical  analysis  of  its  seeds 
shows  them  to  he  equal  in  feeding  properties  to  oil- 
cake, which  is  niiw  worth  in  Scotland  about  8'"'0  per 
ton,  and  pa[ier-m:ikers  ollereil  the  same  price  for  the 
bark  that  they  now  pay  for  esparto  grass,  which  Is 
also  about  g.^O  per  ton.  This  shows  a  return  of 
about  .?J0O  per  acre,  for  the  '.cv.il  and  bark,  and  it 
is  expected  that  the  excess  of  fibre  in  the  latter  will 
allow  the  heart  wood  being  mixed  up  with  it,  which 
will  add  very  considerably  to  the  value  of  the  crop. 
^ _ 

Hints  to    Farmers. 

A  bare  pasture  enriches  not  the  soil,  nor  fattens 
the  animals,  nor  increases  the  wealth   of  the  owner. 

One  animal  well  fed  is  of  more  use  than  two 
poorly  kept. 

The  belter  animals  can  be  fed,  and  the  more  com- 
fortalde  they  can  be  kept,  the  more  profitable  they 
are— and  all  farmers  work  for  profit. 

Ground  once  well  ploughed  is  better  than  tbrlcc 
poorly. 

Bountiful  crops  are  more  profitable  than  poor  ones. 
Make  the  soil  rich,  pulverize  well  and  keep  clean, 
and  it  will  will  generally  he  productive. 

When  you  see  the  fence  down,  put  it  up.  If  It  re- 
mains until  to-morrow,  the  cattle  get  over. 

What  ought  to  be  done  to-day,  do  ft — for  to-mor- 
row it  might  rain. 

A  strong  horse  will  work  all  day  without  food  ; 
but  keep  him  at  it,  aud  he  will  not  last  long. 


64 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  April,  1877. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Florida  and  Its    Oranges. 

A  correspondent  of  the  Tribune  thus  writes  to 
that  paper  in  regard  to  Florida  : 

About  half  of  the  orange  crop  this  year  has  been 
destroyed  by  the  lonarest  spell  of  cold  weather  ever 
known  in  Florida.  The  history  of  the  orange  culture 
shows  that  at  long  intervals  the  crop  is  cutoff  or 
injured  by  frost  something  below  oO°.  What  other 
crop  is  not  injured  at  shorter  intervals  ?  The  trees 
have  never  been  killed  but  ouce  (183.5.)  They  are 
not  injured  this  year,  except  the  young  ones  in  ex- 
posed localities.  So  this  cold  snap  need  not  deter 
those  who  are  wishing  to  make  an  orange  grove  in 
Florida.  There  are  places  on  Lake  George,  for 
instance,  and  other  very  \vide  openinirs  of  the  river 
where  nel'her  orange  buds,  nor  pineapples,  nor  early 
vegetables  have  tjcen  hurt. 

One  word  more.  When  an  orange  is  frozen  it  does 
not  rot  or  show  any  external  signs  of  decay,  or  does 
not,  for  a  long  time  drop  from  the  tree.  It  is,  there- 
fore, difficult  to  tell  a  bad  one  from  a  good  one.  It 
is  likely,  then,  that  perfectly  honest  p.ackers  will 
send  a  good  many  bad  oranges  to  the  North,  or 
rather  have  done  so.  But  money  is  so  scarce  that 
others  will  not  be  so  honest,  and  will  purchase  bad 
fruit  at  low  prices  and  ship  them,  and  they  will  get 
into  the  hands  of  street  venders,  and  all  this  will 
damage  the  reputation  of  the  Florida  orange,  which 
last  year  won  such  high  favor  as  to  command  about 
double  the  price  of  any  other  orange. 


Transplanting  Large  Trees. 

The  London  Oarden  gives  the  details  of  some  ex- 
periments in  the  removal  of  trees  of  the  Cedar  of 
Lebanon  upwards  of  twenty  feet  high,  which  had 
been  prepared  by  root  pruning  the  previous  year.  A 
timlier  wagon  was  backed  up  with  a  wheel  on  each 
side  of  thetree,the  pole  (tongue)  placed  upright, with 
a  bundle  of  straw  on  the  axle  to  prevent  barking  ; 
ropps  were  passed  under  the  ball  of  earth  and  se- 
cured it  to  the  axle,  and  the  stem  of  the  tree  was 
lashed  to  the  upright  pole,  a  rope  at  the  top  of  which 
pulled  the  tree  down  in  a  horizontal  position.  The 
tree  was  then  carried  to  its  destination.  A  heavy 
mulching  of  leaves  kept  the  ground  moist  during  the 
heat  of  the  summer,  and  it  succeeded  well.  A  better 
mode  for  removal  is  figured  and  and  described  on 
page  210  of  the  third  volume  of  Rural  Affairs.  The 
removal  of  trees  of  such  size  is  not  to  be  recom- 
rnended  in  this  country  of  hot  and  dry  summers;  but 
if  previously  prepared  by  transplanting  or  cutting 
the  roots,  the  tree  may  lie  made  to  succeed  if  not  too 
large.  Jn  the  cooler  and  more  moist  climate  of 
Britain,  the  operation  does  better,  but  even  there 
some  of  the  best  cultivators  have  learned  to  prefer 
smaller  size.  Sir  Henry  Stewart's  famous  park, 
made  at  ouce  by  the  removal  of  large  trees,  never 
became  luxuriant  and  satisfactory  in  growth.  Lou- 
don said  he  would  uuilcrtake  lo  give  larger  and  better 
trees  from  small  ones  in  five  years,  by  deep  trench- 
ing and  good  cultivation,  than  could  be  obtained  in 
the  same  time  by  transplanting  large  ones. 


Shipments  of  Apples. 

About  250,000  barrels  of  apples  raised  in  this  coun- 
try last  year,  were  shipped  to  Europe.  More  than 
half  went  to  England  ;  11,000  were  taken  to  St.  Pe- 
tersburg. The  trade  will  doubtless  increase  largely, 
if  shippers  are  careful  to  send  only  the  best  selected 
specimens,  which  will  at  the  same  time  afford  the 
best  profits.  Semling  goor  apples  there  will  be  the 
very  worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  the  business, 
and  be  as  bad  as  shipping  poison  to  taint  the  whole. 
Those  who  are  interested  in  the  success  of  the  trade 
should  devise  some  way  to  protect  themselves  from 
such  injury  and  imposition. 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL. 

To    THE    LiBEKAL    AND   PATRIOTIC    CITIZENS    OF 

THE  Unitki)  States  op  A.mehica  : — The  under- 
signed have  procured  a  charter,  granted  December 
22,  ISTO,  by  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  of  Lancas- 
ter county,  Pennsylvania,  authorizing  them  to 
organize  "  The  Robert  Fulton  Monumental  Park 
Associalion  of  Lancaster  County,"  having  for  its 
object  the  acquiring  of  a  piece  of  ground,  not  less 
than  ten  acres,  to  improve  and  emtjcllish  the  same, 
and  to  erect  thereon  a  coUosal  st.atuc  of  Robert 
Fulton,  not  only  to  perpetuate  the  world-wide  fame 
of  a  distin2uished  American  citizen  in  the  county 
that  gave  him  birth,  but  also  as  a  Centennial  me- 
mento of  one  of  the  world's  most  ingenious  and 
beneficent  inventors. 

They  therefore  appeal  to  the  patriotic  spirit  of  the 
country  for  the  pecuniary  means  to  carry  a  laudable 
and  most  praiseworthy  enterprise  into  efl'ect,  by 
gifts,  bequests,  subscriptions  and  purchases,  in  be- 
half of  said  Association. 

Robert  Fulton,  from  the  best  records  extant,  is 
said  to  have  been  born  in  that  part  of  Little  Britain 
now  called  Fulton  Township,  Lancaster  county, 
Pennsylvania,  in  the  year  A.  D.  17B.5,  where  the 
house  in  which  he  was  born  is  still  pointed  out  with 


local  pride  to  the  historical  wayfarer  ;  but  his  genius 
and  his  fame  are  not  limited  to  a  district,  a  county, 
a  state  or  a  nation,  for  it  belongs  to  universal  civili- 
zation. Although  honor  is  due  to  other  inventors 
and  experimenters,  yet  wherever  inland  lake,  or 
ocean  navigation  is  effected  by  means  of  steam,  the 
name  and  genius  of  Fulton  is  unequivocally  reeog- 
nized.  No  event  that  has  occurred  in  the  last  half 
of  our  first  century  as  a  nation  has  given  a  greater 
impulse  to  progress  throughout  the  civilized  world, 
than  the  application  of  steam  as  a  propelling  power, 
and  most  especially  in  its  relation  to  river  and  ocean 
navigation;  and,  therefore,  the  successful  adoption 
of  it  is  entitled  to  rank  the  inventor  among  the 
world's  most  useful  and  greatest  benefactors. 

Ofticers  :  President,  Francis  Shroder  ;  Vice  Presi- 
dent, ThOm.as  Baumgardner  ;  Secretary,  Charles  M. 
Howell;  Treasurer,  A.  C.Kepler;  Solicitor,  C.  M. 
Hostetter,  esq. 

All  communications  should  be  directed  to  C.  M. 
Hostetter,  Lanea.ster,  Pa. 

The  Poultry  Yard  and[  Market. — A  practical 
Treatise  on  Galiinoculture,  and  description  of  a  new 
process  for  hatching  eggs  and  raising  poultry,  by 
means  of  horse  manure,  by  Prof.  A.  Corbett,  inven- 
tor, ls77.  Published  by  the  Orange  Judd  Company, 
No.  245  Broadway,  New  York.     Price  .50  cents. 

This  is  a  handsome  letter  12  mo.  volume  of  100 
pp.,  including  paper  covers,  mechanically  executed 
and  on  good  paper,  and  embellished  by  a  fine  por- 
trait of  tlie  author,  and  illustrations  representing 
the  inculcating  apparatus.  Neither  the  author,  his 
inventions,  nor  his  book  are  new  things  to  us,  and 
the  significant  fact  that  several  gold  medals  and  di- 
plomas have  been  awarded  to  him,  is  an  evidence  of 
the  merits  of  his  invention,  the  perfection  it  has  at- 
tained, and  also,  that  he  has  overcome  the  ditHcuIties 
which  he  encountered  in  the  early  part  of  his  exper- 
imental career. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  magnitude  of  the  poultry 
trade  of  France,  a  country  that  is  content  to  draw 
large  incomes  from  small  things,  we  quote  the  fol- 
lowing paragraph  on  page  23  of  the  work  before  us. 

"  Poultry  has  always  been  a  source  of  revenue  to 
the  French  people, as  the  following  figures  will  prove; 
In  France  there  are  40,000,000  hens  valued  at  -520,- 
000,000.  One-fifth  are  marketed  yearly  for  the 
table,  bringing  about  $4,000,000;  the  annual  produc- 
tions of  chickens  ."-O.OOO.OOO,  worth  in  the  city  mar- 
kets §24,000,000,  and  §2,000,000  are  added  for  the 
extra  value  of  capons  and  fatted  hens.  The  pro- 
duction of  eggs  is  estimated  at  40,000,000,  making 
the  total  value  of  eggs,  capons,  chickens  and  hens 
annually  sold  about  .?SO,000,000,  or  $2.22  to  every 
man,  wcminn  and  child  in  France.  The  eggs  im- 
ported from  France  to  England  in  1874  represented  a 
value  of  SI, 200,000  and  from  Belgium  $oOO,000." 
[See  p.  50,  vol.  7,  Lancaster  Farmer,  April,  1875,] 
Prof.  A.  Corbett,  Ofliee,  No.  7  Warren  street.  Post- 
OIHce  Box  .5470,  New  York. 

Twenty-seventh  Annual  Wholesale  Catalogue  of 
Nursery  Stock,  for  Spring  of  1877,  for  sale  by 
Tiios.  Jackson,  Portland,  Maine,  (formerly  of 
Vesey  street.  New  York.)  This  is  a  demi-octavo 
pamphlet  of  a  dozen  pages  devoted  exclusively  to 
trees,  vines  and  .shrubbery,  including  Fruit  Trees, 
Fruit  Tree  Stocks,  Small  Fruits,  Grape  Vines,  Forest 
Trees,  Nursery-grown  Evergreens,  Deciduous  Trees, 
Weeping  Trees,  Hedge  Plants,  Shrubs,  Climbing 
Shrubs  and  Roses.  Also,  illustrations  and  price 
lists  of  "  Beecroft's  Wheel  Hoe,"  and  bis  "  Hand 
Weeder."  Of  course,  we  could  not  attempt  to  give 
the  contents  of  this  catalogue  in  detail,  nor" the 
prices  of  the  separate  articles,  and  therefore  we  would 
recommend  our  readers  to  send  a  postal  card  to  the 
above  address  and  obtain  one  for  themselves,  for 
they  will  find  the  varieties  extensive,  the  prices 
moderate,  and  the  terms  accommodating. 

The  Evening  at  Home  :  A  Royal  8  vo.  monthly 
devoted  to  social  life,  morals,  and  instruction  ;  pub- 
lished by  11.  A.  .MuMAW,  Orrville,  Ohio.  Terms, 
$1.00  a  year.  The  March  number  of  this  publica- 
tion is  on  our  table,  and  in  moral  and  material  it  is 
not  inferior  to  the  best  extant,  and  seems  to  fulfill  its 
mission  as  fully  and  as  clearly  as  those  of  a  high 
pretension.  There  is  much  in  it  to  induce  young 
people  to  remain  at  home,  unless  they  are  of  that 
class  who  cannot  be  entertained,  except  by  those 
things  in  accord  with  the  morbid  and  sensational, 
which  are  deplorably  on  the  increase  in  this  genera- 
tion. 

The  Young  Folks  Monthly  :  Good  sound  food 
for  tlie  mind  is  just  as  essential  to  its  moral  health 
and  vigor  as  healthy  for  the  stomach  and  pure  air 
for  the  lungs  arc  to  the  health  and  vigorof  the  body. 
In  view  of  this  fact  it  is  the  duty  of  every  parent  to 
be  careful  what  kind  of  mind  food  his  or  her  childreu 
are  feeding  upoli,  for  impressions  made  in  youth  are 
lasting  and  can  never  be  entirely  elfaced.  As  the 
twig  is  ijcnt  so  the  tree  stands.  If  the  mind  is  allow- 
ed to  feed  upon  the  vile  "yellow  back"  novels  and 
sensational  publications  which  are  having  such  a 
wide-spread  circulation  among  our  youth  to-day, 
just  so  surely  will  the  mind  of  the  man  follow  the 
bent  of  the  impressions  acquired  therefrom.  There 
is  plenty  of  good  healthy  reading  to  be  had.  We 
have  on  our  table  now  a  young  folks'  publication 
called  the  Young  t'olks'  Monthly,  published  by   Mil- 


ton George,  Chicago,  111.,  which,  while  it  is  highly 
interesting  and  instructive,  and  is  read  alike  by  old 
and  young,  yet  is  of  a  high  moral  tone,  always  avoid- 
ing the  sensational  and  low.  Send  ten  cents  for  one 
month's  trial  and  see  for  yourselves.  The  terms  are 
only  81.00  per  year,  5  copies  for  §4.00.  Address  the 
Young  Folkx'  Monthly,  Chicago,  III.  The  Farmer 
and  YoHufi  Folks,  in  the  county,  §1.75  a  year,  out  of 
the  county,  S2.00. 

Jersey  Cattle. — We  learn  that  Colin  Cameron, 
agent  for  G.  Dawson  Coleman,  has  purchased  the 
prize  winning  Jersey  bull  "Commodore  Roxbury," 
Herd  Register  1.586.  It  is  intended  to  use  this  ani- 
mal in  the  herd  of  Registered  Jerseys  now  owned 
by  Mr.  Coleman,  which  is  a  large  herd,  of  both  im- 
ported and  native  bred,  and  comprises  some  of  the 
best  specimens  of  Jersey  cows  in  the  United  States. 
Commodore  Roxbury  was  owned  by  Mr.  C.  B.  Moore 
of  "Glen  Dale"  stock-farm,  and,  in  1874,  won 
eleven  First  Prizes,  in  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Maryland 
and  Virginia.  From  this  cross  great  results  are  an- 
ticipated. The  imported  horse,  favorably  known  as 
Jenifer's  Arabian,  has  also  been  recently  purchased 
by  Colin  Cameron,  and  is  now  kept  at  Marietta  in 
this  county.  We  have  seen  Jenifer,  and  regard  him 
as  a  specimen  of  almost  matchless  beauty,  and,  we 
doubt  not,  his  mettle  will  correspond  with  his  ap- 
pearance. We  expect  to  publish  illustrations  and 
pedigi'CPB  of  the  above  two  animals,  in  future  num- 
bers of  The  Farmer. 

"He  Holds  the  Fort cf  Heaven."  We  thatik- 
fully  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  a  complimentary 
copy  of  this  piece  of  sheet  music,  published  by  F.  W. 
Helmick,  No.  50  West  Fourth  street,  Cincinnati,  O. 
It  is  embellished  with  a  beautiful  lithographic  title 
page,  and  i.s  intended  as  a  tribute  to  the  memory  of 
the  late  Prof.  P.  P.  Bliss,  one  of  the  victims  of  the 
Ashtabula  disaster.  The  bust  of  Mr.  Bliss  is  the 
central  and  most  prominent  figure  (apparently  in 
the  early  prime  of  life) ,  and  two  angels  are  hovering 
above  him  bearing  a  crown,  which  they  are  about 
placing  upon  his  head  ;  with  a  number  of  cherubs, 
bearing  floral  wreaths, floating  in  thedivcrgingrays 
above.  The  words  are  by  Mrs.  D.  M.  Jordan,  and 
the  music  by  Charlie  Baker.  Both  the  words  and 
the  music  are  very  touching,  and  an  appropriate 
tribute  to  a  most  worthy  subject ;  and  it  is  sad  to 
reflect  that  so  much  excellence  should  have  been 
sacrificed  to 

"  Man's  inhumanity  to  man." 

Thanks  :  In  addition  to  the  names  of  the  active 
canvassers  of  the  Farmer,  mentioned  on  the  first  page 
of  our  February  number,  we  take  pleasure  in  men- 
tioningour  worthy  friend  LeviPownall,  of  Christiana. 
Mr.  Pownall  not  only  reaps  his  wheat,  but  he  also 
rakes  and  binds,  and  "brings  his  sheaves  with  him," 
lelieving  us  of  all  anxieties  in  relation  to  contiiigent 
delinquencies.  There  are  many  districts  yet  in  Lan- 
caster county  in  which  we  desire  responsible  cau- 
vassers,  on  the  terms  published  in  our  prospectus. 

We  are  poor  yet,  but  that  much  we  will  engage  to 
do  at  least,  and  hope  that  we  may  be  sufliciently 
sustained  before  the  incoming  of  1878  to  offer  desira- 
ble premiums  for  that  year,  since  it  seems  to  be  "the 
fashion." 

Don't  all  speak  at  once  ;  but  still,  we  would  like 
to  know  who  will  be  the  "next  customer." 

The  Southern  Husbandman — An  Orga:n  of 
THE  Tennessee  Grangers  to  be  published  in 
Nashville  :  We  h,ave  before  us  the  initial  number 
of  the  So'Uficni  Iluabandinan,  published  in  Nashville, 
Tennessee,  by  authority  of  the  Executive  Committee 
of  the  State  Grange,  as  the  organ  of  the  Patrons  of 
Husbandry  in  Tennessee.  It  will  appear  monthly, 
and  oftener,  should  the  subscription  and  advertising- 
patronage  justify  it.  Each  Grange,  through  its 
lecturer,  will  receive  one  copy  gratuitously,  and  the 
paper  will  contain  the  reports  of  the  Executive  Com- 
mittee of  State  Grange  officers  and  of  the  National 
Grange,  "Suggestions  for  the  good  of  the  Order," 
and  all  other  official  matters  of  interest  to  the  Pa- 
trons.   75  cents  a  year,  in  advance. 

George  Francis  Train's  Paper  is  an  eight- 
paged  lloyal-Quarto,  the  use  of  which  is  exceedingly 
doubtful,  although  it  may  fill  a  vacum  in  the  social 
circle  of  those  who  delight  in  the  atmosphere  of  ex- 
tremes. We  do  not  think  it  will  be  a  very  efficient 
help  to  any  cause  it  may  advocate,  because  of  its 
ultra,  or  overwrought  political  seutiments. 

The  Real  Estate  Bkokek,  an  eight  page  month- 
ly, S.  H.  Peirsol,  editor,  Parkersburg,  West  Virginia, 
at  50  cents  a  year,  circulation  2,500. 

"By  the  way.  West  Virginia  received  the  award 
against  the  world,  at  the  Centennial,  for  the  finest, 
heaviest,  and  best  quality  of  wheat." 

The  North  American  Ayrshire  Register, 
wherein  every  animal  is  traced  to  importation;  Vol. 
H.,  1S77,  by  E.  Lewis  and  Jas.  N.  Sturtevant,  South 
Farmington,  Mass.    Historical  and  critical. 

The  Wonders  op  Blue  Glass,  as  Seen  Through 
a  Glass  Bluely,"  a  burlesque,  by  Sam  C.  Upham, 
Philadelphia,  No.  25  S.  Eighth  street,  1877.  Price 
10  cents.     15  illustrations. 

The  Naturalist's  Agency,  publishers  .and  im  ■ 
porters  of  standard  scientific  books,  S.  E.  Cassins, 
Salera,  Mass. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


HI. 


E.  F-  Kunkel's  Bitter  Win©  of  Iron. 

E.  F  Kunkel's  celebrated  Hitter  wiue  of  Iron  will  effectu- 
lUy  cure  liver  comv  laint,  jaudice,  dy'«pei>Ri:i.  r^ironic  or  iier- 
vouB  debility,  cbronic  diaratioea,  diueimc  of  the  kiduoya  aud 
ftU  dlBi*;iBeB  urmiTig  from  a  disordered  livrr,  utomuch  or  iii- 
tostincH.  Hiicb  !in  cunatijintion,  flatulenct*.  inwiird  piles,  full- 
ness of  b:ood  t<)  the  he.  d,  nridity  of  ih:*  alo'nach,  nauee:i 
beartburti,  diHguBt  for  fuod,  fnltueMH  or  weiKht  In  the 
Btomaoh,  eiuctutioiif,  Bitiking  or  flutteriu^lat  the  pit  of  the 
Btoniach.  HWiminiiiK  of  the  he;id.  hurried  or  ilitVicult  breath- 
ing, flurtoiiiiK  at  the  heart,  ehukinp  or  HufTticnting  aoiiKa- 
tiou  when  in  a  lying  posture,  diuiuess  of  vision,  dots  or 
webs  h.'fojo  the  Bit;ht,  dull  imiu  in  the  heud,  detioiency  i>f 
perspirHtion,  yriluwiiehH  of  the  Hkiu  and  cyi-H,  pain  in  the 
side,  back,  he;id.  chest,  linibfl,  etc,  »Hddi-u  flutthea  of  boat, 
burning  in  the  flOHh,  ctuiHtHnl  iniaginingH  of  evil  aud  great 
depression  of  spirits.  Price  $1  j  er  bottle.  B^-wareof  couu- 
terfeitH.  Do  not  let  your  druggist  palm  off  some  other  pre- 
paration ol  iron;  he  nuiy  nay  it  is  us  good,  but  iisk  for  Kiin- 
kol's  Biit»-r  Wine  of  Iron.  Take  no  other.  Kunkel's  Bitier 
Wine  of  Iron  is  not  sold  in  bulk— only  iu  $1  bottles.  K  F. 
Kuukel,  Proprietor,  No.  259  North  Nii.th  .Street,  Philadel- 
phia, Va.     Sold  by  all  druggists  imd  doalei's  everywhere. 

Tape  Worm   Reinoved  Alive. 

Head  and  all  complete,  in  two  hours.  No  fee  till  bend  pasB- 
es.  Sent,  Piu  atid  Stomach  Worms  removed  l)y  Dr.  Kunkel, 
y59  North  Ninth  Street,  Philadelphia,  Pa,  Siti<  for  circu- 
lar. For  removing  Seat,  Pin  or  Htumach  Worms  call  on 
your  druggist  and  usk  for  u  bottle  of  Kunkel's  Worm  Syrup, 
price  fl.  It  never  fails.  Common  aenao  teichrs  if  Tape 
Worm  be  removed,  all  other  wormB  can  be  rfadilv  destroyed. 


Totlio  WorkliiKT  i'lnxH. — We  are  now  pn-pared  to 
furnisu  all  cIhshos  with  couatant  empljymeut  at  home,  the 
whole  of  the  time,  or  for  their  spare  moments.  BuaineHB 
new,  light  iind  piofltable.  Persons  of  either  sex  ciisjly  earn 
from  60  cents  to  $5  per  evening,  and  a  proportional  sum  by 
devotiug  their  whole  time  to  the  business.  Boys  aud  girls 
earu  nearly  as  much  as  men.  That  all  who  see  ttiis  noijce 
may  send  their  adkress,  and  teat  the  business  we  make  this 
unparalleled  offer :  To  such  its  are  not  well  aatiHfi.'d  we  will 
send  oue  dollar  to  pay  for  the  trouble  of  writing.  Full  i>ar- 
ticulars.  samples  worth  several  dollars  to  commence  work 
on,  and  a  copy  of  Home  aud  Fireside,  oueof  the  hTgest  and 
best  Illustrated  Publications,  all  seut  free  by  mail.  Reader, 
if  you  want  permanent,  iirotilable  work,  address, 

»-3— tm  Georgk  Stinson  &  .Co.,  PortUnd,  Maine 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 


DBALBB  IN 


AMERICAN  AND   FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

Repairing  strictly  attendedHo. 

ZiFklini'S  COTlNlElTt., 

North  Queen-st.  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 


Linen  and  Paper  Collars  and  CufiBi 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

E.  J.  EEiWaN'S, 

No.  llO   North    Queen    Street, 

Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 


Genuine  Peruvian  Guano. 


N?l. 
PERUVIAN 

GUANO. 

.WARRANTED! 


As  received   direct  from  Pcruvlin  Got- 
ernmeiit  ARcute. 

RuHsEi.  h  Cos.  AMMONIATKD  8U- 
PEKl'HOSPHATE  OF  LIMK,  the  bent  in 
the  murket.  GROUND  BONE— the  pur- 
est and  best.  FARM  IMRLKMENT8— 
the  lateet  improved. 
The  above  sold  at  very  low  prices,  to 
meet  the  demands  of  Hard  Times. 
Send  for  2M  Annual  Pamphlet. 

H.  B   QRIFFINO, 
60  Cortlandt  8'..,  New  York  City. 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 

CASSIMERES, 

C'OATINUH,  .WORNTERDS, 

YESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Chiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  etriiiotl  auil  difiRonal^for  HijrijiR  mid  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  ClotbiiiK  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(EstabliNhed  in  the  year  1840), 

Corner  of  North  Qiiecn  and  OrauKe-Sts., 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

Extra  fluiflhed  and  trimmed,  Ueady-made  Clothing,  for 

MEN  AND  BOTS, 

and  clothing  cat  or  made  to  order  in  the  raoat  aatisfactory 
macuer. 

A    fiue    line    of     GENTS'   FUUNISHINa    GOODS,    and 
goods  sold  by  the  yitrd  or  i<iece, 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
»-l-lr  Pr»c»ic»l  Tailora. 

M.  HABERBUSH, 

MANOFACTUKER  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

NADDI.RN. 

COLLARS,   "WHIPS,  <fec., 

ALSO    DKALER    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  ROBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Qlovee,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

»-l-ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


LU 


00 


o 

GO 


CO 

M 

M        O 

WW 


Q 

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bO 

-  r— I 

a 


CD 
CZ2 


C/3 

M   o 


IMPROVE  YOUR    POULTRY, 

Dark  Brahma,  Brown  Leghorn,  Plymouth. Rock,  S.  S. 
Hamburg  and  Uoudan 

EGOS  FOR  .SALE. 

My  fowls  are  of  the  best  and  egKS  warranted  fresh. 

Address  HAYON  H.  TSHUUY, 

9-4-2T1  Litit/..  I'K. 

FOR  DINTKIC'T  ATTOR.>'EY. 

th:oma.s  j.  d^vis, 

6tk  WASH,  LAHCASTES  CIT7, 
Subject  to  Kepubllcan  Rulea. 


H.  Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  G.  RHOADS. 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO, 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Wbolesila  and  Retail  Dealer*  In 

DIAMONDS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 

SILVEEWARE,  SFECTACLES, 

Bronzes.  Clocb  and  Watckakers'  Materials, 


JOBBKI\S  IN  AmEIIICAN  WaTCH^ES. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injportations  ii]  Foreign  Goods. 


9-1 -ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


7  varieties  of  either  Klowor  or  Vegotable  NKkOA  for  W 
cente,  poHt  paid.     "  Floral  Tribute  "  15  ceritn. 

E.  E.  JORDAN. 
9-3-2m  29  Savaunahnt.,  Itocbtmer,  N.  T. 

1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 


GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDING  HARDWARE. 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TERRA  com,  IRON  aiS  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
8E£D§, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Agenta  for  the 

'■  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mo'wer, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
Fairbank'a  Scales, 
Duponf  8  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &o.,  <tec. 


We  bare  the  largest  stock  of  general  Hardware  In  the 
State,  and  our  prices  are  as  low  aud  terms  an  llt>eral  as  can 
bo  found  elstwbere.  9-l-tf. 


FOR  UINTRK'T  ATT4»I(.>' KY. 

B.  W.  ESHLEM^N, 

Hnbjert  to  Republican  Rale*. 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER. 


[  March,  1877. 


LADIES  ! 

WB  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 

GUN  BAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

NTORE, 

A  SEW  LOT  OP 

HAMBURG  EMBROIEEREDEBGINGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS. 

AT  THE  VEBT  LOWEST  PRICES.    A!«o, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corseta,  Kid  Gloves, 

:Ea:osi:Ej:E=L''^, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Keckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CEAPE  BOXNETS  &  HATS, 

B0CHIKG8, 
an  Biylea  and  wldtbi,  and  everTthmg  elie  in 

LADIES'    AND     CHILDREN'S     WEAR, 
that  is  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 
0lTe  na  a  call  at 

Ko8. 142  &  144  North Qapen-gt,LancaBter.,  Pa. 

»-l-1y 

DON'T  FAIL  TO 

USE  THE 

Buffalo  Honest  Fertilizers 

ON  ALL  SPEING  CBOPS. 
Ammoiiiated  Bone  Snper  Phosphate,' 

PURE  GROUND  BONES. 

The  purity  of  these  goods  ib  guaranteed,  and  their  stand- 
ard proved  by  regular  aniilyttie  uf  Prof,  G.  A.  Liebig  of 
Baltimore,  aud  other  eminent  chemiBts. 

Hi;;lieHt  Premium  and  Medal  of  Honor 
awarded  by  llae  t'euteuuial  t'omntisslou  of 
the  Internnlioual  J-'xpoNJlion.  Phila.,  1S76. 

Send  for  new  Spring   Circular,  containing  full  directions 
snd  leBtimouialB. 
9-2-3t.]  Office  252  Washington  St.,  Buffalo,  N.  Y. 


FROM  ONE  TO  SIX-HORSE 


FARM  &  FREIGHT  WAGONS. 

The  befit  proportioned,  bept  ironed,  lightest  running  and 
beapeBt  Wagons  in  the  market. 

W.  D.  SPRECHCn  <1-  SOV, 

9-3-2m  31  Eaet  King-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa, 

flJCC  +«  ^^17  "  ^^'^ek  to  Agfuts.    $10  Outfit  Fret. 
VUU    LU  vt>  /  /               P.  O.  VICKERY,  Augusta,  Maine, 
8-S-ly ' 

AMOSMILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANUFACTURKU  OF  AND  DEALER  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars 

Bridles,  Whips,  tc.      Also  a  fine  lot  of  Trunks,  Valises, 
Carpet  Bags,  ButTalo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trvinks  neatly  repaired. 

S-l-ly 


SE 


EDS 


For  the  FI.OWEK  »nd  TE«F.TARI.E  GARMEK  and  ttae  FARM. 

Our  1877  Combined  priced  Catalogue  of  Seeds,  Plants  and  Blooded  Live  Stock  and  Fancy 

Poultry  Free  to  all. 


The  Philadelphia  Practical  Farmer  of  Dtc.  30,  notices  our  Catalogue  as  follows  :  "We  have  received  an  illustrated  man- 
ual and  descriptive  catalogue  of  imported  aud  thoroughbred  live  stock,  Alderney,  Ayrshire  and  Short  horned  ('attle,  Chea- 
ter White,  Yorkshire,  Berkshire,  Essex  and  Poland  ihiim  Uogs.  Cotswold  and  Southdown  Sheep,  land  and  water  Fowls, 
fancy  Pigeons  an-l  Dogfi,  owiied,  bred  and  for  sale  by  Eensoii  &  Burpee,  of  Philadelphia. 

This  is  emphatically  the  best  and  most  complete  live  etocK  Catalogue  we  have  received.  It  contains  not  only  illustrationa 
and  price  lists  of  stock,  but  gives  in  addition  a  large  amount  of  valuable  practical  information  on  the  breeding  and  mau- 
ngement  of  diflerent  varieties  and  is  very  useful  as  a  reference  book.  Mesgrs,  Benson  <k  Burj^ee  have  now  on  hand  a  very 
fine  lot  of  breeding  stock,  and  we  feel  confident  that  customers  will  be  well  pleased  with  purchasee  made  from  them. 

Price  20  cents. 


JUST  OUT  !    THE  POTILTRY  YARD.     How  to  Fubnibh  and  Manage  It.    By  W,  Atlee  Burpee.      A  new  and  prac- 
tical treatise,  at  a  popular  price,  for  every  farmer  and  amateur  in   poultry  breeding.     It  treats  of   Poultry  Houses  an  d 
fiituren  nests,  yards,  &c.,  poultry  at  liberty  and  in  confinement,  the  best  breeds  for  various  purposes,  selection  of  stock, 
mating  for  breeding,  feeding  of  adult  fowls  aud  young  chicks,  condiments  and  general  care  and  attention^requisite  to  suc- 
cesB  in  this  often  neglected  branch  of  rural  industry. 
It  also  contains  practical  hints  on  the  raisingand  management  of  Turkeys,  Geese,  Ducks  and  Guineas. 

Beautiful  Colored  Frontispiece  of  a  trio  of  Fo^wls.    Price  50  cts.,  post  free. 


EGGS  FOR  HATCHING  of  all  choice  varieties.    LAND  AND  WATER  FOWLS.    Also  very  flue  Chester  White, 
Yorkshire,  Berkshire,  Essex  and  Poland  China  Pigs;  Cotswold  and  Southdown  Sheep,  Alderney  and  Ayrshire  Oattle 
and  calves  now  for  sale. 

ADDBE..  BENSON  &  BURPEE, 

Seed  Warehouse,  223  Church  St.,  Philadelphia,  Fa. 


Prize    Medal   Awarded    by   tbe  CenlcimiaJ 
Comiiiission  to 

IMPROVED  BUTTER  TDBS  AND  COOLERS. 

With  movable  Ice  Cham- 
bers, Patented  Jan.  12, 
1875,  Best  in  the  market. 
Are  made  of  white  cedar, 
bound  with  jjiilvanized 
iron  or  braee  hoops. 
Within  the  tub  is  fitted  a 
tin  Cooler,  having  a 
movable  Chamber  for 
ice  at  each  end.  On  the 
tiu  is  constructed  a  se- 
ries of  ledges,  on  which 
rest  the  shelves  for  sup- 
porting the  butter  (Print 
Butier);  are  used  without  shelves  for  Roll  Butter.  Can  be 
locked  lor  shipping.  Hinges,  Hasps,  and  Fixtures,  are  tinned 
to  render  theii  rust  proof.  J.  G.  H  OKUJMCK, 

9-3-3ra  Msnufacturer,  No.  603  N,  Second-st.,  Phila. 


PIMFZ.SS. 


I  will  mail  (Free)  the  receipt  for  preparing  a  simple  Veg- 
etable Balm  that  will  remove  Tah,  Fbeceleb,  PIMi  LES 
and  BLOTCHES,  leaving  the  skin  soft,  clear  and  beautiful; 
also  instructions  for  producing  a  luxuriant  growth  of  hair 
on  a  bald  head  or  smooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vandelf  k 
Co.,  Box  5121,  No.  6  Wooster  St.,  N.  Y.  .[9-l-6m 


MAMMOTH  CORN. 

Bvery  farmer  send  for  package  of  Mammoth  Corn,  which 
in  ordinary  ground  will  yield  125  bushel  per  acre,  besides 
ripens  much  sooner.  It  is  perfect  flour  com,  grows  thre» 
ears  on  each  stalk.  Club  together  and  send  for  one  dozen 
packages.     It  is  put  up  in  packages  at  the  following  price  : 

One  package 35  cts. 

Two  *'  50 

Six  *•  1.40 

One  dozen  packag-cs 2.30 

Two       •*  "  3.70 

Send  at  once  to 

CASEY'S  SEED  CO., 

9-3-3m  Harrifl'^TiAnllw,  Meigs  co.,  Ohio, 

EZRA  F.  BOWMAN, 

Practical  Watchmaker, 

(formerly  with  H.  Z.  Rhoads   &  Bro,)  has  opened  at    106 
E(%Mt  Kins'  Ntreel,  a  new  aud  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS, 

Amejican  Watches  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep- 
utation. Imjiorted  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and 
Silver  Cases,  in  weights  to  suit  jjurchasers.  American  and 
imported  Clocks  in  over  fifty  differeiit  styles,  which  are  of- 
fered at  reasonable  prices,  and  warranted  according  to  their 
quality.  Watches  and  Clocks  carefully  repaired  and  war- 
ranted. A  cordial  invitation  to  examine  stock  extended  to 
aU,  9^-6m 

ESTABLISHED  1832. 


a.    SENEK    <fe   SONS, 

Mauufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 

The  beet  Sawed  SHIl*'GI>EKiu  the  country.     Also  Sash, 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  I'OAI^  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnat-8t8., 

9-1-ly 


$1  a  Year 


(To  8nb«crn>pr8  io 
■(       the  couuty. 


SZ1T6LE  COFZES  10  CEITTS. 


To  tTibBcribrrF  ont  of  > 
the  county.  ( 


$1.2B. 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTEPx,  MAY  15,  1877. 


LINNa:t7S  EATEVON,  PuMiaher. 


CONTENTS  OrmiS  NUMBER. 

To  AilTcrtiscrs,     .----..  65 

The  European  War,           ...        -        .  65 

A  Reminder, 65 

What  the  Birds  Accomplish,    -        -        -        -  65 

Monthly  Reminder — May,    -        -        -        -        -  65 

Tobacco  Stems,           ...-.-  65 
Manuring  Lands,  -------66 

American  Pomoloijical  Society,        -        -        -  66 

Six  Montlis  for  an  Owl,               -         -         .         -  60 

State  Board  of  Agriculture,          -        •        -        -  66 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

A  Voice  From  the  South,           -        -        -        -  66 

Lime  and  Oyster  Shell  Bark  Louse,     -        -        -  66 

Oyster  Shell  Bark  Louse,          -        -        -        -  67 

The  Sener  Apple, 67 

Shitepoke  (liutoriiks  viresccits),       -        -        -  68 

The  Lancaster  Farmer,           -        -        -        -  68 

The  Exchange  List,           -----  68 

Lancaster  County  Peaches — Sener's  Favorite,     -  6H 

The  IVrmancnl  Exhibition,       -         -         -         -  69 

Seed  Wheat— 7Wfr  S.  Heist,         -        -        -        -  69 

How  Shall  we  Know  how  to  Plant    Fruit   Trees 

—Jo/m  B.  f.'rh,        -----  69 

Book  Keeping  by  Farmers — ,4.  B.  K.,         -         -  70 

Docs  the  Water  Strike  Through— -I.        -        -  70 

Southwest  ilissouri — SUhtaj  A.  Gaylvr.      -        -  70 

Incidental  Suggestion — J.         -        -        -        -  71 

Millions  for  Middlemen — Pennies  for  Producers  -  71 

Landscape  Gardening  lor  Farmers,           -        -  7- 

OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society,       -        -  73 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,           -         -         -  74 

Crop    Reports — Essay    hj     Mr.     Landis — Tobacco 

Hou8f8 — Refarre(i  vieBtious, 

Bee  Keepers'  Association,    -        -        -        -        -  75 

The  Linmeau  Society,        -----  75 

THE  TOBACCO  TRADE. 

How  Lancaster  County  Forced  to  the  Front,       -  76 

The  New  York  Tobacco  Trade,          -        -        -  76 

Exports  of  Tobacco  from  New  York,  -        -        -  76 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Pennsylvania  Wheat  Crop,         -         -         .         .  70 

Is  Wheat  Culture  Decliningf         -         -         -         -  70 

Culture  of  Broom  Corn,     -----  77 

A  Farm  that  Ruined  the   Owner   and   made   his 

Fortune  Afterwards,  -        -        -        -        -  77 

Measuring  .Corn  iu  Bulk,           -        -        -        -  77 

Haying,         -.------77 

Farm  Profits  in  America,           -        -        -        -  77 

The  time  to  Spread  Manure,         -        -        -        -  77 

Manure  on  Frozen  Ground,       -        -        -        -  77 

Profit  in  a  Good  Soil, 77 

Wheat  and  Chess,     ------  77 

Oats  and  Peas,      -------77 

Clean  out  the  Weeds,        -----  77 

Liquid  Manure,     -------77 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Raising  Onion  Sets,           -----  77 

Cherries,        --------77 

Small  Fruits  in  Gardens,  -----  77 

Look  at  Your  Orchards,        -----  77 

Japanese  Persimmon,        -----  77 

The  Peach  Crop, -  78 

Potatoes,    --------78 

Peas  in  Missouri,           ------  78 

Profits  in  Almonds,            -----  Jj 

Twenty  Ounce  Apples, 7S 

Large  Strawberries,           -----  78 

Fruit  Prospects,    -------78 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Preserving  Fggs, -  7S 

Lemonade  for  an  Invalid,      -----  78 


Beef  Extract,    -------  78 

Barn  Wash, 78 

Painting  Buildings,            -----  78 

Cleaning  Silk,        -------78 

Household  Recipes,        -----  78 

LIVE  STOCK. 

Ayrshire  Cows,     -------  79 

Does  Buckwheat  Poison  Sheep,        -         ■        -  79 

Care  of  Dairy  Cows,      ------  79 

Mild  Diet  for  Cattle,          -----  79 

Water  Your  Cattle,       ------  79 

Safety  for  Rats  and  Mice,          .        -        -        -  79 

Advice  to  Drivers,         .-..-.  79 

Pay  Attention  to  Live  Stock,     -        -                 -  79 

Durham  Cows,      -------  79 

THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

Look  to  the  Chicks  in  May,      -        -        -        -  79 

To  Keep  a  Fowl  House,        -        -                 -        -  79 

Chickens  Fit  to  Eat,          -----  79 

Lice  on  Poultry,    -------  i-0 

Cure  for  Chicken  Cholera,        -        -        -        -  80 

The  .Moulting  Season,   ------  80 

Literary  and  Personal,      -----  80 

THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED   TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND   MISCELLANY. 

PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Hade  a  i»rommfiit   leuturc,  with   ejiecial  reU-rtnce   lo   the 
wauts  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit -Qrovrer. 

Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 

Edited  ty  Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON. 


TERMS: 

To  BubBcribers  residing  within  the  couuty — 
One  Copy,  one  year,   ------  $i.oo 

Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -  _  _  .  _        5,00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -------        7.50 

To  Bubscribera  outnide  of  Laucawter  county,  including 
postage  prc-r*!**!  by  the  publJBborB; 

One  Copy,  one  year,    -  .        -         .         .         -         $1.25 

Five  Copic-^,  one  year,       .        -        -  -  -        -  5.0c 

All  HUbecriptione  will  commence  wlh  the  January  num- 
ber unlePB  other'wiBe  ordered. 

All  coiuiiHUiicutionB  intended  for  publicatiuu  ehontd  be 
addrcBBCil  tu  the  Editor,  iiud,  to  secure  iuKt-rtion,  tthould  be 
in  hiB  hands  \>y  the  llrtit  of  the  month  of  publication. 

All  buHiness  letters,  containing  KubBcriptious  and  adver- 
tieementB,  should  be  addresMcd  to  the  publisher. 


LINNvEUS  RATHVON, 

a2  South  Queen  Street.  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATES  OF  ADTKKTISING — Ten    <'<-iil>.    m 
line  for  ench  Innertlon.     Twelve  buea  lo  tbv  ujota 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DRAI.hlt    IK 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY! TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

Repairing  Btrictly  attended^lo 

North  Queen-st.  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

9-1- ly  


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ELIZABETH  STOCK  FARMS. 

Registered  Pure-Bred  and  High  Grade 

Jersey  Bull,  Cows  and  Calves, 

t'onNt-iintly  on  llnii<l  niKt 
I  or  SbIo. 

BERKSHIRES  BRFD  WITH  CARE. 
COLIN  CAMERON, 

9~4-ly]  Brt<>k<>rTlll«>.  I>finrn«iie'r  ro.,  PH. 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


A    VALUABLE    PREEVilUM    GIFT 

TO  ETERT  PATRON  OF  THIS  PAPER! 


On  receipt  of  this  Coupon,  together  with  Fifty  Ceuts  to  pay  for  Ex- 
press or  Mailing  charges,  we  will  send  FREE,  an  elegant 


Cat  out  this  Coupon  and  send  to  the  Stnart  Importing  Co.  for  redemption. 

PREMIUM  COUPON.- 

RUSSIA  LEATHER  POCKET-BOOK, 

and  with  ANY  INITIAL  LETTER  DESIRED,  neatly  etampea  in  Gold.    (Retail  price, 
Tliia  Coupon  ia  good  only  ninett  bays  from  the  date  of  ihis  paper. 
(Signed)  STUART  IMPORTING  CO.,  509  Broadway,  New  York. 


WITH 
PATENT    LOCK, 


$1.50.) 


AMERICAN    JEWELRY    COMPANY'S 


AMETHYST  CASKET   S: 


FREE 


lENT 

to  nnr  ndflresK,  with  oMr  >Je\v  IIIasErated  Catalogue  'in  hoot  forna)t 
cotHHining  over  5U0  full  size  enj,'ravins.<  ol  the  lulp^t  «[ylfs  of  Jewelry 
and  Walchc's  (of  our  owu  manufacture ),  with  valuable  inlormatioa 
HOW      TO      BKCOMB      AGENTS. 


Our  Amethyst  Casket  oootaina  one  eleKantly  engraved  Lady's  Brooch,  Amethyst  settinfr;  one  pair 
elegantly  eugrnved  I.adv's  Ear  Drops,  amethvst  Kettings;  one  eleijant  .\niPthyst  Ring  inlaid  with  Pearls, 
one  elegant  pair  of  Amethvst  Sleeve  Buttons;  one  elesant  Amethyst  lient'a  Pin;  Three  (3)  elegant 
Amethyst  Studs;  one  elegant  engraved  Cross;  one  elegant  engraved  Collar  Button;  one  elegant  Band  King, 
engraved  "  Friendship;"  one  elegant  heavy  Wedding  Ring;  all  of  which  are  the  Hiiest  gold-plate,  ana  tua 
exact  size  of  the  engravings  in  this  announcement,  and  arranged  in  a  beautiful  white  pink-lined  casket. 

On  receipt  of  Seventy-Five  (T.'Sl  Cents,  to  pay  cost  of  postage  and  packing,  the  above  Amethysl 
Casket  and  Cataloane  will  be  SENT  FREE  by  mail,  postpaid.  Thia  auuounceoient  is  mads  In 
introduce  the  elegant  stvlea  of  Jewelry  manufactured  by  us.    Address. 

AMERICAN  JEWELRY  COMPANT.— CINCINNATI,  OHIO 

(I  TC't,   li  1  vc  <av  ftni  I  ■•   ~   '    Ji.  ..   ™^..-l  r.!».<Vi.-.      A  r^^r.thtrc*    Ciclrat  f\f   t}-ia      Ai>iOT-ii,<iii.Iu\tm1w('niiiii"iii\"      mill     li' 

Idem  to  tj«  iu  evtT> 


Uli**  goods  in  the  Amethyst  Casket  of  the  Anierit-an  -lewplrv  Cnnipany,  and  M: 
;ty  as  iviireseuttd.''— .SuuTiiKRN"  Agkicultukist.  LouisvilK-.  K-.  . 


RateN  «*f  Adverlisiitg:  in  the  Farmer. 


1  mo.... 

2  mo.... 

3  mo  .... 

4  mo.... 
f»  mo.... 

5  mo.... 
1  year , 


1  i... 

H  It). 

4  m. 

5  iu. 

J  4.011 

$  6.00 

•2  OU,     4.UII 

6.110 

S.OO 

12.00 

2.50;     4.50 

0.7.) 

10.00 

13.50 

3.00 

COO 

9.00 

12.00 

18.00 

4.50 

9.00 

1.S.60 

IS. 00 

27.00 

6.00 

1-2.00 

18.00 

24.00 

36.01 

9.00 

18.00 

•2T  fO 

36.00 

64.00 

{  8.00 
16.00 
18.00 
24.00 
36.00 
48.00 
T2  00 


J^"S>eciiil  a-  .1  hu  = 


GOOD  BOOKS 

1(11;  THK 

Farm,  Garden,  and  Household. 

The  foUowlLs  is  a  list  of  V:ilual..le  Books,  which  will  be 
supplied  by  the  Editor  of  the  'Lancvstek  Fakmeb,  N.j. 
101  North  Queeu  St.  Auy  one  or  more  uf  ibese  books  will 
be  sent  post  paid  to  auy  of  our  readers  ou  receipt  of  the 
regular  i>rice  which  ia  uiiuicd  i:gaiust  eich  book 

Allen's  (R.  L.  t  L.  F,]  New  American  Farm  Bool! .?2  50 

Allen's  (L.  F.)  .\mericnii  Cattle.* 2  .'>u 

Atwood's  Country  and  Subiiibuu  HiiuBes 1  M 

Bommer's  method  of  Milking  MnuuieB '25 

Breck'a  New  Book  of  t  lowers ITS 

Brill's  Favm-Qardeuing  and  Seed-Growing 1  ou 

Dadd's  Modern  Horse  Doctor,  ]3ino I  60 

Dadd's  Americmi  Cattle  Doctor,  I'i  mo 1  :>n 

Flax  Culture,  (Seven  Prize  Essays  by  practical  growers,)    30 

Fuller's  Grape  CuUurist 150 

Fuller's  Small  Fruit  Culturist 1  •'jO 

Fulton's  Peach  Culture 1  SO 

Gregory  on  Squashes pajier..      30 

Harris  ou  the  Pig  1  60 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Pleasure 1  50 

Henderson's  Gardening  tor  Profit 1  50 

Heuderson's  Practic.il  Floriculture 1  50 

Herbert's  Hiuts  10  Horse-Keni  ers ,  ITS 

Bop  Culture.    By  nine  experienced  cultivators 30 

Hunter  and  Trapper 1  "0 

Onions— How  to  Raise  them  Profitably 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acras.    Pa.,  30c.;  Clo.,  60c.,  Ex.  clo.  1  00 

Parsons  ou  the  Rose 1  •'>" 

Quinby's  Mysleiies  of  Bee-Keepiug 1  wi 

Quincy  (Hon.  Joslah)  on  Soiling  Cattle 1  25 

Quin  n's  Money  in  the  Garden 1  50 

Quiun's  Pear  Culture  for  Profit, 1  00 

Eilev's  Potato  I'ests Pauer  50  cts.;    oloth.,      75 

Boe's  Play  and  Profit  iu  my  Garden 1  50 

Stewart's  Irrigaton  for  the  Farm,  Garden  snd  Orchard  I  dO 

Stewart's  Stable  Book 1  50 

Stewart's  Shepherd's  Manual 1  5ii 

Stoddard's  Ann  Egg  Farm paper,  50  cts.;  cloth      75 

Thomas's  Farm  Implements  and   Machinery 1  ^0 

Tim  Bunker  Papers,  or,  Yankee  Farming 150 

Tobacco  Culture,  By  fourteeu  experienced  cultivators.      25 

Waring'a  Draining  for  Profit  and  Health 1  50 

"Wariug's  Elements  of  Agriculture 1  OO 

■White's  Cranberry  Culture 1  25 

■VN'right's  Practical  Poultry-Keeper* 2  00 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTURER    OP 

FREfi/CH  CALF  BOOTS    FREfl/CH  KID  BOOTS 

r-OR  FOtt 

«E!S'ri>EMK5*.  LADIES. 

No  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

HVNBAR'S   CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 

9-1-ly 

TO  COITSrMPTIVES. 

The  advertiser  having  beeu  jiernianeutly  cured  of  that 
dread  dise;i8e.  CousumptioTi],  by  a  siint>le  remedy,  ia  anxious 
to  m:ike  kuuwu  to  his  fellow  sufferers  the  ineaiiB  of  cure. 
To  all  who  de-sire  it,  he  will  eeud  a  copy  of  the  prescription 
used,  (free  of  charge),  with  the  directinim  for  prepariuK  and 
usiug  the  si.ijie,  ftbicli  they  will  hud  ;i  suitE  Cukk  for  Oon- 
suMPTicy,  Asthma.  Bbonchitis,  &c. 

Parties  wishing  i  be  prescriptiou  will  please  addrCBS, 

Rev.  E.  A.  "WILSON,  if-l  Peuu  St..  Williiimsburg,  N.  Y. 
9-1 -(>ni] 

HRRQRS  OF  YOUTH. 

AGKNTLEMAN  who  suffered  for  yearn  from  Nervous 
Debility,  Prcumture  Decay,  and  all  the  efi'ects  of  youth- 
ful indiscretion  will,  for  the  sake  of  sufleriug  humanity, 
send  free  to  nil  who  ueed  it,  the  receij't  and  direction  for 
making  tlie  simile  :imedy  by  which  be  vr^is  cured.  SufTer- 
ers  wishing  to  profit  by  the  adve'tiser'a  experience  can  do 
Ro  by  addressing  iu  i)erfect  confidence, 
9-l-6ni]  JOHN  B.  OGDEN,  42  Cedar  St.,  New  York. 

AMOSMILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANUFACTURKU  OF  AND  DEALER  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars 

Bridles,  Whiis,  &c.       Also  a  fine  lot  of  Truuks,  'Valises, 
Carjjet  Bags,  Bufl'alo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 

9-l-ly 

E.  H.  FRESHMAH  &  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 


186  W.  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0. 


•  I 


Are  anthorlzed   to  contract  for  advertising 
in  tbis  paper. 

Esimates  [waM.  free.  Senil  for  a  Cucolar. 


Great  Stock-Breeder's  Monthly. 

^THE  NATIONAL 

LIVE-STOCK 


JOURNAL, 

Published  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS 


THI8  GREAT  MONTHLY  in  universally  acknowl- 
ledged  to  bewi  hout  a  rival  iu  its  department  of 
Journalism.  Each  number  contains  4S  large  pages, 
three  columns  to  the  page,  with  a  handsome  cover, 
and  is  Beautifully  lUustrattd  with  elegant  double- 
plate  engravings.  It  is  the  only  i-aper  in  the  world 
devoted  exclusively  to  iive-siock  and  the  dairy.  It 
discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  nierits  of  the 
various  breeds,  the  most  approved  methods  of  feed- 
ing and  handling,  and  everything  j-ertaiuing  to  the 
Buccetsful  management  of  live  stock  on  the  farm. 
During  the  year  1ST7,  Prof.  Jamep  L.\w,  the  emiuent 
veterinary  of  C-^rnell  University,  will  cuutribute  a 
series  of  articles  upon  the  laws  of  health  ;aid  disease 
as  applied  to  Domestic  Animals,  that  canuot  fail  to 
be  of  great  value  to  Farmers  and  Stock  Breeders 
every  where.  It  contains  separate  DejjjirtmeutH, 
devo'ed  to  HOUSES,  CATTLK,  SHEEP.SWINE  and 
the  DAIRY,  end  its  corjis  of  editors  are  recognized 
throughout  the  entire  country  bs  the  Most  Thor- 
ough, Able  and  Pr.^ctical  writers  in  the  seuarate 
departments,  that  Ciii  be  found  in  America.  No  ex- 
pense is  s;  ared  on  the  I'ait  of  its  X'tiblishers,  to 
make  it  a  hiyh-toned,  reliable,  practical  and  inatriif:- 
(iw  Ji'urnal.  just  STich  as  every  intelligent  fanner 
and  stock  breeder  will  find  worth  ten  times  its  cost 
each  year. 

TEE^IS. — Single  copies,  one  year,  postage  raid, 
S2.1o:  Clubs  of  five,  postage  ].;iid,  ^I-*>0;  Club* 
of  ten,  with  au  extra  copy  free  to  person  ranking  up 
club,  postage  pre-ii:iid,  91. 65.  Handmmely  IUuh- 
trated  posters  mailed  to  all  who  irill  get  up  clubs.  Ad- 
dress letters,  registering  thos*'  containing  niouey, 
unless  iu  sunpe  of  Postal  Order  or  Draft,  to 

STOCK  JOUKNAL  COMPA^Y,  Publishers. 
Lakeside  Building,  CHICAGO,  ILLS. 
C:S^Sknd  '20  Cents  for  Spkcimkn  Copt.      [9-3-3m 


FITS  AND  ^  EPILEPSY, 
FALLING  SICKNESS 

Perma!i»^ii<I.V  Cured— n<>  hniiiSnijj— l>y  one 
nioiitSi's  iiSR.^4>  of  ikr.  Goiilai'tr.H  I'clebratcd 
IiitalMlbo  Fil  Powders.  Tu  convince  suiierers  that 
these  jiowders  will  do  yll  we  claim  for  them,  we  will  wend 
them  by  mail,  post  paid,  a  free  Trial  l>ox.  As  Dr. 
Goulard  is  the  only  iihysician  that  has  ever  made  this  dis- 
ease a  specinl  study,  and  as  to  our  kuowledge  thousands 
have  been  parnianeiitBy  cured  by  the  use  of  these 
Pou'derH,  ne  Mill  ^laHrniilee  a  permanent 
cure  iu  every  case,  or  refund  you  all  money  ex- 
pended. All  sufferers  should  give  these  Powders  au 
aarly  trial,  and  be  convinced  of  their  curative  powers. 

Price  for  large  box  S3,<  0,  or  4  boxes  lor  $10, 0(^,  sent  by 
mail  to  any  part  of  United  States  or  Canada  on  mceipt  of 
price,  or  by  express,  C.  O.  D.     Address, 


9-5-ly 


ASH  &  ROBBINS, 

?.CAi    FunXON  STBEET.    BitOOULTN.  N.    Y. 


CONSUMPTION 

All  sufferers  from  this  disease  that  are  anxious  to  1)b 
cured  should  try  Sir.  8i.is**ner"s  <Vlebrated  Con- 
sumptive Powders.  These  Powders  are  the  only 
prepaiatiou  known  tlnit  will  euro  CVnsiiniplion  and  all 
diseases  of  the  Throat  aeid  Ijiin^.^ — indeed,  so  strong 
is  our  faith  in  them,  and  also  to  convince  you  that  they  are 
no  humbug,  we  will  forward  to  eveiy  sufferer,  by  mail,  post 
paid,  a  free  Triafi  Hox. 

We  don't  want  your  money  until  you  are  perfectly  satis- 
fied o!  their  curative  i  ower.s.  If  your  life  is  worth  saving, 
don't  delay  in  giving  these  Pow^ler**  a  trial,  as  they  will 
surely  cure  you. 

Price,  for  large  bos.  5.",00,  sent  to  any  part  of  the  United 
States  or  Canada  by  mail  on  receipt  of  price. 

Address,  ^ 

ASK  Sc  ROBBINS, 

9-'i-lv  acil  Fulton  Streei,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

TflSlTEyunraiR 

M'lll  enable  you  to 
market  your  but- 
ter in  the  best  pos- 
8  i  b  le  couditiou. 
Competent  judges 
who  have  handled 
butter  shipped  Iu 
it  to  the  Philadel- 
phia market,  pro- 
nounce it  the  beat 
irraugement  for 
•:irryiugpriDt  but- 
<■:  they  ever  SiiW. 
\v.\ru.  print  or  pat 
-  curried  in  a  sep- 
i  ;ite  cup  that  can- 
Mi)t  be  broken,  vip- 
s^t,  nor  get  out  of 
]ilace. 

All  sizes  and 
forms  of  cups  and 
box  will  be  made. 
Circulars  with 
full  description 
and  price  list  free. 

E.  L.  R"BSH, 
U9  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


9.5-ly 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof:  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  MAY,  1877. 


Vol.  IX.  No.  5. 


TO  ADVERTISERS. 

The  Lancaster  Farmer  with  its  greatly 
iiuTcased  subscriiition  list,  .and  its  widely  ox- 
tended  circulation,  i.s  claimed  to  he  the  best 
adverli.sin;;  niedimn  now  in  the  county  of 
Ijancaster — copie.s  of  it  iioins  to  neaiiy  every 
.State  in  the  Union,  as  well  as  to  Canada  and 
Europe — es|M'Cially  as  it  hrintrs  to  the  notice 
of  tlie  faruiin';  public  such  objects,  articles  and 
implements,  as  tlioy  are  ininiediately  interested 
in,  in  their  occupations.  This  is  apparent  from 
the  fact  that  it  may  be  at  any  time  more  con- 
veniently referreil  to  than  a  large  folio,  which 
is  usually  either  torn  uii,  used  for  other  pur- 
poses, or  folded  up  and  laid  away,  anil  often 
lost. 

All  who  patronize  it  are  householders  or  are 
members  of  a  household,  where  every  number 
Iiermanently  occupies  the  literary  shelf  or 
table,  is  always  accessible,  and  is  frequently 
referred  to  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of 
the  intervening  months. 

At  the  end  of  each  volume  a  copious  index 
accompanies  the  December  nundjer,  and  when 
hound,  it  becomes  a  handsome  volume  of  read- 
ing m.atter  that  is  always  available  and  inte- 
resting. 

■  But  chiefly,  as  an  advertising  medium,  it 
reaches  that  sid)stantial  class  of  reliable 
citizens  whose  patronage  is  the  most  desirable 
to  those  who  have  anytliing  to  sell — who  pur- 
chase what  they  want,  and  who  pay  for  what 
they  purchase. 

Our  rates  are  low,  and  a  reasonable  deduc- 
tion will  be  made  for  increased  space,  and 
length  of  time. — J'lih. 


THE  EUROPEAN  WAR. 

It  is  just  )iossil)le  that  before  the  end  of  the 
year  it  may  be  demonstrated  in  Lancaster 
county  an<i  elsewhere,  that  a  larger  acreage 
should  have  been  devoted  to  wheat,  corn,  po- 
tatoes and  oats,  and  less  to  toliacco.  Not  that 
the  demand  for  tobacco  will  be  less,  but  that 
the  demand  for  wheat,  corn,  potatoes  and 
oats,  is  likely  to  be  more,  in  consequence  of 
the  war.  Note  the  present  market  of  these 
products,  and  sec  which  is  making  the  heaviest 
advances.  It  is  true,  that  through  the  deft 
intrigues  of  diplom.acy,  a  long  and  devastating 
war  may  be  averted  ;  but  this  is  not  likely; 
the  cards  have  been  too  long  "  shullling,"and 
as  they  now  seem  to  be  "  stocked,"  it  is  likely 
th;it  the  "game"  will  be  played  o>it  to  its 
Ijitter  end.  The  extra  costs  for  breadstuffs 
and  horse  feed,  exorbitant  as  it  may  become, 
is  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  human 
suffering,  the  fearful  carnage,  the  death,  de- 
vastation and  general  demoralization  which 
will  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  contending 
armies. 

Any  one  who  has  ohseiTed  closely  the  po- 
litical history  of  Europe  for  the  last  twenty 
years  or  more,  must  have  be.eu  impressed  with 
the  idea  that  the  "Powers"  were  jealous  of 
each  other,  and  that  in  all  their  adroitly  con- 
structed treaties,  there  was  ,a  mental  reserva- 
tion that  contemplated  the  ultimate  absorp- 
tion of  Tiirkry,  by  one  or  the  other  of  them,  if 
no  amicable  division  could  be  made  of  its 
tempting  domain.  This  war  may  not  lead  to 
its  ostensible  dismemberment  ,as  a  nation,  but 
if  there  is  no  cffi  dive  interference  by  an  allied 
l)ower  .against  Russia,  it  is  likely  to  dwindle 
down  to  a  tributary  province — .so  far  as 
"  Turkey  in  Europe"  is  concerned,  at  least. 

I?ut,  if  the  w;ir  is  long,  general,  and  de- 
structive, we  perhaps  will  l)e  llnancially  bene- 
fited ;  l)ut  we  hope  no  Christian  nation  will 
desire  to  prosper  at  such  a  fearful  sacritice  of 
the  human  family.  If  prosperity  comes,  we  of 
course  will  not  reject  it,  for  in  its  rejection  we 
may  but  increase  the  distress  of  the  afflicted 
countries. 


A    REMINDER. 

Those  of  our  rciulers  who  have  not  attended 
to  the  removal  of  the  cocoons  of  the  "drop- 
worms,"  the  pupu'of  the  "cabbage but terlly," 
the  eggs  of  the  "lent  cateri>illar,"  or  the  caji- 
lure  of  (he  jiarents  of  the  "canker-worm," 
will  now  lind  it  too  late  to  contend  succi^ss- 
fully  with  those  insects,  as  some  will  be  se- 
creted by  the  foliage  of  the  trees,  and  others 
will  have  already  evolvi'd  from  their  pujiii',  or 
have  deposited  their  eggs.  lint,  from  this 
time  forward,  a  war  of  extermination  should 
be  w.aged  against  the  "Colorado  potato  bee- 
tle," wherever  or  whenever  it  may  make  its 
iijipearance.  One  impregnated  female,  de- 
stroyed before  .she  has  oviposited,  is  e(iual  to 
destroying  one  thousand  later  in  the  season, 
and  will  save  much  Paris  (ireen  or  other  rem- 
edies, besides  .a  great  .amount  of  weary  and 
vexatious  lal)or.  Now  also,  and  the  coming 
month,  is  the  most  prolilic  period  of  insei-t 
evolution  in  the  whole  year— quite  as  much  so 
with  some  siiecies  as  all  the  rest  of  the  year 
I)ut  together.  The  "striped  apjile  tree  borer," 
the  "tlat-headed  aiiple  tree  borer,"  the  "linden 
tree  borer,"  the  "rasiiberry  boi-er,"  the  "cur- 
rant borer,"  the  "iieach  tree  Vwrer,"  the  "po- 
tato stock  borer,"  and  a  host  of  otlier  noxious 
insect  borers,  will  all  elTect  their  linal  trans- 
formations during  the  perio<l  indicated  above, 
evolve  from  their  long  pupal  sleep,  and  j;o 
forth  on  their  destructive  mission.  Peach, 
pear,  apple  and  <iuince  trees  slundd  have  the 
surface  borers  cut  out.  and  thos(^  buried  deep- 
er in  the  wood  should  be  gouged  or  poisoned 
out,  and  the  bases  of  the  trees  should  be  pro- 
tected against  the  attacks  of  matured  in.sects 
of  the  present  season,  when  their  ovipositing 
period  arrives. 


WHAT  THE  BIRDS   ACCOMPLISH. 

"The  swallow,  swift  and  night-hawk  are 
the  guardians  of  the  atmosphere.  They  check 
the  increase  of  insects  that  otherwise  would 
overload  it.  Woodpeckers,  creejiers  and 
chickadees  are  the  guardians  of  the  trunks  of 
trees.  Warblers  and  lly-catchers  protect  the 
foliage.  I51ackl)irds,  crows,  thrushes  anil 
larks  protect  the  surface  of  the  soil.  Sniiie 
and  woodcock  protect  the  soil  under  the  sur- 
face. Each  tribe  has  its  resiiective  duties  to 
perform  in  the  economy  of  nature.  It  is  an 
undoubted  fact  that  if  the  birds  were  .all  swept 
x)fl:  the  face  of  the  earth,  man  could  not  live 
upon  it.  Vegetation  would  wither  and  die. 
Insects  would  become  so  numerous  that  no 
living  thing  could  withstand  their  att.acks. 
The  wholesale  destruction  occasioned  by 
grasshoppers,  which  have  lately  devastated 
the  west,  is  undoubtedly  cau.sed  by  the  thin- 
ning out  of  grouse,  prairie  hens,  &c.,  which 
feed  u\)c)n  them.  The  great  and  inestimable 
service  done  to  the  farmer,  gardener  and  tlor- 
ist  by  the  birds,  is  only  becoming  known  liy 
sad  exi)erience.  Spare  the  liirds,  and  save 
your  fruit.  The  little  corn  .and  fruit  taken 
by  them  is  more  than  compensated  for  by  the 
quantities  of  noxious  insects  they  destroy. 
The  l(uig  persecuted  crow  has  been  found  by 
actual  experience  to  do  far  more  good  by  the 
vast  (piantities  of  grubs  and  insects  he  de- 
vours than  the  little  harm  he  does  in  the  few 
grains  of  corn  he  pulls  up.  He  is  one  of  the 
farmer's  best  friends." 

We  respectfully  connnend  the  above  to  the 
calm  consideration  of  those  of  our  readers 
who  may  feel  themselves  injured  or  annoyc<l 
by  th(^  iiugnacious  little  English  sparrow,  that 
is  now  becoming  so  lunnerous  in  this  country. 
A  conq>laint  comes  ui>  against  him  from  .sev- 
eral quarters,  that  during  the  latter  jiart  of 
winter,  and  the  earlj'  part  of  spring,  he  has 
been  guilty  of  destroying  the  leaf  and  Howcr 
buds  of  trees,  and  especially  fruit  trees.     Now 


this  may  be  all  very  true,  but  tlien  taking  the 
whole  (|uestion  in  its  entire  economical  8en.so, 
it  does  not  make  a  case  against  these  sparrows 
by  any  means.  Thty  no  doidit  ha<l  eat(Uj  all 
the  insects,  their  eggs  and  their  jiuikp,  tiiat 
were  accessible,  and  linding  nolhing  else  eata- 
ble, arul  moreover  being  active  little  creat- 
ures, and  bound  to  live  through  tlie  wniter, 
they  must  nec<'Rsarily  have  eaten  snnictliinij, 
or  have  starved  before  the  opening  of  spring. 
Starving  to  death  nmst  be  a  hard  death  to 
die,  and  that  .animals,  or  even  men,  should 
clandestinely  appropriate  the  property  of 
otheis  rather  than  pass  through  such  a  trying 
ordeal,  is  not  at  all  surprising.  Is  not  this 
suggestive  V  Should  we  not  be  able  to  con- 
clude that  this  is  only  another  way  of  a.sking 
to  be  fed.  We  feed  inaTiy  animals  through 
the  wilder  in  order  thai  we  may  have  the 
benelit  of  their  lalMirs  during  the  8i>ring  and 
summer,  and  why  not  e.xten<l  the  same  provi- 
dence to  our  little  feathered  friends?  .Some- 
times insects  become  so.  numerous  that  the 
birds  cannot  eat  them  all,  and  then  fault  is 
found  with  them  again.  Nobody  pretends 
that  birds  will  destroy  in.sects  for  tlie  mere 
puri)ose  of  di!stroying  thrm,  and  in  obedience 
to  the  comfort  and  convenience  of  the  human 
family.  They  eat  just  the  quaidily  that 
their  natural  instincts  dictate  they  should 
eat  in  order  to  sustain  themselves;  and  if  all 
creatures  gifted  with  a  higher  intelligence 
would  do  the  same,  we  should  have  a  lical- 
thier,  a  wealthier  and  a  hapiiier  world. 


MONTHLY  REMINDER-MAY. 

"Thin  out  the  early  sown  crojis  of  beets, 
parsnips,  carrots,  etc.  Transplant  cabbage, 
lettuce,  egg  plants,  tomatoes,  peppers,  etc., 
from  the  hot-beds,  frames  and  warm  border- 
seed  beds.  The  sowing  of  any  seeds  that  were 
neglected  last  month  should  now  he  attended 
to  without  del.ay. 

"Sow  borecole,  brussels  sprouts,  broccoli, 
cauhtlower,  cabb.age,  beans,  endive,  c.amot, 
cucumber,  cre.ss,  melon,  water-mel^,  squash, 
nasturtion,  *martynia,  okra,  jieas,  sweet  corn, 
liumjikin,  tomato,  radish  and  sweet  herbs. 
Plant  ])olatocs,  sweet  jiotatoes,  and  any  plants 
still  remaining  in  the  frames  or  hot  beds. 

"Water  all  newly  transivliinted  jilants  at  the 
time  of  transplanting,  and  two  or  three  times 
afterward,  if  the  weather  is  dry,  or  until  the 
plants  are  established. 

"Keep  the  boo  going  in  order  to  destroy  the 
weeds,  which  will  now  begin  to  be  trouble- 
some." 

Of  course,  latitude,  elevation,  exposure,  and 
the  temperature  of  the  season — its  forward- 
ness or  backwardness — its  drought  or  humidity 
— will  h.ave  a  corresponding  eftect  ui)on  these 
vegetable  productions,  but  under  ordinary  cir- 
cumstances, in  the  middle  States,  this  work 
should  now  be  done,  without  delay.  The 
price  of  good  crops  in  almost  any  contingency, 
is  "  eternal  vigilance." 


TOBACCO  STEMS. 


It  is  almost  universally  conceded  tliat  to- 
bacco growing  exliausts  the  land  beyond  any 
other  crop  that  is  usually  planted,  and  there- 
fore it  is  a  matter  of  constant  solicitude  how 
to  keep  up  the  necessary  fertility  of  the  soil  ; 
although  it  is  generally  conceded  that  this  can 
be  best  accomi>lished  by  jilwral  manuring;  hut 
there  is  still  .some  difference  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  the  kind  of  manure.    Good  bam- 

•The  Ioii(f.  liorii-t*liaiic<l  ^oed-j-odB  of  MiirtyiiU  aro  UBfd 
for  pickliiift  when  in  Ihelr  yuunp  Krean  fllale,  and  liy  nmny 
pprttons  are  vref^rrcd  to  ciictiml)«ra.  Tho  wed  vbould  be 
BOwu  in  HD  opon  border  in  April  or  May,  and  in  Jnnc  ahould 
be  l.-aiit»i-liinted  into  tho  pernianent  t*d  at  a  diHtal.co  of  two 
and  a-half  fcpt  apart  Mcli  way.  It  will  tbrlve  in  any  Rood 
garden  Koil,  but  does  uot  need  to  be  bearily  niaQurad.— McX;'« 


66 


THE  LANCASTER  .FARMER. 


[May, 


i 


yard  manure  seems  to  be  most  in  favor,  but 
there  are  many  places  where  tobacco  is  grown 
that  this  kind  of  manure  caimot  be  obtained. 
Recently,  on  several  occasions,  we  have  noticed 
that  tobacco  stems  have  been  highly  recom- 
mended as  a  fertilizing  manure. 

The  stems  are  broken  up,  or  are  laid  down 
whole,  and  plowed  under.  This  is  supposed — 
as  in  the  case  of  mulching  with  forest  leaves, 
around  the  trees  from  which  the  leaves  have 
fallen — to  return  to  the  soil  the  elementary 
substances  which  had  been  drawn  from  it  by 
the  previous  crop. 

This  has  suggested  to  our  mind  that  if  these 
stems,  as  well  as  the  "  runts,"  were  all  gather- 
ed, dried,  broken  into  pieces,  and  then  run 
through  a  mill  constructed  for  the  pm-pose,  so 
as  to  be  reduced  to  a  powder,  it  would  make  a 
capital  fertilizer,  and  would  return  to  the  soil 
what  the  previous  crop  had  drawn  from  it. 
There  is  a  probability  that  the  county  of  Lan- 
caster will,  in  the  near  future,  become  a  vast 
tobacco  garden,  and  therefore  there  should  Ije 
some  good  and  cheap  manure  ready  at  hand. 
This  would  also  furnish  occupation  during  the 
''weary  waitings"  on  a  market,  and  would  be 
the  next  job  after  the  stripping  season.  We 
merely  call  the  attention  of  tobacco  cultivators 
to  it,  as  a  subject,  for  the  purpose  of  experi- 
menting on  it. — Secor. 

^ 

MANURING  LAND. 

The  quantities  of  each  kind  of  manures  to 
be  applied  to  an  acre  are  given  below.  They 
vary  much  in  their  range,  as  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  .soil  as  to  fertility  must  be  taken 
into  consideration,  and  this  must  be  left  to  the 
judgment  of  the  cultivator. 

Barn-yard  manure  :  Five  to  twenty  tons,  or 
thirty  to  fifty  cubic  yards. 

Bone-dust :  Sixteen  to  twenty  bushels,  or 
from  seven  hundred  to  twelve  himdred  pounds. 

Fresh  fish  :  Twenty-five  to  forty  bushels. 

Fish  guano  :  Four  to  six  hundred  pounds. 

Guano  :  Three  to  eight  hundred  pounds. 

Gypsum  :  Five  to  six  hundred  pounds. 

Horn-shavings :  Twenty-five  to  forty  bushels. 

Hops  :  Thirty  to  forty  tons. 

Lime  :  Fiftytoone hundred andflfty bushels. 

Night-soil :  Twenty  bushels. 

Poudrette  :  Twenty-five  to  thirty  bushels. 

Salt :  Two  to  six  bushels. 

Soot :  Twenty  to  fifty  bushels. 

Sulphur  :  Six  to  eight  pounds. 

SulpMu-ic  acid  :  Thirty  to  forty  pounds. 

Super-phosphate  :  Five  hundred  to  a  thou- 
sand pounds. 

Farmers'  refuse :  Five  to  eight  hundred 
pounds. 

*Wood  ashes  :  Twenty  to  forty  bushels. 

If  there  is  anything  in  which  amateur  culti- 
vators are  lacking,  it  is  in  having  a  liberal 
supply  of  manure, the  very  corner  stone  of  all 
gardening  and  field  operations.  It  is  there- 
fore of  the  first  importance  to  know  how  to 
make  the  most  of  it. 


SIX  MONTHS  FOR  AN  OWL. 

The  Osborne  county  (Kas.)  JVii-ma-  says: 
"We  have  taken  wood,  potatoes,  corn,  eggs, 
bulter,  onions,  cabbages,  chickens,  stone, 
lumber,  labor,  sand,  calico,  sauerkraut,  sec- 
ond-hand clothing,  coon-skins  aod  bug-juice 
on  subscriptions,  in  our  time,  and  now  a  man 
writes  to  us  to  know  if  we  would  send  the 
paiier  six  niontlis  for  a  large  owl.  There  are 
few  things  an  editor  would  refuse  on  subscrip- 
tion, and  if  we  come  across  any  fellow  who  is 
out  of  owl,  and  is  in  need  of  one,  we'll  do  it." 

That  is  a  little  more  liberal  than  is  the  case 
with  srmie  peojilc  about  this  "neck  of  woods," 
who,  when  they  capture  an  owl  or  any  other 
kind  of  wild  fowl,  exjiect  to  be  handsomely 
compensated  for  it  in  sometliing  more  conver- 
tible and  sulistautial  than  the  copy  of  a  news- 
paper. We  have,  tried  live  owl,  as  a  gift,  and 
our  experience  is,  that  a  live  owl  on  our  hands 
is  only  exceeded  by  having  a  "live  elephant." 
Judging  from  the  above  paragraph  we  should 

•If  the  ashes  are  leached,  from  one  hundred  to  one  hund- 
red aud  fifty  bushels  may  be  used  to  advantage. — Dick'a 
Girrden, 


conclude  that  the  "circulating  medium" 
about  Osborne  is  something  like  it  was  in 
North  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and  Indiana  some 
years  ago;  when  the  Indians  and  tlie  whites 
had  their  social  gatherings  at  the  country 
taverns,  where,  when  a  man  called  for  a  single 
drink,  he  would  ofter  a  "coon-skin"  at  the 
bar,  and  get  his  drink  and  three  rabl)it  skins 
in  change.  In  tlie  lunilier  regions,  shingles, 
staves  and  hoop  poles  were  the  "current  cur- 
rency," and  when  the  "vendee"  returned  to 
his  home  in  the  evening  he  carried  quite  as 
heavy  a"load"  as  he  did  with  his  currency  in 
the  morning. 


"AMERICAN  POMOLOGICAL  SOCIETY." 

Our  readers  will  bear  in  mind  that  this  dis- 
tinguished association — at  the  invitation  of 
the  Maryland  Horticultural  Society — will  hold 
its  sixteenth  annual  session  in  Baltimore,  to 
commence  on  Wednesday  the  I'ith  of  Septem- 
ber next,  at  10  o'clock  a.  m.,  to  continue 
three  days.  All  horticultural,  pomological, 
agricultural  and  other  kindred  associations  in 
the  Ujiited  States  and  the  British  Provinces, 
are  invited  to  send  delegations  as  large  as 
they  deem  expedient;  and  all  persons  interest- 
ed in  the  cultivation  of  fruits,  are  invited  to 
be  present,  and  to  take  seats  in  the  conven- 
tion. Specimens  of  all  kinds  of  fruit  will  be 
exhibited,  and  a  large  meeting  is  anticipated. 


STATE  BOARD  OF  AGRICULTURE. 

Programme  of  meeting  of  the  Penn'a  State 
Board  of  Agriculture,  at  Harrisburg,  commen- 
cing Tuesday,  May  22,  1877,  at  2  p.  m. 
Meeting  for  business;  report  of  the  Secretary 
of  the  Board;  Report  of  the  Chemist  of  the 
Board. 

Essay — Fertilizer  Laws,  by  E.  L.  Sturte- 
vant;  Essay — Valuation  of  Fertilizers,  by 
Secretary  ;  Essay — Fertilizers  on  the  Eastern 
Experimental  Farm,  by  John  I.  Carter,  Sup't; 
Essay — On  the  Choice  of  Fertilizers,  by  Secre- 
tary ;  Essay — The  Future  of  our  Board  of 
Agriculture,  by  Hon.  Jno.  P.  Edge  ;  Address 
— Influence  of  Forest  on  Rainfall,  by  Thos. 
Meehan  ;  Essay — Tree  Planting  for  Shade, 
Shelter  and  Profit,  by  Prof.  S.  B.  Heiges  ; 
Essay — Forest  Area  of  the  State,  by  Secretary ; 
Essay— Pleura  Pneumonia,  by  Chas.  B.  Mich- 
ener,  V.  S. 

The  report  of  the  Secretary  will  include  a 
draft  of  a  iiroiiosed  law  regulating  the  manu- 
facture and  sale  of  commercial  fertilizers  in 
the  State. 

Tlie  report  of  the  chemist  will  embrace  an 
analysis  of  each  of  the  principal  fertilizers  used 
in  the  State. 

Essays  and  addresses  are  expected  on  other 
important  subjects. 

The  meetings  are  public  and  all  are  invited 
to  participate  in  the  discussions.  —  Thos.  J. 
Edge,  Secrciarij. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 


A  Voice  from  the  South. 

To  those  who  are  in  the  habit  of  reading — 
and  we  regret  to  say  there  are  many  yet  who 
have  n<it  formed  this  liahit — we  have  no  fears 
that  the  Laxcastek  Farmer  will  not  be 
ultimately  appreciated  ;  and  that,  like  our 
correspondent  below,  tliey  will  turn  their 
attention  to  our  journal  as  a  matter  of  choice: 


Salisbury,  North  Carolina,  1 
April  27th,  1877.  ) 
Lancaster  Farmer  : — You  are  always  a 
welcome  visitor  to  our  d(jinieile— perliaps  we 
.should  have  more  iiroperly  said,  to  the  place 
where  we  dat/  at — for  truly  speaking,  we  have 
no  permanent  home  on  this  earth,  seem  this 
as  it  may  to  others.  But  to  the  point.  We 
regard  tiie  Fa iniKR  as  one  amongst  the  best 
Agricultural  pajters  in  our  whole  country,  and 
have  little  fear  of  contradiction,  if  any.  In 
saying  tliat,  to  our  aiiprehension,  you  a^re  the 
best  household  journal,  and  if  we  believe,  ex- 
press,feel  and  take  an  interest  in  your wflf ire, 
living  at  so  remote  a  distance — we  cannot  sec 


why  your  own  people,  the  citizens  of  Lancas- 
ter county,  the  best  cultivated  county  in 
America  (so  far  as  we  have  seen  and  are  able 
to  judge),  do  not  stand  by  you  en  nia^sc,  and 
help  to  build  you  up,  and  keep  you  as  a  shin- 
ing light  before  the  Agricultural  community, 
as  well  as  to  other  matters  relating  to  domestic 
economy. 

^Ve  last  visited  your  great  county  in  1876  ; 
took  special  notice  of  j'our  lands,  productions, 
manufactories,  live  stock,  poultry,  &c. ;  ex- 
amined your  markets,  and  concluded  you  ought 
to  be  the  most  independent,  liai>piest,  and 
according  to  your  opportunities,  the  most  in- 
telligent people  on  this  continent. 

Here,  we  in  a  measure  tread  in  tlie  steps 
our  fathers  trod — that  is  to  say,  when  we  go  to 
mill,  we  put  the  corn  into  one  end  of  the  bag 
and  a  stone  in  the  other  to  make  it  balance  on 
the  horse's  back.  Old  haljits  and  old  associa- 
tions are  hard  to  get  rid  of,  but  we  are  trying 
to  surmount  them. 

Thus  far,  this  year,  the  season  has  been 
rather  backward.  Much  rainfall  and  unfavor- 
able weather  has  kept  good  housewives  and 
farmers  from  planting  garden  and  field  crops  ; 
much  of  neither  of  which  has  so  far  yet  been 
done  this  spring.  The  season  being  backward 
for  this  latitude,  however,  does  not  seem  to 
have  an  injurious  effect  upon  wheat,  oats  and 
grass,  all  of  which  make  a  fine  appearance,  as 
far  as  we  have  seen  and  heard.  Judging  from 
present  prospects,  there  will  be  a  bountiful 
crop  of  grain,  grass,  fruits,  &c. 

For  forty,  or  more,  years  past  we  have 
traveled  in  diflerent  States ;  read  difl'erent 
papers — home  and  transatlantic — tried  to  be  a 
close  observer  of  men  and  things — mineral, 
vegetable  and  animal — but  nowhere  have  we 
seen  as  good  a  neUured  country  as  this  is. 
Nature  has  done  much  for  it,  man  but  little. 

With  all  good  wishes  for  your  prosperity, 
and  a  long  and  happy  life,  we  are  truly  yours 
and  the  Farmer's  friend.— JI/.  E. 

[We  thank  our  correspondent,  not  so  much 
for  the  high  compliment  he  pays  to  our  paper 
as  for  that  which  he  pays  to  our  comity,  and 
which,  if  we  are  riglit  in  our  conjecturers,  is 
the  old  home  of  him  or  his  ancestors.  We 
hope  our  people  may  eventually  realize  that 
our  county  can  produce  as  good  an  Agricul- 
tural paper,  as  it  can  produce  good  crops  of 
corn,  wheat,  tobacco  and  fruit,  as  well  as 
stock  and  implements.] 


Lime  and  Oyster  Shell  Bark  Louse. 

LiTiz,  March  ?>!,  1877. 

Simon  P.  Eby,  Esq. — Dear  Friend.— I 
cannot  refrain  (even  in  these  few  last  busy 
hour's  of  scrivening)  to  call  your  attention  to 
a  few  articles  that  appeared  in  the  American 
Aejricidturist,  of  April  nuiutier.  The  first  on 
page  12"5,  on  the  bottom  of  the  middle  column, 
lieaded  "Manuring  Old  Trees."  Tlie  .second 
on  page  143,  middle  column,  headed  tlie 
"Oysfer  Shell  Bark  Louse."  Iliave  practiced 
what  those  articles  suggest,  for  years  past, 
with  much  success;  the  only  difference,  in  ar- 
ticle fir.st,  I  do  not  turn  the  manure  under. 
If  you  recollect,  we  hud  a  talk  aliout  manur- 
ing orchards  and  whitewashing  trees  some 
time  ago.  Foi;  over  eight  years  1  have  been 
guided  principally  by  my  own  judgment  and 
experience,  and  often  found  that  much  to  the 
contrary  of  my  own  practice  was  said,  but  I 
was  not  discouraged,  because  I  found  that  I 
was  right,  and  now  the  same  results  are  seen 
l)y  some  of  our  cliief  fruit  growers,  with  simi- 
l;ir  aiiplieations.  Please  look  up  the  articles 
and  see  more  fully  what  they  contain.  Yours 
in  haste. — Israel  G.  Erh. 

"Manuring  cild  trees,  or  those  that  have 
come  into  bearing,  should  have  been  cared 
for  last  month,  or  earlier.  If  they  need  man- 
ure, give  it  at  once.  Ni-arly  all  the  "running 
out,"  bitter  rot,  and  other  troubles  not  due  to 
insects,  are  merely  cries  I'or  niauure.  Stable 
manure  rarely  comes  amiss;  this  may  be  ap- 
plied over  the  whole  surface,  except  close  to 
the  trees,  and  turned  under  with  a  furrow  so 
shallow  as  not  to  cut  the  roots.  On  orchards 
already  fully  manured  in  previous  years,   or 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


67 


naturally  rich  in  vegetable  matter,  a  dressing 
of  lime  will  often  iiroduce  gratifying  results, 
and  wodd  ashes  scarcely  ever  come  amiss  on 
any  soils." 

[Tl\e  foregoing  is  the  first  article  alluded  to 
by  Mr.  E.'s  corres]iouili'nt,  and  no  doubt  will 
be  generally  accniiesced  in,  althongh  \vc  are 
aware  that  some  very  good  orchardists  are  oji- 
poscd  to  cultivating  arouml  trees.  As  to  ma- 
nure, the  vc  are  other  kinds  tlian  stable  ma- 
nure that  liaveagood  effect  upon  tree  culture, 
one  of  which  is  right  at  hand,  if  altenlion  is 
given  to  its  collection  in  time,  and  which  re- 
turns to  the  .soil  again  what  the  tree  had  drawn 
from  it.  Two  years  ago  a  scientific  connnis- 
sicm  was  appointed  in  tlie  city  of  J.,ondon,  to 
report  on  the  causes  of  the  (lepletion  of  the 
trees  in  Jli/dc  and  oilier  /VtrA-.s  of  that  great 
city,  whilst  they  were  healthy  elsewhere. 
Tliey  made  microscopic  and  chemical  analy- 
ses of  the  leaves,  and  discovered  that  they  con- 
tained large  quaidities  of  fertilizing  sails,  and 
tliey  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  trees 
were  depleted  through  the  constant  swec^ping 
up  and  removal  of  the  leaves,  instead  of 
mulching  them  into  the  soil.  Look  at  our 
great  oaks — look  at  the  gigantic  trees  of  Cali- 
fornia tliat  have  stood  thousands  of  years, 
perhaps,  without  ever  having  bad  any  ma- 
nure,savc  what  yearly  fell  from  their  branches.] 
Oyster  Shell  Bark  Louse. 

"Crude  Petuoleum.— 'B.  L.  B.,'  Proc- 
tor's Creek,  Va.,  was  six  years  ago  living  in 
the  oil  regions  of  Pennsylvania,  and  went  on 
a  visit  to  his  father  in  Central  New  York,  tak- 
ing with  him  a  can  of  crude  petroleum,  fresh 
from  the  well.  His  father  had  two  young 
apple  trees  in  the  garden,  which,  in  spite  of 
all  that  could  be  done  for  them,  were  going  to 
decay,  and  he  requested  the  son  to  cut  them 
down.  Mr.  B.  suggested  that  he  would  first 
kill  the  trees,  so  tliat  there  should  be  no  trou- 
ble from  sprouts,  and  to  do  this  he,  in  Fel)ru- 
ary,  took  a  broom  and  completely  washed  the 
trunks  and  larger  limbs  with  tlie  crude  petro- 
leum, noticing  at  the  same  time  that  they 
were  thickly  covered  with  bark  lice.  In  the 
following  spring,  to  the  astonishment  of  all, 
the  trees  starte(l  out  with  renewed  vigor,  made 
a  greater  growth  than  they  ever  did  before, 
'and  the  bark  was  as  smooth  and  as  healthy 
as  that  of  a  one  year  old  .seedling.'  Since 
then  the  trees  have  flourished  and  borne  abun- 
dantly. Mr.  B.  suggests  that  the  application 
should  be  made  before  the  buds  swell  at  all, 
as  petroleum  will  kill  the  foliage.  We  would 
add  to  tho.se  dis|iosed  to  exiieriment  in  that 
direction,  that  neither  kerosene  nor  any  other 
preparation  from  petrol  um  should  be  used  as 
a  substitute  for  the  crude  article,  just  as  it  is 
drawn  from  the  wells." 

[We  should  hesitate  to  recommend  petro- 
letmiin  any  of  its  forms;  but  instead  of  it,  oil, 
or  grease  of  almost  any  kind,  has  been  endors- 
ed by  the  highest  authority,  and  we  ktiov  it 
to  be  effectual,  fijr  we  have  tried  it  on  various 
occasions.  ] 

Lime  OK  Whitewash.— "W.  E., "of  North 
Haven,  Conn.,  takes  tlie  best  fresli-burned 
stone-lime,  slakes  it  with  hot  water,  and  thins 
with  cold  water  to  the  i)roper  consistency  to 
apply  readily,  and  with  a  common  broom — a 
round  one  preferable — Jiaints  over  the  trunks 
and  large  branches.  Thinking  that  we  liad 
somewhere  seen  the  statement  that  lime  had 
been  tried  by  <  it  liens  without  effect,  we  wrote 
to  Mr.  E.  to  make  sure  that  it  was  the  Oyster- 
iShell  lou.se  that  he  had  in  mind,  and  be  replied 
that  it  was,  and  finds  lime  perfectly  ellicacioiis. 
Though  nut  now  troubled  by  tlie  insect,  he 
would  apply  lime  wheiu'ver  lie  discovered  it. 
Mr.  E.  I'egards  ;i  coating  of  lime-wash  as 
highly  u.seful  in  other  respects,  and  wonders 
why  its  use  is  ojijiosed  by  some.  Upon  young 
trees,  in  which  the  bark  is  still  active,  we  jire- 
fer  not  to  clog  it  with  a  coat  of  lime,  but  if 
any  wash  is  needed,  use  a  more  soluble  one  of 
lye  or  soap  ;  in  older  trees,  when  the  outer 
bark  is  ih^ad  and  begins  to  scale  oil',  it  makes 
no  dilTerence,  except  as  a  question  of  looks. 
In  treating  this  bark  louse,  as  well  as  in  all 
contests  with  insects,  success  will  depend 
hugely  upon  proinpt  action,  and  attacking  the 


enemy  as  soon  asjiossible  after  it  is  discovered. 
Young  trees  e8i)ecially  should  be  watched,  for 
it  is  an  easy  matter  to  treat  a  tree,  all  parts  of 
which  are  within  reach,  compared  with  an- 
other two  or  three  times  tlie  si/e.  We  have 
no  idea  that  washing  the  trunk,  merely,  of  a 
tree,  witli  whitewash,  )ietroleum,  or  other 
ap)ilica(ion,  will  rid  it  of  the  (iyster-Shell 
bark  louse.  'Wiese  are  situated  upon  the 
newer  growth  and  small  limbs,  and  any  ai)]ili- 
cation  that  fails  to  reach  these,  can  be  of  little 
or  any  service,  .so  far  as  this  particular  insect 
is  concerned.  It  is  very  im]iortaiit  to  avoid 
introducing  this  pest,  and  every  new  tree  from 
a  nursery  and  el.sewhero  should  be  examined 
for  bark  lice,  before  jilauting." 

[Really,  it  seems  that  the  question  invol- 
ving the  utility  of  whitcnvashing  trees,  is  never 
to  lie  definitely  .settled.  When  we  were  a  boy 
and  worked  upon  a  farm,  fifty  years  ago,  it 
was  rather  a  conmion  thing  to  whitewash 
trees,  especially  those  that  were  growing  in 
the  yard  or  the  garden.  This  process  usually 
followed  the  whitewashing  of  fences  and  out- 
hoiKses,  and  was  done  with  the  same  material, 
and  with  no  particular  reference  to  the  bark- 
louse,  or  any  other  iii.sect,  if  anything  had 
ever  been  known  or  heard  of  then.  It  some- 
how was  thought  to  produce  thrift  in  the 
growth  of  the  trees,  or  perhaps  more  lik('ly 
was  a  mere  matter  of  taste.  In  after  years, 
according  to  the  exiierience  of  some  persons, 
whose  opinions  were  entitled  to  respect,  it 
was  alleged  that  whitewa.shiiig  was  absolutely 
injurious  to  tlu'  trees.  Now,  how  could  e(iual- 
ly  intelligent  peojile  differ  so  much  in  the  re- 
■s'ults  of  their  individual  experiences  ?  We 
apprehend  that  the  difference  is  just  in  this 
wise.  The  difference  in  the  kind  and  the 
quality  of  the  limo  and  the  wash,  and  the  dif- 
ference in  the  .ages  and  conditions  of  the  trees. 
The  opposers  of  whitewashing,  said  it  closed 
up  the  pores  and  arrested  respiration,  a  func- 
tion as  important  to  the  healthy  development 
of  the  tree,  as  "insensible  perspiration  "  is  to 
the  human  liody.  In  order  to  increase  the 
adhesiveness  of  whitewash,  peoiile  are  in  the 
habit  of  putting  a  greater  or  lesser  quantity 
of  alum,  salt,  sugar  or  glue  into  it;  and  if 
these  ingredients  increase  its  adhesiveness 
when  applied  to  fences  and  frame  buildings,  it 
would  adhere  too  clo.sely  to  trees  to  allow  free 
respiiation  and  thus  injure  them,  and  especial- 
ly young,  smooth-liarked  trees.  If  the  lime 
was  too  acrid,  hot,  or  strong,  it  would  have 
the  same  effect.  The  whitewashing  of  large, 
old,  and  rough-barked  trees,  does  not  afford  a 
proper  test  of  the  utility  of  the  operation,  and 
especiall}' when  it  is  done  to  kill  bark-lice; 
because,  as  "W.  E."  above,  trnly  says,  there 
is  not  the  place  where  these  insects  locate 
themselves.  And  secondly,  because  the  sur- 
face of  a  rough-barked  tree  cannot  be  covered 
as  com|)letely  and  as  imperviously  as  a  smooth 
one  can,  and  there  will  always  he  fissures  in 
the  liark  that  have  not  been  reached  by  the 
brush,  and  tlirough  which  res]iiiation  is  car- 
ried on,  and  could  only  be  effected  there, 
whether  the  tree  was  whitewashed  or  not. 
Some  years  ago  a  neighbor  of  ours  had  two 
young  jie.ar  trees  badly  infested  with  hark 
lice,  and  on  the  recommendation  of  a  friend, 
he  used  strong  fish  brine,  ajiplied  with  a  hand- 
scrub  on  the  one,  and  sharp  lime  wash  on  the 
other,  but  they  bolli  eventually  died.  AVe  had 
the  same  kind  of  a  tree,  similarly  infested,  and 
wc  used  lard  oil  with  entire  success;  and  in 
every  instance  where  we  liave  recommended 
it,  it  has  been  effectual.  The  late  Mr.  Walsh, 
State  I'^ntoiuologist  of  Illinois,  exiierimented 
with  everything,  and  finally  recorded  his  tes- 
timony in  favor  of  oil.  | 


The  Sener  Apple. 
By  M.  J.  Si'AVMAN.  Leavenworth,  Kansas. 
— Dear  Sir. — Yours  of  September  '20th  was 
received  yesterday  on  my  return  here,  also 
the  apple,  although  it  was  entirely  rotten, 
but  in  fair  shape,  so  that  I  could  take  a  cut 
and  inside  outline  of  the  fruit.  I  am  .sorry  I 
did  not  get  it  in  time  to  give  a  more  satisfiic- 
tory  outline  and  description.  The  scions  were 
eutirely  dried  ui),  past  recovery,  which  I  very 


much  regi-et,  as  I  wished  to  graft  tliem  at  my 
homeplace,  I^eavenworlh,  Kansas.  The  busi- 
ness at  the  Centennial  continued  to 
increase  in  number ,  of  varieties  so  that  I 
found  it  impossible  to  leave  until  it  was  over, 
and  with  what  I  had  on  hand,  and  some  other 
business,  detained  me  until  the  Titli  of  this 
month  (Dec. )  before  I  left  the  city.  I  send 
with  this  the  outline  and  descriiition.  The 
color  and  iiuahty  I  had  to  Judge  f^rom  memory 
and  what  you  wrote,  which  may  both  he  in- 
correct, if  so,  jilease  state  in  what  respect, 
and  also  add  about  the  vigor  and  any  otlier 
part  omitted.  1  am  very  thankful  for  your 
kindness  in  sending  the  specimens  and  your 
interesting  letter,  and  am  very  sorry  that  1 
have  been  unable  to  answer  sooner. 

I  took,  while  at  the  Centennial,  .seven  hun- 
dred and  eighty  (7^0)  cuts  and  descriptions  of 
fruit  I  had  not  taken  before,  making  my  en- 
tire collection  over  1,700;  in  everv  respect 
comiilete  and  taken  by  my.self,  embracing 
many  new  and  valuable  varieties. 

I  w^iuld  h(^  much  obliged,  if  it  is  not  too 
much  trouble. to  send  me  a  few  more  scions  fit 
to  graft,  and  direct  tliem  to  Leavenworth, 
Kansas.  Two  or  three  grafts  will  he  sulficient 
to  test  the  variety,  as  I  expect  to  be  tiierc  in 
ten  days  and  remain  tliere,  from  where  I  should 
like  to  hear  fiom  you  when  convenient. 

1  think  the  Seiier  a  valuable  variety,  and 
worth  being  more  generally  cultivated.  Pruit 
large  ;  form  oblate,  slightly  conic  ;  color  light 
yellow  ;  dots  small,  di.stinct,  scattered,  grey  ; 
stem  medium,  rather  thick  ;  cavity  wide,  deep 
green,  or  russeted  ;  calyx  very  large,  open ; 
segments  large,  rellexed  ;  basin  rather  wide, 
deep,  abrupt,  slightly  furrowed  ;  core  large, 
wide,  closed  ;  carpels  medium,  hollow  ;  seeds 
rather  large,  ovate,  angular,  light  chestnut 
brown  ;  fiesh  white,  tender,  juicy,  siirightly, 
pleasant  sub-acid;  quality  good,  excellent  for ' 
kitchen  ;  tree,  rather  drooping,  a  regular  and 
generous  bearer.  Brought  from  Cermantown 
some  lifty  years  ago.  (irown  by  Mr.  Sener, 
Lancaster,  I'a.  Specimen  received  from  Mr. 
S.  S.  Kathvon,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

[This  apple  having  originated  about  Gcr- 
mantown,  Mr.  Stayuiau's  paper  has  been  very 
kindly  placed  at  our  disposal  by  I'rof.  Bathvon, 
instead  of  using  it  in  his  own  Lancaster 
Parmer— a  courtesy  we  highly  apineciatc. 
We  may  lake  occasion  to  say  that  the  Lan- 
CASTEU  Fahmek,  though  unfartwuttelii  with 
the  local  name  of  "  Lancaster"  appended  to  it, 
is  not  a  merely  local  ]>aper,  but  is  at  least  e<iual 
in  general  value  to  an  v  Agricultural  paper  that 
coines  to  our  table.-£(J.  G(udi)i( r's  MnnlMi/.] 

Some  time  in  March  last  we  sent  by  mail 
to  Mr.  Stayman  a  number  of  scions  of  the  ap- 
lile  .above  referred  to,  and  also  to  Mes,srs. 
Casper  Ililler  and  H.  JL  Englc.  From  what 
we  know  practically  of  the  quality  of  the 
fruit,  we  feel  Justified  in  recommending  it, 
and  hope  more  of  our  fruit  growers  will  make 
apiilicatiou  to  Mr.  Sener  for  scions,  who  kind- 
ly offers  them  with  no  other  motive  than  its 
perpetuation,  as  the  tree  is  growing  old.  In 
addition  to  all  of  the  foregoing  we  refer  our 
readers  to  an  article  on  the  subject,  on  page 
14.")  Vol.  VI I L  of  tlie  Farmer,  where  the  his- 
tory of  the  apple,  and  our  own  experience  is 
more  particularly  detailed. 

AVe  cannot  conclude  without  th.anking  the 
editor  of  the  G.  M.  for  liis  complimentary  no- 
tice of  our  journal,  even  including  what  he 
seems  to  think  an  "unfortunate  apiicndage." 
We  know  what  he  says  is  not  intended  to  lie 
disrespectful,  but  merely  suggestive,  and  as- 
sure him  that  he  is  not  alone  in  this  senti- 
ment, for  such  a  view  was  entertained  when 
the  present  name  of  the  paper  was  adoiitcd, 
and  still  exists  among  some  of  its  most  intelli- 
gent patrons,  on  the  ground  that  a  more  gen- 
eral title  might  elicit  more  general  contribu- 
tions to  ilscolunins,  and  a  more  general  pat- 
ronage from  abroad.  W<'  however  feel  reluct- 
ant to  change  the  title  now,  especially  as  it 
was  never  intended  to  circumscribe,  or  limit 
its  scoi>e;  but  should  it  lie  deemed  advisiiblc 
to  do  so  at  a  future  time,  we  will  give  the 
matter  a  respectful  consideration,  if  our  con- 
nection with  it  still  coutinueB. — Jid. 


68 


THE  LANCASTER  -FARMER 


[May, 


CoLTTMBiA,  May  1,  1877. 

Frof.  S.  S.  Rath  von.— Dear  Sir. — En- 
closed in  box  please  find  a  "Slutepoke"  with 
a  bass  in  its  mouth.  The  two  struggled  for 
supremacy  upon  the  dam  iu  the  river  for  a 
mile,  and  both  died  in  battle.  I  sent  a  de- 
scription to  the  Era. — S.  E. 

The  box  containing  the  bird  and  fish  came 
safely  to  hand,  for  which  we  tender  thanks  to 
the  thoughtful  Squire.  The  fish  was  wedged 
so  tightly  in  the  bird's  mouth  and  throat, 
that  wc  did  not  wish  to  disturb  them  ;  so, 
instead  of  skinning  and  mounting  the  former, 
with  the  probability  of  destroying  the  inter- 
esting tableau,  we  cut  oft'  the  head  as  it  was, 
and  also  the  feet,  and  "embalmed"  them  in 
alcohol,  with  a  view  of  preserving  their  statu 
quo.  Of  course,  our  readers  are  well  acquain- 
ted with  this  bird  {Butorides  vircscens)  which, 
in  addition  to  the  common  name  given  above, 
is  also  known  under  the  jiopular  names  of 
"Green  Heron,"  and  "Fly-up-the-creek." 
However  correct  buds  may  be  in  their  general 
instincts,  this  subject  made  a  woful  mistake 
in  its  calculation,  for  it  attempted  to  swallow 
a  fish  beyond  its  swallowing  capacity,  and 
died  in  tliat  bootless  attempt.  It  is  all  well 
enough  to  exliibit  "grit,"  energy,  or  determi- 
nation, in  accomplishing  individual  ends;  but 
it  is  the  sheerest  folly  to  overmeasure  our  abil- 
ity and  then  be  brought  to  disastrous  "grief." 
2  his  is  OUT  moral,  aside  from  violating  the  fish- 
laws.— £(t. 


Mount  Holly  Springs,  1 
April  20th,  1877.  j 
Mr.  Editor  : — I  saw  a  copy  of  the  Lan- 
caster Farmer  and  was  very  much  pleased 
with  the  reading  matter  which  it  contained, 
so  much  so  tliat  I  have  come  to  the  couclusion 
to  subscribe  for  it  for  one  year.  I  consider 
the  paper  is  good  enough  to  be  iu  any  family. 
Please  send  me  the  back  numbers,  starting 
with  the  January  number,  1877.  Send  me  a 
receipt  for  the  same.  I  can  perhaps  get  you  a 
small  club  in  my  neighborhood.  Address, 
Enos  Staufter,  Mount  Iloily  Springs,  Cumber- 
land county,  Pennsylvania. 


Office  of  "Western  Farmer,  ] 
Dixon,  III.,  April  30, 1877.      j 

Dear  Sir :  Please  place  us  again  on  your 
"Ex"  list.  The  Lancaster  Farmer  "used 
to  be  one  of  our  most  valued  exchanges,  and 
w8  are  glad  to  be  able  to  notice  its  revival. 

Yoiu's  truly,  W.  M.  Kennedy. 

We  cheerfully  comply  ;  and  feel  specially 
complimented  in  being  solicited  to  do  so  ;  and 
also  reciprocate  the  sentiment  pervading  the 
above. — Ed. 


LANCASTER  COUNTY  PEACHES— 
"  SENER'S  FAVORITE." 

International  Exhibition,  1 
Philadelphia,  1877.      ] 
The  United  States  Centennial  Commission 
has  examined  the  report  of  the  Judges,  and 
accepted  the  following  reasons,  and  decreed 
an  award  in  conformity  therewith  : 

Philadelphia,  February  27,  1876. 
Report  on  Aw Auon—Produet,   Peaches: 
Name  and  address  of  exhibitor,  J.  Frederick 
Sener,  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania. 

The  undersigned,  having  examined  the  pro- 
duct herein  described,  respectfully  recom- 
mends the  same  to  the  United  States  Centen- 
nial Commission  for  award,  for  the  following 
reasons,  viz.:  Two  plates  of  yellow  peaches 
called  "  Sener's  Favorite,"  freestone,  very 
large,  10  inches  in  circumference  ;  rich,  sweet, 
and  delicious. 

Wii.  Parry,  Judyr. 

APPROVAL  OF  group  JUDGES. 

"W.  L.  ScHAEFFER,  Francis  Meehan, 

T.  T.  Lyon,  Suel  Foster, 

JosiAH  IIooPES,  Parker  Earle, 

E.  Satterthwait,  F.  W.  Harrison. 

A  true  copy  of  the  Record. 

Francis  L.  Walker, 
Chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Awards, 


Given  by  authority  of  the  Centennial  Com- 


[Seal.] 

J.  L.  Campbell, 

Secretary. 


A.  T.  GOSHORN, 

Director-General. 
J.  R.  Hawley, 

Prcmlent. 


INTERNATIONAL  EXHIBITION— 1876. 
U.  S.  Centennia*  Commission, 
Philadelphia,  March  20,  '77. 

Mr.  j.  F.  Sener,  Lancaster,  Pa. — .%-; 
The  enclosed  is  a  copy  of  the  Report  of  the 
Judges  as  accepted  by  the  United  States  Cen- 
tennial Commission,  .and  in  conformity  with 
which  an  award  was  decreed  to  you.  You 
will  be  notified  when  the  Diploma  and  Medal 
will  be  readyfnrdelivery.  Please  acknowledge 
the  receipt  of  this  report. 

Yours  Respectfully, 

A.  T.  GosnoRN, 
Direclor-Gei^eral. 

[We  feel  a  local  pride  iu  the  foregoing  hand- 
some and  authoritative  recognition  of  the 
"Sener  Favorite  Peach,"  because  it  was 
through  the  colunnis  of  the  Lancaster 
Farmer  (Vol.  3,  pages  189  and  190)  that  it 
was  first  brought  to  the  notice  of  the  public  ; 
and  for  the  delectation  of  peach  growers,  we 
reprint  what  we  wrote  u])on  the  subject  in 
1871 ;  and,  in  view  of  the  many  inferior  va- 
rieties of  this  sjiecies  of  fruit  which  have 
annually  been  put  upon  our  market,  since  that 
time,  we  feel  that  we  cannot  too  strongly 
recommend  its  extended  propagation,  especi- 
ally since  it  costs  no  more  labor  or  risk  to  cul- 
tivate a  r/ood  variety  than  it  does  for  a  had  one  ; 
and  the  former  is  always  sure  of  a  market, 
and  ample  compensation,] 

The  Sener  Peaches. 

The  credit  of  originating  these  luscious 
peaches,  we  are  of  opinion,  belongs  to  Mr. 
Gotlieb  Sener,  of  Lancaster  city,  and  their 
history,  characteristics,  and  qualities  are 
worthy  of  record  in  the  archives  of  horticiU- 
ture,  and  especially  of  our  local  horticulture. 
These  peaches  have  been  iu  Mr.  Seller's  fam- 
ily, and  have  maintained  their  integritj', 
through  three  generations  of  the  fruit,  cover- 
ing a  period  of  33  years.  In  1S38  Mr.  S.  ob- 
tained two  seeds — from  whence  miknown — - 
and  planted  them  in  his  garden  in  Lancaster 
city,  and  from  these  seeds  grew  two  trees, 
which  in  three  years  produced  fruit,  slightly 
difl'erent  in  size,  in  flavor,  and  in  appearance, 
one  of  which  was  known  in  the  family  as  tlie 
"Landis  peach,"  and  the  other  as  the  "fa- 
vorite ;"  the  last  named  being  rather  the 
largest  and  most  symmetrically  formed. 
The  first  name  originated  something  in 
this  manner.  Tlurty  j'ears  ago  a  Mr.  Lan- 
dis was  on  a  business  visit  to  Mr.  Sener,  in 
the  third  year  of  the  young  tree,  and  when  it 
had  three  ripe  peaches  on  it,  which  Mr.  S.  had 
himself  not  yet  tasted.  On  passing  the  tree, 
the  fruit  of  which  looked  so  exceedingly  fine, 
Jlr.  L.,  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to 
pluck  one  of  the  peaches  and  eat  it.  It  proved 
so  luscious  and  generous  to  the  taste,  that  on 
repassing  the  tree,  Mr.  L. ,  plucked  another; 
Mr.  S.,  all  the  while  burning  with  anxiety  lest 
he  should  not  get  an  opportunity  of  tasting  a 
fruit  he  had  been  so  carefully  cultivating,  and 
the  quality  of  which  he  desired  to  knoiv,  and 
yet  too  modest  to  inform  Mr.  L.  of  the  state 
of  the  case,  he,  (Mr.  L.),  of  course,  being  al- 
together unconscious  of  the  anxiety  he  had 
caused.  Through  tins  circumstance,  this 
peach,  in  the  fiimily,  received  the  name  of 
the  "Landis  peach,"  and  to  distinguish  the 
other  from  it,  it  was  called  the  "Favorite," 
although  not  the  best  fruit.  Our  descriirtions 
will  therefore  refer  specilically  to  the  first 
n.amed,  or  Landis  variety,  and  only  incident- 
ally to  the  Favorite;  for  although  both  vari- 
eties were  on  exhibition  at  the  late  fair  of  the 
Horticultural  Society,  yet  the  kilter  were  dis- 
posed of  l)efore  we  had  an  oppoiluuity  of  test- 
ing them.  Tlie  first  named  has  retained  all 
its  qualities  through  three  successive  propa- 
gations from  seeds,  perfectly  intact,  but  the 
other,  in  some  instances,  has  undergdne  some 
slight  change. 

The  dimensions    of  an    average  specimen 


were  as  follows  :  Fr^dt ;  lateral  circumference, 
eight  inches  and  three-quarters  ;  transverse 
circumference,  eight  inches  and  five-eighths; 
weight, five  ounces;  form  almost  spherical, and 
very  perfect;  skin  tender,  thin  and  velvety; 
color,  a  yellowish  tinge,  with  a  deep  red  cheek; 
the  lateral  suture,  which  so  distinctly  marks 
some  varieties  of  the  peach,  is  very  slight  in 
the  one  under  consideration.  The  stem  is 
rather  short,  and  the  indentation,  or  concav- 
ity where  the  stem  is  attached,  is  only  of  me- 
dium depth;  flesh  faintly  tinged  with  yellow, 
and  a  deep  pink  around  the  seed;  taste  sweet 
with  a  slight  pleasant  tartish  after-taste,  juicy 
and  melting.  Seed  ;  very  free,  clean,  mod- 
erately flat,  and  small  in  proportion  to  the 
size  of  the  fruit.  Lateral  circumference, 
three  inches  and  a  quarter  ;  transverse  cir- 
cumference, two  inches  and  three-quarters; 
indentations  of  the  seed,  very  deep;  internal 
cavity  small  and  shallow,  exhibiting  a  propor- 
tionately thick  shell,  kernel,-  length,  three- 
quarters  of  an  inch,  and  fiat  in  form. 

AVe  have  been  thus  minute,  because  we  do 
not  think  we  have  ever  seen  and  tasted  so  fine 
a  fruit,  undistinguished  by  some  proiuinent 
name  ;  and  the  fact  that  it  has  not  degenerated, 
nor  diverged  from  the  original  stock,  by  being 
successively  raised  from  the  seed,  during  a 
period  of  thirty-three  years,  goes  very  far  in 
favor  of  its  character,  as  worthy  of  cultivation. 
Doubtless  cultivation,  by  budding  and  grafting, 
woul<l  work  an  improvement  in  its  quality,  its 
size,  and  its  general  character.  To  facilitate 
this  end,  Mr.  F.  J.  Sener  requests  us  to  say 
that  he  will  cheerfully  furnish  any  persons 
with  scions  who  may  desire  them.  Of  course, 
we  do  not  feel  that  we  alone  have  authority  to 
name  those  peaches  specifically,  but  they  may 
be  provisionally  regarded,  for  the  present,  as 
"  Sener 's  Seedlings,"  Nos.  1  and  2,  or  may 
retain  the  names  they  are  known  by  in  the 
Sener  family,  until  they  are  propagated  by 
others,  and  "formally  baptized  by  a  competent 
committee.  As  the  trees  are  healthy,  and 
constant  and  prolific  bearers,  adapted  to  osr 
locality,  they  may  prove  more  advantageous  to 
the  peach  growers  of  our  country,  than  many 
of  the  introduced  crack  varieties  cultivated 
now. 

These  two  peaches  have  now  blended  by 
proximity  of  cultivation  into  one,  which  has 
all  the  good  qualities  of  both,  and  is  known  as 
"Sener's  Favorite."  The  "Landis"  variety 
was  somewhat  ovate  in  form,  and  the  "  Fa- 
vorite" almost  perfectly  spherical — the  former 
was  the  sweetest,  and  the  latter  the  roundest'; 
it  therefore  retains  this  form,  and  of  late  years 
but  one  variety  with  all  the  size,  color  and 
quality  of  the  originals  is  recognized  ;  and 
since  the  above  description  was  written  (1871) 
a  new  generation  has  been  produced,  retain- 
ing its  original  integrity,  as  demonstrated  in 
the  award  of  the  commission. 

In  addition  to  the  foregoing,  within  the 
past  month  we  have  been  informed  by  Mr.  J. 
F.  Sener,  that  he  has  entered  into  an  arrange- 
ment with  Mr.  Daniel  Srae3ch,  of  Lancaster 
city — a  very  competent  and  successful  fruit 
cultivator — to  propagate  and  .sell  the  Sener 
pcadi  stock ;  and  therefore  all  who  desire  them 
from  henceforward  are  respectfully  referred  to 
him,  as  possessing  exclusive  control  over  the 
subject  for  the  present.  After  such  a  compli- 
mentary recognition  by  such  a  competent  com- 
mittee of  "  Group  Judges,"  perhaps  a  prophet, 
after  all,  may  have  some  honor  in  his  own 
country  and  among  his  own  kin.  We  often 
think  of  the  little  kitten  whirling  "  round  and 
round"  in  punsuit  of  its  own  tail,  when,  if  the 
little  simpleton  would  only  stop  and  look,  it 
would  find  the  end  of  its  tail  right  at  its  nose. 
Hundreds  of  dollars  have  been  thrown  away 
by  the  citizens  of  Lancaster  county  within  the 
past  few  years,  for  inferior  nursery  stock, 
brought  here  from  remote  or  obscure  corners 
of  the  country. 


A  "one-horse  farmer"  in  Decatur  co.,  Ga., 
made  400  bus.  corn,  10  bales  cotton,  .^OO  bus. 
ground  peas,  2"!  bbls.  .syru|i,  and.'iOO  lius.  sweet 
I)otatoes  the  past  season.  And  this  with  1  mule, 
1  regular  hand,  very  little  extra  help  or  manure. 


il 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER 


69 


THE  PERMANENT  EXHIBITION, 
A  condensed  description  of  wliich  wepiopose 
to  publisli  in  t'utni-o  numbers  of  tliu  Fak.mku, 
was  opened  with  imposing  cei-emonies  on  the 
loth  insl.  In  our  present  nnnd)er  wo  can 
only  find  room  for  tlie  following,  which  we 
eull  from  a  very  well  written  article  on  the 
subject,  bv  ilr.  Charles  'William  Foster,  on 
the  "Editorial  Slall'"  of  tin-  I'hilaileljihia 
I'rcxs,  and  which  aiijieared  in  one  of  the  April 
numbers  of  that  journal,  while  the  exhibition 
was  still  incomplete.  After  noticing  the  seve- 
ral different  departments,  the  writer  concludes 
as  follows  : 

The  general  exhibits  which  are  distributed 
through  the  aisles  of  the  M:\\u  Building  are 
much  the  same  as  during  the  Centennial,  aud 
have  been  classilicd  as  follows  : 

1.  Minerals,  ores,  !)uililing-stc)nes,  marbles, 
artificial  stones,  metallurgical  products,  bar 
and  she(^t  iron. 

2.  Ghvss  ;  ceramics  ;  terra-cotta. 

3.  Chemicals,  pharmaceutical  preparations, 
medicines,  oils,  paints,  varnisli,  soaps,  aud  per- 
fumery. 

4.  FurnlUnre  ;  apparatus  for  lighting  ;  lire 
and  burglar-proof  safes ;  wooden  and  basket 
ware. 

5.  Api>aratus  for  cooking  and  heating  ;  laun- 
dry, kitchen,  and  bath-room  api>liances ;  manu- 
fiictured  ]iarts  of  b\iildings. 

0.  Wovrn  goods,  ropes  and  cordage,  brushes, 
clothing,  furs,  artilieial  llowers,  llags,  and 
tniveliu;;  ecpiipments. 

7.  lA'alher  and  shoe  industry  ;  harness. 

8.  (iold  and  silverware,  plated  ware, 
bronzes,  jewelry,  gold  (lens  and  pencils,  gold 
and  silver  foil,  fancy  articles. 

9.  Stationery,  pens,  pencils,  paper,  wall  and 
felted  paper. 

10.  Firearms  and  ammunit  ion  ;  sporting 
implements. 

11.  Philosoi)hical,  scientific,  chronometrical, 
electrical,  and  optical  instruments;  weights 
and  scales. 

12.  Surgical  and  dental  instruments  and  ap- 
pliances. 

i;?.  Hardware,  cutlery,  hand  tools,  orna- 
mental castings,  plumbers'  materials,  galvan- 
ized iron  and  zinc  work. 

14.  Carriages,  vehicles,  and  accessories. 

l.").  Musical  instrinueuts. 

10.  Educational  systems  and  aiipliances, 
publications,  historical  and  archieological  col- 
lections. 

17.  Engineering  and  architecture,  models, 
plans,  &c. 

18.  Sculpture  and  paintings. 

19.  Engravings,  lithographs,  photographs, 
heliographs. 

"20.  Art  applied  to  industry — Mosaics, 
stained  glass,  models,  decorations. 

21.  Machines,  tools,  and  appliances  of  min- 
ing, chemistry  and  extractive  arts,  machines 
for  manufacturing  vegetable  or  animal  pro- 
ducts for  food. 

22.  Machines  and  tools  for  working  metal, 
wood  and  stone. 

23.  Machines  and  implements  used  in  sew- 
ing, spinning,  weaving,  and  felting  ;  wasliing 
machines. 

24.  ilachiiies  and  apparatus  for  tJ^Je-raak- 
ing,  printing,  lithographing,  book  and  paper 
making. 

25.  Motors  and  apparatus  for  the  generation 
and  transmission  of  power  (water,  steam,  air, 
gas,  electro-magnetic,  &c.) 

26.  Railway  plans,  rolling  stock  and  appur- 
tenances ;  serial,  pneumatic,  and  water  trans- 
portation. 

27.  Agricultural  and  animal  products. 

28.  Land  and  marine  animal  culture,  and 
apparatus  for  same ;  living  and  preserved 
specimens. 

29.  Agricultural  machines,  implements,  and 
processes. 

30.  Horticulture. 

It  will  be  seen  that  these  thirty  groups  in- 
clude nearly  all  the  displays  made  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  and  as  the  very  finest  ex- 
amples of  each  group  have  been  secured  for 
the  Permanent  Exhibition,  and  as  the  whole, 
with  the  exception  of  the  fine  arts,  can  be  seen 


under  one  roof,  the  general  effect  will  be 
infinitely  more  interesting  and  delightful  than 
when  the  vast  quantities  of  each  kind  wearied 
the  eye  before  the  sense  was  gratified. 


For  THK  LANCASTF.n  I'"AIlUKn. 

SEED  WHEAT. 
There  is  nothing  on  record  worthy  of  un- 
qnalified  belief,  that  wheat  has  ever  changed 
into  any  other  plant  tlirough  neglect  in  clean- 
ing or  in  cull  ure,  althiiugh  some  peoples  have 
alleged  that  it  has  been  known  to  have 
changed  into  chess,  or  cheat;  and  therefore, 
all  the  woiid  over,  wheat  is  re(H)gni/,ed  a.s 
wheat,  in  tlu^  fullest  senses  of  the  term.  It  is 
the  great  vt^getabli>  staple  from  which  fiour  is 
made,  and  bread,  in  its  various  forms  elabi)- 
rated  ;  which  is  the  "statf  of  life"  to  the  hu- 
man family. 

That  a  good  variety  of  wheat  cainiot  degen- 
erate into  a  bad  oni^  nor  a  bail  variety  be  im- 
proved into  a  good  one,  I  think,  will  he  gen- 
erally admitted;  and  also,  that  it  caimot  be  so 
mixed  up  as  to  be  seiisilily  deteriorated.  (Jn- 
I'avor.ible  circumstances  may  diminish  its 
([uanlity  and  impair  its  <iuality,  but  such  con- 
tingencies will  alike  affect  both  good  aud  bad. 
Out  of  the  fifteen  or  twenty  varieti(\s  of  wheat 
that  have  bcM'ome  the  subjects  of  cultivation, 
we  look  upon  six  or  einht  for  our  main  supply; 
but  these  1  will  not  undertake  to  name,  as 
people  will  differ  in  tludr  choice,  and  localities 
liave  much  to  do  in  the  matter.  We  have 
winter  and  summer  wheat,  red  and  white 
wheat,  smooth  and  bearded  wheat,  which 
would  make  six  varieties  already,  and  these 
have  their  sub-varieties. 

There  lias  been  wheat  found  in  houses  in 
the  "old  country,"  built  many  long  years 
ago,  which  has  been  planted  and  has  germi- 
nated aud  grown  ;  also,  it  is  said,  wheat  that 
has  bci'U  found  in  the  hands  of  embalmed 
Egytian  mummies  in  catacombs,  erected  hun- 
dreds— perhaps  thousands  of  years  ago,  which, 
on  being  planted,  grew  and  produced  seed, 
and  1  presume  wheat  as  siuular  to  ours  as  can 
be  conjectured. 

Wheat  may  be  changed  to  earh/  and  late, 
and  perhaps  .somewhat  also  in  color  ;  but  you 
cannot  change  it  from  smooth  to  bearded,  or 
from  white  to  red — at  least  not  within  a  single 
year.  It  may  be  changed  to  ripen  earlier  by 
sowing  it  on  rich, loo.se  soil,  and  always  .select- 
ing for  seed  the  earliest  riiiened  ears  ;  and  by 
reversing  this  rule,  a  later  sub-variety  may  be 
liroduced  ;  aud  by  a  similar  process,  somewhat 
of  a  change  may  be  effected  in  its  color. 

As  to  the  bulk,  or  the  size  of  wheat  grains, 
I  will  only  say,  that  sown  thickly  or  densely 
on  the  ground,  wheat  produces  smaller  grains 
than  when  sown  sparsely  or  scattering,  all 
other  things  being  equal.  An  average  grain 
of  perfect  wheat  measures  \  to  i",;  of  an  inch 
In  length,  f,;  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  and  it 
lakes  about  (130,000  grains  to  make  a  bushel, 
which  weighs,  or  ought  to  weigh,  sixty  pounds. 
Whether  that  wheat  sown  by  the  farmer — 
spoken  of  by  our  Saviour — some  of  which  fell  by 
the  wayside,  aud  some  on  good  ground,  yield- 
ing thirty  and  sixty  fold,  was  .similar  to,  or  the 
same  as  ours  at  the  present  time,  is  a  question 
that,  I  at  least,  am  not  able  to  answer.  *Was 
it  white  or  red  ?  bearded  or  smooth  ?  But,  to 
come  back  to  the  main  subject.  Select  the 
best  field,  or  the  best  portion  of  your  wheat 
field,  before  harvest,  for  your  seed.  Clean  out 
all  the  rye,  cockle,  cheat,  or  any  other  kinds 
of  inferior  seeds  it  may  contain ;  keep  it 
separate  from  any  other  kind,  and  clean  it  as 

•It  is  not  at  all  germain  to  tUn  BUbject  that  you  shoulil  be 
able  to  answer.  The  Saviour  was  speaking  in  parablcj^,  antl 
used  a  corrcspondentiwl  flpure  of  speech.  "A  sower  weut 
forth  to  sow;"  and  the  record  does  uot  say  what  kiud  of 
seed  he  sowed — whether  wheat  or  cheat  or  rye  or  any  other 
klud.  The  parable  is  intended  to  illustrate  rather  the  kind 
of  soil  upon  which  the  seed  was  sown,  than  what  kind  of 
««(/ was  sown,  although,  inferentially,  wo  may  auppoae  he 
meant  good  seed.  Iti'  is  now  sowing,  still  sowing  seeds;  and 
if  we  read  the  whole  chajiter  we  cannot  fail  to  have  some 
appreciation  of  the  meaning  of  the  parable.  It  is  not  essen- 
tial to  tlie  moral  effect  of  his  teaching  by  parable,  that  a 
sower  should  resUly  have  gone  '-forth  to  mow"  at  all,  any 
more  than  that  there  should  be  real  sheep  and  goats  to  "sep- 
arate one  from  another,"  at  his  second  ctuniiig.  "It  is 
like"  so  and  so — drawing  spiritniU  instruction  from  natural 
imagery,  which  is  only  the  shell  or  husk,  that  incloses  the 
moral  aud  si'iritual  substance  wlthiu  it. — Ed. 


thoroughly  as  you  possibly  can  ;  then  blow  all 
the  smutty  and  light  grains  out  of  it,  as  you 
will  then  be  able  to  calculate  more  correctly 
the  quantity  to  sow  on  an  acre. 

Following  out  these  suggestions  and  induc- 
tions of  good  farming,  in  connection  with  a 
proper  iireiiaratiou  of  the  soil,  it  will  always 
"pay"  the  farmer  to  be  particular. 

Pkter  S.  Reist. 


For  The  Lancastf.r  Fabuek. 
HOW   SHALL    WE    KNOW    HOW    TO 
PLANT    FRUIT   TREES.' 

Some  jilaces  are  not  favorable  for  certain 
kinds  of  fruit.  Tluue  is  a  vast  dillerencc  in 
locality  and  soil,  and  it  would  be  well  for 
some  persons  to  have  something  to  guide 
them,  so  that  they  niay  know  what  kinds  of 
fruit  to  i)lanl,  and  where  to  plant  it.  When  I 
first  got  possession  of  a  home  and  a  few  acres 
of  land,  I  wanted  fruit  (for  there  was  noue  on 
it)  and  1  i)laute<l  a  great  many  trees  t>f  differ- 
ent kinds,  but  many  of  them  jiioved  a  failure 
in  after  years  ;  such  ne(;d  not  have  been  the 
case  if  1  had  known  where  to  plant  each  kind. 
ItisntiW  twenty  years  or  more  since  1  com- 
menced to  lilant  trees  where  I  now  live,  and 
yet  I  never  could  get  a  crop  of  sweet  cherries. 
Out  of  dozens  of  cherry  trees  that  I  planted, 
only  one  tree  bears  a  crop,  the  others  are 
nearly  all  dead.  1  can  grow  the  trees  as  thick 
as  a  leg  or  stoveiiipe,  but  they  always  die,  or 
winter  kill  on  the  southwesl  side  first.  The 
tree  that  b(^ars  fruit  is  a  sweet  cherry,  grafted 
on  a  red  sour  cherry  seedling  stem.  I  have 
now  several  of  them  coming  on.  I  think  they 
are  more  hardy  and  will  stand  the  winter 
better  than  the  sweet  cherry  stem.  But  I 
notice  a  few  miles  south  of  Lime  Valley  they 
thrive  and  bear  fruit  well  on  the  barren  ridges 
of  land.  The  sweet  cherry  trees  won't  do 
well  here  on  limestone  land. 

I  'have  lost  hundreds  of  peach  trees  by 
planting  them  too  near  the  creek,  or  down  in 
low  land— I  don't  mean  at  the  edge  of  the 
water.  I  had  them  from  fifty  to  two  hundred 
yards  from  the  creek,  and  from  five  to  fifty 
feet  above  its  level.  The  land  that  lies  the 
highest  will  do  for  peaches— I  think  it  is  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  higher  than  the 
level  of  the  creek.  But,  from  seventy-five  feet 
on  down  to  the  water's  edge,  scarcely  any 
blossoms  are  to  be  seen  ;  there  seems  a  mist 
that  gathers  in  the  valley  and  draws  frost 
to  a  certain  height,  which  kills  the  blossom 
buds. 

There  might  be  a  great  deal  said  on  the 
subject  of  location  and  soil  best  adapted  to 
our  different  kinds  of  fruit,  &c.,  but  I  will 
leave  it  for  some  one  that  is  better  posted  in 
the  Matter.  If  I  were  to  plant  trees  and  vines 
again,  or  berry  bushes  and  plants,  on  the  same 
property,  I  think  I  conld  raise  more  fruit  with 
less  than  half  the  plants  and  trees  that  I  for- 
merly had  been  planting.  It  may  seem  strange 
to  some  persons  that  on  a  tract  of  seven  acres 
of  land,  more  than  the  half  of  it  won't  do  for 
peaches,  sweet  cheiTies,  nor  blackberries,  &c. 
So,  we  learn  by  experience,  but  it  costs  us  too 
much  to  learn  always  by  experience  of  our  own ; 
we  may  gain  much  sometimes  by  the  experi- 
ence of  others,  and  I  trust  that  some  one  will 
"say  on,"  for  the  benefit  of  those  that  are 
anxious  to  learn.  And  we  would  also  wi.sli  to 
know  how  to  save  our  plums  from  the  curcidio. 
—John  B.  Erh,  Lime  Valley. 

The  experience  of  our  contributor  is  no 
doubt  the  experience  of  many  others  who  are 
equally  unable  to  divine  the  causes  of  failure, 
and  we  hope  some  of  our  horticultural  and  me- 
teorological experts  will  essay  a  response 
through  the  June  number  of  the  Farmer,  for 
our  own  personal  experience  is  too  insignifi- 
cant to  attempt  it.  In  regard  to  "mist  gath- 
inss  in  valleys,"  however,  as  well  as  their  fa- 
cilitating frosts— we  may  say  this  much  :  that 
while  we  resided  on  the  Susquehanna,  we  well 
remember  several  instances  when  all  the 
peaches  along  the  valley  were  frozen,  and  yetj 
those  on  the  very  tops  of  the  hills  that 
bound  the  York  county  line,  bore  abun- 
dant crops  of  peaches,  as  well  as  cherries  and 
apples.    There  cannot  be  a  doubt,  that  hu- 


70 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[May, 


midity  in  connection  witli  cold,  is  more  injur- 
ious to  fruit— as  we  knoiv  it  is  to  tlie  vitality 
of  most  insects— tliau  even  a  colder  Vnit  drier 
atmosphere,  -whether  on  a  hill  or  in  a  valley. 
As  to  the  CurcuUo,  so  much  has  been  said 
and  written  upon  tlie  subject,  that  we  have 
no  heart  to  say  anything  more,  at  this  time, 
but— "catch  'em,  choke  'em,  and  throw  poi- 
son down  their  throats."— ^d. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
BOOK-KEEPING  BY  FARMERS. 

It  has  often  been  urged  upon  farmers  to 
keep  accounts  with  their  crops  and  farming 
operations,  and  I  have  no  doubt  a  great  many 
more  would  have  begun  to  do  so  than  did,  but 
for  the  dread  that  it  required  more  education 
than  tliey  possessed.  On  this  head,  they  who 
would  like  to  keep  such  accounts  need  have 
no  fears,  as  keeping  accounts  is  really  simple, 
if  started  in  the  right  manner,  and  then  kept 
up  punctually  as  there  are  entries  to  be  made. 

For  this  purpose  two  books  are  needed,  a 
ledger  and  memorandum  book.  In  the  former 
are  entered  the  regular  accounts,  the  heading 
of  which  should  be  in  a  large  hand  and  put 
into  the  index  as  soon  as  such  heading  is  made  ; 
tlie  latter  is  intended  to  jot  down  items  as 
they  occur,  and  are  then  transferred  to  tlie 
ledger  at  certain  times,  and  which  should  be 
at  least  once  a  week. 

There  are  a  few  terms  which  must  be  made 
clear.  In  all  common  ledgers  there  are  two 
sets  of  columns  for  dollars  and  cents.  Above 
the  one  is  wi'itten  the  letters  Dr., which  stand 
for  debtor,  and  iu  this  column  must  be  put  all 
amounts  that  cost  an  outlay  for  that  particular 
account ;  and  the  entry  is .  commenced  with 
the  word  To.  Above  the  other  set  is  written 
the  letter.';  Or.  {for  creditor),  and  in  such 
column  must  be  put  all  amounts  that  result  as 
income  from  that  account,  and  the  entry  is 
commenced  with  the  word  By. 

Ledgers  are  of  two  forms,  one  is  ruled  and 
kept  as  in  Fig.  A,  viz. : 


CORN. 

1876    : 

2  day  plow'e 

Di 

«1| 

.  ,'     1876     1 

Cr. 

May  |12  To  1 

Al.  Oct.  |3a  By  25  boa.  Corn 

aSOc 

S12J50 

The  above  style  is  mostly  used  by  merchants 
and  I  think  is  not  quite  so  suitable  as  the  sec- 
ond form  given  in  Fig.  B,  viz.: 


1S76.      1                          COUN. 

Dr. 

Cr. 

11   50 

1 

121   60 

I  do  hot  advocate  this  form  because  I  think 
it  more  simple,  but  it  shows  the  operations  in 
a  more  continuous  form  than  the  first  would, 
as  each  entry,  whether  "Dr."  or  "Cr."  comes 
in  the  regular  order  iu  which  the  operation  oc- 
curred. 

We  will  now  give  an  account  in  detail  at 
Fig.  C. 


187C. 


eoRN. 


May 


July 
Sept. 
Nov. 


li  To 
12  To 
■29 'To 


3U|To 
To 


60  loads  Mauiii-e  at  X  of  $2.00 
haxiliug  and  spreadiug  same.. 

plowing  10  acres,  (^  $2.25 

preparing  10  acres,  @  50c.  . . 

drilliug  10  acres,  @  40c 

seed  eoru 

harrow'g  with  snioothiug  bar. 
harrow'g  with  smoothing  har. 

plowing  corn 

jinlliug  suckers 

cutting  off  corn 

husk  nig  aud  cribbing 

hauling  in  corn  lodder 

1750  bun's  corn  fodder,  @  8c. 

500  bus.  corn,  @  50c , 

interest  aud  taxes  on  10  acres, 
profit 


Dr. 


60 1  00 
13 1  50 
22,   50 


Cr. 


390!  00 :   390     00 

It  is  not  to  be  presumed  that  the  above  is  a 
real  bona  fide  account,  or  that  it  is  in  any  de- 
gree a  correct  representation  of  the  operations 
as  they  occurred,  or  the  cost  of  the  labor,  &c., 
but  it  is  merely  to  show  the  manner  in  which 
all  accounts  should  be  kept. 

The  item  of  "  interest  and  taxes"  is  dis- 
puted by  some,  as  to  whether  it  should  be 
charged  against  the  crop  or  to  farming  opera- 
tions in  general,  but  I  think  each  crop  should 
be  charged  with  the  interest  and  the  taxes  for 
the  time  such  crop  takes  up  the  land,  which  is 
generally  a  year ;  for  though  a  crop  may  be 


only  occupying  theland  for  Ave  or  six  months, 
yet  but  one  crop  is  usually  all  that  can  be  ta- 
ken off  in  a  single  year. 

The  charging  of  only  one-half  the  value  of 
the  manure  also  requires  an  explanation.  It 
is  the  custom,  I  believe,  in  keeping  this  kind 
of  accounts,  to  suppose  that  only  one  half  of 
the  strength  of  barn  yard  manure  is  taken  up 
by  the  first  crop,  and  therefore  oue-haif  of  the 
manure  is  charged  to  the  first  crop  and  the 
remainder  to  the  succeeding  crop.  In  com- 
mercial fertilizers  the  whole  amount  is 
charged  to  the  crop  which  receives  the  appli- 
cation, as  but  very  little  effect  is  produced  by 
them  on  the  succeeding  crops.  Lime,  how- 
ever, is  not  all  cliarged  to  the  first  crop,  but 
should  probably  be  charged  to  at  least  three 
successive  crops ,  one  third  of  the  cost  each  time. 

The  question  may  be  asked  : 

How  shall  I  charge  my  own  labor  ?  Charge 
it  at  the  same  rate  as  you  would  be  charged 
by  another  person  to  do  the  same  work  for 
you;  or  what  you  would  charge  another  per- 
son for  doing  that  work. 

How  many,  and  what  accounts  should  be 
kept  1*  Start  by  keephig  an  account  with  each 
crop  ;  and  as  you  get  more  familiar  with  the 
details,  commence  with  the  cows,  pigs,  teams, 
&c.  Also  after  awhile  your  farming  opera- 
tions,under  wliich  you  insert  profits  and  losses, 
repairs,  wear  and  tear  of  tools  and  imple- 
ments, &c. 

And  last,  but  not  least,  keep  a  strict  ac- 
count with  your  workmen,  not  that  they  in- 
tend to  cheat  you,  but  for  the  satisf^iction  of 
knowing  at  all  times  how  you  stand  with  your 
men,  and  it  is  often  the  means  of  preventing 
quarrels  and  ill  feeling. 

Keep  their  accounts  in  as  orderly  a  manner 
as  for  the  crops,  tfcc.  A  few  years  ago  I  saw 
an  account  against  a  laborer  by  one  of  our 
farmers,  and  as  it  was  a  jumbled  up  aflair,  I 
will  here  give  the  style  : 

Jonathan  Pineknot,  March  12.  Spread 
lime  one-half  day,  50  cents.  March  14,  set  10 
panels  pos  fens  at  14  cents,  $1  and  40  cents. 
March  18,  plowd  3  quarters  of  a  day,  one  dol- 
lar and  12  cents.  March  20,  he  got  a  bushels 
corn,  2  dollars  and  2.5  cents.  April  2,  plowed 
one  half  a  day,  75  cents.  April  3,  paid  him 
one  dollar  and  fifty-two  cents  full. 

Then  there  was  a  big  cross  marked  on  to 
show  that  it  was  "put"out."  I  have  no  ob- 
jection to  the  spelling,  for  the  man  had  not 
as  much  education  as  our  farmers'  boys  now 
receive,  but  the  man  might  have  done  some 
better  as  at  Fig.  D. 


April 


JONATHAN     PINEKNOT.  Dr.  Cr. 


To  X  day  spreading  lime 

To  setting  lo  panels  fence,  @  14c. 

To  ijj  day  plowing,  (g    $1.60 

By  3  burthels  corn,  (ni.  75c 

To  plowing  X  tl'^y 

By  cash  iu  full 


B     37 

It  would  not  have  taken  any  more  educa- 
tion to  keep  the  above  account  in  the  form 
given,  than  to  keep  it  in  the  way  it  was  done. 

I  think  that  keeping  of  accounts  should  be 
taught  in  all  ungraded  schools,  both  to  boys 
and  to  girls;  for  girls  when  they  grow  up  often 
have  as  much  need  of  keeping  accounts  as  the 
men,  and  I  have  known  instances  where  the 
younger  girls  of  a  family  kept  the  accounts  for 
the  father,  whose  eyes  had  become  somewhat 
dim. 

Things  to  remember  in  keeping  accounts  : 

Be  punctual  in  making  memoranda  and  then 
to  transfer  them  to  the  ledger  at  short  inter- 
vals. 

What  costs  an  outlay  put  in  the  "Dr"  col- 
umn. 

What  represents  an  income  put  in  the  "Cr" 
column. 

Put  the  date  to  each  entry.— J..  B.  K. 


The  Country  Gentleman  says :  "  An  easy 
way  to  destroy  Canada  thistles  is  to  plow  them 
completely  under,  first  before  blossoming,  as 
afterwards  as  soon  as  the  first  green  point  ap- 
pears at  the  surface.  We  have  completely 
killed  large  tracts  in  this  way  at  a  cost  of  six 
or  seven  dollars  per  acre. 


For  The  Lancaster  Fakmek. 
DOES  THE  WATER  STRIKE  THROUGH. 

Many  brick  walls  are  so  poorly  built  that  when 
a  heavy  rain  storm  occurs  the  water  strikes 
through  them,  and  many  a  family,  after  going 
to  the  labor  and  expense  of  building  them- 
selves a  new  brick  house,  have  found  that  it 
was  in  no  wise  the  perfect  shelter  that  they  had 
a  right  to  expect.  After  the  first  equinoctial 
and  sometimes  before,  yellow  streaks  are  on 
the  walls  inside,  and  great  patches  of  the  same 
color  disfigure  the  whole  surface,  and  though 
the  careful  housekeeper  makes  haste  to  cover 
them  with  her  never-failing  whitewash,  yet 
every  dashing  rain  that  follows,  brings  with  it 
a  repetition  of  the  same  experience,  and  no 
wonder  if  the  sorely  tried  inmates  in  despair 
exclaim, "better  an  old  house  than  such  anew 
one." 

But  there  is  a  remedy  for  every  ill  if  we  but 
search  for  it,  and  to  those  who  do  not  wish  to 
go  to  the  expense  of  putting  on  a  coat  of  paint 
or  plastering,  or  as  some  even  have  done,  put 
on  a  weather-boarding,making  the  house  look 
as  if  it  were  a  frame  one,  we  would  sug- 
gest a  trial  of  Uncle  Sam's  Coating,  as 
used  by  the  Government  for  painting 
light  houses,  and  which  is  said  to  ef- 
fectually prevent  moisture  from  striking 
through.  It  is  made  of  fresh  Rosendale  ce- 
ment three  parts,  clean  fine  sand  one  part  ; 
mix  with  fresh  water  thoroughly.  This  gives 
a  gray  or  granite  color,  dark  or  light,  accord- 
ing to  the  color  of  the  cement.  If  brick  color 
is  desired,  add  enough  Venetian  red  to  the 
mixture  to  produce  the  color.  If  a  very  light 
color  is  desired,  lime  may  be  used  with  the 
cement  and  sand.  Care  must  be  taken  to  have 
all  the  ingredients  well  mixed  together.  ^_ 

In  applying  the  wash,  the  wall  must  be  wet  ^M 
with  clean, fresh  water  ;  then  follow  immedia-  ^^ 
tely  with  the  cement  wash.  This  prevents 
the  bricks  from  absorbing  the  water  from  the 
wash  too  rapidly,  and  gives  the  cement  time 
to  set.  Tlie  wash  must  be  stirred  during  the 
application.  The  mixture  is  to  be  made  as 
thick  as  can  be  applied  conveniently  with  a 
whitewash  brush.  This  wash  can  also  be 
applied  to  fences,  etc.,  but  cannot  be  used  to 
advantage  over  paint  or  whitewash. — JE. 


For  Tbe  Lancaster  Farmer. 

SOUTHWEST  MISSOURI. 

Editor  Farmer  :  Having  examined  most 
of  the  many  great  farming,  grazing  and  fruit- 
growing regions  of  the  Great  West,  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  pronounce  Southwest  Missouri 
superior  to  any  other  portion  for  its  vast  ag- 
ricultural, mineral  and  timljer  resources, 
stock-raising,  bee-keeping,  fruit-growing, 
manufacturing  and  railway  facilities,  mild- 
ness and  healthfulness  of  climate  and  entire 
absence  of  grasshoppers. 

Agricultural  Resources, 

To  insure  luxuriant  vegetation  three  things 
are  necessary,  viz.:  rich  soil,  sufficient  moist- 
ure and  plenty  of  sunshine  ;  all  of  which 
exist  iu  Southwest  Missouri.  Every  variety 
of  soil  is  found  here  that  can  be  needed  in  farm- 
ing, fruit-growing  or  stock-raising,  as  is  shown 
bjT  the  large  crops  of  all  kinds  of  grain, 
grasses,  vegetables  and  fruits  produced. 
Apples,  peaches,  pears,  plums,  cherries, 
grapes  and  all  kinds  of  berries  flourish  and 
never  entirely  fail.  The  wild  grapes  are 
almost  equal  in  size  and  quality  to  some  cul- 
tivated varieties  in  the  Eastern  States. 

Blue  grass,  timothy  and  clover  do  well ; 
and  old  bee-keepers  say  tliat  wherever  clover 
grows  bees  will  succeed  ;  and  if  this  is  cor- 
rect, Southwest  Missouri  will  soon  be  a  great 
honey  country. 

Water — Winter — Timber. 

Water  is  of  the  best  quality  and  abundant. 
It  is  found  in  clear,  sparkling  springs  and 
rapid  streams  innumerable.  The  average  an- 
nual rainfall  is  about  forty-two  inches,  most 
of  which  falls  during  the  growing  season. 

The  winters  are  mild  and  short,  the  ground 
never  frozen  more  than  two  or  three  weeks, 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


71 


and  the  liglit  snows  remaining  only  a  few 
(lavs.  Tlic  altituile  is  about  two  tlioiisaiul 
fef"t  ubovi' the  sea,  eiisunnf;  (leliiihtriiUy  enol 
summci-.s  and  warmer  winters  than  in  tlie 
same  latitude,  either  east  or  west ;  and  as  tlie 
peueral  sIoik^  of  the  country  is  south  and  east, 
tliere  are  no  hijili  winds  as  in  the  nortliwest. 
The  rapid  descent  of  tlie  luunerous  large 
streams  alVonls  excellent  water-power  for 
nianufaeturinc  tlie  vast  forests  of  wahiut, 
oak,  ash,  hickory,  maple,  i>ine,  etc.,  into 
luniher,  ears,  carriages,  wagons,  furniture 
and  agricultural  implements,  and  for  driving 
the  niacliincry  of  the  llouring,  cotton  and 
woolen  mills,  which  nnist  lu-rcafter  largely  in- 
crease in  number,  as  the  grain,  cotton  aiul 
wool  are  all  produced  in  the  vicinity. 
The    Healthfulness 

of  this  region  is  remarkable,  owing  to  the 
abundance  of  bright  and  genial  sunshine, 
pure  water,  excellent  bread  and  beef,  few 
sudden  atmospheric  changes,  and  no  swamp 
lands  within  hinulred  of  miles.  Ague  is  un- 
known, and  there  are  no  grasshoppers. 

Tlie  St.  Louis  and  .San  Francisco  Uaihvay 
extending  entirely  across  the  State,  and  the 
rich  eoal,  iron,  lead,  zinc  and  other  mines, 
and  to  the  great  plains  region  west,  insure  a 
ready  market  and  good  prices  for  all  farm, 
garden,  orchard  ami  dairy  products  for  all 
time  to  come. 

By  settling  in  colonies  here,  good  society, 
schools,  churches,  daily  mails,  telegraph,  mills 
and  other  advantages  may  be  secured  from  the 
beginning,  and  land  bought  at  from  two  to  six 
dollars  per  acre,  of  the  Railway  Company,  on 
long  credit. — Exninincr,  ISl.  Louis,  March  2S, 
1877. 

For  The  Lancaster  Faiemek, 
INCIDENTAL  SUGGESTION. 

Mn.  EiJiTOii. — 1  congratulate  the  Fanners 
of  our  county  on  the  re-appearance,  or  con- 
tinuanee,  of  your  valuable  journal.  It  would 
do  no  credit  to  the  intelligence  of  this  grand 
agricultural  garden  if  it  could  not  sustain 
one  jieriodieal  devoted  to  its  greatest  interest. 

I  have  often  iiotid  your  re(iuests  to  your 
readers  to  furnish  memoranda  of  their  expe- 
rience in  farming,  and  observations  on  modes 
of  culture — items  of  every  kind  likely  to  be 
of  interest,  or  to  awaken  incpiiry  among 
neighboring  farmers.  And  I  have  blamed 
myself  that  I  have  not  asked  questions 
through  your  journal,  even  if  it  would  not 
furnish  answers  worth  occupying  your  pages. 

ily  excuse  for  my  own  remissness  is,  that 
though  I  am  much  interested  in  agriculture 
and  the  farm,  I  have  other  occupations  and 
interests  than  the  farm  :  (which  I  do  not  per- 
sonally cullivate)  and  that  my  experiments 
can  hardly  be  called  experiences  or  exampU'S 
to  copy.  A  plausible  hint  I  may  have  eager- 
ly adopted  and  pursued  to  apparent  or  prom- 
ised success,  without  wat<hing  closely  tiiial  re- 
sults. The  spirit  of  Girard,  "if  1  thought  I 
■  should  die  to-morrow,  I  would  jilant  a  tree  to- 
day." I  have  carried  out,  however — every 
year  for  thirty  years — planting  trees,  vines, 
something  with  each  returning  spring.  Read- 
ing agricultural  papers,  I  could  select  the 
choicest  kinds  of  fruit  from  the  catalogues  of 
the  nurseryman  and  have  bought  and  planted 
fruit  trees  every  year. 

Plum  trees  in  the  garden — "Golden  Drop" 
to  tumble  like  little  leaden  bullets,  and  yellow 
gages  that  fell  while  they  were  green,  and  so 
with  other.s— all  sacrificed  to  the  Curculio,  ex- 
cept one  fine  Gei-man  Prune,  which  matured 
fruit,  owing  I  think  to  this  treatment:  round 
the  trunk  of  the  tree  I  wrapped  a  piece  of 
Strong  iron  mongers'  papera  foot  or  more  wide 
— the  lower  edge  resting  in  the  earth,  the 
paper  tied  with  twine  to  the  tree,  and  coated 
with  a  thick  coat  of  coal  tar — a  few  strips  of 
lath,  and  some  corn  cobs  saturated  in  this 
black  paint  were  suspended  from  twigs  of  the 
tree— this  before  the  buds  began  to  swell.  It 
happened  that  this  tree  was  near  an  open  win- 
dow from  which  as  soon  as  the  first  blossoms 
appeared  the  whole  top  could  be  dusted  with 
fine  slaked  lime,  which  was  plentifully  show- 


ered over  it  every  day  or  two  while  the  blos- 
soms Lasted— the  fruit  did  not  fall.  Peach 
trees  have  had  shiu't  lives  with  me,  in  spite  of 
trials  of  lime,  at  the  roots,  hot  water,  lie,  oil 
&(■..,  &c.,  in  adilitiou  to  examinations;  spring 
and  fall,  for  worms  in  the  roots— eating  tliein 
hollow  or  gridling  them.  Observing  the  fresh, 
green  appearance  of  trees  in  the  garden  of  a 
friend,  near  to  his  house,  full  of  fruit,  while 
the  neigliborbood  was  a  failure,  I  learned  that 
the  slop  from  the  chambers  were  distributed 
at  the  roots  of  three  dozen  trees,  daily— thus 
they  were  fertilized  and  somelliiiig  olTeiisive 
enough  to  drive  the  worms  from  the  roots  sup- 
plied—this  should  be  done  where,  it  could  bo 
followed  oil  a  small  scale  near  th(^  house  ;  and 
the  chemist  woulil  assist  tin;  fruit  grower 
would  furnish  a  recipie  that 
substitute  for  this  Uric  acid, 
be     applied    wholesale    to    the 


greatly  win 
would  be  a 
that  could 
orchard. 


MILLIONS     FOR      MIDDLEMEN— PEN- 
NIES FOR  PRODUCERS. 

Bv  reipicst  of  the  Conimittecion  Agriculture 
of  the  House  of  Uepreseiitatives,  at  a  hearing 
to  consider  the  absurd  iiisulllciency  of  appro- 
priation for  statistical  investigation  and  com- 
pilation, and  the  preparation  of  material  for 
"reports,"  the  following  communication  was 
made  : 

Depahtmkxt  of  Aoricultuke,  \ 
Washington,  Feb.  1,  1S77.      ) 

Sill  :  In  response  to  the  request  of  your 
committee  for  a  showing  of  the  inadequacy  of 
the  proposed  appropriation  for  the  statistical 
division  of  this  Department,  allow  me  to  pre- 
sent the  following  considerations  : 

The  appropriation  is  for  the  entire  expenses, 
including  clerical  service  of  this  division,  the 
current  work  of  which  includes — 

1.  Statistical  investigation  in  more  than 
twenty-five  hundred  counties  of  the  United 
States. 

2.  The  cro|)-reporting  system  now  including 
our  organized  corjis  of  corres]ioiulents  in  seven- 
teen hundred  of  the  iirincipal  counties. 

;!.  Investigations  for  furnishing  advanced 
and  practical  original  material  for  the  annual 
volume. 

4.  Record  and  tabulation  of  such  statistics, 
with  current  data  from  ofiicial  statistics  of 
States,  boards  of  agriculture  and  of  trade. 

5.  Translation  and  compilation  of  foreign, 
official  and  other  statistics  of  agriculture. 

(').  Writing  and  editing  fifteen  hundred 
luinted  pages,  aiiinially,  of  regular  and  special 
reiMirts,  and  preparing  an  equivalent  of  one 
thousand  pages  more  for  industri.al,  commer- 
cial and  other  organizatiinis  ;  in  all  an  annual 
average  of  seventy-five  hundred  manuscript 
pages. 

For  this  work,  at  its  initiation  thirteen 
years  ago,  $'iO,U(ll)  was  ai)|)ropriated  in  addi- 
tion to  the  salary  of  the  statistician.  AVitli 
the  decrease  of  appropriations  a  few  years 
later,  as  the  war-begotten  labors  of  other 
branches  of  the  civil  service  declined,  thejjro 
)-n(a  system  of  reduction  was  applied  to  this 
new  work,  when  its  importance  and  usefulness 
demanded  increase,  and  theapiiropriatiou  was 
cut  down  to  $1."),()II0.  Last  year  it  was  re- 
duced to  $10,00(1  for  all  these  purposes,  when 
the  salaries  of  the  regular  finre  of  clerks  em- 
ployed in  tabulating  ami  recording  amounted 
to  $10,600,  leaving  nothing  for  collecting 
statistics,  statistical  investigations,  or  the  pre- 
paration of  material  for  the  annual  volume  or 
other  work.  This  staggering  blow  might  have 
lieen  regarded  as  a  vote  of  censure  but  for  the 
fact  that  on  the  day  before  an  appropriation 
of  8130,000  was  voted  for  the  jn-inting  for 
ccnigressional  distribution  of  .'JOOjOOO  copies  of 
the  annual,  for  which  uo  future  provision  was 
apparently  desired.  But  it  was  evidently  an 
accident  of  the  conference  committee,  as  it 
was  less  than  provision  made  in  the  House 
bill,  which  was  enlarged  by  a  Senate  amend- 
ment. 

The  appropriation  proposed  in  the  present 
bill,  $5,000,  if  all  applied  to  the  collection  of 
statistics,  will  not  give  twenty  cents  for  each 
monthly  county  return,  or  pay  the  postage  be- 


tween our  county  correspondents.  If  applied 
to  the  routine  office  work  exclusively,  it  wou'd 
not  pay  $"i  each  per  day  for  the  smallest  force 
f(n'  its  possible  accomplishment.  If  used  for 
investigations  and  writing  for  the  annual,  all 
other  work  lieing  discarded,  it  could  not  pro- 
duce a  volume  worthy  an  edition  of  200,000 
coi)ies,  or  even  10,000.  In  fact,  it  wovild  be 
far  better  to  blot  out  the  $5,000  and  the  divi- 
sion and  its  work  together,  and  with  it  the 
Department,  rather  than  to  degrade  and 
dwarf  to  utter  inefficiency  a  branch  of  the 
service  which  has  possibilities  of  eminent  use- 
fulness and  needed  protection  to  both  jiro- 
ducers  and  (V)usuiners,  who  have  already  been 
saved  the  iiluiider  oi'  millions  liy  heartless 
speculators  through  its  instrumentality. 

Voii  know  well  the  history  of  agricultural 
appropriations ;  that  a  hundi-ed  dollars  has 
been  given  in  the  aid  of  commerce  to  every 
dollar  appropriated  for  the  promotion  or  pro- 
tection of  agriculture.  There  is  no  lack  of 
provision  for  investigation  in  aid  of  other  in- 
dustries. One  of  the  geologic^al  explorations 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains  in  ISTO  obtained 
5:75,000  ;  another  SlO,000  ;  a  third  .S25,000,  and 
.'if40,0U0  more  were  given  for  illustrations  of 
two  of  them.  In  the  same  year  the  appro- 
priation for  the  observation  and  report  of 
storms  was  $470,000,  for  the  benefit  of  com- 
merce. There  was  apin'opriated  for  clerical 
service  in  compiling  commercial  statistics, 
during  the  same  year,  ff5i»_4l0,  and  an  addi- 
tional fimdof  $20,000  for  special  investigation. 
There  was  also  as  large  a  sum  appropriated 
for  the  prejiaration  of  a  single  annual  of  min- 
ing statistics,  in  the  same  year,  as  was  given 
for  all  the  operations  of  the  statistical  division. 
And  yet  there  is  no  government  publication 
for  which  the  popular  demand  is  so  imperative, 
and  public  appreciation  so  marked  as  for  the 
reports  of  agriculture. 

We  have  at  least  the  value  of  SI 50,000  per 
annum  in  gratuitous  service  of  luiblic-spirited 
citizens.     We  need  .$.50,000  per  annum  to  sup- 
plement this  work  and  render  it  truly  efficient. 
But  for  the  present  year  *2O,000  is  as  small  a 
sum  as  should  be  given  for  jiresent  imrposes. 
I  am,  very  respectfully,  your  obedient  ser- 
vant, J.  R.  DODGE, 
StutiMiri'in  Department  of  AtjricuUure. 
Hon.  John  II.  Cai^dwell, 

Chairman  Committee  on  Agriculture. 

BKIEF  NOTES  OF  DEliATE  IN  THE  IIOL'SE. 

On  the  motion  of  the  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Agriculture,  jMr.  Caldwell  of  Ala- 
bama, the  amendment  to  increase  the  appro- 
priation to  115, OOy  was  agreed  to. 

During  the  discussion,  Mr.  Townsend  of 
\ew  Y(uk  said  he  was  prepared  to  vote  for 
S20,000,  regretting  that  "every  interest  in 
this  country  can  obtain  appropriations  more 
readily  than  the  agricultural  interest." 

Mr.'  Townsend,  of  Pennsylvania,  said  the 
increase  would  be  repaid  "ten  times  over, 
probably  a  hundred  times  over,  to  the  people 
of  the  country  in  the  information  brought 
before  them." 

Mr.  Harris,  of  Georgia,  said  "  the  trouble  is 
we  are  appropriating  too  much  to  commerce, 
and  too  little  to  agriculture."  "There  are 
thousand  of  reports  of  the  Agricultural  De- 
partment called  for  annually  by  our  constitu- 
ents, to  one  single  copy  called  for  of  the 
reports  of  the  Treasury  Department." 

Mr.  Wilson,  of  Iowa,  thought  "  the  small 
amount  asked  for  by  the  Chairman  of  the 
Agricultural  Committee  ought  to  be  given, 
and  that  we  ought  either  to  do  something  with 
this  Department  of  Agriculture,  and  not 
hamper  it  in  its  operation,  or  else  abolish  it 
altogether.  No  country  in  the  world  does  so 
little  to  spread  agricultural  information  as 
ours." 

Mr.  Davis,  of  Xorth  Carolina,  said,  "  the 
amount  of  information  collected  by  this  De- 
partment cannot  be  procured  from  any  other 
source  at  a  cost  of  ten  times  as  much  as  is 
asked  for  by  the  Committee  on  Agriculture." 

The  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Agri- 
culture, in  moving  an  amendment  increasing 
the  salary  of  the  Statistician  S200,  under  in- 
struction from  the  Committee,  said  : 


72 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[May, 


"  In  support  of  this  amendment  I  desire  to 
say  tliat  there  is  no  officer  comiected  witli  the 
Department  of  Agriculture  who  renders  more 
efficient  service  tlian  the  statistician.  All  the 
statistics  in  the  agricultural  reports  connected 
with  the  agricultural  interests  of  tliis  country 
are  compiled  by  this  officer  or  under  his  im- 
mediate supervision  ;  and  I  venture  the  asser- 
tion that  there  is  not  an  officer  having  the 
same  qualifications  to  be  found  in  any  em- 
ployment, either  private  or  public,  who  is  so 
poorly  compensated  as  the  statistician  in  the 
Agricultural  Department.  The  salary  attach- 
ed to  this  office  was  originally  $2,500  ;  and  in 
the  anxiety  of  the  Committee  on  Appropria- 
tions to  make  reductions,  I  think  they  have 
made  a  serious  mistake  in  reducing  the  salary 
of  this  officer  to  f  1,800.  I  therefore  ofter  the 
amendment,  and  I  trust  it  will  be  adopted. 
The  question  being  taken,  the  amendment  was 
adopted. 

COMMERCE  vs.  AGRICULTURE. 

It  may  not  be  known  to  agriculturists  that 
while  the  Agricultural  Division  of  Statistics, 
involving  the  preparation  of  two  series  of 
reports  issued  in  larger  numbers  than  all  other 
ofBcial  reports  combined,  has  for  the  present 
year  appropriationsamounting  to  only  $11,800, 
the  Treasurj'  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Commerce 
has  $47,35.3,  besides  $12,978  for  work  of  ex- 
perts for  Senator  Windom's  Transportation 
Committee  Report  relative  to  inland  com- 
merce ;  and  this  is  little  more  than  half  the 
appropriation  for  commercial  statistics  in  pre- 
vious years.  Not  that  this  provision  is  too 
large  ;  but  the  former  is  utterly  inadequate. 

Yet  this  is  but  a  drop  in  the  ocean  of  ap- 
propriations in  aid  of  commerce.  In  the 
present  year  of  pinching  economy,  there  was 
appropriated  for  Rivers  and  Harbors  .$5,016,- 
000 ;  and  for  the  Light-house  establishment 
S!2,.375,800.  For  Custom  Houses  and  other 
public  works  appropriations  have  averaged 
$12,000,000  annually  for  the  past  five  years. 

The  amount  appropriated  to  the  Treasury 
Department  for  postage  in  1877,  exceeds  the 
expenditures  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
in  six  months  of  the  present  year. 

The  mere  "continuation"  of  the  building 
of  the  custom  hou.se  in  Evansville,  Indiana, 
(acknowledged  to  be  of  greater  importance 
than  that  of  Hull,  Massachusetts)  receives 
four  times  as  much  as  Agricultural  Statistics 
and  the  Reports  of  Agriculture  for  the  current 
year. 

The  amount  appropriated  for  fuel,  lights 
and  water  for  the  buildings  under  the  control 
of  the  Treasury  Department,^s  nearly  double 
that  of  the  present  appropriation  for  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture. 

Half  the  Ugal  interest  on  the  amount  annually 
appropriated  for  Commerce  would  suffice  for  tlie 
customary  annual  dole  to  Agriculture. 

Even  the  interest  on  the  cost  of  supplies  to 
Indians  for  fulfillment  of  treaties  woidd  more 
than  equal  the  current  appropriations  for  the 
current  year. 

For  this  state  of  things  there  is|a  remedy  ; 
it  is  suggested  by  the  fact  that  the  rural  classes 
of  the  United  States  hold  in  their  hands  four 
MILLIONS  OF  VOTES.— J^rom  the  Congressional 
Record. 

LANDSCAPE  GARDENING  FOR  FARM- 
ERS.* 

It  is  such  an  easy  thing  to  talk  of  beauty 
and  beautiful  things,  in  a  sort  of  general  way, 
without  giving  any  real  genuine  instruction, 
that  I  hesitate  at  the  very  outset,  for  the  sake 
of  making  a  resolution  that  my  aim  in  this 
short  address  shall  not  be  to  say  pretty  words 
about  pretty  possibilities,  but  the  rather  to 
suggest  and  point  out  a  popular  want  among 
the  formers  of  Michigan,  and  state  some  prac- 
tical methods  of  answering  it. 

The  popular  opinion  too  often  would  sneer 
at  placing  in  so  intimate  a  relationship  the 
two  extremes  of  my  title— for  the  term  Land- 
scape Gardening  brings  up  a  picture  of  some 
grand  old  place  upon  which  the  income  of  a 

*Read  before  the  Michigau  State  Pomological  Society,  at 
Pontiac,  by  Prof.  C.  W.  Garfield,  of  Michigan  Agrionltural 
College. 


fortune  has  been  expended,  or  a  beautiful 
park  like  those  in  our  large  cities,  supported 
by  a  general  tax  which  private  means  can  ill 
afford  to  expend.  While  on  the  other  hand 
farmers  are  men  of  muscle,  who  follow  the 
plow  and  handle  the  spade  from  early  morn 
till  dark,  to  raise  the  grain  and  vegetables  for 
the  world  to  live  upon,  whose  ideal  of  beauty 
is  supposed  to  culminate  in  a  clover  blossom 
or  a  straight  row  of  corn.  I  trust  that  these 
ideas  may  be  modified  in  time  so  tliat  the 
close  relationship  of  the  two  will  not  only  be 
considered  compatible,  but  will  be  a  fact  of 
existence. 

The  Landscape  Gardening  that  I  wish  to 
talk  about  is  not  a  grand  or  expensive  affair, 
involving  the  necessity  of  a  professional  man 
to  conduct,  or  a  large  bank  account  to  sup- 
l)ort  it.  Far  from  this.  It  is  a  matter  of  very 
little  outlay ;  it  is  a  miserably  cheap  affair. 
But  water  is  cheap,  and  so  is  sunshine.  What 
among  the  most  costly  things  you  have  would 
you  exchange  for  tliese  ! 

Then  the  landscape  gardening  of  which  we 
shall  talk,  has  to  do  with  such  yearly,  month- 
ly, yes,  daily  modifications  of  our  present 
coimtry  premises  as  shall  transform  them  into 
beautiful  and  attractive  homes,  render  them 
more  valuable  as  property,  and  while  we  do 
this,  hint  at  the  general  principles  of  land- 
scape art,  upon  which  these  details  are  found- 
ed. 

WHY  SHALL  WE  BEAUTIFY  ? 

The  first  question  that  arises,  the  answer  to 
which  is  our  incentive  to  the  adornment  of 
our  homes,  is,  why  shall  we  beautify  ?      And 
I  answer  first,  for  the  beauty  itself,   and  sec- 
ondly for  the  inlluence    that    beauty    has  in 
completing  a  rounded  manhood  and  woman- 
hood.    Accompanying  the  development   of  a 
tasty  home,    beautiful    grounds,     attractive 
shrubbery,  or  delicate  flower  borders,   is  an- 
other growth  on  the  inside  of  the  person  de- 
vising   these  embellishments,   that  is  more 
lasting  and  valuable  than  the  outside  modifica- 
tions that   seem  so   bbautifully   transformed. 
This  is  the  growth  of  refinement;  sometliing 
that  we  can  not  measure  by  dollars  and  cents, 
any  more  than  we  can  measure  faith  and  love. 
But  it  has  far  more  to  do  with  tlie  i>rogress  of 
civilization  than  the  opening  of  the   richest 
silver  lead,  or  the  discovery  of  the  largest  dia- 
mond held.     These  go  up  and  down  with   the 
supply,  but  the  more  retiuement  we  have  the 
greater  premium  there  is  on  its  acquirement. 
We  all  see  the  necessity  for  more  of  it  among 
our  farming  people;  from  their  isolation,  there 
comes  a  tendency  to  neglect  the  schooling  of 
the  heart,  in  the  channel  of  refinement,   and 
there  is  notliing  that  can  so  perfectly  take  the 
place  of  society,   and  knowledge  of  its  best 
moulds,  as  close  companionship  with  nature's 
beautifid  life  forms,  and  the  profuse   employ- 
ment of  them  in  the  adornment  of  a  home. 
There  may  be  just  as  good  a  heart  in  the  man 
who  in  answer  to  a  favor  says  :    "That's  a 
good  'un,  old  fellow;  if  you  want  a  lift  call 
around,"  as  in    the    breast    of    another  who 
says  :  "Thank  you  kindly.     I  trust  I  can  re- 
turn the  favor  some  time. "    But  while  we  ad- 
mire the  generous  impulse  of  the  one,  we  are 
doubly  pleased  with  the  impulse  and  its  deli- 
cate expression  in  the  other.      We  can    not 
come  in  contact  with  refined  people  without 
unconsciously  following  in  their  wake,  and 
smoothing  down  the  rough  corners  of  our  own 
habits.     So  it  is  in  the  development  of  beau- 
tiful grounds    and    attractive    surroundings; 
every  new  creation  has    its  effect  for  good 
upon  the  one  that   devised  and  moulded*  it. 
This  in  itself  is  a  great  reason  for  the  adorn- 
ment of  our  homes.     Need  I  give  others  ?      I 
will  suggest  them.      Secondly   theu,   I  shall 
name  satisfaction  of  piossession.     This  I  admit 
is  of  much  less  consequence  than  the  other, 
still  we  are  so  constituted   that  the  satisfac- 
tion of  having  things  is    a    stimulus    to  get 
them.     Of  course  the  value  of  the  acquisition 
has  much  to  do  with  the  weight  of  this  incen- 
tive.    The  man  who  has  a  beautiful  wife, 
aside  from  all  the  pleasures  she  may  bring  to 
his  home,  takes  a  great  deal  of  comfort  in  the 
thought  that  she  is  his  own.    (This  instance 


is  for  my  bachelor  auditors).  The  woman 
who  grows  a  beautiful  house  plant,  and  by 
her  .skill  succeeds  in  making  it  amodel  of  sym- 
metry and  floral  wealth,  has  a  little  pleasure 
in  the  fact  of  possession.  The  value  of  this 
pleasure  does  not  usually  depend  upon  what 
the  acquisition  will  bring  in  ttie  market,  but 
rather  in  om-  interest  and  effort  in  the  getting 
of  it. 

Again,  there  is  the  greatest  good  comes  to 
us  through  the  development  of  all   our   facul- 
ties, and  it  the  germs  are  given   us,   why   not 
give  them  opportunity  to  grow,   and   thus  fit 
us  for  a  wider  field  of  work  and  appreciation 
of  what  is  created  ?    In  the  work  of  land.scap- 
ing  the  farmer  brings  into  use   a   new   set   of 
faculties,  and  he  is  given  opportunity  to  make 
himself  a  broader  man.      A   few  years  ago, 
while  land  prospecting  with  a  friend,  in  Kent 
county,  after  passing  across  the  fields  for  some 
distance  we  came  ;into  a  tangled  woodland 
undergrowth.     We  pushed  our  way  through 
this  for  some  distance,   and    to   make  a  bad 
matter  worse,  we  were  obliged  to  cross  a  long 
stretch  of  mire  and  sphagnum,    which   tested 
our  powers  of  endurance  to  the  ntnio.st.     .Inst 
before  we  emerged  from  our  difficulties  we  as- 
cenrZedjin  more  open  woodland,  quite  an  eleva- 
titm,  and  at  its  summit  came    upon  the  most 
beautiful  landscape  I  had  then  ever  seen.     In 
the  distance  hill  overtopped  hill,  until   the 
wavy  outlines  of  blue  only  indicated  the  char- 
acter of  the  country.     Nearer  to  us,  in  a  quiet 
valley,  lay  the  Grand  river,  pursuing  a  wind- 
ing cour.se,  and  reflecting  to  us  the  sun's  rays 
iu  such  a  manner  as  to  convey  the  impression 
of  a  river  of  silver.     Here  and  there  in  the 
valley  and  on  the  hillside  new  farmhouses, 
and  tile  alternations  of  woodland  and  cleared 
fields  gave  a  beautiful  variety  to  the  distant 
view.     But  best  of  all,  at  the  foot  of  the  hill 
upon  which  we  stood,  snuggled  into  a  quiet 
retreat,  almost  surrounded  by  natural   groves 
of  oaks,  silver  maples,  and  aspens,   lay  a  calm 
little  sheet  of  water.     It  was  the  embodiment 
of  quiet,  modest  beauty.     I  had  but  just  taken 
in  the  outline  of  the.se  beautiful   views   when 
the  rough  salutation  of  a  Teuton  brought  me 
to  a  realization  of  the    ground    upon  which 
I    stood.      I     was     unconsciously    treading 
out  a  few  heads  of  clover    seed    in    my   en- 
deavor to  grasp  the  grandeur  of  the  scene  be- 
fore me.     He  unceremoniously  reminded  me 
of  the  fact,  and  to  mollify  him  I  spoke  of  the 
favored  position  he  occupied  in  commanding 
such  a  view.     "  Yaas,  it  was  purty  nice,  but  I 
can  show  you  somedings  dat  is  better  as  all 
dat,  right  by  mine  house."    Glad  that  he  was 
turned  from  the  cloverseed  matter,  I  followed  j 
him  to  find,  first,  that  his  house,  which  was 
very  cleverly  built,  and    indicated  a  thrifty  j 
farmer,  was  so  placed  as  to  have  the  barn  be- 
tween it  and  all  this  loveliness  I  had  admired,  ] 
and  imagine  my  disgust  when  I  found  "his] 
ting  dat  vas  so  nice,"  was  nothing  more  than 
a  pen  full  of  fat  pigs,   evidently  the  pride  of 
the  farm  and  the  joy  of  the  household.     The 
front   porch  where  my  new  friend  sat  and 
smoked,  looked  out  upon  this  yard  of  swine, 
and  his  ultimatum  of  the  beautiful  lay  in  their 
fat  sides.     What  this  man  lacked  I  would 
have  every  farmer  cultivate,  and  it  is  for  the 
development  of  the  faculty  which  enables  us 
to  appreciate  the  finer  beauties  of  the  world, 
that  I  submit  this  answer  to  the  question — 
why  shall  we  beautify  ? 

Simply  as  a  matter  of  benevolence  we  should 
beautify  our  premises.  I  would  not  have  you 
think  that  I  mean  by  this  that  we  should 
make  our  places  tasty  and  attractive  for  the 
sake  of  showing  off  to  other  people  our  ability 
in  this  direction,  but  for  the  same  reason  we 
would  assist  our  neighbor  in  taking  off  his 
wagon  box.  He  is  not  able  to  do  it  alone, 
and  we  can  help  him.  There  are  hundreds 
who  pass  your  doors  that  can  not  fix  up  a 
home  and  yard  because  they  have  none,  but 
who  can  keenly  appreciate  the  neatness  and 
attractiveness  of  yours. 

Only  a  few  days  ago  a  man  said  to  me,  "  I 
passed  your  mother's  yard  a  great  many  times 
last  summer,  and  never  once  without  stopping 
to  admire  a  magnificent  bunch  of  Magenta 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


73 


phlox,  and  I  have  seen  dozens  of  iicoiile  doint; 
the  same  lliiu};."  This  is  a  siniide  instanco 
of  liow  mncii  pleasure  wo  can  gvaut  others  by 
tlie  adoinnient  of  our  premises.  The  peoi'le 
did  not  know  that  the  l)eaiity  of  tliis  phlox 
was  largely  due  to  a  jiriuciple  in  landscape  art 
tliat  WIS  there  exiiihitcd,  viz.:  contrast  of 
color,  for  a  dark  green  stood  near  that  height- 
ened the  effect. 

Lastly,  there  is  money  valno  in  the  making 
of  a  heantiful  home  that  will  pay  a  large  inte- 
rest upon  the  outlay,  if  tin:  labor  he  reckoned 
at  its  higl-.est  value.  Vou  may  iiot  want  to 
sell,  but  if  you  are  a  thrifty  fanner,  a  busi- 
ness farmer,  you  wish  to  know  at  the  end  of 
each  year  vvliii  t  are  tlie  profits  of  your  business, 
and  iif  you  fmd  there  i.s  not  a  very  large  bank 
account,  there  is  great  satisfaction  in  knowing 
that  your  place  has  been  enhanced  in  .selling 
value  through  the  exiiibition  of  tact  and  taste 
in  making  the  premises  attractive.  If  the 
worst  comes,  and  it  is  found  necessary  or 
desirable  to  change  location,  tin;  enhanced 
value,  tludugh  tlic  exhibition  of  taste  in 
adornment,  pays  in  the  cash  receipts.  Hean- 
tiful situations  are  always  more  marketable 
at  advanced  rates  than  poorly-kept  farms  are 
at  a  discount.  It  pays,  then,  liberally  to  make 
a  home  beautiful. 

In  the  outset  of  lixing  \\]>  a  place,  one  thing 
must  be  borne  in  mind  eonspicuonely— that 
utility  and  beauty  are  not  antagonistic  ele- 
ments. The  path  that  leads  to  places  of  work 
would  not  he  beautiful  if  it  were  not  direct, 
while  the  one  that  leads  to  the  tlow(U-  beds  or 
the  grove  may  be  tilled  with  delicate  curves, 
and  we  follow  admiringly,  appreciating  the 
nicety  of  the  turns,  because  when  we  go  there 
we  arc  walking  for  jdea-sure,  not  Inisiness,  and 
a  little  matter  of  added  distance  takes  nothing 
from  the  charm  of  the  promenade. 

Anything  loses  or  acciuires  beauty  through 
association,  and  we  should  care  for  this  scru- 
pulously. The  weeping  branches  of  the  elm 
in  the  hollow  make  it  a  beautiful  object  in  the 
landscape,  and  when  we  observe  the  tops  of 
the  weeping  limbs  almost  or  quite  sweeping 
the  surface  of  the  brook  beneath,  we  enjoy  the 
tleiusion  that  it  droops  to  bathe  its  branches 
in  cool  water.  But  were  that  elm  [ilaced 
midway  lietwcen  our  house  and  barn,  when 
uponevery  occasion  of  ]iassing  we  must  make  a 
detour  to  avoid  the  limbs,  or  by  passing  under 
have  our  hat  knocked  off  and  hair  pulled  every 
time,  the  beauty  of  the  weeping  branches  is 
lost,  and  we  dub  it  a  nuisan{!e.  Another  point 
to  be  considered  is  that  unceasing  care  and 
attention  is  necessary  to  the  development  of 
beauty.  If  by  the  cultivation  of  taste  this  be- 
comes a  delight,  the  care  is  only  an  added  en- 
chaiitment  to  the  pleasure  of  devclo]iment. 

In  the  arrang<ment  of  ground  there  must  be 
unity  of  ac'tion  on  the  i>art  of  the  whole  family 
in  order  to  accomplish  what  is  most  desirable, 
viz.  :congruity  of  jiarts.  To  illustrate  :  A  place 
I  have  in  mind,  and  no  imaginary  one,  either, 
has  a  delightful  frontage  ;  the  lawn  is  smooth 
and  green  ;  the  evergreens  tastily  grouped  ; 
climbers  are  delicately  turned  about  the  ve- 
randa posts,  and  flower  beds  just  at  one  side 
neatly  kept,  give  an  air  of  loveliness  to  the 
whole  yard.  But  every  day  as  I  pass  the 
place,  when  just  beyond  the  yard  fence,  I  can 
not  help  but  catch  a  view  of  the  lane  that 
leads  to  the  barns.  It  is  tilled  with  an  aggre- 
gation of  indescribable  odds  and  ends,  sucii  as 
could  accumulate  nowhere  Init  on  a  farm  in  a 
generation  of  time.  At  best  it  is  muddy, 
filthy,  slovenly,  ill-kept  alli^y.  Wc  lose  all  the 
effect  of  the  beautiful  yard  in  that  lane,  and 
its  loathsomeness,  rather  than  the  preceding 
beauty,  haunts  us.  The  story  is  told  when 
we  say  that  the  mother  and  children  have 
charge  of  the  first  part  of  the  home,  while  the 
head  of  the  family  believes  in  having  every- 
thing handy  in  the  l;uie.  ]?ut  unity  of  action 
nmst  move  in  the  right  direction, for  I  know  an- 
other farm  where  the  whole  family  are  actuated 
by  the  desire  to  have  everything  handy,  and 
everything  upon  the  place  bears  the  impress  of 
a  total  lack  of  taste  or  order.  They  spend 
enough  money  in  trees,  plants,  trellises  and  or- 
naments, but  somehow  each  new  one  adds 
another  to  a  most  unfortunate  combination. 


OUR   LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricul 
tural  and  Horticultural  Society. 

Tlic  rf'i^iilar  slatrtl  nin-tiii^  of  tlm  T.ancafiter 
County  .\uTiciiltural  :iinl  Horticultural  Soriety,  was 
iK^ld  ill  tlicii'  romiiB  in  I  lie.  City  Hail  on  Monday  after- 
noon, May  7.  Tlic  following  named  incniliers  were 
pi-e.scnt  : 

Simon  P.  Kliy,  JonaB  BucUwalter,  Jacob  B.  f!or- 
b.'r,  .M.  n.  Kciidiu',  Honry  (J.  Hcrr,  Levi  W.  (liotr, 
Oasper  Tlillor,  .loliii  Hoover,  .loliiisoii  Miller,  Levi 
I'ownall,  Ilcniv  M.  Knuir,  Levi  S.  Kcist,  .lac'ob  (iar- 
Ikt,  ('111-.  F.  Iliiiisr.'ker,  Walter  L.  lliTsluy,  KM 
HiTsliry,  .larob  Ili-rr,  lleubcn  Weaver,  l)avid  Wolf, 
.lolin  C.  LinvilU',15.  Kiank  Landis,  I'.  «.  Iteist,  .la- 
eob  S.  Witrner,  Jacob  liolliiiifcr,  .rolin  Miller,  Henry 
Kurtz,  Jacob  lloyer,  ."^iiuou  IloBlctter,  8.  8.  Rallivon, 
(ieo.  S.  ficlKcr. 

In  llic  absiiiee  of  tlie  President,  Vice  Prcsidout 
Henry  M.  Knijlc  was  called  to  tlie  cliair. 

On  motion,  the  reading  of  llie  minutes  was  diBpeu- 
Bl-ll  Willi. 

C'loji  report."!  ticiiis;  called  for,  Mr.  Enirle,  of  Mari- 
etta, said  the  wheat  in  Donejijal  hac  preatly  improved 
and  tlie  prospect  of  a  (;'«)d  crop  ie  now  very  llalter- 
iiii;.  Tlie  peach  trees  look  well  and  a  i;ood  yield 
may  he  expected.  The  ;;rass  lias  also  improved,  the 
cold  weather  we  have  had  heini;  I'avorahle  for  lioth 
grass  and  grain. 

Mr.  Linvii.m:,  of  Salisbury,  reported  the  wheat  as 
about  average — the  clover  yery  poor  and  the  timothy 
rather  better — apples  in  his  section  will  be  a  failure 
— oats  is  well  started — cherries  look  well. 

Mk.  Kenuk*  said  the  wheat  looked  wvM  in  Iiis 
ncii;hborhood;  the  f;rass  very  lliiii — apples  pr,-seuted 
a  pretty  fair  show  of  blossoms — pears  and  peaches 
very  tfood. 

Mr.  W.  L.  IIershey,  of  Ilempfield,  said  much  of 
the  wheat  looked  very  poor — except  in  gravel  land — 
fruit  trees  are  backward  in  blooming.  About  one- 
half  the  corn  crop  has  been  planted. 

Johnson  MiM.nit  said  wheat  would  probaldy  tie  a 
short  crop;  he  sowed  last  fall  1'^,  and  2  bushels  per 
aer(^:  some  of  the  new  varieties  look  well;  about  one- 
half  the  corn  crop  has  lieen  planted.  The  fruit  and 
Krain  proB]ieet  is  encouraging.  tlrasses  in  many 
places  will  be  a  failure. 

Mk.  Iln.LEK  beini;  called  on  to  report  on  the  fruit 
prospe<'t  in  t'onestou:a,  said  he  never  took  much  ac- 
count of  the  blossoms;  he  can  tell  tietter  what  the 
crop  will  l)e  about  tlie  time  the  fruit  bei^ins  to  ripen. 

Levi  S.  Ukist  read  an  essay  on  wheat,  whieli  he 
reijarded  as  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  ai;riexiltural 
productions.  It  follows  in  the  course  of  civilization 
in  all  jiarts  of  the  world.  Altlioufrli  its  origin  is  un- 
known, it  has  been  used  from  the  earliest  historic 
era.  It  is  spoken  of  in  the  Bible,  where  the  patriarch 
.lacob  in  a  dream  saw  Joseph's  sheaf  standing,  sur- 
rounded by  his  brothers'  sheafs,  which  made  obeis- 
ance to  it.  Of  over  :iOO  varieties  of  wheat  which  had 
been  introduced,  Mr.  Reist  thought  the  old  red  .Medi- 
terranean best  stood  the  test  of  cultivation.  He 
believed  that  in  this  section  our  own  native  wheat 
would  do  the  best,  and  he  recommended  farmers  to 
examine  their  fields  and  search  out  new  varieties. 
He  thought  it  would  be  well  for  the  society  to  otl'er  a 
reward  for  the  best  varieties  of  native  wheat  thus 
discovered.  Mr.  Reiat  next  referred  to  the  diseases 
to  which  wheat  is  subject.  Rust  in  the  straw  and  an 
imperfect  tilling  of  the  grain  was  caused  by  excessive- 
ly low  temfierature.  Tlie  greatest  destroyer  was  the 
Hessian  fly,  wliich  made  its  appearance  in  this  coun- 
try in  177('i,  and  is  6iippo,sed  to  have  been  introduced 
anionij  the  straw  imported  by  the  Hessian  soldiers 
duiiu;;-  the  revolution.  Since  that  time  it  has  spead 
throughout  the  country  and  has  destroyed  an  im- 
mense amount  of  iirain.  In  18S0  all  wheat  planted 
from  August  to  the  middle  of  Oetolier  was  destroyed. 
The  seed  sown  after  the  'iOtli  of  October  turned  out 
well.  The  wheat  that  was  sown  early  last  year  also 
turned  out  poorly — that  wtiieh  was  sown  later  looks 
well,  and  will  yield  from  i;0  to  .10  tmshels  per  acre. 
Mr.  lieist  added  that  on  tlic  .5th  of  September  last  a 
ueiijhbor  of  his  sowed  12  acres  of  wheat,  and  on  the 
11th  he  sowed  6  acres  more.  Early  in  the  season 
that  sowed  first  looked  very  well,  but  has  been 
almost  entirely  destroyed  by  the  fly  ;  while  that 
sown  on  the  lltli  has  almost  entirely  escaped,  and 
now  looks  very  thrifty  and  will  yield  a  !;ood  croi). 

Mk  W.  L.  IIekbuey  menticmed  a  ease  in  which 
two  fields  of  wheat  were  sown  on  the  same  day,  and 
one  of  them  was  entirely  destroyed  by  the  fly  and 
the  other  escaped. 

Mr.  Linvii.i.e  said  it  was  a  maxim  of  agricultural 
writers  to  "cultivate,  cultivute,  cultivate."  The 
maxim  was  a  ;,'ood  one  in  many  respects,  but  his  own 
experience  had  been  that  wheat  should  not  be  too 
highly  cultivated  ;  but  doubtless  the  ijuality  of  the 
soil  and  the  condition  of  the  season  has  much  to  do 
with  the  production. 

Mr.Kendig  suggested  that  the  fly  breeds  more 
rapidly  and  creates  greater  havoc  where  the  ground 
has  been  early  plowed. 

Mr.  Enole  said  there  was  no  rule  that  would 
hold  good  in  all  cases.  There  are  startling  cxcep- 
tioDS  to  all  theories  ;  the  only  thing  the  farmer  can 


do  is  to  observe  results  from  year  to  year  closely  and 

intelll!;ently  and  be  governed  accordinf;ly. 

I.Evi  W.  (Iicoer  said  that  early  last  fall  he  sowed 
Ave  acres  of  wheat  on  fjnmnd  that  was  last  year  in 
lobaeeo  ;  at  the  same  time  he  sowed  five  acres  more 
in  erounil  that  had  tieen  in  corn.  That  wliich  was 
sown  on  the  corn  irrouiid  was  almoht  entirely  de- 
htrnyed  by  Ibf  lly,  while  that  on  t  be  tottaeco  land  was 
untouched.  Hi'  tliou;;lit  that  about  two-thirds  of  the 
tobacco  crop  of  West  Earl  is  better  tlian  It  has  been 
for  five  years. 

Mr.  Knoi.k  said  we  are  apt  to  treat  tobaiw)  to  a 
more  liberal  supply  of  mamire  than  we  icive^i  corn, 
and  this  perhaps  made  the  wheat  on  .Mr.  firott's  to- 
bacco land  more  thrifty  aini  belter  alile  to  withstand 
tlii^  lly  tJian  thai  on  tlie  corn  land. 

.Mu.  (iRorr  replied  thai  his  com  land  was  as  highly 
manured  as  his  tfiliacco  land. 

.Mr.  I,i;vi  Ui.ist  said  his  essay  on  wheat  was  writ- 
ten with  a  view  to  iiiducim,' farmers  to  search  throui;li 
their  own  fields  for  new  varieties  of  wheat.  He  lie- 
lieved  that  they  would  siii'i-ecil  lieltcr  than  in  si'U-el- 
inir  variclicB  from  the  a;^rieultiiral  department  or 
elsewhere,  mosl  of  which  he  liacl  found  to  be  almost 
worthless.     His  favorilc  was  the  old   Medilcrrauean. 

Mu.  fiRori'  re|Kirtcd  very  favorable  results  from 
the  CUauFon  wheal. 

The  fincKi ion  proposed  at  last  meeting  for  discus- 
sion, namely,  "  Is  the  frrowth  of  Hunjjarian  grass 
fftr  hay  a  desinible  crop  for  fanners  to  cni^ai^e  in  ?" 
was  answcrci!  liy  Mr.  Pownall,  who  said  that  if  it 
were  projiosed  lo  make  it  take  the  place  id'  clover, 
liiuoUiy  or  other  ^'rasscs  il  would  be  unprofitalilc  ; 
but  if  it  were  sown  lo  supplement  these  crops  when 
they  partly  failed,  it  woiilil  be  found  profitable. 
When  cut  youn;;  it  makes  a  >;ood  Iiay. 

Mr.  Hersiiiv,  of  Manor,  rcfjardcd  it  as  worthless  ; 
his  horses  and  cattle  would  ijot  cat  it. 

Johnson  .Mili.ek,  of  Warwick,  had  ijuile  a  ditfer- 
ent  experience.  His  cattle  ale  it  with  avidity.  He 
had  fed  his  milch  cows  on  it  since  last  November, 
and  they  had  never  produced  more  butter  or  of  a 
better  rpiality. 

Mr.  Linvii.i.e,  of  Salisliury,  had  once  planted  11 
acres  of  Huiiirarian  u'rass.  His  cattle  ate  it  readily 
anil  thrived  on  il,  tint  it  was  hard  on  the  soil  and  lie 
had  concluded  to  plant  no  more  of  it;  but  as  his  tim- 
othy and  clover  had  almost  entirely  failed,  he  would 
this  year  try  it  ayain.  Il  is  liest  to  cut  il  early,  and 
not  let  il  ijel  wet,  as  rain  burls  the  quality  of  liay. 

Mr  Knoi.e  coincided  with  .Mr.  Liiiville's  views. 

Mr.  tiROEK  sowed  ten  acres,  and  in  sixty  days 
thereafter  had  the  liay  in  his  liarn.  It  was  a  iroort 
crop  and  made  good  feed,  especially  to  supplement 
other  kiuils  of  hay. 

.Mk.  Witmkr,  of  Manor,  had  never  had  any  ditli- 
riilty  in  get  ting  his  cattle  to  eat  Hnnfrarian  ^rass. 
He  cut  il  before  it  bloomed.  Did  not  think  it  ex- 
hausted the  soil.  He  planted  wheat  after  it  and  the 
eroji  was  as  irood  as  wlien  he  planted  after  corn.  It 
was  no  harder  on  the  soil  ttian  oats. 

Casper  Hii.lek  said  a  neicht>or  of  his  had  sown  C> 
or  0  acres  of  Hungarian  firass  lo  plow  down  as  greeu 
manure.  He  would  like  to  hear  wtiat  members 
thoug^ht  alioul  it. 

Mr.  Linvii.i.e  answered  that  a  neigliliorof  his  had 
sown  oats  and  Hunirarian  irrass  for  hay,  but  having 
enough  hay  from  oltier  i^rasses  he  plowed  down  the 
oats  and  liuiisrarian  grass  and  sowed  the  ground  in 
wheat.  He  manured  the  ground  on  which  the  oats 
had  been  plowed  down,  and  not  that  on  which  Iho 
Hungariangrass  was  plowed  down,  and  yet  the  wheat 
was  as  good  on  the  one  as  on  the  other.  In  conclu- 
sion Mr.  Linville  asked  what  crop  was  the  best  to  be 
plowed  down  for  green  manure. 

Mr.  Enoi.e  said  "liuckwheat." 

Mr.  (tkoi'F  said  "clover." 

Mr.  Enoi.e  said  clover  was  the  best,  but  it  could 
not  tie  grown  in  a  single  season,  and  buckwheat 
could. 

Mr.  p.  S.  Reist  was  in  favor  of  cutting  off  the 
clover  for  hay  and  plowing;  down  the  sod. 

Mr.  Enoi.e  said  that  clover  certainly  extracted 
from  the  soil  and  absorlied  from  the  air  certain  in- 
gredients tlial  enriched  the  ground  when  the  clover 
was  plowed  down. 

Mr.  (jKopf  said  it  was  his  intention  to  sow  corn 
and  Hungarian  grass  together  and  plow  them  both 
down  as  a  green  manure. 

"How  can  the  fertility  and  productiveness  of  our 
farms  he  maintained  under  our  present  system  of 
cropping  ?"  was  next  discussed. 

Mr.  Keiidig  said  to  accomplish  the  desired  result, 
he  would  stand  by  stable  manure  and  lime.  He  did 
not  have  much'  faith  in  manufactured  fertilizers. 
To  secure  the  full  tienefil  of  stable  manure  it  was 
necessary  to  prevent  the  cattle  from  running  at  large. 
He  would  keep  them' housed  and  well  fed,  and  not 
keep  too  many  during  the  summer,  .\fter  lliey  liave 
fed  in  the  jiasture  field  lie  them  up  during  the  rest 
of  the  day;  it  will  protect  them  from  flies  and  save 
the  manure.  The  manure  should  be  draw  n  at  least 
three  times  a  year — in  the  spring,  after  harvest  and 
in  the  fall.  He  thought  that  a  farm  of  lOU  acres 
might  safely  grow  ten  acres  of  tobacco  without  de- 
teriorating the  soil. 

Mr.  EN()I.e  agreed  with  Mr.  Kendig  as  to  the 
management  of  the  stock,  but  was  not  so  sure  about 
the  tobacco,  which  leaves  no  straw   for  manure  to 


74 


THE   LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  May, 


supply  the  strength  it  has  taken  from  the  soil. 
Heavy  manuring  makes  the  straw  heavy  but  not 
strong.  We  shoulk  try  and  get  something  to 
strengthen  the  straw  and  prevent  it  Jrom  lodging. 

Mk.  Herf hey  suggested  an  increase  of  silica  to 
strengthen  the  straw. 

Mr.  GiioFF  believed  that  farms  in  his  neighbor- 
hood were  going  down  for  want  of  manure.  He  ad- 
vised the  growing  of  less  wheat  and  less  tobacco  and 
more  rye.  He  favored  tying  up  cattle,  as  the  man- 
ure could  be  better  secured  by  so  doing  and  the  cat- 
tle thrived  better.  He  instanced  a  case  in  which  the 
straw  of  very  heavy  wheat  (40  bushels  to  the  acre) 
grown  on  new  ground  stood  straight  up,  while  the 
crop  on  old  and  heavily  manured  ground  was  not 
nearly  so  large  and  yet  the  straw  lodged  and  I'cll 
down. 

Mr.  Linvii.i.e  thought  that  most  of  our  farms 
.needed  jiotash.  He  noticed  that  wheat  grew  better 
on  ground  that  had  been  burned  over,  the  ashes  sup- 
plying the  potash.  A  friend  of  his  argued  that  farm- 
ers should  keep  more  cattle  and  let  them  run  at 
large  in  the  pasturage.  The  farmer  is  thus  saved 
the  trouble  of  spreading  the  manure.  He  had  him- 
self noticed  that  a  good  crop  of  corn  always  follows 
in  ground  on  which  sheep  have  been  pastured. 

Mr,  p.  S.  liEisT  thought  it  good  policy  to  keep 
only  a  few  cows  in  the  summer  and  buy  stock  cattle 
for  winter  from  the  west,  where  they  can  be  kept 
during  summer  at  much  less  cost.  Fatten  the  stock 
cattle  and  put  the  manure  on  the  farm,  and  its  fer- 
tility will  be  kept  up. 

Mr.  Henry  Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  said  he  be- 
lieved in  the  plan  advanced  by  Mr.  Kendig:  to  keep 
oniv  a  few  cows  through  the  summer,  feed  stock 
dnrlng  the  winter,  and  keep  the  cattle  tied  up.  He 
had  one  season  fed  three  hundred  head  of  cattle  and 
had  lost  money  on  them,  but  had  in  the  end  been 
well  paid  by  the  value  of  the  manure.  He  spreads 
the  manure  on  corn  stubbles,  and  plows  it  up  for  to- 
bacco. The  tobacco  crop  he  follows  with  wheat. 
He  manures  to  the  extent  of  six  wagon  loads  per 
acre,  adding  the  ashes  made  under  the  boiler  in  his 
tannery.  By  this  alternation  of  crops  ten  acres  out 
of  a  hundred  may  be  each  year  planted  in  tobacco 
without  impoverishing  the  land.  He  thought  farm- 
ers paid  too  much  for  their  cattle  and  might 'get 
them  for  less  if  they  refused  to  pay  the  high  prices 
demanded. 

Johnson  Mii.i.er  said  that  Mr.  Kendig  had  stated 
the  true  theory — keep  only  six  or  eight  head  of  cattle 
during  the  summer  to  every  thirty  or  forty  during 
the  winter. 

Mr.  Encile  said  from  the  remarks  made  it  was 
evident  that  there  were  many  varieties  of  soil,  and 
that  they  require  different  modes  of  cultivation. 
There  can  be  no  uniform  rule  for  soiling  ;  Mr.  Grotf's 
ground  being  too  rich,  contains  too  much  vegetalile 
matter.  This  is  probably  the  reason  his  wheat 
loilges.  Farms  may  become  too  rich,  though  many 
mure  no  doubt  are  too  poor.  A  fertilizer  that  is  suit- 
able for  one  may  do  the  otlier  no  good.  We  must 
endeavor  to  find  out  just  what  our  land  requires  and 
then  apply  it.  He  had  not  much  faith  in  commer- 
cial fertilizers,  but  they  will  in  time  become  a  neces- 
sity. The  mamifacturers  should  be  compelled  by 
law  to  state  what  chemical  ingredients  their  fertilizers 
contain.  Then  we  could  buy  the  one  that  contained 
the  ingredients  our  land  needed  for  the  crop  we  pro- 
j)0Scd  to  grow.  It  will  not  do  to  take  a  fertilizer 
simply  because  our  neighbor  had  good  results  from 
it.  He  favored  the  soiling  system  for  small  farms, 
but  believed  there  may  be  found  a  better  system  of 
keeping  up  the  fertility  of  our  farms  than  any  now 
in  use. 

The  question  was  further  discussed  by  Messrs. 
Grolf,  Engle,  Kurtz  and  Ueist,  during  which  Mr. 
Grotf  said  it  was  his  intention  to  sow  rye  and  plow  it 
down  green  for  tobacco;  and  Mr,  P.  S.  Reist  reolied 
that  a  neiglibor  of  his  had  done  the  same  thing  and 
had  a  perfect  failure.  In  alluding  to  concentrated 
manures  he  stated  that  one  farmer  had  said  to  an- 
other that  the  time  would  come  when  he  could  carry 
in  his  coat  pocket  enough  manure  to  supply  a  five 
acre  field  ;  to  which  the  other  replied  that  when  that 
time  arrived  he  could  carry  home  the  crop  from  the 
field  in  his  vest  pocket.  Mr.  Keist  maintained  that 
the  manure  that  comes  from  animals,  birds,  Ac,  is 
the  only  true  manure.  In  using  still-house  manure 
he  had  found  that  it  left  the  land  hard  and  compact, 
and  it  required  stable  manure  to  loosen  it  up  again. 
The  use  of  guano  has  the  same  bad  effect,  and  prob 
ably  is  one  cause  of  wheat  lodging.  He  advised  that 
only  three  or  four  good  cows  should  be  kept  in  sum- 
mer instead  of  eight  or  ten . 

Mr.  Kurtz  thought  farmers  sow  too  much  seed 
per  acre,  and  that  this  makes  tjie  straw  weak  and 
the  heads  small  because  there  is  not  room  for  it  to 
grow. 

Mr.  HnNSEOKER  spoke  of  the  good  results  that 
followed  the  use  of  plaster  on  poor  land,  and  the 
question  was  further  discussed  at  some  length  by 
Messrs.  Groff,  Engle  and  Eby. 

Mr.  Engi.e  distributed  to  members  circulars 
issued  by  the  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  relative  to 
their  meeting  on  the  ll-'d  inst.,  the  substance  of 
which  paper  will  be  found  on  page  66. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  for  discus- 
sion at  next  meeting : 


By  P.  S.  Reist — "  Will  sub-soiling  pay?" 
By  Mb.  Engle— "Are  county  fairs  beneficial  to 
farmers  and  fruit  growers  ?" 

Several  packages  of  seed  received  from  the  Agri- 
cultural Department,  were  distributed  among  mem- 
bers, and  the  society  adjourned. 


Proceedings  of  the    Tobacco  Growers'   Asso- 
ciation. 

A  meeting  of  the  Tobacco  Growers'  Association 
was  held  in  the  Athenaeum  room,  Monday  afternoon, 
April  16,  at  S'^  o  clock .  The  following  members 
were  present :  M.  D.  Kendig,  I.  L.  Landis,  Peter  S. 
Reist,  Jacob  Frantz,  W.  L.  Hershey,  J.  W.  Johnson, 
A.  L.  Landis,  Andrew  Lane,  E.  Hoover,  H.  Mayer. 

Visitors  :  A.  Bard,  .John  Stauffer,  N.  Hostetter, 
Christian  Hunseckcr,  Messrs.  Shifi'ner  and  Kennedy. 

Reading  of  the  minutes  of  the  previous  meeting 
was  dispensed  with. 

The  following  persons  made  reports  on  the  crops  : 
Crop  Reports. 

Mr.  Frantz  said  that  so  far  as  his  neighborhood 
was  concerned  thei'e  was  no  tobacco  on  hand  ;  the 
preparations  for  the  coming  crop  are  extensive. 
There  is  an  unusual  area  of  ground  prepared  for 
plants,  some  of  which  are  up  ;  upon  the  w  hole,  we 
have  reason  to  believe  the  crop  will  be  put  out  on  an 
improved  basis  ;  cultivators  have  learned  to  plant  in 
the  right  kind  of  ground,  and  this  was  owing  partly 
to  the  experience  obtained  by  attending  the  meetings 
of  the  association.  A  few  lots  of  tobacco,  he  said, 
had  been  sold  lately  in  his  section  at  an  advanced 
price.     This  was  of  an  inferior  quality. 

Mr.  Reist  said  that  he  did  not  know  that  there 
would  be  more  planted  than  usual.  A  great  number 
of  those  who  are  raising  plants  with  whom  he  has 
spoken  say  they  are  up.  The  price  in  his  section  for 
tobacco  has  varied  from  S  to  10,  and  from  30  to  '15 
cents.  Nearly  all  are  trying  to  improve  on  the 
quality.  He  then  spoke  of  the  good  the  association 
is  doing  for  tobacco  culture. 

Mr.  SniFFNER  then  spoke  of  some  of  the  mistakes 
made  in  preparing  tobacco.  One  was  that  too  much 
is  topped  too  high  ;  it  is  length  the  buyers  want. 
When  stripping  you  ought  to  have  a  standard  length. 
In  his  section  (Upper  Leacock)  prices  have  been 
better,  and  a  quantity  is  not  sold. 

Mk.  Kennedy,  of  Salisbury,  said  about  one-fourth 
,of  the  crop  is  on  hand.  Tobacco  plants  are  coming 
up  very  well.  There  will  be  at  least  one-half  more 
planted  than  heretofore.  He  believed  it  was  im- 
portant to  plant  early. 

Israel  L.  Landis  said  there  may  be  a  few  lots  to 
sell  in  bis  section,  otherwise  he  agreed  with  the 
former  speaker. 

Mr.  Stauffer,  of  Salunga,  said  there  were  a  few 
lots  to  sell  yet  in  his  section. 

Mr.  Kendig  said  in  regard  to  Manor  township 
that  the  same  amount  would  be  planted  as  hereto- 
fore ;  the  object  is  to  raise  the  standard  of  the 
quality  ;  there  is  still  some  on  hand.  In  regard  to 
plants,  he  said,  fair  weather  will  bring  plants  in  good 
condition. 

Mr.  Hershey,  of  Rapho,  said  that  prices  vary 
from  8  to  20  cents  ;  there  is  a  feeling  to  raise  better 
tobacco  ;  not  more  than  half  is  sold. 

Mr.  Lane,  of  Neffsville,  said  the  tobacco  is  pretty 
well  sold  in  that  section  ;  there  is  still  some  on  hand, 
but  it  is  of  an  inferior  quality.  There  is  an  eflbrt  to 
raise  better  tobacco. 

Mr.  Hershey,  of  East  Hempfield,  said  there  is 
some  on  hand  yet.  The  same  spirit  prevails  to  raise 
better  tobacco.  Preparations  are  made  to  begin  to 
plant.     Some  are  using  ashes  aa  a  fertilizer. 

Mr.  HunskCker,  of  Hempfield,  said  that  fine  to- 
bacco is  raised  in  his  section,  and  that  preparations 
are  being  made  to  plant. 

Essay  by  Mr,  Landis. 

Mr.  Israel  L.  Landis  then  read  an  essay  sub- 
stantially as  follows  : 

He  commenced  with  a  statement  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  tobacco  crop  of  Lancaster  county,  (being 
valued  at  ?i;,.500,000,)  and  the  great  wealth  this  adds 
to  the  community  at  large.  He  spoke  of  the  magni- 
ficent warehouses  built,  and  being  built,  in  the  city 
and  county,  and  feared  the  growers  did  not  realize  or 
appreciate  the  opportunities  they  have  of  raising 
their  crops  and  handling  them,  preparatory  for 
market,  as  the  dealers  do  in  searching  suitable  ware- 
houses and  shipping  facilities.  He  advised  that  great 
care  should  be  exercised  in  the  selection  of  seeds  and 
in  propagating  plants,  and  recommended  early  plant- 
jug — say  from  the  i;5th  of  May  to  the  10th  of  June — 
as  thej  have  a  better  chance  of  escaping  the  worms. 
Mr.  Landis  next  referred  to  the  artificial  fertilizers, 
and  warned  growers  to  be  careful  and  use  nothing 
that  would  have  a  tendency  to  impair  the  fertility  of 
the  soil.  He  pointed  to  Connecticut,  which  some 
years  ago  stood  first  in  growing  fine  leaf,  but  now 
stood  second,  this  result  being  brought  about  by 
over-production.  It  is  to  be  feared,  too,  that  our 
grain  crops  may  sutler  by  supplying  the  tobacco  fields 
too  heavily  with  the  manure  essential  to  its  growth. 
Mr.  Landis  continued  as  follows  :  ^ 

The  inducements  for  sub-dividing  large  farms  were 
never  greater  in  our  county  than  now,    The  plan  is 


usually  to  secure  a  good  tract  of  land  and  erect 
buildings  for  a  home.  On  a  tract  of  say  ten  acres, 
which  may  cost  from  8200  to  $:i00  per  acre,  accord- 
ing to  location  and  quality,  there  may  be  raised 
fi-om  ?200  to  .SfiOO  worth  of  tobacco  per  acre,  good 
crop  and  season;  so  that  one  crop  from  an  acre  clears 
the  land,  sometimes  doubles  it,  and  in  a  few  years 
the  purchaser  has  his  land  paid  wilh  the  crops"  that 
it  produces.  There  are  no  less  than  half  a  dozen 
such  properties  now  bordering  on  the  Lancaster  and 
Petersburg  pike  running  north  of  Lancaster,  of 
tracts  varying  in  size  from  six  to  thirty  acres,  and 
within  three  miles  of  the  city.  There  is  in  all  direc- 
tions building  going  on.  There  will  be  many  a  new 
tobacco  barn  erected  this  summer  that  is  now  in  con- 
templation, and  the  discussion  'of  this  subject  of 
building  tobacco  barns  to-day,  it  is  hoped,  will  throw 
out  some  valuable  hints  and  suggestions  for  the  ben- 
efit of  those  persons  interested;  so  that  with  each 
succeeding  season  we  may  improve  all  that  pertains 
to  raising  and  caring  for  the  crops  and  securing  the 
best  rewards  for  the  honest  labor  and  toil  that  pro- 
duce them. 

There  seems  to  be  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
present  crop  of  1876  in  the  county  unsold,  the  offers 
of  buyers  not  suiting  the  views  of  holders.  There  is 
some  left  over  of  nearly  every  crop  each  year  till  next 
year  following.  The  quality  of  this  year's  crop  is 
admitted  to  be  fully  as  good  if  not  superior  to  any 
raised  for  years,  and  it  would  not  seem  much  of  a 
risk  to  put  such  crops  into  cases  and  take  the 
chances  of  the  market  with  them.  This  might  be 
the  true  course  to  pursue  for  the  farmers  with  their 
tobiicco;  for  when  they  sell  their  crop  it  is  not  ready 
for  market.  It  must  go  through  the  process  of  fer- 
mentation, or  sweating.  The  best  sweating  and  col 
oi  ng  is  secured  by  casing,  and  it  only  becomes  ready 
for  the  cigar  maker  after  this  process.  While  at 
the  Centennial  Exposition  at  Philadelphia  last  sum- 
mer, Bucks  county  farmers  called  and  saw  my  ex- 
hibit of  Lancaster  county  tobacco  at  my  place  in  Ag- 
ricultural Hall  and  stated  that  they  received  from  37 
to  4:i  cents  per  pound  for  their  crop  of  1875,  average 
no  better  than  mine.  When  asked  how  they  man- 
aged to  sell  it  so  high  they  said  they  cased  and 
sweated  it,  and  that  plan  is  generally  pursued  there. 
They  have  a  warehouse  among  themselves. 

Different  packers  have  stated  that  some  of  the  best 
selections  of  our  crops  may  and  will  bring  from  50 
cents  to  75  cents  per  pound.  It  would  hardly  be 
considered  good  farming  for  the  farmer  to  send  his 
corn  green  to  the  merchant  from  the  fields  or  to  the 
mill  green  by  large  quantity.  He  would  not  get  full 
price,  for  his  crop  would  not  be  in  a  merchantable  con- 
dition, and  so,  too,  with  tobacco;  it  is  not  fit  for  market 
until  it  is  sweated  and  cured.  In  conclusion,  it  may  not 
be  out  of  place  to  throw  out  a  suggestion  in  regard  to 
our  superior  tobacco  crops.  The  amount  of  annual 
sales  aggregate  millions  of  dollars  of  the  crop  in  a 
raw  unmanufactured  state.  The  peculiar  flavor  and 
good  cjuality  is  established  beyond  a  question.  In 
evidence  we  offer  the  fact  that  dealers  come  from 
great  tobacco  States  to  purchase  our  crop — from 
California,  the  South  and  Southwest,  the  Eastern  and 
Northern  States;  all  come  to  buy  our  crop.  They 
raise  it  in  Wisconsin  for  three  cents  and  yet  come 
and  pay  us  thirty.  They  raise  it  in  Maryland,  Ken- 
tucky, Ohio  and  other  States,  for  from  S  to  12  cents, 
and  yet  they  come  to  purchase  our  crops  at  high 
rates.  And  why  ?  Because  of  its  superior  quality; 
it  makes  money  andis  good.  Now  if  these  undisput- 
ed facts  stare  us  in  the  face,  why  cannot  some  of  our 
enterprising  capitalists  establ  sh  a  cigar  factory  on  a 
lar<re  scale,  on  the  plan  of  Kerbs  it  Spiess,  oi'  New 
York,  and  employ  hundreds  of  idle  hands  here,  in- 
stead of  sending  away  our  good  raw  material  to 
make  profit  and  market  elsewhere  with  what  we 
should  manufacture  here  and  give  employment 
to  home  labor  and  industry  ?  It  would  be  an 
easy  matter  probably  to  establish  as  good  a 
market  for  the  Lancaster  cigar  as  its  leaf  tobacco 
now  enjoys.  In  Lancaster  there  are  now  some  un- 
used buildings  that  could  in  all  probability  be  secured 
that  are  well  adapted  for  the  purpose.  Lancaster 
would  not  be  now  what  it  is  if  the  able  and  skillful 
management  at  the  head  of  our  cotton  mills  had  not 
had  business  tact  and  foresight  enough  to  keep  them 
running  and  give  employment  to  such  large  numbers 
of  people,  if  it  is  a  good  thing  to  import  cotton 
from  the  far  South  to  give  employment  to  our  worthy 
and  willing  labor,  why  is  it  not  good  to  let  them  have 
a  chance  at  our  own  productions  from  our  own  farms, 
and  manufacture  a  good  Lancaster  cigar?  Let  us 
have  a  cigar  factory  and  manufacture  at  least  some 
of  our  vast  crops  that  go  to  enrich  other  sections. 

Mr.  Honsecker  remarked  that  the  gentleman 
said  tobacco  brought  a  great  deal  of  money  into  the 
county,  which  is  true ;  farmers  will  cultivate  that 
which  brings  in  the  most  money  ;  the  question  is 
whether  we  cultivate  the  best  tobacco  ?  Should  mid- 
dlemen come  in  and  reap  the  benefits  ?  He  argued 
that  we  should  keep  the  benefit  derived  from  its  cul- 
ture in  our  midst.  The  culture  of  tobacco  would  be 
more  profitable  by  having  manufacturers  in  our 
midst. 

Mr.  Frantz  said  the  difficulty  was  in  getting  the 
proper  quantity  of  manure.  He  had  purchased  two 
tons  of  Pacific  soluble  guano,  and  was  ordered  to 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


75 


U6C  half  a  ton  to  the  acre.  In  answer  to  questions 
he  said  tliat  the  uultivation  of  toliacco  had  not  in  his 
observation  exliausted  I  lie  soil  ;  he  look  good  care  to 
keep  the  fjround  in  good  eondition  by  applying  tlie 
proper  f.-rtilizers. 

Mil.  KKNiiiii  said  that  in  resard  to  the  guano,  it 
Rives  a  i;ood  healthy  start  lotohaeeo,  but  at  the  time 
of  euttine  saw  uo  d'ill'erenee.  We  must  learn  to  ease 
tobaeeo  ;  we  lietler  learn  to  eulllvate  it,  however,  be- 
fore we  undertake  to  ease  it.  A  man  shouhl  not  ease 
it  unless  he  has  a  pretty  fjood  qiianlity.  It  Is  not 
worth  while  to  bepn  with  a  few  eases. 

Mr.  Siiii-i-NBii  said  that  in  the  use  of  Peruvian 
guano  lie  had  not  observed  any  dlHerence  from  the 
use  of  manure. 

Tobacco  Houses. 

The  (luestlon  of  the  conBtrucliou  of  tobacco  houses 
was  then  diseussed. 

.Mit.  IloovEK  said  it  was  a  very  imiiortant  thingto 
think  about.  All  tobaeeo  houses,  he  thought,  should 
have  a  good  cellar  under  the  whole  house.  A  great 
mistake  is  often  made  in  stripping  an<l  preparing  to- 
liacco for  market.  Tobacco  of  a  ecrlain  grade  should 
he  classed  by  Itself.  This  was  not  exactly  on  the 
subject,  huthe  would  throw  out  this  liint  anyway. 
You  might  construct  houses  in  a  profitable  way  by 
constructing  them  for  grain  bouses  as  well  as  for 
tobaeeo  houses.  He  would  not  use  it  for  these  two 
puriMises  at  the  same  time.  It  could  be  constructed 
ill  such  a  way  that  all  the  timbers  could  be  |;enioved, 
with  few  exceptions.  You  could  use  your  cellar  for 
storini:  turnips,  potatoes,  &c. 

Mh.  Kendio  would  prefer  for  the  site  of  a  tobacco 
house  a  southeru  slope.  He  would  partition  off  the 
Btripping  and  storing  room  convenient  to  each  other. 
He  would  avoid  as  much  as  jiossible  all  cross  beams, 
so  that  you  can  walk  without  stooping.  There  is  an 
advantage  in  having  the  doors  hor.zontal  instead  of 
vertical. 

Mii.  M.vTEit  said  he  had  cellar  under  only  part  of 
hisliouse;  experience  taught  him  to  have  a  cellar 
under  the  entire  building.  A  cellar  should  be  no  less 
than  U  feet  deep.  If  we  want  a  building  for  tobacco 
we  must  construct  it  for  that  purix>se  alone.  If  you 
keep  the  tobacco  in  the  dark,  it  will  cure  dark. 
Splitting  the  stock  in  drying,  he  thought,  should  be 
avoided . 

Referred  Questions. 

The  following  questions  were  then  referred  : 

"  What  are  the  best  methods  for  destroying  cut 
worms  !" 

"What  are  the  best  methods  for  setting  out  to- 
bacco plants !'' 

The  former  was  referred  to  Harry  Mayer,  and  the 
latter  to  Jacob  Frantz. 


Proceedings  of  the  Bee  Keepers'  Association. 
The  regular  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  County  Bee 
Keepers'  Society  was  held  at  2  o'clock  on  Saturday, 
May  5th — Peter  S.  Keist,  President,  in  the  chair. 

The  minutes  of  last  meeting  were  read  by  the  Sec- 
retary, H.  H.  Myers,  and  adopted. 
The  following  reports  were  then  delivered  : 
Mk.  a.  H.  ScilocH  made  a  statement  that  he  bad 
very  poor  success  in  wintering  his  swarms,  having 
lost  six  out  of  eighteen.  They  were,  however,  the 
weakest  hives. 

J.  T.  HrBsiiEY  reported  that  although  he  gave  his 
hives  all  the  attention  possible,  be  lust  fifty  out  of 
one  hundred  swarms.  He  .attribuled  the  trouble  to 
living  in  a  low  situation  on  the  Conestoga,  but  per- 
haps the  cold  weather  was  to  blame  principally  for 
the  great  los.s.  His  bees  are  well  wintered,  covered 
and  sheltered. 

E.  Hersuey  reported  a  better  state  of  things. 
Out  of  thirty-four  he  lost  but  one  swarm.  Kept 
them  ou  a  sunimer  stand.  Had  plenty  of  honey, 
and  are  all  strong  now. 

L.  Fleckensteis  lost  four  out  of  sixteen.  Were 
kept  on  summer  stand,  without  unusual  shelter,  on 
the  north  side  of  the  house. 

H.  Hi'BER  started  into  the  winter  with  seven  hives, 
and  still  has  them  all.  Tliey  are  strong,  and  were  so 
in  the  fall.  Keeps  them  on  a  summer  stand.  They 
are  now  busy  laying  up  their  usual  store. 

D.  KuioEK  has  five  stands — the  same  number  he 
had  in  the  fall.  They  are  strong,  but  he  has  fed 
them  all  winter.  A  swarm  that  came  late  iu  the  fall 
eat  20  [xiunds  of  sugar. 

Mr.  G.  E.  Mextzer  related  that  he  has  one  hun- 
dred and  twenty  swarms  iu  Fulton  county,  which 
have  all  stood  the  winter  remarkably  well.  In 
August  he  transferred  ten  swarms  and  lost  them  all. 
He  is  not  in  thehabitof  sheltering  his  hives  in  winter. 
Being  blooilless  he  does  not  believe  bees  freeze  so 
soon  as  is  generally  supposed.  This  gentleman  had 
a  patent  hive  for  exhibition,  which  was  carefully  ex- 
amined by  the  members  present. 

A  discussion  followed  this  gentleman's  remarks  on 
bees  freezing.  It  was  held  by  several  members  that 
It  was  common  for  bees  to  become  so  numb  by  ex- 
posure, that  although  the  hives  were  full  of  honey 
they  virtually  starved  from  not  being  able  to  reach 
their  food.  Some  held  that  bees  were  easily  frozen 
to  death,  while  others  believed  the  contrary. 

John  Dk  kki.  reported  his  single  hive  as  having 
wintered  well  in  the  garret. 
Mr.  H.  H.  Mters,  the  Secretary,  reported  his 


hives  as  having  done  reasonably  well,  as  he  lost  two 
out  of  twelve.  He  fed  them  abundantly  during  the 
cold  weather. 

Mr.  Heist,  the  President,  said  he  bad  finyswarnis 
in  the  fall,  but  lost  ten  swarms,  which  he  attriliutcd 
more  to  neglect  than  anything  else.  His  bees  were 
flying  about  on  nearly  every  fair  day  during  the  cold 
season. 

W.  H.  Detweii.er's  success  was  not  very  good- 
he  having  lost  about  40  per  cent,  of  his  swarms,  but 
he  hopes  to  builil  tlieni  up  If  the  year  is  favorable. 
Keferred  iiucstioiis  were  called  up.  The  first  was  : 
"  What  are  the  advantages  of  the  movable  comb 
hive  over  the  box  liive^' 

Mr.  H(!Beii  gave  a  number  of  reasons  why  the 
former  were  superior.  The  Secretary  had  both  kinds; 
he  had  one  box  hive,  and  the  swarm  that  lives  in  it  is 
the  vcrv  best  he  owns. 

The  next  question  was,  "  What  is  the  advantage 
of  the  Italian  over  the  Black  bees  ?" 

Mr.  Fi.eikknstein  eonld  not  see  much  difference 
between  the  two,  except  that  the  former  are  more 
peaceable. 

Mil.  Myers  was  entirely  in  favor  of  the  Italians — 
was  in  favor  of  getting  rid  of  the  black  ones  by  ban- 
ishmtMit. 

Mu.  E.  Hkrsiiky  thought  the  only  advantage  of 
the  Italians  was  their  ability  to  extract  honey  from 
red  cliiver  blossoms. 

.Mii.  .1.  F.  Hersiiev  said  mist.akes  were  often  made 
in  coiilbuiiding  pure  and  hybrid  queens.  Italians 
stored  honey  faster  than  the  others— often  the  for- 
mer gathered  a  large  surplus  while  the  others  lould 
not  gather  enough  to  sustain  themselves.  The  Ital- 
ians were,  besides,  cleaner  than  the  blacks  and  could 
whip  them. 
The  third  cpiestion  was,  "  Can  bees  bear?" 
On  this  point  Mr.  Hershey  gave  an  atllrmative 
opinion,  founded  on  certain  noises  made  by  the  queen 
at  certaiu  times.  If  the  (lueeii  is  laid  ajiart  from  the 
hive  the  peculiar  humming  made  by  her  is  at  ouce 
noticed,  and  they  seek  her. 

Mr.  Myers  also  believed  bees  hear;  if  a  bee  is 
taken  up  in  the  hanii  and  held,  (its  wings  being  al- 
lowed to  vibrate,)  it  at  once  attracts  the  attention  of 
the  rest. 

.Mr.  Fleokenstein  was  also  of  this  opinion,  which 
he  sujiported  by  various  arguments. 

The  Iburth  question  was,  "  Which  is  the  quickest 
and  best  way  to  hive  a  natural  swarm  of  bees?" 

Mr.  Fleckenstein  and  others  participated  in  the 
discussion. 

Mr.  Hobkr  was  of  the  opinion  that  the  bees  should 
be  emptied  in  front  of  the  hive  and  allowed  to  go  into 
it  themselves.  If  put  into  the  hive  they  often  come 
out  again. 

Mk.  J.  F.  Hershey  described  several  modes  of 
securing  natural  swarms. 

Mr.  Mextzer  thought  natural  swarming  was  a 
humbug.  He  believed  in  the  artificial  process  ;  you 
can  in  this  way  produce  artificial  swarming  or  pre- 
vent swarming  altogether. 

Mr.  Hershey  wished  to  know  whether,  if  a  hive 
swarmed  naturally,  we  were  to  let  them  go!  Some- 
times a  hive  will  swarm  while  it  has  ample  room  aud 
ventilation. 

Mr.  Fleckenstein  also  believed  there  was  no 
way  to  prevent  swarming. 

The  President  interrupted  the  regular  course  of 
business  by  calling  upon  Mr.  .Mculzer  to  give  his 
views  on  tiie  question  of  bees  attacking  fruit.  The 
latter  gentleman  related  how  he  h.id  walcheil  bees  in 
their  visits  to  vineyards  and  graperies,  but  found  that 
thev  invariably  went  to  Iruit  which  had  already  liecn 
attacked,  but  never  did  any  damage  to  perfect  fruit. 
.\lR.  J.  F.  Hershey  coniirmed  .Mr.  .Mentzer's  \icvi . 
Never  knew  bees  (o  attack  sound  fruit — they  always 
go  to  such  as  is  already  injured. 

Mr.  Huber  agreed  with  the  above  ;  his  experience 
was  similar. 

Mr.  Fi.eckexstein  has  grapes  all  around  his 
bees,  but  the  bees  have  never  injured  them;  the 
bunches  hang  all  around  the  hives. 

E.  Hersuey  also  spoke  in    favor   of  the    bees;    in 

fact,  the  opinion  of  the  members  was    unanimous    in 

rejecting  the  the  theory  of  bees  attacking  sound  fruit. 

The  5th  question  was,  "Which  is  the  best    way    to 

introduce  a  strange  queeu   nto  a  colony  of  bees  i" 

Mr.  .1.  F.  Hershey  gave  his  experience  on  this  in- 
teresting question  at  length.  His  plan  is  to  put  the 
stranger  queen  into  a  wire  cage  and  hang  it  into  the 
hive  lor  several  days  until  she  acijuircs  the  scent 
cominou  to  the  bees  in  the  hive,  when  she  may  be 
liberated.  If  honey  is  plenty  the  danger  to  the 
queen  is  not  so  great;  but  i(  it  is  scarce  this  is  not 
the  ease,  and  the  (lucen  is  likely  to  lie  stung. 

Qnestion  (Itli  and  last  was,  "Which  is  the  best  way 
to  transfer  from  box  to  luovalilc  frame  hives  i" 

Mr.  J.  F.  IlERsnEV  gave  an  elaborate  description 
of  his  method,  which  was  very  interesting,  but  too 
technical  for  any  reporter  to  follow  or  to  attempt  to 
report  correctly. 

Mr.  Fleckensteik  also- related  his  experience, 
which  agreed  in  most  particulars  with  that  of  the 
last  speaker. 

The  question  whether  brood  can  be  successfully 
produced  in  March  was  also  taken  up.  J.  F. 
Hershey's  opinion  was  that  occasionally  it  could  be 
done,  but  succesa  was  exceptional. 


A  special  question  was  taken  up. 

"How  near  the  ground  ought  a  hive  to  be  placed 
during  the  summer?" 

Mr.  Hershky  thought  the  hives  ought  to  be  ele- 
vated very  little  above  the  ground;  in  this  way  the 
bees  are  removed  from  the  higher  currents  of  air, 
and  reach  their  hives  more  easily. 

Mr.  .Myers  thought  they  should  he  nearly  If  not 
quite  on  the  ground.  He  means  so  to  place  his  hives 
iic.vt  spring.  Wlien  too  near  the  ground  the  bees 
furnish  toads  with  many  hearty  meals. 

The  President  suggested  to  the  members  that  they 
observe  the  comparative  elfei'ts  of  natural  and  arti- 
ficial swarming,  to  find  out  which  process  gives  the- 
bcst  results. 

There  lieing  no  other  business  before  the  society, 
it  adjourned  until  the  second  Monday  In  October. 


The  Linnxan  Society. 

The  Linii'.i'an  Soeietv  held  their  stated  meeting  on 
Saturday,  April '^s,  Isfr.  President,  Itcv. . I.  S.  Stahr, 
in  the  chair,  and  nine  mcmliers  present.  The  pre- 
liminary business  heingaltciided  to,  the  few  donations 
to  the  museum  were  found  to  consist  of  a  fine  mount- 
ed specimen  of  the  coot  or  nunl-hen  (  FuUra  Atncri- 
cum,)  shot  on  the  'Jlst  iiisl.,  by  Mr.  II.  11.  Kohrer, 
near  Paradise,  in  this  countv,  who  left  It  In  the  care 
of  S.  S.  P.athvon.  Mr.  K.  fearing  it  might  spoil  if 
longer  ke)it,  had  it  skinned  and  mounted  at  a  cost  of 
$J.50,  without  consulting  Mr.  Uohrcr,  supfiosing  11 
was  intended  for  the  society,  and  so  paiil  for  it.  A 
specimen  of  oxide  of  iron  fouml  by  .Mr.  .Julius  Shu- 
nian,  near  the  borough  of  Washington,  who  talks  of 
sinking  a  shaft,  that  possibly  an  out-crop  of  the 
Chestuut  Hill  ore  bank  might"  be  unearthed  in  that 
place.  A  charred  "bracket,"  rescued  from  the  fire 
that  consumed  the  Market  street  bridge,  of  Phlladel- 
pliia,  a  short  time  ago,  per  Mr.  Andrew  Meixel. 
This  bracket  a  hundred  years  hence  of  the  renowned 
structure  called  the  "permanent  bridge"  may  be- 
come valuable  as  a  historical  relic.  To  the  historical 
section  wen'  added,  also,  two  envelopes  containing 
27  clippings  from  papers  per  S.  S.  Kathvon.  Our 
library  was  improved  by  having  liU  volumes  Ixiund  of 
various  works  received  in  numbers.  Through  the 
kindness  of  .Mr.  Stone,  librarian  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Historical  Society,  we  received  14  numbers,  a  series 
of  reports  of  the  regents  of  the  New  York  university 
of  natural  history.  Also,  from  Mr.  Win.  Saunders, 
editor  of  the  r'anadian  KiiUiiiiolngint,  No.  12,  of  the 
volume  for  ISTfi, containing  an  illustrated  list  and  de- 
scription of  the  Canthariilir.  On  motion  a  vote  of 
thanks  was  given  to  both  gentlemen  for  their  dona- 
tions. Catalogues  of  publishing  houses  and  book 
notices  were  also  received,  and  the  April  number  of 
The  Laxi  aster  Farmer. 

Papers  were  then  read  from  corresponding  mem- 
bers. No.  .504,  on  the  albinism  found  in  various 
species  ami  genera  of  birds  that  came  under  the 
notice  of  W.J.  Hoffman,  M.  D.,  of  Keading,  who 
describes  the  abnormal  appearance  in  plumage  such 
as  white  or  partially  white  blackbirds,  itows,  robins, 
itc,  both  interesting  and  curious  to  the  naturalist. 
No.  .5fi5,  written  by  Mr.  A.  F.  Kirlin,  of  Heading, 
was  a  highly  interesting  document  on  archneological 
research  an*l  dis^-overias  made.  The  members  pres- 
ent express  their  thanks  to  their  worthy  correspond- 
ents of  Keading,  and  assun-  them  that  their  conimu- 
nieatioiis  were  gratefully  received.  This  being  chiefly 
a  business  meeting,  the  secretary  reiiorted  that  in 
compliance  with  the  request  of  the  society  at  the 
meetings  previous,  he  had  11)0  circulars  printed  and 
tilled  out,  enclosed  in  envelopes,  addressed  to  delin- 
quent members  ami  queried  as  to  getting  them  dis- 
tributed. When  the  following  resolutions  were 
otfered  and  adopted  : 

Jlemlved,  That  the  secretary  be  authorized  to  send 
them  to  the  parties  addressed  by  mail,  at  the  expense 
of  the  society,  and  that  those  who  receive  them  will 
please  call  and  pay  the  same  to  the  treasurer  of  the 
society,  S.  S.  Hathvon,  101  .\orth  Queeu  street,  who 
is  authorized  to  receive  the  same. 

Hrxolfnl,  That  as  the  funds  of  the  treasury  are 
more  than  exhausted,  in  the  necessity  of  meeting  bills 
due,  for  binding  many  valuable  volumes,  as  ordered 
by  the  society  to  improve  their  library,  it  is  hoped 
that  the  members  will  feel  it  a  pleasure,  as  well  as 
their  duly,  to  respond  prom[itly  and  make  payment. 
Mrs.  Zell  laid  on  the  table  tlie  early  saxifrage  and 
tooth  wart,  culled  in  the  vicinity.  The  Saiifraga 
riri/lniensis,  so  naineil  by  Micheaux,  is  common  on 
exposed  rocks.  JThe  other  is  the  Denlaria,  first 
found  aud  described  by  our  fellow-citizen  of  Njtanlc 
fame,  Ur.  .Muhlenberg",  as  the  D.  laciniata,  grows  in 
rich  soil.  Under  scicutifle  gossip,  various  topics 
were  discussed.  Mr.  A.  F.  Hostetter  suggested  the 
propriety  of  Inciting  the  address  of  .Mr.  Bear  on  the 
Pennsylvania  Germans,  and  a  sketch  lately  publish- 
ed in  reference  to  Ephrata,  to  file  away  among  our 
historical  archives.  After  some  pleasant  interchange 
of  thought  and  opinions,  the  bills  for  binding  books 
J25.14,  for  printing  blanks  $1.15,  and  j»stage  ;10 
cents,  were  presented  and  ordered  to  be  paid.  A 
motion  to  adjourn,  and  make  room  for  the  bound 
books,  was  then  made,  and  a  lock  and  key  ordered 
to  be  provided,  when  the  society  adjourned  to  meet 
on  Saturday,  the  :i6th  day  of  May,  1877. 


76 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  May, 


THE  TOBACCO  TRADE. 


How  Lancaster  County  Forced  to  the  Front. 

For  many,  many  years  past  the  St.ate  of  Councoti- 
cut  possessed  a  reputation  as  tlie  best  tobaeco  raisins^ 
State  of  the  Union.  Its  tobaceo  was  celebrated  all 
over  the  world  for  quality  and  texture;  ITartford  be- 
came the  Mekka  of  tobacco  dealers;  from  thenee 
they  spread  over  the  adjacent  country  in  winter  and 
in  early  spring,  in  breathless  chase  after  the  luxuri- 
ous weed;  rapidly  it  left  the  farmers'  possession  in 
exchange  for  lartje  sums  of  money,  and  prosperity, 
joy  and  satisfaction  reigned  supreme.  Up  to  the 
year  1S70  this  ever-returning  spectacle  continued. 
The  Connecticut  tobaeco  crop  of  that  year  was 
blighted  by  some  atmospheric  influence  or  other  un- 
known cause,  and  enormous  losses  to  the  purchasers 
of  the  tobacco,  when  yet  in  a  green  state,  were  not 
the  only  consequence,  but  the  reputation  of  Connec- 
ticut tobaccos  received  a  severe  and  lasting  shock. 
The  years  intervening  1870  and  1874  produced  tobac- 
co crops  in  that  State  which  somewhat  restored  the 
shattered  reputation.  But  1S74  tore  up  the  almost 
healed  wound  and  the  Connecticut  tobacco  crop  of 
that  year  was  like  a  curse  upon  the  dealers,  and  the 
growers  of  that  State.  Timidly  the  buyers  invested 
in  the  following  year  (187.5)  Connecticut  tobacco  crop. 
They  «ould  not  forget  the  soil  that  once  yielded  up  such 
rich  and  munilicent  treasures.  The  crop  contained  a 
goodly  jiortion  of  the  swarthy,  sound  and  lively  in- 
gredients, combined  with  silky,  spongy  texture,  that 
which  once  brought  golden  fruits  to  the  raisers  and 
dealers  in  Connecticut  tobaccos — but  a  most  power- 
ful competition  had  grown  up  during  the  dark  years 
of  misfortune  to  Conned icut  tobacco.  Pennsylvania, 
with  her  vast  acreage  of  fertile  soil,  has  long  been 
one  of  the  lobaceo  rajping  states,  especially  in  the 
Lancaster  county  district  and  the  blows  that  struck 
down  the  several  Connecticut  tobaeco  crops,  lifted 
up  into  notoriety  those  of  this  state.  But  not  before 
the  year  of  187:i  this  notoriety  assumed  a  formidable 
shape.  The  Pennsylvania  tobacco  crop  of  that  year 
was  a  most  excellent  one  ,  it  developed  ingredients  in 
the  leaf  which  make  it  most  desirable  to  the  manu- 
facturer of  segars  and  the  consumer  of  the  article. 
A  harvest  of  money  rewarded  the  investors  iu  this 
crop. 

The  following  year  (1874)  was  not  a  fortunate 
one  to  the  Pennsylvania  tobacco  crop.  It  turned  out 
a  heavy  gummy  plant,  adapted  only  for  the  manu- 
facture of  low  grade  segars.  But  just  this  gummy 
substance  contained  in  the  leaf  helped  to  raise  the 
reputation  of  the  Pennsylvania  tobaeco  crops  in 
general,  and  imbued  buyers  with  tenfold  confidence 
in  future  ;  because  it  permitted  a  successful  rehand- 
ling  and  resweating  by  which  losses  to  investors 
were  avoided,  while  the  thin,  flimsy  Connecticut  to- 
bacco of  that  year's  growth  did  not  permit  any  such 
-procedure.  When,  therefore,  another  Pennsylvania 
^crop  (1875)  made  its  appearance,  a  few  shrewd 
operators  took  advantage  of  the  general  apathy 
among  business  men,  and  quickly  secured  the  whole 
of  the  crop  at  very  reasonable  figures.  The  resultof 
this  venture  is  too  well  known  to  be  further  dwelled 
upon  ;  suffice  it  to  say,  that  those  investors  made 
fortunes  out  of  their  venture,  and  that  this  '75  Penn- 
sylvania is,  at  this  early  season  nf  the  year,  nearly 
exhausted,  ami  the  remnants  are  fast  disappearing 
from  the  market.  This  last  drift  of  the  fortunes  of 
the  Pennsylvania  tobaceo  crop  has  settled  its  reputa- 
tion in  the  trade.  Another  unexpected  accessory  to 
its  growing  popularity  has  been  the  overwhelming 
demand  for  very  dark  tobaccos,  a  color  Connecticut 
tobacco  unfortunately  is  almost  destitute  of,  and 
which  to  a  great  extent,  at  least,  has  been  found  in 
the  other  tobaeco  in  question. 


The  ITarrislmrg  Palriot,  of  the  7th  ult.,  contains 
the  following  "omments  about  the  "  weed,"  which 
will  he  of  interest  to  many  of  our  readers  who  liave 
had  more  or  less  experience  : 

"  Considerable  tobacco  is  produced  in  this  county, 
but  Lancaster  lays  over  any  county  in  the  State  in 
the  quantity  of  the  article  raised.  In  Lancaster  city 
alone  there  are  nineteen  tobacco  warehouses.  The 
whole  number  in  the  county  reaches  about  forty. 
The  city  is  the  headquarters  of  the  trade,  and  from 
it  the  hulk  of  the  tobaeco  is  shipped.  The  tobaeco 
firms  who  buy  in  Lancaster  county  spend  annually 
therefrom  $1,000,000  to  $2,000,000.  The  buyers  or 
packers  run  all  the  risk  of  purchasing  the  tobaceo, 
and  either  make  large  or  moderate  profits  or  sustain 
great  losses.  The  consumers  or  raisers  run  no  risk 
at  all,  except  it  may  be  in  the  failure  of  the  crop  or 
the  gathering  of  a  poor  one,  which  seldom  occurs. 
They  receive  their  pay  as  soon  as  the  tobaceo  is  de- 
livered and  weighed  in  the  warehouse,  whereas  the 
buyers  or  packers  pay  all  insurance,  the  expense  of 
storage  and  shipment,  and  must  sustain  the  loss  by 
shrinkage  which  is  occasioned  by  the  process  of  fer- 
mentation or  sweating.  The  buyers  or  packers  are 
also  required  to  keep  a  record  of  the  names  of  the 
farmers  or  Taisers  from  whom  the  tobacco  is  pur- 
chased, together  with  the  number  of  pounds  bought, 
for  the  use  of  the  internal  revenue  officers  of  the 
government. 

"  There  are  conflicting  opinions  as  to  the  effect  of 
tobacco  planting  on  the  soil.    Some  farmers  contend 


that  it  will  work  injury  to  the  ground,  whilst  others 
just  as  strenuously  assert  that  it  will  not.  The 
former  say  that  as  the  tobacco  requires  the  greatest 
Cjuantity  of  richness,  it  will  eventually  impoverish 
the  land,  while  the  latter  hold  that  a  crop  of  tobaceo 
does  not  do  as  much  injury  as  a  crop  of  corn  ;  that 
the  latter  has  a  dry  root  and  hollow  stock. and  leaves 
nothing  behind,  whilst  the  tobacco  has  a  solid  stalk 
and  leaves  a  glutinous  pulp  which  sinks  deeper  and 
deeper  in  the  soil,  and  is  therefore  constantly  en- 
riching it.  A  man  living  on  the  Columbia  turnpike, 
a  short  distance  from  Lancaster,  for  nine  successive 
years  has  raised  suiierior  crops  of  tobaceo  on  one 
tract,  and  his  land  is  in  as  good,  if  not  better  condi- 
tion now,  than  when  he  first  planted  the  seed.  Some 
persons  even  grow  a  crop  of  potatoes  and  one  of 
tobacco  on  the  same  piece  of  land  during  the  .same 
season.  The  potatoes  are  of  the  early  rose  variety, 
and  when  they  are  taken  out  of  the  ground  in  the 
month  of  June,  then  the  tobacco  is  planted." 


The  following  is  from  the  pen  of  a  correspondent 
from  Lancaster,  published  in  the  Tobatro  Leaf: 

Notwithstanding  the  cry  that  the  cream  of  the  1876 
croi>  of  tobacco  was  long  ago  bought,  it  is  still  an- 
swered by  sales  of  leaf,  showing  conclusively  by  the 
prices  paid  that  thei-e  are  some  very  fine  crops  re- 
maining imsold,  for  instance  :  Messrs.  E.  Springarn 
&  Co.,  of  New  York  city,  bought  last  week  in  East 
Ilempfleld  township  a  lot  of  leaf  at  '27  cents,  and 
another  farmer  of  the  same  township  sold  at  23  cents 
through.  I  might  enumerate  others  the  same  as 
above.  At  the  same  time  a  large  amount  is  sold  at 
prices  from  12@1S  and  20c.  for  wrappers  and  5(a'8c. 
for  seconds,  and  S(5i5c,  for  fillers.  I  have  been 
through  the  "Donegal"  townships  and  a  large 
amount  of  tobaeco  remains  unsold,  but  the  greater 
portion  of  it  is  very  poor,  and  no  doubt  could  be 
bought  fi-om  8(aii:^c  for  wrappers  and  .S@5  for 
seconds  and  fillers.  This  township  is  perfectly 
scoured  of  good  tobacco  and  on  the  whole  but 
few  lots  remain  unsold.  Old  tobacco  remnants 
of  1S74,  are  eagerly  bought  at  fair  prices. 
One  sale  was  recently  etTected  which  brought, 
through,  $1.1.05  per  hundred,  for  which  was  bid  last 
Deceniljcr  !)c.  through,  the  above  being  a  small  lot 
of  47  cases.  The  1875  crop  is  inquired  after;  but 
few  lots  remain  in  hands  of  local  dealers.  Inquiries 
are  made  by  large  dealers  in  leaf  from  those  packing 
on  a  small  scale,  say  from  100  to  300  eases,  at  wh.at 
prices  the  tob.acco  is  held,  etc.,  showing  that  there  is 
a  market  for  all  tobaccos  if  not   held   above   current 

quotations. 

^ 

The  New  York  Tobacco  Trade. 

The  current  number  of  the  U.  S.  Tobacco  Journal 
sums  up  the  New  York  seed  leaf  tobaeco  sales  for 
the  week  ending  April  29,  at  872  cases,  of  which 
New  England  furnished  2.50  and  Pennsylvania  290 
eases,  of  the  crop  of  1875.  The  balance  of  the 
transactions  comprise  small  lots  of  Ohio,  Wisconsin 
and  New  York  leaf.     The  Journal  continues  : 

In  1876  Pennsylvania,  the  reign  of  jobbing  trade 
seems  to  have  already  fairly  opened;  outside  of  some 
transactions  in  the  country  previously  reported,  we 
now  hear  of  a  sale  in  Lancaster  of  400  cases  (an  en- 
tire packing)  to  one  of  our  large  segar  manufactur- 
ing firms.  With  the  approach  of  the  close  of  the 
packing  season  in  Pennsylvania,  the  tide  of  buyers 
takes  its  course  towards  Connecticut  and  Massachu- 
setts, where  farmers  at  last  evince  decided  desire  to 
sell,  and  thereby  lowering  their  figures  to  such  an[ex- 
tent  as  to  make  investments  by  packers  prospectively 
profitable.  In  Ohio  things  remaindull,  while  Wiscon- 
sin is  doing  a  brisk  trade  in  disposing  of  1876  stock  at, 
if  not  excellent,  but  at  least  paying  figures.  The  Ha- 
vana market  can  be  called  fairly  active.  Sales  during 
the  week  may  be  summed  up  to  750  bales,  of  which 
one-fourth  were  of  the  fine  grades  of  the  '70  crop. 


Exports  of  Tobacco    From    New    York    From 
April  I  to  30,   Inclusive. 

Great  Britain 334  hhds. 

France  i'ii  hhdB. 

North  of  Europe 71'2  hhds. 

North  of  Europe,  Stems 398  hhds. 

.South  of  Europe 480  hhds. 

Weyt  Indies,  South  America  and  Mexico y5  hhds 

Other  Foreign  Porte 360  hhds. 

Total 2,803  hhds. 

From  the  circular  of  Mr.  Fred.  Fischer  we  eollate 
the  following  synopsis  of  exports  from  New  York  and 
New  Orleans,  from  January  1  to  date. 

1875.         187B.        187T. 
Ebds.      Ehds.     Hhds 

OreatBritaiu 1,633        3,794        1,249 

France 5        2,773        3,174 

Bremen  and  Hamburg 1,061        3,468        4,629 

Antwerp  and   Holland 596        2.081  9'2'2 

.Spaiu  and  Portugal 2,708        8,124        2,948 

Mediterranean 140  617  361 

Italy  and  Austria 4,325        3,416       4,343 

Sundry  Eiports 667  909        1,547 

Totals 11,125      20,242       19,173 

Consumption,    asd    on    ships    not 

cleared 6,737        9,079        t,440 

Disap'd  from  N.Tork  and  N.Orleans.. 16,862     29,321      26,613 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Pennsylvania   Wheat  Crop. 

The  April  statement  of  the  condition  of  crops  has 
been  completed  at  the  Agricultural  Department. 
The  following  is  that  portion  referring  to  the  wheat 
crop  in  the  different  counties  of  this  State  : 

Lehigh. — Wheat  looks  pale  in  some  localities; 
badly  winter  killed.     Rye  appears  remarkably    well. 

Cameron. — Winter  wheat  and  rye  in  good  condi- 
tion. 

Delaware. — Wlieat  and  rye  present  an  unusually 
healthful  appearance. 

Indiana. — Wlieat  and  rye  promise  unusually  well. 
The  most  trying  time  on  our  winter  grain  is  from 
the  20th  of  March  to  the  20th  of  April. 

Perry. — Plenty  of  wheat  on  the  ground,  but  short. 
We  are  having  weather  now  that  may  make  a  short 
crop. 

Wyoming. — Wheat  and  rye  wintered  good. 

Clearfield. — Wheat  and  rye  looking  well,  as  far  as 
the  snow  will  let  us  judge. 

Clinton. — Early,  some  fine;  late  wheat  and  rye, 
some  backward  and  much  injured  by  the  winter. 

Union.— Wheat  and  rye,  about  two-thirds  of  a 
crop. 

Cambria. — Winter  wheat  25  per  cent,  better  than 
last  year. 

Bradford. — Wheat  and  rye  in  promising  condition. 

Cumberland. — Comparative  condition  of  wheat  and 
rye  good. 

Westmorland.^Winter  wheat  and  rye  look  good; 
blades  brown,  but  roots  appear  uninjured. 

Adams.— Wheat  is  short, though  healthy;  some  late. 

Berks. — Early,  some  winter  grain  suffered  from 
Hessian  fly;  late,  some  healthy  and  promising. 

Snyder. — Great  deal  of  winter  wheat  destroyed 
by  the  fly;  what  remains  looks  well.  Rye  about 
average . 

Fulton. — Wheat  and  rye  stand  well,  and  with  fa- 
vorable spring  may  have  good  crops,  although  some 
late. 

Sullivan. — Wheat  and  rye  never  better. 

Chester. — Wheat  and  rye  in  average  condition. 

York. — Wheat  and  rye  good  with  fine  prospects. 

Tioga.— Wheat  and  rye  looking  first-rate. 

Somerset. — Wheat  and  rye  in  good  condition. 

Luzerne. — Good,  five  per  cent,  above  average. 

Montgomery. — The  comparative  condition  of  both 
good . 

Monros. — Wheat  and  rye  never  looked  better. 

Juniata. — Condition  of  wheat,  90. 

Wayne. — Not  looking  as  well  as  laat  year. 

Mitliin.— Early,  some  wheat  in  good  condition  ; 
late,  does  not  look  so  well,  but  with  favorable 
weather  may  make  a  good  crop. 

McKean. — Injured  by  freezing. 

Forest. — Winter  whesit  and  rye  in  excellent  condi- 
tion. 

Dauphin. — Winter  grain  in  fair  average  condition. 

Butler. — Everything  is  backward  ;  winter  grain, 
however,  looks  encouraging. 

Blair. — In  about  average  conditicm. 

Armstrong. — Looks  well  ;   above  average. 

Columbia. — Wheat  looking  good  ;  rye  same. 

Warren. — Very  good. 

Mercer. — Good  ;  much  above  the  average. 

Northumberland. — Winter  grain  looks  remarkably 
good. 

Erie. — Wheat  and  rye  came  out  of  the  snow  very 
fine. 

Beaver. — Never  had  a^better  appearance  than  this 
spring. 

Montour. — Wheat  and  rye  a  full  average. 

Lancaster. — Looks  well  over  the  whole  county. 

Crawford. — Wheat  and  rye  in  the  very  best  condi- 
tion. 


Is  Wheat  Culture  Declining? 
Oue  of  the  questions  which  presents  itself  to  mil- 
lers, and  others  interested  iu  wheat,  is  whether  there 
is  a  decline  in  the  wheat  crops  of  the  past  few  years 
as  compared  with  the  crops  of  the  earlier  periods  in 
the  history  of  our  agriculture.  Many  have  asserted, 
on  what  apparently  seem  good  grounds,  that  while 
the  aggregate  amount  of  wheat  is  greater  now  than 
formerly,  the  relative  quantity,  or  number  of  bushels 
per  capita^  is  decreasing,  and  will  soon  be  adquate  to 
supply  only  the  home  demand.  The  method  by  which 
these  conclusions  have  been  reached  is  fallacious  in 
the  extreme,  and  consists  in  taking  the  best  crops  of 
former  years  and  comparing  them  with  the  poorer 
ones,  or  the  "failures"  of  later  times.  Of  course 
the  only  correct  way  is  to  take  the  average  of  two 
series  of  years,  and  compare  each  average  with  the 
number  of  inhabitants.  On  such  a  basis  of  calcula- 
tion it  is  easily  demonstrated  that  our  wheat  produc- 
tion is  constantly  and  steadily  increasing.  In  1849 
the  whole  crop  amounted  to  100,000,000  bushels  ;  in 
1859  it  reached  173,000,000  bushels;  and  in  1869  it 
was  387,000,000  bushels.  According  to  the  popula- 
tion, 4.:i  bushels  were  produced  per  capita  in  1849, 
5.5  in  18.59,  and  7.46  in  1869.  This  last  crop  was  an 
exceptional  one.  Since  then  the  average  has  been 
about  200,000,000  bushels  a  year,  or  nearly  7  bushels 
per  capita.  Our  exports  furnish  another  means  of 
arriving  at  the  same  general  conclusion  that  our  sup- 
ply of  wheat  i*  Increasing,    for  the  past  fifty  years 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


77 


our  exports  in  crain  and  flour  have  been  ctiuivalent 
to  l.OtL'.nOO.nOO  busliele.  Of  this  imnieTisc  quantity 
only  178,000,000  bushels  were  exporteil  up  to  the 
year  ISrM,  while  in  the  year  1874  alone  91,000,000 
bushels  were  shipped  to  ibrciern  countries.  In  what- 
ever w:iy  wo  view  the  question  we  seo  the  same  re- 
sult— a  lar(;e  absolute,  a.*  well  as  relative  increuf-c 
In  our  supply  of  breadstult's.  When  we  take  into 
consideration" the  fact  that  population  increases  in 
the  United  States  more  rapiiily  than  elsewhere,  and 
lind  that  nevertheless  more  wheat  is  niised  for  each 
person  now  than  formerly,  we  can  well  .say  that  this 
is  the  most  convincins;  arixtiment  yet  addiicoil  to 
prove  the  correctness  of  Henry  C.  Carey's  theory, 
that  sustenance  increases  faster  than  population. — 
Atiiffican  Miller. 

Culture  of  Broom  Corn. 

The  Jowiial  of  ,-l,7riVi(/(ii)-« describes  the  culture  of 
broom  corn  in  this  wise  :  "  Broom  corn  recpiires  rich 
soil  ;  bottom  land  is  the  best,  and  it  shouM  be  as  free 
from  irrass  as  |)osfiblc.  The  ri'ason  for  choosinsr 
clean  land  will  appi'ar  plain  to  a  man  who  has  raised 
a  crop.  The  irround  should  be  well  plouj;hed  ami 
made  perfectly  line  with  the  harrow,  tlien  marked 
out  with  shallow  nuirks  as  if  to  be  planted  by  hanil, 
so  as  not  to  e;et  the  seed  too  deep  in  the  ground  ;  but 
the  best  plan  is  to  plant  with  a  drill.  Thi'  stalks 
must  be  as  close  as  live  or  six  inches,  to  prevent  the 
straw  from  bccominirtoo  heavy.  Of  course  it  cannot 
be  drilled  with  much  rc!,'ularity,  but  must  be  cut  out 
with  the  hoe  to  the  risrht  distance  when  small.  It  is 
like  sorehuiu,  ffrows  slow  when  small,  and  on  most 
land  it  is  positively  necessary  to  hoe  the  grass  out, 
which  ijivcs  a  gooil  opportunity  for  cuttini;  out  to  the 
right  distance."  After  this  is  done  tlic  enltivatiou  is 
similar  to  that  of  corn.  When  the  seed  begins  to  fill, 
the  straw  will  bend  over  from  the  weight,  ami  to  pre- 
vent this  the  full  force  of  the  hands  must  be  put  to 
break  the  italks  over,  say  ten  or  twelve  inches  from 
wlierc  the  straw  grows  out,  or  more  properly  the 
head.  The  weight  of  the  seed  will  then,  by  hanging 
down,  keep  the  straw  straight.  Now  conies  the 
busy  season  and  t he  time  when  labor  and  carii  will 
add  much  to  the  value  of  the  crop.  The  green  straw 
being  altogether  the  most  valuable,  it  is  important 
that  it  should  be  cut  before  it  turns  red,  and  dried  in 
the  shade.  To  do  this  a  shed  is  necessary,  with 
shelves  on  which  to  lay  it,  say  six  inches  deep  ;  and 
enough  hands  must  be  cm]iloycd  to  cut  the  crop  be- 
fore any  or  m\ich  of  it  turns  red.  The  seed  is  strip- 
ped by  means  of  a  machine  made  for  the  purpose, 
with  two  cylinders  between  which  the  corn  is  held  in 
handfuls.  The  process  is  very  rapid,  only  an  instant 
being  necessary  to  knoc*k  the  seed  all  olT.  The  coru 
is  baled  before  being  sent,  to  market .  The  price  is 
very  lluetualing,  running  from  $(iO  to  8S50  per  ton." 


A  Farm  that   Ruined  the  Owner  and  made  his 
Fortune  Afterwards. 

■  Years  ago,  says  one  of  our  New  York  exchanges — 
papers  that,  like  Washington,  never  tell  a  lie — a  New- 
Yorker  took  into  his  head  that  he  would  try  farming 
on  Long  Island,  and  set  out  b)  find  a  desirable  farm. 
He  went  on  a  tour  carrying  a  shovel  with  which  he 
dug  up  ground  and  had  it  analyzc<l.  However,  not 
finding  aught  to  his  taste  on  Long  Island,  he  deter- 
minded  to  go  to  Rhode  Island,  and  there  purchaseil 
a  farm  for  t:0,000  on  which  he  expended  ?l:0,000 
more,  anil  then  apiiarently  tired  of  it,  rentcil  the 
ground  for  a  few  hundred  a  year,  witli  the  small 
remnant  of  his  fortune  went  to  California;  there  he 
•  made  a  lucky  hit,  and  not  long  since  returned  to  the 
Kast  to  make  the  agreeable  discovery  that  during  his 
absence  the  city  of  f  rovidence  had  providentially  for 
him  been  speedily  advancing  towards  his  farm, 
which  had  become  immensely  valuable.  Pi-esently 
he  sold  ofl"  ?8O,OO0  worth,  then  arriving  at  the  con- 
elusion  that  be  let  it  go  too  cheap,  he  had  the  rest 
surveyed  and  laid  out  in  streets  and  lots.  He  has 
now  sold  §900,000  worth. 


Measuring  Corn  in  Bulk. 

Multiply  the  length,  width  an?l  height  together  by 
Inches,  and  divide  that  product  by  :i,8.88.  This  will 
give  the  number  of  bushels  in  the  crib  or  wagon  box. 
For  example,  the  crib  that  is  twenty  feet  long,  four 
feet  wide,  and  eight  feet  high,  holds  i;S+ 4-9  bushels. 
And  such  a  crib  is  '240  inches  long,  4S  inches  wide, 
and  !>fi  inches  high,  containing  I,10.'),920  inches. 
Divide  that  by  S.SS-*,  and  it  will  give  '284  4-9  bushels. 
Again,  if  your  wagon  bed  is  II  feet  long,  '1  feet  wide, 
and  17  inches  deep,  multiply  V-^l  Inches  long,  lifi 
inches  wide,  :itj  inches  deep,  togetlier,  and  it  will 
make  80,784  inches.  l>iv  de  by  :i,888,  and  the  bed 
will  hold  20  7-9  bushels. 

-^ 

Haying. 

Clover,  as  well  as  grass,  should  be  cut  before  the 
bloom  is  past.  Some  of  Professor  Atwater's  articles 
have  clearly  shown  the  extra  feeding  value  of  early 
cut  hay.  Prepare  everything  for  haying,  that  there 
may  be  nodelay  when  the  work  commences.  In  the 
Northern  States  orcharii  grass  and  clover  must  be 
cut  near  the  end  of  the  month,  and  timothy  soon 
after.  Hay,  for  sale,  may  be  cut  somewhat  later,  as 
it  will  be  heavier,  though  coarser,  than  that  cut  early. 


Farm  Profits  in  America. 

Under  this  head  "  A  Western  Farmer,"  whose  lo- 
cation is  not  given,  writes  to  the  London  Fidil : 

Before  leaving  England,  some  ten  years  ago,  I  held 
for  a  length  of  time  a  farm  undiTone  of  the  greatest 
of  Knglish  landlords  ;  but  what  with  high  rent,  dear 
and  bad  labor,  bad  seasons,  and  disease  among  cat- 
tle, I  found  at  the  end  of  that  time  that  1  was  tliOU 
poorer  than  when  I  commenced  ;  so  I  cleared  out  and 
came  West,  where  I  have  been  farming  nine  years, 
and  where,  with  less  capital  than  1  commenced  with 
in  England,  I  have  made  some  .*'.'0,000,  entirely  from 
farming.  A  man  who  underslamls  his  business  and 
possesses  some  capital,  must  do  well  in  the  West — 
there  is  every  element  of  success  naturally. 

The  Time  to  Spread  Manure. 

For  some  years  we  have  sprca^l  manurt^  dui'ing  the 
winter  upon  meadows,  clover,  sod  to  be  plowed  for 
corn,  and  ground  plowed  for  spring  crops.  The 
pra('tiee  is  econondcal  of  labor,  and  convenient,  :ii]d 
we  have  no  reason  to  helicvr  that  the  manure  loses 
any  \aluable  constituent.  'I'he  ammonia  of  frc.'>h 
manure  is  in  a  nascent  or  inactive  condition,  :ind  is 
not  Wiisted  during  the  cold  weather.  Those  who  may 
lind  it  conveniint  to  use  manure  in  this  manner,  can 
do  no  harm  by  nniking  the  experiment.  Dairy 
farmers  cannot  do  better  than  sprea^I  manure  upon 
their  meadows  and  pastures  as  fast  as  it  is  made. 

Manure  on  Frozen  Ground. 

The  Americ'in  Ai/rieulhtyixt  says  :  We  are  asked 
what  advantage  tliere  is  in  spreading  manure  on 
frozen  ground.  If  it  is  covered  with  grass,  either  a 
pasture  or  meadow,  there  is  a  great  advantage  in 
more  than  one  respect.  The  surface  is  protected 
Irom  sudden  changes  during  winter,  ami  the  first 
thaw  carrii'S  the  manure  to  the  roots,  where  it  causes 
a  vigorous  growth  early  in  t  he  spring.  If  the  ground 
is  ploughed  for  a  spring  crop,  it  is  also  benefited  by 
having  the  manure  ready  to  be  absorbed  liy  the  soil 
whenever  the  ground  thaws  ;  tin'  seed,  as  soon  as  it 
sprouts,  finds  what  it  needs  close  at  hand. 

Profit  in  a  Good  Soil. 

The  Pniiric  Farmer  s.ays  on  this  point  :  "  The 
idea  that  the  number  of  acres  in  crops  indicates  the 
farmer's  inctune  must  be  abandoned,  and  the  num- 
ber of  bushels  per  acre  must  be  looked  for  instead. 
There  is  certainly  less  profit  in  ploughing  fifty  acres 
to  raise  one  thousand  bushels  of  grain  than  in  plough- 
ing but  twenty-five  two  grow  the  same  amount,  and 
trusting  to  good  seasons  for  fair  crops  will  not  be 
thought  of  by  the  improved  farmer.  A  rich  and 
well-cultivated  soil  will  usually  make  fair  returns  in 
what  we  call  bad  or  unfavorable  seasons.  What  the 
farmer  on  a  poor  soil  would  call  a  good  season  sel- 
dom comes." 


Wheat  and  Chess. 

J.  J.  Bassart,  of  Kansas,  asked  some  time  ago 
whether  wheat  pastured  in  fall  and  winter  would 
produce  chess?  A.  Falconer  answers  as  follows: 
"  I  have  been  raising  wheat  for  50  years  and  my  ex- 
perience is  that  it  will.  You  may  run  a  fence 
through  a  wheat  field,  uniformly  good,  and  pasture 
one  side,  not  disturbing  the  other,  and  the  part 
pastured  will  have  the  most  chess.  The  main  root 
is  disturbed  or  broken  ott'  and  chess  is  the  result.  1 
am  aware  that  this  is  opposed  to  scientific  explana- 
tions, but.  that  does  not  alter  the  facts.  I  never  had 
rye  injured  and  have  pastured  till  April." 

-^ 

Oats  and  Peas. 

Oats  and  peas  sown  together  produce  a  very  nutri- 
tions fodder.  The  two  crops  together,  upon  one  acre 
of  good  soil,  will  yield  nearly  if  not  quiet,  as  much 
fodder  as  would  an  acre  of  each  sown  separately. 
We  have  sown  two  bushels  of  o.ats  and  six  pecks  of 
peas  to  the  acre.  If  sown  early,  the  fodder  may  be 
cut  for  soiling  cows  or  horses  in  May  ^>r  June,  and  a 
succcession  for  continuous  use  may  be  sown  every 
two  weeks  until  early  in  May.  Roll  the  ground  after 
sowing,  so  that  the  crop  may  be  cut  with  a  mower, 
which  may  easily  be  done,  as  the  oats  support  the 
peas  and  prevent  lodging. 


Clean  Out  the  Weeds. 

It  is  in  every  way  desirable  to  clear  the  weeds  from 
the  by-places,  the  corners  of  the  fence  and  gardens, 
and  not  cast  them  to  the  rubliish  pile  to  remain  and 
blow  about  all  winter  ;  not  in  the  compost  heap  in 
the  hope  that  they  will  rot  and  make  manure  ;  but 
to  a  heap  where  they  may  be  burned  and  every 
ves^go  of  seed  destroyed.  It  is  a  nice  thing  to  sec 
flocks  of  snow-liirds  in  winter,  but  it  is  not  a  good 
method  of  indulgence  to  raise  weed  seed  to  induce 
their  i)resence. 

Liquid  Manure. 
The  sewage  system  of  fertilizing  land  or  using 
li(piid  manure  is  scarcely  known  in  the  United  States, 
but  as  the  country  grows  older  more  will  be  done  in 
that  direction,  lu  England  town  sewage  has  been 
extensively  employed  to  increase  the  fertdity  of  the 
farming  land  adjacent,  and  it  has  proved  so  beneficial 
and  profitable  in  many  instances  that  farmers  are  to 
some  extent  adopting  a  similar  system  in  the  use  of 
the  manure  made  in  their  stables  and  yards. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Raising  Onion  Sets. 
W.  C.  Pclham,  Mayville,  Ky.,  w  rites  to  the  Amer- 
ican A(/ricutlurKt  of  his  method  of  raising  onion  sets  : 
He  selects  a  level  and  dry  piece  of  ground.  His 
ground  is  ricli  alluvial  loam,  but  the  character ofthe 
soil  is  of  no  special  importance.  Reds  are  formed 
two  feet  wide,  with  a  path  of  one  foot  between.  The 
"  beds"  are  excavated  to  tliedepth  of  twoiucbes — or, 
in  other  words,  the  path  or  alley  between  is  two 
inches  higher  than  the  beils  ;  the  bottom  of  the  beds 
is  nicely  smoothed  with  the  back  of  a  spade,  so  as  to 
present  a  level  surface  whereon  to  sow  the  seed. 
The  sct'd  is  sown  so  that  frf)m  fifteen  to  twenty  sce<ls 
will  cover  a  square  inch.  If  the  surface  of  the  beds 
was  sprin'Kled  with  plaster  or  white  sand,  the  seeds, 
which  are  black,  could  be  sown  more  evenly.  After 
sowing,  the  seeils  are  covered  with  two  inches  of 
pure  clean  sand,  which  brings  the  beds  and  paths  to 
the  same  level.  The  whole  is  then  rolled  with  a  light 
I'oller,  or  patted  down  with  a  spade.  The  ailvan- 
tages  of  this  plan  are,  that  there  being  no  seeds  of 
weeds  in  the  sand,  the  labor  of  weeding  is  entirely 
saved,  and  the  sets  when  matured  are  far  more  easily 
liarvestcd  from  the  clean,  soft  sand,  than  from  tho 
hard-bakeil  surface  which  most  soils  present  after  a 
season's  rains  ami  sun  on  a  surface  that  cannot  be 
stirred. 


Cherries. 

Those  who  are  old  enough  to  renieniljcr  thirty. five 
years  ago,  know  that  the  .Morello  and  Pie  cherries 
were  at  thattimegrown  in  abundance  on  nearlyeVery 
farm.  "  Black  Knot  "  has  left  but  few  of  those  va- 
rieties in  existence  in  Lancaster  c^'Uiity.  The  Mo- 
rellowas  first  attacked  and  destroyed  ;  tile  Pie  cherry 
more  recently.  Pomologisls  were  not  able  to  agree 
as  to  the  jiriniary  cause  ofthe  disease  ;  neither  were 
t  hey  able  to  give  a  remedy  to  check  its  ravages.  The 
disease  started  east  of  this  locality,  and  spread  in  a 
westerly  direction. 

The  object  of  this  short  article  is  to  remind  the 
farmers  of  this  county  that  those  old  and  similar  va- 
rieties of  cheri'ies  can  again  be  grown.  The  few 
trees  that  were  saved  by  cutting  olftlie  knots  when- 
ever noticed,  during  the  time  of  the  prevalence  ofthe 
disease,  have  been  clear  of  the  knots  the  last  four 
years,  aud  the  last  two  have  borne  good  crops  of 
cherries.  Young  trees  of  the  Early  Uichmond,  Eng- 
lish Morello,  and  the  old  Pie  cherries,  idanlied  two 
years  ago,  show  no  sign  ofthe  knf)t. 

Cherries  rec(uire  lull  little  care  to  .grow  them,  and 
are  less  liable  to  be  injured  by  insect  enemies  than 
any  other  i'rnit ;  and  a  few  dollars  invested  in  cherry 
trees  to  plant  in  vacant  spaces  mar  our  farm  buildings 
will  repay  the  outlay. — 1'.,  LancaKlcr  linjuirer. 


Small  Fruits  in  Gardens. 
But  few  people  seem  to  know  the  value  of  small 
fruits  to  a  family  when  grown  in  their  own  gardens. 
You  commence  with  strawberries;  they  continue 
about  a  month.  You  i)ick,  perhaps,  from  six  to 
twelve  quarts  a  day.  You  have  them  on  your  table 
as  a  dessert,  if  you  please  at  noon,  and  your  tea-table 
is  loaded  with  them  at  evening,  and  you  want  little 
else  tint  your  bread  and  tiutter.  Your  family  con- 
sume in  one  w.ay  or  another  about  eight  quarts  a  day, 
and  while  they  last  no  medicines  for  bodily  ailments 
are  required,  as  a  quart  of  strawberries  daily  gene- 
rally dispel  all  ordinary  diseases  not  settled  perma- 
nenily  inthesysteni.  .\fter  strawberries,  rasplierriei 
come,  to  continue  al)out  three  weeks  ;  then  we  have 
blackljerries  where  the  climate  is  not  too  cold  for  the 
cultivated  varieties  ;  then  the  currants  ripen,  which 
I'cmain  till  the  early  grapes  mature  ;  and  taking  the 
season  through  any  family  with  a  half  acre  of  land 
in  a  garden  can  grow  small  fruits  that  makes  coun- 
try life  delightful,  and  at  the  same  lime  hundreds  of 
dollars  can  lie  saved  in  the  supply  at  the  table. 


Look  to  your  Orchards. 

Before  commencing  the  regular  spring  work  on 
the  farm,  the  orchard  should  receive  some  attention. 

The  larva  of  the  apple  tree  borer,  from  eggs  laid 
last  year,  can  now  be  found  umler  tlu'  bark  at  the 
base  of  the  tree.  Its  castings  will  indicate  the  pb'e, 
and  il  can  be  dislodged  with  tlic  knife  wiliiout  much 
injury  to  the  tree. 

Many  of  the  clirysalida  of  the  codling  moth  can 
be  fouml  under  the  rough  bark  on  the  trunks. 

Tluir  destruction  now,  followed  by  the  capture  of 
the  next  brood  in  bay  bands  tied  around  the  trunks, 
will  aild  to  the  quantity  and  quality  ofthe  next  fruit 
crop. 

The  eggs  of  the  tent  caterpillar  moth  can  also  be 
destroyed  at  this  time.  They  will  be  found  in  clus- 
ters on  twigs,  and  are  easily  seen  before  the  leaves 
are  formed. —  Iwjuirer, 

Japanese  Persimmon. 

The  .lapanese  persimmon  tree  is  being  introduced 
by  the  horticulturists  of  California.  The  fruit  differs 
somewhat  from  the  persimmon  of  the  Southern 
Slates,  as  it  ripens  without  frost,  and  is  free  from 


78 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


[May, 


the  acrid  taste  when  green  which  characterizes 
them.  The  tree  is  hishly  ornamental,  a  prolific 
bearer,  hardy  as  the  pear,  and  ripens  its  Iruit  early. 
The  fruit  is  solid  and  can  be  shipped  across  the  con- 
tinent. The  season  is  from  October  to  January, 
when  fine  fruits  arc  scarce.  The  fruit  is  of  a  brifjiit 
yellow,  orange  or  vermilion  color,  is  unsurpassed  for 
the  table,  being  thought  by  some  to  Vie  equal  to  the 
peach  or  strawberry.  Its  average  weight  is  from  one- 
half  pound  to  over  a  pound.  When  dried  it  is  equal 
to  figs,  and  is  extensively  used  for  preserving  in 
China.  The  wood  of  the  .Japanese  persimmon  is 
valuable  for  manufacturing,  it  being  a  species  of  the 
ebony. 

The  Peach  Crop. 

What  is  the  matter  with  the  peach  growers?  They 
are  entirely  too  derelict  this  year  in  furnishing  the 
customary  information  as  to  the  failure  of  the  com- 
ing crop.  It  is  high  time  to  be  informed  that  three- 
fourths  of  the  peach-buds  were  killed  by  the  low 
temperature  in  January,  and  an  unusually  light 
crop  will  be  the  consequence.  Perhaps  the  trees  have 
not  yet  been  examined,  and  producers  have  delayed 
this  task  and  reserved  their  steam  for  a  dreadful  ex- 
plosion'-full  of  sound  and  fury,"  that  will  create 
alarm  even  among  the  canning  establishments,  but 
"will  in  the  end  amount  to  nothing.  Ilowever,  we 
shall  abide  our  time   and   "by   their   fruits  shall   ye 

judge  them." 

^ 

Potatoes. 
The  scarcity  of  potatoes,  which  has  been  growing 
more  and  more  m.nrked  as  the  season  advanced,  is 
due  not  to  any  desire  to  "corner"  the  market,  but  to 
the  fact  that  the  crop  was  a  light  one,  and  the  larger 
share  of  those  on  hand  are  held  back  fiir  the  spring 
planting.  The  potato  bug  first  and  the  drought 
afterward  played  sad  havoc  with  tlie  crop,  and  the 
excessively  cold  weather  of  the  winter  has  done  much 
to  injure  the  stock  on  hand.  But  the  crop  in  Canada 
was  excellent,  and  shipments  from  that  place  have 
commenced.  The  main  trouble  will  be  that  they 
will  be  higher  all  the  season,  and  until  a  new  croj), 
but  beyond  this  advance  there  need  be  no  fear. 


Pears  ih  MisEouri. 
A  writer  in  Cohman'x  Rural  World  says  that  more 
than  fifty  thousand  pear  trees  are  annually  set  out  in 
Missouri,  not  one  in  ten  of  which  survives  the  ninth 
year  in  the  orchard.  They  grow  vigorously  at  first, 
and  afterwards  gratlually  perish  imder  a  modifica- 
tion of  the  blight.  Yet  here  and  there  a  tree  is  found 
that  has  remained  sound  for  more  than  half  acentury, 
yielding  annually  wagon  loads  of  fruit.  It  would  be 
worth  a  good  deal  of  investigation  to  find  out  the 
reason  of  the  difference,  so  as  to  protil  by  it  in  plant- 
ing. 

« 

Profits  in  Almonds. 

Tlie  Los  Angeles  (Cal.)  I/epnlilican,  speaking  of 
the  profits  of  almond  culture  ill  that  locality,  says: 
"Trees  eight  years  old  will  produce  from  two  hun- 
dred to  three  hundred  iiounds  per  annum,  and  they 
are  worth  in  the  markets  of  the  United  States  from 
22  to  32  cents  per  pound.  It  is  absolutely  safe  to  as- 
sert trees  of  that  age  and  upward  will  pay  an  annual 
net  profit  of  5>'in  per  tree  above  all  expenses  of  at- 
tending orchard,  gathering  and  marketing  produce. 
As  two  hundred  trees  are  planted  on  an  acre  of  land 
it  would  give  a  net  income  of  S(5,00U  per  acre. 

-^ 

Twenty  -Ounce  Apples. 

At  the  discussions  of  the  Western  New  York 
Farmers'  club,  it  was  remarked  by  several  members 
that  the  codling  nifith  had  been  much  more  destruc- 
tive the  past  season  than  usual  to  the  apple  crop. 
Wm.  Otis,  of  Rochester,  said  he  had  not  seen  a  per- 
fect apple  this  year.  But  the  fairest  fruit  and  the 
best  annual  bearer  was  the  twenty-ounce  ajiple.  The 
fact  therefore  that  it  has  proved  tender  in  some  parts 
of  the  country  should  not  induce  planters  to  reject  it 
without  further  trial. 


Large  Strawberries. 
A  correspondent  of  the  Loiiilon  (Tnrtlm  describes 
the  manner  in  whicli  he  obtains  Iruit  from  str.aw- 
bcrry  beds,  many  of  the  berries  measuring  eight 
inches  in  circumference,  and  sixteen  placed  in  a  row 
have  measured  tiirce  feet — an  average  of  two  and  a 
quarter  inches  in  diameter.  His  practice  is  to  plant 
often,  and  manure  well,  on  an  excellent  soil.  We 
sometimes  have  as  large  strawberries  in  this  country, 
but  the  moist  climate  of  Kngland  more  particularly 
favors  a  large  growth. 


Fruit  Prospects. 

The  annual  prophet  conies  to  the  front  with  ihe 
following  prediction  :  The  prospects  of-tlie  fruit  sea- 
son are  encouraging  in  some  regards  and  the  oppo- 
site in  others.  So  far  as  reported  the  apple  and 
pear  trees  are  all  right,  the  frost  not  having  affected 
them  to  any  degree,  although  the  wonderful  yield  of 
last  year  in.ay  not  be  expected  this  season.  The 
peach  and  cherry  crop  does  not  promise  so  well,  the 
frost  having  damaged  the  trees. 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Preserving  Eggs. 

A  writer  in  the  English  Mechanic  says:  "In  the 
year  1871-72, 1  preserved  eggs  so  perfectly  that,  after 
a  lapse  of  six  months,  they  were  mistaken  when 
brought  to  the  table  for  fresh-laid  eggs,  and  I  believe 
they  would  have  kept  equally  good  for  twelve  months. 
My  mode  of  preservation  was  to  varnish  the  eggs  as 
soon  after  they  were  laid  as  possible  with  a  thin  co- 
pal varnish ,  taking  care  that  the  whole  of  the  shell  was 
covered  with  varnish.  I  subsequently  found  that  by 
painting'theeggs  with  fresh  albumen, beaten  up  with  a 
little  salt,  they  were  preserved  equally  well,  and  as  for 
loner  a  period.  After  varnishing  or  painting  with  al- 
bumen, I  lay  the  eggs  upon  rough  blotting  paper, 
as  I  found  that  when  allowed  to  rest  till  dry  upon  a 
plate  or  an  the  table,  the  albumen  stuck  so  fast  to 
the  table  or  plate  as  to  take  away  a  chip  out  of  the 
shell.  This  is  entirely  obviated  by  the  use  of  the 
blotting  paper.  I  pack  the  eggs  in  boxes  of  dry 
bran. 


Lemonade  for  an  Invalid. 

This  is  too  often  made  by  simply  squeezing  a  lemon 
into  a  tumbler,  picking  the  pips  out  with  a  Spoon, 
and  then  adding  sugar  and  cold  water.  The  best 
method  of  making  lemonade  is  to  peel  the  lemons, 
or  otherwise  the  lemonade  will  be  bitter;  cut  them 
into  slices,  taking  away  the  pips,  and  then  pouring 
boiling  water  on  the  slices,  adding,  of  course,  suffl- 
cient  sugar  to  sweeten.  This  after  being  well  stirred 
and  the  pulp  pressed  with  a  spoon,  must  be  carefully 
strained  through  a  piece  of  fine  muslin,  and  allowed 
to  get  cold.  When  cold,  a  piece  of  ice  i^  a  great  im- 
provement. Cold,  weak  lemonade  made  this  way, 
not  too  sweet,  is  one  of  the  most  refreshing  drinks 
possible  for  hot  weather  ;  and  in  eases  where  there 
is  a  tendency  to  take  fluids  too  often — a  tendency  we 
fear  rather  of  the  age  in  which  we  live — a  large  jug 
of  lemonade  made  in  the  manner  we  have  described, 
will  often  prove  a  harmless  substitute  for  a  glass  of 
sherry,  or  a  little  drop  of  cold  brandy-and- water,  or  a 
glass  of  beer,  as  the  case  may  be. 


Beef   Extract. 


Take  a  pound  of  good  juicy  beef,  from  which  all 
the  2kin  and  fat  has  been  cut  away,  chop  it  up  like 
sausage-meat ;  mix  it  thoroughly  with  a  pint  of  cold 
water,  place  it  on  the  side  of  the  stove  to  lieat  very 
slowly,  and  give  an  occasional  stir.  It  may  stand 
two  or  three  hours  before  it  is  allowed  to  simmer, 
and  will  then  require  but  fifteen  minutes  of  gentle 
lioiling.  Salt  should  be  added  when  the  boiling  first 
commences,  and  this,  for  invalids,  in  general,  is  the 
only  seasoning  required.  When  the  extract  is  thus 
I'ar  prepared,  it  may  be  poured  from  the  meat  into  a 
basin,  and  allowed  to  stand  until  any  particles  of  fat 
on  the  surface  can  be  skimmed  off,  and  the  sediment 
has  subsided  and  left  the  soup  quite  clear,  when  it 
may  be  poured  off  gently,  heated  in  a  clean  ssiuce- 
pan,  and  served.  The  scum  should  be  well  cleared 
as  it  accumulates. 

Barn    Wash. 

Colemanh  Rnral  World  gives  the  following  as  a 
good  wash  for  barns  and  out-buildings  : 

Procure  a  barrel  of  crude  petroleum  of  any  oil 
dealer  or  manufacturer;  apply  a  heavy  coat  to  the 
outside  of  the  building,  with  a  whitewash  brush, 
which  is  done  rapidly  by  any  common  laborer  ;  let  it 
dry  and  soak  for  a  few  weeks,  and  give  tliC  surface  a 
coat  of  Averill  jiaint.  This  paint  dries  more  rapidly, 
adheres  better,  and  makes  a  more  durable  coating 
than  any  other  which  we  have  trieil,  and  is  cheaper 
than  white  lead.  We  have  buildings  made  of  un- 
planed  boards  which  were  thus  treated  several  years 
ago,  having  received  but  one  coat  of  the  paint  over 
the  oiled  wood,  that  appear  to  be  uninjured  by  lime. 
On  planed  surfaces  two  coats  of  the  paint  would  be 
necessary.  A  light  brown  or  ash  color  would  be 
suitable. 


•       Painting  Buildings. 

For  the  first  coat  or  piiming,  there  appears  to  be 
nothing  better  than  the  old  method  of  using  white 
lead  in  oil  ;  a  thin  mixture  fills  the  jiorcsof  the  wood 
better  than  a  thick  one.  For  a  second  coat,  if  three 
are  used,  a  mixture  of  white  lead  and  zinc  is  good. 
For  the  final  eo.at,  whether  it  be  the  second  or  tliird, 
we  prefer  the  zinc  paint  for  white;  though  costing 
more  per  pound  it  goes  further,  and  is  on  the  whole 
quite  as  cheap  as  lead,  while  it  retains  its  clear,  white 
color  much  better  than  lead,  which  is  tarnished  by 
sulphurous  gases  arising  from  the  manure  around 
barns  and  stables,  and  from  the  sink  drains  and 
other  sources  arfiund  the  house.  There  is  always 
enough  of  sulphuretcd  hydrogen  in  the  air  to  gradu- 
ally darken  any  surface  paint  containing  lead. 


a  cup  ammonia, and  Uapint  tepid  soft  water.  Sponge 
the  silk  with  this  on  both  sides,  especially  the  soiled 
spots.  Having  flnished  sponging,  roll  it  on  a  round 
stick  like  a  broom  handle,  being  careful  not  to  have 
any  wrinkles.  Silk  thus  washed,  and  thoroughly 
dried,  needs  no  ironing,  and  has  a  lustre  like  new 
silk.  Not  only  silk  but  merino,  barege,  or  any  woolen 
goods,  may  be  thus  treated  with  the  best  results. 


Cleaning  Silk 

The  following  mode  of  cleaning  silk  garmsnts  has 
been  successfully  tested.  The  garment  must  first  be 
ripped  and  dusted.  Have  a  large  Hat  board  ;  over  it 
spread  an  old  sheet.    Take  half  a  cup  ox  gall,  half 


Household   Receipts. 

Soft  Sweet  Bread.— Take  one-half  cake  of  com- 
pressed dry  hop  yeast,  dissolve  in  half  pint  of  warm 
water,  taking  care  not  to  scald  it,  thicken  with  Hour, 
and  let  stand  until  perfectly  light ;  or  use  one-half 
pint  of  soft  baker's  yeast ;  this  will  be  enough  yeast 
for  two  loaves  ;  when  the  yeast  is  light  and  ready 
boil  two  quarts  of  sweet  milk  ;  put  in  it  one  table- 
spoonful  salt,  one  of  butter,  and  one  of  white  sugar ; 
sift  three  quarts  of  flour  ;  stir  into  a  thick  batter 
while  the  milk  is  hot  enough  to  scald  the  flour ;  then 
let  it  stand  to  cool  before  the  yeast  is  added  ;  then 
beat  into  a  sponge,  and  set  in  a  warm  place  until 
perfectly  bght ;  then  b.ave  sifted  flour,  and  mold  up 
your  bread  well,  but  not  too  stiff;  cover  warm,  and 
let  rise  very  light ;  then  mold  carefully,  not  adding 
any  flour  except  what  is  necessary  to  keep  it  from 
sticking  to  your  tray  or  board  ;  place  in  pans,  and,  in 
half  an  hour  bake  in  an  oven.  Place  your  hand  in 
the  oven  and  count  twenty  ;  if  the  heat  should  be  too 
great  on  your  hand  before  you  get  twenty  counted, 
and  you  have  to  withdraw  it,  the  oven  is  too  hot, 
and  must  be  regulated  to  an  even  temperature  of 
heat.  The  time  of  baking  is  one  hour.  This  receipt 
will  make  two  medium-sized  loaves.  If  sweet  milk 
or  butter  cannot  be  had,  use  warm  water  and  sweet 
lard. 

To  TAKE  grease  spots  out  of  carpets,  mix  a  little 
soap  in  a  gallon  of  warm,  soft  water,  then  add  half 
an  ounce  of  borax;  wash  the  part  well  with  a  cloth, 
and  the  grease  or  dirt  spot  will  soon  disappear. 

To  PREVENT  the  smoking  of  a  lamp,  soak  the 
wick  in  strong  vinegar  and  dry  it  well  before  using  it. 
It  will  then  burn  both  sweet  and  pleasant,  and  give 
much  satisfaction  for  the  trouble  in  preparing  it. 

New-Enpland  Baked  Beans.— Put  a  quart  of 
good  white  beans  in  three  or  four  quarts  of  soft  wa- 
tei ;  let  them  stand  where  they  will  get  hot  but  not 
boil  for  12  hours  at  least,  then  drain  them  thoroughly 
and  rinse  through  several  waters;  place  in  a  deep 
pot,  score  the  rind  of  a  jiound  of  nice  fat  pork  deeply, 
and  place  it  in  the  beans  so  that  it  will  be  all  covered 
except  the  rind,  and  cover  with  water;  place  in  hot 
oven  and  bake  10  or  12  hours  at  least — more  is  bet- 
ter, as  the  water  dries  away  fill  it  up  again,  and  some 
time  put  a  teaspoonful  of  molasses  in  the  water  ;  the 
rind  should  be  crisp  and  craekly,  and  the  beans  red- 
dish-brown and  soft,  but  whole  when   done. — .M.  M. 

New-England  Baked  Beans. — II. — The  follow- 
ing an  old-fashioned  New-England  receipt  from  a 
Boston  lady:  One  quart  of  beans,  soak  in  cold  water 
all  night,  pour  off  water  in  the  morning  and  add 
fresh  supply  of  water  enough  to  cover  them.  Boil 
slowly  for  15  minutes,  drain  oil  water  through  collcn- 
der;  put  beans  into  deep  iron  dish  with  water  enough 
to  cover  them,  add  a  small  piece  of  pork  and  a  table- 
spoonful  of  molasses;  bake  slowly  for  five  hours. 

Terrapin. — Put  the  tcrrajiin,  after  you  cut  it  up, 
into  a  saucepan,  with  any  liquor  that  comes  from  it 
in  cutting,  but  not  any  water;  rub  flour  and  butter 
together  according  tu  the  quantity  of  meat  you  have 
— a  quarter  of  a  pound  of  butter  usually  is  sulticient 
— and  add  it  to  the  meat,  with  one  glass  of  .Madeira 
wine;  cover  it  very  tightly;  set  it  where  it  will  sim- 
mer very  slowly  until  tender.  When  just  ready  to 
serve  stir  in  the  yolks  of  two  eggs,  well  beaten. 
Send  to  table  very  hot. — AtLtd  Addit\ 

MooK  TERRAPiN.-Have  a  calf  s  liver  cut  in  half  in 
slices;  dip  them  in  flour  in  which  you  have  added  salt 
and  pepper,  and  fry  brown  in  boiling  lard,  turning 
very  often;  when  cold  chop  it  rather  fine,  also,  two 
hard-boiled  eggs;  season  with  one  teas|)oonful  mixed 
mustanl,  a  pinch  of  cayenne  ])epper,  the  same  of 
cloves,  a  piece  of  butter  the  size  of  an  <^)^iZi  one  table- 
spoonful  of  flour,  and  one  tcacupful  of  hot  water; 
let  simmer  together  five  minutes;  just  before  serv- 
ing add  a  wine  glassful  of  wine.  Cold  veal  is  also 
nice  prepared  in  this  style. — Annt  Addir. 

Prepauino  Spinac  II  KOR  Table. — A  lady  writes 
as  follows  :  Carefully  examine  each  bunch  or  head 
and  cut  off  all  leaves  that  arc  wilted,  leaving  none 
but  those  that  are  fresh  ;  cut  olf  the  steins  so  that 
the  leaves  m.ay  be  separated.  This  will  make  sure 
of  getting  out  all  the  sand.  Throw  them  into  a  pail 
of  cold  water.  After  all  the  spinacli  is  thus  pre- 
pared wash  it  in  .at  least  four  waters.  Do  not  drain 
the  water  off',  but  take  out  the  spinach  and  put  it 
into  another  vessel  with  fresh  water,  as  the  sand 
remains  at  the  bottom  and  you  can  thus  get  rid  of  it. 
When  it  is  well  washed  put  it  in  boiling  water  and 
let  it  boil  -0  minutes,  or  longer,  according  to  its 
tenderness  ;  when  done  pour  into  a  colander  to  drain. 
Cut  it  up  slightly  with  a  common  table  knife.  Sea- 
son with  salt  and  a  small  tablespoonful  of  butter; 
garnish  with  hard-boiled  eggs  cut  in  slices. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


79 


LIVE  STOCK. 

Ayrshire  Cows. 

The  report  of  the  Ayrshire  Agricultural  Associa- 
tion pivcB  the  followinu' points  of  tile  stamliiig  of  su- 
periority in  .Vyrsliireeons  : 

Ileiidsliort,' forelieail  wiile,  nose  fine  lictween  the 
muzzle  anil  eyes,  muzzle  nioJeralely  large,  eyes  full 
and  lively,  horns  wide  set  on,  inelining  upward  and 
curving  slightly  upward. 

Neck  long  and  straight  from  the  head  to  the  top 
of  I  he  shonlilcr,  free  from  Ioom-  e-kin  on  the  under  side, 
line  at  its  junction  with  the  head,  and  the  muscles 
syninietrical,  enlarging  t()ward  the  shoulders. 

Shoulders  thin  at  the  top,  brisket  light,  the  whole 
forequarters  thin  in  front,  and  gradually  increasing 
in  depth  and  width  backward. 

Back  short  and  straight,  spine  well  defined,  espe- 
cially at  the  shoulder,  the  short  ribs  arched,  the  body 
deep  at  the  Hanks,  and  the  milk  veins  well  developed. 

I'elvis  long,  broad  and  straight,  hock  bones  (ill- 
inin)  wide  apart  and  not  much  overlaid  with  fat, 
thighs  deep  and  broad,  tail  long  and  slender,  and 
set  on  level  with  the  back. 

Milk  vessels  capacious  and  extending  well  forward, 
hinder  part  broad  an<l  firmly  attached  to  the  body, 
the  sole  or  under  surface  nearly  level,  the  teats  from 
two  to  two  and  a-half  inches  in  length,  equal  in 
thickness,  and  hanging  perpendicularly;  their  dis- 
tance apart  at  the  sides  should  be  equal  to  about  one- 
third  of  the  length  of  the  vessel,  and  acro.ssto  about 
one-half  of  the  breadth. 

Legs  short,  the  bones  fine  and  the  joints  firm. 

Skin  soft  and  clastic,  and  covered  with  soft,  close, 
vrooly  hair. 

The  colors  preferred  are  brown,  or  brown  and 
■white,  the  colors  being  distinctly  defined. 

(ircat  value  is  attached  to  the  above  form  and 
points  by  the  dairy  farmer,  and  he  quickly  takes 
them  iu  when  effecting  a  purcliasc,  so  that  a  mistake 
is  rarely  made. 

Does  Buckwheat  Poison  Sheep? 
A  fanner  of  Kent  county,  Englantl,  at  the  close  of 
the  dry,  hot  summer  of  INTO  had  UTS  lambs  on  his 
farm,  which,  in  consequenci^  of  the  drought  and  fail- 
ure of  the  grass  crop,  was  heavily  overstocked. 
These  lambs  were  at  the  close  of  the  season  in  very 
poor  condition,  and,  to  bring  Uxgm  up  again,  were 
placed  upon  a  field  of  buckwheat.  They  soon  began 
to  show  signs  of  dizzii»ess,  and  even  intoxication, 
lighting  and  butting  each  other  in  a  very  unlamblike 
manner.  Soon  their  faces,  heads, and  especially  their 
ears,  were  covereil  with  ulcers.  The  eyelids  swelled 
in  many  eases,  causing  total  blindness,  and  in  <itbers 
the  eyes  were  totally  destroyed  by  ulceration.  A 
copious  discharge  of  pulveruent  mucus  from  the 
nose,  swollen  lips,  and  cessation  of  appetite  marked 
the  course  of  the  disease.  The  sun  ami  the  flics  began 
to  terrify  the  alHicted  animals,  and  several  deaths 
occurred.  That  the  disease  was  not  variola  was 
shown  by  the  fact  that  there  was  no  eruption  inside 
the  thighs  or  no  other  ha'rless  spots.  Of  .57  lambs  not 
placed  in  the  buckwheat  fiehl  not  one  was  aflected, 
all  were  perfectly  healthy.  To  test  the  contagious- 
ness of  the  disease  several  alTected  rams  were  turned 
into  the  same  inclosure  with  i)erfeclly  sound  ewes, 
and  though  they  copulated  and  landts  werethe  result, 
no  trace  of  disease  was  found  upon  cither  the  mothers 
or  the  offspring.  The  farmer  is  fully  convinced  that 
the  disease  was  caused  by  the  poisonous  quality  of 
the  buckwheat,  which  had  greater  power  in  conse- 
quence of  the  low  vitality  of  the  animals.  The  ulcer- 
'  ations  were  drcs.'sed  with  a  weak  solution  of  carbolic 
acid,  and  small  doses  of  ferri  sulpb.,  gentian,  and 
spirits  of  terebinith  were  administered.  The  buck- 
wheat was  probably  nearly  i^\k,  or  at  least  in  full 
flower,  at  which  ])eriod  it  is  known  to  contain  an  ele- 
ment of  an  intoxicating  character.  It  is  said  also  to 
produce  erysipelatous  eruptions  in  different  kinds 
of  animals,  with  symptoms  of  cerebral  eongestion. 


Care  of  Dairy  Cows. 
John  B.  Tomlinson,  of  F'onntain  Farm,  near  New- 
town, Bucks  county,  writes  as  follows  to  the  Doyles- 
town  ItitfUifferrry:  '*!  have  seen  in  your  paper  a 
good  deal  al>out  gilt-edged  butter  and  cleanliuess  and 
other  things  about  dairying,  but  nothing  about  keep- 
ing cows  clean.  My  method  is  to  grade  the  stable 
tlotir  a  little  sloping  l>aek  from  the  manger  ;  jiut  one 
planklenglhwi.se  undtT  the  himi  feet  of  the  cows,  one 
foot  wide,  and  fill  with  clay  up  to  the  manger,  having 
a  drop  of  five  inches  at  the  plank.  Then  plank  the 
n-mainder  to  the  back  wall,  having  the  rear  a  little 
highest  so  as  to  throw  all  the  wet  to  the  drop  plank. 
Then  you  have  a  dry  walk  behind  the  cows  and  the 
stables  are  easily  cleaned.  My  cattle  iu  the  yard  do 
not  look  as  if  they  were  ever  stabled  at  all.  In  very 
cold  weather  1  do  not  let  them  out  at  all,  but  keep 
them  in  the  stable.  In  the  morniugs  as  soon  as  we 
can  see  we  give  all  milkers  and  dry  cows,  a  little 
meal;  a  little  hay  and  sheaf  of  corn-fodder  after 
breakfast  ;  and  at  night  hay  and  meal  again.  The 
milkers  have  tbiu'  quarts  of  meal  twice  a  day.  When 
the  weather  is  mild  they  pick  the  chaff,  straw  and 
fodder  in  the  barn  yard  and  go  into  the  stables  as 
full  as  ticks.  "I  stable  all  my  stock  and  I  think  it 
pays." 


Mild  Diet  for  Cattle. 
Kxperienee,  says  the  Atiwricmi  Cultivator^  teaches 
us  that  cattle  thrive  best  on  a  mixed  diet  ;  all  hay  or 
all  grain  will  produce  less  beef  than  hay  and  grain. 
The  animal  structure  of  the  ox  also  demands  bulk  in 
food  as  well  as  richness  ;  the  feeding  of  concent i*ated 
fooil  being  oidy  profitable  so  far  as  the  animal  assim- 
ilates it,  beyond  that  increasing  the  manure  heap  at 
a  cost  far  beyond  its  value.  The  ox  has  approxi- 
mately eleven  pounds  of  .stomach  with  only  two  and 
one  half  pounils  of  intestines  to  each  one  hundred 
jtonnds  of  live  weight  ;  the  sheep  has  less  stomach 
and  more  intestines,  giving  a  snuiUer  percentage  of 
digestive  apparatus  ;  while  the  pig,  for  evi'ry  hund- 
red iioutuls  of  his  live  weight,  has  only  one  and  a 
third  pounds  of  stomach  to  six  iiounds  intestines.  A 
steer  would  thrive  well  on  a  liulk  of  straw,  with  a 
little  oil  meal,  that  would  shrink  a  sheep  and  starve 
a  pig.  I'ork  can  be  [iroduced  from  clear  corn  meal, 
while  mutton  re(|uires  greater  variety  of  food,  and 
beef  cattle  would  become  cloyed  and  diseased  with 
its  exclusive  use.  A  thoughtful  attention  to  these 
broad  facts  will  change  much  injudicious  feeding 
into  cheaper  meat  production. 


Water  Your  Cattle. 


Mr.  Pfeifl'er,  of  Padonia,  who  called  .Mf)nday,  in- 
forms us  that  he  once  lost  seven  head  of  cattle  in 
one  day,  and  accounts  for  the  loss  in  the  following 
way  :  ile  turned  his  cattle  into  a  fresb-huskcd  field 
of  corn,  they  eat  to  excess,  became  toriiid,  refused 
to  go  and  drink,  fever  ensued  ami  they  die<l. 
lie  says  it  will  not  do  turn  cattle  into  a  field  as  soon 
as  the  corn  is  husked,  even  when  there  is  water  in  it, 
and  expect  them  to  drink  of  their  own  accord,  espe- 
cially if  it  should  turn  cold,  but  says  cattle  must  be 
driven  to  water  ;  this  will  help  to  circulate  the  blood 
and  the  water  will  help  to  digest  the  food.  That  if 
allowed  to  drink  or  refuse  water  they  will  always 
refuse  if  there  is  a  sudden  change  of  weather,  as 
they  huddle  together  and  become  lifeless.  I'feiffer 
says  drive  your  cattle  to  water,  and  allow  them  but 
two  or  three  hours  in  the  field  each  day,  and  you  will 
lose  DO  cattle.  And  we  believe  he  is  right. — Jirown 
County  Herald. 

^ 

Safety  from  Rats  and   Mice. 

A.  J.  Willard,  of  San  Mateo  county,  California, 
gives  a  very  simple,  and,  in  his  experience,  a  very 
eflcctive  safeguard  against  rats  and  mice.  He  takes 
two  round  pieces  of  tin,  like  the  bottom  of  a  fruit 
can,  punches  a  hole  in  the  center  of  each  piece,  and 
strings  them  on  a  strong  wire,  one  near  each  end. 
Then  he  stretches  the  wire  from  side  to  side  of  a 
rotim  and  fastens  each  end  firmly.  Anything  w  hich 
is  hung  upon  the  wire  between  the  plates  of  tin  is 
safe  from  the  rats,  for  if  they  walk  out  upon  the 
wire,  every  time  they  try  to  mount  the  circle  of  tin 
it  revolves  and  they  cannot  pass  over  it.  Mr.  Willard 
has  found  the  simple  contrivance  very  useful  in 
saving  meat,  grain,  &c.,  and  advises  all  farmers  to 
try  it. 

Advice  to   Drivers. 

When  a  horse  falls  w hilst  drawing  a  vehicle — 
1.  .Tump   down    and    hold    the    animal's    head,  to 
prevent  his  dashing  it  aliout  to  his  own  injury. 

3.  Loosen  the  check-rein  (if  you  are  so  foolish  as 
to  use  one)  and  the  parts  of  the  harness  which  fasten 
on  the  vehicle. 

.'i.  Steady  and  support  the  horse's  head,  and  excite 
him  with  hand  an<l  voice  to  rise. 

4.  Let  him  stand  still  a  short  time  and  recover 
himself,  and  then  proceed  gently  and  with  greater 
caution  than  before. 

.•i.  When  you  get  him  up,  pat  and  encourage  him, 
and  see  if  he.  is  wounded  or  otherwise  injureil. 

ti.  B.aek  the  carriage,  so  as  to  get  the  shafts  and 
traces  clear. 


Hay  Attention  to  Live  Stock. 

Regular  attention  to  all  live  stock  is  very  impor- 
tatit.  If  an  animal  is  only  half  fed,  it  is  better  that 
it  be  half  fed  regularly,  as  it  will  suller  less  injury 
then  if  attended  to  one  day  and  neglected  the  next. 
But  it  is  poor  economy  to  stint  food.  *'Tho  liberal 
soul  shall  be  made  fat."  To  see  one's  stock  eon- 
tented,  comfortable,  and  happy,  is  not  only  a  hap- 
I)iness  to  a  good  farmer,  l)Ut  monc^y  iu  his  pocket. 
Regular  hours  of  feeding,  regular  watering,  regular 
rations,  and  regular  rest,  ate  conducive  to  comfort. 
With  regularity  there  is  no  haste,  no  waste,  nothing 
is  forgotten,  and  nothing  done  twice  over.  Animals 
then  digest  what  they  eat,  and  thrive. 


Wm.  K.  Lincoln's  herd  of  SO  grade  Durham  cows 

furnish  47  of  the  400  cans  of  milk  daily  shipped  from 
Warren  to  Boston.  Mr.  Lincoln's  farm  produces  for 
fodder  for  his  cows  400  bushels  of  oats  and  i:00 
bushels  of  corn,  with  which  ilO  tons  f>f  shorts  arc  fed. 
Warm  hot  food  is  given  the  cows  twice  daily.  Just 
after  drinking  cold  water.  Kach  cow  in  the  herd  is 
carded  twice  daily,  and  two  men  constantly  care  for 
them.  The  money  product  from  the  herd  in  Decem- 
ber was  f-Hl.  The  cows  were  imported  from  Canada. 


THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

Look  to  the  Chicks  in  Klay. 

Young  birds  that  have  been  hatched  in  .March  anil 
April  need  especial  attention  in  the  still  chilly  month 
of  May.  If  we  can  get  the  early  chicks  safely 
thiough  this  jieriod,  the  chanees  arc  greatly  in  favor 
of  their  coming  up  beautifully  ami  thriftily  du;ing 
the  summer,  and  making  the  best  average  fowls  for 
fall  or  for  the  early  winter  exhibitions. 

I''or  marketing  purposes  such  chickens,  of  any 
good  variety,  are  the  best;  for  at  four  to  live  months 
old  tiny  make  adndrable  broilers,  aud  command  the 
highest  poultry  prices  in  the  city  markets,  If  well- 
kept  and  tended. 

They  should  not  be  exposed  to  the  cold  night  air 
now,  ni>r  should  I  hey  be  let  out  of  their  ernjps  in  the 
morning  while  the  heavy  dews  are  ou  the  grass. 
This  careless  habit  destroys  many  a  good  early 
brood.  They  get  chilled,  wet,  and  take  cold  easily, 
If  perndticd  thus  to  roam  about  until  the  sun  is  well 
up  and  the  cold  night-dew  is  dried  off.  Kspecially 
aftiT  a  rain  in  the  night  shoulil  we  look  out  that 
they  be  not  in  this  way  exposed. 

If  they  are  eight  or  ten  weeks  old,  and  la  good 
condition,  you  may  feed  them  more  heartily  than 
hitherto.  Boil  or  steam  two-thirds  of  their  food; 
vary  it  also.  (Jive  them  cracked  corn  and  broken 
wheat,  and  occasionally  shorts,  made  into  a  mash 
with  cooked  potatoes  aud  tunnps.  They  are  fond  of 
this  diet;  and  after  a  few  days  try  a  liitle  cooked 
meat  chopped  fine;  and  any  green  stuff  you  can  s|]are 
or  provide  easily  is  very  desirable. 

Keep  them  free  from  vermin.  This  is  more  than 
half  the  battle,  be  it  rcmcinbered.  Chii'kcns  will  noi 
thrive  if  they  are  infested  with  lice.  Apply  a  littfe 
flour  of  sulphur,  dry,  to  their  necks  and  through  the 
under  part  of  their  little  bodies.  Serve  the  mother 
sindlarly;  but  do  not  use  too  much  of  this,  or  iudulgo 
in  it  too  often. 

Once  a  week,  if  powdered  sulphur  and  crushed 
charcoal  is  mixed  with  soft  food  for  young  chickens, 
this  serves  as  an  admirable  cleanser  of  the  stomach  ; 
it  saves  them  from  becoming  "crop-bound,"  it  aids 
the  digestion  very  materially,  aud  serves  to  ki:cp 
away  lice  ;  for  the  sulphur  works  outwardly  through 
the  skin-pores,  and  very  eflTectually  in  this  respect. 

The  most  important  things  to  consider  during  this 
month,  with  advanced  chickens,  is  their  shelter  by 
night  and  their  regular  feeding  during  the  day. 
They  will  not  bear  to  be  neglected  during  the  period 
now  referred  to,  if  we  are  desirous  to  have  them  do 
well  by  and  by.  A  little  special  care  when  the 
vounglings  are  coming  forward  from  six  weeks  to 
three  months  old,  tells  amazingly  U|ion  their  future, 
as  all  fanciers  may  satisfy  themselves  who  now  de- 
vote due  attention  to  their  little  wants  as  we  have 
herein  jiointcd  out. 

If  you  can  afford  them  milk  for  partial  drink,  they 
will  improve  wondrously  ui)on  it.  No  matter 
whether  it  be  sweet  or  sour,  new  or  old,  they  will 
drink  it  freely  at  all  times,  if  i)erndttcd  to  enjoy  this 
luxury  ;  upon  the  ordinary  farm,  the  expense  of  this 
indulgence  is  not  felt  by  the  jiroprieior  among  a 
common-sized  Hock  and  it  is  a  grand  thing  for  them. 

For  laying-hens  this  is  excellent  ;  but  it  is  far  more 
valuable,  proportionably,  for  your  young  chickens. 
The  "Imperial  Kirg-Food,"  mamifactured  by  Allen 
it  Sherwood,  of  Hartford,  is  a  very  good  thing  to 
have  about  the  chieken-i)rcmiscs.  We  have  used  ft 
this  spring  to  very  good  advantage,  and  find  it  an 
excellent  appetizer,  a  valuable  tonic  and  a  very 
desirable  coiuliment  to  mix  with  the  food  given  to 
th(!  young  stock.  Up  to  this  season  we  had  jire- 
viously  used  this  i)re)iaratiou  only  lor  adult  laying- 
fowls  ;  but  we  have  fouial  it  an  excellent  thing  to 
mix  with  the  soft  food  for  younglings,  and  recom- 
mend it  as  really  valuable  in  the  rearing  of  chicks, 
when  properly  used. — J'uullnj  Wurhl,  Hartford,  VI. 


To  keep  a  Fowl  House. 

1.  Clean  out  every  day,  and  sprinkle  dry  earth  or 
coal  ashes  over  the  floor  and  under  the  roosts. 

:;.  Change  the  material  the  nests  are  made  of  once 
every  month,  and  white-wash  the  nest-boxes  with 
fntt  whitewash. 

'.'..  Taint  the  roost ing-poles  every  week  with  kero- 
sene, and  w  hitewash  the  whole  inferior  of  the  hennery 
every  two  months  during  spring  and  summer. 

4.  Provide  a  dusting-bin,  into  which  throw  a  [)int 
or  so  of  Stoddard's  Carbolated  Powder.  Persian 
Insect  Powder  is  too  costly  for  common  use. — Poultry 
IVorhl. 

Our  readers  will  observe,  that  if  they  want  good, 
healthy  and  tbrilty  poultry,  they  must  work  as  they 
do  in  seeming  healthy  and  thrifty  horses,  cattle, 
sheep  and  swine.—  /.li. 

Chickens  Fit  to  Eat. 

Don't  imagine  that  it  makes  no  difference  howyour 
chickens  have  been  brought  up. — Don't  sujiiKise  that 
they  will  be  good  anyhow.  Chickens  have  been 
carefully  dressed,  deliciously  stuffed,  assiduously 
basted,  and  tenderly  roasted,  and  yet  they  were  not 
fit  to  cat.  There  was  a  flavor  about  them  that  no 
soda  rinsings  could  cleanse,  and    no   seasonings  con- 


80 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  May,  1877. 


ceal.     These  were  chickens  that  had  picked  up   their 
living  arouni  pig-sties  and  other  unclean  places. 

A  chicken  may  be  spoiled  in  dressing  it  to  cook.  If 
killed  with  a  full  crop,  and  allowed  to  He  four  hours 
before  it  is  "drawn,"  (or  relieved  of  its  internal  or- 
gans), it  gets  an  unpleasant  flavor.  Fowls  should  be 
caught  and  shut  up  without  food  for  twelve  hours  or 
more  before  they  are  beheaded.  Then  the  crop  and 
intestines  will  be  empty,  and  the  task  of  picking  and 
dressing  will  be  greatly  lessened.  Old  fowls  are  not 
necessarily  tough — only  cook  them  long  enough. 
They  are  more  tender  twenty-four  hours  after  they 
are  killed,  than  if  eaten  immediately. 

Lice    on   Poultry. 

There  is  nothing  that  will  so  thoroughly  eradicate 
those  parasites  known  iis  roost  lice  as  cleanl  ness, 
and  this  is  brought  about  by  spreading  a  thick  paste 
of  lime  whitewash,  after  the  filth  is  removed,  over  the 
roosting  poles  and  about  the  building  wherever  these 
minute  insects  can  claim  a  foothold;  and  they  will 
claim  a  foothold  in  every  crack  and  crevice,  where 
they  lodge  during  the  day,  always  seeking  lurking 
places  where  they  hiile  from  the  light  in  the  daytime, 
and  come  forth  at  night  to  prey  on  the  bodies  of  the 
fowls.  You  need  never  look  for  thcra  on  the  upjter 
sides  of  the  roosting  poles,  which  are  worn  smooth 
by  the  feet  of  the  birds,  but  examine  the  under  part 
where  there  is  some  roughness,  and  look  sharp  and 
close,  or  perhaps  j'ou  will  overlook  the  mites. 
>^ 

Cure  for  Chicken  Cholera. 

Mr.  Joseph  Stout,  of  Westminister,  Maryland,  who 
keeps  from  .500  to  1,000  fowls,  and  who  sells  large 
quantities  of  eggs  and  chickens  in  the  Baltimore 
markets,  gives  the  following  remedy  for  chicken 
cholera,  which  he  considers  a  t)erfect  cure  :  "  Take 
a  handful  of  white  oak  bark  and  boil  it  in  a  qnart 
of  water  to  make  a  strong  decoction.  After  it  cools 
mix  with  the  liquid  corn  meal  to  the  proper  consist- 
ency to  make  a  dough  for  feeding,  and  give  to  the 
fowls.  Mix  a  teaspoonful  of  Cayenne  pepper  to  two 
quarts  of  the  feed.  The  fowls  will  eat  this  mixture 
readily."  His  theory  is  that  tht;  cholera  is  a  species 
of  diarrha;a,  and  the  bark  and  pepper  acting  as 
astringents  cure  the  complaint. 

Can  fowls  l)e  assisted  in  the  process  of  changing 
the  feathers?  The  moulting  season  is  really  a  most 
trying  one  to  them. 

During  the  moulting  season  the  blood  is  drawn 
from  the  materials  which  compose  the  feathers,  and 
this  drain  is  often  so  great  as  to  weaken  the  fowls; 
the  remedy  is  to  give  as  feed  elements  which  will 
most  quickly  replace  the  exhausted  blood.  Fish,  re- 
fuse ground  lione  and  powdered  oyster  shells  are  re 
commended  for  feed  ;  and  for  di-ink,  water  supplied 
with  rusty  iron  ;  also  a  little  milk  each  day  is  good 
for  them.  In  place  of  rusty  iron,  tincture  of  iron  can 
be  put  in  their  drinking  water  ;  a  tablcsiioonful  of 
tincture  to  a  quart  of  water  is  the  rule. 


LITERARY  AND   PERSONAL. 

The  PotLTHY  Would,  an  elegant  illustrated 
quarto  monthly  magazine  "  for  the  Fancier,  Family 
and  Market  Poulterer,"  edited  and  published  by  H. 
H.  .'Stoddard,  Hartford,  Conn.,  at  §i.'J5  per  annum. 
The  April  number  of  this  journal  is  now  before  us, 
and  we  question  whether  there  is  another  publication 
devoted  exclusively  to  poultry  on  this  continent,  or 
perhaps  the  entire  globe,  that  equals  it  in  quantity, 
quality,  mechanical  execution  and  literary  ability. 
This  number  contains  three  full  paged  elegant  chromo- 
lithographic  plates,  illustrating,  in  six  colored  figures, 
male  and  female,  "  Light  Brahma,"  "Dark  Brah- 
ma," and  "  Black  Spanish  Fowls,"  and  18  wood  cut 
figures,  besides  portraits  of  .J.  H.  Di<kerman  and 
Isaac  N.  Baker.  In  reference  to  the  former  we  ap- 
pend the  editor's  own  graphic  description  from  the 
May  number  for  1877. 

Our  New  Enterpiuse. — The  announcement  made 
in  the  March  number,  of  our  purpose  to  supply  the 
subscribers  and  patrons  of  The  Poultry  World,  at  a 
nominal  figure,  with  twelve  magnificent  colored  plates 
of  modern  varieties  of  fowls,  has  met,  as  we  antici- 
pated, with  a  most  generous  response  from  all  quar- 
ters, and  our  orders  for  these  beautii'ul  jiiclures  liavc 
come  in  "  with  a  rush  "  in  the  last  thirty  days. 

It  is  a  satisfaction  to  us  to  note  that  our  etlbrts  in 
thisdirection  areai>prcciated,  and  that  our  subscribers 
are  of  the  class  who  so  generally  understand  that  we 
intend  this  to  be  really  a  good  thing,  in  its  way,  and 
have  confidence  in  our  promise,  as  evinced  by  the 
pouring  in  of  orders  in  advance  during  the  past 
month. 

With  the  April  issue  of  our  magazine,  we  sent  out 
the  first  instulbneut,  or  specimen  plates.  Those  to 
come  with  I'uture  issues  of  our  monthly  will  be  of 
the  same  excellent  ijiiality,  in  artistic  execution,  as 
are  those  sent  out  th.at  month,  and  we  feel  confident 
that  our  readers  will  agree  with  us  that  these  fulfill 
all  expectations.  This  agreeable  noeelty  in  poultry 
journalixm  is  adding  large  numbers  of  new  subscri- 
bers to  our  monthly,  at  )f3  for  the  year— including 
the  full  set  of  twelve  pictures  we  shall  give  with 
Vol.  VI.,  1877.  No  such  enterprise  has  ever  before 
been  attempted  in  any  country  with  a  poultry  maga- 


zine, the  heavy  cost  of  this  undertaking  preventing 
publishers  from  assuming  the  necessary  expense  and 
risk  in  carrying  out  so  important  a  project. 

But  we  are  satisfied  that  we  have  "  hit  thepopular 
taste"  decidedly  in  this  matter;  which  we  shall  carry 
through  in  a  style  that  will  reflect  credit  upon  the 
artists  and  colorists  who  get  up  these  stylish  and  life 
like  specimens  of  the  domestic  feathered  kingdom, 
whatever  its  first  cost  may  be. 

We  have  received  enough  congratulatory  and  com- 
mendatory communications  from  our  friends  to  fill 
an  entire  number  with  fine  type  ;  and  nil  agree  with 
us  that  our  eleyaut  ehronio-lithoyrapldc  plate  project 
is  the  thing,  and  everybody  seems  to  be  delighted 
with  the  opportunity  to  procure  these  pictures,  for 
the  trivial  cost  we  have  placed  the  series  at. — Poultry 
World,  Ifartford. 

CoNKAD  Wetser.  A  ncglccted  chapter  in  colonial 
history,  by  F.  K.  Diffenderft'er.  We  have  just  been 
put  in  possession  of  '..'1  octavo  pages,  being  the  sixth 
article  of  the  April  number  of  the  Mercersbury  Re- 
view, giving  an  interesting  biographical  sketch  of 
this  remarkable  citizen  of  Pennsylvania,  of  the  col- 
onial times,  by  our  talented  and  worthy  fellow 
townsman. 

Perhaps  many  of  our  younger  readers  will  be  ask- 
ing— "Who  is  Conrad  Weiser?"  and,  before  we  read 
this  sketch  of  his  life — although  we  had  often  heard 
his  name  mcntitmed  in  connectiou  with  the  early  his- 
tory of  our  State,  and  also  saw  it  frequently  referred 
to  in  books  and  journals — if  any  one  had  asked  the 
above  question,  we  could  not  have  answered  it  intel- 
ligently. From  about  1744  to  17(il,  Conrad  Weiser 
was  an  active  interpreter,  commissioner,  missionary, 
and  peacemaker  between  the  Indians  and 
colonists  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylva- 
nia, Maryland  and  Virginia.  An  energetic,  but  at  the 
same  time,  a  humane  diplomatist  of  the  "William 
Penn  school,"  who  had  the  unboimded  confidence  of 
the  chiefs  and  the  people  of  both  races,  ami  who  felt 
no  labor  too  anluous,  when  he  could  thereby  secure 
the  blessings  of  peace  and  prosperity  to  his  adopted 
country,  and  her  aboriginal  and  foreign  citizens.  He 
was  one  of  those  sturdy  palatinates  who  had  fled 
their  countrj'  to  escai'e  those  cruel  persecutions 
which  intolerance  and  religious  bigotr}'  had  inflicted 
upon  his  race.  After  suft'ering  many  hardships,  im- 
positions and  frauds,  he  setted  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
after  -0  years  of  a  transccndantly  useful  life,  he  was 
"gathered  to  his  fathers,"  and  his  ashes  now  repose 
near  Womelsdorf,  Lebanon  county,  if  not  "unwept," 
at  least  "unhonored,"  and  almost  "unsung."  Ex- 
cept the  record  left  by  his  distinguished  son-in-law. 
Rev.  Henry  Melchon  Muhlenberg,  perbajis  nothing 
has  since  appeared  illustrating  more  fully  the  ster- 
ling character  of  the  man,  than  the  paper  of  F.  R.  D. 

The  VEOETAnLE  Garoen  :  A  complete  guide  to 
the  cultivation  of  vegetables  ;  being  one  of  the  series 
of"  Dick's  Garden  Hand-Books,"  published  by  Dick 
&  Fitzgerald,  New  York,  Price,  SO  cents,  in  paper 
covers,  and  .*)()  cents  in  full  cloth.  We  acknowledge 
the  receipt  of  this  handsome  little  Ifi  mo.  volume  of 
140  pages,  containing  thorough  instructions  for  the 
sowing,  phinting,  and  cultivating  of  some  70  different 
kinds  of  those  i>optilar  esculents  that  form  the  ordi- 
nary stock  of  a  kitchen,  garden  and  truck  farm,  con- 
cise, plain  and  practical,  by  that  prince  of  gardeners, 
James  Hogo.  And  when  you  tire  of  the  labors  of 
the  garden,  and  need  a  little  light  mental  recreation, 
we  suggest  a  look  into  "Dick's  Recitations  and  Read- 
ings," being  No.  4  of  the  series,  and  a  volume  of  the 
same  size  and  style  of  the  above,  a  copy  of  which 
accompanied  the  "  Gardener,"  containing  "character 
sketches,  dialect  pieces,  humorous,  sentimental, 
serious,  pathetic,  eloquent  and  patriotic  selections  in 
poetry  and  prose,"  from  the  best  and  most  popular 
authors. 

On  the  Hth  of  April  last  we  attained  the  sixty 
fifth  year  of  our  affe,  and  to  illustrate  that  there  is 
at  least  a  bond  of  fi  ial  affection  that  binds  our  "kith 
and  kin,"  we  were  the  recipient  of  a  spacious  edi- 
torial waste-basket,  an  article  we  much  needeil,  but 
felt  too  poor  to  invest  in.  "Well,  John,  what  are 
you  doing  now,  and  where  is  your  house?"  inquireii 
a  missionary  of  an  exceedingly  "seedy"  convert, 
who  had  left  hie  flock  about  a  year  before  and  gone 
off  to  preach  on  his  own  account.  "Well,  I'm 
preaching  among  the  Seminoles  in  Florida  for  my 
victuals  and  clothes."  "  But,  jiidging  from  your 
appearance,  John,  that  seems  to  be  poor  pay."  "Yes, 
brother,"  sadly  responded  John,  "  it  is  jmor pay,  but 
it  i»  poor  preach,  too."  Perhaps  we  are  like  the  In- 
dian, and  arc  paid  according  to  the  quality  of  our 
work.  Be  that  as  it  may,  we  are  the  joyful  recipient 
of  a  new  waste-basket,  the  filial  birthday  offering  of 
our  youngest  D. 

The  Farm  Journal,  (a  new  paper  with  an  old 
name)  a  spicy  and  remarkably  well  executed  8  page 
quarto  monthly,  Nos.  2  and  o  of  the  first  volume  of 
which  have  been  laid  upon  our  table.  The  paper  is 
good,  the  tyiiographical  impress  faultless,  and  the 
price  is  the  very  insignificant  sum  of  l5  cents  a  year 
— within  the  financial  aljility  of  "all  whom  it  may 
concern."  Wiliner  Atkinson,  editor,  publisher  and 
proprietor.  No.  71^0  Sansom  street,  Philadelphia. 

Its  literary  quality  is  A.  No.  1,  and  more  than 
compensates  the  lack  of  quantity.  We  respectfully 
"doff  our  beaver,"  extend  our  editorial   "paw,"   and 


hail  it  with  a  friendly  greeting — welcoming  it  to  the 
long  rank  of  agricultural  journalism.  Finally,  we 
wish  for  it  a  greater  pecuniary  success  than  the 
man  who  bought  gingerbreads  at  twelve  and  a-half 
cents  a  dozen  and  sold  them  for  a  penny  a  piece, 
claiming  that  he  was  only  able  to  sustain  hyuself 
from  the  fact  that  "he  sold  so  many."  The  Journal 
will  be  a  useful  ally. 

We  call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  various 
advertisements  in  this  number  of  the  Farmbk,  and 
feel  that  in  claiming  for  them  the  confidence  of  the 
community  we  only  accord  to  them  what  they  amply 
deserve.  Without  intending  to  distinguish  between 
them  invidiously,  or  to  underestimate  the  qualities  of  ' 
the  articles  they  advertise,  still,  there  is  at  least  one 
which  we  cannot  admit  on  account  of  its  novelty,  its 
entire  newness,  its  utility,  but  above  all,  its  simplicity 
and  its  usefulness.  We  refer  specifically  to  the  novel 
"  Butler  Carrier,"  patented  by  Mr.  E.  D.  Resh,  of 
Bird-iu-Hand,  and  for  sale  at  No.  1.57  North  Queen 
street,  Lancaster,  Pa.  A  want  has  long  been  felt  by 
those  who  bring  butter  to  our  markets,  for  a  cheap 
refrigerating  process  for  that  purpose,  all  of  which 
may  be  realized  by  calling  on  the  proprietor,  as  above 
named. 

"  The  Galaxy"— .S7ieZ(?<)«  <f-  Co.,  New  YorA-.— The 
June  number  of  this  excellent  magazine  has  already 
been  placed  upon  our  editorial  table — too  widely  and 
too  favorably  known  to  need  any  praise  from  us — for 
which  we  "  herein  and  hereon  "  tender  our  acknowl- 
edgments. It  is  entirely  loo  full,  and  we  are  too 
empty  to  notice  its  contents  in  detail  ;  but,  our  readers 
can  judge  of  its  merits  when  we  mention  such  names 
as  S.  F.  Hopkins,  Justin  McCarthy,  Henry  James,  jr., 
J.  W.  De  Forest,  George  Dawson,  Richard  Grant 
White,  J.  L.  M.  Curry,  Emma  Lazarus,  Clara  G. 
Doliver,  Ella  Wheeler,  Mary  Ainge  De  Vere,  and 
other  writers  of  note,  as  among  its  literary  and  scien- 
tific contributors.  Volume  'li  begins  with  the  July 
number.  $4.00  a  year  in  advance  and  postage  paid 
by  publishers.  A  volume  comprises  nearly  900  pages, 
8  vo.,  of  rare  reading  matter. 

The  Journal  of  Forestry  and  Estate  Manage- 
ment, for  Alay  1877.  A  royal  8  vo.  magazine  of  72 
pages,  published  by  J.  &  W.  Rider,  No.  14  Bartholo- 
mew Close,  E.  C.  London,  England.  This  is  a  new 
enterprise,  being  No.  1,  Vol.  1,  and  is  remarkably 
well  gotten  up — in  quality,  composition  and  execu- 
tion— and  will  till  a  v.acuum  in  rural  jourualisra  that 
has  been  heretofore  but  iHsnfficiently  supplied.  We 
cheerfully  extend  the  hand  of  fellowship  and  place  it 
upon  our  exchange  list,  thus  commending  it  to  the 
special  notice  of  our  readers. 

The  Colorado  Springs  Gazette,  San  Juan 
edition ;  a  handsome  folio,  published  every  Saturday 
morning,  at  the  Colorado  Springs,  by  the  Gazette 
Publishing  Company,''  at  §i'J.O0  per  annum,  in  ad- 
vance. "  The  ofHcial  paper  of  El  Paso  county  and 
of  the  City  of  Colorado  Si>rings."  Devoted  almost 
exclusivel)'  to  the  mining  interests  of  the  State  of 
Colorado,  its  land  claims,  itS' railroads  and  its  mar- 
kets, a  very  essential  auxiliary  to  those  who  propose 
to  visit  or  locate  in  that  far  off  territory. 

Lloyd's  Maps,  anil  especially  his  "  Military  Map 
of  Europe,"  for  lN77,said  to  be  the  greatest  war  map 
of  Europe  ever  made ;  free  by  mail  to  any  part  of 
the  world  for  30  cents,  or  mounted  $1.00,  will,  no 
doubt,  now  be  consulted  with  an  interest  commensu- 
rate with  the  occasion.  A  "  piece  "  of  their  great 
railroad  and  shipping  map  of  the  United  States,  for 
1877,  is  now  before  us,  40  by  50,  colored  and  var- 
nished, for  30  ceHts.  Lloyd  Map  Co.,  Cincinnati, 
Ohio. 

U.  S.  Land  Bureau:  T.  W.  Moore,  N.  Y., 
Agent,  109  Chatham  street  :  A  northern  colony  for 
West  Virginia.  Any  active  and  resi)onsible  person 
wishing  to  engage  in  an  enterprise  of  this  kind,  can 
obtain  further  information  by  applying  to  the  above 
address,  or  the  editor  of  this  paper,  101  North  Queen 
street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

Circular  of  The  American  Fence  M.anufac-  J 
turing  Company  of  New  York,  Wm.  H.  M.ann,  gene-  fl 
ral  agent,  417  Walnut  street,  Philadelphia.  "Im- 
portant to  Farmers;"  "The  best  Churn  yet;"  "The 
great  secret  discovered  at  last."  Attention  is  called 
to  Campbell's  Oscillalinq  Monitor  Churn.  Address 
3o8  State  street,  Albany j  N.  Y. 

War  in  Europe. — We  call  the  attention  of  our 
readers  to  the  advertisement  of  J.  B.  Ford  &  Co., 
New  York,  which  will  be  found  .at  the  usual  place  in 
this  number  of  our  paper,  in  relation  to  the  profusely 
illustrated  biography  of  Bi.-*marck,  the  greatest  gen- 
eral, diplomat  and  statesman  of  Europe. 

Catalooue  and  Price  List  opStreeter's  Fan- 
cy Stociv  Farm. — Devoted  to  the  breeding  of  high- 
class  land  and  water  fowls,  Suffolk  swine  and  Jersey 
cattle.     Youngstown,  Ohio. 

Twenty-Seventh  Annual  Wholesale  Catalogue 
of  Nursery  Stock,  for  Spring  of  1877,  for  sale  by 
Thos.  Jackson,  Portland,  Maine,  formerly  50  and  53 
Vcsey  street,  N.  Y. 

A  Treatise  on  the  Human  Hair,  with  sugges- 
tions for  its  preservation.  Published  by  R.  P.  Hall 
&  Co.,  Nashua,  N.  H.,  1877.     12  mo. 

We  call  the  special  attention  of  our  readers  to  our 
list  of  Good  Books,  in  another  colunmof  this  paper. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


IIT. 


E.  F.  Kunkel's  Bitter  "Win©  of  Iron. 

Tbis  tnilv  VHluiiliit^  touic  has  b«cn  ho  thoroughly  tented 
by  all  claHMt's  of  the  eoniiuuuitj  thut  it  is  now  defiiuMl  iudia- 
penaiible  n<*  u  Tonic  niodicine.  It  coats  but  litrlo,  purifies  the 
blood,  KivcH  tone  io  tho  stomach,  retiovates  thu  eystem  uud 
prolongs  life.     Everyboily  Hhouhi  have  it. 

For  the  cure  of  weak  slomuchs,  Clenerul  Debility, I  udigea- 
tion.  Diaeaaes  of  the  Stomach,  and  lor  uU  caHt-a  reiiuiriug 
ft  tonic. 

ThiBwlne  iucludes  the  most  aKreeabhi  and  cfHcieut  SMt  of 
iron  we  i»08schb— Citrate  of  MaRiietic  Oxide  conibiued  with 
tbo  nioHt  ouerRetic  of  vet'ttublc  touica— Yellow  Peruvliiu 
Bark. 

Do  you  want  aomelhiug  to  Htrengtheu  you  ? 

Do  you  want  u  gt»od  oj'petito  ? 

Do  you  w.iiit  to  jjet  i  d  of  uerTOUhucne  ? 

Do  you  waHt  energy  ? 

Do  you  waul  to  sleep  well  ? 

Do  you  wiiut  to  build  up  jour  const  it  nt  ion  ? 

Do  you  want  to  fcol  w«'Il '! 

Do  you  wuut  11  brink  and  vigorous  feeling  I 

If  you  do  try  KUNKEL'S  IlITTKU  WINK  OF  IRON. 

I  ouly  Hdk  a  trial  of  tbia  vulvmble  ionic  ! 

Beware  of  counterfeits,  as  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron 
l8  the  only  sure  and  effectual  remedy  in  the  known  world 
for  the  'permanont  cure  of  Dyspepwia  and  Debility, 
and  aa  there  are  a  number  of  imttationa  offered  to  the  ii»b- 
lic,  I  would  caution  the  community  to  purchase  none  but 
the  genuina  article  mauufactured  by  K.  I'\  Kunkel,  and 
having  his  etamp  on  the  cork  of  every  bottle.  The\ery 
fact  that  otheri*  are  attempting  to  imitate  thia  valuable 
remedy,  proves  ita  worth  and  speaks  vulumea  in  its  favor. 
Get  the  genuine.     K.  F.  Kunkel'a. 

Sold  only  in  $1  bottles.  Hold  »)y  Druggists  nud  dealers 
everywhere.  E.  F.  Kunkel,  Piopridtor,  259  North  Ninth 
Street,  Piiiladelphla,  Pa. 

Tape  Worm  Removed  Alive, 
Head  and  all  complete,  in  two  hours.  No  fee  till  head  pasa- 
es.  Seat,  l*iu  aud  Stomach  Worms  removed  by  Dr.  Kuukel, 
969  North  Ninth  Stre«'t,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  Seni  for  circu- 
lar or  ask  your  dru^Kist  for  u  bottle  of  KuuUel'a  Worm 
Sjrrup.     It  iiever   fails.     Price  $1. 


To  llie  M'orkliitr  C'ln**!*.— We  are  now  prepared  to 

furuieu  all  classes  with  constant  employment  at  home,  the 
whole  of  ihe  time,  t'r  for  their  spare  momenta.  Business 
new,  light  jind  profitable.  Persons  of  either  sex  easily  earn 
from  5u  cents  to  $5  per  evening,  and  a  )»roi'ortional  sum  by 
devoting  their  whole  time  to  the  business,  boys  and  girls 
earn  nearly  as  much  as  men.  That  all  who  see  this  notice 
may  send  their  adkress,  and  test  the  business  we  make  thia 
unparalleled  offer:  To  such  as  are  not  well  satisfied  we  will 
Bend  oue  dollar  to  pay  for  the  trouble  of  writing.  Full  par- 
ticulars, samples  worth  several  dollars  to  commence  work 
on,  and  a  copy  of  Home  and  Fireside,  one  of  the  largest  and 
beat  Illustrated  Publications,  all  sent  free  by  mail.  Header, 
if  you  want  permanent,  protitable  work,  address, 

9_."i-*m  Geougk  Stinson   3:  (  n.,  Portlaud,  Maine 


War  in  Europe. 

DICft/I  A  DPl^ '^^'' ^''"^^"'''^  Biography,  Private  Letters 
DIOlVlrtnUN.and  Memoranda.  Introduction  by  Bay - 
arti  Thj' lor.  Graphic  uud  entertaining.  Full  of  anec- 
dote, wit,  romantic  incident,  and  great  histor  cil  events. 
Profnsely  IlliiNtral*>cl  with  actual  sketches  from  Bia- 
raark's  life — home,  student,  political  and  battle  scenes,  por- 
trait*, landscapes,  etc.  Ttiis  Life  of  Europe's  greatest 
etateaman  is  just  the  book  for  the  times,  delineating  i:8  it 
doea  all  the  famous  Kulers,  (lenerals,  and  Diplomats — co- 
actors  with  Bismarck.  Special  Canvassers  wanted  to  sup- 
ply the  urgent  demand  for  this  live  book.  Good  pay.  Circu- 
lar, fie.\    Write  to  J,  B.  FOKD  &  CO  ,  Few  York.       9-5-t;m. 


^^  ^VP^pa*  '*•  '^**^  caaily  earned  iu  these  times,but  it  can  be 
■piyiyiy  made  in  tiiree  months  by  auy  one  of  either 
^4k  /  /  /  '^*^*.  in  »Dy  ptvrt  of  the'country  who  is  willing 
fVj  III  tt>work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
^^  furnish.  $GiJ  per  week  iu  jour  own  town.  You 

need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.    You  can  give  your 
whole  time  to  the  work,  or  only  your   spare   moments.     It 
costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  £5  Outfit  free. 
Adilress  ut  oucc^  U.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-3-1  y 


Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 


I.liieu  Hn<l  Pnper  (oIIarH  anil  CnlfN 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

E.  J.  EEISI/IAIT'S, 

No.   no    North    Queen    Street, 

Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 


Genuine  Peruvian  Guano. 


N?l. 
IPERUVIAN 

1  GUANO 

LWARRAKTEDj 


As  received  direct  from  PeniTian  Gov- 
ernment .\genls. 

Ri'»sp:l  &  Cos.  AMMONIATED  SV- 
PERPHOSPHATK  (IF  LIMB,  the  beat  in 
ttie  market.  GROUND  BONE— the  (air- 
est  and  best.  F.\RM  IMRLEMENT8— 
the  latei^t  improved. 
The  above  acid  at  very  low  prices, 
meet  the  demands  of  Habd  Times. 
Send  for  2iil  Annual  PamrUlet. 

H.  B   ORIFFING, 
to  CortUndt  St.,  New  York  Citj. 


to 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 

CASSIMERES, 

COATISIUN,    WOKNTEKUN, 

VESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Chiviots  and  T^weeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striped  and  diagonal, for  Spring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  (Mothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Eatabliahtd  in  the  year  1840), 

Corner  ef  North  Queen  and  Orange-St8t, 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

Kxtra  finished  and  trimmed.  Ready-made  Clothing,  for 

MEIvT  AND  BOYS, 

and  clothing  cut  or  made  to  order  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A  fine    line    of     GENTS'   FURNISHING    GOODS,  and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
9-l-ljr  Practlritl  Tailors. 


H.  Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  G.  RHOADS. 


M.  HABERBUSH, 

MANaFACTUUEU  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

.S.VDI>L,F.N, 

COLLARS,   "WHIPS,  &c., 

AI,>iO    DKAl.ER    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  KOBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-1-lj  LANCASTER,  PA. 


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IMPROVE  YOUR    POULTRY, 

Dark  Brahma,  Brown  Leghorn,  PlymouthUftock,  S.  H. 
Hamburg  and  Houdau 

EGGS  jrOK  SALE. 

M7  fowls  are  of  the  best  and  eggs  warranted  fresh. 
Address  HAYDN  H.  TSHUDT, 

;^-t-2a3  Lititz,  I'a. 


FOB  DIfiTRICT  ATTORNKT. 

THOMi^S  J.  DA. VIS, 

6tti  WASD,  UHCA3TSS  8117, 
Sabject  to  Republican  Rnle*. 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO, 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

WhoIeHale  and  Retail  Dealeri  In 

EUMONDS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 

SILVERWARE,  SPEOTAOLES, 

Bronzes,  Cloch  and  Watckakers'  If  atemk 


Jobbers  in  Amei^ican  WATCii[ES. 

ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injportations  iij  Foreign  Goods. 


9-1 -iji 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


SUBSCKIBE  FOK  THE 

THE  LANCASTER  FARMER, 

The  cheapest   ami  hest   Agricultural   Paper 
iu  tlie  couutry. 

300  Canvassers  Wanted.  Send  for  Terms,  &o. 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       l^SO. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDIl^G  HARDWARE. 

GLASS, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TERBACiTTA.IEONaMLEABPIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


AgreutB  for  tbe 

'•  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mo'wer, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
Fairbank'e  Scales, 
Dupont'B  Pow^der, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &o.,  <Sfcc. 


We  h&TO  tbe  largest  stock  of  general  Hardmro  In  the 
State,  and  our  prices  are  as  low  aud  terms  as  liberal  ae  can 
be  found  eisewbere,  8-1-tf . 


FOR  OLSTBICT  ATTORNET. 

Subject  to  Republican  Rules. 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER. 


[  May,  1877. 


LADIES  ! 


WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


GUN  BAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 


HTORE, 

A  HEW  LOT  OF 

HAMEGEMBBOniEREDEBGIHGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  THB  VERY  LOWEST  PRICES.    Alio, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kid  GIOTes, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and   styles, 


CRAPE  VZCXZ.S. 

CEAPE  BOiN'NETS  &  HATS, 

RUCHING8, 
all  BtylM  and  widths,  and  everytlmig  elBO  in 

LADIES'    A.ND     CSILDREN'S     WSAB, 
that  iB  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 
Give  us  a  call  at 

So8. 142  k  144  NortkQneen-st, Lancaster.,  Fa. 

9-1-1 y 


ESTABLISHED  1817. 

MRS.  DANNER'S  MILLINERY, 

No.  30  WEST  KIKG  STREET, 

This  ia  the  oldest  and  most  reliable  establishment  in  the 
county.  All  ou»*  work  gives  entire  satisfaction.  Goods  of 
ALL  grades  kept  in  great  variety  and  in  prices  to  suit  all. 
The  latest  styles  always  on  hand.  New  goods  received  every 
day.  Do  not  forget  SO  West  King;  Street,  for  best 
work  and  best  goods,  at  lowest  price. 

German  spoken  by  attendants.  9-5-lt 

^CC  +«  <^'7^  »  yieA  to  Agfuts.    $10  Outjit  Free. 
WwO  to  ^  /  /  p.  O.  VICKERY,  Augusta,  Maine, 

8-8-1 y 


A   NEW  BOOK. 


How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 

A  HAND-BOOK  OF 

FRUIT  CULTURE, 

BEING  A  GUIDE  TO  THE   PROPER 

Cultivation  and  Maiuigement  of  Fruii  Trees,  and 

of  Grapes  and  Small  Fruits, 
with  condensed  depcriptioue  of  many  of  the  best  and  most 
popular  varieties,  vrith  upwards  of  one  hundred  engvaviugs. 
By  Thomab  Gbkog.    Price  $1 .00. 

A  book  wqich  shoxild  be  owned  by  every  pereon  who  owns 
a  rod  of  available  land,  and  it  will  st_'rve  to  secure  sUcceaH 
whpT-e  now  there  is  nothing  but  failure.  It  covers  the 
ground  fully,  withoiit  technicalities,  cud  ie  a  work  on 

Fruit  Culture  for  the  Million. 

It  tells  of  the  <;oBt,  how  to  plant,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
transplant,  location,  soil,  sslectiou,  diseases,  insects,  borers, 
blights,  cultivation,  how  to  prune,  manuring,  layering, 
budding,  grafting,  etc.,  including  full  description  and  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Fruit,  such  US  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricots,  Nectarines,  etc.  It  is 
a  most  complete 

Guide  to  Small-Fruit  Culture. 

with  many  illuetratious  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari- 
eties of  Grapes,  Strawberries,  Blackberries,  Raspberries, 
Gooseberries,  Cui  rants,  etc. 

The  work  shows  the  value  of  Fruit,  and  how  to  use  it. 
Bent  by  mail,  post-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Farmeb  and  How 
to  raise  Fruits,  will  be  furnished  at  $1,T6.    Address 

L,  RATHVON. 
22  South  Queen-st.,  liancaster.  Pa. 


SE 


EDS 


.^:i>TiD  :e=l:e]i_.i.!^:bXjS 


For  tbe  FI.UWER  and  TEOETABEE  «ARDE1V  and  the  FARM. 

Our  1877  Combined  priced  Catalogue  of  Seeds,  Plants  and  Blooded  Live  Stock  and  Fancy 

Ponltry  Free  to  all. 

The  Philadelphia  Practical  Farmer  of  Dec.  30,  notices  our  Catalogue  as  follows  :  "We  have  received  an  illustrated  man- 
ual and  de8cri]>tive  catalogue  of  imported  and  thoroughbred  live  stock.  Alderuey,  Ayrshire  aud  Short  horned  Cattle,  Ches- 
ter White,  Yorkshire,  Berkshire,  Essex  and  Poland  China  Hogs,  Cotswold  and  Southdown  Sheep,  land  and  water  Fowla, 
fancy  Pigeons  and  Dogs,  owned,  bred  and  for  sale  by  Benson  k  Burpee,  of  Philadelphia. 

This  is  emphatically  the  best  and  most  complete  live  stock  Catalogue  we  have  received.  It  contains  not  only  illustrations 
and  price  lists  of  stock,  but  givfs  in  addition  a  large  amount  of  valuable  practical  information  on  the  breeding  and  man- 
agement of  different  varieties  and  is  very  useful  as  a  reference  book.  Messrs,  Benson  d-  Burpee  have  now  on  hand  a  very 
fine  lot  of  breeding  stock,  and  we  feel  confident  that  customers  will  be  well  pleased  with  purchases  made  from  them. 

Price  20  cents. 


JUST  OUT  I    THE  POULTRY  YARD.     How  to  Fcbnish  akd  Manage  It.    Sy  W.  AtUc  Burpee.      A  new  and  prac- 
tical treatise,  at  a  popular  price,  for  every  farmer  and  amateur  in  poultry  breeding.    It  treats  of  Poultry  Houses  an  d 
fixtures,  nests,  yards,  &o.,  poultry  at  liberty  and  in  confinement,  the  best  breeds  for  various  purposes,  seleclion  of  stock, 
mating  for  breeding,  feeding  of  adult  fowls  and  young  chicks,  condiments  and  general  care  and  attentionjrequisite  to  suc- 
cess in  this  often  neglected  branch  of  rural  industry. 
It  also  contains  practical  hints  on  the  raisingand  management  of  Tarkeys.  Geese,  Ducks  and  Guineas. 

Beautifnl  Colored  Frontispiece  of  a  trio  of  Fo-wls.    Prioe  60  cts.,  post  free. 


EGGS  FOB  HATCHING  of  all  choice  Tarieties.    LAND  AND  WATER  FOWLS.    Also  very  fine  Chester  White, 
Yorkshire,  Berkshire,  Bssei  aad  Poland  China  Pigs;  Cotawold  and  Southdown  Sheep,  Aldemey  and  Ayrshire  Oattle 
and  calves  now  for  sale. 

A..i.B««  BENSON  &  BURPEE, 

Seed  'Waxehouse,  223  Chiircli  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 


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Prize    Medal   Awarded    by  tbe  Centennial 
CoinluiMKion  to 

IMPROVED  BUTTER  T0B3  AND  COOLERS. 

With  movable  Ice  Cham- 
bers, Patented  Jan.  12, 
1875.  Best  in  the  market. 
Are  made  of  white  cedar, 
bound  with  galvanized 
irou  or  brat^s  hoops. 
Within  the  tub  is  fitted  a 
tin  Cooler,  having  a 
movable  Chamber  for 
ice  at  each  end.  On  the 
tin  is  constructed  a  se- 
ries of  ledges,  on  which 
rest  the  shelves  for  sup- 
porting the  butter  (Print 
Butier);  are  used  without  shelves  for  Roll  Butter.  Can  be 
locked  lor  shipping.  Hinges,  Hasps,  and  Fixtures,  are  tinned 
to  render  tbe<n  rust  proof.  J.  G.  HOKUL.ER. 


fft'BOVED 


BU 


1  ■  1 

aUsB 

i 

:"^'  ,,^Hf 

1 

9-3-3ra 


Manufacturer,  No.  503  N,  Second-st.,  PhOa. 


MAMMOTH  CORN. 

Every  farmer  send  for  package  of  Mammoth  Corn,  which 
in  ordinary  ground  will  yield  125  bushel  per  acre,  besidea 
ripens  much  sooner.  It  ia  perfect  flour  corn,  grows  three 
ears  on  each  stalk.  Club  together  and  send  for  one  dozen 
packages.     It  is  put  up  in  packages  at  tbe  following  price : 

One  paokag'e 35  cts. 

Two  **  50 

Six  "  1.40 

One  doseu  packag:cB 2.30 

Two        '•  "  3.70 

Send  at  once  to 

CASEY'S  SEED  CO., 

9-3-3m  Harrison \i lie,  Meigs  co,,  Ohio. 

EZRA  F.  BOWMAIT, 

Practical  Watchmaker, 

(formerly  with   H.  Z.  Rhoads    &   Bro,)  has   opened  at    106 
EaKt  Ming:  Street,  a  new  and  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS, 

Amejican  Watches  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep- 
utation. Imported  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and 
Silver  Cases,  in  weights  to  suit  purchasers.  American  and 
imported  Clocki  in  over  fifty  different  styles,  which  are  of- 
fered at  reasonable  prices,  and  warranted  according  to  their 
quality.  Watches  and  Clocks  carefully  repaired  and  war- 
ranted. A  cordial  invitation  to  examine  stock  extended  to 
all.  9-4-6m 

ESTABLISHED  1882. 


SENER 


SONS, 


Manufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 


X^UIVEBlSFt, 


Also  Saeb, 


fimfz.es. 


I  will  mail  (Free;  the  receipt  for  preparing  a  simple  Veg- 
etable Balm  that  will  remove  Tan,  Freckles, *PIMPLES 
and  BLOTCHES,  leaving  the  skin  soft,  clear  and  beautiful; 
also  instructions  for  prodncing  a  luxuriant  growth  of  hair 
on  a  bald  head  or  smooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vandelf  & 
Co..  Box  Mil,  No.  5  Wooster  St.,  N.  Y.  ;[9-l-6m 


The  beet  Sawed  SHIIVGrES  in  the  country. 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &c, 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  enperior  to  any 
other.     Also  best  I'OAL  ccuBtautly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnut-stfl., 

9-1-Iy 


CI     1  cell      ^^      the  county 


( To  subBcrit>er5  iu 


SINGLE  COPIES  10  CEITTS 


To  RubscriberB 


J"""}  $1.25. 


Prof.  S.  S.  SATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER.  JUNE  15,  i877. 

The  Farmer's  Grimietone,        .        ...  94 

Hanging  an  Axe,          --....  fl4 

Ke-cookiDg  Meat,       ......  m 

LIVE  STOCK. 

Healthy  Cattle, 94 

Value  of  Salt,    -        .        .        .                 .        .  94 

Sweet  Potatoes  for  Hogs,     -----  iM 

Ao;ain6t  the  World,            -----  95 

Half-Brcd  Buflaloes  in  the  Dairy,        -        .        .  95 

Garget  in  Cowe,        - 95 

THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

To  Exterminate  Parasites,  -----  95 

.\  Word  of  Caution, 95 

Poultry-Keeping  by  Bove,    -----  95 

'•  Plymouth  Rock"'  Fowls,        -        .        -        -  95 

Gapes  and  Chickens, 96 

Raising  Geese,  -------  96 

The  First  Food  for  Chickens,       -        -        -        -  96 

Literary  and  Personal,      -----  96 

THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


LINNa;US  EATHVON,  Publisher. 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  MUMBER. 


This  Paratrraph,        ...... 

Monthly  Reminder — June,  ----- 

A  Wonderful  Book,  -.-..- 
The  Hopper,         -....-. 

Tlie  Seventeen  Year  Locusts,  -        .        -        - 

More  About  the  Locusts, 

Cress, 

A  New  Insecticide,       .--.-. 

A  Lesson  Worth  Learning, 

Horse  H.ay  Fork— Patent  Infringements,    - 

A  Cholera  Cure, 

How  to  Ease  a  Cough,         -  -        -        . 

Protection  of  Useful  Animals,         ... 

About  Frogs,        - 

Tobacco  Pests,  -        - 

Correction, 

Birds  vs.  Hoppers,    ------ 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

Strawberry  Culture, 

Qiitries  and  Answers,  ------ 

Nebraska  Notes — 'iidnty  .1.  Guylor, 

Essay  on  Wheat — Leni  S.  Heist,  -        -        -        - 

Toulouse  Geese — Ilbcxlrallon,  .        .        . 

Archaeological  Communications— No.  565,  - 

The  Best  Method   for  Destroying  Cut  Worms- 
.  H.  .V.  Muyer.        -        -  '     . 

Strawberries— if.  .V.  Engle,    -        -        -        - 

Fencing  and  Soiling—.!.  li.  K.,  .        .        .        . 

The  Garden  of  Pennsylvania,   -        -        .        - 

Prospects  for  Farmeis,         .        .        .        .       . 

At  the  Head  of  his  Class,         .        -        .        . 
OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society, 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,         ... 
UnfiniBhed  Business— Crop  Renorts— Referred  Ques- 
tions. 

The  Linnaean  Society,  ...... 

Coutributions  to  tUe  Society— Parers  Read— Miscel- 
laneuue  Bueiuess. 

State  Board  of  Argiculture,     .... 

Questions  and  Answers,       ..... 

AGRICULTURAL 

A  Good  Fertilizer, 

Tobacco  Culture, 

Working  Crops  Early,      ..... 

Effects  of  Climate  on  Soil, 

Hungarian  Millet,    -.      -     /. 

Compost  for  Corn,        ...... 

More  Pollen  Needed, 

Stacking  and  Feeding, 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Blackberry  Culture, 

Changing  the  Bearing  Year,        .... 

The  Egg  Plant,  ." 

Don't  timit  the  Turnips,       -        .        .        .        - 
Potatoes  to  be  a  Protitable  Crop  for  1877, 
Hot-Beds,     .        .        ...        .        . 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 
Household  Recipes,           .        -        -        . 
Dried  Potatoes,    ...--. 
Enjovment  of  Work,         -        .        -        . 
About  Milk, 


90 
90 

01 

92 
92 

92 
92 
92 
9;; 
9:^ 
9.3 
93 
93 

93 
93 
93 
93 
93 
93 


94 
94 
94 
94 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 

PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  promiuen!  feature,  with  special  reference  to  the 
■wants  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit-Grower. 

Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
.Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society. 

Edited  Ij  Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON. 


TEEMS: 

To  subscribers  residing  within  the  county — 

One  Copy,  one  year, $1.00 

Six  Copies,  one  year,      -            -          -          -          .          .  c,oo 

Ten  Copies,  one  ye.-*!.    ---....  y'cQ 

To  subscrilwrs  outside  of  I^ncasler  county,  including 
ixistage  pre-paid  by  the  publishers: 

One  Copy,  one  year,    -          .....  $1.2^ 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       ...          .          .        .  -'p^ 

All  Bubecriptions  will  commence  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otherwise  ordered. 

.\U  commuDications  intended  for  publication  should  be 
addressed  to  the  Editor,  and,  to  secure  insertion,  should  be 
in  his  hands  by  the  first  of  the  month  of  publication. 

.^11  bueluees  letters,  containing  subscrii'tious  and  adver- 
tisements, should  be  addressed  to  the  publisher. 


LINN^US  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DEALKIt    IN 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN     ^ 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  STABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  .Agent  for  the  Aruodel  Tintetl 

SPECTACLES. 

Kej^airiug  t^trictly  attended.to, 

North  Queen-st.  acd  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

9-t-ly 


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ELIZABETH  STOCK  FARMS. 

RATES  or  ADVERTISIXO  — Ten    Cents    ■ 
line  for  encta  Insertion.     Twelve  lines  to  the  isoh 


Registered  Pure-Bred  and  High  Grade 

Jersey  Bull^  Cows  and  Calves, 

ConHlantlj  on  Hand  and 
I'«>r  Sale. 

BERKSHIRES  BRED  WITH  CARE. 
COLIN  CAMERON, 

*-*-ly]  Brlekerrllle,  Lancaster  CO.,  Pa. 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


A  CpVASSER  WpTED 


IN 


EVERY  TOWNSHIP  IN  THE  COUNTY 


TO  TAKE 


SUBSCRIBERS 


FOR  THE 


FARMER. 


Rates  of  Advertising:  in  tlio  Farmer. 


Farmers'    Sons    and    other 

Young  Men  during  their 

leisure  hours 

CAN   MAKE 

GOOD  WAGES, 


We  want  a  thorough  canvass  of  every 

district,  and  will  pay  canvassers 

Hberally. 

Address, 

L.  KATHVON,  Putlislier, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


1   nio I   $1.0(1  $  2.001$  3.0il;$  4,00 


3  mo.. 

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4  mo 

6  mo.... 

5  nio 

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00 
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is.ool 

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48.00 
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S^'Sl^ecial  aud  bu.siueris  iinticee  15  eeuts  per  line 

GOOD  BOOKS 

FOR  THE 

Farm,  Garden,  and  Household. 

The  foUowiuj^  is  :i  list  of  ValuLibltj  Bu*>ks.  whic-ti  will  be 
supiilied  by  the  Editor  of  the  Lakcastek  Fakmeu,  No. 
101  North  Queen  St.  Auy  cue  or  more  of  these  books  will 
be  3eut  2'Oft  paid  to  auy  of  o\ir  readers  ou  receipt  of  the 
regular  price  whinh  is  uamed  agaiust  aach  book. 

Alleu's  (R.  L.  St  L.  F,]  New  American  Farm  Book $2  50 

Allen's  (L.  F.)  American  Cuttle." 2  50 

Atwood'a  Country  aud  Suburban  Houses 150 

Bommer's  method  of  Making   Manures 25 

Breck's  New  Book  of  !•  lowers 1  75 

Brill's  Fai-m-Gardeuing  and  Heed-Growing 100 

Dadd's  Modern  Horse  Doftor.  J2nio I  50 

Dadd's  American  Cattle  Doctor,  12  nio 1  50 

Flax  Culture,  (Seven  Prize  Ensaygby  practical  growers,)     30 

Fuller's  Grape  Culturist 150 

Fullei'*8  Small  Fruit  Culturist 1  oh 

Fulton's  Peach  Culture 1  50 

Gregory  on  Squashes paper..       30 

Harris  on  the  Pig 1  50 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Pleasure 150 

Heuderson'a  Gardening  for  Profit 1  50 

Henderso  n's  Practical  Floriculture 1  50 

Herbert's  Hints  to  Horse-Keepers ,  175 

Hop  Culture.     By  nine  experieuced  cultivators 30 

Hxmteraud  Trapper 100 

Onions— How  to  Raise  them  Profitably 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acraa.    Pa.,  30c.;  Cio.,  60c.,  Ex.  clo.  1  00 

Parsons  on  the  Ro.se 1  50 

Quinby's  Mysteries  ol  Bee-Keeping 1  50 

Quincy  (Hon.  Josiah)  on  Soiling  Cattle 1  25 

Quitiu's  Money  in  the  Garden 1  50 

Quinn's  Pear  Culture  for  Profit, 1  <*0 

Riley's  Potato  Pests Paper  50  cts.;    cloth.,      75 

Roe's  Play  and  Profit  in  my  Garden 1  50 

Stewart's  Irrigatou  for  the  Farm,  Garden ^nd  Orchard  I  50 

Stewart's  Stable  Book 1  50 

Stewart's  Shepherd's  Manual 150 

Stoddard's  Ann  Egg  Farm  . , paper,  50  cts.;  cloth      75 

Thomas's  Farm  Implements  and  Machinery 150 

Tim  Bunker  Papers,  or,  Yankee  Farming 150 

Tobacco  Culture.  By  fourteen  experienced  cultivators.     25 

Waring's  Draining  for  Profit  and  Health 1  50 

Waring's  Elements  of  Agriculture 1  OO 

White's  Cranberry  Ciilture 1  25 

Wright's  Practical  Poultry-Keeper* 2  00 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTURF.R     OP 

FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS 

FOR 

GESTTLEMESr. 


FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

FOR 

I.ADIES. 


No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

DUNBAR'S   CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 

9-l-ly _^ 

TO  CONSUMPTIVES. 

The  advertiser  having  been  permanently  cured  of  that 
dread  disease,  Cousumptiom,  by  a  simple  remedv,  is  anxious 
to  make  known  to  his  fellow  suflFerere  the  means  of  cure. 
To  all  who  desire  it.  he  will  send  a  copy  of  the  prescription 
used,  (free  of  charge),  with  the  directions  for  preparing  aud 
using  the  same,  which  they  will  find  a  sure  Cube  for  Con- 
sumption, Asthma,  Bronchitis,  &c. 

Parties  wishing  the  prescription  will  please  address, 

Rev.  E.  A,  WILSON,  194  Penu  St..  Williamsburg.  N.  Y. 
9-l-f>m] 

ERRORS  OF  YOUTH. 

A  GENTLEMAN  who  sutiered  lor  years  from  Nervous 
Debility,  Premature  Decay,  and  all  the  effects  of  youth- 
ful indiscretion  will,  for  the  sake  of  eufl'ering  humanity, 
seud  free  to  all  who  need  it,  the  receipt  and  direction  for 
making  the  simple  remedy  by  which  he  was  cured.  Sufi'er- 
ers  wishing  to  profit  by  the  advertiser's  experience  can  do 
so  by  addressing  in  perfect  confidence, 
9-l-6m]  JOHN  B.  OGDEN,  42  Cedar  St.,  New  Vork. 


J.  STAUFFER, 


LANCASTER,  i-ENN'A. 
23§  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


All  matters  appertaining  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CAN-I- 
DIAN  PATENTS,  TRADE  MARKS,  aud  COPYRIGHTS, 
promptly  attended  to.  His  experience,  success  aufl  faithful 
atention  to  the  interests  of  those  who  engage  his  services 
are  fully  acknowledged  aud  appreciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  made  for  htm  by  a  rehable  As 
Bistant  at  Washington,  without  extra  charge  for  drawing 
or  description.  [0-1-tf 


Great  Stock- Breeder's  Monthly. 

—    ^THE  NATIONAL 

LIVE-STOCIt, 


JOURNAL, 

Published  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS 


THIS  GREAT  MONTHLY  is  universally  acknowl- 
ledged  to  be  wi-hout  a  rival  in  its  depjirtment  of 
Journaiirira.  Each  number  coutaiua  4>^  large  pages, 
three  columns  to  the  page,  with  a  handsome  cover, 
aud  is  Beautifully  Illustrated  with  elc;^ant  double- 
plate  enguavingH.  It  is  the  only  i-aper  in  the  world 
devoted  exclusively  to  live-stock  and  the  dairy.  It 
discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  merits  of  the 
various  breeds,  the  most  ap}iroved  methods  of  feed- 
ing aud  handling,  and  everything  pertaining  to  the 
successful  nsanagement  of  live  stock  on  the  farm. 
During  the  year  1877,  Prof.  James  Law,  the  eminent 
veterinary  of  C-'truell  University,  will  contribute  a 
series  of  articles  upou  the  laws  of  health  and  disease 
as  api'lied  to  Domestic  Animals,  that  cannot  fail  to 
be  of  great  value  to  Farmers  aud  Stock  Breeders 
every  where.  It  contains  separate  Departments, 
devoted  to  HORSES.  CATTLE.  SHEEP.SWINE  aud 
the  DAIRY,  snd  its  corps  of  editors  are  recognized 
throughout  the  eutire  country  as  the  Mo.st  Thob- 
ouGH.  Able  and  Practical  writers  in  the  separate 
departments,  that  can  be  found  in  America.  No  ex- 
pense is  spared  on  the  i)art  of  its  publishers,  to 
make  it  a  hi'jh-toned,  reliable,  practical  aud  int^truc- 
tive  Journal,  just  such  as  every  intelligent  farmer 
and  stock  breeder  will  find  worth  leu  times  its  coat 
each  year, 

TERMS. — Siflgle  copies,  one  year,  postage  paid, 
1^2.15  :  Clubs  of  five,  postage  paid,  S1'90:  Clubs 
of  ten,  with  an  extra  copy  free  to  jierson  making  up 
club,  postage  pre-paid,  $11. 65.  HandHowehj  lifun- 
trated  pouters  mailed  to  all  ivho  will  ijet  up  clubs.  Ad- 
dress letters,  registering  those  containing  money, 
unless  in  shape  of  Po.stal  Order  or  Draft,  to 

STOCK  JOURNAL  COMPANY.  Publishers. 
Lakeside   Building,  CHICAGO,  ILLS. 
E^".Sbnd  20  Cents  for  Specimen  Copy.      [9-;J-3m 


FITS  AUD  EPILEPSY, 
FALLING  SICKNESS 

PerBiianeiidy  <'iire4l— no  bit  in  bug- — by  one 
montSi'M  usMtfe  ol'  »r.  Cioulard's  Celebrated 
Infallilbe  Fil  l*ow<lers.  To  convince  suflerers  that 
these  powders  will  do  all  we  claim  for  them,  we  will  send 
them  by  mail,  poNt  paid,  a  free  Trial  box.  As  Dr. 
Goulard  is  the  only  physician  that  has  ever  made  this  dis- 
ease a  special  study,  aud  iis  to  our  knowledge  thousauda 
have  been  pariiiaiieiitly  t'tired  by  the  use  of  these 
Powders,  Tie  will  ^iiai-antee  a.  permanent 
cure  in  every  case,  or  refnnd  yon  all  money  ex- 
pende<l.  All  sufferers  should  give  these  Powders  an 
■sarly  trial,  aud  be  couviuced  of  their  curative  powers. 

Price  for  large  box  $3,U0,  or  4  boxes  for  Slu.Oi),  aeut  by 
mail  to  any  part  of  United  States  or  Canada  on  receipt  of 
price,  or  bv  express,  C.  O.  D.    Address, 

ASH  Sc  ROBBINS,  • 

9-5-ly  ;~.r>n  Fulton  Street,  Bkooklyn.  N    Y. 

CONSUMPTION 

All  sufferers  from  this  disease  that  are  anxious  to  be 
cured  should  try  Dr.  Kissner's  Celebrated  Con- 
sumptive Powders.  These  Powders  are  the  only 
preparation  kuown  that  will  cure  Consainption  and  all 
diseases  of  the  Throat  aiKl  f.iUn^.« — indeed,  so  strong 
is  our  faith  in  them,  and  also  to  convince  you  that  they  are 
no  humbug,  we  will  forward  to  every  sufferer,  by  mail,  poat 
paid,  a  free  Trial  Box. 

We  don't  want  your  money  until  you  are  perfectly  satis- 
fied of  their  curative  powers.  If  your  life  is  worth  sa\-iug, 
don't  delay  in  giving  these  Powders  a  trial,  as  they  will 
surely  cure  you. 

Price,  for  large  box,  ?3,00,  sent  to  auy  part  of  the  United 
States  or  Canada  by  mail  on  receipt  of  price. 


Address, 


ASH  &  ROBBINS. 

36(1  Fullou  Street,  Bronklyn.  N.  Y. 


TH[  LMMSTER  BUTTER  CARRIER 


9-5-1 y 


^Vill  enable  you  to 
market  your  but- 
ter in  the  best  pos- 
8  i  b  le  condition. 
Competent  judges 
who  have  handled 
butter  shipped  in 
it  to  the  Philadel- 
phia market,  pro- 
nounce it  the  beat 
arrangement  for 
carrying  print  but- 
ter they  ever  saw. 
Each  print  or  pat 
is  carried  iu  a  sep- 
arate cup  that  can- 
not be  broken,  up- 
set, nor  get  out  of 
place. 

All  Bizes  and 
forms  of  cups  aud 
box  will  be  made. 

Circulars  with 
full  description 
and  price  liat  free. 

L.  RESH, 

149  North  Queeu-at.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


■A 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  JUNE,  1877. 


Vol.  IZ.  No.  6. 


THIS  PARAGRAPH!!! 
Iiiiinecliati'ly  after  you  have  nail  tliis  iiara- 
gi'upli,  \i\v:\n('  look  tor  the  httle  coloivil 
laliel  iiasteil  soiiicwhei-e  on  this  paiier,  with 
your  own  uanu;  pnnled  on  it  ;  .ami,  if  you 
find  "  1.S77," or  simply  "77  "on  it,  tlicndcar, 
considerate  and  appreciative  reader,  it  iiuli- 
cates  that  your  suhscription  is  only  paid  up 
to  the  finst  of  January,  1S77,  and  thai,  con- 
sequently, you  owe  u.s  for  the  present  year  ; 
and  which  wt-  wnv  need  so  budli/ — uxmtd  receive 
so  (jladUj,  and  the  tmmt  of  tckicli  affects  us  so 
sadly.  But  if,  on  the  contrary,  you  find 
"1878,"  or  simply  "7S,"  printed  on  it,  you 
may  feel  assured  that  yovn-  suliscription  is 
paid  up  to  January,  1S7S,  and  you  will  nut 
feel  at  all  otlbnded  at  our  importunity,  but 
will  experience  a  soothing  traiupiillity  located 
under  the  left  breast  facing  of  your  vest,  such 
as  we  ardently  desire  all  may  realize  in  their 
pecuniary  relations  to  Tiik  b'AUMiii;.  Our 
subsistence — yea,  our  very  existence — is  inti- 
mately bound  ui)  with  such  stubborn  facts  as 
printer's  ink,  paper,  compositor's  work,  post- 
age and  other  unavoidable  incidentals,  besides 
our  own  arduous  an<l  self-denying  labor,  and 
these  require  «(.«/(.  Bear  it  in  mind,  dear 
patrons,  there  is  avast  differeiicRin  the  mean- 
ings of  desire  and  require.  "Wc  desire  the 
prompt  payment  of  the  amounts  due  us,  but 
our  creditors  reiyMirc  the  amounts  due  tlicm  ; 
and  how  shall  we  be  able  to  realize  and  satisl'y 
these  meanings,  excei)t  by  your  generous  aid 
if  it  so  be  that  you  are  under  the  ban  of  "77y" 
If,  however,  any  of  our  subscribers  should 
lind  the  lable  marked  "1S77"  or  "77"  on 
their  papers,  and  at  the  same  time  feel  confi- 
dent that  they  have  paid  up  to  1S78  to  some 
one  of  our  canvassers,  if  they  iuforni  us  to 
whom  they  have  paid,  the  correction  can 
easily  be  made,  and  as  there  may  po.ssibly 
have  been  errors  made  iu  this  respect,  we 
hope  no  offense  will  be  taken.  Although  we 
mean  that  all  shoidd  pay,  yet  wo  do  not  mean 
that  any  one  should  jiay  twice  for  the  same 
year.  Owing  to  a  want  of  certainty  as  to  the 
continuance  of  Tuk  FAiiiiEit  iu  the  early 
part  of  the  pre.sent  year,  there  may  have  been 
some  errors  made  in  the  retmiis  of  our  can- 
vassing friends.-    I'lT.ijsi IKK. 


MONTHLY  REMINDER— JUNE. 

Early  crops,  such  as  lettuce,  radi.she.s,  s])in- 
aeh,  iV:e.,  when  gathered,  may  be  succeeded 
by  late  lieets  and  carrots.  Sow  them,  and 
also  bush  beans,  cucumbers,  endive,  sweet 
corn,  pnuqikin,  s(iuash  andokra.  Transplant 
cablwge  and  celery  for  sununer  use ;  also, 
leeks  and  *car<lnons  ;  and  plant  common  and 
sweet  potatoes.  AVater  canlillowers  as  they 
begin  to  head.  Iloe  and  thin  out  all  standing 
crops,  and  keep  an  eye  on  caterpillars,  cut^ 
worms,  and  ('(doradi")  potato  beetles,  for  a 
crop  might  almost  as  well  go  by  dcfaidt  as  to 
be  left  a  sacrifice  to  these  enemies  of  tlic  lield 
and  garden. 

•This  i.lant  Ix-louga  to  lli«  siiine  Renue  as  the  "  artii-Uoke  " 
(ry/wrn,)  lUe  Rl.'ins  of  the  leiives,  whicU  are  thitk  ami  cimi., 
bfing  used  wbsu  blaiu^heil  an  aaparaguHor  celerv,  for  noups 
•leivB,  or  aa  a  salad.  It  ih  iu  aoasoii  in  autllliMi  .Mid  i^arly 
*'.''.''■■.  *■""'  '"»•'*'".  liowovi-i-,  will  jilrase  uot  oufouud  Ibo 
articUoke  abovi-  mentioue.l  with  the  "  Joruaaleiu  arlioliokf  " 
which  belongs  to  the  geuus  Ueliuiilhun.  ' 


A   WONDKRFUL    BOOK. 

(Jeo.  P.  Howell  &  C'o.'s  American  Newn- 
p((pcr  Dirccliirii^  contiiining  accurate  lists  of 
all  th(^  newspapers  and  periodicals  pul>lishc(l 
in  the  I'liilcd  Slates,  Tcrritoiii's,  tin;  Domi- 
nion of  ( 'aiiada  and  Newfoundland,  together 
with  a  description  of  the  towns  an<l  cities  in 
which  they  artt  publishetl  ;  a  Uoyal  octavo  of 
lol:!  p;iges,  for  1S77:  i.ssued  by  the  above- 
named  company,  and  edittid  by  t)scar  (J. 
jMoses. 

Perhaps  some  of  our  leaders  on  their  visits 
to  the  late  Centennial  Kxposition,  at  Pair- 
mount  Park,  may  have  wautlered  into  the 
department  where  there  were  placed  on  ex- 
hibition spe.ciinensof  i)Vi_:v  i  iijhtlkousand  news- 
papers and  periodicals  iiublished  on  the  conti- 
nent of  North  America.  As  thert^  were  .so 
many  attractions  there,  it  is  more  than  likt^ly 
that  few  availed  tlu'inselVesof  a  sight  of  these 
publications.  l!e  that  as  it  may,  the  superb 
volume  under  consideration  contains  lists  and 
notices  of  them  all,  and  many  more,  including 
regular  advertisements  of  most  of  them, 
printed  iu  fair  type  and  on  line  ('alendereil 
paper,  and  substantially  bound.  To  those 
who  desire  to  advertise  abroad,  and  wish  to 
become  acquainted  with  the  facilities  to  elfect 
that  end,  this  vohnne  is  an  invaluable  aid  ; 
and,  as  the  publishers  are  among  the  most 
extensive  and  reliable  advertisi)i(j  wjfncies  in 
the  country,  they  are  able  to  negotiate  ad- 
vertisements in  any  of  the  jiapers  noticed  in 
their  liook,  at  as  low  rates  as  can  be  obtained 
from  the  pulilishers  themselves,  and  with 
more  luompt  attention.  This  is  the  ilth 
annual  issue  of  this  Directory,  and  has  nearly 
reachi'd  perfection.  It  is  progressive,  and 
will  ultimately  attain  that  end. 


THE  HOPPER. 

"  It  will  be  interesting  to  our  readers  to 
learn  the  following  fads  iu  regard  to  the  grass- 
hoppers, and  the  prospects  for  crops  in  what  has 
been  known  as  the  grasshopper  country,  which 
The  Jlau'keije  has  gathered  from  parties  who 
have  made  personal  observations  in  Nebraska 
and  Ivansas. 

"Professors  Riley  and  Thomas,  of  the  ento- 
mological commi.ssion,  for  the  in(iuiry  into 
this  question,  have  visited  Kansas  anil  Ne- 
braska, and  have  just  issued  tluur  reiiort, 
showing  that  we  are  at  the  end  of  this  trouble. 
The  egg  of  this  insect  was  laid  in  the  fall  of 
lS7i;,  in  what  may  be  called  the  ISlissouri 
region,  consisting  of  western  Iowa,  north- 
western Alissouri,  portions  of  Kansas,  Ne- 
braska, Minnesota  and  Dakota. 

"  This  egg  comes  to  perfection  only  in  the 
sandy,  arid  regions  of  the  far  west.  The  rich, 
moist  soil  of  the  Missom-i  valley,  and  the 
snows  and  rains,  wrought  havoc  amongst  the 
eggs  during  the  winter  and  spring,  and  tbt^ 
young  insects  which  hatched  out  during  Aiiril 
have  been  rapidly  destroyed  by  the  elements, 
by  liarasitesand  by  birds,  and  thesi;  inlluences, 
with  the  work  of  the  farmers  themselves,  have 
at  this  (late  brought  to  destruction  nine-tenths 
of  the  young  "hoppers. 

"  The  outlook  in  southern  Nebraska  may  be 
stated  thus  :  West  of  a  line  drawn  from  Crete, 
the  eggs  are  all  batcheil  and  nearly  all  the 
yomig  'bopiiers  annibilaled.  Between  Crete 
and  the  Missouri  river  they  are  all  hatched 
out  and  annihilated,  and  as"  fast  as  they  ap- 
pear they  are  being  destroyed  by  the  various 
inlluences  brought  to  bear  Upon  them. 

"Th(!  prospect  for  crops  is  as  good  as  it  pos- 
sibly can  be,  and  the  people  are  jubilant  over 
the  outlook  for  good  crops,  good  prices,  and 
the  fact  that  the  grasshoi>per  scare  is  now 
practically  at  an  end.  The  condition  of  south- 
ern Nebraska  was  never  better;  there  is  a 
larger  area  of  ground  planted  than  ever  before. 


The  increase  in  stock  has  lieeu  enormous,  and 
business  generally  is  lirisk. 

"The  (Jovernor  of  the  State  has  just  pub- 
lished the  ri^sult  of  an  examination  into  the 
surplus  iiroiluce  shipped  out  of  southern  Ne- 
braska during  the  '  grassbop]ier  year,'  lS7fi. 
It  is  nuide  iq)  from  the  freiglit  department  re- 
turns of  llu^  four  railroads,  and  shows  that 
during  the  'grasshopper  year,'  l.S7(i,  this  lit- 
tle region  of  the  south  I'latte  country  uot 
only  raised  enough  for  lioiiie  consumption,  Init 
actually  shipped  out  over  4.')O,U0O,Ot)0  pounds 
of  wheat,  oats,  rye,  barley.  Corn,  cattle, 
sheep,  hogs,  etc.,-  a  quantity  of  bread  anil 
meat  sulUciently  large  to  feed  over  half  .a  mil- 
lion of  peoiile  for  a  whole  year. 

"  These  are  .sterling  fads  which  spe.ak  for 
themselves,  and  refute  entirely  the  gross  ex- 
aggerated statements  so  frecify  circulated  in 
regard  to  southern  Ncliraska. " 

The  above  article,  on  the  prospective  status 
of  the  "  llopiicr,"  during  the  i)resent  season, 
we  extract  from  the  columns  of  a  late  num- 
l)er  of  the  Diiibj  BiiriiiKjton  (foWa)  Ilaukene, 
as  a  matter  of  interest  to  tho.se  who  live  iu  the 
"inl'ested  regions"— tho.se  who  have  friends 
living  there — or  those  who  have  in  contem- 
plation the  removal  there  themselves,  but  who 
liave  hesitated,  on  account  of  the  depreda- 
tions of  an  insect  that  science  has  failed  to 
dignify  by  a  respectable  cognomen;  but  which, 
by  common  consent  and  common  contenq)t 
has  won  for  itself  the  signilicant  name  of 
"llascal  (irasshopper,"  now  pretty  generally 
designated  by  the  slang  abbreviation  of  "  Hop- 
per."  We  are  in  entire  sympathy  with  the 
rejoicing  of  the  people  over  the  happy  pros- 
pect, Ibr  no  two  men  in  the  Union  are  more 
capable  of  uttering  a  prophecy  on  this  subject, 
than  those  who  have  been  referred  to  in  the 
article  quoted  ;  and,  moreover,  it  may  stimu- 
late that  ronjidem-e  which  has  been  so  long 
abs(>nt  from  our  inilustrial  and  linancial  insti- 
tutions, and  without  which  there  cannot  be  a 
return  of  permanent  prosperity.  Whatever 
may  have  been  our  api)rehen.sions,  under  a 
combination  of  favorable  circumstances,  in 
reference  to  the  pestilential  increase  of  our 
local  grasshoppers,  for  some  years,  we  h.ave 
entertained  no  fears  aliout  the  Kocky  Moun- 
tain species  visiting  I'eunsylvania.  Like  boys, 
iu  a  game  of  ball,  who  venture  loo  far  from 
"base,"  they  would  lie  apt  to  be  overtaken  by 
climatic  disaster,  even  if  they  should  happen 
to  reach  our  State  in  time  to  deposit  their  eggs 
here. 

Nor  do  we  think  the  people  of  the  West  have 
had  as  miU'h  to  fear  from  the  linxjils  that  bred 
there,  as  from  those  hungry  hordes  that  come 
sweeping  down  from  British  America,  Mon- 
tana and  Dakota;  and,  if  the  same  contin- 
gencies which  inlliicnced  their  migrations  on 
l)revions  occasions  should  exist  there  the  pre.s- 
ent season,  this  proclamation  of  immunity 
Iroin  grasshoppers  this  year  may  liave  been 
premature. 

*  THE  SEVENTEEN  YEAR  LOCUSTS. 

"  Notices  to  the  elTeet  that  the  .seventeen 
year  locust  has  made  its  aiipearance  in  dilfer- 
ent  sections  of  the  country,  have  recently 
been  i)ul)lished,an(l  have  raised  the  inquiry  as 
to  what  is  the  character  of  the  pest  which 
travels  under  that  name.  AVe  sui)pose  the 
most  of  oiu'  readers  who  have  heard  the 
seventeen  year  locust  spoken  of  have  had  the 
idea  that  the  name  was  an  arbitrary  one,  and 
that  a  locust  which  makes  its  re-appearance 
at  regular  intervals  of  .seventeen  years  each 
was  a  jiure  liction,  but  there  is  positive  proof 
that  such  an  insect  does  exist  and  that  its 
character  was  so  well  understood  by  entomolo- 
gists several  years  ago  as  to  enable  them  to 
predict  its  appearance  this  year  with  the  ut- 
most coulideuce.     Iu  his   lirst   rei)ort,   Prof. 


82 


THEILANCASTERIFARMER 


[June, 


Eiley,  State  Entomologist  of  Missouri,  wrote 
as  follows  : 

"  '  In  the  year  1877,  and  at  intervals  of 
seventeen  years  thereafter,  they  will,  in  all 
probability,  appear  in  the  vicinity  of  Schuy- 
lerville  and  Fort  Miller,  in  New  York.  From 
thence  along  both  sides  of  tlie  Hudson  to  its 
mouth,  where  they  extend  at  least  to  New 
Haven,  in  Connecticut,  and  west  across  the 
north  pait  of  New  Jersey  and  into  Pennsyl- 
vania. Also,  in  Dearborn  county,  Ind. ;  Kal- 
amazoo, Mich.;  iu  Pennsylvania,  North 
Carolina,  Virgiaia  and  Maryland. ' 

"'This  brood  is  recorded  by  Prof  Potter 
as  having  occurred  at  Nortli  Haven,  Conn., 
iu  1724,  1741,  1758,  1792, 1808  and  1820.  It 
was  also  recorded  by  the  same  writer  us  hav- 
ing occurred  in  1826  in  Middlesex  county,  N. 
J.,  and  by  Dr.  Fitch  as  having  occurred  in 
1843  tliroughout  the  whole  country  mentioned 
above.  In  1800,  agaui,  it  was  siioken  of  iu 
the  old  series  of  the  Pmirie  Farmer  (Vol.  22, 
p.  110),  as  havuig  occurred  that  year  in  New 
Jersey,  and  Dr.  Smith  records  it  throughout 
tlie  whole  State  in  1775,  1792,  1800,  1820  and 
1843.  Mr.  James  Angus,  of  West  Farms, 
Westchester  countj',  N.  Y.,  has  himself  wit- 
nessed its  recurrence  in  the  years  1843  and 
I860.' 

"  'In  Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Rathvon,  found  a 
few  individuals  in  1800,  and  Dr.  Smith  says 
it  extends  from  the  Susquehanna  to  tlie  Dela- 
ware river,  bounded  by  Peter's  momitain  on 
the  south.  In  Virginia  it  occurred  from  the 
soutli  part  of  Loudon  county  to  the  Roanoke 
river,  and  from  the  Blue  Ridge  to  the  Potomac 
in  1820,  1843  and  1860.  In  Maryland  from 
Ami  Arundel  county  to  the  north  part  of  St. 
Mary's  and  from  the  Potomac  to  Chesapeake 
Bay,  in  1809,  1820,  1843  and  1800.  Iu  Rock- 
ingham, Stokes,  Guilford,  Rowan,  Surry  and 
adjacent  counties.  North  Carolina,  in  1792, 
1809,  1820  and  1843.  In  Dearborn  county, 
Ind.,  in  1843  and  iu  1800,  and  iu  Kalamazoo, 
Mich. ,  during  the  same  years. ' 

'  'Tliis  year  the  locusts  have  put  iu  an  appear- 
ance in  the  exact  localities  predicted  by  Prof 
Riley,  and  will  doubtless  spread  into  others 
before  the  season  is  over.  We  know  very 
little  about  this  chap,  who,  it  seems,  comes  of 
age  but  once  iu  seventeen  years,  as  he  has 
never  troubled  New  England  much,  but  we 
take  it  that  he  does  not  stop  loug  enough  to 
prove  very  destructive.  He  seems  to  be  a  rare 
and  curious  bird,  but  our  farmers  will  be 
willing  to  Inive  him  coutmue  to  pass  us  by 
while  they  rely  on  Prof  Eiley  aud  their  news- 
papers for  iirformatiou  concerning  him." 

The  above,  from  the  columns  of  the  Mirror 
and  Farmer,  New  Hampshire,  was  sent  to  us 
"marked,"  and  we  feel  an  interest  in  it,  as 
well  as  others,  althougli  perhaps,  on  a  differ- 
ent ground  ;  for,  althougli  we  have  a  distinct 
recollectiou  of  having  witnessed  four  appear- 
ances of  the  above-named  insect,  in  Lancaster 
county,  yet  tlie  consequences  which  followed 
their  visits,  would  hardly  entitle  them  to  the 
name  of  "pests" — indeed  it  is  on  record  tliat 
in  some  instances  they  have  done  .some  service 
to  trees  that  were  sadly  in  need  of  pruning. 
As  this  l)rood  of  1877  (on  account  of  only 
recent  and  imperfect  observation,  and  the 
long  intervals  between  their  aiipearings)  is  not 
.so  well  defined  in  its  geographical  limits,  and 
its  general  history,  as  the  one  we  witnessed  iu 
1817,  1834,  1851  aud  1808,  we  hope  our  pa- 
trons and  our  exchanges,  in  the  localities 
where  it  appears,  will  make  a  careful  record 
of  its  presence  and  its  doings.  Tliis  insect, 
under  the  influence  of  numbers,  posse.s.ses  the 
possibilities  of  being  exceedingly  injuiious  to 
the  branches  (and  even  the  small  trunks)  of 
young  fruit  trees,  but  large  trees  are  usually 
never  very  seriously  affected  by  tliem,  or  only 
temporarily  so.  But  between  their  appear- 
ances, a  new  generation  of  human  beings 
spring  up  and  occupy  the  places  of  the  past 
one,  and  tlierefore  at  every  recurrence  the 
same  old  stories  are  revamped,  aud  there  is 
much  misapprehension  in  reference  to  them 
that  is  altogether  unfounded  and  unnecessary. 


Send  iu  your  subscriptions. 


MORE  ABOUT  THE  LOCUSTS. 

"Richmond  county,  N.  Y.,  swarms  with 
locusts,  the  trees  and  shrubbery  are  covered 
with  them,  and  the  monotonous  singing  of 
the  insects  is  lieard  all  day  long.  Some  of  the 
locusts  are  two  inches  in  length  and  have 
large  ijink  eyes.  The  letter  V  is  on  their 
backs." 

Of  course,  our  readers  will  understand  that 
the  "  letter  V"  alluded  to  in  the  extract 
above,  means  Var!  What  else  could  it  meanV 
It  cannot  possibly  mean  Wictory,  for  Wictory 
begins  with  a  W. 

"  Such  portents  met  tlie  eye 
When  CaeBar  fell, 
And  cautioned  him  in  vain  ; 
Aud  who  can  tell,  whether 
These  artful  notices  of  fate, 
Are  meant  for  kings  or  ministers  of  state." 

AVe  cannot  but  admire  tlie  penetration  and 
tlie  commendable  industry  of  the  paragrapliic 
scribbler,  who  not  only  records  a/aci  in  natural 
history,  but  who  also  so  succinctly  indicates 
the  siynijicance  of  that  fact. 

Time  was  when  locusts  were  content  to 
display  a  W  near  tlie  ends  of  their  forewings, 
but  now,  forsooth,  (as  if  there  was  not  enougli 
of  terror  in  a  IF, )  they  must  defiantly  flaunt 
a  ''letter  V  on  their  backs."  W^e  wonder  if 
ever  a  seventeen-year  locust  was  born,  upon 
whose  back  and  wings  a  fertile  imagination 
could  not  decipher  a  portentous  W  or  V  .' 
We  wonder  also,  wlietlier  ever  a  period  will 
arrive  in  tlie  history  of  this  insect,  when  an 
ominous  allusion  will  not  be  made  to  these 
cabalistic  letters. 


CRESS. 

We  have  been  frequently  surprised  to  find 
persons  whom  we  should  have  supposed,  iu 
their  rural  experience,  would  be  perfectly 
familiar  with  this  plant,  aud  yet,  who  have 
confessed  that  tliey  know  notliiug  at  all  about 
it — nothing  aboiit  its  quality — notliing  about 
its  uses — who  had  never  tasted  it,  and  who 
could  not  even  recognize  it  when  then  saw  it 
— and  this,  too,  among  persons  wlio  were 
professionally  engaged  in  Horticulture,  Flori- 
culture and  gardening.  There  are,  however, 
tliree  or  four  kinds  of  plants  that  are  recog- 
nized under  the  name  of  Cress  in  books  on 
the  culture  of  garden  vegetation,  and  one  of 
these,  at  least,  we  have  been  familiar  with 
from  our  very  boyliood — more  familiar  with 
it  then  than  now — and  liad  eaten  of,  as  a 
salad,  very  frequently,  although  we  do  not 
know  that  there  had  been  made  a  general  use 
of  it  for  tliat  purpose,  even  at  that  time  ;  but 
there  were  some  persons  who  manifested  a 
special  partiality  for  it,  and  gatliered  it  eveiy 
Summer  in  abundance.  This  kind  was  the 
common  "  Wild  Cress, "  perhaps  better  known 
under  the  name  of  "Wild  Mustard,"  or 
"  Pepper  Grass. "  These  different  kinds  of 
Cress  do  not  belong  to  the  same  geims  of 
plants,  although,  with  the  exception  of  the 
"  Indian  Cress,"  they  all  belong  to  the  Crucif- 
erous family  of  plants,  to  which,  also,  belong 
the  different  kinds  of  cabliages,  radishes, 
turnips,  mustard  and  others.  "Common 
Cress  (Lepidiurn  sativtim)  has  been  a  subject 
of  garden  culture  iu  England  and  on  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe,  for  more  than  three  hun- 
dred years.  It  has  also  been  cultivated  in 
the  vicinity  of  New  York  for  many  years,and, 
we  believe,  also  in  the  vicinity  of  Philadel- 
phia, and  we  do  not  see  why  it  should  not  be 
so  in  I^ancaster  county.  It  is  far  preferable 
to  Dandelion  as  a  spring  salad,  or  to  mix  with 
lettuce  salad,  and  adds  to  its  flavor.  Some 
people  also  claim  that  it  is  a  better  diuretic, 
and,  tlierefore,  more  healthful  than  dande- 
lion ;  and,  tliat  it  is  more  pleasant  and  pala- 
table to  the  taste,  we  tliink  will  be  acknow- 
ledged by  any  one  who  makes  a  trial  of  it. 

The  most  common  species  in  tliis  country  is 
Lepidiurn  inrgijmum,  which,  in  some  localities, 
is  very  plentiful,  and,  in  fact,  by  those  wlio  do 
not  know  its  use,  is  regarded  as  little  better 
than  a  common  weed.  There  is  another  spe- 
cies {Lepidiurn  intermedium)  more  abundant 
farther  southward,  than  it  is  in  Pennsylvania; 
and  two  others,  which  are  supjiosed  to  have 
been  Introduced  from  Europe. 


Our  native  species  thrives  best  in  shaded,  or 
moderately  moist  localities,  but,  under  culti- 
vation, the  seed  may  be  sowed  on  open  ground 
in  March,  or  the  early  part  of  April,  and 
when  once  allowed  to  bed  well,  it  will  come 
up  every  Spring  from  seeds  dropped  the  pre- 
vious season.  An  early  crop  may,  however, 
be  .secured  by  sowing  the  seeds  in  a  bed,  under 
glass,  on  loose,  finely  powdered  soil,  and  cov- 
ering them  shghtly,  removing  the  paues  to 
give  them  sun  and  air,  during  such  days  as 
are  warm  and  genial.  By  "cropping"  a  sup- 
ply may  be  liad  all  Summer  and  late  in  the 
Autumn. 

But,  by  far  the  best  kind  is  the  ''Water 
Cress,"  (Sisymhrimu  nasturliinn)  of  the  En- 
glish gardeners,  of  which  our  native  species  is 
Sisymbrium  ojficinale,  sometimes  also  called 
"Scm-vy  Grass."  An  ancient  proverb  was, 
"Eat  cress  and  learn  more  wit,"  applied  spe- 
cially to  this  kind  of  cress.  This  is  mildly 
stimulating,  and  its  medicinal  properties  are 
said  to  be  antiscorbutic,  and  a  pmifier  of  the 
blood;  we  know  it  is  very  perceptibly  benefi- 
cial as  a  diuretic;  and  we  really  think  it  ought 
to  be  more  extensively  a  subject  of  cultivation 
and  use  than  it  now  is.  There  are  three  or 
four  species  of  it  in  this  country,  but  they  are 
generally  supposed  to  have  been  introduced 
from  Europe.  Of  course,  as  its  name  implies, 
this  kind  of  cress  can  only  be  grown  success- 
fully in  fresh  spring  water.  There  are  seve- 
ral localities  near  the  city  of  Lancaster  where 
it  grows  in  profusion,  in  the  flow  from  springs 
and  where  we  have  obtained  it  in  abundance, 
of  a  most  excellent  quality;  and  also  where  it 
may  may  be  obtained  all  summer,  and  until 
late  in  winter. 

"Indian  Cress"  {Trop<xo1ium  majus)  is  not  a 
cruciferous  plant,  but  belongs  to  a  family,  or 
is  the  type  of  a  group,  between  the  balsam 
and  the  geranium  families.  It  is  that  climb- 
ing plant,  which  grows  easily  in  almost  any 
soil,  popularly  known  under  the  name  of 
"Nasturtion,"  sometimes  abbreviated  into 
the  vulgar  name  of  "stertion."  Although 
its  spicy  aud  pleasantly  pungent  fruit  enters 
largely  into  pickles  and  other  condiments,  yet 
it  is  not  so  well  known  that  its  leaves  and 
flowers  make  an  excellent  salad,  or  add  an 
excellent  flavor  to  other  less  pronounced  sal- 
ads. This  plant  is  said  to  have  been  intro- 
duced here  from  South  America,  where  it  is 
found  growing  in  a  wild  State. 

There  is  a  striking  similarity  in  the  taste  of 
all  these  different  kinds  of  cress,  but  there  are, 
perhaps,  none  of  them  that  is  so  tender,  so 
crisp,  and  so  edible  as  the  "  Water  Cre.ss. " 
This  grows  best,  as  before  intimated,  Ln  a 
clear,  moderately  swift  stream,  and  loves  a 
clean  sandy  or  gravely  bottom,  where  the 
water  is  from  one  inch  and  a-lialf  to  two 
inches  deep,  and  the  nearer  the  source  of  the 
stream,  the  better  it  will  grow.  Where  the 
bottom  is  naturally  muddy,  it  .should  be  cov- 
ered with  a  coat  of  gravel.  It  ma^'  also  be 
cultivated  on  low  ground  that  can  be  irri- 
gated. If  the  seeds  are  thrown  on  the  water, 
they  will  sink  to  the  bottom,  germinate,  root, 
and  grow. —  Ed. 

A   NEW   INSECTICIDE. 

A  fruit-grower  iu  Valparaiso,  South  Amer- 
ica, writes  to  his  local  paper  that  he  has  dis- 
covered a  singular  jn'operty  in  tomato  leaves. 
It  appears  that,  having  cut  down  some 
tomato  vines,  he  used  them  as  a  "mulch" 
around  his  peach  trees.  He  soon  discovered 
that  the  curctdio,  which  had  been  destroying 
his  fiTiit,  had  abandoned  the  trees  surrounded 
by  tomato  vines.  Following  up  this  accidental 
discovery,  he  found  that  a  free  use  of  tomato 
vines  proved  a  perfect  protection,  not  only 
against  the  ctircidio,  but  against  other  noxious 
insects.  He  found,  also,  that  by  steeping  in 
water  some  fresh  leaves  of  the  tomato,  and 
sprinkling  the  infusion  upon  the  plants,  such 
as  roses  and  orange  trees,  the  innumerable 
insects  which  covered  them  were  driven 
away.  We  commend  this  to  our  Horticultu- 
ral friends." — Midland  Farmer. 

The  above  was  sent  to  us,  coiisjiicuously 
marked,  in  the  June  number  of  the  Nebraska 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


83 


Fanner,  and,  (in  account  of  it.s  siiuiilicity,  we 
republish  it  for  what  it  may  be  worth.  What- 
ever effect  it  may  have  on  the  cureulio  and  on 
those  "otlier  noxious  insects,"  we  confess  wo 
have  not  much  faitli  in  it  as  ajxcneral  remedy. 
We  certainly  could  not  ('.xpect  it  to  "drive 
olf  "  the  fiireen  tomato  worm  or  the  "Colorado 
potato  beetle,"  for  both  these  insects  feed  vo- 
raciously on  the  tomato  vines.  Theexpressed 
juii'e,  or  an  infusion  of  tomato  leaves,  woidd, 
no  doubt,  repel  .some  insects,  but  we  don't 
know  what  etlect  "  imdchinj;  "  could  have 
u|ion  any  in.sects  we  know  of.  tJesides,  the 
authority  is  too  far  away, and  too  little  known, 
to  elicit  any  special  conlideiice  in  it.  Still  we 
call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  it,  and 
hope  they  will  make  a  practical  test  of  it 
during  the  current  season.  An  infusion  of 
tomato  vines  is  exitecdinf^ly  ollensive  to  the 
genus  Umnu,  and  it  may,  pread venture,  be 
so  to  some  of  the  subjects  of  the  insect  realm. 
—  El).  

A   LESSON  WORTH   LEARNING. 

"  The  possibility  of  a  >;reat  change  being  in- 
troduced by  very  sliijlit  beginnings  may  be 
iUustratecl  l)y  a  tale  which  Lockman  tells  of  a 
vizier,  who,  having  oll'ended  his  master,  was 
condemned  to  perpetual  captivity  in  a  lofty 
lower.  At  night  his  wife  came  to  wecj)  below 
his  window.  '( 'ea.se  your  grief,'  said  ihc  .sage  ; 
'go  home  for  the  present,  and  return  hither 
wlien  you  have  procured  a  live  black  beetle, 
together  with  a  little  ijinv  [or  bidliUo's  butter,] 
tliree  clews,  one  of  the  linest  silk,  another  of 
stout  pack  thread,  and  another  of  whip  cord ; 
finally,  a  stout  coil  of  rope.'  When  she  again 
came  to  the  foot  of  the  tower,  in'ovidetl  ac- 
cording to  her  husband's  demands,  he  dire<'ted 
her  to  touch  the  liead  of  the  insect  with  a  little 
of-  tlie  ijlue,  to  tie  one  end  of  the  silk  thread 
around  him  and  to  place  him  on  the  wall  of 
the  tower.  Attracted  by  the  smell  of  the 
butter,  which  he  conceived  to  be  in  store 
somewhere  above  him,  the  beetle  etmtinued  to 
ascend  till  he  reached  the  top,  aiul  thus  put 
tlie  vizier  in  possession  of  the  end  i)f  silk 
thread,  who  drew  up  the  pack  thread  by  means 
of  the  silk,  the  small  cord  by  means  of  the 
pack  thread,  anil,  by  means  of  the  cord,  a 
stout  rope,  capable  of  sustaining  his  own 
weight,  and  so  at  last  escapeif  from  the  place 
of  his  duress." 

Miuiy  enterprises  in  life  ;  many  reformations 
in  morals  ;  many  individual  labons  might  be 
coaxed  along  gently  in  their  incipient  and  pro- 
gressive stages,  by  such  a  gentle,  thoughtful, 
and  hopeful  procedure  as  is  portrayed  in  the 
foregoing  extract.  15e  careful,  be  gentle,  or 
you  may  snap  the  thread  and  never  be  alile  to 
get  possession  of  the  cord  that  leads  to  the 
possession  of  the  "stout  rop(^"  which  leads  to 
success,  even  after  you  have  secured  the  beetle 
that  convoys  to  you  the  silken  fdin?.  In  suc- 
cessful farming,  the  same  gentle  manipula- 
tions of  the  soil  is  neccs.sary.  Wlu^i  the  plant 
is  young,  weak  and  feeble,  we  nuist  guide  it 
and  nurture  it  by  the  silken  Ho.ss,  before  we 
can  apply  the  stronger  culture  tliat  corresponds 
to  the  pack  thread.  Atany  a  plant  is  destroyed 
in  our  eagerness  to  apply  the  pack  thread  to  a 
hasty  advance  to  the  cord,  and  thence  to  full 
maturity.  But  Viefore  we  can  jiossibly  avail 
ourselves  of  the  feeble  tenure  of  the  silken 
liber,  it  must  lie  directed  towards  the  desired 
end,  by  the  operation  of  a  will-power  that  lies 
back  of  threads,  cords  and  ropes— an  exercise 
of  tlie  immortal  mind. 

^ 

HORSE     HAY     FORK -PATENT    IN- 

P'RINGEMENTS. 
In  the  case  of  A.  J.  Nellis  vs.  The  Ashland 
Fork  ilaiiufacturiug  Company,  in  the  Uidted 
States  Circuit  Court  for  the  Northern  District 
of  Ohio,  a  decree  has  lieen  entered  in  favor  of 
the  patents,  and  an  injunction  issued  against 
the  defendants  enjoining  them  from  niaking 
and  .selling  the  Harris  Double  Harpoon  Horse 
Hay  Fork.  AVe  notice  from  the  (.'ourt  records 
that  there  are  over  one  hundred  sints  now 
pending  for  the  infringement  of  these  patents, 
against  jiarties  in  the  Slate  of  Ohio.  Evi- 
dently the  owners  of  the  patents  are  deter- 
imued  to  protect  their  rights. 


A  CHOLERA  CURE. 

"Tincture  Opii. 

Tinctin-e  Capsici. 

Tincture  Khci  Co. 

Tinctun^  Menth  pip. 

Tincture  Cam|ihor. 
Mix  the  above  in  eipial  iiarts,  etc." 
Among  the  many  renu'dies  published  last 
smnmer  for  cholera,  diarrha'a,  bowel  com- 
plaints and  other  similar  forms  of  dis.scase  in- 
cident to  suuuner  season,  we  believe  none 
received  a  more  authoritative  endorsement 
than  the  above,  which  is  the  "corrected 
formida. "  We  have  been  cariying  it  in  our 
pocketbook  for  nearly  a  year,  and  as  it  had 
g<in(^  into  pieces  the  above  was  all  we  were 
able  to  rescue  from  the  wreck,  but  that  con- 
tains all  the  essentials  of  the  mixture.  Any 
intelligent  druggist  will  be  able  to  interpret 
and  furnish  the  ingredients,  and  if  he  cannot 
it  will  be  an  indication  that  he  is  not  the  man 
to  be  trusted  in  the  case.  Every  family  should 
have  a  bottle  of  this  cholera  meilicine  in  their 
possession,  diuing  thesunnuer.sea.son  at  least. 
We  were  not  able  to  preserve  the  size  of  the 
dos(%  for  that  fragment  was  entirely  lost,  but 
we  think  it  was  a  teaspoonfull  ;  of  course 
this  should  be  adapted  to  the  ag(^  of  the 
patient,  the  violence  of  the  disease,  and  other 
things  contingent  thereto.  The  same  circum- 
stances should  al.so  govei-n  the  frecpiency  of 
its  repetition.  It  is  generally  conceded  to  be 
safest  to  apply  remedies  in  cases  of  these  dis- 
eases when  the  first  symptoms  become  mani- 
fest. In  many  cases  a  single  dose  has  been 
all-sudicient  to  arrest  the  disease. 


HOW  TO   EASE  A  COUGH. 

A  medical  work  of  high  authority  gives  the 
following  advice  to  invalids  and  others  : 
"  The  best  method  of  easing  a  cough  is  to  re- 
sist it  with  all  the  force  of  will  possible,  until 
accumulation  of  phlegm  becomes  greater,  thcMi 
there  is  something  to  cough  against,  and  it 
comes  V(u'y  nuich  easier,  and  with  half  tin; 
coughing.  A  great  deal  of  hacking  and  liem- 
ming  and  coughing  in  invalids  is  purely  ner- 
vous, or  the  result  of  mere  habit,  as  is  showu 
liy  the  freiiuency  with  which  it  occurs  wlnle 
the  patient  is  thinking  about  it,  and  its  com- 
paritive  rarity  when  he  is  so  much  engaged 
that  there  is  no  time  to  think,  or  wheu  the 
attention  is  impelled  in  another  direction." 

We  feel  that  we  are  able  to  testify,  from 
long  experience,  that^there  is  "sound  wLsdom 
and  discretion"  iu  the  above.  We  do  not 
presume  to  say  that  every  one  can  oppose  the 
power  of  his  or  her  will,  successfully,  in  re- 
sisting a  cough,  or  that  it  will  be  successful  at 
all  times,  nor  yet,  with  all  coughs  even  by 
the  same  individuals.  Coughs  generally  pro- 
ceed from  an  inflamed  conilition  of  the  bron- 
chial organs  ;  from  the  inhalation  of  foreign 
irritating  atoms;  from  inhaling  cold  draughts 
of  air;  and  often  from  a  violent  or  impulsive 
exercise  of  the  vocal  organs,  but,  perhaps, 
more  freipiently  from  an  inflamed  condition 
of  the  lungs — their  decay,  their  laceration  (ir 
their  collapse  ;  fiut  even  in  these  latter  cases, 
it  has  been  manifest  that  a  cough  may  be  re- 
sisted, or  at  least  palliated.  In  our  younger 
days  we  were  intimately  acquainted  with  an 
intelligent  physician  predisposed  to  consimip- 
fioii,  who  understood  his  own  case  so  well, 
and  also  his  feelile  tenure  of  life,tliat  heobsti- 
nately  refused  to  (ujugh,  often  under  the  most 
violent  provocation,  and  he  succeeded  in  pro- 
longing that  (eiU(r«  for  ten  or  fifteen  years,  if 
not  longer  ;  and,  although  he  eventually  died 
of  that  fell  disease,  yet  he  never  did  much 
coughing.  There  are  many  coughs  that  proceed 
from  bronchial  inllannnatiou,  and  not  from  a 
diseased  condition  of  the  lungs,  as  is  evident 
from  their  long  coidinuance — often  twenty  or 
thirty  years — and  if  these  coughs  were  re- 
sisted by  the  power  of  the  human  will,  the 
life  of  the  patient,  in  many  instances,  would 
be  prolonged  ;  lint  even  in  these  cases,  injudi- 
cious or  impulsive  yieldings,  only  increase 
the  irritation,  and  inflammatiou  may  Hnally 
be  driven  down  into  the  lungs  and  end  f'atall\". 
Reader,  if  you  have  any  will  power  at  all,  tri/  it. 


PROTECTION   OF    USEFUL    ANIMALS. 

The  following  notice,  says  the  JiitUetin  X*' 
yl  r/iorieuWwrc,  is  conspicuously  set  up  in  the 
State  forests  of  France.  It  would  lie  well  to 
havesimilar  notices  posted  iu  our  imblic  parks : 

"  Hedge  Hog — Feeds  on  niice,  small  ro- 
deids,  slugs  and  grubs.  Do  not  kill  a  hedge 
bog. 

Toad — A  farmer's  frii^iid  ;  destroys  '20  to  :iO 
insects  pei-  hour.     Do  not  kill  a  toad. 

"  Mole — Destroys  incessantly  grubs,  mole 
crickets,  and  insects  injurious  to  agriciiture  ; 
no  trace  of  vegetable  matter  is  evei-  found  in 
its  stomach  ;  does  more  good  than  harm.  Do 
not  kill  a  mole. 

"Cockchafer  (bameaton)  and  his  grid)  (ver- 
blanc)— Each  insect  lays  70  to  lUO  eggs.  Kill 
the  cockchafV^rs. 

"  Each  deiiartmentof  France  loses  annually 
thousands  of  francs  by  the  injuries  of  insects. 
Birds  are  thi^  oidy  enemies  capable  of  contend- 
ing with  them.  Chililren,  do  not  rob  the 
birds'  nests." 

Then  follows  a  list  of  rewards  ofl'ered  for 
the  destruction  of  cockchafers. 

Without  deeming  it  necessary  to  insert  the 
"  list  "  in  this  jilace,  it  is  sutficient  to  know 
that  the  French  Government  expends  large 
sums  evei-y  year  in  paying  bounties  for  the 
gathering  and  destroying  of  noxious  insects — 
and  especially  for  the  yrtibs  of  the  "cock- 
chafers," (better  known  is  this  ins(U't  in  its 
larva  state  as  the  "  White  (muI).")  The  litrvm 
of  all  the  E.\MKi,r,i(X)i:x  Beetles  are  white 
"grub-worms,"  with  black,  brown  or  yellow- 
ish and  glossy  heads  and  feet,  and  they  are 
usually  founci  in  the  earth,  or  in  much  de- 
cayed old  wood.  They  walk  very  indifferently 
on  a  plain  surface,  liaving  but  six  feet,  at- 
tached to  the  first  three  segments  of  the  body, 
and  the  hinder  parts  by  far  the  largest  portion 
of  the  yrub.  Indeed,  some  of  them  move  on 
their  backs,  but  the  larger  part  of  them  move 
on  their  sides,  and  they  are  always  found  bent 
like  a  crescent,  and  lying  on  their  sides;  and 
pia'haps  there  is  no  kind  of  iu.sect  food  that  is 
more  grateful  to  the  palate  of  animals  tlian 
the.se  white  "  grub- worms. "  It  is  said  that 
skunks  are  very  fond  of  them  ;  therefore, 
whatever  other  adverse  qualities  skuid<s  may 
]iossess,  we  should  also  say — "Don't  kill  the 
skunks."  The  economy  of  nature  is  so  elabo- 
rate iu  its  details,  in  reference  to  the  insect 
world,  that  we  hardly  know  what  wild  animals 
we  ought  to  spare  or  what  to  kill,  lest  we 
might  be  killing  our  friends  and  sparing  our 
enemies.  Perhaps,  in  a  larger  sense,  all  the 
subjects  of  the  animal  kinrjilom  are  necessary 
to  each  other's  existence,  and  hence,  also,  an- 
tagonistic to  each  other;  and,  the  legitimate 
residls  of  this  antagonism  is  the  normal  cqui- 
libriiiin  of  that  kingdom,  and  to  di.sturb  that, 
is  to  produc*  a  redundancy  of  the  one  or  the 
other  ;  wid  that  is  what  civilization  and  the 
march  of  improvement  have  tieeii  interposing, 
iu  various  ways,  from  a  very  early  period  iu 
human  history.  And  that  is  not  all  ;  for,  the 
effects  of  this  distm-bance  of  the  normal  equi- 
librium is  likely  to  continue  initil  we  can  dis- 
cover how  to  economize  the  natural,  means,  or 
apply  the  arlifu-ial  means,  to  keep  the  relations 
of  the  animal  world  intact. 

We  question  very  much  whether  all  the  arti- 
ficial insecticides  yet  discovered  possess  a 
tithe  of  the  .saving  potency  that  exists  normal- 
ly in  the  domain  of  nature  itself;  and  even  in 
some  of  our  frantic  eflbrls  to  circmnvent  the 
evils  of  redundancy  we  may  be  but  faciUtat- 
ing  its  progress. 

Take,  for  instance,  by  way  of  analogy,  the 
construction  of  a  clock — a  clock,  by  way  of 
eminence,  that  measm'es  the  seconds,  the 
niiiuif(«,  the  hours,  the  ilays,  the  weeks,  the 
months  and  the  years  of  time  ;  that  indicates 
the  risings  and  the  settings  of  the  sun  and 
moon  ;  the  ebb  and  How  of  the  tides  ;  the 
meteorological  conditions  of  the  weather  ;  the 
teniperalure  and  the  humidify  of  the  atmos- 
phere, and  sundry  other  mechanical  compli- 
cations ;  and  notice  how  all  the  movements 
necessary  to  the  successful  operation  of  the 
whole  nmst  act  in  universal  harmony  and  be 
directed  towards  a  legitimate  end  ;  and  re- 


84 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[June, 


Uect  that  this  mechanical  coutrivance  is  but  au 
imperfect  reflex  of  the  system  tliat  exists  iu 
the  operation  of  nature's  laws  ;  and  from  tliis 
we  may  form  some  idea  of  what  we  have  yet 
to  learn,  and  what  yet  to  do,  before  we  can 
hope  for  an  immunity  from  a  redundancy  of 
pestiferous  insects.  If  the  mechanic  "who 
constructed  such  a  clock  as  we  alluded  to  was 
to  make  one  wheel  too  large  and  another 
wheel  too  small ;  one  spring  too  strong  and 
another  spring  too  weak  ;  one  lever  too  long 
and  another  lever  to  short,  or  one  cord  too 
tense  and  another  cord  too  lax,  the  result 
would  be  a  disturliauce  of  the  equilibrium  of 
the  whole  and  the  destructive  acceleration  of 
some  of  the  parts,  and  the  damaging  retarda- 
tion of  other  parts  ;  and  general  disorganiza- 
tion would  follow,  as  sure  as  domestic  and 
economic  disorganization  produces  the  destroy- 
ing visitations  of  the  "Rocky  Mountain  Lo- 
cust," the  "Colorado  Potato-Beetle,"  or  the 
"  Western  Chinch-Bug." 

The  processes  of  husbandry  and  tlie  cultiva- 
tion of  the  soil,  iu  the  early  history  of  the 
country,  were  somewhat  different  from  what 
they  are  at  the  present  period.  Our  ancestors 
brought  over  from  the  "fatherland"  the  sim- 
ple methods  that  obtained  there  up  to  the 
time  of  their  departure,  and  on  their  arrival 
in  the  New  World,  and  on  manipulating  the 
virgin  soil,  they  found  that  under  the  opera- 
tion of  those  rules  and  routines  it  yielded 
abundantly  ;  and,  as  long  as  tliis  result  fol- 
lowed the  waving  of  their  industrial  wands, 
they  continued  the  old  processes,  and  never 
■  dreamed  of  the  innovations  that  were  to  fol- 
low under  altered  circumstances— the  natural 
depletion,  the  local  exhaustion,  and  the  advent 
of  destructive  animals.  It  became  manifest 
to  them  that  wolves  destroyed  their  flocks, 
foxes  their  poultry,  and  squirrels  their  corn, 
but  beyond  these  prominent  contingencies 
they  entertained  but  few  iears,  and  made  Ijut 
little  or  no  provision.  But  now,  apprehen- 
sions are  looming  up,  mvolving  the  grave 
question  as  to  whether  a  time  is  not  arriving 
in  the  liistory  ot  practical  agriculture,  when 
farming  will  have  to  be  done  scientifically,  if 
it  is  done  at  all ;  when  not  only  the  composi- 
tion of  the  various  soils  must  bo  imderstood, 
but  also  the  modes  of  their  recuperation — the 
means  by  which  the  destruction  of  the  far- 
mer's crops  may  be  prevented,  and  what 
auxiliaries  may  exist  in  the  economy  of  nature 
itself,  as  helps,  in  the  accomplishnient  of  the 
desired  end. 

It  is  not  sufficient  to  know  "  which  and 
what"  animals  are  noxiems,  but  also  those 
that  are  beneficial,  in  order  that  an  intelli- 
gent discrimiuati(jn  may  be  made  between 
them  ;  and  this  question  must  become  as 
famihar,  as  simple,  and  as  practical,  as  that 
wliich  involves  "  demand  and  supply." 

Inasmuch  as  the  masses  of  the  people  will 
not — or,  perhaps  more  charitaljly  .sfeaking, 
cannot— give  sufficient  attention  to  natural 
science  to  make  it  of  practical  value  to  them, 
it  has  long  been  our  cherislied  opinion  tliat 
government— either  National,  State,  district 
or  municipal,  or  perhaps  within  their  respec- 
tive spheres,  each  of  them— should  create 
functions,  and  endow  compensated  function- 
aries, whose  continuous  duties  should  be  to 
study  and  make  provision  for  all  such  con- 
tingencies as  may  be  involved  in  the  increase 
of  destructive  animals.  Such  an  establish- 
ment might  be  kept  in  peruia]ient  and  succes- 
fnl  operation  at  an  outlay  of  the  very  smallest 
moiety  of  the  many  millions  of  dollars  lost  to 
the  country  every  year  by  the  ravages  of  de- 
structive insects  and  other  noxious  animals. 

The  great  help  which  vegetation,  and  hence 
the  hmnan  family,  sustains  through  tlie  jn-o- 
tection  of  insect-eating  animals  is  difficult  to 
make  manifest  to  the  common  apprcliension. 
Take,  for  instance,  an  animal  that  lives  on  in- 
sects alone— that  never  has  been  seen  or  known 
to  partake  of  any  other  kind  of  food  ;  and, 
like  tlie  swallow,  that  only  remains  in  such 
locality  as  it  visits  so  long  as  it  abounds  in 
insects,  and  when,  through  a  change  of  season, 
the.se  become  exhausted,  it  migrates  to  a  more 
congenial  locality,  and  who  can  calculate  the 


number  of  insects  it  destroys  in  its  lifetime, 
and  how  many  millions  more  are  prevented 
from  ever  coming  into  being.  Let  it  also  l)e 
rememljcrod  that  purely  insect  devouring  ani- 
mals are  not  spasmodic,  capricious,  or  period- 
ical in  their  pursuit  of  insect  food,  but  are  at 
it  "early  and  often."  "  From  early  morn  to 
dewy  eve,"  and,  when  nature  is  enveloped  in 
the  "mantle  of  night,"  like  well  appointed 
sentinels,  a  night-watch  sallies  fortli  on  its 
friendly  mission  and  continues  the  benevolent 
work  imtil  they  are  driven  to  their  accus- 
tomed haunts  by  the  garish  light  of  day. 
Artificial  remedies  are  at  best  but  spasmodic, 
transient,  imperfect,  and  only  partially 
eftectual. 

^ 

ABOUT  FROGS. 

"  Timmy  Droo-oo-oo-oo-oo, 
I  can  make  a  shoe-oo-oo, 
As  good  as  you-oo-oo-oo, 
Aud  better  too-oo-oo-oo." 

The  season  is  now  here,  when  "  Tlie  song  of 
the  turtle  is  heard  iu  the  land,"  and  tlie.se 
persecuted  reptiles  will  fall  a  prey  to  the  in- 
satiate maw  of  epicurean  man.  A  humane 
and  thoughtful  coteinporary  has  recently  been 
putting  in  an  eloquent  plea  in  behalf  of  the 
frog,  ranking  bun  with  other  "game,"  and 
asking  from  our  legislators  the  same  protec- 
tion that  is  accorded  to  other  "  game  ani- 
mals ;"  and  we  think,  with  a  good  show  of 
wisdom,  as  viewed  from  the  selfish  side  of  the 
question.  When  we  are  captured  by  a  tribe 
of  cannibals ;  confined  in  a  sheltering  crib, 
allowing  us  only  to  look  upon  the  fair  face  of 
nature  through  "chinks"  in  the  wall  ;  kindly 
cared  for  and  sumptuously  fed  on  fattening 
viands  ;  daily  visited  aud  our  health  and  con- 
dition anxiously  inquired  into  ;  punched  in 
the  ribs,  caressed  down  the  back  as  we  would 
a  favorite  dog,  and  our  upper  and  nether 
limbs  kneaded  as  we  would  a  mellowing  peach 
or  pear,  to  ascertahi  its  edible  condition  ;  and 
finally  and  affectionately  released  from  our 
confinement  in  order  to  be  "spitted"  and 
furnish  a  central  dish  for  "  grim  and  greedy  " 
monsters  to  "  wipe  their  jaws  "  upon  ;  can  we 
claim  that  the  interest  manifested  iu  our  be- 
half, is  of  a  lower  order  than  tliat  proposed  in 
behalf  of  the  frog  V  How  carefully,  liow  kind- 
ly, how  providentially  and  how  sympatheti- 
cally we  treat  our  pigs,  and  yet  tlie  ultimate 
of  all  our  tender  regard  culminates  in  "boiled 
ham  and  sausages. " 

Since,  however,  people  will  c:it  frogs,  (and 
we  can  attest  that  they  ara  a  generously 
flavored  aud  toothsome  morceau)  it  is  meet, 
perhaps,  that  they  should  be  included  under 
the  protection  of  the  game  laws.  They  (frogs) 
in  common  with  other  animals,  have  tlieir 
breeding  season,  during  which  time  they 
should  be  allowed  to  "multiply  and  replenish" 
the  ponds,  and  that  season  is  just  now  ;  and 
this  is  especially  the  case  witli  our  common 
"  bull-frog,"  [Runa  pijiiens.  Lair.)  whose  nup- 
tial song  was  many  long  years  ago  so  beauti- 
fully paraphrased  by  frightened  "Timmy 
JJrew."  Very  closidy  related  to  this  bull-frog 
is  another  species  [Itaiia  liorironensis)  of  the 
northern  lakes,  and  the  deep  croaking  of  these 
two  species— their  "more  rum"  aud  tlieir 
"blood  and  nouns" — may  be  heard,  under 
favorable  circumstances,  for  half  a  mile  or 
more.  This  latter  individual  is  tlie  subject  of 
a  quasi  culture  and  protection,  in  aud  about 
some  of  the  ponds  or  lakelets  in  the  State  of 
New  York,  and  it  is  said  that  at  the  proper 
season  large  numbers  of  them  are  sent  to  the 
markets  of  Buffalo,  Albany  and  New  York 
city.  Their  protection  is  exceedingly  simple 
and  consists  merely  in  their  noii-destruction 
duriug  tlie  mating  season.  It  is  questionable 
whether  it  ought  to  be  allowable  to  shoot  or 
otherwise  capture  frogs  before  the  1st  of  July  ; 
or  perhaps  if  the  mantle  of  the  squirrel  law 
was  extended  over  them  it  would  afford  all  the 
protection  they  needed.  But,  in  the  protec- 
tion and  cultivation  of  frogs  effectively,  it  re- 
quires also  the  cultivation  of  the  "soul  of 
lionor"  among  their  human  captors,  as  tvellas 
the  protection  of  their  "  polliwogs"  from  the 
carnivorous  attacks  of  aquatic  birds  and  the 
still  more  destructive  fishes. 


A  smaller  species  than  the  two  already 
named,  is  the  "green  frog"  {Rana  damitans) 
conspicuously  tinged  with  yellow  about  the 
posterior  portion  of  the  abdomen.  Allied  to 
this  species,  and  about  the  same  size,  is  the 
"leopard  frog,"  (liana  halecina)  so  named 
from  being  spotted  like  a  leopard.  This  last 
named  species  is  a  most  extraordinary  leaper, 
sometimes  making  ten  feet  at  a  single  bound. 
In  the  absence  of  the  larger  species,  these  two 
last  named  animals  are  sought  with  as  much 
eagerness  as  the  former  ;  for  what  they  lack  in 
size  they  more  than  make  up  in  delicacy  of 
flavor.  They  often  come  out  and  sit  and  bask 
in  tlie  sun  a  considerable  distance  froui  the 
margin  of  tlie  pond  or  stream,  and  at  tlie  ap- 
proacli  of  danger — long  before  tliey  are  seen — 
they  make  a  sudden  spring  and  often  reach 
the  water  at  a  single  bound  ;  all  you  hear  or 
see  is  a  "squeak,"  a  "streak"  and  a  "plunge." 
These  are  the  individuals  that  utter  that  very 
peculiar  "/ed-(?ej/i"  like  noise,  which  sounds 
much  like  a  "  cracked"  G  violin  string-  sdine- 
thing  like  the  musical  manipulations  nf  a  class 
of  boys  taking  their  first  instructimis  on  the 
violin,  when  requested  by  the  master  to 
"sound."  This  sound,  however,  is  not  as 
frequent  now  as  it  was  when  we  were  a  boy. 
Since  then  frogs  have  been  cultivating  cantion 
and  are  loth  to  let  their  where.abouts  be  known, 
either  by  "  sight  or  sound. "  As  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  progressive  character  of  frotrs,  in 
relation  to  their  self-preservation  at  least,  we 
would  respectfidly  refer  the  reader  to  the 
March  number  of  The  Lancaster  Fakmer, 
third  column  of  page  40,  (for  1877,)  as  an 
emphatic  case  in  point. 

Six  frogs  are  enough  for  a  person  to  talk 
aliout  at  one  time,  (and  perhaps,  also,  enough 
for  any  person  to  appropriate  at  one  meal, ) 
and  therefore,  in  order  to  reach  that  maxi- 
luinii,  Me  are  privileged  to  mention  two  more 
species  that  are  occasionally  to  be  found, 
especially  in  the  Northern  States.  The  first 
of  these  is  the  "  pickerel  frog,"  (Kana  Puh(.<i- 
tris)-  pale  brown,  marked  with  dark  brown 
above,  and  bright  yellow  mottled  with  black 
beneath,  especially  the  thighs.  Its  flesh  is 
delicate,  and  is  used  extensively  as  a  pickerel 
Ijait,  and  also  as  a  trout-bait.  As  its  call  is  a 
singularly  prolonged  utterance,  as  it  floats  on 
the  water,  in  tliis  we  realize  the  nursery  lines  : 

**  Slug  aud  float,  sing  aud  float  in  my  little  boat." 

The  smallest  of  the  six  is  the  "  wood  frog," 
(J?(ma  sulvatira)  pale  reddish  above,  and  j'el- 
lowish,  white  beneath,  ^\ith  a  dark  brown 
stripe  on  each  side.  Tliis  little  batrachian  is 
only  about  two  inches  in  length,  and,  singu- 
larly enough,  is  found  only  iu  the  woods, 
except  in  early  spring,  when,  like  the  common 
toad,  it  frequents  the  water  to  lay  its  eggs. 
Tliis  little  sul)ject  must,  however,  not  be  con- 
founded with  those  little  members  of  the 
Hyloid  family,  known  as  "tree  toads,"  for 
they  difler  from  them  as  much  as  a  leopard 
differs  from  a  tabby-cat. 

The  young  of  frogs  arc  reared  in  ponds  or 
streams  of  water,  and  in  their  immature  state 
are  sometimes  called  "polliwogs,"  to  distin- 
guish tliem  from  the  young  of  toads,  which 
are  usually  called  '  'tadpoles. ' '  Frogs  are  very 
prolific,  but  most  of  tlieir  young  fiill  a  prey  to 
fishes  and  ducks,  or  wading-birds,  and  here  is 
where  their  protection  primarily  comes  in,  to 
make  the  raising  of  them  a  success  and  profit- 
able. 

A  cotemporary  thinks  it  would  be  a  very 
nice  thing  to  be  a  frog  during  the  heated  sum- 
mer time.  "A  frog,"  he  says,  "neither  tpils 
nor  spins ;  goes  in  swimming  whenever  he 
feels  like  it,  without  taking  off  his  shirt ; 
plunges  to  the  bottom  of  a  cool  pond  wiien  the 
sun  grows  fierce  aud  vindictive,  and  doesn't 
Wear  uncomfortable  shirt  collars,  nor  sit  iu  a 
barber  shop  waiting  for  his  turn."  But  there 
is  another  side  to  the  picture.  "A  frog  can't 
stick  his  head  out  of  the  water  to  surve}'  the 
beauties  of  nature  and  listen  to  the  baud  play- 
ing, without  incurring  the  risk  of  having  it 
shot  off  by  a  man  with  a  gun  and  a  duty 
shirt ;  nor  percli  himself  upon  a  cool  stone  to 
enjoy  the  sunlight  aud  let  his  thoughts  wander 
back  to  childhood,  without  running  the  risk  of 


1R77.J 


THE   LANCASTER   FARMER 


85 


being  swallowed  by  a  slimy  snako  ;  nor  Pnjdy 
a  'hop'  a  few  yards  from  shore  without  Iwini; 
captured  l>y  ;v  'small  hoy, 'and  'whiptto  make 
him  cry,'  if  nothing  worse  is  instoj'c  for  him." 
Even  those  persons  who  inc.  snpjtosed  to  ex- 
perience the  most  roalizins  sense  of  the  hard- 
shi|)S  imposed  upon  the  frog,  arc  sometimes 
compelled  to  saerilice  him  to  their  zeal  in  a 
collateral  specialty  ;  and  to  this  we  ourself 
rannot  deny  the  "soft  impeachment." 

In  the  snnnnerof  IStl,  whilst  out  frog-lumt- 
ing,  we  shot  a  large,  subject,  which  was  brought 
to  us  and  laid  at  our  feet.  Although  it  was 
cpiite  dead,  yet  there  .seemed  to  he  something 
inside  of  it  ihat  tcssed  it  about,  "like  a  bear 
in  a  blanket."  On  opening  it,  we  found  its 
stomacli  contained  a  large  male  .s|^ecimen  of 
the  "American  Rhinoceros  l)eetle,"  {Xi/hri/r- 
(«.<  antyniit)  still  alive  and  vigorously  kicking, 
besides  other  dead  and  fragmentary  speeinKMis. 

This  was  the  first  male  subject  of  this 
species  we  had  ever  seen,  althongh  when  wc 
know  when  and  where  to  look  for  them  they 
are  by  no  means  rare,  and  of  course,-  we 
secured  it  and  took  it  home.  It  afterwards 
became  the  central  nucleus  of  our  colropteroui 
collection,  and  is  still  there,  around  which 
cluster  many  hundred  species.  If  wc  subse- 
quently bore  down  too  severely  on  the  frogs, 
it  was  more  in  the  hope  of  .securing  rare  ento- 
mological specimens  than  to  gratify  any  gas- 
Ironomical  craving. 

In  conclusion,  at  the  present  prices,  to  enter 
iutoKana-culture  ought  to  be  a  paying  business. 
We  have  .seen  thc^  day  when  they  were  sold  as 
low  as  ten  and  twelve  cents  a  down,  but  now, 
when  served  up  in  a  restaurant,  they  cost  (ifty 
cents  a  [lair.  Any  person  who  has  a  piece  of 
swampy  ground  that  no  other  use  can  be  made 
of,  and  lias  a  constant  suiiply  of  running 
water,  could  easily  construct  a  frog  pond. 
Here  they  woidd  multiply  and  replenish — re- 
plenish the  tables  of  epicures — if  they  were 
protected  against  carnivorous  fishes,  ducks 
aiul  wading  birds,  but  most  especially  from 
"crack  shots,"  who  destroy  them  promiscu- 
ously and  out  of  sea.son.  Of  course  if  they 
were  inimi'rous  they  would  have  to  be  fed,  for 
they  have  been  known  to  swallow  the  young 
<<(  their  own  species,  as  well  as  young  fishes 
and  insects.  Tlii.s  latter  is  suggestive,  and  if 
the  pond  was  margined  with  flowering  .shrub- 
bery to  attract  insects,  it  would  furnish  a 
furiher  sui'ply  of  food.  "Some  things  can  be 
done  as  well  as  others."    Who  will  try  ? — 

.  Polly-woy. 

^ 

TOBACCO    PESTS. 

"W.  A.  S.,"of  Henderson  county,  Kentucky, 
writes  as  follows  to  the  Coimtrtj  (h'ntirman  : 

"Noticing  the  remedy  for  ilies  on  t<ihaceo 
plants,  ]iagi^  -JUV,  I  will  give  your  readers  a 
more  simpler  remedy,  and  one  that  is  always 
at  hand.  It  is  common  .soot  and  ashes,  or 
lime,  apiilied  when  the  plants  arc  damp.  In 
additiciii  ti)  proving  a  safeguard  against  the 
ravages  of  insects,  this  is  a  s])lcndid  fertilizer. 
.Vn  .■Hldition  of  manure  from  the  hen-house 
makes  it  the  best  thing  I  have  ever  seen  to 
push  iilants  forward.  Farmers  who  raise  to- 
bacco will  also  tind  it  advantageous  to  kill  the 
tobacco  hawk-moth,  Marrosila  {sphinx)  Caro- 
lina, which  lays  the  eggs  luoducing  the  worms 
so  troulilesoniB  to  this  crop.  The  (ly  comes 
out  at  twilight  to  feed  and  deposit  its  eggs. 
Its  food  is  sucked  from  tlowers  by  mcansof 
its  long  (iexible  piobo.scis,  commonly  called  a 
horn  (hence  its  name  in  many  sections  '•horn- 
blower.")  It  seems  especially  partial  to  the 
.Taiueslowii  weed.  Datura  Slrnmoniiwi,  and 
if  cobalt  be  dis.solved  in  water  and  a  drop  or 
two  put  in  the  llower  of  this  weed,  or  any 
(lower  they  feed  on,  it  is  sure  death  to  them. 
Some  farnin-;  plant  this  weed  about  the  field 
for  the  purji'se,  and  every  evening  or  two  put 
in  a  suppl\  of  poison.  As  the  moth  docs  not 
roani  far  Ihey  can  be  greatly  diminislicd  if 
this  is  kept  up,  and  consequently  the  worms 
are  visibly  Ics.sened. 

"Another  aid  to  the  tobacco  raiser  is  a 
minute  four-winged  fiy,  known  to  entomolo- 
gists as  the  Microfjaster  congrajala.  It  has 
become  quite  numerous  in  tobacco  growing 


sections.  ;The  entomologist  in  the  agricul- 
tural department  report  for  lS7:i,  gives  the 
following  account  of  it:  "The  eggs  of  this 
parasite,  to  the  number  of  one  hundred  or 
more,  are  deposited  in  the  back  and  sides  of 
the  caterpillar  (the  worm),  in  small  luuictures 
maile  by  the  ovijiositor  of  the  lly.  The  larvie, 
when  hatched,  feed  upon  tlu'  fatty  sulistaiice, 
and  when  fully  grown  eat  a  hoU^  in  the  skin, 
and  each  maggot  spins  for  itself  a  small,  white 
oval  cocoon,  one  end  of  which  is  fastened  to 
the  skin  of  the  worm.  Eighty-four  files  were 
obtained  from  one  worm  by  Say,  and  Fitch 
counted  one  hundred  and  twenty-four  cocoons 
on  another  worm."  It  can  bo.sec^n  that  these 
dies  multiiily  very  fast,  and  must  kill  a  great 
numlier  of  worms,  as  they  soon  kill  every 
worm  they  infest.  The  same  authority  says 
that  this  parasite  has  also  an  enemy,  tiie 
I'tcromahis  tahanmi,  which  deposits  its  eggs  in 
the  cocoon  of  the  microgaster.  If  farmers 
will  not  disturb  worms  that  are  infested  with 
the  cocoons  of  the  microgaster,  they  will  soon 
prove  a  great  and  effectual  help  to  them." 

The  above  substantially  refiects  what  wc 
.said  in  our  essay,  read  before  our  local  .society 
in  March  last,  and  which  will  lie  found  com- 
mencing on  page  "37  of  the  present  volume  of 
the  Far:\[er  ;  and  we  commend  it  to  the 
special  attention  of  our  tobacco  growing 
readers  the  present  season. — Ed. 


CORRECTION. 

In  "  Book-keeping  by  Farmers,"  in  May 
numlipr  of  The  Lancaster  Farjiek,  Fig. 
D  was  incorrectly  given.  If  it  was  taken  as 
the  account  of  a  laborer  against  Jonathan 
Piueknot,  farmer,  then  it  would  be  right ;  but 
for  a  farmer's  account  against  Jonathan  Pine- 
knot,  laborer,  as  it  was  intended,  it  should  be 
in  as  follows : 


1874.  JONATHAN     PINEKNOT.  Dr.  Or 


March  1 12 
U 
IS 
20 

April  2 
3 


By  J,j  day  fiprejuUuR  lime 

By  setting  ill  iianels  feiiee,  (Si,  14c. 

By  '.,  ilay  jilnwiliK,  («,  $1.50 

To  3  bHBhcIs  corn,  @  75o 

By  >i  (lay  plowiug 

To  cash  in  full 


3    77        3    77 


BIRDS   VS.  HOPPERS. 

An  old  pasture  field  upon  the  farm  of 
Charles  L.  Stoking,  bounded  on  the  south  and 
West  by  the  Walioo  Creek,  and  wliicli  was 
closely  fed  last  season,  proved  very  acceptable 
to  the  hopper  as  a  laying  ground.  Millions  of 
eggs  were  deposited  therein  last  fall,  from 
wliieh  the  warm  weather  of  the  last  two 
weeks  has  evolved  million.'*  of  the  live  young 
hojipcrs.  Inspired  by  the  instincts  of  a 
IJrennus  for  plunder,  the  hardy  fellows  soon 
organizeil  into  Si|uadrons,  and  marched  to  the 
attack  of  a  timothy  field  on  the  north,  and  of 
a  field  of  barley  on  the  east,  each  of  which 
soon  exliiliited  decided  evidence  of  their  ra- 
pacity. But  on  Tuesday,  the  24th  inst.,  a 
change  came  over  the  spirit  of  their  hapjiy 
dreams  of  luxurious  living,  for  on  that  day 
a  Hock  of  two  or  three  thousand  black  birds 
appeared  upon  the  scene,  and  instantly  taking 
in  the  situati<in,  they  commenced  operations 
upon  the  frisky  liopjiers. 

We  watched  the  scene  with  absorbing  inter- 
est, and  soon  found  that  wherever  the'winged 
warriors  made  a  descent,  the  myriads  of  nim- 
ble hoppers  which  covered  the  ground  disap- 
peared in  a  remarkalily  short  space  of  time. 
In  one  instance,  we  saw  the  birds  alight  upon 
the  road,  at  a  point  where,  one  hour  previous- 
ly, the  ground  was  literally  covered  with 
young  lioiiper.s.  In  ten  minutes  we  ap- 
proached, when  the  birds  retired  to  the  trees 
near  by.  We  looked  for  the  pests" which  had 
been  there,  but  they  were  not.  Of  the  many 
dark  and  moving  masses  which  had  .so  re- 
cently occupied  the  place,  scarcely  a  hopper 
was  now  to  be  found. 

What  stronger  proof  can  one  desire  of  the 
great  value  of  insectivorous  birds  in  destroy- 
ing noxious  insects  than  the  above  example 
liresents  V  or  what  better  evidence  of  the 
wisdom  of  la.st  winter's  legislature,  in  enact- 
ing the  law  for  the  protccliou  of  these  birds 
from  the  sportsman's  deadly  gun  'i*    All  hail 


to  the  bird  law,  the  dog  law,  and  the  tree  law 
of  Xebraska— a  trinity  of  measures,  destined 
to  advance  her  in  a  few  years  to  the  front  rank 
of  States— to  plant  her  prairies  with  beautiful 
trees,  to  fill  these  with  useful  birds,  and  to 
clear  her  fields  and  gardens,  orchards  and 
groves,  of  in.sects,  noxious  to  the  farmer's 
varied  crops. — M.  6'.,  Nebraska  Farmer. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 

KniTon  OF  "  Lancaster  Farmer"— 
Dfar  Sir :  To  all  interested  in  "Strawberry 
Culture"  an  invitation  is  extended  to  visit  the 
grounds  of  E.  W.  Durand,  in  the  strawberry 
season,  about  the  middle  of  June.  lie  has 
nearly  three  thousand  varieties  under  cultiva- 
tion, originated  by  himself,  and  mostly  ap- 
proved selections  of  his  seedlings  of  the  last 
twenty  years.  Having  taken  the  first  premium 
at  the  Centennial  Fxhibition,  he  gives  the  in- 
vitation that  peoiilc  may  see  for  themselves 
what  progress  has  been  made  in  this  direction. 
Piespectfully.— J5.  IF.  Durand,  Irviwjton, 
Eaacx  coimti/,  New  Jersci/. 

If  we  cannot  possibly  go  to  the  "mountain," 
wo  should  not  at  all  object  if  the  mountain 
were  to  come  to  us.  —Ed. 


QUERIES  AND  ANSWERS. 

Mr.  II.  B.,  Landis  FaHry.— The  pale,  buff- 
colored,  powdered  mineral  substance  you  sent 
us,  appears  to-  be  a  kind  of  luwlin,  or  decom- 
posed FiMspar,  and  proliably  might  be  used 
for  making  delf-ware,  or  common  porcelain, 
if  it  oC(-urs  in  sullicient  quantity  and  purity, 
or,  perhaps,  this  substance  inay  be  more 
properly  termed  a  kind  of  "  fire-clay,"  and 
might  be  converted  into  crucibles,  fire-brick, 
vases,  and  many  other  articles  of  use  to  the 
human  fiimily. 

Mr.  G.  S. ,  Lancaster  Cotton  Mills. — The  6t- 
caudatcd,  or  "doulile-tailed  "  worm  you  .sent 
us  through  Mr.  G.,  is  a  m.alformcd  specimen 
of  the  common  earthworm,  angleworm  or 
fishworm,  {Liimhriais  tcrreslris)  and  is  not  a 
normal  species,  but  a  Ltmis  natura,  a  freak  of 
nature,  or  an  animal  monstrosity. 

Mr.  J.  B.  A.,  Lancaster  cili/. — Tlie  "queer 
fish"  you  sent  us,  and  which  you  say  you  took 
out  of  the  stomach  of  a  "  black  sea  bass," 
CetUrojiri.'ites  nigrirans)  is  a  specimen  of  the 
"common  s(iuid"  [Loliejo  Bartramii)  of  our 
Atlantic  coast,  and  the  bays  contiguous  there- 
to, and  was  in  a  very  good  state  of  preserva- 
tion. It  belongs  to  the  order  Bihrandiiuta, 
and  is  allied  to  the  "cuttle-fish"  family. 

Mr.  J.  M.  /.,  Lancaster,  Pa. — Vour  insect 
is  a  "  AVhitc  Miller  Moth,"(.lrc<({i  Virg(ni<'.a,.) 
I  have  said  «,  because  I  cannot  apply  the  def- 
inite article  the,  becau.se  there  are  several 
species  that  go  by  the  common  name  of 
"Miller  Moth."  The  larva  is  A  yellowi.sh,  or 
light  brownish,  hairy  caterpillar,  .sometimes 
called  the  "wooly  bear"  or  "  yellow  bear," 
and  is  a  promiseuous  feeder  on  all  kinds  of 
vegetation  that  comes  conveniently  to  hand, 
but  especially  garden  vegetation. 

S.  P.  K,  -&V/.,  Lancaster  City. — Tlie  hick- 
ory branch  which  you  brought  us  some  days 
ago,  invested  with  a  number  of  leaf  and  stem 
galls,of  irregular  forins,on  examination  proved 
to  be  those  of  a  species  of  I'hylloxtra,  generi- 
cally  allied  to  the  famous  I'hylloxcra  vastatrix 
of  the  graiie  vine.  There  are  quite  a  large  num- 
ber of  species  belonging  to  the  genus  P/ii/Ztecra 
ill  the  United  States,  and  some  six  or  eight  of 
them  arc  known  to  infest  the  hickory  trees. 
Several  are  found  on  the  oak.s,  either  on  the  ten- 
der branches,  the  leaf-stem.s,  or  the  leaves.  In 
the  ab.sence  of  other  species  of  hickory  phyl- 
loxera to  compare  with  them,  wc  cannot  be 
positive  as  to  the  species,  but  it  appears  to  be 
the  iVt//H().i<  r«p'>rcat((,of  Slieimer.  There  need, 
however,  not  be  any  serious  anxieties  about 
them  because  they  belong  to  the  phylloxeras, 
for  we  have  noticed  these  galls  on  the  oaks  and 
hickories  from  our  very  boyhood.  In  some  of 
the  cavities  wo  also  found  a  whitish  grul),  with 
a  large  brown  head.  This,  according  to  Prof. 
riiley,is  the  larva  of  Antkononmscrut<rgionc.  of 
the  large  family  of  Curculios';  but  it  is  only  a 
"tenant  at  will,"  and  not  necessarily  confined 
to  these  galls. 


86 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  June, 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
NEBRASKA    NOTES. 

Cheyenne,  W.  T.,  May  28,  1877. 

Mr.  Editor  : — Between  Cheyenne  and 
Kearney  Junction  there  are  tliousands  of 
cattle,  slieep  and  liorse.s,  and  excellent  pas- 
turage for  at  least  "six  hundred  thousand 
more."  The  grasses  here  are  greater  in 
variety  and  quantity,  and  of  better  quality, 
than  along  either  of  the  more  southern  routes 
from  the  Mi.ssouri  Kiver  to  the  Kooky  Moun- 
tains— and  this  would  seem  to  l)e  necessary  to 
adapt  it  to  stock  raising,  as  the  winters  are 
more  sevei'e,  and  stock  require  more  nourish- 
ment ;  yet  not  lialf  as  many  cattle,  horses  and 
.sheep  perished  last  winter  in  the  Platte  as  in 
the  Arkansas  Valley  ;  probably  for  two  rea- 
sons :  First,  the  superior  quality  of  the 
grasses  along  the  I'latte,  and  second,  because 
the  Platte  stock  men  provide  botli  winter  feed 
and  shelter  for  their  stock,  while  the  average 
Arkansas  "Cow-boy"  is  "Arkansas  Traveler" 
style  and  provides  neither  feed  uor  shelter  for 
winter  use. 

The  stock  all  along  the  Platte  are  in  good 
order,  and  very  few  dead  cattle  wei'c  seen 
during  my  recent  trip  from  Denver  to  Omaha 
and  return  to  my  Rijcky  Mountain  home. 

At  Cheyenne  there  are  four  live  churches, 
to  whicli  have  been  added  about  one  hundred 
members  by  profession  of  faith,  during  the 
last  three  months.  The  pastor  .of  the  Presby- 
terian church.  Rev.  ISIr.  Corwick,  is  also 
County  Superintendent  of  Education,  and 
very  etlicient  in  both  positions.  About  half 
of  the  children  attend  some  Sabliath  scliool. 

There  are  over  fifty  liquor  store.s  and  saloons 
here,  and  an  active  temperance  society. 

Tliere  is  one  business  firm  here  comjiosed  of 
a  Presbyterian,  a  Methodist,  and  a  Congrega- 
tionalist,  who  never  sell  goods  on  the  Sabbatli, 
and  prosper. 

Sidney,  one  hundred  and  fourteen  miles 
east  of  Cheyenne,  is  a  great  out-fitting  point 
for  the  Black  Hills.  It  lias  more  new  build- 
ings and  business  activities  than  any  other 
town  of  its  size  in  the  Union,  but  religious 
enterprise  does  not  keep  i^ace  with  them. 

North  Platte,  near  the  confiucnce  of  the 
North  and  South  Platters,  is  surrounded  by  a 
rich  agricultural  region,  and  from  this  point 
east  to  Omaha,  about  .3()(t  miles,  the  fertility 
of  the  soil  and  tin;  rain-fall  increases,  which, 
with  the  genial  and  almost  constant  sunshine, 
and  general  southeastern  .slope  of  tlie  valley, 
constitiUes  it  a  superior  farming  country,  in 
which  land  is  being  rapidly  .sold  by  the  Union 
Pacific  at  from  two  to  eight  dollars  per  acre, 
on  long  credit,  witli  only  six  percent,  interest. 

From  Nortli  I'latte  going  east  we  pass 
tlirough  tlie  comparatively  new  county  of 
Dawson,  which  is  watered  l)y  the  Platte  and 
Wood  Rivers,  Plum  Creek  and  other  smaller 
streams. 

Plum  Creek  is  the  ca])ital,  and  is  a  promis- 
ing point  2:i()  miles  west  of  Omaha.  The 
people  of  the  town  and  county  are  principally 
from  Pennsylvania  and  Oliio. 

Dawsou  county  has  f  oi  ty-two  miles  of  U.  P. 
Railroad,  six  thousand  feet  of  bridges,  thir- 
teen good  .school  houses,  well  furnished,  and 
about  as  many  churches — all  built  during  the 
last  five  years. 

The  altitude  is  2, .370  feet  above  the  level  of 
the  sea.  There  have  been  only  eight  deaths 
in  the  county  during  the  last  year,  of  those 
who  came  Iiere  well. 

The  crop  prospects  are  excellent,  and  no 
grasslioppers. 

During  the  construction  of  the  Union  Pacific 
road,  when  every  train  bad  to  cari-y  soldiers 
and  arms  for  their  men  and  passengers,  near 
the  mouth  of  Plum  Creek  a  band  of  Indians 
tied  some  wire  to  a  telegraph  pole,  al)out  four 
feet  from  the  ground,  and  about  fifty  of  them 
stretched  it  across  the  ]'oad  in  front  of  an  ap- 
proaching train.  The  engineer  put  on  full 
steam,  and  wlien  the  engine  struck  tlie  wire 
the  Indians  all  had  a  rougli  time,  and  especi- 
ally the  leader,  who  had  the  end  of  the  wire 
wrapped  around  his  liand,  was  terribly  muti- 
lated. So  it  will  ever  be  with  the  poor  infi- 
dels wlio    are    trying    to  stop  tlie  train  of 


Christianity,  which  has  fmnided  and  sustains 
all  the  charitable  institutions  for  the  relief  of 
the  thousands  of  sick,  blind,  deaf,  dumb, 
insane  and  helpless  in  our  own  and  other 
lands. — Sidney  A.  Gaylor. 

^ 

ESSAY    ON   WHEAT.* 

Wheat  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  of  our 
cereal  productions,  and  invariably  follows 
civilization — if  it  may  not  be  regarded  as  the 
most  universal  .liijn  of  civilization.  Its  origin, 
unlike  that  of  the  origin  of  the  Irish  potato, 
is  almost,  if  not  entirely,  unknown.  Its 
antiquity,  however,  seems  to  be  unquestion- 
able, as  by  reading  the  Book  of  Genesis,  we 
find  that  when  the  sons  of  .Jacob  were  working 
in  the  harvest  field,  .Joseph  had  a  dream — 
"For  behold  we  were  binding  sheaves  in  the 
field,  and  lo,  my  sheaf  arose  and  also 
stood  upright ;  and  behold  your  sheaves  stood 
round  about,  and  made  obiesance  to  my 
sheaf. "  By  that  we  may  infer  that  v)h(at  was 
meant,  and  when  the  Egyptians  stored  up 
"corn"  it  also  meant  wheat. 

fCorn  is  a  general  term  whicli  includes  all 
kinds  of  grain  used  as  breadstufls,  and  when 
we  .sjieak  of  the  "Corn  E.xchange"  we  mean 
the  Ijuying  and  selling  of  wheat,  rye,  barley 
and  oats,  as  well  as  corn,  or  maize.  So  we 
may  jierceive  tliat  wheat  was  cultivated  in 
Asia  and  Africa  full3-  foiu- thousand  years  ago, 
(4,000)  according  to  Bible  hi.story.  Wheat 
will  grow  in  all  .soils  in  the  same  latitude  ;  but 
even  in  the  same  latitude  it  will  thrU-e  better 
ill  some  soils  than  in  others,  although  it  in- 
variably does  well  in  virgin  soils.  But  in 
from  fifteen  to  thirty  years  many  of  the 
Western  States  cease  to  be  good  wheat  grow- 
ing districts,  and  many  less  acres  are  under 
cultivation  than  in  former  times,  in  conse- 
quence of  the  deterioration  of  the  crop.  In- 
stead of  raising  wheat,  the  farmers  go  into 
stock  raisiug — .such  as  blooded  cattle,  sheep, 
swine  and  Norman  horses  ;  the  latter  of  which 
command  from  .f  1..50  to  .f200  ai)icce.  Many 
varieties  of  wheat  were  cultivated  in  the 
American  Colonies — afterwards  the  United 
States — at  least  three  hundred  in  all. 
More  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  varieties 
were  cultivated  at  dilTerent  times  in  Oliio  and 
other  AVestern  States.  Nearly  all  those  early 
vaiieties  have  been  long  since  discarded. 
Very  few  varieties  imiiortcd  from  Europe, 
ever  .succeed  well  in  tlie  UnitcMl  States,  except 
the  "Old  ISIediterraneaii,"  which  originally 
came  from  the  shores  of  the  sea  of  that  name. 
After  the  great  wheat  fiiilure  of  ISSfi  and  18:57 
— when  flour  brought  $U  per  barrel — the  Hes- 
sian fly  was  the  tmiversal  destroyer  of  the 
wheat  crop  in  Lancaster  county.  The  Medi- 
terranean variety  seemed  to  have  withstood 
the  attacks  of  the  fly.  At  first  its  farinaceous 
cliaracter  was  somewhat  similar  to  rye,  but  it 
imjiroved  in  the  course  of  time.  Some  twenty 
years  ago,  a  farmer  in  Paradise  township 
]iicked  out  a  stalk  of  wheat  from  a  field  of  the 
Old  Mediterranean,  which,  when  planted, 
proved  a  great  improvement  on  the  old,  and 
did  much  better.  It  was  afterwards  known 
as  the  "Red  Mediterranean,"  and  was  the 
principal  wheat  afterwards  cultivated,  down 
to  the  introduction  of  tlic  Foltz  variety.  The 
Foltz  was  introduced  from  the  valley  of  the 
Susqnelianiia.  Many  other  varieties  have 
been  introduced  through  the  National  Agri- 
cultural Department  at  Washington,  and 
elsewhere,  and  have  since  been  nearly  all 
abandoned.  Most  wheat  will  soon  degene- 
rate, and  new  varieties  from  our  native  soil 
will  do  better  tlian  others.  We  even  can 
raise  the  best  of  fruit  from  seedlings  of  our 
native  soil. 

I  believe  that  if  fai  iners  would  every  year 
search  their  fields,  when  the  grain  is  fully 
ri])e,  that  tliey  might  lierc  and  there  find 
heads,  or  clusters  of  heads,  that  would  jiro- 
ducc  distinct  varieties  of  wheat  which  would 
be  an  improvement  on  the  old  kinds.  By  such 
a  course  of  culture,  by  "n.atural  selection," 
we  might  develop  varieties  that  would  yield 

•Kead  before  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural  anfl  Hor- 
ticultural Society,  May  7,  1877,  hy  Levi  S.  Rei8t, 
I  "  The  SpriiiK  is  waning  fast, 
Tlie  cnyii  in  iu  the  ear." 


from  20  to  40  bushels  per  acre.  How  few 
farmers  ever  search,  or  try  to  discover  new 
varieties  of  wlieat  or  other  grains.  I  would 
suggest  that  the  society  should  offer  a  premi- 
um of  five  dollars  (15),  for  the  best  variety  of 
wheat  selected  from  the  fields  of  Lancaster 
county.  The  diseases  and  enemies  of  wheat 
art!  numerous,  conspicuously  among  which 
are  bUght,  mildew,  rust,  midges,  weevils  and 
tlie  Hessian  fly. 

We  have  had  very  few  good  wheat  harvests 
in  this  county  for  the  last  ten  years.  About 
eight  or  tten  years  ago  the  wheat  looked 
very  promising  until  harvest  time,  when  it 
was  discovered  that  the  heads  would  not  fill ; 
it  was  rank  enough  in  the  straw,  but  had  not 
enough  of  weight  in  the  grain  to  bend  the 
lieads  over,  and  they  stood  erect  and  empty. 
It  was  generally  thought,  at  the  time,  that  it 
was  infested  liy  a  new  kind  of  u^eeril,  hut  my 
opinion  was  that  the  cause  was  in  the  condi- 
tion of  the  atmosjihere  when  it  was  in  bloom  ; 
or,  not  in  the  right  temperature  when  the 
graiji  was  maturing.  It  was  something  new 
then,  but  beyond  the  farmer's  ken.  Four  or 
five  years  ago  we  had  a  cold  open  winter — 
dry,  and  without  snow,  and  the  thermometer 
sometimes  30'-'  below  zero,  and  this  was  the 
occasion  of  a  failure  iu  the  wheat  crop.  Two 
years  ago  the  southeastern  part  of  Jjancaster 
county,  from  the  range  of  hills  extending  from 
New  I3erlin  to  Kissel  Hill,  or  New  Haven  to 
Manheim,  was  overlaid  with  solid  ice,  and 
many  farmers  diil  not  raise  more  than  from 
fir  to  ten  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre,  and 
those  failures  afi'orded  new  researches,  rela- 
ting to  their  cause,  among  the  farmers. 

The  Hessian  fly  is  only  an  occasional  visitor ; 
and,  as  before  indicated,  seems  to  have  been 
an  emigrant  from  Eurojie,  where  it  had  been 
known  and  described  long  before  it  commenced 
its  ravages  in  this  country.  According  to  tlie 
best  authorities  on  the  siiliject,  its  first  ap- 
pearance in  Amei'ica  was  noticed  in  1776,  and 
it  is  supposed  to  have  been  brought  over  from 
the  continent  of  Europe  in  the  straw-litter 
used  by  the  Hessian  soldiers,  and  from  this 
circumstance  its  common  name  has  been 
derived.  AVhether  this  assumption  is  correct 
or  not,  it  is  on  record  that  it  was  first  no- 
ticed on  Long  Island  one  hundred  years  ago, 
and  traveled  inland  at  the  rate  of  twenty 
miles  a  year,  until  it  is  now  known  all  oveV 
the  Eastern,  Middle  and  Western  States.  It 
exists  always  in  certain  localities,  and  varies 
its  attacks  of  the  wheat  crop  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  September.  In  1836  this 
fly  destroyed  all  the  wheat  sown  from  the  .5th 
of  August  to  the  1st  of  October.  A  farmer  in 
Rajiho  townsliip,  who  was  always  a  late  sower, 
sowed  his  wheat  on  the  20th  of  October,  and 
his  wheat  crop  totally  escaped  the  ravages  of 
this  insect  that  year,  and  he  realized  <a  good 
crop,  and  sold  to  other  farmers  at  53  per 
bushel. 

In  the  year  1876,  all  the  wheat  sown  on  or 
before  the  .5th  of  September,  will  be  almost  an 
entire  failure.  The  present  prosjiects  are  that 
the  yield  will  only  be  from  iiN  to  ten  bushels 
per  acre.  After  the  •'ith  of  September  a  "wet 
siiell"  succeeded,  and  farmers  could  resume 
their  sowing,  until  after  the  11th  or  12th,  and 
wliat  was  sown  aftei-  that  period  looks  very 
promising  ;  and  if  nothing  like  hail,  mildew 
or  midges  intervene — or  other  contingency  at 
present  unseen  and  unknown  occurs — we  may 
expect  a  yielil  of  from  twenty  to  thirty  bu.shels 
per  acre.  About  one-fourth  of  the  crop  in 
Lancaster  county  was  sown  before  the  5th  of 
September,  and  .about  throe-fourths  after  the 
11th,  and  from  this  data,  all  other  thing.s 
being  eipial,  we  may  at  least  conjecture  what 
the  crop  the  present  season  may  lie. 

tVNlieu  we  say  "ahnut"  ten  years  ago,  we  may  mean  a  year 
more,  or  a  year  less.  If  Mr.  R.  alludes  to  18fi^ — which  was 
alxnit  ten  years  ago — we  would  respectfully  refer  hint  to  the 
/.rtji''n.s7('r  IvtcUitjnu-fr  Un  June  3(1,  of  that  year ;  to  the 
ftixih/  HzpTctii  for  Jiiue  20,  IH(17;  and  to  the  Exainin^r  nntt 
Ili'iaf'l  foi-  July  10,  of  the  same  year,  in  wliii^h  he  will  tind 
that  i''c  entertained  a  djtierent  opinion  from  his,  on  the 
causes  of  the  wheat  failure  of  those  yrai-s.  We  made  a  series 
of  investigations,  both  in  the  closet  and  in  the  field,  and 
came  to'the  conclusion  that  the  damage  to  the  wheat  crop 
in  those  yc'ars  was  caused  by  the  "  midge,"  or  "  wheat-fly," 
iCeriilninifia  tritici,)  sometimes  wrongly  called  the  "  Red- 
\\'eevil."  There  was  plenty  of  good  strong  straw,  but  the 
heads  stood  erect  and  with  little  or  nothing  In  them. — }kL 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


87 


TOULOUSE  GEESE. 

Those  geese,  of  which  the  cut  hclnw  is  a 
faithful  represontalidii,  arc  in  stock  by  Heu- 
soii  Si  Hurpco.  of  Philadelphia,  an.l  won  the 
first  uiul  s|)ccial  prizes  at  L'hiladelphia  in 
January,  I'^iO.  .  ^       , 

The  Toulouse  are  the  largest  variety  ot 
geese  known  to  the  poultry  world,  and  have 
been  appropriately  styled  "the  (ioo.soof  the 
period."  They  arc  very  hardy,  produce  an 
abundance  of  feathers,  grow  raiiiilly,  and 
fatten  readily  at  any  age.  In  color,  they  are 
of  an  even  shaded  gray,  with  the  posterior 
vend-al  portion  of  a  lighter  color,  and  short  in 
their  pedal  limbs.  They  are  just  phlegmatic 
enough  to  become  a  savory  roast  by  Christmas 
time,  and  yield  a  sutliciency  of  surplus  "goose- 
grease"  to  alleviate  the  sore  throats  of  the 
children  of  a  large  family  for  an  entire  year. 
If  ancient  Rome  was  saved  by  a  goose,  surely 
the  salvation  of  our  country  cannot  be  in 
jeoi>ardy  as  Ioiil'  as  wc  cultivate,  or  tolerate, 
the  presence  of  this  magiiilicent  specimen  of 
the  AnatUlan  family  amongst  us— either  by 
"war,  pestilence  or  famine." 

ARCHAEOLOGICAL    COMMUNICA- 
TIONS—No.  565* 

I  give  for  the  eililieatioii  of  the  members  of 
the    lyiniKcan   Society   present,' extracts  from 
interesting    and    valuable 
letters  of  which  I  was  the 
recipient     several    weeks 
ago.      The    jicrsons    who 
were     the     writers    have 
taken  an  intense  interest 
in  Archa'ological  matters, 
and  one  of  them  is  very 
favorably    mentioned    by 
the  late  C:ol.,I.  W.  Foster, 
author  of  the  Prehistoric 
Races  ofthethiitcd  States, 
in  this  manner  :  "  To  Mr. 
Silas  ^FcDnwell,  a  gentle- 
man   who  has  resided    in 
this  region  (Franklin,  Ma- 
con coinity,  X.C.)  for  more 
than  half  a  century,  I  am 
indebted  tor  the  subjoined 
information.     Up  to  1811), 
theC'heidkres  lield  posses- 
sion of  this  region,  when, 
in  pursuance  of  a  treaty, 
tbcy  vacalid  a  portion  of 
tlie'laiids  lying  in  the  val- 
ley of  the  I, i I  lie  Tennessee 
k'iver.     In  1S21,  Mr.  Mc- 
Dowell ciinimenced  farm- 
ing;,    liiiring  the  first  sea- 
sons   the  «  plowshare,     in 
lia.ssing  over  a  certain  por- 
tion of  .a  field,  )iroduced  a 
hollow,  rumbling  sound,  and,  in  exploring  for 
the  cause,  the  lirsl  object  met  with  was  a  shal- 
low layer  of  eharcoal,  beneath  which  was  a  slab 
of  Vmrnt  clay,  about  seven  feet  in  length  and 
four  feet  broad,  which,  in  the  attempt   to   re- 
move, broke  into  .several  fragments.     Nothing 
teneath  this  slab  was  found  ;  but,  on   exam- 
ining  its   under  side,  to   his  great   surjirise, 
there    was    the    mould    of  a  naked   human 
figure.      Three  of  these  burned   clay  sepul- 
chres were  thus  raised  and   examined   during 
the   first  year  of  his   occupancy,  since  which 
time  none  have   been  found   until  recently. 
These   fragments  were   so   little   api)reciated 
that  they  were  suffered  to  remain  in  the  field, 
subject   to   the   disintegrating   agency  of  the 
elements  and   the   tramping    of  the"  cattle. 
During  the  past  .season  (lS7'2),the  i)low  brought 
niianother  fragment  of  one  of  these  moulds,  re- 
vealing the  inijiress  of  a  plump  human  arm." 

Col.  McDowell  writes  me  thus:  "In  my 
twenty-fifth  year,  to  wit,  in  1820,  I  came 
among  the  Cherokee  tribe  of  Indians,  and 
the  country  was  purchased  and  settled  by  the 
white  man  shortly  afterward.  This  is  the 
upper  valley  of  the  Tennes.see  River,  which 
was  then  only  settled  or  populated  by  In- 
dians.    On  the  low  gro\mds  of  the  river  were 


mixed  with  the  soil  were  fragments  of  pot- 
tery, arrow-heads,  spear-heads  !Uid  axes.  T 
became  intensely  interested,  and  whished  to 
know  the  traditions  of  the  the  tribes.  These 
traditions  were  all  in  the  brain  ot  an  old  In- 
dian woman  whom  they  had  selected,  and  her 
otlicial  name  was  "  Sensekeepcr."  AVith  an 
interpreter  I  called  on  the  old  woman 
and  propounded  many  questions.  How  many 
years  since  your  tribe  built  these  mounds  V 
"My  tribe  "did  not  build  them,  but  found 
them  here,  when  they  drove  out  another  tribci 
of  Indians."  TIow  many  years  since  this 
happened  ?  "  Don't  know  ;  we  can't  count 
back  only  by  moons  and  snows,  and  \vc  soon 
lose  count."  I  propounded  many  other 
questions,  and  the  answers  convinced  me  that 
the  Cherokee  tribe  was  without  any  tradition 
that  could  be  of  service  to  the  anti(piarian. 
*  *  *  *  I  infer  from  the  diirerent  styles 
of  pottery,  cutting  instruments  and  offensive 
weapons,  as  well  as  different  modes  of  sejnil- 
ture,  that  many  difTerent  tribes,  for  thousands 
of  years  back,  at  different  periods  have,  for 
the"  time,  been  the  lords  of  these  beautiful 
mountain  valleys;  but  I  cannot  vent uni  to 
gue.ss  which  of  them  built  the  mounds,  nor 
cremated  their  dead.  But  it  is  a  strange  fact 
that  the  mode  of  cremation  was  precisely 
that  of  the  Greeks  in  the  Homeric  Age,  and 


many  large  Indian  earth  mounds,  and  inter 

'Read  before  the  Linnteau  Society 


TOULOUSE  GEESE— Bred  by  Benson  &  Burpee,  Philadelphia 
an  exhumation  of  one  of  the.se  Indian  graves 
and  a  Greek  grave  near  Ilion  presents 
precisely  the  same  result.  First,  a  bed 
of  charcoal,  then  a  layer  of  clay  burned  like  a 
brick,  and  then,  in  the  case  of  the  Greek, 
jewels,  trinkets  and  coin  ;  but  no  bones  in 
the  graves  of  either.  *  *  *  *  Among 
the  stone  relics  are  found,  cut  out  of  the 
hardest  quartz  rock,  the  most  exquisite  speci- 
mens of  stone  work  that  I  ever  beheld  ; 
the  form  being  two  plain  surfaces  and  then 
formed  to  a  circle,  and  the  upper  plain  cut 
into  a  STiccession  of  disks,  one  within  the 
other,  and  the  centre  one  three  inches  in 
diameter  and  one  inch  deep,  in  which  tits  ii 
stone  cut  out  of  the  same  material.  Until 
recently,  the  problem  was,  how  did  the  In- 
dians cut  these  hard  implements  ?  That 
problem  is  now  solved  since  Col.  .1.  N.  .lenks 
opened  the  finest  Corundum  mines  found  in 
the  United  States,  and  as  that  stone  is  next  to 
the  diamond  in  hardness,  and  obtained  where 
these  fine  quartz  relics  arc  found,  there  is  no 
question  but  that  some  Indians  of  brain 
carved  them  out  of  the  bard  quartz  rock." 
Col.  McDowell  refers  to  the  beautiful  "  Dis- 
coidal  stones"  which  I  had  the  pleasure  of 
describing  to  you  in  my  paper  read  liefore 
your  society. 

The  other  interesting  letter  speaks  in  this 
manner  :    "I  was  acquainted  with  a  number 


of  the  Potawatomic  Indians,  and  traveled 
over  a  portion  of  the  Korthern  part  of  the 
State  (Illinois)  in  company  with  Shabona  and 
his  attendants.  He  was  the  Chief  of  the 
Potawatomics,  and,  in  conversing  with  them 
in  regard  to  many  of  the  stone  implements 
found,  they  believed  them  to  have  been  made 
by  some  people  that  lived  before  they  came— - 
tiio  Potawatomics— and  evidently,  they  never 
belonged  to  the  present  race  of  Indians,  but 
are  true  relics  of  the  Stone  Age."  The  writer 
of  this  communication.  Dr.  Roardman,  an 
old  settler  of  Illinois,  who  left  for  that  State, 
from  Pennsylvania,  many  years  ago,  has  care- 
fully studicil  the  relics  of  an  extinct  race, 
and  one  which  is  fast  disappearing.— yl.  F. 
IStrlin,  Reading,  Pa. 

^ 

For  Thk  Lanoartfh  I-'ARMEn. 
THE    BEST    METHOD    FOR    DESTROY- 
ING CUT    WORMS.* 
The  best  method  that  I  have  founil  for  de- 
stroying this  little  destructive  worm   to  to- 
bacco iilants,  was   mixing  some  of  the  best 
"Paris  Green"  with  gypsum,   and  sprinkling 
it  over  the  plants  with  a  tin  box,  made  like  a 
pepper  box,   with    a    wooden    handle  about 
thi-ec  feet  in  length.    Care  must  Vie  exercised, 
however,  not  to  have  too  much  Paris  Green, 
as  it  will  be  fatal   to   both   plant  and   worm. 
Mix  oneiif)inid  l'ari»(Trcen 
to  three  peeks  gypsum.     1 
applied  lielleliore  to  some 
of    my    plants  last  year, 
which  proved  a  success  to 
destroy    the  worm   for  a 
short  time  of  about    two 
days.     As  time   and    ex- 
posure deteriorates  its  pro- 
perties, it  is  nec'cssary  to 
apply  it   fie(iuently,   and 
thereby  it  becomes  an  ex- 
pensive article  to  use,  as  it 
cannot  be  obtained  for  less 
than  about  (iO  or  70  cents 
■  per  iiotmd.     Another  ob- 
\^=^i"  jection  I  have  to  its  use  is, 
--^'--  it  contains  salts,  which  is 
4^3-  T!  „r)  benefit  to  the  tobacco 
ants. 

Bran  is  use<l  t  o  '  'eoncen- 
trate"  the  cut-womi,  with 
great  success.  They  are 
very  fond  of  it,  and  will 
feed  upon  it  in  preference 
to  tob;icco  plants.  A  small 
portion  of  bran  is  placed 
aside  of  each  plant,  and 
when  the  worms  are  con- 
tent with  their  fill,  they 
will  hide  below  the  bran, 
where  they  may  l)e  read- 
ily found  and  destroyed. 

'\V'here  poultry  have  no  access  to  tobacco 
fields,  and  birds  can  be  prevented  to  feed  upon 
bran,  I  would  recommend  bran  mixed  with 
Paris  Green,  and  a  small  iwrtion  placed 
aside  of  each  plant,  which  will  destioy  the 
cut  worms  without  doing  injury  to  the  tobac- 
co plants. 


^  ,-.  pi 


STRAWBERRIES.! 

While  in  the  seasonof  enjoying  this  luscious 

fruit,  a  little  consideration  in  reference^ to  its 

1  cultivation,  may  not  be  out  of  place.     Nature 

J  seems  to  offer  a" bountiful  supply  for  all.     Our 

I  climate  being  adapted,  and  our  soils  having 

1  capacity  to   produce  a  sufiiciency  for  every 

one,  not  only  as  a  luxury,  but  as  an  article  of 

;  food,  at  reasonable  cost  "to  the  consumer,  and 

1  at  fairly  remunerative  prices  to  the  in-oducer. 

The  (picstion  will  here   arise  :    "Why  then  is 

this    want    not  filled  ?    Why    continue  this 

achii)'.;  void  between  anxious,  craving  mouths, 

and  ample  resources  to  both  gratify  and  satisfy 

them  V 

The  answer  is  simple.  The  people!  are  not 
educated  up  to  such  a  standard  1    There  are 

•Ri'iid  Ixfnrt-  the  Tobacco  Orowers'  AKSocialioii,  of  Lan- 
CiistiT  county,  iit  the  Miiy  mcolini;,  hold  at  the  Athenmnm, 
oil  the  21st  u'lt..  by  H.  M.  Mayer. 

tUoad  before  the  Laucanf^-r  County  Agricultural  and  Hor- 
ticultural Sooiely,  by  n.  M.  Engle. 


88 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  June, 


compaiatively  f<-'W  who  know  llie  value  of 
fruit  as  food,  but  esjiecially  tlie  strawberry, 
wbicli  is  the  first  of  the  season,  and  conies  at 
a  time  when  the  system  requires  food  of  a 
more  succulent  and  cooliiii;  nature,  than  that 
which  may  be  ]iartakcn  of  with  imimnity  du- 
ring cold  weather.  The  nutritive  value  of 
fruits  as  food  will  be  made  part  of  another 
essay,  as  the  strawberry  is  made  the  topic  for 
tins  paper. 

It  seems  strange  that  many  families  in 
towns  and  cities  are  fiir  better  supplied  with 
berries,  in  tlieir  season,  than  the  majority  of 
farmers'  families  are.  Some  farmers'  wives 
will,  in  season,  buy  a  few  quarts  from  the 
market  gardener  for  preserving,  while  at  the 
same  time  a  full  supply  for  home  consumption 
could  be  grown  on  a  few  rods  (jf  ground  as 
easily,  and  more  certain,  than  j)otatoe,s  are 
grown  now-a-days.  If  tliis  assertion  is  sus- 
tained, is  it  not  criminal  neglect  on  the  part 
of  heads  of  families,  wlio  have  plenty  of  land, 
and  fail  to  supply  their  children  with  this 
health-giving  enjoyment  ? 

The  farmer  wlio  declined  purchasing  straw- 
lierry  i)laiits,  for  the  reason  that  llie  children 
would  eat  the  berries  anyhow,  deserves  not 
only  censure,  but  contempt  also.  The  law  of 
demand  and  supply,  as  a  rule,  governs  all 
trade,  but  in  many  cases  the  demand  must  be 
created,  when  the  supply  will  be  sure  to  follow. 
!More  has  been  realized  per  acre  for  straw- 
berries than  for  tobacco,  and  yet  only  the  few 
raise  the  former,  while  the  best  methods  are 
employed  to  produce  the  latter  in  large  quan- 
tities ;  and  still  the  demand  seems  to  keep 
pace  with  the  supiily,  simply  because  the  con- 
sumer of  tobacco  is  a  certain  customer,  while 
the  consumer  of  berries  is  not ;  hence  there  is 
not  that  reliable  inducement  to  produce  the 
latter  as  there  is  for  tlie  former. 

"Were  the  value  of  berries  (and  fruits  gene- 
rally) better  understood,  their  consumption 
would  necessarily  increase.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  the  owners  of  land  knew  how  cheaply 
they  could  grow  them,  they  would  produce 
such  a  supply  as  would  induce  greater  eon- 
sumption.  If,  by  the  agitation  of  this  subject, 
such  a  result  can  be  produced,  we  may  have 
the  satisfaction  that  our  community  will  be 
benefited,  and  that  the  time  and  labors  oi 
this  society  are  sjient  to  some  good  purpose. 
If  he  who  causes  two  blades  of  grass  to  grow 
where  but  one  grew  before,  is  a  benefactor  to 
his  race  ;  how  much  more  then  is  he  who 
causes  bushels  of  berries  to  grow  where  none 
grew  before.  Iluriug  the  heated  season  of 
summer  wc  often  hear  resolves  to  have  a  sup- 
ply of  ice  next  winter,  but  during  tlie  cold 
weather  this  anxious  desire  for  ice  lies  dor- 
mant until  the  warm  season  revives  the  former 
feelings,  and  so  these  annual  spasms  bee(nue 
hal)itual.  We  often  see  similar  attacks  of 
strawVierry  fever  during  their  season.  At 
this  time  there  is  generally  a  great  demand 
I'or  strawberry  jdants,  while  there  are  none  to 
1)0  had  ;  Imt  this  demand  ceases  generally 
about  the  middle  of  .lune,  and  i.s  only  revived 
again  about  the  last  of  May,  the  following 
year  ;  in  short,  the  strawberry  plant  fever 
lasts  only  from  two  to  three  weeks,  while  the 
ice  fever  lasts  as  many  months. 

The  (juickest  way  to  prevent  a  recurrence 
of  the  plant  fever,  will  be  to  ])rocure  good 
young  plants  in  August  or  early  in  September, 
plant  in  well  prepared  ground, "about  one  by 
two  feet  for  garden  cuHure,  and  further  apart 
for  field  culture,  esi)e(;ially  where  left  to 
siiread  all  they  will.  The  former  distance  is 
sullicient  for  hill  culture,  where  the  runners 
are  kept  down,  which  will  produce  the  finest 
berries,  but  requires  more  labor  than  the  run- 
ning system.  Cultivate  well,  and  as  they 
will  make  few  runners  the  same  season,  they 
should  be  kept  off,  which  will  allow  the  main 
stock  to  spread  more.  ISIidch  with  straw 
manure  or  fodder,  not  too  heavy,  before  hard 
freezing  weather.  This  plan  will  generally 
bring  a  good  half  crop  of  the  finest  berries  the 
next  season,  liy  planting  in  the  spring  we 
cannot  expect  a  crop  before  next  season,  but 
which  should  be  a,  fall  one.  The  fall  plant- 
ing will  require  special  care,  unless  wc  have 


rainy  weather.  In  order  to  get  the  best  re- 
sults, not  too  many  runners  should  be  allowed 
to  grow,  as  each  runner  will  make  a  bearing 
plant  which  should  have  amjile  room  to  be- 
come strong.  The  value  of  the  coming  crop 
will  depend  very  much  upon  the  vigor  of 
stocks  of  the  previous  season.  The  straw- 
berry is  no  doubt  the  most  certain  of  all  fruit 
crops.  Who  has  ever  heard  of  a  total  failure 
of  this  fruit  ?  The  ^\■riter  has  not  had  a  total 
failure  since  his  first  jilanting,  which  is  over 
twenty  years,  and  hardly  a  day  during  this 
period,  in  strawberry  sea.son,  that  his  family 
had  not  berries  as  part  of  their  meals  from 
one  to  three  times. 

The  question  has  often  recurred  to  my  mind, 
what  would  be  the  proper  method  to  bring 
about  a  change  that  would  supply  all,  lioth 
rich  and  poor,  with  a  sufliciency  of  strawl>er- 
ries  in  their  season  V  Could  wo  bring  aliout 
such  a  .state  of  things  we  might  claim  the 
honor  of  being  benefactors  to  our  race. 


For  The  Lancaster  Fahmer. 
FENCING  AND  SOILING. 

The  subject  of  farm  fences  is  being  discuss- 
ed more  and  more  by  agricultural  journals 
and  agricultural  societies,  and  it  is  indeed  be- 
coming a  subject  which  the  farmer  can  no 
longer  pass  liy,  on  account  of  its  heavy  drain 
on  the  profits  of  the  farm.  This  is  the  m(.)re 
severely  felt  in  the  northern  and  eastern 
States, where  there  are  no  etiicient  cattle  laws; 
as  here,  outside  as  well  as  inside  fences  are 
required,  and  fencing  materials  very  high  in 
price. 

For  this  part  of  the  country  the  cost  of  a 
panel  of  good  five-rail  post  fence  varies  from 
.$1.50  to  .fl.tlO,  viz  :  rails,  10  to  12  cents  each; 
best  loenst  posts,  7.5  to  80  cents  each;  setting, 
1.5  to  18  cents  per  pannel;  hauling,  according 
to  distance.  A  panel  measures  froiu  lOiV  to 
11  feet. 

The  cost  of  fencing  farms  is  as  follows,  al- 
lowing $1.. 50  to  set  a  panel  that  measures  11 
feet: 


Acres 

Bound 
Eoail 

aries    on 
FarmB 

Number  of  Fields. 

Inside 
fences  t)ike 

1 

2 
432 

3 

514 

6 

036 

7 

up  acres. 

20 

1-5 

4-5 

305 

723 

1-8  to  2-5 

30 

1-5 

4-5 

.^74 

.530 

633 

779 

880 

1-7  to  8-15 

40 

1-4 

3-4 

400 

030 

750 

918 

1041 

2-11  to  3-5 

(id 

1-4 

3-4 

550 

770 

918 

1124 

1310 

2-9  to  8-11 

80 

1-3 

2-3 

67T 

933 

1102 

1350 

1551 

3-11  to  5-6 

100 

2-5 

3-5 

un 

1082 

1271 

153" 

1772 

2-7  to  20-21 

120 

1-2 

1-2 

1)35 

1244 

1434 

1 745 

2004 

1-3  to  1  1-21 

The  above  calculations  are  for  pretty  level 
farms,  lying  in  a  square,  and  not  fronting 
more  on  the  road  than  indicated.  Where 
the  country  is  hilly,  or  where  the  farm  is 
longer  than  wide,  or  where  there  is  more  than 
the  above  proportion  offences  along  the  pub- 
lic highway,  eitherof  these  will  increase  the 
amount  offences  that  must  be  made  and  kept 
up  on  such  farms. 

Now  supposing  that  the  fence  lasts  20 yeai's, 
and  that  we  have  the  old  wood  as  an  offset 
against  repairs,  &c.,  wc  have  as  the  cost  per 
year  the  interest  on  money  invested,  (5  per 
cent.,  and  wear  .5  per  cent.,  or  11  per  cent,  on 
investment  in  fences.  As  the  law  stands  now 
we  are  required  to  keep  up  boundary  fences, 
and  we  could  therefore  dispense  with  the  in- 
side fences  only.  These  in  the  case  of  the  100 
acre  farm  divided  into  7  fields  would  cost 
about  §1,0(1(1,  which  at  11  per  cent,  would 
amount  to  fllO  per  year — a  nice  little  pile  to 
deposit  in  bank  or  invest  in  improved  ma- 
chinery. 

But  how  could  we  get  along  without  inside 
fences  ?  How  are  we  to  pa.sture  our  cattle  ? 
The  answer  is— do  not  pasture  the  cattle  at 
all,  but  "soil"  them. 

How  the  term  ".soiling"  came  to  be  ai)plied 
to  feeding  cattle  with  green  food,  fed  in  the 
stalls,  [  do  not  know,  .'is  it  seems  a  very  inap- 
projiriate  term. 

It  ni.ay  Vie  urged  as  an  objection  to  soiling, 
that  it  would  take  one  hand  more  on  the 
farm  and  that  this  would  cost  too  much.  As 
one  offset  against  the  cost  of  the  additional 
hand  we  have  .IfllO.OO  saved  in  fences;'  we 
have  also  the  benefit  of  the  ground  that  had 
before  been  taken  up  with  fences — and  which 


in  the  form  supposed  would  not  fall  far  short 
of  one  acre;  we  have  also  the  extra  labor  that 
could  bo  done,  as  it  would  not  take  the  whole 
time  of  a  man  to  attend  to  the  herd  of  cows 
usually  kept  on  a  farm  of  the  above  size.  In 
the  smaller  farms  there  is  usually  not  work 
enough  to  keep  the  owner  employed  all  the 
time,  and  in  this  case  the  soiling  would  ju.st 
fill  the  gap  of  unemjiloyed  time. 

Among  the  advantages  claimed  for  soiliii'T 
are  :  It  disjienses  with  fences  and  their  re- 
pairs; it  saves  land;  more  cattle  can  be  kept; 
the  cattle  can  be  kept  in  better  condition  and 
produce  more  milk. 

The  manure  is  saved  for  the  places  where  it 
is  most  needed,  and  there  is  more  of  it  made. 

To  carry  on  soiling  pro))erly  requires  some 
jilanning  to  keeji  up  the  supply  of  green  feed 
from  early  sining  till  late  in  autumn,  and  a 
good  book  on  the  subject  would  be  a  great 
iielj).  Such  a  book  is  published  liy  (Jrange 
.)udd  &  Co.,  under  the  title  of  "Soiling  of 
Cattle,"  by  Josiah  (^hiincy,  and  it  will  give 
good  hints, though  the  book  is  not  quite  so  full 
of  detail  as  it  might  be.  A  book  is  not  neces- 
sarily improved  liy  a  mass  of  detail,  and,  in 
fact,  sometimes  is  really  hurt  by  it ;  what  is 
wanted  are  the  iirinciiiles  governing  a  thing 
of  this  kind,  and  the  smaller  items  can  be 
studied  out  and  fitted  to  the  wants  of  the 
person  interested.  Such,  I  believe  the  book 
mentioned  to  be. 

Mr.  (iuiiicy,  after  some  trials,  settled  on 
grass,  oats,  corn  (sowed),  and  cabbage,  as 
being  the  four  best  crops  to  raise  for  soiling. 
He  tried  rye,  but  it  did  not  turn  out  very 
satisfactory.  But  why,  he  iloes  not  state.  I 
thuik  he  did  not  commence  cutting  until  it 
was  too  tough. 

(There  is  one  thing  to  be  borne  in  mind,  in 
soiling,  and  that  is  that  manure  must  be  used 
to  force  the  crops,  particularly  those  intended 
for  early  in  the' season.  This  can  be  very 
well  done,  for  the  num  tha.t  soils  properly  will 
have  plenty  of  manure  for  all  purposes.) 

He  depended  on  grass  from  the  20th  of  May 
until  the  1st  of  July.  Had  he  got  along  with 
his  rye,  I  think  he  could  have  commenced 
soiling  on  the  1st  of  May. 

Ill  April  he  sowed  oats  for  cutting  through 
July,  though  in  the  latter  j)art  of  tliis  month 
he  sometimes  commenced  on  earn-stalk.s.  The 
oats  he  cut  uj)  to  the  time  it  began  ripening 
until  it  was  beyond  the  milky  state. 

Corn  he  sowed  in  latter  part  of  April,  in 
drill  three  feet  apart,  using  from  two  to  three 
busb.els  to  the  acre.  He  found  that  by  cutting 
the  corn  pretty  early  the  stubbles  would  sprout 
out  and  grow  very  fast,  so  that  he  could  cut 
another  tiinc^  before  frost.  This  htyilso  found 
to  be  the  case  with  oafs. 

Besides  the  early  sowing,  he  also  put  out 
corn  in  the  mitldle  of  May,  beginning  and 
middle  of  June,  and  even  as  late  as  the  1st  of 
August,  aiul  thus  prolonged  the  corn  season 
to  the  middle  of  October.  His  reason  for 
continuing  corn  so  long  was,  that  it  produced 
so  large  an  amount  of  fodder  to  the  acre. 

In  fore  part  of  October  he  sometimes  cut 
.second  growth  of  grass  cut  in  May  and  June, 
and  second  growth  of  oats  and  corn  cut  in 
July. 

After  the  middle  of  October  he  depended  on 
cabbage  to  see  him  out,  until  the  time  to  put 
cattle  in  winter  quarters.  Sometimes  he 
raised  crops  of  roots,  such  as  carrots,  beets 
and  turnips,  and  then  he  fed  the  tops  of  these 
in  place  of  cabbage. 

For  late  feeding,  I  suppose,  cabbage  is  better 
than  nearly  anything  else,  because  it  will  stand 
a  frost  that'  would  make  other  things  unfit  to 
give  to  cattle.  It  can  also  be  pulled  and  put 
under  cover  so  that  it  will  remain  fre.sh  and 
palatable  to  the  cattle  for  a  long  time.  Rye 
•sowed  very  early  and  thick  makes  good  fall 
pasture,  and  in  rich  soil  I  have  no  doubt 
could  lie  cut  for  soiling. 

Of  course,  the  above  plan  would  n<it  suit  in 
every  case,  but  the  farmer  would  soon  see  how 
to  manage  it.  If  there  is  rough  land  to  a 
farm,  of  course,  it  is  economy  to  pasture  that, 
and  a  fence  would  have  to  be  made  to  enclose 
such  rough  land  ;  in  case  there  is  pasturing 


d 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


89 


(lone,  it  is  policy  to  partially  soil  from  middle 
of  July  until  tli'e  Isl  ofSi'iilrnilx'r.  Tlirrcarc 
oflpn  ilrv  spells  in  wliicli  tlie  pMSdn'c  becomes 
very  shdrt,  ;nul  in  such  a  time  as  lliis  sowed 
corn  comes  in  vi'ry  liandy. 

There  may  be  (>lher  crops  (hat  would  be 
profitable  to  .sow  for  entlini;,  such  as  peas  and 
the  new  ''prickly  coinl'rey."  .\i  many  places 
thev  are  now  sowing  oats  and  peas  toL;etlier, 
for  I  lie  jinrpose  of  laisin;;'  winter  fodder,  and 
it  is  <laimed  tliat  each  of  these  will  give  ni'arly 
as  large  a  cro|>  as  either  would  .sow<'d  alone. 
Pea  vines  are,  I  believe,  ranked  nearly  as 
high  in  ndlk  production  as  red  clover.  I 
should  think  that  peas  and  oats  would  make  a 
splenilid  soiling  crop. 

Mr.  (Juiniy's  experience  was,  that  the  fewei- 
croi)S  depended  on — that  would  keep  up  a  con- 
tinuous supply — the  moresimpleand  beilei-  be 
found  it. 

Wliat  is  wanted  now  is,  that  persons  who 
have  tried  .-^oiling  should  give  their  experience 
and  management,  and  if  not  successfid,  to 
what  they  attribute  tlie  failm-e.  This  would 
soon  give  an  idea  of  what  should  be  done  and 
what  should  be  avoided,  and  matter  like  this 
would  give  an  additional  value  to  agricultural 
journals. — A.  J!.  K. 

N(itk:  I  see  the  publisherof  TiikFahmkic 
lias  conunenced  the  sale  of  agricultural  books, 
and  the  "  Soiling  of  Cattle"  is  in  the  list  ;  so 
that  any  in  want  of  such  a  work,  can  get  it  In 
a  short  time  ;  either  by  calling  on  him  or  send- 
ing the  regular  price,  lie  will  mail  it  free  to 
the  post  otticc  designated. 

THE  GARDEN  OF    PENNSYLVANIA. 

A  correspondent  of  the  riiiladelpliia  P/r.s.s- 
writes  thus  plea.saiitly  of  our  city  and  its 
beautiful  snrronndings  : 

The  rival  charms  of  tin'  Laiieaslerian  and 
Yorkshire  roses  may  set  \\\\  a  combined  claim 
in  this  new  world,  Lancaster  garden,  where 
the  landscape  to-day  rejoices  in  a  wealth  of 
blossoms  both  ruddy  and  white.  Congregated 
spires  among  shade  trees  form  no  mean  mid- 
dle ground  in  a  picture  that  boasts  r>f  such  a 
perspective  of  distant  blue  mountains  with  a 
foreground  of  peach  and  cherry  blooms  beiul- 
iug  over  meadows  full  of  violets.  If  Hwere 
not  for  the  brown  cows  and  consecpient 
dairies,  the  plough  and  fallow  grounds,  one 
might  dream  of  Kdeii  unbroken.  But  look  at 
the  buttercups  and  think  of  the  butter,  and 
fancy  those  old  kings  of  apjile  trees  having 
their  crowns  shaken  in  September.  At 
present,  however,  the  bees  are  holding  court 
in  the  branches,  ami  the  way  fhe  shining  hour 
is  being  improved  suggests  the  Lancaster 
farmer,  who  can  generally  boast  of  ■Afnin  who 
can  make  her  kitchen  (|uite  habitalile  for  tlie 
legendary  iineen  to  sit  in,  "eating  bread  and 
honey,"  wliicli  brings  to  mind  among  the 
sweets  of  life  that  the  most  famous  mint 
candy  in  all  the  country  is  made  daily  in  a 
little  shop  on  a  certain  .street  in  the  town  of 
.I/ancaster,  and  disposed  of  at  a  penny  a  stick, 
wholesale  and  retail.  To  the  pure  candy 
taste  it  is  delicious,  with  a  llavor  as  cool  as 
iniimdence. 

^lany  (inaint  histories  lie  back  of  homely 
old-fashioned  walls  within  the  town  that  are 
nearly  forgotten  in  the  sup|ilaiiling  of  modern 
residences,  ample  and  eUgant,  one  of  the  latter 
of  .some  years'  standing  having  been  built 
within  nineteen  hours,  piastcred,  painted  and 
habited  in  time  for  supper.  Here  aiul  there 
the  spring  grass  is  creeping  along  the  wall  of 
some  old  church  that  holds  mural  tablets  "in 
memory  of"  many  recognizable  names,  and 
among  the  ipiiet  sleepers  in  the  cemeteries  we 
read  of  Huclianan  and  Steven.s.  It  is  west  of 
the  city  thai  Wheatland   lies,  the  homestead 

Wif  President  Buchanan,  where  in  the  midst  of 
rees  and  tlowering  shrubs,  stands  a  capaciou.s, 
line  old  liou.se,  still  fragrant  with  associations 
of  hospitality;  the  lawn  conitnands  iileasant 
vistas  of  the  mountains,  nearer  woodland,  and 
rich  farm  lands,  but  it  is  back  of  the  house 
and  to  the  side  that  the  heavily-laden  currant 
bushes  define  the  well-trimmed  garden  of 
homely  shrubs  and  vejietables,  prim  llower- 
beds  and  clustered  fruit  trees  reaching  to  the 


fine  old  woods  beyond.     The  lilacs  are  jnirple 

and  fragrant  again  jnst  without  the  library 

windows,  and  one  likes  to  fancy  a  past  May 

day   when  the   statesman    may   have   )iau.sed 

from   book  or  pen   to  take   in  the  subtle  jier- 

fumes  or  gather  quiet  fri>ni  the  sight  of  the 

strong-armed  oaks.      It  is  through  tlinsc  woods 

that   you  can  see   clearly,  in  th(^  midst  of  its 

willows  and  larches,  C:ernarvon,  the  home  of 

the  great  Dr.  Xevin,  and  the  awakening  life 

outside    this    morning    suggested     the   silent 

wm-kings  of  that  master-mind  within,  sending 

from  the,  hush  of  his  study  those  results  of  an 

intrrior  life  which  govern  so  many   minds  of 

the  present  day. 

*  *  »  *  * 

Yesterday  morning  the  horse  stepped  pretty 
briskly  outEasl  King  strcf^t  into  the  country 
S(Uith"of  the  city,  where  among  umber  willows 
an  old  mill  and  old-fashioned  house  had 
awakened  an  interest  some  days  i)reviously 
that  was  repaid  by  a  recital  of  some  incidents 
connected  with  the  place.  It  seems  that  here 
in  the  substantial  country  house,  then  a  pub- 
lic one.  Major  Andre  spent  a  part  of  his  jiarole 
in  lT7.")-l77Vi,  and  it  was  In  good  Cent('nnial 
spirit  on  the  Idth  of  May  that  a  grand-daugh- 
ter of  one  ot  the  "  fayre  inaydens  of  ye  olden 
time"  sat  near  the  willows  and  told  me  of  the 
fascinations  of  that  .sadly  fated  life.  Mary, 
the  grandma,  knew  him  well,  and  many  were 
the  dances  and  coquetterles  they  tilted  on  the 
May  days  long  ago.  The  Major,  it  seems, 
wa.s  stylish,  graceful  and  witty,  and  withal 
played  the  flute  with  no  small  grace— no  won- 
der then  that  Mary's  sympathies  were  awak- 
ened in  the  young  prisoner,  and  that  when  he 
spoke  she  listened  ;  "but  there  wa.s  a  Delia  In 
the  case."  "And  did  j\[iss  Mary  fi^ar  ?" 
"  Well,  no,  not  precisely  ;  you  see  there  was 
the  ocean  between,  and  she  well  knew  that 
only  a  man's  fancy  crosses  that,  when  it  lies 
between  him  and  his  sweetheart,"  and  so  she 
dwelt  at  ease  and  even  sang  with  him  his 
ditty  to  his  Delia  ;  and  now  a  century  after- 
wards, while  a  voice  overhead  started  on  a 
venturing  solo,  the  great-grand-daughli'r, 
while  wrapping  willow  withes  about  her  hat 
began  to  sing  a  quaint,  meandering  sort  of 
tuue  that  had  been  transmitte<l  through  the 
intervening  generations  in  connection  with 
the  ditty  itself,  and  it  was  through  many  an 
apjiogiature  that  the  name  "  Delia"  struggled, 
in  this  old  love  song  of  the  young  English 
ollicer.  Mary  used  to  say  that  Major  Andre 
never  indulged  In  vituperation  against  the 
colonists,  like  his  lirother  oliicers.  AVe  ap- 
pend fragments  of  this  love  song,  which  he 
used  to  sing  in  his  captivity  along  the  lianks 
of  the  Concstoga  ; 

Return,  enrapturrd  hours 

When  Delia's  heart  waH  niiue, 
Aud  she  with  wreaths  of  flowers 

My  tomples  did  entwine. 

No  jealously  or  care 

Corroded  iu  my  breast ; 
But  visions  light  as  air 

Presided  o'er  my  rest. 

Far,  far  from  these  sad  plains 

My  lovely  Delia  flies, 
Whilst  raeited  with  jealous  pains 

Her  wretched  lover  dies. 

The  above,  and  much  more,  may  be  trnth- 
fiilly  "said  or  sung  "  of  (Mir  beautiful  city  ami 
county,  and  in  speaking  of  one  W'e  include 
also  the  other,  for  they  are  as  in.separablc  as 
the  Simiicsi:  Tioiiis.  Nature  has  done  much 
for  r>ancast-er  county  (the  city  Is  a  ])articular 
frienil,  on  the  whole,  of  the  county).  What 
the  correspondent  of  the  /'/-m.s  says  is  true  or 
otherwise,  and  as  he  has  said  it,  it  relieves  us 
from  the  necessity  of  .saying  it,  and  also  from 
the  imputation  of  egotism.  The  allusions  to 
Andre,  to  Buchanan  and  to  Stevens  are  chari- 
table, even  liberal.  How  wonderfully  time 
.Softens  human  aspi'ritles  and  permits  us  to 
talk  of  those  that  are  "gone,  but  not  forgot- 
ten," in  a  s|iirit  of  toleration.  Andre  was 
said  to  have  been  br.ave,  accomplished  and 
genial,  but  still  a  "  spy  "  and  the  enemy  of 
our  country.  Buchanan  and  Stevens  never 
could  meet  on  one  political  plane  in  life — they 
were  opposite  extremes  in  iiriiieiples  anil  in 
practices — yet  now  we  can  talk  of  them  leni- 
ently, forgetting  the  evil  then  and  remember- 


ing only  the  good  ;  leaving  them  In  the  hands 
of  Ilim  who  madi!  them,  and  Invoking  "peace" 
and  prosperity  to  them  and  oiu'  great  old 
(tounty— onr  Kinplre — our  natal  realm.  "  Rc- 
(luicscai  in  ^hicc." 

PROSPECTS   FOR   FARMERS. 

The  reports  of  the  growing  wheat  crop  are 
generally  favorable.  A  large  majority  declare 
the  condition  of  the  crop  to  indicate  a  full 
average,  and  more  than  half  speak  of  a  pro- 
mise of  above  an  average  yield.  A  compara- 
tively small  number  of  places  are  threatened 
with  a  jiartial  loss  of  crop  ;  California  pre- 
senting the  least  hopeful  condition,  on  ac- 
count of  a  serious  drouth.  So  far  as  (uir  own 
obser\  at  ion  and  iulbrmation  extends,  we  con- 
sider the  |ironiise  of  the  crop  to  be  very  favor- 
able, and  if  dry  weather  should  not  Interfere, 
a  fair  harvest  may  be  expected.  At  tli(!Same 
time,  the  country  is  bare  of  wheat,  and  the 
foreign  demand  Is  larger  than  usn.al.  The 
experience  of  the  (last  few  years  goes  to  .show, 
that  there  will  be  no  danger  of  "over  produc- 
tion" in  the  future.  We  need  iiot  fear  to 
raise  as  large  croi>s  as  we  can.  The  foreign 
market  is  large  and  steady,  and  will  need  all 
we  can  produce  iu  the  way  of  grains,  meats, 
provision  and  dairy  produce,  to  snjiply  it. 
Tlie  low  ]irices  of  the  past  few  years  have 
brought  this  aliout,  and  therefore  have  not 
been  by  any  means  an  unmitigated  evil. 
While  we  liavt;  been  depres.sed  and  troubled 
by  a  reduced  income  from  our  farms,  which 
has  sorely  embarrassed  those  who  li.ave  been 
in  debt,  this  has  been  the  means  of  stimula- 
ting farmers  generally  to  do  better  by  their 
farms  than  they  had  formerly  done.  In  no 
previous  condition  has  stock  been  so  much 
improved  as  during  thi;  few  years  just  past, 
and  we  have,  in  conscfiuence,  found  a  market 
iu  Knglaud  for  meat,  which  has  saved  our 
home  market  from  demoralization.  At  no 
time  before  the  present,  has  there  been  so 
much  artificial  fertilizing,  and  never  before  so 
anxious  inquiry  about  the  jiossibllity  of  en- 
larging the  croiis,  and  using  the  most  elTectivii 
economy  in  farming  operations.  In  the  mean 
time  thousands  of  persons  arc  entering  into 
agriculture  from  other  industries  ;  the  wave 
of  western  Inimigratioii  has  broken  upon  a 
.shore,  where  the  land,  although  valuable  for 
jiaslure.  Is  not  arable,  .and  it  now  flows  back 
again  upon  the  neglected  lands  of  the  Kast, 
which  are  being  restored  again  to  their  former 
frnitfulne.ss,  by  means  of  more  skillful  culti- 
vation. There  is  now  a  closing  up  of  scat- 
tered ranks,  and  the  farming  interest  is 
becoming  consolidated.  As  ]iopulation  may 
increase,  duiingthe  next  twenty-five  years,  to 
ilouble  its  jiresent  limit,  and  we  have  a  hun- 
dred million  months  to  feed  in  our  own  coun- 
try alone,  all  the  resources  and  skill  of  the 
farmer  will  be  taxed  to  meet  the  demand  for 
his  proilucts.  The  value  of  farms  can  hardly 
fail  to  increase  year  by  year,  on  these  ac- 
counts, and  it  will  b(^  the  farmer's  interest  to 
see  that  be  neglects  no  means  of  making  his 
more  valuable  property  pay  a  higher  Interest 
than  now.  This  can  only  be  done  by  making 
it  more  productive. — Amerirun  A<jncHlturist. 


AT  THE  HEAD  OF  HIS  CLASS. 

On  Saturday,  .Iiine  "^d,  we  gave  an  aeconni 
of  thtUobacco  sheds  of  .lames  Duffy,  of  Mari- 
etta, one  of  which  was  !  15  feet  and  the  other 
KI'.M'eet  in  length  and  lilt  feet  in  width.  It  was 
also  stated  that  Mr.  Dully  intended  plan  ling  47 
acres  of  tobacco.  We  suiiposed  then  that  Mr. 
Diilfy  wasatthe  lieadof  hiscla.ss,  buthe  is  not. 
.Jacolili.  Landis,  of  Manor  Iwp.,  has  one  tobac- 
co shed  '.iS7  feet  long  and  40  feet  wide,  and 
another  l.'iO  feet  long,  4ofeet  wide  and '20  feet 
high.  This  yearhe  will  iilautri.'iacresof  tobacco. 
Last  year  he  planted  •"iliacresjand  realized  prices 
ranging  from  IS  to  '20  cents  round.  There  are  a 
numberof  othei'  farmers  in  the  same  sectifni  of 
AManor  who  have  set  from.'!  to  1(1  acres  of  plants, 
among  them  being  Abraham  Leonard,  esi]., 
of  the  Doner  farm,  who  has  10  acres  of  as 
fine  tobacco  land  as  there  is  iu  the  county. — 
Examiner  and  Express. 


90 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


[June, 


OUR    LOCAL   ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

Tlie  society  met  in  the  Athctiiifum  at  2  o'clock 
Monriay  afternoon,  June  4th,  President  Calvin  Cooper 
in  the  cliair. 

The  followinfj  members  were  present :  Messrs. 
Calvin  Cooper,  Johnson  Miller,  Casper  Hiller,  Henry 
M.  F.ngle,  Levi  W.  (iroff,  P.  S.  Reist,  Simon  P.  Eby, 
John  Miller,  W.  J.  Kafroth,  John  Eby,  Henry  Kurtz, 
Jacob  Bollinger,  John  Hubcr,  Abraham  Summy, 
Jonas  Buckwalter,  Isaac  Busliong,  Joseph  F.  Wit- 
mer,  Levi  Pownall,  Wm.  A.  Ilaskill,  Levi  S.  Reist, 
Abraham  F.  Hostctter,  Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  Jacob 
B.  Garlier,  David  fi.  Swartz,  Wm.  McComsey,  Henrv 
Erb. 

The  Secretary  read  the  minutes  of  last  meetin?. 

The  foUowins  new  members  were  elected  :  John 
Keneagy,  Georsje  Ehy,  Isaac  Bushong,  Wm.  A.  Ilas- 
kill,  Joseph  Witmcr. 

The  crop  reports  being  called  for,  Mr.H.M.  Engle, 
of  Marietta,  made  an  explanation  to  the  efl'ect  that 
he  did  not  say  at  last  meeting  as  he  was  reported  to 
liave  said,  that  the  apple  crop  would  be  as  large  this 
year  as  it  was  last  year.  What  he  did  say  was  the 
apjile  crop  would  be  as  large  as  could  be  e.tpected 
considering  the  unusually  large  crop  of  last  year. 
He  now  reported  the  prospects  of  the  apple  as  fair  ; 
peaches  promise  a  good  crop ;  pears  looli  well  ; 
cherries  a  medium  crop;  most  kinds  of  snuill  fruit 
abundant:  few  Iruits  have  been  winter  killed.  Wheat 
looks  well,  though  the  extreme  heat  has  somewhat 
atlected  it.  (Jra.ss  is  quite  good  along  the  river  bot- 
toms, but.  inland  is  not  so  well  advanced.  Corn 
looked  a  little  yellow  a  week  or  two  ago  on  account 
of  the  eold  weather;  but  the  recent  warm  weather 
and  the  rain  of  Sunday  has  given  it  a  fresh  start. 
More  jiotatoes  have  been  planted  in  Mr.  E.'s  neigh- 
borhood this  year  tlian  in  any  other  year  witliin  bis 
recollection.  Early  in  the  sea.son  it  was  feared  that 
tlie  ravages  of  the  potato  beetle  would  deter  farmers 
from  planting.  Butwheneverpotatoes  are  high  priced 
farmers  plant  heavily.  He  thought  the  beetle  would 
have  but  little  chance  this  year.  Paris  green  was 
being  freely  ai)plied  and  would  prevent  their  ravages. 
Mr.  Engle  concluded  by  jiresenting  the  following 
meteorological  rejiort  for  the  past  three  months: 
Rainfall  during  March,  .5  2  16  inches;  lowest  tem- 
perature ti  degrees  above  zero,  on  the  18th  ;  highest 
temperature  72  degrees  on  the  24tb .  Rainfall  during 
April,  o  10-lfi  inches  ;  lowest  temperature  SO  degrees, 
on  the  3d  ;  highest  temperature  82  degrees,  on  the 
^4th.  Rainfall  during  May,  1  7-16  inches;  lowest 
temperature  40  degrees  ;  highest  92. 

Mr.  Johnson  Mii.i.er,  of  Warwick,  reported  the 
wheat  crop  as  looking  fine  with  a  few  exceptions, 
where  the  early  sown  has  sufl'cred  from  the  Hessian 
fly;  rye  is  excellent,  standing  very  high  and  giving 
promise  of  full  heads  ;  in  some  places  the  grass  looks 
very  well,  in  others  it  is  short,  owing  to  the  drouth. 
Corn  is  tine,  hut  tin-  early  planted  is  somewhat  baek- 
/  ward,  that  planted  later  being  much  ahead  of  it. 
Oats  is  short,  and  the  crop  will  be  a  partial  failure. 
Orchard  fruits  do  not  promise  verj  well,  but  small 
fruits  will  be  abundant.  Potatoes  are  plenty  and  so 
are  potato  bug.s.  Mr.  .Miller  use.s  ashes  to  kill  them 
instead  of  Paris  green,  which  depreciates  the  market 
price  of  the  potatoes  on  which  it  is  used. 

Mr.  Levi  Pownai.l,  of  Salisbury,  had  last  year 
raises!  a  fine  crop  of  potatoes  without  the  use  of 
Paris  green.  He  deferred  planting  until  the  24tli  of 
May.  The  first  crop  of  potato  bugs  had  disappeared 
before  the  potatoes  came  up,  and  the  plants  were  in 
blossom  before  tlje  second  <-rop  of  bugs  appeared. 
Mr.  Pownall  believed  that  a  crop  of  potatoes  could  be 
slipped  in  and  come  to  matiu-ity  between  the  first  and 
second  appearance  of  the  bugs.  In  about  a  week 
from  the  present  time  the  old  bugs  will  cease  flying, 
and  the  young  ones  will  not  appear  until  the  potatoes 
are  in  bloom.  Mr.  Pownall  uses  the  Early  Rose  for 
late  planting,  because  it  matures  rapidly. 

Mr.  Simon  P.  Env  read  an  interesting  essay  on 
"sub-soiling,"  which  he  understood  to  be  the  process 
of  loosing  the  earth  beneath  the  cultivated  soil.  One 
plan  adopted  is  to  bring  the  sub-soil  to  the  surface 
and  mingle  it  with  the  cultivated  soil.  Another  plan 
more  generally  in  use  is  to  loosen  it  with  a  sub-soil 
plow  and  leave  it  beneath  the  cultivated  soil.  The 
essayist  believed  that  if  the  sub-soil  was  composed  of 
gravel  or  pebbles  it  should  not  be  brought  to  the  sur- 
face, but  if  it  was  of  the  same  nature  as  the  surface 
soil  much  good  nnght  result  from  intermixing  them. 
He  instanced  as  an  example  the  barren  slaty  ridges 
in  various  parts  of  the  county,  which  by  judicious 
sub-soiling  and  breaking  u|)  the  hard-pan  below  the 
surface,  have  come  to  be  the  most  fertile  farm 
lands  in  the  county.  If  the  sub-soil  be  of  clay  it 
should  not  be  brought  to  the  surfaee,but  merely  stir- 
red up  and  looseneil.  It  is  well  known  that  a  farm 
with  a  deep  soil  is  better  than  one  with  a  shallow 
soil ,  and  sub-soiling  tends  to  deepen  the  soil . 

Mr.  Henry  Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  believed  in 
sub-soiling  if  properly  done.  In  mellow  ground  sub- 
soiling  is  not  of  nuicli  account,  but  where  ground  is 
hard  a  breaking  up  of  the  hard-pan  is  valuable. 

Mb.  Levi  S.  Reist,  said  sub-soiling  is  a  hobby  of 
his  -  especially  when  applied  to  the  planting  of  trees. 


It  must  b»  remembered  that  there  is  a  great  difference 
between  sub-soiling  and  deep  plowing,  by  the  latter 
the  sub  soil  is  brought  to  the  surface,  but  by  sub- 
soiling,  as  he  understood  it,  the  surface  soil  was  first 
thrown  out  by  the  ordinary  plow  and  the  sub-soil 
plow  was  run  through  the  same  furrow,  loosening 
but  not  throwing  out  the  sub-soil,  which  was  covered 
by  the  surface  soil  thrown  off  from  the  next  furrow 
made  by  the  ordinary  plow.  Mr.  Reist  mentioned 
the  case  of  a  neighbor  of  his  who  cultivated  a  piece 
of  ground  that  was  regarded  as  worthless.  He 
plowed  deep  early  in  the  season,  planted  corn  and 
continued  to  cultivate  constantly  till  haj'-making 
and  was  rewarded  with  90  bushels  of  corn  per  acre. 
Mr.  Reist  said  he  did  not  believe  in  turning  up  to  the 
surface  a  bad  sub-soil  for  ordinary  crops,  but  for 
orchards  he  believed  the  deeper  the  ground  was 
plowed  the  better.  He  had  planted  two  orchards, 
and  kept  the  sub-soil  plow  running  after  the  regular 
plow  for  ten  years,  and  he  thought  his  orchard 
would  compare  favorably  with  any  in  the  county. 
Loosening  the  soil  enables  the  roots  to  spread  and 
penetrate  the  earth  so  that  they  are  so  thoroughly 
protected  that  a  hurricane  would  scarcely  blow  tlieiii 
down. 

President  Cooper  said  he  had  used  the  sub-soil 
plow  in  his  nursery.  He  followed  the  regular  plow 
with  a  sub-soil  plow,  leaving  in  the  furrow  the  dirt 
loosened  by  the  latter  and  plowing  the  surface  soil 
on  top  of  it. 

Mr.  II.  M.  Engle  believed  in  sub-soiling,  but 
thought  in  some  cases  it  might  prove  injurious.  In 
the  Jersey  sands  sub-soiling  has  been  discarded,  but 
there  is  no  doubt  of  its  usefulness  in  loam  or  clay 
lands.  The  deeper  the  soil  the  more  easily  it  will 
drain  and  permit  surplus  moisture  to  pass  off;  and 
in  time  of  drouth  a  loose  soil  will  hold  the  moisture 
much  longer  than  a  close,  hard  soil.  Sub-soiling  is 
therefore  beneficial  in  both  wet  and  dry  seasons.  Mr. 
Engle  said  his  own  practice  had  confirmed  his  belief 
in  its  usefulness.  He  recommended  those  who  doubted 
its  value  to  give  it  a  trial  and  report  the  result. 

In  reference  to  .lobnson  Miller's  statement  that 
Paris  green  would  depreciate  the  market  price  of 
potatoes  on  which  it  was  used,  Mr.  Engle  thought 
that  tiugbear  .should  be  set  at  rest.  Chemists  and 
scientists  declare  that  Paris  green  put  upon  imtato 
vines  cannot  injure  the  tuber,  and,  as  for  himself,  he 
would  not  hesitate  to  eat  a  potato  that  had  been 
rolled  in  Paris  green,  if  it  were  afterwards  ]iroperly 
cleaned.  He  did  not  agree  with  .Mr.  Pownall  that 
the  potato  bug  would  not  fly  after  the  date  men- 
tioned by  him.  He  had  found  the  beetle  injure  his 
late  as  well  as  his  early  potatoes. 

Mr.  p.  S.  Reist  believed  the  usefulness  of  sub- 
soiling  depended  on  the  kind  of  crop  you  wished  to 
])lant.  To  bring  the  suI>-soil  to  the  sui-face  in  expec- 
tation of  improving  corn  or  wheat,  would  be  about 
the  same  as  if  a  man  who  had  a  half  a  glass  of 
whisky  and  wanted  more,  should  fill  his  glass  up 
with  watei'.  Or  likf^  a  man  who,  wanting  to  fatten 
his  horse,  should  mix  shavings  with  his  feed.  Mix- 
ing the  sub-.soil  with  a  thin  surface  soil  will  weaken 
and  not  strengthen  it.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the 
surface  soil  is  too  strong,  sub-,soiIing  may  be  advan- 
tageous. Better  wheat  and  eoj-n  can  be  raised  on 
good  mellow  soil  without  snb-soil  ng  than  with  it. 
He  did  not  believe  in  sub-soiling  orchards.  Trees 
require  a  hard-pan  below  the  surface  in  which  to 
fasten  their  roots.  If  the  soil  is  mellow  and  becomes 
soaked  with  rain  the  least  wind  will  blow  them 
down. 

President  Cooper  .said  he  could  not  concur  with 
Mr.  Reist  that  mellow  ground  was  not  good  for 
orchards.  He  knew  from  experience  that  sub-soiling 
was  of  great  value  in  tree  planting. 

Mr.  S.  p.  Ehv  asked  "  How  deeeply  do  wheat 
roots  penetrate?"  and  .Mr.  Reist  answered  from  four 
to  six  inches. 

Mr.  Engle  said  he  did  not  believe  with  Mr.  Reist 
that  trees  should  have  hard-pan  to  support  them. 
They  would  root  more  firmly  in  mellow  than  in  hard 
ground.  To  prove  this  he  described  the  formation 
of  the  bracing  and  feed-roots  of  trees  and  other 
plants,  and  demonstrated  that  roots  would  penetrate, 
if  necessary  to  the  support  of  the  tree,  to  a  depth  of 
ten  feet  or  more.  In  mellow  ground  wheat  roots 
will  attain  a  length  of  twenty  inches  and  perhaps 
two  feet.  He  believed  that  suli-soiling  was  almost 
always  useful  and  could  never  do  any  luirm. 

Mr.  Henry  Kcrtz  thought  that  if  the  soil  was 
too  loose  and  mellow  wheat  was  apt  to  freeze  out. 
He  once  planted  wheat  in  very  mellow  soil  and  had 
no  crop,  except  along  the  fences  where  the  ground 
was  hard. 

The  secretarv*  read  a  note  from  Jacob  Garber,  in 
which  he  disapproved  sub-soiling. 

Mr.  Enoi.e,  on  the  other  hand,  maintained  that 
ground  mellowed  and  made  porous  by  the  sub-soil 
plow  will  not  freeze  so  easily  or  so  deeply,  or  bake  so 
badly,  as  hard  ground. 

Mr.  Reist  replied  and  gave  sc^veral  examples  of 
orchai'ds  which  had  been  greatly  injured  by  being 
planted  in  sub-soiled  ground.  Lemon  trees  planted 
in  small  ))Ots  will  fruit  much  earlier  than  if  planted 
in  large  boxes.  As  soon  as  the  growth  of  the  roots 
is  retarded  they  commence  to  Truit.  So  it  is  with  corn 
and  other  crops;  they  mature  earlier  if  the  plowing  has 


been  shallow,  preventing  the  roots  from  penetrating 
too  deeply.  The  best  wheat  is  raised  on  rolling  land, 
where  Jt  is  impossible  to  plow  very  deep. 

Mr.  .Tacob  Boi.LiNiiER  said  that  Jlr.  Reist's  the- 
ory apiieared  to  be  that  plants  would  not  friiit  until 
the  roots  struck  hard-jjan.  His  own  experience  was 
diflerent.  On  one  occasion  he  dug  out  by  the  roots  a 
very  large  walnut  tree,  making  a  hole  ten  feet  deep. 
This  he  filled  in  with  new  earth  and  jjlanted  coi'n, 
and  it  grew  to  be  longer  in  the  stalk  and  longer  and 
fuller  in  the  ear  than  any  he  had  ever  seen  except  in 
the  West.  He  favored  deep  plowing  for  all  kinds  of 
farm  crops  and  sub-soiling  for  trees. 

Mr.  H.  M.  Engle  said  that  the  reason  that  plants 
in  pots  flowered  and  fruited  earlier  was  because 
their  roots  were  cramped  and  they  could  not  expand 
as  nature  designed  they  should.  But  such  plants 
will  not  bear  so  much  fruit  nor  live  so  long  as  those 
that  have  a  fair  chance  to  root.  Whatever  detracts 
fi-om  wood-growth  encourages  early  fruiting,  and 
whatever  advances  wood-growth  retards  fruiting. 
But  those  that  have  the  best  wood-growth  will  yield 
more  abundantly  and  live  much  longer. 

After  some  further  discussion  the  subject  was 
dropped. 

JIr.  Henry  M.  Enole  read  an  essay  on  "  Straw- 
berries."   (See  page  87.) 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  essay  Mr.  Engle  presented 
the  society  with  several  boxes  of  very  fine  berries, 
and  the  President  ai)pointed  Messrs.  S.  P.  Eby,  Jacob 
Bollinger  and  Peter  S.  Reist,  a  committee  to  test  the 
fruit  and  report  to  the  society. 

A  recess  was  taken  for  social  intercourse  and  a 
general  testing  of  the  fruit. 

The  committee,  after  making  a  careful  test  of  the 
several  varieties  of  Itcrries  before  them, reported  that 
where  all  were  of  such  tine  quality  it  is  dilheult  to 
determine  which  is  best;  but  that  the  "  Boyden  No. 
:!0,"  and  the  "Jucumia,"  being  of  rather  finer  flavor 
and  as  large  as  the  otliers,  were  given  the  preference. 

Johnson  Miller  suggested  that  the  executive 
committee  be  instructed  to  make  a  visit  to  such 
farms  in  the  county  as  tiiey  choose  to  visit, as  requii'ed 
by  the  constitution. 

A  question  having  arisen  as  to  who  constituted  the 
executive  committee,  it  was  decided  that  under  the 
constitution  the  officers  of  the  society  were  said  com- 
mittee. 

Levi  S.  Reist  suggested  that  the  executive  com- 
mittee be  sub-divided  into  four  sub-eommittees,  each 
sub-committee  to  visit  a  diflerent  section  of  the 
county,  and  report  to  next  meeting. 

The  suggestion  was  adopted  by  the  society  and  the 
President  subdivided  the  committee  as  follows  : 

Henry  M.  Engle  and  Levi  S.  Reist  to  visit  farms  in 
the  west  end  of  the  county. 

I.  L.  Landis  and  Johnson  .Miller  to  visit  farms  in 
the  north. 

President  Calvin  Coojjer  and  Levi  Pownall  to  visit 
farms  in  the  east. 

Casper  Hiller  and  M.  D.  Kendig  to  visit  farms  in 
the  south. 

Tlie  f'ollowiug  questions  were  proposed  for  discus- 
sion at  next  meeting  : 

By  S.  P.  Eby — "  Should  not  our  county  roads  be  im- 
proved ' 

By  Levi  W.  Groff — "  Will  or  will  not  wheat  turn 
into  cheat  and  cheat  into  wheat  T' 

On  motion  adjourned. 


Tobacco  Growers'  Association. 

This  association  held  its  regular  meeting  Monday, 
May  28th,  in  the  Atheii;eum,  in  the  City  Hall.  Tlie 
meeting  was  called  to  oriler  at  two  o'clock,  p.  m., 
M.  D.  Kendig  in  the  chair.  \ 

The  following  members  and  visitors  wei*e  present : 
M.  D.  Kendig,  A.  Lane,  I.  S.  Lane,  J.  M.  Johnston, 
Harry  Mayer,  Mr.  Landis,  W.L.  llershey,  Peter  S. 
Keist,  Jacob  Graybill,  Air.  Shiffner,  N.  Hostetter, 
Levi  S.  Keist,  Mr.  Eshleman,  A.  Weidler  Mr.  Herr, 
Peter  Esbenshade,  Mr.  .Mommert,  S.  Hostetter,  J.  H. 
Moore,  Wm.  McComsey,  C.  Hunsecker,  A.  Shenk, 
Jacob  Hcrr,  John  Herr  and  Mr.  Lcfever.  Calling  of 
the  roll  was  dispensed  with,  and  the  minutes  of  the 
previous  meeting  were  I'cad  and  adopted. 
Unfinished  Business. 

The  President  stated  lliat  under  this  head  the 
question  of  the  construction  of  toljaceo  buildings, 
which  was  laid  over  from  the  last  meeting,  was  in 
order. 

Mr.  La.ndis  said  that  many  hardware  merchants 
had  told  him  that  hinges  and  other  iron  work  used  in 
tlie  const  I'uction  of  tobacco  buildings  were  selling 
fast,  and  from  this,  and  from  his  own  observations, 
he  thought  a  great  many  buildings  were  being  put 
up.     He  fhougiit  this  was  an  important  question. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  akw  stated  that  he  had  Ijcen  ii^^ 
formed  by  a  C'onuccticut  tobacco'  grower  that   th^P 
system  of  hanging  the  tobacco  on   lath   was    being 
atiandoned  in  New  England,  and  the  plan  of  hanging 
the  leaf  on  twine  was  being  generally  adopted. 

iVIu.  Shiffner  said  there  were  a  gi'cat  many  to- 
bacco barns  being  built  arountl  his  jilace,  ami  all  the 
builders  seemed  to  thinic  that  they  ought  to  have 
cellars.    In  regard  to  building  hehad  not  much  to  say. 

M.  D.  Kendig  said  it  w:is  a  point  conceded  that  all 
barns  ought  to  have  cellars,  and  also  that  they  ought 


1877.J 


THE-LANCASTEK  FARMER. 


91 


to  liavo  .a  erniiml  floor.  Xow  it  could  ho  arranged 
this  way  :  liavp  a  rollar  aii<l  have  plenty  of  trap  iloors 
t.hroiiirh  I  lie  lldor.and  n  lien  you  want  dampness  from 
the  i;ii'""'l  lli'iii'  "l'<''i  ■''I'  I'"'  •'■''I'  doors. 

IIakhv  Mavkh  ."aiil  the  olijcct  was  to  kocp  tlip 
moislurc  in  toliacTo  as  lon«;  a«  possiMp,  as  it  lii'lpnl 
to  i-ure  it,  and  lie  tliouclit  luinftinir  it  on  twine  was  a 
pood  way.  He  used  iiati'nt  hooks  made  in  Conneeti- 
eul,  hut  these  were  rather  expensive,  eoslini;  aliiiul 
?'i2  to  the  aere.  A  irooil  way  was  to  ilrive  a  live- 
peiuiy  nail  tlirouirh  a  lath,  and  this  was  nine  1 1  elieaper, 
us  a  ke;r  of  nails  woulil  hani^  a  i-ouple  ot'  acres. 

FvEVi  8.  Kf.ist  said  tohaeeo  Ituyei's  from  Connect i- 
eut  thoujjhl  t<ihaeeo  hulldin2:s  ou^lit  to  have  a  tri'ound 
floor.  He  tlM>n!;ht  tlicre  rniijlil  he  ft  cellar  placed 
besi'le  tiie  house,  liius  securini;  iioth  a  cellar  and  an 
open  i^i'iuind  floor  in  the  shcti 

M-K.  Laxiiis  Miouirht  huiidin!;s  ouirht  to  he  very 
eloBP,  so  that  in  fair  weatlier  they  miirhl  he  elo.sed 
very  tijrht,  an<l  made  dark,  as  dark  huildinjjs  made 
the  richest  colorln;::  in  tobacco.  In  wet  weathiT  this 
shoulil  he  ojiened. 

Crop   Reports. 
Mk.  Suiki'NKR  said  llie  |ilanls  were  very  slroni,'  in 
his  section  and  seemid   nuirli  sironirer  than   usual. 
There  was  a  ureal  deal  in  the  <;round. 

Mil.  l.iNius  also  said  plants  were  slr-oni;  in  his 
township.  Ill'  only  knew  of  two  lots  i>f  old  lohae<-o 
that  wei'c  not  sold.  He  Ihoui^ht  tlnU.  more  was 
planted  this  year  than  last. 

Mu.  Lane  said  jilants  seemed  to  he  a  little  hack; 
farnu'rs  in  his  section  planted  from  June  1  to  1.5.  He 
would  plant  ahout  that  lime.  No  old  tobacco  on 
hand. 

Mk.  Kshi, F.MAN,  of  Paradise,  said  a  great  many 
plants  were  set  out  in  his  section  but  seemed  very 
backward ;  some  were  plantint^  now,  and  others 
woulii  not  plant  unlil  June  ;  thus  they  would  have  a 
variety. 

Hakkt  Mayek  said  the  plants  were  prosperins  in 
his  nein;hborhooil.  A  f;;reat  many  plants  would  be 
set  out  this  week.  His  idea  wastO!;et  all  Ihi'tcronnd 
ready,  and  then  set  all  his  ["hints  out  at  oni'c,  so  as 
to  he  aide  to  top  it  all  at  once  anil  so  get  an  oven 
crop.  There  was  no  way  of  avoidin;;  the  cut  worm 
hy  dift'ereuce  in  the  time  of  planting. 

P.  S.  Keist,  of  Manheim,  said  that  some  of  his 
noighhors  have  all  their  [ilants  onl  and  are  cultiva- 
ting them  ;  he  saw  some  of  them  hoeing.  A  better 
crop  is  exi>ectetl  this  year. 

The  president  thnngld  this  was  premature. 
Mn.  Ksni.i-MAN  said   that   in   his  township  then' 
was  an  impression  that  by  planting  early  Ihcy  would 
avoid  the  cut  worm. 

W.  S.  Hersmev  saiil  hog  bristles  were  very  bene- 
ficial in  the  I'aising  of  plants  ;  there  being  about  two 
weeks  differejice  between  those  on  which  they  were 
used  anil  those  on  ivhieh  they  were  not.  Plants  in 
this  section  are  abundant ,  both  early  and  late.  Some 
large  lots  of  old  tobacco  were  still  on  hand. 

M.  D.  Kenhig  said  in  his  township  jilanls  were 
very  plenty,  both  early  and  late.  As  they  did  not 
plant  until  about  the  first  of  .lune,  they  have  plentv 
of  time.  He  thought  that  plants  raised  undergla.ss 
had  no  adyanlage.  They  generally  shot  up  with 
large  stalks  and  small  roots  ;  they  do  not  stand  ,inv 
exix)sure,  and  he  was  not  in  favor  of  them. 

Mh.  Moohf  said  that  plants  had  a  very  good  pros- 
pect in  his  vicinity.  He  thought  rye  was  gooil  as  a 
green  manure. 

Referred  Questions. 
The  first   question  that   came   up  was  "  What  are 
best  methods  of  destroying  the  cut  worm.'"  Keferred 
to  Harry  Mayer. 

He  thought  the  best  method  was  to  mix  Paris 
green  and  gypsum  together  and  sprinkle  the  mixture 
on  the  plants, always  takingcare  not  to  cd  looniiich 
ou  as  it  would  kill  "the  jilanl  as  well  as  tlic  worm. 
His  mixture  was  one  jiound  of  the  green  to  about 
three  pecks  of  gypsum.  He  also  used  hellebore, hut 
this  was  objectionable  as  it  was  necessary  to  apply  it 
too  frequently,  and  this  was  very  expensive.  Bran 
was  good,  placed  around  the  roots  of  the  plant,  as 
the  worm  liked  bran  almost  as  well  as  the  plant,  and 
when  thus  got  amongit  they  could  be  caught.  Where 
poultry  had  not  access  to  the  field  it  was  well  to  ap 
ply  bran  and  Paris  green  mixed, as  the  worm  ate  the 
mixture. 

Mb.  Landis  said  he  thought  Mr.  Mayer  spoke 
from  experience,  but  he  had  never  used  Paris  green, 
and  did  not  know  whether  it  was  good  or  not.  He 
used  bran  ami  found  it  very  gooil.as  the  worms  filled 
themselves  and  then  were  easily  caught. 

.Mr.  Mooke  thought  plaster  was  good  for  the 
plants,  as  it  liotli  killed  the  worm  and  manured  the 
plants. 

Peteu  Keist  thought  that  Paris  green  was  in- 
jurious to  the  plants. 

.Mr.  Hersuev  said  It  was  reported  that  since 
farmers  limed  so  much  gypsum  was  not  as  good  as  it 
was  at  one  time. 

.Mr.  Kexou;  said  that  he  had  read  an  essay  by  a 
professor  in  some  college,  proving  that  gypsum  was 
very  hcnefitial  to  plants. 

Mr.  SniFFNER  was  in  favor  of  gypsum.  He 
planted  about  a  thousand  plants,  [ml ting  gypsum  on 
them  all  and  he  only  lost  about  fifty  of  them.  He 
manured  tobacco  about  as  heavily  as  he  did  com. 


Mr.  Esm.EMAN  said  it  had  a  good  effeet  on  the 
plants,  driving  away  both  the  worm  and  ants. 

Mk.   Lajjois   thought   bran   was   injurious,  as   it 

attracted  ants. 

Mr.  Hkrh,  speaking  of  the  dilTcrenee  helweeu 
lime  and  gyp.sum,  said  he  had  experimented  on  a 
field  of  corn  ;  |iutling  lime  on  one  part,  gypsum  on 
another,  and  nothing  at  all  ou  a  third,  and  he  saw  no 
dill'erence  in  the  corn.  He  thought  that  limo  was 
just  as  good  as  gypsum. 

The  second  (picstion  was:  "What  is  the  best 
method  of  setting  out  tobacco  plants  J"  This  has 
been  referred  to  .lacoh  Frantz,  hut  he  was  not 
present,  so  they  proceeded  to  a  general  discussion  of 
the  question. 

.Mk.  Kkndii;  thought  the  best  way  was  to  have 
the  land  thoroughly  cultivated,  and  as  fine  as  pos- 
sible, not  allowing  any  clods  at  all.  If  this  is  done 
there  is  no  trouble.  This  is  his  plan,  and  his  tobacco 
patches  arc  in  a  better  condition  tlian  ever  before. 

Petek  Heist  said  in  his  neighborhood  they  had  a 
half-do/.en  ditlerent  ways.  .So  far  this  season  they 
are  ridging  the  field.  He  thought  the  nutin  thing  was 
in  being  ready  with  the  ground  when  the  weather  is 
ready.  If  wc  have  the  ground  all  prepared,  when- 
ever the  wi-ather  becomcR  favorable  we  can  plant. 
When  this  is  done  it  docs  not  matter  much  how  you 
plant.  When  (he  weather  is  dry  a  hole  should  "  be 
made,  water  jiut  in  the  hole,  and  then  the  plant  set 
in. 

JIk.  SiiiKFNEB  thought  that  any  small  plant,  no 
nnitter  what  it  is,  could  be  started  by  making  a 
bole,  filling  it  with  water  and  then  putting  in  the 
plant. 

Mr.  Maver  in  dry  weather  used  a  small  dipper 
made  especially  lor  tiie  occasion.  He  made  a  small 
hole,  put  in  the  plants,  and  then  jiourcd  in  the 
water,  thus  se|iarating  the  tillers  of  the  roots;  then 
he  filled  the  hole  with  mellow  dirt.  liy  following 
this  nu'thod  the  ground  did  not  liakc  around  the 
plant.  He  thought  that  tobacco  plants  would  stand 
a  great  deal  more  drought  than  any  one  su|iposcd, 
and  all  thai  was  necessary  was  right  mellow  soil. 

.Mi;.  Miiohe  agreed  witji  Mr.  .Mayer  and  thought 
his  plan  was  a  good  one.  He  knew  of  instances 
when  planters  waited  until  after  a  heavy  rain  and 
then  got  to  work  and  set  out  all  their  tobacco.  This 
generany  failed,  as  the  ground  was  too  wet. 

Ifu.  Kenthi;  said  iflherewas  a  large,  strong  plant 
and  idenly  of  mellow  soil,  it  did  not  matter  much 
about  the  weather. 

The  third  question  was  :  "  What  are  the  best  fer- 
lili/crs.'"     For  general  di.<e«ssion. 

Mr.  EsHt.EMAN  thought  gypsum  was  good  as  a 
top  dressing. 

Peter  Heist  said  one  of  his  men  used  chicken 
manure,  putting  about  a  handful  in  each  hill,  and  it 
was  very  beneficial.  He  Iboughl  there  was  very  little 
difference  between  lime  and  gypsum,  and  that  the 
cfTcet  was  about  the  same. 

Mk.  Esmi.kman  said  he  heard  agreat  many  farmers 
say  gypsum  was  not  beneficial.  He  thought  it  was 
possible  that  those  who  think  so  might  not  have  used 
the  pure  article,  but  an  adulteration.  He  knew  of 
mills  in  the  large  cities  that  ground  in  marble  chips, 
oyster  shells,  refuse  of  saiul  used  in  making  card 
|ia|ier,  and  ocean  sand. 

Peter  Keist  said  farmers  were  accused  of  diH"er- 
ing  on  so  many  subjects.  He  would  give  one  of  the 
subjects  of  their  ditlering.  How  is  it  that  if  a  shock 
of  grass  is  left  stand  in  the  field  in  warm  weather  I  he 
young  grass  would  mature?  In  very  warm  wcivthcr 
when  all  the  grass  in  the  field  is  dead,  that  under  the 
shock  is  green  ;  in  wet  weather  when  the  grass  in  tlie 
field  is  green,  that  under  the  shock  is  dead  ;  There 
was  much  discussion  of  this  question  among  fanners. 
-Mk.  I,ANnissaid  Ibis  subject  was  a  very  important 
one,'  but  as  the  afternoon  was  wearing  away  he  would 
move  that  it  be  continued  till  next  meeting. 

Mr.  Heist  said  he  wanted  to  say  a  few  wiu'ds 
about  the  reporters.  Uc  thought  they  gave  excellent 
reports  of  the  meetings  and  deserved  to  be  thanked. 
His  friends  came  to  him  and  told  him  that  there  was 
no  necessity  for  them  to  attend  the  meetiugs,  as  they 
could  read  all  that  was  satd  in  the  papers. 

Mk.  Laniiis  was  of  the  same  opinion  and  thought 
they  deserved  the  thanks  of  the  society. 

Mk.  .Tohnston,  of  the  /iilflliifciiiry,  said  that 
here  he  thought  it  was  necessary  to  say  a  word.  For 
his  part  ho  did  not  and  could  not  give  as  full  reports 
as  he  wished,  as  they  did  not  have  the  room.  He 
thought  that  persons  who  only  rcarl  the  reports  in 
the  papers  missed  a  great  deal  of  what  was  said. 

Mk.  HrNSECKiCK  also  thought  the  reporters  de- 
served thanks.  As  to  the  quest  ion  in  hand  bethought 
it  ought  to  be  continued,  as  much  was  yet  to  be  said. 
The  proper  application  of  manure  was  a  very  imixjrt- 
aut  question. 

Levi  S.  Kkist  said  some  years  ago,  when  the 
association  was  first  started,  the  press  did  not  take 
much  interest  in  it,  and  the  jieoplc  did  not  care  what 
they  did.  Now,  thanks  to  the  reporters,  the  jieople 
were  becoming  used  to  reading  the  proceedings  of 
the  society,  and  took  great   interest  in  them. 

Ou  motion  the  question  was  continued  until  next 
meeting. 

The  following  questions  were  presented  and  refer- 
red to  ditlerent  members  : 


1st.  Can  fertilizers  he  properly  applied  to  tobacco, 
after  the  plants  grow,  and  if  so,  what  kinds,  and 
how  should  they  be  applied  (  Keferred  to  Peter 
S.  Keist. 

lid.  What  is  the  best  method  of  cultivating  to- 
bacco, from  the  first  working  up  to  finishing;  What 
machines  and  utensils  are  best  adapted  for  use  in  the 
tobacco  lands  known  !     Heferred  to  .F.  Frantz. 

:id.  Dues  the  growing  of  tohiieco  exhaust  our  soils 
so  as  to  alfect  other  crops  ?     For  general  discussion. 

On  motion,  adjourneil. 

The  Linnaean  Society. 
The  Linna'an  .Society  held  their  stated  meeting  on 
Saturday,  May  lit)  ;  six  members  were  present.  In 
the  absence  of  the  President  and  Vice  I'residcnt ,  on 
motion,  I'rof.  T.  H.  Kakcr  took  the  chair.  .Vftcr  at- 
tending to  the  collection  of  dues  and  reading  of  the 
ndnutes,  the  follow  iug  donations  were  found  added 
to  the  museum. 

Contributions  to  the  Society. 

The  head  and  leet  of  a  fireen  Heron,  Ihiloriiks 
Vifenciiix,  in  alcohol,  with  a  goodly-sized  river  bass 
sticking  half-way  down  the  gullet,  which  it  seems 
this  feeder  ou  fish  could  neither  swallow  nor  eject 
again,  on  account  of  the  dorsal  s|)iiie6  in  the  anterior 
tin  common  to  the  perch  family,  and  in  the  scnille  the 
bird  was  drowned  and  fell  a  victim  to  its  greediness. 
.Sent  by  S.  Evans,  esq.,  of  Columbia,  who  was  an  eye 
witness  to  the  contest. 

A  singular  sport  in  the  common  earthworm,  hav- 
ing the  lower  half  separated  into  tw pial  branches. 

Sent   by    Mr.  (_ieorgc  Simmons,   engineer   at   cotton 
mills,  per  .Mr.  Gill. 

In  alcohol,  a  speeimeu  of  the  common  squid, 
"  Liitii/'i  fSiirti-iiiuU"  taken  from  the  stomach  of  a 
common  liass  (black  bass  or  sea'bass,  we  sujiposc) 
usually  sold  on  market.  From  Mr.  .hihn  H.  .\lbright. 
This  is,  indeed,  a  miniature  representation  of  the  Oc- 
topus, so  called  from  having  eight  arms,  each  of 
which  is  six  limes  the  length  of  its  body,  and  fiir- 
nihbeil  wilb  li;n  pairs  of  suckers,  a  formidable  mon- 
ster (when  fully  grown)  of  great  jiowcr.  This  has 
long  arms  and  suckers  much  like  it  in  character, 
and  belongs  to  that  class  of  t'cphaloiKids,  and  is  quile 
a  curiosity. 

Mrs.  (;ini!ONs  had  a  few  of  the  dm  beetle  and  a 
wire  worm. 

Mr.  Rathvon  sent  in  a  bulterfiy  caught  on  the 
wing  in  November  last,  the  Divkuis'  Arc/ii/irx,  mil  too 
late  or  too  early— and  caged  and  preserved  on  that 
account.  Mr.  Kathvon  also  put  on  special  dejiosit 
a  cloth  made  out  of  the  pulp  of  haik  by  the  natives 
of  the  Sandwich  Islands,  of  a  nniform,  close  texture, 
about  2'„  yards  sqiLire,  called  Tapa,  or  Kapa,  which 
he  received  about  ten  years  ago  from  the  laic  L. 
Zublin,  a  eorrcspiuident  of  this  society. 

A  stalactite  and  slalactical  coneretions  from  a  small 
cave  recently  discovwrcd  near  May  town,  in  this  county. 
By  Mr.  Samuel  Book.  It  may  be  .stated  here,  that'a 
cave  near  Bainbridge,  this  "county,  was  explored 
lately  by  Dr.  Bean,  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution, 
and  Indian  relics  consisting  of  slonc  implements, 
pottery,  darts,  arrow  lieads,  etc.,  obtained. 

A  box  containing  very  fine  kaolin-iikc,  decomposed 
feldspar.  From  .Mr.  Henry  Braekbill,  of  Landis 
Valley,  which  erojis  out  on  a  hillside,  and  was  turned 
out  by  the  plow,  of  the  uniform  quality  show  n  in  the 
sanqiic.  It  is  like  kaolin  to  the  loiich  and  in  fine- 
ness, only  it  has  an  ochrous,  yellow  I ingc.  It  might 
be  valuable  for  manufacturing  pur|)ose8  in  delf  or 
porcelain  ware.  To  Hie  library  and  historical  section 
was  aildcd  a  eojiy-of  No.  -tT,  volume  7,  of  The  fulcr- 
(Icriin,  issued  May  IS,  1S77,  at  Chicago,  III.  This 
number  contains  'JDl  jiagcs,  and  has  I'.lfi  pages  de- 
voted to  the  delinquent  tax  advertiscmenls.  The 
compositors'  work  cost  more  thanS'<,l)((l). 
The  La.ncastek  Farmer  for  May. 
Two  envelopes  of  sundry  scraps,  of  historical 
licaring. 

("ireulars  from  |mblishing  houses  in  the  Tnited 
Stales  and  Europe,  addressed  to  the  I,inna'an  So- 
ciety. 

Blanchard's  Historical  Map  of  llie   Inited  States, 
with  a  small  descriptive  pamphlet  of  it.     Price  $S. 
Catalogue  of  Bolin's  Libraries,  etc. 

Papers  Read. 
An  illustrated  paper.  No.  .Vili,  was  read  by  Prof.  .1. 
Stautfer,  on  a  singular  gall  fiirmation  on  Ihe  hickory, 
presented  by  S.  P.  Eby,  esq.,  of  this  city.  The  in- 
sect is  similar  to  the  Phylloxera,  first  considered  a 
root  insect  only,  but  now  fiiund  to  he  of  Ihe  same 
genus  first  deseribed  by  .\sa  Fitch,  in  ls."ii'.,  as  Ihe 
I'finpliitjus  Viti folia,  if  not  identical  with  that  found 
so  destructive  to  the  grape  vine  roots  in  France,  and 
named  by  I'rfif.  Planchoii,  I'hyUorrra  Vaxtrnlrir.. 
A  parasile  was  also  found  in  some  of  the  cells,  feast- 
ing upon  the  hirv.i:  and  pupa  crowded  in  each — all 
accurately  figured  and  colored. 

Mr.  S.  S.  Kathvon  read  a  descriptive  paper  on  the 
deposits  to  the  museum.  No.  .">fi7. 

Notes  and  observations  by  Mrs.  P.  E.  Gibbons,  on 
the  elm  tree  beetle,  found  scattered  within  the  dwell- 
ing, i\:c..  No.  ."jfiS. 

A  letter  from  Mr.  Win.  L.  Gill  was  read.  On 
motion  it  was  moved  and  agreed  that  the  error  of 
society  be  corrected,  and  his  name  placed  among  the 


92 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[.Tune, 


correspondents.    We  slial!  esteem  him  as  a  valuable 
contrihutor. 

Miscellaneous  Business. 

A  resolution  to  allow  the  Treasurer  to  purcliase 
alcohol,  an<l  a  committee  of  three  to  be  appointed  to 
replenish  the  specimens  at  an  early  day, was  adopted, 
and  the  chair  appointed  S.  .S.  liathvon,  J.  .Staufler 
and  S.  M.Sener,  said  committee  to  perform  the  work. 

A  recess  was  taken,  and  Prof.  T.  K.  Baker  ex- 
hibited the  duration  and  power  of  a  simple  and 
hiirhly  iniiiroved  iralvanic  apparatus.  This  consists, 
as  in  other  cases,  of  a  porous  cup,  in  which  the  car- 
bon slab  is  put,  and  i>ackcd  with  black  oxide  of  man- 
ganese ;  this  is  set  into  a  vessel  made  of  zinc,  havinir 
a  tightly-fitting  lid,  with  a  screw  connection  for  a 
copper  wire,  while  the  other  is  on  the  carbon  and 
passed  through  the  lid,  whichJ-id  has  a  g\an  claslic 
band  to  seal  it:  in  this  condition  an  erticient,  inexpen- 
sive .and  durable  current  can  be  generated  that  needs 
no  renewing  with  acjua  ammonia  for  months,  as 
proved  on  trial  and  used  daily  at  the  Normal  .School 
to  ring  the  bell  or  call  by  telcgrai>hic  contact.  It  is 
similar  to  a  French  invention,  only  more  simple,  by 
the  use  of  the  gum  baml,  and  less  liable  to  evaporate 
and  become  weaker  when  set  aside;  this  keeps  its 
power  tor  an  indefinite  period.  No  further  business 
offering,  the  Society  adjourned  to  meet  on  Saturday, 
.Tune  I'JO,  1877. 

STATE  BOARD   OF  AGRICULTURE. 


Their  Session  in  the  Capital. 
The  State  Board  of  Agriculture  met  in  the  Senate 
Chamber  on  Tuesd.ay,  May  22,  and  the  members 
were  called  to  order  at  about  two  o'clock,  p.  m.,  by 
the  president  thereof.  His  Excellency  Governor  John 
F.  Hartranft. 

The  roll  of  members  was  then  called,  when  the 
following  gentlemen  answered  to  their  names  : 

Members  ex-offlcio— His  Excellency  Governor  John 
F.  Hartranft ;  Rev.  James  Calder,  president  Pennsyl- 
vania State  College. 

Members  appointed  by  the  Governor— Jno.  P. 
Edge,  Chester  ;  -Jno.  L.  George,  Allegheny. 

Elected  liy  County  Agricultural  Societies — W.  ti. 
Moore,  Berks  ;  Thadileiis  Banks,  Blair  ;  M.  C.  Beebe, 
Venango;  Prof.  J.  Hamilton,  Centre;  Thomas  J. 
Edge,  Chester  ;  C.  A.  Mullen,  Cumberland;  H.  .M. 
Engle,  Lancaster  ;  G.  W.  Hood,  Indiana;  John  B. 
Smith,  Luzerne  ;  A.  Hobinson,  Mercer  ;  W.  A.  Ycakle, 
Montgomery  ;  J.  M'Farland,  Northumberland  ;  J.  S. 
Keller,  Schuylkill  ;  J.  W.  Shriner,  Union  ;  VV.  S. 
Roland,  York. 

A  committee  on  credentials  was  appointed  by  the 
president,  as  follows  :  Messrs.  Beebe,  Venango, 
Engle,  Laiieaster,  and  Keller,  of  Schuylkill. 

The  committees  on  credentials  ma<le  report  that 
the  folliiwing  gentlemen  be  elcetcil  members  of  the 
State  Board  of  Agriculture,  they  having  presented 
the  proper  credentials  : 

J.P.Barnes,  Lehigh;  Capt.  C.  fiilbert,  Franklin; 
L.J.  Culver,  Bradford;  David  Wilson,  Juniata;  J. 
C.  Morris,  Su6i|uchaniia  ;  Eastburn  Keeder,  Bucks  ; 
C.  L.  Weitzel,  Northampton ;  D.  H.  Foresman, 
Lycoming. 

The  report  of  the  committee  was  adopted  and  the 
committee  discharged. 

The  minutes  of  the  previous  meeting  were  read 
and  approved. 

The  new  members  of  the  hoanl  were  vouched  Uir 
as  representing  eouTity  agricultinal  societies  that 
have  received  or  are  entitled  to  bonnty. 

By  instruction  of  the  executive  committee  the  fol- 
lowing gentlemen  were  recommended  for  honorary 
membership,  as  well  as  to  occujiy  the  positions 
designated  :  • 

Professor  of  Vegetable  Physiology  and  Botani.st— 
Thomas  Meehan,  of  Philadelphia. 

Professorof  Horticultural  Science  and  Pomologist— 
.Tosiah  Iloopcs,  of  Chester  county. 

Chemist  and  Mineralogist— Dr.  F.  A .  Genth,  Pro- 
fessor of  Chemistry  and  Mineralogist  University  of 
Pennsylvania. 

Entomologist — Prof.  W.  A.  Buckhout,  Peimsylva- 
nia  State  College. 

Veterinary  Surgeon- Chas.  B.  .Michener,  V.  S.,  of 
Bucks  county.  , 

Mieroseopist — Dr.  Henry  Lefl'man,  of  Philadelphia, 
(geologist- Prof.  J.  P.  Lesley,  State  (ieulogist. 
<.)n  motion  the    f()rcgoing    named    gentlemen  were 
elected  by  acclamation  to  fill  the  positions  designated, 
and  Hiat  their  term  of  service  shall  be  one  year. 

Mr.  E.  (i.  Fahnestock,  of  Adams,  having  entered, 
his  eredeutials  were  presented  and  he  elected  a  mem-' 
her  of  the  board. 

Upon  drawing  by  lot,  Messrs.  Barnes,  Reeder  and 
Weitzel  were  made  inendiers  for  one  year;  Messrs. 
Wilson  (Juniata),  Foresman  and  Fahnestock  lor  two 
years,  and  Messrs.  Barnes,  Gilbert  and  Culver  for 
three  years. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Engle,  Prof.  Heiges,  of  York, 
was  called  upon  and  read  an  essay,  "  Tree  Planting 
for  Shade,  Shelter  and  Profit." 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Keller,  a  vote  of  thanks  was  ae 
corded  to  Prof.  Heiges  for  his  interesting  essay.  The 
subject  matter  of  the  essay  was  discussed  by  Messrs. 
Edge,  Beebe,  Heiges,  Engle,  Hamilton  and  Wilson. 


On  motion  of  M.  C.  Bebee,  the  credentials  of  S.  F. 
Wilson,  of  Tioga  county,  were  submitted  to  the 
secretary  for  approval. 

Mr.S.  F.  Wilson  drew  for  the  intermediate  term  of 
two  vcars. 

By  invitation,  Hon.  J.  S.  Haldeman  read  an  essay 
on  "Tree  Planting,  Fencing  and  Lime." 

On  motion  of  .Mr.  Keller  a  vote  of  thanks  was  ten- 
dered Mr.  Haldeman  for  his  essay. 

Mr.  M.  C.  Beebe  offered  the   following  resolution  : 

"  That  this  association  recommend  that  the  Legis- 
latiire  take  such  action  as  may  b'e  necessary  to  en- 
courage tree  planting." 

After  a  discussion  by  Messrs.  Beebe,  Edge,  Wick- 
ershani,  Roland,  Keller  and  Governor  Hartranft,  the 
resolution  was  laid  on  the  table,  subject  to  be  called 
up  at  any  future  time. 

EVKNINO  SESSION. 

The  board  met  at  S  P.  M.,  Governor  Hartranft  in 
the  chair. 

The  report  of  the  Secretary  was  read,  and  on 
motion  of  Mr.  Barnes  i-eferred  to  a  committee  ap- 
pointed by  the  chair,  consisting  of  Messrs.  Barnes, 
Fahnestock  and  Wilson,  with  instructions  to  repoit 
at  the  next  meeting  of  tlic  board. 

The  report  of  the  chemist  was  read  and  accepted. 

A  vote  of  thanks  was  unanimously  tendered  the 
chemist  for  his  able  report. 

On  motion  of  Dr.  Edge,  John  S.  Carter,  Superin- 
tendent of  the  Eastern  Experimental  Farm,  was  re- 
ijucsted  to  read  his  essay  relative  to  teaching  at  the 
Experimental  Farm. 

On  motion  of  Dr.  Edge  the  Secretary  was  instructed 
to  prepare  a  synopsis  of  the  jn-occedings  of  this 
board  for  publication  in  the  agricultural  papers  of 
the  State. 

On  motion  of  the  chair,  a  committee  of  three  gen- 
tlemen, consisting  of  Prof.  Wickersham,  Hon.  J.  B. 
Smith  and  W.  S.'  Roland,  was  appointed  to  confer 
with  the  proper  authorities  of  the  State  Agricultural 
Society  with  reference  to  the  publication  of  their  con- 
densed report  of  this  lioard  in  the  tw-elfth  volume  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  State  society. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Keller,  Dr.  Edge  was  instructed 
to  read  an  essay  upon  "The  Future  of  our  Board  of 
Agriculture." 

.    On  motion  a  vote  of  thanks  was  tendered  Mr.  John 
J.  Carter  and  Dr.  Edge  forable  and  interesting  essays. 

The  question  of  the  "  Future  of  the  State  Board  of 
Agrii-ulturc,"  was  discussed  by  tiov.  Hartranft,  Dr. 
Edge,  and  Messrs.  Keller,  Beebe,  Hamilton  and 
Forsemau. 

Adjourned  until  Wednesday  morning  at  9  o'clock. 

MORXINfi   SESSION  — WEIINESDAT. 

The  State  Board  of  Agriculture  met  in  the  Senate 
Chamlier  this  morning,  ( Jovernor  Hartranft  presiding. 

Prof.  Wickersham  reported  from  the  Committee 
on  Publication  that  the  secretary  of  State  Agricul- 
tural Society  had  cheerfully  extended  to  the  board 
the  use  of  one  hundred  pages  of  space  in  its  regular 
aniunil  volume,  which  will  be  imhlished  about  the 
1st  of  January  next.  The  thanks  of  the  board  were 
returned. 

An  elaborate  progranuno  for  the  next  meeting  was 
presented  by  the  committee  on  the  subject,  and 
adopted. 

Another  meeting  this  year  was  agreed  u]ion,  time 
•and  place  left  to  the  executive  committee. 

Mr.  Thomas  MeehiMi,  editor  of  the  Gardcner'n 
Moiithh/,  delivered  a  very  interesting  and  able  ad- 
dress on  the  inllucncc  of  forests  on  rainfall,  taking 
the  griiiind  that  the  presence  or  absence  of  trees  had 
no  appreciable  elfecl  upon  the  fall  of  rain. 

The  address  was  discussed  by  Messrs.  Smith,  Cal- 
der, Thomas  J.  Edge,  Forsemau,  Mahon,  Wilson, 
(Juniata),  Wickersham,  Beebe,  Hamilton  and  Gov. 
Hartranft. 

Charles  B.  Michener,  veterinary  surgeon,  read  a 
very  able  i)aper  on  pleuro-pneumonia,  which  was 
discussed  at  Icngtii. 

The  matter  of  a  law  reguhating  the  sale  of  fertili- 
zers referred  to  the  e,xee\[tive  committee  with  in 
structioiis  to  report  the  draft  of  a  law  at  the  next 
meeting  of  the  board.       • 

Adjourned  to   meet   at  the  call   of  the  executive 

committee. 

^ 

Questions  and  Answers. 

Wlii'n  land  has  been  reduced  by  cropping,  which 
is  the  best  means  of  restoring  its  f'erlility  ? 

Clover  furnishes  a  |)cipular  nicajis.  Fertility  grows 
by  covering  this  kind  of  land  with  n  thick  sod  and 
filling  the  soil  with  roots. 

Wiiat  are  the  leading  charaeteristies  of  the  liox 
elder  ' 

It  is  easily  grown,  of  quick  growth,  is  hard,  indi- 
gcninis,and  is  equally  gooil  for  wind  breaks  and  for 
timber. 

C'an  refn.sed  hair  from  tanneries  be  utilized  with 
l)roHt  on  a  farm  i 

Yes  :  it  is  a  valuable  fcMtilizer.  The  hair  is  usually 
mixed  with  lime;  when  spread  broadcast  this  |iro- 
duees  an  immediate  effect,  though  the  action  of  the 
hair  is  slow.  The  best  results  arc  obtained  from  this 
refuse  when  it  is  poured  in  or  mixed  with, the  soil. 
It  greatly  increa.ses  the  fertility  of  dairy  farms,  is 
said  to  be  preferable  to  barnyard  manure  forturni|)s, 
and  is  an  excellent  fertilizer  for  cabbages. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


A  Good    Fertilizer. 

A  proper  place  for  the  fowls  to  roost,  with  a  view 
to  save  and  compost  the  manure,  is  important.  This 
fertilizer  is  so  strong  and  so  fine  that  a  large  quantity 
of  swamp-muck  should  be  adde<i.  If  only  a  small 
quantity  of  such  material  be  scattered  uniicr  the 
roosts  daily,  we  avoid  the  pungent  odor,  keep  the 
air  pure,  and  retain  all  that  is  valuable  in  the  mate- 
rial. It  has  been  said  and  written  many  times  that 
the  fowl-house  should  be  kept  dean.  Now,  every 
poultry-keeper  cannot  afford  to  sweep  and  garnish 
things  daily  ;  but,  if  an  absorbent  be  used,  the  place 
may  be  kept  pure,  and  an  execllciit  compost  formed. 
Great  sums  are  paiil  for  guano  every  year,  and  it 
has  lieen  determined  that  three  hundred  pounds  of 
this  substance  is  suflicient  for  an  acre  of  corn-laml. 
The  manure  of  thirty  fowls  in  one  year,  mixed  with 
four  times  its  bulk  of  swamp-muck,  is  more  valuable 
than  three  hundred  pounds  of  guano.  The  advantage 
of  this  method  of  mixing  is  that  the  work  is  done 
easily  and  effectually. 

If  the  droppings  are  suffered  to  accumulate,  they 
become  hard  and  compact.  If  applied  to  land  with- 
out mixture  with  other  substances,  they  burn  and 
kill  plants,  and  also  prevent  seeds  frcnn  germinating. 
Besides,  the  compost  crumbles  readily,  is  easily 
mixed  with  the  soil,  or  applied  in  the  drills  before 
]ilanting.  This  fertilizer  is  very  quickly  assimilated 
by  growing  plants.  It  commences  its  work  imme- 
diately. The  mill  in  which  it  is  groiuid  makes  fine 
work.  Bone,  meat  and  grain,  when  pa.ssed  through 
the  gizzards  of  fowls  become  so  thoroughly 
disintegrated  that,  after  nourishing  them,  the  resi- 
duum, with  the  waste  material  from  their  bodies, 
makes  a  better  fertilizer  than  any  other  made  on  the 
farm.  Any  one  cultivating  a  farm,  or  only  a  kitchen 
garden,  fruit  yard  and  flower-borders,  can  make  this 
compost  tdl,  in  the  increased  quantity  and  quality  of 
his  products.  We  have  in  mind  a  man  who  carefully 
saves  the  manure  from  two  hundred  fowls  by  using 
plenty  of  earth,  nuick  and  swamp-hay  under  the 
roosts,  and  sells  the  compost  in  a  fine  dry  state  to  the 
proprietors  of  large  gardens  near  by,  getting  therefor 
nearly  enough  to  pay  for  the  food  consumed  by  the 
fowls".  Some  require  a  quick  growth,  in  order  to  be 
of  the  best  quality,  hence  the  value  of  this  compost, 
and  the  price  paid  for  it  as  a  garden  fertilizer.—  ^ 
PuiiUry  World. 

Tobacco  Culture. 

The  following  is  clipped  from  the  Hartford  (.'unrant: 
The  early  writers  on  tobacco  were  fond  of  extolling | 
the  rare  virtues,  remarkable  qualities,  and  peculiar] 
kind  of  soil  required  for  this  singular  plant.  Some  j 
writers  gave  curiovis  accounts  of  the  size  of  the  weed,  j 
and  in  Lobel's  "  History  of  Pl.ants,"  printed  at  Ant- 
werp (1.576)  is  a  cut  representing  tlie  weed  as  attain-  J 
ing  the  height  of  our  largest  trees,  while  the  leaves 
we  should  judge  ndght  measure  at  lea.st  ten  feet  in 
length.  Dr.  Liebault  in  his  work  entitled  the 
"Country  Farm"  (1(50(1)  in  speaking  of  tobacco, 
says  that  it  "craveth  a  fat  soil."  Physicians  wrote 
of  its  wonderful  curative  powers— that  it  could  heal 
the  sick,  was  a  certain  cure  for  the  gout,  as  well  as 
very  useful  in  colds  and  fevers.  Others  still  asserted 
that  its  use  improved  one's  manners.  In  Edward 
Sliarpham's  comedy,  The  Flclrr,{\ti\r,)  one  of  the 
characfci-s  (who  is  a  fashionable  smoker)  says  to  an- 
other :  "  Before  I  took  tobacco  I  was  an  arrant  ass," 
and  adds,  "Faith  these  gentlemen  have  not  long  used 
my  company,  yet  you  see  how  t<ibacco  hath  already 
refined  their  spirits."  We  have  no  desire  to  em-oll 
onr  name  with  that  of  either  class  alluded  to,  yet  the 
honest  grower  of  the  plant  may  think  so,  after  read- 
ing the  title  of  this  article.  At  first  thought  it  may 
be  supposed  that  s,(l(l(l  pounds  <if  leaf  tobaccocan  not 
be  grown  on  a  single  acre  of  land,  liut  when  the 
mcthoil  adopted  is  fully  ex|)hnned  it,  can  hiirdly  he 
doubted  by  even  the  most  incredulous.  Doubtless 
some  at  least  who  read  this  article  have  grown  2,:'>0n 
pounds,  or  even  :i,.'J(IO  pounds,  of  tobacco  to  the  acre, 
and  we  remember  to  have  read  several  years  ago  of  a 
fol>acco  grower  in  Massachusetts  who  raised  2,(i(l() 
pounds  of  leaf  tobacco  on  a  single  acre  of  ground. 
These  amounts  are  usually  considered  very  large, 
and  when  it  is  allirmed  that  one  ton  and  a  half  of 
tobacco  lias  lieen  olifaiiied  from  a  single  acre,  many 
will  regard  it  as  simply  a  bar-room  story  or  wholly  a 
myth. 

Working    Crops    Early. 

Clean  culture  is  one  of  the  first  requirements  of 
good  farming,  a  si/ir  ijiia  mtn  of  the  best  results  in 
farnnng  operations.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  repeat 
here,  what  we  have  often  said  before,  against  tho 
toleration  of  noxious  weeds.  The  most  anspicions 
time  to  deal  with  thejn  is  when  they  first  a|ipear. 
They  arc  then  easily  di'stroyed  by  exposure  to  the  sun 
or  covi'ring  with  the  turning  |>low  at  a  depth  which 
is  fatal  to  them.  Let  il  lie  borne  in  mind,  that  wlicn 
a  crop  once  gets  in  the  grass,  it  takes  double  the 
work  to  keep  weeds  down,  that  it  does  when  they 
arc'  destroyed  in  the  outset ;  and  besides  whatever  of 
fertility  in  the  soil  is  ab.stractcd  by  noxious  growth 
is  just  that  much  rolilicd  from  the  crop  planted  on 
that  ground.    Corn,  ]iot.atocs,   tobacco   and   vegeta- 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


93 


Wos  require  early  cultivation,  auJ  in  uiiic  cases  out 
of  ten,  ttiis  (ourse  ensures  a  crop,  wliatever  the  na- 
lure  of  tlie  season  may  be.  The  younsr  corn  is  Just 
now  eciniini;-  inl.i  notice,  and  it  is  in  order  to  devote 
proper  atlenlicn  loll,  .-^lir  llie  ^'round  and  destroy 
weeds  lliat  nniy  have  (jerndiialed,  and  l>eep  ahead  ol 
them  tlirou;;liont  the  season.  If  in  any  Idlls  tlie 
seed  did  not  t;ernnnate,  rejilant,  and  wliere  lliere  are 
too  muny  plants,  tliin  out  lieforc  tin-  roots  liave  thrown 
so  larfje  that  removal  will  loosen  tlic  reinaiuin" 
stalks.  ^_^ 

Effects  of  Climate  on  Plants. 

An  Ku'disli  ai;rie\dtural  iJa|ier  says  it  has  been 
proved  thai  tlie  se,-,ls  of  certain  plants,  if  iralliere.l 
ill  one  eliniate  and  sown  in  another,  will  Kernnnate 
earlieror  later  and  witli  more  or  less  viKor,aeeordini; 
as  the  new  climate  is  colder  or  warmer  than  the  old, 
and  that  a  ditlerence  of  a  lew  de-nes  only  in  lati- 
tude will  pro.luce  these  results,  l-'or  exani|ile,  wheat 
from  Scotland  .wwn  in  the  south  of  Kn?;iand  will 
germina'c  and  ripen  niucli  earlier  than  wheat  of  ex- 
aelly  similar  i|ualitv  feathered  in  the  .south  and 
planted  in  the  same  iatitndc  in  wbieh  it  was  ffiown. 
This  fact  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  a,<;riciiltur. 
iste.  To  secure  early  sri-owini;-  i;rain  crops  it  is  only 
necessary  to  lake  care  that  the  seed  is  leathered  in  a 
colder  climate  than  that  in  which  it  is  to  be  .sown. 
The  same  thins  is  noticeable  amoiii;  other  plants, 
and  tlorists  and  horticulturists  mifjlit  take  advant- 
age of  this  circumstance  to  produce  both  earlier  and 
stronirer  plants  than  they  do  now,  without  the  appli- 
ances of  forciiiiif. 

Hungarian  Millet. 

A  treat  divi'rsity  of  opinion  exists  ainona:  praelical 
farmers  as  to  the  value  of  the  several  annual  yras.scs 
commonly  known  as  millet.  This  may  be  aeeounted 
for  iu  part  by  the  character  of  the  soil  where  it  is 
{frown.  All  the  varieties  of  millet  are  peculiarly 
adapted  to  lii;ht,  sandy  or  sandy  loam  soils,  such  as 
will  jiroducc-  full  crops  of  timothy  and  rcil-lop  only 
under  the  most  favorable  circumstanees.  l.aud  that 
is  excellent  for  ijrass  is  not  the  best  for  millet,  and 
the  best  millet  land  is  not  natural  o-rass  land.  Millet 
resembles  the  corn  plant  in  its  adaptation  to  warm 
laud  and  hot  weather,  and  for  this  reason  we  should 
expect  to  find  it  a  more  jiopular  cro])  on  the  dry, 
sandy  land  borderinff  our  sea-coast  than  upon  the 
moist,  •ircen  hill-tops  of  Vermont,  New  Hampshire 
and  Western  Massachusetls.  And  this  we  liml  is  the 
ease — many  farmers  in  the  interior  having  scarcely 
ever  seen  a  patch  of  millet  grow ing.  Proti I  able  crops 
of  milli't  presuppose  land  easily  plowed  anil  capable 
of  being  smoothed  otf  and  laid  down  with  little  labor. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Compost  for   Corn. 

What  is  the  best  compost  to  ajiply  to  corn  was 
discussed  at  an  agricultural  club  meeting  over  in 
Bucks  county.  One  member  said  be  had  received 
the  best  result  from  a  mixture  of  ashes,  plaster  and 
hen  niamire  ;  phosphates  he  said  kept  the  corn  back; 
dry  ashes  ditto.  Another  Ihougbt  leached  ashesaiid 
plaster  valuable  ;  another  tbougbt  composts  did  not 
pay  for  putting  them  on;  it  was  better  to  fertilize 
the  groiiial  first  and  then  get  it  in  good  order,  and  it 
would  need  no  compost,  lie  wet  his  corn  and  rolled 
it  in  plaster  before  dropping.  Another  thought  the 
compost  did  more  good  if  dropped  on  top  of  the 
corn;  the  corn  would  come  up  better.  William  II. 
Kicc  wanted  to  know  the  ell'ects  of  plaster  put  on 
after  the  corn  was  up.  The  impression  prevailed 
th.at -it  did  little  good  where  lime  had  been  used. 
The  Berks  citunly  fai'iners,  we  believe,  rely  most 
upon  stable  manure  and  good  tillage,  and  they  as  a 
rule  always  have  excellent  crops,  unless  the  season  is 

unfavorable. 

— ^ 

More  Pollen  Needed. 
The  Western  Hiii'al  tells  of  a  man  who  plants, 
two  or  three  weeks  after  the  corn  is  planted,  a  new 
hill  of  corn  every  fifteenth  row  each  way.  And  this 
is  the  reason  :  'If  the  weather  becomes  dry  after  till- 
ing time  the  silk  and  the  tassel  both  become  dry  and 
dead.  In  this  condition,  if  it  become  sea.sonable,  the 
silk  revives  and  renews  lis  giowtli,but  the  tassels  do 
not  recover.  Then,  for  want  of  |jollen,  the  new  silk 
is  unable  to  fill  the  ollice  for  which  it  was  designed. 
The  pollen  from  the  rcplant;*d  corn  is  then  n^ady  to 
sujiply  the  silk,  and  the  filling  is  coin]ileted.  He  says 
nearly  all  the  aborli\'e  eai's,  so  common  in  all  corn 
crops,  are  cased  by  the  want  of  pollen,  and  be  had 
known  ears  to  double  their  size  in  this  second  lilliiig. 


Stacking  and    Feeding. 
■  W.  Doyle,  of  Uratiot,  Wisconsin,  writes,  giving  his 
methml  of  earing  for  straw  ; 

Straw  with  us  is  the  principal  article  of  food  for 
cattle  in  winter,  and  it  bceomes  necessary  as  a 
matter  of  e<'onomy  to  make  the  inost  of  it.  As  the 
thrashing  season  comes  some  time  before  we  feed, 
the  straw  should  be  well  slacked  and  picked  U)i,  as 
iu  Llie  case  of  hay,  and  a  good  fence  built  about  it 
for  its  preservation.  Many  farmers  allow  swine  to 
get  at  the  straw  stack.  This  is  a  niLserable  practice, 
for  the  straw  is  wasted  and  made  unwholesome  lor 
winter  use.  I  feed  it  out  with  a  great  deal  of  care, 
as  1  would  hay,  and  thus  utilize  it  all. 


Blackberry   Culture. 

.As  we  are  appioai'hing  tlii^  blackberr-y  season  it 
will  do  no  harm  to  lellccl  on  bow  great  and  bow 
rapid  has  been  the  imprnvemeiil  of  Ibis  fruit. 
Thirty  years  ago  there  is  no  mention  of  it  in  any 
nursery  catalogue,  and  the  wild  fruit  of  the  hedges 
was  all  that  was  in  use.  These  at  best  were  dry, 
seedy  things;  Iml  they  served  some  good  purpose  in 
pudiiing-makiiiLS  and  now  and  then  in  pies  and  tarts. 
This  is  about  the  position  Hie  blackberry  occupies  in 
English  fruil-ealing  ;  and  to  this  day  they,  naturally 
unaware  of  the  rapid  jirogress  we  have  lu.ade, 
wonder  al  our  taste  in  admiring  such  things. 

But  the  discovery  of  the  "  .New  Kochidlc,"  a  wild 
sport  from  the.  common  high  bush  blackberry,  at 
New'Hocbclle,  New  York,  gave  the  whole  class  a 
start,  (looil  varieties  are  now  "as  plentiful  as 
lilackberries,"  and  new  ones  are  appearing  every 
vcar.  It  is  singular,  though,  that  aJI  the  new  ones 
arc  chance  seedlings,  found  wild,  as  the  first  good 
one,  the  New  Hoehelle  was,  and,  indeed,  few  if  any 
are  yet  superior  to  it. 

fiiit  even  Uiih  and  the  best  of  them,  whichever  one's 
taste  may  decide  Hie  best  one  to  be,  is  very  much 
improved  by  good  culture;  and  conversely,  very 
niueli  injured  by  bad.  Almost  yearly  we  are  told 
that  this  or  that  variety  is  "not  hardy,"  Just  as  if 
we  were  speaking  of  some  exotic  plant,  forgetting 
that  the  original  plant  was  perhaps  found  in  our 
neighborhood's  neglected  feneecorner,  where  it  had 
been  growing  many  years,  'and  never  thought  of 
giving  way  to  the  liereest  winter's  wind.  Why 
should  a  plant,  hardy  in  nature,  become  tender  when 
planted  in  our  gardens^  There  can  be  but  one 
answer:  Our  sysleins  of  culture  are  not  favorable 
to  hardiness.  In  what  |iarticular  respect  is  our  cul- 
ture defective  ? 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  injury  to  the 
roots,  wbicli  our  system  of  culture  entails,  must  be 
injurious.  In  a  wild  state  the  blackberry  has  a  few 
ereeiiiiig  roots  that  run  near  the  surface  and  collect 
the  food.  The  hoeing  and  cleaning  necessary  iu 
garden  culture  keeps  these  roots  in  continual  dis- 
turbance. It  is  well  known  to  cultivators  of  peach 
orchards  that  the  slirrinir  of  the  soil  has  to  be  aban- 
doned iu  summer,  otherwise  the  disturbance  of  the 
roots  results  in  ill-ripened  wood,  and  the  peach  buds 
and  even  peach  wood  is  easily  destroyed.  It  is  just 
this  way  willi  the  blackberry  ;  and  it  is  worse  in  field 
culture  than  in  t'ardcii  culture,  because  theeultivator 
goes  ilee]ier,  and  by  so  much  more  is  it  an  injury. 
From  New  .lersey  especially,  the  land  of  the  blaek- 
lierrics,  comes  the  cry  of  blackberry  disease  and 
blackberry  winter-killing,  andofkinds  "dyingout ;'' 
and  tbere'is  no  doubt  the  root  injury  is  the  cause  of 
it  all.  Some  of  us  put  blackberry  plants  near  board 
fences  or  other  places  where  the  roots  can  get  a  little 
protection  from  hoc,  spade  or  plow  ;  and  in  sucli 
ca.scs  no  one  ever  hears  of  blackberry  disease,  or 
winter-killed  plants.  They  go  on  growing  and  bear- 
ing year  after  year,  as  well  as  if  they  thought  they 
were  in  the  old  farmer's  fence  row,  where  they  were 
ouee  found. 

Hut,  says  some  one,  are  we  then  to  let  our  black- 
berries grow  up  to  grass  and  weeds,  and  have  the 
whole  garden  look  like  a  wilderness  '.  By  no  means. 
We  must  keep  the  garden  and  farm,  blackberry 
patch  ineluded,  neat  and  clean  :  but  remembering 
that  it  is  an  injury  to  cut  olf  the  blackberry  roots,  we 
must  begin  to  keep  dowu  the  v\'eeds  early  in  the 
spring,  so  that  there  shall  be  no  trouble  in  the  fall ; 
and  when  we  do  clean,  cut  the  surface  as  lightly  as 
we  can. — f/friuuiitoii'n.  TtiUyrajth, 

Changing  the  Bearing  Year. 

Last  year  apples  were  so  abundant  that.  In  some 
localities  they  would  not  pay  lor  handling,  and  large 
ipiantilics  were  left  to  decay  where  they  fell.  In  view 
of  the  fact  that  a  year  of  excess  and  "low  prices,  is 
Ibllowcil  by  scarcity  and  h  gh  prices,  in<iiiiries  have 
come  to  us  in  su<  h  uunibers  as  to  show  that  many 
ari^  considering  the.  practicability  of  changing  this 
state  of  alfairs.  It  is  an  encouraging  sign  that  farmers 
are  induced  to  Hiiiik  about  their  orchard  at  all,  tol- 
as a  general  thing  there  is  no  part  id'  1  heir  belongings 
so  neglected  as  tills.  Trees  are  set,  but  it  is  looked 
upcm  rather  as  a  waste  of  land,  so  the  orchard  must 
be  cropped,  and  while  no  other  part  of  the  farm  is 
expected  to  do  it,  that  occii|iicd  by  the  orchard  must 
yield  two  crops.  The  laiise  of  all  trouble  with  fruit 
trees,  whether  of  failure  .iltogether,  or  occasional 
excessive  bearing,  and  the  rest  may  be  summed  up 
in  one  word  —  neglect.  Wc  now  confine  our  remarks 
to  the  present  trouble  and  to  an.swering  the  various 
imiuiries  about  alleriiate  bearing.  The  ap|ile  tree  left 
to  itself  will  generally  bear  such  an  abundant  crop 
that  requires  anotlicr  year, and  sometimes  longer, to  re- 
cujieratc,  and  accumulate  sullieicnl  nutriment  to  form 
budsaiul  noiirisli  another  crop.  This  tendency  is  very 
marked  in  some  leading  varieties,  and  as  it  has  been 
going  on  for  many  years,  tlie  habit  lias  become  fixed, 
and  when  we  propagate  these  varieties,  the  young 
trees  start  with  that  as  one  of  their  peculiarities,  in 
which  they  have  been  educated,  so  to  speak.  It  is 
well  known  that  this  leudeuey  is  much  more  marked 
iu  gome  varietiea  than  in  others,  and  while  some  uat- 


iirally  fall  into  alternate  bearing,  others  resist  it,  anil 
will,  if  they  have  a  fhir  chance,  give  a  crop  of  fruit 
every  year.  This  is  a  character  to  which  little  atten- 
tion has  been  given  by  our  pomologists  ;  they  state 
if  a  tree  comes  into  bearing  early,  or  If  It  is  an 
abundant  or  shy  bearer,  but  its  tendency  to  annual 
or  biennial  bearing  is  rarely  recorded,  while  it  is  one 
of  the  most  important  i|iialilics.  Variclics  that  nat- 
urally bear  anmially,  may  be  converted  into  biennial 
bearers  by  starvation  ;  planted,  as  they  often  arc'  on 
poor  soil,  and  robbed  of  their  nutriment  by  another 
crop,  the  trees  cannot  get  food  enough  to  enable 
tliem  to  carry  eviMi  a  small  crop  every  year,  and  they 
are  forced  into  alternate  bearing.  The  praelical 
question  is,  how  can  frees  that  now  bear  excessively 
one  year  and  nothing  the  next,  be  made  to  bear 
moderately  every  year?  So  far  as  the  alternate  bear- 
ing is  due  to  the  liovcrty  of  the  soil,  the  remedy  is 
evident,  and  no  doubt  would  be,  with  many  varie- 
ties, suflieient. — Aiiurieim  AijribnUurM. 


The   Egg  Plant. 

People  know  what  trouble  Hicy  have  with  the  Co- 
lorado potato  beetle  in  tbeir  potato  grounds,  and  the 
newspapers  arc  full  of  the  story  ;  but  notliinir  is  said 
of  the  egg  plant,  which  is  troubled  by  the  same  in- 
sect quite  as  much,  and  for  which  there  is  much  less 
remedy. 

Tlie"iK)tato  we  can  protect  from  the  beetle  well 
enough  by  the  use  of  Paris  green.  The  tuber  we  eat, 
and  what  we  do  to  the  stalks  have  little  to  do  with 
the  parts  under  the  ground.  We  jKiison  the  beetle 
and  there  is  no  danger  from  such  poisonous  use.  But 
itis  not  safe  to  recomnicml  Paris  green  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  beetle  on  the  egg  plant,  or  on  any 
vegetable  where  the  part  used  grows  above  the 
ground,  as  the  arsenic  of  the  Paris  green  may  attach 
t^o  it,  and  dangerous  consequences  ensue  ;  and  thus 
we  are  not  able  to  use  this  remedy,  so  cheap  and  so 
cIlecLual  in  the  case  of  the  jiotato.  .SodifBcull  has  it 
been  to  raise  egg  plants,  on  account  of  the  beetle, 
that  large  numbers  of  amateurs  who  generally  have 
a  few  for  their  own  use  had  none  last  year.  The  only 
remedy  so  far  found  is  to  iiick  the  pcntn  from  the 
jilaiil  ;  but  where  (Uily  a  few  are  required  it  is  found 
elieaiier  to  buy  what  are  needed  than  to  grow  them. 
So  far  as  we  can  learn  the  ebeajiest  plan  to  iirotecl 
them  is  to  have  frames  made  corerrd  n'ith  }uos:/nito 
iifttiui).  Tliis  is'not  lieavy  enouv;h  to  exclude  light 
and  air  and  interfere  with  the  health  of  the  plant, 
but  it  is  quite  sullieient  to  keep  olf  the  beetles.  The 
frames  need  not  be  costly— indeed  liooiis  from  small 
barrels  or  kegs  will  do  around  wbieh  to  tack  the  net. 

As  generally  from  six  to  a  dozen  [liants  are  enough 
for  ordinary  gardens,  it  is  no  great  task  to  make 
tlie.se  nets,  and  as  no  work  is  needed  after  the  plants 
are  once  covered,  the  work  costs  but  very  little  more 
than  a  lot  of  Paris  green  would  do.  To  those  who 
like  egg-plants  well  enough  to  be  willing  to  go  to  a 
little  trouble  to  get  them,  this  little  hint  may  perhaps 
be  of  some  service. —  Oernuintotnt  Tdiyra^ih. 


Don't  Omit  the    Turnips. 

Turnips  arc  a  profitable  crop,  if  grown  on  rich 
land.  Five  hundred  bushels  to  the  acre  are  often 
grown  at  a  cost  of  about  .^l.'>,  including  gathering 
and  putting  tliem  in  a  cellar,  root  house,  or  burying 
them,  niakin^-  tlie  co.st  only  three  cents  a  bushel. 
Some  varieties  may  be  sown  in  July,  the  flat  variety 
in  particular,  which  is  frequently  sown  among  corn, 
immeiliately  after  the  la.-^t  hoeing.  Care  should  be 
taken  not  to  sow  the  seed  too  thick,  as  Hiinning  out 
is  not  generally  practiced  wlieii  grown  in  this  way  ; 
nor  is  any  weeding  done.  Tliis  is  decidedly  the 
cheapest  way  that  a  crop  of  turnips  can  be  grown. 
Cover  the  seed  by  a  brush  drag  drawn  between  the 
rows  of  corn.  Some  farmers  object  to  growing  tur- 
nips to  feed  to  cows,  on  account  id'  giving  the  milk 
an  unpleasant  flavor;  but  this  is  obviated  by  feeding 
the  turnips,  either  when  milking  in  the  morning,  or 
innfiediately  after  milking,  and  no  bad  tlaviu-  is  iin- 
|iartcil  to  the  evening's  milk. 


Potatoes  to  be  a  Profitable  Crop  for  1877. 

This  esculent  has  become  by  habit  almost  indispen- 
sable. Few  families  fail  to  have  it  on  tlic  tabic  al 
least  once  a  day,  however  lii!,'li  the  price.  Last  sum- 
mer's drouth  si)  diminished  the  yield,  that  there  is 
now  a  scarcity  In  many  iilaecs.  The  Colorailo  Beetle 
spread  so  widely,  to  the  very  edge  of  the  Atlantic, 
last  season,  that  very  many  farmers  are  afraid  to 
plant  largely  this  ytar,  and  the  present  prospect  is 
llial  there  will  be  a  small  crop,  and  consequently 
high  jn-ices.  Those,  thi'rcforc,  who  |iiodiicc  a  good 
crop,  will  be  likely  to  find  it  unusually  profitable. 
A  little  extra  care  will  enable  anyone  to  successfully 
light  oH'the  beetle,  no  matter  how  abundant.— ,4me)'- 
ii-ait  Affricutturist. 

. -^ 

Hot-Beds. 

The  Fruit  Urci^rdcr  thinks  the  best  manure  for 
liot-beds  Is  a  mixture  of  forest  leaves  and  stable 
manure;  and  that  the  best  way  to  olitain  this  mix- 
ture is  to  use  leaves  to  litter  the  stables  in  winter. 


94 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  June, 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Household  Recipes. 

CiiOf'Oi.ATE  Cakamei.s. — One  cup  of  milk  ;  t  wo 
i-ups  of  sugar  ;  two  cupK  of  niolas-scs  ;  oue  cake  of 
chocolate  grated  tine.  Boil  till  it  camlies.  Pour  out 
on  a  Hat  dish  and  cut  in  scpiares. 

One  ounce  lemon  juice  mixed  ^\'itll  a  quarter  of  a 
drachm  of  sugar  will  remove  freckles.  Keep  this 
lotion  in  a  glass  bottle  corked  tightly  a  few  days  be- 
fore using,  and  apply  to  the  i'rccklcs  oecasioually, 
and  it  will  soon  remove  ttiem. 

One  of  the  most  gentle  and  useful  kiuds  of  exer- 
cise is  friction  of  the  body,  either  by  the  naked 
hand,  a  piece  of  flannel,  or,  what  is  still  better,  a 
flesli-brush.  This  was  in  great  esteem  among  tlie 
ancients,  and  is  to-day  a  universal  resort  with  the 
people  of  the  East  Indies. 

To  Cleanse  a  Meehschaum. — We  fear  that  the 
husbands  of  some  of  our  housekeepers  will  smoke  ; 
and,  if  so,  tliey  might  as  well  be  as  clean  as  possible 
about  it,  so  we  will  tell  tbem  how  to  keep  their 
meerschaums  wholesome.  Wasli  tljcm  with  alcohol. 
Allow  the  alcohol  to  remain  in  the  bowl  for  a  few 
moments,  and  then  rub  them  gently  with  a  sponge 
attached  to  a  small  stick. —  Cor.  ^\'egtc)■)l  Rural. 

Soup  ou  Tomato  Oysteks.— Five  ripe  tomatoes 
cut  fine,  or  the  canned  tomatoes  will  answer  ;  boil  in 
one  pint  of  water  with  a  small  teaspoonful  of  soda  ; 
add  one  quart  of  milk  ;  butter  and  salt  to  taste  ;  oue 
or  two  pounded  crackers,  as  you  like  it  thick  or  tliin. 
— £vxto/tlun . 

Oyster  Plant. — Boil  it  well,  then  grate  it,  and 
mix  with  it  a  little  beateu-up  egg,  salt,  and  pepper. 
Form  in  little  cakes  the  size  of  a  large  oyster,  and 
fry  in  liot  lard. — <S'.  C. 

Minced  Veal. — Cut,  liutdo  not  chop,  cold  veal  in 
small  pieces  ;  rub  some  butter  and  flour  together  to  a 
cream,  according  to  the  quantity  of  your  veal,  and 
stir  it  into  a  sufficient  quantity  of  boiling  milk  ;  also 
the  grated  rind  of  a  lemon  ;  let  these  boil  together 
until  the  consistency  of  cream  ;  sprinkle  a  little  flour, 
salt  and  white  pepper  over  the  cut  veal  and  add  it  to 
the  cream  ;  stand  it  where  it  will  keep  up  to  the  boil- 
ing point,  but  not  boil ;  when  thoroughly  heated 
through  squeeze  the  juice  of  a  lemon  over  it,  and 
serve  quickly  on  bits  of  dry  toast. — Amit  Addie. 

Ten  drops  of  carbolic  acid  were  put  into  a  pint  of 
water  and  pots  watered  with  tlie  solution.  It  killed 
the  worms  and  the  plants  began  to  improve  at  once. 
—  rift's  Floral  Gaidt. 

To  THICKEN  the  hair  and  prevent  it  from  turning 
gray,  pour  Ijoiling  water  on  a  quantity  of  sage  leaves, 
and"  let  tliem  remain  some  time  in  the  oven,  or  near  a 
stove  ;  strain  and  apply  to  the  roots  of  the  hair  daily. 
If  any  pomade  be  needed,  an  equal  mixture  of  cocoa- 
nut  and  olive  oils,  with  a  lillle  perfume,  is  very 
efficacious. 

BuTTEii  Sauce  fou  Mackerel. — ITalf-cup  of 
flour  mixed  with  cold  water  till  a  smooth  paste  ;  stir 
enough  of  this  paste  into  a  half-pint  of  boiling  water 
over  tlie  fire  to  form  a  thick  cream  ;  add  a  little  salt, 
and  stir  steadily  with  an  egg-whip  for  two  minutes-; 
then  remove  from  the  fire  and  stir  in  a  quarter-pound 
of  butter,  two  tablespoonsful  of  chopped  parsley 
and  the  juice  of  half  a  lemon.  Set  it  on  the  back 
part  of  the  stove  to  keep  warm,  but  on  no  account 
let  it  boil.  (No  sauce  should  be  boiled  after  the 
butter  has  been  added,  or  it  will  have  a  rancid  taste; 
and  to  boil  after  lemon  juice  has  been  beaten  in  will 
turn  the  lemon  bitter.)  Uaving  broiled  the  fish,  lay 
it  carefully  into  a  hot  pl.itter  with  parsley,  water 
cress,  or  a  slice  of  lemon  upon  it,  and  serve.  Do 
not  put  the  sauce  over  the  fish,  but  send  it  to  the 
table  in  a  sauce  boat. 

Grauam  Suort-Cake. — One  cup  sour  milk,  one 
half  euj)  cream,  one  teaspoonful  soda,  one  teaspoon- 
ful salt ;  make  a  batter  as  thick  as  can  be  stirred 
with  a  spoon,  spread  a  layerof  it  in  a  baking-tin,  put 
bits  of  butter  over  it,  then  another  layer  of  butter. 
Bake  in  a  moderate  oven  until  well  browned.  When 
cool  enough  to  handle,  open  between  the  layers  Ihid 
put  in  berries,  peaches,  stewed  apples  or  any  kind  of 
juicy  fruit ;  let  stand  a  few  minutes  and  you  will 
have  a  "dainty  dish  to  set  before  a  king." 

Grauam  Tea-Cake. — One  cup  sugar,  two  eggs, 
beaten  together,  one  cup  sour  cream,  two-thirds 
teaspoonful  soda,  one  teaspoonful  salt,  two  slightly 
heaped  cups  tirahani  flour,  one  teaspoonful  lemon 
extract  or  half  a  nutmeg.  Bake  in  a  moderate  oven. 
To  Phei'aue  Sheep's  Head. — Take  a  large  sheejj's 
head,  cleanse,  trim  and  wipe  it  well  ;  place  it  in  a 
well-buttered,  oval,  flat,  well-tinned  copper  baking- 
pan,  with  salt,  grated  nutmeg,  two  onions  and  a 
green  pepper  chopped  fine,  two  ladlefuls  of  stewed 
tomatoes,  a  highly  garnished  bunch  of  parsley,  a  few- 
bits  of  butter  on  tlie  lop,  and  place  a  buttered  paper 
over  all;  set  on  tlie  tire,  start,  slowly,  let  simmer 
gently  for  about  forty  minutes,  taking  care 
to  occasionally  sprinkle  the  fish  with  its  gravy  ;  when 
done,  place  the  fish  on  a  dish,  and  keep  it  warm  ; 
take  out  the  parsley  and  transfer  the  tomato  sauce, 
etc.,  to  a  saucepan,  with  a  pint  of  i'spUfinoU  sauce  ; 
reduce  to  a  proper  consistency ;  add  tlie  juice  of  a 
lemon  and  a  tablespoonful  of  chopped  parsley  ;  serve 
up  the  fish  in  a  large  dish  ;  pour  the  sauce  over  ;  and 
serve  a  dish  of  plain  boiled  rice  with  the  fish. 


Dried  Potatoes. 
A  German  journal  thus  describes  the  manufacture 
of  "dried  potatoes,''  as  conducted  at  Carsten's  works 
in  Lubeck  :  The  potatoes  are  peeled  with  the  hand, 
and  cut  into  disks  by  a  machine.  Tliese  are  put  into 
a  basket,  and  this  into  a  lioiler,  where  the  potatoes 
are  nearly  but  not  quite  boiled.  The  disks  are  then 
put  on  wire  frames  in  a  dry  oven,  where  they  are 
dried  c|Hite  hard.  It  is  important  to  preserve  the 
color  (if  the  potatoes,  and  to  prevent  them  from 
turning  grey,  as  they  would  by  the  process  alone. 
The  material,  after  slieing  is  treated  with  cold  water, 
to  which  has  been  added  one  per  cent,  of  sulphuric 
acid,  or  one  or  two  per  cent,  of  muriatic  acid.  The 
preparation  obtained,  whieli  has  lost  none  of  its 
starch,  is  of  a  slightly  citron-yellow  tint,  and  ti-ans- 
parent  like  gum.  Boiled  with  water  and  a  littleisalt, 
it  is  said  to  resume  the  natural  color  and  fibrous 
structure  of  potatoes,  and  is  not  distiuguishable  in 
taste  from  the  newly  boiled  vegetable. 


Enjoyment   of  Work, 

Farmers'  wives,  as  a  general  thing,  work  entirely 
too  hard.  Let  tliem  moderate  their  labors  to  the 
proportion  of  their  strength,  and  even  if  help  lias  to 
be  obtained  to  make  up  the  deficit,  it  were  surely 
better  than  to  wear  out  prematurely  from  exposure 
and  overwork,  and  leave  your  children  at  a  tender 
age  without  a  mother's  care.  A  good  womau  witli  a 
good  husband,  can  be  happier  nowhere  than  on  a 
farm  ;  but  let  not  a  sense  of  duty  in  the  one,  nor  a 
false  economy  in  the  other,  deprive  the  wife  of  all 
heeded  assistance.  It  is  far  better  to  enjoy  life  in  old 
age  with  your  children  than  to  have  slaved  througli 
life  to  leave  them  a  fortune,  while  you  lie  down  in  a 
premature  grave,  ere  life's  great  tasks  be  fully  done. 
Let  tlie  duties  and  responsibilities  usually  devolved 
upon  farmers'  wives  be  lessened,  and  furnish  abun- 
dant help  for  the  work  to  be  done. — Southern  Farmer. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


About     Milk. 


To  scald  milk  fresh  from  the  cow  and  put  it  while 
hot  into  a  shallow  vessel  for  the  purpose  of  letting 
the  cream  rise,  makes  it  rich  mucli  more  rapidly 
than  to  set  the  same  away  without  st-alding  it  :  1. 
Cream  rises  faster  when  cream  is  hot  than  when  it  is 
cold,  all  other  considerations  being  the  same.  3. 
Notwithstanding  the  loss  of  water  by  evaporating, 
heated  milk  is  thinner  or  of  more  fluid  than  tliat 
which  is  not  scalded,  o.  Cream  rises  faster  when 
the  temperature  of  milk  is  falling  than  when  it  is 
stationary,  and  milk,  set  away  hot,  has  a  wider  range 
of  temperature  to  fall  through  than  that  which  is 
not  scalded.  4.  The  cream  from  scalded  milk  churns 
easier  than  from  not  scalded,  and  hence  churns  more 
completely,  leaving  less  cream  in  the  buttermilk. 
Hence  a  little  more  butter  is  the  result  of  scalding 
and  setting  in  a  shallow  vessel. 


Healthy  Cattle. 

Notwithstanding  the  prevalence  of  rinderpest  in 
the  cattle  raising  districts  of  the  Old  World  and  the 
consternation  produced  thereby,  our  own  country  is 
generally  I'ree  from  this  scourge.  Reports  relative 
to  farm  animals,  as  received  at  the  Department  of 
Agriculture,  show  general  exemption  from  diseases 
among  cattle,  with  few  exceptions,  and  a  more  than 
average  healtlifuluess  and  thrift,  especially  north  of 
the  SCtli  degree  of  latitude.  In  the  milder  region, 
w-herc  shelter  is  not  provided,  emaciation  and 
death  are  not  unfrequeutly  reported.  In  one  countv 
in  Georgia  (Taylor)  one  hundred  and  fifty  of  a  herd 
of  five  hundred  were  lost.  From  all  the  Alleghenies 
to  the  great  plains  not  exceeding  seven  per  cent,  of 
the  returns  indicate  low-  condition.  Cases  of  pleuro- 
pneumonia have  occurred  iu  Burlington,  New  Jersey; 
Baltimore,  Maryland, and  Cumberland,  Pennsylvania. 
Cases  of  abortion  are  scattered  througli  the  dairy 
districts  in  no  greater  numbers  than  usual,  and  local 
losess  are  reported  in  the  Soutli  from  diseases  i-esult- 
ing  from  miasma  and  lack  of  nutr.tion.  Such  losses 
vary  from  two  to  twenty  per  cent,  iu  the  counties  of 
the  Gulf  States, and  from  five  to  twenty-five  percent, 
iu  certain  counties  iu  Texas.  No  prevalent  disease  is 
reported  among  horses.  Mild  forms  of  catarrhal 
diseases,  with  occasional  cases  of  lung  fever,  are  re- 
ported I'rom  Northern  latitudes,  and  from  the  South 
more  frei|Uenl  mention  of  similar  diseases  and  local 
losses  from  blind  staggers, and  less  frequent  loss  from 
glanders,  and  in  the  Mississippi  valley  a  few  cases  of 
cliarbon.  Sheep  are  generally  in  good  condition. 
In  Soutlieru  California  flocks  are  dying  from 
drouth,  and  in  .some  places  are  sold  to  go  to  Oregon 
and  Nevada  for  thirty-seven  cents  per  head. 
The  losses  of  swine  have  been  very  heavy  in  the 
West  and  South. 


The  Farmer's  Grindstone. 

There  is  no  tool  as  essential  on  the  farm  as  a  good 
grindstone ;  it  is  therefore  necessary  that  every 
farmer  should  have  one  and  know  how  to  take  proper 
care  of  it.  A  grindstone  should  always  be  kept 
under  cover,  as  exposure  to  the  sun's  rays  hardens 
the  grit  and  injuries  the  frame.  The  stone  should 
not  stand  in  water  when  not  in  use,  as  this  causes 
soft  places.  The  water  should  be  allowed  to  drip 
from  some  vessel  jilaced  above  tlie  stone,  and  the 
drip  should  be  stopped  when  the  stone  is  not  in  u.<e. 
All  greasy  or  rusty  tools  should  be  cleaned  before 
sharpened,  as  grease  or  rust  choke  up  the  grit.  The 
stone  should  be  kept  perfectly  round. 

Hanging  an  Axe. 

Get  your  blacksmilli  to  make  an  iron  wedge  to 
fasten  the  handle  iu  with.  It  will  cost  but  fifteen  or 
twenty  cents.  It  sliould  be  about  two  and  a  half 
inches  long,  aud  about  two  in  width,  and  the  head 
of  the  wedge  should  be  large  enough  to  cover  the 
eye  of  the  axe.  It  is  much  better  than  the  wooden 
oue  generally  used  for  such  purposes,  as  it  can  be 
easily  knocked  out  with  a  cold  chisel  and  hammer. 
Tlic  usual  method  of  burning  out  a  helve  after  it  has 
been  broken  softeus  the  steel  of  the  axe.  Another 
advantage  is  that  sometimes  an  axe  is  broken,  while 
the  handle  remains  good,  then  the  iron  wedge  can  be 
knocked  out,  and  as  it  is  ready  to  be  put  in  another 
axe. —  WeMern  Ihiral. 

Re-cooking  Meat. 

T.ake  any  kind  of  cold  meat,  cut  into  slices,  taking 
care  to  remove  all  gristle  ;  place  in  a  stewpan  with 
sullicient  cold  water  to  cover  it,  and  one  or  two 
onions,  according  to  the  quantity  of  meat ;  season 
with  salt,  pepper,  cloves  and  mace,  according  to 
taste  ;  simmer  gently  until  the  meat  is  quite  tender, 
thicken  it  with  flour  and  a  small  piece  of  butter. 
Take  an  iron  spoon,  put  a  teaspoonful  of  sugar  in  it 
and  burn  the  sugar  ;  stir  quickly  into  hash.  Toast 
slices  of  bread  brown,  cut  in  squares  and  lay  ihem 
round  a  flat  dish  ;  then  pour  out  the  hash  and  serve 
hot. 


Value  of  Salt. 


Not  moretban  twenty-five  years  ago  a  learned  doe- 
tor  published  an  elaborate  treatise  to  prove  that  salt 
was  the  "  forbidden  fruit,"  through  eating- which  our 
first  parents  fell,  and  has  ever  since  been  the  cause  of 
all  our  diseases  and  ills,  though  only  a  lunatic  would 
deny  that  salt  serves  some  important  aud  essential 
uses  in  the  animal  economy.  The  desire  for  salt 
seems  an  instinct  implanted  in  the  animal  creation, 
and  there  is  a  natural  craving  for  it  when  it  does  not 
exist  in  sufficient  quantity  in  food. 

Animals  will  travel  long  distances  and  brave  great 
dangers  to  get  at  saline  earths,  called  salt  licks; 
horses  and  cows  are  most  healthy  when  provided 
with  lumps  of  rock  salt  in  their  mangers  or  pastures, 
and  even  bees  will  sip  a  solution  of  salt  with  avidity. 
Men  will  barter  gold  for  it  in  countries  where  it  is 
scarce,  and  for  it  husbands  will  sell  their  wives,  aud 
parents  their  children.  In  some  districts  of  Africa 
salt  is  far  more  expensive  than  the  purest  white  sugar 
in  Eiirope,  aud  children  will  suck  a  lump  of  it  in 
prefe'reuee  to  sweetmeats.  But  the  existence  of  a 
greater  or  less  appetite  for  salt  in  all  individuals 
shows  that  this  substance  serves  more  imijortaiit 
functions  than  that  of  merely  gratifying  the  palate. 

Salt  being  a  large  constituent  of  the  iiuman  body, 
and  forming  about  half  the  total  weight  of  the  saline 
matters  of  the  blood,  the  constant  loss  of  it  by  the 
secretions,  the  bile,   and  even   tears,  requires   to  be 
made  up  liy  its  employment  as  a  condiment.  The  free 
acid  found  in  the  stomach,  and  which  forms   an   es- 
sential constituent  of  the  gastric  juice,  is  obviously 
derived  from  the  salt  taken  with  our  food  ;  and  tb 
soda  of  the  blood  and  in   some   of  tlie    secretions  i 
doubtless   obtained   from  the  decomposition  in  th 
system  of  common  salt,  which  is  the  only  minera. 
food  of  man  aud  the  only  saline  eoudimeut  es.sentia. 
to  health. — British  Ma/mfacturer . 


Sweet  Potatoes  for  Hogs. 

We  doubt  whether  as  firm  pork  could  be  mad«  of 
sweet  potatoes,  or  of  any  other  kind  of  vegetables,  as 
corn  will  make  ;  and  while  many  kinds  of  food  may 
lie  profitably  used  iu  the  commencement  of  fattening, 
there  is  nothing  like  corn  to  solidify  pork. 

There  is  no  better  hog  feed  than  sweet  potatoes, 
cither  raw  or  cooked.  IJogs  will  fatten  rapidly  on 
them  raw,  and  dig  them  themselves,  but  will  do 
much  better  on  them  if  cooked.  In  this  part  of 
Illinois,  where  the  corn  crop  is  uncertain,  many  far- 
mers fatten  their  own  pork  ou  sweet  potatoes.  Quite 
a  number  have  planted  them  the  last  season,  and 
turned  their  hogs  into  the  patch,  and  they  will  not 
touch  an  ear  of  corn  while  the  potatoes  last.  But 
that  is  not  the  best  plan,  as  the  hogs  will  waste  them 
more  or  less.  It  pays  to  dig  the  potatoes  and  cook 
them  in  a  large  kettle,  aud  when  nearly  done  mix  in 
a  small  quantity  of  corn  meal  or  shipstutf ;  mash  and 
stir  well,  and  then  cook  awhile  longer  to  cook  the 
meal.  Feed  cool,  iu  troughs,  aud  my  word  for  it, 
you  will  see  hogs  grow.  It  is  the  best  feed  for  sows 
and  young  pigs  that  can  be  given  them. 

I  have  never  tested  the  relative  value  of  corn  and 
sweet  potatoes  as  a  hog  feed ;  but  here  iu  the  fall  of 
the  year,  we  often  have  sweet  potatoes  too  large  for 
sale,  and  feed  them  to  the  hogs,  as  we  always  do  the 
very  small  ones. 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


95 


Some  may  think  It  costly  feed ;  but  take  into  con- 
sideration tlie  yield  of  sweet  potatoes  and  corn,  corn 
yielding  llilrly  bushels  per  aere,  swtwt  potatoes  150 
to  'iAd  bushels  per  aere,  and  eorn  sonu'linieB  worth 
twiee  as  much  per  bushel  as  potatoes.  However,  all 
are  not  alike  .situated.  .Surne  <-aii  ({row  eorn  ami 
sweet  potatoes.  When  potatoes  do  well,  thc'V  innke 
a  jjikhI  substitute  lor  coni.—l'ruirir  Fiiniui-. 

Against  the  World. 

In  February  last  Uiehard  llarrisuii,  living  near 
iteeklesstown.  slaui^jhtered  li8  hojis,  wliieh  wel^jhed 
us  follows  ;  .'iU.'j,  5T."»,  ^uh,  .'i77,  ;"i77,  .")7it,  571»,  ■")7'.*,  t}<l, 

tM,  5h'5,  sw,  aw,,  6ii:i,  (io.'i,  tiu.'i,  cm,  uiii,  ra.t,  ivr.r,, 

»B9,  ti-O.'),  fiCi.'i,  (!77,  7U1I,  Tl.'i,  7:1.5  and  74'.l— inakinir  an 
tt^^rei^ate  of  17,:'.:i8  pounds — an  averai^e  of  (Jl'.t  ;vI4 
pounds.  This  Is  pretty  bif;  for  liii;h.  Mr.  llarrihon 
slaiitjhtered  about  S,."IUO  pounds  of  pigs  for  market 
with  this  famous  lot  of  jHirkers. 

But  if  any'eoinity  in  this  State,  or  any  other  State, 
can  beat  I  hi'  abovi'  exhibit,  we  pr<-8ent  for  eonsidera- 
tiou  the  erop  of  .lof-eph  Carter,  on  the  farm  of 
Anthony  Hulloek,  in  the  same  neij^'liborhond.  This 
lot  was  killed  on  Monday,  and  was  worth  a  journey 
to  see  swinffini;  on  the  •rallows.  There  «iTe  '.'0  hfad 
weifrhins  as  follows  :     .W.I,  .5(11,  ot;.';,  .WI ,  .')07,  lidl, 


Oai,  1)49,  (LIS,  C.ll.'i,  r.77,  «!!.'>,  7(1.1, 


ri:i,  721,7  i7 


74,  8(15  anil  9(1.")  pounds.  Total  weight,  l:!,.'')t;.'i 
ponnils.  .\veraire,  (17Si^  IHiunds.  The  live  lieaviest 
weiirhed  over  4,U(IU  pounds.  We  rest  on  these  llyureB. 
Mr.  Carter  also  killed  five  hogs  lor  bis  own  use  that 
weighed  about  2,(1110  pounds  ;  and  about  (i.llOO  pounds 
of  pigs  for  market.  Taking  the  whole  2.')  hogs  the 
average  is  nearly  (!4.S  pounds. 

Wi-  have  reeeivod  the  weights  of  these  hogs  from 
the  purchaser  also,  Nathan  Folwell,  stock  dealer  at 
Bordeutown.  The  figures  vary  a  few  jwunds — (•ur 
flirures  giving  the  weights  on  the  day  of  slauiihter, 
Mr.  l-'olwell  the  weights  when  ileli'vereil  to  him. 
The  total  marketed  crop  of  Mr.  Harrison,  hogs  and 
pigs,  aggregated  i5,4:!(>  pounds,  for  which  Mr.  Fol- 
well paid  8  cents  per  pound— $2,0.1.5.(i.S,  cash  on 
delivery. 

Several  hundred  people  congregated  on  the  killing 
days  at  the  aliovc  places  to  witness  the  uuprecedented 
spectacle. — Burlington  county,  iV,  /.,  Paper. 

Half-Bred  Buffaloes  in  the  Dairy. 

The  long  mooted  c|Ueslion  whether  the  butfalo  can 
be  successfully  utilized  for  dairy  purposes,  says  the 
Turf,  Fiehtaial  fur  in,  is  now  in  a  fair  way  of  being 
Balisfactorily  settled.  The  apprehension  hitherto  en- 
tertained regarding  the  untamable  nature  of  the 
buffalo,  and  that  the  characteristics  of  this  branch 
of  the  bovine  family  would  be  certain  to  crop  out 
through  indefinite  crossings,  appears  to  be  totally 
groundless.  The  bulfalo,  or  more  properly  the  Ameri- 
can bison,  is  being  used  extensively  in  portions  of  the 
State  of  Nebraska,  bordering  on  the  wild  plains  of 
the  far  West,  for  stock  purposes, aud  half  aud  quarter 
bred  females  of  the  bison  family  yield  an  abundant 
supply  of  rich  milk.  A  remarkable  feature  coirtiected 
with  this  cross  of  the  bison  with  domestic  cattle  is 
the  fact  that  the  color  of  the  bison  and  the  majority 
of  its  distinguished  characteristics  disappear  after 
successive  crossings.  Its  outward  conformation  is 
also,  in  process  of  time,  in  a  great  degree  lost  sight 
of.  The  hunch  or  lump  of  ilesii  covering  the  long 
spinous  process  of  the  dorsal  vcrtebrip,  becomes  di- 
minished with  each  successive  cross,  and  will,  doubt- 
less, also  disappear  entirely  as  the  origimil  type  be- 
eoiues  merged  in  the  domestic  animal. 


Garget   in   Cows. 

N.  G.  E.  writes  to  the  Western  Farmer  and  says  : 
From  inquiries  made  it  appears  that  it  is  not  gene- 
rally known  that  saltpetre  is  a  remedy  for  garget  in 
cows.  Now  to  such  as  want  information  ou  t  he  sub- 
ject 1  would  say  that  I  have  kept  cows  nearly  forty 
yearsjind  the  best  and  surest  remedy  for  garget  tha"t 
I  have  found  is,  when  the  cow  shows  signs  of  gariret 
by  giving  curdled  ndlk,  to  pound  up  a  table-spoonful 
of  saltpetre,  put  it  into  a  quart  or  two  of  meal  and 
give  it  to  her  to  eat.  If  she  shoiiM  object  to  eatin" 
it  you  may  mix  a  little  line  salt  with   it. 

But  I  consider  a  preventive  better  than  a  remedy, 
1  think  every  mau  that  keeps  cattle  and  has  drV, 
sandy  land,  ought  to  jilaiit  and  grow  the  garget  roo"t, 
or  as  It  IS  more  comniordv  called,  shoke  root.  It  can 
be  raised  in  such  land  with  but  little  trouble,  ;ind  if 
fed  Ircely  in  the  8|iring  of  the  year  it  will  prevent  the 
disease  ellectually.  The  roots  should  be  covered  iu 
winter  with  leaves  or  straw.  But  every  one  that 
feeds  it  should  be  careful  and  not  give  it  to  horses, 
as  it  was  said  in  the  lower  part  of  New  Hampshire  to 
be  poison  to  horses,  tint  then'  is  no  danger  of  feeding 
it  too  freely  to  horned  lattle  or  hogs,  as  it  is  very 
beueticial  to  the  health  of  both. 

Manchestek,  Iowa,  has  become  famous  as  a  but- 
ler market.  During  the  past  year  no  less  than 
eeventy-eight  ears  of  butter  were  shipped  from  that 
place,  making  1,'.>00,000  pounds,  which,  at  twenty 
cents  per  pound,  would  aggregate  the  nice  little  sum 
of  ?:U2,000.  This  only  includes  the  full  ear  loads 
aud  not  the  scattering  lots  that  belong  to  promiscu- 
ous shipments. 


THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

To  Exterminate    Parasites. 

"One  ounce  of  prevention  is  better  than  a  pound 
of  cure,"  says  the  old  adage.  In  reiraril  to  parasitic 
insects  (d"  poultry,  this  i.s  particularly  true.  It  is 
much  le.ss  troulile  to  keep  them  down,  so  as  to  be  al- 
most entirely  i-lear  of  them,  than  it  is  to  tight  a  host 
of  vermin.  1  said  almost,  for  there  Is,  no  doubt,  a 
remnant  always  remaining  of  some  lice,  for  no 
sonrici-  are  the  ordinary  eleanliness  and  vigilance  re- 
laxed, lliaii  they  again  show  themselves.  If  fowls 
are  kept  in  a  clamp  placeS  without  dust  or  ilry  earth, 
thi'se  insectK  immediately  appear  in    large   numbers. 

The  methods  of  destroying  most  of  them  are  very 
easy.  The  poll-tick  is  prevented  or  got  rid  id'  by 
sligjjtly  greasing  the  heads  of  the  chicks  as  soon  as 
hatched.  The  same  process,  repeated  once  a  week 
foi-  about  two  oi"  there  wei^ks,  will  carry  them  be- 
yond further  danger.  I  will  not, on  this  suliject.give 
the  Latin  names  of  insects,  as  1  find  so  much  \'aria- 
bleness  anil  so  few  varieties  desci'ibed  that.  It  is  well 
to  employ  the  terms  in  common  use.  Of  the  var-ie- 
lies  that  still  remain  ou  the  fowl,  there  are  two  dis- 
tinct classes;  Lice  that  suck  the  blooil  from  the 
fowl's  body,  all  of  whi(di  havi'  their  mouths  near  tlu' 
ends  of  their  noses,  and  another  chihs  that  live  on 
and  eat  the  feathers.  These  latter  have  their  mouths 
ntider  the  middle  of  the  bead,  and  of  them  there  are 
several  varieties,  ditl'eriug  from  >'aeb  other  in  form, 
color  and  size.  Both  kinds  can  be  got  rid  of  by 
dusting  sulphur  well  into  the  feathers  of  the  birds. 
If  the  ebickeus  are  young  and  under  tlie  ben,  ilust 
the  hen  tborouirhly  with  sulphur,  and,  provided  tlie 
usual  dust  bath  be  supplied,  this  treatment  will  keep 
the  fowls  clean,  if  repeated  about  once  a  week. 

Of  the  gape  worm,  it  is  ditlicult  to  say  anything 
positive,  though,  of  eimrse,  prevention  is  best.  In 
order  to  get  rid  of  tills  pest,  the  surest  way,  when  a 
yard  is  once  infested,  is  to  remove  the  fowls  entirely 
away  from  the  contaminated  ground.  I  know 
of  a  yard  that  was  once  infested  for  many 
years.  One  year  the  chickens  were  all  taken  across 
a  brook  to  another  part  of  the  farm  and  not  allowed 
to  visit  the  old  ground  until  too  large  to  get  the 
disease.  No  trace  of  the  gapes  has  been  seen  there 
since  tlien,  although  several  years  have  elapsed. 

.Some  poultry  authorities  say  that  there  is  a  con- 
nection between  the  gape-worm  and  a  kind  of  louse, 
and  that  the  latter  either  introduces  or  extends  the 
gape-worm  ;  but,  after  some  experiments,  I  am 
satisfied  no  such  connection  exists.  Of  the  remedies 
for  gapes  I  cannot  say  much  as  there  are  as  many 
advanced  with  as  much  positiveness  as  there  are 
cures  for  the  toothache.  If  attended  to  in  time,  the 
worms  can  sometimes  be  drawn  out  with  a  horse 
hair  or  a  thin  feather.  Care  must  be  taken  that  the 
hair  enters  the  windpipe,  as  the  worms  are  lliere  and 
not  in  the  throat.  Details  of  this  process  would 
make  too  long  a  cliaitter,  so  I  simply  generalize  the 
subject  until  properly  treated.  Carbolic  aciils  in- 
haled by  the  chicks,  either  in  a  box  or  by  holding 
the  chick  oyer  the  acid,  heated  hot  in  a  s]ioou  over  a 
lamp,  will  also  .sometimes  dishnlge  them  ;  but  when 
the  worms  get  low  down  in  the  throat,  where  the 
windpipe  branches,  there  is  not  much  hope  for  the 
sutferer. 

The  honse-mite  or  spider,  that  lives  in  the  wood- 
work of  dirty  nests,  is  easily  got  rid  of  by  cleanliness, 
whitewash  or  petroleum,  and  fumigation.  A  good 
way  is  to  saturate  all  the  insiiie  wood  work  with 
crude  petroleum.  For  scaly-leg  itch,  soak  the  legs 
with  kerosene  oil,  holding  the  toes  upward,  so  that 
the  oil  will  run  well  imder  the  scales.  Two  or  three 
applications  generally  eHeet  a  cure.  Intestinal 
worms  are  dislodged  Ity  a  decoction  of  wormwood, 
or  the  leaves  may  be  cut  up  and  given  in  food,  or  a 
pill  made  of  aloes  may  be  admiuistereil  ;  but  these 
pests  are  rarely  numerous  enough  to  be  of  serious 
consequence. — Henry  Hales. 


A   Word  of    Caution. 

We  have  ad\(.>cated  in  the  jiages  of  T/ie  Poultry 
Wurhl,  not  iiifrei|uently,  the  use  of  kerosene  for  de- 
stroying lice  upon  tlie  fowl-house  roosts,  and  have 
advised  the  application  of  this  pungent  oil  oceasion- 
ally,  witli  a  mixture  of  lard,  to  be  used  upon  adult 
fowls — under  the  wings  and  at  the  back  of  the  neck 
—  for  a  similar  purpose  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  we 
know  that  its  use  in  removing  the  scales  upon  the 
lets  of  old  fowls  is  an  excellent  remedy  for  that  un- 
sightly alfection  so  often  complained  of  by  |iouUry- 
breedcrs. 

But  we  have  always  intended  to  commeml  due 
lantion  in  the  use  of  this  powerful  inseet-deslroying 
agent,  inasniuch  as,  though  it  is  an  admirable  thing 
if  judieioualy  usi'il.  it  is  over-liarmful  if  not  prf»perly 
applied,  and  in  moderate  quantity. 

At  this  season  of  the  year,  for  example,  vhen  tre 
are  tleniruuit  to  hare  the  ei/tjK  hutch  iretl,  little  or  no 
kerosene  should  be  made  use  of,  where  the  laying 
and  brooding-bens  come  in  contact  with  it.  Iu  hot 
weather,  when  vermin  germinate  rapidly  and  nume- 
rously, both  ujxiu  the  body  of  fowls  and  in  their 
roosting-places,  it  is  well  to  apply  It,  freely  ;  but 
during  cold  weather  it  is  not  so  necessary;  and 
where  heua  arc  laying  or  hatching,  the  less  kerosene 


used  that  may  reach  the  ci/ri»  we  wtn/i  to  hatch — either 
in  the  laying  or  the  sitting-nests — the  better. 

The  penetrating  qualities  of  this  crude  oil  are  so 
strong,  and  tlie  dcstrnctioii  to  Insect-life  (where  it 
coincK  in  contact  with  these  parasites)  is  so  certain, 
it  is  but  reasonable  to  understand  tliat  its  fumes, 
when  allowed  to  reach  the  porous  shells  of  eggs,  may 
injure  their  yolks,  or  even  destroy  their  vitality, 
oftentimes. 

For  this  reason  we  advise  caution  in  a|iplying 
kerosene  directly  upon  the  bodies  of  laying  or  sitting- 
fowls  duriny  the  Itrecdiriy  xeatioH.  For  the  few  wt^eks 
while  they  are  laying  and  sitting  it  may  well  be  dis- 
penseil  with  alttigether,  where  there  is  danger  of 
their  eggs  lieeoniing  smeared  with  it.  We  have  no 
doubt  that  the  careless  or  too  free  usi*  of  this  article, 
at  the  period  mentioned,  has  bad  its  inlliieiiee  ujiou 
many  a  hatebing  nest,  where  the  owners  of  fowls 
have  injudiciiMisly  applied  It. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  kill  lice  with  ;  but  you  can 
unipiestioiiably  kill  the  genu  In  your  eggs  with  it,  If 
you  indulge  in  a  reckless  ap|dieation  of  it  at  a  time 
that  it  is  not  so  much  neediMl  as  it  Is  in  the  warm 
moiitlis  of  the  year,  when  you  do  not  set  the  eggs 
your  hens  lay.  'fhrough  the  months  of  March,  .\pril 
and  .May,  therefore,  we  hUggest  that  the  use  of  kero- 
sene be  dis|>eiised  with  among  the  laying  and  breed- 
ing fowls. — i'oultry  'Wurlit,  J/url/orit. 


Poultry-Keeping  by  Boys. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  proniising  indications  of 
character  when  a  boy  shows  a  disjiositiou  to  earn 
something.  Tills  desire  to  hold  something  in  fee- 
simpb'  is  tlie  very  opisisite  of  truiupism.  Among 
boys,  the  enjoyment  of  owning,  buyimr  ami  selling, 
is  very  keen,  and  is  often  grajified  in  the  getting  of 
knives,  old  watches  and  trinkets,  and  making  ex- 
changes with  each  other.  Who  iloes  not  remember 
the  wonderful  dicker  and  trade  of  his  boybooil  /  It 
was  only  the  begiiiiiiug  ol'  a  develo|)meiit,  or,  rather, 
a  self-education.  Tliis  matter  should  not  be  per- 
mitted to  go  without  some  guidance.  Parents  and 
guardians  should  take  an  interest  in  it,  not  exer- 
cising a  meddling  iiiterlereiice,  but  inspiring  confi- 
dence, so  as  to  be  able  to  co-operate,  plan  and  watch 
the  results. 

Now  comes  a  scheme  that  is  just  right.  How  can 
we  teach  a  boy  business  habits  belter  than  by  giving 
him  an  opportunity  to  "run"  a  hennery  i  The 
accounts  must  be  accurately  kept  ;  there  must  be 
buying  and  selling ;  there  must  be  bantering;  there 
ought  to  be  profit !  A  miniature  huxintas  springs 
up  ;  and,  inasmuch  as  it  is  real,  why  is  it  not  as  good 
as  a  business  college  ?  It  may  be  better;  for  it  may 
prevent  spending  time  in  the  streets,  or  away  from 
liome,  perhaps  among  questionable  companions.  A 
love  of  home  is  fostered  by  the  ownership  of  fiowcre, 
small  fruits  and  poultry.  A  fondness  for  the  finest 
things  produced  in  our  climate — to  cultivate  them,  if 
belonging  to  the  vegetable  kingdom  :  to  breed,  foster 
and  pet  them,  if  belonging  to  the  animal — is  not  only 
a  source  of  keen  enjoyment,  but  indicates  good  traits 
and  a  certain  elevation  of  character  aliove  that 
which  is  brutish.  Young  people  should  be  deftly 
guided,  step  by  stei),  through  pleasant  paths,  with 
here  and  there  a  little  job  of  eariust  irork,  maile  easy 
by  social  frolic  and  recreation,  which  come  after  iu 
their  proper  place.  With  a  little  encouragement, 
boys  may  become  quite  familiar  with  the  jioints  of 
excellence  in  high-class  jioullry,  pigeons  and  other 
pets,  and  learn  the  best  methods  of  breeding  ami 
management . 

They  may  learn  when  and  where  to  purchase  sup- 
plies to  the  best  advantage,  and  how  to  sell  the  sur- 
plus products  so  as  to  give  the  most  profit  with  the 
least  expense.  A  pleasant  self-reliance  and  good 
business  habits  may  be  growing,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  a  love  for  nature,  for  refinement  and  hu- 
manity.—  The  J'onttry   World. 


"Plymouth  Rock"  Fowls. 

This  fine  breed  of  domestic  poultry,  w  bicli  has  beeu 
steadily  growing  in  favor  among  farmers  and  small 
poulterers,  for  a  few  years  past,  has  now  come  to  be 
a  general  favorite  witli  fanciers  and  breeders  in  all 
directions,  if  we  can  form  an  opinion  from  the  niinier 
oils  letters  we  are  constantly  reeeiying,  regarding  tlie 
iutriiisie  merits  of  this  popular  moilern  variety. 

They  have  proved  very  hartly,  easy  to  keep,  are 
excellent  layers,  they  do  not  Incline  to  trouble  the 
keeper  with  the  inclination  to  sit  so  persistently  as 
do  the  Asiatics,  they  are  ample  in  size  (when  selected 
from  the  best  strains)  and  altogether  they  have 
turned  out  a  valuable  accession  to  the  list  of  Ameri- 
can standard  breeds. 

A  singular  fact  has  been  demonstrated  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  "  I'lymouth  Kocks."  It  is  known  that 
this  fowl  is  a  cross  of  the  Black  Asiatic  (or  .lava) 
with  the  Dominique  variety.  For. several  years  after 
their  original  production,  the  color  of  these  birds, 
both  male  and  female,  was  uncertain  and  irregular. 
By  a  judicious  method  in  mating  and  selecting,  in  the 
haiid.s  of  the  most  careful  manipulators  of  this  stock, 
the  last  year's  birds  were  ou  the  average  much  better 
in  uuiformily  of  size,  and  much  more  even  in  general 
color  and  marking  of  plumage,  than  hitherto. 

This  year's  fowls,   maturing  this  spring,  are   au 


96 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[June,  1877 


improvement  in  these  respects  upon  all  former  liatch- 
ings  within  our  knowledge  ;  and  we  now  know  seve- 
ral yards  of  these  birds,  where  both  coeks  and  hens 
are  really  very  fine,  in  1877.  The  Plymouth  Koeks 
of  the  present  day  promise  to  erjual  tlie  best  varieties 
for  all  the  desirable  practical  qualities  sought  aftei' 
in  a  first-class  variety — either  lor  fancy  breeding  or 
for  marketing. — Hlothlurd'x  "  Poultrij  World." 


Gapes  and  Chickens. 

The  more  the  naughty  children  of  Mother  Earth 
try  to  put  themselves  in  accord  with  her  beneflcent 
laws,  the  more  pure,  clear,  few  and  simple  they  will 
become,  instead  of  being  the  complex,  multifarious 
and  often  contradictory  beings  they  seem  to  be.  For 
instance,  the  simple  little  disease  called  gapes  in 
chickens  is  a  strong  case  in  point.  Treated  in  the 
light  of  natural  laws  (common  sense),  it  yields 
readily  to  the  proper  remedy — the  same  i-emedy  for 
the  same  disease  that  is  indicated  in  the  human  being; 
for  we  are  all  essentially  the  same  tlcsh  and  blood, 
from  tlie  tadiK)le  to  the  President,  anil  what  is  good 
for  one  is  good  for  the  other.  Now,  what  do  we  use 
salt  for  in  almost  everything  we  eat ;  It  not  only  fur- 
nishes no  nutriment,  pleasure,  or  anything  else,  but 
is  absolutely  a  poison  ;  and  that  is  the  reason  we 
take  it,  to  prevent  undue  germination  of  worms 
within  us.  The  old-time  Hollanders  used  to  punish 
their  criminals  by  giving  them  unsaUed  food,  and 
they  were  thus  soon  literally  devoured  by  the  worms 
engendered  in  their  own  stomachs.  Now  what  causes 
gapes  in  chickens  ?  Worms.  What  is  given  animals 
to  prevent  this  ?  Salt.  But  all  the  books,  etc.,  say 
salt  will  kill  chickens.  So  it  would  you,  if  you  took 
too  much,  as  they  often  do  through  the  habit  of  bolt- 
ing their  food  without  mastication  ami  tasting.  In 
brief,  and  in  fact  when  the  weather  is  damp  and  cool, 
always  put  about  as  much  salt  in  the  chicks'  feed  as 
you  would  in  your  own  bread,  and  I  will  answer  for 
the  life  of  every  one.  I  never  lost  a  chick  by  gapes 
iu  my  life,  and  have  raised  thousands. 


Raising  Geese. 

When  a  farmer  has  a  tract  of  low,  marshy  land 
near  his  house,  where  there  is  a  running  stream  of 
water,  he  might  raise  geese  profitably  by  c«nflning 
them  to  this  tract  during  the  day  in  summer,  and 
yarding  them  at  night.  When  allowed  to  run  on  good 
grass  land  their  manure  is  so  strong  that  it  kills  the 
grass  where  dropped ;  and  for  this  reason  many 
farmers  have  given  up  raising  them.  But  they  are 
certainly  profitable,  as  they  are  subject  to  no  disease, 
always  salable  (dressed)  at  a  fair  price,  and  their 
feathers  will  pay  the  expenses  of  keeping  them. 
VVith  an  extensive  marshy  range  more  money  could 
be  made  by  raising  geese  than  on  any  other  kind  of 
domestic  poultry. 


The  First  Food  for  Chickens. 
Just  before  the  chick  breaks  from  its  narrow  cell, 
tlie  last  of  the  yolk  is  taken  into  the  stomach,  which 
gives  it  the  strengtli  to  make  its  own  grand  eflort  for 
freedom.  This  food  will  certainly  last  twelve,  if  not 
twenty-four  hours  after  it  is  free.  During  that  time 
no  other  food  is  needed  ;  only  rest  is  required  for  the 
little  stranger,  after  its  exhausting  labor. — runllrij 
Wo7-hl,  May. 


LITERARY  AND   PERSONAL. 

The  Semi-Tuopicai,.— The  June  number  of  this 
excellent  magazuie  is  unusually  interesting.  Ex- 
(iovcrnor  (ileason  contributes  a  valuable  paper  on  the 
importance  of  "Southern  Inland  Navigation"  be 
tween  the  Mississippi  Valley  and  the  Atlantic  sea- 
board. C.  Drew,  State  Comptroller  of  Florida,  has 
a  carefully  written  .and  scholarly  article  entitled, 
"  Making  the  Most  of  a  Topic,"  in  which  he  traces 
the  similarity  between  the  sites  of  Tallahassee  and 
ancient  Jerusalem.  "The  People  and  Language  of 
the  Timucua,"  by  A.  S.  (iatschet,  is  an  interesting 
historical  and  philological  paper.  William  V.  Browne 
presents  intei-esting  facts  relative  to  sugar-cane  and 
oranges,  the  two  great  staple  crops  of  the  Indian 
Kiver  section  of  Florida.  Dr.  D.  H.  Jac(|ues  has  an 
interesting  article  on  "  Naming  the  Baliy."  A  valu- 
able abstract  of  the  report  of  the  committee  of  the 
Florida  Fruit-(i rowers'  Association  on  the  "  Nomen- 
clature of  the  Orange  "  is  given.  "  The  Triumphs  of 
Peace,"  referring  to  the  political  condition  of  the 
South,  and  "Is  Florida  the  Poor  Man's  Home?"  by 
the  editor,  will  be  read  with  interest.  Dr.  D.  II. 
J.aeques  continues  his  series  of  articles  on  "Garden- 
ing all  the  Year  Kound,"  which  are  regarded  as  in- 
valuable by  the  Southern  planter  and  gardener. 
There  are  several  other  interesting  articles.  The 
"Editorial  Department"  contains  much  instructive 
original  and  selected  matter  on  fruit  culture,  garden- 
ing, stock  growing,  lioricidture,  jioultry  raising, 
household  alfairs,  etc.  Under  the  head  of  "  Note, 
Query  and  Incident"  the  editor  will  hereafter  answer 
a  part  of  the.  many  inquiries  received  concerning  the 
State,  its  advantages,  etc.  All  interested  in  Florida 
should  send  30  cents  to  the  publisher,  Chas.  W.  Blew, 
Jacksonville,  for  a  copy.     Three  dollars  per  annum. 


A  Song  wortu  its  weight  in  Gold. — "Bless 
the  Badrjc  of  Heaven's  Bhie."  The  above  is  the  title 
of  a  new  and  beautiful  song  and  chorus  that  is  worth 
its  weight  in  gold.  It  is  composed  by  "  Charlie 
Bilker,"  America's  famous  song  writer.  Nothing 
ever  written  contains  such  fine  sentiments  and  beau- 
tiful melody.  It  is  really  the  advance  guard  of  all 
temperance  songs,  and  is  fully  endorsed  by  all 
leaders  of  the  "  Murjihy  movement."  We  ask, 
therefore,  that  every  professing  Christian,  whose  eye 
may  chance  to  fall  on  this  article,  to  consider  the 
subject  prayerfully,  anil  see  if  our  assertions  be  not 
true.  'Then  we  urge  them  in  the  name  of  that 
Master  whom  they  serve,  to'  prepare  for  the  contest. 
The  work  of  saving  the  fallen  must  not  cease  while 
there  is  one  to  save,  and  we  know  of  no  better  way 
than  the  introduction  of  the  above  beautiful  song 
into  every  family  circle  in  the  world.  A  copy  should 
be  seen  iu  full  view  on  every  piano  and  organ  in  the 
land.  Each  copy  of  the  song  contains  a  beautiful 
cabinet-sized  photograjih  of  Francis  Murphy,  origina- 
tor of  the  jiresent  prevailing  Murphy  movement. 

Any  music  dealer  in  this  country  will  mail  you  a 
copy  on  receipt  of  fifty  cents.  Published  by  F.  W. 
Ilelmiek,  .W  West  Fourth  Street,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

Bis.MABi-'K. — His  authentic  biography,  including 
many  of  his  private  letters  and  personal  memoranda. 
Giving  curious  researches  into  his  ancestry  ;  lively 
incidents  of  his  youth  and  student  life ;  and  a  full 
account  of  his  social  surroundings,  and  the  growth 
of  his  oflieial  and  public  career.  Translated  from 
the  German  of  George  Hesekill.  With  an  intro- 
ductory by  Bayard  Taylor.  Profusely  illustrated  by 
actual  sketches  from  Bismarck's  life — Home,  Stu- 
dent, Political  and  Battle  Scenes,  Portraits,  Land- 
scapes.  Ornamental  Vignettes,  &e.,  by  distinguished 
German  artists.  59(j  pages.  Royal  S  vo.  J.  B.  Ford 
&  Co.,  Now  York.  "  Mitt  (Jott  fur  Koiuij  mitl 
Vaterland."  As  interesting  as  the  most  highly 
wrought  romance,  and  vastly  more  instructive.  We 
are  not  astonished  at  the  greatness  of  Bismarck,  he 
had  an  illustrious  line  of  ancestors,  and  what  is 
better  still,  a  great  mot/ier,  in  addition  to  circum- 
stances, and  personal  merits. 

Injuiuous  Insects  of  Miouig.in,  by  A.  J.  Cook, 
of  the  .Michigan  State  Agricultural  College.  From 
report  of  the  State  Board  of  Agriculture  for  1.S71. 
This  is  a  royal  Svo.  pamphlet  of"4H  pages,  and  from 
beginning  to  end  we  recognize,  in  its  illustrations  at 
least,  the  foot-prints  of  Prof.  Riley,  and  it  is  therefore, 
probably,  more  of  a  compilation"  adapted  to  a  local 
district  than  an  original  work.  Indeed,  nearly  all 
that  is  published  on  practical  entomology  over  the 
whole  country,  bears  the  impress  of  Riley's  brain  and 
handwork.  This,  however,  does  not  detract  from  its 
usefulness.  If  the  same  matters,  .adapted  to  the 
diflerent  localities,  were  published  in  all  the  States  of 
the  Union,  it  would  be  all  the  better,  as  it  would 
facilitate  that  dlH'usion  which  is  so  essential  in  getting 
these  works  before  the  people.  But  what  of  the  peo- 
ple ?  Do  they  read  and  heed  as  they  ought,  propor- 
tioned to  the  interests  involved  '!  We  fear  not.  Real 
diffusion  cannot  be  without  appropriation. 

Kunkel's  Bitter^Wine  of  Iron. — Many  are  the 
medicinal  remedies  tllat  find  their  way,  by  imposing 
advertisements,  into  the  columns  of  tlie  newspapers 
and  magazines  of  the  country,  of  wliicli  it  might  be 
admissible  to  characterize  as  ' '  good ,  bad  and  iiiditl'er- 
ent,"  but  we  believe  that  time,  circumstances  and 
experience  will  demonstrate,  without  a  peradventure, 
that  E.  /•'.  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron,  advertised 
in  the  columns  of  this  journal,  will  be  entitled  to  a 
position  among  the  first  named  qualities.  There  is 
hardly  a  respectable  druggist  in  the  country  who 
does  not  Sell  it,  and  hardly  a  respectable  periodical 
that  does  not  advertise  it ;  and  these  facts,  together 
with  the  rationale  of  its  composition,  and  the  increas- 
ing demand  for  it  as  a  reliable  tonic,  cannot  be  inter- 
preted otherwise  than  favorable  to  the  "  virtues  and 
values  "  of  this  popular  medicine.  Our  readers  will 
only  consult  their  own  interest  by  referring  to  the 
advertisement  and  acting  on  its  suggestions. 

NiNTji  ANNU.tL  REI'OKT  of  the  Noxlous,  Beneficial 
.and  other  In.sects  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  Made  to 
the  Stale  Board  of  Agriculture,  "pnrsuaiU  to  an. 
ajtjjrojjriation  for  this  purpose,  from  the  Jje</lslatare 
of  the  State;"  by  Charles  V.  Riley,  State  Entomolo- 
gi.st.  For  the  yeftr  1870.  A  royal  octavo,  in  pajicr 
covers;  12',l  pages,  and  a  copious  index ;  accurately 
illustrated,  aiKl  in. fair  print,  on  white  calendered 
paper.  Its  i)ractieal  character  may  be  judged  from 
the  subjects  it  discusses,  among  which  we  may  in- 
stance :  The  Gooseberry  Span- Worm,  the  imported 
Currant  Worm,  the  native  Currant  Worm,  the  Straw- 
berry Worm,  Abljot's  White  Pine  Worm,  Le  Coute's 
Pine  Worm,  the  Colorado  Potatii-bcetle,  the  Army 
Worm,  the  White-Head  Army  Worm,  the  Rocky 
Mountain  Locust  and  others.  Like  all  of  Prof.  Riley's 
former  reports,  it  exhibits  thoraugh  labor,  patient 
and  persevering  research  and  skillful  illustration,  iu 
a  vast  field  of  usefulness. 

Great  Fortunes  in  Gold  and  Silver  are  re- 
ported daily  from  the  Black  Hills  and  San  Juan 
Mines.  Thousands  are  flocking  thither  from  all 
parts  of  the  country.  The  rush  for  Califorjiia,  in 
18-ttl,  and  Pike's  Peak  in  1858,  was  nothing  compared 
witli  this  new  hegira.  But  all  who  are  bound  to  go, 
or  who  think  of  going  to  the  Black  Hills  Gold  Mines, 


or  the  San  Juan  Silver  Land,  should  get  all  the  facts 
they  can  before  they  start— such  as  the  location  of 
the  mines  ;  actual  yield  to  this  time  ;  the  best  routes ; 
cost  of  getting  there;  cost  of  living;  businessopenings'; 
population  of  the  towns  and  camps  ;  character  of  the 
country,  &c.,  &e.  Tlie  Colorado  State  Birectory  tor 
1877—2.50  pages — contains  all  that  the  capitalist  or 
emigrant  wants  to  know  about  the  Colorado,  San 
Juan  and  Black  Hills  Mines.  This  directory,  to- 
gether with  a  supplement  and  a  Map  of  l/te  San  .Juan 
country  and  the  Blaek  Hills,  will  be'  sent  post-paid 
for  one  dollar.  •  Address  J.  A.  Blake,  publisher, 
Denver,  Colorado. 

Pennsylvania  School  Journal.— The  June 
number  of  this  excellent  educational  magazine  com- 
pletes its  tieenty-sixth  iwlinne,  and  is  annuallv  rich  in 
the  amount  and  quality  of  its  school  literature.  We 
can  only  estimate  the  vast  amount  of  matter  it  con- 
tains during  the  yf  ar,  on  subjects  relating  to  the  in- 
terests of  our  public  schools,  by  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  the  index  accompanying  this  number.  It  is 
saying  just  the  least  that  can  or  ought  to  be  said  in 
this  connection,  that  every  school  director  in  the  State, 
every  school  teacher  in  the  State,  whether  male  or 
female,  and  every  board  of  school  directors  in  the 
State,  ought  to  take  one  or  more  copies  of  this  jour- 
nal, and  ought  to  thoroughly  read  and  study  it ;  and 
we  don't  see  how  there  can  be  an  intelligent  discharge 
of  their  school  duties  without  doing  so.  J.  P.  Wiek- 
ersham  it  Co.,  Lancaster,  Pa.     Ijfl  .fiO  a  year. 

Instructions  in  Strawuekry  CtaTURE,  by  E. 
W.  DuRAND,of  Irvington,  Essex  county,  New  .Jersey. 
A  concise  and  remarkably  well  arranged  12mo. 
pamphlet  of  03  pages,  including  a  copious  index,  in 
which  the  amateur  strawberry  cultivator  may  find 
all  that  is  necessary  to  know  from  theory  alone.  As 
Mr.  Durand  is  a  cultivator  of  large  experience,  and 
gives  only  the  results  of  that  experience,  this  little 
volume  will  at  all  times  be  a  reliable  hand-book  on 
this  subject,  even  if  it  should  be  demonstrated  that 
in  some  cases  a  modification  should  be  deemed  advisa- 
ble in  adapting  it  to  special  localities.  Mr.  Durand's 
"  invitation  to  all  interested  in  strawberry  culture  " 
to  visit  his  farm  when  the  fruit  is  in  season,  will  be 
found  in  another  column  of  this  paper,  and  we  re- 
gret that  it  came  to  hand  after  our  last  number  had 
already  gone  to  press. 

A  Descriptive  Catalogue  of  Homosopathic 
Works  on  Domestic  and  Veterinary  Practice,  to- 
gether with  the  prices  of  HouKepjithie  medicines, 
either  by  single  vials  or  complete  sets.  From 
Boericke  and  Tafel,  Homrepathic  Pharmaceutists  and 
Publishers,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore  and 
San  Francisco.  This  is  a  royal  12  mo.  pamphlet  of 
+';  pages,  and  contains  within  its  covers  not  only  lists 
of  books,  medicines,  sanitives,  .fee.,  together  with 
their  jirices,  but  also  plain  rules  on  diet  for  the  sick, 
and  receipts  for  invalids,  and  many  other  domestic 
matters  relating  to  bodily  health  and  personal  mis- 
cellany. Our  Ilonueopathic  readers  can  rely  on  our 
endorsement  of  the  above  firm,  as  to  perfect  relia- 
bility jii  all  that  relates  to  their  vocation. 

Butter  and  Butter  Making,  with  the  best 
methods  for  producing  and  marketing  it,  by  Willis 
P.  Hazard,  President  of  the  Chadd's  Ford  Farmer's 
Club,  author  of  "  The  Jersey,  Alderiiey  and  Guern- 
sey Cow,"  &c.,  Philadelphia,  Porter  it  Coates,  No. 
822  Chestnut  street.  A  handsome  12  mo.  of  48 
pages  in  paper  covers,  and  illustrated  with  four 
figures  of  the  best  "  Butler  Cows,"  namely,  import, 
ed  Jersey  "  Duchess;"  "  Tilearia"  of  Centennial 
Premium  Herd;  "Improved  Niobe,"  and  "Milk- 
maid." This  little  volume  discusses  the  cliemistry 
of  butter,  feeding,  coloring,  washing,  milking,  skim- 
ming, working  and  many  other  necessary  things  to 
secure  good  butter. 

The  Young  Folks'  Monthly. — Young  people 
read  the  June  number  of  the  Yoiini/  Folks'  Monthly, 
wliicli  is  brimful  of  good  things  for  eutertaiument 
and  instruction.  Should  be  read  by  every  young 
person  in  the  east,  west,  north  and  south.  Price 
only  ¥1.00  a  year.  Send  lo  cents  for  sample  copy. 
Address  the  YoTTNG  I"oLKS'  Monthly,  No.  151 
Fifth  avenue,  Chicago,  111. 

What  has  "gang  a'glbe?"— We  have  not 
received  a  copy  of  the  National  Live  Stock  Journal 
at  this  office  since  January  last.  This  seems  to  us 
somewhat  extraordinary,  especially  as  we  have 
cheerfully  complied  with  all  conditions  of  exchange. 
We  hope  it  is  still  aline.  Will  our  hope  be  realized 
in  the  future  'i 

We  call  the  .attention  of  our  readers  to  the  card  of 
W.  C.  Chatl'ee,  in  our  advertising  columns,  as  a  mat- 
ter of  the  greatest  importance  to  those  who  desire 
to  obtain  or  to  attain  |)erfeetion  in  the  art  of  pho- 
nography, a  qualification  that  is  increasingly  in  de- 
mand in  this  country. 

Proceedings  of  the  Fifth  .\nnual  Sessions  of  the 
Naticmal  Agricultural  Congress,  at  Philadelphia, 
Pa.,  September  12th,  Kith  and  14th,  1870.  Chicago. 
Prairie  Fanner  Co.,  Printers. 

ToiiAcco  In  Virginia  and  North  Carolina.  Presen- 
ted by  the  .Southern  Fertilizing  Company,  Richmond, 
Va.,'l877.     Svo. 

Monthly  Reports  of  the  Kansas  State  Board  of 
Agriculture  for  February  and  March,  1877.    8  vo. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


Il[. 


Dyspepsia!     Dyspepsia!     Dyspepsia! 

nvKiiM.iria  i»  llio  most  i^n.lpsiiig  of  all  human  ailniPuti. 
Its  ivmi>ton]»  aif  ulnioKt  lullniee  iu  tlieir  variety,  ami  the 
forlorn  and  il«'«pon(l<-ul  vi.-tima  of  the  ilisn.ise  often  lancy 
theni»elvf«tbi'  prev.  in  turn,  of  every  known  malady.  Ibia 
is  due  in  part,  to  t'he  alose  sympathy  which  •■x.Mn  between 
IhOBtomach  and  the  l)raiu,  and  m  port  aluo  to  the  fact  that 
any  di»turtianei'  of  the  digexlivo  function  noce»B»rlly  dia- 
orders  the  liver,  the  howeln  and  the  nervous  system,  and 
affecta,  to  some  extent,  the  quality  of  the  blood. 

E  V.  Kuukela  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron  a  sure  cure.  This  19 
not'n  new  preparation,  to  be  tried  and  found  wsntiUK,  it  has 
been  prescribed  daily  for  many  years  in  the  practice  of 
emiuent  phyeiciaus  with  unparalelled  success.  It  is  not  ex- 
pected or  intended  to  cure  all  the  diseases  to  which  the 
human  family  is  subject,  but  is  warranted  to  cure  dyspepsia 
in  its  most  obstinate  form.  Kunkel's  Bitter  \V  iiic  ol  Iron 
uever  fails  to  cure.  Syni)iton8  of  Dyspepsia  are  loss  of 
appetite,  wind  and  risln((Of  the  food,  dryness  of  the  mouth, 
beartburn,  distenlion  ol  the  storanch  and  bowels,  constipa- 
tion, headache,  dizziness,  sleeplessness  and  low  spirits. 
Try  the  ureat  rcmedv  and  be  convinced  of  its  merits.  Oet 
the  gonuine.  Take  only  Runkels,  which  is  put  only  iu  one 
dollai  bottles.  Depot,  'JS'.l  North  Ninth  street,  Philadelphia, 
Pa.  It  never  fails.  For  sale  by  all  Drugxists  and  Dealers 
•verywbere. 

Ask  for  E.  F.  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron  and  take  no 
other.    8ix  l>otlle8  for  6ve  dollars,  or  one  dollar  per  bottle. 


Worms  ! 


Worms 


Worms 


E.  F.  KuukePs  Worm  Syrup  uever  fails  to  destroy  Pin, 
Seat  and  .Stomach  Worms.  Dr.  Kiinkel,  the  only  successfnl 
physician  who  removes  Tape  Worm  in  two  hours  alive  with 
bead,  and  no  fee  until  removed.  Common  sense  teaches  if 
Tape  Worm  be  removeii,  all  other  worms  can  be  readily  de- 
fltroyed.  Send  for  circular  to  E.  F.  Kuiikel,  '2.59  North 
Ninth  street,  Philadelphia,  Pu.,  or  call  on  your  druggist  for 
a  bottle  of  Kunkel's  Worm  Syrap,  iirice  $1.     It  never  fails. 


To  the  Worhllis  i'lass.— We  are  now  prepared  to 
furnish  all  classes  with  ct>witant  employment  at  home,  the 
whole  of  the  time,  or  for  their  spare  moments.  Business 
new,  light  and  profitable.  Persons  of  either  sex  easily  earn 
from  511  cents  to  $5  ]ier  evening,  and  a  jiroportioiial  sum  by 
devotiug  their  whole  time  to  the  business.  Boys  and  girls 
earn  nearly  as  much  as  men.  That  all  who  see  this  notice 
may  send  their  adkress,  and  test  the  business  we  make  this 
unparalleled  ofler  :  To  such  ;:s  are  not  well  satistied  we  will 
send  one  dollar  to  pay  for  the  trouble  of  writing.  Full  par- 
ticulars, samples  worth  several  dollars  to  connneuce  work 
on,  and  a  copy  of  Home  and  Fireside,  one  of  the  largest  and 
best  Illustrated  Publications,  all  sent  free  by  mail.  Reader, 
if  you  want  permanent,  profitable  work,  address, 

9-3-4ni  tiEoaoE  Stinson  &  (.'O.,  Portland,  Maiue 


War  in  Europe. 

DIC^/I  A  PP^'"^^^ '^"*^^"''^'  Biof^'raiihy,  Trivato  Letters 
DIoiVlnriuN.and  Meiuorjindjt.  lutroductiou  by  Bay - 
nr4l  'i'nylor,  (.irapbio  and  eutertainiug.  Full  of  anec- 
dote, wit,  romautie  iucident.  and  great  historical  eventy. 
Profusely  IlliiNtratocI  with  actual  sketches  from  Bis- 
murk 'b  life— home,  student,  jioliticHl  and  battle  scenes,  por- 
trsitB,  landacapes,  etc.  This  Life  of  Europe's  greatest 
sttttesman  is  jut*t  the  book  for  the  times,  deliueatiug  aa  it 
does  all  the  famous  Uulers.  Generals,  and  Diplomats — co- 
actors  with  Bismarck.  SpecialCanvasse«h  wanted  to  sup- 
ply the  urgent  demand  for  this  live  hook.  Good  pay.  Circu- 
lar, free.   Write  to  J,  B.  FORD  &  CO  ,  Few  York.      9-;)-6m. 


_^  ^wp^F^  '^  ^^^  easily  earned  in  these  times, but  it  can  be 
/ni  /|  /I/  made  iu  three  months  by  any  one  of  either 
N^  /  /  /  '^^^i  '"^  °"y  1'^''*  ^^  *^^  country  who  is  willing 
ClJ  III  ^o""**''^  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
^1^  ■  ■  •  furuieh.  $6t»  per  week  iu  jour  own  town.  You 
need  not  be  aw«y  from  home  over  night.  Yon  can  give  your 
whole  time  to  the  work,  or  only  your  spare  momenta.  It 
costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  $5  Outfit  free. 
Address  at  once,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 

9-3-1 y 


Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 

I 

l.inen  laud  Paper  Collars  and  CuITh 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

AT 

E.  J.  ehisman'S, 

No.   no    North    Queen    Street, 
Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 

9-l-ly 

Genuine  Peruvian  Guano. 

As  received  direct  from  Peruvian  Gov- 
ernment .\gcnts. 

Ris-KL  &  C'o's.  AMMONIATED  SC- 
PEKPHOSPHATE  OF  LIMB,  the  best  in 
the  market.  GROUND  BONE— the  pur- 
est and  best.  FARM  IMKLEMENTS— 
the  latest  improved. 
The  above  sold  at  very  low  prices,  to 
meet  the  demands  of  Habd  Times, 
Send  for  22d  Annual  Pamphlet. 

H.  B.  GKIFFING, 
60  Cortlandt  SS.,  New  York  City. 


PERUVIAN 

GUANO. 

WARRAMTEa 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 
CI-OTHS, 

CASSIMERES, 

COATIXOS,  ^tVOK.S'l'KKDS, 

VESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Ohiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  utriped  .ind  diaf^onal.lor  .Sijring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  Clothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Eatablished  in  the  year  18*0), 

Coruer  of  North  tjiieeu  and  Oraiij;e-St8., 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

Extra  finished  and  trimmed.  Ready-made  Clothing,  for 

MEK  AND  BOTS, 

and  clothing  cut  or  made  to  order  iu  tho   most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A  fine    line    of     GENTS'  FUUNISHINO    GOODS,   and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
9-l-ly  Practical  Tailors. 


M.  HABERBUSH, 

MANUFACTUREKOF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

SADDLES, 

COLLARS,   "WHIPS,  &c., 

AL.SO    DEALER    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  ROBEH. 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

^-l-ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


H.  Z.  RHOAD3. 


CHA3.  G.  RH0AD3. 


00 

Q 


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0 

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CD 

%       CD 


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Pi 
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H.Z.RHOADS&BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Wboleaale  and  Retail  Dcalera  io 

DIAfflOmS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 

SILVERWARE.  SPECTACLES, 

Broiises,  Clock:  and  Watchniaksrs'  Iilaterials, 


JOBBKI\_S  IN  i\MEI\.ICAN  WATCIi[ES. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 

Special  Injportations  iij  Foreign  Goods. 


9-l-ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN, 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDING  HARDWARE, 

CLASS, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TEEBACOTTAJRONanclLEADPIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Agent!*  for  tbe 

"  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont's  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &c.,  <tec. 


FA-RBIERS, 

IMPROVE  YOUR   POULTRY, 

D«rk. Brahma,  Brown    Leghorn,  Plymouth  Rock,  S.  8. 
Hamburg  ami  Houdan 

EGGS  FOR,  SALE. 

My  fowls  are  of  the  best  aud  eygs  wurrauted  fresh. 

Address  HAYDN  H.  TSHUDY, 

9-4-'2m  Lititz,  Pa. 

AMOS  MILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANUFACTUUBK  OF  ANI>  DEALER  n* 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars 

Bridlea,  Whips.  &c.      Alao  a  flue  lot  of  Truuke.  Valises, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buffalo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired,   j 

9-1-17 


We  have  tho  largest  Block  of  geueril  Hardware  in  the 
State,  aud  onr  prices  are  as  low  aud  teruiH  as  liberal  as  oaa 
be  found  else.when*.  9-1-tf. 


E.  N.  FRESHMAN  &  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 
186  W.  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Are  aotborizefl   to  contract  for  advertlHlnf 
iu  tbia  paper. 

EsliJiaies  faniislieil  free. send  for  a  Cirenlar. 

SlIWCRIBE  FOU  THE 

THE  LANCASTER  FARMER, 

The  cheapest   and  best   Agricultural  Paper 
in  the  country. 

300  Canvassers  Wantel  Send  for  Terms,  Ico, 


lY. 


THE  LANCASTR  FARMER. 


[  June,  1877. 


LADIES  ! 

WK  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


NEW  CROP 


GUNDAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STOKE, 

A  HEW  LOT  or 

HAMEGEMBROIDEREBEDGIIGS 

ANIJ 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  THE  VERY  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kid  GlOTes, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CEAPE  B0:N^NETS  &  HATS, 

BUCHINGS, 

all  Btylefi  and  widths,  and  everything  else  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WEAS, 

that  is  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 
Give  UB  a  call  at 

108.142  &  144  XorthQufen-st, Lancaster., Fa. 

9-1 -ly 

ESTABLISHED  1817. 

MRS.  BANNER'S  MILLINERY, 

No,  30  M  EST  KING  STREET, 

This  is  the  oldest  and  most  reliable  eatabliBhment  in  the 
county.  All  our  work  gives  entire  satiBfaction.  Goods  of 
ALL  grades  kept  in  great  variety  aurt  in  prieee  to  suit  all. 
The  latest  styles  always  ou  hand.  New  goods  received  every 
day.  Do  not  forget  SO  West  King  Street,  for  best 
■work  and  best  goods,  at  lowest  price. 

German  spoken  by  attendants,  9-5-lt 

a  Week  to  Agents.    $10  Outfit  Frcf. 

P.  O.  VICEEKY,  Augusta,  Maine, 


$55  to  $77 

8-8-1 y 


A   NE\A/'  BOOK. 

How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 

A  HAND-BOOK  OF 

FRXJIT  CULTURE, 

BEING  A  GUIDE   TO  THE   PBOPER 

CulHvation  and  Management  of  J^ruit  Trees,  and 

of  Grapes  and  Small  Fruits, 
■with  condensed  descriptions  of  many  of  the  best  and  most 
popular  varieties,  with  upwards,  of  one  hundred  engravings. 
.By  Thomas  Gregg.    Price  $1.00. 

A  book  wiiich  should  be  owned  by  every  pereon  who  owns 
a  rod  of  available  land,  and  it  will  serve  to  secure  success 
where  now  there  is  nothing  but  failure.  It  covers  the 
ground  fully,  without  technicalities,  and  is  a  work  on 

Fruit  Culture  for  the  lAiilioxi. 

It  tells  of  the  cost,  how  to  plant,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
transplant,  location,  soil,  fl«lection,  diseases,  injects,  borers, 
blights,  cultivation,  how  to  prune,  manuring,  layering, 
budding,  grafting,  etc.,  including  full  description  and  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Fruit,  such  as  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricots,  Nectarines,  etc.  It  is 
a  most  complete 

Guide  to  Small-Fruit  Culture. 

with  many  illustrations  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari- 
eties of  Grapes,  Strawberries,  Blackberries,  Raspberries, 
Gooseberries,  Cut  rants,  etc. 

Th»  work  shows  the  value  of  Fruit,  and  how  to  use  it. 
Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Farmer  and  How 
to  raiBe  Fruits,  will  be  furnished  at  $1,76.    Address 

1.,  RATUVON. 
SS.Sontta  ^aeen*9t.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


■NTEW  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION  OF  OUR 

EEEEDEE'S  lAANUAL 

IsjuBtout.  Pr.ce,  23  cents.  Eveiy  farmer  should  have  it. 
It  contains  56  large  double-column  pages  of  valuable  reading 
matter,  besides  16  full-page  cuts,  from  life,ofourstock. 

BUEPEE^S  INFALLIBLE 


TuRNiP  SeEdS 


EXTRA  FINE   AND   CHOICE   SEED. 

NEW  CROP  OF 

Early  White  Flat  Dutch,  Red  Top  Strap 

Leafj  only  55  cents  per  lb,  postpaid, 

5  lbs,  by  Express  for  $2,00, 

All  other  varieties  of  Turnips  and  other  Seeds  for  sowing  in 
the  Summer  and  Autumn,  at  LOWEST  CASH  PRICES. 
SEED  WHEAT,  &c., 

BLOODED  LIVE  STOCZ. 

THOROUGHBRED  ALDERNEY, 

AYRSHIRE  AND  SHORT-HORN 

CATTLE  AND  CALVES. 

SOUTHDOWN,  COTSWOLD 

AND  LEICESTER  SHEEP. 

SWINE  AND  POULTRY  A  SPECIALTY. 

ftf5,We  have  now  fine  GROWTHY  PIGS  for  sale,  in  pairs, 
not  akin,  of  Chester  Whites,  Yorkshires,  Berkshires,  Essex 
and  Poland  China. 


BENSON  &  BURPEE'S   Seed  Warehouse.  223  Churph  St.,  Philada- 


ISSU)    ■ 

Creepii:.,  1  ;.-■ 
destroy^  Lii. 
Mt:>t>i5,  Ants 
Meal  Worms 


,tll  Flying  or 
.  :,-  i  ,  _  .  .  tad  cftectually 
,  t-lc.ts,  l\.u.icinjs,  Centipedes, 
Files,  Mosquitoes,  Bed  Bugs, 
Spiders,  Scorpions,   and  every 


species  of  Insects. 
It  Contains  No  Poison  !  It  is  harmless  as  water  to 
human  and  animal  life,  but  sure  death  to  Insects.  It  is  strong- 
ly recommended  by  air  who  have  tried  it.  We  have  yet  to 
hear  of  a  single  complaint.  We  guarantee  every  box,  and  if  it 
does  not  do  all  we  recommend,  it  can  be  returned  (even  if  half 
of  the  powder  be  used  I  and  we  will  as  cheerfully  refund  the 
money.  One  trial  will  convince  any  one  of  its  merits.  It  is 
invaluable  to  Faimers,  as  it  thoroughly  kills  all  Hoe,  fleas  and 
insects  on  animals  without  the  slightest  danger  to  the  animal. 
It  destroys  all  troublesome  insects  on  vegetables  and  plants. 

PRICE,  25  &  50  CENTS  PER  BOX,  POSTPAID. 


Prize    Medal   Awarded    by   the  Centcnaial 
Com  mission  to 

IMPROVED  BUTTER  TOBS  AND  COOLERS, 

With  movable  Ice  Cham- 
bers, Patented  Jan.  12, 
1876.  Best  in  the  market. 
Are  made  of  white  cedar, 
bound  with  galvanized 
iron  or  braes  hoops. 
Within  the  tub  is  fitted  a 
tin  Cooler,  having  a 
movable  Chamber  for 
ice  at  each  end.  On  the 
tin  is  constructed  a  se- 
ries of  ledges,  on  which 
rest  the  shelves  for  sup- 
porting the  butter  (Print 
Butier);  are  used  without  shelves  for  Roll  Butter.  Can  be 
locked  for  shipping.  Hinges,  Hasps,  and  Fixtures,  are  tinned 
to  render  theoi  rust  proof.  J.  G.  UOKIILER, 

9-3-3m  Msnufacturer,  No.  503  N,  8econd-st.,  Phila. 


FXMFZ.SS. 


I  will  mail  (Free")  the  receipt  for  preparing  a  simple  Veg- 
liABLE  Balm  that  will  remove  Tam,  Feeckles,  PIMPLES 
and  BLOTCHES,  leaving  the  skin  soft,  clear  and  beantiful; 
also  instructions  for  producing  a  luxuriAnt  growth  of  hair 
on  a  bald  head  or  smooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vandelf  & 
Co.,  Box  6121,  No.  6  Wooster  St.,  H.  T.  l9-l-6m 


CHAFFEE'S 


PHONOGRAPHIC  INSTITUT^ 

AND 

Oswego  BUSINESS  College, 

OSWEOO,  N.  Y. 

«S=SEND     STAMP     FOR     (.■IKCDL.iB     AND    FREE 
LESSON   IN  PHONOGRAPHY. 


EZRA  F.  BOWMAN", 

Practical  Watciimaker, 

(formerly  with  H.  Z.  Rhoads   &  Bro,)  has  opened  at    10ft 
East  Kin^f  Street,  a  new  and  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS, 

MA^TKRI^LS,   &:c. 

Ameaican  Watches  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep- 
utation. Imported  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and 
Silver  (?ases,  in  weights  to  suit  purchasers.  American  and 
imported  Clocks  in  over  fifty  different  styles,  which  are  of- 
fered at  reasonable  prices,  and  warranted  according  to  their 
quality.  W^atches  and  Clocks  carefully  repaired  and  war- 
ranted. A  cordial  invitation  to  examine  stock  extended  to 
all.  9-4-6m 

ESTABLISHED  1832. 


-^"B^W 


G.    SENER   &  SOISrS, 

Mauafacturera  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough'  and 
finished 


X-XTIMEBSR, 


Also  Sashy 


The  beet  Sawed  SUINtiLES  iu  the  country. 
Doors,  Blinds,  MoxUdings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  COAL,  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Kortiieast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-sts., 

LANC-A^SXER,  FA.. 

9-1-ly 


I 


$1  a  Year 


t  To  fcub^cribere  m 
'(       the  L'oiinty. 


SINGLE  COPIES  10  CEITTS. 


To  lubecribfrfl  otit  of  ) 
tbecouDty.  ( 


$1.26 


EATHVON,  Editor. 


UNN51US  EATHVON,  Publisher. 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 


97' 
97 
98 


A  Better  Civilization,        -        .        -        . 

Late  Potato  Planting,     .        .        .        . 

Trees  Killed  by  Salt,  .... 

The  Elm  Tree  Beetle,    -        .        -        .        .  98 

Reminder  for  July,    --.-.-  98 

Unit«d  Stales  CommisBioner  of  Agrieulture,       -     98 

Meeting  of  the  American  Pomological  Soeiety,  98 

Explanation, --98 

Making;  Wine  from  Native  Grapee,          -        -  99 

The  Seventeen  Year  Locusts,      -        -        -        -  99 

What  is  a  Practical  Farmer  ?         -        -        -  99 

Patrons  of  Husbandry,      -        ....  99 

Echoes  from  the  Public  Press,      .        -        .  100 

Correspondence, 100 

•    Queries  and  Answers, 101 

Crops  in  North  Carolina.  M.  Richvine,  •  lOli 
From  Nebraska.  Suiney  A.  Gnylor,  ■  102 
Abies — Spruce  Fir.  -/.  Stanfftr,  -  -  -  102 
Large  Farms  and  Small  Farms— Their  Advanta- 
ges and  Disadvantages.  A.  S.  Kise,  -  -  102 
Practical  Contributions  from  Leollne,    -        -  103 

The  Horse.     L.  S.  Reist, 10;o 

Thoroughbred  >Southdo\vns,  .        -        -        .  104 

Legal  Rates  of  Interest,     -        -        -                 .  104 

Tobacco 104 

■    A  iievr  Pest  for  Tobacco  Growere—  Three  Thou- 
eftod  Pouuds  to  the  Acre — Tobacco  in  Berks. 

Cutting  and  Curing  Tobacco,        -        -        -  105 

Culture  of  Tobacco,          -        .        .        .        .  105 

A  few  Practical  Hints — Danger  of  Overdoing  it 

— Shedding,  Storing,  &c. 

The  Turnip  Crop, 105 

The  Origin  of  Prairies,  .        .        -        -        .  105 
Why  they  are  not  Encroached  Upon  by  Border- 
ing Woods. 

How  to  Keep  Our  Boys  at  Home,        -        -        -  106 

OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society,          .  106 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,  .        .        -        .  107 

■   The  Linnsan  Society,     -        -        -        .        .  108 
The  Duuatioue — Historical  Collection — Library 
— Papers  Read. 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Report  of  Dqiartment  of  -Agriculture  for  June,  108 

A  Farm  Roller, 108 

Carting  Out  Manure,  -       .        .        -        .  108 

Liquid  Manure,        ......  108 

Cut  the  Weeds  While  Small,      ...  108 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Blackberry  Culture, 109 

Varieties  of  Celery,    -        -        .        -        .  109 

Apples  and  the  Way  to  Keep  Them,       -        .  109 

American  Fruit  in  Europe,         ...  109 

Raspberries  from  Cuttings,     ....  109 

Floating  Melon  Gardens,            ....  109 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Household  Receipts, 109 

A  Milk  Diet, 110 

Dried  Eggs, 110 

To  Make  Butter  Hard, 110 

Refrigerators  and  How  to  Make  One,        -        -  110 

Kerosene  Lamps,    ......  no 

LIVE  STOCK. 

Good  Cows, 

The  Royal  Cow, 

A  Good  Mare,  ..... 

Intelligence  of  Cows,     .... 
Black  Teeth  in  Hogs,        .... 
Keep  Horses  Feet  Clean,      .... 


110 
110 
110 
110 
110 
110 


THE  APIARY. 

How  to  Begin  Bee  Keeping,        -        .        -        .  Ill 

Italian  and  Native  Be«s,        ....  Ill 

Beeswax,      -.--..-.  Ill 

Extracted  Honey, Ill 

THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

Effects  of  Cold  Storms  on  Poultry,        -        .  Ill 

Vermin  on  Poultry,   -.-.-.  Ill 

Purification  of  Hen  Houses,          -        -  111 

All  Styles  of  Chicken  Coops,    -        ...  112 

Red  Pepper  and  Poultry,      -        .     '  -        -  112 

Turkeys, 112 

Catching  Hawks,          .....  112 

Soft  Eggs,        .-.-...  112 

Dead  Shot  on  Poultry  Lice,          ...  112 

Supply  your  Chickens  with  Milk,  ...  112 

Literary  and  Personal,        -        -        -        -  112 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


fl|l  |iII6ijliF 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER,  , 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND   MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  prominent  feature,  with  special  reference  to   the 
wante  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit-Grower, 

Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 


Edited  ty  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


TERMS: 

To  eubecribers  roeiding  wiibin  the  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,  -----.         $i.oo 
Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -  -  .  .  .        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    ---.--_        y.jo 

To   BUbBcribere   outside   of    Lancapter   county,  iucluding 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  pubheherH: 
One  Copy,  one  year,     -  -        -  -  -  -  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       .        -        .  .  .        .         5,00 

All  eubecrij-tioue  will  commence  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otberwiee  ord»?red. 

All  commuuicatious  intended  for  publication  should  be 
addressed  to  the  Editor,  and.  to  pecure  iuFertion.  should  be 
in  hie  haudu  by  the  first  of  the  month  of  publication. 

All  bueinesH  letters,  containing  8ub»cn)>tionB  and  adver- 
tieemeuts,  should  be  addreaeed  to  the  publisher. 


LINNAEUS  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DBALRR   IN 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WAATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

Repairing  strictly  attended ,to. 

ZAHIVE'S  COFtNEFi. 

ITorth  Queen-st,  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Fa. 
9-4-iy 


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ELIZABETH  STOCK  FARMS. 


RATES  OF  ADTERTINIXG—Tcn    C«nl4«    ■> 
lime  for  «a«t>  insertion.     Twelve  lines  to  tbe  inch 


Registered  Pure-Bred  and  High  Grade 

Jersey  Bull^  Cows  and  Calves^ 

COHHlantly  on  Hnnd  nnd 
For  ShIo. 

BERKSHIRES  BRED  WITH  CARE.    . 
COLIN  CAMERON, 

9-<-ly)  Brickerville,  Ljinciuater  Co.,  Fa. 


n. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


A  CpVASSER  WpTED 


IN 


EVERY  TOWNSHIP  IN  THE  COUNTY 


TO  TAKE 


SUBSCRIBERS 


FOR  THE 


FIRMER. 


Farmers'    Sons    and    other 

Young  Men  duriug  their 

leisure  hours 

CAN   MAKE 

GOOD  WAGES, 


We  want  a  thorough  canvass  of  every 

district,  and  will  pay  canvassers 

liberally. 

Address, 

L.  RATH70N,  Publisher, 

I.ANCASTER,  PA. 


Rates  of  AdvertlslnB  In  the  Farmer. 


1  in. 

3  iu. 

4iu. 

5  in. 

Sin. 

$1.00  $  2.00 
2  00,     4.00 
8.50      4.50 
3.00|     6.00 
4. .50;     9.00 
6.001   11.00 
9.0OI   18.00 

$3.00 
6.00 
6.75 
9.00 
13.50 
13.00 
2i.00 

$  4.0O 
8.00 
10.00 
12.00 
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•24.00 
36.00 

$  6.00 
12.00 
13. 5U 
18.00 
2T.00 
36.00 
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$  3.00 

16.00 

13.00 

24.60 

36.00 

*  mo 

48.00 
Ti  00 

pi^Special  and  buaiuesa  potices  15  <;euta  per  liue 

GOOD  BOOKS 

FOK  THE 

Farm,  Garden,  and  Household. 

The  following  ia  a  list  of  Valuable  Books,  which  will  be 
auppUed  by  the  Editor  of  the  Lancahteb  Fabmbb,  No. 
101  North  Queen  St.  Auy  one  or  more  of  these  books  will 
be  sent  post  paid  to  auy  of  our  readers  on  receipt  of  the 
regular  price  which  is  named  against  dach  book. 

AllAD'fl  (R.  L.  &  L.  F,]  New  American  Farm  Book $2  50 

Allen's  (L.  F.)  American  Cattle.* 2  50 

Atwood's  Country  and  Suburban  Houses 150 

Bommer's  method  of  Making  Manures 25 

Breck's  New  Book  of  Flowers 1  T5 

Brill's  Farm-Gardening  and  Seed-Growing 100 

Dadd's  Modern  Horse  Doctor,  13mo 1*0  I 

Dadd'8  American  Cattle  Doctor,  13  mo 1  50 

Flax  Culture,  (Seven  Prize  Kssayaby  practical  growers,)    30 

Fuller's  Grape  Culturist 1  50 

Fuller's  Small  Fruit  Culturiat 1  5» 

Fulton's  Peach  Culture 1  50 

Gregory  on  Squashes paper..      30 

Harris  on  the  Pig  150 

Henderson's  Gardeniug  for  Pleasure 1  50 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Profit 150 

Henderson's  Practical  Floriculture 1  50 

Herbert's  Hints  to  Horse-Keepers »  1  T5 

Hop  Culture.    By  nine  eiperieuced  cultivatora 30 

Hunter  and  Trapper 100 

Onioua— How  to  Raise  them  Profitably 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acras.    Pa.,  30c.;  Clo.,  «0c.,  Ex.  clo.  1  00 

Parsons  on  the  Rose 1  50 

Quinby 'a  Mysteries  of  Bee-Keeplng 150 

Quincy  (Hon.  Joaiah)  on  Soiling  Cattle 1  25 

Quiun's  Money  in  the  Garden 1  50 

Quinu'a  Pear  Culture  for  Profit, 1  (^0 

Riley's  Potato  Peats Paper  50  cts.;    cloth.,      75 

Roe's  Play  and  Profit  iu  my  Garden 1  50 

Stewart's  Irrigaton  for  the  Farm,  Garden  'Eud  Orchard  I  50 

Stewart's  Stable  Book 1  oO 

Stewart'^  Shepherd's  Manual 150 

Sfoddard's  Ann  Egg  Farm paper,  50  eta.;  cloth      75 

Thomas's  Farm  Implements  and  Machinery 160 

Tim  Bunker  Papers .  or,  Yankee  Farming 150 

Tobacco  Culture.  By  fourteen  experienced  cultivators.     25 

Wariug'a  Draining  for  Profit  and  Health 1  50 

Wa ring's  Elements  of  Agriculture 1  00 

White's  Cranberry  Culture 1  25 

Wright's  Practical  Poultry-Keeper* 2  00 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTUBEK    OF 

FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS    FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

TOR  FOB 

CJENTI-EMESf.  I,.4DIE8. 

No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


DUNBAR'S 

9-l-l.v 


CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPEOIALTY. 


kutgspohd's 


iiiih 


U  the  BEST  and    MOST    ECONOMICAL   in  the    World. 
Is  perfectly    PURE— free   from   acids   and    other   foreign 

substances  that  injure   Linen. 
Is    STRONGER     than    any    other— requiring     much    less 

quantity  in   using. 
Is  UNIFORM— stiffens  and  finishes  work  always  the  same. 

Eingsford's  Oswego  Corn  Starch 

I.s  the  most  deliciou.^  of  uU  prejiarations  for 

PUDDINGS,  BLANC-MANGE,  CAKE,  Etc. 

'■l-7-lml 

J.  STAUFFER, 

LANCASTER,  i'ENN'A. 
235  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


Great  Stock- Breeder's  Monthly. 

^THE  NATIONAL 

.  LIVE-STOCK, 


JOURNAL, 

Pablished  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS. 

THIS  GREAT  MONTHLY  is  universally  ackaowU 
ledged  to  be  wiihout  a  rival  in  its  department  of 
Journalism.  Each  number  contains  48  large  pages, 
three  columns  to  the  page,  with  a  handsome  cover. 
and  is  Beautifully  Illustrated  with  elegant  double- 
plate  eugraviuga.  It  is  the  only  paper  in  the  world 
devoted  exclusively  to  live-stock  and  the  dairy.  It 
discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  merits  of  the 
various  breeds,  the  most  approved  methods  of  feed- 
ing and  handling,  and  everything  pertaining  to  tha 
successful  management  of  live  stock  on  the  farm. 
Duriug  the  year  1877,  Prof.  Jahkb  Law,  the  eminent 
veterinary  of  Cornell  University,  will  contribute  a 
series  of  articles  upon  the  laws  of  health  and  disease 
as  appUed  to  Domestic  Animals,  that  cannot  fail  to 
be  of  great  value  to  Farmers  and  Stock  Breeders 
every  where.  It  contains  separate  Departments, 
devoted  to  HORSES,  CATTLE.  SHEEP.SWINE  and 
the  DAIRY,  and  its  corps  of  editors  are  recognized 
throughout  the  entire  country  as  the  Most  Thob- 
ouOH,  Able  and  Pbactical  writers  in  the  separate 
departments,  that  can  be  found  in  America.  No  ex- 
pense is  spared  on  the  part  of  its  publishers,  to 
make  it  a  hiijh-totied,  reliable,  practiral  and  instruc- 
tive Journal,  just  such  as  every  intelligent  farmer 
and  stock  breeder  will  find  worth  ten  times  its  cost 
each  year, 

TERMS, — Single  copies,  one  year,  postage  paid, 
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The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  BATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  JULY,  1877. 


Vol.  IX.  No.  7. 


A  BETTER  CIVILIZATION. 
If  Aincricnii  agriiulturc  lias  an  imsalisllcil  need,  It 
|g  surely  the  need  for  more  intellifjenee  luul  more  en- 
terprising IntereBt  on  the  part  of  Its  working  men 
and  women.  Krom  <me  end  of  the  land  to  the  other, 
its  crying  defect — recognized  liy  all— is  that  its  best 
blood— or,  in  other  words,  its  best  brains  and  its 
best  energy — is  leaving  it  to  seek  other  liclds  of 
labor.  The  intluences  which  lead  these  best  of  the 
farmers' sons  to  other  oecnpations  is  not  so  much 
the  desire  to  make  more  money,  or  to  find  a  less  la- 
borious occupation,  as  It  is  the  desire  to  lead  a  more 
Batlsfactory  life— a  life  where  that  part  of  us  which 
has  been  developed  by  better  education  and  better 
civili;;ation  for  which',  in  this  century,  we  have  work- 
ed so  hard  and  so  well,  may  find  responsive  compan- 
ionship ami  encouraging  intercourse  with  otlieis. 

We  have  noticed  the  foregoiiis;  paragraph 
ill  a  nmuber  of  i)apeis  without  coinmeiU, 
and  we  infer  from  thi.s  that  it  received  the 
unqualiticd  endorsement  of  all  those  who  have 
published  it.  We  do  not  intend  to  either  as- 
sent or  d'ssent,  without  (lualification ;  but 
when  the  writer  asserts  that  young  men  of  ed- 
ucation leave  the  farm  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
joying a  "better  civilization"  than  that  which 
tlie  farm  affords,  and  to  lind  a  more  "respon- 
sive conipanionsliip  and  encouraging  inter- 
course with  others,"  we  are  not  sure  tltat  such 
a  motive  is  always  a  iiroper  one.  Something 
depends  upon  what  is  iu  tlie  man  that  he  de- 
sires others  sliould  respond  to,  or  what  is  in 
others  to  which  he  desires  to  respond.  Simi- 
larities unite,  whilst  dissimilarities  disunite; 
and,  intelligent  young  men  leaving  the  farm 
with  warped  or  perverted  socral  affections,  will 
be  drawn  towards  those  in  the  towns  whose  af- 
fections are  simiarly  dwarfed  and  perverted, 
and  therefore,  "the  better  civilization,"  al- 
I  hough  it  may  be  externally  more  refined  and 
showy, may  be  ititenially  a  hollow  cheat.  There 
is  something  more  tlian  a  cultivated  brain  ne- 
(•essaiy  to  enable  a  young  man  to  for;n  tlie 
proper  social  alliliations. 

If  heart  culture  does  not  go  hand-in-haiul 
with  brain  culture,  there  is  no  moral  safety, 
at  least  for  a  young  man,  either  in  the  town 
or  on  the  farm.  Thousands  upon  thousands 
from  the  country  and  the  farm  are  going  every 
year  down  to  the  moral  Jericho  of  the  city 
and  the  town,  falling  into  the  hands  of 
"thieves  and  robbers,"  and  are  left  wounded 
and  bleeding  by  the  wayside;  and  are  passed 
"on  the  other  .side"  liy  social  priests  and 
Levites,  and  lind  no  good  Samaritan  to  bind 
up  and  pour  oil  into  their  wounds,  and  set 
them  on  their  way  again.  Not  that  (U!  in  the 
cities  and  towns  are  literally  thieves  and  rob- 
bers, but  that  guided  by  a  false  inward  moni- 
tor, thes(^  young  men  may  have  naturally 
sought  such  associations  as  the  most  congenial 
to  their  own  inclinations.  There  never  was  a 
man  yet  who  fell  into  temptation,  that  had  not 
something  within  him  that  was  in  harmony 
with  the  tempter.  Tho.se  who  could  have  mor- 
ally and  socially  benefitted  him,  would  have 
appeared  to  him  as  prosey  and  as  void  of  sensa- 
tionalism as  those  he  left  on  the  farm, and  there- 
fore, there  would  have  been  no  ground  of  aHilia- 
tion  between  thcni.  Witness  the  stercorarious 
insect, who.se natural  clement  isstenchand  filth. 
See  him  expand  his  wings  and  fly  abroad  in 
pursuit  of  new  pleasures.  lie  describes  his 
circle  of  flight  and  pas.ses  over  perfumed  and 
honey-ladeiied  flowers — turns  his  face  away 
from  beauties  and  from  fragrant  odors  that 
have  attracteil  other  insects,  and  finally  folds 
his  wings  and  lights  upon  a  concealed  mass  of 
excremcnUtious  liltli,  and  fairly  revels  therein; 
because  it  is  in  harmony  with  his  habitual 
instincts,  and  lie  seems  powerless  to  deny  their 
control. 

Man  is  a  mirroromn — a  little  world,  as  it 
were  ;  and  in  his  moral  and  physical  constitu- 
tion, reflects  some  phase,  or  many  phases,  of 
the  great  mwrorosm  of  nature  which  is  out- 
side of  and  separate  from  himself;  and  his  char- 


acter, when  entirely  free  from  social,  conven- 
tional and  legal  restraint,  will  be  a  correspon- 
dential  reflex  of  that  which  he  has  freely  re- 
ceived,that  which  is  the  basis  of  his  internal  af- 
fections and  desires.  By  liabitual  perseverent^e 
in  any  direction,  which  is  impelled  by  his 
ruling  aft'ections,  he  will  at  length  become  as 
unalterably  confirmed  in  his  habits  as  an 
animal  is  confirmed  in  its  instincts,  with  the 
single  reservation  that  he  can  be  otherwise  if 
he  will,  but  that  of  his  own  power  alone  he 
ncrer  will.  Now,  if  he  permits  himself  to  be- 
come morally  a  wolf,  liow  can  he  possibly  be 
in  free  and  congenial  association  with  those 
that  are  lamlis?  It  is  true,  that  for  the  sake 
of  social  position,  worldly  fame,  or  pecuniary 
compensation,  he  may  assume  the  gn,fi)  of  the 
lamb,  but  so  fiir  as  relates  to  the  constitution 
of  his  soul,  he  will  still  be  "a  wolf  in  sheeps 
clothing,"  and  when  it  conflicts  with  no  other 
interest,  he  will  be  in  association  with  wolves. 
Every  human  attribute — every  human  aspira- 
tion nr  desire — every  good  or  evil  affection  of 
the  liuman  heart,  in  their  multitudinous 
phases,  has  its  correspondential  outbirth  in 
some  object  of  the  world  of  nature,  an<l, 
however  externally  restrained,  will,  internally, 
be  in  sympathy  with  them  ;  and  man's  civiliza- 
tion, tor  Ijetter  or  for  worse,  will  seek  social 
cohabitation  with  these,  as  naturally  as  one 
animal  will  seek  its  likes  in  fetid  filth,  and 
another  in  purity  or  in  fragriint  sweets. 

Daniel  Webster  has  given  utterance  to  the 
apothegm,  that  "The  farmer  is  the  founder 
of  civilization,"  and  if  there  is  any  truth  in 
the  saying,  it  seems  to  us  that  those  who 
imagine  there  is  a  "  better  civilization'"  than 
that  which  the  farm  is  capable  of  developing, 
must  be  in  jiursuit  of  a  most  deceptive  phan- 
tom. Farmers  are,  perhaps,  not  laboring  too 
assiduously  and  too  self-denyingly  for  the 
])ossessions  that  ])ertain  to  this  world  ;  but 
they  may  be  just  as  lialile  as  any  other  people 
to  laljor  too  little  for  those  iiossessions  which 
they  can  cany  over  into  the  other  life,  and 
constitute  their  capital  in  beginning  the  long 
lease  of  eternity.  And  to  possess  those 
elements  of  character  tlierc,  the  foundation 
must  be  laid  here.  The  possessifin  of  worldly 
wealth  must  be  regarded  as  an  instrument  of 
use — as  a  means  of  attaining  a  better  civiliza- 
tion, rather  than  as  the  end  for  which  human 
energy  is  exercised.  For  this  pnrpose,  the 
highest  physical  and  mental  culture  that  their 
lands,  their  bodies,  and  their  intellects  are 
capable  of  attaining,  will  assure  a  more  cer- 
tain progress  towards  a  better  civilization 
than  placing  themselves  in  rapport  with  the 
contaminating  influences  of  the  sharji  idlers 
of  the  towns.  Nothing  can  po.ssibly  be 
morally,  socially  and  physically,  more  dam- 
aging to  ayoungmauof  habitually  industrious 
habits  in  the  country,  than  to  be  doomed  to  a 
life  of  idleness  in  a  city  or  a  town  ;  moreover, 
idleness  is  that  satanic  workshop,  in  which 
many  of  the  festering  evils  which  aftlict  society 
are  conceived,  developed  and  executed.  Social 
intercour.se,  when  it  is  refined  and  pure,  is  a 
great  auxiliary  to  a  "  better  civilization  ;"  but 
when  it  is  low,  mean,  and  corrupt,  nothing 
tends  to  demoralization  greater  than  it. 

Our  intentions  are  the  very  farthest  from  dic- 
tation ;  but, if  farmers  were  to  solicit  onr  advice, 
we  should  say,  so  long  as  it  depended  upon 
their  own  will  and  ability,  that  they  should 
remain  on  their  farms.  And  we  say  this,  not 
that  the  town  per  .<e,  or  town  .society,  is  nec- 
essarily demoralizing;  hut  that  often,  from  a 
sense  of  inferiority,  induced  by  a  want  of  con- 
fidence in  them.selves,  a  lack  of  experience,  and 
the  absence  of  intellectual  culture,  the  farm- 
ers defer  too  much  to  the  conduct  and  the 
oiiinions  of  those  who  are  almost  infinitely  in- 
ferior to  themselves.  And  when  they  finally 
get  their  eyes  opened,  they  then  only  begin  to 


see  the  hollowin  s-.  and  selfishness  of  that 
"better  civilization"  wliich  they  had  so  ard- 
ently coveted.  AVe  are  just  as  far  from  intend- 
ing to  cast  un<pialified  reproach  upon  cities  and 
towns,  for  there  is  perhaps  as  pure  and  lofty 
virtues  cultivated  and  practiced  in  them  as  in 
any  part  of  the  world.  For  the  development 
of  the  mechanical  and  commercial  interests 
of  the  country,  there  perhaps  always  will  be, 
and  always  must  be,  hamlets,  villages  and 
towns.  I'ut  primarily  there  must  be  famis 
and  farmers,  or  society  and  civilization  could 
not  exist;  therefore,  agriculture  and  the  agri- 
cultural interests  of  a  country  are  paramount 
to  all  other  interests,  and  are  the  founders 
and  sustaiiiers  of  them;  and  instead  of  being 
made  a  mere  football  to  be  kicked  about  by 
the  sharpers  and  shysters  of  society,  they 
ought  to  give  to  society  its  quality  and  its 
tone — through  their  influence  and  example, 
the  "better  civilization"  of  the  world  ought 
to  be  engendered  and  developed. 

Improve  and  beautify  the  farra,sofarasthe 
means  arc  available  and  alfowablc.  Establish 
schools,  lyccums,  museums,  and  .social  as  well 
as  religious  institutions.  Do  not  devote  all 
your  time  and  energies  to  physical  ;labor  and 
the  mere  acquisition  of  material  wealth. 
There  is  an  immortal  mind  that  needs  to  be 
provided  for,  a  nolile  intellect  that  needs  care- 
ful culture;  and,  as  these  become  healthily 
developed,  the  necessities  for  mere  physical 
energy  will  grow  less,  because  the  intelligent 
pursuit  of  anj'  occupation  facilitates  its  pro- 
gress, by  enabling  the  sul>ject  to  adopt  the 
best  and  shortest  methods.  Without  ignor- 
ing scholastic  training  and  social  effort,  try 
also  the  advantages  of  being  "self-taught, 
self-raised,  and  self  supported."  Provide 
for  yonrselvps  and  and  your  families  healthy 
literature  in  the  form  of  useful  books,  news- 
papers and  periodicals,  and  thoroughly  study 
them.  Devote  the  tranquil  hours,  which, 
through  an  intelligent  and  economical  adap- 
tation of  means  to  ends,  may  be  upon  your 
hands,  to  reading,  and  you  will  read  with 
much  more  profit  and  satisfaction  than  the 
denizen  of  the  town,  who.se  reading  maj-  be 
merelj-  a  monotonous  occupation  which  he 
feels  himself  compelled  to  resort  to,  in  order 
to  "kill  time,"  and  to  bridge  over  his  long 
and  anxious  waitings  for  the  ingress  of  "the 
next  customer."  This  course  would  be  <a 
shorter  and  more  certain  road  towards  a 
"better  civilization,"  than  those  fanciful  and 
precarious  occupations — either  commercial, 
mechanical  or  jnofessional — which  are  sepa- 
rate and  distinct  from  the  tilling  of  the  soil — 
the  employments  of  the  farm. 


LATE  POTATO  PLANTING. 
About  the  ^Oth  of  June  we  received  from 
Mr.  H.  M.  Englc  several  small  lots  of  potatoes 
of  his  late  crops  of  last  year's  planting.  These 
were  of  the  Peerless,  Early  Rose,  Snow-flake, 
and  .Brownal's  Beauty  varieties,  and  were 
far  superior  to  any  of  the  old  potatoes 
then  in  market,  and  even  preferable  to  the 
new  crops  which  were  then  just  coming  in. 
They  were  as  solid  and  as  mild  and  mealy 
as  we  usually  find  potatoes  in  January  and 
February.  If  this  retention  of  original  quality 
was  ducto  late  planting,  then,  so  far  as  our 
individual  judgment,  and  the  judgment  of  our 
family  go,  we  would  by  all  means  recommend 
late  planting  for  the  stock  that  is  intended 
to  be  carried  through  the  winter  and  into  the 
following  spring  and  summer.  Of  course,  for 
immediate  use  during  the  early  and  late  sum- 
mer, an  early  crop  is  also  desirable,  and 
especially  is  this  desirable  when  the  former 
croj)  is  "  short'' — as  wtis  the  case  last  spring 
— but  from  this  test  we  are  decidedly  favor- 
able to  a  late  crop  (other  things  being  equal) 
for  potatoes  to  keep. 


98 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[July 


TREES    KILLED  BY   SALT. 

"The  fine  maple  trees  in  front  of  Alderman  Am- 
weg's  residence,  South  Duke,  have  been  in  a  lan- 
guishing condition  all  sprini^,  and  so  have  the  ma- 
ples a  short  distance  below  them.  The  large  tree  in 
front  of  Mrs.  Hawthorne's  residence  appcare  to  be 
in  a  dying  condition.  Alderman  Amweg  has  had 
his  cut  down,  and  in  exposing  portions  of  the  roots 
to  the  suu,  there  is  a  mineral  substance  very  much 
like  salt  crystalized  on  tlie  surface.  Mr.  Amweg  be- 
lieves that  his  trees  have  been  killed  by  the  salt 
water  thrown  into  the  gutter  from  a  neighboring  ice 
cream  saloon.     What  say  the  scientists  about  it  ?" 

In  reference  to  the  maple  trees  alluded  to 
in  the  above  paragraph  from  a  late  number  of 
the  Daily  Intellifjencer,  we  would  say  that  we 
visited  tiiem  on  several  occasions  before  their 
"downfall, "  and  even  from  very  early  in  the 
season  they  exhibited  evidences  of  an  infec- 
tion of  some  kind;  and  at  the  same  time  we 
felt  pretty  certain  that  whatever  the  original 
cause  of  their  enfeebled  condition  may  have 
been,  it  was  not  due  to  the  presence  of  insects, 
80  far  as  concerned  that  portion  of  the  tree 
above  groinid.  They  appeared  to  be  inter- 
nally or  constitutionally  affected  liy  some  un- 
friendly element  al.iscjrbed  from  the  soil,  or  the 
absence  or  neutralization  of  some  element 
necessary  to  their  healthy  growth,  that  was 
very  local  in  its  operation,  for  other  trees  of 
the  same  species  in  near  proximity  to  them 
were  as  thriving  as  usual.  It  cannot  always 
be  even  conjectured  what  the  real  causes  of 
such  phenomena  are;  because  it  would  in- 
volve a  thorough  and  careful  analysis  of  the 
soil,  an  operation  that  could  only  be  satisfac- 
torily performed  by  a  chemical  expert,  even 
if  a  laboratory  and  implements  were  accessible. 

But  when  no  stich  laboratory  exists,  except 
in  a  few  of  the  most  simple  and  obvious  ca.ses, 
all  must  be  left,  more  or  less,  to  mere  con- 
jecture. Such  a  laboratory,  with  a  cpmpetent 
person  to  manipulate  it,  ought  to  be  the  object 
of  every  County  Agricultural  organization  in 
the  State.  The  condition  of  Agriculture,  em- 
bracing Horticulture,  Floriculture  and  Sylvi- 
culture, is  becoming  such  in  our  country, 
through  the  increase  of  its  population  and  the 
dratights  made  upon  the  land — and  hence  its 
depletion— that  farming,  fruit  growing  and 
forestry  will  have  to  be  pursued  more  scientifi- 
cally than  it  has  been  in  times  past  and  gone, 
when  the  soil  was  virgin  and  the  population 
sparse.  Salt  is  a  very  essential  ingredient  to 
the  soil,  if  applied  "when  and  where" 
it  is  needed,  and  in  the  requisite  quantity. 
Like  every  otiier  ingredient, however,  wherever 
it  happens  to  exist  in  excess,  it  is  essentially 
hintfid;  and,  from  external  ai^pearances, 
the  damage  to  Alderman  Amweg's  trees,  is 
the  ellectof  too  much  .'iaft,wiihout  much  doubt, 
and  this  is  rendered  doubly  probable,  from 
the  fact  of  its  being  the  discharge  of  an  ice 
cream  freezer,  as  it  is  likely  to  have  liecn  con- 
tinned  in  its  application,  and  hence  the  trees, 
witli  all  their  previous  vigor  of  growth,  were 
eventually  compelled  to  succumb — illustrating 
tliat  a  given  quantity  may  be  "meat"  to  a 
tree  or  plant,  but  in  excess  of  that  it  is  "poi- 
son." On  one  occasion  we  emptied  the  con- 
tents of  a  pork  barrel,  containing  strong  brine, 
and  perliaps  a  quart  or  two  of  salt  at  the 
bottom,  on  a  small  grass  plot;  soon  after 
which  a  snow  fell  upon  it,  and  after  the  snow 
had  melted  away  in  the  spring,  the  salt  had 
disappeared.  The  following  summer  no  grass 
came  up  where  the  brine  and  salt  had  been 
emptied,  and  for  one  or  two  years  thereafter 
the  spot  was  conspicuously  visible  by  the  ab- 
sence or  feeble  growth  of  the  grass,  but  it  sub- 
sequently recovered  and  grew  as  vigorously, 
if  not  moreso,  than  it  liad  grown  before.  This 
effect  is  also  evinced  on  spots  where  the  car- 
casses of  dead  animals  are  decomjiosed,  and 
is  caused  by  an  excess  of  elements  that  in 
proper  quantities  would  be  beneficial  to  the 
soil.  In  some  localities  the  soil  is  recuperated 
by  fish-manure,  but  if  the  fishes  were  all  per- 
mitted to  decompose  on  one  spot,  the  vegeta- 
tion on  that  spot  would  be,  for  a  time,  entire- 
ly destroyed.  These  effects  of  excess,  have, 
without  a  doubt,  been  often  witnessed,  and 
we  have  only  alluded  to  them  here,  because 
they  all  seem  to  belong  to  the  same  category 


of  causes,  and  illustrate  the  essentiality  of 
some  analytical  and  chemical  knowledge  in 
manipulating  the  soil,  in  the  successful  cul- 
ture of  trees,  shrubs  and  plants,  and  how  lit- 
tle ought  to  be  left  to  the  mere  operations  of 

chance. 

-^ 

THE  ELM  TREE  BEETLE. 

This  insect  is  present  agaip  this  season  on 
some  of  the  elm  trees  in  Lancaster  city,  in 
increased  numbers,  and  the  larrce  have  been 
coming  down  from  the  trees  for  the  past  week, 
and  are  pupating  in  the  fissures  of  the  bark 
and  in  tlie  crevices  l)etween  the  paving  bricks 
about  tlie  bases  of  the  trees. 

Those  who  value  the  foliage  of  their  trees 
should  busy  themselves  in  sweeping  them 
down  with  a  stiff,  long-handled  brush,  and 
also  sweeping  up  those  on  the  ground,  and 
crushing  them  or  scalding  them  ;  otherwise 
there  will  be  a  second  brood  more  numerous 
and  destructive  than  the  first.  The  present 
brood  has  been  propagated  by  the  compara- 
tively few  that  have  hibernated  and  survived 
the  wii»ter,  and  as  they  had  already  commen- 
ced pupating  about  the  middle  of  the  present 
month,  there  is  little  doubt  we  shall  have 
another  brood  about  the  latter  part  of  July. 

This  is  a  foreign  insect,  and  was  introduced 
into  this  country  about  tliirty-five  years  ago  ; 
and  on  one  occasion,  in  the  city  of  Baltimore, 
the  authorities  ordered  the  cutting  down  of 
all  the  elm  trees  in  the  city  in  order  to  cir- 
cumvent it. 

An  application  of  a  strong  solution  of  whale 
oil  soap,  or  common  lye,  may  also  prove  use- 
ful, for  although  there  may  be  little  hope  of 
destroying  all  of  them,  yet  the  number  may 
be  so  far  diminished  as  to  greatly  lesson  their 
power  for  evil.  Insects  of  all  kinds  might  be 
kept  in  check  or  entirely  destroyed  if  people 
would  use  the  same  energy,  perseverance  and 
forethought  that  they  do  in  the  acquisition  of 
dollars  and  cents. 

This  is  the  Oalenicha  xantJwmcdcBna,  and 
belongs  to  the  same  family  as  the  "striped 
cucumber  beetle,"  but  differs  from  that  species 
in  that  it  feeds  on  the  leaves  of  the  elm,  both 
in  its  larvre  and  in  its  adult  states,  and  also 
that  it  is  larger  in  size,  and  becomes  more 
numerous  than  the  latter  has  ever  been  known 
to  be.  In  that  respect  it  approaches  the  habits 
of  the  "Colorado  potato  beetle,"  to  which  it 
is  somewhat  allied  liy  systematic  classification. 
It  would  be  a  poor  commentary  on  the  vigil- 
ance and  industry  of  property  owners,  if  these 
insects  were  permitted  to  increase  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  defoliate  all  our  beautiful  elm 
trees  in  Lancaster  city. 

Since  writing  the  foregoing,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  New  Era,  near  the  end  of  Juuc, 
we  have  frequently  visited  the  elm  trees  in  the 
city  of  Lancaster,  which  we  foimd  in  many 
places  still  very  seriously  infested,  and  especi- 
ally the  trees  along  East  Orange  street,  oppo- 
site the  buryingground  of  St.  James'  Episcopal 
church.  The  yellow  j;Mjj<;e  were  lying  by  thou- 
sands on  the  pavement  about  the  bases  of  the 
trees,  on  the  5th  and  6th  of  July,  and  could 
easily  have  been  killed,  but  it  seems  to  be 
"nobody's  business."  In  Kan.sas  they  have 
a  law,  making  it  compulsory  upon  ' '  all  able- 
bodied  males,  between  the  ages  of  12  and  60 
years,"  in  districts  that  are  infested  with  the 
"  liateful  grassliopper,"  to  destroy  the  eggs, 
the  young,  and  the  adult  of  that  pest,  and 
such  a  law  might  not  be  amiss  here,  if  people 
will  not  be  "  a  law  unto  themselves." 


REMINDER   FOR  JULY. 

This  is  not  only  a  great  transplanting 
mouth,  but  also  one  in  whicli  some  planting 
and  sowing  may  be  done.  Cabliages,  cardoons, 
celery,  endive,  leeks,  peppers,  &c.,  for  autumn 
crops,  may  be  planted  up  to  i  the  ^Oth  of  the 
month.  Bush-beans,  pole-beans  and  cucum- 
bers, for  pickling,  may  be  planted.  Endive, 
kohl-rabi,  sinnmer  radishes,  and  ruta-baga 
may  be  sown,  and  after  the  20th  also  turnips. 
If  late  itotatoes  have  been  neglected,,  they 
may  be  planted  up  to  the  loth.  There  seems 
to  be^  some  virtue  in  late  potatoes,  and  there- 


fore gardeners  ought  to  experiment,  in  order 
to  discover  exactly  how  late  a  crop  of  any 
kind  may  be  planted,  transplanted  or  sown. 
The  idea  that  only  one  crop  of  any  kind  can 
be  raised  in  a  season,  in  this  latitude,  is  be- 
coming obsolete.  We  have  been  surprised  to 
find  in  the  New  York  markets,  late  in  Oc- 
tober, garden  vegetation  that  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  see  here  only  in  the  months  of  June 
and  July.  Why  can  we  not  have  green  peas, 
beans,  &c.,  all  through  the  months  of  July, 
August  and  September,  in  a  market  so  large 
as  that  of  Lancaster  city  ?  Green  corn  is  not 
an  uncommon  tiling  in  the  New  York,  Phila- 
delphia and  Baltimore  markets,  in  October. 
Sweet  herbs  should  be  cut,  dried,  and  stored 
away,  during  this  month.  There  are  many 
other  things  which  practical  experience  may 
suggest  that  ought  to  be  done  in  this  month, 
and  some  of  them  may  be  safely  done  after 
midsummer. 

— • ^ 

UNITED   STATES   COMMISSIONER  OF 
AGRICULTURE. 

General  Wm.  Le  Due,  of  Minnesota,  has 
been  appointed  to  this  unfortunate  position. 
He  is  a  graduate  of  Kenyon  College,  Ohio, 
and  served  in  various  official  capacities  during 
the  wars  of  the  rebellion,  in  the  Federal  army. 
He  is  said  to  be  a  man  of  "great  scientific 
attainments,"  but  with  all  that,  the  position 
is  an  unfortunate  ene,  in  that  almost  every 
incumbent  is  damaged,  more  or  less,  in  repu- 
tation before  he  leaves  it,  mainly,  perhaps, 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  morally  impossible  to 
please  everybody.  ^M 

Of  course.  General  Le  Due  will  be  approv-  ^| 
ingly  spoken  of  by  some  ;  some,  perhaps,  will 
"damn  him  with  faint  praise;"  some  will 
speak  of  him  disappi'ovingly  ;  some  will  be 
indifferent,  or  "  possess  their  souls  in  pa- 
tience," and  be  content  to  wait  before  they 
express  an  opinion  at  all.  This,  no  doubt, 
will  be  accordingly  as  they  speak  from  know- 
ledge, from  ignorance,  from  envy,  or  from  in- 
difference. In  any  event,  the  office  has  been 
so  kicked  about  by  the  Agricultural  press  of 
the  country,  and  by  members  of  C!ongress,  that 
it  has  become  an  unfortunate  one.  And  yet 
we  cannot  see  clearly  why  this  should  be  so. 
The  Agricultural  interests  of  the  country  needs 
such  a  Bureau,  and  needs  much  more  encour- 
agement than  lias  ever  yet  been  vouchsafed  to 
it  by  the  government  or  the  people. 


MEETING  OF    THE  AMERICAN  POMO- 
LOGICAL    SOCIETY. 

The  15th  annual  session  of  this  great  Na- 
tional Institution,  commencing  on  the  15th 
day  of  September,  1877,  will  be  held  in  the 
city  of  Baltimore,  Md.  A  large,  interesting 
and  useful  assemblage  of  the  fruit  growers  of 
the  entire  country  is  expected  ;  for,  in  addi-  ^H 
tion  to  its  own  membership,  it  invites  dele-  ^| 
gates  from  all  the  horticultural  and  fruit 
growing  societies  in  the  United  States  and 
the  British  Provinces,  to  be  present  and  par- 
ticipate in  the  proceedings.  In  conjunction 
with  this  session,  the  annual  exhibition  of  the 
"Maryland  Horticultural  Society"  will  be 
held  ;  and,  on  the  whole,  a  "high  old  pomo- 
logical  time"  will  be  afforded.  Will  our  local 
society  appoint  a  delegation  ? 

^ 

EXPLANATION.' 

Some  matter  intended  for  our  June  number 
only  came  to  hand  after  our  form  was  "locked 
up"  and  on  the  press,  and  therefore  too  late 
for  insertion  therein.  If  we  have  not  said  it 
before,  on  several  occasions,  we  would  re- 
sjiectfully  beg  leave  to  say  it  now,  namely : 
that  all  matter  intended  for  The  Farmer, 
whether  essays,  contributions,  correspondence, 
communications  or  advertisements,  should  be 
in  our  hands  not  later  than  the  5th  of  the 
month,  and  it  would  be  still  more  acceptable 
if  we  could  have  them  by  the  1st  of  the  month. 
Our  delays  heretofore  in  the  issue  of  our 
journal,  have  been  mainly  caused  by  the  late 
arrival  of  current  matter.  We  hope  all  inte-  . 
rested  will  bear  this  in  mind,  as  it  is  a  matter  ,* 
of  as  much  importance  to  them  as  it  is  to  us.    ^ 


I 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


99 


We  are  always  willing  to  adapt  ourselves  as 
nuicli  as  iK.ssiUli'.  to  the  convi'iiiciice  of  our 
frirmls  and  patrons,  but  our  ability  to  do  this 
has  its  limit,  beyond  whii'b  we  cannot  ro 
without  a  serious  frnstral  ion  of  all  our  previous 
arrangements  on  the  subject. 

MAKING  WINE  FROM  NATIVE  GRAPES 

'I'ho  lollKwiiiir  ipciiir  for  iii:ikiiiir  ilomeetio  wine 
from  CatawlKi  di-  Ualjolla  fjrapcs  ib  cciinmemlfrt  by  a 
jjoiitlomnn  wlin  lias  li-ircl  it,  suta'cssfully.  Its  direc- 
tions liave  the  merits  rare  in  recipes  of  beiug  full  and 
precise :  ,  ,  ,, 

1st.  Select  perfectly  ripe  bundles,  and  carefully 
pick  oil' llie  stems  and  remove  all  prapes  which  arc 
not  quite  ripe. 

•M.  Squeeze  the  juice  out,  cither  by  hand  or  press, 
strain  through  a  liair  sieve,  and  )iour  it  at  onee  Into 
a  clean,  sweet  liarrel  or  kcir,  adding  to  the  vessel  two 
gallons  of  water  for  every  K'i'Hon  of  juice  made. 

3d.  At  the  same  time  put  in  four  ]iound6  of  sifted 
sti^ar  per  (jallou  of  juice. 

4th.  In  addinir  'he  'wo  gallons  of  water  stated  in 
section  2,  let  it  strain  throufih  the  pulp,  sldus,  iV:c., 
of  the  residuum  of  the  grapes  often  lieing  squeezed. 

.'>th.  Fill  the  vessel  full,  "|i  to  the  buu,i;-holc, 
which  cover  with  a  sand  hag,  to  allow  the  ferinenta- 
tion  to  escape. 

6th.  Watch  the  barrel  daily,  and  clear  or  scrape 
away  the  scum,  which  will  be  thrown  out  in  large 
quantities. 

7th.  As  the  wine  falls  below  the  bung,  fill  updaily 
(after  elearing  away  the  scum)  with  sugar  water, 
made  with  tw-o  pounds  of  sugar  to  the  gallon  of 
water. 

8th.  The  fermentation  will  continue  from  three  to 
six  weeks,  according  to  the  weather.  When  it  h.ad 
ceased,  I  poured  into  the  huug-hole  .about  one  gill  of 
brandy  to  the  gallon  of  juice,  to  How  over  the  sur- 
face and  prevent  its  souring;  liut  the  brandy  may 
not  be  indispensable.     Then  bung  the  vessel  uptight. 

9th.  Durini;  the  cold  weather,  say  in  the  following 
February,  when  the  wine  is  perfectly  still  and  clear, 
draw  it  olT  info  any  other  clean  vessel,  then  quickly 
clean,  scald  and  rinse  thoroughly  the  barrel  in  Avhich 
the  wine  was  made,  anil  return  the  wine  to  it,  and 
draw  it  off  as  required  for  use. 

10th.  If  you  wish  to  make  a  very  palatable  cham- 
pagne, have  the  champagne  bottles  ready  when  you 
rack  ofT  the  wine  as  stated  in  section  0,  put  a  tabic- 
si>oonful  of  common  syrup  in  each  quart  tmttle;  then 
fill  witli  the  wine,  leaving  about  1'..,  inches  clear  be- 
low the  bottom  of  the  cork,  wliicli  fasten  very  se- 
curely witli  strong  twine,  as  the  pressure  of  the  fixed 
air  to  escape  is  very  great. 

nth.  The  wine  will  imi)rove  by  age,  after  the  ope- 
ration described  in  section  9. 

12th.  An  old  lirandy  or  whisky  barrel  is  the  best 
(see  section  2) .  Never  use  a  new  barrel,  as  the  wine 
will  taste  of  the  wood. 

i:?th.  About  lifteen  jiounds  of  grapes  will  give  one 
gallon  of  juice.  The  ri]ier  the  grapes  the  better  the 
yield  of  juice.  One  gallon  of  grapes  in  bunches 
weicbs  about  four  and  a-balf  pounds. 

14tb.  Keep  the  wine  in  the  cellar,  where  it  will  not 
be  exposed  to  extremes  of  temperature. 

l.ith.  An  ap|>roximate  estimate  of  the  quantities 
required  for  a  thirty  gallon  barrel  will  be  as  follows : 

To  make  thirty  gallons  of  wine  :  150  pounds  grapes, 
yielding  ten  gallons  of  juice;  twent-y  gallonsof  water 
strained  through  the  pulj)  residue  (see  section  4); 
forty  (louuds  of  sifted  sugar;  3'  i  pints  of  common 
brandy  (.see  section  8). 

If  carefully  maiie,  the  wine  will  be  wholesome  and 
palatable,  with  a  flavor  like  grape  juice  Madeira.  It 
was  preferred  to  all  others  at  the  Washington  hos- 
■  pitals  during  the  war  of  lstU-18C.^),  and  was  reporteil 
to  have  been  the  means  of  saving  the  lives  of  some 
of  the  soldiers. 

The  foroi;oing  process  comes  so  near  our 
own,  in  makint;  wine — ii  process  which  we 
have  been  using  these  many  years,  that  we  do 
not  hesitate  to  comtnend  it  to  the  notice  of 
our  wifio  making  readers,  especially  as  the 
season  is  now  rapidly  advancing,  wheti  their 
attention  will  be  turned  in  that  direction.  It 
is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  this  process, 
with  some  modification,  may  also  be  followctl 
in  making  wine  out  of  blackberries,  currants, 
raspberries,  strawberries,  or  atiy  other  kind 
of  fruit;  but  r/ooi?  fruit,  luoperly  cleaned  and 
fully  ripe,  as  well  as  goad  sugar  and  fjood  at- 
tention to  details,  ntitil  the  end  is  accom- 
plished, arc  the  primary  essentials  in  making 
good  wine. 

THE  SEVENTEEN  YEAR  LOCUSTS. 

I'rof.  Leidy  has  examined  the  so-called  "seventeen 
year  locusts"  which  have  made  their  appearance 
near  Easlon,  Pa.,  and  confirms  the  statement  that 
the  cicada  is  incapableof  damaging  the  cereal  crops, 
and  he  thinks  that  the  admitted  injury  to  the  wheal 
in  that  vicinity  must  be  ascribed  to  other  insects, 
and  especially  to  the  Hessian  Hy.    The  female  cicada 


does  not  sing.  Much  information  is  already  present- 
ed to  the  public  in  the  bulletins  of  the  United  .States 
Kntomologieal  Commission,  eoncerninc  the  Koeky 
Mountain  locust,  ealoptfiucs  spretnit.  The  Commis- 
sioners are  Professors  C.  V.  Riley,  A.  S.  Packard, 
.Jr.,  and  Cyrus  Thomas.  Careful  descri|)tions  of  the 
circumstances  and  mode  of  life  of  the  yimng  locust 
arc  given.  Before  otitaining  wings  and  when  most 
ravenous,  while  traveling  in  swarms,  it  is  calculated 
that  the  insects  cannot  make  a  progress  of  more 
than  thirty  miles  from  their  hatching  place,  in  a  sea- 
son. When  food  fails  they  become  cainiibals.  After 
aequlrinir  wini,'s  they  lose  appetite  to  a  considerable 
extent  and  cease  to  ho  very  destructive;  they  are  then 
also  the  prey  of  many  parasites.  The  Commission- 
ers reconimend  several  methods  of  destroying  the  in- 
sects, for  difl'erent  stages  of  their  growth.  Before 
the  eggs  hat<'h  they  should  be  plowed  under,  and  the 
ground  fhoroutrhly  compressed  by  harrowing  and 
rolling.  After  batching,  the  young  locusts  can  be 
driven  in  luunbers  almost  as  readily  as  sheep;  win- 
drows or  piles  of  burning  hay  or  straw  should  then 
tie  prejiarcd,  and  the  locusts  can  be  driven  into  them. 
An  ell'ectual  method  at  this  stage  is  to^drive  them 
into  a  ditch  two  feet  wide  and  two  feet  deep, 
with  periiendicular  sides,  out  of  which  it  apjicars 
that  they  can  not  readily  jump.  If  the  width  of  the 
ditcli  is  increased,  the  deiith  should  be  also,  and  the 
steepness  of  the  sides  is  essential;  liut  if  w.ater  can 
be  let  into  the  ditches  they  need  not  be  so  deep. 
Where  the  winds  are  high  the  insects  are  more  apt 
to  escape  from  the  ditch,  especially  if  it  be  shallow. 
A  large  open-mouthed  bag,  driven  by  horses  over  a 
field,  docs  good  service,  especially  if  the  end  of  the 
bag  or  net  be  made  of  wire  gauze  instead  of  cloth. 
When  the  horses  are  hitched  at  the  sides  of  the  bag 
or  net,  12  to  10  feet  apart,  they  help  to  drive  the  lo- 
custs inward  toward  the  net.  Other  effective  contri- 
vances are  sleds,  sometimes  made  of  oil-cloth,  zinc 
sheets,  or  iron  smeared  with  coal  tar;  sometimes  car- 
rying an  open  furnace,  made  of  wire  and  filled  with 
burning  pine;  the  latter  plan  requires  a  hot  tire,  and 
a  sheet  to  cover  the  grate  and  kec|)  the  heat  within; 
the  scor(-hing  that  the  grain  beneath  gets  only  makes 
it  a  few  days  later.  Smooth-barked  frees  can  be 
protected  by  lilieral  white-washing;  if  the  bark  is 
rough  or  ttie  trunk  is  short,  a  strip  of  bright  tin, 
three,  or  four  inches  wide,  tacked  around,  serves  the 
purpose  If  the  spaces  between  the  bark  and  the  tin 
are  blocked  with  earth,  and  the  bark  below  the  tin 
is  6meared*with  grease,  tar  or  kerosene.  Of  course 
the  tin  must  be  put  on  high  enough,  so  that  the 
'hoppers  can  not  jump  over  it  from  the 
ground.  Cotton      batting,      stiff     paper,      and 

glazed  paper  auswer  the  purpose  of  tin  to 
an  inferior  extent.  Missouri  and  Minnesota  have 
passed  laws  oBering  rewards  for  the  specific  destruc- 
tion of  the  insects  and  their  eggs,  and  Kansas  makes 
the  work  of  destruction  compulsory  upon  "all 
able-bodied  males  between  the  ages  of  12  and  00 
years,"  in  the  districts  .attacked.  The  various  prices 
paid  by  the  States  are,  for  eggs,  -$5  per  bushel  and 
.50  cents  per  gallon  ;  for  grasshoppers,  from  $1  down 
to  20  cents  per  bushel,  the  highest  prices  being  paid 
early  in  the  season. — Phihulelphia  Lcilyer. 

It  is  really  wonderful  to  see  how  very  slow 
the  masses  of  tlie  people  are  in  aciiuiring  even 
a  tolerable  knowledge  of  the  habits  of  the 
"seventeen  year  locust,"  or  they  would  not 
suspect  it,  at  this  late  day,  of  destroying  or 
even  injuring  the  wheat.  They  certainly 
would  not  deposit  their  eggs  in  wheat  steins, 
for  that  would  defeat  their  procreative  olyect ; 
and  as  to  drinking  anything  (they  cannot  eat) 
it  is  questionable  whether  they  ever  do  "  any- 
thing of  Che  kind,"  in  their  mature  states. 
Very  little  has  been  developed  through  the 
Entomological  Commission — and  probably 
little  will  be  developed — that  is  new.  Nearly 
all  the  remedies  recommended  in  tlie  above 
article  may  Ijc  found  in  Harris',  or  in  Fitch's 
and  Riley's  reports.  But  this  good  will  be 
done;  it  will  arouse  theattention  of  the  people  ; 
more  knowledge  through  the  commissions 
"bulletins"  will  get  into  their  hands,  and 
more  of  their  work  will  get  into  the  imblie 
press.  The  greatest  drawback  is,  mil  the 
people  read  ? 


WHAT  IS  A   PRACTICAL  FARMER? 

We  like  the  word  "practical"  when  applied  to 
farmers  and  farming.  It  has  a  kind  of  genuine  ring 
in  it  that  sounds  like  buslneis.  But  it  Is  frequently 
misapplied  and  abused,  and  as  it  Is  part  of  our  title 
we  are  bound  to  defend  it  aealnsl  the  tongue  of 
slander  or  ignorance.  Some  men  seem  to  think  that 
a  practical  farmer  has  no  business  with  books  or  pa- 
pers, that  all  his  knowledge  must  come  from  his  own 
experience  and  observation  ;  otherwise  he  is  a  theo- 
lefical  farmer;  or,  in  common  parlance,  a  "book 
farmer."  This  is  a  definition  we  will  not  accept,  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  in  reason  or  language  to  sup- 
port it. 


Webster  tells  us  tliat  practical  means,  when  ap- 
plied to  a  person,  "one  who  reduces  his  knowledge 
to  actual  use."  This  definition  Is  easily  understood, 
and  answers  the  question  at  the  head  of  this  article 
very  clearly.  A  practical  farmer  is  one  who  reduces 
his  knowledge  to  actual  use.  The  definition  does 
not  limit  hiiii  as  to  the  source  of  his  knowledge,  nor 
indicate  how  it  is  to  be  obtained.  He  may  get  It  from 
agricultural  papers,  by  studying  hooks,  or  In  listen- 
ing to  the  lectures  of  a  college  professor — no  matter 
how,  so  long  as  he  makes  actual  use  of  It  upon  the 
farm,  it  Is  jiractleal  kiiowleilge  he  obtains,  and  the 
more  he  gets  and  reduces  to  practice  the  better  prac- 
tical fanner  he  becomes. 

It  is  a  mistaken  noliou  that  book  knowledge  Is  op- 
posed  to  tho  practical.  There  Is  much  practical 
knowledge  that  cannot  be  obtained  outside  of  books 
or  their  equivalent.  The  captain  of  a  vessel  Is  a 
practical  sailor;  sols  the  man  before  the  mast.  But 
while  both  can  reef  a  sail  equally  well,  the  latter 
would  run  the  vessel  to  destruction,  jierhaps.  If 
l)laeed  in  command.  There  is  a  science  In  navigation 
that  cannot  be  learned  by  simidy  performing  the 
duties  of  a  common  sailor.  It  must  be  obtained 
from  books,  and  the  men  who  safely  conduct  the 
thousands  of  vessels  from  one  port  to  another, across 
the  boundless  ocean,  demonstrate  how  eminently 
practical  this  book  knowledge  is.  It  is  just  so  in 
farming.  Holding  the  plow,  driving  the  machine, 
pitching  bay,  sowing  grain  and  making  cider,  is  all 
practical  work,  that  must  be  learned  just  as  a  sailor 
must  serve  his  time  before  the  mast  ere  he  can  as- 
pire to  the  command  of  the  vessel.  And  before  the 
farmer  can  take  the  higher  iiosltion  of  a  commander, 
he  must  learn  something  of  the  science  of  agricul- 
ture, and  this  can  no  more  he  learned  by  holding  tlie 
plow  than  science  of  navigatton  can  be  by  reefing 
sails. 

How  long  would  it  have  taken  the  farmer  to  learn 
what  jilauts  and  soils  are  composed  of  simply  by  his 
own  observation  and  experience  on  the  farm  ?  He 
might  plow,  and  sow,  and  reap  till  doomsday  with- 
out being  wiser  in  this  respect.  Science  has  made 
known  the  fact  that  phosphoric  acid,  potash  aud 
nitrogen,  are  about  the  only  substances  necessary  to 
apply  to  the  soil  in  the  cultivation  of  crops.  Does  it 
render  the  farmer  less  practical  if  he  learns  this  from 
a  book  or 'paper  and  then  makes  practical  use  of  the 
knowledge  on  his  farm  '■  And  suppose  he  makes  an 
experiment  in  the  use  of  these  substances,  and  writes 
the  result  for  publication — is  he  any  the  less  practi- 
cal forsodoiug?         ,    .,     ,  .  .       ,  ,,     , 

Let  no  farmer  be  afraid  of  becoming  less  practical 
by  reading  books  and  papers  that  treat  upon  his  pro- 
fession. "Knowledge  is  power"  iu  farming  as  in 
every  other  business  of  life,  and  the  more 
the  farmer  obtains,  the  more  practical  he  may  be- 
come.— rfacliciil  Fanner. 

The  aliove,  from  a  sterling  Pennsylvania 
Agricultural  journal,  that  for  practical  matter 
has  not  its  peer  in  tlie  whole  country,  is  not 
mere  gossip,  it  is  ijnspcl,  which  cannot  lie  gain- 
said. It  is  so-near  our  own  way  of  thinking 
on  the  subject,  and  is  said  so  tersely  and  so 
rationally  that  we  believe  it  will  be  useful  to 
those  of  our  readers  who  are  in  the  cilbrt  to 
become  practical  through  brain-culture,  the 
exercise  of  their  mental  faculties,  and  the 
jierusal  of  instructive  books,  as  well  as  by  the 
labor  of  their  hands,  through  which  they  "fell 
the  sturdy  oak,  and  direct  the  unwiedly  plow. " 
No  manipulation  of  the  soil,  no  mechanical 
contrivivnce,  no  fertilizing  compound  is  pos- 
siljle—howcver  simple  it  may  be— without 
trenchin"-  up  on  tlie  domain  oi practical  science. 

^ 

PATRONS  OF  HUSBANDRY, 
is  the  Grange  on  the  decline  ?  We  hope  not; 
for  we  regard  it  as  an  instrument  of  moral 
and  social  advancement,  to  say  nothing  about 
it  intellectually  and  pecuniarily.  But  when 
we  see  the  Grand  Secretai^  of  the  State 
Grange  of  Teuucsscc,  officially  announcing 
the  delinquency  of  one  hundred  and  forty 
Granges  in  that" State,  it  looks  very  much  as 
if  they  were  becoming  "weary  in  well-doing." 
It  is  true  that  these  subordinate  Granges  may 
only  be  a  little  neglectful,  but  when  they  are 
warned  that  unless  they  make  reports  to  the 
Secretary  of  the  State  Grange  within  thirty 
days  from  the  1st  of  June,  the  Master  of  the 
National  frrange  will  be  requested  to  revoke 
their  charters,  it  looks  like  more  than  merely 
temporary  neglect.  If  the  (Jrangers  wish  to 
progress  in  their  honorable  and  elevating  or- 
ganization, they  must  not  be  spasmodic,  hut 
must  lean  to  the  work  like  faitlifwl  oxen,  and 
move  steadily  oxwAuu  to  the  end  of  life. 


Do  not  forget  your  subscriptions  for  1877. 


100 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[July. 


ECHOES  FROM  THE  PUBLIC  PRESS. 

If  we  were  to  treat  with  entire  silence  the 
flattering  recognitions  of  our  cotemporaries, 
we  should  only  exhibit  that  want  of  apprecia- 
tion which  savors  of  sullen  indiflerence;  and 
therefore,  eschewing  the  selfish  and  unchari- 
table attitude  that — 

"I  care  for  nobody, 

And  nobody  cares  for  me," 

it  yields  us  a  becoming  pleasure  to  illustrate 
in  a  public  manner  the  friendly  notices  that 
have  been  taken  of  us,  and  to  record  our 
acknowledgments  of  them,  not  only  on  our 
own  account,  but  also  on  account  of  the  solid 
class  of  men  in  Lancaster  county,  of  whom 
our  journal  is  the  responsible  representative. 
If  it  is  true  that  "A  i)rophet  hath  honor  save 
in  his  own  country  and  among  his  own  kin," 
it  is  incumbent  on  us  to  illustrate  how  far  it 
may  be  true,  in  order  that  those  concerned 
may  render  "Honor  to  whom  honor  is  due," 
for  many  only  need  the  opportunity  to  make 
the  amendment  at  the  proper  time.  That 
sterling  weekly,  the  Mount  Joy  Herald,  is 
pleased  to  speak  thus  of  us  : 

"Lancaster  Farmer  for  June.  Here  are  16 
large,  closely  printed,  three-columned  pages  of  choice 
reading  matter,  such  as  is  wanted  for  the  farm,  gar- 
den and  household,  including  one  illustration.  Some 
numbers  are  more  fully  illustrated.  No  advertise- 
ments except  on  the  cover  sheet,  which  is  exclusive 
of  the  16  pages.  No  blowing  and  puffing  of  itself, 
offering  of  long  premium  lists  and  other  matter  in 
the  special  interest  of  the  journal  itself,  is  found  on 
the  16  pages  of  reading  matter.  The  Lancaster 
Farmer  is  decidedly  the  best  and  cheapest  household 
and  agricultural  journal  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge.  To  subscribers  in  Lancaster  county. 
Pa.,  81.00  a  year,  or  6  copies  for  $.5.00;  single  num- 
bers 10  cents.  Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  Editor;  Linnoeus 
Rathvon,  Publisher,  22  South  Queen  street,  Lancas- 
ter, Pa. 

Our  young  and  ably  conducted  local  journal. 
The  JSTeiu  Era,  with  that  intelligenfdiscrimi- 
nation  which  it  is  so  competent  to  make,  has 
this  to  say  of  us  : 

The  Lancaster  Farmer  for  June  has  been  re- 
ceived, and  we  find  as  the  months  roll  around,  our 
friend,  the  editor,  is  abating  nothing  of  the  energy 
and  industry  that  have  been  so  visible  since  this 
journal  has  been  under  his  charge.  In  addition  to 
the  many  able  original  articles,  the  selections  are 
admirably  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  farmer  who 
desires  to  keep  abreast  with  everything  that  pertains 
to  his  calling.  There  are  not  many  good  farmers  in 
the  county  who  are  not  subscribers,  and  therefore  we 
can't  see  how  the  poor  ones  are  to  get  along  without 
it.  Price  only  §1.00  a  year.  Address  S.  S.  Rathvon, 
Lancaster,  Pa. 

The  Editor  of  The  Journal  of  Forestry 
(England)  is  pleased  to  say  in  his  June  num- 
ber— in  alluding  to  his  American  exchanges — 
"among  the  numerous  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines representing  almost  every  department 
of  agriculture  and  rural  economy  tliat  we  have 
received  from  various  parts  of  the  world,  we 
may  mention — the  Lancaster  Farmer,  an  ex- 
cellent farmer's  paper;  the  Albany  Cultivator 
and  Country  Gentlemen,  covering  somewhat 
the  same  ground  as  our  Field,  and  full  of  use- 
ful intelligence." 

It  may  be  our  vanity,  or  our  weakness,  but 
we  confess  we  feel  complimented  at  being 
placed  in  such  good  company  by  one  so  disin- 
terested, and  so  capable  of  exercising  an  in- 
telligent discrimination.  If  our  American 
readers  would  only  vouchsafe  the  necessary 
support,  we  would  like  to  show  how  good  a 
journal  we  could  make  of  the  Farmer. 


CORRESPONDENCE. 


Jenkintown,  Montgomert  County,  Pa.,  ) 
June  2,5th,  1877.      | 

Mr.  S.  S.  Rathvon — J/y  Bear  Sir:  Knowing 
your  willingness  to  contribute  of  the  valuable  stock 
of  information  you  have  acquired  in  the  important 
branch  of  natural  history,  to  which  you  have  devoted 
60  much  time  and  careful  research,  I  take  the  liberty 
of  addressing  you  some  questions  in  regard  to  some 
of  the  habits  of  that  vexatious  pest,  the  "  Color.ado 
potato  beetle." 

In  the  summer  of  187.5,  these  bugs  had  become  so 
numerous  in  this  locality  as  to  almost  entirely  destroy 
the  crop — very  few  farmers  having  learned  how  to 
destroy  them  eflectually.  In  the  fall  of  that  year 
the  bugs  were  so  numerous  they  could  be  seen  every- 
where by  thousands.  It  was  impossible  to  walk  the 
roads  without  treading  on  them  at  almost  every  step. 


All  winter  they  could  be  found  everywhere  in 
the  soil,  and  in  the  following  spring  they  devoured 
our  tomato  and  egg  plants  in  the  hot-beds.  So  de- 
structive were  the  bugs  in  the  spring  of  1S76  that 
few  potatoes  were  planted.  Of  these,  some  were  de- 
voured by  the  bugs,  and  others  were  saved  by  a 
liberal  use  of  Paris  green,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  the  bugs  either  starved  for  scarcity  of  their 
natural  food  or  were  killed  with  poison,  so  that  in 
the  fall  there  was  scarcely  a  bug  to  be  seen,  and  not 
one  was  to  be  found  in  the  soil  last  winter — nor  did 
one  make  its  appearance  on  the  plants  in  hot-beds 
this  spring  as  they  did  the  spring  before — so  that 
farmers  were  eucouragcii  to  believe  that  we  would 
have  a  year,  at  least,  of  comparative  exemption  from 
the  pest,  and,  consequently,  a  large  breadth  of  pota- 
toes were  planted.  But,  strange  to  say,  as  soon  as 
the  young  potato  plants  Ijegan  to  show  above  ground, 
the  bugs  put  in  an  appearance  in  innumerable  num- 
bers, worse,  if  anything,  than  they  had  been  before. 
Now,  what  puzzles  me  is,  to  know  where  they  came 
from  so  suddenly  ;  certainly  there  were  none  or  next 
to  none  that  hibernated  here  as  they  did  the  winter 
before,  and  I  don't  see  where  they  could  have  come 
from  in  such  vast  numbers,  less  than  one  hundred 
miles  distant.  Could  it  be  that  they  have  migrated 
from  the  potato  regions  of  New  York,  w^here  they 
were  as  numerous  last  fall  as  they  were  here  the  fall 
before?  Are  they  capable  of  such  long  (lights  ?  Can 
it  be  that  the  very  warm  days  we  had  in  May, 
brought  them  out  there,  and  there  being  no  potatoes 
yet  above  ground  in  that  locality,  they  took  their 
flight  south  ? 

We  have  now  learned  pretty  well  how  to  manage 
them.  One  part  Paris  green  to  about  one  hundred 
parts  land  plaster,  dusted  on  the  vines,  is  efi'ectual 
with  the  young  bugs;  but  I  am  afraid  the  old  ones  do 
not  eat  enough  to  be  killed  with  the  poison,  so 
diluted,  and  as  these  still  keep  about  and  seem  to  be 
all  the  time  depositing  more  eggs,  the  dose  of  poison 
has  to  be  frequently  repeated.  This  is  troublesome 
and  expensive.  I  would  like  very  much  to  know 
if  any  remedy  more  efi'ectual  or  less  expensive  has 
been  discovered.  Do  you  think  lime  would  do  as 
well  as  plaster?    It  would  be  much  cheaper. 

I  have  noticed  this  summer  a  beetle  similar  in  ap- 
pearance to  the  potato  bug,  but  smaller  and  darker 
colored,  and  with  longer  legs,  attacking  furiously 
the  potato  bugs.  Sometimes  three  or  four  would  be 
on  one  potato  bug,  and  have  him  completely  sur- 
rounded and  struggling  desperately  to  get  away .  Do 
you  know  what  this  is  ?  Please  excuse  t*is  too  long 
letter. 

Yours,  with 'great  regard, 

E.  Satterthwait. 

In  regard  to  the  sudden  disappearance  and 
reappearance  of  tite  "Colorado  Potato- 
beetle, "  people  often  mistake  the  semblance 
for  the  reality.  We  have  known  people  to 
congratulate  themselves  with  having  extin- 
guished these  insects  by  mere  hand-picking, 
when  lo,  a  few  weeks  thereafter  they  would 
reappear  in  greatly  increased  numbers.  There 
are  in  reality  two  broods  of  these  insects  in 
this  latitude  in  a  season,  but  farther  south  no 
doubt  there  may  be  three  broods.  But  as 
each  female  will  deposit  from  one  thousand 
to  twelve  hundred  eggs,  and  as  these  eggs  are 
deposited  generallj'  on  the  undersides  of  the 
leaves,  at  different  places,  and  at  diflerent 
periods,  within  the  space  of  thirty-five  to 
forty-five  days,  and  as  the  young  are  excluded 
from  tlie  eggs  at  correspondingly  different 
periods,  develop  and  reach  their  larval  matu- 
rity, and  hence  burrow  into  the  ear.th  and  pu- 
pate there  at  different  periods,  there  is  the 
ap^jearance  that  there  are  many  broods;  and 
hence  it  also  sometimes  appears  as  if  all  had 
been  destroyed,  or  had  deserted  the  premises, 
when  in  fact  they  were  only  enjoying  their 
pupal  sleep,  either  in  the  loose  eartli,  under 
some  convenient  rubbish,  in  some  old  wall, 
in  some  old  unfrequented  out-house,  or  in 
some  dark  cellar.  We  have  seen  them  enter 
cellars  through  the  grates,  and  creep  under 
door  steps  in  the  fall,  and  we  have  seen  thera 
issue  from  the  same  places  in  the  spring,  and 
we  also  knoic  them  to  have  been  discovered 
under  heaps  of  rubbish  in  the  fields,  in  the 
months  of  January,  February,  and  March. 
They  differ  in  their  habits  according  to  their 
developmental  conditions.  Tlie  matured  lar- 
vfe,  as  a  general  thing,  will  go  into  the  ground 
to  pupate,  and  if  they  go  in  late  in  the  season, 
they  will  liibernate  tliere  until  next  spring; 
and  it  may  also  occur  tliat  many  of  the  larva;, 
on  account  of  sudden  autumn  coldness,  would 
not  have  the  necessary  energy  to  pupate,  in 
which  case  they  woulil  hibernate  as  laryie  and 
pupate  the  next  spring;  and  therefore  would 
emerge  from  the  earth  as  beetles,   some  days 


or  weeks  later  than  others.  But  this  is  not 
necessarily  the  case  with  those  that  are  over- 
taken by  the  cool  autumn,  in  the  beetle  form. 
These  wander  away  from  the  potato  fields  in 
thousands,  after  there  is  no  more  succulent 
vegetation.  If  the  weather  is  cool,  they  will 
seek  a  convenient  cover  to  pass  their  winter 
hibernation,  if  warm,  they  will  seek  other 
food  than  the  potato. 

In  addition  to  the  potato,  the  tomato  and 
the  eggplant,  these  insects  have  been  known 
to  feed  upon  henbane,  nightshade,  jimson- 
weed,  spinage,  thistles,  plantain,  cabbage, 
lettuce,  lambsquarter,  mullein,  strawberry, 
current,  and  other  species  of  vegetation,  as 
well  as  the  potato  tubers,  so  that  the  idea  of 
"starving  them  out"  at  any  time,  is  a  mere 
hallucination.  It  is  true,  on  some  of  these 
plants  they  feed  but  sparingly,  and  only  in 
cases  of  dire  necessity,  but  this  is  sufficient  to 
illustrate  that  they  are  capable  of  adapting 
themselves  to  almost  any  circimistances,  in- 
volving their  self-preservation  and  perpetua- 
tion. It  is  also  very  evident  that  they  are 
migratory  in  their  habits,  but  how  far  they 
may  be  able  to  fly  has  not  yet  been  ascertained 
with  accuracy.  They  must  have  flew  across 
the  Mississippi  and  Missouri  rivers  years  ago. 
In  the  summer  of  lS75  we  found  them  strewn 
in  great  lumibers  for  six  or  seven  miles  along 
the  Atlantic  beach— from  the  Lighthhouse  to 
the  extreme  point  of  Cape  Ilenlopen — and  not 
a  potato  field  within  from  two  to  foiu-  miles. 
How  far  they  had  flew  out  into  the  ocean,  be- 
fore they  had  dropjied  in  and  were  borne  Ijack 
and  thrown  upon  the  beach  by  the  waves,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  estimate.  If  in  their 
flight  they  should  come  into  a  current  of 
wind  they  might,  no  doubt,  be  caiTied  to  a 
great  distance.  It  is  difflcidt  to  account  for 
their  presence  on  the  shore  of  the  Atlantic, 
far  from  any  potato  field  on  the  20th  of  July, 
when  most  potato  vines  are  still  green  and 
succulent,  unless  by  making  a  temporary 
change  of  locality,  they  were  caught  in  a  cur- 
rent of  wind,  or  were  obeying  their  eastward 
migi'atory  instincts.  The  best  tiling  now  is 
to  regard  them  as  a  "fixed  institution"  and 
provide  for  them  as  we  do  for  other  contin- 
gencies. 

Paris  green  is  the  best  and  only  reliable 
remedy  to  destroy  the  Colorado  jiotato  beetle 
— to  tliosc  who  do  not  care  aljout  resorting  to 
traps  or  handpicking — and  tlie  farmers  of 
Lancaster  county  mainly  rely  ui)on  it.  We 
will  have,  according  to  present  prospects,  a 
larger  and  better,  as  well  as  a  cheaper,  crop  of 
potatoes  the  present  season,  in  this  county 
than  we  have  had  for  some  years.  The  beetles 
apjieared  as  usual  in  the  spring,  but  the  peo- 
ple regard  them  as  a  matter  of.  course,  and 
they  "dosed"  them  from  the  beginning  with 
Paris  green.  But — homeopathically  speak- 
ing— we  consider  our  corresiwndent's  dilution 
entirely  too  "high."  One  part  of  the  poisou 
to  onehimdred  parts  of  the  diluting  substance, 
we  have  no  recollection  of  having  before  .seeu 
recorded.  Our  farmers  here  u,se  one  pound  of 
the  green  to  from  20  to  30  pounds  of  wood- 
ashes,  sieved  coal  ashes,  pulverized  gypsum, 
cornmeal,  shipstuff,  slaked  lime  or  tloiu'. 
Some  prefer  the  different  kinds  of  meal  on  ac- 
count of  their  adhesive  qualities;  and,  .so  far 
as  the  larvje  of  these  insects  are  concerned, 
this  remedy  is  entirely  effectual,  if  the  green 
is  of  a  good  quality.  Upon  the  bodies  of  the 
adult  beetle,  however,  it  has  little  efl'ect.  We 
have  known  the  lieetles  to  live  thirty-six  hours 
corked  up  in  a  bottle  of  Paris  green.  It  does 
not  penetrate  their  hard  integument,  nor  will 
they  eat  it,  because  being  more  perfectly  en- 
dowed with  the  powers  of  locomotion  than  the 
laivre,  they  can  more  easily  change  their 
positions.  But  after  the  female  beetles  have 
once  deposited  all  their  eggs,  they  never  be- 
come refertilized — tliat  is  the  end  of  their  al- 
lotted functions.  After  the  male  exhausts 
his  procreating  energy,  that  is  also  the  end  of 
him.  Those  that  hibernate  and  survive  the 
winter,  are  either  gravid  females,  or  virgin 
males  and  females.  The  spent  stock  invari- 
ably die  off. 
In  conclusion,  we  think  there  is  no  just 


li 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


101 


Kround  of  apprehension  that  tlie  tubers  will 
1)6  injuieil,  or  rendered  uuhe;ilthfiil  by  the 
use  of  Paris  "reen.  It  cannot  \w  iiossil)lethat 
the  western  Farmers  should  have  Ixmui  using  it 
for  seventeen  years  \vitli(Mit  a  sine;le  authenti- 
cated case  of  sueli  injury,  it  there  were  any 
liabilities  of  this  kind.  Nevertlieless,  it  is  a 
rank  poison  and  should  be  "handled  with 
care.'"  Only  a  few  days  aj^o  a  fanner  in  this 
county  lost  four  valuable  cows  by  leaving  a 
bucket,  or  box,  containing  Paris  green  mixed 
with  ships-stutf,  exposed.  Of  course,  neither 
cattle,  swiue,  uni- poidtry,  ought  to  be  allowed 
access  to  lields  treated  with  this  poison.  It 
is  mineral,  insoluljU-  in  water,  and  when  thus 
used,  it  is  merely  held  in  suspension  and  needs 
constant  agitation. 

Since  writing  the  foregoing  we  have  visited 
the  farm  of  Mr.  Lawrence  Knapp,  near  the 
eastern  suljuibs  of  Lancaster  city.  Every- 
tliiug  on  tliis  farm  looks  exceedingly  healthy 
and  thrifty.  Mr.  K.  had  about  three  acres  in 
potatoesofditlerent  varieties,  in  three  separate 
"patches,"  which  we  will  designate  as  1,  2 
and  :!.  No.  1  were  quite  early  potatoes,  and 
the  crop  is  already  consumed.  This  patch 
was  half  an  acre,  and  was  vigorously  attacked 
by  the  "Colorado  Beetle,"  but  he  gave  them 
their  (piietus  by  a  liberal  application  of  Paris 
green,  and  saved  his  potatoes,  which  were 
line,  and  of  an  excellent  quality. 

No.  2,  an  acre  and  a-half  lies  a  little  north 
of  No.  1  ;  and  No.  3,  about  one  acre,  lies  east 
of  it,  with  the  barn  between.  These  two 
patches  are  about  the  finest  and  healthiest 
looking  potatoes  we  have  seen  this  season, 
and  have  already  line  tubers,  but  they  are 
later  than  No.  I.  Mr.  K.  states  that  neither 
of  these  i)atches  have  been  visited  by  a  single 
potato  beetle  since  they  have  been  planted, 
although  they  were  up  above  ground  when 
No.  1  was  infested,  lie  had  read  in  an  Agri- 
cultural paper,  that  to  iilant  hemp  and  buck- 
wheat among  his  potatoes  would  prevent  the 
beetle  from  attacking  them.  He  did  so,  and 
this  he  believes  has  repelled  them.  There  are 
the  potatoes,  the  buckwheat,  and  the  hemp, 
but  there  are  not  the  potato  beetles,  account 
for  the  result  as  we  will.  "  Stick  a  pin  in 
that."  We  have  seen  other  fine  lots  of  pota- 
toes without  the  hemp  or  Inickwheat,  but  we 
did  not  learn  whether  they  had  been  visited 
by  the  beetle  or  not,  and  we  merely  publish 
this  on  account  of  the  coincidence. 

As  there  are  at  least  twenty  known  species 
of  insects,  that  in  one  way  or  another  prey 
upon  the  Colorado  beetle,  we  cannot  even 
guess  which  is  meant  by  our  correspondent, 
and  we  therefore  hope  he  will  send  us  speci- 
mens—it may  be  new. 


West  Chester,  .Tune  22d,  1877. 

Mif.  Ratrvon — .Sic:— I  see  iu  your  June  number 

of   tlie  Farmer,  a    receipt  for  cliolera.     I    send  you 

by  this  mail,  a  root  that  is  deciileclly  the   best  thins 

for  (lysentary  or  diarrlioea,  that  ever  was  given;  it 

has,  and  will  cure,  the  worst  case  in  two   hours.     I 

epeak    by    experience     in    my     own    family     and 

others.     It   requires   but  a  trial  tu  prove  its  value; 

and  the  best  of  all  is,  no  matter  liow  sudden   the 

complaint  Is  checked,  it  leaves  no  bad  efiect  in  the 

head,   or  any  other   part  of  the  body.     How  many 

children  die  every  summer  in   our  large  cities  witii 

dyeentary  or  cholera-infautum  ;  whereas,  if  tliey  had 

a  desert  spoon  full  of  tea  made  from  this  root,  life 

would  be  saved.    There  are  thousands  of  dollars  in 

it, if  taken  hold  of  it  by  some  live  yankee.     I  never 

Hie  it   into   syrup,  but  always   make  a  tea  direct 

in  the  root  ;  always  keep  It  in  the  house,  or  the 

H  ,d«   being   handy   to   get   more ;   but   it   requires 

iiiuel  strength  to  mush  it  when  dry,  as  you  can  see 

,  Ibis,  as  it  is  green  or  fresh  from  the  ground.   This 

root  I  send  you  is  suflicient   for  three- pints  of  water, 

boiled  down  to  one  quart,  then  strain  it  ;  add  a  little 

sugar  when  taken.     Although   it  is  almost  void   of 

taste  when  warm,   when   it   is  cold  it  is  somewhat 

roapy   (as  Elm  bark).     I  will  not   seflfl  the  name  of 

the  root  at  present,  but  perhaps  you  know  it,  but  by 

all  means  use  it  if  it  should  be  needed. 

Yours  truly, 

Wm.  .T.  Pvle. 

P.  S.— For  an  adult,  a  wine  glass  full  will  check 
the  worst  case,  and  sometimes  sufiicient  to  cure  ;  but 
if  there  is  a  desire  to  go  again,  or  symptoms  of  bear- 
ing down,  repeat  it  and  you  will  find  it  suflicient. 

As  "some  things  can  be  done  as  well  as 
"there,"  and  as  we  are  always  open  to  couyic- 


tion  and  conversion,  esjiecially  in  cases  involv- 
ing a  disease  that  is  so  fatal  to  children,  ami  so 
prostrating  if  not  fatal  to  adults.  We  have 
made  a  decoction  of  the  roots  sent  us,  and 
now  only  wait  for  an  opportunitij  to  test  their 
ellicacy  (which  heaven  I'orefend  we  should  ever 
dciire,  either  in  ourself  or  any  other  human 
being),  when  we  will  publish  the  residt.  We 
eonfe.ss  that  we  can  only  gue.ss  remotely  what 
the  root  is,  for  it  is  almost  tasteless,  and  there 
are  several  roots  to  which  it  makes  more  or 
less  aiiproximation,  liut  perhaps  it  is  best  that 
the  nami!  should  l)e  concealed  until  the  cura- 
tive quality  is  practically  demonstrated,  and 
our  oiiject  of  this  publication  is  to  facilitate 
an  opportunity  to  make  a  trial  of  it. 


Mil.  S.  S.  Kathvon— i)«ar  Sir:  I  find  at  West 
Chester  that  the  currant  and  gooseberry  bushes  (I 
believe  both)  are  much  eaten  (the  leaves)  by  an 
insect,  which  I  rather  supi)ose  to  be  the  same  that 
was  so  very  injurious  to  them  when  I  was  at  Scran- 
ton,  three  years  ago.  One  of  my  friends  at  West 
Chester  said  something  to  this  effect,  namely,  that 
the  foliage  would  be  nearly  destroyed  in  one  night. 

Yours,  respectfully,  I'.  E.  G. 

PiiiLADELfHiA,  June  24,  1877. 

There  are  several  insects  that  defoliate  the 
cniTant  and  gooseberry  bushes,  conspicuously 
amongst  which  are  the  "  Currant  Moth"  and 
the  "Currant  Saw-lly,"  the  former  icpirtop- 
<((OKsand  ihelattev  Hyiiienopterous.  Of  course, 
we  cannot  tell  which  you  allude  to,  from  your 
description  alone.  But,  if  it  is  either  of  them, 
dusting  the  bushes  with  white  Hellebore,  or 
diluted  Paris  Green,  would  prove  an  extin- 
guisher. Syringing  them  with  a  tobacco  de- 
coction, or  a  soap  solution,  might  i)rove  sulii- 
ciently  efficient.  The  first  broods  or  these 
insects,  especially  the  last  named,  spin  a 
slight  web-like  cocoon  among  the  rubbish  on 
the  ground  under  the  bushes.  The.se,  there- 
fore, should  be  gathered  up  and  burned,  and 
a  second  brood  prevepted.  If  this  is  thorough- 
ly accomplished,  there  can  be  no  secoiul  brood 
this  year,  nor  yet  a  first  brood  next  year. 


An  Architectural  Question. 

Mr.  Editor  ;  What  are  the  proper  dimensions  of 
a  large  hall  or  room,  in  order  to  avoid  the  echo  or 
confusion  of  sound,  so  often  noticed  in  some  of  our 
public  buildings. 

.John  B.  Erb,  Lime  Valley. 

An  echo  is  a  reficcted  sound  ;  whenever  a 
sound-wave  strikes  any  obstacle,  such  as  a 
wall,  a  hill,  or  a  rock,  it  is  reflected  or  thrown 
back,  and  this  reflected  sound  is  called  an 
echo:  and  the  reason  these  echoes  are  pro- 
duced in  large  halls  or  rooms,  is  because  the 
soiuid-waves  cannot  flow  freely  forward,  but 
are  constantly  striking  against  the  walls  and 
are  beaten  back.  Books  say  that  "  no  echo  is 
heard  unless  the  surface  against  which  the 
sound  strikes  is  G.5  feet  from  the  place  where 
the  sound  originally  proceeded."  In  rooms 
smaller  than  this,  the  sound  travels  with  such 
velocity  that  the  echo  is  blended  with  the 
original  sound  ;  but  in  larger  ones,  the  walls 
are  so  far  otf  f'lom  the  speaker  that  the  echo 
does  not  return  in  time  ta  be  blended  with  his 
voice,  but  is  heard  separately. 

This  is  the  theory,  at  least,  of  those  who 
have  professed  to  be  teachers  on  the  subject; 
and  would  therefore  suggest  about  the  size 
that  a  room  ought  to  be  to  be  free  from 
echoes.  Height  of  ceiling,  perhaps,  would 
also  have  some  etl'ect  ujion  the  sound — the 
exceeding  long  winding  stairways  and  corri- 
dors in  some  cathedrals  are  knowii  to  have. 

Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  echo  in  the 
world,  is  that  at  Bosneath,  a  mansion  house 
seventeen  miles  above  Glasgow,  in  Scotland. 
If  a  trumpeter  plays  a  tune  and  stops,  the 
echo  will  begin  the  same  tune  and  repeat  it  all 
accurately  ;  as  soon  as  this  echo  has  ceased, 
another  will  echo  the  same  tune  in  a  lower 
tone;  and  after  tlie  second  has  ceased,  a  third 
will  succeed  with  equal  fidelity,  though  in  a 
still  lower  tone.  At  Lake  Killarney,  Ireland, 
there  is  an  echo  which  plays  a  "second"  to 
any  simple  tune  played  on  a  bugle. 

These  echoes  are  caused  by  separate  rever- 
berating surfaces  receiving  the  sound  and  re- 
flecting it  in  sucessiou. 


QUERIES  AND   ANSWERS. 

Dr.  E.  K.  r.,  LuncasUr.  Pa.— The  beau- 
tiful yellow  mottled  moth,  with  black  spot, 
and  a  white  central  dot  in  it,  on  the  under- 
side of  the  (interior  wings,  and  a  large  black 
spot,  with  gray  and  white  centre,  occupying 
the  whole  central  port»)n  of  the  upper  sur- 
face of  the  posterior  wings,  is  the  "American 
Peacock  Moth,"  (Saturina  la)  a  male  speci- 
men. The  female  is  of  darker  or  brownish 
color  and  much  larger  in  size,  but  tlie  horns 
[Aixtenint)  are  not  so  feathered.  It  belongs 
to  the  "American  Silkworm  Moths,"  (Bu.M- 
BYCIDA)  and  the  caterpillar  green,  and  covered 
all  over  with  diverging  prickly  hairs,  spins  a 
regular  cocoon.  The  moth  is  very  pretty  and 
harndess,but  the  cateii)illar  feeds  on  plants  aud 
the  foliage  of  fruit  and  other  trees, but  never 
0(!curs  in  suflicient  uumbera  to  hurt  them. 

Frof.  r.  K.  li.,  MilUrsvitlc,  Pa.— The  il- 
lustration of  the  large  gray  insect,  with  the 
long,  horn-shaped  mnndibUs  projecting  out  in 
front,  and  the  long,  many-jointed  ((ntenniE,  is 
what  is,  rather  profanely,  called  a  "Hellgra- 
mite,"  (dori/dalis  cormitnn)  or  the  "Horned 
Corydalis."  The  larvae  lives  in  the  water, 
and  in  our  boyhood  we  called  it  the  "Black 
Alligator,"  from  its  shape  and  formidible 
jaws.  It  lives  in  the  water  a  whole  year,  and 
feeds  upon  any  small  animals  it  may  be  able  to 
capture  there.  In  May  or  June,  it  comes  out  and 
changes  into  a  clay-yellow  piqm,  in  a  carity 
which  it  forms  in  the  sand  near  the  stream, 
and  in  due  time  the  mature  insect  evolves. 

Mr.  D.  S.,  Lancaster,  Pa.— Your  small 
chestnut-brown  beetles,  which  you  say  infest 
your  grape  vines  in  great  numbers,  cutting 
the  leaves,  and  even  the  tender  branches  inta 
mere  shreds,  are  the  "Grape  Vine  Fidia," 
[Fidia  viticida,)  which  have  long  been  so  de- 
structive to  the  Concord  and  Morton  vines  of 
the  Western  States.  Little  seems  to  be  known 
about  their  larval  development,  but  it  is  the 
mature  beetle  which  is  the  pest  of  the  vines. 
I  have  noticed  them  these  twenty  years  past, 
but  never  knew  them  to  be  as  numerous  as 
you  appear  to  have  them.  Their  habit  of 
falling  to  the  ground  and  "  acting  possum," 
suggested  to  Mr.  Peschell,  of  Hermann,  Mo., 
to  train  a  large  brood  of  chickens  to  feed  on 
them,  and  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  start  them 
in  the  vineyard,  with  a  boy  in  advance,  to 
shake  the  vines,  and  he  himself  to  drive  up 
the  straglers,  and  they  would  pick  up  evei7 
insect,  and  in  this  way  he  kept  his  vineyard 
clean  and  saved  his  crop.  There  is  little  use 
in  attempting  to  apply  a  dust  of  any  kind,  or 
a  liquid  to  the  foilage,  for  they  fly  very  readily 
to  other  places. 

Prof.  B.  F.  S.,  Lancastei  Pa.— The  chrys- 
alis which  you  left  in  our  custody,  is  that  of 
a  species  of  Orupta,  and  so  far  as  we  are  able 
to  determine  from  a  chrysalis  alone,  it  is  G. 
inlerogationus,  one  of  the  "Hop-flies,"  or  "Hop 
Caterjiillars,"  a  Diurnal  Lepidopter,  and  will 
develop  a  brown  butterfly,  with  notched  wings, 
and  a  metallic  interrogation  mark  on  the  under 
side  of  the  posterior  wings.  When  it  occurs 
numerous,  it  deseroys  the  hop  vines. 

Mr.  I.  M.  TF.,  Lancast(r,  Pa.— The  gall- 
infested  Hazel  leaves,  and  also  those  left  with 
US  some  days  earlier  in  the  season  by  Mr.  W., 
of  the  Lan'disville  Junction,  on  the  Columbia 
and  Reading  Railroad,  are  the  effects  of  a 
species  of  PhjiUoxera,  and  is  allied  to  the  great 
pest  which  has  been  so  destructive  to  the  grape 
vines  of  France.  There  are  now  about  twenty 
species  of  Phylhixera  described,  natives  of 
this  country,  infesting  the  grape,  hickory, 
oak,  hazel,  sumac,  and  .various  other  trees 
and  shrubs,  but  we  could  not  make  out  the 
species — the  galls  were  dry  and  compressed. 

Mr.  L.  P.,  Christiana,  Pa.— The  large, 
smooth  chestnut-brown  beetles,  with  formida- 
ble jaws,  to  which  you  allude,  are  a  species  of 
"Capricorn  beetle"  (Ltvamii  danui).  The  larvse 
liveindecayed  wood  of  various  kinds.  Wehave 
frequently  found  them  in  the  decayed  heart  of 
old  cherry  trees.  Look  out  for  the  "  American 
Stag-beetle,"  (Lucanus  ekphas).  AV'e  have 
never  yet  taken  one,  but  we  have  been  infoim- 
ed  that  they  have  been  seen  in  this  county. 


102 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[July, 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
CROPS  IN  NORTH  CAROLINA. 

Wheat  and  oats  have  beeu  reaped,  both  of 
which  have  turned  out  well.  Some  farmers 
have  threshed  out  their  wheat,  and  new  flour 
is  already  in  this  market.  The  corn  is  very 
promising,  but  early  Irish  potatoes  will  not 
yield  a  full  crop  owing  ^  dry  weather  in  the 
early  part  of  the  growing  season.  Cotton  and 
tobacco  both  look  well,  but  the  "stand"  is 
not  so  good  as  might  be  desired  by  sanguine 
growers.  It  may  Ije  best,  for  this  section  at 
least,  that  those  crops  should  not  turn  out  so 
well.  Less  tobacco  and  cotton,  and  more 
bread  and  meat  is  what  is  wanted  most  here, 
for  the  good  of  the  public  generally.  Garden 
vegetables  of  all  kinds  planted  here,  are  doing 
finely.  I  have  never  seen  apple,  pear,  peach, 
prune,  plum  and  other  fruit  trees,  and  grape 
vines,  so  lieavily  laden  with  fruit,  and  so 
promising  at  this  season  of  the  year  as  they 
are  now,  and  if  nothing  happens  to  destroy  it, 
we  will  be  blest  with  an  abundant  fruit  year. 
Cultivated  strawberries  at  25  cents  a  full  quart, 
and  the  old  field  (in  common  parlance)  variety, 
in  some  countries  called  tvild,  at  10  cents  per 
quart ;  and  are  better  to  the  taste  than  the 
best  cultivated  kinds — at  least  to  cmr  taste — 
we  have  ever  eaten  in  any  country. 

Cherries,  from  the  great  quantity  brought 
to  this  market,  we  judge  are  very  plentiful, 
and  are  selling  at  from  5  cents  down  to  2^  per 
quart.  Dew  and  blackberries,  growing  wild, 
5  cents  per  quart.  I  saw  peaches  of  the 
present  season  in  market  here  on  the  28lh  of 
Juue,  flue  and  ripe,  and  apples  three  weeks 
ago.  Upon  the  whole,  all  things  bid  fair  in 
this  country,  and  we  expect  better  times,  and 
more  business  here,  after  the  crops  of  this 
season's  growth  are  gathered  and  marketed 
than  we  have  had  for  a  long  time.        M.  R. 

Salisbury,  N.  C,  Juue  i:7,  1ST7. 

[God  grant  that  you,  and  all  other  people 
and  communities,  may  realize  these  reasonable 
expectations,  for  such  a  consumatiou  is  much 
needed  to  remove  the  heavy  business  pall  that 
has  been  so  long  hanging  over  the  material 
interests  of  our  country.  If  being  at  peace 
with  all  mankind,  the  general  prevalence  of 
good  health  and  al)undant  crops  do  not  revive 
the  business  of  tlie  coimtry,  and  afford  bread 
and  employment  to  its  honest,idle  population, 
then  we  mu.st  be  most  desperately  wicked, 
and  need  a  further  chastisement.  Let  us 
hope  that  when  prosperity  again  returns,  we 
will  have  a  higher  appreciation  of  it  than  we 
ever  had  before,  and  turn  it  to  a  good  account.] 
^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
FROM  NEBRASKA. 

Ml!.  Editor:  This  prosperous  young  city  of 
about  four  thousand  inhabitants  is  the  capitol 
of  Dodge  county,  and  located  on  the  Union 
Pacific  Railroad,  forty-six  miles  west  of 
Omaha,  at  the  junction  of  the  Sioirx  City  and 
Pacific,  and  the  Freemont,  Elkhorn  and  Mis- 
souri Valley  Railroads,  at  the  junction  of  the 
Piatt  and  Elkhorn  valleys,  which  here  are 
about  ten  miles  wide. 

Freemont  has  a  $25,000  public  school  house, 
two  daily  and  two  weekly  newspapers,  and  in 
the  county  sixty  school  houses  and  about 
thirty  churches,  and  five  mills  ruiming  twenty- 
four  burrs.  Last  year  there  were  about  three 
thousand  car-loads  of  grain  shipped  from 
Freemont,  nearly  two  thousand  of  which  was 
over  the  Union  Pacific,  and  about  eiglit  hun- 
dred of  this  went  west.  Only  76  deaths  in 
the  county  last  year,  including  children  and 
invalids  who  came  here  sick. 

In  the  county  are  67  miles  of  railroad.  Two 
large  rivers,  the  Platte  and  the  Elkhorn,  flow 
entirely  across  the  county,  besides  a  great 
number  of  smaller  streams  tributary  to  these, 
some  idea  of  the  number  of  which  may  be  in- 
ferred from  tlie  fact  that  in  tlie  county  are 
39  bridges,  aggregating  9,563  feet  in  length. 

This  region  is  thebest  watered  and  timbered 
in  the  State,  and  Dodge  county  has  the  largest 
area  of  rich  valley  farming  lands  of  any  in 
the  United  States.  Tlie  soil  is  the  richest 
and  deepest  the  writer  has  ever  seen.  The 
present  crop  pro-spects  are  excellent,   and   no 


grasshoppers.  The  prices  of  land  near  the 
railroad  here  range  from  three  to  eight  dol- 
lars per  acre.  The  Union  Pacific  is  selling 
rich  bottom  land  here  at  about  six  dollars  per 
acre  on  long  credit,  and  only  six  per  cent,  in- 
terest, thus  affording  the  best  opportunity  for 
a  man  to  secure  a  good  fann  near  the  beauti- 
ful and  growing  great  railroad  centre,  city  of 
Omaha,  and  on  the  longest  and  best  managed 
railroad  in  the  world,  and  which,  with  the 
Central  Pacific  and  their  connections, form  the 
great  highway  around  the  world,  within  the 
belt  of  population,  wealth,  and  Christian  civi- 
lization which  encircles  the  earth  between  the 
39th  and  44th  parallels  of  north  latitude. 
Nebraska  is  the  most  western  agricultural 
State,  and  nearest  inexhaustible  mining  and 
gi-azing  regions,  botli  non-producing  as  re- 
gards food  supplies,  insuring  a  ready  market 
and  good  prices  for  all  farm,  garden  and  or- 
chard products. — Examiner. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
ABIES— SPRUCE   FIR. 

The  valuable  work  on  Book  of  Evergreens, 
by  Mr.  .Josiah  Iloopes,  is  one  that  was  much 
in  demand  and  supplies  great  dissederatum  to 
the  student  of  the  coniferie. 

In  his  excellent  description  of  the  Abies 
Nordmannia,  so  named  by  Link  in  memory  of 
the  first  discoverer  of  this  desirable  Fir,  Prof. 
Nordmann,  who  found  it  growing  on  the  Ad- 
shar  Mountains,  at  an  elevation  of  6,000  feet, 
from  80  to  100  feet  in  heighth,  with  a  straight 
stem.  It  is  quite  abundant  on  tlie  Crimean 
Mountains,  and  those  east  of  the  Black  Sea; 
also  in  various  other  localities. 

Mr.  Iloopes  describes  it  on  page  205,  and 
says,  "  Our  experience  with  this  species  has 
beeu  so  very  satisfactory  that  we  wish  it  were 
known.  The  most  severe  winters  have  never 
afliected  in  the  least,  and  it  appears  always  to 
retain  the  beautiful  green  color  of  its  foliage 
in  all  seasons  and  through  all  viscissitudes. 
It  is  quite  vigorous  in  growth,  beautiful  in 
verdure,  regular  and  graceful  in  form,  of  large 
size  and  perfectly  hardy  in  this  latitude."  He 
also  says,  that  the  "leaves  are  1  inch  long, 
linear,  flat,  incurved,  dark  green  above,  and 
glaucous  below,"  ttc;  but  he  fails  to  inform 
his  readers  of  the  very  curious  feature  of  the 
leaves  to  attract  the  attention  of  a  close  ob- 
server, and  one  tliat  induces  inquiry  as  to  the 
cause  of  it.  Early  in  the  morning  and  fore- 
noon the  foliage  is  uniformly  of  a  whiteish 
color,  as  also  toward  evening  or  about  sunset, 
while  during  the  middle  of  the  day  they  are  of 
a  uniform  green  color.  This  arises  from  a 
periodic  movement  in  the  position  of  the 
leaves.  In  the  day  time  the  leaves  are  spread 
out  upon  the  branches  and  present  their  up- 
per surface  which  is  green,  but  towards  the 
evening,  or  sunset,  they  begin  to  erect  them- 
selves, until  the  under  or  whiteish  side  of  the 
leaves  are  presented  to  the  eye,  often  becom- 
ing nearly  perpendicular  during  the  night 
season,  travering  an  angle  of  OO'-".  Tlius  there 
is  a  diurnal  and  nocturnal  position  of  the  foli- 
age, which  accounts  for  this  change  of  appear- 
ance, and  is  an  interesting  fact  that  should 
not  be  omitted.  J.  S. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 

LARGE  FARMS  AND  SMALL  FARMS— 
THEIR  ADVANTAGES  AND  DIS- 
ADVANTAGES. 

In  regard  to  the  size  of  farms  we  find  two 
seta  of  champions — the  one  set  advocate  large 
farms,  the  other  small  farms.  Sucli  a  thing 
as  a  farm  of  medium  size  has  no  existence 
with  them — it  is  sometimes  claimed  by  one, 
sometimes  by  the  other  set.  Each  set  sees 
and  trots  out  the  advantages,  the  disadvan- 
tages being  kept  in  the  background,  or  alto- 
gether out  of  sight. 

Locality  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the 
term  "  large"  and  "  small"  as  applied  to  tracts 
of  land.  A  large  farm  in  the  eastern  States  is 
a  small  farm  in  the  western  States  or  Cali- 
fornia, and  what  would  be  called  a  small  fiirm 
in  New  England  is  only  a  lot  in  Iowa  or 
Nebraska.    For  our  purpose  we  will  consider 


a  large  farm  to  contain  two  hundred  acres  or 
more,  of  land  in  cultivation. 

But  it  is  the  advantages  and  the  disadvan- 
tages tliat  we  wish  to  consider,  in  what  they 
consist,  and,  if  possible,  to  find  a  way  to 
remedy  the  disadvantages. 

We  will  consider  small  farms  as  first  in 
order. 

Their  advantages  are :  they  make  close 
neighbors  ;  close  neighbors  bring  stores,  mills, 
schools,  post-oflices,  churches  and  other  conve- 
niences near  each  man's  door  ;  they  make  a 
more  educated  community,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence create  a  better  and  a  pleasanter  social 
life;  roads  are  better  graded,  and  kept  in  better 
condition  ;  fences,  houses,  barns  and  other 
buildings  are  kept  in  neater  order  and  better 
repair. 

The  above  and  many  more  are  the  advan- 
tages, claimed  and  real,  and  besides  it  is 
claimed  that  small  farms  are  better  tilled,  and 
thus  more  productive  than  larger  ones,  but 
here  we  come  to  the  very  disadvantages  them- 
selves. 

The  disadvantages  are:  the  cost  of  a  dwell- 
ing house  is  as  much  for  the  small  farm  as  for 
the  large  one,  and  in  other  buildings  and 
fences  the  cost  is  proportionally  higher  ;  also 
on  a  small  farm  many  of  the  operations  are 
carried  on  by  mere  jihysical  labor,  because  it 
will  not  pay  to  purchase  all  tlie  implements 
and  machines  by  which  so  much  of  the  labor  is 
saved — and  even  that  is  done  by  horses  ;  to 
buy  all  these  would  bring  the  profit  and  loss 
account  in  a  bad  shape,  as  the  interest,  and 
wear  and  tear  would  eat  all  the  profits. 

For  a  community  of  small  farmers  it  would 
sometimes  be  well  to  have  implements  and 
machines  In  common,  each  individual  paying 
his  share  of  the  cost,  and  be  entitled  to  the 
use  of  them  on  his  own  fiirm.  There  would 
necessarily  have  to  be  a  place  to  where  such 
implements  would  have  to  be  returned,  for  if 
this  would  not  be  done  it  would  be  sometimes 
very  annoying  to  hmit  them  up.  Where 
many  of  them  are  in  joint  ownership,  it  would 
be  the  better  plan  to  have  each  farmer  hold 
and  care  for  one  or  more  of  the  machines,  and 
when  not  in  use  always  have  them  at  that 
place. 

Some  of  the  objections  against  such  joint 
ownership  are,  that  two  of  the  farmers  might 
want  to  use  the  same  implement  at  the  same 
time,  and  that  many  persons  are  very  lax  in 
the  care  and  proper  usage  of  implements,  and 
this  would  be  a  source  of  great  annoyance  to 
their  more  orderly  neighbors  and  joint  owners. 
Grain  drills,  corn-planters,  mowers  (and  reap- 
ers combined,)  hay-tedders,  horse-powers, 
threshing  machines,  power  cutters,  and  such 
other  machines  that  do  a  great  deal  of  work 
in  a  short  time,  and  that  are  used  only  at  cer- 
tain seasons  of  the  year,  are  the  proper  ones 
for  joint  ownership. 

The  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  large 
farms  are  just  the  contraries  of  the  small 
farms  ;  and  in  addition  the  schools  are  gene- 
rally of  a  lower  order  and  not  graded. 

As  far  as  we  can  see,  the  only  important 
advantage  that  large  farms  have  over  small 
ones,  is  in  the  use  of  machinery.  Like  in 
manufactories,  labor  can  lie  more  economically 
directed  where  there  is  a  division  of  labor,  and 
special  machines  for  performing  such  labor. 

To  overcome  some  of  the  isolation  of  large 
farms,  agricultural  writers  have  commenced 
advocating  that  four  farms  should  be  located 
on  a  cross-road,  and  the  houses  and  buildings 
belonging  to  the  farms  be  built  at  this  cross- 
ing, so  that  four  houses  are  quite  close  neigh- 
bors. 

The  above  plan  is  only  practicable  in  the 
western  countiy,  where  counties,  townships 
and  sections,  are  laid  out  in  squares  like  a 
well-planned  city,  and  where  the  country  is 
comparatively  level.  In  hilly  sections  it 
would,  in  many  cases,  be  out  of  the  question 
to  build  in  this  manner,  as  the  buildings 
would  have  to  be  situated  in  accordance  with 
the  lay  of  the  ground. 

It  is  also  recommended  by  some  writers, 
that  in  the  unsettled  west,  former's  villages,  of 
a  dozen  or  more  farms,  might  be  started  ;  all 


i8?r.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


i03 


the  houses,  barns  and  other  buililiiigs,  gardens 
and  orchards,  to  be  close  to-^ether,  giving  each 
farmer  live  to  seven  acres,  or  more.  Tlie 
balance  of  the  land  is  ontside  of  tlie  village, 
and  by  proper  arrangement  and  location  the 
most  iistant  farm  need  not  be  more  than  a 
mile  from  tlie  buildings. 

This  is  done  in  .some  parts  of  Germany,  I 
believe,  but  there  the  villages  have  more  in- 
habitants Ihan  these  American  villages  woulil 
have,  for  the  rea.son  that  the  farms  are  there 
ninch  smaller  than  in  this  country,  and  the 
peasants  often  have  a  couple  miles  to  their 
farms.  Of  course,  in  these  (Jerman  villages  the 
lots  belonging  to  the  houses  are  quite  small, 
too  small  to  suit  the  taste  and  wants  of  the 
average  American  farmer. 

Whether  this  style  of  farming  will  suit 
Americans,  remains  to  be  seen,  as  there  are 
disadvantages  connected  with  it,  that  may, 
in  many  cases,  seem  to  over-balance  the  ad- 
vantages and  conveniences. 

A  few  of  these  villages  have  been  started  in 
late  years,  the  most  noted  of  which  is  Greely; 
but  it  needs  further  experiment  to  determine 
the  ultimate  success.  Greely  is  very  much 
praised,  and  is  a  very  desirable  and  agreeable 
place  to  live,  if  we  may  believe  the  letters  that 
are  published  in  the  papers  from  time  to  time. 

There  is  also  such  a  village  in  some  part  of 
New  England,  (l)eerfleld,  t't.,  I  believe),  that 
has  existed  from  the  earliest  time,  it  being 
built  in  this  manner  as  a  protection  against  the 
raids  of  the  Indian.s.  1  liave  never  heard  how 
successful  it  is,  but  suppose  that  its  advan- 
tages are  considered  to  over-balance  the  dis- 
advantages, or  it  would  have  long  ago  passed 
out  of  existence. 

The  question  of  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  lai'ge  farms  and  small  farms,  is 
one  of  those  perplexing  (juestions  that  can 
never  be  really  settled,  and  so  to  the  end,  we 
will  have  advocates  for  farms  ranging  in  size 
from  four  acres  up  to  four  lumdred  or  more, 
locality  to  some  degree  determining  the  size. 

A.  B.  K. 


For  The  Lancarter  Farmer. 
PRACTICAL     CONTRIBUTIONS    FROM 
LEOLINE. 

Egg  Plants. — I  have  just  read  in  the  June 
number  of  the  Farmer  about  this  i)lant,  and 
the  use  of  Paris  green.  I  can  safely  say,  use 
Paris  green,  for  1  saved  my  egg  plants  last 
year  by  the  use  of  it,  and  I  used  the  eggs, 
but  always  pared  them,  and  they  done  us  no 
harm;  and  I  also  used  it  on  my  cucumber 
plants  to  keep  the  striped  bug  off,  and  on 
squashes  too. 

Locusts — Mr.  Editor:  You  have  turned 
things  upside  down  about  the  locusts;  it  is 
neither  W  nor  V;  it  is  M,  or  more  this  style 
111.  .  That  is  meaning  Moses,  and  if  you  live 
to  see  eight  years  more,  please  take  notice  if 
it  is  not  so.  Tlie  seventeen  year  locusts  gen- 
erally come  up  along  woods,  and  when  that 
is  cut  down,  they  will  only  come  up  there  at 
■  that  place  once  after  that.  Nine  years  ago 
they  were  up  in  this  place,  and  could  have 
been  gathered  by  the  bushel. 

Soups.— "Noodle  Soup."  Take  3  eggs,  3 
egg  shells  full  of  water,  and  work  enough  of 
flour  in  to  make  it  stiff  to  roll  on  a  board ; 
roll  it  as  thin  as  you  can  without  lireaking  ; 
lay  it  on  a  cloth  to  dry.  Now  put  over  the 
fire  a  good  fat  piece  of  beef,  or  a  fat  pullet  is 
just  as  good,  but  it  must  be  fat;  put  it  in  cold 
water  if  you  want  your  soup  to  be  good,  with 
salt  to  taste;  add  a  small  quantity  of  .saffron, 
parsley,  celery,  winter  savoy,  or  sage,  if  jiala- 
table,  and  boil  until  it  is  tender.  When  your 
"noodles"  are  dry,  which  will  be  in  about  one 
and  a-half  hours,  take  and  roll  them  together, 
cut  in  thin  slips,  put  them  in  and  boil  15  min- 
utes longer.  Serve  with  pepper  sprinkled  over 
the  top.     Enough  for  a  family  of  six. 

Milk  or  Pellet  Soup.— Put  over  the  fire 
a  piece  of  fat  beef  and  boil  till  tender  ;  put 
in  salt  just  enough  to  take  away  the  raw  taste; 
boil  down  to  one-half  the  original  quantity  of 
water.  Have  ready  the  same  (piantity  of  new 
milk  (boiling  hot,)  and  pour  it  into  the  water. 
You  must  take  care  that  it  does  not  run  over. 


Now  take  two  eggs  (if  you  have  enough  to 
make  four  or  live  quarts  of  soup)  break  them 
into  some  Hour,  and  rub  it  in  enough  to  make 
it  in  small  balls,  or  rivel  to  .seiiarate  it ;  drop 
it  sparingly  into  your  soup  kettle,  stirring  it 
all  the  time,  till  it  is  all  in,  and  boil  five  or 
ten  minutes  longer.  It  is  best  to  stir  till  done 
to  prevent  burning.     Serve. 

Cahbaoe  Soup. — Put  in  cold  water  a  good 
piece  of  beef,  let  boil  half  an  hour  ;  take  a  nice 
liead  of  cabliage  and  wash  clean,  shred  it  up, 
put  it  in  with  the  meat,  sift  two  tablespoon- 
fuls  of  (lour  in,  add  very  little  saffron,  and 
salt  to  taste  ;  boil  until  the  beef  is  tender. 
Add  one  pint  of  rich  new  milk,  stir  it  a  few 
moments  and  it  is  doiu'.     Serve  with  pepper. 

Invalid  Suiip. — Put  over  the  fire  two 
<iuarts  of  new  milk,  let  it  come  to  a  boil  ;  in 
the  meantime,  toast  some  bread,  nice  and 
brown,  break  it  up  into  small  pieces,  put  it 
into  a  tureen  and  put  in  a  little  salt  ;  grate 
over  it  a  little  nutmeg  and  add  a  small  piece 
of  butter;  pour  your  milk  boiling  hot  over  it 
and  cover ;  let  itstiuid  ten  minutes, and  serve 
either  with  more  salt  or  with  sugar,  as  pre- 
ferred. 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
THE  HORSE. 
The  horse  is  not  only  the  most  noble  and 
elegant,  but  he  is  al.so  the  most  useful  sub- 
ject of  the  animal  kingdom.  lie  appears  to 
have  been  specially  created  to  assist  the  hu- 
man family  in  their  labors,  their  recreations, 
and  their  pleasures,  and  therefore  ought  to 
be  treated  by  man  as  a  superior  among  quad- 
rupeds— as  a  gift  from  Providence,  to  accom- 
pany him  in  his  various  industrial  and  social 
occupations.  The  original  locality  of  the  hor.se 
is  in  dispute,  if  it  is  not  almost  entirely  un- 
known. Both  Egypt  and  Arabia  claim  the 
lirst  notice  of  this  noble  animal,  but  the  pre- 
ponderance of  i)rofane  testimony  seems  to  be  in 
favor  of  Egypt,  but  doubtless  much  might  be 
said  on  either  side.  Even  in  the  sacred  writ- 
ings, when  describing  the  earliest  stages  of 
the  world's  progress,  we  find  the  horse  is  in 
extensive  use  in  Egypt.  In  comjiaratively 
modern  times,  when  Mahomet  attacked  the 
Koreish  tribes,  we  find  not  a  single  horse  in 
the  entire  camp — showing  how  scarce  at  so 
late  a  period,  horses  were,  even  in  Arabia, 
and  how  plentiful  in  Egypt.  But  Arabia  be- 
came long  afterwards  the  greatest  place  for 
tleet  and  beautiful  horses  in  the  world. 
Horses  at  a  very  early  period  were  discovered 
grazing  wild  on  the  banks  of  the  Danube. 
When  emigration  lk>wed  into  Europe,  i\w. 
hor.se,  like  the  dog,  accompanied  man,  un- 
civilized as  wellascivilized,  and  was  therefore 
found  in  most  congenial  climates.  The 
first  mention  we  have  of  horses  in  Great  Brit- 
ain, dates  from  the  Koman  invasion  of  Eng- 
land,-under  the  command  of  .Julius  Ciesar; 
and  are  mentioned  by  him  as  a  noble  local 
race  of  animals,  and  he  also  speaks  of  their 
skillful  management  by  this  uncivilized  race 
of  people. 

The  horse  is  found  wild  in  Mexico  and 
South  America.  It  is  not  positively  known 
whether  they  are  indigenous  to  those  coun- 
tries, or  whether  they  were  imported  into 
them  by  the  Spaniards,  and  became  wild  in 
the  course  of  time.  The  fact  that  Prof.  Cope 
and  other  explorers  have  found  the  organi(^ 
remains  of  half  a  <lozen  distinct  sjiecies  of 
horse,  buried  at  dillerent  depths  in  the  allu- 
vial soil  of  our  western  Slates,  throws  some 
doubts  upon  the  theory  that  they  were  intro- 
duced by  Columbus  and  other  foreign  explor- 
ers, and  that  they  did  not  originally  exist  here 
as  well  as  in  Asia  and  Europe. 

The  horse  is  used  in  difi'erent  ways  aud  for 
ditt'erent  i)urposcs,  in  ditl'erent  countries  aud 
in  different  climates.  In  mountainous  coun- 
tries ha  is  mainly  u.sed  as  a  beast  of  burden, 
and  heavy  cargoes  arc  carried  on  his  back 
over  the  steepest  and  most  dangerous  moun- 
tain passes.  In  Tartary,  Afglianistan  aud 
Arabia,  on  account  of  his  lleetness,  he  is  used 
for  war  purposes,  and  in  roaming  from  jdace 
to  place.  In  Europe  and  the  United  States 
mainly   for  agricultural   purposes — in    culti- 


vating the  soil,  and  as  a  draught  animal, 
in  transporting  iimduce  to  market,  and  a 
means  of  conveyance  for  business,  for  [ileasure 
and  for  profit.  Pifty  years  ago  our  "Cones- 
toga  horses"  were  in  extensive  use  in  convey- 
ing goods  from  Philadelphia  to  Pittsburg. 
Then  it  was  necessary  to  raise  the  heaviest 
and  strongest  horses,  but  that  trade  has  long 
since  been  superceded  by  canal,  railroad  and 
steamboat  navigation.  It  was  also  necessary 
to  raise  .some  of  the  lleete.st  varieties  of  horses 
for  stage  and  coach  draught  in  conveying  U. 
S.  mails  and  travelers  from  one  State,  or 
place  to  another,  or  for  courier  despatches,  in 
the  absence  of  telegraphs  or  other  means  of 
conveyance,  as  at  the  seat  of  the  present  war 
between  Russia  and  Turkey.  They  have  very 
few  railroads  in  that  c(umtry,  hence  we  read 
a  good  deal  about  "lleuter  despatches," 
meaning  rider  diKpuiches — news  brought  by 
couriers  or  horsemen.  How  cruel  the  noble 
hor.so  is  often  treated,  even  in  our  Christian 
-Vmerica.  Among  the  unchristianized  Ara- 
bians the  horse  is  difTerently  appreciated,  and 
a  higher  value  is  accorded  to  him  than  else- 
where, and  the  hor.se  and  his  master  often  ex- 
ist under  the  same  i)rotecting  shelter  that 
jirotects  the  whole  Arabian  family;  and  they 
are  so  well  trained  that  they  lie  down  at  com- 
mand and  permit  the  children  to  crawl  over 
them  or  imder  them  without  being  hurt. 
They  esteem  the  mares  much  higher  than 
they  do  the  hor.ses.  The  Mexicans  arc  the 
reverse  of  this.  They  never  catch  wild  mares 
at  all,  and  consider  it  a  disgrace  to  ride  on  a 
mare,  but  esteem  the  horses  very  highly.  We 
Americans,  send  missionaries  to  Asia  and  to 
Mexico,  yet  we  might  learn  from  tho.se  nations 
how  to  treat  horses.  Horses  are  sometimes 
treated  very  cruelly  in  our  country  in  various 
ways.  Oficni  they  are  overburdened  and 
made  to  draw  enormous  loads  under  the  cruel 
goadings  of  the  merciless  whip,  with  galled 
wounds  under  their  collars,  and  often  without 
enough  to  eat.  They  are  hitched  under  the 
hot  sun  for  hours,  and  this  too,  very  often 
by  pious  wor.shippers  at  the  Sunday  meeting 
house,  with  no  shcilding  nor  shade-trees  out- 
side of,  or  surrounding  their  holy  temples. 
Since  then  the  horse,  in  intelligence  and  gen- 
eral usefulness  is  almost  next  to  man,  he 
should  be  treated  as  becomes  the  hunuuiityof 
man  to  man.  As  to  what  kind  of  horses  we 
ought  to  raise  at  the  present  time  there  need 
be  no  very  serious  question.  Since  the  intro- 
duction of  the  steamlioat,  the  locomotive  and 
the  telegraph,  there  apiiears  to  be  no  particu- 
lar necessity  for  "fast"  horses. 

AVherever  there  is  a  telegraphic  communi- 
cation, and  men  in  one  locality,  in  the  lap.se 
of  a  few  minutes,  can  talk  with  those 
in  Philadeliihia  or  New  York,  or  in  thirty 
minutes,  with  those  in  California,  or  almost 
over  the  whole  country,  there  seems  to  be 
little  use  for  fast  horses,  and  therefore  we 
seem  to  have  arrived  at  that  moral,  domestic, 
and  economic  period  in  our  social  history, 
when  we  should  make  it  a  leading  point  to 
lireed  and  raise  middle-sized  horses  ;  very 
gentle,  yet  willing  and  strong.  The  Norman 
W(3uld  lie  about  the  proper  horse  for  the  pres- 
ent period.  As  we  have  a  great  many  one 
and  two  horse  farms  in  our  county,  and  nearly 
all  one  and  two  horse  wagons  are  now  being 
built  instead  of  the  great  Conestoga  wagons 
of  former  times,  a  different  ad:iptation  of 
means  to  ends  seems  to  be  necessitry.  Fast 
horses,  in  their  proper  jilaces,  and  for  jnoper 
uses,  jierbaps,  will  be  more  or  less  necessary 
for  some  time  yet  to  ccmie,  and  we  might  be 
"conteiitto  wait  contentedly  "  until  that  time 
arrives,  were  it  not  for  the  pregnant  fact  that 
thert/jKi-eof  the  possession  of  "fast  horses," 
so  often  makes  "fast  men."  The  American 
peoi>le,  in  many  ways  and  for  many  objects, 
are  becoming  a  fast  people ;  and  young 
America,  in  particular,  should  not  be  wilfully 
led  into  temptation,  or  encouraged  in  evil 
habits.  Therefore,  the  whole  conclusion  hath 
this  extent  and  no  more,  that  the  special  busi- 
ness of  raising  fast  horses,  in  the  face  of  tele- 
graphic, railroad  and  steamboat  intercourse 
ijetween  men  and  places,  is  not  only  a  useless 


104 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  July, 


business,  but  it  is  also  demoralizing  in  many, 
many  cases,  and,  except  in  very  rare  instances, 
and  for  very  essential  uses,  ought  to  be  aban- 
doned, as  injurious  to  the  interest  of  progi-es- 
sive  agriculture. — L.  S.  R.,  July  1,  1877. 


THOROUGHBRED  SOUTHDOWNS.* 

•Soutlidowns  are  acknowledged  the  general 
favorites  for  wool  and  mutton.  They  produce 
the  very  best  mutton.  We  do  not  deem  it 
necessary  to  dwell  on  this  point,  as  Southdown 
mutton  is  everywhere  famous  tiie  world  over. 
Butchers  pay  higher  prices  for  pure  and 
graded  Southdown  lambs  than  for  any  others. 
In  England  they  always  bring  a  ]ienny  a  pound 
more  than  any  otlier  lambs.  Consequently, 
blackfaced  Southdown  lambs  always  sell  well. 
In  the  Southdowns  we  have  large  hams  and 
shoulders,  a  prominent  development  of  all  the 
valued  parts,  and  the  absence  of  horns,  long 
necks  and  large  heads.  Thus  all  waste  parts 
are  small.  A  Southdown  will  dress  more  real 
solid  flesh  than  any  common  sheep.  At  eight 
months'  old  they  will  dress  from  7.5  to  100 
pounds,  and  they  can  be  brought  into  market 
at  any  age,  from  that  named  to  four  years. 
They  will  attain  a  weight  of  17.5  to  200  pounds  \ 
at  two  years'  old,  and  fatten  readily  at  any 
age.  They  will  shear  from  8  to  12  pounds  of 
superior  wool  annually.  Farmers  wh.o  keep 
sheep  for  mutton  and  wool  will  find  that 
Southdowns  "fill  the  bill." 

A  Southdown  ram  will  make  a  wonderful 
improvement  in  any  flock  of  sheep,  and  will 
enhance,  veiy  much,  the  value  of  the  off- 
spring. Wide-awake  farmers  cannot  aftbrd 
to  neglect  this  important  addition  to  their 
.stock  at  so  small  a  cost.  Southdowns  have 
brown  faces  and  legs,  haunch  well  down, 
small  head,  neck  short  and  well  set  on,  *= 
forequarters  broad  and  deep,  back  and  loins 
broad  and  straight,  chest  broad  and  ribs 
well  arched,  limb.s  short  in  proportion  to 
size  of  body,  bone  fine,  face  and  forehead 
covered  with  short  hair,  woo!  thick  and 
soft,  coming  close  to  the  face,  ears  thin 
and  eyes  bright.  They  are  docile  and 
thrive  well. 


writing  for  ten.  A  higher  rate  works  a  for- 
feiture of  ten  per  cent. 

Kansas — Seven  per  cent.  Parties  may 
agree  for  twelve.     Usury  forfeits  the  excesa 

Kentucky — Six  per  cent.,  but  contracts  may 
be  made  in  writing  for  ten.  Usury  forfeits 
the  whole  interest  charged. 

Maine — Six  per  cent.  Parties  may  agree 
in  writing  for  any  rate. 

Maryland — Six  per  cent.  Usurious  con- 
tracts cannot  be  enforced  for  the  excess  above 
the  legal  rate. 

Massachusetts — Six  per  cent.,  but  parties 
may  agree  for  any  rate  in  writing. 

Michigan — Seven  per  cent..  Parties  may 
contract  for  any  rate  not  exceeding  ten. 

Minnesota — Seven  per  cent.  Parties  may 
contract  in  writing  to  pay  as  high  as  twelve; 
but  contract  for  higher  rate  is  void,  as  to  ex- 
cess. 

Missoiui — Six  per  cent.  Contract  in  writ- 
ing may  be  made  for  ten.  The  penalty 
for  usury  is  forfeiture  of  the  interest  at  ten 
per  cent. 

Nebraska — Ten  per  cent.,  or  any  rate  on 
express  contract  not  greater  than  twelve. 
Usiu-y  prohibits  the  recovery  of  any  interest 
on  the  principal. 

New  Plampshire — Six  per  cent.  A  higher 
rate  forfeits  three  times  the  excess  to  the  per- 
son aggrieved  suing  therefor. 

New  .Jersey — Seven  per  cent.  Usury  for- 
feits all  interest  and  costs. 

New  York — Seven  per  cent.    Usury  is  a 


Wisconsin— Seven  per  cent.  Parties  may 
contract  in  writing  for  ten.  No  interest  can 
be  computed  on  interest.  Usury  forfeits  all  the 
interest  paid. 

Wyoming  Territory— Twelve  per  cent. ;  but 
any  rate  may  be  agreed  upon  in  writing. 

Dominion  of  Canada— Six  .per  cent.;  but 
parties  may  agree  upon  any  rate. 

^ 

TOBACCO. 


LEGAL  RATES  OF  INTEREST. 

Maine,    Massachusetts,    Rhode    Island, 
Texas,  California  and  South  Carolina  have    ;\,  j  i 
abohshed  all  usury  laws,  and  give  the  people  ^iJ 
the  right  to  contract  for  money  as  fully  as 
for  food. 

The  legal  rate  of  interest  in  Alabama  is  s^ 
8  per  cent.  On  usurious  contracts  the  priii-  ^^ 
oipal  only  can  be  recovered. 

Arkansas— Eate  of  interest  six  per  cent., 
but  parties  may  contract  for  any  rate  not  ex- 
ceeding ten.  Usm-y  forfeits  both  interest  and 
principal. 

California— Ten  per  cent,  after  a  debt  be- 
comes due,  but  parties  may  agree  upon  any 
rate  of  interest  whatever,  simple  to  com- 
pound. 

Connecticut — Seven  per  cent.  Usury  for- 
feits interest  taken  in  excess  of  legal  rate. 

Colorado— Ten  per  cent,  on  money  loaned. 

Dakota— Seven  per  cent.  Parties  may  con- 
tract for  any  rate  not  exceeding  twelve. 
Usury  forfeits  all  the  interest  taken".     ■ 

Delaware— Six  per  cent.  Penalty  for  usury 
— forfeits  a  sum  equal  to  the  amount  lent. 

District  of  Columbia— Six  per  cent.      Par- 
•  ties  may  stipulate  in  writing  for  ten.      Usury 
forfeits  all  the  interest. 

Florida— Eight  per  cent.  Usury  laws  re- 
pealed.    Money  may  be  loaned  at  any  rate. 

Georgia— Seven  per  cent.  Parties  may 
contract  for  twelve.  A  hiaher  rate  than 
twelve  forfeits  interest  in  excess. 

nhnois— Six  per  cent.,  but  paities  may 
agree  in  writing  for  ten.  Penalty  for  usury- 
forfeits  the  entire  interest. 

Indiana— Six  per  cent.  Parties  may  agree 
in  writing  for  any  rate  not  exceeding  ten. 
Beyond  that  rate  is  illegal  as  to  excess  only. 

Iowa— Six  per  cent.     Parties  may  agree   in 


"Photographed  from  W.  Atlee  Burpee's  flock,  now  owned 
by  Eensou  Si  Burpee,  Philadelphia. 


THOROUGHBRED  SOUTHDOWNS. 

misdemeanor,  punishable  by  a  fine  of  one 
thousand  dollars  or  six  months'  imprisonment, 
or  both;  and  forfeits  the  principal,  even  in 
the  hands  of  third  i)arties. 

Ohio— Six  per  cent,  in  all  cases  where  there 
is  no  contract.  Eight  per  cent,  on  written 
contract. 

Oregon— Ten  per  cent.  Parties  may  agi-ee 
in  writing  for  twelve. 

Pennsylvania— Six  per  cent.  Usurious  in- 
terest cannot  be  collected.  If  paid,  it  may  be 
recovered  by  suit  therefor  within  six  months. 

Rhode  Island— Six  per  cent.  Any  rate  may 
be  agreed  upon  in  writing. 

South  Carolina— Seven  per  cent.  Usury 
laws  are  abolished  and  parties  may  contract 
without  limit.  Contracts  must  be  made  in 
writing. 

Tennessee— Six  per  cent.  Parties  may  con- 
tract in  writing  for  any  rate  not  exceeding  ten 
per  cent. 

Texas— Eight  per  cent.  All  usury  laws 
abolished  by  the  new  constitution. 

Vermont— Six  per  cent.  Usury  forfeits  only 
the  excess. 

Utah  Tenitory — Ten  per  cent.  No  usury 
laws.    Any  rate  may  be  agreed  upon. 

Virginia— Six  per  cent.  Lenders  forfeit  all 
interest  in  case  of  usury. 

West  Virginia— Six  per  cent.  Excess  can- 
not be  recovered  if  usury  is  pleaded. 

Washington  Territory— Ten  per  cent.  Any 
rate  agreed  upon  in  writing  is  valid. 


A  New  Pest  for  Tobacco  Growers. 
The  tobacco  growers  in  this  section  have 
found  a  new  worm  at  the  plants  this  season, 
which  is  more  troublesome  than  the  cut-worm. 
It  is  a  little  over  half  an  incli  long,  of  a  brown- 
ish hue,  and  does  not  operate  like  the  cut- 
worm. It  commences  underground  just  at 
the  top  of  the  root,  and  bores  into  the  centre, 
and  then  eats  out  the  heart  of  the  stalk  until 
it  reaches  the  top  of  the  ground.  The  plant 
thus  hollowed  out  will  remain  green  for -a 
week  or  ten  days  before  it  begins  to  wilt,  but 
the  presence  of  the  worm  can  be  detected  by 
the  smallest  leaf  withering  before  it  has  long 
been  at  the  root.  The  plant  once  attacked 
by  this  animal  it  liecomes  worthless  and 
might  as  well  he  pulled  up.  Messrs.  John 
and  CalviirSultzbach,  who  have  three  acres 
in  tobacco  have  had  one-third  of  them  de- 
stroyed by  this  new  jjest.  It  was  supposed 
that  the  growers  had  as  much  to  contend  with 
hi  the  cut  worm  in  the  early  stages  of  its 
growth  as  they  could  handle,  but  this  wke- 
worm,  as  it  is  called,  promises  to  give  them 
a  good  deal  of  trouble. 

[The  foregoing  we  clip  from  the  MaritUa 
Times,  and  regret  that  the  description  of 
the  "new  pest"  is  so  very  indiflerent  and 
indefinite.  The  matter  is  important,  and 
specimens  ol  the  insect  should  be  sent  to  an 
entomologist.  It  would  be  some  satisfac- 
tion to  know  wiMt  the  bisect  is,  even  if  he 
had  no  remedy  against  its  destructions.] 

[In  contrast  with  the  above  the  tobacco 
growers  may  take  some  consolation  from 
the  following,  which  is  offered  for  all  it  is 
worth — nothing  more  and  nothing  less. 
If  it  does  not  instruct  it  may  amuse  :J 
Three  Thousand  Pounds  to  the  Acre. 
The  following  is  clipped  from  the  Hart- 
ford Courant :  The  early  writers  on  tobacco 
were  fond  of  extolling  the  rare  virtues,  re- 
markable qualities,  and  peculiar  kind  of 
soil  required  for  this  singular  plant.  Some 
writers  gave  curious  accounts  of  the  size 
of  the  weed,  and  in  Lobel's  "  History 
of  Plants,"  printed  at  Antwerp  (1576), 
is  a  cut  representing  the  weed  as  at- 
taii,i,5g  the  height  of  our  largest  trees, 
^^'hile  the  leaves  we  should  judge  might 
measure  at  least  ten  feet  in  length.  Dr.  Lie- 
bault  in  his  work  entitled  the  "Country 
Farm,"  (1600),  in  speaking  of  tobacco,  says 
that  it  "  craveth  a  fat  soil."  Physicians  wrote 
of  its  wonderful  curative  powers — that  it 
could  heal  the  sick,  was  a  certain  cure  for  the 
gout,  as  well  as  very  useful  in  colds  and 
fevers.  Others  still  asserted  that  its  use  im- 
proved one's  manners.  In  Edward  Sharp- 
ham's  comedy,  "  The  Fleire, "  (1515),  one  of 
the  characters  (who  is  a  fashionable  smoker,) 
says  to  another:  "Before  I  took  tobacco  I 
was  an  arrant  ass, '2  and  adds,  "Faith,  these 
gentlemen  have  not  long  used  my  company, 
yet  you  see  how  tobacco  hath  already  refined 
their  spirits. "  We  have  no  desire  to  enroll 
our  name  with  that  of  either  class  alluded  to. 
yet  the  honest  grower  of  the  plant  may  think 
so,  after  reading  the  title  of  this  article.  At 
first  thought  it  may  be  supposed  that  .3,000 
pounds  of  leaf  tobacco  can  not  be  grown  on  a 
single  acre  of  land,  hut  when  the  method 
adopted  is  fully  explained  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  by  even  the  most  incredulous.  Doubt- 
less some  at  least  who  read  this  article  have 
grown  2,300  pounds,  or  even  .3,500  pounds,  of 
tobacco  to  the  acre,  and  we  remember  to  have 
read  several  years  ago  of  a  tobacco  grower  in 
Massachusetts  who  raised-  2,600  pounds  of 
leaf  tobacco  on  a  single  acre  of  ground. 
These  amounts  are  usually  considered  very 
large,  and  when  it  is  afiinned  that  one  ton 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


105 


and  a  half  of  tobacco  ha.s  been  obtained  from 
a  single  acre,  many  will  regard  it  as  sim])ly  a 
bar-room  story,  or  wholly  a  myth. 
Tobacco  in  Berks. 

The  Berks  county  ujiricuUurists  are  waking 
up  to  tlic  importance  of  the  tobacco  crop.  At 
the  last  meeting  of  the  agrieiiltiual  society 
the  following  preamble  and  resolution  were 
passed  : 

Whereas,  The  culture  of  tobacco  has 
proved  highly  remunerative  and  is  extensively 
cultivated  in  the  adjacent  county  of  Laucas- 
ter,  and  witli  a  view  of  stimulating  the  farm- 
ersof  Berksto  commeiu'e  its  growth,  therefore 

Resulved,  That  the  Agricultural  and  Horti- 
cultural Society  of  Berks  county  offer  a  pre- 
mium of  fifty  dollars  for  the  Ijest  acre  of  to- 
bacco grown  in  this  county,  and  that  the 
president  appoint  a  connnitteeof  tliree  farmers 
who  shall  be  authorized  to  award  the  premium 
in  1878. 

CUTTING  AND   CURING  TOBACCO. 

The  United  States  Tobacco  Journal  makes 
the  following  statement  of  some  experiments 
which  have  been  made  in  some  of  the  tobacco 
producing  districts  of  Germany,  with  decided 
success.  At  the  time  llie  plant  is  ready  for 
cutting,  judgment  should  be  used  in  deter- 
mining the  body  and  texture  the  leaves  posses 
at  such  time.  If  the  leaf  should  Ije  of  a 
tlimsy,  weak  character;  the  whole  stock,  in- 
cluding the  root,  .should  be  extracted  and  nail- 
ed, or  hung  up  in  the  barns  with  the  tips  of 
the  leaves  hanging  downward.  This  will 
greatly  benefit  tJie  leaves,  as  the  sap  contained 
in  the  root  will  gradually  diffuse  itself  into 
the  leaves  and  add  considerable  to  their 
strength  and  tlie  coming  sweating  process. 
If  on  the  other- hand,  the  lea\es  should  be  of 
heavy  character,  then  onlv  the  leaves  should 
be  cut  off  and  lumg  up.  This  will  reduce  the 
surplus  of  sap,  deprive  the  leaf  of  any  accu- 
mulation of  strength,  turn  out  to  be  of  a 
thinner  and  more  desirable  textiu'e  after 
sweating. 

[Of  course,  our  experienced  tobacco  growers 
will  know  more  about  the  value  of  the  above 
than  wc  do,  and  we  only  quote  it  because 
"  In  the  multitude  of  counsel  there  is  safety."] 

^ 

CULTURE  OF  TOBACCO. 


A  few  Practical  Hints — Danger  of  Overdoing 
it — Shedding,  Sorting,  etc. 
This  is  a  subject  which  at  the  present  time 
seems  to  be  foremost  in  the  great  agricultural 
interests  of  our  county,  and  is  claiming  the 
attention  of  the  majority  of  our  farmers.  In 
fact,  with  us,  it  is  the  great  topic  of  conversa- 
tion, and  apparently  seems  to  be  the  golden 
dream  of  every  owner  of  land — from  the 
possessor  of  a  parcel  of  20x40  feet, to  the  large 
landholders.  Every  one  you  meet  talks  to- 
bacco ;  as  if  it  were  not  enough  to  chew  and 
smoke  it.  It  is  the  everlasting  theme  that 
greets  our  ears  from  morn  to  night,  and  on 
every  side.  And  as  a  consecpience  its  culture, 
&c.,  being  the  great  subject  of  the  day,  and 
items  of  news  being  scarce,  we  concluded  that 
perhaps  it  would  not  be  amiss  to  throw  out  a 
few  practical  hints  in  regard  to  its  culture, 
&c.,  formed  from  observation.  It  is  true 
there  are  "millions  in  it,"  but  tlie  (piestion 
has  arisen  in  our  mind  if  it  may  not  be  po.ssible 
that  it  may  be  overdone.  First,  may  not  the 
soil  finally  fail  to  produce,  and  may  not  the 
growers  in  their  anxiety  to*amass  wealth, 
overstock  the  market,  and  as  a  consequence 
reduce  the  price  or  value  of  it,  and  thereby 
realize  less  from  it  than  they  would  from  a 
com  or  wheat  crop.  As  a  general  thing 
growers  of  tobacco  use  every  particle  of  ma- 
nure and  fertilizer  that  becomes  available  on 
the  tobacco  ground,  entirely  neglecting  the 
manuring  of  tlie  wheat,  corn  and  potato  patch, 
and  as  a  consequence  short  crops  are  the  re- 
sult, and  instead  of,  as  in  the  days  of  yore, 
when  thirty-five  and  forty  bushels  of  w-heat 
were  harvested  from  the  acre,  the  average 
yield  has  fallen  to  fifteen  and  twenty-five 
bushels,  a  decrease  of  almost  one-half,  besides 
a  very  short  crop  of  straw  ;  and  such  is  the 


case  witli  all  other  crops.  The  question  need 
not  be  asked  why  this  is,  for  it  is  an  admitted 
fact  that  tobacco  al)sorb3  in  its  growth  from 
the  soil  certain  ingredients  or  properties  of 
the  same,  that  heavy  fertilizing  and  rest  of 
the  soil  will  alone  replace  again.  And  another 
point  which  we  desire  to  draw  attention  to,  is 
that  two  many  laud  owners  endeavor  to  grow 
more  themselves  tiian  they  are  able  to  man- 
age, and  as  a  consetpience  it  fails  to  get  that 
attention  necessary  to  secure  a  good  crop. 
We  have  frequently  observed  that  some  of  the 
land  owners  put  out  from  twenty  to  thirty  acres 
of  their  best  land,  and  entirely  robbing  the 
balance  of  the  farm  of  manure,  and  whilst 
endeavoring  to  fiirn\  more  than  they  can  prop- 
erly work  or  givc^  their  attention,  the  result 
follows,  that  where  they  have  one  acre  of 
gooil  tobacco,  they  have  live  of  an  inferior 
character  (and  all  other  crops  neglected  and 
short  according),  and  consequently  tlooding 
the  market  with  an  inferior  article.  We  hold 
that  no  one  man  can  properly  with  the  care 
and  attention  neces.sary,  manage  more  than 
two  acres,  and  then  only  by  giving  it  his  whole 
attention.  Besides,  as  a  general  tiling,  many 
of  those  growers  have  not  sufiicent  shedding, 
and  are  therefore  compelled  to  crowd  it  into 
too  small  a  sjiace.  To  cure  tobacco  properly 
it  should  have  sufiicent  room,  so  that  each 
stalk  may  hang  free  from  the  other  ;  other- 
wise we  will  have  wliat  is  commoidy  known 
among  thegrowcrsas  "mow-burnt"  tobacco, 
and  also  an  ununiforin color.  We  predict  that 
if  farmers  continue  to  presist  in  driving  their 
land  in  growing  cro]i  after  crop  so  extensively, 
without  sufficient  fertilizer  and  rest,  that 
their  land  will  finally  become  non-productive. 
Thei'e  should  by  all  means  be  a  less  area  of 
land  farmed,  and  tliat  should  be  placed  in 
charge  of  good  experienced  growers,  and  nt>t 
more  than  two  acres  to  any  one  man,  g,nd  I 
feel  justified  in  asserting  that  a  better  and 
more  merchantable  article  will  be  placed  in 
the  market,  and  as  a  conse(pience  a  better 
price  realized,  and  in  the  end  recompense  the 
owner  of  tlie  land  better  than  if  he  had 
double  the  number  of  acres,  besides  resting 
his  land.  We  have  known  right  in  our  own 
vicinity,  growers  to  realize  from  three  acres, 
which  were  well  managed  and  attended,  as 
much  as  some  growers  realized  from  ten  acres. 
The  reason  is  quite  simple  and  reasonable.  In 
the  first  place,  the  land  was  well  manured  ; 
secondly,  they  had  plenty  of  room  to  hon.se  it, 
without  crow'ding  ;  thirdly,  they  were  able  to 
give  it  all  the  attention  required — keeping  it 
free  of  worms,  &c.,  and,  lastly,  sorting  it 
properly.  In  the  last  particular  "many  fail  in 
putting  forth  a  good  merchantable  article.  It 
should  be  properly  sorted,  too  much  care  can 
not  be  given  in  this  direction.  Sound  and 
uniformed  colored  leaves  should  be  placed  by 
themselves — each  stalk  should  be  very  care- 
fully examined  when  being  stripped,  leaves 
should  also  be  of  a  uniform  length,  a  handful 
with  long  and  short  leaves  tied  together  make 
rather  an  unmerchantable  appearance,  and 
very  often  cause  a  poor  sale.  We  think  from 
what  little  experience  we  have  had,  that  many 
growers  also  fail  at  the  time  of  topping,  by 
waiting  until  the  seed-head  makes  its  appear- 
ance. This,  we  hold,  is  a  bad  practice,  from 
the  fact  that  thetoj)  leaves  never  fully  mature, 
and  as  a  general  thing  cures  very  irregularly, 
and  nine  out  of  ten  of  a  light  yellow  color. 
In  our  judgment  we  think  that  it  should  be 
topped,  even  on  very  strong  land,  with  from 
ten  to  fourteen  leaves  at  the  outside,  and  ex- 
perience has  taught  us,  that  as  much  weight 
can  be  grown  from  the  acre  by  low  topping  as 
if  topped  eighteen  and  twenty  leaves,  besides 
a  better  article.  But  I  am  becoming  lengthy, 
and  will  leave  tiie  subject  for  .some  future 
time. — Zebedee,  Washington  Bormujii,  June  4, 
1877,  in  Examiner  and  Express, 

THE  TURNIP  CROP. 
There  has  been  given  more  attention  of 
late  years  to  the  cultm-e  of  turnips  by  those 
who  live  in  the  vicinity  of  large  cities  than 
was  formerly  the  case  ;  and  we  are  glad  to 
find  it  so,  for  there  is  no  better  sign  of  a  pros- 


perous farm  than  a  field  of  first-class  turnips. 
It  .shows  at  once  that  he  who  raises  them  does 
not  altogether  depend  on  grain  raising,  and 
atso  that  he  knows  luiw  to  keep  u))  the  feitili- 
ty  of  his  .soil,  for  one  may  as  well  expect  to 
gather  figs  fiom  thistles  or  grapes  from  tliorns 
as  to  have  a  good  cro])  of  turnips  olf  a  piece 
of  poor  land. 

At  the  same  time  it  will  bear  remark,  that 
turnip-culture  is  not  attended  to  with  that 
degree  of  thoughtful  skill  which  aims  to  pro- 
duce the  best  results  with  the  least  expendi- 
ture of  labor  and  skill  ;  and  the  consequence 
is  that  many  a  turnip-crop  costs  more  in  labor 
than  the  whole  thing  is  worth. 

It  is  often  said  that  the  labor  of  putting  and 
to])i)iMg  costs  as  nmch  as  the  turiui)s  bring; 
but  that  is  chielly  owing  to  the  .small  size  of 
the  roots.  Of  cour.se  it  takes  less  than  one- 
half  the  time  to  work  a  bushel  of  largi'  size 
than  it  does  small  ones.  It  is  worth  a  little 
extra  care,  therefore,  to  get  them  all  as  near 
as  possible  of  full  size. 

The  trouble  with  many  is  that  they  fear  the 
seed  may  not  all  be  good,  and  hence  it  is  sown 
much  more  thickly  than  it  ought  to  be,  but 
the  i)roper  way  is  to  test  the  seed  before  sow- 
ing, and  then  sow  understandingly.  It  is  a 
common  belief  that  turnip  seed  will  grow 
after  being  many  years  old.  Some  of  it  will, 
but  experiment  has  shown  that  of  a  hundred 
seeds  which  will  grow  when()ne  year  old,  some 
will  not  grow  the  second,  and  less  the  third. 
The  older  it  is  the  worse  it  is.  If,  therefore, 
good  fresh  seed  is  to  be  had,  it  need  not  be 
sown  any  thicker  than  desirable  on  this  ac- 
count. Again,  some  fear  losses  by  the  fly ; 
but  if  seed  be  sown  as  it  ought  to  be  on  rich 
soil,  it  usually  grows  faster  than  the  fiy  can 
eat  it.  At  anyrate  the  fiy  is  as  likely  to  de- 
stroy it  when  thickly  as  when  thinly  sown.  It 
is  much  better  to  risk  a  thin  crop  than  to  have 
so  much  labor  brought  about  by  a  too  thick 
sowing. 

We  believe  that  it  is  generally  conceded 
that  the  white  turnip  is  best  sown  broadcast, 
as  in  drills  they  get  too  large  and  "pithy." 
The  rutabaga,  however,  never  get  too  large 
for  us,  and  thus  drill  culture  is  emjiloyed  ex- 
clusively for  it.  For  the  same  reason  it  is  sown 
in  .Iuly,while  for  the  ordinary  turnip,  August, 
or  even  early  in  September,  is  quite  time 
enough  for  it. 

Besides  the  evidence  of  prosperity  which 
good  turnip  culture  affords,  a  crop  of  turnips 
is  in  itself  a  means  of  jirosperity,  for  there  is 
nothing  more  useful  where  a  number  of  cows 
or  sheep  are  kept.  Dry  cows  can  almost  live 
on  them  ;  and  by  proper  timing  the  food,  they 
can  be  given  to  milch  cows  without  any  danger 
of  tlavoring  the  milk. — Gtnnaniown  Tekyraph. 
•—  — 

THE  ORIGIN  OF    PRAIRIES. 


Why  they  are  not  Encroached  Upon  by  Bord- 
ering Woods. 

In  a  paper  in  the  American  Naturalist,  Prof. 
J.  D.  Whitney,  after  showing  the  insufficiency 
of  theordinary  theories  to  explain  why  prairies 
are  not  encroached  upon  by  liordering  wood.s, 
offers  the  following  explanation  of  his  own  : 

"Let  us  turn  at  present  to  the  geological 
side  of  the  investigation.  The  whole  of  New 
England  and  New  York,  and  a  large  part  of 
Ohio  and  Indiana,  together  with  the  whole  of 
^Michigan  and  Northern  Wisconsin,  constitute 
a  region  over  which  the  nortliern  drift  phe- 
nomena have  been  displayed  on  a  graud  scale. 
Consequently  almost  the  whole  of  this  area  is 
covered  with  lieavy  deposits  of  coarse  gravel 
and  boulder  materials.  These  deposits,  if  not 
at  the  surface,  are  near  it,  and  the  liner  ma- 
terials deposited  on  them,  by  alluvial  and 
other  agencies,  generally  form  only  a  thin 
covering  for  the  coarse  deposits  beneath. 
But  as  we  go  south  and  west  from  the  region 
indicated  alx)ve,  we  find  the  underlying  rock 
—the  "l)ed-rock"  as  the  California  miners 
would  call  it — deeply  covered  with  loose  ma- 
terials, it  is  true,  but  we  obsen'e  also  that 
these  are  quite  different  in  character  from 
what  they  are  to  the  north  and  east.  We 
come  to  a  region  where  the  drift  agencies  have 


106 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


[July, 


been  very  limited  in  tlieir  action.  The  bulk 
of  the  superficial  detritus  has  been  formed 
from  the  decomposition  of  the  underlying 
rock  ,  and  tliis  detritus  has  been  but  little 
disturbed  or  moved  from  its  original  position. 
If  erratic  deposits  exist,  they  are  usually 
deeply  covered  witli  finer  materials  derived 
from  close  at  hand.  A  great  area  exists  in 
Wisconsin  and  Minnesoata  over  which  not 
a  single  drift  pebble  has  ever  been  found, 
either  at  the  surface  or  at  any  depth  beneath 
it.  The  strata  have  become  chemically  disag- 
gi-egated  and  dissolved  by  the  percolation  of 
the  rain  through  them,  the  calcareous  matter 
has  been  carried  off  in  solution,  and  there  is 
left  behind  as  a  residuum  the  insoluble  matter 
which  the  rock  originally  contai'ned,  and 
which,  consisting  largely  of  silica  and  silicate 
of  alumma,  forms  by  its  aggregation  a  silicious 
and  clayey  deposit  of  almost  impalpable  fine- 
ness. It  is  this  fine  material  which  makes 
up  the  bulk  of  the  prairie  soil ;  and  as  the 
writer  conceives,  it  is  this  fineness  which 
is  especially  inimical  to  the  growth  of 
trees.  Exactly  as  we  see  the  desiccated 
lakes  in  the  midst  of  forests  gradually  filling 
up  with  finely  comminuted  materials  and  be- 
coming covered  with  a  growth  of  grasses  or 
sedges,  which  is  not  afterwards  encroached  on 
by  trees,  no  matter  whether  the  ground  be- 
comes completely  dry  or  whether  it  remains 
more  or  less  swampy,  so  we  have  the  praries, 
which  have  certainly  never  at  any  time  been 
overspread  with  forests,  and  which  would  al- 
ways remain  as  they  are,  providing  the  cli- 
mate underwent  no  radical  change,  and  they 
were  not  interferred  with  by  man.  It  is  for 
the  vegetable  physiologist  to  say  wliy  this  fine- 
ness of  the  soil  is  so  unfavorable  to  the  growth 
of  trees  ;  it  is  for  the  geologist  and  the  physi- 
cal geographer  to  set  forth  the  facts  which 
they  may  observe  within  the  line  of  their  own 
professional  work." 


HOW  TO  KEEP  OUR  BOYS  AT  HOME. 

And  now  let  us  talk  a  little  about  the  boys, 
whose  future  is  so  closely  interwoven  with 
our  own  happiness  and  well-being.  And  the 
first  question  we  must  ask  is  :  "What  course 
shall  we  pursue  to  interest  them  in  the  work 
of  farming!"'  That  is  the  chief  topic  to  dis- 
cuss, because,  unless  we  do  make  it  for  the 
interest  of  the  boys  to  remain  with  us  and  to 
pursue  the  honorable  calling  of  their  fathers 
and  foreftithers,  they  will  surely  seek  for 
pleasanter  places  in  the  large  cities.  Often, 
though,  their  search  is  unsuccessful,  and,  after 
many  years  spent  in  unprofitable  labor,  they 
may  gladly  return  to  the  old  farm,  whose 
rocky  hills  and  green  forests  will  then  seem  to 
them  like  the  garden  of  Eden.  Therefore,  we 
should  endeavor  to  make  the  home  attractive  ; 
to  give  a  cheery  appearance  to  the  sitting- 
room  and  the  kitchen,  and  even  to  the  boys' 
chamber,  which  so  often  is  located  in  the  attic 
or  upper  chamber  of  the  woodshed,  and  con- 
tains nothing  but  the  bare  necessities  of  a  bed 
room — a  bed,  a  table,  one  or  two  chairs,  and 
nails  upon  the  door  to  hold  the  few  garments 
which  are  their  only  possessions. 

So  let  us  commence  with  these  chambers 
first.  Give  up  a  few  of  the  comforts  of  the 
rarely-occupied  guest-chamber,  if  need  be, 
and  cover  the  bare  boards  of  the  floor  with 
some  kind  of  a  carpet ;  or,  if  that  is  not  ob- 
tainable, braid  or  knit  some  bright  colored 
rugs  to  spread  beside  the  bed  and  in  front  of 
the  bureau  or  washstand.  Your  sons  are  be- 
coming men  now — are  16,  18  or  20  years 
old,  as  the  case  may  be — and  demand  at  your 
hands  a  more  comfortable  apartment  than 
was  needed  in  their  childhood.  Perhaps  they 
possess  a  desire  for  "pretty  things,"  as  well 
as  your  daughters  ;  and  it  is  a  proper  desire, 
and  should  be  gratified  in  every  possible  way. 
Their  bed  should  be  made  comfortable,  and 
the  table  should  be  covered  with  a  spread.  If 
it  is  knitted  by  your  own  hands  or  embroidered 
on  linen  by  their  sister's,  so  much  the  better, 
for  it  shows  them  that  their  pleasure  and  com- 
fort are  akin  to  yours,  and  that  you  take  de- 
light in  making  them  happy.  Brightly  colored 


chintz  and  cretonne  can  be  procured  at  cheap 
rates  now,  and,  by  their  aid,  out  of  the  home- 
liest materials,  such  as  old  boxes  and  barrels, 
you  can  fashion  comfortable  chairs  and  couches. 
A  planed  and  neatly-fitted  square  top  can  also 
be  made  and  nailed  over  a  barrel,  and  a  strong 
table  will  be  the  result,  which,  when  covered 
with  a  cloth,  answers  every  purpose.  An  in- 
genious boy,  with  the  aid  of  his  mother's  and 
sisters'  fingers,  can  fashion  all  sorts  of  pretty 
articles,  at  little  expense,  which  will  make 
his  chamber  attractive  and  pleasant  to  him- 
self and  his  friends. 

Then,  boys  should  be  encouraged  to  work 
with  a  will  by  presents  of  a  colt,  or  a  calf,  or 
a  lamb.  Even  if  they  possess  these  three  va- 
rieties of  stock,  it  will  not  be  an  injury  to 
them,  but  a  decided  advantage,  because  the 
love  of  possession  is  inherent  in  the  human 
breast,  and,  if  it  is  gratified,  often  increases 
one's  desire  to  be  of  use  in  the  family — to  do 
what  is  to  be  done  with  pleasure  and  as  if  it 
were  play-work,  rather  than  labor.  Give  your 
boy  a  cock  and  a  half  a  dozen  hens  as  his  own 
property,  and  see  with  how  much  more  zeal 
he  will  attend  to  the  needs  of  the  poultry. 
Give  him  a  share  of  the  egg  money  and  see 
how  many  more  dozens  you  will  carry  to  mar- 
ket. The  chief  trouble  with  oui'  boys  is  the 
affairs  of  the  farm, and  so  they  take  little  heed 
to  its  prosperity. 

Again,  it  is  well  to  encourage  pleasant  so- 
ciety for  them — to  join  the  farmers'  clubs  and 
the  agricultural  societies,  and  strive  for  the 
prizes  the  latter  offer.  Cultivate  good  man- 
ners, as  well  as  good  morals  ;  and  do  not  ridi- 
cule your  sous  it  they  like  to  look  well  dressed 
when  they  go  into  society,  but  give  them  the 
means  to  do  so  and  tell  them  how  nicely  they 
appear.  If  farmers  would  but  pursue  this 
course,  the  boorishness  and  rusticity  of  their 
class  would  be  greatly  diminished.  To  be  sure, 
there  are  farmers  in  our  midst  who  are  among 
the  best  educated  and  the  best  bred  men  of 
New  England,  and  their  sons  are  being  trained 
to  grace  a  rural  life ;  but  their  number  is  very 
small  and  it  does  not  increase  in  due  propor- 
tions of  the  yfho\e.— Springfield  Republican. 


OUR  LOCAL   ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings    of  the  Lancaster   County   Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

The  Society  met  in  the  Athen«um,  at  2  o'clock  ou 
Monday  afternoon,  July  2,  President  Calvin  Cooper 
in  the  chair. 

The  following;  members  were  present  :  W.  J. 
Kafroth,  Secretary  pro  tern.,  West  Earl;  Levi  W. 
GrofT,  Earl  ;  P.  S.  Reist,  Manheim  ;  M.  D.  Kendie;, 
Manor  ;  Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy  ;  Prof.  S.  S.  Kath- 
von,  city  ;  II.  M.  Engle,  Marietta  ;  David  G.  Swartz, 
city;  C.  H.  Hunsecker,  Manheim;  Levi  S.  Keist, 
Manheim  ;  John  Garber,  Hempfield  ;  John  Miller, 
Manheim. 

Mr.  M.  D.  KENniG,  from  acommitte  appointed  to 
experiment  and  report  which  is  the  best  variety  of 
wheat,  and  what  is  the  proper  quantity  of  seed  to  be 
sown  per  acre,  reported  that  he  had  sown  side  by 
side  in  the  same  field  a  strip  of  Fultz  and  a  strip  of 
Clausen  wheat,  and  he  brought  for  examination  a 
bunch  of  heads  from  each  variety,  plucked  at  the 
same  time,  which  showed  that  the  Fultz  variety  ma- 
tured much  more  rapidly  than  the  other,  that  it  con- 
tained a  greater  number  of  grains  to  the  head,  but 
that  the  grains  were  by  no  means  so  large  as  the 
Clauson.  He  had  sown  from  one  bushel  to  one  bushel 
and  a  half  of  Fultz  wheat  to  the  acre,  and  his  obser- 
vation was  that  one  bushel  is  quite  enough  where  the 
land  is  fertile.  In  thin  soil  more  may  be  required, 
but  not  in  soil  where  the  land  contains  a  sufficient 
quantity  of  vegetable  mould.  He  preferred  the 
Clauson  to  the  Fultz,  though  the  first  named  is  con- 
siderably later. 

P.  S.  Reist  agreed  that  one  bushel  of  seed  was 
enough  to  sow,  unlesss  the  sower  calculates  that 
some  of  the  seed  is  to  fall  by  the|wayside,or  among 
thorns  and  brambles.  He  had  known  good  farmers, 
however,  who  sowed  a  bushel  and  a  half  or  two 
bushels  with  good  result. 

Henry  Kurtz  was  in  favor  of  light  seeding,  as 
the  straw  would  then  be  stronger  and  the  wheat  less 
likely  to  lodge.  He  had  sowed  last  fall  as  much  as 
two  bushels  of  amber  wheat  to  the  acre,  but  he  was 
satisfied  this  was  too  much  unless  the  soil  was  very 
thin.  He  had  suffered  considerably  from  smut  and 
would  like  to  know  what  was  the  cause  of  it. 

Mr.  Groff  said  he  had  made  several  experiments 
in  growing  wheat  this  season,  and  he  would  be 
pleased  to  have  the  president  and  a,  committee  of  the 


society  to  call  at  his  farmhouse,  where  he  would 
show  them  the  growing  wheat,  and  explain  to  them 
his  mode  of  cultivating  it.  He  would  show  them  the 
ditference  between  cultivated  and  uncultivated 
wheat,  and  the  great  advantage  resulting  from  cul- 
tivation. He  had  also  a  variety  of  rye  he  would  like 
to  show  the  committee,  the  grain  being  of  unusual 
size.  He  had  taken  the  advice  of  a  seedsman  and 
sown  only  sixty  pounds  of  seed  to  the  acre.  Had  he 
used  his  own  judgment  he  would  have  sown  two 
bushels  to  the  acre.  He  believed  In  a  liberal  use  of 
seed  ;  unless  we  sow  liberally  we  cannot  reap  liberally. 

Henry  Kurtz  thought  60  pounds  of  seed  to  the 
acre  too  little,  and  two  bushels  two  much,  unless  the 
seed  was  very  large.  We  should  endeavor  to  find  out 
just  what  is  the  right  quantity  between  these  ex- 
tremes. 

W.  J.  Kafroth  said  that  the  farmers  of  West 
Earl  sowed  two  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre,  and 
there  was  as  good  a  crop  in  that  section  as  anywhere 
else  In  the  county.  He  would  not  sow  a  less  amount 
of  seed. 

P.  8.  Reist  said  there  was  on  an  average  36,000 
grains  of  wheat  to  the  bushel,  and  that  is  enough 
for  an  acre.  If  the  grains  are  small  there  are,  of 
course,  more  of  them  in  a  bushel  and  a  less  bulk 
should  be  sown.  If  the  grains  are  large  there  are  a 
less  number  in  a  bushel  and  a  greater  bulk  should  be 
sown. 

Mr.  Kendig  remarked  that  when  he  recommended 
a  bushel  of  seed  to  the  acre  he  referred  to  the  Fultz 
wheat.  A  larger  grained  wheat  would  require  a 
greater  weight  of  seed. 

H.  M.  ExoLE  said  the  question  of  the  proper 
quantity  of  seed  would  never  be  settled  among  farm- 
ers,each  of  whom  had  his  own  opinion  in  the  matter, 
and  would  be  governed  by  his  own  experience.  His 
own  opinion  was  that  farmers  used  to  much  seed. 
The  English  agriculturists  are  in  advance  of  us  In 
grain  growing, aud  they  raise  as  large  crops  as  we  do, 
by  sowing  three  pecks  of  seed  to  the  acre.  Mr.  Engle 
himself  would  never  sow  more  than  a  bushel  and  a 
half  of  any  kind  of  grain  to  the  acre  ;  but  no  rule 
can  be  laid  down.  We  must  use  our  best  judgment 
and  be  guided  by  our  own  experience.  His  own  ex- 
perience was  that  where  he  sowed  the  seed  heaviest 
last  fall  his  crop  was  the  lightest  this  summer. 

Levi  W.  Gropf  having  been  requested  to  state  his 
mode  of  cultivating  wheat,  said  he  drilled  it  In  rows 
several  inches  apart.  This  he  did  by  changing  his 
wheat  drill  so  that  it  had  but  four  instead  of  the 
usual  eight  seed  spouts.  He  had  shovels'Bo  arranged 
as  to  scatter  the  seed  in  each  drill  to  the  width  of 
about  four  inches,  instead  of  allowing  it  to  lie  In  a 
straight  line,  as  is  usually  done.  After  the  wheat  is 
well  up  he  cultivates  it  with  the  shovels  attached  to 
the  wheat  drill,  the  shovels  being  passed  between  the 
rows  of  wheat  the  same  as  the  cultivator  is  passed 
between  the  rows  of  corn.  He  had  no  difliculty  in 
getting  the  mules  to  walk  between  the  rows.of  wheat. 
They  seldom  tramped  it  any,  and  If  they  did  it  would 
do  but  little  harm.  He  was  certain  by  his  mode  of 
cultivation  that  he  could  raise  at  least  six  bushels 
more  wheat  per  acre  than  by  the  old  plan. 

D.  G.  Swartz  said  that  if  Mr.  Groff  could  do  as 
he  said  he  could  do,  his  mode  of  cultivating  wheat 
was  certainly  a  great  discovery.  If  the  man  who 
caused  two  blades  of  grass  to  grow  where  only  one 
grew  before  was  a  public  benefactor,  how  much  more 
a  benefactor  was  the  man  who  could  add  six  bushels 
of  wheat  to  each  acre  grown. 

Mr.  Kuktz  said  that  Mr.  Heiges,  of  York,  had  for 
some  years  cultivated  his  wheat,  and  had  last  year 
grown  twice  as  much  per  acre  aa  by  the  old  method. 

Levi  S.  Reist  said  that  though  the  cultivation  of 
wheat  was  a  new  thing  in  Lancaster  county,  it  was 
old  in  some  other  parts  of  the  world.  In  Japan  they 
cultivate  wheat  just  as  we  do  corn  or  other  vege- 
tables. 

Mr.  Engle  said  all  plants  are  improved  by  culti- 
vation, and  wheat  is  no  exception  to  this  rule.  It 
will  pay  the  farmer  to  cultivate  it.  He  illustrated 
the  advantages  of  even  rough  cultivation  by  telling 
of  a  farmer  who  had  thoughtlessly  left  his  harrow 
in  the  wheat  field  after  the  seed  had  been  harrowed 
down  in  the  fall,  and  not  wanting  the  harrow,  allow- 
ed it  to  remain  there  all  winter.  Late  in  the  spring 
he  sent  a  boy  for  the  harrow,  and  the  lad  dragged  it 
from  one  end  of  the  field  to  the  other  over  the  young 
wheat.  His  master  was  almost  tempted  to  flog  him 
for  doing  so,  but  the  wheat  that  had  been  thus  rudely 
treated  at  once  took  a  fresh  growth,  and  was  soon 
ahead  of  that  in  any  other  part  of  the  field,  and  It 
continued  in  this  condition  to  the  time  it  was  har- 
vested— the  part  over  which  the  harrow  had  passed 
being  distinctly  marked  by  its  superiority. 

Mr.  Swartz  favored  cultivation,  and  said  that 
though  he  was  generally  regarded  as  merely  a  dealer 
in  lands,  he  had  800  acres  of  cultivated  lands  In 
Iowa,  Nebraska  and  Kansas— in  each  of  which  States 
different  varieties  of  wheat  were  grown  and  different 
modes  of  farming  adopted.  It  was  his  desire  to  learn 
the  best  mode  so  that  he  might  be  benefited  by  adopt- 
ing it. 

Crop  reports  being  called  for,  P.  3.  Reist,  of 
Oregon,  Manheim  township,  reported  the  grass  crop 
at  75  per  cent.,  and  wheat  75  per  cent.,  with  harvest- 
ing fairly  commenced  ;  oats  very  promitiug ;    will 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


107 


yield  100  per  cent ;  coru  is  from  middliiif;  to  good, 
promises  T.l  per  ceut ;  ajjples  scarce  ;  jjcaclics  good 
where  tlicre  are  trees,  Imt  there  are  not  many  In  this 
nelgliljorhood  ;  cherries  very  scarce. 

II.  M.  En<ii.e,  of  Doue>,'al,  reported  a  fair  averapje 
of  wheat  and  nearly  an  average  of  liay  ;  corn  looks 
well  and  promises  a  (;o(jd  average:  potatoes  could 
not  he  better,  there  will  he  the  heaviest  crop  grown 
for  years  :  there  hcing  no  )iotato  hugs,  new  potatoes 
are  already  selling  for  50  cents  a  hushel  ;  apples 
suffer  from  the  curculio  and  codling  moth;  peach 
crop  fair,  pears  the  same.  The  rainfall  in  June  was 
3  4-10  iuelies. 

M.  I).  Keni>io,  of  Manor,  reported  the  hay  crop 
heavier  than  was  expected  earlier  in  the  sea.son; 
wheat  very  good  ;  oats  fair  ;  potatoes  gooil ;  peaches 
good  ;  pears  pretty  good  ;  other  fi-uits  not  very  good  ; 
cherries  very  scarce.  Halnfall  during  June  :i  2-10 
Inches. 

Henrv  KuiiTZ,  of  Mount  Joy  tjorough,  reported 
that  in  that  section  there  would  not  be  more  than  (10 
per  cent,  of  wheat;  full  crops  of  corn  and  oats;  no 
potato  bugs  and  plenty  of  potatoes  ;  tobacco  very 
promising.  The  wheat  in  his  neighborhood  has  been 
much  Injured  by  the  lly. 

Levi  S.  Reist,  of  Manhelm,  reported  that  the 
wheat  sown  before  the  5tli  of  Seiitembcr  would  pro- 
duce but  little,  while  that  sown  after  the  l;3th  would 
produce  from  li.'i  to  30  bushels  per  acre. 

C.  H.  HuNSEcKEit,  of  Manhcini  township,  said  he 
lived  near  the  line  of  Leacock  and  Lampeter  town- 
ships, and  in  his  section  nearly  all  the  wheat  fields 
look  well.  The  corn  is  growing  vigorously;  oats 
looks  well  ;  tobacco  generally  very  good  ;  potato  crop 
immense,  the  tubers  being  already  aslargc  as  a  man's 
fist .  There  were  never  better  crops  in  that  neighbor- 
hood. He  thought  farmers  were  apt  to  estimate  the 
eapacityof  their  farms  at  too  high  a  figure,  and  then 
feel  disappointed  if  the  crops  did  not  reach  their  es 
timate.  Our  fathers  were  satisflcd  with  15  to  -0 
bushels  to  the  acre,  while  we  expect  to  get  from  ;;o 
to  40. 

Mr.  Kurtz  said  that  he  had  raised  40  busliels  per 
acre,  and  his  neighbor  Smith  Patterson  had  raised  42 
bushels.  This  year  his  wheat  was  poor,  the  (ly  and 
emut  having  greatly  injured  it. 

Levi  Grofk  asked  if  there  was  any  smut  in  other 
sections  of  the  county  except  that  mentioned  by  Mr. 
Kurtz.  In  Earl  and  other  parts  of  the  county  through 
wliich  he  had  passed  he  had  seeu  none. 

W.  J.  Kafeoth  had  seen  smut  in  Manheim,  but 
nowhere  else. 

President  Cooper,  of  East  Lampeter,  reported 
the  wheat  crop  full ;  oats  never  looked  better ;  coin 
promising  ;  hay  a  full  crop. 

On  motion,  the  questions  proposed  at  last  meeting 
fordiseUBsioD  atthe  present  meeting,  were  postponed. 

P.  S.  Reist  suggested  that  the  averages  of  our 
crops  as  st  present  establislied  are  too  low.  He  sug- 
gested that  they  be  raised  to  the  following  figures  : 
Hay  two  tons  per  acre;  wheat  40  bushels;  oats  60  or 
70  bushels;  corn  80  to  100  bushels.  He  moved  that 
a  committee  be  appointed  to  consider  the  proposition 
and  report  to  the  society. 

Mk.  Enole  moved  to  amend  by  adding  that  apre- 
mium  be  offered  to  the  farmer  who  raises  the  largest 
crop  on  a  given  area,  the  area  to  be  specified  by  the 
committee. 

The  amendment  was  accepted,  the  motion  as 
amended,  adopted,  and  the  chair  appointed  the  fol- 
lowing committee  :  P.  S.  Reist,  H.  M.  Engle,  M.  D. 
Kendlg. 

Levi  S.  Reist  presented  for  inspection  a  sample 
of  vfry  small  red  wild  cherries,  not  larger  than  cur- 
rants and  very  sour.  He  had  several  trees  of  this 
variety  upon  his  farm.  The  tree  grows  to  a  height  of 
20  or  oO  feet,  it  is  very  hardy  and  the  wood  and 
leaves  closely  resemble  the  cultivated  red  cherry. 
,  It  does  not  bear  abundantly,  but  he  believes  it  might 
be  utilized  by  grafting  upon  it  cultivated  varieties. 
The  birds  seem  fond  of  the  fruit. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  for  discus- 
sion at  the  next  meeting  : 

"Should  the  grass  be  taken  from  the  lawn  when 
cut  by  the  mower  ?"     Referred  to  Levi  S.  Reist. 

"What  causes  smut  in  wheat  ?''     By  Henry  Kurtz. 

"Will  it  pay  farmers  to  erect  sheds  or  roofs  over 
their  manure  piles  '."  By  W.  J.  Kal'roth,  for  gener- 
al discussion. 

President  Cooper,  H.  M.  Engle,  Levi  S.  Keist  and 
Peter  8.  Reist  accepted  the  invitation  to  visit  the 
farm  of  Levi  W.  Groll  on  Thursday,  the  Mi,  Mr. 
Qroff  extending  a  cordial  invitation  to  all  others  who 
might  wish  to  attend.    Adjourned. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association. 

The  Lancaster  county  tobacco  growers'  association 
met  in  the  Athemeum,  .Monday,  June  'J.">th. 

The  minutes  of  last  meeting  were  read. 

The  following  members  and  visitors  were  present : 

M.  U.  Kendlg,  Manor;  Webster  L.  Hershey,  East 
Hempfleld  ;  Wash  L.  Ilershey,  Rapho;  P.  S.  Keist, 
Oregon;  Henry  Shiffuer,  Upper  Leacoek ;  A.  H. 
Yeager,  East  Lampeter  ;  J.  M.  Johnston,  city  ;  Clare 
Carpenter,  city;  Jacob  B.  Wilnicr,  Manor;  H.  H. 
Hostetter,  Oregon  ;  John  Brady,  Millersvllle. 

Visitors— Benjamin  Rohrer,  Levi  S.  Keist,  Martin 
Laudls,  Emanuel  Lehr,  F.  R.  Diffenderfer. 


The  discussion  of  the  question,  "  What  arc  the  best 
fertilizers  for  tobacco  lands?"  deferred  from  last 
ineetiiig  was  renewed. 

I'.  S.  Reist  said  he  was  trying  this  year  a  number 
of  ditlereut  kinds  of  fertilizers — barnyard  iiiaiiure, 
chicken  manure,  iihospbates,  guano,  gypsum,  and 
bone  dust.  Chicken  manure  he  tlioiigiit  would  kill 
the  jilants  in  dry  weather  if  It  touches  them.  He 
has  tried  chicken  manure  and  phosphatcfi  on  poor 
patches  of  ground  by  putting  it  on  tlu;  ridges  well 
covered  up  antl  it  had  a  good  effect,  lie  mixes  the 
chicken  manure  with  earth. 

IIknkv  Siin-FNKit  mixes  chicken  manure  with 
ashes  and  gypsum  and  has  obtained  good  results. 
Chicken  manure  alone  Is  too  hot,  and  will  burn  the 
[ilantB. 

P.  S.  Keist  noticed  that  in  the  plant  beds  chicken 
manure  was  used  that  the  plants  had  a  yellow  and 
sickly  appearance. 

WAsiiiN(iT()N  L.  ni:KsiiEY,of  Uaplio,  had  last 
year  used  phosphates  and  saw  no  good  results,  in- 
deed the  tobacco  was  not  as  good  where  the  i>lios- 
phatc  was  uscil  as  where  there  was  lu,  manure. 

Puesiiient  ,M.  D.  Ke.niikj  said  he  had  no  faith  in 
concentrated  manures,  dealers  di6courag(;  the  use  of 
them.  He  thinks  stable  manure  thoroughly  com- 
posted better  than  all  others,  and  should  be  almost 
exclusively  used  where  a  siillleient  supply  can  be  had. 

P.  S.  RmsT  wished  it  to  be  understood  tli.at  he 
preferred  barnyard  manure  to  all  others,  and  used  it 
for  the  bulk  of  bis  tobacco  ;  tint  was  this  year  using 
the  other  manures  as  an  experiment.  If  we  should 
have  a  poor  piece  of  ground  and  could  not  get  barn- 
yard manure  with  which  to'  cnricli  it,  it  would  be 
well  to  know  what  kind  of  manure  is  next  best 
among  the  commercial  manures  in  use. 

Mr.  yE.iOEii  recommended  plowing  down  green 
rye  where  stable  manure  is  hard  to  be  obtained. 

Mr.  W.  L.  Hershev  said  he  last  year  used  barn- 
yard manure  and  this  year  is  doing  the  same,  jilowed 
down  the  manure  and  then  gave  the  grouinl  a  top 
dressing  of  pig  manure,  and  wound  up  by  using 
plaster  and  litiuid  barnyard  manure. 

Cro])  reports  being  called  for,  Henry  Shiffuer  said 
that  plants  in  his  section.  Upper  Leacock,  weredoing 
well ;  the  cutworm  has  not  bothered  him. 

Webster  L.  Hershey,  East  Heuiplield,  said  he 
planted  10,000  plants  this  spring,  all  of  which  are 
growing  finely  except  about  200  which  had  been 
destroyed  by  the  cut-worm.  These  were  in  ground 
plowed  this  spring.  In  ground  that  was  plowed  last 
fall  the  cut-worm  has  done  no  harm.  Plants  in  his 
section  of  the  county  look  very  well  and  are  growing 
rapidly. 

P.  S.  Reist  said  the  plants  were  well  started  and 
were  thriving  finely.  But  few  cut-worms  have  been 
found,  and  but  little  replanting  has  been  done.  He 
spoke  of  a  field  of  tobacco  some  di.stance  north  of 
this  city,  which  had  attracted  his  special  attention, 
the  plants  having  leaves  already  from  ten  to  twelve 
inches  long. 

Israel  L.  LANnis,  who  was  prevented  by  busi- 
ness from  attending  the  meeting, sent  in  a  paper  con- 
taining his  observations  of  the  tobacco  crop  in  the 
northern  section  of  the  county.  Mr.  Landis  writes 
that  the  plants  are  nearly  all  set  out  and  that  there 
has  been  less  trouble  than  usual  in  getting  them  well 
started,  the  warm  rain  that  fell  enabling  farmers  to 
start  the  plant  without  watering.  The  cut-worm  is 
not  so  destructive  as  in  former  years,  and  hence 
there  has  been  but  little  replanting.  Many  farmers 
maintain  that  when  there  are  few  cut-worms  there 
will  be  correspondingly  few  green  worms  to  cut  the 
leaf  during  the  growth  of  the  plant.  This  may  be  a 
matter  worthy  of  future  observation.  The  acreage 
this  year  will  be  very  considerably  increased — many 
are  planting  this  year  who  have  not  heretofore  plant- 
ed, while  others  are  planting  more  than  usual — the 
prices  received  for  last  year's  crops  having  stimula- 
ted growers  to  do  their  best,  and  caused  others  to 
fall  into  the  error  of  trying  to.  farm  more  than  tl;;y 
can  jiropcily  <'are  for.  Along  the  sandy  hills  of  the 
Conewago,  in  Dauphin,  as  well  as  in  our  own  county, 
growers  rake  the  manure  close  together  for  the  to- 
bacco crop.  Unless  this  is  done  the  crop  remains 
short,  and  if  it  is  done  it  results  In  injuring  other 
crops — corn,  wheat,  Jkc,  by  keeping  away  the  man- 
ure they  should  have.  This  is  a  grave  trouble  that 
stares  us  in  the  face,  and  is  of  great  importance  to 
the  whole  community.  How  can  the  fertility  of  our 
farms  be  best  maintained,  and  as  much  tobacco  be 
ol)talued  as  now  i  This  question  should  receive  the 
serious  attention  of  farmers,  and  should  be  thorough- 
ly discussed  by  this  association.  There  are  many 
good  tobacco  barns  being  built  in  the  northern  section 
of  the  county,  and  others  are  already  completed. 

President  Kendio  said  the  crop  in  Manor  is  look- 
ing well.  Not  many  cut-worms  have  appeared,  ex- 
cept in  a  few  patches.  Everything  looks  favorable 
for  an  increased  crop  of  better  tobacco  than  we  had 
last  year,  there  being  a  feeling  everywhere  mani- 
fested to  bestow  greater  care  on  the  crop  than  has 
heretofore  been  done. 

"■  Webster  L.  Hehsuev  said  that  In  the  northern 
part  of  East  HempHeld  the  new  crop  was  in  about 
the  same  condition  as  has  been  reported  from  other 
sections — large  healthy  plants  and  but  few  cut- 
worms.   There  Is  an  Increased  acreage  of  plants  set 


out;  his  neighbor,  Mr.  Minnieh,  has  32  acres  that 
look  well.  He  manures  liberally  with  ashes  and 
scrap,  purchased  from  a  linn  in  Perry  county,  pay- 
ing lor  it  11  cents  per  bushel.  He  cultivates  thorougly 
both  with  hanil  and  horse  power. 

A.  11.  Veai.er,  of  East  Hempfield,  reported  the 
plants  well  started.  Most  of  the  fielils  have  already 
iieeii  once  cultivated,  and  the  tobacco  looks  well. 

Wasiii.noton  L.  Hershev,  of  Raiilio,  reported 
the  growing  crop  as  being  In  good  condition,  and 
stateil  that  of  last  year's  crop  there  are  still  lying  In 
bulk  seven  lots  of  tobacco.  .Mr.  Hershey  has  cased, 
but  has  not  yet  sold  his  own  crop. 

The  question  referred  to  P.  S.  Keist  at  last  meet- 
ing— "Can  fertilizers  be  properly  applied  to  tobacco 
after  the  plants  grow,  and  If  so,  what  kind,  and  how 
should  they  be  applied?"  was  not  discussed,  Mr. 
Reist  stating  that  he  had  nothing  more  to  say  about 
It  than  he  had  already  said. 

Tlie  (piestlon — "What  is  the  best  method  of  culti- 
vating tobacco  from  the  first  working  uji  to  finishing? 
What  machines  and  utensils  are  best  adapted  for  use 
in  the  toliaeco  lands  known?"  referred  to  Jacob 
Frantz,  at  last  meeting,  was  taken  up  for  general 
discussion,  Mr.  Frantz  not  being  jireseut  to  answer  It. 

Henry  .Shikkxek  said  the  best  method  is  to  cul- 
tivate constantly.  As  soon  as  the  young  jilant  has 
taken  root,  commence  using  the  hoe  and  continue 
using  It.  Cultivate  deeply  with  the  harrow  as  long 
as  you  can  walk  between  the  rows  ;  keep  the  ground 
constantly  loose  aliout  the  roots  of  the  plant.  To- 
bacco will  not  grow  well  in  hard  ground;  It  Is  a 
"rooty"  plant  and  must  have  room  to  spread. 

P.  S.  Reist,  Webster  L.  Hershey,  Washington  L. 
Hershey,  Levi  S.  Keist  and  President  M.  D.  Kendlg 
united  in  declaring  that  constant  cultivation  with 
both  hoe  and  harrow,  "weeilsor  no  weeds,"  was  the 
true  principle.  Let  the  harrow  follow  the  hoe,  and 
the  hoe  in  turn  follow  tlie  harrow,  that  the  ground 
may  be  constantly  kept  mellow  and  loose.  Every 
alternate  day  is  not  too  often  to  go  through  the  field 
with  the  harrow,  if  time  can  be  spared  to  do  It.  No 
matter  If  a  few  good  leaves  are  tramped  down  ;  bet- 
ter ones  will  grow  and  take  their  places. 

The  question — "  Does  the  growing  of  tobacco  ex- 
haust our  soils  so  as  to  affect  other  crops?"  was  next 
taken  up  and  discussed  at  some  length. 

Mr.  Yeager  said  he  had  not  had  much  experi- 
ence, but  as  far  as  his  experience  went,  tobacco  ex- 
hausted the  soil  much  less  than  some  other  crops. 
He  believed  if  two  pieces  of  ground  of  equal  fertility 
were  j)lanted,  one  in  tobacco  and  the  otiier  in  pota- 
toes, that  the  ground  in  which  the  tobacco  was  grown 
would  be  found  in  better  condition  in  the  fall  than 
that  in  which  the  potatoes  were  grown.  He  believed 
that  any  crop  that  was  allowed  to  grow  until  the  seed 
matures — as  wheat,  oats,  corn  and  potatoes,  will 
exhaust  the  soil  much  more  than  tobacco,  which  is 
cut  off  green,  and  the  roots  of  which,  if  allowed  to 
rot  In  the  ground,  make  a  good  fertilizer. 

Washington  L.  Hershey  agreed  with  Mr.  Yeager, 
and  added  that  tobacco  stalks  cut  up  Into  small  pieces 
and  composted,  make  an  excellent  manure.  He  has 
now  on  his  manure  pile  the  stalks  from  ten  acres  of 
tobacco  and  finds  that  they  ferment  easily,  and  that 
there  is  no  more  trouble  in  composting  thein  than 
cornstalks,  straw  or  other  vegetable  matter. 

President  Kendig  agreed  with  Messrs.  Veager 
and  Hershey.  He  had  planted  tobacco  and  |)otatoe8 
side  by  side  in  the  same  field;  used  the  same  kind  of 
manure,  and  gave  both  crops  equal  care  and  atten- 
tion; and  he  found  that  the  succeeding  crop  of 
wheat  was  decidedly  better  on  that  part  In  which 
the  tobacco  was  grown.  He  cuts  his  tobacco  stalks 
into  short  pieces  and  plows  them  under.  He  would 
much  rather  have  a  tenant  |>ut  tobacco  into  his  land 
than  potatoes,  as  the  latter  will  exhaust  It  more  rap- 
idly. 

John  Brady,  of  Millersvllle,  took  the  same  view. 
It  had  long  ago  been  said  that  if  we  keep  on  raising 
tstiacco  we  will  ruin  our  land;  and  yet  we  find  that 
our  farms  are  every  year  getting  better.  He  believed 
this  was  owing  to  tobacco  farming.  Last  fall  his 
lioys  piled  some  tobacco  stalks  around  the  butts  of 
fruit  trees  to  protect.  This  spring  he  pulled  from 
under  the  tree  grass  that  was  fifteen  inches  in  length, 
while  a  little  distance  oft',  where  there  were  no  to- 
bacco stalks,  the  grass  was  only  two  or  three  Inches 
long.  He  believes  tobacco  stalks  to  be  among  the 
best  of  fertilizers.  His  neighbor,  Mr.  Warfel,  uses 
on  his  tobacco  ground  two  hundred  bushels  of  lime 
per  acre,  plows  it  down  in  the  fall  and  manures  In 
the  spring.  His  tobacco  this  year  is  very  fine,  and 
his  wheat  in  that  part  of  the  field  in  which  there  was 
tobacco  last  year  Is  decidedly  better  than  elsewhere. 

W.  L.  Hershey  saiil  he  had  last  year  a  tract  of 
land  planted  in  tobacco,  pot.itoes  and  corn,  all  of 
which  received  the  same  kind  of  manure  and  equal 
attention.  This  year  it  is  planted  In  wheat,  and  the 
crop  looks  better  In  that  part  which  was  planted  lu 
tobacco  than  in  that  which  was  planted  in  potatoes, 
and  better  in  the  potato  land  than  the  corn  laud. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  for  discus- 
sion at  next  meeting  : 

"What  Is  the  proper  time  and  height  for  topping 
tobacco  ;"     Referred  to  Henry  Shiffuer. 

"Is  there  any  advantage  in  scaffolding  tobacco  In 
the  Held  '."     For  general  discussion. 

On  motion  adjourned. 


108 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[July, 


THE  LINNiEAN    SOCIETY. 

A  stated  meeting  of  the  Linnsean  Society  was  held 
on  Saturday,  June  .30,  1877,  the  President,  J.  8. 
Stalir,  in  the  chair  and  seven  memliers  present. 

The  Donations 

to  the  Museum  were  then  examined  and  found  to 
consist  of  a  large  jar  containing  interesting  speci- 
mens from  the  Ohio  river,  put  on  special  deposit  by 
Mr.  Martin  Stanton. 

A  line  specimen  of  the  Menobranchus  or  Western 
Mud-Puppy,  much  like  our  "Hellbender,"  (Menopo- 
>na  Alleghenienisex)  met  with  in  the  'Susquehanna 
river. 

A  fine  specimen  of  the  shovel-nosed  sturgeon,  or 
spade  fish.  The  Hcaphirhinchus  platirhinclms,  is 
generally  separated  from  the  true  sturgeons,  "Acci- 
penser." 

Two  fine  specimens  of  the  "spoon  bill  fish." 
These  are  distinguished  from  the  "shovel-nosed"  ijy 
being  destitute  of  bony  shields,  and  with  an  enor- 
mous expansion  of  the  snout  into  a  long,  flat,  round- 
ed form,  like  a  spatula,  and  known  generically  as 
Upatularia  3.ad  Planiroslra.  The  P.  fulium  is  the 
paddle  fish,  or  spoon  billed  sturgeon,  to  which  these 
no  doubt  belong.     (See  U.  S.  R.  R.,  Vol.  VI,  p.  357.) 

Two  large  horns  of  the  "Rocky  Mountain  Sheep," 
(^Onis  Montana  of  Cnvr .)  One  is  from  Mr.  \Vm. 
Rhoem,  from  a  male  weighing  probably  3.50  pounds; 
it  is  said  the  Indians  consult  or  use  the  rings  upon 
these  horns  as  a  calendar.  The  other  horn  was  do- 
nated by  Mr.  Charles  E.  Wentz,  who  received  it  as  a 
present  from  the  "Little  Soldier,"  a  Shoshone  cliief, 
at  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  in  1S59.  Tradition  claims 
this  horn  to  be  more  than  2,200  years  old.  Each 
hiindred  years  is  represented  by  a  black  ring  around 
the  horn.  One  hundred  and  twenty-five  moons 
mark  ten  years.  We  will  accept  the  tradition  rather 
than  attempt  to  prove  the  contrary. 

A  relic  of  "Ye  olden  times,"  was  found  on  remov- 
ing an  old  tenement  by  Mr.  Cogley,  adjoining  the 
Keystone  Hotel.  This  is  a  mold  made  of  potter's 
clay,  dated  1735. 

A  German  device  for  embossing  confections  and 
cakes,  called  "Springerleu;"  some  local  Pennsylvania 
Dutch,  says  Mr.  H.,  called  it  "Matzabaum" — my 
recollection  is  the  "  Christmas  tree"  was  so  called, 
upon  which  these  and  other  confections  were  suspend- 
ed. Mr.  Michael  Fisher  donated  two  boxes  of  the  white 
sand  from  the  mines  of  Messrs.  T.  Baumgardnerand 
Geo.  M.  Franklin,  of  this  city,  discovered  in  1868,  in 
MifHin  county.  Pa.,  five  miles  from  Lewistown.  This 
sand  is  used  extensively  in  the  manufacture  of  glass 
at  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

A  singular  growth  of  a  cherry  branch,  lodged  in 
the  fork  of  another  branch  and  completely  imbedded 
in  the  wood,  from  Mr.  J.  B.  Bomberger,of  Manheim. 

Mr.  Umbel,  of  the  Junction,  sent  some  galls  found 
on  the  witch  hazel  {Hamamelis  virffinlea)  made  by  a 
species  of  Phylloxera,  of  which  there  are  many 
species. 

WUlie  Rathvon  donated  a  mineral,  brought  up 
from  a  depth  of  65  feet  in  sinking  a  well  at  New  Hol- 
land, this  county.  It  has  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
common  rotten  stone,  or  Tripoli,  used  for  a  polish  on 
silver  and  the  finer  class  of  goods.  It  consists  of 
silica  in  an  extremely  minute  state  of  division,  fully 
equal  to  that  inipprted  from  Wales  and  England. 
That  which  is  brought  from  the  river  Trent,  consists 
chiefly  of  infusorial  animalcules. 

Master  Harry  A.  Dubbs  presented  several  fossil 
imprints  of  spirifers  and  ganoid  osseous  plates. 

Prof.  Dubbs  donated  a  singular  stone,  shaped  like 
a  mallet,  with  a  hole  on  one  side,  as  if  a  pebble  had 
been  embedded  or  naturally  formed. 

Rev.  C.  L.  Houpt  deposited  some  of  the  cubic 
stones  taken  from  a  Mosaic  pavement  in  Naples,  fos- 
sil encronoids. 

A  number  of  the  barnacles  from  a  sea  tortoise,  by 
Mr.  Copeland,  per  Mr.  WesthaeflTer,  and  the  animals' 
taken  from  them  and  put  in  alcohol,  by  Mr.  Rathvon. 

Seven  bottles  of  Insects,  collected  near  MeCaUs' 
Ferry,  York  county,  .June  13,  1877.  One  containing 
the  elm  tree  beetle,  getting  quite  too  common. 

A  specimen  of  felting  used  as  a  non-conductor  of 
heat  and  cold,  used  as  a  filling  in,  per  S.  S.  Spencer. 

Mrs.  Zell  sent  a  specimen  of  an  Ornithogalnm 
found  wild.  Our  common  0.  Finbellatiim,  which  has 
escaped  from  gardens.  Louden  describes  29  out  of 
47  species  known  in  his  time.  This  may  be  the  O. 
Narbonenses,  also  escaped  from  gardens. 

Mr.  J.  Stauffer  deposited  fine  specimens  in  fruit, 
showing  the  cups,  barren  and  fertile,  pedunculated 
fuctification  of  the  common  "  Brookliver  wort." 
Marchantia  pohjinoplui.  This  is  growing  in  the  in- 
terstices of  the  bricks  in  the  payed  alley,  between  his 
dwelling  and  Solomon  Sprecher's,  East  Orange  street, 
this  city.  It  is  frequently  met  with  on  rocks  and 
crevices  along  streams,  but  to  become  a  citizen  and 
dweller  on  a  brick  pavement  is  a  new  freak. 
Historical  Collection. 

A  copy  of  the  Marietta  Pilot  of  June  7,  1814,  Sun- 
dry scraps  and  clippings  of  interest.  Three  envelopes 
per  S.  S.  Rathvon. 

Library. 

Copy  of  11th  Volume  of  Pennsylvania  Agricultural 

Society, 


The  Ninth  Annual  Report  on  the  Noxious  and 
Beneficial  insects  of  Missouri,  by  C.  V.  Riley. 

Copy  of  the  San  Francisco  Herald,  per  Peter 
Baker. 

Proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences, 
part  1,  January,  February  and  March,  1877. 

Lancaster     Farmer,   June    number.       Index    to 
the  Official  Gazette  Patent  Office  for  1870,  and  week- 
ly numbers  of  Sundry  Book  Catalogues. 
Papers  Read. 

Descriptive  catalogue  on  the  donations  to  the  mu- 
seum, by  S.  S.  Rathvon,  No.  505. 

Illustrated  description  of  the  Marchantia,  or  Liver- 
wort.   J.  Stauffer,  No.  .566. 

Report  of  an  entomological  excursion  to  McCall's 
Ferry,  June  13  and  14,  1877,  per  8.  S.  Rathvon,  No. 
567;  and  notice  of  the  barnacles  in  an  appendix. 

The  following  reverend  gentlemen,  J.  S.  Stahr, 
Dubbs,  Geissinger  and  Houpt,  took  part  in  the  scien- 
tific miscellany  suggested  from  specimens  deposited 
and  commented  upon,  giving  quite  an  interest  to  the 
meeting. 

A  bill  for  alcohol  used  in  filling  up  some  of  the 
jars,  amounting  to  50  cents,  was  reported  and  order- 
ed to  be  paid.  No  further  business  offering,  after  a 
short  and  pleasant  session,  adjourned  to  Saturday, 
July  28,  1877. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Report  of  the  Department   of  Agriculture  for 
June. 

The  June  report  of  the  department  of  agriculture 
indicates  a  better  prospect  than  usual  for  wheat. 
The  report  of  June,  1870,  made  the  average  for  the 
country  thirteen  per  centum  belowthe  standard  of  nor- 
mal condition, and  subsequent  returns  of  the  condition 
and  yield  were  still  lower,  forecasting  the  scarcity 
which  has  occurred.  The  average  for  winter  and 
spring  wheat  together  is  this  year  one  hundred;  win- 
ter wheat  being  above  that  figure,  and  spring  wheat 
below  it. 

There  are  277  counties  reporting  winter  wheat  in  full 
normal  condition;  494 above  100,  and  183  below  it.  Of 
the  spring  wheat  counties  92  report  100;  117  above, 
and  157  below.     The  State  averages  are  as  follows  : 

Maine,  101;  New  Hampshire,  102;  Vermont,  102; 
Massachusetts,  100;  Rhode  Island,  100;  Connecticut, 
103;  New  York,  108;  New  Jersey,  100;  Pennsylvania, 
93;  Delaware, 97;  Maryland,  103;  Virginia,  109;  North 
Carolina,  100;  South  Carolina,  97;  Georgia,  108;  Flo- 
rida, 100;  Alabama,  96;  Mississippi,  107;  Louisiana, 
103;  Texas,  110;  Arkansas,  106;  Tennessee,  91;  West 
Virginia,  107;  Kentucky,  108;  Ohio,  115;  Michigan, 
109;  Indiana,  112;  Illinois,  105;  Wisconsin,  97;  Min- 
nesota, 95;  Iowa,  102;  Missouri,  110;  Kansas,  99;  Ne- 
braska, 103;  California,  50;  Oregon,  109.  Returns 
from  California  indicate  half  of  a  fall  crop  from  de- 
ficiencyofwinterrainfall.  Fewerinjuries  from  insects 
and  rust  are  reported  than  usual.  In  the  Ohio  Valley 
every  return  is  favorable.  In  Pennsylvania  and  in 
Tennessee  the  slight  depreciation  is  caused  by  the 
Hessian  fly. 

The  only  serious  injury  Is  caused  by  the  destructive 
grasshopper  of  the  plains.  This  pest  has  been  most 
injurious  in  Minnesota,  hatching  numerously  in  all 
the  settled  portions  of  the  state  through  four  degrees 
of  latitude,  from  Becker  county  to  Freeborn,  on  the 
southern  border,  and  including  all  west  ofthe  third  tier 
of  counties  on  the  Iowa  line.  Thecombined  efforts  of 
farmers  will  prevent  a  large  proportion  of  the  loss. 

"  Hopperdozers  "  destroy  at  the  rate  of  five  bushels 
of  graflshopers  daily  in  sections  of  greatest  abun- 
dance. In  the  Western  half  of  Missouri,  and  through- 
out the  wheat  fields  of  Kansas  and  Alissouri,  losses 
are  reduced  to  a  minimum  by  the  effect  of  wet  and 
cold  weather  after  hatchiiig,  and  subsequently  by  the 
successful  warfare  of  wheat  growers.  Heavy  de- 
struction of  wheat  by  grass-hoppers  has  occurred  in 
Texas  in  certain  localities. 

A   Farm   Roller. 

Agricultural  writers  for  nearly  a  century  back 
have  extolled  the  field  roller  as  one  of  the  most  es- 
sential implements  of  the  farm,  and  farm  experience 
has  substantiated  the  many  claims  made  for  it.  For 
crushing  clods  and  lumps,  thus  performing  one  of 
the  most  important  functions  in  preparing  a  good  bed 
for  the  reception  of  seeds,  the  roller  has  no  efficient 
substitute ;  the  harrow  and  brush  are  well  in  their 
way,  but  in  some  conditions  of  soil  are  of  compara- 
tively little  use.  Rolling  after  seeding  effects  a  pur- 
pose equally  important,  as  the  roller  brings  finely 
pulverized  soil  in  contact  with  the  seed,  rendering 
germination  certain  and  rapid.  By  the  use  of  the 
roller, land  seeded  down  to  meadow  is  made  level  and 
in  admirable  shape  for  the  mower  and  horse-rake. 

Pasture  land  is  left  smooth,  slightly,  and  better 
fitted  for  an  even  and  luxuriant  growth  of  grass.  In 
a  season  of  drouth,  land  that  has  been  thoroughly 
rolled  will  suffer  far  less  than  that  of  the  same 
quality  unrolled,  for  it  better  resists  evaporation.  The 
enlightened  farmer  of  to-day  would  as  soon  think  of 
dispensing  with  his  drills  and  cultivators  as  his  field 
roller.  There  is,  however,  a  difference  in  rollers  ; 
some  are  clumsy,  cumbersome,  unwieldy  affairs,  and 


any  improvement  upon  the  old  style  is  an  important 
item.  The  increase  of  crops  in  a  single  year,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  improved  condition  of  the  farm,  will 
amply  repay  the  cost  of  the  roller. 

^ 

Carting  Out  Manure. 
In  hauling  out  manure  at  this  season  of  the  year, 
says  T.  B.  Miner,  in  the  Sun,  upon  fields  to  be  plowed 
in  April  or  May,  if  the  heaps  be  made  of  a  size  to 
equalize  its  distribution,  the  same  as  would  be  made 
if  the  laud  were  to  be  plowed  without  delay,  there 
will  be  a  great  loss  in  the  manure  by  the  escape  of 
its  ammonia  and  drying  of  the  surface  of  the  heaps. 
Suppose  a  two-horse  load  of  first-rate  stable  dung  be 
placed  in  six  heaps  in  a  field  in  February,  and  this 
manure  remains  in  these  heaps  to  the  middle  of  April 
or  the  fore  part  of  May,  and  are  then  spread  and  the 
land  plowed,  how  much  loss  does  the  manure  sus- 
tain? Not  less  than  ten  per  cent.  There  must  be  a 
certain  degree  of  loss— more  than  farmers  can  afford 
to  lose — and  the  question  is,  how  is  this  loss  to  be 
prevented?  One  way  is,  to  wait  till  the  ground  is  to 
be  plowed,  and  then  haul  out  the  manure  and  plow 
it  under  as  fast  as  it  is  spread.  But  farmers  are  too 
busy  to  haul  it  out  then,  and  are  compelled  often  to 
draw  it  out  iu  the  winter.  If  one  must  do  so,  it  would 
be  a  good  plan  to  make  the  heaps  large,  but  not  too 
large  to  be  spread  properly  with  a  little  extra  hard 
labor  ;  pack  them  as  solidly  as  possible,  and  if  they 
be  well  built  up  and  trodden  down,  they  may  be  so 
Compact  with  a  little  labor  that  not  over  one  or  two 
per  cent,  loss  will  take  place.  Another  way  is  to  put 
only  three  or  four  very  large  heaps  to  the  acre,  mak- 
ing them  compact,  as  in  the  foregoing  case;  and  when 
the  time  comes  to  spread  the  manuretake,  a  team  and 
sled  with  movable  sideboards  and  proceed  to  remove 
some  ofthe  manure  to  other  places,  so  that  when  it  is 
spread  it  will  be  evenly  distributed.  It  would  be  but  a 
short  operation  to  remove  a  part  of  the  manure  in  that 
way,  and  I  think  the  labor  can  well  be  afforded  by 
farmers,  rather  than  lose  so  large  a  portion  of  their 
stable  dung  by  evaporation,  as  the  ordinary  method 
of  hauling  out  manure  in  the  winter  is  sure  to  cause. 


Liquid  Manure. 

F.R.Elliot  says,  in  the  American  Sural  Hume: 
It  is  generally  believed  that  no  system  of  enricliing 
land  for  small  gardens,  with  a  view  to  perfection  of 
crops,  is  so  truly  economical  and  so  easily  available 
as  that  of  liquid  manure.  We  occasionally  "hear  of  a 
gardener  or  an  amateur  fruit-grower  who  has  prac- 
ticed enriching  the  crop  by  use  of  liquid  manure  ;  but 
it  is  not  a  common  practice  so  to  enrich  our  gardens 
and  lawns,  however  oftimes  the  advocacy  of  the 
practice  has  been  written.  The  writer  practiced  the 
sprinkling  of  a  lawn  in  a  dry  season  with  weak  licjuid 
manure-water,  and  in  the  greatest  of  heat  and 
drought  has  kept  it  fresh  and  green.  In  the  manage- 
ment of  pot  plants  no  course  of  supplying  food 
equals  that  of  a  judicious  use  of  liquid  manure. 
There  are  in  almost  every  family  waste  liquids, 
which  usually  go  into  a  sewer  or  drains,  or  possibly 
upon  the  road,  where  they  are  of  no  avail.  But,  if 
saved,  by  being  conducted  to  a  tank,  along  with  wash 
waters  of  the  house,  would  enrich  an  entire  garden 
for  vegetables  and  fruits,  flower  borders,  etc.;  and 
the  whole,  if  the  wash  be  applied  regularly  and  at 
night,  after  sunset,  in  moderate  quantities,  would 
prevent  the  driest  weather  of  mid-summer  from 
checking  vegetation.  If  an  unpleasant  odor  comes 
from  the  tank,  a  little  plaster  (gypsum)  sprinkled  in 
and  around  the  tank  would  keep  it  sweet  and  clean. 
-4gain,  the  use  of  liquid  manure  need  never  delay 
planting  because  of  manure  not  being  on  hand  ;  but 
planting  could  proceed,  and  the  application  of  ma- 
nure be  made  at  leisure. 


Cut  the  Weeds  While  SmalL 

No  farm,  or  garden  even, can bekeptclearof  weeds 
unless  they  are  attacked  early,  when  they  are  small, 
tender  and  easily  extirpated.  Let  them  get  a  start  on 
us,  and  they  will  not  only  take  a  double  share  of  soil 
nourishment,  but  will  resist  the  hoe  or  the  plow  stub- 
bornly, and  not  always  comes  off' second  best.  If  their 
roots  become  once  firmly  established,  not  even  the 
plow  or  the  hoe  will  always  remove  them  root  and 
branch;  but  take  them  early  and  at  them  whenever 
they  show  their  heads,  and  they  are  easily  kept  down. 
This  fact  is  well-known  to  all  who  cultivate  the  soil; 
but  sometimes  the  hurry  of  work  will  force  one  to  de- 
fer the  weeding  process  for  a  little  while;  meantime 
a  prolonged  rain  sets  in,  a  godsend  to  the  weeds, 
which  make  great  strides  to  run  their  course  and  ma- 
ture their  seeds;  and  then  we  all  know  the  labor  of 
dislodging  them .  We  may  harrow  and  cross  harrow 
and  still  some  are  left,  and  nothing  but  a  carefully 
used  hoe  or  the  hand  cau  get  at  them.  And  after 
all  there  will  be  found  to  be  some  of  the  roots  tliat 
have  escaped  and  will  require  additional  lador  to  ex- 
tirpate thorougldy. 

When  young  the  weeds  can  be  dispatched  easily. 
They  have  but  little  hold  of  the  soil,  and  once  re- 
moved they  are  disposed  of,  and  it  is  only  the  new 
young  ones  following  that  will  require  attention, 
and  can  be  managed  as  before. — Oermantown  Tele- 
graph. 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


109 


HORTICULTURAL. 

Blackberry  Culture. 

Ae  we  are  iipproacliiiij;  tlie  lilacklicrr-y  sramm  it 
will  do  no  harm  to  reflect  on  how  great  and  how  rapid 
has  been  the  improvement  of  this  I'rnit.  Thirty  years 
ago  there  is  no  mention  of  it  in  any  nursery  eatalogue, 
and  the  wild  fruit  of  the  hedges  was  all  that  was  in 
use.  These  at  best  were  dry,  seedy  things  ;  but  Ihey 
served  some  good  purpose  in  [mdding-niaking,  and 
now  and  then  in  pies  and  tarts.  This  is  about  the 
position  the  blackberry  occupies  in  Knglish  fruit- 
eating;  and  to  this  d.ay  they,  naturally  unaware  of 
the  rapid  progress  wc  have  made,  wonder  at  our  taste 
in  admiring  such  things. 

But  the  discovery  of  the  "  New  Koehelle,"  a  wild 
sprout  fron\  llic  couinion  high  bush  blackberry,  at  New 
Rochelle,  N.  Y.,  gave  the  whole  class  a  start.  Good 
varieties  are  now  "  as  plentiful  as  blackberries,"  and 
new  ones  arc  apjieariug  every  year.  It  is  singular 
though  that  all  the  new  ones  arc  chance  seedlings, 
found  wild,  as  the  first  good  one,  the  New  Koehelle, 
was  ;  and,  indeed,  few  if  any  are  yet  superior  to  it. 

But  even  this  and  the  best  of  them,  whichever 
one's  taste  may  decide  the  best  one  to  be,  is  very 
much  improved  by  good  cultiire ;  and,  conversely, 
very  much  injured  by  bad.  Almost  yearly  we  are 
told  that  tills  or  that  variety  is  "not  hardy,"  just  as 
If  we  were  speaking  of  some  exotic  i)Iaut,  forgetting 
that  the  original  plant  was  pcrhajis  found  in  our 
ncigbborhoocl's  neglected  fenec-corncr,  where  it  had 
been  growing  many  years,  and  never  thought  of  giv- 
ing way  to  the  fiercest  winter's  wind.  Why  should  a 
plant,  hardy  in  nature,  become  tender  when  planted 
in  our  gardens  ;  There  can  be  but  one  answer  :  Our 
systems  of  culture  are  not  favorable  to  hardiness.  In 
wh.at  particular  respect  is  our  culture  del'ective  i 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  injury  to  the 
roots,  which  our  system  of  culture  entails,  must  be 
injurious.  In  a  wild  state  the  blackberry  has  a  few 
creeping  roots  that  run  near  the  surface  and  collect 
the  food.  The  hoeing  and  cleaning  necessary  in  gar- 
den culture  keeps  these  roots  in  continual  disturb- 
ance. It  is  well-known  to  cultiva'ors  of  peach  or- 
chards that  the  stirring  of  the  soil  has  to  be  aban- 
doned in  summer,  otherwise  the  disturbance  of  tlie 
roots  results  in  ill-ripened  wood,  and  the  peach  buds 
and  even  peach  wood  is  easily  destroyed.  It  is  just 
this  way  with  the  blackberry:  and  it  is  worse  in  field 
culture  than  in  garden  culture,  bei-.ause  the  cultiva- 
tor goes  deeper,  and  by  so  much  more  is  it  an  injury. 
From  New  Jersey  especially,  the  land  of  the  black- 
berries, comes  the  cry  of  blackberry  disease  and 
blackberry  winter-killing,  and  of  kinds  "dying  out;" 
and  there  is  no  doubt  the  root  injury  is  the  cause  of 
it  all.  Some  of  us  put  blackberry  plants  near  board 
fences  or  other  places  where  the  roots  can  get  a  little 
protection  from  hoe,  spadeor  plow;  and  in  such  cases 
no  one  ever  hears  of  blackberry  disease,  or  winter- 
killed plants.  They  go  on  growing  and  bearing  year 
after  year,  as  well  as  if  though  they  were  in  the 
old  farmer's  fence  row,  where  they  were  once  found. 

But,  says  some  one,  are  we  then  to  let  our  black- 
berries grow  up  to  grass  and  weeds,  and  have  the 
whole  garden  look  like  a  wilderness;  By  no  means. 
We  must  keepthe  gardenand  farm,  blackberry  patch 
included,  neat  and  clean:  but  remembering  that  it  is 
an  injury  to  cut  off  the  blackberry  roots,  we  must 
begin  to  keep  down  the  weeds  early  in  the  spring,  po 
that  there  shall  be  no  trouble  in  the  fall  ;  and  when 
we  do  clean,  cut  the  surface  as  lightly  as  wc  can. — 
Gcrmantown  Telegraph. 


Varieties  of  Celery. 

Many  who  plant  celery  are  puzzled  to  account  lor 
the  inferior  quality  of  the  product,  though  mmb 
pains  have  been  taken  in  selecting  a  g<.)od  variety. 
Under  these  circumstances  it  is  customary  to  abuse 
the  seedsman, and  to  declare  that  there  has  been  some 
unfair  treatment  on  his  part  in  furrushing  a  good 
article. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  that  a  good  variety  is  of 
consequence.  Some  kinds  are  very  inferior  in  quality' 
toothers.  But  when  a  seedsman  advertises  a  red 
"solid,"  a  white  "solid,"  or  a  ".solid"  of  any  other 
kind,  he  rather  invites  the  wrath  he  brings  <in  his 
head  when  the  article  does  not  turn  out  well.  If  he 
pretends  that  there  are  solid  varieties  and  pithy  va- 
rieties ;  that  he  has  the  solid  kind  and  that  other  fel- 
low over  the  way  has  the  pithy  kind,  it  is  a  fair  moral 
retribution  when  he  is  charged  with  fraud  when  his 
own  "solid"  kind  turns  out  as  pithy  as  that  of  any- 
body else. 

Of  course  no  seedsman  would  deliberately  go  to 
work  and  introduce  as  a  good  article  a  pithy  kimi. 
There  is  no  doubt  but  all  kinds  are  of  some  value 
when  introduced,  and  when  a  variety  of  this  charac- 
ter turns  out  poorly,  it  is  but  a  reasonable  charity  to 
believe  that  it  is  as  much  in  the  season  or  mode  of 
treatment,  as  in  the  variety  itself.  Still  it  is  true  that 
some  varieties  will  prove  more  permanently  firstrale 
than  others.  Some  kinds,  like  some  people, will  stand 
true  under  trials  and  temptations  that  others  would 
fall  before ;  and  it  is  these  sort  of  tough  varieties — 
kinds  solid  in  character  at  least — that  we  are  in  search 
after. 

The  greatest  difference  in  celery  is  in  the  flavor. 


Some  have  a  warm,  peppery  character,  and  others 
have  a  sweet,  nutty  taste,  though  even  this  varies. 
The  farther  we  go  north  the  sweeter  the  taste. 
Southern  grown  celery  is  always  more  or  less  bitter. 
As  a  general  rule  the  shortest  and  thickest  kinds  are 
the  sweetest ,  and  besides  the  dwarfs  require  less 
labor  in  earthing  up  when  the  blanching  time  comes 
round  in  the  fall. 

The  clfort  of  the  raisers  of  new  varieties  of  cel- 
ery just  now  is  in  the  direction  of  these  dwarf,  chunky 
kintls.  For  some  time  past  one  of  these  known  as 
the  "Boston  Market,"  has  been  the  most  popular: 
but  it  has  its  faults.  In  some  localities  It  is  very  lia- 
ble to  send  out  side-sprouts,  and  when  taken  up  you 
have  a  mass  of  small  material,  instead  of  one  clean, 
undivided  mass.  But  new  kinds  of  a  dwarf  charac- 
ter are  now  being  a<lverliBed,  and  jiossibly  there  niivy 
be  some  improvements  among  them. 

It  will  perhaps  at  this  season  of  celery  seed  sow- 
ing serve  a  useful  purpose  to  show,  as  we  have  done, 
the  proper  direction  in  which  to  look  for  genuine 
celery  imiirovement.  It  is  not  wise  to,  hanker  too 
much  after  new  vegetables.  At  best  it  is  often  the 
turning  out  of  an  old  and  good  friend  for  a  very 
doubtful  stranger.  But  there  is  real  room  for  im- 
provement in  good  celery,  and  wc  would  recommend 
trials  with  the  numero\is  new  dwarfs  advertised  by 
our  reliable  seedsmen. — Gerinantown  Teliyraph. 

^ 

Apples  and  the  Way  to  Keep  Them. 

We  received  a  few  days  since  from  (icorge  F.  Mel- 
vin,  of  Oil  Mills,  a  box  of  russet  apples  which  were 
as  crisp  and  juicy  and  fresh  as  apples  generally  are 
in  the  fall.  Tliey  were  so  much  finer  than  the  withered 
and  tasteless  apples  which  one  usually  finds  in  -May, 
that  we  wrote  our  friend  asking  how  he  had  managed 
to  keep  them,  and  received  the  following  reply  : 

"  I  use  great  care  in  picking  them  from  the  trees, 
and  when  transferring  them  from  the  basket  to  the 
barrel  handle  them  like  eggs.  I  get  the  best  granu- 
lated sugar  barrels  to  keep  them  in,  ami  when  the 
barrels  are  full  cover  them  with  a  thick  paper  to 
keep  them  from  the  air.  Then  with  a  barrel-header 
I  jjress  the  heads  in,  and  keep  them  out  of  tlie  cellar 
as  late  as  I  can  without  having  them  freeze.  1  put 
them  in  the  dryest  and  coolest  part  of  the  cellar,  and 
raise  them  from  the  ground  three  feet  or  more  on 
skids,  and  do  not  open  or  disturb  them  until  they  are 
wanted  for  use.  If  exposed  to  the  air  by  opening  the 
barrels  to  pick  them  over,  some  of  the  apples  will 
rot  and  others  will  wither." 

American  Fruit  in  Europe. 
Europe  is  now  taking  a  surprising  (juantity  of 
.Vmerican  fruit.  The  purchases  have  amounted,  ac- 
cording to  the  New  York  Trihuiie,  to  over  ?-->,.5On,00tl 
worth  since  .June,  lS7(i,  compared  with  SfiOO,OflO  in 
the  same  period  the  year  before.  Dried  apples  figure 
largely  in  this  movement.  This  country  has  exported 
over  12,nO0,00U  pounds  of  them  since  last  June,  as 
compared  with  .522,000  pounds  the  previous  year. 
This  new  addition  to  the  trade  of  the  United  States 
is  due  to  invention,  which  has  occupied  itself  of  late 
with  improved  methods  for  drying  and  preserving  for 
transporting  fruit.  The  greatest  progress  lias  been 
made  in  the  way  of  dryers.  Within  a  year  some 
notable  inventions  in  this  line  have  been  perfected, 
which  are  a  great  requisition  to  the  resources  of  the 
country.  The  fruit  <iryer  bids  fair  hereafter  to  be 
as  much  of  a  necessity  to  every  farming  communily 
as  the  cider  mill  and  the  cheese  factory. — Scienl\flc 
American. 

^ 

Raspberries   from  Cuttings. 

The  following  is  the  substance  of  the  directions  fen- 
raising  raspberries  from  cuttings  of  the  root*,  given 
by  Mr.  Parry,  which  may  be  adopted  when  rapid 
propagation  is  needed,  or  large  rjuautities  required  : 
In  the  antumn,  after  the  leaves  have  fallen,  dig  up 
the  plants  with  all  the  roots  that  can  be  secured. 
cut  the  roots  into  jueces  about  two  inches  long,  and 
pack  them  in  a  box  with  damp  moss,  or  clean,  coarse 
sand,  or  damp  sawdust.  The  bottom  of  the  box  is  to 
be  sprinkled  with  tliis  material,  and  then  alternating 
layers  of  this  and  the  cuttings  fill  the  box.  Put  this 
box  in  a  cellar.  The  cuttings  must  not  be  allowed 
to  become  dry,  although  a  slight  moisture  is  sulli- 
cient.  In  a  few  weeks  the  cuttings  will  have  formed 
buds  and  callus.     They  are  set  out  in  open   ground. 

Floating  Melon  Gardens. 

In  the  beautiful  Valley  of  Cashmere,  among  the 
Himalayan  mountains,  lies  a  lonely  lake  called  Dal. 
Floating  about  on  its  surface,  sometimes  carried  by  the 
winds  from  one  end  of  the  lake  to  the  other,  are  nu- 
merous small  islands,  on  which  grow  the  finest  cu<um  ■ 
hers  and  the  most  luscious  melons  known.  The  way 
in  which  these  floating  gardens  are  made  is  very  cui'i- 
ous.  All  about  the  main  shores  of  the  lake  grow 
quantities  of  reeds,  sedges,  and  water  lilies.  When 
these  grow  very  thickly  together  people  cut  them  from 
the  roots  which  hold  them  near  the  shore.  The  leaves 
of  the  plants  are  then  spread  out  overthe  stems,  mak- 
ing a  sort  of  trestle-work  to  support  the  soil  with  which 
it  is  next  to  be  covered.  After  this  has  been  done  the 
seeds  arc  planted,  and  the  floating  garden  is  left  to 
care  for  itself  until  the  fruits  are  ready  for  picking. 


DOMESTIC    ECONOMY. 

Household  Recipes. 

('(1I1N-MK.M.  MrFii.vs.— Two  cups  of  corn-meal 
(yellow  meal  is  licst),  one  of  (iraham  or  white  flour, 
one-half  cup  of  sugar,  two  tcaspoonfuls  of  cream  of 
tartar,  all  rubbed  through  a  sieve.  Then  with  the 
haiiiis  rub  in  one-half  cu|>  of  liutter,  or  lard  well 
beaten,  a  little  salt,  one  egg  beaten  light.  Then  stir 
in  with  a  spoon  one  and  a  half  cujis  of  either  milk  or 
water,  in  »  hich  is  dissolved  one  teas|)oonful  of  soda. 
Bake  in  mullin  rings.  These  are  nice  without  the 
egg,  and  can  be  made  with  sour  ndlk  and  soda,  omit- 
ting the  cream  of  tartar. 

Potato  Sai.-m). —  Boil  one  egg  very  hard,  rub  the 
yolk  to  a  pulp,  add  one  raw  yolk,  one  teaspoonful  of 
flour  or  cornstanh,  one  teaspoonful  of  vinegar,  two 
of  sweet  oil,  one  tablespoon I'ul  of  butter,  one  salt- 
spoonful  of  mustard,  a  little  cayenne  pepper,  and 
salt;  beat  all  to  a  cream  and  pour  over  cold-sliced 
potatoes. 

Boii.Ei)  Fiii'iT  PiDniNO .— One  quart  crushed 
wheat,  one  teaspoonful  cinnamon,  half  teaspoonful 
cloves,  two  cups  sugar,  two  eggs,  one  half  pound 
suet,  chopped  fine,  one  teaspoonful  cream  of  tartar, 
one-half  teaspoonful  soda,  half  cup  of  molasses,  half 
l)Ound  raisins,  chop|)ed  fine,  citron  or  lemon  peel  If 
desired.     Boil  two  hours. 

Hot  Si.aw.— One  head  of  cabbage,  halfa  pound  of 
pork,  and  fry  it  out  and  take  out  the  scrajis.  Chop 
up  the  cabbage  and  put  in  the  fat  with  water  and 
pepper,  if  liked, mustard.  When  nearly  done  add  one 
cup  of  vinegar. 

Indian  Pancakes. — One  pint  meal  almost ;  fill  up 
Willi  Hour;  scald  the  meal,  but  not  the  flour;  (hin 
with  milk  ;  salt ;  last  thing  add  one  teaspoonl'ul 
cream  tartar,  and  one-half  soda,  mixed  together; 
ring  and  bake  right  away. 

Stewed  CAnuoT^*. — Boil  the  carrots  until  tender; 
also  boil  seperately  five  small  onions  :  cut  the  carrots 
into  any  small  fanciful  pieces  you  may  clioose  ;  mince 
the  onions,  and  chop  a  sprig  of  parsley  ;  have  a  jiint 
of  milk  boiling,  which  season  with  a  little  pejiper 
and  salt,  .adding  a  small  piece  of  butter  rubbed  in  a 
tablespoonful  of  Hour;  put  in  the  carrots  and  onions, 
and  let  simmer  ten  minutes;  stir  in  the  parsley,  and 
dish  at  once. 

White  Beans.— Soak  one  pint  of  dried  beans 
overnight;  parboil  in  plenty  of  water,  with  a  small 
piece  of  soda  in  it:  drain  perfectly  dry  and  place  in  a 
baking  dish;  rub  one  and  one-half  tablespoonfuls  of 
butter  into  four  even  tablcspoonfuls  flour,  until  it  is 
a  cream;  beat  in  this  two  spoonfuls  condensed  egg, 
adding  slowly  a  gill  of  vinegar,  and  a  sprinkleof 
salt:  pour  over  the  beans,  place  a  plate,  inverted, 
over  them,  and  put  in  a  rather  cool  oven  one-half 
hour. 

Pickled  Fish.— Clean  the  fish  thoroughly  and 
cut  into  pieces  about  five  inches  long;  rub  each  piece 
on  the  cut  side  with  salt.  Take  a  stone  jar  which 
will  .about  hold  the  fish,  put  a  layer  of  fish  on  the 
bottom,  then  a  few  whole  jieppers  and  allspice  and  a 
blade  of  mace,  then  another  layer  of  fish,  spice,  etc., 
till  the  jar  is  nearly  full;  then  pour  good  cider  vine- 
gar over  it  until  the  flsli  is  quite  covered.  Tie  a 
paper  over  the  top  of  the  jar,  ami  cover  this  with 
flour  paste;  Ibis  keeps  in  all  steam.  Put  the  jar  in 
the  oven  and  liakc  for  three  hours.  The  fish  is  lit 
for  use  as  soon  as  cold,  and  will  keep,  in  the  pickle, 
for  six  months.  The  white  fish,  pickerel,  etc.,  of 
the  lakes  arc  very  nice  for  pickling,  while  the  land 
locked  sturgeon  of  the  great  lakes  is  almost  as  good 
as  pickled  salmon  if  it  be  scalded  in  water 
before  spicing,  etc.  Shad  is  excellent  pickled,  as  all 
the  hones  disappear. 

Bon. ED  Apri.E  Piddinu. — Peel  Iho  apples  and 
put  I  hem  in  a  kcllle  in  halves,  with  a  pint  of  water, 
a  small  lump  of  butter,  a  little  salt,  nutmeg  and  a 
handful  of  sugar.  Make  a  soda  biscuit  crust  about 
one-third  inch  thick,  and  put  it  on  top  of  the  apples  ; 
make  a  hole  in  the  centre  of  the  crust ;  boil  until  the 
apples  are  thoroughly  cooked.  Serve  with  a  hot 
sauce  (adding  wine  or  brandy  if  you  so  choose).  A 
plate  turned  upside  down  <u  the  kettle  will  prevent 
it  from  burning. 

Omelette  Soupflee. — Six  eggs,  six  tablespoon- 
fuls of  powdered  sugar,  juice  of  one  lemon  and  half 
the  peel  grated  ;  beat  yolks  and  whites  sejiarately, 
and  very  well  ;  a<ld  to  the  yolks  by  degrees  the 
jiowdered  sugai'  and  beat  until  it  ceases  to  froth,  and 
is  thick  and  smooth  ;  the  whiles  should  be  stiff 
enough  to  cut  w  itli  a  knife  ;  stir  together  lightly  with 
the  seasoning,  pour  into  a  well-buttered  dish,  and 
bake  in  a  quick  oven  five  or  six  minutes  ;  the  dish 
should  be  warmed  when  buttered,  not  to  chill  the 
eggs  ;  send  around  with  a  si)oon  and  let  each  one 
hell)  himself  before  it  can  fall. 

Bice  Ccstakd. — Boil  rice  slowly,  without  stirring 
much,  until  it  is  tender  ;  turn  it  into  a  mold  to  cool  ; 
make  a  boiled  custard  thin  and  sweet,  and  pour  over 
the  rice  before  it  is  served. 

Coefee  Cake. — One  cup  brown  sugar,  one  cup 
molasses,  one-half  cup  each  butler  and  lard,  one  cup 
cold  coffee,  two  eggs,  one  tablespoonful  cinnamon, 
and  one  of  cloves,  one  grated  nutmeg,  one  tcasiKion- 
ful  soda,  flour,  one  pound  each  currants  and  raisins. 

Caulifloweus.— Slice  the  head  with  a  sharp  knife. 
Put  into  a  stewpan ,  over  the  stove,  turn  over  it  a  cup  or 


iiO 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[July. 


two  of  water — less  than  for  cabbage,  ae  it  cooks  tender 
in  less  time — add  sufficient  salt ;  cooli  tender  and  dry. 
Then  add  a  cupful  of  thin  sweet  cream,  and  serve. 


A  Milk  Diet. 

I  find  by  experience,  says  Dr.  E.  N.  Chapman,  that 
lime  water  and  milk  is  not  only  food  and  medicine  at 
an  early  period  of  life,  but  also  at  a  later,  when,  as 
in  the  case  of  infants,  the  functions  of  digestion  and 
assimilationhave  been  seriously  impaired.  A  stomach 
taxed  by  gluttony,  irritated  by  improper  food,  in- 
flamed by  alcohol,  enfeebled  by  disease,  or  otherwise 
unfitted  for  its  duties,  as  is  shown  by  the  various 
symptoms  attendant  upon  indigestion,  diarrhiea,  dys- 
entery and  fever,  will  resume  its  work,  and  do  it  en- 
ergetically, on  an  exclusive  diet  of  lime  water  and 
milk.  A  goblet  of  cow's  milk,  to  which  four  table- 
spoonsful  of  lime  water  have  been  added,  will  agree 
with  any  person,  however  objectional)le  the  plain 
article  may  be  ;  will  be  friendly  to  the  stomach  when 
other  food  is  oppressive,  and  will  be  digested  when 
all  else  fails  to  afford  nourishment.  Of  this  state- 
ment I  have  had  positive  proof  in  very  many  cases. 
The  blood  being  thin,  the  nerves  weak,  the  nutrition 
poor,  the  secretions  defective,  and  excretions  insufli- 
cient,  the  physician  has  at  hand  a  remedy  as  common 
as  the  air  and  as  cheap  almost  as  water.  In  it  all  the 
elements  of  nutrition  are  so  prepared  by  Nature  as  to 
be  readily  adapted  to  the  infant  or  the  adult  stomach, 
and  so  freighted  with  healing  virtues  as  to  work  a 
cure  when  drugs  are  worse  than  useless. 


Dried  Eggs. 
A  large  establishment  has  been  opened  in  St.  Louie 
for  drying  eggs.  It  is  in  full  operation  and  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  dozens  are  going  into  its  insatiable 
maw.  The  eggs  are  "  candled"  by  hand — that  is 
examined  by  a  light  to  ascertain  whether  good  or 
not — and  then  are  thrown  into  an  immense  recep- 
tacle, where  they  are  broken,  and  by  a  centrifugal 
operation  the  white  and  yolk  are  separated  from  the 
shell  very  much  as  liquid  honey  is  separated  from 
the  comb.  The  liquid  is  then  dried  by  heat  by  patent 
process, and  the  dried  article  is  left  resembling  sugar, 
and  is  put  in  barrels  and  is  ready  for  transportation 
anywhere.  This  dried  article  has  been  taken  twice 
across  the  equator  in  ships,  and  then  made  into 
omlet  in  the  same  manner  as  made  from  fresh  eggs, 
and  the  best  judges  could  not  detect  the  difference 
between  the  two.  Is  this  not  an  age  of  wonders  ? 
Milk  made  solid  ;  cider  made  solid  ;  apple  butter 
made  into  bricks  !    What  next  ? 

To  Make  Butter  Hard. 

An  English  butter-maker  of  large  experience,  who 
is  now  on  a  visit  to  this  country  for  the  purjiose  of 
looking  over  our  cheese  and  butter  dairies,  gives  us 
the  following  information  concerning  a  method  in 
practice  among  the  best  butter-makers  of  England 
for  hardening  or  rendering  butter  firm  and  solid  dur- 
ing hot  weather.  Carbonate  of  soda  and  alum  are 
used  for  the  purpose,  made  into  a.  powder.  For 
twenty  pounds  of  butter,  one  feaspoonful  of  carbo- 
nate of  soda  and  one  teaspoonful  of  powdered  alum 
are  mingled  together  at  the  time  of  churning  and 
put  into  the  cream.  The  effect  of  this  powder  is  to 
make  the  butter  come  firm  and  solid,  and  to  give  it 
a  clean,  sweet  flavor.  It  does  not  enter  into  the  but- 
ter, but  its  action  is  upon  the  cream,  and  It  passes 
off  with  the  buttermilk.  The  ingredients  of  the 
powder  should  not  be  mingled  togellier  until  re- 
quired to  be  used,  or  at  the  time  the  cream  is  in  the 
churn  ready  for  churning. 


Refrigerators  and  How  to  Make  One. 
Take  a  large,  tight  box  of  the  re<iuired  size,  and 
put  some  blocks  on  each  corner  for  legs.  Then  take 
a  small  box,  leaving  a  space  of  at  least  six  inches  on 
the  sides  and  bottom.  Place  a  layer  of  powdered 
charcoal,  fine  saw-dust,  or  some  other  good  non- 
conductor upon  the  bottom,  and  set  the  smaller  box 
in.  Then  pack  the  charcoal  or  saw-dust  all  about  in 
the  space  between  the  two  to  the  top.  Make  a  closely 
fitting  cover  for  each  box.  The  ice  should  be  placed 
in  the  box  in  some  tin  vessel,  so  arranged  that  the 
water  will  run  off  through  the  bottom  of  both  boxes. 
If  such  a  refrigerator  is  tightly  and  well  made  and 
placed  in  a  cool  place,  190  pounds  of  ice  will  last  a 
week  in  it. 


Kerosene  Lamps. 

A  merchant  returned  home  about  two  o'clock  at 
night,  and  found  his  wife  lying  on  the  bed  groaning 
heavily  and  unconscious.  She  was  waiting  his  return, 
and  at  last,  tired  out,  laid  herself  on  the  bed,  after 
turning  down  the  wick  of  a  lighted  kerosene  lamp  as 
low  as  possible  without  extinguishing  it.  In  this  posi- 
tion of  the  wick,  if  the  oil  is  trad,  a  vapor  mixed  with 
an  innumerable  quantity  of  specks  of  soot  diffuses 
itself  through  the  apartment,  and  so  covers  the  eyes, 
nose  and  respiratory  organs,  that  on  falling  asleep 
one  runs  a  risk  of  suflbcation.  It  is  always  advisable, 
therefore,  in  the  use  of  kerosene  lamps,  to  allow  the 
wick  to  burn  brightly  or  to  extingiush  it  entirely. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


Good  Cows. 

It  is  surprising  when  we  look  around  the  country 
to  see  the  large  number  of  poor  cows  that  are  kept 
for  years  in  the  daries,  and  by  men  from  which  bet- 
ter things  should  be  expected.  It  costs  as  much,  if 
not  more,  to  keep  a  poor  cow  than  a  good  one.  In  no 
other  branch  of  farm  labor  is  it  so  essential  to  have 
good  materi-al  to  work  with  as  in  the  dairy.  A  little 
study  of  the  characteristics  of  a  good  cow  will  gen- 
erally enable  a  person  to  tell  a  good  cow  when  he 
sees  her.  I  have  heard  men  say  that  they  bred  cows 
to  get  the  smallest  eaters.  But  this  is  a  fallacy,  as 
no  one  can  expect  to  get  something  from  nothing. 
The  cow  (all  the  other  essentials  being  right)  that 
will  assimilate  the  greatest  amount  of  food  will  usu- 
ally prove  to  be  the  best  cow  to  keep.  In  the  feeding 
of  cows  there  is  a  irreat  difference.  A  healthy  cow 
will  consume  many  times  her  weight  in  food  every 
year,  but  how  to  find  the  one  that  will  do  so  with  the 
least  weight  will  repay  the  careful  attention  of  those 
that  keep  cows.  If  this  point  is  not  strictly  attended 
to  it  will  make  a  wide  difference  in  the  margin  of 
profits.  But  it  is  unfortunate  to  have  a  poor  cow,  and 
the  shortest  and  best  way  to  get  rid  of  her  is  to  fit 
her  for  the  butcher  as  quick  as  possible,  and  fill  her 
place  with  one  whose  qualifications  at  the  pail  can 
be  depended  on.  Experiment  and  comparison  are  the 
true  modes  by  which  a  quick  observer  can  tell  a  good 
cow.  I  have  seen  men  whose  knowledge  was  such 
that  they  would,  as  a  general  thing,  pick  out  the  best 
cows  from  a  herd  every  time.  In  purchasing  cows  ail 
are  anxious  to  get  the  best ;  but  no  one  should  expect 
to  go  into  a  herd  and  buy  the  best  in  the  lot,  as  few  men 
will  sell  such.  In  large  herds,  the  scrubs,  or  the  ones 
that  the  rest  all  drive  around,  will  often  prove  good 
when  given  a  good  chance,  and  improve  so  that  tlieir 
foi'mer  owner  in  a  short  time  will  not  know  them.  I 
have  several  times  known  this  to  be  the  case. 

To  obtain  a  good  lot  of  cows  in  the  shortest  time, 
buy  the  best  regardless  of  cost.  But,  unfortunately, 
with  most  dairymen  this  cannot  be  done  for  want  of 
means,  so  we  must  look  for  other  ways  to  procure 
good  cows.  One  w.ay  will  be  to  raise  heifers  from 
the  cows  in  the  herd,  got  by  thoroughbred  males  of 
dairy  breeds.  This,  although  not  the  quickest,  will 
be  by  far  the  cheapest  and  best  way  to  accomplisli 
the  desired  result.  A  good  cow  will  often  lack 
much  of  being  a  handsome  one.  But  the  size  and 
shape  of  her  head  and  horns  have  much  to  do  to-' 
wards  making  a  good  cow.  I  have  never  yet  seen  a 
good  one  that  had  large,  broad  horns.  The  best 
cows  carry  a  small,  fine  head,  with  good-sized  ears; 
and  in  a  broad-hipped  cow  we  ahyays  find  the  milk 
mirror  well  developed.  Anyone  who  owns  a  cow 
should  lose  no  time  in  finding  out  her  qualifications, 
and  if  she  will  not  make,  at  the  lowest  calculation, 
iiOO  pounds  of  liutter  per  year,  she  should  be  speed- 
ily disposed  of.  In  a  large  herd  it  will  be  more  difU- 
cult  to  accomplish  this  than  where  only  a  few  are 
kept.  But  still  it  can  be  closely  approximated  if 
care  is  taken.  A  cow  that  gives  milk  as  blue  as  a 
whetstone  is  poor  property  for  any  one  but  a  city 
milkman.  Many  farmers  keep  too  many  cows  that 
produce  that  kind  of  milk.  A  cow  can  be  kept  till 
she  is  four  years  old  without  loss,  as  her  growth  will 
pay  the  cost  of  her  keeping,  jand  by  that  time  the 
amount  of  her  production  should  lie  ascertained  be- 
yond a  doubt.  I  think  that  with  care  in  breeding, 
cows  can  be  raised  that  will  yield  on  an  average  three 
hundred  pounds  of  butter  per  year,  if  well  kept. — 
S.  C.  Utarkcy,  N.  Y. 


The  Royal  Cow. 

When  cotton  was  summarily  discrowned  from  its 
long  reign  quite  a  number  of  aspirants  reached  for 
the  regalia,  and  iron,  corn,  hay  and  wheat  stretched 
for  the  sceptre.  A  rival  has  entered  the  field,  while 
the  deposed  monarch  is  regaining  his  strength  and 
worshippers  ;  and  though  centuries  have  lapsed  since 
Egypt  deified  the  cow,  and  Homer  made  "  ox-eyed 
Juno"  more  queenly  for  that  quality,  the  cow  is 
being  statistically  foisted  above  cotton  and  all  its 
other  rivals.  The  coronation  is,  of  course,  at  the 
hands  of  the  dairymen  and  maidens.  Their  ex- 
ponent has  just  declared  that  the  country  has  ¥4.50,- 
000,000  invested  in  10,000,000  milk  cows,  whose 
annual  product  is  worth  $.;7.5, 142, .58.5,  while  the  last 
cotton  crop  was  worth  only  5;i;00,000,000. 

The  enormous  sum  of  this  dairy  interest — which 
includes  nothing  of  oxen,  hides  or  meat — will  sur- 
prise every  one  who  has  paid  no  attention  to  it.  The 
fallacy  which  destroyed  the  hay  argument  is  partially 
wanting  here  too.  For,  while  our  cxport.ationof  hay 
amounts  to  nothing  and  hardly  equals  consumption, 
there  is  a  great  and  rapidly  growingexport  of  butter, 
cheese,  salt  and  fresh  beef  and  live  animals.  The 
sum  cannot  be  accurately  computed,  and  carries  the 
particular  valuation  into  the  same  classification  with 
cotton.  P"or  in  all  these  interests  the  final  apprecia- 
tion does  not  rest  upon  the  amount ,  how  considerable 
soever  that  may  be  which  is  consumed  at  home  and 
so  lost  to  wpallh,  but  upon  the  amount  beyond  con- 
sumption, which  is  exported  and  enriches  the  land  by 
its  equivalent  in  gold  or  other  needs  and  permanent 
worths. 


This  gross  value  of  cattle  for  labor,  manure,  milk, 
me.at,  cheese,  butter,  leather  and  other  ends,  is  sus- 
ceptible of  a  vast  addition  and  must  necessarily  ex- 
pand with  western  settlement  and  increase  the  re- 
turns shown  in  our  foreign  trade,  while  sustaining 
labor  at  home  more  abundantly  and  cheaply,  and  so 
enabling  every  industry  to  flourish  in  competition 
with  less  favored  countries,  and  greater  comforts  and 
luxuries  to  be  enjoyed  by  all.  It  wMII  not  hold  the 
throne  it  challenges  any  more  than  the  hay  crop ; 
provided  the  southern  energy  which  has  done  so 
much  toward  restoring  its  early  abundance,  holds 
the  course  it  has  with  the  energy  it  is  now  showing. 
But  it  may,  and  apparently  must,  reach  a  higher 
sum  than  any  farmer  or  any  statistician  has  dreamed; 
for,  recovering  its  total,  it  has  acqviired  the  best 
blood  of  the  best  herds  of  Europe  ;  has  given  practi- 
cal attention  and  study  to  the  manufacture  of  cheese 
and  butter;  has  given  the  leather  interest  a  new 
power  ;  is  conquering  Texas,  California,  Oregon  and 
all  the  new  States,  and  is  arousing  wonder  in  and 
drawing  money  from  Europe  and  Asia  at  the  same 
time. — North  Aiaerican. 


A.  Good  Mare. 

Some  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago  a  queer  character, 
nicknamed  ".Jersey  Bill,"  lived  at  Otisville,  N.  Y. 
During  the  races  at  Goshen  and  Middletown  he  used 
to  visit  the  courses  for  tjie  purpose  of  peddling  whips, 
which  were  made  of  reeds,  and  which  he  sold  for  five 
and  six  cents  apiece.  When  Bill  had  accumulated  a 
little  money  he  abandoned  his  itinerant  pursuits,  set- 
tled down  at  Hampton,  and  became  proprietor  of  the 
tavern  there.  He  had  many  acquaintances  among  the 
farmers  in  Sussex  county,  N.  .J.,  and  when  business 
was  slack  he  would  take  a  run  across  the  line  to  visit 
them.  On  one  of  these  occasions  Bill  chanced  to  see 
a  marc  which  he  admired  greatly,  and  which,  after 
some  dickering,  he  purchased  for  $1.50,  and  brought 
her  back  with  him  to  Hampton.  She  stood  about 
fifteen  hands  high,  was  a  sprightly,  neat-limbed 
creature,  and  attracted  considerable  attention  from 
the  connoisseurs  in  horseflesh  who  frequented  Bill's 
tavern.  Not  long  after  he  received  an  offer  of  §750 
for  the  animal  and  finally  accepted  it.  The  mare  was 
taken  in  charge  by  her  new  owner,  removed  to  New- 
burgh,  pKaced  in  the  care  of  a  careful  trainer,  andin 
due  time  regularly  introduced  upon  the  trotting  turf. 
Her  history  from  that  time  forward  was  marked  by 
a  series  of  triumphs.  Last  week  she  made  the  fastest 
time  (2:lfi'X)  ever  known  on  the  trotting  course  in 
the  State  of  California.  The  gentleman  who  pur- 
chased her  from  Jersey  Bill  was  Alexander  Gold- 
smith, and  the  mare's  name  is  Goldsmith  Maid. 


Intelligence  of  Cows. 

The  London  ^[ilk  Join-ual  says  :  "That  cows  hava 
memory,  language,  signs  and  means  of  enjoying 
pleasant  associations,  combining  for  aggressive  pur- 
poses, has  been  recognized,  but  scarcely  to  the  ex- 
tent tlie  subject  merits.  'Traveling  in  Italy  many 
years  .ago,  we  visited  some  of  the  large  dairy  farms 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Ferrara.  Interspersed 
among  much  of  the  low  Ijing,  unhealthy  land,  re- 
markable for  the  prevalence  on  it  of  vei-y  fatal  forms 
of  anthrox  in  the  summer  season,  are  fine  undulat- 
ing pasture  lands,  and  the  fields  are  of  great  extent. 
Wc  happened  to  stop  at  a  farmhouse  one  fine  autumn 
afternoon  when  the  cows  were  about  to  be  milked. 
A  herd  of  over  one  hundred  was  grazing  homewards. 
The  women  took  their  positions  with  stool  close  to 
the  house,  and  as  the  cows  approached,  names  were 
called  out,  which  at  first  were  we  thought  addressed 
to  the  milkmaids.  Kosa,  Florenza,  Giula,  Sposa, 
and  many  names  which  were  noted  by  us  at  the  time, 
were  called  out  by  the  overseer,  or  one  of  the  women, 
and  we  were  astonished  to  see  cow  after  cow  cease 
feeding  or  chewing  the  cud  and  make  direct,  some- 
times at  a  trot,  for  the  woman  that  usually  milked  her. 
The  practice,  we  found,  was  not  confined  to  one 
farm;  all  the  cows  on  each  farm  knew  their  respective 
names,  and  took  up  their  position  in  the  open  just  as 
readily  as  the  individual  members  of  some  large 
herds  in  this  country  turning  from  their  fields 
take  up  their  [ilaces  in  the  sheds." 


Black  Teeth  in  Hogs. 

A.  S.  Plummer,  Edinburg,  O.,  sent  to  the  Ameri- 
can farmers'  club  two  black  teeth  which  he  had 
just  extracted.  The  hogs  in  his  county  (Portage) 
are  beginning  to  be  troubled  with  these  teeth,  which, 
if  not  removed,  are  certain  to  cause  death.  The 
.symptoms  arc:  First, the  hog  refuses  its  feed;  second, 
tiicre  comes  a  weakness  about  the  back,  and  finally 
the  animal  fails  to  get  up,  and  dies.  These  teeth  are 
found  iu  each  jaw — in  the  upper  one  near  or  over  the 
tusks,  and  in  the  under  jaw  some  are  found  between 
the  front  teeth  and  tusks. 

As  no  one  i)resent  could  give  any  information  on 
the  subject,  the  club  desires  farmers  who  may  have 
any  knowledge  as  to  its  causes  and  cure  to  communi- 
cate the  same  to  them. 


Keep  Horses  Feet  Clean. — To  keep  horses  free 
fi-om  "grease,"  or  scratches,  their  legs  and  feet  must 
be  kept  clean  while  standing  in  the  stable,  and  rub- 
bed as  soon  as  they  come  out  of  the  wet. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


ill 


THE  APIARY. 


How  to  Begin  Bee  Keeping. 
Every  ))er(on  who  has  a  home,  he  It  ever  so  home- 
ly, shoiild  keep  heee.  The  time  wasted  by  almost 
every  one  could  he  spent  profltahly,  In  keeping  a  few 
itoekd.  It  would  not  only  afford  recreation  and 
pleasure,  but  would  replenish  the  purse  also.  There 
is  no  pursuit  I  know  of  that  will  pay  so  large  a  jier 
cent,  on  the  investment.  Bees  frive  delicious  honey 
to  their  owner  and  thus  make  his  home  pleasant. 
They  work  for  nothing  and  board  thcmrclvee.  A 
few  stocks  well  managed  will  pay.  In  almost  any  lo- 
cality, 100  per  cent. 

To  begin  bee  keeping  for  profit  it  is  necessary  to 
b4gin  right.  To  begin  right  is  to  procure  a  few 
flwarms,  and  adopt  some  good  movable  frame  hive, 
the  frames  not  over  ten  or  twelve  inches  in  depth. 
Choose  any  of  the  standard  hives  in  use,  and  stick 
to  them;  don't  be  made  to  believe  that  changing 
hives  is  the  only  road  to  success — It  has  been  the 
cause  of  many  a  beginner  gotting  discouraged  and 
•  glTing  up  the  pursuit  in  disgust.  I  tell  you  begin- 
ners, it  does  not  make  much  difference  what  kind  of 
hive  you  use,  so  it  is  movable  frame.  Begin  cau- 
tiously, and  you  will  learn  as  you  advance.  If  you 
have  any  fondness  at  all  for  the  [nirsult.  It  will  in- 
crease as  you  proceed,  and  you  will  become  "fonder 
still."  You  will  find  that  the  lime  spent  with  them 
and  you  may  keep  strict  account  of  every  hour)  will 
be  the  most  pleasant,  instructive  and  profitable  you 
have  ever  spent  in  any  rural  pursuit.  Don't  be  de- 
ceived by  patent  right  venders  of  moth  traps.  Many 
of  them  have  no  practical  knowledge  of  bee-keeping 
at  all,  and  could  not  tell  you  whether  a  drone  is  a 
male  or  female,  and  that  their  traps  would  exclude 
a  gnat,  and  yet  admit  a  bee,  that  is  twenty  times 
larger.  Strong  stocks  are  the  best  moth  traps,  don't 
fear  the  moth — a  good  strong  swarm  of  bees  with  a 
good  prolific  queen  never  has,  nor  ever  will  be  de- 
stroyed by  moth.  I  fear  the  moth  no  more  than  I 
do  the  common  house  fly;  never  lost  a  single  stock 
by  them  since  I  have  used  the  frame  hive,  of  either 
Italians,  hybrids,  or  blacks,  but  in  my  locality  the 
Italians  are  superior  in  every  respects. 

Any  one  desiring  to  begin  bee-keeping  should  get 
both  Italians  and  blacks;  try  them  side  by  side,  give 
the  same  attention  to  both,  then  if  you  find  the  Ital- 
ian superior,  or  vice  perfa,  common  sense  will  teach 
you  which  you  should  keep.  In  fact  common  sense 
Is  the  great  lever  that  moves  tons  of  honey  Into  our 
markets,  and  thousands  of  dollars  into  common 
sense  men's  pockets.  Beginners  should  not  expend 
much  in  making  bee-houses,  fanciful  hives,  etc. 
Frequently  such  expenditures  overrun  the  profits, 
and  the  beginner  thinks  bees  won't  pay,  gives  it  up 
and  ventures  on  something  else,  with  enthusiasm 
cries  Eureka,  bends  every  energy  to  it,  and  finds  by 
experience  it  is  worse  than  bee-iieeping,  retires  from 
it  to  try  something  else,  and  never  finds  It.  "A 
rolling  stone  gathers  no  moss;"  fortunes  are  seldom 
made  by  many  changes  in  one's  business.  Neglect 
your  business  (whatever  it  may  be)  and  you  will 
come  to  grief;  stick  to  it,  and  nine  out  of  ten  will 
succeed . 

1  would  advise  every  person  to  keep  bees.  1  love 
them  so  much,  I  think  everybody  ought  to  love  them 
too.  Now  you  faint  hearted  who  fear  you  will  be 
laughed  at,  called  enthusiasts,  or  anything  else,  I  tell 
you  get  beex;  pay  no  attention  to  what  people  say; 
mind  your  own  business,  and,  my  word  for  It,  you 
will  make  these  same  fellows  feel  that  you  were  not 
§0  foolish  as  they  supposed;  when  by  close  application 
and  study  you  have  conquered  all  diflicultics  and 
derive  from  your  fifty  or  sixty  stocks  an  annual  profit 
of  four  or  five  hundred  dollars.  Much  depends  upon 
the  locality  for  large  profits,  some  being  much  better 
than  others.  In  concluding  this  article,  I  would  say 
again  to  all  who  have  any  interest  in  bees,  keep  them 
and  whether  you  make  enormous  profits  or  not,  what 
you  do  realize  will  be  the  easiest  money  you  have  ever 
made.  It  will  be  clear  profit,  for  the  time  spent  on 
them  would  otherwise  be  lost  on  something  probably 
worse  than  nothing.— Cor.  Bee  Keepers'  Magazine. 


Italian  and  Native  Bees. 
I  sec  there  still  is  some  trouble  in  the  camp  with 
regard  to  keeping  bees  through  the  winter.  One 
corresjwndent  writes  plaintively  to  an  agricultural 
journal  that  he  lost  his  entire  stock,  and  they  had 
plenty  of  boi-honey.  Nothing  uncommon  ;  I  have 
no  doubt  if  he  had  twice  the  number  he  would  have 
lost  them  all.  The  apiarist  can  commit  no  greater 
error  than  allowing  large  quantities  of  surplus  honey 
to  remain  in  the  hive.  Bees,  like  the  human  species, 
have  a  natural  instinct  to  protect  their  stores,  and, 
when  they  have  vast  possessions,  will  throw  out 
guards,  pickets  and  scouts  for  protection,  and  If  sud- 
denly overtaken  by  a  cold  snap  thousands  of  them 
will  perish  in  a  single  night.  Again,  if  the  months 
of  Octotier  and  November  are  mild,  the  honey  In  the 
surplus  boxes  will  be  removed  to  the  centre  of  the 
hive,  where  every  available  comb  and  cell  is  filled  to 
Its  utmost  capacity.  If  this,  as  was  the  case  last 
winter,  is  followed  by  extreme  cold  weather,  these 
combi  will  very  nearly  reach  a  zero  temperature, 
and  with  only  the  narrow  intervening  passages  be- 


tween  them  which  prevent  their  clustering  closely  ; 
hence  hundreds  of  colonics  have  been  frozen  in  I  Ills 
way,  "  surrounded  by  plenty  (too  much)  of  honey," 
The  bee,  unlike  ttie  wasp  or  many  other  insects,  once 
dead  or  stiff  from  cold,  is  <icad  forever. 

There,  also,  are  still  those  in  the  field  who  claim 
that  the  Italian  beo  is  superior  to  all  natives  ;  that 
they  will  winter  better,  are  more  gentle,  licfcnd 
themselves  against  the  moth,  and  gather  more  honey 
than  the  blacks,  but  I  generally  and  Invariably  llnil 
that  thi.s  "superior"  song  conies  from  persons  only 
who  have  Ihem  for  sale.  The  experience  of  myself 
and  neighbors,  who  represent  one  hundred  colonics, 
is  that  we  have  less  honey  from  the  Italians— and 
we  have  them  as  jmre  as  ever  winked  at  by  an  Italian 
sun — than  wc  had  from  the  same  number  of  natives. 
I  never  had  more  than  thirty  pounds  of  box  honey 
from  Italians,  while  the  blacks  have  given  me  forty. 
Hut  the  hybrle— that  is  a  mixture,  half-breed,  of 
Italians  and  blacks — have  quite  frequently  yielded 
double  this  amount  of  surplus  honey  in  one  season. 
Will  some  one  rise  and  explain  ? — J.  M.,  Slackwatcr, 
,June  5,  1877. — Kxamincr  and  Express. 

.^ 

Beeswax. 
The  uses  for  wax  are  numerous  and  important. 
Its  property  of  preserving  tissues  and  preventing 
mold  or  mildew  was  well-known  to  the  ancients, 
who  used  cerecloth  for  embalming,  and  wax  for  en- 
caustic painting,  as  in  the  wall  pictures  of  Pompeii. 
Wax  candles  and  tapers  play  an  important  part  in 
the  processions  and  ceremonies  of  the  liomau  Catho- 
lic Church.  Wax  Is  used  by  the  manufacturers  of 
glazed,  ornamental  and  wall  papers,  and  on  paper 
collars  and  culls  for  polishing  the  surfaces.  It  is 
used  in  varnishes  and  paints  and  for  the  "stuffing" 
of  wood  which  is  to  be  polished,  as  for  pianos,  coach 
work,  fine  furniture,  and  parquettc  floors.  Electro- 
typers  and  plasterers  u.^^e  wax  in  forming  their 
moulds.  Wax  is  an  important  ingredient  In  prepa- 
rations for  covering  surfaces  of  polished  iron  and 
steel  to  prevent  rust.  Combined  with  tallow  it 
forms  the  coating  for  canvass  and  cordage  to  prevent 
mildew,  as  in  sails,  awnings,  etc.  Artificial  flowers 
consume  much  wax,  and  despite  the  introduction  of 
paraftine,  ceresin,  and  mineral  wax,  its  use  api)ears 
to  be  extending.  One  of  the  oldest  of  its  applications 
is  in  the  laundry,  and  in  polishing  wood-work.  The 
product  of  wax  In  the  United  States  Is  stated  to  be 
'2(1,000,000  pounds  annually,  and  increasing— worth 
in  money  at  least  ?fi,000,000.  Of  this  about  8700, 
000  worth  are  exported,  and  about  81,200,000  worth 
of  honey  also  goes  abroad.  The  total' product  of 
honey  and  wax  is  worth  at  present  In  the  United 
States  nearly  $1.5,000,000.  The  ingenious  production 
of  artificial  combs,  in  a  machine  recently  constructed 
that  turns  out  combs  with  cells  rivaling,  if  not  ex- 
celling, the  natural  product  is  an  Important  Ameri- 
can improvement  in  apiarian  culture,  which  will  add 
largely  to  the  economy  of  th.at  Industry,  yet  in  Its 
infancy.  As  the  bee  is  said  to  consume  three-fourths 
of  Its  time  in  producing  comb  at  the  very  time  when 
the  honey  harvest  is  at  its  best,  it  is  evident  that  the 
invention  of  artificial  combs  must  be  a  great  econ- 
omy in  collection  and  storing  of  honey  ;  but  It  is  not 
so  clear  how  the  stock  Is  kept  up  unless  man  deceives 
the  bee  by  using  "mineral  wax"  in  the  formation  of 
the  artificial  comb ;  and  this  wax  is  not  true  wa.\, 
but  a  natural  paraftine. — American  Grocer. 


Extracted  Honey. 

At  all  of  our  principal  city  grocery  stores  honey  in 
glass  jars  and  tin  cans  is  sold  at  much  less  price  than 
it  can  be  purchased  for  in  the  comb.  To  many  this 
is  a  mystery.  .  The  general  supposition  is  that  the 
article  is  not  pure.  Such,  however,  is  not  the  case. 
The  quality  is  quite  equal  to  that  which  is  sold  undis- 
turbed in  the  combs.  The  comb,  which  is  a  fatty, 
solid  substance  produced  by  bees,  is  first  excreted 
from  a  row  of  pouches  along  their  sides  in  the  form 
of  scales.  This  being  masticated  and  mixed  with 
saliva  becomes  whitened  and  tenacious  and  the  sub- 
stance is  employed  In  the  construclian  of  their  cells, 
the  repositories  for  their  honey  and  eggs.  The  bees 
consume  about  three-fourths  of  their  time  construct- 
ing their  comb,  whilst  gathering  the  honey  only  re- 
quires one-fourth. 

In  this  age  of  progress  aparians  take  a  sharp  knife 
and  skim  off  the  tops  of  the  cells,  and,  with  the  ex- 
tracting machine,  throw  the  honey  from  the  comb  by 
centrifugal  force.  The  comb  Is  then  put  back  into  the 
hive,  the  operation  being  repeated  frequently  during 
the  season.  This  enables  the  bees  to  gather  three 
times  the  quantity  of  honey  by  relieving  them  of  the 
necessity  of  liuilding  their  combs,  hence  the  reason 
why  there  is  always  more  extracted  or  "strained" 
honey  on  the  market  and  Its  consequent  cheapness. 
The  honey  thus  extracted  can  be  eaten  without  fear 
or  sickness.  It  is  eating  the  comb  which  often  pro- 
duces attacks  of  indlgestlon.-Wo-muK^oi"?!  Telegraph. 
^ 

The  product  of  wax  In  the  United  States  is  stated 
to  1)6  20,000,000  pounds  annually,  and  increasing 
— worth  in  money  at  least  Stj, 000,000.  Of  this  about 
$700,000  worth  are  exported,  and  about  $1,200,000 
worth  of  honey  also  goes  abroad .  The  total  product 
of  honey  and  wax  Is  worth  at  present  in  the  United 
States  nearly  $15,000,000. 


THE   POULTRY  YARD. 


Effects  of  Cold  Storms  on  Poultry. 

Each  season  of  the  year  l)rings  lis  special  work  and 
care,  demanding  the  attention  of  the  keepers  of  poul- 
try. Excejjtlng  the  bleak  autumn  storms,  no  perioil 
of  the  year  is  so  trying  to  the  constitution  of  fowls  as 
cold,  spring  rain  storms.  Thegermsof  disease,  how- 
ever,  are  sometiniep  conlractcil  durln;: confinement  in 
winter,  and  the  sudden  change  of  weather,  experi- 
enced during  a  cold  rain,  will  dcveloji  the  malady, 
which  is  likely  to  become  contagious.  Fowls  that 
have  lieen  highly  fed  and  kept  warm  to  induce  lay- 
ing, will,  like  a  forced  plant,  be  too  tender  to  stand 
neglect  during  the  early  dienchlng  rains  that  pene- 
trate to  their  very  skins. 

The  danger  need  not  tie  feared,  however,  by  those 
who  will  take  a  little  extra  careof  their  stock  during 
such  weather.  As  soon  as  the  earth  softens  under 
the  first  mild  breath  of  spring,  fowls  are  all  awake 
to  the  prospect  of  getting  worms  and  other  insects 
from  the  ground.  They  will  then  be  off,  prowling 
about  before  it  Is  light  enough  to  see  their  prey,  but 
as  they  evidently  know  that  the  early  bird  catches 
the  worm,  they  are  on  the  ground  betimes.  Perhaps 
the  next  day  there  is  a  severe  change  in  the  weather, 
with  sleet  or  rain,  and  you  will  see  the  birds  hunting 
about.  In  hopes  of  finding  insects,  till  they  get  soak- 
ing wet  through  their  feathers,  and  If  not  well  cared 
for,  this  often  jiroves  fatal. 

Most  fanciers  have  noticed  that  a  cold  storm  fre- 
c(nently  stops  hens  from  laying  for  a  week.  Now, 
this  delay  and  risk  of  sickness  may  often  be  prevent- 
ed by  giving  them  a  liberal  mess  of  soft,  warm  food, 
with  a  little  cayenne  pepper  in  it.  To  this  should  be 
added  a  generous  amount  of  animal  food,  either 
.scraps  or  haslets,  to  take  the.  place  of  the  supply  of 
worms,  which  is  stopped  when  the  fowls  cannot  get 
out.  With  this  little  extra  care,  hens  will  often  keep 
on  laying,  retain  perfect  health,  and  be  profitable  to 
their  keepers. — Henry  Hales,  in  Jiural  yew  Yorker. 


Vermin  on  Poultry. 

Jolin  E. 'Roberts,  In  the  Southern  PoultryJouriutl 
says  : 

".Many  fanciers  use  the  carbolic  (or  carbolated) 
liowder  in  order  to  rid  their  fowls  of  lice  and  mltee. 
It  is  considered  the  very  best  of  remedies.  My  plan 
is  one  which,  I  think,  is  used  by  no  other  breeder  ; 
has  never  failed  me  in  completely  ridding  my  fowls 
of  every  insect,  and  has  demonstrated  to  me  its  in- 
fallibility. It  is  simply  the  use  of  oil  of  sassafras 
mixed  with  sweet  oil.  To  one  ounce  of  oil  of  sassa- 
fras put  five  or  six  of  sweet  oil,  and  ap[ily  a  small 
quantity  to  difl'crent  parts  of  the  body  of  the  fowl, 
selecting  those  points  where  the  vermin  would  be 
most  apt  to  hide. 

"In  applying  the  preparation  I  fill  with  it  a  small 
oil-can,  so  that  I  can  force  out  as  much  or  as  little  of 
the  oil  as  I  wish.  A  very  small  bit  can  be  made  to 
go  a  great  ways,  for  one  drop  can  be  rulibed  over  two 
or  three  luches  of  space,  and  is  no  more  trouble  to 
apply  than  the  various  Insect  powders.  I  use  sweet 
oil  because  of  its  curative  powers,  but  any  kind  of 
grease,  no  matter  what,  will  do  to  mix  with  the  oil 
of  sassafras.  The  oil  of  sassafras  is  the  eradicator, 
the  other  oil  merely  the  vehicle.  I  believe  common 
sassafras  tea  would  be  wonilerl'ullycllicacious. 

"Make  it  in  a  large  pot,  then  alter  allowing  it  to 
cool,  dip  the  fowls  in  bodily.  In  one  second  the  lice  will 
he  dead,  and  in  ten  seconds  the  fowl  will  be  perfectly 
dry,  if  placed  In  the  sunshine.  It  is  hard  to  form  an 
idea  of  the  magical  cflbrt  produced  liy  the  oil  of  sas- 
safras. I  have  never  tried  the  remedy  in  greater  at- 
tention than  that  mentioned,  (one  to  five  or  six),  but 
believe  that  it  would  be  eciually  good  if  composed  of 
one  ounce  of  oil  of  sassafras  to  ten  or  twelve  of  any 
other  oil  or  grease." 


Purification  of  Hen   Houses. 

Advice  like  the  followincr,  which  wc  find  in  the 
Lii'c  Stock  Jonrnal,  is  always  in  order  : 

As  the  season  advances,  poultry  keepers  should  not 
neglect  the  purification  of  the  fowl  houses.  Proper 
sanitary  measures  must  be  taken,  or  health  and  suc- 
cessful poultry  raising  cannot  be  expected,  nor  Is  it 
deserved.  Lime  is  an  excellent  purifier,  and,  when 
carbolic  acid  is  added  to  the  whitewash,  will  ell'ectu- 
ally  kcej)  away  vermin  from  the  walls.  After  every 
cleaning  of  the  floor  it  should  be  sprinkled  with  car- 
bolic acid  ;  dilution,  twenty  of  water  to  one  of  acid. 
This  is  one  of  the  best  disinfectants  and  antiseptics 
known,  and  is  not  used  as  much  as  it  deserves.  The 
roosts  should  be  s|)rlnkU'd  with  it  every  week.  This 
whitewashing  should  be  done  twice  at  least,  better 
three  times  a  year.  Th«  nests  of  setting  hens  should 
besprinkled  with  carbolic  acid  to  keep  off  vermin; 
and  the  coops,  also,  where  young  brood  are  kept  for 
a  time,  should  be  purified  in  this  way.  If  a  hen  gets 
lousy,  the  dilute  acid  will  destroy  the  lice,  if  put 
under  the  wintrs,  and  on  the  head  and  neck.  Wood 
ashes  arc  excellent  to  be  kept  in  fowl  houses  for  hens 
to  dust  themselves  with.  They  are  much  more 
effectual  than  sand ;  but  sand  should  be  kept  for  a 
bath.  Without  proper  attention  to  these  matters, 
poultry  keepers  cannot  expect  to  succeed. 


412 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  July,  1877 


All  Styles  of  Chicken-Coops 

Are  in  UBe,  and  many  elaborate  contrivances  are 
recommended  by  those  who  indulge  in  the  fanciful. 
But  the  most  economical  and  serviceable  nest-house 
and  cage  for  the  hen  and  brood,  for  the  first  three 
months,  is  the  common  pitch-roof  box,  about  three 
by  two  and  a  half  feet,  if  it  can  be  placed  upon  the 
ground  or  lawns. 

This  should  have  no  floor ;  or,  if  rats  are  trouble- 
some, use  a  floor  ;  but,  by  all  means,  let  it  be  inova- 
hlf,  i.  e.,  )io(  nailed  to  the  coop.  The  coop  may  be 
moved  about  and  set  in  a  new  place  every  few  days, 
thus  aflbrding  a  fresh,  clean  groundwork  continually. 
This  arrangement  is  an  excellent  one  for  the  health 
of  the  young  birds. 

The  coop  should  have  an  open  slat  front,  with  a 
Ijitch-roof  overhanging  the  body  of  the  box  two  or 
three  inches  to  shed  the  rain,  and  near  the  eaves  two- 
inch  holes  should  be  bored  on  both  sides  for  ventila- 
tion . 

The  chicks  will  runout  at  the  front  in  fine  weather, 
and  the  mother  will  have  ample  room  inside  for  her 
own  comfort,  as  weir  as  to  brood  the  young  when 
needful.  If  the  box  be  kept  clean  and  free  from  lice, 
the  chickens  will  do  nicely  in  this  form  of  shelter 
until  they  are  strong  enough  to  be  transferred  to  the 
larger  coops  of  a  similar  formation,  where  they  may 
be  colonized  in  numbers  of  forty  or  fifty  together  at 
night,  before  they  get  large  enough  to  go  to  the  roost. 
— PoicUnj  World. 

Red  Pepper  and  Poultry. 

A  correspondent  of  the  I'onltnj  BuUetin  says  :  I 
do  not  know  whether  other  persons  who  raise  poultry 
and  pet  birds  are  as  much  dependent  as  I  am  on  red 
jiepper  ;  but  I  have  found  so  much  benefit  from  its 
use  in  my  poultry  yards  and  cages  that  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  call  the  attention  of  others  to  its  good  pro- 
perties. 1  do  not  speak  of  the  article  that  is  sold  in 
drug  stores,  (and  sometimes  not  remarkably  fresh), 
but  of  the  cap.sicum  that  grows  in  our  gardens.  I 
have  tried  all  the  dillerent  varieties,  and  find  that  the 
must  pungent  and  efficacious  is  the  small  kind  usually 
known  by  the  name  of  "bird's  pepper."  The  plant 
in  itself  is  a  beautiful  object,  it  grows  about  two  feet 
high,  and  in  autumn  its  bright  little  scarlet  berries 
look  like  coral  Ijcads  peeping  from  under  the  dark, 
green  foliage.  Indeed,  one  plant  in  a  pot  seems  a 
very  pretty  ornament  for  a  flower  stand.  The  seed 
possesses  a  stimulating  and  reviving  property,  and  I 
find  that  two  or  three  given  to  newly  hatched  chick- 
ens, especially  if  they  are  weakly,  have  a  most  hapjiy 
effect.  If  a  hen  looks  feeble  after  moulting,  six  of 
those  berries  or  pods,  given  daily,  in  some  cornmeal 
and  sweet  milk  improves  her  wonderfully.  Last 
summer  two  of  my  finest  canaries  began  to  cboop. 
Every  day  I  gave  them  each  one  seed  of  the  "  bird's 
pepper,"  and  in  less  than  a  week  they  were  quite 
well.  The  same  remedy  is  invaluable  for  mocking 
birds. 

Turkeys. 

A  little  experience  is  a  very  good  thing  in  raising 
turkeys  as  well  as  anything  else.  If  they  run  wliere 
they  pJe.tse,  they  need  nof.be  fed  more  than  twice  a 
day  ;  if  kept  in  a  small  yard,  every  hour  is  not  too 
often  while  they  are  young.  The  practice  of  feeding 
wet  ^aw  cornmeal  is  very  injurious  to  all  kinds  of 
fowl's,  and  especially  turkeys.  Small  grain  and  corn 
bread,  meal  just  mixed  with  water  and  baked,  then 
dampened,  may  be  fed,  and  the  chicks  will  thrive. 
A  pan  of  sour  ndlk  set  out  to  them  will  disappear  in 
an  incredibly  short  time,  and  the  curd  scalded  and 
the  whey  poured  off  is  excellent  for  them.  Hens 
should  be  quite  young,  but  goljblers  ought  to  be  kept 
over  until  the  second  year.  Breaking  up  the  nest  and 
forcing  the  hens  to  lay  a  second  time  is  not  best,  as 
the  turkey  raised  with  common  fowls  never  do  so 
well,  and  the  late  chicks  thus  obtained  do  not  often 
make  up  in  weight  wliat  might  seem  an  advantage 
in  getting  a  few  more  eggs.  For  several  years 
eighteen  nut  of  twenty  eggs  under  turkeys  came  out, 
and  fifteen  out  of  eighteen  lived  to  go  to  market. — 
WeMri-n  Af/ricnlturlst. 

Catching  Hawks. 

As  the  season  is  approaching  when  hawks  are 
most  deslructive  to  young  poultry,  a  method  of 
catching  and  killing  these  marauders  will  be  in  order. 
It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  a  hawk  will  always 
alight  on  some  conspicuous  [ilace  close  to  the  jionltry 
yard,  from  which  to  swoop  down  on  his  victims. 
Taking  advantage  of  this,  erect  a  pole  with  a  flat 
surface  at  the  top  just  large  enough  to  hold  a  strong 
steel  trap.  Fasten  this  trap  by  a  chain  to  a  staple 
in  the  pole,  and  await  results.  No  bait  will  be  needed, 
for  the  hawk  will  be  quite  certain  to  light  on  the  trap 
and  he  caught.  A  gentleman  who  has  tried  this 
method  has  succeeded  in  killing  all  the  hawks  in  his 
neighborhood,  and  now  can  raise  poultry  without 
loss  except  by  accident. —  CuHfornia   IfortkuUurUl. 

Soft  Eggs. 

O.  E.  F.,  writes  :  My  chickens  lay  eggs  with  soft 
shells.     What  sliall  1  give  them  ? 

Keply. — Give  them  a  rest.  They  are  laying  too 
many  eggs,  more  than  they  have  material  to  finish 


properly.  Some  bones  burned  and  powdered  should 
always  be  given  to  fowls  when  laying,  but  if  the  hens 
are  supplied  with  a  variety  of  food  and  can  get  plenty 
of  gravel  and  earth  or  coal  ashes,  and  are  in  perfect- 
ly good  health,  they  will  not  lay  soft  eggs.  This  de- 
fect is  an  indication  that  they  are  fed  too  highly  and 
are  overtaxed. 

^ 

Dead  Shot  on  Poultry  Lice. 

Take  an  old  wooden  bucket,  bore  a  half-inch  hole 
an  inch  from  the  brim,  and  cut  out  the  half-inch 
piece  to  the  top  of  the  brim  ;  smootli  the  edges  of 
this  slot,  grease  a  pine  splinter,  sprinkle  fine  sulphur 
upon  it,  and  burn  it  under  the  inverted  bucket ;  put 
the  fowl  under  quickly,  with  head  through  the  slot ; 
hold  the  bucket  firmly  about  ten  minutes  ;  let  the 
fowl  go,  and  the  lice  will  all  be  killed. 


Supply  your  chickens  with  milk  if  you  can.  Let 
them  have  good  shelter  and  fair  attention,  and  you 
will  find  it  will  pay  you  when  you  come  to  fix  them 
for  the  show  pen,  or  oiler  them  for  sale  to  customers 
who  are  willing  to  pay  fair  prices  for  choice  breeding 
birds. 


LITERARY  AND   PERSONAL. 


Our  Attention  has  been  called  to  some  new  and 
useful  cooking  utensils  recently  invented.  One  of 
which  is  known  as  the  Centennial  Cake  and  Baking 
Pan,  made  of  Russia  iron,  and  is  so  constructed  that 
after  your  cake  is  baked,  you  can  instantly  remove 
it  from  the  pan  without  injuring  it ;  and  having  a 
raised  bottom  tiie  cake  can  not  possibly  burn.  It  is 
also  provided  with  a  slide  on  the  bottom,  so  that 
when  you  remove  the  tube,  you  can  close  the 
hole,  making  a  pan  with  plain  bottom  for  baking 
jelly  or  plain  cakes,  bread,  etc.  Another — the  Kitch- 
en Gem — is  also  a  very  useful  and  long-needed  house- 
hold necessity.  It  is  a  plated  wire  boiler  or  steamer 
to  hang  inside  of  an  ordinary  iron  pot,  for  boiling  or 
steaming  vegetables,  which,  when  done  can  be  easily 
removed  perfectly  dry  without  lifting  the  heavy, 
sooty  iron  pot  off  of  the  stove,  avoiding  the  danger 
of  burning  the  hands  with  the  steam  in  pouring  oflf 
the  hot  water.  And  the  vegetables  can  not  possibly 
burn,  if  the  water  tjoils  dry,  as  the  steamer  does  not 
touch  the  bottom  of  the  pot. 

These  goods  are  sold  exclusively  through  agents  to 
families,  giving  universal  satisfaction,  and  presents  a 
splendid  opening  for  some  reliable  lady  or  gentleman 
canvasser  of  this  county  to  secure  the  agency  for  a 
profitable  business.  For  terms,  territory,  etc.,  write 
to  L.  E.  Brown  &  Co.,  Nos.  214  and  216  Elm  Street, 
Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

California  Agriculturist  and  Pacific  Arti- 
ZAN,  (Consolidated),  San  Jose:  S.  Harris  Herring, 
Editor.  A  royal  quarto  of  20  pages,  including  illus- 
trated covers,  with  ornamental  margins  ;  monthly, 
|1 .50  per  annum.  Its  editorials,  its  contributions, 
and  its  selections  are  able,  solid  and  condensed  ;  and, 
including  its  typographical  execution,  it  is  a  credit  to 
the  "  Golden  State."  The  editor  says  :  "It  will  be 
what  its  name  purports,  the  f'alifvmia  A;/rici(lturixt 
and  Artisan,  a  magazine  lor  the  workshop,  farm  and 
fireside.  It  is  not,  nor  does  it  pretended  to  be,  a 
newspaper,  but  it  will  be  a. living  conveyor  of  intelli- 
gence upon  the  most  important  topics  connected  with 
industrial  progress,  political  reform  and  educational 
and  social  advancement,  in  a  material,  intellectual 
and  mora!  sense.  It  will  depend  for  support  upon  the 
intelligence  and  appreciation  of  an  earnest  people, 
who  represent  many  and  deserving  interests.  It  will 
aim  to  promote  the  growth  of  intelligence,  enterprise 
and  good  will  among  men,  and  the  co-operation  and 
harmony  of  true  business  interests,  while  at  the 
same  time  it  will  oppose  all  evils  and  evil  designs, 
and  especially  such  as  bear  upon  industry.  With  a 
broad  field,  and  urgent  work  before  us,  we  invite  tlie 
aid  and  good  fellowship  of  every  one. 

The  SE.Mi-TROPif:AL. — The  July  number  of  this 
interesting  Southern  Magazine  contains  a  pleasing 
variety.  "On  a  Semi-Tropical  Sea  Island,"  is  an  in- 
teresting portrayal  of  a  summer  in  Floiida,  by  Dr. 
D.  H.  Jacques.  Kev.  Chas.  Beecher,  who  now  re- 
sides at  Newport,  on  the  Gulf  Coast,  in  an  article 
entitled  "  Florida  a  Hundred  Years  Hence,"  shows 
the  probable  results  of  the  development  of  the  State. 
The  veteran  Southern  horticulturist  and  author,  U. 
Redmond,  commences  a  descriptive  catalogue  of 
"The  Trees  of  Florida."  Ur.  '/,.  11.  Mason  suggests 
some  of  the  "Sources  of  Florida's  Prosperity,"  and 
Dr.  Benjamin  extols  the  great  healthfulness  of 
Tampa  and  vicinity.  There  are  valuable  original 
contribution  on  "  Florida  Internal  Navigation ;" 
"  Grape  Culture;"  "Gardening  All  the  5'ear  Round;" 
"Mounds  of  South  Florida,"  together  with  several 
selected  articles.  The  Editorial  Department  is  spe- 
cially varied  and  interesting,  containing  information 
on  fruit-cultui'e,  stock-growing,  poultry-raising,  bee- 
keeping, floriculture,  etc.  Chas.  W.  Blew,  Jackson- 
ville, Fla.     Terms.  :^0  cents  a  number  ;  i'A  a  year. 

Colorado  Business  Directory,  and  Annual 
Register  for  1877,  containing  a  classified  list  of  all 
the  business  and  professional  men,  officers,  societies, 
schools,  churches,  Ac,  in  all  the  cities  and  towns  in 
Colorado,  together  with  post-towns,  offices,  expresses 


and  telegraphs,  railroads  and  stage  offices,  &c.,  in 
the  State.  Denver,  Colorado,  J.  A.  Blake,  Publisher. 
A  handsome  12  mo.  of  247  pages,  log^ether  with  26 
pages  of  advertisements,  and  4  pages  of  tinted  cov- 
ering, arranged  alphabetically  by  counties.  To 
which  is  added  a  list  of  the  banking  institutions, 
hotels,  mines,  &c.,  officers  of  the  State  government 
and  lists  of  all  the  county  offices  in  the  State,  be- 
sides many  other  matters,  "too  tedious  to  mention." 

Colorado  is  the  youngest  State  in  the  Union,  about 
which  too,  there  was  a  doubt,  as  to  whether  it  ought 
to  have  been  admitted  into  the  Union  at  all.  This 
is  a  better  arranged  Directory,  and  easier  to  be  re- 
ferred to,  than  any  work  of  the  kind  we  have  yet 
seen,  and  is  invaluable  to  those  residing  there,  or 
who  propose  to  locate  there. 

It  will  be  a  matter  of  interest  to  all  our  readers 
who  are  desirous  of  adorning  their  homes,  to  know 
that  there  has  been  incorporated  in  New  York  a  Stock 
Company  with  a  cash  capital  of  a  quarter  of  a  mil- 
lion of  dollars,  for  the  manufacture  of  Pianos,  which 
will  be  sold  direct  to  the  people  at  factory  prces.  Its 
name  is  the  Mendelsohn  Piano  Co.,  office  No.  .5(5* 
Broadway,  New  York. 

These  Pianos  made  one  of  the  finest  displays  at  the 
Centennial  Exhibition,  and  were  ummimously  recom- 
mended for  the  Diploma  of  Honor  and  Medal  of 
Merit. 

This  Company  are  the  first  to  do  a  general  business 
with  the  pnrcfiaxer  direct,  saving  him  more  than  one- 
half  the  price  charged  by  otlier  .^rsi-c^ns.';  makers. 

We  would  recommend  auyof  our  readers  who  have 
any  idea  of  ever  buying  a  piano,  to  send  for  their  Il- 
lustrated and  Descriptive  Catalogue,  which  will  be 
mailed  free  to  all. 

On  the  Value  and  Culture  of  Roots,  for ' 
stock  feeding,  by  David  Landreth  &  Sons,  Philadel- 
phia, 1877.  We  are  under  obligations  for  an  "  ad- 
vanced copy,  with  the  respects  of  the  publishers,"  of 
this  valuable  little  work  on  an  interesting  and  useful 
subject,  and  shall  not  hesitate  to  lay  it  under  contri- 
bution. This  is  a  royal  octavo  pamjihlet  of  48  pages, 
full  of  well  executed  illustrations,  and  treats  of  root 
crops  alone,  including  the  turnip,  the  beet,  the  car- 
rot, and  the  parsnip,  and  all  their  most  approved  va- 
rieties ;  giving  their  uses,  their  mode  of  culture,  and 
their  yield  and  pecuniary  value.  To  which  is  ap- 
pended an  excellent  article  on  "Beet  Sugar,"  from 
which  we  learn  that  the  product  of  Europe  in  1875 
amounted  to  1,317,623  tons,  equal  to  61  per  cent,  of 
all  the  cane  sugar  manufactured  in  the  whole  world; 
the  internal  revenue  tax  on  which,  for  1874  and  1875, 
amounted  to  over  |40,000,000. 

The  Breeders'  Manual,  and  descriptive  cata- 
logue of  blooded  stock  (second  edition  for  1877  and 
1878),  including  cattle,  sheep,  hogs,  poultry,  pigeons, 
&c.,  ic;  the  l)est  imported  and  homebred  strains, 
owned,  bred  and  for  sale  by  Bejison  it  Burpee,  2Si 
Church  street,  Philadelphia,  is  a  handsomely  illus- 
trated book  of  56  pages,  in  paper  covers  and  royal 
octavo  size.  The  illustrated,  thoroughbred  .South- 
down sheep,  in  this  number  of  the  Farmer,  is  only 
a  fair  sample,  but  by  no  means  the  best  that  the  book 
contains.  It  is  particularly  full  in  poultry  and 
pigeons,  which  these  gentlemen  have  made  a  specialty 
for  years.  The  book  may  he  obtained  at  the  above 
address,  or  by  mail  for  25  cents,  postpaid.  As  it  con- 
tains much  that  is  useful  to  the  stock  grower,  it 
might  be  an  advantage  to  him  in  treating  his  stock 
on  hand.     See  advertisement  in  another  column. 

Rand's  New  York  City  Business  Directory 
For  1«77. — The  second  volume  of  this  valuable  and 
indispensable  work  has  just  been  issued  by  the  Pub- 
lishers, Messrs.  Walter  Heugh&  Co., of  3  Park  Place, 
New  York.  No  pains  or  expense  has  been  spared  in 
the  production  of  tlic  present  volume,  to  make  it 
complete  and  reliable.  In  typographical  appearance 
and  binding,  certainly  it  is  a  fine  specimen  of  hook- 
making.  It  contains  over  one  hundred  pages  more 
matter  than  the  last  year's  volume,  which  has  added 
largely  to  the  cost  of  the  production  of  the  work,  and 
compelled  the  publishers  to  issue  hereafter  only  the 
full  cloth  bound  edition  at  one  dollar  per  copy,  upon 
the  receipt  of  which  sum  they  will  forward  the  work 
to  any  address  in  the  United  States  or  Canada,  by 
mail,  postage  prepaid. 

Woman's  Words.. — An  original  review  of  what 
the  sex  is  doing.  Mrs.  Juan  Lewis,  pul)lisher,  Phila- 
delphia, Pa.  $1.00  a  year  postpaid.  This  is  a  royal 
quarto  of  16  pages,  on  tinted  paper  and  in  fair  type. 
This  is  a  new  enterprise.  No.  2,  Vol.  I  of  which  is  on 
our  tabic,  and  contains  a  biographical  sketch  of  .Mrs. 
Clarence  S.  Lozier,  M.  D.,  and  a  portrait  of  that 
lady  engraved  expressly  for  the  work.  The  contribu- 
tions are  mainly  those  of  distinguished  and  intelligent 
women,  and  are  of  marked  literary  ability.  It  seems 
to  us  that  there  is  an  opening  for  just  such  a  work, 
and  women  who  do  not  encourage  it  and  avail  them- 
selves of  its  advantages,  the  fault  will  be  with  them. 

Redeemed,  by  O.  Gerard. — This  is  the  title  of 
the  most  successful  temperance  song  published.  It  is 
uow  being  sung  nightly  at  the  temperance  meetings 
held  in  Cincinnati.  Everybody  should  sing  Redeemed. 
Price  35  cents  per  copy.  Can  be  played  on  the  Piano 
or  Organ.  Address  all  orders  to  the  publisher,  V. 
W.  Helmick,  .50  West  4th  St.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


in. 


The  Great   Discovery. 
E.  r.  KUNKELS  BITTER  WINE  OF    IKON. 


For  the 
car*  of  welk  •tomach,  gen«ruldebUity,  indigestion,  disease 
of  thenervons  Bysicm,  coiiHtlpatiou,  acidity  of  the  stomach, 
and  »U  oases  requirlDg  a  tonic.     .  ^    «   .     .  ^  u    <• 

The  wine  iucludes  the  most  sKteeable  and  effloient  Salt  of 
Iron  we  poeboas  Citrate  of  Magnetic  Oxide,  combined  with 
the  most   energetic  of  vegetable  toulca— Yellow  Peruvian 

The  effwt  In  many  cases  of  debility,  loss  of  appetite,  and 
general  prostration,  of  an  efficient  Salt  of  Iron  combined 
with  valuable  Nerve  tonic,  is  most  hiippy.  It  aUKnients  the 
appetite,  raises  the  pnlse,  takes  off  musculur  flabbiness, 
removes  the  pallor  of  debility,  and  gives  a  florid  vigor  to 
the  countenance. 

Do  you  want  something  to  strengtheu  you  7  Do  you 
want  a  good  appetite  7  Do  you  want  to  build  up  your  oou- 
•titution  7  Do  you  want  to  feel  well  7  Do  you  want  to  get 
rid  of  uervoBsness?  Do  yon  want  energy  7  Do  you  want 
to  sleep  well?  Do  you  want  brisk  uud  vigorous  feelingB 7 
If  you  do,  try  Kuukel's  Wine  of  Iron. 

This  truly  valuable  tonic  has   been  thoroughly  tested  by 
all  classes  of  the  community,  that   it  ie  now  deemed  iudis- 
j>eu8aMe  as  a    ionic   medicine.    It  costs  but  little,  puriflea 
The  blood  and  gives  tone  to  the  stomach,  renovates  the  sys- 
tem and  prolongs  life. 

I  now  only  ask  a  trial  of  thin  valuable  Tonic.  Price,  $1 
per  bottle.  F-  F.  KUNKEL,  Sole  Proprietor,  Philadelphia, 
Pa,  Ask  yoor  Druggist  for  KunkeJ's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron, 
and  take  no  other  make.  Sold  only  in  $1  bottles.  All 
others  are  counterfeit,  so  beware  of  them. 

Boy  six  bottles  lor  $&.Ut). 

Worms    Removed   Alive. 

E.  F.  Kuukera  Worm  Syrup  never  fails  to  destroy  Pin, 
8eat  aud  Stomach  Worms.  Dr,  KUNKEL  is  the  only  suc- 
cessful Phyniciau  in  thiscountry  for  the  removal  of  Worms. 
He  removes  Tape  worm,  with  head  and  all  complete,  alive 
in  3  hours,  and  no  fee  until  removed.  Send  for  circular,  or 
call  on  your  druggist,  and  get  a  bottle  ef  KUNKEI/8  WORM 
SYRUP.     Price,  $1.00.     a  never  falls. 


To  tlie  WorkliifC  Class.— We  are  now  prepared  to 
furnish  all  classes  with  couataut  employment  at  home,  the 
whole  of  the  time,  or  for  their  spare  moments.  Busiuesa 
new,  light  and  itrofltable.  Persons  of  either  sex  easily  earn 
from  50  cents  to  $5  per  evening,  and  a  proportional  sum  by 
deTotiug  their  whole  time  to  the  business.  Boy«  and  girls 
earn  nearly  us  much  as  meu.  That  uU  who  see  this  nolice 
may  send  their  adkress,  uud  test  the  business  we  make  this 
unparalleled  offer :  To  such  as  are  not  wt«ll  satisfied  we  will 
send  one  dollar  to  pay  for  the  trouble  of  writing.  Full  par- 
ticulars, samples  worth  several  dollars  to  oomiuence  work 
on,  aud  a  cojiy  of  Home  and  Fireside,  one  of  the  largest  and 
best  Illustrated  Publications,  all  sent  free  by  mail.  Reader, 
if  you  want  permanent,  profitable  work,  addreps. 

9-3-lm  Gkoboe  Stinson  k  Co.,  Portland,  Maine 

War  in  Europje:. 

niQM  A  nni/, His  Authentic  Biography,  Prirate  Letters 
DIOiVlnMui\i»nd  Memoranda.  Introduction  by  Bay- 
ard Taylor,  Graphic  aud  entertaining.  Full  of  anec- 
dote, wit,  romantic  incident,  aud  great  historical  events. 
Profusely  Illustrated  with  actual  sketches  from  Bia- 
mark'a  life — home,  student,  political  aud  battle  scenes,  por- 
trsita,  landscapes,  etc.  This  Life  of  Europe's  greatest 
statesman  is  just  the  book  for  the  times  ,  delineating  as  it 
does  all  the  famous  Rulers.  Generals,  and  Diplomats — co- 
actors  with  Bismarck.  Special  Can  vaskebs  wanted  to  sup- 
ply the  urgent  demand  for  this  live  hook.  Good  pay.  Cirou- 
lar,  free.    Write  to  J,  B.  FORD  &  CO  ,  Few  York.      9-5-6m. 


^^  PVPVfav  '°  ^°^  easily  earned  in  these  time8,but  it  can  be 
n#l /I  /I  /  made  in  three  months  by  any  one  of  either 
^W  /  /  /  ^"^^^  i^  ^^y  P^f'  of  the  country  who  is  willing 
Cl/  ill**'  work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
^•^  furnish.  $GG  per  week  in  your  own  town.  You 

need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.     You  can  give  your 
whole  time  to  the  work,  or   only  your  spare  moments.     It 
costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  16  Outfit  free. 
Addrees  at  oucc,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-3-ly 


Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 

I  Siisiieiiders,  HaMtercMefs, 

I.iiirn  and  Paper  Collars  and  CuffH 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

at 

E.  J.  EEZSMAI^'S, 

No.   no    North    Queen    Street, 

Second  door  from  Shober'a  Hotel. 

9-l-ly 

AMOS  MILEY,  ' 

108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANUFACTUEBR  OF  AND  DF.ALEB  P* 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars, 

Bridles,  WUijis,  Ac.      Also  a  line  lot  of  Truuks.  Vslisea, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buffalo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 

T^TT  A  TTNESS  RELIEVED-  No  medicine. 
J-'JUJXX.JC      Book  free.    O.  J.  WOOD.  Madison,  Ind 

9-"-4m] 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 
ci:.OTiis, 

CASSIMERES, 

COATINGN,  :'WOIUtTERDS, 

TESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Chiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striped  and  diagonal, for  Sjiriufi  and  Hummer, 
ftt  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  ('lothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(EatabUshad  in  the  jetv  1840), 

C«rner  af  North  Qneeo  and  Oran<!^-SU., 
LANCASTER.  PA. 

Extra  flnished  aud  trimmed.  Ready-made  Clothing,  for 

MEN  AND  BOYS, 

and  clothing  out  or  made  to  order  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A   fine    line    of     GENTS'   FCRNISHINa   dOODS.  and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
9-l-ly  Practical  Tailors. 

M.  HABERBUSH, 

MANCFACTUREB  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

SADDL,Eii, 

COLLARS,   "WiaiPS,  <S5C., 

AI.«0    DEALER    IS 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFAXO  ROBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  Sec, 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

»-1-1t  LANCASTER,  PA. 


H    Z.  RH0AD3. 


CHA3.  G.  RHOADS. 


H.Z.RHOADS&BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa,, 

Wholesale  sod  Retail  Dealers  in 

DIAMOIS,  WATCHES,  JKffELRT, 

SIL7ESWABE,  SPECTACLES, 

Brossei.  Clocki  and  Witchnakeri'  himk 


JOBBBI\S  IN  i^MEH.ICAN  WaTGI^ES. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injportations  i^  Foreign  Goods. 


9-1 -Ijl 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


We  sill  EVtRYTHINQ  tor  the 

G AUD  E  N 

And  offer  NOW  (from  .Juue  13  to  Aug.  15): 
Celery  PlaatB, 

Dwatf  White,  by  mail,  for.., $1.00  per  100 

Large  White  Solid,  by  mail,  for 1.00     "  100 

Dwarf  Bed,  "         "     ....  1.00     "  100 

Any  of  the  above  Celery  Plauts,  by  expreBS, 
for  $5.00  per  1,000. 

Cabbage  Plants, 

Premium  Flat  Dutch,  by  mail,  for. $1.00  per  100 
Drumhead  Savoy,  "  '•        l.oo    "  100 

Eed  (for  pickling),  "  "        1.00    "  100 

Auy  of  the  abo\e  Cabbage  Plants,  by  express, 
for  $4.00  per  1,000. 

Cauliflo-nrer  Plants, 

Early  Erfurt,  by  mail,  for $1.23  per  100 

Early  Paris,        "  "       1.25     '*  100 

Any  of  the  above  Cauliflower  Plants,  by  ex- 
press, for  $7.50  per  1,000. 

SfT'Special  prices  for  larger  quanti- 
ties given  on  application. 

TURNIP  SEED. 

Au.v  of  the  foHowing  leading  sorts  sent  by 
mail  for  IDc.  per  oz. — 25c   per  i^  lb. — 75c.  per  lb. 

Early  White  Dutch— White  Strap  Leaf— Ked 
Top  Strap  Leaf — Golden  Ball — Improved  Amer- 
ican Jtutii  Baga. 

PETER  HENDERSON  &  CO., 

.H4?0(lHni<>ii  Hiiil   F]4»ri«its, 

35  CorUandt  St.,  N.  Y. 


1760.       ESTABLISEED       1760. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  Eing-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDING  HARDWARE, 

OI.AS8, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TERRA  com,  MaM  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Agents  for  the 

''  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann's  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont's  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  <Sco.,  <fec. 


9-7-ly] 


TO  CONSUMPTIVES. 

The  advertiser  haviny  bot-n  permauently  cured  of  that 
dread  dieeaae,  Conaumption,  by  a  Piiiiple  remedy,  is  anxious 
to  make  kDown  to  hia  fellow  euffererg  the  meaua  of  cure. 
To  all  who  desire  it.  he  will  send  a  copy  of  the  prescription 
used,  (free  of  charge),  with  the  directions  for  preparing  and 
uaisg  the  same,  which  they  will  find  a  bubs  Cdkk  for  Con- 
SUMPTION,  Asthma,  BBONrHixia,  4c. 

Parties  wishing  the  preacriptiou  will  please  address, 

ReT,  E.  A.  WILSON,  19i^Penn  St..  waUamsburg,  N.  Y. 
9-1-Gm] 


We  have  the  largest  stock  of  general  Hardware  in  the 
State,  and  our  prices  are  as  low  aud  tenna  as  liberal  as  oui 
be  found  elsewhere.  9-1-tf. 


E.  N.  FRESHMAN  &  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 

186  W.  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Are  aathoriKed   to  contract  Tor  advertinin^ 
In  ihia  paper. 


Eitimaies  tunusliadlrBe. 


Semi  tor  a  Circular. 


SUBSCKIBE  FOR  THE 

THE  LANCASTER  FARMER, 

The  cheapest  and  best  Agricultural  Paper 
in  the  country. 

300  Canvassers  Wantel  Send  for  Terms,  &o. 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER. 


[July,  1877. 


LADIES  ! 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


GUNDAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STORE, 

A  SEW  LOT  OF 

EAMBDBG  EMBROIDERED  EDGM 


INSERTINGS, 

AT  THE  VSRY  LOITEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Cors«t8,  Kid  OlOTM, 

Lioen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CRJkPB  'VKXX.S. 

CRAPE  BONNETS  &  HATS, 

KCCHIXOS, 
an  H^les  ftad  widtlu,  *nd  everTtbing  elM  In 

LADIBS'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WXAR, 
that  is  good,  deBir«bl«  &Dd  cheap. 

6)T€  uc  a  call  at 

g-"OT:TE.A.  K   KT6'  S 

lot.  142  &  144  irorthQnpen-«t,Litiica8t«r.,Pa. 

»-l-ly 


NEW  CROP 


N 


EW  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION  OF  OUR 

SBEEDEB'S  LIAITUAL 


,•,»«»  ^"^  Bc8idenc«8,  Public  ft,„„ 

Fazms  from  50c.  to  $50  x>er  Kod. 
NELLIS'  O.  H.H.  H.  FORK,  WITH  NELLIS' 
Patent  method  for  moving  aud  stacking  Hay  or  Straw, 
without  extra  charge  to  the  Farmer.    Agricultural  Steel 
finished  and  tempered  by  Nellie'  procefis  to  suit  all  hinds  of 
soil.    Medal  awards  on  all  our  goods  exhibited  at  the  Cen- 
tennial.   Information  free. 
g-7-lm; A.  J.  NELLIS  &  CO..  Fitteburgh,  Pa. 

A   NE\A/  BOOK. 

How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 

A  HAND-BOOK  OF 

FRUIT  CULTURE, 

BEING  A  GUIDE  TO  THE   PBOPEB 

Ouliivation  and  Management  of  J^ndt  Trees,  and 

of  Grapes  and  Small  Fruits, 
■with  condenaed  deHcriiitions  of  many  of  the  best  and  most 
popular  varieties,  with  upwards  of  one  hundred  engravings. 
By  Thomas  Gbeog,    Price  Jl.tHt. 

A  book  wqich  should  be  owned  by  every  pereon  who  owns 
a  rod  of  available  laud,  and  it  will  eerve  to  secure  euccees 
where  now  there  is  nothing  but  failure.  It  covers  the 
ground  fully,  without  technicalities,  and  is  a  work  on 

Fruit  Culture  for  the  2/Iiilion. 

It  tells  of  the  coit,  how  to  plant,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
transplant,  location,  boU,  selection,  diseases,  insectB,  borers, 
blights,  cultivation,  how  to  prune,  manuring,  layering, 
badding.  grafting,  etc,  including  full  description  and  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Fruit,  such  as  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricote,  Nectarines,  etc.  It  is 
a  most  complete 

Guide  to  Small-Fruit  Culture. 

with  many  illustrations  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari- 
eties of  Grapes,  Strawberries,  BlackbeirieB,  Raspberries, 
Gooseberries,  Cm  rants,  etc. 

Th«  work  shows  the  value  of  Fruit,  and  how  to  use  it. 
Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Fabheb  and  How 
t©  raise  Fruits,  will  be  furnished  at  $1,T6.    Address 

I.,  RATH  TON. 
SS.SODtb  Qu^en  »t  .  I>anca«ter,  P». 


Is  just  out.  price,  25  cents.  Every  farmer  should  have  it. 
It  contains  56  large  double-column  page-,  of  valuable  reading 
matter,  besides  16  full-page  cuts,  from  life,  of  our  stock. 

BUEPEE^S  INFALLIBLE 


TuRNiP  SeEdS 

EXTRA   FINE   AND   CHOICE   SEED. 

NEW  CROP  OF 

Early  White  Flat  Dutch,  Red  Top  Strap 

Leaf,  only  55  cents  per  lb,  postpaid, 

5  lbs,  by  Express  for  $2.00. 

All  other  varieties  of  Turnips  and  other  Seeds  for  sowing  in 
the  Summer  and  Autumn,  at  LOWEST  CASH  PRICES. 
SEED  WHEAT,  &c. 

BLOODED  LIVE  STOCZ. 

THOROUGHBRED  ALDERNEY, 

AYRSHIRE  AND  SHORT-HORN 

CATTLE  AND  CALVES. 

SOUTHDOWN,  COTSWOLD 

AND  LEICESTER  SHEEP. 

SWINE  AND  POULTRY  A  SPECIALTY. 

»a,We  have  now  fine  GROWTHY  PIGS  for  sale,  in  pairs, 
not  akin,  of  Chester  Whites,  Yorkshires,  Berkshires,  Essex 
and  Poland  China. 

BENSON  &  BURPEE'S   Seed  Warehouse,  223  Church  St.,  Philada. 


Ng;^p^Bili8fa<rf.^.Ui:.MJ.-i  I 

^  — j         Is  sure  and  speedy   death    to   all    Flying  or 

^^j     Creeping  Insects.     It  speedilj   and  effectually 

^^^     destroys    Lice,    Fleas,    Roaches,   Centipedes, 

Moths,  Ants,  Flies,    Mosquitoes,   Bed   Bugs, 

Meal  Worms,  Spiders,  Scorpions,  and  every 

species  of  Insects. 

It  C«ntnliis  No  Poison  !    It  is  harmless  as  water  to 

human  and  animal  life,  but  sure  death  to  Insects.     It  is  strong- 

ly  recommended  by   all   who   have   tried  it.     We  have  yet  to 

hear  of  a  single  complaint.     We  guarantee  every  box,  and  if  it 

do«s  not  do  all  we  recommend,  it  can  be  returned  (even  if  half 

of  the  powder  be  used)   and   we   will   as  cheerfully  refund  the 

money.     One  trial   will  convince  any  one  of  its  merits.     It  ia 

invaluable  to  Fafmers,  as  it  thoroughly  kills  all  lice,  fleas  and 

insects  on  animals  without  the  slightest  danger  to  the  animal. 

It  destroys  all  troublesome  insects  on  vegetables  and  plants. 

PRICE,  25  &  50  CENTS  PER  BOX,  POSTPAID. 


W 

o 

D 

< 
Hi 

H 

CD 

W 

M 
Eh 


CO 
W 

O 

X 
CO 

m 

H 

O 
O 


GO 

d 
Z 


H 

\^ 

•—I 

H 

50 


K 
W 

Q 

< 


TSE     BEST     OFFEE.! 

We  will  sell  during  these  hard  times 

$000  Pianos  for  $250, 

And  all  other  styles  in  the  same  proportion,  including  Grand, 
Square  and  npright— all  rirKl-claiis— sold  direct  to  the  people 
at  factory  prices.  No  agcnte;  no  commissions;  no  discounts. 
Tliese  Pianos  made  one  of  the  flnest  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tenuial  Exhibition,  and  were  unanimously  recommended  for 
the  HioHEST  Honors.  KeguUrly  incorporated  Manufac- 
turing company— New  Manufactory— one  of  the  largest  and 
finestjn  the  world.  The  Square  Grands  contain  Mathuehek's 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment in  the  history  of  Piano  making.  The  uprights  are  the 
finest  in  America.  Pianos  sent  on  trial.  Don't  tail  to  write 
lor  Illustrated  and  Descriplire  Catalogue— mailed  free. 


CHAFFEE'S 


PHONOGRAPHIC  INSTITUT^ 

AND 

Oswego  BUSINESS  College, 

OSWEGO,  N.  Y. 

«»-SEND     STAMP     FOR     CIRCfLAR     AND    FREE 
LESSON   IN  PHONOGR.^PHY. 


EZRA  F.  BOWMAN, 

Practical  Wat4^bmaker, 

(formerly  with  H.  Z.  Rhoads   &  Bro,)  has  opened  at   106 
£ast  King-  Street,  a  new  and  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS, 

M  A-TKRIA-LS,   &;c. 

Amejican  Watches  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep- 
utation. Imported  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and 
Silver  Cases,  in  weights  to  suit  purchasers.  American  and 
imported  Clocks  in  over  fifty  different  styles,  which  are  of- 
fered at  reasonable  prices,  and  warranted  according  to  their 
quality.  Watches  and  Clocks  oarefully  repaired  and  war- 
ranted. A  cordial  invitation  to  examine  stock  extended  to 
all.  9-t-6m 

ESTABLISHED  1832. 


-ly 


MENDELSSOHN   PIANO   CO., 

IKo.  56  Broadway, 


Jf.  Y. 


EDWIvN  \LDENC 

.    174  ELTtf 'STREET. 
CINdNTN-ATI.  OHIO. 

.    Advertisements  inserted  in  any  paper. 
BeforeadyertiBing  Bendjor^my  oatalogn* 


a.    SEIS^ER    &   SONS, 

MauufactnrerB  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 

The  best  Sawed  SHIKC;i.£.S  iu  the  country.    Also  Sash, 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  beet  COAL,  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Kortheast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-sts., 

LA.NC-A.SXBR.,  PA.. 

»-l-ly 


$1  a  Year 


(To  subecriberfi  in 

the  ooUQty. 


SINGLE  COFZES  10  CENTS. 


To  BiibdcriberB  ont  of  >     (tl    OR 
the  county.         (     'f>i--'^fJ 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  AUGUST  15,  1877. 


LIKN^US  EATHVOW.  Publisher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 
A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC    ECONOMY 
AND   MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  iTOUiiutnt  featilrf,  with  special  reference  to  the 
wauls  of  the  Farmer,  the  (ianleaer  aud  Frail -Grower. 

Ktjunded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Ajiricultural  ami   Horticuhural  .Society. 


Edited  by  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHV02T. 


TERMS: 

To  Bubiicribers  residiug  witbiu  the  couuty— 
One  Copy,  one  year,  -         -         -         ^         -         -         $i.oo 
Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  _  .  .  -  -        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -------        7.50 

To  subBcribera  outside  of  LaucuMler  uuuuty,  incUuUug 
postage  pre-i'aid  by  the  publiHbers: 

OneJCopy,  one  year,    -  .        _         -         .         -  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  ye:ir,       .        .        -  .  -        -         5.00 

All  subecnptioue  will  commence  witb  the  January  uum- 
ber  iiuleHS  oiUevwse  ordeieil. 

All  couimuuiciitioiis  iutended  for  imblication  sbould  be 
addressed  to  tho  Kditor,  aud,  to  secure  iuaertion,  should  be 
in  his  hand«  by  the  first  of  the  mouth  of  juiblioation. 

AH  buHiuess  letters,  coutaiuiug  subecriiitious  aud  adver- 
tiBenients,  ahould  be  addreased  to  the  iniblishcr. 

The  Lancastbu  Farmer  having  completed  its  eighth 
year  uuder  various  vicissitudes,  now  commeuccs  its  niutli 
volume  uMder,  it  is  hoped,  more  favorable  auspices  than 
attended  its  former  volumes.  When  thepublishtra  of  the 
last  two  volumes  assumed  the  responsibilities  of  its  publi- 
oatioD,  it  was  with  a  determiuatiou  to  make  such  improve- 
menta  as  would  place  the  furnu-r's  organ  of  th's  ^loat  agri- 
cultural county  in  the  very  front  rank  of  agiicultural  jour- 
nnliem.  That  ibis  has  been  ftr:comi)lished  we  think  our 
readers  will  b^-ar  cheerful  testimony.  If  reason,  biy  f^ns- 
taiued,  our  aim  is  to  make  it  still  more  interesting  and  in- 
structive undei  ts  new  proprietorship,  lu  thiH.  howevt'i-, 
we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  friend  of  the  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor,  Prof.  Rathvon,  on 
Bnbjecis  connected  with  the  science  of  farming,  aud  partic- 
ularly that  sitecially  of  which  he  is  so  thoroughly  a  muster— 
eutouinlogical  acieuce— some  knowledge  of  which  baa  become 
a  necessity  to  the  succe^isful  farmer,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  thiiii  the  price  of  tiiib  publication. 

The  FAR31ER  \vill  be  publisbed  on  the  15th  of  every 
month,  printed  on  good  paper  with  clear  tyjje,  in  con- 
venient  form  for  reading  aud  binding,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
scribers on  the  following 


LINNAEUS  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATES  OF  ADVERTISINC:  —  Ten    <>nt<i    n 
line  for  caeb  insertion.     Twelve  liues  to  the  iuoh 


CONTENTS  OrmiS  NUMBER. 

Strikes— Riots,        ------        U3 

War  Upon  Insects, H"' 

A  Miiadlcd  Tobacco  Leaf,      -        -        -        -        114 

The  Ichneumon  Fly,  ------     U4 

Keminders  for  August,  -----         Uo 

Does  it  Rain  Toads,     ------     115 

Grammar  in  a  Nutshell,         -        -        -         -         115 

The  Locust,        - US 

Colorado  Beetle  in  England,        -        -        -        -  116 
E.  N.  Freshman  &  Bros.,        .        -        -        -        116 

Apple  Tree  Insects, H*' 

Does  the  !<had  Bite  or  Take  a  Bait,        -        -         117 
Queries  and  .Answers,         -         -  -         -         -     117 

State  and  District  Fairs  for  1877,  -        -        -      -  117 

Buddini;, -        -      117 

The  Turhine  Wind  Eiifiine,      -         -         -         -         118 

CORRESPONDENCE. 
Letter  from  Florida,    ------  119 

Letter  from  N'orth  Carolina,     -        .        -        -      llil 
Adulteration  of  the  Necessaries  of  Life,     -        -   119 
What  Causes  Rust  in  Wheat,        -        -         -         120 
Potatoes  Without  faris  Green,  -        -        -        -      1-1 

The  Crops  We  Raise— How  Do  They  Pay,    -      -  121 
Tobacco  Fertilizers,    -        -        -        -        -      -      132 

The  Tobacco  Fly, liS 

Koine  Sure  Methods  of  Destructioo. 
The  (irape  Leaf-Folder.  C.  F.  yjiJc'!/,        -       -      liS 
Ducks— Setting  Eggs  and  Rearing  Youug,  -      -    lliS 
Transplanting  Evergreens,      -        -        -        -        VZi 

OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 
Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultu- 
ral and  Horticultural  Society,    -        -        -      124 
Average    Crops — The    Sowiug    of    "Wheat — The 
(Iroiy  Farm— Crop  Reports— Le\i  W.  Grotf'a 
Experitiients  with  Wheat — Oleomargarine  and 
Phosphates — Au  .\ct  to  Regulate  the  Manufac- 
ture aud  Sale  of  Fertilizers — Au  Act  to   Pre- 
vent Becei)liou  iu  the  Sale  of  Butter— Noxious 
Weeds— Ku8t  in  Wheat — How  to  Treat  Lawns 
— .V  Fall  Exhibition— -V  New  Corresponding 
Secretary — Agricultural  Reports — Testing  the 
Fruit— The    Centennial    Diploma — Questions 
for  Next  Meeting. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,  -        -        -        -    135 
Crop     Reports — Referred      Questions  -Mew 
Business — Referred  Questions. 
The  Linn.^aii  Society,      -----        120 
Additions   to  the  Museum— Additions  to  the 
Library — Papers  Head. 

Manure  for  Fruit  Trees,     -----  12G 

AGRICULTURAL. 

A  Bountiful  Harvest,      -----  127 

Cultivating  Wlieat,     - 127 

Treating  Manure  with  Unslaked  Lime,  -      -      -  137 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Varieties  of  Late  Turnips,      -        -        -        .  127 

Value  of  Early  Apples,       -----  127 

The  Peach  Crop, 127 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Household  Recipes,     ------  127 

Recipe  for   Butter, 128 

The  Spare  Bed, 128 

Have  no  Lights  in  the  Barn,        -        -         -  128 

Literary  and  Personal, 128 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM. 

IiEALKlt    I> 

AMERICAN  AND   FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE., 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

K'.-paiiing  Ktrictly  attended  !«>. 

North  Queen-st.  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

9-4-1  y ^^^_ 

NOKTP-AFIEU:- 

FARM  &.  FEED  MILLS- 

):.>ii<',  Dru);;,  niKl  bpicc  Mills.     IU«iK«i, 
r    H.nl   or  Pow^T.     Coniral   FreQcb 
i,ir  SoiQC  Flouring  and  foru  MilU. 
C  j-'lli'ccivea  iho    Gf:iii.!  Awarl    DI* 

jil'jii,,!  .-Hid  M'>1a1  -M ''fntenitiiit. 
C  /-■yilN'trstC'i    |iii!iiihi.'i  ..Tii  rr*«. 
A.i.l^.»^       I,.  J.  Mll.LF.K, 

181  E.  Front  St.,  Cinoinnall.  O. 


THE  IRON  TURBINE 
WIND  ENGINE 

The  Only  Wind  Engine 

in  ibo  m:irki.-t  that  is 
PROOF  A4.1AIVST  »T4»ICn 

nnd  ex(>osure  10  the  weuth 
tr,  bclDg 

Made  Entirely  of  Irn 
Woiphs    no  more   thnii 
ordinary  wotwl  whoi-N 

Kesrilnti-N  It«elf  In 
lllstiU'lnd  t'v  aifAU^.  I  . 

Aufonintlc  (ioveriior. 

Gives  more  Power 
than  any  other  for  "^ 
the  same  diameter   - 
of  wheel. 

Pimple  in  construe — . 
tion  anJ  well  made. 
They  lire  giving 
Perfect  Satisfaction  ^f 
where      c»t  he  r     ^ 
millsbavefailed. 

Rvery    farmer  aod 
stock     raiser    xhould 
have  one.    A  cooiitADll, 
■upplT  of  puro  wo-  J. 
ter  will    Keep   )  our  .- 
mock  in  better  cnodi-  „ 
lion, 
tborl 

coat  of  ao  Iron    Tin 
blDO  WlDd  Engin.., 
■a;    Dotbing    of    iL 

great  lavlog  of  labor  ' ____^^__ 

aod  other  adTaDtagen,  whlcb  j-ou  can  Icaro  atMOt  bT  wrltlot  to 
OS  for  circular  givln^jirtcfs  aod  loforianiion. 

MAST,  FOOS  &  CO.,  Springfield,  O. 


<^^■f■  x_  C^^  a  W«tk  to  AgfntH.    lie  On'rU  Fne 
4>WW   W  W  i    i  P-O.  VICKKKV,  .i^iiguM:.,  Maine. 


II, 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


A  C/^NVASSER  W^TED 


Rates  «»r  .4<lv«Tti«liiB 

ill  llie  Fariiior. 

1  iu.      '2  iu. 

3  iu. 

i  iu,  j  5  iu.  '   S  in. 

1  mo 

2  DEO 

$1.00  f  2.00 
2  00      4.110 
2.50      4..)0 
3.00      BOO 
4.W,     9.00 
6.00    12.00 
9.00    18.00 

$  3.0O 
6.00 
6.75 
9.0O 
13.50 
18.00 
•27  CO 

$  4.0oi$  6.00'$  8.00 
>i.O0j    12. Oo'   16.00 

3  nio  

10.001   13.r>0    l.S.OO 

4  n«« 

12.00    IS.OOi   24.00 
IS. 00    27.001    36.00 

8  mo 

I  year 

24.00]  36.01    4S.00 
30.00    54.001    72  00 

IN 


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leisure  hours 

CAN   MAKE 

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district,  and  will  pay  canvassers 

liberally. 

Address, 

L.  EATHVON,  Publislier, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


l!2^~S^>ecial  auil  business  uotices  l.i  L-euts  yer  line 

GOOD  BOOKS 

I'lU  THK 

Farm,  Garden,  and  Household. 

The  foliowmg  is  .i  list  of  Vuluuble  Buuk-,,  which  u'lU  be 
supplied  by  the  Editor  of  the  Lakcaster  Farmer,  No. 
101  North  Queeu  St.  Any  cue  or  more  of  those  books  will 
be  sent  po^t  paid  to  auy  of  our  read-jvs  ou  receipt  of  the 
regular  price  which  is  named  against  a;ich  book.  , 

Alleu's  (R.  L.  &  L.  F,]  New  American  Farm  Book $2  50 

Allen's  (L.  F.)  American  Cattle.* 2  50 

Atwood's  Country  and  Suburban  Houses 150 

Boramer'9  method  of  Making  Manures 25 

Breck's  New  Book  of  t  lowers 1  75 

Brill's  Fami-Gardeuiug  and  Seed-Growing 100 

Dadd's  Modern  Horse  Doctor,  ]2nso I  50 

Dadd's  American  Cattle  Doctor,  13  mo 1  50 

Flax  Culture,  (SeveuPrize  Essays  by  practical  growers,)    30 

Fuller's  Grai  e  CuUurist 150 

Fuller's  Small  Fruit  Culturiat 1  5fl 

Fulton's  Peach  Culture 1  50 

Gregory  ou  Squashes paper . .'       30 

Harris  ou  the  Pig 150 

Heudersou'9  Gardening  for  Pleasure 150 

Henderson'.^  Gardening  for  Profit 1  50 

Henderson's  Practical  Floriculture 1  50 

Herbert's  Hiuts  to  Horse-Keepers .,  1  T5 

Hop  Culture.     By  nine  experienced  cultivatore 30 

Hunterand  Trajiper 100 

Onions— How  to  Raise  them  Profitably 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acras.    Pa.,  30c.;  Clo.,  60c.,  Ex.  clo.  1  00 

Parsons  on  the  Rose 1  50 

Quiiiliys  Mysteries  of  Bee-Keeping 1  50 

Quiucy  (Hon.  .Josiah)  on  Soiling  Cattle 1  25 

Quiiin'si  Money  iu  the  Garden 1  50 

Quiuu's  Pear  Culture  for  Profit, 1<^ 

Riley's  Potato  Pests Paper  50  cts.;    cloth.,      75 

Roe's  Play  and  Profit  iu  my  Garden 1  50 

Stewart's  Irri^jaton  for  the  Farm,  Garden  ^nd  Orchard  I  50 

Stew^trt's  StablH  Book 1  50 

Stewart "i*   Shepherd's  Manual 1  50 

Stoddiird's  Ann  Kgg  Farm    paper,  50  cts.;  cloth      75 

Thomas's  Farm  Implemeuts  and  Machiuery 150 

Tim  Bunker  Papers,  or,  Yankee  Farming 1  oo 

Tobacco  Culture.  By  fourteeu  exi>erienced  cultivators.      2-5 

Wariu^''s  Draining  tor  Profit  aud  Heahh ; 1  50 

Wariug's  Elements  of  Agriculture 1  00 

White's  Cranberry  Cidture 1  25 

Wright's  Practical  Poultry-Keeper* 2  0I> 


A    N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANT tACTUEER     OF 

FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS    FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

F'.iR  Fi:)R 

OESTTI.EMEN.  LADIES. 

No  36  West  King'Street, 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

DUNBAR'S   CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 

9-1 -1Y 

KHTGSFOHD'S 


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Is  the  BEST  and    MOST    ECONOMICAL    in  the    World. 
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LANCASTER,  i'ENN'A, 
23S  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


All  matters  appertaining  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CANA- 
DIAN  PATENTS,    TRADE  MARKS,    aud   COPYRIGHTS. 

promptly  attended  to.  His  experience,  success  a  d  faithful 
atentiou  to  the  interests  of  those  who  engage  his  services 
are  fully  acknowledged  and  appreciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  made  for  him  by  a  reUable  As 
sistant  at  Washington,  \vithout  extra  charge  for  drawing 
or  desoriptiou.  [9-1-tf 


Great  Stock- Breeder's  Monthly. 

—      THE  NATIONAL 

LIVE-STOCK, 


JOURNAL, 

Published  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS 

THIS  GRKAT  MONTHLY  IS  uuiversully  iickuowl- 
ledged  tL'  lit- wi  bout  a  ri\  al  in  its  liepartmelit  of 
Journalism.  Each  number  contains  4S  birge  pages, 
three  columns  to  the  page,  with  a  handsome  cover, 
and  is  Beautifully  Illustrated  with  elegant  double- 
plate  engravings.  Ii  is  the  only  pa;  er  iu  the  world 
devoted  exclu-sively  to  live-stock  and  the  dairy.  It 
discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  merits  of  the 
variout*  breeds,  tlie  most  I'pjroved  methods  of  feed- 
ing and  handling,  and  everything  jertaiiiing  to  the 
successful  management  of  live  stock  ou  the  farm. 
During  the  yesir  IS77,  Prof.  James  Law,  the  eminent 
veterinary  of  C'^ruell  University,  will  contribute  a 
series  of  articles  upon  the  laws  of  health  aud  disease 
as  api'Ued  to  Domestic  Animals,  that  cannot  fail  to 
be  of  great  value  to  Farmers  and  Stuck  Breeders 
every  where.  It  contains  separate  Departments, 
devoted  to  HORSES.  CATTLK,  SHEEP,SWINE  and 
the  DAtRY,  and  its  corps  of  editors  are  recognized 
throughout  the  entire  country  »s  the  i^IosT  Thor- 
ough. Able  and  Practical  writers  in  the  separate 
departments,  that  can  be  found  iu  America.  No  ex- 
pense is  SI  ared  on  the  part  of  its  publishers,  to 
make  it  a  lii'jh-tutied.  reliable,  practical  and  instnic- 
tive  Journal,  just  such  as  every  intelligent  farmer 
and  stock  breeder  will  find  worth  ten  times  its  cost 
each  year. 

TERMS. — Single  copies,  one  year,  postage  paid, 
S2.15  ;  Clubs  of  five,  postage  paid,  $1-90  ;  Clubs 
of  teu,  with  au  extra  copy  free  to  person  making  up 
club,  postage  pre-paid,  $^1.65.  Haixhomelp  Illua- 
trafed  jw-Mers  tnailed  to  all  n'ho  irill  get  up  Hubs.  Ad- 
dress letters,  registering  those  containing  money, 
unless  in  shape  of  Postal  Order  or  Draft,  to 

STOCK  JOURNAL  COMPANY,  Publishers. 
Lakeside   Building.  CHICAGO,  ILLS. 
1I^~Send  21)  Cents  fob  Specimen  Copy.      [9-;i-3m 

The  ftttention  l  farming  Communitf 

Is  invited  to  the  new  and  improved 

DOUBLE  liD  ROLIEI!. 


I 


M'liJch  lias    been    placed    in    the  market  by 
the    nncler.'^ijfned    tfirin.,    hikI    which  \% 
^         repres   iited  by    the  above  out. 

Thlh  roller  ha.-s  been  trie'i  by  some  of  our  best  farmers, 
who  pruchnm  it  to  be  the  best  roller  they  have  ever  seen. 
The  cylinder  heads  and  hangers,  are  made  of  cast  iron,  with 
chilled  bearings,  couaequeutly  there  is  no  perceptible  wear, 
on  spindles  or  boxes,  if  proj^erly  ojjed.  The  cylinders  are 
'11^..  inches  iu  diameter — whole  length  of  roller  7  feet  9  in- 
ches. The  wood  work  is  made  of  good  oak  timber,  aud  is 
well  painted.     We  guarantee  it  to  be 

The  most   l>iirable  aii<l  EaNieNt  HaiKlled 
Roller  in  ii*««. 

t^^If  vou  wish  to  i.ui'cha.=^e,  call  ou 
STONER,  SHREINER  &  CO.,  Lancaster  City. 
SKNSENIG  HARDWARE  CO.,  Goodville,  Lancaster  couutv. 
EPHRAIM  BENDER,  Kothsnlle. 
MARTIN  KAPP,  Elizabethtowu. 
REUBEN  D.  ZECH.  Mountville. 
GRAHAM.    EMLIN  &    PASSMORE,    631    Market   Street, 

Philadelphia. 
Or  at  the  manufactory,  and  you  will  be  accommodated. 
MARSHT  &  COMP, 
9-S-2m  9Ioniiit  Joy,  Lancaster  County.  Pa. 

THE  Wam  BOTTEB  CARRe 

Will  euable  you  to 
market  your  but- 
ter in  the  best  pos- 
s  i  b  le  condition. 
Comi>eteut  Judges 
wiio  have  handled 
bulter  shipped  iu 
it  to  the  Philadel- 
phia market,  pro- 
uouuce  it  the  best 
Lirrangemeut  for 
carrying  print  but- 
ter they  ever  saw. 
Each  print  or  pat 
is  carried  in  a  sep- 
arate cuji  that  can- 
not be  broken,  up- 
set, nor  get  out  of 
! lace. 

All  sizes  and 
fonna  of  cups  and 
box  vnM  be  made. 

Circulars  with 
full  description 
aud  price  list  free. 

L.  RBSH, 

9-5-ly  149  North  Queeu-at.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof;  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  AUGUST,  1877. 


Vol.  CL  No.  8. 


STRIKES     RIOTS. 

Strikes  .iiul  riots  liave  occurred  in  our 
country  during  politiciil  convulsions,  liiian- 
cial  dis.aster.s,  coniiucrcial  depressions,  and 
trade  reverses,  almost  IVoui  the  fountlation  of 
our  repuliliean  form  of  governiuent ;  but  we 
cannot  recall  a  siuule  instance  in  which  the 
farmers  of  the  country,  by  preconcert  handed 
themselves  together,  and  in  dcliance  of  law 
and  order,  liave  struck  for  higher  prie(^s,  and 
luivc  '.hrealened  or  cierccd  those  who  saw  lit  to 
sell  lower  th.an  they.  And  more,  much  more 
than  this.  Through  high  or  low  prices  in  the 
products  of  the  farm  ;  through  drought  or 
flood  ;  through  insect  devastations.  rin(lerpest 
or  hog-cholera  ;  through  .storms  and  blights  ; 
through  "pestilence  and  famine,"  indeed, 
through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  time,  and 
health,  and  tide,  the  American  farmer  still 
"pursues  the  even  tenor  of  his  way."  The 
large  manufactm'ing  establishnn'iits,  the 
machine  shops,  the  railroad  companies,  the 
iron  furnaces,  and  the  rolling  mills,  may 
either  close  their  doors  to  their  workmen,  or 
curtail  their  number  and  their  w.ages,  because 
the  future  prospects  do  not  manifest  a  large 
enough  margin  of  profit,  or  the  suiphis  on 
hand  cannot  be  "  realized"  as  it  should.  l!ut 
it  is  not  so  with  the  farmer.  Whether  he 
realizes  six  per  cent.,  three  per  cent.,  one  per 
cent.,  or  no  per  cent — whether  his  toil  is 
rewarded  by  twenty  bushels,  ten  bushels  or 
live  bushels  to  the  acre,  or  whether  his  labor 
proves  an  entire  failure,  he  never  for  a  mo- 
ment reliniiuishes  his  occupation,  but  goes  on 
with  renewed  energy,  year  in  and  year  out, 
the  same  through  adverse  seasons  as  he  does 
Ihrou'jh  prosperous  ones. 

Well  may  the  "great  e.xponnder  of  the 
eonslitution"  have  written  "  The  Fitrmer  is 
lilt  /owiilff  of  ciri7i2(((.(Vm."  Whoever  heard 
tell  of  a  farmer,  with  sacrilegious  hands,  ap- 
plying the  incendiary's  toteh  and  destroying 
"fifty  thousand  bushels  of  wheat"  by  lurid 
flames,  to  gratify  a  diabolical  feeling  of 
revenge  V 

AVhoeyer  heard  of  a  baud  of  lawless  farmers 
visiting  their  lirollier  farmers,  and  compelling 
them  to  withdraw  their  ])l(i\vsliares  from  the 
soil,  and  leave  their  fields  run  fallow  V  It 
is  true,  that  when  they  felt  themselves  to  be 
the  victims  of  extortion,  by  railro.ads,  by  ex- 
orbitant middlemen,  and  by  "  corner"  ojiera- 
tions  in  produce  and  farming  implements, 
they  formed  peaceful  organizations,  by  w.iy 
of  the  Grangnmd  co-operative  establishments, 
as  .a  means  of  domestic  jirotection  ;  but  all 
was  conducted  "indecency  and  in  order;" 
.for,  being  the  founders  of  civilization,  in  all 
their  relations  to  their  fellow-men  they  subor- 
dinated them.selvcs  to  the  dictates  of  that 
civilization,  .as  a  living  principle  of  their  do- 
mestic life. 

It  would  be  well  for  our  country  and  her 
people,  if  a  few  hundred  thousands  of  the 
elements  that  compose  strike-riots  were  to  be- 
come iTidustrious  fanners,  and.  avail  them- 
s<>,lves  of  the  civilizing  intlnenees  of  the  fartn. 
It  would  be  well  for  (nu'  government,  and  our 
civil  and  social  institutions,  if  she  would 
devise  means  to  set  up  the  deserving  poor 
men  on  farms,  and  give  them  an  opiiortunity 
to  work  out  their  own  domestic  and  soQJal 
salvation.  There  is  room,  enough  for  all  ;  we 
are  too  much  coneentrated.  We  must  become 
more  diffused  among  the  great  vacancies  of 
the  west. 

I'erh.aps  farmers  themselves  do  not  realize 
as  they  .shouhl,  the  vast  difference  in  circum- 
stances and  social  condition  that  exi.sts  be- 
tween them  and  the  rest  of  mankind,  taken  as 
a  class;  else  there  woulil  not  be  so  many  of 
them  yearning  after  the  sometimes  teniptiiig, 
but  alw.ays  dubious,  occupatiinis  of  the  tnvrh. 
It  is  true,  farming  has  its  drawbacks,   even 


when  everything  seems  to  be  prosperous  on 
the  farm.  The  farmers  are  exposed  to  the 
annoyances,  to  the  dangers,  and  the  devas- 
tations of  tliat  pernicious  element  which  is 
the  fruitful  source  of  riot,  of  pillage,  of  con- 
flagration and  of  blood.shed,  iti  the  cities  and 
the  towns.  The  trdmpl  has  become  a  for- 
midable barrier  to  the  safety  and  tranquillity 
of  the  farmer;  not  on  account  of  the  contribu- 
tions levied  upon  his  larder,  for  these  he  is 
always  willing  to  give  to  the  worthy,  weary 
wayfarer;  but  on  account  of  their  robberies, 
their  burglaries,  and  their  incendiarisms. 
When  the  country  becomes  relieved  of  these, 
it  will  mark  a  glorious  epoch  in  the  history  of 
the  fann,  as  well  as  in  the  etitij'e  country. 
The  late  wide-spread  turbulent,  and  destruc- 
tive strike-riots  which  have  occurred,  exhibit 
a  humiliating  aspect  in  initiating  the  second 
century  of  American  independence.  They 
show  tliat  a  climax  has  been  attained  which 
is  a  disgrace  to  humanity,  and  es|)ecially  that 
portion  of  huinanity,  which,  par  e.ccdJenrr 
claims  to  be  politically  and  socially  free.  IJiit, 
whatever  may  have  been  the  inciting  causes 
— whether  just  or  unjust — it  was  not  the  work 
of  fanners,  either  as  actors,  abettors,  or  as 
sympathizers.  They  cheerfully  subordinate 
themselves  to  "the  powers  that  are  ordained," 
even  though  they  should  endure  present  suf- 
fering; 

"In  linpes  ttLit  tlicy'll  be  riffhtcd 

By  Him  who  rules  on  high." 


"WAR  UPON  INSECTS." 

In  an  editorial  of  the  iVcw  Era  of  Tuesday, 
.Tidy  ■24,the  editor  w;vs  pleased  to  refer  to  me  in 
relation  to  the  subject  involved  in  the  caption 
of  this  paper — a  subject  by  no  means  of  as 
easy  a  solution  as  the  "Eastern  question."  In 
many  respects  the  "war  upon  insects"  in- 
volves many  complications,  especially  with 
those  who  are  not  able  to  discriminate  be- 
tween the  species,  or  between  the  different 
developmental  changes  of  the  same  species. 
Take  as  a  familiar  example,  for  instance,  the 
"Colorado  potato-beetle,"  which  has  some 
lifteeii  or  twenty  parasitic  or  predaceous  spe- 
cies, which  prey  upon  it  in  its  various  transfor- 
mations, from  the  egg  through  its  larval  and 
pupal  periods,  up  to  its  adult  development. 
J'aris  (jrcen  of  a  proper  quality,  and  syste- 
matically applied,  is  now  reganled  as  a  sove- 
reign remedy  for  the  destruction  of  this  in- 
sect, and  indeed  the  only  external  application 
that  is  at  all  reliable  in  most  cases.  But  in 
the  application  of  this  poison  there  is  a  liabil- 
ity of  also  destroying  our  parasitic  and  preda- 
ceous auxilaries  which  prey  upon  it;  and  this 
liability  is  only  increased  when  we  resort  to 
the  various  traps  that  have  been  invented  for 
the  capture  of  this  insect.  "Hand-iiicking," 
with  the  discrinunation  above  alluded  to,i8the 
only  system  upon  which  an  intelligent  war- 
fare against  the  potatii-beetle  can  be  waged, 
because  our  arms  are  then  only  pointed 
against  our  foes,  and  we  save  our  friends. 

Another  complication  in  using  the  weapon 
of  Pai'is  green  in  a  warfare  against  the  Colo- 
rado iHitato-beetle,  is  the  exposure  to  death  of 
othci'  and  larger  animals  which  may  hapiien 
to  iirey  upon  it  after  it  has  been  treated  with 
this  poison.  A  report  came  up  only  a  few 
d.ays  ago,  of  a  great  tnortality  among  sparrows 
and  other  birds  that  h.ad  been  feeding  upon 
lhe.se  insects  after  they  had  been  charged 
with  Paris  green;  and  only  a  month  ago,  a 
farmer  in  this  county  lost  three  or  four  valu- 
able cows  that  happened  to  have  access  to  a 
mixture  of  Paris  green  and  shipstuff,  which 
he  had  prepared  for  the  beetles.  I  do  not 
mention  these  things  to  di.scour.agc  the  use  of 
this  remedy,  or  any  other  remedy,  nor  to  ar- 
rest any  form  of  warfare  that  may  be  waged 
iigainst  them;  but  to  admonish  people  to  be 


careful  and  act  intelligently  in  their  systems 
of  warfare,  just  as  any  discreet  General  would 
act  who  expected  to  con<picr  his  enemies. 
Now,  this  state  of  things,  to  a  greater  or  a 
less  extent,  exists  in  reference  to  a  warfare 
against  any  of  our  insect  enemies.  Xightlly- 
ing  insects,  for  instance,  are  attr.acted  by  lu- 
minous bodies,  and  therefore  it  is  recommen- 
ded to  kindle  bonfires  in  infested  districts  into 
which  those  insects  will  fly  and  Ije  destroyed; 
but  this  implies  an  indiscriminate  slaughter 
of  "all  ag«.s,  sexes  and  conditions" — friends 
as  well  as  foes.  On  one  occasion,  at  "Shenk'a 
Ferry,"  I  captured  about  one  hundred  in- 
sects—attracted by  a  globe  lamp— bet  ween  can- 
dlelight and  12  o'clock  at  night,  and  nearly 
three-fourths  of  them  were  insect  friends. 

On  another  occasion,  a  former  president  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Horticultural  Society  sent 
me  a  large  number  of  insects  which  he  had 
captured  in  bottle  traps  hung  on  his  trees  to 
catch  "codjings"  and  "curculios,"  more 
than  one  half  of  which  were  either  friends  or 
entirely  innoxious ;  and  iimong  the  whole 
number  (between  SOO  and  1,000)  there  was  but 
a  single  "curculio,"  and  not  half  a  dozen 
that  could  be  recognized  as  "codling  moths." 
True,  there  were  a  goodly  number  of  Arc- 
tiims  and  Agr(jtHins,  the  parents  of  various 
species  of  cut-worms.  The  only  redeeming 
characteristic  of  such  non-discriminating  rem- 
edies is  that,  if  we  can  succeed  in  destroying 
our  enemies  at  the  sacrifice  of  our  friends, 
there  will  be  little  need  of  the  presence  of  the 
latter;  but  this  is  rebutted  again  by  the  fact 
that  human  efforts  are  spasmodic,  and  often 
ill-timed;  whereas  the  operations  of  our  para- 
sitic .and  predaceous  friends  are  constant, 
and  guided  by  an  instinctive  intelligence  that 
never  fails  thena. 

The  safest  plan  to  contend  with  insects  is 
to  acquire  a  specific  knowledge  of  them — 
their  times  and  pl.aces  of  appearance,  disap- 
pearance and  reappearance — their  transfor- 
mations and  developments;  the  injuries  they 
inflict  and  the  benefits  they  confer;  and  if 
these  things  are  deemed  beneath  the  dignity 
of  human  study,  then  we  must  learn  to  sub- 
mit with  as  much  resignation  as  we  can  to 
their  various  infestations;  but  it  must  ulti- 
mately come  to  this,  regard  it  with  as  much 
contempt  or  indifference  as  we  may. 

As  to  forestalling  in.sects  by  discontinuing 
to  cultivate  such  trees  and  plantsas  they  seem 
partial  to,  the  thing  would  be  quite  impracti- 
cable in  most  of  the  very  woi-st  cases.  Take 
for  instance  the  "Striped  apple-tree  borer," 
which  originally  confined  its  operations  to  the 
common  hawthorn,  and,  fifty  years  ago,  was 
so  destructive  to  the  hawthorn  hedges  of  the 
Eastern  .States.  Now,  it  rarely  attacks  the 
hawthorn  .at  all;  but  instead  thereof,  it  pre- 
fers the  various  kinds  of  apple,  the  pear  and 
the  quince,  simply  because  these  trees  afford 
it  a  wider  field  for  its  multiplied  develoimient 
and  more  abundant  and  agreeable  aliment. 
And  then  the  "curculio,"  which,  in  its  early 
history  was  content  with  wild  cherries,  vege- 
table excrescences,  and  perhaps  wild  plums; 
now  it  prefers  the  ciiltiv.ated  plums,  the  peach, 
the  apricot,  the  apple,  the  nectarine,  and  the 
cultivated  cherry  and  pear.  It  is  the  same 
with  the  "codliii'i,"  an  introduced  species, 
which  originally  must  have  infested  the  wild 
crab  a] >i lies  of  Europe;  liut  now  it  infests  all 
our  cultivated  apples  and  pears,  as  well  as  the 
peaches;  and  some  days  ago  I  took  numbers 
of  them  out  of  apricots.  The  famous  Colo- 
rado beetle,  in  emergencies,  will  feed  on  at 
least  a  dozen  different  kinds  of  plants,  even 
night  shade,  hen-bane,  thistle,  and  miillen. 
It  would  be  dillicult  to  circumvent  these  in- 
sects by  non-cultiv.ation,  and  the  same  may 
be  said  of  several  scores  of  others,  to  ii.articu- 
larize  wjiicli  would  extend    this  paper  to  a 


114 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


August, 


greatei'  Icngtli  than  any  reader  at  this  peculiar 
sensational  ptniod  would  care  to  read,  and 
which,  we  fear,  has  already  exceeded  the  limit 
of  a  daily  ])ai)er. 

What  shall  we  do  then?  Shall  we  throw 
down  our  arms,  and  let  the  insects  riot  in  and 
on  the  productions  of  our  labor;  or,  shall  we 
buckle  on  our  armor,  and  "at  the  head  of  our 
remaining  troops  attack  the  foe?"  I  would 
reply,  by  no  means  succumb,  but  "whatsoever 
your  hands  tind  for  you  to  do,  do  it  with  your 
might;"  for  "neither  repentance  nor  forgive- 
ness" will  avail  anything  iu  the  grave  dug  by 
insect  devastation. 

You  may  have  often  seen  the  picture  of  an 
"old  fogy"  coming  down  stairs  iu  great 
alarm,  with  a  lighted  candle  in  his  hand, 
and  the  pendant  tassel  of  his  uight-cap  ignit- 
ed by  his  own  candle,  protesting  that  there 
must  be  a  lire  in  the  house,  as  he  smells 
something  burning.  There  are  insect  infesta- 
tions as  oltvious  as  this,  and  as  easily  extin- 
guished, which  people  never  apprehend,  be- 
cause they  will  not  condescend  to  make  the 
observation.  In  destroying  one  gravid  female 
potato  beetle  early  in  the  spring  you  destroy 
the  developmental  possibility  of  twelve  hun- 
dred, and  so  on  of  an  almost  infinite  variety 
of  otjier  insect  pests.  Birds  and  other  insect- 
iverous  ani\nals  perform  an  immense  amount 
of  labor  of  this  kind,  but  because  they  do  not 
do  (dl  of  it,  and  also  appropriate  a  little  fruit 
occasionally,  they  are  voted  as  humbugs. — R. 


A  MUDDLED  "TOBACCO  LEAF." 


The  Horn-Worm — Facts  Concerning  it  which 
Every  Tobacco-Grower  Ought  to  Know. 

"Deatu  AND  Destruction  :  Awail  comes 
uii  from  the  tobacco-fields  in  tlie  Clarksville 
and  Ilopkinsville,  Tennessee,  districts.  It  is 
the  despairing  cry  of  the  horn-worm,  as  the 
news  is  imparted  to  him  that  war  is  declared 
and  proclamation  hath  been  made.  All  the 
forces  are  under  arms,  but  upon  the  infantry 
will  be  the  task  of  bearing  the  brunt  of  the 
battle.  Into  the  fields  pour  the  soldiery 
(male  and  female  Grangers  of  all  ages)  ready 
for  the  fray.  The  junior  cohorts  are  armed 
with  the  paddle — whose  potency  they  may 
have  learned  liy  parental  application — and 
the  seniors  with  a  seductive  compound  of 
honey  and  cobalt.  There  is  no  hope  for  the 
horn-worm  or  his  progeny.  Let  him  turn  as 
he  may,  death  meets  him  on  all  sides.  Let 
him  climb  the  Jamestown  weed,  and  within 
its  Ijlossorns  he  finds  a  delicious  morsel  of 
honey;  tnit  alas  !  imder  its  sweetness  is  the 
sting  of  destrviction.  Perhaps  he  has  escaped 
the  dangers  of  the  chrysalis  state  and  has  as- 
sumed his  wings,  and  then  comes  the  danger 
of  meeting  the  noisy  boy  or  sunburnt  maiden 
— his  direst  foes — ;irmed  with  the  paddle,  and 
his  chances  are  small  indeed.  Verily,  the 
horn-worm's  existence  is  in  great  peril. 

"Tiie  cause 'of  the  conflict  is  the  announce- 
ment that  our  valued  correspondents,  Messrs. 
M.  II.  Clark  &  Brother,  of  tUarksville,  Tenn., 
have  announced  that  they  will  give  to  the 
Grange,  who,  through  its  members  and  others, 
causes  to  be  killed  the  largest  number  of  to- 
Tiacco  dies  this  .season,  two  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  ($250.)  To  the  Grange  who,  as  above, 
causes  to  be  killed  the  next  largest  number  of 
tobacco  files,  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars 
($150).  To  the  third  Grange  on  the  list  seven- 
ty-five dollars  ($75).  To  the  fourth  Grange 
twenty-five  dollars  ($25.)  Over  and  above 
these  piemiums  the  planter  (Granger  or  not) 
who  shall  kill  or  cause  to  be  killed  the  largest 
number  of  tobacco  files,  shall  ride  in  a  fine 
saddle  at  their  exi)ense,  made  to  his  measure. 
The  premiums  will  be  paid  the  first  day  of 
next  November,  the  judge  being  the  Hon!  M. 
D.  Uavies,  Master  State  Grange  of  Kentucky. 
These  gentlemen  arc  to  be  commended  for 
their  public  sjiiritedness,  and  we  hope  their 
example  will  lie  followed  by  other  memljers 
of  the  trade  in  other  parts  cit  the  country. 

"Messrs.  Clark  &  Brother  oiler  another 
premium— a  handsome  silver  cup,  to  be  given 
to  the  editor  of  the  newspaper  that  shall  in- 
sert their  notice  the  greatest  number  of  times. 


Do  these  gentlemen  cater  to  any  little  peculi- 
arity of  taste  that  our  brothers  in  their  section 
may  have  ?  We  admire  their  judgment  in 
selecting  for  the  delectation  of  the  fortunate 
scribe  that  masterjiiece  of  Virginian  art,  the 
mint-julep.  But  we  shall  advise  the  editor 
to  beware  of  the  fate  of  the  Georgia  innkeep- 
er, whom  a  Virginian,  while  traveling,  taught 
the  science  of  compounding  mint-juleps.  A 
few  years  after  the  traveler  stopped  at  the 
same  inn,  but  fouiul  the  sou  of  its  former  pro- 
l)rietor  installed  in  his  place,  and  on  inquiring 
what  had  become  of  the  old  man,  received  the 
reply  that  'a  feller  from  Virginny  had  come 
along  and  taught  the  old  man  how  to  take 
grass  in  his  licki'r,  and  the  durned  old  fool 
never  let  uj)  until  he  drank  hisself  to  death.'  " 
We  cliii  the  foregoing  from  the  editorial 
columns  of  the  4th  of  July  number  of  the 
Tobucro  Leaf,  not  only  as  a  suggestion  to  our 
tol)acco  growers  as  to  the  course  they  might 
profitably  pursue  in  order  to  destroy  the 
"horn-worm,"  but  also  to  show  how  exceed- 
ingly muddled  the  writer  is  in  regard  to  the 
history,  the  kabits,  and  the  transformations 
of  that  same  horn-worm,  about  which  he  so 
wittily  discourses.  Who  ever  heard  tell  of 
(we  feel  sure  no  one  ever  saw  it,)  a  horn-worm 
(tobacco-worm)  climbing  up  a  Jamestown 
weed,  and  finding  within  its  blossoms  that 
delicious  morsel,  under  whose  sweetness  is 
the  sting  of  destruction;  that  "seductive  com- 
pound of  honey  and  cobalt?"  That  seduc- 
tive compoimd  was  never  intended  to  trap  the 
horn-worm,  buttheparent  of  it.  If  the  trum- 
pet flowers  of  the  Jamestown  weed  are 
charged  with  the  poison  alluded  to,  tliere  is  lit- 
tle use  in  resorting  to  the  paddles  in  the  hands 
of  "noisy  l)oys  and  sunbiu'nt  maidens;"  the 
poison  itself  will  be  an  effectual  extinguisher, 
without  expending  so  much  physical  labor. 
It  is  only  in  the  "fly"  or  moth-form,  that  this 
insect  coidd  or  would  extract  the  poisoned 
honey;  and  for  the  purpose  of  probing  the 
flowers  to  the  bottom  it  is  provided  with  a 
long  tube,  winch  it  can  roll  up  like  the  main 
spring  of  a  watch  and  conceal  between  its 
maxilla',  a  pair  of  appendages  on  the  lower 
side  of  its  head,  in  front.  The  fact  that  these 
large  moths  (commonly  called  "hawk-moths") 
are  partial  to  the  honey  in  the  flowers  of  the 
Jamestown  weed,  first  suggested  the  idea  of 
poisoning  it,  and  thus  destroying  the  m(3th. 
For  noisy  boj's  and  sunburnt  maidens  to  be 
standing  around  these  plants  with  paddles 
in  their  hands,  after  the  flowers  had  been 
charged  with  poison,  would  only  have  a  ten- 
dency to  prevent  them  from  sipping  the  poi- 
son. The  paddle  plan  is  no  doubt  a  good  one, 
but  it  would  be  a  waste  of  time  and  labor  to 
do  that  which  if  left  alone  would  do  itself 
without  a  peradventure. 

'•'There  is  no  hope  for  the  horn-worm  or  his 
progeny."  Although  this  is  very  desirable  to 
the  growers  of  tobacco,  it  involves  a  misaj)- 
prehension.  The  horn-worm  is  not  capable 
of  begetting  a  progeny  while  it  is  worm.  That 
procreative  function  is  oidy  acquired  after  it 
becomes  a  fly,  or  moth,  which  is  its  adult 
state.  People  seeing  different  sized  worms  on 
the  plants  at  the  same  time  imagine  them  to 
be  old  and  young,  or  parent  and  offspring, 
and  although  the  larger  ones  may  be  older 
than  the  smaller  ones,  they  are  all  mere 
youths — the  oflspring  of  the  same  mother, 
perhaps — in  their  various  stages  of  worm  or 
larval  development.  Now  these  things  are, 
or  ought  to  be,  well  known  to  any  practical 
tobacco-grower,  and  therefore  such  reflections 
as  those  in  the  foregoing  article  nnist  be 
valueless  to  tliem,  except  its  a  witticism  or  an 
amusement.  The  tobacco-worm,  or  horn- 
worm  (although  seldom  used  in  books,  we 
consider  horn-worm  not  inapjiropriate,  be- 
cause it  has  a  conspicuous  horn  projecting 
from  the  top  of  the  hind  end  of  the  body)  is 
not  noted  for  feeding  on  the  honey,  the  flowers 
or  the  leaves  of  the  Jamestown  weed  (Datura 
stramoniuw,)  if  ever  it  has  been  seen  so  occu- 
pied at  all.  While  it  is  a  worm  it  is  provided 
with  jaws,  and  is  a  masticating  animal  ;  ^.nd 
although  it  may  occasionally  be  found  feeding 
on  the  potato  and  tomato  when  no  tobacco  is 


near,  we  have  never  known  it  to  feed  on  the 
Jamestown  weed.  But  when  it  makes  its 
final  metamorjjhosis,  and  assumes  the  moth 
form,  its  tastes  undergo  the  same  change  that 

all   belonging  to  its  order— Lepidoi)tera do. 

It  ceases  to  be  a  masticating  animal,  and  be- 
comes suctorial,  and  then  it  would  naturally 
resort  to  some  honey-bearing  plant.  Down  iu 
Tennessee  the  predominating  species,  it  not 
the  oidy  species  that  infests  the  toV)acco,  is  the 
fJarolina  horn-worm  {Sphinx  Carolina),  but 
up  in  the  North  the  predominating  species,  if 
not  tlie  only  species  infesting  the  tobacco,  is 
the  five-spotted  horn-worm  (Sphinx  ^-mam- 
lata),  but  here  in  the  Middle  States  we  have 
both  species,  the  northern  and  the  soutliern 
territory  seeming  to  overlap  each  other. 

Before  we  conclude,  we  would  suggest  to 
tobacco-growers  that  if  they  would  destroy  all 
these  worms  that  remain  in  their  fields  when 
they  take  in  their  crops,  they  would  save  a 
arreat  deal  of  labor  the  following  season. 
Many  of  them  merely  sliake  them  ofl'  the  plants 
and  let  them  lie  on  the  fields  to  mature  them- 
selves on  the  young  shoots  that  spring  up 
from  the  stumps  that  are  left  standing,  and  go 
into  the  ground,  and  are  thus  canied  over  to 
the  next  season.  We  hiwjw  this  to  have  been 
largely  the  case  in  Lancaster  county,  and  we 
presume  it  is  also  the  case  elsewhere.  The 
fields  are  never  so  clean  but  what  they  will 
find  enough  to  feed  upon  until  the  young 
shoots  grow  up.  This  is  suicidal  and  ought 
to  be  abated  at  once. 


THE    ICHNEUMON    FLY. 

We  find  the  following,  says  the  Clarksville 
Tobacco  Leaf,  in  the  question  and  answer 
column  of  the  Courier-Journal : 

MoNTEUEr,  Owen  Co.,  Kv.,  May  21,1877.— I  saw 
an  article  in  tlie  Weekly  Covrlrr-./otiritnl  November 
1.5tli,  1.S76,  conecrning  the  Ichneumon  fly  and  tobacco 
worm.  Please  give  name  anrl  address  of  the  parly 
writinij;  upon  the  subject  in  answers  to  correspondents 
in  Weekly  Conrier-Joif.nial.  A  Subscriiier. 

Note  by  Editor. — The  writer  of  the  article  will 
please  respond,  as  we  possess  no  information  at  this 
late  date,  except  what  has  been  printed  in  the  i,ss\ie 
referred  to.  We  reqm're  name  and  aiUlress  of  our 
eol-respondents,  but  we  do  not  preserve  them  unless 
on  special  occasions. 

The  article  referred  tif  first  appeared  in  this  paper 
and  was  written  by  Mr.  Joshua  M.  Kice,  of  Clarks- 
ville, Tennessee.  Mr.  Rice  has  experimented  a  great 
deal  with  the  ichneumon  fly,  and  tinds  that  llicy  are 
a  certain  destroyer  of  the  tobacco  worm.  Farmers 
should  know  this  and  preserve  every  worm  found 
with  the  eggs  of  the  ichneumon  fly  on  it. 

Mr.  Wm.  M.  Di'ane  and  several  other  farmers 
have  otjserved  Mr.  Rice's  experiment  and  found 
great  benefit  from  the  few  flies  raised  by  preserving 
the  worms.  The  flies  are  very  numerous  on  Mr. 
Rice's  ]ilace  from  a  few  years  cultivation,  and  last 
season  they  destroyed  the  eggs  of  the  tobacco  fly  he- 
fore  hatching.  At  least  late  iu  the  season  Mr.  Rice 
noticed  a  great  many  tobacco  flies  depositing  their 
eggs  and  could  not  find  a  single  worm  from  the  re- 
sult, and  he  is  confident  that  the  ichneumon  fly  de- 
stroyed them.  The  tobacco  worm  is  entirely  harm- 
less after  attacked  by  the  fly^  It  lies  perfectly  dor- 
mant, never  moving  or  eating,  and  dies  after  the 
flies  are  hatched  from  the  pretty  little  white  eggs  de- 
posited on  its  back  and  sides.  A  number  of  farmers 
might  stock  their  farms  with  the  ichneumon  fly  by 
cultivating  a  few  plants  of  tobacco  in  Mr.  Rice's  gar- 
den and  bringing  in  w'orms  to  receive  the  Gggs,  and 
carrying  thera  back  to  the  farm  before  hatching. 

Wo  are  glad  to  see  that  tobacco  growers  are 
beginning  to  attach  some  importance  to  econ- 
omic entomology,  although  it  makes  us  .smile 
when  "The  Ichneinnon  fly"  is  referred  to  by 
those  who  attempt  to  enlighten  them  on  the  sub- 
ject; especially  since  there  are  certainly  not 
less  than  fifty  distinct  species  that  belong  to 
the  genus  Ichneumon — as  at  present  restricted 
— all  of  which  are  parasites,  ami  the  one  that 
infests  the  tobacco  worm  don't  hapiien  to  be- 
long to  it.  At  least  one  of  the  species  of  the 
])arasites  that  infest  the  tobacco-worm  is 
Microgasler  ronyreyata,  but  that  which  infests 
the  eggs  of  the  tobacco  moth,  is  doubtless  a 
species  of  Clutlci.^. 

Although  for  .all  practical  purposes  the  re- 
siflts  given  in  the  above  extract  are  correct 
enough,  yet  in  point  of  fact,  the  writer  is  en- 
tirely mistaken  when  he  says  "the  flies  are 
hatched  from  the  pretty  little  white  egys   de- 


1877. 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


115 


posited  on  llie  back  and  sides"  of  tlio  woiiu. 
Wliat  he  calls  eggs,  are  lavKer  than  the  eggs 
of  till' tobacco  moth.  The  little  iiarasites  or 
"Ichiieuraons"  deposit  their  very  iKuiiile 
eggs  ill  or  oil  the  body  of  the  tobaeeo-worin, 
and  when  lliey  are  hatched  llie  little  grnlis 
liiirv  themselves  under  the  skin,  and  feed  on 
tlic"sabslance  of  their  liosi ;  .and  when  tlicy 
are  mature  tliey  come  out  and  spin  the  little 
white  cocoons,  (not  eggs)  and  in  due  time 
the  little  Hies  emerge  from  the  same. 

The  family  IcilNErMONiD.K  is  an  etceed- 
Ing  large  one.  It  has  numerous  genera,  aud 
a  mncl"  larger  number  of  spei'ies;  but,  few, 
very  few  of  ihera,  liave  received  common 
iian\es;  and  therefore,  for  the  sake  of  con  veni- 
rncc,  and  for  the  purpose  of  avoiding  those 
technical  names,  for  winch  so  many  people 
have  such  a  horror,  it  may  Vic  allowable  to 
call  them  all  "Ichneumon  Flies,"  but,  in  do- 
ing so,  it  is  by  no  nii>ans  allowable  to  say  the 
lelineumon  llv,  as  ifthere  was  only  one  spe- 
cies of  tliat  niimc;  but  (ot  Ichneunioii  tly,  im- 
plying that  only  one  among  the  many  is  re- 
ferred to,  when  treated  of  specially. 

The  lesson  we  desire  to  inculcato  by  these 
comments  is,  that  the  tobacco  growers  of 
Tennessee  are  ou  the  right  track  when  they 
direct  their  attention  to  the  Ichneumon  flies, 
and  encourage  their  increase  and  protection. 
We  have  frc(iuently  called  the  attention  of 
our  readers  to  these  little  insect  friends,  and 
especially  .so  in  our  es.say  published  in  the 
March  number  of  the  Fanner  for  the  present 
yt'ar.  And  we  would  again  admonish  them, 
that  whenever  they  find  a  worm  covered  witli 
the  little  white  cocoons  of  these  flies,  that  they 
p.ass  it  by  and  let  the  flies  develop,  for  there 
is  no  danger  to  be  apiirehended  from  a  worm 
so  infested.  They  may  overlook  worms  in  their 
hunt  for  them,  but  these  little  files  will  surely 
find  them  out,  and  deposit  their  eggs  upon 
them,  when  the  proper  time  arrives  fen'  that 
work  to  be  done. 

REMINDERS  FOR  AUGUST. 
Celery  may  be  planted  up  to  the  -JOth.  Sow 
liirnips^  fetticus,  bush  beans  for  [lickling, 
onion  seed  to  stand  tho  winter,  lettuce  for  au- 
tumn use,  and  spinach  (^n-  an  early  crop. 
Onions  will  l)e  ripe  this  month,  and  should  be 
jiulled  and  dried. 

Fetticus.— This  vegetable  is  chiefiy  grown 
:;  ■  a  winter  and  early  spring  salad,  although  it 
ometinics  used  boiled,  as  greens  or  spinach. 
i;  n(iuires  a  rich  soil.  The  seed  may  be  sown 
towards  the  end  of  August  or  beg"inning  of 
September,  in  drills  six  or  eight  inches  apart 
and  half  an  inch  deep,  rolling  them  after 
sowing.  When  the  plants  are  well  up,  thin 
them  out  to  three  or  four  inches  apart.  Keep 
it  well  hoed  aud  clear  of  weeds,  and  when 
severe  weather  sets  in,  give  it  a  slight  cover- 
ing of  straw  or  salt  hay,  as  is  done  with  spin- 
.iili.  ritmoving  it  in  March  or  Aiiril.  It  cau 
iKii  he  sown  early  in  spring,  as  soon  as  the 
Mind  is  in  working  order,  and  will  be  ready 
use  in  si.x  or  eight  weeks  afterwards. — 

;'/'t's  Onrdcn. 

^ 

DOES   IT    RAIN  TOADS. 

riiif,  question,  prompt"!  Ijy  the  appc.inincc  of 
riails  of  these  infaiir  leptili'S  iinmeilialely  after  a 
rm,  ib  one  wliicli  hah  been  frequently  asliecl. 
iiy  tlieories  have  been  ailvaneeil  to  aeeonnt  for  tlie 

1  nine  phenomenon,  but    none  tlial  we  liave  lieard, 

'    vet, are enliicly satisfactory.     Oiu-aln'ailyerowilert 

!'  tic  will  not  allow  \is  to  ^ive  anyhithert(>  advaneed 

"ry  in  this  issue,  but  we  invite  those  who  have 

.11  this  matter  their  consiili'ration  to  give  their 
wsto  the  imhlie  through  our  columns. —  I/arrh- 

'/   /I'lfi/lCUi/tUt, 

■■  Water-Spouts"  might  jiossibly  draw  up, 
I  rain  down,  tadpalcs  ;  but,  when  tadpoles 
■cimc  toads,  they  innuediately  leave  the 
vTalcr.  They  might  possibly  be  "  caught  up" 
In  a ''spout,"  at  the  moment  of  transition. 
W  r  have  seen  inultitndes  of  toads  on  the  bars 
.Hill  Hats,  or  beaches,  of  the  Susquehanna  after 
I  shower  of  rain,  many  a  time.  Wc  always 
l.'uiid  them  hopping  away  from  the  water, 
:n;d  we  always  su)>posed  they  had  merely 
arreted  their  tender  skins  from  the  sun,  and 
alter  the  rain,  had  ventured  forth  again,  rein- 
vigorated  and  refreshed. 


GRAMMAR  IN  A  NUTSHELL. 


The  following  anonymous  rhyme,  brief  as  It  is,  con- 
tains the  siibslanee  of  Hfty  pages  of  the  best  school 
grammar  extant : 

Three  little  words  you  often  see 

Are  articlCB,  a,  an  and  the. 

A  noun's  the  name  of  anythintf, 
As  school  or  garden,  hoop  or  swing. 

Adjectives  show  the  kind  of  noun, 
As  great,  small,  pretty,  or  brown. 

Instead  of  nouns  the  pronouns  stand— 
Her  head,  hie  face,  your  arm,  my  hand. 

Verbs  tell  us  something  to  be  done— 
To  read,  count,  laugh,  sing  or  run. 

How  things  are  done  the  adverbs  tell, 
As  slowly,  quickly,  ill,  or  well. 

Conjunctions  join  the  words  toiretlier. 
As  men  and  women,  wind  and  weather. 

The  prepositions  stands  before 

A  noun,  .as  in,  or  through,  the  door. 

The  interjections  show  surprise, 
As  oh!  how  pretty  !  ah  !  how  wise  ! 

The  whole  are  called  nine  parts  of  speech; 
Which  reading,  writing,  speaking,  teach. 

Many  of  our  (naturally))  intelligent  farm- 
ers, have  most  excellent  and  practical  ideas 
aud  thoughts,  but  they  lack  in  common  gram- 
matical construction,  when  they  attempt  to 
reduce  them  to  writing  and  place  them  on  pa- 
per. They  probably  have  had  little  or  no  ed- 
ucation, aiid  what  little  they  may  have  had, 
did  not  inchide  grammar  ;  or,  the  methods  of 
teaching  it  in  their  youth  may  have  been  so 
defective  and  so  discour.aging  to  them,  that 
they  were  deterred  from  making  an  attempt 
to  actpiire  a  knowledge  of  this  useful  branch 
of  education.  And  yet,  it  is  scarcely  po.ssiblo 
for  any  one  of  ordinary  intelligence  to  con- 
struct a  sentence  without  making  use  of  some 
of  the  rules  of  grammar,  whether  they  are 
conscious  of  it  or  not.  But  still,  many  viola- 
tions of  the  most  obvious  rules  of  grammar 
occur  in  their  compositions,  which  a  little  care- 
ful thought  and  common  observation  ought 
to  correct.  The  above  "  Grammar  in  a  Nut- 
shell," is  in  such  a  pleasant  form,  that  the 
younger  members  of  the  family  may  readily 
commit  it  to  memory;  and  once  permanently 
fixed  in  the  memory,  it  may  become  forever 
theirs. 

It  is  true,  it  can  only  teach  them  the  names 
of  the  "nine  pars  of  .speech,"  but  when 
these  are  thoroughly  recorded,  it  will  lie  a 
great  assistance  in  learning  how  to  vsc  those 
ptxrts  of  speech,  in  conversation  and  compo- 
sition—when and  where  a  capital  letter  ought 
to  be  used— how  to  begin  a  iieriod  or  sentence, 
and  when  they  are  ended.  Take,  for  in.stance 
the  artirlc,  of  which  there  are  only  three  in 
the  whole  language.  They  never  should  be- 
gin with  a  capital,  unless  they  begin  a  period 

or  sentence. 

^ 

The  State  Board  of  Agriculture  has  prepared  two 
laws  which  at  the  very  "next  legislative  session  will 
be  offered  for  passage.  One  of  them  is  "to  prevent 
deception  inthcsaleof  butter."  All  "oleomargariu" 
and  other  substitutes  for  butter  are  to  be  stamped  as 
such,  or  the  ofrender  will  be  fined  SilHO.  The  other 
proposed  act  is  to  "  regulate  the  manufacture  and 
sale  of  fertilizers."  All  such  manufactures  sold  at 
over  j-20  per  ton  arc  to  be  accompanied  by  a  certifled 
analysis  of  their  composition.  All  persons  dealing  in 
these  goods  are  to  tie  licensed  and  the  State  Agri- 
cultural Chemist  is  to  analyze  them.  But  why  stop 
with  fertilizers  ;  A  great  many  other  bogus  articles 
are  sold.  Why  not  compel  the  jeweler  to  mark  his 
tjoods  solid,  pl'ateii  or  counterfeit;  and  let  the  milk- 
man tell  tis  how  many  ([uarts  of  water  he  adds  to 
each  one  of  milk  ? 

Tho  Board  of  Agriculture  is  a  new  institution 
in  our  State.  It  has  been  but  recently  organ- 
ized, and  is  therefore  yet  in  its  infancy.  T  jke 
the  children  of  Israel  when  they  reached  the 
land  of  C'anaitn,  and  found  it  occupied  by  the 
Jebnsites,  the  Ilittites,  the  Perrizites,  the 
Ilivites  and  the  Amorites,  whom  they  were 
admonished  could  not  all  be  driven  out  in  one 
day,  but  "  little  by  little  ;"  even  so  this  new 
organization  found  many  evils  to  correct  on 


their  plane  of  operation,  and  they  felt  that  a 
beginning  mii.st  be  made  somewhere,  and  we 
reganl  it  as  an  uncharitable  criticism,  to  open 
upon  them  the  batteries  of  cfnsorship  because 
they  cannot  accomiilish  all  that  ought  to  be 
accompliishcd  in  it  single  day,  a  week,  a  month, 
or  even  a  year.  All  true  retormalion  is  ami 
nmst  be  gradual.  It  is  sometimes  necessary 
to  let  wheat  and  tares  grow  together  for  a 
time,  lest  in  pulling  up  the  tares  the  wheat  be 
destroyetl;  we  therefore  ought  to  wail  aiul  see 
before  we  disai)prove  or  condemn. 
^ 

In  an  article  in  .S7.  A'ic/to(rt.'i  Prof.  W.  K.  Brooks 
denies  the  commonly  taught  theory  that  each  spe- 
cies of  liinls  goes  on  generation  after  ceneratlon  bulld- 
iug  its  nest  in  precisely  the  same  manner  as  its  an- 
cestors. They  do  not  follow  instinct  alone,  and 
marked  improvenieiils  are  visible  among  successive 
generations.  They  take  advantage  of  new  and  more 
eligible  places  and  material  as  these  present  them- 
selves, anil  improve  even  in  nest  aretiiteclurc.  Barn 
and  chimney  swallows  were  found  in  America  long 
before  then'  wi're  any  barns  or  chimneys  for  them 
to  tie  as  comfortalily  quartered  as  they  now  are. 
The  oriole,  which  builds  its  nest  .according  to  the 
dangers  which  threaten  its  young,  now  selects  kite 
strings,  fish  lines  and  carpet  yarn  instead  of  the 
filringy  fibres  in  a  natural  state, which  It  used  to  have 
to  |iut  up  with.  .Martins  have  shown  great  pro- 
giessivencss  in  their  plan  of  nest  building  in  a  half 
century. 

We  never  knew  that  any  professional  orni- 
thologist claimed  "that  each  species  of  birds 
goes  on  generation  after  generation  building 
its  nest  in  the  same  manner  as  its  ancestors." 
It  may  be  the  general  rule,  but  there  are  too 
many  exceptions  to  it  to  constitute  it  a  nni- 
ver.sal  rule.  In  addition  to  the  exceptions 
mentioned  in  the  above  extract  from  the 
Dailn  Intelli(jeuccr,  wc  may  mention  a  very 
m.arkcd  instance  which  came  tinder  our  own 
observation.  A  pair  of  "American  Barn- 
owls"  {Slrix  praiinrola)  for  many  years  took 
u))  their  residence  in  the  top  of  the  steeple  of 
Trinity  Lutlier.an  chnrcb,  in  this  city,  and 
reared  many  broods  of  their  young  there:  and 
we  obtained  s|iecimens  of  the  eggs,  the  chicks, 
the  young  and  the  adult  birds,  from  that  owl- 
ery,  while  it  continued;  .all  of  which  are  in 
the  museum  of  the  Liniid'an  Society.  Of 
course,  before  there  were  church  steeples  in 
Lancaster  county— or  barns  either— they  must 
have  been  domiciliated  elsewhere- pertiaps  in 
hollow  trees,  or  rocky  recesses. 


THE    LOCUST. 

The  devastation  caused  by  grasshoppers  and 
potato  bugs  in  various  sections  of  the  country  has 
been  so  great  that  there  is  little  wonder  th«  whole 
insect  tribe  should  be  looked  upon  with  mspicion, 
and  ways  and  means  devised  for  the  extirpation  of 
almost  every  creeping  thing.  So  far  as  the  grass- 
hopper is  concerned,  his  exploits  have  been  almost 
cntirtly  confined  to  the  west,  and  in  that  part  of  the 
country  he  has  engaged  the  attention  of  Senates  and 
LegislaturcB,  who  have  offered  rewards  for  his  cap- 
ture, and  have  seliemeil  to  provide  immnnity  from 
his  ravages.  When,  therefore,  it  was  learned  that 
the  locust  had  made  hie  very  numerous  appearance 
in  New  Jersey  and  along  ttie  Hudson,  it  was  only 
natural  that  farmers  and  others  associating  him  with 
the  grasshopper,  should  become  alarmed  at  his 
aiqiroach  and  indulge  in  sad  relectious  as  to  the 
danger  which  threatened  their  fields  and  orchards. 
The  locust  pro|ier,  undoulitedly,  belongs  to  the  tribe 
of  grasshoppers,  and  is  of  a  most  destructive  nature, 
but  it  would  seem  that  the  species  which  has  put  in 
an  appearance  now  is  positively  harmless,  and  that 
no  danger  nerd  be  apprehended  from  its  presence. 
Naturalists  are  united  in  believing  that  those  in  New 
.Jersey  are  the  genuine  gevcnteen-year  locusts, 
which  appear  only  once  in  tliat  time,  and  after  a 
very  short  but  extremely  noisy  life  disappear.  At 
present  they  cover  the  trees,  shrubs  and  grass  in 
Eastern  and  Northern  New  Jersey  for  miles,  and 
their  combined  voices  almost  drown  the  song  of  tho 
birds.  Their  eggs  are  laid  iu  the  holes  of  trees,  and 
when  the  larva'  begin  to  show  signs  of  life  I  hey  drop 
to  the  ground  and  burrow  themselves  into  the  soil 
about  a  foot  beneath  the  surface.  When  warm 
weather  comes  they  work  themselves  to  the  surface, 
climb  up  a  tree  or  shrub,  throw  off  their  outer  cover- 
ing or  shell  and  receive  their  sustenance  from  the 
dew  and  honey  in  the  leaves.  Farmers  in  the  o\tea 
country  are  not  troubled  with  them,  as  they  almost 
invarialily  seek  the  grove  and  woodland.  Wore 
they  to  hollow  out  resting  places  for  themselves  in 
the"  valleys  the  plowshare  would  probatily  leave 
them  open  to  the  same  fate  which  the  early  worm 
receives  from  the  early  bird.  Their  sole  end  seems 
to  be  to  lay  thoir  eggs,  sing  their  own  funeral  dirge, 


116 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[August, 


and  ttien  (lie.  Whether  tliey  remain  in  the  ground 
for  seventeen  years  or  not  is  purely  eonjectural. 
Some  have  supposed  that  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
could  be  verified  in  their  case,  that  their  olTspring 
becomes  either  a  grub,  a  caterpillar,  or  a  beetle,  and 
that  the  chanRe  of  form  goes  on  for  seventeen  years, 
when  the  original  locust  reappears.  It  is  to  be  pre- 
sumed, however,  that  even  Mr.  Huxley  himself 
would  consider  lil'e  too  short  to  attempt  to  prove  liis 
theories  by  devoting  such  a  long  period  to  the  habits 
of  one  insignificant  insect,  and  so  their  growth  still 
remains  a  mystery. 

The  old  proverb  as  to  giving  a  dog  a  bad  name  is 
exemplified  in  their  case.  History,  both  sacred  and 
profane,  teems  with  so  many  instances  of  the  desola- 
tion caused  by  locusts  that  it  is  not  surprising  when 
a  harmless  individual  of  the  same  name  comes  along 
that  the  sins  of  his  namesake  should  be  laid  at  his 
door.  The  only  danger  to  be  apprehended  from 
those  which  have  now  made  1-hemselves  known,  is 
that  if  the  female  cannot  discover  a  place  in  which 
to  deposit  her  eggs,  she  may  dig  out  a  hole  and  kill 
the  branches  of  trees  thus  bored.  But  those  who 
associate  them  with  the  armies  which  sweep  over 
Eastern  countries,  destroying  all  vegetation,  may  at 
once  disabuse  their  miuds  of  such  a  belief.  An  in- 
sect that  lives  only  on  dew,  that  comes  out  of  a 
scveuteen  years'  sleep,  climbs  up  a  tree,  sings  his 
matin  song  and  then  dies,  murmuring 
"  If  so  soon  that  I  w^as  done  for, 
I  wonder  what  I  was  begun  for," 
is  uot  much  to  be  dreaded.  There  are,  of  course, 
individuals  superstitious  enough  to  believe  that  their 
presence  presages,  plague,  famine  or  pestilence.  If 
they  were  to  eat  up  every  green  thinii',  a  famine 
would  undoubtedly  follow,  jjut  outside  of  this,  men 
need  not  be  under  any  apprehension  that  fixed  and 
immutable  laws  will  be  set  aside  by  an  insect  which 
lives  a  summer  day  and  then  either  dies  or  disap- 
pears. 

The  foregoing  wa.s  put  in  type  for  our  July 
number,  but  was  crowded  out  for  tlie  want  of 
space;  and  now,  on  reading  the  revised  proof, 
we  find  it  contains  several  statements  that 
need  correction  and  qualification;  and  feeling 
too  poor  to  throw  it  into  pi  without  using  it, 
we  have  concluded  to  let  it  pass,  merely  to 
show  how  wide  of  the  mark  those  people  shoot 
who  have  no  .si;//!(.  In  the  first  (ilace  the  fe- 
male locust  (ricada)  does  not  lay  her  eggs  in 
"lioles  of  trees,"  that  had  i)reviously  existed. 
She  goes  to  work  mechanically  and  makes  a 
series  of  longitudial  incisions,  in  a  brand) 
just  large  enough  to  grasp  and  give  her  the 
proper  "purchase,"  or  fulcrum  power,  and 
into  these  incisions,  at  an  angle  of  about 
forty-five,  she  deposits  from  20  to  .'iO  or  more 
eggs,  and  these  eggs  arc  hatched  during  the 
months  of  July  and  August,  when  the  young 
locust  either  runs  down  the  branch  and  trunk 
of  the  tree  to  the  gromid,  or  it  drops  down. 
We  have  bred  them  out  of  infested  branches, 
and  found  they  always  dronped  down.  They 
are  then  yellowish-white,  as  nimljlc  as  an  ant, 
and  aliout  as  large  as  the  neuter  of  the  black 
wood-ant.  This  insect  never  deposits  itseggs 
in  dead  wood;  it  must  be  living;  otherwise  we 
doubt  whether  they  would  ever  incubate; 
they  need  not  only  heat  but  some  moisture. 
Those  branches  the  ends  of  which  we  kept  in 
water,  the  eggs  incubated,  but  in  those  with- 
out water,  they  ".shriveled,"  or  dried  up, 
and  never  liatched.  The  perforated  branches 
eventually  die  and  are  broken  off  by  the  winds 
— or  many  of  them  are — and  this  prtming  is 
.sometimes  beneficial  to  large  trees.  It  is 
only  in  young  trees  that  any  injurious  effects 
usually  follow,  or  in  the  Kmaller'  kinds  of  trees. 
In  the  .second  place,  the  aVjove  notions  about 
their  "evolution"  are  not  only  exceedingly 
fabulous,  but  they  are  exceedingly  /??)ulous. 
There  is  nothing  better  establisheil  tliaii  that 
their  larval  dcvelopnumt  recpnres  from  thir- 
teen to  .seventeen  years— according  to  species 
{V7  decim  or  13  decini).  We  liave  dug  up  the 
larra  when  five,  nine,  eleven,  and  fourteen 
years  old,  and  in  the  spring  of  their  seiiten- 
deceimial  aiijiearance  we  have  traced  their  bur- 
rows to  a  depth  of  three  or  four  feet.  We 
have  witnessed  their  appearance  in  this  part 
< if  Lanca.ster  county  fom-  times;  namely,  in 
1817,  in  lS:i4,  in  18,51  and  in  ISIjS,  and  we 
have  always  found  seventeen  years  lietween 
their  ap|>earances,  almost  to  a  day.  It  ap- 
pears to  us  that  there  must  be  thousands  of 
people  in  the  country  who  liave  better  oppor- 
tunities to  luake  and  record  observations  than 
we  have,  and  yet  at  each  occurrence  of  these 
insects,  the  most  stupid  things,  in  refereucc 
to  them,  are  published. 


COLORADO  BEETLE   IN   ENGLAND. 

In  the  House  of  Commons,  on  Thursday,  June  28, 
Mr.  M.  Stewart  asked  the  Vice  President  of  the 
Council  if  his  attention  had  been  called  to  a  state- 
ment in  the  P<dl  Mall  Gazette  announcing  that  the 
Colorado  beetle  had  made  its  appearance  in  Germany, 
and  if  precautions  would  be  taken  to  prevent  its  in- 
troduction into  England.  In  reply,  Lord  Landon 
said  :  "I  am  not  surprised  that  my  honorable  friend 
should  have  addressed  to  me  a  cpiestion  on  this  sub- 
ject, owing  to  the  great  interest  felt  in  it.  I  have  to 
inform  him  that  since  I  saw  that  announcement  in 
the  papers  I  have  communicated  with  the  Foreign 
Ollice.  They  at  once  telegraphed  to  certain  ports, 
and  this  afternoon,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  they  have  re- 
ceived a  report  confirming  the  statement.  The  tele- 
gram says  indications  of  these  insects  in  the  shape  of 
numerous  larva>  were  found  in  the  field  near  Mulheim. 
The  field  was  fired  with  sawdust  and  petroleum. 
One  beetle  was  seen  on  the  wing.  [Laughter.]  It 
is  a  very  serious  mattci',  because  it  was  feared  the 
beetles  might  spread.  [Cheers.]  Upon  receiving 
this  information,  the  Privy  Council  at  once  wrote  to 
the  Customs,  requesting  them  to  instruct  the  otEcers 
at  the  various  ports  to  keep  a  lookout  lor  the 
arrival  of  these  destructive  insects.  The  Commis- 
sioners of  Customs,  I  may  state,  have  long  been  alive 
to  the  importance  of  this  subject.  So  far  back  as 
March,  187.5,  they  issued  a  circular  to  their  officers 
to  examine  carefully  into  all  their  cargoes  of  potatoes 
coming  from  America,  and  destroy  by  fire  all  particles 
of  potato  stalks,  as  well  as  all  loose  soil.  In  Novem- 
ber, ISTO,  again  the  Commissioners  of  Customs  issued 
an  engraving  of  the  insect,  and  we  have  thought  lit 
to  republish  and  to  circulate  throughout  the  country 
a  memorandum  published  last  October  by  the  Minis- 
ter of  Agriculture  in  Canada,  describing  the  habits 
of  the  insects,  and  showing  the  best  means  of  getting 
rill  of  it.  If  my  honorable  friend  would  like  copies 
of  these  papers,  I  shall  be  glad  to  lay  them  on  the 
table."     [Hear,  hear.] 

The  pcjtato  bug,  whose  arrival  at  Cologne,  Ger- 
many, was  reported  a  few  days  ago,  has  gone  on  to 
Bucharest  as  a  war  correspondent  of  a  Colorado 
paper. 

Perhaps  never  since  the  world  began  has 
there  been  any  other  insect,  that  has  created 
so  iirofound  and  so  widespread  a  sensation  as 
the  "Colorado  Potato-beetle."  The  Egyp- 
tian, the  Asiatic,  and  the  Rocky  Mountain 
Locusts,  may  have  lieeu  more  tlestructive 
within  certain  limits,  but  none  of  these  liave 
been  so  cosmopolitan  in  their  geographical 
range.  If  they  once  locate  themselves  per- 
manently on  the  continent  of  Europe,  we  can 
not  see  why  they  may  not  overrun  all  of 
Europe,  Asia  and  Africa,  within  a  certain 
belt  of  latittide.  Just  now  they  seem  to  bo  ex- 
ercising the  English  Parliament,  the  German 
Diet,  aud  the  French  Assembly,  quite  as 
much  as  does  the  "Eastern  question,"  and 
their  discussions  on  the  subject  are  likely  to 
be  as  "wise  and  otherwise,"  as  other  grave  de- 
liberative bodies.  When  they  expect  to  "head 
oir'  the  potato-beetle  by  the  non-importation 
of  potatoes,  we  certainly  do  not  think  they 
are  acting  very  wisely,  for  there  are  ninety 
eliances  for  the  Colorado-beetle  to  reacli  Eu- 
rope by  some  other  cargo,  where  there  are  ten 
for  their  reaching  there  in  a  cargo  of  potatoes. 
They  are  fond  of  riding  eastward,  just  for  the 
love  of  the  thing,  whether  in  a  cargo  of  wheat, 
potatoes  or  stoue-coal.  We  consider  the  issue 
of  good  engravings  of  the  beetles  and  its  larva, 
as  among  the  l)est  of  its  preventive  measures. 
It  came  to  Peun.sylvania  on  the  railroad,  but 
not  in  a  cargo  of  potatoes. 


E.   N.  FRESHMAN  &  BROS. 

These  gentlemen,  by  their  uniform  efficiency, 
faithfulness,  correctness,  and  probity  as  advertising 
agents  in  Cincinnati,  have  commended  themselves  to 
the  press  with  whom  they  have  had  business  for 
many  years.  What  we  particularly  ci^mnicnd  now, 
as  we  have  had  occasion  previously  to  do,  is  their 
thorough  attention  to  their  work  for  the  advertisers 
who  employ  them.  No  fault  of  the  publisher  escapes 
their  vigilant  supervision.  An  error  of  typograjiliy, 
of  omission,  of  position  never  escapes  them.  They 
can  and  do  attend  more  faithfully  to  the  business  of 
their  p.itrons  than  the  advertiser  himself  can.  At 
the  same  time  they  arc  wholly  resjionsible,  wholly 
trustworthy  as  the  agents  of  the  press,  ami  therefore 
we  say  again,  we  have  found  oiu' relations  with  them 
throughout  an  extended  experience  to  be  exception- 
ally pleasant  and  satisfactory.  We  can  not  too  high- 
ly reconimcnil  them  to  the  advertisers  of  the  country 
on  the  one  lianti,  or  to  the  press  of  the  country  on 
the  other  hand.  They  are  entirely  reliable  in  every 
sense  of  the  term,  and  always  will  be.  > 

The  above,  from  the  columns  of  the  Bur- 
lington Hawkeye,  is  merely  a   reiteration    of 


,  larva. 
Natural    History.- 


tlie  general  sentiment  of  all  who  have  had 
business  relations  with  the  Advertising  Agen- 
cy of  E.  N.  Fbe-shman  &  BROs.,of  Cincin- 
natti,  O. ;  and,  the  very  emphatic  endorse- 
ment of  the  Hawkeye  Publishing  Co.,  through 
its  worthy  management,  would  be  at  any 
time,  to  us,  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  any 
confidence  i)laced  in  the  above  named  adver- 
tising linn  would  bo  worthily  reposed. 

APPLE  TREE  INSECTS. 
The  frillowing  article  on  the  insects  that  in- 
fest apple  trees  is  by  Professor  A.  .1.  Cook,  of 
the  Michigan  Agricultural  College,  and  is  ex- 
tracted froiii  the  report  of  the  Michigan  State 
Board  of  Agriculture  for  1875  : 
Apple  Tree  Borer  (Saperda  Candida— Fab.) 
This  pest,  which  has  been  so 
long  in  our  country,  is  widely 
distributed  in  our  State.  Very 
few,  if  any,  orchards  are  exempt 
from  its  attacks.  Not  that  it 
always,  or  generally,  totally  de- 
stroys the  trees  ;  still  those  suf- 
ering  from  its  attacks  are  al- 
ways lessened  in  vitality,  and  it 
uot  unfreriueutly  happens  that 
the  trunks  become  so  riddled 
with  their  tunnels  that  the  tree 
becomes  a  prey  to  the  hard 
winds,  which  are  sure  to  come 
with  each  returning  year. 
—The  beautiful  brown  beetle, 
with  its  two  stripes  of  white,  appears  early  in  June, 
and  thence  on  through  July.  So  the  egg-laying  is 
principally  done  in  these  two  months.  The  grub, 
whitish,  with  a  round  black 
head,  eats  through  the  bark, 
and  then  usually  passes  in  and 
up,  freijuently  eating  through 
the  branches  far  out  towards 
the  extremity.  I  have  fre- 
quently found  apple  tree  limbs 
no  larger  than  my  thumb  with 
a  tuniiel  as  large  as  a  pipe 
stem.  These  larv»  push  their 
sawdust-like  particles  back  of 
them  and  out  of  the  hole  where 
they  first  entered,  so  that  it  is 
not  difficult  to  find  them.  They 
live  and  feed  on  the  wood  of 
the  tree  for  three  years  ;  hence 
we  see  how  that  a  single  larva  may  bore,  if  left  un- 
disturbed, for  a  distance  of  several  feet.'  They  finally 
bore  a  hole  to  exit,  fill  it  slightly  with  their  sawdust, 
and  a  little  back  of  the  same  make  a  cocoon  of  their 
own  chips,  in  which  they  pupate.  Soon  after,  in  June 
and  July,  the  beetles  again  appear. 

Remedies. — Soapy  mixtures 
are  found  to  be  noxious  to  these 
beetles,so  that  in  their  egg  lay- 
ing they  are  found  to  avoid  I  rees 
to  which  such  an  application 
has  been  made.  Thus  we  may 
hope  to  escape  all  danger  by 
washing  the  smooth  trunks  of 
our  trees  early  in  June,  and 
again  early  in  July,  with  soft 
soap,  or  a  very  strong  solution 
of  the  same.  T.  T.  Lyon,  now  of 
South  Haven,  whose  judgment 
is  very  reliable  in  such  matters, 
urges  that  we  always  use  the 
soap  itself. 
We  should  always  examine  the  trees  carefully  in 
September,  and  wherever  we  find  this  pernicious 
grub's  sawdust  shingle  out,  we  should  give  him  a 
call.  Perhaps  we  may  reach  him  with  a  wire  thrust 
into  the  hole,  aud  by  a  vigorous  ramming  crush  the 
culprit.  If  we  have  doubts  about  the  crushing,  we 
should  follow  him  with  the  knife  ;  but  in  cutting  out 
the  borers  too  great  care  cannot  be  taken  to  wound 
the  trees  just  as  little  as  possible.  This  heroic 
method  is  sure,  and  reciuires  very  little  time,  and  no 
person  who  takes  [iride  in  his  orchard,  or  looks  to  it, 
as  a  source  of  profit,  can  afford  to  neglect  this  Sep- 
tember examination,  or  the  previous  application  of 
soap,  to  which  it  is  supplementary. 
Flat-Headed  Borer  (Chrysobothris  F"emora- 
ta— Fab.) 
At  the  ])rescnt  this  borer  is  quite  as  ruinous  iu  our 
State  as  the  preceding  one,  and  I  should  not  think  it 
strange  if  in  a  well-balanced  account  it  was  found 
even  to  surpass  the  otlier  in  the  evil  which  it  works 
to  our  fruit  interests.  I  have  seen  young  orchards 
nearly  ruined  the  first  summer  alter  setting,  by  this 
devastator.  Not  long  since  a  nurseryman  came  from 
a  distant  part  of  the  State  to  consult  me  as  to  the 
ravages  of  this  pest.  He  said  that  during  the  past 
summer,  in  some  regions  of  the  State,  more  than 
half  the  trees  he  sold  were  killed  by  this  scourge, 
and  of  course  he  was  unjustly  blamed.  At  present 
no  nurseryman  should  sell  trees  without  throwing 
in  advice  in  regard  to  practicing  against  this  devasta- 


c,  imago  of  Saperda 
randitla. 


1R77.1 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


dd7 


tor;  for,  lis  wc  shall  see,   such   triis   are  i)ccu]iarly 
liable  to  attack. 

These  horcrs  are  not  contincd  lo  the  ajiple  tree,  as 
I  have  fouiiil  them  workinf;  in  oak,  iiuiiile,  ami  other 
trees  of  our  forests. 

Natural  llislory.— This  hiownisl]  Ipcctlc,  with  a 
copiicry  lustre,  is  Inuiul  fnnu  May  till  AuL'usl, 
thouirh  1  have  found  tlnni  UKire  common  In  .luue 
and  .Tuly.  As  with  the  stri|>cd  S,i/irrilit,  the  eifgs  are 
laid  on  the  bark.  The  whitish  t,'rul)S,  with  their 
enormous  front,  brown  heatl  and  curled  tail,  usually 
bore  only  suiwrlicially,  catinir  the  inner  liark  and 
ea(>-wood;  vcl  I  have  seen,  and  have  now  on  exhiiii- 
tloii  here  at  the  colli'fie,  sections  of  yountt  trees  over 
an  inch  in  dianu^ter  bored  completely  through  by 
these  bi^r-headed  rascals.  They  eat  but  a  siniilc  sea- 
son, pupate  as  in  the  preceding-  ease,  and  come  forth 
as  iuniKOs  early  In  llic  sprin;;.  They  usually  work 
on  tin'  trunk,  thoufjli  sometimes  in  the  branches,  al- 
most always  on  the  .touth,  the  west,  or  the  south- 
west sides  of  the  trei';  and  their  whereabouts  may 
be  ascertained,  not  only  by  the  sawdust,  lint  also, 
and  more  certainly,  by  the  black  color  of  the  bark. 
When  the  bla<k  color"  oilers  tlie  sugsrestion  of  the 
presence  of  this  borer  we  can  quickly  beeomeassured 
by  strikincr  a  knife  into  the  same.  If  the  blade 
pierces  the  bark  and  i;oe6  cm  still  a  little  farther,  we 
may  be  sure  of  the  enemy's  jircsenee. 

This  borer  is  far  more  "liable  to  attack  feeble  trees. 
Anything-  therefore  wiiieh  serves  to  diminish  the  vi- 
tality of  the  trees,  promotes  the  ravages  of  this  borer. 
Jlence,  after  such  a  winter  as  we  have  just  exiieri- 
eneed,  or  after  havini;  the  ■;rowth  of  our  trees  inter- 
rupted by  the  removal  from  the  nursery  to  our  or- 
chards, we  are  in  si)ecial  danger  of  harm  from  these 
destructive  borers.  UiMice  tlu>  coming  season,  when 
loss  will  be  inevitable,  we  should  more  than  ever  be 
ou  the  alert  to  mitigate  the  damage  by  our  vigilance 
and  care,  and  by  the  timely  applieatiou  of  remedies. 
The  remedies  for  the  llat-headed  borer  are  the  ^ame 
as  those  given  for  the  old  borer,  soaj)  in  .lune  and 
July,  and  a  knife  in  Seiitembcr;  though  the  grubs 
may  be  fouud  in  July  and  August,  and  so  to  delay 
the  cutting  out  in  September  would  often  be  fatal, 
espet-ially  to  tnres  in  newly  set  orchards.  I  have 
known  cases  where  labor  of  this  kind  in  July  would 
have  paid  more  than  SUIO  a  day,  besides  saving  a 
great  amount  of  vexation. 

Apple  Tree  Bark-Louse  (Mytilaspis  Conchi- 
formis— Gmelin.) 
This  old  enemy  is  less  destructive  than  formerly, 
probably  because  of  the  parasites  and  mites  which 
prey  upon  it,  so  that,  like  the  Hessian  lly,  wheat 
midge,  and  many  other  insects,  it  has  probably  done 
Its  worst  wiu'k;  yet  to  leave  it  to  itself  at  the  present 
time  would  be  to  yield  the  strife  prematurely. 

Natural  History. — The  bark-colored,  oblong  scales, 
so  harmless  in  appearance,  serve,  from  August  to 
May,  only  for  protection  to  the  sixty  or  seventy  wee 
white  eggs,  which  are  found  underneath.  About 
the  first  of  June  the  young  lice  appear — so  small 
tliat,  though  elad  in  yellow,  they  cau  hardly  be  .seen 
without  a  glass.  Coming  forth  from  uuderthe  scale, 
they  roam  about  for  a  few  days;  are  sometimes  blown 
to  other  trees,  thus  sprea<ling  their  evil  work;  but 
very  soon  settle  down  to  earnest  business.  This  con- 
Blsts  in  inserting  their  tiny  beak  and  sucking  the  vi- 
tality from  the  trees.  Very  soou  a  scale  commences 
tojform  around  them,  from  an  exudation,  which  is  a 
secretion  from  the  general  surface.  By  August  the 
Impervious  scale  is  complete.  The  eggs  arc  then 
Booy  deposited,  and  the  parent  louse  ^^dries  up  and 
Bhriuks  away  to  nothingness. 

Remedies. — As  the  scale  is  impervious  to  most  flu- 
i(l8,though  oils  will  ponetrate  it  and  destroy  the  eggs 
the  best  time  to  fight  these  insects  is  just  after  the 
eggs  hatch.  At  this  time  soft  or  strong  soaji-suds 
are  sure  death  to  the  young  lice,  nencc  the  trees 
should  be  washed  the  tirst  week  of  June  with  soft 
soap,  not  only  making  the  application  to  the  trunk, 
but  also  to  the  main  iiranchea  and  limbs  so  far  as 
IKjssible. 

Important  Fact. — We  thus  see  that  an  ap|ilication 
of  soft  soap  to  our  apple  trees,  nuide  in  the  first  week 
of  June,  is  of  exceediiig  value.  It  not  only  extermi- 
nates the  sappers  (Xark  lice),  but  banishes  the 
miners  (borers).  We  thus  understand  why  our  fruit 
trees  which  are  thus  treated  seem  fairly  to  laugh,  as 
If  grateful  for  such  timely  aid  in  banishing  their  ene- 
mies. I  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  the  ap- 
ple-grower will  find  the  above  one  of  tbe  most  paying 
operations  that  he  can  undertake  in  his  orcliard. 
Let  all  then  scrape  their  trees  early  in  spring,  apply 
soft  soap — not  lye — the  first  of  June,  and  again  the 
first  of  July,  not  forgetting  to  adjust  cloth  bands  by 
the  last  of  June. 

"Freciueiitly  ciiting  tliioiigli  tlie  brandies 
far  out  towards  tlie  extremity."  This  is  cer- 
tainly a  new  character  given  to  the  "Striped 
apple-tree  borer,"  (Saperda  raiKlida)  and 
knocks  all  the  wind  out  of  those  remedies 
based  upon  the  location  of  this  insect  in  the 
lower  portion  of  the  trunk.  AVe  know  that 
the  "Liuden-tree  borer  {Saperdu  vcstitt(i)  per- 
forates the  branches  of  that  tree,  not  ''far  out 
towards  tlieir  extremity,"  however,   all  the 


larger  branches— but  wc  always  looked  for  the 
/((rivr  of  th(^  striped  species  in  the  trunk,  not 
far  from  the  base,  and  litive  oflcn  found  it 
there.  It  would  take  a  dreadfully  long, 
biu-lu'd,  steel  wire,  to  reach  them  in  llieir  bur- 
rows, "far  out  towards  th(^  extremity"  of  the 
branches.  As  this  comes  frmn  it  cojlc^ge  pro- 
fessor, we  are  liiiund  lo  receive  it  with  re- 
s))(H-t,  and  Wiiit  iialiently  for  a  fuller  conliniia- 
tioii.  On  the  whole,  the  article  contains  some 
useful  suggi'stions. 

"DOES  THE    SHAD    BITE   OR    TAKE    A 
BAIT. 

Vesterday  Caiit.  -S.  S.  Nagle,  while  lisliing  for 
mullds  in  the  8usc|uchanna,  at  Marietta,  with  mus- 
cle as  bait,  received  a  vigorous  liile,  very  diU'crpnt 
from  tlial  of  a  mcillct.  After  a  livc-ly  tusscl  he  land- 
c'd  a  fine  large  male  shad,  in  good  condition;  the 
fish  was  fairly  hooked  in  the  mouth,  indicating  that 
it  haci  gone  for  the  bait. 

This  is  not  the  first  recorded  instance  of 
shad  being  takc^n  with  the  hook,  but  it  is  the 
best  atillienticated  ca.se  on  record,  to  our 
knowledge,  of  a  shad  making  a  "vigorous 
bite"  at  a  "bait."  We  have  often  ex- 
amined the  contents  of  the  stomachs  of 
these  li.shes,  but  wc  n«'vcr  fouud  anything 
in  them  that  had  the  appearance  of  being 
either  animal  or  vegetalile — simply  a  daik 
colored orgrayishslime— and  we  supiiosed  that 
being  mainly  bent  on  lindiiig  a  proper  place 
to  cast  their  spaw'ii,  they  took  no  food,  except 
perhaps  such  tloatiug  ahjea  as  might  be  easily 
appropriated  on  their  upward  way. 


QUERIES  AND   ANSWERS. 

Mr.  II.  M.  E.,  Muridla,  /'((.— Your  larger 
insect,  enclosed  iu  the  small  paper-box,  is  a 
very  odoriferous  carabidinous  beetle,  techni- 
calfy  called  Vijchrua  viduus,  and  very  rare  too. 
I  havii  never  iieen  able  to  take  a  single  sjieci- 
men  in  all  itty  entomological  experience.  The 
only  specimen,  to  my  khowledge,  ever  having 
lieen  taken  in  fjancasler  county,  wasca|)tured 
by  Mr.  Edwards,  near  (iiiarryville,  about  a 
year  ago,  which  he  sent  to  inc;  alive,  and  iu 
good  ('oiidition.  I  regret  very  much  the  in- 
jury your  Yciik  county  specimen  hasstistained. 
I  hope  you  will  keep  a  sharp  lookout  for  others. 
The  smaller  beetle  is  a  chrisonielan,  techni- 
cally called  0/()•;/.sor7^w.^■  auratus,  and  although 
some  seasons,  and  in  some  localities,  it  be- 
comes very  common  and  abundant,  yet  it  is 
always  a  very  pretty  insect.  It  varies  very 
much  iu  appearance.  Sometimes  it  is  simply 
a  glossy  green  ;  at  other  times  like  a  drop  of 
btirnishecl  gold,  and  then  again  the  green  and 
gold  are  beaulifully  blended.  Its  relation, 
however,  to  the  "Colorado  potato  beetle," 
discredits  it. 

Prof.  T.  R.  B.,  Millfrsville,  Pa.— The 
"worms"  and  their  cases,  which  you  found 
under  a  cedar  tree  near  the  permanent  exhi- 
bition Vmilding,  are  tho.se  of  the  common 
"Drop-worm"  or  " Sack-be:irer"  (Tlii/ri'lup- 
tcri/x  ciihdiKi'refm-mis)  which  are  particukirly 
destructive  to  tne  foliage  of  the  cedar,  the 
arlior  vita',  and  other  conifer;e.  It,  however, 
does  not  couline  Uself  to  these,  for  we  have 
found  it  aliuiidaiiUy  on  the  apple,  the  pear, 
the  iiuiiice,  the  apricot,  the  cherry,  the  locust, 
and  ou  other  trees  and  shrubs.  Its  generic 
name  is  from  the  (Jreuk,  and  relates  to  its 
habit  of  occupying  its  own  .solitary  house.  Its 
s|)ecific  name  relates  to  its  form,  which  is 
likened  to  tliat  of  an  Rjihciiiurd,  or  "Day-fly," 
an  insect  better  and  longer  known  to  the  en- 
tomologic^al  world,  than  tlie  drop-worm.  This 
ifispct  was  first  noticed  by  Mr.  Ileiubrandt 
I'eale,  ou  the  banks  of  the  Wi.ssahickon,  about 
the  year  lSl-2,  but  it  was  not  ilescribed  and 
scieiitilically  classified  until  many  years  there- 
after.    Wo  first  noticed  it  here  iii  "1850. 

Wm.  11.  IT.,  Esq..  Laai-askr.  Pa.  — In  rejily 
to  your  query  in  regard  to  "  Heath,"  wt^  wcnild 
say,  that  aithough  wc  have  many  .shrubs  in 
this  ctunitry  tliat  belong  to  the  IIe;itli  f:imily, 
Ekicin.k,  we  liavej  none  tluil  belong  to  the 
restricted  genus  Erica.  Heath  is  a  flowering 
evergreen  shrub,  and  perluips  the  nearest  thing 
we  have  to  it  iu  this  respect,  is  our  common 


Laurel  {Knhnai),  but  the  family  also  incluAes 
the  rhododendrciii,  the  whortleberry,  the 
winlergreen,  the  barberry  and  many  others. 
Three  species  belotigiiig  to  tlie  restricte<l  genus 
Erica,  arc  iiidigeiupiis  to  Kugland,  and  per- 
haiis  the  same  tiutuber  will  be  found  in  Asia 
and  Africa.  The  common  Kuropean  lieatli, 
especially  th:il  of  Iicd;ind  and  Scotland,  is  n.sed 
for  fuel, "for  thatching,  for  bedding,  for  cord- 
age, for  goat  feed,  and  sevcial  spc'cies  of  fowls 
—the  heath-cock,  feu-  instance,  feed  on  its 
.seeds  and  buds.  Siunt^  species  of  the  family 
are  cultivated  and  are  beautiful  flowering 
plants. 

Mr.  K.,  SaliKhurii. ~Tho  insects  that  punc- 
tures tlu^  young  leaves  of  your  IoIkicto  are  a 
tiliecies  of  ".Soldier-Hug,"  (Eiiscliisl(t:  ]iuslul 
(itiu<,)  and  is  nearly  allied  to  a  species  that  de- 
stroys the  larva  of  the  '( 'olorado  potato  beetle.' 

STATE  AND  DISTRICT  FAIRS  FOR  1877. 

We  give  below  a  i>artial  list  of  State  and 
district  fairs  for  this  year.  AVe  desire  to  com- 
plete the  list  ;is  soon  as  possible,  and  will  be 
obliged  to  any  reader  who  will  give  us  infor- 
mation as  to  time  and  place  of  holding  Slate 
or  prominent  district  f;iirs  not  mentioned  be- 
low : 

■riTI.K.  Wlll'UE   IIKI.U.  TIME. 

Am. Institute   ...N.  V.  City...' .Sep.  12  to  Nov.  12. 

Am.  Pomological. Baltimore,  Md...Sept.  12  to  14. 

California  ... Sac-ramento .Sept.  17  to  22 

Central  Ohio..    .  Meehanicsburg  .  .Sejrt.  5  to  7. 

Central  Ohio Orrville Oct.  10  to  13. 

Chicago  Exi)Os'ii. Chicago  Aug.29toOet.l3. 

Fremont,  Neb...  .Fremont Oct.  3  to  .5. 

Georgia Atlanta   Oct.  l.'i  to  20. 

Industrial  Ex|i"n. Kansas  City,  Mo..Sept.  17  to  22 

Indiana Indianaimlis Sept.  24  to  29. 

Illinois Frceport  Sept.  17  to  22. 

Iowa  Cedar  Kapids Sept.  17  to  21 

Kentucky (N'th.) Florence Aug.  28  to  31. 

Michigan Jackson  Sept.l7to2l. 

Minnesota Minneapolis Sept.  3  to  8. 

Nebraska Lincoln Sept.  24  to  28. 

Nevada Keiio Oct .  1.5  to  20. 

New  Vork Rochester Sept.  17  to  — . 

New  England Portland,  Me Sept.  3  to  7. 

New  Jersey Waverly Sept.  17  to  22. 

Ohio    Colunilius Sept.  10  to  14. 

Oregon Salem Oct.  8  to  13. 

.Southern  Ohio..  .Daylon Oct.  1  to  6. 

St.  Louis  St.  Louis Sept.  34  to  28. 

Texas Austin Oet.9tol3. 

Wiseoneiu lanesville Scpt.lOtol4. 

Although  the  above  list,  from  the  Practical 
Farvur,  is  the  most  complete  one  we  have 
yet  seen,  it  does  not  include  our  own  I'ennsyl- 
vania  Fair,  which  will  be  held  at  Krie  on  the  — 
of  September,  1S77,  and  as  a  matter  of  news 
in  whic-h  all  p:irts  of  the  cotmtry  are  interest- 
ed, we  repeat  the  recinest  of  the  Practical  Far- 
mer for  the  necessary  information  on  the  sub- 
ject. 


BUDDING. 

Now  is  the  jiroper  time  to  bud  fruit  trees, 
and  will  be  in  season  up  to  the  1st  of  Seiitem- 
ber.  Take  this  summer's  grow'th  to  bud  on, 
and  the  eyes,  or  buds,  from  the  same  year's 
growth.  Take  a  sharp  knife  and  make  a  jier- 
pendicular  and  ;i  transverse  incision  in  the 
smooth  bark,  in  the  form  of  the  letter  T, 
then  insert  tlie  ]irepared  buds  under  the  bark, 
by  lifting  u]>  the  corners,  after  which  tie  it  up 
closely  with  woolen  yam,  oidy  leaving  the 
bud  expo.sed.  Chtu-rics  will  do  as  well  by  side 
crrafting  with  a  graft  coni;iining  three  buds. 
T'ut  them  very  slender  and  smooth  and  slip 
them  ill  the  T  incisions  under  the  bark.  Tic 
them  up  the  .sami;  way  as  in  bud  grafting. 
Apples,  i>ears,  jieaches,  apricots,  plums,  and 
cherries  may  all  bi>  thus  inoculated.  Also 
English  and  (icrman  walnuts,  on  our  common 
black  walnut,  the  Spanish  chestnut  on.  our 
common  chestnut— including  the  Mulberry 
and  persiniiuon,  on  their  kinds.  In  grafting 
cherries  I  geiicnilly  do  side  grafting;  i>y  slip- 
ping down  the  gnift,  and  using  :i  little  wax 
and  wocilen  y;irn,  it  seldom  fails  for  me.  15iit 
the  main  thing  is  to  ti.scertain  when  the  s!tp  is 
in  the  right  ctuidition,  so  that  the  bark  is 
loose  enough  to  facilitate  the  operation. — L. 
S.  R..  Oregon,  Aug.,  1877. 


iia 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  August, 


THE  TURBINE  WIND   ENGINE. 
"Wind  mills  are  being  greatly  improved, 
and  this  fact  is  adding  much  to  tlieir  populari- 
ty.    The  one  we  illustrate  below  is  manufac- 
tured at  Springfield,  Ohio,  by  Mast,  Foos  & 
Co.,  and  is  called,  from  the  peculiar  sha])e  of 
its  wheel,  the  "Iron  Turbine."    The  mill  is 
constructed  entirely  of  iron,  thus  differing 
from    others 
in  the  market 
in   tliere   be- 
ing  no  slats 
or  reeds.  The 
wheel     is 
made      of 
heavy    sheet 
iron,    con- 
structed   o  n 
the    tiirhine 
principle.  Its 
construction 
is  s  i  m  !>  1  e  , 
liaving    b  u  t 
few    ))arts, 
and  t  li  e  s  e 
well   put  tii- 
g  e  t  li  e  r . — 
Tiiere     are 
but     few 
joints.      The 
turn  -table 
work.s  easily 
and  freely.  It 
has  a  rear  or 
tail      vane 
which    holds 
the     wheel 
facing    the 
wind,  except 
when   opera- 
ted   upon  liy 
the  governor, 
whicli    regu- 
lates it  auto- 
ma  t  i  c  a  1  ly. 
The    regula- 
t  i  n  g    vaue, 
wliicli     is     a 
[lart  of    the 
govern  o  r, 
.stands    u  p  - 
right    over 
I  h  0    wheel, 
and  is  held  in 
position    b  y 
the    adjnsta- 
lile  weight  on 
the  )ever,and 
can   be  regu- 
lated to  suit 
tlie  power  re- 
quired.  This 
vane  is  turn- 
e  d     (1  o  w  n  - 
ward  with  a 
very     strong 
wind,     a  n  d 
serves  to  tuni 
the      wheel 
more  or  less 
out  of  wind, 
and     during 
storms  or  vi- 
olent  winds, 
throws  it  en- 
tirely   out, 
throwing  tlie 
wheel     edge- 
wise  to     the 
wind,  so  tliat 
the  mill  is  at 
rest  until  tlie 
storm  ceases, 
when  it  will 
(luietly    re- 
sume   its 
work   again.     It  is  claimed  that  the  jieculiar 
shape  of  the  wheel  gives  this  machine  a  large 
increase  ofe,  power  over  any  other  now  manu- 
factured, while  the  discarding  of  all  wood  in 
its   construction    prevents    any    swelling    or 
shrinking,   and  renders  it  the  most  durable 
mill  in  existence.  This  is  a  point  about  whicli 


a  good  many  manufacturers  have  been  too 
careless,  and  the  result  has  been  a  feeling  of 
discouragement  among  those  who  have  pur- 
chased their  machines.  The  manufacturers 
of  the  Turbine  Wind  Engine  say: 

"Tlie  very  best  materials  are  used  in  the 
construction  of  these  engines;  polished  shaft- 
ing and  babbit  lined  Vio.Kes,   with  cavity   be- 


sary  wear.  The  quality  of  workmanship  is 
equal  to  the  best  steam  engines.  Experience 
has  taught  us  tliat  good,  substantial  work  is 
appreciated,  and  though  it  costs  more,  it  pays 
in  the  end,  for  both  manufacturers  and  pur- 
chasers. The  unique  and  peculiar  form  of 
the  wheel,  causes  it  to  give  more  power  than 
any  other  wheel  in  the  market,   of  the  same 


tween  the  bearings,  in  which  is  placed  pack- 
ing to  hold  oil  to  prevent  the  necessity  of  very 
frequent  oiling.  A  hardened  steel  wrist-piii 
and  pitman  of  malleable  iron,  with  adjustable 
brass  boxes,  so  that  all  wear  or  slack  can  be 
easily  taken  up  to  keep  the  engine  running 
smoothly,  and  prevent  knocking  and  unueces- 


diameter.  We  have  thoroughly  demonstrated 
that  our  eiglit  feet  wheel  gives  more  power 
tlian  any  ten  feet  reed,  or  slat  wheel,  besides 
it  is  much  more  durable,  there  being  no  wood 
about  it  to  swell,  shrink,  rattle  and  be  torn  to 
pieces  by  the  wind.  We  are  well  aware  that, 
many  persons    who  have    been    using  wind 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


il9 


mills,  Tiave  become  cliscounvfiPd,  bccaufif'  their 

mills  wi'i'c  so  sliort  livod,  ami  so  cxiifusive  to 
kec])  in  woikiiiR  order;  but   an    cxamiMatioii 
of  this  iron  ttii'liiiic  will  soon  con  vincc  any  one 
of  its  (hiial)ility  and  eliiciency.     Tlioni;!!  coni- 
paratively  a  late  iiivenlion.  it  has   lieen    thor- 
oughly tested,  and  we  can   conlidenlly    assiTl 
that  no  otlier  \viii<l  eni^inc  has  won    for   itself 
such  lii^li  reiuital ion,  ill  the   sain(>   leiii,'th  of 
time.     Of  the  lai>;e  number  jint  in   operation 
in  Oliio,  Indiana  an<l  Illinois,  during' the  ])ast 
year,  not  one  has  blown  down,  aUliongh  sub- 
jeeted  to  the  severest  storms,  and  notoni^  has 
failetl  to  ijive   sali.sfaction    to  the   iiurehaser. 
This  (■ertainly  eannot  be  said  of  many  others. 
Tliey  have  received    the   hiijhest   commenda- 
tions from  persons  usin^;  them,  and  from    the 
best  mechanics  in  this  country  and  inKnrope. " 
|Thi'  foref^oinj.;  from  the  Alii-liiijioi  Juiniur, 
located  in  a  Slate  where  "The  'I'nrbine   Wind 
f'liijine"  has  been  introduced  and  is  in  pra<"li- 
cal  use,  illustrates  more    fully    the   (pialities 
and  popni.arity  of  this  enfjine   than   anythint; 
we  could  say,  experimentally,  on  the  siibject. 
Independent  of  a  merely   utilitarian   view   of 
the  subject,  the  wind-mill  is   associated   with 
time-honored  memaries,  and  we  believe  if  wr 
possessed  a  farm,  we  shouM  have  one  of  these 
"rural,  rustle  and  romantic"' slrnctureseroct- 
ed  on  it,  whether  we  had  any  s|iecial  use   for 
it  or  not.     15ut  this  practical  a'^e  has  iniprovid 
and  invested  it  with  an  interest  it  never   had 
l)efore,  and  \\f  hope  to  see  the  I'lii-him    intro- 
duced into  our  county  on  an   enlariL^'ed    scale, 
because  we  ludieve  it  will  meet  anil   s.aisfy   a 
constantly  increasing  want. 

CORRESPONDENCE. 


Letter  from  Florida. 
Dear  Sir:  Your  letter  of  3(lth  ult.,  rr:;clied 
me  a  week  ago.  1  was  jdeased  to  hear  from 
home,  and  that  all  arc  enjoying  health.  Health 
is  only  fully  appreciated  when  one  loses  it. 
To  me  it  used  to  be  secondary,  but  now  be- 
comes of  primary  importance.  Over  four 
months  ago  when  I  arrived  at  Key  West,  I 
was  delighted  with  the  mild  climate  and  its 
effects,  but  it  is  only  about  a  month  ago  since 
I  have  become  fully  ac(;limated  and  feel  its 
full  elfect.  At  pre.sent  I  mostly  enjoy  my  sleep 
and  meals,  and  gain,  1  think,  .some  strength 
and  weight.  This  country  is  one  of  |)rimitive 
appearance,  and  more  wild  in  its  vegetation 
than  in  a  more  northern  latitude  of  the  State. 
Ofcour.se  as  elsewhere  in  this  State,  one  sees 
little  but  pine  forests  and  hummocks,  which 
are  almost  impenetrable  jimgles  of  vines  and 
shrubbery,  although  the  vegetation  is  den.se 
ami  luxuriant,  the  soil  is  mostly  shallow,  an<l 
the  ragged  and  quartz  coral  rock  crops  out 
everywhere  on  this  coas-t.  1'liese  rocks,  usually 
leve'i  with  the  surface,  are  so  numerous  that  ft 
would  be  ditlicult  to  lind  a  plot  of  ground  of 
several  acres  in  extent,  in  which  a  plow  could 
be  u.sed.  No  open  fields — there  are  no  farmers 
.here,  in  a  sense,  no  pasture  or  giain  lields. 
Prior  to  the  war,  there  were  some  planters 
setted  here  who  raised  the  shrubby  Sea  l.sland 
cotton,  but  labor  must  have  been  effected  by 
means  of  slaves  ami  hor.ses.  These  i)lantation's 
are  now  all  grown  over  with  trees  and  shrubs, 
so  that  it  is  ditlicult  to  realize  that  they  were 
once  under  cultivation.  15ut  history  with  the 
monumental  remnants  of  a  few  weather  stain- 
ed and  mos.s-covered  stone  walls,  broken  down 
chimney  stacks,  and  a  few  ornamental  shrubs, 
with  lemon  and  lime  trees  run  wild,  point  to 
this  former  occupancy.  Although  the  mild 
climate  and  luxuriant  vegetation  captivates 
the  immigrant,  but  in  a  short  time  hecominjj 
better  accquainted  and  more  fully  realizing 
the  drawbacks,  soon  emigrates  again  for  a  more 
substantial  home.  Couniingall  the  .settlers  on 
this  bay  and  its  feeding  rivers,  I  find  most 
have  come  in  since  the  war,  and  show  no  indi- 
cation of  a  permanent  residence  here.  The  in- 
habitants along  this  bay  are  a  mixed  people,  as 
regards  character  and  wealth.  All  have  land 
from  a  quarter  section,  eighty  acres,  or  less,  to 
several  thousand  acres, but  the  land  is  not  worth 
mnch;  although  some  have  the  face  to  ask  ten 
to  twenty  dollars  per  acre  for  unimproved  land. 


The  people,  as  a  class,  are  poor,  and  many 
mak(^  a  bare  living  in  the  manufacture  of 
starch  ontof  the  coonti  root  (."CiiiiVi  inlei/rifolia,) 
•some  grow  a  lew  vegetables  for  a  living,  others 
in  keeping  a  small  country  store,  or  post- 
olli(M'.  'I'lie  family  with  whom  I  am  .staying 
have  come  here  from  ( )liio  five  years  ago.  and 
are  in  bctlei'  circumstan(-es  than  most  of  them 
through  this  county.  Mo.st  of  these  people 
are  of  an  irritable  tem])erament.  and  are  with 
the  least  i)rovocation  renderetl  permanent  ent^- 
mies,  yet  to  strang<>rs  they  are  very  kind  and 
hospitable  on  first  iic(piainlan(H',  and  with 
careful  intercourse  and  approval  of  their  views 
on  all  subjects,  may  he  retained  in  good  friend- 
ship, but  woe  to  liini  who  ollends,  because 
Ihey  will  not  forgive. 

The  Seminole  Indians  constitute  quite  an 
import:mt  elememt  of  the  po|)ulation,  yet  ab- 
solutely they  are  not  many;  i)erha])s  sincral 
hundred  would  comiirise  all  the  living  of  a 
oni'C  powerful  tribe.  They  are  a  fine  si)e{'i- 
Lucn  of  iihysical  develoimient.  In  their  intel- 
lectual and  moral  culturi^  they  are  much  like 
Indians  elsewhere,  but  they  are  of  a  friendly 
disposition,  and  show  better  taste  and  judg- 
ment in  their  mode  of  living  and  intercourse, 
with  the  whites,  than  tJie  red  men  of  tlu; 
plains.  1  have  met  and  conversed  hrietly 
with  a  number  of  them.  At  my  first  intro- 
duction to  them  they  apiieared  very  reserved, 
but  on  longer  ac(piaintancc,  and  especially 
when  they  are  under  the  inrtuenc.e  of  spiritu- 
ous liipiors,  they  becomit  ipLite  free  and  talka- 
tive. They  live  on  limiting  and  fishing,  and 
gi-owing  some  vegetables  and  corn.  They 
come  here  every  few  days  trading  with  this 
family  with  whom  I  am  staying.  They  siqi- 
ply  us  with  venison.  They  are  exiiert  hunt- 
ers—carry wliistles  to  decoy  the  deer,  or  burn 
jirairies  to  drive  tliem  out — or  pass  through 
deii.se  humocks  apart  and  produce  various 
noises  to  attract  the  animals.  They  also,  like 
the  "jioor  whites"  here,  engage  in  the  manu- 
facture of  starch.  Of  li(|uor  they  are  very 
fond,  and  will,  by  its  abuse,  probalily,  in 
course  of  time,  destroy  their  tribe.  The  nicn 
as  a  rule  are  barefooted  and  without  breeches, 
wearing  mendy  a  long  calico  shirt,  ornament- 
ed cajie  and  belt,  with  a  turban.  The  women 
are  better  elajd,  and  usually  ornamented  with 
many  strings  of  beads  around  their  necks, 
and  rows  of  hammered  silver  coins  over  their 
breasts.  They  are  very  fond  of  silver  coins 
for  ornaments,  but  will  as  readily  accept  cur- 
rency in  trade. 

The  climate  here  is  mild  and  very  pleasant, 
except  when  the  wind  is  from  the  south, 
which  makes  the  atmosphere  very  humid, and 
depressing  to  some  extent.  For  three  months 
now  that  I  have  siient  here  (up  to  1st  of  May), 
I  have  observed  the  course  and  regularity  <if 
the  local  winds.  Winds  blow  here  almost 
constantly — indeed  a  few  hours  is  the  excep- 
tion. These  winds  move  around  in  circles  in 
the  direction  of  the  hands  on  a  dial  jdate  of  a 
clock — making  one  circuit  in  a  week.  Every 
Sunday  or  jNIonday  since  I  have  been  here, 
they  blew  from  thi^  north  and  then  in  a  day 
or  so  came  from  the  east,  then  from  thesoutli, 
then  west  and  north  again — never  have  shifted 
in  the  opposite  direction.  The  hurricanes  to 
which  this  country  is  subject  in  the  fall  of  the 
year,  pass  in  the  same  direction.  It  is  prob- 
able that  both  are  influenced  in  their  eour.se 
by  the  belt  of  calms,  so  near  this  latitude,  or 
the  hot  winds  meeting  the  l)elt  of  calms  near 
the  eciuator.  The  early  nmriiings  are  to  he 
enjoyed  by  the  lover  of  nature,  usually  of 
light,  hazy  winds  or  calms,  with  a  novel  .as- 
pect of  the  beautiful.  The  densi;  wild  growths 
come  near  the  house,  the  red  birds  lio|)ping 
around  on  the  green  shrubbery,  and  witli  the 
mocking  bird  sing  their  sweetest  melodies  or 
morning  songs.  The  hot  rays  of  the  sun  are 
not  yet  felt,  and  one  thinks  among  the  great 
variety  of  flowers,  gauily  colored  butterflies, 
insects  and  birds,  with  the  placid  waters  of 
the  b.ay  in  the  foreground — of  the  finest  .Tune 
morning  of  a  water  scene  in  the  north.  The 
temperature  is  eipiable  here;  tme  who  was 
born  and  always  lived  here,  could  form  no 
correct  idea  of   the   sudden    an(l    extreme 


changes  in  the  cold  nortliland.  I  have  read 
in  papers  and  letters  of  the  great  snow  falls, 
extreme  C(dil  and  sudden  changes  north,  the 
past  winter,  and  (o  me  it  seemed  like  a  dream 
—  roving  about  daily  in  the  fuests  in  my  shirt 
.sleeves.  Scarcely  a  day  but  the  sun  shines, 
and  occasionally  thunder  showers.  Just  siifli- 
cient  to  keep  the  ground  moist.  Tlie  highest 
and  lowest  ranu'c  of  the  thermometer  for  the 
inonl  lis  of  February,  March  and  April,  was 
as  follows  : 

FEIUiUAUl-. 

Morn.     Noon.     V.v'g. 

J/if/hcKi nr,         74         e,H 

howext 4'.l  fiO  5'.l 

MAIICU. 

J/iij/uKl 70  7fi  71 

/^oimt '. .V!  GO  5.5 

Ai'iiir,. 

r/i<//icxt TZ  SO  7.'; 

/.•"'■'•»■( .W  07  (i.5 

1 1  ii,'hest  daily  variations  7\.j  in  February. 

"  '•  "    8     in  .Vlaicli 

—A.  P.  f/.,lMANiA,  Florida,  May  1st,  1S77. 


S.M.isiiUiiY,  X.  C,  .July  .'{0, 1877. 
I'^DTToii  Fak.mkk— X»«ti-  .Sir  :   The   wheat 
crop  turned  out  well   here,    in   (piantily   and 
(piality.     The  early  potatoes  did  not  turn  out 
a  full  croi>.     Apples  and  peaches   are   abund- 
ant, as  well  as   other   fruits,    such   as  gages, 
prunes  and  plums.     Damsons  and   C.    O.    ('. 
grapes  also  bid  fair  for  an  abiimlant  croi),    if 
notliing  luu'eafter  happens    to   cut    them   olf. 
Vour  paper,  the  Favmei;  fre(|iiently  treats  of 
various  things,  among   the    rest,    grapes  and 
their  culture  and  management.     I  have  tried 
ililt'erent  ex))eriments   with  grape  vines,    and 
without  success  for  years   past.      Until   the 
last  three   years  i)ast,   I   have    pruned    vines 
down  to  within    one   and   one    and    one-half 
inclu's  of  the  main  runner,  in  .lanuary  of  each 
year,  and  lliey  have   borne   abundantly   each 
year  since  in  quantity  and  quality.       I    made 
it  a  point  to  prune  just   before   the  .sap    runs 
u]).     Pruning  in  .lanuary  may  iKjt  suit  all  cli- 
mates,   therefore     persons     growing    grapes 
should  exercise  judgment  according  to  climate 
wherein  cultivated.  I  see  in  the  Fanner  for.l  iily, 
that  some  person  from  West  Chester,  C'licster 
county,  I'a.,  has  sent  you  some  root,  which  he 
says  is  a  sure  cure  for  diarrluea  and  cludera 
infantum,  in  two  houns.     Will  you  be  so  kind 
as  to  give  me  the  hutiniicul  as  well  as  roiumnn 
)UC(/«' of  said  root  y      l>y   .so  doing,    you   will 
much  oblige  me,    as   I    desire   to   benefit   the 
human  family,  and  with  which   di.seases  this 
community   is   more   or  less   alllicted.      The 
corn  crop  so  far  this  season,   though  a  little 
late,  promises  a  good  yield,  and  from  what    1 
have  seen  and  heard,  I  would  not  besurprised 
if  this  year's  yield  would  be  larger  than  it  has 
been  in   any   one   year   in    twenty-five   years 
past.     So  far  as  1  have  seen  and  learned  from 
planters  of  tobacco  and  cotton    the  crops  look 
W'ell  but  not  so  good  a  stand,  and  acreage  not 
so  large,  hence  the  yield  will    reasonably    not 
be  so  great  in  (]uantity.       Though  the  tobacco 
and  corn  crops  may  come  short,    in   compari- 
son to  past  years,  yet  we  are   blessed    with    a 
bountiful  <-rop  of  wheat   and   f)ats,    now    gar- 
nered, and  liresent  prosjiccts  of   a  good    crop 
of  corn   ari^  fair,  as  well  as  fruits  of  all    kinds 
grown  in  this  section,  and  the    health    of  our 
city  and  county  around  pretty  good,  so  that  I 
do  not  think  we  ought  to  complain  but  do  the 
best  we  can  and  (rust  to  a   kind    Providence, 
who  always  helps  and  provides  for  (hose   who 
try  to  provide  for  and  help  themselves.     Youi's 
truly.— 3/.  It. 


Adulteration  of  the  Necessaries  of  Life. 
The  subject  of  the  ailulteradon  of  artiides 
of  food,  iJic.,  intended  for  human  consump- 
tion, has  engaged  the  attention  of  the  (ier- 
maii  press  for  some  time,  and  has  had  as  an 
immediate  result  the  introduction  in  the  (ier- 
man  Parliament,  of  a  bill  aiming  toputaslcpp 
to  the  evil  by  inflicting  heavy  iienalties  upon 
those  who  engage  in  the  nefarious  Imsiness. 
As  may  be  sup|)o.sed,  a  question  of  .so  much 
moment  to  the  welfare  of  the  people,  has  had 
the  effect  to  bring  out  a  great  number  of  ex- 
cellent articles  by  eminent  writer.s,  who  have 


120 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


[August, 


given  their  opinions  and  suggestions  for  tlie 
benefit  of  their  fellow- beings  on  this  import- 
ant question. 

Among  the  large  number  of  tliis  class  of  ar- 
ticles, I  find  one  in  the  Strasburr/cr  Zcitung  of 
to-day,  which,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  han- 
dles the  question  of  the  adulteration  of  milk 
in  a  manner  somewliat  new  compared  with 
those  of  otlicr  writers,  I  have  thought  of  suffi- 
cient interest  to  your  readers  to  translate  it 
entire.  The  author  is  Dr.  Kohwosky,  staff- 
surgeon  of  the  Pioneer  Battalion,  stationed 
at  .Strasburg,  a  gentleman  of  high  medical  au- 
thority, and  an  excellent  writer.  Dr.  Roh- 
wosky  goes  behind  the  adulteration  of  milk, 
after  it  comes  from  the  cow,  and  tells  us  how 
milk  is  adulterated  before  the  cow  yields  it. 
Should  you  agi-ee  with  me  as  to  its  acceptabil- 
ity, it  is  at  your  service.  Yours  truly. — /.  /. 
Sjjrenger. 

Dr.  Roliwosky  says  :  "Not  only'the  adulterated 
milk  of  which  we  have  cause  to  complain  here  iu 
Strasbursf,  but  even  that  brought  direct  and  untam- 
pered  witli  from  the  cow,  is  in  most  instances  very 
bad,  and  simply  for  the  reason  that  the  cows  from 
which  it  is  obtained  are  not  properly  treated  and 
cared  for.  In  their  treatment  the  essential  matters 
of  light,  air,  feed,  and  a  proper  attention  to  the 
cleanliness  of  the  pen  are  entirely  lost  sight  of  by 
those  possessing;  this  useful  animal,  and  who  will 
dispute  the  necessity  of  these  things  to  the  health  of 
cither  man  or  beast?  What  is  the  consequence? 
Bad  milk.  I  venture  to  assert  that  out  of  100  cow- 
stables  90  are  illy  lighted,  where  the  animals  inhale 
an  impure  atmosphere,  whereby  their  blood  oxvda- 
tion  suffers,  and  as  a  natural  consequence  their  nour- 
ishment also;  further,  instead  of  good  clover,  meadow 
hay  and  chopped  feed,  they  are  fed  on  swill  or  slops 
grain  oflals,  &c.,  &c.,  and  another  natural  result  is 
bad  milk.  Such  milk  has  not  the  right  flavor  will 
only  keep  about  30  hours  instead  of  two  to  four'days 
readily  turns  sour,  and  if  given  to  children  cannot 
be  digested,  thereby  occasioning  dyssentery,  bowel 
complaints,  vomiting,  leads  to  scarcity  of  blood 
sickness,  and  finally  to  death;  and  the  direct  cause 
of  all  is  bad  milk — not  because  it  has  been  adulter- 
ated, but  because  the  cows  from  which  it  came  were 
not  properly  fed  or  treated. 

"That  the  milk  of  a  mother  who  has  not  the  proper 
care  and  nourishment  herself,  works  deleteriously 
upon  the  health  of  the  infant  at  her  breast,  is  a  well 
known  fact,  and  excites  attention  where  it  exists 
but  if  the  nourishment  be  by  means  of  cows'  milk  we 
do  not  ask  whether  the  animal  is  properly  fed 
healthy  or  sick  !     Where  is  the  logic  ?  ' 

"Notwithstanding  this,  the  milk  of  the  cows  con- 
tinues to  be  the  only  substitute  for  mother  milk  and 
is  the  principal  nourishment  for  children,  and'  the 
health  of  these  children  depends  on  the  quality  of 
tluat  milk .  Among  the  many  diseases  of  the  stomach 
and  lungs  which  prevail  among  infants,  good  pure 
milk  is  the  acknowledged  best  remedy,  as  well  as  it 
is  a  valuable  nourishment  to  those  in  good  health 
and  a  blessing  in  our  household  economy. 

"Properly  estimating  the  true  value  of  pure  milk, a 
number  of  intelligent  and  wealthy  citizens  of  some 
of  our  larger  towns,  have  established  dairies  con- 
structed by  men  whose  knowledge  and  experience 
could  be  relied  upon;  which  are  conducted  on  strict- 
ly hygienic  principles.  Such  a  dairy  has  been  in  ex- 
istence at  Stuttgart  one  year.  It  contains  41  cows 
of  the  best  breecls,  which  are  all  housed  in  roomy 
light  and  airy  compartments,  which  are  kept  as 
faultlessly  clean  as  a  parlor,  while  the  animals  them- 
selves are  treated  with  the  utmost  care  as  regards 
the  cleanliness  of  their  bodies  as  well  as  in  their 
nourishment.  The  demand  for  the  milk  at  this  es- 
tablishment is  so  far  beyond  its  capacity  of  produc- 
tion that  6evcr.al  other  establishments  of  a  similar 
kind  are  in  contemplation,  of  which  one  will  soon  be 
in  operation.  And  this,  notwithstanding  the  milk  is 
only  sold  for  the  nourishment  of  infants  and  invalids, 
and  that  in  consequence  of  the  expense  of  conducting 
the  dairy  the  price  is  only  eight  and  ten  cents  per 
litre  above  the  usual  price. 

"In  conclusion,  I  hold  that  the  providing  of  good 
pure  milk  should  be  the  aim  of  all  good  citizens,  and 
should  be  aided  and  encouraged  by  the  entire  com- 
munity, as  well  as  by  the  municipal  authorities  of 
every  city  in  the  land."  It  may  be  here  added  that 
according  to  the  death  reports  of  the  city  of  Berlin 
for  the  last  week  of  June,  700  children  died,  whose 
death  in  most  eases  is  traceable  to  a  want  of  good 
milk  nourishment. — Lndii'ifjshofeii,  Bayern,  Qer- 
viauy,  July  1877. 


Manheim,  Pa.,  July  30th,  1877. 

Mr.  S.  S.  Rathvon— i>ca>-  Sir  :  I  saw  in  the  July 
mimber  of  the  Farmer,  that  Mr.  Satterthwait  would 
like  to  know  something  cheaper  than  land-plaster  to 
mix  with  Paris  green,  for  destroying  "Colorado 
potato  beetle."  Also  that  you  think  the  adult  beetle 
will  not  eat  the  Paris  green. 

I  have  destroyed  the  Colorado  potato  beetle,  botli 


adult  and  larvae  succcssfuly  with  Paris  green  mixed 
with  water.  I  took  one  tablespoon  full  of  Paris 
green  to  one  large  bucket  full  of  water,  and  sprinkled 
that  on  the  vines.  With  two  applications  to  eai-h 
patch,  I  had  them  clean,  up  to  the  present  time.  One 
day,  this  spring,  I  went  out  to  see  one  of  my  potato 
patches;  the  vines  were  then  from  three  to  four  inches 
high,  and  I  found  from  one  to  eight  beetles  on  a  stalk 
or  vine,  some  at  almost  every  vine,  and  they  were 
eating,  too;  and  full,  or  many  eggs  on  the  leaves  at 
that  time.  I  made  a  mixture  as  above  described, 
sprinkled  them  shortly  before  noon,  and  in  the  mid- 
dle of  the  afternoon.  I  went  to  see  how  it  worked. 
I  found  all  the  beetles  on  the  ground  dead,  and  it 
also  killed  all  the  young  ones,  as  they  eameoutof  the 
eggs.  This  patch  was  clean  then,  until  the  vines 
came  into  blossom,  then  I  gave  them  the  second 
sprinkling,  which  kept  them  clean  to  the  present. 
Some  of  my  neighbors  have  used  the  same,  with 
good  success. — M.  O.  M. 

We  did  not  intend  to  convey  the  idea  tluit 
the  adult  Colorado  potato  beetle  could  not  lie 
killed  by  Paris  green,  but  that  tliey  were  not 
so  easily  killed  by  the  dry  mixture  as  the  lar- 
vae are.  There  is  some  doubt,  however, 
whether  either  the  larvae  or  the  adult  beetles 
are  killed  so  much  l)y  what  they  actually  eat, 
as  by  what  they  inhale  and  absorb  through 
their  breathina;  spiracles,  and  through  the 
pores  of  tlie  skin.  From  the  moment  the 
poison  falls  on  the  larvce  (on  account  of  the 
moist  or  clammy  surface  of  their  bodies)  they 
begin  to  sicken  and  soon  thereafter  die— indeed 
we  have  seen  them  dead  as  door  nails,  witliin 
five  minutes  after  the  application.  They 
doubtless  also  eat  of  it,  for  it  cannot  be  repul- 
sive to  the  taste,  or  cattle  would  not  eat  it — 
nor  children  either.  But,  the  softer  parts  of 
the  adult  being  covered  byacoat  of  mail,  tliey 
are  not  so  vulnerable  as  the  larvai. 


New  York,  July  26,  1877. 

LiNNiEus  Path  VON,  Esij.— i)mr  Sir:  Of 
the  many  good  things  which  distinguish  your 
paper,  the  best  of  all,  considering  the  difficul- 
ty of  that  kind  of  writing,  is  your  pleasant 
and  inestimable  appeal  to  your  delinquent  sub- 
scribers. As  one  of  them  I  hasten  to  respond 
by  inclosing  !8i2. 50  as  payment  to  January  1, 
1878,  at  the  same  time  begging  you  to  believe 
that  it  is  a  case  of  sheer  inattention,  and  by 
no  means  intention  on  my  part. 

Your  journal  is  uniformly  interesting  and 
instractive,  and  I  cordially  wish  it  tlie  great- 
est success.     Very  truly  yours, 

Henry  R.  Wortiiington. 


*WHAT  CAUSES   RUST   IN   WHEAT. 

This  is  one  of  the  referred  questions  pro- 
pounded at  the  July  meeting  of  this  Society, 
and  although  not  referred  specifically  to  me, 
yet  I  presume  I  may  be  allowed  the  privilege 
of  offering  some  remarks  preparatory  to  the 
discussion  of  the  question— one  of  those  ques- 
tions too,  which,  in  the  long  lapse  of  time 
that  has  intervened  since  "rust  in  wheat" 
was  first  discovered,  has  never  yet  been  satis- 
factorily solved,  and  probably  will  not  be  for 
as  long  a  time  to  come. 

Anterior  to  this  question,  however,  is 
another  query,  legitimately  involving  the 
in-ohlem  :  What  ronstilutes  .'—or  rather, 
What  is  ni.-it  ?— and  altliough  the  solution  of 
this  may  be  easy  enough,  yet  it  may  be  as 
difficult  to  illustrate  clearly  what  causes  it,  as 
it  would  be  to  demonstrate  in  detail,  What 
causes  a  blade  of  grass  to  grow  ?  or,  What 
causes  the  sun  to  shine  ?— and  yet  it  is  im- 
possible that  these  phenomena  should  exist 
without  a  cause. 

Waiving  all  discussion  on  the  question  of 
"spontaneous  production,"  let  it  suffice  for 
the  sake  of  brevity,  to  assume  that  rust  is  a 
2)lant,  as  much  as  corn  or  tobacco  are  plants  ; 
and  that  plants  are  primarily  produced  from 
seeds  or  spores.  Secondarily,  they  may  be 
produced  from  buds,  from  cuttings,  'from 
tubers,  and  from  roots,  but  this  has  necessar- 
ily no  particular  connection  with  the  question 
of  rust,  which  belongs  to  the  fwu/oid  plants. 

Systematic  botanists  divide  tlie  vegetable 
kingdom  into  two  gi-eat  classes,  namely  : 
Phmiiigamous  And   Cri/ptogamous.     The,  first 

•Read  before  the  Liucaslei-  County  Agricultural  and  Hor- 
ticultural Society,  AURUst  6,  1877,  by  S.  S.  Rathvou. 


includes  flowering  plants  ;  that  is,  those  that 
bear  a  distinct  flower  and  fruit,  or  seeds. 
The  second  includes  rtowerless  plants  ;  tliat  is 
tliose  which  do  not  bear  distinct  flowers,  but 
which  are  provided  with  cells  of  various  forms 
containing  a  prolific  dust  called  sjjores  or 
sporulcs. 

To  this  second  class  called  cryptogamia,  be- 
long the  ferns,  the  mosses,  the  liverworts, 
the  lichens,  the  sea-weeds,  and  the  fungi  or 
mushrooms  ;  and  among  these  last  named  are 
classed  the  blight,  the  milldew,  the  smut,  and 
the  I'ust.  Although  these  bear  some  relation 
to  each  other,  and  are  often  confounded,  they 
are  nevertlieless  distinct.  The  common  mold, 
which  is  found  under  .so  many  circumstances, 
and  in  so  many  places,  is  a  erypiogammis  plant 
— is  only  another  form  of  mildew,  and  lielongs 
to  the  fungi.  The  number  of  these  plants  is 
legion,  and  their  proper  cla.ssification  and  de- 
scription would  form  an  immense  volume  ; 
therefore,  I  will  confine  myself  to  the  single 
variety  or  species,  which  is  legitimately  in- 
cluded in  the  question— "What  causes  rust  in 
wheat  ?"  Let  me  premise  by  saying  that  the 
earth  and  the  air  are  full  of  the  minute  spores 
of  these  fungoid  plants — so  minute  that  they 
are  invisible  to  the  naked  eye,  when  they  are 
separated  into  single  sporules.  The  whole 
animal  creation  are  almost  constantly  drink- 
ing or  inhaling  tliem,  and  whenever  or  where- 
ever  they  find  the  conditions  favorable  to 
their  germination  and  growtli,  there  tliey  will 
germhiate  and  grow,  wliether  it  is  inside  or 
outside  of  a  loaf  of  bread,  the  seed  cavity  of 
an  apple,  the  cells  in  cheese,  inside  or  outside 
of  an  old  book,  or  on  any  animal  or  vegetable 
decay.  But  like  the  seeds  of  Plurnogamoics, 
or  flowering  plants,  they  will  not  germinate 
and  grow  iu  times  and  places  unfavorable  to 
their  development ;  and  tlie  species  called 
rust  has  a  special  penchant  tor  such  plants  as 
have  become  enerated,  or  laid  open  to  attack 
from  other  causes. 

Another  premise  is  this;  there  is  found  upon 
most  of  the  graminaceous  plants,  or  grasses, 
and  particularly  uiion  wheat,  a  certain  shin- 
ing varnish  absolutely  of  the  same  material  as 
glass.  Most  commonly  this  vitreous  material 
terminates  the  edges  of  the  leaves  by  little 
teeth  resembling  ;i  saw  of  extreme  fineness, 
but  always  capable  of  scratching  the  fingers 
of  those  who  carelessly  amuse  themselves  by 
frequently  rubbing  these  leaves  in  the  direc- 
'tion  of  their  length,  especially  when  tliey  take 
the  leaf  at  the  apex  and  draw  their  fingers  to- 
wards the  base.  The  greater  then  the  thick- 
ness of  this  glassy  layer,  and  the  stronger  the 
stalk,  the  greater  will  be  the  resistance  of  its 
surface  to  the  moisture  of  the  atmosphere,  or 
other  like  influences,  which  might  cause  it  to 
crack,  and  present  false  issues  of  tlie  sap,  upon 
wliicli  the  ru.st  attaches  itself.  And  it  is  con- 
ceived that  this  layer  of  vitreous  material  will 
be  stronger  in  proportion  as  the  soil  itself  con- 
tains it,  or  as  it  is  furnished  artificially  with 
the  elements  of  its  composition.  It  is  well 
known  that  to  produce  glass,  a  silicious  min- 
eral sand  is  used,  with  lime  and  pearl,  or  pot- 
ash, wliicli  are  melted  together  by  heat,  al- 
tliough  each  one  of  these  substances  is  difficult 
to  fu.se  if  heated  alone.  If  then,  by  mixing 
with  the  soil  silex,  lime,  and  ashes,  tliere  be 
placed  at  the  disposition  of  the  plant  a  great- 
er abundance  of  the  vitreous  materials  which 
enter  into  the  composition  of  tlie  vitreous  ma- 
terial with  which  it  is  covered,  it  will  neces- 
.sarily  alisorb  a  greater  quantity,  and  thereby 
place  itself  in  a  better  condition  to  resi.st  the 
rust.  The  sea  weeds,  whicli,  by  their  decom- 
position produce  soda  in  quantitity — which 
also  enters  into  the  the  comiiosition  of  gla.ss — 
will  produce  the  same  effect.  Thus  too,  it 
has  Iseeu  observed,  that  the  rust  has  shown  it- 
self much  more  rarely  in  silicious  or  sandy 
grounds. 

Tliese  premises  then  afford  a  plausible  solu- 
tion of  the  question — in  theory  at  least — 
"What  cau.ses  rust  in  wheat  ?"  namely,  the 
absence,  or  jiartial  absence,  of  the  external 
vitreous  coating  of  the  plant,  exposes  tlie  inner 
tissues  to  sporific  development — it  furnishes 
conditions  favorable  to  the  attachment  of  the 


18770 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


^21 


rust  sporiiles— their  germination  and  their 
growth.  Wlierever  the  .siu-face  of  a  stalk,  a 
leaf  or  afniit,  from  any  cause,  iiccomes  abra- 
ded or  scarilied,  tliere  deconiposilion  will  be- 
gin, and  where  decomposition  begins  there 
also  will  l)e  the  conditions  favorable  to  the 
development  of  rn.st.  Kust  may  also  be  de- 
veloped on  plants  that  have  become  enervated 
or  weakened  tliron},'h  diseases,  which  have 
l)een  produced  by  other  causes,  and  under 
those  circumstances  mold  and  rust  will  be'  en- 
gendereil.  But,  these  fun^oids  may  also  be 
developed  upon  the  most  rank  iind  healthy 
looking  plants.  When  graminaceous  plants 
grow  very  rank  in  a  rich  soil,  that  has  not  its 
due  i)roportion  of  the  vitreous  or  silicious  ele- 
ments, the  vitreous  coating  will  be  so  e.\ceed- 
ing  thin  that  the  rapid  expansion  of  the  leaf 
or  stem  may  fracture  it,  and  thus  exjtosed, 
the  rust  will  Iind  a  congenial  clement  for  its 
development.  The  spores  of  rust,  of  mildew, 
of  smut,  of  mold,  and  various  other  fungous 
plants,  are  everywhere,  and  it  is  impossible 
to  guard  against  their  iiresence.  Tlie  only 
thing  that  can  be  done,  is  to  guard  against  fur- 
nishing conditions  favorable  to  tlieir  growth. 
ITiider  certain  circumstances  our  bread  and 
other  articles  will  mold,  but  we  have  ways  of 
arresting  it  or  preventing  it,  by  altering  the 
s\UTounding  conditions— by  ventilation,  or  re- 
moving them  to  a  dryer  'atmosphere.  Hut, 
tills  is  dead  matter  and  cannot  hel]i  itself. 
Wheat,  whilst  it  is  growing,  is  living  matter, 
and  can  protect  itself,  if  we  but  f\n-nish  the 
material  for  its  protection.  To  illustrate  how 
penetrable  the  minute  spores  of  rust  and  mold 
are,  I  may  mention  the  case  of  the  "Seven- 
teen-year cicada,"  or  locust,  that  appeared 
here  so  plentifully  in  1808.  Many  of  these 
insects  died  prematurely,  and  their  death  was 
caused  by  a  species  of  fungus  which  was  de- 
veloped in  the  internal  cavity  of  theabdomen. 
Now,  insects  do  not  breathe  through  the 
mouth,  but  through  traclirc  or  breathing  holes 
arranged  along  their  sides,  and  through  these 
they  inhale  the  fungous  spores.  Dr.  Jos. 
Leidy,  of  Philadelphia,  by  the  aid  of  a  power- 
ful microscope,  discovered  that  these  "locu.sts" 
contained  trees  with  roots  and  branches,  l)ear- 
ing  cai)sules  or  cells;  and  he  could  even  see 
tliem  burst  open  and  scatter  their  spores  abroad. 

"  Rust"  belongs  to  the  genus  Z/rtiZo, the  fami- 
ly Crcemace^,  and  is  generally  confined  to  the 
gi-amince,  the  grain  bearing  plants,  or  grasses. 
A  subdivision.of  the  family  includes  the  Uke- 
DIN'ES,  of  which  the  genus  Urcdo  is  the  type, 
and  these  usually  attack  the  wheat,  oats,  rye, 
barley,  &c.  The  particular  species  which  at- 
tacks the  wheat,  according  to  authors  on  the 
subject,  is  the  Uredo  ruhiijo  vera,  of  DeCan- 
dolie,  wluch  literally  indicates  a  red  blasting 
blight,  or  rust,  on  trees  and  plants.  It  is  de- 
veloped on  both  sides  of  the  leaves  ;  upon  the 
stalk,  or  stubble,  and  upon  the  ears,  or 
"heads,"  as  we  usually  call  them.  It  has  the 
appearance  of  little  oval  points  projecting 
like  grains  of  dust ;  at  first  yellowish,  then 
redish,  but  afterwards  becoming  dark  or 
black.  The  little  streaks  which  it  at  tir.st 
fomis,  in  parallel  lines,  at  the  sides  of  the 
libers,  finally  spread,  and  joining  each  other, 
form  large  patches.  AVhen  the  rust  attacks 
the  grain  only  feebly,  it  does  not  appear  to  be 
very  injurious  to  it,  but  when  it  is  considera- 
ble it  often  occasions  severe  losses.  It  is  al- 
leged that  among  all  the  graminte  wheat  ap- 
pears to  be  the  special  favorite  of  rust. 

Mr.  Klippart,  of  the  State  Board  of  Agricul- 
ture of  Ohio,  whom  I  have  mainly  consulted 
in  preparing  this  paper,  s.ays  :  "If  the  streaks 
formed  by  the  rust  be  attentively  examined 
upon  the  stalk,  but  particularly  upon  the  leaf 
of  the  wheat,  the  vitreous  epidermis  will  be 
found  split  in  every  instance,  and  it  will  not 
be  difficult  to  perceive  that  tlie  sap,  extravas- 
atcd  or  forced  out  of  their  proi)er  vessels 
through  these  splits,  gives  birth  to  the  fungus, 
known  as  rust ;  or  at  least,  that  they  serve 
as  receptacles  to  the  spores  of  the  fungus, 
which  are  either  carried  through  the  air  by 
the  winds,  raised  from  the  ground  by  the 
rains,  or  are  absorbed  in  the  earth  with  the 
nourishing  juices  of  the  plant.     It  has  often 


been  observed  that  rust  ordinarily  shows  itself 
when  very  hot  sunshine  suddenly  succeeds 
rains,  which  have  been  somewhat  prolonged. 
It  is  at  this  time,  when  the  evaporation  from 
the  stalks  and  leaves  goes  on  too  rapidly, 
that  till!  cracks  in  their  vitreous  epidermis  oir- 
cur,  ])ermitting  the  sap  to  dellect  from  Its  ordi- 
nary course,  and  thus  the  circumstances 
tavorable  to  the  fungus  are  i)resented  to  its 
spores,  and  their  germination  is  developed, 
whether  they  <M)nu'  from  the  interior  or  ex- 
terior. The  tenacity  of  these  fungivorous 
si)ores  is  very  remarkable.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  spores  of  the  common  mushroom,  which 
are  sold  in  sipiarc  niius,ses  called  "brick.s. "  I 
once  read  an  account  of  one  of  these  bricks 
being  used  as  a  wedge  in  a  pipe  hole  that  was 
too  large  for  the  pipe,  and  after  remaining 
there  all  winter  it  afterw.ards  germinated  and 
produced  nuislirooms.  They  require  heat, 
moisture  and  air  for  their  gernunation,  and  if 
these  bricks  sometimes  will  not  produce  fungi, 
it  is  because  they  either  did  not  contain  any 
spores,  were  not  healthy,  or  were  not  sur- 
rounded by  the  proper  conditions.  It  is  the 
same  with  those  taken  up  in  the  circulation 
of  plants  ;  they  may  have  moisture  enough, 
but  not  enough  of  heat  and  air  to  vitalize 
them.  The  more  then  that  heat  and  moisture 
permit  the  sporules,  or  germs  of  rust  to  attach 
themselves  to  the  stalks  of  grain,  and  to 
develop  themselves  there,  the  greater  will  be 
the  damage  it  will  cause.  From  the  lime  that 
a  stalk  of  wheat  is  seriously  attacked  by  rust 
it  begins  to  languish,  its  leaves  soon  dry  up  ; 
and  when  rains  are  frequent,  the  malady  jiro- 
ceeds  from  the  stalk  to  the  head,  which  also 
soon  turns  red,  and  afterwards  black.  Rust 
is  least  injurious  to  grain  the  nearer  it  has 
arrived  at  maturity  before  it  is  attacked. 
Therefore,  early  ripening  grain  stands  the  best 
chance  of  escapmg  it,  for  it  does  not  ordi- 
narily show  itself  until  later  in  the  season. 

Wheat,  somehow,  has  a  good  many  contin- 
gent perils  to  encounter.  If  sown  early,  it 
stands  a  good  chance  of  being  attacked  by  the 
"  Hessian  Fly  ;"  if  sown  late,  it  may  encoun- 
ter the  "Midge,"  or  the  ield  "Weevil,"  in 
the  early  following  summer,  as  well  as  the 
rust.  No  immediate  remedy  for  rust  seems 
to  have  been  yet  developed.  In  places  where 
rust  Is  most  complained  of,  after  all  necessary 
care  of  the  ground  has  been  taken  by  proper 
drainage,  as  before  stated,  and  more  as  a  pre- 
vention than  a  cure,  lime,  ashes  and  silex 
should  be  freely  used  as  a  manure.  But  the 
necessary  judgment  as  to  when  and  how  much 
of  these  elements  should  be  used,  involves 
some  knowledge  of  agricultural  chemistry — 
the  analysis  and  composition  of  soils. 

It  is  also  recommended  that  a  field  that  had 
been  infected  with  ru.st,  should  not  be  sown 
in  grain  liable  to  rust  the  following  season. 
And,  as  the  earth  is  almost  everywhere 
charged  with  the  spores  of  rust,  and  that  the 
wheat  is  infected  as  well  by  internal  as  by  ex- 
ternal appropriation,  the  seed  wheat  should 
first  be  soaked  in  a  solution  of  blue  vitriol — in 
the  proportion  of  one  pound  of  the  salt  to  as 
much  water  as  will  cover  five  bushels  of  wheat. 
It  should  then  be  thoroughly  mixed  with  finely 
Iiulverized  lime,  so  that  each  grain  is  coated 
over  with  it,  like  a  sugar-coated  pill.  If  line 
wood  ashes  are  mixed  with  the  lime  it  is 
thought  it  would  still  be  better.  Seed  pre- 
pared in  this  way  may  be  sown  immediately, 
or  it  may  be  kept  for  a  number  of  days. 

In  conclusion,  gentlemen,  I  have  not  at- 
tempted to  teach  you  how  to  raise  wheat.  I 
have  only  attempted  to  give  you  the  opinions 
of  scientific  men,  as  to  "  Wliat  causes  tlie  rust 
in  Wheat .?" 


For  The  Lanoasteb  Fahmur. 
POTATOES  WITHOUT  PARIS    GREEN. 

It  has  been  said  by  some  one  that  Paris 
Green  is  the  best  and  only  reliable  remedy  to 
destroy  the  Colorado  potato-beetle,  &c.  I 
think  otherwise.  I  never  use  it  and  then  I 
run  no  risk  in  any  way  from  the  poison,  and 
I  always  get  a  fair  crop  of  i)otatoes  when  the 
season  is  favorable.  But  it  requires  consider- 
able attention  for  awhile  to  save  the  i)lants. 


Thissea.son  and  last  season  I  planted  between 
three  and  four  acres  in  jiotatoes  each  time, 
and  although  il  looked  as  if  the  bugs  would 
eat  them  all  before  thc^y  got  above  grotmd, 
yet  we  mastered  tlicni  liet'on'  tlicy  done  nuich 
harm.  We  don't  lioubU'  our.selves  much 
about  the  lirst  bugs  that  make  their  appear- 
ance, but  we  begin  to  work  our  potatoes  as 
soon  as  we  can  .see  the  rows,  so  as  to  get  the 
rows  in  shape  for  oiu-  plan  of  operations. 
Then  being  jireparcd  with  a  small  Ijroom  and 
hanilh;  about  two  feet  long,  and  a  good  sized 
tin  wash  lioilcr  with  a  spade  handler  attached 
to  the  middle  of  one  of  Uw.  broad  sides,  some- 
what like  a  ilipper,  so  that  when  I  am  stand- 
ing at  the  row  the  mouth  of  the  keltic  will  be 
in  proprr  position  to  rccTive  the  bugs,  which 
1  send  in  withaslighl  rap  of  my  broom.  1  don't 
stop  to  pick  uj)  any  bugs  that  fall  beside  the 
kettle,  I  leave  thi'Ui  for  thi'  next  time.  FIvery 
few  days  I  go  over  the  patch  again  and  keep 
them  thinned  down  .so  that  they  doii't  do 
nnich  harm,  .\ljout  four  times  going  over 
the  patch  at  the  right  time  will  .save  the  crop. 
I  was  about  one  and  one-half  days  going  over 
it  e.ach  time,  making  in  all  aljout  six  days  at 
bug  catching  for  three  and  one-half  acres  of 
potatoes.  I  always  ke))t  an  old  lard  can 
with  a  lid  on  at  the  end  of  theiiatch,  toemi)ty 
the  bugs  into  until  1  went  home,  aiul  then  I 
.scalded  them  and  biu-ird  them  in  llu^  manure 
l)ile.  I  think  sometimes  we  caught  nearly  a 
bushel  of  bugs  at  one  going  over  the  patch. 
I  would  not  lie  bothered  with  handpicking 
since  they  can  be  .so  easily  caught  with  a  ket- 
tle and  broom.  In  this  way  children  can 
easily  save  a  common  potato  iialcli  for  family 
use.  One  man  could  manage  ten  acri's  and 
save  them  from  the  bugs,  but  could  not  be  ex- 
pected to  do  much  else  while  keeping  down 
the  bugs.  The  rows  must  be  ridged  close  up 
to  the  stalks  so  that  the  kettle  will  fit  up 
while  the  plants  are  small,  or  else  many  buga 
will  drop  in  the  middle.  A  little  practice 
will  soon  enable  a,  person  to  pass  along  the 
row  at  a  pretty  smart  gait.  If  our  experience 
is  worth  anything  you  can  have  it  freely. — J. 
B.  Erb,  Lime  Vallei/,  Awj.,  1877. 

For  The  Lancaster  Fabher. 
THE    CROPS    WE     RAISE.        HOW    DO 
THEY   PAY? 

With  the  majority  of  farmers  the  raising  of 
any  crop  is  done  with  the  expectation  that  it 
will  pay  in  a  pecuniary  .sense,  and  with  the 
exception  of  experiments  jiurely  made  to  ad- 
vance agricultural  knowledge,  this  is  the  oidy 
sensible  view  that  can  be  taken.  And  yet 
there  are  thousands  of  farmers  who  raise 
crop  after  crop  that  does  not  pay,  but  which 
they  have  an  idea  is  profital)le ;  the  error 
being  that  they  do  not  charge  certain  things 
against  the  cvoyi  that  ought  by  rights  to  be. 

There  is  some  dilliculty  in  keeiting  a  strict 
account  with  crops,  as  in  the  matter  of  fertil- 
izing materials.  It  is  not  right  that  the 
amount  of  such  materials  applied  with  the 
crop  be  charged,  but  the  amount  taken  up, 
and  this  can  in  most  cases  be  only  approxi- 
mately determined. 

The"  difference  in  amount  between  the  ap- 
plication of  fertilizing  materials  and  their  re- 
moval determines  whether  a  farm  is  improving 
or  running  down — if  the  application  is  greater 
than  the  removal,  the  farm  is  iin]iroving;  but 
when  the  crop  takes  u))  more  than  is  applied, 
then  that  farm  is  on  the  downward  scale. 

There  are  some  items  in  the  raising  of  any 
crop  that  are  always  the  same,  or  very  nearly 
the  same,  be  the  yield  large  or  small,  and 
these  are  taxes,  interest  on  investment,  and 
the  labor  necessary  to  grow  the  crop  and  get 
it  n^ady  for  market.  Of  course  a  light  crop 
will  not  co.st  quite  as  much  to  harvest,  &c., 
but  the  difference  in  most  eases  is  very  little. 

For  the  first  exami)le  let  us  take  corn, 
which  is  by  most  farmers  considered,  outside 
of  tobacco,  as  one  of  the  crops  in  which 
there  is  more  money  than  nearly  any  other 
crop  that  can  be  raised. 

To  get  at  the  true  cost  of  any  crop  we  must 
know  the  value  of  the  fertilizing  materials 
used. 


422 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


t  August, 


Now  a  crop  of  seventy-five  bushels  of  corn 
and  the  stalks  (two  hundred  bundles  of  fodder) 
remove  about  1051  pounds  nitrogen,  67| 
pounds  phosphoric  acid,  and  92;i-  pounds  pot- 
ash, costing  $'ii5. 50.  At  the  same  rate,  sixty 
bushels  and  one  hundred  and  sixty  bundles 
fodder,  would  remove  $28.35;  fifty  bushels 
and  one  hundred  and  thirty-five  bundles  would 
remove  $23. 0:'.;  and  forty  bushels  and  and  one 
hundred  and  twenty  bundles  would  remove 
^IS.'.lO  worth  of  fertilizing  materials. 

The  expenses  in  raising  the  crop  and  to  be 
charged  against  it  would  be, 

Taxes  and  interest  on  investment $  9.00 

Labor,  seeil,  &c.,  about 12.rM 

$21  ..50. 

This  amount,  added  to  the  value  of  the  ma- 
terials removed,  will  now  give  us  the  real  cost, 
but  our  object  is  to  find  liow  much  the  grain 
costs,  and  to  find  this  we  willsuppo.se  that  the 
fanner  can  sell  the  fodder  at  six  cents  per 
bundle. 

By  a  little  calculation  we  now  arrive  at  the 
result  that  seventy-five  bushels  of  corn  would 
cost  $45.00,  or  (JO  cents  per  busliel;  the  crop 
of  sixty  bushels  would  cost  G7j  cents  per 
busliel;  fifty  bu.sliels,  74  cents  per  bu.shel;  and 
in  a  crop  of  forty  l)ushels,  83  cents  per  bushel. 

It  is  barely  po.ssilile  that  tlie  fodder  might 
bring  two  cents  more  per  bundle,  but  even  in 
this  case,  in  the  seventy-five  bushel  crop  the 
corn  would  cost  about  55  cents  and  in  the 
forty  bushel  crop,  77  cents  per  bushel. 

As  there  will  probably  objections  arise  in 
the  reader's  mind,  I  will  endeavor  to  meet 
some  of  thein  in  advance. 

Some  may  perhaps  say  that  the  manure  be- 
ing a  waste  brought  about  by  keeping  cattle, 
liorses,  &c.,does  not  cost  anytlnng,  but  this  is 
not  really  true,  for  the  waste  costs  time  and 
money  as  well  as  the  product;  and.  even  should 
it  be  so  that  the  waste  does  not  cost  anything, 
he  still  might  have  sold  it,  and  it  was  wortli 
therefore,  so  much  money  to  tlie  producer. 

But  perhaps  the  manure  was  all  taken  for 
tobacco,  which  is  now  a  very  common  case, 
and  the  corn  raised  without  manure.  If  this 
was  the  case  and  the  corn  was  sold,  then  part 
of  the  farm,  or,  at  least  a  part  of  the  strength 
of  tlie  farm  was  sold,  and  it  was  worth  just  as 
much  less  to  the  farmer  as  the  value  of  the 
fertilizing  material  removed.  This  is  a  very 
common  case,  and  in  no  .section  more  so  than 
the  great  West,  which  is  every  day  sending 
parts  of  its  farm  lo  the  Eastern  States  and  to 
Europe. 

Wheat  is  the  next  crop  to  which  we  will 
turn  our  attention.  This  is  also  one  of  the 
principal  crops  on  wliich  western  farmers  rely, 
but  which  is  regarded  by  many  eastern  farm- 
ers as  not  very  paying,  and  by  some  regarded 
as  a  losing  crop  throughout,  but  which  they 
must  continue  to  raise  for  the  sake  of  rotation 
and  the  straw  for  bedding  purposes. 

The  expense  of  raising  a  crop  of  wheat  and 
getting  it  ready  for  market,  is  about  as  follows: 

Taxes,  &e., $  9.00 

Plowing,  seed,  &v., 10.50 


f25..50 

The  fertilizing  materials  removed  by  a  crop 
of  thirty  bushels  wheat  and  two  and  one- 
fourth  tons  straw  are  aljout  52  pounds  nitro- 
gen, 23  pounds  pbosplioric  acid,  and  38  pounds 
potash,  tlie  commercial  value  of  which  is 
$10.00. 

Supposing  that  a  ton  of  straw  is  worth 
iS.OO — the  market  rates  in  cities  now  is  $10.00 
to  $16.00  per  ton — we  would  have  $23.50  as  the 
cost  of  thirty  Viushels  of  wheat,  or  78  cents 
per  bushel.  With  a  yield  of  straw  in  the  same 
proportion,  twenty-live  bushels  of  wheat  to 
the  acre  would  cost  9(5  cents  per  bushel;  twenty 
bushels  would  cost  .fl.20  per  bushel,  and  a 
yield  of  fifteen  busliels  would  run  up  the  cost 
to  $1.(53  per  bushel. 

From  the  above  it  will  appear  that  wheat 
is  not  so  much  of  a  necessary  evil  as  some 
would  have  us  believe,  and  that  a  real  good 
crop  pays  better  than  the  much  vaunted  corn 
crop,  however  good  the  latter  may  be. 

The  fact  that  wheat  is  so  extensively  raised 
on  the  high-priced  lands  of  Lancaster  county 


is  of  itself  sufficient  to  show  that  farmers  con- 
sider it  as  pa3'ing,  or  they  would  soon  find 
some  other  crop  to  help  rotation,  and  find 
something  else  than  straw  as  a  litter  for  their 
stables. 

In  oats  the  showing  is  not  so  good  as  in 
wheat.  The  expense  of  raising  this  crop, 
with  interest  and  taxes,  amounts  to  about 
$l'.).50.  In  a  yield  of  fifty  bushels  and  one 
and  one-half  tons  straw  there  will  be  removed 
about  $13.00  worth  of  fertilizing  materials, 
Allowing  $8.00  per  ton  for  the  straw,  the  cost 
of  the  oats  would  be  41  cents  per  bushel.  In 
a  crop  of  thirty  bushels,  and  a  proportionate 
quantity  of  straw,  the  oats  would  cost  about 
67  cents  per  bushel. 

This  is  not  a  very  encouraging  showing  for 
this  crop,  and  it  seems  that  even  with  a  good 
yield  it  can  hardly  be  made  to  pay  in  a  year 
when  oats  is  plenty,  and  the  only  hope  of  mak- 
ing it  pay  a  profit  in  a  long  run  is  to  raise 
extra   crops  every  year. 

A  crop  of  rye  yielding  the  same  as  wheat 
will  cost  less  per  bushel,  as  the  straw  brings  a 
higher  price,  and  the  fertilizing  materials  are 
less  costly,  as  is  also  the  seed.  This  is  some- 
what counterbalanced  by  the  greater  cost  of 
thrashing,  but  in  spite  of  this  the  grain  in  a 
crop  of  the  above  yield  will  cost  ten  cents  less 
per  bushel  than  wheat  would,  but  the  market 
price  of  the  grain  is  also  very  much  less. 
Wliere  the  yield  of  wheat  is  twenty  bushels  or 
more  per  acre,  it  is  not  advisable  to  raise  rye 
for  the  sake  of  the  grain. 

Potatoes  are  a  crop  that  must  be  raised 
year  after  year  to  be  profitable.  The  commer- 
cial value  of  the  fertilizing  materials  removed 
l)y  a  busliel  of  potatoes  is  only  7^  cents,  and 
from  this  it  can  be  seen  that  if  there  is  any- 
thing like  a  yield,  the  profit  is  all  that  can  be 
expected  from  the  outlay. 

We  must  touch  toltacco  very  lightly,  as  it  is 
the  crop  of  crops  to  upset  all  the  most  careful 
calculations,  as  many  a  man  lias  found  to  his 
sorrow.  Tlie  amount  of  labor  which  it  re- 
quires is  very  great  and  varies  much  with  dif- 
ferent years.  One  year  "worming"  may  not 
cost  more  than  a  few  dollars  per  acre,  and  th.e 
next  year  from  five  to  eight  times  as  much.  A 
full  crop  of  2000  pounds  removes  about  92 
pounds  nitrogen,  01  pounds  potash  and  9i 
p(nmds  phosporic  acid,  the  whole  worth 
about  $25.00.  The  stems  probably  take  up 
one-half  as  much  as  the  leaves  do,  but  as 
these  can  be  returned  they  need  not  be  taken 
i«to  consideration.  There  is  a  special  manure 
prejiared  for  tobacco,  but  there  must  be  more 
than  twice  the  amount  of  fertilizing  materials 
in  that  it  is  needed  as  the  charge  is  $00.00  for 
what  is  intended  to  be  applied  to  one  acre. 

Hay  we  will  bring  in  last  of  all,  and  tlien 
only  to  inquire  into  the  amount  of  fertilizing 
matter  removed,  and  leave  the  reader  judge 
for  himself  as  to  the  amount  of  profit  there 
may  be  in  it. 

A  ton  of  timothy  hay  removes  about  36i 
pounds  nitrogen,  41  pounds  potash,  141  pounds 
phosphoric  acid,  worth  $12.12 ;  a  ton  of 
meadow  liay  removes  28i  pounds  nitrogen, 
2(ii  pounds  potash,  8  pounds  phosphoric  acid, 
worth  $8.86  ;  a  ton  of  mixed  timothy  and 
clover  (if  in  ecpial  quantities)  removes  39i 
pounds  nitrogen,  39  pounds  potash,  13  pounds 
l)hosphoric  acid,  worth  $12.44  ;  and  a  ton  of 
red  clover  hay  removes  42i  pounds  nitrogen- 
30}  pounds  of  potash,  and  11  pounds  of  phos- 
phoric acid,  worth  $12.75. 

It  is  proper  to  remark  here  that  Prof  Ville 
claims  tliat  more  potash  and  more  pho.splioric 
acid  has  to  be  added  to  the  soil  than  is  re- 
moved by  the  crop,  but  that  in  nearly  all  crops 
only  aljout  one-half  the  quantity  of  nitrogen 
need  be  supplied — the  balance  beiug  supplied 
by  the  air  and  rain — and  in  the  case  of  clover 
and  other  related  leyuininous  plants,  not  more 
than  0  per  cent.  If  this  is  really  the  case,  all 
the  foregoing  calculation  would  be  a  little  too 
high,  except  in  clover  hay,  where  the  calcula- 
tion may  be  as  much  as  $0  too  high,  thus 
bringing  the  cost  of  the  fertilizing  materials 
in  the  latter  to  about  $0.75  or  $7,  afid  in 
mixed  timothy  and  clover  to  $0.50. 

In  the  Western  States  where  land  is  very 


cheap,  grain  can  be  raised  at  a  price  that 
would  ruin  eastern  farmers,  as  the  interest  on 
their  investment  is  not  a  fourth  of  what  it  is 
with  us  ;  and  the  farming  being  done  on  a 
large  scale  can  be  done  clieaper,  accordingly. 
If  the  jVIinnesota  or  Nebraska  farmer  does 
run  out  his  land,  it  does  not  matter  to  him, 
all  he  wants  is  to  be  paid  for  his  labor — in- 
vestment and  some  profit  on  the  investment. 
He  perhaps  bought  the  land  at  ten  dollars  per 
acre  ;  he  raised  wheat,  sent  it  east,  and  got 
paid  for  liis  labor,  and  say  thirty  dollars  be- 
sides. He  bought  a  farm',  sent  it  east  in  the 
shape  of  grain,  and  made  a  profit  of  twenty 
dollars  per  acre.  He  made  money,  and  who 
can  blame  him  for  it,  for  what  becomes  of  the 
farm.  He  can  buy  another  farm  and  do  the 
same. — A.  B.  K. 


TOBACCO   FERTILIZERS. 

In  allusion  to  the  late  discussion  on  the 
subject  of  fertilizers  before  our  local  society, 
the  editor  of  the  Tobacco  Leaf  thus  discourses 
ill  the  4th  of  July  number  of  that  paper, 
whicli  we  publish  by  request,  on  account  of  its 
valuable  statistics  : 

"  Our  own  views  are  entirely  in  accord  with 
those  of  the  gentlemen  above  quoted,  who 
acknowledge  their  preference  for  stable  and 
liarn-yard  mamu-es.  Whether  for  tobacco  or 
any  of  the  products  of  the  field  requiring 
heavy  manuring,  there  can  be  no  question  but 
that  these  are  in  every  way  the  best  that  can 
be  used.  That  they  are  especially  valuable  in 
the  production  of  tobacco  is  made  manifest  by 
an  analysis  of  the  ashes  of  the  excrement  of 
cattle  and  horses  and  a  comparison  of  the 
results  obtained  with  the  results  of  a  similar 
analysis  of  the  ashes  of  tobacco.  The  annex- 
ed taljles  respectively  show  the  constituents 
of  tobacco  ashes  and  the  ashes  of  horse  and 
cow  manures  : 

ASHES— TOBACCO. 

PotaBh 19  85 

Soda 0  27 

Magnefliu 11  OT 

Lime 48  68 

Phosphoric  acid 3  66 

Snlpburic  acid 3  29 

OxiAe  of  IiOu 2  99 

Chloride  Sodium ." it  6i 

Loss 6  96 

100  (M 
HORSE  MANOHE. 

Silica 62  40 

Potash 11  30 

Soda 1  98 

Oxide  of  Irou „ 1  17 

Ijime 4  63 

Magnesia 3  84 

Oside  Maugauese 2  IS 

phosphoric  acid 10  49 

Sulphuric  acid 1  89 

Chlorine 0  93 

Loss 0  14 

ion  00 

cow  MANDKK. 

Phosphate 20  9 

Peroxide  of  Irou 8  8 

Lime 1  6 

Sulphate  of  Lime 3  1 

Chloride  of  Potassium trace. 

Silica 63  I 

Loss 2  0 

Hill  00 

From  these  tables  it  is  readily  seen  liow  rich 
are  these  manures  in  the  elements  of  which 
the  earthy  part  of  tobacco  is  composed.  Cow 
manure  is  riclier  in  phosphates  than  guano. 

An  analysis  of  the  solid  matter  in  the  urine 
of  different  animals  is  shown  in  the  following 
table  : 

URINE— SOLID  MATTER. 

Organic.  Tnorqanif.     Total, 

Man 23.4  tIo  81 

Horse .  27.  33.  60 

Cow BO.  20.  70 

Pig 56.  18.  74 

Sheep 28.  12.  40 

"We  believe  larger  and  better  crops  of  to- 
bacco could  be  raised  in  Pennsylvania  and 
elsewhere  by  the  use  of  what  is  known  as 
barn-yard  manure,  than  by  the  aid  of  any 
other  fertilizer  known  to  agriculture.  We 
hope,  too,  the  time  will  again  come  when 
very  little  reliance  will  be  placed  upon  other 
varieties.  Much  of  the  imperfection  of  late 
years  complained  of  in  tobacco,  is  directly 
traceable  to  the  excessive  use  of  commercial 
manures,  and  this  imperfection  will  continue 
and  augment  until  growers  return  to  the  cus- 
tom formerly  in  vogue  among  them,  and  on 


187?.1 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


i23 


their  own  farin  is  produced  tlic  Inilk  of  the 
manure  with  wliicli  tlieir  farms  arc  enriched. 
Already,  as  will  be  observed  in  .some  of  the 
iT,marks\iiii>te(l,  tliere  are  evidences  of  the 
same  want  of  foresiRht»— or  perhaps  it  may  be 
called  wisdom-  amon^'  therennsylvania  farm- 
ers that  has  Ijeen  shown  in  the  <'ase  of  those 
iu  the  Kastern  lobacco-^r.iwiriK  States.  'If 
wesliould  liave,'  says  Sir.  ^{eist— an  expe- 
rienced and  skillful  j,'rower,  by  the  way— 'a 
poor  piece  of  ground  and  eduld  nut  j;el  barn- 
yard manure  with  which  to  enrich  it,  it  would 
l)e  wi'll  li>  know  what  kind  of  manure  is  next 
l)est  amoni;  the  connnercial  manures  in  use.' 
It  is  true,  Tis  Mr.  Keist  ol)serves,  that  barn- 
yard manure  failiufr,  it  would  be  well  to  know 
what  is  the  next  best  kind.  Hut  it  would  be 
better  far  to  see  to  it  that  tliere  is  no  fadm-c 
of  this  incomparable  fertilizer.  Have  the 
acres  of  gra/iuf;  laud  in  Pennsylvania  become 
less  than  they  were,  so  that  stock  I'au  not  hi' 
rai.sfd  to  make  manure  as  formerly  V  Or  are 
Iheprolilsof  tobacco  culture  in  tliat  State 
rendering'  fanning'  in  the  old-fashioned  way 
unpopular,  as  has  happened  in  ( 'onnecdicut  V 
The  remark  (|Uoted  makes  tlie  lattcu-  infer- 
ence i)u.ssible,  and  if  it  be  warranted  by  the 
facts,  the  facts  are  to  be  re^retled.  '(Jentle- 
nian  tarminj;,'  in  the  sense  in  wliicli  the  ex- 
pression has  eome  to  be  uiulerstood  when  ap- 
plied to  tobaceo  culture,  is  an  exeeedinjily  ex- 
pensive and  risky  avocation.  Delined,  the 
phrase  sii;nilies  the  abandonment  of  almost 
every  thing  that  once  gave  oc(Miiiatiou  anil  inde- 
pendence to  the  American  farmer.  It  means 
tlie  concent  ration  of  all  etTorts  on  a  sinnlecrop, 
and  that  failing,  having  notliiiig,  comiiara- 
tively,  to  fall  baik  upon,  as  in  tin-  days  when 
cottiin  was  kin^;.  Wheat,  corn,  rye  and  po- 
tato iields  untilled;  pasture  and  meadow 
lands  choked  up  with  weeds,  trees  and  luislies; 
stock,  swine  and  fowl  bought  instead  of  raised 
for  consumption;  a  few  of  thi^  choicest  acres 
devoted  to  tobacco,  the  rest  of  the  once  fruit- 
ful farm  a  wilderness  or  waste.  This  is  'gen- 
tleman farming'  in  the  older  tobacco-growing 
sections  of  our  country.  It  is  not  a  pleasant 
picture. 

"Tobacco  growers  in  the  old  a;id  new  sec- 
tions will  hud  it  to  their  interest  to  lie  farmers 
as  well  as  producers  of  tobacco.  They  should 
again  commence  raising -stock,  and  iirodiice 
enough  to  keep  what  they  raise.  If  they  will 
do  tliis,  tliere  will  lie  no  si'arcity  of  barnyard 
manure,  provided  further  they  tak(^  proper 
<iare  of  what  is  made  by  their  stock.  .Some  of 
the  money  they  have  heretofore  expended  in 
commercial  fertilizers  may  bi^  advantageously 
spent  in  mechanical  im|)rovements  about  their 
stables,  pig-styes  and  henneries  for  preser- 
ving tile  ferliJi/.ing  proiierlies  of  manures. 
Stop  all  waste  of  the  jirecioiis  material;  let 
evevy  ouni'e  of  dung  and  mine  be  kept  from 
exjjosure  to  the  sun,  compost  the  gleanings  of 
the  stable,  stye  anil  hennery  with  nmck  and 
turf-  -which  are  abundant — and  a  little  i'eru- 
vian  guano,  and  manure  eiioiigli  of  the  best 
kind  will  be  made  to  meet  all  the  wants  of  all 
tlie  tobacco  Iields  in  the  Union." 


THE   TOBACCO    FLY. 


Some  Sure  Methods  of  Destruction. 

The  Xorth  (Carolina  Times  holds  forth  as 
follows  on  the  tobacco  tly  :  Mr.  Head,  the 
inanager  of  Major  Siitberlin's  "Siiimyside" 
farm,  in  Halifax  comity,  Virginia,  has  been 
planting  tobaceo  for  thirty  yeai  sand  has  never 
had  trouble  with  the  tobacco  lly.  He  banks 
pine  )io!es  and  lays  them  across  the  plant  lieds, 
and,  like  the  old  hare  in  the  lur  trap,  the  llies 
get  stuck  iu  the  turpentine.  Another  sure 
remedy  he  has  tried  is  fresh  stable  manure 
well  diied  in  a  wagon  bod}-,  and  then  sift  it 
line  and  add  to  it  a  little  gtiano  and  ashes  and 
siirinkle  well  on  the  plants.  Tlie  stench  is 
strong  as  hartshorn  ;  iu  fact,  the  lly  cannot  get 
at  the  plant.  This  is  plain  plantation  talk  we 
give  from 'a  practical  farmer. 

A  .Mecklenlierg  man  has  at  last  found  out  a 
■<iire  recipe  for  destroying  tobacco  lleasor  llies, 
:is  they  are  more  familiarly  known,  and  at  the 
same  time  failing  to  injure  the  plants  in  the 


least.  The  jdan  is  a  very  simple  one  and 
ea.sily  tested,  and  costs  but  little.  It  is  this  : 
One-sixteenth  of  an  ounce  of  strycdinine  dis- 
solved in  two  buckets  of  water  and  sprinkled 
over  the  plants.  The  aiijilication  does  not  in 
the  least  interfere  with  the  growth  of  the 
plants,  but  lallier  seems  to'  be  benellcial  to 
them,  and  a  large  ipiaiitity  of  the  solution  was 
tried  upon  a  small  s|iace  of  plant  bed  and  found 
lobe  perfect  ly  harmless  to  the  plants.  We 
Ihink  the  experiment  worth  a  trial  by  every 
lilaiiler,  should  the  bug  ajipear  again.  I'er- 
liaps  the  .same  remedy  would  be  good  for  po- 
tato bugs,  and  other  insects  that  prey  upon 
garden  vegetables. 


that  are  folded  or  crumpled,  the  supply  for 
the  following  year  will  be  cut  off.  This  should 
be  dom^  collectively  to  be  positively  effectual, 
for  the  utmost  vigilame  will  avail  but  little  if 
one  is  surrounded  by  slovenly  neighbors.  The 
natural  enemies  of  this  insect  consist  of  spi- 
ders, wasps,  a  small  TadtDui  lly,  to  which  I 
hav(^  given  the  name  of  (k.fiiiiae,  and  at  least 
one  sniall  Ichneumon. 


THE  GRAPE  LEAF-FOLDER. 

r.v  riiOK.  c.  V.  lur.EY, 
Among  the  numerous  and  varied  foes  ot  the 
grape  vine,  the  above-named  species  (Dismin 
iiKiruhdits,  Wcsl. )  is  one  of  the  most  constantly 
recurring  and  widespread.  It  seems  eipially 
at  home  amid  the  tropical  luxuriance  of  the 
Soutbeni  States,  and  on  the  dwarfed  and 
siiarsely  foilaged  vines  of  the  far  North.  It 
occurs  not  only  on  choice,'  cultivated  varieties, 
but  fe^'ils  with  the  same  apparent  relish  on  the 
various  hardy,  wild  species,  and  is  often  found 
on  the  Virginia  (a'ei^per  (Aiiq>dopsin  ijuinuiu- 
foKa.)  Mr.  T.  (!.  Ilidl  of  (.'roon  Creek,  llarton 
"county,  complains  of  it  in  a  recent  letter  to  the 
Jirwnal  (did  Fanner,  and  remarks  that  "three 
weeks  after  it  appeared  last  summer,  the  loaves 
on  nearly  all  the  vines  were  as  dead  as  if 
severely  frosted."  The  liold  of  its  most  seri- 
ous depredations  is  betwiicn  latitude  "io  and 
40  wliere  its  defoliations  frequently  cause 
considei'able  loss  and  annoyance  to  the  vine 
grower. 

The  perfect  insect  is  a  very  I'retty  little 
moth,  expanding  about  an  inch.  The  general 
ciilor  is  black  with  opalescent  relleetions,  but 
tlie  sexes  have  many  points  of  dilference  in 
ornamentation.  The  wings  are  fringed  with 
white,  the  upjier  jiair  in  both  sexes  being 
ornamented  with  two  eoiispieuous  white  spots. 
The  under  wings  of  the  female  have  also  two 
white  sjiots,  or  one  very  much  constricted  in 
the  middle,  while  those  of  the  male  have  but 
oue  large  spot,  which  is  never  either  divided 
or  constricted.  The  body  of  the  female  is 
marked  with  two  transverse  white  bands, 
that  of  the  male  having  but  one  transverse 
stripe,  while  the  lip  of  the  abdomen  hasa  lon- 
gitudinal dash  on  the  upper  surface.  The  at- 
tenna-  of  the  male  are  elbowed  and  knotted  in 
contrast  with  the  smooth,  thread-likeattenn:e 
of  the  female.  The  body  is  slender,  extending 
beyond  the  wings. 

In  southerly  latitudes  there  are  two 
or  three  broods  of  this  insect  annually — tlie 
latest  brood  hibernating  in  the  chrysalis  stale. 
Sometimes  wlii-n  altecting  vines  in  a  green 
house,  the  larvae  will  hibernate  among  the 
fallen  leaves  on  the  top  of  the  ground.  The 
lirst  moths  appear  early  in  .finie,  and  lay  their 
eggs  in  small  clu.sters  all  over  the  vine.  The 
development  of  the  moths  and  time  of  ovipo- 
sition  being  somewhat  irregular,  the  larva  may 
be  found  in  all  sizes  throughout  the  season. 
They  changi^  to  chrysalides  in  -24  to  :J0  days 
from  haUhing,  and  I  he  moths  is.sue  about  a 
week  tluueafler.  The  habits  of  this  insect 
were  recorditd  in  my  third  report  as  follows  : 

"The  worm  folds  rather  than  rolls  the  leaf, 
by  fastening  together  two  portions  by  its 
silken  thredas,  and  for  this  reason,  in  contra- 
disliiictioii  to  the  many  leaf-rollers,  may  be 
popularly  known  as  the  "firape  Leaf-folder." 

It  is  of  a  glass-greini  color,  the  head  and 
thoracic  segments  marked  with  variously 
shaped  black  iialches.  It  is  very  active,  wrig- 
gling, jumping  and  jerkingeither  way  at  every 
touch.  If  left  alone  these  worms  will  soon 
defoliate  a  vine,  and  the  best  way  of  destroy- 
ing them  is  crushing  suddenly  within  the  leaf, 
with  both  hands.  To  prevent  their  ap|iear- 
ance,  however,  recpiires  far  less  trouble. 

The  chrysalis  is  formed  within  the  fold  of 
the  leaf,  and  by  going  over  the  vineyard  iu 
October  or  any  time  before  the  leaves  fall,  and 
carefully  plucking  and  destroying  all  those 


DUCKS— SETTING    EGGS    AND     REAR- 
ING YOUNG. 

If  possible,  set  duck  eggs  under  hens,  as 
they  make  better  mothers  and  will  find  food 
for  the  ducklings-  something  a  dui^k  will  not 
do.  After  the  hen  has  set  foni'  weeks  the 
ducklings  will  appear.  J'erhaps  it  will  be 
neees.sary  to  help  some  of  them  from  the 
shell,  as  they  are  not  as  lively  as  chickens, 
and  sometimes  are  unable  to  get  out  alone.  A 
(len  should  lie  made  with  boards  eight  or  ten 
inches  high  and  live  feet  sipiare,  or  large 
enough  to  contain  the  iiiunber  of  duckings 
you  may  have. 

Tlu!  hen  should  be  conlined  in  a  coop  in  one 
corner  of  the  yaid  .so  as  not  to  wander  awaj'. 
Keep  your  brood  contiiied  till  they  are  a  mouth 
old  and  not  allow  them  to  follow  the  hen,  for 
if  you  do  they  will  stray  away,  and  one  by 
one  your  Hock  will  grow  numerically  smaller. 
When  they  are  sullicientjy  large  and  liave 
their  body  feathers,  less  care  may  be  bestowed 
upon  them,  and  they  may  range  for  them- 
selves. 

As  for  food,  for  the  fust  three  or  four  weeks 
we  would  recommend  a  variety.  The  week 
directly  after  they  are  hatched  give  them 
soaked  bread,  coarse  bread  being  preferabh^  as 
it  is  less  pasty,  potatoes,  boiled  and  mashed, 
with  bran  or  shorts.  As  they  become  older  do 
away  with  the  former  feed  anil  u.se  meal  and 
bran,  equal  parts,  scalded,  and  occasionally 
mix  with  lioiled  pottltoes,  cboiiped  onion  tops 
or  lettuce.  This  has  been  imr  bill  of  fare  for 
our  web-footed  pets  for  some  years  and  we 
have  met  with  great  success. 

Last  but  not  least,  beware  of  watei'.  You 
may  think  this  a  strange  suggestion,  but  there 
are  more  tame  ducks  lost  on  account  of  too 
much  water  than  any  other  cause.  A  shallow 
dish  with  water,  say  two  or  three  incdies 
deep,  is  enough  till  they  are  a  month  old.  If 
allowed  free  access  to  a  pond  or  stream,  they 
will  get  water-logged  and  invariably  die.  And 
if  they  escajie,  this  cramii  is  most  sure  to  at- 
tack them,  and  after  a  few  days  tumbling  and 
twisting  death  relieves  them  from  any  more 
such  actions.  We  know  of  no  variety  easier 
to  rear  than  the  Uouens,  and  we  have  a  young 
Hock  of  lifteeu  or  twenty  that  are  sprightly  as 
so  many  kittens.  They  all  look  as  near  alike 
as  peas  and  are  the  admiration  of  all  who  see 
them. —  Rural  Press. 


TRANSPLANTING  EVERGREENS. 

The  Seiitembcu'  niimber  of  the  (larilencr''s 
MiiHlldij  for  1S74  contains  an  article  by  W.  C 
Strong,  of  Nonantum  Hill  nursery,  Brigbton, 
Mass.,  giving  four  reasons  for  transplanting 
evergreens  in  late  sumnuM'  or  in  the  early  au- 
tumn, from  Atignst  loth  to  September  '20th. 
The  fourth  reiuson,  viz.,  that  there  is  greater 
certainty  of  success  in  planting  than  at  any 
other  season  of  the  year,  induced  me  to  try 
the  experiment  the  following  year.  On  the 
'20th  of  August  I  planted,  fiir  Mr.  .1.  W. 
Spragiie,  of  this  place,  thirty  Norway  spruce 
trees.  A  few  days  since  1  examined  the  trees, 
and  fomid  everyone  living  and  growing  liuely, 
the  increase  the  present  season  thus  far  being 
about  ten  inches  in  diameter  and  eight  inches 
in  height.  1  do  not  as.sert  iiosilively  that  Au- 
gust is  a  better  nionlli  than  -May  for  this 
work ;  but  I  would  unhesitatingiy  advise 
those  intending  to  ])lant  evergreens  to  do  it 
this  season  ratlier  than  wait  for  another  May. 
Hut  whether  in  fall  or  spring,  let  these  three 
things  be  attended  to  :  1st.  Select  sm.all  trees. 
'2d.  Preserve  as  many  of  the  librous  roots  as 
|)ossible.  .'Id.  Cover  the  roots  so  tliat  they 
will  not  become  at  all  dry.  Perhaps  I  should 
add,  put  whatever  manure  you  use  on  the  top 


424 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER 


[August 


of  the  ground.     Josiah  Hoopes,  in  Iiis  Book 

of  Evergreens,  says : 

"Men  of  experience  seldom  desire  large 
trees,  knowing  full  well  the  haneful  eft'ects  of 
transplanting  large  evergreens.  The  lower 
branches  shed  their  foliage  and  are  a]it  to  die, 
and  forever  after  they  present  a  pitiable  siglit. 
i'oung  and  healthy  plants,  when  carefully 
taken  up  and  propeily  rejilanted,  are  never 
subject  to  this  disligurenient,  and  are  almost 
certain  to  form  handsome  specimens. — Culti- 
vator. 

^ 

OUR    LOCAL    ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings    of  the   Lancaster    County    Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

The  Society  met  in  tlieii'  rooniR.  in  the  City  Hall, 
on  Monday  afternoon,  August  (5tli,  at  2  o'clock. 
President  Calvin  Cooper  in  the  chair. 

The  followintj  members  were  present  :  Calvin 
Cooper,  president.  Bird  in-Hand  ;  Johnson  Miller, 
secretary,  Warwick  ;  M.  D.  Kendig,  Manor;  Harry 
Myers,  East  Ilempticld  ;  Israel  L.  Landis,  Manheim  ; 
Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy  ;  Levi  \V.  GrolT,  Earl ; 
Alexander  Harris,  city  ;  Henry  M.  Engle,  Marietta  ; 
W.  J.  Kafroth,  West  Earl  ;  Levi  Pownall,  S.adsbury  ; 
Casper  Hiller,  Conestoffa  ;  William  McComsey,  city  ; 
Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  city ;  Levi  S.  Heist,  Manheim; 
Peter  S.  Keist,  Manheim  ;  Prof.  J.  Stautfer,  city  ; 
Jacob  S.  tiarber.  Manor  ;  C.  L.  Hunsecker,  Manheim  ; 
Jacob  Bolliutrer,  Warwick  ;  J. H. Landis,  Millersville  ; 
J.  H.  Brackbill,  Strasburg ;  Simon  P.  Eby,  city; 
Henry  Reist,  Manheim  ;  John  Miller,  W.  Lampeter  ; 
A.  W.  Russel,  city  ;  Frank  Landis,  East  Lampeter ; 
J.  Witmer,  E.  Lampeter;  E.  Hershey,  E.  Lampeter; 
John  B.  Erb,  Strasbury'  twp.;  J.  B.  Garber,  East 
Hempfield. 

The  minutes  of  last  meeting  were  read,  corrected 
and  approved. 

Ambrose  Pownall,  of  Sadsbury,  and  J.  H.  Landis, 
of  Millensville,  were  proposed  and  elected  members 
of  the  society. 

Average  Crops. 

Mr.  ENfn.E,  from  the  committee  appointed  at  last 
meeting  to  report  the  average  of  the  several  crops  in 
this  county,  read  a  report,  stating  that  after  investi- 
gation the  committee  had  come  to  the  conclusion 
the  average  crops  in  Lancaster  county  were  as  fol- 
lows :  Wheat,  per  acre,  21  bushels;  corn,  52  bushels  ; 
rye,  30  bushels ;  oats,  3.5  bushels ;  potatoes,  7.5 
bushels  ;  hay  1!<  tons  ;  tobacco,  1,'!00  pounds.  The 
report  goes  on  to  state  that  many  farmers  produce 
more  tlian  twice  as  much  per  acre  of  some  of  the 
above  staples,  and  others  not  half  as  much.  The 
committee  thought  the  figures  given  above  a  very 
fair  average. 

Casper  Hn.i.ER  said  he  thought  the  committee 
had  placed  the  average  of  the  rye  crop  too  high .  He 
had  raised  twenty-flve  bushels  to  the  aei-e,  and 
all  his  neighbors  said  he  had  the  best  rye  in  his  sec- 
tion of  the  county. 

Mr.  Engi.e  and  President  Cooper  said  they  had 
frequently  known  of  40  bushels  to  the  acre  being 
raised  in  the  county.  They  believed  30  bushels  a  fair 
average. 

Henry  Kurtz  thought  the  committee  in  making 
their  average  should  have  included  only  such  farmers 
as  knew  how  to  farm.  It  is  not  fair  that  good 
farmers  should  have  a  low  average  because  poor 
farmers  raised  poor  crops. 

Mr.  Engle  defended  the  committee's  report  and 
said  the  average  must  be  made  in  accordance  with 
the  whole  acreage  of  each  crop. 

Mr  Kurtz  thought  the  farmers  should  he  classi- 
fied into  at  least  three  grades — good,  bad  and  in- 
dift'erent — as  mackerel  is  classified  asNos.  l,2and 
3.  Then  the  average  of  first-class  farmers  would  not 
suffer  by  being  pulled  down  by  those  who  did  not 
know  how  to  farm  and  who  ought  to  have  an  average 
of  their  own. 

The  report  of  the  committee  was  accepted,  and  a 
vote  of  thanks  tendered  by  the  society. 

Mk.  Engi.e  stated  that  the  committee  had  not 
been  able  to  attend  to  all  the  duties  assigned  them — 
the  making  out  of  premium  lists,  itc.  He  asked  that 
the  comniiitec  be  continued.    Agreed  to. 

The   Sowing  of  Wheat. 

Johnson  Mii^ler,  appointed  to  report  on  the 
quantity  of  wheat  to  be  sown  to  the  acre,  reported  as 
follows  : 

As  a  member  of  the  committee  in  regard  to  the 
cidtivation  of  wheat  last  summer  by  this  society,  I 
would  report  that  I  made  a  test  as  regards  the  quan- 
tity of  seed.  I  sowed  from  one  bushel  to  two  and  a- 
lialfonflve  acres,  varying  a  half  bushel  on  every 
acre.  1  found  no  marked  difl'erence,  but  by  close 
observation  it  was  noticeable  that  where  I  sowed  one 
and  a-half  bushels  was  the  finest  wheat,  as  one 
bushel  was  the  one  extreme,  and  two  and  a-half  the 
other.  In  regard  to  the  early  or  late  plowing,  I 
plowed  my  wheat  stubble  for  a  number  of  years  as 
soon  after  harvest  as  possible,  but  last  year  I  did  not 
plow  it  until  the  latter  end  of  August,  and  had  an 


excellent  crop  of  whe.at,  and  that  without  manure. 
This  convinces  me  that  early  plowing,  as  well  as 
early  sowing,  is  the  cause,  to  some'  extent,  of  our 
short  wheat  crops.  From  my  experience,  I  would 
sow  one  and  a  half  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre,  and 
from  the  20th  to  the  last  of  September,  for  a  good 
crop  of  wheat.  Another  thing  in  connection  with 
this  wheat  cultivation  in  preparing  the  ground,  I 
would  say  prepare  it  very  fine  and  sow  shallow. 
Half  an  inch  of  ground  to  cover  the  grain  is  amply 
sufticient  ;  and  I  know  that  farmers  spoil  the  crops 
just  by  sowing  too  deep. 

This  is  my  report ;  whether  my  fellow-members  of 
the  committee  agree  with  me  or  not  I  cannot  say,  but 
I  do  believe  with  these  directions  a  good  crop  of 
wheat  can  be  raised  on  our  good  Lancaster  county 
farms. 

Henrt  M.  Engle  said  that  he  had  come  to  the 
same  conclusion  as  Mr.  Miller,  that  wheat  was  culti- 
vated too  deep.  Drill  shovels  are  run  down  so  deep 
that  the  grain  cannot  come  up.  Any  crop  ])lanted 
deep  will  be  very  backward.  He  agreed  with  Mr. 
Miller  that  one-half  inch  was  plenty  deep  enough. 
The  Groff  Farm. 

The  report  of  the  committee  appointed  to  visit 
Levi  S.  Groff's  farm  was  called  for,  Imt  H.  M.  Engle, 
chairman,  said  they  had  reported  all  they  had  to  say 
in  the  daily  papers,  and  he  did  not  see  that  they  had 
anything  else  to  say. 

Crop  Reports. 

Johnson  Miller  reported  for  Warwick  that  corn 
was  growing  finely  and  will  be  a  very  large  crop. 
The  late  rains  have  refreshed  everything  wonder- 
fully, and  the  prospects  from  an  agricultural  point 
of  view  were  never  more  encouraging.  Tobacco  is 
glowing  finely,  and  some  will  be  cut  this  present 
week.  Potatoes  are  large  in  size  and  the  yield  will 
be  large.  Grass  fields  never  looked  better,  and 
pasture  is  splendid.  Fruit  is  very  scarce,  particular- 
ly apples.  Of  peaches  and  pears  there  will  be  a  few, 
but  the  grape  crop  will  be  pretty  full. 

Henry  Kurtz,  reporting  for  Mount  Joy,  said  Mr. 
Miller  must  live  in  a  Paradise,  as  nowhere  else  had 
there  been  such  favorable  weather.  He  thought  that 
the  crops  should  not  be  reported  better  than  they 
really  are,  for  this  report  is  not  for  the  society  alone 
but  is  printed  and  read  by  consumers,  who,  think- 
ing that  the  crop  wap  so  good,  would  not  otfcr  a  fair 
price  for  things  because,  as  they  thought,  they  were 
so  plenty.  For  his  section  he  would  report  that, 
unless  there  was  rain  soon,  the  tobacco  crop  would 
not  be  a  half  crop.  There  wouhl  be  a  toleral^le  crop 
of  corn,  and  the  grass  needs  rain  very  much. 

I.  L.  Landis  said  that,  notwithstanding  Mr.  Kurtz's 
indignation  at  Mr.  Miller's  favorable  report,  he  could 
give  one  Just  as  good  for  Manheim  township.  The 
hay  crop  would  be  a  fair  one  ;  the  wheat  full ;  oats 
unusually  good,  and  tobacco  just  equal  to  any  he 
had  ever  seen.  The  indications  are  the  crop  will  be 
as  good  as  ever,  and  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
much  cut  up  by  the  worm.  There  was  some  cut. 
Fruit  crop  is  short.    Potatoes  are  flourishing. 

Levi  S.  Keist,  from  Warwick,  reported  that  the 
weather  in  that  section  was  very  favorable.  Sunday, 
July  30,  they  had  a  soaking  rain,  and  ever  since  the 
rain  had  come  just  as  it  was  wanted.  The  tobacco 
was  neither  too  wet  nor  too  dry.  One  patch  on  the 
banks  of  the  Cocalico  was  overflowed,  and  now  is 
dying  off.  Fruit  is  very  poor  ;  no  apples  worth  men- 
tioning— what  there  are  being  very  knotty. 

Casper  Hiller,  of  Cone6toga,said  he  very  rarely 
reported,  but  now  he  wanted  to  say  something  about 
the  southern  part  of  the  county.  If  these  men  that 
were  talking  about  the  favorable  weather  in  the 
northern  part  of  the  county  wanted  to  see  a  dry 
country,  all  they  had  to  do  was  to  go  into  the  southern 
part  of  the  county.  They  have  had  no  rain  since 
April  that  has  gone  deeper  than  deep  plowing.  To- 
bacco is  poor,  and  in  order  to  have  half  a  crop  of 
corn  we  must  have  a  heavy  rain  within  a  week. 

Mr.  Kurtz  agreed  with  Mr.  Hiller  ;  it  is  not  best 
to  make  the  crop  reports  too  rosy.  If  the  tobacco 
l)uyers  hear  that  the  crop  is  as  large  as  some  repre- 
sent it  they  will  not  ofl'er  two  cents  a  pound  for  it. 

Johnson  Miller  replied  that  the  crops  in  War- 
wick were  good,  and  he  was  not  afraid  to  report 
them  so.  He  believed  the  object  of  the  "crop 
reports"  was  to  arrive  at  a  true  condition  of  the 
crops,  and  not  to  influence  the  market. 

Mr.  Engle  hoped  there  would  be  no  controversy 
in  the  matter;  all  the  reports  made  were  no  doubt 
equally  true  ;  as  is  usual  almost  every  year,  the  local 
rains  are  apt  to  follow  each  other  over  the  same  sec- 
tions of  the  county.  Rain  has  fallen  plentifully  in 
some  sections  while  there  has  been  a  drought  in 
others.  There  are,  therefore,  some  good  and  some 
bad  crops.  From  his  own  township  he  would  have 
to  modify  his  former  reports ;  the  apple  crop  is  dwind- 
ling down, and  instead  of  there  being  an  average  crop 
as  was  at  first  supposed,  there  would  be  very  few 
apples — the  codling  moth  has  punctured  and  almost 
destroyed  everything.  Peaches,  which  in  the  early 
summer  were  expected  to  yield  a  full  crop,  and  later 
at  least  half  a  crop,  will  not  now  yield  a  quarter 
crop.  He  saw  some  excellent  fields  of  tobacco,  and 
some  that  were  poor.  His  observation  was  that  those 
who  tilled  their  soil  well  were  rewarded  with  good 


crops,  and  those  who  did  not,  had  to  put  up  with 
poor  ones.  The  rainfall  during  the  month  of  July 
was  2  13-16  inches.  In  June  there  were  five  dav»  in 
which  the  mercury  rose  to  90  degrees  and  upwards; 
in  July  there  were  1-i  days  in  which  the  mercury 
rose  to  90  and  upwards.  Notwithstanding  several 
very  hot  days,  the  average  heat  during  July,  1877, 
was  no  greater  than  during  July,  1S76. 

.\1.  D.  Kenuii!,  of  Manor,  said  the  corn  and  tobac- 
co need  rain;  with  it  there  is  a  prospect  of  a  very 
heavy  crop.  Apples  are  all  falling  oft'  and  there  are 
few  peaclies.  The  rainfall  last  month  was  2.1 
inches.  The  hottest  day,  last  Friday  week,  the  mer- 
cury rose  to  102  in  the  shade. 

Levi  Pownall,  of  Sadsbury,  said  the  season  had 
been  unusually  favorable  ;  the  corn  and  potato  crops 
were  very  large  ;  the  fruit  crop  was  a  failure  ;  grass 
better  than  usual;  wheat  not  so  good;  oats  heavy 
and  pastures  never  before  looked  so  well  at  this  time 
of  year. 

President  Cooper  said  that  East  Lampeter  would 'j 
yield  a  full  average  of  everything  ex«ept  fruit. 

.Mr.  McComsey,  who  had  traveled  through  WestJ 
Lampeter,  had  never  seen  a  finer  prospect  for  abuD'^ 
dant  crops. 

Mr.  Kafrotii,  of  West  Earl,  reported  corn,  clover,! 
grass  and  potatoes  all  good,  and  tobacco  remarkably! 
fine. 

Levi  'W.  Groff's  Experiments  with  Wheat. 
Levi  W.  Groff,  of  Earl,  presented  the  following 
report  of  his  experiment  of  cultivating  wheat : 
To  the  Laiirastci'  Cou^d-y  IforiicuUural  Socifty: 

I  have  threshed  the  wheat  grown  on  one  acre,  and 
it  made  61  bushels  and  one  peck.   It  is  of  the  "cham- 
pion amber"  variety.    The  seed   was  obtained   from  " 
Mr.  Heiges,  of  York,  at  f.5  per  bushel.     One  and  a 
half  bushels  were  sowed  on  the  acre  reported. 

Mr.  Heiges  succeeded  in  raising  of  this  variety  71 
bushels  to  the  acre.  I  cultivated  this  wheat  in  the 
spring  of  the  year  three  times,  between  the  drills. 

The  cultivated  "  Clauson "  variety  sown  by  me 
last  fall  and  now  threshed  yielded  36'^  bushels  per 
acre.  The  same  variety  side  by  side,  not  cultivated, 
yielded  2.5  bushels  and  two  pounds  per  acre. 

It  is  my  opinion  that  the  "champion  amber,"  If 
raised  under  quite  favorable  conditions  will  yield 
from  75  to  90  bushels  per  acre.  Mine  this  year  stood 
on  ground  too  low,  and  it  was  sowed  a  little  too  late. 
I  have  no  doulit  but  such  yield  is  quite  possible  and 
piobable  ;  ami  if  all  the  grains  in  my  reported  crop 
were  plump  and  full,  ray  yield  would  be  .at  least  75 
bushels  per  acre  this  year.  Levi  W.  Gkopf. 

The  committee  appointed  at  the  July  meeting  of 
the  Lancaster  county  agricultural  and  horticultural 
society  to  visit  Mr.  Groflf 's  farm  made  the  following 
report : 

We,  the  undersigned,  visited  the  farm  of  Mr.  Levi 
W.  Groff  about  harvest-time  and  fully  concur  in  his 
report  so  far  as  we  could  judge  at  the  time. 

H.M.  Engle, 
Calvin  Cooper, 
Levi  S.  Reist, 
Peter  S.  Reist. 
The  thanks  of  the  society  were  tendered  to  Mr. 
Grofl'. 

Mr.  Groff  exhibited  a  bunch  of  wheat  heads  of 
the  "champion  amber"  variety,  which  were  exam-  i 
ined  and  much  admired,  and  at  the  request  of  Mr.  I 
McComsey,  briefly  explained  his  manner  of  cultiva- 
ting wheat  as  it  has  been  already  printed  in  the  daily 
papers.  His  plan  in  brief  is  to  drill  the  wheat  in 
rows  twice  as  far  apart  as  is  usually  done.  This  he 
does  by  removing  from  the  drill  every  alternate  seed 
distributer.  Attached  to  the  drill  he  has  an  equal 
number  of  shovels,  and  these  arc  placed  so  as  to  run 
between  the  rows  of  wheat,  and  cultivate  it  much  the 
same  as  the  ordinary  cultivator  runs  between  the 
rows  of  corn.  There  is  room  enough  biitween  the 
rows  to  permit  the  horses  to  walk  without  injuring 
the  grain.  After  cultivating  his  whe.at  in  this  manner 
three  different  times,  he  sowed  the  ground  with  clover 
and  timothy,  and  although  it  is  too  soon  yet  to  tell, 
he  believes  he  will  have  a  very  superior  crop  of  hay. 
Mr.  Engle  said  he  had  examined  Mr.  Groff's 
clover  and  timothy,  and  believed  it  would  be  very 
superior.  He  trusted  that  not  a  few  of  our  farmers 
would  adopt  Mr.  G's  plan  of  cultivation.  He  would 
do  so  himself  on  a  small  scale,  and  from  his  observa- 
tion he  was  sure  it  would  pay. 

Mr.  Pownall  said  that  on  a  former  occasion  he 
had  objected  to  cultiv.ating  the  wheat  crop  in  the  way 
adopted  by  Mr.  Groff,  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
injure  the  grass  that  was  to  follow  the  wheat  ;  but 
from  an  ex|)criment  of  his  own  he  was  now  con- 
vinced  that  it  would  not.  ] 

Oleomargarine  and  Phosphates. 

The  rules  were  now  susjicnded  in  order  to  take  up 
the  discussion  of  some  matter  proposed  by  Thomas 
J.  Edge,  Secretary  of  the  State  Board  of  Agriculture 
at  Harrisburg.  Mr.  Edge  calls  attention  to  the 
objects  for  di6cussiou,which  were  two  acts,  and  writes 
as  follows  : 

In  regard  to  the  proposed  act  to  regulate  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  fertilizers,  it  has  been 
claimed  by  some  that  it  is  not  just  to  levy  a  direct  tax 
on  the  manufacturer,  and  that  to  a  certain  limited 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


125 


amount  tlic  state  eliould  pay  the  cost  of  analysis. 
On  till'  oilier  liaml,  it  is  ui-tfeil  tliat  such  a  licehse  tax 
gives  tlio  honest  inanufaeluiTr  a  jiioleetion,  wliieli  is 
worth  I'ar  more  than  the  amount  of  the  tax. 

In  conclusion  ho  asks  for  the  opinion  of  the  soeiely 
on  these  points.     The  ai-ls  prnposeil  are  as  follows  : 
An  Act  to  Regulate  the  Manufacture  and  Sale 
of  Fertilizers. 

Section.  1.  Be  UmnHeil,  i('c.,  That  every  paekafje 
of  conimereial  fertilizer  sold,  olfereil  or  exposed  I'or 
sale  within  this  Commonwealth  shall  he  aecompanieil 
by  an  analysis,  statimr  I  lie  pereentau;e  therein  eon- 
taineil  of  nitroy:en  oi-  its  e((uivalent  in  amnionia,  of 
potash  in  any  lonn  sohrMe  in  ilistilleil  water,  of 
phospluirie  acitl  soluble  in  a  neutral  solution  of 
citrate  of  ammonia  at  a  temperature  of  100  lU'i^rees 
Fahrenheit,  ami  the  pereentaije  of  phosphoric  acid 
not  thus  solnlile  :  I'roviileil,  That  no  analysis  shall 
be  reiiuired  for  paekaires  of  fertilizers  which  are  sold, 
ollered  or  exposed  for  sale  at  a  less  jiriee  than  twenty 
dollars  per  ton. 

Sbc.  2  Kvi'ry  manufacturer  or  importer  of  coni- 
nu'rcial  fertilizers,  us  spc<'ifiei1  in  section  one,  hefore 
otfcriiiir  the  same  for  sale  in  this  Commonwealth 
sluill  take  out  a  license  as  a  manufactiu"cr  or  im- 
porter, and  pay  into  the  Treasurer  of  the  Common- 
wealth the  sum  of dullars  annually  as  a  license 

fee  f<)r  each  kind  of  fertiiizei-  sold  or  imi^ortetl  liy 
him,  and  shall  al  the  same  time  tile  willi  the  SiM-rc- 
tary  of  tlic  Stati'  Hoard  of  .\u;i'iculture  a  paper  j;ivinj; 
the  names  of  his  principal  aLrcnls,^iinl  also  the  name 
and  comiiosition  of  tlie  fertilizer  maiuifactured  or 
imjiorted  by  him. 

Skc.  ;!.  Any  person  sellina:,  offcrins'  or  exposing 
for  sale  any  eommercial  fertilizer  without  the  analj- 
sis  requircil  by  section  one,  or  with  au  aiuilysie 
statins;  that  said  fertilizer  contains  a  larger  pereent- 
ajre  of  any  one  or  more  of  the  eonstitm'nts  men 
lioned  aliove  than  is  contained  tlicrein,  or  Ibi-  the 
sale  of  whicli  all  the  provisions  of  section  two  liave 
not  been  complied  with,  shall  forfeit  tifty  dollars  fin- 
the  first  oflense,  and  one  hundred  dollars  i'or  each 
subscfiucnt  olfense. 

Sue.  4.  It  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  chemist  of  the 
State  Boarvl  of  Ai^ricuiture  to  analyze  such  specimens 
of  fertilizers  as  nuiy  be  furnished  liini  by  the  Hoard 
or  its  agent,  and  he  shall  report  to  tlie  St  ate  Board  of 
Agriculture  the  results  ol'the  analysis  made  by  him, 
and  shall  t"\UTUsh  tlie  Secretary  of  the  Board  with 
such  important  information  relative  to  fertilizers  as 
he  may  from  time  to  time  obtain. 

Sec.  .").  The  lee  of  the  chemist  of  the  State  Board 
of  Agriculture  for  such  analysis  shall  not  exceed  the 
usual  and  regular  jirice  f(u'  such  services,  and  shall 
be  payable  from  the  Treasury  of  the  Commonwealth 
on  the  cert  ilicate  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of 
Agrieulture  :  Provided,  Thai  the  total  sum  jiaid  in 
any  one  year  for  such  service  shall  not  exceed  the 
amount  paid  into  the  Treasury  as  license  fees  during 
the  same  perioil.  This  act  shall  take  etl'ect  from  and 
after  its  passage. 

An   Act  to   Prevent   Deception   in  the   Sale  of 
Butter. 

Section  1 .  Be  il  enacted,  ..te.,  Tliat  every  jierson 
«  lio  shall  manufacture  I'or  sale,  or  w  ho  shall  olleroi 
expose  for  sale,  any  article  or  substance  injsemblance 
of  butter  not  the  legitimate  produi'.t  of  the  dairy,  and 
not  made  exclnsiv.'ly  (d'  milk  or  cream,  but  into 
wdiich  the  oil  or  fat  of  animalB  not  jiroduccd  iVom 
milk,  enters  as  a  component  part,  or  into  which 
melted  butter  or  any  oil  thereof  has  been  introduced 
to  take  the  place  of  cream,  shall  distinctly  and  dura- 
bly stamp,  brand  or  mark  upon  every  "tub,  lirkiu, 
iiox  or  package  of  such  article  or  stdistance  the  wurd 
■'(.leo-margarin,"  and  in  case  of  retail  of  such  arli- 
i!.>  or  substance  in  parcels,  the  seller  shall,  in  all 
.  isrs,  deliver  therewith  to  the  purchaser,  a  written 
.1  printed  label  bearing  tlie  plainly  written  or  printed 
«ord  "olco-margarin,"  and  every  article  or  substance 
not  so  stamped,  branded,  marked  or  labeled,  is  de- 
clared to  be  unlawful,  and  no  action  shall  be  main- 
1  tilled  in  any  of  the  courts  of  this  State  to  recover 
1 1 1,  in  any  eontraet  for  the  sale  of  any  sueli  article  or 
Md>stanec  not  so  stamped,  branded,  marked  or  la- 
beled. 

Sec.  2.  Every  person  who  shall  knowingly  sell  or 
olTcr  to  6ell,(U-  have  in  his  or  her  possession  with  in- 
tent to  sell,  <'onlrary  to  I  he  provisions  of  this  act,  any 
-  t  the  said  article  or  substance  rc(piired  by  the  first 
lion  of  this  act  to  be  stamped,  marked  or  labeled 
therein  stated,  not  so  stamped,  marked  or  labeled, 
or  in  ease  of  retail  sale,  without  delivery  of  a  label 
required  by  section  one  of  this  act,  shall,  for  each 
such  offense,  forfeit  and  pay  a  fine  of  one  hundred 
dollars,  to  be  recovered  with  costs,  in  any  of  tlie 
courts  of  this  State  having  cognizance  tlicreol',  in  an 
action  to  be  prosecuted  liy  the  district  attorney  in  the 
name  of  the  people,  and  the  one-half  of  such  recov- 
ery shall  be  paid  to  the  informer,  and  the  residue 
shall  be  apjilied  to  the  support  of  the  poor  in  the 
county  where  such  recovery  is  had. 

Sec.o.  Every  person  who  shall  knowingly  sell  or 
offeror  expose  for  sale,  or  who  shall  cause  or  pro- 
cure to  be  sold  or  olVered  or  exposed  for  sale,  any  ar- 
ticle or  substance  required  by  the  first  section  of  this 
act  to  be  marked,  branded,  stamiied  or  labeled,  not 
60  marked,  branded,  stamped  or  labeled,  shall  be 


guilty  of  a  misdemeanor,  and  on  trial  for  such  misde- 
meanor, proof  of  the  sale  or  ofl'er  or  exposure  alleged, 
shall  be  presumptive  evidence  of  knowledge  of  the 
character  of  the  art  iile  so  sold  or  offered,  and  that 
the  same  was  not  marked,  branded,  stamped  or  la- 
beled as  required  h^'  this  act. 

Wm.  MiComsev  said  that  as  far  as  the  Lancaster 
market  was  concerned  there  was  no  necessity  for 
such  au  act  concerning  butter. 

U.  iVl.  E.Noi.E  wasof  the  same  opinion  as  to  Lan- 
caster county,  but  in  the  large  cities  there  is  a  great 
quantity  of  this  stnll  made.  It  seems  very  near  the 
true  article,  ami  many  who  would  not  eat  it  from 
choice  might  do  so  by  chance.  Let,  it  stand  on  its 
own  merits,  and  if  it  becomes  pojiuhir  under  its  own 
name,  all  right;  but  do  not  let  the  stiill'  be  sold  as 
butter.     He  was  in  favor  of  passing  the  law. 

A.  IIoIjIjINoeu  was  not  prepared  to  discuss  this 
sub,jcet,  as  he  had  given  it  no  thought,  and  wished 
it  to  be  iiostponcd  until  next  meeting. 

II.  M.  ENiiLE  said  it  was  true  that  as  yet  it  had 
not  afl'ected  Lancaster  county,  but  as  it  was  made  so 
cheap,  might  it  not  come  here  in  competition  with 
our  own  butter  ? 

Casi'Ek  IIiM.EK  was  in  favor  of  postponing  the 
question  until  the  ne.xt  meeting,  and  between  this 
time  and  that  the  members  will  have  more  time  to 
look  up  the  (piestion.  Next  meeting  will  be  time 
enough  for  the  State  Board  to  receive  their  answer, 
as  the  Legislature  does  not  meet  until  .laniiary.  lie 
moved  that  the  sutyeet  be  postponed,  and  the  mo- 
tion was  carried.  Both  acts  were  held  for  discussion 
at  the  next  meeting. 

Noxious   Weeds. 

Casi'ER  II II. leu  presented  specimens  of  three 
noxious  weeds  which  he  advised  farmers  to  extermi- 
nate as  soon  as  they  appear.  The  first  is  a  good  deal 
like  the  ground  cherry,  and  was  recomm<'iided  to 
him  some  years  ago  as  a  good  "pie  plant ;"  it  is  not 
only  worthless,  but  a  very  troublesome  customer  to 
gel  rid  of;  it  s[ireads  rajiidly,  each  plant  contains 
millions  of  seeds,  and  the  smallest  particle  of  the 
root  is  capable  of  sending  up  a  new  plant.  The  sec- 
ond weed  was  a  "Mexican  potato,"  whieli  had  been 
sent  him  all  the  way  from  Mexico.  It  is  utterly 
worthless  and  hard  to  get  rid  of.  Ills  third  "pet" 
was  the  ox-eyed  daisy — very  troublesome  in  jierma- 
nent  jiastures,  but  may  be  destroyed  by  cultivation. 
Rust  in  Wheat. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Kathvon  read  a  learned  paper  on 
"What  Causes  the  Rust  in  Wheat  ?"   (Seepage  iL'O.) 

An  interesting  discussion  of  the  subject  followed, 
participated  in  by  J.  H.  Brackbill,  .1.  StaulTer,  I'etcr 
S.  Keist,  William  .McComsey,  Henry  Kurtz  and  C. 
L.  Hunsecker. 

How  to  Treat  Lawns. 

The  question:  "Should  the  grass  be  taken  from 
the  lawn  when  cut  by  the  mower?"  was  answered  in 
the  aliirmative  by  Levi  S.  Reist,  who  favored  cutting 
it  with  a  scythe,  rather  than  with  a  lawn  mower. 
When  well  done  it  makes  the  lawn  look  like  a  tine 
mcailow.     In  the  fall  the  lawn  should  be  manured. 

Mk.  Keniiio  did  not  exactly  agree  with  Mr.  Reist. 
He  preferred  the  lawn  mower  to  the  scythe  and 
would  generally  leave  the  cut  grass  on  the  ground, 
taking  it  off  occasionally. 

PitoE.  Stauffek  said  many  lawns  were  dying  out; 
too  frecpient  mowings  and  removal  of  the  grass  ex- 
hausted both  the  soil  and  the  roots. 

S.P.  EBVhad  frequently  killed  weeds  by  piling 
cut  grass  upon  them.  The  same  course  would  kill 
the  grass. 

.Messhs.  .J.  H.  BuACKniLL,  C.  L.  Hunsecker  and 
President  Cooper  would  mow  frequently,  but  not  too 
close,  and  allow  the  cut  grass  to  remain  on  the 
ground. 

A  Fall  Exhibition. 

Levi  S.  Reist  made  a  motion  that  a  committee  of 
five  be  appointed  to  consult  on  the  expediency  of  the 
society  holding  a  public  exhibition  this  fall.  The 
motion  was  agreed  to,  and  the  chair  apjiointed  the 
following  gentlemen  said  committee  :  Levi  S.  Reist. 
Henry  .VI.  Engle,  Levi  W.  GrolT,  J.  Staun"er  :"i'l  '..  ,i 
Pownall. 

A  New  Corresponding  Secretary.. 

Ai.EXANoEK  Harris,  corresponding  secretary, 
tendered  his  resignation  as  corrcs|)onding  secretary, 
and  asked  that  it  be  acccjited.  The  resignation  was 
accepted,  and  W.  J.  Kafroth,  of  West  Earl,  was 
elected  by  acclamation  to  fill  the  vacancy. 
Agricultural  Reports. 

.loilNsoN  Mii.LER  laid  before  the  society  ten  bound 
volumes  of  the  proceedings  of  the  State  Agricultural 
Society  and  stated  that  they  were  presented  by  Sena- 
tor Roebuck  for  distribution  among  the  members, 
and  that  members  who  did  not  now  receive  a  cojiy 
could  obtain  one  by  addressing  Dr.  Roebuck. 
Testing  the  Fruit. 

Casper  Hii.i.er  having  laid  before  the  society 
specimeus  of  ap|iles,  pears  and  lilies,  Messrs.  M.  U. 
Kendig,  S.  P.  Eby  and  Levi  Pownall  were  appointed 
a  committea  to  test  their  merit.  The  samples  con- 
sisted of  the  "all  summer"  apple;  ".Manning's  Eliz- 
abeth" pear;  the  "Olt"  pear;  the  "Kirtland"  pear; 


the  "auratum"  and  "double  tiger"  lilies.    The  com- 
mittee made  a  favorable  report  of  all  the  fruits  and 

flowers. 

The  Centennial  Diploma. 

A  coinmnnicalinn  was  received  from  an  officer  of 
the  late  Intcrnationul  Kxhlbilion,  stating  that  a  di- 
ploma had  been  awarded  the  society,  and  asking 
whether  it  should  lie  framed  or  not  framed  before 
sending  it  to  the  society. 

On  motion  the  secretary  was  directed  to  Inform  the 
holder  of  the  diploma  to  forward  it  to  the  society 
without  a  frame. 

Questions  for  Next  Meeting. 

The'  liillcpwing  questions  were  referred  for  discus- 
sion at  next  meeting  : 

How  shall  a  Lancaster  county  farm  be  managed 
to  produce  the  best  pecuniary  result  i  For  general 
discussion. 

What  is  the  best  mode  of  constructing  cisterns  for 
fanning  purposes?    To  .\nihrose  Pownall. 

TOBACCO    GROWERS'  ASSOCIATION. 

The  Tobacco  (irowers'  Association  met  on  Mon- 
liay,  .July  23,  in  the  Athcna'um  rooms  at  2J4  o'clock. 
The  following  members  were  present : 

M.  I).  Kendig,  Henry  Kurtz,  I.  L.  Landis,  A. 
Eshleman,  A.  H.  Long,  Silas  K.  Eshleman,  .Sylves- 
ter Kennedy,  (icorge  A.  Trban,  C.  M.  Ilostetter, 
Harry  Mayer,  H.  Shilfncr,  R.  W.  Ciarlier,  Wash.  L. 
Hersliey,  Mieliael  .More,  Adam  Long,  Hiram  (farber, 
Andrew  (iarbcr,  Andrew  Brubaker,  .Mr.  Bailer, 
Adam  Bear,  E.  Huber,  -lacob  Kuhlman,  Henry 
Wolf,  SamiKd  Krb,  S.  Fleckenstein. 

Thc^  regular  SciTetary  being  absent,  Silas  K.  Esh- 
leman was  elected  Secretary  pratem.  The  minutes 
of  the  last  regular  meeting  were  read  and  approved. 

Next  in  order  were 

Crop  Reports. 

I.  S.  Lanmiis,  Manhcim,  reported  the  crops  In  his 
section  as  looking  remarkably  well,  and  fully  equal 
to  last  year's  crop.  Some  patches  lonk  very  irregu- 
lar, and  the  cut-worm  has  committed  some  depreda- 
tions. In  the  early  part  of  flu.'  season  the  green 
worm,  it  was  thought,  would  do  some  damage,  but 
it  has  disappeari'd.  He  had  a  few  eases  of  old  to- 
bacco yet.  A  larger  acreage  was  planted  this  year 
than  last. 

Sylvester  Kennedy,  of  Salisbury,  said  their 
crop  w;is  a  medium  one,  owing  partly  to  cut-worms 
and  partly  to  dry  weather.  The  cut-worm  is  doing 
more  injury  tliiin  the  green  worm.  Nearly  double 
the  usual  numtn'r  of  acres  was  planted  this  year. 

Henuy  KiMtTZ,  of  Mount  .loy.  Tlnnr  crop  looks 
tolerably  well,  but  was  planted  too  early,  and  some 
of  it  is  shooting  into  a  head,  and  will  not  amount  to 
anything.  Old  tobacco  is  pretty  well  sold  off,  but  he 
hail  about  ten  acres  yet. 

C.  M.  Hostetter  and  Henry  Kurtz,  both  of  Mt. 
•Joy,  were  elected  members. 

ilENRY  Mayer,  East  Hempfield.  Crops  look 
pretty  well  in  this  section,  but  of  course  need  rain. 
Cut  wfirm  lias  been  trouliling  them.  Acreage  somc- 
^vhat.  larger  than  last  j'car. 

Mr.  Lanius  here  called  the  attention  of  the  mem- 
bers to  a  tobacco  leaf  measuring  o^ixl'.l  inches,  pre- 
sented by  Mr.   Ilostetter. 

M.  r>.  Ken'iho,  of  Manor.  Their  tobacco  is  not  so 
large  as  some  have  reported,  but  large  enough  to 
make  a  good  crop  with  fair  weather.  Worms  were 
plenty  in  the  early  part  of  the  season,  but  one  or  two 
pickings  cleaned  tliein  out.  Old  tobacco  nearly  all 
sold,  except  one  or  two  lots,  both  in  ease  and  out, 
but  these  do  not  amount  to  much. 

Henry  Kurtz  spoke  of  a  little  black  bug  that 
bothered  the  tobacco.  It  is  something  like  the  [lo- 
tato  bug  and  cuts  holes  in  the  leaf  like  a  pin  hole. 

S.  Kennedy  described  the  manner  in  which  he 
lesscne*l  the  number  of  worms  on  his  tobacco.  The 
fly  that  breeds  this  worm  settles  on  the  .Jamestown, 
or  as  it  is  conimoniy  called  "Jimson"  weeil,  and  at 
nigh'  he  kills  Hiese  flies.  It  was  his  opinion  that 
e'cry  I'y  is  equal  to  about  a  thousand  worms,  and 
Jiis  method  saves  a  vast  amount  of  picking. 

Keiren  tiARRER,  Wcst  Hcmpfield,  said  they  had 
a  fair  average  crop. 

Mr.  Copenuavkr,  West  Hempfield.  Crops  look 
very  good,  better  than  last  year  at  this  time,  and 
about  Marietta  and  East  Donegal  exceedingly  well. 
Cut-worm  bad  at  first  but  not  now.  More  acreage 
this  than  last  year.  Tobacco  is  better  looked  after 
than  usual,  as  the  farmers  find  it  pays  better  when  it 
is  well  attencled. 

Ciiaki.es  Rhodes,  Safe  Harbor.  The  thread  or 
heart  worm  is  ravaging  fearfully  in  his  section  and 
in  parts  of  York  county,  and  between  them  and  the 
crows,  which  feast  on  the  worms,  the  crop  is  being 
killed.  Some  of  the  farmers  laughed  and  rejoiced 
when  they  got  their  tobacco  out  earlier  than  others, 
as  they  thouirht  they  would  come  in  ahead  of  their 
neighbors,  but  now  the  rejoicing  is  on  the  other  side. 
That  set  out  earlier  is  now  very  irregular,  but  that 
planted  later  is  growing  finely.  Old  tobacco,  some 
fine  small  lots  lying  around,  but  buyers  are  fast 
gathering  il  up. 

There  was  some  discussion  about  the  thread  or 
heart  worm,  as  to  whether  it  began  In  the  heart  of 


d26 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  August, 


the  plant  or  on  thp  outeide.  There  were  mcmhers 
who  hafi  seen  both  kinds,  and  it  was  decided  that 
there  must  be  two  varieties  of  the  same  worm.  Prof. 
S.  S.  Kathvon  was  consulted  on  the  subject,  hut  he 
could  not  classify  it  until  he  had  seen  a  specimen. 

Wash.  L.  Hershey  reported  the  crops  in  his  sec- 
tion as  being  in  a  good  condition. 

Referred  Questions. 

Wjiat  is  the  proper  time  and  height  for  topping 
(obaceo?  This  question  had  been  referred  to  Mr.  A. 
.'^hifl'ner,  but  he  not  being  able  to  attend  the  meeting 
sent  in  his  answer.     It  was  as  follows  : 

As  the  question  of  topping  tobacbo  was  referred  to 
me  I  shall  make  a  few  brief  remarks  on  the  question. 
As  the  time  I'or  topping  is  at  hand  I  would  lirst  say 
that  every  glower  ought  to  be  acquainted  with  the 
soil  he  has  planted.  Rich,  loamy  soil  will  bear 
higher  topping;  to  the  best  of  my  knowledge  twelve 
to  fourteen  leaves  is  sufficient  for  any  stalk,  and  in 
soil  that  is  not  enriched  eight  and  ten  leaves  will  be 
plenty.  Tobacco  stalks  should  not  all  be  topped  one 
height. 

In  a  i^atch  some  are  more  strong  and  growthy  than 
others.  The  small  or  backward  ones  should  be  top- 
ped lower  than  the  vigorous  or  growthy  ones.  The 
time  for  topping  tobacco,  to  the  best  of  my  judgment, 
is  about  the  time  the  seed  bud  makes  its  appearance. 
<'are  shoujil  lie  taken  in  pincl.iug  ofl'  the  bud  not  to 
scratch  or  tear  the  small,  lender  leaves.  We  should 
all  be  sure  to  top  low .  If  we  do  not  we  cannot  get 
in  the  high  grades.  It  matters  not  how  nice  and 
clean  a  lot  of  tobacco  is  if  it  don't  come  in  to  triple 
and  double  A.  We  cannot  get  the  highest  price  for 
it  without  having  that  grade,  and  we  can  reach  it 
only  by  low  toiJjiing  and  good  attention. 

Hexkt  Kurtz  endorsed  the  views  of  Mr.Shiflfner. 
If  tobacco  is  tojipcd  low  it  is  of  a  better  grade,  and 
brings  a  better  price.  He  would  advise  all  to  top 
low. 

Henry  M.vyer  agreed  with  the  gentlemen  who 
had  spoken,  but  did  not  believe  that  tobacco  should 
be  topiicd  too  low.  An  ordinary  sized  leaf  of  good 
quality  will  bring  a  better  price  than  a  large  leaf  of 
poor  quality. 

S.  Kennedy  thought  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to 
have  a  good  cigarmaker  give  his  views  on  the  sub- 
ject. He  thought  a  large  leaf  was  preferable  to  a 
small,  as  more  wrappers  could  be  cut  out  of  it.  The 
cigarmakers  always  follow  the  veins  in  cutting 
wrappers,  taking  the  leaf  between  two  veins  for  a 
wrapper. 

Henry  Mayer  denied  this,  and  said  only  the  point 
of  the  leaf  was  used,  therefore  a  small  leaf  was  as 
good  as  a  large  one. 

Henry  Kurtz  said  that  he  had  a  new  kind  of  to- 
bacco, which  took  a  prize  at  the  Centennial.  It  grew 
to  the  leutrth  of  4.8  inches  and  would  bring  at  least 
.SO  cents-  If  of  a  tini'  quality  a  big  leaf  is  preferable, 
but  if  coarse  it  is  not. 

M.  D.  Kendio  said  that  it  was  his  experience  that 
jobbers  always  look  for  long  tobacco  and  do  not  pay 
much  attention  to  the  quality.  It  is  useless  to  try  to 
convince  them  that  a  small  leaf  is  better  than  a  large 
one,  as  it  certainly  is.     To  get  Ions  le.avcs,  top  low. 

Harry  Mayer  thought  that  a  great  deal  depended 
on  the  season.  The  last  two  weeks  should  be  very 
favorable. 

Discussion  closed. 

Is  there  any  advantage  in  scaffolding  tobacco  in  the 
fields  ;     For  general  discussion. 

This  was  the  ne.Kt  question,  liut  the  proceedings 
were  interrupted  to  allow  Prof.  Kathvon  to  read  a 
very  interesting  account  of  a  new  species  of  worm. 
The  account  was  clipped  from  a  Marietta  paper,  and 
is  as  follows  : 

"The  tobacco  growers  in  this  section  have  found  a 
new  worm  at  the  plants  this  season,  which  is  more 
troulilesome  than  the  cut-worm.  It  is  a  little  over 
half  an  inch  long,  of  a  brownish  hue,  and  doi«  not 
operate  like  the  cut-worm.  It  commences  under- 
ground, just  at  the  top  of  the  root,  and  bores  into 
the  centre,  and  then  eats  out  the  heart  of  the  stalk 
until  it  reaches  the  top  of  the  ground.  The  plant 
thus  hollowed  out  will  remain  green  for  a  week  or 
ten  days  before  it  begins  to  wilt,  but  the  presence  of 
the  worm  can  be  detected  by  the  smallest  leaf  wither- 
ing before  it  has  long  been  at  the  root.  The  plant 
once  attacked  by  this  animal,  it  becomes  worthless 
and  might  as  well  be  pulled  up.  Messrs.  John  and 
Calvin  .Sidlzhach,  who  have  three  acres  in  tobacco 
have  had  one-third  of  them  destroyed  by  this  new 
I'est.  It  was  supposed  that  the  growers  had  as 
much  to  contend  with  in  the  cut-worm  in  the  early 
stages  of  its  growth  as  they  could  handle,  but  this 
wire-worm,  as  it  is  called,  promises  to  give  tlicra  a 
good  deal  of  trouble." 

The  discussion  was  then  resumed.  Henry  Kurtz 
said  that  it  was  his  opinion  that  scaffolding  in  the 
field  was  not  of  much  account.  If  tobacco  can  be 
housed  without  scaffolding  it  is  much  better.  If  it 
can  he  scaffolded  in  the  shade  it  is  not  so  bad,  but  he 
did  not  favor  it. 

-Mr.  Copenhaver  had  scaffolded  for  twenty  years, 
ami  was  strongly  in  favor  of  it.  He  said  that  the  to- 
bacco wilted  and  was  much  easier  to  handle,  and 
could  he  hung  up  in  half  the  time  that  It  could 
while  green.    Besides  this  it  did  not  break  as  easily 


as  it  did  while  green.  Always  let  tobacco  hang 
out    a    few  days. 

Henry  Kurtz  said  that  alhough  he  was  in  favor 
of  shedding  immediately,  he  was  not  in  favor  of  put- 
ting tobacco  in  its  place  at  once.  He  first  hung  it 
low  down  in  the  shed,  and  in  a  few  days  hung  it  uj) 
higher. 

Henry  Mayer  was  of  the  opinion  that  it  should 
be  hung  in  its  place  at  once.  If  it  was  hung  on 
scaffolds  it  wilted  and  then  when  hung  up  it  was 
placed  too  close  together.  The  consequence  of  this 
was  that  in  damp  weather  it  swelled  and  rotted. 
All  growers  should  have  a  gauge  by  which  to  hang 
tobacco.  He  hung  about  six  stalks  on  a  lath,  plac- 
ing them  about  eight  inches  apart. 

Peter  S.  Ketst  thought  it  depended  on  the  sea- 
son as  to  whether  it  should  be  scaffolded  or  not.  If 
taken  off  when  the  weather  Nvas  hot  like  at  the  pres- 
ent time  it  should  be  housed  immediately,  (>r  it 
would  scorch.  If  cut  late  it  might  be  hung  on  scaf- 
folds for  a  week  or  ten  days. 

E.  HuMEit  jireferrcd  housing  it  immediately,  as 
did  also  M.  D.  Kendig,  who  thought  then  there 
would  be  no  danger  of  getting  it  too  close.  It  might 
not  be  out  of  pl.ice  to  wilt  it  down  a  little,  but  then 
there  was  danger  of  frost. 

S.  K.  EsHLEMAN  wanted  information  on  the  sub- 
ject of  transporting  tobacco.  He  said  that  buyers- 
complained  that  it  was  injured  by  being  hauled  in 
wagons,  and  told  of  several  places  where  he  had 
seen  wagons  fixed  specially  for  hauling  tobacco, 
with  places  to  hang  it  as  it  was  cut.  He  wanted  to 
know  if  this  was  general. 

IlENin'  Kurtz  answered  that  he  knew  of  a  large 
number  of  such  wagons,  and  it  was  becoming  general. 

Discussion  closed. 

Ne'w  Business. 

Under  this  head  I.  L.  Landis  introduced  the  sub- 
ject of  butterflies  that  breed  worms.  (Ti'owers  are 
much  annoyed  by  them.  In  the  South  the  cotton 
planters  are  likewise  annoyed  hy  a  cotton  fly,  which 
they  rid  themselves  of  by  building  large  fires.  The 
flies  are  attracted  by  these  tires  and  flying  into  them 
are  burned  to  death.  He  had  a  plan,  of  which  he 
read  in  some  paper,  that  he  thought  would  be  suc- 
cessful. It  was  to  take  a  tub  of  water  into  the  field, 
and  place  a  strong  light  into  the  tub.  The  light 
would  attract  the  flies,  and  getting  their  wings 
scorched  they  would  fall  into  the  tub  and  be  drowned. 

Prof.  Kathvon  exhibited  some  specimens  of  this 
fly,  and  gave  thfe  Latin  name  for  it. 

Peter  S.  Keist  heartily  endorsed  Mr.  Landis' 
plan,  as  he  had  tried  it  and  found  it  completely  suc- 
cessful. 

E.  IIuBEii  told  of  th^  manner  in  which  they 
cleai'cd  their  apple  orchard  of  flies  by  building  large 
fires  at  the  edge  of  the  orchard. 

The  following 

Referred  Questions 

were  adopted  for  next  meeting. 

How  soon  after  stripj)ing  should  or  can  tobacco  be 
cased  *    Keferred  to  Henry  Kurtz. 

Which  is  the  best  method  to  ])ut  tobacco  on  the 
lath,  by  splitting,  spearing,  pegging,  or  stripping  the 
leaves  off  the  stalk  i     For  general  discussion. 

How  should  sheds  be  managed  after  hanging  the 
tobacco,  in  order  to  have  it  cured  properly?  Referred 
to  W.  L.  Hershey. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Kathvon,  and  the  members  of  the  press 
who  reported  the  meetings  of  the  society, were  elected 
honorary  members  of  the  societ}'. 

THE  LINNyEAN   SOCIETY. 

The  Linuican  Society  met  on  Saturday,  July  '2S, 
with  nine  members  present  and  President  J.  S. 
Stahr  in  the  chair.  After  the  collection  of  dues  and 
the  consideration  of  the  minutes  of  the  last  meeting, 
a  few 

Additions  to  the  Museum 
were  examined  and  found  to  consist  of  the  following: 

A  small  colcoptera  ftjund  infesting  the  .Sutnac,  per 
J.  B.  P^shleman.  It  belongs  to  the  family  "Chry- 
somelidae ;"  the  "  Blcpharida  rhoix,"  "the  only 
species  we  have  of  this  genus. 

Mr.  Bui.ton  captured  night-flying  moths,  which 
proved  to  lie  the  ^^iJryoricnipa  rubl  cniida,^^ 

Mr.  John  Dufi-'y  ifbund  a  circular  body  shaped 
like  a  lady's  small  watch,  in  a  tortoise-colored  case, 
and  black  band.  He  was  fearful  it  might  be  a  tor- 
pedo, but  it  [iroves  to  be  one  of  those  curious  sea- 
beans,  that  grows  on  nobody  knows  what  tree,  and 
yet  are  so  common  on  the  Southern  seaboard.  Sir 
Hans  Sloane  notices  it  in  his  catalogue  of  Jam.aica 
plants,  as  found  both  in  the  West  and  East  Indies, 
known  as  hose-eye,  from  the  ebony  colored  hihis  sur- 
roiuiding  the  edge  of  the  bean,  the  upper  ami  lower 
side  of  which  is  slightly  convex ;  called  also  sea 
lentil  and  sarogossa  ;  but  this  gives  us  no  elue  to  the 
tree  or  plant  that  yields  them.  Who  will  give  the 
desired  information  i 

Several  abnormal  growths,  one  in  a  grape  vine, 
(Hartford  I'rolilic)  in  which  a  second  crop  of  llow- 
ers  came  forth  to  bloom  and  set  fruit — a  simple  sus- 
pension and  subsequcul  action  in  the  necessary  juices. 

An  umble  of  a  PclargouimUf  in  full  flower  ;  one  of 
the  peduncles,  however,   having  an  excess  of  vital 


action, prolonged  itself  into  a  stem  and  formed  a  see 
ond  umble  of  flowers  out  of  the  first.  L.aid  on  the 
table  by  our  worthy  President,  Rev.  ■!.  S.  .Stahr. 

Mii.  Bolton  also  left  some  neatly  moinited  ferns, 
('nmptosoriis  rhizopliyllvs  ;  the  walking  fern,  that  is, 
the  leaf  elongates  its  terminal  point  and  again  strikes 
root — found  on  rocks  in  shady  places.  Also  the  pretty 
little  A.solnu'fni  trii:hoinants. 

To  the  historical  collection  was  added  a  rare 
ancient  coin  of  Licinius  Senior,  A.  D.  30~-o24,  per 
Kev.  J.  H.  Dubbs.  Also  two  envelopes  of  clippings 
of  historical  interest,  per  S.  S.  Kathvon. 

Additions  to  the  Library. 

American  Philosophical  Society,  vol.  xvi.  Jan.  !• 
to  May  1.S77,  No.  99. 

Printed  circulars  and  two  pamphlets  of  book  cata- 
logues. The  Lancaster  Farmer  for  July.  The 
published  address  of  Rev.  D.  W.  Gerhard,  A.  M., 
delivered  at  New  Holland,  to  the  Reformed  Church. 

An  address  by  Ceo.  F.  Bear,  delivered  at  the  dedi- 
cation of  Palatinate  College,  Myerstown,  December 
2.S,  187.5. 

An  oration  delivered  at  Reading,  June  19,  1876,  by 
Hon.  Daniel  Ermcntrout — "Our  Peojile."  Donated 
per  Mr.  A.  F.  Hostetter,  member. 

A  copy  of  the  aiuiual   report   of  the   Se<Tetary  of 
Internal    Afl'airs,    Part    III.,    Industrial     Statistics, 
through  Wm.  McCandless,  per  Wm.  H.  H.  Grier. 
Papers  Read. 

The  neat  and  sharply  marked  fossil  presented  at 
the  last  meeting  by  Kev.  Mr.  Houpt,  is  described  as 
the  PcntraiiUia  f^orilonu.  otherwise  fiorials — belong- 
ing to  the  crinoids,  and  Its  relation,  by  S.  S.  Kath- 
von— paper  No.  .508.  Appended  to  this  paper  was  a 
resume  on  the  former  article  "Matzabaum,"  which 
he  finds,  according  to  Dr.  Rultgers,  an  intelligent 
German  citizen,  should  be  written  ".Martzipan" 
(pronounced  Marr-tsce-pahn)  or  ".Marcusbread,"  a 
Venetian  sweet  bread,  (pants  Marcius.) 

Kev.  Jos.  H.  Dubbs  read  a  highly  interesting  pa- 
per in  reference  to  the  coin  donated,  an  excellent 
specimen  of  the  Roman  third  bronze.  The  inscrip- 
tion (uii'cvAT- iftNLliiNivsPEAvci)  wliicli  translat- 
ed, (ler  Mr.  D.  reads,  "The  Emperor  Galenius  Val- 
erius Liconianus  Licinius,  High  Priest,  Augustus." 
This  is  on  the  obverse  with  the  usual  bust  of  the 
reigning  monarch.  The  reverse  represents  Jupiter 
standing,  with  an  eagle  at  his  side,  and  in  his  right 
hand  a  figure  of  Victory,  holding  a  chaplet  with  the 
legend — ".lovicONSERVATORY,''  that  is  "To  Jove, 
the  Preserver."  In  the  exergue  are  the  letters  s.mn. 
i.  e.  "Sacra  Moneta  Narbonensis — no  doubt  struck 
in  the  mint  in  the  city  of  Narbonne,  in  Southern 
Gaul.  The  interesting  history  about  those  limes 
must  be  given  in  a  special  notice  of  the  article  pub- 
lished at  length. 

A  slip  cut  from  an  Easlon,  Pa.,  newspaper  was 
read,  which  states  that  on  the  farm  of  Dr.  AV.  P. 
Kisller,  near  Schecksvillc,  is  a  chestnut  tree  that  is 
a  great  curiosity.  The  trunk  is  perfectly  straight 
and  shoots  to  a  great  height,  while  the  branches,  in- 
stead of  stretchiug  outward,  rim  perpendicular  w.th, 
or  s])irally  around  it,  making  it  impossible  to  climb 
it.  In  appearance  it  looks  more  like  a  Lombardy 
poplar  than,  a  chestnut  tree,  which  promises  this 
season  to  yield  an  abundance  of  nuts,  as  usual,  of 
a  large  size.  This  came  up  under  scientific  gossip, 
with  the  other  sports  found  in  the  vegetable  kingdom, 
in  which  the  botanist  took  a  part.  Darwin  was  re- 
ferred to,  facts  admitted,  but  theories  questioned. 
After  all,  as  regards  the  chestnut  tree,  a  playful 
trimming  of  the  lower  branches  of  a  chestnut  sprout 
and  spirally  turning  the  upper  branches  might  sim- 
ply verify  the  old  adage — "As  the  twig  is  bent  the 
tree  is  inclined."  There  are  wonderful  trainings  on 
i-ecord. 

The  committee  to  till  the  bottles  to  preserve  speci- 
mens, reported  having  attended  to  that  duty,  at  an 
expense  for  alcohol  and  para ffine  p.aper  of  50  cents, 
which  was  on  motion  ordered  to  be  paid.  Said  com- 
mittee was  continued  and  authorized  to  have  the 
rooms  cleaned  up.  Although  very  warm,  the  society 
enjoyed  the  meeting  and  discussions,  and  on  motion 
adjourned  to  Saturday,  August  25,1877. 


Manure  for  Fruit  Trees. 
The  Western  New  York  Horticultural  Society 
lately  discus^eil  the  question  of  manure  for  fruit 
trees.  One  member  said  that  he  had  used  super- 
phosphate of  lime  with  good  results.  Another  mem- 
ber said  he  had  seen  more  benefit  resulting  from 
super-phosphate  the  second  year  than  the  first,  es- 
jiccially  when  the  first  was  a  dry  season.  Another 
member  preferred  wood  ashes.  He  once  used  1,800 
bushels  of  leached  ashes  on  the  sand  soil  of  his  or- 
chard and  vineyard  with  very  great  advantage,  apply- 
ing it  at  the  ratio  of  :;00  bushels  per  acre.  The 
quality  as  well  as  size  and  yield  of  fruit  was  very 
much  improved.  Another  member  considered  barn- 
yard mainire  as  the  most  jirofitable  fertilizer  for  fruit 
trees,  as  it  furnishes  all  the  elements  required  for 
growth  and  fertility.  Fruitgrowers  should  therefore 
manufacture  all  the  manure  they  can,  by  kcciiing 
horses,  cattle,  pigs,  poultry,  and  gathering  up  all  the 
litter,  tS:c.,  for  the  manure  pile.  Some  people  are  lia- 
ble to  make  mistakes  in  using  stimulating  manures 
as  fertilizers  for  fruit  crops. 


1877.1 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


127 


AGRICULTURAL. 


A  Bountiful  Harvest. 
The  ro|XiHR  which  have  hillipilo  appcaipd  in  puh- 
Uc  press,  c-oncoriiiiii;  the  oxi-i'llcnl  rio|)8  in  proeppct, 
have  not  I'een  premature  (irexaniiiMMlcil.  Tlic-  wlie.Tt 
rrop,  now  almost  secured,  is  umlouliledly  llic  hirjrefit 
ever  harvested  in  lids  country.  Stimulated  hy  the 
prospect  of  lictter  prices,  farmers  exerted  themselves 
last  fall  and  8|irini,' to  eet  in  as  larifc  an  acreage  as 
possible,  anil  the  result  is  that  the  total  area  exceeds 
that  of  any  previous  year,  while  the  average  yield 
per  acre  ie  without  doulit  the  hest  on  record.  Some 
writers  put  it  at  twenty-tivc  hushels  for  the  entire 
country,  hut  this  is  evidently  an  cxasja'cration  ;  if  it 
reaches  eifihtccn  liu.sliels,  and  Ironi  all  reports  we 
think  it  will,  it  will  excocd  the  avcra^;e  of  any  [uevi- 
0U8  year,  and  Hill  make  a  nias;nifieenl  cro|i  in  the 
aggreeate.  E.  U.  Mansfield,  the  well-known  statis- 
tical writer,  places  the  avera(;e  yield  of  Ohio  at 
eighteen  Imslicis  or  more.  The  acreay:c  hi-  puts  at 
2,1(»,I1I)0,  making  a  (rrand  aggregate  of  :i7,.S0(),(l00 
bushels  of  wheat— the  greatest  ever  raised  in  the 
State,  both  in  acrcasrc  and  average.  The  Iburtecn 
counties  of  the  Miami  valley  produced  ^..^O.^dO 
bushels  in  bS74,  and  this  year  he  says  llicy  will  |iro- 
duce  8,000,1101)  bushels. 

Ohio  is  scarcely  ahead  of  other  States  in  this  crop, 
as  our  reports  from  all  points  arc  cipially  encourag- 
ing. Kair  estimates  place  the  incicase  of  this  year 
over  that  of  ls74,at  about  tV.',OOO,IH)0  bushels,  which 
would  brim:  the  aggregate  up  to  :!71 ,00(1,0110  bushels, 
and  at  Sl.W  per  bushel,  will  be  worth  S.Wfi.iiOO.OOO. 
At  present  prices  the  bulk  of  this  crop  will  be  mar- 
keted at  once,  and  the  elt'ect  ufion  the  business  of  the 
country  can  not  help  being  good.  Whether  it  will 
h.-im;  about  an  active  revival  of  business  or  not,  one 
thing  is  certain,  it  will  remove  the  fanning  class  be- 
yond the  influence  of  the  depression  that  exists  else- 
where. 

But  wheat  is  not  the  only  "big  crop"  of  the  year. 
The  hay  crop  is  unusually  large,  and  oats  never 
protnised  better.  I. ate  reports  also  place  the  corn 
crop  among  the  bountiful  ones  of  the  year.  Locali- 
ties have  been  injured  liy  wet  weather,  but  they  arc 
limited,  and  will  have  little  efl'eel  upon  the  general 
result.  Take  all  crops  together,  grainand  vegetable, 
and  the  aggregate  yiebl  will  undoubtedly  exceecl 
largely  that  of  any  previous  year — lor  which  men  of 
I  all  occupations  will  be  thankful,  but  especially  will 
the  farmer  rejoice,  as  it  i»laces  him  in  a  most  en- 
viable position.  Those  wlio  an>  able  to  hold  their 
wheat  will  have  but  one  thing  to  worry  about — and 
that  is,  whether  to  sell  it  or  lioM  it  for  better  prices. 
Ft  is  a  fpieslion  we  are  not  going  to  decide,  but  we 
would  suggest  that  it  is  best,  always,  to  "  let  well 
enough  alone." 

Cultivating   Wheat. 

in  iierusing  the  various  agricultural  journals,  I 
see  it.  is  claimed  by  some  that  wheat  sown  in  drills, 
IS  to  24  inches  apart,  and  cultivated  in  spring  with  a 
plow  similar  to  other  hoed  crops,  will  increase  the 
yield  from  one-thirtl  to  one-halt'  more  than  without 
cultivation.  ..\s  we  have  no  cxpei'ience  in  this  matter 
in  this  part  of  the  country,  and  being  desirous  of  ex- 
perimenting to  some  extent  next  autumn  with  winter 
wheat,  I  would  ask  as  a  favor  that  you  and  all  yonr 
contributors,  who  have  had  any,  would  give  their  ex- 
perience, that  those  who  may  desire  to  experiment 
next  season  may  have  the  benefit  of  it  to  begin  with. 
Harrowing  wheat  in  the  spring  has  been  inaetiecd  to 
a  limited  extent  here  for  some  time,  which  it  is 
claimed  bcnelits  the  eroj),  but  it  does  not  meet  with 
general  favor. —  /■'.  .1/.  /i'.,  Hockinart,  (in. 

[It  would  be  difficult  to  "plow"  wheat,  as 
jou  (iropose,  without,  covering  the  plants,  and  it 
would  not  be  economical  of  labor  unless  an  imple- 
ment were  emi)loyed  which  would  take  several  drills 
at  a  time,  as  is  practiced  in  England.  Wheat,  like 
corn,  would  grow  more  vigorously  for  mellowing  the 
surface  and  breaking  the  crust.  The  experiments 
»r  liave  tried  have  given  ((uite  favorable  results,  the 
""rU,  if  thoroughly  and  repeatedly  done,  increasing 
1  lie  crop  from  six  to  ten  bushels  per  acre  in  most 
cases.  In  the  experiments  you  mention,  the  harrow 
iug  may  have  been  imperfectly  performed,  and  with 
an  unauitabic  instrument.] — Country  (/cntlcmcn. 


Treating  Manure  with  Unslaked  Lime. 
Some  years  ago  I  knew  a  farmer  who  undertook  to 
itnprovc  the  mamirc  in  his  barny.'ii-d  by  spreading  on 
it  unslaked  lime.  The  yard  w.is  sheltered,  most  of 
the  manure  being  in  a  basement  to  his  b[irn,  to  which 
the  cattle  had  free  access.  Heturning  one  night 
from  a  visit  to  town  he  observed  an  unusual  light 
under  his  barn,  and  on  goinsr  to  the  spot  to  ascertain 
the  cause,  he  found  a  pile  of  manure  actually  send- 
ing out  a  small  llame  which  would  soon  have  reduced 
the  barn  and  contents  but  for  his  timely  discovery, 
lie  put  out  the  fire  and  abandoned  the  use  of  lime  in 
the  manure  heap,  for  the  lesson  satisfied  him  that 
burning  would  not  improve  manure. 

It  is  stated  that  more  wheat  was  raised  in  North 
Carolina  this  year  than  during  any  one  year  since  1835. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Varieties  of  Late  Turnips. 

While  the  number  of  varieties  of  turnips  given  in 
our  seeilsmen's  catalogues  are  frequently  more  con 
fusing  than  instructive  to  the  farmer,  still  we  may 
count  the  really  distinct  and  valuable  without  going 
la^vond  the  lindt  of  a  baker's  dozen,  and  jurrhaps  the 
half  of  this  would  be  aluinilantly  BUfliciciit  for  both 
the  early  and  late  .soi-ts.  Our  |>rcferen<'e  fortbclate, 
or  what  is  generally  termed  Hal  tundps,  is  the  (iolilen 
Hall,  or,  to  givt^  it  a  more  high-sounding  name, 
Kttbertson's  (lolden  Ball.  It  docs  not  grow  so  large 
as  some  of  the  whitc-fleshcd  sorts,  still  it  is  large 
cnoui;h  I'or  convenience  in  hanrlling  and  storing, 
whib^  the  roots  ai-c  smooth  ami  solid,  the  flesh  of  a 
rich  orange  yellow,  and  very  mitritive  and  sweet. 
(l(dden-fleshcd  turni[>s,  like  golden  butter,  look 
richer  than  the  white,  even  if  they  are  not  ;  but  we 
are  inclined  to  think  tliey  arc  so  in  fact  as  well  as  in 
appearance,  and  for  these  reasons  we  prefi'r  them. 
The  yellow  Aberdeen  is  an  older  variety,  similar  to 
the  last  and  a  most  excellent  sort.  Both  of  these 
ycllow-ficshcd  sorts  retain  their  good  qualities  until 
late  in  the  spring,  if  kept  in  a  cool  place  durinc;  the 
winter.  Tlio  Cow-Horn  is  a  rcmai'kably  large  tui'- 
nip  ;  that  is,  it  contains  a  large  amount  of  pulp  or 
flesh,  and  gi'ows  very  long  instead  of  round,  as  Is 
usual  with  this  class  of  roots.  The  shai>e  of  this 
root  adndls  of  a  greater  weight  being  i)roduccd  per 
acre  with  the  flat  or  round  sorts,  as  the  plants  can 
stand  nearer  together,  a  portion  being  buried  in  the 
soil  and  the  remainder  rising  above  it.  A  turnip  of 
this  form,  a  foot  long  and  four  inches  In  diameter, 
will  of  course  contain  four  times  as  much  substance 
as  one  of  the  same  diameter  and  only  tlu-ce  inches  in 
depth.  The  (;ow-Horneii  turnip  is  a  white  fleshed 
sort,  and  gi'ows  as  freely  as  any,  and  quite  as  rapidly; 
the  Hesh,  however,  is  not  quite  so  solid,  nor  will  they 
keep  quite  as  well  as  the  more  firm  and  yellow 
fleshed  varieties.  Still,  it  is  an  excellent  tunup,  suc- 
ceeding well  on  light,  rich  soils.  These  are,  on 
account  of  their  shape,  very  easily  handled,  especially 
in  gathering  and  preparing  for  storiue:  in  winter,  and 
we  believe  would  become  more  popular  if  better 
known. — Jinral  Ncti^  Yorker. 


Value  of  Early  Apples. 

The  remarkable  fact  that  the  Ked  Astrachan  apple 
is  po]iular  over  the  whole  United  States,  and  which 
fact  has  heretofore  received  considerable  atteiilion  in 
the  Ti:liiiritpU,  is  again  receiving  notice  at  the  bands 
of  our  contemporaries  ;  one  of  them  suggesting  that 
for  all  this  it  is  hardly  a  fruit  that  any  amateur 
would  care  to  put  on  his  dessert  table.  But  then  is 
not  this  the  case  with  all  popular  early  apples  ;  When 
we  have  an  abundaneeof  jiears,  peaches,  grapes,  «^e., 
table  apples  are  not  anxiously  sought ;  but  for  cook- 
ing purposes  the  early  apples  are  always  popular. 
Thousands  of  bushels  are  annually  sold  for  kitchen 
purposes  at  the  early  season  for  every  bushel  of 
table  fruit.  Of  course  a  good  apple  is  a  good  thing 
at  any  season,  and  an  amateur  who  wants  every- 
thing nice  will  find  a  place  for  an  early  Joe,  an  early 
Strawberry,  or  some  other  early  kind  really  good  to 
eat ;  but  the  real  value  of  an  early  apple  to  the  world 
at  large,  which  means  all  who  want  to  make  money, 
as  well  as  those  who  want  a  good  fruit  to  eat,  de- 
pends on  how  it  takes  to  pies  and  sauce,  dumplings, 
ifce.,  and  how  it  bears  and  otherwise  behaves. 

In  this  respect  the  Ked  Astrachan  very  well  fills 
the  bill.  It  is  a  large  and  pretty  apple,  a  clear  white 
color,  and  as  soft  and  free  from  pulp  when  cooked  as 
frozen  cream.  In  this  part  of  the  world  it  is  by  no 
means  an  over-abundant  bearer,  but  it  produces 
crops  every  year,  and  as  much  as  a  tree  ought  to 
bear  to  live  a  long  and  useful  life. — OcrmaiUomi 
Telegraph. 

The  Peach  Crop. 

After  all  we  were  told  about  the  abundant  peach 
crop  of  Delaware,  it  seems  the  promise  of  the  spring 
is  not  going  to  be  realized.  Solon  Robinson  has  ji'«' 
investigated  the  prospects  of  a  large  yield. 
Clares  most  positively  that  instead  of  7,0ii  ,000  bas- 
kets, which  was  the  expected  yield,  at  the  outside 
there  will  not  be  more  than  S,(IOO,000.  The  really 
good  orchards  are  few  ami  far  between.  Some  grow- 
ers who  looked  forward  to  haudEome  returns,  will  be 
able  themselves  to  eat  every  ])cach  that  hangs  on 
their  trees.  Middletown,  Del.,  has  always  been 
known  as  a  "peach  centre,"  and  yet  it  is  asserted  asa 
fact  beyond  contradiction  that  a  single  team  will  be 
able  to  haul  all  the  iieaches  that  will  this  year  be 
sent  to  market  from  thai  iioint.  There  are  some  or- 
chards where  not  a  dozen  peaches  can  be  fouml  on  a 
hundred  frees.  This  will  be  as  disagreeable  to  con- 
sumers hereabouts,  as  to  the  peach  growers  them- 
selves. Of  late  years  large  amounts  of  this  delicious 
fruit  have  been  brought,  f^rom  Delaware  and  sold  in 
our  markets,  taking  the  place  of  the  home  yield, 
which  has  been  insufficient  to  sui]ply  the  local  de- 
mand. Our  home  crop  is  quite  small,  and  it  looks 
as  if  we  would  have  to  get  along  on  a  very  limited 
supply  of  this,  perhaps  the  most  delicious  of  all  the 
fruits  grown  in  temperate  climates. 


DOMESTIC    ECONOMY. 


Household   Recipes. 

r'AMPMEnriNd  Cakks.— A  cu|iful  of  sugar,  half  a 
cupful  of  butter,  half  a  cu|iful  of  ndlk,  two  eggs,  a 
teaspoonful  of  cream  of  tartar,  and  two  cupfuls  of 
Hour.  Sprinkle  sugar  over  before  putting  In  the 
oven. 

AlM'LK  C'heam. — Boll  a  ilozen  apples  of  pleasant 
flavor  in  water  until  soft,  take  oil'  the  iH:(d  and  press 
the  pulp  thniugh  a  sieve  upon  half  a  pound  of  |>owd- 
crcd  suirar  ;  whip  the  whiles  of  two  eggs,  atld  them 
to  the  api)les,  beat  them  all  together  till  it  becomes 
viry  stiff  and  looks  quite  white.  Serve  It  licai>cd 
upon  a  dish. 

Hkuhs  intended  for  dryint;  should  be  picked  just 
before  the  plant  blossoms.  Wash  them  until  they 
are  entirely  fi'Cc  from  dust,  anti  place  them  on  a  sieve 
to  drain.  Then  put.  them  in  the  oven  and  let  them 
l-emain  until  lliey  are  j)crfe»'tly  dry.  Afterward  rub 
from  the  stalk,  put  in  i;la6s  jars  and  cover  closely. 

To  CouK  Si  MMKR  SyiAsii. —  Unless  very  youiic 
pare  them  and  lake  out  the  seeils.  Cut  in  piecciand 
boil  in  salted  water  until  tender.  Pressout  allijf  the 
wafer  and  mash  smooth.  Season  with  bid  ter,  pepper 
and  salt,  and  a  tablcspoonful  of  cream,  put  in  a  fry. 
ing  pan  and  let  simmer  for  ten  minutes  or  longer. 
Serve  hot. 

Sassai-uab  Beeh. — Pour  two  quarts  of  boiling 
water  upon  two  large  spoonsful  of  cream  tartar,  anci 
aild  ten  drojts  of  oil  of  sassafras,  ten  tlrops  of  oil  of 
8i>ruce,  ten  drops  of  wlutergreen,  then  add  eight 
quarts  of  cold  water  and  a  |iint  of  good  yeast,  and 
sweeten  to  taste.  Let  stand  'J4  hours,  and  then  bottle 
it.     This  makes  a  delicious  summer  beverage. 

To  Prevent  a  Bonk  FKi.oN.—When  you  find 
that  you  have  a  bone  felon  condng,  apjily  a  fly  blister 
to  the  afTecteil  part  immediately,  and  let  it  draw  to 
its  fullest  extent.  An  early  application  of  this  kind 
will  seldom  fail  to  |iut  back  a  felon.  Of  course,  the 
remedy  is  somewhat  severe,  but  it  docs  not  compare 
in  this  respect  to  the  disease. 

lii.AcKiiEUUY  Wine. — Measure  your  berries  and 
brui.se  them  ;  to  every  gallon  add  one  quart  of  boiling 
water  ;  let  the  mixture  stand  twenty-four  hours,  stir- 
rin(r  occasionally  ;  then  strain  off  the  liquor  into  a 
cask,  to  every  gallon  adding  two  pounds  of  good, 
clean  sugar,  cork  tight,  and  let  stand  till  the  follow- 
ing Ocfofier,  when  it  will  be  ready  for  use. 

Of  all  fruit  conducive  to  health,  to  the  blackberry 
is  conceded  the  highest  place.  Thousands  of  lives, 
especially  of  children,  might  annually  be  saved  by  a 
free  use  of  this  fruit  during  the  summer.  The  fruit 
is  pleasant  and  wholest)me,  and  all  who  can  obtain 
it,  should  use  it  freely;  can,  and  .put  up  in  various 
w.ays,  according  to  taste,  a  goodly  sui)ply  for  future 
use.     We  apjiend  a  few  tried  recipes  : 

Bi.Ac  KiiEuuy  Jam. — .Mash  the  blackberries,  cover 
fhcni  with  white  sugar,  and  stand  them  overnight 
in  a  cool  place.  Use  one  pound  of  sugar  to  three 
jwiuiidsof  berries.  In  the  moriuni;  boil  for  twenty 
mimites,  stirring  well,  but  using  no  water.  Have 
the  jars  hot  the  same  for  caniung  fruit,  put  in  the 
jam  while  hot,  and  screw  on  the  lids  immediately — 
tightening  them  airain,  when  cool. 

Bi.AcKiiEKUv  Jii.T.Y. — Take  fresh  ripe  berries,  put 
them  in  a  porcelain  lined  kettle  with  a  little  water  ; 
just  enough  to  start  to  cooking.  As  soon  as  the 
berries  come  to  a  boil,  remove  from  the  fire  and  strain 
out  the  juice.  Measure  Ihc  juice,  put  it  back  in  the 
kettle,  and  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  lioil,  add  one  quart 
of  sugar  for  each  quart  of  juice.  Boil  down  to  suit 
taste.  If  you  wish  to  make  fine  jelly,  make  a  small 
quantity  at  a  time,  and  make  ((uickly. 

Bi,.V(KHEiiKV  ConDiAL. — Let  the  berries  get  fully 
ripe  before  they  are  gathered,  then  mash  them,  and 
let  the  juice  and  pomace  remain  together  for  eight 
or  ten  hours  ;  add  to  one  gallon  of  juice,  two  pounds 
of  crushed  sugar,  lialf  ounce  each  of  finely  pulverized 
cinnamon  and  nutmeg,  and  two  ounces  of  powdered 
allspice.  Boil  the  mixture  gently  for  fifteen  minutes  ; 
and  when  cold,  add  a  half-[iint  of  fourth-proof 
brand-,  <  ;■  '.'a--  bist  rye  whisky.  Bottle  in  pint  bot- 
f  -.with  the  corks  cutoff  even  with  the  top,  and 
voierwith  wax  to  exclude  the  air.  It  is  always 
better  to  put  cordial  up  in  small  bottles.  If  in  large 
bottles,  if  not  usci)  soon  after  opening,  it  is  liable  to 
spoil  or  lose  its  flavor.  This  is  an  excellent  remedy 
for  diarrhiea  and  summer  comjilaint. 

Ki.KEUiiEKKy  Wine. — This  is  an  old  Knglish  win- 
ter beverage,  always  in  that  country  being  drank 
warm  and  mulled  with  spices  and  sops  of  toasted 
bread.  We  have  also  found  it  to  be  an  excellent 
remedy  for  cholera  infantum,  and  for  diarrlicea  and 
ilysentery  in  adults,  being  more  efficacious,  we  think, 
than  blackberry  bramly.  From  a  teaspoonful  to  a 
tablcspoonful  may  be  given  three  times  a  day  to  in- 
fants, according  to  their  age,  and  to  adults  a  tumbler- 
ful three  times  a  day,  especially  when  going  to  bed. 
Il  acts  as  a  carminative  and  sudorfie.  We  give  a  re- 
ceipt for  making  it  :  Twenty  quarts  of  elderberries, 
masheil ;  twenty  quarts  of  water  ;  thirty  pounds  of 
light  brown  sugar;  of  grotuid  mace,  cinnamon  and 
cloves  each  one-half  ounce.  Boil  for  fifteen  minutes, 
strain  and  let  il  stand  to  cool ;  then  put  into  a  cask, 
adding  more  water  if  there  is  not  quite  enough  to  fill 
the  cask.    Place  in  a  dry,  sweet  cellar,  and  let  it  fer- 


i28 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  August,  1877. 


ment ;  when   the   fermentation   is  over  bung  it  up, 
and  in  the  follovviner  March  bottle  it  if  desired. 

A  RErRESniNG  Dkink. — A  refreshing  drink  for 
the  harvest  days  can  be  made  of  jelly — grape  jelly 
preferred — mixed  in  ioe  water,  one  teacupiul  jelly  to 
a  quart  of  water;  stir  well  and  drink  directly  after  it 
is  mixed.  A  little  ginger  added,  improves  the  drink 
for  some,  and  will  satisfy  thirst  better  than  water 
alone.  Grape  jelly  is  considered  very  healthy,  and 
is  recommended  by  jihysicians  iu  many  cases  of  sick- 
ness— acting  as  a  cooling  stimulant  in  many  cases 
of  weakness  and  fever;  gives  strength  without  con- 
sequent debility,  or  drag  of  the  system. 

PRE.SERVING  PEACHES. — As  pcach  time  will  soon 
be  here,  I  send  you  my  method  of  preserving  them. 
Select  fruit  just  ripe,  pare,  halve,  and  throw  into 
cold  water  to  preserve  the  color.  After  everything  is 
ready,  lay  them  in  the  cans,  putting  a  little  sugar 
over  each  layer.  Now  set  the  can  iu  a  vessel  con- 
taining water,  set  on  the  stove  and  let  it  remain  until 
the  fruit  is  thoroughly  he.ated  through,  which  will 
take  half  an  hour  with  a  brisk  fire.  The  tempera- 
ture should  be  1I50O.  (Every  woman  should  keep  a 
thermometer.)  Seal  at  once,  and  put  a  weight  on 
the  cover — that  i%,  if  you  use  cement.  With  self- 
sealers  it  is  not  required.  This  method  makes  the 
nicest  kind  of  preserved  fruit. 

To.MATO  Preserves. — I  can  not  make  wine — never 
tried — do  not  believe  in  wine — but  I  can  give  the 
readers  of  The  Far.mer  a  good  recipe  for  preserving 
tomatoes.  Take  smootli,  round  fruit,  ripe,  and 
scald  and  peel  them.  Then  add  a  pound  of  white 
sugar  for  each  pound  of  tomatoes,  and  let  them 
stand  ten  hours.  Now  remove  the  tomatoes  from 
the  syrup  which  will  be  formed,  and  boil  the  latter, 
removing  the  scum.  Then  put  in  the  tomatoes  and 
boil  gently  for  twenty  minutes.  Talve  out  the  fruit 
and  boil  the  syrup  agani  until  it  is  quite  thick.  Put 
the  fruit  in  jars,  and  when  the  syrup  is  cool,  pour 
over  it  and  add  a  few  slices  of  lemon  iu  each  jar,  to 
give  flavor. 

^ 

Recipe  for  Butter. 

In  a  small  work,  describing  the  method  of  making 
butter  in  Pennsylvania,  near  Philadelphia,  celebra- 
ted in  the  market  of  that  city,  I  find  the  following: 
"Take  of  saltpeter  one  part,  of  loaf-sugar  one  part, 
of  fine  rock-salt  two  parts;  beat  the  mass  to  a  fine 
powder,  and  use  one  ounce  of  the  composition  to  one 
pounil  of  butter.  This  will  give  it  a  peculiar,  rich 
flavor,  but  it  should  not  be  used  before  two  weeks 
old.  Butter  is  often  injured  by  using  too  much  salt 
in  preserving  it;  but  this  composition  renders  it  un- 
necessary to  salt  to  excess.  For  immediate  use,  salt 
alone  is  preferable."  This  recipe  is  for  butter  that 
may  be  kept  perfectly  sweet  for  months.  The  best 
salt  must  he  used  (Ashton's  Liverpool  is  the  most 
used),  or  butter  cannot  be  depended  on  to  keep 
long.  The  following  is  a  good  test  before  using  it  : 
Dissolve  a  little  in  a  glass  tumbler;  if  the  brine  form- 
ed is  clear  and  free  from  bitter  taste,  the  saltis  good; 
if,  on  the  contrary,  it  is  of  a  milky  appear- 
ance, leaves  any  sediment  or  throws  scum  to  the 
surface,  it  should  be  rejected.  There  are  times  when 
the  butter  comes,  that  it  is  soft  and  warm,  and  diffi- 
cult to  take  out.  Then  the  milk  should  be  removed, 
and  the  churn  half  filled  with  ice-cold  milk  or  pure 
ice-water,  and  churned  until  the  butter  hardens.  If 
the  ice  disapj)ears  before  this  takes  place  then  it  must 
be  renewed.  If  the  butter  comes  rather  warm  put  in 
twice  the  salt  you  usually  do,  work  your  butter  just 
enough  to  mix  the  salt  well  through  it,  and  set  it 
away  in  a  cool  place  for  24  hours,  then  lake  it  up  and 
work  it  over ;  much  of  the  salt  will  be  dissolved  and 
work  out. — Fanners'  Frieml. 


The  Spare  Bed. 

One  rule  ought  to  be  invariable  With  every  good 
housekeeper:  Tliat  the  bed  in  the  guest  chamber 
shall  never  be  "made"  except  when  it  is  to  be  direct- 
ly used.  Let  it  lie  fallow  between  whiles,  and  turn 
the  mattresses  every  few  days,  with  all  precau- 
tion against  dampness  gatherng  on  them. 
Then,  when  put  in  order,  "with  fresh  sheets  and 
blankets,  having  the  dry  hc.at  of  the  kitchen  fire 
in  them,  there  will  be  small  risk  of  that  chill 
which  the  travelers  dread.  We  repeat  it,  a  room 
that  is  kept  undamped,  sweet  and  wholesome,  with  a 
dried  bed  and  plenty  of  well-aired  bed  clothes,  is 
within  the  reach  of  all  to  give  tlieir  guests,  and  is 
all  that  sensible  visitors  ask.  It  is  better  than  a  hot 
stove  in  the  room,  or  hot  bottles,  jugs  or  India  rub- 
ber grannies  in  the  bed,  and  whoso  complains  of 
this — let  him  complain. 


LITERARY  AND   PERSONAL. 


The  abundant  harvests  which  are  everywhere  so 
promising  this  fall,  with  a  good  demand  at  fair 
prices,  will  suggest  to  our  readers  the  propriety  of 
purchasing  a  good  and  reliable  piano.  To  those  who 
would  buy  a  strictly  first-class  instrument,  we  would 
recommend  to  look  into  the  merits  of  the  Mendels- 
sohn Piano  Co.,  No.  56  Broadway,  N.  Y.,  whose  ad- 
vertisement appears  elsewhere.    This  Company  is 


regularly  incorporated  under  the  laws  of  the  State  of 
New  York,  and  composed  of  eminent  Piano  manu- 
facturers, with  the  express  object  of  selling  Pianos 
direct  to  the  people  at  Factory  Prices,  without  the 
intervention  of  agents  or  dealers,  thereby  saving 
them  more  than  one-half  the  prices  usually  charged. 

The  Pianos,  including  Grand,  Square  and  Upright, 
made  one  of  the  finest  displays  at  the  Centennial 
Exhibition,  and  were  iinauimouxly  recommended  for 
the  Diploma  of  Honor  and  Medal  of  Merit. 

The  leading  papers  of  the  country  speak  in  very 
high  terms  of  the  Company  and  their  Pianos. 

We  would  recommend  any  of  our  readers  who  have 
any  idea  of  ever  buying  a  piano,  to  send  for  their 
Illustrated  and  Descriptive  Catalogue,  which  will  be 
mailed  free  to  all. 

Art  Publishing. — Few  people  are  aware  of  the 
wonderful  progress  that  Art  has  made  in  this  country 
during  the  last  quarter  of  a  century.  It  is  but  a  few 
decades  since,  that  those  who  desired  to  beautify  and 
adorn  their  homes,  were  obliged  to  depend  almost 
entirely  on  foreign  artists.  But  such  a  state  of  affairs 
in  this  age  of  progress  and  improvement  could  not 
last  long  with  the  great  American  people.  Genius 
from  the  East  to  the  West,  from  the  North  to  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  on  the  south,  answered  the  demand 
for  beauty,  taste  and  refinement,  and  to-day  our 
leading  artists  are  not  surpassed  by  the  leading 
modern  masters  of  Art  in  Europe. 

Great  Art  publishing  establishments  have  sprung 
up,  and  by  various  processes  the  finest  and  most  ex- 
pensive p.aintings  are  reproduced  in  all  their  elegance 
and  beauty,  and  at  a  price  within  the  means  of  the 
masses.  So  that  no  one  need  be  without  the  refin- 
ing influences  of  beautiful  pictures  at  home. 

Among  the  progressive  leading  Art  Publishing 
firms  of  the  country,  we  take  pleasure  in  mentioning 
George  Stinson  &  Co.,  of  Portland,  Maine;  they  were 
among  the  first  in  the  business,  and  we  can  only 
understand  the  colossal  proportions  their  trade  has 
assumed  by  remembering  that  this  is  a  great  and 
mighty  Nation  of  nearly  fifty  million  people.  We 
cannot  better  illustrate  the  magnitude  of  their  busi- 
ness than  to  state  the  amount  of  money  paid  by  them 
for  postage  stamps  during  the  year  1876  ;  we  have 
the  figures  direct  from  the  firm,  or  we  should  think 
there  was  some  mistake.  They  paid  for  postage 
stamps  during  the  year  1876,  thirty-three  thousand 
one  hundred  and  four  dollars  and  ninety-two  cents 
(.$3.3, 10-1.92)  and,  in  connection  with  this  it  should  he 
remembered  that  only  the  small  orders  were  sent  by 
mail,  the  larger  going  by  express  and  freight.  George 
Stinson  &,  Go's.,  agents  are  to  be  found  in  every 
State  in  the  Union  and  Dominion  of  Canada,  and  in 
every  county,  with  scarcely  an  exception. 

Long  since,  this  enterprising  firm  recognized  the 
value  of  printer's  ink  judiciously  used  in  advertising, 
and  they  inform  us  that  without  it  they  could  never 
have  extended  their  business  as  it  is  to-day,  in  three 
times  the  number  of  years.  A  short  time  since  they 
paid  in  a  single  day  twenty-four  thousand  dollars 
($24,000)  on  a  contract  for  newspaper  advertising. 
They  evidently  long  since  found  the  road  to  success, 
and  have  neither  turned  to  the  right  nor  the  left. 
Three  things  are  necessary  for  eminent  success  in 
business.  First,  standard  honest  goods  that  the  peo- 
ple generally  need  and  desire — let  them  be  the  best, 
whatever  the  line  of  business.  Second,  let  your 
prices  be  reasonable — as  low  as  possible.  Third,  let 
the  people  know  what  you  have,  and  what  you  can 
do,  by  lilicral  and  persistent  advertising,  and  you 
will  find  low  prices,  made  known  and  proved,  will 
bring  trade  that  will  give  a  larger  income  than  can 
be  made  in  any  other  way. 

Sorrento  and  Inlaid  Work  ;  by  Arthur  Hope. 
Price,  $1.. 50.  J.  B.  Lippincott  &  Co.,  Phibadelphia. 
Mr.  Hope  is  evidently  a  veteran  in  the  art  of  wood 
carving.  He  tells  us  that  his  first  rude  attempts  at 
scroll-sawing  were  made  twenty  years  ago  with  a 
roughly  whittled  saw  frame,  fitted  with  a  blade  made 
from  a  watch  spring,  in  which  "teeth  few  and  far 
between  had  been  unevenly  and  laboriously  cut  with 
a  common  file." 

The  object  of  Mr.  Hope's  book  is  to  furnish  a  man- 
ual for  alt  who  are  interested  in  scroll  sawing  and 
carving,  both  beginners  and  experts,  and  with  this 
in  view,  he  has  treated  of  every  branch  of  the  sub- 
ject, from  woods  and  their  preparation  on  through 
the  various  branches,  to  overlaying,  inlaying,  silhou- 
ettes, etc.  The  book  is  illustrated  with  full  page 
designs,  many  of  them  the  choicest  silhouettes,  the 
designs  alone,  if  bought  at  retail,  amounting  to  more 
than  the  price  of  the  book.  We  do  not  see  how  any- 
thing better  than  Mr.  Hope's  little  volume  could 
well  be  prepared.  It  is  remarkably  explicit,  and  yet 
remarkably  full  in  explaining  and  describing  the 
very  things  that  the  amateur  worker  most  wishes  to 
know,  and  being  himself  an  enthusiast,  he  can  have 
little  difiiculty  in  awakening  a  corresponding  inter- 
est in  others.  The  chapters  on  overlaying  and  in- 
laying are  the  best  we  have  ever  seen  on  the  subjects, 
and  contain  instruction  to  be  found  in  no  other  form. 
Altogether  Mr.  Hope's  book  is  a  gem,  and  no  ama- 
teur can  afford  to  be  Without  it. 

Circular  and  Price  List,  for  summer  »nd  fall 
of  1877.  Those  who  are  engaged  in — or  who  prt)pose 
to  engage  in — the  cultivation  of  the  Strawberry, 
Raspberry,    Gooseberry,    Currant   and  Blackberry 


plants,  &c.,  will  no  doubt  be  greatly  assisted  in  their 
enterprises,  of  this  kind,  by  having  on  hand  and 
consulting  the  circular  and  price  list  of  E.  P.  RoE, 
Cornwall-on-the-Hudson,  Orange  co.,  New  York. 
Wenever  have  halfcnough  of  what  are  usually  termed 
"small  fruit,"  in  Lancaster  county,  and  there  are 
never  half  enough  persons  engaged  in  their  cultiva- 
tion, nor  ever  half  enough  acres  of  land  devoted  to 
their  production.  Mr.  Roe  has  the  reputation  of  be- 
ing very  successful  in  originating  new  varieties  of 
seedlings,  which  have  been  endorsed  by  some  of  the 
best  fruit  growing  names  of  the  country,  and  there- 
fore it  might  pay  to  have  his  circulars  and  a  copy  of 
his  "  Manual  on  the  culture  of  small  fruits"  on  hand_ 
Ellwanger  and  Barry's  catalogues,  Nos.  1  and 
2,  for  fall  1877.  We  acknowledge  the  receipt  of 
these  descriptive  lists  of  fruit  trees,  ornamental  trees, 
shrubs,  roses,  flowering  plants,  bulbs,  ifec,  &c.,  now 
in  ample  stock  at  Mount  Hope  Nurseries,  Rochester, 
N.  Y.,  by  these  enterprising  nurserymen.  These 
two  catalogues  comprise  186  royal  octavo  pages,  ex- 
clusive of  title  pages  and  covers,  with  many  fine  il- 
lustrations, and  include  all  that  is  good,  ornamental 
and  useful  in  the  nursery  line,  both  foreign  and  do- 
mestic; and  we  are  almost  tempted  to  say,  that  what 
they  have  not  got,  is  not  worth  having.  "These  lists 
are  the  most  systematically  arranged,  and  the  easiest 
consulted,  of  any  we  have  yet  seen;  and  we  could 
not  imagine  a  more  satisfactory  source  of  informa- 
tion on  this  subject,  except  a  personal  visit  to  the 
nurseries  themselves. 

Butter  and  Butter  Makino,  with  the  best 
methods  for  producing  and  marketing  it.  By  WilHg 
P.  Hazard,  President  of  the  Chadd's  Ford  Farmers' 
Club,  author  of  "the  Jersey,  Alderney  and  Guernsey 
cow,"  &c.  Published  by  Porter  ife  Coates,  No.  822 
Chestimt  street,  Philadelphia.  Price  2.5  cents.  A 
royal  12mo.  of  48  pages,  in  paper  covers,  with  four 
well  executed  illustrations  of  imported  cows,  which 
took  high  premiums  at  the  Centennial,  namely,  the 
Jersey  Cow,  "Duchess,"  "Tiberia,"  "Niobe"  and 
"Milkmaid."  The  value  of  the  book  may  be  inferred 
from  the  subjects  it  so  ably  discusses — cleanliness 
and  attention  ;  important  rules  ;  chemistry  of  butter ; 
feeding  for  milk  and  butter  ;  coloring  butter;  method 
of  milking ;  care  of  the  milk  ;  skimming  and  care 
of  cream ;  spring-houses,  ice-houses  and  dairy 
rooms  ;  churning ;  working ;  washing,  marketing,  &c 
Don't  Put  the  Poor  Working  Man  Down  ! — 
This  is  the  title  of  the  greatest  motto  song  ever  pub- 
lished in  America.  Written  and  composed  by  Bobby 
Newcomb.  Will  be  sung  in  almost  every  theatre  in 
the  land.  Price  3.5  cents  per  copy.  If  you  cannot 
get  it  from  your  regular  music  dealer  send  to  the 
publisher,  F.  W.  Ilelraick,  No.  .50  West  4th  St.,  Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio. 

chorus. 
Let  capital  sliaiie  lianda  with  labor, 

Let  the.  jioor  fiave  ttie  bread  tliat  they  earn, 
For  surely  tliey  need  every  peuuy, 

Iri  a  leasou  quite  easy  to  learu. 
Remember  the  poor  love  their  children, 

So  give  them  a  smile,  not  a  frown, 
Live,  and  let  live,  lie  your  motto. 

Oh  !  don't  put  the  poor  working  man  down. 

In  the  July  number  of  The  Farmer  we  called  the 
attention  of  our  readers  to  a  new  and  useful  cooking 
utensil  recently  invented,  which  is  knoivn  as  the 
Centennial  Cake  and  Baking  Pan,  made  of  Russia 
iron,  and  is  so  constructed  that  after  your  cake  is 
baked,  you  can  instantly  remove  it  from  the  pan 
without  injuring  it;  and  having  a  raised  bottom  the 
cake  can  not  possibly  burn.  It  is  also  provided  with 
a  slide  on  the  bottom,  so  that  when  you  remove  the 
tube,  you  can  close  the  hole,  making  a  pan  with 
plain  bottom  for  baking  jelly  or  plain  cakes,  bread, 
etc. 

Since  then  we  have  seen  one  of  the  pans,  which  was 
shown  us  by  Mr.  B.  G.  Lefevre,  formerly  of  Quarry- 
ville,  who  's  agent  for  this  county,  and  who  is  now 
canvassing  for  the  same. 

National  Agricultural  Congress. — The  sixth 
annu.al  session  of  this  body  will  be  held  at  the  Grand 
1'acifl.c  Ifotel,  in  the  City  of  Chicago,  111.,  commenc- 
ing at  lOo'clock,  A.  M.,  on  Tuesday,  the  25th  of  Sep- 
tember, 1877,  and  continuing  three  days.  All  agri- 
cultural societies,  boards  of  agriculture,  agricultural 
departments,  colleges,  periodicals,  grangers'  clubs, 
and  other  organizations  in  the  interest  of  agriculture, 
in  the  United  Stales  and  British  America,  are  re- 
quested to  send  delegates.  Specimens  of  agricultural 
productions  are  solicited  for  exhibition  and  compari- 
son from  all  parts  of  the  country.  The  Chicago 
Inter-State  Exposition  will  be  open  during  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Congress.  W.  C.  Flagg,  President;  H.  J. 
Smith,  Secretary. 

We  call  the  special  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  / 
advertisement  of  Mast,  Foos  &  Co.,  in  this  number! 
of  The  Farmer,  and  to  the  article  and  cut,  on  pagej 
118,  illustrating  the  superior  qualities  of  their  "Iron 
Turbine"  wind-wheel. 

Attention  is  called  to  the  advertisement  of  E.^ 
Moody  &  Sons,  Lockport,  N.  Y.  This  house  is  onel 
of  the  oldest  and  largest  in  the  nursery  trade  ln| 
the  United  States. 

We  would  call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  thol 
advertisement  of  Marsh  &  Comp,  Mt.  Joy,  Pa.,  who! 
manufacture  a  new  and  improved  double  land  roller.j 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


III 


If    you    want    to    be    Strong,     Healthy   and 

VlKOVoux  tiiki'  E.  F  Knnkers  Diner  Wms  of  Iron.  No 
lauKMBKO  can  convcv  an  iideqiiate  iiira  o  the  inimeJwto  nrni 
almoBt  miruiMiloUK  change  i.rodnced  liy  lak.nK  K.  r.  Kuu. 
kcr«  Ulltor  Wiueof  Iron  in  the  aiM.a.e.l,  ilehiljtatcd  and 
BhiltlerednervoilMBVStem.  Whethor  lir.ikcn  d.iwll  b.vcxCTBB, 
ivelk  by  nulnre.  or  imimired  liy  sn-kiu'an,  the  leluxed  and 
unutrnnn  orguni/.aliou  is  reBtond  to  iH'rfwt  heallh  and 
vigor.  .Sold  only  in  $1  liottlea.  SSold  by  all  druggiBta  and 
dealers  everywbere. 

Nervous  Debility  !  Nervous  Debility. 

Debilily.  a  depressed,  irritable  stale  of  niiud,  a  weak, 
nervous,  exbuusled  feeling,  no  energy  or  animation,  con- 
fused head,  weak  nieinoiy,  the  couaeqnenoeB  of  excesses, 
mental  overwork.  This  uervoiis  debility  lludB  a  so\ereiKn 
cure  in  E.  F.  Kunkils  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron.  It  tones  the 
BTiteni.  dlsiels  the  mental  gloom  and  despomiency,  and 
rejuvinates  the  entire  svBtein.  Sold  only  in  $1  bottles.  Get 
the  genuine.  Take  only  E.  F.  Knnkels:  it  has  a  yellow 
wraniier  around  it,  his  photograph  ou  the  outside.  Sold  by 
TOUr  druggist.  K.  F.  Kunkel,  Proprietor,  No.  iS'.l  North 
Ninth  .street,  I'liiladelphia,  Pa.  Send  for  circular,  or  advice 
free.  Trv  iny  great  remedy.  Get  it  of  your  drnggiat,  six 
bottles  for  J;5.  It  cannot  tail.  It  is  guaranteed  to  do  as  is 
recommeDded, 

Worms  !     Worms  !     Worms  ! 

E,  K.  Kuukel's  Worm  Syrup  never  fails  to  remove  all 
kinds  of  woima.  Setit,  Pin' and  Stomach  Worms  are  readily 
removed  hv  Kunkel's  Worm  Syrup.  Dr.  Kunkel  is  the  only 
«ucceBsful  Physiciau  in  the  country  for  the  removal  ofTipe 
Worms.  He  i-emoves  them  in  2  or  :^  hours,  with  head  and 
mil  complete,  alive,  and  no  fee  until  head  is  passed.  Com- 
mon sense  teachea  if  Tape  \\'orm  can  be  i-emoved,  all  other 
worms  ean  be  readily  destroyed.  Ask  your  druggist  for  a 
bottle  of  Kuukel's  worm  Syrup.  Price  $1  per  Ijottle.  It 
never  fails.  If  he  has  it  not,  have  him  get  It,  or  send  to 
Proprietor,  E.  F.  Kunkel,  2.')9  North  Ninth  street,  Philadel- 
phia. Pa.    (  Vdvice  at  oflice  free,  or  my  mail.} 

0^  0^  m  m^  Great  chance  to  make  money.  If  you 
■  ■  11  I  I  M  can'e  get  gold  you  can  ^et  greeul)ack8. 
Um  III  II  B^^*^  ii*ied  a  person  in  eveiy  town  to  take 
^Jl  ^^  BBB^  Isubscriptions  for  the  largest,    cheapest 

li  West  Illustrated  family  pubiicatiou  in  the  world.     Any 

•  ■  can  become  a  successful  agent.  The  most  elegaut 
.stiks  of  art  given  free  to  subscribers  The  price  is  so  low 
thai  almost  everybody  subscribes.  One  agent  reports  mak- 
ing over  Sl.'iO  in  a  week.  A  lady  agent  rei'Orts  taking  over 
407  subscribers  in  10  days.  All  who  engage  make  money 
fast.  You  can  devote  all  your  time  to  the  business,  or  only 
your  spate  time.  You  need  not  l>e  away  from  home  over 
night.  You  can  do  it  as  well  as  others.  Full  particulars, 
directions  and  terms  free.  Elegant  and  expensive  outfit 
free.  If  you  want  profitable  work  send  us  your  address  at 
once.    It  costs  nothing   to  try  the  business.     No  one  who 

u'ages  fails  to  make  great   pay,    Addrtss  "The  People's 

irual."  Portland,  Maine. 


War  in  Europe. 

niQM  A  DPl'*^''*  ■^"'^^'^*''^  Biognipby,  Private  Letters 
DIolVlnnUN.iiiid  Memoranda.  lutroduction  by  Bay - 
ar<l  Tnylor,  Graphic  aud  eutertaiuiug.  Full  of  auec- 
il>ie.  wii,  roniautrc  iucideut,  aud  great  historical  eveutH. 
Profusely  IlliiAtrntod  with  actual  sketches  from  Bis- 
i,;irk'8  life — home,  studeut,  ijolitical  aud  battle  sceues,  por- 
I    -its.   laudscapes,   etc.      This    Lafe    of   Europe's   greatest 

iresiuan  is  just  the  book  for  the  times  ,  deliueatiug  as  it 
^  all  the  famouH  Rulers.  Geuerala,  aud  Diplomats — co- 

:orB  ^^ith  Bismarck.  Special  Canvassers  wanted  to  sup- 
,  .V  the  urgent  demand  for  this  liz-e  hunk-  Good  pay.  Circu- 
1  .r.  free.    Write  to  J,  B.  FORD  &  L"0  .  Few  York.      9-5-6m. 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 
CI-OXMS, 

CASSIMERES, 

t'OArixtis.  >v»it.s'i't:RitN. 

VESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Chiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striiit-d  mid  diagonal, t«>r  Spring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  aud  Clothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(EstabHf*hed  in  the  year  1H40'. 

Corner  of  North  Qneen  aud  Orange-Sts., 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

Extra  finished  and  trimmed.  Ready-made  Clothing,  for 

MEN  AND  BOYS, 

aud  clothing  cut  or  made  to  order  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A   fine    line    of     GENTS'   FURNISHING    GOODS,  and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
9-l-ly  PriiotU-al  Tailors. 

M.  HABEEBUSH, 

MANUFACTURER  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

.SADItl^FN. 

COLLARS,   WHIPS,  &c., 

ALSO    DEALER    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  ROBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Ruga,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-I-ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


$7771 


,  ia  not  easily  earned  in  these  time8,but  it  can  be 
made  in  three  mouths  by  any  one  of  either 
sfx,  in  any  part  of  the  country  who  is  willing 
to  work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
furnish,  $66  per  week  in  jour  own  town.  You 
.  i<i  not  be  away  from  home  over  uigbt.  Yoti  can  give  your 
ijiil&timeto  the  work,  or  only  your  spar**  moments.  It 
-ts  uothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  $5  Outfit  free. 
A<idrees  at  once,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland.  Maine. 
'.'-3-ly 


Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 


,      lauuuauiuuml  , 
I.inpii  and  Paper  ('ollars  an«l  <'iitls 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

E..  J.  EHISS/IAN'S, 

No.  no    North    Queen    Street, 

Second  door  from  Shober's  Ho'tel. 

t'-l-ly  

AMOSMILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANCFACXrUKR  OF  AND  DKALEK  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars, 

IJritUes.  Whii-s,  &c.      Also  u  fiue  lot  of  Trunks.  Valises, 
Ciri^et  Bugs.  Buffalo  Kobes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 


H.  Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  G.  RHOADS. 


A  GREENHOUSE  AT  YOUR  DOOR, 

For  $1.00  we  will  send  free  by  mail, 


TlTr  A  TTNESS  RELIEVED-  N 
XJSU.i\.S2      Book  tree.    G.  J.  WOOD.  Ua 


omediciDC. 
UadiaOD,  lud. 


8  distinct  varieties.  Monthlv  Kosc?.  Winter  flowering. 

8 

Bogonias,                              " 

Carnation  Pinks,                " 

8              '» 

Chiaesy  Chrysanthetnui,  " 

Zonal  Geraniums,              " 

8 

Double.        "                        " 

8 

Ivy  Leaved  "                        " 

Hcliotropea,                       '* 

2              » 

Double  C»melifls.              " 

Azaleas,                                " 

Lobater  Cactus,                   " 

Bouvardfaa,                        *' 

SteviaBand  Eupatoriums,'" 

Fuchflias, 

Double  Violet.s,                   " 

Polnsotta,  Scarlet  &  White,  do.  do 

Plumbago,  do.  do. 

Ferns,  fox  Wardian  Caaci. 

4              " 

Palais,                         " 

6                " 

6               •* 

Marantaa,                 " 

8              " 

Uvacinlb  Bulbi. 

20  aaaorted  Tullpa,  Bulba. 
50        "        Crocus      " 

2        "        Jacobean  Lily,  Bulbs. 
12        "        Oxalla. 

4  Lily  of  tho  Valley. 

8  New  Poari  Tuberose, 

OB  BY  EXPRESS: 

3  of  any  of  th«  above  $1  colloctiona  l^r  t2. 
5       "  "  "  3 

7        "  "  ••  4. 

9        "  '■  ••  6. 


Or  the  whole  eoll-'otton  or2d8  Bulba  and  Plsnti  aent  by 
Express  on  receipt  of  #I.5.(«l.  to  which  cithcref  our  booki, 
GARDENING  FOR  I'KOFIT,  PRACTICAL  FLOHICUL- 
TUKE,  or  GARDENING  FOR  PLKA.sURE  (value  #1.50 
«ai.h),  will  be  added.     lii'scri|»livc  Catalupui'  irec. 

PETER  HENDERSON  &  CO., 

Kee<l!4iii4-ti  ami  Fl4iriN(M, 

35  Cortlandt  St.,  N.  Y. 


9-T-ls) 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 


\VIioI(>s:iIl>  ami  lirtail  Dealers  iu 


DIAMONDS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 


SILVERWARE,  SPECTACLES, 


Bronzes,  Clock:  and  Watcimakers'  Mmk 


JOBBEI\.S  IN  i\MEI\ICAN  WaTCIIES. 

ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injportations  iij  Foreign  Goods. 


ERRORS  OF  YOUTH. 

A  GENTLEMAN  who  ^suffered  for  year§  from  Nervous 
Debility,  Premature  Decay,  and  all  the  effects  of  youtli- 
fui  indiscretion  will,  for  the  sake  of  Buffering  humanity, 
send  free  to  all  who  ue<d  it.  the  receipt  and  direction  for 
making  the  simj.'le  remedy  by  which  he  wub  cured.  Suffer- 
ers wishing  to  profit  by  the  advertieer'a  experience  can  do 
ao  by  addressing  in  perfect  couddeuce, 
9-1-€bi)  J0H>'  B.  OGDKN.  42  Cedar  St.,  Hew  Yorj** 


9-l-ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDING  HARDWARE, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TERRA  com,  lEONaiil  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


AgrentH  for  the 

"  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann'a  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont'a  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &c.,  <fec. 


We  have  the  largest  stock  of  Reueral  Hardware  in  the 
State,  aud  our  prices  are  us  low  uud  terms  as  liberal  as  caD 
lie  found  elsewhere.  9-1-tf. 

E.  IT.  FRESHMAN  &  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 

186  W.  Fourth  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Arc  aiillloriziMl    tit  enntrnvt  for   aclvorl King: 
ill  lliis  piiper. 


Estimates 


Send  lor  a  Circalar. 


FZMPZ.SS. 


I  will  mail  (Frcei  the  receii^t  for  preparing  a  Bimple  Veg- 
etable Balm  that  will  remove  Tan,  Fkeckles,  PIMl  LES 
aud  BLOTCHES,  leaving  the  akin  Hoft.  clear  and  beantlfal; 
alao  instructions  for  producing  a  luxuriant  growth  of  hair 
ou  a  bald  head  or  smooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vaudelf  k 
Co..  Box  5121.  No.  5  Wooster  St.,  N.  Y.  [9-l-6m 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER. 


[  August,  1S77 


LADIES  ! 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


GUNDAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STOItE, 

A    KEW  LOT  OF 

HAMBDRG  EMBROIDERED  EDGINGS 

AN» 

INSERTINGS, 

A  T  TUB  VERY  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Ki<I  GIovoh, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and   styles, 

CR.A.PS  VKXIaS. 

OEAPE  BONNETS  &  HATS, 

RHCHINGS, 
all  styles  and  widths,  and  everything  else  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WEAR, 
that  ie  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 
Give  ns  a  call  at 

Sos.  14S  &  144  North  Qnceii-st,  Lancaster., Pa. 

9-1-1 y 


NEW  CROP 


N 


TEW  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION  OF  OUR 


"^    -.ics  fur  i'tslJences,  Public  f;,.„ 
«'=»'='''         Cemeteries,  or  "'"'*, 


Farms  from  50c.  to  $50  per  Rod. 
NELLIS'  O.  H.H.  H.  FORK,  WITH  NELLIS' 
Patent  method   for  moviug  and  stacking   Hay  or  Straw, 
■without  extra  charge  to  the  Farmer.    Agricultural   Steel 
finished  aud  tempered  by  Nellis'  process  to  suit  all  kinds  of 
soil.    Medal  awards  on  all  our  goods  exhibited  at  the  Cen- 
tennial.   Information  free. 
9-7-lm)  A.  J.  NELLIS  &  CO.,  Pittsburgh.  Pa. 


A   NEW  BOOK. 

How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 

A  HAND-BOOK  OF 

FRUIT  CULTURE, 

BEING  A  flUIDE  TO  THE    PROPER 

CulHvation  and  Management  of  J^ruit  Trees,  and 

of  Grapes  and  Siaall  Fruits, 
with  condensed  descriptions  of  many  of  the  best  and  most 
popular  vai'ietiee.  \\ith  upwards  of  one  hundred  engravings. 
By  Thomas  Gregg.    Ptice  $1.0(t. 

A  book  wiiich  should  be  owned  by  every  pereon  who  owns 
a  rod  of  available  laud,  aud  it  will  serve  to  aecure  euccesa 
where  now  there  is  nothing  but  failure.  It  covers  the 
ground  fully,  without  teciiuicalities,  aud  is  a  work  on 

Fruit  Culture  for  tlie  Million. 

It  tells  of  the  cost,  how  to  plaut,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
transplant,  location,  soil,  selection,  diseases,  iusects,  borers, 
bhghts,  cultivatiou,  how  to  prune,  manuring.  layering, 
budding,  grafting,  etc.,  including  full  description  and  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Frvat,  such  as  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricots,  Nectarines,  ete.  It  is 
a  most  complete 

Guide  to  Small-Fruit  Ciilture. 

with  many  illustratiouB  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari- 
eties of  (.Trapes,  Strawberries,  Blackberries,  Raspberries, 
Gooseberriee,  Cui  rants,  etc. 

The  work  shows  the  value  of  Fruit,  and  how  to  use  it. 
Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Farmer  and  How 
to  raiee  Frxiits,  Vill  be  furnished  at  $1,75.    Address 

I.,  KATHVON. 
22,Soatb  Queen  St..  I^aneasler,  Pa. 


TuRNlP  SeEdS 


EXTRA   FINE   AND   CHOICE   SEED. 

NEW  CROP  OF 

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Leaf,  only  55  cents  per  lb.  postpaid, 

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All  other  varieties  of  Turnips  and  other  Seeds  for  sowin  g  in 
the  Summer  and  Autumn,  at  LOWEST  CASH  PRICES. 
SEED  WHEAT,  &c. 

BLOODED  LIVE  STOCE. 

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SWINE  AND  POULTRY  A  SPECIALTY. 

t(fg,We  have  now  fine  GROWTHY  PIGS  for  sale,  in  pairs, 
not  akin,  of  Chester  Whites,  Yorkshires,  Eerkshires,  Essex 
and  Poland  China, 


BIIEEDEE'S   HA1TT7AL 


1b  just  out.  Price.  25  cents.  Every  farmer  should  have  it. 
It  contains  56  large  double-column  pages  of  valuable  reading 
matter,  besides  16  full-page  cuts,  from  )ife,ofourstock. 

BURPEE^S  INFALLIBLE 


Is  sure  and   speedy   death   to  all    Flying  or 
Creeping  Insects.     It  speedily  and  effectually 
•        ■      destroys   Lice,    Fleas,    Roaches,    Centipedes, 
Moths,  Ants,  Flies,    Mosquitoes,    Bed    Bugs, 
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species  of  Insects. 
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human  and  animal  life,  but  sure  death  to  Insects.     It  is  strong- 
ly recommended   by   all   who   have   tried  it.     We  have  yet  to 
hear  of  a  single  complaint.     We  guarantee  every  box,  and  if  it 
does  not  do  all  we  recommend,  it  can  be  returned  (even  if  half 
of  the  powder  be  used)   and   we   will   as  cheerfully  refund  the 
money.     One  trial    will  convince  any  one  of  its  merits.     It  is 
invaluable  to  Farmer?,  as  it  thoroughly  kills  all  lice,  fleas  and 
insects  on  animals  without  the  slightest  danger  to  the  animal. 
It  destroys  all  troublesome  insects  on  vegetables  and  plants. 

PRICE,  25  &  50  CENTS  PER  BOX,  POSTPAID. 


BENSON  (Si  BURPEE'S   Seed   Warehouse,  223  Church  St.,  Philada.fl 


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FRUIT  AND 
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TREES! 


LA-RGrE    iSTOCK. 
LOW   li^TES. 

STANDARU    PEAR    TREE8    A    SPECIALTY. 

l^~Send  siainp  for  trade  list. 

AGENTS  WANTED, 
E.  MOODY  A  SONS,  Lockport.  ]».  Y. 

NiAGAR.\  NuBPERiKS.    Establlehed  lS:i9. 
9-8-2m 


EZRA  E.  BOWMAl^, 

Practical  Watchmaker, 

(formerly  with  H.  Z.  Rhoads   &  Bro,)  has  opened  at   108 
East  King:  Street,  a  new  aud  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS, 

Ame.iicau  WatcheK  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep- 
utation. Imported  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and 
Silver  Cases,  in  Wrjighte  to  suit  jrurchasers.  American  and 
imported  Clock"^  in  over  fifty  different  styles,  which  are  of- 
fered at  reasonable  prices,  and  wai-ranted  according  to  their 
quality.  Watches  and  Clocks  carefully  repaired  and  war- 
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all.  U-l-6m 

ESTABLISHED  1832. 


THE     BEST     OFFER ! 

We  will  Bell  during  these  hard  times 

$000  Haiios  for  $250, 

And  all  other  styles  in  the  same  proportiou,  including  Grand, 
Square  aud  Upright— nll.rtr«(-cta.«— sold  direct  to  the  people 
at  factory  priced.  No  ageuts;  no  coinmissious;  no  dis'jounte. 
These  Pianos  made  oue  of  the  finest  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  aud  were  uuauimously  recommended  for 
the  Highest  Honors,  Regularly  incorporated  Manufac- 
turing comvauv— New  Manufactory— one  of  the  larfjest  and 
flnest  in  the  world.  The  Squave  Grands  contaiu  Muthushek's 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment in  the  history  of  Piano  making.  The  uprights  are  the 
linest  in  America.  Pianos  st'nt  on  trial.  Don't  fail  to  write 
for  Illustrated  and  Discrii.ti.e  f;iialogue— mailed  free. 

MENDELSSOHN   PIANO   CO., 

li-T-lv  >'«.  ."56  Br«a*lway,  Jf.  Y'. 


EDWTN   iliDENQ 
ADWRlisiOT^i\AilNGY5^ 

.    174  EEJM^STRBJEJ-T. 
ClNeiNJSilTI.  OHIO. 

Advertisements  inserted  in  any  paper, 
Before  advertieing  Bendformy  catalogue, 


SEN  EH 


Mautifacturers  aud  de;ilers  in  a 
tiiiisbod 


I  kinds  of  rough  and 


The  best  Sawed  SHI  X«l.ESiu  the  country.     Also  Sash, 
Doors.  Bhuds.  Mouldings,  &c._ 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  ELIND,S.  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  t'OAL,  constantly  on  hand. 

CiFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Wiirunt-sts., 

LANCASTER,  FA.. 

9-l-:y 


cfcH    o    V/aow     (To  subscribe™  i 
^JL  cL     I  Cdl     \      tlie  county. 


sutgle  cofxes  lo  cents. 


To  iubBcribers  ont  of  \     <t-(    OK 
thecouuty.         /   Jpi.^O 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER.  SEPTEMBER  15,  i877. 


LINN5;iIS  EATHVON,  Publisher. 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 


The  Tobacco  Bug, 129 

The  Cucumber,           -           -           -           -           -  129 
TheStiufc  of  lusects — Their  Nature  autl  Treatment — The 
Best  Remedy  of  Thirty  Years  Experience — How  to 
Treat  Inaect  Stings,              -           -           -           -       130 
The  Codling  Moth— The  Orape  Procris  and  Grape  Leaf- 
Folder,            130 

Black  Bass  and  Baea-Bait,       -  -  -  -  131 

Oliver  Dalrymple  the  '•  Great  Wheat  King  "  of  Minn.,     131 
State  Fair,  ......  13] 

Our  Local  Organization  and  Ourself,    -  •  -       131 

A  Singular  PoUto,         -----  182 

Wheat  Crop  of  187T,         -----       132 

Monthly  Reminders,      .....  133 

Queries  and  Answers,      .....        132 

Culinary  Contributions,  ....  132 

New  Feed  Buckeye  Grain  Drill,  -  -  .133 

Artificial  Butter — '  Stauff'er,  -  -  -  138 

Kebraska  Notes — Sijtlnty  A.  Oai/lur,      -  -  -134 

Around  the  Farm — Machinery — Tobacco  Moths— iJtira?- 

ist, VM 

Description  of  a  Roman  Coin,        .  -  .  .    134 

The  Flemish  Beauty  Pear,         -  -  .  -         1 35 

Htunbugs,  Swindles  and  Frauds,  as  Practiced  on  the 

Farming  Community,  -  .  -  -         135 

Dew,  and  its  Cause,     ......    136 

OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

Lancaster  Co.  Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society,  137 
Crop  Reports — No  Horticultural  Exhibition — Premi- 
ums for  Best  Crops — Oleomargarine — ,\n  Act  to 
Regulate  the  Manufacture  and  Sale  of  Fertilizers — 
Committee  to  Test  Fruits- Testimonal  to  Prof. 
JFUthvon — The  Professor's  Repl> — Social  Inter- 
course and  Testing  of  Fruit — The  Codling  Moth — 
Fruit  Report — Business  for  Next  Meeting, 

ToUacco  Growers'  Association,      -  -  -  .    jgs 

Crop  Reports — Referred  Questions — Management 
of  Tobacco  Sheds— A  Plea  for  the  Birds— Banging 
op  Tobacco. 

The  Linniean  Society.  -  -  -  .  -  139 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Woking  Land  on  Shares,              -           -           .  .140 

Compoet,            -...-.  140 

Killing  Canada  Thistles,      .           .           .           .  .140 

Sugar  Com  vs.  Hungarian  Grass,              -           -  140 
Fall  Plowing,             .--...    540 

Coal  Ashes,          _--...  144^ 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Management  of  Fruit  Trees,          .           -           -  -    140 

A  Propagating  Secret,               ....  140 

Cracking  of  Pears,    ......    1411 

Watering  Trees,             .....  ]41 

Shall  Old  Orchards  be  Plowed  7    •          -          •  -141 

American  Fruit  in  Europe,      ....  141 

Soot  as  a  Garden  Pert  ilixer,            .           .           .  -    141 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Setting  Milk  for  Cream,           .           -            .           -  141 

Cleansing  Feathers  of  their  Animal  Oil,  .           .  .141 

Ventilation  of  Closets,             ....  14] 

Simple  Cure  for  Ear-ache,  -           -           .           .  .141 

Shakers'  Pickles  to  Keep  Ten  Tears,            -          -  141 

Wax  for  Cans,            -           .           .           .           .  .141 

Household  Recipes,      .....  )4i 


LIVE  STOCK. 

How  to  Have  Healthy  Pigs,           ....  142 

Potatoes  for  Cows,       -           -           .           .           .  :42 

How  to  Fit  Horee  Collars,    -           .           .           -           .  142 

Cleanse  the  Manger,      ....           -  142 

Stimibling  Horses,    ......  242 

Full  Feeding,      ....--  142 

How  the  Price  of  Cows  has  Risen,             ...  142 

A  Lamb  with  a  Cow  for  a  Mother,                -           •  142 
Age  of  Sheep,           .....           .142 

ENTOMOLOGICAL. 

Bot  and  Bot  Flies,         .....  142 

The  Potato  Bug  Abroad,    -           -           -           -           -  142 

Industry  of  Ants,           -           -           -           .           .  ]4h 

Codling  Moth,           -           •            -           -           -           -  143 

THE  POULTRY  YARD. 

Eggs  and  Ways  of  Using  Them,          ...  143 

Change  of  Color  or  Moult,  .....  143 

Effectsof  Cold  Storms  on  Poultry,              -           .  143 
Non-Sitters,  -           -           .           .           .           -           .143 

Profit  in  Poultry  Keeping,      .           .          -           -  143 

Errors  in  Poultry  Keeping,             ....  144 

Profit  in  Poultry,           .....  144 

Capouizing,    -•-....  144 

Gapes,       .......  144 

The  Number  of  Hens  to  a  Cock,    -           -          -           -  144 

Chicken  Choleia,            -           ....  144 

Lime  Dust,     -           -           -           -           .           .           -  144 

Literary  and  Personal.             -           .           -           .  144 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 

PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  promioent  feature,  with   epecial  reference  to  tbe 
wauts  of  the  Farmer,  the  Gardener  and  Fruit-Grower. 

Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society. 


Edited  by  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


TERMS: 

To  eubscribers  residing  within  the  county- 
One  Copy,  one  year,  .-----         $1.00 
Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -  -  .  .  .        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -------        7.50 

To  Bubscribers  outside  of   Ltincaeter  county,  including 
poetage  prtvpaid  by  the  publlfihere: 

One  Copy,  one  year,    •  -        -  -  .  .  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       -        .        -  .  .        .  5.00 

All  eubecriptiouB  will  commence  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otherwiae  ordered. 


LINN^US  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


The  larpe)»(  niiri  moHt  oomplete  .Htorh  «f 
Fruit  »n<l  4»rnHiii4-nlal  Treea  in  the  ('.  A. 
Prlrefl   ^'ntnlueneii   M'til   an   rollonm:    No.  1, 

Fr-iit*-,  w.th  .■iilnr^Tplatf.  ISctR.;  5. lam,  lOctH.  No.  ft, 
OrQaiu^nlal  Trees,  etc.,  withplave,  25ctH.;  plain,  IScW. 
Xo.  a,  GreenhouB<>;  No.  4,  Wh.ilesaie,  aud  No.  5,  Llii 
f.f  yew  H'-ff-y.     FREE.     A<ldie«a, 

ELLWANOER  A  BARRY.  Rochester,  N.Y. 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DEALRR   IK 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  At'*-nt  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

i;<[  air.u^'  ctrictly  attended  to. 

North  Qtieen-st.  and  Centre  Sqnare,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

9-t-ly 


9-9*  11 


RATES  OF  AOVERTISIBTCi  —  Ten    CC'nUi    a 
line  Tor  eocb  inttertion.     Twelve  hue*  to  tb«  moL 


ten  +ft  C^^  '  ^'***  '"  Agfnts.    $10  Outfit  Ftu. 
W90   to  ^  I   I  P.  O.  VICKEKV,  Aagueta,  Maine, 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


A  CpVASSER  WpTED 


IN 


EVERY  TOWNSHIP  IN  THE  COUNTY 


TO  TAKE 


SUBSCRIBERS 


FOR  THE 


FARMER. 


Rates  of  .4rtv«'rtlsiiiS  1"  the  Farmer. 


Farmers'    Sons    and    other 

Young  Men  during  their 

leisure  hours 

CAN   MAKE 

GOOD  WAGES, 


We  want  a  thorough  canvass  of  every 

district,  and  will  pay  canvassers 

liberally. 

Address, 

L.  RATHVON,  PuUisher, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 


1  li-. 

2  lu.     6  m. 

4  lu. 

5  111.      siu. 

$1.00 
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S  ino 

1  year 

36.01)    48.00 
.54.00]   72  00 

C:sf"Si..eciJil  aud  business  notices  15  cents  per  line 

GOOD  BOOKS 

FOR  THE 

Farm,  Garden,  and  Household. 

The  foUowiug  is  a  list  of  Valuable  Booke,  which  will  be 
supplied  by  the  Editor  of  the  Lancaster  Farmer,  No. 
101  North  Queen  St.  Any  cue  or  more  of  these  books  will 
be  sent  -po^t  pa)d  to  any  of  our  readers  ou  receipt  of  the 
regular  price  which  is  named  against  aach  book. 

Allen's  (R.  L.  &  L.  F,]  New  American  Farm  Book $2  50 

Allen's  (L.  F.)  Araericau  Cattle.* 2  50 

Atwood'8  Country  and  Suburban  Houses 150 

Bommer's  method  of  Making   Manures 25 

Breck's  New  Book  of  Flowers 1  75 

Brill's  Fai-m-Gardening  and  Seed-Growing 100 

Dadd's  Modem  Horse  Doctor,  JSmo I  50 

Dadd's  Amerieau  Cattle  Doctor,  12  ino 1  50 

Flax  Culture,  (SeveuPrize  Essays  by  practical  growers,)    30 

Fuller's  Grape  Cult  urist 1  50 

Fuller's  Small  Fruit  Cvilturist 1  5» 

Fultou's  Peach  Culture 1  50 

Gregory  on  Squashes paper..      30 

Hiirris  on  thePig  150 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Pleasure 150 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Profit 1  50 

Henderson's  Practical  Floriculture 1  50 

Herbert's  Hints  to  Horse-Keepers 1  75 

Hop  Culture.    By  nine  experienced  cultivatore 30 

Hunterand  Trapper 100 

Onions— How  to  Raise  them  Profitably 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acres.    Pa„  30c.;  Clc,  60c.,  Ex.  clo.  1  00 

Parsons  on  the  Rose 1  50 

Quiuby's  Mysteries  of  Bee-Keeping 1  50 

Quiucy  (Hon.  Josiah)  on  Soiling  Cattle 1  25 

Quinn's  Money  iu  the  Garden 1  50 

Quinu's  Pear  Culture  for  Profit, 1  00 

Riley's  Potato  Pests Paper  50  cts.;    cloth.,      75 

Roe's  Plav  and  Profit  in  my  Garden 1  50 

Stewart'slrrigatou  for  the  Farm,  Garden  Bnd  Orchard  I  50 

Stewart's  Stable  Book 1  50 

Stewart's  Shepherd's  Manual 150 

Stoddard's  Ann  Egg  Farm  . , paper,  50  eta.;  cloth      75 

Thomas's  Farm  Implements  and   Machinery 150 

Tim  Bunker  Papers .  or,  Yankee  Farming 1  50 

Tobacco  Culture.  By  fourteen  experienced  cultivators.     25 

Waring'a  Draining  tor  Profit  and  Health 1  50 

Waring's  Elements  of  Agriculture -. 1  00 

White's  Cranberry  Culture 1  25 

Wright's  Practical  Poultry-Keeper" 2  0(» 


FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTUBEB    OP 

FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS 

FOR 

ttEJTTI.EMESr.  LADIES. 

No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

DUsVBAR'S   CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 
9-l-ly  


KmaSFOED'S 


Is  Ihe  BEST  and    MOST    ECONOMICAL    in  the    World. 
Is  perfecily    PURE— free   from    acids   and    other   foreign 

substances  that  injure  Linen. 
Is    STRONGER     than    any    other— requiring     much    less 

quantity  in   using, 
is  UNIFORM— stiffens  and  finishes  work  always  the  same. 

Eingsford's  Osweg'O  Corn  Starch 

Is  the  most  delicious  of  all  preparations  for 

PUDDINGS,  BLANC-MA^fGE,  CAKE,  Etc. 

9-7-4m] 


J.  STAUFFER, 


LANCASTER,  jeENN'A. 
235  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


All  matters  appertaining  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CANA- 
DIAN PATENTS,   TRADE  MARKS,   and   COPYRIGHTS, 

promptly  attended  to.  His  experience,  success  ad  faithful 
ateation  to  the  interests  of  those  who  engage  his  Services 
are  fully  acknowledged  and  api^reciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  made  for  him  by  a  reUable  As 
sistant  at  Washington,  without  extra  charge  for  drawing 
or  description.  [9-1-tf 


Great  Stock- Breeder's  Monthly. 

,THE  NATIONAL 

LIVE-STOCK, 


JOURNAL, 

Pablished  at 
CHICAGO,  ILLS 

THIS  GREAT  MONTHLY  is  uuiverBiillyacknowl- 
ledged  to  be  wi'hout  a  rival  in  ils  department  of 
Journalism.  Each  number  coutaiuH  48  large- pages, 
three  columns  to  the  page,  with  a  handsome  cover, 
Hud  is  Beautifully  Illustrated  with  elegant  double- 
t'late  engravings.  It  is  the  only  pai>er  iu  the  world 
devoted  exclusively  to  live-stock  and  the  dairy.  It 
discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  merits  of  the 
various  breeds,  the  most  approved  methods  of  feed- 
ing and  handling,  and  everything  pertaining  to  the 
successful  management  of  live  stock  on  the  farm. 
During  the  year  lsT7,  Prof.  James  Law,  the  eminent 
veterinai7  of  Cnmell  University,  ^ill  contribute  a 
serieeof  articles  upon  the  lawsof  health  and  disease 
as  applied  to  Domestic  Animals,  that  cannot  fail  to 
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the  DAIRY,  snd  its  corps  of  editors  are  recognized 
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ough, Able  and  Practical  writers  in  the  separate 
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make  it  a  M'jh-toncd,  reliable,  practical  and  itLstruc- 
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The  Mtention  l  kmi  Communitf 

Is  invited  to  the  new  and  improved 


WhicU  bas   been    placed    in    the  market  by 

the    un<ler<ii^ned    firm,    and    which  is 

represented  by    the  above  cnt. 

This  roller  has  been  tried  by  some  of  our  best  farmers, 
who  proclaim  it  to  be  the  best  roller  they  have  ever  seen. 
The  cylinder  heads  and  hangers,  are  made  of  cast  iron,  with 
chilled  bearings,  consequently  there  is  no  perceptible  wear, 
ou  spindles  or  boxes,  if  pro^ierly  oiled.  The  cylinders  are 
2TK  inches  in  diameter — whole  length  of  roller  7  feet  9  in- 
ches. The  wood  work  is  made  of  good  oak  timber,  and  is 
well  painted.     We  guarantee  it  to  be 

The  most  Durable  and  Easiest  Handled 
Roller  in  us«. 

IT^^If  vou  wish  to  purchase,  call  ou 
STONER.  SHREINER  &  CO.,  Lancaster  Citv. 
SKNSENIG  HARDWARE  CO.,  Goodville,  Lancaster  county, 
EPHRAIM  BENDER,  Rothsville. 

MARTIN  KAPP,  Elizabethtown.  ' 

REUBEN  D.  ZECH,  Mountville. 
GRAHAM,   EMLIN  &   PASSMORE,    631    Market  Street, 

Philadelphia. 
Or  at  the  manufactory,  and  you  will  be  accommodated. 
MARSH  &  C09IP, 
9-8-2m  Monnt  Joy,  I-ancaster  Connty,  Pa. 

T¥TliisWlTllll 

Will  enable  you  to 
market  your  but- 
ter in  the  best  poa- 
8  i  b  le  condition. 
Competent  judges 
who  have  handled 
butter  shipped  in 
it  to  the  Philadel- 
phia market,  pro- 
nounce it  the  best 
.irraugemeut  /or 
rarrying  print  but- 
ter they  ever  saw. 
K;icJi  j'Viut  or  pat 
is  carried  in  a  sep- 
arate cup  that  can- 
not be  broken,  up- 
set, nor  get  out  of 

plLLCe, 

All  sizes  and 
forms  of  cups  and 
box  will  be  made. 

Circulars  with 
full  description 
and  price  list  free. 

L.  RESH, 

149  North  Queeu-3t.,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  BATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  SEPTEMBER,  1877. 


Vol.  VL  No.  9. 


THE    TOBACCO    BUG. 

The  "  I'listiilatftl  .soUlicr-buf;,"  [EwidusUs 
pustulatus.)    This  iiisfcl  belongs  to  the  order 
IlKMl'TKUA,  or  "half-wings,"  so  called    be- 
cause llie  wins;  covers  are  more  or  less   both 
opaiiue  and  transparent,  from  the  half  or  two- 
thirds  of  the  basal   liorlioii   beini;   thick   and 
leathery,  and  half  or  one-third   of  the   apical 
portion  being  membranaceous.     .Speciint;ns  of 
these    insects,    their  eggs   and   their   young, 
were  given  nio  by  Mr.  Kennedy,  of  Salisljury, 
subsequent   to    the   niceling  of  the   Tobacco 
Growers'  Society   in  .July  last.     On   compari- 
son I  find  these  "insects   identical   with   speci- 
mens  in   my    collection,    which    I   obtained 
twenty  years  ago,  and  before  tobacco  became 
a    plant    of   conmion    culture    in    Lancaster 
county.     I  <lo  not  distinctly  remember  tlu^'ir- 
curastances  under  which  1  obtained  them,  but 
I  am  ([uite  sure  I  did  not  find  them  on   tobac- 
co plants.     These  insects  belong  to  what  are 
properly     called     "bugs;"     the    chinch-bug, 
Sfjuash-bug    and   bed-bug,    belonging   U>  the 
same  order.     In  June  last  I  took   two  speci- 
mens on  tlic  young    and  succulent    Caralin 
plants  near  McCall's   Ferry,    ou   the   Susque- 
hanna, and  I  also  observed  one  on  a  black- 
berry bush;  and  as  there  are  several  species  of 
them,  some  of  which  I  have  always  found  on 
the  blackberry,  it  is  quite   probable   that   the 
specimens  in  my  collection  were  found  on  that 
plant.     It  is  not  at  all  remarkable  that  an  in- 
sect shoidd  leave  its  native  plant  and  show   a 
partiality  for  a  different  plant,  especially  when 
its  last  preference  is  more  juicy,   and  has  be- 
come a  subject  of  ciUtivation  and  solicitude. 
We  have  e.Kamples  of  that  peculiar  character- 
istic in  the  "Colorado  potato-beetle,"   in  the 
"codling  moth,"  in   the   "striped  apple  tree- 
borer,"  in  the  "curculio,"  and  many   others. 
But,  it  is  remarkable  that  the  same   insect 
should  feed  both  on  vegetation  and  on  other 
insects;  for  if  we  can  credit  a  writer  in  Field 
and  Forcsty  a  scientific  journal   published   in 
Washington  city,  a  species  belonging  to  this 
genus  (Ettsi-hisl'es  2)uncticep.f)  was  found  in  the 
very  act  of  plunging  its  dagger   into  the  soft 
body  of  the  larvie  of  the  "Colorado  beetle," 
and  sucking  its  sul)stance,  as  men  would   tlie 
pidp  of  the  grape.     It  is  well-known  that  the 
"spined  soldier-beetle,"  {Arma  :fpinnsa)  which 
belongs  t<5  the  same  family,  and  is  generically 
allied  to  this  insect,  is  in  the  habit  of  preying 
upon  the  potato-beetle  in  its  larva  state,  and 
I  have  had  many  .specimens  sent  to  mo  that 
had  been  captured  while  they  were  .so  engaged. 
But  these  suctorial  insects  do  not  only  punc- 
ture vegetation  and  animals,  and  tlien  pump 
out  their  vital  fluids,  but  they  also   secrete   a 
poison  and  infuse  it  into  the  wound,   which 
causes  the  plants  to  wilt,  and  is  perhaps  more 
injurious  to  the  plant  than  the  simple   punc- 
tures of  the  bugs.     On  one  occasion  an   indi- 
vidual belonging  to   this  order   (a  species   of 
Pirates,  an  account  of  which  we  have  record- 
ed more  in  detail  elsewhere,  in  an  article  on  the 
"Stings  of  Insects")  penetrated  one  of  my  fin- 
gers with  its  piercer,  which  for  some  minutes 
gave  me  intense  pain,  causing  the  persjiiration 
to  stand  in  drops  on  my  body,  followed  by  nau- 
sea, nervousness,  and  a  giddy  stupor.     On  an- 
other I  captured  a  ferocious   "tiger-lieetle" 
and  put  it  into  my  collecting  bottle  with  other 
insects.     About  fifteen  minutes  thereafter  1 
captm-ed  a  small  "pirate-bug,"  (Firates)  a.m\ 
on  introducing  it  into  the  bottle  I  found  that 
the  tiger  had  torn  all  the  other  insects  to  pieces, 
and  Wiis  "niasterof  the  situation."  As  soon  as 
the  pirate  entered  the  tiger  sprang  upon  him; 
but  he  made  no  special  resistance,  merely  e.x- 
tending  his  jointed  piercer  and  introducing  it 
into  the  soft  part   of  the   tiger   between   the 
head  and  the  thorax,  and  in  much   less  time 
than  it  has  taken  me  to  tell  it,   the  tiger  be- 


came powerless,  trembled  a  little  in  his  limbs, 
and  was  dead  as  a  door-nail. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  suggest  a  remedy 
for  the  destruction  of  these,  and  perhaps 
more  difticult  to  apply  one,  if  it  were  known. 
As  they  absorb  tbi;  inner  fluids  of  the  plants, 
an  external  poisoning  of  them  might  liave  lit- 
tle effect  on  the  bugs,  moreover,  they  sire  tol- 
erably active,  and  run  under  the  leaves  when 
molested,  or  fall  to  the  ground,  and  the  nui- 
ture  insects  can  very  deftly  manipulate  their 
wings  when  there  is  occasion  to  use  lUein. 
The  eggs  are  deposited  on  the  tender  ends  of 
the  plants,  but  they  are  too  small  to  elicit 
easy  observation.  Perhaps  liquid  Paris  green, 
a  tobacco  decoction,  or  strong  soapy  .solution, 
thrown  on  the  i)lants  by  an  atomizing  ma- 
chine might  be  effectual.  F  would  have  more 
confidence  in  crushing  them  between  the  noz- 
zles of  a,  largo  pair  of  wooden  forceps,  as  is 
done  to  the  "squash-bugs." 

^ 

THE    CUCUMBER. 
(Cueutnis  SttHvus,} 

"A  seraph  was  sick  with  the  colic  one  day, 
And,  weeping,  leaneil  over  the  moon  ; 

The  tears,  as  they  fell,  tloateJ  lii^htly  away 
Ou  the  possamer  piulons  of  June. 

But  one,  as  it  drifted  along  in  the  damp. 

Sank  wearily  down  to  the  earth  ; 
As  Iremhliug  it  lay,  'twas  embraced  by  a  cramp 

And  the  cucumber  blushed  into  birth." 

The  two  most  prominent  and  most  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  the  cucumber  are, 
its  great  antiquity  and  the  universality  of  its 
dissemination.  At  what  period  in  the  world's 
history  the  mythological  event  occurred 
which  is  celebrated  in  the  foregoing  stanzas, 
has  perhaps  never  been  chronologically  re- 
corded, or  if  so,  no  doubt  the  record  was 
burnt  with  the  great  Alexandrian  library  ; 
and  it  is  just  as  undoubted  that  there  are 
some  sanitary  or  hygienic  curmudgeons  in  the 
world  who  honestly  believe  that  if  all  the  cu- 
cumbers and  cucumber  seeds  in  the  aforesaid 
world  had  been  destroyed  with  the  library 
aforesaid,  a  greater  blessing  on  the  human 
family  would  have  been  entailed  than  can 
possibly  grow  out  of  their  cultivation  and  use, 
as  popular  as  they  seem  to  be,  unless  some 
other  use  for  them  can  be  devised,  than  con- 
verting them  into  pickles  and  salads. 

In  the  Mosaic  history  it  is  recorded  that  the 
children  of  Israel  made  a  free  use  of  cucum- 
bers during  their  sojourn  in  the  land  of  Egypt, 
and  that  they  murmured  ui  their  journeyings 
through  the  wilderness  on  account  of  the  ab- 
sence of  this  edible  gourd  ;  and  perhaps  this 
was,  symbolically,  (me  of  the  "flesh-pots" 
after  which  they  so  ardently  and  so  religiously 
longed,  during  those  remarkable  peregrina- 
tions. 

As  regards  cucumber  salad,  somebody  has 
facetiously  remarked  that  they  should  be  taken 
from  the  vines  when  they  are  about  six  inches 
long,  cleanly  washed,  pared,  sliced,  salted, 
peppered,  vinegared  and  (;reamed,  and  then — 
tluown  into  the  pig-swill,  especially  in  such 
localities  where  many  indiscreet  parents  and 
children  and  fevers  and  agues  abound. 

Cucumbers  are  suppo.sed  to  have  been  intro- 
duced into  England  and  on  the  continent  of 
Europe  from  th*  Levant,  but  the  precise  date 
when,  has  not  been  carefully  recorded.  It  is 
known  th.at  they  were  highly  esteemed  by  the 
Romans,  and  that  thei/  were  very  successful  in 
their  culture.  But  then  it  does  not  follow 
that  it  would  be  a  special  virtue  in  us,  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  to  esteem  what  the 
Romans  esteemed,  because  tliis  might  l>e 
proving  more  than  is  desirable  in  modern 
economies.  The  Romans  highly  esteemed 
gladiatorial  contests,  bull-fights,  wild-beast 
victimizations,    and    many    other  barbarous 


enormities    ill-.suited  to  modern  civilization, 
but  it  is  hoped  we  do  not. 

The  Emperor  Tiberius  is  said  to  have  had 
cucumbers  for  his  table,  fresh  from  the  vines, 
all  the  year  round,  by  the  employment  of 
artificial  heat.  Now,  Tiberius  was  the  second 
Emi)cror  of  Home,  and  succeeded  Augustus 
in  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  Christian  era  ; 
and  the  significance  of  this  fact,  illustrates  at 
what  an  early  period  in  history  hot-house 
culture  was  practiced,  and  with  what  success. 
We  are  sometimes  vain  enougli  to  think  that 
we  know  everything,  can  do  everything,  and 
have  originated  everything ;  but  when  we 
refer  to  the  pages  of  history,  we  discover  that 
much  of  our  knowledge  is  only  second- 
handed. 

The  cucumber  is  a  very  prominent  article 
of  food  in  many  of  the  Oriental  countries,  but 
whether  they  are  eaten  raw,  pickled,  boiled  or 
fried,  the  records  do  not  say.  It  mu.st  I)e  con- 
fes.sed  that  there  is  an  aroma  or  fragrance 
about  cucumbers  that  is  grateful  to  the 
olfactories  and  the  taste  of  nearly  everybody, 
even  if  they  do  not  habitually  partake  of  them 
as  food,  but  the  nutriment  they  contain  is  80 
Umited,  that  no  man  or  anim.al  (except  per- 
haps some  noxious  insect)  could  ever  get  fat 
eating  them. 

In  England  thus  vegetable  has  been  a  great 
favorite  from  its  first  introduction  into  that 
country,  and  at  this  day  large  tracts  of  land 
are  devoted  to  its  cultivation  to  supply  the 
demands  of  the  market.  John  Bull  loves  his 
beef,  his  ale,  and  his  cucumbers  ;  and  the  last 
named  perhaps  as  an  appetizing  condiment,  in 
order  to  enable  him  to  eat  more  beef;  we 
mean  the  well-to-do  John  Bulls,  for  in  Eng- 
land as  in  American  there  must  be  many  who' 
cannot  get  enough  of  beef  to  appease  their 
appetites,  without  resorting  to  stimulants  to 
increase  the  demand  for  "  more."  The 
"  Oliver  Twists"  of  society  surely  do  not  need 
them. 

Even  the  poet  Cowper  thought  it  not  be- 
neath the  invocation  of  his  muse,  to  sing  the 
praises  of  "  the  green  and  prickly-coated 
gourd,"  and  has  written  some  verses  on  its 
growth  in  winter,  which  in  minuteness  of 
detail  shows  that  he  had  a  comprehensive 
knowledge  of  the  subject  that  would  be 
worthy  of  the  study  of  the  professed  gardener. 
Notwithstanding  the  fruit  is  pleasant  and 
agreeable  to  the  taste,  and  "as  cool  as  a  cu- 
cumber," has  become  a  significant  and  well 
understood  every  day  expression,  yet,  phy- 
sicians maintain  that  it  has  little  or  no  nutri- 
tious value,  and  that  to  most  persons,  especi- 
ally those  of  delicate  constitutions,  it  is 
absolutely  unhealthful,  and  is  often  attended 
with  unpleasant,  if  not  injurious  eflects.  The 
cultme  of  the  cucumber— in  season— is  too 
well  understood  in  onr  own  counti7  for  us  to 
attempt  to  venture  any  instruction  on  that 
point  at  this  time.  But  we  question  whether 
much  is  done  in  this  country  in  cultivating  it 
out  of  season  ;  and  yet,  there  is  more  money 
in  the  latter  culture  than  there  is  the  former, 
especially  in  London  and  Paris,  and  no  doubt 
it  would  be  the  same  in  New  York  and  Phil- 
adelphia. As  an  illustration  of  this,  we  may 
state  that  in  the  fruit  stalls  of  London,  during 
the  month  of  March,  cucumbers  readily  bring 
a  guinea  a  dozen,  whereas  in  the  month  of 
August  they  may  be  obtained  in  abundance 
for  a  sixpence,  and  sometimes  as  low  as  a 
penny,  per  dozen. 

We  confess  that  our  interest  in  the  cucum- 
ber is  m.ainly  historical  and  scientific  ;  not  be- 
cause we  don't  like  them,  however,  but  because 
they  don't  like  us  ;  and,  therefore,  these  "  cu- 
curnbcr  cogitations,"  suggested  by  aproti-acted 
"  cucumber  time,"  make  a  partial  approxima- 
tion to  that  standpoint,  leaving  the  question 
of  their  hot,  or  green-house  culture,  to  some 


130 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  September, 


future  occasion,  should  it  be  desirable  and 
useful. 

In  conclusion,  we  desii-e  to  say  that  wc  do 
not  think  the  popular  use  of  cucumbers  is  the 
right  use.  They  come  into  season  at  a  period 
when  it  is  most  dangerous  to  partake  of  them 
as  a  salad  or  a  pickle,  and  therefore,  as  they 
will  be  cultivated,  they  ought  to  be  jn-epared 
for  the  table  by  a  culinary  process.  We  have 
heard  of  them  being  stewed  and  fried,  and 
we  believe,  by  a  little  art  in  their  preparation, 
they  might  become  fashionable  and  popular 
as  the  tomato  has  become.  But  when  we 
think  of  the  long  lapse  of  time  smce  their 
first  cultivation  by  the  human  family,  and  the 
slow  development  of  their  healthful  use,  we 
are  unable  to  anticipate  for  them  a  future 
differing  very  materially  from  the  past. 

Tlie  genus  Cucimiis  contains  twenty-one 
distinct  and  well-defmed  species,  including 
the  watermelon,  cantaloupe,  muskmelou  and 
cucumber,  and  these  run  out  into  almost  end- 
less variety.  The  last  named  alone  ( Cucumis 
sativus)  has  many  varieties,  of  which  those  in 
the  following  list  are  the  most  prominent : 

1.  Early  short  green  prickly 4  inches  long. 

2.  Early  long  green  prickly,  7  inches  long. 

3.  Most  long  green  prickly, 9  inches  long. 

4.  Early  green  cluster,  6  inches  long. 

5.  White  Dutch  prickly, 6  inches  long. 

6.  Long  smooth  green  turkey, 10  inches  long. 

7.  Large  smooth  green  Roman, 10  Inches  long. 

8.  Flanegans, 15  inches  long. 

9.  Russian, 12  inches  long. 

10.  White  Turkey, 15  inches  long. 

11.  Nepaul,   17  inches  long. 

12.  China  fluted, 9incheslong. 

13.  TheSnake, 12    feet     long. 

14.  Brownstown  hybrid, 15  inches  long. 

15.  Victory  of  England, 21  inches  long. 

16.  Ringleader,  15  inches  long. 

17.  Pratt's  hybrid, 18  inches  long. 

18.  Sion  House, 9  inches  long. 

19.  Duncan's  Victoria, 28  inches  long. 

20.  Allen's  Victory  of  Suffolk, 24  inches  long . 

21.  Victory  of  Bath, 17  inches  long. 

22.  Prize  Fighter, 16  inches  long. 

Besides  the  long  early  frame,  the  Manches- 
ter prize,  the  early  white  spine,  the  extra 
early  Kussian,  and  a  few  otliers,  of  which  the 
lengths  are  not  specially  recorded.  Some  of 
the  species  of  the  genus  Cucumis  and  their  va- 
rieties— for  instance  the  watermelons,  the 
muskmelons  and  tlie  cantaloupes  (cantelopes) 
— are  luscious  and  pleasant  summer  refresh- 
ments, and  need  no  preparation  to  make  them 
edible;  but  when  we  look  at  the  size  of  many 
of  the  varieties  of  sativus,  we  cannot  help 
thinking  they  must  have  been  intended  for 
some  other  purpose  than  the  merely  convert- 
ing of  them  into  condiments. 


THE  STING  OF  INSECTS. 


Their  Nature  and  Treatment— The  Best  Rem 
edy  of  Thirty  Years  Experience. 

Bad  Bees,  Bugs  or  Beetles:  A  week  or  two 
ago.  Rev.  J.  B.  Soule  was  stung  or  bitten  on  the 
hand  by  an  insect.  He  brushed  it  away  without 
seeing  it,  and  paid  little  attention  to  the  matter  until 
the  wound  began  to  swell  and  become  very  painful. 
His  hand  is  now  iu  a  terrible  condition,  and  he  has 
been  unable  to  sleep  day  or  night. 

Day  before  yesterday  a  little  daughter  of  D.avid 
Roth,  West  Marion  street,  was  stung  on  the  right 
forefinger  by  wh.it  she  called  a  "  white  humbler." 
Last  evening  her  hand  was  more  than  twice  its  natu- 
ral size,  ami  still  swelling,  the  pain  continuing  to  in- 
crease. 

We  clip  the  above  from  the  columns  of  a 
cotemporary,  and  our  object  in  doing  so  is 
to  suggest  the  remedies  we  usually  have  ap- 
plied, with  good  results,  wlien  stung  by  in- 
sects. As  a  preliminary,  we  may  say  that 
the  stings  of  all  insects  are  more  or  less  poison- 
ous, whether  that  sting  is  inflicted  by  a  caudal 
appendage,  as  iu  bees,  wasps  and  hornets,  an 
anterior  proboscis,  as  in  those  properly  de- 
nominated "bugs  " — squash  bugs  and  bed- 
bugs, for  instance— or  by  their  mastieatoi-y 
organs  (maudi))les  or  jaws)  as  in  solue  beetles, 
spiders,  etc.  The  best  remedy — and  almost 
the  only  one — we  have  found  m  an  experience 
pf  thirty  years,  dm-ing  which  time  we  have 
often  been  stung  or  bitten,  is  the  immediate 
application  of  volatile  ammonia  (spirits  of 
hartshorn)  either  bathing  the  wound  or  laying 


on  a  clean  white  rag  or  a  piece  of  paper  satu- 
rated with  the  liquid.  When  out  in  the  fields 
and  ammonia  was  inaccessible,  we  have  found 
reUef  in  clay  or  common  earth,  mixed  with 
water,  or  even  spittle,  to  the  consistence  of 
of  putty. 

On  one  occasion  our  left  index  finger  was 
pierced  by  the  proboscis  of  a  Hemipterous 
insect,  (a  true  "bug")  the  pain  of  which  was 
so  intense  that  wc  almost  fainted,  the  per- 
spiration raised  in  drops  upon  the  whole  upper 
portion  of  our  body,  and  we  were  affected 
with  nausea  for  half  an  hour  afterwards.  We 
were  destitute  of  both  ammonia  and  alcohol, 
therefore  had  to  resort  to  clay  and  spittle, 
which  removed  the  pain  within  half  an  hour, 
but  a  hardened  whitish  tubercle,  with  a  small 
red  spot  in  the  centre,  where  the  proboscis  had 
entered,  only  gi-adually  disappeared  after 
eight  or  ten  days.  To  illustrate  the  virulence 
of  the  poison  ef  this  msect,  on  placing  it  in  a 
bottle  with  some  living  predaceous  beetles,  it 
grappled  with  them,  and  penetrating  a  soft 
part  between  the  thorax'  and  the  head,  it 
killed  them  almost  instantly. 

These  effects,  however,  do  not  invariably 
follow  the  bites  or  sting."?  of  insects.  Some- 
thing depends  upon  how  much  of  its  poison 
has  been  previously  voided — as  in  venomous 
reptiles — something  must  be  attributed  to  the 
physical  constitution  of  the  person  who  has 
been  stung,  and  something  also  to  the  peculiar 
constitutional  state  of  the  same  person  at  the 
time  he  or  she  is  stung.  It  is  well  known  that 
persons  are  diflerently  affected  by  the  bites  or 
stmgs  of  moschitos,  (mosquitos)  and  also  by 
coming  in  contact  with  vegetable  poisons — 
poison  sumac  {Bhus)  for  instance. 

We  once  knew  a  man  who  was  almost  inva- 
riably poisoned  by  handling  or  eating  paw- 
paws, of  which  he  was  very  fond.  Injudicious 
subsequent  exposure,  through  which  inllam- 
mation  is  excited  by  what  is  commonly  called 
"taking  cold  "  in  the  wound,  has  also  an  un- 
friendly effect. 

We  cannot  even  guess  what  insect  is  re- 
ferred to  m  the  above  extract  under  the  name 
of  "white  humbler."  If  it  was  a  white- 
faced  wood-borer,  he  is  destitute  of  a  sting. 
.No  male  species,  the  female  of  which  is  armed 
with  an  abdominal  sting,  has'  a  sting  at  all; 
that  pernicious  implement  is  peculiarly  the 
endowment  of  the  female.  The  mouth  parts  of 
the  female  mosquito  are  prolonged  into  a  thin 
proboscis  with  which  she  penetrates  the  liuman 
body  and  pumps  up  the  blood,  but  the  mouth 
parts  of  the  male  are  entirely  wanting,  and 
therefore  he  never  stings  or  partakes  of  any 
food.  But  in  hemipterous  insects  (bugs)  both 
male  and  female  are  provided  with  a  proboscis, 
and,'  therefore,  if  they  choose,  both  of  them 
can  inflict  a  sting.  In  addition  to  our  simple 
remedies,  we  subjoin  the  following,  partly  as 
a  corroboration  and  partly  as  suggestive  of 
other  remedies,  which,  no  doubt  will  be  equally 
efficacious. 

How  to  Treat  Insect  Stings. 
The  pain  caused  by  the  sting  of  a  plant  or  insect  is 
the  result  of  a  certain  amount  of  acid  poison  injected 
into  the  blood.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  is  to  press 
the  tube  of  a  small  key  firmly  on  the  wound,  moving 
the  key  from  side  to  side  to  facilitate  the  exjiulsion 
of  the  sting  and  its  accompanying  poison.  The  sting 
if  left  in  the  wound,  should  be  carefully  extracted, 
otherwise  it  will  greatly  increase  the  local  irritation. 
The  poison  of  stings  being  acid,  common  sense 
points  to  the  alkalies  as  the  proper  means  of  cure. 
Among  the  most  easily  procured  remedies  may  be 
mentioned,  soft  soap,  liquor  of  ammonia  (spirits  of 
hartshorn),  smelling  salts,  washing  soda,  quicklime 
made  into  a  paste  with  water,  lime  water,  the  juice 
of  an  onion,  tobacco  juice,  chewed  tobacco,  bruised 
dock  leaves,  tomato  juice,  wood  ashes,  tabacco  ash 
and  carbonate  of  soda. 

If  the  sting  be  severe,  rest  and*toolncss  should  be 
added  to  the  other  remedies,  more  especially  in  the 
case  of  nervous  subjects.  Nothing  is  so  apt  to  make 
the  poisou  active  as  heat,  and  nothing  favors  its 
activity  less  than  cold.  Let  the  body  be  kept  cool 
and  at  rest,  and  the  activity  of  the  poison  will  be  re- 
duced to  a  minimum.  Any  active  exertion  whereby 
the  circulation  is  quickened  will  increase  both  pain 
and  swelling.  If  the  swelling  be  severe,  the  part 
may  be  rubbed  with  sweet  oil,  or  a  drop  or  two  of 
laudanum.  Stings  in  the  eye,  ear,  mouth  or  throat, 
sometimes  lead  to  serious  consequences ;  in  such 
cases  medical  advice  should  always  be  sought  as 
soon  as  possible. — London  Garden. 


THE  CODLING  MOTH. 


The  Grape  Procris  and  the  Grape  Leaf-Folder. 

Some  time  ago  an  attachee  of  the  Intelli- 
fjfnctr  presented  to  Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  the 
eminent  entomologist,  a  box  of  insect-infested 
apricots  and  a  few  grape  leaves,  with  a  re- 
quest that  he  would  examine  and  report  upon 
them.  Following  is  his  reply,  from  which  it 
will  be  seen  that  a  hitherto  received  theory 
that  the  codling  moth  will  not  attack  stoned 
fruit,  is  refuted : 

Mr.  J.  M.  J.  :  The  "batch"  of  insects  sub- 
mitted to  me  by  you,  on  the  20th  of  July  last, 
consisted  of  three  distinct  species,  belonging 
to  as  many  ditterent  genera  :  namely,  the  lar- 
va of  the  "Codling  Moth,"  the  American 
"Grape  Procris"  and  the  grape  "leaf  folder." 
I  examined  all  the  apricots — about  twenty 
in  nimiber — and  found  five  larva  of  the  cod- 
ling, (Carpocapsa  2)0 monella)  the  same  species 
that  infests  the  apples,  the  pears  and  the 
peaches.  These,  with  some  of  the  fruit,  I 
confined  in  a  small  box  witli  a  glass  lid  to  en- 
able me  to  observe  thek  operations — retain- 
ing one  specimen  for  identification,  which  I 
immersed  in  alcohol.  They  were  of  a  pink 
color,  about  J  of  an  inch  long,  and  possessing 
all  the  characteristics  of  Lepidopterous  laiwte. 
On  the  22d  two  of  them  spun  themselves  in  ir- 
regular cocoons,  in  the  angle  at  the  bottom 
of  the  box,  and  the  remamder  of  them  died. 
On  the  30th  they  evolved  from  the  cocoons  in 
the  perfect  moth  form,  beautiful,  lively  little 
insects,  with  their  wings  deflexed,  and  wrap- 
ped so  closely  around  the  body  as  to  almost 
form  a  cylinder.  Their  color  is  a  gray  ground, 
dappled  with  iiregular  bauds  of  brown,  and  a 
large  brown  spot  near  the  ends  of  the  anterior 
wings.  They  are  a  little  over  a  quarter  of  au 
inch  iu  length,  and  expand  over  half  an  inch. 
The  entomological  record  that  the  codling 
moth  confines  Ttself  to  pip-fruit,  and  never  at- 
tacks stone-fruit,  becomes  discredited,  for  we 
have  now  bred  them  from  the  apricot  and  the 
peach. 

The  second  is  the  "Grape  leaf-folder,"  the 
larva  of  which  is  a  glass  green  m  color,  over 
an  inch  in  length,  and  the  head  and  three  an- 
terior segments  blotched  with  dark  patches. 
This  larva  was  exceedmgly  active,  wriggling, 
jerking  and  jumping  backward  or  forward  at 
the  least  disturbance.  We  confined  this  larva 
in  a  box,  a  short  time  after  which  it  returned 
to  its  leafy  ceU  and  changed  to  a  pupa;  and, 
on  the  2d  of  August  the  moth  appeared.  It 
is  a  beautiful  insect,  expanding  over  an  inch 
from  tip  to  tip  of  its  wings.  The  ground 
color  is  blackish,  with  a  pearly  reflection,  the 
wings  fringed  with  white,  two  large  white 
spots  on  each  of  the  wings,  and  two  white 
bars  across  the  abdomen.  This  moth  is  dou- 
ble brooded;  the  first  brood  appears  about  the 
1st  of  June,  and  the  second  about  the  1st  of 
August.  It  is  the  Dcsmia  inaeulaiis  of  ento- 
mologists, and  when  numerous — which  fre- 
quently occurs — it  is  very  destructive  to  the 
foliage  of  the  grape  vines.  Of  course,  the 
only  remedy  is  to  clip  off  all  the  folded  leaves 
and  burn  them;  but,  tliis  should  be  done  when 
the  insects  are  in  pupa%  between  the  20th  of 
July  and  the  1st  of  August,  but  particularly 
before  the  leaves  fall  in  autumn;  because  the 
last  brood  hibernates  in  the  pupa  form  during 
winter,  and  emerges  about  the  end  of  May  or 
beginning  of  June,  and  lays  the  foundation 
for  the  first  brood.  If  the  leaves  are  cut  off 
while  the  insect  is  still  in  the  larva  state,  it 
will  wriggle  itself  out  of  its  cell  and  escape, 
and  your  object  would  be  defeated. 

The  third  species  is  the  "American  Grape 
Procris,"  (Procris  americana,)  little  pale 
yellow  larva,  with  black  heads,  and  a  trans- 
verse row  of  black  spots  on  each  dorsal  seg- 
ment of  the  body.  These,  after  about  the 
third  moulting,  arrange  themselves  side  by 
side,  hke  the  knives  of  a  mowing  machine, 
and  cut  a  clean  swath  across  the  grape  leaves, 
devouring  all  except  the  larger  nerviires  and 
midribs.  These  larva>  did  not  feed  in  concert, 
in  confinement,  as  tliey  do  in  the  open  air. 
They  were  rather  discontented,  and  always 
retired  to  the  sides  of  the  bell-glass  to  moult. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


131 


.0  spin  their  scale-like  cocoon,  and  to  puiiato. 
This  last  ti-ansformation  commenced  on  the 
id  of  Aufrust,  and  is  not  yet  ended.  The 
:)ni)a  is  a  liijhl  l)idwn,  as  seen  Ihnmgh  the 
t;lass.  As  we  havo  freiiuently  bred  these  in- 
Kecta  we  will  not  delay  this  ]iapei-  nntil  their 
linal  transformation,  wliich  will  pmhahly  not 
iicrur  for  a  week  or  ten  days  yet.  Tlie  mature 
moth  is  a  slender  little  insect,  with  nairow 
'wings,  expan<ling  three-fonrths  of  an  inch, 
jand  with  a  tnft,  or  hnish,  at  tlu^  end  of  the 
J)ody.  Th(!  color  is  totally  lilaek,  except  a 
narrow  orange-colored  ring  aronnd  the  neck. 
Whilst  in  the  larva  state  they  are  easily  de- 
stroj'ed,  as  they  make  no  attempt  to  eseai)o  ; 
('Specially  as  they  are  gregarious,  and  thus  a 
Iwhole  colony  may  he  secured  by  cutting  off  a 
iSingle  leaf  Cutting  olV  the  infested  leaves 
and  huruing  or  scalding  the  infestors,  is  the 
only  remedy  wo  can  recounnend,  and,  por- 
liaps,  thoonlyone  that  is  worth  recommending. 


BLACK    BASS  AND    BASS-BAIT. 

1    The  stocking  of  the  Sustpiehanna  river  and 
its  tributaries  with  black  l)ass  seems  to  have 
ueveloped    an    industry    liitherto    unknown, 
namely,  the  procuring  of  such  baits  for  their 
jcapture  as  are  taken  by  them  the  most  readily, 
and  which   aflbrd  the   anglers   for   thcni  the 
(most   sport    and    the    greatest  success.      Of 
niursc,  there  are  a  number  of  baits  that  these 
ii>lies  take,  but  there  are  three  kinds  for  which 
,lhey  appear  to  have  a  special  partiality,  and 
(these  tln-ee  kinds  readily  command  a  penny 
ifor  each  separate  bait.     Perhaps  the  very  best 
bait  is  a  small  fresh-water  "crayli.sh,"  com- 
monly called  "crabs,"  although  in  point  of 
lut  it  is  more  nearly  allied  to  the  U)bster,  both 
jii  its  form  and  its  habits.     This  is  tlic  Aslacus 
[Bartonii,   a  small  crustacean   found  in  t)ur 
rivers  and  creeks,  but  especially  in  small  shal- 
low   runs  or  rivulets,   where    they  may  be 
I'liuud  under  .stones.     But  until   it  was  dis- 
ci uered  that  they  were  a  capital  bass-bait,  we 
\iiiture  to  say  that  but  few  people  knew  that 
tlicy  were  so  abundant.     We  have  it  from 
i^iiiid  authority,  that  nearly  three  thousand  of 
Ithese  crustaceans  were  obtained  the  present 
jseason  in  the  river  and  the  small  streams  in 
Mild  about  Columbia,  all  of  which  were  sold 
:i  1  not  less  than  a  cent  a  piece. 
;     The  next  in  value — if  not  of  equal  value — 
is  what  is  vidgarly  called  the  "  Ilellgramito." 
This  is  the  larva  of  the  "  Horned  Coiydalis," 
(Ciiri/d(tHs  corm(Uis)  Vihich  in  its  larva  state 
is  aquatic,  and   when   fully   matured  is  three 
inches  in  length  ;  the  head  and  thoracic  seg- 
ments black,  and  the  abdominal  portion  of  a 
'lurk  swarthy  color.     In  our  boyhood  we  called 
these  larva,  "Alligators,'"  because  they  bear 
N.ime  resemblance  to  a  miniature  animal  of 
I  hat  tyiie.     But  of  these    animals  we  have 
never  seen  more  than  a  dozen  or  so  ina  whole 
S(  ason  ;  and  yet,   within  the  past  week,  we 
have  been  credibly  informed  that  one  man  in 
'  iiknnhia  cai)tured  seven  hundred  of  them  in 
:i  single  day,  which  he  sold  at  a  cent  apiece. 
Tliese  are  surely  windfalls  in  times  like  the 
inesent,  but  it  is  likely  to  result  in  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  Ilellgramites.     What  derangement 
.  in  nature's  economy  this  may  produce,  is  more 
I  than   we   are  able  to  determine,  but  if  they 
'  were  not  of  some   use,    they   probably  would 
not  be.     Aquatic  insects  doubtless  are  bene- 
(irial  to  Stagnant  waters,  as  it  is  claimed  that 
I  liey  purify  them   by   devouring  both  animal 
and  vegetable  matter,  which  would  otherwise 
render  the  water  impure  or  jiutrid.     But  of 
course,  neither  the  bass  nor  the  bass-fishers 
will  ^ive  any  heed  to  this,  when  self-gratillca- 
tion  is  the  end. 

The  third  bait  referred  to,  is  a  juvenile 
specimen  of  the  common  toad  {liu/o  Ameri- 
cana), of  which  there  are  now  many  to  be 
found  in  the  viciinty  of  the  streams  in  which 
they  liave  passed  their  haiipy  "  tadpole"  days, 
if  such  an  advent  is  iiossible,  surroimded  as 
they  are  by  a  nndtitude  of  dangers.  In  com- 
parison with  the  number  of  eggs  deposited  by 
toads,  the  multitude  of  tadpoles  often  noticed 
in  the  shallows  of  streams,  and  also  the  great 
numbers  of  young  toads  often  seen  on  beaches 
and  flats  in  proximity  to  the  stream,  after 


they  lo.so  their  tails  and  their  transition  to  the 
toad  stale,  it  is  singular  how  few  of  the  adults 
are  .seen  and  how  few  survive  the  season. 
There  must  be  a  great  mortality  among  them, 
either  from  natural  causes,  from  accidents,  or 
from  their  appropriation  by  other  animals. 
Snakes  and  wading  fowls  devour  many  of 
them,  anil  now  that  it  has  been  discovered 
that  they  nuike  a  good  bass  bait,  tho  innocent 
little  things  have  a  fearful  ordeal  to  pass 
through  before  they  can  attain  to  mature 
toadhood  ;  for  a  hoy  to  pass  over  a  bar  or  Hat 
and  see  these  little  toads,  it  is  equivalent  to 
finding  .so  many  pennies,  and  an  embargo  is 
therefore  immediately  laid  upon. them.  The 
adult  toad  is  a  capit.al  insect  scavenger,  but 
there  is  danger  that  but  few  of  them  will  reach 
that  state  in  the  vicinity  of  localities  where 
the  bass  abounds.     We  await  the  result. 


OLIVER    DALRYMPLE    THE    "GREAT 
WHEAT  KING"   OF    MINNESOTA. 

A  fiientl  in  (ieneya,  111.,  writes  us  that  he  has 
heard  a  ffrcat  deal  about  the  "  Daliymple  farm," 
uoar  Kargo,  and  has  aleo  seen  many  contradictory 
statements  about  tho  size  of  the  farm  and  tlie 
amount  in  wheat  this  year,  and  asks  us  to  give  him 
a  "  liill  of  particulars."  For  the  benefit  of  our  cor- 
respondent, and  others  who  may  be  interested  in 
largo  farming  operations,  we  will  state  that  what  Is 
called  the  "  Dalrymple  farm"  is  a  tract  of  about 
11,000  acres  of  land  near  Casselton,  twenty  miles 
west  of  Fargo,  on  the  line  of  the  Northern  Pacific 
Railroad.  It  is  owned  by  George  VV.  Cass  and  P.  B. 
Cheney,  of  New  York,  and  Oliver  Dalrymple,  the 
"  wheat  king  of  Minnesota,"  as  he  is  termed. 
Twelve  hundred  acres  were  broken  in  1875  and  sowed 
to  wheat  last  year.  This  year  there  are  4,000  acres 
in  wheat — and  a  splendid  crop  It  is,  too — and  3,000 
acres  additional  were  broken  this  season  for  seeding 
next  year. 

Mr.  D.alrymplc  also  owns  a  half  interest  in  what  is 
known  as  the  "  Grandin  farm,"  a  tract  of  40,000 
acres  just  north  of  Elm  Kivcr,  in  Traill  county,  D. 
T.,  35  miles  north  of  Fargo.  Tlie  other  owners  are 
the  Grandin  Brothers,  bankers  of  Tidioute,  Pa.  On 
this  farm  there  are  3,500  acres  in  wheat  this  year, 
and  some  3,000  acres  broken  for  next  year.  To 
harvest  this  crop  of  7,500  acres  on  the  two  places,  it 
required  42  self-binding  reapers,  325  horses  and 
mules  and  l.M  men.  Nine  steam  threshers,  each 
with  a  capacity  of  1,000  bushels  per  day,  are  now  at 
work  threshing  the  grain. 

In  addition  to  his  interest  in  these  two  immense 
farms,  Mr.  Dalrynlple  owns  2,000  acres  of  land  in 
Cottage  Grove,  Minnesota,  near  St.  Paul,  1,.500  acres 
of  which  is  in  wheat — so  that  either  as  sole  or  half 
owner,  Mr.  Dalrymple  is  interested  in  9,000  acres  of 
wheat  this  year,  which  will  be  increased  to  15,000 
acres  next  year. 

Oliver  Dalrymple  has  five  steatn  threshers  now  at 
work  on  his  4,000  acre  farm  at  Casselton,  each  one 
threshing  an  average  of  1,000  bushels  per  day.  The 
grain  is  hauled  directly  to  the  cars  as  fast  as  thresh- 
ed, and  shipped  to  New  York,  via  Duluth  and  the 
lakes.  He  loads  and  forwards  1.5  cars  per  day.  At 
350  bushels  to  the  car,  the  crop  on  this  one  place 
will  make  2.57  car  loads.  Ylie  yield,  from  what  has 
been  threshed  so  far,  is  estimated  at  90,000  bushels 
—an  average  of  23^' J  bushels  per  acre.  Add  to  this 
the  3,500  acres  on  the  Grandin  farm,  in  which  Mr. 
Dalryrapli^  has  a  hall  interest,  and  which  will  aver- 
age equally  well,  the  two  farms  will  produce  1HS,750 
bushels  of  wheat  this  year.  A  nice  little  plum  to 
have,  surely. 

We  may  add  that  it  is  the  intention  of  the  owners 
of  these  two  liuge  farms  to  break  on  an  average 
about  5,000  acres  each  year,  until  the  whole  51 ,000 
acres  are  brought  under  cultivation.  They  have 
abundant  means,  and  the  experiment  so  far  has 
proven  (hat  it  is  not  possible  to  make  a  better  invest- 
ment of  money.  This  is  tho  second  year  of  the  en- 
terprise, and  so  far  the  net  profits  have  been  over 
j^lO  per  acre  each  year,  for  every  acre  under  cultiva- 
tion. Go  thou  and  do  likewise,  and  there  is  plenty 
of  room  here  to  do  it  in. 

The  above  we  clip  from  the  editorial  col- 
umns of  the  Fargo  (Dakota)  Tunis,  of  August 
'2.5th,  1877.  We  reproduce  it  in  the  columns 
of  the  Fartner,  more  to  give  our  readers  a 
knowledge  of  what  is  transpiring  in  the  great 
wheat  p-owing  interests  of  the  country,  and 
as  an  illustration  of  personal  enterprise,  than 
as  a  recommendation  to  "fJo  thou  and  do 
likewise  ;"  for  we  cannot  see  that  immense 
farms,  in  the  possession  of  a  few  men,  are 
more  conducive  to  the  public  welfare  in  the 
long  run,  than  immense  monopolies  in  other 
tilings.  AVe  believe  it  would  be  better  for  the 
country  at  large,  better  for  the  farming  inter- 
ests, better  for  the  himdrcds  and  thou-sauds 
who  are  now  out  of  employment,   and  better 


for  till!  moral  and  materitd  developent  of  so- 
ciety, if  tho  5:!, DDIJ  acres  of  land  which  Mr. 
Daliymple  and  less  than  half  a  dozen  others 
own  itv  control,  were  divided  into  about  four 
hundred  farms,  than  to  be  amassed  into  one 
single  concern.  The  ambition  to  (lossess  the 
largest  farm  in  the  Union,  and  to  rai.se  tho 
kuge.st  crop  of  wheat,  merely  for  the  eclat 
which  attaches  to  sucli  achievements,  or  for 
the  wealth  which  it  ]iuts  into  the  pockets  of  its 
possessors,  is  not  calculated  to  engender  that 
contentment,  or  inculcate  Ibtit  republican 
simplicity,  which  are  so  essential  to  the  hap- 
liiness  and  the  welfare  of  a  free  country,  al- 
though we  are  fat  from  attaching  anything  to 
it  that  savors  of  civil  or  social  criminality. 


STATE  FAIR. 
Our  patrons  will  not  forget  lliat  Pennsyl- 
vania's annual  agricultural  exhibition  will  be 
held  at  Erie,  commencing  on  Monday,  Sep- 
tember the  24th,  and  continuing  to  Friday 
the  2Sth.  Although,  from  the  proceedings 
of  our  local  society,  it  will  be  iierceived  that 
it  Wiis  deemed  inexpedient  to  liold  a  county 
exhibition  the  present  season,  on  account  of 
the  poor  .show  of  fruit,  which  is  usually  the 
chief  attraction,  still,  some  of  our  famiera 
and  manufacturers  may  be  able  to  mtike  a 
creditable  display  at  tlie  State  fair.  To  those 
therefore,  to  whom  distance  is  not  an  insur- 
mountable objection,  the  event  at  Erie  may 
afford  an  opportunity  to  advertise  them.selves 
iiiid  their  productions  in  a  useful  way,  and 
we  call  the  attention  of  such  to  the  subject. 


OUR      LOCAL     ORGANIZATION     AND 
OURSELF. 

By  referring  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Sep- 
tember meeting  of  the  "Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society,"  it 
will  be  perceived  that  we  have  been  the  sub- 
ject of  ii  handsome  testimonitd,  in  the  form 
of  a  gold-he;uled  ebony  cane.  Whether  we 
merited  such  a  token  of  the  Society's  kind- 
ness or  not,  is  not  within  our  province  to  dis- 
cuss. Acting  in  perfect  freedom  in  the  mat- 
ter, we  must  presume  that  the  .society  itself  is 
the  most  competent  party  to  determine  that 
point.  It  is  sullicient  for  us  to  know  that  the 
act  was  entirely  spontaneous  on  its  part,  and 
that  our  acceptance  of  the  gift  was  as  disin- 
terested as  it  was  unexpected.  What  we 
desire  to  record  here,  is  a  more  grateful  ap- 
preciation of  the  gift  than  oiu'  feelings  would 
Iiermit  ns  to  express  at  the  moment  the  event 
transpired  ;  and  our  thankfulness  for  this  re- 
cognition of  our  feeble  efforts  to  advance  the 
interests  of  agriculture,  as  well  as  the  mental 
and  material  welfare  of  those  who  are  en- 
gaged in  an  occuiKition,  upon  the  success  of 
which  iire  bti.si'd  the  foundations  of  civil  soci- 
ety. Under  any  circumstances,  this  manifes- 
tation of  personal  esteem  ought  to  constitute 
a  social  landmark  in  the  wilderness  of  our 
days,  to  which  we  can  always  return  witli 
sentiments  of  grateful  remembrance. 

Viewed  from  a conespondential standpoint, 
this  act  of  the  generous  donors  is  of  a  deeper 
significance  than  they  may  have  apprehended, 
although  not  more  so  than  they  may  have  in- 
tended. 

A  cane,  or  staff,  in  proportion  to  its  strengtli 
and  gracefidness,  signifies  those  powers  of  our 
spiritual  and  and  liioral  natures  which  have 
their  origin  in  goodness  and  truthfulness. 

The  socket,  or  base,  is  iron,  (or  steel)  which 
is  a  symbol  of  natural  or  rational  truth,  in  its 
most  obvious  sense — the  natural  light  of  man 
— or  that  natural  degree  of  knowledge  wliich 
illnniinatcs  his  niiinl  in  natural  things  alone. 

The  shaft  is  ihimy,  which  signifies  a  diviner 
form  of  truth,  in  its  outward  expression — 
truth,  as  it  Hows  into,  and  gives  quality  to, 
ext«rnal  actions. 

The  head  is  fjohl,  which,  according  to  the 
subjects  with  which  it  is  conncct<?d,  has  vari- 
ous symbolical  meanings,  or  correspondential 
significations.  In  its  common  and  mo.st  ob- 
vious moraf  sense,  it  represents  the  goodness 
of  that  love  which  comes  from  God;  and  its 
spiritual  and  celestial  significance  are  indicat- 
ed fty  the  fineness  of  its  quality. 


132 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMEI^ 


[September 


This  moral  analysis  of  the  subject  must  en- 
hance the  value  of  the  s;ift  in  the  estimation 
of  both  the  givers  and  the  receiver;  and  illus- 
trates that  we  cannot  separate  anything  that 
is  made  from  Him  who  made  it,  or  through 
whose  divine  energies  it  is  permitted  to  be 
made.  And  furthermore,  that  in  our  ex- 
pressions of  thankfulness  to  our  fellow  men, 
our  sentiments  should  be  purified  by  the  re- 
cognition of  God  in  everything— that  every 
outward  manifestation  is  but  the  expression 
of  something  that  is  within,  and  has  its  source 
ia  the  unseen,  whether  it  be  good  or  evil. 

^ 

A  SINGULAR  POTATO. 

(Singular,  only,  however,  if  there  is  no  mis- 
take in  the  facts  of  the  case. ) 

Haydn  H.  Tshudy,  esq.,  of  Lititz,  ra.,has 
placed  in  our  hands  a  potato  supposed  to  be  a 
imion  between  an  "Early  Rose"  and  a  "Snow- 
flake.  ' '  These  two  varieties  had  been  planted 
side  by  side  in  parallel  rows,  and  on  taking 
them  up  on  the  30th  of  August,  this  tuber- 
six  and  a  half  inches  long,  and  the  same  m 
circumference— was  found  to  have  a  vine  at 
each  end,  one  of  which  belonged  to  the  "Rose" 
and  the  other  to  the  "Flake."  The  tuber  is 
slightly  contracted  in  the  middle,  and  from 
that  point  towards  the  ends,  there  is  a  slight 
difference  in  color,  as  well  as  in  the  texture; 
but,  had  we  found  it  separated  from  the  Tines, 
we  should  not  have  noticed  anything  very  ex- 
traordinary, either  in  its  form,  texture,  or 
color. 

Potatoes,  however,  are  subject  to  some  very 
pecuMar  malformations,  and  can  accommo- 
date themselves  to  almost  any  adverse  circum- 
stances, such  as  gi'owing  through  and 
around  an  iron  ring;  one  growing  within  an- 
other, growing  through  an  auger  hole  and  de- 
veloping into  a  "clinch"  on  each  side,  &c., 
&c.,  and  we  cannot  positively  say  that  one— 
in  its  juvenile  state  of  ductility— will  not  grow 
into,  and  finally  blend  with  another.  The 
only  thing  that  raises  a  doubt  in  our  mind  in 
the  present  instance,  is  the  fact  that  the  "eyes 
and  brows"  all  look  in  one  direction,  and 
therefore  the  stem  of  attachment  at  the  apical 
end,  must  have  been  abnormal;  or,  one  of  the 
eyes  stimulated  to  an  umiatural  growth, 
forming  an  additional  stem.  This  is  however 
merely  suggestive,  and  the  case  must  rest  for 
the  present  on  its  external  merits. 

^ 

WHEAT  CROP  OF  1877. 
Accordmg  to  the  Chicago  Tribune  this  year's 
■wheat  crop    in  the  great    wheat-producing 
western  States  compares  witli  that  of  1875  and 
1876  as  follows  : 

1S75.  1876.                1877. 

Bushels.  Bushels.         Bushels. 

Minnesota 27,000,000  16,000,000  35,000,000 

Iowa        29,000,000  18,000,000  .37,000,000 

WlscoDBin 25,000,000  15,000,000  25,000,000 

Kansas 12,000,000  12,000,000  20,000,000 


MONTHLY  REMINDERS. 

The  fall  crops  will  now  be  growing  rapidly, 
and  will  require  hoeing  and  other  attentions. 
From  the  15th  to  the  25th  cabbage,  cauliflower 
and  lettuce  seeds  may  be  sown,  for  young 
plants  to  winter  over  in  cold  frames.  Shallots 
and  onions  should  be  planted,  and  spinach 
and  German  greens  sown  for  next  spring's 
crop.  Earth  up  such  celery  as  may  be  wanted 
for  next  month. 

The  shallot  is  a  species  of  onion,  the  root 
of  which  is  composed  of  numerous  small 
bulbs,  united  at  their  base,  and  covered  with 
a  thin  skin.  It  is  chiefly  used  in  a  green  state, 
early  in  spring.  It  thrives  in  any  soil  suitable 
for  the  onion,  preferring,  however,  a  light, 
warm  soil.  It  is  chiefly  grown  by  divining  the 
bulbs  and  planting  the  offsets.  They  may  also 
be  planted  in  April  for  later  use.  When  the 
tops  die  oft  the  bulbs  should  be  taken  up, 
well  dried,  and  kept  in  a  warm,  dry  place;  as 
damp  and  cold  cause  them  to  decay  rapidly. 
There  are  five  or  six  varieties,  but  none  of 
them  are  better  than  the  common  sort— ^Z- 
liuin  ascalonicum—tiom  Ascalon,  in  Palestine. 


QUERIES  AND  ANSWERS. 
The  Locust  Catcher. 


■Total 93,000,000      61,000,000    117,000,000 

Here  we  have  an  increase  of  twenty-five 
per  cent,  over  the  crop  of  1875,   and  nearly 
one  hundred  per  cent,  over  that  of  1876.     The 
increase  is  general  throughout  the  country 
also,  and  for  all  kinds  of  grains.      The  grain 
crop  of  this  year  will  be  the  largest,   in  all 
probability,  that  has  ever  been  produced  m 
the  United  States.     The  cotton  crop  will  not 
fall  below  4,500,000  bales,   and  the  yield  of 
sugar  in  Louisiana  is  an  exceptionally  abund- 
ant one.     The  west  and  southwest  are  rejoic- 
ing in  the  fine  prospect  before  them  and  in 
the  signs  of  returning  prosperity.     The  trans- 
portation of  these  immense  harvests  to  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  will  create  a  rush  of  busi- 
ness among  the  railroads.     Tlie  farmers  and 
planters  will  have  more  money  and  will  con- 
sume more.     In  anticipation  of  the  demand, 
merchants  are  already  repairing  in  considera- 
ble numbers  to  the  Eastern  cities,  and  buying 
freely  assorted  stocks  of  goods.  The  elements 
of  a  new  era  of  prosperity  are  being  rapidly 
formed.    An  eminent  banker  of  New  York, 
and  one  of  the  most  sagacious  observers  and 
best-informed  financiers  of  the  country,   pre- 
dicts that  within  two  years  the  United  States 
will  be  overflown  with  prosperity  and  wealth.  [ 


Marietta,  August  14,  1877. 
Prof.  3.  S.  Rathvon — Dear  Sir:  I  send  by  mail 
an  insect  knotrn  here  as  the  "  locust  catcher." 
Whether  it  catches  locusts  I  do  not  know.  But  I  do 
know  that  it  is  armed  with  a  powerful  "  jaTclln,"  as 
Josh  Billings  would  say.  They  made  their  appear- 
ance here  four  years  ago  ;  one  pair  burrowing  in  the 
road.  From  there  they  emigrated  to  the  garden 
walks,  where  I  counted  no  less  than  twenty-liTC  holes 
which  they  bored  out  this  year.  The  sample  that  I 
send  I  suppose  is  a  male,  as  it  is  larger  than  some 
others.    Very  truly,  Horace  M.  Engle. 

Your  large  wasp-like  insect  is  the  Styzus 
sincio^s  of  Say  ;  but  from  my  boyhood  up  to 
the  present  time  it  has  been  known  in  Lan- 
caster county  under  the  common  name  of  the 
"Locust-catcher."    Perhaps  "Cicada-catch- 
er" would  be  more  appropriate.     This  insect 
generally  makes  its  appearance  in  the  month 
of  August ;  therefore  it  does  not  catch  what 
is    commonly    called     the    "Seventeen-year 
Locust,"  for  the  period  of  that  insect  passes 
away  before  this  one  makes  its  appearance. 
Moreover,  if  it  had  to  depend  upon  that  in- 
sect, it  would  have  to  suspend  its  wants  to 
suit  the  long  intervals  in  the  periods  of  its 
prey.    But  it  catches  the  annual  locust,  better 
named  "Harvest-fly,"  (Cicadopn/inosa)  which 
makes  its  appearance  about  the  time  it  does. 
And  now,  what  does  it  do  with  the  locust  after 
it  catches  it  ?    We  will  endeavor  to  answer. 
This  insect  belongs  to  a  tribe  or  famUy  of  fos- 
sorial  wasps,  which  n;ake  burrows  in  the  earth 
and  stock  them  with  various  kinds  of  insects, 
each  species  generally  confining  itself  to  a  par- 
ticular kind  of  insect.     The  Siyxus  uniformly 
confines  itself  to  the  annual  cicada.     It  does 
not  feed  on  the  cicada  itself,  nor  does  it  kill ; 
it  only  paralyzes  it  and  crams  it  into  its  bur- 
row, in  which  it  also  deposits  its  eggs,  supply- 
ing as  many  cicadas  as  it  lays  eggs.     In  due 
time  these  eggs  hatch  out,  and  the  young  grub 
feeds  upon  the  cicada,  in  such  a  way,  too,  as 
not  to  entirely  destroy  its  vitality  mitil  it  has 
matured  its  larval  development,  and  is  ready 
to  assume  the  pupa  state,  after  which  it  re- 
mains in  the  earth,  in  this  form,  until  July  or 
August  of  the  following  year,  when  it  comes 
fortli  a  winged  insect,  so  educated  as  to  know 
exactly  what  to  do  and  how  to  proceed  in  imi- 
tating the  life  and  progress  of  its  parents. 
The  old  Styzus  does  not  survive  the  season, 
nor  repeat  what  it  once  has  done,  after  the 
deposition  of  all  its  eggs,  but  soo»  thereafter 
dies,  and  we  have  found  more  dead  ones  in 
September  than  we  have  live  ones  in  August. 
There  is  a  singular  economy  in  only  paralyzing 
and  not  killing  its  prey.     If  it  is  killed  its  de- 
composition would  take  place  before  the  de- 
velopment of  its  grub  was  accomplished,  and 
starvation  would  follow.     The  grub  is  equally 
gifted  in  its  economic  instincts,  for  it  does  not 
consume  the  most  vital  part  of  its  host  until 
there  is  no  longer  any  need  of   its  vitality. 
There  may  be  something  in  its  paralyzed  con- 


dition which  arrests  decomposition  also. 
Some  of  these  fossorial  wasps  appropriate 
caterpillars,  and  therefore,  if  it  cannot  be  re- 
garded as  an  insect  friend,  it  may  be  classed 
with  the  innoxious  kinds.  "  Twenty-five  bur-  ^ 
rows  in  one  garden-walk"  is  more  than  we  j 
have  ever  seen  at  one  place.  ' 

Berlin,  Pa.,  September  3, 1877. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon — Dear  Sir:  I  send  by  to- 
day's mail,  enclosed  In  a  small  box,  a  small  animal, 
insect,  worm  or  what  it  may  be.  In  appearance  it 
is  entirely  strange  to  me,  and  to  every  person  in  the 
community  who  has  seen  it.  It  was  found  on  the 
bark  of  a  tree— couldn't  say  what  kind.  Don't 
know  on  what  it  feeds.  If  you  examine  it  will  you 
please  let  me  know  what  it  is.  Respectfully  yours, 
J.  P.  Brubaker. 

Your  box  came  to  hand,  one  day  after  your 
letter,  a  perfect  wreck,  and  it  is  a  miracle  that 
its  contents  were  not  entirely  destroyed. 
(Boxes  for  the  transmission  of  such  objects 
through  the  mail  should  be  stiff  paper  or  tin.) 
The  "  small  anirtKil"  it  contained  had  under- 
gone a  complete  metamorphosis  since  its  in- 
carceration, and  was  inclosed  in  a  thin  spher- 
ical shell  or  cocoon,  about  the  size  of  amanow- 
fat  pea,  leaving  us  in  a  measure  to  guess  at  its 
species.  It,  however,  belongs  to  a  Lepidop- 
terous  family  called  Lamicadans  or  "Hag- 
moths."  This  subject  is  very  probably  the 
species  called  the  "  saddle-back  moth"  (iJin- 
pretia  stimula.)  The  whole  animal— which 
was  the  larval  form  of  the  insect— has  the 
form  of  a  cart  saddle,  with  two  erect  fleshy 
horns,  or  "pummels,"  at  each  end,  and  a 
large  purple  spot  with  a  green  margin  on  the 
centre  of  the  back.  There  are  several  species 
of  them,  but  judging  from  the  size,  form  and 
texture  of  the  cocoon,  we  think  it  is  the  one 
above-named.  They  are  omniverous  feeders, 
and  we  have  found  them  on  at  least  twenty 
different  kinds  of  trees,  shrubs  and  plants. 

The  moth  will  not  appear  until  next  season. 


Mn,LERSviLL«,  Pa.,  August,  1877. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon.— i>«ar  >Sir.— The  enclosed 
worms  I  found  on  the  Desmodium  viridiflorum,  grow- 
ing near  the  Conestoga — the  smaller  ones  skeleton- 
izing the  leaves,  and  the  larger  one  consuming  them 
completely — It  ate  an  entire  leaflet  last  night.— 
T.  P.  B. 

There  were  three  different  kinds  of  larvoe 
(worms)  in  the  box.  The  large  green  bristly 
one,  with  lateral  party  colored  stripes,  was 
the  larva  of  Saturnia  lo,  perhaps  the  nearest 
representative  of  the  true  silk  worm,  (Bomhyx 
mori)  that  we  have  in  this  country.  Two  of 
the  smaller  ones  were  the  larva  of  a  species 
of  Oaleruca  or  Haltica,,  (coleoptera);  they  soon 
died,  and  were  too  young  to  determine  the 
speciss.  The  third  was  a  geometer  or 
"Looper,"  but  it  somehow  made  its  escape 
before  we  could  make  a  close  examination  of  it. 


H.  M.  E.  The  large  white  grub  worm,  in- 
side of  your  potato  is  Areoda  lanigera,  very 
likely,  or  perhaps  Oymmtus  nitides,  or  one 
of  the  May-beetles  (ioc/inosferna.)  Now  we 
confess  this  is  very  indefinite,  but  the  larvse 
of  the  whole  family  MELONLOTHiD^bear  such 
a  strong  resemblance  to  each  other,  that  un- 
less we  have  bred  them  from  the  larva  to  the- 
mature  insect,  under  our  own  personal  super- 
vision, it  is  almost  impossible  to  identify  the 
species,  from  seeing  tlie  larva  alone.  We  have 
found  both  Areoda  and  Oymnetus  in  the  po- 
tato, and  especially  in  "potato  patches,"  in 
May  and  June.  This  is  a  very  voracious 
subject,  but  we  shall  try  to  raise  him  to  th« 
beetle  state,  and  if  we  succeed,  we  shall  let 
you  know  the  result. 

^ 

CULINARY   CONTRIBUTIONS. 

Potatoes,  a  Side  Dish.— Take  mealy 
potatoes,  pare,  cut  in  slices  half  an  inch  thick  ; 
put  in  a  stew  kettle,  cover  with  water,  put  in 
salt  to  your  taste,  a  little  saffron,  and  parsley 
or  celeiy,  or  both  if  liked,  stew  till  done ;  take 
one  tablespoonful  of  flour,  and  stir  in  cold 
water  to  make  a  batter,  pour  over  the  potatoes 
and  boil  a  few  minutes  longer.     Serve. 

To  Can  Celery.— Boll  it  in  water,  after 
it  is  cleaned,  till  soft,  drain,  fill  up  your  jars, 
pour  over  good  cold  vinegar  till  full ;  shut  up 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


133 


tight,  set  in  a  cool  place,  add  the  other  things 
when  you  use  it. 

Wild  Ciiekry  Pie.— Line  a  pie  plate  with 
paste,  put  in  wild  cherries,  tliree  or  four 
tahlespoonfulls  of  sugar,  a  little  ciiuiamon  to 
taste ;  if  the  cherries  are  juicy,  no  water,  a 
little  Hour  strewed  over,  cover  with  paste, 
bake  in  a  moderate  hot  oven  fifteen  minutes. 
It's  equal  to  cranberry  pic.     Try  it. 

GratH .Ieixy.— Take  ripe  s^P^'s,  squeeze 

out  the  pulp,  discard  the  liulls,   use  only  the 

,  juice  of  the  pulp  ;   to  every  pint  take  one 

i  pound  of  pure  while  sugar,  boil  fifteen  Minutes 

'  and  you  will  have  a  jelly  like  pine  apple. 

!  LEOLINE. 


NEW  FEED  BUCKEYE  GRAIN  DRILL. 
This  popular  Agricultural  implement  is 
mauufactured  at  the  celebrated  "  Buckeye 
Agricultural  Works,"  at  Springfield,  Ohio, 
under  the  proprietorship  of  P.  P.  M.\st&Co., 
and  only  needs  to  be  tried  to  supersede  many 
if  not  all  of  the  best  in  the  market ;  and  from 
the  fact  tliat  it  is  favorably  known  in  Eng- 
land, Germany,  Russia,  and  other  remote  and 
near  i)arts  of  Europe,  as  well  as  to  dealers  in 
drills  all  over  the  United  Slates,  those  who 


For  The  Lanoabteb  Farmer. 
ARTIFICIAL  BUTTER. 

In  the  published  report  of  the  Lancaster 
County  Agricultural  and  Horticultural 
Society  of  September  4th,  1877,  under 
the  discussion  about  the  Oleomargarine, 
"  Casper  Ililler  asked  wliether  any  one  could 
tell  anything  about  its  manufacture  ;  tliere 
were  no  responses."  In  No.  48  and  4(1  of  tlie 
Scicnlijic  American  supplement,  November, 
1870,  is  a  full  hi.stoi7  of  the  subject,  witlx  .six 
illustrations,  covering  eiglit  columns  of  read- 
ing matter.  M«ge  obtained  the  first  patent 
on  record,  in  England,  July  17,  1809.  Wm. 
Palmer  is  said  to  nave  taken  out  a  patent  in 
1840  for  treating  fat  or  fatty  matters  from 
beef,  mutton,  veal  and  Iamb,  but  this  product 
did  not  resemble  butter;  it  was  intended  for 
culinary  purposes  instead  of  lard.  Mege's 
patent  was  not  issued  in  the  United  States  un- 
til December  :50,  1873,  for  the  manufacture  of 
artificial  butter.  II.  W.  Bradley's  patent, 
January  .3  JL871,  was  for  a  new  composition  for 
lard,  butler  or  shortening.  Bradley  got  an- 
other patent  Octolier  7, 1871,  which  had  for  its 
object  "to  deodori/.e  and  render  palatable 
cotton  seed  oil  for  culinary  purposes.  Tlie|nexl 


Garret  Cosine,  Fel)rnary  1.5,  187C,  for  an  im- 
proved process  for  making  arlificial  butter. 
Dr.  Chandler  and  Henry  A.  Moll,  jr.,  E.  M. 
Ph.  1).,  had  previously  used  several  of  the 
processes  claimed  l)y  patentees,  all  more  or 
less  approximating  to  the  secret  of  purifying 
fats  and  manipulating  tliem.  The  process  of 
Mege's  being  about  e(iual  to  the  later  patents 
obtained — each  for  a  di(lcr(!nt  mode  to  accom- 
jilisli  the  same  end.  To  sum  up  the  matter, 
without  detailing  the  various  modes  specified, 
we  may  state  tliat  the  first  matter  to  be  attend- 
ed to,  when  a  good  i)roducl  is  to  be  manufac- 
tured, is  cleanliness.  The  strictest  attention 
to  the  washing  process,  caro  being  taken  to 
have  the  fats  fresh  and  pure,  and  all  carefully 
removed  and  separated,  and  thorougldy 
waslied  in  separate  tanks ;  covered  in  tepid 
water  and  left  at  rest  an  liour,  then  the  fatty 
matters  are  removed  an<l  waslied  with  cold 
water,  and  covered  witli  fresh  water  and  re- 
peated. After  this  the  fatty  matters,  sweet 
tallow,  &c.,  is  passed  through  a  "meat 
hasher,"  piece  by  piece,  cut  by  revolving 
knives  and  forced  through  a  fine  sieve  into  a 
tub,  accomiilished  by  steam  power.  The 
meUiug  process  is  carried  on  in  tanks  (heated 


are  in  need  of  an  implement  of  the  kind  (and, 
what  fanner  does  not,  when  he  is  sure  of  lind- 
ing  a  good  one  '?)  cannot  make  a  mistake  in 
patnmizing  the  Buckey:^  with  its  kew 
FEEDER  attachmemt.  This  feeder  is  very 
simple  in  its  structure,  not  liable  to  get  out  of 
order,  and  can  be  readily  adjusted  to  throw 
out  a  small  or  a  larger  quantity  of  see<l,  by  a 
simple  device  attaclied  to  the  end  of  the  hop- 
per, and  which  uniformly  changes  all  of  the 
feeders  at  once,  and  is  equally  effective 
whether  applied  to  a  peck  or  a  pint.  The 
al)ove  cut  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  tout  en- 
semble pf  tliis  implement,  but  for  the  details 
we  wo\dd  recommend  our  readers  who  arc  in 
need  of  a  drill  to  send  to  the  establislnnent  for 
an  illuminated  circular  and  catalogue.  Tliere 
are  several  other  economical  devices  that  can 
be  attached  to  this  drill,  as  occasion,  or  fancy 
may  need.  We  may  instance  the  "  Guano 
Fertilizer  attachments,"  the  "  Plaster  Sower," 
the  "Spring  Hoe,"  and  Uie  "  Hoe  Shifter," 
as  well  as  a  "new  method  of  attaching  the 
Gum  Tubes." 

See  advertisement  of  P.  P.  Mast  &  Co.,  in 
our  advertising  columns  ;  and  in  the  matter  of 
a  grain-drill,  if  possible,  get  the  best,  which 
will  always  be  the  cheapest. 


process  was  the  patent  of  Peyrouse,  November 
2,  1871,  for  a  substance  intermediate  between 
butter  and  lard.  The  next  was  the  patent  of 
Paraf,  April,  1873.  In  this  is  claimed  "  the 
true  process  of  the  manufacture  of  artificial 
butter, ' '  an  imitation  of  Mege's  process,  and  he 
gave  it  the  name  of  "Oleomargarine,"  as 
butter  at  one  time  was  considered  a  compound 
principally  composed  of  olein  and  margarine  ; 
but  later  investigations  have  shown  tliat  mar- 
garine is  a  mixture  of  palmatin  and  stearin. 
Paraf  started  a  large  company  in  New  York 
for  its  manufacture.  This,  when  just  made, 
resembles  butter  at  a  distance,  but  on  exami- 
nation with  a  microscope,  it  seems  to  ])ossess 
distinct  grain,  which  is  very  distinguishable 
on  tasting.  Before  Mege's  American  jtatent, 
Joseph  Brown  obtained  one  for  purifying 
tallow,  December  23,  1873. 

The  following  is  a  simple  li.st  of  patents  to 
show  the  struggle  and  com]ietition  :  Francis 
Kraft,  July  21,  1874  ;  Wm.  E.  Andrew,  Aug. 
11,  1874  ;  John  Nolibi,  August  18, 1874  ;  Wm. 
L.  Churchill  and  Jacob  L.  Englehart,  August 
25,  1874  ;  George  Bloom  Van  Brunt,  October 
13,  1874  ;  Wra.  E.  Andrews,  August  24,  187."); 
John  P.  Kinney,  October  19,  1875 ;  Wm.  E. 
Andrews  again  (re-issue)  November  10,  1875 ; 


to  WCP  Fahrenheit),  heated  by  steam,  the  fat 
being  continually  stirred  at  an  even  tempera- 
ture. The  "scraps"  settle  in  the  bottom 
on  leaving  the  melted  fat  at  rest,  a  clear  yellow 
oil  floats  on  top,  covered  by  a  film  of  white 
emulsion  of  oil,  with  the  water  contained  ui 
the  fat.  "Wlien  the  scraps  have  completely 
subsided,  the  thin  layer  of  emidsion  is  bailed 
ofi",  and  the  clean  yellow  oil  is  drawn  and 
received  in  wooden  cars,  which  when  nearly 
filled  are  removed,  to  allow  the  oil  to  solidify. 
The  melting  process  properly  performed  occu- 
pies from  3  to  4  hours;  it  takes  from  12  to  24 
hours  to  gi-anulate,  in  a  room  70^  Fahrenheit, 
and  must  not  be  hurried,  otherwise  the  stea- 
rin in  the  fat  will  not  have  time  to  ci7stallize. 
It  is  then  submitted  to  the  press,  in  a  press- 
room, kept  at  a  temperature  between  85'^  and 
90  Fahrenheit.  The  refined  fat  must  Ije  so 
solid  that  it  cannot  be  worked  with  the  fingers 
with  ease.  When  in  the  right  condition,  it  ia 
packed  in  cloths,  set  in  moulds  to  form  pack- 
ages. These  packages  (4  by  8  inches)  IJ  thick, 
are  placed  on  galvanized  iron  plates  in  the 
press,  at  equal  distances  apart,  piled  upon 
each  other.  The  pressure  forces  the  oil  out, 
which  is  collected  in  tin  vessels.  These  cakes 
of  pure  white  stearine  are  obtained  (8  by  5 


134 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  September, 


inches),  i  thick.     The  steariue,  after  the  re- 
moval of  the  cloths,  is  ready  for  sale. 

The  oil  collected  is  removed  to  the  churning 
room,  which  is  at  70°  Fahrenheit.  To  100 
pounds  of  oil,  15  to  20  pounds  of  sour  milk  are 
added  iu  the  churn  ;  solution  of  annatto,  to 
which  is  added  A  to  J  of  an  oimce  of  bicarbo- 
nate of  soda,  and  the  whole  agitated  for  10  or 
15  mmutes,  till  thoroughly  mixed  ;  when  it  is 
withdrawn  from  the  churn  at  one  end  into  a 
tub  containing  poimded  ice  ;  when  kept  in 
motion  until  solidified  ;  worked  on  a  table  and 
salted  about  |  to  1  ounce  of  salt  to  the  pound 
of  butter.  This  butter  is  preferred  by  some — 
the  milk  used  is  not  sufficient  to  make  it 
rancid,  but  quite  sufficient  to  give  to  this 
butter  the  so  much  prized  flavor  and  odor. 
Hon.  X.  A.  Willard,  the  President  of  the  New 
York  State  Dairymen's  Association,  who  is 
deemed  good  authority,  as  well  as  other  ex- 
perts who  have  tested  it,  pronounce  it  equal 
to  the  genuine  butter  in  flavor  and  quality.— 
J.  Stauffer. 

For  The  Lancaster  Fabmkb. 
NEBRASKA    NOTES. 

Schuyler,  Nebraska,  ) 
August  13, 1877.     I 

Editor. — About  five  miles  south  of  this 
place,  near  the  confluence  of  Skull  Creek  with 
the  Platte  river,  are  the  crumbling  ruins  of 
an  ancient  town,  the  houses  of  which  must 
have  been  circular  in  form,  as  the  remains  are 
similar  in  appearance  to  the  common  circus 
ring,  though  not  generally  quite  as  large.  By 
digging  here,  bone  fragments,  pieces  of  pot- 
tery, pebbles,  beads,  sharp  stone  arrows  and 
lance  points,  etc. ,  are  foimd.  The  doorways 
in  each  case  are  plainly  marked,  and  were 
evidently  covered  entrances  or  projecting 
hallways.  The  streets  and  play-grounds  are 
beaten  deep  into  the  earth,  and  the  streets 
wind  around  irregularly  through  the  town, 
so  there  was  no  street  here  that  could  proper- 
ly have  been  called  "straight."  In  the  cen- 
tral portion  of  the  town  is  a  large  rock,  having 
a  smooth  depression  in  its  upper  surface,  and 
which  must  have  been  brought  from  a  distance, 
as  there  are  no  similar  rocks  in  the  vicinity. 
This  rock  was  the  corn-grinder  or  "City 
MUl,"  over  which  many  a  woman  may  have 
turned  her  melancholy  song  years  ago.  No- 
thing more  is  known  of  the  inhabitants  of  this 
place  tlian  may  be  inferred  from  the  above- 
named  remains,  and  Pawnee  legends. 

Notwithstanding  the  obliterating  effects  of 
the  perpetually  recurring  autumn  fires  and 
spring  rains,  the  bufl'alo  "wallows,"  bleach- 
ing bones,  and  their  ancient  trails  remain  on 
the  prairies  and  hillsides  throughout  this 
region.  Twenty  years  ago  this  portion  of  the 
great  Platte  Valley  was  lonely,  silent,  grass- 
covered  hills,  valleys  and  plains  with  unbroken 
solitude  save  the  whistling  winds,  the  buffalo 
tramp,  or  the  twang  of  the  red  man's  bow- 
string; no  white  man  dwelt  here,  but  now 
Butler  county  alone  has  about  five  thousand 
live,  intelligent,  prosperous  and  hajipy  people, 
a  majority  of  whom  are  from  New  York,  New 
England,    Pennsylvania,    Ohio  and  Illinois. 

This  country  is  well  watered  by  the  Platte 
river  flowing  entirely  across  tlie  north  side, 
and  receiving  Wilson,  Elm,  Deer,  Bone  and 
Skull  Creeks  from  about  the  middle  of  the 
county  south,  near  where  the  Big  and  Little 
Blue  Rivers  and  Oak  Creeks,  with  their 
numerous  affluents,  rise  and  flow  south  and 
east  into  the  Republican  and  Missouri  Rivers, 
altogether  giving  this  region  a  very  large  area 
of  wonderfully  rich  valley  land,  the  produc- 
tiveness of  which  may  be  inferred  from  the 
fact  that  last  year  there  were  eight  hundred 
and  seventy-eight  car  loads  of  wheat  and  other 
farm  products  shipped  from  Schuyler  over  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad.  The  altitude  of  this 
place  is  about  one  thousand  five  hundred  feet, 
and  the  healthfulness  is  remarkable.  Natural 
forests  are  not  extensive  iu  Butler  county,  but 
there  are  fifteen  or  twenty  thousand  acres  of 
forest  trees  being  successfully  cultivated,  in- 
cluding black  walnut,  ash,  maple,  elm,  cotton- 
wood  and  box-elder.  The  cotton  wood  grows 
most  rapidly,  often  reaching  a  height  of  from 


twenty  to  thirty  feet  during  the  first  four 
years.  As  fencing  material  is  not  yet  plenti- 
ful in  this  plains  coimtry,  a  peculiar  system 
of  caring  for  live  stock  is  adopted.  Work 
animals  and  milk  cows  are  "  picketed"  with 
ropes  long  enough  for  them  to  secure  sufficient 
grass  by  changing  tlie  i)icket-pin  once  or  twice 
a  day  ;  but  all  others  are  herded,  generally  by 
a  boy,  pony  and  dog,  at  a  cost  of  about  thirty 
dollars  per  month,  for  a  herd  of  from  fifty  to 
five  hundred  cattle. 

By  jtroper  planting  and  cultivating,  good 
osage  orange  hedge  fences  may  be  grown  in 
four  years,  and  the  settlers  are  fencing  in  this 
way  very  rapidly  tlu-oughout  this  great  plains 
country,  and  they  unanimously  claim  that 
they  could  make  farms  here  much  easier  and 
cheaper  even  if  they  had  to  buy  lumber  for 
fencing,  than  in  a  tuuber  country  where  so 
many  stumps  and  stones  are  to  be  removed 
before  cultivating.  The  wheat  harvest  is  past 
with  a  large  yield,  and  grain  of  good  quality. 
The  corn  and  other  crop  prospects  are  very 
promising,  and  the  people  general)^  are  much 
encouraged. 

Land  may  be  bought  in  Butler  county,  of 
the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  company,  at  from 
two  to  six  dollars  per  acre,  on  long  credit, 
giving  the  purchaser  ample  time  to  make  the 
money  to  pay  for  the  farm  from  its  products. 
The  Lake  Shore  and  Michigan  Southern, 
Chicago,  Burlington  and  Quincy,  and  Union 
Pacific  raih-oads,  form  the  best  route  to  this 
portion  of  the  great  Platte  Valley,  because 
the  shortest,  and  from  Chicago  the  C.  B.  &  Q. 
and  U.  P.  make  special  greatly  reduced  rates 
of  both  fares  and  freights. — Examiner. 
^ 

For  The  Lanoabtkb  Fabmeb. 
AROUND  THE  FARM.     No.   i. 

"What!  Yoti  write  for  the  "Lancaster 
Farmer  ?"  It  takes  an  abler  pen  than  yours 
to  WTite  for  that  paper,  as  it  is  one  of  the 
ablest  of  my  farm  journals;"  thus  remarked 
the  "friend  at  my  elbow."  I  confess  my 
spirit  was  considerably  dampened  at  being 
thus  addressed,  but  when  I  remembered  that 
the  lesss  able  have  sometimes  contributed 
facts  and  items  that  benefited  others,  I  was 
again  enconraged  to  write  for  our  home  jour- 
nal, believing  it  is  the  duty  of  every  farmer 
to  give  his  experience  and  practical  knowl- 
edge for  the  benefit  of  others.  We  shall  try 
to  give  om-  own  views  and  experiences 
"Around  the  farm,"  from  time  to  time,  but 
if  we  fail  to  benefit  others,  we  are  at  least 
conscious  that  we  shall  do  no  great  harm. 

There  is  a  matter  to  which  I  wish  to  call 
your  attention,  that  is,  the  proper  manage- 
ment of  stable  floors  in  summer.  I  have  been 
experimenting  in  regard  to  keeping  them 
sweet  and  clean,  and  find  the  following  meth- 
od excellent :  Stables  with  earth  floors  are 
considered  best,  but  soon  become  foul  from 
neglect.  My  plan  is  to  have  them  slope  to 
the  rear,  so  as  to  carry  off  all  liquid  manure, 
and  then  clean  them  at  least  twice  a  week, 
taking  a  rake  and  stiff  broom  to  go  over,  after 
manure  is  removed,  pushing  and  sweeping 
very  clean.  Have  a  box  containing  ashes  and 
dry  earth  mixed  in  equal  proportions  in  some 
convenient  place;  dust  a  shovelfull  or  two 
over  each  stall  as  an  absorbent,  and  drop  four 
or  five  drops  of  carbolic  acid  over  that,  and 
you  will  have  no  trouble  to  keep  your  stable 
clean.  Horses  should  be  turned  out  at  night, 
if  practicable. 

Machinery. 

Now  is  the  time  to  clean  and  put  away  ag- 
ricultural implements;  overhaul  your  reapers 
and  mowers  to  ascertain  what  parts  are  worn 
and  need  replacing,  and  put  them  in  repair 
for  next  year's  haying.  JPeople  too  often  neg- 
lect this  important  work  till  a  day  or  so  before 
haying,  when  they  find  they  must  order  from 
the  factory,  often  losing  three  or  four  days, 
which  they  can  ill  aflbrd.  Take  your  ma- 
chines apart  and  clean  with  a  sharp  piece  of 
steel,  scraping  all  oil,  gum,  and  dirt  off  cogs 
and  bearings;  finish  off  the  bearings  with 
benzine,  wipe  dry,  replace,  and  your  ftiachine 
will  mow  20  per  cent,  easier. 

People  make  a  great  mistake  in  oiling  or 


greasing  cog  wheels  at  reapers.  Unless  cased 
very  tight,  the  drive  wheels  wiU  throw  dirt  on 
the  greased  cogs,  which  sticks,  and  they  will 
wear  faster  than  if  they  are  not  greased  at  all. 
I  have  run  a  combined  reaper  and  mower  for 
3  years,  without  a  particle  of  grease  on  the 
cogs,  and  they  are  not  injured  perceptibly. 
Tobacco  Moths. 

Most  of  our  farmers  are  also  tobacco  raisers,       ' 
and  I  would  appeal  to  every  one  to  try  poison-       i 
ing  the  flowers  of  the  Jimson  weed  {Datura 
stramonium)  next  season.      A  neighbor   of 
mine  has  succeeded  in  killing  upwards   of 
150,000  tobacco  worms  by  this  means,  and  as 
a  consequence,  he  has  one  of  the  cleanest  lots 
he  ever  raised.     Few  things  are  more  tedious     J 
than  hunting  tobacco  worms,   and  by  this     I 
means  they  can  be  destroyed  in  the  night. 

The  following  is  the  best  receipe  we  know 
of;  Take  of  the  best  arsenic,  dissolve  in 
sweetened  water,  and  drop  a  few  drops  into 
each  flower  every  evening  during  the  warm 
season,  and  you  will  have  no  trouble  with 
worms.  Every  moth  killed  is  as  good  as 
hunting  300  tobacco  worms,  as  each  one  lays 
about  that  many  eggs. 

Mr.  Walk,  the  neighbor  referred  to,  had 
very  few  worms,  while  patches  but  a  few 
hundred  yards  away  were  full.  So  try  this 
method  next  year,  every  one,  and  we  will  get 
rid  of  that  troublesome  pest— the  tobacco 
worm.  Of  course,  one  man  or  a  few  men  can- 
not do  it,  but  in  union  there  is  strength,  and 
by  a  combined  effort  we  can  do  it. — Buralist, 
Cresswell,  Septemher  3,  1877. 


DESCRIPTION  OF  A  ROMAN  COIN. 

LiciNius,  Senior,  a.  d.  307-321. 

The  coin  which  I  have  the  honor  of  present- 
ing to  the  Linnsean  Society  is  an  excellent 
specimen  of  the  Roman  third  bronze.  Though 
not  very  rare  it  is  exceedingly  well  preserved; 
and  as  the  planchet  is  more  nearly  circular 
than  is  usual  in  ancient  coins,  we  have  the 
whole  legend  without  the  loss  of  a  single  letter. 

The  obverse  of  the  coin  bears,  as  usual,  a 
bust  of  the  reigning  monarch,  with  an  inscrip- 
tion (impcvrllicinlicinivsffavg),  which 
I  translate,  "  T/ie -Emperor  Qalerius  Vahrivs 
Licinianus  Licinius,  High  Priest,   Augusttcs.'" 

The  reverse  represents  Jupiter  standing, 
with  an  eagle  at  his  side,  and  iu  his  right  hand 
a  figure  of  Victory,  holding  a  chaplet,  with 
the  legend  "Joviconsekvatori,"  i.  c,  "3b 
Jove  the  Preserver.^''  In  the  exergue  are  the 
letters  smn,  i.  e.,  Sctcra  Moneta  Narhonensis, 
which  indicates  that  the  piece  was  struck  at 
the  branch  mint  of  the  city  of  Narbonne,  in 
Southern  Gaul. 

The  "image  and  superscription"  is  that  of 
a  Roman  Emperor  who  reigned  from  A.  D. 
.307  to  .324.  His  full  name  was  Publius  Fla- 
vius  Galertus  Valerius  Liclnianus  Li- 
cinius ;  but  he  is  generally  known  in  history 
as  Licinius,  Senior.  He  was  by  birth  a  Da- 
cian  peasant,  and  the  early  friend  and  com- 
panion-in-arms of  the  Emperor  Galerius,  who 
raised  him  to  the  rank  of  Augustus  and  in- 
vested him  with  Ihe  command  of  the  Illyrian 
Provinces  on  the  11th  of  November,  A.  D. 
307.  About  the  same  time  GonUantine,  after- 
wards called  the  Great,  assumed  the  govern- 
ment of  IJritain,  Gaul,  and  Spain,  though  the 
Emperor  could  be  persuaded  to  give  him  only 
the  inferior  title  of  CVsar. 

A  full  account  of  the  career  of  Licinius  may 
be  found  in  Gibbon  and  elsewhere,  so  that  we 
ueed  not  enlarge.  It  will  be  remembered 
tliat  after  the  death  of  Galerius  an  attempt 
was  made  to  divide  the  empire  between  Max- 
iminus  and  Licinius,  by  which  the  Bosphorus 
was  to  be  the  lioundary  of  the  two  empires. 
In  313  Maximinus  invaded  the  dominions  of 
Licinius,  and  was  utterly  defeated  and  crush- 
ed. In  the  previous  year  Constantino,  who 
continued  to  hold  western  Europe,  had  de- 
feated Maxentius,  who  had  seized  the  imper- 
ial power  at  Rome.  It  was  on  this  occasion 
that  Constantine  is  said  to  have  had  his  cele- 
brated vision  of  a  cross  in  the  heavens  with 
the  inscription  iu  xnvria  uika,  by  tuis  con- 
quer. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


135 


Constantine  and  Licinius  were  now  the 
only  emperors,  and  together  they  issued  in 
Marcli,  A.  I).  ;ii:5,  the  celel)rated  edict  of  Mi- 
lan, which  granted  to  the  Christians  ol'  the 
empire  full  civil  and  religious  rights.  I.icin- 
ius,  however,  did  not  really  care  for  the  Chris- 
tians, and  when  in  JJlo  war  Ijrokeout  between 
the  two  emperors  he  rescinded  his  former 
acts,  and  again  deprived  them  of  tlieir  i)oliti- 
cal  privileges.  Licinius  was  defeated  after  a 
severe  struggle,  and  was  comitelled  to  pur- 
chase peace  by  ceding  to  Constantino, Vireece, 
Macedonia  and  Illyri(;um.  Having  married 
the  sister  of  Constantine,  Licinius  reigned 
quietly  as  emperor  of  the  east  for  nine  years; 
at  the  end  of  that  time  hostilities  were  renew- 
ed. Having  lost  the  great  battles  of  Adrian- 
ople  and  Chaleedon,  Licinius  was  placed  at 
the  n\ercy  of  Ctmstantine,  who  spared  his  life 
and  sentenced  him  to  honorable  imprison- 
ment at  The.ssalouica;  but  a  few  years  after- 
wards found  a  convenient  pretext  for  putting 
him  to  death. 

The  coin  which  we  have  described  appears 
to  have  been  struck  about  the  beginning  of 
the  first  conflict  with  Constantine  (A.  1). 
31,i).  Tlie  device  and  inscription  on  the  re- 
verse would  .seem  to  indicate  a  religious  re- 
action, or  at  least  a  protest 
against  the  movement  in  the  di- 
recti<m  of  Christianity.  It  is 
issued  by  Licinius  in  the  char- 
acter of  Pontifex  Maxbmis,  or 
iiigh  priest  of  the  religion  of  the 
Roman  state;  and  is  dedicated 
to  Jm-c  the  Preserver,  who  holds 
victory  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hands.  This  would  seem  to  in- 
dicate that  Licinius  believed 
that  Jove  would  preserve  the 
ancient  religious  order,  and 
grant  victory  to  its  faithful 
champions.  The  tact  that  the 
coin  was  struck  at  Narl)onne 
also,  proves  the  fact,  that  it  can- 
not have  been  coined  at  a  later 
(late  than  A.  D.  ;!!;");  because 
after  that  date  Licinius  was 
emperor  of  the  east,  and  all 
western  Europe  was  under  the 
undisputable  sway  of  Constan- 
tine. 

This  little  coin  may.  therefore, 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  last 
products  of  cla-ssical  lioathenism. 
With  the  single  brief  exception 
of  the  reign  of  Julian  the  Apos- 
tate, Roman  coins,  from  this 
time  forth,  hear  Christian  em- 
1)1  ems,  strangely  intermingled 
with  ancient  devices. 

When  this  coin  was  struck  Ro- 
mau  heathenism  was  rapidly 
jiassing  away.  Men  had  lost  all  faith  in  de- 
ities, the  creatures  of  the  imagination  of  poets 
and  artists;  and  it  was  therefore  little  better 
than  a  piece  of  impudence  on  the  part  of  the 
government  to  place  a  representation  of  Jupi- 
ter Conserv((tor  on  the  coin  of  the  empire. 

There  have  l)een  modern  writers  who,  from 
an  ipsthetic  point  of  view,  have  mourned  over 
the  downfall  ot  ancient  heathenism.  Schiller 
says  : 

"Eiiien  zu  bericlicrn  uiiter  alien 
Musstc  dicse  Ootterwelt  vcrgclin." 
In  the  heart  of  a  sincere  Christian  the 
sight  of  these  relics  of  antiquity  produces  no 
such  emotions.  It  rather  strengthens  his 
faith  to  be  assured,  that  while  there  is  noth- 
ing to  remind  us  of  Jupitir  Conservator  but  an 
occasional  relic  of  antiquity,  the  kingdom  of 
his  Lord  is  an  everlasting  kingdom;  that 
while  the  name  of  Jupiter  ''the  king  of  gods 
and  men"  is  but  '■'■vox  et  prueterca  nihil,''  the 
name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  remains  in  the 
hearts  of  his  peojilc  in  undying  freshness  for- 
ever.— ./.  If.  D.,  Lancaster,  August  2~lh,  1877. 

IjrpoRTANT. — In  our  October  or  Xovcmber 
number, we  propose  to  publish  a  list  of  prem- 
iums for  1878.  Our  patrons  and  their  friends 
will  therefore,  in  nuiking  their  selections,  hold 
in  remembrance  their  own  local  journal  in  the 
distribution  of  their  favors  for  next  year. 


THE  FLEMISH  BEAUTY  PEAR. 

The  subject  of  our  engraving  is  a  most  ex- 
cellent variety  of  tlie  pear  (Pijrus  communis.) 
A  good  pe.'ir  is  an  exceedingly  rich  and  luscious 
fruit,  and  second  to  none  but  the  apple  in  im- 
portance. The  fruit  under  consideration  is 
large,  the  skin  a  iittla  rough,  pale  yellow, 
with  marblings  and  patches  of  light  russet ; 
the  sunny  .'sido  reddish-brown  at  maturity ; 
tlesh  yellowish-white  ;  and  very  fine  grain,  but 
jucy,  melting,  very  sweet  and  rich.  Ripens 
the  last  of  Septem>)er.  The  Flemish  Reauty 
is  one  of  the  most  superb  pears  in  this  climate, 
sometimes  measuring  twelve  inches  in  cir- 
cumference. The  tree  is  very  luxuriant,  and 
bears  early  and  abundantly.  The  fruit  should 
be  picked  before  it  parts  readily  from  the  tree, 
and  allowed  to  ripen  in  the  houise,  when  it  be- 
conses  very  line;  but  if  allowed  to  remain  on 
the  tree  until  dead  ripe,  it  loses  its  flavor  and 
soon  decays.  Small  trees  can  be  obtained  at 
any  first-class  nur.scry. 

Pear  culture  is  yet,  comparatively  speaking, 
in  its  infancy  in  many  portions  of  our  country 
— especially  at  the  west  and  southwest.  This 
is  mainly  owing  to  the  prevailing  error  that  it 
takes  a  very  long  time  to  procure  fruit  after 
planting — many  people  are  not  willing  to  wait 


so  long.  But  this  is  a  very  mistaken  idea,  for 
good  fruit,  in  moderate  quantities,  can  ho  ob- 
tained from  the  planting  of  the  pear,  as  .soon 
as  from  the  apple,  or  even  the  peach.  Crops 
have  been  secui  od  in  two  or  three  years. 


For  Tub  LANCASTEn  Farubk, 
HUMBUGS,  SWINDLES  AND  FRAUDS, 
AS  PRACTICED  ON  THE  FARMING 
COMMUNITY. 

In  looking  over  the  humbug  column  of  the 
American  Agriculturist,  one  is  struck  with  the 
variety  of  swindles,  &c.,  perpetrated,  and 
more  particularly  the  number  that  are  espe- 
cially prepared  to  catch  farmers  and  others 
living  in  the  country. 

Although  all  the  terms  at  the  head  of  our 
article  might  be  included  under  the  single 
term  of  cheats,  yet  the  cheating  is  pretty 
easily  classilied  as  above. 

To  humbug  is  to  impose  on,  and  is  in  most 
cases  so  simple  and  transparent  as  to  be  easily 
avoided;  and  that  so  many  persons  are  yet 
the  victims,  in  spite  of  daily,  weekly  and 
other  papers,  is  only  to  be  accounted  for  on 
Barnum's  opinion  that  people  want  to  be 
humbugged. 

One  of  the  most  popular  articles  to  humbug 
farmers  with  are  seeds  of  newly  discovered 
and  wonderful  grains,  &c.,  or,  new  varieties 


of  old-established  species,  which  are  guaran- 
teed to  produce  twice  or  three  times  as  much 
per  acre  as  any  hitlicrto  in  cultivation.  The 
seed  of  surgham  (iS.  Vulgare)  is  the  favorite 
grain  and  has  been  advertised  under  perhaps 
as  many  as  a  dozen  different  names,  such  as 
ivory  wheat,  Japan  wheat,  sugar  cane  that 
will  stand  the  northern  winters  {laccharum 
ojjhriarum,  which  is  cultivated  only  in  warm 
countries).  It  is  remarkable  that  all  these 
wonderful  seeds  are  advertised  Ijy  persons  not 
in  the  seed  business,  whose  usual  address  is  at 
some  out-of-the-way  post  office.  It  should  be 
borne  in  mind  that  our  wide-awake  8ee<lsmen 
are  very  active  and  enterprising  in  trying  to 
get  hold  of  any  promising  new  varieties,  and 
that  new  species  and  novelties  are  always 
given  to  the  public  through  them. 

In  some  sections  tree  agents  introduce 
peaches  grafted  on  poplar  or  willow,  cherries 
on  wild  cherry,  curculio-proof  plums,  &c.  If 
"nature  abhors  close  union,"  she  also  protests 
most  emphatically  against  anything  but  the 
closest  relationship,  and  grafting  and  budding 
must  be  practiced  in  accordance  with  this. 
We  have  a  few  instances  in  which  this  does 
not  seem  to  be  the  case,  such  as  pears  on 
quince,  apricot  on  plum;  but  these  are  in  all 
cases  species  of  one  genus,  that 
is  to  say,  brothers.  As  long  as 
curculios  are  about,  stone  fruits 
with  smooth^  tender  .skins  will 
be  stung  by  them,  and  they  will 
not  even  now-a-days  spare  the 
wooly  peach. 

Many  of  the  readers  of  the 
Farmer  have  doubtless  seen  ad- 
vertisements of  some  wonderful 
chemical  cornpound  by  which 
butter  could  be  made  out  of  milk 
at  an  expense  of  but  a  few  cents 
per  pound.  How  the  owner  of 
kine  must  have  felt  his  heart 
sink  at  the  idea  of  the  flood  of 
butter  that  would  be  thrown  on 
the  market  until  prices  would 
sink  so  low  that  it  would  not 
even  pay  for  the  taking  to  mar- 
ket; or  perhaps  his  heart  was 
elated  and  he  would  take  by  the 
horn,  not  his  cow,  but  the  oppor- 
tunity, invest  some  of  llic  hoard- 
ed "dollar  of  the  fathers"  in  the 
"compoimd,"  and  reap  a  harvest 
of  golden  eagles  by  selling  lots 
of  golden  butter  before  his  slower 
brethren  of  tlic  dairy  knew  on 
which  side  of  the  bread  the  but- 
ter was. 

Then  there  are  ii  lot  of  hum- 
bugs that  are  practiced  on  town 
as  well  as  country  folks,  such  as 
powders  to  keep  coal  oil  lamps 
from  exploding,powdersto  put  into  white-wash 
lime  to  keep  tlie  flies  from  alighting  on  the 
ceiling  and  walls  of  rooms  ;  and  scores  of 
others  that  we  have  not  space  to  enumerate, 
but  any  person  that  has  only  a  moderate 
amount  of  common  sense,  and  uses  it,  will 
rarely  bo  cauglit,  though  the  vender  have  an 
"oily  tongue  and  a  brazen  face." 

There  is  one  class  of  Innnbugs  that  should 
not  1)6  omitted,  but  as  long  as  people  know  so 
much  better  what  ails  them,  and  what  may 
cure  them,  so  much  better  than  the  regular 
physician  would,  and  besides  is  so  much 
cheaper,  it  is  useless,  and  probably  a  waste  of 
time,  paper  and  ink  to  mention  patent  medi- 
cines. Persons  who  have  spent  time  and 
money  to  cure  incurable  diseases  have  our 
pity  and  sympathy. 

Swindles,  as  a  species  of  cheating,  are  usual- 
ly on  a  larger  scale  than  h)iml)ugs,  and  are 
different  from  the  latter  in  this,  that  there  arc 
no  uncertainties  as  to  being  the  right  thing  or 
not,  but  are  in  all  cases  traps  into  which  the 
diipe  steps  unawares,  and  is  awakened  as  by 
a  clap  of  thunder. 

Themost  usual  form  of  swindlcs,practiccd  by 
the  shaii)ers,  is  to  appoint  the  .subject  on  whom 
tlie  operation  is  to  be  peif  ormed,as  an  agent  for 
selling  something.  The  paper  mentioned  at  the 
beginning  of  this  article  has  the  following  : 


136 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[September 


"  As  a  general  rule,  it  will  be  safe  for  farmers 
to  refuse  all  agencies,  as  the  risk  of  getting 
swindled  is  altogether  too_  great.  Traveling 
agents  come  along  and  propose  to  farmers  to 
take  an  agency  to  sell  this  or  that  thing.  The 
story  is  a  plausible  one  ;  the  farmer  is  to  be 
the  only  agent  in  the  vicinity — the  goods  are 
of  a  salable  kind,  and  are  not  to  be  paid  for 
until  sold — while  the  profits  to  the  fanner, 
who  sees  but  little  ready  money,  seem  so 
liberal,  that  the  offer  is  a  really  tempting  one. 
StUl,  we  say,  don't  do  it.  If  all  were  as  repre- 
sented, it  would  be  another  thing  ;  but  there 
is  quite  sure  to  be  a  catch  somewhere — some 
"after  clap,"  as  old  Col.  D.  used  to  say — 
and  the  chances  are  so  gi'eat  that  a  traveling 
agent  of  this  sort  is  a  swindler,  that  it  is 
safest  to  give  them  all  a  wide  berth.  The 
spring-bed  swindle  is  one  of  these  agency 
affairs  that  farmers  should  look  out  for.  It 
appears  to  be  mostly  caiTied  on  in  New  Eng- 
land. A  smooth-tongued  cliap  comes  along 
to  establish  agencies  ou  behalf  of  the  manu- 
facturer ;  he  finds  some  one  willing  to  act  as 
agent  for  the  sale  of  the  goods,  from  wliom  he 
gets  an  obligation  to  pay  for  the  goods  when 
sold,  and  an  order  for  the  goods  to  be  sent. 
The  beds  come,  the  agent  pays  freight,  and 
takes  them  home.  In  a  few  days  a  party, 
claiming  to  be  the  manufacturer,  comes  along 
to  collect  the  bill.  The  agent  says  that  the 
goods  were  oaly  to  be  paid  for  when  sold  ;  but 
this  is  laughed  at ;  they  never  sold  goods  in 
that  way  ;  no  one  had  authority  to  make  any 
such  terms  ;  tliere  was  the  agent's,  order  for 
the  goods,  and  there  was  the  bill,  (some  $"200 
or  $300,)  and  if  not  paid  for  at  once,  it  would 
be  put  in  the  hands  of  a  lawyer  for  collection. 
The  pretended  manufacturer  understands  the 
blufl-game,  and  too  often  succeeds  in  frighten- 
ing his  victim  into  paying  the  bill,  or  in  set- 
tUng  the  matter  by  giving  him  .S50  to  take 
away  his  beds.  One  of  our  readers  who  had 
accepted  the  agency,  and  was  called  upon  and 
threatened,  wrote  to  us  for  advice  in  the  case. 
Our  advice  was  to  stick  to  the  agreement  and 
let  him  sue.  We  afterwards  learned  that  a 
lawyer  from  a  neighboring  town  came  to  collect 
the  bill ;  finding  that  he  could  not  get  the 
amount,  he  proposed  to  settle  for  S75,  then 
for  $50,  and  then  for  $25,  and  take  the  beds 
back.  But  our  correspondent  would  pay  no- 
thing, and  agree  to  nothing,  except  take  the 
beds  to  the  depot,  which  he  did,  and  comes 
out  of  the  transaction  minus  the  freight 
he  paid  when  he  took  them.  This  shows 
that  in  such  cases  firmness  is  a  good  invest- 
ment. 

The  above  swindle  has  also  been  carried  on 
to  some  extent  in  this  county  ;  but  when  they 
got  hold  of  Mr.  W.,  near  this  place,  they  got 
hold  of  the  wrong  man.  Mr.  W.  would  not 
only  not  pay  anything,  or  compromise,  but  he 
has  actually  held  the  beds  for  over  a  year  for 
freight  paid,  and  for  expense  of  hauling  to  his 
place,  and  storage,  and  threatened  to  sue  the 
party  for  attempting  swhulling  and  extortion. 

Wild-Cat  Mming  and  Coal  00  Companies, 
Prize  Associations,  Riverside  Library  Insti- 
tutes, Lotteries,  &c.,  are  ahvayg  as  plenty  as 
blackberries,  and  the  originators  must  find  it 
a  lucrative  business,  considering  the  numbers 
engaged  in  it ;  and  looking  at  the  expense  in- 
curred in  advertising,  one  must  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  more  gulls  are  to  be  found  in- 
land than  along  any  sea  shore  that  has  ever 
existed. 

A  neat  swindle  was  perpetrated  a  few  years 
ago  on  a  farmer  living  near  the  Susquehanna 
river,  in  the  following,  or  nearly  a  similar 
manner.  One  evening  a  traveling  trader,  in 
other  words,  a  peddler  called  at  a  farm  house; 
he  was  better  dressed  than  the  general  run  of 
these  useful  folks;  this  was  no  doubt  to  be 
attributed  to  the  fact  that  he  was  not  of  the 
Tulgar  needles  and  pins  sort,  for  he  was  a 
veritable  silverware  merchant.  The  farmer's 
family  did  not  indulge  very  much  in  liis  ware, 
only  a  few  dollars,  I  believe,  but  by  this  time 
our  merchant  was  afraid  to  venture  out,  as  he 
did  not  like  to  expose  his  valuable  stock  of 
knives  and  spoons  to  a  possible  misappropria- 
tion by  some  unauthorized  person,   and  so 


would  the  kind  woman  of  the  house  keep  him 
over  night.  The  request  was  readily  granted 
by  the  farmer  and  his  wife.  The  next  morn- 
ing our  roaming  dealer  in  goods,  made  of 
precious  metal,  complained  of  not  feeling  well, 
and  was  afraid  he  would  have  to  leave  his 
"case"  in  the  care  of  the  farmer,  as  he  had 
important  business  which  must  be  attended 
to  ;  he  found  himself  short  of  about  forty  dol- 
lars, of  which  he  would  be  very  thankful  to 
have  the  loan  for  a  few  days  luitil  he  came 
back  for  his  "case."  Would  he  be  asking  too 
much  y  Oh,  no !  the  farmer  was  always  ready 
to  help  any  dcsei"ving  fellow-creature  in 
trouble.  Our  silverware  dealer  and  the  forty 
dollars  went  forth  ;  neither  have  come  back 
yet.  That  "  case"  of  "  silver  ware"  is  still  at 
the  farm  house,  but  the  silver  used  in  the 
manufacture  was  not  much — there  was  more 
of  it  on  that  fellow's  tongue. 

Frauds  are  harder  to  guard  against  than 
either  humbugs  or  swindles,  as  they  generally 
are  deceptive  with  regard  to  quality.  At  the 
present  writing,  artificial  fertilizers  are  the 
staple  articles  dealt  in  by  the  harpies  who 
hope  to  fatten  on  the  farmer's  well  earned 
savings.  These  men  are  too  respectable  to 
deal  in  humbugs  ;  too  cowardly  to  risk  the  fate 
that  sometimes  overtakes  swindlera,  and  so 
they  descend  to  a  lower  deptlHiy  deceiving  in 
articles,  the  composition  of  which  few  men 
are  capable  of  determining. 

We  believe  that  business  of  all  kinds,  in- 
tended for  the  public  good,  should  lie  as  un- 
trammeled  as  possible,  but  we  midoubtedly 
need  a  strict  license  law  for  dealing  in  fertil- 
izers. This  subject  has  been  agitated  in 
various  parts  of  the  State,  but  I  think  that  in 
most  cases  a  uniform  license  has  been  thought 
of,  wliereas  the  license  should  be  as  to  the 
amount  sold.  To  guard  against  frauds,  the 
dealer,  in  receiving  his  license,  must  be  held 
in  bonds  that  he  state  on  each  package  the 
composition,  and  heavy  penalties  be  provided 
for  not  doing  so,  or  for  making  fraudulent 
statements. 

In  a  nut  shell :  To  avoid  humbugs,  use 
common  sense.  To  keep  clear  of  swindlers, 
sign  nothing.  To  i>revent  frauds,  deal  only 
with  known  reliable  parties. — A.  B.  K. 


For  The  Lancakteh  Farmer. 
DEW,  AND  ITS  CAUSE. 

What  we  term  dew  is  the  "  moisture  pre- 
cipitated from  the  atmosphere  on  the  surface 
of  bodies.  It  is  thus  distinguislied  from  fog, 
which  is  moisture  precipitated  within  the 
atmosphere." — D.  Olmstead.  The  cause  and 
nature  of  dew  has  been  a  subject  of  much  di.s- 
cussion  and  experiment  since  the  days  of 
Aristotle,  until  more  successfully  investigated 
by  Dr.  Wells,  in  1814.  He  seems  to  have 
clearly  established  the  fact,  "  that  tlio  cold  is 
the  cause  of  the  dew;"  I  quote,  "for  he 
found,  1st,  That  in  certain  circumstances 
bodies  would  become  colder  than  the  air  with- 
out being  dewed,  whence  it  is  obvious  that  the 
cold  could  not  be  the  effect  of  tlie  dew  ;  and, 
2nd,  That  when  dew  was  formed,  its  quantity 
and  degree  of  cold  that  appeared  with  it,  at 
different  times,  were  very  far  from  Ijeing 
always  in  the  same  proportion  to  each  other." 
He  also  invariably  found  that  bodies  became 
colder  before  dew  began  to  appear  on  them. 
The  formation  of  dew  is  therefore  a  phenom- 
enon precisely  of  the  same  kind  as  the  precipi- 
tation of  moisture  which  takes  place  on  tlie 
outside  of  a  vessel  into  which  a  liquid  colder 
than  the  air  is  poiu'ed. 

The  difl'erent  degrees  of  temperature  of  the 
air  determines  the  quantity  of  water  contained, 
and  that  the  quantity  is  greater  as  the  tem- 
perature is  higher.  Hence,  when  a  stratum 
of  air  comes  in  contact  with  colder  bodies,  a 
precipitation  takes  place — thus  a  second 
stratum,  and  so  on,  with  great  rapidity — and 
in  a  short  time  a  cooUmj  body  is  covei-ed  with 
dew  and  moistiu'c.  The  laws  of  radiation  of 
heat  explain  the  cause  why  bodies,  when  ex- 
posed to  the  cloudless  sky  in  clear  and  calm 
nights,  become  colder  than  the  surrounding 
atmosphere,  as  explained  by  Leslie  and  Rum- 
ford.    We  know  that  during  calm  and  serene 


nights,  the  upper  parts  of  the  grass  radiate 
their  heat  into  the  regions  of  space,  from 
which  they  receive  back  no  heat  in  return  ^ 
its  lower  parts,  from  the  smallness  of  their 
conducting  power,  transmit  little  of  the 
earth's  heat  to  the  upiier  parts,  which  at  the 
same  time  receiving  only  a  small  quantity  of 
the  atmosphere,  and  none  from  any  other 
lateral  body,  must  remain  colder  than  the  air, 
and  condense  into  dew  its  watery  vapors,  if 
this  be  sufliciently  abundant. 

On  this  point  Mr.  Prevost,  of  Geneva,  (radi- 
ation of  heat)  differs  from  Sir  J.  Leslie,  who 
ascribes  the  effect  to  the  descent  of  cold  air 
from  the  upper  regions  of  the  atmosphere : 
"The  application  of  the  ffithrioscope, "  he  re- 
marks, "has  not  only  ascertained  the  exist- 
ence, but  measured  the  intensity,  of  the  cold 
pulses  which  are  at  all  times  darted  downwards 
from  the  successive  strata  of  air,  though  often 
partially  intercepted  by  clouds,  or  more  com- 
pletely obstructed  by  low  fogs.  It  may  be 
computed  that  in  fine  bright  evenings  those 
cold  pulses,  rained  from  the  sky,  are  sufficient 
alone  to  depress  the  temperature  of  the  ground, 
according  to  the  seasons,  sometimes  eight  de- 
grees, but  generally  about  three  degrees  of 
Fahrenheit's  scale.  The  blades  of  grass, 
thus  chilled  from  exposme,  cool  in  their  turn 
the  damp  air  which  touches  them,  and  cause 
it  to  drop  its  moisture.  "(Encyclopedia  Bri- 
tauuica,  art.  "Dew.") 

My  attention  was  called  to  this  subject  by  a 
letter  from  a  graduate  of  Franklin  and  Mar- 
shall College,  Rev.  Jas.  G.  Dengler,  pastor  at 
Sellersville,  Bucks  county.  He  says:  "A 
question  by  a  number  of  my  young  friends 
here.  I  felt  unable  to  answer  it.  It  is  a 
question  I  often  asked  myself.  "  It  is  about 
tlie  dew-drop  that  gathers  on  the  very  points 
of  a  spile  of  grass" — "a  sea  of  pearls,"  as 
Gfethe  calls  it — strange  that  a  drop  of  dew,- 
should,  contrary  to  the  law  of  gravity,  gather 
in  that  manner.  How  do  you  account  for  it  ? 
What  law  governs  it  V  I  cannot  account  for 
it  satisfactorily  on  capillary  attraction,  along 
the  grooves  on  leaves,as  water  or  oil  is  drawn 
up  by  a  wick.  Dr.  Fretz,  a  botanist,  and  one 
of  my  members,  thinks  there  is  some  electri- 
cal principal  at  work  in  bringing  about  the 
result.  Would  you  please  give  us  your  opin- 
ion; we  could  find  nothing  on  the  subject  to 
explain  it. 

I  mention  tliis  because  few  have  given  the 
subject  thought,  and  the  question  certainly 
involves  more  than  we  think.  I  find  in  the 
old  American  Cyclopedia  seven  full  pages 
giving  the  conflicting  experiments  of  Mr.  Du 
Fay,  of  Paris,  and  those  of  Muschenbroeck, 
and  Dr.  L.  Stocke:  "  none  fell  on  rusty  iron," 
polished  metal  scarcely  any,  if  at  all,  was 
visible.  Dr.  Watson,  Bishop  of  Landaff, 
relates  his  experiments.  Dr.  Hales.  The 
oxydation  of  metals  renders  tlieiii  also  unfit 
for  the  experiment.  A  dispute  of  considerable 
interest  took  place  some  years  ago  between 
Mr.  Du  Fay  and  Mr.  Muschenbroeck  respect- 
ing the  origin  of  dew. 

Mr.  Dalton  sums  up  : 

1st.  "  That  aqueous  vapor  is  an  elastic  fluid, 
std  generis,  diffusible  in  the  atmosphere,  but 
forming  no  chemical  combination  with'it." 

2d.  "That  temperature  alone  limits  the 
maximum  of  vapor  in  the  atmosphere. " 

3d.  "That  there  exists  at  all  times,  and  in 
all  places,  a  quantity  of  aqueous  vapor  in  the 
atmosphere,  variable  according  to  circum- 
stances." 

4th.  "That  whatever  quantity  of  aqueous 
vapor  may  exist  in  the  atmosphere  at  any 
time,  a  certain  temperature  may  be  found, 
below  which  a  portion  of  that  vapor  would 
unavoidably  fall,  or  be  deposited,  in  the  form 
of  rain  or  dew,  but  above  which  no  such  dim- 
inution could  take  place,  chemical  agency 
ajiart.  This  point  may  be  called  the  extreme 
temperature  of  vapor  of  that  density." 

5th.  "And  that  whenever  any  body  colder 
than  the  extreme  temjieraturc  of  the  existing 
vapor  is  situated  ui  the  atmosphere,  dew  ia 
deposited  upon  it,  the  quantity  of  which  va- 
ries as  the  surface  of  the  body  and  degree  of 
cold  below  the  extreme  temperature. " 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


137 


Tliis  extreme  temiieratiire  or  actual  tem- 
perature ol"  tlie  atmosphere  varies  all  tlu^  way 
to  ten,  lifteeii,  twenty  or  more  degrees  below 
it.  The  point  may  he  found"  in  the  hottest 
months  hy  pourinj;  cold  spriiiK  water  into  a 
dry  and  clear  glass,  and  marking  what  degree 
of  cold  is  sullicient  to  produce  a  dew  on  the 
outside  of  the  glass;  at  other  times  frigorilic 
saline  solutions  may  be  used.  Independently 
of  the  radiations  of  heat,  etc.,  the  action  of 
electricity  .seems  to  be  in  a  great  measure  con- 
cerned in  the  production  of  molecularattraction 
to  form  the  phenomena  of  aqueous  beads,  like 
pearls.  Yet  Mr.  I'revost  who  has  bestowed 
a  good  deal  of  attention  on  this  subject,  dis- 
believing the  interference  of  electricity,  ad- 
vances tlie  theory  that  its  formation  dcpeude 
on  the  action  of  heat  oidy;  and  explains  his 
reason  thus  :  1st.  "The  le.ss  the  temiieiature 
of  glass  is  elevated  the  more  humidity  it  at- 
tracts from  the  air."  2.  "Metals  attract  it 
very  little."  3.  "Gla.ss  sensibly  exercises  its 
action  on  the  humidity  of  the  air,  at  ;i  dis- 
tance, and  notwithstanding  tlie  interposition 
of  dillerent  bodies,  such  as  plates  of  metal, 
&c."  4.  "Metals  give  to  glass  {as  it  were) 
near  which  tliey  are  placed,  the  property  of 
more  speedily  attracting  caloric  from  hot  air, 
and  on  the  contrary,  that  of  yielding  it  more 
speedily  to  cold  air. "  My  individual  ojiinion 
is  that  they  lost  sight  of  the  oxygen  in  the 
aiiueous  vapor,  being  absoibed  by  metals, 
both  annulhng  the  heat  and  f/cc(r!cj7.(/— and 
simply  setting  the  hydrogen  free;  thus  the 
difference  is  readily  accounted  for  between 
metals  or  subjects  liaving  a  greater  allinity  for 
oxygen,  and  on  do.se  ins))ection  of  the  diver- 
sity of  results,  by  adopting  this  latter  view 
all  these  seeming  contradictions  will  vanish,  is 
my  opinion. 

We  may  now  glance  at  some  singular  phe- 
nomena, besides  those  that  occupied  the 
learned  investigators,  some  of  whicli  have  a 
sanitary  and  otliers  a  horticultural  relation. 

It  is  recorded  in  I'hi'osopliical  Transactions 
thilt  in  the  year  Ifi',).")  there  fell  in  Ireland,  and 
liarlicularly  in  the  provinces  of  Leinster  and 
Monster,  during  a  great  jiart  of  the  winter 
and  spring,  a  fatty  substance,  somewhat  like 
butter,  instead  of  the  usual  dew,  which,  from 
its  color  and  consistency,  the  natives  called 
dtw-buUcr.  It  fell  during  tlie  night  on  the 
moorish  low  grounds,  and  was  found  in  the 
morning  attached  to  the  leaves  of  grass  and 
to  the  thatches  of  houses,  &c,  in  tlie  form  of 
pretty  large  lumps,  and  it  is  added  that  it 
seldom  fell  twice  in  the  same  place.  It  liad 
an  offensive  smell,  like  that  of  a  church-yard  ; 
yet  it  lay  upon  the  groulid  a.  fortnight  before 
it  changed  color,  after  which  it  dried  up  and 
became  black  ;  but  it  never  bred  worms  nor 
did  it  prove  noxious  to  the  cattle  that  fed  in 
the  fields  where  it  fell.  During  the  same 
winter  some  very  stinking  fogs  were  observed 
in  the  same  places  when:  the  dcw-hxdkr  fell. 
During  volcanic  eniptions  (17H.'{)  a  peculiar 
clamminess  was  observed  on  the  leaves  of 
trees,  as  if  a  dew  of  a  glutinous  nature  had 
been  deposited  from  the  atmosiihere.  This 
must-not  be  confounded  with  what  is  called 
"Honey-dew,"  a  sweet  viscid  liquor,  found 
sometimes  in  great  abundance  on  the  hazol, 
lime,  clra,  etc.,  and  on  fruit  trees. 

It  is  found  that  in  some  instances  the  dew 
is  a  very  compound  substance,  so  that  nothing 
positive  of  its  nature  can  be  stated.  In  gravel- 
pits,  for  instance,  and  in  high,  dry,  and 
healthy  grounds  of  a  large  extent,  there  is 
collected  but  a  very  smad  quantity  of  this 
vapor,  and  that  almost  entirely  watery ; 
whilst  that  which  is  collected  about  standing 
waters,  fens,  marshes,  and  fat,  bituminous 
grounds,  abounding  with  petrified  llsh,  and 
other  animals,  is  of  quite  a  dillerent  nature, 
and  very  often  pernicious  to  mankind  and 
vegetation.  Chemists  have  found  such  differ- 
ent results,  that  scarce  any  two  are  agreed 
about  them.  Some  dew  that  ha.s  been  collected 
in  a  certaiti  part  of  the  earth,  has  afforded  a 
liquor,  by  distillation,  which  struck  the  colors 
of  the  rambow  upon  glass,  as  notto  be  effaced 
by  friction,  alkaline  lixiviums,  or  aqua-regia  ; 
it  also  burnt  like  spirit  of  wine,  etc.    In  short, 


we  find  the  nature  of  dew  differs  surprisingly 
with  the  different  seasons  of  the  year,  and 
the  various  successions  of  metors  ;  hence 
spores,  animalcides  or  the  invisible  eggs, 
mingled  therewith,  may  cause  some  of  the 
blights  and  diseases  of  vegetables  and  fruit.s — 
often  not  under.stood  whence  or  how  they 
arise.  But,  alas !  I  must  stop — without  ex- 
hausting the  subject. — ./.  Stanjkr. 


OUR    LOCAL   ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings    of  the  Lancaster   County   Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

A  very  intpri'stinp:  moptini^  of  tlir  I.anp.istor  County 
Agricultural  and  lloiliculliiial  Society  was  licld  in 
their  rooms  in  tlic  CMty  Hall  on  Monday,  Sept.  .Sd. 

The  following  mcnihcrs  ami  visitors  were  piespiit  : 
Calvin  Cooper,  Paradise,  prpsiilent;  .lohnson  MiUor, 
Warwick,  secretary;  Henry  M.  En,i;le,  Marietta; 
Levi  W.  Orotr,  West  Earl;  )'.  .S.  Reist,  Orei;on,  .Man- 
heim  to\vnshl[);  Levi  W.  firolT,  Manheim;  Jacob 
Uollingcr,  Warwick;  Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy;  Levi 
Powuall,  Sadslniry;  .John  C.  Linvllle,  .Sali.«lii'iry;  ,M. 
D.  Kendiir,  Manor;  Prof.  S.  S.  Kathvon,  city;  Hobcrl 
Dysart,  city;  A.  8.  Bard  city;  I.L.  Landis,  Manheim; 
David  G.  Swarl/,,city;  Casper  Hiller,('onesto;;a;  J.  H. 
Landip,  Manor;  .John  B.  ErI),  StrashuiR;  Joseidi  F. 
Witnicr,  Paradise;  Samuel  L.  Seldom ridije,  Eptirala; 
David  Bender,  West  Earl;  David  W.  UaneU,  Bird-in- 
Hand;  Joseph  Hupp,  Karl;  Joseph  L,  Witmcr,  Para- 
dise; Welister  L.  Hershey,  East  Heniptield;  Samuel 
Burliholdcr,  Farmcr6ville;.Iohn  8cld<iniriil(,'C,  Ephra- 
ta;  .John  B.  Heist,  I'enn;  Abraham  Summy,  Mari- 
etta; John  Miller,  Oregon;  John  Huher,  Warwick; 
David  Wolf,  Millway;  S.  A.  Hershey,  Salunga;  Ja- 
cob Herr,  Manor;  (J.  L.  nunseckcr,  Manheim;  Heury 
Erb,  Manheim;  Eph.  S.  Hoover,  .Mauhcini;  Elias 
Hershey,  I'aradise. 

Crop  Reports. 

Reports  of  the  condition  of  the  crops  being  called 
for,  the  president  stated  that  hereafter  sirii'tures  on 
the  reports  presented  by  aoy  member  would  not  lie 
permitted. 

Mit.JoHN  C.  LINVII.I.B,  of  Salisbury,  reported 
that  the  wheat  crop  was  gt>otl:  corn  pretty  good; 
grass  not  very  gooil;  oats  a  full  crop;  few  peaches: 
tobacco  fair. 

11.  M.  Enoi,;:,  of  Marietta,  said  the  drouth  was 
very  great,  but  be  could  report  wheat  ipiite  good; 
corn  not  so  promising;  young  clover  liurning  out;  the 
fruit  ero[>  ilwindling  down;  grajies  pretty  good. 
The  rainfall  (or  the  month  was  the  smallest  for 
years — being  less  than  one  inch. 

Henky  Kiiktz,  of  Mount  .Joy,  reported  the  wheat 
crop  at  a  little  more  than  one-half  of  an  average 
crop  of  •_'5  or  30  bushels;  corn  will  not  be  a  full  crop; 
grass  looks  pretty  well,  but  the  timothy  has  been 
I)revented  from  starting  by  the  drouth;  tobacco  in 
some  places  looks  very  well  and  in  other  places  very 
[loor. 

I'ASPBR  Hn.LEU,  of  Conestoga,  had  no  report  to 
make;  indeed  he  did  not  see  any  great  advantage  in 
making  crop  reports,  unless  .some  remedy  can  be  of- 
t'cvrxi  to  malie  a  bad  crop  better. 

Henkv  M.  Kngi.e,  of  Marietta,  said  the  object  of 
these  reports  is  to  secure  correct  data  on  which  to 
base  an  estimate  of  the  total  crop  of  the  county.  lie 
looked  upon  them  as  being  very  valuable. 

I'kesident  Coopek  said  that-  where  Imd  crops 
were  reported  inquiry  would  be  provoked  to  ascer- 
tain the  cause,  and  the  cause,  when  found,  might  bo 
removed,  or  its  recurrence  provided  against. 

1'.  S.  Heist,  of  Oregon,  Manheim  township,  said 
the  weather  bad  been  very  dry;  but  the  erojts  were 
pretty  good;  corn  would  yield  (JO  bushels  to  the  acre 
— some  fields  much  more — wheat  does  not  thresh 
out  as  well  as  it  was  snpposed  it  would  before  liar 
vest;  grapes  are  pretty  good,  but  many  of  them  are 
dropping  oir,  owing  to  the  drouth;  tobacco  is  not  as 
promising  as  it  was  a  month  ago,  but  some  of  it  is 
nevertheless  very  tine,  and  a  good  i)ortion  of  it  has 
been  cut  oti;  peaches  are  very  scarce,  but  what  there 
are  of  them  are  very  fine.  Mr.  Keist  took  occasion 
to  explain  that  when  be  said  at  the  last  meeting  of 
the  society  that  from  .5,000  to  10,000  mechanics  and 
laborers  could  find  employment  in  the  county,  in 
erecting  tobacco  sheds  and  harvesting  the  crops,  he 
did  not  mean  to  invite  that  number  of  workmen  from 
abroad,  but  to  say  that  there  was  more  of  that  kind 
of  work  to  be  done  in  the  county  than  that  number 
of  workmen  could  do,  and  that  if  the  army  of  tramps 
with  which  the  county  is  overrun  were  honest  work- 
men they  might  find  work.  He  would  not  now  in-  I 
\ito  workingmen  to  come  here  from  other  places,  j 
and  he  had  go  written  to  several  i)erson6  from  whom  | 
he  had  received  letters.  He  believed  there  had  been 
more  hard  work  done  within  the  past  two  weeks  in 
Lancaster  county,  by  the  men,  women  and  children, 
than  ever  before  in  the  same  length  of  time.  The 
grainbeingquickly  di8iK)8ed  of  by  the  steam  threshers, 
and  the  ground  being  too  dry  to  plow,  the  men  had 
had  plenty  of  time  to  work  on  the  tobacco  sheds.  | 

J.vcou  BoiiLiNOEK,  of  Warwick,  reported   a   full  , 
crop  of  corn;  potatoes  above  an  average  crop;  applee 


•carcc  and  Imperfect;  no  clovcrsced  cut;  young  grass 
fields  look  well,  but  weather  very  dry. 

.Mautin  D.  Kenuki,  of  Manor,  reported  the 
growing  crops  withered  by  the  drouth;  wheat  had 
yiehled  from  twenty  to  Iwcnty-flve  bushels  [jor  acre, 
corn  not  much  over  half  a  crop;  potatoes  a  good 
crop;  tobacco  a  fair  average;  fruit  very  scarce; 
grapes  don't  ripen  well.  The  raiafall  for  the  past 
month  was  only  six-tenths  of  an  inch. 

No  Horticultural  Exhibition. 

Li;vi  S.  Reist,  from  the  commltti^e  appointed  to  In- 
quire into  the  expediency  ofhaving  a  society  exhibition 
of  fruits  and  vegetables  this  fall,  reported  that  the 
Northern  market  house  company  had  kindly  offered 
the  society  the  use  of  their  market  house  for  the  pur- 
pose of  the  exhibition,  but  owing  to  the  scarcity  and 
imperfection  of  most  kinds  of  fruits,  and  the  late- 
ness of  the  season,  the  committee  deemed  It  Inexpe- 
dient to  hold  an  exhibition  this  Kcas(m,  an<l  so  rc- 
|)orled.     The  report  was  received  and  agreed  to. 

Premiums  for  Best  Crops. 

Henrt  M.  Enoi.b,  from  the  committee  appointed 
to  prciiare  a  list  of  premiums  to  bo  awarded  to  mem- 
bers of  the  society  growing  the  best  crops,  presented 
the  following  schedule  of  premiums  : 

Kor  the  largest  crop  of  corn  on  not  less  than  one 
acre,  first  premium,  ?.");  second  largest  crop,  second 
premium,  ?4;  third  largest,  third  premium,  ?.'i. 

Kor  largest  crop  of  potatoes,  not  less  than  half  an 
aero,  first  premium,  $4;  second  premium,  f:i;  third 
premium,  9-. 

For  the  best  essay  on  the  culture  of  wheat,  $;!;  sec- 
ond best,  ?;;;  third  best,  ?1 . 

Kor  best  small  fruits,  ?:!;  second  best,  $2;  third 
best,  .?!. 

The  conferring  of  the  above  awards  to  be  discre- 
tionary with  the  judges  apiiointed  to  examine  the  ex- 
hibits. 

Mu.  Hii.i.ER  asked  whether  the  proposed  premi- 
ums would  be  awarded  for  crops  grown  this  year. 

Mh.  Enole  answered  that  It  was  now  of  course 
too  late  to  award  premiums  for  small  fruits  and 
wheat,  for  these  bad  been  gathered,  but  It  was  early 
enough  for  corn  and  potatoes. 

Joseph  L.  Witmer,  of  Paradise,  suggested  that 
a  diploma  from  the  society  or  a  subscription  to  some 
good  agricultural  journal  would  be  more  suitable 
and  more  highly  [irizcd  than  a  money  premium. 
The  Oxford  society  has  adopted  the  system  of  award- 
ing newspaper  subscriptions  instead  of  money  pre- 
miums. 

Hevry  Kcrtz  moved  to  amend  the  report  of  the 
committee  by  awarding  diplomas  instead  of  money 
premiums. 

Mr.  Enoi.e  said  if  diplomas  were  given  the  so- 
ciety woulil  have  to  have  one  engraved,  and  this 
would  take  time  and  money  ;  while  a  newspaper 
prize  would  cost  as  much  as  the  n»)ney  proposed  to 
Ije  awarded. 

The  amendment  was  withdrawn  and  the  report  of 
the  committee  adopteil. 

Oleomargarine. 

A  proposed  act  of  Legislature  regulating  the 
manufacture  and  sale  of  oleomargarine  (bull  fat 
butter)  was  re.id  by  the  secretary.  It  provides  that 
each  package  of  the  manufacturer  shall  be  plainly 
marked  "olooinargarine,"  and  fixes  a  i)enaltyof  ?100 
for  ollering  it  for  sale  as  dairy  Imtter. 

John-  C.  Linvim.e  moved  that  the  proposed  act  be 
approved  by  the  society. 

I'ETER  S.  Reist  favored  the  passage  of  the  act, 
but  thought  the  penalty  excessive.  A  person  might 
be  imposed  on  and  sell  a  few  pounds  of  It  without 
knowing  it. 

I'KESiDENT  Cooper  explained  that  the  act  pro- 
vlilcd  no  penally  against  any  one  excei)t  such  as 
'•knowingly"  sold  the  oleomargarine  as  butter.  It 
is  an  act  to  protect  our  dairies  and  the  people  who 
use  dairy  butter.  It  does  not  propose  to  prevent  the 
manufacture  of  oleomargarine,  but  only  that  it  shall 
bo  sold  for  what  It  really  is.  •  Let  it  stand  on  Its  own 
merits,  and  let  those  who  like  it  buy  It.  As  for  him 
self,  be  wants  none  of  it. 

A  vote  was  taken  and  the  act  was  almost  unani- 
mously approved. 

An  Act  to  Regulate  the  Manufacture  and  Sale 
of  Fertilizers. 

This  act,  which  had  been  previously  discussed  and 
|X)St|)oned,  came  up  for  further  consideration.  [Both 
it  and  the  act  relating  to  oleomargarine  have  hereto- 
fore been  published  In  the  Farrjier .] 

.Mr.  Linville  moved  Its  adoption. 

.Mr.  1.  L.  Landis  thought  there  were  some  pro- 
visions In  the  proposed  act  which  had  better  be 
omitted.  It  requires  that  the  Ingredients  used  in  the 
manufacture  of  fertilizers  shall  ht  made  public. 
Many  of  these  fertilizers  arc  patented  and  the  paten  - 
tecs  cannot  be  compelled  to  make  known  the  ingrcd'- 
ents  of  the  article  manufactured  by  them.  To  do 
so  would  be  to  render  their  patent  valueless. 

Casper  Hillek  said  the  subject  of  artificial  fer- 
tilizers was  one  of  vast  importance  to  our  farmers, 
who  were  pushing  farming  to  its  highest  state  by  the 
use  of  fertilizers.  High  farming  will  cause  the  land 
to  deteriorate  and  t>ecome  poor,  unless  wc  can  fall 


138 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  September, 


back  on  some  good  fertilizer  to  eupply  the  soil  witli 
the  ingredients  taken  from  it  in  croijping.  For  some 
years  past  very  inferior  fertilizers  have  been  thrown 
upon  the  market.  Two  years  ago  Mr.  Hillc-r  had 
purchased  two  tons  of  superphosphate  at  a  high 
price,  and  he  could  not  see  where  he  had  placed  it. 
Sines  that  time  he  has  bought  some  that  showed  ex- 
cellent results.  It  is  necessary, therefore, for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  farmer,  as  well  as  the  honest  manufac- 
turer, that  the  analysis  of  the  fertilizer  should  be 
known.     He  favored  the  passage  of  the  bill. 

Mii.  LiNViLLE  said  that  a  law  similar  to  the  one 
now  being  considered  had  been  passed  by  the  Georgia 
Legislature  some  years  ago,  and  since  its  passage 
the  fertilizers  offered  in  that  State  are  30  per  cent, 
better  than  they  were  before.  The  law  docs  not  pro- 
hibit the  manufacture  of  any  kind  of  fertilizer  but 
compels  the  manufacturer  to  furnish  an  analysis  of 
its  constituents. 

Levi  W.  Groff  thought  it  would  not  be  long  be- 
fore every  farmer  in  the  county  would  manufacture 
his  own  phosphates,  then  no  such  law  as  the  one 
proposed  will  be  necessary  ;  you  can  go  to  Stein- 
man's,  purchase  the  necessary  articles  and  make 
your  own. 

President  Cooper  s.aid  the  passage  of  the  pro- 
posed act  would  not  prevent  any  one  from  doing  so. 

J.  H.  Landis,  of  Manor,  said  that  South  Carolina 
rock  could  be  sold  in  Wilmington  for  §8  per  ton,  and 
can  be  sold  iu  Chester  and  Lancaster  counties  for 
less  than  |16.  lie  thought  the  operations  of  the  law 
should  not  be  restricted" to  those  kind  of  fertilizers 
which  sold  at  $20  or  more  per  ton. 

Secretary  Miller  explained  that  the  law  said 
"less"  than  S-0  per  ton,  not  "more." 

Mr.  Landis  withdrew  his  objection  and  the  act 
was  approved  ;  but  having  again  read  the  bill,  and 
discovered  that  his  objection  was  well  founded,  he 
moved  a  reconsideration  of  the  vote,  by  which  it  was 
apiiroved,  ami  it  was  accordingly  reconsidered. 

Mr.  LA>fDis  then  asked  "for  information  why 
samples  of  artilicial  feltilizcrs  selling  for  less  than 
§20  per  ton  were  exempt  from  analysis  and  inspection. 

Mr.  Linville  said  that  where  fertilizers  were 
offered  at  such  low  figures  farmers  would  know  that 
they  were  not  good  and  could  look  out  forthemselves. 
When  the  prices  were  higher  the  temptation  to  fraud 
would  be  greater. 

Mr.  Landis  contended  that  if  a  520  article  should 
be  inspected,  so  should  a  $19  article.  He  moved  to 
strike  out  the  figures  "§20"  in  the  last  line  of  the 
proviso . 

Mr.  Hiller  said  it  was  well  known  to  all  that  a 
concentrated  fertilizer  could  not  be  made  for  less 
than  ^-tO,  ?.50  or  $00,  and  therefore  cannot  be  sold 
for  $20.  To  have  inserted  all  kinds  of  fertilizers  in 
the  bill  would  perhaps  necessitate  an  inspection  of 
lime,  plaster  and  other  manures. 

Mr.  Landis  then  moved  to  strike  out  the  entire 
proviso. 

Mr.  Wither  approved  striking  out  the  proviso. 

P.  S.  Reist  said  he  thought  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  humbugging  in  these  artificial  fertilizers,  and  read 
a  paper  by  a  toliacco  expert  to  show  that  much  of 
the  imperfection  in  the  quality  of  tobacco  leaf  was 
caused  by  using  them  instead  of  barnyard  manure. 
He  moved  that  the  further  consideration  of  the  sub- 
ject be  postponed  until  next  meeting. 

Mr.  Engle  opposed  further  postponement.  It  had 
already  been  postponed  for  one  month,  and  members 
are  as  well  qualified  to  vote  npw  as  they  will  be  iu  a 
mouth  hence. 

Mr.  Keist  said  that  Prof.  Calder,  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania Agricultural  College,  hooted  at  the  analyza- 
tiou  of  fertilizers. 

Jacob  Bollinger  did  not  use  any  artificial  fertil- 
izers, nor  did  any  of  his  neighbors.  He  thought  every 
farm  should  produce  enough  manure  to  keep  it  up. 
As  only  those  who  use  the' fertilizers  would  have  to 
pay  for  them,  he  thought  it  would  be  as  well  to  pass 
the  act. 

A  vote  was  then  taken  on  postponing  its  further 
consideration  and  lost — yeas,  10  ;  nays,  12. 

A  vote  was  tlieu  taken  on  the  rejection  of  the  pro- 
viso— yeas,  o  ;  nays  not  counted. 

The  act  was  then  adopted  without  division. 

Committee  to  Test  Fruits. 

The  president  appointed  Casper  Hiller,  John  H. 
Landis  and  John  C.  Linville  a  committee  to  examine 
the  very  flue  fruits  on  exhibitiou  before  the  society. 

Pkof.  S.  S.  r.ATiivoN  moved  that  the  librarian  be 
instructed  to  purchase  a  dozen  more  chairs  for  the 
use  of  members.     Carried. 

Mk.  Englk  read  a  communicatiou  he  had  received 
from  the  officers  of  the  York  County  Agricultural 
Society,  requesting  the  Lancaster  society  to  appoint 
four  judges  to  assist  iu  making  the  awards  at  the 
coming  York  county  fair,  and  to  send  the  names  and 
postofflce  addresses  of  the  appointees  to  the  secretary 
at  York . 

Mr.  Engle  moved  that  the  request  of  the  York 
county  society  be  complied  with,  and  that  the  presi- 
dent appoint  the  judges  and  shall  be  a  member 
thereof.  The  motion  was  agreed  to,  and  the  presi- 
dent named  them  as  follows  :  Henry  M.  Engle,  Ma- 
rietta; Johnson  Miller,  Lititz;  Ephraim  S.  Hoover, 
Manheim;  Calvin  Cooper,  Paradise. 


Testimonial  to  Prof.  Rathvon. 

Mr.  M.  D.  Kendig  stepped  up  iu  front  of  Prof.  S. 
S.  Rathvon,  who  was  seated  near  the  president,  and 
spoke  as  follows : 

Professor  :  Permit  me,  on  behalf  of  the  members 
of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural  and  Horticul- 
tural Society,  in  recognition  of  your  valuable  and 
self-sacrifleing  labors  in  said  society,  towards  promo- 
ting its  welfare  and  success,  and  the  great  pleasure 
with  which  your  efibrts  were  exercised  in  its  behalf; 
therefore,  as  a  slight  testimonial  of  our  appreciation 
of  your  kind  recognitions  of  our  wants,  and  the  phil- 
osophical explanations  you  have  given  us  from  time 
to  time  on  the  various  subjects  which  have  come  be- 
fore us,  we  present  you  with  this  cane,  and  desire 
you  to  accept  it  with  our  best  wishes.  May  you 
lean  upon  it  for  support  in  your  declining  years,  as 
this  society  has  ever  leaned  upon  you,  and  when  your 
life's  labors  are  finished  here,  may  you  have  a  beau- 
tiful entrance  into  that  world  of  blessedness,  where 
all  is  peace  and  rest. 

The  cane  is  of  ebony,  with  a  heavy  and  beautifully 
chased  gold  head  containing  the  following  inscrip- 
tion :  "Presented  to  S.  S.  Rathvon  by  the  Agricultu- 
ral and  Horticultural  society  of  Lancaster  county, 
Pa.,  Sept.  :-!d,  1S77."  It  was  gotten  up  by  H.  L. 
Zahm  &,  Co.,  on  the  order  of  a  number  of  Prof. 
Kathvon's  friends,  members  of  the  society. 
The  Professor's  Reply . 

Prof.  Rathvon  was  much  affected,  and  his  sur- 
prise was  so  complete  that  it  was  some  moments  be- 
fore he  found  utterance.  He  said  he  was  at  no  time 
a  fluent  off-hand  speaker,  and  that  now  he  was  so 
astonished  and  overwhelmed  at  the  receipt  of  the 
testimonial,  and  the  complimentary  manner  in  which 
it  had  been  presented,  that  he  could  not  coin  words 
with  which  to  express  the  emotions  of  his  heart. 
From  his  heart  he  thanked  the  givers,  but  feared  the 
honor  done  him  was  but  poorly  deserved.  He  had 
done  nothing  for  the  society  but  what  he  had  done 
from  a  sense  of  duty.  His  efforts  had  been  only  a 
labor  of  love,  and  he  was  not  sure  that  a  man  who 
did  only  that  which  he  loved  to  do  was  entitled  to  as 
much  credit  as  he  who  acts  contrary  to  his  inclina- 
tions in  doing  a  good  work.  He  accepted  the  cane 
in  tlie  same  spirit  in  which  it  was  bestowed,  and 
would  lean  upon  it  for  support  in  his  declining  years, 
and  hope  for  an  entrance  into  the  better  life  when 
this  shall  have  ended. 

Social  Intercourse  and  Testing  of  Fruit. 

A  recess  was  then  taken  to  examine  and  test  the 
fruits  on  exhibition,  and  after  this  had  gone  on  for 
some  time  John  B.  Erb  moved  that  all  the  fruit  not 
wanted  by  the  exhibitors  be  donated  to  the  newspa- 
per reporters.  There  was  laughter  and  applause 
among  the  members,  while  broad  grins  distended 
the  reporters'  mouths  from  ear  to  ear. 
The    Codling  Moth. 

Prof.  Rathvon  presented  specimens  of  the  cod- 
ling which  he  had  hatched  out  and  developed  from 
eggs  deposited  in  apricots  presented  by  J.  M.  Johns- 
ton. He  said  he  had  raised  the  codling  moth  from 
the  apple,  pear,  peach,  quince,  nectarine  and  apricot, 
and  these  experiments  exploded  the  theory  that  the 
codling  moth  attacks  only  pip  fruits. 

Fruit  Report. 

The  committee  appointed  to  examine  and  test 
fruits  presented  the  following  report  : 

The  committee  to  examine  and  report  on  the  large 
array  of  apples,  pears  and  grapes  brought  by  some 
of  the  members,  submitted  the  following  : 

Henry  M.  Engle  made  a  splendid  display  of 
grapes,  consisting  of  the  following  varieties  :  Jessie, 
Delaware,  Massasoit,  Telegraph,  AVilder,  Liudley, 
Iowa,  Paxton,  Rogers  No.  19,  Creveling,  Lady, 
Salem,  Rogers  No.  33,  Croton,  Adirondack,  Agawam, 
Antachon,  Ives,  Clinton,  Canada,  Martha,  Concord, 
Maxatawney,  Cornucopia.  The  grape  Jessie  is  espe- 
cially good  and  is  worthy  of  trial. 

John  Huber  exhibited  a  bunch  of  Lady,  a  new 
white  grape,  very  good  and  very  promising. 

Calvin  Cooper  also  exhibited  a  very  flne  lot  of 
grapes  :  Northern  Muscadine,  Merrimac,  Massasoit, 
Concord,  Catawba,  Hartford,  Prolific,  Herbert,  Tele- 
graph, Wilder,  Martha,  Agawam,  two  other  varieties 
of  Rogers. 

Levi  S.  Reist  exhibited  ten  varieties  of  pears  : 
Ouondago,  Belle  Lucretia,  Bartlett,  Howell,  Flemish 
Beauty,  McLaughlin,  Buffum,  Seckcl,  Liiwrcnce, 
Schaum.  Peaches:  Morris  White,  Early  Crawford. 
Apples  :  Shoonhauer,  Hubbardston  Nonsuch,  Apple- 
butter,  and  a  sweet  for  name. 

Samuel  Binkley  exhibited  extra  fine  specimens 
of  Concord  and  Martha. 

C.  Hiller — Bonni  St.  Ghistain  pear,  pronounced 
very  good . 

H.  M.  Engle,  Pears— Bartlett,  Seckel,  Howell, 
Duchess  de  Bonne,  DcsNonnes,  Flemish  Beauty. 

B.  Frank  Taylor,  of  Chester  county,  sends  a  fine 
bunch  of  hulless  oats. 

Casper  Hiller, 
J.  C.  Linville,^ 
JonN  H.  Landis. 

Mr.  Engle  thought  this  society  should  be  repre- 
sented in  the  annual  meeting  of  the  American  Pomo- 


logieal  society,  which  meets  in  Baltimore,  on  the  12th 
loth  and  14th  inst.,  and  the  Maryland  Horticultural 
society,  which  meets  at  the  same  time  and  place. 

Levi  S.  Reist  moved  that  a  committee  of  throe  be 
appointed  by  the  chair  to  attend  said  meetings. 
Agreed  to,  and  M.  D.  Kendig,  Levi  S.  Reist  and  H. 
M.  Engle  were  appointed.  Messrs.  Engle  and  Reist 
were  also  appointed  last  January  to  represent  the 
Pennsylvania  Fruit  Growers'  Society  at  the  same 
meeting. 

Business  for  next  Meeting. 

The  committee  on  business  reported  the  following 
questions  for  discussion  at  next  meeting  : 

What  grade  of  horses  are  best  adapted  for  farm 
use  ? 

Does  it  pay  to  fatten  stock  when  we  get  no  more 
than  market  price  for  the  grain  fed  ?    Adjourned. 


TOBACCO  GROWERS'  ASSOCIATION. 


A  stated  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  County  To- 
bacco Growers'  Association  was  held  in  their  rooms 
in  the  city  hall,  on  Monday  afternoon,  August  20. 
The  following  named  members  and  visitors  were 
present : 

M.  D.  Kendig,  president.  Manor;  W.  L.  Hershey, 
secretary.  East  Hempfleld ;  Henry  Mayer,  East 
Hempfleld;  Adam  Bear,  Lancaster  twp.;  P.  S.  Reist, 
Oregon,  Manheim  twp.;  I.  L.  Landis,  Manheim; 
Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy  ;  Jacob  F.  Frantz,  Manor  ; 
Heiu-y  Shiffner,  Leacock  ;  Sylvester  Kennedy,  Salis- 
bury; John  M.  Stehman,  Manheim;  Aldus  Gross, 
East  Hempfleld  ;  Ephraim  Hoover,  East  Hempfield  ; 
Levi  S.  Reist,  Manheim;  Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  city; 
Sihas  K.  Eshleman,  Leaman  Place;  Wm.  D.  Hoar, 
Salisbury  ;  J.  M.  Johnston,  city ;  Andrew  Lane,  city ; 
B.  Ritter,  Litiz  ;  Levi  Gross,  East  Hempfield;  Wm. 
McComsey,  city  ;  Frank  R.  Diffenderfer,  city  ;  Clare 
Carpenter,  city;  H.  B.  Harnish,  Conestoga ;  Mr. 
Long,  and  a  few  others. 

The  minutes  of  last  meeting  were  read  and 
adopted. 

Crop  Reports. 

The  condition  of  the  tobacco  crop  throughout  the 
county  being  called  for,  Israel  L.  Landis,  of  Man- 
heim, reported  that  in  his  section  it  was  very  good — 
a  considerable  portion  of  it  had  been  already  cut  and 
housed  and  was  equal  to  any  grown  for  some  years. 
A  number  of  new  tobacco  sheds  are  being  erected, 
and  there  are  other  evidences  of  a  growing  interest 
in  the  cultivation  of  the  weed.  Not  much  old  tobacco 
remains  in  the  hands  of  the  growers,  though  he 
(Mr.  Landis)  and  a  few  others  have  a  few  cases  on 
hand. 

Henry  Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  reported  some 
very  good  tobacco  in  his  neighborhood,  some  not  so 
good,  and  some  very  poor  indeed. 

Silas  K.  Ebhleman,  of  Leaman  Place,  said  that 
owing  to  the  late  dry  weather  a  good  deal  of  the  to- 
liacco has  a  stunted  appearance,  though  there  are 
some  patches  that  are  very  fine.  The  tobacco  worm 
has  not  been  troublesome  this  season. 

Henry  SniFFNER,  of  Leacock,  reported  some  of 
the  tobacco  very  fine,  especially  that  which  was 
planted  early.  Some  of  the  later  planted  was  not  so 
good.  In  Paradise,  Lower  Leacock  and  other 
neighboring  places  there  will  not  be  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  a  crop.  He  thought  his  own  crop  might  be 
rated  as  "thribble  A."  He  had  not  been  troubled 
with  the  tobacco  worm,  and  had  secured  a  large  and 
fine  crop  by  low  topping,  which  he  regarded  as  es- 
sential to  the  growth  of  first-class  tobacco.  By  care- 
ful cultivation  and  low  topping  he  had  raised  excel- 
lent croiis  for  six  years  in  succession  on  the  same 
land.  He  set  his  plants  20  inches  apart  in  rows  29 
inches  apart. 

Sylvester  Kennedy,  of  S.alisbury,  reported  the 
crop  doing  well — better  than  any  one  expected  earlier 
in  the  season.  The  acreage  is  from  50  to  100  per 
cent,  greater  than  it  was  last  year.  TbS  early 
planted  is  better  than  that  which  was  set  out  later; 
it  escaped  the  ravages  of  the  worm,  which  did  not 
appear  in  any  considerable  number  until  a  week  or 
two  ago.  Some  farmers  have  already  cut  their  to- 
bacco and  others  have  one-half  or  one-quarter  cut  ofi". 
The  "stink-bug"  and  the  dry  weather  have  done 
more  harm  to  the  worm.  A  number  of  new  tobacco 
houses  have  been  built,  and  should  the  present  crop 
prove  to  be  a  profitable  one,  almost  all  the  farmers 
in  Salisbury  will  engage  in  its  cultivation  next  year. 
His  plan  of  killing  the  tobacco  moth  was  to  put 
sweetened  water  in  the  jimson  blossoms,  and  strike 
down  the  moth  with  paddles  when  they  come  to 
feed .  Some  of  the  late  tobacco  is  yet  very  small,  but 
with  a  favorable  season  it  has  yet  a  chance  to  turn 
out  well. 

Jacob  F.  Frantz  asked  Mr.  Kennedy  whether  the 
moth  did  not  fly  more  during  moonlight  nights  than 
dark  nights. 

Mr.  Kennedy  thought  not;  he  had  frequently 
killed  them  in  fhe  evening  before  dark,  and  after 
dark  when  there  was  no  moon  and  it  was  raining. 

IIabry  Mayek,  of  East  Hempfield,  reported  some 
very  good  crops  of  tobacco  in  his  neighborhood  and 
none  that  are  very  poor.  As  to  quality  he  did  not 
think  it  would  prove  as  good  as  last  year's  crop. 
The  plants  grew  too  rapidly  in  the  spring  and  then 


1877. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


139 


the  dry  spell  of  weather  which  followed  had  injured 
the  leaf  and  he  feared  it  would,  not  erne  so  welUs 
isdesirablc.  His  own  crop  and  some  of  his  nei-hbors 
had  heeu  nuich  injiu'cd  hy  the  laic  hail  storm  espc- 
dally  that  which  had  heen  topped.  '1  hat  which  had 
not  been  topped  was  improved  l.y  removmij  I  he  rid- 
dled leaves,  (most  of  wliieli  were  on  one  side  only  ol 
the  plant  )  and  thus  throwiiif;  additional  slienKth 
into  the  uninjured  ones.  The  crop  generally  looks 
promising,  hut  wants  rain.  Many  farmers  have 
TOramenced  cutting.    Worms  have  not  been  Iroublo- 

°°T^F  Frantz,  of  Manor,  concurred  generally  with 
what  .Mr.  Mayer  had  said-the  crop  in  Manor  being 
m  about  the  same  condition  as  that  ot  Hemplield, 
except  that  it  had  not  been  injured  by  hail,  llie 
bulk  of  the  tobacco  is  larger  than  last  year  s  crop, 
and  the  crop  equally  as  good.  Much  of  it  has  been 
already  cut.  . 

Prter  S.  Keipt  reported  an  increased  acreage  and 
a  cood  crop  as  to  quantity;  did  not  know  enough 
■ibout  it  to  report  Us  qualily.  In  some  seetions  it  is 
of  immense  growth  and  some  of  it  is  very  backward, 
but  healthy  looking.  With  favorable  weather  there 
will  be  a  very  large  crop.  There  are  a  number  of 
new  sheds  going  up  in  his  neighborhood,  and  more 
would  be  built  were  it  not  for  the  scarcity  ot  lumber 
and  carpenters.  On  this  account  some  larmers  are 
cleaning  out  their  barns  and  preparing  them  lor  the 
slora.'e  of  tobacco.  He  thinks  that  from  five  to  ten 
thousluid  people  might  be  prolit.Tbly  employed  ii. 
putting  up  she  B  and  doing  other  work  necessary  to 
secure  the  present  crop. 

Henry  SiiitTNER,  of  Leacock,  thought  the  qual- 
ity of  the  growing  crop  very  good— especially  that 
which  was  planted  early;  believes  it  will  cure  better 
than  last  year's  crop. 

Henry  Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  hoped  this  might 
prove  true,  but  feared  it  would  not.  The  tobacco 
looks  too  much  like  that  of  1872.  He  has  noticed  a 
creat  many  patches  with  small,  sickly  looking  leaves 
that  stand  straight  up  as  though  they  were  looking 
for  rain.  This  tobacco  will  not  be  likely  to  sweat 
well  He  believes  tobacco  cut  off  in  August  will  not 
cure  as  well  as  that  cut  in  September.  He  would 
like  to  hear  from  the  southern  section  of  the  county. 
J  M.  .JouNSTON,  city,  said  in  reply,  that  he  had 
seen  Squire  Housekeeper,  of  Chestnut  Level,  who 
told  him  the  crop  in  that  vicinity  would  be  very  good. 
He  had  himself  paid  a  visit  to  the  southern  end  ot 
the  county  two  or  three  weeks  ago,  and  at  that  time 
the  tobacco  was  growing  finely.  Although  there  Is 
not  so  much  attention  given  to  tobacco  in  that  as  in 
some  other  sections  of  the  county,  the  acreage  has 
been  considerably  increased,  and   an  increased   crop 

is  expected.  , 

President  Kendio,  of  Manor,  reported  a  good, 
fair  growth  of  the  leaf,  but  feared  it  would  not  cure 
so  well-  it  seemed  to  be  dry  and  stunted  and  wants  a 
trood  soaking  rain  to  bring  it  out;  otherwise  it  will 
not  be  of  first  quality.  There  are  some  very  fine 
patches;  not  ten  per  cent,  of  the  crop  has  been  yet 
cut.    Worms  have  been  scarce. 

JoBN  Brady,  of  Millersville,  said  his  son  had  cut 
an  acre,  and  it  seemed  to  be  curing  very,  well.  He 
favored  low  topping.  Three  or  four  good  leaves  to  a 
stalk  arc  worth  a  dozen  little  ones. 

Aldus  Gross,  of  East  Hempfield,  reported  a  good 
deal  of  the  leaf  stunted  by  dryness.  If  cut  now  it  will 
not  cure  well,  and  even  if  it  gets  a  good  rain,  it  is 
now  too  late  to  help  it  much.  ,     ,   . 

Levi  S  Rei.st,  of  Mauheim,  said  there  had  been 
rain  enough  until  the  first  of  August,  and  the  early 
planted  tobacco  is  as  good  as  any  he  ever  before  saw. 
A  rain  now  will  help  the  late  plowed. 
Referred  Questions. 
"How  soon  after  strijiping  could  and  should  to- 
bacco be  cased?"  a  question  which  had  been  at  last 
meeting  referred  to  Henry  Kurtz,  was  answered  by 
that  gentleman,  who  said  that  the  proper  time  to 
pack  tobacco  is  three  or  four  weeks  after  it  has  been 
stripped  and  ranked.  It  must  be  ranked  with  the 
buts  outwards  and  the  leaves  well  lapped  over.  He 
had  packed  tobacco  with  favorable  results  after  its 
first  sweating,  and  had  been  told  by  old  packers  that 
they  had  cased  tobacco  when  it  was  so  wet  that  the 
water  ran  out  of  it  and  it  turned  out  to  be  the  best. 
John  Brady,  of  Millersville,  said  when  tobacco  is 
fit  to  strip  it  is  fit  to  case.  Let  it  cure  well  on  the 
scafl'old  and  case  it  at  once. 

Mr.  Kennedy,  of  Salisbury,  knew  that  tobacco 
could  be  packed  more  easily  immediately  after  it  was 
stripped  than  if  it  was  ranked  and  subsequently 
packed  ;  but  he  was  not  sure  that  it  was  the  way  to 
secure  the  best  tobacco. 

Jacob  F.  Frantz  thought  this  subject  should  be 
well  considered.  We  should  not  talk  about  what  will 
be  the  result  if  the  tobacco  is  strijiped  before  it  is  fit 
to  strip.  We  should  assume  that  no  intelligent 
grower  will  strip  it  until  it  is  fit,  and  then  we  should 
endeavor  to  find  out  how  soon  it  should  be  packed. 
His  own  opinion  is  that  if  stripped  at  the  right  time 
it  may  be  packed  at  once.  It  should  not  he  stripped 
when  the  but  or  ribs  are  green,  as  every  sensible 
farmer  knows. 

Mr.  Kurtz  insisted  that  three  or  four  weeks 
should  elapse  between  the  stripping  and  casing,  and 
Mr.  Brady  was  equally  certain  that  it  should  be  cased 


at  once,  and  so  warmly  did  they  advocate  their  re- 
spective plans  that  they  were  ready  to  wager  money 
on  the  result.  ,,  ,,.  , 

Henry  Siiifkner,  of  Leacock,  said  if  tobacco  was 
not  fit  to  case  it  was  not  fit  to  strip  ,  and  it  certainly 
was   not  fit  to  strip  so   long   as  the  ribs  remained 

Pkesiprnt  Kendig  thought  we  were  driaing 
away  from  our  real  business— the  growing  of  to- 
liaceo- and  entering  a  field  that  is  already  occupied. 
There  arc  plenty  of  export  packers  to  take  the  busi- 
ness of  iiacking  ofl'our  hands  as  soon  as  the  crop  has 
been  properly  prepared  for  them. 

Mr.  Siiikfner  also  thoughtthe  present  discussion 
premature.  There  is  a  belief  entertained  by  many 
tliat  this  society  intends  to  establish  a  commission 
house  to  which  farmers  will  be  expected  to  bring 
their  tobacco,  and  sell  it  for  what  it  will  fetch. 
Some  dealers  also  think  the  society  intends  interler- 
ing  with  their  business.  The  prevalence  of  these 
l)cllef8  is  the  reason  the  meetings  of  the  society  are 
not.  more  largely  attended.  We  should  confine  our- 
selves to  the  growing  of  tobacco,  and  aciiuainting 
ourselves  with  the  best  methods.  When  we  get 
eight  or  ten  miles  away  from  Lancaster  we  find  very 
little  tobacco  that  is  grown  or  handled  as  well  as  it 

should  lie.  _  :,  .t       ,     ,,        r 

V.  S.  Keist,  of  Manheim,  favored  the  adoption  of 
a  resolution  to  the  eflTect  that  the  object  of  the  society 
is  to  grow  tobacco  and  prepare  it  for  the  use  of  buyers. 
Mr.  Kurtz  predicted  that  In  a  few  years  every 
tobacco  farmer  in  the  county  would  case  his  own  to- 
bacco, whether  this  society  approves  it  or  not. 

I.  L.   Landis   thought   the  subject  a  very  proper 
one  for  discuesion.     Farmers  should  know  how  and 
when    to    pack    their  own    tobacco.    They   cannot 
always  sell  when  they  would  like  to,  and  their  own 
interest  requires  that  they  should  know  what  to  do 
with  their  tobacco   when  they  cannot  sell  it.    That 
the  subject  may  be  thoroughly  discussed,  as  it  is  now 
growing  late,  he  moved  that  Its  further  consideration 
be  postponed  until  next  meeting.     Agreed  to. 
Management  of  Tobacco  Sheds. 
In  answer  to  a  question  as  to  how  tobacco  sheds 
should  be  managed  after  the  tobacco  has  been  hung 
up    in  order  to  cure  tobacco    in   the  best   manner, 
Jacob  F.  Frantz  said  In  order  to  answer  the  ([uestion 
intelligently  it  would  be   necessary   to  presume  that 
all  tobacco  sheds  were  built  alike,  and  this  was  not 
the  case.     He  would  say  that  it  was  of  primary  im- 
portance to  have  eflTective  ventilation  and  light.     To 
xure  tobacco  properly  the  shed  must  bo  so  arranged 
that  light  may  be  readily  admitted  or  excluded.     He 
recommended  the  horizontal  ventilators  as  far  pre 
ferable  to  the  perpendicular  once.     The  shed  should 
be  built  close  and  tight,  so  that  ventilation  and  light 
may  he  regulated  at  will.     As  soon  as  the  tobacco 
has  been  partially  cured  the  shed  should  be  closed  in 
daytime  and  opened  at  night,  so  that  dampness  may 
be  diffused  through  the  whole  mass.     If  there  be  a 
long  spell  of  murky  weather  the  shed  should  also  be 
closed  at   night.    It  is  a  settled  principle   that  to- 
bacco, hay  and  grain   must   go   through  a  sweating 
process  before  they  are  fit  for  use. 

Ephraim  Hoover,  of  East  Hempfield,  said  in  re- 
gard to  the  relative  merit  of  horizontal  or  perpen- 
dicular shutters  he  would   not   express  an  opinion  ; 
but  he  knew  of  one  man  who  built  a  shed  with  per- 
pendicular shutters  and  used  It  for  some  time.    The 
shed  was  blown  down  and  he  rebuilt  it  with  horizon- 
tal shutters  and  found  that  he  did  not  like  them  as 
well  as  the  old  kind.     This  summer  he  built  another 
shed  with  perpendicular  shutters,  saying  they  were 
cheaper  and  better  than  the  others.     The  water  that 
gets  into   the   crevices   soon  dries  off,   while  it  lies 
upon  the   horizontal  shutter  and   is  often  blown  in 
upon  the  tobacco.    Several  other  farmers  have  told 
him  they  prefer  the  perpendicular  shutter,  although 
they  are  more  troublesome  to  open  and  close.     Mr. 
Hoover's  own   shed   had   upright   shutters   and   he 
found  them  to  answer  very  well.     He  though  a  to- 
bacco shed  should  lie  built  with  a  view  of  using  it  for 
the  storage  of  grain  as  well  as  tobacco. 
A  Plea  for  the  Birds. 
Mr   Sins  K.  Eshleman,  of  Leaman  Place,  read 
a  long  and  interesting  essay,   in   which   he  took  the 
ground  that  birds- and  especially  partridges— were 
the  farmer's  best  friends  ;  but  as  the  law  has  made 
the  partridge   a   "game  bird,"    farmers  as  well  as 
others  join   in   their  destruction.     He   deplored  the 
cruel   "  sport"   as   it  is   called,  and  hoped  the  law 
would  soon  be  amended  so  as  to  give  all  InseetlTorous 
birds  the  protection  they  are  entitled   to.    If  there 
were  more  birds  there  would  be  less  insects  to  destroy 
the  crops.    Since  the  senseless  destruction  of  prairie 
hens,  pheasants,  quail,  Ac,  by  Western  si)ortsmen, 
the  crops  in  the  West  have  been  devastated  by  grass- 
hoppers.    It  may  not  be  generally  known  that  a  brace 
of  partridL'CS  will  destroy  a  whole  colony  of  ants  that 
are  so  destructive  to  corn,  cucumbers  and  other  vege- 
tables     There  are  no  doubt  other  birds  that  feed  up- 
on the  tobacco  worm  and  would  assist  the  farmer  in 
ridding  his  fields  of  this  pest  if  they  were  protected 
and  permitted  to  live.     He  hoped  the  cruel  "  sport 
of  murdering  the  innocent  birds  would  soon  be  aban- 

°A%ote  of  thanks  was  given  to  Mr.  Eshleman  for 
bli  able  essay. 


Hanging  up  Tobacco. 

"  What  IS  the  best  method  of  hanging   up  tobacco 
to  cure  it  best  ?"— a  question  whicli  had  at  last  meet- 
ing been  referred  to  Harry  Mayer,  of  East  Hempfield 
—was  answered  by  that   gentleman.      To   illustrate 
his  filan,  he  exhibited  before  the  society  a  jiretty    lit- 
tle model  of  the  trestle  and  lathe  be  uses  in  hanging 
up  his  tobacco.  The  tri^stlc  is  over  live  feet  in  height, 
anil  long  enouch  to  hold  a  hit h  four   feet   in   length, 
one  and  a-lialf  inches  In  width,  and  three-quarters  of 
uii  inch  thick.     In  this  lath   six   sixpenny   nails  are 
driven  obliifuely  (three  on   each   side)   eight  Inches 
afiart.    The  obll(iue  oiieetlon  is  given  to  tlia   nail  so 
that  its  point,  when  the  l.ath  is   hungup,  may   be   a 
little  higher  than  Its  head,  and  thus   form   a   sort  of 
hook  on  which  the  tobacco  can   be   hung.      To  give 
uniform  direction  to  the  nails,  the  lath,   before  they 
are  driven.  Is  placed  upon  a  graduated  piece  of  hard 
wood  in  which  beveled  slots  have    been   cut  to  turn 
the  point  of  the  nail  in  the   desired  direction.      The 
lath  having  been  thus  prepared  to  receive  the  tobac- 
co is  [ilaced  in  the  trestle,   which  is   also   furnl»hcd 
with  slots  to  receive  It.     The  cut  tobacco  Is  hauled  to 
the  trestle  on  wheelbarrows,  and  the  butt  ends  of  the 
stalks  forced  upon  the  points  of  the   nails,   and   the 
lath  of  tobacco  hung  In  Ita  jilace   In  the   shed.      Mr. 
'  Mayer  says  that  by  this  plan  ho  can  hang  up  tobacco 
nearly  twice  as  fast  as   by   any  other   method.      Ho 
has  entirely  discarded   the   patent  tobacco    hook   In 
general  use.     When  the  tobacco  is   ready   for   strip- 
ping the  trestle  is  taken  to  the  cellar  under  the  shed. 
The  lath  containing  the  tobacco  Is  placed  In  the  tres- 
tle and  the  leaves  are  stripped  while  it  hangs   there. 
All  damage  to  the  leaves  is   thus   avoided,   and   Mr. 
Mayer  Is  enabled  to  sell  as  "seconds"  a  great  deal  of 
tobacco  that  would  otherwise  be  counted   as   fillers. 
The  little  model  was    much    admired,    and   several 
members  expressed   a   determination  to   adopt   Mr. 
Mayer's  plan. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Landis  the  president  and  secre- 
tary were  appointed  a  committee  to  confer  with  the 
ollicers  of  the  .Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society 
as  to  the  expediency  of  having  tobacco  exhibited  at 
the  proposed  horticultural  exhibition  In  the  Northern 
market  house  next  month.  „  .       o 

The  following  question  was  referred  to  Peter  a. 
Keist  to  be  answered  at  next  meeting  : 

"What  method  of  preparation  of  soil  is  best  adapt- 
ed to  promote  the  prospectsof  a  good eroi>of tobacco, 
having  reference  to  kind  of  fertilizers   and   time   and 
quantity  of  application  ?" 
On  motion  adjourned. 


THE  LINN/EAN   SOCIETY. 

The  Linniran  Society  held  their  stated  meeting  on 
Saturday,  August  2.5th,  1S77.  Seven  members  (.resent, 
the  President,  Kev.  I.  S.  Stahr,  in  the  chair.  After 
the  preliminary  business  had  been  attended  t(»,  the 
donation^  to  the  museum  were  examined,  and  found 
to  consist  of  nine  small  jars  and  bottles,  containing 
sundry  mammals  (upland  mice),  reptiles,  arachno- 
Ides  or  spiders,  mirlopods  and  sundry  insects,  snails 
and  eggs  of  lepldoptera,  the  fruit  of  a  day's  hunt  by 
Prof  S.  S.  Rathvon,  In  Sadsbury  township,  near 
Christiana,  Lancaster  county,  while  on  a  visit  to  Mr. 
Levi  Pownall,  on  the  17th  ult.  ,    ,  .u 

A  very  minute  egg,  fully  formed,  taken  out  of  the 
yolk  of  a  common  barn  fowl  egg,  sent  per  Col.  Joel 
LIghtner.  ,  .  ,, 

Prof.  T.  K.  Baker,  Millersville,  brought  a  small 
fish  which  he  Informed  us,  however  small,  is  wholly 
rejected  for  bait  by  fishermen.  Without  special  in- 
siieetion.  It  was  pronounced  an  exoglosson,  originally 
so  named  by  Mr.  Ilaldeman,  a  fish  quite  abundant 
in  all  the  tributaries  of  the  Susquehanna,  and  as  yet 
not  known  in  other  waters  and  easily  known  by  its 
peculiar  under  lip  or  mouth  :  a  sluggish  fish,  but 
ready  to  take  the  hook,  and  never  deemed  worth 
having,  even  if  fully  grown. 

Beetles  In  wheat,  per  Prof.  Baker. 
Bottle  of  beetles,  per  J.  StauR'er,  one  a  fine  large 
specimen  of   that   beautiful    beetle,    the    Calislma 
Scrutator.  ,       ^,  .    , 

A  large  sexton,  or  burying  beetle,  Necrophrls 
gr.andis,  per  Mrs.  Gibbons. 

\  siiinous  leaf  of  the  agave,  by  Mr.  Zimmerman. 
I)r  Baker  submitted  sundry  plants  for  names- 
four  species  of  verbena,  one  of  which  seemed  new  ; 
a  thistle,  closely  resembling  the  Canada  thistle  ;  the 
singular  long-leafed  clgrass  valisnaria,  found  grow- 
ing In  the  Conestoga,  near  Kockville. 

W  P.  Bolton  sent  a  letter  (with  a  specimen  ol  a 
very  remarkable  growth  of  the  joe  pie,  F.upatorlum 
puipureum)  to,  and  It  was  read  by  .'^Ir.  Stauirer. 

Addltionstothe  library  :  Charles  V.;  Kiley  s  book 
on  "  The  Locust  Plague  of  the   Kocky  Mountains, 
illustrated;  the   Lancastek  Farmer  for  August ; 
two  copies  of  the  XoturalUt'ii  Monthly  linlMw,  per 
A.  Foot,  M.D.,  Philadelphia. 

Papers  read— No.. 570.  J .  StaufVer  read  an  Illus- 
trated paper  on  the  abnormal  growth  of  tiro  Eupa- 
torium  purpureum,  found  by  Mr.  W.  P.  Bolton  near 
the  mouth  of  the  Fishing  creek,  In  Drumore  tow-n- 
ship,  this  county.  Tills  common  plant  in  low  grounds, 
growing  from  2  to  12  feet  high,  on  a  simple  stem, 
withthcleiivesinwhorlsof  3  or  6  at  a  joint,  the 
dense  corymb  of  fiowers  terminating  the  stem,  M  also 
those  growing  from  the  axillary  of  the  upper  leaves. 


i40 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


[  September, 


The  flowers  are  similar  to  those  of  the  thorouffhwort 
or  boneset,  ouly  of  a  purplish  cast  in  the  iuvolucral 
heads.  But  in  this  plant,  which  must  have  been  over 
six  feet  in  height,  the  smooth  stem  has  the  epidermis 
striated,  or  etiped,  with  slightly  purplish  bands, 
somewhat  spirally  arranged  in  regular  order.  This 
epidermis  forms  a  raised  welt  or  seam  longi- 
turnally  along  the  entire  stem  on  one  side, 
almost  in  a  straight  or  vertical  line,  and  from 
this  welt  or  ridge  every  leaf  and  axillary  and  terminal 
branch  of  the  entire  plant  springs,  so  that  the 
whole  stem,  from  top  to  bottom,  is  perfectly  free  of 
leaf  or  bud,  except  on  this  line,  one  above  the  other, 
apparently  somewhat  grouped  so  as  to  indicate  the 
ordinary  internode  between  the  whorls  or  leaves. 
The  science  of  "I'hyllotaxis,"  or  the  arrangement  of 
the  leaves,  hardly  accounts  for  this  vertical  arrange- 
ment, however  elaborately  investigated  by  Dr.  Gray 
and  other  writers.  Leaves  are  usually  alternate, 
opposite  or  verticillate.  These  are  normal  modes 
and  accounted  for  on  the  ground  that  the  nodes  are 
In  cycles,  two,  three  or  more  ranked,  also  oblique 
series  or  secondary  spirals  are  accounted  for.  Prof. 
J.  S.  Stahr  suggested  that  the  stipes  on  the  stem 
might  indicate  an  untwisting  of  the  ordinary  spiral 
elongation,  so  as  to  bring  all  the  nodes  in  a  vertical 
row  as  we  find  them;  but  is  the  fact  accounted  for 
by  such  a  supposition  ?  The  raised  welt  is  suggestive 
of  an  injury  in  its  earliest  development,  sufficient  to 
twist  the  molecules  that  give  rise  to  the  leaf  nodes, 
while  the  stem  was  tender  and  succulent  and  emerg- 
ing perhaps  from  between  stones,  causing  the  em- 
bryotic  leaf  matter  to  be  presssed  to  one  side,  and 
thus  carried  up  and  developed  successively  in  this 
one  sided  manner.  All  growth  is  governed  by  laws, 
but  counteracting  laws  also  e.xist,  and  hence  comes 
a  disturbance  to  normal  law,  and  abnormal  results 
arise.  Whether  we  can  determine  exactly  how  or 
not — the  matter  is  curious  and  of  interest. 

S.  8.  Ratiivon  read  a  descriptive  paper  (No.  571) 
on  the  collection  deposited  by  him,  stating  interesting 
particulars  respecting  the  upland  mouse  (Arvi'cola 
pinelorura).  The  red  salamander  and  "  Amblystoma 
punctatum."  The  "  Spirobolusmarginatus,"  Arach- 
noida  colebptera  and  larvye — grape  vine  insects — and 
about  the  "  Agave  Americana,"  raised  by  Mr.  Zim- 
merman from  a  seed  sent  him  by  Mr.  Frank  Diffeu- 
derfer  in  185i),  I'rom  El  Paso,  in  New  Mexico,  called 
Century  plant,  and  American  aioe,  which  is  found  to 
flower  at  the  age  of  10  or  1.5  years,  instead  of  100,  as 
the  name  implies,  as  tliis  plant  has  proved,  having 
bloomed,  though  raised  from  seed  as  stated. 

A  hill  presented  for  cleaning  rooms,  &c.,  fl.90, 
was  ordered  to  be  paid. 

On  motion  of  S.  M.  Scner,  a  committee  of  three 
was  appointed  to  consider  the  expedience  of  having 
a  semi-monthly  meeting,  on  some  evening,  in  addition 
to  tl(f  regular  meeting.  The  chair  appointed  S.  M. 
Sener,  S.  ti.  Katiivon  and  J.  Staufl'er  said  committee. 

On  motion,  adjourned. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Working   Land   on  Shares. 

Working  land  on  shares  seems  to  be  a  poor  business 
for  both  parties.  It  is  to  the  interest  of  the  tenant 
to  spend  as  little  for  extra  labor  as  possible,  because 
the  owner  of  the  land  gets  half  the  benefit,  without 
bearing  any  of  the  expense.  When  the  country  was 
new  and  the  land  rich,  a  man  could,  perhaps,  afford 
to  give  half  the  products,  as  he  could  get  fair  crops 
with  little  labor ;  but  now  that  the  land  is  more  or 
less  run  down,  and  it  is  necessary  to  build  it  up  with 
manure  and  good  culture,  it  is  impossible  for  a  man 
to  expend  the  necessary  labor  and  give  half  the  pro- 
duce for  rent.  It  may  be  done  for  a  year  or  two  on 
land  in  high  condition  ;  but  the  farm  must  inevitably 
deteriorate  under  the  system.  A  man  might  afford 
to  rent  a  grass  farm  on  shares,  but  not  an  arable 
farm.  It  is  difficult  to  take  one  of  our  ordin,nry  run- 
down farms  and  raise  enough  from  it,  for  the  first 
few  years,  to  pay  the  coat  of  labor  and  support  the 
teams.  It  would  be  cheaper,  so  far  as  immediate 
profit  is  concerned,  to  pay  one  hundred  dollars  an 
acre  for  a  farm  in  high  condition,  with  good  build- 
ings and  fences,  than  to  accept  as  a  gift  one  of  these 
run-down  farms.  It  is  time  this  matter  was  under- 
stood, so  that  those  uneasy  mortals  who  are  always 
expecting  to  sell,  and  consequently  make  no  efforts 
to  keep  up  and  improve  the  land,  should  be  com- 
pelled to  turn  over  a  new  leaf,  or  else  dispose  of  their 
farms  at  a  low  figure. —  Oliio  Farmer. 


Compost. 
Are  not  many  of  our  farmers  mistaken  in  their 
ideas  of  the  value  of  compost  manure !  Is  it  not 
often  the  case  that  they  rate  the  increased  value  of 
the  manure  by  the  number  of  cart  loads  of  earth 
which  they  have  added  to  it  ?  We  must  not  forget 
that  the  earth  adds  very  little  manurial  value  to  the 
pile,  and  in  reality  does  little  but  induce  a  much 
quicker  and  more  rapid  action  by  shortening  and 
dividing  the  manure  and  producing  a  morerapidand 
much  earlier  decay.  It  is  ouly  a  question  of  the 
rapidity  and  duration  of  action.  If  quick  and  rapid 
action  is  needed  for  a  short  time,  then  composting  is 
the  plan,  and  the  only  question  in  doubt  will  be 
whether  this  kind  of  action  will  repay  the  increased 


expense  of  composting.  If  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  a  gradual  and  prolonged  action  is  needed  then 
composting  is  not  the  proper  plan.  Through  all  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  but  little  is  added  by  this 
plan,  and  that  for  this  gain  alone  it  will  not  repay 
the  expense.  A  similar  mistake  is  often  made  in 
valuing  barnyard  manure  for  the  large  amount  of 
straw  which  may  have  been  passed  through  the 
stables  and  into  the  yard.  If  enough  straw  or  fodder 
has  been  supplied  to  absorb  all  liquids  and  prevent 
their  waste,  but  little  is  gained  in  value  by  a  further 
addition,  and  in  the  after-handling  the  extra  amount 
of  long  straw  may  prove  an  actual  loss,  and  in  many 
cases  it  would  be  more  economical  to  apply  it  directly 
to  the  land.     We  must  not  mistake  bulk  for  value. 


Killing  Canada  Thistles. 
I  had  on  my  farm  a  four-acre  field  covered  with 
Canada  thistles.  I  say  "had,"  because  I  am  con- 
vinced that  the  present  season's  treatment  has  made 
it  too  hot  for  them  and  I  shall  see  no  more  of  them. 
The  land  was  strong — "it  takes  good  land  to  raise 
good  thistles."  One-half  the  field  was  seeded,  im- 
mediately after  plowing  and  a  thorough  working 
with  a  two-horse  cultivator,  with  soiling  corn.  This 
was  put  in  drills,  30  inches  apart,  with  a  large  one- 
horse  seed  drill — about  S}.^  bushels  per  acre.  By  the 
frequent  use  of  she  cultivator  the  space  between  the 
rows  was  kept  clean,  and  directly  in  the  row  the  few 
that  have  stuck  up  their  heads  look  very  yellow  and 
sickly,  being  shaded  by  the  dense  growth  of  corn. 
The  remainder  of  the  field  was  seeded  heavily  with 
Hungarian  grass.  Timely  showers  have  made  the 
season  favorable  for  this  crop  and  it  has  grown 
rapidly,  smothering  the  disagreeable  former  occu- 
pants of  the  soil.  I  do  not  consider  this  so  success- 
ful a  mode  of  treatment  as  the  former,  because  Hun- 
garian grows  so  slowly  on  the  start  and  the  thistles 
had  an  opportunity  to  gain  a  foothold.  The  crop  is 
nearly  ready  to  harvest.  Here  and  there,  in  looking 
over  the  field,  a  thistle  is  seen,  but  a  stranger  would 
never  mistrust  how  foul  the  field  was  seventy  days 
ago.  At  any  rate  what  few  there  are  will  be  cut 
before  they  mature  seed. — P.,  Lichtfleld  county ,  Con. 
^ 

Sugar  Corn  vs.  Hungarian  Grass. 
The  ScloUific  l'\trmer,  Boston,  has  a  good  word 
for  Hungarian  grass,  saying  .  "  We  recommend  a 
bushel  of  seed  to  the  acre,  on  rich  ground.  On 
poorer  ground  the  quantity  may  be  increased.  Yet 
fertile  land  is  desirable  for  this  crop,  as  well  as 
others,  and  a  dressing  of  dung  or  fertilizer  will  be 
apt  to  bring  its  reward  in  a  thick  and  luxuriant  crop. 
Hungarian  is  a  more  dillicult  crop  to  harvest  than 
hay.  Always  cut  during  a  dry  time,  if  possible,  for 
it  will  take  three  good  hay  days  to  prepare  for  the 
liarn.  Wc  do  not  always,  however,  have  our  choice, 
for  as  the  crop  ripens  very  rapidly,  and  should  he 
cut  just  when  in  blossom,  a  little  delay  at  the  critical 
time,  in  order  to  secure  favorable  weather,  is  apt  to 
result  in  over-ripening,  or  the  formation  of  seed. 
Dead-ripe  Hungarian  is  ])oor  stuff  for  food,  and  may 
even  act  as  a  poison,  or  at  least  as  an  injurious  food, 
wlien  fed  to  horses,  and  hence  it  is  preferable  to 
harvest  I'athcr  early  than  too  late."  This  is  good 
advice  ;  but  belter  advice  would  be  to  substitute  an 
acre  or  two  of  sugar  corn,  sown  broadcast.  For  fall 
food  it  comes  justS  in  the  nick  of  time  ;  or  to  cut  for 
fodder  just  before  it  gets  into  tassel,  and  curing  it 
for  winter  feeding.  It  is  relished  exceedingly  by  cat- 
tle and  especially  so  by  horses,  and  is  very  wholesome. 
The  fodder  crop  of  corn,  when  Lucerne  and  Hunga- 
rian grass  are  under  consideration,  should  always  be 
borne  in  mind  and  be  allowed  its  full  weight. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Fall  Plowing. 
Mr.  Harris  says,  in  the  American  Agricidturist :  I 
am  convinced  that  wc  shall  find  it  to  our  interest  to 
work  our  land  more  and  more  in  the  fall — and  the 
earlier  the  better.  Our  springs  are  short,  and  we  are 
in  a  hurry  to  get  in  the  seed  ;  tlie  land  is  wet,  and  if 
plowed  in  this  condition  we  do  more  harm  than 
good.  If  we  wait  until  it  gets  dry  it  is  apt  to  turn 
up  lumpy,  and  much  harrowing,  cultivating  and  roll- 
ing is  required  to  get  it  in  anything  like  good  condi- 
tion. And  as  everything  is  crowding  us,  we  are  often 
oljliged  to  put  in  the  crop  with  some  of  the  land  so 
hard  that  unless  we  have  an  unusually  wet  spring 
the  seed  is  a  long  time  in  coming  up,  and  the  crops 
are  "spotty."  And  it  is  these  poor  spots  that  pull 
down  the  "average  yield"  to  such  a  low  figure.  I 
have  in  my  own  barley  field  to-day  portions  that  will 
probably  give  fifty  bushels  per  acre,  and  spots  where 
the  yield  will  not  be  ten  bushels.  And  yet  these  lat- 
ter spots  are  naturally  the  strongest  and  richest  land 
in  the  field. 


Coal  Ashes. 
Bliss,  the  seedsman,  recommends  the  use  of  coal 
ashes  for  potato  patches,  and  say.s  that  persons  who 
are  in  the  habit  of  throwing  ashes  away  as  useless 
are  making  a  great  mistake  ;  they  are  found  by  ex- 
perience to  be  of  great  benefit  in  the  culture  of  pota- 
toes. Many  ashes  are  dumped  in  the  streets  and 
alleys,  when  they  could  be  used  to  improve  th^  soil 
of  gardens.  Save  your  ashes  and  use  them  for  the 
pur])ose  of  manure.  Wood  ashes  are  counted  among 
the  first  fertilizers,  and  they  command  a  good  price 
by  those  who  know  their  value. 


Management   of  Fruit  Trees. 

What  may  be  now  a  tender,  qiiick-growing  sprout 
will,  in  October,  be  a  strong,  woody  branch,  and  per- 
haps a  branch  just  where  it  is  not  wanted,  and  which 
must  be  removed  by  the  use  of  a  saw  or  a  strong 
knife.  At  the  right  time  the  shoot  could  have  been 
rubbed  ofi',  and  not  only  the  trouble  of  removing  the 
branch  avoided,  but  the  useless  growth  would  have 
been  directed  to  parts  where  it  was  needed.  If  one 
has  a  careful  eye  to  his  young  trees,  he  can,  by  rub- 
bing off  a  bud  or  shoot  here,  and  pinching  a  shoot 
there,  so  direct  the  growth  that  by  the  time  the  trees 
come  into  bearing  they  will  be  of  proper  form,  and 
very  little  work  will  be  required  for  the  pruning-saw 
and  chisel.  If  large  limbs  are  to  be  removed  from 
neglected  trees,  this  month  or  next  (according  to  lo- 
cality, at  any  rate,  when  the  spring  growth  is  made 
and  the  leaves  have  attained  full  size  and  substance) 
is  by  many  preferred  for  the  work,  as  wounds  now 
heal  rapidly.  Cut  all  large  wounds  smooth  with  a 
drawing-knife  and  cover  with  shellac  varnish,  melted 
grafting-wax,  or  thick  paint.  Borers  do  not  breed  in 
the  tree,  as  some  suppose.  Every  borer  in  the  treo 
went  in.  The  parent  winged  insect  laid  the  egg  on 
the  liark.  The  little  borer  hatched  out  at  once  bored 
its  way  Into  the  tree,  and  there  it  will  stay  until  it 
comes  out  a  perfegt  insect,  or  is  cut  out  or  is  punched 
to  death  in  the  hole.  But  please  observe,  no  patent 
stuff  that  is  to  be  laid  in  the  crotch  of  the  tree,  no 
stuff'  that  you  may  paint  on  the  trunk,  no  "invigora- 
tor"  or  anything  that  you  may  apply  to  the  soil,  to 
be  taken  up  by  the  roots  and  thus  poison  the  borer, 
will  be  of  any  earthly  use.  While  you  are  fussing 
with  such  treatment  the  borer  is  quietly  at  work, 
perhaps  stopping  now  and  then  to  laugh  at  the  folly 
of  the  performance.  Cut  with  knife  and  punch  with 
wire.  The  slug,  so  called,  but  wliich  is  really  a  cater- 
pillar, will  appear,  especially  on  the  pear  and  cherry 
leaves,  and,  unless  checked,  often  makes  sad  work. 
It  is  a  dark-green  leach-like  creature,  that  leaves  a 
slimy  trail.  Slaked  lime,  dusted  from  a  coarse  bag 
at  the  end  of  a  pole  will  soon  end  it.  In  a  dry  time 
fine  dust  from  the  road  may  he  thrown  into  the  trees 
with  good  effect. — Inilepemlfnt. 

^ 

A   Propagating  Secret. 

Under  this  head  the  London  (Jardmrr'A  Chronicle 
says  :  It  will  be  rcinemborcd  that  a  month  or  two 
ago  wc  alluded  to  an  alleged  extraordinary  secret  for 
pi-opagating  trees  and  grafting  roses,  whereby  much 
time  could  be  saved,  offered  for  a  small  sum  by  an 
.\u6trian  nurseryman.  This  gentleman  has  since 
communicated  an  article  on  the  subject  to  the  Wietier 
narlcnfreimd.  Briefly,  his  new  method  is  as  follows  : 
Cuttings  of  shrubs  and  trees  are  taken  otf  at  the  be- 
ginning of  July,  from  six  inches  to  twelve  inches 
long,  according  to  the  kind.  The  leaves  arc  removed 
from  the  lower  portion  which  is  to  enter  the  ground, 
but  those  which  will  come  above  the  ground  are  left. 
Beds  are  prepared  for  them  in  the  open  air  by  thorough 
digging  and  leveling,  and  afterwards  apjilying  a 
superficial  layer,  aViout  two  inches  thick,  of  rotten 
manure  from  a  spent  hot-bed.  The  cuttings  are  then 
stuck  in  aliout  two  inches  apart,  and  in  a  somewhat 
oblicjue  direction.  Each  bed  when  filled  is  surrounded 
with  a  lath  fence,  so  that  8h,ide  m.ay  be  given  when 
the  sun  is  very  hot,  and  the  cuttings  are  well  watered 
with  a  rose-spouted  can.  This  completes  the  opera- 
tirn.  The  only  further  care  necessary  is  a  sprinkling 
overhead  three  or  four  times  a  day  during  the  first 
week,  if  thff  weather  be  very  hot,  and  once  a  day 
afterwards.  In  the  course  of  five  or  six  weeks  treated 
in  the  manner  indicated,  the  cuttings  of  most  plants 
will  have  formed  a  callus,  and  further  shading  will 
be  unnecessary.  Late  in  the  autumn  a  layer  of  rough 
manure,  two  Inches  or  three  inches  thick,  is  spread 
over  for  winter  prorection.  It  also  serves  as  manure 
when  the  cuttings  start  growing  in  the  spring;  and 
cuttings  treated  thus  make  extraordinary  progress — 
forming  plants  equal  to  two-year  old  plants  from 
winter  or  spring  cuttings.  Very  few,  it  is  asserted, 
fail.  The  new  method  of  grafting  roses  is  the  inser- 
tion of  growing  eyes  early  in  spring,  instead  of  dor- 
mant eyes  in  the  summer.  They  are  inserted  in  the 
main  stem,  one  on  each  siele,  to  form  symmetrical 
heads.  These  make,  it  is  said,  as  much  growth  the 
first  season  as  the  dormant  eyes  the  second  season. 


Cracking  of  Pears. 

Why  some  pears  crack,  seems  one  of  those  queer 
things  which  no  one  can  find  out.  We  have  never 
claimed  much  luck  at  finding  out  these  riddles,  but 
wc  do  think  that  there  may  be  several  reasons  and 
that  all  kinds  of  pear-cracking  are  not  from  the 
same  cause.  All  around  everywhere,  except  in 
closely  built  up  cities,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  old 
Butter  pear,  or  white  Doyenne,  cracks  badly.  It  is 
rare,  indeed,  that  we  see  a  perfect  fruit.  The  Seckel 
never  cracks — at  least  we  never  knew  of  a  case.  But 
some  seem  to  crack  sometimes  and  not  at  others, 
and  why  this  should  be  so  is  more  of  a  mystery  than 
in  the  case  of  the  Butter,  which  has  the  disorder  as  a 
regular  thing.  In  this  region  the  Bcurre  (Jiffard  is 
one  we  have  frequently  recommended  in  our  lists  and 
elsewhere.  So  far  as  we  know,  it  is  regularly  good 
everywhere  about  here,  and  no   one  need  fear  to 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


i4i 


plaul  it  asono  of  the  best  early  fruits.  Yet  we  read 
onee  in  awliile  in  some  distunl  placetliat  tlie  "(iilfard 
craclts  Itailly."  'I'his  ean  liarilly  1)0  a  close  eoiistitii- 
tiODal  matter  as  in  the  case  of  the  Butter  ]iear,  but 
prohalily  is  owinp;  to  some  very  loeal  and  temporary 
cause. 

We  see  the  same  thing  of  the  Tyson  jiear,  a  native, 
by  close  neighborhood,  of  I'hiladelphia,  and  one 
which  in  aeeordanee  with  the  spirit  of  the  good  old 
observation  that  a  prophet  is  not  without  honor  ex- 
cept iu  his  own  country.  It  is  extensively  planted 
and  valued  here  in  its  native  home  a.s  among  the 
highest  type  of  the  pear  race.  It  is  sometimes  saiil 
that  it  does  not  bear  as  freely  as  some  others,  hut  no 
one  ever  thought  of  charging  it  with  the  meanness  of 
cracking.  Yet  we  see  it  suggcefed  in  a  distant  con- 
tcm|iorary  who,  after  enumerating  a  long  list  of  vir- 
tues, adds,  "hut  it  once  in  awhile  cracks. — Herman- 
town  Teleijraj^h. 

Watering  Trees. 

So  far  generally  throughout  the  country  s|n-ing- 
planted  trees  have  not  needed  much  watering  owing 
to  the  moist  season  we  luive  had.  But  it  often  occurs 
that,  in  such  seasons  as  we  have  liad  this  year,  the 
latter  part  of  the  summer  will  be  very  dry,  and  we 
may  have  a  drought  in  August. 

Should  this  be  the  ease  newly-planted  trees  may 
require  watering.  By  watering  the  surface  of  the 
soil,  a  large  proportion  of  the  water  is  soon  evapora- 
ted by  the  heat  of  the  surface  soil  or  by  the  heat  of 
the  sun,  ami  if  the  soil  is  any  way  heavy  the  water- 
ing causes  it  to  bake,  thus  exeluding  the  air  and 
preventing  the  moisture  from  being  drawn  up  from 
below.  To  counteract  these  injurious  etl'eets  and  to 
get  the  water  into  the  soil  uii'lerueath  the  trees, 
make  three,  four,  or  five  holes  with  a  crowbar,  or 
stout  pointeil  stake,  about  IS  inches  deep,  and  the 
same  distance  from  the  tree,  and  jiour  the  water  into 
these  holes.  It  will  soak  away  into  the  soil  and  come 
into  immediate  contact  with  the  roots,  keeping  them 
moist  and  cool. 

It  repays  the  extra  labor  of  making  the  holes,  in 
that  it  does  not  require  as  much  water  for  a  giveu 
number  of  trees  as  does  surface  watering,  and  so 
saves  the  labor  of  carrying. 

Shall  Old  Orchards  be  Plowed  ? 

The  editor  of  the  Rural  llvtae,  in  describing  the 
farms  of  the  Genesee  Valley  makes  the  following 
mention  of  an  orchard  owned  by  a  Mr.  Greenwood  : 
"  He  has  a  remarkable  orchard  of  four  and  a  half 
acres,  which  for  the  last  eight  years  has  been  the 
source  of  a  liberal  income.  It  averages  about  three 
hundred  barrels  a  year.  About  ten  years  since  it 
yielded  over  600  barrels,  which  he  sold  for  §5.70  a 
barrel,  making  a  nice  little  income  of  $3,400  that 
year.  It  is  composed  of  Baldwins,  Greenings  and 
Rox-Russets ;  Baldwins  predominating  and  giving 
the  best  satisfaction.  This  orchard  has  been  in  pas- 
ture, without  plowing  for  eighteen  years,  pastured 
by'sheep,  swine  and  horses.  Think  it  would  ruin  it 
to  plow  it  after  remaining  so  long  in  grass.  Some 
neighbors  tried  the  experiment  a  few  years  since, 
tearing  up  and  drawing  off  large  quautities  of  roots, 
but  It  ruined  the  orchard." 


American  Fruit  in  Europe. 
Europe  is  now  taking  a  surprising  quantity  of 
American  fruit.  The  purchases  have  amounted,  ac- 
cording to  the  New  York  Tribune,  to  over  ?_',. 500,000 
worth  since  June,  ls70,  compared  with  (ji(500,000  in 
the  same  period  the  year  before.  Dried  apples  figure 
largely  in  this  movement.  This  country  has  exported 
over  ?12,000,000  pounds  of  them  since  last  June,  as 
compared  with  rys2,0i}0  pounds  the  previous  year. 
This  new  addition  to  the  trade  of  the  United  States 
is  due  to  invention,  which  has  occupied  itself  of  late 
with  improved  methods  for  drying  and  preserving 
for  transiiorting  fruit.  The  greatest  progress  has 
been  made  in  the  way  of  dryers.  Within  a  year  some 
notable  inventions  in  this  line  have  been  perfected, 
which  are  a  great  requisition  to  the  resources  of  the 
country.  The  fruit  dryer  tnds  fair  hereafter  to  be  as 
much  of  a  necessity  to  every  farming  community  as 
the  cider  mill  and  the  cheese  factory.— .SVicK<i^f 
Amerkan . 


Soot  as  a  Garden  Fertilizer. 

Perhaps  it  may  have  occurred  to  some  of  our  lady 
readers  that  the  refuse  soot  of  our  chimneys  is  one  of 
the  most  valuable  stimulants  and  feftili/.ers  they  can 
have  lor  their  garden  flowers.  The  following  inci- 
dent of  practical  experience  is  from  a  lady  contribu- 
tor to  the  liural  Carolinian  : 

"During  two  seasons  we  nursed,  fed,  and  petted 
the  Hartford  Prolific  grape  vine,  as  much  for  Its 
shade  over  the  window  as  for  its  fruit;  but  it  persist- 
ed in  remaining  a  stunted  cane,  yellow  and  refusing 
to  climb.  Despairing  of  a  shade  iu  grapes,  and 
roses,  we  finally  bethought  ourselves  of  soot  as  a  ma- 
nure, and  forthwith  made  a  "soot  tea"  by  steeping 
a  teacup  of  soot  in  a  quart  of  water.  This  we  ad- 
ministered, two  doses  each,  to  both  the  tree  and  the 
vine.  The  vine  grew  six  feet  in  height  in  the  space 
of  six  week«,  the  rosebush  four  feet  in  the  same 
length  of  time.  Both,  therefore,  rejoiced  in  living 
green." 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Setting  Milk  for  Cream. 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  the  average  dairy- 
man'of  our  State  is  pu/zlcd  to  know  wliat  to  iTo  for 
the  best.  Professor  Wilkinson  tells  liim  [ilainly  that 
nothing  but  shallow  i>ans  and  sub-carlli  dui'ts  will  do; 
while  Professor  Hardin  is  equally  certain  that  deep 
pans  (20  inches),  sunk  to  the  rim  In  water,  at  a  tem- 
pei'ature  of  .'iO  ilegrees,  alone  insuri:  the  largest  yield 
of  the  best  (luality  of  butter;  and  now  these  are  over- 
toppeil  by  the  new  t'oolcy  system,  which  proposes  to 
enclose  the  milk  in  a  ileep  narrow  can,  with  a  water- 
tight lid,  and  sink  it  under  water,  which  is  carefully 
kept  at  a  low  temperature  by  the  use  of  ii-e. 

Our  own  experinu'nts  satisfy  us  that  both  extreme 
rules  are  right,  provided,  certain  rules,  as  unaltera- 
ble as  those  of  the  Medes  .Tud  Persians,  arc  observed. 
At  a  tem[)erature  above  00  degrees,  deep  cans  will 
not  do;  the  milk  will  usually  sour  before  all  the 
cream  reaches  the  surface.  When  this  temperature 
is  unavoidable,  shallow  and  broad  [)ans  will  give  the 
best  results.  When  eohl  water  is  abundant  and  the 
means  of  keeping  it  at  .50  degrees  or  lower  are  at 
hand,  it  will  be  Ibund  that  cans,  twenty  inches  deep, 
and  eight  or  nine  inches  in  diameter,  will  save  much 
labor,  and  at  the  same  time  make  quite  as  much  and 
better  butter.  Those  dairymen  whose  situation  Is 
covered  by  the  first  case  shoidd  be  cautious  iu  the 
use  of  deep  cans.  It  Is  no  doubt  for  the  want  of  a 
proper  observance  of  these  simple  rules  that  we  now 
have  a  conflict  of  sentiment  as  to  the  comparative 
merits  of  dci-p  and  shallow  setting. — Phila.  2'iine^. 


Cleansing  Feathers  of  Their  Animal  Oil. 

The  following  receipt  gained  a  premium  from  the 
Society  of  Arts  :  Take  for  every  gallon  of  clean 
water  one  pound  of  quicklime,  mix  them  well  to- 
gether, and  when  the  undissolved  lime  is  precipitated 
in  fine  powder  pour  off  the  clean  lime  water  for  use. 
Put  the  feathers  to  be  cleaned  into  another  tub,  and 
add  to  them  a  quantity  of  clean  lime  water,  sufficient 
to  cover  them  .about  three  inches,  when  well  im- 
mersed and  stirred  about  therein.  The  feathers, 
when  thoroughly  moistened,  will  sink  down,  and 
should  remain  in  the  lime  water  three  or  four  days  ; 
after  which  the  foul  liquor  should  be  [separated  from 
them,  by  layingthem  in  a  sieve.  The  feathers  should 
be  afterwards  well  washed  in  clean  water,  and  dried 
upon  nets,  the  meshes  of  which  may  be  about  the  fine- 
ness of  cabbage-nets.  The  feathers  must,  from  time  to 
time,be  shaken  on  the  nets,  and  as  they  get  dry  will  fall 
through  the  meshes,  and  are  to  be  collected  for  use. 
The  admission  of  air  will  be  serviceable  in  drying. 
The  process  will  be  completed  In  three  weeks;  and 
after  being  thus  prepared,  the  feathers  will  only  re- 
quire to  be  beaten  to  get  rid  of  the  dust. 


Ventilation  of  Closets. 

Too  little  attention  is  paid  in  the  construction  of 
closets  to  their  proper  ventilation.  It  is  not  always 
convenient  to  have  a  closet  door  stand  open,  and  if  it 
were,  full  ventilation  cannot  be  secured  in  this  way. 
There  should  be  a.  window  or  an  opening  of  some 
sort  from  the  closet  to  the  outer  air  or  to  a  hall,  so 
that  a  current  of  air  might  remove  any  unpleasant 
odors  arising  from  clothing  that  has  been  worn,  from 
shoes,  or  from  anything  else  kept  in  the  closet.  A 
garment  that  has  been  hung  up  for  a  length  of  time 
in  a  close  closet  is  as  unfit  to  wear,  unless  it  has  been 
thoroughly  aired,  as  though  the  unwholesome  vapors 
it  has  absorbed  were  visible  to  the  eye.  The  charm 
of  clothing  new  and  clean  lies  far  more  in  the  absence 
of  these  vapors  than  many  people  are  aware. 
■»■ 

Simple  Cure  for  Ear-ache. 

Many  years  ago  two  of  ray  children,  one  aged  3, 
the  other  1  year,  had  a  terrible  attack  of  ear-ache  all 
one  day  and  night.  I  worked  over  the  little  sufferers, 
doing  all  I  could  think  of,  and  trying  remedies  sug- 
gcsti^d  by  our  neighbors.  On  the  second  morning  of 
the  attack,  a  lady  came  hi  and  asked  me  if  I  had 
tried  burnt  sugar.  I  told  her  no,  that  I  had  not 
heard  of  tliat.  She  told  me  to  put  some  live  coals  on 
a  tin  plate,  sjirinkle  some  brown  sugar  on  them,  set 
a  funnel  over  It,  and  then  hold  the  child  so  that  the 
smoke  could  go  into  the  ear.  I  did  so,  using  the 
remedy  for  both  little  ones.  The  result  was  marvel- 
ous ;  the  pain  stopped  instantly,  and  soon  both  little 

sufl'ercrs  were  in  a  sound,  refreshing  sleep. 

^ ^" 

Shakers'  Pickles  to  Keep  Ten  Years. 

Half-grown  cucumbers  fresh  gathered,  wash  clean 
and  pack  In  jars.  Make  a  pickle  of  salt  and  water 
that  will  bear  an  egg  ;  put  in  a  piece  of  alum  the  size 
of  a  nutmeg  to  a  gallon  of  brine ;  boil  and  skim  it, 
and  pour  hot  over  the  cucumbers;  let  it  stand  till 
cool,  then  pour  ofl.  Boil  enough  vinegar  to  cover 
your  pickles,  spice  to  taste,  pour  it  over  hot,  first  ad- 
ding a  small  piece  of  alum.  In  two  days  these  are 
ready  to  eat. 

^ 

Wax  for  Cans.— Hosin,  eight  ounces  ;  two  ounces 
gum  shellac  ;  beeswax  half  an  ounce.  If  you  wish  it 
red,  take  F.nglish  verraillion,  one  and  a  half  ounces  ; 
melt  the  rosin  and  stir  in  the  coloring  (if  used),  then 
add  the  shellac  slowly  ;  afterwards  the  beeswax.  It 
can  be  heated  whenever  needed. 


Household  Recipes. 

PicKi-ED  Qi'iNTKs  -Pare  and  quarter ;  to  10 
pounds  quinces  add  three  i>ouuds  brown  sugar,  one 
pint  vinegar,  one  ounce  cloves,  one  ounce  cinnamon  ; 
boil  until  tender. 

To  SoUH  Condensed  Mti.K.— Dilute  as  usual  with 
water,  pour  into  an  earthen  dish,  and  set  In  a  warm 
place;  use  vinegar,  a  dessertspoonful  to  a  pint  of 
milk  ;  and  trust  heat  and  time  to  aeconiiillhh  the  rest. 

Steamed  Biiown  Bkkai>— I.— Two  cupfuls  meal, 
two  cupfuls  (lour,  two  cuiifuls  milk,  a  teaB|)Oonful 
salt,  two  tcaspoonfuls  soda,  and  a  cupful  inolassce; 
butter  a  pail,  cover  tight,  put  into  a  ketfle  of  Imlllng 
water;  steam  two  hours,  and,  removing  the  cover, 
bake  two  hours  In  the  pall. 

II.— One  pint  milk,  one  teaspoonful  soda,  one  of 
salt,  one  cupful  flour,  and  two  cupfuls  meal  ;  steam 
two  hours,  and  bake  half  an  hour,  pail  cover  removed. 

GiiAHAM  BicEAO.— One  quart  Graham  Hour,  one 
quart  wheat  Hour,  one  eupyeast,  one-half  cup  sugar  ; 
let  it  rise  over  night  ;  in  the  morning  knead  It  and  let 
it  stand  in  llie  jians  a  short  time  before  baking. 

Yeast  lOit  (iuAUAM  Bread.— A  handful  of  hojw 
put  ill  a  lace  bag;  seven  good  sized  potatoes;  IkiII 
together  in  three  pints  of  water  ;  before  the  (xjtatoeg 
all!  quite  done  take  the  hops  out ;  mash  the  |Hitatoee 
and  let  them  cool  ;  then  add  one-half  cup  (lour  ;  put 
it  in  the  w.atcr  and  let  it  boll  up,  and  add  one-half 
cup  salt,  one-half  cup  sugar,  and  enough  yeast  to 
raise  it;  it  will  be  ready  for  use  in  about  1'^  hours. 
Good  for  all  kinds  of  liread. 

Bread-makino. — Make  a  thin  batter  of  flour  and 
tepid  water,  and  add  sufncient  salt ;  then.  If  two 
loaves  are  intended,  dissolve  a  third  of  a  cake  of 
compressed  yeast  iu  lialf  a  cupful  of  tepid  water  and 
add  to  the  batter,  stirring  all  together,  and  set  in  a 
warm  place  over  night.  lu-the  morning  the  sponge 
will  be  light :  add  sulhclent  flour,  and  work  well,  and 
set  iu  a  warm  place  until  the  dough  beeomss  light ; 
then  work  again,  and  set  In  pans  and  allow  to  rise, 
say  from  1.5  to  20  minutes,  but  do  not  let  it  stay  too 
long,  or  it  becomes  sour;  then  place  In  an  oven  until 
cooked  ;  after  the  bread  is  sulliciently  done  it  should 
remain  in  the  oven  with  the  door  open  to  dry  the 
bread  half  an  hour  or  so.  Bread  thus  made  com- 
bines everything  desirable  in  being  light,  white,  and 
jierfectly  sweet  for  two  or  three  days  after  baking. 
1  lielievc  bread  made  thus  would  keep  sweet  for  a 
week,  but  it  has  never  been  tested  longer  than  three 
or  four  days. 

Boiled  Karhit  with  Onion  SAi:rE. — Peel  five  or 
six  medium  sized  onions  and  put  them  into  cold  water; 
boil  them  till  tender;  cut  up  the  rabbit  into  joints 
and  put  it  into  a  saucepan,  with  sufficient  cold  water 
to  cover  it,  and  simmer  gently  for  an  hour  and  a 
half.  After  it  comes  to  boiling  heat  chop  the  onions 
and  season  them  with  asaltspoonfulof  salt,  the  same 
of  white  pepper,  and  put  them  into  a  small  saucepan, 
with  an  ounce  of  butter  and  two  tables|)oonfulB  of 
milk.  Stir  and  Iwil  up,  lay  the  rabbit  neatly  on  a 
hot  dish,  pour  the  sauce  over  it,  and  serve  at  once. 

Peach  Jelly.- Wipe  the  down  well  off  your 
peaches,  which  should  be  free  stones,  and  not  too 
ripe,  cut  them  in  quarters,  crack  the  stones,  and 
break  the  kernels  small.  Put  the  peaches  and  kernels 
into  a  covered  jar  ;  set  them  into  a  kettle  of  boiling 
water,  and  let  them  boil  till  they  are  soft ;  strain  them 
through  a  jelly  bag  ;  allow  a  pound  of  loaf  sugar  to 
a  pint  of  juice  ;  put  the  juice  into  a  preserving  kettle 
and  boil  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  briskly  ;  then  add 
the  sugar  and  let  it  dissolve  ;  skim  carefully  ;  jiour 
the  jelly  into  glasses ;  when  cold  cover  with  thick 
paper. 

Corn  Cake  with  Fruit. — Pour  one  quart  boiling 
wateron  one  quart  corn  meal,  and  stir  quickly.  Wet 
the  hands,  and  form  the  dough  Into  small  round 
cakes  one-half  an  inch  thick.  Bake  in  a  hot  oven. 
The  .addition  of  a  few  raspberries,  huckleberries,  or 
any  other  sub-acid  fruit,  is  a  decided  improvement. 
Sweet  apples,  chopped  tiue,  are  also  excellent. 

Water  Pisino  for  Bread. — Take  a  quart  pitcher 
and  a  spoon,  scald  them;  fill  the  pitcher  half-full  of 
boiling  water;  cool  to  the  temperature  of  good  hot 
dishwater;  stir  in  flour  to  make  a  batter  as  thick  as 
flour  pancakes;  and  a  quarter  teaspoonful  of  salt  and 
as  much  soda,  cover  closely,  set  where  it  will  keep 
<iuite  warm,  stirring  occasionally;  It  will  rise  in  five  or 
six  hours.  Some  prefer  this  to  hop  or  brewers'  yeast. 

Baked  Batter  PuijDiNU  wnn  Friht. — Take  a 
half-pound  of  flour  ;  one  pint  of  milk  ;  the  }'olks  of 
four  and  whites  of  two  eggs,  ami  half  a  teaspoonful 
of  baking  powder.  Hub  the  powder  till  smooth,  mix- 
ing it  well  with  the  flour,  and  as  much  milk  as 
will  make  a  stiff  batter;  beat  it  till  quite  smooth, 
then  add  the  remainder  of  the  milk,  and  the  eggs, 
well  beaten.  Put  some  apples, c  ut  as  for  a  pie.  Into 
a  buttered  dish  ;  pour  the  batter  over,  and  bake  In  a 
moderately  hot  oven.  Damsons  currants,  gooseber- 
ries or  rhubarb  may  be  used  In  the  same  way. 

Salt  on  Steak. — It  is  much  better  to  broil  or  fry 
the  steak  without  salting,  adding  the  salt  after  the 
meat  is  on  the  |)latter,  as  the  salt  draws  the  juice 
out  of  the  meat  if  jiut  on  before  it  is  cooked,  thereby 
making  it  dry  and  indigestible.  In  cooking  steak  the 
object  is  to  keep  in  the  juice  as  much  as  possible,  hence 
the  meat  should  lie  seared  over  as  quickly  as  possible 
on  both  sides,  and  fre<|ueutly  turned  while  cooking 
over  a  very  hot  fire. 


W2 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


t  September, 


LIVE  STOCK. 


How  to  Have  Healthy  Pigs. 
Prof.  Law,  of  Cornell  University,  writes  as  follows 
in  regard  to  the  proper  treatment  of  swine  for  the 
prevention  of  disease  :  Keep  your  hogs  clean.  Pro- 
tect them  from  the  hot,  reeking  bed  of  manure  and 
close  sleeping  place,  where  the  emanations  from  de- 
composing dung,  urine,  straw  and  other  organic 
matter  are  added  to  those  of  their  own  skins  and 
lungs  when  huddled  together  ingreat  numbers.  See 
that  both  food  and  water  are  clean,  in  the  sense  of 
being  free  from  disease  germs,  and  from  the  micro- 
scopic particles  of  decomposing  organic  matter 
which,  within  the  system  as  well  as  outside  it, 
furnish  appropriate  food  for  the  disease  poison,  and 
favor  its  increase,  while  they  depress  its  vital  powers, 
and  lessen  the  chances  of  the  virus  being  thrown  off. 
And  it  is  here  that  the  pork  raisers  are  most  fre- 
quently at  fault.  Fifty  or  a  hundred  pigs  are  allowed 
to  crowd  together  in  a  filthy  manure  heap,  a  rotten 
straw  stack,  or  under  a  barn,  subjected  to  the  drop- 
pings of  other  animals  as  well  as  their  own  products. 
Their  feeding  troughs  and  drinking  water  are  so  sup- 
plied that  they  can  get  into  them  with  their  tilthy 
feet,  and  they  must  devour  the  most  obnoxious  mat- 
ter or  starve.  If  under  this  abuse  disease  is  devel- 
oped, the  healthy  are  left  with  the  sick,  as  "  they 
will  all  have  it  anyway,"  and  the  result  is  usually  a 
clean  sweep. 

When  hog  cholera  exists,  the  sick  should  be  placed 
by  themselves  under  a  special  attendant,  and  the  free 
use  of  disinfectants  ;  the  healthy  should  be  carefully 
watched,  and  on  the  first  sign  of  illness  or  increased 
temperature,  as  ascertained  by  the  introduction  of  a 
clinical  thermometer  into  the  rectum,  they  should 
bo  at  once  taken  from  the  herd  and  carefully  seclud- 
ed. This,  with  active  disinfection,  will  enable  the 
owner  to  cut  short  an  outbreak,  and  save,  perhaps, 
the  great  m.ajority  of  an  already  Infected  herd. 
Again,  the  sale  of  animals  from  an  infected  stock, 
to  be  removed  from  the  premises  alive,  should  be 
severely  punished,  and  the  disinfection  of  the  build- 
ings where  the  sick  have  been,  should  be  made  im- 
perative. We  shall  obtain  the  greatest  success  with 
this  disease  when  we  treat  it  as  a  contagious  malady, 
and  wherever  it  is  found  to  exist,  give  our  main  at- 
tention to  prevent  the  further  generation  and  dis- 
semination of  the  poison. 

— ^ 

Potatoes  for  Cows. 
Cows  in  milk  may  be  fed  so  much  of  certain  kinds 
of  food  as  to  derange  their  digestive  powers,  and  thus 
dry  up  their  milk.  The  Live  Stock  Journal  states 
that  it  has  been  found  that  a  large  feed  of  potatoes 
will  lessen  the  percentage  of  hay  digested,  but  we 
think  the  large  amount  of  starch  contained  in  the  po- 
tato causes  a  looseness  of  the  bowels,  and  thus  im- 
pairs the  digestive  function. 

We  often  fed  potatoes  to  cows  in  milk  with  great 
benefit.  Our  plan  has  been  to  run  potatoes  through 
a  root  slicer  and  feed  four  quarts  at  a  time  mixed  with 
cut  hay  and  a  pint  of  oil  meal  or  pea  meal,  or  a 
quart  of  oats.  And  since  the  experiment  mentioned, 
we  have  again  tried  this  mode  of  feeding,  and  fonnd 
it  to  work  admirably  well. 

The  ixrtato  is  a  very  imperfect  food  alone,  being 
principally  starch,  having  too  litte  nitrogen  and  plios- 
phate  of  lime  to  make  milk;  but  it  is  the  richest  root 
raised  on  the  farm,  and  when  fed  in  small  quantity, 
raw,  will  regulate  the  bowels,  and  have  a  very  simi- 
lar effect  to  gi-een  grass.  It  is  a  very  laxative  food 
in  the  raw  state,  and  that  is  probably  the  cause  of 
its  peculiar  effect  upon  the  digestion  of  hay.  When 
the  potato  is  cooked  the  effect  is  quite  different,  and 
its  value  is  increased.  A  small  quantity  of  potatoes, 
say  four  quarts  as  a  feed,  will  increase  the  yield  of 
milk  nearly  as  much  as  so  mnch  grain,  provided  they 
are  fed  with  other  food  rich  in  the  constituents  of 
milk. 

The  American  dairyman  is  prone  to  feed  one  thing 
at  a  time,  almost  wholly,  instead  of  giving  variety  in 
food,  which  will  furnish  all  the  elements  required  in 
the  proper  proportion.  We  found  an  olyection  to  the 
use  of  oil  meal  when  fed  above  two  poimds  per  day 
to  a  cow,  as  it  is  too  laxative.  We  found  one  quai-t 
per  day  the  most  profitable,  and  have  also  found  one 
peck  of  potatoes  per  day,  in  two  feeds  the  most  profit- 
able.—&. 


How  to  Fit  Horse  Collars. 

It  is  very  important  to  have  a  collar  fit  nice  to  the 
shoulders  of  the  horse.  It  enables  him  to  work  with 
a  great  deal  more  ease,  and  to  apply  a  great  deal 
more  strength.  It  prevents  galling  and  wounding, 
as  the  friction  is  avoided.  Collars  are  made,  or 
should  be,  to  throw  the  chief  force  on  the  lower  part 
of  the  shoulders.  The  horse  can  apply  but  little 
strength  on  the  upper  part,  and  for  this  rea- 
son breast  collars  are  coming  greatly  into  vogue,  as 
the  strength  is  exerted  on  the  lower  part  of  the 
shoulder. 

But  we  started  out  to  tell  our  readers  how  to  make 
a  new  collar  fit  the  shoulder  of  the  horse.  The  collar 
should  be  purchased  of  the  proper  size  ;  just  before 
putting  it  on  the  first  time  immerse  it  in  water,  letting 
it  remain  about  a  minute,  and  immediately  put  it  on 


the  horse,  being  careful  to  have  the  hames  so  adjusted 
at  the  top  and  bottom  as  to  fit  the  shoulder,  and  then 
put  the  horse  to  work.  The  collar  by  being  wet  will 
adapt  itself  to  the  shoulder,  and  should  dry  on  the 
horse  ;  when  taken  off  it  should  be  left  in  the  same 
shape  it  occupied  on  the  horse,  and  ever  after  he  will 
have  a  snug-fitting  collar  and  no  wounds. 


Cleanse  the   Manger. 

The  mangers  of  horses,  cows  and  oxen,  when  sup- 
plied with  cut  fodder  and  meal,  frequently  become 
offensively  sour  in  consequence  of  the  decomposition 
of  the  wet  meal  that  adheres  to  the  corners  of  the 
feed  boxes.  This  is  apt  to  be  the  case  especially 
when  animals  do  not  lick  the  corners  entirely  clean. 
If  a  small  jiortion  of  feed  is  allowed  to  remain  in  the 
manger  only  a  portion  of  a  warm  day,  it  will  become 
sour,  and  the  offensive  effluvia  will  taint  the  entire 
manger,  so  that  an  animal  will  often  refuse  to  eat  his 
accustomed  allowance,  unless  compelled  by  keen 
hunger.  The  true  way  to  manage  mangers  is  to 
scrape  the  corners  clean  at  least  twice  a  day,  re- 
moving every  particle  of  rejected  food.  Then  if  the 
manger  does  not  smell  as  a  butter  bowl,  let  the 
corners  be  washed  out  with  hot  water,  wiped  clean, 
and  a  handful  of  caustic,  of  slacked  lime  be  sprinkled 
in  the  manger.  If  mangers  are  kept  clean  they  will 
seldom  become  offensively  sour.  If  an  animal  leaves 
a  portion  of  his  feed,  a  new  mess  should  never  be 
given  on  the  rejected  feed. — M«u<  York  Herald. 


Stumbling  Horses. 

The  best  horse,  indeed,  may  stumble.  If  it  arises 
from  a  heavy  fore-hand  and  fore-legs  being  too  much 
under  the  horse,  or  being  too  narrow  in  the  breast, 
no  one  can  alter  the  natural  shape  of  the  ■'  critter." 
A  young,  overgrown  animal,  and  one  of  spirit,  if  not 
properly  broken  in,  will  commonly  stumble.  If  it 
arises  from  tender-footedness,  knock-kneed,  or  with 
feet  turned  in  or  out,  you  will  find  it  a  difficult  mat- 
ter to  remedy.  A  tight  rein  is  a  caution  that  should 
not  be  omitted.  In  purchasing  a  horse — I  say  the 
best  horse  may  stumble  ;  but  if  he  has  scars,  or  the 
hair  be  broken  on  his  legs,  and  if  he  springs  out 
when  he  stumbles  as  if  he  feared  a  whip  or  spur,  you 
may  beware  of  a  stumbling  jade  and  perpetual 
faller.  Show  me  a  big  horse  and  I  will  show  you  a 
stumbler.  In  the  majority  of  cases  tripping  is  found 
to  be  practiced  by  young,  overgrown  horses  before 
they  have  arrived  at  maturity.  A  known  stumbler 
should  never  be  ridden,  but  should  be  put  to  slow 
and  heavy  work. 

^ 

Full  Feeding. 

No  profit  can  result  from  keeping  a  common  dairy 
of  cows  in  the  scant  mode  of  fee<]ing.  Full  and 
generous  feeding,  on  a  varied  diet  the  year  round,  so 
that  the  cow  will  give  milk  nearly  the  year  through, 
is  the  only  profitable  dairy  management.  The  cow 
can  make  milk  only  from  her  surpus  food. 

Her  system  must  be  supported  before  she  can 
secrete  milk,  and  the  beef  animal  likewise  can  only 
lay  on  flesh  and  fat  from  extra  food.  Full  feeding, 
with  other  judicious  management,  will  bring  full  re- 
turns and  a  pleasant  account  at  the  end  of  the  year ; 
poor  feeding  only  loss  and;  disappointment. — Live 
Stock  Journal. 


ENTOMOLOGICAL. 


How  the  Price  of  Cows  has  Risen. 

An  old  cattle  dealer  gives  the  following  prices  paid 
by  him  for  milch  cows,  in  Montgomery  county.  Pa.: 
In  183.5  and  previous  years  he  paid  an  average  price 
of  fl.S  to  24;  in  1835  and  1836,  $20;  in  1837  and  1838 
«32;  in  1839,  $38;  in  1840,  $30;  in  1841  and  1842,^19; 
in  1843,  ?32;  thence  up  to  1S49,  832  to  |2.5;  in  1849, 
1850,  1851,  1852  and  1853,  $25;  in  1854,  $28  (highest 
$40,  lowest  $22;)  in  1855  and  185li,  $30;  in  1857,  $34; 
thence  to  1860,  $29;  in  1860  and  1861,  $-35;  the  next 
three  years,  $65,  (some  good  ones  going  over  $100;) 
and  since  then  prices  have  been  as  high  or  higher, 
and  market  good.  The  prospect  now  is  for  a  de- 
cline for  some  time. 


A  Lamb  with  a  Cow  for  a  Mother. 
A  short  time  ago  a  fine  Cotswold  ewe  belonging  to 
Major  McDonald,  of  Daviess  county,  gave  birth  to  a 
buck  lamb,  immediately  after  which  she  died.  About 
the  same  time  a  young  heifer  on  the  Major's  place 
dropped  a  calf  which  died.  The  Major's  son,  after 
consulting  "Randall's  Sheep  Husbandry,"  placed  the 
lamb  with  the  heifer,  first  holding  it  up  to  the  cow's 
udder  until  it  sucked.  The  result  of  the  affair  is  that 
the  heifer  at  once  adopted  the  lamb,  and  it  is  now  fat, 
thrifty  and  vigorous,  being  about  seven  weeks  old 
and  weighs  oyer  fifty  pounds. — Sedalia  (Mo.)  Bazoo. 
^ 

Age  of  Sheep. 

A  sheep's  front  teeth  the  first  year  .are  eight  in 
number  appearing  all  of  a  size.  Second  year  two 
middle  ones  are  shed  out  and  replaced  by  two  much 
larger  than  the  others.  Third  year  two  very  ismall 
ones  apjicar— one  on  either  side  of  the  eight.  At  the 
end  of  the  fourth  year  there  are  six  large  teeth.  Six 
years  all  begin  to  show  wear— not  till  then. 


Bot  and  Bot  Flies. 

The  following  valuable  article  from  Prof.  C.  V. 
Riley  to  the  Scientific  American  we  give  our  readers 
this  month  for  its  thorough  explanation  and  timely 
suggestions  on  the  subject  of  bot  and  bot  flies  : 

"  A  correspondent,  engaged  in  the  tanning  business, 
asks  why  'wormals'  get  into  the  backs  of  cattle,  and 
how  they  undergo  their  transformations  ?" 

Almost  all  cloven-footed  animals,  and  many  other 
herbivorous  species,  are  infested  with  bots.  These 
are  legless  grubs  which  fall  into  three  categories : 
1.  Gastric,  or  those  which  are  swallowed  by  the 
animal  infested,  and  which  live  in  the  stomach  in  a 
b.ath  of  chyle.  2.  Cervical,  or  those  which  crawl  up 
the  nostrils  and  inhabit  the  frontal  sinuses.  3.  Cu- 
taneous, or  those  which  dwell  in  tumors  just  beneath 
the  skin.  They  are  all  the  larvaj  or  early  state  of 
two-winged  flies  (diptera)  belonging  to  the  family 
a'slrtdie,  characterized  by  having  the  mouth  parts 
entirely  obsolete,  and  popularly  called  gad  flies  or 
bot  flies.  In  the  first  series,  of  which  the  horse  bot 
{gastrophilus  equi)  is  the  most  familiar  example,  the 
eggs  are  hatched  by  the  female  fly  to  the  hairs  of  the 
body,  and  principally  on  those  parts  of  the  body 
within  easy  reach  of  the  animal's  mouth.  The  egg 
opens  with  a  lid,  and  the  young  maggot  upon  hatch- 
ing clings  to  the  tongue  as  the  animal  licks  itself, 
and  is  thus  carried  into  the  fore-stomach,  to  which 
it  holds  tenaciously  by  a  series  of  spines  around  the 
body,  but  principally  by  a  pair  of  sharp  hooks  at  the 
head.  When  fully  grown,  they  leave  their  post  with 
the  fieces,  burrow  in  the  ground  and  undergo  the 
final  transformatioft.  In  the  second  kind,  of  which 
the  sheep  bot  {icstrns  oxis)  will  serve  as  an  example, 
the  egg  generally  hatches  within  the  body  of  the 
parent,  and  the  young  grub  is  deposited  alive  on  the 
slimy  nostrUs  of  its  victim. 

By  means  of  a  pair  of  long  and  sharp  hooks  at  the 
head,  and  of  bands  of  minute  spines  on  the  venter, 
the  young  grub  works  its  way  into  the  sinuses  of  the 
head,  and  when  full  grown  permits  itself  to  be 
sneezed  out,  when  it  also  burrows  into  the  ground 
and  transforms.  In  the  third  kind,  the  parent  lays 
tlie  egg  on  those  parts  of  the  body  which  cannot 
well  be  reached  by  the  mouth  of  the  animal  attacked, 
and  the  young  grub,  which  soon  hatches,  burrows 
into  the  flesh  and  subsists  upon  the  pus  and  diseased 
matter  which  results  from  the  wound  inflicted  and 
the  irritation  constantly  kept  up.  The  well-known 
wormal  or  ox  bot  (hypoderva  hovis),  so  common 
along  the  backs  of  our  cattle,  and  especially  of  year- 
lings and  two-year-olds,  and  dreaded  as  much  by  the 
tanner  as  by  the  animal  it  infests,  is  typical  of  this 
kind.  Residing  in  a  fixed  spot,  we  no  longer  find  in 
this  species  the  strong  hooks  .at  the  head,  and  the 
spines  around  the  body  are  sparse  and  very  minute, 
the  parts  of  the  mouth  are  soft  and  fieshy. 

"All  these  bot  larvae  breathe  principally  through 
two  spiracles  placed  at  the  blunt  and  squarely  clock- 
ed end  of  the  body,  and  in  the  ox  bot  these  are  very 
large  and  completely  fill  up  the  hole  to  the  tumor  in 
which  the  animal  dwells.  When  ready  to  transform, 
it  backs  out  of  its  residence,  drops,  and  burrows 
into  the  ground,  and  there,  like  the  other  species, 
contracts'  and  undergoes  its  final  change  to  the  fly. 
The  eggs  of  this  ox  bot  are  olliptic-ovoid,  slightly 
compressed,  and  have  at  the  attached  end  a  five-rib- 
bed cap  or  stout  stalk  with  which  to  strongly  attach 
them  to  the  skin  of  the  back. 

"The  gastric  bots  are  best  prevented  by  proper 
grooming  of  the  horses  to  remove  the  eggs  or  nits 
from  the  forelegs  and  flanks.  Horses,  too,  that  are 
properly  stabled  and  kept  in  the  shade  during  the 
hotter  summer  months  are  less  frequented  by  the 
IJarent  fly.  Scarcely  any  mode  of  drugging  will  dis- 
lodge the  bots  when  once  they  are  attached  to  the 
stomach,  without  injuring  the  parasitized  animal. 
Cervical  bots  are  also  with  dilHculty  dislodged ,  except 
when  they  are  full  grown  and  ready  to  naturally  let 
go  their  hold.  Animals  msiy,  however,  be  measurably 
protected,  by  enabling  them  to  bury  their  noses  when 
the  parent  fly  is  seeking  to  deposit.  This  they  will 
iu.stinctively  do,  if  portions  of  their  pasture  be  turned 
up  and  the  ground  kept  loose.  The  cutaneous  species 
may  be  removed  by  pressure  of  the  thumb  and  finger, 
or  destroyed  by  the  application  of  kerosene.  If  re- 
moved while  small,  the  wound  in  the  skin  heals  up, 
and  no  hole  will  occur  in  the  hide. 


The  Potato  Bug   Abroad. 

G .  W.  Smalley  writes  to  the  Tribune,  from  London, 
concerning  our  old  friend,  the  potato  bug  : 

Next  after  Gen.  Grant,  the  greatest  American 
celebrity  of  the  London  season  Is  the  Colorado  beetle. 
He  Is  not  invited  out  to  dine  with  dukes,  but  his 
movements  are  watched  with  an  attention  most  flat- 
tering to  him,  and  his  appearance  at  Millheim  on  the 
Rhine  produced  intense  alarm  on  the  Thames.  Fol- 
lowed as  it  was,  yesterday,  by  an  announcement  that 
he  had  been  seen  in  Dublin  crawling  ashore  on  a 
cable,  the  alarm  became  a  panic.  This  morning  the 
panic  is  abated,  on  the  assurance  of  an  eminent  en- 
tomologist that  the  Dublin  insect  was  not  a  Colorado 
beetle  at  all,  but  only  looked  like  him.  Long  before 
his,  however,  extraordinary  precautions  had  been 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


143 


taken  respectinK  the  dreaded  visit.  Questions  are 
asked  about  liira  In  Parliament,  and  letters  written  to 
to  the  newspapers — those  liein;;  the  two  resources  of 
the  Briton  on  all  oecasions  ol'  peril  or  annoyance. 
The  privy  couneil  has  sent  out  circulars  about  liini — 
for  it  Is  one  of  many  oddities  of  Enijllsh  aduiiniistra- 
tion  that  her  majesty's  privy  council  deals  with  such 
agricultural  calamities  as  the  cattle  plague  and  the 
potato  plafjue.  Pictures  of  the  interesting  animal 
have  been  sent  all  over  the  kingdom,  more  pai'tieu- 
larly  in  Ireland,  where  an  enter|irising  farmers'  jour- 
nal has  given  him  the  widest  possible  circulation. 
His  biography  has  lieen  published.  Minute  accounts 
of  his  habits  and  haunts  are  In  the  hands  of  the 
police,  and  of  everybody  who  is  concerned  in  hia  ex- 
clusion from  these  islands.  Town  councils  debate 
about  him.  The  lord  provost  of  Glasgow  told  the 
police  board  this  week  that  he  had  seen  tlioueands  of 
beetles  heaped  upon  the  American  shores  as  they  had 
been  washed  In  after  attempting  to  cross  the  Atlantic  ' 
It  is  imjiossibie  to  suspect  the  wortliy  Scot  of  mean- 
ing to  joke,  and  it  must  be  supposed  that  he  believes 
this  dreadful  creature  capable  of  flying  3,000  miles, 
with  or  against  the  wind,  as  the  case  may  Iw.  I  sec 
Capt.  Nolan  is  to  ask  another  question  to-night  in  the 
House,  which  implies,  perhaps,  that  the  beetle  is  to 
be  pressed  into  the  service  of  Home  rule.  He  would 
make  a  very  suitable  recruit  to  the  faction  of  Irish 
obstructives  or  destructives.  But  his  identity  ought 
not  to  be  in  dispute,  as  it  is.  Has  he  stripes  across 
his  back  or  not  ?  Tlie  highest  authorities  differ,  but 
the  balance  of  testimony  is  in  favor  of  longitudinal 
stripes,  and  none  across.  There  are  specimens  in  the 
possession  of  naturalists,  and  more  are  promised 
from  (Germany,  where  they  have  made  models  of  the 
animal,  waiting  the  moment  when  a  few  thousand  of 
him  shall  be  hatched  and  forwarded  by  post.  lie  can 
not  be  a  rarity  on  your  side,  and  your  evidence  on  the 
point  of  the  stripes  will  be  received,  if  dispatched 
without  delay. 


Industry  of  Ants. 

In  industry  ants  are  not  surpassed  even  by  bees 
and  wasps.  They  work  all  day,  and  in  warm 
weather,  if  need  be,  even  at  night  too.  I  once 
watched  an  ant  from  six  in  the  morning,  and  she 
worked  without  intermission  till  a  quarter  to  ten  at 
night.  I  liad  put  her  to  a  saucer  containing  larv!e, 
and  in  this  time  she  carried  oil'  no  less  than  a  hund- 
red and  eighty-seven  to  the  nest.  I  once  had  another 
ant  which  I  employed  in  my  experiments,  under  ob- 
servation, several  d.ays.  When  I  came  up  to  Loudon 
in  the  morning,  and  went  to  bed  at  night,  I  used  to 
put  her  in  a  small  bottle,  but  the  moment  she  was 
let  out  she  began  to  work  again.  On  one  occasion  I 
was  away  from  home  for  a  week.  On  my  return  I 
let  her  out  of  the  bottle,  placing  her  on  a  little  heap 
of  larvaj  about  three  feet  from  the  nest.  Under 
these  circumstances  I  certainly  did  not  expect  her  to 
return.  However,  though  she  had  been  six  days  in 
continement,  the  brave  little  creature  immediately 
picked  up  a  larva,  carried  it  oil  to  the  nest,  and  after 
half  an  hour's  rest  returned  for  another.  We  have 
hitherto  had  little  information  as  to  the  length  of 
life  in  ants.  So  far,  indeed  as  the  preparatory  stages 
are  concerned,  there4s  little  difliculty  in  approxima- 
tely ascertaining  the  facts — namely,  that  while  they 
take  only  a  few  weeks  in  summer,  in  some  species, 
as  our  small  yellow  meadow  ants,  the  autumn  larv;i? 
remain  with  comparatively  little  change  throughout 
the  winter.  It  is  much  more  dillicult  to  ascertain 
the  length  of  life  in  the  perfect  insect,  on  account  of 
their  gregarious  habits,  and  the  difficulty  of  recog- 
nizing iutlividual  ants.  It  has,  however,  generally 
been  suiiposcd  that  they  live  aljout  a  season,  and 
this  is  probably  the  case. 


Codling    Moth. 


Nearly  all  the  orchards  in  .Jo  Daviess  County  are 
becoming  more  or  less  infected  with  the  Codling 
Moth.  Orchardists  should  know  that  there  are  seve- 
ral remedies  for  this  insect,  among  which  is  one, 
fruitgrowers  near  Cliicago  have  used  successfully 
the  present  season.  It  is  arsenic,  applied  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner  :  Take  one  pound  of  arsenic  to  a 
barrel  of  water,  boll  It  in  the  open  air  (as  boiling 
within  doors  niiiy  endanger  life),  and  apply  with  a 
hand  pump,  showing  the  whole  tree.  One  man  with 
a  team  can  shower  500  trees  in  a  day.  Tlic  arsenic 
can  be  obtained  for  3  or  5  cents  per  pound.  Paris 
Green  ajiplicd  in  the  same  way  is  equally  eflicacious 
but  not  so  chea]).  Several  barrels  of  water  can  be 
hauled  through  the  orchard  on  a  wagon,  at  one  time, 
and  with  an  ordinary  hand-pump,  the  mi.xture  can 
be  thrown  from  the  wagon  on  the  trees.  We  have 
seen  a  number  of  line  orchards  within  the  past  few 
days  nearly  destro.ved  by  this  pest,  to  the  owners  of 
which  the  above  recipe  is  worth  much,  if  they  will 
use  it. 


A  Texas  sheep  raiser  says  there  are  about 
2,«00,000  head  of  sheep  on  the  borders  of  the  Rio 
Grande,  the  fluest  sheep  raising  country  in  the 
world. 


THE  POULTRY  YARD. 


Eggs  and  Ways  of  Using  Them. 

Dr.  Edward  Smith  says  :  "  It  would  not  be  pos- 
sible to  exaggerate  the  value  of  eggs  as  an  article  of 
food,  whether  from  their  universal  use,  or  the  conve- 
nient form  in  which  the  food  Is  preserved,  presented 
and  cooked,  and  the  nutrinn!ut  whicli  they  contain." 
Again  he  says,  "  There  is  no  egg  of  a  bird  known 
which  is  not  good  for  food,  or  which  would  not  be 
eaten  by  a  hungry  man."  The  white  of  egg  consist.* 
of  nearly  pure  albumen,  oils,  sulphur  and  water. 
Albumen  is  considered  the  most  im|)ortant  single 
element  of  food.  It  is  found  in  all  compounded  ani- 
mal structures,  and  in  the  vegetable  productions 
most  valuable  as  food,  though  in  a  modified  form. 

There  is  a  great  diflerence  in  the  value  of  dillcrcnt 
eggs,  as  there  Is  in  their  size  and  llavor.  Well  fed 
domestic  fowls  yield  far  richer  food  In  their  eggs 
than  common,  wild  fowls.  .Many  suppose  that  raw 
eggs  are  more  easily  digested  than  those  that  are 
cooked,  but  for  most  persons  this  Is  not  the  case,  If 
the  eggs  are  not  cooked  improperly.  Dr.  Smith 
thinks  it  is  a  mistake  to  give  a  mixture  of  raw  eggs 
and  new  milk  to  invalids,  such  a  mixture  tending 
more  to  hinder  than  to  promote  digestion.  Dyspep- 
tics often  tliiuk  that  they  cannot  eat  eggs  at  all,  and 
It  is  the  case  that  delicate  stomachs  do  sometimes 
sufler  greatly  from  eating  any  but  tlie  freshest  of 
eggs.  When  we  cannot  be  sure  of  the  age  of  the 
eggs  provided,  it  is  always  most  safe  to  break  them 
before  cooking.  For  invalids,  the  very  safest  way  is 
to  drop  the  eggs  from  the  shell  without  disarranging 
its  form,  into  water  Ijoiling  in  a  shallow  disli.  A 
few  minutes  boiling  is  sullicient  and  no  dressing  is 
necessary,  except  a  trifle  of  salt  for  those  who  eat 
anything  salted,  though,  of  course,  good  butter  and 
pe])per  may  be  added,  or  the  egg  may  be  carefully 
laid  upon  a  slice  of  toast.  For  a  family  of  children, 
it  is  often  more  convenient,  in  all  respects,  to  serve 
eggs  in  scrambled  form,  or  in  omelettes,  than  cooked 
separately.  Some  children  arc  notional,  and  will 
not  eat  the  white  of  an  egg,  others  think  they  dislike 
the  yolk,  but  when  they  are  both  cooked  together 
they  think  nothing  about  it,  but  eat,  with  pleasure, 
all  that  they  can  get.  In  most  receipt  books,  the 
directions  for  scrambling  eggs,  advise  a  "good  piece 
of  butter"  with  which  to  cook  the  eggs,  seasoning 
them  with  salt  and  pepper,  and  with  chopped  jiars- 
ley,  if  you  choose  and  can.  But  if  for  any  other 
reason  you  prefer  it,  you  can  use  milk  instead  of 
butter,  and  for  children,  this  is  best.  The  propor- 
tions used  for  an  omelette  are  very  good,  "  a  cup  of 
milk  for  six  eggs."  This  increases  the  quantity. 
The  eggs  are  broken  "but  not  beaten,  and  are  stirred 
simply  to  mix  well,  and  prevent  burning  while  cook- 
ing. 

Omelettes  are  not  common  in  the  country.  The 
usual  recipes  are  enough  to  frighten  one,  because 
they  enjoin  extreme  caution,  lest  the  omelette  may 
fall  or  be  heavy.  At  our  house  we  have  always  had 
good  success  with  the  Ibllowing  recipe,  perhaps  be- 
cause of  the  (lour  or  corn  starch  used,  perhaps  be- 
cause we  baked  it  in  the  oven  in  a  shallow  dish, 
which  we  set  upon  the  tabic,  and  so  had  no  trouble 
in  turning  it  over  or  turning  it  out  :  Six  eggs,  the 
whites  beaten  to  a  froth,  the  yolks  well  beaten  ;  one 
teacuii  of  warm  milk,  in  which  a  small  bit  of  butter 
ia  melted  ;  a  tablespoonful  of  flour  or  cornstarch,  wet 
to  a  paste  with  a  little  of  the  milk,  and  stirred  into 
the  cup  of  milk  ;  a  teaspoonful  of  salt  and  a  little 
pepper.     Mix  together,  adding  the  whites  last ;  bake 

immediately. 

«. . 

Change  of  Color  or  Moult. 

A  corre6i>ondent  oT  Land  and  ITf/Zt^r,  in  discussing 
the  subject  of  change  of  color  in  birds,  says  : 

To  me  rubbing  ami  wearing  means  destruction  of 
substance,  and  abrasion  of  surlacc,  neither  of  which 
I  believe  will  be  found  to  exist  on  any  bird  after 
change  of  plumage  by  moult  or  change  of  color  only. 
A  binl's  plumage  may  be  compared  to  the  coat  of 
a  horse,  where  we  find  rubbing  produces  a  finely 
shining  and  even  coat,  but  where  wearing  commen- 
ces, we  find  from  the  bearing  of  the  saddle  or  har- 
ness on  a  particular  spot,  there  is  cither  a  bare  spot 
or  shortening  of  hair,  producing  change  both  in 
color  and  eveness  of  surface,  which  remains  in  that 
state  until  the  horse  casts  his  coat  and  gets  new 
hairs.  Such,  I  believe,  under  the  same  circumstan- 
ces, would  be  the  elVect  on  a  bird's  jilumage,  and  how 
a  process  when  applied  to  a  bird's  tail  should  destroy 
the  tail,  but  if  applied  to  the  head  and  cheek  should 
have  a  renovating  ctVect  there,  is  more  than  I  can 
possi  ly  understand.  The  little  time  I  have  had  to 
spare  from  my  usual  occupation  for  more  than  forty 
years  has  been  chiefly  pleasantly  passed  in  making 
observations  on  various  departments  of  natural  his- 
tory, more  particularly  In  ornithology;  and  my  ob- 
servations show  me  that  birds  assume  In  the  autumn 
a  plumage  they  carry  on  through  the  winter  months 
without  the  slightest  appearance  of  rubbing  and 
wearing  up  to  the  end  of  .January,  or  even  longer, 
when  a  change  commences,  and  iu  a  few- 
weeks  they  have  assumed  the  nuptial  dress,  which, 
in  most  cases,  continues  until  the  autumnal  change 
again  takes  place.  The  spring  change  is  not  confined 
to  any  particular  parts  of  birdt,  but  is  a  general 


brightening  of  the  plumage,  while  in  some  parts  an 
entire  change  of  color,  all  this,  I  believe,  produced 
by  a  change  of  color,  as  rhown  by  Mr.  J.,  takes  place 
by  a  jiourlng  In  of  color  In  the  head  of  the  blackbird, 
gull,  and  In  the  feathers  on  the  back  of  the  great 
northern  diver.  It  Is  nearly  twelve  years  since  I 
noted  the  same  change  In  the  autumnal  change  of 
the  great  nortliern  diver,  and  then  ventured  to  pre- 
dict that  on  future  Inquiry  many  changes  In  the 
()lumageof  birds  would  be  fouml  to  be  change  of 
color,  not  moult  :  and  why  Mr.  J.,  seeing  how  beau- 
tifully  nature  has  provided  for  the  change  of  color  In 
these  liirds,  should  seek  for  a  clilferent  method  of 
change  in  the  birds  he  mcmlions,  is  seeking  for  the 
unnecessary  and  is  quite  nsedlcss. 

Effects  of  Cold  Storms  on  Poultry. 

Kai  h  season  of  the  year  brings  Its  special  work 
and  care,  demanding  the  attention  of  the  kie|>cr8  of 
IMHiltry.  Excepting  the  first  bleak  anlumn  storms, 
no  period  of  the  year  is  so  trying  to  the  constitution 
of  fowls  as  cold,  spring  rain  storms.  Birds  that  have 
stood  the  severity  of  winter  without  any  apparent 
signs  of  disease,  often  succumli  to  the  effects  of  a 
chilly  rain  storm.  The  germs  of  iliseasc^  however, 
are  sometimes  contracted  during  confinement  In  win- 
ter, and  the  sudden  change  of  weather,  experienced 
during  a  cold  rain,  will  develop  the  malady,  which  Is 
likely  to  Ijccomc  contagious.  Fowls  that  have  been 
highly  fed  and  kept  warm  to  induce  laying,  « ill,  like 
a  forced  plant,  l>e  too  tender  to  stand  neglect  during 
the  early  drenching  rains  that  penetrate  to  theirvery 
skins. 

The  danger  need  not  be  feared,  however,  by  those 
who  will  take  a  little  extra  care  of  their  stock  during 
such  weather.  As  soon  as  the  earth  softens  under 
the  first  mild  breath  of  spring,  fowls  are  all  awake 
to  the  prospect  of  getting  worms  and  other  insects 
from  the  ground.  They  will  then  be  off,  prowling 
about  before  it  is  light  enough  even  to  sec  their  prey, 
but  as  they  evidently  know  that  the  early  bird  catches 
the  worm,  they  are  on  the  ground  betimes.  Perhaps 
the  next  day  there  Is  a  severe  change  In  the  weather, 
with  sleet  or  rain,  and  you  will  see  the  birds  hunting 
about.  In  hopcsof  finding  insects,  till  they  get  soaking 
wet  through  their  feathers,  and  if  not  weU  cared  for 
this  often  proves  fatal. 

Most  fanciers  have  noticed  that  a  cold  storm  fre- 
quently stops  hens  from  laying  for  a  week.  Now,  this 
delay  and  risk  of  sickness  may  often  be  prevented  by 
giving  them  a  liberal  mess  of  soft,  warm  food,  with 
a  little  cayenne  pepper  in  it.  To  this  should  be  added 
a  generous  amount  of  animal  food,  either  scraps  or 
haslets,  to  take  the  place  of  the  supply  of  worms, 
which  is  stopped  when  the  fowls  cannot  get  out. 
With  this  little  extra  care  hens  will  often  keep  on 
laying,  retain  perfect  health,  and  be  profitable  to 
their  keepers. 


Non-Sitters. 

The  Black  Spanish,  the  Polish,  the  Leghorns,  and 
the  Hamburgs  are  all  great  layers,  and  not  inclined 
to  sit.  Some  prefer  one  breed  and  some  another. 
One  cock  to  every  ten  or  twelve  hens  is  sufficient,  at 
most,  and  some  of  our  best  poultry  men  keep  a  less 
proportion  than  that. 

In  the  egg-producing  class,  the  Leghorns  stand 
pre-eminently  above  all  others.  This  variety  con- 
sists of  the  white  and  brown.  The  browns  appear 
to  be  favorites,  being  hardy,  easily  raised,  and  ma- 
turing quickly,  the  jiullets  often  laying  at  four 
months.  Pullets  of  this  breed  fri'iiuently  lay  as  high 
as  2fi0  eggs  during  the  year.  Their  large  comb,  and 
pendants  require  warm  honses  during  our  rigorous 
winters. 

The  next  in  high  favor  is  the  Black  Spanlsli;  these, 
like  the  former,  arc  non-sitters,  and  prolific,  but  not 
so  easily  raised.  They  do  not,  until  nearly  grown, 
gel  their  full  feathers,  being  generally  half  naked 
lor  a  considerable  time  after  hatching.  These,  like 
tlic  Leghorns,  require  comlorlabic  winter  quarters, 
owing  to  their  large  comb  anil  wattles. 

The  HoudaHs,  a  French  breed,  come  next  as  lay- 
ers and  non  sitters.  This  Is  what  they  call  a  made 
breed,  between  Poland  and  Dorking — showing  the 
characteristic  crest  of  the  former,  and  the  fifth  toe 
of  the  latter.  Although  not  as  continual  layers  as 
the  two  varieties  mentioned,  yet  they  possess  points 
superior  to  the  others  in  size,  delicacy  of  flesh,  and 
haidihood,  but  are  very  liable  to  disease. 

The  small  breeds,  the  different  varieties  of  Hara- 
burg.s  and  Polands,  have  their  admirers  as  fancy 
foH  is.  They  are  excellent  layers,  partially  non-in- 
cubators, but  are  not  recommendable,  owing  to  their 
size,  as  likely  to  improve  our  present  stock  of  com- 
mon fowls. 

^ — ' — 

Profit  in  Poultry  Keeping. 

We  do  not  keep  hens  as  we  do  canaries,  as  pets, 
but  they  are  kept  for  the  profit  they  will  bring  us  in 
eggs  and  poultry.  Now,  the  Income  from  our  [multry 
will  be  large  or  small  just  to  that  degree  In  which  we 
are  successful  in  making  our  hens  forget  or  ignore  the 
season  of  the  year,  and  our  profits  will  be  large  or 
small  just  in  proportion  as  we  accomplish  this  with- 
out incurring  unnecessary  expense.  If  we  can  so 
euiround  our  poultry  with  the  conditions  which  be- 


144 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[September,  1877. 


long  to  spring  that  they  will  not  realize  that  it  is  mid- 
winter, then  we  can  have  eggs.  Some  poultry  keepers 
do  have  eggs  all  winter  long,  and  always  obtain  good 
prices  and  make  large  profits  from  their  investments. 
Poultry,  if  properly  managed,  we  believe,  may  be 
made  to  pay  the  largest  per  cent,  of  profit  on  the 
amount  of  capital  invested  of  any  of  our  live  stock. 
The  outlay  Is  small  on  each  fowl,  and  the  returns  are 
qutckly  made.  We  do  not  have  to  wait  two,  three 
or  five  years,  as  is  the  case  with  cattle  or  horses,  be- 
fore the  harvest  season  begins.  A  chicken  is  fit  for 
the  market  in  a  hundred  days  from  the  shell,  and  a 
good  pullet  will  pay  for  herself  in  eggs  before  she  is 
a  year  old. 

^ 

Errors  in  Poultry  Keeping. 

In  confirmation  of  what  I  said  in  a  previous  article, 
in  regard  to  keeping  none  but  one  year  old  fowls  for 
layers,  I  annei  the  following  :  "Although  there  are 
many  widely  different  breeds  of  fowls,  adapted  more 
or  less  to  the  varied  wants  of  the  farmer,  there  are 
some  general  rules  for  their  management  which  are 
applicable  everywhere  ;  and  many  flagrant  errors  are 
made  by  most  farmers.  One  serious  error  is  the  com- 
mon custom  of  keeping  hens  until  they  become  too 
'  old  for  profit,  because  they  were  choice  birds  and 
good  layers  when  young.  A  hen  of  any  breed  will 
lay  only  about  half  as  maiiy  eggs  the  second  year  as 
the  first  after  she  commences  laying.  All  fowls  kept 
by  a  farmer  after  they  are  two  years  old  are  kept  at 
a  loss,  as  far  as  money  ie  concerned.  When  a  whole 
flock  Is  allowed  to  run  without  killing  08'  the  old 
ones  and  replacing  them  by  pullets,  disease  is  sure  to 
attack  them.  They  become  liable  to  cholera,  etc., 
after  they  become  aged.  If  the  practice  of  keeping 
only  pullets  is  once  followed  I  am  sure  that  no  farmer 
will  ever  abandon  it." — The  Farmer's  Friend. 


Profit  in  Poultry. 
The  Philadelphia  Times  says  :  As  a  general  rule 
we  do  not  think  farmers  pay  sufficient  attention  to 
the  production  of  poultry  for  sale.  Carefully-kept 
accounts  will  demonstrate  that  one  pound  of  poultry 
can  be  produced  at  about  half  the  cost  of  the  same 
weight  of  beef  or  pork,  and  alwaj  s  meets  with  a 
ready  market.  Another  advantage  is  that  it  can  be 
attended  to  quite  as  well,  if  not  better,  by  women 
and  children  than  by  men,  thus  economizing  the  la- 
bor of  the  whole  family,  and  directing  it  into  the 
production  of  profit  for  the  general  purse.  Try  the 
experiment  of  allowing  the  children,  if  large  enough, 
to  take  care  of  the  poultry  for  a  share  of  the  pro- 
ducts, either  in  eggs  or  dressed  poultry.  Charge 
them  with  all  the  food  consumed  and  credit  them 
with  all  the  eggs  and  flesh  consumed  by  the  family, 
and  note  your  percentage  in  the  speculation  and  the 
benefit  it  has  been  to  them. 


Caponizing. 

It  is  the  universal  practice  of  mankind  with  their 
domestic  animals,  when  intended  either  for  food  or 
work,  to  deprive  the  males  of  their  productive  organs. 
The  flesh  of  males  nut  castrated,  of  many  species  of 
animals,  is  strong,  disagreeable,  and  hardly  fit  for 
use  ;  and  yet  poultry  raisers  generally  fail  to  recog- 
nize the  fact  that  a  cock  is  as  much  improved  for 
table  purposes  by  the  operation  as  a  bull  or  ram. 
Those  who  give  the  subject  thought  are  deterred 
from  undertaking  the  matter,  fearing  it  is  a  delicate 
and  difficult  process.  Yet  it  much  resembles  the 
epaying  of  a  sow  or  heifer.  With  the  convenient 
instruments  of  the  present  day  the  operation,  after  a 
little  practice,  is  easily  and  quickly  performed  on 
both  cobkerels  and  pullets.  An  expert  in  the  business 
can  caponize  two  hundred  in  a  day,  with  the  loss  of 
only  five  per  cent. 

^ 

Gapes. 

Gapes  is  supposed  to  be  caused  by  a  parasite,  which 
infests  the  heads  of  young  chicks.  These  can  be  de- 
stroyed by  greasing  the  heads  of  the  chicks  or  the 
hen,  as  described  in  treatment  for  lice.  When  once 
infested  the  following  remedies  are  said  to  be  good  : 
Cover  the  bottom  of  the  coop  with  quick  lime. 
Another  is  a  lump  of  tailow  of  the  size  of  a  hen's 
egg,  melted  and  stirred  up  with  a  quart  of  oatmeal 
for  feed.  Another,  pluck  the  web  from  both  sides  of 
a  feather,  leaving  the  tip,  which  wet  with  a  solution 
of  20  drops  of  carbolic  acid  and  1  oz.  of  glycerine  ; 
run  the  feather  down  the  wind-pipe,  give  it  three  or 
four  turns  and  withdraw  quickly  ;  repeat  a  few  times 
with  a  new  feather.  The  acid  paralyzes  and  the 
glycerine  sticks  the  worms  to  the  feather,  so  that 
they  can  be  drawn  out.  In  treating  sick  fowls  all 
matter,  etc.,  should  be  burned,  to  prevent  exposure 
to  the  rest. 

^ 

The  Number  of  Hens  to  a  Cock. 

Houdans,  tan  hens  to  one  cock  ;  CreveciEurs,  eight 
hens  to  one  cock  ;  Cochins,  eight  hens  to  one  cock  ; 
Gray  Dorkings,  ten  hens  to  one  cock  ;  White  Leg- 
horns, fourteen  hens  to  one  cock  ;  Spanish ,  twelve 
hens  to  one  cock  ;  Brahmas,  eight  hens  to  one  cock  ; 
Hamburgs,  fourteen  hens  to  one  cock ;  Polands, 
twelve  hens  to  one  cock ;  Game,  ten  hens  to  one 
cock.    With  this  proportion  of  hens  to  a  cock,  the 


vitality  of  the  eggs  will  prove  good,  and  at  least 
eleven  out  of  twelve  eggs  set  should  produce 
"  chicks." — American  Poultry  Journal. 


Chicken  Cholera. 
In  the  last  week's  Farmer,  N.  W.  inquires  how  to 
cure  chicken  cholera.  It  was  very  bad  here  last 
spring,  and  if  you  will  allow  me  space  in  your  paper, 
I  will  tell  your  readers  how  we  cured  it.  \  For  every 
forty  fowls  we  took  a  piece  of  asafietida  the  size  of  a 
hickorynut,  broke  it  in  small  pieces  and  mixed  it  in 
about  a  pint  of  corn  meal,  wet  it  thoroughly  with 
boiling  water,  and  place  it  near  the  roosting  place, 
so  that  the  chickens  can  eat  of  it  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning.  If  they  are  not  too  near  dead  to  eat,  a 
cure  is  certain. 

^ 

Lime  Dust. 

The  following  has  been  recommended  as  the  best 
mode  for  preparing  lime  dust  for  slugs  and  other  in- 
sects, for  mildew,  etc.  :  Take  say  a  peck  of  fresh  or 
sharp  lime,  broken  up  into  small  pieces;  then  add 
four  pounds  of  flour  of  sulphur,  or  in  like  proportions 
if  in  smaller  quantity.  Add  one-third  as  much  boil- 
ing water,  or  just  enough  to  slack  the  lime  to  dry 
powder,  and  cover  the  vessel  as  soon  as  the  water  is 
poured  on.  By  adding  water,  it  may  be  made  into 
an  excellent  whitewash  for  trees,  the  sulphur  increas- 
ing its  efficacy. 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL. 


We  respectfully  call  the  attention  of  our  readers 
to  the  advertisements  which  from  time  to  time  appear 
in  the  columns  of  the  Farmer,  which  we  have 
reason  to  believe  are  all  reliable. 

Parties  desiring  trees,  plants,  or  bulbs,  are  refer- 
red to  Ellwanger  &  Barby's  advertisement,  now  ap- 
pearing in  our  columns.  Their  establishment  is 
recognized  as  one  of  the  largest  and  most  reliable  in 
the  United  States. 

E.  Moody  &  Sons'  semi-annual  wholesale  trade 
list  of  fruit  and  ornamental  trees,  evergreens,  roses, 
shrubs,  small  fruits,  climbing  plants,  cuttings,  grafts, 
cions  and  buds,  for  the  fall  of  1877,  will  be  found  of 
interest  to  those  who  are  engaged  in  the  nursery  busi- 
ness.    Niagara  Nurseries,  Lockport.,  N.  Y. 

Art  of  Propagation. — A  concise  practical  work 
on  the  rapid  increase  and  multiplication  of  stock — 
amply  illustrated.  Price  pre-paid  by  mail,  .50  cents. 
Published  by  Jenkins'  Grape  and  Seedling  Nurseries, 
Winona,  Columbiana  county,  Ohio.  Send  for  it,  and 
for  free  catalogue. 

Worth  $100.00  for  3  Cents. — We  have  just  re- 
ceived Helmick's  Centennial  Cook  Book,  containing 
over  100  valuable  receipts  for  cooking,  besides  other 
useful  information.  The  same  will  be  sent  to  sub- 
scribers of  our  paper  only  by  sending  a  three  cent 
postage  stamp  to  the  publisher,  F.  W.  Helmick,  50 
West  Fourth  street,  Cincinnati,  O. 

"Out  of  Work."— A  very  touching  and  insigfi- 
cant  title  in  these  days  of  great  financial  depression; 
and  the  attention  of  our  readers  is  directed  to  our 
advertising  columns,  if  they  desire  to  possess  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  and  expressive  ballads  we  ha  have 
ever  read — or  perhaps  that  has  ever  been  written  by 
any  author — the  hearty  appreciation  of  which,  under 
our  present  circumstances,  is  a  natural  sequence. 

By  referring  to  our  advertising  columns  our 
readers  will  see  that  Benson  &  Burpee,  Fine  Stock 
and  Reliable  Seed  Dealers,  No.  223  Church  street, 
Philadelphia,  have  associated  with  them  Mr.  Wm. 
H.  Maule  in  said  business,  and  that  the  title  of  this 
firm  is  now  Benson,  Burpee  &  Co.,  and  with  su- 
perior facilities  to  meet  the  increasing  demand  of 
their  business  they  solicit  a  continuance  of  public 
favor. 

Monthly  Report  of  the  Kansas  dtate  Board  of 
Agriculture,  for  July  1877,  an  octavo  of  34  pages, 
three  folded  diagrams,  and  one  page  illustration  of 
an  improved  Hshway.  The  statistics  of  the  State  are 
very  full,  and  don't  at  all  look  as  if  the  State  had 
ever  been  visited  by  the  "Rocky  Mountain  Locust." 
It  exhibits  enterprise.  When  will  our  Pennsylvania 
State  Board  do  likewise  ? 

E.  P.  Roe's  Circular  and  Price  List,  for  summer 
and  fall  of  1877,  including  gooseberry,  strawberry, 
raspberry,  blackberry  and  currant  plants,  &c.,  on 
hand  and  for  sale.  Address  E.  P.  Roe,  Cornwall,  on 
the  Hudson,  Orange  county.  New  York,  and  get  a 
circular  at  least.  Their  patrons  think  it  will  pay  to 
keep  their  circular  on  hand  for  future  reference,  be- 
cause he  makes  a  specialty  of  "small  fruits,"  and 
has  them  in  all  varieties  and  prices. 

Fruit  Farm,  and  Small  Fruit  Nurseries.  Whole- 
sale price  list  for  1S77.  Samuel  Kinsey,  Dayton, 
Ohio.  Branch  Nurseries  at  Columbia  City,  Indiana. 
This  enterprising  nurseryman  includes  in  his  list  : 
Deciduous  trees,  ornamental  and  flowering  shrubs, 
evergreen  blooming  plants,  fruit  trees,  flowering 
bulbs,  evergreens,  hedge  plants,  cuttings,  fruit  scions, 
and  miscellaneous  plants.  Send  for  catalogue,  and 
get  "  3[onarch  of  the  West"  Strawberry. 

I.  C.  Plumb  &  Son,  Green  Hill  Nursery,  .Milton, 
Wisconsin.  Descriptive  price  list  for  1877-78,  with 
advice  to  tree  planters.  Hardy  fruits  for  the  north 
made  a  specialty,  and  as  they  are  an  establishment 


of  30  years  standing  fruit  growers  would  do  well  in 
this  section,  and  might  be  benefited  by  making  a  note 
of  this. 

In  the  July  number  of  The  Farmer  we  called  the 
attention  of  our  readers  to  a  new  and  useful  cooking 
utensil  recently  invented,  which  is  known  as  the 
Centennial  Cake  and  Baking  Pan,  made  of  Russia 
iron,  and  is  so  constructed  that  after  your  cake  is 
baked,  you  can  instantly  remove  it  from  the  pan 
without  injuring  it;  and  having  a  raised  bottom  the 
cake  can  not  possibly  burn.  It  is  also  provided  with 
a  slide  on  the  bottom,  so  that  when  you  remove  the 
tube,  you  can  close  the  hole,  Qiakiug  a  pan  with 
plain  bottom  for  baking  jelly  or  plain  cakes,  bread,  etc 

Since  then  we  have  seen  one  of  the  pans,  which  was- 
shown  us  by  Mr.  B.  G.  LeFevre,  formerly  of  Quarry- 
ville,  who  is  agent  for  this  county,  and  who  is   now    • 
canvassing  for  the  same. 

Poppleins'  Siltcated  Super  phosphate  or 
Lime,  embracing  new  ideas  on  fertilization ;  com- 
posed of  vegetable  silica,  soluble  phosphates,  and 
jiotash  salts.  General  office.  No.  11  German  street, 
Baltimore,  Md.  They  base  their  formula  for  each 
crop  on  the  analysis  of  the  ash  of  the  plant  to  which 
it  is  to  be  applied.  This,  to  our  apprehension,  is  the 
true  theory  of  fertilization,  and  we  believe  it  will 
eventu.ally  be  confirmed  by  experience.  For  sale  by 
Joseph  Tatnall  &  Co.,  northeast  corner  Front  and 
Orange  streets,  Wilmington,  Del.,  and  at  Stanton 
Mills,  Stanton,  Del.  The  philosophy  of  this  theory 
is  in  harmony  with  views  upon  the  subject  we  have 
entertained  for  a  long  time,  and  which  we  embodied 
in  an  essay  on  "  Rust  in  Wheat,"  a  month  or  two 
ago.      Wheat  grower  notice  this. 

Viok's  Floral  Guide,  No.  4,  for  1877,  it  a  splen- 
did demi-octavo  of  35  pages  of  capitally  executed 
letter-press,  on  fine  calendered  paper,  and  over  125 
well  executed  illustrations  of  plants,  flowers,  flower- 
stands,  brackets  and  flowers  groups  ;  together  with 
copious  lists  of  flowering  and  ornamental  plants,  and 
directions  for  their  proper  cultivation.  It  also  con- 
tains a  circular  announcing  that  No.  1,  Vol.  1,  of 
Vick's  Ncvi  Illustrated  Monthly  MagaziJte,  will  be 
'issued  in  January,  1878. 

This  is  an  enlargment  and  improvement  of  the 
Floral  Onide,  each  number  of  which  will  contain 
thirty-two  pages  of  reading  matter,  and  numerous 
fine  wood-cut  illustrations,  and  one  colored  plate. 
Subscription  $1.25  a  year,  and  five  copies  for  five 
dollars.  Vick's  antecedents  are  such,  that  the  bare 
announcement  of  his  new  anterprise  must  secure  for 
it  a  liberal  Support,  and  there  is  no  journal  in  the 
country,  on  a  similar  subject,  that  we  would  sooner 
have  as  an  exchange. 

The  Cabbage  Family,  its  varieties,  qualities, 
and  culture.  By  David  Landreth  &  Sons  (Bloom- 
iiigdale)  Philadelphia.  Price  25  cents.  This  is  a 
beautiful  octavo  pamphlet  of  35  pages,  and  eight 
finely  execufed  engravings  of  the  leading  varieties  of 
cabbages,,  including  Landreth's  Large  York  ;  Early 
Sugar  Loaf ;  Bloomsdale  Bullock  Heart ;  Bloomsdale 
Early  Market ;  Jersey  Wakefield  ;  Bloomsdale  Bruns- 
wick ;  Bloomsdale  Early  Drumhead ;  Bloomsdale 
Late  Flat  Dutch ;  Drumhead  Savoy,  and  Curled 
Savoy.  The  Landreth  establishment  is  90  years  old, 
and  as  an  illustration  of  its  standing  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  state  that  at  the  International  Centennial  Ex- 
hibition the  firm  was  awarded  seven  International 
Reports,  four  medals,  four  diplomas,  and  three 
special  prizes  of  $100  each.  Send  for  a  phamplet  at 
once. 

The  Locust  Plague  in  the  United  States  ;  being 
more  particularly  a  treatise  on  the  Rocky  3Iounlain 
Locust,  or  so-called  Grasshojiper ,  as  it  occurs  east  of 
the  Rocky  Mountains,  with  practical  recommenda- 
tions for  its  destruction,  by  Charles  V.  Riley,  M.  A., 
Ph.  D.,  State  Entomologist  of  Missouri ;  Chief  of 
the  U.  S.  Entomological  Commission  ;  Lecturer  on 
Entomology  in  various  colleges ;  author  of  "  Potato 
Pests,"  etc.  With  45  illustrations.  Published  by 
Raud,  McNally  &  Co.,  Chicago,  Illinois.  This  is  a 
handsome  royal  I2mo.  of  236  pages,  with  three  full- 
page  colored  maps,  in  addition  to  the  other  illustra- 
tions, printed  in  clear  type,  and  on  fine  tinted  and 
calendered  paper.  The  name  of  the  distinguished 
author  alone  is  a  sufficient  guarantee  that  the  two 
chapters  into  which  the  book  is  divided  contains  the 
most  valuable  information  that  has  been  yet  de- 
veloped on  a  subject  which  is  deeply  interwoven  with 
western  and  southwestern  agriculture,  and  no  farmer, 
gardener  or  horticulturist  in  that  region  should  fail 
to  possess  a  copy  of  it.  But  this  is  not  all.  On 
looking  at  the  infested  region  of  1876,  as  indicated 
by  the  coloring  on  the  maps,  we  find  that  in  that 
year  it  extended  down  to  about  the  twenty-eight  de- 
gree of  north  latitude,  which  is  below  Galveston, 
Texas  ;  therefore  it  has  reached  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
with  the  eastern  margin  of  said  district  or  region, 
about  midway  between  the  fifteenth  and  twentieth 
degrees  of  west  longitude  from  Washington,  em- 
bracing British  America,  Montana,  Dakota,  Wyoming, 
Nebraska,  Kansas,  Indian  Territory  and  "Texas,  and 
parts  of  Minesota,  Iowa,  Missouri,  and  a  corner  in 
Arkansas ;  and  all  that  is  required  is  for  the  belt  to 
shift  eastward  to  sweep  over  the  larger  portion  of  the 
United  States ;  but  whether  there  are  any  circum- 
stances to  limit  its  eastern  border,  arbitrarily,  will 
require  time  to  fully  develop. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER"' 


HI 


E.  F.  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron. 

Has  uever  been  known  to  fail  in  the  cure  of  weakness,  af 
tended  with  sjmptoms.  indisiwsitiou  to  eiertion,  loss  of 
meniorv,  dimculty  of  breathing,  Reuerul  we^ikuesB,  horror 
of  disease,  weak,  nervous  tiemblinK,  dreadful  horror  of 
death,  niRht  sweats,  cold  feet,  weakness,  dimness  of  vision, 
lauffnor,  universal  lassitude  of  the  muscular  system,  euor- 
mousapjietite.  with  dvsiieptic  system,  hot  hands,  flushing 
of  the  body,  dryness  of  the  skin,  pallid  countenance  and 
eruplioua  on  the  face,  purifying  the  blood,  pain  in  the  back, 
heaviueKsof  the  eyelids,  fref[ueut  black  spots  flying  before 
the  eyes,  with  temporary  sufl'usion  and  loss  of  sight ;  want 
of  attention,  etc.  These  symptoms  all  arise  from  a  weak- 
ness, and  to  remedy  that  use  E.  F.  Kunkel's  Hitter  Wine  of 
Iron.  It  never  fails.  Thousands  are  now  enjoying  health 
who  have  used  it.  (let  the  genuine.  Sold  only  in  $1  bottles. 
Take  onlv  E.  F.  Kunkel's. 

Ask  for  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron.  This  truly  valu- 
able tonic  has  been  »■)  thoroughly  tested  by  all  classes  of 
the  community  that  it  is  now  deemed  indispensable  as  a 
Tonic  medicine.  It  costs  but  little,  purities  the  blood,  and 
gives  (one  to  the  stomach,  renovates  the  system  and  pro- 
longs life. 

I  now  only  ask  a  trial  of  this  valuable  Ionic,  price  $1  jier 
bottle.  E.  F.  KUNKEL,  Sole  Proprietor,  No.  2m  North 
Niuthstreet,  below  Vine,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  Ask  for  Kiliikers 
Bitter  Wine  of  Iron,  aud  take  uo  other.  A  photograph  of 
the  proprietor  on  each  wrapper,  all  others  are  counterleit. 

Beware  of  counterfeits.  Do  not  let  your  druggist  sell  you 
»ny  but  Kunkel's,  which  is  put  up  only  as  above  represented. 
Tou  can  get  six  bottles  for  $.'').     All  I  ask  is  one  simple  trial 

Tape  Worm  Removed  Alive. 
Head  and  all  complete  in  two  hours.  No  fee  till  head 
puses.  Seat,  Pin  and  Stomach  Worms  removed  by  Dr. 
KUNKEL,  yri9  North  Ninth  street.  Advice  free.  No  fee 
until  he;td  and  all  passes  in  one,  aud  alive.  Dr.  KUNKEL 
is  the  only  successful  physician  in  this  country  for  the  re- 
mov.il  of  Worms,  and  his  WOEM  SYKUP  is  pleasant  and 
safe  for  children  or  grown  persoi  s.  Send  for  circular  or 
ask  for  a  bottle  of  KUNKEL'S  WORM  SYKUP.  Price  $1.00 
a  bottle.     Get  it  of  your  druggist.    It  never  fails. 

0^  0^  m  m^  Great  chance  to  make  money.  If  you 
M  B  ■■  I  1^  can'e  get  gold  you  can  get  greenbacks. 
!■  Ill  II  H^^e  need  a  person  in  every  town  to  take 
^Jl  %0  ^mmm  Isubscriptious  for  the  largest,  cheapest 
and  test  lUustrated  family  publication  in  the  world.  Any 
one  can  become  a  successful  agent.  The  most  elegant 
■works  of  art  given  free  to  subscribers  The  price  is  so  low 
that  almost  everybody  subscribes.  One  agent  reports  mak- 
ing over  $1.50  in  a  week.  A  lady  agent  reports  taking  over 
4UT  subscribers  in  10  days.  All  who  engage  make  money 
fast.  You  can  devote  all  your  time  to  the  business,  or  only 
your  spare  time.  Y'on  need  hot  be  away  from  home  over 
Dlght.  Y'ou  can  do  it  as  well  as  others.  Full  particulars, 
directions  and  terms  free.  Elegant  and  expensive  outfit 
free.  If  you  want  profitable  work  send  xis  your  address  at 
once.  It  costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  No  one  who 
engages  fails  to  make  great  pay.  Address  "  The  People's 
Journal,"  Portland,  Maine. 
9-S-ly 


War  in  Europe. 

PIQM  A  pPI/iHie  Authentic  Biography,  Private  Letters 
DlOlVInnUlx.aud  Memoranda.  Introduction  by  Bay - 
(»r<l  Taylor,  Graphic  and  eutertaiiiiug.  Full  of  anec- 
dote, wii,  romantic  incident,  and  great  historical  events. 
Profusely  IlltiNtrated  with  actual  sketches  from  Bis- 
mark's  life — home,  student,  political  aud  battle  scenes,  por- 
traits, landncapes,  etc.  This  Life  of  Europe's  greatest 
statesman  is  just  the  book  for  the  times,  delineating  as  it 
does  all  the  famous  Rulers.  Generals,  and  Diplomats — co- 
actore  i^-ith  Bismarck.  Special  Canvassers  wanted  to  sup- 
ply the  urgent  demand  for  this  live  book.  Good  piiy.  Cireu- 
lar,  free.   Write  to  J,  B.  FORD  &  CO  ,  Few  York.      9-r»-6m. 

,  is  not  easily  earned  inthesetimes,butit  can  be 
made  in  three  months  by  any  one  of  either 
sex,  in  any  part  of  the  coimtry  who  is  willing 
to  work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
furnish.  $66  per  week  in  jour  own  town.  You 
need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.  Y^ou  can  give  your 
whple  time  to  the  work,  or  only  your  spare  moments.  It 
ooBts  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  aud  $5  Outfit  free. 
Address  at  once,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-.S-ly 

SiilFLTS  1 
Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 


$777i 


I.iii«n  and  Piippr  Collnrs  and  CufTN 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

AT 

E.  J.  EEZSMAK'S, 

No.   no    North    Queen    Street, 

Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 

9-l-ly 

AMOSMILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

M.\NrF.\rTUnKR  OF  AND  DE.VLER  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars, 

Bridles,  Whips,  &c.      Also  a  fine  lot  of  Trunks,  Valises, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buflfalo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatl'v  reoaired. 

9-l-ly 


1877        post-centennial       1877 
CI-OXMS, 

CASSIMERES, 

COATINti.S,  ^tt'ORSTERDS, 

TESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltona,  Chiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striped  and  diaKOunI,for  S])ring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  Clothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Established  in  the  year  1840), 

Comer  of  North  (Jnecn  and  Orange-Sts., 

LANCASTER,  PA. 
Extra  finished  and  trimmed.  Ueady-made  Clothing,  for 

MEN  AND  BOYS, 

and  clothing  cut  or  made  to  order  iu  the  most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A   fine    line    of     GENTS'  l-'tJRNISHING    GOODS,  and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece, 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 
9-l-ly  Practical  Tailors. 

M.  HABERBUSH, 

MAN0r.\CTURER  OF 

Plain  and  Pine  Harness, 

COLLARS,  ■W^IPS,  &c., 

.M>iO   DE.\LKK    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  ROBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-l-ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


H.  Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  G.  RHOADS. 


A  GREENHOUSE  AT  YOUR  DOOR. 

For  $1.00  we  will  send  free  by  mail, 


8  dUtlnct  V 

8 

8 

8 

8 

8  " 

8  " 

8  " 

6  " 

3  " 

4  " 
4  " 
6  " 
6  " 
8  " 
4  " 
2  " 
4  •* 
8  » 
4  " 


TlTT  A  T?NESS  RELIEVED.  N 

X-^ XLJ.rV  JD      Book  free.    G.  J.  WOOD,  Ma 

9-7-4m] 


o  medicine. 
Maduoa,  Xud. 


,  Monthly  Roses,  Winter  flowering. 
BeRonifls,  *' 

Cftmstion  Pinks,  " 

Chinese  Chryganthcmui,  " 
Zonal  Ueraniuuis,  ** 

Double,        "  '* 

Ivy  Leaved  "  " 

Heliotropes,  *' 

Abutllons,  "^ 

Doubl^f  Camelias,  " 

Azalea.i,  " 

Lobster  Cactus,  '* 

Bouvardtas,  '* 

Steviasand  Eupatoriums,'* 
Fuchsias,  *' 

Double  Violets,  " 

Polnsctta,  Scarlet  &  Wbite,  do.  do. 
Plumbago,  do.  do. 
Femtf,  fur  Wardlan  Cases. 
Palms,  ** 

Mosses,  *' 

Marantas,  ** 

Uyaclnib  Bulbs. 


20  assorted  Tulips,  Bulbs. 
50        "        Crocus      " 
2        '*        .Tacobean  Lily,  Bulbs. 
12        "         Oxftlis. 
4  Lily  of  the  Valley. 
8  New  Pearl  Tuberose. 

OB  BY  EXPBESS 
3  of  any  of  th*abo 
5 


12 
14 


$1  eullectioDS  for  $2. 
3 
'•  4. 

6. 


Or  the  whole  collection  of  238  Bulbs  and  Plants  sent  by 
Express  on  receipt  of  ^iJ.Uf',  tu  which  either  of  our  books, 
C.AKDENINtl  FOR  PROFIT,  PRACTICAL  FLOKICIX- 
TCKE,  or  CAKDEMNC,  FOR  PLEASURE  (Talue  81.50 
each),  will  be  added.     Deccriplfve  Catalogue  free. 

PETER  HENDERSON  &  CO., 

SoedHiiioii  ami  riiiriHt*«, 

35  CorUandt  St.,  N.  Y. 


3-T-lyl 


NONPjA.Ft.E:iI. 


I^'UP,  I'ruR,  »n.l  Sjine  Mill*.  Ic  iili«t, 
for  Uaii'l  or  I'o^'t,  (_"<'Qi-»1  French 
Burr  .siooe  Flooring  and  Corn  Mills. 

(r7*R*ceiT»d  tb«   Orand  Award   Di- 
ploma aod  Uedal  at  Ccotcnoial. 

Oj'Illiatraled   pamphlet  sent  Fre«. 
,       Addr«Ri.       L.  J.  MIIXER. 
'181  B.  Front  St..  Clnoinnatl.  (X 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Wholesale  ind  Retail  Dealers  lu 

DIAMOHDS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 

SILVESWAEE,  SPECTACLES, 

Bronzes,  Clocks  and  Watchinakers'  Mmili 


JOBBEI\S  IN  AmEI\^[CAN  WaTCI^BS. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 

Special  Injportations  iij  Foreign  Goods. 


9-1 -ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 


GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  Eing-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDIK G  HARDWARE. 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TEEBA  com,  IRON  aii  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


A§:eiit!<  for  the 

"  Ohio  "   Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann'e  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont's  Pcwrder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &c.,  &c. 


»-8-6m 


We  have  the  largest  8tock  of  general  Hardware  in  the 
State,  aud  our  prices  are  as  low  aud  tonua  as  lil>erai  as  caa 
be  found  elBCwher...  9  1-tf. 

E.  IT.  FRESHMAN  &,  BROS., 

ADVERTISING  AGENTS, 
186  W.  Fourtli  St.,  Cincinnati,  0., 

Are  nnthorlztMl   to  rontrnrt  for  adrertinlnK 
in  tbis  pnper. 


Estimates  [oniistiedfree. 


Send  lor  a  Circular. 


FZMFZ.SS. 


I  will  mail  (Free*  the  receipt  for  preparing  a  simple  Veo- 
KTABLE  Balm  that  will  remove  Tan,  Freckles,  PIMPLES 
aud  BLOTCHES,  leaviDg  the  akin  soft,  cle«r  and  beaatifal; 
also  iiiHtructions  for  producing  a  luiuruint  growth  of  hair 
OD  a  bald  head  or  amooth  face.  Address  Ben.  Vaod^lf  k 
Co.,  Box  Sl^l,  No.  5  Wwwttr  St.,  N.  T.  C9-l-«iu 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER, 


[September,  1877 


LADIES  ! 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 

GUN  BAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STORE, 

A  NEW  LOT  OF 

HAMBDRG  EMBROIDERED  ED&ISGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  THE  VERT  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kid  Gloves, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CR.APS  V-JCXX.S, 

CEAPE  BOXNETS  &  HATS, 

EUCHINGS, 
all  Btyles  and  widths,  and  everytliing  els*  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WEAB, 
that  is  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 
Give  us  a  call  at 

S08.142  &  144  North Qncen-st,  Lancaster.,  Pa. 

9-l-ly 


"OTTT  OF  "WOB-K." 

60NG    AND    CHOBUS,     BY 

ALICE  HAVrmORNE. 

Atithor  of  '*  LiBten  to  the  Mocking  Bird,"  "  I'll  eail  the  seas 
over,"  '*  What  is  Home  without  a  Mother,"  etc.,  etc. 
"  Out  of  work,  without  a  penny, 
Pleading  helrj  before  thy  door. 
Without  friends  among  the  many- 
Look  with  pity  on  the  poor." 
•  .  •  One  of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  ballads  ever 
■written,  will  give  the  author  a  more  extended  popularity 
than  anything  she  hae  ever  written.    Price  35  cents — or, 
iUuBtrated  title  page  40  cents. 

For  sale  at  all  music  stores,  or  will  be  sent  postpaid  on 
receipt  of  price  by  the  publishers, 

J.  M.  8T0DDART  &  CO., 
9—9  723  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia. 


A   NEW  BOOK. 

How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 

A  HAND-BOOK  OF 

FRUIT  CULTURE, 

BEING  A  GUIDE  TO  THE    PBOPEB 

Culitvation  and  Management  of  Fruit  Trees^  and 
of  Grapes  and  Small  Fruite, 

with  condensed  descriptions  of  many  of  the  best  and  most 
popular  varieties,  with  upwards  of  one  hundi'ed  engravings. 
By  Thomas  Gbegg.    Price  $1.00. 

A  book  w^ich  should  be  o^vned  by  every  pereon  who  owns 
a  rod  of  available  land,  and  it  will  serve  to  secure  success 
where  now  there  is  nothing  but  failure.  It  covers  the 
ground  fulJy,  without  technicalities,  and  is  a  work  on 

Fruit  Culture  for  the  Million. 

It  tells  of  the  cost,  how  to  plant,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
transplant,  location,  soil,  selection,  diseases,  insects,  borers, 
blights,  cultivation,  how  to  prune,  manuring,  layering, 
budding,  grafting,  etc.,  including  full  description  and  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Fruit,  such  as  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricots,  Nectarines,  etc.  It  is 
a  most  complete 

Gxiide  to  Small-Fruit  Culture. 

■with  many  illustrations  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari- 
eties of  Grapes,  Strawberries,  Blackberries,  Raspberries, 
Gooseberries,  Cut  rants,  etc. 

The  work  ehowe  the  value  of  Fruit,  and  how  to  use  it. 
Sent  by  mail,  poet-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Fabmer  and  How 
t«  raise  Fruits,  will  be  furnished  at  $1,76.    Address 

L,  RATHTON. 
2S,Soath  Qneen-st.,  I^ancASter,  Pa. 


SHEEP  &  LAMBS. 
SUPERIOR  POULTRY. 


BE2TSOIT,  BURPEE  <&  CO., 

OFFER  FOR  SALE  A  FINE  LOT  OF 

THOROUGHBRED    LIVE   STOCK, 

Including  Alderney  asd  Ayrshire  CATTLE  and  CALVES,  of  the  finest  herd  Registered  Stoci.' 

v^v^^  ^       a       O^^ir^^T  A  T  nn^^       BerUahireB  eired  bv  our  Celebrated  Imported   Boar,   "THE 
F'llTrJa    .^L    ^  Ik      F^\  /  A  f\  JiJ  1    X  t    COLLIER;"  winner  of  Six  High  Honors  and  First  Prizf 8  in 
Euglaud.    TOKKSHIHESof    our  Duke  II.,  and  the  best  imr.octationB;.CHESTER  WHITE,  POLAND  CHINA  AND 
ESSEX  PIGS. 

SOUTHDOWN,    COTSWOLD,    AND    LEICESTER    SHEEP     AND 
LAMBS. 

All  the  leading  varieties  of  best  class  LAND    AND 
WATER  FOWLS. 

Breeder's  IHaiinal  and  New  IllaNlrated  Descriptive  Catalo$;iie  of  Thorongrhbred  Cattle, 
Sheep,  Hogs,  Polliiry,  etc  Second  Edition.  JCVr  OITT.  Contaiiiiner  over  50  Pn^es  Vala- 
able  Rea«llnsr.  besi<lcs  16  Fnll  Page  Slocli  Cnts,  from  life,  of  our  finest  Imported  and  Prize 
Animals  and  Fon  Is.    Price.  2't  cents.  Postpaid,    Every  Tarmer  needs  ii. 

SEED  WHEAT  AND  ALL  SEASONABLE  SEEDS. 

<55,Our  Annual  Illustrated  Descriptive  Seed  Catalogue,  for  1878,  will  be  issued  December  Ist,  offering  many  Choice 
Novelties.        It  may  be  had  Free  for  the  asking. 

BENSON,  ST7BFEE  &  GO-,  223  Chutcli  Street,  Philadelphia. 

WE  know  no  breed  of  Poultry  that  lias  gained  a  more  Wonderful  Popularity,  in  bo  short  a  time,  than  the  PLYMOUTH 
ROCKS.  This  popularity  is  wonderful  when  we  consider  tl;:it  Pure  Bred  Poultry  is  chiefly  cultivated  by  Fan- 
ciers, whose  aim  is  artistic  beauty,  and  the  Plymouth  Rocks  possess  few  fancy  points— their  merits  being  in  their  econom- 
ical qualities.  This  is  almost  the  only  breed  of  Poultr\'  in  which  nothing  has  been  sacrified  for  mere  fancy.  They 
originated  by  crosses  of  several  breeds,  thus  gaining  great  vigor  auu  strength  of  constitution.  They  have  large,  well- 
shaped  bodies,  with  a  superabundance  of  choice  meat  on  the  breast  and  most  esteemed  parts.  They  will  attain  a  weight 
of  FIVE  POUNDS  at  four  months,  when  they  make  splendid  market  fowls,  while  the  Asiatics  are  not  ready  to  market 
until  eight  months  old.  The  Plymouth  Rocks  have  bright  yellow  legs,  free  from  any  feathers,  and  beaatiful  yellow  skin. 
They  are  good  lavers,  and  are  not  hard  to  break  from  sitting.  They  make  first-class  mothers,  and  the  chicks  are  hardy 
and  easy  to  raise.  They  are  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  the  FARMER'S  FOWL,  combining  as  they  do  more  excellencies  for 
general  farm  use  than  any  other  breed  now  known.  They  pay  better  to  raise  pure  for  market  than  any  cross-breeds  op 
mongrels.  We  think  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  these  fowls  will  be  bred  by  Farmers  everywhere  for  market.  The 
outlook  at  present  points  this  way,  as  all  farmers  who  have  tried  them  pronounce  them  all  that  can  be  desired.  The  de- 
mand for  them  already  far  exceeds  expectancy — out-selling  now  any  other  breed, 

"W.  ATLSE  BURPEE,  Philad^lpliia.  Pa. 


FRUIT  AND 
ORAMENTAL 


TREES! 


LAROE    STOCK- 
LOW  R.A.TES. 

STA7VDARU    PE.4R   TREES   A    $iPECIAI.TT. 

I^"8**nd  stamp  for  trade  hst. 

AGENTS  WANTED. 
E.  MOODT  A  SONK,  L^ckport,  N.  Y. 

Niagara  Ndbsebies.    Established  1839. 
9.8-2m 

EZRA  F.  BOWMAN, 

Practical  Watchmaker, 

(formerly  with  H.  Z.  Rhoads   &  Bro,)  has  opened  at   100 
East  King:  Street,  a  new  and  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS, 

Axnejdcan  Watches  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep- 
utation. Imported  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and 
Silver  Cases,  in  weights  to  suit  jiurchasers.  American  and 
imported  Clocks  in  over  fifty  different  styles,  which  are  of- 
fered at  reasonable  prices,  and  warranted  according  to  their 
quality.  Watches  and  Clocks  carefully  repaired  and  war- 
ranted. A  cordial  invitation  to  examine  stock  extended  to 
all.  9-4-6m 


THE     BEST     OFFER  I 

We  will  sell  during  these  hard  times 

$600  Pianos  for  $250, 

And  aU  other  styles  in  the  same  proportion,  including  Grand, 
Square  and  Upright— all  lirst-class—soli  direct  to  the  people 
at  factory  prices.  No  agents;  no  commissions;  no  discounts. 
These  Pianos  made  one  of  the  finest  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  and  were  unanimously  recommended  for 
the  Highest  Honors.  Regularly  incorporated  Manufac- 
turing company— New  Manufactory— one  of  the  largest  and 
finest  in  the  world.  The  Square  Grands  contain  Mathushek's 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment in  the  history  of  Piano  making.  The  uprights  are  the 
finest  in  America.  Pianos  sent  on  trial.  Don't  tail  to  write 
for  Illustrated  and  Descriptive  Catalogue— mailed  free. 


MENDELSSOHN   PIANO   CO., 


9-7-1 y 


Bfo.  56  Broadway,  Jf.  T. 


EDWItN  ilDENQ 
An^EEaisiiiRi^VACENCrr,^ 

.    174  EIiM^STKB:E^T^    • 
CINeiN3«A3BI.  OHIO. 

.  ,  Adyertisementa  iiiBerted  in  »ny  paper. 
Before  advertiBing  Bend_for  my  catalogne. 


ESTABLISHED  1832. 


Gr.    SENER   &  SOlSrS, 

Mauufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 

The  best  Sawed  JSHIKCEE^i  iu  the  country.     Also  Sash, 
Doors,  BUnds,  Mouldings,  &c, 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  COAL,  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  TAED  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-st8«> 

9-l-ly 


I 


$1  a  Year 


jTo  Bttbscriliers  in 
(      tbe  comity. 


SINGLE  COPIES  10  CENTS. 


To  snbficrlbers  ont 
♦he  county. 


°'}  $1.2B 


RATHVON,  Editor, 


LINNiETJS  BATH70N,  PTibllsher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Mnde  a  promineut  feature,  ^litli  special  reference  to  tbe 
wants  of  the  Farmer,  the  Clurdeuer  aud  Fruit-Grower. 


Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 


Edited  Ij  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


TERMS: 

To  subscribers  reeiding  within  tbe  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,  -.----         $i.oo 
Six  Copies,  one  year,     -  -      ^  -■        -         -         -       j.oo 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -------        7.50 

To  subscribers  outside  of  Lancuster  county,  including 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  publiehers: 

One  Copy,  one  year,    -  -        .  -  -  _  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       -        .        -  -         .        .         5.00 

All  euViecriptions  will  commence  with  the  January  num- 
ber unless  otherwise  ordered. 

All  communications  Intended  for  publication  should  be 
addressed  to  tbe  Editor,  and,  to  secure  insertion,  should  be 
in  his  bauds  by  the  first  of  the  mouth  of  publication. 

All  busiuees  letters,  ooutaiuing  subscriptions  and  adver- 
tisemeuts,  should  be  addressed  to  the  jmblisher. 

The  Lasoastsu  Faemee  haviug  completed  its  eighth 
year  under  various  \nc:is8itudes,  now  commences  its  ninth 
voUmie  under,  it  is  hoped,  more  favorable  auspices  than 
attended  its  former  volumCH.  ^^'he^  tbe  publishers  of  the 
last  two  voliunes  assumed  the  respousibilities  of  its  publi- 
cation, it  was  with  a  determination  to  make  such  improve- 
ments as  would  place  the  farmer's  oryan  of  this  great  agri- 
cultural county  in  the  very  front  rank  of  agricultural  jour- 
naljsm.  That  this  has  been  accomplished  we  think  our 
readers  will  bear  cheerful  testimony.  If  reasoniibly  sus- 
tained, our  aim  is  to  make  it  still  more  iutereHtiug  aud  in- 
structive under  ts  new  proprietorship.  In  thin,  however, 
we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  friend  of  tbe  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor,  Prof.  Rathvon,  on 
enbjects  connected  with  the  science  of  farming,  and  partic- 
xUarlJ?  that  specialty  of  which  he  is  so  thoroughly  a  master — 
entomological  science— some  knowledge  of  which  has  become 
a  necessity  to  the  successful  farmer,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  than  the  price  of  this  publication. 

The  Fakmer  will  be  published  on  the  15th  of  every 
month,  printed  on  good  paper  with  clear  type,  in  con- 
venient form  for  reading  aud  binding,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
ecribers  ou  the  foUovi-iug 


LINN^US  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATES  OF  ADTERTISIlfG  —  Ten    C«nt8    R 
line  Tor  «scb  insertion.     Twelve  liuee  to  the  iach 


CONTENTS  OrmiS  NUMBER. 

Farmers  and  tlieir  Relations  to  the  Country,  -  145 
Bees  Stinging  Fruit,  .....  145 
Do  Swallows  Emigrate,      .....    146 

A  Beet  Hard  to  Beat, 14C 

Fine  Tobacco  Leaves  .....    146" 

Recipe  for  Decorating  Eggs,    ....        147 

Smeych's  Seedling,     ......    147 

Monthly  Reminder  for  October,  -        -        147 

Cattle  DisiMse,  No.  1,     -        -        -        -        -  147 

The  Cattle  Disease— No.  2,         ....    148 

Splenetic  Fever,      ....--        148 

How  it  was  Introduced — Its  Symptoms  and  Cause 
—The  Tick  Theory  not  Tenable— Post  Mortem  Re- 
sults— The  Symptoms  Described — A  Post  Mortem — 
The  Tick  Theory  Disposed  Of— The  Only  Sure  Pre- 
ventive— Other  Theories  Advanced — Veterinarians — 
Nothing  but  SpleneticFcver. 

The  Continental  Strawberry,     -        -        -        -    149 

Queries  and  Answers,      .....        149 

Saliccacea; — Willowworts — Cuttrebra    buccata,  or 

"Squirrel  hot"— The  Hair  Worm — Phnltus   impudi- 

cus — Wheel-bug — Danais  Archippti — Horned   Toad 

— The  Yellow  Crab-Apple  Tree. 

Southwest  Missouri,        .....        150 

The  Gravcnstcin  Apple,      .....     151 

Wheat  and  its  Culture,         ....        151 

Italian  vs.  Black  Bees,        .....    152 

Forests — Their  Destruction  and  Restoration,  -        152 

Hard  Times,        - 15.i 


15.3 
153 


1.54 
154 


155 


Letter  from  North  Carolina    ... 
Around   the   Farm — No.  2,        .        -        - 

Ho^  Styes — Cornstalks — Papaw. 
Nebraska  Notes       ..... 
Potomac  Fruit-Growers'  Association 

September  Meeting — Fruits  in  Disease. 
Our  Local  Organizations,        ... 

Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural 
and  Horticultural  Society — American  Pomological 
Society — Crop  Reports — Essay  on  Wheat — Death  of 
a  Member — Fattening  Stock — T'he  Cattle  Disease — 
Fruit  Committee — Questions  for  the  Next  Meeting. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,  ...  156 
Crop  Reports— The  Society's  Anniversary — New 
Members  F-lectcd — Debate  on  Preparation  of  Soil — 
Plowing  Down  the  Stumps — Business  for  next  Meet- 
ing— Subscription  to  Newspapers— Thanks  to  Brother 
Kurtz. 

The  Bee-keepers' Society,        ... 

The  Liun;iean  Society,         -        -        -        . 
Donations  to  the  .Museum — Papers  Read. 
AGRICULTURAL. 

Wheat-Growing  in  -America, 

Home  Manures,         ..... 

Hungarian  Cirass,    -        .        .        -        . 

Soiling  Doubles  t  lie  Acreage,     .        .        - 

Liquid  Excrement,  .... 

Hints  to  Growers  of  Tobacco,    ... 
HORTICULTURAL. 

The  Original  Seckel  Pear  Tree, 

Grafting  and  Its  EtTects,    .... 

Salt  as  a  Fertilizer,  .... 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Weight  of  Milk, 

Effect  of  Tea  on  the  Skin,      .       .        - 

Rest  Before  Eating,    .        .        .        -        . 

Convenience,  --.... 

Old  Frames,         ---... 

Household  Receipts,        .... 
LIVE  STOCK. 

How  to  Bi-eak  Colts,        .... 

The  Cow  for  Small  Farms,     ... 

How  to  Grow  Pigs, 

POULTRY. 

Packing  Poultry  for  Market, 

"Plymouth  Rocks," 

Charcoal  and  Lime,        .... 

To  Preserve  Eggs,      ..... 

Literary  and  Personal,    .... 


157 
157 


1.5S 
158 
158 
15S 
158 
158 

1.58 
158 
1.58 

159 
1.59 
1.59 
1.59 
159 
159 

159 

1.59 
159 

160 
160 
160 
160 
160 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DSALKn  IN 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

Kfpairiu^  ptrictly  atlendfd  to. 

ZjfVKnX'S  COFUNTEFt., 

North  Queen-st,  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Fa. 

9-«-ly 

THE  IRON  TURBINE 
WIND  ENGINE 

The  Only  Wind  Engine 

ID  thp  mnrkt^^t  tbai  la 
PROOF  AUAI^'MT  vrOK7l 

atid  i-xpo^ureto  tlic  w««tti- 

er.  t)elog 

Made  Entirely  of  Iron.a 

Wfighi    00  Rtorr   Ibno    tbtfl 
crititinrv  wood  wh<'<'l<.  fl 

Rrculut4«  ltji«lf  In  a* 
llUch  Wlud  b;  iu«iiuii  or  a 


Automatic  Governor. 

Gives  more  Power 
than  any  other  for 
the  same  diameter 
of  wheel. 

Simple  in  ronstni- 
tioii  and  well  ma'l' 
They  are  giving 
Perfect  Satisfaction 
where     other 
mills  harefailed. 

Every  farmer  aod 
ftock  nUer  should 
bav«  one.    A  contUill 


T^y 


■uppi;  of  pare  wtt* 
ter  will    Keep    Toor 
Block  In  better  condl- 
Uon,  aud   tbus    lo   tt  ^ 
■horl    time  aaTtf   ibe  ^' 
ocit  of  ao  IroD  Tar- 
bloc  Wind  Eogloc; 
■a;    Dotfaiog    of     ' 
gnat  Rarlott  o'  ' 
acd  oiber  adfaouiRei.  wtii 
DK  f.ir  clrcujiir  irivliii;  [iriepd  t^'nA  iu'i: 


Tar.  r- 
oc;  to  k|^ 

r  the  W 

labor  ~- 


MAST, 


ro  «tK>ot  hr  wrltlog  (« 


Sc,  CO.,  Springfield,  O. 


CHRONIC 


IHmra^fm  Cured.       New 

patbu  marked  out  by  that 
plaiueHt  uf  all  booko — 
"Plain  Hotnp  Talk  and 
Medical  Common  SeuHe,'' 
—nearly  ],0<K>  i*ages.  iiMi  illustratioufi.  by  Dr.  E.  B.  Kootb^ 
of  12<t  Lexington  Ave.,  N.  T.  PurchaeerB  of  Ibifn  Book  ar» 
at  liberty  to  r«n#u/l  it R  aathor  in  persou  or  by  mail  free. 
Price  by  mail  td. 26  for  the  Slanr/an/  edition,  or  $1.60  foi 
Ui» ftoftular  t^diliou.  whidi.  coutaiui  all  the  »iame  matt«> 
aud  lilyetratioDe,  Contvnta  tabltre  fre«.  Afff-MtH  WaiUed. 
MURRAY  HILL  PfBLlPHIXd  CO  ,  .  i 
»-10.1y  |129  Kabt  2Sth  St.  N.  T. 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


PEXXSYI.VANIA  RAILROAD 
Traina  leave  the  Depot  iu  this  city, 

Leave 
WE   TWARD.  LancaBter. 

Pacific  Express' 2:40  a.  m. 

Way  Passengert 4:50  a.  m, 

Niagara  Express 9.35  a.  m. 

Col.  Accommodatiou T:20  a.  m. 

Wail  train  via  3It.  Joy 11:20  a.  m. 

No.  2  via  Columbia 11:20  a.  m. 

Sunday  Mail 11:29a.  m. 

Fast  Liue*.    ..    2:10p.m. 

Frederick  Accommodation.        2:15  p.  m. 

Harrieburg  Accom 6:10  p.  m. 

Columbia  .Accommodation..        7:20  p.  m. 

Harrisburg  Express 7:25  p.  m. 

Pittsburg  Express 9:25  p.m. 

Cincinnati  Express" 11:30  p.  m. 


SCHEDl'LE. 

as  follows : 

Arrive 

Harrisburg. 

4:05  a.  m. 

7:50  a.  m. 

10:40  a.  m. 

Col.    8:00  a.  m. 

1:00  p.  m. 

1:25  p.  m. 

1:30  p.  m. 

3:25  p.  m. 

Col.  2:45  p.  m. 

8:10  p.  m. 

Col.  S:00  p.  m. 

8:40  p.  m. 

10:50  p.  m. 

12:45  a.  m. 


LaucaB 

er. 

Philadelphia 

12:30  a. 

m. 

3:1)0  a.  m. 

4:10  a. 

m. 

T:00  a.  m. 

7:35  a. 

m. 

10:00  a.  r-. 

9.2Sa. 

m. 

12:30  p.  m. 

1:20  p. 

m. 

3:45  p.m. 

2:00  p. 

m. 

5:00  p.m. 

3:05  p 

m. 

6:00  p.  m. 

5: IS  p 

m. 

7:20  p.  m. 

5:50  p 

m. 

9:00  p.  m. 

EASTWARD. 

Atlantic  txpress' 

Philadelphia  Expreast 

Harrisbujg  Express 

Columbia  Accommodation.. 

Pacific  Express* 

Sunday  Mail 

Johnstown  Express 

Day  Express ' 

Harrisburg  Accom 

The  Hanover  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancaster 
with  Niagara  Exj^ress,  west,  at  9:35  a.  m.,  and  will  run 
through  to  Hanover. 

The  Frederick  Accommodatiou,  west,  connects  at  Lancas- 
ter with  Fast  Liue,  west,  at  2:10  p,  m..  and  runs  to  Frederick. 

The  Pacific  Express,  east,  on  Sunday,  when  flagged,  will 
stop  at  Middletown,  Elizabethtowu,  Mount  Joy  and  Landis- 
TiUe. 

'The  only  trains  which  run  daily. 

tRuns  daily,  except  Monday. 


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GOOD  BOOKS 

rOK  THE 

Farm,  Garden,  and  Household. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  Valuable  Books,  which  will  be 
supplied  by  the  Editor  of  the  Lancaster  Farmer,  No. 
101  North  Queen  St.  Any  one  or  more  of  these  books  will 
be  sent  pout  paid  to  any  of  our  readers  on  receiiit  of  the 
regular  price  which  is  named  against  aach  book. 

Allen's  (R.  L.  &  L.  F,]  New  Ajnerican  Farm  Book $2  50 

Allen's  (L.  F.)  American  Cattle.* 2  50 

Atwood's  Country  and  Suburban  Houses 150 

Bommer's  method  of  Making  Mauures 25 

Break's  New  Book  of  Flowers 1  75 

Brill's  Fami-Gardeuiug  and  Seed-Gro\ving 100 

Dadd's  Modern  Horse  Doctor,  ISnio I  50 

Dadd's  American  Cattle  Doctor,  la  mo 1  50 

Flax  Culture,  (SevenPrize  Essays  by  practical  growers,)    50 

Fuller's  Grape  Culturist 1  50 

Fuller's  Small  Fruit  CuUurist 1  5» 

Fuhon's  Peach  Culture 1  50 

Gregory  on  Squashes pajjer. .      30 

Harris  ou  the  Pig  1  50 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Pleasure 1  50 

Henderson's  Gardening  for  Profit 1  50 

Henderson's  Practical  Floriculture 1  50 

Herbert's  Hints  to  Horse-Keepers ,  175 

Hop  Culture.    By  nine  experienced  cultivators 30 

Hunter  and  Traj^per , 100 

Onions — How  to  Raise  them  Profitably 20 

Our  Farm  of  Four  Acras.    Pa.,  30c.;  Clo.,  GOc,  Ex.  do.  1  00 

Parsons  on  the  Rose 1  50 

Quinby's  Mysteries  of  Bee-Keeping 1  50 

Quiucy  (Hon,  Josiah)  ou  Soiling  Cattle 1  25 

Quiuu's  Money  in  the  Garden 1  50 

Quiun's  Pear  Culture  for  Profit, 1  00 

Riley's  Potato  Pests Paper  50  cts.;    cloth.,     75 

Roe's  Play  and  Pro  tit  iu  my  Garden 1  50 

Stewart's  Irrigaton  for  the  Farm,  Garden  'end  Orchard  I  50 

Stewart's  Stable  Book 1  50 

Stewart's  Shepherd's  Manual 150 

Stoddard's  Auu  Egg  Farm paper,  50  cts,;  cloth      75 

Thomas's  Farm  Implements  and  Machinery 160 

Tim  Bunker  Papers .  or,  Yankee  Farming 150 

Tobacco  Culture.  By  fourteen  experienced  cultivators.      25 

Waring's  Draiiiing  for  Profit  and  Health 1  50 

taring's  Elements  of  Agriculture 1  00 

White's  Cranberry  Culture 1  25 

Wright's  Practical  Poultry-Keeper* 2  00 


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quantity  in  using. 
Is  UNIFORM — stiffens  and  finishes  work  always  the  same. 

Ei&^sford.'s  Os'wego  Corn  Starcb 

Is  the  meet  delicious  of  all  preparations  for 

PUDDINGS,  BLANC-MANGE,  CAKE,  Etc. 

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discusses  the  science  of  breeding,  the  merits  of  the 
various  breedw,  the  most'«npYove<l  methods  of  feed- 
ing and  handling,  and  everything  pertainhig  to  the 
successful  management  of  live  stock  on  the  farm. 
During  the  year  1ST7,  Prof.  James  Law,  the  eminent 
veterinary  of  Cornell  University,  mHI  contribute  a 
series  of  articles  upon  the  laws  of  health  :ind  disease 
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The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  OCTOBER,  1877. 


Vol.  n.  No.  10. 


FARMERS  AND  THEIR  RELATIONS  TO 
THE  COUNTRY. 

Tliero  are  in  this  count  rv  <i,91lli,H(10  fanners,  1  ,'J0(),- 
000  trades  people,  L',T(I()',()(I(»  ineelianies,  2,(;(KI,()U() 
professional  men,  4;i,()(IO  clergymen,  4U,()0I)  lawyers 
VJ8,KL"-'  teachers,  I!-.',(I01I  doctors,  2,U()0  actors,  0,i'UUO 
journaliBtB,  1,000,000  laborers,  and  97.5,000  domestic 
Bervants. 

From  tlip  above  "cliiiping,"  from  the  iiew.s 
cohmiiis  of  a  daily  i>aiier,  it  will  be  jicrceived 
in  what  nunu'i-ical  proportions  fanners  stand 
to  any  other  single  oeeupation  in  theeounhy, 
and  yet  they  occupy  fewer  public  places,  re- 
ceive less  legislative  favors,  and  are  -sub- 
ject to  lieavier  governmental  l)urdens  than 
any  other  single  class  of  American  citizens. 
In  numerical  strength  they  are  more  than  all 
the  traders,  mechanics  ami  i)rofessionals  put 
together,  by  some  hundred  tliousands,  and  it 
would  not  lie  hazarding  much  to  say,  that, 
excepting  laborers  and  domestics,  there  is  not 
a  single  one  of  the  above  classes  that  has  not, 
proportionally,  litty  or  a  hundred  times  the 
political  and  otlicial  inlhicuce  they  have.  This 
is  all  radically  wrong.  Under  circumstances 
as  they  ought  to  be  no  one  can  presume  to 
know  what  the  farmers  of  tlie  country  need 
by  way  of  protective  laws  and  social  and  do- 
mestic privileges  so  well  as  the  farmers  tliem- 
selves.  If  they  don't  know  then  it  evinces 
that  tliere  is  something  wrong  somewhere.  It 
has  long  since  been  written  that  '■'  knatfledge 
!.s  jDOU'tc,"  but  where  and  how  is  that  power 
to  be  obtained  V  Not  by  clo.sing  their  eyes 
and  ears  against  that  which  is  "written,"  for 
that  would  involve  the  rejection  of  the  oracles 
of  divine  truth;  and  we  would  further  .say, 
that  there  is  no  real  truth  that  is  nut  divine. 
Knowledge  is,  or  ought  to  be  dillusive,  and 
the  most  eflicient  means  for  its  diffusion  is  the 
printfng  press  ;  and  if  farmers  desire  to  occu- 
py the  social  plane  for  which  nature  and  na- 
ture's God  designed  them,  they  must  avail 
themselves  of  the  medium  of  the  press, 
"  Here  shall  the  prcsit  the  people's  rights  maintain,' 
"  L'uawed  by  conquest  and  uul)ri!)ed  by  gain," 

has  become  an  axiom  of  uiuversal  rec- 
ognition, in  all  lands  under  the  dominion  of 
civil  liberty;  and  it  behooves  every  one  to 
read,  for  it  is  the  only  means  of  preserving 
social,  civil  and  religious  equality.  The  indi- 
vidual who  cauuoj  read,  is  to  be  i)itied;  but 
the  one  who  will  not  read,  surely  merits  some- 
thing worse;  else,  why  are  we  admonished  to 
''search  the  Scriptures,"  and  how  search  them 
if  we  cannot  read  ?  Time  was,  in  the  most 
ancient  days  of  the  human  fomily,  when  there 
were  no  Scriptures,  and  man  had  direct  inter- 
course with  his  Creator;  but  when  he  fell  from 
his  original  integrity,  other  means  of  coniiuu- 
nication  became  necessary,  and  the  Scriptures 
were  wrillen  ;  and  then  the  obligation  to  learn 
to  read  gradually  devolved  upon  the  human 
family,  and  has  now  become  a  solemn  injunc- 
tion, and  will  remain  so  until  the  end.  Re- 
turning again  to  our  "text"  we  find  tliat  there 
are  in  roimd  numbers,  40,000  lawyers,  40,000 
clergymen  and  00,000  doctors,  either  one  of 
which,  as  the  world  goes,  weighs  as  much  in 
the  social  and  political  scales  as  the  0,000,000 
farmers  do,  and  all  because  they  read — indeed 
it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to  become 
cither  lawyers,  doctors,  or  clergymen,  unless 
they  learned  to  read.  It  is  the  gravest  error 
that  anv  class  of  men  could  possibly  make,  to 
argue  that  superior  intellectual  (lualifications 
only  enable  those  who  possess  them  to  become 
superior  adepts  in  knavery,  dishonesty,  sin 
and  fraud;  for  this  is  only  the  abuse  of  a  no- 
ble privilege,  contrary  to  the  apostolic  injunc- 
tion to  "use  all  things  as  not  abusing  them." 
The  popidation  of  our  country  to-day  is  sup- 
posed to  be  about  40,0(X),000,  and  estimating 
one-half  of  these  to  be  females,  would 
leave  20,000,000  of  the    male    sex.    Now, 


the  different  cla.sses  in  our  text,  foot  up 
about  sixteen  nnllions  in  round  numbers, 
leaving  four  millions  of  vital .'  i'erhaps  bank- 
ers, drovers  and  iienltoncn,  with  a  liberal 
sprinkling  of  nondescripts  that  cannot  be 
cla.ssilied,  l)ut  who,  nevertheless,  subsist  upon 
the  productions  of  tho  farmer.  Tiike  up  a 
biographical  history  of  the  world,  or  any  sepa- 
rate nation,  and  it  will  be  foimd  that  much 
the  largc^st  number  of  the  lives  of  the  distin- 
guished men  recorded  therein  have  been  l)orn 
in  some  obscure  village  or  rural  district,  and 
comparatively  few  eitlier  in  a  town  or  city. 
Many  of  thein  sprang  from  farmer  parentage, 
and  when  they  became  distinguished  would 
point  to  that  ancestral  origin  with  pride;  and 
when  they  have  had  a  surfeit  of  (aiblicor  pro- 
fessional life,  hav(!  returned  again  with  long- 
ing desire  to  the  (luiet  and  ))eaceful  shades  of 
the  farm.  We  opine  this  world,  in  its  civil, 
.soci.al,  and  ecimomic  ilffairs,  will  never  be 
quite  right,  until  that  class  of  men  who  feed 
the  world  exercise  more  of  the  controling  in- 
tlueuces  that  give  character  to  its  domestic 
goverimient — its  official  administration.  But 
to  (pialify  any  class  of  men  for  the  eliicient 
discharge  of  their  ollicial  duties  they  must 
read,  observe  and  think.  We  do  not,  however, 
advise  farmers  to  an  energetic  mental  culture 
for  the  sake  of  merely  qualifying  them  for 
othce — indeed  (unless  like  Cincinnatus  of  old, 
ttiey  are  sought  after,)  we  would  counsel  them 
against  ever  permitting  their  aspirations  to 
runofliceward  as  a  speculation.  But  we  w'ould 
recommend  a  wider  scope  of  intelligi^nt  labor 
in  the  development  of  our  agricultural  re- 
sources ;  a  more  intelligent  discrimination  in 
the  exercise  of  their  political  franchi.ses,  and 
a  larger  and  more  diversietid  field  of  social 
culture,  as  .aims  far  above  the  aims  of  office 
for  the  sake  of  office. 


"BEES  stinging;fruit." 

There  is  a  great  complaint  throughout  ftcading  of 
Ijees  stinging  fruit  and  thereby  making  it  rot.  It  is 
alleged  tliere  have  been  many  bushels  of  the  most 
valuable  peaches  and  pears  efung  by  the  bees  and 
ruined.  The  other  day  a  lady  in  preserving  fruit  was 
literally  surrounded  by  bees.  They  flew  about  her 
head  in  a  large  swarm,  lit  ujjon  the  stove,  clung  to 
the  vessel  containing  tlu'  fruit  and  were  also  by  the 
dozen  on  the  ladle  used  in  stirring  tiie  fruit. 

It  is  said  fully  a  pint  of  bees  were  killed  while  the 
preserving  was  going  on,  and  it  is  fortunate  the  pre- 
serves were  not  ruined.  As  it  was,  dead  bees  were 
Ibund  in  the  preserves.  Besides  stinging  tlie  fruit 
the  bees  have  now  attacked  the  grapes  and  are  ruin- 
ing valuable  bunefics  of  them.  It  is  said  the  bees 
come  from  luves  kept  in  the  city,  the  owners  of 
which  sell  the  honey. 

From  year  to  year  this  business  of  keeping  hives 
of  bees  in  Iteading  has  grown  until  the  number  of 
hives  of  bees  now  kept  amounts  to  hundreds.  In 
the  city,  outside  of  the  sugar  and  molasses  hogsheads 
in  grocery  stores,  and  scattering  flowers,  the  bees 
have  little  else  to  live  ujion  except  fruit,  and  hence 
it  is  tliat  tlie  fruit  is  stung  by  them.— Biy/t. 

This  is  a  subject  upon  which  there  seems  to 
be  a  great  diversity  of  opinion,  and  perhaps 
no  tw'o  observers  would  be  able  to  record  the 
same  testimony — indeed  the  above  heading, 
which  we  often  notice  in  relation  to  this  sub- 
ject, is  not  a  true  representation  of  the  fact, 
for  in  the  sense  in  which  alone  a  bee  can  sting, 
we  can  assure  our  readers  that  it  is  altogether 
improbable,  if  not  impossible,  that  a  bee 
would  sting  fruit.  That  they  could  cut  the 
tender  skin  of  a  ripe  peach,  pear,  plum  or 
grape,  is  (juite  probable,  but  as  to  whether 
they  xrould  do  it  or  not,  tliere  are  various  opin- 
ions, founded  upon  various  experiences.  Even 
if  it  is  certain  that  they  are  guilty  of  this 
habit,  it  does  not  constitute  a  case  siifliciently 
strong  to  warrant  the  total  extermination  of 
the  bees,  for  tliis  would  be  like  destroying  all 
sailing  crafts  because  they  sometimes  capsize 
and  destroy  life,  or  like  demolishing  all  rail- 
road cars  because  they  sometimes   run  over 


and  kill  or  mangle  Imman  beings.  If  the 
question  wa.s  naiTowed  do^vn  to  bees  or  no 
bees,  sailing  vessels  or  no  .sailing  vessels,  rail- 
road cars  or  no  railroad  cars,  tliere  would  be 
little  dilliculty  in  coming  to  a  unanimous 
opinion,  and  we  feel  certain  that  it  would  not 
be  an  tidverse  one.  S(mie  .special  admirers  of 
Ih'cs,  especially  if  they  po.ssess  thrifty  bees, 
aii<l  have  no  fiuitthat  they  iiarticularly  value, 
will  testify  not  only  that  bees  will  not  cut  the 
skin  of  fruit,  f)ut  also  that  they  cannot:  but 
this  is  certainly  not  based  upon  a  profound 
knowledge  of  the  character  of  bees,  and  of 
their  organic  structuie.  There  are  certain 
organic  characters  that  pertain  to  all  the  Ily- 
menopterous  insects,  and  some  of  them  jjos- 
sess  it  in  a  very  liigh  degree,  and  one  of  those 
is  their  power  to  cut  into  and  through  liard  or 
tough  substances,  and  they  aft  i)erform  this 
oiieration  with  the  same  instruments;  namely, 
their  inandihles,  or  jaws.  The  common 
*"Wood-borer,"  or  "Carpenter  bee,"  vf ill  cut 
a  bole  into  a  pretty  hard  piece  of  wood,  al- 
though it  most  generally  selects  soft  pine. 
Other  wood-boring  hymeiiopterous  larva;  are 
known  to  have  cut  their  way  through  a 
dozen  i>lies  of  black  cassimere,  in  cases  wliere 
the  cloth  has  been  rolled  around  a  piece  of 
wood  that  previously  contained  the  eggs,  or 
the  young  grubs  in  embryo,  and  oa  one  occa- 
sion we  obtained  the  perfect  t  insects,  under 
these  same  circumstances.  Tlie  l;''Homet" 
and  the  common  ||"AVasi>"  are  well  known 
to  possess  great  maudiliular  or  cutting  power, 
and  often  lacerate  apples,  pears,  peaches, 
plums  and  grapes,  destructively,  and  without, 
much  effort.  Every  woman  that  has  raised 
roses,  has  had  occasion  to  deplore  the  depre- 
dations of  the  little  (S"llose-leaf  cutter  bee," 
using  its  jaws  as  deftly  and  with  as  mucli 
lirecision  as  a  practiced  garment  cutter,  in 
cutting  circular  disks  out  of  her  rose 
leaves.  Now,  this  last  named  individual  is 
not  far  removed  from  the  common  H  "Honey 
bee,"  for  it  belongs  to  the  same  family.  In- 
deed when  we  consider  that  all  Ilymenopter- 
ous  insects  have  to  cut  their  way  out  through 
the  pupa  skin  or  cocoon  that  envelopes  them, 
the  iiitegument  of  which  in  many  instances  is 
infinitely  more  tough  than  a  fruit  skin,  espec- 
ially that  of  a  grape,  we  need  not  be  .surprised 
that  bees  would  cut  grapes,  if  they  had  not 
easier  access  to  other  food.  We  well  remem- 
ber in  our  boyhood  how  we  used  to  imprison 
bees  of  various  kinds  in  the  flowers  of  the 
"morning-glory,"  and  other  trumpet  shaped 
flowers,  ju.st  to  see  how  very  easily  many  of 
them  could  cut  a  hole  through  the  side  and 
make  their  e-scaiie.  We  could  cite  hundreds 
of  cases  illustrating  the  mandibular  or  cutting 
powers  of  Hymeuopterous  in-sects,  but  let 
these  suffice  for  the  present. 

We  have  never  ourself  detected  liees  in  the 
act  of  cutting  the  skins  of  fruit,  but  we  have 
seen  thousands  of  them  extracting  honey  from 
fruit,  tlie  skin  of  which  had  cracked,  or  had 
lieen  previously  broken  through  other  causes; 
but  from  our  knowledge  of  the  organic  struc- 
ture of  their  mouth  iiarts,we  are  veryfar  from 
asserting  tliat  they  coahl  not  do  so,  or  n-ould 
not  do  so,  under  certain  provocations  which 
they  could  not  resist. 

1' he  editor  of  a  Reading  newspaper,  some 
weeks  ago,  came  out  in  a  vigorous  a-s-sanlt 
upon  tlie  char.acfer  of  bees,  and  although  all 
he  says  of  their  grajie-cutting  propensities 
may  be  as  true  as  much  that  we  receive  from 
similar  sources,  yet  his  preventive  recommen- 
dations are  of  a  malignant,  if  not  a  diabolical 
type,  to  speak  as  mildly  of  them  as  we  i)0ssi- 
bly  can;  and  are  not  justified  by  a  considera- 
tion of  all  the  circumstances.     In  thisconnee 

•Xylocopa  VirKiuicii.  tUroc«rUB  cyarieUB.  :Veiipii  Miicu- 
lala.  iPoUatea  tHiBcalui.  jC'elioxys  octodeutata.  ^lApli 
MulUaca. 


146 


THE  LANCASTER:  FARMER. 


[October, 


tion  we  may  remark  that  bees,  like  other  ani- 
mals, not  even  excluding  the  hinnau  species, 
when  they  become  hungry,  in  obedience  to  an 
instinctive  impulse  which  they  cannot  resist, 
will  make  an  effort  to  gratify  their  present 
demands,  or  future  wants,  even  if  they  have 
to  steal  it.  Any  human  being  in  health  is 
fully  sensible  of  the  goadings  of  lumger,  and 
regards  the  idea  of  starvation  with  feelings 
of  unmitigated  hoiTor.  Need  we  then  be  sur- 
prised that  animals,  not  endowed  witli  re- 
flective reasoning,  should  purloin  those  ali- 
mentary substances  which  are  so  essential  to 
their  own  healthy  development,  and  the  per- 
petuation of  their  species  ?  "We  have  the  tes- 
timony of  several  intelligent  observers,  whose 
reports  are  altogether  reliable,  notwithstand- 
ing they  are  somewhat  conflicting  on  a  mere- 
ly superficial  examination.  One  gentleman 
of  veracity  and  of  close  observation  informs 
us  that,  notwithstanding  he  has  kept  a  vigi- 
lant watch  over  his  fruit  and  the  insects  that 
visit  it,  yet  he  has  never  in  a  single  instance 
detected  a  bee  cutting  or  lacerating  tlie  skins 
of  his  grapes,  although  his  observations  have 
been  conducted  from  morning  to  night,  and 
for  several  days  in  succession.  He  has  seen 
bees  extracting  the  juices  of  the  grapes  wliere 
the  skin  had  been  cut  by  wasps  or  hornets, 
or  where  they  had  been  broken  from  other 
causes.  Another  testifies  that  he  has  fre- 
quently seen  the  larger  Italian  bees  cutting 
the  skins  of  the  grape  berries,  and  afterwards 
our  native  species  follow  them  up  and  continue 
the  work  of  destruction  thus  begun.  This 
fact,  he  states  he  has  witnessed  over  and  over 
again,  but  he  has  never  seen  our  local  variety 
making  the  original  incision.  Another  one 
testifies  that  both  varieties  of  bees,  in  connec- 
tion with  wasps  and  hornets,  cut  the  skins  of 
grapes,  peaches,  and  also  plums,  and  that 
they  have  visited  the  fruit  in  his  enclosure 
apparently  for  that  purpose  alone.  Now, 
these  things  being  so,  does  it  not  suggest  that 
no  one  in  a  large  town  or  city,  who  has  not 
sufficient  land  to  furnish  food  for  his  bees, 
should  be  allowed  to  keep  them,  more  than 
he  should  be  allowed  to  keep  sheep,  pigs,  and 
cows,  and  let  them  trespass  upon  the  property 
of  his  neighbors  for  their  daily  supply  of  the 
necessary  quantity  of  food  to  sustain  them. 
It  might  also  suggest,  whether,  if  bees  appro- 
priated the  whole  crop  and  converted  it  into 
lioney  and  wax,  it  would  not  pay  as  well  as  to 
sell  the  fruit,  or  convert  it  into  wine,  &c. 

In  conclusion  we  may  state  that  the  ques- 
tion is  still  an  open  one,  and  if  it  can  be  dis- 
cussed with  a  strict  regard  to  the  truth  of  the 
matter  in  issue,  some  use  may  grow  out  of  the 
discussion — at  least  no  harm. 


DO  SWALLOWS  EMIGRATE.' 

From  the  Country  Gentleman.] 

Seeing  the  remarks  of  Observer,  on  pasre  .555,  I 
am  led  to  ask  tlie  question  whether  swallows  go, 
like  other  birds,  to  a  warmer  climate  to  winter,  and 
where  they  go.  Can  the  readers  of  the  Country 
Oenllcman  tell  us  certainly  ? 

When  I  was  a  boy  we  were  cutting  some  coarse 
grass  in  a  swampy  place,  near  some  small  trees  and 
bushes  of  stinted  swamp  growth,  around  a  very 
muddy  place,  sometimes  covered  over  with  water. 
This  was  on  the  2.5th  of  August.  All  the  time  we 
were  at  work  that  day  swallows  sailed  and  hovered 
around  over  the  swamp  in  great  numbers.  I  remcm- 
her  asking  my  father  what  made  the  swallows  so 
thick.  He  asked  me  if  I  knew  what  day  of  the 
month  it  wap,  and  I  replied  I  did  not  know.  He 
said  he  believed  it  was  the  25th,  and  the  swal- 
lows were  preparing  for  their  departure  for  the 
season.  I  asked  him  where  they  went  so  early  in  the 
season.  He  said  they  were  "going  into  the  mud  in 
this  swamp ;  toward  night  you  can  see  those  bushes 
and  trees  around  that  mud  hole,  covered  with  them, 
and  to-morrow  you  will  see  no  swallows  flying  about." 
This  was  astounding  news  to  me,  and  I  asked  if  they 
really  went  into  the  mud  for  winter  quarters.  He 
replied,  "yes,  I  know  some  of  them  do,  and  believe 
all  do,  for  I  once  helped  to  excavate  mud  from  an 
old  mill  pond,  and  on  one  side  the  mud  was  quite 
thin,  and  in  that  we  dug  hundreds  of  barn 
swallows  in  a  dormant  state,  which  on  being  exposed 
to  the  air  and  warmth  showed  signs  of  life."  This 
BO  worked  upon  my  mind  that  I  thought  I  would  see 
if  I  could  not  dig  out  some,  and  When  I  had  a  leisure 
time  I  intended  to  repair  to  the  swamp  hole  for  the 
purpose,  but  rain  set  in,  the  mud  hole  was  a  bad 
place  to  go  into,  and  I  did  not  attempt  it. 


The  next  year,  about  the  same  time,  I  was  sent  to 
the  mill,  about  three  miles,  to  get  rye  ground  for 
bread.  While  it  was  being  ground  I  was  fishing,  and 
in  the  middle  of  the  mill  pond  was  a  peninsula  covered 
with  water  only  when  it  was  very  high.  On  this  were 
dwarf  and  dead  willows  completely  covered  with 
swallows.  I  called  the  old  and  much  respected  mil- 
ler's attention  to  it,  and  asked  hJm  if  they  went  in 
the  mud  for  winter  quarters.  He  said  that  he  sup- 
posed they  did,  "for  they  come  there  in  just  such 
numbers  about  this  time  every  year,  and  are  not  seen 
afterwards."  I  watched  them  while  fishing,  and 
could  see  them  fly  down  and  up,  but  they  wei'C  so  far 
off,  and  so  numerous,  and  in  such  commotion  that  I 
could  not  watch  each  individual  swallow,  or  see  that 
their  ranks  were  growing  thin  while  I  remained.  I 
have  many  times  since  seen  them  gathering  around 
swamps, -and  noticed  their  sudden  disappearance, 
.and  did  the  present  year.  Now,  am  I  alone  in  this 
(theory)  or  are  there  others  who  think  the  same? 
Can  those  living  at  the  South  tell  where  northern 
swallows  winter? — L.  F.  Scott,  Litchfield  co.,  C'oim. 

The  theory  of  swallows  hibernating  in  mud 
holes  is  a  very  old  one,  and  just  as  erroneous 
as  it  is  old  ;  and  observations  made,  "when  I 
was  a  boy,"  are  entitled  to  no  credence  what- 
ever on  that  account.  This  tlieory  obtained 
when  ice  were  a  boy,  more  than  half  a  century 
ago,  and  we  believed  it,  but  neither  then  nor 
ill  the  long  period  that  has  intervened,  have 
we  ever  seen  anything  in  confirmation  of  it ; 
and  it  is  astonishing  that  in  the  present  ad- 
vanced state  of  ornithology  any  person  of  in- 
telligence should  entertain  such  a  notion  for 
a  single  moment.  Swallows  and  martins  de- 
part for  the  West  Indies,  Central  America, 
and  Northern  South  America  early  in  Sep- 
tember, and  there  they  have  been  seen  many 
a  time  during  our  northern  winter  seasons. 
Always  gregarious  just  before  their  departure, 
they  become  more  so  during  the  day  and 
towards  evening,  but  separate  to  their  vari- 
ous abodes  during  the  night.  They  usually 
take  leave  of  us  very  early  in  the  morning, 
and  hence  if  they  should  have  been  seen  in 
large  or  small  numbers  about  a  mud  hole  or  a 
pond  of  water  the  evening  before  their  depar- 
ture, the  unwarrantable  inference  has  been 
drawn  that  they  hibernate  in  the  mud,  because 
nothing  is  seen  of  them  the  following  morn- 
ing. And  why  do  they  assemble  about  mud 
holes,  marshes,  ponds  and  stagnant  waters  V 
Simply  because  about  the  end  of  summer  such 
places  aflbrd  them  the  greatest  amount  of 
food.  Swallows  are  purely  insectiverous  birds, 
and  they  take  them  mainly  on  the  wing  ;  and 
where  insects  most  assemble  they  most  assem- 
ble. They  confine  themselves  to  the  smaller 
species  of  insects,  and  especiallj'  -the  Diptera 
(two-winged  flies)  such  as  gnats,  mosquitoes, 
"gallinippers"  and  the  like,  and  these  breed 
in  stagnant  waters,  and  as  summer  wanes 
they  are  found  in  greatest  numbers  in  such 
places.  During  midsummer,  or  early  in  the 
season,  insects  fly  higher  and  farther  away 
from  their  breeding  places,  but  as  the  weatlier 
cools  they  are  most  abundantly  found  near 
those  places.  Has  it  never  occurred  to  the 
reader  that  he  has  suffered  more  annoyance 
from  mosquitoes  after  the  1st  of  September 
than  he  has  prior  to  that  date  ;  and  has  he  ever 
reflected  that  this  may  have  been  because  the 
swaUows  had  all  left  the  vicinity  of  his  abode, 
and  consequently  the  mosquitoes  liad  in- 
creased ?  Are  we  progressing  or  retrogTessing 
in  scientific  knowlege  ? 


A  BEET  HARD    TO    BEAT. 

We  were  fortunate  enough  to  become  the 
recipient  of  the  large  re"d-beet  which  Mr. 
Henry  Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  had  on  exhibi- 
tion at  the  meeting  of  our  local  society,  on 
Monday,  the  1st  of  the  present  month.  Tliis 
Chenopodiacean  subject  of  the  vegetable  king- 
dom, was  of  a  deep  crimson  color  and  of  the 
turnip-rooted  variety,  measuring  nine  inches 
in  its  vertical  diameter,  from  the  base  of  the 
leaves  to  the  beginning  of  the  tap  roots,  and 
about  the  same  in  its  transverse  diameter, 
making  it  about  twenty-seven  inches  in  cir- 
cumference, and  weighing  fully  ten  pounds. 
True,  we  liave  seen  larger  vegetables  of  tlie 
beet  kind,  weighing  from  twenty  to  thirty 
pounds,  and  we  have  read  of  some  weighing 
from  iorty  to  fifty  pounds,  but  they  were  not 
of  the  red  or  turaip  variety,  and  were  too 


hard,  coarse  and  insipid  to  be  used  as  human 
food — only  fit  for  stock — but  this  specimen 
possessed  all  the  edible  qualities  we  find  in 
tlie  ordinary  sized  turnip  variety  of  red-beets. 
AVe  were  also  the  recipient  of  some  fine  Iler- 
bamot,  Lawrence,  Dix,  Chinese  Sand,  Beurres 
Bosc,  Anjou,  Diel,  Clargeau  and  other  pears, 
as  well  as  apples  and  grapes,  kindly  donated 
by  Messrs.  Casper  Hiller,  H.  M.  Engle,  Dan- 
iel Shmeycli,  I.  L.  Landis,  L.  S.  lleist  and 
others,  whose  names  did  not  come  to  our 
knowledge. 

We  feel  grateful  for  these  tokens  of  person- 
al consideration  on  the  part  of  these  gentle- 
men, (both  tlie  known  and  the  unknown)  and 
hope  nothing  may  transpire  in  our  relations, 
to  illustrate  that  they  have  discriminated 
falsely  in  our  behalf,  either  in  the  past,  pres- 
ent or  future — and  we  do  assure  them  that 
these  things,  both  in  their  moral  and  mater- 
ial bearings,  afford  an  agreeable  and  healthful 
stimulant  to  oiu'  editorial  labors;  and  the 
more  so  because  of  their  unfeigned  spontaniety 
and  disinterestedness,  qualities  whiclt  enhance 
the  value  of  any  gift. 

But,  if  "troubles  never  come  single,"  so 
neither  do  favors,  for  here  comes,  on  this  aus- 
picious 8th  of  October,  our  genial  friend, 
Wm.  Weidle,  and  lays  us  under  a  special  ob- 
ligation f(3ra  luscious  lot  of  Lawrence,  Erben- 
iste,  Grey  Doyenne,  Buerre  Clairgeau,  Buerre 
Diel,  and  Buerre  Morea  pears,  and  Israella 
grapes.  It  is  just  as  difficult  to  discriminate 
where  everything  is  good  as  where  everything 
is  bad  ;  nevertheless  we  cannot  refrain  from 
mentioning  the  superior,  juicy,  and  buttery 
qualities  of  the  unpretending  little  "B.  Morea" 
pear.  In  its  melting  edibility  we  realize  that 
rustic  description  which  declares  a  thing  "as 
slick  as  goose-grease,  and  goose-grease  as  slick 
as  butter,  and  butter  the  slickest  kind  of 
grease,"  for  so  indeed  it  was.  It  seems  to  us 
that  we  never  before  have  had  such  a  striking 
exemplification  of  the  keeping  qualities  of  the 
Israella  grape.  It  ripens  simultaneously  with 
the  Hartford  Prolific,  and  yet  here  on  tlie  8th 
of  October,  it  was  plucked  from  the  vines  as 
plump,  as  solid,  and  as  luscious  as  the  first 
clusters  that  ripened  six  weeks  ago.*  That 
surely  is  a  quality  not  to  be  disregarded. 

^. « 

FINE  TOBACCO  LEAVES. 

The  following  is  a  detailed  description  of 
some  specimens  of  tobacco  exhibited  by  Mr. 
Henry  Kurtz,  at  the  meeting  of  the  "Tobacco 
Growers'  Society, "  held  in  this  city  on  the  17th 
of  September  last,  two  days  after  the  issue  of 
the  September  number  of  The  Farmer'. 
These  leaves  were  eight  in  number,  and  al- 
though they  are  not  represented  as  the  true 
average  of  his  whole  crop,  yet  they  were  all 
in  a  vigorous  growing  condition,  and  woidd 
have  increased  much  in  size  had  they  been 
permitted  to  remain  a  week  or  ten  days  longer 
in  the  field,  and  might  have  remained  there 
until  the  1st  of  October,  so  far  as  the  weather 
was  concerned. 

No.  1.  Centennial  seed,  30  inches  wide  by;|S 
42  inches  long  ;  grown  in  sixty  days  from  the 
"stock,"  or  planting  out. 

No.  2.  The  same  seed,  47  inches  long  by  37 
wide,  in  GO  days. 

No.  3.  The  same  seed,  40  inches  long  by  26 
wide,  cut  September  17th;  planted  the  stock 
on  .July  1.5tli. 

No.  "4.  The  same  seed,  42  inches  long  by  26 
wide,  raised  from  small  plants  and  cut  Sep- 
tember 5th. 

No.  5.  The  same  seed,  47  inches  long  by  28 
wide,  planted  July  23d  from  seed  stock. 

No.  6.  The  same  seed,  45  inches  long  by  26 
wide,  planted  July  23d,  grew  60  days. 

No.  7.  Hartford  seed,  35  inches  long  liy  22 
to  20  wide,  plants  small,  and  grew  subse- 
quently to  46  days. 

No.  "8.  Hartford,  36  inches  long  by  22  wide, 
planted  July  19th,  and  cut  September  15th  to 
17th. 

Mr.  Kurtz's  tobacco  fields  are  near  Mt.  Joy, 
in  Rapho  twp.,  and  his  crop,  on  the  whole, 
has  done  well,  which  is  more  than  a  good 
many  others  can  say,  although  the  crop  in 
Lancaster  county  has  been,   generally  speak- 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER    FARMER. 


147 


mg,  pretty  fair.  The  averagn  weather  was 
too  dry  u]!  to  th(^  17lh  of  Seiitoniber,  but  the 
"latter  rains''  greatly  helped  those  plants 
that  had  not  been  cut  and  housed  before  they 
occurred. 

Jlr.  Kurl/ is  a  clean  and  thoroui^h  cultiva- 
tor, and  makes  a  free  use  of  "uiislit"  from  tlie 
barn-vaid.  It  is  becoming;  every  day  more 
manifest  that  thor(iu;j;li  culture,  clean  weed- 
in;;,  and  sti'oug  manuring,  are  es.sential  fac- 
tors in  the  raising  of  tobacco,  and  tliat  it  is 
not  safe  to  leave  anything  to  chance  ;  but 
these  are  not  more  essential  than  vigilant 
"worming." 

RECIPE  FOR  DECORATING  EGGS. 

Tako   an   og!?   nmt   eovor   it   ovur  with   beeswax. 

Prick  the  letters  on  tlie  beeswax  and  tlioii  scrape  all 

the  wax  oil'  tlie  shell  except  where  letters  are,  and 

1  then  ilip  the  <■:;■!;■  into  the  acid.    The  shell  will  then 

■  pee\  oir,  all  Iml  the  i)art  where  the  letters  are,  thus 

I  niukin;?  \\  hut  is  known  iie   ''raised  letters."     It  can 

he  done  every  time,  and  done  to  nicely  that  even  the 

hen  can  he  fooled  Into  thinking  she  laid  the  egg. 

Waiving  the  usefulness  of  the  proce-ss  con- 
tained in  the  above  "recipe,"  in  its  details  it 
certainly  is  as  "clear  ;is  mud."  When  the  egg 
has  gone  through  a  certain  preparation  wo 
are  instructed  to  dip  it  "into(/i(  acid."  What 
acid  ?  Not  the  slightest  allusion,  either  by 
word  or  implication,  is  made  iireviously  tormy 
acid,  either  nitric,  sulphuric,  muriatic,  oxalic, 
tannic,  formic,  prussic,  or  malic.  And  then, 
airain,  what  is  the  object  of  such  a  decora- 
tion y  AVith  the  shell  "peeled  off"  it  can  be 
of  no  use  as  a  plaything  for  children  ;  and  if 
only  intended  as  an  ornament  to  the  table  it 
must  be  a  poor  all'air,  and  certainly  would  go 
no  farther  in  satisfying  human  appetite  than 
a  plain  egg.  What  occasion  "every  time  " 
nuiy  relal<'  to  we  are  left  to  guess,  and  if  it 
even  means  eternity  it  would  be  hardly  worth 
peri)etuating  if  its  object  is  only  for  the  pur- 
pose of  "fooling  hen's"  into  tlie  "thinking 
tliey  laid  them." 


SMEYCH'S  SEEDLING. 

This  is  a  luscious  yellow  clingstone  peach, 
produced  from  tlie  "seed,  by  Mr.  Daniel 
S^meych,  of  this  city.  A  specimen  of  this 
peach  before  us  measures  over  eiglit  inches  in 
circumference  both  ways,  so  that  it  is  nearly 
round.  The  suture  is  very  indistinct,  the 
stem  very  short,  and  the  cavity  moderately 
deep— indeed  the  fruit  hugs  the  branch  so 
closely  that  it  leaves  the  impression  of  the  lat- 
ter oii  the  fruit.  The  llesh  is  a  golden  yellow, 
nwidcrately  firm,  juicy  aud  pleasantly  sweet. 
The  skin  is  almost  as  clean  as. a  nectarine,  al- 
though it  has  a  soft  and  velvety  feel,  and  it 
has  a  moilerate  blush  towards  the  upper  end. 
As  a  clingstone,  nothing  has  come  under  our 
obsea-vation  that  is  superior,  and  it  is  worthy 
of  extended  culture. 

MONTHLY  REmTnDER  FOR  OCTOBER. 

Earth  up  celery,  dig  up  potatoes,  sweet- 
potatoes  aud  other  roots,  as  they  mature,  and 
store  them  away  for  use  ;  collect  squashes  and 
pumpkins,  and  expose  them  in  a  dry  place  to 
a  good  airing,  prctvious  to  storing  them  away. 
IJlanch  endive,  hoe  and  weed  out  fetticus  and 
spinuach,  plant  out  cabbage  and  lettuce  plants 
in  cold  frames. — Dkk's  (l<x'nkncr.        " 

This  is  the  be.st  season  for  setting  out  rlui- 
bavb.  Divide  the  old  roots,  leaving  a  good 
bud  to  each  plant,  and  set  in  .soil  made  very 
ricli.  In  taking  out  sweet  potatoes  let  the 
tul)ers  lay  in  tlie  sini  an  hour  or  two  before 
putting  away,  (irajies  carefully  gatliered  and 
placed  in  a  cool,  dark,  dry  cellar  will  keep  for 
several  months.  Handle  with  care  and  pre- 
serve the  liloora  intact.  There  is  no  better 
time  to  set  out  raspberries  and  blackberries 
than  the  month  of  October.  It  is  preferable 
to  spring  planting.  A  patch  of  rye  sown  in 
tliis  montli  early,  the  ground  being  well  ma- 
nured, will  come  in  good  use  for  feeding  milch 
cows  next  spring,  before  the  pasture  tield  is 
ready  to  turn  out  ui>on.  Evergreens  may  be 
set  out  now,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  Select 
small  trees,  preserve  all  the  fibrous  roots  pos- 
sible, and  do  not  allow  them  to  become  diy. — 
Farm  Jmirnnl. 


THE  CATTLE  DISEASE— No.  i. 

The  unusual  widcsiireading  and  fatal  epi- 
demic now  prevaihiig  in  this  comity,  and  over 
a  very  large  portion  of  the  norlhern  aud  mid- 
dle sections  of  the  country,  must  be  an  apology 
for  the  introduction  of  so  much  on  that  sub- 
ject into  this  nmnber  of  our  paper.  So  far  it 
has  almost  entin-ly  balUed  the  profoundcst 
skill  of  the  veterinary  profession  ;  and  if  the 
doclors  cannot  make  headway  against  it, there 
seems' to  be  but  littU;  prospect  of  success  to 
the  ellbrts  of  amateurs.  Tliis  disease  mani- 
fests itself  somewhat  dilTerently  in  differently 
circinustanced  districts,  and  is  called  "sple- 
netic fever,"  "Tiixas  cattle  disease,"  "pleuro- 
pneumonia," "murrain,"  "lung  fever,"  and  a 
number  of  other  names. 

"There  is  now  prevalent  anionq:  the  cattle  of  some 
townships  of  this  county  a  ty[ihus  disease  known  as 
the  Texas  fever,  vvhicli  has  not  only  caused  the  loss 
of  many  vaUiable  aninuils,  but  which  is  in  danircr  of 
taintiuir  the  milk  and  beef  used  by  the  peojtle  ol'  this 
city.  The  disease  has  been  located  in  this  section 
by  tlic  importation  of  Texas  cattle,  larire  numbers  of 
W'hicli  are  brought  to  Ohio  to  be  fattened  for  market. 
These  cattle  arc  infested  by  a  small  parasite,  an  in- 
sect about  the  size  of  the  conunon  house  lly,  which 
burrows  in  the  skin,  leaves  a  poisonous  stinij  which 
infects  the  blood,  .acts disastrously  ujion  the  spleen 
and  liver,  and,  if  not  arrested  by  prompt  treatmcnl, 
causes  death.  On  one  farm  in  Brooklyn  six  valuable 
cows  have  died.  There  are  many  cases  in  I'arnia, 
and  the  situation  is  so  tlireatening  tliat  in  the  latter 
township  the  farmers  bave  held  a  meeting-,  organized 
and  appointed  a  committee  to  ascertain  and  report 
the  best  methods  of  treatment. 

"The  disease  is  making  its  appearance  simultan- 
eously in  ditferent  and  widely  separated  parts  of  the 
country,  and  owners  of  cattle  may  be  pretty  sure 
that  tlie  Texas  (n-  Spanish  fever  will  jirevail  this  fall 
in  neighborhoods  where  what  are  called  "through" 
Texas  cattle  have  been  fed  or  pastured,  en  route  to 
Eastern  markets,  and  that  the  only  cure  yet  discov- 
ered ftn-  the  disease  is  to  kill  at  once  all  the  cattle 
affected  by  it,  aud  to  keep  all  imatfccted  lierds  away 
from  the  yards  or  pastures  where  Tcxans  have  been 
fed  or  yarded,  luitil  the  frosts  have  disinfected  them. 
More  Texas  cattle  have  reached  Eastern  markets 
during  the  last  mouth  than  for  the  same  period  in 
any  previous  year,  and  the  favor  with  which  Texas 
beef  has  of  late  been  received  in  all  our  markets  has 
led  to  a  large  direct  importation  from  the  plains  of 
Southern  Texas  and  to  indifTcrent  inspection  of  the 
cattle  by  the  shippers.  A  general  outbreak  of  Span- 
ish cattle  fever  tliis  fall  would  be  a  calamity  at  this 
time.  Beef  has  already  made  an  .advance  of  nnn-e 
than  2  cents  per  pound,  compared  with  the  price  of 
a  year  ago,  and  the  loss  of  a  small  percentage  of  the 
present  stock  in  the  country  would  put  another  dol- 
lar per  10(1  pounds  upon  our  beef  sui)plieB. 

The  above  extract  from  a  western  paper  we 
(hid  in  a  recent  number  of  the  New  York 
Trihune,  but  we  must  confess  that  to  our  dull 
apprehension,  the  more  we  read  it  over  the 
more  it  becomes  "as  clear  as — mud."  Cattle 
arc  now,  and  have  been  for  many  years,  peri- 
odically infected  with  a  number  of  malignant 
eiiidemic  diseases,  known  by  the  names  of 
"lung  fever,"  "murrain,"  "rinderpest," 
"  foot  and  mouth  disease,"  "  Spanish  fever," 
"Texas  fever,"  but,  perhaps,  more  properly, 
"pleuro-pueuuionia"  or  "epizooty;"  and,  al- 
though tiiese  may  fundamentally  have  their 
origin  in  the  inhalation  of  aninialcuUe,  or  fim- 
gous  sporules,  yet^it  seems  impossible  tliat  tliey 
could  be  caused  by  the  infestation  "of  a  para- 
site, an  insect  about  tin;  size  of  a  common 
liouse  lly,  which  burrows  in  the  skin  and 
leaves  a  poisonous  sting  which  infects  tlie 
blood,  acts  disastrously  on  the  .spleen  or  liver, 
and,  if  not  arrested  by  prompt  treatment, 
causes  death."  It  is  true,  cattle  everywhere 
are  infected  by  "gad-llies,"  whicli  dejiosit 
their  eggs  on  the  backs  and  sides  of  these  aiii- 
iiials,  and  the  grubs  of  these  eggs,  when 
hatched,  burrow  under  the  skin  and  then  form 
an  irritating  pustule  or  tubercle  ;  but  this  is 
only  local — not  constitutional — and  after  the 
grub  is  fully  developed  it  makes  its  exit  of  its 
own  accord,  burrows  into  the  earth,  and  in 
due  time  comes  forth  a  mature  fly  like  its 
progenitor. 

It  is  also  true  that  if  these  insect  infesta- 
tions become  very  numerous  they  might  cause 
the  death  of  the  animals  they  infest,  as  some- 
times occurs  in  the  horse  infested  with  the 
grubs  of  the  "bot-lly,"  or  sheep  with  the 
"sheep-bot;"  and  it  has  also  occurred  tliat 
animals  have  been  killed  by  being  numerously 


stung  by  bees,  wasps  and  hornets  ;  but  these 
are  neither  ei)idemic  nor  constitutional  dis- 
eases, tlu^y  arc  merely  acute  ca.ses  of  local  and 
temporary  irritation  or  iiillanimation.  The 
diseases  among  cattle  now  in  this  country, 
and  wliich  liavc  been  so  fearful  in  their  results 
iu  I'jigland  and  on  the  continent  of  Europe, 
have  an  entirely  dillerent  origin,  anil  those 
writers  wlio  allemiit  to  mix  the  matter  up 
with  "jiarasites  as  big  as  a  house-fly,"  are 
only  mystifying  the  whole  subject.  The  pre- 
\ailing  disease  is,  doubtless,  pknrD-jyncumonia, 
perhaps  one  of  tlie  worst  forms  of  epidemic 
disease  that  animal  "llesh  and  blood  is  heir 
to."  This  di.sease  was  lirst  imported  into 
Urooklyn,  L.  1.,  in  ISIS,  by  a  Dutch  cow  ;  iind 
again,  in  IH'A),  by  an  English  cow  ;  into  New 
.lensey,  in  1847,  by  English  stock,  and  into 
Hoston,  in  1S.5'.),  by  Dutch  cattle  ;  and  we  have 
had  more  or  less  of  it  ever  since;  Iherelore 
Texas  is  not  to  be  considered  responsible  for 
<tl!.  of  it ;  and  probably  did  not  originate  what 
exists  there  at  this  time. 

To  illustrate  how  near  the  disease  is  to  us 
here  in  Lancaser  counly,  its  fatal  results,  its 
nature,  and  its  treatment,  we  will  adduce,  the 
substance  of  a  correspondence  between  Mr. 
.lohn  I'atterson,  of  Chester  county,  V-.i.,  and 
the  editor  of  th  Ohio  Farmer,  in  August  last. 
Mr.  I',  says  :  "  There  is  a  disease  among  my 
cows  upon  which  1  should  like  to  have  your 
opinion  and  your  prescriptioli  for  treatment. 
Eleven  of  my  excellent  herd  have  already 
died,  iucludiiig  one  young  bull,  for  which  I 
had  refused  Sf.'itiO.  It  is  a  fever,  similar  to 
typhus,  or  lung  fever,  which  appears  to  attack 
the  lungs  only.  They  have  generally  died  in 
thirteen  days  from  the  time  they  first  appeared 
sick.  When  opened,  after  death,  a  quantity 
of  blood  was  found  lodged  aroiuid  the  heart 
and  lungs,  and  the  cells  of  the  lungs  were 
filled  with  a  white  mucus,  and  became  jier- 
fectly  solid.  1  am  anxious  to  save  the  re- 
mainder of  my  herd  aud  feel  that  there  is  no 
time  to  lose." 

To  this  the  editor  replies:  "The  ili.sea.se 
is  plcuro-imLwnonia,  and  residts  from  the 
hepatizdlion  of  the  lungs,  (that  is,  the  lungs 
change  to  a  substance  that  has  the  apjiearance 
of  liver,)  and  it  is  epidemic  among  your  herd. 

"■Trcattnent. — Bryonia  2  drs.,  phosphorus  2 
drs.,  dilute  and  mix;  nux  vomica  2  drs.,  bel- 
ladonna 2  drs.,  dilute  and  mix.  Give  a  one 
dram  dose,  alternately,  every  two  houi-s  for 
the  first  24  hours,  and  then  once  every  six 
Ikuiis  for  three  days  thereafter.  For  each  cow 
get  three  ounces  of  the  two  remedies  after  be- 
ing mixed.  Administer  all  the  medicine  upon 
the  tongue.  Allow  them  all  the  cold  water 
they  want." 

All  the  agricultural  papere  that  have  spo- 
ken uiion  the  subject,  both  in  England  aud 
America,  as  well  as  all  the  societies  and  the 
veterinary  organizations,  concur  in  the  opin- 
ion that  the  disease  tiught  to  be  rooted  out  by 
the  most  stringent  measures,  executed  by  the 
central  governments,  and  the  expenses  do 
frayed  out  of  the  national  treasury;  and  that 
little  good  can  be  looked  for  by  isolated  ac- 
tion by  state,  county  or  township,  or  by  indi- 
vidual efforts.  Tlui  danger  threatens  the  en- 
tire country,  and  therefore  it  is  a  national  af- 
fair. All  the  witnesses  of  every  school  have 
practically  agreed  that  in  cast;  of  a  general 
outbreak  of  the  disease,  the  ncces.sary  meas- 
ures for  its  arrest  should  not  )>e  left  to  local 
enactments,  but  should  be  by  all  means  vested 
in  central  authority,  which  should  also  be 
vested  with  ample  powers;  and  the  general 
conclusion  is,  that  if  ever  there  was  an  oppor- 
tunity for  the  national  agricultural  depart- 
ment and  its  commissioners  to  distinguish 
themselves  as  well  as  the  national  government, 
it  would  be  in  taking  special  cognizance  of  the 
whole  subject,  aud  vigorously  prosecuting  it 
with  all  their  powers  and  their  pecuniary  re- 
sources. 

Up  to  the  present  date,  it  is  estimated  that 
over  fifty  head  of  cattle  have  died  of  the  prc- 
vniling  disease  in  Euncaster  county  since  the 
middle  of  July,  whatever  may  Ijc  the  name 
or  character  of  th«  disease. 


148 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER 


[October, 


THE  CATTLE  DISEASE— No.  2. 


A  good  deal  of  unnecessary  ado  is  just  now 
being  made  about  a  certain  large  species  of 
tick  that  is  found  both  on  the  living  and  dead 
cattle  ;  just  as  if  they  were  entirely  a  new 
thing,  when  in  point  of  fact,  these  little  pests 
have  been  in  the  country  ever  since  cattle 
have  been  here— if  they  were  not  here  before 
—for  there  are  species  that  infest  not  only 
cattle,  but  also  sheep,  dogs,  deer,  foxes,  swine, 
porcupines,  and  perhaps  also  bears,  and  other 
wild  animals  ;  and  everybody  that  has  done 
anything  at  "blackberrying  "  knows  full  well 
that  there  is  a  minute  species  that  seriously 
annoys  him  for  several  days  after  he  returns 
to  his  home  ;  but  these  are  only  cutaneous  or 
external  infestations,  and  after  a  time  the  ticks 
leave  him,  without  aflecting  his  general 
health. 

We  have  three  specimens  of  these  cattle- 
ticks  before  us,   one  of  which  we    received 
from  Mr.  Robert  Dysart,  and  two  from  Messrs. 
Marshall  &  Rengier.     The  first  was  taken 
from  an  animal  that  had  died  of  the  cattle 
epidemic,   and  the  last  from  living  animals 
owned  by  Mr.  Lorentz    Knapp.      They  are 
species     of    Ixodus,    nearly  allied    to    the 
English  species  mnacetjs,  and  which  in  that 
comiti-y  are  found  on  cattle,   dogs,   foxes  and 
hedgehogs.      They  are  of  light  olive  color, 
have  eight  legs,  and  are  over  half  an  inch 
long  and  a  full  quarter  of  an  inch  broad.     On 
the  back  some  of  them  are  clouded  with  a 
yellowish  color,  and  they  have  the  power  of  in- 
flation and  contraction,  causing  thoracic  and 
abdominal   longitudinal    dorsal    depressions. 
They  belong  to  the  ACARI,  their  octopedal 
character  allying  them  to  the  spiders.     But 
they  have  no  connection  with,  and  are  not  the 
cause  of,  the  present  cattle  disease,  which  is 
properly  an  infection,  and  not  an  infestation. 
How  far  this  disease  is  due  to  sporific  or  ani- 
malculous  inhalation,  is  more  than  we  are  able 
to  say,  for  this  would  require  a  very  careful 
and  expert  analysis  to  determine  ;  but  we  are 
confldent  that  no  animal  the  size  of  these 
ticks,  or  of  the  "flies"  alluded  to  in  an    arti- 
cle in  the  Intelligencer  a  few  days  ago— could 
produce  such  effects,  and  therefore  people  had 
better  at  once  begin  to  deal  with  the  sub- 
stance, and  not  exercise  themselves  so  much 
with  the  shadow.     In  addition  to  the  article 
above  alluded  to,  a  very  excellent  paper,  on 
the  same  subject,  from  a  writer  at  Ephrata, 
previously  appeared  in  the  Era,  and  also  one 
from  Mr.  Staufier  subsequently,  from  which  it 
appears  that  the  disease  is  inflammatory,  af- 
fecting the  heart,  the  lungs,  the  liver  and  the 
spleen— some  one  or  more  of  tliese  organs, 
and  sometimes  all  of  them.     There  seems  to 
be  some  difference  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the 
remedy  for  its  prevention  or  cure,  but  the  pre- 
ponderance of  opinion  favors  the  killing  im- 
mediately of  all  infected  animals,  and  subject- 
ing others  to  a  rigid  seclusion  or  quarantine, 
until  the  colder  autumn  or  winter  weather 
sets  in. 

This  disease  (pleuro-pneiononia)  has  a  very 
diverse  eflect  on  cattle,  accordingly  as  they 
inhabit  uplands  or  lowlands,  coast  or  moun- 
tain ranges,  swampy  grounds  or  those  that 
are  dry.  It  has  been  known  to  infect  the  cat- 
tle in  one  field,  whilst  those  in  another  field 
would  be  entirely  free  from  it,  although  there 
may  have  been  only  a  common  ridge,  a  road, 
or  even  a  fence  between  them.  It  appears 
also  that  droves  of  cattle  passing  through  a 
district  where  the  disease  had  not  previously 
existed,  have  infected  those  districts  very  fa- 
tally, whilst  those  in  transit  have  been  ai> 
parently  free  from  it;  also  cattle  removed 
from  one  district  to  another  have  become  in- 
fected, whilst  those  previously  there  and  ac- 
climated, as  it  were,  have  manifested  no  in- 
dications of  the  presence  of  the  disease.  All 
these  circumstances  add  to  the  complication 
of  the  case;  but  at  the  same  time  they  evmce 
that  tlie  disease  is  not  caused  by  insects  as 
large  as  these  ticks,  or  by  others  as  large  as 
horse-flies.  Not  that  these  insects  could  not 
produce  death  if  they  were  present  in  sufB- 
ciently  large  numbers  (for  animals  have  been 
stung     to    death      by     bees),     but     cattle 


have  died  of  pleuro-pneumonia,  or  spleen  dis- 
ease, where  no  ticks  or  flies  were  present,  and 
those  infested  with  both  ticks  and  flies  liave 
not  been  infected  at  all. 


SPLENITIC   FEVER. 


I 


How  it   was   Introduced— Its    Symptoms  and 
Cause — The  "Tick"  Theory  not  Tenable. 

Post  Mortem  Results. 
Several  weeks  ago  a  drove  of  Southern  cat- 
tle passed  through  this  section  of  the  county, 
stopping  for  several  days  on  the  farm  of  Mr. 
Frederick,  proprietor  of  the  Ephrata  Springs. 
During  last  week  four  of  Mr.  Frederick's  cows 
sickened  and  died  from  a  cause  apparently  un- 
known to  the  owner.  The  symptoms  were 
clearly  those  of  Periodic  or  Spleuitic  fever. 
The  drove  of  cattle  after  leaving  here  went  in 
the  direction  of  Reamstown  Station,  Schoen- 
eck  and  the  northern  end  of  the  county,  the 
owners  disposing  of  cattle  to  farmers,  and  it 
is  from  those  parts  that  we  hear  of  large  num- 
bers of  cattle  dying  from  the  same  disease  as 
those  of  Mr.  Frederick. 

The  Symptoms  Described. 
On  the  first  appearance  of  the  disease  in 
those  animals  which  we  observed,  the  ears 
drooped,  the  gait  was  lazy  or  sluggish.  In 
cows  that  yielded  milk,  there  was  a  sudden 
stop  in  the  flow;  the  animal  continued  to  eat 
and  also  ruminated,  though  only  at  long  in- 
tervals; the  paunch  appeared  full,  rather  as  if 
bloated;  there  was  a  general  disposition  to  lie 
down,  the  hind  legs  drawn  under  the  belly, 
the  fetlocks  knuckling  over  behind,  the  fteces 
occasionally  showing  slight  hemorrhage.  As 
the  disease  progresses,  in  some  cases  the  urine 
became  bloody;  in  two  of  tlie  animals  we  no- 
ticed the  muscles  of  the  ttauks  and  thighs  to 
tremble  constantly.  There  is,  in  the  large 
majority  of  cases,  a  weakness  or  feebleness  of 
the  hind  limbs,  and  when  compelled  to  walk 
they  have  a  staggering  gait,  and  when  lying 
down  and  desiring  to  rise,  there  is  great  difti- 
culty  in  raising  the  hind  quarters  from  the 

ground. 

A  Post-Mortem 

of  one  of  Mr.  Frederick's  cows  several  hours 
after  death,  was  made  with  the  following  re- 
sults :  A  marked  cadaveric  rigidity;  the  respi- 
ratory passages  perfectly  liealthy;  the  lungs 
seemed  pale;  the  left  lung  was  somewhat 
ecchymosed.  The  heart  was  of  normal  size 
and  consistence;  there  was  a  slight  ecchyrao- 
sis  over  the  outer  surface;  considerable  blood 
in  right  ventricle;  left  ventricle  contained 
dark  blood;  the  alimentary  canal,  from  tlie 
mouth  to  the  third  stomach,  seemed  in  a  nor- 
mal state;  the  contents  of  the  third  stomach 
were  quite  soft  and  small  in  quantity;  the 
cardiac  end  of  the  fourth  stomach  was  of  a 
very  dark  red  color;  on  the  folds  yellowish 
elevations  appearing  like  vescicles,  though 
solid;  the  pyloric  had  a  normal  appearance; 
the  liver  and  gall  appeared  generally  healthy, 
with  the  exception  of  slight  congestion  of  the 
gland;  the  spleen  was  much  enlarged,  much 
thicker  in  the  centre  than  the  outer  parts,  of 
a  dark  purple  tint.  Not  having  a  pair  of 
scales  nearat  hand  to  weigh,  we  should  have 
judged  it  over  three  times  its  natural  size,  its 
'pulp  soft  and  rotten  to  the  touch;  on  making 
an  incision  into  it,  its  softened  pulp  exuded 
without  any  pressure  being  made.  The  kid- 
neys turbid  with  blood,  and  the  urinary  blad- 
der filled  wth  bloody  urine  and  much  distend- 
ed; its  mucous  membrane  at  the  fundus  was 
much  congested;  the  cranial  contents  appear- 
ed unusually  vascular,  though  otlierwise 
healthy.  The  spinal  cord  in  the  dorsal  and 
lumbar  region  was  slightly  reddened. 

Some  of  the  cattle,  we  are  informed,  are 
covered  with  a  species  of  tick,  and  to  this  in- 
sect is  attributed  the  cause  of  the  disease  and 
death  of  those  cattle,  the  tick  by  eating  into 
tlie  flesh  of  the  animal  depositing  therein  a 
certain  poison. 

The  Tick  Theory  Disposed  Of. 
This  "tick"  theory  is,  however,  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  theories  of  the  most  emi- 
nent scientists  iu  this  country  who  have  in- 


vestigated those  diseases.  Prof.  Gamgee,  who 
was  sent  to  Texas  by  the  general  government 
to  investigate,  and,  "if  possible,  find  a  remedy 
for  this  fever,  says  :     "Tlie  'tick  theory'  has   ■ 
acqmred  quite  a  renown  during  the  past  sum- 
mer (1868) ;  but  a  little  thought  should  have   ' 
satisfied  any  one  of  the  absurdity  of  the  idea  ; 
1.  Ticks  are  not  easily  fenced  in  on  a  piece  of 
land  by  a  wood  fence,  as  cattle  are  ;  a  wood 
fence  sufficiently  isolates  cattle  to    prevent  ■ 
splenic  fever.    2.  We  have  seen  Texan  cattle, 
both  alive  and  dead,  and  also  dead  western, 
quite  free  from  these  parasites.     There  has 
been  no  relation  whatever  between  the  abun-   i 
dance  of  ticks  and  the  severity  of  the  disorder,  r 
The  malady  has  been  quite    as    malignant 
where  few  or  no  ticks  occurred.     The  tick  is 
not  confined  to  gulf-coast  cattle,   which  we 
know  communicate  this  disease,  but  it  is  met  ■ 
with  in  various  parts  of  the  States  where  cat-  I 
tie  are  reared  that  never  cause  splenitic  fever,   i 
Why  should  the  ticks  not  communicate  the  i 
malady  from  western  cattle  to  other  cattle  if  i 
they  can  induce  it  by  crawling  from  the  Texan  j' 
to  the  western  stock  ?"  <, 

The  Only  Sure  Preventive.  ' 

The  great  desiderata  in  this  disease  seems  i 
to  be  "prevention,"  as  after  our  native  cattle 
once  have  taken  this  fever  there  is  apparently 
no  cure,  no  alternative  but  death.     Then  no  ' 
matter  whether  it  is  "tick" or  "periodic,"die 
they  must,  and  the  best  plan  that  we  know  of 
is  that  given  in  the  Prairie  Farmer  in  1868,  Hi  it 
which  a  correspondent  says; 

"Talk  to  a  Missourian  about  moderation 
when  a  drove  of  sick  cattle  is  comiug,  and  he  ■ 
will  call  you  a  fool,  while  he  coolly  loads  his  • 
gun  and  joins  his  neighbors,  and  they  intend 
no  scare  either.     They  mean  to  kill,  do  kill, 
and  will  kill  uutill  the  drove  takes  the  back 
track,  and  the  drovers  must  be  careful  not  to 
get  between  their    cattle   and    the    citizens  i 
either,  unless  they  are  bullet  proof.  No  doubt 
this  looks  a  good  deal  like  border-ruftianisra  i 
to  you,  but  it  is  the  way  we  keep  clear  of  the  ' 
Texas  fever.     Texas  stock  should  not  be  al- 
lowed to  cross  the  35th  parallel  of  north  lati- 
tude alive." 

This,  doubtless,  is  a  very  effective  measure,  r 
and  any  man  driving  Southern  cattle  through:! 
should  be  given  the  cold  shoulder,  and  he  and  i 
his  drove  escorted  beyond  the  county  limits,  i 

Other  Theories  Advanced. 
From  our  RMamatown  Correspoudent.} 

Farmers  in  this  part  of  the  country     _, 
considerably  alarmed  about  an  evidently  ne#i 
disease  which  only  a  few  days  ago  made  ItBt' 
appearance  among  the  cattle.  Several  farmers  i 
between  this  village  and  Lincoln  have  withini 
the  past  few  weeks  suffered  severely  from  the  i 
ravages  of  this  much  dreaded  disease.  Farm- 
ers are  of  the  opinion  tliat  it  is  the  result  of 
poisoning  from  Paris  green,  which  had  been! 
sprinkled  on  potato  patches,  which  in  many  ' 
instances  are  in  oatsfields,  and  are  now,  as 
potatoes  are  being  taken  up,   being  pastured. 
Veterinarians, 

however,  contend  that  the  cattle  is  infested 
with  an  insect  of  the  species  acarus,  com- 
monly called  tick,  which  have  undoubtedly 
been  imported  with  Texas  cattle,  and  that  the 
bites  or  stings  of  these  insects  are  venomous,i 
and  that  tliis  is  probably  the  cause. 

We  were  to-day  shown  one  of  these  pesti-f 
ferous  fellows,  which,  when  fvdl  grown,  arei 
about  the  size  of  a  potato  beetle,  by  our  affa- 
ble veterinarian,  Mr.  Geo.  Fry,  who  had  it 
corked  up  in  a  bottle.  He  said  they  are  veryi 
tenacious  of  hfe,  for  nothing  but  carboho 
acid  would  kill  this  one. 

Nothing  but  Splenitic  Fever. 

Mr.  J.  G.  Garman,  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful veterinarians  in  this  county,  dissents  from 
the  above-named  theories,  and  says  the  to 
ease  is  nothing  but  splenitic  fever,  for  whicb 
no  relialile  cure  has  yet  been  discovered.  Upon 
examination  he  found  the  spleen,  in  all  cases, 
double  the  size  than  when  in  a  normal  condi; 
tion.  He  thinks  the  disease  is  contracteC' 
through  malaria  generated  during  the  droutl 
among  the  withered  and  decaying  vegetaDlf 
matter,  and  inhaled  by  tlie  cattle  while  graZ' 
iug.— The  New  Erv.. 


877.] 


THE  ^LANCASTER   FARMER. 


149 


THE  CONTINENTAL  STRAWBERRY. 

The  accompanying  illustration  icprescuts  a 
lingle  fruit-stalk  of  the  "Continental"  and  its 
ruit,  photographed  from  iiuture,  and  is  one  of 
he  Ceutt^nnial  prizc-benies  ;  and  for  which 
I  niednl  and  diploma  were  awarded  to  Messrs. 
Jibsomi  Beimctt,  Florists  and  Fruit-growers, 
,f  Woodbury,  New  Jersey,  wlio  cultivate  and 
lave  for  sale  nursery  stock,  roses,  grape  vines, 

fee,  &c.     This  berry  was  recognized  by  the 

;ommittee  as  one  of  the  very  best  market 

fierrics  on*txhibition,   and   also  one  of  tlu; 

t>esl  })ayin(i,  which  is  a  desirable  ([uality.    The 

jContineiital  Strawberry  is  especially   valuable 

pn  account    of  its 

great  productive- 

jiess,  large  si/,e,fn-m 

texture,     delicious 

.flavor,    and     late 

aipening;  fruit  very 

Jarge, obtusely  coiii- 

pal;  color  dark  red; 

flesh  very  firm,  and 
t  might' be  said  lui- 
letiualed  in  its  mild, 
|c.\ceedingly  agiee- 
|able  and  delieions 
lliavor.  Many  of  the 
parries  at  la  in,  a 
ilengthof  nearly  two 
linches,  a  transver.se 
|diametcr  of  over 
two  inches,  and  a 
circumference  of  six 
and  a  half  inches. 
ilts  late  ripening  is 
one  of  its  greatest 
merits,  because  it 
continues  in  the 
market  when  most 
other  varieties lia\e 
become  exhausted, 
and  this  is  a  gnat 
df.tidcniiuiii  w  i  t  h 
llidse  who  grow 
lierries  for  profit. 
This  exceedingly 
line  variety  of  llie 
si  rawberry  was  ori- 
ginated by  Mr.  t)s- 
car  Felton,  of  ('am- 
den  county,  New 
.Icrscy,  who  is  a 
practical, enterpris- 
ing, and  successful 
Iruit-grower,  hav- 
ing |)roduecd  hun- 
dreds of  excellent 
varieties  of  not  only 
strawberries,  b  u  t 
also  raspberries  and 
other  fruits,  dur- 
ing a  period  of 
tweniy-five  years  of 
horticultural  expe- 
rience. The  Conti- 
nental is  so  much 
superior  as  a  profit- 
able market  berry, 
that  many  growers 
are,  for  the  lirst 
time,  ready  to  dis- 
card the  Albany 
seedling  altogether. 
The  importance  of 
growing  the  finest 
fruit  for  market  is 
becoming  more  ap- 
parent every  year, 
and  it  becomes  all 
fruit  growers  and 
market  men  to  se- 
lect carefully,  and  grow  and  patronize  the  best 
only.  The  advantages  of  this  policy  may  be 
readily  understood  when  we  compare  the 
prices  obtained  in  the  Philadelphia  markets, 
last  .summer,  for  the  "Albany"  and  the  "Con- 
tinental," the  former  only  bringing  from  6  to 
8  cents  per  quart,  whilst  the  latter  readily 
brought  2.")  cents  per  quart.  Many  of  the 
fruiterers  in  and  about  Philadelphia  givetheii- 
testimony  in  favor  of  the  Continental.  The 
plants  arc  of  a  very    vigorous   and    robust 


habit,  run  well  and  multiidy  rapidly  ;  foliage 
very  heavy,  standing  up  from  ten  to  fifteen 
inches  above  ground  ;  fruit  stalk  very  large 
and  strong,  standing  well  up,  showing  the 
blo.ssoms  and  green  fruit  al)ovo  the  foliage, 
generally  supporting  the  ripe  fruit  up  from 
the  ground,  but  sometimes  bending  under  its 
unusual  weight. 

Judging  from  the  reception  these  ImmtIcs 
have  already  met  with  thus  far,  and  from  the 
character  of  their  originator,  and  those  who 
cultivate  the  stock  for  .sale,  they  will  most  un- 
doubtedly win  favor  wherever  they  are  intro- 
duced, and  figure  largely  in  the  markets  of 


QUERIES  AND   ANSWERS. 


the  great  cities  in  our  country,  and  also  in 
those  not  so  great. 

Thrifty  plants  may  be  obtained  at  13  per 
dozen  ;  $1!',  per  himdred  ;  $100  jier  thousand  ; 
V)y  addressing  orders  to  (iinsoN  &  Bennett, 
Nurserymen,  Woodbury,  New  Jersey. 


Unavoidable  circumstances  have  delayed 
this  number  of  The  Farmer  beyond  the 
usual  time  of  issue,  but  we  hope  to  avoid  this 
in  future. 


Saliccaceae — Willowworls. 

"  O  moot  ni0  in  the  wilhnv  Rleii, 
When  the  8ilver  iiinou  ih  lieauiliif;." 

An  anecdote  is  related  of  a  very  ira.sciblc 
carter,  who  Wcas  in  the  habit  of  swearing  mo.st 
inordinati'ly  at  every  trilling  adverse  occur- 
riMice,  who,  on  nearly  reaching  the  top  of  a 
steep  hill,  on  one  occasion,  when  the  "  tail- 
gate "  of  his  cart  fell  out,  and  twenty  busliels 
of  loos('  apples  went  Icajiing  down  a  half  mile 
hill,  like  .a  whole  academy  of  school  boys  in 
pursuit  of  a  rabl)it — his  anger  was  immediate- 
ly excited  to  its 
highest  pitch,  and 
those  about  him  ex- 
pected that  tilings 
.aroinid  them  would 
become  "sulphur- 
ous." I!ut  there  he 
stood  and  stared 
until  the  last  apple 
boimded  out  a  n  d 
off,  like  a  ctdprit 
released  from  a  cal- 
.aboose,  when  he 
caught  again  his 
breath,  which  seem- 
ed to  have  gone 
after  the  api)les, 
and  remarked  with 
en;phasis—  "Well, 
there's  no  use  in 
swearing.  I  can't 
do  the  subject  ju.s- 
tice." 

On  seveial  oeea- 
siims  Mr.  ,T.  M.  >r. 
ha.s  brought  us 
liraiiches  of  a  tree 
during  the  present 
Season  in  its  various 
stages  of  develop- 
ment, inehidiiig 
bud,  bloom  and 
foliage,  and  it  wa.s 
only  when  the  lat- 
ter was  fully  matur- 
ed that  any  aji- 
proach  could  be 
made  towards  the 
deter/nination  of  its 
species,  although 
its  family  we  ap- 
prehended from  the 
lieginning.  In  short 
it  is  a  si)ecies  of 
willow  ;  but  when 
we  referred  to  the 
family  and  saw  its 
magnitude,  like  the 
disconcerted  carter, 
we  felt  that  we 
"could  not  do  the 
snbj  ec  t  justice." 
They  have  almost 
every  form  of  leaf, 
from  an  almost  per- 
fectly circular  to 
the  most  delicate 
lanceolate.  The 
family  also  includes 
the  poplars,  and  it 
is  sometimes  difH- 
cult  to  distinguish 
between  them. 

Louden,  in  h  i  s 
Cyclopedia  of  trees 
and  shrubs,  de- 
ucribes  one  hundred 
and  seventy  si>ecies 
belonging  to  the 
genus  Salix  alone,  besides  many  varieties, 
and  give.s  illustrations  of  tlie  leaves  antl 
tlovvers  of  a  large  number  of  them.  Johnson, 
in  his  Gardener's  Directory,  catalogues 
two  hundred  and  thirty  species  belonging 
to  the  genus,  and  gives  the  original 
localities  of  all  of  them,  and  also  the  dates  of 
their  discovery  and  description.  Mr.  M.'s 
species  is  the  Salix  nitaujt,  or  "shining-leaved 
willow,"  blooming  about  the  10th  of  April, 


150 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


'    [  October 


and  is  a  native  of  Scotland.  Louden  inserts 
it  in  his  18th  group,  Bi-color,  in  wliich  the 
upper  surfaces  of  tlie  leaves  are  a  shining 
green,  and  the  lower  surfaces  velvety,  and 
whitish  green ;  characters  which  are  con- 
spicuous in  many  of  the  poplars  and  maples. 
The  terra  salix  is  from  the  Celtic  sal,  near, 
and  lis,  water,  which  is  its  natural  place  of 
growth,  and,  accordingly,  there  is  perhaps  no 
tree  or  shrub  that  is  more  easily  cultivated. 
A  ripened  shoot  need  only  be  inserted  in  the 
soil,  in  either  spring  or  autumn,  and  it  is  al- 
most certain  to  grow  and  will  soon  form  a 
tree,  especially  if  the  ground  is  moist  or 
marshy — indeed  we  have  seen  vigorous  shoots 
strike  out  from  a  willow  trunk  one  or  two 
years  after  it  had  been  cut  down,  if  kept  in  a 
moist  or  shaded  place. 


Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon  :  I  send  you  a  specimen  of 
a  fly,  infesting  the  corn.  Please  state  in  next  issue 
of  the  Farmer,  also  in  The  New  Era,  the  name, 
habits,  etc.,  of  this  insect.  Yours,  Erastus  Reynolds, 
Chestnut  Level,  Sept.  I'd,  1877. 

The  fly  and  your  communication  were  duly 
placed  in  my  hands — the  former  still  living, 
but  the  latter  almost  killed,  by  the— to  us — 
mistaken  idea  of  its  "infesting  the  corn."  We 
have  been  acquainted  with  the  fly  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  and  have  never  known  it  to 
possess  that  habit.  In  short,  it  is  a  parasite — 
one  of  the  "gad-flies,"  and  extraordinary  as 
it  may  appear,  it  is  tni  usually  parasitic  upon 
the  bodies  of  squirrels.  This  specimen  is  the 
Cuterebra  huccata,  or  "squirrel  hot." 

Its  history  is  this :  The  parent  fly  deposits 
her  eggs  on  the  body  of  a  squirrel — black, 
gray,  red  or  striped— and  when  the  grub  is 
hatched,  it  burrows  into  the  body  of  the  squir- 
rel and  remains  there  for  several  weeks  or 
months,  feeding  on  its  tissues.  It  is  generally 
located  about  the  loins,  but  sometimes  occu- 
pies the  scrotum  of  the  male,  and  it  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  cause  of  his  occasional  emascu- 
lation. Some  time  during  the  month  of 
August  the  grub,  or  maggot,  completes  its 
larval  development,  and  passes  out  of  the 
body  of  its  host  and  falls  to  the  ground,  when 
it  almost  immediately  burrows  in  the  loose 
earth  and  is  transformed  to  a  pupa,  similar  in 
form  to  that  of  the  common  house-fly,  only 
many  times  larger.  In  ten  days,  or  two 
weeks  thereafter  the  perfect  fly  is  evolved,  of 
which  you  sent  us  a  specimen.  We  knew  one 
instance  where  five  of  these  parasites  infested 
the  body  of  the  "ground  squirrel"  {Tamias 
striatus),  and  they  almost  destroj'ed  him  ;  but 
after  they  left  him  he  recovered  his  usual  ac- 
tivity. Very  likely  they  hibernate  during  the 
winter  in  the  pupa  state  under  ground,  if  they 
do  not  pass  the  winter  in  the  larval  form  in 
the  body  of  the  squirrel.  Many  animals  are 
infested  by  a  parasite  of  some  species,  includ- 
ing horses,  cattle,  sheep,  swine,  rabbits,  &c. 
We  think  you  may  be  mistaken  about  its  in- 
festing the  corn. 


The  Hair  Worm. 
Mr.  I.  L.  L.,  of  Manheim  township,  some 
days  ago,  placed  in  our  possession  a  "long, 
slim,  slender,"  hair-like  worm,  still  alive,  al- 
most as  white  as  chalk,  and  which  had  been 
taken  out  of  the  solid  head  of  a  cabbage  be- 
tween the  third  and  fourth  outward  concen- 
tric layers.  This  is  a  species  of  "hair-worm, ' ' 
and  we  have  alluded  to  it  on  a  former  occa- 
sion as  Gordius  equaticus  var.  alhiniis,  if  it  is 
not  a  distinct  species.  These  singular  ani- 
mals arc  found  under  a  variety  of  circum- 
stances, and  they  have  avcry  singular  history. 
The  white  varieties  have  been  usually  obtain- 
ed from  cabbages,  but  at  least  on  one  occasion 
a  specimen  was  found  inside  of  an  apple. 
The  black  and  brown  varieties  we  have  foui^ 
in  stagnant  pools  of  water,  in  marshes,  in  gar- 
den walks  after  a  shower,  in  moist  and  deejily 
shaded  places;  on  several  occasions  in  the 
bodies  of  recently  defunct  and  also  in  living 
grasshoppers,  and  on  one  occasion  in  the  body 
of  a  large  water-beetle.  Tliey  are  sometimes 
found  swimming  about,  snake-like,  in  pools 
of  water,  but  more  frequently  they  are  tan- 
gled up  in  a  sort  of  knot,  and  hence  they  have 


been  called  gorditis,  in  allusion  to  the  "Gor- 
dian-knot,"  which  Alexander  the  Great  open- 
ed by  catting  through  with  his  sword. 

These  animals  belong  to  the  class  Articulatu, 
section  Vermes;  subsection  Nematoids,  and 
family  Gordiaceidce.  They  are  only  "once 
removed"  from  the  Entozoa,  or  intestinal 
worms,  which  belong  to  tlie  same  subsection; 
and  "twice  removed"  from  the  earth-worms 
or  angle-worms,  which  belong  to  the  Annel- 
ides. 

All  the  Gordiaus,  iu  what  may  be  termed 
their  larva  state,  inhabit  some  part  of  the 
bodies  of  other  animals,  but  not  in  their  adult 
state.  They  are  commonly  called  "hair- 
worms," from  their  resemblance  to  the  hair 
in  a  horse's  mane  or  tail,  and  many  people, 
who  are  unacquainted  with  their  history,  sup- 
pose them  to  be  horsehairs  animated,  or  trans- 
formed into  worms,  but  this  is  altogether  a 
mistake.*  They  are  distinct  organisms  and 
have  a  distinct  development.  We  have  fe- 
male specimens  in  the  Linnsean  collection 
that  are  full  of  eggs,  and  we  have  one 
specimen  in  which  the  eggs  are  deposited  like 
a  tangled  string  of  minute  beads,  adhering  to 
her  body.  Allied  species,  in  addition  to  the 
animals  we  have  already  named,  have  been 
found  in  the  bodies  of  calves  and  pigs,  in  the 
brains  of  owls,  hawks,  nightjars,  and  in  the 
eyes  of  horses.  The  worms  that  cause  the 
"gapes"  in  fowls  have  a  family  alliance  to 
them,  and  they  have  been  found  in  the  eggs 
of  fowls.  It  would  be  difficult  to  describe 
just  how  they  got  into  such  places,  but  there 
they  are,  and  we  have  seen  them  protruding 
an  inch  or  two  from  the  bodies  of  grasshop- 
pers, and  have  witnessed  their  entire  escape. 
Of  course  a  good  deal  concerning  their  histo- 
ries is  yet  involved  in  doubt,  but  their  iden- 
tity is  unquestionable. 


S.  S.  Rathvon. — The  excresence  which  I  send, 
grew  about  four  feet  from  the  ground,  in  the  side  of 
an  icehouse.  If  thee  considers  it  worthy  of  notice, 
please  mention  through  the  i^afmcr.     Respectfully, 

/.  C.  M. 

QuARRTViLLE,  9th  mo.  26th,  1877. 

The  box  and  "excrescence"  were  duly  re- 
ceived, but  the  latter  is  so  new  to  us  and  of 
such  an  extraordinary  character,  that  we  can- 
not attempt  to  say  anything  definite  in  re- 
gard to  it  now,  any  farther  than  that  it  is  a 
fungoid.  We  have  sent  it  to  a  distinguished 
fungiologist,  and  await  liis  reply.  A  year  ago 
he  wrote  thus  :  "There  is  no  list  of  American 
Agaricus  in  existence.  There  is  no  person 
living  who  can  make  such  a  list  at  present. 
Mr.  Frost  has  published  a  list  of  Boleti.  There 
is  no  manual  that  will  tell  you  the  names  of 
American  Fungi,  and  it  is  useless  to  hope  for 
one  for  many  years  to  come.  Those  who  pre- 
tend to  recognize  all  of  our  species  of  Agaricus 
and  their  allies,  you  may  be  sure  are  lunnbugs, 
as  the  subject  has  not  yet  been  sufliciently 
studied  to  allow  any  one  to  be  sure  of  the  spe- 
cies." Should  we  receive  any  further  instruc- 
tion before  this  number  of  the  FAniiEK  goes 
to  press,  it  will  be  therein  recorded. 

Since  writing  the  foregoing,  we  received 
the  following  from  Dr.  Farlow,  of  Cambridge, 
Mass.,  to  whom  we  had  sent  the  fungus  for 
identification. 

"The  fungus  is  Flmllus  impudieus.  It  de- 
veloped while  in  the  box,  and  ripened,  giving 
off  the  horrible  odor  characteristic  of  the 
group  to  which  it  belongs."  This  result  we 
anticipated,  althougli  we  do  not  know  enough 
of  them  to  determine  the  species,  because  of 
the  paucity  of  the  fungiological  literature  of 
the  United  States.  This  group  contains  some 
extraordinary  species. 


Mr.  J.  M.  W. — Your  brownish  insect  about 
an  inch  and  a-half  long,  and  half  an  inch 
broad  over  the  widest  jiart,  is  popularly 
known  as  the  "Wheel-bug,"  {Beduvius  nnven- 
arius)  and  is  about  the  best  representative  of 
the  order  of  true  "bugs"  that  we  have  in  the 


*0n  Severn]  occjisions,  more  than  thirty  years  ago,  we  es- 
sayed the  traueformatiou  of  horse  hairs  luto  "ha^r-worms," 
and  although  our  experiiuents  covered  from  three  to  six 
mouths,  in  every  iustauce  we  signally  failed,  with  all  our 
persevering  care. 


United  States,  for  all  insects  are  not  bufrg 
altliough  they  may  be  popularly  known  liy 
that  name.  Without  at  this  time  describing 
the  difierencc  between  a  beetle  and  a  bug,  it 
may  be  sufficient  to  say  that  this  insect  be- 
longs to  the  predaceous  raptorials,  and  tliere- 
fore  is  not  injurious  to  vegetation,  but  preys 
exclusively  on  other  insects,  and  therefore, 
without  regard  to  his  appearance,  it  should 
be  protected.  It  is  called  .wheel-bug  because 
the  central  ridge  of  the  thorax  bears  some  re- 
semblance to  a  portion  of  a  cog-wheel. 

Dear  Sir. — I  send  you  by  this  mail  a  triangular 
package,  about  the  contents  of  which  I  will  have  an 
opportunity  to  speak  with  you  at  the  next  meeting 
of  the  Linnsean  Society.     Yours  truly, 

T.  R.  B. 

MiLLERSViLEE,  Sept.  20,  1877. 

The  package  and  contents  came  safely  to 
hand,  and  consisted  of  a  beautiful  bright 
green  chrysalis,  ringed  and  spotted  with  gold, 
suspended  by  the  aual  end  to  a  dry  leaf. 

This  is  .the  chrysalis  of  Danais  ai-c/ii(jpcs, 
the  larva  of  which  is  dull  green,  trans- 
versely banded  with  black,  and  has  long,  black 
hairy  pencils,  projecting  from  each  end.  It 
feeds  on  the  various  species  of  Asclepias, 
known  as  "milk-weed,"  or  "wild  cotton." 
The  imago  is  a  large  papilionaceous  butterfly, 
two  inches  in  length,  expanding  four  and 
a-half  inches  from  tip  to  tip  of  the  anterior 
wings,  of  a  dull  orange  color,  veined  with 
black,  and  spotted  prettily  with  white. 


Mr.  L.  S.  B.,  Oregon,  Lancaster  Co.,  Pa. — 
Your  singular  animal  from  Texas,  is  the 
"Horned  Toad,"  {Phrynosoma  cornuta)  called 
also  the  "Horned  Frog;"  although  in  truth, 
it  is  neither  a  toad  nor  a  frog,  but  is  a  Sau- 
EiAisr,  whilst  toads  and  frogs  are  Batuach- 
lANS.  It  is  no  more  a  toad  or  a  frog,  than  a 
chameleon,  an  iguana,  or  a  lizard  is.  If  we 
had  had  the  first  popular  naming  of  it  we  pro- 
bably would  have  called  it  the  "Horned  Liz- 
ard,"  because  in  our  vernacular  that  is  just 
what  it  is.  But  even  that  name  would  not 
be  sufficiently  definite  for  scientific  recognition, 
for  there  are  several  species  of  them,  all  of 
which  are  horned.  We  have  been  informed 
that  in  their  native  locality  they  feed  on  ants. 
Try  them. 


Is  THE  yellow  crab-apple  tree  a  good  sub- 
ject to  graft  apple  or  pear  on.  Whicli  or  what 
kind  might  be  the  best,  that  would  keep  equal 
growth  with  the  crab-apple  wood  ? — A  i>uh- 
'scriber,  ML  Joy,  Oct.  3,  1877. 

This  is  a  question  so  much  depending  upon 
practical  knowledge  that  we  prefer  to  place  it 
on  record,  to  be  answered  by  some  one  or 
more  of  our  experienced  patrons,  rather  than 
attempt  an  answer  ourselves.  But  as  top- 
grafting  is  usually  done  in  the  spring,  and  root 
grafting  (for  nursery  stock,)  may  be  done  dur- 
mg  tlie  winter,  we  hope  some  friend  of  "diflu- 
sion"  will  favor  us  with  the  information  above 
solicited,  in  time  to  meet  the  necessities  of 

"subscriber." 

— ^ 

SOUTHWEST  MISSOURI. 

Springfield,  Mo.,  Sept.  14th,  1876. 

Editor. — The  soil  and  climate  of  south- 
west Missouri  are  well  adapted  to  grain, ' 
grape,  fruit  and  wool-growing,  as  the  experi- 
ence of  those  who  have  for  several  years  been 
engaged  in  these  industries  proves.  Some  of 
whom  testify  as  follows :  Mr.  J.  Zinc,  of 
Worcester,  about  five  miles  west  of  here,  says, 
that  he  has  been  farming  in  this  region  dur- 
ing the  last  nine  years,  and  raised  wheat  every 
year,  his  crops  averaging  about  twenty  bushels 
to  the  acre.  He  is  satisfied  that  by  good 
farming,  rotation  of  crops,  manuring,  clover- 
ing,  etc.,  fill  average  of  thirty  bushels  can  be 
produced.  The  winter  wheat  is  of  superior 
quality.  His  farm  is  on  high,  rolling  prairie. 
The  innumerable,  clear,  rapid  streams  give  a 
vast  area  of  rich  valley  lands  which  yield  from 
fifty  to  one  hundred  bushels  of  corn  to  the 
acre,  and  from  thirty  to  si.xty  of  oats. 

Mr.  Albert  Newman,  of  Rolla,  says  that 
the  soil  of  all  the  southern  slope  of  the  Ozark 
Mountains    is    especially   adapted   to  grape 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


151 


growiiii;,  sis  it  contains  jiotash,  soda,  liinc, 
niiiKiiPsia  and  iiliosplioric  acid,  all  of  which 
are  I'ound  in  the  vine  ilsidf  ;  showing  that  it 
cannot  tlnivc  unless  tliisc  elements  exist  in 
the  soil.  The  lonn,  dry  autiunns])ieserve  the 
vine  and  Itrinj^  the  ^I'ape  to  its  Ri'eatost  jier- 
fection.  The  net  prolits  on  grape  growing 
are  from  two  to  live  luuidrcd  dollars  per  acre 
each  year. 

The  mild,  short  winters,  the  abundance  of 
blue  ^rass,  unfailing,  imre  running  water,  an 
altitude  of  from  1,.V)U  to  2,0(10  feet  above  the 
sea,  all  conspire  to  give  excellent  facilities 
for  wool  growing.  (Joncerning  this  industry, 
several  sheep  raisers  corroborate  Mr.  Ilazel- 
tinc's  statements.  This  gentleman  has  lived 
near  Springlield  for  six  years,  and  .says  that 
the  climate  is  uniformly  delightful,  and  there 
is  .so  little  snow  to  keej)  sheep  from  the  grass 
that  they  do  well  with  very  little  grain.  lie 
is  now  keeping  about  '2,000  sheep,  mo.stly 
Merinos.  Thinks  small  flocks  need  very  little 
feeding,  but  large  tlocks  recpiiro  some  grain 
between  the  fust  of  December  and  the  last  of 
Marcli.  It  costs  oidy  two  cents  a  ixnmd  to 
ship  wool  to  IJoslon,  New  York  or  Philadel- 
phia. Mr.  ITazeltine  also  has  2,000  apple 
trees,  500  peach,  :!00  pear,  and  one  hundred 
cherry  trees,  all  of  his  own  iilanting  and  all 
beariiig,  except  some  pear  trees.  The  apple- 
trees  mature  several  years  earlier  here  than 
in  the  east,  and  continue 
iiearing  much  longer. 
The  grains  and  fruits 
riimn  several  weeks  earli- 
er than  any  place  north 
or  east,  which  with  the 
facilities  for  transitorta- 
tion  atTordcd  by  the  St. 
Louis  &  San  Francisco 
railroad  to  St.  Louis  in 
a  few  hours,  insure  an 
opportunity  of  .securing 
the  highest  prices  foi- 
early  marketing.  Unim 
pro\ed  land  may  lie 
bought  near  the  railroad 
here  at  from  two  to  si.\ 
dollars  per  acre  on  long 
credit. — Examiner. 


WHEAT  AND  ITS  CULTURE.* 

Wheat  was  spoken  of  to  Adam  in  the  Gar- 
den of  Lden,  and  for  violation  of  the  command 
of  (rod  he  was  driven  out  of  the  garden  to 
till  the  ground  from  whence  hi!  was  taken. 
"In  the  sweat  of  thy  brow  shalt  thou  eat  bread 
until  thou  return  unto  the  ground;  dust  thou 
art, and  unto  dust  thou  shalt  relurn. "  Wheat, 
therefore,  was  the  staff  of  life  in  the  earliest 
history  of  man.  The  next  reference  to  wlieat 
we  fuid  when  Keidjcn,  in  the  days  of  the 
wheat  harvest,  found  m.andrakes  in  the  held  ; 
next  in  E.xodus,  0:  :i2,  "when  wheat  wius  not 
smitten,  for  it  was  not  grown  \\\>.  Again,  ui 
Numbers  18:12,  "and  of  the  wheat,  the  lirst 
fruit  of  them  which  they  shall  oiler  uuto  the 
Lord."  And,  Deut.  :J2:1;S,14,  "  He  made  him 
ride  on  high  places  of  the  earth,  that  he  might 
eat  the  increase  of  the  fields  of  wheat."  Sidou 
thrashed  wheat,  Judges  1.5.  Samson  was  a  bad 
fellow  in  the  time  of  wheat  harvest;  he  caught 
300  foxes  and  tied  lirebrands  to  their  tails  and 
burnt  up  the  wheat  of  the  Philistines.  Ruth 
gathered  wheat,  1  Samuel,  0:1.!  ;  "They  of 
Beth  Shemesh  were  reaping  their  wheat 
harvest  in  the  valley,"  Job  31:40.  "Let 
thistles  grow  instead  of  wheat,"  Frov.  27:22. 
"Though  thou  shouldst  bray  a  fool  in  a 
mortar  among  wheat;"  "  ships  were  lightened 
by  throwing  out  the  wheat  into  the  sea," 
Jer.  12:1.'>.  "They  sow  wheat  Ijut  shall  reap 


THE  GRAVENSTEir; 
APPLE. 

The  fruit  is  large;  llat- 
lish  round;  the  skin  very 
smooth  and  fair,  of  a 
whitish-yellow  groinid, 
mostly  covered  with  a 
briiliaJit  red,  geuerally 
in  stripes  ;  st^ems  short", 
rather  stout,  in  a  deep, 
rather  broad  and  some- 
what uneven  cavity  ;  Calyx  large,  open,  in  a 
wide,  deep,  uneven  basin  ;  flesh  whiti.sh,  very 
juicy,  crisp,  of  a  sprightly  vinous  flavor; 
rather  acid  early  in  the  season,  but  when 
fully  ripe  and  mellow  it  becomes  mild  and 
pleasant.  It  is  excellent  both  for  the  table 
auditor  cooking.  In  use  during  September  and 
October,  and  even  into  the  middle  of  Noven- 
ber,  in  this  latitude.  The  tree  is  remarkably 
rapid,  vigorous  and  erect  in  growth;  and  xny 
productive.  It  is  classed  with  autunm  apples, 
and  is  rarely  sought  for,  or  of  much  account, 
outside  of  the  months  of  September  and  Oc- 
tober. Hut  as  an  apple  in  its  sea.son  it  stands 
vei7  high,  there  only  l)cing  a  few  preferred 
before  it,  and  even  not  without  qualification. 
It  has  become  a  staple  stock,  and  can  be  ob- 
tained at  almost  any  first-class  nursery  in  the 
Northern  and  Western  States.  Its  cultivation 
is  similar  to  the  "Ilubbardston  Non-Such," 
mentioned  in  a  former  number  of  this  journal. 
^ 

The  Foullri/  World  has  introduced  a  new 
feature  in  issuing  a  full-page  Chromo-litho- 
praphic  plate  of  clioice  breed  of  fowls  with  each 
month's  paper.  The  price  of  these  12  pictures 
is  but  75  cents  to  subscribers  who  have  paid 
81.25  for  the  magazine,  or  #2.00  only  for  the 
dozen  pictures  and  the  paper  for  one  year. 
Address,  H.  H.  Stoddard,  Pub'er,  Hartford, 
Conn. 


thorns."  Judah  traded  in  wheat.  "Joel's 
floors  shall  be  full  of  wheat,"  Matt.  3:12. 
"He  gathers'  his  wheat  into  his  garner,  but 
the  chaff  he  will  burn  up  with  unquenchable 
lire,"  Luke  3:17.  "The  enemy  sowed  tares 
among  the  wheat,"  Acts  7:13.  Tares,  we 
think,  is  cheat,  that  looks  like  wheat  and  yet 
is  not  wheat ;  the  blade  looks  like  wheat,  but 
the  kernel  is  bogus,  as  the  Pharisee  is  to  the 
Christian.  The  Saviour  said,  "  do  no  root  up 
the  tares  lest  you  root  up  the  wheat  also." 
AndCh.  22:31,  "Satan  may  sift  you  as  wheat." 
John  12:24,  "  Except  a  corn  of  wheat  fall  into 
the  ground  and  die  it  abideth  alone,  but  if  it 
dies  it  brings  forth  much  fruit."  Tlie  Saviom- 
makes  mention  of  this  seed:  "And  some  fell 
on  stony  ground,  which  had  no  root,  some  by 
the  wayside,  and  some  ou  good  ground  and 
yielded  oue  hundred  fold."  This  shows  it 
must  have  good  ground  to  root  to  bring  good 
crops. 

Much  more  could  be  referred  to  in  Holy 
AVrit  which  shows  that  it  was  .always  con- 
sidered the  most  important  product  of  the 
soil,  and  is  often  used  to  exemplify  the  work- 
ing of  religion  on  the  soul  of  man.  The  soil 
must  therefore  be  well  l)rokcn  so  the  seed 
may  take  good  root ;  and  as  the  word  of  God 

*ltead  before  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural  and  Hor- 
ticultural Society,  October  1,  1S77,  by  Henry  Eurtz,  of 
Mt.  Joy. 


must  take  deep  root  in  our  heart  or  there  will 
be  no  fruit  from  .sixty  to  one  hundred  fold. 

Wheat,  or  weitzcn,  may  be  raised  on  all 
sorts  of  soil,  but  heavy,  yellow,  stifl' lands  are 
the  mo.st  suitable  for  it.  The  varieties  of 
wheat  are  penietually  changing,  in  conse- 
quence of  variations  of  culture,  climate  and 
soil,  those  most  in  use  being  distinguished  by 
different  local  terms;  they  may  be  divided 
into  two  cla.ses,  Red  and  White,  the  latter 
being  superior  in  ipiality  while  the  former  ex- 
cels in  production  and  hardiness,  as  the  grain 
is  frequently  cultivated  on  very  inferior  soil 
after  vciy  imperfect  preparation,  and  yet  gives 
a  very  fair  yield,  which  varies  materially  in 
different  counties  and  districts  ;  it  is  also  very 
liable  to  injury  from  bad  seeding  time,  a  wet 
winter,  mildew,  blast,  disease  of  plant,  or  a 
blight  during  the  period  of  its  blossoming, 
which  is  the  most  prevalent  cau.se  of  failure 
in  wheat  crops,  and  yet  even  a  greater  enemy 
to  this  great  stajile  we  achieved  iu  tho  Revo- 
lutionary war  ;  we  fought  ourselves  free  from 
the  English  yoke  and  placed  ourselves  under 
the  heavier  yoke  imposed  by  the  Hessian  lly, 
which  is  a  heavy  tax  ou  us  ever  since,  more 
than  a  ten  per  cent,  tax  would  be.  The  farm- 
ers of  the  United  States  would  pay  a  large 
amount  of  money  to  get  rid  of  the  Hessian 
fly.  Wc  live  in  dread  of  this  fell  destroyer 
every  year;  sometimes  whole  crops  are 
destroyed  by  these  pests; 
for  this  evil  we  recom- 
mend late  sowing.  An- 
other evil  is  the  field 
weevil,  of  which  we  had 
but  little  for  some  yeare. 
Also,  smut  and  rust, 
from  which  the  wlieat 
suffers  some  this  year, 
and  is  owing,  we  think, 
to  the  wet  weather  dur- 
ing the  flowering  time  of 
the  plant.  Some  think 
that  water  lying  around 
the  roots  is  injurious  to 
the  plants ;  there  is  a 
general  impression  that 
too  much  water  is  injuri- 
ous to  the  plants,  but  the 
fact  of  the  impression  is 
seUlom  felt  as  it  deserves 
to  be;  water  lying  around 
the  roots  does  not  always 
kill  the  wheat  plant,  but 
many  of  the  plants  are 
injured,  and  the  few  that 
are  left  are  not  able  to 
do  the  work  that  all  were 
intended  for,  hence  the 
half-filled  grain  turns  in- 
to smut.  If  any  one  will 
dig  up  a  wheat  plant  in 
the  spring,  which  stood  all  winter  in  a  wet 
place,  he  will  readily  observe  the  damage 
done  by  water.  The  English  people  appear 
to  uiMlt'r.stand  this  water  injury  better 
than  wo  do,  and  provide  against  it  ou 
wheat  lands  by  numerous  furrows  through 
wheat  lands,  it  is  suppo.sed  by  many  that 
whether  we  have  a  good  wheat  season  or  not 
depends  more  on  the  <iuaiitity  of  rain  it  gets 
during  its  growth  than  on  the  condition  of  the 
ground  and  the  plants  at  the  time  rain  falls. 
If  the  rain  goes  away  through  the  ground 
rapidly  it  is  good  for  the  plants,  though  in 
large  quantities,  but  if  it  lies  long  it  is  an  in- 
jury ;  thus,  if  a  piece  of  land  is  rather  flat  and 
the  ground  is  frozen,  and  stays  frozen  after 
the  surface  has  thawed,  thereby  keeping  tlie 
water  from  jiassiug  away,  it  proves  very  detri- 
mental to  the  roots  and  consequent  crop. 
Observation  proves  that  sloping  ground,  that 
allows  the  water  to  p;iss  off,  produces  the  best 
crops  of  wheat  ;  hence  we  say,  that  to  secure 
the  liest  results  every  precaution  should  be 
taken  to  carry  ofl'  surplus  water  from  flat 
lands.  There  is  a  prevailing  opinion  that 
Pennsylvania  is  behind  the  average  in  the 
culture  of  wheat  ;  and  while  farmers'  clubs 
and  agricultural  papers  are  busy  discussing 
the  causes  of  failure  they  fail  to  point  out  the 
remedy  to  recover  to  us  the  vantage  ground  of 


152 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[October, 


the  past.  It  is  argued  that  our  soil  is  ex- 
hausted, lacking  that  essential  which  feeds 
and  develops  the  kernel  to  a  marked  degree, 
and  that  the  land  should  have  rest,  so  as  again 
to  recuperate  this  kernel-developing  element. 
The  idea  that  land  must  have  rest,  the  same 
as  a  horse,  is  erroneous,  but  land  must  be  fed 
as  well  as  a  horse  to  become  strong,  or  a  cow 
to  give  good  milk. 

One  hundred  years  ago  more  rye  was  sown 
than  wheat,  and  rye  bread  and  rye  coftee  was 
used  by  the  best  of  farmers ;  some  fanners 
had  but  half  an  acre  in  wheat,  and  the  balance 
of  the  best  land  in  rye,  the  wheat  always  being 
raised  by  good  cultivation  and  good  ploughing, 
(not  with  "an  ox  and  ass  together,"  Dent. 
22:10,  which  was  forbidden  in"  the  old  law). 
In  our  day  the  ass  is  often  at  the  plough.  We 
read  much  about  ploughing  in  the  good  book, 
and  also  about  plough-shares;  so  they  must 
have  had  iron  shares  at  that  time  or  they 
would  not  have  been  ordered  to  beat  them  into 
swords.  I  have  seen  wooden  ploughs,  with 
but  very  little  iron  on  them,  in  fact  no  iron 
shares  at  all ;  and  wooden  pins  in  the  harrows, 
yet  with  such  rude  instruments  I  have  seen 
good  crops  of  wheat  raised,  as  good  as  at  the 
present  day.  In  the  vicinity  of  Mt.  Joy,  40 
years  ago,  42  and  52  bushels  of  wheat  and  rye, 
respectively,  were  raised  ;  it  keeps  us  busy  to 
do  it  now.  The  best  way  to  cultivate  wheat 
in  limestone  soil  is  to  plough  well — not  too 
soon  after  harvest — land  medium  dry  ;  have 
the  grass  well  turned  under,  if  cloddy  ;  roll 
well  and  break  the  clods,  and  cultivate  with 
shovel-harrow,  as  we  call  it,  and  follow  with 
the  harrow  and  drag  ;  then  sow  from  1 J  to  2 
bushels  per  acre,  not  over  three  inches  in  the 
ground  and  not  too  close  in  the  furrow,  on  or 
soon  after  the  20th  of  September,  to  avoid  the 
fly  ;  be  careful  to  have  the  land  in  proper  con- 
dition to  receive  the  grain,  which  is  medium 
dry  ;  sooner  wait  two  weeks  than  make  a  mis- 
take in  this  matter ;  and  if  there  is  manure 
and  lime  in  the  soil  and  no  providential  inter- 
vention you  are  sure  of  good  crops  of  wheat. 
C4ood  judgmeni  is  necessary  in  the  cultivation 
of  loose  gravel  or  sandy  soil ;  it  must  not  be 
too  loose  for  wheat ;  the  farmer  should  there- 
fore be  careful  to  roll  it  well  before  seeding, 
and  forty  bushels  to  the  acre  will  be  the  result 
of  his  pains. 

About  the  year  1816  seven  hundred  bushels 
of  wheat  was  raised  on  a  14  acre  field — sur- 
veyor's measuie — on  the  farm  now  owned  by 
Mr.  Benj.  Hershey,  one  mile  east  of  Mt.  Joy; 
the  kind  was  red  beardy  wheat  ;  the  farm  was 
then  owned  by  Mr.  Alexander  Patterson.  We 
might  here  go  into  a  chemical  analysis  of  the 
kernel  of  wheat,  the  male  and  female  plant, 
how  different  kinds  may  be  propagated,  and 
the  element  in  the  soil  that  germinates  and 
carries  to  perfection  this  most  important 
cereal.  Whatever  this  principle  is  is  of  no 
consequence  ;  what  you  want  to  know  is,  how 
to  produce  perpetual  good  crops  of  wheat, 
which  lesson  is  summed  up  in  a  few  words, 
after  having  carefully  observed  the  rules  al- 
ready given  you  as  to  drainage,  land,  cultiva- 
tion and  seed  time,  together  with  prime,  full- 
grown  seed  sown;  use  plentifully  of  that  most 
potent  and  infallible  agent  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  any  of  the  cereals — lime  and  well  pre- 
pared stable  manure. 

' ^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmeb. 
ITALIAN  vs.  BLACK  BEES. 

After  a  trial  of  two  years  I  would  add  my 
experience  to  the  conflicting  testimony  con- 
cerning the  superiority  or  inferiority  of  the 
Italian  compared  with  the  black  bees. 

I  have  always  been  skeptical  when  hearing 
reports  in  praise  of  the  Italians,  believing 
them  to  come  from  queen  propagators,  whose 
interest  might  have  influenced  their  judgment. 
After  a  careful  comparison  of  the  two  varie- 
ties in  the  same  apiary,  for  two  years,  I  am 
satisfied  the  Italians  have  some  advantages. 
The  most  prominent  difference  is  that  the 
Italians  are  more  docile.  Within  a  month  or 
two,  since  the  stocks  have  become  strong  and 
the  hives  full  of  honey,  a  time  when  bee's  are 
always  more  diflicult  to  manage,  this  has  been 
particularly  noticeable. 


In  going  over  the  hives,  with  the  work  of 
exchanging  and  arranging  the  combs,  after 
having  opened  a  number  of  Italian  hives  I 
would  approach  a  stock  of  blacks  without 
noticing  or  thinking  of  them  being  dift'erent,  I 
would  blow  in  a  few  whiffs  of  smoke  and  pro- 
ceed to  open  the  hive,  as  I  had  been  doing,  when 
the  black  rascals  would  i)our  out  at  every 
ojiening  and  sting  me  through  the  clothing,  so 
that  I  would  be  compelled  to  retreat  until  they 
had  become  somewhat  quiet.  Had  I  noticed 
they  were  black  bees,  in  such  cases,  and  this 
has  occurred  several  times  with  me,  I  would 
have  given  them  treble  the  amoimt  of  smoke 
and  seen  that  they  had  "given  up"  before 
opening  the  hive.  I  have  frequently  opened 
Italian  hives  without  smoke  or  protection,  at 
times  when  honey  was  plenty  in  the  fields,  a 
thing  I  never  attempted  with  the  black  bees. 

Tills  difference  in  docility  would  not  be  a 
matter  of  much  consequence  to  the  man  who 
has  his  bees  in  box-hives  and  only  ai)proaches 
them  when  he  wants  honey;  but  to  the  prac- 
tical apicnlturist  it  is  of  great  importance,  be- 
cause it  saves  him  much  time  and  trouble.  I 
have  found,  however,  that  when  the  Italians 
are  once  made  thoroughly  cross  they  are  more 
diflicult  to  master  than  the  blacks. 

They  are  more  persistent  when  robbing,  as 
they  are  in  stinging  when  cross,  and  this 
characteristic  makes  them  more  energetic  in 
obtaining  stores  from  flowers;  but  this  differ- 
ence is  not  so  great,  I  think,  as  has  been  repre- 
sented. I  cannot  perceive  any  difference  in 
the  hardinesss  of  the  two  varieties.  The  Ital- 
ians seem  to  be  more  prolific,  but  probably  do 
not  live  so  long.  The  bright  color  of  the 
queens  makes  them  more  easily  distinguished 
when  among  the  workers,a  fact  which  would  be 
of  some  advantage  to  those  who  do  much  at 
artificial  swarming.  The  Italians  are  a  trifle 
larger  when  bred  in  combs  of  their  own  build- 
ing.—  W.  P.  Bolton,  Liberty  Square,  Lancaster 
county.  Pa.,  Oct.  8,  1877. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
FORESTS— THEIR  DESTRUCTION  AND 
RESTORATION. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  vital  questions  now 
arising  in  the  United  States  of  North  Amer- 
ica; and  especially  since  our  people  are  be- 
coming (as  the  saying  is)  a  "fast  people,"  in 
everything  they  undertake.  Forty  years  ago, 
it  took  a  man,  with  a  good  horse  under  him, 
about  a  day  and  a-half  to  go  to  Philadelphia 
from  Lancaster,  but  now  he  can  reach  that 
city  in  less  than  three  hours.  To  haul  a  load 
of  flour  to  the  same  place  it  then  took  three 
days,  but  now  that  feat  can  be  accomplished 
in  less  than  four  hoiu"s  by  steam.  It  required 
two  weeks  to  carry  a  load  of  goods  to  Pitts- 
burg, but  now  it  only  requires  a  day  and 
a-half.  It  took  one  week  to  convey  a  letter 
by  mail  from  New  York  to  Washington,  but 
now  it  only  takes  five  hours,  and  messages  by 
telegraph  only  five  minutes;  and  to  Euroi)e 
it  required  from  three  to  six  months,  but  now 
messages  may  be  sent  there  in  thh-ty  minutes. 

.lust  so,  in  proportion,  has  the  destruction 
of  forest  timbers  increased  in  forty  years.  It 
is  just  about  forty  years  since  steam  naviga- 
tion was  first  introduced,  and  railroads  and 
steamboats  have  been  rapidly  increasing  in 
their  time-tables  down  to  1873. 

Very  few  people  are  able  to  realize  the  im- 
mense destruction  and  consumption  of  our 
native  forests  annually,  and  that  the  demand 
for  lumber  for  building  purposes,  railroad  ties 
and  fuel  is  far  in  excess  of  the  annual  growth 
of  timber  trees.  For  railroad  ties  alone,  the 
country  requires  annually  about  04,500,000 
cubic  feet,  equal  to  738,500  cords  of  wood,  to 
supply  which,  at  least  2,000,000  cords  of 
standing  timber  have  to  be  cut  down.  The 
annual  yield  of  forest  timber  is  about  fifty 
cords  to  the  acre,  so  that  about  40,000  acres 
of  woodland  are  annually  cleared,  to  supply 
our  railroads  with  ties.  Railroad  building  is 
still  increasing,  notwithstanding  the  depres- 
sion of  the  times.  About  50,000,000  cords  of 
wood,  demanding  perhaps  600,000  acres  of 
woodlands,  are  annually  consumed  for  fuel. 
Many  engines  on  raih-oads  remotely  situated 


from  coal  mines,  use  wood  altogether  for  fuel. 
The  New  York  Central  is,  and  always  has 
been,  tlie  greatest  timber  destroyer  in  the 
United  States.  It  employed  one  and  two  en- 
gines constantly,  in  bringing  ties  and  fuel  for 
that  road  alone,  destroying  hundreds  of  acres 
of  timber  to  meet  its  demands.  The  southern 
and  western  railroads  use  wood,  almost  ex- 
clusively, for  fuel. 

There  are  over  sixty  occupations  enumera- 
ted in  the  census  of  1.S70  which  depend  wholly, 
or  in  part,  upon  wood  as  their  raw  material,  in 
manufactures  and  in  commerce,  employing  a 
total  of  476,985  working  men,  and  most  of 
them  use  engines  as  a  motor  power  to  conduct 
their  business.  Perhaps  more  than  2,000,000 
ojieratives  of  all  kinds  find  employment  in  the 
whole  business,  composing  the  following 
trades  :  Carpenters,  242,950;  coflin  makers, 
7,000;  cabinet  makers,  29,225;  chair  makers. 
0,340;  sawyers,  15,000;  mill-wrights,  9,063; 
ship-carpenters,  13,397;  coopers,  43,625; 
wheelwrights,  32,695;  piano  makers,  2,578 
and  coachmakers,  19,180;  thus  proceeding 
until  the  sixty  classes  are  named,  and  besides 
those  enumerated  add  fencing  for  3,000,000 
farms.  25,000,000  acres  of  woodland  were  de- 
stroyed to  fence  the  country,  and  it  requires 
3,000,000  of  acres  annually  to  keei)  the  fences 
in  repair.  The  total  annual  consumption  of 
forest  is  about  5,500,000  acres.  Om-  forest 
lands  have  already  been  denuded  of  timber 
in  an  amount  equivalent  to  the  product  of 
380,000,000  acres,  and  at  the  present  rate  of 
consumption  it  will  take  less  than  seventy-five 
years  to  exhaust  the  whole.  The  annual 
consumption  of  the  country  is  20,000,000,000 
feet,  representing  2,000,000  acres. 

The  question  of  f  oresty  in  Lancaster  county 
is  perhaps  treated  as  being  premature,  like 
the  man  who  himself  feels  comfortably  warm, 
and  imagines  everybody  else  to  feel  the  same. 
We  may  have  at  present  for  immediate  use 
timber  enough,  and  from  om-  proximity  to 
rich  coal  fields,  may  enjoy  cheap  fuel  for  rnany 
years  to  come,  but  we  cannot  all  live  in  east- 
ern Pennsylvania  or  Lancaster  county.  A 
western  man  came  here  recently  from  one  of 
the  prairie  States,  whose  ancestors  had  lived 
m  Lancaster  county.  He  frequently  remark- 
ed to  his  friends,  that  they  should  thank  God 
that  they  could  live  in  Lancaster  county. 
Many  of  the  western  States  have  a  rich  soil, 
but  they  are  almost  timberless  for  miles  on 
miles,  and  especially  in  Nebraska  for  nearly 
two  hundred  miles  along  the  Platte  river. 
All  those  States  are  now  beginning  to  till  up 
very  fast,  and  will  be  compelled  to  draw  on 
the  eastern  States  for  timber  and  lumber  for 
building  purposes.  The  central  Pacific  States 
for  hundreds  of  miles  have  nothing  but  sage 
bush. 

At  one  time,  Pennsylvania  was  considered 
a  great  timber  State,  but  its  timber  is  fast 
disappearing  from  the  northern  and  western 
regions  of  the  State,  and  it  will  require  ages 
to  replace  the  slow  growiog  pines  and  other 
timber  trees,  and  consequently  timber  will 
never  again  become  cheap  for  building  pur- 
poses after  the  present  decade.  The  timber 
question  is  therefore  one  of  great  importance 
to  our  country.  We  have  many  farms  that 
are  entirely  treeless,  not  even  a  shade  tree  in 
the  fields  for  the  protection  of  men  and  beasts, 
much  less  as  harbors  for  the  birds.  Let  us 
then  become  informed  on  the  subject  of  for- 
estry, and  give  some  attention  to  it,  and  it 
seems  to  me  that  now  is  the  time  to  com- 
mence gathering  seeds  and  nuts  of  forest  trees. 
All  nuts,  incluiiiug  acorns,  should  be  planted 
in  the  fall,  or  buried  near  the  surface  of  the 
ground  in  the  fall  and  taken  out  early  in  the 
s])ring,  and  planted  in  rows  in  the  nursery, 
although  occasionally  nuts  may  grow  when 
planted  in  the  spring.  I  obtained  two  large 
"shell-barks"  last  spring,  which  were  on  ex- 
liiliition  on  the  Centemiial  grounds,  which  I 
planted  in  April,  first  partially  cracking  them, 
and  to  my  great  surprise  they  both  grew,  and 
one  of  them  is  at  this  time  over  a  foot  high. 
I  planted  walnuts  in  1875  and  they  did  not 
come  up  until  the  spring  of  1877,  but  they 
were  in  a  very  dry  state  when  I  planted  them. 


1877. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


153 


Apple  and  pear  seeds  should  he  kept  in  moist 
sand  or  in  moderately  dry  earth  during  tlie 
winter. 

I  am  pleased  to  know  that  the  question  of 
forest  culture  is  heiug  agitated  throughout 
the  entire  country.  At  a  meeting  of  the 
"American  Nurserymen'.s  Association,"  held 
at  Chicago  the  present  year,  a  committee  of 
eleven  members,  belonging  to  as  many  States, 
was  appointed,  of  which  John  A.  Warder,  of 
North  Bend,  Ohio,  president  of  the  "Ameri- 
can Forestry  Association,"  was  made  Chair- 
man— to  memorialize  Congress  and  present 
the  following  preamble  and  resolution  : 

Whereas,  In  view  of  the  vast  importance 
of  the  future  forest  interest  of  America,  and 
in  consideration  of  the  lamentable  ignorance 
which  it  must  be  admitted  i)revalls  among  us 
as  to  an  enlightened  system  of  forestry,  <ind 
in  view  of  the  rich  treasures  of  information 
that  may  be  gathered  by  a  proper  investigation 
and  report  upon  the  forests  of  Europe;  there- 
fore. 

Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  society 
it  would  be  eminently  proper  for  our  govern- 
ment to  take  speedy  action  in  the  matter,  and 
provide  for  sending  a  commission  to  examine 
the  present  status  of  the  forests  of  Europe, 
and  to  state  the  means  by  which  their  perfec- 
tion has  been  reached,  and  finally  to  give  the 
results  to  our  fellow  countrymen,  in  a  suitable 
report,  with  the  data  furnished  by  observa- 
tions made  by  scientific  men  in  those  coim- 
tries,  as  to  the  influence  exerted  by  forests 
upon  the  climate,  conditions  of  the  land,  &c." 
—L.  «.  B.,  Oregon,  Sept.  1877. 


For  The  Lancaster  Farmeb. 
HARD  TIMES. 

This  subject  has  been  so  hackneyed  of  late 
that  it  is  very  probable  most  persons  will  look 
at  the  heading  of  this  article  and  read  no 
further,  and  even  if  they  should  I  will  not 
guarantee  that  they  will  find  anything  new 
advanced. 

During  the  war  there  were  no  hard  times 
for  anybody  willing  to  work  or  light,  and  this 
state  of  affairs  continued  long  afterwards, 
though  had  any  person  taken  time  to  watch  the 
signs  they  would  have  discovered  that  every- 
thing was  tightening  up,  but  so  slow  and  im- 
perceptible was  the  onward  advance  that  many 
shrewd  men  were  caught  unawares  in  the  finan- 
cial crash  of  1873.  From  this  date  hard  times 
actually  appeared,  and  though  there  was  not  at 
once  any  blackness  about  it,  because  of  the  sav- 
ings made  by  many  working  men  in  more 
prosperous  times,  yet  when  they  continued 
three  years  and  more  the  little  stock  was  all 
expended  and  thus  many  of  those  who  were 
at  first  helpers  to  those  that  were  thriftless  or 
not  so  fortunate, were  gathered  into  the  ranks 
of.  the  great  army  of  unemployed.  We  read, 
from  time  to  time,  that  business  is  looking  up, 
that  trade  and  manufactures  are  recovering, 
but  this  much  is  certain,  that  many  classes  of 
persons  are  now  in  greater  stress  than  has 
been  known  in  this  country  for  years:  in  fact 
very  few  can  tell  from  experience  of  anything 
like  it.  That  some  of  this  hardness  has  been 
intensilied  by  the  selfishness  and  criminality 
of  a  few  persons,  does  not  lessen  the  sadness  of 
the  case  or  pity  for  their  condition. 

All  classes  have  been  touched,  many  smitten 
to  the  very  ground,  with  hope  and  energy 
destroyed,  and  all  along  the  coast  of  active 
human  life  they  lay,  stranded  wrecks  which 
will  no  more  sail  on  the  seas  of  commerce  and 
trade.  By  many  the  slow  and  plodding  life  of 
the  farmer  is  looked  upon  with  contempt,  be- 
cause of  the  years  and  years  which  must 
elapse  before  easy  competence  is  reached ; 
but  when  the  tornado  came  the  farmer  stood 
as  behind  a  rock  which  no  adverse  wind  could 
reach,  and  he  saw  those  that  were  so  scornful 
leveled  with  the  very  dust,  while  on  him  the 
the  storm  cast  but  the  down  of  the  thistles, 
the  thistles'  sting  not  l>ecomiug  known. 

The  farmer  seems  to  have  had  the  best  of  it 
since  1873,  for  though  his  farm  would  not 
bring  as  much  in  money  to-day  as  it  did  four 
years  ago,  and  thus  he  can  hardly  call  himself 
any  richer  than  he  did  then,  yet  the  farm  is 


there,  and  most  likely  some  money  to  boot. 
This  we  call  getting  along  in  the  world,  for  a 
man  that  keeps  what  he  has  and  adds  more 
to  it,  is  simply  doing  a  sum  in  addition,  and 
proves  that  the  sum  of  any  two  or  more  num- 
bers is  greater  than  either  of  the  numbers. 

To-day  the  farmer  gets  a  good  price  for  his 
wheat,  corn  and  other  staple  crops,  probably 
more  than  the  average  since  the  days  of  infla- 
tion are  over.  Some  years  ago  he  could  buy 
for  one  bu.slicl  of  wheat  perhaps  t«n  yards  of 
print,  now  lif'leen  ;  then  three  yards  of  cot- 
tonade,  now  five ;  then  five  pounds  of  coffee, 
now  six  ;  then  twelve  pounds  of  rice,  now  fif- 
teen ;  tlien  twenty-live  pounds  of  nails,  now 
thirty-five  to  forty  ;  then  the  labor  of  a  man 
for  one  day,  now  the  labor  for  one  and  a  half 
to  two  days.  While  his  own  production  may 
bring  sonie  less  than  it  did  in  some  of  those 
years,  it  was  the  meagre  crops  then  that  raised 
the  price  above  the  average  ;  now,  with  boun- 
tiful crops,  the  prices  received  are  nearly  as 
great,  and  the  i)roductions  of  others  that  he 
needs  he  buys  for  much  less,  in  some  cases  for 
less  than  two-thirds  of  what  ho  did  then. 

This  state  of  affairs,  as  fiir  as  regards  farm- 
ers, are  not  the  result  of  unusual  circum- 
.stauces,  which  may  change  without  a  moment's 
warning,  except,  perhaps,  the  war  between 
two  of  the  great  powers  of  Europe.  This  may 
cease  at  any  time,  but  the  effect  on  the  jirices 
of  farm  product  will  not  be  much  felt  for  a 
long  time  to  come,  as  the  waste  must  be  re- 
paired before  their  farm  productions  can  again 
come  in  competition  with  ours.  War  is  at  all 
times  to  be  deplored,  but  this  much  is  certain, 
that  war  between  any  two  or  more  of  the 
great  powers  of  Eiurope  is  pretty  sure  to  ac- 
crue to  the  profit  of  the  American  (U.  S.) 
farmer. 

The  other  circumstances  that  favor  the 
farmer  are  in  the  way  of  legitimate  trade. 
Our  Centennial  Exhibition  was  thought  by 
many  to  start  nearly  everything  into  active 
life,  but  these  hopes  were  abandoned  soon 
after  its  commencement;  but  too  much  was 
expected.  It  has  done  a  great  deal  for  this 
country  and  will  do  much  more,  as  many 
parties  interested  in  mainifactures  can  attest, 
who  have  received  orders  for  their  wares. 
These  orders  led  to  orders  for  other  kinds  of 
products,  and  now  our  farm  products  are 
taken  to  places  where  they  had  never  reached 
before.  The  wider  the  gates  of  trade  are 
opened  the  greater  will  be  the  flow.  And  to 
the  staple  farm  exports  of  years  ago  are  now 
added  others,  many  among  which  were  then 
classed'among  the  perishable ;  we  bought  their 
raisins,  prunes,  Ac,  and  paid  for  them  in 
money  ;  now  we  pay  in  dried  apples,  peaches 
and  other  fruit ;  we  sent  oin-  gold  for  their 
cloth,  now  we  send  them  fresh  beef  and  canned 
meats  ;  the  former  we  vrill  retain,  as  neither 
South  America  nor  Australia  are  situated  to 
compete  with  us  ;  canned  meats  they  can  sell 
cheaper,  ours  will  bring  a  better  price,  just  as 
all  superior  goods  bring  more  than  the  in- 
creased cost  of  getting  them  up. 

With  the  increased  demand  our  farmers 
bring  into  play  better  styles  of  farming,  and 
thus  increase  the  supply.  In  other  countries, 
at  least  some,  the  government  pays  a  few  well 
educated  men  to  study  up  the  welfare  of  the 
whole  people,  and  their  fanners  (peasants)  are 
not  neglected,  but  as  soon  as  one  of  these 
government  servants  thinks  he  has  discovered 
something  of  importance  the  government  is 
informed  of  the  fact,  and  if  the  advisers  of 
the  government  think  it  will  do  then  the  in- 
formation is  imparted  to  the  farmers,  and  they 
are  expected  to  profit  by  it.  In  this  country 
each  farmer  can,  and  many  of  them  do,  study 
and  direct  their  operations  as  skillfully  as  any 
business  man  can. 

As  a  class  our  fanners  may  not  be  able  to  raise 
the  crops  that  some  English  farmers  do,  nor 
do  they  as  yet  employ  the  same  means,  but 
this  is  owing  to  the  accidents  of  climate  and 
soil.  When  moderately  large  crops  were  raised 
at  a  minimum  cost  from  our  virgin  soils  there 
was  no  call  for  trying  to  take  all  that  could 
possibly  be  raised  from  their  farms,  for  the  in- 
creased cost  would  have  lessened  the  profits. 


But  now,  witli  increased  demand,  higher 
prices  and  less  frrtile  soils  our  farmers  are  be- 
giiing  to  rai.se  larger  crops  than  before  by  their 
more  intelligent  and  improved  methods.  In 
some  of  the  eastern  and  sea-eoast  States  the 
system  of  farming  is  not  one  whit  behind  any 
l>ait  of  the  world. 

We  started  out  with  hard  times;  by  reading 
the  above  one  would  think  that  farmersdid  not 
know  anything  about  them,  and  they  do  not  ; 
and  what  is  more,  the  times  are  getting  better 
for  the  farmer  and  will  euutinue  to  du  so,  and 
the  effects  will  sooner  oi'  latter  he  visible  on 
the  improved  times  all  round.  Farmer,  don't 
mind  the  times  but  stick  to  your  trade. — 
A.  n.  K. 

LETTER  FROM  NORTH  CAROLINA. 

Salishiuv,  N.  C:.,  Sept.  -jr.th,  1877. 

EniTOit  L.\n(:astki£  Fakmkk:  Since  I 
wrote  you  last  we  have  had  a  line  season  in 
this  section  of  country  for  all  kinds  of  crops. 
Wheat,  oats,  corn,  cotton,  tobacco,  Irish  and 
sweet  potatoes  will  all  yield  well,  so  far  as  I 
have  seen  and  heard,  (larden  vegetables  did 
well  generally.  fJrapesaiid  fruits  of  all  kiiiils 
raised  in  this  climate  produced  an  abundance. 
Xever  .since  in  this  or  any  other  country  have 
1  seen  so  much  green  fruit,  such  as  apjiles, 
peaches,  prunes,  pUims,  gages,  grapes  (all 
kinds),  melons  (musk  and  water),  and  canta- 
loupes so  plentiful  as  this  season,  all  at  low 
prices  ;  dried  fruits,  such  as  ajiples,  peaches, 
(peeled  and  unpeeled,)  so  abundant  and  low 
in  price.  Dried  blackberries  are  short  by  one- 
fourth  this  year  to  what  they  were  heretofore 
for  some  years  past.  Everything  in  the  eat- 
ing, drinking  and  wearing  line  is  i)lentiful, 
but  money  has  been  and  is  now  very  scarce  in 
this  country,  and  we  judge  it  is  scarce  every- 
where in  these  American  States,  generally 
speaking.  For  tobacco  and  cotton  tlie  season 
has  not  so  far  been  as  favorable  as  desirable, 
owing  to  much  rainfall.  Housing  tobacco  and 
gathering  cotton  has  commenced,  and  when 
sold  we  expect  to  see  money  more  plentiful 
and  business  brisk.  No  disease  among  cattle 
here  now,  but  some  folks  are  losing  their  hogs 
and  chickens  from  cholera  or  some  other  dis- 
ease ;  different  remedies  have  been  tried,  but 
of  no  avail  .so  far.  ('an  and  will  any  of  your 
readers  give  (through  TiiK  Lanua.stku 
Farmki!,)  a  remedy  to  prevent,  or,  if  con- 
tracted, to  cure  those  diseases  ? 

Money  is  very  scarce  with  us,  l)ut  we  look 
for  easier  money  matters  when  tobacco,  cot- 
tim  and  other  crops  are  brought  into  market. 
I  have  now  given  you  the  truest  information 
I  could  gather  from  sight  and  lieai-s.ay. 

Some  "time  since  a  subscriber  to  Tlir, 
Lancaster  Fah-MKR,  living  in  this,  llowan 
county,  solicited  us,  as  as  one  of  three  jiersons. 
by  si)ecial  invitation,  to  take  a  seat  in  his  car- 
riage and  traverse  Franklin  township,  this, 
Kowan  county,  and  inspect  the  lands,  crops  of 
tobacco,  cotton,  corn,  grass,  vtc,  &c., 
but  previous  engagements  prevented  me 
from  accepting.  This  same  subscriber  (E.  A. 
Bopst,)  to  The  Lancastf-k  Fakmer  told  us 
that  he  bad  gained  a  good  deal  of  information 
through  The  Farsier.  So  far  so  good. 
Heavy  headsof  wheat  aliiw/s  haiuj  Zoic.     m.  r. 


AROUND  THE  FARM.      No.  2. 

An  old  farmer  told  me  the  other  day  that 
he  would  not  feed  pumpkins  to  hogs  any 
more,  as  they  are  too  watery,  and  tend  to 
bloat  them.  "  "How  did  you  feed  ?"  I  a.sked. 
"Raw."  "There  is  where  you  made  the  mis- 
take," said  I.  "We  feed  ours  cooked."  I 
cut  them  in  .small  pieces,  put  in  a  barrel  with 
six  or  eight  gallons  of  water  and  three  pecks 
of  bran,  steam  till  soft,  when  it  is  a  capital 
feed  for  small  pigs,  or  for  fattening  large  ones. 
This  "mush"  I  consider  worth  twice  as  much 
as  pumpkins  in  the  raw  state,  and  am  .satis- 
fled  it  pays  well  for  the  lalMir  and  fuel  it  takes. 
Hog-Styes. 

In  order  to  make  the  best  grades  of  pork, 
cleanliness  in  the  stable  is  of  tlic  first  import- 
ance. We  cannot  expect  to  raise  good  pork 
if  our  hogs  are  allowed  to    wallow  in  their 


154 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  October, 


own  filth  knee  deep.  In  order  to  overcome 
this  difficulty  I  put  a  platform  in  the  stable, 
about  eight  inches  high,  and  wide  enough  for 
two  to  lie  on  comfortably,  and  bedded  clean 
straw  on  it  every  evening,  which  they  kept 
clean  and  dry,  and  I  had  no  trouble.  The 
pig  is  considered  a  very  tilthy  animal,  but  if 
given  a  chance  tliey  are  not  as  filthy  as  some 
people  suppose. 

Cornstalks. 

ISIany  people  leave  their  cornstalks  stand 
until  winter  before  they  cut  them  ofl".  This 
plan  is  objectionable  chiefly  on  account  of  in- 
convenience in  hauling  the  corn  and  fodder 
off,  and  also  in  husking.  I  think  there  is  a 
better  way — that  is,  cut  them  off  before  husk- 
ing. With  a  sharp,  heavy  hoe  they  can  be 
cut  very  rapidly.  I  think  it  better  to  delay 
husking  a  few  days,  in  order  to  do  this  neces- 
sary work,  than  to  husk  early  and  leave  them 
standing. 

The  Papaw. 

Most  people  are  acquainted  with  the  pa- 
paw,  {Ashnina  triloba)  but  very  few  have  as 
yet  cultivated  it.  As  an  ornamental  shrub  it 
compares  favorably  with  the  more  costly  ones 
imported,  besides  it  has  a  most  delicious  fruit. 
As  the  shrub  is  quite  common  in  our  counlj', 
I  think  it  would  be  well  to  plant  a  few 
"around  the  farm, "  if  not  in  the  lawn,  for 
the  fruit.  It  belongs  to  the  family  Anonaac, 
to  which  belong  the  custard  apple  and  Cheri- 
moya,  two  of  the  most  esteemed  fruits  of  the 
tropics.  The  papaw  is  the  only  species  of 
this  family  which  grows  north.  I  think  if 
our  nurserymen  would  take  the  matter  in 
hand,  they  might  produce  some  very  fine  fruit 
in  time,  as  the  original  fruit  is  much  more 
promising  than  many  of  those  which  have 
been  so  long  cultivated  and  are  now  so  highly 
prized. — Buralist,  Oct.  1st. 

^ 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
NEBRASKA  NOTES. 
Editor  :  Nebraska  is  not  only  a  great  agri- 
cultural State,  Init  is  also  an  excellent  grazing 
country,  especially  the  western  half,   where 
there  are  about    one    hundred    varieties  of 
grasses,  including  the  famous  Buffalo  grass, 
which,  after  nourishing  the  hundreds  of  thous- 
ands of  cattle,  sheep  and  horses  all  summer, 
in  autumn  dries  without  decay,  and  becomes 
hay  on  the  ground  for  all  winter.     It  has  been 
estimated  that  this  great  grazing  region,  be- 
tween the  Missouri  river  and  Rocky  IMoun- 
tains,  sustained  fifteen  millions  of  buffaloes, 
besides,   perhaps,  a  greater  number  of  elk, 
deer,  antelope,  wild  horses  and  all  herbivorous 
animals,  twenty  years  ago.     However  nearly 
correct  this  estimate  may  be,  the  fact  is,  Ne- 
braska could  sustain  at  least  six    hundred 
tliousand    more    cattle,    sheep    and    horses. 
Throughout  the  State  the  present  wheat,  oats, 
barley,  rye  and  millet  crops,  which  have  just 
been  harvested,  are  the  best  ever  raised.    The 
acreage  of  corn  is  large,  crops  good,  and  too 
nearly  matured  to  be  injured  by  drouth  or  in- 
sects,  neither  of  which  have  damaged  any- 
thing this  year.     Potatoes,  squashes,  melons 
and  all  kinds  of  vegetables  are  doing  well ; 
and  fruits,  where  cultivated,  are  promising. 
Young  fruit  trees  grow  so  rapidly,  and  so  late 
in  autumn,  tliat  the  nnhardened  wood  is  likely 
to  be  winter  killed  ;  but  by  planting  on  north- 
ern slopes,  and  cultivating  a  compact  belt  of 
forest  trees  around  the  orchard,  apples,  pears, 
peaches,  plums,  cherries  and  all  kind  of  berries 
may  be  raised  here  in  abundance,  as  is  proven 
by  the  success  wherever  fruit  growing  has 
been  tried.     In  a  soil  so  well  drained,    an   at- 
mosphere so  pure,  a  sunshine  so  bright  and 
genial;  in  a  land  so  free  from  fogs,  sleet  and  un- 
timely frosts,  all  manner  of  delicious  fruit, 
will  surely  soon  abound.      The  facilities  for 
manufacturing    are  excellent,   as  the  water 
power  is  abmidaut  and  everlasting,  and  the  re- 
sources unlimited  for  producing  materials  for 
flour,  oil,   starch,   sugar,   salt,   soda,  cheese, 
cloth,  paper,  ropes,  paint,   crockery,   cement 
and  bricks.  ^Vhen  fully  developed,  Nebraska's 
chief  wealth  will  consist  of  flour,    meat  and 
cloth,  as  her  principel  productions  are  wheat, 
cattle  and    sheep.      The  population    of  the 


State  is  about  three  hundred  thousand,  and 
during  the  last  fifteen  years  these  people  have 
built  sixty  thousand  houses,  besides  dug-outs 
not  a  few;  broke  and  cultivated  more  than  a 
million  acres  of  prairie,  surveyed  over  forty 
million  acres  of  public  land,  defined  and  or- 
ganized seventy-five  counties,  constructed  over 
twelve  hundred  miles  of  railroads,  built  about 
one  hundred  mills  and  about  four  miles  of 
bridges,  opened  six  hundred  and  fifty  post- 
otfices,  connected  by  eleven  thousand  miles 
of  post  road,  established  and  published  over 
one  hundred  newspapers,  built  two  thousand 
five  hundred  school  houses,  a  State  House,  a 
State  University,  Normal  school,  insane 
asylum,  blind  institute,  deaf  and  dumb  insti- 
tute and  about  two  hundred  churches.  The 
through  freight  and  passage  business  over  the 
Union  and  Central  Pacific  railroads  is  im- 
mense, and  rapidly  increasing,  and  enables 
these  roads  to  make  very  low  rates  for  the  peo- 
ple along  their  lines;  unlike  all  other  roads  that 
have  no  trans-continental  business,  must  live 
from  their  local  traffic.  Recently  two  trains, 
carrying  over  one  hundred  tons  of  tea,  passed 
over  these  roads,  from  San  Francisco  to  New 
York.  Most  of  tlie  teas  and  spices  imported 
to  this  country  pass  over  this  great  World's 
Highway,  because  the  importers  can  in  this 
way  get  their  goods  through  much  quicker 
and  without  loss  from  moistm'e  and  change  of 
climate.  The  advantages  of  living  in  Ne- 
braska, which  is  midway  between  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  oceans,  within  the  great  central 
belt  of  population,  wealth  and  Christian  civili- 
zation which  encircles  the  earth  between  the 
39th  and  44th  parallels  of  North  latitude,  are 
many  and  great.  Excellent  valley,  agricultural 
land,  within  a  mile  of  railroad,  maybe  bought 
here  at  from  two  to  six  dollars  per  acre  on  long 
credit — is  cheaper  for  cash.  Mr.  O.  F.  Davis, 
of  Omaha,  can  give  full  information  about  the 
twelve  million  acres  of  land  being  sold  by  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company,  in  Nebraska, 
Wyoming  and  ITtali.  The  best  route  to  this 
country  is  over  the  Jloston  and  Albany,  New 
York,  New  Haven,  Hartford  and  Springfield, 
New  York  and  Erie,  Atlantic  and  Great 
Western,  Chicago,  Burlington  and  Quincy, 
and  Union  Pacific  railways,  as  the  Chicago, 
Burlington  and  Quincy,  and  Union  Pacific 
roads  from  Chicago  give  special,  greatly  re- 
duced rates  to  immigrants  ;  and  the  Eastern 
roads  mentioned  are  the  quickest,  cheapest 
and  most  comfortable. — Examiner,  Omaha, 
Neb.,  Awj.  23,  1877. 


POTOMAC  FRUIT-GROWERS'  ASSOCI- 
ATION. 


September  Meeting. 

A  larpre  and  varied  collection  of  Fruits  and  Flowers 
on  exhiijition,  Juo.  Saul  leading  off  with  00  varieties 
of  Pears. 

Dr.  McKim  read  a  paper  on 

Fruits  in  Disease. 

I  do  not  intend  reading  a  medical  thesis  for  pro- 
fessional criticism,  but  a  practical  essay  for  populai- 
use  ;  and  though  I  shall  run  counter  to  many  preju- 
dices, yet  am  satisfied  that  facts  invite  investigation, 
and  truth  fears  no  criticism. 

Many  people  walk  through  the  world  backward, 
having  their  faces  turned  in  the  direction  whence 
they  came,  and  not  looking  the  way  they  are  going. 
Many  are  surrounded  by  the  walls  of  prejudice,  the 
result  of  education  or  preconceived  views  ;  and  as 
the  walls  are  leveled,  so  as  to  enlarge  the  range  of 
their  vision,  they  bend  their  knees,  or  bow  their 
heads,  lest  the ^nceived  orthodoxy  of  their  views 
be  changed. 

The  prejudice  against  cold  water,  as  a  suitable 
drink  for  i'ever  patients,  has  not  entirely  yielded  to 
common  sense  and  reason — for  almost  daily  the  (ques- 
tion is  i)Ut,  "Doctor,  can  he  have  cold  water  ?"  So 
we  find  a  popular  impression  against  the  use  of  fruits 
and  vegetables,  and  many  partake  of  these  healthful 
and  necessary  articles  of  diet  "in  fear  and  trend.iliug." 
That  there  is  usually  an  increase  of  deaths  during 
the  months  that  fruits  and  fresh  or  new  vegetables 
are  in  the  markets  is  granted,  but  let  us  investigate 
the  cause. 

Tlic  Dr.  then  quotes  from  the  health  reports  of  Dr. 
Snow,  health  officer  of  Providence,  K.  I.,  showing 
that  in  .July,  1863,  the  number  of  deaths  was  oae  less 
than  in  the  previous  mouth  ;  that  of  the  30  deaths  of 
natives,  9  were  under  .5  years;  that  of  the  .31  deaths 
of  foreigners,  17  were  under  i  years  ;  making  a  total 


of  26  under  5,  out  of  a  total  of  61.    About  one-half 
were  of  cholera  infantum. 

Notice,  if  you  please,  the  significant  disparity  be- 
tween the  mortality  rate  of  the  children  of  native- 
born  and  foreign-born  parents.  This  fact  at  once 
indicates  causes  due,  not  to  fruit-eating,  but  to  the 
want  of  due  regard  to  proper  sanitary  and  hygienic 
regulations. 

In  his  report  for  July,  1860,  Dr.  Snow  says  :  "We 
are  treated  at  this  season  of  the  year  with  the  usual 
amount  of  cautions  in  the  newspapers  against  the  use 
of  fruits  and  vegetables,  and  are  called  upon  to 
believe  that  the  increase  of  mortality  which  always 
occurs  during  hot  weather  is  almost  wholly  caused 
bj'  eating  them.  It  is  quite  likely  that  eating  unripe 
and  wilted  fruits  and  vegetables  causes  disturbances 
in  the  stomach  and  sickness,  but  it  is  of  a  temporary 
character,  and  would  generally  cure  itself  if  no  other 
cause  was  present.  It  is  quite  as  well  to  use  caution 
in  the  selection  of  fruits  and  vegetables,  avoiding 
those  that  are  wilted  and  decayed,  but  it  is  not  well 
to  lie  unnecessarily  troubled  and  frightened  about 
them,  and  it  is  still  worse  to  avoid  them  altogether. 

The  slightest  examination  of  the  causes  of  death, 
given  above,  shows  that  fruits  and  vegetables  had 
almost  no  influence  whatever  in  the  mortality  re- 
ported from  summer  complaints.  Nearly  all  the 
decedents  from  these  causes  were  very  young  children 
who  do  not  eat  fruits  and  vegetables  at  all.  All  but 
live  of  the  decedents  from  summer  complaints,  in 
.July,  were  under  two  years  of  age,  and  only  two  of 
the  whole  number  were  over  four  years  of  age.  In 
certain  seasons,  when  epidemic  cholera  may  be  pre- 
sent, and  when  the  systems  of  the  people  may  be 
prepared  for  disease  by  the  poisoned  air  they  breathe, 
it  may  be  possible  that  wilted  fruits  and  vegetables 
may  be  the  exciting  causes  of  fatal  sickness,  but  even 
tlien  the  air  that  is  breathed  is  more  truly  the  cause 
of  death  than  the  food  that  is  eaten.  In  ordinary 
seasons,  when  no  epidemic  is  present,  impure  air 
causes  a  thousand-fold  more  mortality  than  fruits 
and  vegetables.  In  fact,  it  is  probable  that  total 
abstinence  Irom  fruits  and  vegetables  by  the  whole 
community  would  produce  more  fatal  sickness  than 
the  most  unlimited  indulgence  in  them.  The  safest 
ride  is,  however,  '■temperance  in  all  things."  Octo- 
ber, 1869,  he  says: — "Children  are  killed  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  are  dressed  and  by  the  food  that  is 
given  them  as  much  as  by  other  causes.  Infants  of 
the  most  tender  age,  ii-  our  changeable  and  rough 
climate,  are  left  with  bare  arms  and  legs  and  with 
low-neck  dresses.  The  mothers,  in  the  same  dress, 
would  shiver  and  suffer  with  cold,  and  would  expect 
a  fit  of  sickness  as  the  result  of  their  culpable  care- 
lessness, and  yet  the  mothers  could  endure  such 
treatment  with  far  less  danger  to  health  and  life 
than  their  tender  infants.  A  moment's  reflection 
will  indicate  the  effects  of  this  mode  of  dressing,  or 
want  of  dressing,  on  the  child.  The  moment  the 
cold  air  strikes  the  bare  arms  and  legs  of  the  child, 
the  blood  is  driven  from  their  extremities  to  the  in- 
ternal and  more  vital  organs  of  the  body.  The  result 
is  congestion,  to  greater  or  less  extent,  of  these 
organs.  In  warm  weather  the  effect  will  lie  conges- 
tion of  the  bowels,  causing  diarrhoea,  dysentery  or 
cholera  infantum.  We  think  this  mode  of  dressing 
must  be  reckoned  as  one  of  the  most  prominent 
causes  of  summer  complaints,  so  called." 

In  his  report  for  July,  1873,  Dr.  Snow  says  : 

"Of  the  .5.5  decedents  in  July,  from  diari'heal  dis- 
eases, 22  were  American  anil  33  of  foreign  parentage. 
According  to  age  there  were  41  under  1  year,  10  from 
I  to  2  years,  and  4  over  .50  years,  making  a  total  of 
55  decedents  from  diarrheal  diseases.  It  is  certain 
that  these  infants  under  2  years  of  age,  nearly  all  of 
them  under  1  year,  did  not  contract  their  disease 
from  eating  fruits  and  vegetables.  We  have  several 
times  in  past  years  analyzed  the  mortality  from 
diarrheal  diseases,  with  precisely  similar  results.  As 
we  find,  therefore,  that  considerably  more  than 
three-fourths  of  all  mortality  from  diarrheal  diseases, 
except  Asiatic  cholera,  in  Providence,  is  found  in  in- 
fants under  two  years  of  age,  we  are  compelled  to 
believe  that,  in  tliis  city,  at  least,  neither  ripe  nor  un- 
ripe fruits  and  vegetables  have  any  perceptible  iuHu- 
euce  upon  the  mortality  of  these  diseases.  The  in- 
fant decedents  from  diarrheal  diseases  are  killed  by 
the  effects  of  heat  and  impure  air,  especially  the 
latter. 

In  the  District  of  Columbia  the  ntortality  for  July, 
1877,  was  479 — being  78  less  than  for  the  correspond- 
ing month  of  last  year.  The  mortality  from  cholera 
infantum  was  85.  When  we  recall  the  fact,  that  the 
rauge  of  temperature  for  July  in  this  District  was 
much  less  than  the  average  in  former  years,  we  can 
easily  and  naturally  account  for  the  low  rate  of  mor- 
tality during  the  mouth .  Dr.  W.  II.  Vail  publishes 
an  article  on  summer  diet,  and  starts  with  the  follow- 
ing argument :  "God,  in  his  providence,  has  stocked 
the  Polar  regions  with  the  seal,  the  whale  and  the 
bear,  all  the  personification  of  fat  and  oil — while 
vegetation  is  comparatively  unknown.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  you  api)roaeh  the  tropics,  oranges,  bananas, 
lemons  and  all  our  luscious  fruits  greet  you  on  every 
hand,  and  vegetation  runs  wild.  The  disposition  of 
Providence  teaches  us,  what  our  appetites  confirm, 
that  in  cold  weather  our  diet  should  consist  mainly 
of  oily  substances,  or  such  food  is  converted  into  fat 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


155 


by  tlie  proccSB  of  dlffcstion,  while  in  tlic  summer  wc 
should  Bclec'l.  suoli  articlPB  of  diet  us  are  not  eou- 
vertible  into  fat."  Dr.  Vail  adds,  "that  veffetablcs, 
the  edible  parts  of  which  ripen  under  ffround,  sueh 
as  potatoes,  carrots  and  parsnip's,  are  heat-prodiic- 
ing,  while  those  that  rijicn  aliovo  sround  are  eoolini;. 
The  latter,  indudini;  especially  aspara','us,  lettuce, 
jieas,  beans,  tomatoes,  corn  and  all  fruits,  should  bo 
freely  eaten.  Meat  should  not  be  eaten  ofteiier  than 
twice  a  day,  and  lean  is  preferable."  He  particu- 
larly reconinicnd.'i  tomatoes.  Assuming'  from  the 
facts  set  forth,  by  such  authority,  that  my  hearers 
are  prepared  to  grant  the  wliolesomeness  of  fruits, 
in  health,  I  will  turn  to  a  brief  consideration  of  their 
uses  in  diseases. 

There  is  scarcely  a  di.sease  to  which  the  human 
family  is  heir,  but  the  suflcrings  therefrom  would  be 
greatly  relieved  by  the  use  of  the  very  fruits  which 
are  now  so  strictly  forbidden.  Kurtlier,  many  of 
these  diseases  would  be  eondiu-ted  to  a  safe  termina- 
tion under  the  free  use  of  fruits,  because  of  the  acids 
they  contain.  When  our  troops  were  lighting  the 
Seminoles  in  Florida,  many  siek  with  diarrluea  and 
dysentery  cured  these  diseases  by  stealing  from  the 
hospital  into  the  liclds  and  eating  fruits,  blackberries 
especially.  Since  our  very  pleasant  and  profit'ible 
excursion  of  last  month,  I  have  sent  several  children, 
suffering  with  cholera  infantum  and  with  dysentery, 
to  the  i)cach  orchards,  with  most  gratifying  results  ; 
and  where  they  could  not  be  carried  to  the  orchards 
to  pick  and  cat  the  fruits  fresh  from  the  trees,  I  have 
had  the  little  sufi'erers  fed  with  sound  fruit,  with 
equally  good  results.  Typhoid  fever,  in  the  treat- 
ment of  which  such  extraordinary  care  is  enjoined 
as  regards  diet,  here  fruits  are  not  only  highly  grate- 
ful to  the  patient,  but  even  work  very  favorable 
results.  A  physician  who  had  been  sick  some  weeks 
with  typhoid  fever,  says  his  diarrhcea  was  cured  by 
poaches.  Says  he,  "1  tirst  ate  half  of  a  large  peach, 
and  feeling  no  ill  ellccts  I  ate  the  other  half,  then  one 
or  two  more,  and  the  next  day  as  many  as  Idcsircd." 
He  adds,  ".My  bowels  got  l)etter  at  once,  and  ray 
recovery  was  rapid."  Since  our  last  meeting,  a 
typhoid  fever  patient,  who  had  been  about  three 
weeks  sick,  and  though  improving,  was  allowed  no 
diet  but  beef  tea  or  milk  punch,  came  under  my  care 
fora  few  days.  I  immediately  ordered  the  free  use 
of  peaches  and  grapes,  and  tho  diarrhcea  at  once 
ceased;  and  at  the  end  of  live  days,  when  I  relin- 
<|uished  the  care  of  her,  she  was  convalescent.  My 
impression  is,  the  disease  runs  a  shorter  course  under 
the  free  use  of  fruits  than  under  the  usual  method  of 
treatment,  and  I  think  the  use  of  stimulants  rarely 
required  when  fruits  are  freely  used.  In  the  treat- 
ment of  scarlet  fever  and  diphtheria  our  summer 
fruits  and  many  of  the  vegetables  are  most  uscfid, 
and  to  the  list  may  be  added  some  or  in  fact  any 
foreign  fruits.  There  is  scarcely  a  disease,  accom- 
panied witli  fever,  but  grapes  and  bananas  can  be 
freely  given  to  the  jiatieut.  In  the  treatment  of 
dysentery  I  would  greatly  prefer  ripe,  sound  fruits, 
peaches  especially,  to  any  medicine  that  can  be  sug- 
gested. And  thus.  Air.  President,  I  could  go  on  in 
this  crude  manner,  which  is  intended  to  be  sugges- 
tive merely,  and  occupy  the  time  of  the  Association. 
This  is  not  the  time  or  place  for  an  exhaustive  article, 
and  my  desire  is  to  invite  the  si^irit  of  investigation, 
and  relieve  the  unnecessary  sufl'erings  of  the  sick. 
If  you  ask  for  the  philosophy  of  the  use  of  the 
articles  in  sickness  or  in  health,  I  again  invite  your 
careful  perusal  of  Dr.  Vail's  article  above,  and  the 
admirable  essay,  read  at  our  last  meeting,  to  which 
I  could  add  nothing;  and  if  I  shall  have  turned  one 
face  in  the  right  direction,  or  lifted  one  individual 
above  the  fence  of  prejudice  with  which  he  is  hedged, 
my  work  is  done. — O.  F.  Necdham,  Washiuglon,  D. 
C. 

♦ 

OUR  LOCAL   ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricul- 
tural and  Horticultural  Society. 

A  stated  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricid- 
tural  and  Horticuilural  Society  was  held  on  Moudtiy, 
Oct.  1st. 

The  following  members  and  visitors  were  present  : 
Calvin  Cooper,  president.  East  Lampeter;  Johnson 
Miller,  secretary,  Warwick;  Levi  W.  Grotl',  West 
Earl;  Ilcory  M.  Engic,  Marietta;  Casper  lliller, 
Conestoga;  D.  M.  Kendig,  Manor;  Daniel  Smeych, 
city;  Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy;  Dr.  P.  J.  Itoebuck, 
Warwick;  I.  L.  Landis,  Manheim;  Kobcrt  Dysart, 
city;  W.  J.  Kafroth,  West  Earl;  Levi  S.  Keist,  Man- 
heim; Prof.  J.  StaulVer,  city;  Wm.  .McComsey,  city; 
Henry  Erb,  Warwick;  B.  Frank  Landis,  East  Lam- 
peter; John  II.  Landis,  Manor;  .Mr.  Martin,  East 
Lampeter;  John  Huber,  Warwick;  Henry  Erb,  Man- 
heim; Aaron  H.  Summy,  Manheim;  Henry  Wolf, 
Warwick;  Joseph  Witmer,  Paradise;  Wm.  H.  Bro- 
sius,  Drumore;  Ellwood  Griest,city;  EliK.  Ilershey, 
Manor;  F.  U.  Gantz,  East  Donegal;  Simon  P.  Eby, 
city;  John  Miller,  Manheim;  John  Gingrich,  East 
Hemplield;  J.  Hartmau  Hcrshey,  East  Hcmpfield. 

The  minutes  were  read  and  adopted. 

American  Pomological  Society. 

Martin  D.  Kendig,  one  of  the  delegates  from 
this  society  to  the  American  Pomological  Convention, 


lately  held  in  Baltimore,  made  a  report  from  which 
it  appeared  that  II.  M.  Eugle  and  Levi  8.  Keist  (who 
were  also  delegates,)  wore  exhibitors  of  soino  line 
jiears;  that  the  society  numbered  ^W'S  members,  in 
the  sineral  States  and  Territories,  of  whom  11)0  were 
]ircsent ;  that  there  arc  4, .MM), (1(10  acres  of  land  in  the 
United  States  planted  In  fruits  and  the  last  annual 
product  was  ?l:W,'.'l(),170.     He  said  : 

The  representatives  of  this  society, appointed  atour 
last  meeting  to  attend  the  American  Pomological 
Convention  at  Baltimore,  September  I'i,  l:i  and  14, 
would  say  that  they  have  attended  the  sessions,  which 
were  held  in  Concert  Hall,ttt  the  Academy  of  Music. 
The  attendance  was  quite  fair,  though  not  so  larger 
as  miglit  have  been  expected.  Over  one  hundrcil 
members  answered  to  roll  call,  representing  the 
greater  i)ortion  of  the  States  and  Territories. 

The  president,  Hon.  Marshall  P.  Wilder,  being  ab- 
sent on  account  of  indisjiosition,  the  chair  was  oceu- 
jiied  by  C.  M.  Hovey,  of  Boston,  and  Benjamin  G. 
Smith  was  Secretary  pro  teia. 

The  address  of  the  President,  Marshall  P.  Wilder, 
was  read,  showiing  the  growth,  progress  and  inllu- 
cnec  of  the  society.  It  contains  now  on  its  roll  the 
names  of  three  hundred  and  thirty-eight  members, 
and  its  lield  of  operation  embraces  a  territory  ex- 
tending from  Nova  Scotia  to  California,  and  from 
Canada  to  Texas.  The  estimate  of  the  number  of 
acres  under  eultivatiim  in  oreharus,  vines,  and  small 
fruits  is  4, .500,000;  the  grand  total  value  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  all  the  fruits,  JloS, 210,700  or  nearly  ecjual 
to  one-half  of  the  value  of  our  average   wheat   crop. 

After  the  reading  of  the  address,  the  balance  of 
the  first  day  was  chiefly  consumed  in  receiving  re- 
ports on  credentials  from  the  various  or- 
ganizations represented;  also,  reports  of  the  ditl'er- 
ent  fruit  committees,  which  will  be  published  for  tho 
use  of  the  members.  Mr.  P.  Barry,  of  the  general 
fruit  committee,  reported  the  best  varieties  of  apples 
for  general  use  are  red  astraehan  and  maiden  blush, 
which  are  common  in  thirty-four  States.  Of  pears. 
Duchess  D'Angoulemc  stands  first,  and  Bartlett  sec- 
ond. At  the  evening  session,  held  by  invitation  in 
the  dining  room  of  the  Carrollton  House,  it  was  de- 
cided to  hold  the  ne.xt  biennial  session  at  Nashville, 
Tennessee. 

The  second  day  was  mostly  taken  up  in  discussing 
tho  value  of  fruits  named  in  the  catalogue,  which 
contains  upwards  of  800  varieties  of  apples,  pears, 
peaches,  cherries,  plums,  grapes,  raspberries,  black- 
berries, strawberries,  etc.,  striking  out  such  as  were 
not  considered  worthy  and  inserting  others  of  ap- 
proved merits. 

The  session  closed  in  the  evening  to  accept  the  in- 
vitation of  Mr.  Perot,  President  of  the  Maryland 
Horticultural  Society,  to  join  in  a  steamboat  excur- 
sion on  the  following  day  to  Riverside,  Kent  county, 
to  visit  the  extensive  peach  farms  of  Col.  Edwin 
Wilkins. 

The  joint  exhibition  of  fruit  and  flowers  by  the 
society,  held  in  the  Fifth  regiment  armory  and  an- 
nexes, was  considered  by  some  of  the  older  members 
to  be  the  finest  that  has  yet  been  seen  in  this  country. 
The  display  of  Franklin,  Davis  &  Co.,  of  Kichmond, 
Va.,  was  one  of  the  larges  ;  Marshall  P.  Wilder  ex- 
hibits about  400  varieties  of  pears;  Elwenger  & 
Barry,  of  Rochester,  N.  y.,  had  a  very  fine  assort- 
ment, including  about  40  varieties  of  plums;  C. 
Hovey  had  y;^0  varieties  of  pears;  Capt.  Nath.  At- 
kinson, of  North  Carolina,  about  100  varieties  of  ap- 
ples of  immense  size  and  beauty,  including  a  large 
pyramid  of  fall  pippins,  the  finest  display  of  any  one 
variety  in  the  exhibition.  Two  of  your  committee, 
Messrs.  Eugle  and  Relet,  were  also  exhibitors,  the 
former  of  a  fine  variety  of  pears;  the  latter  of  a 
plate  of  the  famous  Gloria  Mundi  apple.  Of  grapes 
there  was  an  almost  endless  variety  of  the  choicest 
kinds.  And  last  but  not  least  were  the  flowers  and 
plants.  The  annexes  that  contained  them  were  a 
perfect  paradise. 

Crop  Reports. 

H.  M.  Engle  said  there  was  not  much  to  ssiy  this 
month  in  regard  to  the  crops.  Farmers  had  held 
back  from  seeding  on  account  of  the  long  continued 
drouth,  but  since  the  late  copious  rains  a  great  deal 
of  wheat  had  been  sown.  The  warm  and  damp 
weather  has  caused  the  young  grain  to  grow  rapiilly 
and  it  looks  very  well.  The  young  clover  also  is 
coming  along  finely— much  better  than  was  generally 
expected.  Rainfall  during  the  month,  .5  10-16  inches. 

Levi  W.  Ghoff  said  that  inquiries  for  tobacco 
were  slower  than  heretofore,  the  cause  being  that 
rcjjorts  were  current  that  much  of  the  green  tobac<'0 
was  rotting  on  the  poles.  A  careful  examination 
proved  that  this  was  not  the  case  in  his  neighbor- 
hood. The  wheat  ho  said  was  pretty  generally 
sown  and  looks  fine,  the  warm  weather  and  dainji 
soil  giving  it  a  good  start.  He  has  sowed  most  of 
his  own,  and  some  of  his  neighbors  say  ho  uses  too 
much  seed — two  bushels  and  a  peck  to  the  acre. 
His  experience  has  been  that  heavy  sowing  produces 
a  heavy  crop,  and  thin  sowing  a  light  crop. 

Henky  Kuhtz  said  seeding  was  not  quite  over  in 
his  neighborhood.  He  believes  in  late  sowing,  any- 
how, as  the  ravages  of  the  fly  is  thus  escaped. 
Some  farmers  who  sowed  early,  he  Icarus,  arc  going 
to  plow  down  their  young  wheat  and  sow  it  again  on 
account  of  the  damage  done  by  the  fly.     There  arc 


rejiorts  that  the  tobaecrt  crop  has  been  nmi'li  dam- 
aged by  iK)le  rotting,  one  of  his  neighbor's  loss  be- 
ing reported  at  §1,000.  He  has  seen  some  that  fell 
from  the  stem  mvi  is  worthless. 

Mautin  D.  KENDiii  said  there  was  not  much 
grain  sown  in  his  neighborhood  before  the  LMh  of 
September;  It  looks  well;  the  pasture  is  fine;  there 
are  no  winter  apples;  the  rainfall  the  past  month 
was  4  8-10  inches. 

Essay  on  Wheat. 

nr.NiiY  Kurtz  read  an  essay  on  "Wheat  and  its 
('ulture,"  tracing  It  from  the  ganlen  of  I'.deii  to  the 
present  time  and  quoting  copiously  from  the  Scrip- 
tures to  prove  Its  long  acknowledged  importance  as 
a  staple.  He  gave  at  some  length  a  statement  of 
the  several  varieties  of  wheat,  tjie  diseases  and  in- 
sects that  infest  it,  and  the  best  mode  of  cultivating 
it.  His  plan  In  brief  was  to  use  the  most  apjiroveil 
seed,  plow  well,  but  not  too  early,  carefully  turning 
under  the  grass  and  dead  weed,  drain  the  land  of 
surplus  water;  sow  from  one  to  one  and  a  half  bush- 
els of  seed  not  earlier  than  8ei)tend)er  L'O,  and  not 
more  than  two  or  three  Inches  deep;  fertilize  the 
land  with  plenty  of  lime  and  barnyard  manure. 

The  thanks  of  the  society  were  voted  to  Mr.  Kurtz 
for  his  essay. 

Death  of  a  Member. 

PnoF.  R.MiivON  asked  that  the  rules  of  business 
be  suspended  to  enable  him  to  announce  lo  the  so- 
ciety the  decease  of  Levi  Pownall,  a  member  of  the 
society. 

Leave  being  granted  Prof.  Rathvon  read  the  fol- 
lowing paper : 

Mu.  President  :  It  Is  with  a  feeling  of  sadness 
that  I  am  called  upon  to  announce  to  this  society  the 
recent  death  of  one  of  its  most  intelligent  and  valu- 
able members, In  the  pcrsoirof  Levi  Pownall,of  Sads- 
bury .  Only  one  short  month  ago  he  was  in  attendance 
here,  in  the  very  prime  of  life,  and  had  he  been 
spared  he  doubtless  would  have  been  amongst  us  to- 
day, for  he  took  a  deep  interest  in  all  that  relates  to 
agriculture  and  the  general  welfare  of  the  society. 
Mr.  Pownall  was  a  most  amiable  and  estimable  man 
and  citizen,  and  commanded  the  uui|ualified  resi)ect 
of  all  who  truly  knew  him,  and  especially  tho  fra- 
ternal regards  of  his  neighbors,  and  those  who  had 
been  longest  in  familiar  intercourse  with  him.  Ho 
was  quiet,  dignified  and  atlable,  and  although  with- 
out ostentation,  he  was  a  man  of  more  than  onlinary 
intelligence,  and  possessed  rare  habits  of  practical 
observation.  He  was  an  industrious  student  in 
natural  science,  and  manifested  much  interest  in  prac- 
tical entomology  in  its  relations  to  agriculture,  anil 
had  made  commendable  progress  therein.  In  his 
mortal  dissolution  we  have  again  realized  that  "In 
the  midst  of  life  wo  arc  in  death." 

Although  it  become  us  to  bow  with  humble  resigna- 
tion to  the  wisdom  of  that  Divine  Providence  who 
has  removed  him  to  another  sphere  of  being,  yet 
under  the  dictates  of  natural  all'ection  we  cannot  re- 
sist a  feeling  of  sadness  that  ho  has  been  called  att'ay, 
and  that  the  social  chain  which  had  so  harmoniously 
existed  in  the  past,  will  bo  broken  in  the  future  to  be 
rc-united  on  earth  no  more.  Wf,  therefore,  unani- 
mously acquiesce  in  the  sentiment,  that  in  the  death 
of  Levi  Pownall  his  family  has  lost  an  aircctiouate 
husband,  father,  friend  and  brother  ;  the  community 
an  honest,  annable  and  estimable  citizen,  and  this 
society  an  intelligent,  useful  and  worthy  fellow  mem- 
ber. And,  furthermore,  we  willingly  make  this 
record  of  our  sympathies  w  ith  all  who  have  been  be- 
reaved, and  direct  this  testimonial  to  be  entered  Into 
the  proceedings  of  this  meeting,  and  that  a  copy  of 
the  same  be  scut  to  the  family  of  the  deceased. 

The  resolutions  were  unanimously  adopted. 

Mr.  Eagi.e  said  that.he  and  Mr.  Pownall  and  a 
few  other  had  organized  this  society  some  sixteen 
years  ago;  and  of  all  the  members  of  the  society, 
there  was  not  one  more  intelligent  or  more  highly  es- 
teemed than  Mr.  Pownall.  His  countenance  and 
manner  proclaimed  him  an  himestman.  .Mr.  Pownall 
was  present  at  our  last  meeting,  and  it  was  hard  now 
1(1  realize  that  he  was  dead.  He  read,  in  conclusion, 
the  closing  |)art  of  the  last  address  of  the  venerable 
.Mr.  Wilder,  president  of  the  American  Pomological 
Society. 

Levi  8.  Reist  said  he  remembered  well  when 
President  Wilder,  five  years  ago,  then  80  years  of 
age,  read  an  address  before  the  society,  in  which  he 
said  he  supposed  it  would  be  the  last  time  he  would 
ever  meet  the  memberi  ;  and  yet  at  the  recent  meet- 
ing in  Baltimore  he  was  present  and  exhibited  MO 
plates  of  as  many  diirerent  varieties  of  pears,  the 
finest  display  in  the  exhibition. 

Fattening  Stock. 

"Does  It  pay  to  fatten  stock  when  we  get  no  more 
than  the  market  price  for  tho  grain  fedf"  was  the 
question  next  discussed. 

The  discussion  was  iiarticipaled  lu  by  Messrs.  M. 
D.  Kendig,  Henry  Kurtz,  Israel  L.  Landis,  C.  L. 
Ilunsccker,  Henry  .M.  Engle,  .lacob  Staull'er,  Joseph 
F.  Witmer,  LeviS.  Reist,  Levi  W.  Grolf,  Wm.  II. 
Brosius  and  Wm.  McComsey.  The  debate  was  very 
discursive,  but  almost  all  agreed  that  the  feeding  of 
grain  to  cattle  and  the  making  in  this  way  of  large 
quantities  of  barnyard  mauure,  was  the  surest  and 
most  profitable  way  of  keeping  up  the  fertility  of  the 


i56 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  October, 


soil ,  and  when  a  vote  was  taken  on  the  question  under 
debate  it  was  unanimously  agreed  that  it  was  profit- 
able to  feed  stock  if  no  more  is  received  for  the  meat 
than  the  market  price  of  the  grain  fed. 

S.  P.  Eby,  the  librarian,  presented  a  diploma 
awarded  the  society  by  the  late  Centennial  Exposi- 
tion for  display  of  apples  by  members  of  the  society. 

Mr.  D.  Kendig  made  report  of  an  experiment  he 
had  tried  with  Clawson's  white  and  Fultz  wheat.  He 
had  seeded  the  two  varieties  on  strips  of  ground  side 
by  side.  The  seed  was  put  in  at  the  same  time,  in  the 
same  quantity,  and  received  the  same  care,  and  the 
result  was  thai;  the  Clawson  wheat  yielded  at  the  rate 
ol  28;.;  bushels  to  the  acre,  and  the  Fultz  at  the  rate 
of  43  bushels.  He  was  astonished  at  the  result,  and 
carefully  re-measured  and  re-calculated  it,  and  found 
it  to  be  as  stated. 

Hen KY  KuKTZ  presented  specimens  of  Champion, 
Amber  and  Fultz  wheat,  the  former  of  which  yielded 
40  bushels  to  the  acre  and  the  latter  only  22. 
The  Cattle  Disease. 

President  Cooper  called  attention  to  the  cattle 
disease,  of  which  so  much  has  been  heard,  suggest- 
ing that  some  action  be  taken  on  it. 

William  McComsey,  Israel  Landls,  Levi  S.  Reist, 
Henry  Kurtz  and  Peter  8.  Keist,  discussed  the  mat- 
ter, but  no  facts  were  elicited  that  have  not  already 
been  ventilated  in  the  newspapers. 

Fruit  Committee. 

Henry  M.  Engle,  Jacob  Stauffer  and  .Joseph  Wit- 
mer  were  appointed  a  committee  to  test  and  report 
on  the  fruits  on  exhibition  before  the  society. 

They  made  a  report  to  the  following  effect : 

John  Huber,  a  bunch  of  very  fine  Triomph  grapes 
— a  new  variety  and  worthy  of  attention. 

.John  H.  Landis,  a  large  sized  grape — Rogers  No. 
19  supposed — dark,  say  black. 

Daniel  Smeych,nine  varieticsof  very  fine  grapes, viz: 
Rogers  No.  33,  deep  claret ;  Diana,  light  color  ;  Clin- 
ton ;  Union  Village;  Concord;  Allen's  Hybrid,  am- 
ber translucent;  White  Syrian;  Black  Hamburg; 
Tokay,  foreign  exotic. 

Seedling  peaches,  viz.:  A  large,  fine  yellow  cling- 
stone (seedling),  white  free-stone  excellent  quality. 

Ten  varieties  of  pears,  viz.:  Howell, Glout,  Morce- 
aux,  Sheldon,  Duchess,  Buerre  Did,  BufTum,  larger 
than  ordinary  ;  Louise  Bonne,  Muhlenberg,  Beurre 
Clairgeau,  a  new  deep  yellow  variety. 

Apples — a  large  one  to  name — fine  cooking. 

Casper  Hiller,  seven  varieties  of  pears  of  good 
quality,  viz.:  Lawrence,  Urbaniste,  B.  i3o6C,B.  d'  An- 
jou,  Dix,  Beurre  Clairgeau,  Chinese  sand  pear. 

Potatoes  planted  by  Levi  W.  Groff,  July  17,  1877; 
of  a  good  size,  considering  that  they  are  a  second 
crop,  and  apparently  of  good  quality. 

Catawba  grapes,  by  Calvin  Cooper  ;  fair  quality. 

H.  M.  Engle,  eight  varieties  of  pears,  very  fine, 
viz.:  Urbaniste  pear,  very  luscious;  Kingsessing,  also 
a  B.  Bosc,  very  tender;  Howell,  a  superior  pear; 
Mount  Vernon,  Russet,  very  good  ;  Danna's  Hovey, 
Sheldon,  marked  flavor;  Buerre  d'  Anjou. 

Levi  S.  Keist,  twelve  kin  s  of  apples,  of  fine  size 
and  quality. 

H.Kurtz,  monster  red  beet,  10?-^  pounds;  Fultz 
wheat  and  Amber  wheat,  a  fair  sample. 

M.  D.  Kendig,  Clawson  white  wheat ;  Fultz  wheat, 
of  fine  quality ;  Erianthusi  Ravenna,  ornamental 
grass  ;  Eulalia  Japonioa  Variegata,  remarkable  for 
its  diagonal  yellow  stripes,  or  bands  alternating  with 
fine  green  on  its  leaves. 

The  above  list  is  briefly  given.  More  might  be  said 
in   commendation   of  the   fine   collection  before   the 
committee,  but  further  pi-aise  is  not  required. 
Questions  for  the  Next  Meeting. 

On  motion  the  thanks  of  the  society  were  voted 
to  the  committee. 

.  The  following  questions  were  read  by  the  secretary 
as  having  been  proposed  for  discussion  at  the  next 
meeting  : 

"Does  it  pay  to  apply  salt  as  a  fertilizer  to  the 
wheat  ground  in  the  fall?"  Referred  to  Israel  L. 
Landis. 

"What  is  the  best  means  of  preserving  manures  ?" 
For  general  discussion. 

"What  measures  should  be  taken  by  the  farmers 
to  arrest  the  spread  of  the  prevailing  cattle  disease  ?', 

There  being  no  other  business  the  society  adjourned 


TOBACCO    GROWERS'  AS    OCIATION. 

The  society  met  in  the  room  in  the  third  story  of 
city  hall,  on  Monday,  September  17.  Owing  to  the 
alterations  being  made  in  the  city  hall  to  accommo- 
date the  post  offlce,  the  members  were  obliged  to 
clamber  over  piles  of  brick  and  mortar  and  climb  up 
a  shaky  l.idder  to  reach  their  room.  Some  of  the 
more  timid  declined  to  go  up,  but  nevertheless  there 
was  a  pretty  good  attendance,  the  following  members 
and  visitors  being  present :  M.  D.  Kendig,  president, 
Manor  ;  W.  L.  Hershey,  secretary.  East  Hempfleld  ; 
I.  L.  Landis,  Manheim ;  P.  S.  Reist,  Manheim ; 
Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy  ;  Sylvester  Kennedy,  Salis- 
bury ;  Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  city ;  Henry  Shift'ner, 
Upper  Leacock ;  W.  D.  Hoar,  Salisbury;  J.  H. 
Hershey,  East  Hempfield  ;  D.  G.  Swartz,  city  ;  C.  L. 
Hunsecker,  Manheim ;  Eph.  Hoover,  Manheim ; 
Alex.  Lane,  Neffsville  ;  J.  M.  Johnston,  city;  Aaron 


Summy,  Oregon  ;  John  Brady,  Millersville  ;  C.  Herr, 
Manor;  J.  Willis  Frantz,  Oregon;  .John  H.  Beiler, 
Intercourse  ;  Alfred  Trout,  Paradise  ;  Simon  Hostet- 
ter,  Oregon ;  Amos  Minnich,  East  Hempfield;  Abe 
Summy,  Manheim;  F.  R.  Difl'enderffer,  city;  Clare 
Carpenter,  city. 

The  minutes  of  last  meeting  were  read  and 
adopted. 

Crop  Reports. 

A  call  was  made  for  crop  reports  from  the  several 
districts. 

Henry  Shiffnek,  from  Upper  Leacock,  reported 
that  most  of  the  tobacco  had  been  cut  and  housed. 
That  which  is  cut  early  is  eafe  and  curing  nicely. 
That  which  was  cut  lately  is  sufiering  from  the  recent 
warm  and  wet  weather  and  is  rotting  to  some  extent. 

Peter  S.  Reist,  Oregon,  Manheim  township,  re- 
ported nearly  all  the  tobacco  housed.  Some  late 
patches  are  uncut.  The  crop  is  a  full  average.  All 
the  tobacco  sheds  are  full  and  growers  complain  that 
they  had  some  difficulty  in  securing  enough  lath  to 
hang  it  on.  The  tobacco  yet  out  is  in  danger  from 
the  ravages  of  worms,  which  are  worse  now  than 
earlier  in  the  season. 

Sylvester  Kennedy,  of  Salisbury,  reported  the 
crop  in  his  township  nearly  all  housed  and  curing 
satisfactorily.  The  long  spell  of  damp  weather  has 
moulded  to  some  extent  that  which  has  been  re- 
cently cut.  The  worms  were  quite  numerous  two 
weeks  ago,  but  are  not  so  bad  now.  The  tobacco  yet 
uncut  was  planted  very  late,  and  will  not  be  housed 
for  a  week  or  more. 

Israel  L.  Landis,  of  Manheim,  corroborated  Mr. 
Reist  as  to  the  condition  of  the  crop  in  that  township. 

Henry  Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  reported  the  to- 
bacco in  his  township  nearly  all  housed  except  a  few 
small  patches.  The  late  tobacco  has  grown  wonder- 
fully within  a  week  or  two.  All  growers  seem  ivell 
pleased  with  the  crops.  The  lumber  yards  have  been 
"cleaned  out"  in  supplying  lath  for  hanging  tobacco. 
Some  of  the  crop  cut  early  is  curing  rather  lighter 
than  desirable.  He  mentioned  a  firm  in  Maytown 
that  had  sold  700  eases  of  1876  tobacco  at  good 
prices,  but  he  could  not  give  the  figures.  John  L. 
Sigler,  of  Maytown,  h.as  a  stalk  of  tobacco  which  is 
a  curiosity  ;  it  contains  72  leaves  and  shows  no  sign 
of  going  to  seed . 

J.  H.  Hershey,  of  East  Hempfleld,  reported  all 
the  tobacco  in  the  neighborhood  of  Kohrerstown  well- 
housed,  except  a  few  patches  that  were  planted  after 
haymaking.  That  which  has  been  cut  is  curing 
nicely,  except  a  small  quantity  near  Landisville, 
which  he  hears  has  been  damaged  by  the  late  spell 
of  wet  weather. 

.John  Brady,  of  Millersville,  said  the  crop  in  that 
vicinity  was  nearly  all  housed  and  is  curing  well.  He 
heard  a  ])romineut  tobacco  dealer  say  he  never  saw 
tobacco  look  better.  On  the  last  Thursday  in  June 
he  planted  a  small  lot  that  is  not  yet  ready  to  cut, 
hut  is  growing  finely. 

Jacob  M.  Frantz,  of  Manor,  said  that  most  of  the 
crop  in  this  section  had  been  housed  from  six  to  ten 
days  ago,  and  is  generally  in  good  condition.  The 
wet  weather  which  has  prevailed  for  some  days  past 
will  be  apt  to  injure  that  which  has  been  housed  only 
a  few  days.  He  has  heard  of  some  lots  in  Lampeter 
that  had  to  be  taken  out  of  the  sheds  to  prevent  rot- 
ting. It  was  put  in  in  damp  weather  and  in  green 
condition.  He  had  seen  some  recently  cut  and  left 
hanging  on  the  scaffold,  and  it  looked  better  than 
that  which  had  been  housed  recently.  That  which 
was  cut  early  is  in  good  condition  ;  the  hot  weather 
and  high  winds  may  have  cured  it  a  little  too  rapidly, 
but  the  present  wet  weather  is  helping  it  again.  The 
late  tobacco  will  cure  well  if  the  wet  weather  does 
not  continue  too  long.  He  thought  the  tobacco  in  the 
vicinity  of  Strasburg  the  best  in  the  county.  There  is 
a  prevalent  opinion  that  if  the  late  tobacco  had  made 
its  rapid  growth  at  an  earlier  day  it  would  have  been 
better. 

Henry  Kurtz  exhibited  about  a  dozen  very  large 
leaves  of  tobacco  of  the  "Centennial  seed."  Most  of 
the  leaves  were  4.5,  46  or  47  inches  in  length,  and 
from  22  to  27  inches  in  width.  He  said  that  the 
largest  of  the  leaves  had  matured  within  sixty 
days,  and  some  of  the  smaller  ones  had  been 
planted  only  twenty-one  days  ago.  He  argued 
that  tobacco  would  mature  in  sixty  days,  and  that 
under  favorable  circumstances  three  crops  could  be 
grown  on  the  same  ground  in  a  single  year. 

W.L.  Hershey,  of  East  Hempfleld,  reported  most 
of  the  crop  well  housed  and  curing  well.  Some  of 
that  which  has  been  recently  cut  will  have  to  be  re- 
moved from  the  sheds  to  prevent  it  rotting.  Only  two 
or  three  of  the  lower  layers,  near  the  ground,  seem 
to  be  seriously  affected.  These  have  a  light,  leaden 
look,  but  may  improve  under  favorable  circumstances . 
Some  of  the  earlier  cured  looks  a  little  mouldy,  and 
the  ribs  have  a  "bloated"  appear.ance,  supposed  to 
be  caused  by  imperfect  ventilation.  In  good,  dry 
barns  and  sheds  there  has  been  none  of  this  trouble. 

The  Society's  Anniversary. 

The  president  called  attention  to  the  fact  that  this 
meeting  was  the  first  anniversaiy  of  the  organiza- 
tion of  the  society,  and  he  called  upon  Mr.  Jacbb  M. 
Frantz  to  make  a  speech  in  honor  of  the  event. 

Mr.  Fkantz  responded  at  some  length,  statingthe 


objects  of  the  society  and  felicitating  it  upon  the 
great  good  it  had  accomplished  in  furthering  the  to- 
bacco interest  and  in  disseminating  useful  informa- 
tion among  tobacco  growers.  Nothing  is  better 
adapted  to  further  ahy  cause  than  combination  and 
organization.  Unhappily  farmers  are  too  apt  to  ignore 
this  fact  and  "go  it  alone,"  and  often  "go  it  blind." 
He  assured  farmers  that  they  would  help  themselves 
by  joining  the  society,  which  was  not  designed  to 
benefit  the  few  but  the  many. 

C.  L.  Hunsecker  followed  in  an  able  congratula- 
tory speech ,  showing  the  wonderful  amount  of  wealth 
the  tobacco  crop  was  bringing  into  the  coffers  of  the 
growers  and  dealers,  and  also  into  the  national  treas- 
ury. This  should  cause  Lancaster  county  farmers  to 
take  an  increased  interest  in  its  growth,  and  avail 
themselves  of  the  advantages  of  the  society  to  acquire 
useful  information  as  to  its  cultivation. 

Israel  L.  Landis,  Henry  Shiffner,  Henry  Kurtz, 
Sylvester  Kennedy , Peter  S.  Reist,  Aaron  Summy  and 
President  Kendig,  all  made  speeches  encouraging 
members  of  the  society  to  go  on  in  the  work  they  had 
commenced,  until  Lancaster  county  should  every- 
where be  acknowledged  the  best  tobacco  district  in 
the  world.  The  only  difference  among  the  speakers 
was  that  some  of  them  thought  the  farmers  should 
devote  themselves  exclusively  to  growing  tobacco, 
while  others  thought  it  necessary  that  they  should 
also  acquaint  themselves  with  the  best  manner  of 
packing  it. 

New  Members  Elected. 

John  Shenk,  of  Manheim,  and  R.  W.  Shenk,  city, 
were  elected  members  of  the  society. 

Debate  on  Preparation  of  Soil. 

The  deferred  questions,  "How  soon  after  stripping 
should  tobacco  be  cased  ?"  "How  should  tobacco 
sheds  be  managed?"  and  "How  best  to  hang  tobac- 
co?" were,  on  motion,  dispensed  with,  and  tiie  ques- 
tion, "What  method  of  preparation  of  the  soil  is  best 
to  promote  tobacco  culture?"  was  taken  up. 

Peter  S.  Reist  said  :  Prepare  the  soil  and  manure 
it  in  the  fall;  or  if  that  is  inconvenient  manure  it  in  the 
spring  with  barnyard  manure.  If  that  cannot  be  had  use 
no  other  fertilizer.  He  has  tried  several  commercial 
fertilizers  ;  some  of  them  did  no  good,  and  some  of 
them  killed  the  young  plants.  He  had  heard  of  good 
results  from  plowing  down  green  rye  and  sowing 
bone-dust  broadcast,  and  he  had  heard  of  this  plan 
failing  entirely.  He  recommended  that  no  more  to- 
bacco should  be  planted  than  could  be  well  manured 
with  barnyard  manure. 

President  Kendig,  Aaron  Summy  and  John 
Moore,  spoke  of  the  good  results  of  sowing  manure 
broadcast  and  plowing  down  green  rye,  the  straw  of 
which  tends  to  keep  the  ground  loose  and  moist. 

John  Brady  favored  a  free  application  of  lime. 
He  instanced  a  case  in  which  S3, 600  worth  of  tobacco 
had  been  grown  on  three  acres  of  ground  in  two 
years,  the  grower  manuring  heavily  and  using  200 
bushels  of  lime  per  acre. 

Jacob  M.  Frantz  said  there  was  a  great  differ- 
ence in  soil  and  this  should  be  looked  to  in  growing 
tobacco.  Washington  borough  and  vicinity  is  cele- 
brated as  a  tobacco  district.  The  soil  is  alluvial  and 
was  at  one  time  the  bed  of  a  river.  As  we  can't  all 
have  river  lands  to  grow  tobacco  on,  it  is  very  im- 
portant that  we  should  know  what  is  next  best  and 
what  kind  of  manures  are  best  adapted  to  tobacco 
growth.  He  believed  in  selecting  a  soil  that  obser- 
vation and  experience  showed  to  be  the  best  and  then 
manuring  it  thoroughly  with  arn-yard  manure.  He 
had  had  great  success  in  plowing  down  green  rye  be- 
fore planting  tobacco.  In  New  Jersey  he  understood 
it  was  a  common  practice  to  plow  down  rye  before 
planting  melons.  He  had  no  doubt  that  melons,  to- 
bacco or  any  other  rank  growing  vegetables  would 
be  improved  by  this  process.  Mr.  Frantz  said  he  had 
turned  down  a  field  that  had  been  for  twenty-five 
years  in  pasture,  and  received  from  it  a  splendid 
crop  of  tobacco.  He  recommended  that  no  more  to- 
bacco be  planted  that  can  be  thoroughly  manured 
with  barnyard  manure.  Then  the  soil  will  not  de- 
teriorate, even  if  it  is  used  year  after  year  in  the 
growth  of  tobacco. 

Mr.  Kennedy  favored  rotation  of  crops,  and  said 
he  believed  it  would  cost  no  more  for  mauure  to  raise 
a  crop  of  tobacco  and  follow  it  with  a  crop  of 
wheat  than  it  would  to  grow  the  wheat 
alone.  He  recommanded  that  the  land  be  well  ma- 
nured and  planted  in  tobacco  :  after  the  tobacco  is 
cut  oflr,  sow  it  in  wheat.  The  one  manuring  will  not 
only  serve  both  crops,  but  the  wheat  that  follows  the 
tobacco  will  be  better  than  if  the  tobacco  had  not 
preceded  it.  He  believed  the  substance  drawn  from 
the  soil  in  the  growth  of  tobacco  is  not  the  substance 
necessary  to  the  growth  of  wheat. 

John  Moore  corroborated  Mr.  Kennedy.  He  said 
he  had  for  four  years  in  succession  planted  tobacco 
on  a  certain  patch  of  ground.  Then  he  sowed  it  in 
wheat  and  received  39  bushels  per  acre.  He  had 
afterwards  grown  splendid  crops  of  wheat  on  ground 
that  had  been  for  two  years  preceding  in  tobacco. 
Plowing  Down  the  Stumps. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  asked  whether  it  would  not  be 
an  advantage  to  cut  off  and  plow  under  the  tobacco 
stalks  after  the  crop  is  cut  off,  so  as  to  prevent  a 
second  growth ;  and  whether  this  plan  would  not 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


157 


tend  to  kill  off  the  horn  worm  with  which  the  second 
growth  Is  apt  to  be  Infested. 

Mr.  Frantz  said  he  thought  it  would.  He  had 
already  plowed  down  fourteen  acres  of  tobacco  stalks 
and  seeded  the  ground  in  rye,  wlilch  he  would  again 
plow  down  next  spring.  Nearly  all  the  rest  of  liie 
tobacco  land  he  had  already  plowed  down. 
Business  for  next  Meeting. 

The  following  questions  were  proposed  : 

"What  proportion  or  per  cent,  of  a  farm  can  be 
planted  with  tobacco  and  keep  the  farm  in  good  con- 
dition of  fertility  !"    Referred  to  President  Kendig. 

"Into  how  many  grades  should  tobacco  be  stripped 
to  make  it  most  marketable?"  For  general  discus- 
sion. 

Subscription  to  Newspapers. 

On  motion  the  society  renewed  its  subscription  to 
the  U,  a.  Tobacco  Journal  and  the  Tuftacco  Leaf. 
Thanks  to  Brother  Kurtz. 

On  motion  a  vote  of  thanks  was  tendered  to  Henry 
Kurtz,  of  Mount  Joy,  for  the  beautiful  si)ccinienR  of 
leaf  tobacco  exhibited  by  him  before  the  society. 

On  motion,  adjourned. 


THE  BEE-KEEPERS'  SOCIETY. 


[Although  the  Bee-Keepers'  Society  has  thirty- 
eight  names  on  the  roll,  no  more  than  six  were  pres- 
ent at  the  meeting.  We  are  unable  to  account  for 
this.  Th«  study  of  the  busy  workers  is  certainly  as 
interesting  as  that  of  tobacco-growing  or  curing,  yet 
scores  of  members  attend  the  latter  while  not  more 
than  a  corjioral's  guard  can  be  got  together  at  the 
former.  The  subject  is  certainly  not  beneath  their 
notice,  for  it  requires  a  far  higher  degree  of  intclll 
gence  to  understand  the  nature  and  process  of  bee 
culture  than  to  grow  ten  acres  of  "the  curse,"  as  our 
friend  H.  M.  Engle  once  called  the  narcotic  weed. 
Perhaps  the  matter  may  be  explained  by  the  fact 
that  there  is  not  quite  so  much  money  in  bees  as  in 
tobacco,  and  that  we  suspect  is  the  true  secret  of  the 
slim  attendance  at  the  meeting.  We  hope  when  the 
society  next  meets  that  some  of  the  old  time  interest 
may  be  shown  in  the  proceedings  by  there  being  a 
better  attendance  of  the  members. — Kep.] 

The  semi-annual  meeting  ot  the  Lancaster  County 
Bee-Keeper's  Society  met  in  the  Athenieum  rooms  at 
2  o'clock  Monday  afternoon,  October  8. 

The  following  members  were  present :  E.  Hershey, 
W.  B.  Detweiler,  J.  F.  Hershey,  H.  H.  Myers,  P.  S. 
Relst,  I.  G.  Martin. 

The  meeting  was  called  to  order  by  the  president, 
Peter  S.  Relst. 

The  minutes  ol  the  previous  meeting  in  May  were 
read  by  the  secretary,  H.  H.  Myers,  and,  on  motion, 
approved  and  adopted. 

Reports  on  the  success  of  bee  keepers  during  the 
season  were  then  called  for. 

J.  F.  Hbksbey  said  his  bees  did  well  during  the 
spring.  They  did  not  come  out  of  the  winter  strong, 
but  he  made  some  sixteen  artitieial  swarms,  aud  "ot 
about  Ave  hundred  pounds  of  honey.  If  the  swarms 
had  been  stronger  in  the  spring,  he  would  have  got 
one  thousand  or  lifteeu  hundred  pounds  of  honey. 
When  they  did  get  strong,  the  honey  season  was  over. 

Elias  Hershev  stated  that  his  bees  were  strong  In 
the  spring.  They  swarmed  freely,  but  the  season  was 
too  dry  to  make  much  honey.  He  tried  the  comb 
foundation,  and  thinks  it  is  a  success.  The  combs 
will  be  Blled  in  about  half  the  usual  time  when  the 
foundation  is  used. 

W.  B.  Detweiler  said  he  wintered  eighty  hives, 
but  was  quite  unfortunate.  About  twenty-five  died, 
and  he  was  also  badly  troubled  with  the  miller  moth. 
He  oidy  got  about  two  hundred  pounds  of  honey.  He 
has  about  seventy-five  swarms  now.  He  also  thinks 
the  patent  foundation  good. 

Isaac  G.  Martin  reported  that  his  hives  were 
weak  In  the  spring;  he  had  eight,  and  now  has  fifteen, 
all  by  natural  swarming  but  one,  which  he  raised  by 
artificial  swarming.  They  made  about  eighty  pounds 
of  comb  honey  and  two  hundred  and  forty  pounds  of 
extracted  honey.  The  bees  still  have  about  twenty- 
five  pounds  per  swarm  to  winter  on.  He  has  pre- 
pared his  hives  for  winter ;  he  did  so  by  making 
Imxes  larger  than  the  regular  hive,  then  placed  the 
hives  in  the  outside  boxes,  filling  the  space  between 
the  two  with  chair.  This  will  keep  them  warm  and 
dry.     He  has  been  quite  successful   with   this  plan. 

P.  S.  Reist  said  he  lost  about  20  per  cent,  last 
spring;  his  hives  were  not  very  strong  then  but  they 
are  now;  he  got  about  three  hundred  pounds  of  honey 
from  his  forty  hives.  They  have  ample  provision  for 
the  winter.  Perhaps  he  could  take  still  more  from 
them  and  still  leave  them  enough  to  winter  on. 

H.  H.  Myers  wintered  eleven  colonies,  but  lost 
three,  and  now  has  fourteen.  He  is  trying  to  winter 
a  queen  in  a  small  colony.  Some  of  his  hives  have 
too  much  honey  he  thinks  ;  he  got  eighty  pounds 
from  one  colony,  aud  that  one  swarmed.  He  will 
pack  hla  hives  away  in  outside  boxes  and  chaff.  The 
bees  are  in  good  condition  for  winter. 

W.  B.  Detweiler  thinks  if  the  bee-keepers  are  not 
careful  they  will  lose  many  swarms  by  this  method 
of  wintering.  He  wintered  fifty  swarins  oii(*  year  in 
that  way ;  for  a  while  they  did  well,  but  at  last  it  got 
loo  warm  ;  they  began  to  sweat  aud  the  hives  began 


to  mould.  If  kept  too  warm  they  will  leave  their 
hives.  Corn  husks  were  better  than  wheat  chaff; 
they  admitted  more  air  and  there  was  better  ventila- 
tion. 

n.  H.  Myers  said  that  one  hive  packed  in  chaff 
last  year,  was  his  boss  hive  this  spring;  they  did 
very  well;  they  remained  In  the  hive  more  closely 
than  the  rest;  he  made  arraugemcnts  for  ventilation 
and  there  was  no  sweating. 

Mr.  Detweiler  said  compound  hives  are  far  better 
than  the  common  ones.  He  thinks  it  Is  a  great  risk 
to  winter  hives  In  this  way. 

P.  S.  Heist  said  the  nearer  bees  are  kept  to  their 
methods  while  in  a  state  of  nature,  the  more  suc- 
cessful the  exiM-Wment  will  be. 

H.  H.  Myers  remarked  that  small  swarms  some- 
times do  best  as  honey  gatherers.  His  largest  swarm** 
sometimes  do  the  poorest . 

Elias  Hershey  said  much  dci>ends  on  the  queen  ; 
sometimes  she  Is  not  very  prolific  and  the  swarm 
does  no  irood.  He  winters  his  bees  on  the  summer 
stand.  He  has  tried  the  packing  method,  but  not 
with  much  success.  He  believes  in  building  bee 
bouses;  less  honey  is  consumed — enough  is  saved  In 
fact  to  pay  for  making  the  bee  house.  He  described 
Ills  underground  bee  liouse  at  some  length. 

W.  B.  Detweiler  said  that  even  if  hives  have 
young,  fertile  (luecns  In  the  spring,  all  will  not  lie  the 
same  ill  the  fall  ;  some  will  be  stronger  than  others  ; 
if  the  queen  is  prolific  the  swarm  will  grow  strong, 
but  not  otherwise. 

Elias  Hersiiet  did  not  think  it  all  dci>ended  on 
the  queen.  Some  bees  were  better  honey  gatherers 
than  others. 

J.  F.  Hershey  raised  queens  from  good  workers, 
and  found  it  to  answer  well. 

H.  H.  Myers  tried  an  experiment  of  feeding  a 
swarm  with  a  young  queen,  all  they  would  eat,  and 
the  result  was  very  satisfactory.  "The  queen  proved 
very  prolific  aud  the  swarm  strong. 

J.  F.  IlERSnEY  thought  queens  should  always  be 
raised  from  old  queens.  1  le  tried  to  raise  from  young 
queens  for  a  series  of  years  and  the  bees  gradually 
deteriorated — got  smaller  and  weaker. 

H.  H.  Myers  thought  the  drones  are  sometimes 
inferior  aud  deteriorated  ;  may  not  be  the  failure  in 
the  queen  by  attributed  to  these  weak  ilrones? 

P.  8.  Reist  said  one  of  his  colonies  swarmed  three 
times  and  all  are  doing  well.  He  did  not  think  there 
are  by  twenty-five  per  cent,  so  many  bees  in  the 
United  States  to-day  as  four  years  ago. 

H.  H.  Myers  said  the  patent  hive  men  are  to  blame 
for  the  decrease  of  bees  ;  they  tell  you  they  can  winter 
bees  on  a  quart  or  two  of  honey  in  their  iiives  and  In 
this  way  kill  them  ofi'. 

J.  F.  Hershev  said  if  fed  on  honey  they  do  better 
th.an  when  on  sugar. 

Elias  Hershey  fed  some  on  cheap  sugar  for  a 
while  last  year  and  then  on  good  white  sugar,  and 
they  did  very  well.  He  tlilnkstoo  much  stress  Is  laid 
on  feeding  honey. 

The  question  "What  is  the  cause  of  dysentery  In 
bees,"  was  put  by  Elias  Hershey  and  replied  to  by  J. 
F.  Hershey,  who  said  that  young  swarms  are  more 
likely  to  take  it  than  old  ones. 

J.  F.  Hershey  said  he  fed  sugar  to  bees  for  three 
months  at  a  time,  and  none  were  attacked  by 
dysentery. 

There  being  no  no  further  business,  the  society  ad- 
journed until  the  second  Monday  in  May,  1878. 

I.  G.  Martin  had  on  exhibition  the  patent  comb 
foundations,  and  also  such  foundation  twenty-four 
hours  after  it  had  been  placed  In  the  hive  in  a  mova- 
ble frame.  During  that  brief  period  at  least  one- 
quarter  of  an  inch  had  been  added  to  the  patent 
foundation  on  both  sides.  Their  use  saves  both  time 
and  material,  and  gives  the  bees  a  longer  period  to 
gather  honey.  It  is  stated  that  as  much  as  twenty- 
five  pounds  per  hive  additional  can  be  jiroduccd  in 
this  way.  It  is  certainly  worthy  of  the  attention  of 
bee-keepers  everywhere. 


THE    LINNiEAN  SOCIETY. 


A  stated  meeting  of  the  Linniean  society  was  held 
on  Saturday,  September  29,  President  J.  S.  Stahr  in 
the  chair;  ten  members  present.  After  the  minutes 
of  the  previous  meeting  and  monthly  dues  were  at- 
tended to, the 

Donations  to  the  Museum 
were  examined .    Seven   bottles,  marked  from   A   to 
H,  and  one  No.  40,  containing   insects,   larv.'v,   fruit, 
fuugoids,  etc.,  collected  by  or   sent    to    Prof.    S.    S. 
Rath  von. 

A  number  of  minerals  and  fossils  were  donated  by 
Rev.  C.  L.  Houpt,  from  caves  in  the  vicinity  of  Sink- 
ing creek,  Giles  county,  Virginia,  per  Rev.  G.  H. 
Trabcrt,  such  as  crystalline  and  stalactitic  forma- 
tions of  carbonate  of  lime,  red  oxide  of  iron,  black 
oxide  of  manganese.  Fossils  of  the  cretaceous  period 
— Rhynchoneilidae,  Lingulidfe,  Ji:c.  Mr.  Houpt  also 
bad  for  inspection  a  series  of  very  fine  copies  of  med- 
als of  a  number  of  the  Popes,  from  the  year  1.566  to 
18+6;  of  Luther  and  other  medals  struck  In  commem- 
oration of  events  and  actors.  Prof.  Dubbs,  Revs. 
Geissinger,  Houpt  and  Stahr  added  desirable  histori- 
cal information  in  relation  to  the  same.  Rev.  D.  H. 
Geissinger  donated   various  combinations  of  copper 


ore,  such  as  sulphurel,  blue  and  green  carbonate 
dentlfric  and  elllorescent — if  not  misunderstood — 
from  Swatara  Gap,  Letianon  county— unless  that  re- 
ferred to  the  residence  of  Rev.  C.  H.  Trabert.  Rev. 
.7.  S.  Stahr  had  a  pressed  speelnnn  of  the  .Su(<m«m 
roslrirtiim,  found  last  August  by  I'rof.  J.  W.  Andrews, 
of  Colerain,  Lancaster  county,  on  the  farm  of  Mr. 
Albert  Worth,  In  the  southeast  iiartofsald  township. 
A  plant  that,  like  the  A',  hcleroilo/um,  which  two,  Ur. 
(iray  says  (in  his  late  School  and  Field  B<x)k  of 
Botany)  grow  wild  west  of  the  Mississippi ;  this  also 
grows  In  Kansas  and  Colorado,  and  Is  said  to  be  the 
original  food  of  the  potato  beetle.  The  plant  Is  a 
weed,  perhaps  not  so  bad  as  the  "horse  nettle,"  Sola- 
nnm  CaruHncntr,  which  Is  in  the  county,  but  just  as 
prl«'kly.  We  fancy,  if  Introduced,  the  dory|}hora-\^^- 
tiiuala,  of  Say,  or  Colorado  "jmtato-bng,"  would 
hardly  leave  the  Solannin  luficroxa,  or  "[Xitato  vine," 
for  the  stranger  weed,  which  Is  not  wanted,  although 
curious  as  to  how  It  came  to  Colerain.  .Mr.  W.  T. 
Bolton  l:ad  a  vine  with  a  bean  [kkI  on  It,  sup|X)seiI  to 
be  a  qlicine;  true.  It  was  the  ylicine  apioil  of  LInnutus, 
now  known  as  Apiot  lithcrona.  It  seemsthat  heover- 
lookeil  the  string  of  tuliers  on  the  root.  These  are 
like  small  jiotatoes,  and  wIicmi  sliced  and  roasted  on 
a  hot  stove  taste  like  ixitatoes,  being  eyldeiitly  rich 
In  starch,  as  the  writer  has  tested.  Why  has  no  one 
yet  tried  to  cultivate  these  tubers  S  Simply  because 
the  mere  botanist  pays  no  attention,  and  others  who 
would  do  so  are  Ignorant  of  the  plant.  Mrs.  Zell  also 
had  on  exhibition  a  well  developed  leaf  of  the  side- 
saddle plant,  hunter'scup  orpiteher — the  Narracennia 
purpurea — with  which  species  the  leaf  corresitonds. 
It  gets  purjile  flowers;  the  S.  Jtaiui,  yellow  llowers. 
This  leaf  was  from  ])lants  raised  by  Dr.  Davis,  on 
Prince  street,  this  city,  he  having  prepared  a  jKiiid  to 
cultivate  them  in  his  yard'.  The  proper  pitcher  plant 
is  quite  ditfcreiit,  the  Xc/'enthis  diKlillaloria  ;  but  no 
more  curious  or  interesting.  The  Sarrnrt-nnia  pur- 
purea Is  found  in  a  very  few  localities  in  our  county, 
and  is  quite  rare. 

Two  ciiplcB  of  The  Lancaster  Farmer,  and 
sundry  book  notices  and  printed  circulars,  all  that 
refers  to  the  library. 

Papers  Read. 

Rev.  J.  S.  Stahr  on  the  Solanum  ronlralum.  J. 
Stauffer  illustrated  a  strange  growth  in  a  certain 
peach  tree,  brought  tohlni  by  .Mr.  Rathvon,who  gave 
an  account  of  It  in  his  pajier.  No.  H72.  A  miscellane- 
ous record  of  all  the  articlesdeiiositcu  this  day  under 
subject  matter  A  :  Atayi/daluH  Ipersica,  he  says,  an 
ordinary  |ieacli  tree  on  the  premises  of  Mrs.  Miller, 
Reading,  Pa.,  a  branch  of  which  with  both  kinds 
of  fruit  upon  it  was  given  to  .Mr.  Kathvon  by  Mr. 
Bruce  of  this  city.  This  tree  blooms  in  sjiring  like 
others,  but  develops  two  distinct  kinds  of  fruit  op- 
posite each  other  on  the  same  branchlet,  as  was  the 
case  in  the  sample  ;  the  one  au  ordinarily  full  grown 
peach,  fiesh  aud  flavor  fine,  stone  deeply  pitted — the 
other  a  diminutive  peach,  no  larger  than  a  plum,  gels 
ripe  and  mellow,  but  lacks  in  flavor.  The  stone  Is 
equally  small,  flattish,  nearly  smooth,  and  said  to  be 
abortive.  What  produces  the  annual  difierences  of 
the  fruit  is  a  question  we  cannot  now  discuss,  but 
simply  record  the  fact. 

Subject  B  describesa  singular  puff-ball, like  fungus, 
from  Mr.  J.  C.  .Maule,  of  Quarry  vllle,  in  this  county, 
found  growing  In  an  lee  bouse.  Mr.  Ralhvon,  to 
avail  himself  of  thenumeroiis  illustrations  In  London, 
and  those  collected  and  figured  by  .Mr.  Stauffer, falleil 
to  find  any  thing  of  the  kind,  when  It  was  advised  to 
forward  the  same  to  Dr.  Farlow,the  distinguished 
Fungiologi.st  of  Boston,  Mass. 

Mr.  Stauffer  illustrated  this  fungus,  and  on  a  close 
inspection  of  the  interior  arrangement,  when  cut  lu 
two,  found  It  more  in  appearance  like  that  of  a  fruit 
with  a  central  placentie,  surrounded  by  seeds,  and 
fleshy  walls  surrounding  them,  and  having  a  jelly- 
like substance  between  the  walls.  He  suggested  the 
Idea  that  he  might  be  an  undeveloped  Phallus.  Mr. 
H.  L.  Zahm  found  one  In  his  garden,  this  city,  Octo- 
ber 6,  1876,  which  had  a  basal  socket  of  a  round 
form,  with  a  jelly-like  substance,  and  a  singular 
stripe,  with  a  head  and  gauze-Ukc  veil  cover.  A 
figure  of  this  was  sent  to  Dr.  Farlow,  who  named  It 
PhaUus  incleefialus.  We  hope  to  hear  from  Mr. 
Farlow.  Our  suggestion  may  be  at  fault,  aud  yet 
many  things  thought  species  or  even  placeil  In  a  dif- 
ferent genus,  on  subsequent  research  were  found 
simply  the  young  of  quite  another  creature— changed 
as  a  "tad-pole  does  to  a  frog."  Bot.  C,  dcscrlbeii 
Lepidopterous  Larva*.  D,  Jlouibus  Ainericaua.  E, 
different  insects  on  the  wing  in  the  evening,  captured 
in  his  study.  F,  on  a  (Jordiun,  of  a  wliitc  color, 
"hair-snake,"  taken  from  a  head  of  cabbage — from 
Mr.  I.  L.  Landls.  G,on  the  pupa  of  JJanias  Archip- 
pea,  from  Prof.  Baker,  of  Mlllersvlllc.  H,  on  cattle 
ticks  collected  and  described.  Bot.  No.  40,  Sunday 
Spiders  with  notes  on  them  under  new  business. 

Rev.  .las.  Y.  Mitchell,  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian 
church  was  nominated  and  unanimously  elected  an 
active  member  of  this  society. 

The  committee  ap|X)iuted  at  the  last  meeting  re- 
ported and  recommended  that.a  semi-monthly  meet- 
ing should  be  held,  say  at  7;^  o'clock  on  the  second 
Friday  evening  of  each  mouth,  to  enable  some  of  the 
members  to  meet  whose  business  occupy  their  atten- 
tion on  Saturday  afternoon  and  prevents  their  at- 


158 


THE  LANCASTER- FARMER. 


[  October, 


tendance.  This  was  agreed  to,  and  the  treasurer 
authorized  to  procure  lamps  and  oil  for  the  oecasiou. 
The  first  meeting  will  take  place  the  second  Friday 
evening  in  October  next  (the  12th,)  without  further 
notice. 

Under  scientific  miscellany,  various  topics  con- 
nected with  matter  brought  before  the  meeting  was 
discussed  and  a  pleasant  time  had.  The  meeting 
adjourned  to  meet  statedly  on  the  last  Saturday  in 
October,  the  LiTth,  1877. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Wheat-Growing  in   America. 
"  Wheat-growing  has  not  paid  on  the  greater  part 
of  the  laud  in  England  for  some  time.    It  is  a  ques- 
tion whether  it  will  more  than  just  pay  even  at  the 
minimum   cost  of  production,   with   the   aid  of  the 
most  perfect  machinery  upon  large  areas.     The  cost 
of  production  beats  the  English  producer,  and   the 
teudencyis  rather  toward  increased  expenses,  as  both 
laud  and  labor  are  getting  gradually  dearer.     The 
English   farmer  cannot   compete   with   the  colossal 
corn-growers  of  America,  whose  wheat  fields  of  rich 
virgin  soil  are   said   to   be   sometimes   so  large  and 
long  that  ploughing  one  furrow  out  and  back  again 
is  a  good  day's  work  for  a  plough  team.  The  Crimean 
war  had  the  effect  of  hastening  on  this  crisis,  and 
Ijrematurely  developing  the  enormous  corn  produc- 
tion of  the   United  States.     The   American  scholar, 
bibliopole,  philosopher,  George  Ticknor,  whose  let- 
ters and  life  form  one  of  the  most  interesting  works 
of  current  literature,  wrote  on  this  point  in  1855,  the 
following  prophetic  words  to  John,  King  of  Saxony  : 
'Your  short  crops  in  Europe  are  filling  the  great  val- 
ley of  the  Mississippi  with  wealth.    *    *    *  Indeed, 
your  European  wars  are  not  only  making  the  States 
in  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi  the   preponderating 
power  in  the  American  Union,  but  you  are  making 
them  the  granary  of  the  world.'    Wonderfully  has 
this  prediction   been   fulfilled.     Year  by   year   since 
the  date  of  those  words  has  the  great  sea  of  waving 
corn  steadily  advanced  through  the  fertile  valleys  of 
the  States.    It  is  still  advancing,  and  will   advance. 
We  cannot  resist   it.     We  must   accommodate   our- 
selves to  the  circumstances   as   well   and  as  quick- 
ly as  possible,  taking  the   tide   at   its   turn.      The 
transition  state  will  be   tedious,    and   fraught   with 
loss   and   suffering  to   many,  in  various  classes   of 
society,  and  it  will  be  imperative  that   all  concerned 
should  endeavor  to  use  mutual  forbearance."     The 
above,  from  the  Agricultural  Gazette,  is  full  of  sig- 
nificance   to    the    American    farmer.     The    United 
States  is  now  the  granary  of  the  world,  and  wher- 
ever wheat  is  wanted,  there   the   hungry   look  to  us 
for  a  supply.    The  surplus   of  America   goes   to  fill 
all  deficiencies  in  Europe.     What  we  have  to  do  is  to 
cheapen  our  product,  so  as  to  enlarge  our  profit  or 
enlarge  our  iiroducts  without  increasing  the  cost  per 
bushel,  which  is  the  same|thing.     To  retain  a  hold 
upon  the   markets   we   have   captured   we   must  do 

this. 

^ 

Home  Manures. 

A  writer  in  the  Utica  Herald  puts  this  question  in 
good  shape  as  follows: 

The  most  successful   farmers   within   the  writer's 
acquaintance  are  those  who  make  the  most  home- 
made manure,  who  depend  mainly  upon  sod,  a  heavy 
turf,  which  means  heavy  crops,  whether  of  grass  or 
of  grain,  if  the  sod   is  inverted.     Here,  all  the  way 
from   seventy   to   a  hundred   tons   per   acre  of  rich 
material  is  turned  down  to   rot   and  form   pabulum 
for  the   crop  to  succeed,  and   of  a   nature   exactly 
suited  to  plant  growth,  containing  all  the  properties, 
being  in  fact  a  reproduction  in  the  growth .    Here  no 
art  is  necessary  to  compost  or  select  for  the  different 
soils,  adapting   manure  to   ground  or  product.     Sod 
supplemented  by  the  manure  of  stables,  answers  all 
till!  purposes,  and  is  of  a  high   fertility,  lacking  but 
little  of  the  highest   If  the  manures   are  kept   under 
cover  so  as  to  retain  and  concentrate  their  strength. 
All  the  elements  are   always  in  good  proportion.    It 
only  needs  applying  projjcrly   what  is  made,  on  all 
the  land,  the  soil  originally   (in  its  mineral  composi- 
tion) not  materially  defective,  which  emtiraces  most 
of  our  drift  and  all  our  alluvial  soil.     And  this  mode 
can   be   pi-osecuted    successfully    for    an    indelinite 
period.     We  know  farms  on  which  it  has  been  prac- 
ticed, uninterruptedly,  for  more  than  thirty  years, 
where  adjoining  land  has  been  incorporated,  some- 
times of  a  reduced  and  almost  worthless  character, 
and,  in  a  few  years,  made  as  good  as  the  rest,  the 
whole  forming  the  most  successful,  the  most  profita- 
ble farming  within  the  writer's  knowledge,  continu- 
ing, unabatedly,  its  high   yields  up   to   the  present. 
We  see  more  or  less  of  this  all  over  our  dairy  section. 
It  needs  but  concentration,  an  adoption  of  the  full 
method,  to   reach   the  highest   success  in   farming; 
this  is  because  the  manure  is  obtained  cheaper,  and  a 
full  use  is  made  of  it — all  the  land  will  bear. 


poorer  ground  the  quantity  may  be  decreased.  Yet 
fertile  land  is  desirable  for  this  crop,  as  well  as 
others,  and  a  dressing  of  dung  or  fertilizer  will  be 
apt  to  bring  its  reward  in  a  thick  and  luxuriant  crop. 
Hungarian  is  a  more  difficult  crop  to  harvest  than 
hay.  Always  cut  during  a  dry  time,  if  possible,  for 
it  will  take  three  good  hay  days  to  prepare  for  the 
barn.  We  do  not  always,  however,  have  our  choice, 
for  as  the  crop  ripens  very  rapidly,  and  should  be  cut 
when  just  in  blossom,  a  little  delay  at  the  critical  time, 
in  order  to  secure  favorable  weather,  is  apt  to  result 
in  over-ripening,  or  the  formation  of  seed.  Dead-ripe 
Hungarian  is  poor  stuff  for  food,  and  may  even  act 
as  poison,  or  at  least  as  an  injurious  food,  when  fed 
to  horses,  and  hence  it  is  preferable  to  harvest  rather 
early  than  too  late."  This  is  good  advice  ;  but  better 
advice  would  be  to  substitute  an  .acreor  two  of  sugar 
corn,  sowu  broadcast.  For  fall  food  it  comes  just  in 
the  nick  of  time  ;  or  to  cut  for  fodder  just  before  it 
gets  into  tassel,  and  curing  it  for  winter  feeding.  It 
is  relished  exceedingly  by  cattle,  and  especially  so 
by  horses,  and  is  very  wholesome.  The  fodder  crop 
of  corn,  when  Lucerne  and  Hungarian  grass  is  under 
consideration,  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  and 
allowed  its  full  weight. 

Soiling  Doubles  the  Acreage. 

The  American  farmer  has  a  great  desire  to  increase 
his  .area  of  land.  He  can  seldom  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  add  his  neighbor's  farm  if  opportunity  offers. 
But  how  mnch  better  for  him  to  double  the  produc- 
tion instead  of  the  acres.  And  as  stock-keeping  is 
necessary  to  increasing  fertility,  the  soiling  system 
will  enable  him  to  double  his  number  of  animals,  and 
_  thus  double  the  paying  product  of  his  farm.  One 
acre  of  good  grass,  well  cured  into  hay,  will  winter 
a  cow  in  the  latitude  where  the  cold  term  requiring 
fodder  lasts  half  of  the  year,  and  yet,  in  that  same 
latitude,  it  takes  on  the  average  three  acres  to  pas- 
ture a  cow  during  the  warm  season,  although  the 
German  chemist  Wolff  found  46  per  cent,  of  insoluble 
fiber  in  clover  hay,  and  only  29  per  cent,  in  green 
clover,  thus  showing  a  still  greater  loss  by  pasturing. 
If,  then,  one-half  acre  in  good  condition  will  furnish 
green  food  for  a  cow  during  the  pasturing  season, 
and  one  acre  for  the  winter  season,  it  will  be  found 
that  a  proper  management  of  land  under  the  soiling 
system  will  enable  a  dairyman  to  keep  two  cows  upon 
the  same  land  that  now  keeps  one.  In  many  portions 
of  Germany  this  statement  has  been  more  than  real- 
ized, as  a  little  ten  acre  farm  often  feeds  ten  cows. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Liquid  Excrement. 

How  strangely  we  overlook  the  liquid  excrement 
of  our  animals  !  A  cow,  under  ordinary  feeding,  will 
void  20,000  pounds  of  solid  excrement  and  8,000 
pounds  of  liquid.  The  comparative  mouey  value  of 
the  two  is  but  slightly  in  favor  of  the  solid.  This 
statement  has  been  verified  as  truth,  over  and  over 
again.  The  urine  of  herbivorous  animals  holds  nearly 
all  the  secretions  of  the  body  which  are  capable  of 
producing  rich  nitrogenous  compounds  so  essential 
as  forcing  or  leaf-forming  agents  in  the  growth  of 
plants.  The  solid  holds  the  phosphoric  acid,  the 
lime  and  magnesia,  which  go  to  the  seeds  principally, 
but  the  liquid,  holding  nitrogen,  potash  and  soda,  is 
needed  in  forming  the  stalks  and  leaves.  The  two 
forms  of  plant  nutriment  should  never  be  separated 
or  allowed  to  be  wasted  liy  neglect.  The  farmer  who 
saves  all  the  urine  of  his  animals  doubles  his  manu- 
rial  resources  every  year.  Good  seasoned  peat  is  of 
immense  service  to  farmers,  when  used  as  au  absorb- 
ent, and  the  stalls  of  the  animals  should  be  so  con- 
structed as  to  admit  of  a  wide  passage  iu  the  rear, 
with  generous  room  for  the  peat  to  be  used  daily  with 
the  excrements. — Journal  of  Chemistry. 


Hints  to  Growers  of  Tobacco. 


From  a  reliable  and  authentic  source  (Deutsche 
Industrie  Blatter,  Germany,)  we  take  the  account  of 
experiments  which  have  been  made  in  some  of  the 
tobacco  producing  districts  of  Germany  (Schlesien 
and  Pflatz)  with  decided  success.  At  the  time  the 
plant  is  ready  for  cutting,  judgment  should  be  used 
in  determining  the  body  and  texture  the  leaves  pos- 
sess at  such  time.  If  the  leaf  should  be  of  a  weak 
character,  the  whole  stalk,  including  the  root,  should 
be  extracted  and  nailed  or  hung  up  in  the  barns  with 
the  tips  of  the  leaves  hanging  downward.  This  will 
greatly  benefit  the  leaves,  as  the  sap  contained  iu  the 
root  and  stalk  will  gradually  diffuse  itself  into  the 
leaves,  and  add  considerable  to  their  strength  and 
the  coming  sweating  process.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
the  leaves  should  be  of  a  thick,  heavy  character, 
then  only  the  leaves  should  be  cut  and  hung  up. 
This  will  reduce  the  surplus  of  sap,  deprive  the  leaf 
of  too  great  an  accumulation  of  strength,  and  turn 
it  out  a  thinner  and  more  of  a  desirable  texture  after 
sweating. 

^ 

Hungarian  Grass.  Poj;   promoting  the   fertility  of  fruit  trees,  root 

The  Scientific  Fanner,  Boston,  has  a  good  word  pruning  is  an  operation  now  generally  restored  to.  If 
for  Hungarian  grass,  saying:  "We  recommend  a  properly  carried  out  it  is,  perhaps,  the  most  certain 
bushel  of  seed  to  the  acre,  on  rich  ground.    On  (  way  to  reduce  a  luxuriant  tree  to  a  fruitful  state. 


The  Original  Seckel  Pear  Tree. 
Mr.  Editor  :  The  old  tree,  the  source  from  which 
sprang  this  well-known  and  world-renowned  variety, 
I  visited  last  week  and  fouud  still  standing  and  bear- 
ing fruit.  It  is  on  the  Girard  estate,  east  of  the 
Point  Breeze  Park,  iu  the  lower  part  of  the  city  of 
Phil.adelphia,  and  to  this  tree  we  are  indebted  for  our 
Seckel  Pear,  so  widely  disseminated  over  the  world 
and  acknowledged  to  be  the  standard  of  quality  in 
testing  other  varieties.  It  is  the  richest  and  most 
exquisitely  flavored  pear  known.  Samples  sent  to 
Europe  by  Dr.  Hosack  in  1819  were  pronounced  by 
the  London  Horticultural  Society  to  exceed  iu  flavor 
the  richest  of  their  autumn  pears.  The  old  pear  tree 
must  be  between  125  and  1:^0  years  old,  for  fruit  has 
been  gathered  from  it  (according  to  the  following 
account  published  in  Downing's  "Fruits  and  Fruit 
Trees  of  America,"  compiled  in  1845)  for  from  110 
to  112  years. 

"The  following  history  may  be  relied  oh  as  authen- 
tic,"  says  Downing,  "it  having  been  related  by  the 
late  venerable  Bishop  White,  whose  tenacity  of 
memory  was  well  known.  About  eighty  years  ago, 
when  the  Bishop  was  a  lad,  there  was  a  well-known 
sportsman  and  cattle  dealer  in  Philadelphia  known 
as  'Dutch  Jacob.'  Every  season,  early  in  the  autumn 
on  returniug  from  his  shooting  excursions,  'Dutch 
Jacob'  regaled  his  neighbors  with  pears  of  an 
unusually  delicious  flavor,  the  secret  of  whose  place 
of  growth,  however,  he  would  never  satisfy  their 
curiosity  Ijy  divulging.  At  length  the  Holland  Land 
Company,  owning  a  considerable  tract  of  land  south 
of  the  city,  disposed  of  it  in  parcels  and  'Dutch 
Jacob'  then  secured  the  ground  on  which  his  favor- 
ite pear  tree  stood,  a  fine  strip  of  land  near  the 
Delaware.  Not  long  afterward  it  became  the  farm 
of  Mr.  Seckel,  who  introduced  this  remarkable  fiuit 
to  public  notice,  and  it  received  his  name.  After- 
ward the  property  was  added  to  the  vast  estate  of 
the  late  Stephen  Girard." 

The  old  tree  is  about  thirty  feet  in  height  and  two 
feet  iu  diameter.  The  trunk  is  much  decayed  in  the 
heart  and  one  side  is  entirely  gone.  When  I  visited 
it  some  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago  it  had  a  fence 
aroimd  it  and  a  stout  prop  put  on  the  decayed  side  to 
-support  it;  but  now,  to  the  disgrace  of  the  pomolo- 
gists  aud  city  officials  there  is  not  a  rail  to  protect 
and  preserve  this  grand  old  pear  tree,  which  still 
bears  fruit  and  may  with  care  survive  for  many 
years. — S.  W.  jV.,  Jenkintown,  1877,  North  American. 

^ 

Grafting  and  Its  Effects. 
It  has  long  been  a  debatable  question  among  horti- 
culturalistsas  to  what  influence,  if  any,  the  graft 
exerts  upon  the  stock,  or  the  stock  upon  the  graft,  in 
their  after  growth  and  development.  While  it  is 
claimed  by  some  that  there  is  no  change,  but  that  the 
growth  from  the  graft  retains  all  its  distinctive 
characteristics  of  variety  of  foliage,  fruit  and  flavor, 
aud  that  the  stock  below  the  graft  also  remaine  uu- 
changed,  others  believe  that  changes  do  occur  in  both 
directions.  The  latter  opinion  is  probably  correct; 
for,  although  both  graft  and  stock  retain  their  origi- 
nal and  individual  characteristics,  there  are  often 
evidences  that  each  has  in  some  way  been  influenced 
or  modified  in  growth  or  habit  by  the  action  of  the 
other.  Cases  have  been  reported  \yhere  varieties  of 
apples  and  other  fruits  have  been  apparently  affected 
both  in  Havor  and  time  of  ripening  by  the  influence 
of  the  stocks  upon  which  they  have  been  grafted.  As 
it  is  a  well-known  fact  among  nurserymen  that  apple 
trees  grafted  upon  seedling  stocks  not  only  follow  the 
habit  .and  form  of  variety  in  the  top  growth,  but  that 
the  roots  growing  from  the  stock  also  assume  the 
habits  and  distinctive  peculiarities  of  the  graft.  So, 
if  a  lot  of  apple  seedlings,  as  nearly  .alike  as  possible 
in  size  and  habits  of  growth,  are  selected  and  grafted 
with,  say  crabs,  and  other  kinds  of  apples,  it  will  be 
found  in  their  after  growth  that  the  crabs  have  their 
usual  crab  roots,  and  also  that  where  any  other  va- 
rieties have  peculiarities  in  their  root  growth,  they 
will  be  so  perfectly  developed  iu  the  different  kinds 
that  skillful  nurserymen  will  select  and  recognize 
them  by  their  roots  alone.  For  these  and  some  other 
reasons  I  am  inclined  to  doubt  the  entire  success  of 
grafting  the  foreign  vine  upon  our  hardier  natives  as 
a  remedy  for  the  injury  to  the  roots  by  the  phylloxera. 


Salt  as  a  Fertilizer. 
Only  yesterday,  says  a  correspondent  of  the  Utica 
Herald,  one  of  our  most  intelligeut  and  successful 
farmers  informed  me  that  when  he  took  possession, 
some  years  ago,  of  the  farm  which  he  now  works,  he 
found  it  impossible  to  raise  good  oats;  30  bushels  of 
poor  light  oats  were  all  he  could  get  from  an  acre, 
while  his  straw  was  dull  or  rusty.  Acting  on  the 
advice  of  a  friend  he  salted  an  acre  liberally  as  an 
experiment.  The  result  was  the  corn  nearly  doubled 
on  that  acre  and  the  rust  disappeared,  while  the  un- 
saUed  portions  of  his  oat  field  were  rusty,  and  the 
crop  hardly  worth  harvesting. 

Si»  quai-ts  of  soot  to  a  hogshead  of  water  makes  a 
serviceable  manure  for  watering  forced  plants— as 
well  as  for  most  bulbs,  flowering  plants  and  shrubs. 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


-159 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Weight  of  Milk. 
X.  A.  WillHi-d,  eonio  mniitlie  since,  etalej  that  on 
tlie  authority  of  (iiiil  Boicl^n,  the  patentee  of  tlie 
milk  eondcmina:  pioresB,  that  au  averas'o  (|uart  of 
milk  at  a  tenipeialnre  of  sixty  ile^rees  would  weiirh, 
If  we  rei'olleet  aright,  a  fraction  over  2.M  iiouiuIr  to 
the  quart,  hut  Dr.  Sturtevant  In  one  of  liis  pnlilic 
leetures,  in  which  he  urged  farmers  and  experimen- 
ters to  droji  the  practice  of  reporlini;  milk  liy  meas- 
ure, as  fpiarts  vary  so  much  that  one  never  knows 
certainly  how  much  a  cow  sives  Ijy  the  measure, 
reports,  and  to  .adopt  the  weighing;  system  instead, 
gave  'i.l!>  pounds  as  his  standard  In  practice,  it  beinsr 
more  convenient  to  use  than  the  exact  fraction,  and 
near  enou{;h  for  all  iirrctical  purjioses.  Since  that 
time,  the  public  generally  have  adopted  2. Mi  pounds 
as  the  practical  measure  for  a  quart  of  milk,  usually, 
liowever,  weighed  warm  from  the  cow.  So  a  cow 
which  gives  .'>;(^,'  pounds  of  milk  in  a  day  is  a  twen- 
ty-five quart  cow;  hut  such  cows  are  scarce.  Kew 
of  us  become  very  weary  by  the  slow  process  of 
measuring  our  milk,  especially  when  we  have  but 

one  cow . 

■ ^ 

Effect  of  Tea  on  the  Skin. 

If  you  drop  a  few  drops  of  strong  tea  upon  a  piece 
of  iron — a  knife  blade,  for  instance — the  tannate  of 
iron  is  formed,  whicli  is  black.  If  you  mix  it  with 
iron  tilings,  or  pulverized  iron,  you  can  make  an  arti- 
cle of  ink.  If  you  mix  it  with  I'resh  human  blood  it 
forms  with  the  iron  of  the  blood  the  tannate  of  iron. 
Take  human  skin  and  let  it  soak  for  a  time  in  strong 
tea,  and  it  will  become  Icither.  Now,  when  we  re- 
member that  the  liquids  which  enter  the  stomach  are 
rapidly  absorbed  by  the  veins  and  absorbents  of  the 
stomach  and  enter  into  the  circulation,  and  are 
thrown  out  of  the  system  by  the  skin,  respiration  and 
kidneys,  it  is  probable  that  di-ink  so  common  as  tea 
and  so  abundantly  used,  will  have  some  effect.  Can 
it  be  poesilile  thai  tannun,  introduced  with  so  much 
liquid  producing  perspiration,  will  have  no  ell'cct  on 
the  skin  ?  Look  at  the  tea  drinkers  of  Kussia,  the 
Chinese,  and  the  old  women  of  America,  who  have 
so  long  continued  the  habit  of  drinking  strong  tea. 
Are  they  not  dark  colored  and  leather-skinned  ? 
When  young  they  are  fair  complexioned. 


Rest  Before  Eating. 

Civilization  and  hunger  are  incompatible.  All  the 
virtues  and  graces  of  humanity — certainly  of  male 
humanity — Hy  before  an  empty  stomach.  It  may  be 
possible  for  a  man  to  be  hungry  ami  amiable  at  the 
same  time,  but  it  is  not  safe  for  any  wife  to  jiresumo 
upon  60  unlikely  an  oeciirrenee  habitually.  Just 
before  dinner  is  the  worst  possible  time  to  bother  a 
husbanil  with  questions  or  complaints,  or  even  with 
eH'orl  to  be  aggressively  agreeable.  Then  is  the  time 
above  all  others  when  social  silence  should  grace  the 
home,  and  make  it  seem  to  the  tired  man  the  most 
delightful  and  restful  place  on  earth.  Half  an  hour 
of  quiet  just  then  is  the  best  possible  preparation  for 
the  social  enjoyment  of  the  coming  meal,  for  then 
the  nervous  tension  and  mental  strain  of  business 
care  and  anxiety  can  be  gradually  relaxed,  and  the 
entire  system  brought  into  comlitions  for  enjuying 
food  and  the  amenities  of  social  life. — HcUnliJic 
Ani<;ruan. 


Convenience 

The  successful  farmer  is  he  who  provides  conve- 
niences for  the  care  of  his  ])roperty  and  the  per- 
formance of  his  work;  he  counts  time  as  an  imjjortant 
Item  in  the  yearly  calculation,  and  care  of  all  his 
various  efl'ects  as  a  factor  in  the  animal  returns. 
When  he  imts  the  horse  in  the  stable  there  is  a  place 
for  the  harness,  where  it  will  be  safe  from  weather 
or  any  other  damage;  his  wagons  and  tools  are  pro- 
vided with  (•overings  to  preserve  them;  about  his 
premises  will  be  found  a  little  shop  or  room  where  he 
keeps  saws,  hammers,  vises,  augers  and  the  various 
tools  that  are  needed  to  mend  and  put  in  order  the 
diU'ercut  machines  he  uses.  These  simple  articles 
prevent  days  and  weeks  of  delay,  besides  adding  to 
the  length  of  the  time  implements  will  last.  It  pays 
to  have  conveniences,  and  also  get  what  you  do  buy, 
of  good  quality. 


Old  Frames. 
Frequently  old  buildings  are  bought  for  the  pur- 
pose of  using  the  frames  in  new  ones  ;  and  the  price 
paid  is  often  about  as  aiuch  as  new  timber 
would  cost,  while  the  labor  In  remodeling  the  old 
frame  is  double,  perhaps,  what  it  would  be  to  frame 
the  building  from  new  timber.  I  do  not  consider  that 
a  man  would  be  much,  if  any  the  gainer,  if  the  tim- 
ber of  an  old  building  were  given  to  him,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  being  used  in  a  new  one,  even  if  it  were  per- 
fectly sound,  and  of  a  quality  to  last  as  long  as  new 
hemlock.  It  does  very  well  to  buy  an  old  building 
for  a  "song,"  from  the  materials  of  which  some 
cbeap  out-house  can  be  made  entire  excc])t  the  roof, 
but  it  is  always  better  to  buy  new  timber  for  a  dwell- 
ing house. 


Household  Receipts. 

Stakciiixo  Linen.— Use  one  teaspoonful  pow- 
dered borax  to  one  quart  of  holing  starch;  it  will 
improve  thi'  stillness  and  gloss. 

Wmooi'IN'o  t'oi'oH.— Two-thirds  castor  oil,  one- 
third  syrup  of  ipecac.  Dose  :  Half  a  teaspoonful 
from  two  to  six  hours  apart.  Shake  the  mixture  well 
before  using.    It  is  almost  Infallible. 

BUONZI:  I'.M.N'T  KOK  IltON  OR  Otiier  Metai.s. — 
Take  of  chrome  green,  one  ounce;  Ivory  black,  one 
ounce;  chrome  yellow,  one  ounce;  j,'ood  jai>an,  one 
gill,     flriud  all  together  and  mix  with  linseed  oil. 

Peach  Maumalade. — I'eaches  too  ripe  for  pre- 
serving answer  for  marmalade.  Pare  and  quarter 
them,  allowing  three-quarters  of  a  pound  of  sugar 
to  each  [lound  of  fruit,  and  half  a  pint  of  water  to 
each  jKiund  of  sugar.  Hoil  one  hour  and  a  half, 
stirring  constantly. 

To  Ci.KANSE  Jewelkv.— Use  hot  water  and  a 
clean  brush  ;  rub  a  very  little  soap  on  the  brush,  then 
dip  it  into  powdered  borax  and  scour  well ;  rinse  in 
hot  water  and  rub  dry  with  a  clean  towel — a  chamois 
is  better. 

KusT  IN  Tin.— To  prevent  rusting  of  tin  rub  fresh 
lard  over  every  iiart  of  the  dish,  and  then  put  it  in  a 
hot  oven  and  heat  it  thoroughly.  Thus  treated  any 
tinware  may  he  used  in  water  constantly  and  remain 
bright  an<l  i'ree  from  rust  indefinitely. 

IIow  TO  (iET  Kii>  01-  Wahts  AynCoHN'.s. — Warts 
are  very  troublesome  and  disfiguring.  The  following 
is  a  perfect  cure,  for  even  the  largest,  without  leav- 
ing any  scar,  and  has  been  tested  by  many :  Take  a 
small  piece  of  raw  beef,  steej)  it  all  night  in  vinegar, 
cut  as  much  from  it  as  will  cover  the  wart  and  tie  it 
on;  if  the  excrescence  is  on  the  forehead  fasten  the 
beef  on  with  a  strip  of  sticking  plaster.  It  may  be 
removed  in  the  day  and  jput  on  every  night.  In  one 
fortnight  the  wart  will  die  ami  peel  otf.  The  same 
prescription  will  cure  corns. 

BiTCKWHEAT  Cakes. — At  night  take  sufiieient 
warm  water  for  a  little  more  than  the  amount  of  bat- 
ter re(julrcd.  Thicken  this  with  buckwheat  Hour;  a 
little  tcraham  meal  is  an  addition  ;  stir  in  a  teacup  of 
fresh  yeast,  and  let  it  stand  till  morning  to  rise, 
when  it  will  be  fit  for  use.  Leave  enoush  batter  to 
mix  in  again  at  night  without  yeast.  After  a  day  or 
two  the  batter  will  require  a  half-teaspoon  or  so  of 
soda  to  sweeten  it,  put  in  just  before  baking.  It  is 
nicer  to  mix  your  liatter  in  a  stone  jar  and  jiour  otf 
every  morning  what  is  re((uired  for  use,  and  not  juit 
the  soda  into  the  whole.  The  addition  of  a  little  milk 
will  make  the  cakes  brown  if  desired.  The  batter 
should  be  oeeasioually  renewed.  Now,  as  to  baking 
cakes,  it  is  one  the  fine  arts.  Some  heedless  cooks  use 
so  much  grease,  to  keep  the  cakes  from  sticking  to 
the  griddle,  that  they  fill  the  room  full  of  smoke  to 
the  discomfort  of  all  concerned.  A  doth  sewed  fast 
to  a  fork  is  the  most  convenient  greaser,  and  just  as 
little  grrease  should  be  used  as  possible.  The  fire 
should  be  neither  too  hot  nor  too  slack.  Nothing  is 
better  relished  on  a  cold  winter  morning  than  well 
prei)ared  cakes  of  this  kind. 

To  Pickle  Ked  CAimAOE. — Wash  very  clean; 
remove  the  coarse  leaves  and  cut  into  shreds;  i)ut 
into  ajar  and  cover  with  hot  brine;  when  cold  renew 
the  brine,  and  when  again  cold,  drain.  .^Ilow  one 
cup  of  white  sugar  to  every  gallon  of  vinegar;  tie 
into  a  cloth  whatever  spice  you  choose,  and  when 
just  boiling  throw  over  tlie  cai)bage. 

PicKi.Ei)  PEprERS. — Remove  the  seeds  from  large 
green  peppers,  by  making  a  small  incision  at  one 
side;  so.ak  in  salt  and  water  three  days,  changing  the 
water  each  day;  stuff  with  a  mixture  of  nasturtiums, 
chopped  red  cabbage,  cucumbers,  tomatoes,  sea- 
soned with  whole  mustard,  cinnamon  and  cloves; 
with  needle  and  thread  secure  the  opening,  place  in 
jars  and  cover  with  hot  Vinegar. 

Potatoes  which  attain  their  full  growth  and 
ripeness  in  the  fall  are  never  soggy;  nor  are  they  if 
kept  at  so  low  a  temperature  during  winter  as  to 
prevent  the  eyes  from  starting.  If  they  begin  to 
grow  in  March,  the  dry  character  is  lost,  because  the 
sap  becomes  active  preparatory  to  growth.  A  soggy 
potato  is  either  immature  or  premature.  Mealiness 
is  a  consequence  of  perfection  in  a  state  of  rest. — 
y.  Y.  Herald. 

Scotch  Saoo  Cream  Soip. — Make  a  strong  stock 
by  boiling  an  olil  fowl  till  all  the  strength  is  taken 
from  the  meat.  While  boiling  add  some  whole  white 
pepper  and  a  small  piece  of  mace.  Strain  aud  skim 
the  stock.  Set  it  away  to  cool.  When  quite  cold 
remove  every  particle  of  fat  that  has  risen  aud  hard- 
ened on  top.  For  every  two  quarts  stock  take  three 
ouuccs  sa;ro  or  tapioca;  wash  in  hot  water,  and  boil 
it  in  the  stock  one  hour.  Then  break  the  yelks  of 
two  eggs  in  a  basin,  add  to  them  half  a  jiint  of  cream 
or  milk.  Beat  them  together,  and  while  beating 
pour  in  gradually  a  little  of  the  hot  stock;  then  turn 
all  back  into  the  stock  or  soup.  Let  it  heat  after 
imtting  in  the  cold  milk  till  just  up  to  the  boiling 
point,  but  take  care  it  does  not  boil,  lest  the  soup 
curdle.  Then  dish  and  send  to  table.  Veal,  rabbit 
or  fowl  answers  for  this  stock,  or  all  three  put 
together. — C/irMiun  Union. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


How  to  Break  Colts. 

.\  minister  who  seems  to  have  had  considerable 
experience  in  breaking  and  harnessing  colts,  thus 
writes  to  the  (foUUit  llule : 

When  the  foal  Is  fifteeu  months  old  wo  begin  to 
educate  him  to  harness.  .Most  colts  are  timid;  they 
are  Ixjrn  so.  The  first  day,  we  Hiniply  put  a  saddle 
without  the  back-strap  on,  buckling  up  the  belly- 
band  hiosaly.  This  Is  done  many  times,  iucreaslug 
Ihc  pressure.  Then  we  lake  the  neck  collar,  anil  put 
il  over  his  head,  first  permitting  him  to  smell  ol  it, 
and  touch  it  Willi  his  nose,  until  he  Is  entirely  con- 
vinced that  It  is  not  calculated  to  hurt  him.  In  like 
manner  we  add  part  to  part,  until  the  colt  is  fully 
hariiesseil.  He  Is  then  allowed  to  stand  with  the 
harness  on  until  he  has  time  to  reflect  upon  the 
whole  matter,  and  become  aecustoined  to  the  pres- 
sure of  the  harness  against  his  sensitive  skin;  for 
we  must  remember  that  all  this  iicrforinance  seems 
very  queer  to  hlin,  aud  startling.  When  ho  has  fully 
composed  his  mind,  and  settled  down  into  coiivletlou 
that  everything  is  all  right  and  as  It  should  be  with 
him,  he  is  then  walked  about,  the  harness  still  on, 
and  brought  hack  every  few  minutes  to  the  B|X)t 
where  lie  is  to  be  unharnessed,  and  taught  to  stand 
as  long  as  it  would  naturally  take  to  remove  the  har- 
ness. Straps  are  loo.'^eiied,  bueklo-tougues  started, 
saddle  and  collar  eased;  in  short,  everylbiug  done 
that  would  be  done  in  unliarnesslng,  save  removing 
the  harness.  After  several  times,  this  standing  still 
while  being  unharnessed  has  come  to  be.  In  his 
mind,  a  part  of  the  programme,  and  he  understands 
it  and  assents  to  it  as  such.  Unce  learned,  in  the 
case  of  an  intelligent  horse,  is  always  learned.  This 
same  process  should  be  gone  through  with  Id  the 
ease  of  a  high-spirited,  valuable  colt,  once  or  twice 
each  day,  for  a  week  at  least.  .\nd  remember  that 
he  is  learning  many  lessons  in  one,  including  that, 
the  greatest  of  all  a  colt  can  learn,  viz.;  to  have 
confidence  in  and  yield  his  will  to  man.  Have  great 
patience  at  this  point  of  his  education,  and  ])roceed 
step  by  step,  advancing  no  farther  than  your  piqiiPs 
success  justifies.  During  the  harness  exercises, 
accustom  the  colt  to  pressure  against  the  breast  and 
shoulder  by  lying  long  cords  iuto  the  buckle  either 
side  of  tlie  collar,  and  pulling  gently,  causing  liim 
to  brace  himself,  as  he  would  naturally  do,  against 
it.  This  gives  him  the  iilea  of  drawing  weiglit  some- 
where behind  him,  and,  by  permitting  him  to  pull 
you  along,  he  will  grow  to  feel  that  he  eau  pull  any- 
thing. 

^ 

The  Cow  for  Small  Farms. 

Do  men  who  own  small  farms  keep  three  or  four 
cows  for  the  purpose  of  raising  calves  for  sale,  or  for 
the  butter  the  cows  produce  '■  Of  course  the  reply  is, 
for  butter.  Then  the  breed  to  be  selected  is  that  best 
adapted  to  butter.  Observation  and  experience  both 
go  to  prove  that  the  .Jersey,  commonly  calleil  the  Al- 
derney,  is  above  all  others,  the  butter  cow.  They  arc 
easily  kept,  very  docile  and  beautiful,  giving  milk  of 
superior  richness,  from  which  ispi-oduced  finely  col- 
ored, solid  butter,  having  an  unequal  texture  aud 
flavor. 

There  are  prodigies  in  any  breed,  but  the  ordinary 
■Jersey  cow  can  lie  relied  on  to  give  one  pound  of  but- 
ter per  day,  to  average  that  the  year  round.  They  do 
not  go  dry  long;  ofteutiines  it  is  dillicult  to  dry  them 
otf  bclbre  calving.  A  record  from  ten  to  sixteen 
pounds  of  butter  per  week  is  not  at  all  rare.  How 
much  better  then  for  the  housewife  who  aids  her  hus- 
band in  his  etlorts  to  gather  around  him  the  com- 
forts of  a  true  home  by  |iurchasing  household  neces- 
sities by  the  sale  of  the  ilairy  product,  to  have  cows 
tliat  reward  her  labors  by  giving  a  (luanlity  of  rich 
golden  butter,  so  solid  and  waxy  that  it  will  command 
a  few  cents  extra  on  the  |>oui)d. 

A  tjeisey  cow  costs  less  to  keep  than  a  coinmou 
cow  ;  if  she  proiliices  a  heifer  calf.  If  a  grade,  it  is 
worth  more  than  the  butcher  will  give  for  a  scrub 
calf;  if  a  thoroughbred,  at  five  days  old  il  is  worth 
from  fifty  to  one  hundred  dollars.  On  largo  farms 
where  the  raising  of  cattle  for  beef  is  an  object,  the 
short  horn  is  the  cow  needed,  but  on  small  farms,  on 
all  farms  where  the  butler  is  made  for  market,  the 
Jersey  cow  is  exactly  what  is  or  should  be  a  ncccselty . 

How  to  Grow  Pigs. 

With  proper  attention  to  three  things  pigs  may  be 
kept  growing  and  thrifty  all  winter,  aud  these  tbings 
are  ; 

1 .  A  dry,  warm  place  to  sleep. 

2.  tiood  drink,  either  warm  slop  or  fresh  pumped 
w.ater. 

:'>.  Not  too  many  hogs  in  an  enclosure,  and  Ihey  as 
nearly  as  jrossible  of  a  size.  If  you  have  large  and 
small  together,  the  big  ones  will  run  over  the  little, 
and  tbey  will  not  get  their  share  of  food.  There  is 
much  more  danger  of  colic  or  eiiidcmie  diseases 
where  the  conditions  mentioned  above  are  disregarded 
than  where  hogs  are  kept  thrifty  and  growing,  and 
certainly  there  is  more  profit.  A  dry,  warm  bed  Is  a 
cheai)  luxury  for  hog's  in  winter,  ami  every  farmer 
should  prepare  a  shed  aud  plenty  of  material  In  the 
fall. 


160 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  October,  1877. 


POULTRY. 


Packing  Poultry  for  Market. 

The  French  mode  of  killintc,  by  making:  an  incision 
in  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  is  preferable  when  the 
head  of  the  bird  is  tojlje  left  on,  but  that  is  not  neces- 
sary, neither  is  it  always  desirable ;  but  the  custom 
in  the  market  to  which  the  fowls  arc  sent  determines 
this  matter.  When,  however,  the  head  is  taken  off 
the  skin  should  always  be  pulled  over  the  stump  and 
tied.  The  mode  of  picking  while  the  bird  is  warm  is 
called  "dry  picking,"  and  is  the  favorite  method  of 
dressing  poultry  for  the  Philadelphia  market.  There 
is  one  objection  to  this  system,  that  it  does  not  im- 
prove the  appearance,  although  it  does  the  flavor ; 
but  while  cooking  it  w^ll  "plump  up"  and  come  out 
of  the  oven  looking  much  finer  than  when  it  went  in. 
In  addition,  it  will  kee[)  much  longer  than  when 
dressed  by  the  other  mode. 

Another  plan  is,  after  the  bird  is  picked,  as  above 
described,  plunge  it  in  a  kettle  of  very  hot  water, 
holding  it  there  only  long  enough  to  cause  the  bird 
to  "plump;"  then  hang  it  up,  turkeys  and  chickens 
by  the  feet,  and  geese  and  ducks  by  the  head,  until 
thoroughly  cooled.  This  scalding  makes  the  fat  look 
bright  and  clear,  and  the  fowl  to  appear  much  fatter 
than  it  would  if  picked  dry.  This  is  the  usual  mode 
of  dressing  for  the  New  York  markets. 

All  poultry  should  be  thoroughly  cooled  before 
packing.  Then  provide  boxes,  for  they  are  preferable 
to  barrels  ;  place  a  layer  of  rye  straw  that  has  been 
thoroughly  cleaned  from  dust,  on  the  bottom  ;  com- 
mence packing  by  placing  the  head  of  the  fowl 
against  the  end  of  the  box,  the  bird  lying  on  its 
breast,  with  the  legs  extended  behind  it ;  the  last 
one  of  the  layers  must  be  reversed,  the  feet  passing 
under  each  otlier,  so  that  the  heads  aie  against  the 
other  end  of  the  box.  Tliis  gives  a  uniformity  of  ap- 
pearance, and  a  firmness  in  packing,  that  will  pre- 
vent moving  during  transportation.  Over  this  layer 
place  straw  enough  to  prevent  one  layer  coming  in 
contact  with  the  other;  then  add  other  layers,  packed 
in  the  same  manner,  until  the  box  is  filled. 

Care  should  be  taken  to  have  the  box  filled  full, 
in  order  to  prevent  any  disarrangement  of  the  con- 
tents; for,  should  it  become  misplaced,  the  skin  may 
become  so  badly  disfigured  as  to  cause  a  depreciation 
of  the  value  to  its  owner.  Those  having  extra  fine 
poultry  to  send  to  market  should  put  paper  over 
each  layer  before  placing  the  straw  on  it;  this  pre- 
vents the  dust  from  settling  on  it,  and  adds  much  to 
its  appearance. 

The  box  should  have  the  initials  of  the  consignor, 
the  number  and  variety  of  the  contents,  as  well  as 
the  name  of  the  consignee,  marked  on  it.  The 
necessity  for  marking  the  number  and  variety  of 
contents  is,  that  in  case  the  box  is  broken  open  and 
any  portion  of  the  contents  missing  before  delivery 
to  the  consignee,  he  will  be  able  to  make  a  correct 
bill  for  the  missing  poultry.  Another  advantage  is, 
that  the  consignee  knows  by  a  glance  at  the  box 
whether  it  contains  the  desired  variety  he  wishes;  if 
not  he  need  not  open  it,  and  the  contents  will  not 
receive  a  needless  handling,  for  some  parties  prefer 
a  mixed  box,  while  others  do  not,  and  all  dealers 
prefer  to  sell  the  entire  contents  of  the  box  to  one 
person,  as  it  avoids  error  in  weighing  and  keeping 
the  accounts. 

Those  wishing  to  market  capons,  must  bear  in 
mind  that  they  should  be  dry-picked,  with  the  feath- 
ers on  around  the  head  and  the  tip  of  the  wings; 
also  the  tail  feathers  left  in;  the  small  or  pin-feathers 
should  all  be  removed. 

Persons  living  at  a  distance  from  this  or  any  other 
city,  and  wishing  to  send  their  poultry  to  market  for 
any  particular  occasion,  should  forward  it  a  day  or 
two  ahead  of  the  time  needed  for  transportation,  for 
it  is  better  that  the  dealer  should  receive  it  even  a 
couple  of  days  too  soon,  than  an  hour  too  late. — 
liiiral  New  Yorker. 

"  Piymouth  Rocks." 

Plymouth  Rocks,  being  a  composite  breed,  have 
eome  peculiarities  that  render  them  difficult  to  breed 
by  the  ordinary  amateur,  for  if  a  ])air  that  are  per- 
fectly mated  for  exhibitions  be  put  into  a  breeding 
pen  the  almost  certain  result  will  be  a  lot  of  nearly 
black,  dark-legged  pullets,  with  cockrels  that  may 
be  good  in  color  of  plumage,  but  will  be  very  apt  to 
fail  in  color  of  leg  and  beak.  In  fact,  we  know  of  no 
standard  variety  that  reijuires  more  judgment  and  care 
in  mating  up  for  breeding  than  the  Plymouth  Rocks. 

There  is  no  question  but  that  Plymouth  Rocks  are 
now  attracting  more  attention  than  any  of  the  new 
varieties,  at  least  it  is  so  in  the  Western  and  Southern 
States,  and  they  are  destined  to  become  more  popu- 
lar as  the  economic  merits  become  known,  combining 
in  themselves,  as  they  do,  large  size,  good  laying  and 
table  qualities,  handsome  plumage  and  extreme 
hardiness.  Being  good  mothers,  with  not  too  great 
propensity  for  sitting,  there  certainly  would  seem  to 
be  nothing  further  to  be  desired.  But,  of  course, 
while  the  geneifil  average  of  excellence  is  high,  the 
Plymouth  Rock  does  not  equal  some  of  the  non-sitters 
as  egg  producers,  nor  some  other  varieties  as  a  table 
fowl,  but  in  these  two  respects  it  will  be  pronounced 
"good  enough,"  and  as  a  general  utility  fowl  the 
Plymouth  Kock  will  hold  public  favor. 


Charcoal  and  Lime. 

Permit  us  again  to  urge  all  breeders  of  poultry 
who  wish  healthy  fowls,  to  be  liberal  in  supplying 
their  fowls  with  charcoal.  It  is  one  of  the  best  pre- 
ventives of  diseases  amongst  fowls  that  can  be 
named. 

Even  if  the  fowls  are  not  confined,  but  especially 
so  If  they  are,  charcoal  pounded  up  into  fine  bits  or 
pieces  about  the  size  of  a  grain  of  corn,  or  a  little 
finer,  should  be  put  around  in  small  piles  where  the 
fowls  can  have  easy  access  to  it,  and  they  will  soon 
make  use  of  it.  The  cost  of  charcoal  is  but  a  trifle 
and  where  the  distapce  from  town  or  city  is  so  great 
as  to  prevent  it  from  being  readily  obtained  there- 
from, the  ashes  from  a  wood  stove  may  be  sieved  out 
and  the  small  bits  of  charred  wood  or  charcoal  used 
in  the  place  of  that  made  in  the  regular  way. 
Especially  during  the  spring  and  early  summer 
months,  is  it  advisable  to  use  charcoal  freely.  Lime, 
too,  is  valuable  in  many  ways.  In  the  form  of  white- 
wash it  begets  cleanliness,  freedom  from  disease,  and 
laying  hens  should  have  lime  where  they  can  make 
use  of  it,  in  assisting  in  the  production  of  eggs. — 
Poultry  World. 

^ 

To  Preserve  Eggs. 

Dr.  W.  D.  Monroe,  in  the  Fanciers'  Journal,  giyes 
the  following : 

I  have  experimented  with  many  nests  of  eggs  this 
year,  and  find  that  butter  or  grass  of  any  kind  with 
me  will  certainly  keep  the  eggs  clear,  but  incubation 
will  not  begin.  I  have  tried  a  solution  composed  of 
glycerine  and  olive  oil,  with  the  same  result.  If  you 
wish  to  keep  eggs  fresh  for  six  months,  take  four 
ounces  of  the  best  olive  oil,  shake  well  up  together 
and  rub  on  the  eggs.  I  had  some  eggs  at  breakfast 
that  were  put  down  last  January  in  a  cool  cellar, 
that  were  treated  with  a  coat  of  this  egg  preserver, 
and  packed,  the  large  end  down,  in  fine  sand  or  salt, 
and  you  could  not  tell  them  from  freshly  laid  eggs. 
Out  of  twenty-four  dozen  that  we  used  this  month, 
that  were  put  down  in  that  way  in  January  and  Feb- 
ruary, only  five  bad  ones  (and  they  only  had  a  strong 
musty  smell,  not  rotten,  my  wife  said)  had  been 
found  among  them . 


An  exchange  says  :  "If  you  want  chickens  to  get 
well  of  the  cholera  in  two  days  take  good  clear 
water  and  put  in  a  bucket  of  any  kind;  then  get 
white  oak  bark — that  from  an  old  tree  is  the  best — 
put  it  in  the  water  and  let  it  steep  until  the  water  is 
of  a  copper  color,  and  then  pour  it  in  your  drinking 
vessels  or  fountain  and  not  let  the  fowls  drink  any 
other  water.  Give  them  the  usual  feed,  and  a  cure 
will  be  effected  in  a  short  time.  I  have  tried  this  for 
five  years,  and  it  has  never  failed." 

If  a  hen's  spur  is  hard,  and  the  scales  on  the  legs 
rough,  she  is  old,  whether  you  see  her  head  or  not, 
but  her  head  will  corroborate  your  observation.  If 
the  underbill  is  so  stiff  that  you  cannot  bend  it  down, 
and  the  comb  thick  and  rough,  leave  her,  no  matter 
how  fat  and  plump,  for  some  one  less  particular.  A 
young  hen  has  only  the  rudiments  of  spurs ;  the 
scales  on  the  legs  are  smooth,  glossy  and  fresh  col- 
ored, whatever  the  color  may  be;  the  claws  tender 
and  short,  the  nails  sharp,  the  underbill  soft  and  the 
comb  thin  and  smooth. — Rural  Neie  Yorker. 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL. 


Brown  Street  Wharf  Market  on  the  Dela- 
ware.— The  greater  extension  of  Philadelphia 
northward  and  northwestward  than  in  other  direc- 
tions, has  necessitated  a  more  northern  wholesale 
market  on  the  river  front  than  now  exists. 

Owing  to  its  proximity  to  the  Delaware  river;  to 
the  Germantown,  North  Pennsylvania,  Kensington 
and  other  railroad  depots  ;  to  the  Vine  street  and 
Shackamaxon  street  ferries ;  as  well  as  to  its  accessi- 
bility by  the  horse  cars  and  the  new  Delaware  ave- 
nue steam  railroad ;  the  above  is  believed  to  be  an 
unequaled  point  for  the  receipt  and  distribution  of 
market  supplies  by  river  and  rail . 

Ground  and  wharves  have  been  secured  to  ensure 
every  facility  for  a  market  of  large  proportions,  and 
to  extend  the  same  as  increased  business  may  call 
for  it. 

There  will  also  be  stores  in  the  vicinity,  suitable 
for  produce  dealers,  and  extensive  storage  for  arti- 
cles in  barrels  is  already  provided. 

A  market  house  at  the  foot  of  Brown  street, 
extending  from  Beach  street  to  Delaware  avenue, 
will  be  erected  immediately,  and  be  ready  for  use 
next  spring,  and  extensive  accommodations  provided 
on  the  opposite  wharf. 

There  will  be  a  telegraph  office  on  the  premises, 
by  which  dealers  from  all  parts  can  secure  deliveries 
of  oysters,  fish,  produce,  fruit,  etc.,  with  the  utmost 
despatch,  and  the  convenience  of  those  engaged 
there  consulted  as  far  as  possible. 

The  Second  and  Third  street  cars  (taking  passes 
via  Brown  street)  and  the  Green  street  and  Fair- 
mount  avenue  cars  reach  the  place.  , 

The  Mount  Joy  Herald.— Of  all  the  folios — not 
Included  in  the  specialty  of  agriculture — there  is  none 
that  comes  to  our  desk  more  promptly  and  more 
welcomly  than  the  Mount  Joy  Eei-ald,  and  none  tliat 


reflects  a  higher  moral  and  domestic  tone.  Its  liter- 
ary selections  are  pure  and  practical ;  its  editorials 
fair  and  liberal,  and  its  local  columns  a  faithful  epi- 
tome of  the  events  of  its  neighborhood.  But  this  is 
not  all,  for  it  caters  for  more  than  the  merely  material 
wants  of  man — it  endeavors  to  lift  up  and  expand 
his  moral  nature — to  be  not  only  "a  lamp  to  his  feet," 
but  also  "a  light  to  his  path."  "The  sayings  of 
Honest  John,"  emanating  from  a  more  pretentious 
source,would  long  since  havebeen  quoted  as  superior 
and  less  selfish  than  those  of  "Poor  Richard."  But 
more  still,  regularly  every  week,  side  and  side  with 
its  practical  Agricultural  and  Domestic  column,  are 
its  contributions  to  the  edification  of  the  spiritual 
man,  and  it  is  refreshing  to  see,  in  a  secular  journal, 
this  constant  and  living  recognition  of  men's  spiritual 
nature  through  "Our  Diary."  $2.00  a  year,  in  ad- 
vance, for  the  Herald  and  The  Farmer. 

The  Art  of  Propagation. — A  hand-book  for 
Nurserymen,  Florists,  Gardeners  and  everybody. 
Price,  50  cents.  Published  by  the  Jenkins  Grape  and 
Seedling  Nursery,  Winona,  Columbiana  county,  Ohio, 
1877.  "This  is  a  fairly  printed  octavo  of  36  pages.  In- 
cluding covers  and  2.5  finely  executed  illustrations. 
No  work  that  we  have  ever  seen  seems  to  be  better 
entitled  to  "3/m/(«h4  in  pa»-!io"  than  this  little  work 
on  a  most  useful  and  interestingsubject.  The  whole 
subject  of  propagation  is  contained  in  a  "nut-shell," 
and  from  a  practical  standpoint.  We  will  furnish  the 
Farmer  for  1878  and  a  copy  of  this  valuable  treatise, 
to  all  who  desire  it,  a.t  $1 .25,  to  those  residing  within 
the  county  of  Lancaster,  and  at  $1.50  to  those  who 
reside  beyond  its  borders,  whether  they  are  old  sub- 
scribers or  not. 

The  Poultry  World. — Poultry  fanciers  and 
farmers  who  raise  fowls  for  market  will  find  this 
magazine  very  useful,  as  it  is  devoted  exclusively  to 
the  discussion  of  matters  pertaining  to  the  breeding 
and  rearing  of  poultry  and  such  other  matters  as  are 
connected  with  the  pursuit.  Its  appearance  is  very 
attractive,  as  it  is  adorned  with  numerous  fine  cuts, 
and,  in  addition,  the  publisher  furnishes  to  his  sub- 
scribers at  a  nominal  price,  twelve  magnificent  Chro- 
nco-plates  of  modern  varieties  of  fowls.  Subscription, 
$1.25  per  year,  or  $2  with  the  chromo-plates.  Ad- 
dress, H.  H.  Stoddard,  Publisher,  Hartford,  Conn. 

St.  Francis  Nurseries.— We  have  received  the 
illustrated  wholesale  price  list  of  nursery-grown 
European  larch,  evergreens,  fruit,  ornamental,  shade 
and  deciduous  tree  seedlings,  cultivated  and  for  sale 
by  H.  M.Thompson  &  Son,  St.  Francis,  Milwaukee 
county,  Wisconsin.  An  octavo  pamphlet  of  40  pages, 
with  a  large  folded  plate,  of  shelter-belts  and  orna- 
mental hedges,  and  11  other  illustrations  of  choice 
evergreens,  and  besides  giving  an  unusually  large 
amouut  of  statistical,  historical  and  instructive 
matter  on  the  subject  of  tree  culture. 

Dear  Old  Homestead,  is  the  title  of  a  new  soog, 
by  Miss  Anna  C.  Hilts.  This  song  has  taken  a  strong 
hold  on  the  popular  fancy.  No  doubt  there  are  thous- 
ands who  never  forget  the  "Dear  Old  Homestead," 
where  so  many  happy  hours  were  spent  in  joyfuluess 
and  glee,  during  their  childhood  days.  Price,  40 
cents,  with  splendid  lithograph  of  a  country  home- 
stead. 

'Tis  a  place  I  sliall  ever  remember. 

Should  I  live  to  be  fifty  years  old  ; 
'Twas  the  home  of  ua  all  iu  our  childhood, 
And  we  prize  it,  yes  higher  than  gold. 

Address  all  orders  to  F.  W.  Helmick,  publishers, 
No.  .50  West  Fourth  street,  Cincinnati,  Ohio. 

N.  B. — Over  200  second-hand  pianos  for  sale  cheap. 

Extensive  Art  Gallery. — Next  to  the  Bible 
no  book  is  more  useful  than  Webster's  Dictionarj . 
The  Unabridged  is  an  extensive  art  gallery,  contaimag 
over  three  thousand  engravings,  representing  almost 
every  animal,  insect,  reptile,  implementj  plant,  etc., 
which  we  know  anything  about.  It  is  a  vast  library, 
giving  information  on  almost  every  mentionable  sub- 
ject. It,  indeed,  has  been  well  remarked  that  it  is  the 
most  remarkable  compendium  of  human  knowledge 
iu  our  Isingndtgt.— Household  Advocate. 

Received,  for  1877  and  1878,  descriptive  catalogue 
of  tulips,  hyacinths,  crocuses,  lilies,  and  other 
spring-flowering  bulbs,  with  supplementary  addenda 
of  winter-blooming  plants,  fuchsias,  geraniums, 
roses,  chrysanthemums,  &c.  For  sale  by  F.  K. 
Phcenix,  at  the  Bloomington  Nursery,  Bloomington, 
McLean  county,  Illinois.  Also,  wholesale  price  list 
and  wholesale  club  rates. 

The  Advertisers'  Guide,  a  magazine  devoted  to 
the  interests  of  advertisers  and  newspaper  pub-  • 
lishers,  by  N.  W.  Ayer  &  Son,  Times  building,, 
Chestnut  and  Eighth  streets,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  A  t 
very  handsome  royal  octavo  of  20  pages  and  filled 
with  interesting  and  instructive  matter  on  its 
specialty. 

Centennial  prize  medal  and  diploma,  awarded 
to  Gibson  tV  Bennett,  for  exhibit  of  fine  fruit.  Florists 
and  Fruit-growers,  Woodbury,  N.  J.  Illustrated 
description  and  price  list  of  the  four  best  market 
berries,  nursery  stock,  roses,  grapevines,  &c.,  for  sale. 

Wholesale  price  list  of  grapevines,  fruit  trees, 
&c.,  for  Autumn,  1877.  T.  S.  Hubbard,  Fredonia, 
New  York. 

Rochester  Commercial  Nurseries,  Wm.  3.  Little's 
semi-annual  circular  of  wholesale  prices  for  the  Au- 
tumn of  1877. 


i 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER^ 


in 


E.  F.  Kunkel's  Bitter  "Wine  of  Iron. 

The  grt-Ht  8uccts8  uud  dcli«bt  of  the  people,  lu  fact, 
nothing  of  the  kind  has  over  bet-ii  oftored  to  the  Americau 
people  which  has  so  quickly  foimd  its  way  into  their  good 
favor  and  hearty  approval  as  E.  F.  Kinkei/s  Bitter  Wine 
OF  Iron.  It  does  all  it  proponep.  and  thus  gives  universal 
SfttiBfaotion.  It  is  guaranteed  to  cure  the  worst  rase  of  dys- 
pepsia or  indigestion,  kidney  or  liver  disease,  weakDess, 
nervouanees,  constipation,  acidity  of  the  stomach,  A:c.  Get 
the  genuine.  Only  sold  in  $1  bottles.  Depot  and  Oftlce,  'i59 
North  Ninth  street.  Philadelphia.  Ask  lor  Kuukers,  and 
take  no  other.     Sold  by  all  druggists. 

Dyspepsia.       Dyspepsia.        Dyspepsia. 

E.  F.  KusKEL'a  BiTTKU  Wink  of  Iron  is  a  svire  euro  for 
this  diseuse.  It  has  been  prercril>ed  daily  for  many  years 
in  the  practice  of  eminent  physicians  with  unparalleled  snc- 
cess.  Symptoms  are  loss  of  iipiietitf,  wind  and  riPiug  of 
food  dryness  in  month,  headache,  dizziness,  sleeplessness 
and  low  spirits.  Get  the  geauine.  Not  sold  in  bulk,  only 
ln$l  bottles.  Sold  by  all  druggists.  Ask  for  E.  F.  Kunkkl's 
Bitter  Wine  of  utos  and  tuke  no  other.  $1  per  bottle,  or 
six  bottles  for  $5.  All  I  ask  is  a  trial  of  this  valuable  medi- 
cine,    A  trial  will  couviuco  you  at  once. 

Worms.         Worms.         "Worms. 

E.  F.  Kunkel's  Worm  Syrup  never  fails  to  remove  all 
kinds  of  Worms.  Seat,  Pin  and  Stomach  Worms  ure  readily 
removed  by  Kunkel's  Worm  Syrup.  Dr.  Kunkel  is  the  only 
Buccessful  physician  in  this  country  that  cau  remove  Tape 
Worm  in  from  two  to  four  hours.  He  has  no  fee  until  head 
and  all  passes  alive  and  in  this  space  of  time.  Common  sense 
teaches  if  Tape  Worm  can  be  removed,  all  other  Worms  can 
readily  be  destroyed.  Ask  your  druggist  for  a  bottle  of 
KfNKEi/s  Worm  Syeui'.  Price  $1.0ii  per  bottle.  It  never 
fails ;  or  bend  to  the  doctor  for  circular,  No.  2o9  North  Ninth 
street,  Philadelphia.     Advice  free. 

0^  0^  m  m^  Great  chance  to  make  moiu-y.  If  you 
■  ■  VI I  WW  cau'e  get  gohl  you  can  get  greenbacks. 
!■  Ill  Mm  _We  need  a  person  in  every  town  to  take 
^1  ^^  ^HH^  I^^i1^^^'''l'*^<^"^  ^<^''  *^^  largesi,  cboapest 
and  West  Illustrated  family  publicjition  in  the  world.  Any 
one  can  become  a  successful  agent.  The  most  elegant 
works  of  art  given  free  to  subscribers  The  price  is  so  low 
that  almost  everybody  subscribes.  One  agent  rej>orts  mak- 
ing over  ^1150  in  a  week.  A  lady  agent  reports  taking  over 
407  sabscribors  in  10  days.  All  who  engage  make  money 
fast.  Von  can  devote  all  your  time  to  the  business,  or  only 
your  spare  time.  You  need  llot  be  away  from  home  over 
night.  You  can  do  it  as  well  as  others.  Full  ]>articulars, 
directions  and  terms  free.  Elegant  and  expensive  outfit 
free.  If  you  want  profitable  work  scLd  us  your  address  at 
once.  It  costs  notl^ng  to  try  the  business.  No  one  who 
engages  fails  to  make  great  pay.  ,\ddrt8S  "The  People's 
JouYual."  Portland,  Maine. 
9-S-ly 


War  in  Europe. 

DIQM  A  RPI^ '^^^ '^"^^'^'^'''^  Bioi^rai'by,  Private  Letters 
DiwIVInriUNiand  Memoranda.  Introdnciion  by  Bay- 
ard Ta^'lor,  Graphic  and  entertaining.  Full  of  anec- 
dote, wit,  romantic  incident,  and  great  historical  events. 
Profusely  llliiNtrated  with  actual  sketches  from  Bis- 
mark's  life — home,  student,  political  and  battle  scenes,  por- 
trsits.  landscapes,  etc.  This  Life  of  Europe's  greatest 
statesman  is  just  the  book  for  the  times  ,  dehneating  as  it 
does  all  the  famous  Rulers.  Generals,  and  Diplomats— co- 
actors  with  Bismarck.  SpecialCanvassees  wanted  to  suj)- 
ply  the  nrgent  demand  for  this  live  book.  Good  pay.  Circu- 
lar, free.    Wnte  to  .J,  B.  FORD  &  CO  ,  Few  York.      9-5-6m. 

^^  —»■■■■  i^  liOt  easily  earned  iutheselime8,butit  can  be 
/n  I  / 1  /  ij  made  in  three  mouths  by  any  one  of  either 
M^  §  §  §  sex,  in  any  part  of  the  couutr>'  who  is  willing 
#Ij  I  I  I  t*^  work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
^l'  ■  ■  ■  furnish.  SfitJ  per  week  in  jour  own  town.  You 
need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.  You  can  give  your 
whole  time  to  the  work,  or  only  yoiir  spare  moments.  It 
costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  $5  Outfit  free. 
Address  at  once,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-3-1 y  


Si3:i:E=5_TS  1 


Half  Dozen  for 


$6.00! 


SHIRT  FRONTS, 


l.liieii  and  Paper  rollar*i  and  C'litfN 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

E.  J.  EEZSliCAN'S, 

No.  llO   North    Queen    Street, 
Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 

9-l-ly 

NEWSPAPER 

ADVERTISING. 

A  book  containing  a  list  of  towns  in  the  TJ.  S,,  having 
5,000  pop.,  and  the  newspaper  having  largest  circulation. 
All  the  Religions.  Agricultural,  Scientific,  and  other  special 
class  journals.  TabUs  of  ratws,  showing  cost  of  advertis- 
ing and  ever>-thing  which  an  advertiser  would  like  to  know. 
Hailed  on  receipt  of  ten  cents.     Address 

«Et>.  P.  KOWELI.  A  CO., 
10  Spmca-st.,  N.  Y,,  (opposite  "Tribune"  building). 
9-10-6m 

iiIKEKQSINC{/\ACENEY^ 

.174  ©EMySTRE^T; 
CPyfiTT^iyATT.  OHIO. 

Adrertuement8  inserted  ia  any  paper. 
Before  adTcrtiaing  send.for.my  catalogna.' 


1877       POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 

CASSIMERES, 
TESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Chiviots  and  T^'eeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striped  and  dlagonal.for  Spring  and  Rummer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  Clothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Eatablishoa  in  the  year  1840), 

Comer  of  North  l^iieen  aud  Orange-Sts., 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

Extra  fiuiehed  aud  triniiueJ.  Roady-made  Clothing,  for 

MEN  AND  BOYS, 

aud  clothing  cut  or  made  to  order  in  the  most  satisfactory 
manner, 

A  fine    line   of     GENTS'  FUUNISHIKO   GOODS,  and 
goods  sold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

9-1 -ly  I'raotioal  Tnllona. 


M.  HABEEBUSH, 

MANUFACTUREK  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

SADl>I,l-;», 

COLLARS,   WHIPS,  &c., 

AL.SO   DEALER    IN' 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  ROBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-1-ly  LANCASTER,  PA. 


H.'Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  G.  RHOADS. 


A  &REENHOUSE  AT  YOUR  DOOR. 

For  $1.00  we  will  send  free  by  mail, 
any  one  of  the  following  lots : 

8  dl  Btlnct  varieties,  Montlily  Kobcs,  Winter  flowering. 

8  "  BegontAs,  *' 

8  "  Carufttlon  Pinks,  '* 

8  *'  Cbiuesi;  Chr>-santtiemu9, " 

8  *'  Zooal  Geraniums,  ** 

8  "  Double,        "  ** 

8  '•  Ivy  Leaved "  " 

8  **  Bellotropus,  " 

6  "  AbuHIooB,  " 

2  •'  Double  Camelias,  " 

4  •'  Azaleas,  " 

4  "  Lobster  Cactus,  " 

6  "  Bouvardlas,  *' 

6  '*  SteviasandEupatoriums," 

8  •'  Fuchsias,  " 

4  "  Double  Violets,  *' 

2  **  Polasutta,  Scarlet  &  White,  do.  do. 

4  *'  Plumbago,  do.  do. 

8  "  Ferns,  for  Wardian  Cases. 

4  '♦  Palnjft, 

6  *'  Mosses,  '* 

6  *'  Marantaa,  " 

8  "  Hyaciotb  Bulbs. 

20  assorted  Tulips,  Bulbs. 

60       **        Crocus 
2        "        .lacoliean  Lily,  Bulbs. 

12        "         Oxalts. 
4  Lily  of  (he  Valley. 
8  New  rearl  Tubemsc. 

OR  BY  EXPRESS: 
3  oi  any  of  the  above  81  collectioai  for  |2. 

6  "  •'  "  3 

7  "  "  "  4. 

e     "  "  **  e. 

12       "  *'  "  fl. 

14      "  "  "  7. 

Or  the  whole  rollcptlon  of  238  Bultis  and  rianti  sent  by 
Exprcps  on  fcc<*ipt  nf  Jl.'f.iNi,  to  which  i-ilhcr  of  f>ur  book*, 
GAKDKNING  KoU  1-KOFIT.  ritACrUAL  FLOKlCl  L- 
TUKE.  or  GAKUEMNG  FUK  I'LKASL'KE  (vuluo  |l.jO 
each),  will  bt>  adicd.     Descriptire  Catalogue  (rue. 

PETER  HENDERSON  &  CO., 

See<lNiiii-ii  and  Florisls, 

35  CorUandt  St.,  N.  Y 


9-7-ly] 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Wholeeale  aud  Retail  Dealers  in 

DIAMONDS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY, 


SHVESWAEE,  SPECTACLES, 

Clock:  md  Witckakers'  Mm]i, 


JOBBBI\S  IN  i\xiEIlICAN  WaTC^jBS. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 

Special  Injportations  i^  Foreign  Goods. 


9-1 -ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


1823.     SEND  rOR     1878. 
NEW  Y0Rk""0BSERVER 

The  Best  Religiousand  Secular  Family  News- 
paper.    $3.15  a  Year,  post-paid. 
Established  1S23. 

37  PARK  ROW,  NEW  YORK. 

SAMPLE  COPIES  FREE. 

»-10-6m 

1760.       ESTABLISHED      1760. 


GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDING  HAEDWARE, 

GLASS, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PUMPS, 

TERDACOTTA.IRONaiiilLEADPIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


GRACE'S   SALVE. 

A  Teicetable  Preparation,  m%'eDted  iu  the  ITtb 
century  by  Dr.  William  Grace,  Surgeou  in  King  James' 
ormy.  Through  its  agency  he  cured  thousanda  of  the  most 
serious  aores  and  wounds,  and  was  regarded  bj  all  who 
knew  him  as  a  public  benefactor.  25c.  a  box,  by  mall  30c. 
For  sale  by  druggists  generally. 

AGENTS  WANTED. 

Address  BETE  W.  fOWLZ  !i  30»:,  Bsf.n.  Umi. 
»-10-«in 


A|i:eiit>i  for  the 

"  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann'e  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont's  Po-wder, 
Harrisburg:  Nails,  &c.,  &c. 


We  hare  the  Urgeat  stock  of  general  Hardware  la  the 
State,  and  oar  prlcea  are  aa  low  and  terms  aa  Ul>eral  as  Ofta 
be  found  eUewhere.  9-1-tf . 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR  FARMER. 


[October,  1S77 


LADIES  I 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


GUN  BAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STORE, 

A  NEW  LOT  OF 

HAMBnSGEfflBROIDEREDEBIlINGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  THE  VERT  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kid  Gloves, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

CEAPE  BOT^l^fETS  &  HATS, 

KUCHINGS, 

all  styles  and  widths,  and  everything  else  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WEAB, 

that  is  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 

Give  us  a  call  at 

©■■cnrn-A-^Bia'  s 
Kos.  142  &  144:  \orth  Qnpen-st,  Lancaster.,  Fa. 

9-l-ly 


U 


OTJT  OF  "WORIS." 


SSITSOIT,  BTTKFES  c&  CO., 

OFFER  FOR  SALE  A  FINE  LOT  OF 

THOROUGHBRED   LIVE   STOCK, 

Including  Aldernsy  and  Ayrshire  CATTLB  and  CALVES,  of  the  finest  herd  Eegistered  Stock.  • 

op^v^^f^       m,       a^W^f^t  A  T"  Tt^T       Berkshires  sired  by  our  Celebrated  Imported  Boar.   "THE 
b'ltXO    .A    dJr  JuV^X.£aLA4^  X  •    collier;"   winner  ot  six  High  Honors  aud  First  Prizes  Sa 

EiigiaSd.     YORKSHIRES  of   our  Duke  II.,  and  the  best  imi3ortatiou5;CHESTER  WHITE,  POLAND  CHINA  AND 

ESSEX  PIGS. 
Qiyy  lll^l^   JB—  T     A  1Vf"RCk       SOUTHDOWN,    COTSWOLD,    AND    LEICESTER    SHEEP    AND 

^*j  wv^F^w  ^  1  %T#^T^    T%^%TTT  niT^^CT       AH  the  leading  varieties  of  best  class  LAND    AND 

SUx'±4£Li.Ux&  JrU  U  IjXxC  X  .  water  fowls. 

Breeder's  Slimnal  mid  Jfew  Illiixlrated  Descriptive  Catalogrnc  of  Tlioroustibred  t'attle, 
Sheep,  Hosts,  Pwltiiry.  etc.  Seeoiid  Edition.  JUST  OUT.  Cootaiiiins  over  50  I>asres  Tain- 
able  Reading'.  I>esides  16  Fnll  Paae  Stock  Cuts,  from  life,  of  oiiv  finest  Imported  and  Prize 
Aninials  an«T  Fowls.    Price.  25  cents.  Postpaid.    Every  Farmer  needs  it. 

SEEB  WHEAT  AND  ALL.  SEASONABLE  SEEDS. 
t9,0ur  Annual  Illustrated  Descriptive  Seed  Catalogue,  for  1878,  will  be  issued  December  Ist,  offering  mauy  Choice 
Novelties.        It  may  be  had  Free  for  the  asking. 

BEHSON,  BUHFEE  Ss  GO-,  223  Church  Street,  Fhiladelpliia. 

WE  know  no  breed  of  Poultry  that  has  gained  a  more  Wonderful  Popularity,  in  so  short  a  time,  thin  the  PLYMOUTH 
HOCKS.  This  popularity  is  wondehfdi,  when  we  consider  that  Pure  Bred  Poultry  is  chiefly  cultivated  by  Fan- 
ciers, whose  aim  is  artistic  beauty,  and  the  Plymouth  Rocks  possess  few  fancy  points— their  merits  beiug  in  their  econom-  , 
leal  qualities.  This  is  almost  the  only  breed  of  Poultry  in  which  nothing  has  been  sacrifled  for  mere  fancy.  They 
originated  by  crosses  of  several  breeds,  thus  gainiug  great  vigor  and  strength  of  constitution.  They  have  large,  well- 
shaped  bodies,  with  a  superabundance  of  choice  meat  on  the  breast  and  most  esteemed  parts.  They  will  attain  a  weight 
of  FIVE  POUNDS  at  four  months,  when  they  make  splendid  market  fowls,  while  the  Asiatics  arc  not  ready  to  market 
until  eight  months  old.  The  Plymouth  Rocks  have  bright  yellow  legs,  free  from  any  feathers,  and  beautiful  yellow  skin.  . 
They  are  good  lavers,  and  are  not  hard  to  break  from  sitting.  They  make  flrst-class  mothers,  and  the  chicks  are  hardy 
and  easy  to  raise".  They  are  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  the  FARMER'S  FOWL,  combining  as  they  do  more  excellencies  for 
general  farm  use  th.an  any  other  breed  now  known.  They  pay  better  to  raise  pure  for  market  than  any  cross-breeds  or 
mongrels.  We  think  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  these  fowls  will  be  bred  by  Farmers  everywhere  for  market.  The 
outlook  at  present  points  this  way,  as  all  farmers  who  have  tried  them  pronounce  them  all  that  can  be  desired.  The  de- 
mand for  them  already  far  exceeds  expectancy— out-selling  now  any  other  breed. 

"W.  ATLEE  B'aRPEE,  Philadelpliia.  Pa. 


SONG    AND    CHOBTTS,    BY 

ALICE  HA^WTHORNE. 

Author  of  "  Listen  to  the  Mocking  Bird,"  "I'll  sail  the  seas 
over,"  *'  What  is  Home  without  a  Mother,"  etc.,  etc. 
"  Out  of  work,  without  a  penny. 
Pleading  heln  before  thy  door. 
Without  friends  among  the  many — 
Look  with  pity  on  the  poor." 
*  ,  *  One  of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  ballads  ever 
written,  will  give  the  author  a  more  extended  popularity 
than  anything  she  has  ever  written.    Price  35  cents — or, 
illustrated  title  page  40  cents. 

For  sale  at  all  music  stores,  or  will  be  sent  postpaid  on 
receipt  of  price  by  the  publishers, 

J.  M.  STODDART  &  CO., 
9-9  723  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia. 


A   NEW  BOOK. 

How  to  Raise 

FRUITS. 

A  HAND-BOOK  OF 

FRUIT  CULTURE, 

BEING  A  GUIDE  TO  THE  PROPER 

CuUtvation  and  Management  of  Fruit  Trees^  and 

of  Grapes  and  Small  Fruits, 
with  condensed  descriptions  of  many  of  the  beet  and  most 
popular  varieties,  with  upwards  of  one  hundred  engravings. 
By  Thomas  Gbegg.    Price  $1.00. 

A  book  wTiich  should  be  owned  by  cYery  pereon  who  owns 
a  rod  of  available  land,  and  it  will  serve  to  secure  success 
■where  now  there  is  nothing  but  failure.  It  covers  the 
ground  fully,  without  technicalities,  and  is  a  work  on 

Fruit  Culture  for  the  Million. 

It  tells  of  the  cost,  how  to  plant,  how  to  trim,  how  to 
transplant,  location,  soil,  selection,  diseases,  insects,  borers, 
blights,  cultivation,  how  to  prune,  manuring,  layering, 
budding,  grafting,  etc.,  including  full  description  and  man- 
agement of  Orchard  Fruit,  such  as  Apples,  Peaches,  Pears, 
Plums,  Cherries,  Quinces,  Apricots,  Nectarines,  etc.  It  is 
a  most  complete 

Gviide  to  Small-Fruit  Culture. 

Tith  many  illustrations  and  descriptions  of  the  latest  vari 
eties  of  Grapes,  Strawberries,  Blackberries,  Kaspberries, 
Ckioseberries,  Cui  rants,  etc. 

The  work  shows  the  value  of  Fruit,  and  how  to  use  it. 
Sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  price  $1 ;  or  The  Fabheb  and  How 
to  raise  Fruite,  will  be  furnished  at  tl,7&-    Address 

I.,  RATKTOX. 
29.Soatb  Qa«eii-st.,  I^aneastcr,  Pa. 


O 
H 

o 

< 

fin 

W 
H 


CO 

o 

X 

m 
H 
O 
O 


GO 

si* 
d 


I— I 
i4 


01 


a 

Q 

< 
< 


ART  OF  PROPAGATION. 

A  consise  practical  work  on  the  rapid  increase  and  mul-J 
tiplication  of  stock — amply  illustrated. 

Price  pre-paid  by  tnnil.50  cents. 

prSLISHED    BY 

JENKINS'    GRAPE    AND  SEEDLING    NURSERIES, 

Winona,  Columbiana  Co.,  Ohio.J 
SEND  FOE  IT,  AND  FOR  FREE  CATALOGUE. 
By  a  special  arrangement  with  the  publishers,  we  offer  , 
the  above  work  at  40  cts,  per  copy.      It  has  received  the  fa- 
vorable notice  of  over  1600  leading  papers  of  the  country.  : 
Cash  to  be  sent  to  this  office. 
9-10  L.  RATHVON. 

EZRA  F.  BOWMAI^, 

Practical  Wat^iiimaker, 

(formerly  with  H.  Z.  Rhoads   &  Bro,)  has  opened  at    10ft 
East  Kin$^  Street,  a  new  and  well  selected  stock  of 

WATCHES,  CLOCKS,  WATCHMAKERS'  TOOLS,! 

Ameaican  Watches  from  the  different  Factories  of  good  rep-  I 
utation.  Imported  Watches  of  different  grades,  in  Gold  and  | 
Silver  Cases,  in  weights  to  suit  purchasers.  American  and  f 
imported  Clocks  in  over  fifty  ditferent  styles,  which  are  of-  1 
fered  at  reasonable  prices,  and  warranted  according  to  their  I 
quality.  Watcbes  and  Clocks  carefully  repaired  and  wai^ 
ranted.  A  cordial  invitation  to  examine  stock  extended  to  . 
all. 9-4-6m 

ESTABLISHED  1832. 


THE     BEST     OFFER ! 

We  will  sell  during  these  hard  tunes 

$000  Raaos  for  $250, 

And  all  other  styles  in  the  same  proportion,  including  Grand, 
Square  and  Upright— all  rtr.»(-c(o«s— sold  direct  to  the  people 
at  fnctoni  prices.  No  agents;  no  commissions;  no  discounts. 
Tliese  Pianos  made  one  of  the  finest  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  and  were  unanimously  recommended  for 
the  Highest  Honors.  Regularly  incorporated  Manufac- 
turing company— New  Mauufactorj'— one  of  the  largest  and 
finest  in  the  world.  The  SquareGrands  contain  Mathushek's 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment In  the  history  of  Piano  making.  The  uprights  are  the 
finest  in  America.'  Pianos  sent  on  trial.  Don't  fail  to  write 
for  Illustrated  and  Descriptive  Catalogue— mailed  free. 

MENDELSSOHN   PIANO   CO., 

9-7-1  y Xo.  B6  Broadway,  W.  "V. 

PU  L  MO  N A 

is  beyond  comparison  the  best  remedy  for  the  evre  of  CON- 

SUMPTION  (EVEN  IN  ITS  MOST  ADVAXCED  8TAaE8),^»(Am«, 

Bronchita*.  Catarrh,  and  all  derangements  of  th^  NERV- 
OUS  SYSTEM.      A  circuUr  containtog  pabticolarb  of 

MANT   CASES    BCCCESSFULLY    TREATED,  fuU    advise    fOr    the 

treatment  of  the  diseases  above  mentioned,  and  certificates 
of  actual  cures,  will  be  sent  free  by  mail  to  all  applicants. 
Address  OSCAR  G.  MOSES,  Sole  Proprietor,  18  Cortlandt 
Street,  New  York.  9.10-6mH 


G-.   SENER   &  SONS,! 

Manufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 


i.X71MIB]e:fi, 


Also  Sashr  j 


The  best  Sawed  SIIIN<>I.ESin  the  country. 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  COAtconstantlron  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  I  >  . 

Nortbeiist  Corner  of  Priace  and  Wabnit-8ts.» 

;i.uA.NCA.STKR,  FA..' 

9-l-ly 


ct-l    r\    Vpar*    jTosiibflCribers  in 


\      tUe  county. 


SINGLS  COFISS  10  CEITTS. 


bBCribere  out  of  \     dr-f    OK 
the  county.         f     ipl.^SCJ 


To  lUbBCriberB 


Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER;  NOVEMBER  15,  1877. 


LINN^EUS  EATHVON.  Publisher. 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC  ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  ja-onjint'tit  feature,  wth  special  reference  to  the 
wants  of  the  Farmer,  tlic  Gardeuer  and  Fruit -Grower. 

Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and   Horticultural  Society. 


Edited  ty  Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVOIT. 


TERMS: 

To  subscribers  reeidiug  within  the  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,  ------         $i.oo 

Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -  -        .-  -  -        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year.    -------        7.50 

To  Bubscribers  outside  of   Lancaster  comity,  including 
postage  pre-paid  by  the  pubhshere: 
One  Copy,  one  year,     -  -----  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       ...  .  -        -  5.00 

All  subscriptions  will  commence  w^ith  theJanxiary  num- 
ber uuleee  otherwise  ordered. 

All  communications  intended  for  pubhcatiou  should  be 
addreeeed  to  the  Editor,  and,  to  secure  insertion,  should  be 
to  his  hands  by  the  first  of  the  mouth  of  publication. 
•  All  business  letters,  coutaiuiug  subscriptions  and  adver- 
tisemeuts,  should  be  addressed  to  the  publisher. 

Tbe  Lancastbk  T'armer  having  completed  its  eighth 
year  under  various  \iciB8ltudes,  now  commences  its  nintli 
'volume  U'lder,  it  is  hoped,  more  favorable  auspices  than 
attended  its  former  volumes.  When  the  publishers  of  the 
last  two  volumes  assumed  the  responsibilities  of  its  publi- 
cation, it  was  with  a  determination  to  make  such  improve- 
ments as  would  place  the  farmer's  organ  of  this  great  agri- 
cultural county  in  the  very  front  rank  of  agricultural  jour- 
nahsm.  That  this  has  buen  accomplished  we  tliiuk  our 
readers  will  bear  cheerful  testimony.  If  reasonably  '^'■is- 
tained,  our  aim  is  to  make  it  still  more  interesting  and  in- 
Btructive  under  ts  new  proi)rietorBhip.  In  this,  however, 
we  need  the  co-operation  of  every  frieud  of  the  enterprise. 

The  contributions  of  our  able  editor,  Prof.  Rathvon,  on 
subjects  connected  with  the  science  of  farming,  and  partic- 
ularly that  specialty  of  which  he  is  so  thoroughly  a  master- 
entomological  science— some  knowledge  of  which  has  become 
a  necessity  to  the  successful  farmer,  are  alone  worth  much 
more  than  the  price  of  this  publication. 

The  Fabmgb  will  be  published  on  the  15th  of  every 
mouth,  printed  on  good  paper  ^^^th  clear  type,  in  con- 
TQDient  form  for  reading  and  binding,  and  niailed  to  sub- 
■cribers  on  the  following 


LINNAEUS  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATES  OF  ADVERTI8IX«— Ten    r<-n(«    » 
line  Tor  eaeb  InMertion.     Twelve  licee  to  tbe  iocb 


CONTENTS  OTTHIS  NUMBER. 

Notice  Extraonlinary,        -        .        .        .        -    Ifil 
Pennsylvania  Fruit  Growers'  Society,    -        -        llil 
To  Our  Delinquent  Subscribers,        -         -        .    IRl 
Do  Bees  Cut  or  Sting  the  Skins  of  Fruit?       -        161 
Do  BeeB  Destroy  Fi Hit  ?    No.   1. — Do  Beefl  DeHtroy 
Fruit  ?  YeB*  No.  2. — Do  Bees  Destroy  Grapes  ? 
No.  .S.— Do  Bees  Destroy  Fruit  7     No.  4.— Do 
Bees  Destroy  Fruit  I  No.  S.— Bees  aud  Qraijes— 
No.  fi. 
How  to  Make  a  Well— Clean,  Pure  Water,      -      163 
Buy  Your  Trees  at  Home,    .        .        -        .        -    163 
Improvement  in  the  Cultivation  of  Wteat,     -       164 

Obituarv, -        -     16-1 

Synopsis  of  the  Crops  of  1877,  -  -  -  1()4 
Special  Premiums  for  1878,  -  .  -  -  lt;.5 
Monthly  Kcminilers,  -----  105 
American  Pomological  Convention,  -  -  165 
How  to  Make  Paris  Green,  ...  -  165 
Cimlerella  Strawberry,  -  -  .  -  160 
The  Application  of  Fertilizers,         .        -        -      166 

Coiisicleralioi.s  WhicU  Should  Have  Their  Influence. 
Lancaster  County  Tobacco,        -        -        .        -    167 
Horticulture   and   Education,        -         -        -        167 
Hubbardston  Non-Such,     -----     168 
Around  the  Farm.     No.  3,      -        -        -        -        168 

Oare  of  Horses — Grindslones. 
Improvements  in  Farming-Varieties  and  Methods,  108 
Autumnal  Coloration  of  the  Leaves,        -        -      169 

Forest  and  Kain-fa!l, 170 

Address  of  Thos.  Meehan  before  the  May  Meeting 
of  tbe  Pennsylvania  State  Bo.ird  of  AgricultlU'e. 
[OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 
Proceedings   of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricul- 
tural and  Horticultural  Society,         -         -        171 
Croi)   Rerorts— The  Manure  Question— The  Cattle 
Disease— Referred     Questions — Examination     of 
Fruits — Medal  and  Diploma— Business  for  Next 
Meeting — GrolT's    Patent     Wheat     Cuhivator— A 
Squash— Great  Corn  Crop — Reijort  of  Fruit  Com- 
mittee. 

Tobacco  Growers'  Association,        -        -        -        173 
Members    Present— Croi>  Reiorts — Striiiinng    To- 
bacco—New    Members— Referred     Questions— A 
Visiting  Committee — More  About  stripping  To- 
bacco—Fay Dp— Fall  Plowing. 
The  Linuivan  Society,      -        .        .        -        .        173 

The  Tobacco  Trade, 17i 

SometMiig  About  Buying  18T7  Tobacco  at  this 
Early  Period— Tbe  German  Tobacco  Trade— The 
New  York  Tobacco  Market. 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Good  Farming,        - 174 

England's  Impoi-ts,    - 174 

Lancaster  County  Centennial  Cotton,     .       -      -  174 

HORTICULTURAL. 
A  Root  Cellar  or  House,        -        -        -        -        175 

Pruning  Koscs,        ------     175 

To  Keep  Cabbage,      -         -         -         -  175 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 
A  Cheap  Smokehouse,        -        -         -         -        175 

Sour  Bread,        -....-  -    175 

Worms  in  Flower  Pots,         -        -         .         .        175 
Domestic  Recipes,      ------     175 

LIVE  STOCK. 
Keeping  Stock  Clean,    -        -        -        -        -        175 

Hay  Tea  for  Calves,  -        .        -        -  -     17.5 

Care  of  Stock,      ----         -         -  17« 

Devons,      -        -        -        -        -        -        -        -176 

POULTRY. 
Cooked  Meat  for  Poultry,    -        -        -        -        -   176 

Eggs  for  Export,  --..-.  176 
Preparing  Poultry  for  Market,  -  .  -  -  176 
Cleaning  the  Hen  House,        -        -        .        -        176 

Poultry  as  Food, 176 

Literary  and  Personal,        ....  176  I 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 


DCAMtn  IN 


AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Sole  Agent  for  the  Aniudel  Cinted 

spectaci.es. 

llfpairing  strictly  attended  to. 

North  Queen-st.  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Pa. 

9-t-ly 


CHRONIC 


lJinrajtf«  Ctirvti.       New 

paths  marked  out  b}'  that 
plainest  of  all  books — 
•'Pliiin  Home  Talk  and 
^lAtliCdl  Common  Sense,'' 
—nearly  l.iiiiu  pag<-B,  -ioo  illn»tratiniis.  by  Dr.  E.  B.  Foots, 
of  120  Lexington  Ave.,  N.  Y.  PurctiBPera  of  tliJB  Book  are 
at  liberty  to  roMwu/f  its  author  in  person  or  by  mail  frte. 
Price  by  mail  13.25  for  xh*^  Stnnttnrd  edi»ion,  or  Si.&Ofoi 
the /*o7>ti/<>r  edition,  which  contaiiiB  all  Ihe  j^ame  mattei 
and  iIIui!>tralionH.     Cunteutfl  tattles  free.    Afffttts  Watited. 

Ml'HHAY  HILL  PUBLISHING  CO  , 
9-10-Iy  |I29  i::igf  2Hth  St,  N.  Y. 


FREE. 

For  a  Club  for  either  the  Eureka  Bfafrt  or  Dreos  Chartfl 
will  Bend  a  Chart  fre*  on  receipt  of  26  cte.  to  pay  for  monnt- 
ing  and  postage.  M»8.  A.  J.  MARROW, 

IndhinapoUe,  Ind. 


H. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


PENXSVI.VAXIA  RAILROAD 
Trains  leave  the  Depot  in  IMb  city, 

Leave 
WE   T WARD, 

Pacific  Express** 

Way  Passengert  

Niagara  Express 

Col.  Accomniodaliou,,.    ... 

Mail  train  via  Mt.  Joy 

No.  2  viii  Columbia 

Sunday  Mail 

Fast  Line* .     .    

Frederick  Accommodation. 

Harris bnrg  Aceom 

Columbia  Accommodatiou.. 

Harrisburg  Exj  'i-ess 

Pittsburg  Express 

Cincinnati  Express" 


Liincaster. 

2:.K)  a.  m. 

4:50  a.  m. 

9.35  a.  m. 

T:20  a.  m. 
1 J  :20  a.  m. 
11:21)  a.m. 
11:29  a.  m. 

2:10  p.  m. 

2:15  p.  m. 

6:10  p.  m. 

7:20  p.  m. 

7:25  p.m. 

9:25  p.  m. 
11:30  p.m. 


EASTWARD.  Laucaster. 

Atlantic  Express* I     12:B0  a.  m. 


Philadelphia  Expresst, 

Harrisburg  Express 

Columbia  Accommodation.. 

Pacific  Express*., 

Sunday  Mail 

Johnsf own  Express 

Day  Express* 

Harrisburg  Accom .   


4:10  a.  m. 
7:35  a.  ni. 
9.28  a.  m. 
1:20  p.  m. 
2:00  p.  m. 
3:05  p.m. 
5:1S  p.  m. 
5:50  p.  m. 


S<'HEl>UI.Ii:. 

as  fullows : 

Arrive 

Harrisburg. 

4:'i5  a.  m. 

7:50  a.  m. 

10:40  a,  m. 

Co!.    8:00  a.  m. 

1:00  p.  m. 

1:25  p.  m. 

1:30  p.  m. 

3:25  p.m. 

Col.  2:45  p.  m. 

S:10p.  m. 

Col.  8:00  p.  m. 

S:40  p.  m. 

10:50  p.  m. 

12:45  a.  m, 

Philadelphia, 
3:00  a.  m. 
7:00  a.  m. 
10:i'0  a.  m. 
12:30  p.  m. 
3:45  p.  m. 
5:00  p.  m. 
6:00  p.  m. 
7:20  p.  m. 
9:00  p.  m. 

The  Hanover  Accommodatiou,  west,  connects  at  Lancaster 
with  Niagam  Express,  west,  at  9:35  a.  m.,  aud  will  ruu 
through  to  Hanover. 

The  Frederick  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancas- 
ter with  Fa.st  Liue,  west,  at  2:10  p.  m..  aud  runs  to  Fi-ederick. 
The  Pacific   Express,  east,  on  Sunday,  when  flagged,  will 
atop  at  Middletown,  Elizabethtown,  Mount  Joy  aud  Laudis- 
viUe. 
*The  only  trains  which  run  daily. 
tRuns  daily,  except  Monday. 

THE  JOURNAL. 

A  Paper  Devoted  to  the   Interests   of  the  So- 
ciety of  Friends. 

"  Frieiich,  MukJ  the  Liijlit." — Gehrge  Fox. 

PUBLISHED    WEEKLY    ON    4TH    DAY   (WEDNESDAY.) 

Price  $2.50  per  Anuum. 

JOSEPH  GIBBONS, 
Editor  and  Proprietor,  Bird-in-Haud,  Lau.  eo.,  Pa. 

Philadelphia  Office,  103  North  4th  st. 

The  Journal  will  conijilete  its  fifth  year  in  the  first  month 
(January).  ISTS.  Its  success,  coueideriug  the  stringency  of 
the  times,  h^is  been  remarkable.  It  circulates  all  over  the 
United  Slates,  and  has  a  number  of  subscribers  iu  Caimda. 
It  is  therelore  especially  valuable  as  an  advertisiog  medium. 
Friends  and  persous  interested  iu  their  testimonies  will  find 
that  it  supiilies  the  want  long  felt  of  a  mediiuu  of  commu- 
nication between  the  members  01  the  Society,  aud  a  vehicle 
for  the  expression  to  the  world  of  widely  differing,  but 
honestly  held,  opinion*  upon  the  momentous  questions  of 
the  day,  particularly  those  in  which  Friends  are  especially 
interested.  Tne  terms  of  The  Jo^inial  are  very  moderate. 
It  is  offered  to  clubs  of  five  at  $2.25  per  year,  per  copy,  free 
for  six  mouths  to  the  getter  up  of  the  club.  To  clubs  of  ten 
at  $2.00  per  year  per  copy,  with  a  copy  free  for  the  year  to 
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time. 

A    FARMER'S    FORTUNE. 

The  plaee  to  learn  how  it  may  be  obtained  is  the  Grea 
Ameritan  Stock  Joornal,  a  large  24  page  monthly,  one  of 
the  cheapest  aud  best  Farm  Magazines  in  the  country.  Tells 
about  Farmiug  and  Stock  Raising  iu  all  its  bfanches.  No 
farmer's  Family  should  be  wiLhout  it,  as  it  will  save  many 
times  its  cost. 

HARD  TZMSIS, 

an*  a  desire  to  place  it  iu  the  hands  of  all,  led  us  to  make 
the  liberal  otfer  of  sending  it  three  months  on  trial  for 

TWO    DIMES. 

Liberal  premiums,  a  specimen  copy  and  show  bills  free  to 
all  who  will  use  them.  All  who  subscribe  before  January 
1st,  1878,  get  the  October,  November  and  December  num- 
bers free.  Address.  POTTS  BROTHERS,  Parkesburg, 
Chester  co..  Pa. [9-11 -3m. 

A  TRUE  FARMER' 3  PAPER. 

SCIENTiG  FARMER. 

BOSTOJT,  MASS. 

levoted  to  tlic  Iiileresis  ol  ProBiaMe  Agricnltiire. 

Its  departmeuts  include  Chemistry.  Botany  aud  Hoe- 
Tlcul.TuaE,  Dairy  and  Stock  Veterinary,  Entomolooi- 
CAL  The  Field,  Conferescb  Cobmer  i.ud  Miscbllane- 
OU8— on  Pann  Practice,  Rural  Architecture.  The  Farmer 
in  Politics,  etc.— all  beiug  conducted  on  that  idea  of  cor- 
rectness which  is  to  advauce  the  farm  profit,  and  lift  Agri- 
culture iu  a  higher  social  position. 

Circulates  in  Every  State  and  Territory. 

Subscription  price  only  $1.00  per  year.  Send  stamp  for 
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Rate«t  Af  A<lv4  rtl-iiiigr  in  tb«>  I'armcr. 


GRAND  TRIUMPH  IN  HORTICULTURE. 

elorioilii  rexnltH  of  a  I'sofnl  I-lfe;  climax  almost 
reached:  FE1.TOX-S  NEW  BERRIKS,  finderel- 
la  and    Conllnenlal    Strawberries.      The   four 

best  bearing,  best  carryl»g,  best  eeUing,  best  paymg 
market  Berries.  .  ^      ._,  ..  » 

Illustrated  Circular  and  Price  hat  giying  history  and 
fall  description      r- t^|"^^  ^  BENNETT, 

Nurserymen  and  Fruit  Growers,  Woodbury,  N.  J. 
«.ll-3m 


1  in. 

2  iu. 

^i  m. 

4  iu.  1   Sin. 

Sin. 

$1.00 
2  00 
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8  00 

».on 

12.00 
18.00 

$  a. 00 

6.00 

B.75 

9.00 

U.X 

18.00 

27  00 

$  4.00$  6.011 
S.OO    12.00 

10.00  13. .50 
12.00;  IS. 00 

15.001  27.00 
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$  S.OO 

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8  mo 

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U;^~S>jecial  and  business  notices  M>  cf^nts  per  lint:' 


> 

D 

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w 

t: 

H 


5 

GO 

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4n 
CO 


O 
O 

H 
en 

O 
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Q 

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td 
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'  Cnquestionably   the  best    sustained  worlt 
ot  tile  kind  in  the  World." 


ILLUSTRATED. 

yotices  of  the  Pres*f. 
The  veterau  Afaguzine,  which  loug  ago  outgrew  its  origit 
nal  title  of  the  Xew  Month/;/  Magazine,  has  not  iu  the  least 
abated  the  poiulaiity  it  won  at  the  outset,  but  has  added  to 
it  in  many  ways,  and  has  kejjt  fairly  abreast  of  the  times, 
thanks  to  the  enterprise  of  the  publishers  and  the  tact  and 
wisdom  of  its  editors.  For  whatever  is  best  and  most  read- 
able in  the  Literature  of  travel,  discovery,  and  fiction,  the 
average  reader  of  to  day  looks  to  Harper'.'i  Magazine,  just  as 
expectantly  as  did  the  reader  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago; 
there  is  the  same  admirable  variety  of  contents  and  the  same 
freshness  and  suggestiveness  in  its  editorial  departments 
now  as  tb.en.~Boiito7i  Journal, 


8- 


TEB.  MS 


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Address  HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

FARM  A  FEED  MILLS. 

Bone,  Drug,  and  SpToc  Ullla.  10  aliti. 
Tor  HKQd  or  Power.  Coniokl  Preaoh 
Borr  StoD9  f  loarios  aad  Corn  Ullbi. 

(CrBMalrtd  tbe   OrudAwud   Dt< 
^lomft  fti)4  Hed^  »(  OeDUQDlftl. 
(X:7'Ill«itrKt«d  puDphtet  teDt  Tne. 
Addreai,       L.  J,  MTT.T.FR, 
B.  Front  St,,  Clnoinnatl,  (X 
»-8-5m 


9-5-ly 


E. 

149  North  Queen-st, 


'Will  enable  you  to 
market  your  but- 
ter iu  the  best  pos- 
6  i  b  le  condition. 
Competent  judges 
wlio  have  bandied 
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phia UKtrket,  pro- 
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arrangement  for 
carrying  print  btit- 
ifv  they  ever  saw. 
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irate  cup  that  can- 
not be  broken,  up- 
set, uor  get  out  of 
place. 

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forms  of  cups  and 
l>ox  will  be  made. 

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full  description 
aud  price  list  free. 

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Lancaster,  Pa. 


ADVERTISING. 

$t.OOO  WORTH  FOR  $87.50. 

The  cheapest  aiid  best  way  to  reach  resders  outside  of 
the  large  cities  is  by  using  one  or  more  ot  our  six  lists  of 
over  l.OOO  newspapers,  divided  to  cover  differeut  sec- 
tions of  the  country.      WeeKl.y    Cirenlatlou    over 

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formation and  for  estimates,  address 

BEALS  t  rOSTES,  41  Park  How  (Timea  Building),  New  Tori. 

HULL  &  SCOTNEY, 

GENERAL 

COMMISSION 

MERCHANTS, 

2To.  346  North  Water  Street. 

PHILADELPHIA, 


BDTTER. 


and  whoiesale  dealerss  iu  Butter,  Cheese,  Lard,  Tallow, 
Eggs.  Poultry,  Game,  Stock,  Potatoes,  Apples,  Grain, 
Flour,  Fur.  Wool,  Cotton,  Rice,  Tobacco, 
Peanuts.  Broom  Corn,  Dried  Fruit,  Hay, 
Hoi  8)  Foreign  and  Domestic  Fruits,  and  in 
fact  we  cau  sell  any  aud  everything  at  the  highest  market 
price  :  make  j^rompt  riTTTlTinTI  returns,  and- LIRE* 
EUAI,  ,  ASH  rHHff.S!l  A»>VAJfCES 
made  on  all  ship-  UUlllJlJiJ.  ments  except  perish- 
able articles.  To  show  that  we  do  an  extensive  business, 
any  game  dealer  in  Philadelphia  wiJl  tell 
you  we  handled  more  game  last  season 
than  all  other  Houses  iu  Philadelphia  put 
together.  Send  for  I'rice  Eist,  Stencil,  &c.,  &c.  KKFE- 
KEN'CE  «'ASH,  or  we  refer  you  to  ANY  RESPOBT- 
NIBL,E  JlOl'ME  iu  OUK  CI  CY. 


POULTRY. 


EGGS. 


GAME. 


9-lI-2y. 


THS     BSST     OFFJim ! 

We  will  sell  during  these  hard  times 

$510  Pianos  for  $210, 

And  all  other  styles  in  the  same  proportion,  including  Grand, 
Square  aud  Upright— all  /(r.*j/-c;a.s.s—H0ld  direct  to  the  people 
at  factory  prices.  No  agents;  no  commissions;  no  disoouuts. 
These  Pianos  made  one  of  the  finet^t  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  and  were  unanimously  recommended  for 
the  HiGHEPT  Honors.  Regularly  incorporated  Manufac- 
turing companj'— Iflew  Manufactory — one  of  the  largest  and 
finest  in  the  world.  The  Square  Grands  contain  Mathushek's 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment in  the  history  of  Piano  making.  The  uprights  are  the 
finest  in  America.  Pianos  seut  on  trial.  Don't  tail  to  write 
for  Illustrated  aud  Descriptive  Catalogue— mailed  free. 

MENDELSSOHN   PIANO  CO., 

9-T-1y  No.  56  Broadway,  N.  T. 

ART  or  PKOPAGATION. 

A  consise  practical  work  ou  the  rapid  increase  aud  mul- 
tiplication of  stock — imply  illustrated. 

Price  pre-paid   by  mall,  50  ccuts. 

PUBLISHED    BY 

JENKINS'    GRAPE    AND  SEEDLING    NURSERIES, 

Winona,  Columbiana  Co.,  Ohio. J 
SEND  FOR  IT,  AND  FOR  FREE  CATALOGUE. 
By  a  special  arrangement  with  the  publishers,  we  offer 
the  above  work  at  40  cts.  per  copy.      It  has  received  the  fa- 
vorable notice  of  over  1900  leacUng  papers  of  the  country. 
Cash  to  be  sent  to  this  office. 
MO  L.  RATHVON, 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Prof.  S.  S.  RATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  NOVEMBER,  i877. 


Vo!.  IX.  No.  11. 


NOTICE  EXTRAORDINARY. 

To  every  new  subscriber  who  sends  in  his 
name,  and  the  regular  amount  of  subscription, 
between  now  and  the  fust  of  .January  n(^xt, 
we  will  send  a  copy  of  The  Fakjieh  for  187S 
and  include  the  numbers  for  November  and 
December  of  the  present  year.  See  our 
PiiEMiUM  List  in  another  column. 

Our  patrons,  and  especially  the  members 
of  our  local  society,  will  bear  in  mind  that 
the  "Pennsylvania  Fruit-Growers'  Society," 
will  nn'ct  in  the  borough  of  Williamsport,  in 
■lanuary  ne.xt,  and,  judginj;  from  the  spirit  of 
the  place  in  other  active  enterprises,  they 
may  expect  a  Ih'c  meeting  and  a  good  time. 
Our  society  should  not  omit  to  appoint  dele- 
gates at  least  at  its  December  meeting. 

TO  OUR  DELINQUENT  SUBSCRIBERS. 

There  are  a  large  number  of  subscriptions 
on  our  list  that  are  still  unpaid,  and  we  need 
every  cent  of  it  to  keep  our  chin,  linancially, 
above  water.  Only  a  trirte  more  than  one- 
third  of  the  subscriptions  for  1877  liave  thus 
far  been  i)aid.  We  are  publishing  The 
Fai!MEk  without  any  marginal  prolit  ;  and, 
if  every  penny  now  clue  us  was  jiaid  up,  it 
would  do  nothing  more  than  cover  our  ex- 
penses. Will  our  patrons  be  kind  and  con- 
siderate enough  to  give  heed  to  these  things  V 
AVe  need  not  only  present  help,  but  we  need 
an  increased  subscription  list,  to  sustain  us 
through  the  coming  year.  Shall  we  be  able  to 
make  a  more  satisfactory  record  in  our  Decem- 
Iier  number  ? 

DO  BEES  CUT  OR   STING  THE    SKINS 
OF    FRUIT? 

It  is  .said  that  on  a  certain  occasion  four 
blind  men  desired  to  have  a  practical  demon- 
stration of  what  an  elephant  was  like,   and, 
as  siijkt  was  out  of  the  question,  they  essayed 
to  have  it  by  feeling.     The  first  advanced  and 
happened  to  seize  the  animal's  tusk,   when  a 
ray  of  light  seemed  to  illuminate  his  counte- 
nance and  he  exclaimed,  "  Ah  !  now  I  know 
what  an  elephant   is  like;  it   is   like  a  great 
horn."     The  .second  approached,  and  by  the 
same  blind  chance  seized  its  tail,  when  he  re- 
marked, "  Ah,  brother,  you  are  greatly  mis- 
taken, for  an  elephant  is  not  like  a  horn,  but 
like  a   heavy   rope."     The   third   seized    the 
aniinal  by  one  of  its  huge  legs  and  exclaimed, 
"  No,  brothers,  you  are  Vioth  most  egrcgiously 
mistaken,  for  an  elephant  is  like  the  trunk  of 
a  tree."    Then   the  fourth  approached,  and 
hat>pened  to  get  hold  of  one  of  its  great  ears, 
when  he,  with  some  feeling,  alleged  that  they 
were  all  mistaken,  for  an  elephant  was  like 
neither  a  horn,  a  rope  nor  a  tree  trunk,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  it  was  like  a  leather  apron. 
Now,  these  men  were  all  specifically  right,  but 
generically  wrong  ;  for,  having  demonstrated 
the  subject  from  difterent  standpoints,  they 
were  only  able  to  render  a  partial  judgment, 
and  this  seems  to  to  fclie  category  in  which  the 
gentleman  are  who  have  recently  been  venti- 
lating   tlie    subject    of    bees   stinging    fruit 
through    the    columns     of     the    New      Era 
and  other  newsi>apers.     Although    we   have 
said    as    much     as    we     deemed    necessary 
to    say    (in    the    October    number    of   The 
Faksiek,)  on  this  subject,  yet,  as  it  seems  to 
have  become  an  im|)ortant  one,  even  involving 
the  grape  crop  of  the  country,   we  have  con- 
cluded to  place  the  different  views  of  the  gen- 
tlemen we  alluded  to  in  our  article,  on  record; 
because  we  are  well  acquainted   with  all   of 
them,  and  believi^  them  to  be  honest  in    their 
views,  and  that  their  experience,  up  to  the 
present  time,  has  just  been  as  they  say.     The 
season  is  now  past,  but  another  season  will 


give  them  an  opportunity  to  confirm  their 
views  or  disavow  them.  The  matter  involved 
is  a  local  one,  and  is  discussed  by  local  writers 
and  observers,  and  whatever  ultimately  may 
be  determined  as  "the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth,"  will  be  of 
general  interest  to  the  whole  country.  We 
have  arranged  these  papers  mnnerically  as 
they  ai)i)eared  in  print  from  one  to  six,  and 
would  admonish  our  patrons  in  reading  them 
not  to  omit  our  paper  on  the  subject  in  the 
number  of  The  Fakmeu  above  alluded  to, 
because  it  contains  some  suggestions  on  the 
subject  which  they  do  not  appear  to  have  duly 
considered,  and  may  assist  them  in  solving 
the  problem. 


Do  Bees  Destroy  Fruit?  No.  i. 
As  regularly  as  the  autumn  comes  around 
we  are  treated  with  long  accounts  of  the 
depredations  committed  by  that  industrious 
honey-gatherer — the  bee.  The  charges  brought 
against  them  are  not  only  many,  but  as  seri- 
ous as  they  are  numerous.  Nine  times  out  of 
ten  these  charges  aie  brought  by  persons  in- 
capable of  iironouncing  an  ojnnion,  but  who 
swell  the  hearsay  cry  of  denunciation  merely 
becau.se  it  is  popular  or  in  conse(iuence  of  some 
unrelialjle  information  received  at  second 
hand.  The  result  of  all  this  is,  that  the  poor 
bees  have  a  hard  time  of  it.  It  is  to  relieve 
them  from  at  least  one,  and  that  the  most 
serious  of  all  the  accusations  against  them, 
that  we  write  this  article. 

No  opinion  seems  to  be  more  generally 
prevalent  than  that  liees  tear  open  the  outer 
skins  of  grapes,  plums,  peaches  and  other 
fruits  for  the  purpose  of  feasting  on  the  sweet 
juices  within.  I3ecause  they  are  found  on 
these  fruits  in  the  act  of  committing  a  tres- 
pass, they  are  condemned  without  a  hearing 
or  any  consideration  whatever.  It  is  most 
commonly  said  they  sting  the  fruit.  This  is 
the  result  of  sheer  ignorance.  Neither  the 
bee  nor  any  other  insect  employs  its  sting  for 
.such  purposes  ;  they  have  them  for  other  uses, 
as  a  means  of  defense  against  enemies,  and 
use  them  solely  as  nature  designed  that  they 
slionld.  It  is  as  impossible  for  a  bee  to  sting 
open  a  grape  as  it  is  for  it  to  open  a  walnut  or 
a  shellbark  by  the  same  process.  Its  only 
means  to  commit  the  deed  of  which  it  is  ac- 
cused, is  the  proboscis  with  which  it  is  armed, 
but  this,  although  perhaps  capable  of  tearing 
open  skins  of  ripe  fruit,  is  never  used  for  that 
purpose,  its  functions,  like  those  of  the  sting, 
being  far  different,  and  confined  exclusively 
to  tlie  ends  designed  by  nature. 

Although  the  charges  are  based  mainly  on 
the  fact  that  at  this  season  large  numbers  of 
bees  arc  seen  on  the  grapes  on  our  vines,  busily 
employed  in  helping  themselves  to  the  palat- 
able juices,  yet  we  assert  very  positively  that 
none  of  the  persons  who  bring  this  charge  of 
stinging  the  grapes,  have  ever  seen  the  Insects 
depradating  on  a  sound  grape  or  attempting 
to  tear  one  open.  They  always  select  those 
already  injured  and  never  perpetrate  an  origi- 
nal injuiy.  A  rainy  spell  followed  by  warm 
weather  veiy  frequently  causes  grapes  and 
other  fruits  to  burst,  and  it  is  to  the  fiuit  thus 
injmed  that  the  slandered  bees  pay  their  at- 
tentions. 

At  a  late  meeting  of  the  Bee-Keepers'  .So- 
ciety of  this  county,  Mr.  Fleckenstein,  who  is 
not  only  our  largest  apiarist,  but  also  a  most 
intelligent  and  careful  observer,  stated  posi- 
tively and  unequivocally  that  his  hives  were 
surrounded  with  grape  vines,  and  the  fruit 
hung  all  aroimd  them,  and  yet  his  tees  never 
damaged  it  in  the  slightest  degree.  Surely  the 
exi»erience  of  such  a  man  is  worth  the  idle 
declamations  of  a  thousand  theorists. 

There  appeared  in  the  Reading  Eagle,  a  few 
weeks  ago,  a  most  violent  denunciation  of  the 


bees  and  thcii'  owners  in  that  city.  The  old 
accusation  of  Ntiiiging  fruit  was  revived,  and 
the  opinions  of  various  fruit  growers  were 
given  to  add  i>oint  to  tlie  ncces-xily  which  it 
inged  was  recpiired  to  put  a  stop  to  tlie  nuis- 
ance. We  arc  sorry  that  our  usually  sound 
and  reliable  cotemporarj  should  have  not  only 
fallen  into  this  error,  but  in  its  uncalled  for 
indignation  has  indulged  in  several  recom- 
mendations to  the  citizens  to  rid  themselves 
of  these  supposed  pests,  that  are  indefensible 
l)otli  in  law  and  morals.  After  saying  that 
.some  persons  suggest  the  wholesale  jmisoning 
of  the  bees,  it  adds,  this  method  of  getting 
rid  of  them  would  also  poison  the  persons  who 
buy  and  eat  the  honey,  and  is  therefore  not 
feasible,  but  it  advises  methods  so  startling 
and  reprehensible  that  we  cannot  but  denounce 
them  in  the  strongest  terms.  In  advising  that 
beeswax  and  rosin  be  melted  and  run  into 
wide  dishes  into  wliich  the  bees  would  crowd, 
and  where,  after  the  composition  cools,  the 
bees  will  stick  fast,  when  hot  water  can  be 
poured  over  them,  scalding  them  to  death — in 
telling  fruit  growers  to  .set  but  a  composition 
of  honey  and  (lour  for  the  supposed  depreda- 
tors, in  order  that  the  latter,  after  being  mixed 
with  the  honey  in  the  hive,  may  ferment  and 
destroy  the  sweet  store  laid  up — these  recom- 
mendations are  simply  barbarous  and  un- 
worthy of  the  consideration  of  any  man. 

Remembering  Mr.  Fleckenstein's  state- 
ment, and  reading  the  broad  charges  of  the 
Eagle,  we  began  a  close  investigation  of  the 
question,  lasting  through  a  series  of  days.  On 
the  grapes  of  a  vine  growing  in  our  yard  hun- 
dreds of  bees  were  literally  swarming,  their 
home  being  in  a  neighbors's  yard,  not  twenty 
paces  distant.  We  sat  hour  afier  hour  watch- 
ing closely  the  proceedings  of  the  industrious 
insects.  There  was  not  a  single  raceme  on  the 
•whole  vine,  but  was  visited  Ijy  dozens  of  bees, 
who  examined  every  grape  on  it  in  search  of  a 
bursted  one  whose  juices  were  accessible. 
After  a  most  careful  search  and  finding  none 
such,  they  would  immediately  leave  and  con- 
tinue then-  search  elsewhere,  until  the  berry 
they  desired  was  found.  On  all  the  defective 
fruit  clusters  bees  were  gathered,  but  we  failed 
utterly  in  detecting  in  a  single  instance  any 
thing  like  an  attempt  at  trying  to  tear  open  a 
perfect  berry  ;  Iheir  investigations  were  liasty 
but  thorough,  and  when  the  desired  spoil  was 
not  found  no  time  was  wasted  in  useless  delaj-. 
There  can  be  no  mistake  about  this  matter  ; 
our  observations  were  careful  and  prolonged, 
and  must  certainly  have  resulted  in  detecting 
the  harm  complained  of  had  any  been  done. 
That  none  was  done  we  arc  positively  certain, 
and  we  feel  that  these  hard  workers  deserve  a 
good  word  in  return  for  the  odium  cast  upon 
them  by  theorists  and  careless  observers. 
They  ought  not  to  be  held  responsible  for  the 
harm  .said  to  1*  done  by  wasps,  hornets  and 
other  hymenoptcrous  insects,  although  we  do 
not  know  that  those  mentioned  are  more 
harmful  than  the  bees  themselves,  altliough 
said  to  be  so. 

About  the  propriety  of  jiersons  living  in 
cities  keeping  bees  when  they  have  no  means 
of  su|)plying  them  with  their  proper  food,  we 
have  nothing  to  say.  That  is  a  question  such 
people  must  decide  for  themselves  and  with 
which  we  have  nothing  to  do.  But  we  do 
most  decidedly  protest  against  the  injurious 
charges  against  these  harmless  friends  of  man, 
and  against  the  means  recommended  for  their 
dcstiiiction  by  persons  entirely  incompetent 
to  discuss  the  ipiestion  we  have  been  consider- 
ing from  personal  knowledge. — F.  R.  D. 


Do  Bees  Destroy  Fruit  ?     Yes.    No.  2. 
I  saw  an  article  in  last  week's  i.ssue  of  The 
New  Eua  headed  as  above.     Now,  I  do  not 
know  who  the  writer  may  be  who  can  (ill 


162 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[November, 


a  whole  column  of  the  paper  trying  to 
prove  that  bees  do  not  destroy  fruit.  For 
aught  I  know,  the  article  may  be  editorial,  or 
written  by  an  apiarist  or  entomologist.  But 
be  he  who  he  may,  I  protest  in  toto  against 
such  a  conclusion  as  the  writer  attempts  to 
prove.  As  the  writer  did  not  choose  to  attach 
his  name,  it  appears  plausible  that  he  was  not 
quite  so  confident  as  he  pretends  to  be  that 
bees  do  not  sting  or  cut  the  cuticle  of  grapes. 
Only  a  few  weeks  since  I  was  talking  with 
a  gentleman  in  Lancaster  on  this  very  subject 
of  bees  cutting  the  grapes.  He  told  me  that 
his  father  and  himself  had  kept  bees  for  many 
years  ;  that  they  had  grape  vines  bearing  lots 
of  fruit,  and  that  the  bees  never  touched  the 
grapes  until  within  a  few  years  back,  Did 
bees  injure  the  fruit  ?  Now,  he  tells  me, 
since  the  Italian,  or  crosses  of  that  variety  of 
bees  have  been  introduced,  they  ai"e  so  de- 
structive of  the  fruit  that  they  can  no  more 
grow  grapes  as  formerly.  Such  also  is  my 
experience.  For  over  fifty  years  I  had  from 
five  to  forty  hives  of  the  black  bees  in  a  sea- 
son. I  then  also  had  lots  of  grapes,  but  the 
bees  did  not  molest  the  fruit.  For  the  last 
six  or  eight  years  I  have  had  no  bees  on  my 
place.  Now,  within  the  last  four  or  five 
my  neighbors' "little  busy  bees  "  have  made 
a  regular  onslaught  on  my  grapes.  Though 
my  neighbors  who  have  the  Italian  variety 
are  from  half  to  a  mile  distant  ;  yet  before 
sunrise,  and  after  the  sun  is  set,  these  little 
rascals  were  as  "busy  as  bees  "  on  my  grape 
vines,  day  after  day,  from  the  middle  of  Au- 

fust  up  to  the  middle  of  September,  or  imtil 
he  last  berry  was  sucked  dry.  I  can  assure 
the  writer  of  that  article  had  he  been  at  my 
place  any  time  from  the  middle  of  August  to 
the  middle  of  September,  he  need  not  "  have 
watched  them  for  hours  "  until  he  could  have 
seen  them,  uot  sting,  but  cut  with  their  man- 
dibles the  Ijerries  as  neatly  and  expeditiously 
as  it  could  have  been  done  with  a  penknife. 

I  had  a  splendid  crop  of  grapes  of  many  va- 
rieties this  last  season,  yet  as  soon  as  the 
earliest  varieties  became  sweet,  these  little 
rascals  came  in  crowds,  and  as  soon  as  any  of 
tlie  grapes  became  nearly  ripe,  they  set  to 
work  with  a  will,  and  cut  and  sucked  ont  th& 
juice  of  the  berries,  thus  spoiling  the  whole 
bmich.  I  would  have  had  many  bushels  of 
perfect  and  delicious  grapes,  yet  from  the 
depredations  of  these  little  pests  I  do  not  get 
a  single  perfect  and  perfectly  ripe  bunch  of 
grapes !  I  cut  off  some  of  the  Inuiches  of 
special  varieties  before  the  grapes  were  fully 
mature,  to  get  a  taste  of  some  new  varieties, 
but  these  did  not  give  their  true  flavor.  N"o 
amount  of  shaking  the  vines,  or  trying  to 
drive  them  oft',  had  any  eflect  for  they  would 
just  light  on  some  other  part  of  the  vine  in 
all  haste.  You  might  as  well  try  to  make  me 
believe  that  the  sun  rises  in  the  west,  as  to 
convince  me  that  the  "busy  bee  "  does  not 
cut  the  berries.  They  do  not  sting  them,  as 
they  have  other  uses  for  that  member. 

As  to  wasps  and  other  insects  cutting  the 
grapes  prior  to  bees  feasting  on  the  juice, 
that  is  contrary  to  my  experience,  as  I  did 
not  see  a  single  wasp,  hornet,  yellow-jacket 
or  bumble-bee  on  the  vine  during  the  season, 
and  I  was  a  pretty  close  observer.  The  fact 
is,  where  there  is  such  a  crowd  of  honey-bees 
no  other  insect  dare  approach.  Either  this 
nuisance  must  be  abated,  or  we  may  as  well 
cease  growing  this  delicious  and  reliable  fruit. 

I  am  not  sure  but  I  may  another  season 
apply  Prof.  Riley's  recommendation,  and  give 
these  thieves  a  taste  of  Paris-green,  or  what 
may  be  more  to  the  purpose,  strychnia.  If 
they  get  a  taste  of  this  drug,  mixed  with 
honey,  they  will  not  be  very  likely  to  carry 
tlie  poison  to  their  hives,  but  drop  down  at 
once,  and  no  longer  depredate  a  neighbor's 
property.— J.  JB.  Garber,  CohmMa,  Pa.,  Oct. 
.   10,  1877. 


Do  Bees  Destroy  Grapes  ?     No.  3. 

As  the  little  busy  bee,  that  poor,  industri- 
ous little  worker,  has  been  greatly  abused  and 
unjustly  cliarged  with  crimes  of  which  I  be- 
lieve it  innocent,  I  thought  it  should  not  be 


condemned  without  a  defender  at  the  hearing. 
We  plead  not  guilty.  My  respected  old  friend, 
J.  B.  G. ,  of  Columbia,  is  sure  the  bees  gener- 
ally are  guilty,  but  the  Italians  in  particular. 
Of  the  latter  I^know  very  httle,  .as  there  are 
none  in  this  neighborhood,  (I  do  not  mean  a 
far  west  frontier  neighborhood  of  15  or  20 
miles, )  but'as  friend  Garber  says,  fi'om  half 
to  a  mile  distant. 

I  have  several  colonies,  or  hives,  of  black 
bees,  and  close  by  several  varieties  of  grapes, 
and  never  before  this  summer  did  they  in  large 
numbers  visit  the  grapes,  but  this  season, 
when  the  grapes  ripened,  the  Clintons  in  par- 
ticular, being  the  most  perfect,  full  and  large 
for  the  kind,  burst  their  skins,  many  half  way 
romid,  from  some  cause  unknown  to  me,  so 
that  the  air  around^  was  filled  with  the  deli- 
cious sweet  smell  of  the  ripe  fruit,  which 
naturally  invited  the  bees  to  come  and  regale 
themselves,  and  sip  the  nectar  now  open  to 
them.  Concords  near  by  were  not  near  so 
perfect  this  year,  and  few  hurst  their  skins 
when  ripening,  and  few  bees  gathered  about 
them.  Delawares,  nearest  to  the  hives,  were 
also  very  perfect,  but  none  burst  their  skins, 
and  no  bees  visited  them.  Now,  if  the  bees 
had  cut  the  grapes  open,  is  it  not  natural  and 
reasonable  that  they  would.have  also  cut  the 
other  and  sweeter  kinds,  as  more  to  their 
taste,  particularly  the  Delawares. 

Some  varieties  of  apples,  when  perfectly 
developed  and  fully  ripe,  also  sometimes  burst 
their  skin,  as  my  friend  Garber,  that  prince  of 
fruit  growers  and  professor  of  pomology,  no 
doubt  has  noticed. 

The  question  whether  the  bees  have  an  ap- 
paratus at  all  to  cut  the  skin  of  the  grape,  I 
refer  to  my  friend.  Prof.  Rathvon.  Their 
sthig  does  not  cut,  and  is  used  only  to  defend. 

Your  correspondent,  W.,  from  Strasburg, 
complains  also  of  the  destruction  of  his  grapes 
this  year  by  the  bees,  but  admits  that  "he 
don't  know  whether  the  bees  tettr  the  skin  or 
not,"  and  throws  ugly  hints  at  the  Italians  ; 
but  that  they  destroyed  his  grapes  he  is  quite 
sure.  Now,  if  the  skin  is  burst,  from  whatever 
cause,  would  not  the  grape  go  to  speedy  de- 
struction if  no  bees  came  near  it '?  Friend  W. 
says,  "thousands  of  bees  were  constantly  on 
his  grapes  from  early  dawn  till  dusk,"  which 
he  can  prove  by  any  number  of  witnesses. 
This  is  not  denied.  So  there  were  on  mine, 
but  no  Italians  among  them  all,  but  all  our 
own  black  bees,  or  others  as  much  like  them 
-Tts  one  bee  can  be  to  another  bee.  If  the  bees 
have  only  now  discovered  that  they  can  cut  or 
tear  the  skins  of  grapes,  they  will,  no  doubt, 
soon  find  that  they  can  also  cut  the  long  tubes 
of  the  red  clover  blossom.  AVhat  a  flow  of 
honey  there  will  be  when  they  strike  that 
bonanza ! 

Our  Clinton  grapes  were  so  thin  skinned 
this  year  that  many  could  uot  be  removed 
from"  the  stem  without  bursting.  Is  it  not 
enough  that  we  rob  this  poor,  industrious  lit- 
tle people  of  a  great  portion  of  their  store, 
gathered  with  so  much  patient  industry  every 
shining  hour  during  summer  for  winter  use  V 
Shall  the  robbers  then  turn  around  and  accuse 
them  of  mischief  they  are  unable  to  do  ?  We 
ask  for  a  verdict  of  not  guilty. — M.,  Oregon, 
Oct.  22,  1877. 


Do  Bees  Destroy  Fruit  ?  No.  4. 
Sir:  Tour  article  under  the  above  caption 
has  occasioned  considerable  discussion  in  this 
neighborhood,  and  you  will  excuse  me  if  I  add 
that  the  general  verdict  is  that  its  conclusions 
are  not  correct.  I  have  been  for  some  years 
quite  an  extensive  grape-grower,  and  have 
had  no  trouble  before  the  present  year  ui  se- 
curing all  of  that  fruit  that  I  wanted.  This 
year,  tlioughl  had  an  aljundance  on  the  vines, 
yet  I  was  unable  to  gather  more  than  a  few 
perfect  bunches.  The  bees  destroyed  all  the 
rest.  Now,  when  I  state  that  thousands  of 
bees  were  constantly  on  my  fruit,  from  early 
dawn  until  dusk,  I  state  a  fact  that  can  Iw 
be  attested  by  any  number  of  witnesses.  This 
season  has  been  the  first  that  Italian  bees 
have  been  kept  in  this  neighborhood,  and  our 
grape-growers    very    generally   complain   of 


their  ravages.  I  don't  know  whether  the 
bees  tear  the  skin  of  the  grapes  or  not,  but  I 
do  know  they  destroyed  nearly  all  my  fruit.  If 
the  skin  is  broken  in  some  other  way,  so  be  it. 
It  has  not  occasioned  us  heretofore  much  an- 
noyance. We  slill  had  iilenty  of  the  fruit. 
This  year,  through  the  instrumentality  of  the 
bees,  and  possibly  other  cau.ses  assisting,  we 
had  very  little,  and  to  my  mind  we  will  either 
have  to  do  without  grapes  or  the  busy  bees— 
of  the  Italian  variety.— TF.,  Strasburg,  Oct. 
11,  1877. 

Do  Bees  Destroy  Fruit  ?     No.  5. 

Your  editorial  with  this  caption,  in  defense 
of  the  industrious  "gatherer  of  sweets,"  giv- 
ing your  own  patient  watchfulness  and  thei 
experience  of  Jlr.  Fleckenstein,  as  a  reply  tol 
the  denunciation  and  violent  attack  on  the 
bee,  in  the  Reading  Eagle,  I  deemed  neitheri 
too  lengthy  nor  uncalled  for.     I  gave  the  subH 
ject  no  further  tliought.    But  when  the  samd 
caption  caught  my  eyes,  with  an  emphatic  yesj 
added,  and  signed  by  that  apostle  of  experi-l 
ence,  one  to  whose  opinion  I  and  his  numer-J 
ous  friends  attach  great  weight,  with  all  thei 
deference  of   an  humljle  learner,  I  carefuUyl 
perused  his  article. 

His  objection  to  the  editor,  or  apiarist,  orl 
an  entomologist  "who  did  not  choose  to  at- 
tach his  name,"  seems  taken  against  the  in-i 
cognito  writer,  and  he  enters  his  protestl 
against  the  conclusions  arrived  at.  Mr.  G.' 
certainly  bravely  signs  his  own  name  and  ob- 
servations ;  but  while  the  former  writer  quoted 
Mr.  Fleckenstein  by  name,  Mr.  G.  only  men- 
tions a  gentJevum  who  told  him  that  he  and 
his  father  had  kept  bees  for  many  years  ;  that 
they  (father  and  son)  had  grape  vines  for  many 
years  bearing  lots  of  fiuit,  and  that  the  bees 
never  touched  thefrtdt  until  within  a  few  years 
back  ;  now,  however,  since  the  introduction 
of  the  Italian  or  cross-breeds,  tliey  have  taken 
a  new  departure,  or  formed  a  "new  era." 
Within  the  last  four  or  five  years  the  "little 
busy  bees"  have  made  a  regular  onslaught  on 
his  grapes.  These  little  rascals,  the  bees  of 
his  neighbors  from  half  a  mile  distant,  before 
sunrise  and  after  tlie  sun  is  set,  were  as  "busy 
as  bees"  on  his  grape  vines,  and  could  be  seen 
without  long  watching,  cutting  the  grapes  as 
neatly  and  expeditiously  as  it  could  have  been 
done  with  a  penknife. 

Tliis,  I  presume,  the  gentleman  told  him. 
Our  friend  being  a  pretty  close  observer,   en-  j 
dorses  the  foregoing  and  then  says,  "1  am  not  j 
sure,  but  I  may  another  season  apply  Prof. 
Riley's    recommendation,*    and    give    these  I 
thieves  a  taste  of  Paris  green,  or  what  may  be 
more  to  the  purpose,  slryclmia,"  &c.     Now, 
my  old  friend,  this  is  cruel  and  uncahed  for, 
in  my  humble  opinion. 

Tlien  I  find  another,  who  writes  from  Stras- 
burg, signed  "W."  His  verdict  is  that  Mr. 
G.'s  conclusions  are  not  wholly  correct.  He 
states  that  he  is  an  extensive  grape-grower, 
and  lias  had  no  trouble  before  the  present  year 
in  securing  all  of  that  fruit  he  wanted.  This 
year  the  bees  destrot/ed  all  but  a  few  perfect 
bunches.  He  found  thousands  of  bees  con- 
stantly on  his  fruit  from  early  dawn  until 
dusk.  This  fact  lie  says  he  can  liave  attested 
by  any  number  of  witnesses.  This  is  the  first 
season  that  Italian  bees  were  kept  in  his 
neighborhood,  against  which  the  complaint 
seems  general.  But  mark  what  he  says  :  "  I 
don't  know  whether  thd  bees  tear  the  skin  of 
the  grape  or  not,  but  I  do  know  that  they 
destroy  nearly  all  my  fruit."  Then  comes  an 
"if,"  which  1  will  endeavor  to  solve  before  I 
am  done.  He  says,  "  If  tlie  skin  is  broken  in 
some  other  way,  so  be  it." 

In  yesterday's  paper  we  find  the  caption 
again,"  with  a  "No"  appended,  signed  M. 
(Oregon).  I  think  I  know  the  writer,  and 
know  liim  to  be  as  reliable  on  this  question  as 
any  one  of  the  writers,  mysiOf  and  .1.  B.  G. 
included.  He  believes  the  industrious  insect 
innocent,  and  with  good  reasons  given. 
As  there  are  no  Italian  bees  in  his  neigh- 

'Haviiig,  as  I  thouglit,  read  all  that  Prof.  Riley  lias  pub' 
lished,  I  uever  met  with  such  a  statement.  May  there  not 
1)6  some  mistake  ?    I  mean  Chas,  V.  Riley,  M.  A.,  Ph.  D 


1 


1877. 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


163 


borhood,  (he  means  not  within  a  mile,)  his 
colonies  arc  the  regular  hive  bees,  near  sev- 
eral varieties  of  grapes.  The  Clintons,  being 
the  most  perfect,  I'uli  and  large  for  the  kind, 
burst  their  skins,  many  half-way  round,  from 
soine  cause  unkniivn  to  mr;  the  saccharine  Juice 
exuding  was  enough  to  tempt  the  bees  to  visit 
the  grapes  and  regale  upon  (hem,  stating  also 
that  they  were  very  thin  skinned  this  year. 
Without  noticing  his  appeal  to  I'rof.  Kalhvon, 
about  the  cutting  app;iratus  of  the  bee,  and 
much  else  that  might  be  said,  I  will  now  come 
to  what  I  believe  to  be  the  cause  of  the  skins 
bursting,  at  least  in  some  cases. 

This  belongs  to  natin-al  philoso])liy  and 
vegetable  physiology.  First,  my  personal  ob- 
servation, on  which  1  groun<l  my  opinion  ; 
while  residing  on  North  Duke  strei't,  about 
eight  years  ago,  there  was  a  trellis  with  a 
grape  vine  on  it,  facing  directly  .south.  When 
tiie  grapes  were  about  two-thirds  ripe  a  shower 
of  rain  fell  about  noon.  After  the  rain  the 
sun  slKHie  forth  with  intense  brightness.  On 
passing  the  trellis  I  noticed  a  shining  globule 
of  water  on  the  upper  surface  ;  the  bloom 
partially  formcul  on  the  grape  caused  the 
globules  to  coalcse  like  the  dew  on  the  gra.ss. 
The  hot  sun  striking  these  globules,  I  infer, 
acted  like  a  burning  lens,  as  next  day  I 
noticed  a  callous  or  .scalded  spot  on  those 
grapes.  AVhcther  a  fresh  tlow  of  sap  or  the 
cellular  tissue  of  the  fruit  became  more  rapidly 
developed  in  maturing,  or  from  the  ordinary 
growth  alone,  1  do  not  know  ;  as  the  skin  of 
the  grape  had  become  callous  or  indurated,  it 
would  or  could  not  yield  to  the  expansion  of 
the  pulp  or  fruit  at  these  points,  and  conse- 
quently the  skin  must  burst. 

I  subsecpiently  observed  that  the  juice  was 
exuding,  and  that  accounted  for  the  numerdus 
insects,  bees  among  them,  as  well  as  moths, 
that  were  regaling  them.selves  on  the  juices. 
Everybody  has  seen  water  in  a  show-bottic  in 
druggists'  windows  or  in  fish-globes.  When 
in  the  direct  line  of  the  sun  these  have  Vieen 
known  to  kindle  paper  in  the  focus,  as  thej- 
form  a  burning  lens  by  concentrating  the 
sun's  rays.  A  cake  of  ice  can  be  converted 
into  a  burning  lens,  and  such  have  been  used 
in  Iceland  to  kindle  fires  with. 

Now,  before  we  condemn  the  common  hive 
or  Italian  bees  as  the  cause,  let  us  withhold 
our  judgment  and  not  ''jumpat  conclusions," 
and  be  sure  that  we  are  right  before  we  expel 
them  with  Paris  green  or  strychnine.  One  of 
t)ur  most  learned  men  showed  me  what  he 
thought  the  parent  of  the  aphids  so  injurious 
to  a  choice  plant ;  he  said  he  kil'ed  all  he 
could  find.  lie  was  suriiriscd  when  I  told  him 
that  he  made  a  great  mistake,  as  the  supposed 
parent  actually  fed  upon  the  aphids  and  was 
the  best  friend  to  his  plant  ;  but  ignorance  on 
this  particular  subject  did  it.  While  he  is  my 
peer  in  many  other  branches  of  science,  on 
this  specialty  he  had  much  to  learn.  So  we 
find  many  insects  that  might  be  taken  for 
Italian  bees,  which  are  the  carpenter  or  tailor 
bees — and  of  a  different  genus,  and  yet  not 
distinguished  by  a  mere  casual  observer — who 
may  have  sni)ii()scd  his  acquaintance  on  the 
wing  with  the  Italian  bee  suthcicut.  Further 
observation  is  needed,  and  more  caution  be- 
fore we  condemn  a  creature  that  after  all  may 
be  perfectly  innocent — so  I  believe  it  to  be,  of 
cutting  the  grape.— ./.  S.,  Lancaster,  October 
25,  1877. 


Bees  and  Grapes.     No.  6. 

One  word  on  the  subject  of  bees  destroying 
fruit.  I  have  been  keeping  bees  for  seven- 
teen years,  and  have  watched  them  on  my 
graiie  vines  every  season,  but  I  have  never 
seen  them  bite  or  sting  a  grape.  I  have  in- 
variably found  them  on  such  as  wx-re  bursled 
open,  or  that  had  l>een  pecked  by  birds ; 
wl-.ere  this  was  the  case,  the  bees,  of  course, 
took  to  the  balance. 

The  gentleman  in  Lancaster  told  Mr.  Gar- 
ber  that  since  the  Italian  or  crosses  of  Ihnt 
variety  of  bees  have  been  introduced,  they  are 
so  destructive  of  the  fruit  that  they  can't 
grow  grapes  as  formerly.  Mr.  Garber  says 
such  has  also  been  his  experience.  The  Italian 


bees  are  treated  unjustly  in  this  case,  for  the 
black  bees  worked  on  the  broken  grains  for  a 
few  past  years  quite  as  fast  as  the  Italians  do 
now. 

Sound  grapes  they  never  damage.  Had 
Mr.  G.'s  grapes  all  been  sound,  the  bees  woidd 
never  have  visited  his  vines.  I  saw  grape 
vines  during  the  past  season  covered  with  lus- 
cious fruit,  but  not  a  bee  did  I  .see  on  them. 
1  examined  the  grapes  and  found  them  all 
.sound  a\id  undamagcil,  while  very  close  to  the 
vine  there  were  others  on  which  the  bees 
were  fairly  swarming.  Upon  examination  1 
found  that  there  were  nearly  as  many  burst- 
open  grapes  as  sound  ones,  while  the  black 
Vices  were  fully  as  numerous  as  the  Italians. 
As  for  Mr.  G.'s  threat  to  give  the  thieves  a 
taste  of  Paris  green  or  strychnia,  I  would  say, 
bees  do  not  die  as  easily  as  he  thinks,  but 
could  readily  carry  the  poison  to  their  hives. 

As  for  W.,  of  Strasburg,  I  beg  leave  to  in- 
form him  that  th(^  past  was  not  the  first  sca- 
.son  that  Italian  bees  are  in  that  neighborhood. 
They  have  been  there  four  years  to  my  cer- 
tain" knowledge. —J.  F.  llershey,  Mt.  Joy,  Pa. 

HOW  TO  MAKE   A  WELL. 

Ml-.  J.  W.  l'iiikli:im  lius  a  paper  on  "  Wells  and 
Cisterns'' in  "  .Serilincr"  for  Sci)tenil>er,  with  plans 
sliowiiig'  liiiw  tljey  arc  containin.atcil,  and  tuiw  they 
slioulil  tie  eoustructed.  He  suys  of  wells;  First,  of 
course,  the  well  must  lie  so  constructed  that  it  can- 
not act  as  a  drain  for  the  neighboring  soil.  This 
can  be  done  by  makinfr  the  wall  above  low-water 
nuirk  (it  some  inateiial  impervious  to  water,  or  by 
omitting  tills  pari  of  tlie  wall  altogether.  Tlie  first 
can  be  accomplisliej  l>y  having  the  wall  from  a  point 
two  or  three  feet  from  the  bottom  made  of  brick, 
with  acoatinij  of  hydraulic  cement  on  its  exterior  or 
of  hydraulic  wcll-tubinc:,  with  the  joinings  well  pro- 
tected with  cement ;  in  either  ease  the  earth  should 
he  thnrouirhly  jiaeked  around  the  wall,  and  a  slight 
embankment  sliould  lie  made  around  the  orifice  to 
prevent  the  iiiHow  iif  surface  or  storm  water.  In 
sueli  a  well  the  draining;  surface  is  so  reduced,  and 
placed  at  such  a  distance  below  the  surface  of  the 
ground,  that  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  the 
introduetion  of  foreign  matter  becomes  impossible 
except  in  so  far  as  there  is  a  chance  tliat  substances 
will  fall  into  the  well  from  above.  To  prevent  this 
the  well  sliould  be  kept  covered  when  not  in  use. 
In  most  cases,  however,  it  is  better  to  omit  the  upper 
part  of  the  wall  altogether.  After  the  excavation  is 
completed,  the  wall  can  be  built  in  the  usual  manner 
for  a  distance  of  two  or  three  feet,  more  or  less,  as 
eircunistances  may  demand  ;  tlie  service  pipe  can 
then  be  placed  in  position,  and  the  well  arched  over. 
The  rcmaiuder  of  the  excavation  can  then  be  tilled 
witli  earth,  well  packed  as  it  is  thrown  in,  and  the 
pipe  carried  to  any  convenient  point.  It  will  lie 
necessary  to  |ilaee  above  the  arch  several  layers  of 
stones  successively  smaller,  to  prevent  the  falling  of 
earth  into  the  space  below.  The  workmen  will  pro- 
bably suggest  a  layer  of  turf  or  straw  to  accomplish 
this  olijeet ;  but  the  presence  of  either  of  these  sub- 
stances will  cause  the  water  to  be  unpleasant  for  a 
considerabU'  time,  and  will  prove  the  cause  of  much 
annoyanec.  There  is  a  prevalent  notion  that  a  well 
should  be  ventilated  for  the  purpose  of  allowing 
noxious  gases  to  escape,  and  that  water  is  lietter  for 
being  exposed  to  the  air.  I  hardly  need  stale  that 
the  only  noxious  gases  in  a  well  (i.  e.,  gases  which 
render  the  water  unwholcsiime)  are  the  products 
of  the  decomposition  of  organic  matter  which  has 
found  its  way  into  the  well  in  ways  which  have  been 
ilescribed  above  ;  and  that  water  as  it  flows  in  its 
subterranean  passages  is  more  perfectly  arated  than 
it  can  be  in  any  other  way. 

We  know  not  how  it  is  now  in  regard  to 
wells  in  those  localities  where  they  are  de- 
pended on  for  the  daily  supply  of  water,  but 
we  do  know  that  in  our  boyhood,  and  even  in 
our  manhood,  in  both  town  and  country, 
where  there  was  no  hydr.ant  water,  the  well 
water  often  became  putrid  and  at  least  un- 
drinkable,  and  when  the  cause  was  ascer- 
tained, it  was  found  that  it  was  due  to  dead 
toads,  mice,  rats,  snakes,  grasshoppers, 
beetles,  &c.,  that  had  fallen  in  and  perished. 
And  in  one  instance  we  knew  of  a  small  cat 
that  had  fallen  in  and  drowned,  and  remained 
there  until  its  hair  came  off,  before  the  people 
became  aware  that  they  had  for  some  weeks 
been  consuming  "cat-soup."  Now,  conced- 
ing the  value  of  the  suggestions  in  the  fore- 
giiiug  article  on  well-making,  so  far  as  they 
go,  we  are  free  to  say,  that  if  we  bad  occasion 
to  make  a  well,  we  would  adopt  the  plan  em- 
braced in  the  following  article  at  once  ;  for, 
if  such  a  well  was  properly  constructed  and 


secured,  it  wotdd  never  need  any  cleaning  or 
repairing  any  more  than  the  clefts  and  fis- 
sures in  the  rocks  through  which  the  water 
pa,s.se8,  needs  such  cleaning  or  repair,  and  es- 
pecially so  if  the  conducting  tubes  were  en- 
ameled, or  made  of  ttrra  rntta.  The  process 
seems  simple,  philcsophical,  and  rational, 
anyliow. 

Clean,  Pure  Water. 

In  I.''.'>4  I  dug  my  well  nearly  twenty-two  feet 
deep,  and  struck  a  strong  stream  of  water.  I  walled 
up  three  feet,  and  put  two  lead  pipes  in,  arched  It 
over  and  stood  the  pipes  up  by  the  dug  wall.  I  then 
put  the  dirt  which  I  had  takeu  out  back  Into  the  well. 
I  then  attached  a  cast-lrnn  pump  to  the  large  pipe, 
and  left  the  smaller  one  to  give  air  in  case  the  water 
did  not  come  into  the  well  as  fast  as  It  was  pumped 
out.  It  Is  over  twenty-three  years  since,  and  I  have 
a  pump  in  one  corner  of  my  kllehcu,  which  brings 
up  as  clear,  pure  water  as  at  first.  I  saved  the  stone 
and  walling  of  eighteen  feet,  and  have  none  of  the 
soaking  and  filth  off  the  surface  of  the  earth.  I  have 
no  eats,  rats,  mice,  snakes,  frogs,  or  a  thousand 
other  tilings  which  arc  liable  to  get  into  wells  wlilch 
are  walled  up  to  the  top,  in  mine.  My  son  has  a 
pump  fixed  eimilarto  mine,  but  his  a  common  wooden 
pump,  and  out  of  doors.  The  air  pipe  should  go  up 
tiy  the  stock,  and  make  a  hole  in  it,  so  as  to  let  the 
water  down  in  cold  weather.  The  lower  stock  will 
last  almost  without  a  limit,  and  it  would  be  an  easy 
matter  to  put  the  upper  one  in. —  Cor.  Cin.  Gazette. 
—  -^ — 

BUY  YOUR  TREES  AT  HOME. 

Of  all  the  mistakes  our  farmers  and  property- 
holders  throughout  the  county  annually  commit, 
none  is  so  common  as  buying  their  fruit,  shade  and 
other  trees  from  the  agents  of  nurseries  in  distant 
States.  With  unfailing  regularity  these  men  come 
around  every  season  with  their  sample-books  of 
highly-colored  fruits  and  trees,  and  persistently  urge 
them  upon  the  attention  of  all  w  ho  have  room  to  set 
out  a  tree  or  a  bush.  The  people  of  this  county  have 
patronized  these  men  far  beyond  their  deserts,  or 
than  a  consideration  for  their  own  pockets  warrants. 
Only  too  often  has  their  confidence  been  abused.  In 
the  first  place,  the  prices  are  in  almost  every  instance 
twice  or  thrice  what  the  same  articles  can  be  pur- 
chased for  here  at  home.  But  this  is  not  the  worst; 
in  innumerable  instances  the  goods  turned  out  very 
differently  from  the  representations  made  at  the  time 
of  purchase,  and  the  buyers  find  that  they  havelieen 
victimized  not  only  in  price  but  in  kind.  There  is  no 
occasion  for  being  taken  in  this  way.  The  remedy  is 
easily  applied,  and  may  be  stated  in  the  situple 
words,  "buy  at  home."  We  have  nurserymen  in 
Lancaster  county,  second  to  none  in  the  United  States. 
Messrs.  Calvin  Cooper,  Casper  Hiller  &  Son,  the 
Englcs  at  Marietta,  and  Brinton  at  Chriistiana,  and 
others,  are  the  owners  of  nurseries  where  everything 
our  citizens  can  want  in  this  line  is  to  be  found.  Not 
only  arc  their  prices  much  lower  than  those  of  the 
foreign  dealers,  but  their  high  character  and  reputa- 
tion are  a  sure  guarantee  that  their  goods  are  as 
represented,  aud  that  a  man  will  get  the  article  he 
]4Hys  for.  As  a  rule,  their  trees  are  much  finer  and 
stronger  than  those  that  come  from  abroad,  and 
being  acclimated,  are  far  more  suitable  for  home 
culture  than  the  puny  things  that  are  sent  here  from 
other  States  and  places.  Our  readers  should  not  for- 
get this  very  important  fact  when  they  stand  in  need 
of  any  article  in  this  line.  This  is  a  ease  where  home 
industry  can  be  encouraged  with  profit. — -Vtw   Era. 

We  endorse  the  above,  both  in  sentiment 
and  in  principle  ;  although  we  do  not  mean 
to  say  that  there  arc  not  as  cheap,  hone.st  and 
reliable  nurserymen  out  of  the  county  and  the 
State,  as  there  are  in  them.  Hut  chea]),  hon- 
est and  reliable  as  the  proprietors  of  these 
establishments  may  be  in  themselves,  it  is 
possible  they  may  be  misrepresented  through 
knavish,  designing  or  selfish  agents.  But 
still,  if  such  contingencies  were  not  likely  to 
ensue,  we  would  advise  our  patrons  to  buy 
their  trees  at  home,  for  many  of  the  reasons 
above  slated.  And  we  would  say  further, 
buy  a  good  many  other  things  at  home  that 
are  often  bought  abroad  ;  for  the  constant 
drain  of  money  going  out  for  foreign  luxuries 
and  commodities,  are  sure  to  ultimately  im- 
poverish the  community.  It  is  not  for  us  to 
particularize  what  they  should  buy  at  home. 
That  we  leave  to  their  own  connnon-seiwe 
discretion',  after  mature  ob.servation  and  re- 
flection ;  but  the  hankering  after  foreign 
novelties  is,  and  has  always  Ix-en,  the  bane  of 
our  country.  Those  foreign  countries  that 
sell  most  and  buy  lea.st  abroad,  are  financially 
and  domesticall}'  the  most  sound  and  prosper- 
ous, and  also  recuperate  the  most  rajiidly  after 
political  and  financial  reverses,  as  was  evinced 
in  the  late  disastrous  condition  of  France, 


i64 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER 


[November, 


But  the  worst  phase  of  the  whole  matter  is, 
that  many  of  those  who  patronize  foreign 
commodities,  send  their  ready  money  abroad 
and  "run"  tlieir  credit  at  home,  thereby  dis- 
abling their  own  fellow-citizens  from  becom- 
ing the  liberal  patrons  to  them  that  they 
would  be  if  they  received  a  more  generous 
home  encouragement.  Yes,  we  reiterate,  buy 
your  trees,  your  newspapers  and  your  other 
etceteras  at  home,  and  give  the  homes  of  our 
county  an  opportunity  to  flourish. 


IMPROVEMENT   IN  THE  CULTIVA- 
TION  OF  WHEAT. 

The  following  is  a  plain  statement  of  the 
new  method  of  cultivating  the  wheat  crop  ; 
and  the  question  is  so  familiar  to  us,  the  par- 
ties so  well  known,  and  the  results  so  satis- 
factory, that  we  feel  we  cannot  do  better  than 
to  give  it  an  insertion  in  The  Farmer,  as  a 
matter  of  interest  to  all  the  friends  of  agricul- 
tural progress : 

After  having  thought  much  about  the  culture  of 
wheat,  and  given  it  considerable  attention,  and 
gatliered  all  the  information  I  could  by  experiments 
of  my  own  and  that  of  others,  and  whatever  other 
information  I  could  obtain  by  observation  and  from 
agricultural  journals,  I  became  fully  convinced  that 
as  yet  we  were  losing  much  in  the  old  and  common 
method  of  raising  wheat ;  and  that  the  only  true  and 
profitable  manner  of  raising  wheat  is  to  cultivate  it 
as  near  as  possible  like  other  cultivated  grain.  Not 
by  hand-power,  neither  by  horse-power  half  done, 
but  with  some  kind  of  a  cultivator  that  will  do  good 
work,  and  be  a  success  in  attaining  that  which  it  was 
intended  for — at  the  same  time  economize  labor,  by 
doing  as  much  work  in  a  day  as  can  be  done  with  an 
ordinary  wheat  drill,  which  I  have  no  doubt  would 
be  satisfactory  to  all  parties. 

To  form  these  conclusions  was  one  thing,  but  to 
get  up  the  right  kind  of  a  machine  to  work  satisfac- 
torily was  another.  I  found  wheat  drilled  in  the  old 
style  would  not  admit  of  cultivation — for  the  reason 
that  the  rows  were  too  near  together — eight  sowing 
boots  generally  being  al'oted  to  an  ordinary  drill. 
Then  after  concluding  to  close  every  other  or  alter- 
nate spout,  or  small  seed-box,  and  remove  every  other 
boot,  I  again  found  that  would  not  answer,  as  the 
spaces  between  the  sowing  boots  would  not  be  equally 
divided.  And  just  here  another  very  important  point 
presented  itself.  One  of  the  principal  objections 
against' the  old  style  drill  is,  that  it  sows  the  wheat 
too  thick  or  too  close  together  in  the  small  row.  For 
example,  an  ordinary  drill  has  eight  sowing  boots, 
and  out  of  a  dozen  different  makes  not  one  will 
spread  the  wheat  one  inch  in  the  row.  Thus,  it  is  easy 
for  any  one  to  understand  that  in  a  whole  drill 
breadth,  the  wheal  from  all  the  eight  boots,  at  one 
inch  in  the  row,  stands  on  only  eight  inches  of  ground, 
while  the  new  style  drill  has  four  sowing  boots  (in- 
stead of  eight),  and  each  one  is  so  arranged  with  a 
spreader  as  to  put  the  seed  regular  in  the  rows  four 
inches  wide  ;  therefore  this  drill,  with  four  sowing 
boots  and  each  sowing  it  four  inches  wide,  will  de- 
posit the  seed  over  sixteen  inches  of  ground  (instead 
of  eight),  and  consequently  it  is  plain  and  evident 
that  this  drill  sows  the  same  quantity  of  seed  on  an 
acre  only  half  as  thick  or  close  together  in  the  row 
as  the  old  style  drill,  thus  doing  away  with  the  thick 
sowing  objection ;  and  in  addition  to  this,  it  still 
leaves  10  2-5  or  nearly  11  inches  space  between  the 
rows  for  spring  cultivation,  that  one  great  point 
necessary  in  the  raising  of  all  crops.  It  is  an  ac- 
knowledged fact  and  v/ell  known  to  every  practical 
farmer,  that  by  cultivation,  and  by  cultivation  only, 
it  is  that  he  raises  those  fine  crops  of  corn,  tobacco 
and  potatoes  ;  and  that  if  he  did  not  cultivate  those 
crops,  they  would  not  produce  one-third  of  the  crop 
they  do  liy  cultivation,  though  they  are  planted  soon 
after  plowing,  or  in  other  words  on  fresh  plowed 
ground.  Now,  these  are  not  exaggerations,  but  real 
Bolid  facts,  and  so  admitted  by  all;  therefore,  it  is 
but  fair  to  say,  that  two-thirds  of  those  crops  (or 
fi"?^  per  cent.,)  is  due  only  to  having  been  cultivated. 
Now,  then,  if  so  large  a  per  cent,  of  those  crops  as 
that  is  due  to  cultivation,  why  should  not  cultivation 
pay  fully  as  large  a  per  cent.,  or  even  larger,  in  the 
wheat  crop.  The  principle  of  cultivation  would 
answer;  cirtainly  it  viiH  pay  fully  as  irell,  for  this 
reason  :  Wheat  ground  is  generally  plowed  in  August. 
About  the  1.5th  of  September  the  average  farmer  is 
done  seeding;  then,  from  that  lime  on,  "that  ground 
is  left  to  produce  a  crop,  such  as  it  will  be,  after  being 
exposed  to  all  the  beating  storms,  snow  and  rains  of 
all  wiutei:,  and  when  spring  comes  is  beaten  down  as 
hard  as  though  it  had  not  been  plowed  at  all  the 
previous  August.  What  is  the  result?  An  average  of 
14  bushels  per  acre  in  the  United  States. 

From  the  1.5lh  of  September,  when  the  wheat 
ground  is  seeded,  to  the  15th  of  the  following  April, 
is  bcv^n  months  ;  and  as  it  is  a  well  known  fact  that 
no  plant  will  thrive  or  even  grow  at  all  without  the 
influence  of  the  atmosphere  and  the  sun,  neither  can 
penetrate  ground  that  has  been  beaten  down  for 


seven  months  until  it  is  quite  hard,  near  as  well,  and 
with  anything  like  as  good  results  as  it  can  pene- 
trate fresh  cultivated  ground  ;  and  any  person  having 
the  least  idea  of  the  good  result  derived  from  the 
cultivation  of  any  kind  of  a  crop  will  admit  this. 
Now  when  we  see  plainly  that  such  are  the  facts, 
undeniably  so,  must  we  not  therefore  at  once  admit 
that  the  cultivation  of  wheat  ground  is  all  the  more 
necessary  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  after  having 
been  beaten  down  for  seven  months,  and  left  un- 
touched all  that  time,  and  will  therefore  show  a 
larger  per  centage  of  benefit  and  gain  from  having 
been  cultivated  than  other  crops,  accordingly.  After 
taking  all  the  above-mentioned  facts  into  considera- 
tion, as  well  as  the  good  and  sound  principles  of 
cultivation,  I  concluded  to  test  the  matter  fairly  and 
exact,  for  my  own  satisfaction  as  well  as  for  that  of 
others,  who  acknowledged  that  their  wheat  crops 
are  only  about  half  the  product  they  sheuld  be.  To 
do  so  I  induced  one  of  our  farmes,  Levi  W.  GrofT,  of 
West  Earl  township,  Lancaster  county.  Pa.,  to  sow 
about  the  half  of  a  field  on  this  new  method,  and  the 
other  half  on  the  old  style.  This  sowing  was  done 
about  the  25th  day  of  September,  1876  ;  the  quantity 
of  seed  sown  was  \].i  ijushels  of  wheat  per  acre  ; 
and  exactly  or  as  near  as  possible  that  quantity  was 
sowed  on  every  acre  in  the  field.  As  to  choice  of 
quality  of  land  in  the  field,  there  was  none  ;  for  the 
reason  that  there  is  no  hill  in  the  field,  it  being  a 
nice  level  tract,  and  the  quality  of  land  very  fair, 
and  as  near  the  same  all  over,  I  think,  as  it  is  possi- 
ble to  have  it.  About  the  middle  of  April,  1877,  the 
half  that  was  sowed  on  the  new  plan  was  cultivated, 
which  showed  a  considerable  difference  in  improve- 
ment in  one  week's  time,  when  compared  to  the 
opposite  half  which  was  not  cultivated,  as  it  looked 
stronger  and  had  a  fine,  thrifty  and  better  color ; 
notwithstanding  that  quite  a  large  per  cent,  of  it 
was  cropped  by  this  first  cultivation,  on  account  of 
not  having  the  protectors  put  on  the  cultivator  then, 
yet  to  protect  the  growing  grain  from  being  covered 
with  earth,  which  was  found  very  necessary  to  do, 
or  cover  entirely  too  much  grain,  the  protectors  were 
therefore  put  on  the  cultivator,  and  then  cultivated 
the  same  part  of  the  field  the  second  time,  about  the 
Ist  of  May,  which  improved  it  still  more  accordingly. 
It  was  then  again  cultivated  about  the  middle  of 
May,  this  being  the  third  and  last  time.  This  last 
cultivation  I  thought  did  it  as  much  good  as  either 
of  the  former  times  did  ;  the  result  was  it  looked 
stronger,  firmer,  and  had  a  better  appearance  in 
general  than  the  opposite  uncultivated  tract  had  ; 
and  when  it  came  into  heads  there  was  a  marked 
difference,  as  the  heads  on  the  uncultivated  tract 
were  about  the  same  as  are  generally  seen  in  an 
ordinary  field  farmed  on  the  old  style  ;  while  the 
heads  on  the  cultivated  tract  were  much  better  filled 
and  larger,  plenty  of  them  measuring  over  six  inches 
in  length.  Even  the  straw  was  considerably  coarser 
and  stronger,  which  of  course  makes  it  less  liable  to 
fall  or  go  down  ;  the  difference  was  so  great  that  it 
could  easily  be  noticed  without  a  close  examination. 
When  harvest  time  came,  both  of  these  tracts  were 
cut  on  the  same  day.  Thus  it  will  be  noticed,  that 
both  tracts  were  treated  alike  in  the  time  of  seeding, 
quantity  of  seed  per  acre,  and  also  in  cutting  it  all  at 
the  same  time  ;  the  only  difference  being  that  the 
one  was  cultivated  and  the  other  was  not.  Before 
cutting  it,  however,  E.  H.  Burkholder,  esq.,  a  gen- 
eral surveyor  and  justice  of  the  peace,  was  called  to 
measure  ofl' two  acres,  side  by  side,  on  each  tract, 
which  was  separately  threshed  soon  after,  and  pi-o- 
duced  as  follows  :  Two  cultivated  acres  produced  72 
bushels  and  'M  pounds,  or  36  bushels  and  15  pounds 
per  acre.  Two  uncultivated  acres  produced  .50 
bushels  and  i  pounds,  or  25  bushels  2  pounds  per 
acre.  Difference  in  favor  of  cultivation,  which  was 
produced  at  an  expense  of  just  60  cents  per  acre,  11 
bushels  and  lo  pounds  per  acre. 

Another  tract  was  also  sowed  on  the  same  farm  on 
this  new  method  ;  but  as  it  was  not  sowed  until  the 
Sth  of  October  it  was  later  in  the  spring,  and  there- 
fore not  cultivated  until  the  protectors  were  put  on, 
therefore  covering  none  of  the  growing  grain.  And 
this  tract  produced  31  liushels  and  15  pounds  per 
acre.  This  tract  was  also  measured  by  the  same  sur- 
veyor, and  this  result  was  certainly  very  satisfactory, 
but  not  any  more  so,  I  think,  than  farmers'  wheat 
crops  generally  would  be  if  they  were  properly  culti- 
vated, which  it  is  universally  acknowledged  they 
should  be. 

The  attachments  are  simple  and  will  apply  to  all 
drills,  and  can  be  put  on  any  drill  at  a  small  expense. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agricultural 
and  Horticultural  Society,  a  committee  of  four  of  its 
members  was  appointed  as  a  visiting  committee,  to 
go  to  the  above  mentioned  farm  and  examine  into 
this  new  method  of  cultivating  wheat,  which  they 
did  a  day  or  two  be  lore  it  was  cut,  and  they  admitted 
that  the  difference  in  favor  of  cultivation,  after  hav- 
ing examined  it,  was  greater  than  they  even  ex- 
pected ;  and  all  of  them  approved  of  this  new  method 
and  heartily  endorse  it,  and  reqnested  the  above- 
mentioned  Levi  W.  Groli'  to  make  a  report  to  said 
agricultural  society  of  the  above  mentioned  crops  as 
soon  as  he  has  threshed  it,  and  thereby  linows  the 
result,  which  he  did,  the  same  as  above  stated,  to 
which  the  said  committee  reply  as  follows  : 


We,  the  undersigned,  visited  the  farm  of  Mr.  Levi 
W.  Groff,  about  hai'vest  time,  and  fully  concur  in  his 
report  so  far  as  we  could  judge  at  that  time. 

H.  M.  Engle, 
Calvin  Cooper, 
Levi  S.  Reist, 
Peteu  S.  Reist. 

Mr.  Engle  said  he  had  examined  .Mr.  Groft''s  clover 
and  timothy,  and  believed  it  would  be  very  superior. 
He  trusted  that  not  a  few  of  our  farmers  would 
adopt  Mr.  Groft's  plan  of  cultivation.  He  would  do 
so  himself,  and  from  his  observation  he  was  sure  it 
would  pay. 

Mr.  Pownall  said  that  ou  a  former  occasion  he  had 
objected  to  cultivating  the  wheat  crop  in  the  way 
adopted  by  Mr.  Groff,  ou  the  ground  that  it  would 
injure  the  grass  that  was  to  follow  the  wheat;  hut 
from  an  experiment  of  his  own  he  was  now  convinced 
that  it  would  not. 

We,  the  undersigned,  do  hereby  certify  that  we 
visited  the  farm  of  Levi  W.  Groff,  esq.,  in  the  month 
of  July,  1877,  in  the  midst  of  harvest,  and  examined 
a  field  of  wheat  sowed,  in  part  in  the  ordinary  way, 
and  in  part  by  a  drill  invented  (and  now  patented)  by 
Adam  B.  (iroff,  which  drill,  by  some  modification  of 
parts,  is  converted  into  a  cultivator,  and  by  means 
of  which  the  wheat  is  cultivated  the  same  as  corn 
with  the  cultivator.  One  part  of  the  field  we  ex- 
amined had  been  treated  by  the  new  invention  ;  that 
the  wheat  on  the  jiart  of  the  field  sowed  by  this  new 
drill,  and  treated  as  aforesaid,  was  much  better  than 
the  other  part  of  the  field,  larger  and  stronger  in  the 
straw,  and  in  heads  proportionally  still  better ;  and 
the  yield  in  the  bushel  better  by  (11)  bushels  to  the 
acre,  as  verified  by  Mr.  Groff,  by  separate  threshing 
and  measuring. 

[Signed,]  And.  M.  Frantz, 

Geo.  K.  Reed, 
D.  P.  Locher, 
Walter  G.  Evans. 

OBITUARY.  J 

Atglen,  10th  mo.  22d,  1877.     " 

Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon— Dear  Sir :  The  fol- 
lowing resolutions  were  passed  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Octoraro  Farmers'  Club,  held  10th  mo. 
18th,  1877  : 

Whereas,  Since  our  last  meeting  we  have  been 
called  upon  to  follow  to  the  tomb  our  esteemed 
friend  and  fellow-member,  Levi  Pownall,  who  de- 
parted this  life  on  the  ISth  of  9th  mo.  last,  after  a 
short  illness ;  and 

Whereas,  It  is  fit  that  those  who  have  worked 
with  him  for  a  number  of  years  past,  so  agreeably 
and  profitably,  should  give  some  public  expression  to 
their  feelings  on  this  occasion  ;  therefore, 

Besolued,  That  it  is  with  the  deepest  sorrow  that  we 
have  been  compelled  to  see  the  ties  severed  by  the 
hand  of  death,  which  bound  us  to  the  deceased, 
whose  many  good  qualities  and  earnest  labors  for 
the  benefit  of  the  club  have  endeared  him  to  us,  and 
whose  memory  we  shall  ever  retain  within  the  deepest 
recesses  of  our  hearts. 

liexolved,  That  in  his  death  we  have  lost  one  of  our 
best  and  most  persevering  members,  and  the  public 
a  citizen  of  the  strictest  honesty  and  uprightness. 

Besohed,  That  we  deeply  sympathize  with  his 
bereaved  family  in  their  deep  alHiction. 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  the  foregoing  resolutions 
be  forwarded  to  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 

Samuel  Whitson, 
Correspondiiig  I'^t^cretary  vf  Club. 

SYNOPSIS   OF  THE  CROPS   OF   1877. 

AVe  have  received  ''  Special  Reports  No.  2, 
of  the  Department  of  Agriculture  for  1877," 
and  from  it  we  have  condensed  the  following 
synopsis  of  the  crops  of  the  present  year  ia 
the  United  States,  so  far  as  the  results  can  be 
attained  at  this  early  |)eriod,  some  allowance 
having  been  made  for  contingencies. 

The  Wheat  crop  is  estimated  at  109,000,000 
bushels,  which  is  00  per  cent,  over  last  year, 
and  1.5,000,000  more  tlian  iu  1875.  Unless 
something  unforeseen,  or  yet  undeveloped, 
shoidd  occur  in  the  outcome  of  the  crop,  the 
Corn  will  yield  1,350,000,000  bushels,  which  is 
an  average  of  about  27  bushels  per  acre 
throughout  the  country.  Pennsylvania  and 
Texas  make  the  best  average  slu)w  of  any 
States  in  the  Union  in  their  crops  of  corn. 

The  Oat  crop  shows  a  higher  average  con- 
dition than  corn,  and  is  08  of  the  standard- 
of  100  against  80  last  ye;ir,  when  the  crop 
was  estimated  at  32O,0OO,0O(_l  bu.shels. 

Bije  and  Barkji  average  higher  than   last 
year  in  their  general  condition,  and  will  make 
a  large  crop,  but  the  figures  cannot  yet  be ' 
satisfactorily  given. 

The  estimated  area  in  Cotton  exceeds  12,- 
000,000  acres,  and  the  increase  over  last  year 
is  about  4  per  cent.,  and  the  yield  will  average 


\ 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


165 


93  4-10  in  the  staiiJard  of  100.  The  great 
hiiulraiice  to  the  cotton  crop  seems  to  be  the 
catcrjiiU,ir,  inul  if  tli;it  pest  could  be  entirely 
destroyeil,  there  is  no  knowing;  how  nuich 
cotton'  the  Southern  Stales  coulil  jiroduce. 

Poiatiics  have  produced  well,  on  an  average, 
the  entire  crop  Ix  in?;  lO.'i  ;  that  is  o  dvcr  llie 
standard  of  1(10.  Xew  .lersey  is  the  highest, 
being  11"),  whilst  I'enn.svlvajiia  is  11(1.  The 
quality  is  generally  good,  but  the  aggregate 
result  in  bushels  is  nm  given. 

The  average  of  Timniliy  Haij  is  said  to  have 
been  fidly  100  ;  but  the  yield  of  the  genrral 
hay  crop  has  not  been  deiinitely  reported,  but 
the  indications  are  that  it  has  buea  tolerably 
abundant. 

Tobacco  is  reiiorted  favorable— from  SI?  up 
to  110,  and  will  average  100  ;  quality  good, 
but  the  result  in  (piantity  cannot  yet  be  given. 

Bucku'hculjhr  the  Slates  retninrd,  averages 
98.  The  Si-ii-(ili  1(1)1  crop  is  rei)oited  favorably, 
the  average  lieing  i(3,  yielding  about  100  gal- 
lons of  rich  syrii])  per  acre. 

Bice,  promising,  where  it  is  cultivated. 

Crdulurrks  .suffered  .some  from  ''  scahl." 

IJnp.i,  prospects  were  good  in  Wisconsin, 
but  in  New  Ilanip.sbire  they  were  eaten  up 
by  "worms,"  said  to  be  cabbage  worms,  but 
we  think  this  a  mistake,  for  we  have  special 
hop  caterpillars  in  the  United  Stales  belong- 
ing to  the  genus  Vaaissit  or  Gi-apta. 

.(■Ipp/w  generally  .scarce  and  jioor  in  quality. 
and  therefore  good  fruit  will  be  high  priced 
before  the  season  is  over.  Kansas  aloin3 
seems  to  have  had  an  abundant  crop. 


SPECIAL  PREMIUMS   FOR   1878. 


Club  Rates— No.  i. 

To  any  one,  within  the  county  of  Lancas- 
ter, sending  us  a  club  of  Ji re  new  suliscrihers, 
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No.  2. 
For  six  subscribers,  accompanied  hy  five  dol- 
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"Driven  to  Sea,"  by  Mrs.  Coupples,  or  "The 
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No.  4. 
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jtlantK,  twenlii  packages  of  flower  seeds,  and, 
twenty  jyai'kages  of  vegetable  seeds.  Peter  Hf-n- 
derson  is  knoicn  all  over  the  Union,  and  there- 
fore nothing  need  be  said  about  the  quality  of 
his  goods. 

No.  5. 
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of  "Science  in  Story,"  consisting  of  a  series 
oi  five  illustrated  sipiare  12  mo.  volumes  of 
232  pages  each  (IKiO  pages).  Please  see  our 
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No.  6. 
For  twenty-five  subscribers,  and  twenty-four 
dollars,  twenty-fire  copies  of  The  Faiijiek 
and  one  of  "Peck's  Celebrated  Atomizers," 
worth  $1(X00  at  least.  This  is  the  Ijest  ma- 
chine ever  invented  for  tlu'owing  licjuid  solu- 


tions and  decoctions  on  in.sect-infested  plants. 
For  an  illustrated  deseriiition  of  this  machine 
see  the  May  (1870)  ninnber  of  The  pAit.MKi:, 
page  00. 

To  clubs  made  up  beyond  the  borders  of 
Lancaster  county  the  cash  amount  recpiired 
will  lie  greater,  proportioned  to  the  dillerence 
in  i)ul)lished  terms,  as  to  home  and  foreign 
sidiscriplious.  Our  canvassers  can  ujake  these 
calculations  upon  the  basis  of  our  lirst  propo- 
sition. 

We  are  making  arrangements  for  additional 
inducements  to  sub.scribers,  which,  if  accom- 
plished, will  be  annomiced  in  our  December 
number.  We  also  intend  to  increase  our 
ninnber  of  desirable  illustrations  for  1878,  and 
add  other  end)ellishmeuls,  as  fa.st  as  our 
means  will  allow,  and  we  respectfully  ask  the 
public  to  help  ns  make  The  Lankastek 
Faiimei!  a  credit  to  the  "great  county,"  and 
the  people  aminig  whoiv  it  is  located.  Our 
tenth  voluMie  should  be  the  crowning  volume 
of  the  series — so  wo  desire. 


MONTHLY  REMINDERS. 

AH  vegetables  not  secured  for  storing  away 
should  now  be  attended  to.  .Spimiach,  lettuce 
out-of-doors,  fetticus  and  out-of-doors  onions 
should  be  iirotected  by  coverings  of  .straw, 
salt  hay  or  cedar  brush.  Sbort  bor.se  dung  is 
best  for  onions.  Clear  up  and  dig  all  the 
ground  as  the  crops  are  taken  off,  as  it  pre- 
vents delay  in  commencing  in  spring.  Put  the 
aslies  on  such  cold  frames  as  have  been  tilled 
with  cabbage  or  lettuce  plants,  giving  air 
freely  by  taking  the  sashes  entirely  off  0:1  mild 
or  sunny  days. Dicks'   Vegetable  Garden. 

Fall  2)1  owing  of  garden  .soil  is  worth,  in  most 
ca.s<'s,  a  good  deal  more  than  it  costs. 

7>')  not  neglect  to  plant  a  bed  of  violets  this 
moulh,  for  bouquets  in  next  March  or  April. 
Set  in  a  sheltered  place,  in  rich  soil,  and  cover 
with  glass  in  severe  weather. 

Fruit  trees  for  spring  planting  can  be  bought 
now  and  buried  with  earth — both  roots  and 
branches.  They  will  bo  in  prime  condition 
for  setting  out  in  April.  Trees  set  out  last 
month  may  have  the  earth  banked  up  arountl 
them  six  inches  or  so  before  the  freezing  of 
the  ground.  This  may  be  removed  when 
spring  opens. — Farnws''  Journal. 
^ _- 

AMERICAN    POMOLOGICAL   CONVEN- 
TION. 

This  society,  organized  in  1848,  held  its 
sixteenth  Inennial  convention  in  Baltimore  on 
the  12th,  Kith  and  14th  of  September,  1877. 
The  fruits  contributed  were  exhibited  in  con- 
nection with  those  of  the  Maryland  Horticul- 
tural Society.  In  consequence  of  the  general 
failure  of  fruit  the  display  was  not  so  good 
and  full  as  it  would  have  been  in  a  fruitful 
season  ;  yet,  withal,  it  was  much  better  than 
could  have  reasonably  been  expected,  but 
what  lacked  in  the  exhibition  was  made  up  in 
the  di.scussions  and  energy  in  the  develop- 
ment of  American  ))omology.  On  account  of 
illness  President  Wilder  was  prevented  from 
attending,  to  the  great  disajipoiutment  of  all 
present.  His  address,  however,  was  read  be- 
fore the  convention,  and  was  a  very  able  and 
excellent  document.  He  recapitulated  the 
labors  of  the  society  and  the  progress  of  \w- 
mology  in  this  country.  He  also  pointed  to 
the  wide  Held  open  for  still  greater  achieve- 
ments ill  this  branch  of  industry,  and  closing 
in  the  following  lofty  strain  :  "  Let  us  coni- 
mence  the  new  century  in  the  history  of  our 
Republic  with  increased  enterprise  and  zeal 
for  the  promotion  of  our  cause;  and  should 
any  of  us  be  called  from  our  labors  on  earth, 
let  us  feel  assured  that  others  will  continue 
the  work  we  have  begun  and  carry  it  forward 
to  still  greater  perfection.  Let  the  success  of 
the  past  stimulate  us  to  greater  exertions  in 
the  future.  Let  us  work  on,  full  of  hope,  re- 
gardless of  all  obstacles,  still  achieving,  still 
pursuing,  until  we  shall  reach  that  better 
land  where  the  garden  shall  have  no  blight, 
fruits  no  decay,  and  where  no  serpent  lurks 
beneath  the  bower— where  harvests  ai-e  not 
ripened  by  the  succession  of  seasons — where 


the  Joys  of  fruition  shall  not  be  measured  by 
the  lapse  of  time." 

In  the  ab.sence  of  the  President,  O.  H. 
Hovey,  of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  Vice 
Presidents,  presided. 

The  States  were  not  so  generally  repre.sentcd 
as  at  some  of  the  previous  meetings.  The 
leading  cause,  probably,  was  the  convention 
following  so  close  to  the  great  (entemiial, 
where  every  .State  (except  Pennsylvania)  put 
its  energies  and  resources  in  pomology  lo  its 
full  test.  The  general  failure  of  the  apple 
crop  caused  a  deliciency  in  that  branch. 
Amid  all  the  croaking  against  the  cureulio, 
Kllwanger  &  Harry  exhibit  as  line  plums  and 
as  perfect  as  could  be  desired.  They  had 
some  thirty  varieties,  some  ol  which  they 
fruit  in  large  (piantities,  as  certain  a.s  any 
other  crop.  For  success  they  depend  upon 
the  jarring  .system.  They  do  not  believe  in 
pow- wowing  the  little  Turk  away.  lA'tall  do 
likewise,  and  this  luscious  fruit  may  yet  be- 
come as  abundant  as  others. 

The  line,  lu.scious  hybrid  grapes,  (about 
sixty  varieties,)  originated  by  Mr.  Iticketts, 
of  Newburgh,  Xcw  York,  comjiose  a  promi- 
nent feature  in  any  fruit  exhibition.  His 
display  at  Haltimore  was  glory  enough  for 
one  man.  The  only  objectionable  feature  (if 
any)  is,  that  he  has  too  much  of  the  good 
thing  ;  in  fact,  enough  to  confuse  any  ordi- 
nary pomologist. 

If  this  country  will  not-  have  as  large  a 
variety  of  as  line  grajies  as  any  other,  it  can- 
not be  said  that  Mr.  Uicketts  has  not  done 
inoi'e  than  his  part  to  achieve  such  a  result. 

Some  of  the  Soiitheni  States  were  well 
represented,  and  fruit  culture  in  the  South 
seems  to  be  looming  U]),  especially  the  i>each  ; 
and  well  it  should,  while  the  lirst  peaches  of 
the  sea.son  will  bring  from  six  to  eight  dollars 
per  crate,  a  man  wants  no  better  business 
than  to  have  enough  early  peaches  to  ship. 
The  (earliest  good  peach  is  what  the  Southern 
))lanter  is  after  now,  as  one  of  them  remarked, 
"  Give  me  a  peach  that  is  three  days  earlier 
than  any  other,  and  I  can  make  money." 
Freight  by  vessel  from  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  to  Philadelphia,  New  York  or  Bos- 
ton, is  less  than  fifty  cents  per  crate.  With 
such  protits  peach-growing  in  the  .South  can- 
not help  Init  become  an  important  trade,  as 
they  can  be  in  market  a  month  earlier,  and 
with  late  kinds  a  month  later  than  those  from 
the  Jiliddle  States.  Yellows  are  hardly  known 
in  many  sections  of  the  .South.  Their  crops 
arc  also  more  certain  on  account  of  being 
exempt  from  frost.  With  all  these  facilities, 
what  better  business  could  a  man  with  capital 
desire  y  The  feeling  between  the  Noitliern 
and  Southern  memliers  was  very  cordial,  but 
this  .seems  to  becharateristic  withpomologists. 

The  accommodations  at  the  Carrollton 
HoiLse  (where  nearly  all  the  members  of  the 
society  put  up)  were  all  that  could  be  desired. 
The  steamboat  excursion  and  its  incidents 
Were  given  by  oue  of  my  colleagues  in  the 
New  Era. 

The  next  biennial  convention  is  lo  be  held 
in  Nashville,  Tennessee,  where  the  largest 
Southern  representation  is  expected  the  so- 
ciety has  yet  had.  — 77.  M.  E. 

^ 

HOW  TO  MAKE  PARIS  GREEN. 

A  correspondent  of  the  Towanda  Journal 
writes  :  The  potato  bug  is  no  scarcity  with  us 
at  present,  and  upon  inquiring  at  the  drug 
store  the  iirice  of  Paris  green,  and  learning 
that  the  popularity  of  the  article  as  an  exter- 
minator had  increased  its  price  to  about 
the  Talue  of  a  crop  protected  by  it,  I  con- 
cluded to  tell  the  people  what  1  have  long 
known  about  making  the  article. 

Take  unslacked  iinie  of  the  best  quality, 
slack  it  with  hot  water  ;  then  take  the  finest 
of  the  powder  and  add  alum  water  as  strong 
as  it  can  be  made,  sullicient  to  form  a  thick 
paste,  then  color  it  with  bichromate  of  potash 
and  sulphite  of  copjier  until  the  color  suits 
your  fancy.  The  sul]ibite  of  cojiper  gives  the 
color  a  blue  tinge,  the  bichromate  of  jiotash 
yellow.  Observe  this  and  you  will  never 
fail. 


166 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  November, 


CINDERELLA  STRAWBERRY. 
The  accompanying  cut  exhibits  a  iiartial 
view  of  tlie  fruit  of  one  hill  of  the  Cinderella 
Straivberry,  a.s  grown  on  Mr.  Felton's  farm, 
photographed  from  nature.  The  Cinderella  is 
about  one  week  earlier  than  the  Continental ; 
(sec  October  number  of  The  Farmer,)  its 
fruit  large,  conical,  regularly  formed  ;  color, 
bright  glossy  scarlet,  rendering  it  surpassingly 
beautiful  and  attractive  in  appearance  ;  flesh 
very  firm,  with  a  mild,  rich  aromatic  flavor  ; 
and,  indeed,  may  be  said  to  combine  all  the 
essential  excellencies  of  a  market  and  a  table 
fruit.     This  variety  ~'~' 

is  another  of  those 
for    which    a    prize 
medal  and  diploma 
was  awarded  to  Gib- 
son   &    Bennett, 
Florists    and    Fruit 
Growers,   of  Wood- 
bury, N.  J.,  for  their 
exhibit  of  tine  fruit, 
&c.,  at  the  late  Ceu- 
teuuial    Exhibition, 
at  Fairmount  Park, 
Philadelphia.  It 
would  be  of  no  ad- 
vantage to  any  nur- 
seryman to  palm  off 
on  the  public  worth- 
ies.'; varieties  of  the 
strawberry,  that 
would  fail    to    give 
satisfaction,     there- 
fore they  are  not  sent 
out  as  untried  seed- 
lings, but  have  stood 
successfully  for  eight 
years    the     test     of 
fruiting,  and  may  be 
relied  on  for  profit 
without  fear  of  dis- 
appointment.    The 
l)lauts  are  very  simi- 
lar in  their  develop- 
ment   and    appear- 
ance to  those  of  the 
Continental,    for    a 
description  of  which 
see  the  Octobernum- 
ber  of  Tub  Farmei;  . 
Although     when 
viewing    the    Conti- 
nental and  Cinderella 
strawberries  sepa- 
rately they  may  ap- 
pear nearly  the  same, 
yet,   on   a  compari- 
son,  the  distinction 
between   them    will 
be  found  sufficient  to 
constitute  a  marked 
difference,  even  with- 
out referring  to  their 
respective  diagnoses. 
The  berries    of   the 
latter  do  not  average 
so  large  as  the  form- 
er, and  they  are  more 
acutely    conical    in 
form,  and  this  char- 
acteristic is  also  e.x- 
hibited  in  their  pit- 
ting.  Plants  may  be 
obtained  by  address- 
ing GiDsoN  &  Ben- 
nett, Nurserymen, 
Woodbury,    N.     ,J. 
$3  per  dozen  ;   $15 
per  100  ;  $100  per  1000, 


to  suppose  that  the  application  of  some  good 
fertilizer  has  the  principal,  if  not  the  only 
condition  that  was  demanded,  in  order  to 
make  the  proper  provisions  for  the  growth  of 
a  crop.  But  little  attention  has  sometimes 
been  bestowed  upon  the  condition  of  the 
ground,  or  the  preparation  and  condition  of 
the  fertilizer,  or  the  season  for  its  application. 
Each  of  these  conditions  must  needs  be  re- 
garded, and  those  who  have  bestowed  most 
care  in  the  fulfillment  of  these  conditions 
have  been  well  repaid  for  their  painstaking. 
Whenever  the  time  chosen  for  the  application 


THE  APPLICATION  OF  FERTILIZERS. 

Considerations  Which  Should  Have  Their 
Influence. 

Several  conditions,  or  more  than  one  condi- 
tion, are  demanded,  or  must  needs  be  taken 
into  the  account,  in  order  that  the  best  re- 
sults in  the  raising  of  a  crop  or  the  cultivation 
of  a  field  may  be  realized. 

Too  large  a  proportion  of  those  persons  who 
Lave  the  management  of  farms  have  seemed 


of  a  fertilizer  has  been  influenced  by  the  mere 
convenience  of  the  farmer,  or  when  other 
labor  was  not  demanding  his  immediate  at- 
tention, there  was  much  reasonable  proba- 
bility that  the  results  which  he  expected 
would  not  be  realized.  If  his  labor  was 
crowned  with  anything  like  a  full  measure  of 
success  it  was  merely  on  account  of  the  fitct 
that  the  chance  application  was  made  at  the 
proper  season.  Such  persons  are  too  often 
led  to  charge  the  failure  to  the  accoimt  of  a 
defect  in  the  general  utility  of  his  plan,  or  in  the 
value  of  the  fertilizer  which  he  has  employed. 


It  may  properly  be  said,  that  the  most  use- 
ful of  fertilizers,  or  those  which  may  be  made 
most  useful  when  properly  employed,  have 
often  fiiiled  in  producing  the  results  which 
were  looked  for,  and  this  on  account  of  the 
omission  of  a  mere  link  in  the  chain  of  inci- 
dents which  were  demanded,  in  order  to  fm-- 
nish  a  reasonable  promise  of  success. 

There  is  an  appropriate  season  to  be  chosen, 
as  well  as  appropriate  methods  to  be  employed 
in  the  use  of  every  class  or  kind  of  fertilizer. 
Questions  may  properly  arise  with  regard  to 
the  most  appropriate  methods  for  the '  fulfill- 
ment of  the  several 
conditions  that  are 
demanded,  which  re- 
late to  the  condition 
of  the  soil  and  the 
preparation  and  the 
application  of  the 
fertilizer,  as  well  as 
the  appropriate  time 
for  the  application. 
With  regard  to  the 
various  circum- 
stances which  should 
attend  the  applica- 
tion it  may  be  said, 
that  fixed  rules  can 
not  be  laid  down 
which  will  be  found 
applicable  to  all  of 
them. 

If  the  substance 
be  of  the  nitrogenous 
class,  as  ammonia, 
the  discretion  of  the 
person  must  be  used 
in  the  selection  of 
the  most  economical 
method  for  storing 
it  up  and  having  it 
ready  for  use  at  the 
time  it  may  be  de- 
manded. For  this 
purpose  some  kind  of 
soil,  or  the  compost 
heap,  in  the  largest 
proportion  of  cases, 
will  be  regarded  as 
the  most  economical 
methods  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  this 
purpose. 

As  much  advan- 
tage may  be  realized 
from  a  proper  regard 
to  the  methods  of 
application  of  a  fer- 
tilizer, the  season 
when  it  may  be  most 
usefully  applied,  and 
its  special  adaptation 
as  a  food  for  the  par- 
ticular crop  which 
he  proposes  to  raise, 
as  from  every  other 
or  all  other  conceiva- 
b  1  e  cii'cumstances 
which  are  under  his 
control. 

Without  due  re- 
gard to  these  several 
considerations,  fail- 
ure, or  a  large  dimi- 
nution of  the  crop, 
will  almost  surely 
result.  A  manure 
that  pos.sessed  pecu- 
liar value  when  in- 
telligently employed  may  be  nearly  wasted  on 
account  of  a  lack  of  due  regard  to  these  sev- 
eral considerations.  It  will,  therefore,  be 
seen  that  the  number  of  incidents  which  are 
to  be  regarded  are  but  few,  although  the 
demand  for  a  due  regard  for  each  of  them  is 
really  indispensable. 

Although  it  is  a  matter  of  paramount  im- 
portance that  a  fertilizer,  in  that  which  relates 
to  its  chemical  constituents,  be  adapted  to  the 
cro])  which  it  is  designed  to  support,  there 
are  still  other  considerations  which  must  be 
taken  into  the  account. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


167 


Fanu-yaril  manure  of  tho  best  quality  that 
can  be  .selected,  wlien  scattered  over  tlje  sur- 
faee  of  a  (ield,  inerelj  at  a  convenient  time, 
or  vvitliinit  due  rej;ard  to  the  .selection  of  the 
proper  season,  or  when  it  is  demanded  by  the 
crop,  will  be  likely  to  l)e  mostly  wasted. 

In  order  that  it  may  be  expected  to  serve 
its  most  useful  purposes  it  must  be  brought 
into  such  relations  to  the  soil  which  it  is  de- 
sijjned  to  improve,  that  the  ammonia  wliich  it 
contains  m;iy  be  stonil  up  for  the  use  of  the 
crop,  and  imi)arted  to  it  tor  its  i;rowth. 

Ammonia,  which  is  the  fertihzer  in  which 
resides  the  chief  value  of  farm-yard  manure, is 
extremely  volatile,  and  is  readily  home  away 
m  the  atuiosphi're,  especially  when  projjcr 
plans  are  not  adopted  for  stoiin-j  it  up,  or  for 
its  preservation  from  wa.ste  until  it  can  be  ap- 
propriated to  flie  u.se  of  thecro)!  in  its  growth. 

For  this  luu'po.se  tlie  materials  of  some  soils 
are  often  the  most  ajipropriate  and  economi- 
cal ;  and  they  are  often  the  only  means  that 
are  required  tor  this  purpose.  Annnonia 
being  nuieh  lighter  than  the  atmosphere, there 
nnist  needs  be  some  natural  or  arlilicial 
method  for  retaining  it;  and  in  such  a  way  as 
will  leave  it  in  Uie  proper  relations  to  the 
plant  or  crop,  so  that  it  may  Ih'  readily  used 
by  it  in  its  growth. 

No  material  of  eonnnou  soils  is  as  well 
adapted  to  the  performance  of  this  otiice  as 
clay ;  and  when  dry  it  is  among  the  best  of 
substances  for  this  pMrpt)se. 

Guano,  much  more  tlian  farm-yard  manure, 
is  likely  to  be  greatly  impaired  in  its  utility, 
or  much  of  it  is  wasted,  whenever  these 
conditions  are  not  properly  regarded,  for  it  is 
naturally  accomiianied  by  no  substance  which 
is  capable  of  acting  as  a  retainer  of  annnonia. 

Whenever  this  fertilizer  is  scattere<l  over 
the  surface  of  a  field  its  uses  as  a  lualerial  for 
contributing  to  the  grow-th  of  a  crop  is  likely 
to  be  greatly  impaired,  or  mostly  wasted;  and 
this  on  account  of  loss  of  the  annnonia,  on  ac- 
count of  the  preseuceof  which  is  itschief  value. 

While  it  is  indispensable  that  these  precau- 
tions for  the  retention  of  the  annnonia  which 
farm-yard  manure  and  guano  contain  should 
be  regarded,  it  is  almost  e(inally  important 
that  the}-  should  not  be  covered  so  deep  as  to 
prevent  the  liberation  of  this  article.  Still, 
whenever  thus  covered  too  deep  to  serve  the 
present  uses  of  a  crop,  it  may  be  brought  into 
such  relations  to  a  future  crop,  as  to  serve 
some  useful  purpose,  for  the  ammonia  has  not 
been  borne  away,  as  is  the  case  when  placed 
upon  the  surface. 

LANCASTER  COUNTY  TOBACCO. 


What   an    Author    Has    to  Say  About  It. 

Under  the  title  of  "Tobacco — from  the  seed 
to  the  warehouse" — Dr.  B.  Hush  Sonseny,  of 
Chaml)crsburg,  is  about  to  issue  a  book,"  and 
the'  Rf pnsitory  of  that  place  culls  the  following 
chapter  from  advanced  sheets  : 

Lancaster  County,  Pennsylvania. 

This  comity  is  acknowledured  generally  to 
be  the  "Banner"  tobacco  district  of  the  United 
States.  No  other  equal  area  of  land  produces 
as  many  jwunds  i)er  annum,  of  a  .standard 
excellent  quality,  commanding  the  highest 
possible  i)rices  for  nat  ive  grades,  of  any  grown 
in  this  country,  and  bringing  a  revenue  to  the 
producers  larger  than  that  of  any  tobacco 
county  in  Americ'a.  This  tobacco,  as  a  com- 
mercial product,  stands  high  and  is  much 
sought  after,  because  of  its  uniform  good 
.qualities  as  a  wrapper,  being  fine,  large  and 
of  a  beautiful  dark  color,  all  qualities  much  in 
demand  for  the  production  of  a  fine  cigar. 
Another  marked  characteristic  of  the  Lascas- 
ter  county  tobacco,  as  a  crop,  is  the  large 
amount  which  is  yielded  per  acre.  Lancas- 
terians  are  synonymous  with  good  farmcr.s, 
and  in  this  crop  they  seem  to  have  "set" 
themselves  to  outstrip  the  world,  and  thus  far 
they  have  done  so,  indeed.  Each  one  seems 
to  vie  with  his  neighbor  in  a  friendly  compe- 
tition as  to  which  can  produce  the  greatest 
yield  per  acre,  which  grow  the  largest  leaf, 
which  cure  the  most  satisfactory  crop  and  ob- 
tain the  largest  returns  for  his  product.  >[any 
and  great— yes,  man-elous  in  the  extreme,  are 


some  of  the  stories  told  relative  to  the  yield 
per  acre — so  great  as  to  lead  one  to  suppose 
that  Lancaster  acres  must  certainly  be  of 
somewhat  more  extended  area  than  our  arith- 
metics ordinarily  teach  us.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
however,  there  is  a  snlliciiiicy  of  truth  over- 
lying all  error  as  to  render  the  subject  inter- 
esting and  even  wonderful  to  the  general  or 
old  time  grower  of  the  weed.  In  agricultural 
interests  generally  the  farmers  of  Lancaster 
come  as  near  perfection  in  their  skillful 
manipulation  of  the  soil  as  any  community  of 
the  kind  in  this  country,  expending  their  labor 
in  the  most  economical  and  intelligent  man- 
ner possilile,  so  as  to  insure  lucrative  returns. 
It  is  not  then  to  Ije  wondered  at  that  upon 
introilucing  toliacco  as  a  luoduct,  they  should 
bring  to  bear  niion  its  culture  the  same  energy, 
intelligeiui;  and  skill  which  characterized 
llicm  in  other  pursuits,  and  which  soon  placed 
them  in  the  foremost  rank  as  cultivators  of 
th(i  weed. 

It  is  on  this  account  that  I  shall  present  in 
a  rather  extended  manner  the  various  methods 
of  cultivating  and  handling  the  weed  as  pur- 
sued by  the  husbandmen  of  tliat  fertile  district. 
In  the  main,  their  methods  are  much  the 
sanie  as  those  I  have  given  as  my  own  practi- 
cal experience;  indeed  wecan  all  do  well  "an' 
we  follow  them."  In  all  their  work,  whether 
it  be  the  preparation  of  the  soil,  the  working 
of  the  seed  beds,  transplanting  the  young 
plants,  cultivating,  cutting  and  curing  it  anil 
sliiiiping  to  market,  all  is  done  with  a  care  and 
thoroughness  from  beginning  to  end  which 
stamps  them  masters  of  the  tield  and  high  art- 
ists of  their  laborious  but  honorable  calling. 

^ •  " 

HORTICULTURE  AND  EDUCATION." 
"  'Tis  ediicatiou  forms  the  common  mind. 
Just  as  the  twig  is  bent  the  tree's  inelined." 

Pomology  is  my  hobby,  and  shall  be  my 
theme  on  this  occasion ;  but  I  can  hardly 
forego  the  opportunity  of  referring  to  the  re- 
si)onsibilities  of  teachers  and  directcn-s.  Next 
to  our  recollections  of  home,  are  the  recollec- 
tions of  our  early  school  days.  How  vividly 
events  which  have  tran.spired  at  school  ri.se 
up  before  us  ofttimes.  Those  events,  whether 
for  good  or  evil,  have  made  impressions  which 
have  ever  been  almost  beyond  our  control. 
In  fact,  they  have  become  implanted  to  such 
a  degree  as  to  make  them  part  of  us.  How 
m.any  of  us  have,  or  rather,  how  few  of  us 
have  not  some  pleasing  incident  which  trans- 
pired at  school,  to  rise  up  before  us  occasion- 
alljf,  and  which  causes  us  to  feel  almost  as 
happy  as  at  the  time  when  it  occurred.  On 
the  other  hand,  how  few  of  us,  whose  memory 
is  not  visited  frequently  with  the  recollections 
of  events  that  befell  us  at  school,  and  which 
cause  remorse  with  each  visitation.  Or,  'per- 
haps, we  have  been  wronged  by  the  teacher,  or 
by  a  school-mate,  which  when  the  incident 
looms  up  before  ns,  (unless  we  have  become 
reconciled,)  we  feel  the  same  demoniac  spirit 
of  revenge  that  we  did  when  it  occurred. 

Many  a  sad  tragedy  has  been  witnessed  which 
had  its  origiti  at  school.  Tho  position  of 
teacher  is,  therefore,  one  of  vast  responsi- 
bility. To  bear  the  guilty  feeling  of  having 
caused  the  ruin  of  a  single  jinpil  mn.st  be  a 
pandemonium  indeed.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
pleasant  recollections  of  haying  turned  re- 
fractory scholars  into  the  path  of  virlue  is 
glory  enough  for  tlielabor  and  worry  it  ofttimes 
requires.  The  actions  of  directors  have  also 
an  important  bearing  upon  the  future  welfare 
of  scholars  under  their  charge.  A  single  de- 
cision in  the  case  of  a  pupil  may  either  make 
or  ruin  him  or  her. 

Impartiality  must  be  the  watchword  of  di- 
rectors as  well  as  of  the  teacher.  Directors 
liave  not  discharged  their  duties  without  fur- 
nishing appropriate  school  buildings,  furni- 
ture, books,  teachers'  salaries,  &c.  This,  of 
course,  requires  a  bracing  tip  against  fault- 
finding taxpayers.  But  better  embrace  the 
consideration  that  posterity  will  hold  yon  in 
dear  remembrance  than  fear  the  croakings  of 
old  fogies  who  have  no  children  to  educate, 
llore  extensive  school  grounds  are  also  neces- 

'Read  before  a  ecbool  meeting  by  H.  M.  Eugle. 


sary  requirements.  The  planting  and  orna- 
menting of  the  same  is  also  a  matter  that  de- 
serves .serious  attention.  The  plea  tliat  trees 
will  be  destroyed,  or  will  not  be  cared  for,  is 
too  shallow  a  plea  for  the  neglect  of  a  matter 
so  important.  Apply  all  the  available  means 
at  your  Command  that  will  elevate  while  you 
educate.  Ornamental  trees,  shrubs  and  (low- 
ers are  more  potent  educators  in  their  way 
than  many  are  willing  to  admit.  The  young  of 
the  female  sex  almost  naturally  grow  into  the 
admiration  of  the  beautiful  in  nature,  (iive 
Iheiu  an  opportunity  and  they  will  soon  have 
their  little  gardens  and  plant  them  with  tlow'- 
ers,  &c.,  and  will  attend  to  th('m  as  certainly 
as  their  li'.ssons.  The  little  Lids,  being  of  a 
more  rip  and  tear  disiwsition,  will  have  .some 
of  their  erndeness  worn  off  by  coming  in  con- 
tact with  the  gardening  opcratious  of  the 
former. 

The  ornamental  department  should  be  in- 
directly considered  the  property  of  the  school. 

Here  botany  would  present  itself  as  a  branch 
necessary  to  be  introduced  into  our  common 
schools,  the  study  of  which  would  have  a 
moralizing  tendency  that  would  result  in  a 
va.st  amount  of  good.  May  we  not  trust  that 
the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  fruit  trees  can 
be  grown  on  the  school  grounds,  and  their 
products  left  undisturbed,  to  be  gathered  by 
the  rightful  owners — the  scholars.  We  have 
accounts  of  countries  where  fruit  trees  are 
planted  on  the  roadside  by-tlie  property  hold- 
ers adjoining,  and  that  ])assers-by  are  not 
inevented  from  taking  and  eating  all  they 
want.  If  any  fruit  is  reserved  by  the  owner, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  tie  a  straw-band  around 
the  tree,  and  the  fruit  will  be  perfectly  safe. 
This  is  a  custom  worthy  of  emulation  and 
imitation.  To  attempt  such  a  thing  amonw 
us  with  the  present  state  of  society,  would 
certainly  prove  a  failure  ;  not  that  society  is 
not  fully  as  good  here  as  in  the  countries 
alluded  to,  but  it  is  not  educated  to  such  a 
standard.  Were  the  condition  of  society 
such  that  would  warrant  the  i)lanting  of  fruit 
trees,  as  stated,  mauy  of  the  roadsides  would 
soon  be  set  with  fruit  trees  of  all  kinds.  This 
would  be  a  state  of  things  that  would  benefit 
all,  and  no  doubt  all  would  like  to  .see  it.  The 
(piestion  is,  simply,  how  or  where  shall  we 
eommeiue  ?  I  answer,  on  the  school  grounds. 
Such  an  .arrangement  would  be  more  particu- 
larly for  the  benefit  of  such  children  who.se 
parents  are  renters  from  year  to  year,  and 
who  have  no  inducements  to  planting  fruit 
had  they  disposition  to  do  so.  The  latter 
class  of  jiarents  and  children  are  those  mostly 
disjiosed  to  iiilfer  frnit.s,  and  are  le.ss  cen.sur- 
able  than  public  ojiinion  will  admit. 

Tlie  love  of  fruit  has  ever  been  so  strongly 
implanted  into  man's  nature,  (and  woman's 
too,)  that  to  be  altogether  deprived  of  it 
proves  sad  neglect  somewhere.  In  addition 
to  the  love  of  fruit  implanted  into  man  is  its 
good  effect  tqion  him,  physically,  mentally 
and  morally.  Is  there  not.  therefore,  crimi- 
nal neglect  somewhere  ?  While  so  large  a 
number  are  continually  in  want  of  it,  it  would 
be  a  trilling  expense  to  each  district  to  try  the 
ex)>eriment. 

Let  all  that  is  on  the  school  grounds 
be  iilaced  under  the  charge  of  the  teacher, 
who  should,  of  course,  not  be  ignorant  of  the 
necessary  care  thereof.  Let  him  api)ly  the 
same  regulations  and  discipline  to  school 
property  outside  the  house  as  within,  consider 
the  pilfering  of  the  fruits  one  of  the  gre-atest 
of  school  olTences.  When  the  crop  is  ripe  let 
the  whole  school  be  present  at  gathering  and 
dividing.  Such  would  be  one  of^  the  greatest 
harvest  homes  that  could  possibly  be  devised 
for  the  benefit  of  a  school. 

The  most  stringent  laws  should  then  be 
pa.ssed  against  outside  thieves  for  the  jirotec- 
tion  of  .school  property.  A  small  amount 
expended  in  carpenters'  tools  to  each  school- 
house  would  .so  develop  the  raeehanieal  genius 
of  our  youths  that  it  would  tell  upon  the  rising 
and  coming  generation. 

Such  are  a  few  thoughts  and  reflections  that 
have  imiiressed  me,  and  which  might  lie  ex- 
tended indefinitely. 


168 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  November, 


HUBBARDSTON  NON-SUCH. 
This  apple  is  a  iJiie,  large  winter  fruit, 
which  originated  in  Ilubbardston,  Massachu- 
setts, and  is  of  excellent  quality.  The  tree  is 
vigorous  and  bears  very  -abundantly,  and  is 
worthy  of  extensive  culture.  Fruit  large, 
roundish-oblong  ;  skin  smooth,  witli  irregular 
broken  stripes  of  bright  and  pale  red,  which 
nearly  cover  a  yellow  ground  ;  flesh  yellow, 
tender,  juicy  and  highly  flavored.  Almost  any 
any  of  tlie  nurseries  in  this  county  now  can  fur- 
nish it  in  quantity.  It  is  prominently  inserted 
in  Elwanger  &  Barry's  list  of  winter  apples 
for  1877-8,  as  a  strong  grower  and  great 
bearer  ;  in  quality  fine,  tender  and  juicy,  and 
ripen  well  from  November  to  January,  but, 
with  proper  care,  may  be  kept  until  late  in 
the  spring,  without  loosing  much  of  its  flavor. 
There  is  nothing  that  grows  on  a  tree,  that 
may  propely  be  denominated  "/ruit"  that  is 
more  generous  to  the  taste,  more  grateful  to 
the  sight,  and  more  healthful  to  the  human 
constitution — and  none  that  retains  those 
qualities  for  a  longer  period — than  a  good, 
well-developed  apple  ;  and  the  subject  of  our 
illustration  will  compare  favorably  with  the 
best  of  them  ;  and  especially  in  its  prolific 
character,  although,  in  other  respects,  it  may 
have  its  superiors.  Prolific  bearing,  hardiness, 
constancy  and  good  flavor  are  qualities  in  an 
apple  of  the  first  consideration. 


AROUND  THE  FARM. 
No.  3. 

A  short  time  ago  I  was  vis- 
iting at  a  place  when  the  fol- 
lowing conversation  occurred 
between  father  and  son: 
"Where  isthe hatchet,  John?" 
"I  don't  know,  father,  unless 
it  is  in  the  barn."  The  father 
spent  five  minutes  in  a  fruit- 
less search  at  the  barn.  "Per- 
haps it  is  at  the  hog-stye,  you 
had  it  to  nail  that  door."  Off 
he  hies  to  the  hog-stye  and 
makes  another  fruitless  search 
of  five  minutes.  After  study- 
ing three  minutes  more  it  oc- 
curred to  him  that  he  used  it 
in  the  cow  stable  last,  and 
after  five  minutes  more  he  se- 
cured the  hatchet.  The  calcu- 
lating reader  will  observe  the 
father  lost  eighteen  minutes 
in  hunting  that  hatchet,  which 
a  man  can  ill  aflbrd  at  certain 
times.  Many  people  suppose 
the  time  consumed  in  return- 
ing tools  to  a  fixed  place  every 
time  they  are  done  using  them 
is  lost,  but  the  above  actual 
occurrence  proves  it  to  be  otherwise.  Now, 
I  repeat  what  I  have  often  said,  that  on 
the  farm  there  should  be  "a  place  for  every- 
thing and  everything  in  place. "  There  is  no 
use  to  carry  on  farming  or  any  other  business 
well  without  some  system  and  order.  And 
the  care  of  tools  is  a  part  of  that  system.  We 
can  not  accomplish  much  on  a  farm  without 
some  tools  larger  or  smaller,  and  to  be  hunt- 
ing them  every  time  you  need  them  is  a  waste 
of  time  you  can  ill  aflbrd.  In  some  future 
time  I  may  describe  an  ideal  shop  and  the 
manner  of  arranging  the  tools  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage. 

Care  of  Horses. 

Our  horses  are  sometimes  very  ill  treated  in 
the  fiill.  After  work  is  over  they  are  cut  down 
in  their  feed  or  turned  in  an  old  pasture  to 
shift  for  themselves.  This  should  not  be. 
Ingratitude  to  our  fellow-men  is  justly  con- 
sidered an  odious  vice  ;  but  is  there  not  often 
a  strong  taint  of  it  also  in  the  treatment  of 
our  farm  animals,  to  whose  help,  in  all  kinds 
of  drudgery,  farmers  are  so  deeply  indebted 
for  full  barns  and  comfortable  homes  ?  Would 
it  not  be  better  to  give  them  enough  to  eat 
and  a  warm,  comfortable  place  to  sleep  in, 
than  to  let  them  stand  shivering  in  the  cold, 
with  not  enough  to  eat  to  keep  them  in  good 
condition  ?  Let  common  sense  give  the 
answer. 


Grindstones. 
Few  implements  are  more  necessary  on  a 
farm  than  a  good  grindstone.  It  is  therefore 
necessary  that  every  farmer  should  possess 
one  iind  know  how  to  take  care  of  it.  Always 
keep  your  grindstones  under  cover,  as  the 
sun's  rays  liarden  the  grit  and  injure  the 
frame.  Do  not  let  it  stand  in  water,  as  it 
causes  soft  places.  Clean  all  rusty  or  greasy 
tools,  as  rust  or  grease  choke  the  grit ;  also, 
keep  the  stone  perfectly  round.  According 
to  my  experience  the  above  rules  must  be  ob- 
served in  order  to  keep  the  grindstone  in 
order. — Ruralist,  Crestvell,  Pa.^  Nov.  5, 1877. 

IMPROVEMENTS  IN  FARMING— VA- 
RIETIES  AND   METHODS. 

In  years  past,  when  mechanical  and  indus- 
trial arts  wei'e  making  huge  strides,  the  farm- 
ing world  seemed  to  be  at  neaily  a  stand-still, 
or  if  any  improvements  were  really  being 
made  it  was  only  the  few  that  took  advantage — 
the  many  looked  on  with  apathy — the  ways  of 
their  fatliers  being  trood  enough  for  the  sons. 
This  state  of  affairs  contiiuied  until  the  eyes 
of  many  were  opened  to  tlie  fact  that  some 
improvement  had  to  be  adopted  or  farming 
and  horticulture  would  not  pay  any  profits,  in 
some  cases  not  even  cover  expenses. 

The  styles  of  improvement  presented  them- 
selves ;  improving  the  number  of  staples  ;  the 
producing  capacity  of  the  soil  itself;  improv- 


ing the  methods  of  culture  ;  increasing  and 
improving  the  varieties  of  grains  and  fruits 
already  existing,  or  better  still,  raising  new 
and  improved  varieties. 

Adopting  either  one  of  these  would  natur- 
ally show  some  advance,  but  the  adoption  of 
tlie  three  has  done  wonders.  Among  other 
things  it  has  made  farming  a  surer  business, 
for  though  we  may  not  as  yet  exceed  the 
crops  that  were  sometimes  raised  when  the 
soil  was  yet  virgin,  yet  we  raise  them  as  large 
now,  and  the  average  is  [higher.  The  farmers' 
and  fruit  rajsers'  only  dread  now  being  a  totally 
unfavorable  season. 

The  improvement  of  the  soil  in  the  older  j 
settled  parts  of  the  country  has  been  very 
great.  In  this  part  of  Lancaster  county,  for 
instance,  the  land,  of  what  is  known  as 
Turkey  Hill,  was  obtainable  as  low  as  ten  to 
fifteen  dollars  an  acre,  and  was  dear  at  that, 
as  very  slim  crops  rewarded  the  husbandmen; 
the  greater  part  of  the  land  lay  in  commons, 
not  being  deemed  sufficiently  productive  to 
warrant  fencing  it  in  ;  the  application  of  lime 
to  a  small  tract  here  and  there  improved  the 
yield  so  much  that  it  led  people  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  soil  might  be  brought  up  to  a 
paying  standard  ;  from  that  time  to  this,  with 
the  help  of  manure,  the  upward  progress  has 
been  steady  and  continual,  until  now  it  is  all 
fenced  and  cut  up  into  mostly  small  farms. 


Strange  as  it  may  seem,  this  soil  that  was  not 
thought  fit  at  one  time  to  raise  wheat,  now 
brings  good  crops  of  this  cereal,  which  are 
greatly  noted  for  quality,  the  prices  brought 
always  being  at  the  top  of  the  market  rates. 
I  believe  millers  claim  for  it  that  it  has  a  very 
thin  skin,  makes  more  flour  and  less  offal  than 
wheat  from  other  parts  of  the  country.  The 
weight  also  is  greater  than  is  usually  found  to 
be  the  case  from  the  naturally  stronger  soils, 
sixty-three  and  sixty-four  pounds  to  the 
bushel  being  not  uncommon. 

In  other  parts  of  the  country  the  progress 
has  been  perhaps  greater,  but  tlie  above  was 
given  to  show  what  a  soil,  once  supposed  to 
be  nearly  sterile,  is  capable  of  being  made  by 
a  systematic  and  continual  course  of  improve- 
ment. 

The  methods  of  cultivation  and  improve- 
ment in  farming  implements  have  more  than 
kept  pace  with  the  improvements  of  the  soil. 
In  place  of  the  olden  wooden  plow,  or  per- 
haps shovel  plow  of  early  times,  we  now  have 
plows  of  iron  or  steel  that  do  the  work  in  a 
style  and  manner  that  would  have  been  as- 
cribed by  our  forefathers  to  witchcraft.  After 
the  plowing  came  the  sowing  and  planting 
machines,  whicli  save  a  third  of  the  seed  over 
the  slow  hand  method,  and  do  it  with  an 
evenness  that  would  be  attained  by  a  machine 
only.  The  sickle  and  scythe  is  cast  aside  and 
horses  now  rush  through  our  grain  and  grass 
fields  dragging  machines  that 
complete  tlie  work  at  one 
operation  of  a  half  a  score  of 
laborers.  Instead  of  the  slow 
hoe  a  span  of  horses  is  taken 
and  our  corn  worked  on  both 
sides  as  fast  iis  a  man  can 
walk.  Very  few  can  use  the 
flail  now-a-days  as  it  was  used 
not  very  many  years  ago, 
when  often  a  gang  of  three 
struck  in  together ;  nor  do 
we  see  the  farmers'  horses 
walking  round  and  round  on 
the  barn  floor,  knee  deep  in 
straw,  treading  out  the  grain  ; 
now  we  use  steam  machinery 
that  will  thrash  out  as  much 
in  one  hour  as  would  thirty 
years  ago  have  taken  a  man 
a  whole  week  with  a  flail.  So 
it  is  in  all  departments  of 
farming,  wherever  a  labor- 
saving  machine  can  be  made 
A    iK  to  work,  and  at  the  present 

^   w  outlook  it  seems  as  though, 

L^    w  in  a  few  years,  there  would 

kk    4S  remain    but    few    operations 

that  must  be  done  by  the  slow 
hand-process. 
Variety  is  the  spice  of  life,  is  the  old  see- 
saw, and  we  would  add  another  :  Variety  is 
the  life  of  farming.  Many  who  read  The 
Farmer  can  remember  the  time  when  for 
this  part  of  the  country  the  staple  crops  on 
which  the  farmer  depended  for  money  were 
rye,  oats,  corn,  some  wheat  and  occasionally 
potatoes,  the  latter  being  considered  too  bulky 
to  be  profitable,  except  along  some  water 
highway.  Tobacco  was  confined  to  Virginia ; 
now  it  is  farmed  as  far  north  as  Connecticut, 
and  as  far  west  as  the  Mississippi.  Kice  was 
confined  to  South  Carolina  ;  now  it  is  culti- 
vated in  all  the  Southern  States  bordering  on 
the  ocean  and  gulf  Sugar  and  molasses  was 
nearly  a  monopoly  with  Louisiana  ;  now  it  is . 
raised  (but  not  cane)  as  far  north  as  Illinois, 
and  spreading  year  by  year ;  so  with  many 
other  crops  that  were  at  one  time  thought  to 
be  only  profitable  in  certain  restricted  sections, 
are  now  found  to  be  paying  in  other  parts  of 
our  country  ;  and  new  ones  have  been  added, 
such  as  castor  bean,  oranges  and  lemons; 
tropical  fruits  for  Florida,  Louisiana  and 
California  ;  grapes  and  wines  over  at  least 
three-fourths  of  the  country,  the  latter  being 
equal  to  foreign,  and  in  most  cases  superior  to 
the  imported.  And  why  should  we  not  raise 
a  variety  with  the  diversity  of  soils,  the  ex- 
tent of  couuti7  and  the  bright  suns  we  have  ; 
indeed,  our  hot  mid-summer  sun  makes  our 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


d69 


country  nearly  equal  to  the  tropics  for  nearly 
six  uioutlis  ill  the  year.  It  i.s  well  enough  to 
liilk  aljout  the  "  sunny  land  of  France'' and 
"  tliu  blue  skies  of  Italy,"  and  they  may  have 
more  of  them  in  a  whole  year  Ihau  we  liave, 
but  in  si.t  or  .seven  niontlis  we  have  about  as 
nuieh  as  is  desirable,  and  the  rest  of  the  year 
is  not  so  bad  as  to  make  liviui;  a  burden. 

Improving  the  varieties  already  in  eultiva- 
tion  has  pnt  millions  of  dollars  into  the  pockets 
of  farmers,  and  Ihe  l)riiii;ing  out  of  new  ones 
that  are  belter  than  the  old  ones  improved,  has 
been  of  incaleulable  benelit  to  the  fanning' 
eonununity.  Even  young  farmers  can  re- 
member the  time  when  wheal  was  eonlined  to 
two  or  three  varieties,  sueh  as  blue  stem  and 
orange  stem    white,  but  liiese  turned  out   so 

i)oorly  at  last  on  aeeount  of  the  ravages  of  the 
rles.sian  tly  and  the  red  (tield)  weevil  that  far- 
mers were  almost  in  despair  of  making  wheat 
pay.  There  came  a  new  variety,  the  red 
(bearded)  Mediterranean,  which  though  of  in- 
ferior quality,  was  nearly  weevil-proot',  and  so 
strong  in  the  growth  that  the  tly  could  not 
hurt  it  much.  In  rapid  succession  came  other 
varieties,  of  better  (piality,  nulil  now  we  raise 
red  amber  and  white  wheats  of  the  highest 
grade,  both  in  quality,  yield  and  growth.  In 
potatoes  W'e  possessed  only  a  few  standard 
varieties — the  iiink-eye,  yellow-tleshed,  a  fair 
yielder,  but  oidy  medium  (piality  ;  Mercer, 
(Neshanoek,)  white-tleshed,  good  quality, 
but  poor  yielder.  The  greater  part  of  the 
other  varieties  known  were  of  inferior  <iuality  ; 
all  the  better  kinds  at  last  became  so  liable  to 
rot  that  it  was  quite  a  venture  to  plant  a  large 
piece  of  land  to  potatoes.  Now  we  have 
Varieties  by  the  score  to  suit  all  parts  of  the 
country,  and  of  a  (luality  that  throws  the  old 
standard  Mercer  far  into  the  shade  ;  not  only 
has  the  quality  been  improved,  but  also  the 
size,  shape,  color  and  yield.  As  with  wheat 
and  potatoes,  so  have  all  other  grain  and  root 
crops  been  improved,  with,  perhaps,  the  ex- 
ceptiou  of  rye.  Improved  varieties  of  this 
grain  have  been  advertised,  but  I  believe  as 
far  as  tried  there  has  been  little,  if  any,  im- 
provement noticed  over  the  old  variety. 

In  fruits  the  progress  has  been  rather  better 
than  in  the  farm  crops  proper. 

The  greatest  improvement  in  any  one  kind 
of  fmit  is  probably  in  that  of  the  grape.  Of 
course  very  good  grapes  have  been  raised  in 
this  country  for  many  years,  but  were  raised 
under  glass,  and  could  be  afforded  onlj  by  the 
wealthy.  IJefore  ls:i0  poor  peoyile  and  those 
of  moderate  income  had  to  do  without  grapes, 
or  be  satisfied  with  fox,  summer  and  frost 
grapes,  these  being  about  the  only  hardy 
kinds  generally  known  up  to  that  time. 
About  the  year  mentioned  the  Catawba  be- 
came known,  and  this,  with  the  Diana,  a 
seedling  of  the  former,  Clinton  and  Isabella 
w&re  for  a  long  time  the  only  kinils  known  by 
the  public  is  general.  Since  the  introduction 
of  the  above  sorts  new  and  superior  varieties 
have  been  brought  out,  and  we  have  now  all 
qualities  in  all  the  shades  of  black,  purple, 
red  and  white,  the  Concord  and  Hartford 
Prolific,  although  of  only  medium  quality, 
being  the  most  widely  disseminated.  Some 
few  kiudSj'as  the  Delaware, a  few  of  the  Rogers' 
hybrids  and  others,  being  ac:kuowledged  by 
jugdes  of  acknowledced  experience  as  nearly 
equal  to  the  better  foreign  varieties. 

In  the  strawberry  the  improvenient  has 
been  scarcely  behind  the  grape,  though  in 
tlie.se  the  size  and  yield  are  the  points  that 
have  lieen  most  brought  out ;  as  to  size,  for 
instance,  we  have  Great  American,  Durand, 
Crescent,  Ac,  some  of  the  larger  berries 
being  in  size  that  of  a  mediiun  sized  peach; 
and  as  to  productiveness  we  have  the  Wilson, 
wliicli  has  been  known  to  produce  as  many 
bushels  to  the  acre  as  would  be  considered  a 
fair  crop  of  potatoes.  The  first  improvement 
of  note  was  in  the  production  of  Ilovey's 
seedling  (a  pistillate  variety),  forty-three  years 
ago,  and  though  there  have  since  that  time 
many  varieties  been  brought  out  that  are  more 
promising  and  more  to  be  desired,  because 
they  have  perfect  blossoms,  yet  this  old  va- 
riety took  the  (irst   prize  at  the  strawterry 


show  of  the  Massachusetts  Horticultural  So- 
ciety, held  in  Boston  in  1875.  Mr.  Ilovey, 
probably,  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  on  the 
production  of  his  prize  berries,  and  did  not 
spare  inaumc  or  other  fertilizers.  In  llavm' 
there  has  been  little  or  no  improvement,  some 
of  the  larger  varieties  being  more  acid  than 
many  of  the  wild  ones,  and  losing  some  of 
that  distinct  fragrance  which  many  of  the 
wild  berries  liave. 

In  peaches  there  has  been  little  or  no  im- 
provement made  in  size  and  (lavor,  but 
we  have  both  later  and  earlier  kinds  and  more 
variety.  Nearly  the  same  remarks  apply  to 
cherries. 

Apples  and  pears  have  been  raised  in  varie- 
ties distinct  from  old  kinds, but  little  improve- 
ment made;  but  the  best  old  and  new  varie- 
ties have  been  more  disseminated  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  inferior  kinds  heretofore  raised. 

The  attention  of  fruit  raisers  has  been  par- 
ticularly turned,  fm-  the  last  few  years,  to  im- 
proving blackberries,  raspberries,  currants  and 
gooseberries,  and  some  good  results  have  been 
obtaint'd.  Tlie  first  desideratum  in  all  these 
cases  must  be  hardiness,  then  size  ;  next,  for 
lilackberries  and  raspberrios,  is  carrying  or 
sliipping;  for  ennants  less  acidity,  and  for 
gooseberries  freedom  from  mildew. 

The  farmer  certainly  has  no  cause  for  com- 
plaint that  there  is  no  improvenient,  lint  he 
must  have  his  eyes  wide  open  to  see  that  he 
only  takes  hold  of  the  best  and  rejects  all  that 
is  poor  or  only  mediocre.  I  believe  that  if 
farmers  would  only  put  their  eyes,  their  wits 
and  their  experience  to  more  use,  we  would 
be  further  advauced  than  we  now  are  ; 
but  I  believe  that  the  laborious  life  that  some 
larnuas  lead  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  their 
not  being  more  ob.servant,  as  when  the  body 
is  worn  down  with  the  fatigue  of  straining 
labor,  the  mind  is  in  no  state  to  take  note  of 
anything  that  is  only  a  little  removed  from 
the  ordinary,  it  must  be  very  striking  before 
any  impression  is  made.  This  seems  to  be 
borne  out  by  the  fact  that  jn'obably  more  than 
three-fourtlis  of  the  improvements  made  are 
brought  al)out  by  men  of  means  and  leisure. 
Having  the  means  and  leisure,  of  course,  does 
not  detract  from  the  praise  and  honor  that 
should  bc^  accorded,  in  many  cases  neither  re- 
ceiving nor  seeking  any  benefits  therefrom  ; 
but  certainly  more  honor  should  be  accorded 
to  the  man  who  in  spite  of  lassitude  produced 
by  following  his  calling,  yet  keeps  his  mind 
alert  enough  to  note  the  little  things  from 
which  great  ones  may  spring  ;  nor  would  he 
do  wrong  nor  lessen  the  lionor  by  turning  the 
results  of  his  observation  to  liis  own  advan- 
tage, for  I  have  no  doubt  that  many  a  fanner 
could  have  bettered  his  lot  in  life  by  bringing 
out  improved  varieties  of  whatever  he  was 
raising. — A.  B.  K. 


AUTUMNAL 


For  The  Lancasteb  Fabmeh. 
COLORATION      OF     THE 
LEAVES. 


BY   J.    STATTFFER. 

In  answer  to  the  question,  "The  reason 
whv  there  was  le.ss  variety  and  less  brilliancy 
in  the  leaf  coloration  in  the  present  season  " 
than  usually  V 

Vegetation,  the  link,  or  so  to  say,  the  uni- 
versal laboratory  that  manufactures  food  and 
raiment,  and  purifies  the  air,  and,  in  short, 
prepares  the  mineral  world  to  sustain  the 
lives  of  men  and  animals,  performs  some 
wonderful  chemical  operations. 

The  soil,  made  up  of  decomposed  feldspar, 
quartz,  porphyry,  bay-salt,  etc.,  are  all  clas.sed 
among  the  minerals  reduced  by  the  action  of 
heat,  frost,  air  and  water.  For  instance, 
feldspar  contains  from  six  to  fifteen  per  cent, 
of  potas.sa.  Plants  absorb  this  potassa— 
Liebig  found  that  every  root  secretes  a  fluid,  a 
sort  of  acid,  by  which,  as  he  says,  "the 
plants  a»arit  the  soil  with  their  roots."  We 
all  know  that  potassii,  like  soda,  is  one  of  the 
commonest  chemical  substances  and  exten- 
sively employed  in  the  arts  and  domestic 
economy.  The  modest  in-oduct  is  lodged 
within  "the  plant,   as  all  our  potass,   under 


whatever  name,  its  a  ba.se  is  wholly  derived 
from  the  residum  or  ashes  of  wood  biu'ned,  or 
vegetati'iu  ol)tained  by  li.\iviation,  as  every 
housewife  knows  in  making  lye  for  soap. 
Chemists  have  tried  to  abstract  the  |>ota.s.ta 
from  the  soil,  but  find  it  so  tenaciously  com- 
bined, and  only  of  late  years  did  auy  one  suc- 
ceed, and  that  only  with  costly  anil  complex 
apparatus,  diMicuIt  and  tedious  manipulation, 
abel  to  separate  it  from  the  clay-like  or(iuartz- 
like  earth  ;  this  the  [ilanls  do,  however,  silent- 
ly and  elfectually,  and  make  it  easy  for  man 
to  get  at  this  valuable  product,  as  we  do,  also, 
much  of  our  soda  from  sea  phuits;  these  also 
have  revealed  iodine  and  bromine  as  constitu- 
ents to  their  make-up.  No  one  will  deny  the 
chemical  yirocess.  (Jreeii  leaves,  aided  by  sun- 
light, decompose  the  carbonic  acid,  as  well  as 
nitrogen.  Collect  the  ammonia  from  the  soil 
or  water;  this  ammonia,  a  combiualion  of 
nitrogen  and  oxygen,  as  an  leriform  product 
of  decomposition  of  animal  or  vegetable  mat- 
ter, is  found  everywhere  in  small  quantities; 
from  the  air  it  lindsa  lodgment  in  every  soil, 
as  Well  as  in  water.  Here  allow  me  to  make 
a  remark,  to  call  attention  to  wliat  often  hap- 
pens, a  certain  .scalding  of  the  leaves.  After 
a  rain  fall,  during  strong  sunshine,  this  has 
been  iiotice<l,  and  it  is  supposed  that  a  clieini- 
cal  change  results  in  the  water  having  become 
a  mixture  of  nitric  acid,  strong  enough  to 
scald  or  sear  tlu^  leaves.  One  thing  we  know, 
gardeners  do  not  water  their  tlower-beds  dur- 
ing a  glowing  sunshine,  ex])erience  has  taught 
them  that  some  bad  result  follows.  In  the  ex- 
.tensive  and  varied  chemical  operations  the 
color  of  (lower.s,  leaves,  iVic,  demands  our  at- 
tention, these  run  through  a  gamut  of  shades 
and  lints  innumerable.  But  what  produces 
color  V  Science  teaches  there  is  no  color, 
merely  a  condition  which  allects  our  eye  in  a 
certain  way.  For  instance,  I  look  through  a 
glass  prism;  I  notice  the  most  lieauliful  rain- 
bow lints  to  embroider  every  object,  this  I 
know  to  result  by  decom|iosing  the  rays  of 
light  of  different  refrangibility.  Nevertheless, 
unless  we  are  color  blind,  we  all  behold  the 
fixed  fact  of  the  color  in  the  flower  or  foliage 
of  the  autumnal  leaves  in  all  their  brilliancy. 

Science  goes  as  far  as  it  can  in  the  field  of 
matter,  and  ignores  in  man  an  inner  nature, 
as  well  as  in  all  nature  itself,  an  underlying 
spiritual  element,  and  one  that,  like  faith  in 
the  Gospel,  must  be  "si)iritually  discerned," 
as  it  does  not  respond  to  the  scaliiel-scales, 
ini(;roscope,  or  any  device  of  man"s  art  or 
geniu.s,  however  great.  Nevertheless  science 
iias  wonderfully  tested  the  wonders  of  nature 
and  discovered  many  of  lier  secrets;  we  truly 
liud  nature  to  be  more  strange  than  liction. 
The  chemical  transformations  in  the  bodies  of 
living  plants  producing  the  most  brilliant 
colors ;  a  flower  pa.sses  through  the  entire 
scale  of  red,  from  softest  pink  to  the  darkest 
jiurple-brown,  from  the  action  of  the  acids  in 
the  air,  and  elements  in  its  juices.  Infusion 
of  sulphate  of  iron  into  the  soil  in  the  culture 
of  hortensia  has  darkened  their  hue,  no  doubt 
by  affecting  the  tan  in  the  plant.  Tliere  are 
other  dodges  and  arts  among  fancy  florists  by 
which  they  do  not  change  law,  but  the  chemi- 
cal relations  in  the  elements  brought  in  con- 
tact. This  subject  is  so  vast,  and  touched  at 
.so  many  iioinls  by  other  considerations,  that 
I  find  it  impossible  to  stick  to  my  text, 
"What  causes  the  change  in  autumnal  foli- 
age ?" 

Tlie  green  coloring  matter  of  lejives,  no 
miittd-  how  formed,  whether  altered  starch, 
mucous  matter,  protoplasm,  or  what  not,  re- 
quires the  influence  of  solar  light  for  the 
plant  to  fabricate  it.  The  so-called  chloro- 
phyll, which  is  on  plants  in  a  dark  cellar,  or 
celery-blanched,  is  absent, 

Our  savans  have  given  this  green  coloring 
matter  consider.able  attention,  and  made 
known  its  comp<umds  by  names  so  long  as  to 
be  utterly  out  of  the  (luestion  to  rememlier ; 
in  short,  a  certain  blue;c  nring  matter  as  a 
comi)ound  is  found  ;  this  vegetable  blue,  mixed 
in  the  juices,  is  what,  with  the  alkaline  mat- 
ters in  the  sap  brought  up  from  the  earth, 
jointly  and  variously  modified  and  mixed   in 


170 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[November, 


their  proportions,  become  reddened  by  acids, 
mixed  in  tlie  atmosphere.  Some  years  ago, 
when  in  the  drug  business,  I  prepared  a  series 
of  six  old-fashioned  wine  glasses,  sprinkling 
in  fine  powder  of  various  chemical  salts,  &c., 
of  a  diflerent  kind  into  each  separate  glass, 
not  perceptible  to  the  superficial  observer  ;  in 
a  bottle  I  had  an  aqueous  solution  of  blue 
cabbage,  or  litmus  will  do  as  well ;  a  portion 
of  this  liquid  poured  into  each  glass  will  de- 
velop as  many  different  colors  as  there  are 
glasses  with  different  chemical  bases — as  acid 
or  alkaline.  We  here  see  how  wonderful  a 
difference  slight  changes  make — so  with  the 
hydrocarbons  and  aniline  colors — but,  alas  !  I 
am  so  iironc  to  digress,  as  analogous  things 
flood  in  upon  my  mind,  that  I  can  not  avoid  it. 
That  the  leaves  undergo  a  chemical  change, 
by  acid  action,  was  proved  by  Mr.  Joseph 
Wharton  ;  he  exposed  a  variety  of  red  au- 
turhnal  leaves  upon  a  staging  under  a  glass 
receiver,  with  a  capsule  containing  ammonia, 
and  had  the  gratification  to  perceive  that,  in 
most  cases,  the  green  color  was  restored  ;  the 
leaves  having  a  thin  and  porous  cuticle  un- 
dergoing the  change  most  rapidly  and  com- 
pletely, the  restored  green  .color  remaining 
from  some  minutes  to  hours.  The  alkali  of 
the  ammonia  neutralized  the  action  of  the 
acid,  as  I  have  tested  for  myself. 

Frost,   probably,   plays  no  other  part    in 
causing  the  autumnal  tints  than  merely  to 
arrest  the  circulation  by  killing  the  leaves,  or 
more  or  less  chilling  them,  when  yet  the  juices 
are  abundant  and  the  leaves  full  and  plump. 
Thus,  suddenly  checked  in  the  early  fall  of 
the  year,  the  atmospheric  acids  and  sunshine 
have  full  play  upon  the  blue  substance,  alka- 
lines,   tannic  and  other  bases,  variously  dis- 
tributed in  the  various  trees  and  shrubs  in  in- 
numerable modifications.     Hence,   the  most 
brilliant  red,   through  all  the  grades  of  the 
gamut  to  pink,  as  tlie  acids  prevail,  from  straw- 
yellow  through  all  shades,   or  maculated  as 
the  alkaline   predominates,  and  compounds, 
perhaps,  of  which  we  have  no  exiserimental 
knowledge.  Chlorophyll  is  very  sensitive.  We 
have  a  remarkable   exhibition  of  change  of 
color  in  the  leaves  of  the   "Amaranthus  tri- 
color," known  as  "Joseph's  coat    of  many 
colors;"  here  we  see  on  the  same  leaf  a  por- 
tion bright  red,  bright  yellow  and  a  pure  green, 
as  of  connnon  or  natural  occurrence,not  to  men- 
tion the  beautiful  zonales  and  divers-colored 
leaves  on    plants    cultivated    for  ornament. 
The  reason  whj'  there  was  less  variety  and  less 
brilliancy  this  season  is  the  want  of  early 
frost  to  kill  the  leaves,or  at  least  to  arrest  the 
flow  of  sap.     We  hear  of  fruit  trees  blossom- 
ing in  numerous  places  ;  the  continued  mild 
weather  developed  the  otherwise  latent  buds, 
the  juices  in  the  leaves  were  diverted  to  this 
extra  effort,  or  gradually  dissipated  by  evapo- 
ration and  the  ordinary  decay,  by  disorganiz- 
ing the  blue  coloring  matter,  and  the  chemi- 
cal compounds, so  that  when  frost  did  come, the 
work  of  dissipation  was  too  far  advanced,  and 
before  "Jack  Frost"  entered  the  field  this  sea- 
son his  artistic  brush  could  not  find  the  neces- 
sary material  to  work  upon,  and  a  monotonous 
sickly-looking  mess  of  dead  leaves  is  the  re- 
sult ;  so  that  lovers  of  snch  collections  find 
the  highly-colored  leaves   "few  and  far  be- 
tween."   But,  I  suppose,  from  the  language 
of    a  portion  on  autumn,   in   "Thompson's 
Seasons,"  that  he,  good  man,  never  saw   one 
of  our  glorious  autumnal  seasons,  when  the 
woods  glowed  and  glistendd  with  stately  trees 
in  gold,    carmine    and  purple  array,   inter- 
.^persed  with  green  pines,  etc.     His  language 
may  apply  to  our  present  season,  for  he  says  : 
"  But  see  the  fading  many  colored  woods, 
Shade  dcepenins;  over  shade,  the  country  round 
Imbrowned ;  crowded  umbrage,  dusk  and  dun, 
Of  every  hue,  from  wan  declining  green 
To  sooty  dark." 

What  we  term  the  laws  of  nature  we  may 
as  well  call  the  laws  of  God,  wherein  we  see 
the  power,  wisdom  and  goodness  of  the  Great 
Law-giver.     In  Street's  poems  I   find  these 
words,  which,  in  conclusion,  I  will  append  : 
"  Nature  is  man's  best  teacher.     She  unfolds 
Her  treasures  to  his  search,  unseals  his  eyes, 
Illumes  his  mind,  and  purifies  his  heart, 
An  influence  breathes  from  all  the  sights  and  sounds 
Of  her  existence ;  she  is  wisdom's  self." 


FOREST  AND  RAIN-FALL. 


Address    of   Thos.    Meehan    Before   the    May 

Meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  State  Board 

of  Agriculture. 

There  is  a  maxim  very  good  for  myself  as 
well  as  gentlemen  of  your  pursuit,  good   agri- 
culturists, that  a  man  does  not  know  what  he 
can  do  until  he  tries.     Speaking  of  good  agri- 
culturists reminds  me  that  when  it  was  an- 
nounced that  I  should  address  you  to-day  on 
rain-fall  and  forests,  some  of  my  friends  ex- 
pressed surprise  that  I  should  talk  on  such  an 
"abstract  question"  as  this.     How  can  it  mat- 
ter to  a  farmer  of  to-day  if  the  forests  are  cut 
away,  if  he  can  sow  and  reap,  and   if  he  can 
gather  the  products  of  the  soil  ?    In  the  lan- 
guage of  a  certain  distinguished  individual  we 
might  say,  "Wliat  has  posterity  done  for  me?" 
Why  should  I  care  for  posterity  'i      For   my 
part,  I  can  not  assent  to  that  view.     I  think 
every  great,  every  patriotic  person,  lias  some 
consideration  for  his  posterity.     I  think  that 
many  questions  considered   abstract  and  ab- 
struse are  not  really  so.     More  of  these  ques- 
tions have  a  practical  bearing  on  the  present 
than  we  suppose.     They  are  not  of  so  little 
moment  as  many  would  make  them.     We  have 
suffered  very  much,  in  fact,  through  our  in- 
disposition to  discuss  little  questions.     Others 
have  benefited  us  by  taking  them  up.      For 
instance,  we  now  can  cross  the  Atlantic  in 
ten  or  twelve  days,  when  it  took  Uabot  one 
hundred  days.     Once  it  took  a  long  time   to 
send    messages    from    Washington    to  New 
York;  now  they  are  transmitted  in  a  few  sec- 
onds.     Chiefly   through   Franklin's    playing 
with  the  kite,  string  and  key,  we  accomplish- 
ed this  wonder.       Through    the   experiment 
with  the  tea  kettle  we  have  the  locomotive. 
It  was  through  these  little  matters  we  have 
got  these  practical  workings.      In  regard  to 
this  question  of  forestry    and    rain-fall,   you 
know  what  it  is.     It  has  been  told  in  every 
paper  and  magazine.     There  is  the  Desert  of 
Sahara,  embracing  four  million  square  miles, 
where  rain  never  falls.       In    our    desert  of 
America,    extending    along    from    Texas  to 
British  North  America,   rain  does  not  fall. 
They  say  it  is  the   clearing  away   of  forests, 
and  that  we  are  now  sufiering  from  the  devas- 
tation and  destruction  of  forests  by  some  an- 
cient people.     I  think  we  can  show  that  that 
desert  was  brought  about  not  by  the   cutting 
away  of  trees.     We  think  that  that  is  the  re- 
sult of  sudden    geological    causes,    and  that 
those  sudden  geological  causes  are  continuous, 
and  that  they  have  no  reference  to  forestry  in 
any  shape  or  form.     Before,   however,   going 
into  that  question,  it  would  be  as  well  to  take 
up  frankly,  or  come  down  to  little  things,  and 
first  explain  what  causes  currents  of  water  in 
the    atmosphere — consideration  of    moisture 
before  rainfall,  and  although  it  ma.y  seem  al- 
most a  common-place  matter  to  refer  to  such 
little  things,  yet  I  think  it  will  enable  us  to 
explain  our  position  better  by  referring  to 
them.     "Take  a  pitcher  of   cold   water    on  a 
warm  day;  moisture  gathers  on  the  outside  of 
the  pitcher,  and  we  commonly  say  that   the 
pitcher  sweats,  but  it  does  not;  it  is  simply 
the  moisture  in  the  atmosphere  which,   being 
warmer  than  the  outside  of  the  pitcher,  causes 
the  water  to  condense.     The  same  process  is 
going    on    over    the    surface    of   the    globe. 
Three-fourths  of  the  globe  is  water,   and  the 
average  evaporation  is  about  twelve  thousand 
pounds  per  square  foot  per  annum.    Of  course. 
In  some  places  it  is  less,   and  in  some  more. 
What  becomes  of  this  water  ?      It  is  taken 
into  the  atmosphere,  and  when  brought  into 
a  cooler  current  it  condenses  and    falls.      In 
regard  to  the  circulation  that  causes  the  cur- 
rents, take  a  bucket  of  water  and  put  a  stick 
into  it.     The  stick  floats,  not  because  of  the 
gravitation,  but  because  the  water  is  heavier 
than  the  stick.     The  same  principle  prevails 
if  you  take  a  kettle  of  boiling  water.     The  up- 
per surface  is  the  hotter,   and  that  forms  a 
continuous    circulation,    because    the  cooler 
presses  the  warmer  to  the   surface.      Ii^  that 
way  there  is  a  continuous  circuit  exhibited  by 
the  changes  in  the  specific  gravity  of  the  par- 


ticles.    That  is  going  on  also  in  the  atmos- 
])here  just  the  same  as  in  the  kettle  of  water, 
that  which  is  warmest  rises  to  the  top.      So 
with  the    Gulf  Stream.       The  warm  water 
of  the  tropics  forces  it  upward.    Thus  there 
is  a    continuous   circuit    toward    the  poles, 
where  it  is  cooler.     Now  we  can  begin  to  un- 
derstand how  it  is  that  we  get  rain  in  some 
parts  of  the  world  and  it  is  dry  in  others.     In 
sea  breezes  there  is  a  current  of  water  all  the 
time  to  the  land.  The  water  which  is  changed 
into  cold  vapor,  of  which  I  have  spoken  be- 
fore, rushes  in  to  take  the  place  of  other  water 
in  that  way.     The  warm  water  that  makes 
the  vapor  is  all  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth, 
is  carried  along  until  it  comes  in  contact  with 
a  colder  surface,  and  produces  rain.    Now,  as 
to  the  American  desert,  which  extends  east- 
wardly  from  the  Rocky  Mountains  :  The  wa- 
ter is  drawn  up  from  the  Pacific  ocean;    the 
cold  or  moist  air  of    the    Pacific    is  brought 
in  over  these  mountains  from  that  direction. 
It  gives  the  prevailing  easterly  winds  on  that 
side  of  the  mountains.     This  vapor  is  carried 
along  until  it  reaches  the  top  of  the  mountains. 
When  it  comes  in  contact  with  these  high 
ridges  it   is    condensed    and    become    snow. 
When  there  is  any  moisture  in  the  current  it 
consequently  becomes  rain;  but  here  it  leaves 
only  a  dry  current  to  pass  over  it.     It  is  only 
two  or  three  hundred  miles  this  side  that  it 
becomes     moisture.       From    this    moisture 
which  forms  in  that  way  we  get  another  con- 
dition, or  area,  which  is  continually  watered 
by  rain  from  the  clouds.     You  see,  therefore, 
that  this  snow  or  rainfall  this  side  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  or  more  properly  this  side 
of  the  Mississippi  River,  could  not  have  been 
caused  if  the  RockyMountains  were  not  where 
they  are,  and  it  would   be  a  matter  of  total 
indift'erence  whether  forests  were  cut  away  or 
not.     It  is  a  question  wholly  of  currents  with 
these  different  parts.      This    tract    of  land, 
which  is  now  a  desert,  was  once  covered  with 
forest  trees.     If  you  dig  down  in  Ilhnois  or 
Indiana,  you  find  large  beds  of  coal.     Further 
on,  in  Colorado    and    surrounding  country, 
which  is  now  a  desert,  I  have  helped  to  dig 
out  what  is  called  charcoal.      I  have  dug  up 
trees.     Some  of  these  stumps,  one  of  them  es- 
pecially, was  twenty-four  feet  in  circumference, 
and  others  in  proportion.     These  forest  trees 
existed  at  one  time  where  now  the  country  is 
a  barren  desert.     It  shows   that    the  whole 
district  was  once  covered  with  trees,  and  that 
they  were  not  cut  away.      These   trees  were 
grown  up  when  the  whole  range  of  Rocky 
jNIouutains  was  thrown  up  in  this  way.     That 
this  was  done  is  shown  not  only  by   remains 
of  trees,  but  by  large  beds  of  fossil  fish,  which 
exist  some  five  or  six  thousand  feet  above  the 
level  of  the  sea.     Then  there  was  no  sifting 
out  of  the  vapor  of  the  clouds,  but  the  moist- 
ure fell  there  in  rain,  just  as  it  falls  over  other 
surfaces  of  the  globe;  and  the  throwing  up  of 
the  hills  afterwards    makes  this  difference. 
Some  parts  of  the  wovld  have  these  sinking 
parts  as  others  arise. 

In  regard  to  climate,  no  matter  how  small 
may  be  a  cause,  it  interrupts  the  regular  work 
of  events,  and  a  very  small  disturbance  in 
these  conditions  will  cause  a  great  change  in 
results.  Thus  a  little  rock  will  fall,  and  it 
gradually  turns  out  of  its  course  in  consequence 
a  small  stream  ;  and  having  turned  it  out  of 
its  course,  in  time  something  else  changes  and 
the  whole  course  is  changed  by  a  very  little 
circumstance.  And  so  in  nature  ;  and  that  is 
the  reason  we  think  sometimes  there  are  great 
changes  in  the  climate.  Take  for  instance 
the  Polaris  expedition,  and  its  discovery  of 
an  open  sea  in  1803.  In  1875  when  Captain 
Murray's  expedition  went  there,  they  found 
this  wliole  tract  covered  with  ice  ;  the  ther- 
mometer being  from  55°  to  0.5°  in  '05  ;  then 
he  found  it  the  whole  season  below  the  freezing 
point.  It  is  onl-y  the  condition  of  things  that 
come  ;  altering  in  a  few  years,  and  the  circle 
contimies  to  go  and  come.  I  think  the  best 
illustration,  perhaps,  is  the  history  of  the 
grape  culture  in  England,  which  bears  en  the 
change  of  the  climate.  We  know  that  Eng- 
land "at  the  present  time  is  considered  totally 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


171 


unfit  for  grape  culture,  that  grapes  cannot  be 
raised  under  any  circumstances,  and  yet  wo 
know  there  was  a  time  wlien  it  was  covered 
with  grapes.     The  battle  of  Hastings,  which 
decided  the  fate  of  English  people,  was  fought 
in  a  vineyard,  and  we  read  of  vineyaids,  the 
isle  of  Islay  which  signifies  "the  isle  of  vines." 
We  have  traces  of  ancient  vineyards  in  every 
direction.     These  vineyards  continued  down 
to  1085.     From  that  year  there  were  twenty- 
five  years  of  legular  wet  and  cold  seasons,  in 
which  it  was  impossible   to   ripen  the  grape  ; 
and  .so  until  the  present  day.     Xow,  it  seems 
almost  a  fable  that  England  ever  was  a  grape- 
producing  country  ;  and  yet  tiniljer  was  not 
much  ci;t  away.     There  was  no  doubt  good 
tind)er  until  manufactories  became  C'.>inmon  ; 
and  they  did   not   become  common  until  the 
mining  of  coal.     (So  there  could  have  been  no 
change  in  twenty-live  years,  by  cutting  away 
i'orests  from  lauds  wholly  lit  for  the  grape  to 
land  totally  unlit  for  it.     Here  comes  the  most 
significant  part  of  theliistory.     At  the  present 
time,  one  gentleman  in  grape  culture  there, 
the  l)uke  of  (41ouce8tcr,  some   six  years  ago 
planted  vineyards,  and  his  grapes  are  doing 
just  as  well  now  as  they  did  in  ancient  times. 
I  think  this  fact  shows  fully  that  they  didn't 
result  in  any  way  from  tree  culture  or  forestry. 
lu  our  own  case  we  know  how  the  climate 
changes.     1  am  satisfied  that  thirty  years  ago 
in  Philadelphia  there  never  was  a  year,  before 
or    after  tliat,   that   the  lilac  didn't  bloom 
regularly  before  the  first  of  May.     For  the 
last  year  or  two  the  same  bushes  around  our 
dwellings  are  fiowered  well  before  the  first  of 
May.     There  has  been  no  difference  in  the 
forests  of  Pennsylvania.     I  think  th(>re  is  the 
same  amount  of  forests  iu  Pennsylvania  to- 
day that  there  was  before  that  time.     Before 
railroads  and  canals  were  made  there  was  a 
gr-cat  deal  more  lundier  taken  to  Philadelphia 
from  Pennsylvania  than  there  is  now.     Tim- 
ber lands  have  been  suffered  to  grow  ui>  again. 
I  knew  of  property  near  Philadelphia  where 
persons  desired  to  leave  to  their  descendants 
those  forests,  and  now  those  forests  are  worth 
nothing,  because  timber  can  he  brought  from 
a  distance  cheaper  than    it  can   be   bought 
there.     I  think  Pennsylvania  has  more  wood- 
land than   thirty  years  ago  ;  and   there  are 
figures  which  go  to  show   this.     In  England 
there  is  only  about  five  per  cent,  of  the  land 
covered  with  forests,  and  this  is  probably  as 
much    as     it    has    had     at    once ;    because 
England's  jiast  forest  area  was  so  small  tliat 
theking  set  to  planting  forests  for  shiji-build- 
ing  timber  ;  so  1  think  that  area  has  been  as 
it  has  for  many  years  past,   and  yet  the  aver- 
age rainfall  is  forty  inches  a  year.     Tlfei-e  is 
Portugal,  which  is  almost  destitute  of  timber, 
having  only  4. 4U  per  cent.,  and  yet  the  rain- 
fall is  thirty  inches  a  year.     And  in   Spain 
with    5.53    acres  to  the    hundred,   there   is 
twenty-five    inches    a    year.     Sardinia   with 
twelve  per  cent,   of  its  land  in  forest  has  a 
I'ainfall  of  thirty  inches.     In  Switzerland  the 
forest  area  is  only  lifteeu  per  cent.,  while  in 
Norway  it  is  sixty-six  per  cent.,  which  has  a 
rainfall  of  only  thirty  inches.     On  the  other 
hand  is  Sweden  with  sixty  per  cent,  in  forest 
and  only  sixteen  inches  of  rain  a  year,  and 
Italy  with  comi>aralively  few  forests,  has  forty 
inches  of  rainfall  a  year.     So  you  see  there  is 
not  the  slightest  correspondence.     I  think  it  is 
impossible  to  give  the  causes  which  infiuence 
the  fall  of  the  rain.     In  our  own  State  there  is 
forest  now,  and  we  cannot  make  much  of  a 
test  jet.    But  there  has  been  no  diminution  in 
States  where  the  forests  have  been  cut  awaj-, 
for  instance  in  Ohio,  which  was,  wo  know,  a 
vast  timber  region  when  it  was  first  made  a 
State.     It  has  been  considerably  cleared  of  its 
timber  ;  and  yet  the  records  kept  by  the  gov- 
ernment ollicers  in  ^Marietta,  show  that  there 
has  not  been  tlie  slightest  difference  in  the 
rain-fall  of  Ohio.    So  in  some  other  States  the 
rain-fall  has  not  been  disturbed.     In  the  New 
England  States  considerable  attention  has  been 
paid  to  it,  but  we  have  been  unable  to  get  the 
figures.     Massachusetts,  for  instance,  at  the 
present  time  has  twenty-seven  per  cent,  of  its 
area   in    forests ;    Vermont  has   twenty-six ; 


New  Hampshire  has  twenty-seven;  New  York 
twenty-two  ;  and  it  is  believed  tliat  twenty- 
live  per  cent,  of  tlie  whole  area  of  the  United 
States  is  forest  land.  The  southern  country 
is  half  forests.  West  Virginia  alone  has 
l,000,00t1  of  area  of  forest  land.  I  think  when 
it  is  .shown  fully  how  much  there  is  even  in 
the  Western  country,  you  will  sec  that  the 
whole  timber  average  of  the  United  States  is 
forty  i)er  cent.  The  figures  are  high,  and'yet 
in  some  of  the  Southern  States  they  feel  that 
there  has  been  .some  climatic  change  ;  and  the 
timber  area  continuing  the  same,  the  result  is 
that  these  changes  are  not  due  to  the  absence 
of  forestry,  but  to  geological  effects.  When 
you  consider  the  causes  which  iulluence  rain, 
and  when  you  compare  them  with  countries 
where  rain  falls  abundantly,  and  where  it 
falls  sparingly  ;  and  when  you  ctmipare  these 
with  the  facts  as  they  have  been  given, you 
will  agree  with  me  that  there  is  no  difiinence 
in  the  rain-fall,  and  that  the  facts  show  that 
there  is  not. 


OUR    LOCAL    ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings    of  the  Lancaster   County   Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 

Tlie  Laiicastef  County  Ai;rieultunil  and  Horticul- 
tural SiK'iety  met  in  tlie  third  story  of  the  City  Mall, 
.Monday  afternoon,  Nov.  5,  the  following;  memljers 
lieiui;  present : 

Calvin  Cooper,  President,  East  Lampeter;  John- 
son Miller,  Secretary,  Warwick  ;  Levi  W.  (irolt, 
West,  Eatl  ;  Henry  M.  En^le,  Marietta;  .John  .M. 
Kutter,  Salisbury;  John  H.  Erb,  Strasburtf  town- 
ship; John  G.  Linvilh!,  Salisbury  ;  Wni.  H.  Brosius, 
Drunioie ;  Jacob  Bolliuffer,  Warwick ;  Ephraini 
Hoover,  Jranheim  :  W.  J.  Kafrntli,  West  Earl;  S. 
P.  Eby,  city;  John  IL  Lamlis,  Manor;  Prof.  S.  S. 
Hatlivon,  city  ;  Joseph  F.  Wiliner,  Paradise;  E.  K. 
Hcrshcy,  Manor  ;  M.  D.  Kenilii;,  Manor;  C.  L.IIun- 
secker,  Manheim  ;  Casper  Ililler,  Couestoga;  Jacol) 
B.  Garbcr,  West  HcnipllcM  ;  Levi  S.  Heist,  Man- 
lioim  ;  Heniy  Erii,  Manheim  ;  .John  Huber,  War- 
wick ;  Rculicn  Weaver,  Kapho ;  Henry  Erb,  War- 
wick ;  Mr.  Mellincer,  West  Lampeter ;  Simon 
Ilorsliey,  Salunfra ;  EUwood  (iriest,  city;  Dr.E.  A. 
Hertz,  Philadelphia;  A.  H.  Suuuny,  Manheim; 
Ifairy  M.  .Mayer,  Kohrerstown ;  Henry  Shitlner, 
Upper  Leacoek. 

The  reading  of  the  minutes  of  last  meeting  was 
dispensed  with. 

Crop  Reports. 

Reports  on  the  condition  of  the  crops  bcinc  called 
for,  .John  C.  Linvillc,  of  Salisbury,  said  he  had  not 
in  the  past  ten  years  seen  the  srowiiig  wiieat  look 
better  than  it  looks  at  present.  The  corn  crop  has 
been  li«ske<l  and  has  not  yielded  as  well  as  was  ex- 
pected Ijclbre  it  was  cut  oft. 

Hen'uy  Ki'KTZ,  of  Mount  Joy,  said  the  wheat  in 
some  localities,  owing  to  the  warm  weather,  has 
grown  too  lari;e  and  has  shot  the  second  joint  and  is 
beinfj  plowed  down.  In  some  other  localities  it  has 
been  attacked  liy  the  Hessian  fly,  which  seems  to 
move  throuirh  the  fields  in  rcfriilar  swaths  or  streaks. 
His  own  wheal  looks  well,  and  as  a  frencral  thinir 
his  neiichbors'  looks  well.  He  sowed  his  own  seed 
late  and  thus  avoided  the  lly.  He  estimated  the 
yield  of  corn  at  about  three-fourths  of  a  full  crop. 

Johnson  Miller,  of  Warwick,  said  the  corn  was 
shorter  than  had  been  exiJccted  ;  fully  ten  per  cent, 
less  than  a  full  crop.  Wheat  is  growing  finely  and 
looks  well ;  so  does  the  pasture,  which  will  continue 
g-ood  for  some  time  yet  if  it  is  not  destroyed  by  heavy 
frosts. 

Wm.  II.  Brosius,  of  Druraore,  said  there  wore 
some  complaints  in  his  neiffldiorhood  of  the  depreda- 
tions of  the  Hy,  though  the  wheat  crop  was  gener- 
ally g<iod.  Corn  was  about  three-fourths  of  a  full 
crop. 

Jacob  Bollinger,  of  Warwick,  said  the  wheat 
liad  l)ecn  somewhat  injured  by  the  fly.  The  corn 
crop  was  good,  say  72  bushels  to  the  acre. 

Henkv  .VI.  ExoLE,  of  Marietta,  said  there  should 
be  a  genejal  understanding  as  to  what  constitutes  an 
average  or  full  crop.  When  he  spoke  of  an  average 
he  meant  the  average  of  his  own  township;  but  that 
might  be  above  or  below  the  average  of  other  town- 
ships. If  a  farmer  raises  a  large  crop  on  a  good 
farm  he  is  apt  to  call  it  an  average  crop  ;  while  an- 
other raising  a  small  crop  on  a  poor  farm  will  call  It 
also  an  average. 

EpuRAiM  HoovEH,  of  Manheim,  said  the  new- 
grass  tields  are  better  set  than  he  had  seen  them  for 
many  years,  and  the  pastures  are  also  good.  Wheat 
looks  well,  and  has  not  been  injured  liy  the  lly— not 
even  that  which  was  sowed  early.  Corn  will  not 
make  nuue  than  three-foin-ths  of  a  eroi) — say  ■)!> 
bushels  to  the  acre.  The  hay  crop  next  year  will  be 
very  heavy,  from  present  appearances. 

W.  J.  Kafuotii,  of  West  Earl,  had  never  seen  the 
wheat  look  better ;  the  grass  fields  also  look  fine, 


and  tlic  corn  crop  will   average  60  bushels  to  the 

acre. 

Levi  W.  fiiioFi',  of  West  Earl,  said  the  reason 
why  that  section  of  the  country  had  such  good  crops 
was  because  It  had  been  favored  with  co|ilous  raius, 
while  other  sections  not  many  miles  distant  had  suf- 
fered from  droulh. 

.Mr.  ExtiLE,  of  .Marietta,  said  the  corn  crop  was 
not  as  heavy  as  it  was  exijceted  to  be  earlier  In  the 
season.  He  thought  there  would  not  be  quite  three- 
fourths  of  a  crop.  The  wheat  flelds  look  well ;  he 
has  not  seen  a  single  bad  Held;  has  seen  nothing  of 
the  fly  ;  the  piospeds  of  a  large  crop  are  excellent. 
The  young  grass  looks  well ;  lale  |>otatoes  have 
turned  out  flrsl-rate;  he  had  Intended  to  make  a  re- 
|iorton  the  nuinberof  bnslielsof  potalocs  tothe  acre, 
l>ut  his  patches  had  been  so  often  v  sited  by  thieves 
that  he  could  liol  lind  a  (piartcr  of  an  acre  that  had 
not  been  robbcil,  so  he  gave  up  the  job.  He  said  he 
had  seen  iu  print  an  article  on  the  Hessian  lly  to  the 
ell'eet  that  the  wheat  dropjied  In  the  fleld  during 
harvest,  took  root  and  furnished  a  breciling  place  for 
the  fly.  He  mentioned  the  nnitlcr  now  I  hat  farmers 
might  make  observations  and  report  the  result.  The 
rainfall  for  the  past  month  was  7'^  luehss. 

Levi  W.  (iitoi'K,  of  West  Earl,  asked  for  Informa- 
tion as  to  how  th<!  Hessian  lly  was  able  to  lay  Its  egg 
so  close  down  lo  the  lower  exireniity  of  the  leaf 
when  the  leaf  itself  fitted  so  clo.scly  around  the  stem 
of  the  wheat  straw. 

I'noF.  S.  S.  Katuvon  explained  that  the  egg  of 
the  lly  is  very  small,  and  the  worm  when  hatched  Is 
not  thicker  than  a  thread  of  No.  GO  cotton.  The 
egg  is  laid  near  the  root  of  the  leaf,  on  the  joints  of 
the  plant.  The  Hessian  lly  il.self  is  very  small,  and 
must  necessarily  lay  very  small  eggs.  It  Is  not 
much,  if  any,  larger  than  a  mosquito,  and  belongs  to 
the  Gall-gnat  family(CEciDOMViAi)j-:.)  The  females 
deposit  tiieirc'ggs  as  far  down  between  the  sheath  of 
the  leaf  and  the  stalk  as  they  can  get  them,  some- 
times a  i-ozen  or  more  on  a  single  iilant.  When  the 
little  grubs,  or  maggots,  are  hatched  out,  they  work 
their  way  down  as  far  as  the  leaf  will  permit  them, 
and  there  remain  around  the  joint  under  the  sheaths 
until  they  are  changed  lo  the  pupa — commonly  called 
the  "  flax-seed"  stale — the  [leriod  of  which  Is  longer 
or.  shorte;-,  according  to  the  temperature  of  the 
weather.  They  are  a  greenish  maggot,  with  a  little 
black  dot  on  top.  They  do  not  bore  into  the  straw, 
but,  as  their  bodies  increa.se  in  size,  they  cause  in- 
dentations or  cavities,  by  natural  pressure,  in  which 
they  lie  and  absorb  the  circulating  juices  of  the 
plant.  They  are  generally  located  around  the  low - 
est  joint,  but  often  also  in  tl^e  next  above  it.  They 
often  remain  in  the  grub  or  the  pupa  I'orm  all  winter, 
and  come  forth  in  the  fly  form  early  in  the  spring. 
The  Manure  Question. 

"  What  is  the  best  means  of  preserving  manure?" 
was  the  question  proposed  at  the  last  meeting  for 
discussion. 

JoiiK  C.  LiNvn,LE  said  he  believed  it  to  be  a  great 
advantage  to  place  a  shed  uver  the  manure  pile,  and 
to  ad<l  sail  enough  to  keep  the  manure  from  heating 
or  being  injured  by  the  fire-fang.  He  thought  a 
great  deal  of  money  was  spent  for  artificial  manures 
that  might  be  saved  if  proper  allention  was  paid  to 
the  barnyard  manure.  We  are  apt  to  allow  streams 
of  black  water  to  run  away  from  the  barnyard  and 
be  wasted,  when  it  is  ivell  known  that  this  Is  the 
very  essence  of  manure.  It  might  easily  be  saved  by 
having  a  cistern  dug  outsiile  the  barnyard  lo  receive 
it,  and  it  might  then  be  readily  distributed  lo  such 
parts  of  the  farm  as  needed  il.  .Manure  composted 
under  cover  rfas  certainly  belter  than  that  made  lu 
the  open  yard.  He  had  been  rather  careless  himself 
iu  this  matter  of  manure,  but  he  had  been  told  by  a 
neighbor  who  had  made  the  experiment  that  he  eouhl 
see  in  his  erojis  a  great  improvement  in  those  parts 
of  the  fields  supplied  with  manure  that  had  been 
nuidc  under  cover. 

Pbesioent  Cooper  said  he  had  addressed  John 
I.  Carter,  of  the  Eastern  Experimental  Karni,  in- 
viting him  to  be  present  and  address  the  society  on 
the  subject  of  fertilizers,  ami  had  hoped  to  have  him 
present  to-day ;  but  he  had  received  a  letter  from 
.Mr.  Carter,  stating  that  bad  wcalher  and  a  press  of 
business  would  prevent  his  attendance. 

Ei-UKAIM  Hoover  agreed  with  Mr.  Linville,  as  to 
making  manure  umler  cover,  and  added  that  the 
preservation  of  the  liquid  manure  depended  a  great 
deal  on  the  location  of  the  barnyard.  Where  there 
is  much  slope  a  stone  wall  should  be  put  up  to  re- 
tain the  liquid  manure.  He  favored  the  sinking  of  a 
cistern  to  catch  the  drainage,  and  described  the  con- 
struction of  a  trough  or  box  that  would  be  available 
for  dislributing  the  manure. 

Joseph  F.  Witmek,  of  Paradise,  spoke  of  an  arti- 
cle written  by  .Joseph  Harris,  in  which  he  describes 
his  plan  of  a  barnyard.  He  i)lowed  up  the  barnyanl 
and  scooped  out  the  earth  in  the  centre,  making  It 
lowest  at  that  |K)int,  and  there  he  sank  a  barrel,  and 
around  the  pump  he  piled  the  manure,  and  allowed 
the  rain  and  the  liquid  of  the  yard  to  drain  into  It, 
but  carefully  excluded  the  rain  that  fell  upon  the 
building.  When  the  manure  became  too  dry  he 
pumped  the  liquid  from  the  barrel  and  spread  It  over 
the  pile,  and  in  this  wav  got  good  results. 

Levi  AV.  tiitOFP,  of 'West  Earl,  placed  no  cover 


172 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[  November, 


over  his  manure  pile.  His  plan  is  to  keep  the  manure 
well  together,  ami  if  it  gets  away  brine;  it  baek  again. 
He  frequently  hauled  from  the  roadside  the  washed 
earth  and  Bpread  it  over  the  manure  pile,  then  put 
on  more  manure, and  then  again  more  washed  earth. 
In  this  way  he  could  double  the  quantity  of  his 
manure. 

Henrt  M.  Engle,  of  Marietta,  said  he  had  long 
been  of  opinion  that  taking  care  of  the  manure  was 
the  mainspring  of  a  farmer's  success.  It  is  a  good 
plan  to  keep  manure  under  cover  if  it  is  well  cared 
for,  but  unless  great  attention  is  paid  to  it,  it  might 
be  better  to  have  it  uncovered.  The  smaller  surface 
manure  is  kept  in  the  better.  He  fully  agreed  with 
Mr.  CTrofl"s  plan  of  adding  to  the  manure  pile  road- 
side washings.  The  dry  earth  absorbs  and  saves  the 
gases  that  otherwise  would  escape  by  a  too  rapid 
combustion. 

Henry  Kuktz,  of  Mount  Joy,  believes  in  Mr. 
Grotl's  plan  of  keeping  the  manure  pile  well  together 
and  adding  liberal  quantitiesof  earth.  If  the  manure 
runs  away  bring  it  back.  Save  all  the  liquid  manure 
possible,  and  use  it.  That's  the  way  he  raised  his 
i?>2  pound  squash  ;  he  watered  the  vine  frequently 
with  liquid  manure.     -^ 

Mk.  Groff  added  that  if  roadside  earth  be  freely 
used  on  the  manure  pile  there  will  be  little  waste  of 
liquid  manure.  He  would  like  to  know  from  some 
one  who  had  tried  the  expei'iment  of  making  manure 
under  cover  how  they  prevented  the  damage  of  fire- 
fang.  It  seemed  to  him  that  if  much  water  was  re- 
quired to  prevent  it,  it  might  be  as  well  to  remove 
the  shed  and  let  the  rain  fall  on  the  manure  pile. 

Mr.  Witmer  advocated  a  liberal  use  of  dry  earth, 
not  only  on  the  manure  pile  but  in  the  stables. 
Where  straw  is  scarce  it  makes  a  good  bedding, 
keeps  the  stables  sweet,  and  adds  much  to  the  value 
of  the  manure. 

Mr.  Linville  did  not  approve  the  plan  suggested 
of  having  the  barnyard  hollow  in  the  centre.  The 
accumulation  of  liquid  would  sour  the  manure,  and 
he  would  rather  lose  the  liquid  tlian  have  his  manure 
sour,  as  that  would  destroy  its  present  value. 

President  Cooper  said  he  had  always  found  a 
decided  advantage  in  having  the  manure  under 
cover.  It  is  true  there  is  some  difficulty  occasionally 
from  fire-fang,  but  this  may  be  readily  checked  by 
frequently  spreading  the  manure. 

IlENRr  SniFKNER  Said  he  had  fed  136  head  of 
sheep  in  two  pens,  and  had  hauled  out  the  manure 
and  spread  it  upon  his  own  cornfield,  and  found  that 
the  dry  manure  was  much  better  than  that  which 
had  been  made  without  cover,  and  that  the  crop  was 
much  larger. 

Pkesiuent  Cooper  recommended  the  sinking  of 
a  vat  in  the  barnyard,  and  connecting  with  it  a  drain 
from  the  kitchen,  so  that  all  ofi'al  and  slops  would  be 
received  into  the  vat.  He  had  tried  the  plan  with 
excellent  results. 

The  Cattle  Disease. 
The  qcstion,  "  What  measures  should  be  taken  by 
farmers  to  prevent  the  spread  of  the  cattle  disease?" 
was  on  motion  of  Henry  Kurtz  postponed  for  discus- 
sion at  next  meeting. 

Referred  Questions. 

"  Does  it  pay  to  apply  salt  as  a  fertilizer  on  wheat 
grounds  in  the  fall?" 

I.  L.  L.iNDis,  to  whom  the  above  question  was  re- 
ferred, was  not  present,  but  sent  in  the  following, 
which  was  read  by  the  Secretary  : 

"  Does  it  pay  to  apply  salt  as  a  fertilizer  on  wheat 
ground  in  the  fall?"  was  a  question  referred  to  me  at 
your  last  regular  meeting.  From  personal  experi- 
ence I  know  nothing  of  the  subject,  never  having 
made  any  experiments  in  their  application,  except  on 
grass  wii  h  some  apparent  success.  Upon  inquiry  for 
information  it  seems  varied  success  has  attended 
others  who  have  tested  it— some  claiming  they  have 
increased  their  crops,  and  others  perceiving  no  differ- 
ence whatever  where  it  was  apjilied.  It  was,  how- 
ever, in  very  light  poor  soil,  that  no  effect  seemed 
apparent ;  in  better  soil  better  results  followed.  This 
is  a  very  proper  question,  however,  for  agricultural 
chemistry,  as  so  much  depends  on  the  properties  and 
ingredients  contained  in  the  soil  that  it  is  highly 
necessary  to  make  a  chemical  analysis  to  ascertain 
what  is  wanting  to  the  soil  to  increase  its  productive- 
ness and  supply  the  proper  food  for  the  plant.  Some 
other  members  may  have  made  experiments  of  which 
they  are  willing  to  give  this  society  the  results.  It 
seems  to  me  that  salt  applied  to  any  soil  under  any 
circumstances  would  only  serve  as  a  temporary 
stimulant,  and  then  leave  the  soil  poorer  than  before 
the  application,  having  pretty  much  the  same  effect 
as  benzine  or  whisky  has  on  a  toper,  which  makes 
him  happy,  hilarious  and  strong  while  he  is  under 
its  influence,  but  for  each  repetition  he  feels  worse 
and  weaker,  mentally  and  physically.  The  effects  of 
those  Virginia  fertilizers,  which  are  partially  salts, 
may  well  be  seen  on  the  lands  where  they  have  been 
so  long  applied  in  their  impoverished  condition  and 
sterility." 

Mr.  Linvili.e  had  very  little  faith  in  analysis  of 
the  soil.  It  was  supposed  to  be  of  great  importance 
a  few  years  ago,  but  was  now  looked  upon  as  being 
of  little  consequence.  He  did  not  agree  with  Mr. 
Landis  that  salt  was  a  mere  stimulus  ;  he  thought  it 


might  be  applied  with  advantage  under  certain  con- 
ditions and  in  proper  quantities. 

EpuRAiji  Hoover  had  always  looked  on  an  analy- 
sis of  the  soil  as  being  of  great  value,  and  had  held 
it  is  almost  as  necessary  for  a  farmer  to  be  a  practical 
chemist  and  understand  the  nature  of  his  soil,  and 
thus  be  able  to  select  the  fertilizer  best  adapted  to 
its  wants,  as  it  is  for  the  doctor  to  be  acquainted 
with  the  physical  infirmities  of  his  patient,  and  thus 
be  able  to  prescribe  for  his  ailments.  He  had  always 
supposed  that  the  practical  chemist,  having  a  know- 
ledge of  the  soil,  knew  how  to  treat  it ;  if  this  be  not 
so,  then  the  application  of  manure  must  be  made  at 
random  and  the  best  kind  found  out  by  experiment. 

Joseph  F.  Witmer  believed  agricultural  chemis- 
try to  be  of  great  account  to  the  farmer.  By  it  he 
could  learn  what  the  various  plants  fed  upon,  and 
what  kind  of  fertilizer  was  best  adapted  to  promote 
their  growth.  He  did  not  think  that  salt  should  be 
applied  to  wheat  in  the  fall  or  winter,  though  it 
might  do  some  good  in  the  spring. 

E.  K.  Hersiiet,  of  Manor,  said  that  one  of  his 
neighbors  had  in  the  fall  applied  salt  to  two  acres  of 
wheat ;  salt  and  manure  to  two  adjoining  acres,  and 
manure  alone  to  two  more  adjoining  acres.  Where 
the  salt  had  been  applied  the  wheat  had  grown  much 
more  vigorously  than  where  it  had  not  been  applied, 
the  straw  being  fully  three  inches  longer  than  the 
other. 

Henrt  M.  Engle  said  a  single  experiment  was 
not  a  sufficient  test  of  the  value  of  anything.  We 
may  apply  salt  on  some  occasions  and  under  certain 
conditions  with  good  results,  and  on  other  occasions 
and  conditions  of  the  soil,  with  bad  results.  A  good 
rule,  he  thought,  was  to  vary  the  fertilizers  from 
year  to  year. 

M.  D.  Kendig  had  applied  salt  to  his  wheat  with- 
out noticing  any  good  result.  He  had  used  400 
pounds  to  the  acre. 

John  C.  Linviele  wished  to  set  himself  right  on 
the  question  of  agricultural  chemistry.  He  did  not 
mean  to  say  that  he  had  no  faith  in  agricultural 
chemistry  ;  on  the  contrary,  he  had  great  faith  in  it, 
and  believed  in  making  a  careful  analysis  of  the 
fertilizers  used.  But  he  believed  that  no  practical 
good  would  result  from  the  analysis  of  a  shovel-full 
of  earth  taken  from  a  twenty-acre  field. 

C.  L.  Hdnsecker  had  high  authority  for  saying 
that  the  application  of  salt  to  wheat  was  in  some 
cases  beneficial  and  in  others  not.  Near  the  ocean 
it  may  do  more  harm  than  good,  as  the  ocean  vapors 
supply  sufficient  salt ;  but  far  in  the  interior  salt 
may  be  applied  with  advantage. 

Joseph  F.  Wither  had  known  corn  and  tobacco  to 
be  killed  by  the  application  of  salt. 

Henrt  M.  Engle  had  applied  salt  to  melon  seeds 
and  they  never  came  up. 

Levi  W.  Groff  had  freely  applied  salt  to  the 
Canada  thistle  and  killed  it. 

Casper  Hiller  had  no  doubt  that  salt  was  a 
manure,  but  judgment  must  he  used  in  applying  it. 
It  will,  of  course,  kill  the  plants  if  used  too  freely  ; 
so  will  any  other  kind  of  manure. 

Examination  of  Fruits. 

The  President  appointed  Messrs.  Ephra'm  Hoover, 
Henry  Erb  and  M.  D.  Kendig  as  a  committee  to  ex- 
amine and  report  upon  the  fruits  on  exhibition. 

Casper  Hiller  laid  before  the  society  some  very 
larger  persimmons,  and  stated  that  they  had  very 
few  seeds  in  them .  A  neighbor  of  his  had  grown 
them  for  years  without  any  seeds.  They  were  almost 
as  easily  grafted  as  the  apple,  and  if  any  of  the 
members  of  the  society  wanted  grafts  they  could 
have  them  by  sending  to  him. 

Medal    and  Diploma. 

The  President  laid  before  the  society  a  large  bronze 
medal    and   diploma,  awarded  the  society   for  fruits 
exhibited  at  the  Centennial   exhibition.     The  Libra- 
rian was  directed  to  have  the  diploma  framed. 
Business  for  Next  Meeting. 

"  What  is  the  best  method  of  destroying  bark  lice 
on  fruit  trees?"  Referred  for  answer  to  Prof.  S.  S. 
Kathvou. 

"  Does  it  pay  to  steam  feed  for  stock  ?"  For  gen- 
eral discussion. 

Groff's  Patent  Wheat  Cultivator. 

Frank  Sutton  exhibited  a  model  of  Levi  W. 
Groff's  new  grain  cultivator  and  explained  its  ad- 
vantages. 

A  Squash. 

Henrt  Kurtz  called  attention  to  an  immense 
squash  which  he  had  brought  with  him.  It  weighed 
132  pounds  and  measured  81}^  inches  in  circumfer- 
ence. It  was  grown  on  his  premises  on  a  vine  some 
thirty  feet  long,  and  was  the  only  squash  on  the 
vine.  He  had  applied  to  it  occasionally  liquid  manure 
from  the  barnyard.  He  presented  it  to  Prof.  S.  S. 
Kathvon. 

Prop.  Ratitvon  accepted  the  gift,  and  read  the 
following  paper  in  reply  : 

Mr.  H.  Kurtz — Mij  Dear  Sir:  In  designating  me 
as  the  subject  of  your  munificent  gift,  allow  me,  in 
my  humble  reception  of  it,  to  give  pome  expression 
of  my  sincere  gratitude  ;  not  so  much  from  consider- 
ations solely  personal  to    myself,  as  from  my   repre- 


sentative character  as  editor  of  a  local  journal,  which 
I  have   endeavored  to   make  a  refiex  of  the  agricul- 
tui-al  status  of  the  great  county  of  Lancaster.    With- 
out arrogating  to  myself  any  special  merit  for  what 
may  have  been  accomplished  in  that   behalf,  I  can- 
not but  feel   thankful   to  you  and  to  other  members 
of  this  society,  for  your  manifestations  of  apprecia- 
tive kindness,  and   the   disinterested   assistance  you 
Iiave  vouchsafed  me   on   various  occasions.      As  I 
intimated  on  former  occasions,  my  labor  as  editor  of 
The  Farmer  has  mainly  been  a   "  labor  of  love  ;" 
and   because  I  believed,  and  still  believe,  that  a  jour- 
nal   representing  the    agricultural   interest  of  our 
"garden  county,"  ought  to  be  morally,  intellectually 
and   financially   sustained  ;  at   the  same  time,  I   am 
not  independent  of,  nor  insensible  to,  the   sentiment, 
that  "  the   laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire."     Coupled 
with  your  local  approbation,  and  the  endorsement  of 
many   able  journals  from  abroad,  I   have  the  assur- 
ance that  The  Lancaster  Farmer  has  become  a 
factor  in  the  field  of  agricultural  literature,  which  is 
gradually  gaining  a  flattering  recognition  ;  and  this 
fact   stimulates  in  me  a   desire   for  Its   continuance, 
and  I  doubt  not  the  members  of  this  society  entertain 
the  same  desire.     Some  of  us  here   are   now  on  our 
downward  decade  towards  our  allotted  -'three-score 
years   and  ten" — if  some  of  us  have   not   already 
passed  that  Rubicon  of  life's  span — "  and  if  by  reason 
of  strength  they  should  be  four-score,"   "yet,"  ac- 
cording to  the  inspired  psalmist,  "  is   their  strength 
labor  and  sorrow  ;  for  it  is   soon  cut  off,  and   we  fly 
away  ;"  but,  if  we  can  recall  the  records  which  we 
have  made,  and   are   now  making  in   the  history  of 
our   lives,  without  remorse   of  conscience,  we   may 
entertain  some  feeling  of  assurance  that  we  have  not 
lived   entirely  in   vain.     If  we  can  transmit  to  our 
successors   a    live  organization,   and   a    flourishing 
journal,  devoted  to  the  development  of  the  agricul- 
tural resources  of  our  county  and  our  State,  we  shall 
benefit  society  more  than  he  who  founds  an  evanes- 
cent empire    that  perishes  when    the  power  that 
created   it  is  overswaj'ed.      Too  much   importance 
cannot   well   be   attached  to   agriculture,  too   much 
laudation  cannot  well  be   accorded  to  those  "who 
have  felled  the  sturdy  oak  and  guided   the  unwieldy 
plough  ;"  those  whom  "  mid-day  suns  have  browned 
their  complexions,  and  whose  hands,  by  rustic  toil, 
have  grown    callous   as    a  horn."      Ralph   Waldo 
Emerson  says  :  "  The  glory  of  the  farmer  is,  that  in 
the  division  of  labors,  it  is  his  part  to   create.    All 
trades   rest   at   least  on   his  primitive  activity.    He 
stands  close  to  nature  ;  he  obtains  from  the  earth  the 
bread  and  meat.     The  food  which  was  not,  his  co- 
operative  energies   causes  to  be.     The   first   farmer 
was  the  first  man,   and  all  historic   nobility  rests  on 
the  possession  and  use  of  land.     Men  do  not  usually 
like   hard  work,  but  every   man  has  an   exceptional 
respect  for  tillage,  and  a  feeling  that  this  is  the  only 
original  calling'of  the  race  ;  that  he  himself  is  only 
excused  from  it  by  some  circumstance   which  made 
him  delegate  It  to  other  hands.     If  he  has  not  some 
skill,  or  other  quality,  which  recommends  him  to  the 
farmer — some   product   for   which   the   farmer   will 
give  him  corn,  he  must  himself  return  unto  his  due 
place  among  the  planters.     And  the  profession  has 
in  all  eyes  its  ancient  charm,  as   standing  nearest  to 
Uod,  the  first  cause."    Not  that  farmers  are  neces- 
sarily without  the   failings  aid  imperfections  which 
are  the   common   heritage  of  humanity;  but  that 
their   function    is    fundamentally    the    basis    upon 
which  the  superstructure  of  society  securely  rests, 
and  from   whose   resources  all   our   most  essential 
physical  wants  are  anticipated  and  supplied. 

Why,  there  is  not  a  healthy  man  in  this  room, 
who,  within  three  hours  from  this  time,  will  not  be 
a  zealous  devotee  at  the  shrine  of  agricultural  pro- 
duction ;  and  whose  stomach  would  not  break  out 
"  in  growling  mutiny  and  bold  revolt  "  if,  on  cross- 
ing the  threshhold  of  his  domicil,  he  found  his  do- 
mestic altar  bare — he  could  compromise  with  his 
head,  his  feet, or  his  back,  but  not  with  his  stomach. 
That  restive  organ  periodically  demands  "the  full 
amount  or  forfeit  of  the  bond,"  and  happy  is  he,  in 
these  times  of  financial  reverse,  who  can  "enter 
satisfaction." 

As  an  appropriate  sequel  to  the  foregoing  senti- 
ments, allow  me  to  add  a  few  concluding  remarks, 
in  reference  to  the  historic,  scientific  and  domestic 
position  of  this  magnificent  subject  of  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  which  you  have  so  kindly  donated  to  the 
use  and  behoof  of  the  conductors  of  The  Lancas- 
ter Farmer.  This  royal  representative  of  the 
Cucurbitaoe^,  or  Gourd  famiiy — and  of  which 
there  are  several  genera,  many  species,  and  a  very 
large  number  of  varieties — is  said  to  be  a  native  of 
Persia,  and  was  introduced  into  England  prior  to  the 
introduction  of  the  cucumber  (In  the  reign  of  Henry 
VIII.)  and  is  the  vegetable  which  figured  in  the 
English  annals  of  agriculture,  of  that  period,  as  the 
"melon."  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  brought  over 
to  this  continent  by  the  Puritan  fathers,  and  has  al- 
ways occupied  a  prominent  position  in  the  festivities 
of  our  eastern  brethren,  and  especially  on  thanks- 
giving occasions.  The  problems  involving  genera, 
species,  and  varieties,  have  become  considerably 
"mixed  up,"  and  I  will  not  attempt  to  solve  them 
here,  but  may  do  so  in  a  special  article  in  some 
future  number  of  The  Farmer.    Its  generic  name 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


173 


|8  Ciifurhitn,  which  sonir  authorities  say  is  (iorivcd 
from  its  form,  hclns  a  resuml.laiicc  to  a  vessel,  of  a 
similar  name  ami  form,  used  by  chemists  In  their 
laboratories:  and  it  is,  probably,  a  variety  of  the 
Bpeeles  prp^irXhe  Latin  name,  of  a  "ifoiinl .  I  iinili- 
kin"  or  "punkin,"  are  eonsiilurcii  corruptions  ol 
i)0»t;<i<>«,  iwmpon,  or  pcpun,  which  have  their  root  in 
'  • iiv  thanks  to  vou,  sir,   for  your 


pcpo. 


Kcitin-ating 


ceii«ro"ss>''t.  a"'l  'o  """  ni»-"''»'i'8  "•"  *'''^  society  for 
their  patient  attention,  I  brinsr  my  remarks  to  a  close, 
with  my  best  wishes  for  the  prosperiiy  of  you  all. 
Great   Corn  Crop. 

V.  K.  WiTMKR  called  attention  to  the  immense 
corn  crop  raised  by  Hiram  Ksbeiishadc,  of  East  Lam- 
peter, his  Held  averaKinK  I—  bushels  to  the  acre. 

A  resolution  that  no  patent  article  be  exhibilea,  or 
Its  merits  discussed  before  the  society,  was  laid  on 
the  table. 

Report  of  Fruit  Committee. 

The  fruit  committee  made  the  following  report, 
which  was  adopted  :  ,        t        i 

Very  tine  specimen  of  Bellcilower  apples,  Joseph 
K.  Witmer,  of  I'arailise. 

Seven  varieties  of  apples,  and  also  some  very  flue 
specimens  of  potatoes  grown  in  three  and  a  half 
months,  ]-evi  W.  (irolf,  of  West  Earl  townshiii. 

Mu.  Smev',-11  exhibited  Northern  Spy,  a  tine  speci- 
men of  ajiplcs  of  fair  quality,  for  a  name,  (.'lairgeau 
(very  fine,)  another  pear  for  a  name,  and  loiia 
grapes.  ,  .  , 

Mk.  John  Hubbr,  of  Warwick,  specimen  of 
llovey  pear— CHtting  of  same  for  distribution. 

Jacob  B.  Gauber,  West  Hempticld,  Sweitzcr 
apple  (very  tine.)  ..,.,, 

Caspkk  llii.i.i;K,ofConestoKa  township,  exhibited 
a  very  line  speeimeu  of  persimmon,  introduced  by 
Mrs.  Kodgcrs,  of  Lancaster  city. 

An  apple  of  masnilicent  dimensions  and  appear- 
ance was  abso  shown  by  Garrett  H.  Everts,  of  East 
King  street,  on  whose  premises  it  grew.  The  tree 
bears  a  good  crop,  and  has  done  so  for  the  last  ten 
years  ■  less  this  year,  however,  than  formerly.  The 
owner  would  liKe  a  name  for  it.  The  family  call  it  a 
"  winter  rambo."  ' 

IsKAEL  L.  LxNDis  exhibited  fine  cliineapms  for 
distribution  among  members. 

.  Henkv  Kvktz,  of  Mount  Joy,  champion  squash, 

81J;'   inches  in  circumference   and   :iO  inches   high, 

weight  13;;  pounds.  „ 

Ephrai.m  S.Hoover, 

M.  D.  KENDtCi, 

Committee. 
Adjourned.       

TOBACCO   GROWERS'  ASSOCIATION. 


The  Lancaster  County  Tobacco  Growers'  .Vssocia- 
tion  met  in  the  rooms  of  the  Linna-an  Society,  this 
city,  on  Monday,  October  loth.  The  attendance  was 
not  so  large  as  usual,  nor  were  the  proceedings 
marked  with  as  much  si)irit  as  on  some  former  oc- 
casions. 

Members  Present. 

The  following  racmhers  and  visitors  were  present  ; 
M.  D.  Kendig, Manor,  President  ;  I.  L.  LaiidiP,Man- 
heim,  Secretary  pro  teiu  ;  Henry  Kurtz,  .Mount  Joy  ; 
Sylvciitcr  Kennedy,  Salisbury  ;  Henry  Shitl'ncr,  Upper 
Leacock  ;  W.  L.  Hershey,  East  Hcmpfield  ;  Stephen 
Grissinger,  Rapho:  A.  P.  Mcllvaine,  Salisbury;  J. 
M.  Johnston,  city;  John  L.  Landis,  Manor;  A.  H. 
Ycager,  East  Lampeter  ;  Ellwood  Gricst,  city;  John 
H.  Beiler,  East  Lampeter:  C.  L.  Huuseckcr,  Man- 
heim  ;  W.  D.  Hoar,  Salisbury  ;  A.  H.  Summy,  Man- 
helm  ;  Frank  K.  DitTeuderffer,  city;  Clare  Carpen- 
ter, city. 

The  reading  of  the  minutes  was  dispensed  with. 

Crop  Reports. 
Mr.  Kennedy,  of  Salisbury,  said  the  crop  in  his 
section  seemed  to  be  curing  satisf;ici(irily  and  would 
soon  be  ready  to  strip;  some  of  it  had  been  stripped  al- 
ready ;  the  weather  lately  had  been  very  favorable 
for  curing,  and  be  expected  the  crop  to  turn  out  un- 
usually well. 

Henry  KrtHTZ,  of  Mount  Joy,  said  the  tobacco 
generally  is  drying  nicely,  though  he  knows  of  some 
the  leaves  of  which  are  mouldy  from  live  to  eight 
inches.  This  bad  been  cut  iu  an  unfavorable  time 
and  hung  too  close.  As  a  general  thing  the  crop  is 
good  ;  some  of  it  is  reaily  for  stripping,  but  he  was 
not  in  favor  of  early  stripping. 

Mb.  W.  L.  Heksuey,  of  East  Ilcmptii-ld,  said  the 
tobacco  in  the  sheds  in  his  ncigliborhood  is  curing 
nicely,  and  some  of  it  has  been  already  stripped. 
There  is  still  on  hand  a  good  deal  of  last  year's  to- 
bacco. Some  local  buyers  have  recently  sold  outtheu- 
stock  at  satisfactorv  tiguree. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis,  of  Manheim,  knew  of  some 
local  buyers  who  had  disposed  of  their  stock  at  a 
good  advance.  He  agreed  with  what  had  been  said 
by  others  relative  to  the  new  crop. 

Stripping  Tobacco. 

The  question,  postponed  from  last  meeting,  "How 
long  after  stripping  should  tobacco  be  cased?"  was 
taken  up  for  discussion. 

Mb.  Sylvester  Kenmedt,  of  Salisbury,  said  be 


had  proposed  the  question  because  It  is  well  known 
that  it  is  miicli  easier  to  ease  tobacco  Immediately 
after  strippimr  than  to  defer  casing  it  until  sometlinc 
afterwards,  but  Is  it  as  safe  *  Is  the  tobacco  not  more 
liatilc  to  mould  ;  If  It  can  bo  cased  with  safely  a 
great  deal  of  lalmr  might  be  saved  by  doing  it  at 
once.  He  thought  It  might  be  well  to  ca«t  it  at  once 
—not  for  the  purimse  of  selling  and  sending  it 
away— but  to  keep  It  in  the  liest  possible  condition. 
He  wouhl  like  to  hear  what  more  experienced  tobacco 
growers  thought  of  it. 

Mu.  A.  H.  Yeaobk,  of  East  Lampeter,  thought  if 
the  tobacco  was  permitteil  to  hang  until  it  had  dried 
suIMcicntly  It  might  safely  be  eased  as  soon  as 
stripped. 

Ml!.  Henry  Siiiffner,  of  Upper  Leacock,  said 
whenever  tobacco  Is  ready  to  strip  it  is  ready  to  case. 
In  answer  to  a  question,  he  said  when  the  stem  is 
green  it  is  not  tit  to  case,  nor  is  it  lit  to  strip. 

.Mu.  Kennedy  thought  that  If  the  leaf  was  dry 
enough  to  break,  it  might  be  stripped  even  if  the 
buts  were  green.  There  was  an  impression  among 
tobacco  men  that  tobacco  was  lighter  in  weight  im- 
mediately after  drying  than  it  was  a  month  or  two 
afterwards.  He  w<iuld  like  to  know  if  this  were  so, 
and  whether  there  would  be  increased  weight  by 
letting  it  hang.  g^^ 

Mr  Kt'RTZ  said  it  would  not  increase  mlPight  by 
hanging.  He  agreed  with  those  who  said  that  if  it 
was"iiol  lit  to  case  it  was  not  lit  to  strip.  But  far- 
mers pressed  for  time  might  strip  when  the  stock  is 
green  and  bale  the  tobacco  and  rank  it  with  the  huts 
outward.  In  this  way  it  will  dry  rapidly  and  so(]n 
be  tit  for  casing.  Tobacco  after  being  stripped  will 
gain  in  weight  aud  sweat  better  if  placed  In  deep 
cellars. 

Mr.  I.  L.  Landis  said  the  question  was  a  very 
important  one,  and  now  is  the  time  to  discuss  it. 
Wc  should  get  all  the  information  we  can  and  make 
the  best  use  of  it.  He  hoped  members  would  not  be 
backward  in  expressing  their  views. 

Mr.  Kurtz  said  that  owing  to  the  warm  weather 
we  have  had  the  tobacco  is  curing  earlier  this  year 
than  ill  former  years.  While  much  of  it  appears  to 
be  lit  to  strip,  he  thought  it  would  be  better  to  let  it 
hang  until  the  weather  gets  cold.  If  stripped  and 
ranked  in  warm  weather  it  will  sweat,  and  dealers 
will  not  pay  much  for  it. 

Mu.  Kennedy  said  "  wc  must  make  hay  while 
the  sun  shines."  It  is  only  once  in  a  while  that  the 
weather  is  fit  for  stripping  tobacco.  It  is  therefore 
necessary  to  make  good  use  of  proper  weather,  even 
if  the  steins  are  a  little  green.  They  can  be  dried  in 
the  bales  as  suggested  by  .Mr.  Kurtz. 

On  motion  the  subject  was  again  postponed  for 
discussion  at  next  meeting. 

New   Members. 
Messrs.  Stephen   Grissinger,  of  Rapho,  and  A.  P. 
Mcllvaine,  of  Salisbury,  were  elected  members  of  the 
society. 

Referred  Questions. 
"  What  proportion  or  per  cent,  of  a   farm   can  be 
planted  in  tobacco  and  keep  up  the  farm  in  good 
condition?"  ,        ,  „      . 

This  ([uestion,  which  had  been  referred  to  Presi- 
dent Kendig,  was  answered  in  a  brief  paper  wliich  he 
read,  the  purport  being  that  while  much  deiicndcd 
on  the  character  of  the  soil,  an  average  of  eight  or 
ten  per  cent,  of  a  Lancaster  county  farm  might  be 
put  into  tobacco  without  exhausting  the  soil. 

"Into  how  many  grades  should  tobacco  be  stripped 
to  make  it  most  marketable  ;" 

Mu.  Kurtz  said  he  never  made  more  than  two 
„,.aile6— wrappers   and  fillers- and   he   thought    he 


sold  to  as  good  advantage  as  his  neighbors,  who  made 
three  or  tour  grades.  It  might  be  well  for  those  who 
have  indilTercnt  or  uneven  crops  to  make  several 
grades,  and  give  their  crops  as  good  an  appearance 
as  possilile,  but  two  was  enough  for  him.    ' 

MR.SuiFFNERsaid  the  number  of  grade9  desirable 
depended  on  the  condition  of  the  crop.  If  a  crop  is 
first-rate  two  grades  may  be  enough,  but  it  is  often 
well  to  make  three  or  more.  It  should  be  assorted 
into  as  many  grades  as  there  are  varieties  of  leaves. 
He  assorts  his  crop  very  carefully,  not  only  as  to 
quality,  but  as  to  length  and  color  also.  Soincliody 
must  make  a  thorough  assortment  of  the  leaf,  and 
the  farmer,  if  he  knows  how,  had  belter  do  it  than 
have  the  purchaser  to  do  it.  We  should  at  all  times 
be  ready  for  a  buvcr,  and  if  our  tobacco  is  well  as- 
sorted the  purcluiser  can  see  at  a  glance  what  we 
have  for  sale.  The  assorting  should  be  done  so  con- 
scientiously that  any  hand  taken  at  random  will  be 
a  fair  samiilc  of  the  grade  from  which  it  Is  taken. 

President  Kendu;  agreed  with  Mr.  Shillner. 
He  believed  that  iu  assorted  tobacco  leaves  of  iliffer- 
cnt  length,  shade  and  quality  should  be  laid  in  dif- 
ferent "piles,  and  that  every  hand  should  contain 
leaves  of  the  same  length,  shade  and  quality.  II 
there  be  leaves  of  the  same  length  but  of  dilTcrent 
quality,  make  separate  hands  of  them  :  and  If  there 
be  leaves  of  the  same  quality  but  of  ditrerent  length 
make  separate  hands  of  them  also.  Then  the  buyer 
can  see  at  a  glance  what  he  is  getting,  and  even  if 
the  crop  is  a  bad  one   it  will  look   all  the  belter  by 


Shlffner  and  Kendig.  What  the  grower  leaves  un- 
done In  this  respect  the  dealers  have  to  pay  fordoing. 
They  want  grades  to  treble  A,  double  A,  and  single 
A,  aud  they  will  pay  more  for  tobacco  thus  assorted 
than  for  that  which  they  have  to.  assort  themselves. 
There  is  a  wide  margin  between  the  extremes  of 
jirlces,  and  the  careful  grower,  availing  himself  of 
the  knowledge  of  this  fact,  will  place  his  Itibacco  in 
the  best  marketable  sliape,  and  reap  the  advantage 
of  doing  so. 

Phesiiiknt  Kbndio  suggcetcd  that  the  standard 
of  grades  In  vogue  among  packers  might  prolltably 
be  adopted  by  growers. 

A  Visiting  Committee. 
Mr.  Hknrv  SiiiFFNER  moved  the  appointment 
by  the  President  of  a  committee  of  live  members, 
whose  duly  it  should  be  to  visit  and  examine  the 
farms  of  some  of  the  i)rlnclpal  tobacco  growers  ;  as- 
certain their  inodeof  culllvatlng  and  curing  tobacco; 
examine  the  sheds,  the  ino<le  of  hanging,  the  size 
and  quality  of  the  leaf,  ainl  gather  other  interesting 
facts  and  report  to  the  society. 

M«.  Landis  thought  much  good  would  result 
from  the  labors  of  such  a  committee,  if  It  faithfully 
performed  its  dutv.  He  heartily  favored  the  motion. 
.Mebprs.  Kurtz  and  IIkusii'ev  also  favored  the 
appointment  of  the  committee,  and  a  thorough  re- 
port from  thcin. 

Mu.  Siiifener'b  motion  was  agreed  to,  and  the 
following  committee  ap|ioiiHed  :  Henry  Shlfliier,  Up- 
per Leacock:  Henry  Kurtz,  Mount  Joy;  Henry 
Myers,  East  Hem|ifleUl ;  Sylvester  Kennedy,  Salis- 
bury ;  Jacob  M.  Fruntz,  Lancaster  Iwp. 

More  About  Stripping   Tobbacco. 

The  queston  of  stripping  tobacco  was  resumed. 

Mu.  A.  H.  Yeauer  did  not  favor  early  stripping  ; 

he  had  last  year  stripped  a  part  of  his  crop  early,  and 

after  it  had  sweat  he  noticed  that  the  leaf  was  very 

tender. 

.Mr.  Kurtz  said  it  Is  reasonable  to  expect  tobacco 
to  sweat  if  stripped  when  the  weather  Is  warm,  and 
if  it  sweats  it  frequently  spoils.  There  uee<l  be  no 
hurry  in  getting  it  off  the  [joh-s  ;  the  buyers  are  not 
really  for  it  yet  ;  let  it  hang  until  cold  weather  sets 
in.     He  made  reference  to  some   experiments   made 

l,y  !\i,.. ,  of  York,  who  had  sown  the  seed 

oi"  Cuba  tobacco  some  years  ago  and  raised  the  first 
year,  leaves  about  8  inches  in  length.  By  careful  cul- 
livation,  from  j'car  to  year,  he  hail  increased  the  size 
of  the  leaves  to  36  inches  in  length.  The  tobacco  Is 
very  line  and  silky,  but  not  so  dark  in  color  as  our 
Lancaster  tobacco. 

President  Kendio  would  not  strip  his  tobacco 
early  enough  to  cause  it  to  sweat.  He  thought  a 
good  test  to  determine  when  it  was  dry  enough  to 
strip,  is  when  the  leaf,  at  its  junction  with  the  stalk, 
is  dry  and  breaks  off  easily. 

Mr.  Hershey  said  a  good  test  was  not  to  strip  at 
all  until  the  ground  has  been  well  frozen. 

Mr.  SniFFNER  said  if  it  has  been  cut  off  early  it 
may  be  stripped  in  November.  It  won't  sweat  after 
that  time. 

Mr.  Kennedy  said  that  last  winter  there  were 
only  a  few  days  in  which  the  weather  was  tit  to  strip 
tobacco.  If  we  put  it  off  until  the  ground  is  frozen 
we  may  not  have  an  opportunity  to  si  rip  It  till  spring, 
and  then  it  will  not  be  reaily  for  the  buyers  when 
they  come  round.  He  would  strip  early  if  the 
weather  were  favorable. 

Pay  Up. 
The    President  suggested  that  this  being  the  be- 
ginning of  the  society  year,  it  would  be  a  good  time 
tor  meinbers  to  pay  their  dues,  as  the   treasury   was 
badly  in  need  of  funds. 

A  iiumberof  members  "stepped  up  to  the  captain  6 
office"  and  settled. 

FaH  P. owing, 
Mr.  W.  L.  IIeusiiev  propounded  the  following 
question  for  discussion  at  next  meeting  : 
"Is  fall  plowing  .idvisable  for  tobacco?" 
There  being  no   further  business  the  society  ad- 
journed. 


THE    LINN.ffi;AN  SOCIETY. 


bein-  properly  assorted.  lit,  of  Hentz,  a  pair  of  thousand  legs, fuv-iafia  for- 

Mb.  I.   L.  Lanuis  agreed  entirely  with  Messrs.  [  ceps ;  young  of  the  17-year  locust,  tuada  beptein 


A  stated  meeting  of  the  LiniKcan  Society  was  held 
Saturday,  October  L7th,  1877,  President,  J.  S.  Stahr, 
In  the  chair.  After  the  oi)enlng  dul  les  were  attended 
to,  the  additions  to  the  museum  were  examined,  and 
consisted  of  a  fine  mounted  lish  hawk,  (Osprcy) 
VainlioH  cavoUneimn,  shot  on  the  second  of  this 
month  by  Mr.  Brubakcr,  of  Lampeter  township.  A 
flue  mounted  paroquet,  or  parakeet,  from  the  West 
Indies,  TrUliogloxsHK  piikUIhs,  from  J.  -M.  West- 
haefVer.  A  large  sized  mounted  gar  pike,  Lcpiilonleim 
o«sf  K.S  taken  below  I'ort  Ue|)Oslt,  SuBquehanna  river, 
brought  to  this  city  by  Joseph  Baer  and  mounted  by 
George  Flick  ;  specimens  In  alcohol.  .\  large-sized 
grasshopper,  ,4<:/ii/iwi'i  Aiiiciie<tiiiim.  The  "  wheel- 
bug,"  Hvdurinx  iioiviiariiin,  jier  J.  M.  Wcsthaclfer. 
Snout  beetle,  Liinx  concai'i/n,  egg  of  the  garden  slug, 
..r  snail,  \kt  Professor  Dubbs.  The  "  »  alking-slick 
insect,"  Speclvim  or  lately  called  Diaphoniira. 
of  those  large,  pretty  yellow  spiders,  (Jbi'/ioua  r/r, 


One 

acil- 


174 


THE  LANCASTER  .FARMER. 


[  November, 


dicem  that  has  harbored  in  the  soil  of  a  larf;c  box, 
containing  an  ablution,  undisturbed  since  1858,  on 
the  premises  of  George  Hensel.''  Eggs  of  the  snail  or 
slug  {Limax,)  found  like  brilliant  pearls  strung  to- 
gether, under  a  flower-pot  by  Mrs.  S.  D.  Sprecher. 
One  would  hardly  suspect  that  these'naked  molluscs, 
so  unwelcome  for  their  slimy  tracks,  would  hatch 
from  such  a  perfectly  clear,  oval  shape. 

To  the  historical  collection  were  added  seven  cop- 
per coins  by  Mr.  Henry  Eekert,  Jr.,  several  rare 
coins  of  1799,  with  the  words  "100  to  the  dollar" 
around  the  edge.  Nine  envelopes,  containing  ninety- 
two  articles,  cut  from  the  current  papers,  in  relation 
to  local  history,  per  S.  S.  Kathvon,  who  also  had 
several  flowers  and  leaves  of  the  "while  thorn  apple," 
grown  on  his  premises. 

Additions  to  the  library  :  The  Lanc.vster  Farmer 
for  October,  1877;  No.  10  of  TIte  American  Journal 
of  Microscopy  ami  Pojxdar  Science,  New  York,  Oc- 
tober, 1877;  several  book  circulars.  Papers  were  read 
by  S.  S.  Rathvon:  Ornothological,  No.  .57.5,  giving 
facts  respecting  the  "iish-hawk,"  that  for  some  years 
past  has  acted  the  "chicken-hawk"  on  Mr.  Bru- 
baker's  poultry,  but  only  on  the  second  of  this  month 
could  he  succeed  in  getting  a  shot  at  this  wide-awake 
hawk.  Reference  was  also  made  to  a  common  crow, 
Corvus  Anuricanus,  observed  by  our  former  Presi- 
dent, H.  Bruckart,  deceased,  to  seize  and  carry  oU' 
some  early  spring  chickens  from  his  premises.  This 
is  a  deviation,  but  itr  seems  there  are  thieves  and  rob- 
bers among  birds  of  otherwise  good  character. 

Judge  Llbbart  stated  that  he  witnessed  our  com- 
mon "catbird,"  MiiiiHn  CaroHneitaifi,  taking  out  the 
young  birds  from  the  nest  of  a  "chipping  sparrow," 
SpizcHa  socialix,  and  deliberately  brain  one  after  the 
other  with  its  beak,  and  drop  them  to  the  ground. 
Mr.  Libhart  could  not  believe  that  such  could  be  the 
case,  uutil  he  actually  went  and  found  that  it  was  the 
young  birds  he  saw  drop  and  not  fruit,  as  he  at  first  sup- 
posed. Cruel  cat  bird  that,  a  touch  of  the  butcher  bird. 
Ichtheology. 

A  paper — No.  576 — in  relation  to  the  history  of  the 
gar-pike,  was  read.  J.  Staufl'er  had  a  paper  illus- 
trating the  cermatia,  walking  stick,  j'cllow  spider, 
etc.,  deposited  by  him,  with  notes  and  observations, 
paper  No.  .577. 

Mr.  Rathvon  read  a  paper,  No.  579,  in  relation  to 
the  whitethorn  apple  plant,  named  according  to  a 
gardener's  botany,  "  Balnra  Kniijhtii,"  by  Mr. 
Zimmerman.  A  variety  of  what  are  commonly 
known  as  the  "  Brugmansia."  The  names  of  plants, 
like  those  of  apples,  are  beginning  to  be  very  much 
mixed  up  in  certain  groups,  and  the  botanist  is  slow 
to  accept  new  names,  because  of  a  sli.ght  and  perhaps 
variable  diflerenee. 

S.  M.  Sener  called  attention  to  the  loss  of  this 
society  in  the  death  of  Frederick  Smith,  whereupon 
the  following  preamble  and  resolution  were  unani- 
mously adopted — viz  : 

It  having  pleased  God — since  the  last  stated  meet- 
ing of  this  society — to  remove  our  late  fellow-mem-" 
ber,  Frederick  Smith,  from  the  world  of  physical 
being,  to,  we  hope,  a  higher  and  a  purer  realm,  we 
his  survivors  and  iormer  associates,  while  we  would 
express  our  submission  to  the  Divine  Will,  would 
also  give  expression  to  our  appreciation  of  his  many 
virtues,  of  the  interest  he  always  manifested  in  the 
welfare  of  this  society,  and  our  sorrow  that  the  bonds 
of  earthly  association  have  been  severed,  and  we 
shall  behold  him  amongst  us  no  more. 

Mr.  Smith  was  one  of  the  earlier  members  of  tlie 
Liuuaean  Society, a  liberal  contributor  to  its  museum, 
an  active  participant  in  its  scientitic  excursions,  and 
we  shall  always  recall  those  old  memories  and  his 
amiable  qualities  with  becoming  pleasure,  although 
mingled  with  that  sadness  which  is  inseparable  from 
natural  aft'ection.    Therefore, 

Jicsolved,  That,  deeply  sympathizing  with  the  fami- 
ly and  friends  of  the  deceased  in  their  bereavement, 
the  foregoing  be  placed  on  record  and  be  published, 
with  the  proceedings  of  this  meeting,  as  an  expression 
of  the  sentiment  of  this  societj' — a  testimonial  of 
our  personal  regard  for  a  departed  fellow-member. 

Mr.  Rathvon  having  paid  for  mounting  the  hawk, 
paraquet  and  gar-pike,  §4.40,  on  motion  said  bill  be 
paid  by  the  society,  agreed  to.  A  box  of  fossils,  con- 
taining thirty  varieties  separately  enveloped  and 
named  was  submitted  for  inspection.  These  were 
sent  to  \Vm.  L.  Gill  by  Prof.  S.  K.  Ridenow,  No.  1-56 
Linn  street,  Cincinnati,  Ohio,  for  exchange.  The  col- 
lection is  highly  desirable,  as  it  contains  several  rare 
and  valuable  specimens.  On  motion,  the  chair  ap- 
pointed S.  S.  Rathvon,  S.  M.  Sener  and  J.  Stautl'er,a 
committee  to  see  what  duplicates  we  have  and  enter 
into  correspondence  with  the  professor  on  the  subject. 
Interesting  remarks  on  the  distribution  of  fossils  and 
the  geological  periods  were  made.  After  spending  a 
profitable  session  the  society  adjourned  to  a  special 
meeting  Friday,  November  9,  and  the  stated  meeting- 
November  34. 


Fodder  CROr.s. — Now  is  the  time  to  think  of  fod- 
der crops  for  next  year.  The  first  ready  to  cut  in 
the  spring  is  rye  sown  now,  and  at  intervals  up  to 
November.  I  have  found  a  few  acres  of  fall-sown 
rye,  in  a  field  near  the  barn-yard,  avcry  valuable  and 
acceptable  addition  the  fodder  in  April,  when  incom- 
ing cows  need  succulent  food  to  enable  them  to  fill 
the  brimming  paU. 


THE  TOBACCO  TRADE. 


Something  About  Buying  ; 877  Tobacco  at  this 
Early  Period. 

Alreadj*we  hear  of  purchases  of  '77  crops  in  all 
tob.acco  regions.  Within  a  few  weeks  from  now  the 
tobaceo-gron-ing  country  will,  no  doubt,  be  swarming 
with  buyers,  and  the  farmer  will,  most  likely,  ask 
about  as  liigh  a  price  for  Ids  tobacco  as  the  eagerness 
of  the  prospective  buyer  warrants. 

The  general  oiiinion  among  our  dealers  at  present 
is  :  "It  is  wrong  for  people  to  rush  into  the  country 
to  buy  tobacco  at  this  time  of  the  .year,  for  it  makes 
farmers  demand  too  high  figures.  The  papers  should 
advise  dealers  not  to  be  in  such  a  hurry  to  purchase 
the  '77  crops."  Candidly  speaking,  we  cannot  see 
anything  very  wrong  about  it.  Business  is  good,  '7C 
tobaccos  are  safe,  and  money  will  be  made  on  them. 
Why,  then,  should  the  enterprising  dealer  wait  and 
not  go  out  now  and  buy  tobacco?  It  is  rather  risky,  of 
course,  but  first  come  first  served.  And,  furthermore, 
the  mah^notive  of  this  exodus  of  buyers  for  the  to- 
bacco i^M^s  at  such  an  early  day  is  the  great  com- 
petitioi^^^ 

Almost  everybody  likes  to  wait,  and  force  farmers 
to  hold  on  to  their  tobacco,  so  as  to  make  them  ask 
as  little  as  possible  for  it.  But  there  is  the  competi- 
tor who  doesn't  care  to  wait, who  is  anxious  tojsecure 
the  best  crops,  and  leaves  the  city  as  quietly  as  pos- 
sible. Others,  however,  hear  of  it,  and  out  they  go, 
too.  Thus  the  race  commences,  and  the  growers 
reap  the  benefit. 

Nobody  can  counsel  either  farmers  or  tobacco 
dealers  in  this  respect.  Demand  makes  the  price, 
and  demand  and  prospective  business,  combined  with 
the  usual  amount  of  jealousy  in  business,  induces 
the  dealer  to  go  to  buy  his  tobacco  as  early  as  possi- 
ble, and  at  as  low  figures  as  he  can  get  it.  And, 
then,  packing  tobacco  is  greatly  a  chance  business, 
and  speculators  always  have  their  own  theories  ;  if 
they  hadn't  they  couldn't  be  speculators. —  U.  N. 
Tobacco  Journal. 


The  German  Tobacco   Trade. 

The  Pali  Mall  Gazette  of  July  35  says  ;  Bremen 
continues  to  be  by  far  the  most  important  among  the 
German  foreign  tobacco  markets,  the  importations 
to  that  port  being  about  three  times  as  extensive  as, 
for  instance,  to  Hamburg.  Notwithstanding,  how- 
ever, that  the  aggregate  importations  of  tobacco  to 
this  and  all  other  ports  of  Germany,  added  to  the 
quantities  imported  through  other  channels  to  the 
German  Customs  unions  are  very  considerable,  it 
is,  as  pointed  out  by  Consul  Ward  in  his  trade 
report  on  Bremen  for  the  past  year,  a  fact 
worthy  of  notice  that  the  quantities  of  tobacco 
annually  exported  from  Germany  far  exceed 
the  foreign  importations.  Taking  into  con- 
sideration that  the  annual  consumption  of  to- 
bacco in  that  country  is  very  considerable,  the 
fact  mentioned  offers  some  idea  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  German  tobacco  industry  and  production. 
The  aggregate  area  of  land  cultivated  with  tobacco 
in  the  Empire  or  June  SO,  ls75,  is  stated  to  have 
been  about  .54,000  English  acres,  seven-tenths  of 
which  should  be  apportioned  among  the  Southern 
States — namely,  Bavaria,  Wurlemburg,  Baden,  Al- 
sace-Lorraine, and  a  part  of  Hesse-Darmstadt;  while 
the  remaining  three-tenths  are  situated  chiefly  in  the 
Prussian  provinces  of  Brandenburg  and  Pomerania. 
The  aggregate  average  of  Gei'many  tobacco  produced 
in  one  year  may  be  estimated  at  about  £9,000,000. 


The  New  York  Tobacco  Market. 

The  U.  S.  Tobacco  Journal  says  :  The  very  flatter- 
ing exhibit  of  weekly  sales  that  we  have  been  en- 
abled to  make  during  the  past  month,  receives  an- 
other addition  by  our  to-day's  retrosiiect  on  last 
week's  business.  But  what  especially  distinguished 
the  past  week  from  many  predecessors,  is  that  out- 
side of  155  cases  Ohio,  every  other  lot  sold  (number- 
ing in  all  3,o80  cases,)  was  taken  principally  by 
manufacturers  ;  another  noteworthy  lact  in  coiuiec- 
tion  with  this  summing  up  is  that,  suddenly,  1876 
Pennsylvania,  which,  since  the  opening  of  the  season 
remained  conspicuously  neglected,  assumed  the  lead- 
ership in  the  market,  and  figured  among  the  sales, 
mostly  to  manufacturers,  with  l,-'.57  cases,  at  prices 
ranging  as  follows  :  "r^  and  8  cents  for  tillers ;  12 
and  15  for  low  running;  18,  21,  22  and  24  cents  for 
medium  and  wrappcry  lots.  The  above  showing 
must  be  gratifying  to  holders  of  1876  Pennsylvau'a, 
as  with  the  purchases  of  this  stock  by  manufacturers 
at  this  early  period,  the  prospects  for  a  realization  of 
good  profits  on  the  investment  become  very  flattering. 

The  Tobacco  Leaf  foots  up  the  sales  of  seed  leaf 
during  the  past  week  of  2,087  cases  of  which  .5.50 
were  Connecticut,  200  Massachuse-ts,  lOllNew  York, 
and  1,000  eases  Pennsylvania.  Prices  for  '7<i  Penn- 
sylvania were  :  fillers,  0?.{  cents;  assorted  lots,  low 
grades,  14(5(16  cents  ;  better  lots,  18@21  cents  ;  prin- 
cipally for  home  manufacture. 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Good  Farming. 

We  don't  think  any  of  our  Lebanon  county  farmers 
would  say  that  they  bad  ever  a  more  enjoyable  day 
they  would  accord  to  one  given  to  visiting  the  mag- 
magnificent  farms  of  .Jas.Young,esq.,at  Middletowri. 
We  doubt  whether  there  is  another  such  specimen  of 
high  culture,  of  such  an  excellent  judgment,  of  such 
perfect  accomplishments  in  the  way  of  farming, to  be 
found  in  the  United  States  One  of  the  English 
Commissioners  to  our  Centennial  Exhibition,  last 
summer,  went  to  see  these  farms.  He  is  a  gentle- 
man who  has  been  prominently  identified  with  agri- 
culture in  England,  and  he  was  so  much  delighted 
with  what  he  saw  that  he  has  spoken  and  written  of 
its  perfection  since  his  return  to  his  own  country, 
where  they  think  they  have  .given  the  best  illustra- 
tions of  good  farming  to  be  found  in  the  world's 
history. 

Mr.  Young's  farms  contain  1,230  acres,  divided 
into  nine  farms,  with  elegant  sets  of  buildings  on 
each  tract.  They  are,  however,  farmed  as  an  aggre- 
gated whole,  under  the  direct  supervision  of  Mr. 
Young,  assisted  by  his  two  sons,  and  Mr.  Dawson 
McKorkle,  formerly  of  Lebanon  county.  There  are 
a  great  many  hands  constantly  employed  in  im- 
proving and  in  doing  the  necessary  everyday  work. 
Wherever  there  are  stones  on  the  surface  they  are 
taken  and  utilized  in  building  fences  or  walling  up 
ditches.  No  wet,  spi'outy  land  is  permitted  to  exist 
to  oflend  the  eye  and  lessen  the  crops.  Twenty-flve 
miles  of  drain  have  been  put  down.  Muck  is  hauled 
from  where  it  has  gathered  in  large  deposits  through 
the  centuries,  to  other  parts  of  the  land  where  "it 
will  do  the  most  good." 

Some  locations  are  graded  and  others  filled  up. 
The  fences  are  made  of  locust  posts  and  pine  rails, 
the  whole  of  which  are  whitewashed  once  a  year. 
The  Ijuildings  are  not  permitted  to  grow  rusty  for 
want  of  paint,  but  all  wear  that  freshness  which 
attention  in  that  direction  assures,  while  they  em- 
brace convenience  for  the  workers  and  comforts  for 
the  animals.  The  hogs  have  cottages  for  their 
homes,  while  the  chickens  crow  .and  cackle  in  domi- 
ciles that  have  every  provision  to  secure  their  comfort 
and  excite  their  pride.  Herds  of  clean-limbed,  smaU- 
headed,  deer-eyed  Alderneys  chew  their  cud  in 'j 
delightful  rumination  in  stalls  cleaner  than  some  j 
peo])le's  houses,  with  straw  up  to  their  knees  to  rest  ' 
in  when  they  mav  choose  to  indulge  in  a  siesta. 
There  are  great  boilers  to  prepare  the  feed  for  the 
animals,  and  all  kinds  of  farming  implements  to  help 
on  labor.  Fields  containing  seventy  or  eighty  acres 
are  richly  set  with  grass,  or  show  the  wheat  just 
sprouting  from  a  soil  as  smooth  as  a  garden,  or  are 
sprinkled  with  shocks  of  corn  that  will  husk  sixty  or 
seventy  bushels  to  the  acre.  And  how  all  these 
things  ius))ire  one  with  an  ambition  to  be  a  good 
farmer!  How  they  testify  to  the  possibility  for  a 
true  and  noble  enjoyment  in  a  farmer's  life ! — 
Lebanon  Courier. 


England's  Imports. 

So  far  during  the  present  year,  England  has  im- 
ported §115,000,000  worth  of  wheat  froin  alhiuarters, 
being  already  -?25, 000,000  more  than  she  imported 
during  the  entire  year  of  1876.  It  was  thought  on 
all  luinds  that  the  Uinted  Slates  would  supply  her 
with  an  increased  amount  over  former  years,  but, 
strangely  enough,  our  exports  so  far  are  .32,000,000 
busliels  less  than  during  the  same  period  last  vervr. 
This  fact  may  be  accounted  for  in  several  ways. 
Russia,  India  and  Egypt  have  all  been  stimulated  by 
their  financial  necessities  to  export  unusual  quantities 
of  grain,  and  it  is  from  these  countries  that  the  large 
imports  into  England  h.ave  come.  Then  too  the  ex- 
port of  our  recent  abundant  crops  has  just  set  in, 
and  during  the  next  six  months  our  exportations  of 
grain  will  be  largely  increased.  Our  grain  dealers 
have  been  holding  back  in  expectation  of  better 
prices,  but  the  fact  that  two  weeks  ago  700,000 
bushels  of  wheat  were  sent  from  the  port  of  New 
York  in  a  single  day,  shows  that  the  trade  has  be- 
come fully  active,  and  from  this  time  forward  we  j 
may  expect  to  hear  that  the  volume  of  our  grain  j 
exportations  will  grow  rapidly. 

Lancaster  County  Centennial  Cotton. 

Mr.   Joseph   Harper,   near   Pleasant   Hill   school, 
West  Donegal  township,  has  growing  in 'his  garden  , 
half  a  dozen  cotton  plants  which  are  attracting  much  1 
attention  from   those   persons  who  have   never  seen  j 
cotton  except  in  cotton  goods.  \ 

Mr.  Harper  has  been  an  invalid  for  a  number  of 
years,  and  was  therefore  unable  to  attend  the  Cen- 
tennial exhibition  last  summer  and  see  the  wonders 
of  the  world.  So  he  rc(iuested  his  friend,  S.  E.  ji 
Ream,  to  bring  him  some  cotton  seed.  Tlie  request 
was  fulfilled.  He  planted  the  seed  and  his  heart  was 
made  glad  the  other  day  by  several  large  pods  burst- 
ing open  and  showing  the  soft,  snow-white  downy 
substance,  somewhat  like  wool,  which  they  contained. 
Sever,al  of  the  pods  were  handed  to  the  tciieherof 
the  school,  who  gave  quite  an  interesting  and  instruc- 
tive object  lesson  on  them  to  his  school. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


175 


HORTICULTURAL. 

A  Root  Cellar  or  House. 

Ill  buildiiiK  a  baiii  a  good  laiRe  root  cellar  should 
be  built  under  it.  But  wlierc  no  such  cellar  exists, 
one  eaii  be  made  at  a  small  cost.  Suppose  your  barij 
Is  near  a  liill  facing  the  East  or  the  Soiitli.  It  would 
be  very  easy  to  dig  out  a  cellar  on  the  side  ol  the 
hill,  then  walliiiK  it  up,  and  plaeini;-  some 
timbers  across  the  top,  upon  whieli  lilaee  cheap  two 
Inch  pine,  chestnut,  or  otiier  durable  planks  lo  sii|)- 
iKirl  tlic  earth  roof.  The  door  should  ho  thiclv,  and 
made  to  shut  very  tiijht;  and  then  no  frost  \vould 
enter  such  a  cellar,  unless  in  a  very  cold  climate, 
\yhere  t\yo  doors  would  be  necessary.  It  no  such 
side  hill  exists  near  your  barn,  a  root  house  can  he 
built  on  level  ground.  If  you  can  dig  down  two  or 
three  feet,  and  can  drain  tlic  house  by  laying  drain 
pipe  so  mueli  the  better.  In  this  case  you  go  down 
say  two  feet,  lay  your  walls  and  hank  four  lect  out- 
side all  around  excepting  wliere  the  door  is  to  go. 
rut  a  double  pitch  roof  on  it,  shingled,  and  across 
the  plates  lay  joists  to  support  a  lloor.  In  the  gable 
end,  over  the  dooj-,  a  small  door  should  be  made  to 
admit  hay  or  straw  to  till  the  space,  well  iiackcd. 
Tlie  bank  around  the  building  should  be  sodded  up 
in  the  Spring;  and  you  will  have  a  root  cellar,  frost 
proof,  and  not  unsightly.  Such  a  cellar  sliould  be 
made  in  suimuer    after    haying,  as    you  can  spare 

time . 

^ ■ 

Pruning  Roses. 

An  cxeliange  says:  Roses,  to  produce  large  llowers, 
must  be  pruned  severely  every  year;  hence,  the  ad- 
vice given  applies  to  roses  of  any  age,  provided  that 
they  have  been  cut  back  before.  Old  plants  having 
lieen  allowed  their  full  development,  nui.'<t,  however, 
not  be  cut  back  as  much  as  plants  that  have  had  an 
annual  shortening  in  since  the  beginning,  as  the  cut- 
ting back  must  take  place  upon  wood  of  t  lie  previous 
year's  growth.  Old  bushes  must  l)e  dealt  with  spar- 
ingly, the  suiierabundancc  of  old  wood  reduced,  and 
the  young  shoots  shortened  in.  llunniug  roses  must 
be  pruned  upon  the  spur  system,  leaving  the  main 
branchas  untouched,  but  reducing  the  laterals  to  two 
or  three  eyes  each.  Spring  blooming  moss  roses 
should  not  be  pruned  back  too  mucli  in  winter;  they 
arc  best  trimmed  after  the  llowers  have  passed  m 
summer.  Tea  and  China  roses,  from  their  peculiar 
habit,  may  he  pruned  less  than  hybrids,  a  class  which 
will  seldom  give  llowers  showing  their  full  perfection, 
unless  the  wood  is  annually  renewed.  This  severe 
annual  pruning  will,  however,  exhaust  the  plaiil 
after  six  or  eight  years,  hut,  in  compensation  in  tlius 
shortening  their  existence,  a  much  more  perfect 
blooming  is  secured  than  could  be  expected  if  plants 
are  left  unpruued^ 

To  Keep  Cabbage. 

Though  we  have  seen  recommended  various  modes 
of  preserving  cabbage  through  the  winter,  and  have 
tried  several  of  them,  we  continue  to  pursue  the 
method  that  we  have  generally  adopted  for  some 
twenty  years,  and  which  we  have  freriucntly  de- 
»cribed  "in  this  department.  It  is  simply  to  dig 
slight  trenches  side  by  side,  on  some  rising  or  ilry 
spot  whence  tbcwaterwill  readily  drain  off,  in  wliich 
etand  the  cabbage  just  as  it  grows,  sinking  it  up  to 
the  head.  The'rows  can  be  as  closely  togetlier  as 
the  size  of  the  heads  will  admit  of.  Cover  over  with 
eornfodder,  straw  or  bean-haulm.  Then  set  four 
posls  so  as  to  form  a  pitch,  placing  the  head  against 
a  wall  or  board-fence.  Form  a  roof  by  bean-poles, 
when  boards  are  not  at  hand,  cover  this  witli  corn- 
stalks or  straw.  If  ordinarily  well  done  theealibage 
will  keep  as  long  as  is  desired,  having  usually  kept 
•  ours  until  April  and  May.  We  are  aware  that  it  is 
generally  recommended  to  pl.acc  the  heads  of  tlie 
cahhagein  the  ground  with  the  stalks  sticking  up. 
But  having  tried  this  way,  we  found  tliat  tlie  cab- 
bage kept  better  and  fresher  as  we  recommend.  To 
prove  this  we  have  had  coleslaw  in  May.— G'tridUK- 
tomi  Telegraph. 

Of  forty-three  varieties  of  apples  tested  by  M.  A. 
Truellc,  of  the  Chenjical  Society  of  I'aris,  the  red 
American  rennet  was  found  to  contain  the  largest 
amount  of  sugar. 

The  finest  crop  of  raisins  ever  produced  in  Cali- 
fornia is  promised  this  fall.  The  grapes  are  not 
growing  so  large  as  in  previous  years,  owing  to  dry- 
ness, but  their  quality  is  better. 

House  Plant  Manure.— Six  quarts  of  soot  to  a 
hogshead  of  water  makes  a  serviceable  manure  lor 
watering  forced  plants— as  well  as  for  most  bulbs, 
flowering  plants  and  shrubs. — American  Oanlen. 

TuE  OioiUM. — As  an  antidote  for  oidium  on  the 
grape  vine  disease,  M.  Chatal,  a  French  authoritjj, 
recommends  common  table  salt.  lie  says  that  his 
vines  and  grapes  were  covered  for  some  years  with 
this  substance,  and  that  last  spring  he  sprinkled  a 
handful  of  salt  about  the  roots  of  each  vine.  The 
effect  was  marvellous;  the  vines  grew  luxuriantly, 
and  bore  an  abundance  of  grapes  entirely  free  from 
the  fungus  or  oidium. 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


A  Cheap  Smokehouse. 
Dig  a  narrow  pit  from  twelve  to  eighteen  Inches 
deep;  throwing  the  earth  all  out  of  one  side.  From 
near  the  liotlom  of  this  pit  dig  a  trench  of  sufllelcnt 
length  to  bold  one  or  two  joints  of  stovepipe,  at  such 
an  angle  as  will  bring  the  end  away  from  tlie  pit  to 
the  Biirlace  of  the  ground.  Over  the  end  of  this  pipe 
set  a  common  flour  barrel  or  large  cask,  as  may  lie 
needed,  and,  having  removed  both  heads,  bank  up 
around  it  with  loose  earth  sotliat  no  smoke  can  es- 
cape at  the  bottom.  Hang  the  hams, etc..  In  It,  using 
some  round  sticks  to  run  through  the  strings.  Putting 
a  cover  on  the  sticks  will  h^ive  space  enough  for 
draught  to  let  tlie  smoke  pass  freely.  Huild  a  smoke 
liie  of  corncolis,  damp,  hard  wood  or  sawdust,  in  the 
pit,  and  you  will  have  a  cheap,  safe  and  elliclent 
smokeliouse  with  vcjy  little  trouble. 


Sour  Bread. 

A  model  housewife  suggests  the  following  method 
of  utilizing  sour  or  stale  bread.  If  bread  is  found 
to  he  sour  and  hard,  it  need  not  necessarily  he  fol- 
lowcil  by  a  complete  waste  of  that  important  table 
eonsumiition.  It  can  lie  soaked  in  swector  even  sour 
milk  over  night  for  griddle  cakes  and  in  the  maniing, 
by  the  addition  of  an  egg  or  two  aoordiiig  to  the 
quantity,  and  with  a  little  llmir  and  soda,  made  into 
a  palatiilile  change  for  breakfast;  and  if  the  bread  is 
sour  a  trille  of  soda  must  ho  j)ut  into  the  cottage 
pudding  for  dinner.  If  thchread  he  toasted  for  tea, 
it  must  be  thoroughly  browned— re-cooked,  in  fact— 
which  destroys  much  of  its  acidity,  though  never 
quite  as  good,  of  course,  as  bread  that  was  sweet  at 

first. 

^ ■ — 

Worms  in  Flower  Pots. 
Many  llower  lovers  are  puzzled  how  to  get  rid  of 
the  detestable  worms  that  will  infest  the  earth  in  their 
tlower  pots.  The  following  is  recommeded  to  destroy 
the  pests  :  "Put  one  ounce  of  ammonia  into  one  gal- 
lon of  warm  water,  and  water  the  plants  ^vitll  it 
once  a  week.  They  will  be  free  from  these  worms 
and  be  beautiful  aiid  green.  To  kill  the  little  bugs 
that  get  on  the  oleander,  take  a  ])iccc  of  lime  the  size 
of  a  hen's  egg,  and  dissolve  it  in  about  two  quarts 
of  water,  and  wash  tlie  stalk  and  branches  of  the 

tree." 

^ 

Domestic  Recipes. 
IIviiEN  Salad.— One  gallon  cabbage,  one-half 
gallon  green  tomatoes,  one-half  gallon  onions— all 
chopped  tine,  four  tablespoonfuls  salt,  two  table- 
spoonfuls  ginger,  two  tablespoonfuls  cloves,  one 
tablespoonful  cinnamon,  two  tablespoonfuls  mu.stard, 
one  and  one-half  pounds  brown  sugar,  plenty  of 
celcrj  seed,  one-half  gallon  strong  vinegar;  boil  the 
whole  one-half  hour. 

Chocolate  Coun  Starch.— Pour  one  pint  of 
boiling  milk  over  one  quarter  of  a  pound  of  grated 
chocolate;  dissolve  three  tablespoonfuls  of  eorn- 
stai  eh  and  three  tablespoonfuls  condensed  eggs  into 
a  pint  of  cold  milk,  and  add,  with  three  tablespoon- 
fuls of  powdered  sugar,  one-half  teaspoonful  vanilla 
to  the  melted  chocolate;  let  boil  together  one  minute, 
stirring  briskly;  p<.iur  into  molds  and  serve  cold. 

Home  and  Farm  Apple  Pie.— Stew  apples  and 
run  them  through  a  fine  sieve,  add  one  egg;  beat 
apple,  egg  and  sugar  together;  sweeten  to  taste; 
flavor  with  lemon;  make  crust  as  for  a  tart;  bake, 
and  when  tlie  pie  is  cold  beat  the  white  of  one  egg 
with  sugar  as  for  frosting,  cover  the  pie  and  put  in 
oven  to  brown,  frosting  slightly;  eat  cold.  We  stake 
our  reputation  that  it  will  tickle  the  palate  of  all 
who  eat  it. 

To  Clean  Hair  Brushes.  It  is  best  to  clean  two 
at  a  time,  iu  this  way.  First  comb  them  well,  to 
remove  the  loose  hair  or  dust,  then  dip  the  bruslies 
only  in  very  warm  water,  sprinkle  each  brush  with 
pleiity  of  powdered  borax  and  rub  the  two  together; 
after  they  are  thoroughly  cleansed,  have  a  pitcher  of 
hot  water  and  pour  it  over  the  brushes;  keep  the 
back  of  the  brush  as  dry  as  possible;  shake  the  water 
well  out,and  dry  quickly  in  the  sun.  Bruslies  washed 
in  this  way  will  retain  their  stiffness. 

Oat-Meal  Crackers.— One  tcacuiiful  of  oat-mcal 
and  enough  tepid  water  to  wet  and  make  into  dough; 
mix  well  and  quick;  the  harder  the  dough  the  bel- 
ter; if  it  will  bear  to  be  rolled  out  with  a  rolling-pin, 
begin  to  roll  it,  stopping  to  press  the  ragged  edges 
with  your  fingers;  keep  at  it  in  the  same  way  till  it  is 
one-ei"-hth  or  a  (piarter  of  an  inch  thick;  be  quick 
about  it  or  it  will  get  too  dry  under  your  hands; 
make  only  dough  enough  at  one  time  for  one  cracker; 
do  not  brown  it  any  in  baking;  it  will  be  good  for 
months  if  you  put  it  in  your  oat-meal  barrel  and 
cover  it  with  meal.  .  r  ,, 

To  Pickle  JIabtinas.— Take  one  gallon  pot  lull 
of  martinas.  Make  a  brine  strong  enough  to  liear  an 
egg:  keep  them  covered  for  ten  days.  Take  them 
out  and  wash  them  out  in  cold  w;iter,  then  put  thcni 
in  cold  vinegar.  Let  them  remain  for  ten  days,  drain 
them,  and  put  them  in  the  jar  intended  for  use.  In 
half  a  gallon  of  vinegar  scald  a  large  handful  of 
horseradish  scraped  fine.  A  cupful  black  pepper, 
one  cupful  ginger,  one-half  cupful  black  mustard- 


seed,  three  tablespoonfuls  of  beaten  cloves,  three 
cinious  sliced  fine,  one  pod  red  pciiper,  three  pounds 
brown  sugar.  Pour  them  over  the  pickle,  ajid  fill 
with  cold  vinegar. 

Celery  Soup. — Six  roots  of  celery,  one  large 
turnip,  two  ounces  of  onions,  four  ounces  of  bread 
crumbs,  one  ounce  of  buttiT,  one  dcssirrt  spoonful  of 
Hour,  and  lialf  a  pint  of  cream.  Strip  off  all  the 
green  part  of  the  celery,  u«lng  only  the  whil(^ ;  cut  It 
in  shreds,  reserving  the  iiiBldc  of  three  of  the  roots 
to  be  adde<l  afterward;  slice  the  turnip  and  oiilou, 
and  put  them  with  the  celery  into  a  pan;  add  two 
([Uarls  ijf  water,  the  bread  crumbs  and  a  little  salt; 
let  all  boil  till  the  vegetables  are  perfectly  soft;  rub 
through  a  sieve  ;  return  It  to  the  pan  ;  add  the  celery 
(previously  trolled  till  quite  soft),  the  butter  and 
flour,  well'mixed  ;  stir  it,  seasoning  It  with  a  little 
mace;  and,  after  boiling  a  <iuartcr  of  an  hour,  stir 
iu  the  cream,  and  do  not  allow  it  to  boll  afterward. 

To  Broil  Beefsteak.— To  broil  beefsteak  so  that 
it  shall  retain  all  the  blood  have  your  iwls  hot ;  rub 
them  with  a  little  piece  of  fat  cut  from  the  steak. 
Be  sure  the  drafts  of  your  stove  airTipeii  and  the  fire 
burning  clear  and  bright ;  then  put  on  the  steak  and 
turn  over  every  three  seconds.  Do  not  leave  It,  but 
keep  turning  for  twenty  minutes.  Broiling  It  in  this 
way  will  take  live  minutes  longer  than  to  stand  and 
cook,  but  you  will  be  more  than  repaid  for  the 
trouble  by  the  truly  delicious  meat  you  will  have. 
Let  the  platter  be  warm  on  which  you  Inteud  placing 
it,  and  put  a  piece  of  butter  on  the  dish  ;  put  the  salt 
and  pepper  on  it  and  rub  all  together.  When  the 
steak  is  cooked  place  it  in  this  butter  and  turn  It  over 
once  or  twice.     Send  to  the  table  at  once. 

French  Wat  of  Cookino  Lamb  Chops. — Cut 
a  loin  of  lamb  into  chops.  Remove  all  the  fat,  trim 
them  nicely,  and  see  that  they  are  all  the  same 
length.  Lay  them  in  a  deep'dlsh  and  cover  them 
with  salad  oil.  Let  them  steep  in  the  oil  for  an 
hour.  Having  drained  the  chops  from  the  oil,  cover 
them  with  a  mixture  of  finely  grated  bread-erumbB, 
a  little  minced  parsley,  seasoned  with  pepper  and 
salt,  and  some  grated  nutmeg;  then  broil  tliciu  over 
a  bed  of  hot  coals  or  a  buttered  gridiron,  or  you  may 
bake  them  a  nice  brown  in  a  tpiick  oven.  Have 
ready  some  mashed  potatoes  heaped  high  on  a  hot 
dish,  in  the  form  of  a  cone  or  beehive,  and  place  the 
lamb  chops  all  lound  it,  so  that  they  lean  against  it 
with  the  broad  end  of  each  chop  downward.  Orna- 
ment the  top  of  the  cone  with  a  handsome  rose  or 
a  bunch  of  curled  parsley. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


Keeping  Stock  Clean. 

It  ought  to  be  the  dutv  of  the  stockman  to  see  that 
all  cattle  that  are  kept  constantly  tied  up  should,  re- 
ceive a  thorough  brushing  daily.  Stock  that  arc 
accustomed  to  have  their  heads  tied  get  very  dirty 
about  the  neck  and  shoulders  unless  they  receive 
careful  "grooming."  Cleanliness  is  very  essential  for 
cattle  always  under  cover,  not  only  because  disease 
is  thereby  prevented  from  making  its  inroads,  but 
also  because  stock  thrive  better,  and  reach  maturity 
a  great  deal  quicker,  when  carefully  tended,  than 
when  they  are  not.  Cattle  kept  in  hammels  or  loose 
boxes  do  not,  [jcrhaps,  require  so  much  attention  as 
those  whose  heads  are  tied  to  the  stall,  a*  they  can 
with  freedom  lick  themselves,  but  they  should  not 
be  neglected  on  that  account ;  and  the  careful  stock 
farmer  will  do  well  to  sec  that  his  stockman  gives 
them  proper  attention. 

It  frequently  haiipens,  however,  that  cattle  do  be- 
come very  dirty  about  the  body— whether  from  ne- 
glect, or  a  natural  predisixisition  to  get  dirty,  it  is 
unnecessary  to  consider.  in  such  eases  a  goo<l 
riniedy  is  to  apply  lo  the  affected  parts  a  mixture  of 
fish  oil  and  tlour  of  sulphur.  In  the  pro|X)rtion  of  four 
ounies  of  sulphur  to  ii  quart  of  oil.  This  mixture 
should  be  vigorously  rubbed  into  the  iKxly,  and  about 
three  days  after  this  has  Ikcu  done  the  atfccied  jiarts 
must  receive  a  good  washing  with  soft  soap  and 
w  arm  water.  The  oil  and  sulphur  may  be  a|>plied 
once  more  iu  the  same  manner  as  before,  the  mixture 
being  made  a  little  stronger  should  there  be  an  ob- 
servable improvement  from  the  first  washing.  Tliis 
mixture  applied  twice  generally  sullices  to  effect  a 
complete  cure  of  the  ailment. — London  Live  Stock 
Journal. 


Hay  Tea  fot  Calves. 

The  practice  common  in  inostof  our  dairy  districts, 
of  killing  calves  when  only  a  few  hours  old,  in  order 
to  save  the  milk  which  they  wouhl  require  in  rearing, 
is  carried  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  is  cither  neces- 
sary or  profitable.  We  have  none  too  many  cows, or 
beef  cattle,  and  it  is  a  shame  to  destroy  tens  of 
thousands  of  calves  annually  which  bring  nothing  to 
the  owner  except  the  few  Bhlllings  rceeivcd  for  the 
skin.  It  is  certainly  possible  to  raise  these  calves 
w  ithout  giving  them  fresh,  new  milk,  for  with  a 
liiilc  skimmed  milk  and  hay  tea  they  will  thrive 
inmost,  if  not  quite,  as  well  as  upon  the  pure  lacteal 
lluid.  Fifty  years  ago,  James  Stewart  Denham,or 
Scotland,  inslUuted  experiments  in  raising  calves 
with  hay  tea,  taking  them  from  the  mother  when 


476 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  November,  1877. 


three  days  olil,  ami  tliose  experiments  were  eminently 
Euccpssfiil.  Two  pounds  of  hay  were  steeped  in 
twenty  quarts  of  water,  and  then  boiled  down  one- 
half,'and  to  this  was  added  a  quart  of  skimmed 
milk.  In  some  instances  molasses  was  added  also  to 
give  sweetness,  and  the  ealves  not  only  thrived  upon 
this  diet,  but  preferred  it  to  fresh  milk.— il/oore's 
Rural  New  Yorker. 


Care  of  Stock. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  that  all  animals  should 
be  well  sheltered  from  cold  and  damp.  The  reason 
why  pigs  or  other  animals  do  not  fatten  so  readily  in 
cold  weather  as  in  the  warmer  months  is,  that  the 
food  is  largely  used  in  keeping  up  the  vital  heat, 
which  is  now  given  off  in  excess  and  lost.  If  this 
loss  is  prevented  animals  will  fatten  now  as  readily 
as  at  any  other  time.  This  is  a  very  important 
time  as  regards  sheep.  If  not  carefully 
watched  they  will  soon  fall  off  in  condition, 
and  this  badly  injures  the  wool,  causing  what  it 
known  as  "  br^k,"  which  reduces  its  value  to  the 
manufacturer  one-half.  A  healthy  condition  can  be 
maintained  only  by  preventing  crowding  and  heating 
in  the  yards  and  pens,  and  furnishing  ample  ventila- 
tion, good  food  in  abundance,  and  pure  water  plenti- 
fully. 

Devons. 

That  the  Devons  are  a  very  valuable  breed  of 
cattle,  will  be  readily  admitted  by  all  experienced 
stock  men.  Their  beef  is  of  the  higliest  quality, 
and  though  they  do  not  ripen  so  early  as  the  Short 
Horns,  they  can  be  worked  until  four  or  live  years 
old,  and  then  put  up  to  fatten.  The  Short-Horns 
are  an  aristocratic  breed— work  disagrees  with  them. 
On  the  other  hand  moderate  work  improves  the 
Devons,  giving  them  better  development  than  they 
attain  in  idleness.  As  working  cattle  they  are  unsur- 
passed; they  are  also  good  inilkers,  yielding  milk 
rich  in  cream.  Though  not  giving  a  large  quantity 
of  milk,  they  make  up  in  extra  quality.  ^  Best  of  all 
they  are  hardy,  thriving  where  a  Short-Horn  would 
starve.  On  these  and  other  grounds  their  encourage- 
ment and  multiplication  are  desirable. 


At  a  recent  sale  of  short-horned  cows  in  England 
a  beast,  named  "Fifth  Duchess  of  Hillhurst,"  was 
sold,  amid  great  applause,  for  •522,.5U0.  She  is  said 
to  be  the  highest  priced  eow  in  England,  and  is  (\&^ 
scribed  as  a  "charming  creature."  The  largest  sum 
ever  paid  for  a  cow  is  believed  to  be  fiL'(;,7.5u  for  the 
"Duchess  of  Geneva,"  which  was  sold  at  New  York 
Mills,  in  New  York,  two  or  three  years  ago.  Twenty- 
two  thousand  live  hundred  dollars  is  the  next  highest 
Bum. 


POULTRY. 

Cooked  Meat  for  Poultry. 

Cook  the  meat  you  give  your  poultry,  always. 
Chop  it  finely,  using  a  common  wooden  bowl  and 
household  chopping-knife,  if  you  have  but  a  small 
quantity  of  meat  to  prepare  ;  'but,  if  you  are  keeping 
poultry  on  a  large  scale,  substitute  for  the  bowl  a 
tight  wooden  box  of  a  bushel  capacity,  and  for  tlie 
chopping  instrument,  use  a  common  short-handled 
spade  with  its  blade  ground  to  a  keen  edge. 

Salt  tlie  meat  as  you  would  for  your  own  eating. 
Mix  it  half  and  half,  when  fed  out,  with  scalded 
wheat  or  eornmeal— and  it  will  serve  your  purpose 
much  better  than  if  led  in  any  other  way. 

The  mode  too  often  ailopted  is  to  throw  raw  meat 
to  fowls.  This  is  a  bad  way,  and  in  the  summer 
season  causes  illness,  frequently.  Cooked  meat  goes 
further,  is  more  nourishing,  and  less  injurious  if 
over-fed  than  in  the  raw  state. 

For  young  fowls,  very  little  is  needed  at  a  time  ; 
and  either  old  or  young  birds,  when  kept  in  confine- 
ment, sliould  not  be  stuffed  with  this  kind  of  allow- 
ance. A  large  share  of  their  feed  should  be  grains 
and  cooked  vegetables.  For  growiug  fowls  at  an 
age  this  is  the  best  staple  food,  when  properly  va- 
ried.—i'o(t(«/-j/    Wuria. 


Eggs  for  Export. 

The  New  York  Kretiing  I'ont  expresses  its  surprise 
that  thus  far  no  American  speculator,  looking  about 
him  for  something  to  send  out  of  the  country,  has 
turned  his  attention  to  eggs.  At  present  the  greater 
part  of  the  eggs  imported  into  Great  Britain  eome 
from  France,  Malta  and  Germany.  The  safe  ship- 
ment of  large  quantities  from  Malta  and  their  arrival 
in  good  coiidition,  disposes  of  any  objection  that 
might  be  raised  on  the  score  ol'  the  long  journey,  as 
the  passage  I'rom  that  port  occupies  sixteen  days,  and 
it  is  not  uncommon  for  a  cargo  to  be  one  month  old 
before  it  reaches  its  destination.  That  a  demand  ex- 
ists is  ijlain  from  the  facts  that  in  the  year  1876  eggs 
to  the  value  of  ?2,610,L'31  were  imported  into  Great 
Britain,  and  that  the  supply  from  France  has  de- 
creased considerably  during  the  present  year.  It  is 
also  stated  that  the  American  Consul  at  Liverpool 
has  written  to  the  State  Department,  at  Washington, 
that  the  condition  of  the  English  poultry  market  in- 
vites exportations  from  America. 


Preparing  Poultry   for  Market. 

Fowls  and  chickens  intended  for  the  market  should 
have  no  food  given  them  for  twenty-four  hours  pre- 
vious to  killing.  Food  in  the  crop  is  is  liable  to  sour, 
and  always  injures  the  sale.  Purchasers  object  to 
paying  lor  undigested  food. 

Sticking  in  the  neck  is  the  best  method  of  killing, 
though  many  cut  the  heads  off.  If  the  head  is  cut 
off  the  neck  bone  looks  repulsive  and  the  poultry 
will  not  sell  as  readily. 

Most  of  the  poultry  coming  to  market  is  scalded, 
or  wet  picked.  Dry  picked  is  preferred  and  sells 
higher.  Be  careful  to  remove  all  the  pin-feathers, 
and  avoid  tearing  the  skin.  For  packing,  use  clean 
hand-threshed  rye  straw.  If  this  cannot  be  obtained 
without  some  trouble,  clean  oat  straw  will  answer. 
Place  a  layer  of  straw  at  the  bottom  of  the  box,  then 
one  of  poultry,  packing  snugly,  backs  upward,  filling 
all  vacancies  with  straw  so  that  the  cover  will  draw 
doivn  snugly  on  the  contents.— J/iu-sacAuscHs  Plomjh- 
man. 


Cleaning  the  Hen  House. 

If  the  successful  poulterer  will  look  to  the  under 
portion  of  his  perches,  and  as  faithfully  apply  the 
saturated  kerosene-brush  to  this  part  of  the  pre- 
mises as  he  does  to  the  top  and  sides  and  crevices, 
once  in  a  while,  he  will  find  it  profitable  for  the 
removal  of  vermin.  Lice  brood  and  breed  and  live 
under  the  roosts  in  great  numbers.  In  the  day  time 
they  are  thus  partially  secreted.  In  the  night,"  when 
the  fowls  settle  down  to  their  roosts,  these  millions 
of  parasites  crawl  up,  and  nestle  themselves  com- 
fortably among  the  bird's  soft  feathers— where  they 
subsequently  stick  to  their  new  warm  quarters  until 
they  are  carbolated  or  sulphured  out  again. — Poultry 
World. 


Poultry  as  Food. 

There  is  no  meat  (says  a  writer  in  Country  Gen- 
tleinan)  so  cheaply  raised  and  fattened  as  poultry. 
Most  farmers'  families  prefer  fresh  to  salted  meats, 
especially  during  warm  weather,  and  there  is  none 
more  available  everywhere  than  that  of  fowls.  One 
fowl  makes  a  meal  for  a  large  family,  and  there  is 
none  of  it  left  to  be  thrown  away,  or  to  be  salted  to 
prevent  its  spoiling.  The  next  meal  is  running 
around,  preserved  naturally  until  needed.  A  bushel 
of  corn  will  keep  a  farmer's  fowl  in  good  eating  eou- 
dition  for  a  year.  The  fowl  will  lay  100  eggs  or  over, 
which  will  more  than  p.ay  for  the  grain  given,  and 
the  butcher's  cart  is  thus  always  at  the  door. 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL. 


Some  time  ago,  in  these  columns,  we  took  occa- 
sion to  notice  commendably — after  having  read  the 
work  "through  and  through" — a  volume  by  Jules 
Vebne,  entitled  "  Twenty  Thousand  Leagues  Under 
the  Sea,"  to  suggest  that  since  folks,  both  old  and 
young,  ii'ould  persist  in  mainly  reading  stories  and 
works  of  fiction,  here  was  a  plan  to  make  them  the 
medium  through  which  might  be  inculcated  sound 
wisdom  and  knowledge,  on  science,  philosophy,  his- 
tory and  morality.  But  we  then  did  not  think  that 
our  views  would  be  so  soon  realized  as  they  have 
been,  in  the  five  volumes  of  Scieaee  in  fitory'^iy  Dk. 
FooTE,  and  recenily  published  by  the  Murkay'Hill 
PuBLisuiNG  Company,  139  East  Twenty-eighth 
street.  New  York  city.  Tliis  handsome  little  series, 
we  opine,  will  fill  a  vacuum,  in  that  regard,  which 
has  heretofore  not  been  supplied,  and  which  cannot 
be  otherwise  than  productive  of  great  good.  We  are 
speaking  "  from  the  book"  when  we  say  that  the  in- 
terest of  this  series  never  flags  from  first  to  last,  and 
never  ceases  to  both  amuse  and  instruct,  especially 
in  human  physiology  and  comparative  an.atomy, 
subjects  in  which  the  public  have  a  deep  interest,  but 
in  which  the  masses  of  mankind  are  so  wofully  de- 
ficient. We  are  nearly  "  three-score  and  ten,"  and 
yet  we  find  that  "  Sammy  Tubbs,  the  Boy  Doctor, 
and  Sponsie,  the  Troublesome  Monkey,"  are  as 
appreciable  and  edifying  to  age  as  they  are  to  youth, 
and  that  from  them  all  may  learn.  The  above- 
named  company  has  just  issued  the  complete  series 
in  one  volume  at  the  low  price  of  $2.00,  and  it  ought 
to  meet  with  a  liberal  patronage  everywhere.  The 
work  is  very  copiously  illustrated  from  beginning  to 
end,  and  the  cuts  arc  not  only  signilieaut  and  in- 
structive, but  also  exceedingly  amusing.  The  above- 
named  company  has  also  published  Dr.  Foote's 
new  and  wonderful  work,  "  Plain  Home  Talk,"  era- 
bracing  "Medical  Common  Sense." 

Plain  Home  Talk.— A  new  and  wonderful  work 
by  Dr.  Foote,  beautifully  printed  and  bound  in  one 
Tolume  of  nearly  1,000  octavo  pages,  embellished 
with  two  hundred  illustrations ;  by  the  Murray  Hill 
Publishing  Company,  No.  l29  East  28th  street,  New 
York.  This  is  a  very  comprehensive  treatise  on  the 
human  system — the  habits  of  men  and  women — the 
causes  and  prevention  of  disease  our  sexual  rela- 
tions and  social  natures;  embracing  medical  co.m- 
MON  SENSE,  applied  to  the  causes,  prevention  and 
cure  of  chronic  diseases  ;  the  natural  relations  of 
men  and  women  to  each  other— society,  love,  mar- 
riage, parentage,  &c.,  &c.    This  work  is  divided  into 


foiu-  parts,  for  the  sake  of  convenience  and  ready 
reference.  Part  1.  has  fife  chapters,  including  forty- 
fonr  different  subjects,  and  their  almost  endless  de- 
tails. Part  II.  has  twelve  chapters,  and  sixty-five 
subjects.  Part  III.  has  eight  chapters  and  twenty- 
two  subjects.  Part  IV.  has  nine  chapters  and  twenty- 
five  subjects.  These  subjects  do  not  only  include 
"all  the  ills  that  flesh  aud  blood  is  heirto,"  and  their 
prevention  aud  cure,  but  also  the  social  and  physical 
relations  of  the  human  family,  their  economical  and 
domestic,  as  well  as  their  moral  relations  ;  their  hy- 
gienic necessities,  and  a  thousand  other  matters, 
which  we  cannot  include  in  this  notice,  and  which 
notliing  but  the  possession  of  the  volume  itself  could 
illustrate. 

Harper's  Magazine,  for  November,  1S77,  (the 
concluding  number  of  volume  55)  is  a  most  capital 
number,  aud  fully  sustains  the  world-wide  reputa- 
tion of  this  excellent,  instructing  and  civilizing  jour- 
nal. It  is  questionable  whether  there  is  a  cheaper 
magazine  published  in  the  world.  Look  at  the 
figures.  Here  is  a  royal  8vo.  magazine,  of  superb 
letter  press  and  paper,  at  ?4.00  a  year,  making  two 
volumes  of  about  1,000  pages  each,  exclusive  of  title 
pages  and  analytical  indexes,  and  of  unexceptionable 
literary  merit.  The  articles-"  Ten  Years'  Acquaint- 
ance with  Alaska,"  and  twenty  spirited  illustrations  ; 
"  Robert  Iloudan,"  and  seventeen  illustrations ; 
"  San  Antonio  de  Bexar,"  and  the  same  number  of 
illustrations;  "  Madelena,"  with  three;  "Yachting 
in  Blue  Waters,"  with  six;  and  "Back  to  Back," 
wdth  one— making  in  all  sixty-four  illustrations  in  a 
single  number — of  themselves  constitute  a  feature 
that  is  seldom  if  ever  excelled  by  any  other  magazine 
in  the  country.  Its  re])utation  is  already  sothoroughly 
established,  that  we  feel  that  our  feeble  pen  can  add 
very  little  to  it.. 

Consumption  Cured. — An  old  jihysieian,  retired 
from  practice,  having  had  placed  in  his  hands  by  an 
East  India  missionary  the  formula  of  a  simple  vegc- 
talile  remedy,  for  the  speedy  and  jjcrmauent  cure^of 
consumption,  bronchitis,  catarrh,  asthma,  aud  all 
throat  and  lung  affections,  also  a  positive  and  radi- 
cal cure  for  nervous  debility  and  all  nervous  com- 
plaints, after  having  tested  its  wonderful  curative 
powers  in  thousands  of  cases,  has  felt  it  his  duty  to 
make  it  known  to  his  suffering  fellows.  Actuated 
by  this  motive,  and  a  desire  to  relieve  human  suffer- 
ing, 1  will  send,  free  of  charge,  to  all  who  desire  it, 
this  recipe  in  German,  French  or  English,  with  full 
directions  for  ])reparing  and  using.  Sent  by  mail  by 
addressing  with  stamp,  naming  this  paper,  W.  W. 
Sherar,  12(5  Powers'  Block,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

We  call  the  attention  of  our  readers  to  the  altera- 
tion in  the  advertisement  of  the  Mendelssohn  Piano 
Company,  No.  .56  Broadway,  N.  Y.  This  company 
has  been  making  still  further  efforts  to  meet  the 
wants  of  the  times,  in  making  a  Piano  which  is 
offered  for  sale  at  the  very  low  price  of  $200.  This 
Piano  contains  Mathushek's  New  Patent  Duplex 
Overstrung  Scale,  which  is,  unquestionably,  the 
greatest  impi-ovement  ever  put  into  a  Square  Piano. 
The  company  eonfldently  believes  this  is  the  best 
bargain  ever  oft'ered  the  public  for  a  reliable,  durable 
.and  fiue-toued  instrument.  We  would  recommend 
any  of  our  readers  who  have  any  idea  of  every  buy- 
ing a  piano  to  send  for  their  Illustrated  and  Descrip- 
tive Catalogue,  which  will  be  mailed  free  to  all. 

A  Farmer's  Fortune.— The  place  to  learn  how 
it  may  be  obtained  is  in  the  great  American  Stock 
Journal,  a  large  3i  page  monthly,  one  of  the  cheap- 
est and  best  farm  magazines  in  the  country.  Tells 
about  farming  and  stock  raising  in  all  its  branches. 
No  farmer's  family  should  be  without  it,  as  it  will 
save  many  times  its  cost.  Hard  times  and  a  desiie 
to  iilace  it  in  the  h.ands  of  all,  lead  us  to  make  tue 
liberal  offer  of  sending  it  three  months  on  trial  for 
Two  Dimes.  Liberal  premiums,  specimen  copy  and 
show  bills/recto  all  who  will  use  them.  All  who 
subscribe  before  January  1st,  1878,  get  the  October, 
November  and  December  numbers  free.  Address 
Potts  Brothers,  Parkesburg,  Chester  county,  Pa. 

Department  of  Agriculture.— Special  report. 
No.  2,  upon  the  condition  of  the  crops  of  the  United 
States  ;  also,  a  statement  of  the  international  wheat 
supply,  aud  our  wheat  exports,  together  with  foreign 
crops  and  prices,  1877.  An  octavo  pamphlet  of  35 
pages. 

Gardener's  Monthly,  .\mcricau  Farmer,  Ameri- 
can Agriculturist,  National  Stock  Journal,  Wallace's 
Monthly,  Farm  Journal,  .lournal  of  Forestry,  Prairie 
Farmer,  Coleman's  Rural  World,  and  others,  for 
November,  received. 

The  silverware  delivered  by  the  National  Silver- 
Palting  Co.,  No.  704  Chestnill  street,  Philadelphia, 
is  giving  entire  satisfaction.  All  orders  are  promptly 
filled,  and  no  one  nqed  hesitate  about  sending  them 
money. — Lutheran  Observer. 

L.  B.  Case's  Botanical  Index,  to  the  new,  rare 
and  beautiful  plants.  Gi-own  and  for  sale  at  hie 
Commercial  Green  House,  Richmond,  Indiana.   ■ 

Kellog's  newspaper  lists,  for  1877-78,  No. 
224  Walnut  street,  St.  Louis,  Mo. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER*- 


III 


E,  F.  Kunkel'e  Bitter  "Wine  of  Iron. 

Gives  tone  to  thp  stoniaeh.  improves  ilie  qpi-etite  iiud  us- 
alBts  digestijii,  exoitrs  the  bowels  to  healthy  action,  exiiell- 
iug  all  the  foiil|hunn>rs  thut  contaiuinute  the  blood,  coriuiit 
the  HOcretiouK  audoffcud  the  InT^th.  It  excites  tht-  liver  to 
a  hCHlthy  iiction  mid  HtreugtlumK  the  uerveH,  impurtiiiR  that 
glow  to  life  that  proceeds  ulone  from  perfect  health.  Thoti- 
BandH  in  all  w.dkH  of  life,  tettify  to  the  virtties  of  thin  ex- 
cellent mediciue  in  correctiiiR  the  derannement  of  the  di- 
gestive orguiia.  Get  the  geuuine.  Hold  only  iu  one  dollar 
bottles.    Ask  fori.'.  F.  Kunkd'H  Hitter  Wine  0/  Iron. 

Dyspepsia  !   Dyspepsia  !   Dyspepsia  ! 

E.  F.  Kuukel's  Bitter  \Vine  of  Iron,  a  sure  i-nre  for  this 
disease.  It  has  been  prescribed  daily  for  many  years  In  the 
practice  of  eminent  physicians  with  unparalleled  sucsese. 
Syiuptoms  are  loss  of  appetite,  wind  and  rising  ©f  food, 
dtyness  in  mouth,  hozdache,  dizziness,  sleeplesneHB  and 
low  spirits.  Get  the  genuine.  Not  sold  in  hulk,  only  one 
dollar  per  bottle. 

Do  you  want  something  to  strengthen  you?  Do  you  want 
ft  good  appetite  1  Do  you  want  to  got  rid  of  nervousness? 
Do  you  want  energy,  sleep  well,  or  1^  ouied  of  dyspepBla, 
kidney  or  liver  disease  ?  'J'ri/  K.  F.  « fmA-ff's  Jiittrr  Wine  of 
/r»H.  Every  bottle  guaranteed  as  recommended.  Depot 
and  office,  259  North  Ninth  Street,  Philadelphia,  Pa  Get 
the  geuuc.  Sold  by  all  druggists.  Ask  for  E.  F.  Kunkel's 
and  take  no  other.  All  I  a»k  is  a  trial  of  this  valuable  med- 
icine, One  buttle  wiil convince  you.  Get  six  bottles  for  five 
dollars,  one  dollar  for  one. 

Tape  Worm   Removed  Alive. 

Tape  Worm,  Pin,  Seat  and  Stomach  Worms  removed  alive 
in  from  two  to  fotir  hours.  No  fee  until  head  of  Tape 
Worm  i^asses  alive  and  in  one.  Ask  your  diiiygist  for 
Kunkera  \\oriu  Syrup.  Sold  only  in  one  dollar  bottles. 
Used  for  children  or  grown  persons.  It  never  lails.  Or 
Bend  for  circular  to  Dr.  Kankel,  259  North  Ninth  Street, 
Street,  Philadelphia,  Pa.  Advice  by  mail  free.  Send  three 
cent  stamp  for  return  of  letter. 

0^  ^^  ■  B^  Great  chauce  to  make  money.  If  you 
I  •  1 1  I  I  ■  can'e  get  gold  you  can  get  greenbacks. 
■  ■  III  II  ^We  need  a  person  in  every  town  to  take 
%J|  ^^  ^HB^  |subscri}>tlon8  for  the  largest,  cheapest 
and  West  Illustrated  family  publication  in  the  world.  Any 
one  can  become  a  successful  agent.  The  most  elegaut 
works  of  art  given  free  to  subscribers  The  price  is  so  low^ 
that  almost  everyliody  subscribes.  One  agent  rej  urts  mak- 
ing over  $1')0  in  a  week.  A  lady  agent  reports  taking  over 
407  subscribers  in  10  days.  All  who  engage  make  money 
fast.  You  can  devote  all  your  time  to  the  business,  or  only 
your  spare  time.  Tou  need  not  be  away  from  home  over 
night.  You  can  do  it  as  well  as  others.  Full  jarticulars, 
directions  and  terms  free.  Elegant  and  exiensive  outfit 
free.  If  you  want  profitable  work  send  us  your  uddress  at 
once.  It  costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  No  one  who 
engages  fails  to  make  great  pay.  Address  *'  The  People's 
Journal,"  Portland,  Maine. 
9-8-1 y 


*^  MBfHHM  is  i^ot  easily  earned  in  these  tiiues,but  it  can  be 
rwryryr/  made  in   three  mouths  by  any  one  of  either 

^Ik  /  /  /  ^^^^t  ill  ^^y  part  of  the  couuti-j-  who  is  willing 
#jj  J  I  1  *o  work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
^r  furnish,  $66  per  week  in  joar  own  town.  You 
need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.  You  can  give  your 
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costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  S5  Outfit  free. 
Address  at  once,  H.  Hallett  k  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-3-ly 

Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 

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9-1-1 y 

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1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 
CI-OXHS, 

CASSIMERES, 

COATINOS,  iWORKTEKDN, 

TESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Ohivlots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  barred,  striped  and  diagonal, for  Spring  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchant  Tailoring  and  Clothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(Establighed  in  the  year  IStO), 

Corner  of  Jiortli  (Jueen  aud  Orange-Sts., 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

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M.  HABERBUSH, 

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ALSO   DEALER    IN 

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Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rwgs,  Gloves,  &c.. 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

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H.-Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  Q.  RHOADS. 


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1823.      SEND  rOR     1878. 

TUK 

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8 

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8 

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8 

Chinese  Chrvsanthemus,  " 

Zonal  GeninluDis,              " 

8 

Double,        "                      '* 

8 

Ivy  Leaved  *'                        " 

Heliotropes,                       " 

AbuHIons,                            •* 

a 

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Azaleas,                             " 

Lobster  Cactus,                  " 

0 

Bouvardia.*,                        " 

Steviasaiid  Eupntoriums,*' 

Fuchsias,                            " 

DoubK'  Violets,                   " 

•2 

PoinSftta,  Scarlet  &  Wbitc,  do.  do 

4 

Plumbago,  do.  do. 

8 

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4 

Palms,                       •' 

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20  assorted  Tulips, 

Bulbs. 

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a 

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18 

Oialls. 

4  I.ily  of  tho  Vollcj 

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OE  BY  EXPRESS: 

3  of  any  of  the  abore  $1  collectioos  fbr  83. 

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Express  on  receipt  of  (I'J.UU,  to  which  either  of  our  bookii, 
GAKDEMNG  FOR  PKoFIT.  PRACTICAL  FLOKlCtX- 
TURE,  or  GARDEMNU  FOR  PLEASURE  (valoe  $1.50 
each),  will  be  added.     Itescriptire  Caulogue  free. 

PETER  HENDERSON  &  CO., 

Soodsiiioii  and  FloriNiN, 

3  5  Cortlaadt  St..  N.  T 


9-T-ly] 


J 


1760.       ESTABLISHED       1760. 

GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

buildi:n'g  hardwaee, 

GLASS, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  FUMPS, 

TEEEA  com,  Maid  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


GRACE'S    SALVE. 

A  VesT^table  Pr<>parntion,  invented  In  the  17tb 
century  by  Dr.  WiUiiim  Grace,  Surgeon  in  King  Jumee' 
army.  Through  Us  agency  he  cured  thoueande  of  the  moat 
aerions  aorea  and  wounds,  and  waa  regarded  by  all  who 
knew  him  aa  a  public  benefactor.  25c.  a  box,  by  mail  30c. 
For  sale  by  druggists  generally. 

AGENTS  WANTED. 

Address  SITE  W.  rOWLI  It  S0S3,  Bsiton,  Uui. 


Asenta  for  the 

"  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann'e  Phosphate, 
Fairbank's  Scales, 
Dupont's  Powder, 
Harrisbure:  Nails,  &o.,  &c. 


We  hsre  tho  largest  stock  of  genersl  Bsrdwsrs  la  th* 
State,  sod  oar  prices  are  as  low  and  tonns  as  llbsral  as  osa 
be  foojad  olsewhere,  9-1-tf . 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR   FARMER. 


[November,  1877. 


LADIES  ! 

WE  HAVE  JUST  OPENED 


BSXTSOXT,  BX7RF2:S  <&  CO., 


GUN  BAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STORE, 

A  NEW  LOT  OF 

HAMBUEG  EMBROIDERED  EESIN&S 

ANB 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  TBE  VERY  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kid  Gloves, 

i3:osiE]:Fi.-3r, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  stylfes, 

GRA.PB  V^ESXZ.S, 

CEAPE  BOISTNETS  &  HATS, 

RUCHINGS, 
all  Btyles  and  widths,  and  everything  else  in 

LADIES'    AND    CHILDREN'S     WEAR, 
that  is  good,  desirable  and  cheap. 
Give  us  a  call  at 

Nos.  142  &  144  North Qnpen-st,  Lancaster,,  Pa. 

9-l-ly 


"OTTT  OF  'WOB.K." 

SONG    ANT)    CHORUS,     BY 

ALICE  HA"WrrHORlTE. 

Ailthor  of  "  Listen  to  the  Mockiug  Bird,"  "I'll  sail  the  seas 
over,"  "  Wtiat  is  Home  without  a  Mother,"  etc.,  etc. 
*'  Out  of  work,  without  a  penny, 
Pleading  hel    before  thy  door. 
Without  friends  among  the  many — 
Look  with  pity  on  the  poor." 
*  ,  *  One  of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  ballads  ever 
written,  will  give  the  author  a  more  extended  popularity 
than  anything  she  has  ever  written.    Price  35  cents— or, 
illustrated  title  page  40  cents. 

For  sale  at  all  music  stores,  or  will  be  sent  postpaid  on 
ueeeipt  of  price  by  the  publishers, 

J.  M.  STODDAUT  &  CO., 
9—9  723  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia. 


ESTABLISHED  1832. 


Gr.    SENEK    &   SONS, 

Manufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 

The  best  Sawed  SHI\<il.KSiu  the  country.     Also  Sash, 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  COAE.  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Comer  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-sts., 

.LA.NCA.SXER,  PA. 

S-l-ly 


OFFER  FOR  SALE  A  FINE  LOT  OF 


THOROUGHBRED    LIVE   STOCK, 

Including  Alderney  and  Ayrshire  CATTLE  and  CALVES,  of  the  finest  herd  Registered  Stock, 


SHEEP  &  LAMBS. 
SUPERIOR  POULTRY. 


lP%ft^CS       A      CTiT^T  A  T  T^X^       BerksUires  sired  by  our  Celeljrated  imported  Boar,   "THE 

t'JUjri^    J%,    t^XrJmU\J.^J^ijM,JL»    COLLIER;"  winuer  of  Six  High  Honors  and  First  Prizes  in 

England.    YOKKSHIKES  of   our  Duke  II.,  and  the  best  importations "CHESTEE  WHITE,  POLAND  CHINA  AND 

ESSEX  riGS. 

SOUTHDOWN,    COTSWOLD,    AND    LEICESTER    SHEEP    AND 
LAMBS. 

All  the  leading  varieties  of  best  class  LAND  AND 
WATER  FOWLS. 
BrPcrtor'H  Dlaiinal  uiid  Xew  Illiistrateil  Uesoriptive  t'R»alOM:ne  of  Tlioronshbrert  Cattle, 
Sheep,  IIOK",  I"»ltiiry.  etc.  Second  Edition.  Jl'.ST  OITT.  t'ontaininsr  over  .50  Paisres  Vain- 
able  KeadiinK.  besides  IS  Full  Pas'e  Stock  Cuts,  from  life,  of  onr  linent  Imported  and  Prize 
Animals  an<l  I'onls.    Price,  2.>  cents.  Postpaid.    Kvery  Fanner  needs  it. 

SEED  WHEAT  AND  ALL  SEASONABLE  SEEDS. 

K^.Oiir  Annniil  IlluBtrated  Descri]ttive  Seed  Catalogue,  for  ISTS,  will  be  issued  December  1st,  offeriag  many  Choice 
Novelties.         It  inav  be  had  Free  for  the  asking. 

BE2TS0N,  BTTHFEE  Ss  CO.,  223  Church  Street,  Philadelphia. 

"TTT'E  know  no  breed  of  Poultry  that  has  gained  a  more  Wonderful  FopuUirily.  in  so  short  a  time,  than  the  PLYMOUTH 
VV  ROCKS.  This  popularity  is  wonderful  wlien  wp  consider  th:f  Pui-e  Bred  Poultry  is  chiefly  cultivated  by  Fan- 
ciers, whose  aim  is  artistic  beauty,  and  the  Plymouth  Rocks  possess  few  fancy  points — their  merits  being  in  their  econom- 
ical qualities.  This  is  almost  the  only  breed  of  Poultry  in  which  nothing  has  been  sacritied  for  mere  fancy.  They 
originated  by  crosses  of  several  breeds,  thus  gaining  great  vigor  and  ntreagth  of  coustitut'on.  They  have  large,  well- 
shaped  bodies,  with  a  superabundance  of  choice  meat  on  the  breast  and  moat  esteemed  parts.  They  will  attain  a  weight 
of  FIVE  POUNDS  at  four  months,  when  they  make  splendid  market  fowls,  while  the  Asiatics  are  not  ready  to  market 
until  eight  months  old.  The  PliTuouth  Rocks  have  bright  yellow  legs,  free  from  any  feathers,  and  beautiful  yellow  skin. 
They  are  good  layers,  and  are  not  hard  to  break  from  sitting.  Tbey  make  first-class  mothers,  and  the  chicks  are  hirdy 
and  easy  to  raise!  They  are  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  the  FARRIER'S  FOWL,  combining  as  they  do  more  excellencies  for 
general  farm  use  than  any  other  breed  now  known.  They  pay  better  to  raise  pure  fur  market  than  any  cross-breeds  or 
mongrels.  We  think  the  day  is  not  far  distant  wheu  these  fowls  wUl  h'i  bred  by  Farmers  everywhere  for  market.  The 
outlook  at  present  points  this  way,  as  all  farmers  who  have  tried  them  i^-onouuce  them  all  that  can  be  des^d.  The  de- 
maud  for  them  already  far  exceeds  expectancy— out-selling  now  any  oth^  breed. 

■W.  ATLEE  BXTRPEE,  Pliiladelptia,  Pa. 


I 


For  NINETY  DAYS  FROM  DATE 
Elegraiit  Table  Silverware 

Oftfi  be  secured  by  all  on  compliance  with  the  ToUoiviagcoaditioDs:  TheNaLionul  Sjlver 
Plating  Compauv.  704  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia.  manufactuierB  of  Pure  Coio 
SlHDitird  Silver-Plated  Ware,  will  send  to  bqj-  one  who  receives  this  notice,  a  Set  of 
Dnuble  Extra-Plated  Silver  Spoons,  and  engrave  on  each  spooQ  any  desired 
Initial.  You  are  required  to  cutout  the  roiiowiug  Silverware  Couii'.'u  and  aeud  it  to 
the  above  Company,  with  your  name  and  nditresa,  and  also  tn  encl'iee  with  it  75  cents 
to  pay  all  charges,  including  cost  of  eugravini;  ioitiald,  packing,  to.xiag,  and  express 
charges.  The  Spoons  will  be  sent  by  express  tor  mail,  if  you  have  no  expreaa  office), 
and  delivered  in  your  hands  wiihoul  further  cost.  The-se  Spoons  arc  guaranteed  to  be 
of  the  best  material,  und  equal  to  the  best  Silver-Plated  Ware  made,  as  the  following 
letter  from  the  Compauy  will  testifv  : 

UPPirE  OF  National  Silver  Plating  Co.,  704  Chestnut  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

To  whom  it  may  Concern.— The  spoons  sent  out  un-Jer  this  arrangement 
we  guarantee  :ire  of  best  quiUity.  first  heavily  plated  with  pure  nickel  (the  hardest 
white  metal  known),  and  a  double-extra  plate  of  pure  Coin-Standard  Silver  added  on 
topof  the  mckel.  thus  rendering  them  the  very  Oest  Silver-PIaled  Ware  manufac- 
tureil.  We  will  honor  no  order  which  does  not  contain  the  Silverware  Coupon,  and  we 
will  not  honor  the  Coupon  alter  aiuety  davs  from  the  date  nf  this  papier. 

[Signed]  NAi?IONAL  SILVEB  PLATING  CO., 

704  Chestnut  St.,  Philadelphia. 


^II^V^EHAVARE    COUPON. 

On  receipt  of  this  Coupon,  together  with  75  cents  to  cover  all  chargea,  inolud- 
ing  express  or  mailing,  engraving  and  boxing,  we  hereby  agree  to  send  to  any  ad- 
dress a  set  of  our  pure  Cciu-Standard  double-extra  plated 

SI  LVER  SPOONS, 

and  on  each  Spoon  engrave  any  desired  initial.  All  charges  are  to  be  prepaid  hy 
the  75  ceuts  sent  us,  and  the  Spoons  will  be  delivered  at  destinalioa  free  of  any 
other  cbHige. 

Good  lor  niuetv  days  from  date  of  this  paper,  after  which  this  Conpoo  la  null 
and  void.  [Signed)         NATIONAL  SILVER  PLATING  CO., 

704  Chestnut  St..  Philadelphia. 


Sliould  St  be  desired,  any  one  of  the  following  articles  will  be  sent  in 
lieu  of  the  Spoons  on  payment  of  the  following  cbai  gf  s  ;  Six  <io]id  sfel 
knive^,  bliide  and  handle  one  solid  piece,  best  steel. double  nickel  and  silver 
plated,  S2 ;  six  forks,  double  nickel  and  silver  plated,  95  cts.     If  all  these 

foods  are  desired,  oBclose  the  total  charges,  which  will  be  75  cts.  for  spoons, 
2  for  knives,  and  95  cts.  for  forks— total,  S3. 7(1— thus  securing  for  $3.70 
whai  would  lOst  you  much  more  in  any  other  way.  BemembeiT  that 
each  article,  except  knives,  will  be  engraved  with  any  initial 
desired  without  extra  cost. 


IMPORTANT    NOTICE. 

This  liberal  offer  holds  good  for  only  ninety  davs  from  date,  therefore 
It  is  to  the  interest  of  all  who  can  secure  its  benefits  to  see  to  it  that  they 
are  notdebarred  by  reason  of  the  expiration  of  the  time  specified.  AH  let- 
ters ordering  Silverware  should  be  addressed  direct  to  the 

NATIONAL,  SILVER  PLATING  CO., 

No.  704  Chestnut  Street. 

PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


lii'Sii 


AMOS  MILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANUFACTCRKn  OF  AND  DEALEB  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars, 

Bridles,  Wliipe,  Ac.      Also  a  fine  lot  of  Trunks,  Vali*B, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buffalo  Robes. 

Eaj-ness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 

9-l-ly 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MANUFACTUBEB    OF 


FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS 

FOR 

GEIfTIiEMEN. 


FRE/i/CH  KID  BOOTS 


1,ADIE8. 


No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

DUNJBAR'S  CHILD'S  SHOES  A  SPECIALTY. 
9-l-ly 


Q    'VaQv)    / To  BUbBcrlbers  in 
d     X  tJdl     \      iho  county. 


CITV  LIST 
Lane  Agri&Iloriiciilmnil 

sn^Qj^'ti rs. 


To  mibncriberi  ont  of  >     tt -1   O  tS 
thccouuly.         ;     qjl.^tJ 


Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVOH,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  DECEMBER  15,  1877. 


LINNaiUS  RATHVON.  Publisher. 


CONTENTS  OrmiS  NUMBER. 

To  Our  Patrons,      ------  177 

CIubblD?,    --------  177 

Pennsylvania  Fiuit-Growevs'  Society,    -        -  177 

Special  Premiums  for  1878,        -        -        -        -  177 

An  Admirable  School-Book,  .         -        -  177 

Letter  from  Cockeysville,  ....  177 

The  Celebrated  Arabian  Horee  Jenifer,       -        -  177 

'^S.  His  Offspring  ill  LanoiiStcr  County.,  ^ 

Reminders  for  December,        -        -        -        -  178 

Mr.  Kurtz's  Pumpkin,        -----  178 

National  Bee-Keepers'  Association,        -        -  178 

Facts  for  the  Public. 

More  Abomt  Bees, 178 

Bark-Lice, -        -   178 

What  is  the  Best  Method  of  Destroying  Bark-Lice  on 
Fruit  Trees. 

From  North'.Carolina, 179 

Around  the  Farm.     No.   4,         -        -        -        -    180 

Turnips  for  Milch  Cows. 
Grapes  and  Bees,     ------        180 

Early  Prolific  Raspberry,  -----     181 

Address,         -         ------        181 

Splenic,  or  Periodic  Fever  of  Cattle,  -  -  182 
(iypsum,  -.-...-- 183 
Oleomargarine— The  New  Substitute  for  Butter,  183 

Interesting  Letter  to  Prof  Baker  of  Millcrsvillc — The 
Mode  of  Making  Artificial  Butter  Explained  by 
Pre  .ident  Deshler— Prof.  Baker's  Letter— The 
"Substitute"  and  How  it  is  Made. 

The  Omnlvoroue  Caterpillar,  -  -  -  -  184 
The  Cherry,    - 185 

Somelhiug   ofj  Its    History,   Cultivation,    and    Most 
Profitable    and    Best     Varieties— Transplanting— 
Pruning    at  the  Time  of  Transplanting — Standard 
Trees — Dwarfs— Soil  and  Situation. 
What  Shall  We  Teach  Our  Girls,      -        -        -      185 
Facts  Not  Generally  Known,        -        -        -        -  180 
Ten  Rules  for  Farmers,  -----        186 
•  Somethine  About  DragonJFliei,        -        -        -    186 
Curing  Meats,        ------  l87 

OUR  LOCAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

ProceedinKs'of  the'Lancaster  County  Agricultur- 
al and  Horticultural  Society,      -        -        .      187 

Report  on   the   Condition  of  Crops — Readingj^of  Es- 
says — Referred  Questions — NewJBusiness.        " 

Tobacco  Growera'  Asaoclation,  -  -  .  188 
The  Liunaan  Society,  -----   l(j9 

Donations  to  the  Museum — Doaations  tojthe  Librarj'. 
Historical_Scction — Papers  Read. 

AGRICULTURAL. 

Liquid  Manure,       ------  189 

Saving  Sweet  Potatoes,       -----  189 

Opiiositlon  to  Potatoes,   -----  1(9 

How  Long  Will  the  Forests  Last]?      -        -        -  189 

Silver  Hull  Buckwheat,      -       -         -         -         -  190 

Is  Uungiirlan  Grass  Safe  Feed  for  Horses?  -      -  190 

Age  of  Nursery  Trees, 190 

Iiitcrsting  Facts, 190 

Viglala  Tobacco,     ------  190 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Mice  and  Tounj;  Trees,      -----  190 

Setting  Trees, 190 

How  Jacob  Taylor  Grows  Plums,       -        -        .  180 

Budding, -  190 

Araerlcau  Fruit  in  Europe,         ....  190 

Cracked  Pears, ItO 

Forest  Planting  in  France,        .        -        .        .  190 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Economy  in  the  Use  of  Fuel ,         -        -        -  191 

Extravagance,    -------  191 

A  Cure  for  Diptheria, lUl 

Household  Kecipcs,    ------  li*l 


LIVE  STOCK. 


Caring  for  Stock, 
Watering  Horses,    - 
Take  Care  of  the  Horses, 
Knowing  Horses,     - 
Propagating  Rabbits,  - 
Literary  and  Personal,    - 


191 
191 

m 

192 
192 
192 


THE  FARMERS  HOME  ORGAN. 


A  MONTHLY  NEWSPAPER, 

DEVOTED  TO  AGRICULTURE,  HORTI- 
CULTURE, DOMESTIC   ECONOMY 
AND  MISCELLANY. 


PRACTICAL  ENTOMOLOGY 

Made  a  prominent  feature,  with   special  reference  to   the 
wants  of  the  Farmer,  the  Qardeuer  and  Fruit -Qrover. 

Founded  under  the  auspices  of  the  Lancaster  County 
Agricultural  and  Horticultural  Society. 


Edited  by  Prof.  S.  S.  EATHVON. 


TXRMS: 

To  subBcribers  rending  within  the  county — 
One  Copy,  one  year,  ------         $i.oo 

Six  Copies,  one  year,      -  -----        5.00 

Ten  Copies,  one  year,    -------        7-50 

To  Bubwcribers   ontoide  of    Lancaster  county,  Including 
postage  jire-paid  by  the  piibliaherB; 
One  Copy,  one  year,     -  -----  $1.25 

Five  Copies,  one  year,       -        -        -  -  -        -  5.00 

All  Bnl>Bcrlptione  will  oommenoe  with  the  January  num- 
ber unlees  othorwise  ordered. 

All  communications  Intended  for  publication  should  bt? 
addressed  to  the  Editor,  and,  to  secura  iunertiou,  should  bt- 
in  his  hands  by  the  Qrst  of  the  monlb  of  publiaition. 

All  bURiuesB  letters,  containiutf  subscriptiuus  and  adver- 
tisements, should  bv  addreaecd  to  the  jmbllsher. 

The  FARMEn  will  be  puhlinhed  on  the  IBth  of  every 
mouth,  printed  on  good  paper  with  clear  type,  in  con- 
venient form  fur  reading  and  binding,  and  mailed  to  sub- 
scribers on  the  following 


LlNNiCUS  RATHVON, 

22  South  Queen  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa. 


RATEM  «r  A»TeilTIIlllfn— Trn    r<>nts   n 
line  Tor  each  iaaertlMi.     TwcWe  liuc«  to  the  luch 


FLORAL 

iful  Mohlli- 


»GIFT  pAOA^zfiPi^i 

trated,   all   abuui   flov^*iy,    ferneries,   etc 

year,    Sample  for  atarap. 

Floral  Cataloouk  FhEK.  Geo.  W.  Pabk,  Mt  Vernon,  0. 


beaut 
paper,  ridily 
ferneries,   etc. 


illUH- 

Only  &J  centu  a 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DEAliUB   IM 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Solo  Agent  for  the  Arundel  Tinted 

SPECTACLES. 

Repairing  strictly  attended  to. 

ITorth  Queen-st.  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Fa. 


Each  Number  contains  Tninrr-Two  Paoes  of  reading. 
manj-^flne  ^^'ood  Cut  IlluBtrationfi,  and  one  c'oloued  plate. 
A  be.iutiful Garden  Magazine,  piinlrd  on  elegant  j^ajier,  and 
full  of  Information.  ;u  Eugheh  and  German.  Trice  $1.25 
a  year.    Fire  copies  $5.00. 

Viek's  Flower  and  Vegetable  Qarden,  80  cents  in 
paper  coveia;  in  elegaMt  cloth  coTora  $1.(M). 

Viek's  Catalogue. — 30ti  illiiRtr»tionn.  only  2  ceatfi. 
9.1'2-lni]  AildrCHH,      JAMKSVIOK,  Rochester,  N.  Y. 

DOLLAR-AND-A-HALF  FOR  TEN  CENTS. 

Sloddnrd-a  Jtfunicnl  J.ihrnrjf,  Juat  i>u bitched,  i'i 
pageH,  full  fiizp,  1>eBt  and  moflt  popular  muaie  for  1<t  rcnta, 
.\fic  and  Pifjialar  Sun^jt,  iKinre  arui  Itntfriinirntal  Muju'c^ 
OpvroJt,  //i/mn^,  cfc,  ct'e.  For  aale  by  all  nt'wapapi'r  deal- 
ers. Postage  2  ceuta,  to  be  sent  in  addition  to  above,  if 
ordered  from  tlia  publinhera. 

J.  M.  STODDARD  &  CO., 

t>-12-3t]  T2I  CnEsTNTT  Stiikct,  Philadklt-hia. 

J>ttrnnrn  Currtl.  "Sqvt 
pntliH  marked  out  by  that 
pIuincHt  of  all  Iwoka— 
"Plain  Hnine  Talk  and 
Medical  Common  Hi-iiKe," 
—nearly  l.OitO  paget*.  2<M)  illualraliouH,  by  Dr.  K.  R.  Foote, 
of  V2<>  Lexington  Ave,  JJ.  Y.  rurchawrd  of  thia  Pook  are 
at  llbrrty  toeon.tii/1  Itfl  author  in  pcraon  or  by  mill  fiett. 
Price  by  mall  fa. 25  for  Iho  Stnnttan/  edlMon,  or  $\.(>0  foi 
the /»o/»M/ar  edition,  which  contains  all  the  aame  ni:iltc<t 
and  UlttstratioiiH.  ('.»nl«'iit8  tabh-a  free.  Agents  Wtiutvd. 
MURRAY  HII.L  PUUMslllMl  (<>  .  J 
g-lO-ly  |ia»  Fuht  asih  St.  N.  Y. 

FREE. 

For  %  Club  for  either  the  Enreka  Shirt  or  Draw  Chart,  I 
win  send  a  Chart  free  on  receipt  of  25  cts.  to  pay  for  mount- 
ing and  postage.  Mns.  A.  J.  MARROW, 

ludlanapolifi.  jod* 


CHRONIC 


II. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


PEXNKYT.VANIA  RAILROAD 
Trains  leave  the  Depot  in  this  city, 

Leave 
WE-TWARD. 

Pacific  Express' 

Vt'^y  Passengert  

Niagara  Express 

Col.  Accommodation 

Mail  train  via  Mt.  Joy 

No.  2  via  Columbia 

Sunday  Mail 

Fast  tine' 

Frederick  Accommodation. 

Harrisburg  Aceom 

Columbia  Accommodation.. 

Harrieburf,'  Express 

PittebuVg  EipresB 

Cincinnati  Expreea" 


Lancaster. 

2:40  a.  m. 

4:50  a.  m. 

9.35  a.  m. 

7:20  p.  m. 
11:20  a.  m. 
11:20  a.  m. 
11:20  a.m. 

2:10  p.  m. 

2:15  p.  ra. 

6:00  p.  m. 

7:20  p.  m. 

7:25  p.m. 

9:25  p.  m. 
11:^0  p.  m. 


EASTWARD.  Lancaster. 

Atlantic  Express' 12:30  a.  m. 


Philadelphia  Expres8t. 

Hurrisburg  Express , 

Columbia  Accoramodalioa, 

Pacific  Express*. 

Sunday  Mail 

Johnstown  Express , 

Day  Express' , 

Harrisburg  Accom. 


SCHEDULE. 

as  follows : 

Arrive 

Harrisburg. 

4:05  a.  m. 

7:50  a.  ra. 

10:40  a.  m. 

Col.    8:00  p.  m. 

1:00  p.  m. 

1:25  p.  m. 

1:30  p.  m. 

3:25  p.  m. 

Col.  2:45  p.  m. 

8:10  p.  m. 
Col.  8:00  p.  m. 

8:40  p.  m. 
10:50  p.  m. 
12:45  a.  m. 

Philadelphia. 
3:00  a.  m. 
7:00  a.  m. 
10:00  a.  m. 
12;30  p.  m. 
3:45  p.m. 
5:00  p.  m. 
6:00  p.  m. 
7:20  p.  m. 
9:00  p.  m. 
The  Hanover  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancaster 
with  Niagara  Express,   west,   at  9:35  a.  m.,  and  will  run 
through  to  Hanover. 

The  Frederick  Accommodation,  west,  connectsat  Lancas- 
ter with  Fast  Line,  west,  at  2:10  p.  m.,  and  runs  to  Frederick. 
The  Pacific  Express,  east,  on  Sunday,  when  flagged,  will 
stop  at  Middletown,  EUzabethtown,  Mount  Joy  and  Landis- 
ville. 
"The  only  trains  which  run  daily, 
tRuns  daily,  except  Monday. 

ETEE?  BEE-IEEFEH  ZZOVLH  S£AB  TBB 

AMERICAN  T 


4:10  a.  m. 
7:35  a.  m. 
9.28  p.  m. 
1:20  p.  m. 
2:00  p.  m. 
3:05  p.m. 
5:1S  p.  m. 
5:50  p.  m. 


uIIMAL 


An  elegant  30  page  MinthlT  devoted  I 

SSIEUTiriC  AKD  PEACTICAL  BiE-CtlLTUEE. 

Tha  tnosr. 6uci;csifiil  ami  cx|  c-riouccii  liee-Mfi-^ti-rs  in  Aniencn 
otl-  ils  repulJir  cf-rrespoinleiitB.    Ii  ii  the  OLUKsr,  Likgk^t  sud 

BEST  BEE  PAPER  INTHE  WORLD! 

TWO  IKILI.ARH  A  VKAR.     Spprimon  Copy  JOcta.     AildrcM 

Thos.  Q.  l^ewmac  t  Son,  971 W.  Uadison  St.  Chicago. 
9-12-2-t 


TO  AGENTS. 

The  Century  CI' art. 

A  100-year  Almanac,  whereby  you  can  ascertain  what  day 
of  the  week  any  day  of  the  month  is  or  what  day  of  the 
month  any  day  of  the  week  is,  was,  or  will  be,  from  1799  to 
1900,  or  in  what  day  any  event  has  taken  place,  from  1T99 
•  to  1900,  and  1000  other  occurrences.  The  greatest  in-  » 
*  ventlon  of  man.  Every  person  will  buy  one;  also  the  « 
^  great  Egyptian  Puzzle.  Sport  for*all.  Either  article  * 
0  sent  on  receipt  of  25c.  post  paid,  or  $1  per  dozen.  .* 
H  Agents  wanted  everywhere.  Ladies  and  Gents  secure 
your  town  at  once.  You  can  make  $20  per  week.  Send  for 
Bample, 

KOOSS  BRO'S,  Sovelty  Dealers 

9-12-6m]  ion  and  102  Washington  St.,  CHICAGO,  111. 


A   FARMER'S    FORTUNE. 

Theplaeeto  learn  how  it  maybe  obtained  is  the  Grea 
American  Stock  Jooknal,  a  large  24  page  monthly,  one  of 
the  cheapest  and  beat  Farm  Magazines  in  the  country.  Tells 
about  Farming  and  Stock  Raising  in  all  its  branches.  No 
farmer's  Family  should  be  without  it,  as  it  will  save  many 
times  Its  coHt. 

SARD  TZMSS, 

and  a  desire  to  place  it  in  the  hands  of  all,  led  us  to  make 
the  liberal  offer  of  aendiug  it  three  months  on  trial  for 

TWO   DIMES. 

Liberal  premiums,  a  specimen  copy  and  show  bills  free  to 
all  who  will  upe  them.  All  who  subscribe  before  January 
1st,  1878,  get  the  October,  November  and  December  num- 
bers free.  Address,  POTTS  BROTHERS,  Parkesburg, 
Chester  co.,  Pa.  [O-ll-Sm. 

A  TRUE  FARMER'S  PAPER. 

SCiENTIC  FARMER. 

BOSTON.  MASS. 

Deyoied  to  the  Interests  of  ProfiiaWe  Agriculture. 

Its  departments  include  Chemistry.  Botany  and   Hor- 

TICULTUHE,  DAIRT  AND  STOCK  VeTEBINABT,  ENTOMOLOGI- 
CAL, The  Field,  Conference  Corner  and  Mtsoellane- 
OU8 — on  Farm  Practice,  Rural  Architecture.  The  Farmer 
in  Politics,  etc.— all  being  conducted  on  that  idea  of  cor- 
rectnens  which  is  to  advance  the  farm  profit,  and  lift  Agri- 
culture in  a  higher  social  position. 

Circulates  in  Every  State  and  Territory. 

Subscription  price  only  $1.00  per  year,  Send  stamp  for 
sample  copy  and  circular  of  Special  Premiums  and  induce- 
Clients  for  C/nbu.  [9-10-4m. 

GRAND  TRIUMPH  IN  HORTICULTURE. 

Olorlons  rPNnlts  of  a  I'spfnl  I.ife:  climax  slmost 
reached:  FELTOX'S  NEW  KEKRIES,  t'lnderel- 
lit  and  Contlnentnl  Slrnwberrlpn.  The  four 
best  bearing,  host  carrying,  boat  selling,  best  pajiuK 
Market  Berrlex.  f  J    k 

Illuntrated  Circuliir  and  Price  list  giving  history  aud 
full  description.    Free  to  all. 

OltlSAN^  *  BENNETT, 
Nurserymen  and  Fruit  Growers,  Woodbnry  N  J 
9-H-3m  '>      .  ■ 


Rales  «r  Advertising  lu  the  Farmer. 


I  mo.... 
it  mo.... 

S  mo 

4  mo 

G  mo 

8  mo 

I  year. 


1  In. 


$}.»0 
2  00 
J.60 
3.00 
4.60 
6.00 
9.00 


2  in.    3  In. 


$  2.00 

4.00 
4.60 
6.M 
».80 
H.OO 
18.00 


t  3.00 
«.0« 
6.75 
9.00 
13.50 
18.00 
27.00 


4  in. 


t  4.00 
8.08 
10.00 
12.00 
18.00 
24.00 
36.00 


5  in. 


$  6.00 
12.00 
13.60 
18.00 
2T.00 
36.00 
64.00 


8iu. 


$  8.00 
16.00 
18.00 
24.00 
36.00 
48.00 
72  00 


t^^Syecial  and  business  notices  15  cents  per  line. 


D 

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m 


Cd 

O 

^ 

O 

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2 

1 — 

Ul 

-"^   en 

s 

N 

*T^ 

H 
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'  Unquestionably  the  best   sustained  work 
ot  the  kind  In  the  World." 


MuTp^T^n  WM^^^%in^ 


ILLUSTRATED. 


Notices  of  the  Presft. 
The  veteran  Magazine^  which  long  ago  outgrew  its  origit 
nal  title  of  the  A>io  Monthly  Magazine^  has  not  in  the  least 
abated  the  popularity  It  won  at  the  ontset,  but  has  added  to 
it  in  many  ways,  and  has  kept  fairly  abreast  of  the  times, 
thanks  to  the  enterprise  of  the  publlsherB  and  the  tact  and 
wisdom  of  its  editors.  For  whateTer  is  best  aud  moat  read- 
able in  the  Literatore  of  travel,  discoTery.  and  fiction,  the 
average  reader  of  to  day  looks  to  Harper's  Magazine,  just  as 
expectantly  as  did  the  reader  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago; 
there  is  the  same  admirable  variety  of  contents  and  the  same 
freshness  and  suggestiveness  In  Us  editorial  departments 
now  as  th^n.— Bonton  Jottrnal, 

T  s  bTm  S  . 

Festags  Free  tc  all  SaljscriborB  In  the  United  SUtei. 

Harpeh's  Magazine,  one  year $4  00. 

$4  00  includes  prepayment  of  U.  8.  postage  by  the  pub- 
lishers. 
Subscriptions  to  Harper's  Magazine, WBBKLT.and  Bazar, 
to  o'fie  addrem  for  one  year.  $10  00  ,*    or,    two  of  Uarper's 
Periodiealt,  to  one  address  for  one  year,  $7,00  ;  postage  free. 

An  Extra  Copy  of  either  the  Magazine,  Weekly,  or  Ba- 
zar will  he  supplied  grmtis  for  every  Club  of  Fivn  Subscri- 
bers at  $4  00  far/i,  paid /or  by  one  remittance;  or,  Six  Cop- 
ies one  year,  without  extra  copy,  for  $'20  00. 

Back  Numbers  can  be  supplied  at  any  time. 

The  volumes  of  the  Magazine  commence  with  the  Num- 
bers for  June  and  December  of  each  year.  When  no  time  is 
specified,  it  will  be  understood  that  the  subscriber  wishes  to 
begin  with  the  current  Number. 

A  complete  Bet  of  Harper's  Magazine,  now  comprising 
65  Volumes  in  neat  cloth  binding,  will  be  sent  by  expreee, 
freight  at  expense  of  purchaser,  for  $2  25  per  volume. 
Single  volumes  by  mail,  ^toatpaid,  $3  00.  Cloth  cases,  for 
binding,  50  cents,  by  mail,  postpaid. 

A  Complete  Analytical  Index  to  the  first  Fifty  Volumes  of 
Harper's  Magazinb  has  been  published,  rendering  availa. 
ble  far  reference  the  vast  and  varied  wealth  of  information 
which  constitutes  this  periodicftl  a  perfect  illustrated  litera- 
ry cyclopedia.  8to,  Cloth,  $2  00;  Half  Calf,  $5  25.  Sent 
postage  prepaid. 

Subscriptions  received  for  Harper's  Periodicals  only. 

Newspapers  are  not  to  copy  this  adosrtisement  without  tlie 
express  orders  of  Harper  Ji;  Brothers, 

Address  HARPEK  &  BROTHERS,  New  York. 

FARM  dc  FEED   MILLS. 

boDi.-.  I'rag,  and  ^^juce  Uilla.  10  siiei, 
for  Hand  ©r  Power.  CoDlcftl  KreDob 
Burr  SloDA  Flooriag  KOd  Corn  Hills., 

(t7*R«celv»d  th«  Oraad  Award  Di- 
ploma xaA  Medal  at  Centennial. 

(Ly^Illaatrated   pampblet  leot  Free. 
I        Addreii,        L.  J.  MILLER, 
181  B.  Front  St..  Cincinnati.  O, 
9 -8- 6m 


My  annual  Catalogue  of  Vegetable  and  Flower  Seed  for 
1878  will  be  eent  FREE,  in  January,  to  all  who  apply,  CuB- 
tomers  of  last  season  need  not  write  for  it,  I  offer  one  of 
the  largest  collections  of  vegetable  seed  ever  sent  out  by 
any  seed  house  in  America,  a  large  portion  of  which  wete 
grcwn  on  my  six  seed  farms.  Printed  direct  ions  for  cultiva- 
tion on  each  package.  All  seed  sold  from  my  establishment 
warranted  to  be  both  fresh  and  true  to  name;  so  far  that 
should  it  prove  otherwise  I  will  refill  the  order  gratis.  As 
the  original  introducer  of  the  Hubbard  and  Marblehead 
Squaeheg,  the  Marblehead  Cabbages,  and  a  score  of  other 
new  vegetables,  I  invite  the  patronage  of  all  who  are  anxious 
to  have  their  seed  DIHECTL Y  FllOAf  THE  GROWER,  fresh, 
true,  and  of  the  very  best  strain.  Setc  Vtgeiahles  a  spc" 
cialty, 

9-12-4m]      JAMES  J.  H.  GREGORY,  Marblehead,  Ma8«. 


ADVERTISING. 

$t.O0O  WORTH  FOR  $8*7.50. 

The  cheapest  and  best  way  to  reach  readers  outside  of 
the  large  cities  is  by  using  one  or  more  of  our  six  lists  of 
over  1,000  newspapers,  divided  to  cover  different  sec- 
tions of  the  country.      IVeekly    Cirenlatlon    over 

60O.0O0,  Advsrtisements  received  for  one  or  more  lists. 
For  catalogues  containing  names  of  papers,  aud  other  in- 
formation and  for  estimates,  address 

SZAL3  &  F03T1B,  41  Fart  Bow  (Tinna  Bdldlng),  Nev  7ort. 

HULL  &  SCOTNEY, 

GENERAL 

COMMISSION 


MERCHANTS, 

No.  346  North  Water  Street. 

PHILADELPHIA, 

and  whoieeale  dealersa  in  Butter,  Cheese,  Lard,  Tallow, 
Eggs.    Poultry,  Game,    Stock,    Potatoes,    Apples,    Grain, 
Flour,  Fur,  Wool,  Cotton,  Rice,   Tobacco, 
Peanuts,  Broom  Corn,   Dried  Fruit,   Hay, 

_  ^ Hopa,  Foreign  and  Domestic  Fruits,  and  in 

fact  we  can  sell  any  and  everything  at  the  highest  market 
price  :  make  prompt  nTTTITinTI  re'"™?,  and  I,IRE- 
ERAI,  CASH  (IHHHSH  A»VA»«ES 
made  on  all  ship-  UliiJUMUi  mente  except  perish- 
able  articles.  To  show  that  we  do  an  eitenaive  business, 
any  game  dealer  in  Philadelphia  will  tell  TjnjTT  fllTIV 
you  we  handled  more  game  last  season  r||l|l|l  nl 
than  all  other  Houses  in  Philadelphia  put  1  U  U  U  X 11 1 1 
together.  Send  for  Price  Elst,  Stencil,  &c.,  &c.  REFE- 
RENCE CASH,  or  we  refer  you  to  ANT  RESPON- 
SIBLE irOFHE  in  OUR  CI  fT. 


BIITTE8. 


EGGS. 


GAME. 


9-lI-2y. 


TZZS     BSST     OFFSn  I 

We  will  sell  daring  these  hard  times 

$510  Pianos  for  $210, 

And  all  other  styles  in  the  same  proportion,  including  Grand, 
Square  and  Upright— »U _^r/(Nc/ass— sold  direct  to  the  peirpU 
at  factory  prices.  No  agents;  no  commissions;  no  dis'^ounts. 
These  Pianos  made  one  of  the  finest  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  and  were  unanimously  recommended  for 
the  Highest  Honors.  Regularly  incorporated  Manufac- 
turing company — New  Manufactory-K)ne  of  the  largest  and 
finest  in  the  world.  The  Square  Grands  contain  Mathushek's 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment in  the  history  of  Piano  making.  The  uprights  are  the 
finest  in  America.  Pianos  sent  on  trial.  Don't  tail  to  write 
for  Illustrated  and  Descriptive  Catalogue— mailed  free. 


UENDELSSOHN  FIANO  CO., 


9-7-1 y 


No.  56  Broadway,  IT.  T. 


Rn  PER  CENT  TO  AGENTS,  for  the  illustrated  Monthly. 

JU  UHION   IN   0HBI8T,  50  cents  a  year;  also  large 

c;i8h  eoraiiuBsion  or  valuable  premium  to  canvasera 

for  THE  LONDON  0HBI8TIAN  HERALD,  an  illustrated 

Weekly,  containiug  sermous  of  C.  H.  8PUROEON,  DR. 
TALMADGE  and  D.  L.  MOODY,  interesting  articles,  serial 
story,  etc.  Three  months,  76  cents,  $2,60  a  y^",  from  U. 
8.  Branch  Office.  Write  now  for  sample  copies  and  terms 
free,  to  H.  A.  KING,  17  Bible  House,  N.  Y.  City. 

THE  NATIONAL  AGBIGULTnBIST  AND  W0BK1N& 
FABMEB.  established  1847,  a  double  quarto,  18  page,  Il- 
lustrated Family  Paper,  devoted  to  Agriculture,  Stock 
Raising,  Bee-Culture,  ko.  Try  it !  6  months  f.r  66  cents, 
or  with  the  ILLUSTRATED  PRONOUNCING  DICTION- 
ARY, 3jO  pages.  269  engravings,  cloth,  sent  with  the 
paper  a  year,  both  post-paid,  lor  only  $1,30-  Large  com- 
missioBS  or  valui  b!e  premiums  to  Agents.    Address 

WM.  L.  ALLISON,  128  Nassau  St.,  New  York. 


The  Lancaster  Farmer. 


Pro£  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER,  PA.,  DECEMBER,  1877. 


Vol.  12.  No.  IL 


TO  OUR  PATRONS. 

This  ntiniber  of  our  jomnal  concludes  the 
NINTH  vohuiieof  The  JjANcAsTKit  Fakmeu, 
and  before  we  greet  you  agiiin,  you  will  have 
•])articii>aled  in  the  festivities  of  the  most 
festal  t)ccasion  of  the  whole  year — an  occa- 
sion that  (•oiunieniiirat(>s  the  epoch  of  "  I'eace 
upon  earth,  goodwill  towards  men."  'Whilst 
thousiuids  have  cause  to  deplore  and  lament 
the  adverse  condition  of  the  times — -the  sli  rink- 
age  of  assets,  and  tlie  expansion  of  liabilities 
— tiie  farming  public,  fjenerally,  have  been 
lilcssed  with  reasonably  abundant  crops, 
tolerably  remunerating  prices,  and  compara- 
tively good  health  ;  and,  it  is  hoped,  also, 
with  .a  corresponding  share  of  happiness, 
illustrating  that  although  they  may  have  been 
over-reached  or  forestalled  by  an  unapproci- 
ating  hinuanity,  they  have  been  none  the  less 
under  the  protecting  care  of  an  over-ruling 
Divinity — that  '' Divinity  which  shapes  our 
ends,  rcuigh  hew  them  as  \vc  will."  Since 
our  last  Clu'istmas  greeting  we  have  been 
pressed  through  another  adventitious  year  ; 
comparatively,  only  a  mere  grain  of  sand  in 
the  great  moiuid  of  being — mounds  and 
grains,  the  largest  mass  and  numbers  of 
which  are  at  the  base,  .and  of  the  few  who 
can,  for  a  time,  occupy  the  apex,  every  pass- 
ing day  one  or  more  is  toppling  over  and  roll- 
ing to  the  bottom,  and  is  socially  and  finan- 
cially lost  in  oblivion.  Through  another  year 
we  have  feebly  but  faithfully  catered  for  you 
to  the  best  of  our  ability,  which,  it  nothing 
more  tangible  should  result,  we  hope  it  may 
ultimate  in  that  wealth  which  can  only  l)e 
"laid  up  where  moth  and  rust  doth  not  cor- 
rupt, nor  thieves  break  through  and  steal." 
But  to  begin  a  new  year  more  auspiciously 
than  those  that  have  passed,  \vc  need  your 
further  and  increased  aid — we  need  additional 
facilities  in  order  to  pliice  The  Farmer  on 
such  a  footing  as  will  enable  it  to  meet  the 
public  expectation.  And  as  the  season  is 
approaching  when  all  the  Christian  world  is 
"given  to  giving,"  may  we  not  cherish  the  hope 
that  we  will  be  remembered  ?  We  ask  nothing 
gratuitous  and  nothing  for  self.  We  only  ask 
for  continued  permission  to  work,  and  a  com- 
pensating realization  of  the  divine  maxim 
that  "  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire  ;"  but 
realizing  this  or  not,  we  wish  yon  all  a  venj 

merry  ChristriuiS. 

— ^ 

CLUBBING. 

Below  we  append  our  club  rates  for  1878, 
and  we  appeal  to  our  friends,  and  the  friends 
of  agricultural  progress,  to  use  their  influence 
in  getting  np  clubs  for  the  coming  year.  In 
addition  to  these  rates  for  small  numljers, 
when  the  club  amounts  to  20,  25  or  30,  we 
will  make  a  deduction  of  30  per  cent,  on  our 
regular  subscription  prices.  Xow  is  the  time 
to  act  in  the  matter,  and  we  hope  that  our 
friends  will  enter  upon  a  vigorous  canvass  in 
behalf  of  The  F.moler.  Please  also  notice 
our  PiiEMiUM  I^iST  in  another  column. 

KEDICFD    RATES    TO    CLUBS 

To  subscribers  lesklinp;  witliin  tlic  county  : 

One  copy,  ouc  year, SI  .00 

Si.K  copies,  one  year, ."i.OO 

Ten  copies,  one  year,    -----  T.-W 

To  subscribers  outside  of  Lancaster  co«nty  ; 
One  copy,  one  year,    -        -        -        -        -        -  ?1.2.5 

Five  copies,  one  year,    -----  .5.00 

Ten  copies,  one  year,         -----    9.00 

AH  subscriptions  will  commence  with  tlie  Jnnuary 
number  unless  otlierwise  ordered. 


PENNSYLVANIA  FRUIT-GROWERS- 
SOCIETY. 

This  veteran  association  will  meet  in  Wil- 
liamsport,  Lycoming  county,  on  the  third 
Wednesday  of  .January  next,  and  we  under- 
stand the  officers  are  using  more  than  ordi- 
nary exertions  to  make  it  an  ijnusijally  inter- 


esting occasion.  The  standing  committees 
are  also  at  work,  and  if  the  event  is  not  a 
success,  it  will  not  be  because  the  oBiccrs  and 
members  have  not  endeavored  to  keep  up  its 
well-earned  rei)utation  as  an  ellicicnt  instru- 
ment for  the  diffusion  of  practical  horticultural 
information  throughout  Pennsylvania  and 
adjacent  States.  Visitors  and  delegates  from 
other  societies  have  always  been  welcomely 
received  ;  and  the  society  desires  to  extend 
even  a  more  hearty  welcome  on  this  occasion. 
Those  attending  should,  if  possible,  exhibit 
specimens  of  their  best  fruit. 


SPECIAL  PREMIUMS  FOR  1878. 


Club  Rates— No.   i. 

To  any  one,  within  the  county  of  Lancas- 
ter, sending  us  a  club  of  /fee  new  subscribers, 
accompanied  by/ti!<r  dollam,  we  will  send  Jirc 
copes  of  The  Faumer,  to  any  address,  for' 
one  year,  from  the  first  of  January  next,  and 
two  coi>iesof  ".Jenkins'  Art  of  Propagation," 
a  beautiful  octavo  of  32  pages,  and  2')  fine 
embellishments,  which  .sells  readily  at  IjO  cents 
per  copy.  To  any  one  out  of  the  county,  for 
five  dollars,  fiix  copies  and  two  books. 
No.  2. 

For  six  subscribers,  accompanied  hy  fire  dol- 
lars, we  will  send  six  copies  of  The  Farmer, 
as  above,  and  one  copy  of  the  "Life  of 
Charles  Uickens,"  by  Mrs.  Ilanaford,  or 
"Driven  to  Sea,"  by  Mrs.  Coupples,  or  "The 
Presidents  and  their  Adniinl.stratious,"  or 
"The  Declaration  of  Independence."  These 
are  royal  12  mo.  volumes  of  about  400  pages, 
handsomely  illustrated,  and  sell  for  $1.50. 
No.  3. 

For  ten  subscribers,  and  ten  dollars,  ten 
copies,  as  above,  and  one  box  of  "Kunkle's 
Celebrated  Perfumes."  These  boxes  contain 
six  bottles  of  perfume,  the  regular  retail  price 
of  which  is  one  dollar  per  Vx)ttle,  or  "Tlie 
Century  of  Independence,"  price  $2.. 50 — very 
desirable  premiums  for  local  lady  canvassers. 
No.  4. 

For  f/teen  sub.scribers,  and  fifteen  dollars, 
we  will  send  sUt-een  copies  of  The  Farmer 
and  a  SIO.OO  order  on  Peter  Henderson,  good 
for  twenty-four  choice  fioxrering  green-house 
planta,  twenty  jxictagcs  of  flower  xeeds,  and 
twenty  packages  of  vegetable  seeds.  Peter  Hen- 
derson is  knoicn  all  over  tlie  Union,  and  there- 
fore nothing  need  be  said  about  the  quality  of 
his  goods. 

No.  5. 

For  twenty  subscribers,  and  eighteen  dollars, 
twenty  copies  of  The  Farmer,  and  one  copy 
of  "Science  in  Story,"  consisting  of  a  series 
of  /ire  illustrated  square.  12  mo.  volumes  of 
232  pages  each  (1100  pages).  Plea.se  see  our 
literary  columns  for  a  more  full  de.scription  of 
this  desirable  series. 

No.  6. 

For  twenty-five  subscribers,  and  twenty-four 
dollars,  twenty-five  copies  of  The  Faksier 
and  one  of  "Peck's  Celebrated  Atomizers," 
worth  *10.00  at  least.  This  is  the  l)est  ma- 
chine ever  invented  for  throwing  liquid  solu- 
tions and  decoctions  on  insect-infested  plants. 
For  an  illustrated  description  of  this  machine 
see  the  May  (1876)  number  of  The  Farjier, 
page  00. 

To  clubs  made  up  lieyond  the  borders  of 
Lancaster  county  the  cash  amount  required 
will  be  greater,  proportioned  to  the  difference 
in  published  terms,  as  to  home  and  foreign 
sub.scriptions.  Our  canva&sers  can  make  these 
calculations  upon  the  basis  of  our  first  propo- 
sition. 

We  are  making  arrangements  for  additional 
inducements  to  subscribers,  which,  if  accom- 
plished, will  be  announced  in  our  December 
number,     We  also  intend    to   increase   our 


nnmlK-r  of  desirable  illustrations  forlHTK,  and 
add  other  enibelliKliuients,  as  fast  as  our 
means  will  allow,  and  we  respectfully  ask  thir 
public  to  help  us  make  The  '  Lankasteh 
Farmer  a  credit  to  the  "great  county,"  and 
the  people  among  whom  it  is  located.  Our 
tenth  volume  should  be  the  crowning  volume 
of  the  series— 80  we  desire. 


AN  ADMIRABLE  SCHOOL-BOOK. 

The  admonition  "fict  the  Hcst,"  applies 
with  remarkable  force  to  .school  text-liooks. 
As  no  good  farmer  buys  an  inferior  hor.se  or 
implement  when  he  knows  a  better  may  be 
had  for  the  same  cost ;  as  no  wide-awake  me- 
chanic is  content  to  work  with  poor  tools 
when  he  is  aware  he  can  do  much  more  and 
better  execution  with  good  ones;  so  the 
youthful  mind  should  not  be  confronted  with 
obstacles  and  embarrassments  in  .school, 
which  may  U;  readily  avoided  by  the  selection 
of  proper  manuals  of'^  instruction. 

Many  of  the  schools  of  the  State  have 
labored  under  the  impediment  of  a  poor  text- 
book of  history,  and  it  is  time  to  find  a  reme<ly. 
We  have  exaniined  with  plejisnre  and  instruc- 
tion a  new  work  by  Prof.  .1.  C.  Itidiiath, 
which  is  a  clear  and  conci.se  history  of  the 
country,  in  terse,  imju-essive  narrative,  with 
elegant  maps,  chronological  charts,  instruc- 
tive diagrams,  apt  illustrations,  and  a  degree 
of  freshness  and  vivacity  which  are  peculiarly 
attractive.  It  is  being  rapidly  introduced  in 
all  progressive  communities,  and  as  a  chang<! 
wouhl  Ijcnctit  the  schools  of  our  own  locality, 
we  trust  those  who  feel  an  interest  in  the 
subject — who  does  not  V — will  not  fail  to  ex- 
amine this  most  worthy  and  admirable  candi- 
date for  adoption.  See  our  literary  notices  at 
the  end  of  this  number. 

^.-— . — . — - 

C0CKET8VILLE,  Baltimore  Covntt,  Md.,  > 
December  8,  1877.  S 
Laxcasteu  Farmer — Dcnr  Sir;  I  perceive  in 
your  November  number,  au  article  on  Improvement 
in  Wheat  Culture.  Could  you  inform  me  if  Mr. 
GrofT  makes  an  attachment  to  drills,  old  style,  or  is 
it  an  entire  new  drill  ?  I  have  a  liickfbrd  <fc  Holfman, 
and  if  it  could  be  apjilicd  to  it ,  micrht  order.  Do  you 
know  his  price ?  If  you  cannot  pive  nic  the  Infor- 
mation can  you  give  mo  his  address  ? 

Please  put  down  try  name  as  a  subscriber  to  TliK 
Farmer  for  1878.  Yours  truly, 

.  John  I.  Wiuiit. 

[For  the.  information  of  our  correspondent, 
as  well  as  for  the  information  of  all  interested 
in  "Mr.  Groff's  Wheat  Cultivator,"  wc  de- 
sire to  say  that  it  can  be  applied  to  any  grain 
drill  of  what.soever  kind.  Those  who  desire 
details,  which  we  cannot  give,  will  do  well  to 
address  Mr.  A.  B.  GrofV,  at  Bareville,  Lancas- 
ter county,  Pa.,  and  solicit  a  circular.— Kd.] 

THE  CELEBRATED  ARABIAN  HORSE 
JENIFER. 


His  Offspring  in  Lancaster  County. 
During  the  past  month  Colin  Cameron,  of 
Elizalieth  Farms,  this  county,  sold  to  W.  C. 
Myers,  of  the  State  of  Oregon^  a  yearly  .stallion 
colt,  for  Sl,OtH),  and  a  two  year  old  Percherou 
filly,  for  the  same  sum.  These  figures 
look  large,  but  are  no  more  than  we  expected 
from  the  foals  of  the  horse.  The  stallion 
colt  is  the  lu-oduce  of  a  Percherou  mare  and 
"The  .Jenifer  Arabian."  The  filly  is  a  pure 
bred  Percherou  and  in  foal  by  the  Arabian. 
This  Arabian  is  the  U^autiful  white  horse 
often  seen  on  our  streets  and  liefore  mentioned 
in  these  columns.  He  is  now  owned  in  the 
county,  and  we  have  often  wondered  why 
our  farmei-s  are  so  slow  to  avail  themselves  of 
the  opportunity  to  raise  the  most  valuable 
horses  in  the  world  for  all  purjioses.  The 
only  fault  any  one  has  ever  been  able  to  con- 
jm-e  against  this  symmetrical  horse  is,  that 


178 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  December 


"he  is  small. "  This  stallion  colt  weighed  as  a 
yearling,  750  pounds — certainly  heavy  enough 
for  all  purposes ;  but  with  the  weight  of  a 
draft  animal  he  combines  the  suppleness  of  the 
Arab.  Every  colt  of  his  in  this  section  is  re- 
markable, and  is  held  at  high  figures ; 
there  can  be  no  better  testimonial  of  the  value 
of  any  animal  than  this.  We  expect  to  have 
an  exact  likeness  of  him  some  time  during  the 
coming  year,  also  an  extended  history. 

— ^ 

REMINDERS  FOR  DECEMBER. 
Attend  to  the  celery  that  has  been  stored 
away  in  trenches  for  winter  use;  cover  it  little 
by  little.  Protect  spinach,  onions,  shallots, 
kale,  AC,  that  were  sown  in  September,  and 
cover  rhubarb,  sea-kale.asparagus,  artichokes, 
&c.,  with  five  or  six  inches  thickness  of  long, 
coarse  manure.  Store  away  pea-brush,  and 
other  materials  of  the  kind,  from  the  weather. 
Commence  to  collect  manure  and  to  prepare 
compost  heaps.  Give  air  to  the  cold  frames  on 
sunny  days. — I)ick''s  Gardener.  All  the  fere- 
going  relate,  mainly,  to  self — the  comfort  of 
self— the  profit  of  self — and  all  are  perfectly 
legitimate  and  proper.  We  iire  also  reminded 
that  during  this  mouth  occurs  the  anniversary 
of  that  memorable  event  which  inculcated 
an  abrogation  of  self,  and  a  thought  upon  tha. 
condition  and  necessities  of  others.  There- 
fore, examine  the  little  colored  labels  on  your 
newspapers  and  magazines,  and  hasten  to 
have  the  figures  changed  to  1878  or  1879,  if  it 
is  otherwise  upon  them. — N'obis. 


MR.  KURTZ'S  PUMPKIN. 
Taking  for  granted  the  weight  and  measure- 
ment of  the  pum2)km  exhibited  1)y  Mr.  Henry 
Kurtz,  at  the  last  stated  meeting  of  the  Lan- 
caster County  Agricultural  and  Horticultural 
Society,  and  which  he  donated  to  the  conduc- 
tors of  The  Lancaster  Faksiei!,  we  here 
adduce  the  results  of  our  practical  discussion 
of  that  gigantic  subject  of  "Pumpkingdom." 
According  to  Mr.  Kurtz's  statement  it 
weighed  132  pounds  and  measured  81i  inches 
in  circumference  ;  and  our  further  measure- 
ment demonstrated  that  it  was  about  27  in- 
ches in  its  transverse  diameter,  and  about  20 
inches  in  its  vertical  diamter.  The  internal 
cavity  was  large,  the  walls  not  averaging 
more  tlian  abeut  four  inches  in  thickness.  There 
was  no  central  axis,  the  placenta,  in  three 
lobes,  adhering  closely  to  the  sides,  contain- 
ing Qii  seeds,  020  of  which  appeared  to  be 
fertile,  and  2-t  abortive  or  immature.  The 
seeds  are  one  inch  in  length  and  half  an  inch 
in  width.  The  rind  is  very  thin,  the  color 
inside  a  rich  orange,  the  texture  tender  and 
slightly  gi-anular;  and  last,  not  least,  the 
edible  quality  is  superior,  as  those  who  were 
partakers  of  it  unanimously  attest.  Indeed 
some  members  of  my  family,  who  heretofore 
manifested  no  particular  liking  for  either 
pumpkins  or  squashes,  showed  a  decided 
partiality  for  this  subject.  Being  so  large,  I 
expected  to  find  it  strong,  coarse  and  stringy, 
but,  except  being  somewhat  fibrous  on  the 
inner  side,  to  my  agreeable  disappointmeut 
it  proved  quite  otherwise.  It  cooks  as  readily 
as  a  ripe  smokehouse  apple,  has  no  bitterness 
about  it,  and  contains  sufficient  saccharine 
matter  in  its  composition  to  make  it  palata- 
ble. Indeed,  it  excels  any  of  the  varieties  we 
obtained  in  our  market  during  this  and  the 
past  seasons,  and  may  be  regarded  in  fact  as 
well  as  in  name,  a  "  butter  pumpkin."  I  had 
intended  to  add  some  apjiles  and  convert  it 
into  butter,  but  my  family  liked  it  so  well  in 
sauce  and  in  custards  that  it  melted  away  in 
that  form  before  we  were  aware  of  it.  Mr. 
Kurtz's  proposition  was  that  I  should  offer 
the  seeds  at  three  for  twenty-five  cents,  for 
the  benefit  of  The  Farmer,  but  as  I  have 
learned,  from  experience,  that  all  the  seeds  of 
this  kind  of  fruit  do  not  germinate  I  have 
made  the  number  six  ;  but  I  do  not  hold  my- 
self responsible  for  tlie  germination  of  any  of 
them,  nor  will  I  insure  them  true  to  their '  va- 
riety :  for  there  seems  to  be  more  incon- 
stancy to  species  and  variety  in  the  Cucur- 
BITACE.E  than  there  is  in  almost  any  other 
family  of  plants ;  and  thi'ough  this  disposition 


to  hybridize  we  are  indebted  for  the  many 
varieties  we  now  have  ;  and  also  for  the  diffi- 
culty of  their  systematic  classification.  This 
subject  is  probably  an  improved  variety  of 
Philip  Miller's  Pepo  rotmvhis  or  modern 
botanists  Cucxirhita  pepo.  But  I  confess  that 
I  am  unable  to  state,  with  any  degree  of  cer- 
tainty, from  wliat  particular  species  it  has 
been  derived.  In  conclusion  I  beg  leave  to 
say,  that  ottering  these  seeds,  imder  the  propo- 
sition of  Mr.  Kurtz,  is  of  no  pecuniary  benefit 
to  me,  but  it  maij  be  of  some  benefit  to  the 
publisher  of  The  Farmer;  for  all  who  have 
any  experience  in  the  publishing  business 
know  how  difficult  it  is  to  collect  a  clear  sub- 
scription list ;  and,  as  our  journal  is  being  run 
without  any  margin  for  losses,  this  may  be  the 
means  of  contributing  a  little  extra  assistance 
by  the  friends  of  the  paper,  and  which  it 
greatly  needs.— i?. 


NATIONAL   BEE-KEEPERS'   ASSOCIA- 
TION. 

The  following,  from  such  an  intelligent 
bodj'  of  men  as  constitute  the  above-named 
organization,  will  no  doubt  be  read  with  inter- 
est by  those  of  our  patrons  who  have  suflicient 
bee-keeping  proclivities  to  engage  in  the  art 
and  science  of  apiculture. 

Facts  for  the  Public. 

The  National  Bee-Keepers'  Convention,  in  session 
at  New  York,  Oct.  16tli  to  19th,  1877,  aware  of  the 
general  lack  of  information  concerning  improved 
methods  of  apiculture  and  its  products,  respectfully 
submit  the  following  statement  of  facts  for  general 
information  concerning  a  large  source  of  personal 
and  national  revenue  in  preserving  the  honey  which 
God  has  caused  to  flow  so  abundantly  in  the  vast  and 
varied  flora  of  our  country  :    ■ 

1.  It  is  now  only  a  few  years  since  the  invention  of 
movaUe  comb  hiivf  has  opened  up  a  new  era  in  bee- 
keeping, and  placed  it  on  the  basis  of  a  successful 
business  pursuit.  Such  hives,  adapted  to  climate, 
furnish  every  facility  for  intelligent  management  of 
bees  by  regulating  swarming,  guarding  against 
moths,  and  manipulating  both  bees  and  comb. 

2.  Tlie  inventors  of  the  extractor  or  Iiouey  slinger, 
a  machine  which  empties  the  honey  from  tlie  combs 
by  centrifugal  force,  without  injury,  so  that  the 
combs  may  be  returned  to  tlie  bees,  marks  anotlicr 
great  step  in  apiculture.  Thus  virgin  lioney,  free 
from  foreign  admixture  is  obtained,  having  the 
flavor  of  the  flower  from  which  it  is  dr.awn. 

5.  The  further  invention  of  artificial  comb  founda- 
tion, made  of  pure  wax,  first  successfully  used  to  a 
large  extent  this  season,  completes  the  requisites  for 
placing  bee-keeping  on  the  basis  of  a  great  industry 
in  our  country.  Bees  receive  this  artiflcial  comb 
foundation  with  readiness  as  receptacles  both  for 
honey  and  brood. 

i.  Simultaneous  with  the  first  and  all  of  these  im- 
provements, the  introduction  of  Italian  bees  and  im- 
proved modes  of  rearing  queens,  of  transporting  and 
introducing  them  to  colonics,  has  greatly  improved 
the  value  of  the  honey  gatherers,  both  because  of  the 
superiority  of  the  Italian  bee  and  the  introduction  of 
new  blood.  New  blood  prevents  tlie  danger  from  in- 
and-in  breeding. 

.5.  The  great  drawback  to  apiculture  is  the  sHkjt  of 
the  bee.  Danger  from  this  source  is  now  largely 
overcome  by  the  simple  appliances  used  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  Person  and  for  subduing  the  bees.  The 
most  vicious  colony  may  be  subdued  in  a  very  few 
minutes. 

6.  To  consumers  of  honey,  a  few  facts  are  neces- 
sary in  this  article  to  prevent  them  from  imposition. 
Nice  white  comb  speaks  for  itself  and  is  generally 
admired,  but  the  price  many  lovers  of  honey  cannot 
afford.  It  makes  a  beautiful  dish  for  the  tabk^,  but 
is  no  better  than  extracted  honey.  AH  comb  is  wax, 
and  wax  in  the  stomach  is  perlectly  indigestible. 
Extracted  honey  is  the  pui-e  liquid  honey  as  it  is 
taken  from  the  combs  by  the  Iioney  slinger,  free  from 
any  foreign  admixture.  It  is  entirely  difi'crent  fiuni 
what  is  known  in  this  market  as  sirnined  honey. 
Consumers  help  to  impose  upon  themselves  by  tlie 
false  idea  that  pure  honey  will  not  granulate.  They 
desire  ungranulated  honey,  and  dealers  will  attempt 
to  supply  the  demand.  Almost  all  pure  honey  will 
granulate  when  exjioscd  for  some  time  to  liglit  and 
cold.  The  granulated  state  is  a  fine  evidence  of 
pure  lioney.  Much  of  the  jar  honej'  heretofore  sold 
in  the  markets,  and  recommended  not  to  granul.ate, 
is  a  very  inferior  artice,  composed  largely  of  glucose 
or  some  inferior  substance.  Granulated  honey  can 
be  reduced  to  its  liquid  state  in  a  few  moments  by 
placing  the  jar  io  warm  water.  When  thus  liquified 
it  BO  remains  for  some  time  before  crystallizing.  Con- 
sumers may  be  sure  of  a  good  wholesome  article  by 
purchasing  granulated  honey  and  reducing) it. 

7.  To  producers.  By  full  use  of  improvements  in 
bee-keeping,  the  honey  crop  of  America  may  be  al- 
most indefinitely  increased  and  become  a  great  source 


of  national  revenue.  None  need  fear  over-production. 
The  home  demand  and  consumption  is  largely  in- 
creased whenever  people  learn  to  know  the'  superi- 
ority of  such  honey.  Dealers  in  New  York  have 
already  commenced  a  large  export  trade,  and  they 
tell  us  that  their  only  dilHcult.y  is  in  procuring  honey 
in  proper  shape  and  quantity  to  supply  the  growing 
demand.  Trade  demands  that  they  lie  pnt  in  nice, 
attractive  packages,  and  in  small  parcels  or  jars  so 
as  to  be  readily  handled  by  grocers  and  consumers. 
Honey  was  for  centuries  the  principal  sweet  known, 
and  is  one  of  the  most  healthful  of  all.  Improve- 
ment in  refining  sugars  have  within  the  last  two  or 
three  centuries  led  to  its  general  adoption.  Why  may 
not  also  new  improvements  in  apiculture  restore  it  to 
its  true  place  as  a  general  favorite  which  was  lost  1  y 
bad  niauagemcnt  and  the  consequent  corresponding 
limited  supply  ? 

We  belive  that  improvements  in  bee-keeping  as 
compared  with  old  methods  are  not  less  than  those 
seen  in  railroads  and  steamboats  as  compared  with 
former  modes  of  travel. 

For  mutual  information  we  would  advise  the  or- 
ganization of  local  societies  and  conventions  to  fur- 
ther this  business  among  all  interested  in  apicul- 
ture. J.  H.  Nellis,  Pres't. 

Tnos.  G.  Newman,  Hec'i/. 


MORE  ABOUT   BEES. 

Youngsville,  Pa.,  Dec.  .5tli,  1877. 

Mr.  J.  B.  EsHLEMAN. — Esteemed  Friend: 
Yours  of  1st  inst.  is  received.  It  would  seem 
from  the  article  cut  from  the  Ne\r  Era  and 
the  note  of  the  editor,  that  there  must  have 
been  quite  a  controversy  in  yoin-  county  rela- 
tive to  bees  and  their  supposed  depredations. 
Let  me  assure  you  tliat  the  charges  made 
against  bees  destroying  fruit  of  any  kind,  is 
without  foundation  in  fact.  If  the  columns 
of  the  New  Era  were  opeia  to  the  discussion 
of  the  subject,  I  would  undertake  to  defend 
the  character  of  our  busy  workers.  But 
from  the  note  at  the  bottom  of  the  article 
you  sent  me,  I  infer  such  is  not  the  case.  It 
is  a  fact  disputed  by  no  one,  that  in  times  of 
great  scarcity  of  honey,  bees  will  sip  the 
juices  of  all  kinds  of  fruit,  when  bruised  or 
tlie  skin  broken  ;  but  it  is  quite  as  much  to  be 
deplored  by  the  bee  keeper  as  the  fruit 
grower,  from  the  fact  that  such  material  is 
not  the  natural  food  of  the  bee,  and  when 
stored  in  the  combs  is  sure  to  produce  trouble 
the  following  winter.  There  are  some  peo- 
ple hero  foolisli  enough  to  think  that  bees  arc 
injurious  to  the  buckwheat  crop,  by  taking 
the  honey  from  the  blossoms.  Truly,  bees 
are  a  persecuted  race.  They  have  to  fight 
their  way  through  a  world  of  insects 
that  are  no  benefit  to  the  human  family, 
buffet  the  rigors  of  our  J}"orthern  winters, 
stand  their  chances  through  pelting  storms 
and  parching  drouths,  and  yet  tlirough  all 
this  yield  a  liouutiful  harvest  of  the  choicest 
sweet  for  the  use  of  man. 

I  have  10:J  colonies  in  winter  quarters  in 
the  best  possible  shape.  Accept  thanks  for 
tile  articles  sent.  Glad  to  hear  from  you  at 
any  time. —  T'cr^  rcapedfuUi/  yours,  W.  J. 
Davis. 

[The  above  parties  are  men  of  intelligence, 
close  observation  and  unquestionable  integrity, 
and  we  cheerfully  give  them  a  hearing  on  this 
much  agitated  question  at  this  time. — Ed.] 

BARK-LICE.- 

What  is  the  Best  Method  of  Destroying 
Bark-lice  on  Fruit  Trees. 
This  question  was  propounded  at  the  last 
meeting  of  tliis  society,  and  referred  to  me  for 
answer  ;  and,  to  answer  it  fully  and  unquali- 
fiedly, would  seem  to  involve  the  implication 
that  I  k-iiciv  "the  best  method  ;"  an  assiim- 
tion  wliich  I  Ijy  no  means  make.  Therefore, 
my  an.swer  must  necessarily  involve  only 
wliat  I  may  know  upon  the  subject,  either 
from  personal  experience,  inductive  reason- 
ing, or  gleanings  from  the  exiierimenlal 
knowledge  of  others.  The  first  factor  in- 
volved in  the  question,  although  not  the  first 
in  the  order  of  seiiuence,  yet  absolutely  so  in 
consequence,  is,  what  are  harlc-liee?  The  teim 
lire  or  louse,  in  the  popular  sense,  covers  a 
very  largo  number  of  small  parasitic  or  in- 
festations animals,  which  are  not  all  included 

"Read  liefoie    the    Lancaster  County  Agricultural  and 
Horticultural  Society  by  Prof.  S.  S.  Bathvou. 


1877.J 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


179 


in  tbe  class  Insf.cta,  but  all  arc  olijccls  of 
more  or  less  concern,  to  cither  the  animal  or 
the  vPKf'tfi'jle  world.  Tlie  first,  the  simplest, 
and  tlic  most  general  division  of  the  insect 
world  tluit  can  be  made,  is  to  divide  it  into 
two  great  suh-elasses,  namely:  the  masticat- 
inj;,  or  chewini^  insects,  and  the  suckini:;,  or 
drinking,  insects;  technically  named  MutuH- 
hiihiUd  and  llnnstflbilid.  To  tlio  latter  all 
the  various  kinds  of  lice  belong,  because  thny 
subsist  by  sucking  animal  1)1()0(1,  or  vegetaldo 
sap.  Jku-k-Hcc,  in  a  general  sense,  are  those 
that  infest  vegetation,  and  in  a  i)articular 
sense,  those  that  infest  the  bark  of  dies-,  as 
contradistinguislied  from  those  that  infest 
swnihiit  vegetation — or  plants,  and  hence 
called  pJant-lifc. 

]5ark-lice  telong  to  the  order  IIojioptera. 
Tins  term  is  a  Greek  compound,  from  omos 
the  same,  and  pkron  a  wing;  because  of  the 
liomogeneitj-,  or  sameness,  of  tiicirni)per  and 
lower  wings.  Tliey  are  among  the  most  de- 
graded of  the  order  to  wliich  they  belung, 
nevertheless  the  males  have  wings,  and  one 
siiecics  at  least,  is  extensively  cultivated  on 
tiic  Cactus  plants  of  Mexico,  and  produces 
that  brilliant  crimson  or  scarlet  dye,  known 
as  "Cochineal."  The  two  most  pernic^ions  and 
widespread  si)ecies  which  infest  the  fruit  trees 
of  tins  country,  are  what  are  comnioidy 
called,  the  "oyster-shell  bark-louse,"  and 
"Harris'  bark-louse."  The  former  is  the 
Aspidiotnt:  concliiformis  of  entomologists,  be- 
cause the  scale  or  scab  wliich  invests  the 
insect,  has  tlie  form  of  a  minute  oyster-shell. 
They  are  also  sometimes  called  the  "scale- 
insect,"  or  "scab-louse."  Tlie  latter  species 
is  the  Aspidiot^ts  Ilnrrisii  liecause  first  discov- 
ered by  Dr.  Harris  of  ^Massachusetts.  The 
former  is  a  foreign  insect,  which  has  been  in- 
troduced into  this  country  from  Eui'ope;  and, 
like  foreign  importations  generally,  it  is  the 
worst  of  the  two;  infesting  not  only  the  apple 
tree,  but  also  the  pear,  the  cherry,  the  quince, 
the  apricot,  the  crab,  the  plum,  the  currant, 
the  gooseberiy  and  the  ro.se.  The  latter  is  a 
native  of  our  own  country,  and  is  not  so  in- 
jurious as  the  former,  being  mainly  found  on 
the  apple,  the  pear,  and  nionutain-ash.  There 
are  many  other  sjiecics.  which  occur  on  (he 
pine,  the  orangc>,  the  maple,  the  grape,  the 
bireli,  the  walnut,  the  hickory  and  othertrees. 
The  notorious  plujlhi.rn-a,  which  is  <levastat- 
ing  tlic  vineyards  of  Euroiie,  and  esiiccially 
of  France,  is  a  grape-root  liark  or  gall-louse; 
and  as  the  Government,  and  the  Academy  of 
Natural  Sciences  of  that  country  have,  for 
the  past  three  years,  offered  a  reward  of  1110,- 
OfM.)  francs  for  a  remedy  to  '  destroy  it,  which 
has  not  yet  lieen  claimed,  we  may  have  some 
apprehension  ot  the  dilliculties  we  may  en- 
counter in  attempting  to  overcome  these  pests. 
The  particular  siiecies  I  am  considering,  how- 
ever, are  more  accessible,  inasmuch  as  they 
conline  their  oiierations  to  the  lesser  bi"auclies 
and  twigs  of  trees,  unless  the  trees  are  young; 
for  they  mu.st  have  a  smooth  and  tender  sur- 
face, where  the  sap  tlows  within  the  length  of 
their  licaks.  The  mode  of  circumvent  ing 
them  is  simple  and  certain,  if  men  will  take 
the  Ironhle  to  api)Iy  it,  and  apply  it  at  the 
proper  time.  IVrliaps  I  should  have  said, 
there  are  several  remedies,  and  a  remedy  that 
is  ed'ectual  at  one  pciiod  may  be  ineffectual 
at  another.  In  order  to  apply  a  remedy  with 
effect,  wc  ought  to  know  something  about  the 
economies  and  habits  of  the  insects  we  pro- 
pose to  destroy,  else  we  may  only  be  contend- 
ing with  tlii^  sliadow  of  the  subject  instead  of 
the  substance:  and  even  then  we  are,  liable  to 
failure  from  our  inelticieucy,  or  from  causes 
that  arc  wholly  unknown  to  ns.  Therefore, 
when  we  succeed  or  fail  in  the  apiilication  of 
a  remedy,  we  should  make  a  careful  record, 
not  only  of  the  subject  and  the  mode  of  appli- 
cation, but  also  of  the  time 

The  month  (jf  .lunc — in  some  species  earlier 
and  in  others  later — is  the  great  period  of 
insect  transmutation  iu  this  latitude,  for, 
during  that  pt-riod,  most  of  the  species  that 
hibernate  in  the  ^wyial  state,  come  forth  from 
their  long  winter  sleep,  and  scatter  them- 
eelves  abroad ;  and  this  is  particularly  the 


case  with  those  that  feed  upon  the  sap  or  the 
foliage  of  vegetation,  in  wliatevcr  form  they 
may  pass  the  winter  season.  I'Utnt-livr  and 
hurk-licr  usually  pass  that  period  in  thi?  egg- 
state,  from  which  their  young  are.  hatched  as 
soon  as  their  normal  food  is  provided  by 
liounleous  nature,  and  the  necessary  heat  to 
stimulate  incubation  eupcrvencs.  I  cannot 
positively  say  on  what  day  of  .Tune  you  may 
find  the  young  bark-lice  traveling  on  the 
trees,  for  this  jieriod  may  be  accelerated  or 
retarded  by  the  temperature  of  the  weather  ; 
but  that  is  the  most  proper  time  to  ajiply  a 
remedy.  The  young  are  very  small,  Ijut 
their  presence  can  be  detected  by  tlui  aid  of  a 
common  magnifier.  Dilutions  of  carbolic 
and  crysilic  acid,  or  solutions  of  common  or 
whale-oil  soap,  and  decoctions  of  tobacco, 
have  been  recommended  by  the  highest  au- 
thorities, and  1  have  no  doubt  that  syringing 
the  trees  with  the.sc  tlnids  would  be  effectual ; 
for,  if  even  a  heavy  rain  should  occur  when 
they  come  forth  from  the  eggs,  millionsof  them 
will  then  be  washed  down  and  be  destroyed. 
"  I'eck'.s  Atomizku  "  1  would  consider  an 
excellent  instrument  to  tiirow  any  liiiuid  in 
the  form  of  siiray,  on  trees,*  shrubs  and 
plants;  but  if  the  branches  could,  at  the 
same  time,  receive  the  niauipulatious  of  a 
stiff  brush,  it  would  facilitate  the  good  effects 
of  the  application,  in  using  a  stiff  brush, 
however,  there  is  a  liability  of  rubbing  off  the 
leaf  or  flower  buds,  excojit  on  the  naked 
trunks  and  larger  branches,  and  I  UKirely 
mention  it  here,  because  it  has  been  recom- 
by  the  Entomologist  in  Chief  at  Washing- 
ton.* 

Tlie  late  Mr.  Walsh,  of  Rock  Island,  111., 
te.sted  all  the  known  remedies  for  bark-lice, 
and  found  nothing  so  effectual  as  oH.  This 
can  be  applied  early  in  the  spring,  during  warm 
days,  before  the  leaf  or  flower  Inids  are  swol- 
len. A  good  instrument  for  its  application  is 
a  common  paint  brush.  Before  the  eggs  are 
hatched,  and  whilst  they  are  covered  by  the 
scales,  no  liquid  of  any  kind — except  such  as 
might  injure  the  trees — will  have  much  effect 
upon  them  ;  for  these  scales  are  impervious  to 
liquids  generally,  else  there  would  be  no  iiro- 
tectiou  to  the  eggs  during  the  colds,  rains 
and  snows  of  a  long  winter.  Oil  has,  how- 
ever, a  different  effect  upon  them.  It  does 
not  evaporate  so  rapidly  as  other  liquids,  and 
it  penetrates  and  loosens  the  scales,  and  sub- 
seiiucut  showers  of  rains  wash  them  off,  and 
leave  the  trees  and  liranches  clean.  I  have 
applied  oil  on  several  occasions  with  entire 
success,  and  I  have  recommended  it  to 
others,  who  have  been  ecpiaily  successful.  Of 
course,  it  would  involve  a  great  deal  of  lalior 
and  trouVileon  large  trees,  and  W'herea  whole 
orchard   was    infested  with  these    injurious 

p  !StS. 

If  the  question  should  be  asked,  "  What 
kind  of  oil  V"  I  should  feel  comjielled  to 
answer  it  with  some  (pialilication.  When  I 
stated  in  the  columns  of  Tlii':  Fakmeh,  about 
a  year  ago,  that  I  would  not  reconiineiul  lin- 
seed oil,  I  received  communications  from  two 
citizens  of  the  county,  stating  that  they  had 
apjilied  this  oil  with  entire  success;  but  I  re- 
cently saw  a  statement  in  one  of  our  daily 
papers  to  the  effect  that  the  writer  had  used 
linseed  oil  and  injured,  if  he  did  not  entirely 
kill,  his  trees.  I  used  lard  oil,  and  on  one 
occasion  I  used  a  piece  of  th(^  skin  and  fat  at 
the  low(U'  end  of  a  boiled  ham — what  the  Ger- 
mans call  a  "  .spheck-schward" — with  good 
effect.  One  of  my  correspondents  used 
"  ueatsfoot  oil"  with  entire  success.  Sweet 
oil,  I  believe,  would  be  equally  good  ;  but  this 
would,  perhaps,  be  two  expensive,  unless  it 
was  rancid  or  of  inferior  tpiality.  1,  however, 
would  not  rceonimend  caniphene,  petroleum, 
paratUne  or  coal  oil. 

The  reasons  for  my  opinion  adverse  to  lin- 
seed oil  are,  because  it  dries  up  more  rapidly 
than  other  simjilo  oils ;  it  coagulates  and 
leaves  an  insoluble  film  or  coating  on  the 
branches,  and  when  it  penetrates  the  pores 

■Whitpwaebing  with  lime  has  been  BtrODgly  recommend- 
ert  bv  Horae.  For  a  discusBiou  on  the  subject,  ;)»-.t  and 
<o',  iiloise  refer  to  the  pre«ent  yoltiQie  of  the  Fabmeb, 
May  number,  pp.  66-7i 


and  hardens  therein,  it  must  be  injurious  ; 
for  this  rciison,  also,  I  would  not  afiply  any 
kind  of  oil  late  in  the  season,  when  the  pores 
are  more  open,  and  vegetable  respiration  is 
more  active  than  it  is  during  winter  and  early 
spring.  There  is  a  time  and  a  season  for 
evc'rything,  and  success  in  any  direction  de- 
pends on  striking  these  times  and  seasous. 
J'erhaps.  bifore  I  close,  I  ought  to  mention 
that  within  one  week— sometimes  within  tlireo 
or  four  days — after  the  young  bark-lice  come 
from  the  eggs,  they  scatter  over  the  branches 
out  to  their  remotest  and  tendercst  ends,  and 
there  they  sink  their  beaks  into  the  twigs, 
and  divest  themselves  of  their  antenna,  feet, 
and  caudal  ap]i(^ndages,  and  become  degraded 
into  a  "se;iIe"or  "scab,"an<l  immediately 
coinmenee  pumping  the  .sap  out  of  said  twigs, 
to  their  great  depUdionand  con.sctpient  injury. 
This,  at  least,  is  the  case  with  the  females. 
The  males  assume  wings,  fertilize  the  fetnales 
anil  then  fly  away  and  perish,  if  they  do  not 
perish  on  the  spot.  After  the  females  deposit 
their  eggs  they  also  perish,  but  their  dry  and 
shriveled  bodies  n main  attached  to  the  shell- 
like covering  with  which  they  have  invested 
their  eggs.  If  you  take  the  back  of  a  knife, 
or  your  tluindi-nail,  and  draw  them  over  the 
small,  white  scales  of  these  insects,  the 
"  Harris  louse"  will  produce  a  red,  blood-like 
streak,  but  the  "oyster  shell  louse"  will  pro- 
duce a  yellowish  or  whrtish  streak.  There 
are  from  a  dozen  to  two  hundred  eggs  under 
one  scale,  it  is  said,  and  1  have  myself  coimted 
twenty-five  or  thirty.  On  my  premises  I  havo 
never  found  the  oyster  shell  Ijark-louse,  but 
Harris'  bark-louse  I  have  had  very  abundantly, 
and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  this  is  the 
most  abundant  species  wc  have  iu  Lancaster 
county. 

Now,  all  this  may  .seem  too  complicated, 
and  may  involve  more  labor,  thought  and  ex- 
pense than  you  are  wiUiug  to  bestow  ui)on  a 
subject  of  such  apparent  insignificance.  Well, 
if  so,  the  fault  is  not  mine.  It  belongs  to  that 
inexorable  logic  of  creation  through  which 
material  dcvelopmeut  can  only  be  attained  by 
hutnaii  labor. 

The  Almighty  did  not  ciiuse  hats,  and 
coats,  and  boots,  to  grow  on  trees,  that  we 
might  possess  them  \\lien  we  needed  them,  by 
merely  iihicking  them.  He  did  not  cause 
jilows^  and  threshers,  and  gold  dollars  to 
spring  up  from  the  ground,  spontaneously, 
that  we  might  ajiiuopriate  them  without  per- 
sonal effort.  Ho  gives  us  seed  time  and 
harvest;  genial  sunshine  and  refreshing 
rains ;  summer's  activity  and  winter's  re- 
pose. He  creates  the  material  elements,  the 
physical  laws,  and  the  intellectual  forces 
wliich  combine  and  guide  these,  but  all  else  is 
the  work  of  human  hands.  Wo  hence  con- 
clude that  "necessity  is  not  only  the  mother 
of  invention,"  but  that  it  is  also,  fundamen- 
tally, the  stimulant  of  all  human  progress, 
and  without  it  man  would  relapse  into  bar- 
barism. Our  children  and  our  children's 
children  may  become  more  deeply  impressed 
with  this  fact  than  we  are.  Our  'forefathers, 
while  the  soil  was  virgin,  the  forests  dense, 
and  the  iiopulation  sparse,  bad  little  concern 
about  lhe.se  things,  whatever  other  hardships 
they  may  have  had,  but  a  great  change  ha.s 
overcome  the  spirit  of  our  dreams  and  we 
must  lulapl  ourselves  to  the  economics  of  that 
change. 

FROM  NORTH  CAROLINA. 
Sai.isiuky,  X.  c:.,  Xov.  2(1,  1877. 
Editoh  LANtASTEU  Eakmer— Dcrtr  .Sir; 
Farmers  in  this  county,  as  a  general  thing, 
have  been  well  rewarded  for  their  labor,  in 
return  of  wheat,  oals,  corn,  cotton,  tobacco, 
Irish  and  sweet  potatoes,  &c.,  &c.  There 
was  also  an  abmnlant  crop  of  apples,  peaches, 
lilums,  prunes,  grapes,  .so  that  there  is  jilenty 
to  eat,  diink  and  wear.  Onr  farmers  are 
much  behind  in  sowing  wheat,  gathering  corn 
and  cotton.  This  is  in  part  owing  to  the  fact 
that  many  devoted  much  time  to  making  sor- 
ghum molasses,  when  perhaps  it  would  have 
proved,  in  the  end,  more  remimerative  to 
Lave  sown  ^yheat,  and  housed  their  corn  and 


180 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[  December, 


cotton  ready  for  market.  Irately  we  have  had 
inucli  rain  fall  here,  so  that  planters  cannot 
plow  and  get  their  land  in  order  to  put  seed 
in  the  ground;  perhaps  it  will  be  well  in  the 
end  ;  at  least  we  shall  take  things  as  we  find 
them,  and  not  as  we  want  them.  Inasmuch 
as  we  did  not  create  heaven  and  earth,  we 
shall  not  find  fault  with  providential  occur- 
rences of  whatever  tendency  they  may  have 
upon  us.  Individually,  readers  here  of  The 
li'AiiMER,  say  it  is  the  best  agricultural  paper 
they  have  ever  read.  Long  and  prosperous, 
may  it  live,  and  to  a  remunerative  end,  is  our 
wish.  AVo  will  say  and  do  all  we  can  for  its 
welfare. —  Fours  truh/,  M.  li. 


For  the  Lakcastek  Farmek. 
AROUND  THE  FARM.     NO.  4. 

Last  week  was  general  repair  week  with 
us.  Every  crack  and  crevice  in  tlie  barn  was 
carefully  stopped  up  with  boards  and  mortar. 
Some  formers  have  an  idea  that  it  don't  cost 
anything  to  have  stock  shivering  during  the 
night,  and  it  don't  pay  to  close  cracks  ;  stock 
must  have  ventilation  !  And  they  say  Wes- 
tern cattle  have  no  shelter  at  all,  and  they 
have  cattle,  (even  if  tliey  do  freeze  off  their 
horns  and  ears)  ! 

All  very  true ;  but  could  they  not  raise 
better  and  cheaper  cattle  if  they  would 
shelter  them  ?  Be  assured  the  chop  you  feed 
creeps  out  at  the  crevices  the  first  cold  night 
and  you  wonder  why  yom-  cattle  do  not  take 
on  fat  rapidly.  It  doubly  pays  to  provide  a 
warm  place  for  the  stock  during  the  winter. 
But  it  should  not  be  warm  at  the  expense  of 
ventilation,  the  fowl  air  must  1«  allowed  to 
escape.  I  ordered  sash  the  size  of  the  upper 
section  of  the  stable  door  to  let  sunlight  in 
and  keep  cold  draughts  of  air  out  wlien  the 
nortliwestern  storms  commence  to  blow,  and 
I  think  my  horses  will  appreciate  it. 
Turnips  for  Milch  Cows. 

Some  time  ago  a  man  complained  that  tur- 
nips gave  a  bad  flavor  to  the  butter.  Our  ex- 
perience is  different.  Perhaps  it  is  owing  to 
the  small  quantity  we  give  them.  AVe  cut 
fine  and  give  about  i  peck,  mixed  with  a  few 
hundsful  of  chop  to  each  cow,  and  have  not 
noticed  the  flavor  in  the  butter.  In  one  of  my 
farm  journals  I  noticed  that  turnips  ought  to 
be  cut  in  the  morning  for  evening  feeding, 
so  that  the  flavor  would  evaporate,  and  I  am 
convinced  by  experience  that  it  is  a  good 
plan. 

I  am  afraid  we  are  too  much  absorbed  with 
toliacco  and  neglect  to  provide  sufficient  suc- 
culent food  in  the  shape  of  roots.  I  think 
we  ought  to  plant  at  least  an  acre  in  roots  for 
every  liftj'  acres  in  the  farm,  for  few  things 
arc  more  appreciated  by  cattle  during  the 
long  winter. — Buralist,  CreswcU,  Pa.,  Dec. 
3(',  1877.  ^ 

For  The  LANCASXEn  Farmer. 
GRAPES  AND  BEES. 

Editor  of  Lancaster  Farmer — Dear 
Sir :  A  few  weeks  ago  I  gave  a  statement 
through  The  JS^eiv  Era,  and  which  you  liave 
now  transferred  to  The  Farjier,  with  some 
half  a  dozen  articles  in  opposition  to  my  state- 
ment of  facts  "that  bees  cut  the  skins  nf  grajKs, 
and  tluit  they  destroyed  nearly  all  of  my 
crop." 

Now,  with  your  permission,  and  in  justice 
lo  myself,  allow  me  to  examine,  or  criticise, 
if  you  please,  tlie  various  contradictory  state- 
ments of  these  writers.  Ain't  some  of  them 
theorists .? 

Xo.  0.  Your  own  joking,  Mr.  Editor, '  'That 
fo\u-  blind  men,  on  examining  an  elephant,  all 
differed  as  to  its  appearance.  That  they  were 
all  siieciJiaiU!/  right,  yencriralh/  wi'ong. " 
Though  its  a  ifling  at  my  being  a  c(0-clcss  ob- 
server, I  \vill  pass. 

Xo.  1.  In  the  article  formerly  claimed  by 
tlie  editor  of  The  New  Era,  us  editorial,  we 
now  see  signed  "F.  R.  D."  Of  course  we 
know  Frank!  who  says  "The  bees  deserve  a 
good  word,  for  the  odium  cast  upon  them  by 
theorists  and  careless  observers,  and  no  person 
wlio  brings  this  charge,  ever  saw  bees  stinginej 


fruit."    True,  but  we  have  seen  them  cut  the 
skin  of  grapes! 

No.  2.  To  my  own  article  published  in  The 
New  Era,  in  response,  as  I  then  thought,  of 
the  editor's  strictures,  against  the  possibility 
of  the  bees  damaging  sound  grapes,  I  there 
stated  facts. 

No.  3.  "M,"  of  Oregon,  declares  the  bees 
innocent.  If  "M"  will  carefully  read  my 
article,  he  will  see  that  I  do  not  charge  bees 
eicneralhj  as  guilty.  I  stated  that  I  myself 
kept  bees  for  many  years,  and  tliat  I  also  had 
grapes,  and  that  it  was  only  within  two  or 
three  years  that  they  commenced  to  injure  my 
grapes.  Of  course,  I  alluded  to  the  Italian 
variety — and  when  tliese  cut  the  skin,  the 
black  bees  will  also  come  and  get  a  share  of 
the  sweet  juice.  lie  admits  "that  never  be- 
fore this  summer  did  they  visit  his  grapes," 
l3ut  tries  to  explain  tliat '  "The  Clinton  burst 
their  skins,  from  some  cause  unknown  to  me. " 
Did  not  grapes  burst  liefore?  at  least  J.  S. 
says  "they  did  eight  vears  ago." 

No.  4.  "W,"  of  Strasburg,  "is  an  extensive 
grower  of  grajjes,  but  had  no  trouble  before  the 
present  ycaj-.  This  year  he  was  unable  to  gather 
more  than  a  few  perfect  bundles.  The  bees 
cleslroyed  all  the  rest.  Thousands  of  bees 
were  constantly  on  mv  fruit  from  early  dawn 
until  dusk."  Then  "adds,  "If  the  skin  is 
broken  in  some  other  way,  so  1)6  it,  and  we 
will  either  have  to  do  without  grapes,  or  the 
busy  bee,  o{  the  Italian  variety.''''  Just  so. 
AsM)-.  AV.,  of  Strasburg,  was  not  certain 
whether  the  bees  or  some  other  insect  cut  the 
skins  of  his  grapes,  (perhaps  he  did  not  take 
tlie  time  to  watch  them  closely)  "but  he  does 
know  tliat  they  destroyed  nearly  all  his  fruit," 
and  adds,  "if  the  skin  was  broken  in  some 
other  way,  so  be  it." 

No.  5.  Now,  here  is  where  our  friend  J.  S. 
comes  in,  "to  relieve  the  poor  bees  from  the 
odium  cast  upon  them  by  a  careless  observer.'''' 
J.  S.  lays  great  stress  on  the  word  "if,"  in 
AV.'s  article,  and  thinks  "  as  the  gi'apes  were 
\ery  thii>-sJcinnccl  this  year,"  try s  to  explain 
as  to  the  cause  of  the  skiyis  bur.'itinrj,  which  he 
says  "  belongs  to  natural  philosophy  and 
vegetable  philosophy,"  and  tries  to  explain  un- 
explainable  phenomenal  appearances  by  going 
back  eight  years,  "  when  after  a  rain,  the  sun 
striking  on  the  little  globules  of  water  on  the 
fruit,  acted  like  a  burning  lens,  the  skin  of 
the  grapes  bursted  ;"  and  adds,  "let  us  be 
sure  we  are  right,  and  not  jump  at  conclusions, 
as  we  find  many  insects  that  might  lie  taken 
for  Italian  bees,  and  not  to  be  distinguished 
by  a  mere  cctsiial  observer.''^  "  Eiglit  years 
ago,"  bees  did  »io(  injure  our  grapes.  I  sup- 
pose the  reason  why  "they  did  not,  was  because 
there  were  no  Italian  bees  in  our  vicinity. 
Mr.  J.  S.'s  explanation  is  a  very  equivocal 
one !  Ugh !  the  mystery  of  being  mysterious  ! 
would  it  not  be  more  satisfactory  to  say — as 
bees  come  under  the  order  of  Natural  History, 
and  the  grapes  under  that  of  Vegetable 
Physiology,  consequently  these  being  opposing 
forces,  and  coming  into  juxtaposition,  there 
will,  of  course,  be  a  rupture— a  "burst"— 
tlien  the  bees  can  get  their  fill  of  the  sweet 
juice,  and  the  elements  onlv  to  blame  ! 

No.  6.  Mr.  J.  F.  Ilersliey,  Mt.  Joy,  pre- 
tends to  say  "the  black  bees  worked  on  the 
broken  grapes,  for  a  few  years  past,  quite  as 
much  as  the  Italians  do  now,"  (Mr.  H.  keeps 
the  Italian  bees,)  and  then  says,  "sound 
grapes  they  never  damage  ;  had  Mv.  G.  's 
grapes  all  been  sound,  the  bees  would  never 
have  visited  his  vines."  My  dear  sir,  my 
grapes  were  as  sound  as  grapes  ever  are  ;  in- 
deed, more  sound  and  perfect  than  usual,  as 
tliere  was  no  mildew  this  summer  to  arrest 
their  growth,  and  birds  and  no  insects  of  any 
kind  visited  the  grapes  as  the  bees  had,  and 
kept  sole  jiosscssion  till  the  last  grape  was 
sucked  dry  ! 

A  reverend  gentleman,  pastor  of  a  congre- 
gational church,  with  whom  I  have  been  in 
correspondence  for  a  number  of  years,  and 
who  is  also  a  live  horticulturist,  ejspecially  a 
grower  of  grapes,  on  writing  to  him,  lately,  I 
incidentally  mentioned  the  loss  of  my  grapes 
by  bees.    In  a  letter  just  received  he  says  : 


"  I  shouldn't  hesitate,  if  I  were  you,  to  pro- 
tect myself  with  Paris  green,  or  any  other 
such  poison  against  the  bees,"  &c. — Uespect- 
fulbi,  .7.  B.   Garber. 

[Our  venerable  friend  entirely  misappre- 
hends us,  if  he  supposes  our  simile  was  in- 
tended as  a  "fling"  at  his  being  a  careless  oh- 
server,  for  we  are  too  deeply  impressed  to  the 
contrary  to  reach  such  a  conclusion.  AVe 
merely  meant  to  infer  that  isolated  observa- 
tions cannot  always  be  depended  on  as  ab- 
solute illustrations  of  character  per  se. — Ed.] 

• 

OUR  PROSPECTS. 

There  are  many  signs  that  for  farmers  at 
least  the  most  of  the  hard  times  are  over; 
and  if  there  be  not  a  remarkable  career  of 
prosperity  ahead  for  the  cultivators  of  the  soil, 
we  shall  be  very  much  surprised. 

In  the  first  place,  the  immense  amount  of 
thoughtless  debt  incurred  during  an  inflated 
currency  has  been  measurably  reduced.  The 
people  who  bought  farms  at  inflated  prices,, 
incurring  mortgages  to  be  paid  when  currency 
and  of  course  tlie  price  of  farm  produce  would 
be  near  par,  have  paid  up  in  full  the  iirice  of 
their  folly,  and  those  who  incur  debts  now 
will  have  some  reasonable  chance  to  foresee 
what  prices  they  will  get  for  their  products 
when  pay  day  comes  round.  There  arc  not 
near  .so  many  western  farmers  paying  ten  to 
twelve  per  cent,  interest  on  the  purchase 
money  of  their  farms  as  there  once  were. 
The  people  who  have  lived  on  interest  will 
have  to  go  to  work  with  their  money.  Bor- 
rowers are  few.  The  banks  hardly  know 
what  to  do  wth  the  money  they  hold.  Instead 
of  putting  it  "out  to  interest"  capitalists  will 
have  to  invest  it  in  productive  employment. 
This  will  put  people  to  work,  and  the  workers 
will  have  to  buy  farm  products. 

Not  by  any  means  among  the  least  of  the 
bright  features  of  the  future,  is  the  steady 
increase  in  our  exports,  and  the  decrease  in 
the  amount  of  manufactured  goods.  These 
matters  especially  interest  the  farmers  of  this 
country,  as  with  industrial  prosperity  his  suc- 
cess is  intimately  bound.  It  is  generally  a 
good  sign  when  there  is  a  large  import  of  raw 
material  to  be  used  in  our  industries  and 
worked  up  to  be  sold  over  again  at  an  en- 
hanced value,  but  when  the  imports  are  of 
articles  that  we  could  just  as  well  make  wholly 
for  ourselves,  it  is  another  thing.  Thus  im- 
ports, heavy  though  they  may  be,  do  not 
always  show  things  are  going  wrong.  It  may 
show  a  nation  is  very  wealthy,  that  she  can 
afford  to  buy  largely,  indeed  to  buy  much 
more  than  v/e  liuy,  and  this  seems  to  be  ex- 
actly tlie  condition  in  which  we  are  finding 
ourselves. 

Among  all  the  exports  of  the  few  past  years, 
nothing  is  more  gratifying  than  the  iucreasing 
shipments  of  cotton  goods.  When  some  of 
our  eastern  manufacturers  sent  some  of  these 
wares  to  England,  and  undersold  the  British 
manufacturers  a  few  years  ago,  the  English 
comforted  themselves  by  saying  that  it  was 
simply  of  our  overstock,  and  were  sold  only  at 
a  loss ;  but  the  work  begun  then  has  been 
continued  until  exiiorting  dry-goods  to  Eng- 
land is  a  trade  almost  as  regular  as  shipping 
corn.  At  Manchester  there  arc  regular  agen- 
cies for  supplying  American  goods,  and  the 
American  brands  are  generally  popular.  The 
amount  of  goods  sent  from  England  to  the 
United  States  is  not  one-fourth  of  what  it  was 
a  few  vears  ago.  The  number  of  yards  of 
cotton  "goods  shipped  from  the  United  States 
in  1877,  though  not  all  to  England,  was  over 
ninety-six  millions,  by  far  the  largest  year's  - 
business  ever  done. 

All  of  this  must  redound   to  the  farming  ; 
interest.     It  costs  much   less  to  sell  food  to  • 
operatives  in  the  United  States  than  to  opera- 
tives in   Europe,  and  the  more  of  them  we  ■ 
have  the  greater  is  the  gain  to  \\s.— German- 
town  Telegraph. 

[^Delinquent  subsci-ibers  will  confer  a 
favor  by  remitting  their  arrearages  immedi- 
jitely,  as  we  must  have  money  to  pay  the 
printer. 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


181 


EARLY  PROLIFIC  RASPBERRY. 

Our  illustration  represents  a  single  stalk  of 
this  magnificent  plant,  the  berries  being  re- 
duced to  about  two-thirds  their  natural  size. 
There  were  i:!8  berries  on  this  stalk.  A  very 
important  and  valuable  peculiarity  about  tliis 
variety  of  the  r.aspberry  is,  that  it  has  never 
Iwen  known  to  "winter-kill."  Tliey  have 
stood  successtully,  and  without  a  sinstle  fail- 
ure, the  test  of  nine  years  fruiting,  according 
to  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Felton,  Merchantville, 
Camden  county,  N.  J.,  who  is  the  originator 
of  them,  and  who  has 
had  eighteen  years  ex- 
perience in  their  culti- 
vation. As  Its  name 
implies,  it  is  an  early 
fruit  and  coraes  into 
market  immediately 
after,  ifnot  simraultane- 
ously  with,  the  latest 
strawberries.  The  plant 
is  .short-jointed,  of  a 
stocky  habit,  having 
very  dark  foliage,  great 
vigor  of  growth,  and  is 
perfectly  hardy, as  above 
stated.  "  The  fruit  is 
large,  roundish,  coni- 
cal, regularly  formed,  of 
a  dark-red  color,  and  a 
rich,  brisk,  vinous  fla- 
vor, somewhat  inclining 
to  acid.  These  berries 
were  exhibited  at  the 
'Ureat  Centennial,'  and 
were  highly  commended 
l)y  the  judges,  ride  re- 
jiort  published  in  the 
(MUivator  and  Countri/ 
(lentlerium. 

There  are  a  great 
many  people  who  desire 
to  have  fruit  but  do  not 
like  to  bestow  much 
time  or  labor  in  its  cul- 
tivation ;  or  they  may 
not  have  time  to  do  any- 
thing more  than  make 
a  hole  in  the  ground 
and  stick  a  plant  into  it, 
and  then  let  it  take  care 
of  itself ;  or,  again,  they 
may  be  too  negligent  or 
indolent  to  attend  to 
careful  cultivation. 
Now,  if  only  one-half 
can  be  realized  that  Mr. 
Fenton  realized,  under 
the  most  ordinary  cul- 
tivation, tiien  hero  is  a 
lierrythat  will  admira- 
bly suit  that  kind  of 
people.  AVe  quote:  "Mr. 
F.  has  on  the  back  part 
of  his  place  three  acres 
of  unimproved  land, 
planted  with  these  ber- 
ries, which  yield  annu- 
ally abundant  crops, 
without  manure  or  cul- 
ture. On  the  5th  of 
July,  1870,  he  picked 
from  one  row  21  yards 
long  and  one  yard  wide, 
with  only  ordinary  cul- 
ture, .58  pint  boxes  full 
at  one  picking,  or  at  the 
rate  of  about  0,070  boxes 
per  acre,  which  at  10 
cents  per  box,  would 
amount  to  the  neat  sum  of  $007  per  acre,  or 
$6,070  for  ten  acres,  at  one  picking,  which 
would  hardly  be  one-fourth  of  the  .season's 
crop."  Now,  multiply  this  by  four,  as  a  whole 
season's  crop,  and  afterwards  make  reason- 
able deductions  for  unforeseen  contingencies, 
and  there  still  remains  a  wide  margin  of  profit. 

These  plants  may  be  had  by  addressing 
Messrs.  Giuson  &  Rennktt,  nurserymen, 
Woodbury,  N.  J.  Price,  $.3  per  dozen  :  S-20 
per  100  ;  $150  per  1,000.  Half  dozens,  half 
hundreds,  and  half  thousands  furnished  at  the 


same  rates.  Wliat  can  be  raised  in  New  .Jersey, 
we  tliink,  could  lie  more  than  realized  on  the 
rich  soil  of  ]<aneasler  county. 


ADDRESS.* 

Mr.  Pkksidknt  :  As  we  are  assembled 
here  to-day,  representatives  of  the  Lancaslei' 
County  Agricultural  Association,  a  great 
name  indeed,  the  interi'St  involves  our  jire- 
.sent,  and  ol'icn  our  future  welfare,  as  in  lloly 
Writ  we,  ilnd  many  hints  and  comparisons  on 
agriculture  and  its  fruits,  sucli  as,   they  will 


come  with  joy  and  gladness,  bringing  their 
sheaves  with  them;  and  no  heart  can  feel 
more  joy  and  gladness  than  the  farmer 
in  a  good  harvest,  in  his  field  with  one  sheaf 
under  each  arm,  and  his  mind  free  from  all 
care,  but  filled  witli  good  prospects  before  him 
for  a  good  price  for  the  in-odncts  of  his  labor. 
1  hold  that  Adam  and  Cain  were  the  first 
members  of  such  an  association,  with  Adam 
as  its  President,  who  was  sent  forth  outpf  the 

"Read  before  the Lauoaater -Agricultural  and  Horticultural 
S      ety,  MODdar,  December  3d,  1ST7,  hy  Henry  Kurtz. 


garden  of  Kden  to  till  the  ground.  His  first 
•son,  Cain,  was  a  tiller  of  the  soil,  his  second 
son,  Alx'l,  was  a  keeper  of  the  sheep.  (Jenesis, 
4th  chapter.  Through  jealousy  in  the  field, 
Cain  slew  Abel,  and  the  Lord  cursed  the  til- 
lage of  Cain.  In  onr  day  it  looks  as  though 
the  tillage  was  cursed  for  some  of  our  farmers, 
but  we'rather  attribute  this  last  to  our  own 
cursing  and  mismanagement  in  tillage.  We 
have  before  us  a  (Jerman  article  on  agricul- 
ture which  may  ha  vt!  been  written  hundreds 
of  years jigo,  as  the  book  from  which  I  shall 
lead,  in  the  (ierman 
language,  is  several  cen- 
turies old,  which  we  can 
apply  to  ourselves  of  the 
present  day  with  profit 
to  all.  Although  you 
may  say  it  is  too  olij  to 
harmonize  with  this  pro- 
gressive age,  and  is  old 
fogyisli,  yet  it  may  not 
be  "  amiss  to  practice 
some  of  its  teachings. 
Solomon, the  wisest  man 
on  earth,  being  wise  in 
spiritual,  as  well  as  tem- 
I)(>ral  things,  says  :  "He 
lliat  observeth  the  wind 
liall  not  sow,  and  he 
li  a  t  regardeth  the 
ouils  shall  not  reap, 
iikI  he  that  receives  no 
instructions  is  a  fool ; 
liut  the  words  of  the 
wise  are  as  goads,  and 
as  nails  fastened  by  the 
masters  of  assemblies 
which  are  given  from 
one  slieplierd.  And  fur- 
ther, by  these,  my  son, 
be  admonished;  of  many 
books,  there  is  no  end, 
and  much  Sjjeakiiig  is  a 
weariness  of  the  llesh." 
And  fearing  I  might  be 
wearisome  to  you  will 
conclude  with  liis  cou- 
clusion,  "Fear  God  and 
keep  his  command- 
ments, for  this  is  the 
whole  duty  of  man." 
Let  us  therefore  do 
good,  and  improve  our- 
selves in  culture,  and 
not  be  weary;  in  due 
time  we  shall  reap. 

To  show  what  be- 
ongs  to  agriculture,  or 
tillage  of  tlie  ground,  it 
seems  unnecessary  to 
mention  anything,  be- 
cause it  is  known  to 
every  person,  and  ex- 
pressly because  the  dif- 
ference is  .so  wide  ill 
dilTerent  localities  in 
fields  as  well  as  in  .soil, 
as  the  instrumental 
jiower  used  is  greater  at 
one  place  than  at  an- 
other. The  fields  are 
cultivated  also  differ- 
ently in  different  locali- 
ties ;  at  one  place  oxen 
arc  used,  at  another 
horses  ;  at  one  place  one 
pair  is  sufficient,  at 
tmother  it  takes  four  to 
six  oxen  or  horses.  The 
plows  should  be  long 
and  naiTOW,  and  the  plow  irons  long  and 
narrow,  or  they  will  take  too  much  land, 
whereby  the  ciilltivation  will  not  be  the 
better  and  the  draft  is  heavier.  The  plow- 
iron  should  be  of  steel,  need  not  be  sharpened 
so  often,  as  it  cuts  easier  and  turns  the  .soil 
better,  and  is  smooth  and  cannot  stick  to 
the  plow.  The  harrows,  rollers  and  i)lows 
are  of  different  kinds  and  make.  In  .some 
localities  the  oxen  cany  the  yoke  on  the 
horns,  at  another  by  the  neck  ;  here  are  the 
fields  broad  and  short,  and  there  long  and 


182 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMERS 


[December, 


narrow  ;  here  are  the  oxen  shod,  especially  on 
hilly  land;  in  level  places  we  know  nothing  of 
it ;  at  some  places  are  the  harrows  apart  in 
tlie  middle,  and  are  hooked  together  with 
iron  rings,  so  they  can  give  and  have  a  better 
grip.  iJefore  everything  a  good  farmer 
should  have  plenty  of  farming  implements, 
so  he  may  not  have  want  in  time  of  need,  be- 
cause it  is  vexatious  and  olTeiisive  in  time  of 
need  to  borrow  from  your  neighbor  and  sel- 
dom without  bad  feeling  and  ill-will,  because 
the  most  of  times  you  bring  it  back  worse 
than  you  got  it ;  therefore,  should  the  farmer 
in  time  prepare  what  he  may  want  in  time  of 
need.  Especially  should  the  farmer  in  the 
winter  time  repair  such  implements  or  make 
new  ;  or  on  rainy  and  stormy  weather,  when 
he  cannot  work  in  the  fields  and  it  compels 
him  to  stay  in  tlie  house,  he  might  repair  all 
kinds  of  wagons  with  ladders,  beams,  dung- 
boards,  lime  boxes,  presses,  and  anything 
that  is  wanted,  or  may  be  wanted  in  the 
future.  Yoke-bows,  felloes,  spokes,  wagon 
wheels,  tongues,  hay  beams,  sieves,  sleighs, 
plows,  rollers,  dimg,  hay,  corn  and  straw 
forks,  shovels,  rakes,  curry  combs,  trestles, 
grindstone,  all  kind  of  large  and  small  sieves, 
rider,  grain  shovel,  grain  fan,  stamper,  mal- 
let, troughs,  tremel,  reber,  axes,  digging 
iron,  drawing  knife,  hub  rings,  auger,  ladder, 
drawing  bench,  traces,  breast  chains,  bands, 
plough  irons,  seed  baskets,  bags,  and  all  kinds 
of  articles  belonging  to  farming ;  iron  work, 
horse  shoes,  shine  nails,  wagon  rings,  Inib 
rings,  single-tree,  sickles,  saws,  cutting 
knife,  snitzer,  steiumeiser,  hammer,  stamp 
handle,  smith  work,  sleigh  boxes,  and  every- 
thing of  the  kind  at  least  double  ou  hand, 
that  when  the  busy  time  comes,  if  anything 
breaks,  or  is  needed,  or  to  have  to  be  fetched 
at  a  strange  place,  when  the  work  is  pressing 
in  harvest  time  or  otherwise,  and  the  neces- 
sary work  must  be  stopped  and  the  time  lost 
thereby,  it  is  not  even  enough  that  the  farmer 
has  all  these  things  double  and  plenty  if  he 
does  not  keep  them  in  a  systematic  and  pro- 
per iilace,  because  it  is  a  small  difference  in 
time  of  need,  something  not  to  have,  or  have 
and  not  know  where  to  find  it. 
^ ' 

For  The  Lancaster  Fabueb. 
SPLENIC,    OR    PERIODIC    FEVER    OF 
CATTLE. 

In  Missouri,  Kansas,  Arkansas,  Virginia, 
Kentucky,  Carolina  and  Georgia,  the  so- 
called  Spanish  or  Texas  fever  has  been  the 
causes  of  losses  prior  to  and  since  the  war, 
and  this  has  occasioned  the  most  violent  feel- 
ing of  opposition  among  stock  raisers  to  the 
driving  of  these  cattle  through  those  States. 
A  Missourian's  letter,  to  a  prairie  farmer, 
says,  "Talk  to  a  Missourian  about  modera- 
tion when  a  drove  of  Texas  cattle  is  coming 
and  he  will  call  you  a  fool,  while  he  coolly 
loads  his  gun  to  kill,  and  he  does  kill  the  cat- 
tle until  the  drove  takes  the  back  track;  and 
the  drovers  must  be  careful  not  to  get  between 
the  enraged  farmers  and  the  cattle."  Tliis 
looks  like  a  sort  of  border  ruffianism,  but  it  is 
the  way  to  keep  clear  of  the  Texas  fever.  Illi- 
nois will  yet  have  to  do  the  same  thing.  Con- 
gress should  do  something  in  the  matter ;  very 
stringent  laws  were  passed  in  regard  to  the 
rinderpest,  and  yet  it  is  scarcely  more  fatal 
than  Texas  fever.  Texas  stock  should  not  l)e 
allowed  to  pass  the  thirty-fifth  parallel  of 
north  latitude  alive.  Texas  has  five  million 
head,  worth  eight  to  ten  dollars  gold;  the  net 
yearly  increase,  after  deducting  twenty-five 
per  cent,  for  loss,  by  disease  and  other  casual- 
ties, amounts  to  seven  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  head. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  suflfering 
of  Texan  cattle  as  they  are  transported  by 
steamer  from  the  Texan  coast  to  Nevi'  Orleans 
and  thence  to  eastern  and  western  cities'. 
They  are  gathered  in  droves  of  two  to  twelve 
hundred  steers,  and  driven  at  the  rate  of 
eight  to  ten  miles  a  day  for  six  to  nine  hun- 
dred miles.  Whether  we  study  the  malady  as 
seen  in  Texas,  or  Smoky  Hill,  in  Kansas, 
where  sudden  shocks  to  the  system  of  a  steer 
that  has  stampeded,  developed  symptoms  or 


produce  death  ;  or  look  to  the  other  animals 
apparently  fresh,  and  grazing,  it  is  evident 
that  a  large  herd  traveling  from  the  region 
whence  splenic  fever  is  propagated,  carries 
not  only  the  active  cause  of  such  propagation, 
but  the  evidence  of  specific  disease  induced, 
which  remains  for  an  indefinite  time  latent 
and  unobserved.  It  has  been  observed  when- 
ever and  wherever  cattle  from  the  States  on 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  have  been  driven  North 
during  the  summer  monlh.s — and  is  most 
marked  in  cattle  of  Georgia,  Tennessee,  Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky,  Missouri,  Kansas,  Illinois 
and  Indiana — wherever  these  cattle  have 
grazed  simultaneously  or  after  Texas  lierds. 
It  is  incapable  of  communication  by  simple 
contact  of  sick  with  healthy  animals,  and 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term  is 
neither  contagious  nor  infectious.  It  is 
an  enzootic  disorder,  probably  due  to  the 
food  on  which  Southern  cattle  subsist,  wherebj' 
the  system  of  these  animals  becomes  charged 
with  deleterious  principles  that  is  afterwards 
propagated  and  dispersed  by  the  excretia  of 
apparently  healthy  animals  as  well  as  ob- 
viously sick  stock.  The  malady  is  probably 
incapable  of  communication  by  inoculation, 
and  the  flesh,  blood  and  secretions  of  such 
cattle  have  been  handled  and  consumed  by 
human  beings  without  the  manifestation  of 
untoward  results.  Texas  cattle,  from  all 
ages,  are  aftlicted  with  it  in  a  somewhat  latent 
and  mild  form,  and  its  incubation  is  from  five 
to  six  weeks  duration;  the  temperature  of  the 
body  then  rises,  the  secretions  are  checked, 
and  indications  of  depression  and  listnessness 
are  afforded  by  drooping  head,  depressed  ears, 
arched  back,  approximation  of  limbs  and 
indisposition  to  move  or  to  rise  when  down, 
urine  mostly  dark,  of  port-wine  color,  and  is 
retained  for  hours,  and  then  evacuated  in 
considerable  quantities;  hurried  breathing 
and  tremors  are  almost  invariable  symptoms, 
more  or  less  paralysis  in  hind  quarters,  fore 
quarters,  or  both.  When  the  brain  is  affected 
it  occasions  wild,  staring  gaze,  and  in  the  first 
case  there  is  more  or  less  blindness.  Animals 
recover,  especially  if  from  the  South,  but  in 
the  northern  stock  is  extremely  fatal,  destroy- 
ing most  every  animal  attacked.  Death 
usually  occurs  in  three  to  four  days,  and  may 
not  occur  for  from  twelve  days  to  six  weeks. 
Death  is  usually  produced  by  great  prostra- 
tion, the  animal  lying  and  refusing  to  rise, 
retention  of  urine,  head  occasionally  drawn 
forcibly  around  to  the  right  side,  and  the 
muscles  of  the  neck  twitching  without  much 
intermission.  Cows  having  splenic  fever  will 
suddenly  yield  but  half  the  usual  quantity  of 
milk;  at  first  the  animal  eats,  ruminates  occa- 
sionally, and  its  paunch  appears  full,  but  soon 
it  will  lie  down,  preferring  a  pool  of  water. 
The  depressed  head,  drooping  ears,  arched 
back,  hollow  and  twitching  flanks  have  a  ten- 
dency to  draw  the  hind  legs  under  the  belly, 
and  kimckling  over  over  at  the  fetlocks  behind, 
are  early  and  marked  symptoms;  the  skin  is 
dry  and  rigid.  A  small  delicate  blood-clot  is 
apt  to  be  seen  on  the  surface  of  the  droppings; 
at  first  the  urine  is  clear.  Many  cases,  it  is 
true,  may  not  be  known  until  the  urine  is 
bloody;  in  ten  to  fifteen  per  cent,  the  urine 
remains  its  natural  color.  When  bloody  urhie 
flows  death  will  soon  follow. 

The  skin,  very  often  infested  with  ticks,  is 
occasionally  studded  with  dried  drops  of 
blood,  as  if  the  animal  had  sweated  blood. 
The  spleen  usually  presents  a  dark  color,  with 
a  deep  red  pulp,  which  oozes  out  of  incisions 
made  through  the  capule,  and  weigh  in  native 
cattle  one-half  pound,  Texas  two  and  a  half, 
and  Cherokee  two  and  a  quarter  pounds, 
in  health ;  while  from  splenic  fever  it 
is  enlarged  from  two  to  twelve  pounds,  but 
rarely  exceeds  eight.  The  scraping  with  a 
knife  readily  forces  out  tlie  currant-jelly-like 
pulp,  and  leaves  the  trabecular  free  and 
clear.  In  thirty  noted  diseased  spleens  Dr. 
Manheimes  found  only  two  in  which  the  trab- 
ecular were  firm  and  sound.  They  are  gen- 
erally destroyed  and  undistinguishable  from 
any  other  part  of  the  tissues  of  the  organ. 
Dr.  Ranch,  medical  oflicer  of  Chicago,  aflilrms 


that  the  meat  is  not  poisonous,  and  is  incapa- 
ble of  injuring  human  beings.  The  flesh 
shows  no  signs  of  morbid  change.  During  a 
period  of  three  months  cattle  were  allowed  to 
die  in  Illinois  and  Indiana,  but  when  large 
herds  were  attacked  they  tried  to  get  as  many 
sold  in  eastern  markets  as  possible.  Cattle 
trucks  have  thus  been  filled  in  large  numbers 
with  infected  steers,  which  died  or  were 
slaughtered  and  connnittcd  to  the  rendering 
tanks  ;  but  not  a  single  case  has  transpired  to 
show  that  these  animals  have  induced  any 
disease  in  the  stock  of  eastern  cattle.  How 
different  from  rinderpest,  or  lung  fever, 
which,  under  similar  circumstances,  would 
have  caused  the  farmers  of  Ohio,  Pennsylva- 
nia ami  New  York  to  record  a  bitter  experi- 
ence, similar  to  that  of  the  much  injured  Illi- 
nois farmer.  Texan  steers  are  the  most 
dangerous  innnediately  after  leaving  Texas, 
but  after  they  have  traveled  a  long  dstance 
they  are  less  liable  to  do  mischief ;  hence  the 
conclusion,  that  if  cattle  are  driven  into 
Kansas,  Missouri  or  other  States  in  the  sum- 
mer or  autunm  of  one  year,  and  grazed  in 
such  States  during  the  winter  and  spring  they 
can  be  readily  intermixed  without  danger. 
Texas  herds,  therefore,  do  purify  themselves. 
The  point  is  to  know  the  exact  time  it  takes, 
and  if  means  can  be  used  to  accelerate  the 
result.  A  nipping  frost  is  the  most  eflectual 
cure,  as  it  destroys  the  vegetation  upon  which 
the  cattle  feed,  thereby  destroying  the  most 
plausible  source  of  transmission.  Texan 
steers  can  graze  side  by  side  with  native  cat- 
tle, only  having  a  fence  between  them,  with- 
out transmission,  thereby  thoroughly  and 
successfully  refuting  the  idea  of  tick  trans- 
mission, as  the  ticks  are  not  easily  fenced  in. 
Both  native  and  Texan  cattle,  dead  and  alive, 
have  been  seen  entirely  free  from  ticks. 
There  has  been  no  relation  whatever  between 
the  abundance  of  the  ticks  and  the  severity 
of  the  disorder.  It  is  supposed  that  the  ticks 
are  eaten,  but  close  examination  has  ever 
failed  to  trace  any  of  them,  during  the  de- 
velopment of  the  disease,  in  the  alimentary 
canal. 

The  tick  is  not  confined  to  Gulf  coast  cat- 
tle, which  we  know  communicate  the  disea.se, 
but  it  is  met  in  many  States  where  cattle  are 
reared  that  never  cause  splenic  fever.  Why 
should  the  ticks  not  communicate  the  malady 
from  Western  steers  to  other  cattle,  if  they 
can  induce  it  by  crawling  from  Texan  to 
■Western  stock  ?  It  is  not  contact  with  the 
cattle  that  transmits  the  disease,  as  they  have 
been  housed  together,  watered  together,  the 
sick  with  the  well,  with  no  bad  eftects. 

Splenic  fever  is  an  enzootic  ;  it  originates 
in  the  Gulf  States.  Florida  cattle  driven 
north  are  as  dangerous  as  Texans,  deriving 
the  same  deleterious  properties  from  the  soil 
on  which  they  are  reared,  in  all  probability 
the  vegetation  on  which  they  feed.  Milk 
sickness  is  due  to  cattle  feeding  on  low  wood- 
land pastures,  where  poisonous  plants  abound. 
The  poison  which  contaminates  the  food  is 
capable,  through  that  food,  of  attacking  a 
second  and  third  animal  or  as  many  as  par- 
take of  it.  Here  is  a  striking  similarity  be- 
tween milk  sickness  or  trembles,  and  splenic 
fever.  The  animal,  food  poisoned,  may  show 
no  sign  unless  driven  hard  or  frightened. 
Texas  cattle  accustomed  to  feed  ou  certain 
pastures  thrive,  and  their  systems  throw  oft', 
in  excretions,  these  poisons  for  three  or 
four  months  after  they  leave  their  native 
soil.  Herds  of  these  animals  necessarily  de- 
posit a  large  amount  of  whatever  they  ex- 
crete, and  thus  pastures  are  contaminated, 
the  grasses  of  which  prove  deadly  poison  to 
healthy  and  susceptible  cattle.  It  is  certain 
that  the  herding  of  cattle  on  the  lands  over 
which  Texan  cattle  have  passed,  is  the  ordi- 
nary and  probably  the  invariable  cause  of 
splenic  fever.  The  .systems  are  charged  with 
poisonous  principles,  which  accumulate  in  the 
bodies  of  the  acclimatized  animals  that  en- 
joy an  immunity. 

Southern  cattle  may  be  driven  so  as  to  im- 
prove in  condition,  and  yet  for  from  two 
weeks  to  three  months  continue  to  excrete  the 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


183 


deleterious  poison  tliat  alTeets  tlie  cattle  of 
tlie  States  through  wliieh  they  art!  drivpu. 
The  disease  may  be,  but  is  very  rarely  pnipa- 
gated  tlirougli  tlif  I'eediui;  of  liay.  Tlie  dis- 
ease occurs  mainly  duriuj;  tlie  hot  luoulhs 
and  autumn.  The  frost  kills  the  wild  grasses, 
and  conse(iuently  the  disease  disappears  ;  and 
in  the  spring,  if  there  are  no  new  lierds  of 
Texaus  on  the  pasture,  tiiere  is  no  disease. 
Heat  was  thought  to  aggravate  the  disease. 
There  is  not  tlie  slightest  foundation  that 
ticks  disseminate  all  the  disease.  Siilenic 
fever  does  not  belong  to  that  vast  and  deadly 
group  of  pureh'  contagious  and  infective  dis- 
ea.ses,  of  which  the  rinderpest,  the  lung 
plague  and  eruiitive  fevers  are  typical ;  that 
however  warm  tlic  weather  may  be,  nothing 
like  anthrax  poison  is  developed  in  the  sys- 
tem, and  the  tlesh,  blood  and  other  tissues  of 
animals  is  incapable  of  inducing  any  disease 
in  man  or  animals. 

Splenic  fever  is  not  malignant  typhus  or 
typhoid  fever;  it  has  no  analogue  among  hu- 
man diseases,  but  is,  however,  developed 
under  conditions,  which  prevail  where  the 
so-called  malaria  injuriously  allects  the  human 
health.  Splenic  fever  may  be  classed  among 
the  incurable  maladies,  as  w'e  know  of  no 
antidote  to  the  mysterious  poison  inducing  it. 
(iood  imrsing  meets  with  very  tritling  success; 
bleeding  has  been  resorted  to  with  some  suc- 
cess either  in  consequence  or  in  spite  of  the 
remedy.  Purgatives  have  been  tried  with 
good  results  in  a  few  instances,  and  with  de- 
jiressiiig  and  killing  effect  in  many  more. 
Ked  water  in  cows  of  Scotland  is  often  cured 
by  opiates  which  check  the  discharge  of 
blood,  and  with  alcoholic  stimulants  in  mod- 
eration and  free  use  of  mucilaginous  drinks, 
the  same  has  been  tried  in  splenic  fever  with 
little  or  no  success.  There  is  only  one  remedy, 
that  of  keeping  the  cattle  positively  apart  for 
a  season,  which  will  sometimes  necessitate  the 
fencing  in  of  local  stock,  wliile  at  other  times 
the  Texan  must  submit  to  some  overcrowding. 
Texan  cattle  should  reach  Western  Kansas  in 
the  summer  or  early  autumn,  keeping  the 
stock  fresh  on  the  abundant  grasses,  and  ship 
Kast  when  the  packing  season  begins.  Such 
a  course  being  rigidly  adhered  to,  you  will 
have  no  more  of  splenic  fever.  Cmnpikd  byll. 
M.  K. 

For  The  Lancaster  Farmer. 
GYPSUM. 

Gypsum  has  been  used  as  a  fertilizer  for  a 
long  time,  but  its  first  earnest  advocate  in 
America  seems  to  have  bei^ii  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin. A  story  runs  that  Franklin,  to  Impress 
his  neighbors  with  its  value,  caused  the 
"  effects  of  gypsum"  to  be  formed  on  a  clover 
field  against  a  hillside  with  this  article,  and 
the  luxuriant  growth  induced  made  converts 
of- all  the  farmers  in  the  neighborliood. 

In  order  to  be  able  to  apply  gypsum  to  the 
best  advantage,  it  is  necessary  to  know  of 
what  it  is  composed  and  the  manner  u\  which 
it  acts.  Its  compo.^ition  is,  when  nearly  pure, 
suli>huric  acid,  44  Itis.  ;  lime,  31  ths.  ;  water, 
20  tt)s.  ;  and  sand,  &c.,  aliout  5  Itis.  ;  the  two 
former  being,  of  course,  the  only  valuable  in- 
gredients. As  far  as  lime  is  concerned,  its 
application  does  not  help  an,\  in  a  calcareous 
soil,  or  where  lime  is  applied,  as  in  every  one 
hundred  pounds  of  the  gyjisum  there  is  only 
about  one-half  bushel  (I!  1  Itis.  )of  lime.  In  a 
soil  which  is  deficient  of  lime  this  small 
amount  may  help  some,  and  as  there  are  parts 
of  the  country  where  the  soil  is  naturally  de- 
ficient in  the  latter  and  where  it  would  be 
very  expensive  to  apjily  it  in  anything  like  the 
quantity  applied  in  Lancaster  county,  a  heavy 
application  of  gypsum  may  have  an  effect  to 
which  we  are  all  strangers.  In  the  time  of 
Dr.  Franklin  its  use  was,  no  douljt,  much 
more  apparent  than  it  is  now,  and  in  our  own 
neighborhood  it  was  largely  used  by  nearly 
every  farmer  some  twenty  years  ago  or  more, 
when  liming  was  not  practiced  so  much  yet ; 
now  it  is  seldom  used. 

"We  now  come  to  sulphuric  acid,  the  only 
remaining  ingredient  valuable  for  its  fertili- 
zing properties.  This  is  found  more  or  less 
in  all  vegetat)le  matter,  and  of  course  the  soil 


I  must  Contain  enough  to  supply  all  the  needs 

of  the  plant  in  thisi-espect  ;  as  the  ingredients 

of   any  soil   must   necessarily  be   many  limes 

greater  than   the   amount   taken  up    oy   the 

j  plant.   As  the  surface  of  the  roots  come  in  con- 

'  tact  witli  only  a  very  small  portion,  it  follows 

that  if  th<'  soil  is  supposed  to  be  destitute  of 

sulphuric  acid,  which  is  not  often,  if,  indeed, 

at  all  the  ca.se,  then  the  application  must  be 

many  times  the  amount  a  crop  is  supposed  to 

j  remove. 

I      The  following  table  shows  the  amount  of 
,  sulphuric  acid  removed  by  the  crops  named 
and  the  amount  of  gypsum  needed  to  replace 
the  same : 


CHOP. 


Rye- 


Wheut— Grain 

Straw 

■Oram 

Straw 

Oats — Qraiu 

Straw 

Corn — Grain 

Fodder 

Buckwlieut — Grain. 

Meadow  buy 

Timothy  hay 

Red  Clover  liay 

Total  008 

Turnips 

Sugar-beet  root.... 
Tobacco  leaves 


u 

H 

09 

r-  = 

»* 

f 

n 

•  < 

;«i 

~ 

0.2 

2 

4.4 

so 

U.3 

Ik 

3.3 

4(1 

U.'o 

1 

2.0 

50 

Ofl 

3 

T.2 

80 

0.3 

! 

9  6 

i 

7.2 

2 

6.S 

100 

3.0 

400 

IG.O 

4U0 

0.0 

1 

11.6 

0.6 
10.0 

0.; 

7.6 

1.1 

«  9 
1.3 
1C.4 

0.7 
21.8 
16.4 
15.4 

S.2 
36.3 
13  6 
26.4 


From  the  above  table  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  amount  of  acid  removed  is  quite 
small  in  all  the  grains,  but  in  their  straws 
and  in  hay,  roots  and  tobacco  it  is  considera- 
ble. Tobacco  and  turnips  especially  remove 
a  notable  quantity,  and  no  doubt  both  of 
these  as  well  as  grass  clover  and  the  straws 
would  be  materially  increased  by  a  liberal  ap- 
plication. The  ([uantity  recommended  is 
generally  from  one  to  two  hundred  pounds 
and  it  is  said  that  a  larger  application  does 
not  generally  show  more  effect  than  the  latter 
would  have  done. 

Johnston  (English)  states  that  in  this  coun- 
try the  practice  is  to  apply  it  at  the  time  of 
putting  in  the  seed,  and  thinks  that  in  a  dry 
climate  it  is  better  to  be  mixed  with  the  soil. 
In  this  section  of  the  country  gypsum  is  ap- 
plied in  nearly  all  cases  as  a  top  dressing,  and 
scattered  over  the  plants.  My  impression  is 
that  the  above  mentioned  author  made  a  mis- 
take in  both  instances;  he  favors  the  mixing 
with  the  soil  in  a  dry  climate  because  of  its 
insolubility,  but  with  the  exception  of  dry 
spells  this  will  not  hold,  for  a  gallon  of  water 
dissolves  about  one-fourth  jiound  of  the  gyp- 
sum, and  to  dissolve  a  dressing  of  two  liun- 
dred  pounds  would  take  but  eight  hundred 
gallons  of  water,  which  would  be  a  very 
slight  sprinkling  when  spread  over  an  acre. 

If  the  sulphuric  acid  is  the  object,  there  is 
no  need  of  its  application  in  the  following 
cases: 

Where  sulphate  of  magnesia,  (epsom  salts) 
sulphate  of  potash,  sulphate  of  soda,  or  sul- 
phate of  ammonia  are  applied,  as  these  will 
furnish  all  the  sulphuric  acid  needed. 

Where  the  sulphate  of  iron  exists  in  the 
soil,  and  lime  is  applied,  the  lime  and  sul- 
jihuric  acid  having  a  stronger  affinity  for  each 
other  than  the  latter  and  iron,  they  will  unite 
and  form  sulphate  of  lime  (gypsum). 

Gypsum  is  also  sometimes  indirectly  the 
promoter  of  luxuriant  vegetation.  As  in  the 
ca.se  of  iron  and  lime,  the  acid  had  a  stronger 
allinity  for  the  lime,  so  it  seems  to  be  the  case 
in  ammonia  and  lime,  the  acid  leaviufj  the 
latter  and  uniting  with  the  former  (which  is 
usually  called  "fixing  the  ammonia,")  and 
forming  sulphate  of  ammonia,  which  is  one  of 
the  highest  priced  and  most  powerful  artificial 
fertilizers  known.  The  gieat  effect  Borac- 
limcs  resulting  from  the  use  of  gypsum  may 
in  many  cases  result  from  this  fixing  of  the 
volatile  ammonia,  and  particularly  so  when 
the  soil  has  been  receiving  liberal  coats  of 
manure  rich  in  this  ingredient. 

Probably  a  better  plan  for  applying  the 
gypsum  to  bring  about  this  result  would  be  to 


scatter  it  at  short  intervals  over  the  manure 
pile  and  thus  prevent  from  the  beginning  the 
escape  of  ammonia  ;  it  .should  be  (Kinea-s often 
as  the  stables  are  cleaned  which  is  generally 
about  once  a  wi^ek.  This  plan  was  recom- 
mended in  the  F.vioiicn  about  a  year  ago,  and 
the  American  Ayrindturisl  for  this  month 
has  among  its  hints  the  following  : 

"(Jround  gypsum  spread  upon  the  floors 
will  prevent  the  pungent  odor  common  to 
stables.  This  vapor  of  ammonia  is  hurtful 
to  horses'  eyes,  and  the  fretiucnt  cause  of 
oiihthalmia,  and  resulting  blindness,*  with 
which  so  many  horses  are  troubled.  Throw  a 
few  pailsfiil  of  water  upon  the  fioor  first,  and 
then  scatter  around  a  shovelful  of  the  gyp- 
sum." 

In  consideration  of  all  that  has  been  said 
above  it  would  apjiear  that  in  a  limestone 
country,  or  on  land  that  is  limed,  the  appli- 
cation of  the  gypsum  may  not  pay  for  the 
labor  of  applying,  and  to  fix  the  ammonia 
would  probably  Ije  better  used  on  the  manure 
pile  or  even  in  the  stable. 

If  it  is  to  be  applied  on  the  field  the  follow- 
ing has  been  found  to  be  tlie  result  of  appli- 
cation "to  clover  at  different  periods  in  the 
spring,"  as  quoted  by  Johnston  : 

Undressed,  100  pounds ;  top-dressed,  on 
the  ;!Oth  of  March,  132  pounds  ;  top-dressed, 
on  the  13th  of  April,  140  pounds;  top- 
dressed,  on  the  27th  of  April,  150  pounds. 

The  effect  of  a  top-dressing  of  gypsum 
seems,  therefore,  to  be  greatest  when  it  is  ap- 
plied after  the  leaves  have  been  pretty  well 
developed. — A.  IS.  K. 

[We,  ourself,  when  a  boy  working  on  a 
farm,  suffered  more  or  less  from  sore  eyes, 
sujiposed  to  have  been  contracted  through 
much  contact  with  horscsf  but,  although  a 
long  time  ago,  it  occurs  to  us  the  cause  was 
assigned  to  a  pungent  dust  that  arose  from 
them,  in  our  manipulations  of  the  curry 
comb,  and  not  from  the  exhalations  of  vapor; 
and  yet,  after  all,  that  may  have  been  the 
cause,  and  we  not  know  it,  or  both  circum- 
stances may  liave  combined  to  produce  that 

effect.  Ed.1 

^ 

OLEOMARGARINE— THE     NEW 
STITUTE  FOR  BUTTER. 


SUB- 


Interesting  Letter  to  Prof.  Baker,  of  Millers- 
ville — The  Mode  of  Making  Artificial 
Butter  Explained  by  President 
Deshler. 
We  have  received  from  Prof.  Baker,  of  the 
Millersville  State  Normal  School,  a  specimen 
lump  of  oleomargarine,  the  new  substitute 
for  butter.     It  looks  like  butter,  its  odor  is 
like  that  of  butter,  and  it  tastes  like  butter — 
and  pretty  good  butter  at  that. 
Prof.  Baker's  Letter. 
Millersville,  Pa., Nov.  7,  1877. 
To  the  Editor  of  The  JVctc  Era. 

Dear  Sir :  1  send  you  a  specimen   of  oleo- 
margarine, or  artificial   butter,  a  portion  of  a 
quantity  sent  me   for    examination  by  the 
United  "states  Dairy  Company  of  New  Vork. 
And  the  communication   received  from   the 
president  of  the  company   contains  so  much 
that  seems  to  me  of  general  interest  connected 
with  the  history  and  manufacture  of  the  new 
product  that  I  .send  it  also,  thinking  that  you 
might  find  something  in  it  for  the  readers  of 
your  paper. — TourK  truly,  Thos.  li.  Baker. 
Tne  ''Substitute"  and  How  it  is  Made. 
New  Youk,  Novcml>cr  1st,  1H77, 1 
21  Courtland  St.,  Room  53.  ) 
Prof.  Tlmnas  li.  Baker,  State  A'on»ia2  School, 
Millersville,  Lancaster,  Pcnn.: 
Dear  Sir:  Yours  of  the  20th   ult.,  asking 
for  a  specimen  of  our  artificial   butter  to  ex- 
amine and  show  to    your  class,   has    Ikjcu 
received,  and  we  shall  take  pleasure  in  com- 
plying with  your  wi.shes. 
It  is  proper  to  state  that  a  great  deal  of  this 

•I  know  of  1  young  man  who,  whAD  a  boy.  got  sore  eye* 
from  cleaning  a  hon«c  stable,  and  they  remained  In  a  bad 
condition  for  a  long  time.  I  think  he  cannot  se«  out  of 
one  eye  now,  or  it  is  very  much  weaker  than  the  other,  all 
resulting  from  the  vapor  of  ammonia.  No  doubt  many 
readers  have  had  their  eyes  set  a  smarting  when  going  into 
a  horse  stable  ;  the  use  of  gypsum  will  prevent  all  this. 


184 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMEI^. 


i  December, 


product  is  made  surreptitiously  by  infringers 
upon  the  patent, of  whicti  we  are  the  owners,  and 
that  the  quality  of  their  article  is  often  exceed- 
ingly inferior,  owing  to  their  avarice,  their  un- 
cleauliness,  or  their  departure  (ignorantly  or 
other  wise)  from  the  conditions  that  are  essential 
to  the  production  of  a  good  food-product.  Of 
course  we  bring  suit  against  infringers  wher- 
ever we  find  them  and  can  secure  sufficient 
evidence  that  they  are  intruding  upon  our 
rights. 

It  may  interest  you  and  the  young  gentle- 
men composing  your  class  to  have  the  history 
of  the  invention  of  this  new  food-product, 
and  some  general  account  of  the  methods 
pursued  in  its  manufacture;  and  though  my 
time  is  much  absorbed  otherwise,  I  have  pre- 
pared the  following  brief  outline  sketch  on 
the  subject  for  your  information: 

For  several  years,  prior  to  the  year  1869, 
M.  Mege,  who  is  an  eminent  French  chemist, 
had  been  employed  by  the  French  govern- 
ment to  prosecute  inquiries  looking  to  the 
improvement  in  the  manufacture  and  quality 
of  numerous  common  articles  of  domestic 
food — such  as  bread  and  the  like.  The  re- 
sults of  his  inquiries,  wnich  were  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  working  and  the  rural  popula- 
tion, were  so  marked  and  useful,  that  at  the 
instance  of  the  Empress  Eugenie  he  was  in- 
vited by  the  goveniment  to  institute  further 
investigations,  having  for  their  aim  the  pro- 
duction of  a  fatty  food  suitable  for  taking  the 
place  of  ordinary  butter,  adapted  for  the  use 
of  sailors  on  long  voyages,  and  of  the  poorer 
classes  at  home,  which  might  be  sold  at  a 
much  lower  price  than  it,  and  be  capable  of 
longer  preservation. 

In  response  to  this  invitation,  M.  Mege 
made  a  series  of  elaborate  experiments  with 
cattle,  on  the  government  farm  at  Versailles, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  ascertain  from 
whence  the  buttery  particles  in  the  milk  of 
cows  was  derived ;  and  the  conclusion  he 
finally  reached  was,  that  it  was  produced 
from  the  fat  of  the  animal  by  being  reab- 
sorbed and  carried  into  the  circulation,  and 
being  deprived  of  its  stearine  by  respiratory 
combustion,  it  furnished  its  butter  solids  to 
the  udders,  where,  mider  the  influence  of  the 
mammary  pepsin,  it  was  changed  into  glob- 
ules of  butter.  Following  his  investigations 
still  further,  and  carefully  noting  and  copy- 
ing the  operations  of  nature  in  the  living 
animal,  M.  Mege  finally  brought  to  light  the 
hitherto  undiscovered  secret  that  the  pure 
fat  of  slaughtered  animals,  melted  at  about 
the  temperature  of  the  natural  heat  of  the 
body,  say  from  103°  to  125"  Fahrenheit,  but 
not  in  any  case  to  exceed  the  latter  maxi- 
mum, when  duly  refined,  separated  from 
albumen  and  membrane,  and  relieved  of  its 
stearine,  is  absolutely  free  from  disagreeable  or 
tallnwy  odor  and  taste,  is  made  capable  of 
■prolonged  preservation  and  is  identical  with  the 
butter  glohrdes  in  the  milk  of  cows.  He  also 
ascertained  that  to  raise  the  temperature  in 
melting  above  125°  would  be  destructive  of 
all  these  results,  imparting  to  the  fat  by  the 
decomposition  of  the  membrane,  fibre,  etc., 
through  the  agency  of  a  high  degree  of  heat, 
a  disagreeable  taste  and  odor,  impairing  its 
capacity  for  preseiTation  and  rendering  it  un- 
fit for  use  as  an  article  of  food. 

M.  Mege's  next  practical  step  was  to  churn 
this  pure  oil — popularly  known  as  oleomargar- 
ine— with  water,  a  small  quantity  of  milk,  or 
the  curds  of  milk,  and  a  suitable  quantity  of 
common  salt  of  soda.  The  result  was  a  pro- 
duct which,  when  worked  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  ordinary  butter,  is  in  almost  every 
respect  identical  with  it,  having  the  same 
chemical  constituents  existing  in  almost  the 
same  proportions,  and  when  carefully  made 
being  indistinguishable  from  it  in  consistence, 
taste  and  odor. 

Having  given  you  this  historical  outline  of 
the  invention,  I  will  now  present  to  your 
notice  the  methods  pursued  in  the  manufac- 
ture of  the  product,  and  I  think  it  will  serve 
to  satisfy  any  reasonable  inquirer  that  the 
prejudice  is  utterly  unfounded  which  has  been 
sought  to  be  created  against  artificial  butter, 


on  the  ground  that  it  is  made  from  soapfat, 
from  disgusting  grease,  collected  from  kitchens 
and  gutters,  or  from  the  decomposed  fat  of 
animals,  diseased  or  otherwise,  in  which  filth 
and  ordure  were  present.  These  are  some  of 
the  baseless  charges  which  have  been  coined 
and  diligently  circulated  by  interested  parties, 
who  are  apprehensive  that  the  Mege  patent 
will  supply  a  formidable  competitor  for  the 
favor  of  consumers  of  butter.  How  baseless 
these  charges  are  will  appear  from  the  follow- 
ing relation  of  the  process  pursued  by  one  of 
the  largest  manufactories  of  this  new  and  im- 
portant food  product,  under  a  license  I'rom 
our  company : 

The  caul  fat  of  freshly  slaughtered  animals 
is  brought  from  the  large  abattoirs  in  New 
York  and  its  vicinity,  daily  from  3  or  4 
o'clock  p.  m.  till  midnight,  in  amounts  vary- 
ing from  30,000  to  100,000  pounds  per  day. 
As  it  arrives  it  is  inspected,  and  any  green  or 
decomposed  fat  rejected.  It  is  then  placed  in 
large  vats  through  which  a  constant  stream 
of  cold  water  is  passing,  by  which  means  the 
animal  heat  is  extracted  from  the  fat,  and  it 
is  cleansed  of  all  foreign  matter — blood,  albu- 
men, ordure,  dirt,  etc.  When  this  is  com- 
pleted, the  fat  is  cut  into  pieces  of  from  four 
to  ten  pounds  weight  and  placed  in  similar 
tanks  through  which  a  constant  stream  of 
tepid  water  is  passing,  where  its  cleansing 
and  purification  are  finally  completed.  AVhen 
it  has  been  thus  thoroughly  cleansed  it  is  fed 
into  hashers  driven  by  steam,  such  as  are 
used  in  making  sausage  meat,  out  of  which 
it  passes,  completely  minced  and  disinte- 
grated, into  a  series  of  jacketed-kettles — 
wster-baths,  the  water  of  which  is  raised 
to  a  temperature  not  to  exceed  12.5°F.  In 
these  kettles  the  fat  is  gradually  melted, 
being  constantly  stirred  the  while,  until 
the  membrane,  animal  fiber,  etc.,  are  entirely 
separated  and  have  sunk  to  the  bottom  in  the 
form  of  scrap,  leave  a  limpid  refined  fat  super- 
natant. This  supernatant  fat,  which  consists 
of  pure  oil  suitable  for  conversion  into  butter, 
and  stearine,  is  then  drawn  off  into  large  ves- 
sels and  placed  in  what  is  technically  kndwn 
as  "the  seeding  room, "  where  a  curious  and 
interesting  process  takes  place — the  stearine 
gradually  forming  in  spongy  flocculae  through- 
out the  mass,  until  in  about  twenty-four  hours 
it  is  all  crystallized  and  becomes  distinct  from 
the  oil  in  wliich  it  is  immersed.  When  this 
crystallization  is  complete  the  mass  is  allowed 
to  solidify,  when  it  is  packed  in  small  cotton 
bags  and  subjected  to  pressure  an  atmosphere 
of  about  80°  F.  the  pure  oil  oozing  out  in  a 
golden  stream  and  the  stearine  being  left  in 
the  bags.  The  oil  thus  expressed  is  a  beauti- 
ful limpid  translucent  fluid  at  the  temperature 
of  80°— congealing  at  a  lower  temperature — 
is  free  alike  from  membrance,  stearine  taste 
and  odor,  dissolves  in  the  mouth  quickly, 
leaving  no  trace  of  stearine  adhering  to  the 
teeth  or  gums,  and  is  ready  to  be  converted 
into  butter. 

In  another  part  of  the  factory,  faultless  in 
its  arrangement  and  in  its  sweetness  and 
cleanliness,  there  are  huge  chums  run  by 
steam,  tables  for  working  the  butter  and  all 
the  appliances  of  a  well-ordered  butter  dairy; 
and  here  the  oil  whose  process  of  manufac- 
ture we  have  witnessed  is  converted  into  rich 
yellow  and  creamy  butter. 

Trusting  that  you  will  find  ray  long  com- 
munication of  interest  to  yourself  and  the 
young  gentlemen  under  your  care. — /  am 
yours  respectfully,  M.  D.  Deshler,  President  of 
the  United  States  Dairy  Company. 


THE  OMNIVOROUS  CATERPILLAR. 

"All  owners  of  trees  should  take  advan- 
tage of  the  present  season  to  apply  the  pre- 
vention, or  means  of  destruction  of  the 
caterpillar,  recently  so  successfully  introduced 
in  European  parks.  The  plan  is  simple,  and 
unattended  with  peril  to  the  tree.  Bore  a 
small  gimlet  hole  into  the  trunk  of  the  tree, 
about  a  yard  from  the  ground,  penetrating  to 
the  depth  of  one-third  the  diameter.  Fill 
this  hole  with  flowers  of  sulphur,  and  then 
plug  the  aperture  with  wood.    The  rising  sap 


will  carry  the  sulphureous  impregnation  to 
the  farthest  extremity  of  every  twig  and  leaf, 
and  no  caterpillar,  even  of  the  most  infernal 
origin,  can  exist  upon  the  tree." — American 
paper.  [Whether  the  above  is  much  known 
in  England,  or  whether  the  writer  merely  as- 
sumes that  it  is  a  European  custom,  in  order 
to  give  force  to  his  assertion  of  the  eflicacy  of 
his  nostrum,  we  are  not  aware.  Certainly,  if 
the  caterpillar  tribe  can  be  thus  easily  ban- 
ished from  trees,  the  fact  caimot  be  too  widely 
known.— Ed.  J.  F.] 

We  find  the  foregoing  in  the  Journal  of 
Forestry  for  the  month  of  September  of  the 
present  year,  a  very  clever  English  magazine, 
published  in  London.  We  reproduce  it  in 
order  to  illustrate  the  subterfuges  which  wri- 
ters sometimes  resort  to,  when  they  desire 
tlieir  statements  to  be  credited  by  intelligent 
paojile. 

The  author  of  this  pet  remedy  was  no  doubt 
feeling  for  a  foreign  indorsement  by  quoting  a 
foreign  precedent,  but  he  gets  it  very  fiiintly. 
Twenty  or  thirty  years  ago,  the  sulphur  theory 
had  a  good  many  disciples  in  North  America, 
especially  in  Pennsylvania,  not  only  as  an 
exterminator  of  cateipillars,  but  also  of  cur- 
culios,  tree-borers,  and  codlings,  but  latterly 
it  has  become  quite  exploded.  There  were 
occasional  coincidences  which  gave  the  remedy 
some  color  among  those  who  were  entirely 
ignorant  of  the  economies  of  insects  and  their 
transformations.  We  may  instance  the  case 
of  Mr.  Jones,  who  witnessed  the  foliage  of  a  , 
favorite  young  walnut  tree  rapidly  disappear- 
ing under  the  attacks  of  a  multitude  of  black 
caterpillars  (the  larvse  of  "  Datana  minis- 
tra.")  and  forthwith  he  bored  the  hole  and 
applied  the  sulphur.  Within  twelve  hours 
thereafter  every  caterpillar  disappeared,  and 
!Mi\  Jones  was  in  ecstacies.  The  next  year, 
to  his  horror,  Mr.  Jones  noticed  the  caterpil- 
lars in  increased  numbers,  and  applied  the 
same  "sulphureous"  antidote,  but  the  insects 
ignored  it  altogether ;  and,  through  their  in- 
creased numbers,  and  his  unbounded  faith  in 
his  remedy,  they  stripped  every  leaf  ofi"  the 
tree,  and  then  abandoned  it  for  a  more  luxu- 
riant feeding  ground. 

Now,  the  reason  for  all  this  is  very  simple, 
but  the  Joneses  of  society  "won't  see  it." 
The  caterpillars  of  this  insect  (a  "walnut 
moth,")  when  they  are  fully  developed,  leave 
the  tree  and  go  into  the  ground,  or  spin  a  sort 
of  loose  cocoon  among  the  rubbish  on  the 
ground,  as  the  case  may  be,  for  when  the  sea- 
son is  favorable  they  produce  two  broods ; 
hence,  when  Jones  applied  the  sulphur  in  the 
first  instance,  it  was  about  the  transforming 
period,  and  they  deserted  the  tree  in  obedi- 
ence to  their  natural  instinct,  and  the  sulphur 
had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  it.  In  the 
second  instance,  they  were  not  ready  to  leave, 
and  they  didn't,  sulphur,  or  anything  else 
plugged  up  in  the  trunk  of  the  tree  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding. 

Now,  there  is  something  very  peculiar  in 
the  constitution  of  some  human  minds,  which 
leads  them  to  place  more  confidence  in  one 
apparent  success  of  this  kind  than  they  would 
of  distrust  in  a  dozen  of  failures.  Any  per- 
son who  has  ever  attempted  to  mix  flowers  of 
sulphur  and  an  aqueous  fluid,  must  have  ex- 
perienced the  ditticulty,  even  after  long  and 
violent  agitation,  and  where  it  is  plugged  up 
in  a  gimlet  hole,  the  difficulty  of  its  being 
taken  up  by  the  sap,  becomes  still  more  appa- 
rent—indeed, although  very  fusible,  it  is  abso- 
lutely insoluble  in  water,  and  if  it  were  not, 
it  would  be  quite  as  obnoxious  to  the  life  of 
the  tree  itself  as  to  the  caterpillar. 

Of  course,  if  there  are  any  believers  in  the 
sulphur  remedy,  it  is  not  our  purpose  to  dis- 
turb them  in  it ;  but  it  appears  to  us  that  if 
there  was  any  virtue  in  it— so  cheap  and 
simple  is  it  in  its  application— we  siiould  not 
now  hear  so  many  complaints  about  cater- 
pillars, tree-borers,  curculios,  codlings  and  the 
many  other  insects  that  infest  trees  and  shrub- 
bery. Moreover,  can  any  one  doubt  that  if 
"  the  rising  sap  will  carry  the  sulphureous 
impregnation  to  the  farthest  extremity  of 
every  twig  and  leaf,"  it  would  not  also  carry 


I 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


i85 


it  into  and  through  all  the  tissues  of  the  fruit; 
and  if  vindfiit  enough  to  kill  or  expel  eater- 
pilliirs,  that  it  would  have  the  same  effect 
upon  cuiculios  and  codlings,  and  also  upon 
any  vertebrates  (including  man)  that  partook 
of  the  fruit  "i"  We  do  not  believe  that  sulphur 
can  arbitrarily  have  such  au  eftect  upon  tlie 
sap,  leaves,  and  fruit  of  trees,  any  more  than 
we  do  that  I'aris  green  arbitrarily  affects  the 
quality  of  the  jjotato  tuber.  There  are  appli- 
cations of  sulphur,  however,  which  are  ob- 
noxious to  insect-life  and  health,  but  they  are 
also  obnoxious  to  plant-life  and  health — con- 
fined fumigations,  for  instance — and  we  have 
heard  of  insects  being  expelled  by  applications 
of  the  dry  powder  to  the  leaves.  The  exhala- 
tions of  sulpluu-  in  a  hot  sun  cannot  be  very 
agreeable  to  insects,  any  more  than  it  is  to 
human  beings. 

When  sulphur  is  administered  to  animals  or 
to  man,  it  is  for  the  eradication  of  some  in- 
fection, and  to  produce  a  healthful  condition 
of  the  physical  body,  whether  applied  inter- 
nally or  externally  ;  and,  in  the  latter  ease, 
before  it  can  have  that  etlect,  there  must  be 
a  deconii)osition  and  assimilation,  and  this  is 
facilitated  l)y  the  heat  and  digestive  fluids  of 
the  stomach,  and  its  beueficial  effects  will  be 
in  proportion  to  such  assimilation.  But  to 
introduce  the  dry  flower  of  sulphur  into  a  hole 
in  a  tree,  and  then  [ilug  it  up,  such  assimila- 
tion does  not  take  place,  or  if  so,  in  an  almost 
imperceptible  degree.  One  instance,  at  least, 
came  to  our  knowledge,  in  which  the  sulphur 
had  been  examined  eighteen  months  after  it 
had  been  introduced,  and  it  was  found  that  it 
had  not  yet  luidergone  any  change,  but  was  as 
dry  as  when  first  applied  to  the  tree,  and  con- 
sequeiitly  could  have  been  of  very  little  benefit 
or  injury,  if  any.  In  conclusion,  we  do  not 
wish  an  "American  paper"  to  be  considered 
as  a  reflex  of  American  opinion  on  the  sub- 
ject of  "  omnivorous  caterpillars"  and  the 
means  of  their  destruction — especially  in  its 
resuscitation  of  obsolete  theories.  We  blunder 
enough  already,  in  grasping  after  shadows, 
without  permitting  this  "straw"  to  be  laid 
upon  our  sufliciently  heavy  burdens,  except 
under  protest. — if. 

^ 

THE  CHERRY. 


Something  of  its  History,  Cultivation,  and 
Most  Profitable  and  Best  Varieties. 

In  my  pomological  studies  the  clierry  lias 
been  one  of  my  favorites  among  fruits,  and 
during  the  past  year,  reading  so  much  of  its 
not  being  a  fruit  suited  to  general  culture,  I 
conclude  that  a  little  more  may  be  said,  and 
perhai)s  be  of  interest  to  many  young  readers 
of  the  journal  devoted  to  rural  life  pursuits, 
and  also  induce  thoughts  to  be  written  and 
published  by  others. 

The  history  of  the  cherry  makes  it  one  of 
an  eaily  period,  it  having  been  cultivated  be- 
fore the  date  of  our  present  record  of  time. 
In  a  communication  to  the  London  Horticul- 
tural Society,  some  thirty  odd  years  ago,  the 
cherry  is  said  to  have  been  brought  to  Eng- 
land from  Asia  Minor,  where  then  grew  two 
varieties,  one  having  black  fruit,  the  other  of 
an  amber  color.  The  trees  there  attain  a 
height  of  ninety  feet,  the  stems  or  bodies 
measuring  five  feet  in  circumference.  When 
Pliny  wrote — about  the  time  of  the  com- 
mencement of  the  Christian  era — the  cherry 
numbered  something  over  a  dozen  varieties 
known  as  distinct ;  at  this  present  time  there 
are  something  over  two  hundred  and  thirty 
distinct  varieties,  to  wliich  are  attached  near 
three  hundred  synonyms.  Writers  vary  in 
their  statements  as  to  the  size  of  the  first 
known  cherries,  and  also  as  to  its  introduction 
into  England,  as  well  as  the  point  from  which 
it  was  brought.  One  author  says  it  was  taken 
to  Britain  "in  the  year  69  B.  C,  and  from 
Cerasus,  a  city  of  Pontus,  whence  its  Latin 
name.  Botanically  it  belongs  to  the  order 
Bosacciv.  There  is  a  variety  in  a  wild  state, 
native  of  the  states,  but  the  cultivated  varie- 
ties can  not  be  engrafted,  or  budded,  and 
healthily  grown  upon  it.  It  is,  however,  in 
all  its  varieties  easily  propagated  upon  any  of 


the  different  classes— as  Muzzard,  from  which 
come  our  sweet  cherries ;  Morello,  to  which 
all  our  sour  and  half-way  sweet  varieties  may 
be  said  to  at  lea.st  jMirtially  belong. 

They  arc  readily  grown  from  seed  and  when 
taken  from  isolated  trees  arc  liable  to  produce 
varieties  similar  to  the  parent ;  but  when  sev- 
eral different  varieties  arc  planted  near  each 
other,  and  the  .seed  taken  from  them,  there  is 
no  dependence  upon  what  they  may  bear  of 
fruit  in  future.  The  seed  should  not  be  per- 
mitted to  get  dry,  Init  as  soon  as  gathered, 
cleaned  of  pulp,  mixed  half  and  half  with 
clean  sand  or  tine  charcoal,  placed  in  Iwxes 
about  four  inches  dee))  having  holes  in  the 
bottom  for  drainage,  and  then  set  in  the  open 
air,  but  where  they  can  receive  no  direct  sun- 
light. Ground  for  growing  them  should  Ixj 
prepared  in  autumn,  and  as  soon  a.s  the  frost 
is  out  in  the  si)ring  the  seed  .should  1*  sown 
in  drills— distant  as  you  plea.se,  but  the  seeds 
about  four  inches  apart,  and  covered  with 
one  inch  of  light  soil ;  over  that,  a  little  leaf 
mold,  or  fine  hay,  cut  straw,  etc. 

Pieces  of  roots  of  any  of  the  cultivated 
varieties  can  be  grown,  when  cut  into  pieces 
about  four  to  six  inches  long  and  planted  in 
the  ground,  covering  the  upper  end  about  one 
inch  deep  with  light  soil.  This  course  is  often 
practiced  where  by  chance  a  man  has  only  a 
Mazzard  cherry  on  his  place,  and  desires  to 
grow  trees  for  his  own  planting  from  cuttings 
or  buds  given  him  by  a  friend.  Saddle  graft- 
ing is  best,  next  to  budding,  and  done  upon 
roots  early  in  spring  has  been  successful. 

The  origin  of  many  of  the  l)est  varieties  of 
cherries  now  known  can  be  attributed  to  Pro- 
fessor Jared  Potter  Kirtland,  of  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  who  first  grew  numbers  from  seeds  se- 
lected and  personally  gathered  from  trees  of 
different  varieties  growing  near  each  other. 
Varieties  originated  by  Professor  Kirtland 
rank  to-day,  not  only  in  this  country  but 
abroad,  as  among  the  leading  best  varieties 
from  the  earlier  to  the  latest  in  ripening.  As 
I  have  heretofore  said,  the  cherry  has  been 
one  of  my  favorite  fruits,  and  as  long  as  I 
live  I  shall  look  back  upon  the  many  pleasant 
hours  I  had  when  visiting  and  noting  the 
Kirtland  seedling  cherry  trees,  year  after 
year.  It  caused  me  many  a  reminder  of  my 
boyhood  gatherings  of  cherries  on  my  father's 
farm  in  New  England,  and  of  the  old 
"Black  Hearts"  and  "American  Hearts"  on 
Branford  (Conn.)  hills,  that  I  looked  over 
after  fifty-edd  years  and  found  as  productive 
as  when  I  was  a  boy. 

The  cherry  in  many  sections  and  soils  is 
well  fitted  to  border  avenues  and  for  street 
shades,  had  we  laws  giving  protection  to  our 
property  without  guards,  as  we  have  now  our 
road  lines  without  fences.  Then,  as  in  Ger- 
many, the  traveler,  by  a  simple  request, 
could  obtain  a  cherry,  apple  or  pear  as  he 
passed  along,  for  all  have  varieties  of  habit 
of  growth  suited  to  shade  and  beautifying 
public  roadways. 

Transplanting 
from  the  seed  bed  to  the  nursery  row— or 
from  the  nursery  row  to  the  permanent  place 
for  growth— if  done  in  the  autumn  should 
be  done  early,  and  only  on  soils  dry  of  surface 
and  base  in  winter.  By  "dry"  here  we  mean 
where  the  water  will  not  remain  stagnant. 
The  moving  in  spring  should  also  be  early,  as 
the  cherry  is  one  of  the  first  of  fruits  to  swell 
its  buds. 

Pruning  at  the  Time  of  Transplanting. 
This  is  about  tlie  only  time  that  the  knife 
should  ever  be  used  on  the  cherry,  then  all  the 
ends  of  the  roots  should  be  smoothly  cut  slop- 
ing from  the  under  side ;  small  crossing 
shoots  cut  away  smoothly  at  the  main  stem  or 
branch  from  which  they  start,  and  one-half  of 
the  last  season's  growth  of  strong  shoots 
should  be  cut  back,  leaving  the  last  bud 
pointing  the  way  the  coming  shoot  .should 
grow,  to  help  form  an  open,  round,  regular 
head. 

Standard  Trees 

for  orcharding  should  have  their  heads  below 
rather  than  ahove  three  feet  from  the  ground  : 


and,  south  and  on  the  western  ))rairie8  and 

bottom  lands,  they  should  not  be  over  two  feet. 

Dwarfs. 

Those  grown  upon  Mahaleb  or  Morello 
stocks  should  branch  as  near  the  ground  as 
possible,  and  be  so  tiimnied  by  sumnier 
piiiching  of  ends  of  twigs  and  rubbing  out  of 
imds  that  the  lower  limbs  would  always  lie 
the  strongest. 

Soil  and  Situation. 

The  soil  Ijest  suited  to  the  best  varieties  of 
the  cherry  may  be  said  to  be  such  as  the 
chestnut  and  inagnoliH  delight  in,  viz.  :  A 
rich  light  loam,  on  a  gravelly  sul)-soll;  neitlicr 
stagnant  water  nor  limestone  base  will  grow 
the  cherry  succes.sfully.  The  rich  alluvial  <le- 
l)osits  often  to  be  found  upon  creek  and  river 
ix)ttom»  and  prairies,  while  they  may  not  hold 
water  or  c(iiit;iiii  a  base  of  crude  limestone, 
yet  have  not  the  food  in  them  that  makes 
lieallh  to  the  cherry,  no  matter  what  variety. 
The  Mazzard  and  all  of  the  cla.s»  of  sweet 
chenies  are  more  open  and  spongy  in  root  and 
wood  than  the  Morello  or  Duke.  Again, 
wild  cherries  do  not  want  lime  in  huge  (luanli- 
ties,  neither  will  any  variety  bear  a  .suridus  of 
water.  Place  them  on  level,  loamy  soil 
underdrained  by  a  natural  gravel,  or,  if  of 
hard  brickmaking  clay  and  well  drained  Ijoth 
from  surface  and  underground,  they  will  suc- 
ceed. Again,  if  the  ground  is  a  wet  clay, 
plow  it  into  beds  of  tweh'c  feet  wide,  raising 
the  centre  of  the  strip,  line-bed,  or  border, 
three  feet  above  the  base  of  the  dead  furrow 
or  ditch  Ijetween,  and  trees  planted  on  lliat 
centre  will  succeed.  .So  much  for  soil.  If 
situation  can  be  commanded,  have  it  where 
the  sun  will  have  no  influence  after  'i  o'clock 
p.  m.  If  this  cannot  be  obtained  when  plant- 
ing the  cherry,  then  at  the  siime  tinie  i>lant 
upon  the  western  boundary  of  the  orchard  a 
belt  forty  feet  wide  of  evergreens  mingled 
with  deciduous  trees — not  so  thick  as  to  stop 
the  current  of  air  through  them,  but  so  that 
they  will  break  the  afternoon  sunshine  and 
severely  cold  winds.  .Situations  sloping  south, 
open  to  the  mid-day  and  afternoon  suns,  will 
be  liable  to  injury  from  two  causes — I.  e., 
creating  too  rapid  circulation  of  saji,  and 
keeping  it  rapid  until  the  cold  of  night  affects 
it,  as  cold  chills  the  blood  in  the  animal  frame; 
it  also  induces  the  early  starting  of  the  bud, 
often  bringing  it  into  bloom  and  rendering  it 
liable  to  injury  from  late  vernal  frosts.  Xorth- 
eru  exposures  are  recoinmended,  and  where 
they  can  be  protected  from  western  sun  and 
wind  they  often  do  well ;  but  an  eiistern  one  I 
regard  as  best.  The  forenoon  sun  may  excite 
circulation,  but  not  as  rapidly  as  mid-day,  or 
from  1  to  3  o'clock  p.  ni.  ;  while  there  is, 
also,  more  or  less  of  moisture  in  a  morning 
atmosphere,  and  none  in  the  aRernoon,  the 
tree  has  a  chance  to  have  its  circulation  gra- 
dually checked  ere  the  cold  of  night,  which  it 
has  not  when  planted  on  ground  sloping  south, 
west  or  north.  When  planting  on  either  of 
the  Inst  exposures,  or  on  level  land,  let  your 
tree  slope  to  the  southwest,  as  the  sun  has  less 
effect  upon  it  in  that  position. — F.  J{.  EUiolt. 

WHAT  SHALL  WE  TEACH  OUR  GIRLS? 

Teach  them  self-reliance. 

Tejich  them  to  make  bread. 

Teach  them  to  make  shirts. 

Teach  them  not  to  wear  false  hair- 
Teach  them  not  to  paint  and  jiowder. 

Teach  them  to  wear  thick  warm  shoes. 

Teach  them  how  to  wash  and  iron   clutliRs. 

Teach  them  how  to  do  marketing  for  the 
family. 

Teach  them  how  to  make  theirnwn  dresses. 

Teach  them  how  to  cook  a  good  meal  of 
victuals. 

Teach  them  that  a  dollar  is  only  a  hundred 
cents. 

Teach  them  every  day,  dry,  hard,  practical 
common  sense. 

(iive  them  a  good,  substantial  common 
school  education. 

Teach  them  to  wear  calico  dresses  and  to  do 
it  like  a  queen. 

Teach  them  to  regard  the  morals— not  the 
money— of  Ijeaux. 


/ 


186 


THE  LANCASTER -FARMER. 


[December  , 


Teach  tliem  to  say  "No!"  and  mean  it,  or 
"Yes!"  and  stick  to  it. 

Te.ach  them  to  liavo  nothing  to  do  with 
dissohite  or  intemperate  men. 

Teach  them  all  tlie  mysteries  of  the  kitchen, 
dining-room  and  the  parlor. 

Teach  them  that  a  good,  round,  rosy  romp 
is  worth  fifty  delicate  consumptives. 

Teacli  them  that  the  more  they  live  within 
their  incomes  the  more  they  will  save. 

Teach  them  that  the  farther  tliey  live  be- 
yond their  incomes  the  nearer  they  get  to  the 
poor-house. 

Teach  them  that  a  good,  steady  mechanic, 
without  a  cent,  is  worth  a  dozen  oil-pated 
loafers  in  broadcloth. 

Teach  them  accom]ilisliments  —  painting, 
music,  drawing — if  you  have  time  and  money 
to  do  it  with. 

Teach  them  the  essentials  of  life— truth, 
honesty,  uprightness— and  at  a  suitable  time 
let  them  marry. 

Teach  them  that  God  made  them  in  his  own 
image,  and  that  no  amount  of  tight  lacing  will 
improve  the  model. 


FACTS  NOT  GENERALLY  KNOWN. 

Melons  were  found  originally  in  Asia. 

The  cantaloupe  is  a  native  of  America,  and 
is  so  called  from  the  name  of  a  place  near 
Kome,  where  it  was  first  cultivated  in  Europe. 

The  nectarine  is  said  to  have  received  its 
name  from  the  nectar,  the  particular  drink  of 
the  gods. 

Pears  were  originally  brought  from  the  East 
by  the  Romans. 

The  Greengage  is  called  after  the  Gage 
family,  who  first  took  it  into  England  from  a 
monastery  in  Paris. 

Filberts  originally  came  from  Greece. 

The  walnut  is  a  native  of  Persia,  the  Cau- 
casus and  China. 

The  Greeks  called  butter  bouturos — "cow 
cheese." 

Before  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury tea  was  not  used  in  England,  and  was 
entirely  unknown  to  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 

The  bean  is  said  to  be  a  native  of  Egypt. 

The  cucumber  was  originally  a  tropical 
vegetable. 

The  pea  is  a  native  of  the  South  of  Europe. 

Spinach  is  a  Persian  plant. 

The  tomato  is  a  native  of  south  America, 
and  takes  its  name  from  a  Portuguese   word. 

The  turnip  came  originally  from  Rome. 

Sweet  marj(jram  is  a  native  of  Portugal. 

Coriander  seed  came  originally  from  the 
East. 

The  clove  is  a  native  of  Molucca  Island,  as 
also  is  the  nutmeg. 

Capers  originally  grew  wild  in  Greece  and 
Northern  Africa. 

Garlic  came  to  us  first  from  Sicily  and  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

Ginger  is  a  native  of  the  East  and  "West 
Indies. 

Sage  is  a  native  of  the  South  of  Europe. 

The  goosebcn-y  is  indigenous  to  Great  Bri- 
tain. 

Cloves  come  to  ns  from  the  Indies,  and  take 
their  name  from  the  Latin  chu-us,  or  French 
clou,  both  meaning  a  nail,  to  which  they  have 
a  resemblance. 

The  horseradish  is  a  native  of  England. 

Vinegar  is  derived  from  two  French  words, 
vin  aiyre,  "sour  wine." 

The  nasturtium  came  originally  from  Peru. 

Parselej'  is  said  to  have  fust  come  from 
Egypt,  and  mythology  tells  us  that  it  was 
used  to  adorn  the  head  of  Hercules. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  while  the  names  of 
all  our  domestic  animals  are  of  Saxon  origin. 
Norman  names  are  given  to  the  fiesh  they 
yield. 

When  .Tames  Buchanan  was  Minister  to 
England  he  had  ears  of  corn,  hermetically 
sealed,  sent  to  him  from  this  country. 

The  w^ord  biscuit  is  French  for  "  twice 
baked,"  because,  originally,  that  was  the 
mode  of  entirely  depriving  it  of  moisture  to 
insure  its  keeping. 

Claret  is  a  corruption  of  dairet,  a  term  ap- 


plied in  France  to  any  red  or  rose  colored 
wine. 

Almonds  are  natives  of  the  northern  part 
of  Asia  and  Africa.  In  ancient  times  they 
were  much  esteemed  by  the  natives  of  the 
East. 

Apples  were  originally  brought  from  the 
East  by  the  Romans.  The  crab  apple  is  in- 
digenous to  Great  Britain. 

The  a.sparagus  was  originally  a  wild 
sea-coast  plant  and  is  a,  native  of  Great 
Britain. 

The  chestnut  is  said  by  some  to  have  origi- 
nally come  from  Sardis  in  Lydia,  and  by 
others  from  Castenca  in  Thessaly,  from  which 
it  takes  its  name. 

The  onion  was  almost  an  object  of  wor- 
ship with  the  Egyptians  two  thousand  years 
before  the  Christian  era.  It  first  came  from 
Egypt. 

Quinces  originally  came  from  Corinth. 

Apricots  are  indigenous  to  the  plains  of 
Armenia. 

Cherries  were  known  in  Asia  as  far  back 
as  the  seventh  century. 

Damsons  originally  came  from  Damascus. 

Lemons  were  used  by  the  Romans  to  keep 
moths  from  their  garments,  and  in  the  time 
of  Pliny  they  were  considered  an  excellent 
counterpoison.     They  arc  natives  of  Asia. 

Citron  is  supposed  to  be  the  Median,  As- 
syrian, or  Persian  apple  of  the  Greeks. 

Rhubarb  is  a  native  of  Asia. 

The  strawberry  takes  its  name  from  an  an- 
cient custon  of  putting  straw  beneath  the 
fruit  when  it  began  to  ripen.  Its  delicacy 
was  praised  by  both  Virgil  and  Ovid. 

The  peach  originally  came  from  Persia. 

We  are  indebted  to  the  infamous  Catherine 
de  Medici  for  ice  creams. 


TEN  RULES  FOR  FARMERS. 

1.  Take  good  papers  and  read  them. 

2.  Keep  an  account  of  farm  operations. 

8.  Do  not  leave  farm  impleinents  scattered 
over  the  farm  exposed  to  snow,  rain  and  heat. 

4.  Repair  tools  and  buildings  at  a  proper 
time,  and  do  not  suffer  a  subsequent  expendi- 
ture of  time  and  money. 

5.  Use  money  judiciously,  and  do  not  at- 
tend auction  sales  to  purchase  all  kinds  of 
trumpery  because  it  is  cheap. 

C.  See  that  fences  are  well  repaired,  and 
cattle  not  grazing  in  the  meadows,  grain 
fields  or  orchards. 

7.  Do  not  refuse  correct  experiments,  in  a 
small  way,  of  many  new  things. 

8.  Plant  fruit  trees  well,  care  for  them  and 
get  good  crops. 

9.  Practice  economy,  by  giving  stock  shelter 
during  the  winter  ;  also  good  food,  taking  out 
all  that  is  unsound,  half  rotten  or  mouldy. 

10.  Do  not  keep  tribes  of  dogs  and  cats 
around  the  premises,  who  eat  more  in  a  month 
than  they  are  worth  in  all  their  lifetime. 

^ 

SOMETHING  ABOUT  DRAGON  FLIES. 
It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  several 
young  people  should  wish  to  know  something 
about  Dragon -files,  for  they  are  among  the 
most  noticeable  of  insects.  Their  long  slen- 
der bodies,  their  large  heads,  with  prominent 
eyes,  and  their  wido^'read,  gauzy  wings, 
which  reflect  beautiful  colors  in  the  sunlight, 
are  sure  to  attract  attention.  More  than  all, 
their  rapid  flight,  now  darting  with  the  great- 
est swiftness,  then  remaining  stationary  over 
a  spot,  and  then  as  .suddenly  moving  back- 
wards, gives  them  a  mysterious  air  that  no 
other  insects  have.  It  is  no  wonder  that  they 
have  been  looked  upon  as  harmful  insects,  for 
they  go  about  in  a  silent,  strange  way,  as  if 
there  was  some  mischief  to  be  done.  There 
are  over  400  kinds  of  Dragon-flies,  found  in 
various  parts  of  the  world,  of  which  we  have 
om-  share  in  this  country  ;  about  .^0  are  known 
to  live  in  the  Northern  States,  and  there  are 
others  in  the  South,  hut  while  they  differ  in 
size,  color,  etc.,  all  have  similar  ways  of 
living,  and  a  description  of  the  habits  pf  one, 
answers  for  all.  While  their  long,  snaky 
bodies,  their  savage  look  and  their  darting 
flight,  make  them  suspected,  and  they  are 


generally  looked  upon  as  dangerous,  I  may  as 
well  say  here,  and  answer  several  questions  at 
once,  that  they  are  perfectly  harmless,  so  far 
as  man  is  concerned.  They  have  no  piercer 
or  sting,  and  though  the  larger  ones  may  be 
able  to  pinch  with  their  jaws,  if  you  put  your 
finger  there  and  try  to  make  them  do  it,  they 
do  not  bite,  sting,  or  otherwise  harm  people  in 
any  manner.  I  know  that  they  have  a  bad 
reputation.  When  I  was  a  youngster,  they 
were  called  "Devil's  Darning  Needles,"  and 
I  was  told  by  the  older  boys  that  if  a  boy 
should  tell  a  fib,  one  of  those  "Darning 
Needles"  would  come  and  sew  up  his  mouth. 
All  my  playmates  must  have  been  very  truth- 
ful, as  I  never  saw  one  with  his  mouth  darned 
by  one  of  these  "  Needles. "  But  such  notions 
are  not  found  among  boys  alone  ;  in  various 
places  these  insects  are  called  by  names  which 
show  that  they  are  thought  to  be  dangerous. 
In  England  they  are  called  "Horse-stingers," 
and  in  Scotland  "Flying  Adders."  In  some 
parts  of  this  country  they  are  known  among 
the  boys  as  "Snake Doctors,"  it  being  thought 
that  they  attend  upon  snakes,  probably  be- 
cau.se  they  are  seen  hovering  over  the  ponds 
where  there  are  water  snakes.  On  the  conti- 
nent of  Europe  they  have  more  pleasing 
names.  In  France  they  are  Demoiselles,  or 
"ladies,"  and  in  Germany  Wasserjungfern,  or 
"Virgins  of  the  Water."  In  traveling  in  the 
Southern  States,  I  had  heard  them  often 
called  "Mosquito  Hawks,"  and  was  told  that 
they  devoured  so  many  mosquitoes  that  it  was 
considered  wrong  to  kill  one  of  them.  At 
last  I  had  an  opportunity  to  learn  that,  for 
once,  a  popular  notion  was  correct.  One  ex- 
cessive hot  day  in  June  I  happened  to  be  on 
Lake  Pontchartrain,  not  far  from  New  Or- 
leans ;  there  were  several  pleasure  houses,  to 
which  the  people  came  from  the  city  in  the 
cool  of  the  evening  for  a  drive,  and  for  ice- 
cream and  other  refreshments.  These  places 
were  mere  sheds,  or  shelters,  and  on  the  inside 
of  them  were  mosquitos  by  the  million,  rest- 
ing in  the  heat  of  the  day,  to  be  all  fresh  to 
receive  the  evening  visitors.  I  never  before, 
or  since,  saw  so  many  mosquitoes,  for  they 
were  so  thick  as  to  make  the  sides  of  the 
building  look  gray.  There  were  also  hundreds 
of  Dragon-flies — good  big  fellows — which  flit- 
ted about  and  fed  upon  the  mosquitos  at  such 
a  rate,  that  I  saw  at  once  that  they  were  well 
named  "Mosquito  Hawks."  When  we  see 
these  insects  so  busy  darting  here  and  there 
they  are  no  doubt  hunting  for  mosquitoes  and 
other  insects  upon  which  they  feed.  But  the 
early  life  of  the  insect  is  quite  as  interesting 
as  that  of  its  perfect  or  winged  state.  The 
female  insect  places  her  eggs  upon  the  stem 
of  water  plants,  just  at.  or  below  the  surface, 
and  from  these  hatch  out  the  larva,  or  the 
first  form  of  the  insect.  The  larvae  of  the 
butterflies  and  moths  we  know  as  caterpil- 
lars, and  that  they  live  on  plants  on  the  land, 
but  the  larvffi  of  some  insects,  including  the 
mosquito  and  Dragon-flies,  live  entirely  in  the 
water  until  they  are  ready  to  change  into  per- 
fect insects.  Tlie  larvie  of  the  Dragon-flies, 
sometimes  called  the  "Water  Tiger,"  and 
well  deserves  that  name,  for  it  is  one  of  the 
most  voracious  of  living  creatures.  The 
"Water  Tigers"  may  be  found  in  pools  and 
muddy  ponds,  and  in  still  places  along  the 
margins  of  rivers,  and,  though  not  handsome 
to  look  at,  they  are  very  interesting  to  wiitch. 
If  you  wish  to  study  their  ways,  you  can 
easily  catch  them  with  a  small  net  and  put 
them  in  an  aquarium,  or  what  is  better,  a  jar 
by  themselves,  in  which  some  water  plants 
are  placed.  If  you  put  them  in  an  aquarium 
there  will,  after  a  while,  be  little  else  left,  at 
least  of  the  smaller  inhabitants,  for  they  at- 
tiick  creatures  much  larger  than  themselves. 
It  is  diflicult  to  .say  which  is  the  most  curious 
in  the  "Water-tiger,"  (which  is  a  convenient 
and  shorter  name  for  the  Dragon-fly  larva,) 
its  head  or  its  tail.  Curiously  enough,  the 
creature  breathes  through  its  tail  1  You,  no 
doubt,  know  that  fishes  breathe  through  gills 
placed  in  the  head,  and  as  the  water  flows 
over  these  they  take  up  the  air  that  is  dis- 
solved in  the  water,  and  thus  carry  ou  a  slow 


\ 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


187 


kind  of  breathing.  But  in  the  "Watcr-ti^'er" 
its  gills  are  jilaccd  near  its  tail ;  it  talccs  in 
water  there  through  an  opening,  and  I'orces  it 
out  again,  and  that  is  its  way   of  breathing. 
IJul  this  o|Knin>;   an.swcrs   another   imrpose. 
The  animal  erawls  (luite  slowly,  and  as  it  is  a 
great  feeder  it  would  not  get  much  food  did  it 
depend  solely  upon  its  legs.  If  you  wateh  one 
of  them  in  seareh  of  food  you  will  1)e  surprised 
to  see  the  sluggish  fellow  dart  for  its  prey  with 
the  greatest  speed,  and  this  motion   is  one  of 
the  many  strange  tilings  about   the  ereaturo. 
Ordiuarfly  the  water  passes  out  of  the  open- 
ing in  the  tail  ipiitc  slowly,  but,  when  neces- 
sary, the  inseet  can  foree  the  water  out  with 
a  sudden   srpurt,    and   that   pushes   it   along 
Ihrougli  the  water  willi  great  swiftness,  upon 
the   same   prineiple    tiiat   a    roeket    is    sent 
through  tlll^  air.     Not  less  curious  are  the  ar- 
rangements at  the  otiier  end  of  the  insect— at 
the  head.      As  usually  seen,    it  appears    a 
<iuiet  and  rather  harndess  looking  larva.     But 
let  a  small  insect  or  other  animal  come  within 
reach  and,  presto,    the   mild   looking  fellows 
shows  a  savage  pair  of  pincers  and  becomes 
a  very  tigerish  animal.    This  arrangement  for 
taking  its  prey  is  called  a  "mask,"  and  when 
not  in  use  is  bent  down  under  the  head  of  the 
insect,  and  quite  out  of  sight  ;   it   is   so   ar- 
ranged that  whatever  is  caught  by  the  jaws 
of  this  mask  is  brought,  when  that  is  folded 
\uider,     right    opposilc     the     true     mouth 
of    the    insect,    where    it    can    be    eaten. 
These  Water-tigers  not  only  prey  upon  other 
water  insects,  but  even  devour  small  ti.shes,  and 
seem  to  live  only  to  destroy  and  eat  other 
living  things.     They  go  on  feeding  and  grow- 
ing, some  one  year,  and  some,  it  is  said,  for 
two  years,  when  the  time  conies  for  them  to 
change  to  perfect  insects— to  leave  the  water, 
and  begin  a  new  life  in  the  air.     You  know 
that  when  caterpillars  and  most  other  insects 
—as  1  have  shown  you  on  several  occasions — 
make  this  change,   they  go  into  the  pupal 
state,   and  either  spin  a  cocoon,  or  form  a 
chrysalis  in  some  way,  remaining  apparently 
lifeless  for   some  time,  and   at   length   break 
their  enclosing  shell  or  skin,  and  come  out  a 
perfect  butterfly,   moth  or  beetle.     But  the 
Dragon-tlies  are  quite  too  busy  to  keep  still, 
and  even  in  the  pupal  state  are  as  lively  and 
greedy  as  ever.     They  change  their  skin,  and 
show  a  hump,  where  their  future  wings  will 
be,  and  the  eyes  of  the  perfect  insect  may  be 
seen  under  the  skin,  but  as  to  keeping  quiet, 
it  doesn't  know  how.     At  last  its  time  comes, 
and  the  i)ui)al  crawls  up  the  stem  of  some 
plant,  and  leaves  the  water  forever.     Instead 
of  breathing  the  water  through  its  tail,  it 
now  has  to  breathe  air  through  openings  in  its 
sides,  and  instead  of  propelling  itself,  rocket- 
like, through  the  water,  it  has  lo  dart  through 
the  air,  and  for  this  it  mvist  have  wing.s.     All 
these  are  provided.     The   pupal  skin  at  last 
bursts,  and  the  perfect  Dragon-fly  slowly  pulls 
itself  out.     At  first  the  wings  are  damp,  limp 
and  useless,  but  they  gradually   spread  and 
iliy_and  what  beautiful  win^s  they  are  1  They 
are  worth  a  close  examination  ;  see  the  deli- 
cate framework,  so  eiu-iously  netted,  with  a 
beautiful  membrane  lilling  the  spaces  between; 
this  is  wonderfully  thin  and  transparent,  and 
the  light  often  plays  on  it  with  rainbow  colors. 
Can  anything  be  more  complete   than   this 
transformation— from  an  ugly  inhabitant  of 
muddy  water,  to  a  light  and  graceful  creature 
of  the  air  1    But  there  is  one  thing  which  the 
Dragon-fly  does  not  leave  behind  him  with  the 
remains  of  its  former  life— he  has  his  appetite, 
and  skims  away  through  the  air  devouring 
other  insects,  quite  as  effectively,  as  it  did 
l)efore  as  a  ''Water-tiger."      There  is  one 
thing  about  the  perfect  insect  you  will  not 
fail  to  notice— that  is  the  great  eyes,  or  rather 
masses  of  eyes,  as  the  microscope  shows  them 
to  be  ;  these,  while  the  insect  is  alive,  have 
lieautiful  colors  ;  besides  these,  there  are  three 
little  single  eyes,  usually  placed  in  a  row  on 
the  front  of  the  head.     So  far  from  the  Dragon- 
Hies  being  dangerous,  we  may  look  upon  them 
as  not  only  harmless,  but  so  far  as  they  de- 
stroy mosquitoes,  as  really  beneficial  insects — 
at  any  rate,  I  hope  that  I  have  shown  you  that 
they  are  really  interesting  ones.    I  have  said 


nothing  alwut  the  scientific  names  of  these 
insects,  there  being  several  ditlorent  genera, 
or  kinds,  and  only  those  who  study  entomolo- 
gy will  care  to  know  the  systematic  names, 
but  it  is  well  to  know  that  these  belong  to  the 
division  or  sub-order  NeurnjUcra,  which  means 
uerved-winged,  and  includes,  iH-sides  tlio 
Dragon-tlies,  the  May-tlies,  the  I^cc-wings, 
and'  besides  others,  the  Caddis-flies,  one  of 
which  I  told  you  about,  as  the  iuscct  that 
builds  a  stone-house. —vlmericau  vl;/nci(/(i/nxf. 

CURING  MEATS. 
In   culling  up  pork,  if  wanted  for  family 
use,  take  out  the  chine  or  back  bono  the  whole 
length  ;  if   too  fat,  a  tip  may  Ik?   cut   oil'  this 
and  made  into  lard.     To  avoid  waste,  the  bone 
of  the  ham  should  be  cut  out  through  with  a 
saw  just  below  the  joint,  and  then  the  ham 
should  be  nicely  shaped  out  with   the  knife. 
Cut  the  shoulder  off,  three  or  four  ribs  wide, 
and  if  small,  it  may  be  cured  with  the  ribs  on, 
to  good  advantage.     Take  all  the  ribs  oft  the 
sides,  after  which  they  can  be  made  into  lard, 
sausage,  bacon— as  you  may  wish.     Should 
you  have  more  bones  than  you  can  use  while 
fresh,  make  a  weak  pickle  of  4  gallons  water, 
5  lbs.  salt,  2  07,.  of  .saltpetre,  and  one  pound 
browu  sugar.     This   will  do  for  100  lbs.  of 
meat,  and  keep  it  sweet  till  warm  weather. 
Cut  your  chines,  ribs  and  pieces  for  bacon 
into  pieces  of  convenient  size,anddrop  loosely 
into  this  pickle,  taking  care  to  keep  them  cov- 
ered.      After    standing    six    weeks    or    two 
months,  pour  oft"  the  pickle  ;  boil  and  skim  till 
clear,  and  put  back  on  the  meat  when  cold. 
This  makes  meat  of  delicious  quality  for  boil- 
ing, superior  to  ordinary  pickled  pork.     For 
pickling  pork,  cover  the  bottom  of  the  tub 
with  coarse  Turk's  Island  salt,  and  pack  the 
meat  on  edge,  then  enough   salt   to  entirely 
cover  the  meat,  and  then  another  layer,  till 
you  have  it  all  in.     Make  a  pickle  as  strong  as 
possible,  and  pour  on  the  meat  till  covered, 
but  not  to  rise  above  the  salt.     Keep  the 
pickle  entirely  covered  with  salt,  or  it  will 
become  tainted.     It   is  important  to  use  a 
sweet,  clean  tub.    One  in  which  beef  has  been 
cured  will  not  do,as  it  will  soon  taint  the  pickle. 
Should  the  weather  be  warm  and  the  hogs 
heavy,  they  should  be  cut  in  two  lengthwise, 
as  soon  as  possible    after    dressing,   as    the 
shoulders  often   taint    before  they  can    get 
thoroughly  cooled.     1  have  heard  people  won- 
der why  their  shoulders  did  not  cure  well,  as 
they  had  taken  great  pains  with  their  meat, 
when  the  real  truth  was,  the  meat  was  in- 
j  ured  before  it  was  put  into  the  pickle.     Hams 
and  shoulders  should  be  taken  out  of  pickle 
and  repacked  at  the  end  of  two  weeks,  as  the 
pickle  will  become  quite  fresh  near  the  meat 
as  the  salt  is  absorbed.     The  great  desidera- 
tum is  to  get  the  bone  and  joint  well  cured, 
and  then  you  will  always  have  good  bacon. 

Cut  the  fat  into  small  pieces,  and  have  your 
iron  kettle  thoroughly  cleaned) ;  put  in  a  pan 
of  the  cut  fat,  and  start  a  slow  fire  under  it. 
When  it  begins  to  melt  add  more  fat  and  stir 
it,  but  do  not  have  the  fire  very  hot ;  as  soon 
as  the  fat  becomes  clear,  and  cracklings  are  a 
light  brown,  begin  to  dip  out  and  strain  into 
vessels.  If  on  tin  keep  them  in  cold  water  to 
prevent  the  solder  from  being  melted.  Bear 
in  mind  that  lard  only  needs  to  be  melted,  not 
cooked,  and  the  less  it  is  heated  the  whiter 
and  harder  it  will  be. 

Every  one  knows  how  to  make  sausage,  but 
few  have  any  good  rule  for  seasoning  it ;  here 
is  a  good  one  :  To  40  pounds  of  meat  add  J 
of  a  poimd  of  salt ;  i  of  a  pound  of  black 
pepper  ;  if  red  pepper  and  sage  are  wanted 
add  them  to  taste,  but  I  tliink  it  better  with- 
oui  them.  To  cure  a  beef's  liver  choose  a  red 
one  of  fine  grain,  lay  in  on  a  large  meat  di.sh, 
and  sprinkle  it  daily  with  a  mi.xture  of  salt, 
sugar  and  saltpetre  ;  each  day  pour  oft  the 
blood  and  wash  the  liver,  and  again  sprinkle 
with  the  mixture ;  do  this  daily  nine  times, 
then  hanf  it  up  to  dry.  Shaved  thin  and 
cooked  vPMi  butter  and  cream,  it  is  delicious. 
One  pound  of  salt,  i  ounce  of  saltpetre  (fine), 
and  i  cupful  of  pulverized  sugar  will  cure  a 
liver  of  20  pounds  weight.— Co«»<ri/  Oenlhman. 


OUR    LOCAL    ORGANIZATIONS. 


Proceedings  of  the  Lancaster  County  Agri- 
cultural and  Horticultural  Society. 
Ttie  repiiliir  iiirMitlily  iinTtiiii;  (if  the  I.aii^asti'r 
County  A),'rliiilliin>l  hihI  lloriliiiltural  Soilcly  wa» 
liclil  on  Moniliiy  aflfrnooii,  Ucicmbor  :),  In  tlic 
Allii-nirum  roontB. 

The  followhitc  nicnil>erH  were  prencnt :  Calvin 
l'(x)i>er,  President;  M.  I).  Kenillj.',  II.  M.  KnKle, 
Levi  W.  (iroir,  .1.  n.  tiarlicr,  .Simon  1'.  Khy,  Hairy 
Myers,  Henry  .Hliilliier,  V.  1..  IIuiiBeeker,  I.evI  .S. 
Kciiit,  I'rof.  .S.  S.  Uiithvon,  I'eler  S.  Heist,  Joseph  F. 
Winner,  Casper  lllller,  Henry  Kurt/.,  Henry  Krh,  .1. 
M.  .loliiiston,  W.  11.  Broslus,  .Mr.  Molllnger  and  Mr. 
Wcldlc. 

The  {.oclety  was  called  to  onler  by  the  President, 
Cuhin  Co<il)er,  esq. 

The  re^fiilar  Sceretary,  .Johnson  Miller,  lieini;  ab- 
sent, Joseph  K.  Wltnn'r  was  elected  Secretary  pro 
tent.  On  motion,  the  reaillnfc  of  the  minutes  of  the 
last  iiieeling  was  dispensed  with. 

Reports  on  the  Condition  of  Crops. 
H.  M.  Enoi.k    said   crops   liave    gone   Into  winter 
quarters  In  iiood  condition.     Tlicre   Is  not  much  else 
lo  be  said. 

M.  I).  Kendk)  reiKirted  what  he  thought  was  an 
error  In  the  report  of  the  State  Board  of  Agriculture 
in  relation  to  the  wheat  crop  of  this  county.  With 
10(1  as  the  standard  for  ft  full  crop,  the  yield  of  this 
county  was  given  at  7ti,  or  about  threefourths  of  a 
full  crop.  He  believed  the  wheal  crop  was  more 
than  that.     If  not  a  full  crop,  It  was  nearly  so. 

An  Informal  discussion  between  the  members 
proved,  however,  that  the  general  opinion  was  that 
the  report  of  the  board  was'alwut  correct.  Some  of 
the  other  crops  of  the  county  are  given  as  follows  : 
Kve,  8C;  oats,  100;  hay,  80;  potatoes,  1:!0;  garden 
produce,  10:i;  tobacco,  ».'>;  apples,  IS;  peaches,  41; 
pears,  80;  cherries,  M;  grapes,  100;  berries,  tiO;  coni, 
«6.  These  figures  were  believed  to  iH!  a  very  fair 
average  of  the  crops  for  1877. 

Reading  ot  Essays. 
PuoF.  S.  S.  Ratiivon  proceeded  lo  read  an  essay 
ou  the  best  method  of  destroying  bark-lice  on  fruit 
trees.  The  essay  was  of  great  length  and  very  prac- 
tical, and  the  society,  on  motion  of  S.  P.  Kby,  voted 
its  thanks  to  the  learned  author.  Sec  page  178, 171). 
S.  P.  Kby  knew  of  a  gentleman  who  has  used  a 
remedy  for  the  bark-lice  which  has  proved  elTcetual. 
It  was  a  railroad  engineer;  he  took  a  ball  of  greasy 
cotton  such  as  is  used  by  engineers;  he  put  sulphur 
over  it,  and  then  placed  it  under  the  trees  infected  by 
the  lice,  and  set  it  on  fire;  the  smoke  destroyed  tlie 
lice  efl'ectually.  He  desired  lo  know  the  best  time 
lo  make  the  application  of  the  oil,  to  which  Prof. 
Kathvon  responded,  that  warm  days  in  early  June 
was  the  best  lime;  about  that  time  the  young  leave 
their  winter  homes  and  travel  off. 

H.  M.  Engle  thought  as  we  were  all  interested  In 
the  subject  of  watching  insects,  all  should  provide 
themselves  with  magulfylug  glasses,  as  they  cost  but 
a  trifle. 

Mr.  Bollinger  said  a  friend  of  his  tried  oil,  and 
Ihree-fourlhs  of  his  trees  died,  apple,  peach  and 
other  trees — did  the  oil  kill  them  f 

Mr.  Weldle  used  whale  oil  soap ;  it  kills  the  in- 
sects. 

M.  D.  Kendio  said  he  used  common  lanl  oH  on 
trees  to  keep  away  rabbits,  and  it  had  an  injurious 
effect ;  the  bark  turned  almost  black,  and  It  came 
near  finishing  them. 

P.  S.  Reist  bought  a  lot  of  trees  in  a  foreign  nur- 
sery and  most  of  them  died— he  didn't  have  to  use 
any  oil  whatever  lo  kill  them— they  all  died  without 
that  remedy. 

S.  P.  Ebv  had  experience  just  like  Mr.  Kcndlg  s, 
and  he  Is  afraid  of  nsing  lard  on  young  trees. 

Caspku  Hii.i.ER  staled  thai  raw  llnseod  oil  is  the 
thing  to  use  on  trees.  It  is  used  to  prevent  lire 
blight  as  well.  He  also  uses  a  compound  of  white- 
wash, soft  soap  and  salt.  It  is  cheaper  than  oil  and 
quite  as  good. 

JosEPU  WiTMEU  had  a  tree  on  which  the  tiark- 
llce  were  very  plenty.  He  used  an  application  of 
common  soap  suds  and  it  destroyed  the  insects  effec- 
tively. 

Referred  Questions. 
"  Wliat  is  the  best  mode  of  conslrucling  cisterns?" 
was  the  question  referred  to   Andrew   Pownall,  and 
answered  by  him  af  follows : 

Mr.  Chairman  and  Gentlemen  of  tlie  Agrievllural 
ami  llortieuUnral  Huciely  of  Laneaiter  County: 
A  question  was  referred  to  me  at  the  meeting  of 
August  0,  1S77,  which  as  yet  remains  nnanswered, 
and  which  reads  thus  :  "  What  is  the  best  mo<le  of 
constructing  cisterns  for  farming  purposes?"  I  would 
answer  now.  There  Is  such  a  difference  In  situations, 
and  the  locations  of  farm  buildings  are  so  varied, 
that  It  would  be  diffleult  lo  determine  which  would 
be  the  best  way  to  construct  a  cistern  without  tlrst 
knowing  something  of  the  buildings  and  their  sur- 
roundings. I  would  build  the  cistern  In  Ihe  bridge- 
way  of  the  barn,  if  there  should  be  sufflclent  fall  to 
draw  the  wftter  off  at  will  in  the  stock  yard.    But  It 


188 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[December, 


is  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  the  necessity  of  keeping 
the  cistern  a  sufficient  depth  under  ground  to  pre- 
Tent  freezing.  This  plan  has  one  objection,  however. 
Sometimes  a  careless  person  is  left  to  draw  water  for 
the  st^ck  and  forgets  to  shut  it  off,  consequently  the 
water  runs  to  waste,  and  does  damage  by  flooding 
the  stock  yard.  But,  if  properly  attended  to,  such  a 
cistern  is  preferrable  to  one  with  a  pump  therein,  as 
it  is  much  easier  to  turn  a  spigot  than  to  pump  water 
for  fifteen  or  twenty  head  of  stock,  and  then  it  is 
cheaper  also.  It  costs  less  for  pipe  that  conveys 
water  from  cistern  to  trough  than  would  a  pump.  I 
constructed  a  cistern  some  years  ago,  (1870,  I  be- 
lieve,) on  this  plan,  that  has  given  entire  satisfac- 
tion. We  have  had  sullicirnt  water  at  all  times  for 
our  stock,  (say  from  twelve  to  twenty-five  head), 
and  you  may  remember  we  have  had  it  very  dry  at 
times,  both  winter  and  summer,  during  the  past 
seven  years.  It  is  built  alongside  of  a  bridge  wall, 
and  is  lined  with  a  sixteen  inch  stone  wall,  (a  twelve 
inch  wall  would  answer  as  well.)  The  stone  used 
were  not  more  than  six  inches  in  thickness,  many  of 
them  much  less,  and  laid  in  good  mortar ;  then  the 
whole  inside  plastered  with  a  good  coat  of  Kosendale 
cement  mortar.  The  cistern  is  egg-shaped,  with 
small  end  down  hill,  where  the  pipe  connects.  The 
dimensions  are  twenty-one  feet  long,  twelve  feet  wide 
across  the  middle,  and  seven  feet  deep,  in  the  clear. 
The  cistern  is  arched  over  and  covered  with  earth  to 
the  depth  of  three  feet.  I  did  not  keep  an  account 
of  the  cost,  the  main  object  in  view  being  to  make  a 
good,  permanent  job.  The  repairs  have  not  amounted 
to  fifty  cents  since  being  built;  so  you  may  judge 
whether  I  have  done  well.  Hoping  the  foregoing 
may  be  of  some  benefit  to  the  querist,  I  am  yours. 
Most  respectfully, 

Ambrose  Pownall. 
"  Docs  it  pay  to  steam  feed  for  stock  ?"  was  the 
next  question  brought  up  for  discussion. 

H.  H.  KuKTZ  gave  an  affirmative  answer.  The 
advantages  of  this  system  are  seen  in  feeding  hogs 
with  boiled  or  steamed  corn  and  slop.  The  warmth 
of  the  slop  warms  the  animals  and  aids  digestion. 
It  is  equally  benelicial  for  horned  cattle.  He  has  an 
apparatus  for  steaming  hay,  straw  and  corn-fodder, 
and  has  the  happiest  results  from  this  method.  On 
cold  water  cattle  do  not  thrive  so  well  as  on  warm 
slop  and  steamed  feed.  The  warmer  you  give  the 
slop  to  cattle  the  better  the  effects. 

S.  P.  Edy  heard  a  cattle  grower  remark  a  few 
days  ago,  that  he  no  longer  steams  the  food  for  his 
cattle  ;  he  found  that  when  turned  out  of  the  barn 
hey  took  cold. 

Jos.  F.  WiTMER  had  no  personal  experience,  but 
his  father-in-law  has  been  steaming  the  food  for  his 
stock  for  years.  He  has  found  he  can  save  one- 
third  the  feed.  He  feeds  no  whole  or  unsteamed 
grain  to  his  hogs.  On  a  visit  to  James  Young,  he 
asked  the  latter  some  questions  on  this  subject.  His 
reply  was  that  it  was  food  saving  and  profitable, 
and  he  fed  all  his  cattle  in  that  way. 

Caspeu  Hiller  thought  that  there  was  no  neces- 
sity for  scalding  food  for  hogs.  Once  he  scalded  the 
corn  for  his  hogs,  but  now  he  feeds  whole  corn,  and 
lie  thinks  with  quite  as  much  advantage  as  before. 
He  does  not  feed  in  troughs,  but  has  a  brick  floor  in 
his  pen,  and  on  this  he  throws  the  corn,  where  they 
must  gather  it  up  slowly,  and  this  gives  them  time 
to  masticate  it.  When  fed  in  a  trough  they  eat  too 
rajjidly  and  swallow  the  food  whole. 

W.  H.  Brosius  had  some  experience  in  feeding 
boiled  corn  to  hogs.  He  was  decidedly  of  the  opin- 
that  it  pays  to  steam  food  for  cattle.  An  animal 
will  develop  more  rapidly  on  steamed  food.  .  He  put 
up  27  hogs  on  the  l.jth  day  of  September,  1869, 
weighing  at  that  time  4,449  pounds.  On  October 
12th  following  they  weighed  .5,973  pounds,  having 
gained  1,.53.5  pounds  in  27  days.  During  this  period 
they  consumed  99  bushels  and  38  pounds  of  cornmeal. 
This  was  a  gain  of  2'  ^  pounds  per  head  for  every 
day  they  were  thus  fed,  giving  a  total  of  15;^  pounds 
of  pork  for  every  bushel  of  cornmeal  fed. 

L.  W.  Groff  had  a  few  words  to  say  on  steaming 
food,  and  approved  of  feeding  warm  food,  but  he 
had  no  actual  experience  in  steaming.  A  cattle 
dealer  \vhom  he  knew  began  to  steam  food  for  his 
stock  ;  he  went  to  much  expense  and  continued  it  for 
two  years,  but  finally  gave  it  up.  He  also  knew  a 
hog  drover  who  did  the  same  thing,  and  also  gave  It 
up  at  the  end  of  two  years.  He  thought  they  made 
a  mistake  in  over-boiling  the  food.  Mere  scalding 
might  have  been  better. 

II.  M.  Engi.e  asked  Mr.  Groff  whether  he  had  not 
fattened  hogs  on  distiller's  slops.  He  could  not  see 
how  men  could  come  to  the  conclusion  that  steamed 
food  does  not  pay.  He  thinks  those  who  give  it  up 
find  it  too  much  trouble.  He  thinks  2.5  or  3S  per 
cent,  of  food  can  be  saved.  He  has  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  a  load  of  corn  fodder  steamed  is  equal  to 
a  load  of  hay  fed  dry. 

New  Business. 
H.  M.  Kurtz  was  onhand  with  an  essay  on  an  ancient 
volume  hehad  present  with  him.  (See  pp.  181  and  182) 
Because  so  old,  many  may  think  there  is  nothing  In  it ; 
but  we  may  often  letirn  more  from  those  who  are  gone 
before  than  from  those  of  to  day.  He  then  proceeded 
to  read  out  of  the  book,  in  German,  a  number  of 


aphorisms  that  were  very  practical  In  their  character, 
and  proved  that  men  had  ideas  about  farm  economy 
two  hundred  years  ago  on  which  we  have  not  Im- 
proved since  that  time.  But  notwithstanding  the 
interest  of  the  extracts,  there  were  very  few  who 
understood  the  language  in  which  they  were  read, 
and  the  propriety  of  reading  any  further  was  raised . 
Mr.  Kurtz  proposed  to  give  the  substance  In  English, 
but  the  reading  was  deferred  until  some  future  time. 

M.  D.  Kendig  reported  a  balance  In  his  bands  of 
$9.50,  left  over  from  the  money  collected  to  buy  a 
cane  for  Prof.  RatJivon  ;  he  wished  to  know  what  to 
do  with  it.  On  motion,  this  balance  was  paid  into 
the  treasury  of  the  society. 

Levi  S.  Reist  had  seen  an  article  in  The  Lan- 
caster Farmer  copied  out  of  The  A'eic  Era,  recom- 
mending farmers  to  buy  their  trees  at  home.  He 
gave  an  Instance  of  how  men  had  been  swindled  by 
some  tree  agents,  but  who,  If  they  had  been  sub- 
scribers of  our  home  journal,  would  have  seen  the 
article  referred  to  and  thus  have  saved  their  tempers 
and  their  money. 

Messrs.  S.  S.  Rathvon,  Levi  S.  Reist  and  C.  L. 
Hunsecker  were  appointed  a  committee  to  examine 
and  report  on  the  fruit  on  exhibition.  Their  report 
was  as  follows : 

We,  the  undersigned  committee,  appointed  to  ex- 
amine the  fruit,  &c.,  on  exhibition,  beg  leave  to 
make  the  following  report : 

Mr.  William  Weidle  deposited  three  varieties  of 
pears,  namely ;  Beurre  Olalrgeau,  Lawrence,  and 
Glout  Morceau.  These  were  all  of  good  size,  per- 
fect form,  and  excellent  quality.  Nothing  could 
possibly  excel,  at  this  season  of  the  year,  bis  Law- 
rence pears.  On  the  whole,  he  has  been  very  suc- 
cessful in  this  line  of  fruit  culture. 

Mr.  Casper  Hiller  deposited  specimens  of  a  seed- 
ling Rambo  apple,  which  be  obtained  at  a  fruit  stand 
on  the  corner  of  East  King  and  Duke  streets.  This 
the  committee  considers  an  excellent  fruit,  and 
worthy  of  cultivation,  and  In  this  opinion  they  are 
supported  by  all  who  have  tested  It.  These  apples 
were  raised  In  the  county,  and  the  vender  of  them 
will  confer  a  favor  by  reporting  to  the  Society  or  the 
editor  of  The  Farmer,  the  name  and  residence  of 
the  person  from  whom  he  purchased  them. 

Dr.  J.  P.  HiESTAND  deposited  a  specimen  of  oleo- 
margarine butter,  from  the  manufactory  of  the  U. 
S.  Dairy  Company,  N.  Y.  A  good  article  of  the 
kind,  but  not  at  all  comparable  with  Lancaster 
county  butter. 

Mr.  J.  HuBER  deposited  choice  grape  cuttings  for 
distribution. 

A  prepared  specimen  of  the  "  Kurtz  donation 
squash  "  or  "  pumpkin  "  was  placed  on  the  table, 
which  was  pronounced  good  by  those  who  are  partial 
to  that  kind  of  fruit. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

8.  S.  Ratbvon, 

C.  L.  HON.SECKER, 

L.  S.  Reibt, 

Committee. 

H.  M.  Engle  thought  the  society  ought  to  select 
a  room  on  a  second  floor  for  Its  meetings  instead  of 
imposing  on  the  Athseneum  Association.  A  motion 
to  this  effect  was  made  and  carried.  Messrs.  S.  P. 
Eby,  S.  S.  Rathvon  and  Wm.  McComsey  were  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  huut  up  a  room  for  the 
future  meetings  of  the  society. 

A  sample  of  oleomargarine  from  thc^manufacturers, 
the  United  States  Dairy  Association^  was  presented 
by  Prof.  Baker,  of  MiUersville,  and  was  tested  by 
the  members. 

H.  M.  Engle  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
some  time  ago  an  effort  was  made  to  have  members 
prepare  essays  on  the  methods  of  cultivating  the 
various  farm  crops,  but  nothing  has  been  done.  He 
for  one  would  furnish  an  essay  on  some  such  subject. 
He  moved  the  subject  of  soiling  stock  be  discussed 
at  the  next  meeting,  and  the  motion  was  carried. 

Prof.  S.  S.  Rathvon  read  an  article  on  the  large 
pumpkin  exhibited  by  Henry  Kurtz  at  the  last 
meeting.  There  were  644  seeds  in  the  pumpkin, 
one  by  one  and  a-half  Inch  In  size.  It  proved  an 
excellent  article.  The  walls  were  only  four  Inches 
In  thickness.  Made  up  Into  various  dishes,  it  gave 
general  satisfaction. 

There  being  no  further  buslnes  before  the  society, 
on  motion  It  adjourned  until  the  first  Monday  in 
January,  1878. 


TOBACCO  GROWERS'  ASSOCIATION. 


A  stated  meeting  of  the  Lancaster  county  tobacco 
growers'  association  was  held  in  the  Athenaeum  on 
Monday  afternoon,  November  19.  The  following 
members  and  visitors  were  present : 

M.  D.  Kendig,  president.  Manor  ;  W.  L.  Hershey, 
secretary,  East  Hempfleld  ;  Henry  Kurtz,  Mount 
Joy  ;  Colin  Cameron,  Elizabeth  township  ;  Sylvester 
Kennedy,  Salisbury ;  Henry  Sblffner,  Leacock ; 
Wash.  L.  Hershey,  Raphe  ;  A.  P.  McIUvaine,  Para- 
dise ;  I.  W.  G.  WIreman,  York  ;  J.  M.  Johnston, 
Lancaster  ;  George  Zentmoyer,  Elizabeth  ;  Samuel 
Smith,  Elizabeth  ;  Harry  Mayer,  East  Hempfleld  ; 
William  Rose,  Elizabeth  township  :  J.  M.  Stauffer, 
Earl ;  Christian  Musser,  Earl ;  A.  M.  Hiestand,  Mt. 
Joy;  F.  Y.  Erb,  Stark  county,  Ohio ;  J.  M.  Hess, 


Manhelm  ;  Joseph  E.  Miller,  East  Hempfleld;  John 
M.  Snavely,  East  Hempfleld ;  John  DIffenbaugh, 
East  Hempfleld  ;  J.  R.  Wilson,  East  Hempfleld;  J. 
G.  Rush,  Pequea  ;  W.  S.  Kennedy,  Salisbury  ;  Wm. 
Ruth,  Elizabeth  township;  A.  H.  Summy,  Man- 
helm  ;  Jacob  M.  Frantz,  Manor. 

Crop  reports  having  bean  called  for,  Mr.  Kurtz,  of 
Mount  Joy,  said  stripping  had  commenced,  but  not 
much  was  yet  stripped.  Thus  far  the  tobacco  has 
turned  out  much  better  than  was  expected. 

Colin  Cameron,  Elizabeth  township,  said  In  his 
neighborhood  there  was  not  as  much  tobacco  grown 
as  In  some  other  sections  of  the  county ;  he  had 
noticed  some  little  that  had  been  stripped,  but  not 
much,  the  stem  at  the  butt  ends  of  the  leaves  being 
as  yet  too  soft  to  safely  tie  Into  hands.  Some  are 
stripping  the  leaves  and  arranging  them,  but  are  not 
yet  putting  the  tobacco  down  in  bulk,  as  it  would  be 
apt  to  rot  if  they  did  so. 

Wash.  L.  Hershey  agreed  with  Mr.  Cameron 
that  the  tobacco  was  as  yet  too  soft  to  strip  with 
safety. 

Sylvester  Kennedy  said  there  is  a  good  deal 
stripped  In  Salisbury,  and  it  looks'  very  well,  being 
of  good  color  and  quality.  It  is  also  very  free  from 
worms. 

Henry  Shiffner  said  some  farmers  In  his  neigh- 
borhood were  almost  done  stripping.  The  crop  I3 
very  good,  equal  to  any  ever  grown  in  the  county , 
and  better  and  more  to  the  acre  than  ever  before 
grown  in  Upper  Leacock. 

Mr.  Rush,  of  Paradise,  said  he  has  stripped  about 
two  thousand  pounds.  That  part  of  the  crop  which 
he  placed  farthest  apart  on  the  poles  and  hung  most 
carefully  Is  not  so  good  as  that  which  he  hung  more 
closely  together.  It  was  due  to  say,  however,  that  the 
tobacco  hung  most  closely  was  topped  lower  than 
that  which  was  hung  farther  apart. 

Colin  Cameron  asked  If  it  was  not  the  common 
experience  of  growers  that  when  tobacco  was  hung 
too  widely  apart  it  would  fail  to  cure  as  well  as  if  it 
was  hung  closer. 

Henry  Kurtz  answered,  that  tobacco  should  be 
hung  as  closely  as  it  can  hang  without  touching  ; 
otherwise  It  will  mow-burn  or  rot. 

Sylvester  Kennedy  thought  the  tobacco  should 
be  wilted  before  it  Is  hung  in  the  shed,  then  it  can  be 
hung  closer  than  if  put  in  green. 

W.  L.  Hershey,  East  Hempfleld,  thought  a  good 
deal  depended  on  the  time  of  year  It  was  cut.  If 
tobacco  was  cut  early  and  hung  far  apart.  It  would 
be  more  apt  to  burn  on  account  of  the  warm  weather. 
If  cut  later  It  would  probably  cure  better. 

Henry  Kurtz  said  that  In  his  neighborhood  the 
tobacco  cut  latest  cured  best.  That  cut  in  August  Is 
more  apt  to  rot  than  that  cut  In  September.  Ho 
would  let  it  stand  a  week  or  two  even  If  It  was  ready 
to  cut  In  August,  and  not  cut  until  September. 
Late  tobacco  also  had  more  body  than  that  cut 
earlier. 

Henry  Shifpner  favered  early  planting  and 
early  cutting.  He  thought  the  tobacco  was  gener- 
ally, but  of  course  not  always,  better  when  planted 
and  cut  early. 

"How  soon  after  stripping  should  tobacco  be 
cased?"  was  the  question  proposed  last  meeting  for 
discussion  at  this  meeting. 

Colin  Cameron  said  he  would  not  case  his 
tobacco  at  all ;  he  would  rather  sell  at  a  low  price 
than  attempt  to  case  it.  He  did  not  believe  there 
were  half  a  dozen  farmers  In  the  county  who  know 
how  to  pack  tobacco,  and  if  they  do,  they  are  steal- 
ing another  man's  trade.  The  best  policy  is  to  pre- 
pare your  crop  for  market  and  then  sell  It  to  the 
packer. 
Henry  Shiffner  agreed  fully  with  Mr.  Cameron, 
Mr.  Kennedy  said  he  thought  we  should  be  un- 
der no  obligation  to  packers  or  anybody  else.  If  we  can 
make  more  by  packing,  let  us  pack  ;  If  we  can  make 
more  by  selling  before  packing, let  us  sell.  Weshould 
not  allow  ourslves  to  become  the  victims  of  any  combi- 
nation of  dealers.  They  will  take  advantage  of  the 
farmer  if  he  Is  Ignorant  of  the  value  of  his  tobacco. 
Every  farmer  should  know  when  to  pack  and  how  to 
pack. 

Henry  Kurtz  read  a  communication  showing 
that  there  was  an  irrepressible  conflict  of  Interest 
between  the  farmer  and  the  packer.  Ho  favored 
the  plan  of  each  farmer  packing  his  own  tobacco. 
He  gave  some  Instances  In  which  be  had  been  large- 
ly beneflted  by  packing  his  own  crop.  He  suggested 
the  appointment  of  a  committee  of  five  to  complete 
an  arrangement  by  which  an  organization  of  farmers 
might  escape  from  the  extortion  of  the  middle  men. 
His  plan  contemplated  a  board  of  directors  selected 
by  the  society,  who  should  have  charge  of  the  crops 
of  the  members  and  pack  it  or  have  It  packed  at  low- 
est net  price.  He  said  that  tobacco  Immediately  after 
stripping  Is  too  soft  for  packing  ;  It  should  be  ranked 
up  In  a  dark  place  until  It  is  fit  for  casing. 

J.  M.  Johnston  thought  It  would  be  Impossible 
to  get  along  without  the  aid  of  the  packers  or  "mid- 
dle men,"  as  they  were  termed.  From  discussions 
here  it  Is  evident  that  the  farmers  are  not  agreed 
among  themselves  as  to  the  best  means  of  growing 
tobacco.  Until  they  are  thoroughly  acquainted  with 
growing  It  they  had  better  devote  themselves  to  that 
branch  of  the  business  and  leave  the  packing  to 


1877.] 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


189 


those  who  understand  it.  As  well  might  the  farmers 
go  Into  the  manufacture  of  cigars  or  tobacco,  or  do 
their  own  milling  or  tanning,  or  make  their  own 
shoes  or  clothing,  as  to  successfully  pack  tobacco 
without  learning  how  to  do  It. 

Henry  3iiiffnkr  was  decidedly  opimsed  to  the 
idea  of  organizing  the  growers  of  tobacco  into  a 
packing  oesociation.  Ife  urged  farmers  to  make 
themselves  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  best 
methods  of  growing  tobacco.  If  this  were  done  they 
could  grow  twice  as  much  jier  acre  as  they  do  now, 
and  gel  more  for  their  crop  at  much  less  expense  to 
themselves. 

Colin  Cameiiom  was  in  favor  of  the  farmers 
packing  their  own  tobacco,  and  thus  save  the  com- 
mission that  now  went  into  the  pockets  of  the  packer. 

Wasu.  L.  Heksuey  read  a  paper  in  which  he  took 
the  ground  that  Pennsylvania  tobacco  was  no  better 
than  it  was  fifteen  years  ago ;  but  the  increased 
price  now  received  for  it,  was  owing  to  the  fact  that 
New  York  dealers  came  here,  made  selections  of  our 
best  leaf  and  sold  It  as  Connecticut.  When  it  be- 
came known  that  this  was  done,  the  New  York 
dealers  came  among  us ;  tlie  price  of  our  tobacco 
went  up,  and  Pennsylvania  leaf  attained  a  reputation 
second  to  none.  Now  dealers  go  to  Ohio  and  Wis- 
consin, purchase  inferior  tobacco,  bring  it  to  Penn- 
sylvania, pack  it  and  palm  it  off  as  Pennsylvania 
leaf,  to  the  great  Injury  of  the  reputation  of  our 
crop.  This  should  be  put  a  stop  to,  and  perhaps  the 
best  way  to  do  It  would  be  to  organize  a  movement 
for  the  packing  of  our  own  tobacco. 

"Is  fall  plowing  advisable  for  tobacco?''  was  dis- 
cussed. 

Colin  Cameron  said  :  "  Yes,  certainly ;  even  if 
it  does  not,  which  it  does,  kill  the  worms  that  prey 
upon  the  crop,  it  mellows  the  ground  and  enables  it 
to  absorb  the  valuable  qualities  of  the  manure."  He 
believes  that  tobacco  ground  should  be  plowed  and 
manured  in  the  fall ;  the  manure  should  be  plowed 
down  in  early  spring,  by  which  time  it  will  have  rot- 
ted, and  then  the  ground  should  be  plowed  again  at 
planting  time. 

A.  H.  SuMMY  would  plow  down  the  manure  in  the 
fall,  then  lime  the  land  and  In  the  spring  plow  down 
the  lime. 

IIknry  Kurtz  thought  spring  plowing  was  best. 
He  manured  with  lime,  the  corn  stubble  in  the 
spring,  turned  it  down  together  with  the  growing 
weeds,  and  never  had  any  trouble  in  getting  a  good 
crop.  He  thought  that  if  the  ground  was  plowed  In 
the  fall  it  might  lose  by  evaporation  some  of  Its  fer- 
tilizing qualities. 

Colin  Cameron  did  not  believe  that  plowing 
could  possibly  have  the  effect  of  impoverishing  land. 
On  the  contrary  he  believed  every  successive  plowing, 
even  without  manure,  tended  to  enrich  the  land. 

Sylvester  Kennedy  believed  that  the  more  the 
land  was  shaded  the  better  would  be  the  succeeding 
crop.  He  would  leave  the  second  crop  tobacco  leaves 
on  the  ground  during  the  winter  as  a  protection  to 
the  surface. 

Mr.  1.  W.  G.  WiREMAN,  of  York,  had  cultivated 
several  varieties  of  tobacco  lor  experiment.  After 
he  took  off  the  crop  he  dug  up  the  roots,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  pulling  out  some  that  measured  sixteen 
Inches  from  the  surface.  He  argued  that  If  a  plant 
struck  its  roots  down  sixteen  inches  the  easier  It  was 
for  the  roots  to  get  down  there  the  better  for  the 
plant.  The  amount  of  tobacco  per  acre  realized  in 
Japan  Is  as  much  as  4,000  pounds.  The  Japanese 
plow  or  dig  down  to  a  depth  of  sixteen  inches.  He 
favored  deep  plowing,  and  a  frequent  mellowing  of 
■the  soil. 

On  motion  of  W.  L.  Hcrshey,  the  thanks  of  the 
society  were  tendered  to  Mr.  Wircman  for  his  ad- 
dress. 

"Should  tobacco  seed  be  sowed  In  the  fall  or  in 
the  spring  ?"  was  a  question  referred  to  Wash.  L. 
Hershey.  He  answered,  that  he  favored  sowing  in 
the  spring,  though  some  of  his  neighbors  were  very 
successful  in  fall  sowing.  He  would  recommend 
spring  sowing  as  being  preferable. 

Sylvester  Kennedy  said  he  bad  sowed  some 
seed  in  the  fall  and  covered  it  with  manure  ;  early 
in  the  spring  he  sowed  some  more  just  alongside  the 
other,  and  later  in  the  6i)ring  he  sowed  another  bed. 
That  which  was  sowed  in  the  fall  was  the  best,  the 
plants  coming  up  stronger  and  thriftier. 

Henry  Kltrtz  and  President  Kendig  favored 
sowing  late  In  the  spring,  say  about  the  middle  of 
April.  The  plants  will  bo  ready  to  set  out  in  four  or 
live  weeks  thereafter. 

A.  H.  SuMMY  had  tried  several  modes  of  sowing. 
The  best  plants  he  had  raised  were  those  sown  In  the 
spring  in  a  bed  on  which  he  had  burned  a  pile  of 
brush,  and  buried  the  seeds  iu  the  asfces. 

Henry  Shiffner  said  he  thought  the  committee 
recently  appointed  to  visit  the  several  tobacco  growers 
of  the  county,  Insjwct  their  crops  and  report  ou  their 
condition,  had  better  be  abandoned.  He  feared  the 
committee's  motives  might  be  nilsundersliwd  If  they 
reported  a  crop  to  be  inferior.  He  declined  serving 
on  the  committee. 

Henry  Kurtz  agreed  with  Mr.  Shiffner,  and  for 
one  would  not  serve  on  the  committee. 

J.  M.  Frantz,  a  member  of  the  committee,  said 
he  would  not  serve  as  a  member  of  the  committee 
if  Mr,  Shiffner  declined,  for  he  was  certainly  thp  best 


qualified  man  In  the  society  to  Judge  of  the  quality 
of  tobacco  when  It  is  ready  for  market. 

After  some  discussion  Messrs.  Kurtz  and  Shiffner 
withdrew  their  declinations,  and  President  Kendig 
was  added  as  a  member  of  the  committee. 

"  What  is  the  best  method  of  utilizing  tobacco 
stems  ("     Kcfcrred  to  A.  H.  Summy. 

"  Is  lime  beneficial  to  the  culture  of  tobacco,  and 
how  should  it  be  applied  to  produce  the  b«>«t  results  (  " 
was  proiW)8ed  for  general  discussion  ut  next  meeting. 

Henry  Kihtz  exhibited  some  fine  specimens  of 
tobacco  of  the  Centennial  and  Connecticut  seeil 
varieties. 

Adjourned. 

THE    LINNiEAN  SOCIETY. 

The  Llnnaran  Society  met  on  Saturday,  November 
L'lth,  and  had  five  members  and  three  visitors  pre- 
sent, with  the  President,  Prof.  Htahr,  In  the  chair.  In 
the  absence  of  the  Secretary,  Mrs.  Zcll  was  appoint- 
ed Secretary,  ;<)o.  tern.  Dues  were  collected,  and 
reading  the  proceedings  of  the  last  meeting  was  dis- 
pensed with. 

Donations  to  the  Museum. 

1.  Three  large  (fossil !)  molar  teeth  were  douuteil 
by  Mr.  A.  C.  Stauffer,  of  Dlllervllle,  Lancaster 
county.  Pa.  In  digging  a  drain  at  the  depth 
of  three  or  four  feet,  Mr.  8.  came  ujKjn  a  rock 
of  alx)ut  a  foot  In  thickness,  and  in  removing  it  In 
order  to  deepen  the  drain  ho  found  these  teeth  be- 
neath It.  They  are  similai"  to  teeth  found  in  the 
marl  deposits  of  New  Jersey,  not  much  unlike  the 
molars  of  a  horse  (Eipins  cnWn/w/i),  but  also  strong- 
ly resembling  the  teeth  of  a  species  of  Afegathfrium 
found  in  Georgia. 

'2.  The  vertebral  column  of  the  common  cat  (Frlix 
doiiifnticiiii)  was  donated  by  Mr.  Uipple,  of  North 
Queen  street.  In  this  city.  These  vertebraf — from 
the  cranijuii  to  tho  pclvix — Mr.  K.  found  between  the 
floor  and  the  ceiling  of  his  house,  in  making  6t>nie 
repairs,  where  the  animal  had  probably  become  im- 
prisoned many  years  ago,  and  had  perished . 

3.  A  box  containing  '2li  cases  of  "caddlee"  or 
"case-worms,"  and  12  specimens  of  the  exuded 
larrce  In  a  bottle  ;  donated  by  Mr.  BuUar  (teacher,) 
of  Spring  Garden,  in  this  county. 

Mr.  B.  found  these  cases  iu  "Trout  run,"  York 
county,  in  searching  for  crustaceans  for  bass-bait. 
They  are  the  cases  and  larvr  of  the  ash-colored 
"caddlce-fly,"  (I'hrygnnin  cinerea)  or  an  allied 
species,  and  belong  to  the  order  Trieoptern. 

4.  Two  pseudo-amorphous  specimens  of  red-hema- 
tite (Iron)  donated  by  Professor  Dubbs,  of  Franklin 
and  Marshall  College,  and  are  from  Ironton,  Lehigh 
county.  One  of  these  specimens  is  iu  form  similar 
to  the  "foot,"  the  "hammer,"  and  part  of  the  bar- 
rel of  a  pistol  ;  and  the  other  is  an  oblong  sphere,  or 
egg-shaped. 

5.  Two  insects — one  in  a  liquid  and  one  dried — 
donated  by  S.  S.  Rathvon.  The  bottled  specimen  is 
"Harris' water  beetle"  {Dytiiois  JIarrmi,)  noticed 
some  weeks  ago  in  the  J)aiUj  Tnlrltifjcnrcr.  It  lived 
until  the  1.5th  of  November.  The  other  specimen 
was  a  species  of  solitary  Hemipteha  (liednriitH 
?iMm(i«i(/i,)  that  occasionally  infests  hum.an  habita- 
tions, and  disguises  Itself  by  covering  its  body  with 
small  particles  of  down,  dirt,  lint,  or  anything  else 
it  can  appropriate. 

(j.  A  small  liottle  containing  a  germinated  squash 
seed,  found  in  a  solid  and  healthy  fruit  when  cut 
open,  on  the  20th  Inst.  It  had  grown  three  inches, 
and  threw  out  rootlets  ;  by  the  same. 

Donations  to  the  Library, 

1 .  Telegraphic  determinations  of  longitude  in  the 
West  Indies  and  Central  America.  Donated  by  Miles 
Rock,  Esq.,  of  the  Signal  Bureau  at  Washington, 
D.  C.  This  is  a  fine  quarto  volume,  full  of  scientific 
matter. 

2.  Proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sci- 
ences of  Philadelphia  for  April,  May,  June,  July  and 
August  IbTT.  , 

3.  An  octavo  pamphlet,  "on  the  method  of  the 
creation  of  organic  types,"  by  K.  D.  Cope,  A.M., 
donated  by  the  author. 

4.  The  Lancaster  Farmer  for  November,  the 
Journal  of  Microscopy,  and  sundry  circulars  and 
papers. 

Historical  Section. 

Two  envelopes,  containing  twenty-one  scraps  of 
local  and  general  biographical  and  historical  contri- 
butions. 

Papers  Read. 

■"One  paper  by  Mr.  Rathvon  relating  to  the  objects 
donated. 

During  the  session  of  the  society  a  dark,  gloomy  and 
most  violent  rain-storm  prevailed  without,  which  also 
had  a  gloomy  influence  within,  from  the  fact  that  those 
present  had  an  ocular  demonstration  of  how  the 
labors  of  many  years  and  also  the  whole  building 
may  ultimately  liecome  ruined,  or  at  least  seriously 
damaged,  in  consequence  of  the  iuefl[iciency  of  the 
roof  in  keeping  out  the  water  during  a  heavy  rain, 
and  in  this  state  of  gloomy  anxiety  the  society  ad- 
journed to  the  appusl  meeting  on  Saturday,  Decem- 
ber 39,  1877, 


AGRICULTURAL. 


Liquid    Manure. 

The  subject  of  the  value  of  liquid  manure  lii  its 
application  to  crops.  In  HiM,  garden  anil  lawns,  Is 
again  freely  iliKcussed.  .Meehl,  the  l.nndiiii  million- 
aire alderman,  WHS  among  the  tlrst  to  appiv  it  l4i 
field  crops,  and  fur  this  purpose  prepared  a  great 
deal  of  expi'iislve  maehhiery  ami  employed  a  great 
many  men  to  do  the  work.  Ills  crops  bore  testi- 
mony to  Its  great  fertilizing  (lualllles,  anil  these  re- 
turns Mr.  M.  was  not  slow  in  laying  before  the 
British  pulille.  Ills  Btatlstles  were  'liberally  quoted 
In  this  country,  and  he  has  a  great  nuiny  disciples- - 
on  paper — as  those  wlio  adopted  bis  iiiethisl  of 
applying  manure  soon  abiiniloned  It  on  aeromit  of  lis 
exiM-nsivencss.  These  ilisejples  failed  to  sec  that  in 
all  .Mr.  .Meehi's  slutenienls  he  made  no  comparison 
as  to  the  relative  exp<'nse  of  the  two  modes  of  appli- 
cation and  the  relative  products.  This  was  carefully 
oinltteil ;  and  if  we  are  correctly  iiiformeil — and  It 
looks  as  if  the  liifornuitlon  is  correct,  as  wi*  have  no 
recent  slatemeniK  from  that  quarter — the  jiracllie 
has  been  abandoned  by  the  rich  InlriHlucer,  and  it 
must  have  been  from  the  fact  that  the  ohl  diimIc  of 
applying  manure  to  land  Has  the  quickest  and  most 
profltalile. 

For  small  lawns  and  gardens — where  the  cx|>onse 
is  a  matter  of  no  consequi-nce — there  is  no  moile  of 
enrichment  so  certain  and  clleetiveas  liquid  manure, 
for  in  these  cases  it  can  be  applied  with  water-|H)tK 
commonly  used  l)y  gardeners.  For  this  pnr|H>sc  a 
basin  should  dug  from  ten  to  twelve  feet  in  diamler 
and  three  feet  deep,  whieli  should  be  filled  with 
stable  manure,  and  either  a  conductor  from  a  ruof 
turned  njion  it — rain  water  being  the  best — or  sup- 
plied from  hydrant  or  puiup,  the  water  being  added 
gradually,  so  as  to  admit  of  the  daily  turning  over 
of  the  mass.  In  a  few  days  or  a  week  it  will  be  III 
for  use,  and  can  be  applicil  as  the  necessity  may  o<'- 
cur.  In  thisliniilcd  way  liquid  manure  can  be  used 
with  great  ellect ;  but  uiH>n  the  larni  it  would  take  a 
mint  of  money  to  so  dispose  it,  w  halcvcr  the  licnefi- 
eial  results  may  be  uix)U  the  crops. — Oermantovn 
Tcliffraph, 

Saving  Sweet  Potatoes. 

Commissioner  Janes,  of  Georgia,  gives  the  follow- 
ing directions  in  his  November  report:  It  is  very 
inii)iirtant  to  save  them  projierly.  They  are  now  full 
of  sap,  and  will  be  more  dis|)OSid  to  rot  Iu  the  bills. 
They  sliould  be  dug  when  the  ground  Is  as  dry  as 
IKissilile,  and  be  allowed  to  dry  In  the  hill  before 
covering  w  ith  earth.  A  very  simple  plan  for  hilling 
potatoes  is  as  follows  :  Select  a  dry  situation,  from 
which  the  water  will  easily  run  ;  drive  down  a  rough 
stake,  to  stand  three  and  a  half  feet  in  height,  In  the 
centre  of  a  circle  of  about  seven  feet  in  diamter. 
Raise  the  edge  of  this  circle  by  drawing  U|)  the 
earth  from  without.  Cover  the  entire  bed  thickly 
with  dry  flue  straw,  or  other  dry  material.  Heap 
the  potatoes  of  this  bed  around  the  .stake  so  that  the 
sides  may  be  as  steep  as  ['ossible.  Then  cover  en- 
tirely over  with  dry  corn  stalks  or  brimni  sedge  set 
ujiright,  or  with  boards,  in  such  a  manner  as  to  pre- 
vent the  rain,  which  may  soak  through  the  earth 
covering,  from  reaching  the  interior.  Then  cover  the 
whole  with  several  inches  of  earth  taken  from  im- 
mediately around  the  hill,  leaving  the  top  of  the  hill 
open  for  ventilation,  but  protected  from  rain.  On  the 
ai>proach  of  severe  weather,  gradually  increase  the 
(.overing  of  earth  to  a  depth  of  one  foot. 

Opposition  to  Potatoes. 
Tiic  Loudon  Sprdaiur  says:  "Arihdcacon  Deni- 
fon,  on  the  occasion  of  hislwenty-flrsl  harvest-home, 
made  the  other  day  a  speech  on  the  fiK>d  and  drink 
question.  There  were  some  odd  tlihurs  at  this  festi- 
val— a  loaf  of  '.U  pounds  and  a  cheese  weighing  !MI, 
for  example — i)ut  nothing  quite  so  odd  as  what  the 
Archdeacon  himself  said  to  the  Somer.set  folk.  He 
fiercely  fell  feul  of  the  imtato,  and  rated  it  as  if  it 
were  no  Ix'tter  than  a  Low  Church  Bishop.  He  had 
made  up  his  mind  not  to  plant  anollier  iiolato  as 
long  as  he  lived.  '  To  do  so  was  sinipiy  to  waste  the 
seed  and  poison  the  ground,  and  the  more  they 
planted  that  tuber  the  more  would  lliey  |k>Isou  the 
ground,  until  it  stank  iu  their  nostrils.'  People 
ought  to  plant.  Instead  of  [lolatocs,  peas,  beans  and 
beet-root,  which  were  not  subject  to  disease.  He 
did  not  go  with  Cobbelt  in  praising  l-eer,  which  made 
people's  faces  red,  but  be  reiommiinleil  as  a  substi- 
tute for  eider  'a  delightful  lieverage.  eonsistlng  of 
oatmeal  and  water,  flavored  with  a  little  acid.'  We 
do  not  mind  his  praising  lliis  '  deli'.'bl  lul  beverage,' 
which  Hill  be  sure  to  Ik-  appreciated  as  it  deserves; 
lull  it  is  a  litttle  tiM)  bad  in  the  Archdeacon,  In  rc- 
s|>i>iiding  to  the  clergy,  to  go  over,  horse  and  foot,  to 
the  side  of  the  Colorado  beetle." 

How  Long  Will  the  Forests  Last  ? 
I'nder  sneh  atremeudous  yearly  ilrainllic  question 
naturally  couies  up,  how  long  will  our  forests  hold 
out  at  tlie  present  rale  of  manufacture?  It  Is  really 
au  Important  question,  upon  which  follows  the  in- 
quiry as  to  what  we  are  lo  do  lor  liulldiiig  material 
when  this  magnificent  wood — pint — is  exhausted. 
One  authority  after  snotbcr  has  cutcrcd  formally 


d90 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


[December, 


upon  itB  Bolution,  with  satisfactory  results  in  local 
instances,  but  very  vague  ones  as  to  the  field  at 
larpc.  At  the  rate  we  are  cutting  it  to-day,  from 
thirty  to  fifty  years  ssems  to  be  agreed  upon  ae  about 
the  limit.  Twenty  years  ago  there  was  apparently 
no  limit,  for  the  consumption  was  not  only  less,  but 
the  means  for  its  manufacture  were  primitive,  and 
accomplished  much  smaller  results  tlian  now.  It 
seems  as  if  it  were  impossible  to  further  improve  the 
machinery  of  saw-mills :  but  the  near  future  may, 
for  all  that,  sec  sawing  machinery  in  comparison  to 
which  that  of  the  present  will  be  contemptible.  So, 
although  twenty  years  ago  there  was  no  foreseeing 
the  end  of  the  timber,  now,  with  the  modern  mills 
and  myriads  of  them,  we  are  beginning  to  calculate 
with  dire  certainty  as  to  the  time  when  the  "  Wooded 
Age"  will  be  a  thing  of  the  past. —  Chax.  D.  Jiobinsoii, 
Scribncr  for  December. 

^ 

Silver  Hull  Buckwheat. 

D.  N.  Kern  writes  to  the  Practical  Farmer  :  In  the 
year  1?78  I  procured  one  pound  of  this  buckwheat, 
and  from  that  pound  I  got  one  bushel.  In  1874  I 
sowed  half  a  bushel  and  got  twenty  bushels.  In 
187.5  I  sowed  two  bushels  and  got  fifty  bushels.  In 
187ti  I  sowed  four  quarts  and  got  six  bushels.  This 
year,  1877,  I  sowed  four  quarts  on  one-fourth  of  an 
acre  and  got  twelve  bushels.  I  found  one  stalk  that 
stood  by  Itself,  some  ten  feet  away  from  the  main 
])atch,  that  measured  three-fourths  of  an  Inch  across 
at  the  base,  and  it  had  one  hundred  and  fifty 
branches  ;  each  branch  had  on  an  average  six  spike- 
lets,  and  each  spikelet  had  on  an  average  ten  grains 
in  all  nine  thousand  grains.  I  would  like  to  hear 
who  had  a  stalk  of  common  buckwheat  that  had 
done  better.  This  buckwheat  makes  more  and  bet- 
ter flour  than  the  common  kind.  But  still  there  are 
plenty  of  farmers  that  sow  the  common  kind  and  say 
it  is  no  use  to  pay  two  dollars  for  a  bushel  when  you 
can  get  the  common  kind  for  one  dollar. 

^ — _ 

Is  Hungarian  Grass    Safe    Feed   for  Horses  ? 

A  correspondent  objects  to  our  remarks  on  the 
healthfulncss  of  Hungarian  grass  as  feed  for  horses, 
on  the  ground  "that  the  seeds  are  small  and  hard, 
very  diflicult  of  digestion,  and  liable  to  cause  in- 
flammation, producing  all  the  symptoms  of  founder  ; 
the  grass  a'so  is  a  diuretic,  acting  strongly  on  the  kid- 
neys and  causing  weakness  of  the  loins."  This  is  the 
first  time  we  ever  heard  charges  so  serions  made 
against  Hungarian  grass,  and  we  have  known  of  its 
being  used  for  a  feed  for  years.  The  best  time  to  se- 
cure the  crop  is  when  it  is  In  blossom,  and  before  the 
seeds  have  forniet:.  The  beards  at  this  time  have 
not  reached  that  degree  of  stitfness  which  the  writer 
thinks  causes  injury  to  the  stomach  of  the  horse, 
while  the  embryotic  seeds  are  perfectly  harmless. 
One  large  farmer  in  the  State  has,  to  our  personal 
knowledge,  been  using  it  for  feed  for  his  horses,  at 
one  time  keeping  eight  on  it  without  injury  ;  but  then 
he  always  aims  to  cut  at  the  right  time. — St.  Paul 
Pinonecr  Press. 

^ 

Age  of  Nursery  Trees. 

Mr.  Aldrieh,  of  Nebraska,  set  out  over  1,C00  apple 
trees,  a  part  of  which  were  three  years  from  the 
graft ;  some  were  two  years  old  ;  but  three-fourths 
were  only  one  year  old  when  planted,  and  these  suc- 
ceeded much  the  best.  He  decidedly  preferred  one- 
year  trees.  President  Furnas  said  that  in  the  spring 
of  18fj7  he  planted  100  three-year-old  trees,  wilhont 
losing  one  ;  the  next  spring  he  planted  beside  them 
100  one-year  trees,  and  now  the  latter  are  the  largest 
and  thriftiest.  On  the  whole,  however,  he  prefers 
two-year  trees,  although  more  care  is  required  in 
taking  them  up  properly  and  re-setting  them. 

Several  planters  in  dilfereut  parts  of  the  State 
agreed  that  young  trees  when  set  out,  should  lean 
towards  the  southwest,  to  protect  the  stems  from  the 
sun's  rays. 

^ 

Interesting  Facts.  ' 

The  number  of  seeds  of  wheat  in  one  pound  is 
10,000. 

The  number  of  seeds  in  one  iK)Und  of  barley  is 
]."),400. 

The  number  of  seeds  in  one  pound  of  oats  is  30,- 
000. 

The  number  of  seeds  in  one  pound  of  buckwheat 
isi'i.OOO. 

The  number  of  seeds  in  one  pound  of  red  clover  is 
'_'49,fi00. 

The  number  of  seeds  in  one  pound  of  white  clover 
is  6S8,400. 


HORTICULTURAL. 


Virginia  Tobacco. 

The  Baltimore  Bnlleliii,  referring  to  the  State's 
interview  with  the  tobacco  men  of  Kichmond,  very 
wisely  says  :  "  If  we  substitute  for  the  misnomer 
'over-production'  the  true  phrase,  pitching  larger 
crops  than  they  have  force  to  till,  wc  will  come  at 
the  real  source  of  the  decline  in  reputation  of  Vir- 
ginia tobacco.  The  folly  of  this  sort  of  husbandry  is 
that  it  destroys  all  the  profits.  A  Connecticut  far- 
mer puts  his  last  year's  onion  patch  in  tobacco — a 
lot  of  two  or  three  acres  at  the  outside — and  makes 
more  of  it  than  the  south-side  planter  makes  from  a 
hundred  acres." 


Mice  and  Young  Trees. 

There  was  a  great  deal  said  last  spring  of  the  in- 
jury done  to  young  apple-trees  during  last  winter  by 
mice,  and  the  only  remedy  that  wc  have  yet  seen 
suggested  Is  to  stamp  the  snow  firmly  around  the 
trees.  This  is,  however,  not  believed  to  be  a  remedy 
at  all,  and  we  doubt  if  it  is  of  much  advantage,  even 
should  there  be  always  snow  to  thus  use.  But  our 
method  is  a  "  remedy,"  and  we  have  tried  to  impress 
the  fact  upon  our  contemporaries  for  the  past  twenty- 
five  years,  but  we  should  say,  judging  from  their 
ignorance  in  answering  imploring  correspondents 
what  they  must  do  to  save  their  trees,  that  it  has 
received  but  little  attention  in  many  quarters. 

It  is  simply  to  bandage  up  the  stems  of  the  tree 
with  any  cotton  or  woolen  cloths  or  old  muslin  with 
two  or  three  wrappings,  letting  the  bandage  go  into 
the  ground  an  Inch  or  two,  and  six  or  eight  inches 
above  ground  and  tie  up.  This  should  be  renewed 
every  autumn,  if  necessary,  until  the  trees  are  large 
enough  not  to  be  injured.  Those  who  are  in  earnest 
for  a  remedy  will  try  this  and  save  their  trees;  but 
it  will  be  too  much  trouble  for  others  to  devote  a 
couple  of  hours  to  this  labor  annually,  and  they  will 
rather  run  the  risk  with  the  mice. 

This  niethod  will  keep  out  the  borer  also,  as  we 
have  stated  on  several  occasions.  Rabbits  can  gnaw, 
when  the  stems  are  sm.ill  enough,  two  feet  from  the 
ground,  and  would  require  the  bandage  to  be  much 
higher.  Tarring  would  help  as  a  protection,  but  we 
have  known  in  many  cases  the  simple  bandage  to  be 
allsuflicient,  and  the  tar  to  be  Injurious  to  the  tree. 
But  the  best  way  to  treat  rabbits  is  to  feed  them. 
They  never  injure  trees,  except  when  snow  covers  the 
ground  and  they  have  nothing  to  live  on.  For  this 
purpose  cabbage,  turnips,  apples,  or  any  vegct.ible 
offal  will  answer,  and  especially  hay,  of  which  the 
rabbit  is  very  fond . 

^ 

Setting  Trees. 

The  art  of  making  fruit  and  other  trees  grow  and 
thrive,  lies  in  a  few  brief  rules  as  follows  : 

Dig  them  up  with  great  care,  retaining  a  large 
proportion  of  their  roots  ;  and  any  roots  mangled,  to 
be  cut  off  at  the  mangled  ends  smoothly  with  a  sharp 
knife. 

To  be  kept  in  the  shade,  if  set  out  the  same  day 
they  are  dug  up.  If  not  set  the  same  day,  dig  a 
trench  in  your  garden  deep  enough  to  receive  the 
roots,  pack  in  the  trees  side  by  side  as  closely  as 
possible,  with  the  tops  touching  the  ground,  then 
cover  the  roots  ;  a  foot  deep  with  soil,  treading  and 
packing  it  around  the  roots  ;  and  if  the  trees  are  to 
remain  a  few  days,  it  would  be  well  to  cover  the  r 
tops  with  any  coarse  litter  to  shade  them  from  the 
sun. 

When  set,  trim  the  trees  according  to  the  extent 
or  quantity  of  roots  they  have,  by  shortening  in  the 
branches,  and  by  removing  a  superfluous  branch 
here  and  there.  From  one-third  to  one-half  of  the 
top  of  a  tree,  when  reset,  should  always  be  shortened 
in. 

Dig  holes  of  ample  size,  so  that  all  the  roots  will 
be  in  their  natural,  horizontal  position  ;  and  place 
the  surface  soil  by  itself,  to  be  first  used  aroimd  the 
roots,  and  the  subsoil  on  top.  P.ack  the  earth  firmly 
among  the  roots,  and  before  the  holes  are  entirely 
filled  up,  turn  half  of  a  pail  of  water  into  each,  and 
wait  a  few  hours  to  finish  filling  them. 

No  manure  should  be  put  among  the  roots  ;  but  it 
maybe  placed  over  them,  near  tlie  surface  of  the 
ground.  A  mulch  of  barnyard  litter  around  the 
trunks  of  the  trees  is  very  good  to  ward  oft"  the  effects 
of  a  drouth. 

-^ 

How  Jacob  Taylor  Grows  Plums. 

.Jacob  Taylor,  a  colored  citizen  of  East  Notting- 
ham, owns  a  little  property  in  the  western  part  of 
the  township,  near  Hopewell.  He  has  several  trees 
of  blue  or  prune  plums,  which  bear  an  alnindant 
crop  every  other  year.  A  few  years  ago  when  he 
had  but  one  tree,  it  bore  seven  bushels,  which  he 
sent  to  the  Philadtlphia  market,  and  his  net  reccipis 
were  ?4  per  bushel— 8'28.  Previous  to  that  year 
Jacob's  tree  did  not  bear  any  perfect  fruit,  the  cur- 
culio,  the  deadly  enemy  of  the  plum,  alwavs  stinging 
the  green  fruit  when  well-grown,  causing  it  to  fall 
off".  At  the  suggestion  of  a  neighbor  he  soaked  corn 
cobs  in  molasses  diluted  with  water  and  hung  them 
in  bunches  on  the  limbs,  and  tied  a  band  of  cotton 
saturated  with  the  same  solution  around  the  trunk 
of  the  tree.  The  theory  is  that  the  band  prevents  the 
i  isect  from  ascending  the  tree,  and  when  any  do  pass 
this  blockade  they  are  attracted  to  the  sweetened 
cobs  and  deposit  their  eggs  therein  instead  of  the 
fruit.  His  trees  bear  every  other  year  and  only  when 
he  practices  this  curculio  remedy.  He  supplied 
many  of  our  citizens  with  plums  last  week  at  forty  cts. 
per  half  peck. —  Orford  Press. 


thus  discourses  as  "an  old  hand"  on  a  subject  which 
is  under  discussion  in  the  western  papers ; 

One  says  every  intelligent  horticulturist  docs  it  so 
and  so  ;  we  have  tried  h's  plan,  hut  it  goes  too  slow. 
Another  says  that  wood  should  not  be  left  attached 
to  the  bud  ;  while  others  hud  without  the  horizontal 
cut.  One  method  which  we  have  practiced  for  forty 
years,  with  fair  success,  we  still  adhere  to.  Cut  a 
cross  through  the  bark,  then  a  downward  cut,  an 
inch  and  a  half  in  length,  lift  the  bark  carefully  and 
insert  the  bud.  To  tie  with  strips  of  rags,  as  one 
recommends,  will  do  where  but  a  few  buds  are  set ; 
but  for  our  purpose  wc  would  have  to  rob  the  rag- 
man. 

This  season  we  have  some  5,000  to  set.  With  any- 
thing like  a  fair  chance,  wc  count  on  90  per  cent,  to 
grow.  The  taking  out  of  the  wood  is  useless  labor, 
and  even  ofteu  tears  the  germ  out  with  it ;  and  as  to 
the  cutting  out  of  the  bud,  so  described  by  the  doc- 
tor, and  cut  a  similar  one  out  of  the  tree,  the  hud 
must  be  held  to  tie  it.  I  often  cut  five  buds,  have 
four  of  them  belwecn  my  I'ps,  set  all  of  them,  then 
the  tie,  thus  saving  the  trouble  of  laying  down  the 
knife  and  picking  up  again.  Old  as  I  am  I  can  bud 
1,000  in  a  day  and  tie  myself. 


Budding.  > 

The  eminent  horticulturist,  Samuel  Miller,  former- 
ly of  Lebanon,  now  the  editor  of  the  horticultural 
department  of  Caiman's  Jtitral  World  (St.  Louis,^ 


American  Fruit  in  Europe. 

The  foreign  demand  for  American  fruit  is  now  so 
great  that  Europe  and  Australia  will  take  nearly  all 
tlic  fruit,  fresh  and  dried  (dried  peaches  excepted) 
which  the  United  States  can  land  in  their  markets  in 
good  condition.  England  prefers  fresh  fruit,  and 
since  October  of  last  year  has  taken  390,000  barrels 
from  the  United  States,  beginning  with  the  latter 
part  of  October,  at  the  rate  of  8,000  barrels  a  week, 
increasing  in  four  weeks  to  17,000  barrels.  The  aver- 
age in  December  was  20,00  barrels  weekly,  and  one 
week  the  number  ran  up  28,.5l'.5.  These  were  mostly 
Baldwins,  Greenings,  Russets,  and  Newtown  Pippins. 
It  is  estimated  that  England  will  take  an  average  of 
from  12,000  to  15,000  barrels  a  week  for  the  entire 
season  of  nine  months.  The  working  classes  of 
Germany  and  the  workingmeu  of  Australia  are  the 
chief  customers  for  American  dried  fruit  .abroad,  but 
the  iX)or  people  of  England  and  Russia  buy  to  a 
limited  extent.  As  long  as  dried  apples  can  be  ex- 
ported from  New  York  at  five  or  even  seven  cents  a 
pound,  the  workingmen  of  Euroi)e  and  Australia 
will  buy  all  that  can  be  spared.  The  business  of  ex- 
porting fruit  is  one  that  has  been  chiefly  built  up 
since  1805. 

^ 

Cracked  Pears. 

Chas.  C.  Mullen,  of  West  Philadelphia,  writes  to 
the  Germantown  Tch;/raph:  Seeing  in  your  paper 
of  July  25ih  an  article  on  "Cracked  Pears,"  I  have 
to  say  that  all  my  varieties  rusted,  became  hard  as  a 
stone,  and  cracked  open.  My  beautiful  while  Doy- 
ennes shared  the  s.tmic  fate.  For  the  last  two  years 
I  have  sowed  salt  around  the  trunks  of  the  trees, 
enough  to  make  the  ground  white,  and  the  result  is, 
I  have  nn  more  flinty,  hard,  cracked  pears,  and  my 
white  Doyennes  have  rcgaiucd  their  plump  size  and 
beautiful  rosy  blush. 

1  write  this  for  the  benefit  of  all  who  like  perfect 
fruit.  I  have  no  doubt  the  mystery  lies  at  the  roots, 
salt  being  death  to  all  the  worm  tribe.  I  believe  ap- 
plied lo  all  apple  orchards  it  would  be  as  effectual  as 
scalding  now  is  to  pear  trees.  I  ap])ly  the  salt  but 
once  a  year,  and  whitewash  the  trees  with  a  strong 
salt  pickle  to  prevent  washing  olf. 


Forest  Planting  in  France. 

The  past  spring  has  been  very  favorable  to  the 
large  areas  in  France  lately  planted  in  forests.  It  is 
stated  that  5,000,000  hectares  or  12,-350,000  acres— 
about  half  the  area  of  Ohio— have  become  unproduc- 
tive as  agricultural  lands.  Pine  trees  without  any 
cultivation  and  a  very  inexpensive  supervision  can  be 
made  to  grow  u|ion  these  barren  acres,  netting  aliout 
S2..50  per  annual  of  profit.  This  would  add  to  the 
productive  capacity  of  these  lands  about  $30,000,000 
per  annum.  Other  trees  have  been  planted  with 
similar  economic  resuhs,  and  now  landed  proprietors 
are  looking  to  tree-planting  as  a  means  of  utilil7.ii;g 
their  unproductive  acres. 


The  grape  yield  in  Ohio  has  been  very  satisfactory 
this  year,  although  there  were  serious  apprehensions 
of  a  failure  in  the  spring.  From  Putin-Bay  alone 
'iO,000  baskets  were  shipped.  They  have  fetched 
from  two  and  a-lialf  cents  a  jiound  for  Concords  lo 
six  cents  for  choice  Dehiwarcs.  Catawbas  have  sold 
for  four  cents  and  ujiward.  Wc  arc  now  using  the 
latter  grape  and  they  cannot  be  surpassed  liy  any 
out-door  grape  and  by  few  in-door. 


The  farmers  of  Minnesota  have  taken  hold  of  the 
tree  planting  liusiness  in  earnest.  Over  10,000,000 
of  cuttings  were  set  out  duriug  the  past  year,  most 
of  which  are  doing  well.  The  young  trees  consist 
largely  of  cottonwood  and  white  willow,  but  fliere  is 
also  a  liberal  sprinkling  of  maple,  larch,  white  oak, 
etc. 


1877, 


THE  LANCASTER   FARMER. 


i9l 


DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 


Economy  in  the  Use  of  Fuel. 
Much  money  Ib  waslcd  In  tlio  too  rajiiJ  conilpiislioii 
of  coal,  especially  wlicn  Uio  licaliiiK  apparatus  is  a 
furnace  lu  the  cellar.  If  tlii»  Is  left  tu  llie  uianage- 
inent  of  servants,  they  will  keep  the  (ire-box  full,  and 
all  the  damiiers  open,  with  the  Rrate-liars  red  hot 
below,  and  the  thermometer  amonj;  the  eitthties  In 
the  rooms  above.  This  Is  too  hot  for  beallli,  Injures 
doors  and  furniture,  uses  up  the  furnace,  and  wastes 
fuel.  In  runnlni:  a  furnace  for  the  last  tliree  years, 
wc  have  found  "  jiea  coal,"  which  is  the  screened 
refuse  of  the  coal  yard,  an  excellent  rcjrulator  of  the 
heat  and  a  great  saving  in  the  coal  bill.  It  is  often 
thrown  away  in  the  coal  yard,  and  when  sold,  can 
generally  be  had  at  half  the  price  of  furnace  coal,  or 
less.  It  contains  as  much  earbou  as  coal  of  larger 
Bl/.e,  and  if  the  combustion  is  properly  regulated, 
will  go  as  far  iu  heating  a  house.  For  all  that  is 
consumed  there  Is  a  reduction  of  one-half  In  thi!  cost. 
But  II  Is  of  special  service  in  the  regulation  of  the 
combustion  of  the  coarser  coal  In  moderate  weather, 
or  during  the  night,  when  a  lower  temperature  is 
desirable  for  sleeping  rooms.  Ordinarily,  a  furnace 
need  be  visited  but  three  times  a  day  to  keep  up  a 
comfortable  warmth  In  the  rooms  above.  Beginning 
in  the  morning  at  six  o'clock,  the  ashes  are  well 
shaken  down,  fresh  coarse  coal  Is  added,  and  a  thin 
layer  of  pea  coal  on  top  of  this.  This  process  Is  re- 
jieated  at  mid-day,  and  at  nine  or  ten  in  the  evening, 
on  retiring  for  tlie  night.  More  of  pea  coal  is  added 
at  the  last  visit,  to  check  the  combustion  for  the 
night.  In  the  morning  tlie  whole  mass  of  coal  in  the 
fire-lox  is  completely  ignited,  and  there  Is  a  good  fire 
to  begin  with.  More  or  less  of  pea  coal  is  used  ac- 
cording to  the  temperature  of  the  weather.  It  is  the 
best  regulator  of  combustion  we  have  ever  tried,  and 
saves  from  a  quarter  to  a  third  in  the  expenses  of 
heating  for  the  winter.  Tliis  Is  an  item  worth  look- 
ing after  iu   these   hard  times. — Americait   Ayricnl- 

tttrUt. 

^ ■ 

Extravagance. 
A  charming  and  intelligent  Freuehwoman,  who 
prides  herself  on  licingan  accomplished  housekeeper, 
declares  that  every  family  of  moderate  means  iu 
America  throws  away  enough  to  support  a  family  of 
equal  size.  She  can  prepare  dinner  Irom  food  which 
an  American  housekeeper  would  throw  away.  She 
says  it  is  distressing  to  see,  as  she  often  does,  a  man 
atmarket  buying  a  steak  from  the  round  because 
his  straightened  cireumslanecs  forbid  the  purchase 
of  choicer  cuts.  She  does  not  pity  him  because  it  is 
from  the  round,  but  for  the  wretched,  unpalatable 
manner  in  which  it  will  be  served  to  him  at  dinner, 
hardened  and  dried  liy  broiling,  instead  of  being 
stewed  with  vegetables  and  delicately  flavored  after 
the  French  method.  Wlicn  poverty  tries  the  soul 
and  empties  the  iKJcket-book,  high-priced  table  luxu- 
ries have  to  be  abandoned,  and  as  a  con.iequence 
cheaper  meats  and  inferior  cuts  are  bought,  and  a 
miserable,  inadequate,  poorly  supplied  table  Is  the 
result.  And  still  the  expenditure  is  far  beyond  that 
of  a  French  family,  who  will  fare  sumptuously  on 
half  the  money. 

A  Cure  for  Diptheria. 

Dr.  Chcnery,  of  Boston,  Is  honest  enough  to  pub- 
lish his  siiecific  for  the  cure  of  diptheria.  It  Is  hypo- 
sulphite of  soda.  He  says  it  is  a  sure  remedy  ;  that 
he  uses  it  in  his  practice,  and  has  cured  more  than 
one  hundred  and  fifty  cases.  We  sre  told  :  "A  dose 
of  hyposulphite  is  from  five  to  fifteen  grains  or  more 
in  syrup  every  two  or  three  hours,  according  to  the 
age'and  circumstances  of  the  patient.il'urging  Is  the 
one  evil  which  an  overdose  can  produce,  hence  aa 
much  as  the  patient  can  bear  without  producing  that 
result  is  a  good  rule  in  the  severer  cases.  Tlie  solu- 
tion or  mixture  can  be  used  in  doses  of  five  drops  to 
half  a  drachm  in  milk.  For  thorough  stimulation 
the  amount  is  greater  than  can  be  taken  in  water. 
Dr.  Chenery  usually  gives  the  speeifie  in  such  d  ^ses 
as  can  be  readily  taken  iu  milk,  using  milk  besides 
as  food  for  small  children.  It  is  said,  however,  that 
hyposulphite  prevents  the  digestion  of  milk,  and 
therefore  it  should  not  be  given  in  less  than  one  hour 
after  administering  the  medicine." 

Canada  claims  to  have  produced  the  largest 
cheese  on  record.  From  the  IngcrsoU  factory  has 
been  turned  out  a  cheese  weighing  7,00(1  pounds.  It 
was  6  feet  10  inches  In  diameter,  ;i  feet  in  height  and 
21  feet  in  circumference.  It  rcciuircd  one  milking  of 
7,000  cows,  or  3.5  tons  of  milk,  to  produce  It. 
^ 

Household   Recipes. 

MoLA^SEs  Fkuit  Cake.— 1  pound  of  sugar  and  % 
pound  of  butter,  beaten  to  a  cream.  Slightly  warm 
2  cups  of  molasses  and  mix  well  w  ith  the  butter  and 
sugar,  next  the  well-beaten  yolks  of  l!  eggs  and  ".j 
cup  of  sour  cream  ;  1  tablcsiioonful  of  cinnamon  and 
1  of  cloves;  1  t.ablespoonful  of  ginger  if  desired;  2 
pounds  of  sifted  flour,  with  the  well-beaten  whites  of 
6  eggs  ;  1  heaping  teaspoonful  of  soda,  dissolved  in 
bot  water,  and  at  the  last  1  pound  of  currauts,  well 


washed  and  dried.  Flour  the  fruit  well  before  mix- 
ing.    Bake  in  two  bread  pans  lu  a  slow  ovou. 

iRIiBPKOAC  IIAIM.E     WaY    tO     liKOII.     A     StFAK. — 

First  see  that  tlie  fire  is  clear  anil  not  too  much  of  it; 
oi>eu  wide  all  tlic  ilralts,  to  carry  oil'  the  smoke  that 
is  made  during  I  lie  process  of  boiling  ;  then  see  tliat 
the  gridiron  is  smooth  and  quite  clean  ;  rub  It 
well  with  whiting  or  chalk  ;  lay  on  your  steak.  Do 
not  (lound  it,  nor  after  it  is  In  the  Are  stick  a  fork  into 
it,  as  tlie  juice  will  escape.  Neither  salt  nor  |»epper 
it.  ;  do  that  fin  the  dish.  Placi*  the  gridiron  close  to 
the  lire  for  the  (Irst  few  minutes,  to  carbonize 
the  surface,  then  turn  it  over  quickly  to  carbonize  the 
other  side.  Now  it  should  be  exjiosed  to  a  slower 
fire,  to  do  which  place  two  bricks  on  thciredgcs,  and 
rest  the  gridiron  on  Hum.  The  steak  should  he 
turned  repeatedly  and  carefully,  and  when  it  feels 
rather  firm  to  the  touch  it  is  rare,  and,  if  so  liked,  it 
should  be  taken  olf,  laid  on  a  hot  dish,  on  which  1 '; 
ounces  of  butter  has  been  melted,  less  than  onc-hatf 
teaspoonful  of  salt,  a  pincli  of  white  pepper  and  one 
teaspoonful  of  chopped  parsley,  well  mixed  ;  lay  the 
steak  on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other.  Serve  Im- 
mediately. 

Smai,i,-Pox— To  Pki^vent  1"itti\o. — A  great 
discovery  Is  reiHirted  to  have  been  made  by  a  surgeon 
of  the  Kngllsh  army  In  China  to  jirevcnt  pitting  or 
marking  the  face.  The  mode  of  treatment  is  as 
follows  : 

When  in  small-pox  the  preceding  fever  is  at  Its 
hclglit,  and  just  before  the  eruption  appears,  the 
chest  Is  thoroughly  rubticd  witli  croton  oil  and  Tar- 
tar-emetic ointment.  This  causes  the  whole  of  the 
body  to  break  out  to  the  relief  of  the  rest.  It  also 
secures  a  full  and  complete  eruption,  and  thus  pre- 
vents the  disease  from  attacking  the  internal  organs. 
This  is  said  to  be  now  the  established  mixlc  of  treat- 
ment in  the  English  army  in  China,  by  general 
orders,  and  is  regarded  as  petfcctly  elfectual. 

CiKE  FOK  CiiAVi'ED  Hands. — One  part  of  glyce- 
rine, four  of  Pond's  Extract  or  Witch  Hazel,  four  of 
water  ;  put  In  a  bottle  and  shake  well ;  it  is  ready  for 
use  Immediately  ;  it  is  well  to  shake  thoroughly  each 
time  of  using. 

CoTTACiE  PiDDiN'ii. — One  cup  of  sugar,  two  and 
a  half  teaspoons  butler,  two  eggs,  one  cup  milk, one 
pint  flour,  two  teaspoons  baking  powder.  Serve  wilh 
wine  sauce. 

Chickens. — In  frying  chickens  we  try  to  have  the 
lard  very  hot,  spiukle  the  pieces  well  with  flour,  put 
them  in  and  cover  tiglitly  for  awhile,  cook  as  fast  as 
possible  without  burning.  After  a  little  while  take 
ofl:  the  lid,  season  wilh  salt  and  pepper,  and  if  brown 
turn  the  pieces  and  brown  again  as  fast  as  possible. 
We  think  the  meal  is  more  tender  and  much  more 
juicy  than  when  allowed  a  longtime  over  a  slow  lire. 

MrsH. — While  the  pot  of  water  is  boiling  stir  in 
the  sifted  meal  slowly,  beating  hard,  \\lien  thick 
enough,  until  the  whole  mass  is  smooth  and  then  we 
pour  11  out  into  a  crock  and  set  in  a  cool  place.  We 
generally  put  the  salt  in  the  water.  M'u  have  not 
yet  noticed  any  raw  taste  about  it. 

Cheese  and  Bueau  Toast. — Grate  half  a  cup  of 
good  cheese — use  your  cruinlis  and  dry  pieccB — mix 
with  It  one  cup  of  grated  bread  and  Hie  yolk  of  one 
egg,  half  a  spoonful  of  butter,  and  three  spoonfuls 
of  rich  cream.  Adda  salt  spoonful  of  salt,  and  a 
sprinkle  of  cayenne  and  mustard  if  desired.  Toast 
two  or  three  slices  of  bread,  spread  the  cheese  mix- 
ture on  quite  tliick,  put  into  the  oven  a  minute  or 
two,  and  send  to  table  hot.  Or  lay  on  a  lop  slice, 
and  make  sandwich.  Take  a  sharp  knife  and  cut 
into  four  pieces. 

CooKiNO  Potatoes. — The  Xcliraska  style  is  .-.s 
follows  :  Wash  them  well  in  cold  water,  cut  off  a 
small  piece  of  each  euil,  put  them  into  the  pot  and 
fill  up  with  the  coldest  water  you  can  get.  Do  this 
at  least  two  hours  bclbre  the  lime  to  |)ut  them  over 
the  fire,  then  boil i(uickly  until  ilone,  (by  fork  proof); 
take  olf  the  lire,  lay  tlienion  anapkin  in  their  jackets, 
cover  up  with  the  corners  and  serve. 

Indian  Mi'^kiss. — One  (niail  of  Indian  meal, 
scalded,  one  quart  of  wheat  flour,  stirred  in  the  meal 
when  cool,  one  dessert  sjioonful  of  salt,  one  lable- 
spoonful  of  melted  Initter,  four  tablesixionfuls  of 
condensed  eggs,  and  one-half  lake  of  compressed 
yeast,  or  two  cents'  worth  of  bakers'  yeast,  and  milk 
sullieient  to  form  a  si  ilf  batter.  If  for  breakfast,  sel 
over  night :  for  lunch,  early  in  the  morning. 

Mini  e  Pies  Without  Meat.— One  cupful  sugar, 
one  cupful  molasses,  one  cupful  water,  one  and  one- 
half  pounds  rai.slns,  (chopped,)  one-half  cupful 
weak  vinegar,  one-half  cupful  butter,  a  little  salt, 
three  eggs,  three  pounded  crackers,  spices  tosuit  the 
taste.     This  will  make  six  small  pies. 

LiNCH  Cake.— One  large  tablespoonful  butter  or 
lard  melted  In  one  cupful  hot  water,  two  ciipsftil 
molasses,  one  quart  Hour,  stir  two  teaspoonsful  bak- 
ing ])owdcr  into  the  molasses;  line  tin  with  buttered 
paper  and  bake. 

New  Enoi.and  SroNGEC'AKE.— Eight  eggs, their 
weight  in  sugar,  half  their  weight  in  flour,  a  lemon 
rind  grated,  and  add  juice  ;  beat  the  whiles  separate 
and  add  last;  line  the  pan  with  builered  paper,  and 
b»)ie  in  a  pretty  quick  oven  three-quarters  of  an  hour. 


LIVE  STOCK. 


Caring  for  Stock. 
This   Is  a   dally  ii|H'ration    now,  and,  until  grata 
grows  in  the  spring,  will  Ik'  the  most  ini|)<irtaiil  one 
on  tlie  farm.     Much  of  the  annual  profit  of  the  far- 
mer—  in   many  ea.'-es,  "'/  the   profit— ^Icpende    u|Hin 
his  skill  and  experience  In  feeding  and  inanaL'Ing  the 
stock  through  the  winter.    He  must  guard  against 
wasir  of  feed,  waste  of  flesh,  waste  of  vilalily,  for  all 
these    mean  a    waste  of  money.     Five   cents   a   day 
appears  like  a  small  siiiii,  but  when  it  applies  loan 
animal  in  loss  or  gain,  during  five  moiitlis  of  the  year, 
it  may   rejircsent   a   large  proportion  of  llio   entire 
year's  profit  or  loss,  as  the  case  may  be.    The  first 
care  of  the  farnwr  should  he  to  provide  warm  Bheltcr 
for  every  aiiiriial  he  possesses.     This  advice  has  been 
repeated  so  often  that   It  has   become  trite,  but    Ills 
just  as  good  ailviee  as    It    ever  was,  and    nine  out  of 
ten  farmers  can   still  iirofit  by   It,  though  they   may 
have  read  II   a  thousand    times,     .\lne-tenths  of  the 
cattle  sheds  and  stables  of  the  country  arc  not  half 
warm  enough    for  proiier   winter  prolccllon.     .More 
care    Is   given,  generally,  to   the    horse   stables,  but 
three-fourths   of  these    will    not    keep   the    animals 
comfortable  during  the  cold  weather  of  wlnt<'r  in  the 
Northern  States.     The  llooring  anil  the  sides  should 
be  absolutely  air-tight,  and   ventilation  provided   for 
at  the  top.    The  practice   of  tying  horses  up  with  a 
halter   should    be   abandoned.      Each   horse  should 
have  a  roomy   box,  with  a  door  nt  Ihe   rear   oix'iiing 
into  a  hall  or   piissaL'c  way.     The  manner   In  which 
horses  are  usually  tieil    up  lu  narrow  stalls,  wllh  no 
liberty  whatever.  Is  irinl,  and  Is  a  fruitful  source  of 
Injury.     Give  them  lilierty  of  moveinenl  and  room  to 
turn  round  and  lie   down  if  they   desire.     A    recent 
writer  asserts  that  the  teinperature  Inslilc  the  slablii 
should  be  but  little  higlicr  than  outside,  as  this  would 
avoid   sudden   change  from  warm  to  cold   and   vice 
vernii    In   taking   the  animals  In  ami  out.     He    Is   a 
merciful   man,   truly,   but   how  would   he   like   the 
apjilicat  Ion  of  his  theory   In  his   ownca.se?    Sudden 
and     extreme     altcralions     arj     to     be     avoided, 
of    course,     wherever     possible,     hut    this    writer 
did      not      take     into     consideralloii      the     dlflTer- 
cnce     bctwecu     the      state     of     rest     inside     the 
stable,     and     active     exercise     outside — a     diircr- 
cnee,    as    Captain    Cuttle     would    say,    "as    is    a 
dllfcrcnce."     Wi^wcml'l    not    advise   close,  unventi- 
latcd  stables,  but  if  they  are  made   warm  enough  to 
kccji  the  animals  from  shivering  and  the  dung  from 
freezing  to  them  whenever   they    lie   down,  and    are 
kept  clean,  we  would  rather  risk  them  than  the  well 
ventilated  stables  , so  commonly  seen — ventilated  all 
over,  sides,  floor  and  overhead. 

Feeding  ranks  in  importance  with  shelter,  in  a  con- 
sideration of  this  subject.  Every  farmer  thinks  he 
knows  just  how  to  Iced  to  the  licst  ailvantage,  and 
licrhaps  they  ilo  know  belter  than  they  practice. 
Most  farmers  could  improve  in  one  resi>eel,  at  least — 
and  that  is  giving  more  Yaricty  of  food.  How  com- 
mon is  the  practice  of  confining  callle  to  corn  fodder 
the  whole  winter,  and  horses  and  sheep  to  hay.  It 
would  be  easy  to  exchange  two  or  three  times  a  week 
— give  tlie  horses,  or  even  the  sheep,  a  bundle  of 
fodder,  and  the  callle  a  nip  of  nice  hay— and  yet  a 
great  many  never  do  this  much,  even.  A  feed  of 
I  roots  (KMa.sionally  woulil  contribute  ten  times  Its  cost 
to  the  welfare  of  the  animals— horses,  sheep,  cattle 
and  hogs— and  in  lieu  of  roots,  a  c(M)ked  meal  of 
chopped  hay,  or  fodder,  with  grain  or  meal  of  sonio 
kind,  would  answer  the  same  piirjiosc.  Furnish  a 
variety  somehow,  for  it  is  aa  necessary  to  animals  as 
to  men. 

Watering  Horses. 

This  subject  is  again  on  the  carpel,  and  llicie  arc 

as  many  views  as  lliere  are  w.ilcrs  as  to  when,  how 

often  and  how  much  water  a  horse  is  to  he  allowcil 

daily.     Some  think  oik  f  a  day  is  enough, some  twice, 

some  thrice,  ami  .-ome  that  water  should  always  be 

in  reach  of  a  horse  w  hen  in  the    stable  !     People  ae- 

cuslonied  to  use,  feed  and  water  horses  soon  find  out 

how  to  treat  them,  and  in  this  Irealmcnt  how  often 

I  they  should  be  w.iUred  daily.    Tluw  who  only  drive 

I  horses  and   know    nothing  "nuuc   about  them,  may 

j  neglect  them  through  ignorance  or  inaltcniion,  but 

must  understand  thai  Ihey  slioulil  be  watered  three 

'  times  a  dav  at  regular  intervals  wilh  cold  water  In 

I  summer,    if  it    can    be    had,    and     mild    water    in 

i  winter.     Pump  or  spiing  watir   ni-eis   these  coiidi- 

lioiis.     If  driven  tlicv  shcmlil   not    be  watered  until 

1  cooled  oil',  and  Ihen  t'liev  should   be  allowed  as  much 

I  H.-  they  can  drink,  and  not  driven  again  immediately 

after."  In  the  stable  these  Ihiiigs  settle   themselves. 

The  common    iiraetiee   Is   to  water    before  feeding. 

'  HoiFCB  watered   three  tlmrs  a  day— morning,  no<in 

and  night— will  be  iu  far  belter  condition  for  work  of 

anv  kind  than  if  watered  hall  a  dozen  times,  as  some 

'  people  driving  allow  their  horses  to  be.     They  will 

>weal  less  and  be  more  livi  ly.  and  we  believe  will  !«• 

1  in  better  health.     Once  a  d.i'y  or   twice  a  day  even  is 

I  not  sullieient,  though  horses  can  get  along  wilh  it  as 

I  can   cattle,  but   it   is  not  advisable  oj  humane.     Iu 

I  ftelds  where  there  are  full  watering-troughs  cattle 

will  be  found  to  go  to  them  aliout   three  times  a  day 

and  horacs  the  s&rae.—Ocrmantvun  Tclegiaph, 


192 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


[December,  IST^^ 


Take  Care  of  the  Horses. 

Tbe  Illinois  Humane  Society,  throusrh  an  appeal 
issued  by  their  committee,  make  the  iollowing  BUg- 
ffcstious,  which  owners  of  horees  will  save  their  own 
interests  by  attending  to. 

1.  Shoes. — If  horses  are  sharp  shod  in  icy  weather, 
they  will  pull  larcrer  loads  to  greater  advantage  ;  It 
is  poor  economy  to  neglect  the  proper  shoeing  of 
horses,  which  may  thus  be  seriously  injured. 

1!.  Blankets,  etc. — Horses  should  be  protected 
by  blankets  or  water-proof  covers  from  rain  or  snow, 
while  standing.  The  cost  of  a  blanket  is  very  small, 
and  its  use  would  repay  the  outlay  very  many  times. 

Any  wooleu  or  other  protection  placed  under  the 
pad  or  saddle,  and  extending  back  over  the  hips, 
will  be  found  very  useful,  as  protecting  a  weak  part 
of  the  animal. 

o.  Ci.iPi"iN«. — The  clipping  of  horses  at  this  sea- 
son is  considered  to  be,  at  least  imprudent,  and  by 
this  society  inhumane  ;  owners  are  respectfully  urged 
to  allow  the  animals  to  retain  the  covering  which 
nature  has  provided. 

i.  Check  Reins. — "Work  horses,  if  at  all,  should 
be  checked  very  low  ;  they  can  thus  pull  to  greater 
advautage,  protect  their  eyes  from  rain  or  snow,  and 
are  less  liable  to  stumble  or  injure  themselves.  It  will 
be  noticed  that  the  city  railway  companies  have 
largely  abandoned  the  use  of  check  reins. 

.5.  Bits. — It  is  prudent  to  warm  with  the  hands, 
or  otherwise,  bits  before  placing  them  in  the  horses' 

mouths. 

^ 

Knowing  Horses. 

A  few  mornings  since  the  milk  wagon  of  Mr.  S. 
Wm.  Cox,  near  Kosedale,  was  harnessed  and  brought 
tothedoorreadytogo  to  the  railway  station.  Mr.  Cox 
went  into  the  house  for  a  few  minutes,  leaving  "Bob" 
iinhitchd  as  was  the  usual  custom.  Bob  waited  for 
some  time  when,  probably  fearing  that  the  milk 
would  be  too  late  for  the  train,  he  trotted  off.  When 
the  owner  came  out  the  team  had  gone  and  he  started 
for  the  station  on  foot.  Arriving  there  he  found  that 
Bob  had  made  the  trip  in  good  order,  and  had  backed 
up  to  the  platform  where  "he  was  patiently  waiting 
fur  the  wagon  to  be  unloaded. 

This  animal  was  not  more  knowing  than  one  owned 
by  a  friend  of  ours  near  Marshallton.  Last  winter 
his  little  son  attended  school  a  mile  away.  In  the 
morning  he  rode  a  favorite  horse  to  the  school, 
where  on  being  turned  loose  he  trotted  home.  In  the 
evenings  he  was  again  turned  loose,  and  proceeding 
to  the  school  he  awaited  the  appearance  of  his  young 
master  to  be  ridden  home  again. — Keimett  Advance. 


Propagating  Rabbits. 

A  foreign  correspondent  of  that  veteran  journal, 
the  New  York  Eveuviq  Punt,  in  its  weekly  edition, 
speaks  of  the  propagation  of  rabbits  in  Italy,  a  busi- 
ness that  we  have  often  thought  could  be  profitably 
conducted  here  on  a  much  larger  scale  than  at 
]iresent.  The  correspondent  says  that  tbe  rearing  of 
rabbits  in  Upper  Italy  has  been  very  extensively 
pursued  for  years,  and  is  now  extending  Itself 
throughout  the  country.  For  the  jjclts  and  skins 
aloneof  this  little  animal,  Italy  i)ay6  foreign  coun- 
tries twelve  million  francs  annually.  As  an  article 
of  food  it  is  highly  esteemed,  and  iu  fact  almost  every 
portion  of  the  labbit  can  be  turned  to  profitable  ac- 
count. With  us  many  of  the  cheai)er  furs  for  sale 
are  made  of  the  skin  of  the  rabbit  which  is  dyed  in 
various  hues. 


LITERARY  AND  PERSONAL. 


School  Text  Books.— The  study  of  United  States 
History,  although  sadly  neglected  in  past  years,  has 
received  new  impetus  of  late,  largely  owing  to  the 
improvements  in  books  upon  that  subject.  We  have 
recently  given  some  attention  to  school  histories  and 
have  found  one  so  eminently  worthy  of  recommenda- 
tion as  to  deserve  more  than  a  passing  notice.  The 
book  referred  to  is  Prof.  Kidpat,h's  History  of  the 
United  States,  already  largely  in  use  in  this  State 
and  several  of  the  Western  States,  and  highly  com- 
mended wherever  its  merits  are  understood.  Ex- 
perienced educators  everywhere  vie  with  each  other 
in  the  heartiness  of  their  words  of  approval  for  its 
correctness,  beautiful  style,  elegant  illustrations, 
comprehensive  charts,  authoritative  maps,  and 
other  noteworthy  features ;  while  students  are  said 
to  seize  upon  and  devour  its  terse,  instructive  and 
entertaining  narrative  with  all  the  avidity  of  youth 
in  the  perusal  of  an  exciting  romance.  It  is  fact 
dressed  in  elegant  periods,  noble  diction,  impressive 
characterizations,  and  illuminted  by  appropriate  in- 
cident and  bcautilul  pictures.  Tbe  publishers  have 
made  the  most  elegant  and  attractive  school-book 
now  bef<jre  the  public. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  article  to  analyze  its 
merits  nor  indicate  all  the  details  in  which  it  is  supe- 
rior to  anything  of  the  kind  yet  seen  in  this  part  of 
the  country.'  A  notice  like  this  must  be  general, 
but  our  readers  will  thank  us  for  a  word  about  one 
valuable  feature  which  really  ought  to  be  seen  to  be 
adequately  appreciated.    Tbe  colored  cironological 


charts,  which  ehow  at  a  glance — what  cannot  be 
gleaned  from  t»e  text  of  any  history — the  men  and 
events  which  were  contemporaneous,  make  a  new 
and  valuable  feature  by  distinguished  merit  and  pe- 
culiar to  this  work.  More  than  fifty  topograpical 
diagrams  show  the  vicinity  of  every  battle  and  Im- 
portant event ;  and  the  maps — which  are  not  only 
geographical  but  civil  and  historical — show  the 
political  divisions  of  the  country  from  time  to  time, 
with  comprehensive  indices  of  our  territorial 
growth. 

It  is  as  neat  a  volume  in  its  physical  proportions, 
general  make-up  and  Ulustratloue,  as  one  would 
wish  to  see.  Its  publishers,  (Messrs.  Jones  Brothers 
&  Co.,  of  Philadelphia,  Cincinnati  and  Chicago,) 
have  spared  neither  pains  nor  expense  to  render  it 
acceptable  to  tx)th  eye  and  mind,  and  we  learn  they 
are  reaping  a  rich  reward  for  their  enterprise  and 
forethought  In  Its  large  sales.  If  our  citizens  look 
into  the  merits  of  this  history,  we  have  no  doubt  but 
that  the  sales  will  be  further  accelerated. 

Prof.  B.  F.  Shaub,  our  County  Superintendent,  en- 
dorses the  work  in  the  following  terms  : 

"I  have  carefully  examined  Kldpath's  History  of 
the  United  States.  I  like  it  in  every  respect.  In  ap- 
pearance it  is  the  most  attractive  school  history  that 
I  have  seen.  Its  matter  Is  well  selected  and  charm- 
ingly presented.  It  is  a  book  that  can  rest  on  its 
own  merit, 

Dickens'  Little  Folks.— Nothing  has  given  the 
writings  of  Charles  Dickens  so  strong  a  hold  upon 
the  hearts  of  parents  as  the  well-known  excellence 
of  his  portrayal  of  children  and  their  Interests. 
These  delineations  having  received  the  approval  of 
readers  of  mature  age,  it  seemed  a  worthy  effort  to 
make  the  joung  also  participants  in  the  emjoyment 
of  these  classic  fictions. 

With  this  view,  the  different  child  characters  have 
been  detached  from  the  large  mass  of  matter  with 
which  they  were  originally  connected,  and  presented 
in  the  author's  own  language,  to  a  new  class  of 
readers,  to  whom  the  little  volumes  will,  we  doubt 
not,  be  as  attractive  as  the  larger  originals  have  so 
long  proven  to  the  general  public. 

A  series  of  twelve  volumes  has  been  prepared, 
presenting,  among  others,  the  following  characters  : 
"Little  Paul,  from  Dombey  &  Son  ;  "Smlke,"  from 
Nicholas  Nlckleby  ;  "  Little  Nell,"  from  The  Old 
Curiosity  Shop;  "The  Child  Wife,"  from  David 
Copperfield,  to.,  Ac. 

A  new  edition  of  the  first  volume  of  this  scries, 
"Little  Paul,"  from  Dombey  &  Son,  has  just  been 
issued,  Illustrated  by  Darley,  and  attractively 
bound.  The  other  volumes  will  follow  at  short  in- 
tervals. 

For  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent  post-paid  for  ?1 
by  the  publisher,  John  R.  Anderson,  Hartford, 
Conn. 

Extracts  from  the  "Transactions  of  the  Academy 
of  Sciences  of  St.  Louis,  Vol.  III.  No.  4."  By  Chas. 
V.  Riley,  M.  A.,  Ph.  D.,  State  Entomologist  of  .Mis- 
souri. An  exceedingly  interesting  contribution  to 
natural  science,  in  a  well  executed  octavo  pamph- 
let of  .34  pages,  with  one  plate  containing  40  finely 
engraved  figures,  illustrating  the  Hypermetamor- 
phoses  of  Epicanta  and  ITorina,  insects  belonging  to 
the  family  of  "Blister  Beetles,"  or  Oil  Beetles  ;"  be- 
sides several  wood-cuts.  The  letter-press  relates 
mainly  to  the  "Larvae  Characters  and  Habits  of  the 
Blister  Beetles  belonging  to  the  genera  Macrobmit 
Lee,  and  F;ncan«a,  Falen ;  with  remarks  on  other 
species  of  the  family  Meloid^  ;"  and  especially  to  a 
remarkable  new  genus  in  said  family,  which  has 
been  found  infesting  the  cells  of  the  Mason  bee  in 
the  United  States ;  with  additional  notes  and  re- 
marks on  other  Insects.  It  is  very  probable  that 
these  papers  will  possess  little  interest  to  the  masses 
of  mankind,  but  to  those  who  are  laboring  in  the 
field  of  practical  entomology,  with  little  time  and 
few  oportunltlesto  make  personal  observations  on  the 
habits  of  insects,  they  will  bea  welcome  help  In  solv- 
ing problems  heretofore  dark  or  ambiguous,  and 
these  will  appreciate  the  labors  of  Prof.  Riley,  and 
accord  to  him  the  credit  due. 


Gone  on  Before,  O'er  the  River  of  Time.— 
A  most  magnificent  song  by  Prof.  P.  O.  Hudson, 
adapted  for  Organ  or  Piano,  and  most  respectfully 
and  affectionately  Inscribed  to  the  memory  of  a  be- 
loved comrade  and  brother.  Major  Joseph  Barton, 
who  was  for  a  number  of  years  a  member  of  the 
Continental  Vocalists  (with  the  author.)  Major 
Barton  passed  to  his  spirit  home  March  10th,  1877, 
at  Urbana,  Ohio.  The  song  will  no  doubt  become 
ver}'  popular  as  the  melody  is  beautiful  and  the 
words  are  well  adapted  to  it. 

l8t  Verse. 
Lov'd  ones  are  paeeing  from  shore  to  shorp, 
One  more  liaa  been  called  aud  gone  on  before, 
Gone  to  hifl  home  In  that  Ijeautiful  land. 
Where  angels  stand  watctilng  its  magical  strand. 
We  know  be  was  welcomed  by  friends  o'er  the  stream, 
When  mortal  we  oft  sang  as  "only  m  dream," 
Now  a  bright  spirit  In  splendor  is  seen, 
In  hie  new  home  of  em'rald,  Illy  and  green." 

4,-30.5  copies  were  sold  by  the  publisher, in  seven 
days.  Mostly  all  orders  in  advance  of  publication. 
Every  lover  of  music  should  buy  a  copy.  Price  40 
cents ;  mailed  upon  receipt  of  price,    Address  all 


orders  to  F.  W.  Helmick,  Music  Publisher,  50  West 
Fourth  Street,  Cincinnati,  O. 

Helmick's  Munical  Monthly,  35  cents  each  number 
or  $2..50  per  year. 

A  Manual  op  Vegetable  Plants  containing  tbe 
experiences  of  the  author  in  starting  all  those  kinds 
of  vegetables  which  are  most  difficult  for  a  novice  to 
produce  from  seeds.  With  the  best  methods  known 
for  combating  and  repeling  noxious  insects,  and  pre- 
venting the  diseases  to  which  garden  vegetation  is 
subject.  By  Isaac  F.  Tillinghast;  of  the  firm  of 
Tilllnghast  Brothers,  Growers  of  Plants  and  Seeds, 
Factoryville,  Wyoming  County,  Pa. 

This  is  a  neat  12  mo.  volume  of  over  one  hundred 
pages,  and  contains  a  large  amount  of  useful  matter, 
condensed  in  a  small  space,  that  is  highly  important 
to  nurserymen,  seedsmen,  market  gardeners  and 
farmers  geuerally.  This  little  work  sells  readily  at 
jl.OOacopy.  We  will  send  The  Lancaster  Far- 
mer to  any  address,  post  paid,  for  one  year,  and  a 
copy  of  this  book,  at  the  low  price  of  ?1.50. 

The  "Herald  of  Health"  for  1878,  will  be  a 
volume  of  great  importance  to  farmers  and  mechan- 
ics. Inasmuch  as  it  proposes  to  publish,  during  the 
year,  twelve  articles  especially  devoted  to  the  moral 
"and  physical  interests  of  these  classes  of  people ;  ■ 
besides  other  rich  and  varied  literature,  which  we 
shall  notice  more  fully  in  our  January  number. 
This  excellent  journal  is  published  by  Wood  &  IIol- 
brook,  i;i  and  15  Laight  street.  New  York,  at?1.00 
a  year.  The  Lancaster  Farmer  and  the  Herald 
of  Health  will  be  furnished  to  subscribers,  postage 
paid,  at  $1.50  a  year  in  advance.  Address  the  Editor 
or  Publisher  of  Farmer,  101  North  Queen  street, 
Lancaster,  Pa. 

Notice.— In  our  advertising  columns  is  noticed 
Stoddart's  Musical  Library,  a  serial  publication,  now 
under  way,  which  from  its  extraordinary  cheapness 
will  effect  a  revolution  in  the  music  publishing  inter- 
est. Messrs.  Stoddart  &  Co.  agree  to  give  for  the 
low  price  of  one  dime,  a  (joHection  of  the  most  popu- 
lar instrumental  and  vocal  music,  printed  on  full 
size  music  paper,  of  the  best  ([uality.  The  same 
amount  and  quality  iu  fact  as  would  costS1..50if 
published  separately.  This  is  a  step  in  the  right 
direction,  and  one  which  will  find  instant  and  hearty 
favor  with  those  whom  it  is  intended  to  benefit. 

The  Dominion  Farmer  and  Agricultural 
Gazette,  a  monthly  periodical  devoted  to  the  im- 
provement of  live  stock  and  the  interests  of 
stock  raisers,  dairymen  and  the  general  farmer. 
Oflftce  Main  street,  Drayton,  Ontario,  Canada.  Price 
50  cents.  Single  copies  5  cents.  By  Proctor  Brothers. 
No.  1  vol.  1,  issued  1.5th  of  November,  is  on  our 
table— an  eight-page  quarto— and  from  its  neat  ap- 
pearance and  solid  contents,  we  think  it  worthy  of 
encouragement,  and  tender  it  ahcarty  "  God  speed." 
Pretty  Little  Blue  Eyed  Stkangeh,  is  the 
title  of  one  of  the  prettiest  songs  we  have  ever  heard, 
it  was  composed  by  Bobby  Newcomb,  tbe  celebrated 
minstrel  professional.  The  melody  is  bound  to  cap- 
tivate every  lover  of  a  good  song  and  remain  fresh  in 
their  memory  a  lifetime.  Price,  35  cents  per  copy. 
For  sale  by  any  music  dealer  in  the  United  States,  or 
can  be  had  from  the  publisher,  F.  W.  Helmick,  .50 
West  Fourth  street,  Cincinnati,  O. 

VicKs'  Illustrated  Monthly  Magazine  for 
January,  1878,  is  on  our  table,  and  is  a  realization  of 
the  most  sanguine  anticipations  that  the  most  fas- 
tidious could  have  indulged,  from  its  announcement 
in  the  last  number  of  the  Floral  QiMe.  Its  frontis- 
piece, an  illustration  of  "  Phlox  and  Pansy,"  is 
superb.  Full  of  valuable  floral  literature,  aud  pro- 
fusely illustrated  from  beginning  to  end,  the  scenic 
aspect  of  which  is  "just  heavenly." 

"  Touch  Me  Gently,  Father  Time,"  is  the  title 
of  a  new  and  beautiful  song  and  chorus,  by  Charlie 
Baker,  author  of  the  famous  "  He  Holds  the  Fort  of 
Heaven."  Dealers  are  ordering  it  tiy  tbe  thousand. 
The  whole  couutry  will  soon  be  singing  "  Touch  me 
Gently,  Father  Time."  Any  music  dealer  will  mail 
you  this  beautiful  song  for  40  cents.  Published  by 
F.  W.  Helmick,  50  West  Fourth  street.  Cine  nnati, 
Ohio. 

The  Youno  Folks'  Monthly.- The  Christinas 
number  of  the  Young  Folks'  Monthly  comes  to  us 
full  of  good  things  for  old  and  young  ;  Stories,  .Ad- 
ventures, Charades,  Declamations,  Puzzles,  etc., 
etc.  This  Magazine  should  be  in  every  household 
where  entertaining  and  instructive  reading  is  want- 
ed. Only  Jl.OO  per  year.  Address  The  Young 
Folks'  Monthly,  Chicago,  111. 

;  We  are  under  obligations  to  .Mr.  A  C.  Veterling, 
of  Allegheny  city,  for  a  miniature  folio,  admirably 
compiled  and  tastefully  executed,  and  containing  the 
Ten  Commandments,  a  brief  summary  of  tbe  Doc- 
trines of  the  New  Church,  the  inspired  books  of  the 
Sacred  Scripture  and  the  Creed,  as  used  in  the  Pitts- 
burg New  Church  Sunday-school,  and  which  ought 
to  be  appreciated  and  used  by  Sunday-schools  ;)«i-  «<•. 
Photo-Electrotvpe  Art  Journal,  a  quarto 
illustrating  the  wonderful  new  art  of  photo-electro- 
typing,  by  which  pictures  on  any  subject  can  be  fur- 
nished at  a  very  low  price,  and  said  to  be  better  than 
wood,  and  nearly  equal  to  steel  or  copper.  Issued 
quarterly  at  25  cents  a  year.    Philadelphia,  Pa. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMERS 


III. 


Dyspepsia,       Dyspepsia.       Dyspepsia. 

Dj'flpesia  ifl  tho  most  perplexing  of  all  huinnu  nllnn-iitK. 
Ite  symptoms  are  almost  infinite  in  tbeir  variety,  ami  the 
forlorn  iiml  ilespondent  victims  of  the  tllHoaHO  often  fancy 
thtmBelvee  tlio  prey,  in  turn,  of  every  known  malady.  I  his 
1m  due,  in  pert,  to  tlio  deny  wympathy  whieh  exists  Itetweon 
the  stomach  and  the  brain,  and  in  part  also  to  the  fact  that 
any  disturbance  of  the  dl^jestive  function  iiccessaHIy  die- 
orders  the  liver,  the  bowels  and  the  norrous  system,  and 
affects,  to  some  extent,  the  quality  of  the  blood. 

E.  K.  Kuukere  IJitter  Winoof  Ircn  a  sure  cure.  This  is  not 
a  new  preparation,  to  lie  tried  and  found  wanliuR  ;  it  has 
been  preacribed  daily  for  many  in  the  practice  of  enjineut 
physicians  with  unparalleled  succeas;  it  is  not  expected  or  in- 
tended to  cure  all  the  diseases  to  which  tlni  human  family  is 
tubject,  but  is  warranted  to  cure  Dyspepsia  in  its  most  ob- 
Btinate  form.  Kunkel's  Bitter  Wine  of  Iron  never  fails  to 
cure.  Symptom's  of  Dyspepsia  are  loss  of  appetite,  wind 
and  rising  of  the  food,  dryness  of  the  month,  heartburn, 
disteSBion  of  tho'atomach  and  bowels,  constipation,  head- 
acho,  dizziness,  sleeplcssncHH,  and  low  spirits.  Try  tlio 
greut  remedy  anil  bo  couvinced  of  its  merits,  (let  the 
genuine.  Take  only  Kunkel's,  which  is  put  up  only  In  $1 
bottles.  Depot,  2J9  North  Ninth  St.,  Philadelphia.  Advice 
by  mail  free,  by  sending  'i  cent  stamp.  Try  one  bottle  of 
Kunkel's  Iron  and  bo  couvinced  of  itfl  merits.  Sold  by 
drggists  and  storekeepers  everywhere. 

"Worms.         "Worms.         "Worms. 

Removed  alive.  Tape  Worm  removed  alive  in  from  two 
to  three  hours,  with  vegctible  medicine,  Head  and  all  pass- 
iDg  from  the'system  alive.  No  fee  till  the  head  pasHes.  The 
Doctor  never  fails  to  remove  Tape,  Seat,  Pin  and  Stomach 
Worms.  Ask  your  druggist  for  a  bottle  of  Kunkel's  Worm 
Syrup.  Price,  $1  per  bottle.  It  never  fails  ;  or  send  to  Dr. 
Kunkol.  250  North  Ninth  Street,  Philadeli'hiu,  I'a.,  for  cir- 
cular with  full  instructions,  by  enclosing  3  cent  stamp  for 
I  of  same.    Kunkel's   Worm   Syrup  is  used  for  chil- 

Buy 


return  < 

dren  or  adults  with  perfect  safety,  as  it   ia  vegetable, 

it,  and  try  it. 


0^  0^  ■  W^  Oreut  chance  to  make  money.  If  you 
■  "■■I  II  cnii'e  get  gold  you  can  get  greenbacks. 
Iv  III  Mm  m^^"'  "•'^'^  ^  person  in  every  town  to  take 
%J|  \0  bia^  I  subscriptions  for  the  largest,  cheapest 
and  West  Illustrated  family  publication  in  the  world.  Any 
one  can  liecome  a  successful  agent.  The  most  elegant 
works  of  art  given  free  to  subficrlbt3r8.  The  price  is  so  low 
tli;it  almost  everybody  subscribes.  One  agent  reports  mak- 
iiit^  over  $150  in  a  week.  A  lady  agent  reports  taking  over 
4n7  eubscribers  in  10  days.  All  who  engage  make  money 
list.  You  can  devote  all  your  time  to  the  business,  or  only 
J  Dtir  spare  lime.  You  need  not  be  away  from  home  over 
nit^ht.  You  can  do  it  as  well  as  others.  Full  particulars, 
ilirections  and  terms  free.  Elegant  and  expensive  outfit 
I  lee.  If  you  want  profitable  work  send  us  your  address  at 
(.ince.  It  costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  No  one  who 
engages  fails  to  make  great  pay.  Addrtaa  "  The  People's 
.Jiiumal,"  Portland,  Maine, 
9-8-1 y 


$777! 


I  is  not  easily  earned  in  these  times, but  it  can  bo 
made  in  three  mouths  by  any  one  of  either 
sex,  in  any  part  of  the  country  who  is  willing 
to  work  steadily  at  the  employment  that  we 
furnish.  $66  per  week  in  jour  own  town.  You 
need  not  be  away  from  home  over  night.  You  can  give  your 
whole  time  to  the  work,  or  only  your  spare  moments.  It 
costs  nothing  to  try  the  business.  Terms  and  f5  Outfit  free. 
Address  at  oucc,  H.  Hallett  &  Co.,  Portland,  Maine. 
9-3~ly 

Half  Dozen  for     -     -     -     $6.00! 

SHIRT  FRONTS, 
CI 


D^uuuuiu, 
I.lneii  niMl  Pnprr  Collars  nnd  CiitrN 

SHIRTS  MADE  TO  ORDER 

AT 

E.  J.  ehisman'S, 

No.  no   North    Queen    Street, 
Second  door  from  Shober's  Hotel. 

9-l-ly 

NEWSPAPER 

ADVERTISING. 

A  book  contaihing  a  bst  of  towns  in  the  U.  S,.  having 
6,000  pop.,  and  the  newspaper  having  largest  circulation. 
All  the  Religious.  Agricultural,  Scientific,  and  other  special 
class  journals.  Tables  of  rates,  showing  coat  of  advertis- 
ing and  everything  which  au  advertiser  would  like  to  know. 
llUiled  on  receipt  of  ten  cents.     Address 

OFO.  I\  ROWEM<  A  CO., 
10  apruce-st.,  N,  Y.,  (opposite  "Tribune"  building). 
9-10-f.m ^_ 

GET  THE   BEST. 

Mnrrow^N  Pictorial  Family  Bible  and  En- 
cyclopedia or  Biblical  Knowlcdfcc,  contains  64 
I'lijiortant  features,  nearly  1,800  illustrations  and  many  fine 
1  litfs  byflustave  Dore  and  other  artists,  Genuine  morocco 
lui. lings  and  heavy  j'anel,  ten  style.s  and  prices.  Send  for 
t-irt-ulars  and  terms  to  agents.  H.  L,  MAItUOW  &  CO., 

Indianapolis,  lud. 

P  U  LM  O  N A 

Is  beyond  comparison  the  best  remedy  for  the  aire  of  ('ON- 

SUMl'TION  (EVEN  IN  ITS  MOST  ADVAMCKI)  STA(1Eh),.1  «?/(  mfl, 

Uronchxtas^  Catarrh,  and  all  derangements  of  the  NEUV- 
OUS  SYSTEM.  A  circular  containing  paktioui.akh  of 
MANY  CAS?,8  euccEssFULLV  TREATED,  fuIl  advise  for  the 
treatment  of  the  diseases  above  mentioned,  and  certificates 
of  actual  cures,  will  be  sent  free  by  mail  to  all  applicants. 
Address  OSCAR  G.MOSES,  Sole  Proprietor,  IS  Corllandt 
Street,  New  York.  9.10-Cm 


1877        POST-CENTENNIAL       1877 

CASSIMERES, 

COATI»i<JN,  :WUKSTERD8. 

TESTINGS,   SUITINGS, 

Meltons,  Ohiviots  and  Tweeds, 

Plain,  biinc'il,  Hliliifd  ulid  iliuKoiiiil.for  RjiriU);  and  Summer, 
at  the  Merchaut  TiiUoiiug  aud  Clothing  Store  of 

RATHVON  &  FISHER, 

(EBtablialied  in  the  year  IWO), 

Corner  of  North  Qncen  and  Orangc-Sts., 
LANCASTER,  PA. 

Extra  flnished  and  trimmed.  Ready-mado  Olothlug,  for 

MEN"  AND  BOYS, 

and  ololhiug  cut  or  made  to  order  iu  the  most  satisfactory 
manner. 

A  flue    line   of    GRNTS'  FORNISmNa   GOODS,  and 
goods  Bold  by  the  yard  or  piece. 


9-1 -ly 


RATHVON  &  FISHER, 


PraclionI  TnllorH. 


M.  HABEEBUSH, 

MANUFACTURER  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

KAUUI.EN. 

COLLARS,   "WHIPS,  &o., 

ALSO    DKAI.KU    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

BUFALO  KOBES, 

Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Gloves,  &c., 
No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-1-1  y  LAJ^OASTER,  PA. 


A  GREENHOUSE  AT  YOUR  DOOR,  1 

For  $1.00  we  will  send  free  by  mail,    | 

any  one  of  the  following  lots :           ■ 

8  distinct  rarlclicR,  Monthly  l{o909,WiDtcr  flowering.          ■ 

8 

"                     Cnrnntion  Pinkn,                " 

"                     Chinese  rhryftonthcraus,  " 

'*                     Znatil  GoranluuiBj              " 

"                     Duublo,        "                        '• 

'*^                  Ivy  LoBved  '*                        " 

"                     IU-liotropc§,                         " 

"                     Abulilons,                            »' 

*'                   Double  Camellai,              '* 

"                     Azfllean,                                " 

"                     Lobster  factus,                   " 

"                     itouvanlias,                          " 

"                     Strvlas  iind  EupatorluDU," 

"                     Double  Vinloti,                   " 

2 

"                     I'oiiiBftla,  rtcarlet  &  White,  do.  do. 

"                     I'lunibajio,  ili>.  do. 

8 

4 

e 

"                     Jlosseo,                       " 

e 

"                     Murantas,                  " 

8 

20  ii>gortcil  Tulipi,  D11I69.                                                            ■ 

50 

Croeus                                                                                 ■ 

2 

"        Jacobtfau  Lily,  Bulbs.                                                    ■ 

12 

OxmHn.                                                                                 ■ 

4I.ll)oflho  V.llcy,                                                                     ■ 

8N 

-VF  I'carl  TuboroBO.                                                                       M 

OR  BY  EXFBESS  :                                   ■ 

3  of  ony  01'  the  above  $1  colloctloni  for  13.                 ■ 
6       "                                                             3                  ■ 

I  ::                          t:       1 

II  ::                           ?:        1 

Or  the  whale  colloctlon  of  238  Rulbn  and  rianti  sent  by     H 

Ripruta  on  receipt  of  (l.'i.tMl,  to  which  ellhiT  ofour  booki,     H 

OAliDKNlNO    KOK   l-UdKIT,   1-KACTlCAL   KI.OKICl'L-     B 

Tl'llE,  or  OAllDKMXO  FOH    I'l.F.AHUIIE   (»«luo   tlJO     ■ 

cucli 

,  win  bv  added.     iPeeciiutlve  Ctlaloiruc  frou.                      ■ 

PETER  HENDERSON  &  CO.,          1 

SeeclHnirn  nn<l  FloriNlN,                 1 

35  Cortlandt  St.,  N.  T.    1 

^^^^H 

9-T-ly] 


GRACE'S    SALVE. 

A  Vesrelable  I'ropnrntion,  luvcntcd  in  tho  ITtli 
ceiitur>'  by  Dr.  William  (Irace,  BurKf^on  lu  King  Jamen' 
army.  Through  itB  agency  he  cured  thousandH  of  the  moM 
eerious  sores  and  wounda,  and  wan  regarded  by  all  who 
knew  him  as  a  puMic  bein'factor.  tiSc.  a  Ix>x,  by  mail  30c, 
For  Bale  by  drnKtfisU  generally, 

AGENTS  WANTED. 

AddroBB  CETH  W.  TOWLZ  £  SCHS,  Beaton,  lliii. 
9-lO-Cul 


H.  Z.  RHOADS. 


CHAS.  Q.  RHOADS. 


H.Z.  RHOADS  &BRO., 

38  West  King  Street,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

Vrbolcaole  anil  ReUU  Dealer*  In 

DIAMOMS,  WATCHES,  JEWELRY 

SILVEEWAEE,  SPECTACLES, 

BroQzes,  Cloclst  and  Watclini&kers'  Materials, 


Jobbers  in  i^MEiycAN  Watci^es. 


ORDERS  RECEIVED  FOR 
Special  Injportations  iij  Foreign  Goods. 


9-l-ly] 


REPAIRING  BY  SKILLFUL  WORKMEN. 


1823.      SEra  FOR     1878. 
NEW  YORK^'OBSERVER 

The  Best  Religiousand  Secular  Family  News- 

paper.     $3.15  a  Year,  post-paid. 

Established  1823. 

37  PARK  ROW,  NEW  YORK. 

SAMPLE  COPIES  FREE. 

9-in-Cra 

1760.       ESTABLISHED      1760. 
GEO.  M.  STEINMAN  &  CO., 

26  and  28  "West  King-st. 

HARDWARE, 

BUILDING  HAEDWAEE. 

GLASS, 

PAINTS,  OILS,  PVMP8, 

TERRA  COHA,  Mali  LEAD  PIPE, 

LEATHER    BELTING, 
SEEDS, 

PHOSPHATES  &  FARM  IMPLEMENTS. 


Afronta  for  tba 

''  Ohio  "  Reaper  and  Mower, 
Whann'e  Phosphate, 
Fairbank'a  Scales, 
Duponf  8  Powder, 
Harrisburg  Nails,  &o.,  &o. 


Wo  h«ve  the  l«r((Mt  dtock  of  d«ner»l  H.rdwire  in  (be 
State,  and  our  prlcce  are  an  low  auU  tornu  aa  lilxral  aa  can 
bo  found  elaewhere.  V-l-U. 


IV. 


THE  LANCASTR  FARMER. 


[December,  1877. 


LADIES  I 

WE  HAVE  JTJST  OPENED 


GUNDAKER'S 

MILLINERY  AND  TRIMMING 

STORE, 

A  NEW  LOT  OF 

aAMBORGEMBROIDEBEi)  EDGINGS 

AND 

INSERTINGS, 

AT  THE  VERY  LOWEST  PRICES.    Also, 

SILK  &  WORSTED  FRINGES, 

Corsets,  Kill  QIotcs, 

Linen  Collars  and  Cuffs,  Neckties  in  all  shades 
and  styles, 

craps:  ve:xi.s, 

CEAPE  BOXl«fETS  &  HATS, 

KUCHINGS, 
al!  styles  and  widths,  and  everything  else  in 

LADIES'    AND     CHILDREN'S     WEAR, 
that  is  good,  desirable  and  cheap.    . 
Give  us  a  call  at 

Nos.  142  &  144  North Qncen-st, Lancaster.,  Pa. 

9-l-lv 


i( 


OTTT  OF  -WOB-S." 


SONG    AND    CHORUS,     BY 

ALICE  IIA"WTHORNE. 
Author  of  **  Listen  to  the  Mocking  Bird,"  "  I'll  sail  the  seas 
over,"  '*  TVhat  is  Home  without  a  Mother/'  etc.,  etc. 
"  Out  of  work,  without  a  penny, 
Pleading  hel  i  before  thy  door, 
Without  friends  among  the  many — 
Ixjok  with  pity  on  the  poor." 
•  ,  *  One  of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  ballads  ever 
written,  will  give  the  author  a  more  extended  popularity 
than  anything  she  has  ever  written.    Price  35  cents — or, 
illustrated  title  page  40  cents. 

For  sale  at  all  music  stores,  or  will  be  sent  postpaid  on 
receipt  of  price  by  the  publishers. 

J.  M.  STODDART  &  CO., 
9-9  723  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia. 


ESTABLISHED  1832. 


a.    SENER   &  SONS, 

Manufacturers  and  dealers  in  all  kinds  of  rough  and 
finished 


X^UniBSFl, 


AIbo  Sash, 


The  best  Sawed  SHINOI.CS  iu  the  country. 
Doors,  Blinds,  Mouldings,  &c. 

PATENT  0.  G.  WEATHERBOARDING 

and  PATENT  BLINDS,  which  are  far  superior  to  any 
other.    Also  best  I'OAI^  constantly  on  hand. 

OFFICE  AND  YARD  : 

Northeast  Corner  of  Prince  and  Walnnt-sts., 

9-1-ly 


BS2TS02T,  BITRPES  <&  CO., 


OFFEE  FOR  SALE  A  FINE  LOT  OF 


THOROUGHBRED   LIVE   STOCK 

Including  Aldernej  ^nd  Ayrshira  0ATTL3J  and  CALVE3,  of  the  finest  hard  Rsgistered  Stock. 

PIGS  A  SPECIALTY. 


England.     YORKSHIKESot    our  Duke  H. 
ESSEX  PIGS. 


Barkshires  aired  by  our  Celebrated  Imported   Boar,   "  THE 

COLLIER;"  winner  of  Six  High  Honors  an  i  First  Prizes  In 

and  the  beat  importations  CHESTER  WHITE,  POLAND  CHINA  AND 


SHEEP  <&  LAMBS. 
SUPERIOR  POULTRY. 


SOUTHDOWN,    COTSWOLD, 
LAMBS. 


AND   LEICESTER   SHEEP    AND 


All  the  leading  varieties  of  best  class  LAND 
WATER  FOWLS. 


Breeder's  Alannnl  and  STew  IUn«trntpd  Descriptive  Cataloirae  «r  Thorongrhbred  C.tttle, 
Sheep,  HoR«,  Pnllnry.  etc.  Second  Edltlnn.  JlTsT  tlllT.  ContfiinInK  over  .50  Piis'cs  T»lo' 
able  Rendiue,  besides  10  Fnll  Page  Stock  Cntw,  from  life,  ol°  onr  nncst  liuportetl  itiid  Prize 
Animals  and  1'otcIs.    Price.  23  cents.  Postpaid.    Kvery  Farmer  needs  It. 

SEED  W^HEAT  AND  ALL  SEASONABLE  SEEDS. 

'B^Our  Annual  Illustrated  Descriptive  Seed  Catalogue,  for  18T8,  will  be  issuei  December  Ist,  offering  many  Choice 
Novelties.        It  may  be  had  Free  for  the  asking. 

BENSOIT,  BXTEPEB  Ss  GO-,  223  Chureh  Street,  Philadelphia, 

PX.'X'BSOtTTSC  ROCK   ^O'WTX.S. 

WE  know  no  breed  of  Poultry  that  has  gained  a  more  Wonderful  1  opularity.  in  so  short  a  time,  than  the  PLYMOUTH 
KOCKS.  This  popularity  is  wonderful  when  we  cjiisider  that  Pure  Bred  Poultry  is  chiefly  cultivated  by  Fan- 
ciers, whose  aim  Is  artistic  beauty,  and  the  Plymouth  Rocks  possess  few  fancy  points— iheir  merits  being  in  their  econom- 
ical qualities.  This  is  almost  the  only  breed  of  Poultry  iu  which  nothing  has  been  sacri&ed  for  mere  fancy.  They 
origiuated  by  crosses  of  several  breeds,  thus  gaining  great  vigor  and  streugth  of  constitutlou.  They  have  large,  well- 
shaped  bodies,  with  a  superabundance  of  choice  meat  on  the  breast  and  most  esteemed  parts.  They  will  attain  a  weight 
of  FIVE  POUNDS  at  four  months,  when  they  make  splendid  market  fowls,  while  the  Asiatics  are  not  ready  to  market 
until  eight  months  old.  The  Plymouth  Rocks  have  bright  yellow  legs,  free  from  any  feathers,  and  beautiful  yellow  skin. 
They  are  good  layers,  and  are  not  hard  to  break  from  sitting.  They  make  first-class  mothers,  and  the  chicks  are  hirdy 
and  easy  to  raise.  They  are  in  a  pre-eminent  degree  the  FARMER'S  FOWL,  combining  as  they  do  more  excellencies  for 
general  farm  use  than  any  other  breed  now  known.  They  pay  better  to  raise  pure  for  market  than  any  cross-breeds  or 
mongrels.  We  think  the  day  is  not  far  distant  when  these  fowls  will  be  bred  by  Farmers  everywhere  for  market.  The 
outlook  at  present  points  this  way,  as  all  farmers  who  have  tried  them  pronounce  them  all  that  can  be  desired.  The  de- 
mand for  them  already  far  eicoeda  expectancy— out -selling  now  any  other  breed. 

"W.  ATLBH  BXJHFBS.  Fhilfldelpliia,  Fa. 


For  NINETY  DAYS  FROM  DATE 
Elegant  Table  Silverware    i 

r-in  be  =6'- lire  J  by  nil  ''n  cinipUnne?  witli  ilio  f-ilLiwin:;  coinlitioiia:  ThcNiitinnnl  SlWer 
Plniliig  (■onumtiv.  704  rht>;tDUt  Stiwi,    riii:.i.li;l|(li  i:i,  m.iii'it;ic'_iiiprs  of    Piiie  Coin     i 
■-t  iiiJitnl  .^ilTcr-Vlaled  Wnfe.  ivill  HCii-I  l.i  i.uy  ntii.-  n  liu  irccJv.-s  Ihi^  iiolifO,  a  Sft  oT 

U  iii.ie  KxiiB-Plnte'l  Silver  S|io<iiis.  and  eugrave  ou  each  epoon  any  desired 

initial.  Yon  nrc  rpqmred  ti>  cut  on  I  lliu  rnlli.wiug  Silverware  Clou  [mil  iiu'l  3c  ud  1 1  to 
the  abu»e  Conipauj-.  wilh  tout  nnmi;  and  nd-lress.  and  aI«o  m  enclose  with  ll  75  cents 
m  pn_9  all  dim  gc.4,  irtcluding  cost  of  ciict  iwing  niiLinlN,  [.ntklug.  boxing,  and  exiTcsa 
cliirgeit.  The  S|ioonfl  will  be  Kt'tlt  >»r  fxpr.  s^  inf  mnil.  if  von  Imve  uo  eipress  fdrici;). 
mid  delivered  iu  yonr  hauil!i  niilioiii  fiutbcr  eoni.  1  lieie  Ppoi.m  ore  guarniite>.'-t  in  be 
of  tlie  best  ni-ileiial,  acd  equnl  lo  Ihr  besi  SiWer-Ptul-.-d  W.Trf  mode,  as  the  rollowius 
lelUr  from  the  ('(itnpcnjr  will  ICNiifr  ; 

OVPK-K  «.P  National  Rii.vru  Plating  Co.,  704  Chestnut  St..  PhSlnaelphia.  Pr. 

To  whom  it  may  Concern.— The  H(Kinn.s  sent  out  ualertliii  nrrau^^ctueiit 
wl  ^tmi  :iniL'i.' iii'L' of  bust  quiility,  lir^t  heavily  plat--''.  wiUi  pure  nlcLel  (the  hiifdcft 
wli!ie  nirlnl  known),  and  a  donblc-exlra  plnt'e  of  piiro  Cuiti-Siiinrtftrd  Silver  addi-d  oil 
i.ijMjf  the  11  cki'l,  thus  reiiderlni;  ihciu  tUt-  very  best  Slivor-Plated  Wnre  niuunfac- 
tiiie'l.  U'f  will  htiuur  no  order  which  dui-a  m.t  contain  the  -Silvei  ware  Conpou.  and  we 
will  n<-t  honor  the  Coupon  nfier  nim  iv  d:i\s  fn>m  the  d:i(e  of  thi'*  paper. 

ISigued]  NAl'ION AL  SILVER  PLATING  CO., 

704  Cheetnut  St..  Philadelphia. 


SII^VERM  AIEK   COUPON. 

On  rereiptof  this  nunpon,  together  with  75c'-nts  to  covt-r  all  charges,  inclnd- 
ne  express  or  nialliiii;,  cni^rnvlng  nnd  boxing,  we  hereliy  agree  to  ncud  to  any  ad- 
Iresfl  a  sot  of  our  pure  Cidii-Staiidiird  doulile-exlnt  pUtcd 

SI  LVER  SPOONS, 

.nd  on  each  Spoon  cngraAi,*  any  desired  iuiUal.  All  chiirgf?^  are  to  be  pripnid  by 
lif  75  cents  arut  us,  aud  the  Spooiis  will  t>e  delltcred  at  destination  fl-co  of  aD> 
ith-;-   'hnrBC. 

Good  for  nlnetT  dnv9  from  dnto  of  t'ii'<  pnpf^r,  nf*er  whicli  (hii  Ponpon  Is  null 
md  Toid.  [Slkned]         NATIONAL  SILVER  PLATING  CO., 

704  CheslMut  St.,  Philadelphia. 

Should  it  be  desired,  any  one  of  ihe  TollowinE  aiticles  will  be  sent  In 
lieu  of  the  SpooUH  oil  payniciii.  of  the  followintt  charges  :  Six  solid  steel 
knives,  bluduand  handle  o'ne  solid  piece,  best  st<>el. double  nickel  and  silver 
plaiod.  %'l\  si-x  f-rks.  double  nlekel  and  silver  plul^d.  9.t  uts.  If  all  tlioio 
(fnoda  are  desirdl,  enclose  the  tulnleharf^es,  which  will  be7o  ct«.  for  spoon », 
%i  for  kt;ivcs.  and  Vo  ct-i.  for  fork^— tolal.  $3.7it— thus  s«^oriiii:  for  8.1.70 
wliiii  would  CO  I  vou  niuih  in-ne  in  Juiy  other  wi.v.  Bcmember  that 
each  article,  except  knivea,  will  be  engraved  with  any  initial 
doaired  without  eJttra  cottt. 


IMPORTANT    NOTICE. 

ThH  lihcal  ofTor  hold«  good  for  only  ninety  d.iyf  from  date,  therefore 
iL  Is  lo  the  intercut  of  all  who  run  sei-nrc  its  beoellt«  to  ?>ee  lo  it  tbat  Ihey 
are  n>>t  dL-bam>d  by  reason  of  the  expiiiition  of  the  ilniespeclQcd.  Allk-t- 
tcra  urderii't;  Silverware  Hbuiild  be  liddressed  direol  to  the 

NATIONAl!.  SILVEU  PIRATING  CO., 

No.  704  Chestnut  Street. 

PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


AMOS  MILEY, 
108  North  Queen-st.,  Lancaster,  Pa., 

MANUFACTUEBB  OF  AND  DEALKB  IN 

Saddles,  Harness,  Collars, 

DridleB,  Wklps,  Sic.      Also  a  flno  lot  of  Trunks,  Valises, 
Carpet  Bags,  Buffalo  Robes. 

Harness  and  Trunks  neatly  repaired. 

9-l-ly 


A.  N.  BRENEMAN,  Jr., 

MAHUFAOTUEKE    OP 


FRENCH  CALF  BOOTS 

pon 
OENTLEMEjr. 


FRENCH  KID  BOOTS 

FOB 

I.ADIES. 

No.  36  West  King  Street, 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

DUNBAR'S  CHILD' S~silOES  A  SPECIALTY. 

9-I-ly 


Q    'V<aQr»     I  To  lobMribers  in 
O.     1  Ceil      ■(       Iho  oonnty. 


SINGLE  OOFZES  10  CE2TTS. 


To  ratwcrlbcn  out  of  )     d;  ■(    O  Q 
ibrcouuty.         (     >pl.^t-> 


Trot  S.  S.  EATHVON,  Editor. 


LANCASTER.  JANUARY  15,  1878. 


UNN^US  BATHVOW.  PubUiW. 


CONTENTS  OF  THIS  NUMBER. 

Our  Tenth  Volume,     ---...] 

Do  Bcfo  Keally  Destroy  Fruit,       -        -        -  1 
Pergonal,     -.---•--l 

Special  Premiums  for  1878,     -        -        -        .  2 

About  Mosquitoes,      --..--  2 

Only  a  Farmer,       .-•-..  2 

The  Horued  Owl,        -.--..  2 
Programme    of    .Meetlnp  of   the    Pennsylvania 

Board  of  Agriculture,  -----  3 
Breeding  Stock — She.*p  HuKbandry — Fruit  Grow- 
iug  by  Faruiera — Barriyiirrt  Miinure. 

About  Bate,        ..--.--  3 
A  RemaikiiLle  B:it  CaTe  ju  Bexar  County,  Texas. 

January,     - 3 

Kiu:heu-Gitr(len  Calendar. 

Standard  of  ExulU'nic  of  Berk»hire  Swine,     -  4 
Adojited  by  (be  Auiericau  Berkshire  APBOciBtiou. 

.Iapaue«e  Persimmon  or  Date  Plum,        -        -  4 

Mysteries  of  a  Cold  Air  Spring,    -        -        -  4 
Interesting  Dt-scriiition  of  the  Martie  Township 
Cave — Scientilic  TLeories  Concerning  It. 

Answer  to  a  Correspondent,      -        -        -        -  .") 

PodisrceofSliort-IIorued  Bull  Javeline,  23526,  -  .5 
Clul)bing,     -------          -5 

AddrcRS,          .......  5 

Care  of  Domestic  Animals,        -        .        .        .  fj 

Communication,     ------  6 

Kvivu  of  a  fu  ArticI  fl  in  the  Dec.  No. 

Ttie  Ilelianec  Kasplierry, 7 

Essay  on  JLinurc,     ------  7 

J.  B."(i.,  et.  al.,  vs.  Italian  Bees,      -        -        -  8 

Chemical  Ferlilizers,      .        .         -        .        -  i) 

."pceialtic*  in  Farming,      -----  9 

Cliolcra  jVmong  Fowls,          -        .        -        -  \o 
(iuinea  Fowls,     -------10 

Our  Local  Organizations,      -        -        -        -  11 

J*rt)ceediijgB  of  t!io  J,anoaster  County  Agricnltnral 

and    Ht'rtirulniral    Society — A  Little  Spice   by 

tlic  Way — Senator  Muninia. 

Tobacco  Groweis'  Association,     -        -        -        -  11 
Croii  Kejiorts — TltilizingToliacco  Stalks — Lime  on 
Tobacco  Land— Tobacco  iu  Bulk — Bills  Paid — 
Business  for  Next  Meeting. 

The  Liunican  Society,       -----  12 

Papers  Read. 

AGRICULTURAL, 

Agricultural  Outlook,  ------  l.T 

A  Portable  Fence,     ------  13 

Pulverizing  Manure.     ------  13 

Cost  of  11  Bushel  of  Wheat,     -        -        -        -  13 

Improving  Wheat,        ....--  13 

HORTICULTURAL. 

Cultivation  of  the  Lilac,     -----  13 

New  Vegetables,     ------  13 

Suggestions  About  Plants,        -        -        -        -  14 

Sowing  Flower  Seeds,  ------  14 

Bury  the  Rubbish, 14 

Rust  on  Blackberries,  ------  14 

A  Hint  to  (irape  Growers,        -        -        .        .  14 

DOMESTIC  ECONOMY. 

Scarlet  Fever,     -------  14 

Useful  nintt  for  Home,          ...        -  14 

Suggestive  to  Fault-Finder»,       .        -        .        .  14 

Household  Recipes,         -----  14 

LIVE  STOCK. 

Sheep  for  Profit,        .-.-..  15 
Animal  Instinct,   -------15 

Sheltering  Cattle,    ------  15 

ENTOMOLOQICAL. 

Somethlni;  About  Insects,         -        -        -        -  15 

A  New  Household  Pest,        -----  15 

CIrouuiventing  the  Turnip  Beetle,    -        -        -  15 


POULTRY. 

Poultry  and  Egg  Production,      -         -        -        -  1.5 

Give  the  Fowls'  Pure  Water,    -        .        -        .  15 

Something  for  Poultry  Men,        -        -        -        -  15 

Cabbages  for  Fowls,         -        -        .        .        .  1,'i 

Buckwheat,        -        - 15 

Feeding  Young  Chicks  on  Rice,    ...  16 

Coal  Ashes  for  Fowls,        -----  1(5 

Literary  and  Personal,  -----  16 


X878 


X878 


BARGi^lNS!    BpCi^lNS!! 

In  Winter  Clolhlnfr  Troni  now  nntil  the 
Oeioninij  Nprinf;  :  either 

READY   MADE, 


,  and  Centre  Square,  Lancaster,  Fa. 


EDW.  J.  ZAHM, 

DBALKB   IV 

AMERICAN  AND  FOREIGN 

WATCHES, 

SOLID  SILVER  &  SILVER  PLATED  WARE. 
CLOCKS, 

JEWELRY  I  TABLE  CUTLERY. 

Solo  A^ent  for  Iho  Ainndel  Tinted 

OR  MADE  PROMPTLY  TO  ORDER,         OJrJ:lJ^..>'±i^^^J_,IZJO. 

ItrpairJTiR  ptrictlv  :i(trt|(]oil  to 
at  the  Ola  ftaml  vt 

RATHVON  &  FISHER,  i»„«^*™'^°°^"'^''- 

NO,  101  NORTH  QUEEN  ST., 

LANCASTER,  PA. 

Clotlis,  Cassimers,  Mlmj  and  Worsted  fioofls 

in  (V'airiil'Ic  Htyk-n. 
ALSO  A  GKNKKAI.  LINE  OF 

UNDERCL0THIN6&FURNI8H1N6  GOODS, 

as  cheap  as  the  cheapeBt  and  ae  ^ood  aa  the  best. 

M.  HABERBUSH, 

MANUFACTURED  OF 

Plain  and  Fine  Harness, 

SAItltl.KN, 

COLLARS,  WHIPS,  FLY  NETS.  &c., 

AI.IJO   DEALER    IN 

TRUNKS,    TRAVELING    BAGS, 

Bur.vi.o  i{(iBi;s. 
Horse  Covers,  Lap-Rugs,  Q-loves,  &c., 

No.  30  Penn  Square, 

9-I-lT  I.ANCASTI.U.  PA. 


>  J'TT'fVf'  / 


GRAND  TRIUMPH  IN  HORTICULTURE. 

The  cri.iwiiinK  rcwnll  <if  ICiiihtt^u    iieam  of   c;ire   uiid  lull — 

The  CinilerellaniuM'oniinentiil  S4rnwl*errieH 
and  Karly  Frulllic  uud  ICvllaiirc  Itaspbrrrien  iB 

DOW  uffered  to  tbe  I'ublic  ;  Tewieil  5iine  rei%ri».  unti  in 
our   judfcmeut    the    Four     lleHt    I'nylnfc    .Hnrkei 
Berries. 
tW  Oatalooue  aud  Tbicc  List  Fret. 

tilBSO^f  A  BENNETT. 
Nurserymen  and  Fruit  Grower*,  Woodbury,  N.  J. 


Fifty  pages— ytH)IliuBtralioue,  with  DeHcriptionrt  of  tlion- 
Biiiids  of  the  IjCf^t  FiowprH  and  Vft/i-tftblps  iu  the  world,  nud 
the  tray  to  ^row  thim—-Al  for  a.  Two  Cent  postage  Htamp. 
l^riuled  111  (^ii^ruiiiu  :,\ui  l.titili^li, 

Vick's  Flower  and  Vegetable  Garden,  50  cents  io 
I»ai  rr  rovcvi* ;  in  eietf.Mit  cloth  r-ners,  Jlj'it. 

Vick's  Illustrated  Monthly  Magazine.— :)-J)>affe*i  fine 
Illiislmtious,  and  ^.'olored  I'Ulf  in  ivtry  uiiniljer,  I'lioe 
fUW  :i  yvar  •  Five  cojiee  lor  J.'.tiii. 

Adilri-bH,  -TAMES  VICK.  KnrL'etor,  N.  Y. 

DOLLAR-AND-A-HALF  FOR  TEN  GENTS. 

StoililnrtVx  Mittticnt  I.ihrart/.  just  jubliithed,  13 
paRCB,  full  ei?,*',  l>et«t  ;imt  nn»ff  i-opular  niUHit- for  lOccutfl. 
y^w  ami  Popalar  SowiSy  Jktncr  aiui  Injirn/tuftifal  M%tMc, 
OperaM,  Jfymnn,  etc.,  etf.  For  Bait*  by  nil  newHjiupor  deal- 
er*:.  rowlage  *2  ct*ut«,  to  be  sent  in  addition  to  alcove,  if 
ordere*!  from  tbd  pnblifibeni. 

J.  M.  sTonnAitn  &  co., 

0\2-^t]  T2.1  (Mi-.KTNrr  SijiKii.  riiii.&mi.iMiiA. 


CHRONIC 


l-ntbn  innrk^d  out  by  (bat 
idiilneMl  of  all  booka — 
•I'Uiiu  Hoin«'  T:ilk  and 
Medical  Common  Sonao,'' 
— u«uirly  1,'HH>  i  atJ*'8,  'J'Kt  illiiatrntioufl,  by  Pr.  K.  IJ.  FooTE, 
of  I'jfN  Islington  Ave..  N.  T.  rurcbawr*  of  iblp  li-»ok  are 
at  lilMTty  toeoiiMi/l  ttH  author  in  per»on  or  by  null  frte 
Pncf- by  mail$;i.2.'i  for  the  ^S/a/if/zitv/  tnliMon.  or  $1,50  foi 
the /*o/)t4/ar  cflitioii.  which  contuinn  all  ibo  name  niattei 
nud  lUuKtratiouH.     ('outiuts  tiibleH  free.    Aft^ntn  Wttnte-d. 

MT'RUAT  HIM,  prUIJSKTNG  CO  . 
O-lO-ly  tliJi>  J-H***  2*»th  SI.  N.  Y. 

FREE. 

For  a  Clab  for  either  tbe  Eureka  Shirt  or  Dreaa  Chart,  I 
will  Reod  a  Chart  free  on  receipt  of  25  cti*.  to  pay  for  mount- 
ing and  portage.  Mm^-.  A.  J.  MARKOW, 

Indian  a  poUa,  jud. 


ir. 


THE  LANCASTER  FARMER. 


S<-HEDlTI.Ii:. 

as  fr)llows  : 

Ari-ive 
Harrisburg. 
4;it5  a.  m. 
7:5tJ  a.  ni, 
111:411  a.  111. 
Ool.    S.OO  p.  m. 
1:00  p.  m. 
1:25  p.  m. 
l::w  p.  in. 
^:'15  p.  m. 
Col.  2:4.5  p.  m. 
j      S:10  p.  m. 
I  Col.  siiio  p.  m. 
s:4ii  p.  m. 
10:."iii  p.  ui. 
12:45  a.  m. 

Philadelphia. 
3:110  a.  m. 
7:00  a.  m. 
10:110  a.  m. 
12:30  p.  m. 
3;45  p.  in. 
5:00  p.  Ul. 
(i:00  p.m. 
7:20  p.  m. 
9:00  p.m. 
The  H;inover  ,\ccomniodatiou,  wet^t,  connects  at  Lancaster 
with  Kia^iara  Express,   west,  at  0:35  a.  m.,  and  wiU  run 
throufih  to  Ilanovei'. 

The  Frederick  Accommodation,  west,  connects  at  Lancas- 
ter with  Fast  Line,  west,  at  2:10  p.  m..  and  luus  to  Frederick. 
The  Pacific  Exprf-sp,  ej^et,  on  Sini'lay,  -vvlieu  flnggi-d.  v;\\' 
stop  at  Middletown,  Elizabethtown,  Mount  -Joy  and  Laudis- 
viDe. 
.    *The  only  trains  which  run  daily. 

tRnns  d;iily,  t-xcrevit  Mi>ndiv>\ 

EVEE?  BEE-SEEPES  SHOULD  SEAB  TES 


PEXXSYI-VANIA  KAII<ROAI> 
Trains  leave  the  Depot  in  this  city, 

I         Leave 

WEST\V.\RD.  Lancaster. 

Pacitic  Express" i  2:40  a.  m. 

Way  Patseugert  '  4:50  .a.m. 

Niagara  Expref-s 9.35  a.  m. 

Col.  Accoiiimodatiou I  7:20  p.m. 

Mail  trail]  via  Mt.  -Toy j  11:20a.  m. 

No.  2  via  Columbia :  11:20  a.  in. 

Sunday  MaU i  11:20  a.  m. 

Fast  Line" 2:10 1'.m 

Fro'b^j-ick  .\rcomniodatiou . '  2:13  p.  in, 

Hun-isburg  .\cconi |  6:00  p.m. 

Columbia  ,\ccommodatiou.. :  7:20  p.  in. 

Harrifibui-g  Express i  7:25p,in. 

,PittsbnrK   Express 9:25  p.m. 

Cincinnati  Express' 11:30  p.  ni. 

E.\KTWARD.  Lancaster. 

Atlantic  Express' |  12:30  a.  m. 

Philadelphia  F.xpresst 4:10  a.  m. 

HalTisbiirg  Express 7::i5  a.  m. 

Columbia  ,\ccoinniOiIatiou..  9.2.S  p.  m. 

Pacific  Express  ■. ;  1:20  p.  m. 

Sunday  Mail 2:00  p.  m. 

Johnstown  Express 3:05  p.  ra. 

Day  Express* ■  5:iS  p.  m. 

Harrisburg  Accom 5:.50  p.  m. 


An  eleeant  36  ]i:iee  MontliW  devoteft  to 

SOIENTinC  AHD  PSACTICAL  BEE-OULTDEE. 

Th"  most.  8U'-'cc3iful  End  experienced  Bce-ilaslerJ  in  Ainenc* 
lire  its  regular  correspondents.   It  i«  the  Olokst,  Largest  »nd 

BEST  BEE  PAPER  IN  THE  WORLD; 

TWU  liOLI.Ar.S  A  VKAR.    Specimen  Copy  10  cts.     Addresa 

7I1011. 3,  Hewman  <e  Son,  971 W.  Uadison  St.  Cliicagi!. 
9-12-2-t 

TO  AGEHTS. 

Tlie  Gsntury  Ci  art. 

A  100-yenr  Alruaiiiic.  whereby  yon  vm  ascertain  what  day 
Ofthcweek  Kiiy  day  of  the  mouth  is  or  whiit  day  of  the 
mouth  any  day  of  the  week  is,  waB.  or  will  be.  from  1799  to 
1900,  or  iii  what  duy  auy  event  lias  takeu  place,  from  1799 
.  to  190iJ,  :!ud  HWO'other  ocL-urreiioes.  The  gresitest  in-  -^ 
5  ventioii  of  luau.  Every  )  ersoii  will  buy  one;  also  the  -C 
'fS  great  K;,'yijtiau  Puzzle.  Sport  for  .all.  Kithei*  article  = 
e  seut  on  receipt  of  2-5c.  po^t  paid,  or  $1  per  dozen.  *■ 
^  Ageute  wanted  everywhere.  L-.idies  and  Geuts  secure 
your  towu  uf  oiico.  Yuu  can  make  $20  per  week.  Send  for 
sample. 


n-12-fim] 


KOiISS  BRO'S.  Sovdtv  Dealer ;. 

in.l  and  10)  Washington  St.,"CHlrAU(.l.  111. 


A    FARMER'S    FORTUNE. 

The  plaee  to  learn  how  it  maybe  obtaiued  is  the  Grea 
Ameki:'.a.n  Stock  Jouhnal,  a  large  24  i-age  monthly,  one  of 
the  chenpest  and  best  Tarm  Magazines  in  the  country.  Tells 
about  Farming  and  Stock  Raisiup  iu  all  its  branchee.  No 
farmer's  Family  should  be  without  it,  as  it  will  save  many 
times  its  cost. 

and  a  desiie  to  pliict'  it  ia  the  hiwAs  o:'  all.  li-d  us  to  make 
the  liberal  otTer  of  seuding  it  thr<-u  n;oiiths  on  tri;il  for 

TWO    DIMES. 

Liberal  pi-finiuins,  a  spccnicn  cn);y  and  sho'v  bills  free  to 
oil  who  will  use  them.  All  who  siUwcribe  before  .January 
let,  18T8,  h'et  the  October,  November  and  Jiecembev  num- 
ters  fieo.  Addresa,  POTTS  BUOTHEBS,  Parliescurg, 
Chester  co..  I'a. [9-ll-3m. 

A  TR-JE  FAEMSE'S  PAPES. 

SGIENTIG  FARMER. 

BOSTOV.  n.VSSi. 

revotca  to  tlic  Interesis  ol  ProfilaWe  AgncnltirB. 

"Its  dei.aitnients  lucludr  CHK.Misriiv.  Botaxv  and    IIon- 

TICUl.TVRK,  DaIIcT  ANP  STOCK  VETFIUNARY,  ENTOMOLOGI- 
CAL   The  li'irUD,  CONFKKENCE  COBSEB  and    MISCECLASE- 

o^jsLou  Parin  Practice.  Kncal  .Architecture.  The  Farmer 
in  Polilics,  etc.— all  being  conducted  on  that  idea  of  cor- 
rectness which  is  to  advance  the  farm  profit,  and  lift  Agri- 
culture iu  a  higher  social  position. 

Circulates  in  Every  State  and  Territory. 
Subscrilitiou  price  only  Jl.l'o  per  y.-ar,     Vend  stami)  for 
samide  copy  and  circular  ol  Special  /•n-mmni.f  and    itufnce- 
menis  for  r/.)':.-. ^ P'-" '-*"'■ 

P  U  I-  M  O  N  A 

ia  beyond  comparison  the  best  remedy  for  the  rurc  ot  CON- 
SUMPTION (EVEN  IN  ITS  MOST  ADVANCED  STAliEs),.l.>{f/inia, 

Bronchitan.  Catarrh,  and  all  derangements  of  the  NERV- 
OUS SYSTEM.      A  circular  containing  PAitTicnnAKS  of 

MANT  CASES    SX'CCESSFULI-Y    TREATED,  full    advise    fOT    the 

treatment  of  the  diseases  above  mentioned,  and  certificates 
of  actual  cures,  will  lie  sent  free  by  mail  to  all  applicants. 
Address  OSCAR  G.  MOSES,  Sole  Proprietor,  IS  Cortlandt 
Street,  New  York,  9.10-6m 


THAT  HEAD  OF  MINE. 

If  you  would  know  what  it  contains,  read  the 
"Phrenological  Journal."  Terms,  $2  a  year  (reduced 
from  $3).  with  a  beautiful  Phr-nological  Bust  of 
Plaster  of  Paris,  nearly  life-size,  as  Premium  to  each 
subscriber. 

THE  PHRENOLOGICAL 

Has  been  published  for  forty  years,  is  widely  and  favorably 
known,  iccupviug  a  place  peculiarlv  its  own,  devoted  to  the 
siudy  of  HUMAN  NATUKK  in  uJl  its  pUnses,  mcluding 
Phrenology,  Piiysiognniny.  Ethnolpgy.  Physiology,  etc., 
together  with  the  *•  Science  of  Ukalth,"  and  no  expense 
wi'l  be  sjiared  to  raak?  it  the  bcs'  -iinblicitiou  for  general 
ciiculatiou,  tending  ahvays  (o  •u;;ke  men  better  phypically, 
mentally,  and  morally.  'I'ite  JntTnNAL  for  ISTs  will  contain 
a  series  of  carefully-prepared  papers  on  Pkaotical  Purkn- 
OLOGY.  called 

"BRAIN  AND  MIND." 

These  will  be  amply  iliuKtrated,  and.  with  the  Pkemium 
Bust,  will  furnish  the  reiider  witli  a  clear  exposition  of  the 
Science  iu  its  various  departments.  Also,  a  special  series 
of  papei's  on 

"The  Training  of  Children," 

Basides  the  Portrait  aud  Biograpbioiil  iSketch  Department' 
which  will  be  fully  Muppiicd.  and  eacli  Xo.  will  contain  uhc 
ful  suggestions  on  Home  and  Sanitary  Jlatterw, 

A  PREMIUM  HEAD. 

To  each  subsciiber  we  will  ppiid  a  IN.odel  Phreuologinal 
Head,  or  Bust,  showing  the  esucl:  locaiiou  of  each  of  the 
Phrenological  Organs— a  very  oruamental  figure  made  in 
Plaster  of  Paris.  25  cents  extra  for  boxing  and  packing 
each  Bust  must  be  sent.  Large  size  will  be  sent  by  express, 
or  No.  -i,  smaller,  by  nmil,  post-paid. 

PRICE   REDUCED. 

The  jirice  of  The  Juurnai.  is  reduced  from  $3  to  $*2  a 
year.    Single  Noh.  iit  ceuta.  , 

AGENTS  WANTEP.  Keud  10  cents  for  Specimen  No. 
and  TenuH,     Addre:-« 


10-1-lm] 


S.  R.  WELLS  &  CO..  Publishers, 


7'i'3'  SSr^sjKlnny,  Xow  York. 


J.  STAUFFER, 


WiMM  II  I 


t-'    t-   T-'. 

LANCASTER,  f ENN'A. 
23S  EAST  ORANGE  ST. 


All  matters  appertaining  to  UNITED  STATES  or  CAN.a- 
DIAN  PATENTS,  TKADE  MARKS,  and  I'uPYRIGHTH. 
promptly  attended  to.  His  experience,  succedifi  aid  faithful 
atentiou  to  the  interests  of  those  who  engago  bis  services 
are  fully  ackuowledged  and  api-reciated. 

Preliminary  examinations  made  for  him  by  a  reliable  Ajj 
sistant  at  Washington,  without  extra  charge  for  drawing 
or  description.  [U-l-tf 


My  amuial  Catalogue  of  Vegetable  and  Flower  Seed  for 
1878  will  be  sen!  FUKE,  in  Jjnuarj,  to  all  who  apply.  Cus- 
tomers of  last  season  nee  1  not  write  for  it.  I  oflfer  one  of 
the  la.rge8t  coUeci ions  of  vegetable  seed  ever  sent  out  by 
any  seed  house  iu  America,  a  large  jmrtion  of  which  wer« 
gvcwu  OH  my  six  seed  farniH.  Prwted dirertionn  forndtiva- 
fiitn  nn  each  jmcfcafje.  All  seed  sold  from  mv  eatablishnient 
warranted  to  be  both  fiesh  and  trne  to  nani'-;  so  far  that 
Hlinuld  it  prove  otherwise  I  will  retill  the  order  gratis.  Aa 
the  original  introdncer  of  the  Hubbard  and  Marblehead 
Squashes,  the  Marbleh*'ad  Cabbages,  and  a  score  of  other 
new  vegetables,  I  invite  the  patrnnn,''t'  of  aU  T'hnare  anxious 
to  have  their  xeed DIRECTLY' FROM TlIK GliOWEltJreah. 
true,  a?id  of  the  very  he-it  strain,  A'ftv  I'cffftuhles  a  spe-^ 
cialtif. 

9-l-2-4m]       JAMES  J.  H.  GREGORY,  Marblehead,  MaOT. 

ADVERTISING. 

$t.O0O  WORTH  FOR  $$^.50. 

The  cheaiiest  and  besf  way  to  reach  readers  outside  Of 
the  large  cities  is  by  using  one  or  more  of  our  six  lists  of 
over  1«000  newspapers,  divided  to  cover  difl'erent  sec- 
iious  ot  tho  country.      M'eekly    i'ircolalion    ov«r 

<(<><>. 000.  Advsrtiseujents  received  for  one  or  more  lieta. 
For  catalogues  containing  names  of    papers,  aud  other  in* 

formation  aud  for  eatinuites,  address 

SEALS  i  rOSTEE,  41  Park  Eow  (Timee  Bailding),  New  7wk. 

HULL  &  SCOTNEY, 

GENERAL 

COMMISSION 

MERCHANTS, 

No.  346  North  Water  Street. 

PHILADELPHIA, 

and  wholesale  dealej-wa  iu  Butter,  Cheese,  Lard,  Tallow, 
Eggs.  Piiultry,  Gauie,  Stock,  Pot.atoes,  Apples,  Graiu, 
•nTTmfriTTn  Flour,  Fur,  Wool,  Cotton.  Kice,  Tobacco, 
nil  I  I  H  W  Pe;inuls.  Broom  Corn,  Dried  Fruit,  Hay, 
UU  1  xijil.  Hops.  Foreign  aud  Donjestic  Fruits,  aud  in 
fact  we  can  sell  any  and  cverythiugat  the  highe.it  market 
price  ;  make  prompt     ftn'Tl'nn'n      returns,  and  LIRE- 

made  on  all  ship-  UilIllUUJJ,  ments  except  periah- 
able  articles.  To  show  that  we  do  au  extensive  business, 
any  game  dealer  in  Philadelphia  will  tell 
Tou  we  handled  more  game  last  season 
than  all  other  Houses  iu  Philadelphia  jiit 
together.  Send  for  price  Eist,  Stcncd,  &c.,  &c.  REFE- 
Sli-:\CK  CASH,  or  we  refer  you  to  AWY  RENPOST- 
.•ilBI.E  IIOl  NE  iu  ttlR  t'l  I'Y. 


EGGS. 


POETRY. 

c,  &c.      REFE- 
WY  REN  POST- 

GAME. 


THS     BEST     OFFER  I 

We  will  ei'U  dutmg  tho^f  hard  tinier 

$510  Hanos  for  $210, 

And  all  oih.er  styles  in  the  same  proyortion,  iucludiug  Grand, 
Squ.ire  aud  Upright— all  /irst-c/as-— sold  direct  to  the  people 
at  factory  prices.  No  agents;  no  oonimissious;  no  discounts. 
These  Pianos  made  one  of  the  fiuest  displays  at  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  aud  were  uuauhnously  reeummeudedfor 
the  Highest  Hokobs.  Regularly  incorporated  Aranufao- 
turiug  company— New  Mauufactory— one  of  tlie  largest  and 
tiuestin  the  world.  The  Square  Grands  contain  Mathushek*e 
new  patent  Duplex  Overstrung  Scale,  the  greatest  improve- 
ment in  the  history  of  Piano  making.  TUo  uprights  are  the 
fluost  in  America.  Pianos  sent  on  trial.  Don'Hail  to  write 
for  Illustrated  aud  Descriptive  Catalogue— mailed  fiee. 

MSNDEL3S0HN   PIANO   CO., 

9-T-Iy  JVo.  .'56  Broadway,  Jf.  T. 

Rfl  PER  CENT  TO  AGENTS,  forlhe  Illuslrated  Monthly. 
JU  DNION  IN  CHKIST,  50  cents  a  year;  also  large 
c;.hh  cou'juissinii  or  v.iluablc  premium  to  cauvasere 
for  THE  LONDON  CHEISTIAN  HERALD,  m  lUustratgl 
Weekly,  coutaining  sermohs  ot  V.  H.  SPUKGEON,  DK. 
TALMADGE  and  D.  L.  MOODY,  interesting  articles,  eerijl 
story,  etc.  Three  months,  75  cents,  $2.50  a  year,  from  U. 
8  Branili  Offlce.  Write  now  for  sample  copies  and  temli 
free,  to  U.  A.  KING,  IT  Hible  House,  N.  Y.  City. 


THE  NATIONAL  AGRIOULTUEIST  AND  W0BKIN8 
FARMEE,  established  1S47.  a  double  iiuarto,  16  page,  Il- 
lustrated Family  Paper,  devoted  to  Agriculture.  Stock 
Raising,  Bee-Culture,  tc.  Try  it !  fi  months  f»r  5B  cents, 
or  with  the  ILLUSTRATED  PRONOUNCING  DICTION- 
ARY 'A  0  paoes.  25t>  engravings,  cloth,  sent  with  the 
paper  a  year,  both  post-paid,  lor  only  $1.30.  Large  ooim- 
mifl«ion8  or  valuable  premiums  to  Agents.    Address 

WM.  L.  ALLISON,  128  Nassau  St.,  New  York. 


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