Title: Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 4, January 26, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside" ***


THE PRAIRIE FARMER

A Weekly Journal for

THE FARM, ORCHARD, AND FIRESIDE.

ESTABLISHED IN 1841.
ENTIRE SERIES: VOL. 56--NO. 4.

CHICAGO, SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1884.

PRICE, $2.00 PER YEAR,
IN ADVANCE.



[Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents was originally located on
page 56 of the periodical. It has been moved here for ease of use.]


THE CONTENTS OF THIS NUMBER.

AGRICULTURE--Raising Onions, Page 49; Royalist 3d, 4500, 49; Illinois
Tile-Makers' Convention, 50-51; Better Management Needed, 51; Seed Corn
from South, 51; Field and Furrow Items, 51.

LIVE STOCK--Items, Page 52; Herd Books and Records, 52; Competing for
Sweepstake Prizes, 52; Raising Young Mules, 52.

THE DAIRY--Wisconsin Dairymen, Page 53.

VETERINARY--Impaction of the Paunch, Page 53;

HORTICULTURE--Lessons of 1883, Page 54; Illinois Hort. Society, 54;
Diogenes in His Tub, 54-55; Possibilities of Cherry Growing, 55;
Prunings, 55.

FLORICULTURE--Gleanings by an Old Florist, Page 55.

EDITORIAL--Items, Page 56; The Cost of Cold Winds, 56; Good Work at
Washington, 56-57; Wisconsin Meetings, 57; Answers to Correspondents,
57; Wayside Notes, 57; Letter from Champaign, 57.

POULTRY NOTES--Chicken Chat, Page 58; Chicken Houses, 58; Items, 58.

FORESTRY--Items, Page 59.

SCIENTIFIC--Official Weather Wisdom, Page 59; A Remarkable Electrical
Discovery, 59; Items, 59.

HOUSEHOLD--Christian Charity (Poetry), Page 60; Items, 60; The Night
Cap, 60; How to Treat a Boy, 60; Pamphlets, Etc., Received, 60; Compiled
Correspondence, 60.

YOUNG FOLKS--Jule Fisher's Rescue, Page 61.

LITERATURE--Between the Two Lights, Poem, Page 62; The Two Overcoats,
62.

HUMOROUS--Bait of the Average Fisherman, Page 63; Whose Cold Feet, 63;
Changed Relations, 63; It Makes a Difference, 63; Items, 63. Question
Answered, 53.

NEWS OF THE WEEK--Page 64.

MARKETS--Page 64.



RAISING ONIONS.


There are two causes of failure to make this crop uncertain. One is
because the soil is not kept clear of weeds, and the other is that it is
not properly enriched. To raise a good crop of onions requires a light,
loamy soil, worked into as fine a condition as possible, to render
cultivation easy.

The greater part of the preparation should be done in the fall, and
especially the application of the manure. Well rotted manure is the
best, and that which is free from grass, oats, or weed seeds, should
always be selected. Of course, if the manure is properly rotted the
vitality of the larger portion of the seed in it will be killed, but
unless this is done it will render the cultivation much more difficult.
Stiff, clayey, or hard, poor land can be made a great deal better for
the onion crop by a heavy application of ashes or well rotted bagasse. I
prefer to apply ashes as a top dressing in the spring, working it in the
surface, as I find by experience that they are not only valuable as a
fertilizer when used in this way, but are also of great benefit in
keeping down the weeds.

A plot of ground that is seeded with crab-grass should not be selected,
as the pulling up of the grass injures the growth of the onions. Onions
feed near the surface; in fact, the larger portion of the bulb grows on
top of the soil, and as a natural consequence the plant food should be
well worked in the surface. Of course it is too late now to talk about
fall preparation. If we want a crop of onions from seed this spring,
whatever preparation there is must be done between now and seeding. I
should plow or spade up the soil as soon as possible, if there is a thaw
out either the last of this or any part of next month.

If you can save up and rot a supply of poultry manure and leaves, you
can have the very best manure for a good onion crop.

Another important point in raising a good crop of onions is to have good
seed and sow it early. The first favorable time in the spring must be
taken advantage of, if you would have the best success with your crop.
As good seed is necessary in any crop, so it is with onions. Test your
seed before risking your entire crop, as by the time you plant once and
fail, and procure seed and plant again, it will be too late to make a
good crop. I always take advantage of the first chance in March to sow
my onion seed. We usually have a few warm days sometime about the middle
of the month when this work can be done. Of course I do not say that
this is the case every year. The first favorable opportunity should be
taken advantage of, is what I want to impress upon those who expect to
make a crop; let this time come when it will, any time early in the
spring. If the ground has been plowed or spaded well during the winter,
a good harrowing or raking should be given. If you have the poultry
manure, now is the best time to apply it, working it on top of the soil
with a rake. If you have not the poultry manure and have ashes, give a
good strong dressing of ashes, raking evenly over the surface. Mark off
in drills twelve inches apart, and not more than one inch deep; lay off
the drills as narrow and as straight as possible, and then drill the
seed evenly. Try to keep them in a straight row, as it will aid much in
the cultivation. Cover lightly, but press the soil firmly upon the seed.
They will withstand considerable cold, damp weather before rotting.

Last year I sowed my onion seed on the 23d of March; the next ten days
were cold, rainy, dark, dismal days, with two or three freezes. Yet my
onions came up all right and made a good crop.

As soon as the shoots make their appearance above the ground a good
raking with a fine steel rake can be given. This will give them a good
start and destroy the young weeds that will begin to make their
appearance at the same time. After the onions start to grow, cultivation
is the making of the crop, and the cleaner they are kept and the oftener
the surface is stirred the better will be the crop.

As to varieties, the old Red Wethersfield and the Danvers Yellow are my
favorites. The Yellow Strasburg is a good yellow variety, and there are
quite a number of others that are good. In cultivating I keep the
surface level, as they do better if kept in this way than if they are
hilled up. Thin out so that the plants do not crowd each other--they
should stand two or three inches apart--if you want large onions at
maturity.

    N. J. SHEPHERD
        MILLER CO., MO.



ROYALIST 3D, 4500.


[Illustration: Royalist 3^{rd} 4500

Elmwood Stock Farm

PROPERTY OF COL. C. F. MILLS, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.]

The bull Royalist 3d, 4500, here portrayed, stands at the head of the
superb Jersey herd owned by Col. Charles F. Mills, Springfield,
Illinois. He was bred by Mr. Samuel Stratton; dropped December 13, 1878;
got by imp. Royalist 2906; dam imp. Nelly 6456. Royalist 2906 received
the first prize over all Jersey in 1877; first prize and silver cup at
St. Saviour's Show in 1877; first prize at the great St. Louis Fair as
a three-year-old, and grand sweepstakes at St. Louis Fair in 1879 as the
best Jersey bull of any age. Her sire, Duke (76), won first prize over
the Island, Herd Book Parochial prize, and first Herd Book prize at
Royal Jersey Show in 1875. Merry Boy (61), I. H. B., grandsire of
Royalist 2906, won first prize at St. Mary's Show in 1874. Stockwell II
(24), I. H. B., great-great-grandsire of Royalist 2906, won third prize
over the Island and second Herd Book prize at the Royal Jersey Show,
1871; the bronze medal at the Channel Island Exhibition in 1871, and
third prize at the Royal Jersey Show in 1872.

Nelly, the dam of Royalist 3d, 4500, has produced 21 pounds of butter in
seven days since importation, and Mr. Stratton is authority for the
statement that she received the special prize at the Farmers' Club,
Island of Jersey, for the best butter cow, having made 16 pounds Jersey
weight of 18 ounces to the pound, or 18 avoirdupois pounds, in seven
days. Her sire, Lemon (170), is the grandsire of Mr. C. Easthope's
celebrated Nancy Lee 7618 (test 95 lbs. 3-1/2 oz. unsalted butter in 31
days), and Daisy of St. Peters 18175 (test 20 lbs. 5-1/2 oz. unsalted
butter in seven days).

Taking all things into consideration, we doubt if there is a better
Jersey bull in the world than Royalist 3d. Certainly he has no superior
in this country. Mr. Mills' Jersey herd is a model in all respects, and
the popular chief clerk in the State Agricultural rooms may well be
proud of it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Northwestern Importers' and Breeders' Association, Minneapolis,
Minn., have bought $20,000 worth of Fresian stock of the Unadilla
Company, West Edmeston, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

AGRICULTURAL

Farmers, Write for Your Paper.


Illinois Tile-Makers' Convention.

BUSINESS OF THE YEAR.

(_Continued from last week._)

An interesting feature of the proceedings of the Tile-Makers' Convention
was the brief reports of members regarding their business last year.
About forty manufacturers reported. In the majority of cases the demand
has been fair; in a few very brisk; in quite a number it was said that
sales could be made only at a reduction in prices. It was easy to see
that in some sections of the State the work of tile-making was overdone,
that is, the supply is in excess of the demand. It was the general
expression that prices could not be greatly reduced and leave a
reasonable profit to the manufacturer.

HOW TO INCREASE THE DEMAND

was the question this year. Last year at this convention the talk was
upon "How shall we supply the demand?" The answers to the question of
how to increase the demand were various. Some advocated a rigid
adherence to fair living prices, and thus teach farmers that it is
useless to wait for cheaper tile; make a first-class article and the
cheap tile that is hurting the trade will be forced out of the market.
There was a general advocacy of a wider dissemination of a knowledge of
the benefits of drainage. Show farmers and fruit-growers that they can
add new acres to their farms, and take from tiled land a sufficiently
increased yield the first year to pay for tiling, and that their land is
worth more dollars per acre after tiling than the expense amounts to,
and the demand will multiply many fold. Teach the farmers how to lay
their drains properly, so that no disappointment will result, and every
acre drained will advertise the profits from drainage. Circulate facts
in regard to drainage as contributed to the agricultural papers, and
even the newspapers. Subscribe for these papers and distribute them.
Circulate the essays read at tile-makers' conventions. Talk drainage
everywhere and at all times. These were among the means sensibly
advocated for increasing the demand for tile.

WINTER TILE-MAKING.

It is but recently that the manufacture of tile has been carried on in
winter, but now many establishments are running the year round. It was
not claimed that the business can be prosecuted as advantageously in
winter as in summer. But it gives employment to men, and the
manufactories are thus enabled to keep skilled labor always on hand. It
was thought that though the profits are small it is really better to run
in winter where there is a demand for tile. In most cases it is better
to make brick a portion of the year. There is always a demand for good
brick at paying prices. If it will not pay to produce all tile, or so
much tile as may be turned out, this will afford relief and keep the
machine in motion.

TILE MACHINERY.

Mr. Billingsby, whose position allows him an excellent opportunity of
judging, said there has been rapid improvement in the machinery for
tile-making. Great advance has been made in machines for preparing clay,
especially in the rapidity of handling it. The buildings for drying tile
were a great deal better than five years ago. The means of ventilation
are becoming excellent. The kilns are better and can be more
satisfactorily managed. There is yet need for a cheaper tile
factory--one where the investment of only a few hundred dollars will
answer.

PROTECTING DRAINS.

It was generally conceded that it is best to have some device at the end
of the drains to keep out rabbits, water animals, etc. Wires stretched
across did pretty well but must be carefully looked after to clear away
the roots and refuse that come through the drains. Two or three devices
to take the place of wire were exhibited and were generally thought to
be greatly superior.

OPEN DITCHES.

An interesting feature of this convention was the introduction, for the
first time, of the discussion of tile ditching by machinery in a paper
prepared by Hon. F. Plumb, of Streator, Ill. Mr. Plumb has been
experimenting for several years with tile ditches, using both animal and
steam power. He gave it as his conclusion that the machine of the future
would be a machine that would perfect the ditch by one passage over the
ground. He has perfected and is now manufacturing a steam power machine,
at Streator, Ill., which is spoken of very highly by all who have seen
it at work in the field. Mr. Plumb claims that the machine will cut
twenty rods of three-foot ditch in an hour, and give a grade and finish
to the bottom of the ditch equal to the very best hand work. The
capacity of the machine is varied to any depth up to four feet, and for
any sized tile up to nine-inch. Two men can operate the machine. The
cost of cutting ditches, laying and covering tile is reduced to about
ten cents per rod. He has already sold several of his machines, and is
to be congratulated on the success he has attained in securing a good
tile ditcher. We can conceive of no one thing that will conduce to the
sale and use of tile so much as such a machine as the Plumb Steam Tile
Ditcher. The machine is indorsed by C. G. Elliott, of Tonica, Drainage
Engineer; by Mr. Pike, President of the convention, and others who have
seen it at work in the field.

LAYING TILE BY MACHINERY.

There was nothing among the devices exhibited at this convention that
attracted more attention or received more favorable private comment than
a model of Chamberlin Brothers' Patent Apparatus for Tiling. The model
only was shown, but working machines are in operation in Iowa, and they
are giving excellent satisfaction, as attested by such men as Thos. B.
Wales, Jr., of Iowa City, and Daniel H. Wheeler, Secretary of the
Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. The apparatus is upon the old
principle of the mole ditcher requiring the same capstan power. One team
is sufficient to run it. The apparatus is composed of a beam or sill,
horizontal in position, and a coulter seven feet long at the rear end of
the beam, and perpendicular to it a spirit level attached to the beam,
aids in regulating. The coulter can be run anywhere from one to five
feet deep. The front end of the beam is provided with a mud or stone
boat to prevent sinking in the mud, and with a jack screw for regulating
on uneven ground. Attached to it, and following the mole, is a carrier
200 feet long, made concave in form. On this the tile are laid and
carried into the ground. A start is made at an open ditch or hole of
required depth; when the carrier is drawn in full length a hole is dug
just back of the coulter, two by three feet, down to the tile, a stop
placed in front of the tile, the machine is started which draws the
carrier from under the tile, when it is again located as before, and so
on. Different sized moles are used according to the size of the tile to
be laid. Any one can easily count up the advantages of this mode of
laying tile, provided the machine can do the work it is claimed to do,
and of this there seems to be no question, if we may believe the
testimony of those who have seen it in operation.

DRAINAGE LAWS.

The following by Senator Whiting, of Bureau county, was read by the
Secretary:

Illinois is a good State as nature made her, and drainage is destined to
add wealth almost inestimable. Drainage enterprises are everywhere
seen--in extent from the small work beginning and ending in the same
field, to the levees of Sny Carte, and the canal-like channels through
the Winnebago swamps. Drainage is naturally divided into two classes:

1. Individual drainage, where the land-owner has his own outlet
independent of others.

2. Combined drainage where one can not drain without joining with
others.

The smallest of these combined works is where two only are concerned.
The Hickory Creek ditch now in progress in Bureau and Henry counties is
thirteen miles long, has a district of about 15,000 acres, owned by over
seventy-five persons. This combined drainage partakes of the nature of
public works. For this class the constitution has been twice amended,
and many elaborate laws have been enacted. These laws have had their
vicissitudes, and are not yet free from complications. The first
drainage legislation commenced forty years ago, by a special act, to
drain some wet lands near Chicago. In 1859 two special acts were passed
for lands on the American bottoms. In 1865 a general act was passed. All
these enactments were under the constitution of 1848 which was silent on
drainage, and the courts annulled most of these as unconstitutional. In
1870 the new constitution was framed containing a brief provision on
drainage. The late Mr. Browning, a leading member of that convention,
drafted a drainage bill which was enacted into a law without change.
Large enterprises were organized and got well started; but again some
complaining person appealed to the courts, and this law too, was
declared too big for the constitution. The constitution was then
enlarged to meet if possible, the views of the court. Two elaborate laws
on the main question were passed in 1879, and these with several
amendments since made rest undisturbed on the statutes. One of these is
generally known as the "levee law," and the other as the "farm drainage
act." They cover nearly the same subject matter, and were passed to
compromise conflicting views. These laws relate to "combined drainage."
"Individual drainage" was not discussed. As the law does not undertake
to define how deep you may plow or what crop you shall raise, so it was
thought unnecessary to make any provisions about the drainage of your
own land.

COURT DECISION.--To the public surprise the Appellate court at Ottawa in
two decisions pronounced individual drainage unlawful. As this decision
is notable, and the subject of controversy, its history should be known.
In 1876, Mr. C. Pilgrim, of Bureau county, laid about sixty rods of
two-inch tile up a slight depression in his corn-field, discharging the
same under a box culvert in the public road. This depression continued
into a pasture field of Mr. J. H. Mellor, of Stark county, about
eighteen rods to a running stream. Mr. Mellor sued Mr. Pilgrim for
trespass, and the case was twice tried successively in the circuit
courts of Stark and Bureau counties. The juries each time decided for
Mr. Pilgrim, but the Appellate court each time reversed the decision;
and finally worried Mr. Pilgrim into yielding to a judgment of one cent
damages. The material part of that decision is as follows:

MELLOR VS. PILGRIM.--"The appellant had the right to own and possess his
land free from the increased burden arising from receiving the surface
water from the land of appellee through artificial channels made by
appellee, for the purpose of carrying the surface water therefrom more
rapidly than the same would naturally flow; and the appellant having
such right for any invasion thereof the law gives him an action. * * *
If, as we have seen, the appellee by making the drain in question
collected the surface water upon his own land and discharged the same
upon the lands of the appellant in increased quantity and in a different
manner than the same would naturally run, the act was unlawful because
of its consequences, and the subjecting of appellant's lands to such
increased and different burden than would otherwise attach to it, was an
invasion of appellant's rights from which the law implies damages, and
in such case proof of the wrongful act entitles the plaintiff to recover
nominal damages at least."

Under this decision it is not easy to see how a man can lawfully cut a
rod of ditch or lay tile on his own land, unless he can contrive some
way to stop the flow of water.

1. The lower man may recover without proving that he is damaged because
to drain is "wrongful."

2. Such drainage being a continuing trespass, subjects the perpetrator
to never ending law suits and foredoomed defeats.

3. The lower man may forbid you to drain, or exact such tribute as he
may dictate.

4. As the first man below must be consulted, why not the second, and how
far this side of the Gulf is the limit of this trespass?

Here, as I have elsewhere, I challenge this as bad law. It reverses the
order of nature, as well as custom, and can not be endured as the public
policy of Illinois. Let us contemplate the exact opposite principle. "A
land owner may drain his land for agricultural purposes by tile or open
ditch, in the line of natural drainage, into any natural outlet on his
own land or into any drainage depression leading to some natural
outlet."

This proposition is generally regarded as self evident, but out of
respect to the court, let us give some of the considerations on which it
rests:

1. Improved agriculture is an element in civilization.

2. Drainage belongs to good agriculture, is extensively practiced and
must often precede the plow.

3. The surplus water can not be stored or annihilated, and the course of
drainage is indicated, in most places determined by nature, in the
drainage depressions which are nature's outlets.

4. The law of gravity, with or without man's work, is constant and
active in moving the waters to the lower level. The ditcher's art is to
remove the obstacles to a freer flow.

5. Excessive water is a foe to agriculture; and for the general good it
should be collected into channels, and as speedily as possible passed
along on its inevitable journey.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.--It is said to be a universal law maxim, "that you
may use your own as you will, but not to the detriment of your
neighbor," and that this principle forbids this kind of drainage. This
maxim may be general, but it is not universal. My neighbor may have
built his house and other domestic arrangements in the lee of a natural
grove of timber on my land. The removal of this grove may be a real
grievance by giving the wind too free a sweep; yet my right to change
this waste into a grain field will not be questioned. My warranty deed
is my right thus to improve my land, though it be "to the detriment of
my neighbor." He should have foreseen the contingency of a removal of
these woods. On like principles a land owner may remove an excess of
water so as to raise corn and not rushes. In the removal of woods my
neighbor may not have an immediate remedy for his ills, but the effect
of my ditches may be turned to good account by continuing them, and thus
improving his land as I have mine. My warranty deed is my right to
cultivate my own land, and this right carries the right to cultivate it
in the best manner. The lower man should have taken judicial notice that
water runs down hill, and that in this progressive age ditches may be
cut and tiles laid.

But it is said that this court decision follows the English Common law;
and now being settled by a decision, it is not open for further
consideration. In this progressive age nothing is settled until it is
settled right. Judge Taney once judicially settled the status of the
African race. The common law was held to forbid the bridging of
navigable streams. Harbors could only be made where the water was salt
and affected by the tides. The Dartmouth college decision was held to so
cover railroad corporations as to shield them from legislative control.
These have all been overturned by the march of events, and this
Appellate court decision is not necessarily immortal. For fifty years
the farmers of Illinois knew no such rule. The public roads have been
improved by side ditches which dropped the water into the first
depression. In 1873 there was placed in the road law a provision that a
land owner may drain on the public road by giving timely notice, and
this stands through all revisions. Blackstone in his commentaries does
not class this kind of drainage as a nuisance or trespass to lower
lands, but he does its opposite, where the lower man neglects to "scour"
a ditch, and thus sets back the water to the harm of the upper man. If
this court rule is common law, as claimed, then it may be further said
that a rule for the dark ages when drainage was exceptional, is not
necessarily the true rule, since drainage has become so large a part of
good agriculture.

ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.--Early in the last session, bills were
introduced into each House to overturn this court decision. These were
defeated, but late in the session there passed with much unanimity a
bill of the following title, which became a law: "An act to permit
owners of land to construct drains for agricultural purposes." Sec. 1 of
this act reads as follows: "That the owner or owners of land in this
State shall be permitted to construct drains for agricultural purposes,
only, into any natural water-course or any natural depression whereby
the water will be carried into any natural water-course, or any drain on
the public highway, if the road commissioners consent thereto, for the
purpose of securing proper drainage to such land, without being liable
in damages therefor to any other person or persons or corporation." This
was intended to establish the right of "individual drainage."

But we are told that the courts will not respect this law, for the
reason that it seeks to legalize trespass.

Here we join issue with our objectors and stand by this declaratory law.
It embodies the general opinion and practice of the people; it is
plainly conformable to the physical laws of nature and the requirements
of civilization. Lands are held subject to laws thus grounded, and these
considerations will not tolerate laws or decisions the very opposite.

These declarations are not much more radical than a declaration that we
stand by the law of gravity as constitutional.

The public are busy in overturning this court decision by everywhere
disregarding it. The few who stopped draining in deference to the court,
have resumed under shelter of the statute. If all violators should be
prosecuted with vigor, tile-making might decline, but courting would be
lively. Courts and judges must be multiplied, and every lawyer in the
State would have fat business for the next ten years. Some judge will
soon give us a precedent in accordance with reason, and this will settle
the matter as effectually as did one taste of the tree of knowledge
reveal good and evil. It will soon be seen that individual interest is
best promoted by general and free drainage--that presumption should be
in its favor, and that one man should not be clothed with power to stop
others from making improvements.

NEW LAWS.--The next legislative work on drainage should be to revise and
consolidate the law. On some points the law is duplicate, and on one
triplicate. It is generally demanded that the law shall be less cumbrous
and more summary. This can be done to some extent when it shall be found
that the courts favor drainage. So far they have had a very tender
feeling for complaints. When drainage shall be acknowledged to be
lawful, laudable, and necessary, like plowing, laws may be greatly
simplified and made more effectual.

RIVER DISTRICTS.--Illinois being generally level, many of our inland
streams waste a large amount of land by overflow and drift. Roads,
crops, and bridges are insecure. To a large extent this may be remedied
by straightening the channels, and hereafter keeping them in repair and
clear of drift wood. If the lands along these rivers, which would
receive benefits from this work, were made into a district and
classified according to benefits, the burden on them for proper
improvement would not be great, and it is believed that dollars would be
realized for cents expended. This waste is growing worse year by year.
Enough land could be reclaimed along the Kaskaskia, Little Wabash, Big
Muddy, Saline, and Henderson to more than make a New England State. The
State may well afford to do the engineering and give an enabling act,
that the people interested may organize as they decide to improve their
respective rivers. When so improved, it will become practicable to more
effectually drain the district by lateral works.

Illinois being so generally level, and much of our black soil resting on
clay, here is to be the favorite field for the ditcher and tile-maker.
Invention has an inviting field, and already foreshadows rich results.
Your association, though a private one, touches the public interest very
broadly. You reveal and make possible new sources of wealth, which
promises to agriculture a new era of development. You may do much to
settle true principles and proper public policy, so that this great
drainage enterprise may move along harmoniously. The law-maker and the
tile-maker are necessary factors in this grand march of improvement.

Other valuable papers were read which we shall take occasion to publish
at some future time.



BETTER MANAGEMENT NEEDED.


A little forethought on a farm is a good thing. It saves time, money,
and much of the vexation that is liable to come without it. Like the
watchman on a ship a good farmer must always be looking ahead. He must
be quick in his judgment of what should be done at the present time, and
he should have a good perception to show him the best thing to do for
the future.

It is a mistaken idea that many possess who think there is no brain work
needed on a farm. Farmers are usually looked upon as an ignorant class
of people, especially by many of the city friends who often do not see
the large, sympathizing feelings that lie hidden beneath the rough
exterior of country people. They are in many cases better educated than
they look to be, and they have a chance to use all the education they
have at their command in the performance of the many and different kinds
of duties that are to be done in the occupation of agriculture. There is
much work to be done and it requires to be done at the right time to
give a profitable return for the labor. To have things done properly a
farm requires a good manager to eke out the labor force in the way it
will do the greatest amount of work. Most farmers are willing to work,
and take pleasure in doing so. All perform the harder parts of farming
with an energy that is surpassed by no other laboring class in the
world. Farmers deserve praise for this, I think, for it requires a great
deal of pluck to work as hard as many of them do.

It is not, however, the actual hard manual labor that pays the best. The
hardest part of the work may be done and there still remain enough to
render the job far from complete. The minute parts of an occupation are
the ones that distinguish it from others. These parts constitute trades.
They require a special training to perform them, and the more perfectly
they can be performed by any one, the more successful will that person
be considered as a tradesman. A fine workman receives more pay for less
work than one who does rougher work, simply because it is the minute
parts that bring in the profit. This is so in the mechanical trades; it
is so also in farming and yet many seem to be unaware of the fact. How
numerous are those who leave out the minutia; mechanics learn a trade in
a short time at least well enough to make a living by it. Many farmers
have spent their whole lives upon farms and are still scarcely able to
make a decent living; and the reason of it is because they have left
undone those parts which would, if performed, bring in profit.

It is not the lack of an education that causes so much poor success. It
is a lack of care in action and a want of observation in seeing. A man's
experience is what makes him wise. He gains this experience by coming in
contact with and observing those things which he meets.

In schools children are taught from the works of men. These works are
arts, and since art is but the imitation of nature, all education is but
imitation of that which the farmer boy has the chance of seeing before
it becomes second hand. There is no place that has greater facilities to
give observation its full scope than a farm. All farmers can, with the
aid of the right kind of books and papers, be reasonably well educated,
and most of them have a better comparative knowledge than they think
they have. Many of the city cousins are superficially educated. City
people can talk, but the greater part of the talk of many of them might
be more properly called chattering. No farmer need feel below them
because he is more retired and has a greater amount of modesty.

It is true, perhaps, that one can not seem more insignificant than he
really is. Great men are constantly dying, but the living move on just
the same. Each person's position seems valuable to few, and yet there is
almost an entire dependence of man to man. Every one can not fill the
highest positions, but they should make the best possible use of the
faculties that are given them. If this is done there will be no regrets
in the future in regard to what might have been done in the past. Life
will then be thought worth living and much more happiness will cluster
around it than now does.

There is no greater lack of education, perhaps, in agriculture than in
the other vocations of man, and most farmers have a good share of well
developed muscle to aid them in their work. The requisites are supplied.
How many use them, at least in the way they should be used. All of the
work could be done, but there is too small a number of good managers to
oversee and carry out the performance of the little jobs that require to
be performed at the right time.

There are some people in every business who, in the race for success,
far outrun their competitors. This may be noticed on a farm. It takes
but a short time to tell by the work a man does whether he is a good
farmer or not. If a person is a good farmer and unites that quality to
that of business management he will be successful in his attainments.
Through success he will be honored by the members of his profession. He
will be praised by all other people, and above all he will in the silent
thoughts of his own mind have the satisfaction and pleasure of knowing
that he is not a cipher in the vast human family. He will be pointed out
as an example to those who are perhaps bowed down by discouragement. He
will in all probability be called lucky when his success is really due
to decisions that are arrived at by the experience and close observation
of the past. If more farmers would be content to give their thoughts, as
well as time, to farming, there would be more success and happiness in
the occupation that depends above all others on good management.

    S. LAWRENCE.
        QUINCY, ILL.



SEED CORN FROM SOUTH.


I am an interested reader of THE PRAIRIE FARMER, and knowing that
thousands of farmers take the advice they get from its pages and act
upon it, I wish to say that the suggestions of B. F. J., Champaign,
Ill., regarding seed corn from portions of the country South of us will
not do. Last spring hundreds of farmers in Western Iowa planted seed
corn that came from Kansas and Nebraska, and the result was that none of
that from Kansas ripened, while but little of the Nebraska seed did any
better. It all grew nicely, but was still green and growing when the
frost came. It may be claimed that much of that grown from native seed
was no better, but it was better and considerable of it ripened, and
from this native seed we have the only promise of seed for next year's
planting. If farmers expect a good crop of corn they should not get seed
from a southern latitude. No Iowa farmer would buy seed corn now that
grew in Kentucky, Kansas, or Missouri. The only seed corn on which our
farmers rely implicitly is that which they have gathered before frost
came and hung up near the fire to be thoroughly dried before it froze.
That corn will grow.

    S. L. W.
        MANNING, IOWA.



FIELD AND FURROW.


All manures deposited by nature are left on or near the surface. The
whole tendency of manure is to go down into the soil rather than to rise
from it. There is probably very little if any loss of nitrogen from
evaporation of manure, unless it is put in piles so as to foment. Rains
and dews return to the soil as much ammonia in a year as is carried off
in the atmosphere.

Rice contains more starch than either wheat, rye, barley, oats or corn.
Of these grains oats carry the least starch, but by far the largest
proportion of cellulose. In nitrogenous substances wheat leads, followed
by barley, oats, rye and corn, while rice is most deficient. Corn leads
in fat, and oats in relative proportion of water. Wheat leads in gum and
rice in salt.

Convenience of farm buildings is an important aid to good farming,
especially where much stock is kept and there are many chores. Water
should always be provided in the barn-yard, the feeding boxes should be
near where the feed is kept, and the buildings should not be very far
removed from the house. If this results in more neatness about barns and
barnyards than has been thought necessary, it will be another important
advantage gained.

The President of the Elmira Farmers' Club tells the Husbandman that his
crop of sorghum got caught by the frost, and too much injured to be of
value as a sirup-producing substance. But he fed it to his cows which
ate it greedily, and soon began to gain in milk. He thinks he got about
as much profit from the crop as if it had been devoted to the original
intent.

Governor Glick, in a short address before the State Board of
Agriculture, last week, stated that Kansas history is the most
remarkable on record; that in 1883 her people had more money to the head
than any other people under heaven; that the State had received 60,000
immigrant population in 1883; that it will receive 160,000 in 1884; that
in ten years it will have 2,000,000 people, and that thereafter Kansas
will not care anything about bureaus of immigration--it will have people
enough to work with, and the rest will come as fast as they are needed.

Farmers' Call: The experiments conducted during the last season at the
Missouri State Agricultural College fully demonstrate the advisability
of mulching potatoes. We believe every experiment so far reported gave a
similar result. The cost of the materials for mulching is usually very
small, leaves or straw being plentiful and cheap upon the farm. The
materials manure the ground; and mulching saves hoeing. The potato
requires a cooler climate and moister soil than our latitude affords.
Mulching tends to secure both. The result in every case has been largely
increased yields of superior quality.

The old saying, no grass no cattle, no cattle no manure, no manure no
crops, is as true to-day as when first spoken. Grass takes care of him
who sows it. The meadow is the master mine of wealth. Strong meadows
fill big barns. Fat pastures make fat pockets. The acre that will carry
a steer carries wealth. Flush pastures make fat stock. Heavy meadows
make happy farmers. Up to my ears in soft grass laughs the fat ox. Sweet
pastures make sound butter. Soft hay makes strong wool. These are some
of the maxims of the meadow. The grass seed to sow depends upon the soil
and here every man must be his own judge. Not every farmer, however,
knows the grass adapted to his soil. If he does and seeds by the bushel,
or other measures, he is apt to be misled.

Including millet and Hungarian there were in Kansas this year 3,730,150
acres of land devoted to the raising of hay. The yield per acre was 1.61
tons, or a total product of 6,002,576 tons. None of the tame grasses
have as yet attained a large area in this State, the most extensively
grown being timothy which has an area of 95,844 acres. The great bulk of
the grass lands mentioned above is the prairie, protected by fence. The
eastern third of the State probably contains four fifths of the tame
grass area. The question of the growing of tame grasses in Kansas is
receiving much attention from farmers, it becoming of vast importance as
people increase the number of their farm animals. The question no doubt
will be satisfactorily solved within a few years, and the tame grass
area will increase to its just proportion.

The agricultural changes in Great Britain continue to be of a marked
character. The area devoted to grain crops the past year was 8,618,675
acres, which is 214,705 acres less than in 1882. Potatoes were planted
on 543,000 acres, and turnips and Swedes on 2,029,000 acres--all
showing a slight increase; but mangolds, vetches and other green crops
have declined by 21,000 acres on the figures for the previous year.
Clover and the grasses show an increase of 58,500 acres. The change from
tilth to permanent pasturage is again conspicuous, there being
15,065,300 acres as compared with 14,821,600 last year. Ten years ago
grass covered 13,000,000 acres, while arable land has fallen during that
period from 18,186,000 to 17,319,000 acres. Orchards are on the
increase, and also market gardening. In the matter of live stock there
is an improvement which leads to the hope that the heavy losses of
recent years will be made up.

       *       *       *       *       *

Illinois Central Railroad.

The elegant equipment of coaches and sleepers being added to its various
through routes is gaining it many friends. Its patrons fear no
accidents. Its perfect track of steel, and solid road-bed, are a
guarantee against them.

       *       *       *       *       *

FARM MACHINERY, Etc.

NICHOLS & MURPHY'S

CENTENNIAL WIND MILL.

[Illustration]

Contains all the valuable features of his old "Nichols' Mills" with none
of their defects. This is the only balanced mill without a vane. It is
the only mill balanced on its center. It is the only mill built on
correct scientific principles so as to govern perfectly.

ALL VANES

Are mechanical devices used to overcome the mechanical defect of forcing
the wheel to run out of its natural position.

A wind wheel becomes its own vane if no vane if used, hence, vanes--save
only to balance the wheel--are useless for good, and are only useful to
help blow the mill down.

This mill will stand a heavier wind, run steadier, last longer, and crow
louder than any other mill built. Our confidence in the mill warrants us
in offering the first mill in each county where we have no agent, at
agents' prices and on 30 days' trial.

Our power mills have 25 per cent more power than any mill with a vane.
We have also a superior feed mill adapted to wind or other power. It is
cheap, durable, efficient. For circulars, mills, and agencies, address

NICHOLS & MURPHY, ELGIN, ILL.

(Successors to the Batavia Manf. Co., of Batavia, Ill.)

       *       *       *       *       *

Sawing Made Easy

Monarch Lightning Sawing Machine!

Sent on 30 Days test Trial.

A Great Saving of Labor & Money.

[Illustration]

A boy 16 years old can saw logs FAST and EASY. MILES MURRAY, Portage,
Mich. writes, "Am much pleased with the MONARCH LIGHTNING SAWING
MACHINE. I sawed off a 30-inch log in 2 minutes." For sawing logs into
suitable lengths for family stove-wood, and all sorts of log-cutting, it
is peerless and unrivaled. Illustrated Catalogue, FREE. AGENTS WANTED.
Mention this paper. Address MONARCH MANUFACTURING CO., 163 N. Randolph
St., Chicago, Ill.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHICAGO SCALE CO.

[Illustration]

2 TON WAGON SCALE, $40. 3 TON, $50.
4 Ton $60, Beam Box Included.

240 lb. FARMER'S SCALE, $5.

The "Little Detective," 1/4 oz. to 25 lb. $3.

300 OTHER SIZES. Reduced PRICE LIST FREE.

FORGES, TOOLS, &c.

BEST FORGE MADE FOR LIGHT WORK, $10,

40 lb. Anvil and Kit of Tools. $10.

Farmers save time and money doing odd jobs.

Blowers, Anvils, Vices & Other Articles

AT LOWEST PRICES, WHOLESALE & RETAIL.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE PROFIT FARM BOILER

[Illustration]

is simple, perfect, and cheap; the BEST FEED COOKER; the only dumping
boiler; empties its kettle in a minute. OVER 5,000 IN USE; Cook your
corn and potatoes, and save one-half the cost of pork. Send for circular.
D. R. SPERRY & CO., Batavia, Illinois.

       *       *       *       *       *

HOOSIER AUGER TILE MILL.

[Illustration: Mills on hand.

Prompt delivery.]

FOR PRICES AND CIRCULARS, ADDRESS NOLAN, MADDEN & CO., RUSHVILLE, IND.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

EVAPORATING FRUIT

[Illustration]

FULL TREATISE on improved methods, yields, profits, prices and general
statistics, free.

 AMERICAN M'FG CO.
    WAYNESBORO
FRANKLIN COUNTY, PA.

       *       *       *       *       *

SELF CURE FREE

Nervous   Lost      Weakness
Debility  Manhood   and Decay

A favorite prescription of a noted specialist (now retired.)
Druggists can fill it. Address

DR. WARD & CO., LOUISIANA, MO.

       *       *       *       *       *

40 (1884) Chromo Cards, no 2 alike, with name, 10c., 13 pks, $1.
GEORGE I. REED & CO., Nassau, N.Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

LIVESTOCK DEPARTMENT.

Stockmen. Write for Your Paper.


American breeders imported from Scotland 850 head of polled cattle last
year.

       *       *       *       *       *

W. C. Vandercook, Secretary of the Northern Illinois Merino Sheep
Breeders' Association, recently took 900 Merino sheep to his recently
purchased ranch in Norton county, Kansas.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Estill, of Estill, Mo., passed through Chicago, a few days ago, with
forty head of Angus-Aberdeen and Hereford cattle. Estill & Elliott now
own one of the best polled herds in the West.

       *       *       *       *       *

The second regular annual meeting of the Kansas State Short-horn
Breeders' Association will be held in the Senate Chamber of the Capitol,
Topeka, Kan., during February 12 and 13, beginning at 7 P. M. of the
12th.

       *       *       *       *       *

The seventh annual meeting of the Dutch-Fresian Association of America
will be held at the Butterfield House, Utica, N. Y., February 6, 1884.
Essays and addresses are expected from a number of distinguished stock
breeders.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lafayette County Thoroughbred Live Stock Breeders' Association was
recently organized at Higginsville, Mo. They will hold annual public
sales and otherwise advance the improved stock interest. Their first
sale will be held at Higginsville, October 15 and 16, 1884.

       *       *       *       *       *

The following is a list of Jerseys exported from the island during the
past year: Mr. Francis Le Brocq exported 848 cows, bulls, 28--total,
876. Mr. Eugene J. Arnold sent out 656 cows, 47 bulls--total, 703.
Sundry shippers sold 158 cows and 7 bulls--total, 165. Grand total,
1,744 head.

       *       *       *       *       *

Our readers will not fail to notice the public sale ad. of Mr. Wm. Yule,
of Somers, Wis., who will, on the 19th day of March, disperse his entire
herd of thoroughbred Short-horn cattle. The herd numbers forty head, and
is the opening sale of the season, and will be one of the most
attractive ones of the year. They are all of his own breeding. Send for
catalogue, which will be ready about February 15.

       *       *       *       *       *

Horse-stealing seems to be as prevalent in England as in this country. A
late London live-stock journal says there is as much of it going on as
there was half a century ago. A gang has recently been operating in
Kent, Essex, and Surrey quite extensively. The thieves are no respecters
of breeds, taking hunters, cart horses and carriage horses with equal
boldness. Arrests are becoming frequent, and it seems likely the gang
will soon be broken up.



HERD BOOKS AND RECORDS.


The following addresses may be of use to many readers of THE PRAIRIE
FARMER who may wish to record stock or purchase books:

American Short-horn Herd Book--W. T. Bailey, Secretary, 27 Montauk
block, Chicago, Ill.

National Register of Norman Horses--T. Butterworth, Secretary, Quincy,
Ill.

American Clydesdale Stud Book--Charles F. Mills, Secretary, Springfield,
Ill.

American Hereford Record--Breeders' Live Stock Association, Beecher,
Ill.

Holstein Herd Book--Thos. B. Wales, Secretary, Iowa City, Iowa.

Herd Register--American Jersey Cattle Club, Geo. E. Waring, Secretary,
Newport, R. I.

American Poland-China Record--John Gilmore, Secretary, Vinton, Iowa.

Central Poland-China Record, Mr. Morris, Secretary, Indianapolis, Ind.



COMPETING FOR SWEEPSTAKE PRIZES.


Our readers will remember that we last week made mention of a change in
the sweepstakes rings at the next Illinois State Fair. This was a slight
error. The change was made with reference to the Fat Stock Show. In this
connection we present the argument of Hon. John P. Reynolds, on the
subject before the board and which governed the board in its action.

THE ARGUMENT.

_To the State Board of Agriculture._

GENTLEMEN.--The undersigned, Superintendent of class A., respectfully
submits the following report for the past year, including the fair in
September, and the Fat Stock Show in November.

THE FAIR.

It was perfectly apparent to any one familiar with the displays of
previous years in this department, that the breeding of fine cattle in
this country is, at the present time, attracting the attention and
commanding the best and most intelligent care of not alone the farmers
who have been bred to their avocation, but of capitalists, who
comprehend the great money values involved, and who either of themselves
or through their sons have set out to identify themselves with this
great interest. As the result of the fact the display of cattle was more
varied as to breeds and greater as to number, if not superior as to
quality, than at any fair, while the visitors in attendance seeking to
purchase and studying the question of breeds with a view to purchase for
breeding purposes, were never so numerous nor so much in earnest.

Under such circumstances, it may easily be imagined that the awards of
prizes, not for the money value of the prizes themselves, but for the
bearing of such honors upon the interests of exhibitors in regard to
sales, assumed an unusual importance and involved a corresponding
responsibility on the part of this board. Impressed, as I think, with a
proper sense of that responsibility, and of the embarrassment which
always surround that position, as your representative I discharged the
duty to the best of my ability.

The most serious and perhaps, the only embarrassment which I should
refer to in this report, was the absence of so large a proportion of the
members of awarding committees originally selected, rendering it
necessary to fill the places of the absentees by selections from the
by-standers after the cattle had been called to the rings. Some of you
"have been there" and have a realizing sense of the difficulties
involved in the effort to make these substitutions intelligently and
with conscientious care, on the spur of the moment. To do so in all
cases with satisfaction to one's self is simply impossible, and to do it
in all cases with satisfaction to unlucky competing exhibitors is not to
be expected. If I could do the first and feel sure that the talisman had
been wisely selected, it would be easy to disregard complaints, if any,
which are known to be unjust.

The question of so modifying our committee system as to avoid the
embarrassment I have referred to and thus to secure a better deserved
confidence in the justice of the awards is one I hope to hear discussed
at this meeting as it has been probably at every meeting of our
predecessors for the past thirty years.

Possibly we are in the light of our own experience, with a different
system at the Fat Stock Shows prepared to try something else at the
fairs; but of this I do not feel certain.

THE FAT STOCK SHOW.

The remarks I have made in regard to the display at the fair and the
great interest it excited apply with, if possible, still greater force
to the Fat Stock Show. Your record shows all material facts in respect
to numbers and quality of the stock on exhibition, and I need not
enlarge.

The importance of this enterprise, in its relation to the meat supply of
the world, can hardly be over-stated, and its direct results to the
producers of the meat producing breeds of stock as well as to the
consumers, are too apparent to require discussion.

The rules and methods adopted by the board for conducting this show
seems to need but little change--some slight modifications of the
requirements of the premium list will be proposed when that subject
shall come up for consideration, but beyond these there is but one
subject which I regard as of sufficient importance to demand a
suggestion from me at this time. I refer to the number of and division
of duties among the awarding committees.

The method of selecting judges seems to me all right and there was much
less difficulty in securing their attendance than at the fair. A few did
not respond, but their places were filled satisfactorily in most cases.
The wisdom of the appointment of your committee to decide upon the age
of all animals on exhibition, prior to the commencement of the work of
the judges and entirely independent of any suggestion or wish on the
part of exhibitors, was practically demonstrated so that there is
probably now no desire to discontinue it. In this case their discussions
corroborated and established the statements and good faith of the
exhibitors themselves in every instance except one, in which one the
result was unimportant.

The special feature to which I desire to call your attention may perhaps
be best understood if I express my own views in regard to it.

At present it is the practice for one committee of judges to make the
awards on the animals of each breed in their several rings of yearlings,
two-year-olds, and three-year-olds. After that has been done it is the
practice for another committee to select the sweepstakes animals from
among all the entries of all ages of that breed without regard to the
prizes which the former committee may have awarded.

Now it not infrequently happens, and is always liable to occur, that the
latter committee selects as the best animal of any age one which the
former committee did not deem worthy of any prize at all or at least not
a first prize, when judged by them in competition with these of its own
age only. Evidently there is a mistake somewhere. Both decisions can not
be correct. Both committees, we are bound to assume are equally honest,
disinterested, and competent, because the members of both committees
considered in making up a decision such discrepancy of judgment and the
system which renders it possible may be almost excusable, perhaps, but
in the Fat Stock Show, where we deal so fully in details and exact
figures, and where we pretend to use our best efforts in every practical
manner to get at and publish for the benefit of a confiding world the
reliable, bottom facts obtained by the labors of paid experts, reach a
conflicting record is not, in any judgement, one to be greatly proud of.

There is one plain, just and proper remedy for this, to wit: Restrict
the award of sweepstakes prizes in the several breed rings to such
animals as have taken first premiums in the rings for ages, and restrict
competition for _grand sweepstakes_ to such animals as have taken
_sweepstake_ prizes in the breed rings as have not otherwise competed at
all. The awards of all special prizes should follow the decisions in the
regular rings when not offered for animals not included in the regular
rings.

Under this rule every animal competing for a sweepstakes prize, with
possible exceptions in the grand sweepstakes, would have received the
highest indorsement of the committees, and hence there could be no
pretense of prejudice on the part of the judges and hence, too, it would
matter very little whether a new competent committee were called for the
grand sweepstakes or that committee was composed of judges who served in
the rings, the latter, in my opinion, being preferable, because of their
larger opportunity in becoming familiar with the points of difference
between the competing animals.

I am persuaded that no objection to the remedy as I have stated it,
would or could properly be made except by those whose animals were not
included in the first prize or sweepstakes winners, and the only
objection I have ever heard to the adoption of the rule, even at the
fairs, is based on the idea that those animals (or the owners) failing
to take prizes in the rings for ages, should have a "new trial" before
an entirely new jury in sweepstakes. But how about those who won the
verdict in the first trial! Is there any justice in requiring them to
submit to another trial between themselves and those they have once
vanquished? and if there is any propriety in that, why not in still
another new trial and more new trials before new juries until every
animal in the show has received a first prize, or the treasury has been
exhausted or the community fails to furnish any more jurymen?

If it were simply the "consolation stakes" to non-prize winners, some
loose practice might seem justifiable, but it is not the best policy in
conducting the competitions of the Fat Stock Show to be influenced by
any considerations except those which relate to fair, impartial and
intelligent decisions, and no decisions can be fair, impartial and
intelligent which conflict with each other and which, as a whole, fail
to form a consistent record.

JOHN P. REYNOLDS,
    Supt. Class A.

       *       *       *       *       *

James F. Scott purchased 200 mares and 500 one and two year old colts to
be delivered on the 15th of March at the San Antonio Viego ranch.

       *       *       *       *       *



RAISING YOUNG MULES.


Where land is not too high, and pasturage good as well as cheap, keeping
good mares from which young mules can be raised is certainly a
profitable business; especially so where corn and hay are grown on the
farm, and the mares can be profitably worked at least part of the year.

With a liberal supply of corn fodder for winter feeding, and a good
pasture, with hay and corn during the coldest weather, and when at work,
this branch of farming is not only easy, but certain and profitable. A
mare in good condition, not counting pasturage, can be kept for eight
dollars a year. Service of jack here is generally six dollars, making
keeping of mare and service cost fourteen. There has been no time since
I came to this part of the State when a mule colt would not bring all
the way from twenty-five to fifty dollars, depending, of course, upon
the size, form, and general condition at weaning time. Allowing nothing
for the work the mare would be able to do, which certainly ought to be
sufficient to pay for her keep, there is left a good margin for profit.
Or if we count the interest on the money invested in the mare, still we
have a good profit left. The difference paid for young mules shows two
facts: first, the importance of a good sire, or jack, and the other of a
well-formed mare. It certainly costs no more money to keep a well-formed
animal than it does to keep a poor one. Of course, at the start, one may
require a somewhat larger outlay of money, and in this way, if we count
the interest on the money invested, cause young mules to cost a trifle
more than if cheaper animals were used. But this is more than
compensated for by the larger price the colt will bring.

The difference between a mare that will bring a mule that only sells for
the lowest price here at weaning time, twenty-five dollars, and one that
brings a mule that will sell for fifty, the highest generally obtained,
would make quite an item in the amount of profit to be derived from her
keep, and especially where the same animals are kept quite a number of
years for this purpose, as is often the case.

And this is not all; the mule will himself pay handsomely for keeping.
Mules a year old, that are broken to the halter, so that they can be
led, bring from eighty to one hundred dollars. When two years old, and
broken to to the wagon as well as saddle, one hundred to one hundred and
twenty-five dollars is the general price. Of course a pair of well
matched mules, well broken to harness, at three or four years, will sell
all the way from three to five hundred dollars, depending upon their
color, form, size, etc. And this difference is, in nearly all cases the
result of the difference between good and poor jacks, as well as good
and poor mares. One other point must always be taken into account in
this work, and that is in having mares that are sure breeders.

I find that those who have made most money out of this line of farming
or stock-raising are those who, when they have secured a valuable brood
mare that is sure of bringing a first-class mule colt, they not only
keep her, but they take good care of her; and in this way they secure
the very best results and realize the largest profits.

Where proper care is taken not to overwork or strain them, mares can
always be profitably worked in planting and cultivating the corn crop,
as well as cribbing it in the fall; fully enough work can be done to pay
for what they eat and the pasturage. So that the cost of service and
interest on the money invested is what the mule costs at weaning time.
After that time, of course, they cost something more, as weaning time
generally comes in the fall at about the time that pastures fail, and
corn fodder, wheat straw, and hay, with a small amount of grain during
the winter must be fed to keep the colt growing in good condition. Many
farmers who do not care to go to the trouble of breaking young mules,
dispose of them at weaning time; while others find it profitable to buy
these up at whatever prices they are obtainable, and keep until they are
two or three years old; during this time they are broken to lead, to
ride, and to work.

To be sure, there is some risk connected with this, but, on the whole,
it is considered very remunerative--so much so that many young men who
manage to get enough cash ahead will buy one or two mule colts in the
fall at weaning time and keep them until well broken in, and they sell
at a profit, and in this way make a good start for themselves. As
compared with other branches of stock-raising, there is less risk in
this than in almost any other branch of farm stock.

    N. J. SHEPHERD.
        MILLER CO., MO.



[Illustration]

THE DAIRY

Dairymen, Write for Your Paper.


WISCONSIN DAIRYMEN.

The convention of Wisconsin dairymen, at Lake Mills, last week, was an
excellent one. It was largely attended by the most prominent and
experienced dairymen of this wonderful dairy State.

The people of Lake Mills did their utmost to make the visit of delegates
pleasant, and they succeeded admirably. The crowning feature of their
hospitality was the banquet on Thursday night. The feast was prepared by
the ladies of the M. E. church. The supper, the toasts and responses,
the music and all were enjoyable in the highest degree. Wisconsin
dairymen believe in banquets. A leading member of the convention
declared that the prosperous history of the association began with its
first banquet.

Governor Rusk was in attendance at this convention, and his address was
one calculated to encourage and help on the association. He assured the
members that if they thought the association needed legislative aid, all
they have to do is to ask for it. If they ask for $5,000, he will do his
best to have the appropriation bill passed, and he will sign the
enactment promptly when it reaches him for signature. He believes
Wisconsin one of the foremost of dairy States, and he wants it to retain
its position.

Among other prominent gentlemen present who participated in the
discussions were Prof. Henry, of the Agricultural Department of the
State University; Hon. Clinton Babbitt, Secretary of the State
Agricultural Society; Hon. Hiram Smith, Chester Hazen, S. Favile, J. M.
Smith, J. H. Smith, J. B. Harris, Inspector of Dairy Factories, Canada,
and T. D. Curtis, Syracuse, N. Y.

The election of officers resulted in retaining the incumbents of last
year for another year's service. These gentlemen are: W. H. Morrison,
Elkhorn, President; D. W. Curtis, Fort Atkinson, Secretary; H. K.
Loomis, Treasurer.

One of the prominent papers read was on Co-operative Dairying, by J. B.
Harris, Esq., of Antwerp, N. Y., who is employed by the Canadian
government as inspector of cheese and butter factories. We will give it
in full, and follow next week with some account of the discussions.

CO-OPERATIVE CHEESE-MAKING.

    In all human efforts, grand results have been attained chiefly
    by concert of action.

    In our own time, everything is done by co-operation. Railways
    across continents, canals uniting oceans and seas, bridges
    almost of fabulous proportions, enterprises in engineering and
    commerce, never before known, evince the extent to which modern
    genius is availing itself of concert of effort in testing human
    capacity.

    There is a visible tendency in all branches of business toward
    co-operation and centralization.

    In looking down upon a large city, the unity visible even in the
    diversity of human affairs manifests itself in a manner truly
    wonderful. The air is literally filled with a vast net-work of
    wire, crossing and re-crossing in every conceivable direction,
    and over these, backward and forward, the thoughts of men are
    made to vibrate with the speed of lightning, in the elaboration
    and consummation of thousands of business schemes, and the air,
    as well as the buildings and streets, is full of human activity
    and enterprise. The lawyer, sitting comfortably at his desk in
    his office, talks with his banker, physician, grocer, a hundred
    clients, and his family, all seated like him himself at home, or
    at their various places of business. Thus is the telephone made
    the instrument of human co-operation and concert of action.

    It is now less than thirty years since dairymen stumbled into
    the practice of co-operation in the business of making-cheese.
    Previous to that time cheese-making in this country was, to say
    the least, a crude affair. Every farmer ran his own factory,
    according to his own peculiar notion, and disposed of his
    products as he could "light on" chaps. In that day,
    cheese-making was guess work and hap-hazard. To-day it is a
    science. Then there were as many rules and methods as there were
    men. To-day the laws which nature has enacted, to govern the
    process of converting milk into cheese, are codified, and
    cheese-making has become a profession. In that day the
    accumulated results of the cheese industry of a neighborhood or
    township was a sight to behold--all manner of circular blocks,
    of concentrated error, large and small, thick and thin, when
    heaped together presented a spectacle that would now bring a
    smile upon the countenance of the most sober and dignified
    cheese-maker in the State.

    The condition of the market at that time was quite as crude and
    irregular as the system, or rather the want of system, in
    manufacturing. There was no cable, no regular reports from the
    great business centers of the land, no regularly organized
    boards of trade, railroads not as numerous, less daily papers
    were in circulation, and many other circumstances which left the
    seller comparatively at the mercy of the buyer, and the purchase
    and sale of a dairy was conducted upon principles similar to
    those usually practiced in a horse trade.

    The great changes which since that day have taken place in the
    dairying world are due chiefly to a division of labor, the
    introduction of system and co-operation. Our machinery, we are
    sorry to say, is not yet quite perfect in all its parts, and
    does not move with the precision and harmony of the orchestra,
    to which we have already alluded. Yet, although still in its
    infancy, it has already produced and does annually produce
    results grand indeed.

    If we take a glance at the various industries at which men are
    to-day engaged, intellectual, commercial, and mechanical, the
    painstaking exactitude everywhere practiced will be found to be
    a growing subject of wonder and admiration. The secret of this
    lies in the fact that perfection in any department of business
    not only enlarges that business but also enriches those engaged
    in it. For example: there are perhaps ten times as many watches
    manufactured in the world to-day as at any other period in its
    history. It is a profitable business, or men would not engage in
    it, and the superhuman effort that is being continually put
    forth to increase the value, by making as perfect an article as
    human power can produce, establishes conclusively the assertion
    that there is always a profit in doing well. I am glad to
    observe that in the cheese industry of the United States and
    Canada, the light of this truth has to some extent aroused the
    slumbering dairymen. To quote from the Utica Herald of Sept. 11,
    1883: "It is estimated that about 700,000 men are employed in
    this business, in one capacity or another, and that about
    15,000,000 cows are used to furnish the one product of milk. The
    returns from this product are over $800,000,000. The total
    amount of capital invested in dairying in the United States is
    estimated to reach the enormous sum of $2,000,000,000." In
    consulting these figures we hope there is no person so dense of
    understanding as to entertain for a moment the idea that had the
    old system of every man his own cheese-maker prevailed that
    anything approaching this grand result would ever have been
    attained. Never. The concert or effort attained in the factory
    system is the key note to this grand, soul-inspiring chorus.

    But an experience of twenty-five years in the dairy industry
    leads me to the conclusion that in the music of our business
    there is yet much discord. The dairymen and factorymen fail to
    understand the spirit of the piece we are attempting to perform,
    and fail to catch the idea that individual profit and prosperity
    depend upon the success of the business as a whole. No chain is
    stronger than its weakest link, and so long as there remains a
    slovenly dairyman in the business just so long our system will
    be incomplete and the working of co-operation remain imperfect.
    Perfect concert of effort, unbroken unity of hand with hand, in
    all the various details of the business, reaching down to the
    most unimportant items in the production of milk and the making
    of cheese, will produce in the long run the most profitable and
    permanent results to the individual as well as to the community.

    "But," say some, "there is too much of the millennium, too much
    of theory, too much of the unattainable, in all this." To such I
    answer that there is much of the millennium, much of theory, and
    much of the unattainable in the Sermon on the Mount, and yet our
    Divine Master preached it, nevertheless.

    It may perhaps be considered chimerical and theorizing to talk
    of a time when there will be no such persons among dairymen as
    what are known to the cheese-maker as a skimmer or stripper, but
    we hope such a time will come, nevertheless.

    To what purpose do A., B., and C., and a score of other
    industrious, honest, painstaking fellows, exert themselves to
    collect a model dairy, sparing neither time nor expense in
    providing themselves with perfect sets of improved appurtenances
    for those dairies, from rich, well-watered pastures down to
    good, substantial three-legged milking stools, and labor
    incessantly from sunrise until sundown, that their barns may be
    in perfect order and everything connected with the business neat
    and clean, in order that their material may come into the hands
    of the manufacturer in a perfect condition--if heedless, lazy,
    shiftless, dishonest, ignorant, good-for-nothing D. keeps about
    him a herd of sick, disconsolated racks-of-bones, to wander over
    his arid and desolate fields in search of food and drink in
    summer, or with backs humped up, hover together for shelter
    under the lea of a wheat-straw stack, their only food in winter,
    and using a kit of dairying tools, the very best article of
    which is an old, water-soaked, dirty wooden pail, drawing his
    whey from the factory in the old, rusty, time-embattled milk
    cans, in which it is allowed to stand until the next milking,
    and which, after an imperfect washing, and refilled and returned
    to the factory, freighted with a compound sufficiently poisoned
    to nullify and undo the best efforts of a hundred A., B., and
    C's. It may be theorizing and visionary to talk of a time when
    the spirit of co-operation shall have driven such fellows out of
    the dairying business, to betake themselves with a pick-ax and
    spade to the ditch, but that such a time may come ought to be
    the earnest prayer of every thorough-going friend of
    co-operation in the land.

    It may seem like castle building and an unprofitable waste of
    time to indulge in theories and construct plans by which the
    rivalry among factorymen may be kept within a limit sufficiently
    circumscribed to prevent the fear of loss of patronage from
    interfering with, and lowering the standard of, our cheese. It
    is too often the case, nowadays, that factorymen are deterred
    from a full and complete discharge of their duty to themselves,
    their patrons, and the world in general, by a fear, by no means
    groundless, that a bold and upright course with regard to the
    material brought to them will result in a damaging, if not
    entire loss, of their occupation.

    The unwise extent to which men have gone in the erection of
    cheese factories, has increased competition to an extent
    decidedly prejudicial to the interest of the cheese-consuming
    world. A., having invested his entire capital in the
    construction and equipment of a factory, will be quite likely,
    when B., C., and D. erect factories in his immediate
    neighborhood, to hold his peace when sundry varieties of swill
    milk are offered at his door, instead of speaking out an
    equivocal protest against the insult thus offered to his
    professional pride and sense of decency.

    To the dairyman naturally given to slovenly and careless habits,
    the restraint to which he might otherwise be subjected is
    practically removed when nearly equi-distant from his place of
    abode there are three or four factories, instead of one, and he
    knows that if rejected at one place, he can without
    inconvenience go to another, and thus it transpires that at five
    factories in every ten there will be found a conspicuous absence
    of thorough and inexorable discriminations which ought always to
    prevail in the receipt of milk for factory purposes.

    For this abuse there is, in our estimation, a remedy however
    theoretical and visionary it may appear, and that is concert of
    action and co-operation among factorymen. Men in all branches of
    business, nowadays, associate with each other, and form
    themselves into bodies for the purpose of closer union and
    mutual protection, and when this is done for the general good,
    as well as individual advancement, the purpose is laudable and
    universally successful.

    We know of no business in which the necessity of combination is
    so great as that of cheese-making, and, what, let me ask, could
    be more desirable and praiseworthy than an association of
    cheese-makers, for the purpose of sending the swill milk of the
    country to the hogs, where it belongs, instead of making it up,
    as at present, for human consumption.

    We have an idea that such an association might be successfully
    formed, and that, when once in effectual operation, it might ask
    the legislative body of its country to enact a law, entitled "An
    Act for the suppression of swill milk, and for the general good
    of mankind," in which it should be provided, among other things,
    that in every case where a dairyman has left a factory on
    account of having had his milk rejected for cause traceable to
    his negligence, that in all such cases, the factory or factory
    company knowingly receiving the milk of such rejected party,
    shall be liable to some appropriate penalty.

    The extreme sensitiveness of milk in the absorption of taint
    from the atmosphere, or any substance with which it comes in
    contact, ought to be thoroughly understood by all persons
    engaged in handling it, but, we believe, that but few
    comparatively are alive to the true facts of the case. I
    herewith present several paragraphs clipped from journals of
    recent date:

    "There are seventy-five cases of typhoid fever in the town of
    Port Jarvis. Dr. McDonald attributes the spread of the disease
    to the use of milk from the farm of Mrs. Thomas Cuddebach, in
    whose family there have been several typhoid cases, holding that
    the milk conveyed the disease germs. Nearly all of the parties
    now sick had used milk from the farm."

    "A dairyman from Dundee has been apprehended and fined for
    allowing his wife and daughter to milk cows and assist in the
    sale of milk, after they had been engaged in nursing a child
    suffering from scarlet fever. No less than nineteen cases of
    fever, four of which resulted fatally, were traced to this act
    of carelessness."

    With these facts in view, how can it be expected that any amount
    of diligence on the part of a cheese-maker can atone for the
    unpardonable sin committed, day after day, by the heedless and
    unobserving patrons, of leaving a can of freshly drawn milk
    standing all night in an unwholesome barn or yard, until it has
    absorbed a whole family of pestilential odors, and then to carry
    it to the factory to corrupt and poison everything with which it
    comes in contact.

    Some may suppose it a mere theory to speak of a condition of
    things in which abuses of this character can not be found, but
    during an experience of five years as cheese instructor, in the
    Province of Ontario, during which I superintended the making of
    cheese in about 400 different factories, and during the last
    year inspected the milk from about 65,000 cows, the property of
    about 7,000 dairymen, I occasionally made up vats in which there
    was no discoverable taint and which, I was pretty certain, came
    from the farms of well drilled, well posted dairymen, and, from
    a circumstance of this character, I am led to the conclusion
    that what has been done once can be done again, and I make such
    facts a text upon which I found my plea for more thorough
    co-operation and diligent painstaking in the work of producing
    milk for factory purposes.

       *       *       *       *       *

    There may be times when peculiar atmospheric conditions will
    exert unfavorable influences, and seasons when drought and wet
    weather will produce changes, over which human efforts have no
    control, and for these sufficient allowance must be made. We
    quarrel with the stupidity, shiftlessness, and ignorance of men,
    and not with the providence of God.

    In this day and age of the world there is no excuse for
    ignorance upon the points to which we have alluded. Wisdom
    uttereth her voice in the streets, and he who will not hear her
    ought to be drummed out of the camp of dairymen. As a rule, a
    common carpenter puts more thought into his business in a month
    than many dairymen do in a year. Indeed, it would be difficult
    to point out a single branch of human industry, of one-half the
    magnitude which the manufacture and sale of cheese has reached,
    carried on in a manner so slipshod and slovenly as dairying.

    The banker, the columns of whose ledger fail by one cent of
    balancing, spares neither time nor money in searching out and
    correcting the error; the merchant brings to bear upon his
    business a care and insight so unceasing and laborious that his
    locks are soon sprinkled with premature silver; the machinist
    works to plans from which the variation of a thousandth part of
    an inch can not be allowed to pass uncorrected; but the dairyman
    too often stumbles along through his work without thought, or
    employs the little intellect he has in putting in and harvesting
    his crops, leaving the dairy in the meantime to take care of
    itself. There are too many men engaged in dairying who can see
    nothing in the business beyond the factory dividend; men to whom
    filling the milk pail and the can are the Alpha and Omega of
    life. To such men such a thing as an ambition that their county,
    town, or neighborhood shall attain and hold a reputation for
    being the banner cheese district of the State or nation, is as
    thoroughly unknown as the configuration of the bottom of the
    Dead sea.

    In saying what we have about the patrons of cheese factories,
    and the closer and more thorough co-operation among them, we
    have been actuated by no feelings of unkindness or ill will, nor
    have we arraigned them upon trivial or imaginary charges. The
    indictments we have found against them are all true bills,
    against which too many of them will be unable to sustain the
    plea of not guilty. We have been constrained to our present
    course by an overmastering sense of the importance of greater
    care, deeper thought, and closer union in pushing forward one of
    the greatest industries of the day. I am confident that before
    another step can be taken in advance it must be preluded by a
    correction of the errors which we have feebly attempted to
    portray, all of which lie outside and prior to the factory. As a
    body, cheese-makers can do little better than they are now
    doing, until there is some improvement in the material upon
    which they are called upon to exercise their skill, and the
    practice of crimination and recrimination, the factorymen
    tossing the blame upon the dairymen and the dairymen upon the
    factorymen, which is made use of to conceal the real source of
    our mistakes, will continue to shield him from the eyes of a
    discriminating public until the care and diligence of dairymen
    strip him of this shelter and drive him forward on the march to
    improvement.

       *       *       *       *       *

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

VETERINARY


Impaction of the Paunch.

Impaction of the paunch (the first stomach or rumen) in cattle,
sometimes also called grainsick or mawbound, differs from bloating or
hoove, mainly thereby that the distention is more solid than gaseous, it
being either with food alone, or with food and gas. Symptomatically it
differs also from hoove by the absence of eructation, and by the
hardness of the flanks and the smaller volume of the swelling. It arises
from gorging with almost any kind of food, even with grain or with
chaff, at a sudden change of diet; but it is particularly liable to
arise from a surfeit of turnips, fresh grass, or any other succulent
food at the commencement of the season. The instrument called a probang
ought to be introduced, either to decide whether the case be one of
hoove or one of mawbound, or to ascertain the degree in which the latter
disease exists. If the probang bring on a sudden rush of gas, the
disease is wholly or chiefly hoove; and if it encounter a solid
resistance, the disease mawbound, and exists in a degree of aggravation
proportioned to the nearness of the point at which the resistance is
felt.

In mild cases of impaction of the paunch, when the animal does not seem
to suffer much pain, and is not materially fevered, but merely ceases
rumination or chewing of the cud, refuses to eat, and lies long and
indolently in one posture, a dose of oil, or a little forced walking,
are frequently sufficient to effect a cure. In cases which, though on
the whole mild, are accompanied with a kind of inertia, or with an
insuperable reluctance to rise or to move about, stimulants, such as
ether diluted with alcohol and water, may be required to rouse the
paunch into renewed action; but whenever such remedies are necessary,
they must be given in cautious doses, and always accompanied with some
gentle purgatives. In very bad cases, when the animal seems sinking
through inertness into death, or in which moans, swells at the sides,
becomes almost as a board in the flanks, appears to suffer great and
increasing pain, and seems eventually to be overwhelmed with anguish and
to be passing into unconsciousness, it must be promptly decided whether
we have sufficient time and encouragement to try the effect of
stimulants, purgatives, the stomach pump, and other comparatively gentle
measures; and if not, we should, without much delay, cut through the
left flank into the paunch, and with the hands withdraw the contents.
The cutting operation itself is attended or followed with little danger;
but in the extracting of the food, no matter how carefully performed,
some small portion is liable to drop into the abdominal cavity; and
this, in consequence of its indigested condition, resists absorption or
expulsion, undergoes an irritating decomposition, and may very probably
originate some serious inflammatory disorder. Any animal which has
suffered a very bad case of impaction of the paunch, ought, immediately
after complete restoration to health, to be sent to the shambles; for,
independently of the lurking danger consequent on the artificial
extraction of the food, or even upon the relaxation which follows the
administration of a stimulant, the paunch is so much overstretched and
injured by the mechanical effects of the distension as to be temporarily
incapacitated for the proper discharge of its functions.


Queries Answered.

PROBABLY RINGBONE.--W. B. S., Sciola, Iowa. In the absence of any
information to the contrary, the lameness may be regarded as due to the
development of ringbone. There is no certain cure for this disease. All
that may be expected from treatment is to retard or stay its progress or
development; but in all cases more or less stiffness or lameness will
remain, depending upon the extent of its development. Then, subsequent
hard work, or any cause of renewed irritation, will be apt to further
aggravate the case, and cause additional enlargement and increasing
lameness. The usual course of treatment in such cases consists in
blistering or firing, or both combined, with subsequent long rest or a
season's liberty on pasture.

       *       *       *       *       *

Uneasiness is a species of sagacity; a passive sagacity. Fools are never
uneasy.

       *       *       *       *       *

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

HORTICULTURAL

Horticulturists, Write for Your Paper.


Lessons of 1883.

BY O. B. GALUSHA.

Progress in all arts and sciences is the one grand aim of all
associations and of all agricultural and horticultural societies and
journals; and to study the results of each year's experiences and
observations, comparing them with those of previous years, and also with
the ideal of perfection which each laborer in these several departments
of industry has pictured in his own mind, is the best preparation for
achieving desired results in the future.

In the present paper we will take a brief retrospect of the fruit crops
of 1883, and inquire into the causes of successes and failures.

STRAWBERRIES.

We begin with the strawberry, which, though small and unpretentious, has
been from year to year rising in importance until it has become second
only to the apple in the estimation of a majority of consumers.

The past year's experience has taught, as does that of each year, that
great care should be taken in selecting varieties adapted to each
particular soil and situation. This may be said to be the important
thing in strawberry growing.

It is a difficult thing to find such varieties by the ordinary means of
selecting; namely, recourse to the catalogues of growers. Man has a
wonderful amount of selfishness in his composition. I say wonderful, for
it is a wonder when we consider how much better he would enjoy life were
all selfishness eliminated from it, and benevolence, coupled with true
self love, were substituted. "Each crow thinks its own young the
blackest," and each (almost) originator or "exclusive owner" of a new
variety of plant or tree, labors hard to convince himself and others
that he has the best of his kind; but, owing to the weakness of human
nature, even the sincere among these are liable to be biased, and thus
mislead others. The only safety, therefore, lies in planting such
varieties as you know to succeed well near you in similar soil, while
new varieties, commended as superior by persons of known integrity and
experience, for similar soil and climatic condition, should be tried
only on a small scale as an experiment. If they succeed, you can soon
have plenty of plants of your own growing--if you prefer to grow them.
This advice, though often before given will bear frequent
repetition--for the desire for "something new" is as prevalent with us
now as it was with the Athenians in St. Paul's time. We have seen Big
Bobs, Great Americans, and other monstrosities dwindle to pigmies in the
hands of ordinary cultivators, and the demand for Sharpless become less
sharp through its sensitiveness to the influence of Jack Frost; and
hosts of other sorts, really good and valuable somewhere, and under
peculiarly favorable conditions to be comparatively valueless for
general cultivation. Therefore every person designing to plant should
repeat to himself this injunction--"Go slow on new varieties."

It is not desirable for persons who plant for their own use solely to
select the pistillate varieties; for these, although the most profusely
productive when well fertilized, are liable to overrun their staminate
neighbors, and soon render the "strawberry patch" unproductive, or
productive only of small or imperfect fruit. The leading pistillates
offered in the catalogues now are Crescent, Col. Cheney, Windsor Chief,
Jersey Queen, Big Bob, Manchester, Green Prolific, Golden Defiance,
Champion, Park Beauty, Gipsey, and some others.

There are a few sorts, having perfect blossoms, which give profitable
returns on a variety of soils, and which may be considered safe to
plant. These are Charles Downing, Miner, Bidwell (kept in single rows or
single plants), Piper, Cumberland Triumph, Phelps ("Old Iron Clad"),
Sucker State, Finch, Capt. Jack (acid), Longfellow (with good, rich
culture), Mt. Vernon (late), and for sandy soil, Kentucky (late). This
list may be said to constitute the cream of the thousand and one
varieties offered which have been well tested. Of course those who grow
strawberries for market will plant largely of some of the pistillate
sorts, owing to their great productiveness.

The past year has taught the folly of too great haste in removing the
covering from strawberry plants; as those which bloomed early were badly
damaged by the frost. Plantations, also, which were partially screened
by rows and belts of evergreens produced twice to three times the
quantity of fruit that was obtained from the same varieties fully
exposed. Plants in orchards also escaped to a great degree, for the
trees were in leaf when the destructive frost occurred, and thus gave
partial protection. Strawberries are at home in a young orchard; the
cultivation given the plants is good for the trees, and the slight shade
of the young trees is no perceptible detriment to the plants or fruit.

The general crop was about one-third an average--the chief damage being
done by the frost--though the tarnished plant-bug was very destructive
in Southern Illinois, and did some damage in other localities. Prices
were from fifty to a hundred per cent higher than usual--supply and
demand being the factors, in the fruit trade, as well as in all others,
which regulate prices.

Spring is better than summer or autumn for planting strawberries. In
thirty years' experience in strawberry culture I have never, except in
two instances, found any advantage in summer or fall planting, and in
these pot-plants were used, which are too expensive for general planting
and not always preferable. Three or four of the varieties named, 100 of
each, planted as early in spring as the ground is in good condition, in
rows three to three and a half feet apart, and confined, as they run, to
narrow strips, will give an abundance of fruit for two or three years
for a large family. Certainly such planting and care is as good an
investment as can be made upon any farm or in any garden.

RASPBERRIES AND BLACKBERRIES

were more nearly a failure, generally, as a crop, in 1883, than
strawberries, but owing to a different cause, namely, the severe cold of
the previous winter. None of the cultivated varieties escaped unharmed
wherever the mercury sank lower than 30 degrees below zero, and 32
degrees below was marked nearly everywhere north of the latitude of
Peoria and Bloomington, in Illinois, and in many places 36 degrees below
was recorded. Blackberries also suffered; even the hardy Snyder not
escaping; and a similar disaster threatens the crops of these species in
1884, for as I write, on a clear, sunny day, the mercury has not risen
higher than 16 degrees below zero, and this morning (January 5,) was 33
degrees below here in Peoria, and 35 degrees below in Bloomington. The
canes went into the winter in good order, however, and, if no intense
cold prevails hereafter, the damage may be less than last winter when
they were not as well hardened.

Since we can not prevent the recurrence of these polar region
down-pours, we can prepare our canes of raspberries and blackberries for
enduring such extreme cold, by commencing cultivation early in the
spring and discontinuing by the middle of June, also by stopping the
growth of young canes, by pinching or chopping off, when not more than
two and a half feet high, and again, as soon as another foot in length
is made, stopping both uprights and laterals. If all weak canes are kept
cut out, and those shortened for fruiting the next year not allowed to
stand nearer than eight or ten inches of each other, they will become
"ripe" and firm in texture before cold weather overtakes them. The
hardiest of the red varieties are Turner, Thwack, and Cuthbert; and of
the black-caps, the Soughegan (earliest), Tyler, and Gregg (latest). The
black-caps named endured the winter fully as well as the hardy red
varieties.

Of blackberries the Snyder still heads the list for hardiness and
general value north of the latitude named, though Early Harvest bids
fair to be of value. Taylor was damaged a little more than Snyder, while
Barnard, Ancient Briton, and Stone's Hardy rank with Snyder for
hardiness.

Raspberries and blackberries should be planted early in the spring, if
not done in late autumn, in rows six to eight feet apart. Red
raspberries may be set two feet apart in the rows, and black-caps and
blackberries wider--two and one-half to four feet, according to stock of
plants or desire for quick returns; for all will bear the next year
after planting. Give good cultivation the first year and mulch in the
fall, along the rows of both raspberries and blackberries, with manure
free from grass seeds, and cover the entire surface between the rows of
blackberries with old prairie hay, corncobs, or straw; or, if
cultivation the next year is intended, the inter-row of mulch may be
omitted.

The intense cold of these two consecutive winters should not deter land
owners from planting these fruits. These extremes come in cycles; and,
though old Jupiter is now, and was last winter, exerting an unusual
disturbing influence upon our planet, he will this year calm his temper
and give us nine or ten years of respite from his powerful magnetic
sway.

CURRANTS, GOOSEBERRIES, AND GRAPES

were less affected by the severity of the winter of '83-'84 than by the
late frosts of spring, which destroyed the young shoots of grapes and
the blossoms and young fruit of the berries. Currants are yearly growing
in favor and the price of the fruit advancing; and now currant culture
is profitable and likely to continue so for a series of years.

Ground can not well be made too rich for currants and gooseberries.
Plant in rows four feet apart and plants three feet apart in the rows;
give thorough culture or deep mulch over the entire surface, cut out all
wood of three years' growth (or after first crop is often considered
better), and a good crop is almost certain. Red Dutch, White Grape,
Victoria, and Versailles are still the favorites; and American Seedling
(or Cluster) and Houghton are usually the most profitable gooseberries.

Every one who can raise corn and potatoes can as easily raise, with
little trouble and expense, grapes enough for a family's use. Plant such
hardy sorts as Moore's Early, Worden, Concord, and Martha, in rows seven
or eight feet apart, and same distance in the row, give good cultivation
the first year, cut back to two or three feet in autumn, lay the short
canes on the ground and hold down with a spadeful of earth. Plant posts
four feet high and stretch two No. 15 wires along them--the upper one on
top--and in the spring, as the vines grow, tie to the wires, keeping one
cane only for fruit this year and two new ones for next year's fruiting;
and a crop is as certain as a crop of corn. Cut out weak canes every
year, and encourage those starting nearest the ground, cutting back each
autumn one-half or two-thirds the growth; cut out old canes. It is not
necessary to lay the canes down and hold them to the ground or cover in
this latitude, though this work will pay well.

In two weeks orchards will be discussed.



ILLINOIS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.


The annual meeting of the Executive Board of the State Horticultural
Society was held in the agricultural rooms at Springfield, January 9th.
Present: John M. Pearson, Godfrey, President; A. C. Hammond, Warsaw,
Secretary; S. M. Slade, Elgin, Arthur Bryant, Princeton, Dr. A. G.
Humphrey, Galesburg, H. M. Dunlap, Champaign, and E. A. Reihl, Alton.

A large amount of routine business was transacted, not of public
interest, after which the board proceeded to arrange for a grand fruit
exhibition, to be made by the society at the next State Fair. This
collection will not be entered for a premium, but only to show the
diversified horticultural products of the State.

The public-spirited citizens of Illinois, and particularly of Chicago,
have decreed that the State Fair of 1884 shall eclipse anything of the
kind ever held in the Northwest, and the State Horticultural Society,
desiring to keep abreast of the times, will make a display of fruit that
the State may well be proud of.

It was also decided to offer liberal premiums for horticultural products
to be exhibited at the next winter meeting, which will be held in the
Industrial University, at Champaign, the first or second week in
December.

After some discussion as to the best method of interesting the students
in our work, it was decided to offer premiums, first and second, for the
best essays on horticultural subjects. The board and members of the
society hope that this offer will be the means of bringing out a number
of papers from the young gentlemen and ladies of the institution.

There seems to be a determination evinced by the members of the board
and society to make an aggressive, vigorous campaign the present year,
and to bring our work more prominently before the people than ever
before.

The following are the standing committees for the year:

    Orchard Culture--B. F. Johnson, Champaign; Henry Mortimore,
    Manteno.

    Forestry--Thomas Gregg, Hamilton; L. C. Francis, Springfield.

    Vegetable Gardening--A. L. Hays, Jacksonville.

    Grapes and Grape Culture--Ayres, Villa Ridge; M. A. Baldwin,
    Jacksonville; D. J. Piper, Foreston.

    Strawberries--J. G. Bubach, Princeton; Henry Wallace, Villa
    Ridge; O. B. Galusha, Peoria.

    Raspberries, Blackberries, Currants, and Gooseberries--H. G.
    Vickroy, Normal; Wm. Jackson, Godfrey; D. Wilmot Scott, Galena.

    Pears--C. N. Dennis, Hamilton; Parker Earle, Cobden; W. T.
    Nelson, Wilmington.

    Peaches--J. B. Spaulding, Riverton; H. C. Freeman, Alto Pass.

    Plums and Cherries--Dr. A. H. Sanborn, Anna; L. C. Francis,
    Springfield.

    New Fruits, Trees, and Plants--J. T. Johnson, Warsaw; E.
    Hollister, Alton.

    Gathering and Marketing Fruits and Vegetables--R. W. Hunt,
    Galesburg; Ed. Rogers, Upper Alton.

    Utilizing Fruits--G. H. Clayson, Crystal Lake; ---- Roberts,
    Godfrey.

    Floriculture--Thomas Franks, Champaign; Joseph Heinl,
    Jacksonville.

    Landscape Gardening--J. P. Bryant, Princeton; Prof. Standish,
    Galesburg.

    Vegetable Physiology--Prof. Burrill, Champaign; G. H. French,
    Carbondale.

    Entomology and Ornithology--Prof. S. A. Forbes, Normal; Miss
    Alice Walton, Muscatine, Iowa; Miss Emily A. Smith, Peoria.

    Geology and Soils, as Affecting Plant Life--Wm. McAdams, Alton;
    Henry M. Bannister, Kankakee; Henry M. Shaw, Mt. Carrol.

    Horticultural Adornment of Home--Mrs. Lavina S. Humphrey.
    Galesburg; Mrs. H. N. Roberts, Alton; Mrs. P. V. Hathaway,
    Damascus.

The appointment of ad-interim committees was referred to the members of
the board from each horticultural district. A portion of them asked time
for consultation, which was granted. When the entire committee in
appointed, the names will be reported to THE PRAIRIE FARMER.

A. C. HAMMOND, Sec'y.



DIOGENES IN HIS TUB.


And first, Diogenes would discourse of that remarkable polar wave that
struck us on Saturday the 5th of the year, and its probable effect on
the fruit product. Great fear is manifested on all sides, and not
without grounds: yet the conditions, it seems to me, have been so
favorable that there is cause for hope. Remember that there was no very
sudden change, the temperature having been low for two or three weeks
before, and no sudden rise since. The sudden changes seem to be the
ones--coming in the midst of winter--that are the most destructive to
our fruits. So I conclude there is ground yet for hope; and unless some
future disaster should occur, Dio., if living, will expect to eat of
several sorts of fruit this year grown on his own grounds. Keep in good
heart, brethren; Providence will send us all we deserve.

But hasn't that man at Cape Girardeau a level head? Dio. himself could
not have given as many sensible suggestions concerning farmers'
libraries, as he did in No. 1. All farmers and horticulturists can not
go as deeply into periodicals as he, but they can profitably go much
deeper than they do. Take a farmer's home provided on his plan, and then
imagine, if you can, sensible sons running off to breaking on freight
trains, or selling soap and candies behind counters! Improbable.

And then, again, in No. 2, his thoughts on naming country houses. How
suggestive!

The Editor in No. 1, favors interdiction of French liquors, etc., as
retaliation for their interdiction of American pork. Dio. says interdict
them as a matter of protection to ourselves, without regard to hog or
hominy.

"Man of the Prairie" was looking out for a little colder weather. Did he
find it--and is he satisfied?

An extremely suggestive paper that, of Prof. Budd's on the "Cherry
Possibilities." Further investigation in the wide field of European
horticulture is demanded, not only in regard to this but to most other
fruits. Even unpromising sorts, not prized there, transplanted here, may
turn out to be the most valuable of any. I fear the agricultural
colleges are not taking as much interest in this matter as they ought.
Our State Society ought, and doubtless does, feel thankful to Prof. B.,
for his presence and wise counsel at its late Bloomington meeting. His
remarks will be found valuable reading in the forth-coming volume of
Transactions.

Seedsmen's catalogues will soon be floating around thick as autumn
leaves, and planters will be puzzled what to buy. My experience may be
worth something: Of tomatoes, I know nothing better than Acme and
Trophy, and I think favorably of the Golden Trophy--though with some the
color is objectionable. The Short-horn carrot can't be beat for table
use, nor the Egyptian beet. Of the former, planted pretty thick in good
soil, in rows two feet apart, 400 bushels per acre can easily be grown;
and besides being good for stock, they are mighty good for men and
women. In squashes the Hubbard and Boston Marrow are standbys, and that
little Perfect Gem is likely to prove A No. 1. And give me the Stowell
Evergreen sweet corn and the Winningstadt cabbage yet all the time. But
Dio. will not be fooled with so many new sorts in 1884 as he has been in
former years.

Yes--increase the tax on dogs, and collect it; so say the Iowa
stock-breeders, and so echoes every sensible friend of the farmer and
his interests.

Next time Dio. proposes to call up a subject of much importance to
everybody, and one that badly needs ventilating.

    DIO.



POSSIBILITIES OF CHERRY GROWING.


The insertion of one little word gives too unfavorable an idea of the
best varieties of the Griotte cherries, grown all over the interminable
steppes north and east of the Carpathian mountains in Europe.

As printed the paragraph reads: "Some of the thin-twigged Griottes, with
dark skins and colored juice, are as large as the Morello and nearly or
quite as sweet."

The copy reads--or should read--"as large as the English Morello and
nearly or quid sweet."

As you say my object in talking the matter up is the hope of interesting
some of the large nurserymen, like those at Bloomington, in the
desirable work of importing and propagating the Griottes, Amarells, and
the Asiatic sweet cherries known as "Spanish," of the East plain, on a
large scale.

Why should our Western propagators permit our importing of fruits,
ornamental trees and shrubs, to be done by the nurserymen of the Eastern
States.

If we turn to a good map of Europe we will see at a glance that the
importing of fruits so far has been from the west coast of France,
Belgium, and Holland, or from the south of England. As with our west
coast, this whole region has been made a land of verdure by the soft,
humid air of the Gulf stream. Tracing on the map the line of the
Carpathian and Caucasus mountains, we find three-fourths of all Europe,
north and east of these ranges, without a mountain or hill traced on the
great expanse except the Valdai hills, and these are only bluffs not as
high or extensive as those of our rivers and dividing ridges. It is the
greatest plain section of the world, and is the ancient home of the best
fruits of the temperate zones. Common sense should lead us to give trial
to the horticultural products of this plain. To find apples, pears,
cherries, and plums as hardy, and as well adapted to the hot summers and
cold winters of Illinois and Iowa as the Fameuse apple, we need not
enter the empire of Russia. Northeastern Austria has a variable summer
and winter climate, which will not permit the growing of apples of the
grade of hardiness of the Ben Davis, Stark, Jonathan, and Dominie; of
pears of the grade of Flemish Beauty, or of cherries of the grade of
Early Richmond as to foliage and ability to endure low temperature. The
commercial nursery-man who will visit the "King's Pomological
Institute," at Proskau, in North Silesia, will see at a glance, as he
wanders over the ground, that the fruits, forest trees, ornamental trees
and shrubs of the nurseries of England, France, Belgium, etc., suddenly
disappear with the Carpathians on the edge of the great steppes.

    J. L. BUDD,
        AG. COLLEGE, AMES, IOWA.



Prunings.


The soil for window boxes is the same as for plant culture in pots; the
best is that formed by rotted sods with a little well decomposed stable
manure mixed with it.

Rhubarb requires deep, rich soil. A good dressing of well-rotted manure,
put on the ground this winter when it is not frozen, will start off the
plants briskly in the spring. The same is true for asparagus.

Mr. Russel Heath, Carpenteria, Cal., has an "English walnut orchard" of
two hundred acres of rich, level land, near the sea-shore. The trees are
from ten to twenty-five years planted. His crop in 1882 was 630 sacks of
70 pounds each; this season he expects the harvest will aggregate about
one-third more.

Gardener's Monthly: The writer found among the gardeners in Canada, when
in that country recently, that the English plan of preserving grapes in
bottles of water was in not uncommon use. The bunches are cut with
pieces of stems, and then so arranged that the ends are in bottles of
water. By this plan the grapes can be preserved far into the spring
season.

The American Cultivator: "Can you tell we what kind of weather we may
expect next month?" wrote a farmer to the editor of his paper, and the
editor replied: "It is my belief that the weather next month will be
like your subscription bill." The farmer wondered for an hour what the
editor was driving at, when he happened to think of the word
"unsettled," and he sent a postal note forthwith.

The Farmer and Fruit Grower: Mr. Willis, Lamer, a prominent fruit grower
of the Cobden region, says he very distinctly remembers that the freeze
of 1864 killed young fruit trees to the snow line, and that he cut his
peach trees to that line, and saved that much. In 1864 the temperature
was about the same as it was on January 5, 1884--in the neighborhood of
21 degrees below zero. Mr. Lamer thought no damage was done to
strawberry plants.

A pomologist gives the following excellent advice in regard to
maintaining the fertility of fruit lands: "Encourage the utmost variety
of vegetable growth near and upon your orchard lands, and never rob the
soil of its honest dues. Give judicious and thorough cultivation and
pruning; and with our generous soils and climate, I do not believe the
child is yet born that will live to see our orchards languish on account
of poverty of soil, or any necessity arise for the importation of
fertilizers."

The Country Gentleman says two things are necessary for the growing of
good asparagus, namely, plenty of room for the plant to grow, and
copious manuring. The latter is best applied to thick beds by covering
the whole surface with manure two or three inches thick, late in autumn,
and forking it in very early in spring, before the new shoots start.
Thick beds, however, should not be planted, but the plants allowed three
or four feet each way to each. Three by five is a common and suitable
distance, and large stalks may be obtained in this way.

Charles Merritt, of Battle Creek, has been very successful with
strawberries. His plan is to plant rows about two and one-half feet
apart and plants nine inches in the row; he prefers the spring time. He
manures highly, cultivates thoroughly and mulches with clean straw late
in the autumn. The next season he gets a large crop, and, while he is
taking it off, another patch is being treated in a similar manner for
the next year's crop. The second year with any bed he simply pulls out
the weeds, and after picking turns it under. This plan proves to be
satisfactory.

T. F. Leeper, of Warsaw Horticultural Society, says: I have been greatly
interested in the condition of orchards this season, and have examined
quite a number. One orchard in my neighborhood died during the summer--I
supposed it was winter-killed, but an investigation showed that the
roots had been destroyed by mice. Last spring I reported a number of
trees in my orchard, winter-killed. These trees have been dug up and it
appears that they too, were killed by mice. In my orchard the greatest
injury by winter-killing has occurred in the draws or low places and I
would not plant another orchard without tile drawing such places.



[Illustration]

FLORICULTURE


Gleanings by an Old Florist.

THE PANSY.

Gray, in his Manual, says: "Viola tricolor (pansy or heart's-ease) is
common in dry or sandy soil. From New York to Kentucky and southward,
doubtless only a small portion of the garden pansy runs wild.
Naturalized from Europe."

Seen in this condition the flowers are very small, not more than
one-half an inch across and oblong in shape. Cultivated at its best it
has a flower two inches in diameter, almost an exact circle in outline.

All this has been brought about by lovers of flowers during a long
period of years, by saving the seed of only the best, a sort of survival
of the fittest, and only to be kept up by rich soil and constant
cultivation, for if left to itself the pansy dwindles back into its
original nature.

It has another peculiarity also: the young plants always bring the
largest flowers, so that if the extra large flowers are wanted they can
be obtained only by seed annually, or a division of the old roots by
cuttings. The latter is too much trouble for most cultivators in the
country, and named kinds are never thought of, while in the old they
used to be; perhaps it is still common for the pansy grower to name his
pets, and reproduce them each year by cuttings or division of the roots.

The seed that brings the largest and best flowers generally come from
Germany, although some of our own florists save them themselves for
several consecutive years. I was a long time before any fixed character
was maintained in color in this flower, but now seed from certain kinds
will mainly reproduce its like, hence are often so used for massing
kinds of a color. The plant being a native of the cooler and moister
parts of Europe is better adapted to their climate than ours, and hence
as our spring weather is more nearly like their original climate than
our other seasons, they luxuriate in it; it is the only season in which
the florist finds much of a market for his goods, and even then he
receives some round abuse for selling very large noble flowers that
quickly deteriorate after leaving his hands. This, however, is not his
fault, the hot weather being one cause, the other that the plant refuses
to produce large flowers except in its young state.

There are two methods adopted by a florist in the preparation of his
stock; one, by sowing the seed in the fall and wintering the young
plants in cold frames, or even by means of a slight protection of brush.
The other by sowing the seed on a bench in the green-house in January.
If sown in the fall early enough to get well into rough leaf, if they do
not flower in the fall, which they usually will do, they are ready to do
so at the first peep of spring, as they flower at a comparatively low
temperature. If sown in January, they are transplanted once on other
benches, from which they are lifted and transferred either to the
outside borders or to other cold frames as the case may be. It is not
best to keep them in a green-house longer than necessary, say the first
of March, as the conditions of a green-house will bring about the small
flowers similar to the hot weather of the summer.

[Illustration: THE PANSY.]

By the different systems the market florist can have his goods always at
their best during the selling season, which ranges from the first of
March up to the first of June. They are so easily grown he can afford to
sell cheap, even if his goods are of the very best, and will usually
bring about seventy-five cents by the single dozen, down to as low as
three dollars by the hundred. Enough sod should hang to the roots to
keep them fresh, and they will, after planting, go on flowering just as
though they had never been disturbed. Nothing can be done with this
plant, at least worthy of the name, in the window, hence it should not
be attempted. To enjoy the large flowers as long as possible during
summer, if there is any choice of position, give them the coolest and
moistest place in the garden, not forgetting plenty of watering in dry
spells. A rich, loamy soil, inclined to be porous, will give the best
satisfaction, but almost any garden soil will grow them.

EDGAR SANDERS.

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PRACTICAL FARM DRAINAGE.

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--AND THE--
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PRICE, ONE DOLLAR.

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THE PRAIRIE FARMER IN CONNECTION WITH OTHER JOURNALS.

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[Illustration: FERRY'S SEED ANNUAL FOR 1884]

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[Illustration]

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so strong is my faith in its efficacy, that I will send TWO BOTTLES
FREE, together with a VALUABLE TREATISE on this disease, to any
sufferer. Give Express & P.O. address. DR. T.A. SLOCUM, 181 Pearl St.,
N.Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

"THE BEST IS THE CHEAPEST."

ENGINES
SAW MILLS, THRESHERS,
HORSE POWERS,

(For all sections and purposes.) Write for FREE Pamphlet and Prices to
The Aultman & Taylor Co., Mansfield, Ohio.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHERS' NOTICE.

_THE PRAIRIE FARMER is printed and published by The Prairie Farmer
Publishing Company, every Saturday, at No. 150 Monroe Street._

_Subscription, $2.00 per year, in advance, postage prepaid. Subscribers
wishing their addresses changed should give their old as well as new
addresses._

_Advertising, 25 cents per line on inside pages; 30 cents per line on
last page--agate measure; 14 lines to the inch. No less charge than
$2.00._

_All Communications, Remittances, etc., should be addressed to_ THE
PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING COMPANY, _Chicago, Ill._

*       *       *       *       *

The Prairie Farmer

ENTERED AT THE CHICAGO OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER.

CHICAGO, JANUARY 26, 1884.

       *       *       *       *       *


WHEN SUBSCRIPTIONS EXPIRE.

We have several calls for an explanation of the figures following the
name of subscribers as printed upon this paper each week. The first two
figures indicate the volume, and the last figure or figures the number
of the last paper of that volume for which the subscriber has paid:
EXAMPLE: John Smith, 56-26. John has paid for THE PRAIRIE FARMER to the
first of July of the present year, volume 56. Any subscriber can at once
tell when his subscription expires by referring to volume and number as
given on first page of the paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber's Note: Original location of Table of Contents.]

       *       *       *       *       *

1841.      1884.

THE PRAIRIE FARMER

PROSPECTUS FOR 1884.

SEE INDUCEMENTS OFFERED

SUBSCRIBE NOW.

For forty-three years THE PRAIRIE FARMER has stood at the front in
agricultural journalism. It has kept pace with the progress and
development of the country, holding its steady course through all these
forty-three years, encouraging, counseling, and educating its thousands
of readers. It has labored earnestly in the interest of all who are
engaged in the rural industries of the country, and that it has labored
successfully is abundantly shown by the prominence and prestige it has
achieved, and the hold it has upon the agricultural classes.

Its managers are conscious from comparison with other journals of its
class, and from the uniform testimony of its readers, that it is
foremost among the farm and home papers of the country. It will not be
permitted to lose this proud position; we shall spare no efforts to
maintain its usefulness and make it indispensable to farmers,
stock-raisers, feeders, dairymen, horticulturalists, gardeners, and all
others engaged in rural pursuits. It will enter upon its forty-fourth
year under auspices, in every point of view, more encouraging than ever
before in its history. Its mission has always been, and will continue to
be--

To discuss the most approved practices in all agricultural and
horticultural pursuits.

To set forth the merits of the best breeds of domestic animals, and to
elucidate the principles of correct breeding and management.

To further the work of agricultural and horticultural organization.

To advocate industrial education in the correct sense of the term.

To lead the van in the great contest of the people against monopolies
and the unjust encroachments of capital.

To discuss the events and questions of the day without fear or favor.

To provide information concerning the public domain, Western soil,
climate, water, railroads, schools, churches, and society.

To answer inquiries on all manner of subjects coming within its sphere.

To furnish the latest and most important industrial news at home and
abroad.

To give full and reliable crop, weather, and market reports.

To present the family with pure, choice, and interesting literature.

To amuse and instruct the young folks.

To gather and condense the general news of the day.

To be, in brief, an indispensable and unexceptionable farm and home
companion for the people of the whole country.

The style and form of the paper are now exactly what they should be. The
paper used is of superior quality. The type is bold and clear. The
illustrations are superb. The departments are varied and carefully
arranged. The editorial force is large and capable. The list of
contributors is greatly increased, and embraces a stronger array of
talent than is employed on any similar paper in this country. We
challenge comparison with any agricultural journal in the land.

THE PRAIRIE FARMER is designed for all sections of the country. In
entering upon the campaign of 1884, we urge all patrons and friends to
continue their good works in extending the circulation of our paper. On
our part we promise to leave nothing undone that it is possible for
faithful, earnest work--aided by money and every needed mechanical
facility--to do to make the paper in every respect still better than it
has ever been before.

       *       *       *       *       *

SPECIAL NOTICE

To each Subscriber who will remit us $2.00 between now and February 1st,
1884, we will mail a copy of THE PRAIRIE FARMER FOR ONE YEAR, AND ONE OF
OUR NEW STANDARD TIME COMMERCIAL MAPS OF THE UNITED STATES AND
CANADA--showing all the Counties, Railroads, and Principal Towns up to
date. This comprehensive map embraces all the country from the Pacific
Coast to Eastern New Brunswick, and as far north as the parallel of 52
deg., crossing Hudson's Bay. British Columbia; Manitoba, with its many
new settlements; and the line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, completed
and under construction, are accurately and distinctly delineated. It
extends so far south as to Include Key West and more than half of the
Republic of Mexico. It is eminently adapted for home, school, and office
purposes. The retail price of the Map alone is $2.00. Size, 58 × 41
inches. Scale, about sixty miles to one inch.

       *       *       *       *       *

READ THIS.

ANOTHER SPECIAL OFFER.

[Illustration]

"THE LITTLE DETECTIVE."

WEIGHS 1/4 OZ. TO 25 LBS.

Every housekeeper ought to have this very useful scale. The weight of
article bought or sold may readily be known. Required proportions in
culinary operations are accurately ascertained. We have furnished
hundreds of them to subscribers, and they give entire satisfaction.
During January, 1884, to any person sending us THREE SUBSCRIBERS, at
$2.00 each, we will give one of these scales, and to each of the three
subscribers Ropp's Calculator, No. 1.

       *       *       *       *       *

OUR PREMIUM LIST.

Revised, extended, and properly illustrated will this week be sent to
every subscriber. There must be something offered in it that every one
needs or would like to have. The terms are the most liberal ever
offered. All readers are hereby constituted agents to solicit
subscriptions to THE PRAIRIE FARMER. If those who can not enlist in the
work will hand the PREMIUM LIST to some person who will do so, they will
confer a great favor upon the publishers and editors. What we all want
is to double our present list before the first day of April.

       *       *       *       *       *

RENEW! RENEW!!

Remember that every yearly subscriber, either new or renewing, sending
us $2, receives a splendid new map of the United States and
Canada--58 × 41 inches--FREE. Or, if preferred, one of the books offered
in another column. It is not necessary to wait until a subscription
expires before renewing.

       *       *       *       *       *

WE WANT AGENTS

in every locality. We offer very liberal terms and good pay. Send for
sample copies and terms to agents.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Adams County (Ill.) Fair at Camp Point will be held the first week
in September. The premium list is out.

       *       *       *       *       *

The seventh annual fair at Jerseyville, Ill., will be held commencing
Tuesday, October 14, 1884, and continue four days, with $5,000 premiums.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the Cape of Good Hope Agricultural Society's trials, November 11,
1883, the Johnston Harvester Company were 1st in the trial field, and
also for the machine best adapted for the colony.

       *       *       *       *       *

The growth of the Western live stock business has stimulated parties to
organize a Union Stock Yards Company at Sioux City, Iowa. The company
has a capital of $100,000. The shipping of dressed beef may become a
branch of its business.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the most popular and instructive essays at the late Wisconsin
Dairymen's Convention was entitled "THE FARMER'S GARDEN," contributed by
J. M. Smith, Esq., of Green Bay. This essay will appear, in full, in the
next issue of the PRAIRIE FARMER.

       *       *       *       *       *

French papers declare that the Government crop reports for 1883 are
exaggerations. If land has risen in value and stock doubled in price,
the extra cost of running a farm more than makes up for it. The impost
duty on all agricultural products has also alarmingly increased.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Merritt, United States Consul General at London, directs attention
to the falling off in the value of exports from Great Britain to the
United States during the fiscal year ended September 30, 1883. The total
value of declared exports from the various United States consular
districts in Great Britain and Ireland during the year was $165,207,987,
a reduction from the figures for the preceding year of $14,231,858.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Calkins, member of Congress from Indiana, succeeded on Monday in
getting a suspension of the rules and the passage of a bill providing
that in any suit against an innocent purchaser of an article
manufactured in violation of the patent law, if the plaintiff shall not
recover twenty dollars or over, he shall recover no costs. This bill is
a blow aimed at the drive-well patent agents, and others of that ilk who
are perambulating the country to the annoyance of farmers. If the bill
passes the Senate, and there appears no valid reason why it shall not,
it will put an end to this species of robbery now so prevalent.

       *       *       *       *       *

The only general advices we have regarding winter wheat come through the
extensive grain commission house of W. T. Baker & Co., Chicago. They
have private reports which indicate that the crop maintains a very high
average, and, with the exception of a few points in Southern Illinois,
Kentucky, and Tennessee, is doing as well as could be expected at this
season of the year. In Kentucky and Tennessee the ground is quite bare
of snow, but north of the Ohio river, from Kansas to Ohio, the wheat, as
a general thing, is well covered. The crop, however, was generally sown
late, and in many quarters fears are entertained of the final outcome.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Nebraska State Farmers' Alliance held a meeting at Kearney on
Wednesday of last week. A platform was adopted declaring in favor of
national legislation to regulate railway traffic, demanding the
abolition of national banks and the substitution of Government currency,
demanding a tariff for revenue only, expressing sympathy with labor,
asking protection to labor organizations, recommending the abolition of
convict labor, asking Congress to reclaim all unclaimed land grants and
reserve the public domain for actual settlers, and opposing the
acquisition of public land by foreigners.

       *       *       *       *       *

Do not forget that the Annual Farmers' Institute, or Agricultural
Lecture Course, at the Illinois Industrial University will be held from
Tuesday, January 29th, to Friday, February 1, 1884. Four lectures will
be given each day, at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m., by Dr.
Peabody, Regent of the University, Professors Burrill, Jillson,
McMurtrie, Morrow and others. The topics discussed will be:
_Soils_--Their Origin, Physical Characteristics, Chemical Composition,
Drainage, Cultivation, Fertilization; _Plants_--Their Structure, Growth,
Nutrition, Seeds, Movement of Sap, Development and Distribution,
Economic Products. Addresses will be given in the evenings by Dr.
Peabody, Governor Hamilton and others. These lectures and addresses are
given as a part of the work of the College of Agriculture of the
University. No fees or examinations are required. All interested are
cordially invited to attend.



THE COST OF COLD WINDS.


Prof. Shelton, of the Kansas Agricultural College, puts the question of
sheltering stock in an exceedingly pointed manner. He has lately been
feeding ten steers in an experimental way. He found that for the period
of ten days ending December 29, the average gain per head was thirty-one
and one-tenth pounds. The weather was warm and sunny. The steers were
fed in an unbattened board shed. During the succeeding ten days, when
the cold was intense almost the entire time, the same steers, fed on the
same rations, and in the same shed, gained but six and six-tenths pounds
per head. About a year ago the Professor fed a lot of pigs for three
weeks of the coldest weather, in open yards, and found them to consume
more than three times the amount of food to pound of increase than the
same number of pigs in the warm basement of the barn. He has a cow kept
in a bleak "Kansas barn" which shrinks in her milk from one-fourth to
one-half after twenty-four hours of very severe weather. From all this
the conclusion is what we have so often taught in these columns, though
not as forcibly as the Professor teaches by his careful experiments,
that you can not burn feed as fuel to support the body of an animal and
at the same time have the animal stow it away in the form of muscle and
fat. The fact is that our farmers throw away one-half their feed in
furnishing animal heat that they might just as well save by paying a
small lumber bill and expending a moderate amount of labor.



GOOD WORK AT WASHINGTON.


Surely the House of Representatives is getting down to solid work since
the holiday vacation. Mr. Holman, for instance, found no great
difficulty in getting a resolution passed declaring that in the judgment
of the House all public lands heretofore granted to States and
corporations in aid of the construction of railroads, so far as the same
is subject to forfeiture by reason of the nonfulfillment of the
conditions on which the grants were made, ought to be declared forfeited
by the United States, and restored to the public domain.

This was good work, but Mr. Holman's second resolution, also passed, was
fully as much in accordance with public feeling and desire. It is to the
effect that our laws relating to public lands should be so framed and
administered as to ultimately secure freeholds to the greatest number of
_citizens_, and to this end all laws facilitating speculation in public
lands authorizing or permitting entry or purchase in large bodies ought
to be repealed, and all public lands adapted to agriculture, subject to
bounty grants, and those in aid of education ought to be reserved for
the benefit of actual and bona fide settlers, and disposed of only under
the provisions of the homestead law.

There was some opposition to this resolution. Mr. Kasson feared such a
law might work injury to the cattle industry. Mr. Bedford, however,
neutralized Mr. Kasson's influence by declaring that he did not propose
that four or five cattle kings should own the West as four or five
railway kings own the East.

It may be that our readers would like to take down the names of members
who voted against the resolutions. Here they are: Barksdale, Bingham,
Bisbee, George, Horr, Kean, Libbey, Lyman, Morse, Muldrow, Poland,
Ranney, Reed, Rice, Russell, Stone, Van Eaton, Whiting.

Now that the representatives have resolved that these things ought to be
done let us see if they will stand up to the rack and attend to their
part of the doing.



WISCONSIN MEETINGS.


Feb. 5 and 6--The State Horticultural Society in Senate Chamber,
Madison.

Feb. 5--The Wisconsin Cane-Growers Association, Madison. Prof. Wiley of
the Department of Agriculture will be present.

Feb. 6, 7, and 8--Farmers' State Convention, under the auspices of the
State Society, at capitol.

Feb. 13 and 14--16th annual meeting of the Southern Wisconsin
Cane-Growers' and Manufacturers' Association at Whitewater.

Feb. 6--The Wisconsin Swine Breeders will hold a meeting at the capitol,
for the transaction of such business as may come before them and the
discussion of subjects appertaining to successful breeding and feeding
of swine. All interested in this subject are invited to attend.



Answers to Correspondents.


J. C. MCCONAUGHY, ROCHELLE, ILL.--1. How can I secure a blue-grass
pasture? 2. How much seed to acre? 3. Can blue-grass be grown
successfully mixed with other grasses? 4. What season and what soil is
best adapted to secure a good catch? 5. Can it be grown on low, wet
land?

ANSWER.--1. There are almost as many ways to obtain a blue-grass pasture
as there are men who undertake the job, though essentially the practices
are alike. The usual method is to sow the seed in the spring or fall,
either alone or with clover or timothy. 2. The seed is very light and
chaffy, and weighs only fourteen pounds to the bushel, and the amount
sown varies from five to seven pounds to the acre. 3. Yes, though after
a few years blue-grass, on a true blue-grass soil, roots every other
grass out and reigns with a divided empire with white clover. 4. Any
good corn or wheat soil will produce good blue-grass--the usual method
of obtaining a blue-grass pasture is as follows: To one bushel of good
timothy seed one quart of red clover is added, and this quantity is made
to cover from five to six acres. The seeding may be done in the fall
with fall grain, in the spring with oats, or on stubble or wheat land on
the snow in February. After, in the month of August from a peck to a
half bushel of blue-grass is sown upon the young timothy and clover. But
little or nothing can be seen of the blue-grass for the first year and
it does not show vigorously until the third year. Thereafter if the soil
is a true blue-grass one and the land is pastured, blue-grass and white
clover dominate to the exclusion of everything else. Perhaps the surest
way to obtain a stand of timothy and thereafter a set of blue-grass, is
to prepare the land carefully and sow rye in October. On this sow
timothy and red clover as above on the snow in February or March;
pasture the rye, but not too closely, to 15th of May. Harvest the rye at
the usual time, and the yield will be all the better for the pasturing,
and sow the blue-grass seed on the stubble in August. 5. No, but red top
will in spite of your best efforts to the contrary unless you till and
thoroughly break up the land.

JOHN ZIMMERMAN, CAMERON, MO.--1. Has setting trees on a fence line as
posts for barb-wire been a success? 2. If so what kind of tree is the
best? 3. Will the hardy catalpa do, if so what distance apart?

ANSWER.--1. Barb-wire has not been introduced and used long enough for
trees set for the purpose of posts to grow to a sufficient size. But in
many cases aged Osage orange hedges, which have been suffered to grow
up, have been thinned out so as to leave a tree every ten, twelve, or
fifteen feet, and on these barbed-wires have been strung and made a
fence, which so far has proved satisfactory. The same success was
obtained where fruit and shade trees standing in a line have had
barbed-wire attached to them. But the precaution must be taken to nail a
strip--a common fence picket will answer--to the tree and then the
barb-wire to that. If this is not done, and the wire is fastened by a
staple to the tree, the wood soon overgrows, cracks and increases the
strain on the wire, damages the tree and spoils the fence. 2. Almost any
fast growing tree will do, but hard wood varieties are preferable. 3.
The hardy catalpa may do, but for low land we would just as soon have
the common willow. Eight feet apart is a good distance. The wires may be
fastened to these when they have acquired a diameter of four or five
inches, and later every other post may be removed. For high and dry land
in your latitude one Osage orange is worth a half-dozen catalpas,
because it is just as easily grown--and when grown it furnishes the
strongest and most lasting timber known. We may add here, that where a
fence is wanted across sloughs, or through permanently wet or moist
land, posts large enough for barbed-wire may be grown in a couple of
years or so--this by cutting stakes six or seven feet long and from
three to five inches in diameter from the common willow, and setting
them in March. The stakes require attention the first summer, in case of
dry weather or drouth, but nothing more than that the moist earth shall
be pressed up against them to prevent the young roots from drying out.

M. D. VINCENT, SPRINGFIELD, MO.--1. Can you tell me how badly oranges
were frosted during the late cold spell in Florida? 2. Is there a record
of colder weather at Charleston, S. C., Savannah, Ga., if so when was
it?

ANSWER.--1. It is hard getting at the facts. One report is that neither
oranges nor the trees were injured at Palatka, fifty miles south of
Jacksonville, while another just as credible says the fruit was badly
frozen on the trees as far south as Enterprise, 100 miles south of
Jacksonville. The probabilities are, that there was a good deal of
damage done to fruit on the trees, but no permanent or serious injury to
the orchards. 2. The mercury may not have been lower for 100 years at
Charleston or Savannah than the late cold spell, but during the winter
of 1834-35 the weather was so severe the orange trees were killed to the
ground 100 miles south of Jacksonville. Snow to a foot in depth fell at
Millidgeville, Ga., Lat. 33, and several inches over all northern
Florida. Some apprehensions are felt that these southern sections are
not safe from severe frosts for this winter and the next, since it is
pretty well known that these extreme cold periods return about every
half-century--the winters of near fifty and one hundred years ago having
been made remarkable by terribly severe and protracted cold.

J. H. J. WATERTOWN, WIS.--Give us the best remedy for chillblains?

ANSWER.--Tincture of iodine painted over the parts; or 10 grains of
salicylic acid extended in an ounce of half water and half alcohol. Both
to be applied with great caution, and largely diluted where the skin is
broken and ulcers have formed.

CHARLES C. PETERS, OLNEY, ILL.--If you were about to plant an orchard on
levelish, but at the same time naturally well drained land, would you
advise throwing up ridges as the common custom is in some sections?

ANSWER.--It might be advantageous to throw up ridges so as to secure
permanent moisture; but the trees should be set in the depression
between them instead of on the ridges.

THOROUGHBRED, LEXINGTON, KY.--There is a belief or an opinion current
among a class of breeders, always ready to accept and experiment with
new fangled notions, that the draft breeds imported from abroad,
especially the high priced French horses, are fed from birth on a more
or less regular ration of bone or flesh meal. This they claim is for the
purpose of developing bone and muscle. What do you know of the facts?

ANSWER.--Not much. Some of the foreign journals contain accounts of
experiments in feeding soluble phosphates of lime, but no two agree on
results, except that when the salt is judicially fed, no harm is done.
The subject is worthy of investigation and especially by Kentucky
breeders, since it would establish the claim that their soil, being
especially rich in the phosphates and nitrogen, produces grain, hay, and
forage of superior strength for feeding purposes, which appear again, in
their high bred stock of horses, sheep, and cattle.

       *       *       *       *       *

The fourth National Agricultural Convention, under the auspices of the
American Agricultural Association, will be held at the Grand Central
Hotel, New York City, Wednesday and Thursday, February 6th and 7th,
1884. Addresses will be delivered and papers read by leading thinkers
and writers on topics of general interest, and all identified with
agriculture and kindred pursuits are cordially invited to be present and
participate in the proceedings. Delegates will be present from all
sections of the country, and arrangements for reduced rates of fare are
being made with the railroads leading into New York. The annual meeting
for the election of officers and the transaction of other business,
including the matter of a national agricultural fair, will be held at 12 m.
of the first day of the Convention.



Wayside Notes.

BY A MAN OF THE PRAIRIE.


I notice that Mr. Sanders, of the Treasury Cattle Commission, thinks it
beneath the dignity of Congress to adopt retaliatory measures against
France and Germany for prohibiting American pork products from entering
those countries. He thinks it a far better scheme to appoint a small
army of inspectors to examine all the pork before it is shipped from
this country. This might be more dignified, and after a time effectual,
but how shall we make France and Germany stop shipping their poisoned
goods to this country? Will they be equally "dignified" and appoint
inspectors on their side that will be satisfactory to our people.
Probably they would after a few months of prohibition; never before.
Dignity is a good thing, but protection to the health and wealth of the
people is better. Besides, Government inspectors are expensive luxuries,
and by no means always efficient. A fat Government appointment is a nice
thing--for the appointee, as Mr. Sanders is aware, but it is not
profitable to the tax-payers of the country to multiply them too
extensively. In my opinion the easiest way out of the muddle is to
strike back and to hit where it will hurt worst.

       *       *       *       *       *

Clinton Babbitt, Secretary of the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society,
is reported to have said at the late meeting of the State Dairymen's
Association that he had a very poor opinion of editors. In fact, that he
held them in about the same esteem as Ben Butler does. Now I don't
suppose it makes an iota of difference to any editor under the sun what
Butler or Babbitt think of him; what Ben and Clint need to look out for
is what the editors think of them. Big Ben got an inkling of this a few
weeks ago; Little Clint's turn may come next.

       *       *       *       *       *

For some time I have been noticing the advanced style of writing in the
two or three "Down East" agricultural papers that come under my notice.
They bear evidences of "culcha" that are truly encouraging, but here is
a case that is actually exhilarating, or would be were it not somewhat
bewildering. It is from an article about the Jersey Lily, Mrs. Langtry:
"Who ever vocalized such a word with a more complex intonation, or with
a more marvellously intimate union with a more inextricably intertwined
relationship to the most exquisite sensibilities that accompany and mark
the infinite flights and reachings of the soul, as within its human
casement it burns with fire divine?" Now, I call that decidedly fine,
and were I the owner of a whole herd of Jerseys I should endeavor to
engage this genius to write them up for me. At any rate I think he
should be brought West to help on the Jersey boom.

       *       *       *       *       *

I sent the editors of THE PRAIRIE FARMER, the other day, from
Springfield, where I was paying a flying visit to the agricultural
rooms, a copy of the Reynolds argument for a change in the awarding of
sweepstakes prizes on cattle. Mr. R. applied it to the Fat Stock Show
alone, and I believe the State Board adopted the suggestions. But for
the life of me I can not see why the principle is not equally applicable
to the State Fair premiums, and indeed to similar exhibits at all our
fairs. Next year I hope the State Board will extend the innovation to
the State Fair, and from this it may be it will extend to similar
organizations of lesser magnitude.

       *       *       *       *       *

I notice that the National Academy of Sciences have decided that glucose
is not injurious to health. Well, this is good news, at any rate, but it
does not follow that manufacturers and merchants have the right to mix
it with cane sugar or sell it to us for genuine cane sirups, or real
honey, or pure sugar candy, or in any of the other ways in which we are
made to pay two or three times what it is really worth. It does not do
away with the great need of a rigorous food adulteration act, though
there is great satisfaction in knowing that when we eat it we are not
taking in a mild death-dealing potion. But, come to think of it, there
are other great scientists in the country besides those composing the
National Academy. Some of them have decided in a contrary manner. Is it
not best to have the question decided by a majority vote of reputable
chemists, and then stick to the good old things, whichever way the
decision may be? On principle I don't object to suine, oleo, or any of
the objectionable articles. All I want is to know when I am buying, and
paying for them in real genuine dollars. Bogus dollars are every whit as
respectable as bogus butter or bogus honey, though the law makes it a
little unhealthy to use them with any degree of liberality.



Letter from Champaign.


A light rain yesterday (the 18th) was the first for five weeks, and the
first sign of a January thaw we have had. But it began to snow at dark,
continued lightly all night, and has been snowing, blowing, and drifting
to-day up to this hour, 2 P. M. Coming soft at first, that part of it
will lay where it fell, and the uncovered portion of the wheat has got a
new blanket, which we hope will out-last January. We have had but one so
long uninterrupted spell of sleighing for these many years, and that was
in the winter of '78-'79. With the exception of the few very cold days
before and after the 5th, the month has been quite favorable for stock
and all the labors of the farm.

       *       *       *       *       *

The damage done by the cold wave of January 4th to 7th is believed to be
greater than first reported. Growers tell me that Snyder blackberries
are killed down to the frost line, which proves it is not iron-clad, as
some believe. Accounts from the Cobden fruit region are of the gloomiest
character, everything being given up for lost but the strawberries. The
Fruit-Grower says they will have to rely on them and their truck patches
this year, and advises an extension of early potatoes, tomatoes, and
Japan melons. According to local records at Anna, there has been nothing
like it since the first week in January, 1864; and the estimate of the
damage done in '84 is computed from what followed in '64, rather than
from what is absolutely known. Let us hope that they are mistaken, and
that the Cobden fruit region will sustain its well-earned character as
the source of a perennial fruit supply.

       *       *       *       *       *

It appears the cold wave did not reach its minimum in Central Florida,
lat. 27, till the night of the 9th, ice having been found on the morning
of the 10th, near Enterprise, three-fourths of an inch thick. Oranges on
the trees were frozen through, and the leaves killed so they will drop.
But though here and there a branch may be frosted and will die and have
to be removed, little permanent damage to the groves has probably
resulted. Central Florida is distant, as the crow flies, from Central
Illinois, about one thousand miles. Suppose the cold wave moved steadily
southwest, it follows, then, its rate of speed was not far from 200
miles every twenty-four hours. It is easy to comprehend how a complete
signal service might warn of the approach of cold waves in time to take
every necessary precaution to meet and disarm them.

       *       *       *       *       *

But as much of a stinger as the late cold turn was, it was a mere cool
breeze compared with that which fell on Florida and the entire Southwest
in the winter of 1834-35. Then snow covered all Northern Florida, and in
Central Georgia it lay on the ground some days, a foot deep. The young
orange trees were all killed to the ground, and few of the aged trees
escaped without the loss of most of their branches. But they soon
recovered--sprouting from the roots and stumps with great vigor, as they
will again do after the late freeze. And this is one of the strong
points of the orange. It will sprout from the stump or root when the
trunk is removed, as surely as the young hickory or chestnut, and when
transplanted young and trees of considerable size, will bear mutilation
with about as much indifference as the Osage orange or soft maple.

       *       *       *       *       *

Those who expect Congress to do anything that will hurt German and
French importers, by way of retaliation for prohibiting pork and pork
products, will be pretty sure to be disappointed. Senator Williams is
responsible for the statement that the reason why agriculture is treated
with so much contempt, is it sustains no lobby. But you may be sure the
importers will not fail in that respect, as millions will be spent to
prevent legislation which will seriously interfere with the enormous
profits of the foreign importing houses in New York. Perhaps Senator
Williams will inform us what it will cost to keep up a well appointed
lobby in Washington, and how much the average one-horse lawyers in
Congress expect, in money down, in the way of a retainer. Huntington
could tell, and so could Jay Gould; but both are silenced for the
present, and Villard too.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Put your thumb down there." That the trees on low lands which bore big
crops in 1874-75, are just the trees which bore crops equally in '83,
and the very trees also which have made the most vigorous growth both
previously and last year. The whole matter is a question of nutrition.

    B. F. J.

       *       *       *       *       *

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

POULTRY NOTES.

Poultry-Raisers, Write for Your Paper.


Chicken Chat.

Somebody says that "Plymouth Rock pullets are not always early layers,
for they often grow for ten or twelve months before laying, though some
lay as early as six months after hatching."

Well that's news to us, and we have kept Plymouth Rocks quite a while,
too. We have had Rock pullets commence laying at six months, and once we
had a few that didn't do a thing toward earning their own living till
they were almost eight months old; but seven months is nearer the
average, and that is what we count on when selecting the pullets that
are to be kept for winter layers. The pullets that are hatched from the
first of March up to the first of May, commence laying all along from
the middle of September to the first of December. Pullets that we want
to commence laying in February, are selected from those hatched in July.
It would really be very gratifying to me if the people who know no more
about the Plymouth Rocks than they do about the fate of Charlie Ross,
would keep their twaddle out of print.

       *       *       *       *       *

One of my correspondents is very anxious to know if the Langshans are
the "coming fowls." Hardly. Fanciers who have tried them pronounce them
the "best birds that were ever imported from China," which is pretty
high praise, but all the same they are not popular with farmers. They
will never hold the place that the Plymouth Rocks hold. Since you wish
to buy fowls of the breeds for which there will be the greatest demand
next season, I should advise you get Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes.
These, in addition to the Light Brahmas and Brown Leghorns that you
already have, will give you the four breeds that are the most popular,
and if you have good stock, and let people know that you have eggs to
sell for hatching, you will probably have orders for all the eggs that
you will care to sell.

       *       *       *       *       *

Another correspondent wants to know the meaning of the word "strain," as
applied to fowls, and I don't wonder that he asks the question, for the
word is used "promiscuous like" by every tyro in poultry breeding.

When any poultry-raiser has bred fowls of any breed long enough to fix
his notion of what constitutes a standard fowl of that breed upon them
permanently, he may claim a "strain." For instance: Smith believes that
the Light Brahmas should have very short legs, and he breeds for short
legs until they are permanently fixed, and everybody who knows anything
about Light Brahmas knows one of Smith's short-legged Brahmas at sight;
then, but not before, Smith may claim a strain of his own, and it is
proper for others to speak of "Smith's strain" of Light Brahmas. But
Johnson, who buys of Smith, or of some one who has Light Brahmas of
Smith's strain, this year, should not next year talk about "my own
strain" of Light Brahmas. It takes years of steady, judicious breeding
after a certain type to establish what may truthfully be called a
strain, and it can only be done by breeders of rare skill and long
experience in mating fowls for breeding.

    FANNY FIELD.



Chicken Houses.


I often read inquiries about the best plan for building hen houses. My
plan is, for 100 fowls, to build a house for them to roost in, eight or
even ten feet wide and sixteen feet long, one story high with tight
floor of yellow pine flooring. I prefer a tight floor because it is
easily cleaned out, and every time it is cleaned out and swept the floor
should be well covered with slaked lime; one cleaning a week is often
enough.

A building of the same size should be built with a dirt floor, or close
one, as preferred, about ten or fifteen feet from the roosting house for
the hens to lay and sit in. A petition may be made of laths dividing the
house into two compartments, the front arranged for the laying hens and
the back compartments for sitting hens; then the laying hens will not
disturb the sitting hens. A closed passway should be made, say one and
one half or two feet square leading from the roosting house to the
laying house with a sliding door at each end to be used at pleasure. As
it often happens in cold, snowy weather in winter it is not desirable to
let the fowls out, then the slides at each end of the passway can be
opened and feed and water placed in the laying house (because the floor
in that house will always be cleanest), and all the fowls will soon
learn to go in there to eat and drink, and lay if they want to. It is, I
think, bad policy to force fowls to roost, lay, and sit all in the same
room.

The boxes that contain the nests should be made so that they can be at
any time taken out and the nests turned out in a pile, set on fire and
the boxes held over the fire to kill any lice that may be sticking to
them.

    B. F. C.
        HIKE'S POINT, KY.

       *       *       *       *       *

A person signing himself a "Nobleman's Gardener," says in an English
paper that it is a mistake to use poultry manure as a top-dressing for
garden crops; for farm crops also, if the poultry and pigeon dung were
in any considerable bulk. This, however, is not usually the case, and a
hundred weight or two would not make much of an impression on a farm.
The manure in question is a powerful fertilizer, containing ammonia,
phosphates, and carbonate of lime in considerable quantity, also uric
acid, all of which are valuable ingredients for the support of crops.
The simplest method of preparing the manure for use is to partially dry
it, then mix it with perfectly dry sifted soil or ashes in sufficient
quantity that will enable the entire mixture to be rubbed through a
half-inch sieve. A man can do this comfortably with the hand inclosed in
a thick leather glove. In this finely powdered state it can be stored in
a dry shed till wanted for use. It is an excellent top-dressing for
onions, strawberries, and, in fact, for all vegetable crops that need
assistance, also for fruit trees and lawns. It is best applied in
showery weather in the spring--for lawns at the rate of two ounces,
vegetable crops and strawberries three ounces, and fruit trees four
ounces per square yard. If in very large bulk and needed for use in
fields it would scarcely be necessary to pulverize it, as mixing it with
dry soil, etc., and turning the heap over a few times would suffice for
its ready application.

       *       *       *       *       *

The strength of the donkey mind lies in adopting a course inversely as
the arguments urged, which, well considered, requires as great a mental
force as the direct sequence.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

Cheapest Farms for Sale in Illinois.

BEST FRUIT REGION IN THE STATE.

Send for my List of Farms and timbered Lands for sale.
    DEWITT C. SMITH, Land Agent.
        Stone Fort, Saline Co., Illinois.

When you write mention THE PRAIRIE FARMER.

       *       *       *       *       *

MARKET GARDENERS,

AND ALL OTHERS who want the BEST Cabbage, Onion, Beet, Carrot, Parsnip,
Cucumber, Tomato, and other Seeds, DIRECT FROM THE FARM, at the LOWEST
PRICES, can now get them at wholesale rates. Catalogue, with directions
for cultivation, FREE. Address JOSEPH HARRIS, Moreton Farm, Rochester,
N. Y. Seeds for the Children, 25 per cent discount. If you do not want
the Catalogue, let the Children send for it, and send at once, as this
advertisement will not be repeated.

When you write mention THE PRAIRIE FARMER.

       *       *       *       *       *

BLUE STEM SPRING WHEAT!!!

The best variety of Prairie Wheat known. Yields
largely and is less liable to blight than any other variety.

Also celebrated Judson Oats for sale in small lots.

Samples, statement of yield, and prices sent free upon
application to

    SAMPSON & FRENCH.
        Woodstock, Pipestone Co., Minn., or Storm Lake, Ia.

When you write mention THE PRAIRIE FARMER.

       *       *       *       *       *

EUROPE

EDUCATIONAL EXCURSIONS

1884

COMBINING UNEQUALLED ADVANTAGES. Send for Descriptive Circular, Free.
_Register early._ E. TOURJEE, FRANKLIN SQ., BOSTON.

When you write mention THE PRAIRIE FARMER.

       *       *       *       *       *

FOR SALE--One-half interest in a thoroughly equipped CREAMERY located in
one of the best dairy districts of Wis.

J. G. SNYDER & SON., Mt. Hope, Wis.

When you write mention THE PRAIRIE FARMER.

       *       *       *       *       *

CUT THIS OUT & Return to us with TEN CTS. & you'll get by mail A GOLDEN
BOX OF GOODS that will bring you in MORE MONEY, in One Month, than
anything else in America. Absolute Certainty. Need no capital. M. Young,
173 Greenwich St. N. York.

       *       *       *       *       *

FARM IMPLEMENTS. Etc.

THE "NEW" BIRDSELL CLOVER HULLER.

[Illustration: MONITOR JUNIOR]

SAVES all the Seed, CLEANS Ready for Market as Threshed.

[Illustration: THE BIRDSELL COMBINATION SPRING WAGON.]

Besides manufacturing the "NEW" BIRDSELL Clover Huller, for
which we have the sole right, we make a specialty of HALF
PLATFORM and THREE-SPRING WAGONS.

Send for illustrated Catalogue and prices. Address

BIRDSELL MANF'G CO. SOUTH BEND INDIANA.

--> When you write, please mention this paper. <--

       *       *       *       *       *

SEED CORN

FOR SALE.

A large quantity of first-class, selected Iowa seed corn, in
large or small quantities. Address

    _MITCHELL, VINCENT._
        Onawa, Iowa.

Please state you saw ad in this paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

THE STANDARD REMINGTON TYPE-WRITER is acknowledged to be the only
rapid and reliable writing machine. It has no rival. These machines are
used for transcribing and general correspondence in every part of the
globe, doing their work in almost every language. Any young man or woman
of ordinary ability, having a practical knowledge of the use of this
machine may find constant and remunerative employment. All machines and
supplies, furnished by us, warranted. Satisfaction guaranteed or money
refunded. Send for circulars. WYCKOFF, SEAMANS & BENEDICT, 38 East
Madison St., Chicago, Ill.

       *       *       *       *       *

SEEDS

ALBERT DICKINSON,

Dealer in Timothy, Clover, Flax, Hungarian, Millet, Red Top, Blue
Grass, Lawn Grass, Orchard Grass, Bird Seeds, &c.

POP CORN.

Warehouses  {115, 117 & 119 Kinzie St.
            {104, 106, 108 & 110 Michigan St.
OFFICE.      115 Kinzie St. CHICAGO, ILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

FAY GRAPES

CURRANT

HEADQUARTERS

ALL BEST NEW AND OLD.

SMALL FRUITS AND TREES. LOW TO DEALERS AND PLANTERS.
STOCK First-Class. Free Catalogues. GEO. S. JOSSELYN, Fredonia, N.Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

--> A CHANCE OF A LIFETIME!

This Offer Holds GOOD UNTIL MARCH 10th ONLY.

$40,000 IN PRESENTS, GIVEN AWAY.

NO BLANKS! every Subscriber gets a Present.

The proprietors of the well-known and popular weekly paper, THE GOLDEN
ARGOSY, being desirous of introducing their paper into every home where
it is not now taken, have organized a stock company with an AUTHORIZED
CAPITAL OF $200,000 for the purpose of pushing the Argosy extensively,
and have decided to give away to all who subscribe before March 10,
1884, $40,000 in presents. READ OUR GREAT OFFER.

FOR ONLY FIFTY CENTS

We will enter your name on our subscription books and mail THE GOLDEN
ARGOSY regularly for three months, (thirteen numbers), and immediately
send a printed numbered receipt, which will entitle the holder to one of
the following magnificent presents.

PARTIAL LIST OF PRESENTS TO BE GIVEN AWAY:

   5 Cash Presents of $1,000 each        $5,000
   5 Cash Presents of $500 each           2,500
  10 Cash Presents of $200 each           2,000
  10 Cash Presents of $100 each           1,000
  10 Cash Presents of $50 each              500
   3 Elegant Upright Pianos, $300 each      900
   5 Elegant Cabinet Organs, $100 each      500
  25 Sewing Machines, $30 each              750
  20 Gents' Solid Gold Watches, $40 ea.     800
  30 Ladies' Solid Gold Watches, $25 ea.    750
  20 Beautiful Diamond Rings, $30 ea..      600
  20 Gents' Solid Silver Watches, $15 ea.   300
  25 Ladies' Chatelaine Watches, $10 ea.    250
  30 Boys' Silver Watches, $10 each         300
 100 Waterbury Watches, $3.50 each          350
  20 Gents' Solid Gold Chains, $20 each     400
  20 Ladies' Gold Neck Chains, $15 each     300
  20 Solid Gold Bracelets, $15 each         300
  10 Elegant Bicycles, $85 each             850
   5 Silver Tea Sets, $100 each             500
   5 Sets Parlor Furniture, $100 each       500
  10 Elegant Boys' Suits, to order, $20     200
  10 Girls' Outside Garments, $15 each      150
  50 Gold Pens and Holders, $2 each         100
 500 Extension Gold Pencils, $1 each        500
 500 Pair Nickel-Plated Skates, $2 each.  1,000
 500 Large Photograph Albums, $2 each     1,000
 500 Pair Roller Skates, $2 each          1,000
 500 Two-Dollar Greenbacks                1,000
 500 One-Dollar Greenbacks                  500
 500 Magic Lanterns, $1 each                500
 500 Boys' Pocket Knives, $1 each           500
 500 Ladies' Pocket Knives, $1 each         500
1000 Oil Pictures, $1 each                1,000
 500 Solid Gold Rings, $2 each            1,000
1000 Autograph Albums, $1 each            1,000

AND 92,532 OTHER USEFUL AND VALUABLE PRESENTS RANGING IN VALUE FROM
TWENTY-FIVE CENTS TO ONE DOLLAR, making a grand total of 100,000
presents to be given to the first one hundred thousand subscribers
received. EVERY ONE GETS A PRESENT. All of the above presents will be
awarded in a FAIR AND IMPARTIAL MANNER by a committee chosen by the
subscribers. Among the last 92,532 presents are 50,000 of one article,
which we manufacture and own the patent, and that retails at One Dollar
the world over and never sold for less; it is something needed in every
home, AND IS WELL WORTH FIVE DOLLARS IN ANY FAMILY; millions have been
sold at One Dollar each. Being owners and manufacturers we can afford to
give 50,000 to our subscribers, believing that you will be so well
pleased that you will always be patrons of the ARGOSY;--besides all this
you have a chance to get one of the most valuable presents offered in
our list. THE AWARD OF PRESENTS WILL POSITIVELY TAKE PLACE MARCH 10, '84.

THE GOLDEN ARGOSY IS A WEEKLY PAPER for the FATHER, the MOTHER, the
BOYS, and the GIRLS. It is the most BEAUTIFUL, USEFUL, ENTERTAINING,
INSTRUCTIVE, AND POPULAR WEEKLY published. It has the best corps of
FIRST-CLASS AUTHORS in the United States, including such as HORATIO
ALGER JR., EDWARD S. ELLIS, OLIVER OPTIC, HARRY CASTLEMON, FRANK H.
CONVERSE, REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, and a host of others too numerous to
mention. It is BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED, and its reading matter is all
original from the pens of noted authors. Its regular subscription price
is 50 CENTS FOR THREE MONTHS; $1.00 FOR SIX MONTHS; $1.75 FOR TWELVE
MONTHS; without present or premium; but in order to secure 100,000
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FOR 50 CENTS we will send you THE GOLDEN ARGOSY, weekly, for three
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A FREE SUBSCRIPTION TO YOU. If you will CUT THIS ADVERTISEMENT OUT and
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HOW TO SEND MONEY. Send small sums, from 50 cents to one or two dollars
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THE ARGOSY PUBLISHING CO., 81 WARREN STREET, NEW YORK.

REMEMBER, THE ABOVE PRESENTS ARE GIVEN ABSOLUTELY FREE TO OUR
SUBSCRIBERS. CUT THIS OUT AND SHOW IT TO YOUR FRIENDS, NEIGHBORS AND
ACQUAINTANCES.

--> IT WILL NOT APPEAR AGAIN. <-- AGENTS WANTED EVERYWHERE.


WHAT SUBSCRIBERS SAY.

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    Mrs. M. E. AXTELL, West Richfield, Ohio.

THE ARGOSY has been SO GOOD this year I MUST HAVE it another; enclosed
is $1.75.

    DAN. W. HUNTINGTON, Boston.

I LIKE THE ARGOSY VERY MUCH, and think it GREATLY IN ADVANCE of the
usual style of papers for the young--THE BOYS LIKE IT.

    Mrs. AGNES S. ARMSTRONG. Ephraim, Utah Ter.

I have taken a number of papers, but I NEVER HAD ONE I LIKE AS WELL as
THE ARGOSY. To sit before the fire these cold evenings and read it IS
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again.

    W. S. KNOWLTON, Portland, Me.

I should take the ARGOSY another year IF I HAD TO SIT UP NIGHTS TO EARN
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    WINNIE S. MOORE, Audubon, Ia.

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    D. E. BROTHWELL, Wakefield, Kan.

THE ARGOSY is the VERY BEST PAPER of the kind published. I WOULD NOT DO
WITHOUT IT FOR TWICE $1.75.

    FRANK G. JOHNSON, Painesville, O.

I prize the ARGOSY ABOVE ALL YOUTH'S PAPERS. Its high moral tone and
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    Mrs. IDA AUSTIN, Fort Halleck, Wy.

The character of the ARGOSY COMMENDS ITSELF TO ALL.

    WM S. CLARK, Washington, D. C.

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NOTICES FROM THE PRESS.

THE GOLDEN ARGOSY is handsomely printed on tinted paper, and is
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It is SPARKLING and PURE, interesting and HIGH-TONED. The best authors
in America contribute to its columns.--_Journal_, Lewistown, Me.

Parents and guardians who would place fascinating as well as
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TO IT.--_Church Union_, N. Y.

THE GOLDEN ARGOSY has ECLIPSED, in EVERY respect, its older but less
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Full of LIFE and VIM, it commends itself to those desiring to be
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to the reading public.--_Vanity Fair_, San Francisco, Cal.

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publisher EVIDENTLY UNDERSTANDS boys' tastes.--_Times_, Indianapolis,
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Philadelphia, Pa.

THE GOLDEN ARGOSY is a youths' paper, and CONTAINS MORE INTERESTING
READING MATTER than any other similar publication in the
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IT IS A FIRST-CLASS PAPER, FULLY EQUALLING THE _Youth's Companion_, and,
being once introduced into the home, will be sure to remain.--_Herald_,
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       *       *       *       *       *

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _from this
date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a
copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES,
FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class
weekly agricultural paper in this country._

       *       *       *       *       *



FORESTRY.


Henry Stuart writes the New York Times: A wise and careful system of
agriculture might have left our fields still fertile and productive, so
an economical use of the forests might have made them a perennial source
of wealth. Fortunately the injury is not beyond a remedy, for it is
easier to restore a growth of timber than it is to bring back fertility
to a barren soil. It is easy to care for what is left and to replant and
renew the growth, and even to do this better and more quickly and with
more and quicker profit than nature has done it. It is easy, too, by a
wise and practical use of the forests that are left, to so husband them
as to take regular harvests from them as the farmer regularly harvests
his fields or selects the fatlings from his flocks. He does not gather
in all these at one fell swoop, taking the fat and the lean and the
young and the old, as the fisherman gathers all into his nets, and as
the lumberman has felled the woods, but he selects those that are ripe
and carefully rears the rest until they are ready. Had the timber been
culled in this way from the forests year by year there would have been a
periodical harvest, and as the mature trees were cut out a new growth
would spring up. But, on the contrary, as in the old fable, the goose
has been killed for its golden eggs, and the source of a lasting profit
has been recklessly sacrificed.

Fortunately the land is left, and can be put to its proper use as soon
as it can be controlled. And still fortunately, by a wise
administration, the forests may be made a profitable source of public
income, instead of, as heretofore, the prey of the spoilers. It is
useless to complain of past mistakes. They have been, as we have pointed
out, mere incidents of our system, and possibly unavoidable. But the
time has come when the system must be changed, and the necessity for a
change has become so apparent that it can not be long delayed. It is not
only the commerce of the country that must suffer by a continuance of
the system, but agriculture suffers still more; and it is not only the
public who will gain by a change, but the example will be followed by
the farmers, who will doubtless soon learn to take care of their own
timber lands and plant more, and so the benefit will be general.
Besides, the farmers will not be long in discovering the profit in
growing timber, and would plant groves as one of the most profitable
crops that could be grown upon their rougher lands, or as a resting and
restorative crop for their worn soil.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before the New York Academy of Science a few days ago, Professor Albert
R. Leeds gave some "facts gathered from eight years of personal
inspection as to the alleged destruction of the Adirondack forests." He
said that a rapid course of spoilation was going on in the outskirts of
the forest, and the effect of it would soon be felt in the flow of the
Hudson. The impression that the Adirondacks were pine-producing was a
false one. Pine trees were seldom seen and the mountains were covered
with spruce and hemlock. But the spruces, owing to a disease which
attacked them a few years ago, are rapidly dying off. On the Ausable
river and along the shores of Lake Champlain the destruction of the
forest is especially great. Persons living about the forest start fires
in the woodland which spread rapidly and are more destructive to the
trees than the lumbermen. Professor Leeds thought that the railways
which are making their way through the forests would be an important
element in their destruction, for the sparks of the locomotives would
originate forest fires. He said that the purchase of the forests by the
State might not require so great an expenditure of money as was
anticipated.

       *       *       *       *       *

In closing an article on "Forestry and Farming," the Germantown
Telegraph maintains that the idea that farmers and land-owners generally
entertain that they may not live to enjoy the advantages of the
tree-planting, should be utterly banished from their minds. It will
require only about twenty years to realize the most liberal hopes of
success; at least it will add to the value of the farm by the fact that
the amount of timber is to be increased instead of diminished. We all
know how anxious every purchaser of a tract of land is to know whether
there is any and how much timber upon a farm offered for sale. In fact,
there is no greater mistake made than to cut down the wood upon a farm
when purchased, with a view to meet the second payment; and this mistake
is invariably brought home to everyone in a few years. It is like taking
the life-blood out of the land.



SCIENTIFIC.


Official Weather Wisdom.

Almost from its invention the barometer has been vaunted an indicator of
impending weather, and now we are in possession of numberless rules for
interpreting its indications, mostly of a vague and indefinite purport,
few, if any, pretending to accuracy and certainty. As mankind are always
desirous of attaining weather wisdom, these rules have tended to give
the barometer its widely recognized reputation, rather than any really
infallible principles, clearly formulated. With no other philosophical
instrument have people so deluded themselves as with the barometer.
Meteorology having become almost an official monopoly, the officials
seem to have made the readiest and largest amount of reputation out of
the barometer as a weather glass; for all that they have had to do is to
compile rules from a number of authors, without any necessity of
acknowledgment, print as much as they please at the Government expense,
give it away freely, and the notoriety of authorship is secured easily
and expeditiously. Thus the British nation has been officially supplied
with about eighteen different editions of the Barometer Manual, widely
differing from each other according to the views of the authors; for
although the book remains the self-styled authors change, much the same
as with the Cambridge books on mathematics. A study of the edition,
"Coast or Fishery Barometer Manual," teaches that the barometer
foretells coming weather; that it does not always foretell coming
weather; that only few are able to understand much about what it does
tell us; that it may be used by ordinary persons without difficulty;
that its indications are sometimes erroneous: that any one observing it
once a day may be always weatherwise; that its warnings do not apply
always to the locality of the instrument; that storms frequently occur
without its giving any warning; that barometer depressions happen with
and without gales; and similar ambiguous or contradictory assertions ad
nauseam. It is perfectly astounding to contemplate that official
authority sanctions such inconsistent teaching, and moreover
disseminates it far and wide, forcing its circulation by giving it away
gratuitously on humane and eleemosynary grounds. Where only such
confusing advice and direction can be given is it becoming to stamp it
as official? it is lamentable inconsiderateness to expect fishermen to
be able to dodge the weather by such guidance; and it is time to stop
this easily concocted nostrum for notoriety; for it is vague and
inconclusive in every precept, and has scarcely an assertion which is
not contradicted by some other.--_Engineering._



A Remarkable Electrical Discovery.


The London Times of recent date states that a new electrical contrivance
has been perfected by Mr. A. St. George, the inventor of the telephone
which bears his name. This invention, which is really supplemental to
the telephone, will enable every description of conversation carried on
through the instrument to be not only recorded but reproduced at any
future time. Briefly stated, Mr. St. George's invention may be thus
described: A circular plate of glass is coated with collodion and made
sensitive as a photographic plate. This is placed in a dark box, in
which is a slit to admit a ray of light. In front of the glass is a
telephone diaphragm, which, by its vibrations, opens and closes a small
shutter through which a beam of light is constantly passing and
imprinting a dark line on the glass. Vibrations of the shutter cause the
dark line to vary in thickness according to the tones of the voice. The
glass plate is revolved by clock work, and the conversation as it leaves
the telephone is recorded on the sensitive plate, the imprinted words
spoken being fixed as is done in photography. The plate can be brought
forward afterwards, and when replaced in the machine and connected with
a distant telephone, will, when set in motion, give back the original
conversation.

       *       *       *       *       *

On October 15, 1881, a gentleman in Newburgh, N. Y., inclosed a spider
in a small paper box. He carefully guarded and watched it, and affirms
that for 204 days it partook of no food or water. It showed no
emaciation, and appeared as active and strong as at first until within a
very few days of its death on May 7, 1882. Tamerlane learned patience
from a spider; perhaps Tanner was taught by them how to fast. The Hour,
from which we take this item, also has the following: Another spider
story is sent from California by the Rev. Dr. McCook, of honey-ant fame.
He found a small cocoon of eggs and young spiders, which had no less
than five other kinds of insects living in and about it. These intruders
consisted of small red ants, a diminutive beetle, and a series formed by
a minute chalcid, parasitic on a larger chalcid, which was parasitic on
an ichneumon, which was parasitic on the spider. All were seeking to
devour the eggs and spiderlings, yet the whole cocoonful, victims
included, seemed to be living on most amicable terms.

       *       *       *       *       *

Various methods for hastening the conversion of cider into vinegar have
been recommended. A French method is as follows: Scald three barrels or
casks with hot water, rinse thoroughly and empty. Then scald with
boiling vinegar, rolling the barrels and allowing them to stand on their
sides two or three days until they become thoroughly saturated with the
vinegar. The barrels are then filled about one-third full with strong
pure cider vinegar and two gallons of cider added. Every eighth day
thereafter two gallons of cider are added until the barrels are
two-thirds full. The whole is allowed to stand fourteen days longer,
when it will be found to be good vinegar, and one-half of it may be
drawn and the process of filling with cider be begun again. In summer
the barrels are allowed to stand exposed to the sun and in cold weather
kept where the temperature is 80 degrees.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Party of the United States Geological Survey have found it practicable
to ride to the highest peak of Mount Shasta, and suggest the
establishment there of a third elevated station for weather
observations, similar to those on Pike's Peak and Mount Washington.

       *       *       *       *       *

A herring produces from 30,000 to 50,000 eggs, and the eggs are so small
in size that 20,000 can be put one layer thick on a square foot of
glass.

       *       *       *       *       *

COUGHS AND HOARSENESS.--The irritation which induces coughing
immediately relieved by use of "_Brown's Bronchial Troches_."
Sold only in boxes.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

To Our Readers.

THE PRAIRIE FARMER is the OLDEST, MOST RELIABLE, and the LEADING
AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL OF THE GREAT NORTHWEST, devoted exclusively to the
interests of the Farmer, Gardener, Florist, Stock Breeder, Dairyman,
Etc., and every species of Industry connected with that great portion of
the People of the World, the PRODUCERS. Now in the Forty-Fourth Year of
its existence, and never, during more than two score years, having
missed the regular visit to its patrons, it will continue to maintain
supremacy as A STANDARD AUTHORITY ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO AGRICULTURE
AND KINDRED PRODUCTIVE INDUSTRIES, and as a FRESH AND READABLE FAMILY
AND FIRESIDE JOURNAL. It will from time to time add new features of
interest, securing for each department the ablest writers of practical
experience.

THE PRAIRIE FARMER will discuss, without fear or favor, all topics of
interest properly belonging to a Farm and Fireside Paper, treat of the
most approved practices in AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, BREEDING, ETC.;
the varied Machinery, Implements, and improvements in same, for use both
in Field and House; and, in fact, everything of interest to the
Agricultural community, whether in FIELD, MARKET, OR HOME CIRCLE.

IT WILL GIVE INFORMATION UPON THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, WESTERN SOILS, CLIMATE,
ETC.; ANSWER INQUIRIES on all manner of subjects which come within its
sphere; GIVE each week, full and RELIABLE MARKET, CROP, AND WEATHER
REPORTS; PRESENT the family with choice and INTERESTING LITERATURE;
amuse and INSTRUCT THE YOUNG FOLKS; AND, in a word, aim to BE, in every
respect, AN INDISPENSABLE AND UNEXCEPTIONABLE farm and fireside
COMPANION.


Terms of Subscription and 'Club Rates':

ONE COPY, 1 YEAR, postage paid      $ 2.00

TWO COPIES, "   "  "                  3.75

FIVE  "  "   sent at one time         8.75

TEN   "  "   sent at one time, and
        one to Club getter           16.00

TWENTY "  "   sent at one time, and
               one to Club getter    30.00

Address

The Prairie Farmer Publishing Co.,
Chicago. Ill.

       *       *       *       *       *

STANDARD BOOKS.

ROPP'S CALCULATOR AND DIARY.

Practical Arithmetic made EASY, SIMPLE, and CONVENIENT for all, by this
unique and wonderful work. Is worth its weight in gold to everyone not
quick in figures. Contains nearly 100,000 BUSINESS Calculations, SIMPLE
and PRACTICABLE Rules and ORIGINAL Methods--the CREAM of this great and
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child, to make CORRECT and INSTANTANEOUS computations in GRAIN, Stock,
Hay, Coal, Cotton, Merchandise. INTEREST, Percentage, Profit and Loss,
Wages, Measurement of Lumber, Logs, Cisterns, Tanks, Granaries,
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Plasterers', and Masons' work, besides THOUSANDS of other practical
problems which come up every day in the year. Will prove of GREAT
BENEFIT, almost A NECESSITY, in the hands of every FARMER, Mechanic, and
Tradesman.

It is neatly printed, elegantly bound, accompanied by a RENEWABLE Diary,
SILICATE Slate, PERPETUAL Calendar, and VALUABLE POCKET-BOOK, all
combined, for the price of a COMMON diary.

Fine English Cloth               $ .50
Fine English Cloth, with flap      .75
Fine Roan Leather, with flap      1.00

Sent postpaid to any address on receipt of price.

Address PRAIRIE FARMER PUB. CO.,
CHICAGO ILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

How to Paint

A new work by A PRACTICAL PAINTER, designed for the use of TRADESMEN,
MECHANICS, MERCHANTS, FARMERS, and as a guide to PROFESSIONAL PAINTERS.
Containing a Plain, Common-Sense Statement of the methods employed by
Painters to produce satisfactory results in PLAIN and FANCY PAINTING of
every description, including FORMULAS for MIXING PAINT in OIL or WATER,
Tools required, etc. This is just the book needed by any person having
anything to paint and makes

"EVERY MAN HIS OWN PAINTER."

Full directions for using WHITE LEAD LAMP BLACK--IVORY BLACK--
PRUSSIAN BLUE--ULTRAMARINE--GREEN--YELLOW--BROWN--VERMILLION--
LAKE--CARMINE--WHITING--GLUE--ASPHALTUM--PUMICE STONE, and
SPIRITS OF TURPENTINE--OILS--VARNISHES--FURNITURE VARNISH--MILK
PAINT--PREPARING CALCIMINE.

Paint for Outbuildings

--WHITEWASH--Paste for PAPER HANGING--HANGING PAPER--GRAINING IN
OAK, MAPLE, MAHOGANY, ROSEWOOD, BLACK WALNUT--STAINING--GILDING--
BRONZING--TRANSFERRING--DECALCOMANIA--MAKING RUSTIC PICTURES--
PAINTING FLOWER-STAND--MAHOGANY POLISH--ROSEWOOD POLISH--
VARNISHING FURNITURE--WAXING FURNITURE--CLEANING PAINT--

Paint for Farming Tools

for MACHINERY, and for HOUSEHOLD FIXTURES

To Paint a Farm Wagon

--to RE-VARNISH A CARRIAGE--to make PLASTER CASTS. The work is neatly
printed, with illustrations wherever they can serve to make the subject
plainer, and it will save MANY TIMES its cost yearly. Every family
should possess a copy. Price, by mail, postpaid, $1. Forwarded free to
any sender of two subscribers to this paper at $2 each. Address

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO. Chicago.

       *       *       *       *       *

STANDARD WORKS.

By PETER HENDERSON


Gardening for Profit,

A WELL-KNOWN WORK ON

Market and Family Gardening


Gardening FOR Pleasure

A guide to the amateur in the Fruit, Vegetable, and Flower Garden, with
full directions for the Green-House, Conservatory, and Window Garden.


PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE,

A guide to successful Propagation and Cultivation of Florists' Plants.


PRICE, $1.50 EACH, BY MAIL, POSTPAID.

Address
PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., Chicago.

       *       *       *       *       *

TALKS ON MANURES

By JOSEPH HARRIS, M. S.

Author of "_Walks and Talks on the Farm_," "_Farm Crops_," "_Harris on
the Pig_," _etc._

While we have no lack of treatises upon artificial fertilizers, there is
no work in which the main stay of the farm--the manure made upon the
farm is treated so satisfactorily or thoroughly as in this volume.
Starting with the question,

"WHAT IS MANURE?"

the author, well known on both sides of the water by his writings, runs
through in sufficient detail every source of manure on the farm,
discussing the methods of making rich manure; the proper keeping and
applying it, and especially the

USES OF MANURE,

and the effects of different artificial fertilizers, as compared with
farm-yard manure, upon different crops. In this he makes free use of the
striking series of experiments instituted years ago, and still
continued, by Lawes and Gilbert, of Rothamsted, England. The

REMARKABLE TABLES

in which the results of these experiments are given, are here for the
first time made accessible to the American farmer. In fact, there is
scarcely any point relating to fertilizing the soil, including suitable
manures for special crops, that is not treated, and while the teachings
are founded upon the most elaborate scientific researches, they are so
far divested of the technical language of science as to commend
themselves to farmers as eminently "practical." It is not often that the
results of scientific investigations are presented in a manner so
thoroughly popular. 12mo. Price, postpaid, $1.50.

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO. Chicago.

       *       *       *       *       *

HOUSE PLANS FOR EVERYBODY.

By S. B. REED, Architect.

One of the most popular Architectural books ever issued, giving a wide
range of design from a dwelling costing $250 up to $8,000, and adapted
to farm, village, and town residences. It gives an

Estimate of the Quantity of Every Article Used

in the construction, and probable cost of constructing any one of the
buildings presented. Profusely illustrated. Price, postpaid, $1.50.
Address

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., Chicago

       *       *       *       *       *

NOW is the time to Subscribe for THE PRAIRIE FARMER. Price only $2.00
per year is worth double the money.

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

HOUSEHOLD.

    For nothing lovelier can be found
    In woman than to study _household_ good.--_Milton._


CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

    O stay not thine hand when the winter's wind rude
    Blows cold through the dwellings of want and despair,
    To ask if misfortune has come to the good,
    Or if folly has wrought the sad wreck that is there.

    When the Savior of men raised His finger to heal,
    Did He ask if the sufferer was Gentile or Jew?
    When thousands were fed with a bountiful meal,
    Was it given alone to the faithful and true?

    If the heart-stricken wanderer asks thee for bread,
    In suffering he bows to necessity's laws;
    When the wife moans in sickness, the children unfed,
    The cup must be bitter, O ask not the cause.

    Then scan not too closely the frailties of those
    Whose bosoms may bless on a cold winter's day:
    And give to the wretched who tells thee his woes,
    And from him that would borrow, O turn not away!

        --_Dr. Reynell Coates._

       *       *       *       *       *

A correspondent writes:

Will give the readers of THE PRAIRIE FARMER the favor of telling
us all about making sandwiches. How thick should they be when
complete? Best made of bread or biscuit? and if chicken or ham,
how prepared? Please don't say shred the meat and sprinkle in
salt, pepper, and mustard, but tell us how to shred the meat. Do
you chop it, and how fine? and how much seasoning to a given
quantity? or do cooks always guess at it?

    MRS. C. H.

--Will not some of our lady readers tell us how they make sandwiches.
The question is an important one for city as well as country, where so
many thousands of "lunches" have to be prepared daily.--[ED.

       *       *       *       *       *

A correspondent writes the lady readers of THE PRAIRIE FARMER concerning
a new line of work, which we hope many of them may find profitable:

Much has been written regarding proper and remunerative employment for
women. Silk culture, poultry raising, and various other themes have been
thoroughly ventilated, and the result has no doubt been very beneficial;
but there are many ladies who have no opportunity to raise silk worms,
or follow any business of that kind. To that class I wish to open what
to me was an entirely new field.

Some three months ago an uncle of mine from Albany, N. Y., was visiting
at our house, and we were talking of plated ware, which he is engaged in
manufacturing, and to gratify my curiosity he made a plating machine and
replated our knives, forks, spoons and caster. It only cost $4, and it
did the work perfectly. Some of our neighbors saw what we had plated,
and wanted me to do some plating for them. Since then I have worked
twenty-two days, clearing in that time $94.34. At almost every house I
got from $2 to $3 worth of plating to do, and such work is most all
profit. This business is as nice for ladies as it is for gentlemen,
being all indoor work, and any one can do it. My brother, although he
worked two days longer than I did, only made $91.50. I am getting up a
collection of curiosities, and to any of your readers that will send me
a specimen I will send them full directions for making and using a
plating machine like mine that will plate gold, silver and nickel. Send
small pieces of stones, ores, shells, wood, leaves of trees, plants,
etc. Anything small will do. What I want to get is as many different
specimens from as many different places all over the country as I can.
Address

    MISS M. F. CASSEY.
        OBERLIN, OHIO.



The Night Cap.


In a late letter to the August Constitution Jas. R. Randall discourses
thus pleasantly of the efficiency of the night cap in producing sleep:

About 9 o'clock at night we boarded the sleeping coach for Washington.
Just before retiring for the night my mind, somehow or other, reverted
to an editorial article recently published in the New York Times, half
serious, half earnest, concerning the latest theory of an English
physician as to the prepotent cause of insomnia and nervous disorders
generally. It may be remembered that to the abandonment of the night cap
of our grandfathers (the cotton or flannel article, not the alcoholic)
was attributed the modern tendency of sleeplessness that make even a
philosopher like Herbert Spencer more or less of a crank. What I wanted,
and wanted as the fellow did his pistol in Texas, was first-class
slumber, just such unmitigated repose as occasionally comes to a highly
organized baby, unvexed by colic or pure cussedness. I began to think
that perhaps that British doctor was right, and that, if it were
possible, I would return to the neglected custom of my ancestors. Just
at that moment I plunged my hand into my coat pocket and pulled out a
silk smoking-cap--a pretty thing, wrought for me long ago by the dainty,
delicate, deft fingers of one who now rests in the graveyard at Augusta.
This cap was the very thing. I placed it reverently upon my head, with
an act of faith, and lay down. The result was magical. Never since I was
a boy can I remember to have experienced so perfect and delicious a
repose. Not a dream rippled the surface of my calm brain, and I awakened
hours afterward with a sense of satisfaction that must be a foretaste of
heaven itself. An incipient headache had vanished. Powers of mind that
had been dulled were restored to animation and keenness. Not a trace of
irascibility remained; but in its place came trooping the sweet angels
that Father Faber says continually hover over the good-humored man. I
declare that the metamorphosis was so complete that I almost needed an
introduction to my new self. And this prodigy was created by one grand,
complete and unusual slumber, when wearing a nightcap! Subsequent
experiments have been relatively successful; so I am getting to be an
enthusiast on the subject. Some folks say that it is a delusion, a mere
freak of the imagination. Be it so. If a nightcap can extinguish my
imagination at bed-time, thank God for the discovery! My good old mother
tells me that when I was a little fellow she used to tie a nightcap
under my chin, and that I was a famous sleeper in those times. She is a
firm believer in the efficacy. Likely enough if a man eats pickled pig's
feet at midnight or drinks unlimited whisky, even a silk or cotton
nightcap may not consign him to the arms of Morpheus; but it may work
wonders for a sober person who is cursed with the pestilent habit of
conjuring up all manner or odd fancies when his head touches the pillow,
instead of dismissing the workmen who hammer on the forges of the brain.
The majority of the men will rather suffer nocturnal horrors than be
laughed at for wearing nightcaps; just as the majority of women will
prefer to wear shoes that are instruments of disease and torture rather
than have their feet shod comfortably and sensibly. I have a clear idea
as to which is the course of wisdom and which the alternative of folly.
But this is a diversion which you, readers, may smile at or not as the
whim seizes you.



How to Treat a Boy.


Get hold of the boy's heart. Yonder locomotive comes like a whirlwind
down the track, and a regiment of armed men might seek to arrest it in
vain. It would crush them, and plunge unheeding on. But there is a
little lever in the mechanism that at the pressure of a man's hand will
slacken its speed, and in a moment bring it panting and still, like a
whipped spaniel, at your feet. By the same little lever the vast steamer
is guided hither and yonder upon the sea, in spite of the adverse winds
or current. That sensitive and responsive spot by which a boy's life is
controlled is his heart. With your grasp gently and firmly on that helm,
you may pilot him whither you will. Never doubt that he has a heart. Bad
and willful boys very often have the tenderest hearts hidden somewhere
beneath incrustations of sin or behind barricades of pride. And it is
your business to get at that heart, keep hold of it by sympathy,
confiding in him, manifestly working only for his good by little
indirect kindnesses to his mother or sister, or even his pet dog. See
him at his home, or invite him into yours. Provide him some little
pleasures, set him at some little service of trust for you; love him;
love him practically. Anyway and every way rule him through his heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Etiquette now admits of a second plate of soup." That is all right, but
if a man's appetite will not admit of a second plate of soup, etiquette
is nothing to him. And if he has the appetite, he will have the soup,
etiquette or no etiquette.

       *       *       *       *       *

Rand, Avery, & Co., Boston, announce a new story--a thrilling and
powerful tale--involving the pregnant question of Mormonism. The book
will be amply illustrated and sold by subscription. The publishers say
that in their opinion this book will serve a purpose not unlike Uncle
Tom's Cabin (of which, by the way, four hundred thousand copies--eight
hundred thousand volumes--were issued in this country, every one of
which bore their imprint). It will hasten the day for the uprising of an
indignant nation, and their verdict will be as in the case of
slavery--this disgrace must cease--the Mormon must go!



Pamphlets, Etc., Received.


Honey, as Food and Medicine. Presented by J. L. Harris, 697 W. Lake St.,
Chicago. This little work contains many valuable recipes showing how
honey can be made useful medicinally and as an appetizer. For
housekeepers in the country who have bees it will be found especially
useful.

Spring catalogue and price list of the Eclectic Small Fruit Nursery. O.
B. Galusha, Morris, Ill.

New State Fair Grounds: Statement by the executive committee, together
with the rejoinder of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture to the
Franklin County Society's reply. This pamphlet will be interesting to
the farmers of that State.

Landreth's Companion for the Garden and Farm, Philadelphia, Pa. Price 10
cents. This book is, as usual, handsomely gotten up, and is truly a
"companion." The prettily colored cover is but an index to the many
colored pages within. It also contains many interesting plates showing
the manner and extent of work carried on by this enterprising firm. The
book is replete with valuable information.

Supplemental Report of the Department of Agriculture of Georgia, for the
year 1883, Circular No. 49, new series. Shows the yield of the leading
crops of the State as compared with 1882; the average yield per acre,
and other matters of interest to the farmers of Georgia.

Descriptive Catalogue of C. A. Hiles & Co.'s saws and ice tools, 234
South Water street, Chicago.

Descriptive catalogue and price list of H. F. Dernell & Co.'s ice tools,
Athens, N. Y.

A. E. Spaulding's annual descriptive catalogue and price list of flower
seeds, plants, and tools, Ainsworth, Iowa.

Report No. 3 of the Department of Agriculture, Division and Statistics,
December, 1883, Washington. This report is full of very useful
statistical information.

Foreign Press Opinions of Madame Marcella Sembrich in Mr. Henry E.
Abbey's Grand Italian Opera Company. These opinions are very flattering,
and if true, the Madame deserves to be well patronized.

Chicago Medical Times, edited by W. H. Davis, M.D. $2.00 per annum, 25
cents a single copy.

Special Report No. 3 of the Department of Agriculture, miscellaneous,
Washington. This report is given up to the discussion of Mississippi,
its climate, soil, productions, and agricultural capabilities. By A. B.
Hurt, Special Agent.

The American Naturalist for January contains the usual number of
well-written articles, and is finely illustrated. This magazine is
devoted to the natural sciences in the broadest sense of that term.

The Silver Dollar: The original standard of payment of the United States
of America, and its enemies. By Henry Carey Baird, Philadelphia, Pa.,
810 Walnut Street.

The twenty-first and twenty-second quarterly report of the Pennsylvania
Board of Agriculture, 1883. Harrisburg, Pa.

The Storrs & Harrison Co.'s Catalogue (No. 2) for 1884. Painesville,
Ohio. This catalogue is fully illustrated with cuts of flowers and
vegetables of almost every known description, so that the purchaser can
see just what he is buying before sending order.

Ohio Crop Report, December, 1883. With analyses and valuations of
fertilizers, meteorological reports, etc.



Compiled Correspondence.


Kane Co., Ill., Jan. 21.--Cold weather continues. On eight days of this
month the thermometer has been below zero. It has been above the
freezing point only on one morning, the 13th. Sleighing is good, except
on some of the graveled roads. Cattle are in good condition. The horse
distemper prevails in some localities among colts. Hay is plenty. A few
fat hogs were sold last week. One farmer, in Kaneville, sold 80 hogs,
averaging 443 pounds each, at $6.10 per cwt. There are but very few fat
hogs left. The cold, dry weather has improved the condition of corn in
the cribs. Coarse feed is scarce. Considerable corn has been shipped
here from Kansas. Bran and middlings are coming in from Minneapolis, and
sell at $15 and and $17 per ton. Cheese factory dividends for November
from $1.50 to $1.60 per cwt. Large quantities of milk are daily shipped
into Chicago from this county.

    J. P. B.

       *       *       *       *       *

I see that you request items in regard to the cold wave that swept over
our country during the first week in this month. There is no doubt the
cold was as intense over the country generally as it has been known for
many years, or perhaps ever before, but so far as I can learn the
damage to fruit trees, etc., is very slight. On the morning of the 16th
of December we had our first snow, but the weather was quite pleasant to
the end of the year, with occasionally slight freezing, but thermometer
never down to zero.

The result of this favorable weather was the thorough ripening up of the
wood of all fruit and ornamental trees, so that when on the 5th of the
present month the mercury ran down to 26 degrees below zero, and in some
parts of the country far below that even, the damage was very slight.
The writer has been extensively engaged in cutting scions, and knows
whereof he speaks. I have also examined some peach trees and find the
wood slightly discolored but not dead. I did not thoroughly examine the
fruit buds of the peach, but suppose, of course, they are all killed.
Had this intense cold weather occurred early in December, there is no
doubt but the damage would have been immense.

There has been a great loss of potatoes in cellars and pits, as most
people had worked themselves into the belief that we were to have a mild
winter, and had not prepared their cellars to resist cold at the rate of
30 degrees below zero. The result is that thousands of bushels of
potatoes are frozen and ruined, and although the largest crop of
potatoes was raised last year that ever was raised in the United States,
yet potatoes will be high priced before planting time.

    H. A. TERRY.
        CRESCENT CITY, IA., Jan. 19.



Seed Corn Famine.


Probably nineteen farmers in twenty must buy seed corn for next spring's
planting, on account of the failure of the '83 crop to ripen. We must
look sharp to the seeds we buy, that they are better than our own, as
many unreliable parties will offer inferior stocks, to take advantage of
the demand. We suggest that every corn grower should send to Hiram
Sibley & Co., the reliable seedsmen at Rochester, N. Y., and Chicago,
Ill., for their catalogue and seed-corn circulars. This house makes a
specialty of seed-corn and we believe that they will do what they say
they will.

       *       *       *       *       *

MAPS.

RAND, McNALLY & CO.'S
NEW RAILROAD
--AND--
COUNTY MAP
--OF THE--
UNITED STATES
--AND--
DOMINION OF CANADA.

Size, 4 × 2-1/2 feet, mounted on rollers to hang on the wall. This is an

ENTIRELY NEW MAP,

Constructed from the most recent and authentic sources.

--IT SHOWS--
_ALL THE RAILROADS,_
--AND--
EVERY COUNTY AND PRINCIPAL TOWN
--IN THE--
UNITED STATES AND CANADA.

A useful Map in every one's home, and place of business. PRICE, $2.00.

Agents wanted, to whom liberal inducements will be given. Address

RAND, McNALLY & CO.,
Chicago, Ill.

By arrangements with the publishers of this Map we are enabled to make
the following liberal offer: To each person who will remit us $2.25 we
will send copy of THE PRAIRIE FARMER One Year and THIS MAP
POSTPAID. Address

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO.,
CHICAGO, ILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

TO PRESERVE THE HEALTH

Use the Magneton Appliance Co.'s

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ESPECIALLY INVITE the patronage of the MANY PERSONS who have tried
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they have not got them, write to the proprietors, enclosing the price,
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Send stamp for the "New Departure in Medical Treatment WITHOUT
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THE MAGNETON APPLIANCE CO.,
218 State Street, Chicago, Ill.

NOTE.--Send one dollar in postage stamps or currency (in letter
at our risk) with size of shoe usually worn, and try a pair of our
Magnetic Insoles, and be convinced of the power residing in our Magnetic
Appliances. Positively _no cold feet where they are worn, or money
refunded._



[Illustration]

OUR YOUNG FOLKS


Jule Fisher's Rescue.

It had been an unusually severe winter, even for Northern Aroostook.
Snow-fall had succeeded snow-fall, with no interval that could really be
called "thaw," till the "loggers" had finished their work; and as they
come plodding home on snow shoes, they all agreed that the snow lay from
ten to twelve feet deep on a level in the woods.

No wonder, then, that the warm March sun came to shine upon it day after
day, and the copious spring showers fell, there should have been a very
unusual "flood," or freshet. Every one predicted that when the ice
should break in the river, there would be a grand spectacle, and danger,
too, as well; and all waited with some anxiety for the "break" to come.

One morning, we at the village were awakened by a deep, roaring,
booming, crashing noise, and sprang from our beds, crying:

"The ice has broken up! The ice is running out!"

In hardly more time than it takes to tell it, we were dressed and at the
back windows, which looked down upon the river!

It was indeed a grand sight!

Huge cakes of ice of every shape and size were driving, tumbling,
crashing past, as if in a mad race with each other. The river, filled to
overflowing, seemed in angry haste to hurl its icy burden down the falls
below.

But after a few days the river ran clear, save for the occasional
breaking of some "jam" above. Along the margin of the broad stream,
however, there were here and there slight indentures, or notches, in the
banks, where the ice had escaped the mad rush of waters and still clung
in considerable patches.

It was upon one of these still undisturbed patches that "Jule" Fisher, a
rough boy of fourteen, with several of his equally rough comrades, was
playing on the lovely morning upon which my story opens.

These lads were not the sons of the steady, intelligent, church-going
inhabitants of this quiet Northern hamlet, but were from the families of
"lumbermen," "river-drivers" and "shingle-shavers." For some time they
had been having boisterous sport, venturing out upon the extreme edges
of the ice and with long poles pushing about the stray cakes which
occasionally came within their reach.

At length they grew tired of this, and began to jump upon ticklish
points of ice; and as these began to crack and show signs of breaking
away, the boys would run, with wild whoops, back to shore, the very
danger seeming to add to their enjoyment. Then, with poles and "prys,"
they would work upon the cracking mass until it floated clear and went
whirling down the rapid current.

"Ahoy, boys!" called Jule, who was seemingly their leader. "Up yender's
a big cake that only wants a shove! Come on! Let's set 'er a-going!"

No sooner said than done. Away went the noisy fellows to the projecting
point of ice. A few smart jumps sent it creaking and groaning, as though
still unwilling to quit its snug winter bed. One more jump, and the boys
all ran with a shout beyond the place where the ice was cracking
off--all save Jule.

It had not broken clear, and he was determined to set it going, when he
would spring on the firm ice beyond, as he had done once or twice
before.

But this time he was over-bold and not sufficiently watchful. A large
cake of ice had come floating down the river unnoticed either by him or
his friends, and striking the edge of the nearly loosened mass, shoved
it out into the swift, black water.

Poor Jule! He ran quickly to the freshly-broken edge--but, alas! too
late for the intended spring. The swiftly-rushing current had borne him
many yards from the shore and from his companions.

There he stood--for an instant in dumb amaze--balancing himself upon his
rocking raft with the pole he had been using. To attempt to swim ashore
would have been useless. He was a clumsy swimmer at best; and the cold,
rushing waters and floating ice cakes made swimming almost impossible.

He could not get off. To stay seemed sure death. Dumb with fright, for a
moment he stood in speechless terror. Then there rang across the wild,
black river and through the quiet streets of the village, such a yell of
abject fear as only a lusty lad of that age can give. It was a cry that
chilled the heart of every one who heard it.

A "four-days' meeting" was in session. The village church-goers were
just issuing from their houses in answer to the church bell, when that
pitiful cry and the shouts of "Help! Help! A boy in the stream!" reached
them, and drew them all quickly to the river bank.

In a few minutes the shore was lined with excited men and women. Yet all
stood helplessly staring, while poor Jule on his ice-raft was floating
steadily down toward the falls.

Never shall I forget how he looked as he stood there in the middle of
his floating white throne! There was something almost heroic in his calm
helplessness. For after the first wild cry, he had not once opened his
lips.

Downward he floated, drawn swiftly and surely on by the deep, mighty
rush of waters setting into the throat of the cataract. The heavy roar
from far below sounded like the luckless lad's knell. He stood but a
single chance--and that was hardly a chance--of his ice-raft lodging
against a tilted-up "jam" of cakes and logs which had piled against a
jagged ledge that rose in mid-stream, just above the brink of the
precipice.

This "jam" had hung there, wavering in the flood, for thirty-six hours.
Every moment it seemed about to go off--yet still it clung, in tremor,
as it seemed, at the fatal plunge which would dash it to pieces in the
thundering maelstrom below.

Good fortune--Providence, perhaps--so guided Jule's ice-raft that it
struck and lodged against the "jam," just as the horrified watchers on
shore expected to lose sight of the lad forever in the falls. "If it
will only hang there!" muttered scores, scarcely daring as yet to speak
a loud word.

They could see the cake, with Jule on it, heaving up and down with the
mighty rhythmic motion of the surging torrent; and all ran along down
the banks, to come nearer. The boy stood in the very jaws of death.
Beneath, the cataract roared and hurled up white gusts of spray.

Just at this moment, a short, thick-set man, with a round, good-natured
face, joined the crowd. For a moment he stood looking out at the lad,
then slapping another young man on the shoulder, said, hurriedly, "Isn't
there an old bateau stowed away in your shed, Lanse?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"Quick, then!" exclaimed the first speaker. "There isn't a moment to
lose."

"But, Mac," answered Lanse, as he hurried after him. "I'm afraid she's
no good; she's old and she's been stowed away all winter. Ten to one the
old thing leaks like a riddlin' sieve.

"But we mustn't lose a chance!" exclaimed Mac. "That jam will go out
within half an hour, if it doesn't within ten minutes!"

By this time the two had reached the shed. They quickly drew the bateau
from its wintering place, and taking the long, light boat upon their
shoulders, ran rapidly through the village and down to the river.

Meantime, two or three other men had run to fetch "dog warps" and
"towing-lines," a large number of which are always kept in these
backwoods lumbering hamlets, for use on the rivers and lakes, when logs
are rafted out in the spring.

Acting under Mac's prompt orders, a six-hundred foot warp was at once
made fast to a ring in the stern of a bateau, and another line laid
ready to bend to the first.

Jumping into the bateau, paddle in hand, and a boat-hook laid ready for
instant use, the bold young fellow now ordered the men to shove off the
skiff into the river and then pay out the line, as he should
direct--thus lowering him, yard by yard, down toward the "jam" where
Jule stood.

Rod by rod, they let him down toward the roaring abyss of furious
waters, till the bateau--guided by the paddle, and held back now by the
main strength of twenty men--touched the ice-cake.

But even as it touched, the cake began to slide off the jam; and Jule
was thrown on his hands and knees.

Quick as thought, however, his courageous rescuer struck his boat-hook
into the ice and held fast while Jule, stiff with fright, tumbled in at
the bow of the bateau.

He was hardly in the boat when the whole mass of ice and logs went over
the falls.

A shout arose, and when a few minutes later the bateau was drawn safely
back up the stream, and Mac stepped ashore with a rather bashful smile
on his round, fresh face, every one joined in long and prolonged cheers.

As for Jule, he had to be helped out of the boat and led home; for he
was, as they said, "limp as a rag;" and it was noticed that after this
perilous adventure he was a much more sober and thoughtful boy.

Pray do not imagine, reader, that I have been telling you a "made-up"
story, for what I have related is true, the writer herself being an
eye-witness to the incident while a teacher in a backwoods
school-district on the banks of the Aroostook.

       *       *       *       *       *

LIVE STOCK, Etc.

       PUBLIC SALE
           OF
    Short-Horn Cattle
           AT
_Somers, Kenosha Co., Wis._
           ON
 Wednesday, March 19, 1884.

I will sell at public sale, at my farm near Somers, Wis., at above time
and place, my entire herd of Thoroughbred Short-horn cattle, numbering
forty head. Among them are many of the choicest families. Included in
the sale will be the grand young bull Orpheus 13th, bred at Bow Park, a
beautiful red, and one of the finest bulls in the West. The cows are all
Breeders, and will have calves by their sides, or be safe in calf. I
offer this grand herd of cattle with reluctance, solely on account of my
advanced age and failing health. Catalogues ready about Feb. 15. Lunch
at 12. Sale to begin at 1. Free conveyances will meet the trains on
morning of sale at Somers, on C. M. & St. Paul, and at Kenosha for C. &
N. W. R. R.

    WM. YULE,
        Somers, Kenosha Co., Wis.

J. W. JUDY, Auctioneer.

       *       *       *       *       *

10 JERSEY BULLS FOR SALE,

All of fine quality, solid color and bk. points. Ages, from six to
eighteen months. Sons of Mahkeenae, 3290; brother of Eurotus, 2454, who
made 778 lbs. butter in a year, and out of cows of the best butter blood,
some having records of fourteen and fifteen lbs. per week. No fancy
prices.

A. H. COOLEY, Little Britain, Orange Co., N. Y.

N. B.--If I make sales as formerly will send a car with man in charge to
Cleveland, getting lowest rates.

       *       *       *       *       *

SCOTCH COLLIE

SHEPHERD PUPS,

--FROM--

IMPORTED AND TRAINED STOCK

--ALSO--

NEWFOUNDLAND PUPS AND RAT TERRIER PUPS.

Concise and practical printed instruction in Training young Shepherd
Dogs, is given to buyers of Shepherd Puppies; or will be sent on receipt
of 25 cents in postage stamps.

For Printed Circular, giving full particulars about Shepherd Dogs,
enclose a 3-cent stamp, and address

N.H. PAAREN,
P.O. Box 326, CHICAGO. ILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

_SEEDS_

Our new catalogue, best published, FREE _to all_. 1,500 _varieties_,
300 _illustrations_. You ought to have it. BENSON, MAULE & CO.,
Philadelphia, Pa.



BREEDERS DIRECTORY.


The following list embraces the names of responsible and reliable
Breeders in their line, and parties wishing to purchase or obtain
information can feel assured that they will be honorably dealt with:

SWINE.

Chester Whites.

W. A. Gilbert          Wauwatosa Wis.

SCHEIDT & DAVIS, DYER, LAKE CO., IND., breeders of Victoria swine.
Originators of this famous breed. Stock for Sale. Write for circular A.

       *       *       *       *       *

RAILROADS.

[Illustration]

A MAN WHO IS UNACQUAINTED WITH THE GEOGRAPHY OF THIS COUNTRY WILL SEE BY
EXAMINING THIS MAP THAT THE

CHICAGO, ROCK ISLAND & PACIFIC R'Y

By the central position of its line, connects the East and the West by
the shortest route, and carries passengers, without change of cars,
between Chicago and Kansas City, Council Bluffs, Leavenworth, Atchison,
Minneapolis and St. Paul. It connects in Union Depots with all the
principal lines of road between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. Its
equipment is unrivaled and magnificent, being composed of Most
Comfortable and Beautiful Day Coaches, Magnificent Horton Reclining
Chair Cars, Pullman's Prettiest Palace Sleeping Cars, and the Best Line
of Dining Cars in the World. Three Trains between Chicago and Missouri
River Points. Two Trains between Chicago and Minneapolis and St. Paul,
via the Famous

"ALBERT LEA ROUTE."

A New and Direct Line, via Seneca and Kankakee, has recently been opened
between Richmond Norfolk, Newport News, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Augusta,
Nashville, Louisville, Lexington, Cincinnati Indianapolis and Lafayette,
and Omaha, Minneapolis and St. Paul and intermediate points.

All Through Passengers Travel on Fast Express Trains.

Tickets for sale at all principal Ticket Offices in the United States
and Canada.

Baggage checked through and rates of fare always as low as competitors
that offer less advantages.

For detailed information, get the Maps and Folders of the

GREAT ROCK ISLAND ROUTE,

At your nearest Ticket Office, or address

R.R. CABLE,
Vice-Pres. & Gen'l M'g'r,

E. ST. JOHN,
Gen'l Tkt. & Pass. Agt.

CHICAGO.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

Don't be Humbugged With Poor, Cheap Coulters.

[Illustration]

All farmers have had trouble with their Coulters. In a few days they get
to wabbling, are condemned and thrown aside. In our

"BOSS" Coulter

we furnish a tool which can scarcely be worn out; and when worn, the
wearable parts, a prepared wood journal, and movable thimble in the hub
(held in place by a key) can be easily and cheaply renewed. WE GUARANTEE
OUR "BOSS" to plow more acres than any other three Coulters now used.

OUR "O. K." CLAMP

Attaches the Coulter to any size or kind of beam, either right or left
hand plow. We know that after using it you will say it is THE BEST TOOL
ON THE MARKET. Ask your dealer for it.

Manufactured by the BOSS COULTER CO.,
Bunker Hill, Ills.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: NEW Vegetables A Specialty

GREGORY'S SEED CATALOGUE.

1854-1884]

My Vegetable and Flower Seed Catalogue for 1884, the result of thirty
years experience as a Seed Grower, will be sent free to all who apply.
All my Seed is warranted to be fresh and true to name, so far that
should it prove otherwise, I agree to refill orders gratis. My
collection of vegetable Seed, one of the most extensive to be found in
any American Catalogue, is a large part of it of my own growing. As the
original introducer of Eclipse Beet, Burbank Potatoes, Marblehead Early
Corn, the Hubbard Squash, and scores of other new Vegetables, I invite
the patronage of the public. In the gardens and on the farms of those
who plant my seed will be found my best advertisement.

JAMES J. H. GREGORY, Seed Grower, Marblehead, Mass.

       *       *       *       *       *

Send for Catalogue and Prices.

ATLAS ENGINE WORKS

[Illustration]

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., U.S.A.

MANUFACTURERS OF

STEAM ENGINES AND BOILERS.

CARRY ENGINES and BOILERS IN STOCK for IMMEDIATE DELIVERY

       *       *       *       *       *

SIBLEY'S TESTED SEEDS,

For all Climates, For all Soils, All Plants.

EVERY SACK TESTED FOR VITALITY. ALL TESTED IN GARDENS FOR PURITY AND
VALUE.

CATALOGUE AND PRICE LIST OF ALL TESTED VARIETIES, FREE.

Mail order promptly filled, making a Seed Store at home. Send for
Catalogue.

HIRAM SIBLEY & CO., Rochester, N Y. and Chicago, Ill.

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

LITERATURE.


BETWEEN THE TWO LIGHTS.

    No use talking, missy--no use talking
      'Bout de daylight and dat kind ob ting
    'Tween the two lights--sunset and sunrising--
      Dis ole nigger happier dan a king.
    Dis ole nigger don got all he want to,
      All he want, and more 'an he can say;
    Gib him night, de darker and de better,
      White folks more 'an welcome to de day.

    In de day him ole and pore and wretched,
      Got to tote de load and swing de hoe,
    Got to do jest what de white folks tole him,
      Got to trabel when dey tole him go.
    Don't own nothing but an empty cabin;
      Got no wife, no chillen at him knee;
    Got no nothing but a little pallet,
      And a pot to bile him hominy.

    In de day him gits no 'spectful notice,
      Him is only "dat ole nigger Brown;"
    In de night him tells you, little missy,
      Things git mightily turned upside down.
    Den somehow him's young and rich and happy,
      Den him own more acres dan him see:
    Den him got a powerful lot ob hosses,
      Den de white folks stop an speak to he.

    Den him hab a big house like ole massa's,
      Dan Melinda is him lubly wife;
    Den de little chillen call him pappy,
      Den him see de bery best ob life.
    Den sometimes him talking in de meeting.
      An' him feel de biggest in de town,
    For at night him neber "dat ole nigger,"
      Him the Reberend Mister Isaac Brown.

    "Dreaming," is him? Dreaming, do you call it?
      Then him s'pose it's living in de day.
    Well, him likes de night-time and de dreaming,
      For him griefs wid sunshine go away.
    No use talking, missy, no use talking
      'Bout de sunshine and dat kind ob ting;
    'Tween de two lights--sunset and sunrising--
      Dis ole nigger happier dan a king.



THE TWO OVERCOATS.


When Amos Derby came out of Levi Rosenbaum's pawnshop, the richer by
five dollars, but leaving his overcoat in the hands of the Jew, he made
his way directly to Sillbrook's saloon, where, he felt sure, he should
meet half a dozen at least of his boon companions.

He was not mistaken. The bar-room was crowded, and a general shout of
welcome greeted him as he entered, for Amos was a generous fellow, and
was always willing to treat.

The five dollar bill was quickly broken by the jovial bar-keeper, and
two hours later when Amos waked rather unsteadily out of the saloon, he
had not a cent in his pocket. But this did not trouble him in the least.
He had spent too much money in Sillbrook's during the last two years to
think anything of squandering in one evening such a paltry sum as five
dollars.

As he left the saloon by the main entrance, he saw a man emerge from a
side door of the building, and cross the street with rapid strides; a
tall man, well dressed, and bearing about him a look of prosperity. He
wore a very handsome overcoat with sealskin cuffs and collar, a sealskin
cap, and well fitting gloves. Drunk as Amos was he recognized him at
once; it was Sillbrook himself.

"Been in the back room countin' up his gains, most likely," he muttered
thickly. "He's above standin' behind the bar nowadays."

Amos could well remember when Sillbrook had been only a mill-hand like
himself, earning twelve dollars a week. But he had been a prudent,
saving man always, and had early made up his mind to be rich, no matter
at what cost of conscience and principle. With this end in view he had
purchased a saloon, and cordially invited his former fellow workers at
the mill to patronize him. This they were very willing to do, for
Sillbrook knew how to make his saloon attractive; and he soon had as
much custom as he could well attend to. At length he hired a bar-keeper,
and after a couple of years was never seen behind the bar himself. He
had grown rich very rapidly, and now owned one of the finest houses in
the town, and was able to gratify every taste and whim, while those who
had helped him to his wealth by drinking his liquors were as poor as
ever--many of them poorer.

Amos Derby had been one of Sillbrook's best customers ever since the
saloon had been opened, and as a natural consequence had had little to
spend in comforts for his wife and children. He still lived in the small
cottage he had bought on first moving to the town, and had seen it grow
more and more dilapidated every year without making any attempt to
repair it.

But though the outside was far from attractive, the inside was always
neat and clean, for, whatever her faults of temper, Jane Derby was a
woman who believed thoroughly in abiding by heaven's first law, and who
labored early and late to make both ends meet, something she would not
have been able to accomplish had she not possessed skill as a
dressmaker, for Amos seldom gave her any of his earnings. She was
sitting in the kitchen sewing when her husband came in, and a bitter
expression crossed her face as she saw his condition.

"Drunk, as usual," she said, harshly, "when were you anything else?"

"When you was kinder spoken, perhaps," answered Amos, with spirit. "This
is the sort of welcome I get every night in the week. 'Tain't much
wonder I go to Sillbrook's." He dropped into a chair as he spoke, and
began to pull off his boots.

"If you didn't have one excuse you'd make another," said Jane, flushing,
and bending closer over her sewing. "Perhaps you think I ought to feel
pleasant when you come home in this state. Well! it ain't human nature,
that it ain't! I mind the time you brought home your wages reg'lar,
every Sat'day night, and I was willin' enough then to speak kind to you.
Now the children would starve if it wasn't for me. Where's your
overcoat?" a sudden pallor creeping into her face as she asked the
question. "Yes! where is that overcoat?--what have you done with it that
you haven't it on--where is it?"

"Where d'ye s'pose?" said Amos, roughly.

"Down at the pawn-shop, of course," cried his wife, angrily, "where
every decent coat you ever had has gone. But you promised me you'd never
part with this one, Amos Derby, and you've broke your word. I might have
known you would! And to think how I worked for it, and let the children
do without shoes! It's too bad! I declare it is! I gave twelve dollars
for it only a month ago, and I'll wager you let Levi have it for half o'
that. It's a shame, a dreadful shame."

"Stop that. I won't have it," said Amos in a threatening tone. "There's
no use whining over it now. If you say another word about it I'll go out
again, right off."

"Go!" said Jane, fiercely, "and I wish it was forever! I wish I was
never to look on your face again! You're naught but a trouble and a
disgrace to us all!"

"All right," said Amos, as he pulled on his boots again, "I'm goin'.
I'll take you at your word. You won't see me again in a hurry; now you
just mark that. A trouble and a disgrace, am I?"

"Yes, you are!" said Jane, her anger increasing as her mind dwelt upon
the loss of the coat she had worked so hard to earn. "I mean all I've
said, and more, too! Go! go to Sillbrook's! Ask him to show you the
overcoat he's wearin'. I saw it yesterday, and yours wasn't a
circumstance to it! Go! Give him every penny you've got! He needs it!"
with a bitter little laugh. "His children's feet are all out on the
ground, and his wife hasn't a decent dress to her name," with a glance
at her faded calico gown. "Help him all you can, Amos Derby, he's in
need o' charity."

Amos made no answer. He was considerably more sober than when he had
left the saloon, for the walk home through the fresh winter air had done
him good, and he felt the force of his wife's words. They rung in his
ears as he slammed the kitchen door behind him, and, taking the road
which led by the mill, walked rapidly away.

He was soon in the heart of the town, but he did not think or care where
he was going. His only idea was to get away from the sound of Jane's
sharp voice, and he turned down first one street and then another,
without pausing, until he came to Elm Avenue, on which were situated the
handsomest houses in the town. There was a large, square brick house on
the corner, with stables in the rear, a conservatory on one side, and a
beautiful lawn in front, and this place seemed to possess some strange
fascination for Amos, for he stopped suddenly at the gate and stood
there for fully five minutes, admiring, perhaps, the mansion's air of
solid comfort and wealth.

The iron gate was open, and presently, as if impelled by some impulse he
could not resist, he entered, and walking softly up the graveled path,
looked in at one of the long windows.

The room upon which he gazed was very handsomely furnished. The chairs
were luxuriously cushioned, a large mirror hung over the mantel, the
carpet was of velvet, a crystal chandelier depended from the ceiling,
and a bright fire burned in the open grate, before which sat a lady
richly dressed, reading aloud to three children, sitting on ottomans at
her feet.

For a long, long time Amos Derby stood by the window, his eyes wandering
from one article of luxury to another, a dark frown on his face, and his
teeth set hard together.

"My money," he muttered, when at last he turned away. "I've given it to
him, cent by cent, and dollar by dollar, and I've naught to show for it,
while he! he's got his fine house, and his rich carpets, and his
handsome clothes. It's the same money, only I've spent it in one way,
and he in another."

As the last words left his lips a hand fell heavily upon his shoulder,
and a voice--the voice of Sillbrook--asked him harshly what he wanted.

"A look into your fine parlor," answered Amos roughly. "Strange I wanted
to see it, wasn't it? It ought not to matter to me, of course, what use
you make o' my money."

"Your money!" said Sillbrook, with a loud laugh. "That's a crazy joke!
Come, my man, you're drunk. Get out of here, or I'll have you put where
you can make your jokes to yourself."

"You think you're rich enough now to speak to me as you choose," said
Amos hotly. "Time was when you wouldn't have dared. But I tell you,
Jason Sillbrook, I've come to my senses to-night. It's a poor bargain
where the gain's all on one side. We started even, and you've got all
and I nothin'. But I tell you now, that, heaven helpin' me, you'll never
have another dollar o' mine to spend. You'll never buy another coat like
this out o' my money," and he struck in sudden passion the seal-trimmed
garment which covered Sillbrook's ample proportions.

"Be off with you," said the saloon-keeper. "You're too drunk to know
what you're talking about."

"And who made me drunk? answer that question, Jason Sillbrook," screamed
Amos.

"I'll answer nothing," said Sillbrook, and, tearing his coat from the
grasp Amos had laid upon it, he strode up the path and disappeared
within the house.

The next morning, when the superintendent made his round of the mill, he
missed one of the machine hands.

"Where's Derby?" he asked, angrily.

No one could answer his question. No one had seen Derby that day. And no
one at the mill saw him for many a day to come.

"I might have been kinder to him," thought Jane, when at last she became
convinced that her husband had in truth left her. "Perhaps I did say
more'n I should at times. Poor Amos! he was no more to blame than I was,
after all. Perhaps he would have kept out o' that saloon if I'd only
coaxed 'stead o' railing at him. He wasn't bad-hearted, an' he never
meant more'n half he said."

And as the days went by, and she forgot her past sorrows, she had only
kind thoughts of her absent husband, and blamed only herself for their
mutual misery. She wished with all her heart that she could "begin all
over again," and try the effect of kindness and forbearance on Amos.

But no such opportunity was given her, and she had little time for
bitter thoughts or unavailing regret.

The superintendent of the mill gave her eldest child, a lad of fourteen,
a situation where he could earn $4 a week, and a girl a year younger
found work in a millinery store. Thus Jane was relieved of much anxiety,
and she was so skilful with her needle that she soon found herself able
to "lay by something for a rainy day," as she expressed it.

Gradually the children were provided with comfortable clothes and were
sent to church and to Sunday-school, from which they had been debarred
for several years, owing to a lack of decent apparel; the house was
repaired, new furniture bought, a flower garden laid out in front of the
cottage, and a new fence erected. People began to speak of Jane as a
surprisingly smart woman, and to say that her husband's desertion had
been a blessing in disguise. But in spite of her prosperity there was an
ache ever at Jane's heart, and a regret which no good fortune could
stifle.

"If I'd only been kinder!" she would say to herself, as she lay awake at
night and thought of her absent husband. "It was my fault he drank; I
see that now. He was always telling me that my temper'd ruin him in the
end, and now his word's come true."

She felt as if she ought to make some atonement for her past sin, even
though she was never to see her husband again, and with this end in view
she determined to cure herself of the habit of scolding and
fault-finding about which poor Amos had complained so bitterly.

After a few struggles at first, she found her new path very pleasant to
her feet, and was encouraged to persevere by the artless comments made
by her children on the improvement in her temper.

"You're so good, now, mother," they would say, when, instead of the
sharp rebuke they had expected on the commission of some childish folly,
came very kind words of regret and gentle reproof. "You are so different
from what you used to be. If father could only come home and live with
us now how happy we would all be."

But Amos did not come. Year after year passed, and he sent no word or
sign; and at length both wife and children grew to think of him as dead.

Seven years! Seven years to a day had passed since Amos Derby had left
his home, and up the street and past the mill came a tall man, with a
cap of sealskin pulled low over his eyes, and handsome overcoat trimmed
with the same costly fur over his arm. He whistled as he walked, and
seemed in great good humor, for occasionally he would break out into a
loud laugh.

But as he came near the cottage where Jane Derby lived, he became more
quiet, and an anxious expression stole into his face.

"I wonder if she'll know me," he muttered.

Going up to the window of the kitchen, he shaded his eyes with one hand
and looked in.

Jane was setting at supper, her five children about her. The room looked
warm and comfortable. A bright fire burned in the stove, the kettle sang
merrily, and a big maltese cat dozed among some plants on the broad
window seat.

Fred, the eldest son, a muscular young man of twenty-one now, was
speaking, and his words came distinctly to the ears of the watcher
outside.

"Brooks goes to-morrow," he said, "and we are to have a new
superintendent from ----. I hope he'll have a better temper than Brooks,
and I wish----Who's that?" as a sudden knock came upon the door.

"The new superintendent," said the tall man, as he walked into the room
and threw his overcoat on a chair.

"Jane, don't you know me?"

With a glad cry that was almost a sob, Jane sprang forward, and was
folded in the stranger's arms.

"Children," she said, when she could speak, "this is your father, come
back to us at last."

"And to stay, please God," said Amos Derby, fervently, as in turn he
embraced his children affectionately. "Jane, you shall have no room to
complain of me in the future. I mean to make up to you for all I made
you suffer before I found out what a fool I was to think more of my
appetite than of my wife and children. Do you know what taught me my
lesson?--Sillbrook's overcoat; and I've got one just like it. It will be
a reminder, you know. And I've something better still--the place of
superintendent at the mills here. I've worked hard, Jane, but my reward
has come at last. When I left here I resolved never to come back until I
could make myself worthy of you and the children. I found a place in the
mills at ----, and worked my way up to be superintendent. Where there's
a will, there's always a way, you know. I learned that you didn't need
my help, so I waited on year after year, and now----"

"We are together, never to part again this side the grave," finished
Jane, "Amos, God rules us all for the best. Let us thank Him for the
blessings He has bestowed upon us; and then--suppose you let us see how
you look in the overcoat you've come by so justly."

The news that Amos Derby was the new superintendent soon flew about the
town, and great was the surprise thereat. No one was more astonished,
perhaps, at the turn affairs had taken than Jason Sillbrook, and he
wondered greatly at the good fortune of the man he had once so despised;
but he never knew that it was largely due to the lesson Amos had learned
from the saloon-keeper's overcoat.--_The Christian at Work._

       *       *       *       *       *

CONSUMPTION CURED.

An old physician, retired from practice, having had placed in his hands
by an East India missionary the formula of a simple vegetable remedy for
the speedy and permanent cure of Consumption, Bronchitis, Catarrh,
Asthma and all throat and Lung Affections, also a positive and radical
cure for Nervous Debility and all Nervous Complaints, 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 suffering, I will send free of
charge, to all who desire it, this recipe, in German, French, or
English, with full directions for preparing and using. Sent by mail by
addressing with stamp, naming this paper. W. A. NOYES, _149 Power's
Block, Rochester, N. Y._

       *       *       *       *       *

Honesty of purpose must not be held as evidence of ability.

       *       *       *       *       *



[Illustration]

HUMOROUS


BAIT OF THE AVERAGE FISHERMAN.

H. C. DODGE.

                    This is the bait the
                      fishermen take,
                       the fishermen
                   take, the fishermen take,
                   when they start out the
                     fish to wake so
                       early in the
                      morning. They
                take a nip before they go--a
              good one, ah! and long and slow,
            for fear the chills will lay them low
          so early in the morning. Another when
        they're on the street, which they repeat each
      time they meet for "luck"--for that's the
    way to greet a fisher in the morning. And
      when they are on the river's brink again
       they drink without a wink--to fight ma-
        laria they think it proper in the morn-
         ing. They tip a flask with true delight
          when there's a bite; if fishing's light
           they "smile" the more till jolly tight,
            all fishing they are scorning. An-
             other nip as they depart: one at the
              mart and one to part, but none
               when in the house they dart, ex-
                pecting there'll be mourning.
                 This is the bait the fisher-
                  men try who fishes buy at
                   prices high and tell each
                    one a bigger lie of fish-
                     ing in the morning.



Whose Cold Feet?


"Are you troubled with cold feet on retiring?" asked Yeast of
Crimsonbeak, Saturday night, as they were returning from market
freighted with provender.

"I should say I was!" replied Crimsonbeak emphatically, while a regular
chills-and-fever shudder was seen to distribute itself over his frame at
the recollection which the question recalled.

"I suppose you would like to learn how to avoid them?" replied the
philanthropist, smiling at the thought of an opportunity to fire off one
of his pet theories.

"I would give almost anything to be fortunate enough to escape them,"
said the despairing Crimsonbeak, in all truthfulness.

"Well it is easy enough done," went on his companion; "soak your feet in
cold water the first thing when you get up in the morning; towards night
run about three-quarters of a mile, and then soak your feet again in
cold water on retiring."

"Well, I can't see how that is going to keep her feet from troubling
me."

"Her cold feet from troubling you!" repeated Yeast, a little confused.
"What do you mean?"

"Mean? Why, I mean that my wife's cold feet are the ones that chill me
with an Arctic region touch. Whose feet did you suppose I meant, my
mother-in-law's?" shouted the excited Crimsonbeak, darting into his gate
and leaving his neighbor to his own reflections.



Changed Relations.


"Now that we are engaged," said Miss Pottleworth, "come and let me
introduce you to papa."

"I believe that I have met him," replied young Spickle.

"But in another capacity than that of son-in-law."

"Yes--er, but I'd rather not meet him to-night."

"Oh, you must," and despite the almost violent struggles of the young
fellow, he was drawn into the library, where a large, red-faced man,
with a squint in one eye, and an enlargement of the nose, sat looking
over a lot of papers.

"Father," said the girl.

"Hum," he replied, without looking up.

"I wish to present to you--"

"What?" he exclaimed, looking up and catching sight of young Spickle.
"Have you the impudence to follow me here? Didn't I tell you that I
would see you to-morrow?"

"Why, father, you don't know Mr. Spickle, do you?"

"I don't know his name, but I know that he has been to my office three
times a day for the past week with a bill. I know him well enough. I
can't pay that bill to-night, young man. Come to my office to-morrow."

"I hope," said Spickle, "that you do not think so ill of me. I have not
come to collect the bill you have referred to, but--"

"What? Got another one?"

"You persist in misunderstanding me. I did not come to collect a bill, I
can come to-morrow and see you about that. To-night I proposed to your
daughter, and have been accepted. Our mission is to acquaint you with
the fact and gain your consent to our marriage."

"Well," said the old fellow, "is that all? Blamed if I didn't think you
had a bill. Take the girl, if that's what you want, but say, didn't I
tell you to bring the bill to-morrow?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, you needn't. Our relations are different now. Wish I had a
daughter for every bill collector in town."



It Makes a Difference.


"So you have been fighting again on your way home from school!"

"Y-yes, sir."

"Didn't I tell you this sort of business had got to stop?"

"Yes, pa, but--"

"No excuses, sir! You probably provoked the quarrel!"

"Oh, no! no! He called me names!"

"Names? What of it? When a boy calls you names walk along about your
business. Take off that coat!"

"But he didn't call me names!"

"Oh, he didn't? Take off that vest!"

"When he called me names I never looked at him, but when he pitched into
you, I--I had to fight!"

"What! Did he call me names?"

"Lots of 'em, father! He said you lied to your constituents, and went
back on the caucus and had!"--

"William, put on your coat and vest, and here's a nickel to buy peanuts!
I don't want you to come up a slugger, and I wish you to stand well with
your teacher, but if you can lick the boy who says I ever bolted a
regular nomination or went back on my end of the ward, don't be afraid
to sail in!"--_Free Press._

       *       *       *       *       *

One of the Harvard students has fitted up his room at a cost of $4,000.
We suspect that the young man's room is better than his company.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Don't be afraid," said a snob to a German laborer: "sit down and make
yourself my equal." "I would haff to blow my brains out," was the reply
of the Teuton.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Yes," said Mrs. Egomoi, "I used to think a great deal of Mrs. Goode,
she was always so kind to me; but then, I've found out that she treats
everybody just the same."

       *       *       *       *       *

Jerrold said to an ardent young gentleman, who burned with a desire to
see himself in print: "Be advised by me, young man: don't take down the
shutters before there is something in the window."

       *       *       *       *       *

Arthur--"I say, what do you mean by fighting my hog all the time?"

Bismarck--"I means nodding in de vorld; I vash not fighting dot pig. We
vash choost playing mit one anudder."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Yes," said a fashionable lady, "I think Mary has made a very good
match. I heard her husband is one of the shrewdest and most unprincipled
lawyers in the profession, and of course he can afford to gratify her
every wish."



PRINTER'S INK.


    Little drops of printer's ink,
      A little type "displayed,"
    Make our merchant bosses
      And all their big parade.

    Little bits of stinginess,
      Discarding printer's ink,
    Busts the man of business,
      And sees his credit sink.

       *       *       *       *       *

    "Jump on the scale," the butcher said
      Unto a miss one day,
    "I'm used to weighing, and," said he,
      "I'll tell you what you weigh."
    "Ah, yes," came quick the sweet reply
      From lips seemed made to kiss,
    "I'm sure, sir, that it would not be
      First time you've weighed amiss."
    The butcher blushed; he hung his head
      And knew not what to say;
    He merely wished to weigh the girl--
      Himself was given away.

       *       *       *       *       *

"What did that lady say?" asked Mr. Buyem of his confidential clerk.
"I'd rather not repeat her words, sir," replied the clerk. "But I must
know, Mr. Blume--must know, sir." "Oh! if you insist upon it, sir, I
suppose I must tell you. She said you were all business, but you lacked
culture." "So?" exclaimed Mr. Buyem, in astonishment. "Lack culture, eh?
Look here, Mr. Blume, d'ye know you' oughter told me that long ago?
Let's have some right away before Scribe & Blowhard can get ahead of
us."



OUT OF THE DEPTHS.

Our Correspondent's Researches and a Remarkable Occurrence He Describes.


ST. ALBANS, Vt., Jan. 10, 1884.

MESSRS. EDITORS: The upper portion of Vermont is one of the pleasantest
regions in America during the summer, and one of the bleakest during the
winter. It affords ample opportunity for the tourist, providing he
chooses the proper season, but the present time is not that season.
Still there are men and women here who not only endure the climate, but
praise it unstintingly, and that, too, in the face of physical hardships
the most intense. The writer heard of a striking illustration of this a
few days since which is given herewith:

Mr. Joseph Jacques is connected with the Vermont Central Railroad in the
capacity of master mason. He is well advanced in years, with a ruddy
complexion and hale appearance, while his general bearing is such as to
instantly impress one with his strict honor and integrity. Several years
ago he became afflicted with most distressing troubles, which prevented
the prosecution of his duties. He was languid, and yet restless, while
at times a dizziness would come over him which seemed almost blinding.
His will power was strong, and he determined not to give way to the
mysterious influence which seemed undermining his life. But the pain and
annoying symptoms were stronger than his will, and he kept growing
gradually worse. About that time he began to notice a difficulty in
drawing on his boots, and it was by the greatest effort that he was able
to force his feet into them. In this manner several weeks passed by,
until finally one night, while in great agony, he discovered that his
feet had in a short while, swollen to enormous proportions. The balance
of the narrative can best be described in his own words. He said:

"When my wife discovered the fact that I was so bloated, she sent for
the doctor immediately. He made a most careful examination and
pronounced me in a very serious condition. Notwithstanding his care, I
grew worse, and the swelling of my feet gradually extended upward in my
body. The top of my head pained me terribly; indeed, so badly that at
times it seemed almost as if it would burst. My feet were painfully
cold, and even when surrounded with hot flannels and irons felt as if a
strong wind were blowing on them. Next my right leg became paralyzed.
This gave me no pain, but it was exceedingly annoying. About this time I
began to spit blood most freely, although my lungs were in perfect
condition, and I knew it did not come from them. My physicians were
careful and untiring in their attentions, but unable to relieve my
sufferings. My neighbors and friends thought I was dying and many called
to see me, fully twenty-five on a single Sunday that I now recall. At
last my agony seemed to culminate in the most intense, sharp pains I
have ever known or heard of. If red hot knives sharpened to the highest
degree had been run through my body constantly they could not have hurt
me worse. I would spring up in bed, sometimes as much as three feet, cry
out in my agony and long for death. One night the misery was so intense
that I arose and attempted to go into the next room, but was unable to
lift my swollen feet above the little threshold that obstructed them. I
fell back upon the bed and gasped in my agony, but felt unable even to
breathe. It seemed like death.

"Several years ago Rev. Dr. J. E. Rankin, now of Washington, was
stationed here as pastor of the Congregational church. We all admired
and respected him, and my wife remembered seeing somewhere that he had
spoken in the highest terms of a preparation which had cured some of his
intimate friends. We determined to try this remedy, accordingly sent for
it, and, to make a long story short, it completely restored my health,
brought me back from the grave, and I owe all I have in the way of
health and strength to Warner's Safe Cure, better known as Warner's Safe
Kidney and Liver Cure. I am positive that if I had taken this medicine
when I felt the first symptoms above described, I might have avoided all
the agony I afterward endured, to say nothing of the narrow escape I had
from death."

In order that all possible facts bearing upon the subject might be
known, I called on Dr. Oscar F. Fassett, who was for nineteen years
United States Examining Surgeon, and who attended Mr. Jacques during his
sickness. He stated that Mr. Jacques had a most pronounced case of
Albuminuria or Bright's disease of the kidneys. That an analysis showed
the presence of albumen and casts in great abundance and that he was in
a condition where few if any ever recover. His recovery was due to
Warner's Safe Cure.

Mr. John W. Hobart, General Manager of the Vermont Central railroad,
stated that Mr. Jacques was one of the best and most faithful of his
employes, that his sickness had been an exceedingly severe one and the
company were not only glad to again have his services, but grateful to
the remedy that had cured so valuable a man.

Mr. James M. Foss, assistant superintendent and master mechanic of the
Vermont Central railroad, is also able to confirm this.

I do not claim to be a great discoverer, but I do think I have found in
the above a most remarkable case and knowing the unusual increase of
Bright's disease feel that the public should have the benefit of it. It
seems to me a remedy that can accomplish so much in the last stages
ought do even more for the first approach of this deceptive yet terrible
trouble.

F. B.

       *       *       *       *       *

To be ruined your own way is some comfort. When so many people would
ruin us, it is a triumph over the villany of the world to be ruined
after one's own pattern.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

ONE CENT

invested in a postal card and addressed as below

WILL

give to the writer full information as to the best lands in the United
States now for sale; how he can

BUY

them on the lowest and best terms, also the full text of the U.S. land
laws and how to secure

320 ACRES

of Government Lands in Northwestern Minnesota and Northeastern Dakota.

ADDRESS:

JAMES B. POWER,
Land and Emigration Commissioner,
ST. PAUL, MINN.

       *       *       *       *       *

MEDICAL.

DISEASE CURED
Without Medicine.

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Kidneys, Spinal Diseases, Torpid Liver_, GOUT SEMINAL EMISSIONS,
IMPOTENCY, ASTHMA, HEART DISEASE, DYSPEPSIA, CONSTIPATION, ERYSIPELAS,
INDIGESTION, HERNIA OR RUPTURE, CATARRH, PILES, EPILEPSY, DUMB AGUE,
ETC.

When any debility of the GENERATIVE ORGANS occurs, LOST VITALITY,
LACK OF NERVE FORCE AND VIGOR, WASTING WEAKNESS, and all those Diseases
of a personal nature, from whatever cause, the continuous stream of
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TO THE LADIES:--If you are afflicted with LAME BACK, WEAKNESS OF THE
SPINE, FALLING OF THE WOMB, LEUCORRHOEA, CHRONIC INFLAMMATION AND
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SUPPRESSED, AND IRREGULAR MENSTRUATION, BARRENNESS, AND CHANGE OF LIFE,
THIS IS THE BEST APPLIANCE AND CURATIVE AGENT KNOWN.

For all forms of FEMALE DIFFICULTIES it is unsurpassed by anything
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Price of either Belt with Magnetic Insoles, $10, sent by express C.O.D.,
and examination allowed, or by mail on receipt of price. In ordering
send measure of waist, and size of shoe. Remittance can be made in
currency, sent in letter at our risk.

The Magneton Garments are adapted to all ages, are worn over the
under-clothing (NOT NEXT TO THE BODY LIKE THE MANY GALVANIC AND
ELECTRIC HUMBUGS ADVERTISED SO EXTENSIVELY), and should be taken off at
night. They hold their POWER FOREVER, and are worn at all seasons of the
year.

Send stamp for the "New Departure in Medical treatment WITHOUT
MEDICINE," with thousands of testimonials.

THE MAGNETON APPLIANCE CO.,
218 STATE STREET. CHICAGO, ILL.

NOTE.--Send one dollar in postage stamps or currency (in letter
at our risk) with size of shoe usually worn, and try a pair of our
Magnetic Insoles, and be convinced of the power residing in our other
Magnetic Appliances. Positively no cold feet when they are worn, or
money refunded.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLICATIONS.

MARSHALL M. KIRKMAN'S BOOKS ON RAILROAD TOPICS.

DO YOU WANT TO BECOME A RAILROAD MAN

IF YOU DO, THE BOOKS DESCRIBED BELOW POINT THE WAY.

The most promising field for men of talent and ambition at the present
day is the railroad service. The pay is large in many instances, while
the service is continuous and honorable. Most of our railroad men began
life on the farm. Of this class is the author of the accompanying books
descriptive of railway operations, who has been connected continuously
with railroads as a subordinate and officer for 27 years. He was brought
up on a farm, and began railroading as a lad at $7 per month. He has
written a number of standard books on various topics connected with the
organization, construction, management and policy of railroads. These
books are of interest not only to railroad men but to the general reader
as well. They are indispensable to the student. They present every phase
of railroad life, and are written in an easy and simple style that both
interests and instructs. The books are as follows:

"RAILWAY EXPENDITURES--THEIR EXTENT,
OBJECT AND ECONOMY."--A Practical
Treatise on Construction and Operation.
In Two Volumes, 850 pages.                         $4.00

"HAND BOOK OF RAILWAY EXPENDITURES."--Practical
Directions for Keeping
the Expenditure Accounts.                           2.00

"RAILWAY REVENUE AND ITS COLLECTION."--And
Explaining the Organization of
Railroads.                                          2.50

"THE BAGGAGE PARCEL AND MAIL TRAFFIC
OF RAILROADS."--An interesting work
on this important service; 425 pages.               2.00

"TRAIN AND STATION SERVICE"--Giving
The Principal Rules and Regulations governing
Trains; 280 pages.                                  2.00

"THE TRACK ACCOUNTS OF RAILROADS."--And
how they should be kept. Pamphlet.                  1.00

"THE FREIGHT TRAFFIC WAY-BILL."--Its
Uses Illustrated and Described. Pamphlet.            .50

"MUTUAL GUARANTEE."--A Treatise on Mutual
Suretyship. Pamphlet.                                .50

Any of the above books will be sent post paid on receipt
of price, by

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO.,
150 Monroe St.          CHICAGO, ILL.

Money should be remitted by express, or by draft check or post office
order.

       *       *       *       *       *

MAP

Of the United States and Canada, Printed in Colors, size 4×2-1/2 feet,
also a copy of THE PRAIRIE FARMER for one year. Sent to any address for
$2.00.

       *       *       *       *       *



GENERAL NEWS.


Florida farmers are now planting Irish potatoes.

The St. Charles Hotel, Paducah, Ky., was burned Sunday night.

Another relief party for the Greeley arctic expedition is to be sent
out.

Wm. H. Guion, of the Steamship firm of Williams has failed for
$2,000,000.

Music Hall, in Whitechapel, London, burned on Monday; loss $200,000.

Ice has prevented the ferry boats from crossing the St. Clair river at
Port Huron.

The prohibitionists declare that they will place a presidential ticket
in the field next fall.

Lowell manufacturers have given employes notice that there will be a
reduction of ten per cent in wages beginning Feb. 1.

An elevated road, adapted both to passengers and freight, is to be
constructed along the levee at New Orleans within two years.

There was a railway wreck, caused by a broken rail, on the Wabash road
near Macon, Mo., on Monday; several persons were injured.

It is estimated that the United States Senate is the wealthiest
deliberative body in the world, the seventy-six members of that body
representing $180,000,000.

A rumor is in circulation at Ottawa, Canada, that the Canadian Pacific
road has asked the government for additional assistance to the amount of
$14,000,000.

A colored base-ball club of professionals has been formed at Chicago,
and will be ready to take the road May 1. They are backed by a stock
company.

It is claimed that there is at the present time between 100 and 150
foreign vessels engaged in the oyster traffic on the Virginia coast
without right or authority.

The people of Ouray, Col., lynched Mike Cuddigan and wife Saturday, on
suspicion of having murdered a child whom they took from a Catholic
asylum at Denver.

It is said that the buffaloes have come north of the Missouri river, in
Montana, and the Indians killed eleven hundred in one day not far from
the mouth of the Musselshell.

The horror of the week was the wrecking of the steamer City of Columbus
off Martha's Vineyard, January 19th. There were 129 persons on board of
whom ninety-seven were lost.

A seal was discovered in the track of the steamer Armstrong, at
Morristown, N. Y., on the St. Lawrence river. This was the third or
fourth seal seen in that vicinity in the last half-dozen years.

The candle factory of E. L. Schneider & Co., located on the corner of
Wallace and McGregor streets, Chicago, was Sunday swept away by fire.
The loss is $150,000, and the insurance $57,000.

The friends of Mr. Hintz, the unsuccessful candidate for postmaster at
Elgin, Illinois, threaten to defeat the re-election of Representative
Ellwood in the next campaign, who is held responsible for his defeat.

Two Irish members of the British Parliament, Matthew Arnold and P. J.
Sheridan,--the latter supposed to be the mysterious No. 1 of the
Phoenix Park assassination scheme--are in Chicago the present week.

Mrs. Dukes, a sister of the murdered Zura Burns, has left her home in
Dakota, in company with her father, to give what she claims is damaging
evidence against O. A. Carpenter, before the grand jury at Lincoln, Ill.

The matter of the final disposition of the assets of the estate of B. F.
Allen is being heard by a register at Des Moines. A firm which has
purchased a large share of the claims at 5 per cent offers $330,000 for
the property remaining, but other creditors hold out for $400,000.

Judge Shepard, in the Superior Court of Chicago, Saturday, dismissed
three bills for divorce, holding that when a wife separated from her
husband her residence as well as her domicile follows his, and that the
Illinois statutes excludes from its courts all suits for divorce in
behalf of persons not legal residents.

The Onondaga (New York) Indians have held another council, at which it
was shown that a majority of the nation is opposed to dividing the lands
in severally, but is willing to agree to a division of such timber lands
as can not be protected against depredations. The Christian party is to
be represented at the next conference with the State commissioners.

Nearly one-fourth of the business portion of Leipsic, O., was burned
Friday night, and flames swept away 1,145 bales of cotton at Murrell's
Point, La., and twenty-one buildings at Lowell, Mich. A boiler explosion
at Cincinnati, in the Corrugating company's manufactory, Saturday, led
to the destruction of $50,000 in property.



[Illustration]

MARKETS.


FINANCIAL AND COMMERCIAL.

OFFICE OF THE PRAIRIE FARMER.}
CHICAGO. Jan 22, 1884.       }

Papers devoted to finance and trade inform us that the number of
business failures in 1883 was 9,184 against 8,782 in the hard times of
1877. The fear is, that the worst is not yet come, but this feeling
happily is not by any means universal among most far seeing business
men.

The transactions at the Chicago banks were a trifle slower than last
week. The regular loan market was quotable on Monday at 6@7 per cent.

Eastern exchange was firm at 60c per $1,000.

The stock markets at the East were a little feverish and here the same
feeling was noticeable. There are rumors of financial embarrassment in
high places, and Mr. Gould himself is said to be a little nervous over
the weakness in many of his stocks.

Government securities are as follows:

4's coupon, 1907                 |Q. Apr. | 123-1/4
4's reg., 1907                   |Q. Apr. | 123-1/4
4-1/2's coupon, 1891             |Q. Mar. | 114-1/8
4-1/2's registered, 1891         |Q. Mar. | 114-1/8
3's registered                   |Q. Mar. | 100


GRAIN AND PROVISIONS.

The receipts of flour at this point for the forty-eight hours ending
Monday morning were greatly in excess of those for the corresponding
week last year. In wheat last year the receipts were 28,007 bushels;
this year 50,532. Corn last year 189,661; this year 226,990.

Flour was unchanged, the article not yet feeling the uncertain condition
of the wheat market.

Choice to favorite white winters              $5 25@5 50
Fair to good brands of white winters           4 75@5 00
Good to choice red winters                     5 25@5 50
Prime to choice springs                        4 75@5 00
Good to choice export stock, in sacks, extras  4 25@4 50
Good to choice export stock, double extras     4 50@4 65
Fair to good Minnesota springs                 4 50@4 75
Choice to fancy Minnesota springs              5 25@5 75
Patent springs                                 6 00@6 50
Low grades                                     2 25@3 50

WHEAT.--Red winter, No. 3, 92; car lots of spring, No. 2, sold at
88-3/4c; No. 3, do. 81@84.

CORN.--Moderately active. Car lots No 2, 51@52c; rejected, 43@44; new
mixed, 48@50-1/2c.

OATS.--No. 2 in store, closed 32-1/2@32-3/4.

RYE.--May, in store 57@57-1/2.

BARLEY.--No. 2, 49 in store; No. 3, f. o. b. 52-1/2c.

FLAX.--Closed at $1 52 on track.

TIMOTHY.--$1 31-1/2@1 35 per bushel. Little doing.

CLOVER.--Quiet at $6 05@6 10 for prime.

PROVISIONS.--Mess pork, February, $14 75@14 78 per bbl; Green hams,
10-1/2c per lb. Short ribs, $7 65 per cwt.

LARD.--February, $8 65.


LUMBER.

Lumber unchanged. Quotations for green are as follows:

Short dimension, per M                   $ 9 50@10 00
Long dimension,  per M                    10 00@11 50
Boards and strips, No. 2                  11 00@13 00
Boards and strips, medium                 13 00@16 00
Boards and strips, No. 1 choice           16 00@20 00
Shingles, standard                         2 10@ 2 20
Shingles, choice                           2 25@ 2 30
Shingles, extra                            2 40@ 2 60
Lath                                       1 65@ 1 70


COUNTRY PRODUCE.

NOTE.--The quotations for the articles named in the following list are
generally for commission lots of goods and from first hands. While our
prices are based as near as may be on the landing or wholesale rates,
allowance must be made for selections and the sorting up for store
distribution.

BRAN.--Quoted at $15@12 25 per ton;

BEANS.--Hand picked mediums $2 00@2 10. Hand picked navies, $2 15@2 20.

BUTTER.--Dull and without change. Choice to extra creamery, 33@36c
per lb.; fair to good do 25@32c; fair to choice dairy, 23@28c; common to
choice packing stock fresh and sweet, 18@22c; ladle packed 10@13c; fresh
made, streaked butter, 9@11c.

BROOM-CORN.--Good to choice hurl 6-1/2@7-1/2c per lb; green self-working
5@6c; red-tipped and pale do 4@5c; inside and covers 3@4c; common short
corn 2-1/2@3-1/2c; crooked, and damaged, 2@4c, according to quality.

CHEESE.--Choice full-cream cheddars 13@13-1/2c per lb; medium quality do
9@10c; good to prime full cream flats 13@13-3/4c; skimmed cheddars
9@10c; good skimmed flats 7@9c; hard-skimmed and common stock 3@4c.

EGGS.--In a small way the best brands are quotable at 27@28c per dozen;
20@23c for good ice house stock; 15@18c per pickled.

HAY.--No 1 timothy $9@9 50 per ton; No 2 do $8 00@8 50; mixed do $7@8;
upland prairie $8 00@10 75; No 1 prairie $6@7; No 2 do $4 50@5 50. Small
bales sell at 25@50c per ton more than large bales.

HIDES AND PELTS.--Green-cured light hides 8-1/4c per lb; do heavy cows
8c; No 2 damaged green-salted hides 6c; green-salted calf 12@12-1/2
cents; green-salted bull 6c; dry-salted hides 11 cents; No. 2 two-thirds
price; No. 1 dry flint 14@14-1/2c. Sheep pelts salable at 28@32c for the
estimated amount of wash wool on each pelt. All branded and scratched
hides are discounted 15 per cent from the price of No. 1.

HOPS.--Prime to choice New York State hops 25@26c per lb; Pacific coast
of 23@26c: fair to good Wisconsin 15@20c.

POULTRY.--Prices for good to choice dry picked and unfrozen lots are:
Turkeys 13@14c per lb; chickens 9@10c; ducks 12@13c; geese 9@11c. Thin,
undesirable, and frozen stock 2@3c per lb less than these figures; live
offerings nominal.

POTATOES.--Good to choice 30@33c per bu. on track; common to fair
30@35c. Illinois sweet potatoes range at $3 50@4 per bbl for yellow.

TALLOW AND GREASE.--No 1 country tallow 7@7-1/4c per lb; No 2 do
6-1/4@6-1/2c. Prime white grease 6@6-1/2c; yellow 5-1/4@5-3/4c; brown
4-1/2@5.

VEGETABLES.--Cabbage, $8@12 per 100; celery, 25@35c per doz bunches;
onions, $1 00@1 25 per bbl for yellow, and $1 for red; turnips, $1 35@1
50 per bbl for rutabagas, and $1 00 for white flat.

WOOL.--from store range as follows for bright wools from Wisconsin,
Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Eastern Iowa--dark Western lots
generally ranging at 1@2c per lb. less.

Coarse and dingy tub                            25@30
Good medium tub                                 31@34
Unwashed bucks' fleeces                         14@15
Fine unwashed heavy fleeces                     18@22
Fine light unwashed heavy fleeces               22@23
Coarse unwashed fleeces                         21@22
Low medium unwashed fleeces                     24@25
Fine medium unwashed fleeces                    26@27
Fine washed fleeces                             32@33
Coarse washed fleeces                           26@28
Low medium washed fleeces                       30@32
Fine medium washed fleeces                      34@35

Colorado and Territory wools range as follows:

Lowest grades                                   14@16
Low medium                                      18@22
Medium                                          22@26
Fine                                            16@24

Wools from New Mexico:

Lowest grades                                   14@16
Part improved                                   16@17
Best Improved                                   19@23

Burry from 2c to 10c off; black 2c to 5c off.


LIVE STOCK MARKETS.

The total receipts and shipments for last week were as follows:

                                    Received.  Shipped.
Cattle                                42,110    18,986
Calves                                   527       346
Hogs                                 140,814    34,161
Sheep                                 24,600    11,815

CATTLE.--Very few choice lots are coming in. Receipts have fallen off
some 3,000 head. Of those that arrive the "unripe" predominate. Some of
our feeders are undoubtedly inclined to market too young. Some cattle by
experienced breeders and feeders may be "ripened" at two years, but in
the majority of cases, especially with anything else than high grade
short-horns, this can not be done. There is more money in holding common
stock a few months longer. The feeling on Monday was very firm, and
prices advanced considerably. Good heavy cattle brought as high as
$6 65, though the majority sold at less. Six steers averaging 1,523 lbs
brought $7. Cattle for shippers and canners went at $4 65@5; bulls
$2 50@4; cows $2 25@4 75; stockers and feeders scarce at $3 40@4 45 with
some of the latter at $4 50@5.

HOGS.--The hogs now arriving are light and the number is not large.
Since November 1st, Chicago packers have put up 325,000 less hogs than
for the corresponding period last year, and the total packing of the
country has fallen off 285,000 head. Our packing houses are now running
to about one half their capacity. Prices are firm. Common to fair stock
$5 25@5 75; good to choice heavy $5 80@6 30; skips and culls $4 25@5 15.

Note.--All sales of hogs are made subject to a shrinkage of 40 lbs for
piggy sows and 80 lbs for stags. Dead hogs sell for 1-1/2c per lb for
weights of 200 and over and [Transcriber's Note: blank in original] for
weights of less than 100 lbs.

SHEEP.--Arrivals are large. Several carloads from Texas came in on
Monday. Common to good $3 30@4 87-1/2; fancy head $5 75.

       *       *       *       *       *

COMMISSION MERCHANTS.

J.H. WHITE & CO.,
PRODUCE COMMISSION

106 S. Water St., Chicago.

Refers to this paper.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

[Illustration]

YOUR NAME printed on 50 Cards ALL NEW designs of _Gold Floral.
Remembrances, Sentiment, Hand Floral_, etc., with _Love, Friendship_,
and _Holiday Mottoes_, 10c. 7 pks. and this elegant Ring, 50c., 15 pks.
& Ring, $1.

[Illustration]

12 NEW "CONCEALED NAME" Cards (name concealed with hand holding flowers
with mottoes) 20c. 7 pks. and this Ring for $1. Agents' sample book and
full outfit, 25c. Over 200 new Cards added this season. Blank Cards at
wholesale prices.

NORTHFORD CARD CO. Northford, Conn.

       *       *       *       *       *

First-Class Plants
OF BEST VARIETIES OF SMALL FRUITS.

Catalogues free. Address
O. B. GALUSHA,
Peoria, Ill.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

Print Your Own Cards

Labels, Envelopes, etc. with our $3 PRINTING PRESS. Larger sizes for
circulars, etc., $8 to $75. For pleasure, money making, young or old.
Everything easy, printed instructions. Send 2 stamps for Catalogue of
Presses, Type, Cards, etc., to the factory.

KELSEY & CO., MERIDEN, CONN.

       *       *       *       *       *

FOR SALE.

Pure bred Bronze Turkeys and Pekin Ducks. Also eggs in Season.

MRS. J. F. FULTON,
Petersburg. Ills.

       *       *       *       *       *

$1000 Every 100 Days

Positively sure to Agents everywhere selling our New SILVER MOULD WHITE
WIRE CLOTHES-LINE. Warranted. Pleases at sight. Cheap. Sells readily at
every house. Agents clearing $10 per day. Farmers make $900 to $1200
during Winter. _Handsome samples free._

Address, GIRARD WIRE MILLS, Philadelphia, Pa.

       *       *       *       *       *

AGENTS WANTED, Male and Female, for Spence's Blue Book, a most
fascinating and salable novelty. Every family needs from one to a dozen.
Immense profits and exclusive territory. Sample mailed for 25 cts in
postage stamps. Address J.H. CLARSON, P.O. Box 2296, Philadelphia, Pa.

       *       *       *       *       *

500 VIRGINIA FARMS & MILLS

FOR SALE AND EXCHANGE. --> Write for free REAL ESTATE JOURNAL.

R.B. CHAFFIN & CO., Richmond, Virginia.

       *       *       *       *       *

MARLBORO RED RASPBERRY

Send to the originators for history and terms. A. S. Caywood & Son,
Marlboro, N. Y.


CARDS

40 SATIN FINISH CARDS, New Imported designs, name on and Present Free
for 10c. Cut this out. CLINTON BROS. & Co., Clintonville, Ct.

       *       *       *       *       *

PIG EXTRICATOR

To aid animals in giving birth. Send for free circular to WM. DULIN,
Avoca, Pottawattamie Co., Ia.

       *       *       *       *       *

EDUCATIONAL.

MT. CARROLL SEMINARY

And Musical Conservatory, Carroll Co., Ill.,

_Never had an agent_ to beg funds or pupils. The PECUNIARY AID
SYSTEM _is original_, and helps many worthy girls, without means,
to an education. _"Oreads" free._

       *       *       *       *       *

SPECIAL OFFER.

$67 FOR $18!

[Illustration]

A Superb New Family

Sewing Machine!

Combining all the most recent improvements, and now selling for $65, is
offered by THE PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING COMPANY to subscribers to THE
PRAIRIE FARMER

FOR $18,

including one year's subscription to the paper.

This exceptional offer will remain open for a few days only.

       *       *       *       *       *

SEWING SILK.

CORTICELLI SEWING SILK,

[Illustration]

LADIES, TRY IT!

THE BEST SEWING SILK MADE.

EVERY SPOOL WARRANTED.

FULL LENGTH, SMOOTH AND STRONG.

Ask your storekeeper for CORTICELLI Silk.

       *       *       *       *       *

MISCELLANEOUS.

"FACTS ABOUT
Arkansas and Texas."

A handsome book, beautifully illustrated, with colored diagrams, giving
reliable information as to crops, population, religious denominations,
commerce, timber, Railroads, lands, etc., etc.

Sent free to any address on receipt of a 2-cent stamp. Address

H.C. TOWNSEND,
GEN. PASSENGER AGT., ST. LOUIS, MO.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Cooley Creamer

[Illustration]

Saves in labor its entire cost every season. It will produce enough more
money from the milk to

Pay for itself every 90 days

over and above any other method you can employ. Don't buy infringing
cans from irresponsible dealers. By decision of the U. S. Court the
Cooley is the only Creamer or Milk Can which can be used water sealed or
submerged without infringement. Send for circular to

JOHN BOYD, Manufacturer,
199 LAKE ST., CHICAGO, ILL.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gold Watch Free.

The publishers of the Capitol City Home Guest, the well-known
Illustrated Literary and Family Magazine, make the following liberal
Offer for the New Year: The person telling us the longest verse in the
Bible, before March 1st, will receive a SOLID GOLD, LADY'S HUNTING CASED
SWISS WATCH, worth $50. If there be more than one correct answer, the
second will receive an elegant STEM-WINDING GENTLEMAN'S WATCH: the third
a key-winding ENGLISH WATCH. Each person must send 25 cts. with their
answer, for which they will receive three months subscription to the
Home Guest, a 50 page Illustrated NEW YEAR BOOK, A CASE OF 25 ARTICLES
that the ladies will appreciate, and paper containing names of winners.
Address

Pubs. of HOME GUEST, HARTFORD, CONN

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

We will send you a watch or a chain BY MAIL OR EXPRESS, C.O.D., to be
examined before paying any money and if not satisfactory, returned at
our expense. We manufacture all our watches and save you 30 per cent.
Catalogue of 250 styles free. EVERY WATCH WARRANTED. ADDRESS
STANDARD AMERICAN WATCH CO., PITTSBURGH. PA.





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