Editorial

Here is a little Prairie Farmer toast that we like, and though we get such often, we never tire of it. It was prepared by Mr. J. W. Hall, of Bates Co., Mo.: “The Prairie Farmer, the Western man’s friend. It grows better all the time; may it continue the good work.” We respond to all such toasts by striving to better deserve them every week in the year.

Our esteemed correspondent, Alex. Ross, this week tells farmers how they may keep their pork fresh for summer use. It will be generally regretted, we fear, that Mr. Ross did not contribute this article earlier in the season. It is timely to those who have not yet salted their pork, and for those who have, the recipe will keep, as well as the pork, until another season. Do you all file The Prairie Farmer?

The Smiths have it this week! We mean J. M. and J. A., one in the Horticultural and the other in the Dairy department of The Prairie Farmer. If any agricultural paper of this week contains two more valuable essays than these two, that is the publication we should like to see. The dairymen have a little the best of it, for dairymen all need good gardens, and hence both essays meet their cases, but the “Farmer’s Garden” is alone worth the subscription price of the paper to every farmer. Ought not the dairymen to subscribe for two copies?

If you are an active young man or young woman, or if you are not so young and active as you used to be, do not sit down and say to yourself that you can not secure some prize as offered in our premium list. There is hardly a present subscriber who may not get others to subscribe, or interest some one else to do so. We propose to give away a great deal of money value in these prizes, and the more we are called upon to give the better we like it, for we know that while increasing our list we are at the same time widening the influence of the paper and conferring benefits upon the country. Be assured that we offer no “snide” or worthless articles. We give genuine goods for genuine work.

They have a barbarous way of testing the comparative strength of draft horses in some parts of England. At Huddersfield the other day two owners secured the tail-ends of their carts together and then put their teams to the draft to see which would give way. First one and then the other was drawn backward, “while the macadam was torn up to the depth of five inches by their struggles.” The horses were kicked and beaten to make them do their best. The London Live Stock Journal says the brutes, the men we mean, not the horses, were arrested and fined $5 each for their fun. It should have been $500 apiece and imprisonment. The whipping post is none too severe for such criminal inhumanity to man’s most useful animal.

France has about one-half the agricultural implements in use that England has, though the cultivated acres in France are greatly in excess of those of England. The reason, doubtless, lies in the fact that French farms are very small and do not warrant the purchase of the larger labor-saving machines. The manual labor of the members of the family is often sufficient to carry on almost all the operations of the little farm “patches.” The late French census gives the following list of implements: 4,800,000 plow and diggers of various kinds, 1,650,000 harrows, 20,000 drills, 15,000 mowing machines, 18,000 reapers, 60,000 chaff-cutters, and 55,000 root-cutters. As compared with our own country this is indeed a small showing. We have dozens of reaper factories that turn out yearly more machines than are owned in all France.

Our readers will notice that in our premium list, as sent out last week, the Saskatchewan fife wheat is among the prominent offers. Here is a pointer showing the estimation in which the wheat is held by those who have grown it. We take it from the Detroit Record: “Last Spring twenty-six members of the Becker County Farmers’ Union clubbed together to the extent of $5 each for the purpose of giving the Scotch fife wheat (as grown in the Saskatchawan Valley) a trial, and the result has been most satisfactory. Thirteen bushels of the wheat were bought at $10 per bushel, and Iver Christianson, of Richwood, sowed it on thirteen acres of new land, for one-fourth of the yield. The wheat was threshed last Wednesday and divided among the stockholders yesterday, each receiving twelve bushels for his investment of five dollars, the total yield being 403 bushels, 61 pounds to the bushel, of the finest quality of No. 1 hard. Mr. Wellman, of whom the said wheat was purchased, began growing the wheat several years ago from a few kernels received in a letter from the Saskatchawan Valley, and the grain has been hand picked and kept perfectly clean each year.” The members of the club express themselves as perfectly satisfied with results and indorse the wheat in the highest manner. In all our premiums we have aimed to select useful articles, and such as are calculated to meet the wants of farmers and friends.

The Northern Illinois Horticultural Society held an interesting meeting at Elgin last week. The attendance was not large, but included such life long leaders in Illinois horticulture as A. R. Whitney, S. G. Minkler, J. W. Cochrane, D. C. Schofield, A. Bryant, Jr., Dr. Slade, Wm. Kellogg, of Wisconsin, D. Wilmot Scott, H. Graves, A. L. Small, L. Woodard, and others. The papers read were brief and excellent. Robert Douglas, O. B. Galusha, and Samuel Edwards, who were not present contributed instructive essays. The election for the ensuing year resulted in the choice of S. M. Slade, Elgin, President; A. Bryant, Jr., Princeton, J. V. Cotta, Mt. Carroll, and David Hill, Dundee, Vice-Presidents; D. Wilmot Scott, Galena, Secretary; E. W. Graves, Sandwich, and J. S. Rodgers, Marengo, Recording Secretaries. The society voted to hold its next annual meeting at Elgin. We will give a digest of proceedings in next week’s paper.

The alleged operations of certain patent sharks as recorded on third page of this paper reminds us of a couple of swindling operations humorously noticed in a late New York Tribune, viz: Certain Michigan farmers gave their notes, ranging from $50 to $500 each, for “hulless oats,” payment to be made out of the crop produced at $1.50 per bushel. But the I. O. U.’s were promptly sold on liberal terms at the bank or elsewhere. The persuasive agent “lighted out,” and the victims now think they perceive symptoms of the cutting of belated teeth, of the eye variety. Another interesting “little game” is this: Two men, apparently strangers, meet at a farm-house; get acquainted; arrange to stay over night. During the long evening they make a bargain with each other for some piece of property, draw writings, and ask their host kindly to append his name as witness. Just as might have been expected, the farmer’s signature turns out to be the most important of the three, since the document is so artfully constructed that by cutting it in two pieces one of them becomes a promissory note, which is subsequently negotiated, and, under the present bad law, has to be paid.—In view of such occurrences as these (still astonishingly common after years of repeated exposure by the press) the aggressive “Jabez” of the Tribune maintains that the countryman who doesn’t treat as frauds all tramps, no matter how well dressed, who seek his autograph, under any pretense whatever, would better have given his time to reading and not learned to write, for these bad signs indicate that he will never be forethoughtful enough in such emergencies to make his mark.

[MISSISSIPPI VALLEY HORT. SOCIETY]

The fifth annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society held at Kansas City, Mo., January 22-25, was the most interesting and profitable ever held by this vigorous and valuable organization. Delegates were present from fourteen States, covering the great water-shed embraced by the “Father of Waters,” and its tributaries—in and of itself, an empire. The personnel of this body was excellent; it was a convention of practical, brainy men, alive to the interests of one of the most important pursuits in range of the rural industries. The essays, and the discussions they provoked, were full of interest, and highly instructive. We have attended scores of such assemblies during the last quarter of a century; none of them equaled this, all things considered, and we think this opinion was shared by the oldest and most prominent among those in attendance.

Our columns, as we find on our return home, are too crowded this week to admit of publishing a synopsis of the proceedings, but will make room for the eloquent, touching, and well-deserved tribute of the society to the memory of Dr. John A. Warder. Next week an epitome of the work of the convention will be given, and two of the papers that were read will also appear, to wit: “The Best Fruit Packages,” by E. T. Hollister, of St. Louis, Mo., and “The Educational Influence of Horticulture,” by Mr. G. A. Lyon, of Galesburg, Ill. Other valuable and interesting papers read at this meeting will soon appear in The Prairie Farmer; among them, Prof. S. A. Forbes’ paper on “Insects Affecting the Strawberry” (which is supplemental to a former paper which we published last year); another by Prof. John W. Robson, of Cheever, Kansas, on the “Circulation of Sap,” and others which are very useful, on various leading horticultural topics.

The re-election of Parker Earle, as President, W. H. Ragan, Secretary, and T. C. Evans, Treasurer, was a fitting indorsement of the faithful and efficient services of these officers.

[WHEN IT IS TIME TO RESIGN.]

We observe a general tendency this winter to re-elect about all the old officers of the various dairy, horticultural and other meetings, and this regardless of age or previous terms of office. While this practice is highly complimentary to men who have held the positions, and is a recognition of services well performed, we think the more frequent infusion of new blood an excellent remedy for stagnation and other ills liable to creep into association management. At several meetings this winter writers and speakers have expressed regret that more young men were not in attendance. Perhaps if the old members were a little more willing to give young men a fair proportion of the management there would be less cause of complaint in this direction. We have often wondered at the tenacity with which some old and otherwise sensible men hold on to offices in State agricultural societies. They indeed seem to think it a personal slight if they fail of renomination. We have in mind one clever old gentleman, now in almost every way ill-fitted for the position, who has for long years held the office of president of a State Association. Every member of the organization is aware that the days of this old gentleman’s usefulness in the position have long since passed away, yet he was re-elected almost by acclamation at a late annual meeting. It was remarked, in our hearing, that some younger, more vigorous and active man should be selected, “but,” it was added, “it would break the old man’s heart to put another man in his place, and that is the way all feel about it.” Such a sentiment speaks well for the hearts of the members with whom the old gentleman is associated, but less can be said of the judgment that is manifested. We respect age, especially if it has been attained while doing good service for the public. But something is due to the present and the future as well as to the past. It is to be regretted that men do not better recognize the fact that these little affairs of the world would move along just about as well if their management were sometimes resigned to other hands before death compels the change. But such is seldom the case. We have known a man, once a president of a State Agricultural Society and long one of its vice-presidents, who has really felt that many of his old friends and associates became his personal enemies the moment they aided in electing another man to his position. He thinks them so still, yet the fact is he has no more faithful, well-wishing friends on earth. It was one of those cases where public good demanded the sacrifice of private preference. It will be better for all our organizations when such adherence to correct principles universally prevails, or when failing faculties bring with them self-consciousness of weakening powers.

[LOCATING THE MINNESOTA STATE FAIR.]

The Minnesota State Agricultural Association is now working under the provisions of the new law passed by the Legislature last year. This law entitles to vote delegates in the management of the State Society, from each county association holding a fair and paying premiums to the amount of the donation by the State to these local organizations. At the late meeting at St. Paul over twenty county societies were represented. It was also decided to allow one vote each to the State Horticultural Society, and to the Southern Minnesota Fair Association.

The financial report showed that the State Society received from all sources in 1883 the sum of $14,068.78. The disbursements amounted to a little less than this sum. As it is a matter of interest everywhere to know what it costs, by items, to run a State society, we here give them for Minnesota: Salaries of officers and assistants, $3,601.39; printing and advertising, $1,415.65; general expenses, $2,520.97; special ring purses, $2,434; premiums, $3,945.50.

It will be seen that a little over sixty-one per cent of the whole amount of prize money went to the fast horse interest. Thus it is considered in Minnesota that racing is worth more money to the State Fair, that is, it brings more money from attendance and “privileges,” than all the cattle, farm horses, swine, sheep, fowls, farm products, vegetables, flowers, machinery, fine arts, domestic products, and everything else that can be brought out at the State exhibition. We do not take Minnesota as an example because it is any better or any worse than other States in this respect, but to show to the farming people of this country wherein lie the attractions of the modern agricultural fair. They are at liberty to draw their own conclusions. These fairs are in their own hands, or should be, and if reforms are needed it is from them that they must emanate.

For several years there has been a feeling of intense rivalry between the Fair Association at Minneapolis and the State Society. The rival fairs have been held at the same time, and the result has been detrimental to both organizations. We suppose the feeling had its birth in the commercial rivalry between the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. However this may have been, or whether good or ill has resulted, the State Society and the farmers of the State are to be congratulated that a movement is on foot to obliterate all differences, and to establish somewhere between the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis permanent fair grounds that shall secure to Minnesota one of the greatest fairs of the Northwest. At the meeting, about which we began to write, it was resolved to instruct a committee, appointed for the purpose, to negotiate with the citizens of the two cities for eighty or one hundred acres of land for a permanent location of the State Society. It was also advocated to call upon the Legislature for appropriations for the construction of permanent buildings.

[Wayside Notes.]

BY A MAN OF THE PRAIRIE.

I can’t help remarking to myself as I read my two or three foreign agricultural papers, how great is becoming the influence of American agriculture upon the farming of Great Britain. Our ways are gradually insinuating themselves into British practice and it will not be long before our respected “cousins” will be ready to acknowledge that we have in great part paid off the debt we owe them for the many lessons in methods of thorough culture and intelligent breeding they have given us. What has led me to mention this matter is an item in a London journal showing a tendency to bring beef stock to the block at an earlier age than has formerly prevailed in that country. It was not until inaugurated at the Chicago Fat Stock Show, I believe, that the English ever took it into their heads to make a record of average daily gain of bullocks for their Fat Stock Shows, or of the amount of food it took to bring them into show condition. It is only lately that stock raisers there have thought about selling by weight instead of the “guess” of the buyer. Farm scales are not half enough in use here, but we are manifold ahead of the farmers of Great Britain in this respect. It was only after Americans had pronounced upon the benefits of the silo that British farmers thought it worth their while to experiment with the innovation from across the channel. But about this early maturity question: I notice that a correspondent of the Yorkshire Post mentions that at the late Fat Stock Show two Prize Hereford bullocks weighing (dressed) 896 pounds, and 700 pounds, were aged respectively one year, nine months, and five days, and one year, seven months, and twenty-two days. At the Grimsby show there were two Short-horns weighing 14 cwt. and 13¾ cwt. live weight, the first being one year and nine months old, and the other one year, nine months, and fourteen days. They took the second prize as grazing steers. I don’t need to mention anything about the new farm implements we have given the old country, nor the many modifications that her own implements, wagons, etc., are undergoing, especially in the way of lightness in construction, that are directly traceable to the influence of American manufacture. Indeed, if the intelligent and unprejudiced Englishman of to-day who is familiar with our agriculture will sit down and reflect upon the subject he will readily acknowledge that the influence of the United States upon the political ideas of England has not been more marked than it has upon her agricultural ideas and practices.

And while I have strayed so far away from home for a subject for a “note” I may as well stay there long enough to say that the English dog is not a whit less fond of mutton than is the average canine of this country. And further, it does not seem that British law regarding the protection of sheep is at all in advance of ours, either in its provisions or the manner of its enforcement. In Cheshire, for instance, dogs, in the course of the first two weeks of this year, killed 140 sheep valued at $1,500, and the most that was done about it was to hunt up the offending cur—no it was not a cur but a Retriever—and kill it. The dog is a great favorite in England, certainly he seems there as here to have more friends than the sheep that clothes and feeds. When will man, anywhere, become fully civilized and humanized?

I met a Wisconsin tobacco and corn-grower the other day, and he was bluer than a pipe stem. The frost last fall cut off both his corn and his tobacco. He said he had actually nothing to sell but a little wrapper tobacco which grew in a protected place, and now the Government had nipped his hopes for this in the bud by declaring that Sumatra tobacco should be admitted into the country on a duty of 35 cents per pound, while it is acknowledged that it is worth at least five times as much as the best Wisconsin with which it competes. Probably a later decision by Secretary Folger that this Sumatra leaf must pay 75 cents per pound has done one of his sores some good. The only thing I could then, or can now, recommend as good for the other—caused by the untimely frost—is, that he no longer put all his eggs in one or two baskets. I am convinced that for farmers of moderate means through the acceptance of the doctrine of diversified farming alone lies their permanent and universal salvation from financial hades in this world.

In the Punjaub, British India, there was last year an outbreak of the cattle plague. The authorities took hold of the matter, and by means of isolation of affected cattle and the prescriptions of the veterinarians, the disease was completely eradicated. The authorities were jubilant over their success. The natives were congratulated on being ruled over by a Government which kept such excellent watch over their interests. But the natives, while they admitted the existence of the disease, wherein they were more intelligent or less prejudiced than are some of our citizens regarding pleuro-pneumonia, did not have a much better opinion of the vets and commissioners than your correspondent, B. F. J., seems to have. They said to an official: “Yes, sahib, the isolation of cattle gave great trouble, and the salutries’ hunger was difficult to appease. When they had left the village, we got a holy man, who drew a line on the ground round the herd. Then he got on horseback and rode round the herd, sprinkling water and repeating the creed. It was that which cured the cattle.” What we farmers want is the isolation and the vets.’ advice, and if Mr. Allerton and Gen. Singleton have a “holy man” at command to draw a line about the infected herds, perhaps we can get rid of the disease, and thus all parties will be satisfied.

[Letter From Champaign.]

We have now (January 25) had forty days of snow, and nearly uninterrupted good sleighing, and the end is not yet—neither of snow nor sleighing, for there is fully a foot of the former now on the ground, and few, if any, bare spots. But the steady cold is quite as uncommon as the snow or sleighing, and will make the winter of 1883-84 a memorable one. Another remarkable feature is the low range of the thermometer where mild winters are thought to be insured by the latitude. Thus, Central and Southern Kansas and Missouri have had as cold weather as Central Illinois—a good example of which was the 27 degrees below zero registered at Makanda, a few miles north of Cobden, Ill., while the lowest point reached, 200 miles further north, was only a degree or two lower. It may be winter will break up soon—and it may be deeper snows and intenser cold are in store for us, as in some other winters of great severity.

At any rate, the protracted cold and snow which takes all pasturage out of the account in carrying stock, is making very heavy drafts on hay, grain, and fodder of all kinds and it looks now as if the big hay crop of this section will be fed out before spring. As for corn, the most of which is soft and has no grade and no sale as a merchantable commodity, except for feeding where it grew—is being very lavishly fed to stock of all kinds, as the most profitable way to get rid of it. Accounts from Nebraska and Northwest Kansas report corn in very little better condition than in Central Illinois, and dealers who bought and cribbed it early in the season are reputed badly caught.

There is nothing new to report in respect to the condition of winter wheat. So long as snow covers the ground it is safe; and after, it will come through if the weather is warm, or cold and wet, and there is little freezing and thawing to thaw it out of the ground. It is thought by those who have given the subject some attention, that though the buds of fruit trees may be killed or badly damaged by the intense cold, and though the wood was not thoroughly ripened last year, the ground not being frozen and the earth being covered by snow at the time, the vitality of the trees will remain unimpaired. It is the experience of Vermont and Maine orchardists, that if snow falls before the ground freezes to any considerable depth, apple trees effectually resist any degree of cold.

The latest contribution of facts going to establish the new departure in respect to the location of orchards, comes from a farmer of Geauga county, Ohio. He writes to the Country Gentleman of a late date as follows: “There was little fruit the past season, and as in many former years, orchards on high lands bore only a few defective apples. Such orchards have not borne much for several years, while orchards on low lands, somewhat protected, have borne large crops of fair fruit. My orchards on low land, protected by evergreens, have brought me several hundred dollars a year for several years, while the orchards on high lands, a little west, have not borne enough for family use for some years.” Who will tell The Prairie Farmer about the many orchards of Livingston county, Ill., which produced, last year, very remarkable crops of fine apples—a fact which raised the value of land in that county several dollars per acre?

B. F. J.

[An Eloquent Tribute.]

The following eloquent tribute to the late Dr. John A. Warder was written by ex-Gov. J. Sterling Morton, of Nebraska, chairman of the memorial committee at the late meeting of the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society at Kansas City. In its estimation of the man and his work it is appreciative and just: Ingersoll himself could not surpass it in the sublimity of its pathos. To be thus commemorated in the minds and words of men is the lot of few, and those only who have lived exalted, useful lives, and whose glowing hearts have kindled the fires of friendship and love in the breasts of friends and associates in life’s cares and labors. Mr. Morton said:

As guests register their names at a hotel, depart, and are forgotten, so humanity, stopping for a short time on the earth, makes its autograph upon the age and sets out upon its returnless journey to that realm whence come neither tidings nor greetings.

Each individual of the race leaves some trace of his existence on the generation in which he lives, and considerable numbers transmit their names to posterity italicised in good deeds or embalmed in noble and elevating thought.

The desire to be remembered and esteemed by those who come after us, seems to be, with the better and more exalted minds, a greater inspiration to high intellectual effort than the mere plaudits of cotemporaries. As on the stage, those actors who play best their parts are recalled and applauded after the curtain has fallen, so those in the brief drama of life, who have best performed their duties are, after their mortal costumes have been forever laid away in restful graves, again called out by their admiring cotemporaries, and thus their intellectual and moral personalities reappear before the lights, amidst tumultuous and emulative applause.

It is the duty and pleasure of your committee, gentlemen of the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society, in harmony with this line of reflection, to bring before you the character and services of the recently deceased Dr. John A. Warder, of Ohio. His naturally strong mental faculties were led out and trained, in school and college, to a full and vigorous stature. His chosen profession of medicine, in the earlier years of his manhood, occupied his entire thought and stimulated him to untiring labor of mind and body, and, at the same time, gave him also that culture of the heart which, through his refined, emotional nature, was ever incarnating itself in delicate acts of kindness and generosity toward those who needed sympathy or friends.

But he turned at last from his professional studies—from the books in his library—to those broader investigations of the mysteries of life and growth of flowers, fruits and forests, to which the fields, orchards, and wild woods of Ohio ever allured him. His childhood and youth had passed amidst the rustic scenes of a home in the country, on a farm; and as the seashell, though ever so long and far away from its home in the surf, will, when placed to the ear always moan of its ocean home, so his great and tender soul ever yearned for a life among the flora and sylvia of youth. His brave and benignant spirit explored all avenues of knowledge which led into flowering fields and orchards. To his eye every blossom was a poem; to his quick perception every tree a book full of useful and agreeable teachings. And to the study of these volumes—these continued annuals—fresh in new binding, embellishment, and gilding every summer and autumn, Dr. Warder devoted the choicest years of his mature manhood.

It is the enthusiast of a cause who gives vitality and propulsive power. Dr. Warder was an enthusiast in horticulture and in forestry. To advance the race in those two vocations no labor was too great for him to undertake, no sacrifice too severe for him joyfully to make. At his own expense he went into fresh territories and States, preaching, as a missionary of a new gospel, the importance and necessity of orcharding and tree planting. His thoughts were strewn, like precious seeds, among the dwellers on the prairies of Nebraska, Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota and the Northwest. And they took root, so that the concepts of thousands of groves and orchards, which now stand as living monuments to his useful life, came from his own philanthropic brain. In his mind miniature forests grew on every prairie, and golden fruit flashed in the autumn sunlight of every hill-side. He knew no limit to his love of horticulture and arboriculture. He was earnest; he was active, sincere, and his vitægraph is written wherever flowers bloom, fruits ripen, and forests wave all over the country he loved so well and served so modestly, efficiently, and faithfully.

His example is worthy of the emulation of our sons and of their sons. And standing at his grave it is meet and proper for this society to recall his noble services to its cause, to wish that, with each recurring year his memory may, like the flowers and foliage he studied so well, be clothed in new verdure and its fragrance perpetuated as a grateful perfume.

Resolved—That the Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society deplores the death of its friend and active member, Dr. John A. Warder of Ohio; that our sincere condolence is extended to his family, and that we recommend to kindred societies throughout the Northwest the planting of memorial trees and groves to commemorate his labors, his achievements, and his philanthropy as a skilled orchardist and forester.

Selection of a Site for a Park.

(Continued from [Page 65].)

were squatters of the lowest class living in hovels. The construction of the Central Park, and the opening of the streets in its neighborhood, changed the whole character of the surrounding region. In the ten years succeeding the commencement of work upon the park, the increased valuation of taxable property in the wards immediately adjacent was no less than fifty-four millions of dollars, affording a surplus of three millions after paying the interest on all the city bonds issued for the purchase and construction of the park, a sum sufficient if used as a sinking fund to pay the entire principal and interest of the cost of the park in less time than was required for its construction.

A similar instance of the profitable conversion of a deserted and forbidding region into a rich and elegant quarter of a city, is afforded by the Park des Butte Chaumont in Paris.

It occupies the site of old abandoned slate quarries, the precipitous walls and rough excavations of which have been converted into picturesque scenery by judicious treatment and tasteful planting, so as to give it the appearance of a wild mountain gorge. The result has been that its vicinity has become a rich and elegant quarter, simply because it has been made attractive to the large and constantly growing class who are seeking pleasant residence sites within easy access of their places of business.

These illustrations will suffice to prove the truth of my assertion, that the objects of most essential importance to a city in the creation of a park will be attained by selecting for its location a site which is naturally undesirable or even repulsive and converting it into an attractive quarter, rather than one which combines all the elements of beauty and health, and as a consequence is so desirable for residences, that it can only be had at great cost.

The Illinois State Dairymen’s Association will hold its next annual meeting at Champaign, December 17-19, 1884. Champaign County Agricultural Society has adopted a resolution, pledging aid in getting up a first-class meeting.

REMEMBER that $2.00 pays for The Prairie Farmer one year, and the subscriber gets 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.

[Poultry Notes.]

Poultry-Raisers, Write for Your Paper.

[What Ails the Pullets?]

Dear Fanny Field—Please be kind enough to tell me what ails the pullets? We have fifty or sixty spring pullets hatched in April and May, from which by this time we expected to get eggs plentifully, and it stretches our patience to get only from one to five eggs per day. They have an underground room with only the front exposed, well lighted, and we have fed them till they are fat.

We feed them a warm breakfast of potatoes and bran, or oats ground, with a little pepper occasionally, then an hour or two later oats, and again at night oats or corn, about three times a week. Plaster, coal, and gravel are liberally supplied. They have milk and now and then powdered bones, or refuse meat, cooked.

By an accident a fine one of over four pounds’ weight was killed, and I had supposed she ought to lay as she was one of my earliest, but on investigation I found eggs from a hickory nut down to shot eggs, that were black or dark and hard, and I readily conjectured if the rest were like her it was not strange we had no eggs. Please tell us the cause and cure.

Our fowls are mixed, light and dark Brahmas, Leghorns and everything you would get by changing eggs with the neighbors. We have added Plymouth Rocks of late, having more of them than any other. We save the best Rock roosters each year. It is the more surprising as our fowls usually lay well.

Please help us if you can, and oblige a subscriber.

Mrs. C. H. R.
Marengo, Iowa.

[That Duck Farm.]

Dear Fanny Field—I have often thought I would write you through our dear old Prairie Farmer, but the old thief, procrastination, stole my time. But reading your description of “A Duck Farm” aroused all the ambition I have, and the editor willing (I not being one of the number knowing your private address) would like to ask a few questions I consider “necessary,” and will promise to abide by the terms given in “Chats with Correspondents” of January 5th, as near as possible.

I don’t wonder the woman owning the “duck farm” wished to withhold her name and whereabouts from the public generally, besides guarding her pen with “well-trained dogs” if she has ducks she can induce to lay 125 or even 100 eggs per season, nine and one third of which will hatch out ducklings that will all live to be grown ducks.

Take an average of 113 and the ducks will lay 1,808 eggs per season, and she sells $100 worth at $3 per doz. making 400; then she sends 24 doz. to New York, then raises “1,100 ducks on the place,” making in all, 1,788, which, taken from the 1,808 leaves 20 eggs for non-hatchers and dead ducklings. This I call pretty close work.

I have had some little experience with ducks, and I can only get them to lay from sixty to seventy eggs per season, and about one eighth of the eggs don’t hatch (from various causes) and about the same amount of ducklings die. Now if you will be kind enough to reveal the woman’s whereabouts to me I would like to invest if she will warrant them to come up to your figures; also, is the said woman a widow?

Now Miss Fanny (if such you are) please excuse my familiarity. As I have perused your writings with such pleasure, I feel well acquainted, so strike me as hard as you please, but remember there is a hereafter. I have several facts in regard to my fowls for another time providing I gain admission.

A. Sucker.
De Witt Co., Ill.

[From New Hampshire.]

Eggs are worth thirty-three cents per dozen here. The hens are not laying nearly as many as they were at this time last year. Can any one tell the reason? Farmers ought to pay more attention to the hens. They do pay, and pay big if properly cared for. Give them hot feed in the morning, consisting of bran, corn meal, beef scraps, a little salt and a little cayenne pepper. Don’t make them drink ice water these cold days. Give them wheat and oats at noon, and whole corn at night. The warmer your house is the more profit you will reap. I don’t care whether your fowls are pure bloods or not, if you take good care of them they will give you eggs. A good neighbor of mine says that his pure Plymouth Rocks do not lay as many eggs as his common “old fashioned” fowls.

Shall I raise a tempest among the breeders?

G. G. A.
Hudson, N. H.

[The Apiary.]

[Corn-Silk Protection.]

A correspondent of “Gleanings” writes: I winter on the summer stands, and pack them a little differently from most persons. I spread the combs so that eight or nine will fill same space occupied in summer by ten. Then placing sticks crosswise of the frames, to allow a passway for the bees, I spread a cloth above them, and pack on the top of this two or three inches of corn-silks. For packing, these are superior to anything I have yet seen or heard of. They are clean, and excellent non-conductors, and will more readily absorb the moisture than either chaff or saw-dust, and yet remain perfectly dry. They are easily collected by a boy when men are husking in the fields; and when taken off in the spring can be stored away for another winter. Knowing the value of them by experience, I hope that many of our brother bee-keepers will give them a fair trial.

[Feeding Back.]

The question of “feeding back” honey to bees was discussed at the Michigan State Convention at Flint. W. Z. Hutchinson had had a poor season; but as he had mentioned incidentally that he had practiced “feeding back,” it brought down upon him a shower of questions. In feeding back 1,000 pounds of extracted honey, he had received 800 pounds of comb honey. Had tiered up the cases of sections until they were three or four cases high. Had fed the honey as fast as they would take it. Looked the sections over about once a week, and removed the full ones. Some colonies did much better work than others. After the first trial, selected the best. No honey was coming in at the time of the feeding; did not weigh the hives; weighed only the sections and the amount. He had a friend who had fed back upon exactly the same plan, but his friend had not found it profitable. He thought that to know just how to feed back, at a profit, was not yet positively known.

D. A. Jones: The question of feeding back has but few advocates, for the reason that the majority have failed to make it profitable. To be successful in feeding back there must be no place in the hive in which the bees can store honey, except in the sections. Those hives must be selected that contain the most honey, or else those having but few combs. My plan of feeding is to elevate the hives in front and pour the feed in upon the bottom-board. The bees do not carry the honey out of the hives; they must store it somewhere. Bee-keepers fail to make it pay, because the bees had an empty brood-chamber. Section boxes filled with foundation had been given a colony at 9 A. M.; feeding commenced, and the next day, at evening, the bees had commenced capping some of the sections. Fifty-two pounds of honey was fed, and forty-four pounds of comb honey obtained. To get unfinished sections filled, and at the same time have the honey removed from some other unfinished sections, I put the sections that I wish emptied, over the hive, and the ones that I wish finished, in the main body of the hive, keeping the queen out of them by using perforated zinc.

W. Z. Hutchinson: Will not pouring in honey at the entrances excite robbing?

D. A. Jones: I do not pour it in at the entrance. I pour it down inside the hive at the back.

W. Z. Hutchinson: You speak of using perforated zinc. I should like to know something about that. Do the bees work through it freely? Is there any objection to its use, except its cost? And where is the expense? Is it in the material, or in the preparations?

D. A. Jones: It is in no way detrimental. The bees work through it freely. I see no objection to its use except its cost, and its cost is the preparations. Tin would be no cheaper, for the reason that it comes in smaller sheets, and the waste would be greater.

W. Z. Hutchinson: I have used honey boards the past season made of wood, the slats of which were 5-32 of an inch apart, and they answered every purpose; and are cheaper than zinc.

S. T. Pettitt: I can hardly think the wooden boards would be better than the zinc. It would take some time to make them, while the zinc is all ready, and so lasting.

W. Z. Hutchinson: The wood boards cost only a third as much as the zinc and I prefer them.

[Bee Pasturage.]

At the late Nebraska Bee-keepers’ Convention Mr. Ballard spoke very highly of dandelion and alsike clover, stating that he had seen four or five bees on one blossom of dandelion, and recommends alsike clover, as it will take root on the prairie.

G. M. Cooper, Beatrice, gave it as his opinion that white clover did not secrete any honey last spring, on account of the cool weather.

P. M. Aldrich said that his bees worked on rape long after frost. No one present had ever seen rape fail.

Mr. Colwell sowed the roadside twice last year, and had a continuous bloom all summer, and late in the fall; puts one peck to the acre on the roadside.

Mr. Hawley sows about six pounds of rape seed per acre.

Mr. Colwell’s bees have a great feast on box elder sap, early in spring.

Mr. Hawley has sown rape several times, but the bees only gathered fast enough to build up; he can tell when his bees are gathering rape honey, by the odor.

C. C. Turney, Ceresco, had seen bees work very extensively on the blackberry, both blossom and fruit, and also on parsley.

Wm. Sutton, Elk Creek, saw his bees on raspberry and alsike clover; they did a great deal to stimulate his bees, although the quantity is limited in his locality; they bloom about the middle of June.

The ancient Egyptians of the Nile had floating bee-houses, designed to take advantage of the honey harvest. They were warned when it was time to return home by the depth to which the boat sank in the water under the weight of the cargo of honey. That the bees might not be lost, they were obliged to journey during the night-time.

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