The Farmer’s Garden.

BY J. M. SMITH.

A few years ago it was necessary for me to call upon a gentleman upon some business. After my business was completed and I was about to leave, I started toward the garden. He called to me saying, “Do not go there—you can not get through the garden.” I arrived at the border and stopped. He had evidently complied with one of the necessities of a good garden, viz., plenty of manure, for it is simply impossible for weeds to grow at the rate, or attain the size they had there, except upon very rich land.

Rabbits would have been perfectly secure from foxes, and foxes from dogs, in that immense and tangled growth of weeds.

The owner of that garden was one the best and most enterprising farmers in the State. He had at one time been president of his State agricultural society.

Many years ago I visited a friend living upon a 160 acre farm. It was one of the most beautiful section farms that I have ever seen either in this or any other State. While there I was speaking of a splendid crop of melons that were then just ripening. He said, in rather a fretful manner, “I do not see why my melons do not grow. I know the land is rich, and there are no weeds in the hills. I hoed them all up only a few days ago.” I walked out to his garden with him, and there were his poor, puny vines struggling for life. As he said, there were no weeds in the hills, a little circle of perhaps two or three feet in diameter had been hoed out, and the balance of the land was covered with a dense growth of weeds from two to six feet in height.

He had a most industrious and refined lady for a wife, and young children growing up around him, and, as before stated, a most excellent as well as valuable farm. Yet not one early pea or one ear of sweet corn; not even early potatoes or a tomato, or, in fact, anything that by any stretch of the imagination could be called a garden bed—yet the man has been to college.

Another gentleman said in my presence, “In the spring, at the proper time, I purchase cabbage seed and sow them; when it is time to set them out I buy the plants and plant them; when it is time for cabbages they are there, and so I always have cabbages.”

He is among the very best farmers in the State. He teaches others how to farm, and does it well. The man who attacks him in a convention needs a strong cause and a ready tongue, or he will be apt to consider his own cause a very poor one before he gets through with it. This man has been president of a State dairymen’s association.

One case more: Another gentleman, who is far above the average farmer, and who has also been president of a State dairymen’s association, as well as a public teacher, as he was going out to attend a farmers’ meeting or convention, where he was expected to be a teacher, happened to look out over the place where his garden should have been, and saw an immense growth of weeds going to seed. He said to his sons and hired men, “Boys, bring out a team and hitch to the mower, and mow off the garden; I can not conscientiously go and teach others how to farm with that crop of weeds going to seed in my own garden.” The work was done. “There,” said he, “I can now go and teach without a troubled conscience. There are no weeds going to seed in my garden.”

I have strong hopes of this gentleman. He has a conscience. He attends church; and although I consider him intellectually as far superior to most of the preachers of the day, yet if the right man should become his pastor, I fully believe that there is salvation for him even in this life.

As to the other three the case seems at least to be a very doubtful one. One can not but be reminded of the anecdote of the three little boys who had commenced studying the catechism. Some one asked them if they had learned any of it? “Oh, yes,” says one of them, “I am past justification.” A second one says, “I am past sanctification.” The third jumps up and says, “I have beat them all; I am clear past redemption.” It is much to be feared that the three first described gentlemen are all of them clear past redemption.

Let us turn for a moment to a farmer’s garden of another order. He has a beautiful as well as an excellent farm. Around his house are quite a number of handsome trees that stood there when the Indians were the proprietors of the soil. The present owner has added such other trees as he thought would add both to its beauty and comfort. The house is a number of rods from the highway, and in the summer is one of the most beautiful rural homes that I ever saw. Back of, and near by, the house is his garden. It is so arranged that most of its crops can be cultivated with a horse and cultivator. A nice asparagus bed furnishes not only himself and family an abundant supply of this the first as well as one of the best of the products of the outdoor garden, but also a quantity to sell. His strawberry beds, containing only a few of the standard varieties and a very few plants of some of the most promising of the new ones, were models of both beauty and economy in their arrangement for cultivating both well and cheaply. The same was true of his peas, beans, sweet corn, cabbages, potatoes, etc. His raspberries, both red and black-caps, furnished an abundant supply for the family during their season. The same is true of his blackberries and grapes.

A short distance from these well cared-for necessaries and luxuries of his farm is a moderate-sized and well cared-for orchard. I have no doubt he can, if he wishes, have some of the products of his orchard or garden, or both, upon his table every day of the year.

The gentleman who owns and controls this farm has never been president of any State dairymen’s association, nor has he ever been sent to Congress. But, gentlemen, he is one of the most thoroughly wide awake and enterprising, as well as one of the very best farmers that Wisconsin can boast of; and we have some good ones.

The question very naturally arises, Why is it that so many, not only of our common, but of our very best farmers, fail to have anything that can be called even a poor garden? It is not because they do not like its products.

Time and again have men who were good farmers, when looking over my grounds, said: “Well, it is too bad that I have not had a decent garden; but I am determined to have one after this, and will neglect it no longer.” I have no recollection of any farmer’s family among my acquaintances who would not enjoy its products. Perhaps the best reason, and often the only one, that can be given for so many almost entire failures in this respect is the want of time. It is a well-known fact that almost all of our farmers are short of the help they really need to keep their farms in good condition. Something is sure to be neglected, and, in three cases out of four, if not in nine out of ten, the poor garden is the first thing that is left to care for itself, which it generally does by growing a tremendous crop of weeds.

It is perfectly useless to attempt to have a respectable garden, unless arrangements are made in the spring for its planting and cultivation with the same care that arrangements are made for the care of the wheat, oats, corn, or potato crop, or the care of the dairy.

When these arrangements are made and faithfully carried into execution during the season, then shall we see good gardens upon our farms; and not only that, but, as a rule, they will be the best paying pieces of land upon the farm, not only in the comfort they give to the family, but in the profit as well.

I do not propose at this time to give you a treatise upon gardening. A few hints that may be of value to those who wish to make some improvement, is all that will be attempted.

In the first place, select, if you can have a choice, a piece of light, loamy soil, with a little sand, if you can get it. A heavy clay soil will raise as large a crop as the one above mentioned, but it is not as early, and is much more expensive and different to work. In laying out a garden on a farm take plenty of room, and arrange the goods in such a manner that the greatest possible amount of work can be performed with the horse.

The selection of seeds is to me the most annoying and perplexing job of the season. The circulars come pouring in, and are filled with the names of new varieties of this and that and the other, each better than any other of its kind, and so very desirable that you are apt to think that you must have a few of the seeds just to try them.

Of course, there is occasionally some improvement made in vegetables and plants but it is safe to say that in nineteen cases out of twenty the farmer or the amateur who invests in some new varieties of seeds or plants upon the recommendation of his circular, loses both money and time by the operation. If I should record my own experience in this line during the past twenty-five years, the result would show that I have drawn an occasional prize and a marvelous number of blanks, and some of them very annoying, as well as expensive ones.

I will give you a list of such seeds as have proven themselves to be about the best that I can find, after years of experience:

When we come to the small fruits I will recommend as follows: Strawberries—Wilson’s Albany seedling for main crop. If a few very large ones are wanted try the No. 30, and the Sharpless. With me they are both worthless except for the purpose of producing a few very large berries. To lengthen out the season the Kentucky is the best of any that I know of. Downer’s Prolific is also a fair bearer, of excellent quality. I am constantly trying those of the new varieties that seem to me most likely to do well, but almost invariably lose both time and money. I have some twelve or fifteen varieties of these now on trial, but presume the result with nearly or quite all, will be the same as with hundreds of others I have had during the last twenty-five years, viz., after two or three years of trouble and expense plow them under for manure.

For raspberries, the Doolittle and the Mammoth Cluster have done nicely among the black-caps. The Gregg is also highly recommended by those who have tried it. I have not tried it a sufficient time to tell what it will do with me. The Philadelphia is a standard among the reds, and justly so. After two or three years’ trial I think very highly of the Cuthbert, although with me it is not as hardy as the Philadelphia. In fact, they all do better for being covered in winter.

Blackberries. For this portion of the State I know of nothing that I believe would give better satisfaction than Stone’s Hardy.

Among currants, the Red and White Dutch are still the standards.

The Concord grape is yet among grapes about what the Wilson is among strawberries—the standard for the million. The Worden, a seedling of the Concord, is very promising, and may yet prove to be a strong competitor in the race. The Delaware does splendidly in the Fox River Valley, but is not as reliable in all parts of the State as the above-named varieties.

I have tried to recommend nothing but what will do well with good fair cultivation upon any good soil. Yet you will often be annoyed in selecting seed, from the fact that the same seed is sent out by different seedsmen under different names. For instance, I have had early peas sent to me under different names and by different seedsmen and all planted on the same day, side by side, all cared for precisely alike, and all alike claiming to be remarkably early and prolific as well as excellent in quality, and yet every one of them precisely like the old extra early Dan O’Rourke that I used to grow, I do not know how many years ago.

The American Wonder is the only one of the new varieties that I have tried in many years that really seems to be an acquisition to our list. It is a dwarf about second early, and with me a good bearer, and of excellent quality. I mention this to show the farmer that as a rule it is better for him to rely upon the old standard list, until some grower with whom he is acquainted has fairly tested the new variety, and ascertained whether or not they are worthy of cultivation, and some good common sense are all that is needed to insure a good farmers garden. In twenty-five years I have failed but once to harvest at least a paying crop of strawberries, and most of the time they have been both large and profitable. During that time I have failed once to have a corn crop, and have a number of times failed to have a paying crop of potatoes; in fact, I have failed oftener with my potatoes than with any other of the long list of crops that I attempt to grow. Yet if I should say to the farmers of this audience that they did not know how to grow a crop of potatoes, they would consider themselves insulted, though I presume that not one of them has had complete success with them for any long series of years.

Peas and onions should be put in as early as the land is in good condition to work in the spring. If the ground freezes hard soon after they are sprouted it will not injure them. Parsnips, beets, carrots, radishes, turnips, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, and salsify will all bear a little frost after they come up, but not much.

Corn, beans, peppers, tomatoes, vines of all kinds, require a warm soil and will do their best in no other.

A place for the wife and children’s flowers should not be forgotten or neglected. Give them a place, furnish help to prepare and care for it, and do not complain about the little time and expense it takes, either. Probably you will neither eat nor sell the flowers, but they will pay you better than a few extra bushels of wheat would. We are apt to hear complaints at our conventions that the young men will persist in leaving their farm home and seeking a new one in some of the towns or cities. Well, when I am traveling in our own and in other States and see so many desolate, dreary places that are called farmhouses—no trees, no shrubbery, no fruit, no flowers, no garden, in fact, nothing but a shell of a house, and some land, and it is fair to suppose that it is about as cheerless inside the house as it is dreary outside of it, I often wonder how, or why, any bright, active, wide-awake young man can stay there one day after he is at liberty to leave.

Gentlemen, I know that there are many beautiful exceptions to the above described homes, and that they are yearly becoming more numerous. If the exceptions could become the universal rule, what a glorious Northwest we should have! Presidents of State agricultural societies would not have to warn their friends against attempting to get through the tangled mass of weeds called the garden. The man who has been to college would no longer fret because his vines could not grow. The President of the State Dairymen’s Association would no longer buy cabbage plants or cabbage. Neither would he be compelled to order out his team and mow his garden before his conscience would allow him to teach others how to farm.

Instead of these, should be homes beautiful, homes bright, homes happy—so happy that the young would be loath to leave and glad to return. As our Northwest is the grandest portion of our republic, so should our homes be the most beautiful, and the inmates thereof the most intelligent as well as the happiest and most contented citizens of our wide domain.

Our Future Orchards.

Number Four.

In the first place, it may be well to enlarge a little on the subject of deficient moisture the average orchard is liable to on prairie and all other Western soils of a drift origin, where the strata lie nearly parallel to the plane of the earth’s surface. Here there are, therefore, few, if any, of those springs or fountains of water which often supply abundant moisture to land of considerable slope and elevation. If this difference in geological conditions is taken into account, it will explain why, in many sections, orchards often do quite remarkably well on hillsides and mountain slopes.

There is little or no resemblance between the apple tree and the orange tree, when both are botanically considered; but considered from the point of view as a source of fruit, the one is the best product of warm climates, and the other of cold ones; both being esteemed nearly universally. The orange being a very juicy, and at the same time, a fruit in which sweet and sour are equally blended, requires a moist soil and a large supply of water, in addition to a relatively high temperature. Accordingly, when grown in warm but dry climates, as in Spain and along the north shore of the Mediterranean, the ground bearing orange trees is uniformly copiously irrigated two or three times a month, during the warm season, and every two months in the winter. The orange-producing portion of Louisiana is mostly confined to the sixty or seventy square miles of cultivatable land along the Mississippi river banks, south of New Orleans. Here the soil is alluvial and sandy, the rainfall sixty or seventy inches per annum, and the state of the atmosphere so continuously humid, as to drape all arboreal vegetation with moss. Florida has the same rainfall, the same humid atmosphere, the same moss, with the advantage of a soil quite as sandy, in which, as constitutes elements, phosphoric acid and potash abound in far greater proportions than in the alluvial of the Mississippi. And it is probably due to this happy association of heat, humidity, a sandy soil, rich in the phosphates of lime and salts of potash, that Florida oranges really are, and are regarded the best in the world. But in spite of these advantages, and another, no less important—that by capillary attraction, through the sand—the orange roots have direct and easy access to water beneath; it is found that the trees do better if mulched to prevent evaporation during the cool months—they being the dry season, while the summer months are the wet. The Louisiana orange-growers go farther; they not only mulch liberally with rice straw every year, but in addition, every third or fourth year, from eight inches to a foot of the earth under the trees is removed and new earth put in its place.

From these statements we get some idea of the amount of water the orange tree demands in the soil, and the measure of moisture in the atmosphere, to supply evaporation from its large evergreen leaf surface and fill its fruit with juice. An apple tree is not an orange tree, to be sure, but when in leaf, and bearing a heavy crop of fruit, the farmer must necessarily make large drafts on the soil to meet the surface evaporation and supply the required juice to its fruit. Every tree in leaf is a pump, constantly drawing on the soil and drying it, and in all reasonable probability the drafts are in proportion to fruit and foliage. Has any body calculated the daily demand for moisture a twenty-five-year old Northern Spy, or Baldwin, carrying twenty or thirty bushels of apples makes on the soil beneath and around it during the hot and dry months of August and September? The quantity probably is largely in excess of the common estimate, and perhaps not half required by the orange—but it is so much it affords a sufficient reason why such trees grow faster, are healthier, and bear more and better fruit, on lands that are moist, than on lands that are dry.

But orchards on high lands, or on slopes, or on slopes and ridges, suffering for moisture, can not be removed to low lands, nor can they be irrigated, except at an enormous expense. What then can be done? In the first place, the annual rainfall can be held to the space it falls upon, under the tree, by the throwing up a furrow or ridge around it, as far out as the limbs extend, where the ground is level, and by a dam on the lower side, when the ground slopes. The latter could also be made to stay a portion of the rain falling on the higher ground above. Further: a general system of mulching ought to be adopted; not for the purpose alone of keeping the surface moist, but also for supplying food to the roots as the mulch decays. If the orchard is in grass, clover, or weeds, they should be mowed at least twice a year, the burden suffered to lie on the ground and rot, or be thrown under the trees. After pruning, the wood removed should either be left where it falls, or piled in heaps about the orchard and suffered to rot as in the “hammock” land orange groves of Florida, where the under brush and extra timber is rarely burned, but piled in heaps to rot away.

If it is desirable to bring barren trees into bearing, or to rescue them from decay and death those in an unhealthy state, measures of a more radical and expensive character must be taken, measures similar to those which have been practiced for centuries with the grape vine, with complete success. These measures consist either in removing the earth under the trees and putting new and fresh earth in its place, as practiced with orange trees in Louisiana, and on the coffee plantations in the tropics, or in digging a deep and wide ditch around the tree, inside the outer diameter of the branches, and refilling it with near half the earth removed and half such mineral fertilizers and amendments as tree leaves and refuse decaying vegetable matter of any sort for the other half.

But nothing more than a general outline of the course to be pursued can be indicated here; and nothing more is necessary for the intelligent amateur, fruit-grower, or orchardist, who feels the strength of the proof, and accepts the situation.

In these latter days most of the diseases which afflict humanity are believed to be attributable to improper nutrition and faulty hygiene, and are relieved or cured by a more or less radical change in food and habitat.

In the animal world, the truth appears in a still stronger light; while in the vegetable kingdom, nutrition counts for almost everything. Still, in the case of the peach yellows and pear blight, both appear, on first sight, to be distinct diseases, neither yielding to any remedy yet applied to them, and both being attended with the present fashionable bacteria, which are made responsible for many diseases and all epidemics. But has anybody yet made the experiment whether water supplied copiously to the spare and thin roots of the pear will or will not prevent the blight, or tried the same thing with the peach? We all know the gigantic and venerable pear trees of the Wabash and Kaskaskia country were planted on the sandy second bottoms of the rivers named, where in their early youth, if not in their mature age, water was always within easy reach of their roots; and we have seen the item in the agricultural papers telling how one experimenter at least, has saved his pear trees from blight by copious watering. The prairie and timber country both are drying out and losing soil moisture very much faster than we have any conception of. Situations where moisture in the soil was abundant enough for all crop purposes twenty-five years ago, suffered quickly after a brief drought now, and would be benefited by irrigation where it would have been injurious fifty years before. Beside, we have borrowed many of our ideas from the fruit-growing experiences of the East, and they from the cooler and moister countries of Europe. And in that way the amount of right teaching has been too attenuated, until it is in many respects practically worthless.

B. F. J.

The Model Illinois Nursery.

We have visited in our time very many nurseries both East and West. We have seen those East where the elaboration of landscape gardening was made to add effect to and set off the nursery stock grown. We have seen West hundreds of acres covered with stock in a single nursery. Yet we have never seen the perfection of details coupled with strict accuracy as to name in the varieties of stock grown, united to evenness and vigor in growth, nor a stricter method displayed in adaptation of varieties suited to the climate of the West, added to the most perfect cultivation and handling of stock, than at the premium nurseries of Spaulding & Co., near Springfield, Ill.

These nurseries, covering 375 acres originally, of first-class land, were thoroughly tile-drained, at heavy expense before anything was planted thereon, the land having been first cleaned and stumped of its timber. Thus, the groundwork having been laid for a great and model nursery, under the management of Mr. J. B. Spaulding, a well-known nurseryman of many years’ standing in Illinois, and whose practical experience from a critical standpoint is perhaps broader than that of any man in the West, it is not strange that whenever entered for premium before the State Board of Agriculture, such should have been unanimously awarded by the committee of examination. This, however, the records of the board will show.

In speaking of the artistic adornment of some old and extensive nurseries East, we find this difference: In the nurseries of Mr. J. B. Spaulding the useful is never lost sight of. Mere ornament is not what strikes the visitor, and yet the nursery is one beautiful picture in its varied and blending colors of fruit, flowers, and foliage; for the orchard and garden are by no means neglected—the visitor can find the fruits themselves, the crucial test. It is worth the journey to see.

The immense stock, the ample building, the splendid drives, the office connected with the Western Union Telegraph lines by telephone, and everything pertaining to the great nursery, is kept in the most perfect condition. Blight and borers are strangers to their 10,000 orchard trees of pear, peach, chestnut, and apples, all of varieties unexcelled, and adapted to the soil and climate of the West. The real gist of the whole, however, lies in the record of sales of this nursery for the fall delivery just closed, which amounts to nearly $120,000.

The most gratifying success has attended the efforts of this firm in growing stock. Of 150,000 buds set the past season, comprising cherries, pears, plums, and peaches, almost no rebudding has been required, and their stand is unexampled. It is not strange that the firm have the approval of the State Board of Agriculture and nurserymen of experience East and West, especially from the large nurseries proprietors of Western New York. All unite in saying Spaulding & Co.’s grounds, comprising upward of 375 acres, thoroughly tile-drained, for the growing of nursery stock, are unsurpassed. The 1,500,000 one, two, and three-year old apple trees, and 175,000 one, two, and three-year old cherry trees—the latter budded on Mahaleb roots, imported from France—together with their enormous stock of evergreens, pears, roses, shrubs, etc., are matchless in their perfection of growth, whether it be from an Eastern or Western standpoint.

In driving through the nursery we were shown a large block of American chestnuts, from five to eight feet high, and thence were driven to the chestnut orchard nearly all in bearing. The chestnut here seems fully as much at home as any other plant cultivated.

For the protection of their patrons against outside imposition, each of their nearly one hundred selected salesmen are accredited with a certificate of agency.

The long experience of this firm, being nearly thirty years in the business at Springfield, Ill.; the reputation they enjoy; the approval and indorsement they receive from the State—all commend this nursery to the favorable attention of those who have ground upon which to plant shrubbery or trees.

The Basket Willow.

A correspondent wishes some information about the basket willow. In Onondaga county, Central New York, this willow is cultivated and manufactured on a large scale and is, in fact, a leading industry. The cultivation is increasing very rapidly and is a great benefit to this and neighboring counties. The baskets made from this willow are better and cheaper than the splint basket, and raising the stock is found to pay much better than other farm crops, while the manufacture gives employment to hundreds of men, women, and children, who would otherwise have nothing to do during the winter.

These willows are grown on high land and on low land, on wet and dry land, and on very cheap land, and on land that is worth one thousand dollars per acre. The crop needs to be planted but once, and an average yearly crop can not be worth less than one hundred dollars per acre. As the timber suitable for baskets is getting scarce and dear, it is plain that the demand for willow will increase every year. In most parts of the country are Germans who understand working the willow, and it is a great benefit to them and to their neighbors to have this industry introduced. Not one farmer in a dozen has on his place as many baskets as he needs, for the reason that they are scarce and dear. This willow is the easiest thing in the world to raise, and yet we import from Europe $5,000,000 worth a year.

About two hundred tons of willow are manufactured every year in one little village in this State. One man in Syracuse told me he should send to New York this winter one hundred and forty tons of peeled willow, mostly of his own growing. In all the large cities more or less willow is manufactured every year, and the amount thus worked in the city of Milwaukee is very large. This industry is a benefit to the whole community and deserves to be encouraged, and the West especially should take a deep interest in extending it. The fact that it gives employment to poor during the winter, thus making comfort take the place of want, should exert a great influence in its favor. Here then is a means by which the farmer can put money in his pocket and help his poor neighbor at the same time. I have no interest in this matter as I do not raise, buy, or sell, but I do know it has been a great blessing to our State. There is one variety grown here that is much preferred to any other, but I can not find out the true name for it. Even the man that brought it here does not know its name.

In a future number I will give directions for planting, etc.

A. M. Williams
Long Island, N. Y.

SEEDS, Etc.

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

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.