The Prairie Farmer
Entered at the Chicago Office as Second-Class Matter.
CHICAGO, JANUARY 5, 1884.
[Transcriber's Note: Original location of Table of Contents.]
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For forty-three yearsThe Prairie Farmerhas stood at the front in agricultural journalism. It has kept pace with the progress and development of the country, holding its steady course through all these forty-three years, encouraging, counseling, and educating its thousands of readers. It has labored earnestly in the interest of all who are engaged in the rural industries of the country, and that it has labored successfully is abundantly shown by the prominence and prestige it has achieved, and the hold it has upon the agricultural classes.
Its managers are conscious from comparison with other journals of its class, and from the uniform testimony of its readers, that it is foremost among the farm and home papers of the country. It will not be permitted to lose this proud position; we shall spare no efforts to maintain its usefulness and make it indispensable to farmers, stock-raisers, feeders, dairymen, horticulturalists, gardeners, and all others engaged in rural pursuits. It will enter upon its forty-fourth year under auspices, in every point of view, more encouraging than ever before in its history. Its mission has always been, and will continue to be—
To discuss the most approved practices in all agricultural and horticultural pursuits.
To set forth the merits of the best breeds of domestic animals, and to elucidate the principles of correct breeding and management.
To further the work of agricultural and horticultural organization.
To advocate industrial education in the correct sense of the term.
To lead the van in the great contest of the people against monopolies and the unjust encroachments of capital.
To discuss the events and questions of the day without fear or favor.
To provide information concerning the public domain, Western soil, climate, water, railroads, schools, churches, and society.
To answer inquiries on all manner of subjects coming within its sphere.
To furnish the latest and most important industrial news at home and abroad.
To give full and reliable crop, weather, and market reports.
To present the family with pure, choice, and interesting literature.
To amuse and instruct the young folks.
To gather and condense the general news of the day.
To be, in brief, an indispensable and unexceptionable farm and home companion for the people of the whole country.
The style and form of the paper are now exactly what they should be. The paper used is of superior quality. The type is bold and clear. The illustrations are superb. The departments are varied and carefully arranged. The editorial force is large and capable. The list of contributors is greatly increased, and embraces a stronger array of talent than is employed on any similar paper in this country. We challenge comparison with any agricultural journal in the land.
The Prairie Farmeris designed for all sections of the country. In entering upon the campaign of 1884, we urge all patrons and friends to continue their good works in extending the circulation of our paper. On our part we promise to leave nothing undone that it is possible for faithful, earnest work—aided by money and every needed mechanical facility—to do to make the paper in every respect still better than it has ever been before.
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A meetingof farmers interested in ensilage will be held at 55 Beekman street, New York, Wednesday, January 23, at 12 o'clock. All interested in the subject are invited to attend.
TheIowa State Horticultural Society will hold its annual meeting at Des Moines, January 15-18. Prof. J.L. Budd, Ames, will forward programmes on application. The usual reductions in railway and hotel fares are expected.
Professor S.R. Thompson, Superintendent of the Nebraska Agricultural College farm, has been chosen to represent Nebraska at the meeting to be held at Washington, D.C., next week, for the purpose of taking action in regard to contagious diseases of cattle. He requests stock men and all others interested in the cattle industries of his State to correspond with him, and make such suggestions as they may think proper for guidance at the meeting.
Sinceits organization in 1853 to 1882 inclusive, the managers of the Illinois State Fair have offered the following amounts in premiums for live stock: Cattle, $70,406; horses and mules, $81,825; sheep, $24,450; swine, $25,320; poultry, $8,214;—total $210,215, which must be considered pretty substantial encouragement. The total offered in premiums for all classes of exhibits has been $303,961. Thus a little more than two thirds of the entire amount has been given to the breeders and importers of stock.
Theofficers of the Northwestern Dairymen's Association say that every indication warrants the conclusion that the coming convention at Mankato, Minn., commencing February 12, will prove the grandest success in the history of the association. A full array of the best dairy talent of the entire Northwest will be present. The purpose is both in the arrangement of the programme and in the conduct of the discussions, to make of the coming convention an institute for study and instruction which no intelligent and progressive farmer can afford to miss.
TheMissouri State Board of Agriculture asks the aid of one competent man in every township in the State to give it estimates of crops, etc., in his vicinity. The aim is to give as full and reliable statistics for crop reports as it is possible to collect. The State provides but $1,250 for the general expenses of the Board, and it is thus dependent upon voluntary aid in the matter. The Board will defray all expenses of postage and stationery. Competent persons willing to undertake this work for the public good should address J.W. Sanborn, Secretary, Columbus, Mo. Such persons will receive, free, the monthly and annual reports of the Board.
InMarch of last year Secretary Fisher, of the Illinois State Board of Agriculture, submitted his report for 1882 to Gov. Hamilton. This report has just made its appearance. It has taken the State printer ten months to get the volume printed and bound for distribution, a work that any respectable job office in Chicago would have turned out in four weeks without any extra exertion. The report is valuable, of course, but it would have been worth a deal more had it appeared last April. Such papers as the report of Prof. Forbes, State Entomologist, for instance, might have been of immense benefit to the people of the State if the information it contains regarding noxious insects had reached them in early spring.
We have letters from several parties desiring us to publish an offer they make to send packages of seed corn and other seeds to any one applying and inclosing stamps to pay for trouble and postage. Some of these parties also send samples of the seed. There is one great difficulty in the way of publishing this class of communications. Once we begin, the door is open to the practice of petty frauds upon our readers which we have no right to encourage or allow. Now we are almost certain that all these writers, thus far, are honorable men, who wish to confer a favor upon their brother farmers, and who do not wish to gain a farthing in the transaction. But some of them are personally unknown to us, and we do not feel like vouching for their responsibility, still less so because it is difficult to tell who will next propose a similar scheme. There is to be a brisk trade in seed corn during the next four months, and parties having a well tested article will find no difficulty in disposing of it at good prices, providing they can convince people they have exactly what they claim. The way to do is to advertise the seed corn in the regular way, giving as references such men as the postmaster, justice of the peace, banker, etc., as may be most convincing and convenient. We are as anxious as any one can be to see the people supplied with well ripened and well cared-for corn grown in the proper latitude, and we are equally anxious to guard them against imposition.
The question of admitting American pork into France is not yet settled. The Corps Legislatif is again "all tore up" by rash statements made by member M. Paul Bert, who has published a letter at Paris in which he argues that the use of our pork must result in disease, and that a general outbreak may be feared at any moment, so long as the products of diseased swine are offered in French markets. He endeavors to strengthen his position by pretending to quote from Dr. Detmers, Department of Agriculture Inspector at the Chicago Stock Yards. He alleges that Detmers has reported that diseased and dying hogs are sold daily in Chicago, and then shipped as pork, bacon, and lard to Havre and Bordeaux. To this audacious or mendacious charge Dr. Detmers replies as follows:
The statement made by M. Paul Bert, as contained in a cable dispatch from Paris, is not only a perversion of facts, but a falsehood cut from whole cloth. I never certified, wrote, or said that dead hogs are shipped to packing-houses, or that these carcasses are shipped abroad. All I ever said in regard to transportation of diseased or dead hogs is contained in my official reports to the Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, and can be found in his annual reports of 1878 and 1879, on pages 355 and 418 respectively, where it is accessible to everyone. I simply called attention to the transportation of diseased and dead hogs to the rendering tanks—entirely distinct from packing houses—as affording a means of spreading the then prevailing disease—swine plague, or so-called hog cholera.M. Paul Bert seems to be a true demagogue, otherwise he would not resort to a falsehood to please his constituents. I never in any manner, directly or indirectly, stated or intimated that packers are or ever were in collusion with dealers in diseased live stock. Moreover, the laws and regulations of the Chicago Stock Yards are such as to render it absolutely impossible that a dead hog should be smuggled into them, and if an animal should die while in the yards it is at once delivered to a soap-grease rendering establishment outside of the Stock Yards, and can not possibly get into a packing-house.
The statement made by M. Paul Bert, as contained in a cable dispatch from Paris, is not only a perversion of facts, but a falsehood cut from whole cloth. I never certified, wrote, or said that dead hogs are shipped to packing-houses, or that these carcasses are shipped abroad. All I ever said in regard to transportation of diseased or dead hogs is contained in my official reports to the Commissioner of Agriculture, Washington, and can be found in his annual reports of 1878 and 1879, on pages 355 and 418 respectively, where it is accessible to everyone. I simply called attention to the transportation of diseased and dead hogs to the rendering tanks—entirely distinct from packing houses—as affording a means of spreading the then prevailing disease—swine plague, or so-called hog cholera.
M. Paul Bert seems to be a true demagogue, otherwise he would not resort to a falsehood to please his constituents. I never in any manner, directly or indirectly, stated or intimated that packers are or ever were in collusion with dealers in diseased live stock. Moreover, the laws and regulations of the Chicago Stock Yards are such as to render it absolutely impossible that a dead hog should be smuggled into them, and if an animal should die while in the yards it is at once delivered to a soap-grease rendering establishment outside of the Stock Yards, and can not possibly get into a packing-house.
This reply came too late to have any effect upon French legislation, and the decree of prohibition has been re-enacted. So far we notice no marked effect upon the prices of pork products in this country, but later it must result in depression. We notice the leading papers of the United States are advocating the retaliatory measures proposed months ago byThe Prairie Farmeragainst European States interdicting the importation of our meat products. We refer to the prohibition of French and German adulterated and poisonous wines and liquors, and dry goods and silk goods colored with poisonous dyes. It must come to this at last if such totally unreasonable legislation against American products is to continue in those countries.
The preliminary crop estimates by the Statistician of the Department of Agriculture have been completed. He says the average yield of corn per acre for 1883 was within a fraction of twenty-three bushels, which is 12 per cent less than the average for a series of several years past. The quality is another thing.
It is doubtless true, Mr. Dodge says, that the quality of the corn north of parallel forty is worse than for many years, increasing practically the amount of shortage indicated by the number of bushels. As the whole corn grown in 1883 in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Dakota, added to half that grown in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, would make 400,000,000 bushels only—a fourth of the whole crop—so that the possible depreciation of 40 per cent in all of it would be equivalent to a 10 per cent reduction in the value of the entire crop. The Illinois Department agents make the quality 31 per cent less than the average in this State. An effort will be made later, after the worst of the crop has been fed, to ascertain the feeding value of the year's product. It is not proposed, however, to reduce the product to the equivalent of merchantable corn, or "sound" corn, as no crop ever is free from immaturity or imperfection. There always are some Northern fields caught by frost, some neglected acres, some choked with weeds or flooded by over-flows, and so on—corn, which is mainly "nubbins." What is intended without reference to panic or exaggeration is to find out the exact truth and then tell it. There isnothing gained, be it to farmers or consumers, the Statistician adds, in suppressing truth on the one hand or exaggerating the losses on the other. One feature of corn-growing in 1883 should prove a lesson to the farmers of the country; that is, the general use of seed corn in the West, grown in lower latitudes. The planting of Nebraska seed in Minnesota and Kansas seed in Illinois, has demonstrated the folly of attempting to acclimatize the Southern maize in the more Northern districts. Much loss from frost would have been avoided had the seed been carefully selected from the best corn grown in the immediate neighborhood.
The wheat crop is estimated, as before, slightly in excess of 400,000,000 bushels.
The cotton product, as shown by the December returns, is about 6,000,000 bales. There will be another investigation after the close of the cotton harvest and the shipment of a large portion of the crop, when precise results will be approached more nearly than has been possible hitherto.
The Department evidently feels a little "nettled" over the criticisms that have been made upon its estimates of the last two corn crops. Again we must protest that the amount of harvested corn in the West will fall considerably below Mr. Dodge's figures. Whether or not the Department sees fit to "reduce the product to the equivalent of merchantable corn" such an estimate would be of interest, and when it gives the result of the feeding quality of the corn, there will be something of a basis furnished for such a calculation, especially as we shall have by that time a pretty accurate account of the exported corn of the crop of 1883 and the amount "in sight," as the grain merchants say. It is true that there is nothing gained to consumers by "suppressing truth on the one hand or exaggerating losses on the other" but there is something lost to consumers by overestimating yields at about the time the harvest is ready and when speculators can use Government estimates to force down prices.
The statistical machinery of the Department of Agriculture is far from perfect, but it is the best the Government has supplied it with, and it is not wise or fair to criticise its estimates too severely, based, as they often must be, upon inadequate returns. The most that can be said is that the Department should be exceedingly careful not to err on the side that may result in injury to the producers, for, as we understand it, it was created solely to advance their interests.
Compared with the other great cities of the Union, and even with previous years in her own history, Chicago had a prosperous business year in 1883. The total trade of the year foots up $1,050,000,000, which is a slight gain over that of 1882. The receipts of flour were 4,403,982 barrels; wheat, 20,312,065 bushels; corn, 74,459,948 bushels; oats, 37,750,442 bushels; rye, 5,662,420; barley, 10,591,619. Of cattle there were received 1,878,944 head; hogs, 5,640,625; sheep, 749,917; horses, 15,255; dead hogs, 55,656. Of seeds, 122,582 tons; broom corn, 15,038 tons; butter, 53,987 tons; hides, 34,404 tons; wool, 20,122 tons; potatoes, 13,000,000 bushels; coal, 4,042,356 tons; hay, 50,000 tons; lumber, 1,848,817,000 ft.; shingles, 1,154,149 M.; salt, 1,096,587 barrels; cheese 23,590 tons. The total value of farm products of all kinds is estimated at $402,000,000, which is $20,000,000 above the valuation of that of 1882. The products of Chicago manufactures are valued at $325,000,000. In 1881 the receipts of hogs amounted to 6,474,844 head, and in 1882, 5,817,504 head. The wholesale mercantile trade has fallen off somewhat, as it has all over the country, owing to depression that seems to be universal. In manufactures the city is making wonderful development. In growth she is still unchecked and without a rival in the world among large cities and business centres.
We often see in the papers the amount in dollars and cents, that strong drink costs the people of this country. Some one has been making out similar statistics for Great Britain, and finds that if the total house rent is added to the rent of farms in the three divisions of the Kingdom the total is $30,000,000 less than is usually spent for drink. Add together the cost of the linen goods, cotton goods, coal, tea, coffee, sugar, milk, butter and cheese and the total is only $45,000,000 in excess of the sum spent in drink. And this is only the direct cost. The indirect expense of drink—the crime and misery entailed, the cost of prisons and almshouses, criminal courts and trials, the loss from idleness, incapacity, blunders, sickness—towers above these figures in colossal magnitude. Counting all these things it may be said of both countries that strong drink costs more than sufficient to supply the personal needs—food, clothing, and homes—of all the people. It is indeed a fearful showing.
Charles De Long, Artesia, Miss.—The Prairie Farmerhas the reputation of knowing all about the prairies, north and south, and, therefore, I appeal to it to tell me whether the Japan persimmon will be likely to be hardy in this section, some portions of which is, as you probably know, a prairie country?
Answer.—The Japan persimmon, Diospyros kaki, is, as we understand it, an evergreen of sub-tropical origin, and will not be likely to fruit satisfactorily far north of the region of the orange. Like the fig, in your latitude, it may stand what frosts you have and, like it, attain considerable growth, but you will seldom get a crop. We know enterprising nurserymen are telling us it will grow and fruit as far north as Washington; but we were told the same story about the eucalyptus, which proved to be no more hardy than the orange. Our authorities for these opinions may be regarded as first-class—no less than LeBon Jardinier, who says it can not be grown and successfully fruited outside the region of the orange. Recently, at a horticultural exhibition at Nice, France, there was a fine show of the kakis contributed by a gardener in the vicinity of Toulon, of which the official report gives this account: "Among the newer exotics were the kakis, of Japan, grown at Toulon. The fruit is about the size of an average apple, a bright, orange-red in color, and the tree is very productive. The Japanese make a great account of it, both as a fruit, when ripe, and as a source for obtaining tannin, in its green state. It appears to accommodate itself remarkably well to the climate of Provence, and especially merits to be introduced into Algeria, where it will even do better in all reasonable probability.". In respect to the appearance of the fruit, it more nearly resembles in shape and size a bell pepper, than an apple, but the color is orange-red, as described. It is pretty sure to cut a great figure among the fruit products of Florida, where its successful cultivation will lend additional attractions to that already seductive State.
Mrs. Sarah Y. Staples, Dallas, Texas.—I do not ask you for a remedy for the roup, with which my fowls have been recently affected; but for a course of treatment to follow to prevent its return?
Answer—The roup may be brought upon healthy fowls if they are shut up in narrow and unventilated quarters at night, and of days turned out in cold or wet weather. And it will almost certainly follow if they are confined under glass, as they sometimes are in winter, in abandoned green-houses. In the first place, see fowls have a dry and airy roosting place, but where they will be out of a draft or cold currents. Feed once daily in the morning, the following compounded rations. Raw onions one part, pork-cracklins one part, and bread or boiled potatoes one part, chopped tolerably fine, but do not wet the mixture before feeding. If you can substitute a few bits of garlic for twice the measure of onions, it will be all the better for the health of the fowls, but they might taint the taste of the eggs. If fowls are fed this mixture once daily, it don't matter much what the other food is, whether corn or small grain, though for laying mill-screenings or shrunken wheat is best.
Asa Gray, Rockford, Ill.—I have seen it stated the daily rations of the cowboys of the Southwest, in certain sections and during some months, was confined to raw beef, rock salt, and red peppers. How is it?
Answer.—We don't know. Will someone familiar with cowboys and their manner of living report. However, all things considered, the ration is not a bad one, for the reason that raw beef digests in half the time of beef well cooked, and the large, sweet pepper of the Southwest deprived of its seeds is not near as hot in the mouth as it is commonly represented.
R. Root, Clarksville, Iowa. 1. Does the basket willow have to be cultivated like a field crop? 2. Is there more than one kind, and if so which is best? 3. What kind of soil is best adapted to its cultivation?
Answer.—1. In some respects, yes; the land having to be given over to them exclusively. In France the cuttings are planted from twelve to fifteen inches apart in order to obtain long and slender shoots. 2. There are half a dozen cultivated in Europe, the best two being the Salix rubra or red Osier, and the Salix vitellina or yellow Osier. But a hardier variety, Salix viminalis, is commonly preferred in this country where the cultivation, though often undertaken, has never been very successful, from the fact that American labor can not compete with the labor of women and children in Europe. 3. In cool climates having a moist atmosphere the Osier willow is successfully grown where ordinary crops thrive, but in warmer and drier sections low and moist land must be chosen. Indeed the whole tribe of willows love cool, moist situations, and the richer the soil the stronger and quicker the growth. We should be glad to hear from correspondents who cultivate, or who live where the Osier is grown and prepared for market, the details of the whole industry.
B.F.J.
I don't know that I really ought to take any credit to myself for it, but I hope I have done something toward increasing the number of farmer correspondents for the hale oldPrairie Farmer. I can't help noticing, as I do with pleasure, that the number is increasing. Furthermore, the correspondents all write well, I mean, simply; they seem to have something to say, and say it in a manner that can be readily understood. Their writings are instructive, too. Well, I hope this writing fever, like most others, will prove highly contagious, and have a run through the entirePrairie Farmerfamily. I know from experience the malady is not a dangerous one. At least it don't do the writers any harm; if the readers can stand what I say, I am satisfied. The editor may boil down our communications, or chop them up and serve them in any style he chooses, so that he presents all the good we mean to say, and we will be satisfied. Will we not, fellow-contributors?
Rufus Blanchard, for many years a leading map publisher of Chicago, told me the other day, that in 1838 he was farming in Union county, Ohio. That year he grew about 1,000 bushels of oats, some 250 bushels of wheat, and raised 100 hogs. He sold his oats for eleven cents per bushel, his wheat for twenty-five cents, and his hogs for one cent and a quarter per pound. He hauled his grain to Columbus, forty miles, to market, and took his pay in salt. I remarked that this was pretty rough farming. "On the contrary," said he, "in those days we were happy as clams. We had all the pork we wanted without cost, for our hogs fattened themselves on the mast of the woods. We paid by toll for grinding our wheat into flour. The woods supplied us with deer, turkeys, and many other kinds of game. Our clothing was homespun. We had plenty of corn meal and cheaply grown vegetables, and helped each other in sickness or accident. If a neighbor's log house burned down, we all joined together in putting him up a better one than he had before. We had pretty good schools and interesting religious meetings without expensive pew rents or style in dress. We visited each other and had plenty of sound amusement. I never was so happy or so well contented in my life," he added, and I believe him, for his face is wrinkled with care and saddened by misfortune. It don't do, you see, to get too far removed from this simple, natural life.
I am looking out for a little colder weather. The pond is not yet frozen sufficiently for us to cut ice as we want it. But both my neighbor and myself have gotten all things in readiness for the harvest. I like an open winter pretty well, but I do want ice.
It seems to me that Dr. Detmers is always going off "half-cocked." He once did the foreign cattle shipping interest great harm by an ill-advised and unwarranted dispatch concerning the prevalence of pleuro-pneumonia at the Chicago Stock Yards, and now I notice that his alleged statements regarding diseased hogs and the disposal of them at the same point have furnished the French Corps Legislatif an excuse for enacting the decree prohibiting the introduction of American pork products into France. Isn't it about time the Department of Agriculture at Washington sat a little down on this man who writes too much with his pen? Not that I would silence any man who sticks to facts, no matter whose soap-bubble he pricks; but a simple alarmist who rushes into print mainly for the pleasure it gives him to see his name in print, and to know that he is talked about, deserves to be squelched. For aught I know, though, Dr. Detmers has been misrepresented by the wily Frenchmen. What has Dr. Loring to say on the subject?
But, after all, as I think the editor ofThe Prairie Farmerhimself said some months ago, this foreign agitation of the live stock question may result in great good, inasmuch as it must lead to proper legislation in this country against the introduction and spread of contagious diseases among animals. It is without doubt the basis of the proceedings at the Chicago cattle-growers' convention in November last, and of the present movement for immediate Congressional action upon the matter. The difficulty abroad will, I believe, prove short-lived.
With the exception of two days, the 22d and 23d, which were stormy and gave us ten to twelve inches of snow, followed by a little sleet and rain, the latter half of December has been as delightful as the first half was, though a good deal colder. The sleighing since the 17th has never been better; and as there is ten inches to a foot of solid snow now lying on the ground, it is likely to last some time longer. The sleet and rain formed a crust an inch and a half thick, and though it is not very strong, it, together with the compact snow, makes getting down to the grass beneath quite out of the question, and stock have to depend on the stalk fields or be fed hay and corn.
This will make a heavier draft upon the grain and hay in reserve than has been anticipated by those who depend on carrying their stock through mostly on grass, and be sure to lessen the surplus and raise the price of corn, oats, and hay accordingly. Corn in the field is drying out so fast under the influence of the dry, cold weather, stock do not refuse soft corn as they did after the first sharp frost in November and December. It is now seen that it would have been better to have left all the soft and some of the immature corn in the field, than to have husked and cribbed it as many did and lost more than would be believed, if reported, by mould and rot.
At any rate the fall wheat is safe so long as the present covering of snow lasts, and this more than compensates for the loss of winter pasture. The snow, as near as I can learn, covers all Illinois, except a few counties on the west, and as usual, is quite as heavy in the timbered regions of which Vandalia is near the center, as in Northern Illinois. So far the cold season considerably resembles the winter of 1878-79, and let us hope it will continue to the end, that we may have light snows and many of them, good sleighing and moderate temperature through January and February.
It has mystified me, as I have do doubt it has many others, why European Governments have had so much to say about trichinæ in the hog, of which we have had scarcely any, and so little of hog cholera, of which we have had a good deal. But the mystery is now cleared up. The sickness and losses from hog cholera, have either by error or intention been reported to the several European Governments as results of almost universal trichiniasis, and they have acted accordingly. That it should be so, seems surprising, but that it is so, we have the proof in the following paragraph from a late number of the Journal D'Agriculteur Pratique. The writer, Dr. Hector George, one of the regular contributors, in a long article opposing rescinding the order prohibiting the importation of American pork products into France, first quotes the report of the Chicago Board of Health, that 8 per cent of hogs slaughtered in Chicago are afflicted with trichinæ, goes on to say: "This per cent, however considerable it may be, is far inferior to the reality if we judge from an official dispatch addressed to Earl Granville by Mr. Crump, English Consul at Philadelphia." in 1880 trichiniasis destroyed 700,000 hogs in Illinois alone. According to an official report by Dr. Detmers to the Government of the United States, the hogs sick or dead from trichiniasis are hurried to the packing houses and are thereafter prepared and immediately sent off to Europe.
M. Paul Bert, from whom we have recently heard on the same subject and in the same strain, no doubt got his inspiration from the article in the Journal D'Agriculteur Pratique after which he probably read the official report of Dr. Detmers, to whom he refers, and like Dr. George, either did not understand or intentionally misconstrued it for political purposes. Perhaps what Dr. Detmers did report was bad enough and extravagant enough, but it had exclusive reference to hog cholera then prevalent, as any one can satisfy himself who will turn to the reports or the Department of Agriculture for the several years 1879, 1880, and 1881.B.F.J.
A Record of Unfashionable Crosses in Short-horn Cattle Pedigrees;a book of 240 pages; the only work of the kind in existence. Send for a circular.F.P. & O.M. Healy, Bedford, Taylor Co., Iowa.
Rememberthat $2.00 pays forThe Prairie Farmerfrom this date to January 1, 1885; For $2.00 you get it for one year and a copy ofThe 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 NotesPoultry-Raisers. Write for Your Paper.
Notwithstanding the fact that I have repeatedly said I would not answer questions unless they came throughThe Prairie Farmerthe people who, by ways and means best known to themselves, have managed to obtain my address, keep right on asking questions by mail at a rate that would drive me frantic if anything could. But nothing ever troubles me long at a time, so I take your disregard of my wishes good naturedly, as I take everything else that I can't help, and in the future I will answer all questions whether they come throughThe Prairie Farmeror not, sometime. To be sure "sometime" is not very definite, but it is the best I can do. My poultry letters are "too numerous to mention" and it requires no small amount of time to answer them all; but I won't growl about that if you will only be patient and not grumble if you don't get an answer "by return mail," or "in the next paper." All questions of general interest will be answered in these columns as soon as possible, while those that require an immediate answer will be attended to by mail. Poultry raisers who desire information that I can give, and who have not my address, can addressThe Prairie Farmer. However, let me ask you not to write except when necessary, and then please put your questions as plainly as possible, and "be as brief as the nature of the subject will permit."
And when you are writing to me don't use postal cards. Postal cards are only intended for the briefest of business messages, but lots of people use them for nearly all their correspondence. I know one man who writes love letters on postal cards. Most women and some men manage to make one side of a 5 × 3 inch postal card do duty for four pages of commercial note. They will write up and down and across lots and on the bias until the whole thing is so hopelessly mixed and tangled up that if the mystery of a woman's ways, or the fate of Charlie Ross were solved upon one of these cards all the "experts" in the world could not unravel it. A penny saved may be as good as a penny earned, and I have no objections to your saving it in a legitimate way, but when it comes to saving it at the expense of my time, patience, and eye-sight, I object most decidedly. Hereafter I will not answer postals; I will not even read them.
An Iowa woman writes: "If it is true that vaccination prevents chicken cholera, how does it happen that fowls which had the genuine chicken cholera last season took the disease again this season and died from the effects of it? This happened on our place." I have puzzled my brains on the same thing but I am not scientific enough to explain things that I don't know anything about, so I leave that conundrum to be answered by some of the learned people who have the whole theory of chicken cholera at their tongues' end.
Several correspondents want to know how to get rid of rats in poultry-houses. One man says that he firmly believes that there are more rats than chickens in his poultry-house, and although he has tried half a dozen different kinds of rat-traps he rarely catches anything in them.
I never found rat-traps much good; some of them would catch one or two, but after that the rest of the tribe would fight shy of all such devices for their undoing. A well trained rat terrier proved to be the best rat-trap we ever had on the premises, and for the poultry raiser who likes dogs a good ratter would be a good investment. Or you can use some one of the "exterminators" that may be obtained at the drug stores. Remove your fowls to some other building, prepare the poison according to directions, and place it in the poultry-house. The best kinds to use are those that make the rats thirsty and cause them to die immediately after drinking; water can then be left in the hen house and the dead rats will be found close by. When you have rat poison in the house see that it is properly marked and put out of reach of children and careless hired girls; and always see that all remnants of bait are taken care of.
A Nebraska man wants to know why his hens don't lay. Says they are mostly early pullets, have a fairly comfortable poultry house, all the grain they will eat twice a day, and plenty of fresh water at all times.
It seems to me that "all the grain they will eat twice a day" is rather overdoing the grain business. Have some of that grain ground, mix with boiled vegetables and feed warm every morning; also give green food and raw bone, and my word for it your hens will soon "lay like sixty."
Fanny Field.
Plymouth Rockpullets are not always early layers, for they often grow for ten or twelve months before laying, though some say as early as six months after being hatched. The best plan the keep Plymouth Rocks is to get the pullets hatched as early as possible. April is as late as should be desired, but a Plymouth Rock cock crossed on common hens will produce pullets that may be hatched later.
N.Y. Times: A poultry-house should be large enough to be airy, but if it is kept strictly clean and sweet it will do no harm to be somewhat crowded. A house 24 feet long, 10 feet wide, 5 feet high behind and 8 feet in front, and having four roosting poles, all on a level and only a foot from the floor, will hold 60 to 80 fowls. This manner of arranging the roosts prevents a good deal of quarreling to get on the top perch.
Poultry-rearingfor export appears to be largely on the increase in Germany; and Rummelsburg, near Berlin, boasts of the largest goose market probably in the world. There arrive daily at that station on an average forty cars with geese and ducks. Every car contains about 1,500, thus making about 400,000 birds shipped every week, or an annual total of 20,000,000. The largest portion of these birds are reared and fattened in the surrounding provinces, and thence dispatched to all parts of Germany, England, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and other European countries.
Farmers' Call: Turkeys do not require as warm quarters in winter as do other fowls. They will rest on a cherry tree when the mercury is frozen solid in the thermometer bulb, and then fly down in the morning and wade through the snow to cool off. This is a hint to the turkey raiser. Do not confine the turkeys in quarters too warm and close, and be sure that they have three or four hours' exercise each day in the open air. The turkey is really a hardy fowl and easily wintered if you do not pet it too much. Be a little unkind to it in cold weather. About all the shelter they will need is a wind-break. Give them plenty of highly nutritious food.
Mr. Harrison Weirwrites: "What the farmers should do is this—they should produce their poultry of the finest quality, poultry of the stamp of the old Dorking—plump birds, thick-skinned birds, small-boned birds, and birds with little offal—fat them well, truss them well, and send them to market. The white-legged beauties would take the highest price, and, if well seen to, would very soon drive the foreign fowls from our markets, and English gold would gladden the home of the English henwife. I may mention that a neighboring farmer intends rearing 3,000 chickens next spring, all to be off his ground before the beginning of May, when the cattle will come out. He expects to get 75c. a head, and I believe he will, and it will pay him if he does."
Poultryhouses should be whitewashed inside and out. For the inside we add two tablespoonfuls of carbolic acid or a pound of sulphur to a pailful of the wash (to kill vermin); do not be afraid of putting on too much, but apply the wash to every corner and crevice in the building. If you have plank floors, clean them off nicely and put on three or four inches of fresh earth. Dirt floors should be dug up the depth of one foot. Wash your windows (if you have any in your house, and if not you ought to have them), so that the fowls can see daylight, and in bad weather they will enjoy the confinement of the poultry houses much better. Wash off the roosts with kerosene oil at least once a week. Take every nest box and wash inside and out, and put in clean straw, sprinkling upon it some sulphur or loose tobacco. Observe these rules, and your fowls will do better and keep healthier. We find this good advice floating about and do not know its source. The hints are worth remembering.
The Throat.—"Brown's Bronchial Troches" act directly on the organs of the voice. They have an extraordinary effect in all disorders of the throat.