Chapter C: C. SAMUELS, SPRINGFIELD, ILL.--1. What pears would you recommend for

this latitude? 2. Are there any which do not blight? 3. I have some grape vines, light colored fruit, but late, Elvira, I think the nurseryman told me, which appear to be suffering from something at the roots. What is the phylloxera, and what shall I do to my grape vines if they infest the roots?

ANSWER.--The Bartlett for _certain_--it being the best of all the pears--and the Kieffer and Le Conte for _experiment_. If the latter succeed you will have lots of nice large fruit just about as desirable for eating as a Ben Davis apple in May. 2. We know of one only, the Tyson, a smallish summer pear that never blights, at least in some localities, where all others do more or less. 3. If your Elviras are afflicted with the phylloxera, a root-bark louse, manure and fertilize them at once, and irrigate or water them in the warm season. The French vine-growers seem at last to have found out that lice afflict half starved grape roots, as they do half starved cattle, and that they have only to feed and water carefully to restore their vines to health.

J. S. S., SPRINGFIELD, ILL.--I am not a stock man nor a farmer; but I have some pecuniary interests, in common with others, my friends, in a Kansas cattle ranch. I am therefore a good deal exercised about this foot-and-mouth disease. Is it the terrible scourge reported by one cattle doctor, who, according to the papers, says, "the only remedies are fire or death." What do you say?

ANSWER.--The disease is a bad one, very contagious, but easily yields to remedies in the first stages.

THOMAS V. JOHNSON, LEXINGTON, KY.--There is a report here that your draft horses of all breeds are not crossing with satisfaction on your common steeds in Illinois, and that not more twenty five in one hundred of the mares for the last three years have thrown foal, nor will they the present season. Can you give me the facts?

ANSWER.--Our correspondent has certainly been misinformed, or is an unconscious victim of local jealousy, as he may easily convince himself by visiting interior towns, every one of which is a horse market.

Wayside Notes.

BY A MAN OF THE PRAIRIE.

A neighbor of mine who has been intending to purchase store cattle and sheep at the Chicago Stock Yards soon, asked me last night what I thought about his doing so. I asked him if he had read what THE PRAIRIE FARMER and other papers had contained of late regarding foot-and-mouth disease in Maine, Kansas, Illinois, and Iowa. He had not; did not take the papers, and had not heard anything about the disease here or in England. Then I explained to him, as best I could, its nature, contagious character, etc., and having a PRAIRIE FARMER in my pocket, read him your brief history of the ailment in Great Britain. Well, that man was astonished. Finally, said he, What has that got to do with my question about buying cattle and sheep at the stock yards? Just this, I replied: every day there are arrivals at the stock yards of many thousands of cattle from these infected States. Perhaps some of them come from the very counties where this disease is known to exist. The disease may break out any day in scores of places in all these States. It may appear--indeed is quite likely to do so at the stock yards. For aught I know it may be there now. The cattle brokers will not be very likely to make known such an unwelcome fact a minute sooner than they are obliged to. In fact, from what they have lately been saying about the absurdity of new and stringent enactments concerning animal diseases, I conclude they will labor to conceal cases that may really exist. Now you go there to pick up cattle to consume your pasturage this spring and summer, and don't you see you run the risk of taking to your home and neighborhood a disease that may cost you and your neighbors many thousands of dollars? If I were you I would pick up the stock I want in my own neighborhood and county, even though not exactly the kind I would like to have, and though it would cost me a great deal more time and trouble. You see to a Man of the Prairie things look a little squally in this cattle business. We have all got to be careful about this thing. We have a terrible enemy at our stable doors and pasture gates, and we must guard them well. I am not an alarmist, but I would run any time, almost, rather than get licked, and I have always tried to keep a lock on the stable door before the horse is stolen. I am in favor of _in_-trenchment. Perhaps my advice to my neighbor was not sound, but according to the light I have, I have no desire to recall it till I hear more from the infected districts.

To show the difference between the winter in Colorado and the States this way and further west, the Farmer, of Denver, mentions the fact that it knows a farmer who has had about two hundred acres of new land broken between the middle of November and the first of March. Still, these Eastern States have advantages which render them rather pleasant to live in. Our farmers find plenty of time in fall and spring in which to do their plowing and sowing, and our severe winters don't seem to hurt the ground a bit. In fact, I suppose it has got used to them, sort of acclimated, as it were. We have pretty good markets, low railway fares, good schools and plenty of them, and we manage to enjoy ourselves just as well as though we could hitch up to the plow and do our breaking in December and January. We can't all go to Colorado, Dakota, Montana, or Washington Territory, nor to those other Edens at the South and Southwest where a man, so far as winter is concerned, may work about every day in the year; but don't do so any more than we here at the North where we have the excuse of severe weather for our laziness between November and April. I like Colorado and Wyoming, Arkansas and Texas, Alabama and Florida--for other people who like to make their homes there, but my home is here and I like it. "I don't _have_ to" plow in winter, and I don't need to. I am going to try to do my duty and be happy where I am, believing Heaven to be just as near Illinois as any other State or any Territory.

I read in the dispatches this morning that the barns on a ranch near Omaha burned the other night. With the barns were consumed twenty-six cows, eighteen horses, 1,000 bushels of corn and a large lot of hay and oats. In all the loss amounted to above $10,000 and there was no insurance. From all over the country and at all times of the year I read almost daily of similar losses varying from $100 up into the thousands, and the closing sentence of about nine out of ten of these announcements is "no insurance." Now I am neither an insurance agent nor a lightning rod peddler, but there are two luxuries that I indulge in all the time, and these are an insurance policy to fairly cover my farm buildings and their contents, and what I believe to be well constructed lightning rods in sufficient number to protect the property from electric eccentricities. True, my buildings have never suffered from fire or lightning and these luxuries have cost me no inconsiderable amount of cash, but this money has brought me relief from a heap of anxiety, for I know in case my property is swept away I am not left stripped and powerless to provide for my family, and I know that it will not be necessary to mortgage the farm to furnish them a shelter. I don't take _cheap_ insurance either, but invest my money in the policy of a company which I believe has abundant capital and is cautiously managed. A wealthy man can take his fire risks in his own hands if he chooses, but for a man of small or moderate means it seems to me the height of folly to do so. I would rather go without tobacco or "biled shirts" than insurance and lightning rods.

I don't know that an American farmer ever had the gout. Certainly I never heard of such a case. If one does get the ailment, however, if he keeps bees he always has a sure remedy at hand. A German has discovered that if a bee is allowed to sting the affected part, a cure is instantaneous. Why don't Bismarck try this home remedy for his complication of gout and trichinae?

REMEMBER _that $2.00 pays for_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER _one year, and the subscriber gets a copy of_ THE PRAIRIE FARMER COUNTY MAP OF THE UNITED STATES, FREE! _This is the most liberal offer ever made by any first-class weekly agricultural paper in this country._

Poultry-Raisers. Write for Your Paper.

Chicken Chat.

One of my correspondents writes: "My hens don't eat well--they just pick over the food as if it were not good enough for them--and they don't lay well; in fact they don't do much of anything except to mope about--not as if sick, but as if lazy."

Probably you have fed the same thing every day for the last six months, and the hens are getting tired of it. Hens are like other people--they like a change of provender once in awhile--especially when confined indoors. Sometimes over-feeding will cause indigestion, and then the biddies will exhibit the symptoms you describe. In either case, let the fowls fast for a whole day, and then for a few days feed lightly with food that is different from what they have been living on. Give plenty of green food, also Douglas' mixture in the drinking water twice a week.

Another correspondent wants to know why I always advise giving cooked food to fowls and chicks when uncooked food is the natural diet.

I advise cooked food because experience has taught me that it is much better for poultry than the raw articles would be. Because raw bugs and worms constitute the "natural diet" of fowls in their wild state, it does not follow that raw meal and potatoes would be the best and most economical food for our domestic fowls. Other things being equal, chicks that are fed on cooked food grow fatter, are less liable to disease, and thrive better generally than those who worry along on uncooked rations.

If you are short of sitting hens and don't own an incubator, make the hens do double duty. Set two or more at the same time, and when the chicks come out, give two families to one hen, and set the other over again. To do this successfully, the chicks must be taken from the nest as soon as dry and given to the hen that is to raise them; for if a hen once leaves the nest with her chicks, no amount of moral suasion will induce her to go back. Before giving the hen fresh eggs, the nest should be renovated and the hen dusted with sulphur or something to prevent lice.

A lady who commenced raising thoroughbred poultry last season writes me that she proposes to sell eggs for hatching this season, and asks for information about advertising, packing eggs, etc.

The advertising is easy enough: all you have to do is to write a copy of your "ad.," send it to THE PRAIRIE FARMER and other papers that circulate among farmers, pay the bills, and answer the postals and letters as they come. But if I were in your shoes, I would "put my foot down" on the postals to begin with; they don't amount to anything anyway; the people who ask a long string of questions on a postal card are not, as a rule, the ones who become customers. Before we went into the poultry business an old poultry-breeder said: "Don't have anything to do with postals, it don't pay." We thought differently, but to satisfy ourselves, we kept track of the postals, and to-day I have the addresses of over 300 people who wrote us on postal cards. How many of those people became customers? Just one, and he was an Ohio man. When I go into that branch of the poultry business again, my advertisements will contain a postscript which will read thusly: "No postals answered."

And you need not expect that every letter will mean business; people who have not the remotest idea of buying eggs will write and ask your prices, etc., and you must answer them all alike. Here is where circulars save lots of work and postage. I have sent you by mail what I call a model circular, and from that you can get up something to fit your case. Pack your eggs in baskets in cut straw or chaff, first wrapping each egg separately in paper. The eggs should not touch each other or the basket. Put plenty of packing on top, and with a darning needle and stout twine sew on a cover of stout cotton cloth. For the address use shipping tags, or else mark it plainly on the white cotton cover; I prefer the latter way. A day or two before you ship the eggs send a postal telling your customer when to look for them; that's all that postals are good for.

Concerning the duplicating of orders in cases of failure of the eggs to hatch, I quote from one of my old circulars: "I guarantee to furnish fresh eggs, true to name, from pure-bred, standard fowls, packed to carry safely any distance. In cases of total failure, when the eggs have been properly cared for and set within two weeks after arrival, orders will be duplicated free of charge." I furnished just what I promised, and when a total failure was reported I sent the second sitting free--though sometimes I felt sure that the eggs were not properly cared for, and once a man reported a failure when, as I afterwards learned, eight eggs of the first sitting hatched. But, generally speaking, my customers were pretty well satisfied. It sometimes happens that only one or two eggs out of a sitting will hatch, and naturally the customer feels that he has not received the worth of his money. In such cases, if both parties are willing to do just what is right, the matter can be arranged so that all will be satisfied. And you will sometimes get hold of a customer that nothing under the heavens will satisfy; when this happens, do just exactly as you would wish to be done by, and there let the matter end.

If the lady who wrote from Carroll county, Illinois, concerning an incubator, will write again and give the name of her postoffice, she will receive a reply by mail.

FANNY FIELD.

Spring Care of Bees.

Although yesterday was very cold and inclement, to-day (March 11th) is warm and pleasant, and bees that are wintered upon their summer stands will be upon the wing. It would be well on such days as this to see that all entrances to hives are open, so that no hindrances may be in the way of house-cleaning. This is all we think necessary for this month, provided they have plenty of stores to last until flowers bloom. Handling bees tends to excite them to brood rearing, and veterans in bee-culture claim that this uses up the vitality of bees in spring very fast. Although more young may be reared, it is at the risk of the old ones, as they leave the hive in search of water; many thus perish, which often results in the death of the colony, as the young perish for want of nurses. Sometimes, also, in handling bees early in the season the queens are lost, as they may fall upon the ground, yet chilled, and perish.

Bees consume food very fast while rearing brood; naturalists tells us that insects during the larvae state consume more food than they do during the remainder of their existence. Where a bee-keeper has been so improvident as to neglect to provide abundance of stores for his bees he should examine them carefully, and if found wanting, remove an empty frame, substituting a full one in its place. Where frames of honey are not to be had, liquid honey and sugar can be kneaded together, forming cakes, which can be placed over the cluster. Care should be taken that no apertures are left, thus forming a way for cold drafts through the hive. These cakes are thought to excite bees less than when liquid food is given; they have another advantage, also, viz., bees can cluster upon them while feeding, and do not get chilled.

Bees that have been wintered in cellars, or special repositories, are often injured by being removed too early to their summer stands. It would be better to let them remain, and lower the temperature during warm days with ice, until warm weather has come to stay. An aged veteran in Vermont that we visited the season following the disastrous winter of 1880-81, told us that his neighbors removed their bees from the cellar during a warm spell early in spring, and they were then in splendid condition. He let his bees remain until pollen was plentiful, and brought them out, all being in fine order; by this time his neighbors' colonies were all dead.

Good judgment and care must be exercised in removing bees from the cellar, or disastrous results will follow. We know of an apiary of over one hundred colonies that was badly injured, indeed nearly ruined, by all being taken from the cellar at once on a fine, warm day. The bees all poured out of the hives for a play spell, like children from school, and having been confined so long together in one apartment had acquired, in some measure, the same scent, and soon things were badly mixed. Some colonies swarmed, others caught the fever, and piled up together in a huge mass. This merry making may have been fun for the bees, but it was the reverse of this for the owner, as many queens were destroyed, and hives that were populous before were carried from the cellar and left without a bee to care for the unhatched brood.

When it is time to remove bees from the cellar the stands they are to occupy should be prepared beforehand. They should be higher at the back, inclining to the front; if the height of two bricks are at the back, one will answer for the front. This inclination to the front is an important matter; it facilitates the carrying out of dead bees and debris from the hive, the escape of moisture, and last, and most important item, bees will build their comb straight in the frame instead of crosswise of the hive, and their surplus comb in boxes correspondingly. If a few hives are removed near the close of the day and put in different parts of the apiary, the danger from swarming out is avoided, for the bees will become quiet before morning, and being far apart will not mix up when they have their play spell. The success of bee-keeping depends upon the faithful performance of infinite little items.

The many friends of the Rev. L. L. Langstroth will be pained to learn that he has a severe attack of his old malady and unable to do any mental work. May the Lord deal kindly and gently with him.

During the last fall and winter he has been the light of many conventions, and it will be remembered as a pleasant episode in the lives of many bee-keepers that they had the privilege of viewing his beaming countenance, hearing the words of wisdom as they escaped from his lips, and taking the hand of this truly great and good man.

MRS. L. HARRISON

Extracted Honey.

A couple of copies of THE PRAIRIE FARMER have lately come to my desk, a reminder of my boyhood days, when, in the old home with my father, I used to contribute an article now and then to its columns. There is an old scrap-book on the shelf, at my right, now, with some of those articles in it, published nearly thirty years ago. But my object in writing now is to add something to Mrs. Harrison's article on Extracted Honey. Last year my honey crop was about 3,000 pounds, and half of this was extracted, or slung honey, as we bee-keepers often call it; but for next year I have decided to raise nearly all comb honey, for the reason that I do not get customers so readily for extracted honey. I have never extracted until the honey was all, or nearly all, capped over, and then admitted air into the vessels holding it, so as to be absolutely sure of getting it "dry," and proof against souring. This method has given me about half the amount others obtained by extracting as soon as the combs were filled by the bees, and ripening afterward.

But in spite of all these precautions I find so much prejudice against extracted honey, growing out of the ignorance of the public with regard to this sweet, ignorance equaled only by the ignorance in regard to bees themselves, that the sale of such honey has been very slow; so slow that while my comb honey is reduced at this date to about 150 pounds, I have several ten-gallon kegs of pure white honey still on hand.

Especially is there a prejudice against candied honey, though that is an absolute test of purity, and it can be readily liquified, as Mrs. H. says, without injury. When I say that it is an absolute test of purity I mean that all honey that candies evenly is pure, though some of the best honey I have ever had never candied at all. In one case I knew the honey to candy in the combs of a new swarm early in autumn; but some seasons, particularly very dry ones, it will hardly candy at all. This difference seems to be due to the varying proportion of natural glucose, which will crystallize, and levulose, or mellose, which will not crystallize. Manufactured glucose will not crystallize; and some of our largest honey merchants, even the Thurbers, of New York, have mixed artificial glucose with honey to avoid loss by the ignorant prejudice of the public.

WM. CAMM., MORGAN CO., ILL.

South'n Wisconsin Bee-keepers' Ass'n.

The bee-keepers met in Janesville, Wis., on the 4th inst., and organized a permanent society, to be known as the Southern Wisconsin Bee-keepers' Association. The following named persons were elected officers for the ensuing year: President, C. O. Shannon; Vice-President, Levi Fatzinger; Secretary, J. T. Pomeroy; Treasurer, W. S. Squire.

The regular sessions of the association will be held on the first Tuesday of March in each year. Special meetings will also be held, the time of which will be determined at previous meeting.

The object of the association is to promote scientific bee-culture, and form a bond of union among bee-keepers. Any person may become a member by signing the constitution, and paying a fee of fifty cents. The next meeting will be held at the Pember house, Janesville, on the first Tuesday in May at 10 o'clock A. M. All bee-keepers are cordially invited to attend. The Secretary, of Edgerton, Rock Co., Wis., will conduct the correspondence of the association.

* * * * *

Blue Stem Spring Wheat!!

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

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MAPS.

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

PRAIRIE FARMER PUBLISHING CO., CHICAGO. ILL.

PUBLICATIONS.

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

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

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

YOU can secure a nice RUBBER GOSSAMER CIRCULAR, or a nice decorated CHAMBER SET, or a nice imported GOLD BAND, or MOSS ROSE TEA SET, or a nice WHITE GRANITE DINNER SET FREE, in exchange for a few hours' time among your friends, getting up a little club order for our choice TEAS, COFFEES, Etc., at much lower prices than stores sell them. We are the cheapest Tea House east of San Francisco. A GUARANTEE given to each Club member. TESTIMONIALS and full particulars for getting up Clubs FREE. Write at once to the old reliable SAN FRANCISCO TEA CO., 1445 State St., CHICAGO. Mention this paper.--A reliable firm--_Editor_.

CORN, GRASS, AND FRUIT FARMS BY ANDREWS & BABCOCK, HUMBOLDT, KAN. Money Loaned netting investors 7 per cent. Write us.

Silk Culture.

Osage for Silk-Worms.

In a private letter to the editor of THE PRAIRIE FARMER Dr. L. S. Pennington, of Whiteside County, Illinois, says: "Many thanks for your instructive articles on Silk Culture. Could the many miles of Osage orange found in this State be utilized for this purpose, the industry would give employment to thousands of dependent women and children, by which means they could make themselves, at least in part, self-supporting. I hope that you will continue to publish and instruct your many readers on this subject."

Anent this subject we find the following by Prof. C. V. Riley in a late issue of the American Naturalist:

"There is a strong disposition on the part of those who look for making money by the propagation and sale of mulberry trees, to underrate the use of Osage orange as silk-worm food. We have thoroughly demonstrated, by the most careful tests, on several occasions, that when Maclura aurantiaca is properly used for this purpose, the resulting silk loses nothing in quantity or quality, and we have now a strain of Sericaria mori that has been fed upon the plant for twelve consecutive years without deterioration. There has been, perhaps, a slight loss of color which, if anything, must be looked upon as an advantage. It is more than likely, how ever, that the different races will differ in their adaptability to the Maclura, and that for the first year the sudden transition to Maclura from Morus, upon which the worms have been fed for centuries, may result in some depreciation. Mr. Virion des Lauriers, at the silk farm at Genito, has completed some experiments on the relative value of the two plants, which he details in the opening number of the Silk-Grower's Guide and Manufacturer's Gazette. Four varieties of worms were reared. The race known as the "Var" was fed throughout on mulberry leaves. The "Pyrenean" and "Cevennes" worms were fed throughout on leaves and branches of Osage orange, while the "Milanese" worms were fed on Maclura up to the second molt and then changed to mulberry leaves. At the close examples of each variety of cocoons were sent to the Secretary of the Silk Board at Lyons, and appraised by him The Maclura-fed cocoons were rated at 85 cents per pound, those raised partly on Osage and partly on mulberry at 95 cents per pound, and those fed entirely on mulberry at $1.11 per pound.

"This, Mr. des Lauriers thinks, seems to show that the difference between Maclura and Morus as silk-worm food is some 'twenty-five to thirty per cent in favor of the latter, while it is evident that the leaf of the Osage orange can be used with some advantage during the first two ages of the worms, thus allowing the mulberry tree to grow more leafy for feeding during the last three ages.' The experiment, although interesting, is not conclusive, from the simple fact that different races were used in the different tests and not the same races, so that the result may have been due, to a certain extent, to race and not to food."

SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL.

A writer in an English medical journal declares that the raising of the head of the bed, by placing under each leg a block of the thickness of two bricks, is an effective remedy for cramps. Patients who have suffered at night, crying aloud with pain, have found this plan to afford immediate, certain, and permanent relief.

California stands fifth in the list of States in the manufacture of salt, and is the only State in the Union where the distillation of salt from sea water is carried on to any considerable extent. This industry has increased rapidly during the last twenty years. The production has risen from 44,000 bushels in 1860 to upwards of 880,000 bushels in 1883.

The amount of attention given to purely technical education in Saxony is shown by the fact that there are now in that kingdom the following schools: A technical high school in Dresden, a technical State institute at Chemnitz, and art schools in Dresden and Leipzig, also four builders' schools, two for the manufacture of toys, six for shipbuilders, three for basket weavers, and fourteen for lace making. Besides these there are the following trade schools supported by different trades, foundations, endowments, and districts: Two for decorative painting, one for watchmakers, one for sheet metal workers, three for musical instrument makers, one for druggists (not pharmacy), twenty-seven for weaving, one for machine embroidery, two for tailors, one for barbers and hairdressers, three for hand spinning, six for straw weaving, three for wood carving, four for steam boiler heating, six for female handiwork. There are, moreover, seventeen technical advanced schools, two for gardeners, eight agricultural, and twenty-six commercial schools.

The Patrie reports, with apparent faith, an invention of Dr. Raydt, of Hanover, who claims to have developed fully the utility of carbonic acid as a motive agent. Under the pressure of forty atmospheres this acid is reduced to a liquid state, and when the pressure is removed it evaporates and expands into a bulk 500 times as great as that it occupied before. It is by means of this double process that the Hanoverian chemist proposes to obtain such important benefits from the agent he employs. A quantity of the fluid is liquified, and then stowed away in strong metal receptacles, securely fastened and provided with a duct and valve. By opening the valve free passage is given to the gas, which escapes with great force, and may be used instead of steam for working in a piston. One of the principal uses to which it has been put is to act as a temporary motive power for fire engines. Iron cases of liquified carbonic acid are fitted on to the boiler of the machine, and are always ready for use, so that while steam is being got up, and the engines can not yet be regularly worked in the usual way, the piston valves can be supplied with acid gas. There is, however, another remarkable object to which the new agent can be directed, and to which it has been recently applied in some experiments conducted at Kiel. This is the floating of sunken vessels by means of artificial bladders. It has been found that a bladder or balloon of twenty feet diameter, filled with air, will raise a mass of over 100 tons. Hitherto these floats have been distended by pumping air into them through pipes from above by a cumbrous and tedious process, but Dr. Raydt merely affixes a sufficient number of his iron gas-accumulators to the necks of the floats to be used, and then by releasing the gas fills them at once with the contents.

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CHOCOLATES.

GRATEFUL--COMFORTING.

EPPS'S COCOA.

BREAKFAST.

"By a thorough knowledge of the natural laws which govern the operations of digestion and nutrition, and by a careful application of the fine properties of well-selected Cocoa, Mr. Epps has provided our breakfast tables with a delicately flavored beverage which may save us many heavy doctors' bills. It is by the judicious use of such articles of diet that a constitution may be gradually built up until strong enough to resist every tendency to disease. Hundreds of subtle maladies are floating around us ready to attack wherever there is a weak point. We may escape many a fatal shaft by keeping ourselves well fortified with pure blood and a properly nourished frame."--_Civil Service Gazette._

Made simply with boiling water or milk. Sold only in half-pound tins by Grocers, labeled thus:

JAMES EPPS & CO., Homoeopathic Chemists, London, England.

When you write mention The Prairie Farmer.

MISCELLANEOUS.

3% LOANS,

For men of moderate means. Money loaned in any part of the country. Address, with 2-cent stamp.

MICHIGAN LOAN & PUB. CO., CHARLOTTE, MICH.

This Elegant Solid Plain Ring, made of Heavy 18k. Rolled Gold plate, packed in Velvet Casket, warranted 5 years, post-paid. 45c., 3 for $1.25. 50 Cards, "Beauties," all Gold, Silver, Roses, Lilies, Mottoes, &c., with name on, 10c., 11 packs for a $1.00 bill and this Gold Ring FREE.

U. S. CARD CO., CENTERBROOK, CONN.

SEEDS, Etc.

THE DINGEE & CONARD CO'S BEAUTIFUL EVER-BLOOMING

ROSES

The Only establishment making a SPECIAL BUSINESS of ROSES. 60 LARGE HOUSES for ROSES alone. We GIVE AWAY, in Premiums and Extras, more ROSES than most establishments grow. Strong Pot Plants suitable for immediate bloom delivered safely, post-paid, to any post office. 5 splendid varieties, your choice, all labeled, for $1; 12 for $2; 19 for $3; 26 for $4; 35 for $5; 75 for $10; 100 for $13. Our NEW GUIDE, _a complete Treatise on the Rose_, 70 pp, _elegantly illustrated_ FREE

THE DINGEE & CONARD CO., Rose Growers, West Grove, Chester Co., Pa.

1884--SPRING--1884.

TREES

Now is the time to prepare your orders for NEW and RARE Fruit and Ornamental Shrubs, Evergreens, ROSES, VINES, ETC. Besides many desirable Novelties; we offer the largest and most complete general Stock of Fruit and Ornamental Trees in the U. S. Abridged Catalogue mailed free. Address

ELLWANGER & BARRY, Mt. Hope Nurseries, Rochester, N. Y.

FOREST TREES.

_Largest Stock in America._

Catalpa Speciosa, Box-Elder, Maple, Larch, Pine, Spruce, etc.

_Forest and Evergreen Tree Seeds._

R. Douglas & Sons, _WAUKEGAN, ILL._

EVERGREENS

For everybody. Nursery grown, all sizes from 6 inches to 6 feet. Also

EUROPEAN LARCH AND CATALPA

and a few of the Extra Early Illinois Potatoes. Price List FREE. Address

D. HILL, Nurseryman, Dundee, Ill.

FOREST TREE SEEDS!

I offer a large stock of Walnuts, Butternuts, Ash, and Box Elder Seeds, suitable for planting. All the growth of 1883. I control the entire stock of the

SALOME APPLE,

a valuable, new, hardy variety. Also a general assortment of Nursery stock. Send for catalogue, circular, and price lists. Address

BRYANT'S NURSERY, Princeton, Ill.

SEED CORN.

Yellow and White Dent,
Michigan Early Yellow Dent,
Chester-White King Phillip,
Yellow Yankee, Etc., Etc.

Also the Celebrated MURDOCK CORN.

L. B. FULLER & CO., 60 State St., Chicago.

CUTHBERT RASPBERRY PLANTS!

10,000 for sale at Elmland Farm by