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CONSUMPTION.

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"THE BEST IS THE CHEAPEST."

ENGINES SAW MILLS, THRESHERS, HORSE POWERS,

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

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PUBLISHERS' NOTICE.

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

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The Prairie Farmer

ENTERED AT THE CHICAGO OFFICE AS SECOND-CLASS MATTER.

CHICAGO, JANUARY 26, 1884.

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WHEN SUBSCRIPTIONS EXPIRE.

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

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

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1841. 1884.

THE PRAIRIE FARMER

PROSPECTUS FOR 1884.

SEE INDUCEMENTS OFFERED

SUBSCRIBE NOW.

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

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

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

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

To further the work of agricultural and horticultural organization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To amuse and instruct the young folks.

To gather and condense the general news of the day.

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

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

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

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SPECIAL NOTICE

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

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READ THIS.

ANOTHER SPECIAL OFFER.

"THE LITTLE DETECTIVE."

WEIGHS 1/4 OZ. TO 25 LBS.

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

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OUR PREMIUM LIST.

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

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RENEW! RENEW!!

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

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WE WANT AGENTS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE COST OF COLD WINDS.

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

GOOD WORK AT WASHINGTON.

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

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

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

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

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

WISCONSIN MEETINGS.

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

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

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

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

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

Answers to Correspondents.

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

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

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

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