VOL. XXII.
INDIANAPOLIS, IND., SATURDAY, OCT. 15,1887.
NO. 42
THE FAIRS.
The Knox county fair at Vincennes
opened on the 10th with exeellent prospects. The various* departments were
crowded with exhibits, the number of entries exceeding those of last year by several hundred. The stock show was unusually large and agricultural hall was well
filled.
LA PORTE COUNTY FAIR.
We had rather rainy weather, but after
all quite a good attendance. Most of the
displays were good. Floral hall was well
tilled, the display of flowers was mostly
by Mrs. Ira L. Barnes. The live stoek
was well represented in cattle and horses,
but the sheep and hog display was very
small. There were a great many excellent horses there. Banks A Hilt and the
Door Prairie Live Stock Association,
besides some exhibited by private individuals. We noticed two very line black
horses, one owned by Hiram Bement of
Galena township, and the other by—-
Bowen of La Porte county.
Mrs. B. A. Davib.
The Jay County Fair.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
In the line of stock the show was exeellent, an improvement on former fairs,and
in cereals it was good. As respects the
racing, those that take more interest in it
than I do may report them. It was too
wet and muddy for much of that business.
Among the exhibitors was Rodney
Hutchins, who takes the Farmer, and is
an enterprising farmer and stock breeder.
He had on exhibition his noted Suffolk
Punch stallion.
Next was our genial friend, Mr. George
Isenhart.who had on exhibition his match
draft horses, a cow and some poultry.
Mr. Isenhart is an energetic farmer and
the Indiana Farmer in the future will
be found on his table as among his best
instructors.
By the way, we met our old stand by, J.
W. Williams, of Briant, Jay county. Mr.
Williams is a breeder and shipper of pure
Poland China hogs. His breeding stock is
all recorded in the Ohio and Central Poland China Records. Orders promptly
rilled.   Mr. Williams  takes the  Farmer.
And next in line is Joseph Denistou, of
Darke county, O., who takes the Farmer
at Union City. He is an energetic farmer
aud stock breeder, having his Bellfounder
and Morgan stallion on exhibition and a
number of other horses.
J. L. Aspy, another of your subscribers
at Geneva, Adams county, and a breeder
and ahipper of pure bred Poland China
hogs had on exhibition 14 head of
his stock, all recorded in the Ohio Poland
China Record. D. A.
Salamonia.
000,000  for the  patent medicines which it
consumes.
The infant of M. K. Duncan, Moweaqua,
111., ate a number of strychnine pills, and
died in terrible agony.
Two young ladies, daughters of Wm.
Riley, of Springfield, Ohio, are in a critical
condition from poisoning from the use
of face powder.
C. Ward, the noted steeple climber, fell
60 feet from a steeple in Reading, Ohio,
and was so badly injured that it is doubtful if he ean live.
A nmskrat dug a hole in the bank of
the canal near Nashua, N. H., and caused
a disastrous flood. The flood has thrown
:i,000 men out of work.
Edward and Thomas Moran, aged about
28 and 20 years, respectively, were found
dead in bed at their hotel in Chicago, suffocated by gas. They came from Ardake,
D. T., and were en route to Canada.
The temperance women of England
have been getting up a j'ubilee memorial
to the queeu in the shape a petition that
the bar-rooms be closed on Sunday. It
now contains three-quarters of a millon
signatures.
Procter & Gamble, the Cincinnati soap
firm made their first semi-annual division
of profits with their 200 employes, last
Thu rsday. The shares paid the men were
13* £ per cent on their wages. Some workmen got as much as $400.
There are now in New Eugland 191,01)0
people who can neither read nor write, In
the State of Pennsylvania 322,000, and in
the State of New York 241,000, while in
the United States there are nearly 6,000,000
who can neither read nor write.
During August 230,000 boxes of lemons
were received in New York from Sicily,
'.ast year over 3,000,000 boxes of lemons
and oranges came to this country from
the Mediterranean,and more than 1,256,000
boxes were sent inland from the Stale of
Florida alone.
A lady of Moweaqua, 111., found in a
head of cabbage, what she at first sup'
jiosed to be a linen thread, but what on
examination proved to be a worm, about
two feet long. Dr. Sparling of that place
says it is something new, and probable
came in the recent rains.
are plentiful the year round—sturgeon,
mullet, channel and black bass, speckled
trout, oysters in their season, and in winter—talk-of winter in this sunny clime!
Well, when the almanac says winter, the
river is black with ducks, fine for roasting
and tender for frying; poultry thrives
well and the Seminoles bring in bear
steak aud venison from December to
March  and   fairly  glut   the market.   A
strip of land lies between the river and
the broad Atlantic, whose sullen roar now
echoes in my ears. It has been lashing in
fury this week—some faint traces of Wig-
gin's storm sweeping down this way!
Florida is the great sanitarium of the
United States—it is amusing to hear
stories of the people who came down to
rest and recuperate and went to work before the winter was over.   As to investing
friend much   interested in   my temporal \ in land   any where in   this State, I would
welfare  advised   me to  pack butter, butl say what I say of all land   agencies every
tStnevnl Hews.
There is yellow fever at Tampa, Fla.
Hog cholera rages in Henry county Illinois.
A $10,000 gold nugget has been found in
the famous Midas mine, Australia.
The public schools at Sadorus, III., have
been closed on aocount of the diptheria
epidemic.
Thia country pays every year about $22,-
Letter From Southern Florida.
Editors Indiana Farmer:
Melbourne is a growing town settled by
northern people, mostly from Ohio, but
Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania have
sent a generous sprinkling. However an
Englishman, who was one of the first
comers, has the honor of naming the town
for MeIbournet'Australia. The old-timers
have been here ten years, so there are
orange, lemon, lime, and guava groves to
supply the home market, while those who
have been here but three years have pineapples and bananas fruiting this season.
Vegetables of all kinds grow in great luxuriance upon the savannas, but newly
cleared ground will grow only sweet potatoes and cow peas the first year. It
must sweeten they say. Such melons,
tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peas, squashes,
turnips, onions, etc., as they raise here,
satisfies the most doubtful that he can find
plenty to eat while his orange grove is
starting.   What do we do for meat?   Fish
afterward consoled me with the fact that
it would soon become rancid and I should
have to submit to the inevitable—live
without butter. That would not be hard
to do as I am nobly sustained by eminent
physiologists that butter adds not one
particle of good to the human system—it
is merely a luxury, not an essential.
However there is a good dairy here, kept
by a stirring 1'ennsylvanian and it is all a
farce that we have to live without milk in
Florida. Just this summer cattle men
drove 1,400 head on to the savannas, a few
miles west of here, and fattened them for
market. There are many varieties of
native grasses and bushes that the cattle
love to browse upon. There are no clover
pastures 'tis true, but Bermuda grass is
easily started and impossible, almost, to
kill out and it makes excellent pasturing;
cow peas grow with but little cultivation,
springing up from seed aud growing for a
second crop, and when turned under
make a good fertilizer and the soil is ready
for some other crop. So why need we sit
down and sigh for mutton chops and
juicy steaks when we have only to follow
the example of more enterprising neighbors—prepare pasture lands and stock
them.
Gardening promises to be a future industry, or a present one I might say.
Last year one of our enterprising young
men cleared $800 off an aere of tomatoes
and an invalid from Kentucky, with the
assistance of his two half-grown boys,
cleared $500 off of an acre of tomatoes,
onions and green beans. The seeds were
planted in January and crops shipped to
early spring markets, north. Strawberries are easily cultivated, though no one
has cultivated them yet in this community, except for home use. The plants
are set out in October and bear from January till June. But grapes here are the
greatest treat, the Scuppernong, a transparent round grape, grows as large as the
goose plum. Figs, dates and varieties of
the plum, peach and pear adapted to this
climate are being experimented upon.
The success of figs and dates is a certainty. Corn is cultivated and upland rice.
The Seminoles celebrate annually the
green oorn dance.
Melbourne is located on Indian river in
the central part, north and south, of l'.i<•-
vard county. This county is 100 miles
long and as the county seat is at the extreme northern part a change is talked of,
with our lovely town as the county seat.
By the way, this county has just voted
"dry" by a large majority and Melbourne
has the justly earned reputation of having
a very intelligent aud moral set of people.
Steps are being taken to open an academy
soon. Indian river is about 120 miles
long—an inlet of the ocean. It is so
straight that a bee line 75 miles in length
will not   touch  either   bank.   One  tails
where, never buy a piece of land till you
see it. There is State laud here to be had
for $1 50 an acre and a year's residence
and improvements, and the pleasant little
communities all along this beautiful river
soften somewhat the roughness of frontier
life. One can live comfortably in a tent
the year round or build a pine and palmetto shanty at trifling cost. One must
]>raetice some self denial, and yet it is
slight compared with what our fore-fathers passed through in, the wilds of the
New Xorthwest. For instance the dairy
and poultry business is yet in_its primary
stages here, consequently eggs are 40 cents
a dozen, new'milk 15^cents a _quart and
butter 30 cents a pound. So much the
better perhaps for ^our thrifty dairyman
with his adjoining hennery, for I imagine
he's saving the dollars in order to return
for the girl he's left behind him. His
comfortable little cottage and rows of
brilliant flowers seem to be awaiting welcome to some dear, little.home body.
Melbourne, Fla., Sept. 30. E. C. S.
Qureg nutX &tu&\vtv.
GUv« your name and postollice when asking questions. Many queries go unanswered for failure to
observe this rule.
Will salt sown on land stop the wire
worm from working on the growing
crops? If not, what would you recommend? J. R. M.
Salt will help to destroy the worms,
l.ime would be better.
Is there any corn drill that will plant
bone dust with the corn? If so, who has
it?   If not, will some one invent'one?
Warrick Co. * J'. P. W.
We do not know of any such drill. One
could easily be made and would be if demanded by many farmers.
Who breeds the " Narragansett turkey?
I want 'to buy fa couple of hens. I took
the tirst premium on pair, and also on
heaviest turkey, at Fairmount fair. I
want to change, if lean find someone
that breeds them. M. W. K.
Grant Co.
J. M., Valley Mills. The caterpillars
that feed upon your turnip leaves are of
two kinds. The light colored ones are the
larva- of the cabbage butterfly; the striped
ones are of a species not known to us.
They are, so far as we know, a new enemy
to the turnip. The same remedies should
be applied to them as to the cabbage
worm, pyrethrum, slugshot or buhach.
Tuesdav, November 8, G. <$* J. Geary,
Brookfield, Mo., will sell a fine lot of
Polled cattle, English Shire, Yorkshire
Coach, Clydesdale and trotting stallions
aud mares. This will be a very fine lot of
stock.