The Saline County journal. [volume] (Salina, Kan.) 1871-1893, 1878-11-07
His Ideas OF Agriculture.
Washington Correspondence Of the Graphic.

Commissioner lie Due, not having met
with the remarkable success he anticipat.
ed in his tea culture. his date vineyards
in Arizona and his corn-stalk sugar. has
inaugurated another wise and beneficial
enterprise, and has determined to expend
the balance OF the appropriation for the
Department Of Agriculture in the raising
! of fish-poles. He has sent TO Japan for
bamboo shoots. and when they arrive he
will distribute them among the fruit grow
ers of New-Jersey and Delaware, who will
graft them on peach trees, and the Com
missioner expects, if the season is favora-
bic, to have a crop in readiness by the
time the fishing season opens in 1880.
Commissioner LIE Due also intends to
introduce broonl-raising more extensively
in this country. He thinks the climate of
the Southern States is adapted to the strip
ed-handled variety, and believes the long
winters and short summers of the North
will be favorable to luxuriant growth of
the more hardy plain-handled brooms.
There is great and increasing de-
mand for the Commissioner able and ex-
haustive pamphlet on his new method of
raising silk, instead of merino. on sheep.
He has sent to China for another lot of
silk worm eggs. and when they arrive he
will continue his experiments, which have
so far been successful of feeding them to a
fine breed of merino sheep, which he has
procured, and the result will be elaborate
" described in supplemental pamphlet.
with copious illustrations, which he in
tends to issue. He will also distribute
samples of the silk, through Congress
men, to their constituents after the spring
shearing.
The Commissioner also has a very econ
Omicai and ingenious plan of utilizing
old stOve-pipes, fruit and oyster cans,
corset bones and hoop-skirt wires as fertil-
izers, and in his forthcoming annual ,e-
port to Congress he will recommend a
liberal appropriation to enable him to ex-
pertinent with this sort of fertilizer in re-
claiming the worn-out plantations of Vir-
ginia.
Public mention has already been made
of the Commissioner plan to exterminate
grasshoppers in this country. Having ac-
cidentally heard somewhere that rocks
were fond of grasshoppers, Commissioner
LIE Due drew on the appropriation for the
Agricultural Department for $1,100.
which he sent to England for the purchase
Of rocks. Surprising rock was an ami
NAL similar to rat or weasel, and derived
it's name from the fact that it inhabited
dilapidated buildings, known in common
parlance as ''old rookeries," the Commits
sioner gave explicit instructions that on
the voyage to America the rocks should be
fed literally with crackers and cheese.
One hundred were sent. but this diet
proved so disastrous that when they.
reached the Agricultural Department all
were dead but eight; and in consequence
Of the negligence Of a subordinate, who
failed in supplying the birds with suffic-
lent bed-clothing, according to the in
structions of the Commissioner, seven of
the eight took cold and died. The re-
naming rock is fine healthy male bird,
and by matching it with female parrot.
Commissioner lie Due intends TO secure
bird Of more brilliant plumage, that can
talk, which he will use as grasshopper
exterminator.