ANSWER.--Ninety-five, certainly. If five kernels out of twenty-one failed to grow, that would be 31 per cent of bad seed, and we should consider the quality inferior. But further, if under the favorable condition of trial, 31 percent failed, ten grains in every twenty-one would be almost sure to, in the field. It was a mistake to shell the corn; seed should always remain on the cob to the last moment, because if it is machine or hand-shelled at low temperature, and put away in bulk, when warm weather comes, it is sure to sweat, and if it heats, the germ is destroyed. Better spread your corn out in the dry, and where it will not freeze, as soon as you can. L. C. LEANIARTT (?) NEBRASKA.--I wish to secure a blue grass pasture in my timber for hogs. 1. Will it be necessary to keep them out till the grass gets a good start? 2. Shall I follow the directions you gave Mr. Perkins in THE PRAIRIE FARMER, February 9? 3. Is not blue grass pasture the best thing I can give my hogs? ANSWER.--1. Better do so, and you will then be more likely to get a good catch and full stand. 2. Certainly, if the conditions are the same. 3. Blue grass is very good for hogs, but it is improved by the addition of clover. 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.