76 



HISTORICAL SKETCH OF AMERICAN AGRICULTTRAL PERIODICALS 



Cultivator, Covington, 1852 ; Connecticut Valley 

 Farmer, Springfield, Mass., 1853 ; Southern Agri- 

 culturist, Lawrenceville, S. C., 1853 ; Iowa Farmer, 

 Burlington, 1853 ; Northern Farmer, Woodstock, 

 Vt., 1855 ; New Jersey Farmer, Freehold, 1855 : 

 Western Agriculturist, Pittsburg, Pa., 1855 ; Ru- 

 ral American, Utica N. Y., 1856 (?); Western 

 Farm Journal, Louisville, Ky., 1856 ; Northwestern 

 Farmer, Dubuque, Iowa, 1856 ; Vermont Stock 

 Journal, Middleburg, 1857 ; Farmer's Journal, Port- 

 land, Oregon, July, 1858 ; California Culturist, San 

 Francisco, 1858 ; American Ruralist, Springfield, 

 0., 1858 ; North Carolina Planter, Raleigh, 1858 ; 

 Kentucky Farmer, Frankfort, 1858 ; New Hamp- 

 shire Journal of Agriculture, Manchester, 1859. 

 In the year last mentioned, 1859, forty-four peri- 



THE 



JANUARY, 1828, 



PARTI. 



ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. 



ART. I. An Essay on the Culture of the Grape Vine, 

 and making of (Vine ; suited for the United States, and 

 more particularly for the Southern States. By N. 

 HERBEMONT, of Columbia, S. C. 



" And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard." 



GENESIS c. is. v. 20. 



IF it were necessary, at this period of the existence of 

 man, to prove the utility and great importance of the culti- 



Fig. 37. The Southern Agriculturist, one of the five pioneers. 

 Part of the first page, exact size. 



odicals more or less devoted to general agriculture 

 were in existence, eight in New York, five in Ohio, 

 three each in Massachusetts, Virginia and Illinois, 

 two each in Maine, Georgia, Iowa and California, 

 one each in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New 

 Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North Carolina, 

 Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Michigan, 

 Wisconsin, Missouri and Oregon. It was compara- 

 tively easy to start an agricultural paper in those 

 days. A few hundred dollars sufficed for capital, 

 and any little town that contained a printing 

 press would do for location, provided always it 

 was surrounded by a good farming community. 

 The papers of that period relied entirely, or almost 

 entirely, on subscription money for their support, 

 none of them carrying any considerable number of 

 advertisements, and many of them having none. 

 Advertisements, in fact, were not only not solic- 

 ited, but were hardly welcomed, not much more 

 than barely tolerated as a questionable feature. 



DEVELOPMENT FROM 1850 



Of American agricultural papers started during 

 the second half of the nineteenth century and still 

 published, the Rural New Yorker is both the oldest 

 and historically the most interesting. It was 

 started at Rochester, N. Y., in 1850, by D. D. T. 

 Moore, who had learned newspaper work under 

 Luther Tucker, and who had been, for a time in 

 the forties, proprietor of the first Michigan Farmer; 

 and it ran very successfully until 1868, when Mr. 

 Moore committed what proved to be the fatal mis- 

 take of transferring his location to New York and 

 entering into competition with the Country Gentle- 

 man and the American Agriculturist for general 

 circulation. Bankruptcy followed in a few years. 

 The paper was thereafter published succes- 

 sively, first by one of Mr. Moore's creditors 

 and afterwards by several other persons, none 

 of whom could make it pay, and it was more 

 than once on the point of being abandoned. 

 Finally, however, it was acquired by the 

 present management, who have raised it, as 

 is well known, to a position among the rec- 

 ognized leaders of the American agricultural 

 press. 



Two years later than the Rural New 

 Yorker, that is to say, January 1, 1852, the 

 Ohio Farmer was established at Cleveland, 

 where it has been published ever since, 

 though having suffered suspension during 

 the last three months of the year 1862. The 

 founder was Thomas Brown ; and the editors 

 have been F. R. Elliott, S. D. Harris, Geo. 

 E. Blakelee and M. E. Williams. Ownership 

 of the property was acquired, at the close 

 of the year 1873, by M. J. Lawrence, now 

 the president of the Lawrence Publishing 

 Company, which has conducted the publica- 

 tion since June, 1894, and now operates 

 also the Michigan Farmer. 



Three years later than the Ohio Farmer, 

 that is to say in 1855, was started at Racine, 

 Wis., by Mark Miller, the Homestead. It 

 was removed within a few years to Madison, 

 Wis., and then to Dubuque, Iowa, and in 1861, the 

 entire outfit going in two wagons, to Des Moines, 

 where it has been published ever since. It was 

 bought in 1885 by James M. Pierce, who after- 

 ward acquired also the Madison (Wis.) Farmer and 

 the Kansas City Farmer and Stockman. 



In the same year, 1855, the Practical Farmer 

 was started at Philadelphia, by Paschall Morris, at 

 first a monthly, but changed to a weekly in 1867. 

 The death of the founder had a bad effect, and the 

 paper was sold, in 1876, to the owner of the Ohio 

 Farmer, who ran it until 1881, when he disposed 

 of it, finding the venture both troublesome and 

 unprofitable. The next eight years saw various 

 other changes in management, until finally the 

 property was acquired by the present owner, Mr. 

 Maule, and a second era of prosperity began. 

 (There was an earlier Practical Farmer, a weekly, 

 published at Boston, but it does not appear that 

 Mr. Morris' paper had any connection with it.) 



