AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
%mx\m Agriculturist. 
New-York, Wednesday, July 19, 1854. 
Expiring Subscriptions. —As we have before 
announced, the Agriculturist is sent no longer 
than ordered and paid for; so that any one re¬ 
ceiving the paper need not expect to receive a 
bill for it afterwards. With the last number of 
any subscription we send a notice that the time 
is up, or what is equivalent, we generally send a 
bill for another year. The bill is made out at 
the full price $2 a year. Those belonging to 
clubs will of course remit only the club price. 
NOT TOO LATE TO SOW NUT A BAGA. 
Mr. Nathanial Hollock, of Milton, Ulster 
county, N. Y., informs us that he has often 
sowed Ruta Baga or Russia Turnip, as late as 
the 20th of July, and that if the sowing is fol¬ 
lowed by rain soon, he gets a much better crop 
than when sown earlier. Some of his neighbors, 
who sowed last year the latter part of June and 
first week in July, had their turnips run too 
much to top and long necks, while his sowed 
on the 20th July bottomed well, and made an 
excellent crop. 
The above may answer in this latitude for 
warm, quick soils, and even later farther south ; 
but in a wet, heavy soil, we should prefer sow¬ 
ing the first week in July in this climate, and of 
course earlier farther north. At the time we 
write this article, Friday, 14th July, a heavy 
rain is falling, which will make it favorable for 
sowing Ruta Baga as soon as it clears off, and 
the ground gets sufficiently dry for plowing. 
Well-rotted barn-yard manure, muck with a 
mixture of guano, Peruvian guano alone, and 
especially bone dust, and super-phosphate of 
lime, are excellent fertilizers for Ruta Baga. 
We hope the farmers will give special atten¬ 
tion to this crop—prices are still high—it is one 
of the last things they can get in this season, 
and it will doubtless pay well. 
Corn for soiling, and cabbages may be still 
sown with a prospect of fair crops. 
-• 9 •- 
ACTION OF LIME. 
A large number of interesting experiments 
have recently been made on this subject, by 
Professor Way, of England, the results of 
which were given in a lecture before the Royal 
Agricultural Society last month. The lecture, 
and accompanying discussions, of which we have 
been able to gather only a brief outline, are 
promised in full in the next number of the So¬ 
ciety’s journal. Two of the more important 
conclusions were, 
1st. That all soils contain more or less ammo¬ 
nia ; and that ordinary clay soils contain as 
much ammonia per acre as there is in three 
tons of guano. 
2d. That the great advantage of lime to the 
soil, is the setting this ammonia free for the use 
of the plant; and that it should be applied at 
short intervals in small doses, rather than, as 
usual, at long intervals in large doses. 
If the theory of Professor Way be correct, 
we can readily see how applying large quanti¬ 
ties of lime exhausts and injures land. We 
can point to numberless localities where the land 
contains little clay, and of course retains little 
ammonia, and large, repeated doses of lime have 
already exhausted all the native supply of am¬ 
monia. In our “ Farm Notes” of Bound Brook, 
N. J., we gave the experience of some farmers 
there, that on their clay lands, lime yet contin¬ 
ued to benefit the soil, while one or two heavy 
doses upon their lighter soils injured them. 
We think it preferable, usually, to apply only 
nine to twelve bushels per acre at one time on 
medium loam soils, increasing the quantity on 
clays, and lessening it on those of a light, sandy 
character. 
Professor Way supposes that the ammonia in 
clays—which he finds abundantly at twenty 
feet depth—-was derived from fish and vegeta¬ 
ble matter. Those who heard our lectures in 
eastern Connecticut, will remember that we ad¬ 
vanced these same views a year and a half 
since, when speaking of the richness of the soils 
deep down in the earth, and also of the original 
source of phosphoric acid, and other elements, 
not contained in the rocks from which the soils 
were produced. 
-•«t- 
VILLA ARCHITECTURE. 
II owever much architecture during the past 
few years may have gained among us in vari¬ 
ety of outside form, and in the picturesque, we 
think it has lost upon the whole in the comfort 
and convenience of internal arrangement. It 
is far much less laborious for the mistress of the 
house to superintend the kitchen when placed 
upon a level with the first story. How absurd 
to place it in a basement; and it is almost 
equally absurd to have a third story to a house 
in the country, where land is so cheap and 
building materials so plenty. Going up and 
down stairs is the hardest work that women 
do; and many stories in a house are only par¬ 
donable in a city, where land is excessively 
dear. 
For comfort in hot weather, there is nothing 
like a wide hall running through the house. 
This insures a much better and cooler circula¬ 
tion of air than a partial hall. In large old 
houses, the stairs arc frequently placed on one 
side of the hall instead of in it, which we think 
decidedly better ; the hall can then be made a 
good dining and sitting-room whenever desired. 
The stairs should be broad and of easy ascent; 
the rooms at least 10 to 13 feet between joints. 
For outside comfort, a piazza all around the 
house, is very desirable. It makes a pleasant 
promenade in bad weather, and even adds to 
the warmth of the house in winter, and to its 
coolness in summer. 
Kitchens on the first story, except in ordinary 
farm houses, are made by the addition of an L 
to the rear of the house, or by adding on a wing 
at the side. Many object to either of these, be¬ 
cause they render it impossible to give the man¬ 
sion a fine architectural appearance. All this 
can be obviated, by making the house suffi¬ 
ciently large to admit of a small paved or flag¬ 
ged court-yard on one side of the center. This 
may have a glass dome or roof thrown over it, 
ornamented with a fountain, and be used for a 
clothes drying-house in summer, and a conser¬ 
vatory in winter. A conservatory on the out¬ 
side of a handsome house, can never be made to 
harmonize with its architecture. There is 
something absurd in the very idea. Instead of 
a beauty, as many think it cannot but be with 
its rare flowers and plants, it is just as much of 
an excrescence as an L kitchen. 
A porte-cochere attached to the front piazza 
is a great comfort and convenience, especially in 
bad weather, and may be so planned as to add 
to the imposing beauty of the architecture, 
rather than be stuck on, as it often is, an ugly 
protuberance. 
Half stories with small windows, are a great 
absurdity in the country, or indeed any where. 
They spoil the architecture of the building, are 
inconvenient, and owing to the impossibility of 
properly ventilating them, are positively un¬ 
healthy. Basement stories, for the same rea¬ 
son, are unhealthy to live in. They are fre¬ 
quently the cause of consumption and cutane- 
oue diseases to those who occupy them. 
A dry, well-ventilated cellar should be made 
under the whole house, the windows of which 
should be at least two feet above the ground. 
The sides should be stone or brick laid in ce¬ 
ment, the bottom flagged with stone or thick 
tiles. But what is better is to pave with con¬ 
crete. This makes it rat, and even mouse 
proof. 
The above are general principles which should 
be adopted in building every house of any pre¬ 
tensions in the country. Other internal ar¬ 
rangements can be made to suit the fancy; and 
the outside appearance may be such as taste 
and convenience dictate. 
—— * • ♦ - 
Heat vs. Swine. —We learn that on the 5th 
inst., as a quantity of fat hogs were landed 
from the cars at Brighton, Mass., about one 
hundred of them fell dead. They had been 
huddled too closely together. 
Death of tiie Trotting Horse Cassius M. 
Clay. —This very popular trotting stallion died 
of inflammation of the bowels on Thursday 
night last. He died of the same disease, in the 
same month, and in the same stable that Black 
Hawk did on July 5th, 1850, at Montgomery, 
Orange Co., N. Y. At the time of Black 
Hawk’s death these two horses were matched 
to trot for $1000. 
[editorial correspondence.] 
FARM SCENERY BETWEEN DUNKIRK AND 
CHICAGO; CROPS, &c. 
Chicago, July 4, 1854. 
We took an inland route from Dunkirk on 
the Lake shore to Cleveland, thence to Toledo, 
and thence by the Southern Michigan and 
Northern Indiana Railroad, instead of the Lake 
route, at no inconsiderable expense of comfort, 
when the thermometer is raging, as it has for 
two or three days, towards 100° Farenheit. 
We never experienced hotter weather, though 
a comfortable breeze followed us most of the 
way, and still attends us here. 
The country is generally uninteresting 
through New-York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
Michigan, till we strike the oak openings in 
the latter State, just east of the prairies. There 
is an almost unvarying flat clay soil over which 
the railroads pass; and striking their way 
through the uncultivated and unembellished 
portions, there is a monotonous tameness which 
amounts to downright dullness. We advise no 
one to take the Lake shore railroads when he 
