MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY JOURNAL. 
GENERAL WASHINGTON’S FARM. 
The farm of Gen. Washington at Mount 
Vernon, contained ten thousand acres of 
land in one body, equal to about fifteen 
square miles. It was divided into farms of 
convenient size, at the distance of two, three, 
and five miles from his mansion-house. He 
visited these farms every day in pleasant 
weather, and was constantly engaged in 
making experiments for the improvement 
of agriculture. Some idea of the extent of 
his farming operations may be formed from 
the following facts: In 1787, he had five 
hundred and eighty acres in grass; sowed 
six hundred bushels of oats; seven hundred 
acres with wheat—and as much more in 
corn, barley, potatoes, beans, peas, (fee., and 
one hundred and fifty with turnips. His 
stock consisted of one hundred and forty 
horses; one hundred and twelve cows; two 
hundred and thu-ty-six working oxen, heif¬ 
ers, and steers, and five hundred sheep.— 
He constantly employed two hundred and 
fifty hands, and kept twenty-four plows 
going during the whole year, when the 
earth and the state of th« weather would 
permit. In 1780, he slaughtered one hun¬ 
dred and fifty hogs, for the use of his fam¬ 
ily, and provisions for his negroes, for whose 
comfort he had great regard. 
VEGETABLE INSTINCT. 
If a pan of water be placed within six 
inches on either side of the stem of a young 
pumpkin or vegetable marrow, it will in the 
course of the night, approach it, and will 
be found in the morning with one of its 
leaves floating on the water. This experi¬ 
ment may be continued nightly until the 
plant begins to fruit If a prop be placed 
within six inches of a young convolvulus, or 
scarlet runner, it will find it, although the 
prop be shifted daily. If, after it had twin-' 
ed some distance up the prop, it be unwound 
and twined in the opposite direction, it will 
return to its original position, or die in the 
attempt; yet,notwithstanding, if two of these 
plants grow near each other, and have no 
stake around which they can entwine, 
one of them will alter the direction of its 
spiral, and they will twine around each 
other. 
Duhamal placed some kidney beans in a 
cylinder of moist earth. After a short 
time they began to germinate, of course 
sending the plume upwards to the light, 
and the root into the soil. After a few days 
the cylinder was turned one-fourth round, 
and again and again this was repeated, un¬ 
til an entire revolution of the cylinder had 
been completed. The beans were then ta¬ 
ken oiit of the earth, and it was found that 
both the plume and radicle had bent to ac¬ 
commodate themselves to every revolution, 
and the one in its efforts to ascend perpen¬ 
dicularly, and the other to descend, had 
formed a perfect spiral. But although the 
natural tendency of the root is downwards, 
if the soil beneath be dry, and any damp 
substance be above, the roots will ascend to 
reach it. 
iDineatit (ltDnDrai|. 
Cheap Oil for Kitchen Lamps. — Let 
all seraps of fat, (including even whatever 
bits are left on the dinner plates) and all 
drippings be carefully saved an(l put into 
an earthen crock, covered, and set in a cold 
place. When the crock is full, transfer the 
fat to an iron pot, filling it up half-way with 
fat; and pour in sufficient cold water to 
reach the top. Set it over the^ fire, and 
boil apd skim it till all the impurities are 
removed. Next r>our the melted fat into 
a large, bread pa:* cold water, and set it 
away to cool. It will harden into a cake. 
Then take out the cake and put it away in 
a cool place. When wanted for use, cut 
off a sufficient quantity — melt it by the 
fire till it becomes liquid, and then fill the 
lamp with it as with lard. It will give a 
clear, bright light, quite equal to that of lard 
and better than whale oil; and it costs no¬ 
thing but the trouble of preparing the fat 
We highly recommend this piece of domes¬ 
tic economy. 
Preserving Eggs. —A patent for the 
following has been granted in England; — 
One bush, quick lime, 32 oz. salt 8 oz. cream 
of tartar. These ingredients mix with as 
much water as will reduce them to the con¬ 
sistency that an egg, when put in, will swim. 
By this method, eggs have been preserved 
in a condition perfectly sweet for two years. 
So says the newspaper account It may be 
well to try it 
Filling Beds.— Beds should be filled 
with barley straw in preference to rye, oat, 
or wheat straw, if obtainable The husks 
of Indian corn, carefully selected, and slit 
into shreds, make an ex'cellent article for 
beds. They are dm-able, clean, not very li¬ 
able to absorb moisture, and are not objec¬ 
tionable on account of making dirt. 
To Prevent Dampness in Walls. —Use 
a paint made of one part beeswax, three 
parts boiled linseed oU, one-tenth part of 
litharge, put on hot. The wall should be 
entirely dry, and if possible, heated. Three 
or four coats will render a stone or brick 
wall impervious to moisture. 
dbrrjrarb nnii (Iwbra. 
hoeticxhthral miscellanies. 
[From the Cultivator.] 
Black Knot on the Plum.— Benjamin 
Hodge, of Buffalo, N. Y., who has raised 
and sold trees for the past thirty years, says 
he has never had this malady among his 
plum trees till the present season, and that 
in the instances cited, it was introduced from 
the East One case was with two trees 
which came from Boston; in another in¬ 
stance, twenty trees out of some hundreds 
received from the eastern part of the State 
were affected; and a few trees grown from 
scions received from Massachusetts were at¬ 
tacked in the same way. 
The Victoria Regia. — According to 
Spruce’s voyage up the Amazon, this re¬ 
markable plant, growing in water, has leaves 
four feet in diameter, which increases to 
eight feet during the rainy season. It is 
even asserted that some have attained 12 
feet in diameter. So great is their size and 
so perfect their symmetry, that when turned 
up they suggest some strange fabric of cast 
iron just taken from the furnace; its color, 
and the enormous ribs with which it is 
strengthened, increasing the similarity. At 
the exhibition of the London Horticultural 
Society last summer, a flower with two leaves 
of this plant were exhibited, the latter meas¬ 
uring each Jive feet ten inches in diameter. 
Early Second Crop of Grapes.— The 
•Gardener’s Chronicle states that at a last 
summer’s exhibition of the London Horti¬ 
cultural Society, which closed on the 13th 
of 7 mo. (July,) “there was a bunch of 
black Hamburg grapes, perfectly colored, 
from Mr. Wilmot, of Isleworth, which form¬ 
ed part of a crop ripe upon vines that were 
loaded with ripe fruit last February !" 
Old Forest Trees. — We once counted 
the rings of a large tulip tree at the newly 
cut stump, in Western New York, which we 
made out ninety years old at the discovery 
of America by Columbus. This tree was 
124 feet high. The pines at the west on 
the Pacific coast, which attain such enor¬ 
mous dimensions, have in some instances 
numbered nine hundred rings. Such a 
tree, consequently, would have served as a 
bean-pole in the time of Gengis Khan, and 
was a tall, towering forest tree of two hun¬ 
dred years during the conquest of Tamerlane. 
Large Orchards.- Dr. Kennicott states 
in the Horticulturist, that eighteen miles 
above Peoria, Ill., Isaac Underhill has five 
hundred acres in orchard. He has in the 
last two years planted out 12,000 grafted 
apple trees, and 7,000 peach trees. 
Pruning. — It is said that the donkey 
first taught the art of pruning the vine; 
man being merely an imitator on seeing the 
effect of cropping the points of the young 
shoots. It is not always the greatest wis¬ 
dom to originate, but to turn to good ac- 
cdunt whatever by thoughtful observation 
comes within our reach. 
Luck WITH Trees. — We have noticed 
that certain men always have much finer 
peaches, and pears, and plums, than most 
of their neighbors, and are called lucky .— 
Their luck consisted, in the first place, in 
doing every thing well — taking what their 
neighbors called foolish pftins—leaving no¬ 
thing unfinished; a!l»d in the second place, 
in taking good care of what they had; that 
is, giving their trees wide, deep and mellow 
cultivation, applying manure where neces¬ 
sary, and especially the liquid manure from 
the chamber and wash tub. Great pains 
taken, whether with fruit trees or with chil¬ 
dren, scarcely ever fail to produce good 
■ results. 
Stir the Soil. —The greatest horticul¬ 
turist, almost, of the present day, says:— 
“ If I had ‘a call ’ to preach a sermon on gar¬ 
dening, I should take this for my text: stir 
THE SOIL.” 
Hard to suif all. — At the American 
Congress of Fruit Growers, in 1848, a fruit 
committee of nine persons prepared a se¬ 
lect list of fruits worthy of general cultiva¬ 
tion. Although many hundred sorts of the 
pear have borne fruit in this country, all 
perhaps pronounced '^excellent” by the 
nurserymen who sold them, yet there were 
only two that the fruit committee could 
unanimously agree upon to recommend, 
namely, the Seckel and Bartlett. 
Deep Soil and Deep Roots. — A. J. 
Downing says, “ I have seen the roots of 
strawberries extend five feet down into a 
rich deep soil; and those plants bore a crop 
of fruit five times as large, and twice as 
handsome and good, as the common pro¬ 
duct of the soil only one foot deep.” 
Crocus. —There are upwards of one 
hundred varieties of this vernal flower in 
cultivation, attended with universal success. 
They delight in rich soils, and may either 
be planted in beds or rows, at least two 
inches deep, and six inches from row to 
row. They seldom require removal; every 
three or four years will be sufficient. They 
can be purchased at from seventy-five cents 
to two dollars per hundred, according to 
quality. When they are done blowing, the 
foliage should not be removed till perfectly 
decayed. 
ORNAMENTAL FLOWER STANDS. 
Those who admire flowers in the hall or 
in the drawing room, should always provide 
such stands as will enable them to keep the 
pots without pans, for the water in a pan is 
ruin to all plants standing in them, and this 
can easily be proved by reference to the 
thousands and tens of thousands that are 
killed daily, in all the manufacturing towns 
and populous cities in the empire. They 
are watered by filling the pans. This wa¬ 
ter is soon mischievous, because the roots 
are easily rotted by stagnant moisture. 
Hwfiank frte ^ Itiente. 
The stands for flower pots should there¬ 
fore be provided with a receptacle for the 
superabundant moisture, for it is impossible 
to prevent water running through the pots. 
This receptacle may be a groove around the 
outside, or near the outside of the solid bot¬ 
tom, forming a gutter into which the sur¬ 
plus moisture might run, and from which 
it is easily taken up by a sponge. The bot¬ 
tom must of course slope towards the out¬ 
side, or have grooves or gutters leading 
from the centre to the outside. This does 
away with the necessity of using pans, and 
the danger of injuring the plants by stag¬ 
nant water. 
With regard to the form of these stands, 
they may be various, according to the places 
they are to occupy, and the number of 
plants which they are to accommodate. — 
There is good room to exercise a little taste 
upon the subject When the stand is for 
a single pot, there must be a sort of cup 
for it to stand over; not to stand in, so as 
to touch the water, because that would be as 
bad as a pan. These stands require to be 
emptied occasionally, because every time 
the plants are watered, some would go into 
the gutters, which, if not attended to, would 
overflow. 
These starTds are made variously of iron 
or wicker, as the case may be, and may be 
had of almost any form, in wood of the 
rustic seat makers and verandah builders, 
and in iron from the general wire-workers. 
Some are cast, but, rich as they look, they 
are not adapted to move up and down or 
about a house. — London Ilorticidtural 
Magazine. 
NURSERY CATALOGUES- 
In this country the well known tendency 
to make pamphlets, and even pretty fat 
booklets, of what a man has in his nursery, 
has received hard hits within the past two 
years, and some steps will undoubtedly be 
taken in the opposite direction. Prof. Bind¬ 
ley has taken up the same matter, in Eng¬ 
land, and t9,lks of it in his well known style. 
He says: — 
We have heard of one gentleman who 
numbers 1200 roses in his list, among which 
were about 350 wild briars, some of which 
had a little hair on their leaves, and some 
had none, some had double teeth, some had 
single, one sort had ovate hips and another 
oval, and' so on. There exists we believe 
to this day a collection of Peonies formed 
upon the same enlightened principle; and 
we have no doubt that similar collections of 
Daffodils, Michaelmas Daisies, or Catmints, 
may be found in some sequestered garden. 
This harmless folly, like many other 
crotchets, destitute of all elements of lon¬ 
gevity, could scarcely exist, one would think 
in this utilitarian age. We are, therefore, 
witnessing at the present day collections 
giving way to selections; hard pruning 
applied in all directions to those old bushes 
of barren, half dead wood; and a few se¬ 
lect plants, thoroughly well grown, replacing 
the empty pots and moribund sticks which 
invariably characterized the collections of 
our worthy forefathers and their ancient 
sons as long as they remained among us. 
It is therefore not a little curious to find a 
race of worthy men still unconscious of the 
change in public feeling, and continuing to 
publish interminable lists of this and that, 
as if the rage for collections were as fresh 
as ever. 
Some recent lists of nurserymen and 
seedsmen aftbrd amusing examples of this. 
One grower of roses offers 607 sorts of that 
flower; another, 850; a potato salesman’s 
catalogue has 160 sorts; a Dahlia grower’s 
300 or 400; a Geranium grower’s as ma¬ 
ny ; a seedsman invites attention to his 38 
sorts of cabbage and 51 of peas! 
LIST OF PATENTS 
ISSUED FROM THE UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE 
For the week ending October 8, 1850. 
To David Anthony, Sen., of Spring Port, N. Y., 
for improvement in shanks of hay forks. 
To Wm. D. Beaumont, of Baltimore, Md., for 
compound for imparting a gloss to clothes. Ante¬ 
dated July 20,^1850. 
To George Burnham, of Philadelphia, Pa., for 
improvement in presses for copying letters. 
To Alinzor Clark, of Southfield, N. Y., for im¬ 
provement in hay forks. 
To David Eberly, of Strasburg, Pa., for im¬ 
provement in 5 eed planters. 
To G. S. Gardner, (assignor to G. S. Gardner 
(fe G. Rohr,) of Charlestown, Va., for improved 
seeding apparatus for a seed-planter. 
To Geo. Hart, of Dillsborough, Ind., for im¬ 
provement in mounting the cutters of a mowing 
machine. 
To Moses Hey, of Springfield, Pa., for improve¬ 
ment in machinery for doubling and twisting yarn. 
To Wm. H. Holt, of Hartford, Conn., for im¬ 
proved kettle for manufacturing comfits. 
To T. YV. Lane of Woodburn, Mass., for im¬ 
provement in gasometers. 
To John Lee, of Wellsville, Ohio, for improved 
eaves-trough and gutter machine. 
To Edmund Quincy, o? Lacon, Ill., for grain 
and maize harvester. 
To I\ M. Ray, of New York, N. Y. for im¬ 
proved vulcanized India rubber spring. 
To Russell Scarritt, of St. Louis, Mo., for im¬ 
provement in sofa bedsteads. 
To Eli F. Southward, of Wellfleet, Mass., for 
improved grummet strap. 
To O. Warner & C. S. Gaylord, of Gaylord’s 
Bridge, Conn., for improved spring grapple. 
To Nathan Washburn, of Worcester, Mass., 
for improvement in cast iron car wheels. 
To J. W. Webb, of Aurora, N. Y., (assignor to 
Benj. Gould,) for improvement in the adjustment 
of knives in straw cutters. 
To Samuel Whitmarsh, of Northampton, Mass., 
for improvement in portable bedsteads and sacking 
bottoms. 
To P. G. Woodside, of Philadelphia, Pa., for 
improvement in warm-air registers. 
To Avery Babbett, of Auburn, N. Y. for im¬ 
provement in loorns for weaving figured goods. 
MOLl^N METAL. 
M. CoRNE, in a paper submitted to the 
Paris Academy of Science, says: 
“ Having determined on investigating the 
question "whether the employment of liquid 
sulphurous acid for moistening the hands 
would produce a sensation of coldness, when 
they are immersed in the melted metal, I 
immersed my hands, previously moistened 
with sulphurous acid, in the metal lead, 
and experienced a sensation of decided cold. 
I repeated the experiment of immersing 
the hands in melted lead and infused cast 
iron. Before experimenting with the mel¬ 
ted iron I placed a stick previously moisten¬ 
ed with water, in the stream of liquid metal, 
and on withdrawing it found it to be almost 
j as wet as it was before; scarcely any of the 
moisture was evaporated. The moment a 
dry piece of wood was placed in contact 
with the heated metal, combustion took 
place. M. Covlet and I then dipped our 
hands into vessels .of the liquid metal, and 
passed our fingers several times backwards 
and forwards through a stream of metal 
flowing from the furnace, the heat from the 
radiation of the fused metal being at the 
same time almost unbearabk- We varied 
these experiments for upwards of two hours; 
and Madame Covlet, who assisted at these 
experiments, permitted her child, a girl of 
nine years of age, to dip her hands in a cru¬ 
cible of red hot metal with impunity^ We 
experimented on the melted iron, both with 
our hands quite dry, and also when moist¬ 
ened with water, alcohol, and ether. The 
same results were obtained as with melted 
lead, and each of us experienced a sensation 
of decided cold when employing sulphurous 
acid.” 
WHAT THE STEAM ENGINE DOES. 
It propels, it rows, it sculls, it screws, it 
warps, it tows, it elevates, it lowers, it lifts, 
it pumps, it drains, it irrigates, it draws, it 
pulls, it drives, it pushes, it carries, it brings, 
it scatters, it collects, it condenses, it extracts, 
it splits, it breaks, it confines, it plows, it 
threshes, it winnows, it washes, it grinds, it 
crushes, it sifts, it bolts, it mixes, it kneads, 
it moulds, it stamps, it punches, it beats, it 
presses, it picks, it hews, it cuts, it slits, it 
shaves, it saws, it planes, it turns, it bores, 
it mortises, it drifts, it heads, it blows, it 
forges, it hammers, it rasps, it files, it polish¬ 
es, it rivets, it brushes, it scratches, it cards,- 
it spins, it winds, it weaves, it shears, it 
coins, and—it Prints. 
Improvements in Seuaphines. —Messrs. 
Jones (fe Burdett, of Brattleboro’, Vt., have 
invented two new and useful improvements 
on Seraphines, for which they have taken 
measures to secure a patent. The improve¬ 
ment consists in combining the wind-chest 
with the foundation, having the elbows in¬ 
side, and the sounding board outside, be¬ 
low. This arrangement gives the instru¬ 
ment greater brilliancy and clearness of 
tone; for, by havmg the sounding board in¬ 
side, as in old instruments, the sound is 
greatly smothered, and of course inferior 
to the new arrangement 
339 I 
FAIR OF THE AMERICAN IN8 TITUTK , 
The annual exhibition of the American 
Institute is now open at Castle Garden,* 
New York. The papers speak of the dis¬ 
play as large, particularly in the mechanical 
department The Cattle Show, held last 
week, is said to have been the best for sev¬ 
eral years. We have received no regular 
report 
The Scientific American of the 19th inat., 
contains notices of various articles on exhi¬ 
bition at Castle Garden. We extract the 
following items from that print: 
Mc’Cormick’s Grain Reaper. — Con¬ 
spicuous among agricultural implements 
stands the Grain Reaper of C. H. McCor¬ 
mick, formerly of Virginia, but now of Chi¬ 
cago, Illinois. This reaper was patented 
quite a number of years ago, and several 
improvements have been added since. It 
was patented this year with -its improve¬ 
ments complete, in England. The machine 
exhibited here is to be forwarded to London, 
for the Great Industrial Exhibition next 
year, and after that affair terminates, it is 
to be presented to Prince Albert. 
The employment of these machines has 
become very common, especially among our 
Western farmers; no less than 1,800 ma¬ 
chines have been sold this year (1850.)— 
They are manufactured by^Mr. McCormick, 
at Chicago, Ill. 
Wood Planing Machines. — There are 
no less than five of these machines exhibit ¬ 
ed, viz., Woodworth’s, Allen’s, Woodbury’s, 
Norcross’, and a model of Robert Kittle’s, 
of Dansville, N. Y. 
We have not much to say about Placing 
Machines — all these have been exhibited 
at the Fair before, except Norcross’s and 
Kittle’s — Norcross’ was patented on the 
12th of last February; it employs rotary 
cutters. Mr. Norcross, who lives in Lowell, 
has got up pamphlets with great care, by . 
some lawyer whose researches into the num¬ 
ber of patents granted for planing machines, 
have been very laborious and extended 
Shingle Machine. — Amono- the good 
and useful machines is Wood’s Shingle Ma¬ 
chine, patented on the 8th of last January; 
it cleaves out the shingle, the block being 
fed into the cutter gate by a motion arbi¬ 
trary with the motion of the cutter. The 
feed table changes the angle of the block 
from side to side every stroke, to pre.senf, 
the block to get the right taper cut on uhe 
shingle. The cutting knife is moved up 
and down in a vertical sliding gate, and the 
block is fed in on a horizontal self-feeding 
table. Those who may wifeh to know about 
the price of this machine, (fee., we refer 
them to our advertising columns. 
American Cutlery.— Among the many 
things in the Rotunda, which attracted our. 
attention, was a splendid case of cutlery, 
manufactured by the Waterville Company, 
at Waterbury, Conn. It is but a few years 
since almost all our cutlery was imported, 
but now we not only supply ourselves 
with what might be termed good eno’igh 
articles for home consumption, but those ar¬ 
ticles rival, if not excel, any made abroad, 
and would vie with the productions of Shef¬ 
field, if sent to the Industrial Exhibition.-- 
Mr. F. G. Wheeler, No. 7 Gold st, N. York, 
is Agent. 
American Zinc.— Some splendid .-(am- 
ples of New Jersey Zinc, are exhibited. — 
The white oxide of zinc, for painting, :s a 
beautiful material, which, along with the 
manufacture of the metal, must make the 
Jersey mines very valuable both to the own¬ 
ers and our country. This oxide mixes with 
oil to make various colored paints. It is but 
a week since we saw an extract from a 
French paper, stating that this paint should 
be used for all kinds ©f painiiu g. 
Albany Argillo.— The Albany Argillo 
Works display some of the most beautiful 
specimens of this beautiful manufacture 
that we have ever seen; they rival the nat¬ 
ural stone in every respect. For door knobs 
they are beautiful, and also for table slabs. 
No one visiting the Fair should neglect to 
examine this beautiful material. 
[We noticed excellent specimens of Alba - 
ny Argillo at the recent State Fair.] 
A GIGANTIC CHIMNEY. 
Thousands of people within ten or a doz¬ 
en miles of Boston, have observed, for a 
few weeks past, the gradual rising of an im¬ 
mense chimney from among a group of 
smaller ones, at the New England Glass 
Company’s Factory, at East Cambridge, ~ 
The w’ork has now reached its contempla¬ 
ted altitude, and is undoubtedly, the loftiest 
structure of the kind in the United States, 
being ten feet higher than the Bunker Hill 
Monument. Its form is octagon, and erect¬ 
ed upon a massive granite foundation, 36 
feet in diameter. Its height is 230 feet— 
There is a chimney within a chimney, clos- 
: ing at the top, forming a central flue the 
entire distance of 7 feet in diameter. Thro’ 
the one gigantic cone, all the smoke from 
the several furnaces of the establishment 
may be carried, which will render the group 
of smaller ones useless, and they will there¬ 
fore be demolished. By this grand project 
East Cambridge will be relieved entirely cf 
the smoke from the Glass Houses. 
