1 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-THURSMY, JANUARY 16, 1851 
VOLUME 1 
below them, and may in some cases be with¬ 
held by the electrical condition of the air, 
which is not compatible with that state of 
things, 
T .—Now father if you are going into the 
mysteries, I’m off. You may as well talk 
to me of the “ Rochester Knockings,” I 
wish you good night, , 
LETTER FROM NORTHERN ONEIDA. 
Dairy Fanning and Farmers—Management of Grain 
and Grass Lands—The Crops—The village of 
Boonville: its Business and Prospects, etc., etc. 
Boonville is one of the northern tier of 
towns in Oneida county, and it. is not a score 
of years since it was almost an uninhabited 
wilderness, though now it shows such tine 
farms, so many good cows, and the best of 
dairy products. Its butter and cheese are 
of excellent quality, much attention be¬ 
ing given to their manufacture. Many of 
the fanners keep from 40 to 80 cows each, 
and there has been made in the height of 
the grazing season, cheeses weighing over 
270 lbs., which have sold at home for $8 
per hundred—excelling, to my knowledge, 
in color, richness, size and flavor, any in the 
New York, Boston, or Philadelphia markets. 
Their butter also commands the highest 
prices. 
The most of our dairy farmers were for¬ 
merly from Herkimer county, and arc men 
of industry and intelligence, full of the spir¬ 
it of enterprise and improvement, The 
Black River canal has done much for our 
county and neighborhood—the products 
and business of the town having quadru¬ 
pled within the last 15 years. When I 
came here, 13 years ago, it looked to me 
like one of the hardest places in Christen¬ 
dom to make a living, but we have found 
that by proper culture and management, 
we can do as well here as in other places. 
Owing to the fact that the snow general¬ 
ly comes before the ground freezes, and re- 
| mains until late in the 
WINTER EVENINGS AT HOME.-(NO. 1.) 
Thomas. —Pa, where do the snows come 
from ? 
Father. —From the clouds, my son, I 
suppose. 
T. —Yes, I know that; but during a long, 
cold storm, out of the north, I don’t readily 
see how clouds, which you have told me are 
the vapor of water, are produced in very 
cold weather. 
F. —Storms of all kinds, and at all sea¬ 
sons, it has lately been settled, by bringing 
together a long series of observations, move 
in great circles, and often of muqh less width 
than is generally supposed; therefore a storm 
at this place coming from the north, at Lake 
Superior comes from the north-west, on the 
Mississippi from the west, and at Texas from 
the south-west or south, bringing the vapors 
of a warm climate, and what is snow here 
may be rain there. 
T. —Very well, father; but from here to 
Lake Superior is a thousand miles; why 
don’t all those warm vapors become frozen 
and fall down at once, or long before they 
get here ?—as I presume you will not pre¬ 
tend that an individual snow-flake created 
at that point, is blown all the way here. 
F. —By no means. I suppose the chrys- 
tals, (for such they are if you examine them) 
called flakes, are not formed a very great 
distance from where they fall; indeed from 
the angle at which they descend, and the 
known height of the clouds, it is quite cer¬ 
tain. After the vapor is condensed into 
flakes, it becomes much heavier than the 
air, and cannot remain a great while sus¬ 
pended. I therefore suppose the clouds are 
wholly in a state of vapor above the region 
of freezing, and as they become condensed 
and descend, they meet with cold currents 
of air and are frozen. 
T. —Why, how is that? Is it not a fact 
that the higher we ascend in the atmos¬ 
phere, the colder it is. The balloon folks 
say they find it so, and at a certain height 
on the mountains, there is the line of per¬ 
petual snow, summer and winter. 
F. —Yes, but that is a height from the 
surface of the sea of three or four miles— 
a height that clouds and vapor never assume 
in level countries. 
T. —Does the cold begin on the surface 
first, or in the air, and can it be excessively 
cold on the surface, and above the freezing 
point in the higher regions of the clouds ? 
F. —Yes; I suppose on a change of tem¬ 
perature, it is the lower and denser part of 
the atmosphere that cools first, and strata of 
cold air falls and rests upon the surface, 
while the warmer part is displaced, and as¬ 
cends, obeying the laws of gravitation; and 
therefore the upper strata may be in a state 
of vapor, while the lower portion in contact 
with the cold currents are congealed into snow 
T. —As vapor, which I understand to be 
water evaporated into the air, is not percepti¬ 
ble near the surface, what change does it un¬ 
dergo to become clouds and visible to the eye ? 
F. —When it arrives at the higher regions^ 
the air is not capable of holding it in solu¬ 
tion ; it becomes condensed like the steam 
from an engine, and nearer the state of wa¬ 
ter, and therefore visible. 
T. —Yes, but why don’t it in that case, 
fall at once in rain, the moment it is con¬ 
densed and rendered heavier than the air ? 
F .— Well, I guess you had better go to 
bed; I want to read my paper. 
T .—No, no, father—not yet. You have 
some idea on the subject. I have often 
thought why the rain did not fall, when the 
clouds looked black and heavy, and ran swift 
and low. 
F. —They do constantly fall, and are dis¬ 
solved by the dry and absorbing currents 
mer, than a great field whose products will 
barely pay the expenses of their gathering. 
But, says the Working Farmer, “those 
who have neither tried nor investigated the 
truths of high farming, assert that ‘ it costs 
too much.’ Those who have tried it know 
better : the excess of profits are always 
many times greater than the expenses.”— 
And why should the farming community 
be so slow to adopt the improvements made 
practicable by science and experiment ; 
while, in every other business, men are on 
the alert for all discoveries which promise 
their advantage, and earnest to make use of 
every light which science may afford them ? 
The manufacturer is prompt to adopt the 
best machinery, the merchant to avail him¬ 
self of every opening market and every fa¬ 
cility of communication — and professional 
men are on the look-out for the ways and 
means of progress. This spirit is already 
beginning to animate the farmer, and we 
hope to see the day when, with careful, ear¬ 
nest attention, he will examine and adopt the 
best and most thorough methods of farming. 
To close this article we will give an ac¬ 
count of an experiment made by Professor 
Mapes, who is doing much for the im¬ 
provement of agriculture by reducing sci¬ 
ence to practice on his farm near New York 
city. He says :—“We last year hired a 
piece of ground in our own neighborhood, 
which was worn out and had refused corn. 
Last winter we made an analysis of the soil, 
and found it short of chlorine, phosphate of 
iime, soda, potash, and ammoniacal matter 
We manured it this spring with a compost 
costing one dollar and thirty-one cents per 
acre. The chlorine and soda was supplied 
by common salt, the phosphate of lime, 
potash and ammoniacal matter by Peruvian 
guano, and the volatile matters of the com¬ 
post retained by the use of charcoal dust 
and plaster of Paris. We have now a crop 
of corn standing on this land which will 
yield certainly more than fifty bushels of 
shelled corn per acre, and after measuring 
we hope to be able to report a much lar¬ 
ger crop, and that too without the proper 
preparation of the ground by sub-soil plow¬ 
ing, &c., as on our own farm.” 
Such we are assured, will be the results 
of thorough and scientific culture. Knowl¬ 
edge, learning, research, enterprize, labor 
and capital can find a happy and profitable 
field of employment in the cultivation of 
our pleasant and beautiful country. 
A WEEKLY JOURNAL, DEVOTED TO 
Agriculture, Horticulture, Mechanic Arts and Sci¬ 
ence, Education, Rural and Domestic Economy, 
General Intelligence, the Markets, &c., &c. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOOBE, 
ASSISTED BY 
J. H. BIXBY, L. WETHER ELL, and H. C. WHITE. 
Contributor* and Correspondents: 
L. B. Lanoworthy* Chester Dewey, ll. d., 
William Garbutt, J. Clement, 
8. P. Chapman, W. Wallace Shaw, 
David Ely. t R. G. Pardee, 
Myron Adamh, ; Samuel Moulson. 
G, W. Marshall,’!*. J as. H. Watts, 
F. W. Lay, W. K. Wyckopp, 
T. E. Wetkokf, W. H. Bristol, 
R. B. Warren, W. D. Allis, 
Archibald Stone, L. D. Whiting. 
And numerous others—practical, scientific, and literary 
writers—whose names are necessarily omitted. 
K 3 F For Terms, &.C., see last page. ^TJ 
PREPARATION OF FUEL. 
any thing but what every man of a family 
might and ought to know, but to stir up 
their minds by way of remembrance. 
I have observed a great error in the prac¬ 
tice of many farmers as to the time and 
manner of preparing fuel. Some are in the 
habit of drawing their wood to the door, 
sled-length, in the winter season, — and 
then fitting it for the stove or fire-place as 
it is wanted; others chop and cord in the 
woods, and then draw a load at a time.— 
There are others, again, who never take the 
trouble to make any preparation, only as 
they are driven to it from necessity; hence 
they chop and draw their wood by the load 
the year round, never having a fire fit to 
cook a meal of victuals by, and if perchance 
their wives have more order and enterprise 
than themselves, they must feel very un¬ 
pleasantly — particularly if the husband 
complains at the tabic that the bread is net 
baked, or that the steak is raw. The farm¬ 
er who pursues this course ought not to com¬ 
plain if his wife scolds a little now and then. 
I think this way of doing business is not 
only a waste of time, but also a waste of fuel, 
for it will take more green wood to make a 
poor tire than it will of dry wood to make 
a good one. I would therefore suggest the 
propriety of the farmer’s improving the 
sleighing in winter to draw sufficient wood 
to his door to last the family one year, and 
then, in the spring when the frost is going- 
out of the timber, prepare it for use. It is 
well to cord the wood, when fitted for the 
stove, in your wood-house, for it is worth 
more seasoned under cover, than when ex¬ 
posed to the storm; or if you have no wood- 
house it may be covered with boards, or it 
may be corded so that top sticks will form 
a kind of roof. 
By adopting the above plan the farmer 
will always have a good supply of dry wood 
on hand;—all this can be done in the win¬ 
ter and spring when the farmer has but lit¬ 
tle else that he can do to advantage, and 
one important duty will be performed when 
his time is worth but little. All must see 
that for a farmer whose neglect makes it 
necessary for him to unhitch his team from 
his plow, or go, or send a hand, from the 
corn, hay or harvest field for a load of wood, 
is practicing bad economy, and he need not 
wonder why his farming business drags, or 
that he is behind his neighbor who has ta¬ 
ken the precaution to prepare all this when 
he could do but little else. 
Neither should he complain if he finds 
himself obliged to get up his team and go 
to the woods for a load of fuel in the midst 
of rain and mud, or that he has to break 
roads through deep snow to procure wood 
to keep his tfife and children from suffering 
with the cold. We said he ought not to 
complain, for all this is but the bitter fruit 
of his own neglect, and want of energy. 
Mechanics and others, who depend on 
buying, will find it to their advantage to 
purchase their wood in such quantities, and 
at such times as will give ihera a good sup¬ 
ply of dry wood on hand at all seasons,— 
Much more might be said upon this subject 
but I forbear. J. Sibley. 
Eagle Harbor, Jan. 1,1851. 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT. 
IS HIGH FARMING PROFITABLE ? 
Could we “ start to the stirring music of 
profit the brisk march of progress and im¬ 
provement” in the agricultural interests of 
our Nation, one great object at which we 
aim would begin to be accomplished. It is 
but partially understood that there is both 
ncod and opportunity for the exercise of 
the best mental faculties—for the employ¬ 
ment of the deepest knowledge which a 
thorough education bestows—for the use of 
the highest qualifications of the sound, prac¬ 
tical, common.-sense members of community, 
in the cultivation and management of as 
simple a matter as a farm of an hundred 
acres. Let it be made evident—let it be 
brought to bear on the minds of the people, 
that to such men, the farmer’s life is one 
worthy of their highest ambition, and one of 
the most pleasant in pursuit and profitable 
in result; and we should see such an ad¬ 
vancement in the wealth and prosperity of our 
country as nothing beside could accomplish. 
If high farming is profitable it will com¬ 
mend itself at once to the attention of busi¬ 
ness men. If thorough, scientific manage¬ 
ment of the farm is sure to bring in fair re¬ 
munerative returns, then thorough, scientific 
men will engage in farming, and those who 
follow it already, will give still closer atten¬ 
tion to the practice of the best modes of 
cultivation. ✓ The exhausting process of ta¬ 
king continually from the soil without re¬ 
turn proves poor policy in its progress, and 
ruinous in the end — as, for instance, the 
planters of Eastern Virginia, many of whom 
were compelled to abandon their farms after 
sinking all their capital. In this and the 
adjacent states the average product, per 
acre, is diminishing, instead of increasing, 
as it should do, and would do, if all followed 
the practice of a few. 
High farming has been found profitable 
in England and on the Continent, and in 
this country—and wherever it it has been 
practiced. Men in this State and others, 
have raised from fifty to sixty bushels of 
wheat per acre, and more than one hundred 
bushels of shelled corn on the same amount 
of land, without an increase of expense 
above that of the course commonly pursued, 
in any comparison with the increased pro¬ 
duct, Other crops, and stock, <fcc., have paid 
equally well for liberal investments of labor, 
knowledge, and capital in their production. 
The error of the day in practical Agri¬ 
culture is the shallow expansion of our la¬ 
bor and capital, instead of its concentration. 
Instead of doing whatever is done in the 
most thorough manner—giving full quan¬ 
tities of manure and the best care and 
culture — we slightingly attempt a great 
deal, to accomplish in fact but little. Double 
the capital could be profitably employed in 
cultivating five acres, which is now expended 
on twenty, and with five times the profit 
from the smallest surface. “ A little field 
well tilled” is more satisfactory to the eye, 
and remunerating to the labor of the far¬ 
sprmg, we cannot 
raise much winter wheat, but have as good 
spring wheat as can be desired. Oats are 
generally as stout as they can stand—I have 
seen them 6 and 7 feet high, producing 
from 60 to 90 bushels, per acre. This is 
the crop we usually raise for sale, when fit¬ 
ting a field for meadow, if of any size.— 
Some manage the matter in this way:— 
Taking a lot which has never been plowed 
they level the knolls and harrow it well, and 
then plow it—turning it over nicely, then 
manure it highly, and seed down with the 
first crop. By so doing, they get their 
meadow lands smooth in quick time, and 
when it is thus fitted, it does not soon need 
re-seeding. 
In raising spring wheat, as a general rule, 
we make use of old land on which corn or 
potatoes were grown the year before—plow¬ 
ing it in the fall and sowing as soon as the 
snow is gone in the spring; which is from 
the middle to the last of May. We now 
raise the new Black Sea wheat—sowing a 
bushel or so to the acre, which yields from 
18 to 25 bushels in return. It is very hard 
grain to thresh, particularly with the flail 
The oat crop, this year was very heavy. 
Corn was good, though there is not much 
raised from the fact that the land is gener¬ 
ally too wet, and best adapted to grass.— 
Potatoes have suffered from the rot, though 
on sandy soils they produce fair crops. 
The village of Boonville which has grown 
up, almost within the past two years, is sit¬ 
uated on the plank road leading to Water- 
town and Sackett’s Harbor, 30 miles from 
Utica, and 22 miles from Rome in a north¬ 
erly direction. It has 106 dwellings; 3 
, churches; 15 stores; 2 iron foundries; 2 
tin and sheet iron manufactories; 3 black¬ 
smith, 2 harness, and 2 cabinet shops; 3 
storage and forwarding houses; a woolen, 
and a leather factory; 4 machine shops, a 
steam saw-mill, a grist mill, &c., &e., and 
will soon be the third village in the county. 
I have taken various agricultural papers 
during the last 12 years, from old Judge 
Buel’s journal to the Rural New-Yorker, 
and I think the latter the best and cheapest 
yet. M. P. Jackson. 
J Boonville, Oneida Co., N. Y., December, 1859. 
THE SWEET POTATO. 
Eds. Rural New-Yorker: —There are 
many farmers who esteem the sweet potato 
a great luxury, and are in the habit of buy¬ 
ing a bushel or two, at $1,50 to $2,00 per 
bushel, not knowing that they can cultivate 
this delicious root with as little care and as 
much certainty as they can grow a cabbage. 
I have been cultivating them for two sea¬ 
sons and can keep them through the winter 
as well as any other potato—they are im¬ 
proved by keeping. I have as fine potatoes 
of this kind now for my table as I ever saw, 
and, if you are fond of the article, some 
time in the course of the winter when I am 
coming to your city, I will give you a taste. 
’Tis true, they require more care in pack¬ 
ing arid a warm dry location, to insure their 
coming out sound in the spring. 
If you think proper to notice this com¬ 
munication in the Rural, and any of your 
readers feel interested in the cultivation of 
the sweet potato, I will cheerfully give what 
little knowledge I possess in relation to its 
culture, storing, &c. j. w. b. 
Went Macedon, Wayne Co., N. Y. 
Remarks. —The above is contrary, we believe, 
to the general opinion on this subject. They are 
a delicious article, and we should be glad to receive 
the information proposed bv our correspondent— 
[Eds. 
