MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY JOURNAL. 
BUTTER FROM ONE COW FOR A YEAR. 
Mr. Editor: —Having had the care and 
management of the milk of one cow for the 
past season. I thought that I would employ 
a leisure hour in giving you a statement of 
my success in butter making, which if you 
consider worthy of publication might fill an 
unoccupied corner in the Rural New- 
Yorker. 
The first churning I made was on the 
third day of May, 1850, and the last churn¬ 
ing on the 22d of April, 1851, and the but¬ 
ter that was made at each churning during 
the time above mentioned was carefully 
weighed and an account kept of it, which 
on adding up, I find gives the gratifying 
result of 318 lbs. 3 ozs., besides furnishing I 
all the cream necessary to supply a small 
family. That amount of butter made from 
one cow within the time stated, seems to 
me to be very large and must far exceed 
the general average. 
The cow run in pasture during the sea¬ 
son of grass, while I had the care of her 
milk, and no extra food was given to her 
until in October, when she was fed with a 
few pumpkins, and still later, when the pas¬ 
ture failed, six quarts of shorts per day was 
fed to her and continued through the win¬ 
ter, together with good clover hay and corn 
stalks. I mention the manner she was fed 
least it might be tlio’t that she was very 
high fed for the purpose of obtaining an un¬ 
usual quantity of butter which certainly 
was not the case. 
I do not make this statement from a vain 
idea that I have excelled all others in but¬ 
ter making, but simply to make known what 
I have done in that way, hoping that it may 
call out statements from others who have 
done as well or better, and thereby show 
the great value of some cows—the profits 
of the dairy being the criterion of valua¬ 
tion. Elizabeth. 
Galen, June 2, 1651. • 
WHERE DOES THE POTASH COME FROM? 
“Where does the Potash come from? The 
coal does not contain it, as I understand.” “ Pot¬ 
assium,” says another, “ cannot be found by any 
test in the green wood, whicli by the act of burn¬ 
ing freely produces it.”—“The ashes of charcoal, 
(says the same,) contain a mere trace of potash.” 
—“ Jt is produced only when wood is burned in the 
open air.”— Winter Evenings at Home No. 8, in 
Rural Neic- Yorker. 
If this is true, and I am not prepared to 
controvert it, several questions arise, beside 
the one above. And, 1st —Docs it not overset 
all our theories about the action of ma¬ 
nures, and the food of plants? If potash 
does not exist in woody fibre, what can be 
its use in the soil ? Does it form any part 
of the food of the plant? 2d,—Does it not 
also oversetour theory of simple substances ? 
We have been in the habit of considering 
potassium a simple substance. But if it 
cannot be detected till after burning, will it 
not follow, that it is a compound, produced 
by the act of combustion ? 3d,—If-this be 
true, will it not tend to allay our fears in 
regard to the exhaustion of a soil ? If pot¬ 
ash is manufactured by the destruction of 
vegetable matter, may not other substances 
also, provided the plant be furnished with 
something to stimulate its growth ? 
Elm, maple, ash, &c., yield, when burned 
in the open air, large quantities of ashes. — 
Some large trees yield several bushels 
each; sufficient to make (sc.) five, ten, or 
fifteen pounds of potash. The roots of the 
maple are not remarkable for running, or 
spreading, and it does not seem possible 
that the portion of earth through which 
they extend, could ever have contained the 
amount of potash that is found in the ashes 
of the tree. Does not this fact, if it be one, 
go to show that the potash contained in 
vegetable matter is not wholly derived from 
the soil? ' h. 
Down East, May, 1651. 
Sulphate of Ammonia as Manure.— 
A remarkable fact in regard to the opera¬ 
tion of this substance, is stated in a late 
English work. It was used as a top-dres¬ 
sing for grass land at the rate of two hun¬ 
dred pounds per acre. Its effects on the 
growth of grass were highly favorable; 
but its effects on the quality of the herbage 
were such that the dairy farmer is cau¬ 
tioned against the use of the substance on 
pasture land. It is stated to flavor the 
milk in such a way that it cannot be used; 
that the cream cracks, and will not mix 
with tea, and that the butter and butter¬ 
milk are disagreeably flavored.— Alb. Cult. 
Paving Barn- Yards. —If your yards 
have an open, loose soil, paving or flagging 
laid on a coating of clay, will prevent the 
waste of the liquids by soaking into the 
ground. 
NEW YORK FARMING. 
Messrs. Editors: —While in the State 
of New York I fell in company with a num¬ 
ber of good farmers, so I think at least, and 
will select the farms of Mr. Craig, a wheat 
grower; Mr. Delong, a stock grower, and 
Mr. Pratt who farmed to suit my own no¬ 
tion and raised a little of all kinds of pro¬ 
duce. 
Mr. C. gave his attention mostly to wheat, 
corn and clover. Ilis farm is mostly of that 
kind of soil “ white-oak lands”—a sandy 
clay, or clay loam soil. His first purchase 
was 90 acres of land in a miserable state of 
cultivation, the fences (what there were,) 
were in a zig-zag, pitchpole condition, cattle 
and hogs were walking over it, while rails 
and bars were lying about in the muddy 
clay. There wore no signs of a garden of 
course, except that here and there was a 
lonely barpost, and a mutilated row of cur¬ 
rant bushes, backed by a bunch of tanzy 
—appearing to say, here is the garden. 
Mr. C. bought this land in the year ’34, 
of a systemless, hurrying, noisy, in-debt far¬ 
mer, who supposed too that there was no 
more of the earth good for any thing below 
two or three inches of the “top,” never 
seeded down, “never could afford it;” and 
as friend C. described, it looked barren and 
sickly enough 16 years ago. But never 
daunted, our purchaser took up an old 
spade “ which was lying upon the ash heap” 
and dug down into the hard earth in vari¬ 
ous places and found there was wheat there 
yet. Suffice to say, he bought it, and bo’t 
it cheap too, ($1,260) but was obliged to 
mortgage it for $300 of the purchase mo¬ 
ney ; $200 he loaned to buy an addition to 
his team, Seed to sow, and implements to 
work with. Some of his neighbors to place 
thorns in his pillow, told him the farm was 
worn out, and would “never support his 
family, much more pay his debts.” But 
Mr. C. though poor, was honest, and pos¬ 
sessed a courage bump of his own, temper¬ 
ed with kindness and forbearance—he did 
up his own thinking. 
The first work done was to gather up the 
muddy rails and enclose all his plow land 
with one good fence, and then with two 
yoke of oxen he commenced plowing beam 
deep, and continued to throw up the crumb¬ 
ling earth till forty acres were plowed, in¬ 
cluding some ten acres of winter killed 
wheat, put in the fall before by the occu¬ 
pant of the farm. When sowing time came 
he sowed, his fallow to wheat, and ten acres 
of it the following winter to clover seed, and 
in April, 15 bushels of Spring-port plaster 
on the ten acres sowed to clover—being the 
first clover or plaster ever applied to the 
land. Mr. C. from the 40 acres harvested 
1,100 and some odd bushels of fine wheat. 
“ A handsomer field I never saw,” was his 
remark to me, “ I have almost worshipped 
that growing crop of wheat for it was my 
salvation from debt.” 
In a year or two he had deeply plowed 
and clovered his farm throughout, and was 
enabled to plow in a crop of it for manure year. 
(If we western farmers would do so, every 
our land would produce the finest quality 
of wheat.) After replacing his division 
fences he would feed off his fallows, and by 
the way, enrich his ground by turning in a 
flock of sheep. (An excellent, thing on a 
naked fallow those busy animals; an east¬ 
ern wheat grower would hardly be without 
them. Turnips should be sowed for them, 
and it is better than a naked fallow.) Mr. 
C. mowed 15 acres of his clover yearly for 
hay, and then cut it again in the fall for the 
seed. His common yield of cleaned clover 
seed from an acre was from 2-J- to 5 bushels 
—he never has sold his clover seed for less 
than $5 and had sold it as high as $12 per 
bushel. From a surplus of wheat, clover 
seed, and corn, Mr. C. was soon free from 
debt and able to purchase more land, ma¬ 
king his farm now to contain 220 acres, and 
mostly a good wheat soil. He has no wish 
to monopolize God’s free gift any farther 
for he says, “ It’s all the land I want” 
In the way of preparing his ground for 
wheat Mr. C. plants as much ground to corn 
as he and his two sons can properly tend 
—he is one of my own kind of men; a la- 
j boring man—putting his manure on the 
| ground planted, breaking up each year for 
| corn such ground as has lain longest in 
i grass, sows from 40 to 60 acres of wheat a 
I year, and as a general thing he summer 
| fallows, and the land planted to corn the 
last year makes up a part of his summer 
fallow and the remainder is clover plowed 
under, often raising a greater crop of wheat 
on his corn fallow, but is more apt to rust 
in bad seasons for wheat. He had extra¬ 
ordinary luck one year—raising over 45 
bushels to the acre on a piece of .clover 
meadow turned over after mowing, then 
manured and sown to wheat in September. 
He had sown all kinds of wheat, but tho’t 
the white flint the best—the Souels wheat 
1 he should prefer was it not for the loss— 
i shells much in gathering. 
He sows no grass seed but clover—his 
! hay crop, principally that kind of grass and 
i all his pasture clover allowing it to get up, 
I most of it in blow, before feeding it. He 
! thinks clover to be indispensable on a wheat 
1 growing farm—the use of plaster causes it 
i to grow luxuriously and after a year or two 
! it brings in white clover, and his oldest pas¬ 
ture fields would be white with it in raid- 
summer, and in travelling in it some sea¬ 
sons in September the seed would be so 
abundant as to lodge in his shoes. (Where 
is there any country more natural to white 
clover than our prables and openings.) His 
land is free from foul weeds except a few | 
acres of what he called pigeon weed; this i 
land he plows in the fall generally and sows : 
it to spring grain. 
Like all other countries of great agricul¬ 
tural worth, the soil of Western New York 
is not all properly a wheat soil, nor is it best 
that it should be. It is certainly no disad- j 
vantage to have a fair proportion of a coun- ; 
try better fitted for grass, though the far¬ 
mers there, as well as here, west, are not 
always guided by the best of judgment in 
the matter of soil. If a farmer chooses to 
grow wheat he should in the first place 
select a wheat soil and this is a much nicer 
thing to do than every land buyer is aware. 
If selected right and he a farmer, he can 
soon arrive at remunerating profits, and like 
Mr. C. to independence. But if a farmer 
who can only think of raising wheat, is 
placed on a farm Fetter for growing stock, 
he is where some other man ought to be, 
but wheat growing is his taste. He has read 
some where in Liebig perhaps (ought to read 
it before) that it requires other properties 
than are found in his soil to produce good 
grains of wheat. It is lacking in lime, sand, 
phosphates and the like, and its primitive 
formation is by no means right. What does 
he do; sell it and look for a wheat farm 
where nature would assist him a hundred 
fold in labor and profit; he does no such 
thing but assumes the task of making the 
earth (as far as his farm is concerned) over 
again and force wheat to grow by adding 
to it these delinquent drugs—a hopeless 
task indeed—to all such farmers “ book 
farming” is an injury. 
Mr. Delany had in an early day selected 
a farm in Western New York suited to his 
favorite business—stock growing —but I 
have not room to give you a description of 
it now, but will some future day, also the 
farm of Mr. Pratt, and give you some of his 
best rules for rotation of crops; and how he 
managed to get wealthy on 120 acres of 
land. — W., in Prairie Farmer. 
POULTRY. 
There seems to be no branch of domes¬ 
tic economy less understood than profitably 
raising poultry. When we say profitably 
we do not speak of their value in dollars 
and cents, for we hold that every dwelling, 
however humble or splendid it may be, 
should have a few chickens around them; 
for there are times in almost every family, 
both in sickness and health, when money 
cannot buy the little luxuries that chickens 
give us. What profit is there in keeping 
fifty or a hundred hens without a corres¬ 
ponding supply of eggs? Most people 
think that chickens must pick their own 
living, and yield a good supply of eggs in 
the bargain, but we have found that chick¬ 
ens forced tp roam for their daily food, have 
little time or inclination to lay; and those 
who expect a good supply of eggs without 
generous feed, may as well plant then- 
choice vegetable seeds in a sand bank, and 
look for tender, delicious vegetables. 
We have had some little experience in 
the “ henery,” and have found a great secret 
in getting a supply of eggs through the 
whole season, but not in driving the hens 
uphill, or in feeding them exclusively on 
gravel, or in supplying them with chalk nest 
eggs. The whole secret consists in giving 
them plenty of food, grain and flesh; any 
of the grains will answer, as the chicken’s 
mill is very convenient. For six or eight 
months in the year the chickens will supply 
themselves with animal food, in the shape 
of insects, but the rest of the time feed 
them regularly with flesh as well as corn. 
Boiled potatoes is an excellent food for 
fowls, but with it they want grain of some 
kind, and flesh also. In our long, hot sum¬ 
mers, poultry are inclined to become lousy; 
but if clean, good ashes are placed conven¬ 
ient to the hen-house, the hens will dust 
themselves in them until the vermin disap¬ 
pear. Nature is their teacher, and hers is 
an unerring guide. A good shelter should 
be provided for the chickens to roost under; 
the manure of chickens, properly saved, 
will repay all expenses of feeding. It is a 
great error to crowd too many chickens to¬ 
gether. 
We know nothing of the patent chicken¬ 
hatching machines, but we know that fifty 
hens will lay more eggs and raise more 
chickens upon one lot or enclosure, than 
will one hundred. They do not flourish in 
a crowded state, neither will hens lay as 
well when great numbers are together. A 
hen is a right prudish old lady, and affects 
great modesty in selecting her nest, and 
: laying her eggs, always taking a quiet, sly 
place, when it can be found. We say then 
I to our readers, keep no more fowls than you 
. can, and will feed well. Provide good shel- 
i ter for them, save all the manure, and your 
| gardens will pay in their increased produc- 
' tiveness, for all your culture of chickens, and 
then when beef resembles sole leather, and 
i bacon becomes stale, young chickens and 
i fresh eggs will prove a luxury indeed.— 
1 Soil of the South. 
SAVINGS ON A FARM. 
Many a Mickle makes a Muckle. —By 
observing this rule it is that a farmer suc¬ 
ceeds. He economises time—every hour 
is devoted to some useful labor,— time with 
him is money. He has work for rainy days, 
that fair weather may all be occupied out 
of doors. He spends but few holidays.— 
Frugality is his watchword —but not mean¬ 
ness. 
Between Boeings.-— This used to be a 
comparative leisure time, but it is not so now. 
If the farmer is wide awake—as most farm¬ 
ers are, now-a-days—he will find a plenty 
of profitable labor in the way of improve¬ 
ments, and he will manage it so as to have 
all hands employed in accomplishing some¬ 
thing useful. 
Young Pigs. —Have an eye to these, when 
they first begin to eat the slops from the 
dairy. Sour milk is apt to make them 
scour, and the complaint is often fatal to 
them. If they live, their growth is stopped, 
and all that they eat does them no good. 
I know of no remedy for this disease, and 
would, therefore, advise to use due care to 
prevent it. Let them for a time have sweet 
skim milk, corn, and a free range in a pas¬ 
ture if possible, and wean them gradually. 
Bees. —Watch your hives—keep their 
houses clean —not only the moth, but pis¬ 
mires are wont to make their nests in bee- 
houses. These suspended by iron rods are 
most secure from insects, but for want of 
these, place the legs of the bee-stands in 
old tin pans, filled with water. This will 
keep the hives free from all creeping insects. 
Agricultural Papers. —Do you take one 
and read it? Uudoubtedly you are not so 
foolish as to give implicit belief to all that 
you read in the papers, just because it is in 
print, but exercise your own judgment upon 
what you read, whether it is right or wrong, 
and profitable to be followed or otherwise. 
Neither are you so wise in your own es¬ 
teem, as to reject as nonsense all that oth¬ 
ers contribute of their experience to the 
farmer’s paper. You may be a better far¬ 
mer than he who writes for the papers, but 
then remember that the sparrow may 
sometimes see that which escapes the eye 
of the eagle. The hints thrown out in a 
good agricultural journal, are often very 
suggestive to a man whose faculties are 
wide awake, and will lead him to profitable 
reflection, if not action—and this reflection 
this exercise of the mind, is all important 
to a man in the line of his occupation, so as 
put him on the pursuit of higher attain¬ 
ments in it, and to keep him from rusting- 
out. Read, therefore, the farmer’s paper 
—reflect upon what you read and inward¬ 
ly digest, until your mind, like your body, 
is capable of accomplishing the intensest 
labor. 
H0EIN GC0RN. 
My practice is when I enter the field for 
the first hoeing to provide myself with a 
shovel plow, passing it through the field 
twice in each row, both ways. This leaves 
the ground very mellow, and in excellent 
condition for the first hoeing. I consider 
it the best way to suffer no weeds to be 
buried in the hills, but have them all care¬ 
fully pulled out, and if the earth about the 
corn pants should be baked, I have it re¬ 
placed with new earth that is mellow. On 
the second hoeing, it’s common among far¬ 
mers, those that have a cultivator—and 
every farmer should have one or a small 
harrow, to run it through the corn field 
at least once in each row, each way. This 
will have a tendency to keep the soil loose 
and free from weeds, which will generally 
be done by two dressings at d thinnings, 
leaving the plants the right number in 
each hill. 
The practice of plowing among corn for 
the last dressing, and making large hills, is 
justly getting out of repute with some of 
the farmers of the west—and for this rea¬ 
son : it is evident that the plow cuts and 
bruises the roots of the plants and turns 
them up to the heat of the sun, thus render¬ 
ing the crop more liable to suffer by the 
drought 
The first dressing should be performed 
as soon as the size of the plant will permit; 
the last ought to be performed before the 
corn begins to tassel. A slight earthing is 
beneficial, provided the earth is scraped 
from the surface, and the sod manure not 
exposed to the rays of a July sun.— Mich. 
Farmer. 
ANTHRACITE COAL ASHES. 
Prof. Norton of Yale College, says 
that by careful analysis there are in every 
100 lbs. of anthracite coal ashes from 4 to 
8 lbs. of valuable inorganic material, of a 
nature suitable for adding to any soil re¬ 
quiring manures. This is the perfectly 
pure ash; as we ordinarily find it, there is 
mixed a greater or less proportion of ash 
from the wood charcoal used in kindling 
the fires. There is without doubt enough 
of this in all ordinary cases, to add consid¬ 
erably to the richness of the ashes. But 
even if we take them in their pure state as 
represented by the above analysis, we can 
see that they are well worth collecting, and 
that when applied in considerable quantity 
they produce a decided effect— Sci. Am. 
CHEAP WASH FOR COTTAGES. 
For the outside of wooden cottages, 
barns, outbuildings, fences, <fcc., where 
economy is important, the following wash 
is recommended: 
Take a clean barrel that will hold water, 
Put in it half a bushel of fresh quicklime, 
and slake it by pouring over it boiling wa¬ 
ter sufficient to cover it 4 or 5 inches deep, 
and stirring it till slaked. 
When quite slaked dissolve in water, and 
add two lbs. of sulphate of zinc, (white vit¬ 
riol) which may be had of any of the drug¬ 
gists, and which, in a few weeks, will cause 
the whitewash to harden on the wood-work. 
Add sufficient water to bring it to the con¬ 
sistence of thick whitewash. This wash is 
of course white, and as white is a color 
which we think should never be used ex¬ 
cept upon buildinirs a good deal surround¬ 
ed by trees, so as to prevent its glare, -we 
would make it a fawn or drab color before 
using it. 
To make the above wash a pleasing 
cream color add 4 lbs. yellow ochre. 
For a fawn color take 4 lbs. umber, 1 lb. 
Indian red, and ^ lb. lampblack. 
Lampblack, when mixed with water col¬ 
ors, should first be thoroughly dissolved in 
alcohol. Yellow ochre, Indian red, &c., are 
sold, in dry powders, at a few cents per 
pound. 
To make the wash gray or stone color, 
add one lb. raw umber and two lbs. lamp¬ 
black. 
The color may be put on with a common 
whitewash brush, and will be found much 
more durable than a common whitewash, 
as the sulphate of zinc sets or hardens the 
wash. 
Cheap wash for Cottages of brick, stone 
stucco, or rough-cast. Take a barrel, and 
slake half a bushel of fresh lime as before 
mentioned; then fill the barrel two-thirds full 
of water and add 1 bushel of water lime. 
Dissolve in water and add three pounds of 
sulphate of zinc. The whole should be of 
the thickness of paint, ready for use with 
the brush. This wash is improved by the 
addition of a peck of white sand stirred in 
just before using it. The color is a pale 
stone-color, nearly white. 
To make it fawn color, add 1 lb. yellow 
ochre, 2 lbs. raw umber, 2 lbs. Indian red. 
To make it a drab, add l lb. Indian red, 
1 lb. umber, 1 lb. lampblack. 
This wash, which we have tested thor¬ 
oughly, sets and adheres very firmly to 
brickwork or stucco, is very durable, and 
produces a very agreeable effect.”— Doivn- 
ing’s Architecture. 
LOWER CALIFORNIA. 
The geographical position of lower Cali¬ 
fornia is too w r ell known to require any de¬ 
tailed description, and to those unacquaint¬ 
ed with this, a glance upon any map of 
North America will exhibit it It is the 
peninsular portion of what is now the State 
of California, a part of a territory one and 
the same, and which cannot long pertain to 
two nations so opposite in enterprise as the 
United States and Mexico. 
The climate of Lower California is excel¬ 
led by none in the world. An eternal sum¬ 
mer rests over its plains, and a blue and 
cloudless sky ever canopies its lofty hills. 
Its gorgeous sunsets are equalled only in 
fairy land, and its mountain freezes blow 
fresh as those which bear the sweetness of 
the spice groves over the southern seas. 
Throughout the whole year the thermome¬ 
ter in the lower portion of Lower California 
does not vary ten degrees; ranging from 
seventy to eighty degrees. Thin clothing 
only is ever required, and the air is so pure 
and warm that it is a common custom with 
the inhabitants to sleep in the open air; the 
poorer classes upon the bare ground, and 
the richer in hammocks swung from the limb 
of a fig or orange tree. One peculiarity of 
the climate of Lower California, and one 
which distinguishes it from the upper coun¬ 
try, and in fact from the whole western 
American coast is, that there is no “rainy 
i season.” Copious showers fall occasionally 
| in June and July, as well as in Dec. and 
! Jan. The rains, however, are very uncer¬ 
tain, and for agricultural purposes depen¬ 
dence is had upon the heavy dews which 
are nightly deposited, or upon the surer 
! mode of irrigation. 
The beautiful fancy of an El Dorado, in 
which age should renew its youth and ac¬ 
tivity, and youth grow up unblighted by 
disease, I have never seen so fully realized 
as in Lower California. Diseases of an epi¬ 
demic character are entirely unknown, and 
health reigns supreme. As an example of 
the healthy character of the country 1 
would state that we took to La Paez two 
companies of soldiers amounting to over a 
hundred men. La Paez at that time con¬ 
tained a population of about a thousand in- ’ 
habitants, and during an eight months’ res¬ 
idence there we lost not a man from sick¬ 
ness, and in the whole time there were but 
two deaths in the town, both of which were 
of infants. The world can scarcely produce 
an example of this character. The climate, 
although in the lower portion a tropical one, 
has none of the enervating influence of warm 
countries in general. 
Farmers write for your paper. 
