soap-suds, or by ashes placed upon the fi. y . 
roots in setting out the young trees. 
2. “The Apple Tret Borer —Saperda ' 
bivitlata, Say.” —This -winged beetle ap¬ 
pears early in June, and deposits its eggs 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
AN ORIGINAL WEHG.Y 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY JOURNAL, 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
WITH AN ABLE CORPS OP ASSISTANT EDITORS. 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS s 
H. T. BROOKS, Prof. C. DEWEY, 
T. C. PETERS, L. B. LANGWORTHY, 
H. C. WHITE, T. E. WETMORE. 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unique and 
beautiful in appearance, and unsurpassed in Value, Purity aud 
Variety of Contents. Its conductors earnestly labor to make it 
a Reliable Guide on the important Practical Subjects connected 
with the business of those whose interests it advocates. It 
embraces more Agricultural, Horticultural, Scientific, Mechan¬ 
ical, Literary and News Mntter, interspersed with many appro¬ 
priate and beautiful Engravings, than any other paper published 
in this Country,—rendering it a complete Agricultural, Lit¬ 
erary and Family Newspafer. 
For Terms, and other particulars, see last page. 
fkral Jefa-Jatfeir. 
FARMING: 
A NEW PROGRAMME WANTED. 
Farming, more than any other leading busi¬ 
ness, is “ behind the times.” Not, as is often 
asserted, because farmers lack scientific attain¬ 
ments, but because they neglect to conduct 
their operations upon correct business princi¬ 
ples. We hazard the assertion that no manu¬ 
facturer, mechanic, or merchant, could survive 
a single year if his affairs were managed with 
as little regard to arrangement and economy as 
farming generally is. Everything manufactured, 
from a pin to a clock, speaks of economy in 
emphatic language—we are surprised that we 
can buy so “ cheap,” (that is when wc don’t get 
cheated.) It is simply because of the utmost 
economy in material and labor. 
Where are the tanneries, shoe shops, distiller¬ 
ies, and stores, that presented their weather¬ 
beaten fronts at the “ centre” of the town, and 
at “ Jones’ Corners ?" They have gone to join 
larger establishments, where steam or water 
power can do the work of men,—where' the 
sweepings of the floor can be turned into cash, 
and the fiftieth part of a mill saved in the pur¬ 
chase of raw materials or in the sale of goods. 
Whoever is behind in the adoption of an im¬ 
provement will be “distanced the first heat.” 
Any establishment that has a leak as big as a 
knitting needle must plug it up or “suspend 
payment.” All over the land this lesson has 
been taught at a cost. 
How is it with farming ? The farmer, little 
disturbed by “the march of improvement,” 
makes his weary round with a pitch-fork in one 
hand and a pail in the other, climbing over four 
fences to feed a calf, and mounting six scaffolds 
to get provender for as many different varieties 
of graraniverous animals ; now he shouts him¬ 
self hoarse in vain endeavors to call back a 
missing pig, and now, covered with dust and 
cobwebs, peeps into unheard of places to see 
whether all that cackling was for nothing ; now 
he cuts up his carrots with a case knife, and 
now beats out his corn with a flail; now con¬ 
sumes a great pile of wood in the open air in 
efforts to boil a cauldron kettle, and now breaks 
a fork in vain endeavors to pitch ice and frozen 
straw from a stack; now he drops his scythe 
and goes into a distant field to dig potatoes for 
dinner, and now meditates whether he had not 
better sell that jumping horse for what he can 
get; now makes a journey to the village for a 
pound of tea, and now travels the same road 
again to get a broken clevis repaired ; now sus¬ 
pends business because the log chain is lost or 
lent, and now hews out a hoe handle with an 
ax; now makes the circuit of the pastures 
and the woods to get the oxen to draw 
in one load of hay, and now crowds the barley 
into a closer corner to make room for the peas; 
now he goes twelve miles to market ten bushels 
of beans, and now he dulls his drag teeth or 
breaks a plow point on a stone that ought to 
have been put into the wall forty years ago ; 
now he thinks seriously of selling out, and now 
he wonders if the tarifF can’t be altered so as 
to better his condition ;—all this is history and 
not romance. 
We repeat the assertion, there is no other 
branch of business that could survive for any 
length of time the waste and disorganization 
characteristic of farming! But improvement 
most, come even here ! “ The improved method 
of making pork ”—quoting from the future—will 
cheapen that article as much as the spinning 
jenny has cotton cloth. Imagine fifyy hogs use¬ 
fully employed, by night and by day, making 
compost, all comfortably quartered in a building 
so arranged that tlie raw material shall descend 
into a vast boiler by simply hoisting agate, and 
when suitably cooked and cooled can be let oft’ 
into the troughs without the intervention of 
swill pails. Everything must be arranged for 
economy and the dispatch of business. Our 
plans for farm buildings are fragmentary and 
imperfect. Every department must have the 
right relative position, so that our circuit of du¬ 
ties can be made in the shortest possible time, 
and all labor-saving expedients adopted, as in 
work-shops and factories. Every kind of food 
will be deposited where it can be fed with the 
greatest possible facility, and manure fall by its 
own weight into the compost room. Hay and 
grain will be unloaded by machinery ; roots 
and apples for immediate feeding « dumped ” 
into their receptacles. 
The improvements contemplated will extend 
to general farm management. It has passed 
into a proverb that “ a Jack at all trades is 
master of none,” and it has been very clearly 
demonstrated that success generally follows the 
concentration of thought and effort upon one 
particular branch of business. What would be 
thought of a Lowell company that should make 
a few shoes, a few hats, some shawls, some 
brass ket tles, with now and then a paper of pins? 
The farmer, however, dabbles a little in every¬ 
thing that is going. It is a life-long labor to 
become a good judge of a horse and to master 
the true principles of breeding and training 
him. A person thus accomplished should not 
waste his time upon sheep, which he does not 
understand, to the neglect of his proper calling. 
Let every farmer master some branch of busi¬ 
ness and stick to that. Of course a “ mixed 
husbandry” and a “rotation of crops’’ is, to a 
certain extent, desirable, but it is obvious that 
the fences, buildings, and improvements of a 
farm, should be adapted to a specific purpose, 
for the same reason that we would not attempt 
to make railroad iron in a carding machine.— 
As a general rule, the more we do at any busi¬ 
ness, the cheaper we can do it. Expensive and 
perfect machinery cannot be afforded in small 
establishments, nor can advantage be taken of 
markets either in buying or selling. This is an 
additional reason for confining ourselves to one 
thing. 
Farmers ! organize your business, economize 
your resources, and perfect your arrangements, 
till improvemeut can go no further. n. t. b. 
INSECTS OF HEW YORK.* 
This Report on Insects in our State possesses 
high interest in several respects. It is the work 
of a competent man, who has long distinguish¬ 
ed himself by the study of insects. It has been 
called forth by the State Agricultural Society, 
and received some appropriation from the State 
Legislature. It is only a partial report, giving 
the history of such insects as had been particu¬ 
larly examined, amounting indeed to no incon¬ 
siderable number, but giving the glad promise 
of being followed by other equally important 
additions to our knowledge, and which may be 
expected in future publications of the Society. 
It is on a very difficult subject, and to many an 
uninteresting one, and yet very important in 
the business of agriculture. The report is 
made in a manner entirely popular, and thus the 
science is made accessible to the common reader. 
True, the technical names are given, but not in 
scientific order, and while the insects injurious 
to “ out - fruit trees occupy the chief part of this 
report,” they are followed out upon the Apple 
tree, the Pear, the Peach, and the Cherry; on 
some forest trees, as well as on some field crops, 
and vegetables of the garden. It is obvious that 
this course will lead him, who finds an inju¬ 
rious insect depredating on his Peach, or Cherry 
tree, or garden plant, to that portion of the re¬ 
port in which the depredations on this particu¬ 
lar tree, or plant, are traced to the insects which 
produce them. “ This mode of arrange¬ 
ment of the several topics will be perfectly in¬ 
telligible to every reader ; and, aided by the 
brief heading which precedes the account of 
each species, will enable him to turn at once to 
any insect which he wishes to find, which is 
here described.”— Report, page 2. 
Besides these particulars, which enhance the 
value of the report to the farmer and nursery 
grower, there is another of great practical im¬ 
portance to the common reader, viz., the giving 
the general and most useful remarks in coarser 
* First Report on Noxious, Beneficial and other Insects 
of the State of New York. By Asa Fitch, M. D. 
print, and the particulars necessary for the 
study of the insect in a finer type. All 
these are specially noticed in order to 
make this report sought after and possess¬ 
ed by all culturists, and evqn by amateur 
horticulturists. It may be added that this 
report is also to be found in the Transac¬ 
tions of the Agricultural Society of the 
State of New York for the year 1854. 
Let us refer to some particular insects. 
1. “ The An>LE-RooT Blight— Pcmphi- 
gus Pyri.” —This insect causes “wart-like 
excrescences” on the roots of the apple, in 
which it finds for a time its habitation. 
This is an apparent disease, which has led 
to the rejection of thousands of young ap¬ 
ple trees in the nurseries for transplanting. 
Yet Dr. Fitch states that this waste may 
be prevented, as the disease is cured by 
YEARLING SOUTH-DOWN RAM, “TONEY.” 
singly on the bark, commonly near the Y 
I’Cn. »lihii^h ny nT > Tr“ < N%. llM<> i * .. . j 
and luxuriates and increases in size, and 
Uro. its nut; t.r safety ton,, he ' V A:;t ‘ Y GY / 
pecker into the very heart-wood of the tree. • , - 
There is not room to pursue the ..is . 
and interesting facts Dr. Fitch has given. a 
This insect is a deadly enemy of the Ap- m-m-. _ 
, . , . , .* „ . , THii. YEARLING SOUTH-DOWN RANT TONEY” 
pie tree, and is found over New England, . 
westward over New York, in Michigan and 
Illinois, west of the Mississippi in Arkansas, ,, ^’“ EU ky Jonas TV ebb ; winner of first prize at the Fairs of the New Jersey State and Somerset 
and probably over our,country where the SocitK W,nner t ^ e p exhibitl » 11 of the United States Agricultural 
, n., f . , Society at Boston, Oct., 185o. Ihe property ot George H,\rtshorne, Rahway, New Jersev to 
apple grows. Three; ten, and even twenty whom be was presented by Anthony G.Robinson, of London, England. 7 7 ’ 
ot these maggots have been found in a sin-____ 
gle tree. They are very fond of the Quince 77”. ” “ ~ ; ' ~ -- ~ ” -- 
also. In some partcular localities, the Ap- 1 ^ C0ll utiy, t ien oie-quaiteis were light in ica who has been so fortunate as to obtain a 
pie and Quince have not flourished, and the P 10 P 0 *^ 011 . to ^ ie kind oues. This was not, taste of South-Down mutton, who dkl not ad- 
fact has been attributed to the soil. Yet the 1 f*reat ^, 10 a . a c c ^°b consideted in leterence to mit its decided superiority, compared with that 
probability is that this insect is the great cause. * u cll ° UIDS * ailces * n w kich the animals were of other breeds kept here. In the English mar- 
Iu one case this has been proved by digging out na ^ ula Y p aced , it made them more active, kets it sells at from half a penny to a penny 
the insects with a knife. The full history of and ‘enabled them to travel over rough pastures (equal to one and two cents) a pound higher 
this borer in the report, will richly repay an C1 ^7Y- But they weie often hollow than that of the Cotswold and other long-wooled 
hour’s attention. The great enemy and de- at the chine with sunken and narrow loins, and breeds, and is not excelled in price or quality, 
stroyer of this borer is the “ Downy Woodpeck- an Undue h S htness of carcass for the height. except by that of the light mountain sheep of 
er, (Piouspubescens, LinJ” which has “ brown- Tile firsfc important improvement in the breed Wales and Scotland. 
ish wings with square white spots,” and round was made ky John Ellman, of Glynde, in Sus- From what has been said, it will be inferred 
ones on the inner parts, a common inhabitant of sex ’ i° war ds the. close of the last century. By that the greatest value of the South-Down is for 
orchards. a course of skillful breeding, he obtained a flock mutton. This is the leading characteristic of all 
3. “ The Seventeen-year Locust, Cicada sep- w kich attracted attention from all parts of the British breeds of sheep. It is this which has 
tendccem, Lin.”—M uch as has been written on kingdom, and was the means of improving not given them the preference with British farmers, 
this insect in our country, new interest is made ord Y khe South-Downs generally, but other An immense population has to be fed from a 
to attach to him in this report. “On some ac- skort-wooled breeds. He produced a symmet- comparatively small territory, and meat is of 
counts the Seventeen-year Locust is the most ^cal caicass, fit for market iu halt the time course, relatively dear compared with wool, as 
remarkable insect ot which we have any knowl- usua Uy required to mature old stock, raised the tke latter can, at a trifling expense per pound, 
edge.”— Rep., p. 38. But space is not allotted weight from sixteen to twenty pounds a quarter; be brought from any quarter of the world. It 
for the detail. preserving the fineness of the wool and some- has been stated that the Merino was intro- 
4. “ The Cabbage Moth —Cerostoma Erassi- what increasin S the weight of fleece. duced into England many years since. It did 
cell a," and Following the footsteps of Ellman and adopt- no ^ deteriorate there, as some have supposed, 
5. “ The Gooseberry Midge — Ceculomyia kig his stock as a foundation, other breeders but foiled to obtain a permanent footing be- 
Grossidurice,” on pp. 170, 176, must arrest at- have obtained great celebrity. Asymmetrical cause it was regarded as less profitable, on the 
tuition. Reference is made to the report for finish has been given to the carcass ; the chest whole,—chiefly in reference to the carcass,— 
the details. It is safe to commend this work to has been widened and deepened; the back than the English sheep. 
all. Perhaps more extracts may be made another straightened ; the ribs expanded, and every part The South-Down has been introduced into the 
day. o. d. given its proportidhaWnullness. At the same United States, and of late years has been con- 
--time something has been gained in the maturity siderably disseminated. Various enterprising 
SHEEP.- —TEE SOUTH-DOWNS. of the animal, and the size, or rather the weight, American breeders have obtained specimens of 
[IN connection with the fine cut of a South-Down on StU1incr f sed ' Th « carcasses frequently the breed of the highest character to be had in 
this page, we give, from a series on the ‘‘Characteristics ^vcigli twenty-fiV8 pounds pei quarter, and England. Of course their proper locality is 
of the Breeds of Sheep,” now publishing in the Wool sometimes upwards of thirty pounds. A more within a convenient reach of the large markets. 
Grower and Stock Register, the following extracts.—E ds.] important change has been made in the fleece. The trials which have already been made, suf- 
Thf. South-Down breed appears to be a native It formerly tended to become too thin and light, ficiently prove their profitableness when placed 
of the South of England. On the dunes ox downs for a severe climate. Il has been thickened and in proper situations, and judiciously managed, 
of Sussex, it has existed from the earliest times, much increased in weight, though it is not so Before closin' 1 - a description of the South- 
always maintaining the same general character- fine in staple. It is longer, and yearlings’ Down, it should be mentioned that it is, and 
istics. It has been greatly improved in respect fleeces, or those of fifteen or sixteen months’ always has been, a polled or hornless breed. It 
to form and tendency to fatten, but these changes growth, are sometimes used for combing. With [ s proper, also, to state that the wool, in Amer- 
have been effected by selections from the origi- this change of fleece, the animal has acquired a can markets, sells at about the price of quarter- 
nal stock, and not by resorting to alien blood.— better constitution. It has a more vigorous and blood Merino_the fleeces avera<>-in<>- includin'* 
It belongs to the class of “short-wooled” breeds, hardy look than before. Whether it i-, how- breeding ewes, from three to four pounds, 
according to the rules which have been adopted ever,—with its remarkable compactness of form washed. 
in England. The wool of the South-Downs and great tendency to fatten,—as well adapted __ 
was formerly among the finest produced by to obtain a living from rugged pastures lightly SAW-DUST AS A MANURE. 
British breeds, being excelled in this respect, covered with herbage, may be questioned.— - 
perhaps, only by that of the Ryelands. The That it is better adapted, as an animal of profit, Soils composed of all clay, sand, or lime are 
average weight of fleece was rated at two and a to the farmer, to improve land and good keep- worthless ; but a proper mixture constitutes the 
half pounds. The color of the animals is white, ing, there is no doubt. It has been alleged that material lor forming a fertile soil by the addi- 
with dark faces and legs, and it is no uncom- the quality of its flesh has been deteriorated, tion of the required solvents aud stimulants.— 
mon thing for the dusky shade to show itself on It certainly would not be strange if the mutton The great source of the life and food of plants, 
other parts of the body. This, however, is not of the modern improved South-Down, bred on is called humus, which is neither more or less 
considered an objection, but rather as indicating rich low grounds, and killed at eighteen months than woody fibre—leaves of trees, or the solid 
the aboriginal type. The old stock was con- or two years old, should fail to possess the high part of animal manure in the last stages of de- 
sidered faulty in shape, though fattening well, and venison-like flavor which distinguished that composition—in the incipient degree of carbon¬ 
giving mutton of superior quality, and reaching of the old breed, killed at four years old, from ization, or changing into coal; having so strong 
an average of sixteen pounds per quarter, when the breezy hills. But making all allowances an elective affinity for oxygen, for forming car- 
four years old. Like all animals adapted to a on this score, we have heard of no one in Amer- bonic acid, (the food required to form new wood) 
SHEEP;-THE SOUTH-DOWNS. 
[In connection with the fine cut of a South-Down on 
SAW-DUST AS A MANURE. 
Soils composed of all clay, sand, or lime are 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT.' 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1858. 
VOLUME YIU NO. IU 
[ SINGLE NO. FIVE CENTS. 
I WHOLE NO. 323. 
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.] 
