TWO DOLLARS .A. YEAR.] 
PROGRESS AJNTD lAUPROYTEMILNa:.’ 
[SINGLE ISTO. pnoiJli CENTS. 
YOL. X. NO. 40. f 
N. Y.- FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1859. 
1 WHOLE NO. 508. 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
AN ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
RURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEYVSPAPER, 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
With an Able Corps of Assistants and Contributors. 
Tite Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unsurpassed 
In Value, Purity, Usefulness and Variety of Contents, and 
unique and beautiful in Appearance. Its Conductor devotes 
his personal attention to the supervision of its various de¬ 
partments, and earnestly labors to render the Rural an 
eminently Reliable Guide on all the important Practical, 
Scientific and other Subjects intimately connected with the 
business of those whose interests it zealously advocates.— 
It embraces more Agricultural, Horticultural, Scientific, 
Educational, Literary and News Matter, interspersed with 
appropriate and beautiful Engravings, than any other jour¬ 
nal,—rendering it the most complete Agricultural, Lit¬ 
erary and Family Newspaper in America. 
All communications, and business letters, should be 
addressed to D. D. T. MOORE, Rochester, N. Y. 
For Terms and other particulars, see last page. 
OMR GRASS LANDS. 
The fact tbat toe grass crop of the country is £ 
failure, comparatively speaking, calls upon th< 
thinking agriculturist for a solution of the cause 1 
which have led Ip so deplorable op, issue, and, i 
the fault may in any degree be justly attributed t( 
the growers, to point out such defects aud then 
remedy. The responses to inquiries, made /pro 
vious to the time of mowing, as to the prospect; 
of the hay crop, were, almost invariably, “Ok 
meadows will not pay for cutting—new will furnisl 
a medium yield.” That atmospherical influence; 
seriously affected the growth and development o 
the grasses during the past season there can be nt 
doubt—but why this difference between meadow; 
laid down to the crop years ago and those mort 
recently seeded. A lack of vitality is plainly 
perceptible—is this the result of age, or the inevi 
table consequence of the violation of natural law 
by the possessors of the soil. 
Grass forms the staple crop of the country— 
neither cotton nor wheat can successfully claim 
supremacy in competition with it. While first in 
position and pecuniary worth, it demands less 
care than any other, and, we very much fear, 
obtains only a tithe of whut it actually needs. 
Year after year the land is denuded of its vernal 
drapery with scarcely an atom of return in the 
form of an equivalent. Tun after tun of hay is 
taken from the soil, and if any fertilizing material 
is furnished it, it too often comes in paltry pinches. 
YVe have frequently heard individuals, after sub¬ 
mitting to the manipulations of some dexterous 
tonsorial professor, remark that “ the shave just 
received was fully a week under the skin,” and 
the mowing performed upon seven-eighths of the 
land in grass, partakes altogether too much of this 
characteristic. Nor does the evil stop here.— 
Thanks to some genial shower, and the tenacity 
with which the grass clings to life, new spears 
shoot up, when the cattle are “ turned in,” and the 
“ fall feed ” is secured, too frequently at the ex¬ 
pense of future crops. This has been the usual 
course, and there is less room to hope for the 
entire abandonment of so exhausting a process 
the present fall than for many years past. A scar¬ 
city in the mow appeals with an urgency that is 
almost resistless when there is a chance for a day’s 
fodder in meadow or pasture, and all those who 
seek immediate results will speedily acknowledge 
its potency. 
The remedy for the evils we have glanced at 
thus briefly is very apparent. As this crop is our 
mainstay its needs should meet a more generous 
recognition, and instead of annually depleting the 
soil, the great object should be to keep up the 
average of fertility. Nor can we begin to award 
our lands what is justly due them too early. With 
a large number the spring time of the year may be 
considered a more “convenient” and appropriate 
season but wo think that a top-dressing of plas¬ 
ter, ashes, bone-dust—anything that can be readily 
appropriated to the wants of the plant, would 
prove a profitable investment, if applied just now. 
The various styles of management adopted by 
those whose efforts are crowned with success are 
always worthy of careful examination, and to the 
thoughtful investigator yield a rich reward for 
the labor expended. Recognizing the verity of 
this statement, we present the modes of operation 
puisued by various individuals in keeping up the 
condition of pasture and meadow land, and the 
results thereof. 
In the Transactions of the N. Y. State Ag. Soci¬ 
ety for 1856, Mr. Walkath, to whom was awarded 
a farm premium, states that he uses a compo¬ 
sition of six bushels of bone ashes, one bushel of 
plaster, one of slaked lime, one-fourth bushel salt, 
a small quantity of sulphur, pounded bones, Ac., 
as a top-dressiDg lor general purposes. The cost 
is about twenty cents per bushel, and is used at 
the rate of two or three bushels to the acre on 
grain and meadows. Upon one field, about an 
acre in extent, under cultivation for ten years, 
this combination was used without other manure, 
and the result was a constantly increasing product. 
The best crop was wheat—yield, thirty bushels to 
the acre. It was then seeded with clover and 
timothy, and the season previous to the date of 
the Report, (1855,) it produced two crops of hay; 
the first of two tuns, the second of one. The 
average of yield of Mr. W.’s mowing lands is 
about two and one-half tuns per acre. 
R. J. Swan, of Rose Hill, Seneca Co., to whom 
was awarded the first premium of the Society in 
1857, aunually mows about sixty-five acres of 
grass, and makes an average of two and one-half 
tuns of hay per acre. Sows twelve pounds of 
clover seed upon each acre of wheat, in latter 
March or early April, six quurts of timothy being 
fipplied in Autumn soon after wheat sowing.— 
Uses plaster as a top-dressing for grass lands— 
sown broad cast with a machine—advantages of so 
doing are uniformly great and decided, for if any 
part of the field is neglected, the error is manifest 
to the eye by the infei iority of the neglected spot. 
GRASSHOPPERS.-A NEW BEAUTY IN PIGS! 
Hitherto even ti.be most elaborate essays on 
farm stock (see the N. Y. Tribunal) Have scarcely 
noticed Grasshoppers at all. Why is this? They 
make up in numbers what they Jack in size, and in 
diligence what they want in dignity. My neighbor, 
who thinks his black cow is worth more than any 
“Duchess” of the royal line, would see at once 
that, being “natives,” they could not expect to be 
noticed except incidentally or accidentally—but I 
am bound to count them in. A thousand times 
more numerous than all our horses, cattle, sheep, 
pigs and poultry put together, and sometimes cost¬ 
ing more to keep them! They have been slighted, 
decidedly. Who is acquainted with them ? Will 
some naturalist please treat them scientifically ?— 
Meantime, I propose to treat them practically. 
First, then, they eat up a tun of grass to the 
acre; they stripped the beans in my corn as bare 
as beau poles; they have appropriated a wide 
border in the oat field; they have taken the foliage 
from young fruit trees; in short, they have stuck 
their noses into about everything. Perhaps they 
are accusing me for what I have taken; but then I 
planted the beaus and hoed them. I’ll back out of 
that argument, for I recollect tbat those who do 
the most work have the least rights here. W r aving 
all ethical and legal questions—they have got my 
fodder, how shall I get them? 
Fowls, whose acknowledged duty is to lay, 
hatch, and be killed, have been put after them 
from time immemorial, and it has been observed 
by discreet housewives, that the more grasshop¬ 
pers the more eggs, aud the more growth. What 
we have got from the grasshoppers, except through 
biddy’s agency, is mere nothing. While we de¬ 
vise other way 8 of making them available, we may 
make improvements on this. They do not in the 
main (it may be through defects of early educa¬ 
tion,) deem it a duty to come into the hen-yard or 
the adjacent ground to be eaten; should we not 
train the hens and turkeys to a wider range of 
travel t Walk through the meadows and pastures 
distant from the buildings at the height of the 
grasshopper season, and a cloud of these winged 
depredators is before you continually—a hundred 
greedy hens, each with a dependent family, would 
do large execution here! 
Old folks are apt to complain of a sad want of 
discipline “now-a-days,” having “Young America” 
mainly in their eyes; discipline in its vast bear¬ 
ings and extent is for the future. Our domestic 
animals should be trained to go where, and do 
what, we bid them. Fowls should be sent to 
pasture and brought back like our cows; then the 
grasshoppers in our back fields will be gathered 
in. Pigs, too, may help us in turning grasshoppers 
to account. A woman Out West writes to her 
friends in Allegany county, that she is fattening 
seventeen hogs on grasshoppers, and they are 
doing well. The hogs were shut up, as I was in¬ 
formed,—how she got the grasshoppers to them, 
the world at large ought to know ! 
Going very early into the fields, I was not more 
surprised than delighted at finding my own pigs 
there before me, picking up the grasshoppers, 
which were stiffened with the cold, aud eating 
them with manifest relish. “ U new beauty in 
pigs,” I exclaimed —“ What admirable sagacity in 
choosing the right time for your business, and 
how expert in finding the object of your search.” 
I felt to forgive their forwardness in opening the 
gate and going into our garden to appropriate the 
food which was intended for other members of the 
family. From this let it beinferred that our pigs, 
as far as possible, should hare access at the proper 
season to those fields where grasshoppers are 
thickest. 
Must this “Nineteenth Century” stop here?— 
beyond what pigs and poultry can do, can nothing 
be done ? “The spirit of the age” breaks out in 
spots, viz ;—in Wyoming county, where the grass¬ 
hoppers are caught in large sheets of cotton cloth 
or other nets, are immersed in hot water and then, 
being dead, are dried and kept for future use. 
What returns on the outlay I have not heard. In¬ 
deed the market value of grasshoppers remains 
to be established. The Herald has a daily agony 
or exultation over the falling or the rising fortunes 
ofspelteror sperm ^qeti, but it is nowhere in the 
grasshopper market. N 
I have squeezed a large grasshopper in my 
fingers (a rough and summary analysis,) to judge 
of his substance and consistency, and I have 
guessed he was about equal, in nutritive value, to 
a kernel of corn—but I did not calculate how many 
to the acre. One thing is'certain, some land has 
produced more value inj grasshoppers than any¬ 
thing else. I reccollet tq have heard that a calcu¬ 
lating Yankee (men art sometimes too sharp,) 
conceived the idea of driving the devastating 
hordes of grasshoppers lout of his own lots into 
those of his neighbors. He got rid of his grass¬ 
hoppers, but was sued ih the courts of law and 
paid heavy damages sad costs! Perhaps we 
might profit by hi^extuitence in driving —always 
ijaing careful •tvhii ^^^ ’.v.^drivu! 
Take a lot of ? C |^B oair-brained, rollicking 
fel.ows, who aintjit't \H 'fy anything else —put one 
at each end of along r"/e, and supply the company 
with bushes, tin-paas and long poles, and my word 
for it, the grasshoppers will retreat before them! 
(net because these fellows have any real courage, 
but the grasshoppers would be deceived by their 
violent pretences,) and so suffer themselves to be 
driven into some tight place where they might be 
made available as herein before set forth. If 
Napoleon, and the Empress with her hoops, would 
go out and catch afew, it might be made a fashion¬ 
able pastime, and so we could get something out 
of the unproductive classes. By another year let 
us be prepared for decisive action.— h. t. b. 
HOUSE BUILDING.—NO. VI. 
Probably no single feature aboutcountry build¬ 
ings conveys the idea so readily whether they are 
houses or barns as the presence or absence of 
chimneys. There is no place where the outlay of 
a little money will make as great a difference in 
the thing itself, or in the general appearance of the 
building, as on the chimney top, yet there is no 
other one tbiDg aboutcountry houses that receives 
so little attention. Perhaps this article may in¬ 
duce those farmers who read it, and are now 
engaged in building what they desire to be good 
houses, to allow the mason an extra half day or 
day to finish off the chimneys in a more tasty 
sty le, if possible, than the smoke spouts protruding 
from nine-tenths of the farm houses in the country. 
Fig. I illustrates four different patterns, and 
the variety would be endless, were the masons 
only determined and their employers willing that 
every new top should be from a new model. The 
principles to be observed are simple. The size 
and proportion depends upon the number and 
situation of the flues. The main characteristics of 
the building should be embodied in the chimney 
top, and there should be a base and cornice to the 
one as well as to the other. To plaster the inside 
adds one half to the durability. When a building 
is in the Italian style, and the roof a square or 
hip roof, it seems almost impossible to make 
them look well without some kind of finish at the 
top. A simple way is to flat off the top, and make 
a deck about one-third the size of the building, 
and surround it with a ballustrade, as at Fig. II. 
Another way is to put up an observatory, and 
when the building is of considerable magnitude, 
and the view is increased by the extra elevation, 
it is, perhaps, a3 good a way as any, if you are 
not so unfortunate as to make it appear (like many 
we have seen,) as if it had been slid up out of the 
building. This may be avoided by usiiig heavy 
brackets at the corners, extending down to the 
roof, as shown at B, Fig. II. 
Undoubtedly a great majority of those who are 
buildiDg houses have become convinced by what 
they have read within the last few years, that to 
provide a dwelling with thorough, ventilating 
arrangements, is. in every sense of the word worth 
while, yet it is quite doubtful whether more than 
one in every ten will expend the first farthiDg 
toward insuring a good supply of that cheapest of 
all things, pure air. At Cand D, Fig. II, I have 
shown two different forms of Ventilating Caps— 
the latter would also make a suitable bell turret 
lor a farm house, I fear it is too generally sun- 
posed that to erect such a cap is all that is neces¬ 
sary to secure a proper ventilation, but such is not 
the case. It depends entirely upon the holes and 
flues, about which I will give my theory hereafter. 
Fig. III.— Verandah and Porch, Sketches. 
At Fig. Ill are shown some specimens of veran¬ 
dah and porch work, which will be found much 
cheaper, quite as useful, and nearly as pretty, if 
not as grand, as a great portico with large columns, 
pediment, and a half-moon window blind in the 
gable, painted green. 
At A is a new style of verandah, the posts and 
frieze being simply plank, with the edges cut into 
the proper form, and the corners champered. At 
B is shown a similar post with braces added.— 
Such work is easily got up—it harmonizes well 
with natural embelleshments, such as vines and 
roses, about which horticulturists and landscape 
gardeners talk so much, and is much more durable 
than skeleton work of inch boards. At C is shown 
an elevation of a porch, designed to have a seat on 
each side, lattice work above, and temporary 
shutters and door for winter. The posts need not 
be over six inches square, champered at the cor¬ 
ners. At D is a plan for projecting gable, supported 
by brackets, suitable for outside doors or French 
windows; and at E another, still cheaper, yet 
better than nothing. j. e. s. 
I’ompey, Onondaga Co., N. Y., 1859. 
EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 
Plowing vs. Spading. —In his recent “ Letters 
on Modern Agriculture,” Baron Y r on Liebig thus 
remarks upon the peculiarities of these two pro¬ 
cesses of preparing the soil: 
The common plow breaks and turns up the soil 
without mixing it ; it only displaces, to a certain 
extent, the spots on which plants are already 
grown. But the spade breaks, turns, and mixes it 
thoroughly. 
As the smallest portions of food cannot of them¬ 
selves leave the spot in which they are held firmly 
fixed by the soil, we can understand what immense 
influence must be exerted on its fertility by its 
careful mechanical division and thorough inter¬ 
mixture. This is the greatest of all the difficulties 
which the agriculturist has to overcome. 
If a field is to produce a crop, corresponding to 
the full amount of food present in it, the first and 
most important condition for its accomplishment 
is, that its physical state be such as to permit even 
the finest rootlets to reach the spots where the 
food is to be found. The extension of the roots in 
every direction must not be obstructed by the co¬ 
hesion of the soil. Plants with thin delicate roots 
cannot grow on a teuacious heavy soil, even 
with abundance of mineral food. These facts ex¬ 
plain in a very simple manner one of the many 
favorable effects of green manures on such soils, 
and enable us to understand the reasons of the 
preference given in many cases, by agriculturists, 
to fresh, over rotten, farm-yard manure. The 
mechanical condition of the ground is, in fact, re¬ 
markably altered by the plowing in of plants and 
their remains. A tenacious soil loses thereby its 
cohesion ; it becomes brittle, and more readily 
pulverized than by the most careful plowing; and 
in a sandy soil a certaiu coherence is introduced 
among its shifting particles. Each stem of the 
green manure plants plowed in, opens up by its 
decay a road by which the delicate rootlets of the 
wheat plant ramify in all directions to seek their 
food. With the exception of their combustible 
elements, the ground receives from the green ma¬ 
nure plants nothing which it did not previously 
contain ; and these, of themselves, would have no 
effect on the increase ot the crop, without the 
presence in the soil of the necessary mineral food. 
“England a Third Larger.”— Under this cap- 
tioD, the London Morning Chronicle indulges in a 
strain of pleasantry, the perusal of which will 
give us all a hint worthy of reflection. The early 
maturity of stock is the subject treated, and the 
Chronicle remarks: ) 
* / 4 V 
' One of the most noticeable features in these 
annual cattle shows is the increasing juvenility of 
the animals exhibited. Early maturity is rightly 
considered among the most valuable qualities of 
every food-produciDg beast. As increasing the 
total supply of provisions for the national com¬ 
missariat, rapid growth and speedy fitness for the 
market are qualities which every breeder of stock 
should cultivate in his oxen aud sheep, as dihgent- 
ly as the market gardeners compete for precedence 
with their peas and strawberries. Space and 
time, as philosophers tell us, are often convertible 
terms. The man who can ripen two crops or 
fatten two animals in the same period formerly 
required for one, has accomplished, practically, 
the same result, and earned the proverbial bless¬ 
ing bestowed upon him who “has made two 
blades of grass grow where only one grew before.” 
In this respect wonders have beed*already accom¬ 
plished, and every year, if we may judge from the 
prize specimens, the animals which supply our 
tables with their pieces de resistance are younger 
and younger. What would the farmers of the 
last century have said if they were shown enor¬ 
mous sirloins only twenty-two months old, or 
expansive “ saddles,” whose defunct proprietors 
uttered their first bleat last spring twelve months? 
Still greater precocity is exhibited among the 
highly edible, if not very poetical, tribe of pigs. 
At Birmingham, there were on view several 
groups of “fast” young porkers, who have ac¬ 
tually completed their education, aud fulfilled all 
the duties for which they were called into exist¬ 
ence, within a period of eight or nine months. 
Barely three-quarters of a year old, they have 
completed their career, and will bequeath a rich 
estate of bacon to their residuary legatees. Since 
our island area is limited, we must eontrive to 
effect the same increase of production by econo¬ 
mizing time which the dwellers in vast continents 
obtain by extending the breadth of cultivation. 
The discovery that a well-ordered rotation of crops 
could save the necessity of leaving fields in fallow 
every third year, practically added thirty per cent, 
to the wheat-bearing lands throughout the coun¬ 
try. The early maturity now attained in “stock” 
is equivalent to a similar extension in the pas¬ 
tures. The modern improvements in agriculture 
have made Eogland a good third larger, so far as 
regards its food-producing capabilities. 
Manner of Milking —From an article on the 
“Dairy” in the Irish Farmers' Gazette, we make 
the following extract:—The manner of milkiDg 
exerts a more powerful and lasting influence on 
the productiveness of the cow than most farmers 
are aware of. That a slow and careless milker 
soon dries up the best of cows, every practical 
farmer and dairyman knows. The first requisite 
of a good milker is, of course, th gutter cleanliness. 
YVithout this the milk is unendurable. The udder 
should, therefore, be carefully cleaned before the 
milking commences. The milker may begin grad¬ 
ually and gently, but should steadily increase the 
rapidity of the operation till the udder is emptied, 
