[SINGLE NO. FIVE CENTS. 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT 
TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.] 
CHURNING MILK vs. CHURNING CREAM. 
The same fly deposits its eggs on several kernels, 
on as many evenings, until her whole stock is 
disposed of, by which time having accomplished 
the object of her being, she becomes often so ex- i 
hausted as to be nnable to withdraw her ovipositor 
from the chaff, and thus dies—the dead flies being 
often found suspended by their tail-like ovipositors 
to the chaff. From three or four to thirty or more 
of these eggs are found on a single grain. 
From the eggs thus introduced is hatched the 
orange-colored maggot so familiar to wheat-grow¬ 
ers in this section. The eggs are hatched in from 
one to two weeks, and 
►. the y 0 u n 8 maggots 
K/Sti commencefeedingupon 
I WiA // the soft grain, sucking 
VV'/its juices, and when in 
sufficient numbers ut 
^ terly destroy it. As 
Maggots Feeding. these maggots are not 
provided with any boring instrument, it is neces¬ 
sary that they should be hatched when the wheat is 
in a milky or soft state, to secure proper nourish¬ 
ment. If they happen to be hatched after the 
grain has become hard, they stand a good chance 
of starving, and myriads, no doubt, perish from 
this cause every year. These maggots get their 
growth about the time the wheat is ripe, and Dr. 
| Fitch says they then crawl out of the chaff and 
i <inwn the wheat stalks to the ground, choosing a 
Ogden, in this county, brought us about two table¬ 
spoonfuls, taken from a field where the wheat was 
badly injured with the Midge last year. He stated 
that the surface of the soil was alive with these in¬ 
sects, while every little depression, such as were 
caused by the horses’ feet, &c., was filled with 
them. They appeared lively, making, when placed 
on a sheet of paper, quick motions, something like 
the “skippers” in cheese. We placed them, with 
the soil, in a bottle, and in two or three days they 
lost all power of motion, or all desire to move, and 
we at first thought they were corked too closely, 
but on removing the cork no change was percepti¬ 
ble. About the loth of June the bottle was filled 
with a swarm of perfect flies, numbering hundreds, 
at least. They remained active for about a week, 
affording a good opportunity for investigation, and 
then began to die from confinement, until, in less 
than two weeks after hatching, all had died. 
Although much has been written on this subject 
the past few years, it is one of so much importance 
that we introduce the matter once more, and will 
give, very briefly, the apper ranee and habits of the 
little insect that destroys at once our wheat and 
our hopes. 
forks and shovels the same. Dickens computes 
that a man will, in the course of a day’s work at 
spading, save the lifting of five tons, by substitut¬ 
ing the modern spade fork for the heavy spade 
heretofore used. 
Deep Plowing is good in places; but if you have 
a little vegetable mould on a great deal of hard-pan, 
plow deep with moderation. 
Stumps and Slones are objectionable, and I have 
never tilled a piece of land without a vigorous 
effort at removing them—indeed, it is a shame to 
some men that they mumble over stones for years 
that ought to be in their fences, till they lose in 
crops, and time, and tools, five times what their 
removal would cost, and yet a man may go to farm¬ 
ing with ideas of nicety that would ruin him—it 
would coat more to clear some land of stones and 
stumps, than the land would be worth after it was 
cleared. In agriculture there are scarce any rules 
of universal application — they are qualified by 
circumstances. A man might deem himself tolera¬ 
bly safe in thinking well, and, in extreme cases, in 
speaking well of 
Neatness and Good Order in Farm Yards and 
Buildings. The muses and the graces, and all good 
people, are tenderly disposed towards the beautiful, 
the tasteful, and the well arranged. But a practical 
farmer, blessed with brains, if he is, for instance, 
overtaken by a season like the last, when spring 
opens late and summer is unpropitious for busi¬ 
ness, will attend to the main chance first, and save 
his crops, rather than expend his time in 
MOORE'S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
A.V ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
Agricultural, Literary and Family Newspaper. 
“ Whether more butter can be made by churning 
milk than by churning the cream which rises from 
it,” is a question which can be settled but by ex¬ 
periment, and to some minds this has been decided 
very satisfactorily. For instance, A. H. Byington, 
of Norwalk, says in the Conn. State Ag’l Transac¬ 
tions, “ We have adopted the Orange county sys¬ 
tem of churning all milk instead of cream, as is 
the prevailing custom in New England. By this 
means, more, sweeter, and better butter is produced.” 
He seems confident on the point, having made care¬ 
ful experiments to test the question at issue. 
The butter which brings the highest price in the 
New York market is, and long has been, that made 
where the practice of churning the milk prevails. 
A friend who visited the river counties some years 
since, said that the practice had become nearly 
universal among those who make pretentions to 
being skillful dairymen. It has also been intro¬ 
duced extensively in the Southern Tier, among the 
butter-makers along the Erie Railroad, and the 
product is equally in demand with that from Or¬ 
ange or Dutchess counties. This would not be the 
case unless it were equally valuable. 
In regard to the method pursued, a premium- 
taking dairyman of Broome county, reports as fol¬ 
lows:—“After the milk is drawn from the cows, 
carry it to the cellar, strain it in twelve quart pans, 
setting on a stone bottom, for the purpose of keeping 
it cool. Let it stand until it begins to get thick, or 
loppered, then empty into churns and temper ac¬ 
cording to the weather. In cold weather warm, 
and in hot weather cold water, is used for this pur- 
purpose.” In cold weather, also, the milk-room is 
warmed artificially, keeping it at about summer 
temperature, otherwise the milk would become 
bitter before souring, and the quality of the but¬ 
ter bo injured. The churns employed contain from 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unsurpassed in 
Value, Purity, Usefulness and Variety of Contents, and uniqne and 
beautiful in Appearance. Its Conductor devotes his personal atten¬ 
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to render the Rural an eminently Reliable Guido on 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 journal — rendering it the most complete Agricultu¬ 
ral, Literary and Family Journal in America. 
Er27"A11 communications, and business letters, sliould bo addressed 
to D. D. T. MOORE, Rochester, N. Y. 
For Terms and other particulars, see last page. 
FARM MANAGEMENT AND MODEL FARMS. 
Had not other engagements absorbed my time 
and attention, I should have said something before 
this upon general farm arrangements. Writers 
upon agriculture give us numerous suggestions up¬ 
on isolated topics, but they seldom attempt to put 
them together into a system. We have essays upon 
sugar cane and turnips, ditching and manuring, 
but few hints upon subjects in their relations to 
It is a comprehension of these rela- 
spruemg 
up," for the gratification of people who don’t know 
that he ought to be better employed. Lazy folks 
and slovenly need take no unction from this—any 
man who stops half an hour in any place without 
any man who 
each other. 
tions that makes the difference between a practical 
and a theoretical man — between experience and 
deduction. 
A man may take one lesson in agriculture as 
easily and as readily as he can take a lesson in 
painting or parsing—he may, as it were, in one 
week, and perhaps in one day, know as much about 
raising cabbage or hoeing corn as men ordinarily 
learn in twenty years of farming. But he has got 
to begin with January and end with December, 
through the successive years of his mortal life, be¬ 
fore he can have even a tolerable comprehension 
of how one thing modifies and qualifies another. 
The writer of this article has had general super¬ 
vision of several farms, belonging to himself and 
other members of the family, and though not al¬ 
ways at liberty to attend to details, he has given 
his active and unremitting attention to his busi¬ 
ness, and fancies that several years’ experience may 
enable him to communicate some suggestions that 
would not occur to men who have operated on a 
smaller scale, or have not operated at all. If some 
things are crudely and hastily stated they may 
nevertheless lead to inquiry in the right direction. 
Ditching is a good thing—granted—but does it 
follow that all land (as I believe Mr. Greely has 
said) should be ditched — New Jersey, Cape Cod, 
and Sahara — if so, this year or this century? By 
no means. There is land, and a good deal of it, 
which cannot be drained effectually without ditches 
every two rods through its entire extent, which 
from soil and circumstances must cost thirty or 
forty dollars to the acre. Now it will frequently 
happen that you can buy land which is worth more 
without ditching than the other is when ditched, 
for half the money that the ditching will cost.— 
The day may come when all wet, heavy, or tenacious 
soils can be profitably drained. As a general rule, 
such lands may be ditched where they are near 
good markets, so that their products will bring a 
high price, and where labor can be had and cap¬ 
ital, without abstracting from other needful opera¬ 
tions. Most lands will bear grass profitably with¬ 
out ditching, at a little expense in letting off the 
surface-water, and though they might bring more 
and better grass if ditched, yet, in many locations, 
that operation had better be deferred till unoccu¬ 
pied and partially tilled lands are less plenty. 
Labor-Saving Implements are entitled to our pro¬ 
found regard. Our improvements in this respect 
are perhaps the most marked feature of the age, 
and yet a man can hire twenty acres of grass cut 
with a scythe for the interest on the money that a 
“ mower” would cost, and what he would generally 
lose by the depreciation in the value of his imple¬ 
ment and the repairs of the same. TheD, again, if 
a man can’t get help when he wants it, he may lose 
more by letting his grass stand a fortnight too long 
than would pay for Ketchum's or Kirby’s best 
machine. Look on all sides, gentlemen,—if your 
ground is rough and stony the machine won’t help 
you much} but if you can’t get plenty of help when 
you want it, buy a machine if you have got twenty- 
rive acres of smooth meadow to cut, and if less, 
join a neighbor in the purchase or go without. 
The mass of mankind have received more bene¬ 
fit from small and almost unnoticed improvements 
m little things than from the great talked-about 
wonders of modern invention. Take up a dung- 
lork made by a blacksmith fifty years ago and you 
would charge two shillings a day extra if compel¬ 
led to do a fair day's work with it—rakes, pitch¬ 
operations of harvesting, as we have never noticed 
any diminution in the number .of maggots up to 
that time. Should they leave the heads in very 
great numbers, we think the decrease would be per¬ 
ceptible. Many are carried to the barn and thresh¬ 
ed out with the wheat. Whether they are destroy o i 
or permitted again to go forth to prey upon the 
grain, depends upon the care and good sense of the 
farmer into whose hands they fall. To throw them 
out in the barn or manure yard, is about the same 
as sowing them over the new wheat field, as in any 
moist situation they will be certain to come into 
the perfect or fly state in full health and vigor. 
After the maggot reaches the ground it seeks 
shelter under any leaves or straw, or burrows 
slightly in the soil, and in any of these situations it 
will remain dormant until the following spring, yet 
with sufficient life to seek a new refuge if dis- 
^YTTTT y-v* turbed. In May the mag- 
f : I I | I ffe * g ot changes to the pup® 
state, and remains in this 
rupa, Magnified. condition some two 
weeks, and then bursts its coat and comes forth in 
June a perfect fly, ready to lay its eggs upon the 
young grain. 
Although we could not devote sufficient space to 
this subject to enter very largely into details, we 
have given enough in this brief article to show the 
habitsofthe Wheat-Head Midge. It may be thought 
we have accomplished but very little unless we 
suggest some means of preventing its ravages.— 
On this point we can say but little, and that little 
not very encouraging. Our only consolation is 
that the wisest can do no better. As the insect 
when on the ground is always on or very near the 
surface, we should judge it is incapable of rising 
from a great depth, and we will suggest that deep 
plowing and a reversion of the soil, by the Double 
Michigan Plow, would be very likely to bury them 
so deep that they would not be able to reach the 
surface, and would perish. Smoking the fly with 
sulphur and other things has been suggested, but 
this would have to be done in the standing wheat, 
and would be a very troublesome job. We have 
little faith in its adoption or success. Sowing fine 
lime on the heads of wheat at the time the fly 
commences to lay its eggs, has been proposed. 
We doubt whether this would cause the fly much 
inconvenience, but it is worthy of trial. It has also 
been proposed to net the fly, by having a wide, 
open-mouthed bag attached to a rope, passing 
through the field, dragging the bag-net over the 
heads of wheat. Thousands, it is said, can be 
caught in this way. Still another plan is to cease 
growing wheat for a time, and thus starve out the 
race. This would be successful, doubtless, but for 
the fact that in the absence of wheat, their favorite^ 
food, the flies, like the rest of us, would do the best* 
they could under the circumstances, for their 
future family, and deposit their eggs in other 
grains, or even grasses. We have been informed 
that where wheat was scarce the maggots have 
been found in clover heads. Deprived, however, 
of their natural diet, they would most likely have a 
hard time of it, and might, in the end, die out. 
Since writing the above we have made an excur¬ 
sion among the wheat fields, and everywhere we 
find the fly in great numbers. Even in fields of 
late spring wheat, that will not head for some 
weeks, and among the grass around the fences, 
they were congregated in crowds. In such situa¬ 
tions the greater part will, doubtless, perish. 
improving it, is a poor citizen 
lounges in the post-office, grocery, store, shop, 
or highway, when the women want his help in the 
flower garden, ought to eat raw potatoes for din¬ 
ner, and cook his own supper. I have generally 
employed one man in my garden and in trying to 
put things in order about the house, bat I have 
never required as much of other people, for I know 
full well that many men are obliged to do, them¬ 
selves, unaided, the entire work on fifty, a hundred, 
or a hundred and fifty acres of land. There is no 
uniform standard of neatness that it is possble to 
introduce, though one “Jonathan,” dating from 
Liv. Co., clearly intimates that H. T. B.’s articles in 
the Rural New-Yorker, have set up an extra high 
standard in all that pertains to high Jarming. There 
is no such impracticable character to H. T. B.’s 
articles,and as “Jonathan” professes to be very 
old, and as age is styled second childhood when 
its infirmities are very manifest, it may have been 
an oversight in not putting “ Jonathan ” into the 
youths’ department. 
Fences six feet high, staked and capped, are 
eminently adapted to oxen that push and horses 
that jump, but farmers of good sense and good 
habits, sometimes put orderly cattle, and particu¬ 
larly sheep, into less costly enclosures. 
Farm Buildings are a difficult and comprehensive 
subject—they ought to last a century when built, 
(the roofs being repaired,) and their internal and 
external arrangements should be subjected to the 
strictest scrutiny. My advice to my neighbors 
has uniformly been, “ let the old structure stand— 
get along some how, any how—till you are pre¬ 
pared to build in the most approved style.” This 
is my practice, and I recommend it to all, and 
have never recommended anything to the contrary. 
At the same time, structures, in expense and ar¬ 
rangements, must be adapted to the peculiar cir¬ 
cumstances of the owner. I will resume this 
subject hereafter.— h. t. b. 
FEMALE WHEAT FLY, MAGNIFIED, AND NATURAL SIZE. 
The engraving gives a very fair representation 
of the female Wheat Fly, although the wings are 
more rounded at the extremities than from speci¬ 
mens now before us we judge to be correct. This 
fly appears in the wheat fields about the middle of 
Jane, earlier or later, according to the locality or 
warmth of the season. Its body looks like the 
orange maggot which almost every farmer has 
found to his sorrow in heads of wheat, and with the 
screenings in the box of the fanning-mill. It is 
two-winged, with a pair of balances to steady its 
flight; of an orange-yellow color, with large black 
eyes, and a pair of head-like antenme, or feelers on 
its head; wings transparent, glossy and strong, 
with fringed edges, and extending beyond the 
body; length of head and body about one-eighth 
of an inch. 
THE WHEAT-HEAD MIDGE. 
CECIDOMYIA TRITICA, OF EUROPE. 
Many persons have expressed the opinion that 
the great enemy of the wheat-grower, the Midge, 
would pass away, like the grasshopper and other 
insects that are numerous one season, while the 
next scarcely one is to be seen,—and this, not only 
without the agency of man, but in a manner so mys¬ 
terious that the closest investigation would fail to 
discover the cause of their destruction. While we 
cannot say that we have been without hope, it has 
been too faint to induce us to encourage the farm¬ 
ers to look for so desirable a result. It has con¬ 
tinued with us so long and so regularly, that it 
seems to have become perfectly naturalized and 
prepared to endure all the vicissitudes of our cli¬ 
mate. The present is just the time when the insect 
will be doing its mischief, and from what we have 
seen of the abundance of the little orange-colored 
chrysalis, particularly in old wheat fields, so nu¬ 
merous in some places as to give the soil an orange 
tinge, we think its ravages this season will be more 
destructive than usual. Many farmers in this sec¬ 
tion, when planting spring crops on old wheat 
fields have been surprised at the singular appear¬ 
ance of the soil, and an examination found the 
cause to be millions of the Wheat Midge, in a chry¬ 
salis state. 
About the first of June a farmer of the town of 
MALE WHEAT FLY, MAGNIFIED. 
The male fly is somewhat different in appearance 
from the female, and the difference is shown in the 
engraving. They are not numerous. Indeed, Dr. 
Fitch says no one but himself and the German 
Naturalist, Meigen, had found them. In our col¬ 
lection we had several, but the antenme were not so 
long as shown in the engraving, though quite dif¬ 
ferent from the females. 
We also give an engraving of the Wheat Fly at 
rest. This is not magnified as much as the others, 
v ^ and those who examine the insect 
\ / without the aid of a glass, will see 
-j L- in this a more striking resemblance. 
J/ This fly appears in the' wheat fields 
about the time of blossoming, and 
avoiding the light and heat of the 
|\j\ ] sun, remains in the shade near the 
i ; jl I ground during bright days, and in 
V the evening and night, and on 
i J \ cloudy days, does its work of de- 
) / struction, by alighting on the heads 
/ \ of wheat and piercing the chaff 
/ V with its sting or ovipositor, (which 
Fly at Rest, is a slender tube resembling a fine 
hair,) and depositing its eggs on the soft grain.— 
RAILROAD HORSE-POWERS. 
Messrs. Eds.:— Noticing an article on Railroad 
Horse-Powers, in the Rural of June 12th, in which 
are some inquiries, by Asa Williams, I would say 
I have owned and used one of Emery’s manufac¬ 
ture for five years past, and find it very convenient, 
not only for threshing, but for cutting corn-stalks 
and sawing wood. With an elevation of from six¬ 
teen to eighteen inches in ten feet, two horses will 
thresh with good speed—one horse cut stalks, or 
drive a cross-cut saw, with the same elevation. I 
usually employ two horses in sawing wood, with 
about twelve inches elevation, though a little more 
is required in cold weather. When I first obtained 
my machine, my horses, a young spirited team, were 
engaged for most of the threshing season on a 
stveep-power, I had them on my machine only a 
few days the first season, to do my own threshing; 
since then, I have done considerable for other 
people, both in threshing and sawing wood. After 
the team become accustomed to the machine, a 
harness is unnecessary, and I use none,—the labor 
of the horses is simply walking up bill on a plank- 
road, the machine being put in motion by their 
