{WHOLE NO. 267. 
Utrarw’s plural Ittiu-fji'kr: 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY, & FAMILY JOURNAL. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. 1VIOOB.E. 
associate editors : 
J. H. UK BY, T. C. PETERS, EDWARD WEBSTER. 
Special Contributors : 
T. E. Wothorb, H. C. White, H. T. Brooks. I.. Weth er km,. 
Ladies’ Port-Folio by Azide. 
Thk Rdrad New-Yorker is designed to be unique and 
beautiful in appearance, and unsurpassed in Value. Purity 
and 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, Mechanical, Literary and News 
Matter, interspersed with many appropriate and beautiful 
Engravings, than any other paper published in this 
Country,—rendering it a. complete Agricultural, Literary 
and Family Newspaper. 
For Terms, and other particulars, see last page. 
PROCURESS AND IMPROVEMENT. 
DRAINING AND ITS BENEFITS. 
Nothing, perhaps, in the range of farm im¬ 
provements, indicates au advanced and per¬ 
fect state of scientific culture more certainly 
than a system of permanent and effective drain¬ 
age. There are indeed concomitant improve¬ 
ments, such as ample and convenient buildings, 
a careful and systematic saving and applica¬ 
tion of manures, the use of the most modem 
and perfect farm implements and machinery, 
go r id fences, orchards, and gardens, all o* 
which go to show that the occupant of the 
farm is traveling the high road of a wise and 
prosperous husbandry ; but all these latter 
sometimes exist, and have reached a great de¬ 
gree of perfection, while the former is meas¬ 
urably neglected. 
Indeed we frequently see, in the midst of 
wealthy and prosperous farming communities, 
large areas of the richest lands lying waste, 
because they are naturally too wet for cultiva¬ 
tion ; and on very many farms which we would 
pronounce tolerably well tilled, many of the 
fields are defaced by pond holes and marshes 
grown up with flags and coarse grasses which 
in the midst of the arable surroundings are as 
offensive to a cultivated eye and taste as would 
be a piece of charcoal set in a chasing of fine 
gold. It is true the charcoal is chemically the 
same material as the diamond, and the marshy 
place is generally even richer in all the ele¬ 
ments of vegetable organization than the adja¬ 
cent Helds ; but neither the one nor the other 
is at all ornamental or useful in such a con¬ 
nection. The former cannot, however, by 
the highest chemical skill be elaborated into 
the diamond, while the latter by a very mode¬ 
rate expenditure of time and money can be 
converted into a fruitful and valuable piece of 
ground. 
In very many t owns of Western New York, 
where arable lands are worth from fifty to one 
hundred dollars an acre, there are long reaches 
of swamp lands, extending through many 
farms, covered with a dense growth of worth¬ 
less vegetation. They are in their present 
state not only not worth one dollar to the pro¬ 
prietors, but are positively injurious to the 
community ; exhaling pestiferous vapors as 
noisome as the Styx, and interposing a barrier 
to neighborhood intercourse, school district 
communication, and social relations. United 
energy and capital, properly and scientifically 
directed in an extensive system of drainage, 
would render these lands among the most val¬ 
uable in the state. 
In many counties like that of Allegany, 
where high hills exist , we very often meet with 
plateaux of land, broad and level, which from 
appearances might make excellent farms.— 
The soil seems to be deep and rich, and the 
grass looks fresh and green ; but when the ex¬ 
periment of raising grain conics to be tried, it 
proves a failure. Corn starts late in the 
spring, looks pale and sickly, and if it is not 
cut off once or twice in the spring by an un¬ 
timely frost, it is quite apt to experience an 
early one in autumn. Fruits are not success¬ 
ful, and hence the lands are pronounced unfit¬ 
ted for all agricultural purposes except gra¬ 
zing, and are therefore either turned into sheep 
straths or dairy farms. The climate it would 
seem ought not to be any more rigorous than 
that of the neighboring counties. The ther¬ 
mometer, rises as high at noon, the sun’s rays 
are as genial, and the sky as cloudless ; but at 
night a chilling atmosphere deposits a blighting 
; frost several weeks later in the spring and ear- 
! lier in the fall, than in more favored localities, 
j It will usually be found in all such cases 
1 that the ground is wet and cold, the surface 
I soil being underlaid by a dense substratum 
j which is impervious to water, and retains the 
: accumulations resulting from rain and snow. 
I The neighboring hills pass down their surplus 
waters to the level plateau beneath and send 
its chilling currents percolating through the 
soil, thus unfitting it for the production of any 
vegetation except the hardy grasses of the pas¬ 
ture. In nine cases out of ten, or indeed we 
might say in ninety-nine out of one hundred, 
! if a system of deep and thorough drainage was 
j adopted, cutting off and diverting the water of 
| the springs and also affording a free discharge 
| of surface water from the fields, and then a 
thorough breaking up of the soil to as great a 
J depth as possible, was pursued in order to af¬ 
ford a reasonable amount of pulverized earth 
to receive and retain the genial influences of 
the air and sun, these lands, so stigmatized as 
regions of almost perpetual frost, would bear 
crops of cereals and fruits, quite equal to those 
of their more boastful neighbors. Indeed 
many of the towns in our Southern tier of 
counties, whose products were a few years ago 
! little else than lumber and maple sugar are now, 
under the ameliorating effects of good hus¬ 
bandry, yielding ample returns to the agricul¬ 
turist. Thorough drainage would improve 
them still further, and render many of the pres¬ 
ent second-rate farms as profitable to their 
owners in proportion to the money invested, 
as any in the state. 
But there is no occasion for going into the 
southern counties, to extensive swamp lands, or 
even to pond-holes and marshes, nearer home, 
for examples of the ameliorating effects of 
drainage. Most of our stiff clay soils, and 
others where there exists underlying strata 
which are wholly or partially impervious to 
water, will be materially improved by under- 
draining. The appearance of two adjacent 
wheat fields of precisely the same soil and til¬ 
lage, one of which is drained and the other not, 
will illustrate the truth much more forcibly 
than words can do. The writer has in his 
mind two such fields, not many miles dis¬ 
tant from Itochester, which, in the increase of 
the crop of last season on the one, paid all the 
cost of drainage while that of its neighbor 
' scarcely paid for harvesting. 
Most farmers, who have not improved their 
fields so far as to put in underdrains (and 
they are the great majority) partially obviate 
the deadly effects of stagnant water upon their 
i growing crops, by plowing open ditches in the 
j direction of the inclination. These ditches re- 
I move the surface water it is true, or at least 
i so much of it as does not in the meantime set- 
| tie into the ground : but in passing off it re¬ 
moves also all soluble portions of the manure 
with which it comes in contact, the ammoniacal 
salts, and other fertilizing matters collected 
i from the atmosphere by the rains ; while in 
j the other case of underdrainage, the greater 
; portion of these things are extracted from the 
I descending water by the soil and held in sus- 
! pension ready to be taken up and elaborated 
I into food for man by the mysterious powers of 
| organic vegetable life. Any one who has ever 
j taken pains to investigate the subject, cannot 
i fail to have observed the turbid and colored 
i appearance of the surface water of a tilled field, 
| compared with the limpid current disem- 
; bogued from the same field by an underdrain. 
; In the one case, the fluid has been effectually 
j filtered leaving its enriching properties behind. 
| while in the other, a large portion of the valu- 
I able ingredients of the soil is held in chemical 
j solution or mechanical suspension and carried 
, away. 
But this is not all the advantage of a cover¬ 
ed ditch. The best open trench, unless in¬ 
deed it be made of an equal depth, will not 
1 collect and carry off all the surplus water. A 
! large portion will sink into the earth, until 
1 coming to a solid substratum, it is arrested in 
-_A ' L'AmL- ' 
SOW AND PIGS.-YORKSHIRE AND LIECESTEBSHIRE BREED. 
j Above we present an engraving of a fine 
; family of the Yorkshire and Leicestershire 
; breed of swine, the originals of which took 
! the first prize of $50 at one of the Shows of 
i the English Royal Agricultural Society. The 
Leicestershire breed was derived from the stock 
its descent, and remains ready to re-act upon 
the surface soil, in such a way as to counteract 
the genial influences of the summer sun, and 
chill with excess of humidity, the roots of the 
growing plants. A clammy, baked, and 
lumpy soil, is the immediate, and a failure of 
the farmer’s hopes of an abundant harvest, 
the ultimate consequences. 
We would not by any means oppose the set¬ 
tlement of new territories, whose products 
must be transported twelve hundred miles to 
a seaboard market; but while this is going on, 
it is very desirable also to see the waste places, 
and what are now considered second or third 
rate farms in the older states brought by the 
application of a little scientific knowledge and 
skill to the highest possible point of product¬ 
ive fertility. 
‘ . . . 
SHELTERING CATTLE, 
Perhaps it is rather late in the season for 
advice to be given in regard to wintering 
stock, but a word upon any subject consonant 
with truth and science, is never unfitly spoken. 
The recent co’d weather, unprecedented in se¬ 
verity both here and elsewhere, drove man and 
beast to seek shelter where it was attainable; 
and the most humble animal, obeying the in¬ 
stincts of nature, hid itself as much as was in 
its power from the rigors of the season. 
All the domestic animals, are warm blooded 
i in their organization. Nature has supplied 
j them with an apparatus for generating heat 
j by a process of slow combustion, more perfect 
! in its operation than anything contrived by 
! the hand of man. In any furnace, however 
perfectly constructed, a portion of the carbon j 
is driven off unconsumed ; whereas, in the ani- j 
mal economy, all the carbon taken up by the I 
; blood is consumed by coming in contact with 
j the oxygen of the atmosphere in the lungs, and 
is then expired in the shape of carbonic acid 
gas. In this conversion of the carbon into 
; carbonic acid gas, animal heat is generated, 
and the temperature kept up to the proper 
j point. Nature has also provided an external 
! covering for the purpose of retaining the ani¬ 
mal heat; which covering adapts itself in a 
measure to the rigors of the climate, becoming 
down or fur in the Arctic regions, and degen- 
[ crating iut» coarse hair in warmer countries. ! 
The temperature of the healthy animal is 
, always nearly the same, and hence it follows 
that the colder the atmosphere and the more 
o{ the celebrated breeder, Robert Bakkwell. j animals are of ten defective hi form—long and 
They are white and of rather large size, and crooked in the back, giving less weight for the 
have been considerably bred in this country, food consumed than some others. Our en- 
but are not as popular now as formerly. This graving shows that the breed is regaining its 
is owing, doubtless, to the fact that the breed pristine vigor in Yorkshire, where it is a 
has been suffered to degenerate, so that the favorite with many of the farmers. 
imperfect the covering, the greater amount of 
combustible material must be supplied in or¬ 
der to keep up the requisite warmth. Food 
is the combustible material to the animal 
economy, as wood and coal is to that of the 
furnace. If the latter be placed in a close 
snug room, shut out from the freezing outside 
atmosphere, except so much as is just sufficient 
for ventilation and free combustion, we all 
know how much less fuel is required to pro¬ 
duce and retain a given temperature ; and by 
a parity of reasoning as well as by experience, 
we know r also that an animal properly housed 
will thrive on much less food than one unpro¬ 
vided for. Indeed, in the depths of a cheerless 
winter, the unhoused animal not only con¬ 
sumes his food, but the fatty covering of his 
carcass goes also to supply the requisite car- j 
bon for combustion, in the same way that an | 
improvident man would dismantle his house to ; 
furnish fuel for his stove. It may save him 1 
from freezing during a winter’s day but it im¬ 
poverishes him for all time to come. 
As a matter of economy, then, it is of the j 
highest importance that farmers provide warm I 
and ample shelter for their domestic animals. | 
It requires less food to make them thrive, and 
saves the flesh which would otherwise be wasted 
away. Nothing so surely indicates improvi¬ 
dent husbandry, as a wretched herd of domes- i 
tic animals. It points towards poverty as j 
unerringly as a spectral and skeleton finger 1 
points towards the grave: 
But there is a higher and more cogent argu¬ 
ment even, than the pecuniary one, and that 
is on the score of mercy. A man may I 
slight his crops, let the vegetable creation | 
sicken and perish under his unskillful or neg-! 
lectful hand, and yet escape that severe crim¬ 
inality which attaches itself to an abuse of ani¬ 
mals. The sensitive nature of the latter, j 
which renders them susceptible of pleasure and : 
pain, involves responsibilities on the part of! 
their owners second in weight, and akin in ! 
many respects, to those which rest upon us in 1 
the treatment of our fellow’ men. Lt gives op- j 
portunity for the display of the merciful or of I 
the fiendish attributes of our nature. To eve¬ 
ry man who has a domestic animal, we would 
say: 
“Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods ? 
Draw near them then in being merciful. 
Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.” 
In no way can you show more mercy to a 
dumb beast, than in furnishing it with com¬ 
fortable shelter through the storms of winter. 
THE MANURIAL USES 0E LIME. 
The Mark Lane Express, an English Ag- 
gricultural journal of marked ability, has an 
article in a recent number “ On the Uses and 
Application of Lime to Soils,” which, but for 
its length, we would copy entire for our readers. 
Its substantial points may be condensed as 
follows: 
1. Lime acts very powerfully in its caustic 
state in decomposing animal and vegetable 
matter in the soil. It retains a portion of its 
causticity in contact with the moist earth, and 
even when moderately diluted with water, and 
Prof. Way thinks the best mode of applying 
lime would be to have it equally distributed 
over the soil in solution in water. 
2. Lime acts surprisingly as a stimidant upon 
the dormant powers of the soil and the inert 
manures abiding therein. Liebig says, “ Lime, 
in combining with the elements of clay, liqui¬ 
fies it, and, what is more remarkable, liberates 
the greater part of its alkalies. The ceralia 
require the alkalies and the alkaline silicates, 
w’hich the action of lime renders fit for assim¬ 
ilation by the plants. Ammonia and the 
phosphates' are also indispensable, and with 
these we have all the conditions necessary to 
fertility.”' 
3. Lime neutralizes injurious acids in the 
sod. Soils subject to flooding or stagnant 
water are said to be sour, as containing too 
much vegetable acid. Lime qualifies the veg¬ 
etable and other soluble substances, and occa¬ 
sions their conversion by atmospheric action 
into food for plants. In this way it is useful 
in decomposing muck, and preparing it for a 
fertilizing application to loamy and sandy 
soils. 
4. Lime is a powerful alterative of the na¬ 
ture and texture of the soil. By causing fer¬ 
mentation therein, its minute panicles insin¬ 
uate into every crevice of the soil, causing its 
disintegration and separation, and the move 
rapid decay of vegetable matter, which event¬ 
ually makes it mellow and pliable. Lime has 
power to decompose the mineral portions in 
various soils, and is thus the source of benefit 
by providing the constituents of magnesia, 
potash, and soda, so important to vegetation. 
5. Lime applied in sufficient quantity de 
strays worms, slugs, beetles, &c., including most 
of the insects injurious to vegetation, which 
have for a portion of their existence a home 
in the soil. 
VOLUME VI. NO. 7.} 
ROCHESTER, N. Y- SATURDAY. FEBRUARY 17, 185a. 
