VOLUME VI. NO. 11.} 
HOC HESTER, N. Y.-SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 1855. 
{WHOLE NO. 271. 
Ukrn’s |kral Ikto-florlicr: 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY* & FAMILY JOURNAL. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
■ASSOCIATE EDITORS ! 
J. H. BIX BY, T. C. PETERS, EDWARD WEBSTER. 
Special Contributors : 
T. E. Wetmorr, H. C. Wnrrn, H. T. Brooks, L. Wkthkrkll. 
I-adies’ Port-Folio by Azilk. 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unique and 
boautiful 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, Literacy 
and Family Newspaper. 
For Terms, and other particulars, see last page. 
llraral fleiu-iurkr. 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT. 
THE CULTIVATION OF WHEAT. 
There is no crop of grain so widely culti¬ 
vated as that of wheat. Its antiquity runs 
back to the earliest period of history, and its 
consumption, (not always its cultivation) may 
almost be regarded as the exponent of civiliza¬ 
tion. Not always its cultivation we say, be¬ 
cause some bleak cold countries where the hu¬ 
man race have made good progress, are not 
adapted either in soil or climate to produce 
this valuable cereal either prolitably or suc¬ 
cessfully. But such localities are at the same 
time consumers of the article, rendering to 
the cultivator as an equivalent therefor the 
produce of the mine and the manufactory.— 
New England, and some of the nations of 
North Western Europe are illustrations in 
point. 
But nearly every temperate region of the 
world, inhabited by men who have made any 
advance in civilization, is a producer to a 
greater or less extent of the grain under con¬ 
sideration. It is cultivated in all the prov¬ 
inces of the Chinese Empire, Syria, Persia, 
and in fact all the temperate portions of Asia, 
in Northern and Southern Africa, in Central 
and Southern and a portion of Northern 
Europe, in the United States, Canada and 
Mexico, in most of the South American coun¬ 
tries, and in the islands of the Pacific. AVheat 
and flour constitute an immense item in com¬ 
mercial accounts. The ports of Russia on the 
Baltic and the Black Seas, before the com¬ 
mencement of hostilities, swarmed with Brit¬ 
ish shipping whose return cargoes were princi¬ 
pally wheat. New York, Baltimore, New 
Orleans, and other American ports send out 
large quantities to Europe, the West Indies, 
and the Pacific coast, besides supplying to the 
New England States a large part of the grain 
consumed by them. 
Every year adds broad acres to the land al¬ 
ready employed in the cultivation of wheat.— 
Michigan has not been an exporter over twen¬ 
ty years, and Chicago within half that length 
of time was an entrepot for home consump¬ 
tion instead of being herself the very large ex¬ 
porter which she shows herself to-day. Cali¬ 
fornia never raised her bread until last year, 
and other new territories are fast wheeling into 
line as surplus producers. The remarkable 
prices obtained for the grain during the past 
year has stimulated its cultivation into great 
activity, and every available acre where a good 
crop may reasonably be expected, is called in¬ 
to requisition. 
The partial failure of the crop in some lo¬ 
calities has had a tendency to alarm if not to 
discourage some of our agriculturists ; and the 
inquiry is made whether we may not expect a 
time to come when the wheat crop will cease 
to make remunerative returns ? On this sub¬ 
ject we can only say, that improvident culture 
will certainly bring about such a result; that 
even the best and most careful husbandman 
will occasionally, in time to come as in times 
past, have to submit to a blighted harvest; but 
if we judge lrom what has transpired since 
the earliest period of wheat culture, we may 
conclude that its production will safely and 
certainly occupy the attention of a large num¬ 
ber of agriculturists to the end of time. 
There are at least fifty varieties of wheat, 
divided generally into white and red, spring 
or winter wheat; but extensive cultivation is 
confined to half a dozen or so of these varie¬ 
ties. Indeed soil and climate have much to 
do in producing and perpetuating or modify¬ 
ing the different kinds. If grown for a suc¬ 
cession of years in any one locality they grad¬ 
ually assimilate towards those kind3 best 
adapted to the circumstances. The amount of 
grain produced also varies widely. In some 
places and under some modes of cultivation, 
ten bushels are considered a fair crop, while 
in others, the farmer is not satisfied unless his 
fields produce at least twenty-five. In West¬ 
ern New York, one of the most favored spots 
on the face of the earth for wheat culture as 
well as many other things, twenty bushels of 
merchantable grain is probably above rather 
than below the average. Quite frequently, in¬ 
deed, whole fields will yield twenty-five or 
thirty bushels to the acre, aftd occasionally 
far exceed that amount. We know a field 
just south of the village of West Bloomfield, 
Ontario county, from which Capt. William 
Arnold, an old resident of that town, (now 
deceased) harvested forty-seven bushels and 
three pecks to the acre. The writer was over 
that same field la3t fall, and would hesitate to 
take the next crop which may be cut from it 
at even fifteen bushels. 
The following remarkable crops of wheat 
raised upon fields of limited extent are authen¬ 
tically recorded. In 1841, George Shaffer, 
of Wheatland in this county, received the first 
premium of the New York State Agricultural 
Society, for 300 bushels of wheat raised on 
7% acres, an average of 40 bushels per acre. 
In 1845, Edward Rivington of Vernon, 
Oneida Co., raised 110 bushels and 20 pounds 
on two acres of land, or fifty-five bushels and 
one-sixth per acre. Stephen B. Dudley of 
Ontario Co., at or about that year raised a 
crop of wheat that yielded 50 bushels ; Abra¬ 
ham Fairchild, of Arcadia, Wayne Co., 39 
bushels aud 1G pounds ; Daniel Gates, of 
Madison Co., 44 bushels; Sarah Warner, of 
Cayuga Co., 420 bushels from 11 acres, or an 
average of 38 bushels aud 11 pounds ; Thomas 
Ogden, same county, 38% bushels ; James T. 
Green, of Jackson, Washington Co., 44% 
bushels ; James Stephenson, of Argyle, Wash. 
Co., above 44 bushels ; Artemas Bigelow, of 
Benton, Yates Co., 43% bushels ; and Oliver 
Siiedd, of Cortlandt Co., 42% bushels. This 
record might be extended, but the above fur¬ 
nish sufficient proofs that at least forty bush¬ 
els of wheat are no uncommon yield for an 
acre of land, although the experience of even 
our best farmers shows that such crops cannot 
reasonably be expected. 
CULTIVATION OF BROOM CORN. 
Some inquiries received relative to the cul¬ 
tivation of Broom Corn, induce us to give a 
few items of information on that subject. 
Broom Corn will thrive on any land where 
I Indian Corn grows well. The preparation of 
the soil, the manures required, and the after 
cultivation are very much alike for each crop. 
One grower says that it always succeeds best 
on the inverted sod of an old meadow or pas¬ 
ture, and is a very sure crop, having never 
failed with him except from late frosts. In 
the Mohawk valley, Broom corn is raised on 
the flats very successfully. Stiff clay, such as 
one correspondent mentions, would not be the 
best soil which could be chosen—unless well 
drained and manured. 
As early as the season will admit, the 
ground selected should be prepared and plant¬ 
ed. The latter operation is performed with a 
seed planter, or drill, in rows about three and 
one-half feet apart. Some seasons it is de¬ 
layed by unfavorable weather as late as the 
first week in June. As soon as the corn is 
fairly up, it is hoed, aud soon after thinned so 
as to leave the stalks two or three inches apart 
in the row. If only hoed along the rows, the 
remaining surface is kept clean by the frequent 
use of the cultivator, and the w’orking finished 
by running a shovel or double mouldboard 
plow rather shallow between the rows. 
It was formerly the practice to let the 
Broom corn stand until quite ripe, aud also to 
break down the tops and let them hang for 
some weeks, so that the brush might straight¬ 
en evenly. Now the tops are lopped while the 
brush is quite green and the seed yet in the 
milk, and then cut down by a second set of 
hands, while a third loads them into wagons 
and takes them to the factory, one of which is 
generally carried on by those who grow much 
Broom corn. There they are parceled into 
sorts of equal length and the seed taken off by 
a hatchcling machine, carried by water, steam 
or horse power. It is then spread thin on 
racks under shelter, and will dry in about a 
week, so that it may be packed iu bulk. 
An average yield is stated to be about one 
hundred brooms per acre—one hundred pounds 1 
of cleaned brush making about seventy brooms 
of the average size. The stalks are five or six 
feet high after the brush is cut off, and are 
generally left on the field to be plowed in the 
succeeding spring. It is said that the stalks 
are full of leaves which are very nutritive, and 
in case of need, would furnish a large amount 
of good food for cattle. They can be cut and 
dried for winter, or eaten green by stock on 
the ground. The seed is used as food for fowls, 
and sometimes as food for stock. 
GUANO.—ITS HISTORY. 
Guano, as most people understand, is im¬ 
ported from the islands of the Pacific—mostly 
of the Ohincha group off the coast of Peru, 
and under the dominion of that government. 
Its sale i3 made a monopoly, and the avails, 
to a great extent, go to pay the British holders 
of Peruvian government bonds, .giving them, 
to all intents and purposes, a lieu upon the 
profits of a treasure intrinsically more valua¬ 
ble than the gold mines of California. 
There are deposites of this unsurpassed fer¬ 
tilizer in some places to the depth of sixty or 
seventy feet, and over large extents of surface. 
These guano fields are generally conceded to 
be the excrements of aquatic fowls which live 
and nestle in great numbers around the islands. 
They seem designed by nature to rescue, at 
least in part, that untold amount of fertilizing 
material which every river and brooklet is 
rolling into the sea. The wash of alluvial 
soils, the floating refuse of the field and forest, 
and, above all, the wasted materials of great 
cities, are constantly being carried by the tidal 
currents out to sea. These, to a certain extent 
at least, go to nourish, directly or indirectly, 
submarine vegetable and animal life, which in 
turn goes to feed the birds whose excrements 
at our day are brought away by the ship-load 
from the Chincha islands. The bird is a beauti¬ 
fully-arranged chemical laboratory, fitted up 
to perform a single operation, viz.,—to take 
the fish as food, burn out the carbon by means 
of its respiratory functions, and deposite the 
remainder in the shape of an incomparable 
fertilizer. 
But how many ages have these depositions 
of seventy feet in thickness been accumulating? 
There are at the present day countless num¬ 
bers of the birds resting upon the islands at 
night; but, according to Baron Humboldt, the 
eKcrements of the birds for the space of three 
centuries, would not form a stratum over one- 
third of an inch in thickness. By an easy 
mathematical calculation, it will he seen that 
at this rate of deposition, it would take seven 
thousand five hundred and sixty centuries, or 
seven hundred and fifty-six thousand years, to 
form the deepest guano bed ! Such a calcula¬ 
tion carries us back well on towards a former 
geological period, and proves one, and perhaps 
both, of two things—first, that in past ages 
an infinitely greater number of these birds 
hovered over the islands ; and secondly, that 
the material world existed at a period long 
anterior to its fitness as the abode of man. 
The length of man's existence is infinitesi¬ 
mal, compared with such a cycle of years ; and 
the facts recorded on every leaf of the material 
universe ought, if it does not, to teach us hu¬ 
mility. That a little bird, whose individual 
existence is as nothing, should, in its united 
action, produce the means of bringing back to 
an active fertility whole provinces of waste 
aud barren lands, is one of a thousand facts to 
show how apparently insignificant ageucies in 
the economy of nature produce momentous 
results. 
SOUTH DOWN EWE. 
Among sheep, the South Down has become 
famous as producing a very fine quality of 
mutton, with the fat and lean well mixed, and 
from this reputation their flesh will command 
the best prices in the larger markets. They 
have been bred considerably in this country, 
and many prefer them to all other breeds, as 
maturing early, of hardy constitution and easi¬ 
ly kept. They are of good size and very pro¬ 
lific ; the ewes are great milkers, which ad¬ 
vances the lambs rapidly. The wool produced 
Cmtututnudians. 
PIASTER.—APPLICATION ASD VALUE. 
Mr. Rural: —Ever since large enough to 
bear a share iu the labors of the farm, I have 
been in the practice of applying Plaster ( Sul¬ 
phate of Lime) to farm crops, and the uncer¬ 
tainty of the results therefrom has been to me 
a source of much perplexity and speculation. 
In every field where I have applied it, I have 
left a strip unplastered for the purpose of bet¬ 
ter observing its effect, but I am yet in the 
dark with regard to its economical use, not 
knowing when and where its application will 
surely prove beneficial. Whether it should be 
applied in wet weather or dry, whether early 
or late in the season, are questions about 
which I am still in doul»t. I think with Mr. 
Garbutt, that it is not a manure, but that it 
acts on the soil to stimulate it in the appro¬ 
priation of the nutritious properties already 
in its possession. 
By way of illustrating the grounds of my 
dilemma, I will slate the results of some of my 
observations. One of the first jobs entrusted 
to my especial care when a boy was the appli¬ 
cation of plaster to several acres of corn.— 
Immediately after the first hoeing I was fur¬ 
nished with a little pail and teaspoon, and di¬ 
rected to put a spoonful on every hill. When 
I had finished the field within about the fourth 
of an acre, I was driven from my work by a 
heavy shower, and the rain continued till it 
made out quite a freshet. When the storm 
ceased I was sent to finish the field, but upon 
reaching the place I determined upon an ex¬ 
periment, and left two rows without any plas¬ 
ter. The results were astonishing. Where 
the plaster was put on before the rain, the crop 
was apparently doubled. The two rows ap¬ 
peared like a different and inferior kind of 
corn, while the remaining portion, where it 
was applied after the rain, immediately turned 
yellow and appeared as if blighted ; nor did it 
ever recover, the product being small, unripe, 
and comparatively worthless. 
Now, so far as I know the opinions of farm¬ 
ers, they prefer to sow plaster in wet weather 
or after showers. If their theory and practice 
are right, what caused such a result in the 
above experiment ? Adjoining the corn was 
a patch of potatoes, to which I also applied 
plaster after they were eight or ten inches high, 
leaving two row3 without any, and here the 
effect was quite apparent through the remain¬ 
der of the season ; and when dug they (the 
two rows) produced only about two-thirds as 
much as the rows on either side of them. 
On another occasion, I was sent with an 
is of very fair quality, and will generally sell 
at paying prices. ,. The Cotswolds and New 
Oxfordshire Downs are also warmly recom¬ 
mended a3 Mutton Sheep by those who have 
bred them. As before remarked, we do not 
undertake to decide between the different vari¬ 
eties ; we are only anxious that the best mut¬ 
ton sheep may become plenty, for we believe 
that it would be well for the country if this 
I meat was generally in use, instead of so much 
pork and beef as is now consumed. 
older brother to sow plaster on a lot of eight 
acres. Not being experienced in the business 
we had two or three bushels left when we had 
gone over the field. After some consultation, 
we concluded to sow the balance on a piece of 
wheat adjoining. The result was a good crop 
of wheat where we sowed the plaster, the har¬ 
vest hands judging the produce at 15 bushels 
per acre, while the balance, to which plaster 
was not applied, was estimated at five bushels 
per acre. This was about twenty-five years 
ago, and I have sowed plaster upon wheat 
every year since, almost uniformly leaving 
a strip without any, for the purpose of observ¬ 
ing its effect—and in no other instance have I 
been satisfied that its application was beneficial 
to the wheat, but in many cases it has pro¬ 
duced so great a growth of clover that I 
thought that detrimental to the wheat crop. 
In the spring of 1848 I plowed a field of 
about 5% acres that had been two years in 
clover, and planted 3 acres with corn, and the 
balance with potatoes. After going through 
it with the cultivator, I applied plaster at the 
rate of one bushel per acre, leaving six rows 
through the corn and potatoes without any.— 
The effect upon the corn was very great, fully- 
doubling the amount of grain, the whole field 
except the six rows being well ripened, sound 
corn, while those rows produced mostly unripe 
nubbins. We ascertained, by careful meas¬ 
urement, that two rows of plastered corn on 
either side of those unplastered, produced as 
much sound corn as the whole six. The po¬ 
tatoes were up when the corn was plastered, 
and it was applied to them a few days later. 
For awhile there was an apparent difference, 
those where the plaster was applied appearing 
darker and more thrifty, but not perceptibly 
larger. Long before they were ripe, no differ¬ 
ence could be seen, and the most careful ex¬ 
amination at harvest showed no difference in 
the product. Aside from the cash benefit re¬ 
alized from the experiment, which could not 
be less than $50. I felt that I had learned 
something that would be of use to me after¬ 
wards, for like causes ought to produce simi¬ 
lar effects. So in the spring of 1849 I pre¬ 
pared a piece of ground near the other, of the 
same quality of soil, and as nearly as I could 
judge in the same situation. I planted it with 
corn and applied the plaster as I hail done the 
previous season, leaving four rows for the pur¬ 
pose of observing its effect. To my aston¬ 
ishment there was no difference perceptible, 
and the application was of no value whatever 
either to that or succeeding crops. 
Since that I have used plaster upon my corn 
and potatoes every year, but without being 
able to detect the slightest benefit therefrom 
in a single instance. My experiments with it 
. .* . . ... . 
