"V 
* 
VOLUME VI. NO, 15.} 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-SATURMY, APRIL 14, 1855. 
{WHOLE NO. 275, 
flaw's plural Htfa-^orkr: 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LIT ERARY, & FAMILY JOURNAL. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
ASSOCIATE EDITORS : 
J. B. BIXBY, T. C. PETERS, EDWARD WEBSTER. 
Special Contributors : 
T. E. Wktmorr, H. C. White, H. T. Brooks, L. Wetherell. 
Ladies’ Port-Folio by Anus. 
The Rural 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 News page. 
§kral Eeto-||flrlier. 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT. 
THE FUTURE FOR WOOL GROWERS. 
With many farmers, just now, there is 
much doubt as to their future course. Wool 
is comparatively low, aud all kinds of grain 
are high. So also with animal food—beef, 
pork, and mutton never commanded such high 
prices, and both butter and cheese have paid 
the dairy farmer better than ever before. We 
propose to consider the question whether, 
with all these facts before him, the farmer can 
do better than to continue to grow wool, or 
raise sheep to as great an extent as his cir¬ 
cumstances will permit. 
And in the first place let us see whether 
grain growing is likely to prove as profitable 
for any length of time, as it now is. 
While wheat brings such prices as it has for 
the last two years, farmers will sow though 
the midge does destroy more or less of the 
crop, for the high price warrants the risk.— 
A partial failure, even, will yield a profit. It 
is hardly possible, however, that wheat will 
command such prices for any length of time. 
Yet it is equally certain that it will bring 
higher prices upon the average for the next 
ten years, than for the last ten. A perma¬ 
nent rise in the price of wheat must follow 
the great increase of gold, and is one of the 
results of the California acquisition. The in¬ 
crease of gold will enhance all kinds of agri¬ 
cultural products which go to the support of 
human life. 
If society be divided into producers and 
non-producers, including in the former only 
those who till the soil, it will be surprising to 
see how rapidly the non-producing are gaining 
in population upon the farmer. And herein 
is one solution of the distress that has every¬ 
where prevailed in cities and villages, and 
which must continue until the balance is re¬ 
stored to its proper level by the surplus pow¬ 
er becoming productive. 
It may be safely asserted of the whole 
country, that productive labor has out run 
capita], that is, agriculture sells more than it 
buys, and the difference is finding its way to 
the pockets of the farmers, and does not flow 
back rapidly to the mechanic or manufacturer. 
The country is growing rich, but not so the 
cities. 
High prices, then, for grain, must prevail 
until the surplus labor of the country has 
gone to raising grain, and thus by a full sup¬ 
ply the market is lowered. A result that will 
take place, but rather slowly. The high price 
for grain will also secure a good price for 
meats, and will make the raising and feeding 
of cattle, hogs and sheep, both safe and profit¬ 
able. In dairy products there cannot well be 
any falling off in price, from the fact that the 
section of our country best suited to that 
business is comparatively small, so that while 
the population rapidly increases, the means of 
a supply are not increasing in the same pro¬ 
portion. The consumption of milk by the 
cities and villages, forms no inconsiderable 
item in the consumption of dairy products. 
All kinds of farming will pay well, if devoted 
to the production of human food. 
But wool will not command as high a price, 
comparatively, as other products. Still it 
will be profitable to keep sheep, as profitable 
as any other stock. It is hardly 
possible that good Merino wool 
in good condition should range 
below an average of 35 cents per 
pound, we think for years it will 
go higher. But taking it at that 
price, and the average product at 
4 lbs. per head, it gives for the 
use of the sheep $1,40, to say 
nothing of the lambs. Merino 
lambs in good condition, at six 
months old, will sell readily to 
the butcher at from $1,25 to $1,75 
say the average is $1,50. At this 
price few farmers now are in the 
habit of saving their males, except 
some that are very choice, and 
many of the best breeders will 
not do that, unless they can com¬ 
mand a good price for them for 
stock. The result is, that very 
few males are or should be win¬ 
tered. Thus the increase in a 
flock is nearly equal to the num¬ 
ber wintered. Making all reason¬ 
able allowances for casualties and 
the farmer gets annually $2,75 
per head from his sheep. 
While, therefore, wool is not, 
and probably will not be lower 
than it has averaged for the last 
ten years, sheep have more than 
doubled in value of carcass, by 
the great demand for food ; mutton being the 
cheapest, most healthful of all meats, is coming 
more and more use, and the demand for it is 
increasing at a rapid rate. It will be found 
by the farmers who continue in the business to 
be, as it always has been for the capital in¬ 
vested, by far the most profitable of any 
branch that he carries on. And, over a large 
portion of the Union, more money can be 
made from the acre by growing mutton for 
the market than beef. We think it will not 
be many years before the raising of sheep will 
be largely on the increase. Up to this time 
wool has been more an object than the carcass. 
From this time forward the carcass will be 
more of an object than the wool. 
The future, therefore, has nothing in it that 
need be at all gloomy to the wool grower, and 
we hope the many good flocks which now ex¬ 
ist in the country, will not be sacrificed by the 
seeming low price of wcol. Coed sheep will 
pay the farmer who takes good care of them, 
and if he does not, poor ones are too good for 
him.—p. 
ULTIMATE EFFECTS OF GUANO. 
The great value of Guano as an application 
to worn or exhausted soils, is very generally 
conceded, especially when used in giving poor 
land a start, so that a course of rotation and 
cropping can be commenced with encouraging 
results. But further observation and experi¬ 
ment are needed to show whether it can be 
depended upon year after year for the fertiliz¬ 
ing of the farm, the same as barn-yard manure. 
We find this subject started in the Piedmont 
(Ya.) Whig, a paper often containing editorial 
articles of value to the agriculturist. It is 
well known that Guano has been the great 
manure for the renovation of the exhausted 
soils of that section, and that its use and value 
is probably better understood there than else¬ 
where in the country. 
The law of action and re-action is applicable 
to the soil as well as to all else in nature. 
“ Everything stimulated or excited to an unu¬ 
sual degree of action, must suffer a corres¬ 
ponding depression after the excitement is 
over.” And,, all ammoniacal manures seem to 
have an active, stimulating effect, perceived 
almost immediately in the increased growth of 
the products of the soil to which it is applied. 
This is illustrated, and also its ultimate re¬ 
sults, in a case mentioned by Liebig, and 
referred to by our authority. The vine grow¬ 
ers of one of the principal Rhine wine regions, 
made a discovery by means of which they 
doubled their crop of grapes. Unfortunately, 
in a year or two, their specific not only failed 
to accomplish the purpose expected, but their 
crops dwindled away almost to nothing. They 
had stimulated their viues by manuring them 
CFIILLINGHAM WILD CATTLE. 
[For description of this peculiar breed of Cattle, see last column of next page.] 
with shavingi of horn, which conta /.Aargc 
quantity of ammonia; and when the reliction 
came, the product fell as far below the medium 
standard, as it had for a year or two been 
above it. The vines, too, were permantly in¬ 
jured by this treatment, and were never re¬ 
stored to their original condition. Another 
case is related of a Virginia gardener who, 
when Guano was first introduced, made trial 
of it upon some rose bushes. “ The conse¬ 
quence was such a development of flowers as 
no one had ever seen before. The trees were 
loaded with a profusion of roses, of the finest 
quality. But it soon became manifest that it 
was only a temporary excitement, soon to be 
succeeded by a corresponding depression.— 
The trees never recovered fully from the shock 
which they had received, and some of them 
perished outright.” 
From this it would appear that on perren- 
nial plants, the continual application of Guano 
sometimes produces very injurious effects in 
the end, but these effects would probably be 
much less on annuals, renewed from year to 
year, like the grain crops. But still some 
result must be produced, and this it should be 
made the object of careful experiment to ascer¬ 
tain. There can be no question, however, of 
the importance of this manure to the country, 
and everything going to show how it can best 
be employed, and giving a better understand¬ 
ing of the results which may be expected, will 
be of value. 
SOWING CLOVER SEED. 
Clover takes a place so important in the 
system of rotation by which the fertility of 
our wheat farms is kept up, that we may be 
excused for recalling some hints heretofore 
given upon the subject. The season for de¬ 
ciding and acting in the matter is here, and 
remarks upon quality and quantity, manner 
and management, will neither be mis-timed or 
uninteresting. 
It is only about eighty-live years since 
Clover—and with it Gypsum, or plaster of 
Paris—was first introduced into this country 
from Germany. These together had worked 
wonders in Flemish and English agriculture 
and have now come to be pretty well known 
and appreciated in our own. Clover is 
grown very extensively for hay and pasture 
and for plowing under as a green manure 
wherever the wheat crop is the staple product. 
Several varieties, known as the large, small, 
and medium kinds, are cultivated, but in this 
section the latter prevails most extensively, 
and is generally preferred, as making better 
hay muI being equally vslarble as a U 
As to the quality of the seed, great care 
should be taken that it be pure, for some 
of the worst pests of the farm have been 
more widely disseminated by being sown with 
clover seed, brought from a distance. 
The true economy as to quantity of seed, 
I is to soiv liber ally, for by saving five dollars 
here, a loss of twenty dollars is often sustain¬ 
ed in hay and pasturage. One-third of a 
bushel is the least amount, even when mixed 
with other grass seeds, which should be sown 
| on an acre. The difference between half and 
full seeding is very great—as indeed it must 
be when one covers the surface with a thick 
growth of grass, while the other does it very 
imperfectly. Some experiments made to test 
I the matter show more than double the product 
for several years from the field fully seeded 
over that where only the usual quantity had 
been sown. 
Spring is undoubtedly the best time for 
seeding wheat fields to clover, and is that gen¬ 
erally employed. Many fields are already 
sown, though the backward spring has doubt¬ 
less delayed others. The use of a light har¬ 
row after sowing is the best security for the 
vegetation of the seed and the permanence of 
the young plants, and will not injure the 
wheat in the least, but is generally thought 
very beneficial to that crop. The growth of 
clover is increased, and its “ catching” in a 
measure ensured, by a top-dressing of from 
one to three bushels of plaster per acre, in 
May. No one who has observed the essential 
difference in plastered and unplastered clover 
will neglect its application. 
Clover takes less from the soil and more 
from the atmosphere, in proportion to the 
feeding and manuring value of its product 
than most other plants. This is one source of 
its value—its numerous roots, long stalks, and 
abundant leaves, supplying much vegetable 
matter to the soil. A luxuriant growth of 
clover is an excellent preparation for any and 
every crop. The soil is loosened and deep¬ 
ened by its tar-spreading roots, which bring 
to their support and to the surface the valua¬ 
ble salts in the subsoil not usually pressed into 
service. This, too, is the reason why clover 
so delights in a deep, fresh soil, and why after 
subsoil plowing such abundant crops are sure 
to follow. 
More profit may be realized from one acre 
well and deeply plowed and well manured, 
than from two acres but half prepared for 
seeding. There is no economy like the econo¬ 
my of doing everything thoroughly. 
BARK UP vs. BARK DOWN, AND NO BARK. 
More than a quarter of a century ago, 
when I was a little lad, I well remember read¬ 
ing an article in an almanac, which my father 
gave me, like this :—“ Farmers should always 
remember, in building rail fence, to lay the 
rails with the bark upwards. Rails laid in a 
fence, or any other timber, exposed to the 
weather, will last twice as long if the bark is 
not taken oft', and in split rails, laid upwards. 
Nature designed the bark for a protection ; 
and if the rails are laid with the bark up¬ 
wards they will last longer than if the bark 
were downwards, or pulled off.” An article 
copied by you from the Granite Farmer, on 
preparing fire wood says,—“Some farmers 
have not yet learned, that in piling wood for 
the seasoning, they should not expose the 
heart to the weather. Nature designed the 
bark of a tree as a protection ; and it serves 
as well, when a tree is cut and split, if proper¬ 
ly piled, as when on the stump. The bark 
should always be uppermost. In this way 
the water runs off readily.” 
That the main instruction, in both of these 
paragraphs is incorrect, and contrary to the 
experience of our best agriculturists, and 
wood and timber dealers, we will endeavor to 
show by facts, which cannot be gainsayed.— 
Every botanist knows that the bark of trees 
consists of three distinct layers, viz., the epi¬ 
dermis, or outer layer; the parenchyma, or 
middle layer ; and the cortical layer, which is 
next to the wood. These different parts, we 
acknowledge, “ nature designed as a protec¬ 
tion ” to the wood, while the tree was alive ; 
and that a tree cannot be denuded of its pro¬ 
tection, or bark, except at a certain season of 
the year, without endangering its life. But, 
while nature has chosen those substances, which 
are so wisely adapted to the protection of the 
tree when alive, she has been wisely careful to 
select, at the same time and in the same ma¬ 
terials, those substances, which will facilitate 
and greatly hasten its decay after life is ex¬ 
tinct. Every one who has handled and cut 
bark, with an edge tool, knows, without 
doubt, that it is a very coarse, corky, porous 
substance; and that it will very readily absorb 
a large quantity of water, and that it is re¬ 
markable for retaining moisture, far more so 
than the wood which it protects. 
Well, as scon as I was large enough to go 
about the farm, and assist in making rail 
fence, taking it for granted that everything 
1 
