VOLUME VI. NO. 41,} 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.—SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13 1855. 
Utoon's ^itral Itcfa-gorlur. 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY, & FAMILY JOURNAL. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
A8SOCJAT3 EDITORS : 
J H. BIXBY, T. C. PETERS, EDWARD WEBSTER. 
Special Contributors : 
T E. Wruorb, E. C. White, H. T. Brooks, L. Wiukhiu. 
Ladies’ Port-Folio by Anus. 
Thr 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 ombraces 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, Lite¬ 
rary and Family Newspaper. 
Eos Terms, and other particulars, see News page. 
Jjtaral |Icb-J)flrkr. 
PROGRESS ANU IMPROVEMENT. 
DECREASE OF RURAL POPULATION. 
The late census, both in our own and in 
several other of the older States, has brought 
out some startlirg developments in regard to 
the statistics of population. In this State, for 
instance, while the aggregate is larger than in 
1850, and a few great commercial and manu¬ 
facturing centres, such as New York, Buffalo, 
Rochester, Oswego, &c., have largely increas¬ 
ed, the rural distriets, and even inland and 
heretofore thriving villages, have either re¬ 
mained stationary, or actually decreased. The 
nearer,, in fact, a community approached to a 
purely agiicultural neighborhood, the greater 
has been the decadence of the population. 
Villages that formerly contained one or two 
hundred inhabitants, and supported a storeor 
two, a post-cffice, mechanic shops of vari¬ 
ous kinds, have in some instances decreased 
one-fourth ; and t hose which have retained 
their full complen ent of citizens, are the ex¬ 
ceptions rather than the rule. In the farming 
districts, the charge is still more apparent; 
the freeholds of a lew acres have been absorbed 
in the larger farms adjacent, and the humble 
tenement is either empty, turned into a hay- 
barn, or occupied by a laborer on the larger 
farm. The household gods of the original 
proprietor, have gone out to find a resting- 
place in some far-off Western State or terri¬ 
tory. One would naturally infer, viewing 
this state of affairs abstractly, that misfortune 
or an evil destiny had fallen upon the coun¬ 
try ; but when we examine things as they 
exist in fact, we see unmistakable evidences 
of increased prosperity. A vast amount is 
added yearly to the value of permanent estates. 
Not only are the cities extended and improved, 
hut country property also is enhanced. Long 
lines of railroad, costing frcm twenty to fifty 
thousand dollars a mile, are constructed in 
every direction, millions of dollars are ex¬ 
pended upon the canals, the water-power at 
central points, such as the Falls, Rochester, 
Oswego, Watertown, &c., is appropriated to 
the building up of an increased manufacturing 
activity. Again, returns for all kinds of pro¬ 
duce have never been more remunerative 
than within the past five years. Cattle, 
grain, fruits and vegetables, meet a ready sale 
for cash, and the agriculturist finds himself, 
so far as money matters are concerned, in the 
best possible position. Want and poverty are 
unknown outside of city limits, and the day 
wages of the farm hand have never been so 
high. 
Why, then, is there net an increase, rather 
than a decrease, of the country population t 
It may appear anomalous, hut it is undoubt¬ 
edly true, that this very prosperity has been 
conducive to the unexpected results. The 
large farmer finds himself in funds suffi¬ 
cient to buy out his more humble neighbor, 
and thereby extendsthe limits of his own prem¬ 
ises ; while the owner of a few acres considers 
it for his interest to sell, and then re-purchase 
with the avails of his small farm au ampler 
homestead at the West. Estates, which de¬ 
scend by the death of the ancestor, are not, as 
a general thing, parceled out among the heirs; 
either one of the number buys out the others, 
or the estate is sold as a whole, and the avails 
divided among those interested. These frac¬ 
tional amounts are not usually sufficient to 
purchase desirable farms in the old locality, 
but are ample to provide homes in the West ; 
and hence these growing communities wel¬ 
come to their prolific soil the strong a ms and 
stout hearts of the disbanded household. The 
old State loses the father by death, and the 
sons by emigration ; while the younger com¬ 
monwealth gains the latter without losing 
anything. 
The unfortunate desire existing in the farm¬ 
ing community to enlarge the area of their 
possessions, in preference to improving to the 
extent of their capacity that already occupied, 
enhances this tendency to depopulate by con¬ 
solidating the estate in fewer hands. But 
there are other causes no less potent in their 
influence leading to the same results. Manu¬ 
factures and trade, under the influence of 
railroads, are tending also rapidly towards 
consolidation. Farmers, and even villagers, 
will ride twenty or thirty miles to the city 
at the expense of a few shillings, and make 
their purchases there, to the neglect of the 
country store or shop ; and consequently 
the shop-keeper must either starve where he 
is or migrate to these business centres. The re¬ 
sult is, the building up of cities and the de¬ 
population of the country. Farnq machinery 
is doing much towards the displacement of 
manual labor, and the surplus thus dispensed 
with helps to swell the exodus from the old 
States. So long as the thousands on thousands 
of acres of cheap, rich lands at the We6t are in 
the market, and inviting energetic but poor 
men to enter upon their possession, so long as 
facilities for trade and transportation are ex¬ 
tending from year to year, and the demand 
for agricultural products outrun the produc¬ 
tion, so long as the cost of moving the produce 
of an acre from the Mississippi river to New 
Yorkis lessthan theintereston the difference of 
the purchase money between the public do¬ 
main and the farming lands of the older States, 
so long a 3 the virgin soil of the prairies will 
produce greater crops without manure than 
the land of earlier settled portions of our 
country can do un 'er the ordinary cultivation, 
so long as the differences in cost of improved 
farms in the two sections remain so wide apart 
as at present, equally long will the Star of 
Empire take its way towards the setting sun, 
and the rural districts of the West draw to 
itself the vigorous young life-blood cf the East. 
When the regions at present open to settle¬ 
ment shall become more densely populated, 
and the equilibrium of advantages between the 
two sections more and more established, we 
may expect a check to be given to this rural 
decadence in the older States, and not before. 
In France, where the laws of distribution of 
real property are similar to our own, and 
there is no opportunity for expansion into ad¬ 
jacent and unoccupied territory, the estates 
have been divided and subdivided among heirs 
until the freeholds are entirely too small for 
the decent maintainance of their owners.— 
Such results are disastrous to the agricultural 
interests, while, a certain degree of outside 
pressure would undoubtedly he advantageous. 
We may reasonably expect such a pressure to 
arise hereafter in our country, when all the 
immense region of the West shall have be¬ 
come populous ; but it cannot in the nature 
of things arise in our time, and we leave the 
future to take care of itself when we and all 
that concerns us here shall have been num¬ 
bered with the past. 
ISOTHERMAL LINES. 
It is a curious phenomenon of nature, that 
the climate of different countries, and even 
of the same country, varies under the same 
parallel of latitude. Some portions cf our 
own State will not produce the tenderer fruits 
in perfection, although they are much further 
south than other localities where these fruits 
are cultivated successfully. In the southern 
tier of counties frost appears both later in the 
spring an el earlier in the autumn than in 
counties bordering on Lake Ontario and in 
Canada West. On the second day of October, 
at which time the State Fair opened at Elmi¬ 
ra, the forests in that locality showed all the 
hues of approaching autumn, and the maples 
in the streets of the village were casting their 
fob’age ; while at the same time in the city off 
Rochester, a degree of latitude further north, 
there had bdfcn but little frost. 
Climate is undoubtedly much modified by 
the removal of the forest, the cultivation of 
the soil, the growth of cities, and other 
changes wrought by the hand of man. Deep 
tillage and underdraining undoubtedly teud 
I greatly to protection against early autumn 
' frosts. Pulverized soil filled with air cells is 
IMPORTED “ MONARCH.” 
Above we give a fine portrait of this cele¬ 
brated entire horse and famous rac r, taken 
from life at twenty years old. “ Monan?." 
received the first premium at the New York 
State Fair in 1854, as the best thorough-bred 
Stallion exhibited. He was then owned by 
Col. L. G. Morhis, hut has recently been gold 
to Mr. John- Reber, of Lancaster, Ohio. 
“ Monarch” was bred at the Hampton Court 
Stud by His Majesty William IV., in 1833.— 
He was got by Priam, out of Delphine Whisker; 
a slow conductor of heat, and after having 
absorbed a large amount of caloric during the 
long warm days of summer, it yields it back 
by degrees as the external temperature falls 
below the point at which frost is produced, 
and thus protects vegetation from blighting 
influences. There are many localities where 
it was formerly difficult to raise corn on ac¬ 
count of the frost, and yet by proper culture 
these very localities are now extremely pro¬ 
ductive and sure of a crop. The isothermal 
lines have been pushed up towards the North 
and large sections redeemed from the early 
dominion of this destroyer of vegetation.— 
We have not the control of nature in regard 
to climate, but we can, by intelligent action, 
so far modify its influences as to render agri¬ 
cultural labor much more sure of its reward. 
The Southern tier of counties in this State 
had years ago the name of being good lum¬ 
bering regions, and fit for little besides ; but 
since the forests have been partially removed 
and an intelligent class of energetic agricul¬ 
turists has succeeded the wood-cutters and the 
raftsmen, crops of nearly every kind of grain 
and fruits are abundantly produced. It is 
true these counties are not, as a whole, equal 
to others farther north in fertility of soil or 
mildness of climate ; but neither is the one 
so rigorous nor the other so poor as to pro¬ 
hibit an increase of population and a develop¬ 
ment of resources equal to those of most other 
portions of the State. 
Position in relation to the sea, mountains, 
&C., have much to do in determining the lines 
of equal temperature, causing them to cut the 
parallels of latitude and run farther north in 
some places and farther south in others; hut 
cultivation has its effects also, and other 
things being equal, that locality which is well 
and thoroughly tilled will he less likely to 
suffer from the frost than that which is 
wretchedly and unskillfully worked. 
Nature has placed in the vegetable, as well 
as in the animal kingdom, an insurmountable 
barrier to the mixing of the different genera. 
Each may be improved in its kind, but each 
never merges its distinctive features by com¬ 
mingling with anq^ier. Wheat to-day is as 
unmistakable a g nS by itself as it was two 
thousand years ag Jr 
i Delphine was out of My Lady by Comus, and 
she out of The Colonel’s dam by Dep'ui ; The 
! Colonel’s clam out of Tipple Cider by Kirg 
: Fergus, and she out cf Sylvia by Young 
j Marske out of Ferret by a brother of Silvio— 
! Regulus—Lord Morton’s Arabian — Mixbury 
— Mulso Bay Turk — r Bay Boltcn — Coney- 
skins—Hutton’s Grey Barb—Byerly Turk — 
: Burtler. “ Monarch” was imported by Col. 
; W. Hampton, of Columbia, S. C., in the Au¬ 
tumn of 1836. In 1840 the “Spirit of the 
(tammanuatim. 
A CHAPTER ON HORSES. 
The great interest felt in the culture of fine 
blood cattle, for gome years past, has tended 
in no small degree to lessen the interest felt 
by the? farming community, in the culture 
and improvement of horses. Now this ought 
not so to be. Both interests are highly im¬ 
portant to the farmer, one as much so as the 
other. They harmonize perfectly, and on no 
account should attention to either one lessen 
the desire and the effort to excel in the other. 
The interest felt in the improvement of neat 
cat: la has become so deep and so wide-spread, 
and the results so beneficial and satisfactory, 
that no fears can now be entertained that it 
will, at any future time, cease to ba consider¬ 
ed one of the leading and most important ob¬ 
jects affecting the welfare of the farmer.— 
The design of this article, therefore, is to ask 
his attention for a moment, to the subject of 
improvement in the stock of Horses. 
It can admit of no question that the stock 
of horses, at the present day, is greatly infe¬ 
rior to those that were on the turf some fifty 
years ago. We had then as sires, both at the 
North and South, such imported horses as 
Messenger, Badjazette, Highlander, Sir Peter 
Teazle, Fearnought, Diomed, Medley, and a 
host of others, that might justly be styled, 
“the perfection of the article,” as to form, 
power, speed, and endurance. We had also a 
few imported brood mares, of the finest blood, 
cf the greatest power, and highest reputation. 
The beneficial results to the country, especial¬ 
ly on the seaboard border from the North to 
the South, of the introduction of such blood, 
were wide-spread and great. It was no strange 
thing to see spans of horses offered in market 
that brought readily, on sale, five hundred to 
a thousand dollars. But for thirty years past, 
our stock has declined in quality and value. 
The attention of the farmer has been diverted 
to other objects. And although there con¬ 
stantly exists a fair demand for fleet and able 
horses, still but a single imported sire of high 
reputation, seems now to ask the notice of 
fanners in Central and Western New York.— 
Whatever effect the railroad travel may be 
Times” gave an elaborate description of this 
fine Horse, from which the following is ex 
tracted : “ He is a rich satin-coated blood bay, 
with c lack legs, mane and tail, and no other 
white than a str*. He is a horse of great bone 
and substance, and fully sixteen hands under 
the standard. We never saw a horse that we 
preferred to him. He is remarkably fine tem¬ 
pered, ran on his courage, and had a nice idea 
of perpetual motion.” For an extended de¬ 
scription of him, see “ Turf Register,” vol. xvi. 
supposed to exert on the use and value of this 
stock, one thing is clear, the need of fine, 
fleet, and powerful horses will never cease to 
be urgent, and those of such character will 
always command great prices. 
It is not needful to the value of the horse, 
that he should possess extra size. A common 
error obtains upon this subject. The Penn¬ 
sylvania draught horse is often of enormous 
size. Although proporticnably strong, he is 
not as profitable as a full-built, middle-sized 
horse. He is more costly to keep,—of neces¬ 
sity is less active,—of course slower in accom¬ 
plishing a given amount of labor, than a 
stout, middle-sized horse. American Eclipse, 
at the North, and Diomed, Medley, and others 
at the South,—horses under 16 hands, but 
full built, with large bone,—could accomplish 
with great weight, what no extra large horse 
could achieve with equal weight. Size there¬ 
fore is not indispensable to the most profita¬ 
ble ability. 
With the farmer, as with other business 
men, “ time is money.” A horse therefore, 
that can walk naturally four miles an hour, 
other things being equal, is worth nearly or 
quite double the value of one that walks two 
and a half miles the hour. He can go to 
market in about half the time, and can plow 
one-third or one-half more in a day. A brood 
mare of the writer, that on one occasion trav¬ 
eled under the saddle 104 miles from 9 o’clock, 
A. M., to 9 o’clock in the evening, would 
! carry the one-horse plow with such speed, 
that the man is yet to he found that preferred 
to follow her through the entire day. She 
was got by one of the best sons of imported 
Messenger,—a strain of blood that has never 
been excelled at the North, if indeed any¬ 
where, for power, speed, and endurance. 
The farmer greatly overlooks the necessity 
and importance of correct movements in the 
horse. Fine spirit, fine form, and fine action 
[ are alike indispensable ; but without correct 
! movements, form and spirit will not avail 
| much. There should not be an useless swing 
of the foot, or a single motion in the whole 
j frame that may tend to fatigue, while it does 
not aid in projecting the animal forward. To 
reach this mark would be to exhibit correct 
and fine action. When therefore it is real¬ 
ized, that not only form, size, and muscular 
