{WHOLE NO. §17 
ROCHESTER, N. Y. — SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1854 
VOLUME V. NO. 9 
on the surface, and so preparing the land that 
it yielded, for several years, very heavy crops 
of oats, barley and hay. There is something 
in the nature of the muck or peat, which ren¬ 
ders its exposure to the sun dnd air necessary, 
before it will produce the tame grasses to per¬ 
fection—before it loses this tendency to run 
them out. It needs plowing up every five or 
six years, so that the muck may be further 
aerated and decomposed^—its sourness driven 
off in the process — and if then re-seeded and 
re-manured, will become as productive as 
before. 
We have no doubt that the plan of mixing 
soils before referred to, is of permanent benefit 
—but the land should be so drained that no 
stagnant water will come within three or four 
feet of the surface. Then the bog will soon 
settle so as to become sufficiently firm for fre¬ 
quent plowing, and the wild grasses may be 
thoroughly subdued by the cultivating of po¬ 
tatoes or turnips, or by sowing most kinds of 
spring crops. We have known bogs of this 
nature to settle surprisingly after draining, and 
in the course of ten or fifteen years to become 
nearly as firm as up-laud. We have also 
known them, by the filling up of their ditches 
and general neglect, to become so “ run out” 
and sour as to produce nothing but a scauty 
crop of sorrel, where at first an immense growth 
of grass had been given.— b. 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
Agricultural, Literary, ar.d Family Newspaper. 
CONDUCTED BY D. B. T. MOORE, 
ASSISTED BY 
JOSEPH HARRIS, in the Practical Departments: 
EDWARD WEBSTER, in the Literary and News Dep’ts. 
Corresponding Editors: 
J, H. Rnrnv,—II. C. White,—T. E. Wetmoke. 
Tku Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unique and 
tfeautiful 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 in¬ 
terests it advocates. It embraces more Agricultural, Horti¬ 
cultural, Scientific, Mechanical, Literary and News Matter, 
interspersed with many appropriate and handsome engrav¬ 
ings, than any other paper published in this Country,— 
rendering it a complete Agricultural, Literary and 
Family Newspaper. 
jrjp - For Terms, &c., see last page. JJ 
Progress and Improvement. 
CLEARING AND IMPROVING MARSHES, 
In a recent article with this heading, we gave 
brief accounts of some experiments in reclaim¬ 
ing marsh lands; we now add notices of other 
plans which have been attended with success, 
and, also, some concluding remarks. The sub¬ 
ject has received considerable attention inXew 
England; and the premiums offered by the dif¬ 
ferent Agricultural Societies, have brought out 
a mass of information in the statements of 
competitors and reports of committees. We 
shall avail ourselves of some of these, without 
further ^reference to the who, what, or tohere, 
as the facts alone are of importance to our 
readers.^ 
One marsh or bog meadow, very wot, and 
growing only small brush and wild grass,—the 
soil a fine black mud, of a crumbly nature, 
varying from fifteen inches to fifteen feet in 
depth—was reclaimed as follows:—The owner 
first dug a ditch through the lowest part of the 
meadow, and then another near the head, land 
emptying into the main ditch. This carried 
off the water so that he could plow in the fall, 
which he did, as convenient, until the ground 
became frozen. 
AYRSHIRE BULL “DTJHDEE II. 
House.” “As you split your wood, lay in a 
pile, if practicable, where you can work on 
both sides of it. Set up your wood on the 
ends to begin with, and continue to build your 
pile much as a coal pit is formed, with the 
wood all slanting up or down, so that it will 
form a cone. A little care and practice will 
enable any one to make such a pile, with al¬ 
most no additional time or trouble. Such a 
pile sheds rain like a roof, while the largest 
heap needed for an ordinary family will thor¬ 
oughly season in a little while. Only a few 
inches of the ends resting on the ground will 
be damp. When wanted for use, begin on one 
side and work towards the centre, and rarely 
will you find yourself without a ready supply 
of dry wood, even after a snow or rain storm.” 
Those who cannot do better should try it.— 
But a good wood-house is the best of all, and 
no farmer should be without one long. 
T. E. W. 
breed, belonging to E. P. Prentice, Esq., of 
Albany, N. Y. He took the first prize as a 
one year old, at the New York State Fair, at 
Rochester, in 1851. 
AYRSHIRE CATTLE 
TARES OR VETCHES, 
For soiling purposes, in suitable climate and 
soil, the tare or vetch is superior to any other 
plant Loudon says : — “ This plant maintains 
more stock than any other plant whatsoever.” 
Von Thakk says:—“Tares, if cut green, draw 
no nourishment from the soil whatever; while 
made into hay, they afford a fodder preferred 
by cattle to pea straw, and more nutritious than 
hay or any other herbage.” The heavy land 
farmers of Great Britain cultivate the vetch 
for soiling purposes, to an extent hardly credi¬ 
ble in this country. It is a legume, belonging 
to the same botauical order as beans, peas and 
clover; and like them exhausts the soil so little 
of those elements most needed to grow large 
crops of wheat, as to give rise to the opinion 
of Tiiaf.r that it “ draws no nourishment from 
the soil.” Though this is, of course, not strictly 
true, yet it is certain that, like peas and clover, 
it is the best crop to grow as a preparation 
for wheat 
There are two varieties commonly cultiva¬ 
ted,—the small English vetch, and the German 
vetch, which is much larger. The latter is fre¬ 
quently cultivated in this country by Germans, 
but we have never seen the English vetch, tho’ 
Scotch and English farmers inform us they 
have tried to grow it here without success.— 
How far the German vetch is adapted to this 
climate we do not know, and should be glad to 
hear from any one who has had experience 
with them. Certain we are of one thing—that 
if they can be successfully grown here, they 
will afford a very superior green food for soil¬ 
ing horses, and thus supply a want which, as 
land becomes more valuable, the farmer feels 
every year more urgent. And, what is still more 
important on a wheat farm, they draw nearly 
all their nourishment from the atmosphere, and 
when fed to animals, greatly augment the quan¬ 
tity and quality of the manure heap. 
They do best on a rich, well-tilled, loamy 
soil. Three bushels of seed per acre, sown 
broadcast early in the spring, is what we should 
recommend. White lupins are also legumin¬ 
ous, and closely resemble in many points, the 
vetch. They are grown extensively in Italy 
for soiling purposes, and also for plowing in as 
a green manure. We think it is probable they 
may succeed better in this climate than the 
vetch, and be equally valuable. Any of our 
readers who have cultivated them or the vetch, 
will do us a favor by giving their views in the 
Rural New-Yorker. 
POTATOES, 
In a letter not long since received from Mr. 
fl. B. Maglatlm.v, JCJngacon, 3 Xukl, remarking 
upon his potato crop, he adds: 
“ The potato crop I find a valuable one to 
raise in this locality. My whole crop, the 
product of five acres, now readily commands 
one dollar a bushel. 
My plan to avoid the “rot” has been to 
break up old sandy pasture land, and plant 
with no other manuring than a handful of a 
compound, made of about four parts plaster, 
four parts charcoal, and one part salt, thrown 
into the hill at time of planting, or subsequent¬ 
ly on the hills. I do not get a large yield, but 
I have sound tubers. 
In experimenting with potatoes, 1 have 
found none to excel the new variety called the 
Wild Mexican, for table use. It does not 
yield as largely as some other kinds, but its 
smooth and almost transparent skin, united 
with its remarkably pure white, mealy texture 
when baked or boiled, will always render it a 
favorite, if it withstands well the “ rot” For 
stock I have tried two mammoth seedlings, 
and give the preference to Burrage’s as the 
most productive.” t. k. w. 
He then carted on sand, gravel, 
or loam, and spread it over the whole surface 
to the depth of two and one-lialf inches. In 
the spring, when the frost was partially out of 
the ground (say to the depth of four inches, 
and enough left to bear up his team,) he har¬ 
rowed it Until the mud and gravel were well 
mixed together. The land remained thus until 
July, when it was sown to oats, and seeded 
with red-top and herds-grass, or timothy,—the 
seed being harrowed or raked in, as the state 
of the soil admitted. The amount of seed 
sown per acre, was three pecks of oats, one 
peck of herds-grass, and two of red-top. The 
oats ripened and were harvested in September, 
and the land was manured between that time 
and spring with twelve loads of compost The 
whole cost of plowing, graveling, and sowing, 
was about $20, and the first crop of hay, three 
tons to the acre,—a most encouraging result 
Another farmer had a meadow of six acres, 
with a bottom too soft to admit of driving on 
a team. Adjoining it was a large sand-bank, 
which gave an ample supply of material for 
commencing the work. Sand was carried on 
with wheel-barrows until the surface became 
sufficiently firm to drive on with a team—and 
the whole surface was covered from four to six 
. inches in depth. A covering of compost ma¬ 
nure was then spread over it In the spring 
it was sown with herds-grass and red-top.— 
The whole expense of reclaiming was about 
$25 per acre, and the third crop alone was 
worth $30 per acre. 
This method, as will be seen, is very success¬ 
ful in bringing bogs iiito a productive and 
profitable state; but they cannot always be 
kept so without further additions of upland 
soil. If the bog is still quite wet, in a few 
years the coarse wild grasses will work up 
through the covering and “ run out” the culti¬ 
vated grasses. And we have found this to be 
the case where the upper turf to the depth of 
from four to eight inches had been burned in 
a dry season, leaving a heavy coat of ashes up- 
RURAL TOPOGRAPHY, 
FROM THE RAILROAD CAR, — BY S. W. 
From Waterloo to Geneva, along the north 
side of the outlet of Seneca Lake, the surface is 
gently undulating soil sandy loam with occasion¬ 
al sections of clay; all cleared except in the rear 
of the farms; sylvim tall beech, elm, and other 
soft timber, with some scattering oaks and 
pines. But nearly all the large trees have 
been cut off' and appropriated ; the limestone 
ledge which comes to the surface on the south 
side of the outlet is here many feet below, while 
the surface is sparsely supplied with small 
boulders of the Onondaga group: farming and 
farm buildings not above the medium. From 
the beautiful and well endowed village of Ge¬ 
neva to Vienna, is a garden of a country—the 
soil embraces all the varieties of a fertile cal¬ 
careous loam, alternating from clayey to sandy 
and gravelly. About Oak’s Corners, where 
sand predominates, nature was lavish in her or¬ 
ganic deposits, as the long worn soil continues 
to bring large crops of wheat and Indian corn, 
after forty years’ tillage, with a very moderate 
application of other manures than plaster and 
clover. Vienna is a beautiful, healthy rural 
village; the small, well painted houses, in the 
midst of trees, gardens and flowering shrubs, 
give an earnest of that appropriate good taste 
which copies not the stately architecture of the 
ambitious town. Here along the banks of 
Flint Creek, the outcrop of limestone is marked 
nodules of hornstone. 
by numerous projecting 
From Vienna to Clifton (sulphur springs,) and 
thence to Shortsville and Canandaigua, is fine 
rolling wheat-bearing land; the timber of the 
forest is beech, maple, elm, poplar, bass wood 
interspersed with oak, hickory, dtc.; the soil a 
well ameliorated clay loam, with limestone 
pebbles. The farm-houses, barns, &c., are sub¬ 
stantial rather than tasty, but a better day is 
coming for rural architecture; although Dow¬ 
ning is dead, the good he has done lives after 
A writer in the London Gardener's Chron¬ 
icle says:—A mixture of nitrate of soda with 
gypsum and wood ashes threw up such a green 
dense mat of clover, two to three feet deep, as 
I have rarely seen; while the other fields on 
the same estate, were pale, thin, and sickly 
looking, probably not half the crop. 
SB 
