{WHOLE SO. 211 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1854 
' % 
VOLUME V. SO. 3 } 
CLEANING AND IMPROVING MARSHES, 
Very many farms are disfigured by portions 
of wet, swampy and unproductive laud, of va¬ 
rious extent and characteristics, but alike in 
being nearly valueless, in their present unim¬ 
proved condition, for all the purposes of agri¬ 
culture. They may afford a covert for birds, 
and a haunt for reptiles, and, perhaps, some 
wild berries and coarse grasses; but their 
growth, unlike that of the forest, deteriorates 
rather than increases in value with each suc¬ 
ceeding year. Yet, when drained and cleared, 
these wastes and eye-sores of the provident 
husbandman become the most easily cultivated 
and productive part of the farm. The process 
is an expensive one, perhaps, yet a very few 
years will repay the outlay, and bring in a 
handsome profit in return. 
The Housatonic Ag. Society offered several 
premiums in 1850 for experiments in improv¬ 
ing such lands, and at their last ‘Anniversary 
published a report thereon. It is interesting, 
as showing the cost of bringing boggy marsh¬ 
es into cultivation, and also, as the views of 
practical and well informed men, upon the best 
means of accomplishing the same. There were 
eleven entries of lands, which were viewed by 
the Committee in 1850, and again in 1853, 
when three premiums were awarded for the 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
Agricultural, Literary, and Family Newspaper. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
ASSISTED 15 Y 
JOSEPH HARRIS, in the Practical Department*?: 
EDWARD WEBSTER, in the Literary and News Dcp’ts. 
Corresponding Editors: 
J. II. Bixby,—JLI. C. White, —T. E. Wetmore. 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be uniquo 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 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. 
rifT For Terms, &c., see last page. jTJ} 
CEOSSEILL'S PATENT CLOD-CSTTSHEE. 
A PENNSYLVANIA BARN, 
Of all modern agricultural inventions, we 
believe the Clod-Crusher, represented above, is 
the best It consists of some twenty cast-iron 
discs or wheels, about four inches thick and 
thirty inches in diameter, placed loosely on an 
iron axle, so as to revolve independently of 
each other. The outer edge of each disc is 
serrated or toothed like a saw. Each alter¬ 
nate disc is made larger in the eye, so that in 
revolving, an up and down motion is allowed 
which prevents clogging, while it increases the 
crushin^r grinding power of the implement. 
There are two kinds, one with wheels attached 
which are lowered when the roller has to be 
taken along a hard road, or in moving it from 
place to place. In the one represented by our 
engraving, wheels are put on the projecting 
Ens. Rural: —Enclosed I send you a rude 
draft of my barn. It is a bank-barn, on the 
level ground. I dug down three feet below 
the surface for the foundation, and in this way 
got earth for the embankment. The barn is 
44 by 64 feet; entrance to both stories from 
the south. 
Progress and Improvement. 
piling: it m wmrows, let it v lr.'4 and then burn | 
the whole to ashes. This method, taking all 
things into account, they believed to be more 
economical than that generally practised, of 
cutting off the bogs and brush and then subdu¬ 
ing the coarse vegetation by frequent plowings 
and harrowings. It was found exceedingly 
difficult to reclaim the soil from its original 
products by this latter process. By paring and 
burning, on the contrary, the coarser materials 
of the land were at once reduced by fire, and 
afforded a valuable aud much needed amend¬ 
ment in their abundant ashes. The surface 
with slightly plowing or thoroughly harrowing, 
was much earlier prepared for a crop than by 
the other method, gaining one or two years 
out of three or four, in the use and production 
of the land, over that of subduing by the plow. 
The first premium was awarded on 9 acres 
of reclaimed land. The cost of draining the 
land, cutting off' the brush and bogs, digging 
and carrying off' the stumps and roots, plow ing 
and harrowing, and the seeds sown during^ the 
time, amounted to about $25 per acre. The 
crops already produced left about $15, yet to 
be repaid, which, as the land was well subdued 
and seeded to grass, would soon be effected. 
The second premium was awarded on three 
acres, part of a swamp of 30 acres, which the 
owner had under process of reclaiming. This 
was performed in the same way as the first, but 
at a cost of $16,75 per acre, and the crops du¬ 
ring the time had repaid the outlay, and some 
$4,37 i per acre, over. 
The third premium was given on one and a 
half acres, which had borne but one crop, and 
which was reclaimed by paring aud burning, 
as heretofore described. It was a deep muck, 
thickly covered with white bush, coarse grass¬ 
es, and brakes, and wholly unproductive. Af¬ 
ter draining, the whole surface was pared and 
burned, and the ashes spread upon the land, 
which was plowed and sown to grass seed.— 
The cost of doing this was $17 per acre, and 
the first crop of hay has returned $7,50 of the 
outlay. Succeeding crops promise to be very 
heavy, aud the land was more thoroughly sub¬ 
dued than any other visited by the Committee. 
Fig. 1.— Basement, 
Fig. 1 is the basement; A, manure cellar; 
B, straw mow; C, entrance, open the whole 
width on the south side; D, stables, containing 
10 stalls; E, feeding room 8 ft. wide; aaaaa, 
horse-stalls; bbbbb, cow-stalls, with a door to 
each, opening back, as seen by dotted lines, 
ddddd; c, water trough and pump; e e c, 
stairs, and holes for throwing down provender; 
f. narrow passage from feeding room to straw 
mow, with door's into cow-stalls at i; g, man¬ 
gers for feeding; k, corn crib, with trap-door 
above for throwing down corn; k, door into 
manure cellar, for the entrance of hogs and 
sheep. 
THE DEVONS AS MILKERS, 
ness oi this statement, making there must ne 
some mistake; so, at the last meeting of the 
Agricultural Society at Framingham, Mr. B. 
gave the particulars of the trial,, which to our 
mind, are quite satisfactory'. The heifers were 
three years old last spring, and had not pro¬ 
duced calves before; one calved the 22d of 
April, and the other the 22d of June, On 
the 22d of October, he took the milk which 
these two heifers gave in twenty-four hours — 
not quite twelve quarts—“which produced 
three pounds of sweet butter, and yellow as 
one could wish.” “Several trials were after¬ 
wards made of the milk of thqse heifers, and 
with like results.” lie also sent some of the 
milk to different friends, whose names arc given, 
and they obtained at the rate of a pound of 
butter from each four quarts of milk. Siuce 
these trials, Mr. B. had set apart the milk of 
all his fuil-blood cows that were in milk, and 
had churned the cream from each, except one 
whose milk he tested in a lactometer— and in 
every instance the proportion of the butter to 
the milk was the same as at the first trial. 
Fig. 2.— Second Stoxt. 
Fig. 2 is the second story; A A, barn floors; 
B, straw mow. goes to the lower floor; C, hay 
bay; D, wheat bay; K, granary; a a a, places 
for throwing down provender; b bbb, are bam 
doors. 
The basement story is eight feet high, sur¬ 
rounded by a stone wall, except sixteen feet at 
the entrance. By taking away the partition 
between C ami A, a wagon may be backed into 
the manure cellar. The upper part is sided up 
like a house, painted with a composition of 
one-fourth white lead and three-fourths water- 
lime, and has twenty Venetian blinds. The 
whole cost is about eight hundred dollars. 
Isaac Eaton. 
Fairvieir, Erie Co., Penn. 
shores. But we trust that some of the many 
intelligent mechanics, who visited the Crystal 
Palace, have examined the principles of the 
implement, so that they can, and will, set im¬ 
mediately to work and make one cheaper and 
efficient than the original. We should 
more 
be disappointed if such does not prove to be 
the case. If such an implement could be made 
for $40 or $50, as we think it might, the sales 
would be enormous, for there can be no doubt 
that the Clod-Crusher wijl prove at least, as 
equally beneficial in our dry, hot, baking cli¬ 
mate, as in the humid atmosphere of the Brit¬ 
ish Isles. 
At the late Smithfield cattle show, the gold 
medal was awarded for a short born ox. At 
the Birmingham show, the week after, “it went 
honestly to a Hereford, while the Herefords 
generally were unquestionably the best lots of 
beasts iu the yard,” The Dorking aud Span¬ 
ish were the best classes of poultry. The 
Chinese varieties were as plentiful as ever, 
“ but never did they appear, to attract so little 
notice, and never, certainly to command so little 
admiration.’’ 
It has been said that a good cow worthy of 
the name should yield, on an average, for first 
100 days after calving, 7 i quarts at a mess, or 
15 quarts per day, amounting to 1,500 ; for the 
next 100 days she should average 6 quarts at a 
mess, 1,000 quarts; for the succeeding 100 days 
she should average 4 quarts to a mess, 800.— 
The late King of Prussia, invited Thaer, the 
celebrated G erman agricult urist, to settle within 
his kingdom, and introduce agricultural schools. 
The other monarchs of Germany followed this 
example, and Germany had, in 1847, 62 large 
institutions. Austria then had 9; Prussia, 12; 
Saxony, 5: Bavaria, 16; Hanover, 2; Wurtem- 
berg, 8; and other States, 10; iu all 62. 
Mr. James Brice, of New Scotland, has a 
cow which yielded 46 lbs. 14 ounces of butter 
in the month ending December 19th. The cow 
was four years old. 
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