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ROCHESTER, N. ¥.- SATURDAY, MAY 20, 1854 
VOLUME V. NO. 20. i 
PALMER 8. WILLIAMS’ REAPER, 
A QUART*) ‘WEEKLY 
Agricultural, Literary, and Family Newspaper 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORS, 
ASSISTED BY 
JOSEPH HARRIS, in the Practical Departments: 
EDWARD WEBSTER, in the Literary and News Dep’ts. 
Corresponding Editors: 
J. H. Bixby,— H. C. White,— T. E. Wktmork. 
orcdient, corn that, grass another, tfc. in millc alone, i ca meal or limian corn meai, is 
other words, that wheat, corn, gras?, &c., are also employed for mixing with skim milk, as a 
each composed of different substances,—that substitute for the loss of butter in the milk.— 
there is some ingredient in wheat that is not Rice meal, sago, and many other rich carbon- 
found in corn, and something in corn that is aceous foods, are also recommended; but for 
not contained in grass, &c. Now the fact is rearing calves, linseed, oil-cake, or pea meal, in 
that all our commonly cultivated agricultural our opinion, is far preferable to any other 
plants are composed of precisely the same ele- substance. 
meats, the only difference being in the relative Rearing calves should not be tied up. They 
proportions of the ingredients. Thus when require exercise. A small paddock or orchard, 
chemists designate wheat and corn as phos- with a warm shed to run into in stormy weath- 
phoric acid plants, turnips and potatoes as er and nights, is best When calves are young, 
potash plants, clover and flax as lime plants, green grass generally produces looseness or di¬ 
beans and peas as nitrogenous plants, all they arrhea. As long as they are lively and take 
mean is that, compared with other crops, these their food well, there need be no apprehension 
particular substances predominate. from a thin discharge of faeces. Milk thick- 
The question, therefore, which we wish to ened with wheaten flour, or a little prepared 
consider is not whether plants which contain carbonate of lime, are good for looseness, and 
potash, for instance, require more potash in the if the ease is serious, a few drops of laudanum 
manure than plants which contain no potash, may be given. In case of costiveness, rhubarb 
for all plants contain potash; but whether the is the best aperient for calves, though castor 
plant which contains a large proportion of oil and Epsom salts are frequently given. But 
potash in its ash, requires more potash in its the less medicine a calf or any*other animal 
manure than a plant which contains but a gets, the better. A little care in regard to 
small proportion of potash. Or, in other tlicir food, will generally render medicine un¬ 
words, must the relative proportion of sub- necessary. If they are troubled with the louse, 
stances in the manure correspond with thercl- \ give them a little sulphur; it will purify the 
ative proportion of constituents in the plants I blood, aud rid them of the parasite at the 
cultivated. The ash of wheat contains five same time. 
times as much phosphoric acid as the ash of We need hardly remark that if you desire to 
turnips,—ought, therefore, wheat manure to have good animals, you must not starve them 
contain five times as much phosphoric acid as ; when they are young. No in Ate'/ what the 
1 a turnip manure? | breed many be; Durham, Devon, Hereford, 
At first sight everyone would answer this j Ayrshire, or Native calves, can never make 
question in the affirmative. Nine-tenths of our J creditable cattle unless they are supplied with 
agricultural writers unite their powerful voices ! a full quantity of nutritious food, and are well 
in crying yes, and it requires some coinsidera- I cared for in other respects. An old friend of 
hie nerve to deny the truth of such an obvious, ours, who knows, or thinks he knows, a thing 
plausible deduct ion. Yet practical experience, or two, always will have it that “ breed goes 
our first and best agricultural teacher, says no. in at the mouth.” And the old gentleman is 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be uniqueiand 
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, Scieniilic, 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 aud 
Family Newspaper. 
fLF" For Terms, Ac., see last page. 
CONVERSATIONS ON AGRICULTURE.—No. Ill, 
BY HUGH T. BROOKS. 
“ This is a regular lamb killer ,” said a neigh¬ 
bor, as he shook the snow from his cap and 
took a seat by my fireside, half an hour ago. 
I had just been congratulating myself that 
most of my stock was under cover, and a por¬ 
tion had something to eat. “ Everybody wants 
to buy hay, and nobody has any to sell," con¬ 
tinued my friend. This certainly did not come 
under the head of consolation, but it may take 
its proper place as a caution. When will the 
■‘bone aud sinew” learn the rule of “propor¬ 
tion”—so many months, for so many tons of 
fodder? I am ashamed of my stock,” said one 
of our most discreet cattle breeders. “ I am 
short of hay!” “Short of hay,” I will give the 
meaning of that phrase for the next edition of 
the “ farmers 1 dictionary.” Predominance of 
bones in cattle—a falling of the owner's up¬ 
per lip; early market of loool —no sale of the 
carcass: war among the women and the calves, 
about a little mess of milk; teams “letting 
their moderation be known unto all men.” 
while their less scriptural drivers are perfectly 
oblivious to the third commandment; meadows 
and pastures forced to discount in the spring, 
and taking their revenge by stopping payment 
in the summer; a settled conviction that farm¬ 
ing is unprofitable. 
We often see cattle that have been pretty 
well wintered, fall away rapidly by being turn¬ 
ed out upon short, flashy, and innutritions grass. 
about as much 
Progress and Improvement. 
SPECIAL MANURE THEORY.—NO. 1 
“ Give me an analysis of your soil, an analy¬ 
sis of the crop you desire to raise, and send 
me $25 for a letter of advice, and I will inform 
you how to grow immense crops at a tithe of 
ay. If you desire to have an 
your present outl: 
abundance of strawberries of superior size and 
quality, manure them with tannic acid, for I 
have found, on analyzing the strawberry, that 
it contains a large quantity of tannic acid.— 
Letters asking advice respecting preparation 
and application, enclosing a suitable fee, will 
meet with due attention. Wheat, corn, barley, 
oats, tobacco, cotton, sugarcane, and all grass¬ 
es, contain large quantities of phosphate of 
lime; therefore, if you wish to have good crops 
of these important staples, dress liberally with 
improved superphosphate of lime—to be had 
at any of the principal warehouses, price $50 
per ton. If this does not supply all the missing 
constituents of your soil, the salt and lime mix¬ 
ture—full particulars for the manufacture of 
which will be found in my back volumes, price 
$4 per set—cannot fail to make it produce 
such crops as your unscientific neighbors— 
mere farm laborers—never dreamed of in their 
old grandpa philosophy.” Such, in substance, 
are the reiterated recommendations of some of 
our modern self-installed agricultural instruc¬ 
tors. One would think that the mercenary 
feature of such shallow pretences would put 
the agriculturist on his guard. But such is not 
the case. Farmers, conservative though they 
be, are led away by mere clap-trap plausibility, 
and cheated of their hard earnings more than 
any other class in the community. Witness 
the success of “ Professor” (?) Comstock in the 
west, and of an equally celebrated “ Professor” 
(?) in the east However, we have done what 
we could to explode their humbugs, and if 
farmers will be cheated, it is their fault, not 
ours. 
The doctrine of special manures, as popular¬ 
ly understood, is interwoven in nine-tenths of 
all the agricultural literature of Europe and 
America. It is only in the hands of charlatans 
that it assumes the shape we have depicted in 
1 the above sketch. Libbig, the most popular 
and fascinating of all cheinico-agricultural wri¬ 
ters, first, propagated the doctrine of special 
manures. It is his pet idea. In its elabora¬ 
tion he has put forth all the powers of his bril- 
No wonder, therefore, that agri- 
many a man, who has raked Irom the machine 
in heavy grain, could testify. But here, fellow 
farmers, is a machine that will perform all the 
hard labor in cutting your harvest; you have 
only to ride over your fields in a comfortable 
seat, aud drive your team, while your grain is 
cut in a perfect manner, and laid in gavels, 
ready for the binder, at any distance required, 
if operated by the driver, and in better order 
than is commonly done by hand rakiug. 
The machine is drawn by two horses, and 
will cut fifteen or twenty acres a da} 7 , accord-1 
iug to driver, or as much as any other machine 
in use, the rake being no hindrance,— requir- j 
ing less strength of team than any other reaper j 
I am acquainted with, and I have used several, 
and seen in use nearly all the different machines 
in our country. The mechanical construction 
of this gives several advantages over most 
reapers in simplicity, which renders its opera¬ 
tion easy and the machine durable. 
Whatever of praise is due to those who were 
first to bring the reaping machine into success¬ 
ful operation, it detracts not in the least from 
their credit to say, that this machine possesses 
important improvements, which cannot fail to 
be appreciated by the farmer, and to gain for 
it one of the highest positions among this class 
F. P. Root. 
They go back in three week: 
as they will go forward in three months. At 
this season of the year we should have plenty 
of the very choicest of our fodder, to tempt 
their appetites with. I would make it a rule 
to put all of my stock into the yard nights, and 
feed them good hay, in good racks, under good 
sheds, for several weeks after I first turned 
them to grass; a little meal would be a profit¬ 
able addition. 
The change from green food to dry in the 
fall, and from dry to green in the spring, should 
be gradual. “ It is a very poor speculation to 
buy hay at eight or ten dollars a ten, to feed 
to farm stock,” *says Mr. Duncan Cameron, 
“ but it is much better than to 
DON'T ATTEMPT TOO MUCH 
REARING CALVES, 
In rearing full blooded, high priced animals, 
when the object is simply to raise fine calves, 
without any regard to cost of keep, allowing 
the calf to run with the cow is probably the 
best course to pursue, as it certainly is the 
most natural. But in ordinary cases, when 
butter commands a good price, we should never 
allow rearing calves to suck the-cow. Fresh 
milk is eminently nutritious, aud, furthermore, ! pand the labor of puttinj 
is just adapted to the wants of a young animal, j acres, w 7 l 
Until the calf is a week or so 
nothing can be substituted for fresh milk, but | 
afterwards a gradual substitution may take ' 
place with no detriment to the calf; and it is 
certain that the same amount of nutriment can 
be obtained in a variety of substances at much 
less cost. 
In England it is generally customary to give 
rearing calves “ linseed tea,” mixed with skim¬ 
med milk. Many think that calves do better 
on this food than on fresh milk alone. The 
linseed is soaked in cold water for forty-eight 
hours. It is then placed in a cauldron, with 
seven quarts of water to one of seed, and boil¬ 
ed gently for about two hours, and constantly 
stirred, to prevent burning at the bottom. It 
becomes gelatinous on cooling. About half a 
pint of the jelly is given to each calf, thoroughly 
mixed with warm skimmed milk, twice a day. 
Instead of linseed, oil-cake meal is frequently 
used. Two large table-spoonfuls are given 
to each calf twice a day, increasing the 
quantity with the age of the calf. It is easily 
prepared. Moisten the meal with cold w r ater 
and then pour over it a quantity of hot water, 
and let it simmer on the stove for a short time, 
just precisely as in making milk porridge. It 
is then stirred into the milk with the hand, 
crushing all the lumps. The calves are ex- 
Is it good policy to ex- 
ig in a crop-over six 
r hen at the same cost, a like result may 
old, perhaps I be realized from three or four? Will you be 
content with thirty bushels of corn per acre 
at an expense of, say, ten dollars, when by add¬ 
ing labor and manure to the amount of two or 
three dollars more, you may have sixty bush¬ 
els? Will you grow inferior stock with the 
same amount of food, when by a larger outlay 
at first, you may have the best—those always 
scrimp them. 
The “ways and means” of getting through 
the next winter need immediate consideration. 
“Have you a good supply of pasture? If not, 
arrange for it immediately, or sell off a portion 
of your stock. “Animals well summered are 
half wintered,’’ says the proverb, and a very 
good proverb it is for warm weather , If far¬ 
mers would balance their accounts with their 
Jields as carefully as they do with their ta ilors, 
they would find a great deal of land under 
“ cultivation,” as they misname it, which had 
Stock down to 
timothy or red top—not clover—land that is 
cold, wet, and heavy, unless you will ditch 
it and make it dry. It is useless to charge up¬ 
on “ Providence” and the seasons, the reported 
failures and deficiencies ihat we constantly see 
in many parts—Providence won’t father these 
abortions any longer. A ton of hay affords 
more clear profit than you will ordinarily get 
from an acre of poor ground put to corn or 
wheat, Mr. Olmstkp, of Pavilion Centre, is 
much in favor of sowing corn for fodder, but 
then Mr. Olmsted has good ground and puts 
in his ero>ps well. He sows in May with a 
drill, or furrows three feet apart and scatters in 
the corn pretty thick, covering it lightly with a 
plow, and then runs a cultivator through, at 
the hoeing season, to loosen the ground and 
destroy the weeds. He is careful to bind up 
of labor-saving machinery. 
Sweden, N. Y., May, 1854. 
rROFIT OF KEEPING HENS, 
Few farmers expect, or realize, anything of 
any amount from their poultry. Hens are left 
to take care of themselves, as a general thing, 
while sheep and other animals, from which 
they cannot possibly realize so large a per cent 
on the cost, occupy the whole of the breeders 
time and attention. 
Now, let us suppose that a man owns 300 
hens, aud takes care of them as he ought. He 
select^ six acres of respectable land—makes a 
good fence around it, and divides it in the 
middle. He puts up a good warm building,. 
12 by 40. In one of these three acre yards 
he keeps his hens during the summer, plowing 
it onee in two or three weeks, for their benefit 
The other yard he plants to corn; the crop 
being sufficient to keep his hens through the 
winter. They lay, on an average, 200 eggs each 
per annum, or 6,000 a year iu all, which are 
worth at a low estimate $600,00. The hens 
should be changed from one yard to the other 
every year. h. l. s. 
•ass. 
liant genius, 
cultural writers should be dazzled with the 
theory, and think that at length the millennium 
of agriculture had arrived. So strong were 
Liebig’s own convictions of the truth of his 
theory, that he took out a patent for an arti¬ 
ficial manure which was to revolutionize the 
whole system of agriculture. But the manure 
was a complete failure, both in England and in 
this country. Nothing is now heard of this 
patent manure, but the theory on which it was 
based is still as popular as ever. We have 
good private authority for stating that within the 
last few months, I he big’s views on tliis subject 
have materially changed. Yet his admirers are 
still propagating the doctrine with unabated 
zeal, and as is generally the ease, the more 
hands it passes through the more ultra and 
ridiculous it becomes. 
Lay thy plans with prudence, *aud be pre¬ 
pared for emergencies. 
