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VOLUME V. 
ROCHESTER, • N. Y.-SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1854. 
{WHOLE NO. 246. 
Skate's gral fttto-fMlun 
A QUARTO WEEKLY 
Agricultural, Literary, and Family Newspaper 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
ASSISTED BY 
JOSEPH HARRIS, iu the Practical Departments: 
EDWARD WEBSTER, in the Literary and News Dep’ts. 
Corresponding Editors: 
J. H. Bixby,— H. C. White,— T. E. Wetmore. 
Thr Rural New-Yorker is designed to he 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 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. 
For Terms, &c., she last page. 
|kral fleto - ^arker. 
Progress and Improvement. 
WESTERN NEW YORK AGRICULTURE—NO. I 
In company with Robert Russel, Esq., of 
Fifesbire, Scotland—the “critic R.” of the 
London Agricultural Gazette , *and who is 
now on a meteorological tour through this 
country—we visited, last week, some of the 
farms in Riga, in this county. Mr. R. was 
much surprised to see the farmers sowing their 
wheat so early, and still more to see some of 
the fields already green with the young wheat 
plant. The immense orchards of apples and 
peach trees, loaded with luscious fruit also 
elicited mahy exclamations of astonishment. 
Our system of “ fallowing” for wheat — plow, 
ing up a clover sod in June, and simply culti¬ 
vating it afterwards— was equally novel and 
interesting to him. 
The farm of Mr. "Wji. W. Emmons consists 
of 230 acres, 25 acres of which are in woods, 
lie sows about 80 acres of wheat each year. 
In 1853 his wheat crop averaged 40 bushels 
per acre. As indicating the natural fertility 
of the land, Mr. E. showed us 8^ acres of laud, 
on which in 1852 he had a heavy crop of In¬ 
dian corn. After the corn was off, the land 
was plowed, in the fall, and the next spring 
cultivated, (without plowing,) and sown with 
barley. This yielded a little over fifty bushels 
per acre. As soon as the barley was off, the 
land was plowed once, cultivated, &c., and 
sown to wheat, the yield of which was forty 
bushels per acre. This is the best crop we 
have heard of this year. 
Mr. E. plants but little corn, about 10 acres, 
all of which he .consumes on the farm, lie 
sows clover with all his wheat, and plows most 
of it in for wheat when one year old. Sow r s 
plaster on the wheat in March. It does not 
benefit the wheat, but is of great advantage 
to the clover, especially in a dry season. It 
has been supposed that plaster sown in this 
way injured the wheat plant, by retarding its 
maturity, more than it benefited the clover.— 
This, however, is not found to be the case, 
and the practice is extending rapidly. Mr. E. 
keeps 100 sheep and but little other stock. 
ilr. John Bette ridge’s farm contains 208 
acres, 40 of which is in woods and 12 in per¬ 
manent pasture. Sow's C5 acres to wheat each 
year. Sows clover with all the wheat in the 
spring. Thinks it better to sow' plaster on the 
wheat than on the clover the next spring. His 
wheat crop this year was injured nearly one- 
third. He usually obtains about 30 bushels 
per acre. Mr. B. has a fine flock of Leicester 
sheep, most of them imported by himself. He 
has kept both kinds, and is fully satisfied that 
the Leicester is far more profitable than the 
Merino. He grows but little corn, thinking 
it rather an exhausting crop on a wheat farm. 
1 his year he had 10 acres of peas, which 
yielded 20 bushels per acre. They w'ere plas¬ 
tered. Plaster, Mr. B. says, has a marvellous¬ 
ly beneficial effect on peas on his land, causing 
them to grow luxuriantly, when those not 
plastered are withered up. lie thinks the 
fodder so valuable for sheep, that he should 
always grow them did he not get a single pea. 
1 he peas arc quite “ buggy,” and he is now 
feeding them out to pigs. He is keeping, uu- 
thrashed, enough for seed, thinking that the 
bug does not materially injure the germinating 
principle of the pea. This spring he sowed 
10 bug-eaten peas in a pot, and G of them 
grew. He sowed 3 bushels of the same peas 
per acre, and had, as we have said, a crop of 
29 bushels in return. He thinks peas far su¬ 
perior to barley, oats or corn to precede a 
w'heat crop, nearly equal, if they are a good 
“ smothering crop,” to a summer fallow. 
Mr. B., this year, has not a ton of hay on 
the farm, and intends to winter his horses, cat¬ 
tle and sheep on cut oats in the straw, cut 
wheat straw, chaff, pea straw, corn-stalks, &c. 
In this way he has no doubt his stock will do 
as well as on hay. Mr. B. has the best farm 
horses w r e have seen for some time. They 
have considerable of the “ Samson ” blood in 
them, but though very powerful and active 
horses, they do not come up to our beau ideal 
of a good xAmerican farm horse. Mr. Russel 
said such holies would sell for ,£60 ($300) 
each in Scotland. They are probably "worth 
about half that here. He agreed with us that 
none of the celebrated breeds of horses in 
Great Britain were exactly adapted to the 
wants of American farmers. Judicious cross-, 
ing with the Suffolk, the Cleveland Bay, and 
even with the heavy Clydedale, however, 
w'ould, in many cases, lead to much improve¬ 
ment Unfortunately, some of the horses im¬ 
ported into this country have not been good 
representatives of the breed, and consequently 
these breeds have fallen into disrepute. 
We hope more care and judgment have been 
exercised in the recebt importations, and that 
the whole question of breeding farm houses 
will receive tliat attention it so pre-eminently 
deserves. 
EXPERIMENTS IN PIG FEEDING—NO. III. 
The third series of experiments was devoted 
to the trial, as pig food, of dried JVewfound- 
land codfish —“an article which could be sup¬ 
plied in large quantities, and at a moderate 
price, were it found available for this purpose.” 
The experiments were so arranged as to ascer¬ 
tain iu what proportions it could be most ad¬ 
vantageously mixed with other foods. It con¬ 
tains more nitrogen—6£ per cent.—than any 
other current pig food, and hence, if found 
otherwise available, “ would yield a manure of j 
corresponding richness.” The codfish was pre¬ 
pared by boiling in water; and a portion of 
the other food was then stirred into the soup 
thus obtained. In the other series, we should 
have stated that the food was in all cases mix¬ 
ed with water before it was put into the 
troughs. 
There were 5 pens of 4 pigs each in this 
series. The experiment lasted eight weeks 
The food was given as follows: 
Pen 1.2 lbs. of dried Codfish per pig per day, 
with a mixture of equal parts of In¬ 
dian meal and bran, ad libitum. 
Pen 2. 2 lbs. of dried codfish per pig per day, 
with Indian meal, ad libitum. 
Pen 3. Codfish, and a mixture of equal parts 
of Indian meal and bran, each ad 
libitum. 
Pen 4. 1 lb. of codfish per pig per day, with a 
mixture of 2 parts barley meal and 
1 part bran, ad libitum. 
Pen 5. 1 Hj. of codfish per pig per day, with 
barley-meal, ad libitum. 
Pen 1 consumed 755 lbs. each of bran and 
Indian corn meal and 308 lbs. of codfish, and 
increased 323 lbs., or 100 lbs. of food produ¬ 
ced 17.7 lbs. increase in live weight. 
Pen 2 consumed 1450 lbs. Indian meal and 
308 lbs. codfish, and increased 389 lbs., or 100 
lbs. food produced 22.1 lbs. increase iu live 
weight. 
Pen 3 consumed 756 lbs. each of bran and 
Indian meal and 238 lbs. of codfish, and in¬ 
creased 28G lbs., or 100 lbs. of food produced 
16.3 lbs. increase of animal. 
Pen 4 consumed 1048 lbs. of barley meal. 
524 lbs. bran and 224 lbs. codfish, and increas¬ 
ed 301 lbs., or 100 lbs. of food produced 16.7 
lbs. increase of animal. 
Pen 5 consumed 1841 lbs. of barley meal 
and 224 lbs. codfish, and increased 376 tbs., or 
100 lbs. of food produced 18.2 lbs. increase of 
animal. 
The general indications of this series are 
similar to those of the other two. Bran is 
evidently a poor food for pigs. In pens 1 and 
M. D. BAILEY'S STALLION OTHELLO. 
The above engraving, though of rather a 
! coarser description than we are in the^^vpf 
admitting into the pages of the Rural, will 
give a tolerably correct idea of the general 
outline of the fine stallion, Othello, owned by 
M. D. Baii/ey, Esq., Wampsville, Madison Co., 
3, where the ad lib. food is equal parts bran 
and Indian meal, the increase is much less than 
where Indian meal alone is the ad lib. food. 
In pen 4, too, where equal parts of bran and 
barley meal are the ad lib. food, the increase 
is 75 lbs. less than in pen 5, where barley-meal 
alone is the ad lib. food. Barley is also again 
shown to be less fattening than Indian corn— 
thus, in pen 2, 100 lbs. codfish and Indian meal 
produce 22.1 ibs. increase of animal, while in 
pen 5,100 lbs. codfish and barley meal produce 
only 18.2 lbs. increase in live weight. 
It will be seen that the general increase of 
this codfish series is very good. Taking the 
mean of all the pens of the first series, 100 lbs. 
of food produce 18.1 lbs. increase; in the sec¬ 
ond series, 17.8 lbs.; in the third series, 18.2. 
So that the codfish series, as a whole, gives 
slightly the highest increase for the food con¬ 
sumed. Pen 6, first series, with 2 lbs. bean 
and lentil meal per pig per day, and Indian 
corn ad lib., gives 21.3 ibs. increase for 100 
lbs. of food consumed, and pen 2, third series, 
with 2 lbs. of codfish per pig per day, and In¬ 
dian meal ad lib., gives 22.1 lbs. increase for 
100 lbs. of food consumed. ’Phis is a slight 
difference in favor of the codfish. In fact, we 
may estimate the feeding value of this refuse 
codfish as fully equal to beans and lentils or 
peas, while, as before said, the iarge amouut 
of nitrogen it contains would render the ma¬ 
nure made by its consumption exceedingly 
valuable. 
To produce 100 ibs. of pork, 491 ibs. of In¬ 
dian corn are consumed. The manure made 
by it would contain about 9 lbs. of ammonia. 
This at 16 cents per lb.—its value in Peruvian 
guano—would be worth $1,44. Again, in 
producing 100 lbs. of pork, 499 lbs. beau and 
lentil meal, or peas, are consumed. This would 
give about 22 lbs. of ammonia in the excre¬ 
ments, and would be worth $3,52. With In¬ 
dian corn and codfish, to produce 100 lbs. of 
pork, we require 452 lbs. This would leave 
about 12 lbs. of ammonia iu the excrements, 
worth $1,92. With barley-meal we require j 
565 lbs. This would give about 10 tbs. of 
ammonia, worth $4,60. With 2 ibs. bean and 
lentil meal, and barley meal ad lib., we require 
545 ibs. This leaves in the excrements- about 
14 lbs. of ammonia, worth $2,24. The small- j 
est amount of food consumed to produce 100 
fibs, of pork in the whole three series, was pen i 
N. Y. Othello was sired by the celebrated 
trotting horse Morse’s Grev : his dam (Lady 
Ludlow) by Wm. Ludlow’s Othello, <fcc., &c. 
He is a jet black color, stands sixteen hands 
high and weighs 1300 pounds. He was for- 
I merlv owned by E. Bush, Esq., Sheffield, Mass., 
8, series 1, with 2 ibs. of bean and lentil meal, 
and 2 lbs. of bran per pig per day, and Indian 
corn ad lib.—194 lbs. of the former and 255 of 
the latter. These would leave in the excre¬ 
ments about 11 lbs. of ammonia, worth $1,76. 
Mr. Lawes has not yet published the actual 
amount of ammonia found in the excrements, 
and the above figures are obtained by estimat¬ 
ing that a pound of nitrogen in the food will 
give one pound of ammonia in the excrements. 
We believe this estimate will be found to ap¬ 
proximate closely to the truth. We may be 
censured for stepping in advance of the actual 
results of the investigation, but the practical 
value of the experiments is so closely connected 
with the whole process of feeding, that did we 
look simply at the amount of food required to 
produce a given amount of pork, forgetting 
the value of the excrements, we should be apt 
to arrive at wrong conclusions. We believe 
the most profitable method of fattening hogs 
will be to give them peas, at first, with perhaps 
a little Indian corn, and as they fatten gradu¬ 
ally reduce the proportion of peas, and iu- 
I crease the quantity of corn, and the last few 
weeks Iudiau meal alone should be given. We 
say this, because the experiments indicate, 
what is quite consistent with common expe¬ 
rience, that as an animal fattens it requires a 
less quantity of nitrogenous matter, and an 
increased quantity of available carbonaceous 
substance, such as starch, sugar, fat, &c. The 
highly nitrogenous peas, therefore, would be 
well adapted to the requirements of the pig 
when he is rather growing than fattening, and 
the rich carbonaceous Indian corn just the 
food he requires when he has done growing- 
and is simply accumulating fab 
Lice on Fowls. —A correspondent writes* 
that, in a long experience he has never found 
chickens, of any age or breed, attacked with 
lice if supplied with a liberal quantity of nutri¬ 
tious food. But in all cases, and especially if 
the fowls are confined in close quarters, a scan¬ 
ty supply of food renders them extremely lia¬ 
ble to be infested with the “ little varmints.”— 
The best remedy, he says, and our own experi¬ 
ence corresponds with it, is to rub into the 
parts affected, a liberal quantity of any kind of 
grease, provide a generous bill of fare, and 
avoid tobacco and all other filthy nostrums. 
j of whom he was recently purchased by Mr 
j Bailey at a very high figure. It is said the 
’ engraving is a very goon likeness with Ihe 
exception that it represents him a little too 
long from the knee to the fet-lock. Mr. B. 
will doubtless give any further information. 
THE OREGON PEA. 
Eds. Rural :—I notice several inquiries re¬ 
cently in the Rural, relative to the Oregon 
pea. They were introduced among us two 
years ago, and are now pretty generally dis- 
i seminated throughout middle Tennessee. Their 
j merits have scarcely been fairly tested, as the 
j high price at which they were sold, prevented 
; their being planted in any quantity. If the 
object of planting is the pea alone, other kinds 
might well claim the preference, as the Oregon 
is the smallest of all the peas, and not particu¬ 
larly inviting in appearance,—but if along with 
a reasonable amount of seed, we wish a super¬ 
abundant supply of stalks, valuable as green 
food, as hay, and as manure, then surely there 
is nothing else to compare to it It grows 
luxuriantly on the poorest soil, and is less af¬ 
fected by drouth than any plant I have ever 
seen. For example, the present is a season of 
unparalled drouth—never before have we wit¬ 
nessed such wide spread desolation, almost 
every green thing is parched up as by the 
withering sirocco; corn and cotton were cut off 
in the midst of the fairest promise, yet the Ore¬ 
gon pea is now growing and maturing its seed, 
as fresh and verdant as if the earth was not 
drained of its moisture. 
I planted ia the midst of a cotton field, se¬ 
lecting the poorest spot—a red knoll—the cot¬ 
ton adjoining is but a few inches high; the peas 
stand from three to four feet, and completely 
cover the ground. They have no vine, but 
grow upright after the manner of the cotton 
plant The pea in size and appearance is like 
Okra seed—the pods, four or five inches long, 
grow’ in clusters so as to be easily gathered.— 
They should be planted in drills four feet by 
two, and, with care in dropping, a bushel will 
plant forty acres or more. There is much dif¬ 
ference of opinion here in regard to their merits, 
— those who have tried them generally speak 
highly in their favor, while they are loudly 
condemned as a humbug by many who know 
but little about them. I have no doubt they 
possess a real and high value as a renovator of 
the soil, where fed off the land, and as hay 
where the stalks are harvested and properly 
secured. The price last spring was fifty cents 
a pint, but will probably be much lower this 
season, J. E. Manson. 
Murfreesboro, Term, Sept. 4,1S54. 
