RURAL LI FE 
’aT.RICi II TURF ill 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-F0R THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, APRIL 7, I860. 
or bad economy, to lose a great portion of the 
benefit of good winter keep. Let the feed be a 
little more generoire until grass comes in. 
A good deal of cleaning up is necessary in the 
spring, everywhere. The farmer’s wife knows 
this, and attends to her duty in this respect in the 
Scrubbing paint, and white-washing 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
AS ORIGINAL WKKKLY 
RURAL, LITERARY AND FA MILY NEWSPAPER. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
With an Able Corps of Assistants and Contributors. 
Tit* Rcral New-Yorker is ilesig-ned to he nrororpitflsed 
In Value, Purity, Usefulness and Variety of Contents, and 
unique and bountiful in Appearance. Its Conductor devotes 
hi* personal attention to the supervision of iU various de¬ 
partments, and earnestly tatiors to render the RURAL an 
eminently Keliahle Guide on all the important Practical, 
Scientific and other Subject* intimately connected with the 
business of those whose interests it zealously advocates. 
As a Faku.T Joc'K-Sai. it Is eminently Instructive and 
Kntertaininz — being so conducted that It can be safely 
taken to Ilia Hearts and Humes of people of intelligence, 
taste and discrimination. It embrace* more Agricultural, 
Horticultural, Scientific, Educational, Literary and News 
Matter, interspersed with appropriate and beautiful En¬ 
gravings, than any other journal,—rendering it the most 
complete Agricultural, Literary and Family Nkws- 
PAPKR in America. 
For Tkrms and other particulars, sue Last page. 
bouse. 
walls, and cleaning windows, is laborious work 
but it is done, and done well. But, to see a wornar 
—afdaoder upon our civilisation. Clean up the 
yards while you have lime, and rake into a pile 
the sawdust, ehips, <fcc., that have accumulated 
during the winter. If you had some corner in a 
shed, where you could place it under cover, and 
get the women to throw all the waste water from 
the house upon it, by the fall it would make a 
manure pile as rich us guano, without any outlay, 
except of a little good sense. If the pile is not 
large enough to absorb all the waste from the 
house, add a load of peaty-muck, or any old turf, 
or even common soil. In this way a nuisance is 
turned into money; for nothing looks more slov¬ 
enly than an untidy door-yard. 
By all means fence off a spot for a vegetable 
garden, and for the smaller fruits, such as rad¬ 
ishes, peas, beans, currants, strawberries, and so 
on. There is no reason why the farmer should 
not live like a prince. He works hard iu the 
Z IAIjL '£ YMliLcm*> 
Pedigree op “Hortenre.” — Red, bred by Jas. O. Sheldon, Geneva, N. Y., the property of M. C. Mordoff, Altabrook Farm, near Rochester, 
N. Y., calved May 22, 1 77, got by Island Duke of Oxford, 21)97, out of Josephine, by Marquis of Carabbaa (11789,)—Kate Horn, by Duke of Exeter 
(10172,)—Betsy 2d, Vy . 'k, 0 f Wellington (rior.t.)— Betsy, by Bonaparte. 273,— Nancy, by Wellington, 108G,— Countess, by son of Comet (155,)— 
Princess, by Lancaster ^300,)—by North Star (459,)—by Favorite (2.72,)—by Favorite (272,)—by baVorUe (2u2,) by Hubback (?'9.) 
HINTS FOE SPRING. 
although for scree weeks past the weather has 
been cold and wintry, and those in a hurry for 
spring have felt somewhat dissatisfied, and may 
have grumbled a little at the tediousness of north¬ 
ern winters and the fickleness of our early springs, 
still, summer is approaching, day by day, step by 
step, with a steady tread. Boon the Benson of toil 
will be upon us, and unless a good many little 
things are attended to at once, they will have 
to be done by-and-by, when time is much more 
valuable, and sadly interfere with the summer 
campaign. A few hints, therefore, by way of 
calling to mind things that are likely to need 
doing, and yet that are individually so small as to 
seern unimportant, and, therefore, likely to be 
neglected, will not be out of place. We may not 
suggest anything new, nor auything that we have 
not before mentioned, but all need line upon line 
and precept upon precept. 
The fence posts have doubtless become thrown 
up with the frost, and while the ground was soft 
the wind has blowu the fence far out of a straight 
line, and it needs straightening. The gateposts, 
too, unless very well set, need attention in the 
spring, or the gates will sag, and not shut well, 
and cause much annoyance and vexation. Many 
rails have doubtless been blown from the fences, 
and if they are not replaced, these low places 
will furnish excellent practice for cattle in jump¬ 
ing, and the younger members of the herd in a 
short time will become so proficient as to look 
with scorn upon the best of fences. 
All tools and implements should be examined 
and put in first rate order, and the necessary 
purchases made. Nothing is more vexatious than 
to find out just as you need an implement, that it 
is out of repair, or so worn out that it must be 
replaced by a new one. The teams, too, should be 
in “good heart,’* so that they can be pushed a 
little when necessary. The farmer that has all 
his tools and implements in order, and those that 
are good and convenient, and plenty of “horse 
power,” is not likely to be much behind in his 
spring work, let the weather be ever so unfavor¬ 
able. 
Every fanner, no doubt, before this, has marked 
out a plan for the summer campaign. See that 
you are prepared with seeds, plaster, and every¬ 
thing necessary to carry out this plan; for unless 
you do this, you are pretty certain to fail, and 
find yourself controlled by circumstances, with¬ 
out regard to your proposed line of operations. 
Keep cattle out of the meadows until the grass 
has got a good start, and the Boil is well settled. 
Much damage is done by allowing cattle in tbe 
meadows too early. A top dressing of ashes will 
do tbe meadows a deal of good, and if you have 
an old one that has yielded so poorly that you 
hardly know what to do with it, just give it a top 
dressing of well rotted manure, and pass over it 
with a heavy drag. Then, if you can afford the 
time, make a brush drag, and pass it over once or 
twice. After you cut the grass, tell us how much 
you got to the acre, and whether it paid lor the 
extra labor and manure. A little fresh seed scat¬ 
tered over before the manure, is said, by some 
who have tried it to be excellent 
Keep all animals, if possibl", a little better than 
they have been kept during the winter. It is 
very easy, in the spring, by a little carelessness, 
roots than were added to it in the top-dressing. 
Another, and another year, but adds to the tri¬ 
umph, and renders certain the victory. 
From the above wc arc inclined to class farm 
crops as the fertilizing and non fertilizing. Crain 
and all annually sown crops, ouly requiring roots 
to perfect a few week’s growth, return to, or leave 
in the soil, much less than is extracted, while grass 
crops, continuing in a growing state for a consid¬ 
erable portion of the year, give a much greater 
proportionate return to the soil, and are less ex¬ 
hausting. Hence, one of the chief sources of fer¬ 
tility of the Western prairies, and also of the 
celebrated recuperative powers for tbe soil, is by 
depasturing with sheep. 
We have witnessed much upon this subject in 
the practice of the Hon. A. B. Dickinson, who, 
twenty years ago, purchased several farms, more 
or less exhausted. ITU business being keeping 
sheep and fattening, in pasture, cattle for the New 
York market, he kept these farms seeded In grass 
for several years, and, applying annually a bushel 
of plaster per acre, let them receive as a top- 
widely different Whoever thought of making a 
soil richer by growing in it a crop of wheat roots, 
—while a crop of clover roots will increase Its 
fertility wonderfully. The same is true of timo¬ 
thy, and, in fact, of any of the tough swarding 
grasses. All the farmer has to do to manure his 
soil well, is to produce a heavy, thick sward, the 
roots of which, when killed, in decaying, give out 
the constituent elements of a series of great crops 
and leave the soil the better fur being in grass. 
But how to produce this thick sward, is the 
question, on a farm where the huge, wandering 
roots of tha old forest trees are all decayed and 
extracted from the soil, in the form of “product,” 
and sold,—how to get a good coating of grass,— 
a good, tougli sward, and its adjuncts,—where the 
soil is / un poor, and will hardly grow either root 
or stalk. We answer, mix your grass seed, using 
varieties suited to the soil, and then serve the 
product as the “ young dandies do their coaxed 
moustaches”—nurse, care for, treat with outward 
annlicutions, &c„ until it crows, and when oneo a 
even greater benefit than this. Many farmers 
want to make some improvements which will pay 
a large per cent, profit, but for which they cannot 
conveniently spare the money. In such cases 
we would unhesitatingly refer them to the wood 
lot It cannot be said to be spoiling the farm, to 
take capital from one purt, where it is unproduct¬ 
ive, if not absolutely diminishing in value, and 
put it on other parts where it will yield twenty- 
five to fifty per cent, profit. 
Bnt, say some, “where shall we get wood, and 
what shall we have for fire after our wood laud! 
are cleared?” Well, if nothing better can be 
done, we can burn coaL It is really no saving of 
timber to allow it to stand in the woods, not 
adding to its value, and we do not propose to 
have farmers entirely clear their woodlands of 
young growing timber, except in those instances,— 
which we think very rare,—where the area of 
cultivated ground can be profitably enlarged, in 
which case the crops on the land ought to much 
more than pay for all the wood Or coal needed. 
If farmers would clear off the larger timber, and, 
if need be, plant young and growing trees in their 
places, they can obtain money for many valuable 
improvements, and their wood lot, if not as valu¬ 
able as before, will be constantly increasing, in¬ 
stead of diminishing, in worth. 
We throw out these suggestions for the especial 
benefit of those in debt, or otherwise unable to 
enter upon farm improvements as fully as they 
would wish, — none others are expected to adopt 
them. It has long been a trick of speculators, to 
buy farms with a good deal of wood land on 
them, and, after clearing it oil*, and realizing one 
or two thousand dollars for it, to sell at about tbe 
same price they paid, often realizing almost the 
entire cost of the farm from the wood lot; and 
it, is nothing but fair that those who are trying to 
get out of debt, or who would spend the money 
thus obtained in farm improvements, should have 
the benefit of the hint. Let them consider these 
things, and report any objections they may find. 
WOOD LOTS.-A SUGGESTION 
soon made which took “ power” to draw a plow 
through it, and the productive capacity of the 
soil was increased fully three-fold. We have seen 
whole hill-sides which had annually been shorn of 
their product until in his possession, and were so 
much exhausted as to be seeded with difficulty, af¬ 
ter lying in grass five years, as pasture, broken 
and give a yield of oats worthy any soil in the 
State. 
It used to be the maxim of neighbor Moses, 
now gone from earth, to seed no more than he 
could give a dressing of manure, at the time of 
seeding, with the crop grown. This wo consider 
poor policy, if the grass crop is sought to be ben- 
ofitted, as it will produce a larger growth of straw 
to smother the young grass and absorb all, or 
nearly all, the manure, leaving the “newsceding” 
little better for the attention. 
The whole truth is here, labor to fertilize your 
meadows and pastures,— a thick, heavy turf will 
do more toward permanently enriching your soil, 
than all your applications of manure to cultivated 
crops — seed often and manure your grass land, 
and you will reap a return in two spires where 
but one grew before, and retain your manure hid¬ 
den in the soil, payable to your order upon proper 
demand. Instead of plowing manure into the 
soil, put it on top, and let grass land vegetation 
carry it down. These are practiced principles, 
Mr. Editor. "Not Tubes. 
growing timber. But, as the wind is admitted, it 
sweeps these leaves into gullies, and behind 
fences, leaving the ground bare, which soon 
becomes covered with grass, thus checking, if 
not entirely preventing, the growth of the trees. 
Many farmers also permit their cattle and horses 
to have the run of the woods in summer, thus 
keeping down the underbrush, which is neces¬ 
sary, not only to keep out winds, and prevent the 
coming in of grass, but also to furnish young 
timber to replace the gradual decay and using 
up of the old. 
As the great majority of trees in our woodlands 
grow very little, if at all, it is evident that they 
are really only so much unproductive capital. 
In fact, many of the larger trees are dying, or 
becoming hollow, and so worth less and less 
every year. At the present high price of wood, 
the amount of capital thus unprofitably invested We bold it to be nature’s own way of enriching 
is very large. And we would suggest that it land, to apply the fertilizer, of whatever sort it 
would be good policy for many to cut down all maybe, to the surface,—what would be termed a 
the larger trees, and sell them, leaving a good top-dre-sing. We are aware this is debatable 
growth of the young timber to spring up in its ground, and shall not presume to enter the lists, 
place, or else entirely clear the laud for cultiva- but simply give facts, as seen by us, and by all 
tion. At the present prices of land it might pay who, “ having eyes, see.” 
to clear the laud, hut as most farmers have The annual fall of leaves, decay of grass and 
already more land than they can well attend to, other herbage, with the deposits caused by over- 
our wood lots may be spared yet awhile from flow, and the decay of the many forms of vegeta- 
eultivation. At any rate, it does not pay to leave tion, are the sources of fertility and its annual 
live hundred to two thousand dollars’ worth of increase. The soil which retains any considcr- 
wood on their farms, which is not increasing, bnt able portion, or all that grows upon it, ought to 
MANURING PASTURES AND MEADOWS, 
STABLING HORSES 
Eds. Rural New-Yorker: — “Subscriber,” of 
Union City, wishes to know what is the general 
experience in stabling horses, pursuing the mode 
recommended for cattle by G. M. Reynolds, and 
as you wish the readers of the Rural to give their 
experience in the stabling of horses, I will endea¬ 
vor to give mine, as briefly as possible. The 
