TWO DOLLARS A TEAR.] 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT 
[SINGLE NO. FIVE CENTS, 
AN ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
Agricultural, Literary and Family Newspaper, 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
WITH AN ABLE CORPS OF ASSISTANT EDITORS. 
SPECIAL COXTRlBirrOKS: 
Prop. C. DEWEY. T. C. PETERS. 
Lt M. F. MAURY. H. T. BROOKS, 
Dr. ASA FITCH, EWD. WEBSTER, 
T. S. ARTHUR, Mrs. M. J. HOLMES, 
LYMAN B LANGWOUTHY. 
on me saoject, which will md our correspondent, 
and perhaps others in deciding the matter for 
themselves. Fallowing, or Bare Fallowing, as it is 
sometimes called to distinguish it from other 
methods, is simply allowing the laud to remain 
one year without a crop, and improving the sea¬ 
son of rest to thoroughly cultivate it. by the plow, 
drag and cultivator, so as to effectually pulverize 
the soil and destroy all weeds. The advantages 
generally acknowledged to result from fallowing, 
are the destruction of foul grass and weeds, and the 
improvement of the mechanical condition of the 
soil. On the subject of the chemical changes ef¬ 
fected by the frequent exposure of a new surface 
to the action of sun and atmosphere there are 
some differences of opinion. It will he seen at 
once that one of the principal results of fallowing, 
is especially and only beneficial to heavy clay 
lands. It is for such soils that, fallowing is bene¬ 
ficial, and it is only on the stillest clays that naked 
fallowing is still practised in England, although a 
few years since the system was general on al¬ 
most all soils. It is an instructive and suggestive 
fact that fallowing when first introduced into Scot¬ 
land, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
by a "progressive farmer,"'he had to endure the 
ridicule and contempt of his neighbors who con¬ 
sidered him insane, as they thought no sane man 
would allow a portion of his land to lie waste a 
whule year. His practice, however, was so much 
better than that, usually pursued, that in twenty 
years it was pretty generally adopted. In fact, any 
change, almost, would have been an improvement, 
as the custom was to sow -.train everv ve»r nniti 
™ fail. New-Yorker la designed to be unsurpassed in 
\ Hlue. Purity, Usefulness and Variety of Content*, and nnl<|no 
and beautiful In Appearance. Its Conductor devotes his per¬ 
sonal attention to the supervision of It* various departments, 
and earnestly labors to render ttie Rural an eminently Reliable 
Guido on the important Practical, Scientific and other Subjects 
Intimately connected with tho business of those whoso interests 
It sealously advocates It embraces more Agricultural, Hortt- 
cnlturU, Scientific, Mecbanlcal, Literary and News Matter, 
interspersed with appropriate and beautiful Engravings, than 
auy other Journal,—rendering It tho most complete Agricultc- 
hai. Literary and Family Journal In Amcrtcu. 
KTF-A11 communications, pud business letters, should bo 
addressed to D. D. T. MOORE, Rochester, N. Y. 
For Terns, and other particulars, 
sec last page. 
UL K inenci, Mr. Charles H. Walker, of Pearl 
Creek, Wyoming Co., who spent the last winter in 
the Eastern States, has kindly furnished the ac¬ 
companying plan and description of a Shaker 
Barn. It strikes ns aB admirable—a model Stock 
Barn. We would never construct a large bay 
without one or more chimneys or fines, extending 
from the bottom to the roof, to conduct away the 
steam that gathers in the hay or grain. They may 
be constructed cheaply by means of three or four 
poles set upright, with or without slats. Farmers 
can scarcely dispose of their surplus cash to bet¬ 
ter advantage than in the erection of neat, con¬ 
venient and durable out-buildings^ and we are al¬ 
ways glad to receive plans and descriptions of any 
thing really superior in that line for publication.] 
Friend Mooes: — The accompanying plan of a 
barn I obtained from the original, situated in 
Berkshire Co., Mass., and the property of the Han¬ 
cock Shakers. It is calculated for a Stock Barn, 
and after twenty years experience the Shakers 
cannot tell wherein to improve it as such. 
Explanation of the Diagrams.—a. A, doors. T, T, 
Windows. B, B, Stairs. D, D, Calf Pens. E, E, Alley’ 
F, F, Stalls. G, G, Granary. H, H, Double Doors, • 
a few years, then it was again broken up, and tie 
same process resumed. Of late years the same 
class of progressive farmers have been almost as 
badly ridiculed for abandoning the Bare Fallow 
system for a better. A writer in the Cyclopedia of 
Agriculture, (Edinburg,) at the close of a long and 
thorough article on the subject gives the philoso¬ 
phy of the matter, so concisely that we quote it 1 
in this place: 
"It is chiefly on the stiffer kinds of clays that 
naked fallows are still adopted. Such clays con¬ 
tain the disintegrated ingredients of felspars, or 
the silicates of alumina combined with silicates of 
alkalies. Now, these clays are in progressive dis- | 
integration, and their silica and alkalies are con- j 
stoutly but slowly becomiug soluble. This solu¬ 
bility, or farther breaking up of the ingredieuts of 
the clay, proceeds the more slowly the sliffer the 
soil, because it depends on the action of the air 
and rain-water; and a stiff soil refuses a ready 
permeation to these breakers 
> of circulars abundant crops of their foreign competitors, 
uestic corres- We have seen the time when the news brought 
i great extent by the last steamer from Europe as to the fall in 
ga now stand, price of a single staple, as of cotton for instance 
ie crops than waseqnivalent in the aggregate for the planters to 
in their power a losa upon the whole crop of the countrv of mil- 
* W . e ftnd Val , U - Hon9 ° f dollars. Now, for aught we know, this 
>wing or the decline in the price of cotton may have been owing 
any merchant, to reports got up for speculation in therirstin- 
he may be, to stance, for many a speculation has been made 
upon tho assumption of the farmer’s ignorance of 
nion has now the state of the crops in other parts of the world 
tural Society, and even of his own country. The same thing at 
y at hand tor least to a certain extent, happens every'year and 
g before the almost every day in the year, with wheat, sugar 
ie suggestion tobacco, corn, and every other staple of Agricul- 
\vords simply tural produce the farmer has to sell. The rise or 
Society raise fall of a cent or two in the bushel for corn Ot¬ 
is Committee wheat, is equal to an increase or diminution in 
members of the agricultural wealth amounting to millions of 
it parts of the dollars in the aggregate. If the crops be short 
ip or parish why should not the farmers be the tiret to find it 
illy of every out? 
I conditions. We know who the consumers of our breadstuff* 
> Society, or are—we know where the market places are—and 
let It he the we know what nations will meet ua as competitors 
:o the chair- iu those markets. We likewise know how many 
State of the months oar customers have to fill; at least we may 
he year and know, for the merchants can tell ns all this—and 
a to observe the question then for the farmer is,—How much 
the chair- has the country to spare? Where he knows that, 
; °f monthly then the price of his crop tor the year is fixed.— 
publish his Hence it would be desirable for the Statistical 
md other pa- Committee of the U.S. Agricultural Society to look 
journals as abroad also. Its members should not only collect 
one be put and digest the monthly summaries published by 
Jged to at- the State Committees, but they should also eute’r 
C Iu Lou- into correspondence with forcigu Societies and 
would relate functionaries with the view of obtaining from 
a Keutucky, them information concerning the state of their 
w York, to crops, or the preparation for seeding in other 
, each Mate, piutsof the world whose productions come into 
;r of course, competition with our own-aud of these let that 
up of its constituent 
particles. If a previous crop has taken from the 
soil all the available soluble silica and alkalies, an¬ 
other crop could not grow upon it, until, by a 
further disintegration, fresh portions were libera¬ 
ted. The farmer, to effect this, throws the soil in¬ 
to the most favorable couditions for producing 
this disintegration. By plowing before the frosts 
of winter, a large surface is exposed to the action 
of these mechauical pulverizers ot the soiL The 
water, penetrating its pores, becomes expanded on 
freezing; and breaks up and comminutes the par¬ 
ticles, exposing still larger surfaces to the chemi¬ 
cal action of the air, and of the carbonic acid and 
oxygen dissolved in rain-water. The carbouic 
acid of the air, but still more that dissolved in 
rain-water, exerts a most powerful disintegrating 
action. Experiments have shown, that a soil 
which refuses to yield ita alkalies to boiling afua 
regia, tbe most powerful of mineral acids, is forced 
to give them up to the long-continued action of 
carbonic-acid water. The alkalies and soluble 
silica, thus liberated daring the winter, might be 
" ashed away by the prolonged action of rain. The 
ground, however, is not permitted to be so as to 
allow water to stagnate, and prevent the free ac¬ 
cess of air and fresh rain. After the mechauical 
and chemical effects of a winter s frosts and rains 
have taken place, the soil is plowed up, and new 
surfaces exposed In spring. This has a two-told 
action; for, while it increases the noints for .lisin- 
8ECOND FLOOR OF STOCK BARN 
fertility. 
The question arises, cannot all that is 
Claimed for the bare fallow be accomplished with 
out the loss of a crop? The process, of course 
fall- The only advantage then to be derived from 
bare fallowing i8 the frequent stirring of the soil 
iu summer, principally for the eradication of 
weeds. If for fall wheat, some early variety of 
corn or potatoes should be planted, about four feet 
apart each way, so as to admit the moat thorough 
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