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BSraaR'CULTURF 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, MARCH 5,1864 
1 WHOLE NO. 738 
MOORE’S RURAL REW-YORKER, 
AN ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
RURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER 
TAXING TOBACCO-INTERESTING FACTS, 
comforters, blankets or the like — on their 
March lambs, and keep them there until mod¬ 
erate weather comes. W e laughed Tery heartily 
when we first saw a troop of blanketed lambs 
capering in a Vermont sheep stable! But why 
not? If your hardy horse is better for a 
blanket, why not a delicate lamb, just ushered 
wet and weak from the blood heat temperature 
of its mother’s womb into an atmosphere below 
zero? Mr. H-, of Vermont, had two or 
three “catch lambs’' dropped last January. 
During some moderate weather in February, 
(when we were stopping with him,) his man sug¬ 
gested that these lambs had worn their blankets 
long enough. "Well," replied 3Ir. H-, 
“ suppose you go into the house and take off 
your drawers: if you find yourself better for it, 
we’ll try it on the lambs!’' It would not be 
profitable for most flock-masters in oiir dimate 
to have lambs dropped in March; but where it 
is profitable to do so. it is also profitable to take 
aU necessary steps to save their lives and pro¬ 
mote their growth. 
YVk have before us a letter, purporting to 
have been written by Isaac Newton, Com¬ 
missioner of Agriculture, to John Shkrman, 
Chairman of the Congressional Committee on 
Agriculture, discussing the expediency of taxing 
leaf tobacco twenty cents per pouud, as pro¬ 
posed by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue. 
This letter contains some facts, which, if prop¬ 
erly grouped together, may interest our readers. 
1. The amount of Ulmero yroten in this 
country.— By the census of 1850, we learn that 
the crop of the previous year was 200,000,000 
pounds. In 1850, it was 4'29,0n0,000,— the aver¬ 
age crop during the years intervening between 
1840 and 1859 being about 265,000,000 pounds. 
In 1862, the crop in tire loyal Suites was esti¬ 
mated at 208,000,000: in 1863, at 258,000,000. 
I>uring the past eight years, the estimated aver¬ 
age production of all the States is about 275,000,- 
000 pounds. Estimating that each acre will 
produce one hogshead of 1,200 pounds of to¬ 
bacco, one small county containing 400 square 
CONDUCTED BY D, D. T. MOORE. 
OIIARL.ES I>. UKAGDON, AssoclKte Editor. 
KEEP HUSBANDRY 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS: 
P. BARRY, C. DEWEY, LL. D., 
E. T. BROOKS, L, B. LANG WORTHY, 
To Correspondents. — Mr. Randall's address Is 
Cortlan 1 A iIkuu. Cortland Co-, N. Y. AU communica¬ 
tions intended for tills Department, and all inquiries 
relating to sheep, should be addressed to him as above. 
W. T. KENNEDY, Jr„ Assistant Office Editor. 
the Rural New-Yorker Is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed In Valne, rarity, and Variety of Contents, and 
unique and beautiful In Appearance. Its Conductor 
devotes Ids personal attention to the supervision of it* 
various departments, and earnestly labors to render 
tbs !i ckal an eminently Reliable Guide on all the 
Important Practical, Scientific and other Subjects inti¬ 
mately connected with the business of those whose 
Interests It zealously advocates. As»Fa»!ili .Iocknal 
It is eminently Instructive and Entertaining— beingeo 
conducted that It can be safely taken to the Homes of 
people of Intelligence, taste and discrimination. It 
embraces more Agricultural, Horticultural, Scientific, 
Educational, Literary and News Matter, Interspersed 
•with appropriate Engravings, than any other journal,— 
rendering It the most complete Agricultural Lite¬ 
rary and Family Newspaper In America. 
SHEEP WORK IN MARCH. 
March, by common consent, is the most 
critical month of the year for sheep in the 
climate of the Northern States. Breeding ewes 
and last spring’s lambs which have been poor 
through the winter, hut which apparently have 
kept strong and hearty thus far, now frequently 
fail rapidly in strength, pine away and perish. 
After thirty years' experience, we know no 
effectual way of arresting this fatal decline afler 
itlias actually set in.— any medicine or processes 
which tend to reduce the system, are clearly 
out of place. It would seem that moderate 
tonics and stimulants ought to be beneficial, but 
we confess we have never discovered any which 
proved of the least avail. Some persons have 
thought that they found great advantage in 
i administering raw, salt, fat 
pork—thrusting a piece of the 
.dze of two fingers down the 
throat of each feeble sheep 
once in two or three days. 
We have tried it without per- {&£'• 
oeiving any good effects from 
it. Careful nursing, separat- Jgsz?* 
ing the stronger from the 
weaker, avoiding sudden 
changes of diet, and especially 
avoiding those a osfrwms which 
meu possessing neither expert- JSSjgr v r ^ 
ence, observation nor knowl- 
edge of medicines are gener. 
ally so ready to recommend, 
are all that we can confidently 
advise. The only real remedy is to be found in 
prevention —in bringing sheep into the winter 
in good condition, and keeping them so by 
proper feed, shelter and other care. 
Even the hearty, rugged sheep of the flock 
require special attention in March. Now is the 
time to feed the choicest hay. Grain feeds, if 
given previously, should by no means he re¬ 
duced, 
IMPORTED RAM DON PEDRO. 
The first Merino ram known to have been 
imported into the United States, was brought 
from Spain into Boston. Massachusetts, by 
William Forster, in 1793. He was killed, 
without having gotten any produce. The 
second was introduced in 1801, by M. Dupont 
K5" For Terras and •ttuir particulars, see last page. 
SPRING WORK 
—-v-sc . •• . 
de NEMOURS, and a French banker named 
Delesskrt. This was Don Pedro, whose 
portrait is given above. He was considered 
of tine form, weighed 13S pounds, and yielded 
84 pounds of brook-washed wool. This, so 
far as our knowledge extends, is the heaviest 
fleece which was borne by any of the early 
Merinos imported iuto this country. Don 
PEDRO was first taken to DuroNT’s place near 
New York, In 1802. he was put on a farm 
belonging to M. Delessert, near the village of 
Kingston. N. Y., and was kept there until 1805. 
He was crossed with the common ewes of that 
region, but the. produce was held in so little esti¬ 
mation that Chancellor Livingston, on his 
return from France in 1805, learned that near 
one hundred of his half aud three-quarter blood 
progeny “ had been sold at vendue at a price in¬ 
ferior to that of common sheep, and that above 
1 one-half had perished from neglect the follow¬ 
ing winter.” The Chancellor purchased “ all 
he could of the scattered remnant,” and "picked 
up twenty-four ewes” at a price which "at¬ 
tracted the notice of those who had seen and 
neglected them.” See Preface to Living¬ 
ston’s Essay on Sheep, p. 8. 
At Delessert’s sale, Don Pedro was 
bought by Du font’* agent for sixty dollars. 
He was taken in 1808 to the farm of E. I. Du¬ 
pont, near Wilmington, Delaware. He founded 
a valuable flock of sheep for that gentleman— 
but was thought of so little value by his 
neighbors, that scarcely any of them would use 
the ram, though his services were gratuitously 
offered. 
As Dupont de Nemours was the head of 
the Commission appointed by the French Gov¬ 
ernment to select in Spain the flocks of Merinos 
given up by the latter by the Treaty of Basle, 
wo have always conjectured that this ram was 
from the original Spanish, and not from the 
French variety of Merinos. The point, how¬ 
ever. is of Httle practical importance, as the 
French sheep had not, at that period, diverged 
essentially from the pat ent stock. 
The cut we give is copied from an old one, 
said to be very accurate, in the possession of 
Lewis F. Allen, Esq., of Black Kook, New 
York. It represents a low animal of much sub¬ 
stance, aud uncommonly round in the rib, for 
the Spanish sheep of that day. But it is essen- 
bawlrng which is so common among calves 
after they arc taken from the cow and half 
starved, half of the time, A little experience 
and care, tlie exercise of a little common sense 
in tilling the calf’s stomach, will help to add to 
its value as well as comfort, and greatly gratify 
you if you have a ta-te for tine animals. And 
no long as a calf drinks milk, it is always better 
to feed it warm —not hot, not cold, but “ milk- 
warm.” It injures the ealfs stomach and 
health to food oold milk, and it is inhuman to 
feed it as hot as some do. 
Cbmposts.—It is well to look after the com¬ 
post heaps. If they are under shelter, and are 
not frozen, turn them; and if decomposition has 
not taken place, aud you propose using the com¬ 
post this spring, add air-slaked lime to them as 
you turn thorn. Gather up the hen manure, if 
you have no other especial use for it, and incor¬ 
porate with it as you turn. 
Cotton.—Have you got your seed ? You want 
from one to two bushels per acre. Do you know 
how to distinguish good from poor seed ? l'ut it 
in water. The good seed will sink; the poor 
will not. If you have a hot-bed — and you 
should have —you can start the plants in it, and 
transplant when danger from frost is over. This 
will lengthen tho season, find insure your crop 
from late autumn frosts, perhaps. If your cot¬ 
ton land is not thoroughly pulverized, do not 
plant in it until it i. It is very essential that it 
This is all-important in the case of 
in I aiu hod owes. The extra food may be moder¬ 
ately and gradually increased if it appears neces¬ 
sary—but even if the ewe is already too fat, it is 
not safe to reduce her a particle within a few 
weeks of lambing. 
Handle breeding ewes, if it is necessary to 
handle them at all, with still more care than 
previously, now as parturition approaches. L>o 
not turn them over on their backs to exhibit 
their wool, pare their feet, or for any other pur¬ 
pose. Such handling, if carefully done, would 
not produce abortion, hut it is liable to lead to 
wrong presentations of the lamb at birth. If 
they must be lifted, stand on one side of the 
ewe. put one arm before the fore-legs and bris¬ 
ket, the other behind the lower part of the 
thighs, and then press the arms toward each 
other just so that the sheep can be conveniently 
raised from the ground without bending its 
back cither up or down—and set it down again 
as carefully as you would a sick man on a bed. 
Let sheep have exercise. Walking about mod¬ 
erately will do them good — though they un¬ 
questionably require less exercise as lambing 
approaches. But let nobody chase them. Let 
no thoughtless children take the sheep barns 
aud yards for their play grounds. Let no 
strange dog enter their yards. Let no cows, aud 
especially no frisking colts, put their feet in 
those yards. 
Draw out ewes and lambs from the flocks if 
they exhibit the least degree of weakness, aud 
put them by themselves. 8ee that manure does 
not accumulate too much in the stables. Keep 
everything in order. Continue to adhere rigor¬ 
ously and punctually to every part of a proper 
winter system in regard to feed, water, salt, 
shelter, ventilation, exercise, etc. 
If ewes are to lamb in March, or early in 
April, stables must be in readiness that can bo 
closed up tight in ease of severe cold. The Ver¬ 
monters tie coverings—made of pieces of old 
It is well to canvass this matter thoroughly. It 
onght to have been done long ago. 
Accoxmts .—nave you prepared to keep an ac¬ 
count with each crop and each class of animals? 
If not, why not? How are you going to render 
a record of transactions to the Collector of In¬ 
ternal Revenue unless you doadopt some system ? 
You may wrong the government; and you will 
be quite as likely to wrong yourself by any effort 
to guess at facts that should ho recorded in 
figures. Bead again the excellent suggestions 
