4 mm 
v*v 
SUTURE 
lCULTUR^ 
\i*Si& 
ROCHESTER, N. Y.-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, MAY 28,1864 
{WHOLE NO. 750, 
MOORE’S RFRAL NEW-YORKER, 
AN ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
SURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWS PAPER 
unfavorable for over a score of years. Cold and 
wet weather has prevailed through the spring, 
and now the usual work of April and the first 
half of May must be performed lu a hurry. In 
the West there is a scarcity of help, also, and 
henoo much must be left undone which ought 
to be done or was contemplated. The dernier 
resort is — what ? To employ every man, 
woman, beast anti machine that is available, 
and rush matters to the utmost. 
— But we need not dwell upon either the situ¬ 
ation or its necessities. Every intelligent man 
Should understand and comprehend the matter. 
Let us all strive to do our duty, and if that is 
discharged all will yet be well. 
“If I could have but one kind, I should by 
all means choose the small; for, if sown on rich 
land and plastered, it will be large enough. It 
makes better pasture, as it starts quicker, flow- 
era oftener, keeps greener late in the season, 
ami produces a better quality of feed than the 
large. For hay, if cured properly, it can't be 
beat. For renovating exhausted land, in some 
cases I prefer the large; its roots strike deeper 
and some think will stand longer. A slight 
sprinkling of it sown with timothy will often 
increase the bulk of hay amazingly. If sown 
separately for hay on thin land and not plastered 
it docs pretty well, but on rich meliow land it 
grows too coarse. It is often pastured till the 
first or the middle of June, and then after-mown 
for seed. If cut lor hay in a wet spell it is some¬ 
times almost worthless except for litter.” 
Our correspondent evidently thinks the appli¬ 
cation of the name *• m ediiun ” to a variety of the 
red clover, humbug. It is, or may be so, doubt¬ 
less; but it by no means follows that that varie¬ 
ty known as “June clover” and that known as 
“medium” are identical. On the other hand 
we know such is not the case—at least we think 
we know it. IVe have grown the three kinds. 
We suppose there is no doubt that Trifolium 
pratense embraces those known as the large and 
small kinds. Trifolium medium is the name of 
a variety distinct from T. pratense which is thus 
described by GRAY:—“Stems zigzag, smooth- 
Uh; leaflets oblong, entire and spotless: heads 
mostly stalked; flowers deeper purple and larger, 
otherwise like T. preiie ns*.’’ Wood says its 
heads of flowers are larger than T. pratense; 
corollas deep purple; h .ives of a uniform green. 
(me thing is very certain, it is nearly related to 
T. pratense, and will be called “red clover” 
quite as often as either of the other kinds known 
as “ large ” and “ small.” It came by its name, 
medium , honestly. It is as distinct from the 
“ large kind,” and from the “ small kind,” as 
these are from each other; and by many it is 
regarded more valuable than either, both for 
pasture and hay. 
| sheep, so that the history of my stock is not 
j thereby affected. 
“The history of my present flock is as fol¬ 
lows;—lu 1814 I bought of C. B. Cook, of Char- 
1 lotte, Vt., two ewes of his stock bought of Mr. S. 
[ Atwood, of Conn. They were in lamb by the 
j “Atwood ram,” as you term him — the ram 
purchased of Mr. Atwood by Judge M. W. C. 
I Wright, at the New York State Fair at Pough¬ 
keepsie. in 1844, and which Mr. Remei.ee and 
myself bought of Judge W. soon after its arri¬ 
val in Vermont, as you state in the Practical 
Shepherd, page 410. I soon after purchased 
more Atwood ewes of Mr. Cook, and have 
done so on several occasions since, but I do not 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
CHARLES H. KRAGIHLV, Ajwoclut* Editor. 
USBANDRY 
HENRY 8. RANDALL. LL. D.. 
Editor Department of Sheep Husbandry. 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS: 
P. BARRY, C. DEWEY, LL. D., 
H. T. BROOK3, L. B. I.AXG WORTHY. 
MR. ELITHARP’S INFANTADO SHEEP. 
Tub Rural New- Yorker is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed In Value, Purity, and Variety of Contents, and 
mil«|Ue and beautiful In Appearance, Its Conductor 
devotes Ills personal attention to die supervision of Its 
various departments, and earnestly labors to render 
the Rural an eminently Reliable Guide ou all the 
Important Practical, Scion title aud other Subjects Inti¬ 
mately connected with the business or those whose 
Interests It zealously advocates. As a Family JOURNAL 
It Is eminently Instructive and Entertaining — oelng 80 
conducted that it umi 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. 
Prosper Elitharp, of Brklport. Vermont, 
thus gives us the history and pedigrees of his 
flock: 
Profitable Cows. 
Queer questions come to us sometimes. 
Ilcre is one:—“How much butter should a cow 
make in a week to be good enough to be worth 
keeping for milk?” We say “queer,” because 
that is a question which every farmer ought to 
decide for himself. But It is a pertinent ques¬ 
tion, and it doed no barm to ask such. It be¬ 
longs to a class of questions which every good 
business man, whether farmer, manufacturer, 
or merchant, asks and seeks to solve. It is pre¬ 
cisely like questions which enter into the man¬ 
agement of a systematic business daily. Mr. 
Merchant buys goods. He knows what they 
cost him, including freight, cartage, commis¬ 
sions, &c. Adding to the cost, the interest on 
the money invested, he must fix his selling 
price at such a figure as to cover insurance, 
current expenses, labor, and a profit beside. 
So, in determining whether a COW is worth 
keeping, or not, precisely the same questions 
must be considered. Goes she retun to your 
pocket the cost of keeping her, including care, 
and labor of preparing her product for market, 
with the interest on the money invested in her, 
or on the amount which she would sell for to¬ 
day? If she docs not, she is not worth keep¬ 
ing. Rut your estimate cau not be confined to 
a single week’s experience. You should know 
what she cost you; what the feed you have fed 
her during a year was worth in cash in market; 
what she has cost you in labor to take care of 
her and prepare her product for market, and 
the interest on the whole investment. With 
this aggregate, you should place to the cow’s 
credit against it, the value of the calf she raises, 
the manure she makes, the milk she yields 
during the year—or a careful estimate of the 
same—and her cash value to-day. Compare 
the aggregates. I f the latter is not as large as 
the former, you had better get rid of your cow. 
It ought to be at least 10 or 15 per centum 
larger. 
It is plaiu, from what we have written, that 
the answer to the question asked us must de¬ 
pend upon data not in our possession, and cir¬ 
cumstances, pertaining to our correspondent’s 
locality, with which weave unacquainted. The 
cost and value of cows in different localities 
vary with the difference in climate, facilities for 
obtaining forage, proximity to market, &o., Ac. 
The cost of keeping cows is much less in some 
localities than others, while the market value 
of the product may be very nearly the same, 
owiug to railway facilities. A much better 
cow may really be of less profit iu one locality 
than a poor one in another. Kujures alone will 
decide the question! Aud the farmer who is 
uot making figures while his cows are manufac¬ 
turing his capital into milk, Is a loose farmer— 
in that respect. 
The Lowest Subsciption Price of tlie Rural is 
Two Dollars a Year. Eor particulars sec last page. 
CURRENT TOPICS DISCUSSED, 
MR. F.i.fTUAUP’S MERINO RAM TEG, 
“I commenced with Merino sheep in 1835, 
six years before the Infantado or Atwood sheep 
were brought into this State. They were prin¬ 
cipally raulars, but some of my stock had 
crosses of Jarvis blood. After the introduction 
of the Infantados I crossed the preceding with 
them also. But I kept my Infantado stock pure. 
I used Infantado rams freely to my Paular ewes. 
, “CORTEZ.” 
remember the number. In 1846 I purchased 
three ewes of Edwin Hammond, which he 
informed me he bought of Mr. Stephen 
Atwood. In 1847, Mr. Cook and myself went 
to Connecticut and bought a few sheep of 
Mr. S. ATwood, and all the ewe lambs of 
Chauxcey Atwood, eleven in number. The 
above comprise all my purchases of pure Infan- 
tado sheep besides rams. 
•* On all the above ewes I used 
the ‘ Atwood ram' until the time 
\ of his death in 1850. I then used 
* woor ^ree what I regarded as 
first class rams of his get, selected 
efivagS from my flock —thus breediug in- 
££3,3® and-in. I next used a ram which 
I called Don Pedro, purchased 
|£r' v second handed from Mr. Ham¬ 
mond’s flock. His successor was 
P ‘America,’ bred by Mr. Ham- 
gr mono and sold by him when a 
lamb to X. A. Saxton, of Ver- 
gennes. ’America’ was got by 
Mr. Hammond’s ‘Sweepstakes.’ 
^— Mr. Saxton sold half of him to 
Mr. Cook the fall he himself 
bought him, and the other half 
to me two years after. America 
got the Saxton ram, which Mr. S. 
sold for $1,000. All my ewes 
under four years old, except yearlings and this 
spring’s lambs, were got by America. My 
yearlings, except ten, were got by a young 
ram of America's get, dam a first class Cook 
ewe. The other ten were got by W illiam R. 
Sanford’s present stock ram ‘Comet.’ 
“ The ram lamb 4 Cortez,’ whose portrait 
accompanies this, was by Sanford’s ‘Comet,’ 
dam a very ehoice ewe by ‘America.’ The 
two ewes were got by. America. No. 
irw 1 was bred by Mr. Cook, No. 10 by 
myself. Both are now my property.” 
Amount of Flax-Seed per Acre. 
C. D. Farxham writes:—“I have had a 
good deal of experience in raising and dressing 
flax for the last twenty years, having raised 
yearly from twenty to fifty acres. I have sown 
different amounts of seed, but think one bushel 
per acre enough for any land. I have sown 
more, but, as a general thing, heavy rains will 
knock it down, it will spoil, produce but little 
seed, and not near as much flax when dressed 
as that which has less seed sown; and it is more 
work to pull it. When I have sown two bush¬ 
els to the acre, on good land, it has fallen and 
remained as flat as if it had been rolled; and 
not one-tenth of it will straighten up until 
pulled. In such ease the crop is not worth half- 
price. I generally sow on green-sward, and 
seed with clover. In this way my land is im¬ 
proving. I think where land is seeded, it does 
the grass as much good to pull the flax as it 
does coni to hoe it.” 
We are obliged to our correspondent for his 
experience. And in this connection wo wish to 
ask our flax-growing readers what varieties of 
flax they grow? Or is flax-seed simply flax¬ 
seed with you? There are several varieties, 
with different qualities, in respect to produc¬ 
tiveness of seed and character of fiber. Have 
experienced flax-growers any choice? If so, 
what is it? And has any effort been made to 
improve varieties? Haw do you save the seed, 
and what course do you pursue to improve 
varieties. On the rich plains of Hungary, 
where two bushels of seed per acre are sowu, 
is grown the best flax fiber known. Have any 
of our experienced growers in this country im¬ 
ported seed? As we have heretofore written, 
it seems to us that this subject not only merits 
the attention of flax-growers, but of the seed 
importing and distributing Department of Agri¬ 
culture. 
MERINO EWE, NO. I. 
but never used any but Infantado rams to Infan¬ 
tado ewes, except occasionally for experiment, 
and then 1 marked the produce with the mark 
of my Paular or mixed family. The pure In¬ 
fantados received a different mark, ami thus I 
kept the two families perfectly distinct from 
each other. This continued until the summer 
of 1*63, and I then disposed of all my mixed 
Paulars and Infantados to my son, Harlox P. 
About Varieties of Clover. * 
U. M. D., a Canandaigua correspondent of 
the Rural writes;—“There are tico kinds of 
red clover and but two—the large and the small. 
The seed of each looks just alike. The large, 
or, as some call it, tho * pea vine,’ matures but 
one crop in a year, and ripens about the same 
time as timothy aud winter wheat. After being 
cut it will uot flower again, and produces but 
little after-math. 
“ The small, or, as some call it, the ‘ medium,’* 
will flower iu June, (and that is the reason, 1 
suppose, why some cull it ‘June clover,’) ami 
bo fit to cut for hay from the 20th ot June to 
the middle or 20th of July. The first crop rarely 
seeds much, ichy I can not tell; although you 
may sometimes find a few mature seeds in the 
best heads. After being cut, it starts quickly 
and generally produces a crop of seed; or, as is 
getting quite fashionable of late, it may be cut 
for hay. 
+ Humbug. 
GRUB IN THE HEAD. 
Sjsegs Hon. H en ry S. Randall : — I send 
zMjs S you some account of my observation of 
the disease of sheep, known as “ Grub 
in the Head,” If this was a cominu- 
C.ljm nication to yourself alone, I would 
BBBr confine it to an answer to the ques- 
tions which you have been pleased to 
:ls k me< But as it may, perhaps, find 
its way into the Rural, I volunteer 
: some more extended remarks. 
lu the month of April. 1862, my 
attention was called to a small flock of 
sheep owned by my neighbor, Mr. A. 
I He had about one hundred, of which tliirty- 
Relieving Choked Cattle. 
G. R. Crandall, St. Lawrence Co., writes 
us concerning P. Guoksbeck’s mode of reliev¬ 
ing choked cattle, tsee page 111 current volume 
Rural.) that he never saw it tried but once’ 
and the result was that the gullet was torn opeu. 
or apart. He says:—“If the man who holds 
the animal is not strong, and the animal is 
strong and throws its head sidewise, ami if the 
slick slips it will break the gullet. Tho stick 
should be tough and limber, or the result may 
be that the children will have beef instead of 
milk to eat.” 
MERINO EWE. NO. X. 
Elitharp, of this town — retaining only my 
pure Infantados. I should remark that in 1856 
l sold nearly my entire flock, but in the two 
next years I bought back many of the same 
