TERMS, 83.00 PER YEAR.] 
‘PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT.” 
[SINGLE NO. TENT CENTS 
VOL. XVI. NO. 35.} 
ROCHESTER N. Y.-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER % 1865. 
S WHOLE NO. 815. 
MOORE'S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
i_H ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
RURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
CONDUCTED !BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
HENRY S. RANDALL, LL, D. t 
Editor of the Department of Sheep Husbandry. 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS i 
C. DEWEY, LL, D., 
L. B. LANGWORTHT, 
EDWARD WEBSTER. 
P. BARRY, 
H. T. BROOKS, 
T, C. PETERS, 
The Rubai, Nxw-Tobkpb Is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed In Value, Purity, and Variety of Contents, and 
unique and_ beautiful In Appearance. Its Conductor 
devotes his personal attention to the supervision of Its 
various departments, and earnestly labors to render the 
Rural an eminently Reliable Guide on all the important 
Practical, Scientific and otlmr Subjects Intimately con¬ 
nected with the business of those whose Interests It 
zealously advocates. As a Family Journal It Is emi¬ 
nently Instructive and Entertaining—being so conducted 
that It can be sufely taken to the .Home9 of people of 
Intelligence, taste and discrimination. It embraces more 
Hortlcultnral, BclentlQc, Educational, Literary and News 
Matter, Interspersed with appropriate Engravings, than 
any other Journal,-rendering It tar the most complete 
Abbicultubal, Literary and Family Newspapbb 
in America. 
WFor Terms and other particulars, see last page. 
7i y n 
A k 
il? 
CAN WE KEEP OUR LAND RICH! 
The most important question, probably, that 
can come before Agricultural investigation is, 
In what way can we keep up and increase the 
fertility of the soil? If we follow this question 
to its end, it will narrow itself down and rest on 
this: — The yield of products from the ground 
will depend on the amount of ma»ure or plant 
food which is furnished to it. 
If mankind had to start on this principle they 
would starve. But if Nature has kindly given 
us a rich soil to begin with, she does uot keep it 
so while we draw our food and clothing from if. 
In our infancy we have help, but she is no prod- 
igftPparcnt that leaves us a rich Inheritance to 
keep us forever. As we gather strength and 
learn wisdom, we must apply both to the utmost 
extent to get our subsistence. 1 n uew countries, 
where [the land is rich and people scarce, the 
settler may exhaust the Hist, richness of the soil, 
and when it lulls occupy n newer larm. The 
planters of the South worked in this way; and 
the deserted and worn out, plantations are the 
result and reproach of the system. When there 
is no more new land lo luke up, the farmer must 
make the best of that he has. He must lay out 
his capital on it, and till it, and feed it, to the 
bcat[of his! knowledge, so that it may feed and 
clothe himself and his family. 
Thorough tilling of the 6oil will develop all 
the ^resources that Nature has stored in it for 
our crops.? Suppose a man takes ten acres of 
new laud and says, ‘*1 will raise my bread on it." 
Each year he sows it with wheat. Two or three 
crops arc good, and then they begin to fail. So 
he examines the land, and finds there is too 
much water in it at eertaiu times and the plants 
kill out. Then the soil is w’orked up lumpy and 
shallow, aud the roots cannot spread far enough 
hi it to get the requisite food. He goes to work 
and puls drains all through the field; then he 
plows deep, and works it ail fine and mellow 
with the cultivator. He makes the seed bed as 
deep as the,'roots will go—so dry that the water 
cannot injure theca, und so fine that they can use 
all the food there is in iu His crops are good 
again. ” But when they have used this fresh sup¬ 
ply of^food he has opened for them, they fail. 
Ilis land is exhausted, Mere cultivation will 
not renovate it. 
He has taken continually from the soil without 
giving anything back. " Nature’s supply of plant 
food is used up, and henceforth his success will 
depend on the amount of manure he can give to 
his crop. Where will he get his fertilizers ? 
Naturally at^tirst he takes those nearest to his 
hand, and applies them In the rudest way. His 
horses and.oxcu, cows, pigs and poultry, must, 
bo yarded and stabled for convenience aud profit 
in feeding through the winter, and heaps of 
barn-yard manure accumulate. Perhaps he gets 
muck from the swamp, leaves aud mold from 
the woods, and ashes from his fuel, and com¬ 
posting the whole together plows It iuto his 
field. Aud if he keeps up constant cropping 
with oue kind of grain, he will have his match 
to keep up the yield to its original amount. 
A huudred acre farmer, gathering from every 
source and saving with a miser’s care, could 
he?j» 
EDITED BY HEN'SY 3. RANDALL. LL. D. 
WEIGHT OF CLEANSED FLEECES. 
_ ; V.v 
THE EMPIRE WIND MILL AND PUMP.-EMORY YV. •MILLS’ PATENT. 
The above engraviug represents the Empire faction on the part of purchasers thaa the bnild- 
Wind Mill and Pump, previously advertised and | ers of the Empire Mill. In many cases we have 
illustrated in the Rural. Additional improve- j sold our mills to those who have used and 
ments have been added during the last two 
years, which we have reason to believe make it 
the most perleet and complete Self-Regulating 
Wind Mill now manufactured. Perhaps we can¬ 
not give our readers a better idea of this valua¬ 
ble improvement, its advantages and capacity, 
than by publishing the following description 
from the pen of its inventor and patentee, Mr. 
Emory W. Mills: 
condemned other mills, by simply giving a trial 
i#i a lew weeks, which we never refuse respon¬ 
sible parties. 
There are now working in three counties iu 
the State of Illinois, forty-two of the above size 
(No. 1) mills, applied to pumping water from 
wells 10 to 70 feet deep, some of them being also 
arranged to do the churning for large dairies 
with satisfaction. Part of these mills were put 
Since putting up the first mill in the fall of up in the spring of 18153, aud up to the present 
1S60, (which is now in successful operation.) the 
manufacturers have been making such improve¬ 
ments as were suggested by the workings of the 
mills under different conditions, with a view to 
famish the mass of hum ers and others in want 
of a cheap motive power, a Mill and Pump more 
complete and perfect in all Us parts than had 
time but two of them have needed any repairs 
whatever, and all are running to the entire satis¬ 
faction of owners. Other aud larger sizes have 
been applied to pumping at cheese factories, sup¬ 
plying dwelling houses, draining stone quarries, 
aud elevating water at railroad stations, with 
success and economy. The mill is entirely of 
yet been constructed. That we have succeeded | iron, except the vane and sails —of handsome 
iu our undertaking, no one who has carefully 
examined or had the mill iu operation can deny, 
and we believe no other manufacturers of Wind 
Mills U\this country, or in the world, can show 
a clearer record or stronger evidences of satis- 
design and superior workmanehip, aud full one- 
third stronger thsu mills afforded by any other 
manufacturers. We warrant them to stand any 
gale of wind that the rapport posts aud braces 
will bear, and to run a‘ a safe, even speed during States.” 
such gales; for they regulate their own sails 
perfectly. The pump can be disconnected from 
the mill in an instant and worked by hand if de¬ 
sired — an improvement not embraced in any 
other wind mill pump. 
The size here shown is our No, 1. Price of 
mill at the manufactory, $125; pump stand and 
cylinder, $15. Wood or iron pipe may be used. 
This is the smallest size we build; its capacity 
is five to eight gallons of water per minute, from 
a well 50 feet deep, with a brisk wind. We also 
furnish three other sizes at $1(50, $300 and $300 
each. AU the mills can be stopped in the hard¬ 
est winds or whenever desired, with the edges 
of the sails to the wind, thereby rendering them 
perfectly safe at all times and lessening the wear 
on them full one-half over a common wind mill 
without these improvements. Onr mills work 
as well in winter as summer, and the pumps 
used with them do not freeze. 
For further information, a complete price list 
and circulars, address ‘The Empire Wind Mill 
Manufacturing Company,’ Syracuse, N. F., or 
Mills Brothers, No. 90 West Lake Street, 
Chicago, Ill., General Agents for the Western 
scarcely supply manure enough to keep good a 
field of ten acres from which wheat should be 
taken every year, Iu the meantime his mead¬ 
ows would fail. His corn, oats and potatoes 
would send up puuy stalks, withered by very 
starvation. His amount of food for stock would 
yearly diminish—his mauure heaps likewise — 
atul the end of that farmer would be swift and 
certain. 
Observation first, and science, which comes 
afterwards, teach us to avoid such a course. If 
we must have a profit each year from the field, 
we can, at least, raise different crops, which 
draw various elements from the soil, and thus 
maintain it in a better average condition. Part 
of the time it will be in pasture, and the grass 
being consumed on the field it ought to become 
richer. A judicious rotation, and the keeping 
and feeding of a proper amount of stock to 
make mauure, are the practical means by which 
we must increase our products. Yet iu the 
present uaturc of things it is haidly possible to 
put in practice a strictly self-supporting system. 
If all the fertilizers that are made by all the 
product of a farm could be returned to the laud 
so that they should enter into it without waste, 
without doubt it wou.d uot become impover¬ 
ished by cultivation. But if a farmer feed his 
hay, coarse fodder and corn to cattle, unless he 
has his arrangements well perfected, the best 
part of the liquid portions of the mauure will 
be wasted in his yard or stables. And as he 
sends the- stock to a distant market he loses 
entirely the highly concentrated manure in the 
bones, blood, hair and other waste parts of the 
cattle. With his wheat it is -till worse. With 
it he feeds the population of the cities, and the 
vast sewerage of countless throngs flows Into 
the rivers aud the ocean, aud is w asted ou desert 
shores. To make up this deficiency the wide¬ 
awake farmer buys graiu of his neighbors, aud 
feeds it on his pwu farm, thus transferring the 
richness ot his neighbors’ fields to bis own, as 
he imports guano from far-off islands. The 
British farmers pay many millions of dollars 
annually for Imported manures, and we venture 
the assertion that, if all which is made by the 
population of those islands that runs to waste 
— the sewerage of the towns, farm houses, 
Ac., — w’as properly saved and applied, It 
would be worth many times the xalue of that 
tbey buy. That which they buy takes the place 
of that which Is wasted. It is so with the 
farmer here who buys grain or oil cake to feed 
stock. The manure he gets from the grain he 
buys properly belongs to the laud that raised it. 
To be just, he should draw his fertilizers from 
the consumers of his surplus products. 
With proper cultivation and rotation of crops, 
it may be held as a truth, that a farm would be 
constantly eurlched that had all the fertilizing 
elements, arising from the consumption of all its 
products, returned to it. 
Fobt Waynb, Ind., July 15, 1865. 
Dr. Randall — Dear Sir ; Are the enclosed state¬ 
ments a fair Index of the shrinkage of fleeces at the 
public shearings that are now so common all over the 
country ? ir so, what do they amount to, except to 
exemplify whose sheep are capable of carrying the 
most dirt and fllthon their backs Instead of wool? 
From your experience and observation what do you 
consider a select flock of 100 Merinos, breeding ewes 
and one ram, kept in the best manner, yould shear of 
washed wool for two or more consecutive years t _ 
Wool Grower. 
remarks. 
The “ statements ” of cleansed wool enclosed 
by our correspondent, and of which he wishes 
to know whether they are a “fair index,” &c., 
are—1, that of the weight of fleeces cleansed in 
Park Co , Ind., published by us July S; and 2, 
that of Samuel Lamb Co., of the Fort Ann 
Woolen Mills, N. Y., of the weight of a ram’s 
fleece cleansed by them for Messrs. Baser & 
Harrigan of Comstock’s Landing, N. Y., pub¬ 
lished by us in the same article with preceding. 
The Park Co. fleeces did not yield as 
much scoured wool in proportion to 
weight of carcass as those cleansed under 
the direction of the N. Y. State Sheep 
Breeders’ and Wool Growers’ Association. 
But the scoured product of Messrs. B. & 
H.’s ram teas an excellent one, for a full 
blood Merino. 
The questiton to be asked in such cases, 
is no solely “how much dirt and filth 
will cleanse away," but bow much wool 
will remain after they are cleansed away. 
Some candid men appear actually to sup- 
pose that the increased weight of Merino 
fleeces at the present day, over those of 
the imported sheep, or over those of the 
American Merinos of twenty years ago, is 
made partly by better feed, but princi¬ 
pally by “dirt and filth,” or In other 
words, “gum and grease” and the extran¬ 
eous substances which adhere to them. 
There is no doubt that those breeders who 
keep sheep to sell at what are termed “ fancy 
prices,” do, as a general thing, feed considerably 
higher than anybody fed twenty years ago; and 
rams which are expected to do extraordinary 
amounts of work and at the same time produce 
“ brag fleeces,” are still more pampered. Then 
again, twenty years ago nobody thought of care¬ 
fully housing sheep from rain and storm all the 
year round, in order to give them the rich con¬ 
traband hue, and, by saving all the yolk (“gum 
and grease,”) in the wool, to get up a fleece 
which will weigh a fabulous number of pounds 
and ounces before it is exposed to the fatal con¬ 
tact of water. 
But let us make some comparisons, which will 
perhaps enable us better to answer “ Wool 
Grower’s” question (or what we take to be the 
spirit of it,) “What do these modern heav 
Merino fleeces amount to, if they shrink so en¬ 
ormously in scouring?” We take Baker <& 
Harrigan’s ram for an example. His unwashed 
J fleece, one year old to a day, weighed 23*£ 2>s. 
It produced seven pounds of scoured wool—more 
than two-thrids of it proving to be “dirt and 
filth.” Yet this cleansed fleece weighed within a 
pound or a pound aud a half as much as the 
unwashed rams fleeces of Spain, In the palmiest 
days of her Merinos! Youa r r puts the average 
weight of the latter at S 3>s., and Livingston at 
8- a lbs.; and both agree that the Spanish wool 
taken together loses half in washing. Spanish 
washing, it is true, is a more thorough process 
than American washing. But Merino rams 
fleeces lose far more both in washing and cleans¬ 
ing than ewes fleeces, and If wo assume that the 
Spanish nuns fleeces after washing, would lose 
but ten per cent, more In cleansing — making 
the total shrinkage of the unleashed fleece 60 per 
cent — all familiar with the subject will agree 
[hat it is a low estimate of that shrinkage. This 
would leave the average product of the scoured 
fleeces 3 1-5 lbs., or 3 2-5 lbs., according as we 
adopt Yocatt’s or Livingston’s estimate of the 
gross weight. 
The heaviest American Merino rams’ fleeces 
on record twenty-five years ago, so far as we 
remember, were those of Mr. Jewett’s “Don 
Pedro” and “Fortune,” which weighed re¬ 
spectively 14 Bis., and 13 B>s. and 4 ozs. of what 
was called washed wool. Mr. Taxntor’s im- 
