a pRICUL TUfir 
ROCHESTER, N. T.-FOR TOE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1862, 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
he state?, are in a growing and fattening condition, 
and advancing remuneratively. After feeding they 
lie down contentedly, free from restlessness, lie 
further says:—" The whole question may he said to 
hinge upon the condition in which the food is ad¬ 
ministered. It must be moist and warm. Were I 
to give my oxen the same quantify of cut straw in a 
dry state they would not eat half of it; and besides 
they would be restless and dissatisfied.” 
These statements of practical men are quite sur- 
prising to those who have not given the subject 
much attention. 
The value of straw, however, as shown by analy¬ 
sis is even greater than this. We have before us 
analyses made, by several of the beat chemists in 
the world, and the lowest of these show that 100 
pounds of wheat straw contain over (19 pounds of 
muscle, heat, and fat-producing matter. Dr. Lton 
rx.Ayp.uR, tor many years the chemist ot the Eng¬ 
lish Royal Agricultural Society, gives the following 
table, showing the relative value of wheat straw, 
hay, and several other kinds of food: 
The man who should throw his money into the 
fire, would have a guardian vouchsafed to him by 
the civil authorities; but he may waste just as much 
by letting his timber lie on the ground and rot; and 
in the latter case he may get elected Justice of the 
Peace—I have tried it. In short, putting off, is 
generally half as bad, and often icorse than not 
doing it all! 
PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
When we plan our business, we bad better un¬ 
dertake no more than we have means to accom¬ 
plish. 
When we undertake a job, it, is generally better 
to liuish it up in good style than to leave it un¬ 
finished, or do it poorly. We have plenty of com¬ 
petitors in the agricultural business, and the profits 
on any crop are not, ordinarily,of surprising magni¬ 
tude. If the thing is managed with energy and 
economy it will just about “pay” —but if the 
stalks are mouldy or frost-bitten, the corn will cost 
more than it will sell for. If the carrots get very 
weedy through neglect in their early culture, you 
had better have omitted them altogether. If your 
wheat is sown upon foul land in October, the 
chances are you had better have taken the seed to 
mill and made sure of so much. If your fruit trees 
are planted on poor land, and left, uriprmied, and un¬ 
cultivated, to the mercy of the cattle, yon had better 
have left them lu charge of the nurseryman, who 
knows how to appreciate his own wares, ll'your hay 
is uncut In September, verges from ripe to rotten, 
better had you taken in cows to pm tore at, two shil¬ 
lings a week. In every and all casesit is better not to 
do a thing, than do it at a loss—for what is done out 
of season, or half done, is pretty certainly done at 
a loss. 
Of course, when we begin, we expect to finish. 
Wo expect “something will turn up” to bring 
everything through all right. But are we not a 
little too sanguine? Have we any right to expect, 
every day will be fair, every September and Octo¬ 
ber free from frost, every man ready to help na nt 
our own price? Are casuallies and contingencies 
new in human alluirs, and we, for the first time, 
victims? Have we had no experience of hitman 
capabilities? Might we not by this time calculate a 
into the churn to scald it and the buttermilk, after 
the churning is completed. 
The frame from which the churn is suspended is 
.‘17 inches long between the posts, (a, «,) and Rf feet 
high from the tloor to iho crank. The length of 
ot snow or its equivalent. The success of winter 
wheat in northern latitudes the past season, Is due 
in great measure, if not exclusively, to the protec¬ 
tion of a heavy covering of snow tale In the season. 
1 here is no doubt about this whatever. But we 
can not always he sure of such a natural protection 
to the plant from the ice-laden winds which sweep 
across the prairies—hence the necessity of provid¬ 
ing protection. Fortunately it is a matter ot record 
—the record cd experience ami practice— that the 
wheat crop has been saved in the north part of Illi¬ 
nois by the use of straw. Almost every farm has its 
decaying heaps of straw, a half dozen, which may 
with profit, be need for this purpose. As soon as the 
ground freezes, this fall, enough to bear a team, 
haul out this straw, or any coarse manure, and 
spread it evenly over the growing grain. It will be 
a great comfort and protection to the exposed plant, 
and .will, possibly, as it has in many instances, 
insure the crop from all the vicissitudes of the win¬ 
ter campaign. 
There is no doubt that the crop Ihe presentseason 
is short; that, with the prices of ail articles of man¬ 
ufacture, and the expansion of’ paper currency, its 
value must appreciate. It has been predicted by 
shrewd operators that the price ol wheat in less than 
a year would reach two dollars a bushel. However 
this may be, it is apparent enough that wheat is 
going to hring a good price; that it will pay to take 
a little extra precaution to secure the crop now in 
embryo. 
The shrewd farmer, who has not attended to this 
matter, will profit by these suggestions. 
THK I.SAD1JIO AMKRICUN WKKKLT 
RURAL, LITERARY A1ND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
With an Able Corps of Assistants and Contributors, 
CHAS. D. ERAQDON, Western Corresponding Editor, 
Th* Rural Nbiv-Yorrbr la designed to be unsurpassed in 
Value, Purity, Usefulness and Variety of Contents, and unique 
and beautiful in Appearance. Its Conductor devotes his per¬ 
sonal attention to the Supervision of its various departments, 
and earnestly labors!/) render the Rural an eminently Reliable 
Guide on all the important Practical, Scientific and other 
Subjects intimately connected with the business of thosewhose 
interests it *ealously advocates. As a Family JorHRAl. it is 
eminently Instructive and Entertaining—being so conducted 
that it can be safely taken to the Hearts and Homes of people 
of intelligence, taste and discrimination It embraces more 
Agricultural, Horticultural. Scientific. Edncational, Literary 
and News Matter, interspersed with appropriate and beautiful 
Engravings, thnn any other journal,—rendering it the most 
complete Aoriovltvrai v LiTKiukv and Family Nkwsfai-sr 
in America 
Dry Organ 
ic Matter, 
or Real 
Food. 
The portions subtract 
VYT For Terms and other particulars, see last page. 
cd as useless are 
Water. 
Ashes. 
100 lbs. of Wheat straw. 
contain...’ 
100 lbs. of linseed cake. 
Peas,.,__ 
“ Ordinary hay, .. 
“ Barley meal, ... 
“ Bran, __ 
“ Oats....... 
11 Potatoes,.. 
“ Turnips,_ 
“ Swedes, .. 
“ White carrot,... 
“ Mangel wurtzel 
VALUE OP STRAW POE FEEDING 
Some weeks since we gave two articles on the 
comparative value of several articles of feed, and 
now purpose to present a few hints on the value of 
the coarser kinds of fodder, particularly straw, with 
such incidental suggestions on the best modes of 
feeding, etc., as we may judge will be of benefit to 
our readers. Hay is the main dependence, with 
almost all feeders, —it Is usually considered the 
staff of life; and when abundant, of course, there is 
no difficulty, for with plenty ol hay and a little 
grain, cattle can be wintered very comfortably. 
But it is well to know how much the hay is worth 
for use, and the inquiry whether the same amount 
of nutriment cannot be obtained in some other way 
much cheaper, is both pertinent and important. 
Sometimes the hay crop, on accouut of dry weather, 
is inconveniently small, and the price extravagantly 
high; and at such times a knowledge of the real 
value of hay, as compared with other articles used 
as fodder, is exceedingly useful, aiul may save a 
great deal of unnecessary anxiety and expense. At 
other times the hay crop is of poor quality in some 
particular sections ol the country, in consequence 
of unfavorable weather at the time of curing; aud 
it i» poor policy to compel cattle to eat poor hay, if 
we can do better. 
Farmers who pursue a mixed system of hus¬ 
bandry, generally keep about as much stock as they 
can furnish with feed in a fair season. When the 
hay crop fails even partially, as is often the case, we 
hear of much suffering among cattle, while many 
are compelled to dispose of their stock at great sac¬ 
rifices. This evil will be remedied, in a great mea¬ 
sure, when we cease to place such entire reliance 
upon grass for winter feed. Cornstalks, among 
many, is considered the most available substitute, 
but should every farmer grow from an acre to three 
or four acres of carrots, beets, parsnips, or ruta 
bagas, we would bo far less dependent upon hay lor 
winter use, and a short crop would not leave us in 
such straitened circumstances. A gentleman of 
Livingston county has just informed us that he has 
grown tliis season 800 bushels of lino carrots to the 
acre; and these he considers the most profitable 
part of his farming the present year. It is not our 
design at present, however, to discuss the subject of 
root growing, but to bring more especially to the 
notice of our readers the value of straw for fodder, 
and the opinions lately pr 
cills or bed-pieces (4, 4) are 18 inches, 5; Inches 
wide and 21 inches thick. The balance of the frame 
—posts and cross-pieces—Is made of white ash, 4 
inches wide and 1.J inches thick. At the point, (5,) 
eleven inches from the top of the post, in its edge, 
is inserted a wood or iron hook. When the butter 
is churned the crank is lifted from its place in the 
top of the post, and dropped into this hook (5.) 
which drops the lower corner of the churn (6) 
below the wooden tie, (7,) holding the churn steady 
and dropping it down while the butter is being 
taken from it. All the iron used about this churn 
are the nails, the crank aud axles, and the two 
braces (8, 8) which support the posts. 
It will be seen that this churn is cheap, simple, 
durable—easily cleaned and handled. The interior 
is not painted; the exterior is. The churn from 
which this skoloh is taken was made by a carpenter, 
at a cost of about $3, including material; and it has 
been in use at least ten years, and is good for twenty 
years more, I am positive. 
From the above, it will be seen that 100 pounds of 
wheat straw contains more real food than 100 pounds 
of hay, nearly as much as the same weight of bran, 
and precisely the same as 100 pounds of oats. We 
do not suppose that the experience of many of our 
readers will agree with this scientific estimate of the 
value of wheat straw, and perhaps under the most 
favorable circumstances it would not prove so in 
practice. But, if we reduce this estimate one-half 
wo then have a value that lew have ever dreamed 
of. While admitting so much, we would ask, who is 
prepared to say that this estimate is not correct? 
Not those certainly who have never tried to ascer¬ 
tain its value by cutting and steaming or scalding, 
and feeding with corn, oat, or barley meal, or bran. 
DIGGING POTATOES WITH A PORK. 
in response to Willard G. Armstrong's in¬ 
quiry, on page 850, 1 say that said fork was and is 
a fork aud not a hook — an ordinary tour-prong, 
lined, long-handled manure fork, with which I 
pitched potatoes out ol the ground (and the ground 
was soddy and grassy and tough) as fast as one man 
could pick them up and put them in a wagon. A 
man inured to manual labor could have done it 
much faster; as it was, I had no difficulty in dig¬ 
ging four rows while another man was digging one; 
suiil man being accustomed to labor. I have no 
doubt that if Mr. Armstrong proves as skillful 
with the fork ns he is—according to his story—with 
the hoc, he can dig four times as many potatoes in a 
day, with it, as with Ihe latter. The best way to de¬ 
termine the matter is to try it. Men who have 
once used the fork rarely resort to the hoe again, 
unless the field is iu a condition a potato field ought 
never to be in. The fork with which the above ex¬ 
periment was tried, cost seventy-five cents only. I 
don’t want Armstrong’s ten dollars; but 1 should 
like to have him try digging with the fork, and 
report. 
Friend Moore seeks to commit me on the quan¬ 
tity I dug in a halt day recently. I told him, on 
the occasion of writing the former article, that I 
dug titfcv- bushels in a half day. 1 did not dig con¬ 
tinuously a half day with a view to 6ee how much I 
could do aud boastof it; but, judging by the amount 
put in the cellar, and the proportion i dug while at 
work, I did not exaggerate the fact. The farmer 
with whom this labor was done reads the Rural, 
and can correct me if I am wrong. 
But about the kind of fork best suited to this 
work. The fork described above is a poor thing 
compared with the different styles in use in the 
West. The best forks (for this work) used here are 
five or six tined. The live-lined forks are manufac¬ 
tured at the Otsego Fork Mills, Albion, Fa. The 
tines of these forks are triangular; the face flat, and 
the side three-fourths of an inch wide. The space 
betsveeu the tines is about one inch and a quarter 
wide. They arc very stroug and are used as spad¬ 
ing forks and potato diggers by Western gardeners. 
If the fork is desired as a spade, this is the best 
oue to buy; if as a manure fork, a rix-tifled fork 
made by the Tuttle Manufacturing Company, Sau- 
gatuck, Mass. The tines of these forks are four- 
sided, strong, and w ork well as a potato or manure 
fork. Either of the above described forks are better 
for potato digging than the four-tined, round-tined 
fork with which 1 turned over the sods and stones 
in Western New York. 
The English usually estimate the value of wheat 
straw at $10 per tun, and the time is coming when 
American fanners will consider It fur more valuable 
than they now do. We ask our readers not only to 
take care ot their straw this season, but to institute 
such experiments as will enable them to form a 
reliable estimate of its true value for food. 
Wo have just received the Buffalo Courier, con¬ 
taining an article by L. C. Woodruff, an extensive 
paper-maker, who proposes to manufacture the best 
of printing and writing paper from straw exclu¬ 
sively. This, if successful, will give a new value to 
straw, and relieve publishers from an excessive and 
almost ruinous burden consequent upon the high 
price of paper made from cotton. It will, doubtless, 
be Fome time before straw will tuke the place of 
cotton to a very large extent in the manufacture of 
paper ol good quality, but we are glad to see a 
movement in this direction. Mr. Woodruff says: 
“Straw will supply the place of rage, and leave 
rags to the shoddy dealers. Straw paper of all 
kinds can now bo found in market, und manufac¬ 
turers are turning their attention to it. My mills 
are now working a lair proportion of straw, and I 
am arranging my machinery, which I hope to per¬ 
fect in one month, so as to work it exclusively in the 
manufacture of printing paper, with which I hope 
to be able to make glad the hearts ol printers and 
publishers generally. The country is full of this 
material, which sighs for a market, and from it can 
bo made all qualities of paper, from fine writing to 
coarse wrapping.” 
HOW TO INSURE WINTER WHEAT. 
The success of the crop of Winter Wheat the past 
year, in the Spring Wheat region of the West, has 
induced the seeding of an extended breadth this 
fall with it. It may not be too late in the season to 
aid the farmers who are going to rely on this crop 
for their breadstuff, by a few suggestions. 
The greatest danger to the winter wheat crop on 
the Northern prairies is from frost and the exposure 
of the plant to the sun and winds of winter. The 
danger from frost is obviated by securing proper 
under or surface drainage, or both. Well drained 
grounds do not fail, commonly, to bring a good 
crop of winter wheat. The spring freezings have 
no lever power upon the fibrous roots, and fail to 
jerk the food-producing plant out of the ground by 
the (coat) collar. Underdrainage, then, is import¬ 
ant, because it secures the ieet of the plant a dry, 
warm place during the winter. Surface drainage is 
scarcely less important, and may be made a substi¬ 
tute, to a limited extent, for underdrainage, where 
the latter has not been secured to the plant. 
If the grouud has not been thrown up ill beds and 
the dead furrows cleaned out. it is not too late, at 
this writing, to run furrows through the low places 
where water will be likely to stand after the heavy 
rains, and clean the same out with hoe or shovel. 
This will pay—pay even if underdrainage has been 
thoroughly done; for it,is often the case that on 
level lunds, in early spring, the snn thaws out the 
surface an inch or two, whiiethe ground underneath 
remains frozen. Rains full on the thawed surface, 
and unless a way of escape cm the surface is pro¬ 
vided, this water remains on the ground, freezes 
nights, is thawed by the sun days, aud destroys the 
crop beyond a peradventure. Many fine fields of 
winter wheat went into last March in good condi¬ 
tion, and came out of It utterly dead—the crown 
broken from the root. I am aware there are objec¬ 
tions to this mode of surface drainage, because of 
the fact that these ditches are obstructions lu the 
use of the reaper. But the good husbandman will 
prefer to be a little delayed or inconvenienced in 
harvest, rather than risk the loss of his crop. If 
these ditches are properly made—the sides graded, 
as they may be with a little more labor—the reaper 
will run Ihrough them without any trouble. It is 
better, of course, so to plow the fields, before seed¬ 
ing, as to secure this drainage, and the form of 
ditches heft adapted to the use of the reaper; but ii 
is too l&te now to render any suggestions available 
for the present crop; and the next best thing to be 
done is lo provide for the escape ot the surface 
water with ditches. Even if there is no outlet for 
the system of surface drains necessary, make deep 
ditches in the low places, into which the water may 
settle. Thus will the crop be secured, if not in¬ 
creased, in most cases. 
Again, the cold raw winds and the searching sun 
towards spring exhaust the vitality of the plant aud 
A CHEAP AND EXCELLENT CHURN. 
In the cellar at, home is an old churn, which is not 
only familiar to mo, but one of the best I ever saw 
or used. That it is good, 1 have evidence plenty. 
A long experience has proved it to be so; and right 
beside it stand ton or twelve tubs of summer butter, 
made in it, for which twenty cents per pound has 
been offered within a day or two. I tbink"4t better 
than the old dash-churn — even with a power to 
work the dash. Most of farmers who use it, think 
more butter can be made from the same quantity of 
cream with it. However that may be, it merits 
notice; especially since there is no patent on it that 
1 can learn; and any carpenter can build one with 
the aid of a blacksmith. 
The accompanying sketch will give the reader a 
good idea of this churn, and will enable a mechanic 
to make one. A chum of' the size given is large 
enough for a dairy of 15 or 20 cows. Thirty-five or 
forty pounds of butter may be churned in it at a 
lime. I give the outside measure. It is made of 
boards an inch and one-eighth or an inch and a 
quarter thick—of pine. It consists of a box 2G 
inches long, in the shape of a paralellograin, and 
1G1 inches square. The ends of this box are halved 
into the sides, the grooves filled, nearly, with white 
lead, and then carefully nailed. On one side of 
this box is an opening (1) eight inches square, 
through which the cream is poured into aud ihe butter 
taken from the churn. When tjie cream is in, this 
opening is closed by a close-fitting door, the edges 
of which are halved to lap the sides of the opening. 
This is kept in place by an iron hasp, (2,) which is 
made to fit the slightly convex surface of the door, 
and is hung to a staple at one end and fastened by u 
pin to a staple at the other, by a strong hard-wood 
pin. This box is suspended from converse corners, 
(as shown in the engraving.) by two wrought-irou 
axles, each of which is split aud firmly riveted to 
two sides of the box. One of these axles terminates 
in a crank, by which the box is made to revolve, 
und the motion which iB thus given to the cream by 
throwing it from one corner of (lie box to the other, 
produces the butter. At the point (3) is a small 
hole through which water is drawn, which is thrown 
•umulgafed on this subject. 
In doing this vve are not urgiug expensive or trou¬ 
blesome experiments, nor the growing of any untried 
crops, but the proper care and the profitable use of 
what is already grown, and ,what almost every 
farmer has in abundance. 
It may be asked, if straw possesses so much value 
as is intimated, why the fact has not been discovered 
before, aud we may be pointed to examples where 
cattle have been almost starved, although having 
“the run of the straw stack.” That cattle do not 
relish straw in its natural state we admit readily; 
nor does man relish flour in the same condition, or 
buckwheat or beefsteak. The difficulty is, we have 
fed, or rather allowed cattle to waste the straw, 
when, if it had been properly prepared, they would 
have eaten it, with great relish. A gentleman in the 
western part of the State informed ua some time 
since that he found, by repeated experiments, that 
straw cut and steamed and mixed with a handful of 
meal to give it a relish, was of more value iu keep¬ 
ing stock than the same weight of timothy hay. 
Meout, the celebrated English farmer and experi¬ 
menter, advances the same opinion, lie thinks the 
low estimate placed on straw arises from the iact 
that farmers do not understand how to feed it, aud 
declares that in all cases it should be cut and steamed, 
and in this condition it is as good as the same 
weight of hay. In proof of this he gives the pro¬ 
gress of some experiments. In feeding ten Short- 
FUTTING OFF. 
“ To-morrow,” is a bud day for farming. It is 
largely responsible for poor crops, poor stock, bad 
fences, and loose ends generally. What we intend 
to do and could not be persuuded to abandon— 
necessary and indispensable work—often utterly 
fails of accomplishment by being put off We don't 
decide not to do it; we simply never “get at it.” 
You would be shocked beyoud measure if required 
to give away, or destroy, half your apples and 
pumpkins—you do worse by gathering them to¬ 
morrow-alias, letting them freeze. 
He would be thought crazy who should apply a 
loco-foco match and burn up his hay; put off cutting 
it three weeks too long, and that result is substan¬ 
tially arrived at, but the owner keeps clear of the 
lunatic asylum. 
The man who burns green or rotten wood, holds, 
in the abstract, with other distinguished philoso¬ 
phers, that happiness is pleasanter than misery; he 
simply puts off tending to the wood. 
The farmer who stocks his farm with “noxious 
weeds,’’ if put upon his honor, will confess to a 
preference for coin or clover; he merely puts off 
making the exchange. 
The breeder who retains pigs that run mainly to 
snout, and legs, and sheep thin in fleece and frail in 
body, loves money as well as you or I; he simply 
puts off taking the necessary steps to get it. 
SPRING POSTS FOR WIRE FENCE. 
In a premium Essay on practical farming, written 
for the Illinois Sfate Agricultural Society by Chas. 
W. MuRtfeldt, 1 find the following with reference 
to wire fenceBut the best fence, in my humble 
opinion, to turn any stock but, hogs and sheep, is a 
wile fence, four or five wires, No. 7 or 8, best an¬ 
nealed ; posts 14 feet apart, with one spring post 
between. Of all fences 1 like the wire fence when 
well constructed ; suffering less from being raked 
by winds, and being easily kept iu repair.” 
I quote this paragraph in order to say that I have 
never yet. seen a wire fence with spring posts, that 
was not more damaged by them than from any 
other cause. It, is oftenor tho case that such posts, 
instead of being a support to the wire, are-supported 
by it. aud a continual strain upon it, bending, mis¬ 
shaping it, and putting it out of joint—really worse 
than no support in distances of fourteen feet. There 
is no man, probably, who has built good wire fence, 
who will not indorse all that Mr. M. says commend¬ 
ing it; but 1 venture to say, that there are tew 
