TWO DOLLARS A. YEAR.] 
“PROGRESS -AJSTD IMPROVEMENT.” 
[SINGLE NO. BTYEI CENTS. 
VOL. XIV. NO. 21.} ROCHESTER, N. Y.-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, MAY 23, 1863. [WHOLE NO. 697. 
MOOSE’S BUBAL NEW-YOBEEB 
AN ORIGINAL WEKKLY 
RURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
With a Corps of Able Assistants and Contributors. 
C. D. BIIAGDON, Western Corresponding Editor. 
Thk Rural New-Yorkkr is designed to be unsurpassed 
in Value, Purity and Variety of Content*, and uuique and 
beautiful in Appearance. Its Conductor devotes his per¬ 
sonal attention to the supervision of its various depart¬ 
ments, and earnestly labors to render the Rural an 
eminently Reliable Guide on all the important Practical, 
Scientific and other Subjects intimately connected with 
the business of those whose interests it tealoutUy advo¬ 
cates. Aba Family Journal it is eminently Instructive 
and Entertaining - being *»> conducted that it can be safely 
taken to the Homes of people of intelligence, taste aud 
discrimination. It embraces more Agricultnral, Horticul¬ 
tural, Scientific, Educational, Literary ami Nows Matter, 
interspersed with appropriate Engravings, than any other 
journal,— rendering it the most complete Agricultural, 
Literary and Family Newspaper in America. 
V3T For Terms and other particulars, see last page. 
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED TO-DAY 1 
Everyone, especially every farmer, should 
ask bimselt this question at the close of the day’s 
labors. All aggregates are made of small items. 
Our experience is only valuable in proportion as 
it has compelled us to master details, and to 
become familiar with all the features and phases 
of a pursuit. We do not acquire knowledge as 
some foolish people, who buy books by the cord, 
suppose. Neither is all knowledge obtained 
from books. Books are but tho depositories of 
knowledge—they are aids. But these facts upon 
which this book superstructure is built are tho 
results of out-of-door researches, mainly —of 
observation, experiment, analysis. No man has 
greatcrfftcilitiesforacquiriug out-of-door wisdom 
than the farmer. And there is no knowledge for 
which there is, and is to be, a greater demand— 
for as the country gets older aud population 
increases, it will be found more and more neces¬ 
sary to know thoroughly the character and 
extent of our resources, the nature of the obsta¬ 
cles to overcome in the process of their highest 
development, and what natural aids are within 
our reach# The man, therefore, who gains a fact 
in his intercourse with nature, daily, is adding to 
his own and his country's wealth, no matter 
whether the dollar of dross is added with it, or 
not It is this intent which should invest every 
pursuit of tho husbandman with tenfold greater 
interest—to gain something to add to the aggre¬ 
gation of facts called science. 
Science is a horribly repulsive word to most 
farmers. It means something abstruse, and, as 
they suppose, utterly above and beyond their 
comprehension. This is largely due to the mys¬ 
terious pedantry of the old-school philosophers, 
who have never made any effort to popularize 
science—to clothe it in gradated language suited 
to the wants and education of the masses. All 
efforts in this direction that have been made, 
have been met more than half way by the people. 
But more of this hereafter. 
Now about Science. Look at Webster! He 
says it is “knowledge, or certain knowledge; the 
comprehension or understanding of truths or 
facts by the mind.” In other words, it is getting 
at facts and understanding or comprehending 
them. The farmer needs this certain knowledge 
°f natural truths which may he and have been 
learned only by observation. No one has a 
tetter opportunity to become rich in this lore 
than the farmer; and yet what does he know, 
certainly, of the natural objects with which he 
comes in contact daily. For instance, the earth 
is full of larva? now. His plow, as it turns up 
t J ie 8 °U, turns up numberless grubs and chrysa¬ 
lids, which are transformed into insects of all 
sorts; and some of these insects are injurious 
knd others are useful to him. Does he stop to 
inquire which are his friends and which his 
\f j - ae noies? Does he pick up the larva or the 
‘- ysalis and put it where be may watch its 
- u "velopment into an insect? There is scarcely 
X oa e farmer in ten who will not laugh at you, if 
:'j -’° u him that the little round, smooth, brown 
j parcel which the birds are apt to swallow quickly, 
'A p,Us 011 wings and flies away. 
[ < Here come the butterflies! The farmer sees 
w t ousands of them during a season; and he will 
jvi confident, if you ask him, that he knows a 
butterfly from a mo th. But he may be as often 
caught calling the moth a butterfly as otherwise. 
Ask him the difference. Can he tell you? Very 
few can, and yet the distinction is marked and 
uniform. The butterfly has its antennae (called 
horns sometimes) enlarged at the tip, or clubbed. 
The moth never has; the antenmeof some moths 
are enlarged in the center; others are graduated 
uniformly to a delicate point. But both butter¬ 
fly and moth flutter by, and are not caught or 
identified. The lame from which they hatch, 
and which feeds upon vegetation, often much to 
the annoyance of the farmer, is not traced, either 
back to its parent, or forward t.o the resulting 
insect. 
It is tree that there is a legitimate cause for 
this indifference to the wonders which surround 
and invest the life of the farmer. Ilis mind 
lias not been directed in these channels of inves¬ 
tigation. The seeds which beget inquiry were 
not planted there by his teachers. Ho “ciphered” 
through Roger and Daboll. parsed according 
to rules laid down in Kikkham and Murray, 
and followed with scrupulous core the stiff 
mechanical “copies” of the pugnacious peda¬ 
gogues who taught him—but not a word was he 
taught of the history and structure of a tree, nor 
the definition of an insect, nor of the habits and 
uses of the birds whose nests he hunted, nor of 
the bees and butterflies he chased and caught 
Plants and flowers were uot named as having 
any use or significance, except so far as they 
were classified as grain, grass, weeds, vegetables 
and posies! 
Now, what have you learned to-day? Will 
you perpetuate this condition of things? or will 
you secure to your children eyes that they may 
see what you see not—ears that they may hear 
what you hear not, and understandings which 
shall comprehend and appreciate their relation to 
tho objects God has created and placed about 
them for their use and care? What have you 
learned to-day? Ask yourself! Ask your cluld, 
brother farmer! Let the things yon see suggest 
thoughts—let them awaken inquiry. Learn 
something in the field daily! 
FARMER GARRULOUS TALKS. 
“I see neighbor Besom, over across the fields, 
yonder, has commenced his house he has so long 
been talking of building. I am glad of it. T do 
like to see substantial and convenient homes. 
And I want to see them attractive, too. I was 
reading a book this morning in which I hap¬ 
pened to find something which I think every man 
who is going to build ought to read. But first of 
all I found something which was as good preach¬ 
ing as I want to hear; it is a kind that ought to 
be listened to by such men as Squire Restless, 
who no sooner got his home comfortable and 
pleasant than he sold it, and his farm, and bought 
more land and a less comfortable house. I hope 
the Squire may get hold of the book and read 
this. 1 When men do not love their hearths, nor 
reverence their thresholds, it is a sign that they 
havo dishonored both. Our Goo is a household 
God, as well as a heavenly one; lie has an altar 
in every man’s dwelling; let men look to it when 
they rend it lightly, and pour out its ashes.’ 
“Now, Ijthink there is a great deal of good 
common sense in what I am going to read to you 
John, and I want you to remember it if you 
ever have occasion to build yourself a home, as I 
certainly hope you will. Listen, 
“‘It would be better if, in every possible in¬ 
stance, men built their own houses on a scale 
commensurate rather with their condition at the 
commencement, than their attainments at the 
termination of their worldly career; and built 
them to stand as long as human work, at its 
strongest, can be hoped to stand, recording to 
their children what they have been, and from 
what, if so it had been permitted them, they had 
risen.’ % 
“ ‘ I would have, then, our ordinary dwelling- 
houses Indlt to last , and built to be lovely; as 
rich and full of pleasantness as may be, within 
and without; and with such differences as might 
suit and express each man’s character and occu¬ 
pation, and partly his history,’ 
“ ‘ Every human action gains in honor, in grace, 
in all true magnificence, by its regard to things 
that are to come. It is the far sight, the quiet 
and confident patience, that above all other attri¬ 
butes, separate man from man, and near him to 
his Maker; and there is no action uor art whose 
majesty we may not measure by this test There¬ 
fore, when we build let us build forever. Let 
it not be for present delight, nor for present 
use alone; let it be such work as our descend¬ 
ants will thank us for, and let us think, as we lay 
stone on stone, that a time is to come when those 
stones will be held sacred because our hands 
have touched them, and that, men will say, as 
they look upon the labor and wrought substance 
of them, -See! this our fathers did for us.’ For, 
indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not iu 
its stones, nor in its gold. Its glory is in its age, 
and in that deep sense of volcefulness, of stern 
watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, evea of 
approval or condemnation, which we feel in 
walls that have long been washed in the passing 
waves of humanity.’ 
‘•Now, Jnity, you may think that kind of Uita- 
lutin talk for a plain farmer liko me, but that is 
just what I would say if 1 could. There is some¬ 
thing to thiuk of in it, I tell you—especially if a 
man is going to build; and the longer he thinks, 
the move he will realize Us truthfulness and im¬ 
portance.” 
WASHING SHEEP. 
It is a common fault among men to decide 
important questions hastily, upon insufficient 
evidence. Dispatch is a good thing—lightning 
is proper in its place—short-hand has merits— 
“ going it with a rush ” frequently gains a battle, 
but “jumping at conclusions ” is physically, mor¬ 
ally, intellectually and ocially abominable! A 
heu that sits three weeks, more or less, on a 
dozen eggs, and starts off with tho first chick 
that peeps, leaving the rest, just ready to come 
out, to perish, is a saint and a philosopher com¬ 
pared with the rnajori of economists, politi¬ 
cians and theologians, who, making up their 
minds what, they wish to do or believe, hunt up 
one or two reasons in justification, and then hold 
the case decided beyond all repeal or revision. 
It should astonish no one if those who write on 
“washing sheep” form no exception to this rule 
—weighty as this matter is, it ought uot, per¬ 
haps, to fare better than polities, religion, and 
the other great problems of life; nevertheless, I 
select that identical subject for an additional dose 
of reasons. 
One writer would wash sheep because he dis¬ 
likes to pay transportation on dirt, and would 
therefore get it out before Bending the wool to 
Lowell. That, certainly, is an argument, and is 
valid as far as it goes; it may, in the State of 
New York, reduce tho expense of sending a 
hundred fleeces to Boston a dollar aud a half, if 
they are washed. We will call It two dollars; in 
all probability the washing would not reduce 
the weight more than a pound to the fleece, or 
oue hundred pounds iu all. Whether this should 
govern our action, may appear hereafter. 
A. E., who tells 11 s he is 39 years old—he omit¬ 
ted to mention the day of the month—had rather 
[ wash and shear sheep than shear them without 
washing. Ih may bo amphibiously inclined, 
but I know many good shearers who look upon 
that matter from an entirely different “stand¬ 
point.” I havo even heard several shearers say 
that they cared very little whether sheep that 
had been properly tagged before grass, and lit¬ 
tered in the winter, were washed or not, so far 
as shearing was concerned. It is quite gratui¬ 
tous in A. E., if ho assumes that unwashed sheep 
necessarily carry any more “dung balls” than 
those that are washed; and as for the “grit” 
that gets into sheep's wool from being exposed 
to sand and gravel banks, common brook water 
will neither dissolve nor remove that 
The assumption that sheep are benefited by a 
bath, I shall not dignify by treating as an argu¬ 
ment or a reason. If my friend Dr. Jackson, of 
Dansville Water Cure, prescribes it, I shall cer¬ 
tainly respect the opinion of so accomplished a 
practitioner—but I shall rather insist that the 
sheep be taken to his establishment, where they 
will have common-sense treatment. I am aware 
that he don’t duck his patients with their every¬ 
day clothes on. und then send them off, without a 
change 0 / garment, to sleep on the cold ground, 
or travel all day in a rain storm, as the case may 
be?! That multitudes of flocks are permanently 
injured by washing when the weather is unfa¬ 
vorable, a well-informed man will hardly deny, 
and that flocks are seldom washed without more 
or less injury, is evident enough. 
A weighty reason in favor of not washing, 1 
have seen no notice taken of:—We cannot find a 
warm, good time to wash in our cold streams, 
and a suitable time to dry the wool, till it is later 
than sheep ought to car ry their fleeces. As soon 
as warm weather comes, the wool pretty much 
stops growing, as the sheep has no occasion for 
additional covering; It is therefore lost time; but 
remove the fleece the last of May, and the wool 
makes a vigorous growth to cover the Bheep 
again, and continues growing rapidly till tho 
cold of the next winter abates. Thick fleeces, 
worn in hot weather, must have a debilitating 
effect upon sheep, but whether we shear late or 
early, more care should be taken to protect the 
sheep from sun and storms and cold after they 
are shorn. Where men are not very cheap, what 
they sutler from exposure in washing might be 
allowed some weight. 
Exposure to disease, scab, foot-rot, &c., In 
going to public “watering places,” is worthy of 
notice, as, also, many other casualties. And 
when you sum it all up, and find that the differ¬ 
ent methods of washing, from clean to foul, are a 
source of inequality aud injustice, and very 
imperfectly do what the manufacturer can do a 
great deal better, washing becomes a nuisance 
that ought to be abated. I say washing is a 
source of inequality and injustice, for about all 
wool that, has passed through the water brings 
the market price of washed wool, and those who 
do it well, suffer for their pains. Whereas, with¬ 
out washing, wool would be more likely to sell 
on its merits. Hut it seems to me that buyers 
and manufacturers are not willing to meet the 
farmers and adjust prices on a fair basis. They 
seem inclined to exact a much greater reduction 
for clean, unwashed wool, than the case war¬ 
rants. I do not know “what we are going to do 
about it.”— h. T. b. 
WOMEN FARMING. 
Eds. Rural New-Yorker:— In your paper 
of March 7th is an article from the pen of J. 
Talcott, criticising the letter of Henry C. 
Wright in regard to the Roberts’ family and 
their farming operations, and as he makes some 
assertions that I caunot entirely agre e with, with 
your permission I would like to correct them. 
In the first place he says, that “continued out¬ 
door labor, for a woman or girl, tends to lower 
her position in social life, not only In the eyes of 
those who see it, but iu those who perform.” 
This I very strenuously deny, for I have abun¬ 
dant proof to the contrary. 1 commenced to 
work on the farm when seventeen years of age, 
and have followed it for three years, and proba¬ 
bly shall some longer, and I havo never known 
it to have the slightest effect upon the minds of 
any whose friendship was worth the having, lie 
says that “ it degenerates the mind, and deforms 
rather than strengthens the body.” llisobserva¬ 
tion must have been very extensive to admit of 
Ms airiving at such a sage conclusion. He must 
have a very exalted idea of God’s great Book of 
Nature, spread out before us, when he asserts 
that constant association and intimacy with its 
contents, the exploration of its mysteries, will 
tend to degenerate the mind of woman. One 
who cannot grow wiser, better and purer, from 
such associations, must be naturally base - to 
him or her the songs of the birds have no 
melody, the ripplings of the brooks are. discords, 
the leaves of the forest trees whisper no sweet 
tales of the wisdom, goodness and power, of tho 
loving Creator of all, the laughter of childhood 
has no music, and the flowers of the fields havo 
no fragrance. Such an individual is to be pitied. 
As to its crippling the body, such a thing is 
impossible when work is performed with moder¬ 
ation. Women may grow deformed doing house¬ 
work, and taking care of children, and men 
while laboring in the counting-room, but there is 
less excuse for it upon the farm thuu any other 
occupation in life, for In this men and women are 
drawn into direct and immediate intercourse 
with the Great Ruling Spirit, and inhale inspira¬ 
tion with every passing breeze. Tt is true that if 
we only looked at the surface of everything as iL 
came along, there would be nothing very beauti¬ 
ful, elevating, or enchanting about it. The 
hoeing of the soil around a hill of corn or 
potatoes is not a very poetical operation of itself, 
but analyze tho properties of the soil, study the 
effect of this little act, and the law that orders it, 
and you have a very interesting lesson from what 
our friend considers so degrading. In the act of 
plowing, does tho mind dwell upon the exact 
width of the furrow, count the stops of tho lazy 
horses, or calculate the number of hours ere the 
task is completed? It does neither of these, but 
there is a concert In full tune over your head, 
directed to ch<>er you and encourage by Him 
who orders all. In the soil which you are turn¬ 
ing up at your feet there is a story hidden, that 
could you read would rebuke your conceit in 
claiming to bo an intelligent being. 
The gentleman refers to barbarous nations 
where women do such work, and thinks their 
condition far from enviable, I would like to In¬ 
quire if that of the men is any more so. He 
tliiuks also that, by returning to that state of 
things we should bring about the same results. 
That is certainly true, for demoralization follows 
surely in the footsteps of tyranny and oppression, 
and the master is as much degraded as the slave. 
I would like to ask Mr. Talcott what it is that 
causes the degradation of the poor white popula¬ 
tion ol' the Southern or Slave States, in our loved 
couutry, and why is it that the condition of the 
people of our Free States is so very much 
superior to any other in the whole world. 
Our triend tliiuks that, “girls should bo able to 
tend their flowers aud gardens, ride horseback, 
harness and saddle a horse and turn him to 
pasture, but when this is done the idea of her 
taking her team and going Into the field to plow 
for a livelihood is too much of a good thing.” 
Sure enough, it is shocking, Mr. Talcott. It 
would do very well for her to take huhl a little 
while, just for fun; but she must return to the 
house immediately, before any one happens to 
see her, and go to work at cals and dogs in 
worsted, or some Mrs. Grundy will raise a 
terrible hue and cry of “ a woman out of her 
sphere,” “trying to became a man,” or some¬ 
thing else equally ridiculous and nonsensical. 
Or, if she chances to be a poor girl, dependent 
upon her own energies for the means of keeping 
body and soul together, so much the more neces¬ 
sity of hurrying her away, for she might, perhaps, 
discover how much life and strength, beauty and 
knowledge there is to be derived from the body- 
reforming,” mind-devouring, out-door life. 
There is another reason, too, my cautious friend 
why ibis observation should be strictly followed; 
she might discover that there was more money to 
be made by it than the life-destroying needle, 
the gentleman’s assertion to tho contrary not¬ 
withstanding. 
He compares us, again, to the Asiatics and 
Chinese, and wishes to know if any one would 
like to see his wife or daughter debased to such 
a condition. Look again, and see who would 
have her husband or son on the level with the 
males of those nations. If one comparison is 
applicable, so is the other, lie mentions many 
callings where woman might just as well serve 
that are now monopolized by man, and :-nys that 
it is an object worth laboring for to correct all 
such abuses, so that, whether male or female 
render their services, the scale of payment should 
be always equal. Be charitable with the gentle¬ 
man here, Mr. Editor. I do not think he 
intended to get off any thing so decidedly liberal 
as that; it was a sort of lapsus lingua: that some¬ 
times happens to the best of writers, and he 
didn’t mean anything by it. 
The writer says be “has been cognizant of a 
number of American females whoji have per¬ 
formed farm work, such as raking and binding 
wheat in harvest, and other harvest labors; but 
iu every case where followed as a means of 
gaining a livelihood they havo sickened and 
died.” I am so mire that I am rig fit in my im¬ 
pressions, that I do not ask to have them corrob¬ 
orated, when I say that these women he mentions 
havo risen hours before their self-styled lords 
and masters, and performed their regular house¬ 
hold duties, and then by the time their help eats 
were out, were ready to go to the fields and 
there labored until sundown, and Lhon returned 
and worked half of the night to finish the work 
neglected during the day, while their husbands 
were snoring the time away, thereby doing two 
days’ work to one of the male. This is the way 
women have done farm work in ages past, and 
tho way very many do it now, and man, with 
open eyes of wonder, looks on, and, without 
seeing where the trouble lies, marvels that it 
should be true that man’s meat should be wo¬ 
man’s poison. But even if it were as he repre¬ 
sents, who ever heard of a woman who devoted 
het time to household duties and her children, 
dying before old age? It is almost universal (hat 
a man will out-live two women, and sometimes 
more, when, If his arguments were true, he 
should always die first, from bein;r engaged in 
the “mind-degenerating and body-destroying” 
occupation of out-door life. 
Throughout the whole of the nrticle men¬ 
tioned, the impression Is carried that it is the 
work that degrades, but when it is silted to its 
foundation we shall find, instead, that it is 
ignorance. Any one, whether male or female — 
whether his occupation is farming or anything 
else — will be coarse, unrefined, awkward and 
vulgar, in proportion to his stock of intelligence, 
and it is worse than folly in this age of the world 
to attribute it to anything else. The clown will 
be a clown us surely upon a throne as in the 
v 
