TERMS, 53,00 PER YEAR.] 
PROCRESS AND IMPROVEMENT.” 
[SINGLE NO. TEN CENTS- 
VOL. XVIII. NO. 18.} ROCHESTER, N. Y-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, MAY 4 , 1887. 
[WHOLE NO. 902. 
ESTABLISHED IN 1850. 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
AS ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
With an Able Corps of Assistants and Contributors. 
Hon. HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D-, Editor of the De¬ 
partment of Sheep Husbandry, 
Hon. T. C. PETERS, late president N. Y. state Ae'l 
Society, Southern Corresponding Editor. 
GEE ZEN F. WILCOX, Associate Editor. 
The Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed in Value, Purity, and Variety of Contents. Its 
Conductor earnestly labor* to render the Rural a Reli¬ 
able Guide on all the tmpomni Practical, Scientific and 
other Subjects connected with the business of those 
whose interests it realouaiy advocates. As a Family 
Journal It la eminently Instructive and Entertaining — 
being so conducted that it can be safely taken to the 
Homes of people of intelligence, taste and discrimination. 
It emtiraces more Agricultural, Horticultural,Scientific, 
Educational, Literary and News Matter, interspersed 
with appropriate engravings, than any other Journal,— 
rendering it by fir the most complete Agricultural, 
Litbrart and V -mtly Newspaper In America. 
Z3T Foe Terms and other particulars see last page. 
HINTS FOE THE MONTH. 
In this latitude May is the month of planting; 
it is also the month of bursting hucl and unfold¬ 
ing leaf. Stock is changed from hay to grass, 
and we may consider it, in reality, the first 
spring mouth—the one that betokens the return 
of prolific Summer. 
Spring Grain. —Barley, oats and wheat are yet 
to be sown on many farms. It is late in the 
season, however, and the whole energy of the 
farmer should be used to get them in the ground. 
Ever) - day that shines on the uncovered seed 
diminishes the chance of a good yield of grain. 
Spring grains need the cool, wet weather of 
early spring, to enable them to make an “ un¬ 
derground growth,” and thus store up a supply 
of nutriment to meet the demands ot the plant 
when it is maturing the grain. Some farmers 
resort to soaking the seed, when sowing late, to 
hasten the germination. But if a drouth follows 
the sowing, it is a dangerous practice. Roll the 
ground after seeding. 
Grass Land*. — Sow plaster on those lately 
seeded if the work has not already been done. 
It is to be presumed that meadows have been 
attended to. If not, they should be prepared at 
once. If the meadow is newiy seeded and the 
ground somewhat stony, let the surface be care¬ 
fully examined and the stone removed, leaving 
a clean run for the scythe or the mower. Neg¬ 
lect, in this regard, causes injury to mowing im¬ 
plements, and a loss of time at a season when it 
is most valuable to the farmer. If cattle have 
been suffered to roam over the meadows, see 
that their droppings are scattered over the 
ground. Left in lumps, they hinder vegetation, 
and retard the cutting of the grass. 
Fertilizers .—There are many nooks and comers 
about farm buildings and yards where repose 
valuable siimulants for the soil, overlooked too 
often because oi the hurry of the season, or the 
supposed insignificance of each separate deposit. 
These should be carefully gathered and applied, 
and the result will be a ten-fold recompense 
when the harvesting season arrives. A man 
does not usually discard his pennies because he 
finds them in company with dimes, neither 
should he overlook small deposits of manure 
because singly they do not constitute a full load. 
Save and apply all, should be the motto of the 
farmer on this subject. 
Planting. — Potatoes first, corn later. The 
great;aim of the farmer, after providing for a 
good crop, should he to do as much of the 
work with horse labor and machinery as possi¬ 
ble. A hoe need hardly be touched to a potato 
crop if it is rightly managed. Plow well; har¬ 
row thoroughly; mark straight rows, and then 
use the cultivator. Y oung potato plants are not 
tender like com. You may cover them up with 
fresh dirt alter they have risen two or three 
inches above the surface—thus completely cul¬ 
tivating them—and they will grow the better 
for it. We want to get rid of the hoe in our 
husbandry, and the term hoeing in our vocabu¬ 
lary. Cultivators and cultivating are better. 
Com should be planted shallow and on top of 
the ground; potatoes in a slight furrow and 
deeply covered. First get the loose stone from 
your cornfield, make the rows straight, and put 
in the horse and cultivator as soon as you can 
see the green com. We have given frequent 
hints about scare-crows, Ac., but the great 
enemy to corn is the cut-worm. Who will tell 
us the best way to destroy or circumvent it ? 
Stock—0( course you will not turn your cat¬ 
tle on the flush grass without previously inuring 
them to it. Give them short range two or three 
hours daily some time previous to withdrawing 
hay ami grain. If the cattle bloat on the grass, 
give one ounce of sulphuric ether or the same 
quantity of chloride of lime in a pint of water. 
These remedies should be kept on hand by the 
fanner, and will usually save resorting to the 
knife. Put the pigs and calves in “good clo¬ 
ver,” and feed both skimmed milk and meal. 
Horses should.hardly be turned out this month. 
3-pairs .—Not much time for these can the 
farmer find in the mouth of May, unless it he 
in the “ resting spell ” after planting, when the 
boys are wont to “ go a fishing.” Some fences 
will need looking after to ensure safety to the 
growing crops# If new buildings are to be made 
or old ones remodeled, begin early; by all means 
get the haying and harvesting implements in 
order. Not only get all tools in order, but 
have them orderly arranged and kept from the 
weather. 
Root Crops.—Prepare the ground and sow lib¬ 
erally of these ; carrots for the horses, sugar 
beets lor the cows, and turnips for the sheep. 
Weeds .— Pull red-root and cockle from the 
wheat, and begiu a warfare on all others that 
have a loot-hold on the farm. 
The Barn Yard— Make the compost heap for 
fall wheat early. Clean out the barn yard and 
pig pens. 
ABOUT INDIAN CORN. 
Let it be our aim in this paper to show the 
American Agriculturist that it is for his interest 
to bestow a greater share of labor and attention 
to the growth and increase of the crop of maize 
or Indian corn. This grain was found among 
the natives when the white "man first lauded on 
this continent. From that time to the present 
it has flourished under the culture of the white 
settlers. No grain so useful is more tenacious 
of couutry and climate than Indian corn. In 
England it does not ripen well, and on the con¬ 
tinent of Europe it fails to become what it con¬ 
tinues to be In the United States of America. 
Ah an article of commerce, it is destined to lead 
all cereal products. 
Wheat and rye exhaust the soli more and th.il 
to he as reliable or remunerative, being subject 
to destruction by insects, climate, and casual¬ 
ties. Although rye ranges about with com in 
price, yet in yield, variety of use, or extent of soil 
in culture, it is far less remunerative than corn. 
The foreign demand will continue to increase as 
t his native grain becomes more generally known 
as a reliable and healthful article of food, where 
grain aud root crops are deficient. Com is con¬ 
ceded by the chemist, commissary, and physi¬ 
cian, to possess more largely ail the qualities 
essential to sustain aud nourish the physical na¬ 
ture of man than any other one of the grains 
which can be made prolific as an article of com¬ 
merce. We are, therefore, induced from mo¬ 
tives of economy and thrift to give more thor¬ 
ough attention to the cultivation of this native 
grain of America. 
As bulk is essential to healthy food, so nature 
has equally diffused bulk and nutriment in this 
article. It must become a more extensive arti¬ 
cle of commerce and export, as its qualities and 
uses are more known to the dense consumers of 
Europe. It was almost exclusively an article of 
home consumption until the late famine in Eng¬ 
land and Ireland, when necessity compelled its 
use as an article of food for man, now become 
desirable and palatable, and we expect a certain 
increase of demand for our surplus. 
For this increased foreign demand we arc 
much indebted to our gifted countryman, Eliiiu 
Bubritt, the philanthropist and scholar, who, 
while traveling in Europe, made it a condition 
in his acceptance of invitations to meals at farm¬ 
houses, that a part of the meal should be of 
warm corn bread or Johnny cake, also making a 
free distribution of recipes of the various modes 
of bread making from Indian corn meal. This 
practical, common sense procedure of that 
American traveler, has probably advanced thf 
interests ofjbis country more at least than will 
the acquisition of the vast non-com growing 
region of Russian-America,—for the various ways 
DESIGN KOTt A. DWELLING ITOTJSEL 
ELEVATION — SIDE VIEW. 
. We are in the habit of giving our readers oc¬ 
casionally a plan for a dwelling house, and as 
this is the season when buildings are generally 
begun in the country and in villages, we present 
the elevations and ground plan of house of mod¬ 
erate dimensions and cost, drawn by A. J. 
Warner, Rochester N. Y We have preferred 
to give the elevations instead of ft perspective, so 
that anyone wishing to profit by it will be in pos¬ 
session of all the information necessary for au 
architect to give the btiih>r, in Order for him to 
carry out the plan. ThlsL ourte may s; ve read¬ 
ers the trouble of writing letters Of Inquiry, and 
others the much greater trouble ol answering 
them. 
for main part are 10 feet high; the first story to 
finish 9 feet and 6 inches high, and the second 
story Is finished upon the rafters so fts to give 
the chambers a height of 8 feet. We have not 
given a plan of the upper story, as that may 
readily he divided into more or less apartments, 
with closets, «Sc., as may be desired. The cost 
of a house from this plan will be from SI,000 to 
$1,200, varied by circumstances. 
ELEVATION—FRONT VIEW. 
The house is intended to be a small frame cot¬ 
tage, one and a half stories high. The larger 
elevation is a view of one side, the smaller of 
the front of the dwelling. They arc plain geo¬ 
metrical views, drawn to a scale of 12 l'ect to the 
inch, and by applying the rule any height and 
dimension can he readily ascertained. The. posts 
in which maize is now used will make it a source 
of wealth to this nation, and of supply to the 
wants of the world. Deprive us of this article 
and as a nation we would be poor indeed. L)n it 
we depend mainly for our beef, pork, and the 
most healthy food of the table. Our wheat is 
often shrunken and defective, our potatoes dis¬ 
eased and unpalatable, but corn, our native 
plant, remains souud and unchanged,—the grain 
for bread, the husk, stalk, and leaf for fodder ; 
and as our pastures and meadows become ex¬ 
hausted, we fall back upon a late sowing of com 
for fodder. On many farms are moist muck 
lauds, too late for planting, hut dry in time to 
sow corn in broadcaster rlrillsfor fodder, giving 
a return of from three to six tons to the acre of 
choice fodder for stock. 
Some of the “ Fair” reports of our country 
show that we may manure this crop without 
stint, and in proportion as we manure aud till 
we increase the crop until more than double the 
ordinary yield will he realized, giving from 40 to 
325 bushels to the acre. 
In thi3 climate of 42 and 42’ N., where the 
corn season is not certain to exceed ninety days, 
•great attention should be given to the selection 
of the choicest seed of early varieties; so es¬ 
sential is it to a good crop that all the ears 
mature and ripen. It is well, therefore, often to 
procure seed from the best kinds of a higher 
latitude. If you take good seed from 43’ N. 
and plant it in 42 : N., your com will ripen two 
GROUND PLAN. 
A, Kitchen, lo + ISV. B, Living-Room, 12+18. C, 
Pantry. D, Bed-Room, 8+10. E, Porch. F, Clos¬ 
et. 0. Parlor. 12 + 15. IT, Up-Stairs Hall, I, Sink. 
K, Stairs to Cellar. 
weeks earlier than from seed long used in 42° N. 
The former will be out of danger of frost, while 
the latter may suffer 25 per cent, from frost. 
We have known a crop, the seed of which was 
taken from the latitude of Burlington, Vt., aud 
planted 100 miles south, which ripened two 
weeks earlier than the Dutton, planted in the 
same field, with the same chances. The former 
was all sound, while the latter yielded 25 per 
cent, of soft corn. From that more northern 
seed some was planted in Monroe Co., N. Y. 
On the 2d day of .July, and in 84 days, seed corn 
was picked therefrom. Such facts show that 
too much care cannot be bestowed on the qual¬ 
ity and kinds of grain for planting,—for late 
planting is often unavoidable. Deep and shal¬ 
lowplanting are tilings to he considered in get¬ 
ting a crop in New York. Shallow planting, 
not to [exceed one inch in depth of soil, is the 
safer course. The germinatiug seed comes up 
in six to eight days, and if a partial drouth oc¬ 
curs, still the seed does not soon rot or ferment, 
and, in a climate so subject to showers, will be 
likclyjto come at last. 
A [late estimate of the corn crop for 1870, 
based'on the estimate of the two preceding de¬ 
cades, will show the aggregate in quautity and 
value as follows : 
1,558,milC! pf the grain at 00c.$754,913,466 
60,000,000 tons of stover at $5 . 300,000,000 
The rate of export is less than one per cent, 
of the whole crop. H - 
FARMING IN GEORGIA. 
I got a letter to-day from a Georgia farmer, 
inquiring after the large variety of clover seed. 
He is sanguine that red clover may be grown 
there with great success, ne says he has a 
patch of “ yellow California clover that has 
made splendid pasture since February.” Ho 
has “another of crimson clover, the English 
trefoil, equally luxuriant, and it is preferred to 
red clover by stock.” At one of his neighbors 
he measured clover 24 inches high, aud Califor¬ 
nia clover 19 Inches, on the 11th day of this 
month, (April.) The latter grew more in the 
winter, but alter the first of April the - red clover 
outgrew the yellow. The yellow clover makes 
a thick mat on the ground aud capital 
pasturage. He soys, “ if our planters would 
only use their guano and superphosphate to 
establish clover and lucem, fit their fieldB for 
stock growing, making cotton the market crop, 
we would have one of the nicest countries in the 
world! ” 
Only to think, while in Georgia they have the 
best of fall and early winter pasturage, again the 
best pasture after Feb. fi, aud red clover fit to 
cut on the 10th of April, here in Western New 
York, after October, we have no pasturage worth 
naming Until the middle of May: then In the 
grain growing region we have a summer drouth 
which puts an end to white clover pasture, and 
pinches the other grass so that the fall rains only 
create a short lived growth, corresponding with 
the short duys and cool nights, and soon ended 
by frost. It is true that even clover and lucern 
will not grow on the sandy loams of Georgia In 
summer, as it will on the stiff soil of our cool, 
moist, dairy regions proper; hut there they have 
seven mouths winter aud cold weather, when 
cattle must be foddered, while at the South very 
little winter fodder is needed, us grass grows 
there nearly all the year ronnd. The writer well 
says, “ put the guano on the clover, and let the 
atmospheric fed plants make a manuring crop 
for the com and cotton.” 
It seems that the cotton planters find it to 
their interest to use salt and|piaster ou the land 
liberally, aud to pay[lnrge sums for guano, hone 
dust, superphosphate;of lime, <Nc., exclusively 
for the cottou crop. Like, the English farmers, 
they understand the value and importance of 
commercial manures. 
The cotton crop has a great manorial advan¬ 
tage over the tobacco crop; it takes off nothing 
from the soil but the cotton wool, the haulm 
being returned, and the seed which contains the 
most of the nitrogen and phosphates, is also re¬ 
turned to it in the manure of tiie animals fed on 
it, or on the expressed cake, the oil itself being 
ot little manorial value, as carbon is richly sup¬ 
plied from the atmosphere. s. w. 
WHEAT GROWING ON THE PRAIRIES. 
Here is a farmer who sows from one hundred 
to two hundred acres of spring wheat yearly on 
a prairie farm in South Wisconsin. He grows 
' wheat after wheat, with little alternation, but 
finds it necessary to change the variety often. 
The dub, he says, has run out. To get rid of 
his straw he has occasionally burned it as soon 
as it was thrashed, applying the ashes to the 
' laud, to the manifest benefit of two or three 
' crops afterwards. This clearly shows that 
j rich as his soil is, it has already begun to fall 
in the mineral elements of plant food. 
It is proved that 25 bushels Of wheat and its 
straw abstract 175 lbs. of mineral matter from 
the soil on which it grew ;7potash, soda, phos¬ 
phorus, lime, sulphur, magnesia, chlorine, Iron 
and silica. As none of these elements can be 
' supplied from the atmosphere, if the whole crop 
of straw and grain is removed from the soil, it 
will become rapid ^impoverished. But as 150 
lbs. of these mlr.eral|matters is contained in the 
L straw, which is generally returned to the soil 
enriched with animal manures, both the min- 
‘ eral and organic fertility of the soil is often kept 
’ up; and a rotation of crops or green manuring 
[" with clover, with the aid of plaster, bone dust, 
’ &c., will keep the soil perpetually fertile. 
But what would be suleidal farming on the 
’ long worn farms of Western New York, may 
well be tolerated ou the prairies at this time ol 
, very high prices for wheat. It is even better to 
’ burn the straw and apply the ashes to the soil 
j than to waste and lose it entirely. When the 
soil begins to need manure more, the price ot 
■ wheat will probably be lower, and then fhe 
•) prairie farmer will find it to his interest to grow 
less wheat, keep more stock, and make, 6ave and 
apply more manures to his soil. * 
