PROCRESS ANO IMPROVEMENT 
[SINGLE NO. TEN CENTS 
VOL XVIII. NO. 26. [ ROCHESTER, N. Y.-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, JUNE 2D, 1667 
useless expenditure ol time, finds himself un¬ 
able to accomplish. A field may be rapidly gon© 
over in this way— may present au appearance of 
cultivation, but when harvest time comes tho 
cheat will he exposed by the paucity of tho re¬ 
turns made. It is a subject of congratulation to 
reflect that there is less of this slip-shod farm¬ 
ing observable now than in years gone by. 
Those who expect remunerative returns from 
their farms must manure well, plow thoroughly, 
cultivate seasonably, ignore the “cut and 
cover’’ system, and thou if they fall of secur¬ 
ing a return they will have the satisfaction of 
reflecting that they deserved success, though 
failing, from eauBcs beyond their control, of its 
attainment. 
MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
AX ORIGINAL WEBKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER, 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
With an Able Corps of Assistants and Contributors, 
Hon. HENRY S. RANDAI.L, LL. D., Editor of the De- 
panmeut of Sheep Husbandry. 
Hon. T. C. PETERS, late President N. Y. State Ag’l 
Society, Southern Corresponding Editor. 
GLEZEN F. WILCOX, Associate Editor. 
Th* Rural Nkw-Yobkkr is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed In Vntne, Purity, and Variety of Contents, Its 
Conductor earnestly labors to render the Rural a Reli¬ 
able Guide on all the Important Practical, Scientific and 
other Subjects connected with the business of those 
whose interests it zealously advocates. As a Family 
Journal It Is eminently Instructive and Entertaining— 
being *o conducted that It can he safely taken to the 
Homes of peoplo 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 hy far the most complete Aokioultural, 
Litkbaby and Famii.t Nkwspapbr in America. 
ANOTHER CORN PEST, 
L. V. Smith, Geneva, N. Y., semis us speci¬ 
mens of the snout beetle family which made 
their appearance in that section, for the first 
time, last season. He adds that they have ** in¬ 
creased to an enormous quantity this year, and 
are very troublesome in the coni fields. The 
one, from which the specimens sent were pro 
cured, furnished from six to twenty beetles to 
each bill. They have proved very destructive. 
This iuBect seems not to have been known to 
Say, Mklsheimku, Harris, or Fitch, as it is 
not catalogued by either of them. Dr. Lb 
Coptic calls it, 8'pheophorm anHqm—a beetle 
about which nothing has been known till within 
a comparatively recent period. 
Our correspondent is anxious to know how to 
destroy these troublesome and destructive in¬ 
sects, us well he may be, considering their num¬ 
bers and rapacity. Of course killing them, by 
any ordinary means, over tho surface of a large 
field, would be next to an impossibility, but a 
sure and available substitute, for hand killing, 
does not readily suggest itself. The books arc 
silent on this subject, while the old and experi¬ 
enced among the ftirmtrs are equally reticent. 
We have au idea that an application of hellebore 
would prove effectual, based on its acknowl¬ 
edged efficacy in destroying or expelling other 
insects from plants and shrubbery. If any of 
our readers are posted with reference to thin 
new corn beetle and the best means of getting 
rid of it, we should be nleased to o-Ivp the 
JW" Fob Terms and other particulars see last page. 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE-DEATH 
OF COMMISSIONER NEWTON. 
During a recent visit to Washington we had 
opportunity to learn somewhat concerning the 
Agricultural Department, and the men hy whom 
its principal operations are conducted. We then 
purposed giving an article containing our Im¬ 
pressions in regard to the workings of the 
Department, and the competency of tho Com¬ 
missioner and his principal co- laborers, but 
causes beyond our control precluded us, while 
at the South, and since our return, from fulfill¬ 
ing the purpose, — and now we learn that Isaac 
Newton, the Commissioner of Agriculture, has 
departed this life. This event induces us to say, 
hurriedly and briefly, some things which we 
intended to have expressed in a deliberate and 
extended article. 
It is proper to state that our lirst visit to the 
Department, and acquaintance with Mr. New¬ 
ton and his principal aids, was over two years 
ago—in March, 1865, — and that some of our 
opinions concerning the Commissioner and De¬ 
partment, were modified, and certain prejudices 
removed. We found Mr. Newton a more com¬ 
petent man, especially in practical knowledge 
and executive ability, than had been represented, 
though we did not believe him qualified for the 
important position he occupied. Among his 
aids or superintendents were several gentlemen 
of decided ability—particularly James S. Grin- 
nell, then Chief Clerk, J. R. Dodge, Statis¬ 
tician, Townend Glover, Entomologist, and 
' v !LL iam Saunders, Superintendent of the Bo¬ 
tanical Gardens. From what we then saw and 
learned of the operations of the Department, 
and the heads of its various branches, we hoped 
for beneficial results; and as there was little or 
no probability that any effort to remove the 
Commissioner would prove successful, we con¬ 
cluded to refrain from making or joining in 
further eomnlaints Or criticisms and await tho 
HOLSTEIN COW 
AND OWNED BY WINTHROP W. 
Our engraving portrays the Holstein or Dutch 
cow “ Texelaar,” from a drawing taken when 
she was five years old. At the time this portrait 
was taken (1804)Texelaar weighed 1,2(55 lbs., her 
height was 4 feet 4 inches, length 7 feet 5}£ 
inches, and girth « feet inches. In June, 
13D3, a careful record was kept of the inilk pro¬ 
duced by this cow, and showed a result of 
seventeen hundred and four and one-half pounds. 
or an average of 50 81-100 pounds per day for 
thirty successive days. The lirst six days in 
dairy stock will find the article worthy of perusal. 
fully say he possessed some admirable qualities, 
and had he not it would have been impossible 
for him to so long retain, against much oppo¬ 
sition, a position so important and responsible. 
Though lacking the education, scientific acquire¬ 
ments, and that knowledge and comprehensive¬ 
ness of mind relative to the agriculture and 
rural needs of the whole country requisite for 
the positiou, he was practical, observing, affable 
and a rare judge of human nature. Our purpose 
is not, however, to write an obituary or eulogy, 
but simply to speak of the Department and the 
Commissioner as we saw and .judged of them 
during our visit. Some matters pertaining to 
the branches already mentioned, of which we 
have notes and facts, may be recurred to in a 
future number. 
The death of Mr. Newton occasions a vacancy 
in a branch of the Government which should be 
rendered one of the most important. Our own 
idea is that the head of the Department of Agri¬ 
culture should be a member of the Cabinet, and 
the man occupying the position possess superior 
But even if the rank 
HOW GRAIN GROWING MAY BE MADE 
TO IMPROVE THE SOIL. 
It is a common saying among farmers, even in 
fertile Western New York, that grain growing 
impoverishes the soil; yet 1,000 lbs. of wheat 
takes from it only about 10 lbs. of mineral ele¬ 
ments, nearly one-half of which is phosphoric 
add, which can easily be replaced by the bones 
of the meat consumed on the farm. The potash, 
only about 5 lb6., is easily replaced In the farm¬ 
yard manure, that also supplies the nitrogen and 
tho balance of the mineral elements of plant 
food, including phosphoric add itself. ’Tis true 
that the wheat straw from the sume soil contains 
53 lbs. of mineral elements, but this every good 
farmer returns to the soil as nitrogenous stable 
manure; and it is the waste of this straw, and 
the. neglect of farmers to save the urine of their 
animals, that makes the manure heap so poor in 
ammonia salts that it fails to keep up the fertil- 
ftnd diminished snow in the winter. These 
changes will scarcely have escaped the notice of 
those who pitched their tent# in a wooded coun¬ 
try with but here and there a log cabin for many 
miles, and remained there till the ax, in brawny 
hands, had let in the sun and wind upon 
what before was comparatively perpetual shade 
and oppressive stillness. Then, the summers 
attainments and ability, 
of the Department is not, at present, what it 
ought to be in justice to the Rural Population 
of Agricultural America, it is still important 
that an eminently competent man should be 
placed at its head—one who understands and 
comprehends the Agriculture of the whole 
country, its peculiarities, needs and paramount 
importance,—and we sincerely trust that such 
a man will be selected, regardless of his loca¬ 
tion or political antecedents. 
SYSTEMATIC FARMING. 
There is much diversity of practice among 
farmers in the preparation of their grounds for 
the crops designed for each section. Some do 
this systematically—having a well defined plan 
with respect to their several fields—while others 
sBuwara, ami me winters lor the depth of snow 
which covered the earth. But, as the forest 
trees fell before the ax and their severed trunks 
melted away in glowing heap3, the summer 
showers became less frequent, the winters less 
prodigal in snow, but increasingly affluent in 
winds, searching and puugent in their character. 
These climatic modifications bore no percepti¬ 
ble relation to any particular cycloid of years, 
but were seemingly wholly, or mainly, depend¬ 
ent upon the velocity and pertinacity with 
which the ax performed its office. These 
changes, too, have been followed by conse¬ 
quences, to the farmer, little thought of at the 
time the onslaught was being unule on the 
The woodman then, but agri- 
ity of the wheat fallow. 
In England, where animals are fed with refer¬ 
ence to the richness of the manure they make, 
they now grow one-third more wheat to the acre 
than they did a hundred years ago on the same 
farms. True, turnip culture there ami commer¬ 
cial manures have done much to produce this im¬ 
provement of the Boil, but if we cannot grow 
turnips and feed them out on the soil in winter 
as they do in England, we can grow clover 
which so often fells In England, and as Iudian 
corn is indigenous here we can gTow and fatten 
more hogs and stock and make more manure. 
By alternating crops, plowing in green clover, 
or even a clover sod, besides returning all the 
hay and straw of the farm to tho grain Helds in 
the shape of all saved stall manure, the soil of 
those fields will grow richer instead of poorer. 
Then, good tillage and underdrawing adds con¬ 
tinually to the fertility of the soil, as it makes 
slowly soluble the inert plant food, so long 
locked up insoluble In the soil. While a poor, 
half-tilled, lightly manured surface gains no or¬ 
ganic matter lrom the atmosphere, a well-tilled 
and manured soil gains organic matter from the 
tailing dew and every gentle shower. *. 
without system or order. A dim perception 
may be hud of what is to be.doue on a given 
day, but when that day arrives a change takes 
place and something else is attempted and the 
line of consecutive labor ia broken. These sud¬ 
den changes of purpose are us hazardous to the 
success of the farmer, as is a change of front on 
the part of an army while in the midst of a 
hotly contested battle. The change may secure 
unimproved position —a better application of 
force— but the chances are many to one that an I 
PERIODICITY IN THE SEASONS, 
Remarking on agricultural periodicity, the 
Maryland Farmer observes“ it has been for 
many years a favorite theory of some observers, 
that seasons, very similar to each other, recur 
at stated intervals, whilst others have gone so 
far as to contend that they move in regular 
cycles, changing gradually from rainy to dry 
and from hot to cool summers, and from mod¬ 
erate to severe winters, and at the completion 
Of the cycle reversing the phenomena year by 
year, from dry to rainy, and from cool to hot 
summers, and from severe to moderate winters. 
The terms usually alloted are seven and fourteen 
years, but thus far no meteorological laws have 
been discovered to justify this theory of atmos- 
primeval forest, 
culturist now, saw in each forest tree au enemy 
to be slain, and he went forward like a destroy¬ 
ing angel, sparing none. The stately tree which 
had breasted the storms of a thousand ages 
and the modest sapling reposing beneath its 
sheltering branches, met a common fate. “ A 
eleau sweep" was the word, and the consequence 
now is that the blasts of winter repeat it as 
they course over fields without check or hinder- 
anee. 
Iu thus denuding his land for long distances 
