82 Buffalo St., Rochester. 
41 Park Row, New York. 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, FEBRUARY U, 1868 
of the raw material consumed, or m some way re¬ 
moved 'by .cultivation, |out of which nature forms 
large and sound wheat. To diversify and rotate 
crops will palliate the evil, and render plant food 
available for making wheat that would not other¬ 
wise come within the reach of its fibrous roots. 
C-lover does this in a remarkable degree if skillfully 
managed. But is it possible for a peck of clover 
seed and one hundred pounds of gypsum, sown on 
an acre, to give to the soil as much yihosphorus and 
assimilable nitrogen as twenty bushels of wheat re¬ 
move? It is obvious that the clover seed and plas¬ 
ter of Paris cannot add to the impoverished acre a 
thousandth part of the phosphorus and nitrogen, 
potash and chlorine removed in one crop of wheat. 
The restitution is demonstrably exceedingly defi¬ 
cient. 
MOOKE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER 
AN ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL, LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER, 
At the request of my friend D. D. T. Moore, I 
undertake to give to the public, through the col¬ 
umns of his valuable paper, the results of my expe¬ 
rience in cider making. 
In the year 1825 my brother and myself came 
into possession ami management of four hundred 
and fifty acres of land near the Bouth shore of 
Lake Erie, where I now reside. On this farm wa 3 
a bearing orchard of four hundred apple trees, natu¬ 
ral fruit. Some of these trees the pioueer who pre¬ 
ceded us had raised in a nursery of his own, obtain¬ 
ing the seeds from Detroit—early famous for its 
excellent apples of French origin—and some were 
trees which had been plucked up by him around an 
Indian village, where they sprang up spontaneously, 
r -~- - - — ~J virgin soil of his now posses- 
!. The apples of 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. NfOORE, 
With & Corps of Able Associates and Contributors, 
HON. HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D., 
Editor of the Department of Sheep Husbandry. 
6. F. WILCOX AND A. A. HOPKINS, Associate Editors, 
Db. DANIEL LEE and Hon. TIIEO. C. PETERS, 
Southern Corresponding Editors. 
HIRAM BT7MPHREY and REUBEN D. JONES, 
Assistant and Commercial Editors. 
Special Contributors. 
P. BARRY, F. R. ELLIOTT, E. W. STEWART, 
H. T. BROOKS, JOHN E. SWEET, JAMES VICK, 
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES, MRS. L. E. LYMAN. 
If clover and gypsum do not and cannot 
replace the things in the soil that form wheat, how 
can the growing of any other plant give more phos¬ 
phorus to the ground than it draws out of it ? The 
long tap roots of clover, turnips and cotton draw 
the elements of wheat from the deep subsoil, if 
permeable, and may give them in quantity to the 
surface soil. In this way many recuperate wheat 
fields ; but where wheat is exported from the farm, 
the time comes when the subsoil is not less ex¬ 
hausted of its available potash aud phosphorus than 
the surface soil. Now the old field is equally clover 
sick, turnip sick and wheat sick, and all because 
the great principle of sound husbandry has been 
violated — that of making perfect restitution to 
mother Earth for our daily bread. 
There are iu the Southern Atlantic and Gulf States 
many millions of acres of marl and rotteu limestone 
lauds that abound in all the constituents of wheat, 
whose climate is too damp, and perhaps too hot, 
for wliSftt culture to be safe aud profitable. Rice, 
sugar cane, Sea Island cotton, tobacco and com pay 
bettor iu the swamp districts of South Carolina, 
Georgia, Florida and Louisiana than wheat. Wher¬ 
ever the air and soil are not too moist wheat is 
raised advantageously, and it is soon to become an 
important staple in the old Cotton States. North 
of some of these States, in the great Southwest, the 
business is extending, aud begins to open out a bril¬ 
liant future. D. Lee. 
Gap Creek, Knox Co., Tcnn. 
and set out in the -. 
sion, had grown to be large trees, 
this orchard were mostly mellow ripe in October; 
many of them were sweet, only a few were very add, 
and generally were excellent dessert apples. In order 
to dispose to advantage the fruit of this orchard, we 
built a cider mill, and I applied myself with great 
diligence to obtain information about cider making 
from every source accessible to me. The pioneer 
settlers from Connecticut—rare spirits many of them 
were—gave me, In conversation, much valuable in¬ 
formation. The processes of different wine coun¬ 
tries I diligently collated, and toy brother aud I, as 
we worked at the business, added our own experi¬ 
ence. Ihe result was that we made a cider which 
attained celebrity because it was fine, sweet, spark¬ 
ling and highly fragrant, aud because it would retain 
its good qualities kept iu barrels, and continue to 
improve during the heat of summer. To impart the 
practical information thus obtained to the readers of 
the Rural, is the object of this essay. 
KIND OF APPLES. 
For cider, apples should be mellow ripe in Octo¬ 
ber. Early windfalls, together with apples which 
have long laid upon the ground and culled winter 
apples, should be reserved for vinegar. The rapid 
aud hasty fermentation which occurs in cider in hot 
weather, answers well for vinegar, but is very bad 
for eider. All other things being right in cider, 
yet success still depends upon skillfully conduct¬ 
ing the vinous fermentation. In order to do this 
a good cellar and November weather are essen¬ 
tial. It follows that cider apples should be mel¬ 
low ripe about the last of October. The Harrison 
Crab, and some other varieties, have been highly 
recommended as specially good for cider. Of this I 
have had no practical knowledge. 
GATHERING TUE APPLES. 
Where mixed husbandry demands economy in the 
arrangements of labor, cider apples may be gathered 
in October, immediately preceding corn husking. 
The apples, free from leaves or other adventitious 
matter, should be piled upon doors, under cover, 
and muy there be allowed to mellow and ripen while 
the corn crop is being secured. Some rot will, of 
course, occur,—but I never could taste its flavor iu 
1ST Fob Terms and other particulars see 6th and 8th pages, 
A very successful and intelligent British farmer, 
having traveled extensively in this country, re¬ 
marks:— “The greatest need in Americau -Agri¬ 
culture is the application of capital: and what 
surprised me most was an evident lack of knowl¬ 
edge in a large class of otherwise intelligent farmers 
about its proper use in their business.” We think 
he might have evinced surprise also at the unwil¬ 
lingness and distrust manifested by the majority of 
our farmers in embarking capital in their legitimate 
operations. It may be explained that capital in this 
sense designated accumulated property aside from 
the stock, tools and farm. Now this distrust and 
unwillingness to use ids surplus money in farming, 
may be partly accounted for when we consider the 
early circumstances of the American farmer. With¬ 
out capital he carved his home from the wilderness 
by hard labor. Debt was his primary condition. 
Money was a higher kind of property than land or 
labor, and its fortunate possessor was a man of ease, 
influence and power. Hence arose his ambition for 
hard cash and broad acres. It will take time to de¬ 
stroy the influence of these ideas, but already it 
begins to dawn on his mind that to double the pro¬ 
ducts and profits of one acre is better than to buy 
another, and that in his own legitimate business — 
the oue lie knows most of — is the place to invest 
accumulated money. 
Instead of trying with how little money he can 
conduct his business, the farmer should endeavor to 
invest as much as possible in it, and have it repay 
good interest. And this can be done in various 
ways. You are satisfied, perhaps, that manure 
enough is not used on the land, and the problem is 
how to increase it. With snitublc buildings for the 
accommodation of stock, you are satisfied you could 
feed enough to make the requisite manure at a 
profit. Then it will be a good investment to make 
the buildings. Or a field is wet, needs nnderdrain- 
ing. It will cost say thirty dollars per acre; ten 
acres, three hundred dollars. That may seem a 
large sum to put into such Improvements, but re¬ 
member they are permanent, aud the field has got 
to return only an increase of a trifle more than two 
dollars per acre each year to pay seven per cent, on 
the outlay. And as the cost of cultivating the crops 
is never more, but often less, and the increased pro¬ 
duction frequently from five to twenty-live dollars 
per acre, no investment which a farmer can safely 
make promises better than this. So investments in 
better breeds of stock—not the fancy class, how¬ 
ever—but substantially better breeds at reasonable 
prices; in the best seed; in labor-saving tools; in 
fruit trees,— all pay belter, we faiu believe, than 
railroad or oil stock, or patent rights. Let the 
farmer turn his attention to his laud, not away from 
it, to increase his income; there is his safeBt and 
most profitable place of investment. That business 
he is partly master of, at least, and in conducting it 
himself holds the helm. 
AN OHIO CORN - HOUSE — ELEVATION 
Eds. Rural : — With this I send you a design for 
a cora-honse. Although it is a little more trouble¬ 
some to build than a common square frame, it has 
several advantages over ordinary ones, such as greater 
strength and stability and more room for the same 
flooring and boarding; the only additional expense 
being a little larger roof. In the end view the posts, 
A, A, are framed into the tie or beam, C, and con¬ 
nected at the bottom by the sill, B. The side pieces, 
D, D, may be framed or bolted at the bottom, and 
are mortised to receive the tenons of the beam, O', 
and framed into the plates, E, E, at the top. There 
are only two of these bents joined by the plates at 
the top and two girts or sills at the bottom. A brace 
or two might bo noeosoewyon the sides. This frame 
is very strong, aud from Its form needs no bracing, 
while its slanting sides, together with the method of 
boarding, will almost certainly prevent rain or snow 
from blowing in upon the corn. The bottom of the 
cribs should be made of slats, with a passage iu the 
middle of tight floor. The boarding is of strips oue 
by four Inches, with the edges beveled; cracks one- 
fourth inch. A corn-house of this kind built 10 by 
12, with cribs three feet wide at bottom, on the fur 
end and two sides, will contain five hundred and 
thirty bushels of com if six feet high from the floor 
to the eaves, it is very much preferable to a crib, 
as it is more convenient aud durable, and secure 
from the depredations of rats aud mice. 
Kinsman, Ohio, 1868. w. a, c. 
END VIEW OF FRAME, 
men, entirely unaccustomed to farm management, 
but possessing active, practical minds, have, in a 
few years, greatly improved the management and 
production of their farms, increasing the net in¬ 
come at least fifty per cent., and yet, after all, aban¬ 
doned the farm in despair, and gone back to the city, 
because they could not bring their expenditures 
withiu their incomes. And yet, these very cases 
were charged to incapacity to manage a farm. The 
fact is, that many farmers called successful, are so; 
not because they have shown great skill in produc¬ 
ing the largest crops, the best animals and the 
greatest income, but because they appreciate the 
smallest fraction of a dollar, and have less wants 
than their neighbors. Th;y have accumulated a 
few thousand dollars by a system of scientific pinch¬ 
ing. We protest, that this is not successful farming, 
but successful intellectual aud moral starvation! 
The city man accustomed to seeing capital turned 
four times a year, finds it hard to realize that in 
farming the return is, generally, only once a year, 
and that it requires a much larger capital to do the 
same amount of business ir agriculture than trade. 
Suppose the farm to be of moderate size, say one 
hundred acres, and to be worth *6,000; as generally 
worked, it is a good farm that pays seven per cent, 
clear profit on its value. This would give *120 in¬ 
come, whereas the city merchant or manufacturer 
has been in the habit of realizing twenty per cent, 
on his capital, say >2,000, and when this is cut down 
to $420 he finds his income short of his necessities. 
But if he can manage to live on his farm he finds 
his capital much safer than in city trade. His farm 
remain .v after a year of bad management, ready to 
respond generously the next year, to better culture. 
Not so his city capital when embarked iu an unsuc¬ 
cessful enterprise, it disappears uever to return. 
The only safety for the city man turned farmer, 
consists in his using biB active brain to produce an 
income from his farm adequate to his wants, or in 
studying the still more diflleult brunch of science, 
mastering the economy that will enable him to 
graduate his wants to his income, He will, in fact, 
find both these necessary. But let him go to the 
country with his great love of her scenery and sim¬ 
ple pleasures, determined to be a close student of 
Agriculture, to make an advance every year in its 
practice, studying how to produce the most aud 
with the greatest profit, subjecting all its details to 
the most exact figures—and iu his household study¬ 
ing to lop off every unnecessary expense, foregoing 
all mere luxuries, still providing abundantly all that 
produces health and strength of body and mind— 
let him do all this, and let him persevere and not 
faint, and he will soou be quoted as a most success¬ 
ful Agriculturist, 
S. Cummings, Erie Co., Fa., writes:—“In grow¬ 
ing winter wheat I can usually get straw enough, 
but I seldom get over fifteen bushels of grain per 
acre, and oftentimes less. How shall I increase the 
yield of grain ? I top dress with bam-yard manure. 
My farm lies in a valley; a part of the soil is very 
gravelly, and some a creek bottom, composed of 
loam and muck, with gravel subsoil. I can raise 
good clover and timothy.” 
Perhaps we cannot better answer onr correspond¬ 
ent’s queries than by quoting what that well known 
aud highly successful fanner, John Johnston, says: 
“ You may rely upon it, that It is only by a mixed 
husbandry, and a large part of it stock of either 
cattle or sheep, or part of both, that farmers can 
profitably raise grata. I don’t know of any country 
or nation that is so remiss in feeding the earth they 
cultivate as the- United States. But this mode of 
management cannot go on much longer, else we 
will cro long export nothing that is food for man. 
1 had only 23 acres in wheat, and sold 512 bushels. 
My neighbor on the south had 46 acres in wheat, 
most all summer-fallowed, aud lie told me he had 
only about 460 bushels to sell. He, twenty to forty 
years ago, raised good crops, but latterly his crops 
have dwindled down to almost nothing. His wheat 
in I860 was not half so good as this year. The 
reason of his failure is, he keeps almost no stock, 
and what he does keep he feeds on straw in winter, 
excepting his horses. When straw alone is fed to 
stock, the stock is only straw when sirring comes, 
and the manure is worse than straw; It would, I 
think, do more good to the land before passing 
through the stomachs of the cattle. Now, this 
farmer is only a specimen of many we yet have in 
Seneca county. I am feeding 205 sheep this winter, 
and six head of cattle; have ten tons of oil meal to 
feed out, besides my corn. I had by far the best 
crop I heard of in this part of the country, but I 
will not get it all fed out this winter. I contracted 
for my oil cake meal when I thought my corn must 
be a failure, I am drawing swamp mnek two aud a 
half miles; put a good dial in my yards before I 
put in my sheep and cattle, and spread straw over 
it. I have a basin iu the lower part of one yard, 
that 1 put thirty loads in; the remainder I am put¬ 
ting in where the liquids run out of oue yard. I 
expect to get in all 150 loads, and large ones; 1 get 
as large loads as I wish to draw for 86 cents, dug 
out ready to load, and the road is and has been as 
smooth as glass and as hard as iron, as ever since 
July we have had, aud still have, a great drouth; 
our wheat looks bad. I mix my sheep and cattle 
dung with the muck. When I sell my sheep In 
March or first of April, I expect to have 450 loads of 
the very best of manure to put on my laud next 
August or September. I have 75 loads of muck 
home, and will keep drawing 60 long as the roads 
are good.” 
rolling of wheels, buzzing of saws, thundering of 
hammers, deafening sounds, straining nerve and 
eye that his work may be perfect,—each has in his 
imagination a paradise, away from all accounts, 
clients, patients, noise and turmoil, where spread 
out the green fields, hill and dale and lawn and culti¬ 
vated fields of golden grain, where murmur the 
dear streams, low and bleat the herde and flocks, 
Where tall trees in clumps or solitary, shrubs and 
climbing vines and flowers, surround a modest, pic¬ 
turesque cottage, on a gentle swelling elevation, 
with carol of birds aud humming of bees—all set 
in the glory of the beautiful sunshine. None so 
hopeful, none see such pictures of rural beauty and 
plenty as the city man. He always hopes some day 
to possess this enchanting home. 
Not long since, friend B., one of those sober en¬ 
thusiasts, after giving me a glowing picture of what 
he called “ rural happiness,” aud the plenty he sup¬ 
posed to surround every wise man so fortunate as 
to own a farm—and, suddenly, calling to mind an 
acquaintance who had been to the country for a few 
years, and returned to the city minus his cash, but 
awisermau, said with great earnestness, “Can you 
tell me why city men arc, generally, unsuccessful as 
farmers?” 
To be sure I can. 1 have studied the anatomy of 
that question, and will dissect it for your special 
benefit. 
1st. He tries a business he does not understand 
and has not prepared himself for, which is very apt 
to be fatal in any busiuess. 
2d. Most city men have an exaggerated opinion of 
the whole matter, almost imagine that the produc¬ 
tions of the farm are spontaneous, only requiring to 
be gathered by the fortunate owner. 
3d. Being a proprietor, he thinks the margin of 
profits will warrant a liberal outlay for help, and his 
labor is expended at a disadvantage for the first year 
or two, which, instead of being paid for by the 
profits of his farm, absorbs much of his ready capital. 
4th. If he succeeds from the start in producing as 
much from his farm as his neighbors, and works it 
every way as profitably, yet he inevitably comes out 
behind—because he does not understand the mas¬ 
terly economy of the native bred farmer—he cannot 
live on his income. And this latter fact is the prm 
cipal cause of failure. Nine-tenths of the disap¬ 
pointments of city men in Agriculture, have arisen 
from their inability to live on the ordinary income 
uf a farm, and not. because they did not produce as 
much as their neighbors. 
Many instances can be pointed out, where city 
CRITICAL REMARKS ON WHEAT, SOILS AND CLIMATES. 
Wheat being a plant of comparatively small fiber 
roots, which do not extend so deeply Into the soil 
and subsoil in search of nutriment as the roots of 
clover, maize and many others, it cannot organize 
its seeds and bring them to full growth aud matu¬ 
rity, in quantity, ou poor land. Hence, this cereal 
is perhaps the host of all onr staple crops to reveal 
any natural defect iu arable soils, or poverty arising 
from defective tillage or had husbandry on the part 
of the farmer. Ground that yields large wops of 
wheat with fair cultivation must abound in the ele¬ 
ments of all agricultural plants in an available con¬ 
dition 
A field or a farm that produces wheat easily 
and naturally muy be regarded as reliable (with rare 
I exceptions,) for growing grass, corn, oats, clover 
and other crops adapted to the climate. 
Viewing the subject iu the light of these facts, it 
is easy to understand why virgin fertility in all the 
u States gives better crops of wheat, on common up- 
L lands, than they yield after some years of tillage, 
•y and the removal Of eropB have impoverished the 
]) limited pasture of the roots of this important cereal. 
R t There is.but one common-sense and perfect cure for 
Q sick wheat fields that once produced large harvests 
of this grata; aud that is the restoring to the soil 
Let these examples be multiplied 
as they may be, and then the question will bo, “Can 
you tell me how it is that these city men come from 
their counters, their workshops and their offices, to 
the country aud so outstrip, in a few years, the native 
bred farmers V” — e. w. s. 
