'agriculture* 
TERMS J $3.00 PER TEAR, 
i tKBia, Sijag:le Copyi Sbc C( 
PROGRESS AND IMPROVEMENT 
The following manures were applied on the 11th 
of April, and the first cutting was reaped on the 
12th of June and the second on the 24th of August, 
each plat being carefully weighed on the same day 
as cut: 
1. Nitrate of soda af, the rate of 4 cwt. per acre. 
2. Sulphate of ammonia “ “ 
3. Mineral superphosphate “ ** 
4. Common salt “ *< 
5. No manure. 
C. Muriate of potash “ *• 
7. Sulphate of potash “ “ 
8, Sulphate of lime “ i ton per acre. 
,1. Alin oral superphosphate and nitrate of soda at the 
rate of l cwt. per acre each. 
10. Mineral superphosphate and muriate of potash at 
the rate of 4 cwt. per acre each. 
11. No manure. 
By the 23d of April, plats No. 1, dressed with 
nitrate of soda and No. ft, mineral superphosphate 
and nitrate of soda, were readily distinguishable 
from all the others by their darker green color and 
grosser growth, which continued till the crops 
were cut. 
The nitrate of soda, however, caused a rank 
growth of ray-grass, so smothering the clover that 
in October scarcely a plant of it was to be seen. 
On plats Nos. 6 and 7, dressed with nitrate and sul¬ 
phate of potash respectively, clover grew luxuriant¬ 
ly, and still better on plat No. 10, dressed with 
mineral superphosphate and muriate of potaBh,— 
yielding, on the whole, the best crop both as to 
quantity and quality. The undressed plat, No. 11, 
gave 51£ tons of green food the first cutting and 
nearly two tons the second per acre; No. 6, muriate 
practice jnsfe the best thing? If so, then agricul¬ 
ture cannot he improved. Colonel! show us by 
parallel experiments of stone and shell lime, on a 
variety of soils, that my statement is incorrect, and 
then you will make a point. 
Let us look at the reasons for applying lime. 
First. It is used as a direct food for plants. And 
for this purpose all most agree that the purest lime 
will be best. Many lime stoncB contain a large pro¬ 
portion of magnesia, which is injurious in large 
quantities; while shell lime contains but a mere 
trace, being much purer than stone lime. Besides 
shell lime contains from two to four per cent, of 
phosphate of lime (bone earth,) which must add 
something to its value as a fertilizer. But the most 
important reason for the use of shell lime is, that it 
has entered into organic life, which required it to 
have been m solution, and this renders it more 
soluble and assimilable as plant food. This is not 
MOOBE’S RUBAL NEW-YORKER, 
AN ORIGINAL WEEKLY 
AGRICULTURAL. LITERARY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
With a Corps of Able Associates and Contributors 
G. F. WILCOX and A. A. HOPKINS, Associate Editors. 
How. HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D., 
Editor of the Department of Slieep Husbandry. 
Db. DANIEL LEE, Southern Corresponding Editor. 
HIRAM BTTMPHKEr and REUBEN D. JONES. 
Assistant and Commercial Editors. 
RURAL OR SUBURBAN RESIDENCE 
thoroughly constructed cistern of 8,000 gallons’ 
capacity, which receives all the water from a slate 
roof. Rain water from a slate roof is pure and 
clean, free from color, and used with Ice in sum¬ 
mer is better and healthier than well water. The 
kitchen is well ventilated, windows both sides, and 
doors so arranged as to secure all comfort; an inde¬ 
pendent chimney, etc. The second floor has large 
and well-ventilated bed-rooms, ceilings are square 
and of good height, abundant closet room, etc. 
Above this, in the tower, is a fine octagon room 
of fifteen feet radius, that can be used for a bed¬ 
room, smoking-room, or any other purpose. 
The house is heated with a furnace. In the parlor 
and library are marble mantles, and each is fitted 
with polished steel grates for burning wood or coal. 
All the wood work about the house is of selected 
stuff, and handsomely stained and varnished—the 
best and most effective interior finish. The walls 
ami cornices are hard finished in the best manner. 
The frame is substantial, and lined throughout with 
unworked lumber, and covered with narrow-lapped 
siding, making a stiff, warm house. 
In a communication to the Mark-Lane Express 
Cuthbert W. Johnson gives a history of the Red 
Clover plaut, a- a farm product during the last two 
hundred years, and attempts to account for its fail¬ 
ure, in many parts of Great Britain, for some years 
past. Its cultivation was commenced in England 
about the middle of the seventeenth century. Mr. 
Worlidge, in a work on agriculture in 1069, recom¬ 
mends the cultivation of clover by saying:_ 1 “ it nas 
this property, that after the growing of the clover 
grass, for three or four years, it will so frame the 
earth that it will be very fit for corn again, which is 
a very great advantage, and then again for clover.” 
anu tnese are the important offices that stone lime 
usually performs. ( But in forming chemical com¬ 
binations, and rendering vegetable matter in the 
Dil assimilable a*' plant food, that lime is best 
which is itself most assimilable as plant food. I 
have experimented with both kinds of lime, finding 
the shell greatly superior, and the statement to 
which exception is taken was not carelessly made, 
and I trust that this magnanimous critic will allow 
his readers to see this reply. —e. w. s. 
By way of encouragement to farmers, of that day, 
he adds:—“ It is much sown and used iu Flanders 
and in Holland; precedents to the whole world for 
good husbandry.” 
Walter Blyth, in his “ Survey of Husbandry,” 
had previously recommended the cultivation of 
clover, but no reference is made by either to the 
impolicy of continuous cropping on the same soil. 
What is called the “clover sickness,” is not men¬ 
tioned by either, hut in 1840 Mr. G. Turner, Devon¬ 
shire, alludes to it as a well known and troublesome 
visitant. After an observation and experience in 
growing clover for twenty years, and noting its 
failures, he came to the conclusion that “clover 
sickness” was the result of feeding the stubble 
bare, after harvest, which so weakened the plant as 
to prevent its standing the wet and cold of the 
succeeding winter. Repeated experiments, on vari¬ 
ous soils, confirmed this conclusion as, “in every 
instance, where autumn feeding was not allowed the 
succeeding crop was all that could be desired.” 
Other explanations of the difficulty of growing 
clover for a series of years, are suggested: — “(1.) 
That clover gradually deprives the 6oil of some 
essential constituent of the plant, which might he 
restored to it by artificial manures, just as Cheshire 
farmers add crushed bones to their exhausted pas¬ 
tures. ( 3 .) That red clover denosifs in flip cr.ll 
KITCHEN 
iV.X/5. 
A POOR CORN CROP 
SrRVANTS'*HTB 
X2X'I5.( 
Neighbor Jones had a poor crop of corn this 
year. So he had last year. In fact they have been 
getting poor for quite a number of years. This is 
how it came about: —The prairie abounded in fer¬ 
tility when Jones first broke up the land the Gov¬ 
ernment sold him at ten shillings per acre. It gave 
thirty or forty bushels of wheat, and sixty or eighty 
bushels of corn, to the acre. Jones thought there 
was no end to its fertility. He burned his straw. 
He kept no stock, except a cow and his teams. No 
effort was made to make or save manure. What 
little was made was allowed to go to waste. 
J ones believed in wheat. “ Wheat was money,” 
he said. It gave quick returns. “It was good to 
go to bed with. It was good to get up with. It 
was the Btafl of life, and a man could not have too 
much of it.” So Jones directed his whole energies 
to raising wheat. He looked on his broad acres 
year after year with pride. After a few years his 
crops diminished. He knew not why, for accord¬ 
ing to bis theory the soils of the prairies were inex¬ 
haustible. From thirty down to fifteen, twelve, 
ten, eight, and even six, the bushels descended. 
Mr. Jones did not think the seasons so favorable to 
the development of this cereal as formerly. Plant¬ 
ed more corn in place of wheat. Corn a moderate 
crop. Less, year by year. “ Seasons did not seem 
to suit corn as they used.” Jones has been on his 
farm about twenty-five years. His wheat crop has 
tapered down from thirty or forty bushels to from 
five to ten bushels to the acre. His coru is down 
from sixty or eighty to twelve or fifteen, and “nub¬ 
bins’ at that. Jones says farming don’t pay. 
Thinks he will sell out and try some other busi¬ 
ness. We think he’d better. But he will deserve to 
tail if he does not pursue it with better judgment 
than he has shown upon the farm. L. l. f. 
DIN 1NG R. 
15X17. 
CHAMBER 
i 5 Xia, 
than good oat straw. On such soils nitrate of soda 
should not be UBed alone; for it has an unmistaka¬ 
ble tendency to exhaust the land.” 
These experiments seem to demonstrate that 
mineral superphosphate, applied alone, gives little 
ot no increase in the first or second cutting; that 
phosphate of lime may in some cases remain in¬ 
effective in consequence of the absence of another 
plant constituent, such as potash; that whilst pot¬ 
ash salts, in conjunction with phosphates, are use¬ 
ful in the cure of poor, sandy soils, their special 
application to land in a good agricultural condition, 
or to soils containing an appreciable quantity of 
clay, does not appear to yield results commensurate 
with the cost involved in their application. 
HALC 
15X15. 
LIBRARY. 
I5K.I3 4 
CHAMBER) 
14X19.’ 
CfTAMBtR, 
iOX/S.. 
PAR l'or: 
/5.X/8J 
CHAMffEIU 
/3XI5. 
FIRST FLOOR. 
SECOND FLOOR, 
authors, less known to agricultural readers, should 
do likewise, who have said in substance that North¬ 
ern grasses cannot stand a cotton - growing climate. 
This is a most injurious mistake; for it dooms fall 
three hundred million acres of our best grassing 
lands to rapid depopulation and hopeless sterility. 
Grass gives manure as a natural product on every 
farm; and manure gives grain for bread and meat, 
and cotton for clothing. Tillage with no seeding to 
grass or clover, gives denuded old fields, a sparse, 
uneducated and miserably poor population, with no 
hope of improvement. 
^ Armies of working farmers should now emigrate 
bonth, and every man take a full sack of grass seed 
with him, with a view to raise cattle, sheep, horses 
and mules by the thousand. Many millions of acres 
once fenced and cultivated by four million slaves are 
now fast growing up into forests again. The owners 
of these once happy homes and flourishing planta¬ 
tions will give yon and yonr flocks a cordial welcome. 
District of Colnmbiu, Dec., 1868. D. Leh. 
GOODRICH AND OTHER POTATOES. 
Accompanying a cut of the Harison potato in No. 
46 of the Rural, I observe some remarks disparatr¬ 
ing the quality of the Early Goodrich, which was to 
me an entirely new idea. I have grown them for 
three years on alluvial soil, or bottom land, with 
large yield and most satisfactory quality. The same 
remark applies te rlfose grown upon sandy and also 
gravelly soil. The potatoes have been universally 
good, and that partiality for my favorite might not 
mislead me, I have just had some baked and all pro¬ 
nounced them all that could he desired. 
I have grown the past season Peach Blows, Calico 
Gleason, Jackson White, Early Sebec, Buckeye and 
Buckley’s Seedling. Of the- different varieties the 
Gleason is least esteemed. The balance are all good 
and dry, whether boiled or baked. Could the Buck¬ 
eye be grown and not be hollow when of good size, 
I should desire no better, and as before observed the 
Goodrich are equal to any of the list. Buckley’s 
Seedling is to me a new potato, having grown them 
but two seasons. They are light red and a little 
rough in the skin, but either baked or boiled break 
up on the plate while and mealy, and are verv high 
flavored. Had a peck of seed from Horaellsville, 
N. Y., where I believe they are grown to a large 
extent and are in my estimation superior to the 
Peach Blow, both in flavor and productiveness. 
Their color is the only objection, so far as I know, 
for a market variety, as a white-skinned potato finds 
a more ready market than dark colored ones. 
I have met with another potato, similar in color, 
size and general appearance to the Buckley’s Seed¬ 
ling, which has been disseminated as the Boston 
Seedling. Neither tre a very early potato, but ripen 
much earlier than the Peach Blow, but not as early 
as my Jackson Whites. Do any of the readers of 
the Rt kal know anything definite about the origin 
of the Buckley’s Seedling potato ? w. 
from any of the preceding causes. Several reports, 
from various committees appointed to examine into 
the question, were adverse to the excrementitions 
theory, while it was shown, by experiments, that 
the elements extracted from the soil, by clover 
varied according as the soil was silicious or of a 
clay character. 
Here is an example of the results of an experiment 
with 100 parts of two specimens of clover hay, grown 
on these soil6: 
From a From a 
Silicions Sand. Clay Soil. 
Water,. 13.97 12,20 
Ash,. 6.77 7.12 
In 100 parts of the ash or mineral portion of these 
were found: 
In that grown on 
Sand. C:ay. 
Silica,. 4.08 2.66 
Phosphoric Acid,. 5.82 6 88 
Snlphimc Acid,..... 3.91 4.46 
Carbonic Arid,. 12.92 20 94 
Lime,..... 35.02 35 76 
Magnesia,.11.92 10.53 
Peroxide of Iron,. 0 98 0 95 
Potash,..... 18.44 11,32 
Soda,. 2.79 
Common Salt,. 4.13 0.58 
Chloride of Potassium,. 5,92 
Total, . 99.95 100 00 
Professor .Voelckek made some careful experi¬ 
ments in Yorkshire in 1867, with a mixture of the 
salts of litue and potash as a top dressing for clover 
land, with good results. Due experimental field, he 
states, was of a poor, sandy character, and divided 
so as to make the different sections as nearly alike 
as possible as to soil and grasses. The grass and 
clover seeds were town the preceding year with a 
barley crop. 
more northern States, a vast quantity of hay, made 
of meadow grasses aud clover, and often abounding 
in the seeds of these invaluable plants. A large 
share of this hay was fed out in open fields and in 
woods, where the wants of camp life demanded 
large fires and the felling of many trees for cabins 
as well as firewood. Grass seed, scattered on fresh 
land, and manured by thousands of horses and tens 
of thousands of soldiers, would naturally develop 
vigorous plants, and cause them to spread rapidly, 
with deep roots in the soil. 
Hay formed in a good degree from Kentucky blue 
grass and Virginia evergreen, has yielded the best 
pasture grasses, and those most ready to spread their 
light Beeds far aud wide over the plains, hills and 
valleys of the sunny South. I saw many cattle, sheep 
and young horses feeding on these war-begotten, 
luxuriant pastures in the States of Virginia and 
Tennessee, between Chattanooga and the Potomac. 
One may trace Sherman’s line of march from the 
Tennessee river to Atlanta, and thence almost to 
Savannah, by the green herbage developed from the 
well seeded hay led to the horses that belonged to 
the Union army. 
Thus, with the extension of modern, European 
ideas over Southern plantations, European (/ratux, 
the true basis ot ihe white man s civilization aud 
social life, are planted on and near the impoverished 
old fields of an extirpated European institution, 
where they are most needed to rejuvinato the soil j 
Blodget must correct the errors in his valuable 
work on American Climatology. Flint must do 
the same in his work on the Grasses, and a score of 
A recent number of the Rural contains por¬ 
traits of Dorking fowls, a breed I have kept for over 
twenty years; and while during the same time I 
have tried nearly every other breed, I have yet to 
find one their equal in all respects. They arc hardy, 
good layers, kind mothers, acquire full size within 
eight months, and frequently I have had birds that at 
sLx months would weigh, dressed, over six pounds. 
I have long wondered and continue to wonder at 
the stupidity- of the gre«t majority of those who 
The gallant editor of the Germantown Telegraph, 
now that the din of political strife is over for the 
present, by way of keeping up his muscle turns his 
attention to agriculture, and alter quoting from 
one of my late articles this sentence:—“The most 
valuable lime for agricultural purposes is shell lime 
or that made from burning oyster or clam shells,” 
makes the following amiable criticism r — “ We 
fancy this will cause a smile among the farmers of 
New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, where these 
shells do most abound, and where there 
keep fowls, when from, year to year they continue 
to keep and breed only the common, small sized 
birds,—denominated barn-door fowls. Occasionally 
1 find a cross of Shanghai, but It is to increase the 
ungaiuliness Of the original Shanghai, without im¬ 
proving the common barnyard breed. If onr poul¬ 
try breeders could once be induced to stock their 
yards with the Speckled Dorkings I have no hesita¬ 
tion in assorting that it would add one-half to the 
value of the meat product, without increasing the 
cost of producing, and the meat would be more 
delicate and tender when obtaine l Irom birds of 
only six months old, iu place of, as now, from birds 
one and two years old. Frank Amov 
is more 
common lime used as a fertilizer than elsewhere. 
Such a statement made by a voluminous writer, in 
the lace oi the fact patent to every farmer, is not 
calculated to win confidence in his other statements 
and recommendations.” 
Well, suppose the farmers of the shell region do 
use common lime, does this prove that shell lime is 
not best? Do tanners, everywhere and always, 
