MOORE'S RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
NOV. 2 
285 
SOME THINGS IN TENNESSEE. 
I have been for several days looking at 
the country about Nashville, which ha* 
been famous for it s agriculture and stock 
raising for many years; as this was the 
pioneer settlement of the State, and the 
lands in the valley of the Cumberland were 
very inviting. 
Among the earliest settlers were Mr. 
Harding, father of the present Gen. W. C. 
Harping, long famous as a breeder of blood 
horses, and Mark It. Cock rill, father of 
the present, brothers, Benjamin, Mark 
and James. The original domain of the 
Hardings was a tract of 1,400 acres, to 
which the present proprietor has added, 
from time to time, until the estate covers 
3,780 acres. Nearly all of it, is of a very 
fert ile soil and hounded by a rim of wooded 
hills which stand like sentinels about its 
borders and make —as Gen. Harping says 
—very quiet neighbors, as ho likes elbow 
room and does not believe in the policy of 
dense population. Thia domain is inclosed 
by a substantial stone wall, and several of 
the sub-divisions are of the same material. 
The whole is traversed by streams of living 
water; much of it is in open woods pasture, 
and there is a deer park of t. r >0 acres, in 
which are 100 head of deer, nearly as wild 
as if In their nat ive state. 
By the courtesy of Gen. Jackson, son-in- 
law of Gen. Harping, whose guest I was 
for a night and morning, 1 was enabled to 
look this estate all over on horseback, in 
company with the former, who has aban¬ 
doned the sword, which was the profession 
of his lifetime before and during the late 
unpleasantness, for the plantation saddle 
and the domestic home. 
Gen. Harding's system of cultivation 
has been quite thorough, both as to his 
grains and grasses, and his land, after all 
those years of cropping, is in good tilth. 
The timber has not bean sacrificed, as the 
provident proprietor is always mindful of 
the rights of posterity. 
1 had been for ovei twenty years familiar 
with the name, and fame of Mark It. Cock- 
rill as a breeder of fine-WOOled sheep, and 
it was with no small satisfaction that 1 fell 
in with an invitation from Benj. F. Cock- 
u ill, his son, to make a night Hi the old 
homestead. The veteran and pioneer wool 
grower of Tennessee departed this life a 
year ago, but he has left in his three sons 
an assurance that the work of his lifetime 
will not fall backward. It was a treat to 
pasture my eyes upon a tribe of such sheep, 
bred with so much of skill and care for so 
many years. 
Before the war the sheep Hocks of Mr. 
Cock kill numbered 7,000 head, but the 
soldiers of both armies foraged upon them 
until a large number were killed, and the 
present llock consists of S50 head. The tiock 
was made up of a Saxony base, which was 
repeatedly reinforced by importations of 
Siberian, German and Spanish Merinos, al¬ 
ways breeding for form, size and lleece, un¬ 
til the present quality of the llock would 
almost tempt even Carl Hevne, the old 
shepherd of Mr. Chamberlain, to desert 
the Hudson and join the Cock it ills in 
Tennessee. Besides the best of sheep the 
Cock kills have some of the host blood 
horses I ever laid my hands or my eyes up¬ 
on, combining fineness with great substance 
and durability. They have also very fine 
81iort-Hom catt le of the best blood. 
The landed estate of the late Marker! 
CocKRH.it lies In a great bend of the Cum¬ 
berland Jtiver, and consists of 5,500 acres 
of very fertile land. This estate, like that 
of Gen. Harding's, lies some six miles from 
Nashville. 
Of t he Tennessee State Fair, which is now 
in progress at Nashville, 1 have only space 
to say It is fairly made up of very handsome 
horses, pretty good Short-llorn cattle, a 
handsome show of vegetables, grains, plants, 
household manufactures, etc. The attend¬ 
ance reaches four or five thousand when the 
horses are to perform on the t rack.—s. n. n. 
From Tennessee to Alabama. 
In the country immediately south of 
Nashville, commences the Cotton-growing 
region of Tennessee, which, years ago, was 
a more productive crop than it is now, on 
the old lands in that latitude; still a great 
many planters stick to it like second na¬ 
ture, when, if they would put their farms 
in order for stock growing, they would im¬ 
prove their condition—that is to say, both 
the condit ion of the farms and the people. 
Hr. M. W. Phillips said to me, that South¬ 
ern men must have the tops of their heads 
taken off and cleaned out of their cotton 
ideas before Southern agriculture would 
advance in a healthy way. The pungent 
Doctor is partly right, and entirely so as 
relates to Middle Tennessee; but in the 
more productive lands of Georgia, Alabama, 
and Arkansas, cotton is the most remuner¬ 
ative plantation crop that can bo grown, 
always premising that the planter has suffi¬ 
cient gumption mid capital to carry on his 
business to ad vantage. But the people of 
the South are poor, and what with their old 
time pride and their present poverty, they 
are staggering under a burden too heavy to 
be borne, and cursing the stars which rule 
their hard destiny. 
From Nashville to Montgomery 1 traveled 
over a new routo just opened through the 
heart of Alabama, by a railway from Deca¬ 
tur, the whole line operated by the Louis¬ 
ville and Nashville Railroad Company. 
This great Southern route passes through 
the rich mineral region of the mountain 
district of Alabama, and is also the most 
direct rout e to the Gulf, through the cen¬ 
ter of the cotton region. The road is built 
for a heavy business, and it will have such 
a business. The coal and iron are being 
largely worked, and the long-time silent 
and solitary mountains of Alabama are 
becoming the abode of busy workmen in 
the mining of coal and the production of 
iron. 
This is the season of cotton picking, and 
I see large fields of snowy whiteness from 
which the staple is rapidly going into bales. 
But the yield has been very much dimin¬ 
ished by the ravages of the boll worm 
which followed the rain storms and floods 
of July, As there is nothing else to fall 
back upon when the cotton fails, in this 
region, t he whole populat ion suffers deeply 
from this cause; but the people are slow 
to learn that their only independence from 
this state of affairs lies in a more diversi¬ 
fied system of agricultural production. 
The city of Montgomery, from which 1 
now write, is the most uniformly well-built 
and tasteful of any city 1 have seen in all 
the South. It is situated upon a beautiful 
elevation, which commands a view of the 
surrounding country within u radius of 
forty miles. s. d. h. 
Oct. 12,1872. 
- ♦-*-4 - 
UNION TELEGRAPH COLLEGE. 
O Berlin, O., has long been famous for 
its literary college, where the experiment 
of co-education of the sexes has been suc¬ 
cessfully demonstrated. That city now has 
another college, called the Union College, 
where young men and women are taught 
practical telegraphy iu all its branches. 
Our illustration (see page I486) shows the in¬ 
terior of the new operating room for stu¬ 
dents, sixty feet iu length by twenty-four 
in width, handsomely fitted up and recent¬ 
ly opened on West College street. The 
students in attendance number from sixty 
to one hundred and sixty. When gradua¬ 
ted they are guaranteed positions. The 
students can enter at anytime, and a life 
scholarship may be hud for $35. Board is 
very cheap in Oberliu, being only $2.50 to 
$3.25 per week. The telegraph business is 
developing with such wonderful rapidity, 
operators are in constant demand, and we 
know of no better or cheaper place for both 
sexes to learn the art than iu Oberliu. A 
line of telegraph, seventy miles in length, 
with stations, is under the control of the 
College for the benefit of the students. 
Over this line they are taught to transact 
all branches of the business. 
Our Western Associate Editor, Col. S. D. 
Harris, has had two children, a son and 
daughter, educated at this college; both 
are now tilling good positions. Writing to 
the Rural, ho 6ays: 
“As the whole familj 7 connection aro in 
telegraphic and railroad business, we are 
fully competent to tell what we know about 
such things in general, and us we have vis¬ 
ited the Union Telegraph College, at Ober- 
lin, we oan say, from personal observation, 
that a most thorough training is given to 
the students of that Institution. Wn. C. 
A. Shearman is the President, and A. G. 
D. Shearman is the Principal, assisted by 
competent professors and teachers. The 
College is supported entirely by telegrapli 
men, and as such is practical and responsi¬ 
ble.’’ 
-444- 
MAKE A NOTE OF IT. 
Keeping a diary is troublesome business, 
but keeping a small blank book always in 
your side pocket, with a pencil in it, is easy 
enough. In this book a man should set 
down every important item of business 
which is necessary to be looked after. For 
example, 'such needed repairs about the 
farm, garden, orchard, dwelling, barn, and 
other out-door affairs. Again, those who 
write for Rural papers, often have ideas 
and subjects which present themselves to 
the mind, and which they would like to 
put in due form for publication at some 
other time. A good plan is to make a note 
of this in n memorandum book, whenever 
and wherever the thought may suggest it¬ 
self; and then, at your leisure, you can give 
that thought ample expression in words, 
and thereby benefit others by giving them 
the results of your experience. Besides 
these things, such a hook is useful as a re¬ 
pository for messages given one by ot hers, 
or as a safe place to put down thoughts as 
they occur, of such matters of business or 
pleasure as one may desire, at some other 
time and place, to look into. 1 have car¬ 
ried such a book for years, and find it a 
great help to my memory—so much so, in¬ 
deed, that I would not willingly lay it aside. 
Try it awhile, and judge for yourself. 
Woodman. 
rxjmjm (Exctnomij. 
MEASURING CORN IN THE CRIB. 
Geo. A. Bitklin asks us to give a cor¬ 
rect rule for the measurement of corn (in 
the ear) in a crib. Geo. E. Waring, in bis 
Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Manual, gives the 
following rules: 
When the crib is equilateral, multiply the 
length in inches liy the breadth in inches, 
and that again by t he hight, in inches, and 
divide the product by 2,748 (the number of 
cubic inches in a heaped bushel), and the 
quotient will be the number of heaped bush¬ 
els of ears. Take two-thirds of the quo¬ 
tient for the number of bushels of shelled 
corn. This rule assumes that three heaping 
half-bushels of ears make one st ruck bushel 
of shelled corn; hut some claim that two 
heaping bushels of ears to one of shelled 
corn is more correct. This depends upon 
the kind of corn, shape of the ear, etc. 
When the crib is Hared at the sides, the 
following rule is given Multiply half the 
sum of the top and bottom widths iu inches 
by the perpeudicuJur hight in inches, and 
that again by the length in luobes, ujul di¬ 
vide the product by 2,748, and the quotient 
will be the number of heaped bushels of ears. 
Take two-thirds of the quotient, for the 
number of bushels of shelled corn, as before. 
Another rule, which farmers in some lo¬ 
calities have adopted, is: — Multiply the 
length, breadth and hight of a crib, in feet, 
together; multiply this product by four; 
strike off the right figure, and the result 
will he shelled bushels. 
We may say, with reference to these 
three rules, that they are and can be only 
approximate; for corn so varies in charac¬ 
ter (size of cob, etc.) that the result of 
measurement in the ear must vary. 
- 4-44 - 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
Measuring Grain in the Bin,—A cor¬ 
respondent of the Rural Californian gives 
the following rule for measuring grain in 
the bin:—First get tho acting number of 
cubic /( i f, which is done by multiplying the 
interior length, breadth and depth together, 
then eight-tenths of the cubic feet will be 
the number of bushels that the bin will con¬ 
tain, or eight-tenths of the cubic feet of 
grain will be the number of bushels. To 
get eight-tenths, multiply the cubic feet by 
eight, place a period before tho first right 
hand figure, and you have the bushels and 
tenths of bushels. If you measure corn on 
the cob, allow one-half for the cob, so that 
four-tenths of the cubic feet will be the 
number of bushels of shelled corn. Illus¬ 
trate: — Bin lfixlfixlO feet, multiply these 
together, product one thousand; of which 
sum eight-tenths or 0.8 will be bushels, and 
four-tenths or 0.4 if corn in the ear; that 
is, 800 or 400 bushels, as the corn may he 
shelled or on the cob. 
Long Furrows in Plowing.—A German 
agricultural journal prints a plea for long 
furrows. The turning of the plow and the 
commencing of a new furrow require more 
exertion iu the plowman and the team than 
continued work on a straight line; and how 
groat may really be the loss of time from 
frequent interruptions in short turns may 
he shown by t he following calculations :—In 
a field 225 feet long, five and a-half hours 
out of ten are used in re-directing the plow; 
with a length of 575 feet, four hours are 
sufficient for the purpose; and when the 
plow can proceed without interruption for 
80U feet, only one and a-half hours of the 
daily working time are consumed. 
cicntijic ami Useful 
TO PREVENT CRICKETS DESTROYING 
CLOTHES. 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Rural New- 
Yorker asks for a remedy to prevent 
crickets from destroying clothes. For want 
of a better I will give him one which was 
successful a long time since. A Mr. It-, 
moving into the village of Penn Van, this 
State, found it necessary to occupy for a 
short t ime an old mansion where successive 
generations of crickets had lived and flour¬ 
ished and sung time out of mind. The first 
night of the arrival of the family the hired 
man and boy deposited their stockings on 
tho hearth as they retired to rest. The 
next morning revealed sundry depredations 
which were at, once charged to t he crickets. 
The hired man vowed revenge. Accord¬ 
ingly the next night, after the family had 
retired, he laid a train of crumbs of bread 
around the whole circle of the old fireplace, 
and then followed it by a train of gunpow¬ 
der in close proximity to the bread. The 
crickets were not long iu discovering the 
feast which was so suddenly spread for 
their benefit, and gathered in large num¬ 
bers on the occasion, doubtless chirping 
over the agreeable change iu their diet 
from dirty stockings the night before. But 
a change came over the. spirit of their 
dreams. In the silence of the night, while 
ill the hight of their revelry, the match 
was applied. The explosion t hat followed 
was unprecedented in the annals of crick- 
etdorn. Heads, legs and wings were scat¬ 
tered in every direction. It was a regular 
Waterloo victory. A few old ones, who 
were slow to the feast, escaped, and, the 
story goes, for a few following evenings 
chanted a requiem to their slaughtered 
friends, and then abandoning the old chim¬ 
ney, left the boys in peaceful possession of 
the ground forever. R. 
Lairdsville, Oneida Co., N. Y. 
- 4-44 - 
STONE-COLORED WASH. 
In reply to your correspondent, “A. B., 
Rending, Pa.,” asking for a recipe for a 
durable stone-colored wash suitable for 
fenced, 1 can give him one apparently as 
durable as stone, or, at least, more durable 
than oil paint I used at the same time on 
another building. 1 painted a hoard fence 
and a rough oat-building two years ago, and 
it is nearly as good to-day as it was when 
finished, and it coats comparatively nothing. 
The fence is a common, rough board fence, 
with a cap-hoard nailed on the top; and I 
have leaned on the fence a hundred times, 
and it will not. soil u black coat, or any gar¬ 
ment, by so doing, hut appears slaty, with 
no disposition to crumble. 
Take two pounds of flaxseed, and boil it 
in a common wash boiler for an hour or 
more, in four pails of water; after thor¬ 
oughly boiling, strain it into any old tight 
barrel; put in one peck, in hulk, of common 
land plaster, one peck of nicely sifted wood 
ashes, one quart of wheat flour, and one 
quart of salt. Put in your barrel a good 
stick as large as a hand spike, and stir it 
till it is as thick as cream; let it stand in 
the sun for a week, and every time you go 
by the barrel stir it thoroughly, and by tho 
end of the week it won t settle, but will 
remain incorporated, and is tit for use. 
The above was made in quite warm weath¬ 
er, and worked up like sponge hatter, two 
Or three times, before I put it on; but a 
good stirring would, in a minute or two, 
reduce it again to its creamy consistency. 
It is now as hard as slate, and ia certainly 
valuable in preserving the wood, and is a 
cheap luxury iu good looks for fences or 
second-class buildings, and I know it is no 
humbug. Hatton. 
Howell, Mich. 
- 444 - 
SCIENTIFIC AND USEFUL NOTES. 
Howto Clarify Honey.—The Druggists’ 
( ircular gives the following mode:—A good 
way to clarify honey is to add to two pounds 
of a mixture of equal parts of honey and 
water, one dram of carbonate of magnesia. 
After shaking occasionally during a couple 
of hours, the residue is allowed to settle, 
and tho whole filtered, when a beautiful 
clear filtrate is obtained, which may be 
evaporated in a water hath to the proper 
consistency. The only draw-back to this 
method is the length of time it takes to fil¬ 
ter the solution; and this may be much ab¬ 
breviated by taking the same amount of 
white clay instead of magnesia, when a 
nearly equally good article is obtained in 
muoh less time. 
