ILVol. XL— No. 1634.} NEW YORK, MAY 21, 1881. fPRICE FIVE GENTS 
-----1_1____ l $2,00 PER YEAR, 
___[Entered according to Act of Oongresn, In the year 1881. by the Rural New-Yorkar. In the office of the Librarian of fJongreaw at Waahlmrton.] 
Jfarm ^lonorag. 
NOTES FROM THE RURAL FARM. 
As we pen these notes, a gentle steady rain 
is falling to gladden the hearts of farmers. It 
wa6 much needed. Oats, owing to the back¬ 
ward season were sown late; the groond was 
dry, so that their germination was so slow as 
to endanger the prospects of even a fair crop 
had the dry weather continued a week longer. 
The grass crop too—so sensitive at this season 
to drought—is now receiving all the rain that 
is needed- Our present experiments with oats 
will give us a fine opportunity of judging of 
the advantages or disadvantages of thick or 
thin eeediug. Some plots received but three- 
quarters of a bushel of seed per acre—others as 
high as three bushels. But thiB is a question 
that must ever rest upon the fertility or pov¬ 
erty of the soil, its mechanical character, the 
kind of manure used whether farm or com¬ 
mercial fertilizers, moisture, drainage, etc. 
If we could have a soil in every way adapted 
to oats and could control the BeasonB, no 
doubt less than a buBhcl of seed to the acre 
would serve. As, however, unfavorable con¬ 
ditions are encountered, we must make up by 
thicker seeding what is hazarded thereby. 
How easy it is for even the best of farmers 
to arrive at wrong conclusions I A new method 
or implement tried one season under condi¬ 
tions epecially favorable to its success, is very 
likely to induce an undue valuation of that 
method or implement until by a disastrous 
failure, or so, its real worth is ascertained. 
The roller is with us a very valuable imple¬ 
ment on certain fields and during dry weather. 
To harrow, roll and harrow a dry field will 
effect a finer pulverization of the soil than any 
number of harrowinga alone. Again, a sandy 
soil may be advantageously rolled, if dry, after 
sowing. The soil and seed are 
thus brought into contact or 
closer contact, and a speedier 
if not a surer germination is 
the consequence. But if the 
soil is adhesive or wet, or even 
moist, then the roller, we think, 
would do more harm than 
good. 
The surface is compacted 
—cemented as might almost be 
said. The access of air is less 
free; rain instead of passing 
through it readily, is retained 
upon ihe surface long enough 
still further to glue the par¬ 
ticles together, as it were, and 
to present a surface which is 
soon baked and hardened by 
the sun’B rays. 
The severily of the past Win¬ 
ter has well tested the endur¬ 
ance of our mauy kinds of 
wheat, not only os regards 
their power to resist mere cold, 
but which are best adapted to 
light or sandy soils, which to 
lowlands, which to poorly 
drained land. Indeed, the in¬ 
formation already obtained 
has repaid us for the lime and 
labor which the experiments 
have involved. This subject, 
however, will prove more ac¬ 
ceptable to our readers if con¬ 
sidered later. 
♦ —— 
FAST PLOWINO, OR FAITHFUL. 
All day long have I followed the plow, 
watching each furrow tarn with assiduous 
care, and on stony places backing my team 
whenever the plow, striking a stone, got the 
advantage of me, now and then loosening a 
large one and lifting it to the top of the fur¬ 
row. Although the field is only 30 or 40 rods 
long, I cannot readily urge my team to take a 
furrow across without stopping once—I never 
carry a whip. I say this to draw attention to 
the amount of soil they are turning in the fur¬ 
row, which is about a cubic foot to the foot, 
actually nine or ten inches deep and thirteen 
wide. The plow throws up now and then the 
yellow soil at the bottom of the furrow, which 
in this land is of the same consistency as the 
upper soil for at least a foot—gravelly loam. 
The team I am using is one of common size, 
and, of course, the horses are doing nearly 
their utmost and require very great care, and 
not the least attention is given to their breasts 
and collars to prevent galling. The team which 
my mau is using is a heavy one, but the horses 
are already galled, though they walk faster 
and do more work. 
I write the above thus to indicate some par¬ 
ticulars of our work. It gives me pleasure to 
look back on my furrow and see the soil reefed 
up true and slick, and the apex of each furrow 
sliceeven with the top of the rest—an achieve¬ 
ment the make of plows of to-day can so read¬ 
ily accomplish if rightly rigged and operated. 
What a grand improvement on the plow in use 
when I began plowing 10 years ago! The 
finest sight of all In plowing, to my fancy, is 
where the furrows are all smooth and give a 
SECOND 6TORT OF COTTAGE.—FIS. 254. 
very regular appearance, and yet the ground 
is dotted here and there by large stones and 
small bowldeis which the plowman has lifted 
to the surface. In doing the above plowing I 
would not expect to get over more than one 
acre per day. If a workman ou our farm 
should report plowing two acres per day, I 
should feel like- inspecting it at once. 
Imagine my surprise, then, when a neighbor, 
on his way to town towards snn-down, stopped 
at my field and stated that he was doing rail¬ 
road business at plowing, turning over “mighty 
close on three acres per team per day.” Two 
teams plowed 18} acres from Monday morn¬ 
ing, April ISth, to four o’clock p. m. the fol¬ 
lowing Wednesday, each day drawing a lumber 
wagon two miles and back, aud, n deducting 
one hour and a-half for nooning, makiug about 
nine hours of plowing per day, or 25 hours for 
the 18} acreB. I am generally too busy to ex¬ 
amine my neighbors'plowing closely, but es 
soon as I could I turned inspector of fast plow¬ 
ing, and tramped that farm over, and although 
I did not get all around before twilight, I can 
68 y that, in my judgment, it was awful. The 
13} acres were corn stubble, undragged before 
plowing; level ground, gravelly, and in ore 
part clayey, without any stones. But the 
plowed lot presented the appearance of a bil¬ 
lowy sea; every little while a long channel ex¬ 
tended at places nearly across the lot, and 
here there would be space of a foot, or even 
two feet, from the apex of one ridge or furrow 
slice to that of the next, and here and there I 
saw a curved pit making a depression about 
the size and depth of the place in which the 
rower is seated in a fine race boat. One of 
these ridgeB I scraped off and found a narrow 
ridge of the surface soil which had not been 
*cut and turned by the plow. The dead furrows 
were not filled up by turning back three cr 
four furrows. Iu brief, the plowmen had been 
taking enormously wide and shallow furrows 
in corn stubble. Now, this cannot be done 
nearly as well as in clover sod or even wheat 
stubble. On passing into the next field I found 
the plows in the furrow. The plowing ap¬ 
peared pretty good here in wheat stubble; but 
on stepping into the furrow and walking along, 
I found it would hardly average ankle-deep— 
no galled horses here. On an adjoining hill¬ 
side the plowing gave evidence of some of 
those mammoth furrows which can so readily 
be rolled down in such a place. After tum¬ 
bling about in the furrows a little longer in the 
fast-receding twilight, I decamped with many 
remarks made to myself. 
Now is this fast kind of business—which 
some of our excellent modern tools assist very 
much in doing—ideal farming ? Are we all to 
be classed together as farmers, or is there a 
soil-loving class, called agriculturists, who do 
not seek to hurry through and get done, to 
“go a-fishing” or to “ take it 
easier,” but who expect never 
to get through, and, indeed, nev¬ 
er want to, only in so far as to 
attend to each crop in its sea¬ 
son, who have no choice of 
work so long as it appertains 
to the growth and care of crops 
or farm improvements ? 
After all. does the extra labor 
pay in extra crops, above a 1 
extra connected costs? That 
neigbbor of mine, whose plow¬ 
ing wa3 so careless, raises good 
crops, and no year passes with¬ 
out his boasting on something. 
Comparatively little money is 
expended on his crops. He will 
drill the above field after har¬ 
rowing but ouce. Of course, it 
is not probable he would 
change these methods unless 
he could see that excellent 
tillage gave nearly double the 
yield, and then it would be al¬ 
most impossible to convince 
him that the Rusal, or any 
other agricultural paper, is a 
useful journal. Agrioola. 
M «- 
Blowing out Stumps.—L. S. 
writes us from Clinton Co., 
Michigan, that he has just 
cleaned one of his fields of a 
lot of stumps that has been an 
eyesore and au annoyance. For 
the purpose he used dynamite cartridges put 
up in waterproof oiled muslin, much like a 
candle in appearance. With a crowbar he 
bored a hole under the stump, inserted a piece 
of cartridge about an inch in diameter and 
from two to four inches long, according to the 
size of the stump, exploded it by means of 
a percussion cap inserted iu one end, and 
the stamp was blown cut., often in fragments. 
ELEVATION OF COTTAGE.—Fig. 25S. 
