TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
utilize them, 
To the first of these causes 
of advancement, the agricultural press, 
here and abroad, has contributed not a 
little by diligently recording suggestive 
facts and significant results of various 
practical experiments as well as by afford¬ 
ing to investigators the stimulating en¬ 
couragement inseparable from a hearty 
recognition of the beneficent purposes of 
their researches and the consciousness 
that their discoveries would be at once 
brought faithfully to the notice of those 
who would thankfully profit by them. 
By no other means has this been so 
promptly and efficiently accomplished as 
through agricultural periodicals. For one 
farmer who has become acquainted with 
valuable discoveries in agricultural science 
or practice by poring over the works in 
which they are technically described, a 
hundred have been benefited by them 
through a more lucid accofint contained 
in their family papers. In these, as a rule, 
not only are all the successive scientific 
discoveries relating to the occupation of 
their patrons, described in a popular style 
and at sufficient length for all practical 
purposes, but the experiments of hun¬ 
dreds and the experience of thousands of 
farmers, instead of remaining confined 
singly to a few in each neighborhood, are 
made collectively the common property 
of all. These, if really valuable, are of 
advantage not only to the present genera¬ 
tion, but to all that shall succeed it; for 
knowledge is cumulative, and each fresh 
acquisition becomes a permanent addition 
to the ever-increasing fund that shall 
bless future ages. 
The information in this way obtained 
is beneficial, not only to the readers of 
agricultural periodicals, but often, also, 
to mauy of their neighbors who still cher¬ 
ish an antediluvian prejudice against,what 
they are pleased to stigmatize as “ book 
farming.” It is a well known character- 
one of the limited opportunities that hu¬ 
manity vouchsafes itself to supply its 
own precepts with an example to match. 
It has all the fascination of a Chinese 
puzzle : one knows the pieces are there, 
but the odds are mainly against the final 
result being in accordance with the beau¬ 
tifully colored plan. 
There are several prominent moral 
blemishes that, by general consent, are. 
singled out, for the especial attention of 
the New Year reformer. He know r B in¬ 
tuitively that they are false gods, and 
however lustily their priests may cry 
aloud iu their favor, no vocal gymnastics 
can befog the fact that the cloven foot is 
as a number nine for prominence. Pro¬ 
fanity is the chief, perhaps, of the 
faults to be obliterated. It is set forth 
in the preamble that morals and the 
usages of the best society are inimical to 
swearing, and it is resolved that the un¬ 
clean practice be, and is hereby abated. 
At this point the curtain falls' to sweet 
music, and the first act ends promis¬ 
ingly. 
Thus far, the triumph of will over in¬ 
clination has been so easy and gratifying, 
that the reformer, emulating Saint Pat¬ 
rick, concl tides to drive out all the snakes, 
while his, so to speak, hand is in. He 
braces up and issues a pronunciamento 
against ardent spirits, a ukase against 
tobacco, and finally runs amuck among 
an entire schedule of great and little sins, 
winding up iu a fine economic frenzy that 
attacks the petty cash acoount, doing agiie 
sums in mental arithmetic that show nat¬ 
tering results three hundred and sixty- 
five days from date. 
After arriving at these conclusions, the 
reformer rests upon his oars, and standing 
in “ uffish thought” awhile, bethinks him¬ 
self of the day and its duties. Carefully 
the swallow-tailed symbol of convention- 
a cause of vitiating the air of such rooms. 
That the amount of oxygen liberated by 
plants it?, even though the room were 
packed with them, inappreciable is well 
set forth by Max von Pettenkofer, in 
the Contemporary Beview, in the remark 
that “ the power of twenty pots of plants 
would not be nearly sufficient to neu¬ 
tralize tbe carbonic acid exhaled by a 
single child in a given time. If children 
were dependent on the oxygen given oft’ 
by plants, they would soon be suffocated.” 
t Pettenkofer asked permission of tbe 
Royal Winter Garden in Munich to make 
experiments for several days at various 
hours of the day and night. He found 
the result to be that the proportion of 
carbonic acid iu the air iu the Winter 
Garden was almost as high as in the open 
air. This surprised him, but he hoped 
at any rate to have one of his traditional 
ideas confirmed, viz., to find less carbonic 
acid in the day than in the night, sup¬ 
ported by the fact that the green portions 
of plants under the intluence of light de¬ 
compose carbonic aeid and develop oxy¬ 
gen. But even here he was disappointed. 
He generally found carbonic acid increas- 
PKACT1CA1. ohpahtmjsnts: 
Luxeruli'iurK Garden. Paris. The. 21 
Aenculltire and Education in the United States 22 
Western Kami Topics. 23 
Jottings h; Klrhv homestead. 2 
Manure. Something About. 23 
Farming System in. 23 
Topic*. Klinil. 23 
'V hi ms a nd Pacts. 24 
Joltings from My Note-Book. 24 
Stable, A Warm. 24 
Window Plums. *2=> 
Bulbs for the Flower Garden. 25 
Daphne ludica . 25 
Catalogues. Xc., .Received. 25 
Sifting- from tbe Kitchen Fire. 20 
Recipes.. 20 
Cures. Simple... 20 
North Carolina, From. 26 
Rural Special Reports. 20 
Bees, Wintering... .. 27 
Bees Again, My. 27 
Insectivorous Birds. 27 
Fruit Culture, Tbe Great Lakes and. 27 
Turnips, Cheap....... 27 
Editorial Paoe: 
The Agricultural Press. 26 
Good Resolutions. 28 
Plants in Rooms. 28 
Notes—Brevities... 28 
Literary : 
Poetry. ..29, 31.31 
A Chinese Corn-Doctor. 28 
Her Mother's Secret. 29 
The Old Hag . 3 
Sallie, Sister Wants a Chew. 30 
For the Benefit of the Nose. .. 30 
Recent Literature. 31 
For Women. 31 
Girls arid Their t- Beaux”. 31 
Home Decoration*, etc. 31 
Usefulness of Old Maids. 31 
Answers, to Correspondents. 32 
Newr. t»l llie WeeK. 32 
Publisher's Notices. 33 
Various.. ;)3 
Markets...,. 33 
Beading for the Young. 34 
The Janitor’s Visit. . ;tl 
The Rain-Drop. . 3 i 
Letters from Boys and Girls... 34 
Puzzler. 
Summit) Heading. 
Notin Vain.. 
How About Our Faith V 
Peraonals. 
Wit and Jfumor. 
\dverti*einenl8.... 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY, 
RURAL PUBLISHING CO., 
78 Duane Street, New York City 
SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 1878. 
Our readers will not thank us, perhaps, for 
permitting our Notes aud Brevities to be crowd¬ 
ed out. The truth is we have never felt so great 
a pressure upon our space as at present. 
We respectfully call the attention of our read¬ 
ers to the fact that.the Rural New Yorker is 
discontinued at the expiration of the subscrip¬ 
tion term. 
W r E particularly call the reader's attention to 
a series of artioles by Professor I. P. Roberts of 
Cornell University, the first of which is present¬ 
ed upon page 22 of the present number. 
THE AGRICULTURAL PRESS. 
Bdt little over three-quarters of a cen¬ 
tury has elapsed since, in the year 1800, 
the Farmer’s Magazine, the progenitor of 
the multitudinous family of agricultural 
periodicals of to-day, entered on its use¬ 
ful career in the city of Edinburgh. In 
the succeeding half century the actual 
productive power of Great Britain, iu the 
article of wheat alone, increased to the 
extent of supporting an additional popu¬ 
lation of seven millions. Down to our 
time this development has continued 
though, perhaps, at a slower pace, owing 
NOTES 
most farmers would have lost neither 
pleasure nor profit had Faust and his co¬ 
laborers never lived. Nowadays, how¬ 
ever, a habit of reading has been widely 
developed among the rural population, 
not a little through the agency of agricul¬ 
tural papers, many of which furnish 
reading matter which, in valuable infor¬ 
mation, purity of tone, and variety of in¬ 
terest, will compare favorably with any 
species of periodical literature. 
ticular district by bringing into competi¬ 
tion with its crops the cheaper productions 
of other regions. In nearly every other de¬ 
partment of agriculture there has been a 
like advance, and in some, especially in 
root culture, even a more rapid improve¬ 
ment has been made. 
Tin's marvelous development of the ag¬ 
ricultural resources of the country, has 
been mainly brought about by two causes, 
both of which have been equally beneficial 
here—discoveries in agricultural science 
as well a8 of better methods of tillage, 
cropping, and breeding, coupled with a 
speedy aud widespread dissemination of 
these discoveries among those who could 
GOOD RESOLUTIONS 
PLANTS IN ROOMS 
It is not necessary to turn the leaves 
of an almanac, or to consult the signs of 
the Zodiac to be apprised of the fact 
that about this time tnousands of clever 
fellows are framiug good resolutions 
whose infiuenoes will modify their lives 
lor the next twelvemonth. 
This time-worn custom is honored in 
the observance usually for periods of 
time varying from fifteen minutes to an 
entire Jay. It may be said to constitute 
