JULY 20 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY. 
Address RURAL PUBLISHING CO.. 
78 Duane Street, New York City. 
SATURDAY JULY 20, 1878. 
Many of our old subscribers have written to 
us requesting that we would sell them the 
Cricket Clock. Others have complained that 
the offer (now withdrawn) was of advantage 
only to new subscribers. In order to satisfy all 
so far as wo are able to do so, we have now the 
consent of the manufacturers of the clock to offer 
it to our subscribers —and to them only —until 
the 20th inat. at *1.75 each, delivered to the ex¬ 
press office. 
We desiro to make our respectful and very sin¬ 
cere thanks to the friends of the Rural New- 
Yorker, for the support they have rendered us 
during the present year. Our success is simply be¬ 
yond our expectation. We shall have no excuse 
whatever to offer if, for the last half of the year, 
the Rural should prove, in any respect, inferior 
to what it has been during the first half. 
Wf. offered, some time ago, to sell the cuts 
used in this Journal for ten cents the square 
inch. Many have requested ns to send proofs 
of our cuts. As we have upwards of ten thou¬ 
sand, we could not undertake to do so. Persons 
wishing to purchase, must select from files of 
the Rural New-Yorker. 
We have concluded to issue our index annual¬ 
ly for the future, and to give it more care and 
elaboration than heretofore. 
SANITARY PRECAUTIONS. 
It is said, on the authority of science, 
that the production of one hundred thou¬ 
sand pounds of gunpowder annually, is 
equivalent to t.he destruction in advance 
of five hundred thousand pounds of bread. 
We believe the production is really one 
hundred million pounds, which adds, of 
course, three ciphers to the total amount 
of the waste of bread. 
Gunpowder contains about seventy-five 
per cent, of saltpeter, which is equal to 
ten and two-tenths per cent, of combined 
nitrogen. Of this, nine and ninety-eight 
one hundredths, or about all of it, escapes 
in the form of free nitrogen, and is hence 
rendered useless. Therefore, every ounce 
of powder used destroys a certain quan¬ 
tity of food and makes it more difficult for 
the Micawbers of life to exist, as the 
chances for something other than starva¬ 
tion turning np, are very meager. 
A war not only quenches the vital spark 
of many useful lives, but destroys the 
chances of existence of generations to 
come. 
To put it in a homely way, we will say 
that if mankind buried five hundred mil¬ 
lion pounds of food in the earth, they 
would, of course, he guilty of heinous 
waste, but the nitrogen contained in it 
would still be of use in the future : if, on 
the other hand, they burn one-fifth as 
many pounds of gunpowder, they really 
commit a shocking crime, as they perma¬ 
nently diminish the amount of food the 
earth is capable of yielding. 
This is a serious consideration and 
should give pause to the more warlike 
spirits, while furnishing a brilliant argu¬ 
ment to the Peace Society. 
before being grazed, the owners having 
grown cotton, hemp, tobacco till the fer¬ 
tility was all extracted. It is absurd for 
farmers to talk or write about the merits 
of sneh soil as pastures, and all the argu¬ 
ments about such land paying for stock- 
raising, dairying, or fattening mutton or 
beef, is nonsense. Good meat, butter, 
wool or stock of any paying kind, must 
have rich, fat land to feed on ; but when¬ 
ever farmers’ possess a tract of land in 
every way ndapted for permanent pasture 
they can’t resist the inclination to plow, 
cultivate, and extract alt the plant-food, 
and then having seeded to timothy as the 
chief grass ami after having boasted of 
the fine meadow obtained, in two or three 
years they come to the chemist or agn- 
cnltnral press to know how to renovate 
the land. 
Virginia and other Southern 
States. — On account of the winters 
being so short in the Smith, there is a 
great advantage in the less expense in 
sheltering and feeding stock, and who¬ 
ever could take capital enough to buy a 
good variety of female animals at a cheap 
rate and purchase first-class, pure-bred 
males, might rest happily assured of 
success. In the horse department alone 
j a fortune could be made; for on a 
! farm of 300 to 400 acres, three-fourths 
original Blue-grass ; in addition to cattle 
and sheep a fine stud of mares, all in 
their prime for breeding, could be bought 
so as to produce anunally 30 foals which 
would 6ell at high prices and cost a mere 
trifle in raising, as there need be no ex¬ 
pense for grooms or attendants of any 
kind. 
NOTES. 
Among the sanitary precautions which 
should be observed m summer time, es¬ 
pecially by those resident in country 
places, perhaps none is more important 
than that they should breakfast before 
going out to work in the morning. Com¬ 
pliance with tins rule is particularly ben¬ 
eficial, in newly-settled districts, on flat- 
lying lands, on all river bottoms, and 
wherever vegetation is rank and of rapid 
growth. In early morning science aud 
experience alike prove that the mischiev¬ 
ous ingredients of the air are particularly 
active, while the human system is uuus- 
ally lax and debilitated aud proportion¬ 
ately liable to be injuriously affected by 
noxious atmospheric influences, a liabili¬ 
ty greatly lessened by the bracing up of 
the system produced by an early break¬ 
fast. 
In all places subject to miasma some 
of the settlers die yearly of it, while 
others live to a ripe old age, and an 
examination of the causes leading to 
these very diff erent results*, will, in al¬ 
most every case, show that an early 
breakfast holds probably the most promi¬ 
nent place. The Creoles of Louisiana, 
like the old settlers in Florida, rarely 
venture out of doors in the morning, in 
summer time, before taking at least a cup 
of strong coffee with biscuit or crackers ; 
the traveler foolish enough to venture 
before breakfast across the miasmatic 
Pontiue marshes near Rome, is pretty 
certain to die in a few days thereafter, 
whereas if fortified with breakfast, he may 
make the journey in safety. 
A few otfier brief hints on what one’s 
conduct should be in warm weather may 
not be out of placo. Keep the head cool 
in the suu, by placing in the hat a cab¬ 
bage leaf or wet cloth; after work, change 
the sweat-moistened clothing, and invig¬ 
orate the system with a daily bath. Avoid 
all carbonaceous, or heat-producing food, 
such as fat meats, butter, sugar etc., and 
eat liberally of vegetables,such as spinach, 
melons etc, as well as of ripe fruit, while 
eschewing carefully that which is unripe. 
In bathing be careful to put cotton or 
some other substance into the ears, for 
frequent injury to the hearing and some¬ 
times permanent deafness result from 
diving without such precaution. Keep 
the bowels open by a mild aperient, such 
as Turkey rhubarb, Epsom salts etc ; 
and it would also be well to keep on hand 
some diarrhea mixture. Keep cool in 
body, and especially keep cool in temper. 
A friend seeing these lines, remarked 
that he thought ninety-nine out of every 
hundred readers never acted on such 
advice. “ In that case” was the reply, 
“ the article was written for the sensible 
Poultry on a large scale.—Like 
everything else, poultry requires to have 
common sense used in its management. 
There is common sense in a few hens being 
kept by any man living in a city and hav¬ 
ing a small yard at tho b:<ck of his house 
where perhaps he has a stable with a pair 
of horses, but there would be folly in his 
having great numbers. There is good 
common souse in having a fine lot of 
fowls runuiug around every farm home¬ 
stead, but uoub in keeping 'so mauy as to 
bring on disease. There would be com¬ 
mon sense in placing 1000 hens in fami¬ 
lies of 50 over 200 acres, giving them full 
liberty to range where they pleaded, and 
and having their roosts so constructed 
that a yoke of oxen or a pair of horses 
could be hitched to them and haul them 
to a new site when crops growing near 
required the absence of the poultry, or 
when a coop had been a good while in 
one place, and the surroundings were be¬ 
coming saturated too much with th6 man¬ 
ure. On a large farm with springs and 
running streams of water, 10,000 might 
be kept, by persevering attention in mov¬ 
ing when necessary, and by plowing some 
ground all the while, near the fowls, and 
also by planting patches of rye in Sep¬ 
tember to give them greeu food through 
the winter, which would be available 
whenever the snow is not lying thereon. 
But it would be lolly for 10,000 or only 
10i)0 to be kept confined on a few acres, 
and expect anything but disaster. With 
ample range fowls will be healthy in 
small families and require little besides 
what they will find by foraging, at tho 
samo time they will lay eggs enough to 
make $2 per hen ; but confine them on a 
few acres and they will eat doable of 
purchased food and lay not more than 
75 cents’ worth of eggs per head in pro¬ 
portion to the close confinement. 
High Cultivation. —We speak of 
“ high cultivation ” as weakening to 
plants. Thus the strawberry disease 
lately brought to examination by the 
Messrs. Williams of Mt. Clair, N. J., 
is said to be induced by successive “ high 
cultivation.” What harm can it do ? If 
a man eat and drink too much, dyspepsia, 
gout, “ nervonsness,” or a general break¬ 
ing down, is attributed to “high living.” 
Strawberries, by many of our propaga¬ 
tors, and especially by many of those 
who have new “Hybrid Seedlings” to 
sell, literally gorge the soil in which 
they ore planted with all sorts of ma¬ 
nures, both barn-yard aud commercial. 
Are not such plants “living too high?” 
Mightn't the “ Brown Strawberry Rust ’ 
be to the strawberry plant what dyspep¬ 
sia, gout, “nervousness,” or a general 
break down is to the man plant ? 
Discriminating Wages. —Every 
farmer knows that some hands are worth 
more to him than others. Nevertheless, 
especially in busy times, he finds himself 
obliged to pay ail alike. The effect has 
been that of “leveling down” instead of 
“ leveliug nj>,” as Mr. Ccmirr expresses 
it, thereby destroying that energy and 
spirit which, in some men, are natural. 
It is no matter of surprise, therefore, to 
find our hired farm hands moviug about 
like turtles, and extremely ingenious in 
making a parade of diligent work stand 
in lieu of labor that may be judged by 
its results. Such is the tendency of re¬ 
wards that do not discriminate between 
the good, bad, and indifferent. 
BREVITIES. 
Give the poultry sh ido. 
Tomatoes j. it g..,od for chicks. 
Steam cultivation is rapidly extending in 
Eoglaad. 
« »» 
one. 
A SERIOUS CONSIDERATION. 
The most formidable argument against 
war, sulphurous Fourth of July celebra¬ 
tions, and any event that is accentuated 
by the combustion of gunpowder, is the 
absolute, irreooverable loss of nitrogen, or 
food-producing power. 
Give Your Girls a Chance.— Ex¬ 
perience is a valuable part of au education. 
Girls should early learn to purchase materi¬ 
als for their own cloth ing. Parents can ad¬ 
vise them at the start, but it will be a 
good plan for girls to learn to rely on 
their own judgment. Tho purchases can 
be talked over after they are made. Let 
your daughter, with a little advice, cut 
up a few yards of calico and make aprons 
and dresses, bed-quilte, even if there is a 
little waste and some poor fits. She will be 
likely to see her own mistakes and profit 
by them. Let her make some cakes and 
bread, and broil some meat and pop some 
corn, no matter if she does have to throw 
some into the swill pad. It is better to 
make a few small mistakes while young, 
in acquiring an education, than to grow 
np without experience. They must leam 
some time, or make great blunders during 
a good portion of their lives, when left to 
rely on themselves. Iu mauy respects, 
children are not trusted enough. They 
are “bossed ” too much, 
Renovating old pasture. — Pas¬ 
ture fields in the South as well as the 
North have most of them been exhausted 
The Agricultural Gazette (London) gives a 
picture of a Devon bull belonging to Viscount 
Falmouth, and the bull’s i r.o is “ The only 
Jones.” 
Samuel Rumph, of * I .rthallville, is credited 
with produoing th‘ at ripe Peach this season. 
The date was th , .u of May, and the variety 
the Early Aov-.. u. 
When r ■ v feathers oorne out, the old ones 
fall fr<' me wings which are not willing to 
ear r- o«n any longer, and afterwards the bird 
fli< o much the better.”— Liebig. 
Mr. R. B. Parsons thinks that a commission 
to obtain better acquaintance with our climate 
and coils, aud the wants of tree-growing iu this 
count ry, would be better than sending a commis¬ 
sion to Europe. 
It may be well to remind persons agricultur¬ 
ally Inclined, who contemplate visiting the Paris 
Exhibition, that M. Ville will receive all who are 
thus interested up to August 1st at his labora¬ 
tory, 18 Rue do Baffin. 
We have several times imported Melon seeds 
from England. Whether they are not so fresh 
as our own or those puroh 'Red here, or whether 
the Bea-voyage harms them, wo cannot say. But 
certain it is they are slower to germinate, and 
the present season mauy (seeds of mush-melons) 
have not germinated at alL 
The iiowers of Catalpa syrtngtefolia, now 
blooming, are white, striped with purple and 
*• splashed” with orange. They are borne in 
panacles nearly a foot in length and the treeB 
I preseut at this timo a beautiful appearanoe. 
{ The flowers remind one of Orchids. 
Asparagus beds are very often neglected after 
cutting is done. But they should be kept free 
from weeds and a strong growth, upon which 
their next year’s value depends, be insured by 
liberal top-dressings of manure. An application 
of liquid manure and salt at this time would 
prove of great service to beds which are not 
fairly vigorous. 
Dr. SturtkvanT says: “One of the best re¬ 
sults which could happen to onr talking agricul¬ 
turists would be to sweep from existence the 
idea that cheap results can be of other than of 
cheap value. The trim results are always costly 
of time and of thought. Let the agricultural 
thinker receive recognition, in accordance as his 
thought is based on facts.” 
At the Nurserymen’s Convention, speaking of 
the advisability of appointing a committee to con¬ 
fer with railroad agents for the -purpose of ob¬ 
taining lower rates. Mr. Robert Douglas re¬ 
marked that little could he accomplished by 
conferring with the railroads. On common roads 
he has always given half of the way, but if walk¬ 
ing on railroads he always gives the whole. 
Mb. Cox. a Minchinharuptoc. farmer, says: 
“ Many of. ub have been committing a great 
blunder in causing our manuro heaps to decay 
too fast; we want it to tie too soon soluble; yet 
we sometimes let it. remain a whole year after it 
has become soluble, and feel proud to have a 
good heap of 1 two-vear-old dung.' I think 
many who keep their dung to get old are picking 
their own pockets.” 
A lady of our acquaintance bad it in her pow¬ 
er to render a service to a stranger who. it 
afterwards appeared, was a rank Communist. 
He thanked her and vanished, but quickly re¬ 
turned, and drawing from bis pocket a card with 
a name written thereon in blood-red characters, 
banded it to his benefactress with the assurance 
that when the revolution began that card would 
protect her from the attacks of infuriate com¬ 
munist#. How awful! 
Get Ready. —By all means, whatever you un¬ 
dertake make a deep, broad foundation, and, 
with good health, energy, and continued effort 
in some one direction, success is sure to come 
sooner or later. It may not coma as soon as 
von would like. It may not be apparent till the 
coming of grav hairs, but honest toil hurts no 
one while it benefits all. both those who partici¬ 
pate aud those who are looking on. It is the 
last part of a thorough training which pays the 
best. 
An experienced farmer says: “ The only plan I 
can suggest to the man who lias not been brought 
np a practical farmer, is to be in the yard before 
his men go to work in the morning. Put every 
man to his intended work quietly and agreeably. 
See that every horse is placed to the right im¬ 
plement. and every implement in its rigut place, 
so as to do the best and greatest amount of cul¬ 
tivation with the fewest men and horses. 
*• Be ou the farm as much as possible, and 
see Hip 1 - two men don’t get to a job that one 
can do." 
Keeping Wheat and other Grain. —Differ¬ 
ence of climate has a good deal to do with 
thrashing and selling grain at harvest or imme¬ 
diately after. In England more than half the 
grain of all varieties remains in the straw nn- 
thrashad tiff the next spring. 0*ts are never 
put iu barus at harvest; they are stacked, very 
neatly and carefully thatched by a professional 
laboring thatcher. Wheat, barley, beans amt 
peas also are chiefly put iuto ricKH and thatched, 
remaining till, stack by staek, they Hre required 
to be thrashed for the straw quite as much as 
for ibe grain, excepting where capital i- short. 
Among several notes kindly furnished at our 
request by’ Mr. J. J. Mechi, the well-known 
owner of Tiptree Farm, England, is the follow¬ 
ing : Said my wife to-day. “ vour wheat is too 
thick." and I had bo remind her that she had 
said 90 vears ago. although I only drill 4 pecks 
to 4K peril 1 * P er Ecre. and when it first comes 
up, the thin lines are complained of as being 
“ much too thin." How they have thickened by 
branching this spring ! Surely there never was a 
better prospect for a crop so far—so warm was 
tho ground from sunshine (despite the piercing 
winds) that this morning a dewy rain on fre.-h 
plowed ground was a bed of dense steam for half 
an hour. If we observed how many j uvemle weeds 
we destroyed in a day’s hoeing, we should con¬ 
gratulate ourselves upon the profit of th« opera¬ 
tion. My wheat is drilled at jutervals of 9 inches 
from row to row. It is evident that abundant 
suushine has so warmed the soil that all crops 
spring up quickly aud grow healthily A warm, 
dry May. will “ do the needful." and strengthen 
our convictions. The prospect for a lull hay 
crop is very comforting for the occupiers of per¬ 
manent pasture. I have only 6 acres. Essex 
farmers are (with some exceptions) careful 
hoers of wheat. If the weeds are removed be¬ 
fore the wheat oloHea in. they have little chance 
afterwards. AU my land is under crop now, ex¬ 
cept about 2)* acres to be drilled shortly with 
kohl rabi. 
Farming as a Mixed Specialty,—As com- 
manly pursued, mixed husbandry is usually a 
coarse business, unless the raau possesses extra¬ 
ordinary id ibty in minv directions. To keep a 
model fari and thrive, he must be something of 
a uieohani a gardener, a stock breeder, a ti ader. 
He must have an eye io the beautiful and keep 
things in good order and well picked up. We do 
not mean that fancy farming is profitable, or that 
any one should be advised to follow it, for this 
has been repeatedly sLowa to be unprofitable. 
Tnere is, or may be, a wide difference between 
fancy farming aid fanning where everything is 
neat, orderly and well done. In agriculture our 
ideal is a mixed specially. By this, we mean 
that a man may be engaged in general or mixed 
farming, and at the same time give especial at¬ 
tention to some one departtUOM. He will select 
something for which he h.-.s a decided taste, as 
horses, some breed of cattle, sheep, swine, poul¬ 
try, bees, raising and improving seeds of some 
grain or glass or vegetables, of raising fruit, or 
in some other produce. This specialty will give 
him interesting study, and he will likely foul 
gratified in becoming quite proficient in some¬ 
thing, while if ho divided his energy about 
equally on ail departments he could nut become 
very proficient iu any of them. A specialty 
alone makes a man narrow, while the broad field 
of agriculture gives breadth at the expense of 
. depth apd finish. 
