752 
SUPPLEMENT TO THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
4884 
BURAL\ 
PREPARING FOR WORK. 
successful. We are very glad that the selec¬ 
tion has proved so satisfactory to our sub¬ 
scribers and friends, and we assure them that 
we are heartily in accord in our work, and in 
an intense dpsire to make the Rural so plain 
and practical that all can understand it, to 
have it progressive and wide-awake in test¬ 
ing every new thing, and so truthful and fear¬ 
less in its reports thereon, that it shall always 
be a safe guide. 
Above all things, we wish to remain in full 
accord and sympathy with the farmer, and 
worthy of his confidence and support. —Eds. 
hinder work upon the good land. 
Study to save fencing. 
Deepen your plowing gradually, say about 
one-half inch at each rotation, till you have 
from 10 to 12 inches of soil. 
Harrow more. Harrow in manure before 
it is plowed under [Don’t plow it under at all. 
—Eds.], so that it will not be left in a stratum 
under the soil, but be mixed with it. Harrow 
planted potatoes and corn both before and 
after the plants are up. 
Use a light cultivator and keep the surface 
constantly fine, to serve as a mulch; start it, 
therefore, as soon as possible after every 
shower. Sink it deep in the middles, just 
oueo, when corn and potatoes are five inches 
high; afterwards go about two inches deep, 
and keep the field as flat as possible. 
To buy, or contract to hire a self-binder, 
will save you from being left in the lurch by 
harvest hands. 
Market from the field all the potatoes you 
can, unless you are sure that their price will 
rise a third. 
Thin soil; thick seeding. 
The labor and food needed to keep a cow 
alive and healthy, are all expense. The profit 
comes only from the surplus food and care 
which sho turns into milk or flesh, and the 
manure which is saved. But you lose the 
flesh which she works off on long drives, or 
consumes in resisting cold; and you lose the 
manure which she puts where it can do no 
good. Therefore invest in water near at hand, 
warm buildings, and tight stable floors. 
It pays the rich farmer. aDd it may save 
the poor, to make a compost by gathering all 
waste, saving all solid and liquid manure and 
house-slops not fed to pigs, mixing all with 
an absorbent (mellowed muck is best) and rot¬ 
ting it down, till it can only be shoveled. 
Let no hoof of heavy beast tramp your 
meadows or plow laud while soft, unless it be 
for necessary work. 
Compute how many acres of fodder corn 
or sorghum would keep up the flow of milk 
of your dairy, in spite of drought, and sow 
them. Expect the drought. 
Have strong wagons; a small load requires 
both man and team; and since teaming is a 
“department of your occupation,” don’t 
shirk road work. 
If for a number of years you save your own 
seed, selecting to plunt just what you want 
to harvest, you will get a strain of seed yield¬ 
ing well, fitted to your soil and climate, and 
slow to “ ruu out.” 
Mix earth with roots, and keep them as near 
to freezingasyou can. 
Become a specialist if your land favors it; 
but don’t take for a specialty a very exhaust¬ 
ing crop. 
Portage Co., Ohio. 
PRIZE ESSAY.— Class II. 
We are now actively preparing for the 
Winter’s campaign on our Western New-York 
Farm. 
We are getting the raw material, such as 
iambs for winter feeding; ewes for breeding 
winter laiulis; cows for butter and beef inak 
tog; sows for pig breeding; oil meal, bran, 
malt sprouts and other food, and shall shortly 
put our “manure machine” into active opera¬ 
tion. We tnink the outlook is good for a pros¬ 
perous season’s run, and hope to be able to 
make not less than 1,500 loads of the richest 
manure, and it now looks as though we might 
rnuke a fair margin of profit besides. 
Complying with the request of our subscrib¬ 
ers, wo shall soon give illustrations of the barns 
(the mill proper), and their internal arrange¬ 
ments; the water system, which is wholly arti¬ 
ficial, being a wind mill, tank and system of 
pipes—we shall also in detail tell how much 
of each kind of stock we are putting in, and 
our mode of treating the same, and promise 
now to tell of some practices that will bo new 
nnd startling to the notions of many feeders, 
but which we have proved, by the best of all 
tests, practical success, to be correct. 
Of all the institutions on our farm, there is 
none which is so important in its results upon 
the productiveness and profits of the farm, os 
this same “manure machine.” By the aid of 
the fine quality of the manure we there manu¬ 
facture, and the large quantity made, we are 
enabled to grow the large crops which have 
made the reputation of our farm; und so far, 
the waste products—the beef, mutton, wool 
and butter made—have given us a handsome 
return in money. Oh, how we wish every 
farmer would establish a “manure machine” 
until such a tiling should not be heard of as 
that American oil meal, bran and other rich 
feeding stuffs should be exported, instead of 
all beiug judiciously fed at home and the 
manure mode therefrom returned to our im¬ 
poverished fields. 
SHORT PITHY PARAGRAPHS, 
have a soil rich, deep, mellow and dry 
enough, is to have all agricultural power. 
But even then if you use inferior tools, stock. 
Beeds and hired help, you can’t more than 
half succeed. 
You should have enough tools, teams and 
help to keep your work safely in hand. 
The most foolish economy is to breed with 
poor males. Scrub btfll, sernb fanner. 
Make careful plans, or you will sometimes be 
idle, sometimes be crowded by beaped-up jobs. 
Take time for full book accounts from any¬ 
thing except sleep and Sunday. 
Provide in advance: engage men, buy seeds, 
teams and harness, repair tools, etc., in the 
Winter, have Paris-green ready before the 
bugs come. 
Every day of useful labor before or after 
the “season,” make* your year a day longer 
That scarce thing, a truly good farm hand, 
if found, should be kept by giving him em¬ 
ployment the year round. 
One of our most costly economies is the 
dismissal of our hands in the Fall; for then we 
keep less stock, and give it less care than 
would pay us well. 
Study the seed catalogues and search your 
paper for reports on all much praised varie¬ 
ties. 
Compute what it takes per hill to give the 
big yields of potatoes reported in the Rural, 
and if the system followed seems at all ration¬ 
al, try it on a small scale. Raise what you 
can produce at the largest net profit, which 
may not be what your neighbor does best 
with, or what yields you the largest gross 
crop. 
Learn as soon as possible, by trial with full 
accounts of all items of cost, what crops, rota¬ 
tion, depth of plowing, fertilizers, suit your 
land best. 
Abolish the small, fenced-in garden, and 
grow vegetables in the corn or potato field- 
beets, early cabbage, lettuce, onions and peas, 
with potatoes. Plant in hills or drills, just 
as those crops are planted; cultivate with 
them, and you will have vegetables. 
Plant all small fr-uits in long rows, at a dis¬ 
tance suitable for horse cultivation, by the 
side of a lot, with a drive between them and 
the lot; the easiest way is the very best. 
Stumps and stones in plow land are costly 
and dangerous. Short furrows waste time. 
Two hours in a clean field with 60 rod fur¬ 
rows, are worth throe or more in short fur¬ 
rows amid stumps. 
Small holes, swales, cat swamps in good 
fields should be drained, if possible, for they 
The Rural New-Yorker from now 
until January 1st, 1866, for $2.00. 
RURAL PRIZE ESSAY.— Class VI, 
HORSES.—FARM AND ROAD, THE BEST FOR 
THE FARMER’S USE. 
MRS. L. FISHER. 
This may not be considered a theme for a 
lady; but 1 havealway* lived on a farm, and 
always insanely persisted in riding and break¬ 
ing the wildest and most spirited of colts, un¬ 
til X was known in the family a* “our Tom¬ 
boy.” From childhood up I have been a 
great lover of fine horses. It has always been 
and still remains a question in my mind, 
whether I was deserving of that ridiculous 
appelative, “Tom-boy,” hut, be that as it may, 
my affection for the noble horse still remains. 
1 ulso have a grea t liking for out-door employ¬ 
ment, and since sulky implements have come 
into use, have employed iny time farming, 
and though sometimes rather tiresome, yet, it 
is far better than kitchen work, and I rather 
like it. Now I wish it clearly understood Jn 
taking up this subject, that I know nothing at 
all of Eastern farming, except what I have 
gleaned from the pages of the dear old Rural, 
A neighbor, who has just returned from a 
visit to the East, give 
* a joking description of 
fields so small that in breaking up the ground 
in Spring, the team hus to lie backed out into 
the road at each end in order to turn round. I 
should consider myself utterly incompetent in 
such a case, to say what manner of horse 
should bo used; but I should think a very 
slow team must be selected, or the work would 
lie too soon accomplished and nothiug left to 
keep .Jack out of mischief. 
But to lay all joking aside and come down 
to facts: liaised on the broad, sunny' prairies 
of Kansas, I can speak from experience, only 
of Western life. Here we have from 50 to 
100 acre corn or wheat fields, und a team is 
expected to do a great amount of work 
throughout tbe year—to raise 40 or 50 acres 
of corn, 50 or 60 acres of wheat, and 40 acres 
of other small grain, flax or oats, and also do 
the necessary running around Our plow 
lands are laid off a quarter, a half, or even a 
mile in length; for these long furrows, aud 
for all this work, we want no overgrown, 
slow, plodding team; no enterprising, go- 
ahead man has any use for such. A good, 
strong, lively, quick-stepping team is just 
what we require, and for this purpose there is 
no horse so good as a fair sized roadster. 1 go 
very much ou blood, and firmly believe that 
good “blood will telL” in man or beast. I will 
describe the three-horse team (all our plowing 
is done with three horses) that I have worked 
for the last four years, and 1 consider them 
perfection for all purposes, as they ar.e quick, 
willing and strong, and never allow a whip 
to be used. 
Tbe first is a bright bay, English Thorough¬ 
bred mare, 15% hands hign; compact-bodied, 
strong, fine-limbed, quick and intelligent; a 
famous traveler both in the plow and on the 
road, and very hardy. The second is a deep 
bay Smuggler mare, 15% hands, rather 
“chunky,” lively in the plow, a splendid saddle 
horse and famous ou the road also. These two, 
hitched to the family carriage, will make one 
feel, as an old lady of my acquaintance re¬ 
marks, as though you were “going some¬ 
where,” and if they are allowed their way, no 
team will ever pass them oa the road. The 
third and last, is a long limbed, rather slim¬ 
bodied, Tuckahoe mare, 16 hands high, a 
very tough, splendid worker, with fine saddle 
gaits, and when she “gets down to it’ an ex¬ 
tremely fast trotter. To show what good 
blood will do on the farm as well as on the 
road: last Fall, a year ago, 1 commenced 
plowing for wheat with this team on August 
14, after dinner, and finished plowing Sept. 
5 at three o’clock, 65 acres, having lost two 
days in the interim. Thus, you see. I aver¬ 
aged a little over four acres a day. The ground 
was very bard and dry, and 40 acres of it were 
over half a mile from the house,so that the time 
lost iu traveling to aud from work, twice a 
day, was considerable; the horses had not 
fallen off in flesh aud did not &eem the least 
bit tired. This is, I think, ample proof of the 
sterling qualities of this class of horses. The 
roadster combines most points of value, and is 
emphatically tbe borse for the Western farmer. 
THE FARMERS’ OWN PAPER, 
Farmers, stockmen, fruit-growers, rural people— 
you cannot afford to do without il l Ask those who 
know, if you da not, The It. N.-Y. axiststo do good. 
It is pure, trustworthy, original, sparkling, alive. It 
differs from other rural journals, in that it is own¬ 
ed and conducted by practical and successful farm¬ 
ers. There is no other/arm paper to compare with it. 
So say thousands of the best people of America. The 
best writers in the world—over 600 contributors—500 
illustrat ions from uature—tbe best artists—880 acres 
of Experiment Grounds, 
Henry Ward Beecher 
Gen. Wm. G. Le Due, ex. TJ. S. Com. of Ag¬ 
riculture, says: “It is the best farm paper 
published." 1 
says: “j 
paper once, is to want it always.' 1 
Many of the best grains, small fruits, potatoes, etc., have been sent out in the Rural’s Free 
Seed Distributions. Have you heard of the Beauty of Hebron, White Elephant aud Blush Pota¬ 
toes? Have you heard of the Cuthbert Raspberry; of the Clawson and Diehl-Mediterranean 
Wheats? These and hundreds of others have been sent to subscribers free of charge. Its 
present 
is of greater value than any of the preceding ones and will be sent free to all subscribers, 
alone is worth more than the yearly price of the journal. 
We admitno deceptive or fraudulent advertisements. Tbe Rural New-Yorker, wc 
over half a million of dollars, is independi 
IVMeau afford to be honest. It abominates mom 
We wish all to know the truth, und there- 1 II Ye ^L 
fore invite them to send for free specimens. f \ .14 'T&rjfc&i; 
Then they may judge for themselves, and l^^Vl ■ J »’ 
subsenbe for the best. It is a farm, garden, <•-. A |4 J I lij 
religious, news, home aud literary journal— Sf \ \ J V I 
all in one. The price is *2.00 per year; 
weekly. Fine tinted paper, 16 pages. Try 
IT. Address the RURAL NEW-YORKER. 34 Park Row, New York. 
eminently I 
