(PRTCE FIVE CENTS. 
\ S-i.OO PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by the Rural Publishing Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.! 
i ' ; 
VOL. XXXV 111. No, 9. I 
WHOLE No. 1518 
NEW YORK CITY. MARCH 1, 1879. 
$arm €ronomi). 
' Cl* 
A GOOD START IN FARMING. 
To the farmer there is always an interest in 
learniug how young men starting in business, 
with plenty of pluck and energy, but not 
very much experience, manage to get along at 
the outset. We frequently receive letters con¬ 
taining accounts of the early struggles, mis¬ 
haps and successes of young men in their first 
attempts at farming, but as few of them are 
meant for publication and the lessons to be 
learnt from the experiences of the writers, are 
taught more pithily by older hands in our col¬ 
umns, we seldom give these communications to 
our readers. We here make an exception to 
this rule, in favor of a letter from a young 
friend of the Rural in Chautauqua County, 
New York. He says : 
“ I follow the life of a farmer for the love of 
it. I came here two years ago. and found this 
farm of 20 acres badly run down and yielding 
only an abuudaut crop of quack-grass. 1 
plowed it all up and put in corn 4x4 feet both 
ways, and kept the cultivator busy among it. 
By this meanB the quack-grass was kept well 
under and soon disappeared entirely from 
most of thw place. On oue piece where the 
weeds and quack-grass were specially rain- 
pant, I summer-fallowed all last season and 
shall set it to corn this year. I plowed under 
a piece of pasture that bad not been touched 
with the plow for fifteen years, and planted it 
with corn, but the grass and weeds fought it for 
the mastery the first year, and won. Not dis¬ 
couraged. I planted it with the earns crop last 
spring. The seed was White Dent. In gath¬ 
ering it, I chopped off both ends of the best 
aud fullest ears, and shelled the remainder by 
hand. I planted the selected seed in rows 
three feet apart, cultivated the rows ouce and 
hoed them once, and the yield from au aere 
and an eighth, was 135 bushels of ears—good- 
sized ones too. I used no mauure in any 
shape, plowed the ground ouly ouce and 
dragged it twice before planting. I shall give 
it a good dressiug of manure and plant it with 
oats this year, and seed it down to wheat 
next fall. 
The piece I summer-fallowed I have sowu 
with rye, to be plowed under for greeu manure. 
Before sowing the rye, I put some barnyard 
manure on a part of the ground, so as to be 
able to judge of its effect by the difference iu 
the growth of the crops on both pieces. I havo 
also plowed under a rich clover patch and 
sown it with rye. to be plowed under likewise. 
This piece I shall plant with potatoes and a 
small strip of corn, this spring. I have about 
an acre and a half of muck which I shall soon 
haul out on a yellow, sandy piece of ground, 
which I shall afterwards plaut ehieily with 
potatoes. 
I have two cows and a heifer which I shall 
soil in the yard this year. They have been 
kept on corn-stalks all winter without a mor¬ 
sel of hay. The stalks were cut up, steamed 
and mixed with meal aud brau and, occasion- ! 
ally, with ground oats, and I have more and j 
richer milk than my neighbors who fed theirs I 
with hay. I also keep three horses. My barns 
are boarded with pine, matched and battened 
throughout. In my carriage-house are a 
working bench and a coal stove. Behind the 
stove is a door opening into the roostiug room 
of mv poultry-house. The door is kept open 
at nights and during the day-time whenever 
it is not necessary to keep the work-shop very 
warm. By this means my fowls are always 
kept comfortable. 
MY GATE, OR MY BARS. 
Cali, it which you will; it is free for every¬ 
body, and free from all claims for “patent 
royalty." It is the “ Lee Patent” with all the I 
points claimed in the Lee patent left out. 
And it is the “ Teel Gate" with all the poiuts 
claimed iu the Teel patentleft out. For posts, 
it relies cutirely on the posts that support the 
ends of the fence where the opening for gate¬ 
way is left. 
HOW THE FRAME IS BUILT. 
The size or width, the length, as well as the 
number of rails used, and the shape of the 
rails, also, for that matter, can be varied at 
pleasure, or to suit the size, length and hight 
demanded or desired. I use hemlock inch fence 
boards, twelve feet long and four inches wide, 
for the three lower rails ; for the top rail, two 
pieces three inches wide, one of them as cap 
nailed to the center of the other with eight-penuy 
nails. “ For the l ight hand end, I use a bit, of 
2x4 scantling just long enough to cover the 
gate’swidth before receiving the cap board, nail¬ 
ing the rails thereto with ends even with the 
outer edge. Use eight and eleven-penny nails. 
For the left end. I use two bits of board 
four inches wide, with upper ends even with 
cap, and lower ends as much below the bottom 
rail as I wish the gate to stand above the 
ground. Let the rails at this end run past 
the uprights, two inches. I make nine inches’ 
space between the upper pair of rails; eight 
inches between the others ; and three inches 
below the bottom, giving 44 inches in hight. 
Another rail in the middle, with eight inches’ 
space, would make it 54 inches ; that is 4J feet, 
or a “ lawful fence” for this State. 
The second rail from lop, and the space be¬ 
low it, must be left free, to be used the entire 
length as a slide. 
Before telling how my bars are put up and 
held in place, you must know that my gate¬ 
way opens on a village sidewalk, and the 
Teel pivot and swing would prove a nuisance 
at every opening. My gate must not swing 
into the street. It must open on my own 
grounds. By my arrangement it can be 
swung in for persons to pass, but for learns 
it must slide nearly the entire length. Be¬ 
sides, as the fence-posts stand inside the fence, 
the gate must have room to. slide past the 
posts which project on that side, and it is set in¬ 
side accordingly. To the fence-post on the right, 
at the end of the fence, at the proper hight to 
support the sliding rail, I nail a cleat of one- 
inch-and-a-half or two-inch stuff, to project 
inward, so as to leave room for the pannel to 
slide free and admit of its being nailed to au 
upright, say 2x4. The fastening of this to 
the right side of the cleat must be done after 
the pannel is in place. A similar cleat below 
tbis, and where it will not interfere with any 
lower rail, will keep the upright firmly in place; 
or the. lower end may be divided or set in the 
ground as a post. On the left-hand fence post, 
bits of ineh-and-a-half staff are nailed to the 
post at the right hight to let the bottom of 
each rail rest thereon, and then covered by a 
strip to ho d these ends in place—using no mor¬ 
tices— t^e top of this strip and the top of the 
post allowing the cap of the top bar to rest 
thereon. If a fastening is desired, a notch in 
the bottom of the top rail can shut over a rise 
in the rest that receives its projecting end. 
Snow cannot interfere with “ My Gate," 
which can ue easily raised when you wish to 
slide it. “My Gate" has no hinges; it cannot 
sag; it cannot be blowuopen; it cannot get 
out of order ; it is cheap ; it is just as efficient 
as you choose to make it; it is free for every¬ 
body. Prof. Carpenter and the Michigan 
Agricultural College, as well as the rest of 
mankind are welcome to 
Attica, N. Y., 1879 . My Gate, or my Bars. 
PROF. S. W. JOHNSON. 
In continuation of the series of portraits of 
gentlemen who have become identified with 
agricultural interests, the Rural this week 
presents au engraving of Prof. S. W. Johnson 
taken from a receut photograph. The gentle¬ 
man is best known among farmers by his 
works oa farm topics, aud recently by his 
skillful management of the Connecticut State 
Experimental Station, aud the careful analyses 
of commercial fertilizers made uuder his im¬ 
mediate direction. The work done at New 
Haven has been rewarded with a success be¬ 
yond what might have been expected consider¬ 
ing the meagerness of the appropriation. Few 
Connecticut fanners know, perhaps, that the 
experiment station which has served them 
so well, is comprised within the limits of two 
small rooms ; that it has no land at its disposal 
and no place for even pot experiments ; that 
many of the appliances used are loaned from 
Yale College, or are drawn from the private 
laboratory of the Professor, and that it actual’y 
has no library except what is contributed by 
the Director. Uuder such cireumstauces it is 
somewhat remarkable that the station is able 
to make a record at all. 
8. W. Johnson is of Connecticut parentage, 
but was born at Kingsboro’, Fnltou Co., N. Y., 
July 3d, 1830. At the early age of four he 
“emigrated" into Lewis County, same State, 
lo what is known as the “ Black River Coun¬ 
try," where his boyhood was passed on a farm 
that bordered the forests that then covered a 
large part of the region. His education beguu 
in the common school, was eoutinued at the 
Lowviile Academy, the Yale Scientific School 
(then uuder the guidance of Prof. J. P. Nor¬ 
ton), and during 1853. ’54 aud ’55 at the Uni¬ 
versity of Leipsic, under Erdmann and Leh¬ 
mann. Thence he passed under the tuition 
of Liebig, von Kobell and Pettenkofer, at 
Munich, before passing over to Owen’s Col¬ 
lege, England, where he enjoyed the advan¬ 
tages of Frankland’s knowledge. Such a 
course of study was a thorough foundation on 
which might be reared a superstructure only 
limited by the ambition of the student. 
He early disclosed an aptitude for teaching, 
filling positions fur a sb >rt time iu a common 
school, and in the N. Y. State Normal School, 
and, on returning to America in the autumn 
of 1855, took charge, as chief assistant, of the 
laboratory of analytical chemistry at l r ale. In 
1856 he was made Professor of Analytical 
Chemistry, and the following year agriculture 
was included in the name, which continued 
until 1874, when he had conferred on him the 
title of Professor of Theoretical and Agricul¬ 
tural Chemistry. 
Brought up on an extensive, fertile and well- 
managed farm. Lie early becume familiar with, 
andinterestedin agriculture,aud the application 
of science to it. On assuming the chair ot 
agricultural chemistry he began annual 
courses of instruction on that subject, which 
have been continued to the present time. His 
address before the Connecticut State Agricul¬ 
tural Society in 1856, on Frauds in Commercial 
Fertilizers, was the starting of the methods 
now employed to protect bu.vers of these arti¬ 
cles. The next year Prof. Johnson was ap¬ 
pointed chemist to the society, and during 
1857, ’58 and ’50 made his reports ou com¬ 
mercial fertilizers. When the State Board of 
Agriculture became a fact iu 1866, the Profes¬ 
sor was appointed a member by the Governor 
aud Senate, serviug for two years. He retired 
from the Board, but was at once uamed as its 
chemist, so that he contiuucd to co-operate 
with it iu effect, aud for three years (1869-73) 
made reports ou fertilizers. Mr. Johnson 
broached the subject of an Experiment Station 
iu ’78. and pioneered the movement, which 
ended iu its establishment iu 1877 by au act of 
the Legislature. Of this statiou he became 
director. 
Prof. Johnsou has not coufiued his useful¬ 
ness to lectures. Besides the reports men¬ 
tioned, he, while a student under Liebig, trans¬ 
lated the German Chemist's criticism upon Mr. 
Lawess experiments. Later, his “Lectures 
on Agricultural Chemistry " (1857), “Peat aud 
its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel’’ (1866), “ How 
Crops Grow ” (1868), “ How Crops Feed ’’ 
(1870), as well as numerous papers on various 
topics of Agricultural aud Chemical Science, 
PROFESSOR S. W. JOHNSON. 
