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NEW ENGLAND FARIMER. 



April 



It has been argued on the one hand that 

 there was a demand for the race on the part of 

 the great mass of fair attendants and that 

 there could be no financial success without it ; 

 that the fair without the horse race, would be 

 a dull, stupid affiiir ; that the public would not 

 attend and that its discontinuance would result 

 in the breaking up of those annual gatherings 

 that have resulted in so much good to the 

 country in so many ways. Upon the other 

 hand, the argument has been that the race 

 track, with its concomitants has been the means 

 of driving the moral portion of the people from 

 our fair grounds and thus cut off receipts at 

 the gates, while it has tended to turn the at- 

 tention of the Society to the encouragement of 

 one class of animals and one class of amuse- 

 ments to the detriment of other branches of 

 industry that the Society is bound to foster 

 and encourage. 



Having long acted in accordance with the 

 views of the first mentioned class, the Society 

 has now determined to show a proper defer- 

 ence to the advocates of purely agricultural 

 and mechanical exhibitions, and by resolution, 

 at the late meeting of the Board, prohibits all 

 trials of speed, by racing, at the fair of 1868. 



By a very large number of our enterprising 

 farmers, this act of the Executive Board will 

 be received with great favor, and if their for- 

 mer statements were made in good faith, we 

 shall see exhibitors at our next fair whose 

 faces have not greeted us for years. We are 

 glad of the decision of the Society, for we can 

 now have the vexed question settled whether 

 the people will support a fair without the 

 usual attraction that has been offered by the 

 race track. If they do not, then it remains to 

 be seen if the pastime cannot be stripped of 

 its disgusting and revolting features, and thus 

 be allowed to add its attractions to our fairs ; 

 at any rate, we look upon the act of the So- 

 ciety as the beginning of a great reform in 

 racing practices at our fairs. 



How TO Build a Corn Crib. — I have 

 one that has stood for twenty years, and has 

 never had a rat, and but one mouse in it to 

 my knowledge. Posts 10 or 11 feet long and 

 eight inches square ; mortice 2 feet from one 

 end ; for side and end sills, 2-inch mortice with 

 tusk. Taper post from sill to the end by hew- 

 ing off inside until the end is reduced to four 

 inches diameter ; make smooth with draw knife, 

 and nail on tin smooth half way to the end, be- 

 low the sill. Let sills be eight inches scjuare ; 

 also, end tie them and the rafter plates strong 

 with moderate inter-ties. Brace well, and 

 lath up and down with three-quarter inch lath ; 

 dovetail or cuuntersink joists cross-wise ; lay 

 the floor, and board up the ends with un- 

 grooved Ijoards ; let each bent be 12 feet long, 

 6 feet wide at the sill, and 7i feet at plate, 

 with 1 i feet floor, and if full to peak, it will 

 hold 25'J bushels. I never had an ear to hurt 



on account of the great width. If preferred, 

 lay the floor with lath or narrow boards, with 

 room for ventilation. Each post should stand 

 on stone, about three inches from the ground, 

 and each stone have a foundation two feet 

 square and below the frost. — /. S. Keith, 

 Newton, Pa., in N. Y. Tribune. 



HO"W ■WE KEEP OUB HEJSTS. 



Wo keep about fifty hens and four cocks. 

 Our hen house is twenty feet long, ten feet 

 wide, and ten feet high in front, with sloping 

 roof, two windows on the west, and one long 

 window on the south, across the whole end, 

 swinging inward. Under the front windows 

 are the boxes for the nests, made as seclusive 

 as they can be, for a hen is as shy and retiring 

 before she lays as she is bold and noisy after. M 

 Under the roosts a shelf catches the drop- I 

 pings. These are gathered every few days, 

 and saved for the garden, and the shelf each 

 time covered with ashes or lime. We white- 

 wash inside and outside. On the south side of 

 the house a yard is fenced in under apple 

 trees, twenty by fifty feet. The earth at the 

 bottom of the house, when frozen, is swept 

 every day, and at other times is shoveled out 

 often, and renewed with fresh earth. A large 

 box, with fine coal ashes or wood ashes, is 

 placed in a corner for a bath, and is often re- 

 newed. No food is given in the house which 

 can sour the ground, and when such is given 

 in the yard, like scraps from the kitchen, the 

 earth is often taken out and renewed. A lime 

 or oil wash is occasionally used on the roosts. 

 The house is shut up pretty closely on very 

 cold nights, (always the passage-way into the 

 yard open,) but is often opened and ventilated. 

 In weather not too cold the windows are left 

 up and the door open, and the fowls are en- 

 couraged by the manner of feeding to roam 

 away from' their house about our place, but 

 this in even moderately cold weather they are 

 always reluctant to do, and invariably go back 

 to their house in a few minutes, or huddle to- 

 gether in some warm, sunny place in a shed. 

 There is nothing fowls like so well in cold 

 weather as a sheltered place, where they can 

 have a sun bath, and even in summer they 

 seem to take great delight in wallowing in a 

 sand bank under a blazing sun. We give 

 them plenty of fresh water and pure food. 



Now there is nothing very peculiar about 

 this manner of treatment, into which, from 

 habit, we have gradually settled, except in its 

 reeults. We have lost one hen, found in the 

 yard dead without apparent cause, but prob- 

 ably from apoplexy, to which they are sub- 

 ject, and otherwise than this we have not had 

 a sick fowl in our whole flock from any cause 

 during the whole fall and winter. The sim- 

 plest medicines work the most wonderful 

 cures, and we have always thought the sim- ■ 

 plest treatment of fowls the most profitable 

 and successful, and we have had all kinds of 



