130 



THE ILLINOIS FARMEE. 



May 



hour at the melodeon, in conversation, 

 reading tlie daily paper or the Illinois 

 Faemek, and he is ready for a sound 

 and refreshing sleep ; not the fitful, 

 starting, overworked condition of the 

 boy without the sulky cultivator, but 

 the sweet, quiet sleep of needed labor. 

 What farmer will not provide his son 

 with one of these great labor saving 

 implements ? — whatfarmer mother who 

 will not feel proud of her boy, doing 

 the work of two men who use the old 

 implements ? 



The prairies were mapped out and 

 made expressly to give Genius a clear 

 field for her ambition, and she is nobly 

 filling it. See what she has sent us for 

 the coming harvest. First in the row 

 is "Wood's unrivalled Prize Mowing 

 Machine, iS^o. 1." Two horses are to 

 work this at the rate of six acres a day 

 in grains, and eight in clover and Tim- 

 othy ; and our boy who has tended the 

 corn is to run it, while Joseph with old 

 Kate is to do the raking with "Furst 

 & Bradley's Sulky, Wire Steel Tooth 

 Mowing Rake." Next in the row is 

 the time honored J. H. Manny reap- 

 er, made by Emerson & (Jo., Rockford, 

 with Burson's binder attached, contain- 

 ing all the new improvements. 



We do not use these in May, but you 

 see they are on hand, for it is part of 

 the duty of May to have things ready 

 for summer ; for if it is fitting that May 

 turn her tender plants over to be ripen- 

 ed up by summer, the proper tools and 

 implements should go with them. 



But we must go back to the actual 

 work of May. The gardens must be 

 wed out, the weeds along the rows pull- 

 ed up — well, no ; suppose we cut them 

 just below the surface with a thin- 

 bladed, keen-edged knife. Gardeners 

 sometimes get these made, but a few 



days since we found just the thing, and 

 what do you think it was? We have 

 no name for it, but it is used by black- 

 smiths and horse doctors to pare the 

 horses' feet. It is a crooked knife with 

 a crooked handle, the end of the blade 

 is turned up so that you will not cut 

 the plants ; the cost is sixty cents, and 

 will be worth at least fifty cents a day 

 for the use of it, as with it you can do 

 that amount more of labor in weeding. 

 One of these to the boy or girl who 

 tends the garden, will be a nice present 

 for the first of May. 



The boys must have a barrel of com- 

 mon land plaster to put on the vines to 

 keep ofi" the stripped bug, and to give 

 ! them a fine start ; and when you send 

 for plaster add a pair of pruning shears, 

 you will find both at Hovey's whose 

 card is in the Faemee. 



In May the hogs go to the clover 

 pastures, but these animals often abuse 

 this luxury by rooting up the plants ; 

 Kurd's hoff tamer will teach them bet- 

 ter manners. 



Here is another thing that is wanted 

 in May : The children must have sum- 

 mer clothes, but without the use of a 

 good sewing machine they cannot be 

 made up before green peas, strawber- 

 ries and cherries are ready to be picked, 

 and the wife or daughter who does the 

 sewing must look after these things, or 

 they may not be on the table. To rem- 

 edy this send for one of Grover & Ba- 

 ker's sewing machines, and the berries 

 can be picked and the green peas flank 

 the bacon for dinner. You will have 

 no trouble to master the use of this ma- 

 chine ; it is almost impossible to get it 

 out of repair, for sew it will, even in 

 the hands of the most unskillful. Such 

 a present to the wife is but a fair offset 

 for the sulky, rake, the cultivator or the 



