THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



31 



to bear a part of the weight of the plough on 

 their backs by means of the back band, thus 

 very much lessening the friction of the plough 

 on the bottom of the furrow. But this is not 

 the case when horses are made to draw at the 

 lever of a gin or mill, where every pound ex- 

 erted in any other than a horizontal direction is 

 wholly lost; for it is very evident that if the 

 lever or sweep is very low, say one foot high 

 only, and the chains hitched 3^ feet on the 

 horse's shoulders, and say 7 feet from the lever, 

 that about 5-22 of the force of the horse will be 

 exerted in an upward direction, and thus nearly 

 one-fourth of the power will be entirely lost. — 

 Now, to make this plain to the mind of any 

 one, suppose the power to be so applied as to 

 pull upwards perpendicularly to the walk. We 

 see the machine would not incline to move any 

 way, (that is, if it is to be drawn by a horizon- 

 tal lever;) but incline thedirection of the draught 

 down half way in the direction which the ma- 

 chine is desired to be worked, that is, to an angle 

 of 45 degrees with the horizon or walk, and we 

 see that half the power applied will be lost only, 

 while the remaining half will operate on the 

 machine to be moved. 



Hence we may conclude, without the shadow 

 of a doubt, that the nearer the direction of the 

 daught approaches the level or plane in which 

 the lever runs, the more effect the horses or 

 power applied will have on the machine to be 

 operated upon ; and it will be at its maximum 

 or greatest when pulled in the same horizontal 

 plane with the lever. 



Hence we see that horses should always be 

 hitched to a lever at least as high as their shoul- 

 der joint, care being taken to use a belly-band, 

 to give the right bearing and direction of the 

 chains on the collar and shoulders of the horse. 

 And if any one should demur and say a horse 

 pulls best when he has some weight on him, let 

 such one put an extra weight on him, which 

 would be the same to the horse and not diminish 

 from but rather increase his power on the ma- 

 chine; but this of course I would not recom- 

 mend only to those who cleave to old things 

 simply because they are old, or because their 

 fathers did so before them — not that I condemn 

 old things which are true, for truth, we know, 

 is ever the same. 



Remark, horses should be hitched as close to 

 the lever as will allow the horse sufficient room 

 to step, for every inch over this will be attended 

 with evident loss ; for suppose him to be hitched 

 by traces long enough to admit him to be on the 

 opposite side of the walk, or nearly so, we see 

 that instead of the traces pulling round the cir- 

 cular walk, they would take a direction across 

 it, and pull more or less against the end of the 

 lever, and in a direction with its length. So, it 

 is clear that the shorter practice will allow a 

 horse to be hitched the better, and vice versa. 



The second error in use is making the circu- 

 lar walk too small. A walk should never be 

 less than twenty-five feet, in diameter unless it 

 be for a turning lathe or some very light ma- 

 chinery, when it can possibly be avoided. Thir- 

 ty-six feet diameter makes an excellent walk ; 

 but the larger that practice will allow, the better, 

 if it were fifty or sixtj^ feet. But, making a 

 just compromise between the greatest advantage 

 to be gained from the proportion and dimensions 

 of horse-propelled machinery and its expense, I 

 think we may safely range from thirty to forty 

 feel — forty feet diameter perhaps makes the very 

 best walk. 



The nearer a horse pulls in a line at a right 

 angle or in a tangent to the circumference of 

 the circle described by the lever, the greater will 

 be his power ; but the smaller the walk, the fur- 

 ther he will be out of this line; and ihe greater 

 the walk, the nearer he will be to pulling in it. 

 Hence, the greater the walk, the more power he 

 can exert. 



This is a subject upon which we profess to 

 have a little knowledge, and we do not hesitate 

 fully to endorse the above clear and excellent 

 remarks upon the construction of horse-powers. 

 We would add that a very important rule in 

 bevil gearing, and one that is too frequently ne- 

 glected, is, that the horizontal shaft should be 

 exactly level, and should be so situated, that, if 

 extended, its centre would pass immediately 

 through the centre of the upright shaft. From 

 the fact of this shaft's being t: out of true," we 

 have frequently seen a power that required two 

 horses to keep it in motion, consequently, when 

 four were attached to it, only two were employed 

 in working the machine ; the other two were in 

 fact engaged in grinding against one another 

 the cogs of the bevil wheels. 



DISTEMPER IN DOGS. 



W T e published in a late number a remedy for 

 this disease, copied from the Southern Planter. 

 We have often succeeded in curing the disease, 

 by administering doses of salt as recommended 

 therein; we have, however, whenever we dis- 

 covered a constipation of the bowels to super- 

 vene, given every other day boluses of castile 

 soap, with the very best effects. If castile soap 

 cannot be had, brown soap will answer equally 

 well, the object being action upon the intestinal 

 viscera. In obstinate cases, where the discharge 

 from the nostrils is obstructed, or the cough heavy 

 and tight, we have always found the patient 

 greatly relieved by introducing a seton in the 

 loose skin just back of the head ; which opera- 

 tion is performed by threading a coarse darning 



