1868.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
357 
^Iichig-an Wheat Prcminms.-Good 
examples arc contagions, ami following closely after the 
Judd Wheat Prizes, offered this year through the N. Y. 
State Agrlc'l Soc, wo have the liberal offer by Moore, 
PoOtC&Co., of Detroit, of $400 In premiums tobc award- 
ed by ih • Michigan State Ag'l Society. The prizes arc 
$350, $109, and $50, Tor the bcst,»econd and third best 
live acres of White Wheat sown in the fall of 1S63 and 
harvested in I860, to be exhibited at the State Fair of 
1S00. Competitors must be members of the State Society. 
For conditions address It. F.Johnston, Secretary, Detroit 
The Fir** Cast-iron Plow in Amer- 
ica, patented by Charles Newbold in 179T, has recently 
been presented to the New York State Agricultural So- 
ciety, by John Black of Mt. Holley, N". J. The plow con- 
sists of share, land side, sheath, and mould-board, and 
was all cast in one piece. The point was very soon broken 
and was never used afterward. The inventor spent about 
$30,000 in perfecting and introducing his plow, and failed. 
A good idea is certain to win its way in the cud. 
Renovating; Wo ragout Soils. — "A. 
A, N." "What is the cheapest method of bringing up 
exhausted land?'' In any climate where clover will 
flourish, this plant is undoubtedly the cheapest manure. 
If you can get a fair crop of clover to start with, your 
success is assured. This can be done In many cases by 
sowing two bushels of plaster to the acre. If this doe3 
uot succeed, bone dust, Peruvian Guano, or fish scrap, in 
moderate quantities, certainly will. The clover may he 
turned in when a little past full bloom, or be partially fed 
by cattle that remain on the field, and plowed in later. 
Two or three crops will prepare the way for grain. 
Peas as a Field Crop.— U D. G. FI," 
Princeton, X. J. We know of no good reason why peas 
should not he more generally raised in the northern 
States. They are a very common crop in Canada, and 
from thirty to forty bushels are grown to the acre, on 
good soil. They arc much used in feeding swine and 
sheep, and make pork and mutton of the best quality. 
Onions and Rotation. — U S. L. W ," 
Soutbport, Conn.—' 1 Why do onions succeed without ro- 
tation ? " It is by no means certain that onions arc an 
exception to the general rule that rotations are beneficial. 
They succeed better than most other crops without rota- 
tion, because they have much more manure, and much 
more thorough working. The Brothers Wells, of Weth- 
orsfield, raise onions upon a piece of ground that has 
been in that crop for the last eighty years. They manure 
every year at the rate of thirty cart-loads to the acre. 
The snrface soil is a foot deep. In the spring, as soon as 
the frost is out of the ground, they subsoil to the depth 
of two- feet, and the crop is cultivated so often that no 
weeds are allowed to go to seed. The product is about 
009 bushels to the acre iii good seasons. If they could 
aflWd to raise some other crop in alternate years, it is 
quite possible they might get a larger yield of onions. 
If other crops had as much manure, and the annual sub- 
Boiling and thorough cultivation, they could be more fre- 
quently repeated. Rotation is valuable In its place, but 
not indispensable where a high-priced crop, like onions, 
demands high manuring and thorough working. 
(>oocl Farm Help.— u A. M. P.," Spring- 
field, X. J.— The difficulties of securing faithful service 
He quite as much at the door of the landholder as of the 
laborer. If the farmer pursues the penny-wise policy of 
hiring for only a few weeks or months in summer, he can- 
not expect to find men waiting his wishes ; or, if he find 
Ihem, they will generally be idlers waiting for something 
to turn up. The true policy is to hire by the year. This 
gives the choice of the market, and good services. 
Foremen — flow to Get Places. — 
*'S. D.," Toronto, C. W., asks the following questions : 
1. Where can a competent foreman find employment? 
2. How can he find It? 3. Where can he best improve 
himself as a farmer? A foreman, willing to work, as well 
as to direct labor, is always in demand at the opening 
of the year. The best market for such service is usually 
in the suburbs of cities and villages, at the country scats 
of gentlemen. The best way to find a place is to adver- 
tise. If a foreman wishes to study the science of agri- 
culture he could spend a year or more very profitably at 
an agricultural college. 
Ice-houses. — One twelve feet square is large 
enough for a common family, and will keep ice so that 
there win" be plenty to spare. The house should be double 
with a 10-inch apace between the weather boarding 
and the plank lining, filled with dry sawdust, tan-baric, 
BhatfngS, or some other similar loose material well parked 
down. There should be not the least chance for water 
to stand, nor for air to circulate at the bottom. The ice 
should be laid upon an open floor, covered at least a foot 
thick with straw. A gentleman of our acquaintance first 
covers the floor with a layer of straw, then lays small 
bundles with two or three tight bands close all over, 
then covers these with a good layer of straw, on which 
goes the ice. The same person uses wheat chaff to fill 
in around the sides between the ice and the walls, and to 
cover the ice with. If there be enough chaff, neither 
straw nor sawdust need be used to pack around or cover 
the mass of ice. There should be double doors in the 
gable end, and sufficient ventilation to secure a change 
of air, and prevent that close, damp, warm atmosphere 
which is often perceived in unventilated ice-houses, and 
which is the cause of rapid thawing and loss of ice. 
A Prairie Ice-house, — Make a platform 
of rails close to a big dry straw heap, cover it a foot deep 
with straw; set crotched poles, aud make a shed with 
rails, covering it with straw enough to protect it from 
the weather. Pack the ice in a circle 12 feet in diameter, 
and build the pile 8 feet high, very close and snug; then 
pack it all around with straw, doing it slowly and thor- 
oughly, and finally cover it with 6 or S feet of straw 
on all sides. Such a stack will keep ice well. 
Cheap Lands at the East.-" F,. T.," 
N. T. We refer you to April Agriculturist, page 127. The 
best way is to visit the districts indicated, see the cheap 
lands, and judge of them yourself. 
Cotton Seed ITIeal tor Hog's and 
Horses. — Scars Atwood.— We have never used cotton 
seed meal for feeding horses, but would not hesitate to 
try it, beginning with small quantities, and feeding it 
with other provender. Hogs do well upon it, we be- 
lieve, fed a pound or two a day. 
Obstruction in Xile Drains, — B. 
Dale, Cayuga County. It is generally quite easy to detect 
the point of obstruction, by the wet appearance of the 
soil above. The most frequent cause of obstruction in 
well laid drains is the intrusion of the roots of trees. 
The remedy is to remove the trees, or to sink the drains. 
Spent Tan-bark.-S. G. Perry, Carroll 
Co., O. The bark contains usually a larger percentage of 
ashes than any other portion of the plant, and hence is a 
valuable addition to any soil. Your great heap of old, 
well-rotted tan-bark would doubtless he serviceable, on 
cither plowed or grass land, as a top-dressing or plowed 
under, and it would he good also iu a compost heap. It 
might be worth while to use such portion as is dry as an 
absorbent in the stable. 
To. Healers— East Time of Asking-. 
Will those seedsmen, dealers in implements, stock, trees, 
— in short, any agricultural or horticultural matters what- 
ever—who wish their names to appear in our Annuals, 
please send their business cards or catalogues at once? 
Keeping Over Old Ilay.- ,l R.F.B.," 
Litchfield County. If old hay is well stacked, or in the 
barn, it is worth about as much the second year as the 
first. It is a good plan to keep over a few stacks to meet 
the emergency of a short hay crop. It is a poor plan to 
buy hay when it bears the highest price. The most 
thrifty farmers have hay to sell in these years of short 
grass crops, and the extra price pays very well for keeping. 
"The Crack Shot" is the title of a very 
neat volume by Edward C. Barker as a guide to young 
riflemen in the use of the rifle. The subject is pleasant- 
ly and thoroughly treated, a free use being made of en- 
gravings in explaining the principles involved in the use 
of this implement. The chapters on American and Euro- 
pean breechloaders are full, and well illustrated with 
pictures and sectional views of the arms. The volume 
contains 310 duodecimo pages, and is published by W. A. 
Townsend & Adams. 
What is the Difference between a 
Horse-hoe and a Cultivator ? — These terms are 
often used indiscriminately. We have known an agri- 
cultural society to award a premium one year to an im- 
plement as the best cultivator and the next year to the 
same implement as the best horse-hoe. It would ho well, 
perhaps, to confine the term cultivator to implements 
used f«r cultivating the soil previous to sowing the seed, 
and horse-hoe toimplemcnts used for cultivating between 
the rows of growing plants. 
What Missonri Wants. — "W. B.J." 
writes : " Wc wan; more enterprising men to buy up and 
improve our surplus lands, that can be had at a very low 
price. Missouri has a good variety of soil, well adapted 
to the culture of all kinds of produce. Wide and rich 
bottoms can be had at from $5 to $30 per acre, extended 
prairies from $1.25 to $50 per acre, according to improve- 
meats, and ridge, hill, and bluff land can be had for just 
what a man will please to give. Land is owned in large 
tracts of SO to 4.000 acres, and will have to he bought up by 
companies. We have some fine sheep and want more, 
aud wc want machines and factories to manufacture our 
wool to save double expense, first of shipping the wool 
East and then sending the cloth West. We have paid 
high prices for our sheep, and now we arc worse off than 
if we did not have any, as wc cannot get the wool carded, 
and cannot get anymore for our fine wool than for tho 
wool of our coarse woeled sheep. We have been hum- 
bugged enough ; we want to improve our country and to 
show to the world that Missouri is one of the best States 
in the Union for all branches of business. Crops are 
good this year and fruit abundant. This fall or next 
spring will he a good time to emigrate. Montgomery and 
Callaway counties I can recommend. Come and see us, 
and bring along your machines." 
Nebraska Lands. — The following comes 
from an " old subscriber" in Nebraska. Correspondents 
often ask us about Western lands, and where they can get 
information concerning them. We give this as wc may 
give others of similar character, to indicate a channel 
through which inquiry may he made, with the distinct 
understanding that while wc have no reason to doubt the 
statements, we are in no way responsible for them.— Ens. 
"I feel that I shall benefit many of your moving readers 
by suggesting that they post themselves in regard to 
Nebraska, south of the Platte River. There is plenty of 
good government laud yet to he had in places, and it Is 
one of the best farming States in the Union. After a 
week's ride, I can say I never saw so much fine, rich, and 
good rolling land, and I bad the pleasure of meeting with 
some parties who are forming a colony to settle on gov- 
ernment land, and cooperate in all the expensive items 
incident to new country farming, such as implements, 
machinery, fencing, hedging, pasturing, herding, prairie 
breaking, schools, etc. To my mind such an opportunity 
seldom occurs to settle on government land, at govern- 
ment prices and terms, and be surrounded with so many 
of the elements of an old settlement. Your readers can 
post themselves by calling on or addressing Mr. E. J. 
Huse, care B. M. Davenport, Nebraska City, Nebraska. 
Advice to a Novice- in Farming;. — 
"jEtna " writes : "What part of the Union would you 
advise a young mechanic to go to, to commence farming ? 
IIow much capital ought he to have ? What kind of land 
ought he to buy? What kind of tools ought he to have to 
make a good living? In feet, how ought a novice to get 
into the business?" This is given as a specimen of many 
letters of similar purport. They are exceedingly unsatis- 
factory to answer, as wc are sure the advice will be con- 
trary to the wishes of the writer. We long ago learned 
that^t was a thankless task to advise one against his in- 
clinations. Our correspondent, who is quite unknown to 
us, will hardly like it if we tell him if he is so much of a 
novice that he does not know what tools he will need, 
that he had better not invest his capital in farming, and 
need not yet trouble himself about the parts of the Union. 
The best investment he can make is to hire himself out 
to some thorough-going farmer for at least a year. He 
would probably earn something, hut it would be better 
to give the work of a year for the instruction received 
than to start as a green hand. If he does not believe this 
is so, let him ask himself if he can take care of horses 
and cattle? Can he hitch up a team or yoke a pair of 
oxen? Can he milk, cut down a tree, plow, harrow, mow, 
cradle, or thrash f Can he split rails, lay a stone wall, use 
a hoe — Iu short, do the many things that are necessary to 
be done on a farm ? Wc would encourage yonng mechan- 
ics who wish to try farming, but would no more ad- 
vise them to go into it without some previous knowledge 
than we would advise a farmer to take up a mechanical 
business without first learning the use of tools. If onr 
young friend has made up his mind to be a farmer, as we 
hope he has. be will let no slight obstacle deter him. 
The way may be yeefftuch smoothed by the course we 
have indicated, and much useless expense avoided. 
Tanning Skins. — An old trapper gives the 
following process for tanning skins with the fur on. Take. 
two parts each of alum and salt, and one part saltpeter, 
all well pulverized. When the flesh side of the skin has 
been cleaned of fatty and otheradhering matter, sprinkle 
it freely, enough to make ii white, with the mixture. Fold 
in the edges and roll up the skin. Let it remain for three 
or four days; then wash, first with Clearwater and then 
with soap and water. It shonld be pulled in various di- 
rections as it is drying, to make it' soft and pliable. 
