36: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
view of one of these blinds is given in figure 2. 
A curious way of enticing the birds within 
range is called Ming, fig. 3. Dogs of a small breed 
are trained to run backwards and forwards on 
the shore; the dog is sometimes made more 
conspicuous by tying a red handkerchief around 
its bod}'. The ducks, observing the motions of 
the dog, swim towards the shore to investigate; 
their curiosity being satisfied the flock sails off 
again. As they turn and present broadside to 
the sportsmen, they shoot and often kill large 
numbers. A different breed of dogs is em- 
ployed to bring the dead game in from the water. 
Among the other devices our artist has rep- 
resented, is one in which the boat is converted 
into a rude resemblance to a huge swan, figure 4. 
A boat of tli is kind can be silently paddled within 
shooting distance of a flock, which is shot at 
through an opening in the breast of the monster. 
Figure 5 represents shooting from a float or 
batteiy. A broad platform is so ballasted that 
it just floats upon the surface of the water, and 
is anchored in a place where the birds resort. 
The sportsman takes his position upon this, and 
is screened from sight by means of sedges or 
boughs. Decoys, to attract the birds, made of 
wood and painted to resemble ducks, are anchor- 
ed near by. It is necessary to have an attend- 
ant in a skiff, at a distance, to pick up the birds 
as they are shot by the man on the float. 
Night shooting, represented in figure C, is 
sometimes practised, but is not regarded with 
favor by sportsmen, as the birds, if alarmed in 
the night, are not apt to return to the same feed- 
ing ground for a long time after being disturbed. 
Punt shooting, in which an enormous swivel 
gun i.3 used, the discharge of which slaughters 
birds by the hundred, is, we believe, properly 
prohibited by law in the Chesapeake waters. 
Care of Tools. 
We recently saw in one of the best farming 
districts of New England, a mowing machine 
left in the open field just where the last swath 
was finished. The man who owned it had 
kept it out without shelter for several years. 
He had unscrewed the cutting gear and housed 
it, from the apprehension that it might possibly 
rust. But lie had not thought that the running 
gear would rust, or the wood rot. Yet this 
man was not lacking in intelligence or in capital. 
He had a good farm and plenty of barn room, 
and fifteen minutes' labor at the close of the 
hay harvest would have secured the machine 
against the weather. It was simply from the habit 
of carelessness in which he had been educated, 
that lie did not put it undercover. That fifteen 
minutes of ease will cost him dear. A machine 
thus used may last five years, probably less. 
Properly cared for and housed, it would be good 
for ten. If his machine cost him $135 he pays 
$25 a year for field exposure. This is not all ; 
a mowing machine never runs so smoothly or 
cuts so well as after a few weeks' use when it is 
new ; every day's exposure to sun or rain, or 
even to the dew of the night, rusts, warps, 
shrinks or swells some parts, which, if kept dry 
' and oiled, would remain in the best condition 
very long. So the amount of labor expended 
in using the machine is greatly increased, and 
even the extra amount of oil and the greater 
frequency of application will of itself be an im- 
portant item, and we may add to the $25 a year 
above stated, $5 more to balance the account of 
pecuniary loss and extra labor. This is patron- 
izing the picturesque at great disadvantage. 
Can farmers afford this esthetic indulgence? 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 58. 
We got home yesterday from a fishing ex- 
cursion among the Thousand Isles. The chil- 
dren enjoyed the trip as much as any of us, and 
returned home a great deal better. The Agri- 
culturist is right in advising farmers to take a 
few days' recreation. We need it as much as 
the professional or business man. The mind is 
apt to get into a rut, and a change of scene and 
associations is as beneficial as a change of air 
and occupation. The despondent man finds 
that others, too, have their trials, and that weeds 
grow in other sections as well as in his own, 
and he will come home with a determination to 
take a more cheerful view of his lot in life, to 
be a better man and a better farmer. The self- 
satisfied man — if such an individual can be 
found among our farmers — will find that there 
are other people in the world as conceited and 
as disagreeable as himself, and he may return 
home with a few new ideas in his head, and a 
grain or two of humility in his heart. 
You have to hire a boat and a man to row, 
who furnishes the fishing tackle. We got to 
the Islands about o'clock in the morning, and 
by 8 o'clock we had had breakfast, and were 
in the boat trolling for pickerel. The change 
from a dusty summer fallow to the cool breeze 
on the lake-like river was most invigorating; 
and when we got a seven-pound pickerel at the 
end of a two hundred foot line, we forgot that 
there was such a thing as winter-kill or rust or 
shrunken wheat ; that weeds grew fast and 
hired men worked slow ; almost regretted to 
see a black cloud in the west, although the po- 
tatoes at home were suffering from want of rain. 
In fact, we found what we sought, — a few days' 
relief from the cares, toils, and anxieties of farm 
life. The man whom we engaged to row our 
boat proved to be a farn.er. He owned a farm 
of over two hundred acres on one of the Islands, 
but rented it out on shares and occupied him- 
self during the fishing season in rowing, and at 
other times he " traded a little," buying chick- 
ens, turkeys, and geese, and sending them to 
New York. An English gentleman who was 
one of our party could hardly believe that the 
man we had hired to row us was " a farmer." 
" And," said he, when the idea got fairly into 
his head, as it did in a day or two, "he is not 
only a farmer, but he is a landowner, and yet 
he is here rowing a boat for hire and cooking 
our dinners!" Butter was selling at wholesale 
in the neighborhood for 40 cents a lb., and po- 
tatoes $2.00 a bushel: oats, 75 cents; barley, 
$1.50; spring wheal, $2.00 ; and other things in 
proportion. At the hotel we could rarely get a 
tomato or a cucumber, and melons would have 
brought any price that might be asked. Huckle- 
berries were provided on Sunday as a special 
treat for tea, and once or twice we had stewed 
apples. Beef, taking quality into considera- 
tion, was higher than it is in England, and yet 
the owner of a two hundred acre farm thought 
he could make more by rowing <a boat by the 
day than in cultivating his land ! 
We visited one fanner who had bought a 
whole island of about 120 acres in the middle 
of the river, some four miles from either shore, 
lie was monarch of all he surveyed, and as 
happy as a prince. He had a capital garden, 
and his good wife had covered the piazza with 
morning glories, flowering beans, Virginia creep- 
er, etc. He raised good crops of spring wheat, 
corn, oats, potatoes, etc., and on my compli- 
menting him for his good farming, he remarked, 
" The land is first-rate, but it has been neglect- 
ed and is full of weeds, but I'll fix 'em." " You 
can't do it, Old Boy," said one of the oarsmen. 
" The ground is full of weeds, and always will 
be. It's no use your- trying to get rid of 'em." 
" But if none are suffered to go to seed," I re- 
marked, " and you kill all that grow, you will 
in time have a clean farm." " That may be so, 
where you come from," he replied, " but it isn't 
so here. The grotmd produces them, and as 
long as there is any ground left, you will have 
weeds, and they are getting worse every year." 
Of course, a man who has such notions mis- 
takes his calling when he turns farmer. He had 
better row a boat for a living. Few people will 
confess that they think weeds spring up spon- 
taneously, but there are a great many farmers 
who act as though they believed it. And yet 
it is certain that a soil can no more produce 
weeds without seed, than it can wheat or corn. 
I visited a farmer who keeps a dairy of eighty 
cows. His dairy-house aud cheese-room were 
at some distance from his residence, and he 
hired a man to make the cheese, who did all the 
work. It seemed to be a very nice kind of 
farming, and I told him if I could get men to 
milk, I would go into the dairy business myself. 
" No trouble about getting people to milk," he 
replied. "I don't hire a man or woman that 
cau't milk, and most of them would rather milk 
than work in the field. We have a good many 
Canadians who come here to work, and over 
there you know, the women do the milking, and 
the men seem to think it is beneath their digni- 
ty. Sometimes a man comes here who wants 
work, but objects to milking. 'Very well,' I 
tell him, ' you need not milk.' At 5 o'clock in 
the afternoon the horn blows, and they all come 
home to lunch. They are pretty tired, and sit- 
ting down on a stool to milk is quite a relief. 
The new man is sent back to the field to work, 
sometimes all alone, aud it is not many days be- 
fore he requests to be allowed to milk." 
There, as here, the pastures are suffering for 
want of rain, and few farmers have a supply of 
corn fodder to fall back upon. As a general 
rule, the corn fodder is as poor and as much 
dried up as the grass. It is sown broadcast, 
and suffers from drouth as much as the pastures. 
In a favorable season, and on rich land, a good 
crop is sometimes raised in this way; but in fa- 
vorable seasons it is not needed, as the same 
causes which produce good corn fodder pro- 
duce good grass. Corn fodder, to grow well 
and keep green during a severe drouth, needs 
rich land and thorough cultivation. 
The truth is, if we farmed better, we should 
not be so constantly complaining of drouth. 
There are far worse evils than a dry, hot sum- 
mer. We need heat to push vegetation forward 
rapidly. But a plant cannot grow without 
food, and if it has more heat than it has food, 
and has not an accumulated store in itself to fall 
back upon, it withers up. That plants store up 
matter cannot be doubted. The seed of timo- 
thy is formed from organized matter accumu- 
lated in the stem aud leaves, and not directly 
from food obtained from the soil. The same is 
true of oats, and doubtless of wheat, corn, bar- 
ley, peas, beans, clover, etc. Where there is 
an abundance of this organized or partly or- 
ganized matter in the leaves and stems of wheat, 
for instance, dry, hot weather will not hurt the 
crop. But if there is a deficiency of this mat- 
ter, the heat will shrivel up the grain. What 
we should aim at is to get a healthy, vigorous 
growth before the hot weather sets in, We 
