1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
259 
What I want to be satiefied about is this : I feed 
my sheep all the straw and corn fodder they will 
eat. But it is uot rich enough to make them grow, 
Dr fatten them as rapidly as I wish. Now, what 
shall I give in addition 'i As I understand Prof. A., 
lie says give them food rich in nitrogen. Now, if 
nitrogen is what 1 want— and if, by furnishing this, 
I can get suflicieut available carbonaceous matter 
from straw and corn fodder, then I can feed much 
more economically than I am now doing. But I 
have my doubts. Will Prof. Atwater tell me 
whether it has been really proved by actual experi- 
ments, that in such a case as I mention, peas or 
beans are much more valuable than Indian corn ? 
II nitrogen, and nitrogen alone, is what I want, 
(the sheep having all the straw and corn-fodder 
they will eat), then 100 lbs. of beans, peas, or malt 
sprouts, should be worth nearly as much as 300 lbs. 
of com. And a ton of bran would be worth as 
much as a ton of eorn-meal. 
We have just been dipping the lambs. We 
finished shearing last week, and as usual the ticks 
from the sheared ewes soon got on to the lambs. 
I only dipped my ewes once last summer. They 
apparently were so free from ticks that we did not 
dip them last fall. I suppose this is the reason 
why we had so many ticks on the young lambs this 
spring. I took two gallons of soft-soap, about six 
lbs. of grease, half a lb. of white hellebore, and one 
quart of crude carbolic acid, and boiled the whole 
TROUGH FOR DIPPING SHEEP. 
together for half an hour in eight pailfuls, (say 18 
gallons), of water, until the grease was all dissolved 
and thoroughly mixed with the water. To this we 
added six pailfuls of cold water, or sufficient to re- 
duce the temperature of the dip to about blood- 
heat. I have a two-inch plank watering-trough, 10 
feet long, 2 feet wide, and 16 inches deep, with a 
partition in the center. 
We put the fourteen pailfuls of liquid into the 
trough, and raised one end of the trough, until 
the Uquid was within a few inches of the top at the 
other end, and put blocks under to hold it in this 
position. I have used this trough for dipping 
Iambs and sheep for some years, but have always 
used moie liquid, and never before thought of the 
plan of lifting up one end of the trough. It worked 
admirably. We had sixty lambs to dip, many of 
them nearly as large as common Merino sheep. We 
dipped the largest first. When we got through, 
there was only about five pailfuls of the liquid left, 
but as the lambs were smaller, there was nearly 
enough to cover them, and by turning them over in 
the liquid, every part of the body, except the head, 
was immersed. 
One man caught the lambs, and two dipped 
them, and I stood by and held the Iamb by the 
nose, so as to be sure that none of the liquid got 
into his mouth or nostrils. It took a little over one 
hour to dip the sixty Iambs. Every tick seemed to 
be almost instantly killed. An hour afterward we 
examined several of the lambs. Wc found hundreds 
of dead ticks, but not a single live one. I never 
had a dip so entirely sntisfactory and effectual. 
None of the lambs showed any symptoms of sick- 
ness, and the next morning they were frisking 
about as happy as before the ewes were sheared. — 
" Tou have omitted one or two points," said the 
Deacon. "You put the hind-quarters of the lamb 
in the deep water, and the head in the shallow wa- 
ter toward the center of the trough. Then, after 
the Iamb had been in the water about 30 seconds, 
you lifted him out, and let him stand in the up- 
ward part of the trough, and there pressed the 
liquid out of the wool, and let it run back through 
a hole in the partition. I never saw you have any- 
thing so well arranged before, I certainlj' never 
saw ticks so easily and so surely killed." — " Good 
for you, Deacon," said I, '' and suppose I tell them 
what a mistake you made about the quantity of 
liquid we should need." The Deacon said we 
should not have half liquid enough, as "this long 
wool will hold a great deal of water." — We found 
it was precisely the other way. The grade-lambs, 
and especially those with only one cross of Cots- 
wold blood, had shorter, thicker, and finer wool, 
and we were all astonished at the great amount of 
water which the fleeces of these lambs held— on 
the principle, I suppose, that a fine sponge holds 
more water than a coarse one. It shows that if a 
fine-wooled lamb should get soaked through to the 
skin in a heavy rain, the fleece would not dry so 
soon, after the rain is over, as a long-wooled lamb. 
Yesterday a farmer was driving past towards the 
city, on a lart;e load of bright, well cured clover 
hay. I asked him how much he had on, and what 
he would take for the load. " There is all of twen- 
ty-seven hundred," he said. — "It takes a big load 
to make a ton," I replied, " and I do not think you 
have much, if any, over a ton, and if you Uke to 
drive it into the barn, I will give you $10 for it." — 
He scowled at me, and drove on toward the city. 
This was about nine o'clock in the morning. To- 
wards night I saw a load of hay drive up from^the 
city. It was my friend of the morning. He had 
been in the city .all day with that load of clover- 
hay.—" I could not get a single offer for it," he 
said, " Timothy sells readily for Sl.5 to §16 per ton, 
but nobody wants clover." — He had 2,160 pounds 
in the load, and was glad to take my offer of the 
morning, not that he wanted money, as he is a well- 
to-do farmer, Init he evidently did not want to have 
his neighbors see him come back with a load of 
hay. I could not but feel sympathy for him, and 
took in the hay. He lives 1.5 miles from the city, 
and had spent a long day, with a team, at this busy 
season, taking a thirty-mile ride, to sell a load of 
hay for about what it is worth for manure. And 
we send millions of dollars out of the countrj' every 
year to buy wool, and all my city friends complain 
of the high price of meat, and of the difficulty of 
getting .yoorf beef, mutton, veal, and Iamb. 
More Education among Farmers, 
It is a fact shown before the British Parliament, 
that "while the rental of land in Ireland had 
doubled during the previous hundred years, and 
that of England tripled, the rental of Scotland had 
sextupled itself in the same time." This is attri- 
buted mainly to the vastly superior school system 
which Scotland has possessed, and the skill and 
enterprise it has fo.stered among the people. — It is 
a fact that a truck-farmer within a dozen miles of 
any of our large cities, will get a clean jirofit of two 
or three hundred dollars from an acre of land, 
while the average old-style farmer, hardly gets that 
amount of profit from his hundred acres or more. 
These facts are worth studying by the still large 
class who do not see the use of agricultural papers 
and teaching, etc., think muscle is the main thing 
in successful farming. The truck-farmer studies 
his market, knows what is wanted. learns how to 
raise it, when and where to sell it, believes in 
manure, buys it, believes in knowing all about his 
business, takes his paper, reads and thinks, don't 
kick at facts because they are printed, keeps his 
eyes open, and drinks in knowledge from men and 
books. He keeps learning and succeeds in his 
business. There is still a large class of our farming 
population completely stereotyped. Many fake no 
agricultural paper, attend no fairs, no farmer's 
club, try no experiments, have no faith in improved 
tools and stock, and .are hardly able to tell at the 
end of the year whether they lose or gain in their 
business. Success in cultivating the soil is already, 
and is to be more and more, dependent upon brains. 
Men who read and think most, plan most wisely 
and execute most skillfully, wUl succeed best. We 
need all the help we can get from the teachings of 
science, from journals, from fairs and clubs, as well 
as from the daily experience of the fields. 
An English Donkey Show.— An exhibition of 
working donkeys was held in the Crystal Palace, 
near Loudon, in May, at which a large number of 
animals were entered. The donkeys were chiefly 
owned by " costermongers," or, as we call them", 
pedlers and junk dealers, and the exhibition was 
started by the Society for the Prevention of Cruel- 
ty to Animals, for the purpose of influencing these 
persons to a more humane treatment of their 
donkeys. The result has been to greatly raise these 
humble animals in the estimation of their owners 
and the public by showing how much more hardy, 
docUe, industrious, and useful they arc than is gen- 
erally supposed. Some of these diminutive ani- 
mals draw a ton at a load 30 miles a day for their 
usual labor ; others draw three such loads a day 
eight miles, " going eight miles an hour without a 
whip." " Old Tommy," now 31 }'ears old, has 
drawn three tons of coal daily for the pairt 16 years, 
and needs no whip ; "Wild Charley" is 31 years 
old, and is in the old iron business ; he has won 
31 matches and can trot two miles in 7 minutes. 
"Old Tommy" is valued at ?150, and "Wild 
Charley " is not for sale. " Young Tommy " has 
trotted 8 miles in 50 minutes. " Coster Jack " is 
in the egg and fruit business, and travels 23 miles 
every day, although only 4 years old. .Jack is 
" fond of children, and eats bread from a plate and 
drinks tea from a saucer on the table like a rational 
being"; this accomplishment being set forth by 
hie owner on his entry in the catalogue. The 
amount of work done by donkeys in England is be- 
yond belief by those who are unacquainted with 
them, and the value set upon them by their owners 
is higher than would be supposed. Those men- 
tioned in the catalogue as work animals are valued 
at from ?30 to .?250. Certainly, a good donkey is 
very much better than a poor, lame horse for the 
work for which these animals are adapted. 
Summer Care op Poultry. — Lice are the bane 
of poultry in the summer season. Young chicks 
and old fowls pine and die miserably in thousands 
from this cause. Grease is a sure remedy against 
these vermin. A mixture of one teaspoonfnl of 
kerosene oil or crude petroleum, with 4 ounces 
of fresh lard or sweet oil, should be rubbed on the 
heads and beneath the wings of the fowls and 
chicks, either as a cure or preventive. The same 
should be smeared over the roosting poles, care- 
fully filling all cracks with it. If a setting hen is 
allowed to become infested, her nest should be 
changed, the eggs dipped in tepid water nnd wash- 
ed, and replaced in a fresh clean nest. There is no 
bettermaterial for nests than fine earth or shavings. 
Some tansy placed in the nest, will help to keep 
lice away. The hen may be washed in wann car- 
bolic soap suds, and then allowed to dust herself in 
fine, diy, clean earth. The new nest should be 
exactly similar to the old one, and if the change is 
made when the hen leaves the nest to feed, and 
near the evening, she will go on to it without 
hesitation. Cleanliness, dryness, variety of food, 
and pure water in plenty, will all help to keep 
poultry in perfect health during the warm weather. 
Granaries and Grain Bins. 
As a rule it wiU be found most profitable to 
thrash grain as soon as it has been harvested. 
There is a saving of time and labor iu drawing the 
sheaves from the field direct to the thrashing ma- 
chine, and mowing away the straw in the barn at 
once. The thrashing may bo done in the field, and 
the straw stacked there, especially now that steam- 
thrashers are coming into more frciuent use. 
When this plan becomes general, the granary will 
become as conspicuous a farm-building as the barn 
