334: 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
charge of them. Six ducks and three drakes sur- 
vived the voyage of 124 days, and -were landed in 
New-York on the 13th of March, 1873. Leav- 
ing three ducks and two drakes, consigned to 
parties in New-York, to be sent to Mr. Mc- 
Grath's family, (who never received them, as 
they were killed and eaten in the city). Mr. P. 
took the three remaining ducks and drake to 
his home at Wequetequoc, in Stonington, Conn. 
They soon recovered from the effects of their 
long voyage, and commenced laying the latter 
part of March, and continued to lay until the 
last of July. They are very prolific, the three 
ducks laying about 325 eggs. 
The ducks are white, with a yellowish tinge 
to the under part of the feathers ; their wings 
are a little less than medium length, as com- 
pared with other varieties ; they make as little 
effort to fly as the large Asiatic fowls, and they 
can be as easily kept in enclosures. Their 
beaks are yellow ; necks long ; legs short and 
red. When the eggs are hatched under hens, 
the ducklings come out of the shell much 
stronger, if the eggs are dampened every day, 
(after the first 15 days,) in water a little above 
blood heat, and replaced under the hen. 
The ducks are very large, and uniform in 
size, weighing at four months old about twelve 
pounds to the pair. They appear to be very 
hardy, not minding severe weather. Water to 
drink seems to be all they require to bring them 
to perfect development. 
I was more successful in rearing them with 
only a dish filled to the depth of one inch 
with water, than were those who had the ad- 
vantages of a pond and running stream. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm,— No. 129. 
Newton Reed writes: "In preparing my 
ground for wheat, I haul the manure in June 
on to the corn stubble, and plow it immediately 
under ; and the land is plowed again two or 
three times, before sowing the wheat. I have 
practiced this method several years, with good 
satisfaction, except a slight suspicion, that 
there may be some loss to the manure." 
I should have no fear on that score. I do 
not think there is likely to be any loss of ma- 
nure from evaporation, and I do not see that 
t'-ere is much danger of the manure leaching 
o t of the soil during the summer months. I 
do not recollect an instance on my farm of our 
ever having rain enough during the summer to 
start an underdrain, after it had once stopped. 
In the spring, and perhaps late in the fall, a 
small portion of the manure may leach out of 
the soil, but I think not in the summer, even if 
the land is in bare fallow. I think Mr. Reed's 
plan a very good one. " My object," he says, 
" is to clean the land of weeds, thistles, and 
quack-grass. The oat crop, which used to 
come in between corn and wheat, has become 
here so poor, and allows such a growth of 
weeds, that I am willing to omit it, and culti- 
vate the land as a fallow. We expect enough 
better crop of wheat and grass, to pay for loss 
of the oats." 
Mr. R. adds : " I sell milk to Borden's Con- 
densing Milk Factory, and keep as many cows 
as my grass will feed, and besides I feed all 
my corn, and as much bran purchased for the 
purpose." 
Mr. R. says that bran makes rich manure. 
There is no doubt on this point. I think if I 
was a dairy farmer, and could dispose of the 
milk at a paying price, I should aim to feed at 
least a ton of bran a year to each cow, and half 
a ton of corn meal. I am not sure that it would 
pay for the first year or two, but it would be 
profitable in the end, provided the manure was 
carefully saved and applied. The great ob- 
jection to such a system is the fluctuations in 
the price of bran. Sometimes we can buy it 
here for $15 per ton, and sometimes we must 
pay $35 per ton. 
" Yes," said the Deacon, " I take it the dairy 
farmers understand their own business. They 
will adopt the system which long experience 
has taught them is the best and safest." 
That is all true, and I would be the last man 
to assume that I understand how to manage a 
dairy farm as well as a dairy farmer. I was 
only saying that it seemed to me, that a farmer, 
who had a ready market for all the milk he 
could produce, at a fair price, could easily 
manage to enrich his land. With us here in 
the wheat-growing section, the great trouble is 
to make a profit on our live stock. If we could 
do this, it would be an easy matter to make 
our farms rich. 
Last year I manured the east side of my 
wheat field. The manure was rich and well 
rotted. We put on only a slight dressing, but 
the effect was very decided. When we were 
cutting the wheat, one of the men who were 
binding after the machine, and who did not 
know that only a part of the field was manured, 
remarked, " if it was ad as heavy, as it is on 
the east-side, we should have something to do. 
The straw is perhaps no longer, but the heads 
are larger, and every one of them is full of 
grain." I think the thrashing machine will 
show this to be true. I have frequently heard 
farmers say, when discussing the question as to 
why we can not raise as good wheat now as 
formerly, " it is not because our land is poor. 
We can grow straw enough, but the grain is 
not there." So far as my observation goes, we 
seldom get too much straw. But whether this 
is true or not, I feel sure that a little rich ma- 
nure is precisely what many of our wheat fields 
need, to enable them to yield a good crop of 
grain. 
Last year my wheat was seriously injured by 
the Hessian fly. This year the crop is almost 
entirely free from it. I have been thinking 
whether the harrowing, which I gave the wheat 
last fall, has any connection with this fact. As 
I understand the matter, the Hessian fly lays 
its eggs on the leaves of the young wheat plant 
early in the fall, and it is just possible that the 
repeated harro wings interfered in some way 
with the process of hatching. I do not know 
that there is anything in this idea. 
We have had a grand crop of hay this year, 
and it is of excellent quality. Hay and straw 
will be cheap with us the coming winter, and 
store cattle and sheep are consequently likely 
to be wanted at better prices. An old farmer 
of my acquaintance who lives near the city, 
has a big barn, and he says he has found from 
experience, that if he puts hay into the barn, 
and lets it stay there until he can get $20 per 
ton for it, he has never had to keep it over 
three years. It is seldom that he has to keep 
it two years. It is with hay as with wool, 
wheat, corn, and barley ; when the price is low 
everybody seems willing to sell, but when 
prices are high, everybody is desirous of holding. 
" Old corn is scarce," writes a farmer in 
Missouri, " and is worth 75c. to 80c. per bushel." 
I do not know the fact, but I presume a year 
or eighfeen month's ago, farmers were selling 
their corn there for 25 cents, or using it for 
fuel. " Well," replied the Deacon, "what are 
you going to do about it ? " Nothing. It has 
always been so, and what has been, will be. 
What we want is more faith. We should not 
go with the stream. You, Deacon, and many 
others, thought the bottom had fallen out of 
fanning. You thought we should never see 
good prices, good crops, and good times any- 
more. "I don't see them yet," replied the 
Deacon. They are coming, nevertheless. Stick 
to the farm ; farm well, and your chances of 
success are certainly as good as in any other 
business. " The railroads are ruining us," said 
the Squire, " they have just advanced then- 
rates on cattle." I am not going to defend the 
railroads. But this advance in rates will not 
hurt the good farmer as much as the farmer 
who keeps nothing but inferior stock, and half 
starves it. A choice well-bred and well fed 
steer, weighing 1500 lbs., is worth $100 in Chi- 
cago. The freight on him to New York is $8.25. 
A common, inferior steer, weighing 750 lbs. , is 
worth in Chicago $20, and the freight on him 
to New York, is $4.12. The freight on two 
thousand dollars worth of the good steers is 
$175; and on two thousand dollars worth of 
the inferior animals $412.50. Let us make the 
railroads do the fair thing, if we can, but in the 
meantime, let us not neglect to improve our 
herds of cattle, sheep, and hogs. 
I have always said that winter wheat was 
our best crop to seed down with. This I be- 
lieve is also the general opinion of our farmers. 
But this year I have wheat on one hah of a 
field, and barley on the other half. I seeded 
the whole field this spring with clover, sowing 
a peck per acre. The young clover on the 
wheat is only fair, while on the barley it is 
superb ! " Yes," said the Deacon, " I never saw 
a handsomer field of barley, or a handsomer 
patch of clover." It is worth something to get 
such a confession from the Deacon. I have 
not thrashed yet, but I expect 45 or 50 bushels 
of barley per acre. 
Geo. M. Lyons, of Titusville, Pa., writes me 
that he shall be glad to furnish crude petroleum 
by the barrel, to any readers of the American 
Agriculturist. Where petroleum can be ob- 
tained at a cheap rate, I have no hesitation in 
recommending its frequent use for preserving 
wood. The longer I use it the better I like it. 
I have an old Walter A. Wood's Reaper that I 
have used and abused for ten years, and the 
platform and other wood work of the machine 
is as sound and good as when it was new. 
Every year I wash it over with petroleum, 
wood work, iron, and all. Fork, hoe and rake 
handles are greatly benefited by a washing of 
petroleum every few months. It makc3 them 
hard and smooth. We had occasion a few 
days since to bore a hole in an old cultivator 
that has had frequent applications of petrole- 
um, and we found it no easy matter to get the 
auger into it. It was almost as hard as iron. 
But there is one thing about petroleum that 
ought to be understood. A slight dressing 
seems to do very little good. You must get 
rid of the idea that you are painting. You 
want to get the petroleum into the wood. The 
drier the wood, and the hotter the weather, the 
better. The end of a board, or of a stick of 
timber, will absorb far more petroleum than 
the sides. The pores will absorb the oil, and 
as fast as it is taken in, put on more. To i 
