38 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[PEBRTJAnY, 
Contents for February, 1869. 
" Advereity." Illustrated. . 37 
Apple and Pear Seeds 38 
Apples— New Western 2 Illustrations.. 59 
Barberry for Hedges 59 
Bee Items— By M. Quinby 46 
Boys' and Girls' Columns— "A Stitch in Time Saves 
Nine"— "A Bird in the Hand"— Frank Fairfax's 
Flower Bed— Very Common Talk— Naval Accounts— 
"Asking the Blessing "—Curious Philosophy—" All 
a Settin' "—Superstitions of Miners — Answers to 
Problems and Puzzles— Problem— Rebus... 3 ///. .63-64 
Cannas as Ornamental Plants Illustrated. .5" 
Cattle— Perfection in a Milch Cow Illustrated . . 56 
Clover— How it Benefits the Land 55 
Colic in Horses— By Prof. John Gamgee 47 
Cold Frames 59 
Curing Bacon for the English Market 46 
Cutting Feed by Power 48 
Evergreens in Pots 60 
Faith in Farming 52 
Farm Budges— How to Make them 3 Illustrations. .52 
Farm Work for February 3S 
Flower Garden and Lawn in February 39 
Flower Trade 58 
Fowls— Silver-spangled Hamburghs Illustrated. .49 
Forwarding Cabbage, Cauliflower, and Lettuce 46 
Fruit Garden in February 39 
Green-house and Window Plants in February 39 
High Farming 54 
Household Department— The Table — Order and Or- 
nament— Illustrated — Household Talks, by Annt 
Hattie— Trimming Lamps— Cutting up and Salting 
Pork— Keeping Eggs— Roasting Pork— Vegetables— 
To Roast a Goose— Brawn or Head Cheese— Tin- 
ware to Mend — Dissolving— Solution— How to Make 
Good Bread — Potatoes — Breakfast Indian Fried 
Cakes 2 Illustrations . . 61-62 
Improving our Stock of Common Fowls 53 
Kitchen Garden in February 35 
Labor on Farms 49 
Lilies— How they are Propagated 2 Illustrations.. 58 
Manure— Best Way to Store 53 
Market Report*. 41 
Milk Rack- A Good one Illustrated. . 53 
Orchard and Nursery in February ... 30 
Plan for Laying out'a Small Place ... . Illustrated. .60 
Plants in Cellars 60 
Premiums 40 
Pruning— The Why and How 3 Illustrations.. 57 
Quinces— More about Them 29 
Rich Grass 62 
Sefton Breed or Swine 47 
Summer Fallows for Wheat 53 
Sparrows— European Illustrated. .49 
Tim Bunker on Carding Cattle 48 
Wagons upon Runners Illustrated. . 63 
Walks and Talks on the Farm, No. 62— Goin» West- 
Large and Small Farms— N. Y. State Ag'l Society's 
Trial of Plows— Fast and Slow Plowing— Oxen vs. 
Horses— Pereheron Horses— Waste of Time on the 
Farm 50-51 
Why Keep tip Interior Fences ? 51 
Winter Work 55 
Wisconsin Cattle Stables 2 Illustrations 54 
INDEX TO "BASKET" OR SHORTER ARTICLES. 
Advertisements 42. Kerosene Murders 42 
American Entomologist. .45 Milk Fever 43 
Am. Jersey Cattle Club. . .48 Mule Market 44 
Am. Pomol. Society 42 Mushrooms 45 
Boiled Potatoes for Cows. 45 Native Birds 45 
Bushel of Lime 45 N. Y. State Fair 14 
California Plant* 44 New Coleuses 44 
Canada Peas 45 Our Young Folks .45 
Cheese Making 45 Oyster Shells and Trees.. 45 
Cow— Ricli Milk 43 Penn. Poultry Society 41 
Currant Worm .45 Potatoes on Sod 43 
Death of C. N. Bement ... .45 Potato Test ing 44 
Death of Mr. Affleck 42Poultry Show 14 
Dept. of Agriculture 43 Practical Floriculture 45 
Devon Herd-books 44 Report of Plow Trial 45 
Does Plaster Lose: 4.1 Seeding Grass Lands 44 
Duck Raising 43 Sell at a Good Price 43 
Early Field Corn 44 Show of Pigeons, Poiiltiy.-tl 
Evergreens 45 Spotted Quinces 45 
Fat Goes to the Pail 43 Subsoiling 43 
Farmers' Club 44 Sundry Humbugs 42 
Gardening for the South. .4-1 Tile Factories '1-1 
Glanders in Human Subj's.44 Turkeys Killed by a Fox. .43 
Good Stock & Good Land43 Unsafe Advice 45 
Hen Manure 45 Wheat Land 43 
Importation of Barley. . .4-1 Where Shall I Go ? 44 
Back Volumes Supplied.— The back volumes 
of the Agriculturist aie very valuable. They contain 
information upon every topic conneoled with rural life, 
out-door and in-door, ami the last ten volumes make up 
a very complete library. Each volume has a full index 
lor ready reference to any desired topic. We have on 
hand, and print from electrotype plates as wanted, all the 
numbers and volumes for ten years past, beginning with 
16.V7- that is, Vol. 16 to Vol. 27, inclusive. Any of these 
volumes sent complete (in numbers) at ?1.75 each, post- 
paid, (or SI- 50 if taken at the office). The volumes, 
neatly bound, are supplied for $2 each, or $2.50 if to be 
sent by mail. Any single numbers of the past ten 
years will be supplied, posf.paul. for 15 cents each. 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
NEW- YORK, FEBRUARY, 1869. 
If we ask our readers this first of February a few 
questions which, though perhaps none of our busi- 
ness, yet interest us much, we hope it will not be 
thought an impertinence. Are you going to try 
peas this year? or shall you sow oats or barley, as 
usual? Have you bought your seed-wheat ? or do 
yon raise your own seed ? If not, why don't you 
raise it? It is worth more than the market price, 
as you will find if you have to buy. Why is it that 
your land is so weedy that, you have to buy all your 
seed ? Yon might have a good deal of clover-seed, 
which it is easy to get tolerably clean. Why don't 
you plau to save enough for your own use ? Clover 
is the cheapest manure you can use. Did you ever 
plow under a crop ? Are you going to buy a mower 
and reaper this year ? or will you hire, as you did 
last? You probably pay, if you hire, ten per cent 
interest on two or three machines. Is it uot so ? 
How about horse-rakes? Don't you know that it 
takes the best man to work the old revolver, and a 
smart boy can work many of the new ones perfectly 
well? You never put in any grain with a drill; 
why not? Don't you think it would be a great 
saving, — taking less seed, making the crop ripen 
evener, giving you better straw and a surer and 
larger crop ? What plaus have you made for the 
spring and summer ? How many hands will you 
employ ? What permanent improvements are you 
going to make ? Do you know any man who 
would take your farm and make more money on it 
than you, without taxing the land more than you 
do, if so much ? If so, how do you think he would 
do it ? Will it not pay you to do the same ? 
February is just the month to discuss a great 
many such questions, and some of them will keep 
until warm weather. But while they are mooted, 
the work must go on just the same. 
Hints about Work. 
Over a good part of the Union, it is neither win- 
ter nor spring ; the frost may be out of the ground 
so that we can begin setting fences and doing some 
kinds of spring work, and it may come on and 
freeze again, and a second edition of winter in all 
its severity be upon us. 
Winter Work. — Make the best use of the snow to 
haul home the timber, fencing stuff, and boards, 
from the saw-mill or from the wood lot. Employ 
every hour of daylight, when other important work 
is not pressing, in cutting 
Fire-wood, and thus making provision against a 
more hurried season, when every hour will he 
worth two or three hours of this time of the year. 
There is nothing that pleases the good wife better 
than a nice lot of clean, dry chips and light stuff, 
to make a quick blaze ; and if she or her maid has 
to run to the wood-pile, tear off splinters, pick up 
damp chips, and so spend live minutes out of the 
kitchen just, at the critical time when the dinner 
needs attention, the farmer must not complain if 
the potatoes burn in the pot, and things go wrong. 
Ice, nice ice, will keep splendidly on a floor of 
rails, under a heap of straw. Lay a floor of slabs 
on three old rails as sleepers, the floor being 12x12 
feet square ; cover it a foot thick with straw; lay 
up a square pile of ice eight or ten feet high, of 
solid square pieces, having the spaces between the 
cakes well chinked in with pounded ice ; set posts, 
as for a high fence, two feet outside, all around ; 
board up with close-fitting Ifi-feet inch 
or iuch-aud-a-quarter boards, and stuff the 
whole, outside the ice, with straw; put on 
a single-pitch roof of board*, inclined to 
the north, and fill the whole interior above 
the ice with straw. The ice will keep well, 
and should be used from the top only. It is well, 
before piling up the ice, to set two light posts, two 
feet from each corner, against which the ice may 
rest, so that the corners of the pile will remain firm. 
Laborers. — Look out early for good farm hands. 
Th« best men arc the first to maka engagements; 
common hands may be picked up more easily. On 
every large farm the farmer should have a man he 
can make a foreman, to allow himself a little free- 
dom from the constant attention to minor details. 
Such a man may often be obtained for five dollars a 
month more than a mere clodhopper, who can only 
be trusted to work under the eye of a "boss." 
With a good, active, intelligent German, who has 
been in this country a few years, one can employ, 
at low wages, a class of his countrymen which 
would otherwise only be a nuisance on the farm. 
Manure. — The time for economizing in the use of 
bedding is late in the season, if ever. Early in the 
winter, use as much as you can in order to increase 
the manure pile. This month often off-rs a first- 
rate opportunity to work over all the accumula- 
tions of manure in the yards and cellar*, to throw 
them in compact heaps, well laid up, mingling 
with them as much muck and litter as can lie spared 
from the stores of bedding for use later in the sea- 
son, and all the uneaten cornstalks, which arc too 
apt, at this time in the winter, to disfigure the 
yards. Composts may be greatly enriched and their 
fermentation quickened by a mixture of hog and 
hen manure; but it is important that, these should 
be pretty thoroughly disseminated through the 
whole mass in order to give it uniformity. 
Plows and Harrows. — Farmers living at a consider- 
able distance from mechanics should have, not only- 
good plows, but plenty of duplicate parts, that they 
can themselves attach in case of breakage ; sev- 
eral new shares, at least one new beam for each 
breaking-up plow, and several plow handles that 
may be adapted to the plow's most used. Have 
wood ready to mend harrows, if they ate to be sub- 
jected to any trying work among stumps or on 
rough, rooty ground. Give a coat of paint to all 
tools of this class, being particular to work it well 
into the joints, and it is well to give these spots 
several coats, so that water cannot get in. Paint 
tools only when thoroughly dry. 
Wagons. — When the sleighing is good, don't for- 
get to put the wagons in good order. 
Good Jioads, whether good for wheels or run- 
ners, should be made use of, so that there shall be 
no need to deliver sold goods when the roads are 
breaking up in the spring, nor to do heavy team- 
ing, like hauling home lumber, coal, and provisions. 
What a good thing it would be if we hail in this 
country such grand highways as connect almost 
every farming community in Europe with the mar- 
ket town, and market towns with one another all 
over the country ! On these roads a pair id' horsi - 
will trundle off, at a trot, on level ground, four 
tons on a wagon that weighs a ton. The roads 
are, the year round, equal to ours in midwinter. 
Working Cattle — Save the strength of the ox for 
the plow and for the heavy work ; feed him a little 
grain; keep him in first-rate working order, .and 
give just work enough to prevent his neck get- 
ting soft; then when the time for hard labor ar- 
rives, give good feed and all the work he can do. 
Work the Bulls! They are healthier for it ; they 
are easier and safer to handle; t lev are surer and 
better stock-getters ; they are more intelligent 
than oxen, and easier taught, if they do not learn 
that dangerous lesson, that they need not mind 
unless it suits their own convenience. 
Cmos. — Feed dry cows well ; give them a daily feed 
of meal of some kind, corn-meal and wheat-bran, 
or corn-meal ami oil-cake, or some other milk-pro- 
ducing or fattening diet. You will get it all back 
when you begin to milk. Keep neat stock of all 
kinds sheltered and warm. Do not expose them to 
the spring storms, which are more trying than 
those of the autumn and early winter. 
Young Cattle should never stop growing until 
they come to full maturity. They will surely stop, 
and thenceforth have that stunted, weakly look so 
common among " scrubs," unless they are shel- 
tered and so well fed that they do not lose flesh. 
Morses and Colts. — The same remarks are applica- 
ble to these animals as to neat stock, except that 
the horse will thrive under much severer exposure 
than cattle, if ha has enough to eat and a shed to 
go under. It is, however, the worst policy to put 
