94 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March, 
inches long at bottom, and 50 inches long at 
top; put these pieces in position, and securely 
nail the sides to them; this can be readily done 
by boring' holes very near the ends of the side 
planks, bringing them into place by means of a. 
rope, twisted by a short lever. After the sides 
Fig. 2. 
no z?z. 
—STERN PIECE. 
1& in. 
Fig. 3. — BOW. 
eo in. 
—MIDDLE PIECE. 
are thus secured, true up the bottom edges, and 
plank cronswi.se with i-inch plank, \ of an inch 
apart; caulk these seams witli oakum or cot- 
ton, and tar the wIwU button), and two or three 
inches up the sides. A keel 1, 3 or 3 inches 
deep can then be 
nailed on, depending 
on the shallowness 
of the water where 
the boat is to be 
used. Forseats, nail 
a plank across each end, and one for the rower, 
over the middle-piece ; two row-locks, about 
six inches above the sides of the boat, complete 
the job. These can be made of plank, set up 
on end, and fastened to the inside of the boat. 
A common carpenter can make such a boat in 
about two days; and if planed and 
painted, it looks well. The ends ought 
to incline outwards about three inches 
to the foot, I have boated as much ice 
at one time in such a boat as four 
horses could haul in a wagon ; yet it is 
Fig- 5. so light, tliat a little girl rowed it three- 
quarters of a mile against a slight current with- 
out fatigue. Fig. 1, on the preceding page, 
shows the skiff completed; fig. 2 is a diagram 
of the stern piece; fig. 3, the bow piece; fig. 
4, Hie middle piece, and fig. 5, the row-lock. 
Ggden Farm.— Past, Present, and Future. 
Near Newport, R. I., there is a farm of sixty 
acres which promises to be of some consequence 
to the agriculture of America. Its improve- 
ment is the joint operation of Mr. Geo. F. Tyler, 
of Philadelphia, and Col. Geo. E. Waring, Jr., 
of Newport. The farm in question has not 
been undertaken for any fancy purpose. A de- 
sire to show what can be done and an attempt 
to teach others how to farm formed no part of 
the motive for the enterprise, which was, on the 
contrary, founded on the very sensible basis of 
a desire to make money by farming. The soil 
is a friable loam from five to ten inches deep, 
lying upon a very compact, bluish subsoil, such 
as is usually considered impervious to water. 
The land lies over the crown of a gently slop- 
ing hill. The difference in elevation between 
the highest and lowest points, distant from each 
other rather more than half a mile, is about 
fifty feet, The summit of the hill is nearly flat, 
and all of the water that fell upon it, unable to 
descend through the hard pan for want of an 
outlet beneath, has always traveled by slow and 
easy stages, from one particle of the soil to 
another, down the slope of the land, save as 
evaporated from the surface, preventing all pos- 
sibility of a fertile condition, despite repeated 
coaxings with manure, and good cultivation. 
During its previous history, the farm has bepn 
repeatedly sold at low prices, and rented at low 
rates; its owners and tenants having usually 
retired lame from its possession, it had earned 
the name of "Poverty Farm." When it came 
into the present possession, it seemed to many 
Rhode Island farmers to be but a stepping- 
stone to the poor-house or the mad-house, and 
the well-worn compliment concerning fools and 
their money has not yet gone out of use in the 
neighborhood. The purchase was made a little 
more than a year ago. Since that time every 
acre of the land has been thoroughly drained in 
the best manner with tiles placed four feet deep 
in parallel lines 40 feet apart. Much of the 
land has been subsoiled and nearlythe whole of 
it broken up. The interior fences have been, or 
are being entirely removed, the whole farm be- 
ing thrown into a single field, with the excep- 
tion of about four acres enclosing the buildings 
and yards. A three-story barn, 40 feet by 100 
feet, has been built, and a stock of over twenty 
head of pure Jersey Cattle has been purchased, 
or bred on the place. Tins bam is designed 
to be a model ot simplicity and convenience. 
It is, of course, too early in the history of the 
improvement to do much more than to call at- 
tention to it, but the effect of the drainage has 
been so marked that it will already bear more 
than a passing notice. On the eastern side the 
drains of about twenty acres discharge through 
a four-inch outlet. We visited the farm the day 
after Thanksgiving, and found teams plowing 
what had been the wettest land of the whole 
farm — land which, without draining, surely could 
not have been plowed before June next; and 
the record of the flow at the outlet showed how 
prompt the action of the drains had been. On 
Wednesday, the outlet had been flowing about 
half an inch deep ; on Thursday, Thanksgiving 
Day, it commenced to rain at noon, and stormed 
furiously until about nightfall, at which time the 
4-inch pipe was running entirely full. The next 
day when we saw it, and when the land was in 
good condition for plowing, the flow of the out- 
let had receded to a depth of less than one inch, 
Showing a much more rapid descent of the wa- 
ll r through a compact subsoil than was looked 
for, so soon after the completion of the draining. 
The fact that Ogden Farm is not intended to 
be in any sense a " model " farm makes it all the 
more valuable as a model. When a rich man, with 
"agricultural tastes," moves into the country, 
builds a $25,000 barn, a $1,000 poultry-house, 
and stoi:e walls at $10 a rod, and thinks that he 
is advancing the cause of scientific agriculture, 
we are disposed to sympathize very heartily 
with those who think that lie is doing it a real 
injury. His investments will never bring a re- 
spectable return, and he does not care that they 
should, and his example must often have the 
effect of deterring men of smaller means from 
undertaking real improvements. 
The farm in question, on the other hand, has 
had hardly a dollar expended upon it for the 
purpose of show or ornament. The whole in- 
vestment is purely a business one, with capi- 
tal sufficient to insure its success, if its plans 
have been judiciously laid out. We shall 
watch its course with interest, and shall 
endeavor to keep our readers informed of 
its successes and failures as they occur. 
Steaming Food for Horses. 
■ 
Mr. Stewart, of North Evans, New York, who, 
in an article furnished for the Annual Report of 
the Department of Agriculture, lias stated very 
clearly the general arguments in favor of steam- 
ing food for firm stock, and the results of his 
own experience therein, mentions, incidentally, 
the fact that the steaming of hay is a sure pre- 
ventive of heaves, and a sure cure of coughs 
and colds, instancing the case of an animal of 
his own, which came in from pasture with a se- 
vere cough, and was entirely cured within two 
weeks by an exclusive steamed diet. This re- 
sult is in accordance with the idea, that the irri- 
tation of the throat by dusty hay is a fertile 
source of heaves and coughs, and it suggests an 
important argument in favor of steaming. 
On general principles, it being admitted that 
steaming food for neat cattle produces the most 
economical results, it is fair to assume that the 
steaming of horse food will be even more bene- 
ficial ; for the reason that the digestive organs 
of t lie horse are much less elaborate than those 
of the ox, and that in all cases a much larger 
proportion of the food passes the bowels in an 
undigested condition. Therefore, whatever may 
tend, as unquestionably steaming does, to in- 
crease the digestibility of food, must have the 
effect of economizing, in a very marked degree, 
that which is given to our horses ; and the 
application of steaming in the feeding of all of 
the animals on our farms would considerably 
lessen the incidental expenses of the process, 
in proportion to the number of animals fed. 
The Management of Colts. 
Probably American farmers are as successful 
as any other farmers in the raising of young 
horses; — that is to say, considering the charac- 
ter of the sires and dams, they bring about as 
good final results as attend horse breeding in 
any other country where breeding is only inci- 
dental to farm work. But there is one item of 
management which is either disregarded or im- 
perfectly understood, and that is, the early 
education of the colt. Mr. Rarey has dons much 
to upset the old-fashioned notion of breal.ing 
horses, and has shown that, by judicious bend- 
ing, the necessity for breaking may be entirely 
obviated ; but even Mr. Rarey's system confined 
itself chiefly to horses which had arrived at an 
age when their services could be made immedi- 
ately useful. The reason why it is necessary to 
apply any strenuous system of training in 
bringing colts to their first work is, that they 
have to be taught to do that for winch their 
previous life has in no manner prepared their 
minds. The first three or four years of a colt's 
life are passed at pasture, or in the stable, and 
the most that he learns is, to obey the restraints 
of the halter, and occasionally, though, unfortu- 
nately, too seldom, to allow himself to be 
cleaned. When the day of his usefulness ar- 
rives, he is to be taught his trade in a few days 
or a few weeks; and the bit, the bridle, the 
girth, the saddle, the hard-pressing collar,— all 
perfectly new revelations to him, — are to be 
crammed down his young throat in the most 
remorseless manner, and he is a fortunate colt 
if the cramming be done with a gentle hand. 
Too often his simple wonder excites his mas- 
ter's temper, and a contest ensues, from the ef- 
fect of which he never recovers. If every colt 
could be treated as are, for example, those of 
Mr. Charles Sharpless, of Pennsylvania, the re- 
sult upon the average temper of our harness and 
saddle horses Would be remarkable, and at least 
one-half of the dangers of horsemanship would 
bo obviated. It is Mr. Sharpless' universal 
custom, while the colt, is still running with its 
dam, even at the age of six weeks or two 
months, to follow the handling and caressing to 
Which it has been accustomed almost from the 
hour of its birth, by a gradual harnessing and 
playing with straps, and generally on the third 
or fourth day of trial, by hitching to a pair of 
light wheels, with which the little shaver fol- 
