166 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mat, 
Coal Aslaes.— The chief use that has hither- 
to been made of coal ashes is in the construction of foot 
walks and road-ways, for which they are excellent,— even 
better than gravel ; but wherever the earth closet is 
need, it is an excellent plan to employ the finer sifting of 
coal ashes in combination with sifted earth— say ^ 
ashes to % earth— as the material for disinfecting. 
Taming; Bulls.— As ordinarily kept on 
farms, bulls are quite liable to become so cross and 
vicious, that it is not safe to keep them after they attain 
the age of four or five years. But if two are kept instead 
of one, and they are broken to the yoke, and worked as 
regularly as oxen are, they will do as much work, do it 
rather more briskly, remain docile longer than when not 
need, and seem to be made in all respects more useful. 
Maus-infi- a <*rln<lfttone. — "G., n Law- 
rence, Kansas, asks how to rig a grindstone to run by 
the foot. This needs a double pair of friction rollers 
and an axle, square at one end to receive a band crank. and 
with a short crank at the other to be connected with 
the pedal by a rod with a hook to go upon the crank. 
These " grindstone fixtures ri may be bought at any agri- 
cultural establishment iu the larger cities. They are 
hampered by no patents, and cost no more than a com- 
mon blacksmith would make them for, and are better 
made. A grindstone cannot be driven by the foot if it 
has not friction wheels, and it is pretty hard work 
then if one grinds any thing heavier than a carving knife. 
How to rWake a Kwo Own Iter 
Lanifo.— " W. A. T." has tried several plans, but with- 
out succcs3. If the lamb dies soon after birth, we have 
generally succeeded in getting the ewe to take another 
lamb. The main point is to separate the ewe from the 
r.est of the flock, and put her in a small pen. Hold her 
while the lamb suckles, and milk a little of the milk on 
the lamb. Do this four or five times a day, not neglect- 
ing it the last thing at night, and the first in the morning; 
and in nine cases out of ten the ewe will take to the 
lamb in two or three days, and frequently much sooner. 
Another of our Editors says: Cut off a portion of the 
skin of the dead lamb and put it over the neck and 
shoulders of the living one, wool side out, and the dam 
of the deceased lamb will always adopt it immediately. 
The skin may be removed after half a day or so. The 
best way is to have no dead lambs. 
Cure for Mop; Cholera.— u J. T. D., 11 
Rising Sun. Wo know of no rewards that have been 
publicly offered for a cure. There is one, however, 
which will surely be given to any one who makes known 
a certain cure or remedy, or even a tolerably efficient 
cure or preventive, and that is the reward of the con- 
sciousness of having done the country a great good. No 
man has a moral right to keep such a secret to himself 
for the hope of reward. After submitting it to sound 
veterinarians and physicians, if they approve, it 
should be published with great minuteness and particu- 
larity. The trials made and results obtained all over the 
country would settle the truth of the claim. Then there 
is not a State, which has offered a reward, which would 
not gladly pay it if proof of discovery be presented. 
BffoS^liiBft* on for ISfign Prices. — A 
correspondent writes: " Your counsel against holding out 
for higher prices has been well exemplified in our neigh- 
borhood. Some raisers of sage herb refused 40c, wait- 
ing to get 50c, and now can't get 25 cents per pound 
"Wlaat Ails flue Blens? — Hen diseases 
have been very little studied. One subscriber writes: 
"Within three years I have losta dozen hens. They begin 
to droop, and get black about the head ; dung, loose and 
yellow ; have but partial command over then- movements, 
stagger and waddle about, and in from one to three 
weeks they die. They have been generally my best two 
or three-year-old Brahmas. 1 ' Another says: "My hen 
acts dumpish, and will not eat. I found the nest covered 
with blood, and that she had been bleeding from the 
mouth." [Has she not been hurt? — Ed.] Yet another : 
•• My bens have a very singular disease. The eye swells 
and closes ; pus forms of an offensive character, and the 
Bktn surrounding the ej'e is distended with a substance 
of a yellowish white color, resembling cheese-curd 1 in 
consistence. The fowls generally die, though this be 
cleaned out thoroughly and often. They are ravenously 
hungry, yet grow weaker all the time."— Our own ex- 
perience suggests no certain treatment, and we would be 
glad to have successful practice described. 
Carts versus Wagons.— It seems strange 
that so few carts should be used by farmers in this 
country. They are much more conveniently geared up, 
more easily worked In cramped places, are unloaded 
with leas trouble, and are, in all respects, for the jobbing 
work of the farm, more economical and convenient than 
wagons. Provided with a good set of top-boards and a 
hay rack, they ought to become in this couutry, as they 
have in England, the principal vehicle for use upon the 
farm, although wagons arc better for journeys on the road. 
Nutritive Value of Different Crops. 
— A subscriber of the American Agriculturist in Ulster 
Co., N. Y., writes: "I would like to know 1st, 
the fattening properties contained in carrots, ruta- 
bagas, mangel wnrzels, turnips, oats, and corn ; 
2d, How many pounds of each arc equal to one hundred 
pounds of hay? 11 — We would like to know, too; but 
the question is surrounded with so many difficulties 
that no one has yet been able to give an entirely satisfac- 
tory and definite answer. The tables given by Professor 
Johnson in the appendix to "How Crops Grow, 11 show- 
ing the u Proximate Composition of Agricultural Plants 
and Produce, 1 ' furnish the latest and most reliable data 
to be obtained. But a volume is required to explain 
them, and this Professor Johnson will give us in due 
time. We may, however, assert that, of the roots 
named, carrots arc the most nutritions: mangel wurzel 
next, and nearly equal to the carrot ; ruta-bagas next, 
worth, perhaps, twenty per cent less than mangel wur- 
zel ; and turnips, worth one-third less than ruta-bagas. 
We cannot say how many pounds of carrots are equal to 
a bushel of oats or a hundred pounds of hay, any more 
than we can say how much bread is equal to a pound of 
beef, or a gallon of oysters. Those who pretend to give 
a definite answer on this subject arc little better than 
quacks. We must take into consideration the question of 
digestion, of the importance of concentrated nutriment, 
and of the adaptability of the food to the kind of stock. 
The mere fact that one food contains more nutriment 
than another proves very little in regard to its value. If 
we could get the nutriment of one hundred pounds of 
hay concentrated into fifty pounds of hay, the fifty pounds 
would be worth much more than the one hundred pounds. 
Grain and the better class of roots are, consequently, from 
the fact tliat they contain a less quantity of crude, indigest- 
ible material, of much more value than the mere amount 
of nutriment that they contain would indicate. And 
hence it is that we so frequently insist on the importance 
of producing rich grass and hay. A farmer should never 
raise turnips when he can raise a good crop of ruta-bagas, 
or ruta-bagas when he can raise a good crop of mangel 
wurzel or beets. The advantage of the turnip lies in 
the fact that we can sow it later, and it requires less 
manure; and when fed out early in winter, it affords 
food at a comparatively cheap rate. But to compare a 
crop of common white turnips with a good crop of man- 
gel wurzel is like comparing a crop of buckwheat with 
one of Indian corn. Both are good in their place. 
Cotton Seen If leal, an<l Co J ton 
Seed.— Chemical analysis shows that cotton seed meal 
is one of the richest foods now available for farm stock, 
while its price is relatively lower than that of any other. 
After considerable experience in its use with milch cows 
and other animals, we arc prepared to say that its effect 
in feeding seems fully to sustain the indications of the 
analysis. It is not well to feed it very largely ; and there 
are authenticated instances of its having speedily pro- 
duced death when given to young calves and young 
lambs, although sucktag colts, eating it from the lambs' 
troughs in the fields, have not been injured. It is almost 
always necessary to teach cattle to eat it, by at first mix- 
ing a small quantity of it with other meal. Its effect on 
the value of manure is very great, probably even better 
than that of linseed meal or rape cake. A neighbor of 
ours used it last spring as a manure in the hill for corn 
with excellent results. He considered the application 
profitable, and proposes to repeat it during the coming 
season. An Arkansas planter recently informed us that 
he regarded a bnshel of hulled cotton seed as equal in 
value to two bushels of corn in fattening hogs. The 
hulled seed, from which the oil has not been expressed, 
must be fed cyan more cautiously than the meal, which 
is deprived of the greater share of its oil. 
Tlie Ayrshires as MiUl^ers.— Howard 
S. Collins, of Collinsville, Conn., furnishes the Practical 
Farmer an interesting account of how he came to select 
the Ayrshires as milkers. In 1856, he commenced farm- 
ing on a poor, neglected hill-side farm, of one hundred 
and fifty acres, that, at the time, supported only six head 
of stock, ne began by keeping a dozen head, soiling 
them in summer, and steaming food for them in winter, 
and every year taking up some poor land to be thorough- 
ly cleared, manured, and seeded down again. We have 
visited his farm, and though beautifully situated, we have 
rarely 6een a more unpromising field for testing the 
merits of high farming. There arc few men who have 
studied agriculture more thoroughly than Mr. Collins, or 
who have carried to the task of renovating, we micrht 
almost say creating, a farm, greater skill, system, energy, 
perseverance, and science ; and he deserves his success. 
Qjj this farm he now keeps fifty head of cattle and threo 
horses. He has tried the " Natives," grade Devons, 
grade Short-horns, grade Ayrshires, and lias finally de- 
cided that, for hi6 purpose, (selling milk the year round) 
properly selected thoroughbred Ayrshires are the most 
profitable cows for him to keep. We know Mr. Collins 
to be a very careful and systematic man, keeping an exact 
account of the produce of every cow on the farm, and his 
statement is entitled to great weight. 
The season is fully three weeks later than last year. 
We do not publish poetry ; observe, and save postage. 
An India-rubber sponge has been invented in England. 
The N. Y. Evening Mail estimates that 3,000 quarts of 
pea-nuts are retailed in New York daily. 
'"The times is the money.'' 1 is the way one of our French 
exchanges renders our proverb " time is'inoney. 1 ' 
William R. Prince, formerly known as a nurseryman, 
died at Flushing, N. Y., March 2Sth, aged 73 years. 
Ashes are beneficial to fruit trees. " J. S. K." should 
not heap them around the trunk, but scatter them. 
A peck of clover seed per acre, especially on spring 
crops, is none too much. 
Answer to several.— We have had many assertions 
that wheat would turn to chess, but no proof. 
The Kansas State Agricultural College has 1GS students, 
—71 ladies, and 97 gentlemen. 
A Georgian has patented a bottomless flower pot for 
starting cotton iu hot-beds. 
The Southern Horticulturist is published by H." A. 
Swascy, M. D., at Yazoo City, Miss., at $2 per annum. 
The third Annual Fair of the State of Louisiana takes 
place at New Orleans on April Gth. 
"■Ex-Squire" is right when he says his record of the 
time of planting and of the coming up of seeds is inter- 
esting to look over. It is useful, too. 
Notes on fruit prospects are interesting. " D. P., Jr., 1 ' 
would add much to the value of his by Elating in what 
part of the country they are taken. 
If, as a correspondent suggests, a plum-tree that was 
plugged with sulphur was free from enrcuho, we do not 
believe that the immunity was due to the sulphur. 
Farm laborers in Ireland are becoming scarce. A Tip- 
perary paper says ''the hands in the market look for 9s. 
6d. to 3s. per diem, 11 or nearly one dollar m currency. 
France sends over ten million dollars 1 worth of butter 
per annum to England and about five million dollars 1 
worth of eggs. 
Now comes Nebraska, with a journal, the Agricultur- 
tnral Intelligencer, edited by S. W. Brooke, and pub- 
lished monthly at Kulo, for $1.25 a year. 
Forney's Weekly Press, (Philadelphia, Penn.,) has a 
Farmer's Department. To say that it is conducted by 
Thomas Meehan is assurance that it is well managed. 
Orono Potato is to be the name of the potatoes hereto- 
fore known as Foot, Reed, Carter, and Orono. So voted 
the Maine Agricultural Society. 
"Shady Cottage 11 is a very pretty name, and so is 
" Lilac Dell ;" but it would help correspondence won- 
derfully if people who date their letters in this way would 
say what their Post-office address is. 
Pigs are so scarce in some sections that a common 
breeding sow sells for $75 to $100, and last fall pigs at 
prices equal to 20 cents per lb., live weight. Better eat 
more mutton than buy pork at these rates. 
Grain is low and butter is high ; a cow is a machine for 
converting the one into the other. But a flour-mill will 
be sun to little advantage if there is no wheat in the hop- 
per. Draw your own conclusion. 
The Central Chamber of Agriculture in England repre- 
sents the opinions of 15.000 Agriculturists by means of 
00 deputed members, and it has great political power in 
all matters affecting the interests of farmers. 
The Department of Agriculture sends out for trial white 
English "Excelsior Oats" that weigh 51 lbs. per bushel. 
Beautiful oats, but a little mixed with barley, that it 
would be well to pick out before sowing. 
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society awarded in 
1SGS, for premiums and gratuities, $1,6&5. This will do 
very well for a provincial town, but the New York Hor- 
ticultural Society gave $0,000,000. 
The Fireman's Journal is the latest specialty in the 
way of -oursalism. Full of interest to those who have 
any property to bum, as well as to those who keep prop- 
erty from burning. New York : semi-monthly. $1.50. 
The gentleman who puts questions to us through the 
Farmers' Club is inlormed that's not the way for ua to 
receive communications. The Weekly Tnhnne was 
donbtless hard up for something to til) its "Agricultural" 
columns, and printed his letter. Thank you, Mr. TriD. 
