372 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
masticate the whole of it. Better thrash out 
the seed from overripe hay ami buy oil-cake or 
oats with the money obtained for it. 
I never before saw such crops of oats as Te 
had this season. It has been tough work har- 
vesting them. I was obliged to let mine get 
dead ripe before we could cut them with the 
machine. We cradled round the field, and then 
started the machine, but it clogged so badly 
that we had to give it up. I let them stand a 
week longer, until there was considerable danger 
of shelling, but the straw at the bottom was 
still green. To my great relief, however, I then 
found that the machine would cut them and 
rake them off into bundles. We put four horses 
on to the machine and had no further trouble. 
It is unwise to overtax the team, for one man 
can drive four horses as well as two, and the 
machine works far better when there is power 
enough to keep it going at a good steady pace. 
The driving wheel, too, is not as likely to tear 
up the soft ground when it- goes steadily as 
when it is jerked by an overtaxed team. This 
has been the great trouble the past harvest. 
Fig. 1. — WELL-CURB. 
Well-curbs and Well Covers. 
The drought which prevailed during a portion 
of the summer in the vicinity of New York, 
while our neighbors, only a few hundred miles 
away, were having so much rain that, _== 
for the time, they had ceased to regard 
it as a blessing, lowered and dried our 
springs and wells to an unusual degree. 
This offered an opportunity to clean out 
and deepen wells not to be neglected. 
If we had each to clean out his own 
well in a dry time, the water would not 
taste so well as usual, unless we knew 
the work was thoroughly done, and the 
subsequent accumulation of dirt prevent- 
ed. Nothing is easier than to fall into 
a hole, if the hole stands read}', and a 
hole is ready on most of our farms for 
mice, moles, toads, insects, leaves, sticks, 
and a thousand other agreeable and dis- 
agreeable things, gold spectacles and tin 
pail?. There is a well in our neighbor- 
hood made with 30-inch cement tiles; 
the uppermost tile rises a foot above the ground. 
Around this is a plain wooden curb, 3'|» feet 
square, and 3 feet high (see fig. 1). From the 
Kr^ 
namcniai ngure, represent 
^> in fig. 2, are nailed on clc 
f together upon the inside 
middle of opposite sides rise two posts, about 8 
feet high. These not only support the pulley 
upon which two buckets hang, but a roof which 
extends a foot in every direction beyond the 
curb. This roof has two rafters on each side, 
which are attached to the posts, and supported 
by braces of nearly equal 
length with the rafters. 
Two-and-a-half-inch slats, 
cut out so as to make an or- 
namental figure, represented 
ose 
do of 
the rafters and braces. The 
roof has open gables, adorn- 
ed by a simple sawed orna- 
ment, made of the ends of 
similar slats. The effect is 
very graceful and pretty. 
The well will be likely to 
keep clean a long time, and 
certainly no small animals 
can easily get in. In the 
same vicinity there is a 
very attractive rustic well-curb on a similar 
principle, made of rough red cedar with the bark 
on. See figure 3. The curb is of boards, to 
which cedar sticks, split in half, are nailed, mak- 
ing figures of regular lines. The braces are at- 
tached to the posts so as to appear like regular 
branches. The roof in the case to which we 
refer is of simple boards, with rustic ornamenta- 
tion on the gable ends; but it might very well 
be of bark, nailed upon boards, or of thatch, 
and either would add to the rustic effect. 
After all, these simple roofs, even when com- 
bined with a well-made curb, set snug upon a 
flagging or cement base, are not perfect for 
keeping out dirt that blows into wells. A con- 
trivance to effect this is shown in fig. 4. It 
consists of two simple lids, which shut together 
at an angle of 45 degrees or less. In making 
such lids the boards should be nailed to 3 x 4 
scantlings at one end, and narrow cleats at the 
other. Inserted in the scantlings are two stiff 
sticks of proper length, set at different angles. 
They should stand, when the lids are together, 
six or eight inches apart, with the ends lapping 
at least six inches. On connecting these ends 
with a short chain or cord, both lids will move 
together in opening or shutting, so that one can 
open the well with one hand with the greatest 
case. This cover is adapted to any kind of 
open well, but particularly to those furnished 
with the old-fashioned well-sweeps. A notch 
cut in each cover will allow the bucket to 
Why Don't the Boys Stay ? 
Lug Pay? 
Will Farm- 
"Uncas," who is a farmer's son and has Left 
the farm for the town, thus writes about farm- 
ing from his point of view : "Boys generally 
like to be where there is something going on, 
different from the farm, and the attraction:, of 
the city are enticing. Many young men, I 
think, are driven from the farm by the stick-to- 
it-iveness of the parent to old-style farming. 
Young men nowadays like to see and be seen, 
and dress as well as their city neighbors ; but the 
old-style farming don't allow of a great surplus 
in the treasury, and boys seek other business. 
I am a farmer's boy, and have worked on 
the farm, although at present engaged in the 
city. My father is attached to old-fashioned 
farming — by this, I mean the way our fathers 
did — and is, as I think, a little old-fogy, and, with- 
al, rather strongly set in his way, millstonS-like, 
while he calls me a book farmer, and thinks if I 
should run the farm I would run it into bank- 
ruptcy in less than a year. This difference in 
our views brought me to the city to live. 
The question, Will farming pay? has not been 
settled in my mind by practice, only in theory, 
Fig. 4. — COVER FOR WELLS. 
stand in the well while the pole or chain passes 
through a hole made by cutting a notch in 
each of the lids, and the well remains covered. 
Fig. 3.— RUSTIC WELL-CURB. 
and consequently I can only speak "theoretically. 
I am convinced that under the system generally 
pursued by most farmers, it is not a great pay- 
ing institution, but if the same attention and 
energy, with the same determined spirit to make 
it pay, be given to it, that is given to 
other pursuits, I don't see why it won't 
pay. Every man, woman, and child, is 
dependent upon the produce of the farm 
for sustenance, so that there will always 
be a demand for what the farmer raises. 
One principal need of the farmer in or- 
rjl7 der to be successful is manure, and a 
farmer should make and save all he can. 
A barn with a manure cellar, with wa- 
ter-tight tanks for saving all the liquids 
from the stables, as well as those from 
the sink spout, many loads of fertilizing 
material, which with a great many go 
to waste, might be made of service by 
stalling the cows in summer, and plac- 
ing muck under them. With the success- 
ful manufacturer, everything is made to 
count, and even the dust of the waste is 
sold for manure. With the farmer the fragments 
should be gathered up, that nothing be lost. 
Another great need of the farmer is some kuowl- 
