4,10 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
beaten me on pigs. They look better and are 
nearly twice as many. With pigs at thirty 
cents a pound it counts. Connecticut. 
[Our correspondent's philosophy expressed in 
the first part of his article, that there is little 
harm in a son* being in good condition, is our 
firm conviction. The Deacon's notion that raw 
meat and roots are excellent, we endorse too, so 
far as feeding roots goes. There is little or no 
evidence in favor of feeding raw meat, pro- 
vided the bowels are kept open by roots and 
a little charcoal and ashes now and then. — Ed.] 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 71. 
"Did you see anything new at the Fair?" 
asks the Deacon. " Not much ; but I saw what 
is a good deal better, a great many old friends, 
and not a few asked me ' Who is the Deacon ?' " 
As I was examining the splendid collection of 
steel plows and other implements ami machines 
shown by the Remington Agricultural works, a 
farmer quietly remarked, " Tiiat is the plow the 
Deacon thinks brings in the weed?." They now 
make a steel plow with a steel "jointer," or little 
plow in front, for turning an inch or two of the 
top-soil into the bottom of the previous furrow, 
similar to the so-called "Michigan double plow," 
except that it is made of steel, and the small 
plow has a blade of steel standing up from the 
point, to cut the sod like a coulter. They say 
that it is none too heavy for two horses, but I 
should certainly prefer to put on three, for the 
object of these plows is to smother the grass 
and weeds by turning them to the bottom of 
the furrow and covering them witli five or six 
inches of soil, and consequently we ought to 
put the plow in pretty deep. I am inclined to 
think that a jointer makes nearly a horse's dif- 
ference in the draft. They are also making a 
double mould-board plow, which must be just 
the thing for those-who believe in hilling up 
corn and potatoes. The mould-boards can be 
expanded or contracted to suit wide or narrow 
rows. It would also be useful for making ridges 
for turnips and other root-crops. I should like 
it better if made of steel, for if the land is as 
fine and mellow as it should be for root-crops, 
these double mould-board plows are apt to clog. 
The Remingtons are also making what we have 
long wauled — sted teeth or blades, for Shares' 
harrow. It is a capital implement for covering 
grain, or for harrowing an inverted sod for corn, 
or for any crop that requires three or four inches 
of loose, mellow soil. These steel blades cut 
the sod to pieces without bringing it to the sur- 
face, but turn over and mellow the loose earth. 
There was a hand potato digger that some of 
the officers of the Society, who saw it tried, spoke 
highly of. It is simply a wide fork with six ot 
seven teeth, with a movable fulcrum behind. 
The fork is thrust into the soil on one side of 
the hill, and by bearing down on the handles the 
potatoes are lifted up, and the fork is shaken up 
and down on this fulcrum to separate them. 
Another thing which attracted considerable 
attention was Wheeler & Melick's ten-horse- 
power thrashing machine. It lias a contriv- 
ance for regulating the blast of the fanning-mill, 
and the use of sieves is entirely dispensed wilh. 
It was in operation on the grounds, and cer- 
tainly cleaned the grain perfectly, and one of 
the committee told mo that none of the grain 
was blown over. The manufacturers as- 
sented when I told them that farmers would 
soon refuse to biro thrashing machines that 
were not driven by steam, but smiled in- 
credulously when I told them that we wanted 
straw carriers that could be elevated as high 
again as at present. Most of us are obliged to 
stack our straw in the yard, and the higher we 
can make the stack, the smaller is the proportion 
of straw damaged on the roof. 
W. H. McKinney, of Ohio, who asked my 
advice last summer in regard to plowing under 
clover, sends me the result. He plowed under 
the clover the last of June when it was in full 
bloom ; cross-plowed the field the last of 
August; on the 5lh of September " ridged the 
whole field with large shovel-plows, and sowed 
l'|, bushels of red chalf wheat per acre, and 
harrowed it with a common \ harrow until the 
ground was level. It grew finely in the fall, 
and sustained no injury during winter. Like 
all the wheat in this section it did not start early 
in the spring, but after a while it commenced to 
grow and soon left all other fields far behind. 
About four acres in the field fell before it head- 
ed out, and just before harvest we had a heavy 
storm that laid it badly, so that we had to cut 
with the reaper all one way. The sheaves were 
almost as thick as they could lie on the ground. 
We have just thrashed, and had four hundred 
bushels from the twenty acres, or twenty bush- 
els per acre, while the average of our neighbors 
is only fifteen bushels." Mr. McK. adds : " If 
we have to sell at less than $1.50 per bushel, we 
lose money, on account of the high price of 
labor." There can be no doubt on this point, 
and it is well to look the fact squarely in the 
face. There is no business which is not some- 
times carried on at a loss, and farming is no ex- 
ception to the rule. Farmers have no fixed 
rules in regard to selling. When prices are 
high, thej* are more inclined to hold on, in hope 
that they will be higher; and when prices are 
low, they are often in a hurry to sell for fear 
they will be lower. Tiiere can be no doubt that 
wheat ought to be higher this fall than it should 
have been last fall. But it is very doubtful 
whether we shall get a paying price. Powerful 
as the agricultural press has become, it is not 
yet capable of inducing farmers to combine to- 
gether for their own interests. The time is 
coming, however, when we shall know how 
much it ought to cost us to produce a bushel of 
wheat in an average season, and we shall refuse 
to sell unless we get a fair price. People must 
eat, and it would seem that producers had the 
question of price in their own hands. To 
a certain extent this is true ; but with the mod- 
ern means of transportation we cau never per- 
manently get unreasonably high prices. We 
have to compete with the whole world, and the 
problem we have to solve is, how to raise our 
products as cheaply as it can be done by any 
other nation. If wages are too high, they must 
come down. In this respect, however, farmers 
must compete with other industries. Men will 
not work for us for less than they cau get in the 
nurseries or market gardens, or on railroads or 
canals. They will not dig ditches on the farm 
for less wages per day than they can get for dig- 
ging sewers in the cities. The trouble at present 
is, that we have to pay a great deal more in the 
country than the same class of labor is worth 
in the cities. Only think of a man earning 
$5.35 a day in digging underdrains ! 
These English ditchers (see Col. Waring's ar- 
ticle in October Agriculturist, page 374) must 
think "America's a great country," when they 
can get 75 cents a rod for making underdrains, 
and at the same time do the work 25 cent9 a 
rod cheaper than the " experienced Irish ditch- 
ers." No wonder that Robert ©onmgsljy, who 
was here last year, at the request of the Society 
of Arts, to enquire into the "prospects of the 
English laborer in America," reports that, 
while " the English mechanic gains little or 
nothing by emigration, except the chance of a 
good gratis education for his children, the un- 
skilled laborer gains in addition a great increase 
of wages, of comfort, and of liberty, while the 
agricultural laborer gains everything." 
Fifteen cents a rod, in our currency, would bo 
considered a high price for digging and laying 
such drains in England. And how is it possible 
that we can afford to pay five times as much for 
the same work here? I have never yet paid 
more than twenty-five cents a rod for digging a 
drain three feet deep. Mr. Swan, who laid 55 
miles of draining tile on his farm in two years, 
got his drains dug for twelve cents per rod — but 
that was before the war. It is much the better 
way to let out the digging by the rod, but it is 
not often that you can find men willing to do 
the work at a fair price. A good plan is to pay 
the men, say $1.25 per day, and then agree to 
give them twenty-five cents for every rod they 
cut over five rods a da)-. They are in this way 
sure of a fair day's wages, no matter what the 
character of the land may prove, and they have 
a chance of earning extra wages according to 
their skill and industry. 
Last winter I had considerable ditching done 
on the plan recommended by Col. Waring — 
that is to say we laid the tiles as fast as we dug 
the ditches. It is the only way in which under- 
drains can be cut and laid in winter to any ad- 
vantage, where we have heavy snows and zero 
weather. The system works well when you at- 
tend to cleaifrng out the bottom of the ditch and 
laying the tiles yourself. It must be done with 
care and judgment. If there is water enough 
in the ditch to level by, all that need be done is 
to cut the ditches deep enough and be sure thai, 
the water passes away through each tile as it is 
laid. I propose to dig some more ditches this 
winter in the same way. The plan is to take a 
plowman who can strike out a straight furrow ; 
stick poles where the ditch is to lie, and turn 
two or three furrows on each side of them. 
Make the first furrow six or eight inches deep, 
the second one as much deeper as it can be 
turned over properly, and the last furrow as 
deep as three or four horses can draw the plow. 
Go up and down the dead furrow or ditch with 
the plow two or three times, until the soil is all 
broken up fine, sixteen or eighteen inches wide, 
and as deep as possible. Dr. Grant's "Great 
Trench Plow," figured in the American Agri- 
cultural Annual for 18(18 (pages 49 and 50), is 
probably the best implement that can be used 
for the purpose. I mean to get one of them 
and try it before winter sets in. With such a 
plow there can be no trouble in getting down at 
least two feet deep, putting on four horses 
abreast and going two or three times in the 
same furrow. The snow settles in these dead- 
furrows, and the loose soil underneath being a 
good non-conductor, does not freeze so hard but 
that a spade can be easily driven through the 
slight crust. It is much pleasanter work dig- 
gin" such underdrains in the winter when the 
soil is comparatively dry, than in the early 
sprins when the ground is wet and muddy. If 
the land needs draining, however, when you 
fret down three-and-a-half or four feet deep, you 
will find water enough to level by— and this is 
all that is needed. Chopping was formerly the 
principal winter work. But witli many of us 
the chopping period has passed, and we havs 
entered on the draining epoch. And it is my 
