1871.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
•453 
crops. How to get it into grass was the problem 
I had to solve this spring. My English friend, 
Mr. Medcalf, suggested mustard. It was a new 
idea to me. We plowed the field three times — 
in other words, summer-fallowed it. Then, in 
July, we sowed it to white mustard, and at the 
same time seeded it down with clover and tim- 
othy. The clover is a good catch, and if it 
stands the winter the experiment will be a de- 
cided success. The mustard proves a far more 
valuable crop than I expected. It has given 
me more food than I know what to do with. I 
am feeding it out ad libitum to all mj> stock ex- 
cept horses. The Merino sheep at first did not 
seem to like it, but after a few days ate it with 
avidity. The Cotswolds seemed to know what 
it was, and fully appreciated their privileges. 
The pigs literally devour it. Even the little, 
growing ones, that I feed as high as I know 
how, eat considerable of it, and it seems to en- 
able them to digest their other food more per- 
fectly. I have not seen any voided grain since 
we commenced to feed the green mustard. My 
breeding sows get little else than mustard, and 
thrive well on it. Of course, it would not fatten 
a pig alone, but it is unquestionably a useful aux- 
iliary food. I have over ninety pigs, little and big, 
and find the mustard a great saving to the corn 
crib. We have been feeding the mustard (Oct. 
21st) to the cows for a few days, and so far it 
has not affected the taste of the milk. The 
cows eat it greedily, and if it does not affect the 
milk I shall certainly try mustard as a soiling 
crop next year. 
You can sow the mustard at any time in the 
spring after all danger of frost is past, and in 
two months it will be ready to feed off or mow 
for soiling. The laud may then be sown again, 
and a second crop obtained in September, Oc- 
tober, and as late into November as severe 
frosts keep off. 
It seems to me that iu sections where wheat 
is not grown, and where land has to be seeded 
with oats, mustard might be grown with 
great advantage. Two crops might be grown 
in"a season. The first crop might be plowed 
• under for manure, or fed off on the land, as 
thought best. The second crop should be 
seeded down with timothy and clover. I am 
assured that the few English furrner3 who have 
tried it find it one of the very best crops to seed 
with, say in July — getting a large crop of hay 
the next season. A little artificial manure, 
such as superphosphate, or even plaster, has a 
wonderful effect on mustard, and in such a case 
it is just the crop for poor land that is in good 
mechanical condition. 
We have just killed one of our grade Cots- 
wold-Merino lambs, not seven months old. He 
weighed alive 96 lbs. The blood weighed 2'/:, 
lbs.; offal, 21 lbs. ; skin and feet, 18 lbs. ; waste, 
Va lb. ; carcass, 54 lbs. Is not that a pretty 
good lamb from a common Merino ewe that 
cost only $2.40? I raised 74 such lambs from 
60 ewes, and was foolish enough to sell 70 of 
them to the butcher in July, most of them bet- 
ter lambs than this one. Unless a farmer raises 
very early lambs, and has good opportunities 
for disposing of them to the best advantage, it 
will pay better to keep them — if they are kept 
well and are of the right kiud. I think I never 
saw better- wooled sheep in my life than these 
grade Cotswold-Merinos. They are coyered 
with wool from the nose to the toes. I am in- 
clined to think that in our climate, and for or- 
dinary farm management, these grade sheep 
will prove more profitable than the pure loug- 
wooled sheep. The latter require better treat- 
ment than ordinary farmers are willing to bestow. 
If they were prepared to give the requisite food 
and care, no sheep, where money is in demand, 
would pay so well. But they certainly will not 
bear neglect as well as Merinos. And this is 
true of all good stock. It is a truth which 
farmers need to know and feel and act upon. 
These grade Cotswold-Merino sheep require 
better treatment than Merinos, but nothing that 
an}' farmer can not readily bestow without 
changing his rotation or management. They 
get along very well without roots; require 
mcroly good paotuic, good clover-liay, and alittle 
bran, and a few oats or peas in winter would not 
hurt them nor do the manure heap any harm. 
Nearly all our farmers now burn more or less 
coal. Many who have still plenty of wood, 
say it costs more to prepare it for the stove than 
to buy coal, the use of which saves a great 
deal of work in the house. 
What shall we find for.,our farm men to do in 
the winter ? is a question well deserving thought. 
My experience in uuderdrainiug two winters 
ago was, on the whole, so satisfactory, that I 
propose to do still more at it the coming winter. 
The main point is to get everything ready be- 
fore winter sets iu. The open ditch into which 
the main drain is to discharge should be cleaned 
out, and made so wide and deep that there will 
be no danger of the water setting back. The 
next thing is to determine where the underdrains 
are to be cut, and stake them out. Then take 
a plow, and turn two or three furrows away 
from each side of the line of stakes, being care- 
ful to go as straight as possible. With the right 
kind of plow, and three or four horses abreast, 
you can make a dead-furrow fifteen or eighteen 
inches deep. And it is also a good plan to ruu 
the plow once or twice along the dead furrow 
to break up the subsoil as much as possible. 
The more loose soil there is in the furrow, the 
less danger will there be of its freezing solid. 
In my case, the first snow we had was blown 
into these deep dead-furrows, and although the 
winter was a severe one we had no trouble from 
the frost. A slight frozen crust was sometimes 
formed on the loose earth, but rarely if ever so 
hard that the pick had to be used. 
There is no difficulty at all in digging the 
drains. The point where skill and experience 
are required is in laying the tiles. The drains 
must be cut to the required depth and the tiles 
laid and covered up at once. In my case, in 
some instances, I did not lay the tiles until we 
had finished cutting the drain the whole length, 
but it is somewhat risky. Better lay the tiles 
as you go along. There will usually be water 
enough in the drains to show you the proper 
level. Your own judgment will tell you better 
how to do the work than any description. You 
must be careful to get every tile deep enough, 
and at the same time not too deep. It is neces- 
sary also to put*a little something at the end of 
the last tile to prevent the water carrying loose 
earth into the draiu. 
On low, mucky laud, where there is a good 
outlet, this kind of soil is seldom so frozen be- 
neath the snow that open ditches can not be dug 
at any time during the winter. But the work 
ought to be laid out and the land staked before 
winter sets in, and when you can see where the 
ditches are required. 
Ou my farm, I have no difficulty in finding 
plenty of work that can be profitably done in 
winter. If stone3 are placed in large heaps 
where they can be got at, they are cheaply 
drawn on sleighs or stone-boats to where they 
are required to make stone wall or for building 
purposes. One winter I drew the stones iu this 
way to make over one hundred rods of fence. 
I could not have found time for the work at 
any other season. 
We must make up our minds to pay men as 
much for working on the farm as they can earn 
iu other pursuits. If they can get $1.25 per 
day the year round in a factory or on a railroad, 
we must furnish a similar compensation iu one 
form or other on the farm. If we only want 
men for six or eight months, and that during 
the busiest season, we must be prepared to pay 
higher wages than those who give constant 
employment. We shall never have reliable 
labor until we make it worth a good man's 
while to stay with us year after year. And we 
can do a great deal to induce such men to settle 
iu the country by building and renting small 
houses, or by selling an acre or two of land to 
some steady married man who wants to own a 
home of his own. There are many such men 
who would rather work on a farm than at any 
other employment, who are absolutely compelled 
to leave the coimtryandgointo the cities or vil- 
lages because they can not get a house to live in. 
And, as a result, we frequently have to pay men 
from 20 to 80 per cent more per day than they 
get in the immediate neighborhood of a city. 
Farmers have this matter entirely in their own 
hands. They must either build houses, or sell 
land to those willing to build. Every good, 
honest, industrious married man who settles iu 
the country increases the value of farm property. 
The greater the population, if of the right kind, 
the greater the value of land. We can not too 
often remember that it is labor and not land 
that produces wealth. It is a loss to the com- 
munity to have a man lie idle all winter. And 
in this country there is certainly no lack of 
employment for any man who will work at 
reasonable wages. 
m « m*^^^ >-•. . 
Hoodwinking the Crows. 
One of our artists gives a sketch of a device 
to which he resorted in order to rid himself of 
the crows that made too free with his newly- 
planted corn. He made several cones of stiff 
paper, and upon tire inside of the larger end of 
these he spread a ring of old and gummy lin- 
seed oil — a mixture of oil and rosin just so thick 
as not to run would answer the same purpose. 
The cones were lightly and carefully inserted iu 
holes made in the soil, and a few grains of 
corn dropped into the point of each. The sus- 
picious crows, after careful inspection, would 
put their heads in to reach the corn — what hap- 
pened then is sufficiently shown in the engrav- 
ing, given on page 451. Our friend did not do 
the birds any serious bodily injury, but he re- 
marked that they were " very much disgusted." 
Sheep Fens and Racks. 
Sheep that are not being prepared for market 
do not thrive well during winter, unless they 
have exercise and a well-ventilated pen. We 
have used a pen similar to the one here figured, 
which we found very convenient in many re- 
spects. The building may be of any bight, 
but the upper floor is ouly six feet from the 
ground, which gives a large amount of storage 
room above for hay. The floor should be of 
matched boards, or the cracks should be other- 
wise closed «p to prevent hay-seed or chaff 
from dropping on to the wool. The front of 
