1872.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
59 
dinary operations, it will only be necessary to 
take care that the .L is set on quite square, and 
then the least movement forward of the pen- 
dulum will show the grade to be correct. 
■» i ■■■ — »-•> 
Wattle Shelters. — A plan has been re- 
quested for making shelter for stock on the 
"Western prairies, where timber is scarce and 
the winds are often so severe as to make some 
kind of protection necessary. Where small 
poles or brush can be cut, wattle shelters are eas- 
ily built and very useful. Poles, six to eight feet 
long, are driven into the ground about a foot 
WATTLE CATTLE-SHELTER. 
apart and for such a distance in length as may 
be desirable ; occasionally a forked pole is driven 
into the ground, about six or eight feet in front 
of this row, to sustain a roof, which is made also 
of poles. Small brush is woven amongst the 
poles and coarse swamp hay laid over the brush, 
the ends of the bunches of hay being wound in 
amongst the brush to hold it. If this is built in 
the shelter of some knoll, considerable protec- 
tion is afforded, and with a little care a very 
comfortable hovel may thus be made to which 
stock, especially sheep, will run for shelter. If 
built in a semicircular shape it will be stronger, 
and a more complete shelter against the winds. 
Can Farming Pay such Taxes? 
We are not thinking, now, of the Internal 
Revenue tax— which so many manage to evade 
— nor of our. " State, County, Town, and Road" 
taxes, which we can not avoid. These are com- 
paratively moderate, and somehow or other they 
do get paid, and the world still moves on. 
There is, however, another tax, though it is 
not called by that name, from which few of us 
can hope to escape, and which is entitled to the 
gravest consideration. It is cutting into our 
substance like a two-edged sword — on one side 
idleness, on the other extravagance. Worst of 
all, the sword is wielded by our own flesh and 
blood, by those who love us, and whom we love 
— by our own daughters. 
The reader will please notice that we make 
no assertion in the heading of this article ; we 
only ask a question. We are not, ourselves, 
prepared to give it a definite answer ; but we 
think there is at least grave cause for anxiety in 
the habits and tastes of farmers' daughters. On 
our drive to town, this afternoon, we met three 
young women, daughters of three ordinary 
farmers — men who have the usual struggle to 
make both ends meet, and who practice the usual 
economies in their households and on their farms. 
These damsels were so dressed that at a little 
distance they looked like -the daughters of the 
rich city people who board in our neighborhood, 
in the summer. As they came nearer, it was 
plain to see that they had economized in mate- 
rial as much as they had squandered in form and 
color, and this marked a wide distance between 
their brighter exemplars. Tet, save as they 
might, there was not one of them who had not 
on her person — counting everything from " but- 
ton-gaiters " to what Mr. Punch calls " Chig-non- 
sense," and hat-feathers — the value of a first- 
class mowing machine, with reaper attachment. 
If this were the end, it would not be so bad, but 
it is only the bad beginning. It is not the capi- 
tal invested in finery that tells on our fortunes, 
but the awful interest in the shape of renewals. 
A first-class two-dollar " back-hair" we might 
stand, and done with it, but fashions change 
and back-hair wears out, and the next style is 
worse yet, and costs three dollars. And so it 
goes from the crown of the head to the soles of 
the feet; there is the same eternal grind that 
wears away clothing and finery alike. The 
more it cost the more must we spend in repairs ; 
and your modern country miss, with her Har- 
per's Bazar and Peterson's Magazine for the 
law and gospel of her attire, is very apt to be a 
sort of well-dressed mortgage-deed upon her 
father's farm, and to become a Sort of ornamen- 
tal mill-stone about the neck of the man who 
marries her. 
Aside from all this we would call attention 
to the occupation of these girls. Too often we 
shall look in vain for the steady, cheerful in- 
dustry of their mothers' times. If they work, 
they are half-ashamed to be seen at it, and they 
rarely accomplish, from one end of the year to 
the other, a tenth part of what they are easily 
capable of. 
In the "good old times," when farmers were 
none too prosperous, when the land was richer 
than it now is, and when the cost of living was 
far less, our grandmothers and their sisters were 
cheaply clad, they wore their own hair, the 
renewal of their gear cost wonderfully little 
money, and they worked like little beavers. If 
we can trust our grandfathers' account of them, 
they were as sweet and attractive and as pro- 
mising sweethearts as the more costly and less 
useful jewels of our own modern firesides. 
We are not grumbling, and we are not blind 
to the great advantages that modern civilization 
offers to the young of both sexes, as compared 
with those who have gone before; we only ex- 
press our anxiety, lest the extravagance that a 
perversion of our civilization has caused, end 
in the ruin of the hard-ridden fathers. 
If farming was but a moderately good busi- 
ness forty years ago, with the industry and 
economy of that time to help it, we fail to see 
how, with the high price of labor, the low price 
of produce (comparatively), and the necessity 
for buying manure (that is becoming so univer- 
sal), the farming of the present day is going to 
support a houseful of girls who cost so very 
much more than the}' come to. 
Spreading Manure in Winter. 
We are asked what advantage there is in 
spreading manure on frozen ground. It depends 
much upon the condition of the ground. If it 
is covered with grass, either a pasture or mea- 
dow, there is a great advantage in more than 
one respect. The surface is protected from 
sudden changes during winter, and the first 
thaw carries the manure to the roots, where it 
causes a vigorous growth early in the spring. 
If the ground is plowed for a spring crop, it is 
also benefited by haviug the manure ready to 
be absorbed by the soil whenever the ground 
thaws; the Seed, as soon as it sprouts, finds 
what it needs close at hand. On sod ground to 
be plowed for corn in the spring, the same ad- 
vantages are gained as in the case of grass lands, 
and the manure is on the spot in time, which 
in a late season it might not be, for want of 
timcor improper condition of the ground. But 
after all, it is far better to get the manure upon 
the ground before it is frozen, if possible ; the 
earlier in the fall, the better. Winter top-dress- 
ing of grain is only a poor substitute at best for 
a proper and timely preparation in the fall, and 
rarely pays for the trouble, unless it may be in 
the advantage gained by the spring-sown clover. 
A Curb for Digging Wells through 
Quicksand. 
A "Correspondent" from Illinois gives his 
experience in digging wells to procure water 
for stock in a part of the State where quicksand 
is found twelve feet beneath the surface for a 
depth of several feet, and which must be passed 
through before 
water is obtain- 
ed. He has 
used a curb of 
two-inch plank, 
bound by iron 
hoops, in the 
shape of a large 
tube,a few inch- 
es narrower at 
top than at the 
bottom. This is 
set on a circular 
frame, with a 
sharp edge, and 
securely fasten- 
ed to it. The 
frame, as shown 
in the engrav- 
ing, is wide 
enough to carry a row of brickwork, which is 
built up witnin the curb. The bricks are laid 
in cemenf ; the brickwork, of course, being laid 
after the curb is placed in the well, which is 
done as soon as the sand is reached. When the 
cement is quite dry the digging is resumed. As 
the sand is removed the curb sinks down (be- 
ing smaller at the top than below, it readily does 
this), and the curb resists the pressure of the 
quicksand, which is very considerable. When 
solid clay or gravel is reached beneath the 
quicksand,water is generally found ; if not, and 
more curbing is needed, another length is built 
and connected with the previous one. Thus 
the well-sinking is done safely and permanently. 
■» . in ii 
Calks on Horses' Shoes. 
CURB FOR WELL-DIGGING. 
During winter, when the roads and yards 
about a farm are often covered with ice, sharp- 
ened calks on horses' shoes are a necessity. It 
is absolute cruelty to do without them, not only 
on account of the risk of damage to the animal, 
but on account of the painful terror to which 
some horses are subject. Sometimes they may 
be seen trembling with fear when trying to keep 
a footing on smooth ice. But when horses' feet 
are thus armed, they become dangerous to them- 
selves and their fellows. They should be very 
carefully driven, especially when turning round, 
and the greatest care should be taken that they 
