94 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March, 
often encamp and hunt as they find occasion 
on their way. On their arrival at a post the 
trade occupies several days, as many "pow- 
wows" occur before it is finally concluded, 
when, with a few dollars' worth of articles, of 
which the greater part is whisky, they leave 
for their nearest camping place, having proba- 
bly parted with one or two hundred dollars' 
worth of furs for the value of five or ten dollars. 
"Lo, the poor Indian!" At their camp, out 
comes the whisky, and no work is done until 
it is consumed and the effects slept off, when 
they return to their wigwams to be supported 
by their squaws until next trapping season. 
The mink, otter, beaver, and muskrat are all 
trapped on the banks of streams, the bait for 
beaver being birch twi^s, and that for otter and 
mink, fish. The muskrats, like the beavers, live 
in houses built of grass or rushes in the shallow 
parts of lakes or ponds, and colonies of many 
houses are generally found together. A beaver 
house is built of sticks covered with mud or 
earth, generally on the banks of their pond, 
and the entrance to these houses is below the 
surface of the water. The skins when stripped 
are carefully stretched on frames and dried. 
A piece of cedar board, two feet long and four 
inches wide or larger, is used to stretch mink, 
marten, and other skins. The beaver skin is 
split and stretched over a round hoop ; the 
edges are sewn over the hoop to retain the 
shape until dry. Notwithstanding the seem- 
ingly irregular course of this business, it is per- 
manently established, and several million dol- 
lars' worth of skins are taken yearly. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 99. 
A farmer, formerly from Michigan, and now 
a resident of Henderson Co., Illinois, writes me 
a very interesting letter. He says: "I have 
been much interested in reading ' Walks and 
Talks' in the Agriculturist, and often feel that I 
would like to talk with such a farmer, and see 
how his farm looks, and how his stock is fed 
and cared for." 
He would probably be disappointed. I have 
not a "show farm." I do things in a plain, or- 
dinary way, using what little capital I have to 
improve the farm, and not to make a show. 
Any one who has plenty of money can put up 
a handsome house, erect a model barn, and 
have fences, gates, gravel walks, etc., all in per- 
fect order. But, while no one like3 to see a 
neat, handsome farm-steading better than I do, 
I have thought it best to first improve the land, 
and trust to the increased crops to enable me 
to put up new barns and "fix things up gene- 
rally" by and by. 
Hard as times have been for farmers the past 
season, I am not discouraged. We have done 
as well as the majority of those engaged in 
trade and manufactures. No one need expect 
to get rich suddenly by farming. If we get a 
living and our farms are steadily improving, we 
ought not to complain. 
I do not "know how my farm would look to 
my Illinois friend, but to me it looks better 
than when I bought it. There was not a field 
then that I could plow straight through in the 
spring without striking some parts where the 
water would stand in the furrow. In the sum- 
mer these baked almost as hard as bricks. No 
one expected any corn on these " clay spots." 
All the cultivatisn expended on them was so 
much lost labor. By a little judicious draining 
(hese clay spots have disappeared, and are now 
flie best and most productive parts of the farm. 
Then again, the farm was full of weeds. 
The}' say "one year's seeding makes seven years 
weeding," and my farm had been seeded with 
weeds for thirty years. My chief object in cul- 
tivation has been to get these weed seeds to ger- 
minate, and then kill the plants. Nothing 
pleases me better than to see millions of little 
weed plants spring up on a summer-fallow 
when I can get a chance at them. Most of my 
neighbors take great pains to prevent weeds 
from growing. I want to make them grow, 
and then kill them. You can not kill them be- 
fore the}' grow. After I have killed a hundred 
million weeds I believe there are a hundred 
million fewer weeds in the field. Very few peo- 
ple believe this. And no wonder, for it certainly 
is a hard matter to make land clean. What I 
have done in killing weeds has cost me far more 
than what I have done in the way of under- 
draining. But it is encouraging to know that 
stirring the soil not only kills the weeds but 
develops the plant-food lying latent in the soil, 
and thus greatly enriches the land. I have 
found this pre-eminently true in my own case. 
My land is getting cleaner and richer. 
As to how my " stock is fed and cared for," 
I have only to say that I have not yet gone into 
any elaborate processes of cutting and steaming 
food. I have done something in the way of 
cutting up corn-stalks, straw, and hay by horse- 
power, but do not think it pays in my case. If 
my buildings were well adapted for the purpose 
I should certainly chaff all my fodder. 
I have one of Prindle's steamers, and have 
occasionally steamed some damaged hay. The 
cows and sheep ate it greedily. Without steam- 
ing, they would not have eaten it unless com- 
pelled by hunger. In such a case, steaming is 
certainly profitable. 
This winter I feed my farm horses on pea and 
oat straw, cut into chaff, and mixed with a little 
corn-meal ; and they are fed nothing but straw 
in the racks. Towards spring I shall feed hay. 
My Merino sheep are fed corn-stalks and 
straw, with half a pound of corn per day. 
This keeps them in extra condition — an essen- 
tial point when Merino ewes are crossed with 
a large Cotswold ram. They need extra food 
and strength to nourish such large lambs. I 
have had a grade Cotswold lamb, from a com- 
mon Merino ewe, that weighed 12 lbs. the day 
it was born. Of course the mother of such a 
lamb needs something more than straw. 
I have now (Jan. 17th) over thirty lambs from 
Merino ewes. We give the ewes pea and oat- 
straw and one pound of bran per day, and 
three or four pounds of mangolds. The lambs 
are allowed all the bran and corn-meal or oats 
they will eat, placed in a little trough where the 
ewes can not get at it. These lambs are intended 
for the butcher. Whether it will pay or not de- 
pends on proximity to market, and on one's 
ability to find the right purchasers. My forte 
does not lie in this direction. Last year I should 
have done far better to have kept my lambs, 
and sold them fat after shearing this spring. 
The Cotswold ewes, so far this winter, have 
run out nearly every day on the rape field. The 
exercise, the fresh air, and the green food seem 
to agree with them. They are in high health 
and capital condition, and I hope for a good 
crop of lambs. I do not give them a particle of 
grain or oil-cake, nothing but corn-stalks, pea- 
straw, and bran. My stalks and pea-straw will 
be used up in a few days, and then we shall feed 
wheat straw and clover hay. 
This " pea and oat straw " has been a great 
help to me. You may recollect that I sowed 
ten acres of wheat stubble, on which the clover 
had failed, with three bushels of peas and one 
bushel of oats per acre. The land was well 
manured, and I had a splendid crop, getting 
eighty loads from the ten acres. It was well 
cured, thrashed at the time it was drawn in, or 
a few days later, and proves most excellent fod- 
der. I have never raised a crop that gave me 
so much satisfaction, and I propose to grow it 
more extensively this year. 
I feed my cows principally on corn-stalks, as 
long as they last, and afterwards liar. I allow 
them two quarts of corn-meal each per day, wet 
with cold water. We have been making butter 
all winter. I have two or three farrow cows that 
I am fattening and milking at the same time. 
You see that my methods of feeding are not 
at all " scientific." I have no doubt that soiling 
in summer and steaming in winter would enable 
me to keep a good deal more stock. But I have 
always contended that it is the food and not the 
stock that makes the manure. Tell me how 
much and what kind of wood you burn, and I 
can tell you pretty closely how much your 
ashes are worth. I will not ask how many and 
what kind of stoves you use. Tell me how 
much and what kind of food you have to feed 
out, and I can tell you how much your manure 
is worth. I will not ask how many and 
what kinds of animals you feed it to, or whether 
you cook it or feed it raw. The enly question 
of any practical importance is whether you save 
your manure after you have got it. 
I feed my breeding sows through the winter 
on bran soaked for twelve hours in water. 
They run out every day in the barn-yard, and 
pick up whatever they can find. I notice them 
frequently chewing the joints of corn-stalks. 
They will eat chaffed clover hay soaked for 
twenty-four hours in water and mixed with a 
little corn-meal. Corn at present prices is un- 
questionably the cheapest food for pigs. But in 
my case I want something to render it more 
bulky. I want to let the sows have enough to 
fill their stomachs. Corn alone is too nutritious 
for breeding sows that have got their full 
growth. Early cut clover hay, chaffed quite 
short, and soaked for twelve hours and then 
steamed and mixed with* corn-meal, is readily 
eaten. But it is a good deal of work, and on 
the whole I prefer to buy bran. The manure 
from the bran is worth 75 per cent of the cost. 
For the little pigs I cook corn-meal. My men 
prefer to boil the water in a kettle, and then stir 
in the meal and boil until it is thoroughly 
cooked, rather than to use the steamer. We 
mix more or less bran with the gruel, according 
to the age and condition of the pigs. Those 
pigs which are inclined to fatten rather than 
grow are put into a pen by themselves and fed 
more bran. The young, growing pigs are allow- 
ed cut mangolds, fed raw. They are very fond 
of them. For fattening pigs, the mangolds ought 
to be cooked and mashed up with corn-meal. 
My Illinois correspondent says he thinks if I 
would adopt some of their Western customs 
and implements I could raise corn much cheaper 
than now. " We raise more corn than you do," 
he says, " but raise it cheaper because we have 
better tools to do it with and different modes of 
doing it, and not because we raise so much 
more to the acre." He has raised corn in West- 
ern New York, and thinks we can adopt the 
Western method. " I would plow the ground," 
he says, "with a good steel plow, and fit it 
thoroughly either before or after plauting, ac- 
