18 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
door. Water is supplied by a lead pipe running 
in at one side, tli rough all tlie rooms, and out at 
tlie other into a trough where small fish are 
kept, and occasionally given to the minks. They 
were kept together until December the 18th, 
when tlie males were put in an apartment by 
themselves. On the 10th of March each male was 
put in with a female, each pair separate, and 
after a couple of days one of the males was put 
in with another female, and finally with the 
third. The other male paid no attention to the 
female he was with, aud I think is disabled. 
They were separated about the 1st of April, 
each female being kept alone and supplied with 
a suitable box, with warm material for a nest. 
When it was supposed the} 7 were about to 
bring forth their young, they were disturbed as 
little as possible; anything to excite them at 
this time, should be avoided, for when irritated, 
they will sometimes eat their young. 
The first female put with the perfect male 
brought forth seven, one of which disappeared 
after they began to crawl around out of their 
nest. The other two females had each a pair, 
all of which (but the one mentioned) are now 
alive, fine, fat, sleek fellows, and fully grown. 
Tiiey are very easily kept, being fed once a day 
upon warm milk with wheat bread crumbs, a 
quart sufficing' now' for the whole lot, and once 
upon fresh meat, care being taken not to over- 
feed. Any kind of meat and offal that is not 
ton fat will answer. They are very fond of beef 
liver, chickens' heads and entrails, woodchucks, 
(being careful not to give them the gall on the 
liver, which is poisonous,) rats, mice, etc. 
They are more easily cared for than one hog, 
and much more cheaply kept. Nothing was 
paid out for meat for them, until after the 1st 
of July, when a contract was made with a 
butcher to leave a bullock's head once a week. 
I am confident that the increase of the minkery 
would have been fully one-third more if both the 
males had been perfect. I intend to keep them 
in pairs hereafter. They are not easily handled, 
but struggle when caught against their will, and 
exude a thick fetid substance from glands near 
the vent. They will bite severely, but can 
be handled safely with thick buckskin gloves." 
^-« *a» »-— ■ 
Shut the Door ! 
How often is it necessary to repeat the in- 
junction — Keep the Door Shut? It is as de- 
sirable for stable doors as for house doors, and 
though for the house we have a great number 
ef convenient contrivances for keeping the doors 
DOOR CLOSER. 
shut by weights and springs, for stable, hen- 
house, and other similar doors, we have never 
seen anything but the awkward cord and 
weight, either working over a pulley, or, so to 
speak, gate fashion. Occasion necessitated a 
door-clo«er of some kind, and we contrived, 
from materials at hand, the affair shown in tlie 
accompanying sketch, which works so well, 
that we think it worth imitating. 
Two hard-wood sticks, 20 inches to 2 feet 
long, with sharp awls inserted in one end of 
each, are fastened together near the other ends 
with a long screw. A light weight, in propor- 
tion to one which would be required to shut a 
door by the cord and pulley system, is attached 
to the screw. The awl of one leg of the "shears" 
is set in a little hole, made in any convenient 
place, about in the middle of the upper part of 
tlie door, and the other leg is similarly placed, 
either iu the wall in which the door is, or in a 
wall at right angles to it, and against 'which the 
door opens. Tlie shears are held in place by 
being fastened by a cord to the wall in a posi- 
tion inclined forward a little. The holes in 
which the pins are set must be reamed out so 
that when the door is opened they will not bind. 
A block must be fastened to the floor to prevent 
the door opening too wide ; but in case it is de- 
sirable to have the door swing wide open and 
back, the apparatus may be attached to the door 
aud to the wall by hooks and eyes screwed in. 
Ogden Farm Paper— No. 1. 
Having, in Ogden Farm, such an opportunity 
as does not often come to American farmers, to 
try the value of improved methods of agricul- 
ture, it has occurred to me that many points 
which its management suggests might be of in- 
terest to tlie readers of the Agriculturist. 
The essential facts of the case are these: I 
took, probably, the poorest, the most run-down, 
the wettest, and the least promising farm in the 
County, and took it because it had these faults, 
intending to make it the best, and to make 
money by the operation. I am fortunate in 
having an associate in the matter who has an 
ample capital, and is liberal in the use of it, and 
who has the sense to know that the Vest way is 
tlie best in farming as in everything else. With 
this much of personal explanation, we will turn 
to more important matters. 
The draining of the farm, its barn, and others 
of its features have been sufficiently described 
in these columns, but there is a daily life on 
every farm that is worth more attention than it 
usually gets from agricultural writers, or, for that 
matter, from any one else. The making of plans, 
and the unmaking of them ; the actual execu- 
tion of some and tlie total abandoning of others, 
with the reasons that influence us in each case; 
the successes and disappointments; the pleas- 
ures and the discomforts of farming — these are, 
after all, what help most in tlie development of 
the farmer, and through him, of the farm too. 
The first question that arose after we got fairly 
started, came from a half-quizzical friend, and 
was, " What kind of a farmer are you going to 
be ?" This question might have been answered 
in many ways. I might have said " Stock farm- 
er," or " Truck farmer," or something of that 
sort, but as my plans were not definite on that 
point I said (the only thing I was sure of) that 
I was going to be a "Book farmer," and having 
said it, I have stuck to it ever since. I am told 
that there are men who think that the only 
things worth knowing are the things that they 
themselves happen to know, and I am happy 
to have as high an opinion of tlie common 
sense and liberality of mind of these men as 
the)', in their self-sufficiency, have of me and of 
others who realize the importance of learning 
from the written experience of others. I yield 
to no one in appreciating the value of the 
knowledge and skill that come only witli ex- 
perience and " hard knocks," but I do not bn- 
lieve that these can ever produce their best 
results without the aid of a knowledge that can 
be obtained only from books ; and, acting on 
this belief, I mean to make Ogden Farm prove 
or disprove its soundness. 
The work of improvement was barely com- 
menced when another friend asked, " What is 
to be the solvent? you are going to make a pro- 
ductive farm; how do you mean to convert its 
produce into money?" The answer to this 
question — which should be the vital one with 
all beginners— was not reached for a long lime, 
not until tlie whole ground had been conned 
over and over again, for here, at least, there 
must be no mistake. It casts so much to pre- 
pare for any special industry — and special pre- 
parations are usually adapted only to one 
branch of farming — that it was of the last im- 
portance to decide on something that I would 
be content to adhere to to the end. It was 
necessary, therefore, to look to the very end, 
and to consider the circumstances of each future 
year of the operation. I had this basis to go 
upon : My land had been exhausted by a long 
series of robberies that had sapped its very 
vitality. Henceforth it must take in much more 
than it should be called upon to give out. 
Much was to be hoped for from draining and 
deep cultivation, but iu addition to all this the 
impoverished soil must receive manure from 
abroad. So, iu due time, the question was an- 
swered. Butter should be tlie solvent, because 
in selling this I should sell absolutely nothing 
that would be of value to the soil. Its con- 
stituents all coming from air and water, the 
poor, tired soil would have a long ten years' rest 
from its labors and would be helped to regain 
its lost force. Tlie details of the plan included 
heavy overstocking and fancy prices. The one 
should help the improvement of the soil, and 
the other the money income. The two funda- 
mental themes of the project were these : 
1. There is hardly a limit to the productive- 
ness of land. If 50 cows are put upon 50 acres, 
and kept in good condition by buying food at 
tlie outset, their manure will in time make the 
land rich enough to support them, winter and 
summer, without, buying. 
2. Extra price is all profit. Given all the ap- 
pointments of a good daily, it costs noinorexo 
make butter worth 75 cents per pound than 50 
cents per pound. No more cows are kept, no 
more and no richer food is consumed, and no 
extra help has to be hired. Iu my neighbor- 
hood butter costs about 30 cents to make; at 50 
cents there is a profit, of 20 cents, and at. 75 cents 
there is a profit of 45 cents. The 20 cents is 
earned by the investment of capital and labor; 
the extra 25 cents by care, skill and neatness. 
Therefore, I arranged to keep butter-making 
cows, and provided for their comfort by build- 
ing a barn in which it would be easy to keep 
them in the best condition (by "soiling" in sum- 
mer and steaming in winter), and to save their 
manure under cover. The plans of this barn 
are shown in the Agriculturist for October, 1869. 
I have said that the farm was to have a ten 
years' rest. What I mean is this: It is charged 
with no extra burdens; it has no expensive 
family to support, only the household of work- 
people who are necessary for its improvement; 
and it has no income to pay (except interest on 
borrowed capital), as neither my associate nor 
myself is to receive any compensation during 
the course of the improvement; all income from 
the business being invested in improvements on 
the farm, or in some other manner so as to pro- 
duce interest until the expiration of ten years, 
