1870.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
375 
til the middle of August; and I expect the rye 
to seed itself for next season." — I should think 
this a good idea. It is, perhaps, rather a rough 
style of farming, but if it answers the purpose 
and saves labor, I see no objection to it. Have 
peas ever been tried in the same way ? But to 
return to the straw question. " I shall not," he 
says, " be able to use my straw by at least 75 
tons. How can I convert it into manure? I 
I have not patience to wait for it to rot. Lime 
is too scarce, or I should scatter it over the 
stacks. Labor is too expensive to mix it with 
earth, and we have no muck." — Lime would 
not rot dry straw, and it certainly would not 
pay to compost straw with earth or muck. 
There is not enough ammonia in the straw. 
Rotted straw is straw still, and manure made 
from straw only is poor stuff. The whole 
trouble lies in raising too much grain. Keep 
a larger area of the farm in grass and clover. 
And it will not be many years before our friend 
will be wishing he had the straw that he for- 
merly wasted. I should advise him to keep 
more sheep, but he says : " I commenced with 
40 grade Merinos. Bought a South Down buck 
lamb for $31. Used him one season and then 
sold him for $6.50. Next paid $23 for a grade 
Colswold, and now offer him for $5." — This is 
not very encouraging. And he adds rather 
pathetically : " Now, to get my flock up I have 
to pay large prices, and when I wish to sell 
there are no buyers in my vicinity. A common 
native is to them as good as the best thorough- 
bred." — I fear this is not an uncommon expe- 
rience. Bnt there is an easy remedy. Raise 
thorougb-breds. Get the best and keep them 
pure. Be scrupulously honest. Do not look 
to your town nor county for customers, but to 
the intelligent farmers and breeders of the State. 
You can then snap your fingers at the preju- 
dices of the farmers in the vicinity. A breeder is 
not without honor save in his own country. Bat 
to use a South Down one season and a grade Cots- 
wold the next, is no way to raise sheep to sell for 
breeding purposes. They must be sold to the 
butchers, and if the sheep are good, the butchers 
will pay what they are worth. Even for this 
purpose it is foolish to pay $23 for grades when 
thorougb-breds can be had for $100. 
To keep only about a dozen head of cattle 
and horses, and forty sheep on a farm where, 
after using it with the greatest freedom, there is 
Etill 75 tons of surplus straw on hand, is poor 
policy anywhere, and more especially at the 
West, where, as compared with those of us who 
farm near the large Eastern markets, it must 
pay much better to raise stock than to sell grain. 
"S. B. B," of Mo., writes : "I read your 
Walks and Talks in the American Agriculturist 
witli a great deal of interest, and hope you will 
beat the Deacon in raising corn this year, as I 
believe in your method of cultivating it. I am 
making efforts to raise big crops of corn and 
want to ask a question: Prof. Nash, in his 
book called the Progressive Farmer, says: ' In 
the fall, haul ten loads of muck, leaf mould, 
peat, or sod, and compost with ten bushels of 
lime. In the spring haul ten loads of good 
yard or stable manure, and compost with the 
above mixture, adding ten bushels of plaster and 
ten pecks of salt. Turn well; and this applied 
to one acre of ordinary corn land will bring 
from 50 to 90 bushels of shelled corn per acre.' 
Now, plaster here costs $G per barrel ; and I 
wish to know if the salt and lime mixture will 
answer the same purpose ?"— If the soil in Mis- 
souri is half as rich as I suppose it to be, I do 
not think I should spend much time in making 
composts to raise corn. It may be all very well 
on the poor soils of New England, where corn 
is worth twice or three times as much as it is 
in Missouri. The plaster will do just as much 
good applied separately to the corn as when 
mixed with the compost. But ten bushels per 
acre is an extravagant quantity. From one to 
two bushels per acre is the quantity we use here, 
and yet plaster costs less than $5 per ton. The 
lime will improve the muck, and so will the 
barn-yard manure. Possibly the muck may 
improve the manure. At any rate it will do it 
no harm, and I presume when good muck can 
be got at conveniently it will pay, even in the 
West, to draw it out and mix it with manure, 
or with lime. With the present price of labor 
I am not sure but the best way of using our 
muck is to drain the swamps and raise big crops 
of corn and grass on them, and use this grass 
aud corn for feeding stock ; and thus make ma- 
nure for the poorer, upland portions of the farm. 
A farmer in Ohio writes that a steel plow 
costs $25, and a cast-iron plow $11.50. His soil 
is sand and gravel, and the iron plow lasts only 
two years without repairing. He asks whether 
steel will be more durable in proportion to the 
cost. I think so. And then the steel plows do 
better work, are lighter and of easier draft, and 
can be used on adhesive soil where an iron 
plow would clog. And then there is a great 
saving in points — or ought to be. I say ought 
to be, for it is not every blacksmith who knows 
how to temper them properly. I sent one to a 
blacksmith who charged me 25 cents for sharp- 
ening the point, aud nearly spoiled it into the 
bargain. They ought to be sharpened for about 
5 cents ; aud by welding on a piece of an old 
file occasionally, a point will last several years. 
" J. N. A.," of Mo., says he can get stable ma- 
nure for the carting, two miles, and wood ashes 
from a saw-mill for the carting, three miles, and 
askslf it will pay. I wish I had such a chance ! 
Here is another letter from Missouri. I think 
the Agriculturist must have a large circulation 
there, and that the farmers are decidedly enter- 
prising and intelligent. "F. A. N.," writes: 
" I think it would benefit all your readers, but 
especially us, Western farmers, who are remote 
from the Eastern markets, if you would give a 
fall and detailed description of your harrows 
and cultivators. We have learned from the 
Agriculturist how to subsoil, to roll, to fallow, 
etc., but we are yet without proper means for 
fining our seed beds to as mellow a condition 
as we have them in the garden. Our common 
harrow and the Geddes barrow will not do it. 
We read of others and of cultivators. Mr. Har- 
ris speaks of a cultivator for four horses going 
nearly two feet deep. All these things arc un- 
known to us. Slill we waut them and would 
like to know more about them so that we could 
order them of our dealers." — A cultivator going 
tico feet deep is equally unknown to me. Tie 
must have confounded me with Horace Greeley, 
which is certainly complimentary. Possibly 
the printers made me say that my four-horse 
cultivator went two feet deep. Sometime since 
in reference to a New-York gentleman who 
wanted to improve his farm, I wrote: "A man 
with plenty of money can do anything." The 
printers made me say "A man with plenty of 
manure can do anything," — which is not very 
far wrong after all. [The wonder is that the 
printers ever get any of your copy correct. Ed.] 
But I never had a cultivator that would go two 
feet deep ; aud should not use it if I bad— until 
we got a steam-plow. I got a new forty-toothed 
harrow from Pennsylvania this spring that 
pleases me better than anything I have before 
used. But still, our harrows are not up to our 
requirements. We will endeavor to give this 
implement more attention. 
" M. M. H," writes from Indiana : " Please 
give me a description of the Thin Bind Hog. 
Also your opinion of its profitableness."— What 
will people get up next ? All the good breeds 
of pigs have thin skins ; small bone, and little 
offal, — such as the Suffolk, Berkshire, Essex, 
and Yorkshire, and there can be but one opin- 
ion as to their profitableness. Hogs in their 
wild state, and those that are worried with dogs 
and are otherwise exposed to rough treatment, 
need tough, thick skins ; but a pound of such 
hide requires as much food to produce it as two 
or three pounds of nice, juicy ham — and this, 
because a skin to become tough and thick must 
be formed aud reformed, and formed again 
several times ; and each time a certain amount 
of food is required for its growth. 
A farmer in Chester Co., Pa., writes that the 
risk of having their sheep killed by clogs is so 
great that many farmers have disposed of their 
entire flocks. He asks for a remedy, and has 
been told that putting bells on the sheep will 
scare away the dogs. I presume such is the 
case to a certain extent. The only real remedy 
is a tax on dogs, rigorously enforced. Who- 
ever opposes such a tax should be held up to 
the scorn and contempt of all true men. 
" You recommend in the Agriculturist," writes 
"J. P. K," of Armstrong Co., Pa., "to cross 
the Chester Whites with the Berkshire. I have 
tried the experiment, and have got very good 
pigs. What name will I give them ?" — Give 
them to the butcher! We recommended the 
cross, not for the purpose of forming a new 
breed, but to raise pork. The Berkshires are 
a thoroughly established breed, and it is doubt- 
ful whether such is the case in regard to the 
Chester Whites ; and if so, the pigs from a Berk- 
shire boar aud Chester White or part Chester 
White sow would be grade Berkshires. 
We have been weighing our Colswold sheep 
to-day (Aug. 22). It is four -weeks since we 
weighed them last, and the weather has been 
so hot that I thought they might not have 
gained much. The yearling ewes have had 
nothing but grass, except what grain they 
picked up on the stubbles. Here are the weights 
just as they come : 
Kos. 
W'iglil i 
July 24 j 
Aug. 22. 
75| 711 
183 ISO 
!|S 111 
iffi 
125 
ISC 
186 
is; 
Ml 
145 
SI 
in: 
152 
62 
133 
142 
S3 
115 
1S3 
81 
1.". 
l t 
85 
111'.' 
175 
86 
11'.' 
IS1 
SI 
132 
139 
BS 
l"l 
117 
Ml 
111 
152 
tiafhin ) 
1 ui-'ks \ 
lalli 
l- 
11 
— 

;- 
3 
. 
"n"^ 
19 
12 
; 
I" 
12 
The following is the weight of the yearling 
run- : 
36 
30 | 11 
12 
13 
II | J5 
47 
19 
Wlit .Till, '.'t 
■• An-. & 
. 
i '.i 
. ".i 
21 r 
136 
1i-.ii 
it; 159 
.'nil 1MI 
IS 
210 
173 
193 
c-i'n in 1 w'ks 
22 1 26 
20 
1 23 
"l 
1 
:' 
Jl 
Leaving out No. 39, about which I think 
there must have been some mistake in the weigh- 
ing a month ago, these ten yearling bucks have 
gained on the average over 5 s i , lbs. each per 
week, while the yearling ewes have gained only 
•a little over 2 S | , lbs. each. Why this difference ? 
For the last six weeks I have given the rams 
about a pound of grain or oil-cake per clay, 
while the ewes had nothing but grass. Pre- 
vious to this, the rams have had no grain since 
