4,02 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[NOVEJIBER, 
travelers, by fishermen much as dogs are in hunt- 
ing. A peculiarity of the American otter is its 
habit of making smooth tracks upon steep banks, 
down which it slides into the water. In the 
summer time, clay banks are preferred to any 
other, and in the winter they do not forego this 
pleasant recreation, for they have their sliding 
pastime upon the snow-banks as systematically 
as the boys have their coasting parties. Traps 
are usually placed at the foot of these slides, in 
the water, or near the entrance of frequented 
burrows which always open under water, at 
ordinary stages. The fur of the otter is of two 
kinds, one fine and dense, the other coarse and 
glossy. The color is brown, varying somewhat, 
being nearly black in summer, and in autumn 
and winter quite dark and very glossy, the head 
light colored, and the chin and throat often whit- 
ish. Otters bring forth two young early in spring. 
■_ ^ t j | fc p ip — r t* 
More Barn-room Wanted. 
Shifts are allowable in the early history of the 
farm that ought not to be tolerated later. The 
farmer in the clearing, or upon the prairie, has 
everything pressing upon him at once, and must 
meet his most imperious wants first. He must 
have shelter for his family, and food for himself 
and stock. The log-house and barn upon the 
most limited scale will answer for a while, but 
both are temporary expedients to be superseded 
at the earliest moment by something better. The 
new house and barn are not merely matters of 
taste, but of economy. An ample barn for the 
storage of crops and the shelter of stock should 
be regarded as a necessary investment of capi- 
tal in all farming in the Northern and Eastern 
States. This is better understood in Pennsyl- 
vania than in any other part of the country, 
and the barn that bears the name of the State 
is, in many respects, a model. It contemplates 
the shelter of all stock, and the storage of all. 
crops raised upon the farm ; and if it also pro- 
vided shelter for manure, it would, with abun- 
dant light and free ventilation, meet every want. 
Such a barn upon every farm where mixed 
husbandly is pursued would soon pay for itself. 
It prevents the deterioration of crops and of 
manure. The loss from this source is immense 
in all parts of the country. Even in thrifty 
New England, where a barn of some kind is 
found upon every farm, a large part of the hay 
and corn fodder is stored in stacks, and the open 
yard is still often met with as the only recep- 
tacle for manure. There is waste of labor in the 
topping and securing of stacks, and waste of 
fodder in all that part of the stack that is ex- 
posed to the ground and to the weather, and, 
j udging from the fact that barn hay al ways brings 
the higher price, there is deterioration through 
the whole mass. In the "West there is much 
more loss from this source, for there is much less 
barn-room, and, in addition to this, great dam- 
age from the. exposure of the grain crops to the 
weather. The wheat crop for this year has been 
gathered in excellent condition, for very little 
rain fell in all the grain growing districts during 
harvest. But this is an exceptional season. If 
those districts had been visited with the rains 
raid cloudy weather that have prevailed along 
the seaboard, we think the grain crop would 
have been damaged tc- th? amount of one-third 
of its value. This sometimes happens, and 
there is much more damaged than sound wheat 
in the market. Ordinarily the wheat is left in 
small shocks, with two bundles laid crosswise 
for a cap, uutil the thrashing machine comes, 
which may be within two weeks or two months 
after cutting. If the weather is bad, the grain 
moulds and sprouts, and the market is crowded 
with damaged wheat. The straw also is injured 
for feeding purposes. The loss to the country 
from this source amounts annually to many 
millions of dollars. If it could be saved, it 
would pay all the taxes laid upon farmers. 
Then, a good barn saves immensely in the 
expense of keeping stock and in the conven- 
ience of feeding them. It is a common estimate 
that shelter saves one-third in fodder. This 
estimate is certainly not too high for the north- 
ern half of the Northern States. The consump- 
tion of food to keep up animal heat in freezing 
weather is very great, and this does not benefit 
the farmer. He wants an increase of flesh and 
fat, articles that a stack-j r ard regimen rarely 
gives. "With a plenty of grain, an animal will 
thrive out of doors, but he does not thrive as he 
would under shelter. It is too expensive, even 
in the grain districts, to substitute corn for 
boards. Without bams, also, the farmer is very 
much at the mercy of the grain speculator. 
"With them, he can store his hay and grain, and 
sell when the market suits. The speculator 
knows the situation, and visits the regions where 
the barns are yet to be built. He knows the 
farmer must sell, for he has no place to store 
his grain. He generally prefers the tender 
mercies of the speculator, whom he knows, to 
the commission merchant in the city, whom he 
does not know. He wants the cash in hand 
and takes what he can get. As wheat often ad- 
vances fifty per cent, in a season, the farmer 
ought to be able to take advantage of the rise. 
If grain could be kept more in first hands, it 
would benefit consumers, for it would tend to 
make uniform prices. Nobody but speculators 
would suffer. In the plans of bams that we 
frequently present in these pages, some of 
them giving the results of years of study by 
practical farmers to meet their own wants, our 
readers will find many profitable suggestions. 
What Shall the South Do for Manure ? 
The great want of Southern Agriculture is 
manure. It is the want of systematic agri- 
culture everywhere. Some land gains fertility, 
if left fallow, or from crops which may be turn- 
ed under for manure, or if left in grass, which 
forms a sward of matted roots that read- 
ily decay when plowed under. For land too 
poor for grass to make a good sward, and too 
light to bear tillage without a crop, (clay land 
will be improved b}- simple tillage,) manure is an 
absolute necessity. Unskilled laborers must be 
employed usually at coarse, common, field work; 
hence there is a tendency to cultivate a few, 
chiefly market, crops. This makes the demand 
for manure the more imperative, and the call 
from the Southern States is at present absolutely 
painful; this is the universal need. The eager- 
ness with which manures have been bought the 
past season, in the hope of making or saving a 
crop of corn, of cotton, or tobacco, has opened 
wide the door for extensive frauds, ruinous to 
many of the victimized planters. We are grati- 
fied to learn that some of these purchasers of 
fraudulent manures are combining to institute 
suits against those who make and deal in them. 
The question presents itself, then, with pe- 
culiar force, " What shall the South do ?" The 
problem has a simple solution, but the cure is 
applicable at first over but a small area upon 
each farm. It is, to make more manure. This 
may be done. The labor of the place may be 
profitably employes' during a considerable part 
of the year, in taking care of, working over, and 
increasing, the amount of manures and composts. 
Keep hogs confined, The northern farmer saves 
himself the expense of guano by keeping his 
hogs always penned and supplied with all kinds 
of weeds and litter, thus making tons of excel- 
lent manure every year. Five tons of manure, 
worth not less than $5 per ton, if Peruvian 
guano is worth $80, may be made from one hog 
in a year, provided a sufficiency of muck, straw, 
or litter of any kind, be supplied. A fair pro- 
portion of the manure thus made should be 
saved for fertilizing ground for a large crop of 
pumpkins or squashes, corn sowed in drills, 
yams,or whatever else will grow rapidly and pro- 
duce surely and freely, good feed for the hogs, 
whose numbers should be each year increased, 
until large" quantities of manure are made. 
Control all the Poultry, at least so far as to 
make them roost always in convenient places 
where their manure may be saved and com- 
posted with dry muck, gypsum, coal ashes, or 
other good absorbent. Thus a fertilizer may bo 
obtained in moderate quantities of exceeding 
richness, admirable for exactly those purposes 
for which Peruvian guano is employed. 
Make dead animals into compost. Many an old 
horse is actually worth more in the compost 
heap than in the stable or pasture. One dollar 
a hundred pounds is a low estimate of the value 
of any living animal for manure alone. Every 
farmer who is buying fertilizers can well afford 
to pay that, and usually the carcasses may be had 
for their removal. The way to handle them is to 
cut them up, using axes and butchers' saws, into 
pieces of, say 20 pounds weight, and then to com- 
post them in layers with plenty of swamp muck, 
crumbly peat, grass sods, or loanry soil. Do this 
in an out of the way place, and while it is attrac- 
tive to dogs, be on the lookout with a rifle and 
add to the heap every dog that comes near. 
Otherwise drive stakes around the place, making 
a compost yard, inaccessible to those "vermin." 
It is some little trouble, but will stand the finan- 
cial test, and surely pay. "Within six months or 
a year, the heap may be overhauled, mixed, the 
hard bones thrown out, and these put into the 
next heap, or into any manure, or compost 
heap. The hardest will become soft in a year or 
two, so that they may be mashed with a shovel. 
Make poxidrettc, Hints are given in previous 
numbers of the Agriculturist on the subject of 
earth closets. Offer to the foremen of gangs 
of hands, to those who keep the houses where 
the hands are boarded and lodged, and to such 
as have their own cabins, a moderate price 
per barrel or per load for all the poudrette of 
good quality which they will make, using a def- 
inite quantitj'- of dry earth or muck. So far as 
our observation extends, every particle of hu- 
man soil is lost to the agriculture of the South, 
and we hesitate not to say that were this saved 
it would have ten times the value of all the high 
priced fertilizers which the people of the 
Southern Stales import from year to year. 
How to Yoke Oxen. 
The hints we drop now and then in regard to 
the sounder philosophy in working oxen by the 
head instead of by neck yokes, bring occasional 
responses of corroborative views, one of which 
we give below, from Mr. Josiah M-. Hubbard, 
of Middletown, Conn. Until we can fairly try 
the experiment ourselves, which may not be 
for years, we wait patiently for a fair test of the 
two systems on the same cattle. Mr. H. writes : 
"Your remarks concerning the defects in the 
