336 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[September, 
Hints and Helps for Farmers. 
Temporary Whiffle-tree.— One of the very an¬ 
noying conditions in which a man occasionally finds 
himself is when he breaks a whiffle-tree away from 
home. A subscriber sends a plan of relief from the 
fix as follows : Procure a piece of the best timber 
to be found of the proper length ; hew it down, 
and notch it so as to fit the clevises as shown at a, 
fig. 1. The clevises are attached as shown at b, 
and the happy man can go on his way rejoicing, if 
only he has an axe with him. This he will al- 
(i 
Fig. 1.—CHEAP WHIFFLE-TREE. 
ways have if he follows the hints given in the 
American Agriculturist, that no one should go from 
-home with a team or carriage without one, and also 
take a coil of copper wire, and a spare bolt or two. 
A Barn Closet.^A very useful closet may be 
made in the comer of a barn or stable by nailing 
to the wall a common packing box, which can be 
procured at any country dry goods store for a few 
•cents. The cover is fastened with hinges, and 
serves as a door for the closet. Two shelves may 
be fitted in the box. A place is thus provided for 
storing away the small odds and ends lying about 
a barn or stable, where they may be kept clean, 
and can be found in a moment when wanted. The 
closet, as it will appear when fastened up, and rest¬ 
ing upon a cleat at the back, is shown at figure 5. 
A Water Pan for Chicks. —To prevent young 
chicks from fouling the water in the saucers in 
which it is given to them, take a common fruit 
can, remove the top, and cut notches in it as shown 
in the engraving (fig. 4). The chicks can reach the 
water, but they can not foul it by running through. 
A Rake for a Stable. —“A. W. L.” sends a 
hint in the form of a sketch of a rake and scraper 
combined, which he uses to clean out his stables. 
The rake-head is a strong piece of hard wood, bev¬ 
eled on one edge, and furnished with teeth upon 
the other. It is fitted to a proper handle, and will 
serve to rake out half-used litter or manure, to 
scrape the floor, or to push the manure into heaps 
for convenient removal. It is illustrated in fig. 2. 
Home-made Saw-buck.—-A “Reader” gives us a 
sketch of a very serviceable “ buck ” for sawing 
wood, made of four pieces of round wood. These 
are hewed into the form shown at fig. 3; a two- 
inch hole is bored 
through one of each 
pair of legs to receive 
the trimmed top of the 
other leg, and the legs 
are joined in the usual 
manner by a two-inch 
cross stick tightly 
wedged at each end. 
To prevent the legs 
from coming apart, the 
" Pig. 3. —saw-buck. holes for the cross stick 
may he bored so as to 
slightly notch the leg, which is then held firmly 
by the cross stick, and can not work loose readily. 
Manure Dumping. —Yokes wear out and break 
sometimes, and the writer has recently seen a capi¬ 
tal use for them when broken. The piece was at¬ 
tached by a chain and staple to the axle of an ox¬ 
cart, and was used as a rest or runner whereon to 
place the tail of the cart in dumping. Only a part, 
say a quarter of the load, is wanted in one heap, 60 
the cart is tipped up, a portion drawn out over the 
tail-board, then it slides along on its yoke-runner 
to where the next heap is wanted, and so on. The 
runner, when not in use, will take care of itself, or 
may be hung up under the cart-body. The illustra¬ 
tion, fig. 6, represents one seen on the Welles 
brothers farm, Wethersfield, Conn. 
Value of Sheep as Manure Makers. 
Pasture alone is not sufficient to maintain sheep 
in profitable thrift, especially in the approaching 
breeding season ; in addition, a daily ration of grain 
is needed. When the pasture is poor the quantity 
of grain should be liberal. With good pasture, a 
pint of mixed corn and oats, or rye and buckwheat, 
is little enough; with poor pasture half as much 
again would be required to keep full-grown sheep 
or growing lambs in proper condition. In some 
sections cotton-seed meal is coming into great 
favor for feeding sheep on poor pastures, a half 
pint being fed to each one daily. It is a nutritious 
food, and*makes an exceptionally rich manure; 
and the quality of the dung of animals as a manure 
always depends on the quality of their food, for the 
dung is only the food, changed by the processes of 
digestion, less the portion taken into the system 
as nutriment. There is a mistaken idea, which has 
been fostered by writers who know little about 
Fig. 6.—to bump a manure cart. 
sheep, that these animals have the unusual capa¬ 
bility of living upon weeds, briers, brush, and 
coarse herbage, and not only of getting fat thereon 
but of greatly adding to the fertility of the poor 
soil. A sheep, however, has no power to make 
something out of nothing. By reason of its fine 
masticatiou, and its vigorous digestion, it can, per¬ 
haps, exhaust its food of more of its nutriment 
than any other animal except a fowl; and its ma¬ 
nure, by reason of this finely comminuted condition, 
rapidly decomposes, and is at once effective as a 
fertilizer. To make our flocks tluify—to secure 
strong lambs, heavy fleeces, and good mutton—we 
need to feed the sheep, and we must do this if 
we would turn the flock into vehicles for spread¬ 
ing manure and enriching the soil. It is a fact, that 
sheep supplied with a regularly given ration of one 
pint of grain per day, besides pasture, made in 80 
Fig. 5.— closet made from a box. 
days, 20 lbs. each more weight than a flock on as good 
pasture without grain ; and the value of the extra 
flesh more than paid for the grain. In addition, the 
fleece made more growth, a large proportion of the 
ewes conceived twins, and the lambs came stronger 
and were better supplied with milk. And, as a 
matter of course, the droppings of these sheep 
must have been richer in fertiliziug value than 
those of poorly-fed 
sheep. The good 
shepherd eareth for his 
sheep, and he has his 
reward in the richest 
return thatcan be made 
by any of our farm ani¬ 
mals, for the food and 
care given. Instances 
of the successful use 
of sheep as fertilizers 
of the soil are given so 
frequently, but with¬ 
out any reference to 
the methods of their 
use, that it has become 
a general belief that nothing else is needed to make 
a poor farm rich. But if any novice is led to try it 
for himself, both he and his flock will come to grief. 
Fig. 4.— POULTRY WATER¬ 
ING DISH. 
How to File and Set a Hand-Saw. 
W hen a saw is in bad order, the teeth are irregu¬ 
lar in length, and pitch, as in figure 1. This oc¬ 
curs through improper filing, and results in the 
saw working hard. The reason is that a saw ir¬ 
regularly filed, or set, cuts only with the longest 
teeth and those that have the most set. To rem¬ 
edy these defects, it should be pointed and filed un¬ 
til the teeth are all of even length, and are pitched 
so that the front of each tooth is at right angles 
with the back of the saw, as seen at fig. 2. The 
saw is fastened into a clamp (see fig. 6 on opposite 
page), which consists of a pair of jaws fixed 
upon a stand, and moved by screws as shown. An 
end view is given at fig. 3. The ends of the teeth 
are brought to a level by running a flat file length¬ 
wise of the blade. The best form to give the edge is 
a slight curve from end to end of the saw, making 
the middle slightly rounding outwards, never hol¬ 
low. The handle of the saw when in the clamp 
1 
Fig. 1.— A SAW IN BAD CONDITION. 
should be to the left, and not be changed during 
the filing. The part held in the clamp should he 
filed completely before being moved, if the jaws 
are not long enough to hold the whole. On a rip- 
Fig. 2.—SAW PROPERLY FILED AND SET. 
saw, the teeth will be filed square, as shown at a, 
fig. 4; on a cross-cut, they arebeveled upon alternate 
sides, as also shown in fig. 4. Both sides should be 
filed without moving the saw, 
which may be done by changing the 
position aud manner of holding 
the file. A beginner should pro¬ 
vide a handle at least a foot long 
for his file; this will enable him 
to hold it steadily, which is very /— - a \ 
necessary for good work. The 
proper size for a file is 31 inches 
Fig. 3. 
long for a saw having eight teeth to the inch. A 
saw is set before it is filed. The set given for easy 
cutting should be such as to make the cut 
as wide as twice the thickness of the blade. 
Several good sets are sold at the tool shops 
which are self-regulating, and make even 
work. The set of a 
cross-cut saw' will make 
it appear as at fig. 5 
when looking length¬ 
wise at the teeth ; and 
an even channel should 
be seen in which a knit¬ 
ting needle could he 
laid and moved from end to end. If only a few of the 
teeth are short, they need not be pointed, but may be 
Wliiil 
Fig. 4. 
Fig. 5. 
