248 
A SHEEP-TROUGH.—COAL-TAR AS A PAINT.—IMPROVED FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
cradles, steel hoes, gin-stands, fee., are all in de¬ 
mand. If the makers of Batchelder’s planting- 
machine have improved that excellent implement, 
so as to give it a little more strength, and to permit 
the attendant to see the corn as it drops, he may 
send one to our trial with the certainty of introdu¬ 
cing it here. If it operates as the specimen one I 
had tried at Cincinnati, I will agree to purchase 
the one sent, and hand over the price to the pres¬ 
ident of our society to be remitted him. The ob¬ 
jection made to it in the west, that it will not drop 
in hills that can be tended both ways, is no ob¬ 
jection here, as we tend everything in drills. I 
know of no implement that would be of equal 
value to the planter. Thomas Affleck. 
Ingleside , Adams Co., Miss., 27 th May, 1844. 
With respect to cast-iron plows, if properly made 
from good materials, and the mould-board ground 
and finished smooth, it works as easily, is as 
strong for all general purposes, and lasts as long, as 
the wrought-iron implement. In regard to supply¬ 
ing the south, we shall confer with our mechanics, 
and endeavor to meet Mr. Affleck’s wishes. 
A SHEEP-TROUGH. 
I here give you a description of my sheep- 
trough, which I consider a very good one. Take 
two boards 8 inches wide, of common thickness 
and any length you may wish the trough. Lap 
the edge of one board over the other the whole 
length ; then nail the two together; a cross section 
of the trough will thus form the letter V. Now 
take a piece of board or plank 14 inches wide, and 
12 inches in length, and nail on to each end of the 
trough, so that it will stand about 8 inches from 
the ground. This finished, nail a strip of board 
about 3 or 4 inches wide to the middle of each end, 
so that it will come up 12 or 14 inches above the 
upper edge of the trough, then take a piece of 
board of the same width, and the whole length of 
the trough, and nail on to the top of the last named 
pieces; this will prevent the sheep from getting 
in to the trough and dirtying their feed, so that 
they will not eat it, and it will prevent them from 
jumping over it, thus we may always have a clean 
trough, which I find a very good thing. I have 
30 ewes and 21 lambs that I feed with sliced tur- 
neps and corn every day. 
Practical experiments are what we farmers 
want, and how we can make our land produce the 
most with the least expense. H. C. M. 
Miller's Place, Long Island. 
COAL-TAR AS A PAINT. 
I think it would be well to ,call the attention of 
farmers to the use of coal-tar as a paint. The tar 
produced in coal gas-works is used extensively in 
England for painting fences, outbuildings, &c., and 
is being introduced in this country also. It never 
alters by exposure to the weather, and one or two 
good coats will last many years. It is the cheap¬ 
est and best black paint that can be used. Our 
buildings are painted with it, all our apparatus j 
also; and even the wrought-iron pipe we place in 
the ground, is coated with it. I think if its advan¬ 
tages were fully known, it would be generally used 
throughout the United States. The government 
soak the bricks used in building the fort at Throg’s 
Neck in this tar, which renders them impervious 
to water; and posts painted with it are protected 
from rot when put in the ground, as effectually as 
if they had been charred. 
Charles Roome. 
Manhattan Gas-Worlcs, New York. 
IMPROVED FARMING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
During one of my late rambles in Massachusetts, 
I made the acquaintance of quite a young man 
who was bred a mechanic, but left with a poor 
worn out farm of 120 acres before attaining his 
majority. He felt so incompetent to manage this 
farm, and the prospect of a fair return from it for 
his labor was so unpromising, that he continued 
to work at his trade part of the time, and at graft¬ 
ing (which he had fortunately learned) at the prop¬ 
er season, and thus earned money enough to hire 
a man through the summer, and a stout boy 
through the year. 
On his farm was one field of 20 acres which had 
been cropped with rye every other year, producing 
from 4 to 5 bushels per acre, the next year it would 
be left to lie fallow. This he seeded with clover, 
pastured sheep upon it three years, then planted 
it with corn and potatoes and made it completely 
mellow. After this crop was taken off in the fall, 
he sowed it with rye, bushed it in with a bush 
harrow made of white birches 20 feet long, in¬ 
serted in a round pole 12 feet long, thus leaving the 
surface of the ground smooth and even. Plaster 
was then spread upon it at the rate of one bushel 
per acre, and the March following, on the same 
quantity of land, one bushel of red-top and Rhode 
Island-bent, 4 quarts of timothy, and 20 lbs. of 
large clover. Every seed seemed to take, for such 
a mat of grass I have seldom seen upon land. It 
has been regularly pastured every year since, and 
yields 2 to tons of hay to the acre, besides a 
large crop of fall-feed. His bog meadow he has 
drained and skimmed of its rubbish, carting the 
whole into his barn-yard, together with the muck 
from the ditches, and on this meadow now he has 
great crops of English grass. From under the 
old barn and sheds he has got out large quantities 
of salt-petre dirt; this he has mixed with other 
old manure, which has been accumulating for 
years, and with his yard manure he collected a 
sufficient quantity to enrich several acres of loamy 
land, from some of which he has obtained 36 bush¬ 
els wheat per acre, and from 70 to 85 bushels corn, 
and on other parts of it seeded down to grass it is 
now producing 2J tons, and in some instances 3 
tons of hay per acre, and all these improvements 
have been brought about within a few years, with¬ 
out the aid of cash capital, or any other informa¬ 
tion than what he has gathered from reading ag¬ 
ricultural papers. 
Unless land can be properly prepared with ma¬ 
nure and other stimulating articles, be plowed 
I deep, well pulverized, judiciouslv seeded, and kep 
