AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
51 
1881.] 
Everybody Send Something. 
It would be rare to find a, man (or woman), 
in this ingenious “Universal Yankee Na¬ 
tion,” who has not a mode or way of doing 
something that he (or she) considers superior 
to the way others do the same thing. And 
no doubt this opinion is very often right. 
There are thousands of little labor-saving, 
labor-helping devices and contrivances, the 
product of individual skill, not as a rale con¬ 
sidered important enough to be patented or 
otherwise brought to public notice, and yet 
which would be of practical value, or usefully 
suggestive, to tens of thousands of others. 
The Readers of the American Agriculturist 
in one sense constitute a great “ Mutual Im¬ 
provement Association,” each one of whom 
can contribute some thought or hint useful 
to a great number of others. 
Now, what we desire and specially ask is, 
that our readers will, one and all, cast about 
and see if they cannot send us now—not 
next year—a description of something which, 
if adopted by their neighbors, would be use¬ 
ful in in-door and out-door work, no matter 
how small the item. To illustrate: A 
subscriber described to us his mode of 
stopping a cow from drawing her own 
milk. It was merely a short bit of iron 
pipe—a piece of gas pipe—open at the ends, 
and with a few little holes filed along 
the sides into the interior of the tube. This 
was put -across the mouth of the cow, and 
the two ends fastened to the horns with a 
stout string. It was hardly seen, did not in¬ 
terfere with eating, yet prevented any suck¬ 
ing, because the air entered the mouth 
through the open ends of the tube and the 
filed holes. We made an engraving and 
printed it, with a description, in the American 
Agriculturist. Many hundreds of our read- 
-ers at once adopted, it. One reader, a business 
man, not a farmer, wrote that it was worth 
$100 to him, for he had an imported cow 
that cost him $150, but he would have sold 
her for $50, could he have found a buyer, 
because she persisted in “ milking herself.” 
The above device cured her at once, and she 
was again well worth the $150 she cost him ; 
so this little item was worth $100 to him. 
We could give a multitude of like examples. 
Let us have, therefore, from you, reader, a 
description of anything of your own devising, 
cr that you have seen, no matter how simple, 
that will be useful to others. No need 
to be particular about the style of writing; 
the editors will fix that. Give the ideas 
merely so that we can understand them. 
Whenever possible, give us a rough pencil 
sketch, however rude, even if but a few 
lines, and give dimensions, that our artists 
can work up an illustration or explanatory 
engraving. Pictures bring things right to 
the understanding far better than words 
can do. Send us a description of anything, 
or of any mode of doing work, out-door or in¬ 
door, that is not known by everybody else. 
Spreading Manure in Winter. 
There is no season in which manure can be 
drawn to the field with such ease as in win¬ 
ter. When hauling manure it is usually best 
to drop it in heaps, and leave it to be spread 
by a man who follows soon after. There are 
several methods of dumping the manure, but 
the most satisfactory to us has been to use a 
manure hook, shown in figure 1. The bot¬ 
tom of the sled or wagon should be formed 
of loose planks, each with its ends shaved 
down to form handles. The side and end 
pieces of the box, though closely fitting, are 
not fastened together, so that they can be 
Fig. 1.—A MANURE HOOK. 
removed one at a time. One side or an end 
board is first taken out, and with a manure 
hook a sufficient amount of the load removed 
for the first heap. The manner of unloading 
the manure, from the box above described, is 
shown in figure 2. The other side and ends 
are afterwards taken off, and finally the bot¬ 
tom pieces are raised and the sled or wagon 
is soon emptied. In dropping the heaps they 
should be left, as nearly as may be in straight 
rows, and of a size, and distance apart de¬ 
termined by the amount of manure to be 
spread. If they are placed regularly one 
rod from one another each way, and eight 
heaps are made from a load, there will be 
twenty loads per acre. In spreading such 
heaps the manure is thrown eight feet each 
way and the whole ground is covered. It is 
important that the spreading be done in 
a careful and thorough manner, each portion 
of the surface getting its proper share of the 
manure. It is important also that all lumps 
be broken up. The work of spreading manure 
can, and therefore should not, be slighted. 
The Japanese Maples. 
It was our good fortune to see the very 
first set of the choicer Japanese Maples that 
came out from Japan. These were sent by 
Mr. Thomas Hogg to his brother James, and 
as we lived at that time not far from Mr. 
James Hogg, we had great pleasure in occa¬ 
sionally visiting and watching the develop¬ 
ment of the apparently lifeless sticks, as they 
seemed, when first received, into forms more 
beautiful than any illustrations have yet pic¬ 
tured. It should be a matter of no little 
pride to American horticulturists that these 
maples came into cultivation through the 
agency of one of their number, who sent 
them, and another who cared for them, and 
thus secured them for future propagation. 
It is convenient to speak of them as “Ja¬ 
panese Maples,” without reference to their 
origin, whether it may be from Acer poly- 
morphum , A. Japonicum, or other species de¬ 
scribed and figured in the great work of Sie- 
bold & Zuccarini. Horticulturally, they will 
be known as “Japanese Maples,” whatever 
species they may be referred to. That some 
of the species of Maples in Japan have a 
marked tendency to vary is shown by the 
engravings in the work above referred to, 
and it is greatly to the credit of the Japanese 
gardeners that they have seized upon and 
perpetuated these beautiful forms by graft¬ 
ing. One of our Japanese correspondents 
sends us a catalogue published there, by what 
seems to be a “ self-printing ” process of some 
kind. This shows that these forms are held 
in esteem by the Japanese, 
and it also shows that we 
have, in this country, all 
the varieties that they have 
at home. Any description 
which should present them 
accurately would be re¬ 
garded as extravagant by 
those who had not seen 
them. These beautiful 
maples are, so far as test¬ 
ed, perfectly hardy. They 
are from one or two to 
eight or ten feet in hight, 
and whether small or 
large, are perfectly formed 
trees. Several years ago 
Mr. Hogg placed the stock 
of these trees in the hands 
of Parsons & Sons Co., 
Flushing, N. Y. At first it 
seemed impossible to prop¬ 
agate them, but this difficulty was overcome 
by the skillful Mr. Trumpy, and they are now 
multiplied in sufficient quantities to offer for 
sale. When Mr. H. W. Sargent prepared a 
supplement for the last edition of ‘ ‘ Down¬ 
ing’s Landscape Gardening,” he predicted that 
the laying out of large domains would soon 
give way to the establishment of smaller 
places, and cited these Japanese Maples as 
among the trees that would be used in the 
decoration of such grounds. We do not 
know how a small place can be more at¬ 
tractively embellished than by the use of 
these Japanese Maples. The catalogue of Par¬ 
sons’ Sons Co. describes the leading varieties 
of these interesting Japanese Maples. 
A BBung-Beetle.-— The droppings of the 
larger farm stock in the pasture need to be 
more thoroughly distributed than they are 
by the animals, other¬ 
wise a portion of the 
surface is starved, 
while other parts, 
being over-manured, 
develop too rank a 
growth. A beetle, or 
“knocker,” shown in A dung-beetle. 
the engraving may be used to equally dis¬ 
tribute the manure over the field. It con¬ 
sists of a head-piece, 18 inches long—one end 
with a square face and the other trimmed 
down to a sharp point. Only the lower part 
of the handle is shown in the engraving. 
In using this instrument the dry dung is 
loosened with the sharp end of the head and 
afterwards struck with the face. A lad with 
one of these beetles can go over a pasture 
quite rapidly, doing very effective work in 
distributing the droppings of the animals. 
Fig. 2. —A MANURE WAGON BOX. 
