192 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
A Lift Gate. 
One of the conveniences about our garden 
is the ease with which it can be thrown open, 
by means of lift gates, when any carting is 
to be done. To all appearance there is only 
one gate to the garden—the small one on the 
side nearest the house, which swings upon 
hinges. The garden is enclosed on all sides 
by a picket fence, and in this fence at three 
places there are lift gates, one of which is 
shown in the accompanying engraving. The 
construction is very simple, and the extra 
cost over that of an ordinary length of fence 
is but trifling. Two notches are cut in the 
posts to receive the ends of the lower cross¬ 
bar. The upper portion of the gate is held 
jn place by cleats upon the inside of the 
post, and the end pickets upon the outside, 
between which the ends of the upper bar 
pass and rest upon the upper bar of the fence. 
A Feed Rack for the Stable. 
Mr. E. H. Hopkins, Ontario, Canada, sends 
among other sketches those of a feed rack, 
from which the engraving is made. The up¬ 
per rack is for hay, and is opened by a low door 
in front, which lets down by means of cords 
and weights. The weights are so balanced that 
when the hay is eaten out, the door closes 
up and is out of the way. A second rack, or 
a trough, which is shown at the bottom, is 
A SELF-CI.OSING FODDER RACK. 
also opened from the passage-way by means 
of a long door, without cords and weights. 
This is for feeding roots and other similar 
material that the cattle could not convenient¬ 
ly take from the upper rack. 
Health of Farm Stock. —The spring 
is a critical season for farm animals, and 
every precaution should be taken against 
disease. If one will consult any standard 
work on “ Disea*es of Domestic Animals,” he 
will find that the great source of trouble 
among farm stock is a lack of neatness about 
the stables, the poor quality of the feed, water, 
etc.—in fact, that the diseases are due to the 
Improper care of the animals. The breathing 
of fetid gases arising from filthy stables and 
decomposing manure heaps, is alone enough 
to induce disorders of a serious nature ; but 
add to this the drinking of water from barn¬ 
yard wells that receive surface water at every 
rain, and so polluted as to have an easily re¬ 
cognized taste and color, and it is a wonder 
that the animals live at all. Many of the 
disorders, distempers, fevers, etc., which visit 
the whole “herd” at times, are not so much 
“in the air,” as in the water and the stable. 
Some of the Results of Our Field Ex¬ 
periments. 
A series of experiments, conducted and 
reported by nearly two hundred intelligent 
farmers on a common plan, through three 
successive seasons, and so faithfully done 
that over one hundred of the reports are 
sufficiently full and thorough to be capable 
of accurate and reliable tabulation, must 
bring results of great value. Hitherto we 
have been compelled to rely mainly upon 
European investigations for our facts regard¬ 
ing the nutrition of plants and the action of 
manures. Dr. J. B. Lawes, of Rothamsted, 
England, unquestionably the foremost field 
experimenter in the world, in writing, in 
1873, to the Treasurer of the Massachusetts 
Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, 
said: “The best possible manure for all 
graminaceous crops—wheat, barley, maize 
(com), oats, sugar-cane, rice, and pasture 
grass, is a mixture of superphosphate and 
nitrate of soda.... Potash is generally found 
in sufficient quantities in soils, and the arti¬ 
ficial supply is not required.” In more than 
half of the experiments with com, and in 
nearly all with potatoes, the crops have been 
materially aided by potash salts, and without 
them they have often failed. Several years 
ago the Professor of Agriculture (now Presi¬ 
dent) of one of our leading Agricultural Col¬ 
leges, proposed a formula for a com fertilizer 
which, with a moderate proportion of potash, 
and a small amount of phosphoric acid, sup¬ 
plied nitrogen at the rate of 64 lbs., and at a 
cost of over $15 per acre. Later, a promoter 
of agricultural science has enthusiastically 
advocated the culture of com with chemicals, 
recommending for the purpose, and using in 
an extensive series of experiments upon his 
own farm, a fertilizer which supplied nitro¬ 
gen at the rate of 90 lbs., and at a cost of $18 
to $20 per acre. Mr. Lawes, in a letter writ¬ 
ten three years ago, gives it as his opinion 
that com, to produce full crops, would require 
large quantities of nitrogen to be supplied 
as ammonia or nitric acid. But as shown 
in the article in the American Agriculturist 
for March (p. 97), our experiments tell a very 
decisive story against the use of nitrogen for 
com. The nitrogen increased the crop enough 
to pay its cost in only thirty trials out of one 
hundred and fifty. The pecuniary loss rose 
and fell with the amount of nitrogen used. 
The corn grew well with mineral fertilizers 
alone. As to the much discussed question 
whether com is an “ exhausting ” crop like 
wheat, or “ renovating” crop like clover, our 
experiments imply that though botanically it 
is more closely allied to wheat, it comes in this 
respect nearer to clover, and that usually it 
may be successfully grown with the inex¬ 
pensive mineral fertilizers, superphosphate 
and potash salt, and gather the costly nitro¬ 
gen from natural sources, to be fed on the 
farm, and make manure to renovate the land. 
[Mat, 
Tim Bunker on Hookertown Turkey Lore, 
Mr. Editor.— The subject of raising Tur¬ 
keys has been up for discussion in the Hooker- 
town Farmer’s Club lately, and as what 
Hookertown don’t know on turkeys is n’t 
worth knowing, I thought I would send you 
some notes. Seth Twiggs came up to my 
wood shed, where I was sawing and chopping 
my wood for summer and next winter’s use, 
the day before the meeting, and says hes 
“Squire Bunker, have you heerd on’t?” 
“No I have n’t. What’s up now?” 
“Wall there’s gwine to be a turkey talk 
at the school house to-morrow night, Mr, 
Spooner is gwine to open the subject, Deacon 
Smith is gwine to show his stuffed gobbler, 
and the wimmen folk are comin out t-> tell 
what they know abeout turkeys. Is Mrs. 
Bunker gwine ? ” 
“I should not wonder if she did,” said I. 
“ She has raised turkeys enough to fill the 
barn if they could all be put together. Sally 
and I have been running the farm for more 
than thirty years, and she never has failed 
on that crop once. Hookertown has not a bet¬ 
ter poultry woman in it, though I do say it.” 
“Wall I thought she’dgo,” said Seth, “my 
wife said she’d go if Mrs. Bunker did. Tirzah 
Twiggs liain’t any notion of gwine to a meet- 
in, and makin a fool of herself. She says: 
she’ll tell her ’speriance if the rest of ’em du,. 
and she is glum, if they don’t.” 
At the meeting which Seth had announced 
the school house was slicked up for the. 
evening, for it is only on special occasions, 
when subjects of particular interest to the 
ladies are up for discussion, that they honor 
us with their presence. The big 42-pound 
Bronze Gobbler which Deacon Smith raised 
and had stuffed was present upon the table, 
and attracted quite as much attention as the 
speakers. It was a magnificent specimen of 
the Bronze variety, a past three-year-old that 
had sired three of the best flocks the Deacon 
had ever raised. In honor of his useful life, 
he had the bird stuffed and thus made use¬ 
ful, and beautiful, in death. 
Mr. Spooner, our minister, who still flour 
ishes at the parsonage, and cultivates the. 
church glebe, opened the subject with a brief 
description of 
The Wild Turkey, 
from which our domestic turkeys are de¬ 
scended, and which are often used to bring 
fresh blood, and stamina, into our domestic 
flocks. He said the wild turkey, Meleagris 
gallopavo, was originally found in all parts 
of the United States east of the Rocky 
Mountains, and as far south as the Isthmus 
of Panama. When the country was first 
settled this game was very abundant, and 
with the deer and the buffalo formed a large 
part of the animal food of the Indians, and 
of the early settlers. They had stood their 
ground against the advance of civilization 
much better than the deer and the buffalo, 
and are still to be found in the wooded and 
mountainous regions of some of the old 
States, and quite plentiful even upon the 
borders of civilization. They are still hunted 
on the Alleghanies, and sometimes a wild 
gobbler will invade the farm yard in the 
new settlements, drive off or kill the tame 
cock, and take possession of his flock. On 
the borders, it is a very common thing to in¬ 
troduce the wild birds. In some of the new 
States wild turkeys are so common that it 
hardly pays to raise the domestic birds. In 
