•466 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
facilitated by the use of the best machinery. It is 
not to be supposed that the work is always done as 
easily as it can be described. The tools sometimes 
break, and portions of the drills remain in the well; 
but the perfection of well-sinking machinery is 
such that iron or steel fingers can be sent down 
and made to pick up the fallen obstacles, or hard 
steel drills are used to cut them in pieces, so that 
they can be brought up in the sand pump; besides, 
the cost of sinking is largely reduced by means 
of the excellent tools which are at present in use. 
Cultivated Wheat. 
BT A. B. TRAVIS, BRANDON, MICH. 
Twenty-nine years ago the present autumn, I 
broke up a gravelly field, and cropped it in my 
usual way to wheat, com, and oats, or barley, and 
then seeded to Clover and Timothy, and mowed and 
pastured it two years, and then with the same rota¬ 
tion to the last five years in which I took off two 
crops of wheat; one of them was stubbled in wheat 
after wheat and seeded to Clover and Timothy, 
which gave two crops of hay. When the last crop 
of hay of 1878 was taken off, I plowed the land in 
the last days of August, planted on the 16th of 
September, and hoed it with my Horse Hoe once in 
the fall and twice in the spring. I used a 7-incli 
epa»>e drill, closing up each alternate hoe, making 
14-inch space on part, 
and the rest was put in 
belts by twisting the 
drag bars of the drill 
to baing the points of 
two hoes near together, 
and giving more room 
for spreading of seed, 
leaving 10 to 11 inches 
in space for cultivation. 
, I prefer this belting,and 
Fig. 13.— MACHINE FOR STEAM-POWER. 
would like about 12 inches for the hoe. I tried 
different quantities of 6eed, from two to six pecks 
per acre, and found that three or four pecks was 
the best. I had three to six pecks of seed per acre 
standing side by side with equal chances, and the 
three pecks was fully 50 per cent better than where 
the six pecks were used. Too much seed weakens 
the crop, and if insects attack it there is not 
strength to support the insects, and the wheat must 
perish or drop down before harvest, while the thin 
sowing, having more space and strength by hoeing, 
branched out more, and the branches that come 
out after the insect was done working are healthy. 
How easy it would be for farmers knowing the 
benefit of hoeing their wheat and oats, when they 
are planting seed in the fall and spring, to close 
each alternate drill on about one or two acres if 
no more, and hoe a part witji a hand hoe, and 
watch the results in the heads next harvest; but 
almost ail have been brought up in the old fashion, 
believing that nothing needs cultivation unless it 
stands in the garden or corn field.—[Mr. Travis sent 
with the article a sheaf of wheat grown on the field 
referred to ; it has fine straw and extra good grain, 
many of the heads containing over 60 seeds. It is 
an encouraging symptom of enterprise on the part 
of farmers, who are apt to be charged undeserved¬ 
ly with being too slow to adopt improved methods, 
that very numerous experiments are being made in 
cultivating wheat. The reasonableness of the prac¬ 
tice, and its constant use with other crops, are in¬ 
ducements for its adoption in wheat culture, and 
wherever it has been tested it has resulted in a 
large increase of the yield. We confidently expect 
that before long every field of wheat will be hoed 
as corn and potatoes are, and every facility given 
to the crop to do its best in production. The 
average yield of wheat should be at least twice as 
much as it is now, and the only way in which the 
increase can be made is by the use of improved 
methods of culture, among which hoeing is found 
to be one of the simplest and most effective.— Ed.] 
Fastening Cattle With Bows. 
Everything connected with this method of fas¬ 
tening cattle in the stables,by means of Bows, is so 
Fig. 1.— BOW AND CLASP. 
simple in construction, that it is within the reach 
of every farmer. It requires no outlay, as each 
one can make all the parts for himself. The bow 
(fig. 1) passes around the animal’s neck in the same 
manner as an ox-bow, and is made of a good piece 
of hickory, by bending a strip of the right 
length, and i-inch in diameter, into the bow 
form. After the bow-piece, A, is made of the right 
size and shape, with one end left with a knob, to 
prevent the clasp from slipping off, and the other 
cut as shown in front view in fig. 1, G, and side view 
at F, to fit into the slot, in the clasp, it is care¬ 
fully bent until its ends are brought together, fas¬ 
tened, and left so for a considerable time, when it 
will take.its form, and be ready for use. The clasp 
is shown at B, B, and consists of a piece of hard¬ 
wood—hickory is best—4-inch in thickness, and 
i long enough to hold the top of the bow well to¬ 
gether. A round hole is bored in one end, F, through 
j which the bow passes as far as the knob ; the other 
; end is cut with a hole for the passage of the other 
end of the bow, aud a slot, C, into which its narrow 
neck sgringsrTiyhen the bow is secured about the crea¬ 
ture.’^ npqfeU A smooth, stout hickory pole, 24 
inches'in'diameter, reaching from the floor to the 
beam overhead, serves as a stanchion to which to 
attach the animal, by means of a small bow, and 
stationary clasp, figure 2, or an iron ring, A. If a 
little more room, is desired for young stock, a link 
or two of chain, B, can be inserted between the bow 
and stanchion ring. In fastening the cattle, the 
bow is raised when it passes around the neck, and 
the clasp is brought on, and the end of the bow i6 
sprung in place. When the animal is to be let 
loose, the end of the bow is pressed in, the clasp 
slips off, the bow falls, and the work is done in less 
time than it takes to describe it, and everything is 
Fig. 2.— BOW AND ATTACHMENT. 
out of the way. Figure 3 shows a stable arranged 
for this method of fastening; aside from the man¬ 
ger, there is but the stanchion poles, one for each 
animal. There is sufficient freedom of movement 
of the head, but not an excess; the animal can 
stand or lie down with perfect comfort, as the bow 
moves with ease the whole length of the stanchion. 
After a week’s practice, the animals will take their 
place with their heads by the side of the stanchioD, 
as shown in the figure, with a precision that is re¬ 
markable. Having used the method here illustrated 
for several years, the writer has found the method 
to be inexpensive, easy in application, and safe. 
The Preservation of Wood.— It is known 
that the decay of timber first begins through the 
fermentation of sap within the pores, and that it is 
continued after this by the absorption of water. 
The neutralization of the acids in the timber by the 
use of lime, has been made use of to preserve it from 
decay with success ; but the most effective methods 
have been to saturate the pores with oils or mineral 
salts. Creosote and Petroleum have been used 
successfully, but few persons are aware of the enor¬ 
mous absorptive capacity of timber for these liq¬ 
uids. Cypress wood, when dry, will absorb 39 lbs. 
or 5 gallons of oil per cubic foot, and California 
Kedwoodand Pine, absorb twice their weight when 
perfectly dry. But it is not necessary for perfect 
preservation that timber should be fully saturated, 
one gallon per cubic foot, for the most porous 
woods will be fully effective, and a coating of one 
and three-quarters of a pint per square foot for 
weather boards, or half as much for shingles, will 
render them perfectly water proof. In some care¬ 
ful experiments recently made,dry Spruce absorbed, 
during 2 days soaking, nearly 2 per cent of its 
weight of water, and but one-tenth as much when 
treated with oil; dry Pine absorbed 16 per cent of 
its weight, and oiled Pine absorbed none that could 
Fig. 3.— STABLE SHOWING BOW AND STANCHIONS. 
be ascertained by careful weighing. Pine has proved 
to be the most easily water-proofed of any timber. 
Those who wish to preserve shingle roofs, will be 
able to draw their own inferences as to the useful¬ 
ness of coating them with crude petroleum. 
