262 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[July, 
Animals differ greatly in the capacity for utilizing 
food, and every owner should learn which of his 
cows or horses, consumes the most food, with the 
least benefit, and weed out these unthrifty animals. 
Babbitting—or Lining Boxes with Bab¬ 
bitt Metal. 
- 
It is a well known fact amoDg machinists and 
other mechanics, that there is less friction between 
two very unlike metals, than when the moving 
parts are of the same metal. Recognizing this fact, 
Isaac Babbitt, of Bos¬ 
ton, as long ago as 
1839, patented a com¬ 
position for lining 
journal boxes, which 
became known as 
Babbitt Metal, and at 
the present time to 
“babbitt” a box is 
a common term for 
the lining of a hearing with any alloy that will reduce 
the friction. Now that machinery has come into 
general use upon one farm—and wherever there is 
machinery, friction is one great obstacle to its prof¬ 
itable use, it is necessary that the manner of bab¬ 
bitting a box should be generally known. Babbitt’s 
original alloy was 9 parts of tin and one part of 
copper, but it is variously modified while retaining 
the name. That in 
most common use 
consists of 10 parts 
of tin and one part 
of antimony or of 
zinc, and a bearing 
thus made offers 
very little friction to the movement ol an iron 
shaft. This compound melts readily in an ordinary 
iron ladle, and can be poured as easily as plum¬ 
ber’s solder. The boxes in which the shafts or 
journals of a machine run, are generally made of 
iron, and are somewhat larger than the shaft, so 
that room is left for a 
thin layer of the bab. 
bitt metal inside of the 
box. This anti-friction 
lining is thus applied: 
the shaft and one half 
of the box are arranged in their proper rela¬ 
tive positions as shown in figure 1. The shaft is 
raised sufficiently above the* bottom of the box, to 
permit the babbitt metal to flow between them. 
The box is provided with a few holes drilled into 
the iron on the inner surface (a, .a, fig. 2), into 
which the babbitt metal flows, and the projections 
thus formed hold the lining in its place. The 
spaces between the box and shaft at the ends are 
closed by means of small strips of wood, cut to 
fit the shaft closely, as shown at figure 3. The 
melted metal is then 
poured around the 
shaft until the box is 
filled. The lower half¬ 
box is then removed 
from the shaft, and I’i°' 4_ uppek box. 
the upper half, fig. 4, 
is put in its place. This has a hole for oiling at the 
top, and to keep this open a wooden plug is fitted 
into it which touches the shaft. The ends are 
closed and the metal is poured in as before. The 
half-box is then removed, and both of them are 
trimmed of surplus metal by means of a coarse file, 
and the edges are made to fit each other so that the 
box can be screwed together properly. It may be 
well to add that Wocfc-tin must be used; tin-plate 
being sheet iron covered with a thin film of tin. 
A Rack for Feeding Hay, Etc. 
A Western farmer sends his plan of making a 
rack for feeding hay. These racks are largely used 
in the West, where hay is cheap and labor is dear ; 
they are found convenient, and save both trouble 
and loss of fodder. The rack is made as follows : 
stout posts are set in the ground, about 9 feet apart, 
to suit the length of the rails used; stout posts are 
then placed about 6 inches inside of the first men¬ 
tioned posts, one for each, and the two are con¬ 
nected together by 2-inch pins driven through auger 
holes in each, in the same manner as in making a 
straight post and rail fence. The pin is placed two 
feet from the ground. Rails are then placed be¬ 
tween the posts, and resting upon the pins, and 
other rails are laid on these, to make a floor. The 
ends and sides of the rack, are built up with rails 
as in making a fence, putting cross pieces in where 
necessary. An opening on each side for feeding, 
is made by putting in pins about 2 feet above the 
first ones, and the rails are built up to 8 feet high 
from the ground, to make a receptacle for hay, of 
sufficient capacity to hold two or three days feed¬ 
ing. Racks of this kind, may be built in fields for 
feeding corn-fodder, or in yards for feeding green 
crops, and may be made as useful in all cattle-rais¬ 
ing regions as in the West. They will be found of 
much use in feeding cows in peus, as in “ cow pen¬ 
ning” lots in the South, and indeed this practice of 
turning cows into a poor lot, and feeding them there 
with green food by means of such racks, or others 
made in a similar way, may be made of great utility 
in fertilizing the soil, at a small expense for labor. 
Hitrogen in Farm-Yard Bung. 
BY J. B. LAWES, ESQ., ROTHAMSTED, ENGLAND. 
In the Report of the New' Jersey State Board of 
Agriculture for 1878, page 95, the writer, referring 
to the immense amount of nitrogen applied to the 
soil, which has not been recovered in the crop, in 
our experiments with this manure, states, that 
“ Dr. Lawes, who, of all men, should be able to 
throw light on it, as being his own experiments, 
not only fails to give an explanation, but increases 
the difficulty by stating that, while cn barley, 82 
lbs. of nitrogen applied per acre, in the form of 
ammonia salts, was found to be too much, result¬ 
ing in a crop which was too heavy and laid, yet 200 
lbs. of nitrogen, supplied in the form of dung, 
produced no over-luxuriance.” 
This is not only true, but I may say that 42 lbs. 
of nitrogen applied in the form of Nitrate of Soda, 
with mineral manures to one acre of barley, has, 
for 25 years in succession, produced as large a crop 
as an annual application of 14 tons of farm-yard 
dung per acre. We do not profess to know accu¬ 
rately the quantity of nitrogen which the dung 
contained, but we should be tolerably safe in esti¬ 
mating it as supplying four or five times as much 
as the Nitrate of Soda. During the first six years 
of the barley experiments we applied both 42 lbs. 
and 84 lbs. of nitrogen to the barley, but, finding 
that the larger quantity produced over-luxuriance, 
it w r as given up; the smaller quantity yielded an 
average crop of 48 bushels of dressed corn* per 
acre.-Over-luxuriance in a corn [grain] crop is 
at once apparent by a relatively high proportion of 
straw to corn.—The following table, which gives 
the produce of 14 tons of dung, applied to an acre 
[* What we call “ corn,” is usually termed “ maize ” in 
England, where most kinds of grain, as barley, wheat, 
etc., are called “corn.” Thus, by “dressed corn” Mr. 
Lawes in this case means cleaned barley.— Ed.] 
of wheat for 35 years in succession, will show the 
effect of this manure : 
14 Tons of Dung Bushels of Dressed, 
Per Annwm. Corn Per Acre. 
First...8 years.. 
.1844 to 1851 
28 
Second.!) years.. 
.1852 to 1860 
34)4 
Third. . 9 years. 
..1861 to 1869 
37% 
Fourth.9 years. 
..1870 to 1878 
31 
35 years. 
Straw in 
Cwts. 
26 % 
34% 
33% 
29^ 
It may be observed that the seasons between 1861 
and 1869 were decidedly more favorable for wheat 
than more recent years ; throughout the whole 
period, there is no indication of over-luxuriance; 
indeed, compared with the grain, the straw has de¬ 
clined of late years, and this is the more remark¬ 
able, as the 14 tons of dung must supply the land 
every year with from 3 to 4 tons of that substance. 
Now although we have not published very much, 
yet no subject has occupied our attention more 
than that which relates to the assimilation, accu¬ 
mulation, or loss of nitrogen. In 1866 Dr. Gilbert 
read a paper before the British Association on “The 
Accumulation of the Nitrogen of Manures within 
the Soil.” Again in 1873, in a paper upon the 
growth of barley for 20 years in succession, we en¬ 
deavored to account for the large amount of nitro¬ 
gen applied in dung which was not recovered in 
the crop. In the following table is given the 
amount of nitrogen contained in the first and sec¬ 
ond 9 inches of the soil of the permanently unma¬ 
nured and permanently dunged wheat experiments, 
taken at different periods. Samples have been 
taken and analyses made down to 54 inches, but the 
differences after the second 9 inches are but slight. 
NITROGEN IN THE SOIL. 
Unmanured Land. 
1865 
1858 
1869 
First nine inches_ 
. .0.1090 
0.1089 
0.1008 
Second nine inches. 
..0.0738 
0.0646 
0.0608 
Permanently Dunged Land. 
First nine inches.... 
. 0.1880 
0.1959 
0.2127 
Second nine inches., 
..0.0810 
0.0.04 
0.0761 
It will be observed that while there is a steady 
decline in the nitrogen on the unrnanured land, 
there is, at the same time, a rise in the nitrogen on 
the dunged land. The difference in the nitrogen of 
the unmanured and the dunged land would be, in 
1869, equal to about 2,600 lbs. per acre, and as the 
dung had been applied for 26 years, we here ac¬ 
count for something like 100 lbs. of nitrogen per 
acre per annum. The sampling and analysis of a 
soil is, however, one of the most difficult opera¬ 
tions in which any one can engage, and therefore 
too much reliance must not be placed on these fig¬ 
ures, but we have abundant evidence of the accu¬ 
mulation of the nitrogen of dung quite apart from 
analysis, as the following examples will show: 
On a piece of permanent pasture, 14 tons of dung 
were applied to one acre for eight years in succes¬ 
sion, and the crop of hay was removed every year. 
For the succeeding fifteen years the hay has been 
removed wdthout further manuring, and in the ta¬ 
ble below will be found the produce obtained, as 
also, for comparison, the increase over the hay 
grown upon land entirely without manure. 
Average weight of Bay per acre Increase aver unma- 
per annum. wired produce. 
Cwts. of 112 lbs. Cwts. of 112 lbs. 
14 tons of dung 8 years, ’56 to "63..42f 194 
Unrnanured 5 years, 1863 to 1868..40J lflf 
do. 5 years, 1868 to 1873. .29J 104 
do. 5 years, 1873 to 1878..23J 7 
It will be seen that, after 15 years, without any 
application of dung, we are still some considerable 
way from the final exhaustion. The most remarka¬ 
ble instance, however, of the accumulation of the 
material supplied by dung, is shown in the contin¬ 
uous growth of red clover. Being unable to grow 
this plant in our fields by the direct application of 
ordinary or artificial manures, v r e sowed some seed 
in a piece of garden ground, which may have been 
used as such for centuries, and upon this soil, with¬ 
out further manuring, red clover has been grown 
for about 25 years in succession, the produce being 
cut and carried off two or three times every year. 
We learn, therefore, from these experiments, that 
much of the nitrogen in farm yard dung is in a very 
inert condition. 
Boussingault, who has examined the air in the 
soil, has shown how large is the amount of carbon¬ 
ic acid diffused through it by recent dung; the 
constant application of dung, therefore, creates an 
