1879.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
Farm Engines. —“T. T. F.,” Nashville, Ohio. 
The power of a vertical engine is equal to that of a hori¬ 
zontal one, if it is equally well made ; the vertical engine 
occupies but little room. There are many kinds of en¬ 
gines mentioned in our advertising columns, all of which 
are made by responsible manufacturers, and we can not 
say which is the best of them. 
Packing Eggs.— “A. T.,” St. Jo, Mo. There is 
no secret in packing eggs. The material used is “milk 
of lime,” which is another name for whitewash, and is 
prepared precisely as for whitewashing. Tiie fresh eggs 
are packed in a barrel, and the lime-wash, well stirred 
and then strained, is poured over them. The eggs must 
be fresh when packed, and must be kept in a cool place. 
Patent Method of Spaying Cows,-“ J. A.,” 
W. T. There are quacks abroad who pretend to spay 
cows by some secret processes or by Ihe use of an injec¬ 
tion. There are no known methods of preventing cows 
from breeding, but the old and common one of removing 
the ovaries. Any person who may be induced to pay $5 
for any other method, patented or not, will lose his 
money, unless he values the experience. 
Stomach Staggers, or Congestion of the 
Brain, —“H. C. N.,” Freeborn Co., Minn. Long con¬ 
tinued indigestion frequently acts upon the brain and 
produces congestion, with convulsions or paralysis. The 
symptoms most common are sleepiness, stupidity, shak¬ 
ing and swaying of the head, irregular motion when 
walking or running, and occasionally frantic actions of 
the limbs or insane and violent frenzy. The bowels are 
constipated and a cough is often present. The proper 
treatment is to relieve the bowels by active purging, by 
giving a quart of linseed oil, and to relieve the brain by 
applying cold water or pounded ice to the head. The 
food should he changed, and only that which is soft, laxa¬ 
tive. and easily digested, be given. 
To Learn Cai»onizing.— “ B. S. W.,” Wood- 
lawn, Conn. There is no difficulty in learning the art of 
making capons with the directions given recently in the 
American Agriculturist , and with the instruments there 
described. To begin, kill a young cockerel for the table, 
and then follow the directions; the bird can be used 
afterwards and will not be lost. If the attempt is not satis¬ 
factory, try again until sufficient confidence is gained to 
practice on a living bird. After three or four attempts, 
one will usually be able to make a successful operation. 
Gastric Irritation and Vomiting in Cat¬ 
tle, —“ W. L. S.,” Black Hawk, La. Vomiting, which 
is rare witli cattle, is a symptom of gastric irritation, 
whicli may occur from various causes. Poisonous herb¬ 
age, indigestion, or nervous disorder may each cause the 
trouble. To treat the difficulty the cause should be disco i- 
ered ; if the origin is in the stomach, as is probable, laxa¬ 
tive and soothing drinks may be given, such as well 
boiled oatmeal or linseed-meal gruel. If there is a large 
collection of gas in the stomach, that should be dis¬ 
charged by the use of the trochar, or by the administration 
of half-ounce doses of Carbonate of Ammonia dissolved in 
water, and given three or four times a day. 
“Hoof Oil.”— “D. M.,” Chicago. The best hoof 
dressing is pure glycerine. Crude petroleum dries the 
hoof and makes it brittle. Whenever hoofs are washed 
they should be dressed with glycerine. 
Cost of Raising Pigs. —“ G.P.,” Brooklyn, N. 
Y. A very good estimate of the cost of producing pork 
may he made from the value of corn. With well-bred 
pigs, such as Essex. Berkshire, Poland-China, and York¬ 
shire, 44 lbs. of corn will make a pound of pork, and the 
manure should pay the cost of attention. Where corn is 
worth half a cent a pound, it is manifest that pork may 
be produced at half the cost of that where corn is worth 
one cent a pound ; excepting the disadvantage arising 
from distance from market, and the freight which has to 
be added to the cost of the cheaper pork. 
Nervousness in Cows.- “ J. II. D.,” Adams Co., 
Ohio. If cows “strain and dribble” during milking, it 
is no symptom of urinary trouble. Many cows do this. 
In the writer’s dairy of 20 cows, half of them do this, 
which is only done through nervousness and by nervous 
sympathy of the urinary organs with the udder, while 
the milk is being drawn. 
Liming Sheep Skins and Pulling Wool. 
—“ J. C., Jr.,” Bethlehem, Pa. Sheep skins should be 
soaked in water 24 hours before putting on the lime. 
The lime is slaked and made into a paste, which is 
spread upon the flesh side of a skin, a second skin is laid 
upon the first with the flesh side upon the lime; and 
others are laid upon these in pairs with lime between the 
two flesh sides, so as to form a stack, in which they 
undergo a sweating. In this condition they remain for 
24 hours, when the wool can be easily pulled from the 
skin. The quantity pulled depends upon the kind of 
fleece, and varies from 2 to 6 pounds, or sometimes more. 
Maoley or Polled Cattle.—“ H.,” Richmond, 
Va. “Mooley” is a term used chiefly by the Irish to 
designate hornless cattle. Polled is the proper word It 
has been customary among Irish and some English 
drovers to poll their beef cattle, to get rid of the objec¬ 
tionable horns, and to cause them to be more quiet feed¬ 
ers. The advantages of this practice has led to the en¬ 
couragement of naturally polled cattle, and this class of 
beasts has been greatly improved of late years, until 
there are two hornless breeds of beef cattle, the Angus 
and Galloway, and one of milking cattle, the Norfolk 
(and Suffolk;. It would doubtless be an advantage eco¬ 
nomically to get rid of all horns ; but the public taste 
has not yet been educated so far as that. 
White Specks in Rutter.— “T. W.W.,” Hud¬ 
son, Mich. White specks in butter may be caused in sev¬ 
eral ways. Some milk may remain when the butter is 
worked. The cream may have been kept too long, and 
curdled milk be gathered in the butter; impure salt will 
cause the defect, and in some cases the milk itself is to 
blame. Some cows give milk from which good butter 
never can be made. It is proper to discover the true 
cause before trying a remedy. 
A Cow not to be Rred from.—“J. P. J.,” 
Ashtabula, Ohio. A cow that has any weakness of the 
generative organs, is not fit for a breeder. Tendency to 
garget is a positive objection in Ibis respect. Strong 
progeny can not be expected from defective cows. 
Cooling Milk.— Milk cannot be safely carried any 
considerable distance in the hot weather without previous 
cooling. Where there-is a deep, cool well, or a cool 
spring, the cans may be let down into the water and the 
milk stirred until it is cooled down to 50 degrees. A box 
may then be provided into which the cans may he placed 
with ice around them, mixed with cut hay or straw chaff 
to absorb the water as the ice melts. 
Lumber for Milk Rooms,- “P. B. P.,” Dutch¬ 
ess Co., N. Y. Pine should not be used for building a 
milk room, on account of its odor. That will pass off in 
time, and will be much lessened by plastering; hemlock 
or spruce, being odorless when seasoned, are far better. 
A good milk house may be made by lathing and plaster¬ 
ing outside as well as inside, the outside plastering be¬ 
ing made with stucco or hydraulic lime cement, and 
painted with “ Asbestos ” or similar paint. 
Preserving Manure.—" C. T. K.,” Montgomery 
Co., Pa. When it is desired to keep manure for a time 
for future use, it should be heaped in flat low piles, ex¬ 
posed to the rain, which will keep it moist. With suf¬ 
ficient moisture, and when packed close by treading, it 
decomposes slowly, and may be kept six months with 
benefit. There is no necessity to put earth nor anything 
else upon it. as there will be no appreciable waste, ex¬ 
cept in weight, which loss consists chiefly in water and 
carbonic acid. Fresh manure may be spread upon the 
surface at any time during the winter, or used as top¬ 
dressing at any other time without serious loss. 
Well Educated Girls.— The St. Paul “Pioneer 
Press ” is responsible for the following, which, so far as 
the education is concerned, is a good advertisement 
enough to fill the halls of the college named to more than 
overflowing, even if the incentive of the last sentence 
were omitted, and to that sentence might be added that 
when such young ladies have the “ yes ” or “ no ” to say, 
none but good men need apply. We quote: “At the 
Iowa Agricultural College every girl in the Junior Class 
has learned how to make good bread, weighing and 
measuring her ingredients, mixing, kneading, and bak¬ 
ing, and regulating her fire. Each has also been taught 
to make yeast and hake biscuits, puddings, pies, and 
cake of various kinds; how to cook a roast, broil a steak, 
and make a fragrant enp of coffee ; how to stuff and roast 
a turkey, make oyster soup, prepare stock for other 
soups, steam and mash potatoes so that they will melt in 
the mouth, and, in short, to get up a flrst-class meal, com¬ 
bining both substantial and fancy dishes, in good style. 
Theory and manual skill have gone band in hand. Vast 
stores of learning have been accumulated in the arts of 
canning, preserving, and pickling fruits, and they have 
taken practical lessons in all the details of household 
management, such as house-furnishing, care of beds and 
bedding, washing and ironing, care of the sick, care of 
children, etc. The girls, we are informed, are also thor¬ 
oughly grounded in science, mathematics, and English 
literature; but this is of slight moment compared with 
the foregoing catalogue of virtues. If there is anything 
that challenges the unlimited respect and devotion of 
the masculine mind, it is ability in woman to order well 
her own household. Each one of these Iowa girls, it is 
safe to say, will marry within six weeks after graduation.” 
281 
Nuts and Nubbins. 
A button is a small event which is always coming off. 
What ship has two mates and no captain ? A courtship. 
A man who is good company for himself is always 
good company for others. 
If you don’t want to be robbed of your good name, do 
not have it printed on your umbrella. 
The woman that maketh a good pudding in silence is 
better than she who maketh a tart reply. 
Square umbrellas are reported as the latest things in 
Paris. Ours are never round—when wanted. 
Josh Billings says: “ There is no perfect substitute for 
wisdom, but silence is the best yet discovered.” 
It is said that mosquitoes are bred upon the waters. 
In that case they will return again before many days. 
“Tommy, my son, what is longitude“A clothes¬ 
line, papa.”—“ Prove it, my son.”—“ Because it stretches 
from pole to pole.” 
A venerable parent about to purchase a piano for his 
daughter, asked the agent if he hadn’t one with a handle 
in the end, “so we can all give it a turn once in a while.” 
Philosophers say that shutting the eyes makes the 
sense of hearing more acute. A wag says that this ac¬ 
counts for the many closed eyes that are to be seen in 
church. 
Father to sleepy boy—“ Come, James, yon ought to he 
up with the lark on such a beautiful morning.” Matter- 
of-fact boy—“ That’s all right, buthow’m I goiu’ to get 
up there ? ” 
Accomplishments. Aunt Florence: “And can you 
read yet, Ruth?”—Ruth : “I should think so, indeed 1 
and I know geography, and history, and sums, and I’ve 
got two second teeth.” 
“My dear,” said n wife to her husband, “I really 
think it is time we had a greenhouse.”—" Well, my love, 
paint it any color you please—red, white, or green will 
suit me,” responded the husband. 
Boots of the thirteenth century are occasionally dug 
up in London, with skeletons of cats. The relative posi¬ 
tions of the boots and cats show that the ancients were 
not much better at aiming than we of to-day are. 
A sceptic, who was badgering a simple-minded old man 
about a miracle and Balaam's ass, finally said: “ How is 
it possible for an ass to talk like a man? ”—“ Well,” re¬ 
plied the honest old believer, with meaning emphasis, 
“ I don’t see why it ain’t as easy for an ass to talk like a 
man as It is for a man to talk like an ass.” 
At a funeral in Ireland, the clergyman had not been 
informed of the sex of the deceased. He accordingly 
leaned over to the sexton, and said: “Shall I say 
* brother ’ or ‘ sister ’ here departed.”—“ It’s neither, sir,” 
whispered the man ; “shure it was only an acquaint¬ 
ance!” 
A young lady hesitating for a word in describing the 
character of a young man who had displeased her said, 
“ He is not a tyrant, not exactly domineering, but — ”— 
“Dogmatic” suggested her friend.—“No, he has not 
dignity enough for that; I think pupmatic would con¬ 
vey my meaning admirably." 
This is a boy's composition on girls; “Girls are the 
only folks that has their own way every time. Girls is 
of several thousand kinds, and sometimes one girl can 
be like several thousand girls if she wants to do any¬ 
thing. This is all I know about girls, and father says the 
less I know about them the better off I am.” 
Some of the carts and drays for the large city estab¬ 
lishments are elegantly decorated, and they often bear 
names, such as “ Little Mary,” “ Ready Boy,” etc. The 
other day we saw a name which, divided up by slats on 
the headboard, was rather puzzling; it appeared thus: 
PICK | LEB | LOS | SOM. The sign on the side of a 
large Preserving and Pickling house gives a help to this 
unintentional puzzle. 
In one of the English colonies a competitive examina¬ 
tion was lately held for the purpose of appointing fit 
persons to some of the government offices. One of the 
candidates inadvertently spelled the word Venice with 
two n’s thus, Vennice. The examiner, a clever man, but 
not always a correct speaker, sternly inquired, “ Do you 
know, sir, that there is but one hen in Venice ?’’—“ Then 
eggs must be scarce there, ” was the ready reply. The 
candidate passed. 
“ All, yes, my son,” said Mr. Smilly, as he was strolling 
under the moonlit heavens the other evening, “ there are 
a great many wonderful things in the firmament; for in¬ 
stance, there is the constellation of the ‘great bear,’ 
which is so beautifully mixed up with the ‘dipper’ that 
you always have to remember that the tail of the dipper 
is the handle of the bear, in order to tell the other from 
which.” 
Shoot High.—A ready-made clothes peddler complained 
to one of our Generals at the West that the redskins had 
killed his son “ Shakep,” and worse than all, had stolen 12 
pairs of his pants. The general told him that as soon as he 
catched up with the demons he would stop their deviltries 
for good and all.—“ Yes, I know, Sheneral, I know,” eagerly 
whispered the clothing dealer, “ dot’s all right, but ven you 
come up mit dose Indians vot got dose new pants on, for 
kracious sake, Sclieneral, tole de soldiers to shoot high ! ” 
Some time ago there was a dancing party given in a 
certain neighborhood in Texas, and most of the ladies 
present brought their babies, whose noisy perversity re¬ 
quired too much attention to permit the mothers to en¬ 
joy the dance. A number of gallant young meo volun¬ 
teered to mind the young ones while the parents in¬ 
dulged in an old Virginia breakdown. No sooner had 
the women left the babies than their volunteer nurses 
changed their clothes, giving the apparel of one to an¬ 
other. The dance over, it was time to go home, and the 
mothers hurriedly took each a baby in a dress of her 
own, and started, some to their homes ten or fifteen 
miles off. ani were far on their way before daylight. 
But the day following there was a tremendous uproar in 
the settlement: mothers discovered that a single night 
had changed the sex of their babies; and then com¬ 
menced the liveliest pedestrianism; living miles apart, it 
required two or three days for the parents to unmix the 
babies, and as many months to restore them to their 
natural sweet dispositions. To this day it is unsafe for 
any of the baby mixers to venture into the neighborhood. 
