HORTICULTURAL TOOL-CHEST.-QUANTITY OF CORN TO AN ACRE. 
141 
ble, care being taken, however, not to give too 
much. Indeed, a piece of rock-salt for the cattle 
to lick, will always be useful, and will serve to im¬ 
prove their condition and health. 
Cows, when kept in the house, should be care¬ 
fully curried and cleaned, which is absolutely ne¬ 
cessary for their health, and will materially 
increase the quantity of milk. Too much pains 
cannot be taken in this respect. All stall-fed 
cattle should, in fact, be dressed and curried as 
carefully as a favorite horse. You cannot handle 
and familiarize your milch-cows too much, nor 
treat them too kindly; and, indeed, the same may 
be said of all your cattle. 
Do not allow the chaff of your grain to be lost. 
If your cows are confined to dry food, at any time, 
the change from grass, or green crops, is apt to 
affect them; the dung becomes dry, the coat stares , 
and from the costive state of the bowels, diseases 
ensue, which sometimes end in the death of the 
animal. Now chaff is a good remedy in such 
cases, if well boiled and mashed up with potatoes 
and some seeds or bran added to make it palateable. 
A bushel given in this way, night and morning, 
will open the bowels, make the skin look sleek and 
healthy, and increase the quantity of milk. When 
the chaff of grain cannot be had, finely chopped hay 
or straw may be substituted. The mixture should 
be of such a consistency as to be easily stirred 
about with the hand. A greater quantity of pota¬ 
toes may be given with advantage in this way, 
than in any other; but they must be boiled sepa¬ 
rately, for potatoe-water is injurious to cattle. The 
mixture may be improved by some ruta-baga tur¬ 
nips, which may be boiled with the chaff. 
It may be imagined, perhaps, by some persons, that 
cows will give more milk when pastured in the field, 
than when fed in the house. This is altogether erro¬ 
neous ; for the less fatigue a cow has to undergo, 
in obtaining her food, the more milk will she yield ; 
and the practice of leaving cows out during cold 
nights, or exposing them in summer to the heat and 
flies by day, is certainly injurious. In mild 
weather, however, they may be left out, if unavoid¬ 
able, without much injury ; but whenever circum¬ 
stances admit, let the provender or grass be carried 
home, and given to the milch-cows within doors, 
leaving the young stock to pasture in the fields. 
It has been estimated that the manure of one cow, 
fed £tnd littered in the house, is sufficient to top- 
dress an acre of land ; whereas, the dung of cattle, 
if left upon the grass, in an unfermented state, is 
injurious; for it prevents all growth for a time and 
afterwards raises tufts of coarse herbage, which 
cattle will not eat. The greater portion of the dung 
dropped in the fields, goes off in evaporation, and is 
lost; and grubs and flies are generated in and under 
it, whilst it remains; but if it were collected and 
spread at the proper season, it would improve the 
vegetation, and impart fertility to the soil. 
In Switzerland, in very elevated situations, where 
grain does not ripen, the farmers, who depend 
chiefly on the produce of their cows, have the 
finest of herds, owing to the care taken in crossing 
the breeds and attending to the dressing and 
feeding of them regularly in folds, and stalls. 
Land, which, from its steepness, could only 
be pastured by sheep or goats, is irrigated, 
' top-dressed, and constantly mowed, to feed the cat¬ 
tle within doors, where they are regularly supplied 
with fresh grass; and the quantity of dung thus 
obtained, for top-dressing the grass-lands in the 
spring, keeps them in a high state of fertility. The 
same system prevails in the flat countries of Bel¬ 
gium and Holland, and is practised to a great extent 
in Britain, France and Spain, and is receiving in¬ 
creased attention we are pleased to see in the Unit 
ed States. 
HORTICULTURAL TOOL-CHEST. 
Fig. 29. 
The convenience of having at hand the requisite 
tools or implements for gardening and pruning pur¬ 
poses, and kept in a place where they can always 
be found, is obvious to every one. If suffered to 
lie, or be scattered about the premises, they are 
liable to be mislaid or lost, and more time is spent 
in looking them up than they are worth. These 
difficulties, we think, may be obviated by possess¬ 
ing a small tool-chest purposely adapted to keep 
them. It is very complete, with quite a variety of 
implements, only part of which are shown in the 
cut. The price, with all its fixtures, is $18. 
QUANTITY OF CORN TO AN ACRE. 
We have often heard it remarked that 100 
bushels of shelled corn never were raised upon an 
acre of land at a single crop; and if w T e recollect 
rightly, we read in the reported proceedings of a 
late meeting held in Boston, of the Legislative Ag¬ 
ricultural Society, that there were several individu¬ 
als present, who would be willing to go a long 
distance to see an acre of corn containing a crop of 
100 bushels. For the benefit of all who may be 
sceptical on this point, we will give the result of a 
little experiment made by us a few weeks ago, and 
has since been repeated by others with but a trifling 
variation. 
From five ears of Brown corn, nine or ten inches 
in length, we shelled a full quart, Winchester 
measure, which, when counted, contained 2,000 
kernels, or 64,000 grains to a bushel. In referring 
to Mr. Brown’s article on the cultivation of this 
corn, in our March No., it will be seen that he 
