AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
73 
by the best English agriculturists, indicate that 
where a pretty heavy top-dressing is to be add¬ 
ed, it is better to divide it into two or three por¬ 
tions, and add them at successive periods of 
three or four weeks; say a part early in April, 
a part in the last week of April or first week in 
May, and the remainder about the latter part 
of May. By this course, the successive wants 
of the crops arc provided for. 
TAKE GOOD CAKE OF BREEDING ANIMALS 
AT THIS SEASON. 
It is very bad economy to neglect breeding- 
animals at this season. It is too common a 
practice among farmers to neglect the care of 
brood mares for the last month or two before 
foaling. I heir food is often of a very inferior 
quality; currying is neglected; they arc turned 
loose in the yard to pick up hay and straw that 
has been trampled under the feet of cattle, or if 
kept in stalls, the manure is not thoroughly 
cleaned. Care of this kind is mainly bestowed 
upon the work horses. The same may be said 
of cows and ewes. 
This is all wrong. Animals in this condition 
should be treated with special care instead of 
neglect. If well fed and well cared for, their 
young will be doubly valuable, and the dams 
will much more speedily recover their strength 
and vigor after parturition, and they will be 
worth far more during the entire summer. We 
have seen many dams become so reduced at this 
season for want of a little care, that they haye 
hardly lccovered before the following winter. 
- • • • - 
RENOVATING OLD MEADOWS. 
Mi cii land is suffered to lie almost dormant 
and unproductive, for the want of a little skill 
and expense. Especially is this the case with 
old meadows, which, for various considerations, 
have been allowed to remain in grass for anum- 
bc 1 of years without undergoing the usual rota¬ 
tion. 
The most effectual method of treating these, 
is to drag them thoroughly with a fine-toothed 
lanow, heavily weighted; or what is very much 
better, a scarifier made exclusively for this pur¬ 
pose, consisting of a number of small sharp 
coulters, regularly arranged for penetrating the 
sod, at proper distances, and to a depth suffi¬ 
cient to break up the tangled mass of roots and 
stools, and let in the sun and air. This treat¬ 
ment of the meadows is frequently just as ne¬ 
cessary, and just as beneficial, as trimming fruit 
frees; and the effects of this simple operation 
alone, has been found to double and quadruple 
the crop. 
If to this, however, could be added at the 
same time, an application of lime, ashes, guano, 
phosphate of lime, or .other fertilizers, with a 
small sprinkling of grass seed, such as were de¬ 
ficient in the crop, an additional and large ben¬ 
efit would be secured. 
“KEEP OFF THE GRASS.” 
All around the walks of our city parks we 
see posted up in flaming capitals, “ Keep off the 
grass. ’ We should like to see one of these pla¬ 
cards put near every farmer’s cattle yard at this 
season, with a little alteration, so that it would 
read, “keep the cattle off the grass.” It is a 
pretty sure sign of bad management, if animals 
are seen roaming over the fields, before the grass 
is so forward as to furnish an abundance of 
food. So long as they are kept entirely away 
from tasting green food, animals will not loose 
their relish for the dry. But let them out for a 
few hours, or suffer them to crop by the way- 
side as they are driven to and from water, and 
for hours after they will scarcely touch their 
dry food. 
Tramping upon the fields before the ground 
has been thoroughly settled, is very detrimental 
to the future growth of grass. The first shoots 
are tender and are easily killed, while they con¬ 
tain little nourishment compared with an equal 
weight or bulk of more advanced growth. It 
is economical to purchase dry food for a week 
or two longer, and let vegetation get a good 
start before an animal sets foot upon it. 
--• • •- 
FIELD BEANS A PROFITABLE CROP. 
In our own experience we have found no crop 
more profitable, than the common white field 
bean. It requires little more care than corn ; 
on the right kind of soil it is quite productive; 
and almost always finds a ready market at high 
prices. There is no product of the soil which 
contains as much nourishment, pound for 
pound, as this. The straw makes excellent win¬ 
ter feed for sheep. . We have found the smaller 
kinds to be superior to those of a larger size. 
Beans require a dry , warm soil. We have 
raised them where it was so dry and sandy that 
scarcely any thing else would grow. Our best 
bean crops have been upon a thin sandy soil, 
so filled with stones that it was exceedingly 
difficult to plow it at all; and where the earth 
over the limestone rocks was nowhere more 
than four to six inches deep. On one acre of 
such ground we planted the common white 
bean for ten years successively, and never failed 
of getting a remunerative crop, and often had a 
very profitable one. This plot was plowed, 
planted, and hoed, at odd spells, when it was so 
wet that no other ground could be worked. 
- *>• - 
A SPRING JOB FOR THE BOYS. 
Scattered all over the pasture fields are 
small heaps of cattle droppings. Which should 
not be left to spoil the ground they cover. Fix 
out the boys with a small beetle, or long-hand- 
led mallet, and send them into the pastures, 
and they will have fine sport in knocking to 
pieces and scattering about these cow heaps. 
No labor of our boyhood days was more plea¬ 
sant, than the week or two thus spent every 
spring. 
A very convenient implement for this pur¬ 
pose can be made in less than half an hour. 
Saw off a piece of square scantling, 5 to 8 
inches long, and bore a slanting auger hole in 
one side, and fit in a handle to 3 feet long. 
The handle can be made of a broom stick, or 
broken hoe or rake handle. This should be set 
into the top of the block at such an angle, that 
when held in the hands of the boy standing up¬ 
right, the bottom of the block will lie fiat upon 
the ground, twenty or thirty inches from his 
feet. 
-- 
A Nut for Lawyers. —“Woe unto them 
that call evil good and good evil; that put dark¬ 
ness for light and light for darkness; that jus¬ 
tify the wicJcedfor reward."—Isaiah, 
8fljrf Conur. 
EDITOR TO THE “ BOY FROM DOWN EAST,” 
AND OTHER BOYS. 
In the letter we published last week, you have 
doubtless already found many mistakes. We 
shall leave you to find them out, but we will 
say a word or two about the sentiments ex¬ 
pressed in that letter. We are very sorry the 
writer does not like to study. He would like 
to have a great mind, and we will tell him that 
a great mind is built up very much like a great 
building. The builder uses many kinds of ma¬ 
terials. He puts in a brick here and a brick 
there; in one place he puts a piece of wood of 
one shape, and in another place a piece of ano¬ 
ther shape. Here he puts mortar, and there he 
drives nails. He works slowly and patiently 
till he gets the whole finished. Just so every 
one must build his own mind. He must study 
many things slowly and patiently, till he has 
piled up a mass of thoughts, when he will be¬ 
come learned and know a great deal. 
The mind must be made strong. You have 
seen that little boy who is always kept in the 
house without exercise. How pale and sickly 
he appears. How iceah he is. The boy that 
is always out working or exercising grows 
strong. When a boy first tries to hold a plow, 
he cannot keep it straight, but he does not give 
up. When the plow strikes a stone and throws 
him over, he hops up and tries again and again, 
till his arms acquire strength, and till he be¬ 
comes so skilful that he can plow a straight, 
smooth furrow as well as his father. 
Now thinking is just like plowing. The boy 
who tries to work out a problem, or learn any 
lesson, finds it hard work at first. The lesson 
bothers him, makes him tired, and he makes as 
awkward work at first, as the new plow-boy. 
But he must keep at it, and not be discouraged. 
It takes a good many years to learn to plow 
well, and just so it takes a good many years to 
learn to think well, and how much better to be 
a good than a poor thinker. It is the ability to 
think correctly and strongly, that makes the 
difference between great men and others. 
We remember when we first tried to write a 
composition. We tried and tried two whole 
days, and only wrote two pages—and then 
those two pages had many more mistakes in 
them than the letter printed last week, which 
covered more than three pages of writing. We 
got tired many times in trying to write that 
first composition, and a good many others after 
it, and we would have given up, if our teacher 
had not made us write. We could not then see 
what use it would ever be to learn how to write 
down our thoughts, and we did not believe wc 
ever could learn; but we did learn, and now we 
are very, very thankful to our teacher for com¬ 
pelling us to write. 
We do not think teachers should give too long 
lessons, but we guess they do not always re¬ 
quire boys to learn their lessons well enough. 
Ji short lesson learned well, is better than a 
longer one poorly learned. But boys, remem¬ 
ber that the longer lessons you learn, the faster 
your minds will grow. Studying a long lesson 
is to the mind, what a large plate of buckwheat 
cakes is to the body, it makes it grow fast.— 
The boy that wrote that letter, did not ask us to 
