228 
Attic£ttO Aft AGRICULTURIST. 
well watered by streams emptying into the 
Kansas River. 
I have not traveled this portion of the Terri¬ 
tory, and therefore state only what I derive 
from reliable authority. I have explored the 
southern portion, and cannot speak in raptuous 
terms of the country. It is not well watered, 
nor has it as many privileges for machinery as 
in the northern part, nor is the soil as good, 
though a fine grazing country. The whole ter¬ 
ritory is a prairie, except upon the streams; 
and like most other western countries, has hills 
and dales, rivers and creeks, prairie and timber, 
rich and poor land. The upland lies high, and 
rolling into beautiful waves. The timber in the 
country is red, white, black burr, and pine oak, 
shell and smooth bark hickory, coffee, bean, 
mulberry, ash, linden, &c., and in the bottom 
lands, which are subject to inundation, nothing 
but cottonwood of the rankest and most rapid 
growth. 
There can be no better country for raising 
live stock. The water (from springs) is gener 
ally hard, owing to the source being from beds 
of limestone. There are springs, however, that 
proceed from clay banks, and the water from 
these is invariably soft. 
With regard to the climate, it is about the 
same as in the northern part of Ohio, except 
the winters are not so long, and the summers 
are longer and warmer. As evidence of the lat¬ 
ter, I will state that through the months of July 
and August, the mercury in the shade is fre¬ 
quently up to 100 and 105 deg., and I recollect 
two or three instances of 110 deg. 
In the winter, the weather is very irregular. 
In the winter months, the mercury will some¬ 
times stand at 55 deg. of “ Temperate,” and in 
twelve hours’time it will be 10 deg. below zero. 
The irregularity of the climate is by many at¬ 
tributed to our altitude above the Mississippi, 
and proximity to the Rocky Moutains. But 
permit me to say at least one thing in praise of 
the “ Queen of the Prairies”—we have, both in 
winter and summer, the finest roads for wheel 
carriages on the continent of America. I do 
not say turnpike macadamized roads, but roads 
made by the plastic hand of Nature. In the 
winter, especially, it is glorious wheeling. 
Indeed, good for any other mode of traveling. 
One peculiarity I cannot pass without remark. 
The morning and evening twilight lasts about 
an hour longer than in Ohio. 
-> • <- 
THE SINGING OF THE FROGS. 
The editor of the Albany Register writes 
thus pleasantly about the evening chorus-sing¬ 
ers of the marshes: 
Pipe up in the marshes and wet places, little 
frog; pipe away in the morning and early even¬ 
ing ; make the air vocal with your shrill voice, 
when the sun goes down to his resting-place 
behind the hills, and the greyness of twilight 
comes abVoad over the earth, and be awake and 
merry to greet him, when he comes up in the 
east, shaking the dewdrops from his glistening 
locks, and smiling in gladness on the world be¬ 
neath him. 
Do some, with over-tutored taste, call “ frog 
music” horrible? Whatever may be said to the 
contrary, there is more real music, more opera 
in a frog-pond than in half the parlor and con- 
cert-rooms of the Union. Let a person steal 
away, at evening, and, stretched out upon the 
grass bordering the marsh, listen to the melody 
of tens of thousands of frogs. The ear must be 
falsely attuned, indeed, that cannot relish the 
opera the “ bog-birds” are delivering. The 
songs of birds are not as varied, the ripple of 
waters and the sighing of trees are not wilder 
and sadder, the wind is not more stirring; you 
hear all instruments, all voices—Bass, Tenor, 
Baritone, Contralto, Alto, Soprano; you hear 
Ole Bull, (Frog?)Strakosch, Jullien, Kate Hayes, 
Parodi, and Maretzek’s troup, with little Patti; 
and to make the occasion more exciting, you 
imagine you hear the lofty caraca-rolling of 
some fashionable Miss whose “Ah mon guinge” 
makes you think of horse-fiddles. This, and 
more, you hear at the frog-pond; and yet who 
calls the frogs beautiful—who blesses their 
spotted hides and dreams of their sonorous 
“bloonks?” Nobody. The pond songsters are 
a neglected, slandered race of little people, and 
their merit will probably remain unsung. 
-»♦-»- 
A MOWING MACHINE. 
Passing a meadow in one of our rich Dairy 
Counties (St. Lawrence) last summer, we saw a 
man making a short circuit on one of these ma¬ 
chines. All he did was to sit in a comfortable 
seat, and drive one horse on a walk, except he 
might have whistled “ Yankee Doodle,” to which 
his eminent situation was not a little tempting. 
We “hauled up” with the determination to be 
inquisitive. We had not seen such a sight be¬ 
fore, and as in former days we were accustomed 
to use the old-fashioned machine for mowing, 
it looked the more odd to see a man riding on 
his scythe. The swath which this novel instru¬ 
ment cut was about four feet wide, which was 
well done, leaving the grass spread in the best 
possible manner for curing. We are glad to see 
these machines brought into this region, and 
especially, as w r e remember with a freshness 
amounting well nigh to a repetition the old 
body-cracking bone-aching operation. A few 
years ago a class of men moving among us were 
up in arms at the introduction of labor-saving 
machines. The poor man’s starvation was pre¬ 
dicted as the inevitable result, and yet we know 
of nobody except the lazy who have suffered 
from the great revolution which has taken place 
in our country, and all the civilized world. 
Mowing old style, threshing with a flail, and 
planeing hard maple scantling, is the best labor 
a lazy man can do, if you can only get him at 
it, or keep him going when he does begin.— 
Lima Weekly Visitor. 
-• • •- 
For the American Agriculturist. 
FENCE-THROWING CATTLE. 
In the last Agriculturist is an inquiry about 
an implement to put in the nose of cattle accus¬ 
tomed to throw fence. A cheap one, and one 
that I have tried and proved effectual, is to take 
a common cord, put it through the nose; then 
run each end up to the point of the horn, and 
fasten it, drawing it tight enough to be straight. 
This will, I think, produce the desired effect; at 
least it did in the case I saw tried. 
S. A. Collins. 
-- 
THE OSIER WILLOW—ITS CULTURE AND 
PROFITS. 
An esteemed friend of Albany, New-Yerk, 
from whom we obtained a bundle of Basket 
Willow cuttings, for propagation, writes as fol¬ 
lows: 
“As to the Willows, I have cultivated them, 
and offered cuttings at but little over cost of cut¬ 
ting and packing, from a desire to get its culture 
introduced into this country. Its culture is, in 
Europe, a large branch of industry. We import, 
annually, from Europe $3,000,000 value of wil¬ 
low canes for basket making. It is a branch ot 
agriculture which pays the producer very 
largely. The English cultivators state the pro¬ 
fits of its culture at £25 to £50 per acre, which 
is $125 to $250. This seems extravagant, but 
we are, nevertheless, assured that the largest 
sum is not unfrequently realized. A gentleman 
near this city planted, a few years since, a few 
acres with the willow. He now sells the pro¬ 
duce on the ground, (the purchasers being at 
all expense of cultivation, cutting, and risk,) at 
$50 per acre per annum. This, even, pays 
well; and the party purchasing also makes a 
good thing of it. The canes are in this case, 
made up into baskets in this city. 
“Its culture is very simple. It should be 
planted in a moist, though not wet soil. A 
moist soil with a porous sub-soil is best adapted 
to it. It is usually planted by setting the cut¬ 
tings in rows 3-J- feet apart and 18 to 24 inches 
apart in the rows, and must be kept clean from 
weeds as corn. Hoeing with a hoe and cultiva¬ 
tor is the most economical, and is usually 
adopted. The annual growth needs to be cut 
back each fall.” 
We are experimenting with several kinds of 
Osier Willow, and have recently obtained a rare 
and valuable variety (the Salix Beveridgii) from 
Charles Downing, E>q., of Newburg, New- 
York. Mr. Downing describes the Beveridge 
Willow as follows: 
“ The excellence of Salix Beveridgii consists 
in its exceeding productiveness, length of wands 
(shoots) maintaining more nearly uniformity of 
size from butt to tip—less disposition to branch 
than any other, and after the first year its plia¬ 
bility and leathery toughness when split. 
“ The first year from cuttings, the L. trian- 
cZrasurpassesitin toughness, but not afterwards. 
As an ornament , its catkins surpass all others 
in beauty and fragrance. It is much earlier than 
other varieties.— Southern Cultivator. 
Revengeful. —An Irishman lost his hat in a 
well, and was let down in a bucket to recover 
it; the well being deep, his courage failed him 
before he reached the water. In vain did he 
call to those above him ; they lent a deaf ear to 
all he said, till at length, quite in despair, he 
bellowed out, “ By St. Patrick, if you don’t be 
afther drawing me up, sure I’ll cut the rope /” 
CLAIMS OF AGRICULTURAL PATENTS, 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING JUNE 6, 1854. 
Seed Planters. —Wm. B. Johnson, of Staun¬ 
ton, Va.: I do not claim said groove semi-cones, 
or their equivalents, separately and apart from 
the other devices, used in combination there¬ 
with by me, as their equivalents have been used 
by F. Vandoven, and are described in the speci¬ 
fication of his seed planter, patented April 13, 
1852. 
I claim the method described of sowing seed 
broad-cast, by means of the ascending and des¬ 
cending buckets, grooved semi-cones, or their 
equivalents, and reciprocating bed or table, con¬ 
structed, arranged, and operating together, as 
specified. 
I also claim constructing the seed buckets 
with an open back and false or close adjustable 
inner back, for regulating the lifting capacity of 
the buckets, as set forth. 
Seed Planters. —Whitman Davis, near Mor¬ 
gantown, Va.: I claim operating the seeding 
bar of seeding machines by means of a bell 
crank and lever, when said lever receives its 
motion from the leg of the operator in the act of 
walking, as set forth. 
Cultivators. —Whitman Price, of Goldsbor- 
ough, N. 0. I claim the construction of the 
accommodating frames having uprights and 
cross ties or suspension bars, together with the 
compensating strap, or equivalent. 
I also claim the construction of the twisted 
obliquely curved blades or thinners attached to 
the radial arms forming a rotary cotton thinner, 
and using the same with the right and left 
double shank furrow shears, as set forth, and 
arranged with the cultivator. 
Hay Presses. —Levi Dederic, of Albany, N. 
Y.: I claim traversing the follower parallel by 
two set of levers or toggle joints with one lever 
of each set extending beyond the joint of con¬ 
nection, so as to form a lever to operate the 
joints; when they are so arranged that the 
lever of the lower set or joint may work or vi¬ 
brate between the fulcrum levers of the upper 
one; the two levers being connected together 
by a rod or links, the whole being constructed 
and operated, as described. 
Whiffle Trees. —F. M. English, of Hopkins¬ 
ville, Ky.: I claim the described airangement 
of springs on the ends of swingle trees for hold¬ 
ing the traces on the darts, and throwing off the 
same at the will of the driver, as set forth.— 
Scientific American, 
