AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
203 
Red Wheat is very heavy, yields from 20 to 35 
bushels per acre. White Wheat is very poor. 
Spring Wheat I never knew so good before. 
Farley light. Oats a good crop. Corn very 
promising, Potatoes show rot. 
J. R. Page. 
--- -»«»- - >-«> - 
Still Slops for Geese and Ducks 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
With all the late “ stump-tail ” milk investiga¬ 
tions of our New-York committees staring us in 
the face, I have some faith in the virtue of Still 
Slops—when properly used. I do not believe that 
Still Slops, free from poisonous admixtures, when 
run off from the pure grain—and nothing else — 
oooled, and mixed with good hay, or grass, hurts 
nothing of the cow or sheep kind, to say nothing 
of hogs. It is a palatable, nutritious food for 
many kinds of farm stock, i. is from the abuse 
of the article in feeding nothing else with it, hot, 
as it comes from the vats, and the creatures fed 
upon it in a nauseous state of filth and confine¬ 
ment, that its evil influences come. Mark, that I 
say nothing of Still Slops where strychnine and 
other poisons are used in manufacturing whisky. 
But I now have a word or two to say on fatting 
geese and ducks, both of which are profitably 
raised and fed for market under favorable cir¬ 
cumstances, or may be an unmitigated nuisance 
under others. I have reared both these varieties 
of water-fowl many years, having good conve¬ 
niences for them, and have found them exceed¬ 
ingly convenient as an article of family diet, as 
well as a marketable commodity. 
Last year, a large distillery being erected in 
our neighborhood, we commenced in the month of 
September feeding geese and ducks with slops, 
which we got for ten cents a barrel. We made 
some cheap troughs, a dozen feet long, of two 
boards six inches wide, in shape of the letter Y, 
and fed the poultry twice a day with all they 
would eat, letting them run at large, as usual, 
with free access to water and grass. They ate 
it voraciously, and fatted and grew rapidly ; and 
when slaughtered, their flesh was fine and deli¬ 
cate. I am decidedly in favor of Still Slops— 
thus fed—for water-fowls, as being both cheap 
and nutritious ; although it is not so hearty food 
as pure Indian meal. 
For hens and turkeys, it is not so good, being 
apt to scour them, and I would not try to fat them 
on it unless mixed with an equal quantity of pure 
meal or boiled potatoes. For those who can ob¬ 
tain Still Slops at a low price it is certainly worth 
the trial. Experience. 
. » « Q 9 mm i ^ - 
Feed for Chickens. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
According to a former number of the Agricul¬ 
turist, a subscriber living at Rock Island, Ill., found 
it difficult to raise chickens. So did I, while I fed 
them fine Indian meal. I improved by mixing 
whole buckwheat, rye and wheat with Indian. At 
last I had corn cracked the average size of rice 
or samp, which I fed to them while young, and 
increased the size as they grew older. Before 
they were as large as quails they would scamper 
for the largest pieces. 
I find they do best to run out after the dew is 
off the grass, but should be kept in during wet 
weather. Since I commenced this plan of feed¬ 
ing, my loss has not been over five per cent. 
Last Spring I had 70 chickens hatched, and lost 
but 3, and one of them was killed by the coop 
falling on him. I hope “ Rock Islander” will try 
this method and publish the result. 
New-Jersey Subscriber. 
-- . — - -- 
Tim Bunker on Making Tiles- 
Mr. Editor. —I didn’t like it a bit, that you 
did not come out to attend Sally’s wedding. You 
must know,that weddings do not come every day in 
a farm house, and in mine they only come once in 
a generation, for Sally is my only daughter. She 
had got her heart very much set upon seeing you 
out here, for she and John have read the paper so 
much, that they think you sort o’ belong to the 
family. John came back with that young buck of 
a reporter you sent, quite crest fallen—declared 
he wouldn’t have gone to the depot if he had 
known you were going to disappoint him. He says 
he has made up his mind, since reading that ac¬ 
count, that all the green things in the world, are 
not in the country. Whether he means that some 
of the houses in the city are painted green, or the 
folks in them have that look, perhaps your report¬ 
er can tell. The girls however were amazingly- 
tickled with the man’s description of the Hooker- 
town women, and are a good deal provoked 
that you didn’t publish the poetry and all. They 
say if you will put in the part that you threw out, 
they will pay double price for it, as an advertise¬ 
ment. I suspect they have a great itching to 
know if he said anything more about them. You 
had better keep him at home in future, if you 
want him to do any thing more for the paper. 
I told you, awhile ago, that if you wanted to 
see anything of the Hookertown, of the present 
generation, you should come soon. I was a good 
deal more of a prophet than I thought of at the 
time, for the paper was not dry, on which I wrote 
it, before I heard that a tile factory had been start¬ 
ed in my own neighborhood. 
“Who would have tho’tit !” exclaimed Seth 
Twigs as he knocked the ashes out of his third 
pipe, and rose to go. “Why Esq. Bunker, that is 
the strangest thing that has happened in my day. 
I should as soon expect to hear they were catch¬ 
ing whale in the Connecticut River.” 
“ And do you think there will be a call for the 
tiles'!” inquired'the minister, whose conservatism 
was a little disturbed by the advent of a tile fac¬ 
tory in his parish. 
“ Trust Miles Standish for that,” answered Dea¬ 
con Smith. “The fact is, Standish, never went 
in to anything yet, that he did not see his way 
out of it, before he started.” 
“ Blamed if he hasn’t got it all ciphered out,” 
said Twiggs. “ Showed it to me ’tother day when 
I was up there.” 
“ And how many does he calculate to sell,” I 
inquired. 
“ A hundred thousand the first year, and half 
a million the second. Had the hundred thousand 
engaged before he started.” 
Miles Standish, you know, is a historic name, 
one of the first Puritan families that landed upon 
the shores of New-England, and here is the fami¬ 
ly, in direct descent from the first Miles, in the 
seventh generation. The present Miles owns the 
ancestral farm ; and on one corner of it is a clay 
bed, of unrivaled excellence. It has been used 
for some years as a brick yard, and many a kiln 
has been sent off to the neighboring city, and 
down the river. But the reverses of last year 
stopped the demand for brick, and Miles has been 
in trouble ever since, until I hinted to him care¬ 
lessly last Spring, that he had better go to mak¬ 
ing tiles and drain his farm. 
I have since read somewhere, that this is the 
way they do so much draining in the old country. 
The tiles are made upon the farm where they are 
to be used, to a great extent, and there is very lit¬ 
tle paid out for freight. The owners of the large 
estates there have plenty of capital for the pur¬ 
pose, and tiles are made and put down by the 
million. But it will probably never be the best 
way, with us,for every man to try to make his own. 
tile. Our farms are too small, and as a rule, our 
farmers have not the necessary capital, even it 
they have clay beds. What we want is a tile 
factory in every neighborhood, or district of twen¬ 
ty miles diameter or less ; so that a farmer with 
his surplus team can cart tiles to his farm in the 
leisure parts of the year. He can, in this way, 
make his team scmceable, which would otherwise 
lie idle. He will not leel the expense of freight 
at all. 
As matters now ajs. freight is the great bug¬ 
bear which prevents uoo.ole from going to drain¬ 
ing. The two inch tile, which cost twelve dollars 
a thousand in Albany, ahout double the first cost 
by the time they get where a,\ Eastern farmer 
wants to use them. 
Hearing of the tile factory J want ud to see it 
yesterday, and to have a talk with -Standish about 
it. I found the hint I dropped in haif ioke last 
Spring had fallen into good soil, and was bearing 
good fruit. He had got it all ciphered out, as 
Seth Twigs said. 
Said he, “Esq. Bunker, I’ve thought a beau or 
what you said about turning my brick-yard >ntox 
tile factory, and you see I’ve partly done it. The 
only thing that stumbled me was, whether I should 
have any market for the tile after I got them made 
I looked over my farm, and found that I could us* 
at least fifty thousand in draining some swales, 
and if these worked well, I should probably want 
more. I went round some into the neighboring 
towns, and found a good many who wanted to 
try the experiment, and were willing to engage 
from one to ten tlidusand a piece. I marketed a 
hundred thousand. You see I had a plenty of 
brick to make a kiln of for burning, and this at the 
market price for brick cost me about a thousand 
dollars. The iron machine for moulding tile that 
you see there, cost 150 dollars, and the drying 
house perhaps 800 more. So that any man, who 
owns a brickyard with the usual fixtures for grind¬ 
ing clay, wants about two thousand dollars capi¬ 
tal to start the tile business with, on a small 
scale. I can burn sixteen thousand tile in that 
kiln at once, and it takes about ten cords of wood 
to do it. The actual cost of moulding, not count¬ 
ing the clay anything, or the interest of the money, 
is about two dollars a thousand, and the- burning, 
where wood is four dollars a cord should not be 
over five dollars. This brings the actual cost of 
two inch tiles, not far from seven dollars a thou¬ 
sand. If I can sell them at twelve dollars a thou 
sand, even though it costs me something to de¬ 
liver them at the river landing, I can make a 
handsome profit. If the thing works half as well 
as you claim, there can’t fail to be a better demand 
for tile, than there ever was for brick.” 
This Hookertown clay bed is one of the best 
you ever saw. You work right into a side hill, 
where the clay is fifty feet deep, or more. It lies 
in nice layers about the thickness of slate, and is 
entirely free from sand and gravel. It makes a 
very tough tile. There is clay enough right here 
in this valley, close to a navigable river, to make 
all the tiles the State will ever want. 
The first tile factory in Connecticut is a great 
event, and will work as great changes among us, 
as the first cotton factory did in Rhode Island. 
It will double the products of our farms in less 
.than ten years, if the farmers will use them. It 
