AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
333 
■equestrian performance,” to come off at Hooker- 
>town on the last day of the fair. 
It made a sensation in these parts, you may 
■depend. Every grog shop in Smithville was emp¬ 
tied to the dregs, and, I guess, every gambler and 
'blackleg in the county was on hand to see “ Tish 
Lawson and Till Wilcox have a set-to.” Every 
negro fiddler and ragamuffin in the neighborhood 
was drawn out to see the fun There was a 
chance for betting, and a good deal of money 
changed hands on the occasion. I pitied the poor 
girls from the bottom of my heart, and, I guess, 
if they could hear the coarse, brutal remarks made 
by the crowd, they would never be caught in such 
a scrape again. 
“ A most scandalyous affair,” said Seth Twiggs, 
as he stopped into our house next morning, the 
smoke rolling up in a cloud of excitement. “ It 
beats the Dutch, Esq. Bunker. I wouldn’t have 
my darter make a show of herself so for all out¬ 
doors.” 
“The thing is agin natur,” responded Mrs. 
Bunker. “ But it is just what their fathers might 
expect from their bringing up. They make Tom¬ 
boys of all their girls in Smithville.” 
You see, these girls, and Tom Wilcox’s horse, 
that won the race, are the county talk, and will 
be for a month. The grand object of the fair was 
lost sight of, and I don’t suppose, one person in 
ten took any notice of the fruit and vegetables 
that were on exhibition. They did not care a 
•cent for porkers or calves. They had paid their 
•quarter, “ to see them galls run the hosses,” and 
Tom Wilcox’s horse was “ the elephant of the 
day.” I never heard so much swearingand black¬ 
guardism in all the fairs I ever attended. It was 
“ cuss and discuss,” as Deacon Smith said, from 
the beginning of the race to the end. 
I rather think the scrape will do us good on the 
whole. There are some evils that cure them¬ 
selves. Every decent man and woman that I have 
seen since is disgusted, and I guess the annual 
meeting of the county society will be better at¬ 
tended next January, and Colonel Lawson will 
have liberty to attend to his military duties unmo¬ 
lested. We have seen enough of women folks 
riding at the fair. 
It is all well enough for girls to learn to ride cn 
horseback at home, or in a riding school, but it is 
agin natur for a woman to make a “show” of her¬ 
self, any way. The business is just putting up a 
woman’s modesty at auction, and it is because the 
thing is unwomanly that it draws such a crowd 
of low, indecent people to see it. Sure, it makes 
large receipts for a single fair ; but the next time 
a good many respectable folks won’t come. They 
don’t want the modern Camillas held up before 
their families as models of female character. 
The whole thing is out of character, and demor¬ 
alizing, and they won’t support the Society, if the 
thing is kept up. It is clap-trap and humbug—a 
kind of chaff that don’t catch old birds but once. 
It is a sneaking way of getting up a horse race, 
and imposing it upon a decent community. Let 
every tub stand upon its own bottom, and when it 
has none, let it cave in. 
Yours agin horse racing in general, 
and women racing in particular, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hookertown, October 1st, 1858. 
-- 
I don’t care so much about the bugs,” said 
Mr. Wormly to the head of the genteel private 
boarding-house in which he dwells, “ but the fact 
is, madam, I hav'nt the blood to spare —you see 
that vourself.” 
To reconcile enemies, and cement friendship is 
noble 
The Flail vs. the Threshing Machine. 
Who does not remember the pleasant sound of 
threshers in the olden time, coming up from the 
barn in the clear frosty mornings of Fall and Win¬ 
ter. It is associated in our minds with heaps of 
golden wheat, bags of oats, and bins full of rye. 
We have been accustomed to regard the flail for 
a few years back as a doomed institution. 
“ Gone, glimmering gone among the things that were, 
A schoolboy’s tale, the wonder of an hour.” 
But we begin to hear murmers of discontent in 
regard to the threshing machines, and statements 
well backed with figures, showing that the flail is 
still in the ascendant, on the score of economy. 
A farmer up in Connecticut, where they will cy¬ 
pher as well as whittle, states, that his rye cost 
him twenty-one cents a bushel for threshing, i. e., 
about one bushel in five. Under the old regime 
of the flail, one bushel in ten was a common 
share for the same work. Others frequently make 
the broad statement, that it costs them more to 
get out their grain by the machine, and the only 
advantage of its use is, in getting it out earlier, 
when the grain sometimes sells for a higher price. 
The man who owns the thresher, though receiv¬ 
ing but six cents a bushel, more or less, for his 
work, requires the attendance of three or four 
hands, and a boy or two, to be furnished by the 
farmer, which doubles, or trebles the cost. The 
man of the flail takes care of himself, puts his 
bundles on to the floor, and cleans up his own 
straw and mows it away. There are no ingenious 
little items to swell the cost of the work. It is 
one-tenth of the grain, or its equivalent in money, 
and no more. 
If this is a fair representation of the threshers, 
it is high time we had a little more genius applied 
to this invention. There ought to be something 
brought out, that will enable horse-flesh and steel 
to distance human muscles and the flail. Though 
loth to part with the music, we have long thought 
the flail rather slow for this age. Are the thresh, 
ers all perfected! Can we not have something that 
will clean the farmers’ grain, for about one-fourth 
the cost by the primitive method ! A little light 
is wanted upon this point. 
Not an “ Old Fogy.” 
Clearing Rocky Lands—Does it Pay ? 
It is a common impression, that it will not pay 
to clear rocky lands, and thus, many fields used 
as meadows are left encumbered with boulders, 
always in the way of the plow, the cultivator, and 
the scythe. A still larger class of lands are given 
up hopelessly to pasture, yielding only scanty 
herbage, and not paying the interest on ten dol¬ 
lars an acre. There are, undoubtedly, many lands 
so full ot boulders and outcropping ledges, that 
they can never be cleared for cultivation, econom¬ 
ically. But there are others, in the vicinity of 
good markets, and not too full of boulders, that 
can be cleared immediately, and will pay a better 
per cent, on the capital invested, than railroad 
stock, or almost any of the public enterprizes 
that invite capitalists 
A neighbor of ours has recently finished an un¬ 
dertaking of this character, and given us the sta¬ 
tistics of the investment. The plot of land cleared 
up was in the rear of his farm, and consisted of 
six acres of rocky pasture, with a few trees 
upon it, and patches of briers and huckleberry 
brush. The soil was a gravely loam, of good 
quality, strewn with boulders, from two to ten leet 
or more in diameter. It fairly belonged to that 
class of lands which most men would pronounce 
hopeless But he had energy and capital waiting 
for profitable investment, and was willing to be 
•contented with small safe returns. 
The object to be accomplished with the stones 
was threefold. 1st. To fence the land ; 2nd. to 
fill up some low places ; and 3rd, to make a 
smooth surface The smallest and most avail¬ 
able stones were taken for the walls, which were 
designed to cut the plot of ground into two-acre 
fields. A deep trench was dug, six feet broad, af¬ 
fording plenty of soil to fill up holes in other 
places. This was filled in with boulders and 
small stones, answering the purpose of a deep 
drain, as well as the foundation of a wall. The 
wall was run up about four feet high, and used up 
an enormous quantity of stones. There were still 
boulders left, some of which were blasted and 
drawn off for walls on other parts of the farm, and 
others were sunk by digging deep holes at their 
sides. This last is a cheap method of disposing 
of a large rock. Sometimes three or lour adja¬ 
cent boulders were tumbled into one hole, and 
covered with soil about two feet deep. Only a 
few very large rocks were left, as a sample « 
what had been 
The amount of all the bills for labor, teaming, 
powder, &c.. was about six hundred dollars. This 
gave him three t.wo-acre lots, walled for a century, 
thoroughly cultivated, and stocked down to grass. 
The land, as it stood originally, did not pay him 
the interest on ten dollars an acre. This season, 
two of the lots have been in grass. 
Estimated yield 12 tuns, worth, at $15 a tun.$180 
The other lot in Oats, 100 hushels. 50 
Four tuns of Straw sold for. 40 
Total.$270 
The first cost of the land was sixty dollars an 
acre, making for land and improvements, $960. 
Every one acquainted with the cost of gathering 
crops, can see that a gross product of $270 from 
six acres, mnst leave an interest of at least 
twelve per cent, after all expenses are paid. Or 
estimating the products at only half the price 
named above, we still have six per cent, interest, 
clear, which is more than a majority of the pub¬ 
lic stocks pay—saying nothing of the risk. 
There was never, probably, so much idle capital 
waiting investment, as we have in the Eastern 
States this Fall. We are glad to have the op¬ 
portunity to call the aitention of capitalists to 
this very safe and profitable stock. There is a 
plenty of it, it does not run away, and it always 
makes good dividends. 
Swamp Land—A Good Investment. 
“A thing of heauty is a joy forever.” This is 
true, we suppose, of everything, without refer¬ 
ence to its past history. But there is a special 
beauty about an object, redeemed from positive 
waste and ugliness, and made to minister to hu¬ 
man wants. There is a bit of swamp land in 
view from our window, where three years ago 
we could not walk without wet feet, and which, 
from the creation down, had only borne brush 
and sour grasses. It is now thickly covered with 
a beautiful sod of herds-grass and white clover. 
It has been drained, and the surface is now as 
dry as upland. Last year the acre and a half cut 
three tons of good hay, and this season it has 
pastured two cows from June to September, giv¬ 
ing them a full flow of milk, and the feed is still 
good. The pasturage is worth at least twenty 
dollars. Muck enough has been taken from the 
ditches to pay for the whole cost of reclaiming. 
Three years ago it was not worth thirty dollars 
It is now worth threg hundred, and will pay tho 
interest on that sum while grass grows and water 
runs. 
