358 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
putting them into boxes holding not over 200 
pounds. The packing straw should be bright and 
clean, and it will be greatly improved by drying 
it in a warm oven before using. Put straw be¬ 
tween the carcases, and around the sides of the 
box—enough to act as a spring to prevent bruis¬ 
ing, and pack straw closely under the cover. A 
little care of the kind described above will greatly 
increase the market value. Most persons keep 
back all their poultry until Christmas or New- 
Year’s day. This is not always the best policy. 
We have noticed for several years, that poultry 
is scarcest and highest here for a few weeks 
before the holidays. As soon as settled cold 
weather arrives, poultry if dressed and packed 
as above in tight boxes, may be sent from the 
most Western States to this market. Contract 
for the through expenses and send to some 
reliable commission dealer who will take the 
packages in charge on their arrival, and dispose 
of them at once and return the proceeds, less a 
small sum for the trouble—usually about five 
per cent, of the price obtained. Another hint. 
Always send with your packages a careful invoice, 
or statement, of just what you forward, and your 
wishes in regard to it—together with your name 
and address. We make this suggestion because 
a dealer here informed us but yesterday that 
more than half the packages came to him without 
any invoice or other information as to whom 
they came from, or the kind and amount, and the 
wishes of the seller in regard to them—this being 
usually left for a letter, which frequently arrives 
after the poultry is sold, or should have been. 
Poultry should also arrive two or three days before 
special holidays, instead of a day after. This 
often makes a difference of ten to twenty per 
cent, in the proceeds. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Look out for Incendiaries ! 
If it was kno'vn by the farmers of any town 
that a company of incendiaries were engaged in 
burning the stacks of hay and grain, gathered 
with so much labor during the Summer, the great¬ 
est excitement would prevail. Sheriffs, consta¬ 
bles and their deputies would be on the alert; 
patrols and watchmen would be employed, and 
Judge Lynch would hold himself in readiness to 
“serve ’em right ” when caught. 
And yet on many farms nearly one-third of the 
hay and grain fed out during the Winter is need¬ 
lessly burned. Let us see. 
Food is taken by animals to sustain heat as 
well as furnish nutriment. At every breath, oxy¬ 
gen from the inspired air unites with carbon in 
the blood, exactly as it does in a burning stove, 
and heat is given out; thus, part of the food, 
having first changed to blood, is burned as cer¬ 
tainly, though not as rapidly, as if it had been used 
for fuel in the stove. The colder the weather, 
the greater the quantity of food required to sup¬ 
ply animal heat. Every observing farmer knows 
that it requires more food to fatten cattle in cold 
than in warm weather, and here we have the 
reason. 
The Winter will soon be upon us. The intelli¬ 
gent and thrifty farmer will provide warm shelter 
for all his stock, thus saving enough in hay and 
grain each Winter to keep his buildings in good 
repair, his flocks replenished with good stock, and 
something pleasant besides. 
Only the ignorant or careless will willingly 
leave their cattle to shelter themselves as best 
they may, under the lee of a stack or a rail fence, 
and let tb°m go on uselessly burning up one-third 
of their fodder, to enable them to keep their dis¬ 
consolate lives in their shivering bodies. 
When we see a dilapidated stable or an open 
shed for cattle, or worse still, no provision for 
shelter, we think, here’s work for incendiaries 
this Winter! Remember Jack Frost has burned 
more hay-stacks than were ever destroyed by 
midnight marauders, and keep the doors well shut 
against him. Carbon. 
- ■» -- ««»»--—-- 
Another Feeding Eack 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
Having seen several articles in your journal 
on “Feeding Racks,” I will add another plan 
which I have used on my farm for several years. 
The general plan will be shown by the enclosed 
rough sketches, if you have them engraved. 
They are used both in the stable and yard. In 
the latter they are made double, so that animals 
eat from both 
sides. First, we 
have a box or 
manger, two- 
and-a-half feet 
high, and ex¬ 
tending two-and 
-a-lialf feet each 
way fiom the j^g 2 . 
bottom of the 
rack. The box and rack are made of any 
desired length to suit the circumstances, such as 
the size of the yard, number of cattle, etc. The 
rack may be made of poles or sawed stuff. I bore 
the holes for the spokes or rounds five inches 
apart. The spokes are two feet eight inches 
long. The advantages of this rack are, that it not 
only prevents the cattle from taking a large 
mouthful at a time and dropping it under their 
ffeet, but the box also catches and saves all the 
fine stuff, a large amount of which is wasted in 
the ordinary mode of feeding. J. Lyon. 
Rockland County, N. Y. 
.-- -«- -ma OgM—-- 
Notes on the Seeds for Distribution in 
1859. 
On a subsequent page is a list of seventy-three 
different varieties of seeds to be distributed 
free among our subscribers, during the months of 
January and February. We have six or seven 
other new varieties which we contemplate adding 
to the list next month, but it is yet doubtful 
whether we can get seed in sufficient quantity. 
Our regular list last year contained fifty-one va¬ 
rieties. From this list we have dropped several 
kinds, and added some thirty more. Our present 
list contains twenty-eight varieties not on last 
year’s regular list, though a few of them were 
in the extra list offered in April. 
Some of these seeds, though valuable, have 
been already pretty widely introduced,—many of 
them from this office,—and we should drop them 
from the present list, but for the fact that the 
Agriculturist goes to new subscribers, in many 
very remote places in the Territories and on the 
Pacific coast, who have no access to seed stores, 
- . ■ • "* lr " 1 ■ -U_1 1 
nor other facilities for getting any kind of good 
seeds. We therefore leave in the list, for such 
subscribers, certain kinds which would be of no 
account to those more favorably situated. 
Among these are Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10 ’6, 
17, 76, 77, and some of the flower seeds. 
More than fifty varieties of the seeds offered 
will reproduce new seed in larger quantities, the 
same season they are sown or planted,—the 
principal exceptions being the root crops and the 
brassica 01 cabbage tribe. Owing to this fact, the 
parcels sent out, however small, will be rapidly 
multiplied. But with the exception of the field 
seeds, the garden peas, and two or thiee others, 
our parcels will each contain about the requisite 
quantity desired in any one garden or flower-plot. 
They will generally be larger than last year. 
We are absolutely obliged to limit the number 
to each subscriber, to three separate parcels of 
field and garden seeds, or five parcels of flower 
and ornamental seeds, for even with this limita¬ 
tion the expense and labor of distribution will be 
immense—beyond the conception, almost, of any 
one who has not been through with a work of this 
kind. We suppose the number of separate parcels 
sent out from this office will be tenfold greater 
than those sent from the United States Patent- 
Office, with all its resources and machinery; and 
the number of persons receiving them will be in 
still greater ratio. As the expenses of that office 
are greater than the entire income of the Agri¬ 
culturist, the size of their parcels will of course 
be larger than ours ; but for all practical pur¬ 
poses of introduction and dissemination, our 
separate packages will be about as valuable, while 
tenfold greater in number. We only make these 
comparisons to show the value of our distribution, 
and the necessity of limiting the individual offers 
Ought we not to be on a par with the Patent- 
Office in sending out seeds free through the mails ? 
Our 250,000 or 300,000 parcels of seeds would not 
load down the mails more than the speeches, 
books, etc., sent free by single Members of Con¬ 
gress. (If the franking privilege be not soon 
abolished, we shall almost be willing to have our 
constituents elect us to Congress, solely that we 
may get a M. C.’s franking privilege. If we ever 
come down to that, we promise, single-handed, 
to go as much beyond the “ Government Seed 
Store ” in quantity, as we do now in the number 
of persons we reach among the “masses.”) As 
it is now, we have no alternative but to ask those 
wishing seeds to forward envelopes ready 
directed to themselves, and marked with the 
number of the variety desired, with Post-Office 
stamps enough on them to pass them through the 
mails. However, owing to the largely increasing 
number of subscribers at most offices where we 
have hitherto had but single readers, it will be a 
saving of expense, in a majority of cases, to have 
the parcels go in one package by express, as 
noted in connection with the catalogue. 
The descriptive notes , referring to the varieties, 
mode of planting, culture, etc., we defer to the 
earlier numbers of the next Volume, so that they 
may be in the hands of all new subscribers who 
do not get this number. We shall not begin the 
distribution until next month, but we give the list 
now, that persons sending in renewals, may, at 
the same time, forward their envelopes for seeds, 
and save a second letter. The January number 
will only be sent to those who renew, or to those 
whose subscription goes beyond the present 
volume. A special exception was made last year 
in forwarding the January number to all old sub 
scribers, owing to the financial revulsion which 
delayed some of the renewals for a time. Thir 
will not be done the present year. 
