1884 .] 
AMERIC A]^ AGRIOULT UR I ^T. 
49 
ducer on the coast,) these five counties last year 
making above eight hundred thousand pounds. 
The old Spanish cattle, formerly found in such 
numbers on the plains between San Luis Obispo 
and San Diego, have almost wholly disappeared. A 
few mountain ranches have specimens of these 
long-horned, wild-looking animals, but the great 
herds of mustang cattle which twenty years ago so 
covered the plains of Southern California that one 
could ride for hours, meeting nothing but endless ! 
troops of the wild creatures, are gone. In former 
days that part of the State was divided into leagues | 
instead of miles, and a cattle ranch comprised from j 
nine to thirty-three square miles of land. But | 
these great tracts have been sub-divided and many I 
of them are now in the main used as grain land. I 
California, however, in common with most of the 
Pacific States, raises large numbers of neat cattle 
for beef. Great herds of these roam over the unin¬ 
habited portions, the animais of different owners 
mingling together and are only distinguished by the 
different brands. At the rodeo in the autumn of 
every year, the herds are separated and the calves 
marked the same as the cows they follow. These 
cows are never milked and are not very tame. As 
these herds live on the natural herbage, their ap¬ 
pearance varies very much at different seasons of 
the year, being fleshy in March and June, and thin 
in August, and sometimes starving to death before 
spring grasses appear. One of the largest cattle 
ranches is on the west bank of the San Joaquin 
River. It contains seven hundred thousand acres, 
and is owned by a single firm. This is an ex¬ 
ception to most ranches, in that part of it is 
irrigated so that Alfalfa (Lucern) can be raised to 
supply the sixty thousand cattle there pastured. 
Two Sleds in One. 
Mr. Chas. H. Wiley, Martinsville, Me., sends us a 
rough sketch of his sled, which is durable and 
cheap, as he has -two sleds in one, and uses it for 
CHEAP AND DURABLE BOB SLEDS. 
oxen or horse. The runners are of one and a half 
inch plank, ten inches wide; bunks (benches) of 
four by six inch timber; shoes, chilled iron ; raves 
and other ironing, good wrought iron. He prefers 
guy chains to a tongue for working in the woods and 
among stumps, as it clears them better. All fasten¬ 
ings are screw bolts and easy to repair. Length 
of runners at the bottom is four and a half feet, at 
the bunks four feet and two inches ; runners three 
and a half feet apart. The entire cost is about 
thirty dollars, and it will take two tons anywhere. 
Home-Made Sausage—rilling Press. 
Mr. C. B. Beatty, of Fraser, Mich., sends us a 
sketch and description of a simple bench and lever 
arrangement to be used with the common sausage 
filler which lightens the work so much that even a 
small boy can use it with ease, and any person 
can get up the whole apparatus at home with little 
or no expense. Mr. B. says it is much used by his 
neiglibors, who esteem it very highly. An inch 
thick pine board, a foot wide and four and a quar¬ 
ter feet long, is fitted with four legs, two and a half 
feet long, notched into .its edges, with the feet 
spread outward to give firmness. Two oak stand¬ 
ards, eighteen inches high, are set thirty-four 
inches apart, with a slot down the middle of each 
for the admission of an oak lever eight feet long. 
The left upright has three or four holes above each 
other for the lever pin, as shown in the engraving. 
The tin filler is set into the bench nearer the left 
upright, and projects below for receiving the skins. 
Above the filler is a follower fitting closely into it 
and its top working very loosely in the lever to 
allow full play as it moves up and down. The 
engraving shows the parts and mode of working. 
Manual Arts in Farming. 
-O- - 
So far as farming is of the nature of a trade, its 
successful pursuit requires skill in certain funda¬ 
mental arts. It is true that the extensive use of 
machinery has rendered some arts formerly impor¬ 
tant, of comparatively little consequence, as, for ex¬ 
ample, the art of reaping grain with the sickle, 
the kindred arts of using the grass scythe and grain 
cradle. The combined reaper and mower, driven 
by horse power, has superseded both. Apparent¬ 
ly the time is near at hand when the self-binding 
harvester will entirely dispense with the art of 
binding grain by hand. But this steady change 
from hard labor to machinery merely changes the 
kind of skill needed. Indeed, the skill now re¬ 
quired to run machinery successfully is of a higher 
kind and more difiieult to acquire than that of the 
manual arts superseded. To use tlie sickle or 
scythe requires little more than patient repetition, 
and blind following of example. To manage a 
self-raking reaper or a self-binding harvester needs 
not less patience and care, but also higher mental 
qualities, a certain steady thoughtful observa¬ 
tion, good judgment, and a development of what 
may be called the mechanical sense, a something 
which enables a person to keei) in his memory 
all the parts of a machine and their adjustments, 
and allow none to get or remain out of order. 
There is greater need here for that cultivated in¬ 
telligence which a good education alone gives. The 
modern farmer’s son who has had a few month’s 
study of mechanics and mechanical movements, 
is much better prepared for his work than one 
without this limited amount of training. The es¬ 
sential principles of mechanics which underlie the 
knowledge of the proper use and adjustment of 
machinery, may be learned by any ordinary boy 
much easier than circuiating decimals or the arbi¬ 
tration of exchange ; and when they are learned, 
they will be a thousand times more useful to him. 
But aside from the more complicated kinds of 
farm machinery, there are a good many simple 
arts, useful to know and not specially difficult to 
learn, yet often poorly mastered. Among these 
may' be mentioned hitching up .and driving a team 
in the best way, adjusting and holding a plow, 
building hay and grain stacks, milking a cow, 
dropping seed with a horse planter, cultivating 
corn, grinding a mower knife, marking out a 
straight furrow, shearing a sheep, husking corn, 
and many other things. The difference between 
great skill in these arts may be well illustrated by 
the case of two men, both strong and willing, whom 
the writer once employed to husk corn. One 
would husk and crib sixty bushels (of seventy 
pounds each) every day; the other seldom did half 
as much. The first in a trial effort, in ten hours of 
one day, husked one hundred and twenty bushels ; 
the other could not husk fifty to save his life. 
Might not greater interest in rural life be im¬ 
parted to our boys by well-directed etiorts to culti¬ 
vate the highest development of skill in these use¬ 
ful arts ? Suppose a county fair to select a half- 
dozen of them and offer a series of prizes to those 
young men or boys who should excel, in all or 
some of them. Is it not possible that such a course 
would be more useful to the community than the 
fast trotting which now is usually the only form of 
activity in which the management of our fairs take 
much interest. Let intelligent friends of rural im¬ 
provement try some plan to furnish a substitute 
for the demoralization so closely connected with, 
horse racing at the fairs. The kind of compe¬ 
tition suggested would provide an interesting se¬ 
ries of entertainments at these gatherings, and alsck 
stimulate effort in the way of learning useful arts. 
-♦♦- 
A Simple Automatic Wagon Brake. 
Horses or oxen, as well as men, can put forth 
tremendous efforts for a brief period, but when 
prolonged, as in drawing a heavy load up a long 
hill without resting at short intervals, the strain is 
unnatural, and horses are frequently wind-broken 
in this way. Very few farm wagons are provided 
with brakes, and these need close watching and the. 
attention of the driver, who may often mistake the 
approach of exhaustion in the team. I send here¬ 
with a home-made simple contrivance (fig. 1) that 
acts automatieally,stoppingthe descent of the vehi¬ 
cle whenever the team stops pulling, without any 
act of the driver. I made mine from a brokeu 
Fig. 1.— A tVAGON BRAKE. 
handle of a pick hand-spike, sawing off the handlo 
four feet from the pick. The blacksmith made two 
bolts of three-quarter inch iron linked together 
(fig 2), one provided with nut and screw to go 
through the hind bolster of the wagon, and the 
other sharpened a little to go into the end of the 
stock. By attaching this near one end of the bol¬ 
ster, when no't needed it can be swung up between 
the box and wheel so as not to interfere with a 
team following, or be needlessly worn at the lower 
end. When dragging on the ground it of course 
stops any backward motion. For convenience a 
small rope may extend from near its lower end to- 
the driver, who can then lift it at pleasure without 
leaving his seat, as when for example he may wish 
to back the wagon. A shorter piece may be at¬ 
Fig. 2.— THE CONNECTING LINK. 
tached to a sleigh in a similar manner. A straight 
bar of iron of proper length, without any wood, 
would answer, and be but little expense at present- 
prices of that metal. For ordinary loads a five- 
eighth or three-quarter inch, bar, a little hard tem¬ 
pered, would be still enough. A three-quarter inch 
iron rod four feet long weighs about twenty-one? 
pounds.—Unless the bolster be strongly bolted on. 
it might be started by a sudden heavy pressure. 
The brake might be attached to the axle, if the 
bolster is not firm enough. W. D. Boynton. 
The Ice Crop. —One of the leading crops of the 
country is housed during the winter season. The 
people of the city sadly feel the effects of a poor ice 
harvest. The farmer should lay in a year’s supply 
of ice at the earliest opportunity. It costs but 
little to harvest, saves summer foods, and adds, 
very greatly to the comfort of the household. 
