6 
AMEEIOA]^ AGEI0IJLT1JEIS';7^ 
[Januaey, 
\ 
A Weeding Hook or Hoe. 
Mr. P. S. Dorlaud, of Deans’ Corner, N. Y., sends 
Tis full size sketches for making what he considers 
the best “ Weeding Hook” he has ever used. A 
steel bar oue-and-one-quarter inch wide and one- 
quarter inch thick, ten inches long, is hammered 
into the form shown in figure 2, the edges of the 
blade being made sharp by the smith and ground. 
It is bent in the form shown in figure 1, and the 
sliank fastened in a hoe handle of good length.— 
[This is practically the “bayonethoe,” now sold at 
many implement stores. We have used one many 
f 
Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 
years, and for working among plants, using the flat 
edge like a common hoe, have found it preferable 
to any other garden implement designed for the 
same purposes. Indeed, it has usually taken the 
place of the common hoe after seed planting, not 
only in the garden, but frequently tor field beans, 
corn, etc.—E d.] 
Ths Tobacco Ferment in Hookertown. 
Seth Twiggs came in to my barn floor, where I 
was threshing beans, with an extra amount of smoke 
curling up from his old stump of a pipe, and 
greeted me with, “Have you heerd on’t?” 
“ Hecrd o’ what?” said I; “there’s are a good 
many things stirring in these days of telephones ; a 
man can hardly lead his horse to water, but it is re- 
l^orted in Hartford.” 
“ Yes, I know,” said Seth, “ but this didn’t come 
over the wires, but happened right here in Hooker- 
town. You see Mr. Spooner’s sermon agin to¬ 
bacco raisin’, and chewin’, and smokin’, has raised 
the dander on a good many heads, and we are gwine 
to discuss the tobacco question in the club at the 
school-house to-morrow night, at early candle-light. 
Squire Way is coming up from Shadtown, and you 
chaps that are runniu’ down the tobacco crop, and 
turning up your noses at tobacco smoke, will jest 
ketch it, see if you don’t.” 
“Well,” I said, “I’ve been catching tobacco 
smoke a good many years when Seth Twigg’s pipe 
is ’round, and if there’s anything worse than that 
at the club, I’d like to see it. I’ll be on hand.” 
“ Say, Squire, is Miss Bunker a gwine ? You see, 
Tirzah would like to go, if the other wimmen do.” 
“No ; Sally’s mind was made up a good while 
ago, and though she says she’s open to conviction, 
I’d like to see the man or woman that would under¬ 
take to convict her. There has been no tob.acco 
on the farm or in the house since, not even to kill 
lice on the calves.” 
The sermon Seth spoke of was from the text, 
“Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the 
soul,” in which Mr. Spooner showed, to his own 
satisfaction at least, that the tobacco habit was 
one of these lusts, and gave the strongest kind of 
proof from scientific authority that it did make war 
upon the bodies and souls of men. Then, as his 
first “inference,” if it was wrong for a man to in¬ 
jure his health and destroy his body, as many were 
doing, it was wrong to grow the weed, and to traffic 
in it; the growers and the venders were accom¬ 
plices in the crime. It was these “ inferences ” that 
gave offence, and started the ferment in Hooker- 
town parish. Mr. Spooner never dodges any re¬ 
sponsibility, or undertakes to ride two horses 
headed in opposite directions. He is square-footed 
in the pulpit, and we listened patiently for his views 
on the moral rases of tobacco, and on other things. 
It is fair to look at the financial dr’dt of the 
tobacco crop, at the farmer’s club, and in the 
aga-icultural journals. Hookertown has an expe¬ 
rience w’ith it of a dozen years, or more, and 
it may interest some readers of the American Agri¬ 
culturist, who are expecting to make their fortunes 
in the business, to know the results. However 
profitable it may be in other sections, it is blue ruin 
here. Our fanners went into it with large expecta¬ 
tions of making money, of finding it an easy road 
to fortune. Mortgages were to be paid off, bank- 
accounts opened, old houses repaired, new ones fur¬ 
nished, and rag carpets to give place to Brussels, 
with pianos, and silk dresses—in short, a new order 
of things,in-door and out. Exaggerated stories were 
circulated of its profits, such as that an acre of the 
weed could be sold for a thousand dollars, with 
clean culture and a favorable season. The less 
prosperous and careful farmers jumped at the 
chance of paying debts, and making money. Jake 
Frink, with his usual fondness for new enterprises, 
and forgetting his many failures, run in debt five 
hundred dollars for a tobacco barn. His son, Kier 
Frink, up in the White Oaks, stopped burning and 
peddling charcoal, and with a few other coal ped¬ 
dlers started tobacco patches. Deacon Smith was 
carried away with the craze, and his finest meadow 
became a tobacco field. Judge Hubbard, whose 
fine mansion overlooks the river, built a large to¬ 
bacco barn costing six thousand dollars, for curing 
ten acres. The barns went up in all directions, 
great and small, according to the means and enthu¬ 
siasm of the owners. 
Well, after a dozen years of trial and costly experi¬ 
ence, we have got down to hard pan, and the bot¬ 
tom facts are visible. The man is not to be found 
in Hookertown who has made a fortune by raising 
tobacco. Some have quit the business, and even 
those who continue it, admit that it does not pay at 
present prices. The big barn stands empty, and as 
Mr. Spooner rides by, he quotes from Paul, “They 
that will be rich, fall into a snare, etc.” The brush 
pasture acreage is increasing, and the heavy busi¬ 
ness on many farms, now, is carting wood and tim¬ 
ber to the river landings, to raise money to pay help. 
Sugaring down the experience, we have these facts ; 
1. The tobacco crop requires a good deal of 
capital to make it itrofltable. A good barn, built 
or made over for the purpose, is essential to 
success. Only heavy manuring and skilled labor 
will make it pay, and both are expensive. 
2. It is an exacting crop to raise, cure, pack, and 
sell, requiring more watchfulness than most other 
crops. Starting the plants requires close attention ; 
transplanting needs a wet spell when rains are often 
wanting; cultivation must be frequent and thor¬ 
ough ; topping and worming must be looked after ; 
and as maturity approaches, there is great peril of 
the early frosts, and liability to damage or total loss. 
After harvesting there is need of watching in cur¬ 
ing the leaf, and experience and skill in regulating 
temperature and air. Then, stripping and proper 
packing depend much upon the state of the weather. 
There is little rest from anxiety, from planting 
until the sale. 
3. It is more uncertain than most other crops. 
There is one crisis after another, from June to De¬ 
cember, and when ready for sale, the price is 
unsteady and often below the cost of production. 
There is a gambling element about it not friendly 
to industrious habits. 
4. It tends to divert farmers from more legitimate 
crops, which feed and clothe the race. This does 
neither, but sends sickness and poverty into many 
a home. The grains, vegetables, and grasses, beef, 
pork, mutton, butter, cheese, poultry, and eggs, are 
necessaries of life. 
5. There is little or no manure in this crop. The 
stalks, if kept upon the farm, arc indeed a good 
fertilizer, but there is comparatively little of this 
residue. A ton of hay, consumed in the barn, makes 
five dollars’ worth of manure, if properly cared for, 
and a ton of clover hay, nine dollars’ worth. All 
animal products make manure to enrich the farm. 
6. But tobacco growing, as usually practised, 
runs out the farm. A few acres may grow fat, but 
there is leanness in every other spot. Meadows run 
out and pastures grow up to brush, and there is less 
grass and hay, fewer cattle, less butter and cheese. 
If a man gets a little money in bank with this crop, 
he is likely to lose his farm as a machine for mak¬ 
ing crops. The deserted farms, the old chimney 
stacks, the increase of brush and forests, where the 
plow and the scythe once gathered their harvests, 
are sad commentaries upon the tendencies of this 
industry. If any man wants to go into this busi¬ 
ness, let him hear the wisdom of Hookertown, as 
she cries on every street—“Don’t!” 
Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Ho6kertown, Ct., December 7,1883. 
A Cheap Good Sa’w-Horse. 
Having a rough lot of fire-wood, eight to fifteen 
feet long, irregular round sticks, straight and 
crooked, from two to seven inches or more in di¬ 
ameter, we made a saw-horse in less than half an 
hour that has done good service all the past year, 
and is as good now as ever. An oak stick averag¬ 
ing half a foot in diameter, was selected from the 
wood-pile, and a piece five feet long cut off. Two 
one-and-a-half inch auger holes were bored near 
each end, not quite’ opposite each other, to avoid 
weakening the timber at one point, and four strong 
sticks from the same wood-pile were driven in for 
legs a little under two feet long, and standing well 
slanting outward. Six one-inch auger holes were 
bored in the top, and split out pegs eight or ten 
inches long were driven in, in a position to firmly 
hold the wood to be sawed. The two pegs of each 
pair are not directly opposite, but separated far 
enough for the saw cut to run down between them. 
A LONG SAW BUCK. 
Of the first pair one is four inches from the end, 
and the other seven inches back. The second pair 
is fifteen inches back of these, and the other in the 
farther end of the horse, these last answering as a 
support to the long end of the wood to be cut, the 
other two pairs being used as the saw-horse. When 
a stick is reduced to five feet or so in length, it 
is drawn forward and wholly supported on the 
two pair of pins near together. The whole is solid, 
cheap, and thoroughly convenient and effective. 
Young Trees on the Prairies. 
It is not yet too late to secure Cottonwood cut¬ 
tings. This tree is not specially commended, but 
as many will continue to plant it, some suggestions 
based on experience are offered.—1. Take no cut¬ 
tings from other than thrifty, vigorous young 
trees, of an erect clear-limbed habit of growth.— 
2. Cuttings should be a foot long, and be set in a 
slanting direction, so as to leave but one bud 
above the ground. Tramj) the earth firmly over 
them.—3. The next spring, after the cuttings have 
grown one year, cut them off just above the 
ground, so as to leave not more than one bud 
above the soil. This will give one strong, vigorous 
shoot, and tend to destroy the forky, sprangly 
habit, which often spoils young Cottonwood trees 
grown from cuttings. The same plan may be 
profitably pursued with young seedlings. Many 
