112 
.mEKIOAJSr AGlilOULTUEIST. 
[Maech, 
“Value 2d ” to the storm, she was brought into her 
roomy stall, with cows upon every side of her and 
all things very comfortable, and a manger full of 
green fodder besides. Still she worried a little and 
called for her companions. Though she fed well, 
and appeared all right, she fell off in her butter 
yield just about one pound. This and some other 
confirmatory observations lead me to think that 
the mental condition of the cow may have more to 
do with her butter yield than the kind of feed. w. 
Convenient Extra Wheel Barrow Handles. 
Mr. Avery J. Northrup, Delaware Co.,N. T., sends 
us a sketch and description of an attachment to 
the ordinary wheelbarrow, easily supplied, which 
he has used quite satisfactorily for twenty years. 
It is his own device, and unpatented. Two plow 
handles are obtained from a factory ready bent, or 
handles from a broken plow will answer, or they 
may be worked out of two pieces of wood of suit¬ 
able form. To save weight the plow handles are 
dressed down quite light except where the bolts 
go through, and are cut to the desired length. 
Bolt the straight ends to the legs of the barrow 
near the bottom, raise them up so that the curved 
ends will be three or four inches below the closed 
hands when one stands upright with the arms 
down, and bolt them to the ordinary hand shafts. 
—By usiug these supplementary handles the box is 
carried nearly level, when filled with fruit or sand, 
etc. When wishing to elevate the rear of the box, 
the lower handles of the barrow may be used. 
A Destructive Farm Bird. 
The Great Horned Owl is the third in size of the 
sixteen species of owls found in the United States, 
the largest being the great Gray Owl, and the 
second the Snowy Owl. But as the former inhabits 
the extreme Northern States, and the latter visits 
us only in severe winters, they are far less destruc¬ 
tive to poultry than the Great Horned Owl {Buho 
Virginia7ius), which resides over the greater part of 
our whole country. A farmer living not many 
miles from Philadelphia, owned a flock of turkeys 
which roosted in a partly open shed. On four suc¬ 
cessive mornings a turkey was missing, and fearing 
the loss of his entire flock, he lay in ambush for 
the thief. His shot broke the wing of a Great 
Horned Owl, as it was noiselessly entering the tur¬ 
key shed. He kindly boxed this owl and expressed 
it to me. It was a large specimen, measuring two 
feet one inch from the tip of bill to end of tail. 
Evidently turkey suppers had agreed with him. I 
had him in captivity for several months, and later, 
another of the same species. While in my pos¬ 
session, these owls were fierce and untamable, and 
never once expressed any good feeling or attach¬ 
ment towards me, or to others who fed them and 
treated them kindly. Any attempt to stroke or 
touch them, was invariably met with a savage snap 
of the bill. Many animals after being in captivity 
for a time, become reconciled to their fate, and 
give up attempting to escape, but not so wdth these 
owls. The first one repeatedly bit entirely through 
the wooden cage bars ; and the second, which I had 
fastened by a strong brass chain to a perch, several 
times forced apart the links with his powerful 
beak, and made off. One of his wings being 
elipped, he was unable to make long flights, but 
we always found him in the morning perched high 
on the grape arbor, among the vines. It was a dif¬ 
ficult, if not a dangerous job to bring him down, 
but we always accomplished tl:,is by first throwing 
a piece of thick carpet around him. More than 
once his sharp talons have pierced through the car¬ 
pet. The approach of a dog or a cat would always 
put them both in a rage, when they would puff out 
their feathers, lower their heads, spread the wings, 
and savagely click their bills, thus making them¬ 
selves appear terrible animals, when puffed up to 
very far beyond their actual size. A dog that used to 
take pleasure in going to the cage of my first owl, 
and arousing his ire, once reeieved a clutch in the 
nose, and never after this could he be induced to go 
near his owlship. They would eat almost any kind 
of meat, beast, bird, or fish. Even a screech owl, 
{Scops asio), a blood relation, was devoured by one of 
them with an apparent relish. These owls could 
see at all times, but best at the dusk of evening, or 
in the moonlight. This species, besides being the 
most noteworthy robber of the roost, feeds upon 
rabbits, opossums, pheasants, partridges, etc. 
Their favorite residence is the dark solitudes of 
deep swamps, covered with thick, tall timber. 
Here they nest and rear their young. The nest is 
generally composed of sticks and leaves, carelessly 
put together, and placed in a high fork of a tree, 
where the top has been broken off. The eggs of 
the Great Horned Ovvl are two to four in number, 
nearly spherical, two and a quarter inches in length, 
and of a dirty-white color. C. Few Seiss. 
A Fish Trap. 
Though trapping fish is frequently forbidden by 
law there are many fish-abounding streams, espe¬ 
cially in newly settled regions, furnishing a sup¬ 
ply of excellent food at some seasons. Fish are 
often taken most economically by means of a sim¬ 
ply constructed trap. A common method is 
shown in the engraving. Selecting a convenient 
place, usually the main channel, four or six posts 
are driven and covered on the two sides and the up 
stream end with lath nailed just close enough to¬ 
gether to stop all fish large enough for use. The 
space enclosed may be twenty to forty inches wide, 
and three to six feet long, according to circum¬ 
stances. At the lower end, lath are nailed on with 
their inside ends approaching each other to form 
a funnel, leaving the opening just large enough for 
the fish to pass easily. Weirs or walls extend 
from each side to the main hanks. Stopped by 
these and bent on going up stream, the fish follow 
along them to the trap opening, which they enter, 
and seldom find their way back through the narrow 
aperture. They may be taken from the trap with 
a dip-net, or by hand. The weirs may be of loose 
A TRAP FOR FISH. 
stones or driven stakes or brushwood, to allow 
tlie passage of considerable water through them 
when it rises ; or they may be of earth, logs, or 
driven boards or slabs, as the material, character 
of the stream, the permanency of the structure, 
etc., indicate in each case. The occurrence of 
freshets is to be taken into account. By lengthen¬ 
ing the box or pen a second funnel may he made 
at each end to arrest the fish going down stream 
as well as up, though the upper funnel would catch 
floating material and soon clog, and it may he best 
set in at one side as the fish would usually find it. 
They ascend the stream as the spawning season 
approaches, which differs with the varieties. Their 
descent occurs at a later period in the season. 
Profit in Pig Feeding. 
Feeding pigs for slaughter during winter, the time 
frequently chosen, is much oftener done at a loss 
than at a profit; this is especially the case in colder 
climates, except when a chance increase in price 
and a demand for and good use of the manure may 
help out. It need not be so, if farmers ’generally 
understood the necessity of and provided for 
proper warmth. The heat of the body in swine, as 
in all other animals, is only kept up by food, and 
when the surrounding cold carries off more of the 
heat that the food consumed and digested can pro¬ 
duce, there is little if any left to go to Increase of 
flesh and fat.—Of two lots of spring pigs, I had one 
lot ready to slaughter at the beginning of winter, 
and concluded to keep the others along. They 
were kept in an enclosed shed and given all the 
corn they would eat. They consumed just enough 
to keep up warmth and locomotion. Even this 
was too heavy a draft upon their digestion and 
assimilation to have them in a normal condition, 
and they did not really hold their own. Only a 
higher market the last of February enabled me to 
realize even as much for this lot as for the other. 
It may be set down as a rule, that there is no profit 
in feeding pigs for slaughter in winter, where the 
food will freeze in the ordinary weather. 
But during the past winter I fed a number of 
pigs at a decided profit. They grew as fast as the 
autumn fed, their entire gain from a moderate con¬ 
dition was made in cold weather. Two of them 
weighed over half a ton. They were kept in a pig 
house so warm that it rarely freezes ! They were 
fattened mostly on rye meal and buckwheat bran. 
Queer feed, some farmers will say, but it is capital 
for fattening, as noted below. I once tried a coal 
stove in my pig house to save a lot of early pigs, 
but they became sickly and did not do well. What 
is wanted is to have the building close and tight 
enough to keep out external cold, leaving the in¬ 
side to he warmed by animal heat. A basement 
under the pig hou.se can be turned to good account 
for fattening pens. 
Something more than mere stuffing with food is 
required, if rearing and fattening of pigs is to be 
made desirable. Food and labor are becoming 
more costly every year, and to make this important 
industry profitable, there must be corresponding 
reduction in losses, to be secured by more economic 
surroundings, and making a little of the more ex¬ 
pensive food go as far as possible in making flesh. 
The first requisite is comfort, as without this no 
animal will thrive well. Let it be well understood, 
that cold and filth are destructive to success. 
Arrangements to save labor are of increasing im¬ 
portance as above noted. As to food, one kind 
only of concentrated diet, without change, will 
break down any young pig’s stomach, and produce 
a feverish state in an older one ; it is unnatural for 
an animal naturally constituted to eat everything. 
Concentrated rich food needs a combination with 
coarser kinds, to render it less compact and allow 
a more ready penetration of the gastric juices. 
How can healthy action be maintained, if the intes¬ 
tines of the animal contain only a mass of ferment¬ 
ing, putrefying stuff ? I never had autumn dropped 
pigs grow so fast, or show so healthy a condition 
as two lots of different breeds fed this winter on 
buckwheat bran. They are in a warm pig house, 
where it seldom freezes; the coarser part of the 
flour left on the hulls supplies food for the stomach, 
and the hulls keep the intestines in a healthy con¬ 
dition. Few farmers think of this latter point, 
and confine their pigs to clear corn meal, the most 
heating and unhealthful of all the cereals. Corn 
is the great staple food for hogs, and will continue 
to be, but it should be utilized to the best advan¬ 
tage by judicious combination with coarser food, 
for swine as well as for men, and for breeding as 
well as growing and fattening animals. A feed 
once a day to fattening hogs of carrots or beets, 
increases the appetite, gives tone to the stomach, 
and has a cooling effect upon it. More roots, or 
other cheap succulent food is required. F. D. 0. 
