1884.] 
AMEEIOAIn^ AGEIOELTUEIST. 
295 
piled up as high as the tops of tlie windows, and 
there is no getting about, for the farmer to he able 
to'care for his cattle, and do his miiking and 
“ chores ” without digging through an eighth of a 
mile or less of drifted snow, or tunneling tlirougii a 
drift before he could even get sight of his barn. 
In tliis part of the country I am sure we put our 
liouses and barns too far apart for convenience in 
winter, and yet they are safer in case of lire. Be¬ 
sides, our house wells are quite near enough to the 
l)arnj'ards. Up there among the hills, the water 
comes down in wooden pipes from some mountain 
spring, so the nearness to the barnyard is not of so 
much consequence. 
Pure Priukiug Water. 
This matter of pure water to drink, is vital, vital, 
viT.VL to the well-being of farmers. It may be all 
very well for the good of the race, for the puny, 
delicate, “ peaked ” children to die, but these are 
the ones that the mothers, at least, love best, and 
there is a vast deal of rending of hearts over the 
sickness and deatli of the delicate ones, young or 
old, which might at least be postponed for many 
years, if they and we had pure water to drink. 
Weils near barnyards, or within two or three hun¬ 
dred feet of them, sometimes contain the germs of 
disease and death. The old fashioned privy vault, 
fifty times more dangerous, is usually nearer the 
house and the well, and contrived, as if by the 
“arch-enemy,” as an unfailing source of malarial 
poison, of diplitheria, typhus and typhoid fevers, 
and the evOs that follow in their train. There 
ought to be State laws forbidding the existence of 
the privy vaults, or even of cess-pools, except, per¬ 
haps, cemented cisterns, through which a regular 
fiow of water is maintained. 
No system was ever devised equal to the Mosaic, 
(Deut. xxiii ; 12,13 and 14,) but that is pai’tieularly 
adapted to a nomadic people, although I have met 
with it in Louisiana and Kentucky, and know it is 
the rule in Texas, where the abomination alluded 
to has never existed, except to a very limited degree. 
MilcU Cows. 
There has been a good deal of discussion lately 
in some newspapers, as to whether it is best to 
raise or to buy milch cows. This is a question like 
many others, “ with two sides to it.” AVhen 
“ once upon a time,” some one said that everything 
had two sides, his opponent thought he gave him a 
“ poser ” when he asked “ on which side of a 
pitcher is the handle ? ” It did not take long to 
find out that it was on the outside, and so in this 
matter of raising cows, there is an inside and an out¬ 
side. In Cattaraugus, and otherNew York counties, 
the farmers long ago were wise enough to pro¬ 
cure full-blooded Shorthorn bulls, and these have 
given rise to a style of cows which is very prevalent 
there, and is just what our milk producers want. 
They can be raised there for about twenty dollars a 
head, cost the buyer thirty dollars, and so the raiser 
has a fair profit. No more is asked fora four or 
five-year-old cow, which has given two calves, and 
probably four thousand quarts of milk. The raiser 
can well afford to sell rather than winter some of his 
cows, and where milk is worth an average of three 
cents a quart the year round, farmers can not afford 
to raise calves dropped at any time before the middle 
of May. Calves may indeed be raised without 
milk, but they are not the ones that make the best 
cows, and if raised upon milk, they will cost the 
farmer, to say the least, a great deal more than any¬ 
body will give him for them. The danger of im¬ 
porting disease is very slight. I would never ad¬ 
vise a man to buy cows out of a travelling herd, 
but there are in every dairy section, enterprising 
men, usually first class farmers, who go into the 
cow-raising counties, and buy four and five-year- 
old “ springers ” (cows soon due to calve). They 
buy of men whom they know, pick up two or three 
car-loads, and arrange to have them shipped, one 
car-load at a time, as ordered. Often these dealers 
know the cows, and have watched them as they 
grew, as two, three, and four-year-olds. They are 
healthy, large milkers, and seldom go wrong, and 
are sold at prices decidedly lower than the milk- 
producer could have raised tliem for himself. 
If a milk-farmer has a grand ^twenty or thirty- 
quart cow, and wants to raise her heifer calf, and 
get one to be really proud of, let him send her to a 
first rate Jersey or Guernsey bull, so that she will 
come in in May. Then arrange to raise the calf on 
skim milk, and to do well by it, and ho will prob¬ 
ably get a cow giving sixteen to twenty quarts of 
very rich milk. The drifting herds I speak of, are 
usually picked up by an inferior class of dealers, 
in places not far removed from the milk section. 
They attend auction sales, and get any kind of 
“springers,” and cows with young calves, they can 
buy. They move slowly through the milk region, 
towards the cities, where they are sure of some sort 
of a market, and they constantly trade and barter 
along the route. Of course there is great danger of 
getting disease in one’s herd in buying such cows, 
and it is a blessing that these drifting herds gener¬ 
ally head east, where they soon become beef,and that 
now-a-days there are comparatively few of them. 
Keeping Hams through the Summer. 
It is somewhat difficult to guard hams from flies 
through the summer, however well cured and 
smoked. The smoke-house, if well made, preserves 
them, and this is the more common place of de¬ 
posit with those who smoke their own hams. But 
multitudes have on hand a season’s supply of hams 
and shoulders. They keep much better in a dry 
atmosphere. If sngar-eured hams are purchased, 
the cloth that covers them is a sufficient protection 
against insects. If the hams are home-cured, they 
can be covered with cloth at small expense, or even 
with a bag of thick paper tied tight at the top, 
around the string by which they are suspended. 
If hung in a dry, cool place, they will not mould, 
and will always be on hand for the staple of a 
hearty meal, in any emergency of the family. 
Farmers generally make their own meat, and cure 
it, and, with a good recipe for curing, secure bet¬ 
ter hams than they can purchase, and at less cost. It 
pays to keep the larder well stocked with the best. 
Preparing Sumach for Market. 
Certain inquiries seem to be perennial; a crop of 
them coming each year with the return of summer, 
probably from new subscribers who have not seen 
former volumes. Sumach is one of these perennial 
subjects. The first inquiry this season came from 
AV. P. Gould, Clay Co., VV. Va., and in answering 
him, we reply to several others. The two species 
most commonly gathered, are tlie Smooth, or Com¬ 
mon Sumach (5/(MSf/?a6m), and the Staghoni Su¬ 
mach (i?. tyjMna). The Mountain Sumach (i?. co- 
pallina) is equally valuable. The first two are.found 
nearly all over the older States, while the other is 
somewhat less common. The tops of the bushes 
and ends of the tranches are broken off and laid 
upon roofs, on hard bare places upon the ground, 
under sheds, cte., w’here they remain until dry. It is 
then threshed with sticks, the twigs and stalks pick¬ 
ed out, and the leaves packed in sacks, bed-clothing, 
or whatever will hold them on their journey to the 
mill. Herein is the difficulty in sumach collecting. 
The article is not marketable until the leaves have 
been ground fine and bolted. The machinery or 
plant required to do this, costs more than a collector 
of the leaves can afford, hence the business, to be 
profitable, requires a mill, and within easy reach of 
numerous collectors, as the crude leaves are too 
bulky to warrant packing and shipping to a distant 
mill. The business of preparing sumach for mar¬ 
ket, is mainly confined to Richmond, and some 
other cities of ATrginia. The collectors take their 
small lots to the mills, where they are bought. Af¬ 
ter the sumach is properly manufactured, it is sent 
for sale to New York and other cities, where it 
comes in competition with the imported, or Sicilian 
Sumach, which is the leaves of Wins, coriaria, a 
species cultivated in southern Europe. However 
abundantly sumach may grow in a locality, unless 
the owner of some grist mill will introduce macliin- 
ery to grind and bolt the leaves, or some capitalist 
will establish a mill for the purpose, the gathering 
of the sumach crop cau not be made profitable. 
Propagation of Trees by Layering. 
A. S. rULLER. 
Layers are really nothing more than a form of 
cutting, the only difference being that tliey are al¬ 
lowed to adhere or remain attached to the parent 
stock—drawing sustenance therefrom until roots 
are emitted, after which they are detached and be¬ 
come individual plants. In making layers of trees 
or shrubs, we bend down a branch, and cover that 
portion with earth upon which we wish to produce 
roots. Figure 1 shows a layered branch buried 
Fig. 1.— A LAYERED BRANCH. 
in the soil. An incision is usually made on the 
under side of the branch before it is laid down, 
and the knife inserted just below a bud if there is 
one convenient, passing into the wood, and then 
an inch or more lengthwise of the hraneh, forming 
what is termed a tongue, as at a, A hooked peg, 
c, may be employed to hold the layer in place, or a 
stone laid on it, as it is quite important that the 
branch be held firmly in place. If the branch is. 
large, the end may be tied up to a stake, as showui 
at 6. It is not often that forest trees, except some 
ornamental varieties, are propagated in this way, 
but it is well enough to know how to do it, when 
necessary to increase the stock of some choice or 
rare specimen. Layers may be made at almost any 
season, but they will root sooner if made when the 
trees are growing rapidly, than at any other time. 
Some kinds of trees will produce roots when lay¬ 
ered without cutting the branch, and exposing 
the alburnum—in fact, all will, in time, but the 
surest way is to cut the 
branch as described. 
With some kinds, roots 
will be emitted so slow¬ 
ly that the layer must 
remain at least two sea¬ 
sons before it will be 
safe to sever it from 
the parent stock. Ever¬ 
greens may be layered 
in the same way as de¬ 
ciduous trees, but the 
operation should al¬ 
ways be performed dur¬ 
ing the period of active 
growth, else the wound 
made on the layer is 
likely to be covered 
with resin, which may prevent the emission of roots. 
Sometimes a part of a tree or a small branch will 
vary from the original; when this occurs on a large 
tree and where the branch cannot be made to reach 
the ground, we are compelled to elevate the soil, or 
some similar material to the part we wish to propa¬ 
gate, unless it is some species which can be readily 
propagated from cuttings, buds, or grafting. If 
we desire to obtain a layer, w’e have only to place a 
l)ot or box of soil near the branch, so that it can be 
covered with earth, the same as if near the ground. 
After the brancli is layered, the soil surrounding it 
must be kept moist until roots are produced. 
Figure 2 shows a branch layered in a ]3ot from 
which a piece has been taken from one side to ad¬ 
mit the branch; the crevice is closed with a piece 
of board or shingle placed on the inside of the pot, 
after which the pot is filled with soil. If the pot is 
surrounded with cloth or moss, it will in a measure 
prevent the earth from drying, and therefore 
less frequent waterings will be required. 
