306 AMEEIOAI^' AGEIOULTUEIST. [July, 
About Ticks. 
The Ticks belong with the Spiders and Mites, 
wliicli are now admitted as a sub-order of insects. 
Tlie true insects have three parts to the body, un¬ 
dergo a change from a larval or grub state, and the 
perfect insect has three pairs of legs. The ticks 
and their relatives have the body in two parts, have 
four pairs of legs, and undergo no change. Ticks 
are found in all parts of the country, but are most 
numerous in the warmer portions. They pass the 
early part of their lives upon plants as vegetable 
feeders, and hence are commonly called “Wood 
Ticks.” The males, when they have served their 
purpose, die, but the females, like the female mos¬ 
quito, cannot complete their career unless they 
gorge themselves with blood. The female ticks, 
whenever opportunity offers, attach themselves to 
animals. While some are confined to particular 
animals, as the bat, others have no choice, but at¬ 
tack cattle, dogs, and wild animals, as deer, etc. 
They have been found upon snakes and lizards, and 
will attach themselves to man. The female has a 
leathery skin, capable of being greatly distended, 
and when she attaches herself to an animal by 
means of her hooked claws, commences to suck its 
blood and enlarges to many times her former size. 
The engraving represents a common cattle tick, 
both before and after she has filled herself with 
blood. The writer has seen, in Texas, cattle with 
dozens of ticks attached to their sides, much larger 
than the one here figured. He has had even a more 
intimate acquaintance with them, when an intense 
itching indicated their presence on the person. A 
drop of water of ammonia allayed the itching, and 
so disgusted the tick that she released her hold. 
Every humane cattle owner will rid his animals of 
this pest. Grease alone, or mixed with a little 
WOOD TICKS—NATURAL SIZE AND MAONIFIED. 
kerosene, and applied to the parts to which the 
ticks attach themselves, usually v^here the hair is 
thin, near the udder, will make the locality un¬ 
pleasant for these annoying bloodsuckers. 
A Fence Post Axe. 
An axe for making rail holes in fence posts, is 
shown in the engraving. It is an ordinary axe 
blade, cut and hammered down by a blacksmith. 
The blade is of the width desired for the hole in 
the post. With this axe and a good post-holder, 
a skillful person can make the rail holes rapidly. 
More about Lamb-kill. —Charles Ives, of Mis- 
couche. Prince Edward’s Isle, writes us, with ref¬ 
erence to an article in June last, that he has had “ a 
wide and most unpleasant experience” with the 
“Lamb-kill,” which grows abundantly in his lo¬ 
cality. Ilis object in wilting is to make known 
what he regards as a simple and certain remedy for 
animals poisoned by the yilant. When a lamb is 
poisoned, it usually cannot stand, and when he 
finds one in this condition, he takes it under shelter 
as quickly as possible. “ I take half a pint to a 
pint of milk, and while this is warming, I get a 
good sized onion, or better, a bunch of shallots 
(they being stronger), peel, and chop them as fine 
as possible. The chopped onion is mixed with the 
warm milk in a narrow mouthed pitcher, and given 
to the animal, making it swallow as much of the 
chopped onion as possible, as that is the important 
part of the dose. In very severe cases it may be 
necessary to repeat the dose after a few hours. I 
do not think I have lost an animal by poisoning 
since I began to use this remedy, while before, I 
have had five or six lying together, dead.” 
Three-Horse Whifiletrees. 
A subscriber sends us his method of arranging 
whifiletrees for three horses abreast. The larger 
evener, a, is made of inch and a half plank cut with 
WHIEFLETREES FOR THREE HORSES ABREAST. 
a curve, so that the single whiffietree, 6, is on a line 
with the others attached to the double evener, c. 
Increase of Eainfall in the Western 
States. 
n. C. EWING, NEBRASKA, 
In the January number of the American Agricul¬ 
turist an article appeared, entitled “ Do Trees In¬ 
crease Rainfall ? ” which fully answered the ques¬ 
tion propounded by its title, but as the author had 
evidently given the subject much thought, we 
were sorry he did not explain or even give his 
views of the cause of the increase of rainfall in the 
Western States, particularly in the district west of 
the Missouri. There is great practical importance 
in this question to those who are making them¬ 
selves homes in the broad AVestern States, and 
investing their money in that region. 
As to one fact, the writer of the above-mention¬ 
ed article seems to be in error. The amount 
of rainfall in Illinois and Iowa, instead of de¬ 
creasing, as he states, has been increasing year 
by year, so that in sections where, fifteen years ago, 
the complaint was of the scant rainfall, the people 
now are unable to properly plant, cultivate, or 
harvest their crops, because of the wet weather. 
This is not fiction but a stern reality, as farmers 
in those States will testify. Nor has this increase 
been confined to the region east of the Missouri. 
A few years ago all Nebraska, west of the “ Mis¬ 
souri River Bottoms,” was considered an unpro¬ 
ductive waste on account of the drouths, there 
was no rain to keep vegetation alive. But soon 
the western limit of the rain belt was moved to 
the meridian of Lincoln. So recently as 1878-9 no 
rain fell in that district in Southern Nebraska from 
August 1878 until June 1879. Wiseacres said there 
is no use going further west, no rain ever falls 
there—it was a desert and nothing would grow. 
But during the past three years the amount of 
rainfall has been gradually increasing in the meri¬ 
dian of Lincoln, Neb., until the amount during 
the year just past has been nearly equal to that in 
any of the Atlantic States. The wise men have 
been compelled to move the western boundary 
line of the rain belt westward successively from 
county to county, until now the acknowledged rain 
area covers nearly the whole of tlie State of Ne¬ 
braska. Such arc the facts in regard to this west¬ 
ern advance of the rain area and so general, regu¬ 
lar and continuous has it been that we must look 
for the cause, not to electrical disturbances, or 
spots on the sun, but to something more intimate¬ 
ly connected with the tide of immigration and ad¬ 
vance of civilization. 
As was truly said by the writer of the above- 
mentioned article, the winds that bear the rain and 
moisture to the western plains come from the east 
and south. These winds from the Atlantic and 
the Gulf, lose their moisture as they advance, and 
reach the highlands east of the Rocky Mountains 
almost devoid of moisture. In the d.,ys when the 
prairies were vast stretches of uncultivated land, 
the small amoint of rain that did fall immediately 
ran from the surface into the “ draws ” or small 
creeks and creek beds, and thence at once into the 
rivers. The surface of the unbroken prairie was 
almost as impervious to the water as a hed of solid 
rock would have been. There could be little evap¬ 
oration from the earth by the sun a few hours 
after a rain, for the water had run off from and not 
soaked into the ground. But as the land is culti¬ 
vated, the rain is absorbed by the loose soil and 
remains a source of evaporation for several days. 
Some of it goes to form springs, whicii are burst¬ 
ing forth in cultivated districts where none before 
existed, and others, which were small and inter¬ 
mittent, have become strong and never failing. 
This change in the springs shows the increase in 
absorption of the rainfall by the cultivated land. 
In this fact of the absorption and consequent 
evaporation of greater amounts of moisture may 
be easily seen the cause of the westward advance 
of the rain belt. The winds from the Atlantic and 
Gulf meet and carry with them the air which has 
been charged with the moisture evaporated from 
the cultivated districts, and expanding in rising 
over the land in its course toward the Rockies the 
temperature falls and rain is precipitated. The 
rain is, therefore, in much greater quantities than 
would have fallen had no moisture been added to 
the winds in their course. Very little moisture 
was added when the winds swept over unbroken 
prairies. The greater the amount of land culti¬ 
vated each year in the eastern counties of the 
State, the greater will be the evaporation and con¬ 
sequently the greater the rainfall in the western 
counties. The cultivated region acts as a relay bat¬ 
tery, as it were, adding new power to the current 
of wind that was almost exhausted of moisture. 
As the rainfall increases to the westward, the'hardy 
farmer moves thither, breaks the land, and the 
rain area is moved just as much further west. 
Thus the process goes on, and probably will con¬ 
tinue until the timber line of the Rockies is 
reached. This increase will continue in all parts 
of the State, as long as there is unbroken paririe 
to the east. We do not contend that cultivation 
in a district produces a greater amount of rainfall 
in that particular region, but we do maintain that 
on the western prairies, where the rain-bearing 
winds come from the east and south, the rainfall 
west of the cultivated land will be increased, and 
as agriculture advances so will the increase in rain¬ 
fall. True as is the remark cf the writer of the 
article referred to, that “ our weather appears to be 
subject to important changes far beyond the reach 
of a forest or clover field,” yet on account of the 
peculiar condition of this western country, and the 
direction of its rain-bearing wind currents, we are 
constrained to believe that we have herein briefly 
stated at least one of the leading causes of the 
increase of the rainfall in the Western States. 
A Leaf Gatherer. 
A simple and convenient device for gathering 
leaves from a lawn, or elsewhere, may be made by 
fastening heavy cloth to two light poles, as shown 
in the engraving. The leaves are raked into a heap 
and the gatherer placed on it, after which the poles 
are brought close together and the leaves lifted. 
