1884.] 
AMEEICAN^ AGEIOULTURIsT. 
419 
Law for Farmers—Hiring Farm Help. 
Hiring Minors. —A great many farm hands are 
minors, under the age of twenty-one. Such per¬ 
sons cannot make a contract, which will be binding 
upon them, except for necessaries. Because of 
their inexperience in the sharp conflicts of busi¬ 
ness, the law relieves them from the obligation of 
keeping their agreements if they wish to avoid 
them. Consequently if the farmer hires a hand, 
under twenty-one, to work one year, or any defi¬ 
nite time, and the hand leaves just before harvest, 
without legal cause, or simply because he can get 
more wages elsewhere, the farmer cannot keep any 
of his back pay, or in any way get damages for the 
minor’s breach of contract. Under such circum¬ 
stances the minor will be entitled to the amount 
due him at the rate he hired, or, if he thinks he 
hired at too low a rate, he can throw up the con¬ 
tract entirely, and recover from his employer 
what his services are actually worth. 
There is another consideration with respect to 
the hiring of children, more important than the 
foregoing. Parents, being under obligation to sup¬ 
port and care for their children, are entitled to 
their services until they arc twenty-one years old ; 
or, if the children work out, they are entitled to 
their wages until that time. When therefore the 
farmer hires a hand under twenty-one, he must see 
to it that he pays the wages to the party to whom 
they belong; otherwise he may have to pay them 
twice. Unless the child has been emancipated, 
that is, has had his “ time ” given him, payment to 
him will not generally prevent the parent from col¬ 
lecting payment again. If the child falsely repre¬ 
sents himself to be of age, or emancipated, such 
fraud will not prevent the parent from collecting 
his wages, or the value of his services. 
A child may become emancipated by agreement 
between himself and parent, by the parent’s cast¬ 
ing him off to shift for himself, by the parent’s ab¬ 
sconding to parts unknown, or by the parent’s be¬ 
coming so poor as to be unable to care for the 
child. In all of these cases the child becomes en¬ 
titled to his wages, may sue for them if necessary, 
and recover the amount due him at the rate he 
hired, or may throw up his contract and recover 
the actual value of his sevices. There is a growing 
tendency among American Courts to favor children 
who are trying to earn an honest living for them¬ 
selves. This tendency is in keeping with the 
spirit of our free institutions, and the child will 
generally be given the right to his wages whenever 
there is any show of authority for it. The Courts 
of some of the States have gone so far as to hold 
that where the parent permits his child to go and 
hire out by himself, and to receive his wages with¬ 
out objection, that the parent then loses his rights 
in the premises, and payment to the child dis¬ 
charges the debt. The statutes of some of the States 
have regulated the matter by providing that unless 
the parent gives notice within a certain time to the 
empioyer that he claims the minor’s wages, he 
loses his' right to them. In New York, notice must 
be given within thirty days of the date of hiring. 
Farm Apprentices. —^Apprentices are persons 
“bound” to another to learn a certain trade or 
business. They are more common in the mechani¬ 
cal trades than upon farms, but the law governing 
them is equally applicable to all kinds of business. 
A boy may be bound out upon a farm until he is 
twenty-one by a written instrument called “Arti¬ 
cles of Apprenticeship,” which must be entered 
into by the minor and his parent or guardian, or 
by the minor with the written consent of his par¬ 
ent or guardian, and which then becomes binding 
upon him and upon his master, until the appren¬ 
ticeship expires. I f either party fails to live up 
to such articles, he becomes liable to the other 
for the damage so caused. Such articles must con¬ 
form to the local statute governing the matter, be 
in writing, and under seal, must generally be made 
in duplicate, and in some States recorded. It is 
the duty of the master to instruct the apprentice in 
all the knowledge of the craft or business which 
he has undertaken to teach him, to watch over his 
conduct, give him good advice, set him a good ex¬ 
ample, be kind to him, employ him only in the 
trade he is to iearn, and keep all the covenants 
undertaken by him in the articles. It is said he 
may moderately chastise him if necessary, but here 
he should let his moderation be known. It is the 
duty of the apprentice to obey the master’s lawful 
commands, care for his property, promote his in¬ 
terests, learn the trade or business, stay the term 
out, and perform all the covenants undertaken by 
him in the articles. If the apprentice works for 
third persons the master is entitled to his wages or 
value of his services just as a parent is in case of a 
minor. It is the duty of the parent or guardian to 
inquire into the treatment of the apprentice, and 
to defend him from all cruelty, neglect, or breach 
of covenant on the part of the master. There are 
in most States statutory regulations for the bind¬ 
ing out of orphans and poor children by certain 
public officials. In such cases, such officials stand 
in much the same position as parents or guardians. 
Good and Bad Road-Building. 
Nothing is more destructive to horses and vehi¬ 
cles than a road full of ruts and loose stones. A 
single stone, which might be removed from the 
road-bed in a half minute or less, often remains and 
Fig. 1.— BADLY MADE ROAD-BED. 
is strack by a dozen wagons each day, for perhaps a 
year. Many of these loose projecting stones come 
up from a lower stratum of the road-bed, where they 
were improperly placed. Figure I represents a 
section of a faulty newiy-formed road-bed. A layer 
of irregular stones of various sizes is placed a few 
inches below the surface of the intended road-bed, 
and a covering of sand and clay scattered over it. 
Fig. 2.— BAD ROAD-BED AFTER HEAVY TRAVEL. 
The wheels of a heavily-loaded vehicle, quickly 
cuts through to the layer of loose stones, and ■ 
shortly the roadway presents the appearance shown 
in figure 2. The stones, large and small, are con¬ 
stantly being worked toward the surface, where 
they form annoying obstructions. Figure 3 shows 
a superior method of arranging the material for a 
good road-bed. Durable stones from four to six 
inches in diameter, are set in the bottom by hand. 
Fig. 3.— ROAD-BED WELL MADE. 
with their largest sides downward, and secured in 
place by smaller stones above and between them, 
thus forming a compact layer of six inches or more 
in thickness. With such a foundation, and a suit¬ 
able covering of fine broken stone, a road-bed is 
formed that will be smooth, hard, and durable. 
Koad-making needs to be a permanent improve¬ 
ment, or else it is seldom a paying investment. 
Look to the Labels Now. —The labels attached 
to the trees are not intended to be permanent. When 
the trees are planted with these, by the time they 
begin to bear, the labels will be lost or can not be 
read. If the wire to these labels is strong, the tree, 
as it grows, will be constricted by it, and a branch, 
or sometimes the whole top, be killed. Those who 
have planted trees with the nursery labels still at¬ 
tached, should lose no time in replacing them by 
others. Among the many kinds of labels, one of 
the best is of sheet zinc, cut in the form of a long, 
tapering wedge, an inch or so wide at the base, 
and six, eight, or more inches long. The name of 
the variety is to be written upon the broad end of 
the label with a common lead-pencil, and the nar¬ 
row end loosely coiled around a small branch, in 
such a manner that it will yield as the branch en¬ 
larges. The writing in pencil on the zinc label 
is very permanent; we have known it to be 
legible after an exposure of twenty-live years. 
Recent Experiments in Crop-Feeding. 
Paul Wagner has compared the feeding capacities 
of peas and barley, by growing these plants in zinc 
vesseds and under various conditions. The e.ans 
were filled with thoroughly mixed, sifted soil, and 
the contents differed only in the manure supplied. 
There were eight vessels in the series. The manures 
added to each can is shown in the subjoined table; 
Crop 
iVb. 'Manxiring. Peas.Burleij. 
1 
Nothing. 
100 
100 
2 
Nitrogen. 
104 
113 
3 
100 
107 
4 
Phosphoric Acid. 
12G 
113 
5 
Phosphoric Acid and Nitrogen. 
132 
146 
6 
Nitrogen and Potash. 
102 
121 
7 
Potash and Phosphoric Acid . 
147 
12S 
8 
Potash, Phosphoric Acid and Nitrogen.. 
151 
181 
Each series was dupiicated, and the above is the 
average result. The crop with no manure was taken 
as one hundred. Nitrogen, as nitrate of soda, 
was added in each case at the rate of thirty-five 
pounds per acre; potash as chloride, seventy 
pounds, and phosphoric acid as superphosphate, 
eighty-seven and one half pounds per acre. By com¬ 
paring the cans having nitrogen with the others, it 
is evident that nitrogen had very little effect upon 
the peas, while with the barley the results are re¬ 
markably beneficial, ranging from thirteen per cent 
when the nitrogen only was added to fifty-five per 
cent when applied in combination with potash and 
phosphoric acid. Manuring with jiotash and phos¬ 
phoric acid brought a gain of forty-seven per cent 
to the pea crop, only a little less than when the 
nitrogen was added (No. 8). The soil nitrogen 
was sufficient for the growth of the peas, while it 
did not supply the needs of the barley plants. 
Stated in another way, the facts are still more strik¬ 
ing : The potash and phosphoric acid brought 
twenty-six per cent more dry matter, and this gain 
contained .06 grain of nitrogen. The addition of .2 
grain of nitrogen in the soda salt gave an increase 
of eighty-one per cent of dry matter, and .18 grain 
of nitrogen. It is seen that nearly all the nitrogen 
was recovered in the crop. 
These experiments show, that peas are much 
better able than barley to assimilate the nitrogen 
of the soil. The pea crop in the experiments con¬ 
tained between three and four times as much ni¬ 
trogen as the barley plants, but this docs not in¬ 
dicate that peas should have more nitrogenous 
manure than barley. Peas can obtain their supply 
of nitrogen from ordinary soil, and respond freely 
to applications of potash and phosphoric acid. 
Barley, on the other hand, though needing com¬ 
paratively little nitrogen, obtains it with difficulty, 
and is greatly benefited by nitrogenous manures. 
These experiments do not agree with the idea that 
crops should be manured with those elements of 
plant food abundantly found in them by analyses. 
Peas are closely related to clover, both belong¬ 
ing to the legumes, and barley is a first cousin to 
wheat. The facts here presented accord wdth those 
determined by experience, experiment, and analyses 
regarding clover and wheat. Clover does not re¬ 
spond quickly to nitrogenous manures, though 
containing a comparatively high per cent of nitro¬ 
gen iu its composition. Wheat, requiring only a 
little nitrogen, is not able to obtain that little 
easily, and is much benefited by the applications of 
soluble compounds of nitrogen. It is easy for 
clover to get its large amount of nitrogen, while it 
is difficult for the wheat to obtain its small 
per cent of the same element. The conclusion 
here obtained is opposed to the use of the so-called 
special manures made for any particular crop. 
A Wooden Bit for Sucking Cow. —Mr. David 
Strang, Lincoln Co., Tenn., writes us that some time 
ago he read a description of a “bridle ” to prevent 
a cow from sucking herself. It was made of a 
piece of gas pipe. Recently he had use for such 
a device, but was twenty miles from any gas pipe. 
He punched the pith out of a stout section of an 
elder stem, and ran a large wire through it. The 
ends of the wire were fastened to the headstall. 
