1861.1 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
the level of the sea. They had probably been 
carried there by a strong upward current of air. 
Tim Bunker on Lightning Rods. 
Mr. Editor : “ What are you putting up that 
iron thing on your barn for ?” asked Jake Frink, 
as we were at work upon the last job about the 
new barn, which I have not yet said anything 
about in the American Agriculturist. 
“I am going to have the barn finished,” I said. 
“We want a rod just as much as we want win¬ 
dows in the frames, or shingles on the roof.” 
“ I guess the litenin ’ll go where it is sent, rod 
or no rod,” observed Tucker, as he thrust a 
new piece of pig-tail into his cheek. 
“Wasn’t Squire Rodman’s house struck with 
lightnin last week, though it had a rod on it,” 
asked Jones, triumphantly. 
“ Yes, but the rod was joined with hooks and 
eyes, and the connection was not perfect,” ob¬ 
served Mr. Spooner, who was one of the group. 
“Don’t you think your provokin the Almigh¬ 
ty by puttin up that rod ?” asked Deacon Little, 
who has never forgiven me for turning salt 
marsh into meadow, and raising three tuns of 
herds-grass to the acre. “ You see,” continued 
the deacon, in his favorite style of argument, 
“ that what is to be, will be, and you can’t help 
it by lightnin rods or any other instrumentality. 
If it is decreed that your barn is to be struck 
with lightnin, I guess iron rods ain’t goin’ to save 
it. A man better not tamper with thunderbolts.” 
“Now,” said I, “Tucker, what have you got 
a chimney to your house for ?” 
“ Why, to carry the smoke off, to be sure, and 
to keep the house from burning up when we 
make a fire.” 
“ Well, said I, “won’t the smoke go where it 
is sent, just as much as the lightning. And yet 
you don’t find any difficulty in making the 
smoke follow the inside of the chimney, until it 
gets up into the air out of your way. Now I 
admit that lightning is a little more dangerous 
to handle than smoke, but it follows certain 
laws, just as straight as smoke does. You see, 
lightning has what the philosophers call an af¬ 
finity for iron, and it follows the outside of a 
rod, just as smoke does the inside of a chimney. 
Some say it goes down, and others say it goes 
up. At any rate, it sticks to the rod, and so 
passes off without doing any damage, just as 
smoke sticks to the chimney. If you want to 
know why it does that, I will tell you when you 
can tell why smoke goes up chimney. It fol¬ 
lows the road that is built for it, just as regular¬ 
ly as a locomotive follows the railroad.” 
“An engine would go rather promiscuous, 
Squire, if’t wa’nt for them ’ere rails,” said Seth 
Twiggs, as he blew an extra puff from his pipe, 
illustrating that smoke would go where it was 
sent, when it did not follow a chimney. 
“ But that ain’t a fair argument,” said Deacon 
Little, “ you know it ain’t Tim Bunker, you in¬ 
fidel. We make smoke and can control it, but 
the Almighty makes the lightning.” 
“Well Deacon,” I asked, “What have you 
put shingles upon your house for ?” 
“ Why, to shed rain, of course.” 
“Very well,” said I, “and the Almighty 
makes the rain, if he don’t make smoke; and if 
a man is to be wet, he will be, and you can’t 
help it by putting shingles over his head, or by 
any other instrumentality. It is no use tamper¬ 
ing with what Noah’s deluge was made of.” 
The Deacon saw he was caught, and looked 
over to Mr. Spooner for help. He always be¬ 
lieves in Mr. Spooner’s orthodoxy, when he 
sides with himself, otherwise he is heretical. 
“I do not see how you can get round the 
Squire’s argument against shingles, remarked 
Mr. Spooner, rather dryly. 
“ It stands to reason,” I continued, by way of 
clinching the argument, “that rain is just as 
much a Heaven-sent article as lightning. If a 
man is wise in turning off the rain, by a shingle, 
he can not be a fool, or an infidel, in turning off 
the lightning by an iron rod.” It is surpris¬ 
ing, Mr. Editor, to find so much ignorance, and 
prejudice, in the community, against the use of 
lightning rods. It is just as well settled, in the 
minds of all intelligent people, that these con¬ 
ductors are a complete protection against light¬ 
ning, as it is that roofs are a complete protec¬ 
tion against the storm. Roofs sometimes leak, 
and the rods sometimes do not* connect. In 
either case, the fault is not in the theory, but in 
the imperfect realization of it. A whole roof is 
a complete protection against rain. A good rod 
is a complete safeguard against lightning. And 
yet we find a hundred roofs where w r e find one 
rod. A house or barn is considered finished 
when the roof is on, and the glass is in the win¬ 
dows. I don’t consider it finished until the 
lightning rod is on. 
Most people consider it pretty good policy to 
get insured against fire, though there are some 
who seem to think it a sort of gambling to do 
that. A man builds a barn, worth $3,000, and 
when his stock and hay and grain are in, it is 
worth not less than $5,000. He gets it insured, 
at a cost, say, of $10 a year, and thinks it good 
economy. Upon the same principle that a man 
gets insured against fire, I think he had better 
get insured against lightning. It is much cheap¬ 
er, and he has the advantage of being his own 
insurance company. All the rods that protect 
my barn, with the expense of putting them up, 
cost only $33, the interest on which is only $2 a 
year. The protection is perfect, and the rods 
will last as long as the barn does. Here is 
$5,000 worth of property made secure against 
lightning, for $2 a year. 
It is very common to read in the papers, of 
lightning striking barns—setting them on fire, 
or killing oxen and horses sheltered in them. I 
consider that there is more danger to buildings 
in the country from this source than there is 
from fire. In the city it is different. The 
lightning rod is a very cheap insurance com¬ 
pany. It never proves bankrupt and fails to 
pay. Dishonest clerks w T ill not run away with 
the capital. Scamps and scoundrels can’t steal 
the fluid and fire the barn with it. It will fol¬ 
low the rod with a good deal more certainty 
than smoke follows the chimney. 
The pecuniary advantage of this protection is 
clear enough, and I guess Deacon Little will be¬ 
gin to see it pretty soon. But this is only one 
item. You see, it is a great satisfaction to know 
that your stock and your family, as well as your 
buildings, are all safe when a thunder shower 
comes up. I am not more scary than most peo¬ 
ple, but it is a mighty uncomfortable sensation, 
when the thunder is crashing around your 
dwelling, to think that the next bolt may find 
its way to the earth, through your body, or 
through one of your family. As our bodies are 
very good conductors, and we are not born 
with lightning rods on us, I think we had bet¬ 
ter put them on our houses, and then the light¬ 
ning will go just where we send it. 
I always noticed, before I put up a rod, that 
Mrs. Bunker took to the bed as regular as a 
thunder gust came up in the Summer. She has 
got considerable courage, but she said “no 
Q67 
woman could be expected to stand lightning/' 
But since we have had the rod, she sits by the 
window reading, with her spectacles on, just as 
calmly as if the lightning never killed folks. I 
don’t know how two or three dollars a yeai 
could purchase so much comfort, in any other 
article. People’s tastes differ, you see, about 
comfort. Mine runs towards lightning rods. 
Yours to command, 
Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
Hookertown , Aug, 15,1861. 
—-«*-•>——*-«>.-. 
A Short Sermon on Stables. 
The recent improvements in American archi¬ 
tecture have not reached the stable, to the ex¬ 
tent that could be desired. Brown stone fronts, 
high ceilings, marble mantel-pieces, costly fur¬ 
naces for warming and ventilating the dwelling, 
may please the eye and promote the health and 
comfort of the occupants, while the valuable 
horses of the proprietor are suffering from a 
poorly constructed and poorly ventilated stable. 
The fault often lies in two direcctions. The 
stable may be too tight, or too open. A horse 
needs light, as well as air and suitable warmth 
and food,—the vegetable structure hardly needs 
light more than he does. Pure air is essential. 
His blood can not become purified while the air 
which inflates his lungs is full of foul gases 
from fermenting manures. Nor is it enough to 
keep the stalls clean, if they are so tight that 
the horse is obliged to breathe his own breath 
over and over again. Digestion is interfered 
with, and all the functions of life are impeded. 
Lazy grooms declare that a close, warm stable, 
helps to make a horse’s coat fine and glossy in 
Winter as well as in Summer. But in Winter, 
such a coat is not to be desired. Nature pro¬ 
vides the animal with longer hair and more of 
it, to defend him from the cold. If the horse is 
well groomed and blanketed, his hair will be 
smooth and glossy enough all the year round. 
The indolent groom ought himself to be shut up 
for twenty four hours in the hot, steaming air in 
which lie would confine his master’s horse, and 
see how he would like it. Open the doors of 
such a stable in the morning, where several 
horses are kept, and the hot air and the harts¬ 
horn are almost sufficient to knock a man down. 
What w T onder, then, that horses so used, should 
suffer from inflamed eyes, cough, glanders, and 
other ailments ! The wonder is that they bear 
the abuse so long and so well. 
Now, the “ improvement" to our sermon is 
simply this: ventilate the stables. Ventilate, both in 
Winter and Summer. The outer air should be 
brought in at certain places near the floor, but 
not in the immediate neighborhood of the horse, 
so as to cause hurtful drafts of wind directly 
upon him. Impure air must be ejected, as well 
as pure air brought in. This can be done in 
Summer very well by leaving several windows 
open in different parts of the barn. But a bet¬ 
ter way is to insert ventilators in the highest 
part of the building, into which ventiducts, 
(square wooden tubes,) shall lead from the stalls, 
and which can be opened or closed at pleasure. 
These ventilators should be covered with a cap, 
to prevent downward currents and the beating 
in of rain. By this plan, the foul air is carried 
off directly from the stall without mixing with 
the hay in the loft. 
Period of Gestation in Mares. —W. H. 
Ladd states in “Field Notes,” that from records 
kept the last 13 years, he finds the more usual 
lime of pregnancy with mares is 115 months. 
