14 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
knife, to disengage the skives. This is done un¬ 
til tho lint is clean. 
The usual day’s work, or task, is 80 pounds, 
though much depends upon the state of the 
weather, and the character of the workman. 
Smart hands will frequently break twice this 
quantity in a day. The scutching is now gener¬ 
ally done by the manufacturer. A day’s work, as 
it comes from the brake, is done up in a bundle, 
and is then sent to market. 
As may readily be inferred, this crop, with so 
many handlings—pulling, binding in bundles 
stacking, spreading for rotting, and gathering 
again, housing, breaking, and baling—comes to 
market, in a great variety of conditions, very 
much affecting its value. It is almost impossible 
with the labor usually employed upon this crop, 
to produce an article of uniform excellence. 
Some is not rotted enough, some too much. 
Sometimes the breaking is not thoroughly done, 
and again it is imperfectly cleaned and careless¬ 
ly handled. The price ranges from $3 to $8 
the long cwt. (113 lbs). At the average price of 
five dollars, it pays rather better than tobacco or 
corn in localities distant from market. 
Effect upon the Soil. —Hemp exhausts the 
soil much less than many of the grain crops. 
The quantity of dressed lint from the acre varies 
from six hundred to a thousand pounds, accord¬ 
ing to the soil and the season. A dozen crops 
are sometimes taken from the same field, but this 
is bad husbandry. It is considered a cleansing 
crop, as it keeps down all weeds, and leaves the 
ground in fine condition for grain or grass. The 
pulling of the long roots disturbs the soil in much 
the same way as the cultivation of carrots and 
other tap roots, though not quite so deep. 
The Hemp Market— In our own country is 
quite large, ranking next after cotton among the 
textile crops. We import, some years, of hemp 
and its manufactures, to the amount of nearly 
ten millions of dollars. Besides this, we raise a 
crop worth about five millions more, which is 
mainly consumed in this country. If our gov¬ 
ernment steadily pursued the policy of encour¬ 
aging the consumption of home products and 
manufactures, there would be an inviting field of 
labor in the increased production of this crop— 
as the statistics show that we produce only about 
one-third of what is annually consumed in the 
country. With the finest soil for this crop in the 
world, and abundant capital and labor, there 
seems to Ire no good reason why the country 
should send ten millions abroad to pay for this 
article. * 
Reports on Sorghum. 
A correspondent of the Rural New-Yorker 
writes from Henry Co., Iowa : ‘Tam quite satis¬ 
fied that the new sugar cane is destined to be an 
institution in the Northwest, and that Iowa may 
be set down as one of the sugar growing states 
of the Union. There have been thousands of gal¬ 
lons of syrup made in this county, and next year 
the quantity will be multiplied many times. Su¬ 
gar mills—wooden and iron—have been erected in 
every neighborhood of three or four farms, and 
have succeeded beyond expectation in making a 
very fair article of syrup. With all our imperfec¬ 
tion of machinery and inexperience, 200 gallons 
per acre are considered by actual experiment but 
a moderate yield.” 
The Peoria (Ill.) Transcript states that within 
a circle of three miles in Peoria Co. 100 barrels 
of Sorghum syrup were manufactured by the 
farmers of Hint vicinity. A company has been 
formed, a five-roller mill erected, and one of 
Cook’s evaporators (illustrated in the Dec. Agri¬ 
culturist) purchased, which turns off 50 gallons 
of syrup per day—about the capacity of the mill. 
The juice is expressed for those who wish to do 
their own boiling, at two cents per gallon, or the 
syrup is returned to those furnishing the cane at 
eighteen cents per gallon. The mill and evapo¬ 
rator cost $200. 
The Freeport (Ill.) Journal mentions a farmer 
in Stephenson county, who will have 100 barrels 
of Sorghum syrup to sell the present year. 
The Davenport (Iowa) Gazette, in speaking of 
the manufactory in Henry Co., says : “ The stalks 
are stripped of their leaves, and run through a 
two-roller mill, and the juice transferred to a 
shallow pan, with an evaporating surface of 40 
square feet. The boiling is continued until five- 
sixths of the liquid has been evaporated, leaving 
the remaining one-sixth a Sorghum molasses of 
superior quality. Twenty-five gallons of syrup 
are turned off at one boiling, and four boilings 
can be made each day.” 
White Clover {Trifolium repens.). 
This is a hardy plant, and it propagates itself 
wherever it has once become established on a 
favorite soil, since enough of its low growing 
heads escape the scythe and feeding of animals, 
to furnish seed for renewing the plants. It is too 
small to furnish meadow hay, but its densely 
matted, sweet, nutritions food, ever-growing and 
abundant, makes it most valuable for pasture; 
and its flowers yield the finest honey collected by 
bees. White clover is partial to clay lands where 
the surface has a fair supply of vegetable matter. 
It thrives best in the Northern and Middle States. 
We have heard little of it at the South. Have 
any of our readers in the uplands of Georgia, and 
in other southern regions had much experience 
with it 1 
During the past season the writer lias seen 
upon several farms in eastern New-York a meth¬ 
od of securing stakes and rails upon the top of 
stone walls, which is much liked by those who 
have practiced it. The stone walls are first laid 
up, say three feet high, and then blocks of wood 
or stone, three or four inches thick, are laid 
across the top for the first or lower rails to rest 
upon, as seen at B, B. Stakes, s, are driven down 
in pairs close to the sides of the wall, slightly in¬ 
clined inward. A stout iron wire is fasten¬ 
ed on to each pair, by twisting the ends around 
the upper part of the stakes, about two feet 
from the top of the wall. The top rails are laid 
upon these wires, their ends lapping, as seen in 
the cut. The inclination of the stakes keeps the 
wire from slipping down, and the weight upon 
the wire draws the tops of the stakes together, 
enclosing the rails, so that they are not easily 
blown off, or thrown down by unruly cattle. 
The lower rails are kept in place also by the 
stakes. In the ordinary way, where the stakes 
are crossed over the top of the wall, and the rails 
lay in the fork thus made, there is a constant 
strain upon the bottom of the stakes, where they 
enter the ground, and in wet weather they are 
often thus pried out. By the method above de¬ 
scribed, the weight of the rails acts almost per¬ 
pendicularly, thus -holding the stakes firmly in 
place. The wire costs but a trifle, and is rapidly 
put on. It is cheaper and more convenient, 
more durable, and better than the wooden caps 
sometimes used. This is the testimony of a con¬ 
siderable number of farmers with whom we have 
conversed on the subject, who have had it in use 
several years. 
Painting Buildings, etc—Zinc Paint. 
In reply to the queries of T. H. Wctherefl, 
Jefferson County, New-York, and others, we 
answer, that, for surfaces exposed to the 
sun, October and November are the best 
months for painting such buildings and fences as 
are not located where they will be soiled by 
clouds of dust raised by the Autumn winds 
December, January, or February, are quite as 
good months, if it can be done so as to harden 
somewhat before a storm. If not done in the 
above months, then the earlier in Spring the bet¬ 
ter. Paint put on late in Spring or in Summer, 
and exposed to the hot sun, is more liable to blis¬ 
ter, as well as to lose some of its oil by evapora¬ 
tion, and it does not harden so firmly as if put on 
in Autumn or Winter. 
For a white coat, the “ Zinc paint ” is prefer¬ 
able to “ white lead,” because the former is not 
browned by sulphuretted hydrogen or other 
gases in the atmosphere which act upon lead 
and darken it. On this account the zinc is es¬ 
pecially valuable for cellars, kitchens, privies, 
barns, and other out-buildings, and in houses 
where hard coal is used, as they are more sub¬ 
ject to sulphuretted hydrogen. But we prefer it 
for all white surfaces as being whiter and proba¬ 
bly quite as durable. There is an impression that 
zinc costs more than lead paint, because the price 
per pound is greater ; but this is a mistake. 
Zinc white is lighter and goes much further in 
giving color and body than the same weight of 
lead. Several experienced painters inform us 
that when painting a job contracted to be done 
with white lead, they freely allow the employer 
to change to zinc without extra charge, as they 
find it no more expensive, and requiring no more 
labor to put on an equally good coat and color of 
zinc than when lead is used. Some say, how¬ 
ever, that they can get a better body by using 
lead for the first, or priming coat, and then taking 
zinc for the remaining coats. We are just experi¬ 
menting with a mixture of white lead and zinc 
for a first coat, but shall finish off with pine zinc. 
A Shiftless Farmer. 
Just take a glimpse at him. He throws his 
manure out under the eaves of his barn, and lets 
it lie in sun and air, leaching away half of its 
strength into the neighboring streams. He neg¬ 
lects, also, to make use of many other useful mat¬ 
ters which might go to increase the compost- 
heap—such as bones, ashes, chip-dirt, contents 
of privy, forest-leaves, droppings of hen-roosts, 
muck, etc., etc. Yet at the same time, he buys 
stable manure at the neighboring town, and carts 
it home at considerable expense. 
He allows noxious weeds to overrun his land— 
white-daisy, snap-dragon, burdock, yellow-dock, 
quack grass, Canada thistles, and many other vile 
roots too numerous to mention. The time was, 
when most of these could have been extermi¬ 
nated by a little labor. When they first appeared 
in small numbers, a very little work with a’weed- 
ing-hoe or dock-extractor would have headed 
