338 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
culture, which, for want of room, is una¬ 
voidably postponed till our next. 
SOME CHEAP METHODS OE MOVING HAY. 
There are a number of methods in which 
hay that is to be stacked or housed on the 
meadow may be gathered with less trouble 
than loading it on a wagon. For rough side 
hill meadows, a sled with wooden shoes is 
best, since it may be driven to places quite 
inaccessible to a wagon. If it is desirable 
to use more teams on such meadows than 
we have sleds for, a substitute may be made 
out of a bush , or top of a tree cut just below 
the forks. Selecting the side on which there 
are the most limbs, for the bottom, the small 
limbs that project each way may be cut with 
an ax sufficiently to allow them to sink in 
between the main forks, without completely 
severing their attachment. Such a bush is a 
sled already rigged, the limbs and small 
twigs completely supporting the hay, and if 
care is taken to cut the end with an upward 
slant, like the nose of a sled-runner, it will 
run easily. 
Another method, when the hay is to be 
drawn but a short distance over smooth 
ground, is with a rope, both ends of which 
may be fastened to the traces of a horse, and 
the middle being brought over a hay cock 
and held in its place near the bottom by the 
weight of a man, who lays the handle of a 
fork across the hay, and leans on it to keep 
the hay in place. The horse ridden by a 
boy, or driven by the man, draws the rope, 
man, and hay, along the ground.- This is a 
very speedy method of moving hay in the 
field, but is liable to the objections of leav¬ 
ing scatterings, and also of soiling the hay. 
The latter is so serious an objection as to 
ilmost superscede the process, since, aside 
from fermentation, there is nothing that 
renders hay so unpalatable to stock as filth. 
We give a modification of this process of 
roping hay, from the correspondence of an 
exchange: 
In the first place, procure a rope—sea weed 
is best—seventy or eighty feet long and an 
inch and a half in diameter; also two old 
forks, very crooked, rather short tines, and 
long handles. Care should be taken to have 
the winrows straight, and well closed. It is 
common here to rake up all or nearly all the 
hay before beginning to draw. Two horses 
and three hands—one man and two boys— 
are required. Some men after considerable 
practice can doit with only a driver. 
Place one horse each side of the winrow, 
tie one end of the rope to one whiffletree, and 
the other end to the other whiffletree. The 
inside lines must be lengthened two or three 
feet in order that the driver may keep them 
apart and make them go one on one side, 
and the other on the opposite side of the win- 
row. Then let the man and one boy, armed 
with these forks, go to the middle of the 
loop formed by the rope and place it on the 
further end off the winrow, close to the end, 
with but little hay under it. Let the farmer 
then place both feet upon it, and laying the 
handle of the forks crosswise of the pile 
lean upon it with his hands. Then the team 
is to start, and the hay will go along in an 
increasing heap before them. After pro¬ 
ceeding a rod or two they may stop, and see 
whether the rope is drawing under or over, 
and raise or lower it as is necessary, being 
careful always to keep some hay under it. 
Now the man takes one side, the boy on the 
other; both standing on the rope, as far for¬ 
ward as they can with one knee against the 
load for support, picking up the hay with 
their forks lest it run under. If any escape, 
it can be thrown on to or forward of the 
load. When the winrow is too long to be 
taken at once, divide it. To unload, untie 
the rope from the near horse, and hang the 
whiffletree on the hames. The team being 
driven on, the other horse draws out the rope. 
The process can then be repeated till all is 
drawn to the desired spot. Oxen may be 
used by making a yoke eight or nine feet 
long, without increase of size in the middle 
or crook. In the forward side between the 
heads of the cattle insert two pins, one to 
each, and far enough from them, so that the 
rope may not gall their sides—the rope to 
pass under the yoke and tie to the pin, the 
end of which points up that it may not slip 
off. Process as before. 
With either, when the load is gathered, 
put th forks into the forward part, and still 
keeping on the rope, hold it that it may not 
run under. The horse rake will take all the 
scatterings where the work is well done. In 
pitching, commence at the hind end of the 
load. Two or three forks full will come 
hard ; after that, with little practice, itcanbe 
pitched much easier and faster than from a 
wagon with most loaders. 
^Its recommendations are, first, cheapness, 
iwiosts but little, and will never get out of 
gear, till worn out. Second, dispatch ; one 
and with favoring circumstances two men 
can be kept pitching constantly. Third, ease 
of working; it can be managed entirely by 
boys, or the lighter hands, whereas, in the 
common way, the best hands must go with 
the teams. Last season on this farm, two 
boys, fourteen and seventeen years of age, 
used it, both with and without a third boy to 
assist. 
But some one will say it needs a great 
many hands to do all this. It is indeed fitted 
for a large business, but it can be used to 
advantage in a small one. Last year, a 
neighbor, having two boys did the whole 
without other help. He would draw several 
loads to the barn, and then stop and take care 
of it. 
One more advantage should not be forgot¬ 
ten. With it hay can be secured from an 
approaching storm, when no other means 
with which we are acquainted will save it. 
In commencing to use it, do not be dis¬ 
couraged if it draws under or over and leaves 
a pile occasionally. “ Try, try again.” The 
writer had that trouble; but “ practice makes 
perfect,” and having seen the truth of the 
maxim verified in others, he followed in their 
footseps.—C., in Ohio Farmer. 
Steam Plows and Cultivators. —The 
English farmers, chagrined that the Yankees 
stepped in, and, as they say, stole the idea 
of a grain reaper from them, and now reap 
all the honors, are determined not to be 
caught napping a second time. The leading 
English agricultural journals are discussing 
the matter, with a good deal of spirit, and 
liberal prizes are offered for the most suc¬ 
cessful steam cultivator. One, of a thou¬ 
sand doll irs, is to be awarded at the next 
meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society. 
What are American mechanics doing to¬ 
wards applying steam to the soil tilling? 
Here is a fine field for some one. Steam, 
and not animal muscles, is speedily to be¬ 
come the moving power before clod break¬ 
ers, and the man who first successfully yokes 
the steamchest to the plow will reap a rich 
harvest. Notwithstanding the present in¬ 
terest awakened abroad, we predict that 
that man now lives on this side of the Atlan¬ 
tic.— New-York Times. 
For the American Agriculturist 
MEDITERRANEAN VS. SOULE’S WHEAT. 
In this part of the country, since the whea 
crop has been so much affected by tne wee¬ 
vil, the Mediterranean, of all other kinds 
sown, is the most profitable, on account of 
its extraordinary exemption from injury by 
this destroyer. 
Numerous accounts might be given of in¬ 
stances that have fallen under the writer’s 
notice, which proves that this, of all varieties 
is least liable to injury from this source. 
A neighbor of mine last year sowed a field 
containing twenty acres, part to Mediterra¬ 
nean, and part to Soule’s wheat. At harvest 
the former was found to be uninjured, while 
the latter was so weevil-eaten as to be hard¬ 
ly worth threshing. In an adjacent field, 
I had a piece of Mediterranean wheat, which 
was also uninjured by weevils, excepting 
one or two spots where it had been partly 
winter-killed and come on late. 
I notice the same striking contrasts this 
year, and so apparent has this become, that 
but little of any other than the Mediterranean 
is sown hereabouts. 
The probable reason of this exemption, is 
the fact that this variety ripens rather ear¬ 
lier than the Soule’s and other varieties, 
since late ripening Mediterranean is found 
to be as badly injured by weevil as other 
kinds. 
In regard to the insects, I perceive that 
Mediterranean wheat, and other kinds, in 
this section, have been much injured this 
year. Some pieces of Mediterranean that I 
have seen, present the appearance of hens 
having worked in them. The injury from 
this source is greater this year than last. 
Weedsport, N. Y. F. I. B. 
SAFFRON. 
Thi3 article comes to us from the East. 
It is highly prized in Europe. I remember 
that, in my youth, saffron was very dear in 
Poland, a pound costing ninety francs, or 
sixteen dollars. But industrious France en¬ 
gaged in this trade, and commenced the cul¬ 
tivation of this plant; and throughout the 
environs of Pithiver, in the department of 
Loirret, whence it was sent into Poland and 
was sold for that of the East, although it had 
less strength, on account of the cheapness 
of the price for which it was sold. 
In 1834, in France, I examined the mode 
in which this was cultivated, and here note 
the results which I then obtained. 
Saffron is that portion of the corolla termed 
the ray, and is cultivated by transplanting 
the tuber. It requires an argillacious, marly 
soil, and should be cultivated without being 
manured. The tubers are planted at a dis¬ 
tance of ten fingers, and three fingers in 
depth. They produce a stem which after 
two months produces a flower, and of the 
ray petals of this flower the saffron consists. 
The petals are plucked and are collected in 
a sieve, and then dried in the shade, as the 
sun dissipates their strength. After the saf¬ 
fron is gathered, the stems are dug up with¬ 
out breaking them. The vines are then 
cleaned and preserved for the next year. 
They should be kept in a dry and warm 
place where there is no ordor. 
After the saffron is gathered, the flower 
and stems are cut off near the ground, and 
the plant is left to vegetate until the next 
y- ar, without any other care than that of 
keeping it free from weeds, and it will pro¬ 
duce a crop in the second year, and even in 
the third, as good as in the first. 
Saffron should be planted in April, and the 
harvesting is in September. The land used 
for this plant, after three years, should be 
cultivated with other crops for six years. 
Tlie petals of the flower should be dried 
