1871 .] 
267 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
Setting; Traps. 
BY “ CARLET0N.” 
I dare say, my young friends, that you will think it 
strange when I inform you that I was once a great 
hunter; but it is a fact, nevertheless. I commenced very 
early, when I was a little white-haired boy. 
“ r 11 give you a cent for every mouse, and two cents 
for every rat you will catch,” said my father, and I went 
to work. My traps were figure fours, and they were 
made with three thin splinters of wood, with notches 
cut in them, and a board with a heavy rock on top of it. 
When the trap was set, the three sticks resembled the 
figure 4^ under a board. I tied a bit of toasted cheese 
to the trencher, and wound it round with a thread, so 
that the mice would have to nibble a long while to get it 
off; and the chances were that if they touched it, they 
would be squeezed flatter than a pancake in a twinkling. 
I set traps in the garret, in the cellar, and in the granary. 
You may be sure that I was up early the next morning. 
I dreamed of catching rats and mice all night. I rushed 
up to the garret, but the traps were not sprung. I 
hastened dow r n into the- cellar, two steps at a jump ; no 
mice there. My enthusiasm was cooling ; but I went to 
the corn-bin, and there -was my first prize, a little mouse 
flattened out almost as thin as a wafer, and spread over 
an astonishing amount of surface. How proudly I 
walked into the house carrying the trophy by its tail, 
which for all the world looked like a shoe-string t How 
gloriously that first cent I ever earned slipped into my 
pocket! There was only one drawback to my pleasure, 
I wanted another cent to chink with it. I showed it to 
all the boys at school; looked at it during school hours, 
when I ought to have been reading about the dog that 
met a bad boy and bit him—in the spelling-book. I 
rubbed it on the seat to make it bright and shining, and 
let it fall, and saw it roll across the floor on its edge 
toward the master, a thin-faced fellow, with eyes like a 
pig, who picked it up and put it in his pocket, and that 
was the last of my first fortune. 
When I told the story of my loss at home, my older 
sister, who was always saying queer things, and quoting 
poetry, said it was another illustration of the truth of 
the saying that “ Blessings brighten when they take 
their flightand all the grown-up folks laughed, though 
I could not see anything particular to laugh at. My 
father said that it showed that riches take to themselves 
wings and fly away—that money is slippery stuff. I am 
sure that it is; so far from that time to the present, it 
has slipped away from me in an unaccountable manner. 
But though I lost my first fortune, those figure fours were 
the snow, and put some corn underneath. When the jay 
put his head through the hole to get at the corn, he could 
not get it back again, for some slips of basket stuff held 
him fast. The silly creatures plunged their heads in 
without once stopping to think whether they could ever 
get them out again. But, then, I have seen boys and 
men quite as silly in some of their habits, especially 
when they take to drinking whiskey. 
I am afraid that I was a mischievous fellow in my boy¬ 
hood, especially in trapping the hens. But it was such 
fun to bend a pole, with a slip-noose lying coiled on the 
ground, with a kernel of corn on the trencher, to see a 
biddy pick it up, and the next moment be dangling, 
squawking and fluttering in the air I 
There was a had boy who lived near by who used to 
tie two kernels of corn together by a string. He would 
manage to have one hen swallow one, and another the 
other. Then there was pulling and hauling, squawking 
and fluttering—now one hen losing her breakfast, and 
now the other,—-the bad boy rubbing his hands and 
screaming with delight to see the strife. But his father 
saw what was going on one day, and dusted his jacket 
with a withe, and served him right, for if there is any¬ 
thing mean and low and deserving of punishment, it is 
the wanton giving of pain to a dumb creature. 
If I had space I could tell you some nice stories about 
trapping rabbits and foxes—howl set my first fox-trap, 
and how I hastened out the next morning and found I 
had caught a skunk 1 how an old fox knew fill about the 
trap and used to spring it by striking it suddenly with 
one of his fore feet, and then quietly ate up all the bait, 
and undoubtedly had a hearty laugh all to himself to 
think how he had outwitted me, and how the sly fellow' 
was caught at last, by setting two traps. But I must 
make my stories very short, and I can. only tell you 
about a man who started for the w'oods one day with a 
great trap, large enough to hold a bear. “What are you 
going to catch?” asked one of his neighbors. “0,1 
don’t know but the devil or one of his imps, like 
enough," said the man with the trap, who didn’t read 
his Bible much, and who used bad language now and 
then. A bear had been seen in the neighborhood and 
had killed a sheep, and the trapper set his trap to catch 
him. He fixed the bait upon the trencher and tied some 
more to a stake driven into the ground, and was going 
away when, not noticing where he was stepping, put his 
own foot in the trap. The great iron jaws came together 
with a grip that held, him fast, ne screamed and yelled 
for help, and the people ran to see what was the matter, 
and found him in the trap. 
“ We didn’t think you would catch the devil or one of 
his imps, so soon,” said his neighbors when they helped 
him out, and they laughed at him so much that he hung 
his head, and what v'as better, it so shamed him that he 
left off using profane words and became a better man. 
BATS CARRYING OFF A BUCKWHEAT CAKE. 
profitable concerns as long as the game lasted, and I 
soon had a dozen cents to chink in my pocket. I re¬ 
member that one Sunday I astonished the whole con¬ 
gregation when one of the deacons came round with, his 
black beaver hat to take up a collection for the Tuscarora 
Indians, by letting them all drop one at a time into the 
hat. It was by far the largest contribution made that 
day, judging by the sound I 
I had great fun in trapping the blue-jays that came in 
flocks during the winter and helped themselves at the 
corn-crib. I bored holes in shingles and buried them in 
The Ingenuity of BEats. 
If rats were not such mischievous animals, we should 
admire their cunning much more than we do. Their 
sagacity is all employed in ways that are injurious, and 
in avoiding punishment for their misdeeds. An old rat 
is a shrewd animal, and if we wish to catch him, we 
must exercise a great amount of strategy. He has a sus¬ 
picious turn of mind, and a sharp eye for any thing in the 
shape of a trap, and unless the trap is thoroughly con¬ 
cealed, the most tempting, bait will not tempt him to 
come and be caught. There are many curious storieB 
told of the devices rats will resort to to obtain food. A 
gentleman at Chicago, Ill., sends a drawing to illustrate 
something that happened in his neighborhood, and we 
have had it engraved. A lady threw out at her 
back door some griddle-cakes for the chickens, 
and soon after, upon looking ont of the window, 
she saw a large rat smelling around them. He ran off 
and soon returned with a companion. He then rolled 
up one of the cakes with his nose, and, turning upon his 
back, held the rolled cake by his legs, while his compan¬ 
ion took him by the tail and dragged him to their hiding- 
place. We have often heard of eggs being carried in 
this manner by rats, and that is a performance that seems 
sensible, as an egg is a load that cannot well be divided ; 
hut why the rats should take this method to carry off a 
thing that could be so readily gnawed into pieces, seems 
rather singular. Still the story comes well authenticated. 
Awnt Sue’s Puzzle-llox. 
pi. 
19. Snesedil si het cheerlups fo a ginvu nam. 
Birds, Fruit, Animals, etc. 
20. A title and an angler. 
21. A file and a fruit. 
22. A tree and a fruit. 
23. Another tree and a fruit. 
24. A plaything and a reptile. Harry H. 
Cryptograph. 
23. Ilsgy xuffxq zacq fsmy lai uy mrq, 
U oqqzqo zieqxp mxzaef m cmrq; 
Lwf yah eqqz hacfsuqc fa lq efixqo 
Pac uryacmyng-mxzaef m nsuxo. 
H. II. Clarke. 
TRIANGLE PUZZLE. 
26. 1. A number. 2. A color. 3. A coin. 4. A 
country. The center letters of these will 
form one of Shakspeare’s characters. 
Adolph M. Nagel. 
27. Join a cake to a verb and make a vessel. 
Ben. 
TRANSPOSITIONS. 
(Fill the following blanks with the same words 
transposed.) 
28. They-ceremony in that-. 
29. Bridget do not-so with that-. 
30. Why-what was so beautifully-? 
31- Many a wicked-is done in the-. 
32. -men were-. 
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN THE MAY NUMBER. 
408. A new broom sweeps clean. 
1. Glass, grass. (Many answered this with “ brass, 
grass,” confusing “mineral” with “metal.”) 2. Chat, 
chap. 3. Girl, girt. 4. China, chine. 5. Proscribe, pre¬ 
scribe. 6. Voracity, veracity. 7. Dictionary. 8. Power, 
olive, wires, event, rests. 9. Pyrannces, Adelaide, Red, 
Itasco, Soudan: Paris, Sedan.. 10. H. r mule, Oquawoka, 
ANAGRAMS. 
1. I rise to a liut. 0. Did hinges suit? 
2. At it, mule. 7. I battle sore. 
3. Sun. a planet. 8. Pure lamb tribe. 
4. Duns spare us. 9. Nice tone, Dorr. 
5. Run at it. Lass. 10. Ah 1 rude love I 
I am composed of 25 letters : 
My 1, 13, 21, 17, 22, is an article of clothing. 
My 9, 6, 4, 25, 1, 3, 12, 10, 17, is a sad affliction to 
many. 
My 7, 5, 24, 20, 15, 16, 13, is a prolific subject of 
conversation. 
My 18, 2, 6, 8, is what children love to hear. 
My 23, 19, 11, 14, 5, 13, is what the universe is com¬ 
posed of. 
My whole is the name of an eminent man. 
Sam D. May. 
Behead a name and leave it the same. 
Behead a fish and leave a vessel. 
Behead tragedy and leave comedy. 
Behead males and leave females. 
Willie W. Young. 
I am composed of 20 letters r 
My 11, 4, 2, 16, 17, 1, is a girl’s name. 
My 1, 17, 6, is an insect. 
My 13, S, 20, 2, Is a titled person. 
My 5, 8, 9, is an animal. 
My 3, 19, 8, 5, is an animal. 
My 7, 16, 17, 18, 10, 20, is a spice. 
My 12, 16, 2, 19, is a stick of wood driven into the 
ground. 
My 14, 8. 20, 15, is an article of food. 
My whole is the name of the author. 
17. Square the word “ Masts.” 
18. Square the word “ Grace.” 
Star and Crescent. 
