338 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[September, 
plan of shoeing oxen which we have seen among 
the lumberers of Canada. The ox is thrown 
and held down while the shoes are fixed, the 
feet being kept drawn up tightly together. The 
animals seem to understand it and keep com¬ 
paratively quiet. Ox shoes (fig. 3) need to be 
made much lighter than horse shoes and are 
differently shaped. Most blacksmiths know 
Fig. 3.— ox, shoes. 
'now to make them, yet we have found some 
that did not; we therefore give a representation 
of the shape of the shoe, two of which are re¬ 
quired for each foot, a left and a right one. Any 
one tha* can m il on a horse shoe can fix an ox 
shoe. The Ds.on cattle make by far the best 
working oxen. They are active, strong, and 
tractable, easily kept and fattened, and make 
first-class beef when slaughtered. 
Pickling Seed 'Wheat. —The results of ex¬ 
periments have fully substantiated the benefit, 
as a preventive of smut, of pickling the seed 
preparatory to sowing it. The pickle may be 
either common salt dissolved in water, strong 
enough to bear up an egg, or sulphate of 
copper, at the rate of one pound dissolved in 
eight gallons of water. The pickle should be 
placed in a tub, the seed poured slowly into it, so 
that the light grains will float; these are to be re¬ 
moved, as they should not be sown. The seed 
may soak for a few minutes, then take it out 
and put it in a heap on the barn-floor to drain; 
after draining, mix it with some fresh-slaked 
lime, until it is dry, thou sow it immediately. 
A Simple Stump Puller. 
W. S. Ramsey, Butler Co., Pa., wants a stump 
puller. In reply we give an illustration of a 
simple but j r et very efficient one, which has done 
us some good service. It is worked by a lever, 
largest stump near (a); on each side of this is a 
clevis with a short chain and hook attached. 
To work the machine, fix a chain to the stump 
to be pulled, hook on to one of the short chains 
of the machine ( b ), draw up the oxen until that 
chain is tight; hook on the other chain ( c ), turn 
the team, and draw up its far as they can go.; 
hook the chain (5), turn and draw again, and 
so repeat until the stump is drawn out. Then 
fasten on to another, and repeat the process un¬ 
til all the stumps are out within reach of the 
one the machine is anchored to. The machine 
will then have to be moved to another anchor¬ 
ing place, and so on until the field is cleared. 
The last stump left must be grubbed out. It 
will be necessary to remember that the power 
of this lever is very great, and stump pulling 
requires stout implements and chains. A 
breakage may not only cause delay, but a blow 
from a snapping chain may very easily be fatal; 
it is therefore absolutely necessary for safety 
that the chains be made of the best iron, with 
the best workmanship, and strong enough to 
hold against all the resistance they may meet. 
The lever should be strengthened with iron 
plates in those parts where the holes are bored 
for the clevis bolts. 
A STUMI* PULLER. 
moved preferably by a stout yoke of oxen. The 
end of the lever is supplied with a strong clevis, 
sufficiently long to pass around so as to be used 
on either side. *The fulcrum of the lever con¬ 
sists of a chain which is to be fastened to the 
The Mother’s Milk for Calves. 
I visited one of my neighbors yesterday, who 
has a reputation for raising good stock. He 
showed me a Jersey heifer, as he called her, one 
year old. The sire was Joe Hooker, No. 465, 
Am. J. C. C. Register, a fawn-and-white bull ol 
high reputation. The dam was a large fawn- 
and-white cow, represented as purely bred, but 
without recorded pedigree. She looks enough 
like Sharpless Duchess, 101, Am. J. C. C. R., 
to be her sister. She had been bought by a 
former owner for $450, on account of her great 
excellence as a milker. This yearling heifer 
looked so much like the Guernsey stock, that 
good judges would call her a thorough-bred 
Guernsey. She was quite as large as common 
two-year-old Jerseys. But it was not good 
blood alone that had made this well-developed 
heifer. She had run with the mother all last 
season and was now in flush pasture. This 
told the story. A full year has been gained by 
good feeding, and she will be a well-grown 
cow with a calf at two years old. I have been 
laying this experiment on my farm the past two 
years, and am perfectly satisfied there is no sub¬ 
stitute for the mother’s milk in raising good 
milking stock. Milk is the natural food of 
calves, and on the plains of 
Texas and Kansas, where grass 
and milk are plenty, they suck 
the cows until they dry up. Milk 
is costly on Northern farms, 
especially Jersey milk, which is 
nearly half cream. It seems al¬ 
most too good to give to a calf, 
however handsome. But the 
Jersey heifer, if a Herd-Book 
animal, and well raised, is also 
a very costly animal. Willi the 
mother’s milk invested in the 
calf, she is likely to be grace¬ 
ful, and to gain some of the 
fancy points which command 
high prices. It is better to 
raise heifers worth $300 at two years old on the 
mother’s milk than to raise them worth $100 
on hay-tea and skim-milk. No more slops 
and pot-bellied yearlings for me. 
Connecticut. 
Grain-Bins and Corn-Cribs. 
Much inconvenience in handling grain is oc¬ 
casioned by a faulty construction of the bins in 
the granaries. Generally the grain has to be 
shoveled out over the top of the bin into a bag, 
requiring two persons to perform the work. 
We recommend an improvement illustrated in 
figure 1. The bin is raised on short posts a few 
inches from the floor. This prevents the tapping 
of the grain by rats and mice. These often cause 
great loss by gnawing holes through the corner 
of the bin, through which much grain escapes. 
A false bottom, with sufficient elevation to 
cause the grain to flow towards the front, is 
arranged, and a slide-door at the bottom 
permits it t» run into a half-bushel stand¬ 
ing on the floor; from whence it may be 
transferred to a bag, if desired. One man 
can now perform the job alone. If the door 
be placed at the center of the bin, the bot¬ 
tom may be arranged so that every grain will 
run out as it is wanted. To affect this, the bot¬ 
tom must slope every way towards the outlet. 
Many country millers who handle a good deal 
of grain might profitably have their bins made 
in this manner. 
Corn-cribs might be improved in a double way 
by a somewhat similar arrangement of the floor. 
Generally, if any mold occurs in a crib, it is on 
the floor, as here is found the first corn put in, 
which is generally dampest, and here the least 
ventilation takes place. A floor raised “roof¬ 
shaped” (fig. 2), and holes bored in it for ven¬ 
tilation, would effectually prevent dampness or 
mold in that part of the crib; and if slide-doors 
are put here and there at the bottom, at con- 
