104 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
no such faculty, and as the rider is the ass 
in this case, it must grin and bear it; unless, 
indeed, the Editor of the Cultivator happens 
along, and quietly putting a finger under the 
rein fillips it off the horn, and goes on as in¬ 
nocently as if nothing had happened, while 
the iclieved animal holds out his grateful 
nose and says, “ thank you, old fellow !” in a 
kind of horse latin, that is perfectly intelligi¬ 
ble to the editor aforesaid. 
“ One day last fall we were sitting in the 
store door of our friend Nelson, of Urbana ; 
it was the day of the County Fair, and as 
Nelson’s store is right fornenst the public 
square, the rural equestrians came in and 
soon filled the rails with their saddle nags. 
The riders as usual hitched up the bridle 
rein over the horn of the saddle, and went to 
see the sights. We noticed one colt, a 
spirited iron grey, trussed up in this way, 
which soon began to show signs of intense 
torture. Our finger began to itch to get hold 
of that curb; the colt writhed at the rail, 
and we hitched about as uneasily on our 
seat, and finally as we were about going to 
the rescue, after saying to Nelson that a 
man deserved to be - who would truss 
up a horse in that w'ay, the gray luckily 
slipped the rein off the pomel, and out went 
his nose, the gladdest colt on that public 
square ; and we were about to take off our 
hat and give three cheers, when we be¬ 
thought it might compromise the dignity of 
the Cultivator, so we only clapped our hands 
and gave the cheers inwardly. 
“ But this is only one phase in the abuse 
of the check rein. Farmers are not the only 
sinners in this respect; in fact, they are least 
guilty, and it is because their horses are so 
seldom subjected to check, that they suffer 
most intensely when it is imposed. Our 
town and city folks have most to answer for. 
Here we see even the cart-boys, with a tun 
of sand in their cart, and the poor horse— 
which is generally a cast-off omnibus or 
livery horse—checked up most unmercifully, 
because the ragged driver takes as much 
pride in having his team look well, as his 
more aristocratic predecessor ; and at every 
jar of the cart, or misstep of the poor dam¬ 
aged brute that hauls it, the latter gets the 
full benefit of the jolt upon his jaws, which 
are by this time providentially pretty well 
hardened. 
“ The evil begins much further back. The 
colt in the barn-yard, that has never known 
restraint until now he is some three years 
old, is roughly caught and a bit forced in his 
mouth, a crupper put over his tail, and a 
belt around his body, and then his nose 
drawn in half way to his breast, when he is 
left to suffer and sulk, sometimes for half a 
day. When this editor was a lad he was 
guilty of just such enormities, but these are 
among the original sins of which he has most 
heartily repented. In breaking a colt to bit, 
the rein should never be drawn so as fo cause 
positive pain in the muscles of the neck ; for 
besides the inhumanity and uselessness of 
such a course, the horses’ mouth is irre¬ 
trievably damaged by it for all future use ; a 
good mouth is indispensable for a good sad¬ 
dle horse. 
“ When the horse goes into harness, again 
comes the abominable curb, to make him 
hold up his head. As before remarked, in a 
little horse, with all his muscles in action, a 
moderate curb is not very painful, and is 
often useful after long habit, in steadying his 
carriage ; it is like every other bad habit in 
this respect. But to hitch up the team to a 
post, leaving the curbs tightly drawn, is an 
unmitigated abuse. Every day we see fine 
carriage teams standing in that way, left by 
the hour. The noble beast first puts out his 
fore feet, then gathers again, turns his neck 
quite to one side, then to the other side, to 
relieve the aching muscles, and all because 
the thoughtless driver had neglected to take 
the check reins out of the hooks, or for fear 
his team would get their heads down. On 
Sundays our devotions are often very much 
disturbed by such sights. Fine carriage 
teams are trussed up for two hours at the 
church door, sometimes hot and in fly time ; 
they can only twitch their skin and wag a 
stump of a tail; sometimes in winter, with 
the keen wind singing in their ears, and their 
forefeet in the frozen slush of the gutter. 
In such cases, if it were not Sunday, and if 
it were not for disturbing better worship¬ 
pers, we would like to throw a torpedo into 
the pew of the owner, who ought to be made 
to sit astride of a sharp rail without any 
cushion on it, all the time his team was 
hitched up that way.” 
A FEW MORE FACTS ABOUT GUANO. 
As it is often asked whether guano is a 
profitable fertilizer for common farming, we 
think there is no better way of knowing than 
by carefully noting experiments, and for this 
purpose we have been somewhat, particular. 
We last spring purchased some four bags 
and experimented on different articles of 
products with the following results. On one 
half acre of potatoes, we applied seven dol¬ 
lars worth, by dropping a small handful to a 
hill and then passing along before dropping 
the seed, with a small iron tooth rake, and 
mixed the guano with the soil in the bottom 
of the furrow. 
On this half acre we had 70 bushels of 
good round red potatoes, and but for the rust 
that struck the tops in August, as were other 
fields in the neighborhood, we think the 
crop would have been much larger, but this 
far exceeded an adjoining piece manured at 
the same expense with other fertilizers. 
In the same field and adjoining this, we 
had a piece of winter rye, sowed in Septem¬ 
ber, 1854, after taking off a heavy crop of 
corn fodder, and sowing guano broadcast at 
the rate of $10 per acre ; yielding at the rate 
of 10 bushels of good rye ; a portion of the 
field that did not winter kill producing at 
least 25 bushels per acre. These experi¬ 
ments were on land worn out by continual 
cropping for the last 16 years without ma¬ 
nure. 
On another piece of the same field we 
planted a few rows of the white flat corn, in 
drills about two feet apart, and seeded at the 
rate of one quart to ten rods in length of 
rows, and guano at $10 per acre, which yield¬ 
ed an amount of fodder almost incredible, 
Wishing to know the benefits of guano on 
grass land, for top dressing, we accordingly 
selected a piece in the middle of a field, and 
after measuring and staking out one eight 
of an acre, we divided it into two equal parts, 
and on No. 1, just the sixteenth of an acre, 
we applied 12 lbs. of the lumpy portions of 
guano after the fine had been sifted from it, 
by dissolving it in some five or six pails of 
water, and applying to land by the use of a 
common watering pot. This was done early 
in the spring before the starting of the grass. 
Soon the grass on No. 1 gave signs of some¬ 
thing more stimulating than that of No. 2. 
These two lots remained until the time of 
cutting, when each piece was carefully 
mowed, dried and raked seperately, and after 
standing some three or four days in the cock, 
again spread and dried sufficiently for the 
mow, they were taken to the barn and 
weighed. No. 1 .weighing 126 lbs., No. 2, 
42 Tbs. Thus it will be seen that the portion 
to which the guano was applied, contained 
just three times the amount of hay of that 
to which none was put, or in other words 
12 lbs. of guano produced 84 lbs. of dried 
hay, making at this ratio, one tun of guano 
produce seven tuns of hay. 
But the question is often asked, is guano 
good for anything more than one year? To 
this our answer is by experience. 
In 1854 we planted a piece of potatoes on 
field land with ten dollars worth of guano to 
the acre, and had a fair crop ; the last spring 
this sown to oats without more manuring, 
and yielded 30 bushels to the acre, the straw 
of which was worth for fodder twice the 
amount of the last crop of hay cut on 'the 
land.—T. G. H.—Granite Farmer. 
Coal Ashes. —If farmers who reside in 
the coal regions have not tried the benefit of 
coal ashes on their cherry trees, the sooner 
they do so the better. I recollect well, 
when a boy, of carrying the coal ashes from 
the grate and piling them around a little 
cherry tree, which was known by all the 
family, as the “ little orphan,” on account of 
its sprouting from the roots of an old tree 
which died, and the peculiar hard time it 
had in endeavoring to reach the stature of 
even a bush. The summer after the coal 
ashes were deposited around its base, it put 
forth vigorously, and in three years was 
quite a thrifty tree, heavily laden with 
luscious fruit. My father seeing the good 
results of the ashes, a wagon load was thrown 
around the base of each tree on the farm, 
and the effect was astonishing. Old trees 
that were fast decaying were resusticated, 
and sent forth new branches, and bore fruit 
abundantly. Let those who have coal ashes 
test its virtues upon fruit trees.—Ex. 
A gentleman told a good story the other 
evening, in his lecture, of what a New- 
Hampshire farmer said of his neighbor, 
Frank Pierce. The farmer was interrogated 
concerning the President and what was 
thought of him at home. “ Oh,” said the 
farmer, “ he is a good fellow up here, but 
come to spread him all over the country he 
is dreadful thin.” 
