AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
135 
Encouraging. —A few of our subscribers 
failed to renew a year 'since, but one after 
another they return. Many of them write 
like S. G., of Waynesville, Ill., who says, 
under date of Jan. 26, 1856 : 
“ * * * I have lived one year without 
the Agriculturist, but do not want to live 
another without your paper, so long as I am 
able to pay for it; for I believe by living up 
to its teachings it. will furnish clothes to the 
wearer, seed to the sower, bread to the 
eater * * *. My wife and family consider 
it the most welcome visitor we have of the 
whole family of newspapers. * * * ” 
Another—who is a clergyman we believe 
—of Fairfield County, Ct., writes Jan. 29: 
“ Inclosed please find one dollar for one year. 
I should have renewed my subscription long 
since but for want of the “needful.” I will 
do without dinner four days in a week, soon¬ 
er than part company with my old favorite— 
the Agriculturist. * * * ” 
Such kindly appreciation, of which our 
letter-books show a goodly number, are 
every thing but food to us, and the accom¬ 
panying subscription does something to¬ 
wards that. —Ed. 
125 Miles to a Post-Office. —We have 
subscribers in Europe, in South and Central 
America, the Sandwich and West India Isl¬ 
ands, California, Oregon and New-Mexico 
Territories, Nova Scotia, the Canadas, and 
various other distant portions of this globe, 
but were not before aware that any of them 
experienced difficulties like those detailed in 
the following letter, which reached us the 
10th ultimo : 
“ Cross Timbers, Texas, Jan. 9, 1856. 
Editor American Agriculturist : ' 
Please find inclosed &2 for the American 
Agriculturist and Weekly Times, for 1856. 
I should have written sooner, but my great 
distance from the Post-Office must be my 
excuse. You can form some idea of the 
value I set upon the Agriculturist, when I 
tell you that I go 125 miles to a Post-Office. 
There is one now (Gatesville) 60 miles from 
me, to which please direct my papers here¬ 
after. * * * R T.” 
Thanks for your kind appreciation. We’ll 
trv to make the paper worthy of the ex¬ 
pense and trouble it costs you. —Ed. 
A publisher proposing to issue a work 
in which his name was to appear as editor, 
said he did not feel able to edit it himself, 
but he did believe he was capable of getting 
it well edited. So we do not expect to fur¬ 
nish from our own experience or observa¬ 
tion even, full and complete information upon 
every subject introduced, but we hope to be 
able to select such aid as may be the most 
valuable and the most reliable, and we there¬ 
fore assume the entire responsibility of 
whatever shall appear in these pages. 
We are promised the continued assistance 
of those who have in years past done much 
to render the Agriculturist what it has been, 
and a number of men who have practised 
more than they have written, have given us 
kind assurance of lending a helping hand to 
our enterprise in the future. 
Rev. Win. Clift, of Stonington, Ct., to say 
that his editorial contributions to this and 
past numbers, are highly valuacle, and that 
his future assistance will do not a little to¬ 
wards making the paper useful and interest¬ 
ing. _____________ 
CHEAP FOOD FOR HORSES. 
When hay is twenty dollars and upward 
a tun, it is not a very economical feed for 
horses, or other ’animals. Being short of 
this article the present winter, we have fed 
a horse mainly on wheat straw, corn-stalks, 
and salt marsh hay for the bulky part of the 
fodder. Of course there must be something 
besides bulk, and we think it matters very 
little what constitutes the bulk, provided it 
be digestible, if we have a sufficient quantity 
of nutritious food to mix with it. This coarse 
fodder has heen run through a straw cutter, 
and then mixed with carrots for the morn¬ 
ing feed, and with corn and cob meal for 
noon and night. The horse has had a warm 
stable, and with this food has kept in much 
better condition than formerly when good 
hay (uncut) and oats constituted the feed. 
It is much better economy to purchase grain 
or meal to mix with coarse cut feed, than to 
buy red top or timothy at twenty or even 
fifteen dollars a year. Any coarse hay on 
which an animal will starve alone may be 
made very serviceable in this way, helping 
both the digestion of the horse and the ma¬ 
nure heap. With corn at ninety cents a 
bushel, and coarse hay or straw at five dol¬ 
lars a tun, we think a horse may be kept in 
good working condition for about sixty dol¬ 
lars a year. Oats and good hay run up very 
easily to ninety dollars, and even a hundred. 
BEDDING FOR HORSES. 
We have tried a new article for .the last 
two seasons, and are so much pleased with 
it, that we give it for the benefitjof all shore 
farmers. In cutting ditches through a salt 
water marsh, we threw up a large quantity 
of turf. This was cut in blocks about a foot 
square, and eight or ten inches thick. When 
thoroughly dried in the summer sun, they 
become very light and spongy,vand will ab¬ 
sorb a very large amount of water. Early in 
the autumn before the rains come on, we 
cart these under cover and* keep them for 
winter use. They are easily handled when 
other dirt is frozen solid, and when muck 
needs a pick-ax or crow-bar. A layer of 
these under a horse closely packed makes a 
good bed to lie or stand on, and will keep suf¬ 
ficiently dry for two or three weeks. When 
they become saturated, they are removed 
through the trap door into the manure cel¬ 
lar, and replaced by a new bed of dry turf. 
The saturated turf soon heats in the cellar, 
and becomes very tender by spring. This 
adds to the [quantity and quality of the ma¬ 
nure-heap. It is no disadvantage if it is not 
wholly decomposed when carted to the field 
or garden. It is an excellent article for 
trenching into heavy loams and clay soils, 
making them light and more easily tillable. 
The turf should have coarse hay orjstraw on 
top of it at night, as is usual upon stable 
floors. A borse bedded in this way the year 
| round will make about twenty cords of ma¬ 
nure, and half pay for his keeping. The 
turf too is a good deodorizer, and little am¬ 
monia will escape to disturb the nostrils of 
the owner or injure the lungs and eyes of the 
horse. On the whole, we prefer this bed¬ 
ding to anything we have yet tried. It is 
easily accessible to a large class of our farm¬ 
ers along the sea-board, and will pay well 
for digging.— Ed. 
A STROKE OF .ECONOMY. 
The farm is a good school of economy in 
many respects. The age of homespun is yel 
fresh in the memory of many of the living, 
and its close calculations are yet visible on 
many a homestead. Time was less valuable 
in that age than in this, and money far less 
valuable now than then. But multitudes 
have not yet waked up to the fact, and often 
spend several dollars worth of time to pur¬ 
chase what is not worth fifty cents at the 
market price. When every proprietor’s time 
is worth two dollars a day in the legitimate 
business of planning and directing the labor 
upon his own farm, he is in poor business 
doing work which another will do for him 
at one quarter of the price. 
We have already begun to divide the labor 
of the farm, and have reaped very great ad¬ 
vantage from it, and this division can be 
carried to a still greater extent with profit. 
The horse and the cultivator does a great 
deal of work once done by the hoe and hu¬ 
man hands. No wise man will use the latter 
when he can avail himself of the former. The 
mowing machine is doing the work of a doz¬ 
en men every fine hay day in July. How 
long will shrewd calculators break their 
backs over the old fashioned scythe? Is it 
not about time to upset the old stumps, and 
put powder into the rocks, that have been 
plowed, harrowed, hoed, and mowed around, 
for six generations ? They have had their 
day, like other dogs, and should now be bid¬ 
den to “ get out.” Labor is no longer the 
only or the cheapest equivalent for the farm¬ 
er’s wants. The question ought to be asked, 
how can this or that want of the farmer be 
met in the cheapest way ? If a man wants 
information in regard to husbandry, he can 
get the best thoughts of our best cultivators, 
at a much cheaper rate in the columns of our 
agricultural journals, than by visiting his 
neighbors to ask questions, and make obser¬ 
vations. 
But Tim Bunker never thought of that. He 
has not much opinion of “ that are book¬ 
farming.” But Tim observes, and is quick 
at calculating an idea that he sees growing 
right out of the sod. “ There is the sort of 
ideas for practical farmers.” He does not 
take the papers, but deacon Little, across 
the way does, and offers to lend them, but 
Tim is so wall-eyed on the papers, that he 
never accepts the offer. But he sees the 
deacon’s strawberries and wonders if they 
would not grow in his soil. He plants, and 
succeeds. The deacon sells in the next 
market town at twenty five cents a quart— 
quite as much as he used to get for a bushel 
of apples. Tim thinks his strawberries look 
as well as the deacon’s, and he goes to 
market and brings home the cash. “ In fact,” 
It is duetto 
