21-4 
[June, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 1 
are not sunken and small, but large, bright, and in¬ 
telligent ; the back is broad and level, but the bar¬ 
rel is not so round ; as in the Essex or the Suffolk 
the sides are deep, and the rump drooping, with 
the tail often set lower down than the line of the 
hips; the legs are short and strong, and the feet 
white; the hair varies, according to the kind of 
management, from a thick coat, soft, silky, and 
free from harshness and bristles with those that 
have plenty of out-door exercise, to a thinner, finer, 
but not weak coat in those that are closely penned ; 
the flesh has a good mixture of fat and lean. 
When properly fed, the pigs reach a weight of from 
300 to 500 pounds, at a year old, if the animal is 
well kept from birth. The history of the Berkshire 
as a favorite with feeders and breeders, dates back 
only for 15 years, and it can justly be said that it is 
only now that it is finding its proper position 
amongst farmers, in spite of the prejudice against 
its color and wholly through its undeniable merits. 
Among ths Farmers—Ho. 5. 
BY ONE OF THEM. 
Home again ! As I hoped and expressed in my 
last letter, my “ back-furrow ” has been turned, 
and for a while at least I shall be content to re¬ 
main on this side of the Atlantic, and enjoy the 
Centennial Year under the folds of the Star- 
Spangled Banner, even if not among the crowds in 
Fairmount Park. How many good people are mak¬ 
ing plans for spending a week in Philadelphia this 
summer! From present appearances, it would seem 
that the Philadelphians had determined that we 
people of moderate means should not be deterred 
from visiting the great exhibition by the extrava¬ 
gant charges of hotel-keepers, for multitudes of 
private families stand ready to open their houses 
to respectable people, at a very moderate rate for 
transient lodging and board. So with moderate 
railroad fares, it seems to be really possible for al¬ 
most all thrifty citizens to go and take their wives. 
There is nothing that farmer folks can do that is in 
every way more beneficial, than 
Traveling, 
while there is nothing which they do less. Their 
habits are, I believe, the same all over the world, 
but it is nevertheless true, that those who journey 
most, and see most of the farming, of the crops, of 
the live stock, and of the implements of different 
sections are, as a rule, the most successful farmers. 
What a difference there is in the way different 
men look at the same things ! Some are always 
ready to condemn unsparingly every thing to which 
they are not accustomed, like the stranger at 
Boston, who, after breaking and smelling of a nice, 
brown codfish-ball, sent it away, remarking to the 
waiter, “there is something dead in this biscuit.” 
Others are quite as ready to wonder and admire, 
even though the way they have been brought up to 
do the same work may be decidedly better. I re¬ 
member well the feeling with which I read or heard 
about European peasants plowing, with a woman 
and a cow drawing the plow ; but when I actually 
saw it done, it seemed very different. The cow was 
usually doing the work, but, not being so well 
broken perhaps as an ox would have been, it was 
necessary that she should be led ; so the wife, as a 
true help-mate, took hold to lead the cow, and at 
the same time passing a strap around her own 
shoulders, lent her weight to relieve the animal. 
One can not study agriculture with advantage 
from the railway-car windows, yet one sees a great 
deal—and it is very easy to stop for half a day al¬ 
most anywhere. We are too apt to go from one 
end of the land to the other with a grand rush—by 
express trains and Pullman cars—straining our eyes, 
and seeing little, and tiring ourselves out to very 
little purpose. “ Stop-over ” tickets are now fur¬ 
nished by the conductors of almost all trains, and 
half a day spent among the farmers of such regions 
as Herkimer Co., N. Y., Monmouth Co., N. J., or 
Chester Co., Pa., will be well rewarded.—Thinking 
over my letter on 
Shallow Soil Farming, 
I find the story is not half told—and why should it 
be ? We find plenty of hard work from April to 
November, inclusive, and upon hardly two conse¬ 
cutive d*ys do we find the same work to do. Al¬ 
most all of the work is peculiar to shallow soils, 
and yet not so peculiar that it seems worth while 
to describe it in detail. 
Hay-Making 
is June work, and I suppose this will be read in 
that month. Where you can cut two, and two and 
a half, tons to the acre, as every farmer ought to do, 
who has a well-tilled, clayey or loamy soil, your sys¬ 
tem is very different from ours, where a ton and a 
half, to a ton and three-quarters is a good yield. Still 
our hay-making involves but little labor. If we 
can, we mow with a machine in the afternoon and 
evening, and the next day never touch it until say 
eleven o’clock, then, if the sun has been or is hot, 
rake it up into wide, loose windrows, which it may 
be well to shake up, or at least to turn over, and 
look for wet locks and green bunches, before three 
or half past three o’clock. Then, either get it in, 
or cock it up, while still hot, to have a good time 
to cure evenly, before it is placed in the mow or 
the stack, as it should be before noon the next 
day. 1 would not have believed it possible to cure 
hay well with so little labor, had not a hired 
man persisted in doing so whenever he could, 
until he proved to my satisfaction that hay cured 
in this way was just as green, sweet, and evenly 
cured, as that with which I took the most pains. 
He had learned the practice on the light lands of 
central New Jersey, but I find that my neighbors 
follow quite a similar plan, except that they do not 
often mow the evening before. This is a great 
advantage, because the dew all lies upon the sur¬ 
face of the mown grass, fully exposed to the sun; 
and it is almost always dried off by nine o’clock. 
The only precaution to be observed, is to cut after 
the dew begins to fall—or at least after the sun 
ceases to exert any drying influence. It is better 
if the grass does not even wilt before morning, for 
then it dries much brighter and evener. 
In dull weather, or what is worse, alternate sun¬ 
shine and showers, my neighbors let the hay lie 
just as it was cut. The top bleaches, but the great 
bulk of it remains of a fair color, and cures very 
fast afterwards. If the hay is any way fit to rake 
up, I prefer to get it into windrows, or even into 
cocks, to stand out the rain. There is danger of 
heating during long storms, but it must be watched. 
English llay. 
We cannot too highly prize our usual hay-making 
weather in this sunshiny country. A few weeks 
ago I had occasion to buy a quantity of hay in Eng¬ 
land, for feed for cattle on shipboard, and was sur¬ 
prised to find how little of it was of really first 
quality. Almost all showed evidence of having 
been repeatedly rained upon, and of not having 
been thoroughly cured. Some was green and 
sweet, and this was remarkably good. Stack after 
stack upon some farms which I visited, (not to 
purchase hay), were of a dark brown color, yet not 
of the so-called “brown hay,” for this is inten¬ 
tionally subjected to high and hot fermentation. 
Hay Barracks. 
A very convenient stack-roof, resting upon four 
20-foot posts, and movable upon them up and 
down, is designated by this name over a considera¬ 
ble extent of the country. I like them very much. 
Hay is safer in them and keeps better than in the 
barn. It keeps better than in stacks, unless these 
are exceedingly well made and thatched. The 
posts are usually set 12 or 13 feet apart, and the 
roof, which is of light boards, or of thatch, pro¬ 
jects a foot, to a foot-and-a-half on all sides. Hay- 
may be put in “barracks” greener than it would 
do to put it in the mows, especially if 
A Ventilating Flue 
is made up through the center. This is most 
conveniently made in hay mows, or in stacks, or 
barracks, and for either hay or grain, by filling a 
large long sack with hay, setting it upright where 
the flue is wanted, and as the mow or stack rises 
around it, keep continually pulling up the sack, 
and treading the hay well around it. The value of 
these flues to farmers who, from preference or 
necessity, get in their hay rather green, can hardly 
be estimated except by trial. The excess of mois¬ 
ture, which would otherwise settle in the mow, 
and cause the hay to become mouldy and dusty 
throughout, is all drawn off for fully six feet on all 
sides. Hay will almost always heat more or less, 
and it is a great advantage to it to do so, if the fer¬ 
mentation does not go too far, and especially if the 
moisture, which is always thrown off abundantly, 
does not remain in the cooler and looser parts. 
Here, as the heat subsides, it is apt to settle like a 
heavy dew, and very often without having caused 
any harm, these moist spots present favorable cir¬ 
cumstances for mould to grow, which more or less 
pervades a great portion of the mass. 
Hay for New York Market. 
As a rule it is no doubt a poor plan to sell the 
hay and straw off the farm, but where farmers are 
so situated that they can sell hay and buy city ma¬ 
nure, or any other equally good, at a reasonable 
price—and it is a hard thing to say what is reasona¬ 
ble—it is very profitable to sell timothy hay. Timo¬ 
thy, with a slight admixture of red top, is the best 
hay for New York—either baled or loose. When 
hay is cut for consumption upon the farm, it should, 
of course, be cut before the seed is ripe—even be¬ 
fore it is more than barely formed—for the stems 
are then full of flavor and nutriment; there is little 
woody fiber in them, and the hay is relished by 
horses and cattle without any addition. When, 
however, the thrifty farmers who are in the habit 
of sending hay to New York, cut their timothy and 
red top meadows for sale hay, they wait until the 
red top is nearly ripe—just as long as they dare to, 
until the timothy, if left longer, would loose its 
heads by the seed shelling off. In this condition 
it is very stiff and strawy ; nevertheless horses will 
eat it well, and it seems to be regarded by city buy¬ 
ers and consumers, as the most economical and 
best hay they can buy. It is nearly always cut fine, 
and fed as “ cut-feed,” with com and oats ground 
together upon it. No doubt it furnishes a bulky 
article of diet, more nutritious and better than 
straw, and better to be fed with ground fodder than 
what we regard as much better hay, cut greener. 
There is a great saving of labor in making such 
hay as I describe. It lies up very loose and light, 
cures easily, is not likely to be over-dried, and may 
be housed much less dry than younger hay, with¬ 
out danger of heating; besides, a considerably 
greater weight of jay is obtained. There is, to be 
sure, a greater tax laid upon the land, or rather up¬ 
on the manure it contains, but that is of no moment 
upon our light soils, while the advantages are im¬ 
portant in many ways_The allusion to the man¬ 
ner of feeding horses on “soft” feed or “cut 
feed,” reminds me of the 
Crashed Oats of England, 
which is certainly the most admirable feed for 
horses that can be. With us this article is practi¬ 
cally unknown. They use, in New York and vicinity, 
what purports to be one-third sound corn and two- 
thirds sound oats ground together. Were it truly 
this, it would be excellent feed, but it is notorious 
that, not only is second quality of com used, but 
the siftings of corn-meal, consisting of the bran, 
and often of bits of cob with some good meal, 
coarsely ground, are used instead of mixing the 
grain and grinding it, as should be done. Then, 
too, the oats are the lightest and poorest that come 
to market, and often full of dirt and grit from hav¬ 
ing been lodged while growing, or from lying 
too long in the swath before binding up. From 
whatever cause oats become unmarketable, it does 
not prevent their being used for “ ground feed.” 
In England oats are crushed by hand in machines, 
not larger than a root-slicer. One large, smooth¬ 
faced wheel, with a face about 3 inches wide, re¬ 
volves in close proximity to a smaller one, 6 inches 
in diameter, and about the same face as the larger 
one. A hopper permits the discharge of the oats 
between these two wheels, which, rolling together, 
crush each grain as flat as a wafer. As they drop 
from the crusher, the plump oats are nearly circu¬ 
lar; those less plump elliptical, and the few false 
kernels in the samples I examined, were flattened 
and broken, but showed no white flour, and no de- 
