AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
115 
sulkey on a certain day, and there was no 
other in Paris. Such chances do not happen 
often. Carriage or saddle horses may very 
well pay their expenses ; a trotting horse is 
not so likely to, if lie cost over $300 origin¬ 
ally. My little mare Fanny had full as much 
reputation for trotting as she deserved, but 
the highest bona fide offer ever made for her 
was $400, rather less than the cost in Amer¬ 
ica. Another mare, belonging to an acquain¬ 
tance of mine, young, sound, big enough for 
a carriage horse and quite equal to three 
minutes, only fetched the same price, 
though she cost something like $440 at home. 
There is one place in Europe where you 
caif t sell a horse or carriage of any kind, 
and that is a watering-place. This very 
Baden, for example, is as unlike Newport or 
Saratoga in that respect, as it is in a great 
many others. It may be mentioned inci¬ 
dentally that the native horses of Baden are 
by no means despicable, and turn out very 
well when they fall into good hands. A re¬ 
tired officer here has four, three blacks and 
a bay, which he drives sometimes in sepa¬ 
rate teams, sometimes four-in-hand. They 
are not only good looking but show consid¬ 
erable spded, and all the four only cost him 
$600. The wheelers alone would be worth 
that in New-York, and the leaders would be 
cheap at $400. These Baden horses look 
something like American ones ; they are 
usually of a middle size, inclined to be spare 
of flesh rather than corpulent, clean-limbed, 
and handsomely built, but sometimes a little 
too heavy in the head. 
When there is a talk of buying horses, 
one naturally looks to England, especially if 
saddle horses be in question. Very good 
“hacks” are continually sold there for $125 
to $130, but whether a stranger can be sure 
of obtaining one at that price is somewhat 
doubtful. The fashionable London dealers 
are almost as dear as the Parisian. 
If a man is willing to put up with an in¬ 
ferior saddle horse, he can generally pick up 
one in Paris reasonably enough, say $160. 
But it is hard to pick up a serviceable harness 
horse under $300, and a dealer won’t let you 
look at anything under $600. 
Perhaps this is about horse talk enough 
for the present. Some further remarks will 
be adjourned till after Benazet’s hunt, which 
comes off this week. 
FATTENING TURKEYS WITH CHARCOAL. 
Much has been published of late in our agri¬ 
cultural journals in relation to the alimenta¬ 
ry properties of charcoal. It has been re¬ 
peatedly asserted, that domestic fowls may 
be fatted on it without any other food, and 
that too, in a shorter tune than on the most 
nutritive grains. I have recently made an 
experiment, and must say that the result 
surprised me, as I had always been rather 
skeptical. Four turkeys were confined in a 
pen, and fed on meal, boiled potatoes and 
oats. Four others, of the same brood, were 
also, at the same time confined in another pen, 
and fed daily on the same articles, but with 
one pint of very finely pulverized charcoal 
mixed with their mixed meal and potatoes. 
They had also a plentiful supply of broken 
charcoal in their pen. The eight were killed 
on the same day, and there was a difference 
of one and a half pounds each in favor of the 
fowls which had been supplied with the char¬ 
coal, they being much the fattest, and the 
meat greatly superior in point of tenderness 
and flavor.— Germantown Telegraph. ■ 
A correspondent of the Gardener’s Chron¬ 
icle says : Every one finds great difficulty in 
keeping garden seats more than a year with¬ 
out constant painting. Gutta percha, thinly 
laid on, and turned round the sides and nailed, 
will last for ever. 
A SUFFOLK PIG. 
With this I send a cut of a Suffolk sow, 
which I slaughtered at twenty-two months 
old. I took her from her second litter of 
pigs when they were six weeks old, Novem¬ 
ber 20th. On the 27th of the next March I 
slaughtered her. 
Her live weight was.450 lbs. 
The carcase and loose fat weighed a 
small fraction over 400 lbs., say.. .400 “ 
Loss. 50 “ 
Auburn, N. Y., April20, 1854. J. M. SHERWOOD. 
The above did not reach us till some ten 
days since, though dated seven months ago. 
REAPING AND MOWING MACHINES. 
(Concluded from page 100.) 
The first of the machines drawn behind the 
team had also two high wheels, with shafts 
and framing so elevated as to permit the re¬ 
volving rakes to bring the corn out below 
them, thus involving a principle since depart¬ 
ed from, and which, if applied to Crosskill’s, 
would permit of its being drawn behind also, 
instead of pushed before, so as to secure the 
side delivery, thus avoiding the objection so 
forcibly and practically brought against Hus¬ 
sey’s by Mr. Hume, of Canada West, in the 
Mark Lane Express of last week. Should 
experience ultimately decide in favor of this 
mode of draught, Salmon and Scott’s ma¬ 
chines present another feature already no¬ 
ticed, of permitting their being easily worked 
both ways, but at a sacrifice of power, the 
cutting apparatus and driving wheels being 
out of the line of traction. Mr. Mann, again 
added a third wheel immediately behind the 
horses, to give steadiness to the machine— 
an improvement engrafted on several of our 
modern ones. Ogle’s approached nearer to 
the French reaper, with the addition of a 
reel, than its descendants, the Americans— 
the driving machinery being between two 
large wheels, with the cutting apparatus and 
platform projecting beyond the outside of 
one of them. The American proposition of 
one large driving wheel, within framing, 
behind the team, with the second wheel (a 
small one) on the opposite side of the plat¬ 
form, is greatly superior to any of its prede¬ 
cessors, although, doubtless, subject to further 
improvement in carrying it out. 
The objections brought against Salmon 
and Scott’s machines, and which would also 
exist against Crosskill’s, were the draught 
removed to the front, relative to the driving 
wheels and machinery being out of the line 
of traction, have been obviated by the Ameri¬ 
can automaton, the gathering apparatus 
being placed behind these—an improvement 
which could easily be effected on them also, 
but at the sacrifice of cutting both ways; for 
the moment we fix the cutting apparatus at 
the side (or driving wheels, &c., which is the 
same thing), there they remain fixed, until 
we adopt some such plan as exhibited on the 
French machine, of turning knives, platforms 
reels, and endless webs from one side to the 
other, which can easily be done by a hori¬ 
zontal motion, instead of vertical, as the 
French knife. 
In theory, there cannot be a doubt that the 
Roman plan is superior to the Scotch— i. e., 
that Crossbill's mode of draught is superior 
to Dray’s, if properly applied ; for, in the 
latter case, the horses can never pull fairly 
in the line in which they walk, but always a 
little upon one side, the line of traction mak¬ 
ing an angle with the line of motion. We 
might easily enter into a mathematical de¬ 
monstation of this proposition, were it ne¬ 
cessary. We know it was long tenaciously 
argued by our more metaphysically gifted 
neighbors of the North, that because the 
driving-wheel and machinery are behind the 
team, the resistance was mainly, therefore, 
in the line of traction. But the fallacy of 
such a conclusion has long since been admit¬ 
ted even by the North itself; for, according 
to Newton’s well-known law of motion, “ ac¬ 
tion and reaction are equal and contrary .” 
And, moreover, the resistance of the cutting- 
knife is comparatively little to that of the 
fingers or gathering apparatus acting against 
the corn at a great disadvantage of lever 
power. In practice the facts are observable, 
the line of traction always making an angle 
with the line of motion, as any one in the 
trial field at Lincoln may have perceived ; so 
that the conclusion is obvious to every prac¬ 
tical man, even though little versed in me¬ 
chanics. 
On the other hand, if Crosskill’s whipple- 
trees are placed at the proper elevation, his 
wheels of the proper hight, the day compar¬ 
atively calm, the corn standing so as to se¬ 
cure an uniform resistance along the reel 
and endless web, the lateral action of the 
web itself fairly counterbalanced, the machine 
cutting its exact breadth, neither a hair¬ 
breadth more nor less, and the horses pro¬ 
perly driven, then the lines of motion and 
traction correspond, and the resistance ex¬ 
perienced by the machine is reduced to the 
minimum in producing a given effect. This 
machine, doubtless, produces a greater effect 
than the other, the corn being lashed to the 
cutting-knife by a reel—instead of the rake, 
in the other case, worked by a man, and 
delivered at the side by an endless web, and 
therefore must experience a greater resist¬ 
ance, and the horses, consequently, a heav- 
