GO 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
three to five hundred dollars the span. 
These, if worked at the plow, harrow, and 
on loads, cannot well be very stylish coach 
horses, for several reasons : when at heavy 
and slow draught, they should never have 
the check rein drawn tight; their heads 
should be at ease, to drop low, even, if they 
choose ; for a horse instantly checked can 
not draw heavily with ease; their heavy 
draught also gives them a slow, plodding 
gait, and put into a carriage, their style of 
movement will be less elastic than that of 
horses used only for light draughts and 
quick action. Still, horses of this descrip¬ 
tion will answer all fair family purposes 
where more expensive ones cannot be 
afforded, or are not needed. 
In the country, the females of the family 
often want to drive out by themselves, in the 
absence of the male members of it. They 
are about their business while the “ wimmen 
folks” want to take their pleasure and recre¬ 
ation. Let them by all means have a trusty, 
honest “ family” horse—one that the young 
ladies can catch, and harness and drive, for 
we hold that no young lady is fit to live in a 
country home, who cannot, on occasion, 
harness a horse, and even groom one, if 
necessary. Mrs. Gen. Washington, and 
thousands of other women of equal rank 
and family, in old times, and even now, if it 
were fashionable to confess it, could, and 
did, and can, and do so now ; and they are 
none the less elegant and accomplished 
women either. They don’t do it in Broad¬ 
way, nor in the Fifth Avenue, we admit; but 
they can, and do it, on occasion, in the coun¬ 
try. Our own main family horse is now 
near twenty years old. He was born in the 
paddock near our present dwelling, and 
boasts as aristocratic blood on the sides of 
both sire and dam as any other; and no horse 
ever possessed a finer, nobler spirit than 
he. He is nearly the age of our son and 
heir, who has groomed him thousands of 
times, and driven him thousands of miles, 
and the best groom, and the best driver, the 
horse ever had; but grooming horses and 
driving them is not his business. One daugh¬ 
ter, too, some years younger than the horse, 
has caught and saddled and bridled him, and 
rode on his back many and many a time, and 
has groomed him, and harnessed and driven 
him many and many a bout, and it never hurt 
her, either in looks, conduct, constitution or 
complexion; but she is all the better for it, 
in knowing whether the same service is pro¬ 
perly done by others. 
All this, however, by way of episode. 
Such should be the family horse—the indis- 
■pensible in that line. As to the horses of 
luxury—the fifty-four-forty’s, or—not fight, 
exactly, but much more apt to run away, we 
have little to say. Be they for coach or 
buggy, or sulky, we turn them over to the 
horse-dealers—a very honest, reliable class 
of men, by the way, as every body knows 
who has had occasion to trade with them. 
We, however, have usually been enabled to 
dispense with their services, preferring, 
when we wanted a good horse, or a pair of 
them, to go to a substantial farmer, or send 
a trusty man, and, if fortunate enough to find 
the things we wanted, to get them directly 
from first hands, and before they had been 
spoiled by the jockeys. 
There is yet another almost indispensible 
thing in the horse line, if there be children 
at home ; and that is—the pony. The pony 
is the institution of the rural household 
among the children. What is the house, the 
farm, the garden, the—everything, in fact, 
without the pony? We have had two or 
three of the pestilent little ruffians in our 
child-rearing experiences, and know all 
about them—the most pestilent—the most 
troublesome—the most useful—the most 
petted—the most wayward—the most 
good-for-nothing, and still the most indis¬ 
pensible of all domestic appendages. The 
most knowing—the most mischievous—the 
gentlest—the wickedest—the best compan¬ 
ions to children of all others. Yes ; get a 
pony by all means—and the Shetland at 
that, if possible. Have a paddock for him 
outside, and a stall for him in the stable, for 
if in a field with the other horses, he'll bite 
and kick them till they avoid him as they 
would a donkey. And have a little cart, and 
a wagon for him, for he will do a score of 
little odd jobs when the horses are out of 
the way, or busy at other things. He will 
carry all the children that can climb on to 
his back at a time, and draw them all in the 
pony wagon, with cat and dog thrown in, 
and the wilder and raggeder the little ras¬ 
cal looks, the more attached are the children 
to him, and think him a perfect beauty. 
Hours and hours, day by day, are the chil¬ 
dren amused and delighted with the pony. 
He keeps them at home, out of the streets, 
out of mischief, out of idle companionship 
from beyond your own premises, a pastime 
to their town cousins and friends who come 
to visit them—a panacea, in short, for hun¬ 
dreds of ills that child-flesh is heir to. By 
all means get the pony. 
HARD COAL ASHES AND CINDERS. 
Anthracite coal is becoming so large an 
article of fuel in all our cities and villages 
along the seaboard, as well as in the Middle 
and Western States, that the ashes and cin¬ 
ders accumulate in large quantities. Most 
people, who study economy at all, have 
learned the value of the cinders, and, after 
carefully sifting the ashes and throwing out 
the clinkers, apply them to the top of the 
fresh lighted fire in the grate, the stove, or 
the furnace, to temper the heat. In this 
way, a more steady fire is secured, and all 
the coal is burned out. Housekeepers, who 
have not purchased a coal sieve, frequently 
throw away from fifteen to twenty per cent, 
of their fuel. 
The ashes as a rule are thrown into the 
street, to freeze in with the snow and rain, 
and to form little hillocks in front of the 
houses. These are interesting objects to 
all travelers who love smooth roads. Some 
call them a nuisance, and, we think, the 
name becomes the article. The ashes take 
the wrong direction. They should go into 
the back yard, instead of the street, or should 
be kept in the cellar, dry, until spring, when 
they will answer a variety of useful pur- 
poses. 
There is almost always some wood ashes 
mixed with them, from the charcoal and 
shavings used in kindling. This contains 
potash and other valuable matters. The ash 
of the mineral coal contains gypsum, lime, 
phosphoric acid, and some other fertilizers. 
But the great bulk is made up of silica. The 
valuable properties are indeed small in quan¬ 
tity, but are worth saving. Almost every 
family in our villages using hard coal has a 
garden where they might be applied to go®d 
advantage. 
We have been accustomed to dig awaj 
the earth around the collar of our peach 
trees, and apply them at the rate of a bushel 
or two to a tree. They help keep away the 
peach worm, and furnish some nourishment 
to the tree. Others apply them with good 
effect to all fruit trees and shrubs. 
They afford some protection to the changes 
of the weather. It is admitted that frost 
itself rarely hurts trees, but it is the sudden 
thawing and freezing that does the mischief. 
If a large pile of ashes, five or six inches in 
thickness, and three or four feet in diame¬ 
ter, is put around the collar of a tree, and 
regularly sloped off, it soon settles and 
freezes, and sheds rain from the trunk. If 
put on during the winter, at intervals, the 
frozen mass increases, and of course does 
not thaw out as soon in the spring as the 
surrounding earth. The budding and blos¬ 
soming of the tree is retarded by this pro¬ 
cess, and the young fruit is less likely to be 
injured by the late frosts. This manage¬ 
ment is particularly valuable to peach trees, 
which blossom so early. Some of our best 
cultivators pul large piles of sea weed upon 
the frozen earth, in February, for this pur¬ 
pose. They save the crops by this course. 
An apple tree in the garden of a friend, 
hitherto unproductive, bore an abundant 
crop last year, His coal ashes were all 
sifted by mistake around the base of this 
one tree. Other causes may have had some¬ 
thing to do with it, but we think the lime 
and potash from two or three tons of coal 
ashes furnished the aliment the tree lacked, 
and threw it into bearing. 
One of our neighbors has for a long course 
of years applied all his ashes to apart of his 
garden used as a potato patch. Through 
the worst years of the rot, his potatoes 
yielded abundantly, and were not affected 
with the disease. The variety was the 
Mercer, which is more liable to rot than 
almost any other. He attributed his success 
to the liberal use of coal ashes. The soil 
was a heavy loam, and the ashes helped it 
mechanically—making it more loose and pli¬ 
able—as well as furnished valuable fertil¬ 
izers. 
We have applied the article to the lowest 
parts of our garden, and to reclaimed swamp 
land. It is a good dressing for all muck 
lands, furnishing large supplies of silica, 
which such soils need. 
It is manifest from these statements, that 
ashes are altogether too valuable for road 
making, or for filling up docks. Let those 
who have gardens apply them to the trees 
