AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
151 
daily of flour, will be from five to ten per 
cent, greater, and often more, than if the 
cutting had been deferred ten days. 
The decidedly superior value of straw cut 
green, is another important item to be taken 
into account. The increasingly high price 
of hay, and the advance in the demand and 
value of stock, render it important to give 
more attention to the preservation of straw. 
Wheat or oat straw, and corn-stalks, if left 
standing until fully matured, are little better, 
and little else than so much wood ; but stop 
he ripening process as soon as it is 
practicable to remove the grain, and you 
secure straw and stalks worth one-fourth to 
one-half their weight of hay, as the latter is 
ordinarily cured. Would it not be better to 
run the risk of getting a few pounds less of 
grain by too early gathering, if thereby you 
secure a greatly superior quality of feed in 
the straw 1 
The reasons for cutting grain early apply 
with equal force to all crops gathered for 
forage. Taste a stalk of grass just as it is 
losing its flower and you will find it sweet, 
succulent and tender. A few days after¬ 
ward, it is more like a dry piece of wood. 
But cut it down at the former period, dry it 
in small masses to prevent heating and fer¬ 
mentation, and it will retain much of its 
sweetness, and contain a large proportion of 
the sugar, starch and gum. We state an 
undeniable fact, one established by rigid ex¬ 
periment, that four tuns of hay gathered 
just as the flowering season is over, will 
yield more nourishment than five tuns gath¬ 
ered ten to twelve days later. We have the 
best authority for saying that one acre of 
grass, which, when cut fully ripe would 
yield 1,000 pounds of digestible nourishing 
matter, and 2,000 pounds of woody fibre, will, 
if cut 10 to 12 days earlier, yield from 1,500 to 
1,800 pounds of nourishing material, and 
only 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of woody fibre. 
We will not stop to estimate what an im¬ 
mense saving would be effected to the coun¬ 
try were the principles above stated thor¬ 
oughly understood and practiced upon. 
GAS TAB. 
We wonder that this article is not more 
generally used as a paint, in all localities 
where it can be obtained. Its usefulness 
for coating the lower ends of fence-posts, 
and all wooden structures exposed to moist¬ 
ure, is very great. In the preservation of 
wood from decay, it is necessary that the 
oxygen of the atmosphere should be exclu¬ 
ded from it, and that the albuminous matters 
of the sap should be coagulated. Precisely in 
proportion as these two things are effected, 
will decompositionberetarded. No substance 
with which we are acquainted, helps to this 
result so cheaply as gas tar. As an illus¬ 
tration of its effects, it is stated that sleep¬ 
ers which had been saturated with this tar, 
and used in building a British Railroad, in 
the year 1838, have recently been taken up 
and found to be perfectly sound, while oth¬ 
ers, not so treated, rotted away in five years. 
We have seen it used for coating the in¬ 
side of eave-troughs, for painting iron rail¬ 
ing and common wooden fences. It can be 
used to advantage in painting carts, cow¬ 
sheds, wagons, plows, gates, and all the iron 
work on the buildings, and implements of 
the farm. It will give them a neat appear¬ 
ance, and preserve them from decay. 
Horses will not gnaw any post or building 
to which it has been applied. We would 
not recommend it for painting dwelling- 
houses, front fences, or for any ornamental 
work. But for rear buildings, fences, tools, 
&c., it is just the thing. Its disagreeable 
odor, of which some complain, is only a tem¬ 
porary evil, and its dark color may be reliev¬ 
ed, we should suppose, by mixing with it 
whiting or yellow ochre. 
When used, the material to which it is ap¬ 
plied should be dry, and the paint should be 
hot, though not in a boiling state. In apply¬ 
ing it to fence posts, it should be heated in 
large kettles, and the butt ends of the posts 
thrust into it. When used as a paint, it 
may be applied with a brush, in several 
coats. It can be bought in all cities and 
large towns, where gas is made from coal, 
at quite a cheap rate, generally from $2 to 
$3 a barrel. 
HEAD-WORK IN EARMING, 
It is surprising how much muscular labor 
is wasted every year, which might be saved, 
or better directed. This is true in-all kinds 
of business, and not the least in farming. 
For instance: how many farmers toil on, 
year after year, with scanty or imperfect 
implements of husbandry. The modern im¬ 
provements, which save much labor, and do 
the work cheaper and better, they will have 
nothing to do with. Improved varieties of 
seed, they hold to be, almost without excep¬ 
tion, humbugs. Draining and subsoil plow¬ 
ing are ranked in the same catalogue : they 
are labor lost; but manuring cold, wet lands, 
and plowing them late in Summer a few 
inch.es deep, and gathering scanty crops— 
this is not labor lost! Rotation of crops, and 
manuring lands with reference to the grains 
or roots to be grown on them, they consider 
something like book-farming—a very dan¬ 
gerous thing ! 
We never could see why farmers should 
not think for themselves, and be able to give 
a satisfactory reason for every process they 
undertake. We never could see why they 
should not endeavor to improve in all farm¬ 
ing operations, to learn the very best way of 
doing everything, and then to do it so. It is 
told of a certain backwood’s farmer, who 
had not yet found time to clear the stumps 
from his fields, that his boys complained bit¬ 
terly of their troubles in plowing and har¬ 
rowing—the old-fashioned “ drag” especially 
troubled them by its frequent overturnings 
while plunging among the stumps, and need¬ 
ing to be set right side up at every few rods. 
“Boys!” said the enraged farmer, one day, 
“take that harrow over to the blacksmith, 
and tell him to make all the teeth twice their 
present length, and sharp at both ends, and 
we’ll see what that'll do !” The thing was 
done : the teeth now pointed both ways, like 
those of a revolving rake. “ Gee up, Bill; 
now go along ;” “ But, father, it has upset 
again, as bad as before.” “ Never mind, 
boy; go right ahead; it will work well 
either side up. See, now, what comes from 
a little thinking !” And sure enough, it did 
work, and the field was harrowed in spite of 
the stumps. We might have selected a more 
dignified example of the use of head-work, 
but this homely story will answer our pur¬ 
pose. 
In the matter of rotation of crops, there is 
need of forethought and management. Some 
farmers neglect to manure largely, because 
of its expensiveness ; they would like to 
underdrain more extensively, and to subsoil 
plow their lands, if these things did not cost 
more time, labor and money, than they think 
they can spare. But it costs no more to fol¬ 
low a good system of rotation of crops than 
it does to carry on a farm without any such 
plan. Yet such a system may bring the 
farmer three-fold greater and better crops. 
Nor in devising such a plan, has he got to 
depend entirely on his own experience or 
sagacity. Books and agricultural journals 
are at hand, containing the result of other 
men’s experience, and all he has to do is to 
adapt such information to the wants of his 
own case. A very little head-work of this 
sort would pay well. It would pay in clean 
cultivation. Chess, red-root, quack-grass, 
Canada thistles, butter-cups, daisies, and 
what not, would hide their heads; and 
grubs, wire-worms, and all manner of in¬ 
sects, would rapidly diminish, if not wholly 
disappear. It would pay in the increased 
and prolqpged fertility of the land, and in 
more bountiful crops. 
A PLEA FOE SNARES. 
There is a vulgar prejudice against these 
reptiles, which, however easily accounted 
for, is both unwise and unprofitable. The 
common belief that the first tempter assumed 
the form of a serpent, is doubtless the origi¬ 
nal source of this almost universal dread of 
snakes. Every son and daughter of Eve 
seem to have a special license to bruise the 
head of all the serpent kind. All fear them, 
and all delight in their destruction, whether 
harmless or not. The venomous serpents 
are few, and the attacks of these are rarely 
fatal. The copper head, the rattle snake, 
and the moccasin, are troublesome animals, 
and we do not include them in our plea. 
The large majority of the varieties found 
in our country, are not only harmless but 
positive heip? to man in his cultivation of 
the earth. They are all insect eaters, and 
fairly earn their right to live, by the good 
they do. The black snake, the adder, and 
the striped snake are commonly found 
about our fields. Open the stomach of one 
of these fellows, and you will find it as well 
stuffed with insects, as that of the bird whom 
our legislators are careful to protect with 
the arm of the law. While the birds are la¬ 
boring for man in the tree tops, and devour¬ 
ing the moths and slugs that prey upon the 
leaves of plants, the snakes are busy with 
the grubs that infest the roots. Their fa¬ 
vorite shelters are old walls, stone heaps, 
ledges and neglected hedges, where insects 
resort in greatest numbers to deposit their 
