16 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
neighbor for one of the same breed, and thus 
every second year makes a change, breeding 
always from bulls not less than three and if 
possible four or five years old, will have the 
satisfaction of seeing great changes take place 
in his herd and in the profits of his dairy. No 
intelligent farmer should use a scrub or grade 
bull if he can help it. The temptation to raise 
grade bull calves is often too great to be resisted. 
They are very large and handsome, they may 
have come of a favorite cow, and the farmer 
feels sure that if size and beauty are worth any 
thing in a bull, he will do well to raise such an 
one. The bull comes to maturity, handsomer 
than his thoroughbred sire, perhaps; nevertheless 
the probabilities are very likely ten to one, that 
the stock of his gerting will be little, if any, 
better than that ot an out-and-out scrub. 
--—-—« ® «--- 
The Canada Thistle as a Subsoiler. 
An intelligent and observing farmer writes 
us: “Many years since I cut a ditch into a well 
that was seven feet deep, and laid a pipe from 
that well to convey the water to a barn-vard. 
After 16 years the pipe required repairing. To 
make the repairs it was necessary to dig up the 
pipe. I found the earth that had been cast back 
into the ditch was full of the roots of plants. 
Canada thistles seemed to enjoy this subsoiled 
earth very much. The difference was so marked 
between the undisturbed earth on each side of 
the ditch and that within it, in regard to the 
presence of the roots of plants, that I venture 
the assertion that the most inveterate unbeliever 
in deep plowing, if he could have seen this 
ditch dug the second time, would have admitted 
that there -was one piece of land that deep plow¬ 
ing would greatly improve * * *. I spoke of 
Canada thistles in this ditch. This much 
dreaded weed is a great subsoiler, sending its 
roots down to water, if the water is within any 
reasonable distance. Take a rank patch of 
Canada thistles, plow it and cultivate as often 
as the thistles show a bit of top, for one year; 
then put on a crop, and mark the rank growth 
on the ground in which these thistles’ roots have 
been subsoiling for years. Put on this land red 
clover, and let the clover roots take the place of 
the thistle roots, and this old thistle patch will 
pay about as good dividends as any land you 
have.”—We have no doubt that deep tap-roots 
that descend into the subsoil bring up consider¬ 
able quantities of plant-food, which, if the 
plants decay on the surface or in the surface 
soil, must add to its fertility. This is one reason 
why clover is such an admirable renovator of 
land “ worn out” by superficial cultivation. But 
it is also true that in the case mentioned by our 
correspondent, “plowing the land and cultivat¬ 
ing it as often as the thistles show a bit of top” 
would in itself enrich such soil as he is the for¬ 
tunate possessor of. 
Don’t Keep too Much Stock. 
Said a farmer who does not take the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist to a neighbor who does: “You 
want more stock to make manure.” It was an 
innocent remark, but our friend is as fond of an 
argument as was Dr. Johnson, and replied: 
“That remark indicates a lack of just ideas on 
the subject. It is as absurd to say I want more 
stock to make manure as it would be to say I 
want more stoves to make ashes. If I burn fifty 
cords of wood the amount of ashes will be the 
same, whether I use three stoves or a dozen, 
and if I use up all the fodder I have it will make 
little difference, so far as the quantity and quality 
of the manure is concerned, whether I keep a 
large number of cattle, sheep, and pigs, or a 
small number. The value of the manure heap 
will depend on the grain, hay, straw, and stalks 
used on the farm, and not on the stock.” There 
is considerable truth in what our friend says, 
and we are glad he has so far profited by the 
teachings of the Agriculturist that lie realizes 
that the value of the manure depends on the 
food, and not on the kind of stock it is fed to. 
It is a great mistake to be overstocked. There 
is no possible advantage—not even in the 
manure heap—and not unfrequently the loss is 
very great. Better sell a part of the stock and 
feed what is retained all they can eat—enough, 
at all events, to keep them in a thrifty, healthy 
condition. If an animal is not gaining, we are 
losing all the food it consumes. By providing 
warm, sheltered, dry, and comfortable quarters 
we can save a considerable'amount of food, but 
after all is done, the animal still requires about 
2k lbs. of hay per day, or its equivalent in straw, 
for each 100 lbs. of live weight, to sustain the 
vital functions and keep it from losing in flesh. 
What we gain in milk, flesh, or wool, is derived 
from the food consumed in excess of this amount. 
-o—-—» O —■-- •- 
Fix Dp the Implements. 
During the winter every implement and ma¬ 
chine that will be required next spring and 
summer should be overhauled and repaired. 
Examine the plows, and if they have been neg¬ 
lected and are rusty, wash off all the dirt, and 
then apply with a swab fastened on the end of 
a stick, a mixture of one part sulphuric acid 
and two parts water. Rub the mould-board and 
other paj^s that are rusty with this liquid until 
the rust is all removed ; then wash it off and 
rub it dry. Then smear it over with crude petro¬ 
leum or some other cheap oil, and next spring 
you will be saved from the loss and annoyance 
of clogging. Every farmer should buy a bailiff 
of petroleum, and use it freely on all his wag¬ 
gons, machines, implements, etc. It will keejv 
the iron from rusting and the wood from decay, 
and in cold weather it is a useful lubricating 
oil. We find it absolutely essential to keep on 
hand several sizes of carriage bolts. With 
these and a brace, and a set of bits, nearly all or¬ 
dinary fractures can be easily repaired. It is a 
great convenience, also, to have a vise, and to 
keep on hand an assortment of uncut nuts, with 
the tools for making the thread in them and 
also on the bolts. All these things can be ob¬ 
tained at a hardware store, and a farmer who 
buys them will never regret it. But if it is nec¬ 
essary to take anything to the blacksmith’s 
shop, now is the time to do it, and when it is re¬ 
paired, clean off the rust, paint it with linseed oil, 
and put it away for use in the spring. If the 
farmer or his son would go over all the imple¬ 
ments, machinery, wagons, hayracks, tools, etc., 
paint them, oil and tighten the bolts, and see 
that everything is strong and in good order, it 
would not only greatly lessen the blacksmith’s 
bill, but would save much precious time and 
no little annoyance next spring and summer. 
The winter is also the time to make whiffle- 
trees, and three-horse eveners. It is a great ad¬ 
vantage to have an extra set of these on hand. 
Lumber. — It is very convenient to have 
a supply of seasoned boards, planks, and scant¬ 
ling, and now is the time to secure them. 
Get a good hard maple log sawed up into two- 
inch planks for store boards, and elm into two- 
inch planks for purposes too numerous to men¬ 
tion. A few oak and soft maple inch boards 
are also very useful, and oak and white ash 
scantling 3x8 will be very convenient to repair 
cultivators, harrows, etc. Scarcely anything of 
this kind will come amiss on the farm. 
The Old Well-Sweep. 
Without discussing the respective merits of 
pumps and open wells, we have a word to say 
in favor of the old well-sweep and the oaken 
bucket. It may be that a love for what is old, 
and good, and picturesque in the landscape, first 
inclined the writer to regard the well-sweep 
with favor, especially when it was associated 
with the mossy bucket coming, with a bound 
almost, sparkling and dripping, from the dark 
depths below; but after a pretty careful inspec¬ 
tion and use of various kinds of windlasses, 
patent well-curbs, and other efforts of inventive 
genius to supplant it, we come back to the well- 
sweep as the simplest, most durable, easiest, and 
by far the best method of drawing water by the 
bucket from wells not over 20 or 25 feet deep, 
and perhaps it is equally useful for deeper 
wells. The hight of the crotch, in which the 
sweep is hung, should be such that the sweep 
will be horizontal when the bucket is half way 
to the bottom of the well,.and the sweep should be 
long enough and so hung that it will swing the 
bucket clear of the curb. The occasional bind¬ 
ing of the bucket bail in the hook of the pole 
may be remedied perfectly by interposing a small 
round link between the eye in the bail and the 
closed hook on the end of the sweep-pole. We 
rarely see a new w£ll-sweep nowadays, while 
the clattering, squeaking boxes of machinery 
called patent well-curbs, always getting out of 
repair, and rarely bringing up two-thirds of a 
pail of water, are seen on every hand. 
«g» «--» <«» - — 
Will You Ever Get Your Money Back ? 
Of all the sneers which beset the path of an 
improving farmer the commonest and the mean¬ 
est is: “ Will you ever get your money back ? ” 
Let him build a large and commodious barn, 
large enough to accommodate not only all the 
stock and store that he has now, but all that lie 
hopes to have in years to come, and with shelter 
for all the manure that he will make during the 
season, replete, too, with every convenience for 
economizing labor, and with such general ar¬ 
rangements as he feels sure cannot fail to make 
his work lighter and more profitable;—some 
carping neighbor will throw cold water on his 
hopes by suggesting that he probably “ doesn’t 
expect ever to get his money back.” 
Let him deeply plow and subsoil one ofliis 
fields at an obvious cost of $25 an acre,—this 
same comment will greet his improvement. 
Let him thoroughly underdrain ten acres of 
his heavy, cold land, at an outside cost of $1,000, 
and fancy that he sees his account, in doing the 
work,—the same question will jar upon his ears. 
For the moment, this view of the case may 
shake his hopes, but it is not at all a fair view 
to take of any permanent agricultural improve¬ 
ment. We do not build barns for the purpose 
of getting back the money that they cost, nor 
can we always count on an extra $25 an acre 
from the crop that we raise after expensive cul¬ 
tivation. It would be too much to expect that 
$1,000 invested in draining would come back 
.with the first harvest after the work was done. 
Who cares that it should come back at all? 
We can’t have our cake and eat it too. A man 
