38 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February. 
Contents for February, 1869. 
“Adversity.”. Illustrated. .37 
Apple and Pear Seeds. 3S 
Apples—New Western.2 Illustrations. .59 
Barberry for Hedges. . .59 
Bee Items—By M. Quinby...40 
Boys’ and Girls’ Columns—“ A Stitch in Time Saves 
Nine”—“A Bird in the Hand”—Frank Fairfax’s 
Flower Bed—Very Common Talk—Naval Accounts— 
“ Asking the Blessing ”—Curious Philosophy—“ All 
a Settin’ ’’—Superstitions of Miners — Answers to 
Problems and Puzzles—Problem—Rebus.. .3 111. .03-04 
Cannas as Ornamental Plants. Illustrated. .57 
Cattle—Perfection in a Milch Cow. Illustrated. .56 
Clover—How it Benefits the Land.55 
Colic in Horses—By Prof. John Gamgec.4T 
Cold Frames.59 
Curing Bacon for the English Market. .4G 
Cutting Feed by Power.4S 
Evergreens in Pots. GO 
Faith in Farming.52 
Farm Britlges—How to Make them_3 Illustrations. .52 
Farm Work for February.38 
Flower Garden and Lawn in February.39 
Flower Trade.58 
Fowls—Silver-spangled Haraburghs. Illustrated. .49 
Forwarding Cabbage, Cauliflower, and Lettuce.46 
Fruit Garden in February.39 
Green-house and Window Plants in February . 39 
High Fanning.54 
Household Department—T he Table—Order and Or¬ 
nament— Illustrated — Household Talks, by Aunt 
Hattie—Trimming Lamps—Cutting up and Salting 
Pork—Keeping Eggs—Roasting Pork—Vegetables— 
To Roast a Goose—Brawn or Head Cheese—Tin¬ 
ware to Mend—Dissolving—Solution—How to Make 
Good Bread — Potatoes — Breakfast Indian Fried 
Cakes.2 Illustrations.. Gl-62 
Improving our Stock of Common Fowls.53 
Kitchen Garden in February.35 
Labor on Farms.49 
Lilies—How they are Propagated.2 Illustrations.. 58 
Manure—Best Way to Store.53 
Market Reports.41 
Milk Rack—A Good one. Illustrated ..53 
Orchard and Nursery in February. 30 
Plan for Laying out a Small Place. Illustrated.. GO 
Plants in Cellars.60 
Premiums.40 
Pruning—The Why and How.3 Illustrations. .57 
Quinces—More about Them.29 
Rich Grass.52 
Sefton Breed of Swine.47 
Summer Fallows for Wheat.53 
Sparrows—European. Illustrated. .49 
Tim Bunker on Carding Cattle..48 
Wagons upon Runners. Illustrated. .53 
Walks and Talks on the Farm, No. 62—Going West— 
Large and Small Farms—N. Y. State Ag’l Society’s 
Trial of Plows—Fast and Slow Plowing—Oxen vs. 
Horses—Percheron norses—Waste of Time on the 
Farm.50—51 
Why Keep up Interior Fences?.51 
Winter Work.55 
Wisconsin Cattle Stables.2 Illustrations ..54 
INDEX TO “BASKET” 
Advertisements. 42 
American Entomologist. .45 
Am. Jersey Cattle Club.. .43 
Am. Pomol. Society.42 
Boiled Potatoes for Cows.45 
Bushel of Lime.45 
California Plants.44 
Canada Peas.45 
Cheese Making.45 
Cow—Rich Milk.43 
Currant Worm.45 
Death of C. N. Bcment_45 
Death of Mr. Affleck.42 
Dept, of Agriculture_.43 
Devon Herd-books.41 
Does Plaster Lose ?.43 
Duck Raising.43 
Early Field Corn.44 
Evergreens.45 
Fat Goes to the Pail.43 
Farmers’ Club.41 
Gardening for the South. .44 
Glanders in Human Subj’s.44 
Good Stock & Good Land43 
Hen Manure.45 
Importation of Barley... .44 
on SHORTER ARTICLES. 
Kerosene Murders.42 
Milk Fever.43 
Mule Market.44 
Mushrooms.45 
Native Birds.45 
N. Y. State Fair.44 
New Coleuses.44 
Our Young Folks.45 
Oyster Shells and Trees..45 
Penn. Poultry Society_44 
Potatoes on Sod.43 
Potato Testing.44 
Poultry Show.44 
Practical Floriculture.45 
Report of Plow Trial.45 
Seeding Grass Lands.44 
Sell at a Good Price.43 
Show of Pigeons, Poultry.44 
Spotted Quinces..45 
Subsoiling.43 
Sundry Humbugs.42 
Tile Factories. .41 
Turkeys Killed by a Fox..43 
Unsafe Advice. . 45 
Wheat Land.43 
Where Shall I Go ?.44 
Back Volumes Supplied.— The back volumes 
o f the Agriculturist are very valuable. They contain 
information upon every topic connected with rural life, 
out-door and in-door, and the last ten volumes make up 
a very complete library. Each volume has a full index 
for ready reference to any desired topic. We have on 
hand, and print from electrotype plates as wanted, all the 
numbers and volumes for ten years past, beginning witli 
3857— that is, Vol. 16 to Vol. 27. inclusive. Any of these 
volumes sent complete (in numbers) at $1.75 each, post¬ 
paid, (or $1.50 if taken at the office). The volumes, 
neatly bound, are supplied for $2 each, or $2.50 if to be 
sent by mail. Any single numbers of the past ten 
year* wilt be supplied, post-paid, for 15 cents each. 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
NEW-YORK, FEBRUARY, 1869. 
If we ask our readers this first of February a few 
questions which, though perhaps none of our busi¬ 
ness, yet interest us much, we hope it will not be 
thought an impertinence. Are you going to try 
peas this year? or shall you sow oats or barley, as 
usual? Have you bought your seed-wheat ? or do 
you raise your own seed ? If not, why don't you 
raise it ? It is worth more than the market price, 
as you will find if you have to buy. Why is it that 
your land is so weedy that you have to buy all your 
seed ? You might have a good deal of clover-seed, 
which it is easy to get .tolerably cleau. Why don’t 
you plan to save enough for your own use ? Clover 
is the cheapest manure you can use. Did you ever 
plow under a crop ? Are you going to buy a mower 
and reaper this year ? or will you hire, as you did 
last? You probably pay, if you hire, ten per cent 
interest on two or three machines. Is it uot so ? 
How about horse-rakes? Don’t you know that it 
takes the best man to work the old revolver, and a 
smart boy cau work many of the new ones perfectly 
well? You never put iu any grain with a drill; 
why not? Don’t you think it would be a great 
saving,—taking less seed, making the crop ripen 
evener, giving you better straw and a surer and 
larger crop ? What plans have you made for the 
spring and summer ? How many hands will you 
employ ? What permanent improvements are you 
going to make ? Do you know any man who 
would take your farm and make more money on it 
than you, without taxing the land more than you 
do, if so much ? If so, how do you think he would 
do it ? Will it not pay you to do the same ? 
February is just the month to discuss a great 
many such questions, and some of them will keep 
until warm weather. But while they are mooted, 
the work must go on just the same. 
Mints about Work. 
Over a good part of the Union, it is neither win¬ 
ter nor spring; the frost may be out of the ground 
so that we can begin setting fences and doing some 
kinds of spring work, and it may come on and 
freeze again, and a second edition of winter iu all 
its severity be upon us. 
Winter Work .—Make the best use of the snow to 
haul home the timber, fencing stuff, and boards, 
from the saw-mill or from the wood lot. Employ 
every hour of daylight, when other important work 
is not pressing, in cutting 
Fire-wood, and thus making provision against a 
more hurried season, when every hour will be 
worth two or three hours of this time of the year. 
There is nothing that pleases the good wife better 
than a nice lot of clean, dry chips and light stuff, 
to make a quick blaze ; and if she or her maid has 
to run to the wood-pile, tear off splinters, pick up 
damp chips, and so spend five minutes out of the 
kitchen just at the critical time when the dinner 
needs attention, the farmer must not complain if 
the potatoes burn in the pot, and things go wrong. 
Ice, nice ice, will keep splendidly on a floor of 
rails, under a heap of straw. Lay a floor of slabs 
on three old rails as sleepers, the floor being 12x12 
feet square; cover it a foot thick with straw; lay 
up a square pile of ice eight or ten foot high, of 
solid square pieces, having the spaces between the 
cakes well chinked in with pounded ice ; set posts, 
as for a high fence, two feet outside, all around; 
board up with close-fitting 16-feet inch 
or iuch-and-a-quartcr boards, and stuff the 
whole, outside the ice, with straw; put on 
a single-pitch roof of boards, inclined to 
the north, and fill the whole interior above 
the ice with straw. The ice will keep well, 
and should be used from the top only. It is well, 
before piling up the ice, to set two light posts, two 
feet from each corner, against which the ice may 
rest, 60 that the corners of the pile will remain firm. 
Laborers .—Look out early for good farm hands. 
The best men arc the first to make engagements; 
common hands may be picked up more easily. On 
every large farm the farmer should have a mm he 
can make a foreman, to allow himself a little free, 
dom from the constant attention to minor details. 
Such a man may often be obtained for five dollars a 
month more than a mere clodhopper, who can only 
be trusted to work under the eye of a “ boss.” 
With a good, active, intelligent German, who lias 
been in this country a few years, one can employ, 
at low wages, a class of his countrymen which 
would otherwise only be a nuisance on the farm. 
Manure .—The time for economizing in the use of 
bedding is late in the season, if ever. Early in the 
winter, use as much as you can in order to increase 
the manure pile. This month often offers a first- 
rate opportunity to work over all the accumula¬ 
tions of manure in the yards and cellars, to throw 
them in compact heaps, well laid up, mingling 
with them as much muck and litter as can be spared 
from the stores of bedding for use later in the sea¬ 
son, and all the uneaten cornstalks, which are too 
apt, at this time in the winter, to disfigure the 
yards. Composts may be greatly enriched and their 
fermentation quickened by a mixture of hog aud 
hen manure; hut it is important that these should 
he pretty thoroughly disseminated through the 
whole mass in order to give it uniformity. 
Flows and Harrows .—Farmers living at a consider¬ 
able distance from mechanics should have, not only 
good plows, but plenty of duplicate parts, that they 
can themselves attach in ease of breakage; sev¬ 
eral new shares, at least one new beam for each 
breaking-up plow, and several plow handles that 
may be adapted to the plows most used. Have 
wood ready to mend harrows, if they arc to be sub¬ 
jected to any trying work among stumps or on 
rough, rooty ground. Give a coat of paint to all 
tools of this class, being particular to work it well 
into the joints, and it Is well to give these spots 
several coats, so that water cannot get iu. Paint 
tools only when thoroughly dry. 
Wagons .—When the sleighing is good, don’t tar¬ 
get to put the wagons in good order. 
Good Hoads, whether good for wheels or run¬ 
ners, should be made use of, so that there shall be 
no need to deliver sold goods when the roads are 
breaking up in the spring, nor to do heavy team¬ 
ing, like hauling home lumber, coal, and provisions. 
What a good thing it would be if we had in this 
country such grand highways as connect almost 
every farming community in Europe with the mar¬ 
ket town, aud market towns with one another all 
over the country ! On these roads a pair of horses 
will trundle off, at a trot, on level ground, four 
tons on a wagon that weighs a ton. The roads 
are, the year round, equal to ours in midwinter. 
Working Cattle —Save the strength of the ox for 
the plow and for the heavy work; feed him a little 
grain; keep him in first-rate working order, and 
give just work enough to prevent his neck get¬ 
ting soft; then when the time for hard labor ar¬ 
rives, give good feed and all the work he can do. 
Work the Bulls! They are healthier for it; they 
are easier and safer to handle ; they are surer and 
better stock-getters; they are more intelligent 
than oxen, and easier taught, if they do not learn 
that dangerous lesson, that they need not mind 
unless it suits their own convenience. 
Cows .—Feed dry cows well; give them a daily feed 
of meal of some kind, corn-meal and whent-bfan, 
or corn-meal and oil-cake, or some other milk-pro¬ 
ducing or fattening diet. You will get it all back 
when you begin to milk. Keep neat stock of all 
kinds sheltered and warm. Do not expose them to 
the spring storms, which are more trying than 
those of the autumn and early winter. 
W ttng Cattle should never stop growing until 
tb n Y come to full maturity. They will surely stop, 
ana ’henceforth have that stunted, weakly look so 
common among “ scrubs,” unless they are shel¬ 
tered and so well fed that they do not lose flesh. 
Horses and Colts .—The same remarks arc applica¬ 
ble to these animals as to neat stock, except that 
the horse will thrive under much severer exposure 
than cattle, if he has enough to eat and a shed to 
go under. It is, however, the worst policy to put 
