1869 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
171 
are but six possible causes of trouble, and they 
name five of them, you will be pretty safe in 
doctoring for the sixth ! The other day I was 
consulted in regard to a cow that was taken 
sick. She had been doctored for the “ hollow 
horn.” I thought the disease had been brought 
on by hollow stomach, and recommended some 
nice ]iaj', bran mash, a little linseed tea, and a 
pint of sound ale a day. I think I should be a 
popular cow doctor—with the cows. Some one 
once told Hood that he “ had never been sick a 
day in his life.” “ What a fool you must be 1 ” 
was the prompt but not very polite reply. It 
would be better for our animals if farming was 
not such a healthful occupation. Tiiis man 
who had the sick cow is a strong and healthy 
man, who has been used to “rough it.” And 
sick as his cow was, he turned her out with 
the rest into a field to water, with a keen north¬ 
east wind blowing, and the next time I met 
him, on asking “How’s the cow?” he replied 
“ I’ve taken her hide off.” She was worth $75 ; 
a few days’ nursing would have saved her. 
I used to have a great deal of trouble, and 
have lost several cows and horses. But for 
a year past I have not had a single trouble until 
the horse lamed himself in the woods the other 
day, except a slight attack of colic in a horse, 
which an injection of soap and water cured at 
once. We have made no change in the manner 
of feeding, except that when the teams go to 
the city, and are likely to be out beyond the 
usual hour of feeding, I insist on the men tak¬ 
ing some cut feed along for the horses. Indi¬ 
gestion is the source of nearly all ordinary com¬ 
plaints in horses, and this is brought on by ir¬ 
regular feeding and watering, by exposure, 
fatigue, by long journeys without food in a 
storm, and then by overfeeding and neglecting to 
rub them dry before leaving them for the night. 
A Kentucky farmer writes me: “ I have 
three hundred acres of cleared land. There 
are three fields of fifty acres each, the rotation 
on which is corn, wheat, and clover, successive¬ 
ly, and one field of one hundred and fifty acres 
in permanent meadow. How, would it be bet¬ 
ter to divide the farm into four fields of seventy- 
five acres each, with corn, wheat, clover, and 
Timothy successively ? With such a rotation, 
would there be too much clover with the Timo¬ 
thy when the object is to bale it for market?” 
The rotation would be as follow's: 
75 -acre 
Fields, lrf year. 2d year. 3 d year. 4 th year. 5th year. 
A. Timothy. Corn. Wheat. Clover. Timothy. 
B. Corn. Wheat. Clover. Timothy. Corn. 
C. Wheat. Clover. Timothy. Corn. Wheat. 
D. Clover. Timothy. Corn. Wheat. Clover. 
If the Timothy seed is sown in the fall, with 
the wheat, and the clover seed in the spring, we 
should, in this section, get an excellent kind of 
hay for consumption on the farm—say half 
Timothy, and half clover; and the next year 
the hay would be nearly all Timothy. If the 
Timothy seed is sown in the spring with the 
clover seed, the first crop of hay would be 
nearly all clover, and the next year it would 
probably be about half and half; and if kept in 
meadow another year, it would be nearly all 
Timothy. I have no doubt that more produce 
can be obtained by dividing the farm into four 
fields of seventy-five acres each, and cultivating 
them in the way proposed, than by cultivating 
only half the farm, and keeping one hundred 
and fifty acres in permanent meadow'. And if 
all the clover and all the corn and stalks and 
the straw of the wheat are consumed on the 
farm, and the manure carefully saved and ap¬ 
plied, the productiveness of the land may, per¬ 
haps, be maintained, even if seventy-five acres 
of Timothy hay are annually sold. Much, how¬ 
ever, depends on the natural fertility of the soil, 
and the thoroughness with which the land is 
cultivated for corn. If it was my case, I should 
be inclined to let the three cultivated fields of 
fifty acres each remain as it now is, and di¬ 
vide the one hundred and fifty acres now in per¬ 
manent meadow into three fields. The farm 
would then have six fields of fifty acres each. 
I w'ould then try to adopt a system of rotation, 
having two objects in view: first, to raise as 
much clover as possible, and second, to culti¬ 
vate and clean the land thoroughly. And in¬ 
stead of selling seventy-five acres of hay, I 
would endeavor to raise as much from fifty 
acres. And the same with wheat. That it can 
be done, I have little doubt. At all events, if 
as much wheat and Timothy was not obtained 
from the fifty acres as from the seventy-five 
acres, I should expect the profit to be as much, 
or more. I would try the following rotation; 
1st, corn ; 2d, wheat; 3d, clover; 4th, clover; 
5th, fallow; 6th, Timothy. I would sow noth¬ 
ing but clover with the wheat. Mow it for hay 
the first season ; then pasture. The next year 
pasture until June, and, if it could be spared, 
then let it go to seed; if not, pasture the whole 
year. The next spring, pasture until June, 
and then plow it up, and summer-fallow thor¬ 
oughly, and in August, seed it down with half 
a bushel of Timothy seed. The next year mow 
it for hay, and pasture it until time to turn it over 
for corn the next spring. If nothing is sold but 
wheat and Timothy hay, it will not be difficult 
to keep the land in good condition. A large 
stock can be kept. There will be fifty acres of 
clover hay every j'ear, fifty acres of wheat 
straw, and fifty acres of cornstalks to be used 
for fodder. And there will be always fifty acres 
of pasture; and in the spring and fall, one 
hundred and fifty acres. Sheep will do better on 
the clover than cattle will. They can be winter¬ 
ed on wheat straw, and a bushel of corn to a 
hundred sheep. In this section, we could win¬ 
ter a good many cattle on fifty acres of corn¬ 
stalks, with a little clover hay and corn meal. 
I have never been in Kentucky but once, and 
that was years ago. It is not improbable, 
if I was better acquainted with the agriculture 
of that State, I should see many objections to 
this plan. But if I wished to sell Timothy 
hay, I should adopt some such plan here. I 
have great faith in summer-fallowing for Timo¬ 
thy. But the hay is so good, that I should 
want to feed it out myself. 
Here we cannot sow wheat after com with¬ 
out great labor, and the practice is almost en¬ 
tirely abandoned. We generally sow barley 
after the corn, and wheat after the barley, seed¬ 
ing down with the wheat. We are planting 
less corn than formerly, on account of the high 
price of labor, and the difficulty of getting it 
husked. If the Husking Machines prove satis¬ 
factory, or we can obtain reliable labor at fair 
wages, we shall probably plant more. Corn 
is a splendid crop—the King of Cereals—and it 
is nearly the only “ fallow-crop” that is adapt¬ 
ed to our climate and wants. But at present I 
have made up my mind to try summer-fallow¬ 
ing more, and corn planting less, until we can 
obtain labor at reasonable rates. I have a piece 
of rather low land that is of too mucky a na¬ 
ture for wheat and barley. It needs plowing 
and re-seeding. I intended to summer-fallow it 
and seed it with Timothy this fall. But there 
is far less advantage in fallowing such land than 
a clayey loam. The Deacon urges me to plant 
it to corn, and then sesd it down with oats next 
spring. But I will not do it, because there can 
be no doubt of the fact that the oats take from 
the soil the very plant-food necessary to produce 
rich grass. I would rather seed it down with 
the corn. Cultivate the corn thoroughly, with¬ 
out hilling it up, and then when we can culti¬ 
vate it no more—say in August—mount a 
horse, and go through the rows and sow from 
a peck to half a bushel of Timothy seed per 
acre. We cut our corn close to the ground, but 
if the stalks should interfere with the mowing 
machine, let the Timothy get ripe enough for 
seed, and cut it with a reaper, and bind it in 
bundles. Then in the winter, lay these bundles 
on the barn floor, and give the heads of Timothy 
a few sharp raps with a flail. Then if you want 
to sell Timothy hay, you will have an article 
that is just the thing for those city people, who 
are so fearful of feeding the least particle of 
clover. You can assure them that it is “ clear 
Timothy,” and entirely free from “ dust.” 
“An Enquirer” in Ohio writes to the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist, expressing surprise at my re¬ 
marks in regard to the pair of wild tur¬ 
keys being so much finer boned than the domes¬ 
tic turkey, and he asks “Is not the wild always 
better than the tame?” Most certainly not. 
Tbe wild hog is far inferior to a well-bred do¬ 
mestic pig. A short-horn is vastly superior to 
a buffalo, and a Northern Spy is better than the 
Crab-apple. It may be that wild animals have 
better constitutions than the tame, owing to the 
fact that weakly wild animals, lacking the fos¬ 
tering care of man, die off, and thus the race is 
propagated only from the strongest. But for 
domestic animals we provide food and shelter, 
and often take more care of the weak. By and 
by the butcher comes along, and offers more for 
the best than for the poorest, and a short-sighted 
policy accepts his offer; so we breed from the 
very animals which, in a state of nature, would 
have died. If wild turkeys are better than our 
domestic turkey, (and I am inclined to think 
they are,) this is doubtless the cause. We kill 
those which are the fattest and mature the ear¬ 
liest, and breed from the poorest. Judicious 
selection and careful breeding would soon 
make the domestic turkey far superior in early 
maturity and fattening qualities to the wild. 
Another Ohio farmer asks me whether plas¬ 
ter will do good on heavy clay land. If it is 
wet, no; if dry, probably yes. Also, how 
many rods of drain, three feet deep, a man will 
dig in a day. It depends on the character of 
the land, and the energy and skill of the ditch¬ 
er. Some men will use the pick where another 
man, with more pluck and a narrower spade, 
would not; and in this way he would do doub¬ 
le the work. I have never paid more than 
twenty-five cents a rod for digging a three-foot 
ditch, and the men board themselves. But 
where it is very stony, I am obliged to have it 
done by the day, and it costs a good deal more, 
depending on the number of stones, etc. 
The Pennsylvania Hay Wagon. 
The engraving on the next page shows the hay 
wagon generally employed in the vicinity of 
Philadelphia, which has some advantages over 
the wagons and carts in common use iu other 
localities. The total length of the top of the 
body is twelve feet. The two foreward corners 
are supplied with sharpened iron pins, 8 inches 
long, one of which is shown in the engraving, 
