214r 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
[JCNE, 
upon a box made or adapted to the purpose. 
Fig. 3, a Swiss Cottage. This is a good deal 
larger than fig. 1, and will accommodate as 
many pairs of birds as there are distinct apart¬ 
ments. In plan 2, the four rooms measure 
12x15 inches. No vestibules are provided, but 
eacli tenement is big enough for two nests if 
needed. The Swiss Cottage house is more 
elaborate, and will require a skillful hand and 
patience to make it. Each story of the house 
should be made separate. The lower one should 
be at least eight inches high, and the lower 
piazza eight inches wide. The stones upon the 
roof should be wired to the cross-strips. Plans 
3 and 4 represent the lower and upper stories 
respectively; 4, G or 8 pairs may be accom¬ 
modated, according to the internal arrangement. 
Plowing with a Single Line. 
A correspondent of the Agriculturist , former¬ 
ly a Connecticut farmer, and now cultivating a 
large farm in Virginia, gives the following ac¬ 
count of the method of driving horses, “ k from 
one to six,” with a single line. He says: 
“ Take a stout leather line, one inch and a half 
wide, and say eighteen feet long,—it needs that 
length to harrow,—with a buckle on one end, 
and a loop for the hand on the other. The 
‘lead bridle’ should have a rein extending 
about a foot back of the liames, with a ring in 
the middle; into the ring buckle the line; take 
it lightly in the left hand, letting it fall on the 
same side of the horse, step back to the plow, 
and you are ready to start. A steady pull is to 
turn haw, a light, sudden jerk, gee; horses 
soon learn with a little patience and persever¬ 
ance, so that they can be driven with the utmost 
precision ; and the miserable practice of pulling 
and jerking on the lines, alluded to by the writer' 
of ‘ Walks and Talks,’ is well-nigh impossible. 
Besides there is the great advantage of the 
driver always having his right hand for other 
work—holding the plow, clearing his harrow, 
etc. This is all the driving required for a one, 
two, or three-horse plow, or a four or six-horse 
wagon team. In the latter case, the near 
horse of the forward pair is the ‘leader,’ and 
all the others are guided by him; but the ad¬ 
vantage is more apparent in a three-horse plow 
team than anywhere else. And here let me say 
that, on any stiff land, three horses makes the 
very best team possible, and almost the only one 
capable of doing a good day’s work, day after 
day; and I believe six horses and two men will 
break more land, and do it better, in two teams, 
than if divided into three, with another hand. 
But to hitch up a three-horse plow team,—1st, 
have a left-tond plow, arranged with one ‘ trip¬ 
le-tree,’ one ‘ double-tree,’ and three ‘ single¬ 
trees.’ Put the lead horse in the farrow, and 
hitch him as before described; put on the mid¬ 
dle horse next, hook his traces, lead him up 
square or even with the other. Have a small 
strap pass under his jaw, from ring to ring of 
his bit; to this attach a long-strap, bring it 
back it) the double-tree, and fasten it loose 
enough to give him room to pull freely, but not 
so as to run around the other horse. Then take 
a ‘ push stick * about four feet long, attach one 
end loosely to the left hame ring of the ‘ lead 
horse,’ the other to the right ring of the other’s 
bit. Hitch the third or other horse in the same 
way to the middle horse, and you are ready to 
start. The ‘ leader,’ walking in the furrow, 
easily guides the other two, and by the help of 
the ‘push sticks’ and coupling straps, he is 
enabled to turn them either gee or haw with ease. 
Left-hand plows work much better with this 
arrangement than right-hand, but both are used. 
Harrowing is done in the same way. I have 
dwelt thus at length on this subject, as I con¬ 
sider it so important, that I think the papers 
should make an effort to cause its general intro¬ 
duction in the North and West. And if you 
could get a few of our negroes to train your 
horses, it would be a good thing. I work six 
horses on my farm; all “understand the line,’ 
although but one did when I got them. This 
plan does not injure them for carriage horses, 
my best plow leader being one of the best and 
easiest driving buggy horses I ever used. Now, 
take a good-tempered, intelligent horse, and the 
same kind of a man, if you have one, tell him 
all about how it is done, set him at work 
with a single-horse plow, and see what progress 
he will make in one day; or else let him train 
him half an hour a day for a week, and then 
put in two, and then three, after your leader is 
trained. When once men and horses become 
accustomed to it, you could not induce either with 
ordinary inducements to go back to the old plan.” 
Tail-boards of Wagons. 
The article in the April number of the Agri¬ 
culturist suggesting the use of a chain, perma¬ 
nently attached at one end, instead of the usual 
rod to secure the tail-boards of wagons, brings 
us several practical and some quite impractical 
suggestions. A. W. Grover, of Oxford Co., Me., 
Tig. 1.— grover's tail-board fastener. 
sends a genuine improvement upon the chain 
fastening by suggesting that, “ Instead of hav¬ 
ing the screw bolt permanently attached to the 
chain, we make a hook on the bolt opposite the 
nut, so that when it is in place, a link of the 
chain may be dropped over it, and the whole 
then drawn snug by the nut. This avoids the 
necessity of taking off the crank nut.” The ar¬ 
rangement is shown in fig. 1. The next sug¬ 
gestion comes from Harry II. Negley, of Alle¬ 
ghany Co., Pa., and is the substitution of a rod 
attached by a link and bolt permanently to one 
side, and having a hook at the other end, which 
fits into an eye attached to a screw bolt, to be 
drawn up by a crank nut, as in other cases. 
Mr. N. suggests also the use of a chain instead 
of the rod. The arrangement is shown in fig. 
2, and it has these advantages over the other: 
The rod is cheaper than the chain, and the 
screw bolt will not have to be made square and 
work in a square hole, as the other will, to pre¬ 
vent the chain twisting. A small nut is put 
upon the end of the screw bolt in fig. 2, and 
slightly' riveted, so that the crank nut cannot 
come off. George Smith, of True Co., Ohio, 
describes and sketches a plan in common use 
Fig. 3.— -true co., o., tail-board fastener. 
in that section. It is shown in fig. 3, and con¬ 
sists of two’| 2 or 6 | 8 -inch iron rods attached to 
the sides by links, and forming a long hook and 
eye, which unite at the middle of the tail-board, 
and are drawn up tight by a screw bolt and 
nut, as in the other cases. This plan, it will be 
observed, is on the same principle as Mr. 
Negley’s, it being quite immaterial to which 
end the screw bolt for tightening is attached. 
■> <——»©«—-- — 
Soiling’ Cattle. 
To the average farmer of America, no system 
of the summer feeding of cattle offers so great 
advantages as pasturing on broad acres; y’et 
there is a very large number to whom soiling 
(feeding in the stable throughout the entire sum¬ 
mer) seems to afford the best means for profit¬ 
ably carrying on their business. There are 
many, also, with whom farming is only an in¬ 
cidental occupation, who keep two or three 
cows on small places adjoining their village or 
town residences, and whose regular avocation 
is in some other department of industry ; these 
will find great advantage in adopting soiling. 
It is always important to keep the largest pos¬ 
sible amount of stock on a given area. The 
extent to which the proportion of cattle to 
land maybe increased is entirely dependent on 
the value of land, the value of the animal prod¬ 
uct, and the price of labor. The extent to 
which it is possible that it should be forced is 
sometimes astonishing. Instances are reported, 
in accounts of Flemish agriculture, in which 
seven large-sized milch cows are kept through¬ 
out the summer season on the produce of a 
single acre. This is enormous; but, while the 
allowance in the case of good land is one cow 
to two acres of pasture, it is easy, on land of 
the same quality’, to keep two cows from the 
produce of one acre, the whole being cut and 
fed from the manger. The advantage of stimu¬ 
lating the production of our land up to ..is lat¬ 
ter point is, under all suitable circ* nstances, 
very great; and many of the small farmers of 
the more thickly settled portions of the country 
W’ould find it much to their advantage to so or¬ 
ganize their entire establishments, as to depend 
wholly upon soiling for the source of their 
summer feed. Those who are not familiar with 
the practice and results of soiling raise many 
objections against its adoption,—such as, that 
cattle, deprived of the exercise that pasturing 
gives them, must fall off in health, and that the 
production of milk will be less. It i3 too late 
in the history of agriculture for such objections 
to have weight, for it has been amply demon¬ 
strated by repealed experiments in this country, 
as well as by long-continued practice in many 
districts of Europe; that not only’is the produc¬ 
tion of milk greater under the soiling than 
under the pasturing system, but that the animals 
are evidently more comfortable and thrifty’, are 
less liable to disease, and very much less sub¬ 
ject to the annoying attacks of certain insects. 
