2 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
t 
Contents for January, 1866. 
Agricultural Education. ....11 
Agricultural Department at Washington. 6 
Azaleas—Native.2 llluslrations. .24 
Back Voliitnes Supplied. 6 
Bag-Holder—Convenient. Illustrated.. 17 
Barometers—Useful. 4 
Barn-Door Fastening. Illustrated. .12 
Bees—Apiary in January. 4 
Bees—Bi'lwell Brothers’ Experience.15 
Book List for Farmers and Others. 5 
Boxes instead of Pots . .21 
Boys and Girls’ Columns—Checkers or Draughts— 
Puzzles—$50 in Prizes for the Ingenious—Holiday 
Picture—Pear Tree and Grape Vine—Little Boy 
Jloves a Great Slop—Impromptu Invention—Origin 
of Cast Iron .Manufactures—Witty Temperance Men 
—Sudden Cure—” How do You Like It?”—Merry 
Christmas aiul Happy New Year.o Illustrations. .20-28 
Bull Ring—Best Form. Illustrated. .IZ 
Business Items. 6 
Card from Mr. Harris—Genesee Farmer...'.. 6 
Canary Bird Flower. Illustrated. .Z\ 
Cliapped Hands—Preventive.28 
Chrysanthemums—Select in Flower.23 
Cprn Bread, and Pudding...26 
Cattle’s Horns—Wooden Knobs for...4 Illustrations. .IZ 
Drag-Saw Machinery . .....Illustrated. .}& 
Farm Work in January. 2 
Flower Garden and Lawn in January. 4 
Flowers for a Grave . .;25 
Fruit Garden in January.- . 3 
Garden—Kitchen in January. 3 
Grain—Feeding to Stock Profttably.14 
Green iind Hot-Houses in January.:... 4 
Hogs—Slaughtering... Illustrated —12 
Horse Stable—Best. 14 
Horticultural Work in January. 3 • 
Housekeepers—Request to.'..25 
Look Ahead for the New Year...15 
Manure—Reform Needed. % .14 
Market Reports. 6 
Minced Beef. .26 
Movements of Piants.' .... ..i Illustrations. .tl2 
Orchard and Nursery in January. 3 
Ornamentation of Tables and Dislies.25 
Poultry House—Novel. Illustrated. .17 
Poultry—Value of Spanish Fowls. .17 
Premiums for 1866. • . 4 
Protecting Implements, etc. 11 
Pumpkin Pancakes.26 
Reform—Needed and Practicable. 14 
Rice Pudding—Delicate. 26 
Silvering Powders, Tooth Powders, etc. 25 
Sleigh—How to Make Strong. Illustrated. .\& 
Southern Farming—Good Chances.10 
Sponge Cucumber...2 Illustrations. .25 
Stables—Light Needed for Animals.13 
Tomatoes—Experience with.21 
Top-dressing Meadows.II 
Turkeys’ Holidays.. Illustrated. .2D 
Turkeys—How to Raise. 13 
Vines, Roses, etc., in Pots, vs. Broad Boarders.22 
Walks and Talks on the Farm—Continued from the 
Genesee Farmer. 18 
Watering Pot—French. Illustrated. .21 
Weighing Scales—U.ses for. . Illustrated. .16 
Western Agriculture. 12 
Winter Greens—Club Mosses. Illustrated—2Z 
INDEX TO “basket,” OR SHORTER ARTICLES. 
Advertisements, About.. . 7 Gunpowder, Harmless_ 9 
Agricultural Colleges.... 10;Hay Fork Attachment . . 9 
Agricultural Papers.; 9|Hay. Measuring . 9 
Agricultural Report. 7iH0rses, Catching.10 
Agriculturist Strawberry. 8 Horses, Shoe Calks.10 
Barrel, Contents of.. 9 Humbug Pen. 7 
Beet Sugar. 6 Jewelry Swindle_. .... 9 
Books. Best. 7 Lightning Rod Swindle... 9 
Branch Log Ch.Tin.lO'Lilies, Propagating.8 
Bug Exhibition. 7 Lottery Humbugs. 9 
Bushels of Ears. 7 Milk Stools. g 
California Swindle.9 Manure from Weeds. 9 
Cattle Lice. 9 Mulberry, Everbearing.!! 8 
Cattle Plague, Law.lOiPolargouium.s, etc. 8 
Cobs. Value of.10 Plants Named.. 8 
Cheese Makers’Ass’n. .7-10 Pleasant Reading. 7 
Dahlia, Propagating. sJPomological Meeting. 8 
Death, C, Hairs. 7 Potatoes and Chestnuts., 8 
Farmers’ Clubs..10|Ra.spberry Queries. 8 
Farmer’s Scrap Book_ OjRats Ealing Harness. 9 
Feeding Box.10 Rieinus. Large. 8 
Forty Pages. 7;Rural Annual. 7 
Fruit List . . . 8 Sa.ssafras Sprouts. 8 
Gardening Books.. SISchool of Itlines. 7 
Gooseberry Literature.... SjSouthern Cultivator. 7 
Grain Bin Ventilators ... 10 Stripping tiows.10 
Grape Culture, Fuller’s.. sISubsoil Plow. 10 
Grapes, Large. 8jTomatoes, Soil for. 8 
Graces, Yeddo. 8 Topping Produce. 8 
Greasing Boots, etc . 7i Walks and Talks.7 
Greeley Prizes . 8 Warty Teats.... . 9 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
NEW-YORK, JANUARY, 1866. 
As we divide time, we are now on the threshold 
of a New Year, one of those times when men in- 
tinctively look forward to what time has in store for 
them and for the world, and, as man can only judge 
the future by the past, we look back also. To us, 
of this nation, tlie future, bright with hope, open¬ 
ing tlie most abundant rewards for peaceful indus¬ 
try, contrasts so happily with the year just past, iu 
its beginning, that we hardly dare believe that 
Peace has come, and that our great Nation is to 
start anew' in its c.arcer of progress in the arts of 
peace. Agriculture is an art of many arts;—what 
science does it not employ, and what art does 
not work to its advantage? If we are wide- 
aw'ake to learn and to apply as well as to invent and 
to discover, we shall be no laggards in this race of 
progress. Terrible have been our sacrifices,—grand 
has been the hopeful fortitude of the nation, and 
with virtue and faithfulness to our high trusts, 
great will be the reward. 
Farmers will give more and better thought now 
to their farms, and with this will come greater pros¬ 
perity. Winter may stop hand-work, but it cannot 
stop head-work, and they both yield equally v.alu- 
able results. Planning for the future, laying out im¬ 
provements, and looking ahead in sundry ways 
should not only occupy the mind these January 
days and evenings, but such plans and good ideas 
should go, straightway, down upon paper. This 
avoids dreaming over the same things day after day, 
and makes thinking of much more avail.—It is like 
harrowing in the seed. This reminds us of an excel¬ 
lent style of a ready reference, scrap- and memo¬ 
randum-book which we will describe in '■Hhe JiaskeV’ 
Mints aboMt Work. 
The frugal legislators of some of the States 
(Connecticut in particular) are said to have placed 
the time of holding the annual sessions of the legis¬ 
lature in May, because as most of the members were 
farmers, there would be a guaranty against long 
sessions, in the pressing necessity for them to re¬ 
turn to their farms to put in their crops; but when 
the effort was made to change the time to the 
winter months, the lafv' makers, no longer so frugal 
of the people’s money, argued that winter work ' 
upon the farm needed more the vigilant eye of the 
master than that of any other season. So indeed 
it does ; spring is the seed-time, but winter is the 
golden fruition,—more than any other, the ripen¬ 
ing time of the farmer’s year’s toil, when beef, 
mutton and pork, corn and wheat, are most readily 
converted into greenbacks. To promote this end 
Animals of all kinds need constant care. We 
subject them to unnatural influences of food and 
coBflnemeut, and should see to it that the na¬ 
tural laws of health are not violated, that they are 
all clean, have pure air, light, exercise, good feed 
and water. The curry comb and card cannot be 
recommended for use on sheep and poultry, hut 
all the other live stock of the farm will be beueflt- 
ted by their frequent employment. Try carding the 
calves and colts regularly, and mark their improved 
appearance; and the animals which more than any 
others fairly speak their gratitude for a currying are 
Swine, wliose thrift and good growth will also be 
greatly promoted by extraordinary cleanliness. Ar¬ 
range this mouth for the farrowing of sows about 
the first of Ma}-. During her sixteen weeks of ges¬ 
tation a sow should have a clean and comfortable 
sty, be supplied with abundant litter and with 
succulent and rather bulky feed, in preference to 
grain, or nutriment iu a concentrated form. An 
excellent diet is potatoes, and other roots, apples, 
pumpkins, etc., with oats, bran, or corn meal, in 
small quantity, all boiled together. 
Sheep. —If so situated that you can wateh the 
market and take^ advantage of its fluctuations, 
crowd the fattening sheep as fast as possible, so as 
to have them fat and ready for market in case snows 
or other causes cut off the supply by rail. If the ob¬ 
ject be to consume fodder and make manure, feed 
more deliberately—giving more freedom and exer¬ 
cise. Lambs need the best quality of ha}’,some roots, 
a little grain,and access to straw, or they may fall off 
in condition. When sheep have no roots or similar 
food, keep them supplied with hemlock or pine 
boughs, and if convenient, give them the range of 
a piece of woodland, where timber has been felled. 
Young Stock. —One great means of- having fine 
stock is bestowing attention and good care on them 
while growing. All kinds, especially colts and 
calves, should be kept rapidly growing, and never 
lack pure water. Probably three quarters of the 
young stock of the country nearly or quite stop ia 
their growth during several weeks, each winter. 
Calves and Yearlings should always be separated 
from large cattle, and receive more nutritious feed 
than store animals or dry cows require. Half a 
pound of oil cake meal per head (soaked or scald¬ 
ed in much water, and' sprinkled over the fodder,) 
will promote health and thrift. 
Colts will thrive well on one quart of oats each, 
daily, with a good supply of bright straw or two 
pounds of hay. The same quantity fed as cut- 
feed, the oats being ground,.will be much better 
for them. 
Horses. —Curry or card all whether worked or not, 
if you would keep them in good health, and give 
all not worked daily an hour or two for exercise, 
turning them loose, oue at a time, lest in their play 
they kick each other. Do not expose brood mares 
to danger of falling in slippery weather; bring wat¬ 
er to them, or keep them calked, and so too, 
Oxen used on slippery roads should be kept well 
shod, both for their comfort and their owner’s secur¬ 
ity. Large bodied oxen often get a bad habit of 
crowding by being worked in sboYt yokes and go¬ 
ing iu narrow sled tracks. The remedy for tliis 
difficulty is to make the sleds to run wider and the 
yokes longer. Long yokes alone will not cure it. 
Milch Coios should not be milked too close upon 
their time of calving. If dried off within five 
weeks, it is w.ell enough for both cow and calf. 
Cows not giving milk do not need so good feed, 
but should be stabled if possible, and fed good 
bay and stalks, which if chaffed and wet up with a 
little bran, corn meal or oil cake will go much 
farther. The fact is, farmers generally pay too little 
attention to properly economizing 
Fodder of all kinds. It ought never to be fed 
upon the ground—the waste will pay for good racks 
in one season. Fodder goes farther and is consum¬ 
ed to better advantage when bay, straw, cornstalks, 
with a suitable allowance of roots or grain are fed 
daily, at different, feedings or mixed more or less, 
than when the animals are confined for days or 
weeks to one kind of coarse fodder. One of the 
most economical ways to feed 
Oats is to thresh off about two-thirds of the grain 
and feed the straw with the remainder to sheep and 
cattle. It will be found nearly equal to good hay. 
Grain. —It is poor economy to feed any kind of 
grain whole or uncooked, to any stock except sheep. 
They do their own corn-grinding to advantage, ex¬ 
cept when being rapidly fattened. If whole corn 
be fed, pour boiling W’ater over it and let it stand 
twelve hours ; and if boiled half an hour after that, 
it is all the better. A strange but general pre¬ 
judice exists among many old-school farmers not 
only against feeding grain, but against feeding 
Boots : their extended culture and free use will 
pay, not only iu introducing a better system of 
farming, but iu the better health and condition of 
the stock, and in maintaining them and fattening 
them at less cost. Look to it that roots do not 
freeze. If in pits or heaps, where the earth kas 
caved in or been washed away, patcli such spots 
with strawy manure, or earth. Sliced or mashed 
they may be fed to all kinds of stock, from chick¬ 
ens to horses, in large or small quantities to advan¬ 
tage, if only with regularity. Another very geue- 
raily neglected but excellcHt article of feed is 
Oil cake or Oil mea?.—This, as our readers know, 
is the residue after pressing out the oil from lin¬ 
seed and is properly called linseed oil-cuke, (or 
