1866.] 
AMERICAN AG-RICULTURISR. 
95 
posts were not to be painted, I should coat them 
all over with tar and, sand^ and I wotild not 
.care much whether the posts W’ere hemlock, 
oak, or chestnut, for I believe if the job were 
well clone, they would last as long as any por¬ 
tion of the fence. It wmuld cost but little, not 
two cents a post. The posts should be clear of 
bark, and clean, and then a man could prepare 
three hundred of them in a day by having a 
trough, notunlike, an ordinary hog trough about 
eight feet in length. He should put sufficient 
tar in this to cover a post; put in the post, and 
see that it gets thoroughly covered, then set it 
up to drain for a short time, in such a way that 
the tar from it will run back into the trough. 
He should have a quantity of very line and dry 
sand at hand, and roll them in it when the tar 
has pretty well drained. After a few days I 
would have the posts svvept off and that por¬ 
tion which is to enter the ground receive a 
second coat, taking care to coat the ends thor¬ 
oughly, and if the tops were to be sawn off 
after being set, I would coat these again,” 
- - -—- » m - 
Plowing Ground without Dead Furrows. 
Dead furrows are a nuisance, especially where 
hoed crops are cultivated; and when land is 
stocked down for meadows, deep dead furrows 
make an un¬ 
even surface 
for the mow¬ 
ers and horse 
rakes to work 
over. When 
a field is plow¬ 
ed in lands be- 
ginningontlie 
outside, turn¬ 
ing all the fur¬ 
rows outward, and finishing the plowing in the 
middle of the field, there will be a dead-furrow 
from every corner to the middle dead-furrow of 
each land, and a strip of ground eight or ten feet 
wide on one side 
of every dead far¬ 
row will be trod¬ 
den down firmly 
by the teams when 
turning around. 
Plowing a field 
without dead fur¬ 
rows is simply 
commencing at 
the middle and 
turning the fur¬ 
row slices all in¬ 
ward. If the plowing be done with a right-hand 
plow, the teams will “gee around,” always 
turning on the unplowed ground. When a field 
is plowed in this manner, there are no ridges 
or dead furrows, and the surface is even, so 
that the operation of 
any machine is never 
hindered. When sod 
ground is plowed in 
lands, there is always 
a strip of ground be¬ 
neath the first two 
furrow slices at every 
ridge, that is not 
broken up. This is 
to a great extent avoided when the whole field 
is plowed as one land, and may be entirely 
avoided, if back-furrowed.—The accompanying 
diagrams will show how to plow a sq.uare 
fi.eld, or one of irregular boundary, commencing 
in the middle and finishing at the outsides. 
Figure 1, shows a rectangular field. The 
plowman finds a point equally distant from 
three sides, measuring of course at right angles 
to the sides, and 
sets a stake. 
Then he finds 
the point equal¬ 
ly distant from 
the three sides 
at the other 
end, and sets 
another stake. 
From these 
two stakes to the corners of the field he turns 
two furrow slices together, and then plows 
tlie field, being guided by them, and occasionally 
measuring to the outside to see if he is keeping 
ills farrows of equal width at setting in and 
running out, and on each side. In fig. 2, a four¬ 
sided lot where the angles are not right angles, 
precisely the same rule is followed. In the case 
of the triangular field, the plowman begins by 
plowing about a single point, which, though 
awkward at first, may be executed with ease 
after a few trials. In the case of the irregular 
five-sided lot, represented by fig. 4, it is a little 
more difficult to start exactly right, but the 
ruling gives a clear idea of how the furrows 
run, and it is always well to pace off frequently 
to the outside of the lot—or rather from the fence, 
starting at right-angles to it—to be sure that the 
portion remaining uiiplowed on each side, and 
at each end of each side, remains always of a 
coiTespoudiug width, as the irlowing progresses. 
' < ii if » tuiu .. ,, . 
The Rinderpest.—State Action Heeded. 
The use of the German name for this cattle 
plague is becoming common, not because it 
means any more than cattle plague, probably 
because there are other murrains and cattle 
diseases which have been considered cattle 
plagues in their day. We have already pub¬ 
lished (last vol. p. 267) the symptoms attending 
the disease, as given by high English authority, 
and have since noticed its rapid spread over 
England, and the distress it occasions. The 
timely and, it is to be hoped, efficient action of 
our government with regard to excluding all 
foreign cattle, is known to our readers, and 
we can do nothing now, except to keep diligent 
watch for the appearance of any contagious or 
epidemic disease among our neat stock or sheep, 
that its character may be ascertained as soon 
as possible. Doubtless the hides of slaughtered 
animals have been shipped from Europe to this 
country, though that is now perliaps stopped, 
and there are many ways in which it may be 
possible for the disease to reach here. In view 
of this, we deem it important that the State Le¬ 
gislatures should take immediate action, and 
pass laws requiring town or county officers to 
report at once to the Governor or other State 
officers the prevalence of anything like epidemic 
or endemic disease among cattle and sheep— 
cattle owners, keepers, or drovers being obli¬ 
ged under heavy penalties to report monthly 
the number of animals dying in their herds, to¬ 
gether with the whole number of each herd. 
Such a record would be exceedingly useful, be¬ 
sides affording a great safeguard against the in¬ 
troduction and extensive spread of any such 
pest as this rinder-pest before we should be 
aware of it. Such a law as we suggest might 
be framed so as to be efficient and yet no great 
burden to any one, and it should be accompanied 
by legislation, empowering or requiring steps 
1 to be at once taken by town or county autho¬ 
rities to isolate diseased herds; railroad and 
other transportation companies, the keepers of 
market-yards, etc., in or near our great cities 
being brought under some such restraint, it 
might aid essentially in freeing our markets 
from diseased meats. An idea of the distress 
prevailing in England, may be gathered from 
the following extract from an article in the 
Mark Lane Express of London: • 
“ The fatal rinderpest which threatened us in 
1855 is now' amongst us, and we see around us 
a verification of the picture Virgil drew of the 
effects produced by the same pest some 20 cen¬ 
turies ago. The cattle are dying around us b}'' 
hundreds, at the rate of 7,000 a w’eek. The out¬ 
break commenced from June, and it was 
hoped that the cool w'catiier of autumn would 
check, and tliat the frosts of wunter would ex¬ 
tinguish it; blit throughout the autumn it has 
increased, the rains have laden the air with 
heavy vapor, w'hich seems to have lent it facili¬ 
ties for transport, and we are now admonished 
to dread the winter for rindeiqiest, as w'e should 
hail it w'ere w'e suffering niidcr the scourge of 
cholera. Visitors can talk of scarcely anything 
else but hoiv it started in London; how it 
spread w'itli fatal rapidity, until now there is ■ 
scarcely a county in England that can show a j 
clean bill of health ; how' for a time it w'as con- j 
fined to cow'-stock, but in true keeping witli its I 
know'n character quickly struck down the store j 
cattle in the field, or the fattening stock in the I 
homestead. There is no escape : everything of j 
the order ruminata goes dow'ii before it. The | 
perplexed farmer is not allowed to place his | 
trust in sheep—they, too, have xwoved themselves ■ 
mortal. The cure, as yet, seems to fail us, and 
•so endurance comes in as the only alternative, i 
Some people want the Government to interfere i 
w'illi a strong arm, that can operate more effec- 1 
tlvely than by merely giving pow'er to local 
authorities to carry out measures that, may hap¬ 
pen to be approved in any particular district 
over which they preside. Others are filled w'itli 
the gravest apprehensions. The disease, they 
maintain, w'ill run its course for years, as it did 
once before ; and then it will stop, not because 
there are no more animals to die, but because 
there are no more cattle in a condition favorable 
for receiving and developing the germs of in¬ 
fection which reach them by one way or an¬ 
other. And everybody tells you to exert all 
possible vigilance in shielding cattle from con¬ 
tagion, and enforcing respect to the laws of 
hygiene in farm premises. All very wise and 
prudent, but almost impossible to be carried 
out properly, w'itli open yards soaked by exces¬ 
sive rainfall, the beasts standing and lying upon 
manure like a sponge, and straw' for daily fresh 
litter being scarce during foggy and drizzly 
w'eafher for thrashing.” 
Working the Ground while it is wet.— 
The temptation is often great, to use a fair month 
for the preparation of the soil for crops before 
the w'ater is sufficiently dried off. Dr drained out 
of it, to w’arrant its being stirred at all. Thu.s 
the gain of forty-eight hours in time is often a 
serious detriment to the field for the entire sea¬ 
son. Light sandy loams are not injured in this 
way, but every clayey loam is, and as a general 
rule, so is any soil which ever dries in lumps. 
The plow presses the furrow slices into clods, 
which often dry like pressed bricks, and tlx* 
treading of the teams in harrowing makes bad 
worse, though the harrow tears them up some¬ 
what. Even heavy loam may be w'orked in¬ 
to a light, porous, ivarm seed-bed if in proper 
condition for plowing before being w'orked. 
