220 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
from the river bottom, and is built around an en¬ 
closure 200 feet long, by 100 feet wide. This shed 
is shown at fig. 2, from a drawing kindly furnished 
by Mr. Shaw. The stack yard for hay is seen at a, 
the horse barn at b ; the poultry house at c ; the 
water trough and pump, operated by a windmill, at 
d ; the sheep fold at e; the feeding yard with hay 
stacks and racks, at./, and around the feeding yard 
are keeping sheep, or desiring to do so, will have 
no difficulty in making plans to meet their re¬ 
quirements in any part of our wide country 
A Fence not Worth Stealing. 
We have several inquiries from the southern 
Fig. 1.— ME. GKANT’S SHEEP CORRAL, AT VICTORIA, KANSAS. 
are sheds with a single roof sloping outwards. 
These instances show that those extensive plains, 
which stretch from western Nebraska and Kansas, 
across eastern Colorado to the mountains, are well 
adapted to sheep raising, from the ease and economy 
with which sheep may be reared upon them. We 
are, however, reminded by a correspondent from 
Virginia, of the facilities for the production of 
mutton and wool in that state, and much nearer 
the sea-board. In an article given in the Agri¬ 
culturist last month, (May), he described something 
of the management of a flock of 300 sheep, and 
the facilities afforded by the climate and location, 
for raising and shipping early lambs to market. 
Now we have a description of his sheep barn, 
which possesses many conveniences, and which is 
shown in plan at fig. 3. The yard, a, is 100 feet 
square, divided by a hurdle fence, shown by the 
dotted lines, into as many portions as may be de¬ 
sired. The entrance is at b, where there is a gate 
hung upon a post, c, in such a way as to open or 
close each half of the yard. The yard is enclosed 
on three sides by a shed 10 feet high to the eaves, 
with a double roof. The ground floor, 7 feet high, 
is appropriated for sheep pens, and the three feet 
above for a hay loft. The shed is 12 feet wide, and 
has a row of separate pens 6 feet wide, upon the 
north side. On the other sides there are narrow 
doors for the sheep, seen at d, d, and sliding shut¬ 
ters, e, c, 8 feet long, and 31 feet high, which are 
also used for entrances to the shed. The yard is 
closed at the front by a fence 10 feet high. There 
are no outside windows, and no doors but two, and 
only one of these, that at/, is locked from the out¬ 
side, so that the turning of one key on the outside, 
secures the whole from trespassers. There is a 
second yard, 150 by 135 feet, upon the south side 
of the sheep yard, with an open shed facing the 
south, and divided into pens 9 feet deep, for cows 
or sheep, and a pig pen 35 feet square, at the south 
east of the sheep yard. These sheds are made of 
inch boards, nailed up and down upon the frame 
work, and the roof is of boards, with sufficient 
pitch to shed rain perfectly. With these descrip¬ 
tions of sheep sheds, and the knowledge that 
proper shelter is found absolutely necessary for 
the welfare of the sheep everywhere, those who 
states for a fence that can not be stolen. It seems 
that in several parts of those states fences are con¬ 
sidered a convenient source of firewood, and as a 
sort of common property. A correspondent writes 
that he has built three board-fences in as many 
years, and now has neither boards nor fences left 
of any of them. We take this to be an exceptional 
case, but to provide for such a state of affairs, the 
fence here described may be used. Posts are set in 
the ground, as for an ordinary fence, and several 
furrows are then plowed on each side toward the 
fence, until the earth is heaped up on the line. 
The earth is further loosened with the plow, and 
thrown up with the shovel, leaving a bank on the 
line of the fence, and a ditch on each side. Two 
No. 9 fence-wires are then stretched along the 
posts, making a fence that cattle can not get over 
or through, and that in part can not be burned, and 
in part can not be pulled up. If this does not meet 
the case, some modification of it that will occur to 
our correspondent, may be serviceable. The fence 
is shown in the accompanying illustration. 
A New Lock Nut. 
On a recent visit to the works of Messrs. Adri- 
ance, Platt & Co., Poughkeepsie, N. Y., the manu¬ 
facturers of the well known Buckeye mowing and 
reaping machines, we were shown amongst other 
novelties, the lock nut here illustrated. This lock 
nut is manufactured specially by this firm for use 
upon their machines, which are not only made in 
the most perfect and serviceable manner, but by 
such careful devices as this, it is rendered well 
nigh impossible for them to get out of order, even 
in the hands of a careless farmer. The lock is of 
the simplest but most effective kind. The end of 
the screw is perforated with a small hole, and the 
nut is made with several openings or open slots in 
the upper part. V hen the nut is screwed tight, a 
piece of wire is put through the hole, necessarily 
passing through two of these openings in the nut; 
the ends of the wire are then 
bent so that it cannot slip out 
and the nut is perfectly locked. 
This close attention to the de¬ 
tails of construction has made 
this machine a model of its 
class, reducing its weight and 
simplifying its mechanism 
until it is a mere skeleton of 
what it was years ago, but re¬ 
taining everything of its 
strength and durability. One 
would think, viewing the new¬ 
est mowers and reapers with 
all the improvements in ma¬ 
terial and mechanism they ex¬ 
hibit, that at last perfection 
in these machines has been 
reached ; but when a “ Buck¬ 
eye of a dozen years ago is compared with the 
new “model machine” of to-day, and all the 
gradual improvements during those years are no¬ 
ted, it would seem that new surprises may yet be in 
store for the coming farmer. Certainly it would 
not be safe to say that skillful and enterprising 
manufacturers of agricultural machinery have as 
yet exhausted their inventive faculties. 
--—«a ^ y m —» ^ 
Binging Hogs. 
--- « 
In 1870 there were over 25 milliou hogs in the 
United States, and the total value of the pork repre¬ 
sented by them is a very large sum. Anything, 
however small it may seem to be, that can operate 
to increase the yield of pork from all these hogs, is 
in the aggregate of great importance. Whatever 
can reduce the labor of managing and rearing 
a similar number of hogs every year, will be of 
great service to farm¬ 
ers. By pasturing 
hogs upon clover and 
grass, there is a great 
economy in feeding 
them and in raising 
pork, as they may in 
this way procure 
their own food with pjg, 2 . open. Fig. 3. closed. 
but little attention. 
Unfortunately a hog or a pig is a difficult animal 
to manage, unless handled with skill. If made 
submissive, or rendered incapable of mischief, 
it is easy to manage them in a pasture, but other¬ 
wise a few hogs will destroy a pasture, or escape 
from it, in a few days. They are generally sub- 
Fig. 4.— PIG HOLDER. 
dued by putting rings in their snouts, a necessary 
operation, but one rarely done otherwise than in a 
