1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
299 
horse traveling about one-eighth faster than the 
left side. They are constantly pulling “on a 
twist.” This can not be avoided. I always give 
the outside horse, which has to travel about one- 
fifth faster than the inside horse, a longer portion 
of the evener. Or rather, we bore a hole about 
three inches from the end of the left half of the 
evener. This gives the Inside horse, which does 
not travel so far, a heavier load to pull. The 
thrashers never seem to take kindly to this arrange¬ 
ment, and do not adopt it with their own horses. 
But they give no reason. It seems hardly fair to 
make a horse that has t® walk, say 25 miles a day, 
pull as hard as one by his side that only walks 20 
miles. I have a favorite horse that has great pluck 
and endurance. He is always bound to keep ahead 
of any horse he is with. But put him'on to a sweep- 
power, and let him be the outside horse, and his 
spirit dies out of him. After a few rounds, he 
gives up in dispair. He is a changed horse. There 
is no life nor pluck in him. He lags behind. At 
the plow or on the road he never needs a whip. He 
is always wide awake and always ahead. But on 
the machine, the driver is constantly saying “ get 
EVENER FOR THRASHING MACHINE. 
up, Tom ” ; but neither word nor whip will make 
him keep up with the inside horse. I fancy the 
inside horse, who, during all the other days in the 
year has to see “ Tom ” keep ahead of him, rather 
enjoys Tom’s humiliation on thrashing days. Poor 
Tom, he sometimes makes me angry by not keeping 
step with the other horse on the road ; but I cannot 
but feel sorry for him when on the machine. 1 would 
not treat a poor horse so. I want to thrash by steam. 
But here comes in a difficulty. How about the 
insurance? Iam insured for three years. I pay $6 
per thousand for three years. And I use a steamer 
for cooking food all the time, and no objection. 
But if I want to bring on a steamer to thrash with, 
I must pay, as I understand the matter, §10 a thou¬ 
sand extra for one year, and am then hedged in 
with a set of the most minute regulations, neglect 
of any of which invalidates the whole policy. I 
am insured for say $10,000. I pay $60 for three 
years. 1 want to thrash for two day6.—“ Well, we 
will give you a ‘ permit,’ provided you do so and so. 
You must have a pit of water under the fire-box, 
and have water constantly near, and you must keep 
a special watchman every minute, night and day, 
and at meal times.”—That is all right, I say. Any¬ 
thing to pay?—“ Oh, yes, we charge $1.00 per hun¬ 
dred.”—What, for two days ?—“ No, for a year, but 
you must only thrash one harvest.”—But I do not 
want it for a year. I am already insured with you 
for three years. 1 can thrash all I have to thrash in 
two or three days, and the steam engine will then 
be removed. How much extra must I pay for two 
days?—“ One hundred dollars." —In other words, 
they ordinarily insure me on ten thousand dollars, 
at the rate of eleven cents for two days, but for 
two days’ thrashing with a steam engine, I must 
pay one hundred dollars extra ! A flashy Insurance 
Agent, with a cigar in his mouth, matches in his 
pocket, and no brains in his head, is a much more 
dangerous article among farm buildings, than a 
steam engine. I think farmers should keep the 
ground on which he stands, well saturated with 
water, and be very careful not to wet the choice 
specimen of humanity. 
Concrete Roofs.—A fire-proof roof may be 
made of cement. A flat roof is no more costly in 
money or space, than a peaked roof, and such a 
roof, if made of boards covered with a coating of 
cement, of water-lime and sand, and then another 
of asphalt, is absolutely 6afe against fire from with¬ 
out. It is easily repaired when necessary, and a 
brick or stone house thus finished, is as secure as 
it is possible to make it. In view of the increasing 
risk from fires, and the increased cost of insurance 
on country houses, buildings should be made fire¬ 
proof as far as possible. 
- — m -- 
Tim Bunker on Tramps. 
How to Cure them. 
“ That is what I call ‘ rubbing it in,’ ” said Jake 
Frink, as he stopped at the wood-pile yesterday 
morning with the saddest expression upon his face 
I have seen in a month. 
“ Rubbing what in ? ” inquired Seth Twiggs, 
drawing a match across the end of a log upon which 
he was sitting, and lighting his pipe. 
“ Why, haint you heerd on’t yet ? Ye see, tew 
tramps called at our house yesterday forenoon, and 
found Polly ironing. They was big stout fellers, 
and I was out in the corn-field hoein. They said 
they had bo’t a shad out of a wagon in the street, 
and would like to cook it over her fire, as they was 
hungry and hadn’t had anything to eat for tew days. 
Polly didn’t like to rile up the fellers by saying no, 
and as the fire was all agoin’, she said they might 
cook the fish. So they cooked the shad, and Polly 
sot on a hull loaf of rye bread, and a lot of Johnny 
cake, and she said they eat as if they hadn’t seen 
any vittles in a week. They w r as very purlite, and 
thanked her for her kindness. When Polly Frink 
come to git dinner for her men folks, her eyes open¬ 
ed sum. The shad she got from market that 
mornin’ and hung up in the sink-room was nowhere 
to be found. At fust she thought the cat had got 
it. But the cat was shut up down seller. Then she 
begun to smell a mice. Don’t you think them 
scoundrels had stole Polly’s shad and cooked it be¬ 
fore her eyes? That’s what I call rubbing it in.” 
“ Sarved you jest right,” said Seth Twiggs, whose 
eyes were twinkling through the clouds of smoke. 
“ If you haint any more sense then to keep open 
doors for every loafin’ lazy cur that comes along, 
you desarve to be took in in the same way. Them 
critters will travel jest as long as they can find any 
body to feed ’em. They hate work worse than 
pizen, and they jest mean to live by spungin’. 
They haint got any homes, and won’t have as long 
as they can find fools enough to feed ’em without 
work. Such chaps don’t git any fodder at our 
house, I tell you.” 
“ It is a growing evil,” said Deacon Smith, who 
has been first Selectman in Hookertown for the last 
five years. “ These tramps cost the town over five 
hundred dollars last year, and by the way they have 
come on this season, the bill will be a good deal 
larger this year. I do not know what we are going 
to do about it.” 
“Duno, duno !” exclaimed Seth, rising from his 
log and taking the pipe from his mouth. “Why, 
Deacon, it is plainer than the nose on yer face. It’s 
feed these critters are after, feed without work. 
Stop the feed, and they will go to work and earn 
their own bread.” 
“ Not as you knows on,” said Jake Frink. “I 
guess they’d set down by the road-side and die if 
they had to hoe corn fur a livin’.” 
“ Well, the world wouldn’t luse much ef they 
did,” said Seth. 
“We ought to feed the hungry, ought we not ? ” 
inquired the Deacon. 
“Not by a jug full,” said Seth. “It’s a clear 
purvarsion of Scripter to feed such lyin’, thievin’ 
curs as come along here every day. Parson Spooner 
preached the trew doctrin last Sunday—' If a man 
will not work, neither should he eat.’ I wish he 
could ’a had sum of the tramps there to hear him. 
But the saints got their fill for onc’t, I guess. You 
see if it’s wrong fur a man to eat who won’t work, 
it’s kind o’ wrong to give him food to eat. It’s 
jest nussin’ his laziness accordin’ to my notion. 
Saints like Aunt Polly, who stop their ironin’ to 
feed tramps with stolen shad, ought to have a new 
intarperter of Scripter. There’s tew sides to feedin’ 
the hungry. We shouldn’t be partakers of other 
men’s sins—and laziness is one of ’em.” 
It seems to me there is something in Seth’s philo¬ 
sophy of vagabondism, which is so greatly increas¬ 
ing all over the country. Begging has always been 
common in our cities, a distinct profession import¬ 
ed from other lands. But the agricultural districts 
have been comparatively free from it, until in re¬ 
cent years. Now the country villages and the roads 
between them swarm with these tramps, generally 
stout, able-bodied men, but not infrequently ac¬ 
companied by women. They have generally good 
physical health, are not emaciated with hunger, but 
ruddy with full feed, and very decently clad with 
clothing given them. They travel on leisurely 
from one place to another, begging at the doors, 
feeding upon the be6t, and throwing away as un¬ 
suited to their dainty appetites much more than 
they consume. Under pretence of needing rail¬ 
road travel to get to their uncle, or cousin, in the 
next city, they beg money, and spend it principally 
for whiskey and tobacco. They apply very gener¬ 
ally to town authorities for assistance, and get what 
money they can to help them into the next town. 
Recently the Hookertown Selectmen, on comparing 
notes, found that each one of the five had paid the 
same beggar on the same day a dollar to help him 
along, adding five dollars to the town expenses, and 
five dollars to the profits of the tramp, making a 
pretty good day’s work. The town fathers got a 
little light that day. The expenses of the towns 
are very largely increased by aid given to tramps. 
It is time the farming community was waked up to 
this great and growing evil. We need doubtless 
more legislation in most of the states against this 
evil. Massachusetts has recently passed a good 
vagrant law. A work-house is wanted in every 
town, where the Selectmen can detain every tramp, 
and make him pay for his food and lodging. These 
houses would not be very much crowded. There 
is a community of feeling and of knowledge among 
these vagabonds, and as soon as they find that they 
must work for a living, they will abandon their 
vagrant life and seek employment. Meanwhile 
Seth Twiggs’ philosophy is worth looking at. It is 
sometimes wicked to feed the hungry. Our present 
treatment of tramps encourages begging, lying, 
theft, barn burning, and every evil work. 
Hookertown, Ct., I Yours to command, 
June Vith, 1875. j Timothy Bcnkbb, Bsq. 
How to Work a Bull. 
One reason why bulls are vicious, or at least un¬ 
trustworthy and dangerous, is that they have never 
passed through any course of discipline. Well fed 
from the first, they are permitted to learn and exer¬ 
cise their strength at all times, until their owners 
are frequently surprised to find them turn suddenly 
upon them without warning. Besides this, the use¬ 
fulness of these animals is greatly curtailed in con¬ 
sequence of their idle life and good keeping, and 
the complaint of unfruitfulness is frequently made. 
A remedy for both these evils, consists in putting 
these animals to work. Yiciousness is prevented 
by the discipline and training, and a bull that is 
broken to the yoke when young, and occasionally 
used, is kept in good temper and under safe re¬ 
straint. He is no longer an uncertain and danger¬ 
ous animal, possessing all the ferocity of a wild 
beast. He is kept in better health than when idle, 
and his value for stock purposes is greatly increas¬ 
ed. Cases are known to us in which bulls, entirely 
uncertain as stock getters, and consequently bro¬ 
ken to the yoke, have after some time become per¬ 
fectly sure, and have more than doubled their 
owner’s profit in this way alone. One of the best 
common bulls for producing calves we have known, 
was constantly worked in a cart or at the plow. 
The practice might be profitably followed with high 
bred bulls which fail of producing calves, and are 
consequently greatly reduced in value. 
A harness for a bull consists of a yoke and bow, 
shaped as shown in figure 1. The yoke is made to 
fit the neck snugly, with a curve sufficient to bring 
the ends low down at the sides. At each end there 
is a strong bolt and ring. The rings are made large 
enough to admit the end of a cart shaft, a hold¬ 
back being fixed on the under side of the 6haft, as 
shown in fig. 2. A draft-chain hooks into the eye 
