1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
•419 
it will certainly pay to farm well. It is slow work 
improving a farm, but stick to it, and every year the 
work becomes easier and the progress more rapid. 
We must make more manure. Manure is the 
farmer’s capital. Capital is accumulated earnings. 
If I work for $1,000 a year and spend $1,000, I am 
no better off at the end of the year than at the be¬ 
ginning. But if I can, by working a little harder, 
earn $1,200 a year, and by practicing a little econ¬ 
omy, live on $800, I can lay up $400. This four 
hundred dollars is capital, and begins at once to 
earn money for itself. Capital is accumulated 
earnings. It is what is left of our profits or wages 
after deducting the expenses of living. Manure is 
accumulated plant-food. It is what is left after 
raising and disposing of a crop. If your land, as 
now worked, is capable of paying you 20 bushels 
of corn and a ton of stalks per acre every year, and 
you sell the whole, your land is no richer in availa¬ 
ble plant-food. You are making no manure. You 
spend all your wages. But if by extra cultivation, 
by setting free more plant-food from the soil, you 
can make your land pay you 40 bushels of corn and 
two tons of stalks, and instead of selling it you 
feed it out to your cows or sheep and pigs, and are 
careful to save all the manure, then your 40 bushels 
of corn and two tons of stalks, less about 10 per 
cent removed by the animals, becomes capital , and 
begins at once to earu money for itself. 
It is worth while making a great effort to get a 
little capital, in the form of manure, and not always 
to be dependent on the yearly wages which the 
soil alone can pay us. How this can best be done, 
depends on circumstances. I think it will some¬ 
times pay to gather leaves for bedding. I am sure 
it will pay to scrape up the barn-yards and not let 
the droppings of our animals lie exposed over a 
large surface, for the rains to leach out all the 
soluble matter. On my own farm I gather all the 
potato tops, and use them for bedding the store 
hogs. If not required for this purpose, I should 
put them in a heap and mix them with manure. 
Several farmers have written me, asking how I 
manage to keep my manure heap fermenting all 
winter. They have tried the plan, but the manure 
freezes as soon as it is wheeled on to the heap. This 
is probably because the heap is not started early 
Fig. 1.—WRONG AND RIGHT SHAPE OF PILE. 
enough, and is not kept sufficiently compact. If 
you have ever made a hot-bed, you will know how 
to start the heap. Get all the horse, sheep, cow 
and pig manure you can scrape together, and place 
it in some spot to which it will be convenient to 
wheel all your manure as it is made during the win¬ 
ter. If you set a man to do this work, he will be 
sure to scatter the manure too much and draw it in 
like the roof of a stack, as shown in the diagram, 
figure 1. If so, the top of the heap should be 
leveled down, and the bottom narrowed in by 
throwing the manure on top until the heap is 
oblong or square, as shown in the figure. The ob¬ 
ject of this is to keep the top from freezing. If 
left narrow at top, the wind will blow through and 
you will have a foot or two of frozen manure. 
This square shape must be kept during the winter. 
You will have to attend to this matter yourself, or 
it will not be done. And it will require constant 
attention during the winter, or your heap will soon 
be scattered, and the frost will get in. 1 place a 
plank on the heap, and as the stables and pig-pens 
are cleaned out, wheel the manure on top and 
spread it. Do not forget this latter point. And if 
your man neglects it, do not get too angry. After 
years of experience I have not found a man who 
did not need to be told again and again not to leave 
the barrowful unspread and exposed to the frost. 
When it becomes necessary to enlarge the heap, 
the better plan is to take the manure from the old 
heap down to a (fig. 2), and commence a new heap 
with it (6, c ) at the end of the old heap. It would 
be well to get the manure from the center of the 
old heap, where it is fermenting, and then fillup 
from the sides, and make the top level and square. 
Do this yourself and it will be well done. The new 
part of the heap, if started with barn manure, will 
keep on fermenting, and you can add to it from 
day to day the fresh manure from the stables, pig¬ 
pens and yards. The whole heap will keep on fer¬ 
menting slowly, and you can add anything to it 
that will make manure. The richer you make it, 
the better it will ferment. If you have any broken 
bones, or bone-dust, or blood, hair, skin, or any re¬ 
fuse animal matters, mix them with the manure in 
the heap. They will add greatly to the value of 
the manure and favor fermentation. 
The heap can be extended on all sides in the way 
recommended above. The larger it is, the less 
danger there is of the frost getting in and arresting 
the fermentation. Great pains should be taken to 
save all the liquid from the animals. It is the most 
valuable part of the manure. If this is done, the 
heap will be moist, and there will be no danger of 
fire-fang. In a heap so mauaged, there is little or 
no danger of any ammonia escaping. The manure 
will be in prime order for use in the spring, and 
will have a far greater effect on the crop than if 
it was not fermented. 
Last winter we cut all our corn-stalks, hay and 
straw with a feed-cutter. It 6aves much fodder. 
It is more convenient, for me, in feeding. I do not 
try to compel the cows and sheep to eat up all the 
straw or stalks clean. Let them pick out the best 
of it and use what is left for bedding. The ease 
with which the manure can be handled in the 
spring, will compensate for the labor of cutting the 
stalks into chaff. The butts of the stalks, when 
cut into short lengths of an inch or so, will absorb 
much liquid, and with a little straw make good 
bedding. I cut mine usually with a two-horse 
tread-power, but am inclined to think, when there 
are men who go round cutting with an eight or ten 
horse power machine, that this is the better plan. 
The job of cutting is soon done, and it leaves the 
farmer more time to attend to his stock. 
A farmer should always keep in mind the fact, 
that his own time is worth far more than that of 
any men he can Hire to work for him. He must be 
very careful that his men do not waste their time 
or strength ; but he should be still more economic¬ 
al of his own mental and physical energy. I find 
no difficulty in getting men who can chop wood by 
the cord, or pile manure, or thrash, or turn a fan¬ 
ning mill, or pump water, or throw sheaves to a 
thrashing machine, or cut bands, or drive teams ; 
but how rare it is to find a man who can take care 
of the team, or feed sheep, or bed them properly, 
or milk cows and feed and water them regularly 
and judiciously. I have never yet found a map 
who could feed pigs properly—never one who 
could cook the food and feed it without waste. If 
you do not keep a constant watch, the food will 
sometimes go into the troughs scalding hot, or you 
will wake up some morning to find the warm food 
intended for the pigs’ breakfast frozen solid. If 
you are very fond of chopping, you may go to the 
woods an hour or two occasionally, by way of re¬ 
creation, but you will find your work in the barns, 
stables, and yards, or in the house, doing that 
which you cannot hire others to do for you. I do 
not think I ever saw my successful German neigh¬ 
bor, to whom I have several times alluded, plowing 
himself. But when the boys are plowing, he is 
usually not far off, fixing up the fence around the 
lot, getting out a stone, or hanging a gate, and put¬ 
ting everything in order. He is always busy doing 
something, but it is something that will allow him 
to direct all the operations of the farm while he is 
doing it. 
- -■ -a -■ 
Wind Power—Wind Engines. 
The cheapest motive power in existence is the 
force of the wind. It can be utilized without 
preparation ; no reservoirs, dams, or flumes are 
needed to apply it to our machinery, aud the proper 
engine alone is to be provided. In some countries 
wind-power is extensively used. The traveler in 
Europe scarcely loses sight of a wind-mill in his 
journeys, and in places the landscape is thickly 
dotted with them. Substantial grist-mills, which 
have faced the breezes for centuries, still wave 
their arms and promise to do so for centuries more 
Much pumping and drawing is done by these mills, 
and thousands of acres are either watered by irri 
gation or dried by drainage, and rendered valuable 
and productive by their help. A few years ago i 
wind-mill was an unusual sight in this country 
except in the very oldest portions. We were not i 
sufficiently settled people, and did not remain lon| 
enough in one place to make it profitable to bulk 
such substantial mills as have been so long in U6- 
in other countries ; we needed cheaper and mor 
quickly constructed mills. Those which we eouh 
then procure, were not satisfactory, they wer 
slightly built, and were not able to take care o 
themselves when the breeze became a gale or 
hurricane. Recently our mechanics have turne 
their attention to wind-engines, and great improvf 
ments have been made in their construction. W 
have now a choice of several kinds of them, all c 
them useful, but differing chiefly in their degree c 
adaptation to varying circumstances. At the recei 
Illinois State Fair there were no less than thirtee 
different wind-engines on exhibition, from tl 
small one, eight feet in diameter, costing but $10< 
of half a horse-power, and fitted for pumping stocl 
water or churning, up to those of 30 or 40 hors 
power, costing $3,000, and able to run a grist mi 
or a woolen factory. Between these extremes thei 
are a number of mills capable of adaptation to a 
most every purpose for which power is needed on tl 
farm or in the workshop. A mill 22 feet in diam 
ter, costing about $500, has a power of five horsei 
a two-horse-power mill is about 16 feet in diamete 
and costs about $325. This cost is less than th 
of a steam engine, and a wind-engine needs neith 
fuel nor skilled attendance. Neither is there da 
ger of fire or explosion from accident or carele* 
ness. The wind engines are now made self-reguh 
ing, and in a sudden storm close themselves. Th 
are also made to change their position as the wii 
changes, facing the wind at all times. With the 
engines one may saw wood, or lumber, thras 
pump, hoist hay or straw with the hay fork, sh 
corn, grind or cut feed, plane lumber, make sa 
or doors, or run any machinery whatever. The 
is but one drawback, when the wind stops the m 
stops. For work that may be done when it is cc 
venient to do it, as most of the mechanical wo' 
on a farm is done, these engines are exactly wll 
is wanted. On the western prairies, and a! mi 
everywhere, except in sheltered vallies in the ea 
we have wind enough and to spare, which offers 
us a power that is practically incalculable a 
illimitable, and the means of utilizing this pov 
is cheaply given to us in the numerons excelh 
wind-engines now manufactured. In fact so che! 
ly can these mills be procured, that it will not j 
for any person to spend his time in making o 
although he may be a sufficiently good mechanic 
do it. Where there are several nearly perfect fi 
chines, we can not undertake to say which is t : 
best. Those intending to purchase, should send 
descriptive circulars to the parties who adverti 
