1873.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
99 
“Then you have to come upou the town for 
damages,” said Deacon Smith. “The law 
taxes all the dogs in town, and keeps the avails 
for a dog fund. Then, at the close of the year, 
if the dog fund is large enough to pay for all 
the losses of sheep by dogs, you can get your 
pay. If it is not, then the fund is divided pro rata 
among all the losers, and you get your share.” 
“Which means,” said Seth, “that I get my 
pay if the town can make somebody else pay 
it, and if not, I whistle for it. The town by 
its neglect lets loose these hungry curs on my 
sheep, and won’t pay the damage, which ain’t 
square. If the town neglect a bridge, and my 
horse breaks his leg, I get my pay, and all the 
property in town is pledged for it. Now, it 
stands to reason that a blood-thirsty dog is 
more dangerous than a bridge, and a sheep is 
jest as good as a horse, and some better.” 
“I agree,” said the Deacon, “with you that 
the law is not equal, but it is all the protection 
we who are sheep-owners have. The law ought 
to be changed so as to suppress dogs altogether, 
or to confine the privilege of keeping them to 
men who are able to pay for the injuries they 
inflict upon the farming community. For my 
part, I would make the keeping of a dog a peni¬ 
tentiary offense.” 
“I’d jine you there,” said Seth, pouring out a 
cloud of smoke thick enough to suffocate all the 
dogs in Hookertown. 
“ Class legislation,” exclaimed Jake Frink. 
“You’d like to have the law fixed so that ’risto- 
crats and rich people can keep their Newfound¬ 
land dorgs, and rat and tan terriers, and sich 
like, and shet down on us poor fellers who want 
to keep hunters and watcli-dorgs.” 
“That’s jest so,” said George Washington 
Tucker,who had got the news of the death of the 
big Cotswold buck that had been the envy of 
Hookertown for a mouth. “ Ye see, we all used 
to keep jest as many dorgs as we had a mind to, 
and could hunt rabbits and skunks seven days 
in a week if we wanted- to, and no questions 
asked. There was no end hardly to the game a 
poor feller could pick up along in the fall of the 
year. He could e’en a’most git his livin’ with a 
smart dorg. Yes, sir-ee, when old Pomp was 
alived, I’ve had fifty rabbit-skins, twenty musk- 
rat-skins, a dozen skunk-skins, besides coons 
and woodchucks, on the back side of my house 
many a lime. But sense they begun to tax 
dorgs, I can’t afford to keep one, osid hunting 
don’t pay without a good dorg. Bich folks 
can keep their blooded dorgs with big names, 
but poor folks must go without. They keep 
crowdin’ us into a narrow corner every year, 
and I tell you somethin’ will have to break by 
and by, see ef it don’t.” 
“If they would only crowd you,” Seth re¬ 
plied, “ so hard as to break every dog’s neck, 
it would be the best thing that could happen to 
you and to the community.” 
“That’s so,” said Deacon Smith. “Hunting 
in a civilized community does not pay. It tends 
to make idlers and vagabonds of the hunters, 
wastes time, destroys crops, and is the most ex¬ 
pensive way of getting one’s bread. You can 
raise turkeys and chickens at half the cost of 
quail and snipe, and lamb and mutton can be 
had much cheaper than coon and skunk, to say 
nothing of the difference in the flavor.” 
“That’s jest the way you ’ristocrats allers 
talk,” said Tucker. “But I’d like to know ef 
this ain’t a free country, and ef a man takes a 
notion to prefer coon and rabbit to lamb and 
chicken, who has an}'' right to quarrel with 
him ? It may be' a very nasty taste, but as long as 
you don’t have to eat ’em, whose business is it? 
Ain’t it my constitushionel privilege to eat what 
I have a mind to, and ef I want dorgs to ketch 
game, who shall liender me? No sumpterry 
laws in this country, ef you please, to tell me 
what I shall eat and drink ! ” 
“ That’s jest the p’int,” said Seth, taking the 
stub-pipe from his mouth. “ Ye see, I take a 
notion to lamb and mutton, and the owners of 
worthless curs virtually say I shan’t have it, 
but must put up with skunk and coon meat, or 
suthin’ else, that will allow them to keep dorgs. 
It is a poor rule that won’t work both ways.” 
But George Washington Tucker did not see 
it, and the class of men to which he belongs 
can’t be made to see that the public good re¬ 
quires that their right to keep dogs and eat 
coon and skunk should be made to square with 
Deacon Smith’s right to keep sheep, and eat 
lamb and mutton and other Christian meats. 
So politicians who make our laws, in lively fear 
of votes, legislate on the half-and-half principle, 
laying a light tax on dogs, which prevents no¬ 
body from keeping them, and half-paying Seth 
Twiggs and other sheep-owners for their losses. 
These losses are enormous throughout the 
whole country every year, amounting to many 
millions of dollars. In many parts of the 
country they are entirely prohibitory. No 
man attempts to keep sheep, because it is de¬ 
monstrated that the losses by dogs are greater 
than the profits. No man wants to buy Cots¬ 
wold or other thorough-bred sheep, at a cost of 
from $30 to $50 each, and run the risk of having 
them killed, and getting five dollars a head for 
them from the town treasury. This state of 
things will last just as long as farmers suffer it. 
The remedy lies in suitable legislation, and we 
shall have that just as soon as the politicians 
are put in wholesome fear of farmers’ votes. 
What is wanted is a law that will tax cheap 
irresponsible curs out of existence, and pay the 
sheep-breeders’ losses from dogs out of the 
town treasury, just as other losses are paid 
which grow out of the negligence of the town 
authorities. If my horse or ox is injured from 
a bad road or an unsafe bridge, I can recover 
for my loss. But if my sheep are killed by 
dogs, I can only get partial redress. This could 
not properly be called class legislation, for every 
man, woman, and child is interested in cheap 
mutton and cheap woolen goods. We all want 
these, and can have them if sheep husbandry 
can be put on a level with other industries. 
Our State Boards of Agriculture, County and 
State Agricultural Societies, and Farmers’ 
Clubs should take hold of this matter, and give 
the legislatures no rest until they secure such 
laws as will encourage sheep husbandry. 
Yours to command, Timothy Bunkek, Esq. 
Hookertown, Gt ., Jan. 8th, 1873. 
The Farmer’s Savings-Bank. 
In the December number of the American 
Agriculturist, we told our young readers how 
■we managed what wo call the farmer’s savings- 
bank—or a heap of manure that ive aim to keep 
fermenting during the winter. Some people 
think this can not be done. We know that 
nothing is easier. During the coldest weather 
this winter our heap of manure that the “ boys” 
made, and on which we keep depositing manure 
every day from the stables, pig-pens, etc., kept 
warm enough to melt more or less of the snow 
on top. We think this is much better than let¬ 
ting the manure lie in heaps about the premises, 
to be frozen in cold weather and to wash away 
in wet weather. Freezing, of course, does not 
hurt the manure. It does not hurt money, you 
know, to keep it lying idle in the house, but it is 
much better to put it in the savings-bank, where 
it draws interest. And it is much better to put 
manure in such a heap as we have described, 
because it becomes more valuable. 
A great many very sensible farmers think 
that well-rotted manure is no better than fresh, 
unfermented manure. If the manure has been 
badly managed, if the water from the eaves of 
the buildings has been allowed to wash out its 
soluble matter, they are right. But if the heap 
is properly managed, as we have described, we 
think these good, sensible farmers are mistaken. 
You need not tell them that we say so. There 
was a time when we were inclined to think as 
they do; but this was many years ago, when we 
had just commenced to study chemistry, and 
thought that the ammonia escaped. Now we 
know that manure can be fermented until 
the straw and stalks are decomposed, without 
any loss of ammonia worth thinking about. 
But why is manure better for being ferment¬ 
ed ? Because plants will not take it up until it 
is decomposed. If it is applied in the fresh 
state to the soil, it must decompose in the soil 
before it is of any use to the plants. This takes 
a long time, especially in clayey land. The 
manure acts quicker for being fermented before 
it is applied to the land. But this is not the 
only advantage. If you apply manure to the 
land and it is not taken up by the plants the 
first year, the ammonia and phosphoric acid 
and potash enter into combination with certain 
ingredients in the soil and become nearly insolu¬ 
ble; and then it takes a long time before we 
can get back these valuable substances out of 
the land. The land will pay us interest, but 
keeps pretty tight hold of the principal. Better 
put the manure, therefore, as fast as it is made, 
into your own savings-bank in the barn-yard. 
Pernicious Teaching’ in Horseshoeing. 
Doubtless there is a great amount of cruelty 
unintentionally committed in shoeing horses. 
The prevention of this cruelty, with its conse¬ 
quent suffering to the poor crippled beasts, and 
its pecuniary loss to their owners, most assuredly 
comes within the jurisdiction of a Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. But 
when such a Society, as that at Boston has re¬ 
cently done, publishes or distributes a work 
upon practical horseshoeing, so called, in which 
farriers are recommended to fuse the shoes to 
the horse’s feet, it is, to say the least, injudicious 
and to be regretted. This work is an essay by 
an English veterinary surgeon, and contains the 
following words illustrative of his method of 
fitting the shoe by clapping it on to the hoof 
red-hot, and, “fusing the horn with which it 
comes in contact, imprinting itself like a seal in 
melted wax, and in this way the two surfaces 
of foot and shoe exactly coincide.” This book, 
we understand, has been distributed by the 
Boston Society aforesaid amongst the New 
England farriers and blacksmiths. Lest they 
might be misled iif spite of their better judg¬ 
ment to adopt this utterly destructive mode of 
fitting shoes, we hasten to protest against it as 
eminently cruel and destructive to the animal. 
The hoof of a horse is totally different from a 
piece of wax. All but the outer crust is highly 
sensitive. The insensible outer crust is 'a living 
and elastic substance, comparatively thin, and 
connected closely with the sensitive interior. 
If the elasticity of the crust and its life is de- 
