372 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
pull us under; we can’t do this and we can’t 
do that because of the labor it would take 
and the high wages we must pay; yet we 
insist on growing a crop that costs more for 
labor than any other we cultivate except 
potatoes, and labor that must be applied 
when we ought to be cutting our early 
j, . _ hay in June, or attend- 
jj “T ing to our root crops in 
u // the fall. Turn it which 
\ _ II way we will, our corn- 
growing is a mistake, and 
■e" i a grave one. It seduces 
us into breaking up grass 
land we might better keep good by top-dress¬ 
ing; it consumes labor that we need at die 
same season for more important work, and it 
eats into our manure heaps like the dry rot, in¬ 
stead of increasing their value as the purchase 
of Western corn surely would do. “Corn, 
never—corn fodder, always,” say I. 
In one of the letters, of which I get many, I 
find the following sentiment—the question dis¬ 
cussed being the tendency of American farmers 
who employ foremen to select Irishmen and 
Germans—“ I have no antipathy against any 
class of persons. I believe an Irishman or an 
African is just as good as myself if he behave 
as well. Nevertheless, I will never work under 
an Irishman or a German (unless compelled to). 
Perhaps this may be called pride, but I call it 
‘Americanism.’” ilirabile dictu! American¬ 
ism ! Well, if the rose smells sweeter so, pray 
give it this name. It needs all the fragrance 
the most cunning nomenclature can lend it. 
Call it what you like, my friend, but the emo¬ 
tion that actuates you is not even pride (which 
is a worthy emotion, but snobbishness of rather a 
low order. I am an American, too, and with 
as much pride of race, perhaps; but I am, for 
my part, content to do my work in this world 
under such leaders as my circumstances give 
me. If am better than the foreigner, I shall be 
able to convince my employer that it will be 
for his interest to make me his foreman ; if I 
am not—why, may the best man win ! Let us 
not keep him down because he was born on 
another part of the footstool. Americanism 
Fig. 2. —HOLDER IK USE. 
that is worthy of the name upholds its own 
rights always, but does not contemn people of 
other nationalities, whom we have freely in¬ 
vited to our land, and to whom we owe not 
only very much of the development of our na¬ 
tional wealth, but—not to put too fine a point 
on it—our own ancestry. The sort of “ Ameri¬ 
canism” shown by the writer in question is 
just now fighting in its last ditch in the Lava 
Beds. He closes with the following P. S.: “I 
am anxious you should not understand me as 
making a personal thrust at j r ourself, for I am 
only speaking of an evil, as I and many others 
understand il, and a general one. If I were 
not a careful reader of the Ogden Farm Papers 
this would not have been noticed.” 
To which I simply say that, in my capacity 
as a writer for the Agriculturist I have no per¬ 
son, and should be incapable of taking offense 
even were it intended, which in this case, of 
course, it was not. 
Bag-Holder and Lifter. 
An illustration is here given of a very handy 
bag-holder by which the mouth of a grain bag 
is held open while it is filled from a shovel or 
scoop. The holder is made of hickory, ash, or 
white oak, and consists of one straight piece 
about 14 inches long and half an inch square, 
pointed and furnished at the ends with short, 
sharp steel spikes less than a quarter of an inch 
long. At each end, about half an inch front 
the extremities, quarter-inch holes are bored 
through, and a half-hoop three-eighths of an 
Fig. 4.—LIFTER IK USE. 
inch thick is tenoned into the holes and wedged 
so that they are firmly fixed. The holder is 
shown at figure 1, and at figure 2 is shown the 
method of using it. The mouth of the bag is 
drawn through the half-hoop, and is turned 
over towards the outside, the short steel spikes 
holding it from slipping off. The mouth of the 
bag is thus held open while it is being filled. 
By hanging two cords from the beam or floor 
overhead with hooks attached to them the bag 
may be held suspended at a proper height above 
the floor for one person alone to fill it. This 
will be found very convenient both for farmers 
during thrashing time and when much feed is 
being handled as in the winter season, and also 
for country millers who handle a good deal of 
grain without much mechanical help. Such 
persons will find the little machine shown at 
fig. 3 also a very valuable help and a great sav¬ 
ing of the muscles of the back. Few people 
like lifting bags of grain or hauling them about 
for the love of the thing. With this machine 
bags may be wheeled about on a barn or mill 
floor and emptied into a grain or feed-bin or 
into another bag with great saving of labor and 
strength. Its mechanism is seen at fig. 4. It is 
a frame mounted on wheels so arranged that 
the direction of its motion may be changed 
with ease. A sloping board or bag-rest is pivoted 
on to the top of the frame so that it may swing 
within the upright standards. A foot-board or 
seat is made at the bottom, on which the 
full bag is placed, and hand-holes are cut 
in the sides by which the bag is elevated. 
Small hooks are driven into sloping board 
to hold the bag from sliding. When the 
bag is to be emp¬ 
tied it is raised 
from jthe ground 
and the contents 
are shot into the 
bin. If another 
bag i3 to be filled 
with the contents 
it is hung upon 
the upper end of 
the board with 
its moulli around 
the guides, and 
is held fast by the 
small hooks at the 
side. The grain 
or meal or what¬ 
ever it may be is thus transferred from one 
bag to another instantly without difficulty. 
Stacking with, the Horse-Fork. 
“A Correspondent” asks for a method of 
using the horse-fork in stacking straw or hay. 
The usual method of doing this is shown in the 
accompanying engraving. A pole, at the lower 
end of which is a stout pointed iron spike long 
enough to take firm hold upon the ground, is 
raised and stayed with guy ropes. This pole 
should be of such a length as may be adapted 
to the height of the stack ; one twenty feet long 
will be most generally useful. At the top of 
the pole another iron pin is inserted, over which 
a round plate revolves by means of a hole in 
the center. Several other holes are made at the 
edge of the plate to which the stay ropes are 
attached. A short boom is suspended so that 
it will easily revolve around the pole, and at the 
end of this the hoisting pulley is hung. The 
hoisting rope passes through a pulley-block 
hung at the inner end of the boom, and through 
another at the bottom of the pole, and thence 
is hooked to the clevis of the whiffletree. The 
method of using this contrivance speaks for 
itself. The fork as it is loaded is hoisted, the 
man who builds the stack guides the fork to 
STACKIKG WITH HORSE-FORK. 
where the load is needed, and then by a signal 
instructs the man or boy on the wagon to trip it. 
This is done by means of a cord held in this 
person’s hand, by which when the fork is 
tripped it is brought back to the wagon and 
loaded again instantly. The driver of the 
horse, of course, watches closely the moment 
for the requisite movements, and should act, if 
any way smart, without waiting for directions. 
