1SG7.] 
AMKMCAN AGRICULTURIST. 
213 
any one to do this in a simple manner. The 
water itself is tl»e best teacher. Only commence^ 
and you will soon have a system of ditches that 
will distribute the water all over the land. 
^ Floating up,” as it is called, was practiced 
in England many years ago with considerable 
advantage, but it was found that irrigation pro¬ 
duced much better results, and the former prac¬ 
tice has l)ccn pretty much abandoned. “ Float¬ 
ing up” is simply damming up a stream till the 
water overflows on the land. The water is 
allowed to remain on the field only four or five 
daj's, as a longer period makes the grass coarse. 
The weir is then raised, and the water allowed 
to flow off. There are places where this practice 
can be adopted with advantage, but irrigation 
is much better. "What is meant by iriigation is 
conveying the water in a main ditch along the 
liighest |>ortion of the meadow, and then dis¬ 
tributing it in small gutterson the land below, in 
such a way that the water will run all over the 
grass, half an inch or so deep, being careful that 
it never settles in pools or becomes stagnant. 
The more rapidly the water passes off, provided 
it does not wash away the soil, the better. Of : 
course there are a great many little details to 
be attended to, but when the gencnil principles 
are understtxKl, the details of the system will 
easily be carried out by any iuLcUigent farmer. 
Mr. Howard, in his lecture on Things in 
America, says: “ The grass of America has 
nowhere the splendid, rich green of our English 
pastures. Wliethcr tins arises wholly from the 
climate, I have some doubt. I think want of 
care in preparing the land, selection of seed and 
Bnl)sequeMt stocking have something to do with 
the miserable condition and appearance of 
American pastures.” I think he is right. If 
we took as much pains with our meadows, as 
the)' do in England, we should raise as large 
crops. I am astonished at the effect a little tojv 
dressing has on meadows. Even a little soil 
alone, spread on the grass, will impart a rich, 
green color. I suppose it acts as a mulch. Our 
clover is frequently Mtfr than it is in England, 
and our permanent meadows are brown be¬ 
cause they are permanently neglected. 
Tlie main difflcully in all our agricultural im¬ 
provements is the high price of labor. And yet, 
compared with the cost of living, the men do 
not get e.xorbitant wages. The trouble is, that 
we do not provide steady employment. "We 
hire c.xtni help by the day, and pay high wages. 
But the men are out of employ one third of the 
time, and it consequently follow.s, that a man 
who gets $1.50 a day and loses one third of his 
time, receives no more in a week than the man 
who has steady employment at $1.00 a day. 
One works four days at $1.50 for each day, 
and the other six days at $1.00 per day. 
This spring, work was rather slack, and I em¬ 
ployed several men at $1.00 a day. As they 
board themselves, I thought this cheap, and 
made a point to furnish them steady work. 
Ljist Saturday night they told me that they could 
work no longer at this price, that every one else 
w:is paying $1.25. I agreed to pay it. On 
Monday it commenced to rain, and at noon they 
asked me what they should do. I told them they 
c/vuld keep on spreading manure. “ But it rains 
too hard.” “ I am sorry for it,” I replied. “ but 
I cannot help it; I have no in-door work I can 
afford to do at $1.25 a day.” Tl.e consequence 
wa.s, they had to go home. They lost another 
day during the week. And the result is that to¬ 
night, (Saturday, April 27.), instead of paying 
them $d.00, I only paid tlicm $5.21. Tlicy got 
less money, and I lose a day and three quarters 
work. I had plenty to do, and this loss of time 
is an injury to me, and no advantage to them. 
There is so much Avork to be done in this coun¬ 
try, and so few, comparatively, to do it, that we 
can, as a community, ill afford to waste time. But 
as long as farmers continue to pay such high 
rates for occasional day-work, the men dislike 
to engage by the month at fair Avages. I am 
satisfied that this is one of the greatest evils of 
our present American system of farming. 
I have lost another horse. He was old and 
not A’cry valuable, and had he seen fit to have 
departed last fall, I should not have regretted it 
so very much. But having given him plenty of 
hay and grain all Avinter, and not demanded 
much labor in return, it is very unkind in him 
to give me the slip just as the busy season is 
coming on. Yesterday he Avas plow'ing in a 
three horse team, and Avas apparently Avell Avhen 
he came home. The man w’atered him before 
putting him in the stall, (a bad practice), and in 
half an hour he Avas taken Avith violent pains, 
: and only lived till 3 o’clock in the morning. I 
am having him skinned and opened, to see if we 
can ascertain AV'hat Avas the trouble. I acted on 
the supposition that it Avas a severe attack of 
spasnuKlic colic, and gave him injections of 
AA'arm Avater and soap, Avith a dose of laudanum 
and ether, tAVO table-spoonfuls each, in a pint of 
Avater. I repeated every two hours, Avith an 
ounce of ether in the interim. I find this al¬ 
most invariably a cure for colic. It seemed 
to relieve “ Old Dick,” but did not cure him. 
Abortion in Cows. 
In inquiring into the causes of this scourge, 
for such it really is, in some sections of the coun¬ 
try, it is very important to take note of such 
considerations as are presented hereAvith by our 
correspondent, as AA'ell as to consider that there 
is such strong nervous sympathy among coaa^s, 
(though, perliaps, it is a peculiar influence, due 
to odor or something of that kind), that Avhen 
one cow in a herd “ slinks ” her calf, one or 
tAVO others are very apt to do the ^ame. This 
subject is attracting the attention of distinguish¬ 
ed physiologists, and of our State Agricultural 
Societies and Boards of Agriculture, so that 
Ave hope some light may be throAvn upon the 
hidden cause, or causes, of so much trouble. 
)Ve Avould be very glad of facts Avhich Avill help 
to a better knoAvledge. “ M. A. C.,” in the arti¬ 
cle Avhich folloAA’S, though “only a AA'oman, as 
she says, Avrites forcible common sense in a Avay 
to surprise those, if any there be, Avho hold 
Avoman in as light e.stcem as some of them seem 
to hold themselves. 
“ I see you say that Abortion in coavs, and 
Ilog-cholera are on the increase. I am ‘ only a 
woman; and as a matter of course, Avomen are 
not entitled to much consideration, but I have 
been living on a farm from childhood, and haAC 
seen more or less of the diseases common to 
the coAV family. My father fanned foi thiity 
years, and kept from eight to twenty coavs. All 
that time, he superintended his affairs himself, 
and but tAVO coavs and one steer died in all those 
years. One cow and a steer died from the effects 
of eating too much clover. In the last lAventy 
years, since I have been large enough to know 
anything about a coav, Ave have had but two 
COAVS slink their calves, and these catastrophes 
were both caused by the unruly horn of a ma¬ 
licious COAV belonging to the herd; they Avere 
both young coavs, and neither of them Avcreevei 
unfortunate again, although retained until they 
were old cows, and I think if those gentlemen 
Avho have so much trouble Avith their coavs, Avill 
keep a sharp look out, they Avill find, as I have, 
that a lieaA'y boot or brogan on the foot of some 
ill-tempered hireling, or tlie horn of some un¬ 
ruly member of the herd ‘planted’ in the side 
of their coavs, is the cause of a great amount of 
the disappointments and trouble they experience. 
Of course I Avould not say that such is the cause 
in all cases, but it is in a great many. One of 
my neighbors Avas all the time complaining of 
his COAVS in the same Avay, and could not imag¬ 
ine what Avas the matter. I happened to pass 
his stable one day, and saAV a German he had 
hired, kick a cow' unmercifully, for no reason but 
that she Avas afraid him, and Avhen he came into 
the stable she jumped around and set her foot on 
his toes. As a matter of course that Avas not the 
first kicking she had received. All the cows in 
the stable Avere in a continuous uproar, Avhen 
this man Avas about. I thought I had found the 
secret of at least one stable besides my own.” 
New Manner of Dissolving Bones for 
Farming Purposes. 
We have received the folloAving translation of 
an article by Prof. Ilienkoff, Moscoav, Russia, 
from a friend in Washington. The process is 
not altogether new, but as the success of such 
operations depends often upon minute details, 
Ave are glad to publish it. Prof. I. says: “It 
was a matter of importance Avith me to discov¬ 
er a method by means of Avhich every farmer 
might be enabled to prepare bones for his 
meadoAVS and fields. As great masses of salts 
are accumulating in the ashes of every house¬ 
hold, and most of them with those burning Avood, 
I used alkalies in connection Avith unslak- 
ed lime, Avhich soon dissolved the bones. To 
my friend and pupil, Mr. Alex. Engelhart, to 
Avhom I communicated my discovery, belongs 
the honor of having introduced a new and 
convenient process for gaining manure for agri¬ 
cultural use. I giv'e it in an extract: 
‘ Suppose you have 4,000 pounds of bones, 
you need 4,000 pounds of ashes, (averaging 10 
per cent, of carbonate of potash), 600 pounds of 
unslaked lime, and some 4,500 lbs. (55i gallons) 
of Avater. Dig a hole some tAVO feet deep, large 
enough to receive the bones and one half their 
volume besides; parallel to this, you dig anoth¬ 
er one, 25 per cent, larger, both being filled Avith 
bones. First, slake the lime and mix Avith your 
ashes, covering 2,000 pounds of the bones in 
the smaller one. Then it is filled AAUth water, 
and lefl. When it gets dry, add, continually, 
Avater enough to keep it Avet. When the bones 
crumble in your fingers, then take the AA'hole 
mass out, and spread it over those bones in the 
second hole, leaving the decomposition to go 
on. When this is done, let the mass dry; and 
to make it fit for use, add peat poicder or melloio 
garden soil until it is Avell dried and powdery. 
Let it be shoveled over several times, and then 
apply to your fields. 
‘ Thus you get a fertilizer averaging 12 per 
cent, of phosphate of lime; 2 per-cent, of alka¬ 
lies, and 6 per cent, of nitrogen.’ ” 
[The pits used in this process must of course 
be dug in soil, to a great degree impervious to 
water Clayey soil will answer, if first sprinkled 
and then pounded, or clay may be “puddled” 
in a basin in any soil, and a water-tight pit bo 
made. If the bones are tolerably fresh, there 
Avill be very little loss of ammonia. We have 
knoAvn the softening of the bones to be com¬ 
plete on a small scale. Ed.1 
