was applied. Since that period no paint has 
been applied, and it is now a good roof for an 
old one. It does not leak, and the only 
repairs on it have consisted of a shingle 
added here and there, where a portion of a 
poor shingle was worn out. If the roof had 
not been painted the butts of most of the 
courses would have been worn entirely 
away; and if such long periods had not 
been allowed to intervene between the times 
of painting, the roof would have been a good 
one even after the lapse of 100 years. 
Some one once suggested that, if the roof 
is painted, the paint will cause the water to 
back up beneath the next course of shingles 
above, which will thoroughly saturate the 
two courses, and thus the decay of the roof 
will be hastened. That is unmitigated non¬ 
sense. There is not a word of truth in the 
assumption. On the contrary, when the 
surface is painted, the water will glide away 
so quickly that it will not be drawn back 
between the courses of shingles half so readily 
as it will be when no paint has been applied. 
The true way to paint a roof is to apply 
paint of some kind to both sides of the 
shingles. It is quite as important that the 
under Bide of every shingle be covered with 
paint as the surface, to prevent the water 
from being drawn up between the courses by 
capillary attraction. If good shingles are 
painted on both sides, and good paint be 
applied to the roof once in ten years, it will 
continue leak-tight for more than a hundred 
years. 
When it is not desirable to save the water 
for drinking, coal-tar is an excellent and 
cheap paint, for preserving shingles, and it 
will pay well to smear a roof with this ma¬ 
terial once in four or five years. When roofs 
are not painted, moss is liuble to collect at 
the butts of every course of shingles, which 
promotes their decay more rapidly than 
alternate rain and sunshine. When oil-paint 
is used for painting shingles it is always 
better to employ some light color rather 
than black, as the apartments of the attic 
story, beneath a black roof, are liable to be 
uncomfortably hot in the Summer; and, 
more than this, as black paint absorbs more 
heat than any other color, neither the paint 
nor the shingles will endure as long as if the 
roof had been covered with some light- 
colored paint. A metallic roof covered with 
light colored paint will last much longer 
than if it had been painted with a black 
paint. The most economical paint for a roof 
is a generous coat of coal-tar once in a few 
years ; but coal-tar will color the water for 
five years after a coat is applied to the roof. 
asserts, with him, the orchard grass blooms 
long before the clover shows a blossom. This 
is contrary to the testimony of farmers In 
Northern New York who bow orchard grass 
with clover because they bloom about the 
same time. Mr. Fuller lives In New Jersey. 
Is there that difference in relative maturing 
of the two plants in different localities 1 
FROM SOUTHEASTERN IOWA 
EARLY MINNESOTA SWEET CORN. 
Eds. Rural New-Yorker Noting the 
request of y r our corn correspondent for ex¬ 
perience with this corn, allow me to report. 
My first purchase was a package put up by 
Briggs & Brothers, Rochester, N. Y., 
planted in good gravelly loam, without ma¬ 
nure. Grew well, matured nearly as early 
as Tom Thumb, ears longer and larger, and 
very sweet and tender when cooked. Yielded 
one and two good ears to a stalk, four stalks 
to a hill. Season following planted from 
seed saved from the former crop with as 
favorable a result. The two plantings were 
made in Erie Co., N. Y. In 1873 planted seed 
of Brigos & Brothers in Bergen Co., N. J. 
Season very dry, came up badly, had some 
good corn, but as a whole unsatisfactory. 
For season of 1874 purchased a pint of seed 
of J. M. Thouburn & Co., New York. 
Planted about two hundred hills, four ker¬ 
nels to a hill, which came up quite as well 
as sweet corn usually does ; grew well, and 
though making no extra effort for early 
corn, GUI's was used for the table as early as a 
neighbor (a truck farmer) picked the Tom 
Thumb for Newark market. Ears, six to 
eight inches long, eight rowed, very tender, 
juicy and sweet, every way superior to the 
Tom Thumb. Many stalks yielded two good 
marketable ears, the product of the planting 
being about 1,030 cal's fit for use. Planted 
on sod ground from which after harrowing 
all loose sods were taken off and composted. 
Manured with a mixture of hen manure, 
coal ashes and plaster and received two hoe- 
ings without being plowed or otherwise cul¬ 
tivated. H. C. White. 
Bergen Co., N. J. 
In the last Rural New-Yorker A. N. 
Nash gives his experience with Minnesota 
sweet corn, and wishes others who have 
tried it, to report their success. Last year 1 
purchased a peck of it of J. J. H. Gregory 
and planted it early for market and was so 
much pleased with it that nearly all 1 planted 
this year was of that variety. 1 oonwder it 
the best early sweet corn for market that 
has yet been introduced. 
With me it has been very profitable, yield¬ 
ing this year, when planted in drills—as 1 
always plant the early varieties of sweet 
corn—twenty-nine ears per rod of drill, 
tweuty-two of which were of good marketa¬ 
ble size, there being twenty-two plants per 
rod, the average distance between the drills 
being three aud one-fourth feet. It. is of 
very good quality and ripens several days 
sooner than any other variety of equal size 
that i have tried, it may require a little 
better soil and cultivation than some other 
varieties, but the present season has been 
very unfavorable for sweet corn, having 
been cold and wet until about time lor the 
ears to form, then very dry. I have had no 
trouble about its coming up. 
A part of my field, this year, was sod land, 
the remainder was laud from which a heavy 
crop of cabbage was taken last year, the 
best com was where the cabbages grew. If 
there is a better variety of early sweet corn 
1 should like to try it. 
In saving sweet corn for seed I examine, 
every stalk in the field and select the earliest, 
longest, and best filled earn and tie a bit of 
string around them before any of it is picked 
for market. 
Another variety, Pratt’s Early, first sent 
out by Gregory in 1873, I have tried two 
years. It is a very good extra early sweet 
corn, and is ready for market nearly a week 
before Minnesota. The ears are not very 
long, so that Minnesota and others take its 
place as soon as they are largo enough. 
Lunenburg, Mass. Luther Burbank. 
Some of your numerous readers may be 
interested in a few items from Southeastern 
Iowa, which is, by the way, the garden of 
the West. Take nine counties out of the 
southeast corner of Iowa, comprising a tract 
of laud seventy miles square (more or less), 
and in all the vast fertile plains of the Mis¬ 
sissippi Valley it is unsurpassed in salubrity 
of climate or fertility of soil. And perhaps 
there is less waste land than in any other 
region of equal extent. Yet while there is 
very little waste land, the country is well 
watered and well supplied with timber, coal 
and stone for building purposes. It is a 
prairie country, and the prairie land makes 
the best and most enduring farms. Some¬ 
where about three-fourths of the land is 
prairie and one-fourth well timbered with 
white oak, black oak, red oak, hickory, black 
walnut, white walnut, and many kinds too 
numerous to mention. The timber is in¬ 
variably found near the streams of water, 
and where the course of a stream is south¬ 
ward there is usually more Umber on the 
east side of the stream than on the west. In 
the banks of the creeks and rivers are large 
deposits of limestone and stove coal. 
Timber will grow as well on prairie soil as 
elsewhere, if protected from injury. It is 
believed that fire is the agent used by Provi¬ 
dence in keeping the vast plains of the A\ e. t 
destitute of timber, and that water is the 
agent used to rescue a good supply of timber 
on the banks of streams for the use of the 
coming man. Before the settlement of the 
country by white men the annual fires 
swept, over the face of the country with the 
velocity of the western wind. The vast crop 
of wild grass and weeds (often as high as a 
man's head on horseback), nipped by the 
frosts of autumn and dried by the sunshine 
of Indian summer, iurnisliing food to the de¬ 
vouring (lames. And as the wind at the sea¬ 
son of the year these fires usually occurred 
blows from the west and northwest, the fires 
were driven to the verge of the water, where 
its wild and ruthless career was suddenly 
checked. The annual deposit of the ashes 
of the grass crop served to enrich the soil. 
The labor of making a farm is next to notll- 
ingon the prairie to what it takes in a heavy 
timbered country, ar d what work has to be 
done is not so laborious as rolling logs and 
grubbing up shrubs and trees and even 
stumps, and as is sometimes the case after 
the trees and stumps are all removed the 
field is still covered with great stones that 
have to be gathered and piled out of the 
way (if such a place as out of the way can 
be found) or buried. Then, after all this is 
done (if the man has not been buried too), in 
many cases the soil is poor and heavy, and 
yields but poor returns for the tiller’s care 
and labor. 
All that has to be done in this region in 
making a new prairie farm is to build a fence 
to protect tbe crops aud then plow and 
plant. In the older settlements where stock 
has run at large on the prairies for many 
years, the sod is not so tough and hard to 
plow. When it is in that condition we call 
it “ well eat out prairie.” The best time to 
break up prairie is in J one and July. Plenty 
PLAN OF A HOG-HOUSE 
Will you give some ground plan and ele¬ 
vation of a nog-house, with description, in 
the Rural New-Yorker, and oblige a life 
subscriber f W. F. McKane. 
Geneva. N. V., Oct. 13,1874. 
In response to tbe above we give a per¬ 
spective and plan of a very good piggery, 
which may be modified at will or to suit cir¬ 
cumstances. In the plan, A, A, are bed¬ 
rooms, or divisions ; B, B, B, feeding-pens ; 
C, cooking-room, with boiler, and stairs to 
the storeroom for feed above. This store¬ 
room may be connected with the cooking- 
room by a spout and cut-off, by which the 
food can be conducted directly into the boiler 
below, or into baskets or bugs at will, D , D, 
troughs. It will be seen that the plan in¬ 
volves the lighting of the entire building 
thoroughly by means of sliding windows, for 
it is one of the gravest mistakes that hogs 
thrive better in the dark than in the light. 
A hog-pen should be kept as clean, be as 
thoroughly ventilated and as well lighted as 
is practicable. The subdivisions of the pen 
can of course be modified according to ne¬ 
cessity. Our artist has got tbe building 
pretty close to the ground. A good stone or 
brick foundation should support it, and the 
floors of the pens should be double and close, 
so that neither liquid nor solid excreme at can 
escape beneath them. They should be so 
littered with absorbents as to completely 
MINK CULTURE 
Meeting a gentleman who buys furs ex¬ 
tensively, a few days since, we asked him if 
he knew aught of the success of the efforts 
at mink culture in New York State. He 
said he did and that none of them that he 
knew anything of had proved profitable in 
any sense. The conversation was interrupted 
and we failed to learn the came and particu¬ 
lar iustances of failure. It would be inter¬ 
esting to know if our readers can give any 
evidence to the Rural New-Yorker on this 
subject. Meantime, a correspondent of the 
Massachusetts Ploughman, at Ossipee, N. H., 
says: , 
“ It has been found by long and persistent 
effort that the mink cannot be made to 
breed in confinement when caught in a wild 
state, but will breed after being fully domes¬ 
ticated. By procuring the young before 
their eyes are open and rearing by hand, or 
perhaps on a cat, when one can be found 
that will mother them, success is easier. 
“ After some pretty expensive experiments 
I have succeeded in breeding them, affording 
a fail* profit for the outlay. The profits this 
year average about $145 to the pair, no mink 
being killed for their fur, as a ready sale is 
made of all that I can raise at $40 per pair, 
sold alive. But for their fur alone no branch 
of industry in this country will pay better. 
Minks are very prolific, seldom losing any of 
their young, and they rear from six to nine 
at a litter, and in one case fourteen. 
“They will eat any kind of lean meat, 
birds, fish, frogs, woodchucks, iu fact any¬ 
thing of a game kind, and appear especially 
fond of beef liver and poultry. 
f> I shell probably winter ten pairs of old 
mink this year, and another year propose to 
enlarge my works. There appears to be a 
prevailing idea that they cannot be kept in 
large numbers together. This is a mistake, 
for if properly cared for during the breeding 
season—at which time it is not safe to have 
more than two females to one male in the 
a ame pen, they do well.” 
deodorize them. Of course, we have seen 
more elaborate and costly piggeries—those 
with basements for build's and the storing 
of roots, with storerooms above the main 
floor, as in this case, for grain, connecting 
with both the main floor and the basement. 
But for ordinary farm use the style of pen 
here given is all that is needed. The size 
can be regulated according to the number of 
animals to be accommodated. 
PAINTING SHINGLE ROOFS 
A writer in the Industrial Monthly dis¬ 
cusses the subject of painting shingle roofs in 
this wise If it is an economical practice to 
paint any other part of an architectural 
structure, most assuredly it is a commend¬ 
able practice to paint shingles. AVe never 
could understand why certain builders have 
persisted in advocating not to paint shingles, 
except we judge them to be influenced by 
mercenaryjmotives. Every intelligent build¬ 
er is aware of the fact, that shingles and 
siding, when not painted, will wear out very 
much sooner than if they had been protected 
by a generous covering of paint. Hence, 
reasoning from a selfish policy, it is better 
not to paint shingles, because the paint will 
promote their durability, and whatever pro¬ 
motes their durability tends to diminish the 
labors of the craft, and thus curtail the 
revenue of civil architects. 
The house iu which the writer was born 
was covered with shaved pine shingles in the 
year, 1805. at which time the roof received a 
generous coat of oil-paint made of linseed-oil 
and Venetian red. After twenty years had 
elapsed, another coat of paint, nearly black, 
FIELD NOTES 
Larae Potato Yield.— Mr. James Elmer, 
Lyons, N. Y., (we learn from the Lyons Re¬ 
publican) planted two bushels of seed of Late 
Rose from which he has harvested 144 bush¬ 
els of potatoes. The Republican says “ The 
seed was planted oil clover sod ; the lulls 
three feet apart one way aud two feet apart 
the other, in cutting the seed one eye was 
left upon each piece, and two pieces planted 
iu each hill. Mr. Elmer thinks his crop 
would have been larger if lie had planted the 
hills three feet apart one way, and about 
fourteen inches apart the other way, with 
only oue eye in each hill, and planted deeper 
—as he intends doing next season.” 
Clover and Orchard Grass .— -Andrew S. 
Fuller objects to sowing no clover with 
orchard grass for meadow, because, he as- 
