AUG. 20 
543 
find the plan very convenient and effective. 
A wooden bar, if of tough, hard material, may 
do, but an iron one is better. The lower end 
should bo thickest (see Fig. 413). A bar of 
this kind will be useful for many other pur¬ 
poses, digging post-holes, etc. 
Covering Weeds with a Flow. — One 
would suppose every man whose busi¬ 
ness is to plow, would know how to attach a 
chain for the purpose of covering weeds. But 
a hired man who claimed to know everything 
about farm work and who was set to plow a 
field containing some tall weeds, made wretched 
work because be had never heard of this 
method of covering the weeds. Many others, 
doubtless, are equally ignorant of this plan, 
which is so old as to be forgotten, and really 
new again. The chain is looped ai ound the 
plow beam at the standard, as &hown at Fig. 
414. It is made to trail so that it is just in ad¬ 
vance of the falling furrow and barely es¬ 
capes being covered. The other end is fasten- 
CHAIN ATTACHED. — TUG. 414. 
ed to the double-tree, as shown ; or it may be 
fastened to a bar bolted to the beam and 
braced, as shown at A. This should be 
known by every one whose business it is to 
handle a plow, and is specially useful just now 
when weedy stubbles or fallows are to be 
plowed for wheat. 
Latino out Fields by Measure —Few 
farmers know the size of their fields or how 
many acres they coutain. A field of the 
writer’s, before it came into his possession, 
had been plowed and reeped by contract for 
15 acres. On measuring it, it was found to 
have but 12 acres. It is desirable, in fact, in¬ 
dispensable for good work, that a farmer 
should know how many acres each field con¬ 
tains, for otherwise he cannot apportion seed 
or manure for it, nor can ne tell how much 
time it should require to be plowed. A meas¬ 
uring cord should be part of the furniture of 
every farm. To make ODe, procure <57 feet of 
... 
sections of measuring hope. —415. 
strong rope, one inch around: make a loop or 
fasten a ring or a bar at each end, and make 
these precisely 66 feet apart, This is four 
rods. Then tie a piece of red rag in the center. 
One acre of ground will be a piece four of the 
cords (chains) long and two and one-half wide, 
equal to 16x10 rods, making 100 square rods, 
or one acre. The arrangement of the rope is 
shown at Fig. 415. The advantage of the ring 
or loop, is that one person can measure alone 
by driving a stake In the ground to hold the 
rope while he stretches it out. The rope 
should be soaked in tar and dried, which will 
prevent it from shrinking when wet. 
Mowing Marshes. —Farmers having occa¬ 
sion to mow wet meadows or swamps, may 
keep their feet dty without going to the ex¬ 
pense of buying rubber boots, which, besides 
being costly, are not very agreeable to work 
in for a whole day. Swamp shoes may be 
made as follows: two wide, strong, smooth 
staves of a flour barrel are fastened together, 
as at Fig, 416 A. A leather strap is passed 
through two holes in the forward part of the 
MARSH SHOE.—FIG 416 
shoe and two laces, or strings, are fixed there, 
as shown. A piece of carpet doubled, or 
leather, may be nailed on the shoe where the 
foot will rest The foot may be wrapped in a 
piece of bl mket, which is done by the Indians 
and white trappers when wearing snow-shoes. 
These pieces of blanket are called “ neipa.” 
The neip is tied around the ankle and the 
troueerB are gathered and tied over it. The 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
toes are then pnt under the strap and the shoe 
is fastened to the foot so that it is attached 
only to the toes and the foot can move freely. 
As the person walks he lifts the foot and the 
shoe drags, with the hind part on the ground, 
the fore part being lifted, thus escaping 
any obstacle. A pair of light rubber or arctic 
overshoes may be worn. With these one can 
travel easily over the softest swamps. A shoe 
may also he cut out of a large cypress or 
cedar shingle, or a piece of thin board, but 
tbe curve of a flour barrel stave is just about 
right for this purpose. The foot strapped to 
to the shoe is shown at B, Fig. 416 The neip iB 
fitted by placing the foot on it with a corner at 
tbe toe and one at the heel; it should be 18 
Inches square. Tbe corner 1 b turned down 
over the toe upon the foot; each side is then 
turned over the foot and then the hind part is 
brought np to ths heel: this brings It about 
the ankles evenly and smoothly. Or the sides 
may be turned up first and then the heel and, 
lastly, the corner brougt, t over the toe, which 
would in that case leave a thick cushion to 
come nnder the strap to protect the toes from 
chafing. 
ifrtsraan. 
A SUCCESSFUL CATTLE FEEDER. 
WALDO F. BROWN. 
Profitable Cattle Feeding. 
The gentleman l referred to in my former ar¬ 
ticle and who is entitled to the above appella¬ 
tion, is Mr. Samuel A. Deal, of McLean Co., Ill. 
Before giving, however, the figures which he 
gave me aDd whieh show how handsomely he 
was paid for his grain in his cattle feeding, I 
wish to point out some of the reasons why 
farmers so often fail to make cattle feeding 
profitable. One (where the cattle are bought) 
is from buying at the wrong time of year. 
Perhaps tbe majority of farmers who intend 
to “ winter feed,” buy from pastures in the 
Fall, the last of October or firet of November, 
tiattle at this season have a good deal of what 
the butchers call “gross” about them, and it 
will take extra care to make the transition 
from grass to dry feed without losing consid¬ 
erable weight. I think that ordinarily cattle 
will be found from 50 to 100 pounds lighter at 
Christmas than when they came off grass, 
and eves if they are put on grain at once, it is 
doubtful if there Is any gain during the first 
four or six weeks. Another cause of loss is 
from unwise feeding at the start. Cattle that 
have been on a bulky diet all Summer must be 
brought gradually to heavy grain feeding, and 
if they are over-fed a few times, so as to produce 
indigestion and derangement of the bowels, 
they will be permanently injured. My first 
experience with winter feeding was with six 
large steers, and as there was a i ivalry between 
a neighbor and myself, I tried to push them 
from the start, and from subsequent experience 
I am sure that I would have made a greater 
gain if I had only fed half as much grain. 
Loss often comes from feedlDg too long. If 
the cattle arc fed partly in the stables and fin¬ 
ished off on grass, the time of profitable feed¬ 
ing can be lengthened, but lor winter feeding 
I think about 100 days the profitable limit, and 
the first six weeks of this time the cattle should 
not be on full feed. It will pay the cattle 
feeder to weigh regularly that he may know 
j ust how his cattle are doing. The best results 
will follow from careful and regular feeding 
of mature cattle aud a varied diet. All my ex¬ 
perience favors a rather liberal use of bran, as 
it keeps the bowels regular and avoids the 
danger of indigestion and scours which the 
feeding of corn meal alone bo often produces. 
If a steer on full feed will eat 12 pounds of 
grain and meal a day, 1 believe the best re¬ 
sults will be had by giving two pounds of bran 
four of corn meal and six of whole corn; but 
I should not feed more than half this amount 
at the Btarl. 
But I will now give Mr. Deal's experience. 
In his letter to me in 1879 he stated that he 
had failed to make any money in feeding 
cattle bought in the Fall, and bo conclnded 
that year to tiy Spring feeding. With regard 
to his success that Spring I have merely these 
brief figures. He eays, “ I put 55 steers, aver¬ 
aging 1.010 pounds, in the feed lot on Febru¬ 
ary 17; I fed them shock corn until turned on 
grass, and fed one peck each per day of ear 
corn in boxes while on pasture. I sold these 
cattle June 20, when they averaged 1,429 
pounds, making au average gain of 419 pounds. 
These cattle ate 1,500 buBhels of corn during 
this time, which made u fraction over 27 
bushels each, which is lesB thau a peck each 
per day, or, to be exact, three-fourteenths of a 
bushel.” 
In the Summer of 18801 again wrote to Mr. 
Deal, and in reply he gave me the following 
facts : “I fed 64 head of cattle this year, be¬ 
ginning on light feed the first of February. 
My cattle were quite thin and averaged 1,000 
pounds each, and were worth $8.50 per hun¬ 
dred or $35 per head. I kept them on light 
feed until the first of April, but from then until 
they were turned to grass I gave them all they 
would eat of shock corn. While on pasture I 
fed, as last year, one peck each of husked corn 
in boxes. I fed these catile in all, 2,753 bush¬ 
els of corn, worth 25 cents per bushel, making 
$688. I kept them considerably later this year, 
selling on Ang. 20, at $4.50 per hundred, and 
they averaged 1,536 pounds, or a gain of 536 
pounds each, and the price per head was 
$69.12, or nearly double what they were worth 
when I began feeding them. Allowing $1.25 
per month for pasturing and eight per cent, 
itterest on the cost of them, there Is left me a 
net profit of over $ 1,100, with which sum I am 
well satisfied. 1 expect to feed 90 head next 
Spring in the same way, for I find that to com¬ 
bine grass and grain feeding is the way to 
make cheap beef. Catile will gain rapidly on 
grass alone; but they do not lay on as solid 
and lasting flesh and fat as when corn is fed 
with the grass, and in this way you can get 
your cattle in condition to bring the highest 
market price.” 
In all my experiments with cattle I have 
found Mr. Deal’s method a profitable one, and 
I hope others will be helped by this statement 
as much as I have been. 
HORNLESS vs. HORNED CATTLE. 
Readers of the Rural will soon be at the 
fairs looking over the different varieties of 
cattle, with a view of selecting the best breeds. 
In the discussions I have heard and read upon 
the merits of the various sorts, the question 
has been viewed in its economical and material 
aspects ; there is undoubtedly another and a 
higher plane upon which it should also be dis¬ 
cussed. I refer to its moral bearings, and the 
baneful influences that cattle wearing horns 
exert upon the advancing civilization of the 
age. Man is very largely a creaturejof circum¬ 
stances ; his surroundings generally determine 
his intellectual aud moral progress. Place him 
in a genial climate [among pleasing surround¬ 
ings, and he usually advances from generation 
to generation in the scale of civilization. 
Reverse those conditions, arm him with offen¬ 
sive and defensive weapons, and turn him 
loose, he becomes an aggressive and a fighting 
animal. Again disarm him, and place before 
him tbe choice of intellectual and moral 
pursuits, he again advances in civilization— 
[Because It may show that in our opinion po 
part of the human race has yet attained ideal 
perfection, therefore do we regret that we 
cannot coincide with our friend in the opinion 
that a genial climate and pleasing surround¬ 
ings have on man an exceptionally civilizing 
influence. The inhabitants of the South Sea 
Islands had for generations a genial climate 
and unusually pleasant surroundings, but even 
before their exposure to the barbarizing in¬ 
fluence of the leBs favored white man, their 
civilization certainly was not unusually high. 
Tbe races that, within certain limits, have had 
to struggle hardest for a livelihood against 
natural inhospitality and lor existence against 
human hostility, and that have had force and 
vitality enough to triumph most signally in 
both cases, have always become the most 
civilized—the best fighters have always at¬ 
tained the highest civilization. Let any people 
once lose the disposition to fight when needful, 
and the capability of doing so strenuously, aud 
they soon sink into effeminacy, immorality, 
impotence and deserved contempt.— Eds.] It 
is right here that the question of horns upon 
our domestic cattle has its moral bearings. 
Horns are unquestionably both offensively and 
defensively deadly weapons. There is a ques¬ 
tion in my mind whether or not the first pair 
of cattle were so armed. I should say, from 
what we are taught in the Bible, that cattle 
were created hornless; certainly from what 
we conceive aB a moral plan of the universe, 
they did not originally need such defensive 
weapons, but when tbe world went to the bad, 
and turned savage, they would be needed, and 
perhaps evolved out of the need for them 
amidst their evil surroundings. Be this as it 
may, we cannot now determine the question. 
Wars and warfare in all time, and among all 
people have ever been demoralizing; the bad 
habit of carrying deadly weapons was, and is, 
a relic of this warfare and savagery. Con¬ 
trast the moral condition of our remote border 
settlements with that of the older settled com¬ 
munities ; those living In the former carry arms, 
and there both life and property are uncer¬ 
tain. The inhabitants of the other walk un¬ 
armed amidst peaceful scenes of quiet aud 
plenty. Our domestic animals shonld imitate 
these contrasted conditions. Hornless cattle 
are peaceful, and quiet in their habits ; they 
cannot, if they desire, injure aud mutilate 
their own or the human race. We are never 
required to “ take the bull by the horns ” If 
he has no horns; there is no opportunity for 
each dangerous encounters ; therefore animal 
is precisely like human nature in this 
respect—armed, U wants to fight, domestica¬ 
tion does not, and cannot eradicate the dis¬ 
position ; but disarm it, and it grows more 
and more peaceful. 
Buffering our cattle to wear horns is a good 
deal like permitting such men as Gulteau to go 
at large, and assassinate at will whomsoever 
they may take it into their disorderly heads to 
kill. There is no telling whether a bull is safe 
or not, or at what moment he may conceive 
himself aggrieved, and become an aggressor; 
even the gentlest cows commit both inten¬ 
tional and unintentional assaults, and become 
wonderfully ingenious and mischlevious in 
opening granary doors and garden gates with 
their ready horns, 
Three hundred years ago the Spanish was 
the foremost nation in Europe; now it is one 
of the poorest and least enterprising, to Bay 
nothing of its moral condition; the main 
reason for its decadence was because it cul¬ 
tivated savagery in its horned cattle, and in 
itself at the same time. Its bull-baitings were 
national pastimes, the moral f6rce and energy 
of the nation became merged and engulfed in 
this savagery. So we find that it is an un¬ 
mistakable fact, or rather law of our nature 
that we cannot see and accustom ourselves to 
savagery, even In our domestic animals, with¬ 
out its reacting upon ourselves. 
There are certainly no morphological reasons 
why we cannot have hornless cattle; they 
are as healthy as the horned in every respect, 
perhaps more healthy, for they surely will not 
have “hollow-horn." That horns still exist is 
because the force of habit'has been too strong 
for this change for the better. 
I once met a Texan upon the plains, who 
Insisted that if we had horned horses, (just 
think how they would look t) they would 
be far preferable to our present kind ; but he 
had never used anything but muBtang ponies 
or seen anything but the Texas steers, and the 
savage and rough surroundings of the Western 
plains, and there was therefore some sense In 
his remark, judgiug from his stand-point. But 
from our stand-point and oar present sur¬ 
roundings, there is no sense in any longer 
breeding horns upon our domestic animals, for 
it retards religious or moral elevation. We 
ought in this age of boasted progress and ad¬ 
vancement to get npon a higher plane, and 
above the continuance of this relic of the 
barbaric ages. D. 8. Marvin. 
flit l^iariatt. 
IMPROVING HONEY PLANT8—A POINT 
TO SEED GROWERS. 
The family of the Leguminous is one of the 
best for hies and for cattle. In this family 
we find the White Clover (Trifolium repens) of 
our pastures, the Melilot (Melilotus alba), 
whose name is derived from the Greek word 
meli (honey), and the Sainfoin (Onobrychis 
sativa)! a plant which does not withstand our 
Winters, but which, in France, gives the beet 
honey and the best fodder. 
Nearly related to the White Clover is the 
Red Clover (Trifolinm arvenBe), which fur¬ 
nishes as great a quantity of honey as any one 
of the other plants mentioned. Every country 
boy has sucked the honey from the tubes of its 
corollas; but few know that, if they had the 
chance of tasting this sweet, it was because 
bumble bees are nearly the only insects which 
can reach It, and bumble bees are too few lu 
number to absorb such a large crop, which, 
therefore, remains unharvested, the corollas 
of Rid Clover being too deep to allow the 
honey bees to suck it. 
These corollas are only a very little too 
deep ; for, during the drought of some Sum¬ 
mers, the flowers of the second crop, being a 
little shorter, the Italian bees And in them a 
good harvest; yet it Is doubtful whether in the 
best circumstances their probosces ate able to 
rcuch the bottoms of the tubes. Moreover, the 
honey of the main crop is always out of reach 
of the bees, and the aim of bee-keepers iB to 
produce a kind of beuB endowed with a tongue 
long enough to reach tbe bottom of the clover 
blossoms, or to produce a kind of red clover 
whose blossoms would be shorter or wider, bo 
that bees could suck all the honey; or to attack 
the diflicalty in both ways at the same time. 
The work has already begun. Some bee-keep¬ 
ers try to produce bees endowed with longer 
probosces, and Borne others are selecting, in 
the fields, the plants whose corollas are wider 
or shorter than usual, in order to secure a sort 
In which they will be broader. Bat the task 
will be long, and we want help, If not In regard 
to beeB, at least in regard to the selection and 
propagation of selected plants. 
A seed grower who would take the thing in 
hand, planting selected clover with this object 
In view, if he succeeded, would be sure of a 
good sale of seeds at remunerative prices; for 
every bee-keeper would try to have the new 
variety introduced to his nelghbers. Of course, 
the end to be attained is, not to produce a short 
corolla by raising a diminutive plant, but to 
create a strong, vigorous kind, endowed with 
short or wide corollas, the sap of the plant 
being directed more towards the branches and 
the leaves than towards the corollas. 
I dare to predict to the lucky man who would 
