502 
not sunken; ears small, thin, smooth and 
pendent; neck strong- and muscular; chest 
deep; back broad and powerful: loiuswide and 
strong; thighs broad aud muscular; forelegs 
straight and bony; tail long, strong at 
the root, tapering somewhat, and carried 
low; countenance honest, calm and re¬ 
solute —truly a magnificent specimen of a 
valuable canine friend or a terrible canine 
foe. Fearlessly but deliberately he scans the 
the tramp whose dilapidated hat and cudgel- 
supported bundle cast dark shadows on the 
foreground. Little have the lonely wife or 
children to fear from the most truculent vaga¬ 
bond, when protected by such a guardian. 
When such tine-bred, well traiued, noble 
animals more frequently guard our 
farms and their inmates from loss and harm, 
the outcry now justly raised in country places 
against wretched mongrels and yelping curs, 
a curse to the larder and the sheep-fold, will 
cease with the lives of the cauiue uuisances. 
field} Crops. 
JOHNSON OR ASS —SORGHUM HALE- 
PENSE—IN NEW JERSEY. 
In the latter part of August 1882 I sowed a 
small quantity of Johnson Grass from Ala¬ 
bama. Because it was sowed so late and for 
other reasons not now distinctly remembei*ed, 
it was not more than three inches above the 
ground when heavy' frosts came aud seemed to 
have killed the whole of it, root and top. I 
was so well satisfied in the Spring of 1883 
that it had not survived the Winter, that in 
May I had the ground where it grew dug up 
and planted with bush beans. In the latter 
part of June I was much surprised to find 
about one-half of the Johnson Grass growing 
vigorously, and now it stands about five feet 
high and is in blossom. It tillers wonderfully, 
sending out from the roots long shoots, start¬ 
ing from about au inch beneath the surface 
and growiug almost horizontally to form new 
plants, besides throwing up several upright 
stalks. 
I think after this trial it can safely be said 
that it will endure our average New Jersey 
Winters, The soil in which it, grows is heavy, 
wet loam, and I believed that the freezing 5 
thawing and heaving had effectually’ destroyed 
the roots, that seemed to have but a very 
slight hold upon the soil. 1 have planted 
more of it which is now coming up Dioely and 
will be firmly established before the uext frosts 
come. I thiuk it will give a great supply of 
juicy, tender leaves and stalks, and cannot 
fail to prove very valuable for hay and pas¬ 
ture; but it means to stay’, and has a vast 
power in spreading itself, so that I am not* 
sure it can be kept within bounds, aud fear it 
will not only' cover mv own possessions but 
that it will extend upon the farms of my 
neighbors aud make itself at home as com¬ 
pletely as do the English sparrow s. 
A colored man, lately’ from the South, hap¬ 
pening to see the grass growiug on my place 
was greatly' delighted, and assured roe I could 
not have too much of it. Has this grass been 
tested on the Rural Farm ? Have any of the 
readers of the Rural tided itf It seems to 
be sufficiently promising to w’arrant careful 
trial and consideration. 
New Brunswick, New r Jersey. w. s. 
farm Ccaiunmj. 
TILE DRAINAGE.—No. 12. 
SEC, W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Various Details. 
Economy in details is of great importance. 
The old proverb, ’‘Take care of the pence and 
the pounds will take care of themselves,” and 
the other one about “wasting at the spigot 
faster than you can pour in at the bung-hole,” 
give good hints for tile drainage. System in 
planning and skill or knack in executing will 
greatly diminish the cost and increase the ex¬ 
cellence of the work. 
Distributing the Tiles.— The field, for 
Fall and Winter drainage, should be laid out 
early in the Fall. All the first furrows for 
drains should be drawn, as described in a pre¬ 
vious number, before the ground is wet. Then 
the tiles should be all distributed immediately, 
systematically and in the right places. They 
hould be laids in compact piles of about 34 
each, two rods apart each w r ay (if that is the 
distance apart of the laterals) and far enough 
from the line of each ditch so that they’ will 
will not be in the w r ay of the dirt thrown out 
in digging. In short, the piles all over the 
field should be put, where they w’ill not need 
to be moved till they are laid. Then when 
the ditches are laid, one by one, and ready to 
receive them, the tiles can be taken in armfuls 
and laid end to end along the edge of the ditch 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
AUG « 
within easy reach of the man who lays them 
in their final resting place. I advise putting 
at least 34 in the piles two rods apart. It is 
better to have too many than too few. 
How r to Dig.—N ever use the mattock, and 
use the pick only when absolutely compelled 
to do so. If the clay is reasonably’ moist (aud 
it should not be dug unless it is) and is not 
very stony, the spade aud scoop will do all the 
work. A groeu baud wall use the pick far too 
much, aud to his own hindrance, unless for¬ 
bidden aud showu better by the foreman or 
farmer who has experience. Some people 
think any fool can dig a ditch. On the con¬ 
trary, it requires more knack aud skill to dig 
rapidly and well than to do almost a ny other 
apparently simple thing on the farm or in the 
shop. The ditch should be dug as narrow as 
possible and of uniform width and depth. A 
green hand will dig not so deep if it digs 
hard, and then deeper again w hen he strikes 
a “soft spot.” The spade should be sunk each 
time its full depth, and at a uniform angle; 
for the greater the angle (from a perpendicu- 
lar) the less the actual perpendicular depth, 
This geometrical proposition is almost self-evi¬ 
dent. And a uniform bottom-grade cannot 
be had without the greatest care in following 
this rule all the time. If it is followed care¬ 
fully’ and if the top furrows are first carefully 
graded as described in a former article, then 
the bottom of the ditch will need no special 
and costly grading with the mattock and 
span-level, 
A green baud needs special and careful in¬ 
struction iu the use of the spade. One edge 
of the spade should always be out of lhe earth. 
The earth should come out in long triangular 
slices, with one thin edge, and the short side 
of the triangle be broken off at the edge of 
the ditch. 
There is great knack in sinking a spade. 
You want to give a succession of shaip, heavy 
thrusts with the foot, working the handle with 
each thrust. In soft, “cheesy” clay one or 
two heavy thrusts will send the spade home: 
but in tough hard-pan it may take several. 
The Englishman who first taught me the 
'‘knack” said: “Put. vour kill ’eft lionto hit 
* *• 
’eavy hevory time and wqbiiggle the andle 
with your ’and.” 
I said never use the mattock, aud the pick 
very seldom. A good spader will get along 
two or three times as fast to slice right down 
with the spade and throw the slice out clean 
and quickly, as to pick up the earth with mat¬ 
tock or pick and throw’ it out with shovel or 
scoop. And he will get a far more uuiform 
grade. Even stones he will usually remove 
without using the pick, by digging around 
them and behind them. Only iu hard, clayey 
gravel will he use the pick. 
The earth should be laid as near the ditch as 
possible that it may lie filled in more easily 
and rapidly. The clay should be thrown on 
one side and the soil on the other, and the soil 
be filled in on top. 
The J unctions. —Wherever t he laterals join 
the maius the joint should be a good one. 
Those who make the hard glazed tiles usually 
cut holes for laterals in a part of the large- 
sized tiles before baking. This makes the 
uicest job. Where a smaller-sized lateral en¬ 
ters a larger-sized main, the tops of the lateral 
and main (and not the bottoms) should be on a 
level. This gives the water from the lateral a 
little fall into the main and preveuts its setting 
back into the lateral. For filling iu the first, 
course that is to be tramped, a long-tined, 
broad-tined potato-iligger or hook is an excell¬ 
ent tool, for then the man can stand iu the 
ditch and tramp and stamp the clay' as he hauls 
it in. The tines of the ordinary potato hook 
are not long enough. I took a potato fork 
(digger) out of its handle, bent the shank and 
made a hook of it and it. is a capital tool. 
You can strike it iu full depth and haul in 50 
pounds of clay at a time; and you cau do the 
necessary hand-filliug far faster and easier 
than with a shovel or spade or fork, 
or two are left over to each rod or two they' 
cau all be gathered up when the work is done. 
But if you are short one or two r each rod, it 
makes great trouble running after them. 
These are hut specimens of the many points 
where experience and skill will save time and 
money' in ditching. If a farmer has much to 
do he had better employ an experienced tile- 
drainer aud learn all he cau from him for a 
few days or weeks. 
SULKY PLOWS NOT APPROVED. 
The recent articles in the Rural relating 
to sulky’ plows have interested me much, es¬ 
pecially’ the one iu the Rural of Fehruary 3d. 
As the Rural invites a discussion of both 
sides of the picture, allow me to mention a few 
facts that may be perfectly plain to most 
experienced and practical plow-men. My 
practical experience with plows dates back 
for more than half a century, and I consider a 
good plow the first step towards succcessfnl 
agriculture. The plow that does the best 
work and draws the lightest is the plow for the 
million. If we believe what makers say of 
their wares, all work the best, but experience 
proves otherwise The latest drive seems to 
be with t he sulky plow, but articles similar to 
the above smack largely of self-interest or bad 
information. The writer tells us a good 
sulky plow draw’s from 10 to 25 per cent, 
lighter than a walking plow fora given length 
of furrow, aud immediately admits that, the 
sulky requires from 10 to 20 per cent, more 
rower to counteract the strain on the team 
than the walking plow, from the fact that the 
sulky goes through everything, whereas the 
walking plow jumps out aud runs over ob¬ 
stacles. Is this true ? A good walking plow 
properly'applied runs over but two kinds of 
obstructions, viz.: large stones and roots. 
Cau the sulky do otherwise ? The above ar¬ 
ticle tells us that a good four mule or horse 
team will turn out 100 inches to a furrow’ ami 
cover all weeds and trash out of sight. To 
do .this there must be a wheel coulter or disk to 
cut a track for the plow to follow. Take a 
well constructed w-alkiug plow*, place an auti- 
ohokiug coulter in front of the plow, with a roll 
or wheel under the front end of the beam, as 
wide as the furrow slice, to roll down weedsor 
trash and you have as good a tool for doing the 
various kinds of w’ork required of a plow as 
can be invented. It takes but a small amount 
of good philosophy to discover that the sulky- 
plow requires the expenditure of power to 
move the sulk.v in addition to that needed to 
draw the plow through the soil. If the plow 
is so arranged as to be carried by the wheels, 
the amount of friction taken from the bottom 
is added to the top, thus nothing is gained. 
The sum of the matter is, can the average far¬ 
mer afford to sustain the extra cost of team 
and plow’ for the privilege of riding i The ar¬ 
ticle alluded to tells us that a good sulky’ plow- 
draws from 10 to 25 per cent, lighter than the 
walking plow. I will give a bit of evidence 
that reflects serious doubts ou this statement. 
In the month of October. 188U, an agricultural 
society in Otsego County, N. Y., instituted a 
test of plow’s. Of the number entered (there 
were several) the draft of the lightest was re¬ 
ported by the eiitumitteo to be 250 pounds, cut¬ 
ting a furrow-slice of 100 cubic inches, soil 
very dry. sod heavy. Give us the pounds of 
draft of vour wares gentlemen, and allow’ the 
public to say which is lightest and best. 
Otsego Co.. N. Y. w. b. nearing. 
HANGING TOBACCO—ADVANTAGES OF 
THE LATH SYSTEM. 
Two methods are in use for hanging tobacco 
in the curing house. In the first, the plants 
are hung upon scantlings or round poles, by’ 
means of “tobacco twine.” In the second 
they are bung upon laths in the field, draw n 
thence to the curing house ou an appropriate 
rigging, where the laths are placed w ith their 
ends resting upon scantlings, the plants hang¬ 
ing between. In order to compare the two 
methods, I will first briefly describe the former. 
The plants are drawn to the curing house ou 
a flat rigging, on which they are ranked cross¬ 
wise, as one would rank cord-wood. Here they 
are picked up. one at a time, aud either tossed 
or handed to the hanger. Plants treated in this 
manner must be thoroughly’ wilted after being 
cut, before loading them upon the wagon, or 
the leaves are certain to be much bruised aud 
torn. In moist or cloudy w'eather the leaves 
often wilt so slowly that the work of harvest¬ 
ing- is brought nearly or quite to a stand-still. 
On warm, bright, days, on the other hand, 
there is clanger of injury from sun-burn. This 
severe wilting of the leaves, together with the 
ranking upon the wagon, causes them to ad¬ 
here so closely’ to the stalk, that the liability 
to pole-burn, the dread of the tobacco-grower, 
is increased, unless each plant is carefully 
shaken out as it is hung. 
When hanging in the higher part of the 
curing house, the plants must either be tossed 
a distance of several feet, or three or four men 
or boys must be employed to pass them to the 
hanger. The former practice invariably 
bruises and tears the plants, while the lutter is 
necessarily expensive. 
In hanging by the lath system the plants are 
put upon the laths very soon after being out. 
They are then either loaded directly upon the 
w'agon. or hung temporarily upon i>ortablo 
racks in the field. Iu either case they are out 
of danger, either from sun-burn or rain, and 
the hanging in the curing-house may lie post¬ 
poned for u week if necessary, without injury 
to the tobacco. The leaves are not pressed 
closely about the stalk as they are when the 
plants are ranked upon the wagon, and the 
load may be driven for miles if necessary with¬ 
out bruising the leaves. 
A load may be unloaded and placed in the 
curing-house in about one third of the time 
required by the other method, and with a less 
number of men. A lath, containing five or 
six plants, is put in place almost as soon as a 
single plant, and the skilled hanger required 
by the first described method, is not needed. 
The cost of the twine is also saved, which is an 
item of some importance. For elevating the 
laths to the upper part of I he curing house, a 
forked tool is used, designed expressly for the 
pui-pose, so that in no ease* are more than two 
men required for this work. “Elm.” 
farm (Topics. 
ARTIFICIAL FERTILIZERS. 
Some inquiries arc occasionally made as to 
the composition of artificial fertilizers and the 
quantities of the various fertilizing elements 
contained in them. This is quite important, 
aud far more who use those fertilizers eau only 
estimate the actual money value of what they 
purchase by knowing their composition. To 
aid such farmere we give the accompanying 
tables, beginning with barn-yard manure. 
Is i,00u Pounds os Barn-vard Manure. 
There are nf Nitrogen. I Potash. | Phosphoric acid . 
Partly rotted I 5 n>s fiU as | ms 
Well rotted I 59$ lbs I 5 lbs | 3 lbs 
ts 1,000 Pounds of Wood Ashes. 
There arc of | Potash. | Lime. | Phosphoric acid. 
Unleached I SO tbs I 320 lbs 20 ibs 
♦Leached 1 15 lbs | 270 lbs | 15 lbs 
♦Contains of water 800 lbs. 
In 1,000 pounds, chemically pure, of sulphate 
of ammonia there are 255 ,' pounds of ammonia. 
The average quantity contained iu the best 
quality of commercial sulphate is about 25 
per cent. 
Nitrate of soda usually runs from 95 to 98 
per cent, of purity: the following table shows 
the value of the different grades. 
Is 1,000 Pounds ok Nitrate of soda. 
There arc of 95 per ceuLof purity.190 lbs ammonia. 
96 ** * r .192 
9? “ “ .....ISM 
98 “ “ 196 “ 
Muriate of potash is the most valuable 
variety of the potash salts and is the cheapest 
form in which potash can be procured. There 
are three grades in the market. No. 2, which 
is of 75 to 85 per cent, purity; No. 1, of 80 to 
85 per cent, and “high grade” testing 85 to 98 
per cent. The poorest grade contains some 
magnesia in the form of chloride. The 
amount of actual potash in the various grades 
is as follows: 
lx 1,000 Pocnds ok Muriate of Potash. 
There are of 80 per cent... 
85 “ . 
90 ** . 
.567 “ “ 
95 ** . 
98 “ ... 
..617 “ 
Kainit or impure or low grade potash salts 
is the dearest form in which potash is procured. 
It consists of a mixture of sulphate of potash, 
muriate of potash, chloride of soda, chloride 
of magnesia and some sulphates of these. It 
varies in purity from 23 to 26 per cent. 
In t,0U0 Pounds of Kainit 
There are lu23per cent.121 lbs of potash. 
24 “ .129 “ 
25 ** . 185 “ “ 
2»i " 140“ “ 
Sulphate of potash runs from 50 to 57 per 
cent, of pure sulphate: the impurity is chiefly 
sulphate of magnesia. 
Is 1,000 Pounds Sulphate of Potash 
There arc In 50 per cent. grade.270 lbs of potash. 
52 “ .....230“ 
54 ** .890" 
50 “ .802 ** “ 
57 “ .807 ** ** 
Super-phosphate of lime is phosphate of lime, 
either from bones or phosphatic rock (apatite 
or the Charleston phospbatesj. changed from 
its usual form of three atoms of lime to one of 
phosphoric acid, to the artificial form of one 
or two atoms of lime to one of the acid. The 
atoms of lime freed from combination with the 
phosphoric acid unite with the sulphuric acid 
that is used iu the manufacture, and form sul¬ 
phate of lime or gypsum, commonly knowu as 
plaster. The super-phosphate of lime thus 
formed is very unstable and quickly begins to 
revert to its former condition, leaving a small 
portion of the phosphate in a reverted or less 
soluble form. An ordinary good super-phos¬ 
phate will contain as follows: 
IN 1,000 POUNDS SUPKH-fHOSPHATE 
There are of soluble phosphoric add.1(10 pounds. 
“ predpHutcd •* .28 “ 
“ Insoluble “ . 11 “ 
the remainder is made of sulphate of lime and 
water. 
This super-phosphate is made from bone ash 
or mineral phosphates. That made from raw 
bone contains a small proportion of nitrogen¬ 
ous matter containing about 20 pounds of ni¬ 
trogen, equal to about 25 pounds of ammonia 
in the 1,000 pounds. Usually the various 
super-phosphates made from hone ash and the 
miueral phosphates are mixed with a certain 
proportion of nitrogenous matters, such as 
dried blood, dried flesh aud slaughter-house 
refuse, or even sulphate of ammonia. Occa¬ 
sionally roasted leather scrap is used to “am- 
mouiate ” super-phosphates, but as none but a 
chemist could reach the nitrogen locked up iu 
this almost imperishable and insoluble stuff, 
the farmer gets no practical benefit from it. 
In this case the chemical analysis would show 
a certain percentage of nitrogen or “potential 
ammouia” in the fertilizer, but this analysis 
would be wholly deceptive aud misleading to 
the purchaser. Dried blood and meat rapidly 
