makers treat canvas to make it waterproof 
and lasting? 
A ns,— Sail-makers soak canvas in white¬ 
wash. Take half a bushel of quick-lime and 
slake it. Add a peck of salt aud water 
enough to make a Ihm whitewash. Soak the 
canvas in a barrel with this every two or 
three years. 
S. W, P., Fannvitle, Vo.—How can cows 
be prevented from sucking themselves? 
Ans.—T here are various devices for this 
purpose. One of the best and most easily 
made consists of a stout stick of tough wood 
suspended between the forelegs, one end being 
attached to a surcingle buckled about the 
animal’s body, and the other fastened to a 
strap which is buckled to a halter. The strap 
uniting the stick to the halter should be at 
least 12 inches long to allow the necessary 
movement of the head to graze freely, while 
preventing the cow from bringing the hi ad to 
the udder. 
TV’. A. S., Marriottsville, Md .—Sugar peas 
are go-betweens. They are neither one thing 
nor the other at its best. They are inferior 
to the best snap beaus, aud are so hard to 
shell that people don’t care to raise them for 
the seed alone. 
L. (?., Smifhport, Pa .—What winter wheat 
would suit here, ami where can it be obtained ? 
Ans. —For your section we should try Lan_ 
dreth or Martin’s Amber. It should be offered 
by the Philadelphia seedsmen, W Atlee Burpee, 
Johnson & Stokes, Henry A. Dreer and Lan- 
dreth & Sons. 
A. M. A., Carlton, N. Y .—We are prepar¬ 
ing an article on the subject. 
DISCUSSION. 
C. S. Plumb, Ag’l Ex. Station, Geneva, 
N. Y.— If H. W. K. (Rural New-Yorker, 
Aug. 6, p. 514) had followed my directions, as 
given in the report of the New York Experi¬ 
ment Station for 1SSG. for treating oats for 
smut, he certainly would not have killed his 
seed, as the percentage of sulphate of copper 
is not sufficiently strong to injure the vitality 
of the grain. Of course, I can only take Mr. 
K.’s word foi the manner in which he treated 
his sped; but he can rest assured that it was 
not owing to my fault that his oats did not 
come up. Persons frequently think they are 
following directions when they are exceed¬ 
ingly careless. If I lcuew more about Mr. 
K.’s seed, the condition in which it had been 
kept since harvesting and other facts up to 
the time of planting, with the character of 
the weather and soil afterward, I should be 
better able to judge what caused the com¬ 
plete failure of his oat crop. To illustrate 
how carefid some persons are who make use 
of what they see at the Station, or learn from 
our reports, the following will servo as a good 
illustration. Early in the history of the Sta¬ 
tion a piece of ground was plauted to Italian 
Rye Grass (Loliutn Italicum), and made a 
very fine growth, presenting a specially at¬ 
tractive appearance. One farmer in particu¬ 
lar came to the Station, and was so carried 
away with the appearance of this grass that he, 
later on, plauted a considerable quantity of 
it. The point that this was an aumial grass 
aud would not pass throughout winter alive, 
did not seem to be sufficiently impressed upon 
him, and the result was that his entire crop 
was winter-killed, the loss of which the planter 
charged up against the Station. 
A. C. C., Farmington, Minn.— Prof. Car¬ 
penter, in his article on the power of wind¬ 
mills, in a late Rural, basing his calculation 
on the auiouut of water puenped by a certain 
wind-mill, figures that it did work equal to oue- 
twenty-sixth of a horse-power. This, however, 
does not, I think, bear any near relation to the 
power of the mill, as it runs as fast as the 
wind blows it, however light the work it has 
to do. I use a 12-foot mill to run a Devore 
Grhider. It is a common pumpiug mill, and 
runs the grinder by means of a triangle; the 
arm to which the mill pump rod is attached 
is twice as short as the other which connects 
it to the grinder. A strong mau cannot, with 
feet braced, run the grinder by the long arm 
of the triangle ; while the wind-mill, in a light 
wind, runs it by the short arrn, thereby ex¬ 
erting twice or more the strength of a strong 
mau. At the same time if a man weighing 
180 pounds, hangs on the pump rod, the wind¬ 
mill does not seem to know the difference. 
From these observations I infer that it re¬ 
quires at least 1,000 pounds lift to run the 
grinder, and in a fairly strong wind L feel 
sure that the mill would lift more than a ton. 
As the stroke is four inches, three strokes 
would raise a ton one foot, and counting 54 
revolutions per minute, would raise 80,OIK) 
pounds one foot per minute, or a little over 
one horse power. I do not, however, doubt 
that the power of wind-mills is often over¬ 
rated. Mine was rated at 1)4 horse-power, 
and while in a strong wind it may have that, 
in a light or average wind I do not suppose it 
would have more than one-fifth of it. 
Building l t p and Managing a Dairy 
Herd —An extremely interesting and in¬ 
structive article by Lewis F. Alleu appears in 
the Breeder’s Gazette of July 28. He says 
that he disposed of his Short-horns five years 
ago, which he had been breeding and rearing 
for nearly 40 years previously. About to 
establish a butter dairy as a chief product of 
his farm, he looked about to flud what was 
the best breed of cows for bis purpose. He 
bad some high-grade Short-horns in his herd 
of thoroughbreds, which he retained as a basis. 
The most approved dairy breeds of cows, ac¬ 
cording to the dictum of the managers of the 
late daily show in New York City, are the 
Jerseys, the Guernseys, the Holstein-Frlesians, 
and the Ayrshires. The first two named are 
superior in milk and butter qualities, the two 
latter as cheese producers, although incident¬ 
ally held forth as equally good for butter. 
On his examination of these several breeds he 
preferred the Guernsey as best fitted for his 
object—that of butter-making. He selected 
and purchased a fine yearling bull which was 
imported inside of lus dam, and she proved, 
after his birth, a lffpound yielder of butter 
in a single week’s trial. Mr. Allen prefers 
Guernseys to Jerseys for several reasons. As 
a rule, they are fully 20 per cent, larger than 
the Jerseys; equally well formed, of light-red 
or fawn color, not “solid" (so much preferred 
by Jersey fanciers), but splashed more or less 
with white stripes or marks on the body, with 
a broad, heart-shaped, white spot in the fore¬ 
head usually; yellow muzzles, rich orange- 
colored skins; expressive eyes, aud small-sized 
horns. They may centuries ago, according to 
tradition and history, have been of nearly or 
quite the same origin as the Jerseys, but bred 
for more than a century on a contiguous island 
near tho coast of France, where, equally with 
the Jerseys, all foreign cattle have been pro¬ 
hibited from lauding, except for slaughter, 
they have been bred for equal purity of blood. 
He thought them rather hardier in constitu¬ 
tion, superior milkers iu quantity according 
to the food consumed, and their butter is of 
equal quality of llavor aud goldeu color. 
Thus Mr. Allen started his herd, and in 
course of a year he had 10 or 12 fine young 
heifer calves, and continuously, from year to 
year, they have accumulated to the number 
of about 70 females, half and tbree-fourths 
ln-ed Guernseys. The foundatiou cows have 
been displaced as the younger Guernsey grades 
on producing their calves have taken their 
places, giving him an opportunity within the 
next year or two to keep a full herd of 50 se¬ 
lect grades of the blood—working still higher 
in grade as they progress in numbers. These 
young cows so far have proved altogether sat¬ 
isfactory in their use as butter yielders, both 
in quautity and quality. As a rule, they 
have produced their first calves at aii average 
of about two years old, or a mouth or two 
earlier or later. Their udders are squarely 
placed, of good shape; sizable teats, fit to 
grasp by the full hand of the milker; easy iu 
flow of milk, remarkably kind in temper, and 
readily subjected to the milkers; not a cross 
or refractory one has yet been found, or even 
a kicker. 
Mr. Allen’s milk is set iu Cooley creamers, 
churned by a small steam engine iu a5ti-gallon 
revolving barrel-churn, worked into single 
pound cakes, and prepared for market iu the 
neatest possible way. The heifer calves (the 
bulls go to the butcher) are reared, after 
they are a few days to six months of age, 
on skimmed milk, besides being fed accord¬ 
ing to the season, inclement or mild, on cut 
clover bay ami mill feed or gross, being al¬ 
ways kept in good growth aud thrifty. 
Mr. Allen gives a few words about rearing 
cows for the dairy. Some men, in their writ¬ 
ing, he says, have objected to the first heifer 
calf of a young cow as not having a good 
constitution. He has reared every heifer calf 
first produced from her grade Guernsey dam, 
aud lius not had a single failure of a well-de¬ 
veloped, healthy young cow as they grew to 
maturity. The most thrifty one of them was 
the product of a sixteen-mouth-old half-bred 
heifer, accidentally served by a bull only 
nine months old turned iu with a lot.of heifer 
calves, supposing no michief would occur at 
such early ages. Precocity in breeding is l ife 
iu the breed in both sexes. The cows are al¬ 
ways milked iu their stables, whatever the 
season or weather, in summer they have 
grass pasture, and soiling on green food if the 
pastures fail from drought. Iu winter their 
food is chiefly clover hay, cut short by a cut¬ 
ter driven by horse power, with bran, Indian 
corn-meal and malt sprouts, and plenty of 
clean water thrown upon it iua large box aud 
thoroughly mixed. A bushel basket well | 
heaped is fed to each cow morning and even¬ 
ing—more or less as each requires—and they 
get a feed of dry hay at mid-day if they need 
it, as they usually do. He does not feed straw, 
as many recommend. There is no milk in 
straw, according to bis experience, unless 
more extra grain Is fed than the costof the hay 
necessary for milk production. The cows are 
wintered iu warm, well-lined hoard 
stables, no frost entering them — a 
most important precaution. They stand 
iu double stalls seven feet wide, chained 
on each side around the neck, the end ring of 
the chain secured to a long iron staple attached 
lengthwise to the partition of the stalls. Their 
hind feet stand on a three-feet-wide, three- 
eighths-inch thick, plate iron, slatted floor, 
through which the fieces and urine pass into 
a wooden trench beneath, made of plank two 
inches thick, and three feet wide aud sixteen 
inches deep, thus saving the urine, a valuable 
constituent for farm fertilizing. The fore 
parts of the cows rest on a plank floor, reach¬ 
ing from the iron grates to the foot of the 
manger. They lie perfectly comfortable on 
that iron ai d wood floor without bedding, 
and keep as clean as when at pasture, instead 
of being daubed on the thighs and flanks, 
even with straw bedding under them, as in 
most eases. These grated sections of iron 
floor are made as described in Prof. Stewart’s 
book “Feeding Animals," and are used with 
great approbation by many persons who have 
adopted them. Mr. Allen thoroughly recoin- 
mendsthem to our dairymen, after a use of 
three years, as both economical and labor- 
saving. The manure troughs need cleaning 
out but once a week. 
He uses clover hay, chiefly Alsike, which is 
better iu flavor (so the cattle think) as they 
prefer it to the common red kind. It stays 
many years in the ground, so held by its more 
fibrous roots, while the tap-rooted red is apt 
to he thrown out by the winter frosts, and 
only lasts about two years. Only oue-half the 
quantity of Alsike seed is needed, t.he seeds 
being but half the size of the red variety; 
two quarts only are neeesssary to the acre for 
Alsike, while fully four quarts are needed for 
the common medium red. He mixes six 
quarts of Timothy seed with it in sowing to 
assist in holding it up, and also four pounds of 
the Red Clover for variety. The Red blooms 
a few days earlier than the Alsike, aud both 
are well fitted for a like soil. He cuts his hay 
early when tho i lover comes into full bloom, 
it being altogether better for milk production 
than if cut later, when it becomes woody and 
less digestible as food; and the Timothy, then 
just heading, is all the better iu its early use. 
Three hundred aud fifty tons were cut aud 
secured on bis farm in the summer of 1886, 
THE RURAL’S LUNCH. 
P. J. Berckmans, of Augusta, Ga., says 
that the Kilsey Japan Plum is as hardy as 
the Wild Goose if worked on native plum stock. 
Mr. Hoard says that a cow brings uo profit 
until after she has produced 150 pounds of but¬ 
ter, and that uot one cow in ten in Wisconsin 
reaches that figure eveu in a year. 
Mr. Hoard further says, iu his Dairyman, 
speaking against general-purpose cows, that 
race-horse men must have race-horses in order 
to win. The dairyman who subjects himself 
to the large expense of running u dairy must 
have specific dairy cows, whatever the breed, 
in order that he may win. The sooner farm¬ 
ers, breeders aud agricultural journals get 
through tnlkiug this general-purpose nonsense 
the less it will cost ns all to produce the kind 
of a cow we need in order to make the best 
profit possible in dairying . ... 
The Western Plowman asks if farmers will 
continue to make gambling and intemperance 
respectable by leudiug their aid and patron¬ 
age to fairs where wheels of fortune, race¬ 
courses, and drinking booths furnish the chief 
attractions?... 
Take gambling and crookedness out of 
horse-racing and what would be left? asks the 
Drovers’ Journal. Not much. . 
C. V. Mapes, in a late, pamphlet issued by 
the Mapes' Fertilizer Company, says that the 
• market demands low-priced fertilizers, cheap 
by the ton, and little regard is paid by many 
farmers to any considerations except their 
effect in promoting growth of the first crop. 
These fertilizers, or many of them, are prac¬ 
tically little more than stimulants, and pro¬ 
duce the wheat crop by dissolving the plant- 
food already in the soil. The wheat crop is 
made larger, but the succeeding grass crop 
suffers....... 
The “dissolving” or “indirect” action is 
illustrated in the case of common salt and 
nitrate of soda. These salts will often pro¬ 
duce crops for u single season that require 
considerable potash. These salts do not con¬ 
tain a trace of potash, therefore it is plain that 
whatever potash is supplied to the crops, 
through the dissolving action of these salts, is 
taken from the available stock in the land—in 
fact, everything of value except the nitrogen 
in the nitrate of soda. Iu the same way acid 
phosphate, superphosphates, and many mix¬ 
tures containing kainit and nitrate of soda, 
etc,, dissolve plant-food already in the soil, 
and an increased wheat crop is seldom follow¬ 
ed by improved grass crops. . 
The pamphlet above referred to quotes the 
following from the Rural New-Yorker 
which, in view of questions from time to time 
received, it seems well to reprint: “Let us 
repeat: A eomptetr fertilizer is so called he 
cause it furnishes more or less of the three 
essential plant-foods, viz.: nitrogen, phos¬ 
phoric acid and potash. Rut a ‘complete’ 
fertilizer is not necessarily a valuable one. It 
may be worth $5 or 850 per ton. its value de¬ 
pending upon the quantity of those three 
foods and the availability of their form. 
South Carolina rock, pulverized granite and 
grouud leather would form a ‘complete’ fer¬ 
tilizer of the lowest grade. Pure sulphate and 
muriate of potash, pure bone flour and nitrate * 
of soda, or sulphate of ammonia and dried 
blood would form a most veilin'4e ‘complete’ 
fertilizer. The first might lie dear at |1U per 
ton; the secend cheap at 850 per ton. 
Prepare for fall planting. If we would 
succeed with newly-set fruit trees, or grape- 
viues, or any small fruits, as well as with 
hardy ornamentals, we must prepare for 
them. We would not look for fine crops of 
wheat or corn upon poor land half cultivated. 
Neither need we hope for flue fruits unless the 
plauts from the start receive due care. 
Select good trees or plauts from trustworthy 
sources......... .... 
L. F. Allen, speaking of IIolstein-Friesians 
in the Breeder’s Gazette, says that selecting a 
single cow or two from a herd of 50 or 
100. aud “testing” them, as the phrase 
goes, by extraordinary quantities of stimu¬ 
lating food, costing more iu the aggregate 
than tho butter they yield iu their brief trials 
is worth, and giving it out to tho world ns a 
specimen of the whole herd from which they 
are taken, is not an accurate way to advertise 
them to the public, when the entire herd at an 
average would not show better yields than 
many other well-bred herds of even our 
native cows... 
There is a season of the year in which 
planting is rarely done, says tho son of the 
good Thomas Meehan, but which is, iu his 
opinion, the best of all; aud that is late sum¬ 
mer or very early fall, say early September, 
The growth of evergreens is hard by that 
time, and deciduous trees have ripened their 
wood aud loaves fairly well. Very little prun¬ 
ing will be required in the case of evergreens, 
but deciduous trees should have their foliage 
taken off'. The earth is so warm at that sea¬ 
son that when the tree is set it acts like u 
florist’s propagating bed, forcing out new 
roots in great quantity. The tree without its 
foliage, as recommended, is really like a cut¬ 
ting. It will root so well iu this warm earth 
that winter will find it firmly established, 
which is uot the case when set late iu October, 
as is generally done. If, when winter ap¬ 
proaches, a mulching of manure or some ma¬ 
terial be applied around the tree to keep out 
frost, it almost insures entire success..... 
Mr. Meehan’s plan may lie better for 
being carried out a week or so earlier. We 
prefer to wait until the leaves show by a 
change of color thut their work is done. 
Then transplant aud the leaves may remain 
on the tree. 
Our friend Mr. Grundy, of Christian Oo.^ 
Ill., tells tho Weekly Press that every trie 
aud shrub that was planted in bis locality 
last spring, (hat has uot been heavily mulched, 
well cultivated and bunked with loose soil, or 
constantly watered, is as dead as Pharaoh s 
grandmother’s mummy..... 
The Farm Journal estimates that a half 
day extra spent iu giving an acre of land 
special preparation for wheat would cost 
81.50, The three additional bushels of wheat 
it would probably produce would be worth, 
even at 80 cents, 82.40. A gain of 00 cents or 
00 per cent, on the investment. 
In the best “ trimmed” orchard the editor 
was ever in neither axe nor saw marks could 
be seen. All improper and useless limbs hud 
been pinched out in their early youth. 
Budding is now in order. Try your hand, 
young friend, with roses. It will please you 
to see a white, yellow aud red rose upou a 
single bush next year. Bud low—about a 
foot above the ground..... 
It is proposed to make Sault Ste Mario, 
Mich., more than a rival of Minneapolis as a 
flouring center. From Lake Superior, as a 
mill-pond, a power-giving canal is to be con¬ 
structed around the tsault Ste Marie locks, 
“with 190,000 cubic feet of water tumbling 
over the dam every second.” A syndicate has 
