6T 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
the work they do as is claimed for them by 
the manufacturers. There are quite a con¬ 
siderable number of Acmes in use, a few 
spring-tooth, and fewer still disk and Cut¬ 
away harrows. Some years ago the Thomas 
was considerably nsed for working over corn 
the first time and for putting in clover and 
grass .seed on wheat. For these purposes it 
was a very effective implement; but for other 
work it was not particularly desirable. It 
has, however, of late been laid aside. 
I have myself been using for several years 
a mounted spring-tooth harrow, for which 
strong claims were made when I bought it. 
Its work is not satisfactory; in fact, it works 
no better than the old “A,” while it is far 
more difficult to clean when it becomes—as it 
does very readily—choked with vegetable 
matter, old straw or weeds which have been 
turned under. It pulls up sods even when 
run with the plow-furrows, and these stick in 
the teeth and are dragged along until they 
are pulled out by hand. The levers, one at 
each wheel and not in reach from the driver’s 
seat, do not lift the frame high enough to ad¬ 
mit of accumulations being dropped. 
If I were confined to the use of a single im¬ 
plement, I would choose the Acme. For 
general purposes, it seems to have given more 
satisfaction than any other, but if I could 
have two harrows, I would take in addition 
a disk or Cutaway, preferably the latter. 
When it is practicable to use them, the disk 
and Cutaway are invaluable for chopping up 
an inverted sod or for preparing an oat or 
corn stubble for wheat without rebreaking. 
When followed by the Acme as a smoother 
and leveler, if the ground was plowed in 
proper condition, the work done is all that 
could be desired. If, howevei, the land is 
largely clay, and was broken when it was 
either too wet or too dry, and the clods have 
become hardened in the sun and wind, no 
harrow that was ever invented will ever 
put it in good conditou for a crop. Nor 
will the plank drag and the harrow com¬ 
bined pulverize the clods as one would 
desire. Any sort of an implement, on the 
other hand, will do good work when the land 
has been broken in proper condition and es¬ 
pecially in spring after having been turned 
early enough to have been subjected to the 
action of frost. On account of their shape 
and construction none of the improved har¬ 
rows can be used to advantage on steep or 
rough hill sides or in new ground where there 
are many stumps. With a wooden hoop 
across the broad end of an “A” harrow, it 
can be lifted on either side to pass over a 
stump or to clean it of trash, and that with¬ 
out stopping the team. An improvement on 
this form, I think, would be to have steel 
knives with curved cutting edges instead of 
perpendicular teeth pointed at the end. 
Pulaski Co. H. L. wysor. 
POINTED PULVERIZERS PAY. 
If l could own but one harrow, the frame of 
that one would be made of hard wood, light 
and strong, and it would contain 72 round, 
sharp-pointed, hard steel teeth. Such a har¬ 
row ,is better adapted t© general farm work 
than any spring, smoothing, rolling or cut¬ 
ting harrow now manufactured. If I could 
have two barrows I would add a disk. The 
manufacturers of the disk harrow have lately 
nnproved.it by making the disks larger, which 
reduces friction and makes the harrows easier 
to draw and handle. Another improvement is 
the substitution of two levers for one, so that 
either side can be set forward or backward 
without changing the other. This is espec¬ 
ially useful in making short turns, as it pre¬ 
vents the heaping up of earth where it is not 
wauted. The disk is especially useful on 
lumpy or soddy laud, and there it does its best 
work. It enables the farmer to pulverize 
such laud and reduce it to a proper condition 
for seeding more quickly and easily than 
could be done with any other implement or 
s t of implements. I have seen fields of half- 
rotted, tough sod cut up, pulverized and put 
into first-rate condition in a very short time 
with a disk followed b; a common harrow, 
before the advent of the disk such land would 
ve been regarded as almost worthless 
for immediate cropping. I have also seen 
fields of stiff, clayey laud which owing 
to being trampled by stock while wet, 
turned up as lumpy and cloddy as an 
old road, reduced and put in perfect order 
for seeding by the use of the disk alone. If 
the disk follows closely after the plow on such 
laud, one harrowiDg will pulverize the soil 
more than half a dozen after the clods are 
baked dry. 
On land that is wet enough to be sticky, 
however, the disk is a complete failure. 
When it first appeared many farmers con¬ 
ceived the idea that it would be an excellent 
implement for. putting in oats among corn- 
stulks in the early spring; but atrial soon 
taught them otfier wise. The stalks and sticky 
soil together clog it up in short order and ren¬ 
tier it worse than useless. lu this section tho 
farmer feels quite easy about the preparation 
of his land for crops, so far as the harrowing 
is concerned, if he is the owner of a good 72- 
steel-tooth harrow and an improved disk. 
When buying a common harrow, I would 
advise the farmer to get one that nas a light, 
strong, hard-wood frame, plenty of long, 
sharp-pointed, hard steel, straight-up-and- 
down teeth, and then if he takes good care of 
it, housing it when not in use and repainting 
it occasionally, it will last him 20 to 30 years. 
In this section the disk harrow is used main¬ 
ly for pulverizing soddy and cloddy land, and 
it does the work very well. Smoothing har¬ 
rows are used by a number of farmers for 
harrowing corn land just before, or about the 
time the plants appear, and also for finishing 
off wheat land for the drill. I have not seen 
either Cutaways or spring-tooth harrows in 
operation here. The Acme has been used to 
some extent. fred grundy. 
Christian Co., Ills. 
WESTERN NEW YORK WISHES. 
Forty years ago the 30-tooth harrow was 
the one in general use. A few years later the 
40-tooth harrow was introduced, and a few 
years later the 48 and 56-tooth harrow was 
manufactured and sold in this section. It 
was called the chisel-tooth harrow and each 
section of it had four beams or scantlings, the 
48-tooth had six teeth in a beam and the 56- 
tooth had seven. The teeth were made from 
bar-steel eight inches in length, half an 
inch in thickness and 1)4 inch in width. 
Harrows of this kind were the best in exis¬ 
tence till 1865, when the spring-tooth was first 
seen in this section. I sowed a field of cats 
broadcast, and commenced to harrow on one 
side of it with a 30-tooth and on the other 
side with a 56 chisel tooth harrow. The oats 
were sown on the furrow and the ground was 
harrowed once only. It commenced to rain 
and rained so for two weeks that I couldn’t 
get on to the field again. Now for the re¬ 
sults: where I used the 30-tooth you 
could see the furrows and the seed 
was only partially covered, and that 
section of the field did not yield more 
than 20 bushels to the acre, while the rest 
yielded 45 bushels per acre. Some of the 
farmers in this vicinity have been using the 
wheel harrows; but the dealers have stopped 
selling them, as they had to warrant them, 
and the farmers broke so many teeth that 
there wasn’t any profit left for the dealer. 
The best general-purpose harrow w have 
now, is the Perry spring-tooth float, and if I 
could have only one, that would be the one. 
But some farmers sow grain yet broadcast, 
and I don’t think the spriDg-tooth as good to 
cover grain as the 56 tooth, as it leaves the 
ground too rough, but most of our model 
farmers drill their grain now. Some of the 
farmers in fitting a heavy sod for corn or 
beans, use a disk harrow the first time, and 
then harrow once and sometimes twice with 
tne spring-tooth, and if they plant the corn 
with hoes, they generally go over the last 
time with a smoothing barrow. I think if a 
farmer has a spring-tooth he can dispense 
with the disk harrow; but every farmer that 
farms from 75 to 100 acres should have at 
least three harrows—the spring-tooth, the 
chisel-tooth, and a Thomas smoothing. 
Orleans Co., N. Y. J. P. C 
INDIANA IMPLEMENTS. 
I think that the spring-tooth harrow would 
be preferred if the farmer were confined to 
the use of only one harrow for all purposes ; 
but the farmer who is so confined works or 
farms at a disadvantage. Suppose you are 
hurried to get your corn planted on sod 
ground and must harrow as soon as the 
plowing has been done, or harrow land by 
land as you are plowing, the Acme will do the 
work better than the spring-tooth, as it will 
pulverize the ground, press it down and 
smooth it without tearing up the sods and 
scattering them on top ; but if the sod has 
been plowed some time and has become hard 
and settled, I think the spring-tooth would do 
better work than the Acme, or the common 
square-toothed harrow in preparing it for 
planting. I have an A-shaped harrow with 
small shovels about two inches wide made of 
steel, that I think fully as good as the spring- 
tooth to fine up ground that has become packed 
after plowing. After corn is planted and is 
to be harrowed before it is up, I would prefer 
the common square-toothed harrow to either 
the Acme or the spring-tooth. 
We are not using the disk, or Cutaway har¬ 
rows hero to any great extent and I have had 
no experience with them. The disk is used 
some, and I have heard it praised as cutting up 
sod so that subsequent harrowing will not tear 
it up. I do not thiuk a farmer should confine 
himself to the use of one harrow, and my ex¬ 
perience has been that all the harrows 1 have 
used are not sufficient to put wheat ground in 
the best condition for seeding. When the 
clods are hard in the fall,—and on clay lauds 
they are more or less so,—I have seen them 
pass through the square-toothed and Acme 
without sufficient breaking after several har- 
rowings, and a roller would not by its mere 
weight crush them, but a roller pulverizer 
would. With the several harrows spoken of 
above and the pulverizer, I have no anxiety 
about getting the ground fine after I have it 
plowed. 
As to improvements in harrows, if a harrow 
would not become too heavy to draw with a 
piece of railroad or other iron attached, it 
would in many cases double its efficiency; but 
probably on account of the draft it would, be 
better to use such a drag separately. While 
I have no suggestions to make about the im¬ 
provement of harrows, I have a suggestion to 
make about our two-horse corn cultivators. 
The experiment stations have demonstrated 
that a four-inch-wide tire will not draw as 
heavily in loose ground as a two-inch tire. I 
would suggest that some one of our manu¬ 
facturers try a four-inch-wide tire on a two- 
horse corn cultivator and separate the shovels 
so that they should work separately. As they 
are now made, when you move a shovel to 
or from the row, you must move two, as they 
are so fastened together that you cannot move 
one without moving both. Separate them and 
let the one furthest trom the corn work in the 
middle of the row without requiring any more 
attention than to set it to the right depth and 
then it will be very much easier to work the 
shovels that run next to the corn; and the 
labor of handling the plow will be lessened 
more than half, as it is the shovels furthest 
from the corn that run the deepest, and are 
for that reason harder to move to or from th9 
corn, when one has to move to keep from 
plowing up the corn or to get the earth to it. 
With the shovels separated,it will be easier to 
make a better riding cultivator, as one shovel 
can be more easily handled with the foot than 
two. s. B. H. 
HARROWS AT AN EXPERIMENT STATION. 
Prof. J. W. Sanborn, last year, conducted 
an experiment to show the relative values of 
different harrows. He selected the Acme, a 
disk, a spring-tooth, a square-tooth, a smooth¬ 
ing barrow and the Lubin pulverizer, and 
tested them for draft, for depth of cultiva¬ 
tion, for draft per inch and pound of soil stir¬ 
red, and for pulverization of the soil. 
An account ot the tests made with these im¬ 
plements will be found in Bulletin No. 4 of 
the Missouri Agricultural College. It will be 
impossible for us to give all the details of 
this experiment. Those who wish to study 
them all should examine the bulletin. The 
following summary, made by Prof. Sanborn, 
will state the case briefly: 
1. No one harrow is sufficient for the 
best tilth of a farm. 2. The harrow needed 
varies with soil and its condition. 3. Har¬ 
rows, as substitutes for plows, do not save 
force. 4. Harrows till shallower than is sup¬ 
posed. 5. The bottom ot tne . tinea area 
varies widely in regularity. 6. Wedge teeth 
and flat teeth with a front slant compress soil 
and are probably good for light soils. 7. 
Teeth lifting dirt to the rear loosen soils the 
best. 8 One harrow may break the clods 
best, but not leave as much fine soil as 
another. 6. Each harrow tried had a place 
to which it is best adapted, but for a general- 
purpose harrow on a heavy soil, depth of cut, 
looseness of soil, ease of draft, and pulver¬ 
ization, being considered the leading demands 
of a harrow, the disk, on the v?hole, proved 
the most satisfactory, although having the 
weakness of forming a bad bottom and of 
ridging the land. 
3ru>it$t’l Socielks. 
NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL 
SOCIETY. 
THE ALBANY FARMERS’ INSTITUTE. 
Bordeaux Mixture a specific for potato rot ; 
a recipe for if; excellent hints on the 
manufacture and sale of butter : the cheap¬ 
est good ration for dairy cows; handling 
the milk and cream ; swine, and sivine 
breeding: enormous number of insects ; 
their modes of reproduction ; combating 
them; the process of digestion in the cow. 
The paper of Prof. C. H. Peck, upon the 
potato rot fungus, presented a new and seem¬ 
ingly very valuable remedy against the pest, 
which is certainly worthy of trial by every 
potato grower. It is known as the Bordeaux 
Mixture, and has proved by experiments in 
France to be an absolute preventive of the 
dread potato rot. The formula for the prep¬ 
aration of the mixture, is as follows: 
“Dissolve four pounds of powdered sulphate 
of copper in 16 gallons of water; in another 
vessel slake four pounds of lime in six gallons 
of water. When the latter has cooled, it is 
slowly poured into the copper solution, care 
being taken to mix the fluids thorough¬ 
ly by constant stirring. It is well to have 
this compound prepared some days be¬ 
fore it is required for use. ,lt should 
be well stirred before it is applied. This may 
be done with small brooms or wisps of 
slender twigs, which are dipped in the com¬ 
pound and then switched over the plants so 
as to thoroughly spray the leaves. This 
method is wasteful and tedious, however, and 
where one has a considerable area to cover it 
would be economy to procure a spraying 
pump. Make the first application when the 
plants are in bloom; the second a week or ten 
days later, and if the weather be such as will 
favor the development of the rot, a third and 
perhaps a fourth application should follow at 
about the same intervals. The object is to 
spread upon the foliage and stems minute 
quantities of the copper-sulphate and lime 
in advance of the advent of the fungus 
spores. Then when these do come this mixt¬ 
ure destroys their vitality and prevents their 
germination and all its evil consequences. 
It is liable to be washed from the leaves by 
heavy rains, which makes it necessary to 
renew the treatment from time to time. It is 
a question whether or not the mixture may 
not prove ully as beneficial if a small quan¬ 
tity of London-purple be added to kill the 
second crop of potato bugs. 
After a short but practical talk on farmers’ 
gardens, by Dr. F. M. Hexamer, Hiram P. 
Hopkins, a young farmer of Erie County, 
gave his experience in the manufacture and 
sale of butter. He said that a cow in a badly 
ventilated barn, and eating poor food cannot 
produce first-class butter. A ration of 20 
pounds of clover-hay, and six pounds of grain 
will cost 16 cents a day, and the manure will 
pay for the care. But if you feed 30 pounds 
of silage, five pounds of hay and five pounds 
of grain, the ration will cost only 11 cents per 
day, and this is the cheapest ration. It costs 
him $38 50 per year to keep his cows, that 
is, 1 % cent P er quart of milk, or 11X cents per 
pound of butter. His cows make a pound of 
butter from 16 pounds of milk, and the butter 
averages, in the Buffalo market, 35 cents a 
pound the year through. Take the milk im¬ 
mediately from the cow to the dairy-house. 
If you do not, bad odors are absorbed, and he 
also finds that when shallow setting is used, 
15 per cent, of cream is lost if the milk is left 
standing 15 minutes. He ripens the cream in 
deep vessels. Every time he churns unripened 
cream, he finds a loss. When the cream is a 
trifle acid it is considered sufficiently ripened. 
He prefers a concussion to a friction churn. 
When the butter comes he puts into the churn 
a gallon of water for a gallon of cream and a 
handful ot salt. Then he draws off two-thirds 
ot the butter-milk, adds as much water and 
more salt, etc., till the butter is washed. He 
thinks white specks are coagulated milk from 
bottom of cans. Wash them out. Sprinkle 
butter with one ounce of salt to one pound 
of butter. Turn the churn over a few times 
and let it stand half an hour; work the butter 
as little as possible, press it into small packages 
and send it to market. Butter at 35 cents per 
pound pays a farmer 4)4 cents a quart for 
his milk. His 15 cows produced 4,650 pounds 
of butter, 100 gallons of cream and 500 quarts 
of milk last year, which sold for $1,742. The 
cost of keeping was $577.50, leaving $1,165 for 
profit. He keeps the thoroughbred Jerseys. 
[Shouldn’t a “sinking fund” be laid aside to 
pay for the cows after their profitable useful¬ 
ness in the dairy is over, deducting from their 
price what they may then bring for the sham¬ 
bles, before reckoning up the profits? How 
about interest on the investment in them, too? 
—Eds ] His grain ration consists of equal 
parts of corn-meal, bran, oat-meal, barley 
sprouts, and oil-meal. In the summer he soils 
his stock. He never pastures them. He is 
not rich enough to do that. He waters the 
cows twice a day atter feeding. For soiling 
crops, he uses rye, oats, peas and corn. 
The Hon. Edward Burnett, of Mass., occu¬ 
pied the time till the close of the afternoon 
session with a talk on swine and swine breed¬ 
ing. His main points were as follows ; The 
pig which in the shortest length of time and 
with least food will make the most pork, is 
the best to breed for home market. Select 
good, clean-cut sows, with strong constitu¬ 
tions, and a rather coarse than fine boar.. 
Too much pains cannot be taken in getting a 
boar. He prefers a finely bred Essex or Berk¬ 
shire. The cross will retain the constitution 
and vigor of the dam and the appearance of 
the sire. No farmer can afford to raise thor¬ 
oughbreds except to sell them for breeding, 
because too much capital is invested. Since 
he entered the business of raising hogs, eight 
years ago, the Boston market has ehauged its 
preference from a 700-pound hog to an eight 
to ten months-old pig, weighing 200 or 
pounds. A dairy farmer wants a certain 
number of pigs. These can be raised most 
