i89o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
663 
The cheerful outlook Is due. to some extent, to the very 
efficient help of the able Secretary of Agriculture, and the 
sympathy he shows for the wool-grower as well as for the 
sheep raiser. I am warranted in saying that the sheepmen 
are in better heart by the fact that scarcely a murmur is 
heard now from any part of the country, not even from 
the professional grumblers of Ohio. With the sympathy 
and hearty official aid of Secretary Rusk, and the better 
view of the situation gained by an extraordinary business 
experience, the sheepmen have settled down to and ac¬ 
cepted the conditions and smaller profits that must be a 
recompense to flock owners for the future. They agree 
Martingale and Hitching Strap. Fig. 286. 
that sheep husbandry must be made a legitimate business 
rather than a matter of speculation—a quick way to get 
rich—that steady and small gains are better than a boom 
from which there is a depressing reaction. 
Sheep raisers are abandoning the ideas they held in the 
past, which have so poorly served during the last five years, 
and are gaining in a sound knowledge of breeding, feeding 
and marketing principles. They are establishing them¬ 
selves in wiser business practices, more in practical har¬ 
mony with the facts that must prevail in this country. 
There is a disposition to compete, if we must compete with 
outsiders, in the most efficient and effectual manner. There 
is a willingness to eliminate the weak points in our sheep- 
husbandry and work only for that which has proved itself 
substantial. They leave theories and pursue facts. They 
intend to profit by the past weaknesses and errors that 
formerly deluded them. They have confidence in them¬ 
selves, in their abilities and capacities and in the national 
integrity and legislation. If a period of unprecedented 
prosperity for sheep and wool has not well begun in this 
country, the writer fails to read the signs of the times. 
If a sheep combining mutton and wool in a higher degree 
than has hitherto been recognized by some of us old fogies, 
cannot be the basis of a permanent prosperity, then the 
experience of the last four years has been a business delu¬ 
sion. Such, however, it has not been; it has surpassed all 
reasonable expectations and silenced all opposition and 
cant; it has been demonstrated in financial prosperity at a 
time when a wool-bearing sheep proper has been discarded, 
save under the restricted circumstances to which it must 
specially belong. 
Circumstances unlooked for and unexpected have freed 
the more progressive sheep-raisers from the theories and 
bondage of the past, set up truth and business methods 
that will not fail to secure prosperity in hard times, and 
which will not have to be abandoned in good times. Sheep¬ 
raising is as practical on the Western and Southern ranges 
as in the grass landsof Virginia and West Virginia, or as on 
the grain farms of Kentucky or Illinois. It promises to be 
a relief to the Western ranchmen and the farmers of Ohio. 
It has saved the sheep-husbandry of New York and Massa¬ 
chusetts, as well as the ranchmen of Texas. It has suc¬ 
ceeded wherever tried, and where it has not been tried, 
there have been complaints and distress. 
SOME RECENT AGRICULTURAL PATENTS. 
The R. N.-Y. proposes to give, from time to time, under 
this heading, brief descriptions and pictures of devices on 
which patents have been issued. We always make a care¬ 
ful examination of the Patent Office Gazette, and fre¬ 
quently find things there which seem to us unique and 
helpful. Many of these are never manufactured and put 
on the market because the public do not know their 
merits, consequent ly there is no demand for them. Some 
of them would doubtless be used by manufacturers if their 
real value could be made plain. Our illustrations will 
give the public an idea of some of the plans inventors have 
in mind and may at least suggest changes and improve¬ 
ments that will lead to the perfection of genuine labor- 
saving machines. 
Martingale and Hitching Strap.— The picture, 
Figure 386, fully explains this. The martingale is fastened 
to the saddle girth by rnoaus of a snap. When the horse 
is to be fastened the martingale strap is simply unhitched 
from the girth and fastened to the post. With a Britt bit 
in his mouth, this strap would hold any horse. 
Combined Cart and Wagon.— The illustration at 
Figure 387 shows a device tor turning a two wheeled cart 
into a wagon. When desired the two front wheels and 
seat may be used as a common riding cart. If two seats 
are desired the hind seat aud platform are attached by 
attaching the front of this platform to the bolt which runs 
down from the front seat. This attachment may be 
variously made by a stout hook, a nut, or heavy straps. 
Doubtless some modification or improvement of this plan 
will be found quite useful. 
Proposed Fruit Picker.— With this device, see Figure 
288, the workman does not handle the fruit at all. He 
either climbs the tree or works from the ground. The 
fruit is clipped off with a short pair of shears and rolls 
through a large wire sleeve into a blouse or bag which he 
wears over his shirt. It is supposed that this blouse will 
hold all the fruit that the wearer wants to carry. It is 
emptied by dropping the empty sleeve near his left hand 
and permitting the fruit to run through it into the basket 
or bag. 
Device for Holding Reins.— This device, as shown at 
Figure 289, is simply a stiff strap passing over the neck of 
the horse and firmly attached by means of a snap to the 
reins. The strap is stiff enough to stand upright, and the 
snaps hold it so tightly that it cannot fall back and thus 
let the reins drop. _ _ 
MILK IN A WELL. 
A. G. C., Tompkins County, N. Y., page 585, asks 
whether any one is trying the system of raising cream in 
the well. Yes, this is the second season in which I have 
raised cream In that way. I put it in deep pails, like com¬ 
mon creamery palls eight inches across and 19 inches deep. 
Three of them go side by side into my well. They are let down 
into the well by means of rope and windlass. I use two 
common hay fork pulleys, as shown in the illustration, 
Figure 290. The use of these makes the work easier and 
steadier. I put the morning’s milk in the well, and let it 
Proposed Fruit Picker. Fig. 2S8. 
stay until night; then put the night’s milk in and let it 
stay until morning. We skim or dip the cream from the 
milk as soon as it is taken out of the well; then let the 
milk stand in the pail for 12 hours, and there is a light 
skimming, after which no more cream rises. The tempera¬ 
ture in the well is below 45 degrees when there is water, 
when dry it is about 55 by the thermometer. I use covers 
for the pails with a half-inch air-hole In the center of each. 
I think the sooner the milk is cooled after it has been 
drawn from the cows, the better. I set the pails in the 
water trough while milking. When this work is over, 
the milk goes into the well. I am careful when handliug 
to avoid agitation as much as possible. I claim that keep- 
Devlce for Holding Reins. Fig. 289. 
ing the milk and raising cream in our well is a perfect 
success. I believe that even if I had plenty of ice, 1 could 
handle the milk in this way in less ti me and with less trouble 
than It could be done by the ice process. If I should in¬ 
crease my dairy and the well were not large enough to 
cool and keep the milk, I would make another well. 
Cattaraugus County, N. Y. 0 . h. smith. 
TAINTS IN MILK. 
To show what may occur even when care is exercised, I 
may refer to an instance at the Geneva Experiment Sta¬ 
tion, which has already been several times stated, but 
which may bear repetition. In the early spring months 
shortly after the cows were put at pasture, there came a 
complaint that the milk was bad. and in a few days it was 
so bad that no one could use it. After standing for a few 
hours it became decidedly obnoxious both in odor and 
taste. A search was made for the cause of such a state of 
affairs. The feeds were examined, the pastures searched 
for any weeds that would be likely to injuriously affect 
the quality of the milk. Nothing was found that would 
be likely in any way to produce such a state of affairs 
until, finally, in the barn in a bin beneath where the milk 
had stood until taken from the stable, was found a pail of 
wet, putrefying grains that had been carelessly set there 
bv some workman. These were removed and in a few 
days the trouble disappeared. It is probable that the 
germs rising from the putrefying grains filled the air 
above and, falling into the milk, found there a very ex¬ 
cellent medium for their growth and propagation, thus, 
in a few hours, rendering the milk of the entire herd unfit 
for use. We have here a good illustration of the need of 
the most scrupulous cleanliness in every detail connected 
with dairying. Until further experiments give a better 
and more economical method, I do not hesitate to suggest 
the use of good, pure, cold water, such as we would drink 
unhesitatingly, for diluting milk in order to secure the 
best results in creaming. E. F. LADD. 
THE HISTORY OF A PRAIRIE. 
The Changes In Crop Conditions of the Black Soli 
Prairies In the Upper Valley of the Mississippi. 
B. F. JOHNSON. 
I. 
Before entering upon the main subject, a few words as to 
the cultural state of the prairies a century or more ago, 
before their settlement and cultivation, may be proper. 
Writers have indulged their imaginations as to the origin 
of these vast bodies of fertile land, containing every ele¬ 
ment suitable to a heavy growth of forest timber, and yet 
entirely destitute of trees, except here and there in groves 
of a few hundred or a thousand acres, and a narrow fringe 
along the streams. Recently, however, Prof. N. S. Shaler, 
in the September number of Scribner’s Magazine, offers 
the ingenious hypothesis that the prairies were once, a 
thousand years or more ago, heavily covered with timber, 
and that it was burned off by the Indians to afford pastur¬ 
age for the buffalo, elk, etc., which came from the West. 
Previously, however, he argues, the mound builders were 
the direct ancestors of the Indians of a hundred years ago, 
and that the race had deteriorated from an agricultural 
people gaining their living from the fruits of the earth, to 
a nearly pure nomadic one, subsisting on flesh and fish. 
He explains that the buffalo was in all reasonable proba¬ 
bility unknown to the mound builders, since no bones or 
excreta of that animal have yet been discovered in the 
tumuli or mounds, nor are there any representatives of 
him in the pottery, or the rude attempts at art in clay and 
stone. The inference, therefore, is that the buffalo origi¬ 
nated In the far Northwest or Southwest beyond the Rocky 
Mountains; that his numbers increased to an extent to 
provoke migration, that the herds moved east into the 
fertile lands in that direction, and increased and multi¬ 
plied. This invasion furnished a new and abundant sup¬ 
ply of food for the Indians, and the necessity for agricul¬ 
tural labors and fixed habitations having ceased to exist, 
they abandoned the cultivation of the earth and followed, 
to a certain extent, the buffalo in his annual migrations, 
near or remote. The Indians soon learned by observation, 
that 1 uffaloes gathered most numerously in places where 
cyclones and tornadoes had leveled the timber and let in the 
sun; where tender and nutritious vegetation had sprung 
up, and particularly in those often extensive areas where 
fires had destroyed the forest growth and sweet grasses 
had followed. The Indian was not slow to profit by the 
lesson, with the result that, after many years, the annual 
burning of the prairie became an established custom. 
The hypothesis is an ingenious one and would go far to 
explain the origin of the prairies, were it not for some im¬ 
portant facts. Among them is a report of a commission, 
sent out about 100 years ago by Congress, to ex¬ 
amine aud report upon the northwest territory, and its 
value for agricultural aud other purposes. This report re 
fers to the large part of the prairie portion of Illinois ter- 
