58 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
the soil loose. If any plants are backward, as 
transplanted ones will often be, work in around 
them a little quick-acting fertilizer. If any are too 
forward, retard by pulling them enough to start the 
roots. Last year I planted Fotler’s Improved 
Brunswick, and Improved American Savoy, and 
find, June 12th, sufficiently early, but would give a 
longer season for such as the Flat Dutch. I be¬ 
lieve it is not generally known that cabbages will 
head without trans¬ 
planting. It was an in¬ 
novation in this sec¬ 
tion, and many of 
the practicable people 
prophesied its failure. 
Last season, more than 
usually dry, made it 
difficult to transplant 
successfully,and I have 
ten loose heads from 
those transplanted, to 
one where the seed 
was put in the hill. 
Where land is high 
priced, and two crops 
are required to make 
it pay, this method 
cannot be so qasily followed, but for most farmers 
and gardeners, I feel confident it is the most cer¬ 
tain and profitable.” 
What Might Happen. 
The population of the United States has 
been growing at such a comfortable rate 
that it has doubled about once in twenty-five 
years, and good citizens who have fallen into 
the habit of regarding this as a normal 
growth, have come to believe that this sort 
■of thing is to continue, and that the doubling 
is to go on through all time. Yet there is a 
limit to this growth, fortunately, and to the 
room in which it would disport itself. A lit¬ 
tle attention to the figures will show us that, 
at the present rate of progress, the popula¬ 
tion of the Union would be eight hundred 
millions in 1980, and sixteen hundred mil¬ 
lions in 2005, or about the time of the next 
transit of Venus. The amount of smoked 
glass required to accommodate the eyes of the 
faces upturned to this phenomenon, at that 
remote day, would probably equal the area 
of some of the States. It is well to curb 
the aspirations of our national pride by dis¬ 
posing of some of these delusions of hope, 
and to bring our faith in the future within 
more reasonable limits. Prof. Proctor has 
undertaken the task, and he shows that in 
exactly 517 years, the population of the 
United States, progressing at the present 
rate, would furnish four persons to each 
square yard of surface for all the seven mil¬ 
lion square miles of the habitable part of 
North America. In 617 years, more than 
the entire land surface of the globe would 
be occupied in the same way. Prof. Proctor 
further shows that at the low rate of one and 
a half per cent increase per annum, which is 
about the present rate of growth in England, 
it would require but 1188 years to pack the 
earth’s surface with these human sardines ; 
yet the period named is but a mere nothing 
in the cycle of history. One thing is very cer¬ 
tain, that long before this crowded condition 
■could be developed, the earth would cease to 
be inhabited, either within or without the 
United States. One of the most comfortable 
considerations in the whole matter, is that 
those who come after us will see the prob¬ 
lem worked out under the same code of nat¬ 
ural laws by which the present state of things 
.has been reached, even though that code 
militates against the manifest destiny aspira¬ 
tions of a patriotic people. 
A Mule and Cattle Barn. 
The building shown is intended for a mule 
bam, but by modification could be used for 
cattle or any other stock. It is 100 feet long, 
67 feet 6 inches wide, with a power room 
adjoining one end, 30 by 30 feet. The harn 
proper is 100 by 25 feet, on either side of 
which is a passage, or shed, 20 feet broad, 
running the entire length of the structure. 
The cutting room occupies 25 by 46 feet on 
the first floor, the remaining 70 feet being used 
for the crib and passages. The crib is 70 by 17 
by 8, and will hold 700 barrels of com. On each 
side of the crib is a passage 3 feet wide, in 
which the feed-car runs, and from which the 
cut feed and corn is distributed to the troughs 
on either side. These troughs are 100 feet 
long, two feet broad, and one foot deep. 
The passages are open through, but can be 
Fig. 2. —GROUND PLAN OF BARN. 
shut against movable posts as seen at a. 
The plan shows the general arrangement of 
framing timbers. The upper story is for hay. 
In the cutting room is space for a corn shel- 
ler and feed mill. This barn will accommodate 
100 colts, or yearlings, or 75 adult mules. The 
cost was $1,500. This price will be increased 
or diminished in proportion as labor and ma¬ 
terial are cheap or high. John Graham. 
Leached Wood Ashes. 
Ashes fresh from the stove or furnace, con¬ 
tain all the mineral constituents necessary 
for plant growth, and are therefore very 
valuable as a fertilizer to a worn out or natur¬ 
ally poor soil. A large part of the potash is 
removed from ashes in leaching, and as this 
constituent is a leading one, leached ashes 
are of less value as plant food than when 
fresh. The owner should save, in a secure 
place, all the ashes made, and apply them to 
the land in the spring. A top-dressing of 20 
bushels per acre to an old pasture or meadow 
will give good returns for several years. The 
leached ashes should be disposed of in the 
same manner, only they may be applied at 
the rate of 100 bushels per acre. 
Leached ashes have been bought and used 
for many years by farmers and gardeners on 
Long Island and near the shore towns in 
Connecticut. These ashes are brought mainly 
from Canada. Ashes are specially good for 
tobacco land, and onion raisers find them 
profitable. It has been observed that where 
this fertilizer has been introduced, it retains 
its hold upon the confidence of those who 
use it. Fruit growers are glad to get leached 
ashes for their small fiuit gardens, and even 
orchards of large trees are much benefited 
by them. Save all the ashes, leached or un¬ 
leached, and if there is a good opportunity, 
buy and apply them. 
How to Treat Thrush. 
Thrush is a disease of the horse’s hoof, 
quite common in this country. It results 
oftener from neglect in the stable than from 
any other cause. The symptoms are fetid 
odor, and morbid exudation from the frog, 
accompanied with softening of the same. A 
case recently came under our observation. 
A young carriage horse, used mostly on the 
road, and kept in the stable through the 
year, showed lameness in the left fore foot 
one morning after standing idle in the stablo 
all the previous day. On removing the shoe, 
and examining the hoof, a fetid odor was 
observed. The stable was examined, when 
the sawdust used for bedding was found 
to be saturated with urine. The stable was 
cleaned immediately. Dry sawdust was 
placed in the stall, and a few sods pack¬ 
ed in the space where the horse usually rest¬ 
ed his fore feet. The lameness diminished 
without medical treatment, and in ten days 
disappeared altogether. A bedding of saw¬ 
dust, or earth, covered with straw, or leaves, 
promotes the comfort of the horse, but it 
needs watching and systematic renewing. 
The limit of the absorbing power of the driest 
soil, or sawdust, is soon reached. If a horse 
is kept most of the time in the stable, his 
bedding soon becomes wet, and unfit for his 
use. It is all the better for the compost 
heap, and for the horse, to have frequent 
renewals of absorbents of some kind, that 
fermentation may not be in progress under 
his hoofs. The proper place for this fermen¬ 
tation is in the compost heap. Too often 
the care of the horse is left to a servant 
without experience in the stable, and the re¬ 
sult is permanent disease in the hoofs and 
legs of the horse. This is most certainly 
one of the cases in which “ an ounce of 
prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 
