116 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March. 
vokes it, and the property will go to the 
keirs-at-law. 
If during his lifetime the farmer has ad¬ 
vanced to one of his children a portion of the 
estate, the same will be deducted from what 
the child would otherwise receive as heir. 
This is called “ advancement.’' but in order 
that it may be deducted from the child's share, 
it must be shown that it was intended as such 
by the parent. The rules of evidence in this 
regard are broad; any method of showing 
the intention will usually suffice, either by 
declaring it in the gift, charging it to the 
child, or having him acknowledge it in writ¬ 
ing. If such child is given more than what j 
he would inherit, he is not obliged to return 
any of it to the other heirs. An illegitimate 
child inherits from its mother only, and has 
no share in its father’s estate. If the parents 
afterwards intermarry and the father ac¬ 
knowledges the child, such fact generally 
legitimatizes it. 
Question may arise in the farmer’s mind 
as to whether he ought to make a will. If he 
does not want his property to go to the per¬ 
son or persons, who by law are his heirs, or 
if he wishes to give some of it to any per¬ 
son who is not his heir, or if he wishes to 
give some of it to any charitable ob¬ 
ject, or devote it to any other purpose, 
he has full power to do with it just as he 
pleases, and this he must do by will. He 
can give away everything he has except the 
widow’s dower, and, in some of the States, 
the “ homestead right,” which is given by 
statute, to the widow and minor children. If 
he wishes to disinherit any one of his heirs, 
he should do it by express words, for if 
he makes no mention of him, the law will in 
some of the States presume that the omission 
was by mistake, and such person will take 
his inheritance as heir. He should be “ cut 
off with a shilling,” in order to be effectually 
disposed of. A will once made can be 
revoked by subsequent will, or altered by 
codicil, or rendered void by being destroyed' 
in its maker’s presence and by his direction. 
If a farmer wishes his estate to go to his 
heirs, but is desirous of having a certain per¬ 
son take charge of it, he can accomplish this 
by making a will, giving his property to his 
heirs, and naming such person as his execu¬ 
tor ; this is frequently done. 
If the farmer wishes to prevent his farm 
from being sold or disposed of by the person 
to whom he intends giving it, he can give an 
estate for life with remainder to the donee’s 
heirs, or to any one else; but property cannot, 
in general, be tied up for a period greater 
than the lives of two persons in being at the 
time the deed is made, and twenty-one years 
thereafter, the policy of our laws being 
strongly against the prevention of alienation, 
as it is termed in law, and of placing prop¬ 
erty beyond the reach of all creditors. 
erate onion, quite worthless for any pur¬ 
pose. It is too much a term of reproach to 
apply it to the young onions as above stated, 
altogether the best possible onions for those 
who eat them raw. When an old onion is 
set out in the spring, a bud within it (some¬ 
times two or more) starts to grow at the ex¬ 
pense of the old bulb, which decays. This 
new growth bears leaves, and in time, a flower 
stalk. It should be pulled before the flower 
stems attain their full height. In New Eng¬ 
land. when they are to be had in the markets 
in spring, they are known as “Rare-Ripe 
Onions,” but Scallions never. 
Cheap and Durable Wagon Seats. 
It is tiresome to be jolted over rough roads, 
in a wagon without springs, with a simple 
board for a seat; but no farmer or cartman 
need adhere to this practice, when comfort¬ 
able and portable seats can be so easily and 
cheaply made. 
For a one-man seat, that shown in fig. 1, is 
the simplest and most durable, and should 
Fig. 1. —SPUING SEAT FOR ONE PERSON. 
be one foot longer than the wagon-box is 
wide; the connecting blocks should be four 
inches high, and placed near the ends. The 
one shown in fig. 2 is arranged for two per¬ 
sons, the connecting block being placed in 
the center, the ends being kept a uniform 
distance apart by bolts, with the nut upon the 
lower side, out of the way. The hole for the 
bolt through the lower board should be just 
Fig. 2. —A DOUBLE SPRING SEAT. 
large enough to allow the bolt to play freely. 
In fig. 3 is shown a seat a little more ex¬ 
pensive, yet far more elastic. Both boards 
are eight inches longer than the width of the 
box upon which they rest. At each end of 
the top-board is mortised or nailed in a strip 
of hard-wood, one inch thick, two inches 
wide, and about seven inches in length, which 
is made to pass freely up and down in a cor- 
Fig. 3.— A COLLED SPRING SEAT. 
responding notch sawed in the end of the 
lower board. At or near each corner of the 
seat, is placed a coiled spring. A pin, passed 
through the wooden strip near the bottom, 
keeps the seat-boards from separating. L.D.S. 
Not “Scallions,” but Rare-ripes,— 
A writer in “The Garden” (Eng.), speaks of 
the practice of planting out onions in the 
spring for the sake of the young growths 
which they afford, and which are ready to 
use long ere spring-sown onions are large 
enough. When he says of them that they 
are “more tender, and delicate in flavor,” 
we quite agree with him; but when he goes 
onto call them “scallions,” we don’t agree 
at all. Whatever the term ‘ 1 scallion ” may 
mean over there, it is applied by our onion 
growers to a miserable, thick-necked, degen¬ 
Iligii Prices of Sl»ort3>orn Castle 
in Australia.— At a late sale in Mel¬ 
bourne, a Grand Duchess bull, Eighth Duke 
of Tregunter,was bid off at the extraordinary 
price of 4,000 guineas ($20,000). The whole 
herd sold that day realized nearly 30,000 
guineas (about $150,000). Nothing in it went 
below three figures, while several cows 
brought from 310 to 750 guineas ($1,550 to 
$3,750). These prices approach the highest 
ever obtained in England, and remind us of 
the astounding sums paid at the Campbell 
sale, at New York Mills, near Utica, in 1873. 
A Meal From Cotton Stalks- 
RY DR. C. W. DABNEY. DIRECTOR NORTH CAROLINA 
EXPERIMENTAL STATION. 
In order to test the value of meal from cot¬ 
ton stems under the most favorable condi¬ 
tions, an average healthy cotton plant was 
cut down on the 12th of October, immedi¬ 
ately after the cotton had been picked out of 
all the bolls, that it was probable would 
ripen. The plant thus represented the cot¬ 
ton crop at the earliest stage at which it 
would be possible to render it available for 
the use suggested. The whole plant above 
the ground was cut up and rapidly dried in a 
steam bath. The leaves were green, and the 
stalk and the branches were full of sap. 
The ends of the branches were still rather 
soft, although the rest of the plant was very 
woody. The plant had not been touched by 
frost; it bore two or three very backward 
bolls. When it was well cured, the whole 
plant,was ground very fine in a small mill, 
6uch as is used for grinding feeding stuffs, 
and a fair sample of the product subjected 
to chemical analysis. The results of this 
careful work were as follows: 
Cotton Stalks. Meadow Hay- 
Moisture at 212 F.6.51 per cent. 14.3 
Fat.2.62 " “ 2.5 
Pure cellulose.35.33 “ “ 26 3 
Proteins.6.06 “ *■ 9.7 
Ash.5.30 “ “ 6.2 
Carbo-hydrates.44.48 “ “ 41.4 
100.00 
Nutritive ratio, 1 to 13.5. 1 to 8.0 
The analysis of what Wolff calls average 
meadow hay is put in the right-hand column 
for the sake of the comparison. The cotton- 
stalk meal is inferior to meadow hay, but it 
is evident that we have here a product which 
might be made useful if we could over¬ 
come certain difficulties. In the first place, 
the plant is very hard or woody. This is 
overcome in part by grinding, but it is sug¬ 
gested that it might be still further over¬ 
come, and in part possibly softened and dis¬ 
solved by ensilaging with corn. 
It would afford, on the one hand, a pow¬ 
erful absorbent to take up the nutritious 
juices of corn, while on the other the partial 
fermentation of these juices would in part, 
dissolve it. This might prove a good plan 
for the Southern farmer to utilize his cotton 
stalks, and at the same time largely increase 
the amount of ensilage which his land and 
labor could produce. 
The second difficulty is, the ground stalks 
contain too little nitrogenous matter to ad¬ 
mit of their being fed alone at all, or even 
with the usual amount of grain, say corn 
meal; the meal containing less protein than 
meadow hay even. But this ought to be no 
insuperable difficulty even to the Southern 
farmer, for he has in cotton-seed meal the 
perfect supplement to a food of this compo¬ 
sition. The cotton-seed meal is just as re¬ 
markable for its large amount of proteins 
or nitrogenous matters as this for its small 
amount. It will generally yield forty per cent, 
of these ‘ ‘ flesh forming ” compounds. A 
complete, perfect ration can be made up 
for any particular animal from these two 
products of the cotton plant. It does, indeed, 
seem as if every part of the cotton plant is to 
be utilized. Every product of the seed has 
found a use. We have heard already of a 
new demand for the hitherto worthless 
stalk ; it is manufactured into a valuable 
fibre. Have we another use for it here?- 
