370 
AMEBICAH AGBICULTTJBIST, 
A Simple Subjugator. 
My familiarity with domesticated bovines for a 
period of over 60 years, has given me ample op¬ 
portunity to observe their characteristics. The fre¬ 
quency of the attacks by bulls on their keepers, 
killing or disabling them, led me to make the ef¬ 
fort to invent an economical and practical means 
of subjugating and controlling these animals under 
all circumstances. This is well accomplished thus : 
I made a light head-gear, yet one that is strong, 
easily adjusted, and durable, and appended it to 
the ordinary nose-ring. It consists of capped knobs 
on the horns, with two eyes in each knob, through 
which a wire cord of nine strands plays. There 
are two pieces of cord, and on one end of each a suit¬ 
able ring is attached, by which it is secured to the 
nose-ring. The cords are then passed through the 
eyes on the knobs and attached to screw-eyes, which 
are tapped right and left, and each is screwed into 
a swivel, tapped to correspond with the screw-eyes. 
Thus, a revolution of the swivel in one direction 
will shorten the cords, and when turned in the oppo¬ 
site direction will lengthen them, and the gear may 
be adjusted to the growth or expansion of the 
horns. When the gear is adjusted, the nose-ring is 
held up, instead of hanging over the end of the 
nose. Stress on the cords, whether applied be¬ 
tween the horns, or between a horn and the nose¬ 
ring, wiil pull upward on the nose-ring, in which 
direction the nose is more' sensitive than in any 
other, and a slight blow on the cords with the 
hand, or a light stick, like a walking-cane, instinc¬ 
tively causes the animal to retreat. The use of 
the Subjugator soon makes the animal so timid that 
he declines combat with other animals, and care¬ 
fully avoids contact with fences and gates. Still 
another good advantage in the use of the Subju¬ 
gator, is that it enables the keeper to seize by 
the hand, and control the animal from the front, 
or from either flank, as desired, and without hazard. 
All familiar with the habits and proclivities of 
the average “Taurus,” will welcome the simple 
means here described for the protection of human 
life from the attacks of this treacherous animal. 
_^_ A. 
Again Chess! 
It is most surprising that the belief that chess is 
in some way derived from wheat, should be so 
general among farmers. While the agricultural 
journals, for many years, have taught to the con¬ 
trary, the belief seems to be quite as general and 
as firmly fixed as it was a quarter of a century ago. 
Letters frequently come to us, of which the fol¬ 
lowing, being short, will serve as a sample. A 
farmer in Westmoreland Co., Pa., writes : “ Please 
let us know what is the real cause of so much 
chess or cheat being found in wheat. Does it come 
from the wheat being damaged in threshing, by 
bad seed distributors, or from the eating off of the 
wheat by animals in spring time ? It is most no¬ 
ticeable where the chickens pick the heart out of 
the wheat. Does it come from seed?” It will 
be seen that this correspondent, like all the rest, 
looks to some accident to wheat as the cause of 
chess, though, unlike most others, he is ready to 
be told that it may come from seed. We have 
kept the run of this matter quite closely, and for 
several years the American Agriculturist had a 
standing offer of a reward for a specimen that was 
part wheat and part chess. We can briefly sum up 
the matter by saying, that we have never seen or 
heard of an authenticated case in which chess 
came in any other way than from chess seed. 
There is not a shadow of proof that wheat ever 
changed into chess, though there has been abun¬ 
dant assertion that it will do so. Some have 
claimed to be able to convert wheat into chess at 
will, by cutting the plant at a certain time, by 
trampling the wheat by cattle, and by other me¬ 
thods, but when these were tried, as in one case 
before a Committee of the New York State Agri¬ 
cultural Society, the charm failed to work. Last 
summer, a specimen of a “ wheat and chess” plant 
was sent us in great confidence, but by soaking the 
roots and carefully moving the parts, the chess 
plant was separated from the wheat, without break¬ 
ing a fibre. Clean seed wheat, and manure free 
from weed seeds, are sure preventives of chess ! 
A Combined Dairy and Ice-House. 
CLASS VII.—FIRST PRIZE. 
We present in illustrations 1, 2, and 3 designs of 
a cheap and convenient dairy and ice-house com¬ 
bined, which many of our readers will find of value. 
The front and side elevations and the ground plan 
Fig. 1.— FRONT ELEVATION OF DAIRY. 
are shown. The building stands five rods from 
the dwelling house. The frameof the building is 
22 by 36 feet, set on a stone foundation 18 inches 
high and 16 inches wide, laid in mortar. From the 
top of the stone foundation to the eaves is 14 feet. 
Around the ice-room and refrigerator, on the in¬ 
side, is placed a lining, 16 inches from the outside, 
the space between being filled with saw-dust and 
charcoal-dust, packed hard. The floor of the ice¬ 
house has 18 inches of saw-dust on it before the ice 
is put in, also saw-dust on each layer of cakes, wet 
to pack closely and evenly. The ice-room extends 
to the roof of the building. A ventilator is placed 
in the center of the roof, over the ice-room. A 
door is in the ice-room end of the building, eight 
feet from the ground. On the outside of the 
building is a rack three feet wide, made of poles, 
fastened together by rods. The poles lie parallel 
to each other, and make easy work of filling 
Fig. 2.— SIDE ELEVATION OF DAIRY. 
the house. Ice-tongs are arranged on a simple 
pulley-block that is permanently fixed in the 
central rafter. The rack of poles for filling in 
the ice is laid along the side of the house, and 
makes a fine place for sunning the dairy pails and i 
pans. The refrigerator, 16 by 10 feet, is packed ■ 
the same as the ice-house. A slight wall is laid 
from the foundation underneath, the same size as 
the refrigerator, to hold in place the packing of 
saw-dust and charcoal-dust, which is filled in be¬ 
fore the matched hard-wood floor is laid. The 
room is ceiled overhead with tightly-matched 
boards ; sixteen inches above is a second floor, the 
space between being packed with saw-dust. On 
one side is a frame fitted with double air-tight win¬ 
dows. Directly opposite is the door, which is 
double, 12 inches thick, and filled with charcoal. 
The iee-box or cooler is an important feature. 
This is made of matched lumber, reaching the en¬ 
tire width of the inside of the room, two and one- 
lialf feet wide and high, and is placed securely 
within six inches of the ceiling, on the side joining 
the ice-house. The box is zinc-lined, and contains a 
rack on which to lay the ice. In the side, next the 
ice-house, is a door through which the box is filled 1 
with ice. A block is brought to the door by the ! 
use of the pulley, and in a few miuutes the work ! 
of filling the box is done with ease. The ice-box is j 
placed so as to slant, half an inch from the inside i 
to the outside end, where there is a small discharge- i 
pipe, that empties outside into a log trough. Un¬ 
der the window, on the inside, is a small sink, to i 
which is attached a pipe, emptying outside. On the ! 
side next the ice-box, and on the opposite side, are 
racks holding eight jars each. The jars are about 
twenty inches high, with inverted cone-shaped 
bottoms; they are about twelve inches in diame¬ 
ter, and made to order, costing $19.00 for the six¬ 
teen jars. The jars are of white earthenware, j 
glazed inside. The milk is strained in, and stands 
twenty-four hours; it is drawn off first, and 
when the cream is seen through the faucet, an¬ 
other pail is substituted. In ordinary summer j 
temperature, twice filling of the ice-box weekly is 
sufficient to keep the air of the entire room at an 
even temperature. The cold air comes in constant 
contact with the surface of the cream. Under the 
ice-box is a storage-room for the cream-jars and 
butter-tubs. The rest of the first floor of the 
building is used as a work-room, arranged with 
Window 
36 
F_e«< 
•d 
Workroom 
1 
•St&ri 
flirnmnn 
A' 
o 
•poor 
2. 1 
1 
5 
V 
2 
XJ 
Wmdov/ 
Fig. 3.— GROUND PLAN OF THE DAIRY. 
sinks, shelves, towel-racks, etc. The floor above 
is reached by a trap-door in the ceiling, and a nar¬ 
row flight of stairs alongside of the refrigerator. 
The work-room is well lighted by two windows, 
and the entrance-door with glass upper panels. 
The actual cost of the building, aside from our 
own labor, was an even hundred dollars, but I could 
not furnish estimates that would be reliable in 
all localities. Here each farmer has plenty of 
stone at hand for foundations, and the mills are 
near for lumber and shingles. In all the linings, 
except the refrigerator, culled timber was used. 
The outside is clapboarded, and painted with a 
home-made paint that is cheap and effective. No 
paint is used in the refrigerator. The house is 
used for a dairy of thirty-eight cows. A small 
stove can be put in the work-room, and the door 
of the refrigerator left open in cold weather, if a 
fife is needed to keep the proper temperature. 
A satisfactory point in the refrigerator system is, 
that the ice does not have to be cut; therefore 
there is no waste. The cold air, instead of ice, 
comes in contact with the jars and the surface of 
the cream. This house stores ice for all needed, 
dairy purposes, and also sufficient for the general j 
use of two families, and in the fall there is still at 
least one layer of ice left in the house. This is 
the third year it has been in successful operation. 
