370 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
BjOss of Cuttle, —The progress of the cattle 
disease in England has become a source of national 
alarm. The losses last year are estimated to amount to 
over thirty millions of dollars. American and Canadian 
importers of stock, fearful of the danger of introduc¬ 
ing the disease here, are discontinuing their purchases. 
Grubs in si Strawberry-Bed.-' 1 0. 
M.,“ Ottumwa, Iowa. We doubt if any special manure or 
other application to the soil will be of use. In Europe, 
where a closely-related insect is a great pest, they find 
no relief save in plowing and picking up the grubs. 
The underground life of the common white grub extends 
over three years, and it eats whatever roots come in its 
way. When a plant is injured, dig it up, find the grub 
and kill it. This will save many other plants. Watch 
for the first appearance of wilting, and act promptly. 
Lambs in f>in<to?«asiaire. —The pro¬ 
ductiveness of Lincoln sheep is shown by the fact of 107 
ewes, the property of Joseph Baker, of Morton, Lincoln¬ 
shire, having produced 209 lambs, which are all living 
and doing well. 
Mow Miult IPi'iees Come.— A butcher 
doing a large business has seated that the stock he buys 
generally passes through four or five hands before it 
reaches him and after it leaves the farmer or feeder. 
This will explain why the farmer gets five cents per 
pound, and the man who buys a steak pays twenty-five. 
Amotines* B>ucl»e«s Cioaae. — Mr. Richard 
Gibson has returned from his late trip to England with 
an importation of sheep, and has since sent out another 
“Duchess,” the 15th Duchess of Airdrie. 
Materials for Tents.— “ D.V.,” Verden, 
Ill., asks what is the beet material for a large tent, and 
who arc the manufacturers or dealers in such materials. 
—The best material for a large tent is cotton sail-cloth, 
which can be procured at. any of the large dry-goods 
stores in Chicago. Farwell & Co., or Field, Loiter & 
Co., both of Chicago, could supply it. It is probable that 
a second-hand army tent could be purchased which would 
exactly suit the purposes for.which it is required. 
Shad-Hatching in 1872. 
3o far as we know, the only livers in which 
shad are hatched are the Connecticut, the Hud¬ 
son, and the Merrhnac, and this is the sixth sea¬ 
son of the use of Seth Green’s hatching-boxes— 
a discovery that is likely to dp for the food sup¬ 
ply of the nation what Whitney’s cotton-gin did 
for its clothing. About 8,000,000 of shad-spawn 
were batched in the Hudson last year, and we 
learn, unofficially, that the number is consider¬ 
ably exceeded this year. Of the number 
hatched, 220,000 were put into the river above 
the Troy dam, 80,000 into Lake Champlain, 
20,000 in Lake Owasco, 50,000 in the Genesee 
River, 30,000 in the Alleghany River at Sala¬ 
manca, and 25,000 in the Mississippi River, two 
miles below St. Paul. The remainder ivere 
turned into the river below Castleton. The 
operations began May 18th and ended July 2d. 
The ova hatched in the Connecticut last year 
were over sixty millions. This year operations 
did not begin until the 24th of June, and ended 
on the 18th of July—less than four weeks. 
The fish were larger and finer than ever before, 
and the hatch of spawn was ninety-two million 
sixty-five thousand, a third more than was taken 
last year. The hot weather of the early part, of 
July had such an effect upon the females, that 
the average number of ova from each one was 
greatly increased. Of this number 2,000,000 
were sent to the Alleghany, White, and Platte 
Rivers, a half-million were distributed in Rhode 
Island waters, a half-million were sent to the 
Saugatnck, and about the same number to Great 
Brook, in Groton, Ct. All the rest were turned 
into the Connecticut, just below Hadley Falls. 
This enormous addition to the finny tribes was 
made at an expense to the State of Connecticut 
of about five hundred dollars. If the improve¬ 
ment of only two of our shad streams for five 
years has resulted in the reduction of the whole¬ 
sale price of shad in New York to $3.50 per 
hundred, what may be expected when all the 
States turn their attention to this business, and 
Seth Green’s hatching-boxes are in use upon 
every shad stream in the country? Is not cheap 
food for the coming millions a problem 
already solved ? 
Sheep-killing Dogs. —“I would like to keep 
sheep on my hilly farm,” writes a correspondent, 
“but am afraid of the dogs. Is there any rem¬ 
edy?”—There are three remedies: 1. If there 
is a tax on dogs in your State, see that it is en¬ 
forced in your neighborhood. 2. If there is no 
dog law in the State, vole for no man who will 
not pledge himself to do all he can to have one 
enacted. 3. Let all the sheep men in the neigh¬ 
borhood form themselves into an association. 
Let nothing be done to gratify personal spite; 
but if a suspicious dog is found prowling about 
the farm, shoot him. Then, if the owner can 
prove damages, let the association pay them, 
and repeat the process. City and village dogs 
must he taught to stay at home. They are often 
abused and half-starved, and it would be a mercy 
to them to give them one good meal of mutton 
with a liberal allowance of strychnine in it. 
The neighbors might be told that this feast was 
provided solely for visitors, so that they can 
keep their dogs at home. 
A good plan to adopt is, when a sheep dies, 
dress it and wasli it witli water containing a few 
table-spoonfuls of crude carbolic acid. It will 
preserve the meat for months. Cut it up into 
joints and hang it up, and you will always have 
a piece of mutton on hand for a hungry dog 
that may visit you from the city or village or 
swamp. If this work is done systematically 
and constantly, it will have a wholesome effect. 
It is rarely that a well-bred and well-fed dog 
attacks sheep, and it is not often that sucli dogs 
wander far from home at night. If there are 
any good dogs in the neighborhood, inform the 
owners of the fact that you have set a trap for 
the half-starved prowlers from the city, and 
that they had better fasten theirs up at night. 
In this way no harm is likely to be done. 
Large Onions. —Within a year or two some 
varieties of onions have been introduced into 
England from the south of Europe which have 
produced bulbs of remarkable size. Mr. Peter 
Henderson writes that lie saw at the rooms of 
the London Horticultural Society a specimen 
that weighed 4 lbs. 2 oz., and measured 24 inches 
in circumference. A dozen such specimens ivere 
exhibited, which the visitor claimed w r ere of so 
mild a flavor that they “could be eaten like 
bread.” The name of this variety was the 
Early White Maggiojole. Very large onions are 
raised in California and New Mexico, but seeds 
from them brought to the East produce nothing 
remarkable, and such we fear will he the case 
with these new European sorts. There are few 
vegetables more readily influenced by peculiar¬ 
ities of soil and climate than the onion. 
-— . » o — -- —- 
Cisterns. —Unless the house and barn have a 
permanent spring or water-course nearby, they 
should always be furnished witli a large tank 
or cistern into which all the rain-water that 
falls on their roofs can be conducted. In addi¬ 
tion to these a good well is requisite. It would 
be better to dig the latter in a dry time, and 
keep on digging from one to three feet below 
where water is then found. Tiiis will insure 
a never-failing well. Our well became dry 
the past autumn, when, after cleaning it out 
and sinking it one foot below the original 
depth, three feet of clear sweet water, or more, 
rose up in it within a few hours, and we do 
not think it will ever be dry again, unless out¬ 
side material should get into it. One great ad¬ 
vantage of saving rain-water in a cistern is, 
that it gives us an abundant supply of soft 
water for washing, and if it falls from a clean 
roof is always wholesome to drink. But if im¬ 
purities get into it, the water is easily filtered, 
and thus rendered clear and sweet.—A. 
Keeping Cabbages through the Winter. 
—“W. R. R.,” of Michigan, writes: “You 
speak of raising cabbages for stock. How do 
von keep them through the winter? We have 
no difficulty in growing large crops here, hut as 
yet have found no good way to keep them.”— 
We make a deep and wide “dead furrow” with 
a plow, in dry, sandy soil; and then hy the 
cabbages in it, packed close together, with the 
stalks up. Then throw the earth back on to the 
cabbages. The cabbages should lie dry and the 
weather cold, and care should lie taken that the 
furrow left on the side of the row of cabbages 
should be cleaned out, so as to carry off the 
water. If no water gets to the cabbages, and the 
heads are sound, large, and hard when put in, 
we have never experienced any difficulty in 
keeping them perfectly until spring. And there 
is nothing that our sheep relish so much. The 
only trouble about raising cabbages for stock is 
that they usually command so much more in 
market than they are worth to feed out, that it 
is difficult to resist the temptation to sell them. 
Husking and Cribbing Corn. 
“ The way we husk,” writes one of our Illinois 
correspondents, “is to grasp the ear with the 
left hand, stripping one side with the right hand, 
then grasping the car with the right hand and 
strip with the 1 eft., and break in a sort of com¬ 
bined movement, tossing into the wagon with 
the right hand. Sometimes a husk or silk ad¬ 
heres, but we let it go, for while you are taking 
it off you can husk another ear. It makes one 
third difference in the work, and no perceptible 
difference in the value of the corn to horses, 
cattle, sheep, or liogs, or to the buyers. Husk 
from the shock and throw directly into the wagon. 
I^saves much labor. To prevent the corn from 
being thrown over the wagon, take a wide hoard 
as long as the box, nail strips on both sides, a 
few inches longer than tlie board is wide. Then 
place the board on top of one side of the wagon. 
The strips will hold it in place, making that 
side of the wagon higher than the other, and 
enabling the busker to toss in the corn without 
looking. If the corn must be sorted, throw the 
poor corn on the ground. 
“To facilitate unloading, take a hoard, fifteen 
inches "wide, three and a half feet long; nail a 
cleat across it on one end, and an inch from it 
nail another. Place this end on the tail-board 
of the box, and let the other end lie on bottom 
of the box. This will enable one to use a scoop- 
shovel at once, without the tediousness of hand¬ 
picking.”—This latter plan was described in the 
American Agriculturist several years ago, and 
we have found it ourselves a great saving of 
time and labor. We do not liusk into the wagon: 
If only one man was husking at a shock, it 
would not pay in our case to let a team stand 
idle. We would rather hire the corn husked 
hy the bushel and set the team to fall plowing. 
But many of the writer’s suggestions are good. 
