4:50 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
ceow raised by liis wife, and would give her 
weight in milk every month, and keep fat on’t. 
The knavish scamp weru’t fur from right—for 
she sucks herself dry every chance she can git, 
and Polly has been on the keen jump ever sense 
I bo’t her to git a drop for tea. If I keep her 
head in the stanchions I can get the milk, but 
ye see if I turn her out she does her own 
milkin’. A mighty ekernomical ceow that!” 
“A ceow in a bag!” exclaimed Seth, as he 
knocked the ashes from his pipe and drew out 
Fig. 1. —UNCLE JOTUAM’S I’OKE. 
his tobacco-pouch to load again. “ I have lieern 
of a pig in a poke, but a ceow in a bag is the 
latest fasliun.” 
“Jess so,” said Jake. “Ye see, it is one of 
Polly’s contrivunsis to save the milk.” 
Jake tried this plan of curing the White 
Oaker’s cow for a week, and all Ilookertown 
came to see the cow in a bag. It was a big 
piece of sacking tied on just back of the fore¬ 
shoulders and under the belly, covering the 
cow’s bag, and leaving the rump and tail free. 
But Pole's contrivance did not work well. 
The cow would sometimes get her nose through 
the canvas, and when she failed to do this, she 
would lie down and double the canvas over the 
teat, and suck herself through the strainer. 
“Take that thing off,” said Uncle Jotham 
Sparrowgrass one morning as he came up the 
street. “I’ve got suthiu’ they used to use over 
on the Island forty years ago, and it was never 
known to fail. It is kill or cure, I assure you.” 
Uncle Jotham’s poke was fig. 1: Two frames 
of white-oak, armed with half-inch iron rods 
sharpened like hatchel-teeth. The frames 
bound upon each side of the neck of the cow 
with ropes. 
Jake tried this establishment for a couple of 
weeks. It saved the milk effectually, but it 
drew blood. If the cow attempted to get her 
head toward the tail, it pricked her severely. 
The flies were troublesome, and every time she 
threw her head round to drive them off she 
wounded the skin. Polly said Ibis thing would 
not answer in Ilookertown, even if it did on the 
Island. She thought Long Island folks'must be 
heathen if they tortured their cows in that wax-. 
George Washington Tucker was the next 
doctor to prescribe for Jake’s cow. 
“ You see, Jake,” said Tucker, “ that are thing 
is agin Scripture, for ‘it’s hard to kick agin the 
pricks,’ and the ceow won’t give milk long that 
is goaded in that way. I can fix you a poke in 
about an hour that will keep her from sucking- 
jest as well as them spikes, and not hurt her 
a bit.” 
So Tucker took Jake’s saw and auger, and 
from some slabs and a pair of worn-out ox-bows 
he constructed fig. 2. The top frame slips off 
easily, and the uprights are fastened in place by 
a wooden peg or bow-pin. The cow’s head is 
fastened in this frame, and the side-pieces come 
just back of the fore-shoulder, so that if she at¬ 
tempts to get at her bag she gets a smart punch 
in the ribs, without breaking the skin. 
“Now,” said Tucker, after he had put on his 
machine, “ that is what I call a persuader of a 
merciful sort. Tell Polly I’ll pay for all the milk 
that ’ere ceow sucks after this.” 
This thing worked well, and Jake had peace 
until Benjamin Franklin Jones came along one 
morning, and hailed Jake : “Are ye gwine into 
the lumber business, Mr. Frink?” looking at the 
poke as if he saw a lumber-yard. 
“Wal, neow,” said Jake, “I’ll allow there’s 
considerable wood about the machine, but then 
it duz the work, and ‘handsome is that hand¬ 
some duz.’ ” 
Seth Twiggs happened along at this juncture, 
and seeing by the smoke which way the wind 
blew, asked: “Have ye got plenty of fencin’ 
stuff, neighbor? I’ve got a stack that wants 
a yard round it, and rails is skase on my farm.” 
Jake Frink grew restive under these pleasan¬ 
tries of his neighbors, and had about made up 
his mind to drive the cow back to the White 
Oaks, when Deacon Smith dropped in, and said 
Fig. 3.—the deacon’s jewel. 
lie thought he could help him out of his trouble. 
He had a contrivance that he never knew to 
fail. He said it was much used up in Berkshire 
County, and it was the cheapest and best 
remedy he had ever seen. 
So the Deacon took out his pencil, and made 
a picture like fig 3, and told Jake to go down 
to the tinman’s and have a jewel made just 
like it. When it hangs in the cow’s nose it looks 
like fig. 4. It is simply a piece of tin cut out in 
half-moon shape, and bound on the edge with a 
wire. The wire is cut and bent over at the'two 
ends for the purpose of slipping it into the nos¬ 
trils of the cow. If she attempts to suck, the 
bit of tin is always in the way. She can not 
get her tongue over nor under the tin. It is not 
in the way of feeding, for the ground raises the 
lower edge of the tin and it slides along before 
the cow’s nose. This is a sure remedy, and is 
much better than carrying a lumber-yard upon 
the neck, or the barbarous practice of slitting 
the tongue. It is a very convenient article to 
put upon a calfs nose when he is weaned, and 
turned out to grass with the herd. He is about 
as effectually cut off from his mother’s milk as 
if he was in a separate pasture. They may be 
made of sheet-iron, tin, or zinc. They cost but 
little, and it is but a moment’s work to put on 
the jewel or take it off. 
I am surprised to see by your last paper that 
there is one man left who does not know where 
Ilookertown is, and thinks you may have been 
gassing people for the last twenty years. This 
is the biggest joke you have printed in a year. 
Sally burst out laughing when she read it, and 
said she thought the school-master hadn’t been 
around where that man lived. For Ids benefit, 
I want to say that theie isn’t a five-year-old 
boy in any of our schools but could tell him 
just where the place is. It is just five miles 
south of the White Oaks, and there are three 
Fig. 4. — THE COW ORNAMENTED. 
guide-boards at the cross-roads on the way. It 
is two miles east of Shadtown, and there is but 
one turn out, and there you keep the main travel. 
Yours to command, 
Timotiiy Bunker, Esq. 
Ilookertown, Gt., Nov. 10 th, 1872. 
The Striped Bass (Labrax lineatus). 
The great value of the Striped Bass as a 
food fish, and its high price in winter, have led 
to some experiments for growing it in confined 
waters where it could be taken at pleasure and 
marketed. In summer, when the fish bite3 
freely, and is taken in our rivers in seines and 
nets, it is sold at wholesale quite cheap, so that 
the fishermen do not average more than six 
cents a pound. In winter, the price goes up to 
twenty-five cents, and the market would take a 
much larger quantity if they could be furnished. 
The spawn has never been taken, that we are 
aware of, but the young fish, weighing from a 
few ounces to a pound, are caught in pound-nets 
in immense quantities along the coast wherever 
these destructive engines are not interdicted by 
law. The small fish are not desirable for mar¬ 
ket, and are sold cheap. These fish, from a 
half-pound upwards, can be bought for five 
SCREEN FOR BASS POUND. 
cents a pound or less, and put into an inclosure 
that admits the tide, and there fed regularly 
until they are fit for market. This in closure 
may be of any size that suits the convenience 
of the fish-grower. The only essential things 
about it are that it should admit the tide-water 
with its abundance of sea food, and shut in the 
bass. It should be near the house, that it may 
be protected from poachers. Any small bay of 
a half-acre or more, or the mouth of a small 
brook that runs into tide-water that can be easily 
