58 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
A Square Harrow. 
At the request of “ W. B. S.” we give an en¬ 
graving of a square harrow jointed in the 
middle. It is made of 4 x 4 or 3 x 4 hard-wood 
timber. Four pieces G feet long and eight 
pieces 3.} feet long are required. These are 
mortised together, as shown in the engraving, 
and each mortise is secured by a wooden pin 
or a one-quarter inch carriage bolt. The two 
wings are connected by two eye-bolts in each, 
A SQUARE HARROW. 
through which a long rod passes. The rod is 
secured by a nut at one end and a head at the 
other. The harrow is drawn from one corner. 
It contains 33 to 44 teeth of three-quarter inch 
square iron, each 14 inches long. For a light 
harrow the teeth may be of half-inch iron and 
the timber of 2x4. There should be a light 
carnage bolt put through the end of each bar 
to prevent it from splitting, and the teeth should 
be placed so that their edges will be in a line 
with the line of draft. 
■ r^i ^ n il irfC-g^T >M p ^-1 
A Sheep-Rack. 
In feeding sheep in winter we have found 
that unless the hay-rack is properly made the 
sheep will get their heads through the bars and 
wear the wool from their necks, besides filling 
the wool upon their backs with grass heads 
and clover seeds. This is a great inconvenience, 
and injures the sale of the wool, besides wast¬ 
ing some of it, which is pulled off by the bars 
of the rack. To prevent all these troubles we 
have used a rack such as is here figured. For 
large sheep it should be 34 feet high at the 
front. The bars are only three inches apart. 
They should be made of ash, chestnut, or oak 
strips, dressed and smoothly sand-papered, and 
m inch thick by one and a quarter wide. The 
front of the rack should slope backwards three 
IMPROVED SHEEP-RACK. 
R? four inches. This prevents hay or clover 
dust from falling out upon the sheep’s heads. 
At the rear of the rack sloping boards are fit- 
led, so that as the hay is consumed it falls down 
to the bars at the front where the sheep can 
[February, 
The Imperial Pekin Duck. 
reach it. The end of the rack should be closed 
with bars in the same way as the front, so that 
young lambs can not creep in and get lost. By 
want of this precaution a fine, lively young 
lamb will sometimes get into a tight place, 
where it may become chilled and die. 
A Safety Drain. 
Notwithstanding the healthfulness of the 
farmer’s occupation, and the abundance of 
fresh air around him, he is nevertheless a vic¬ 
tim to those diseases consequent upon the 
breathing of foul air and the neglect of sani¬ 
tary precautions in a greater degree than any 
other class of people. It has come to be said, 
and with justice, that typhoid fever is the far¬ 
mer’s peculiar disease, and that scarlatina and 
dysentery are the prevalent diseases amongst 
his children. There are many good reasqns for 
this. One frequent cause is doubtless the 
drainage from cesspools and manure yards into 
wells from the saturated ground around them; 
while another is the exhalation from kitchen 
sinks which discharge into foul drains, or from 
putrid places where slops are thrown in the 
absence of sinks. A perfectly constructed 
sink is an indispensable adjunct to a healthy 
condition of the house. A perfect water-trap 
should be made in every drain. The simple 
bend in the pipe is not sufficient, because the 
warm air in the kitchen during the winter sea¬ 
son is sufficient to set an air current in motion 
in the drain pipe which will be strong enough 
to force a passage through the water contained 
in the bend of which the air-trap generally 
consists. But a perfect air-trap may be made 
as follows : There should be made in the pipe 
from the sink a bend sufficient to retain a por¬ 
tion of the escaping water. Beyond this an¬ 
other larger bend should be made, and between 
the two bends there should be a short pipe 
fitted which comes to the surface of the ground 
at least several feet or yards from the house. 
The most convenient arrangement is to fit the 
upper end of this pipe into the bottom of a 
flower-pot or a Avooden box Avhich is sunk in 
the earth and which is kept loosely covered. 
This receptacle may be filled with some disin¬ 
fectant Avhich will destroy the poisonous gas. 
Shavings saturated with carbolic acid or char¬ 
coal saturated with a solution of copperas 
would answer this purpose. This should be 
renewed at least every month, or more fre¬ 
quently if necessary. Then any foul air from 
the drain or the cesspool, or other final recep¬ 
tacle into which the drain may pass, can not 
possibly enter the house, but at the worst will 
escape into the air at a distance from it. If, 
however, the trap is kept supplied with a dis¬ 
infectant the foul gas will be neutralized. 
The above engraving represents the whole 
arrangement, which should be attached to every 
farm kitchen; in fact, it is applicable to almost 
every house in the country and many in towns 
and cities. 
A few Imperial Ducks were imported from 
China last spring, and have excited a good deal 
of interest among the fanciers. They came 
from the city of Pekin, and first attracted the 
attention of the gentleman who imported them 
by their great size. They were thought to be 
a small kind of geese. They are very prolific, 
each duck laying about one hundred eggs in a 
season, beginning early in the spring. They 
are white, but it is not the snowy whiteness of 
the Aylesbury; the bills are yellow and the legs 
red. The wings are rather short, and they 
make as little effort to fly as Cochin or Brah¬ 
ma fowls. They are admirable birds for 
small yards, and can be kept with as little trou¬ 
ble as hens. Their period of incubation is 
twenty-five days, a little shorter than the com¬ 
mon Mallard. We bred them this year in con¬ 
nection with the Rouens. They look nearly a 
third larger when they first come out of the 
shell. They have steadily kept the lead of the 
Rouens, and for the first five months of their 
history are larger and better birds. At two 
months old the best Pekin weighed four pounds 
and the best Rouen three and a half. The Pe- 
kins at four months old weigh about twelve 
pounds to the pair with ordinary feeding. 
They grow with much uniformity as to size, 
birds of the same age Aveighing very nearly 
alike. What size they will attain in more 
skillful hands, and when they reach maturity 
remains to be seen. They are very hardy, are 
quite easily raised in small inclosures without 
water to swim in. Water to drink seems to 
meet their wants quite as well as those of the 
chickens with which they grow up. They are 
undoubtedly a thoroughbred fowl and come to 
early maturity. About sixty birds were raised 
from the importer’s stock—a quartette, which is 
very fair success. They 
make a beautiful show 
in the brook that runs 
by his door. He dis¬ 
posed of all of his stock 
that he would sell long 
before it was mature, 
and not a pair probably 
can be bought at any 
price before the fall of 
1874. If the introduc¬ 
tion of this showy Chi¬ 
nese fowl shall do for our ducks what the Asi¬ 
atics have done for our hens it will mark a new 
era in poultry raising. * 
Fish in Small Ponds. 
We receive frequent inquiries, especially 
from correspondents in the Western States, 
about the practicability of raising fish in small 
ponds of surface water. This depends alto¬ 
gether upon the kind of fish it is desired to cul¬ 
tivate and the character of the ponds. We 
would not advise any one to undertake to cul- 
tRate fish of any kind in a small artificial pond 
such as is often made near the barn for the 
purpose of watering stock. A quarter-aere 
pond in a holloAv fed only by rains, nearly dry 
in summer, is too small to do anything with, 
for pleasure or profit in fish culture. Yet on a 
retentive soil these small ponds may be greatly 
enlarged by damming so as to retain all the 
rains that fall in winter. If a pond of three or 
four acres can be made, and six to ten feet in 
depth, there is no difficulty in raising carp, of 
