212 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
agement is an equally important one; and as 
the captain of a steamer is worth more in the 
pilot-house than in the stoke-hole, so is the 
manager of a large farm worth more in the 
general direction of his operations than at the 
end of a hoe-handle. 
Another example of a young Harvard man 
turned farmer, is Mr. E. F. Bowditch, of Fram¬ 
ingham, who has taken 400 to 500 acres of 
worn-out farms, and built up a capital estab¬ 
lishment, to which he devotes his whole time, 
and on which he is reaping a permanent and 
satisfactory success. His case is less instruc¬ 
tive than Mr. Burnett’s, because he started with 
a capital that few young men turning farmers 
can command; but it is, at the same time, an 
example well worthy of the study of all who 
go to die business hoping to find it at least an 
inexpensive pastime, and who too often do find 
it a most wasteful extravagance. Like Mr. 
Burnett, he is a breeder of Jersey cattle, of 
which he has an unusually fine herd, descended 
from his own importations, and he sells his 
butter at a high price in Boston. It was largely 
a desire to see his Jerseys which led me to visit 
him, and I found them well worth the trip. I am 
sure I shall be doing a favor to my readers, to 
whom this may come in time, by calling their 
attention to the fact that he advertises an auc tion 
sale of twenty or thirty head—his surplus, 
but including some of the best of his herd— 
to take place in Boston on the fourth of June. 
This will be a good 
opportunity to pur¬ 
chase, and an equally 
good one to study 
the characteristics of 
some excellent speci¬ 
mens of the breed. 
A correspondent in 
Illinois writes: “ I 
wish you would call 
attention to my 
way of preventing 
cows from kicking, 
though it is by no 
means my invention. I know that not one 
farmer in a hundred knows how to do it. I 
use it in breaking my heifers to milk, with great 
success. Take a strong strap and buckle it 
tight around the cow, in front of the bag and 
back of the hip-bones. If drawn tight, the cow 
can not kick, and she will soon cease trying.” 
This seems like an efficient remedy, and it is so 
simple and safe that it is well worth being 
brought to the attention of those w T ho have 
restless cows and nervous or sore-teated 
heifers to train. 
conviction that what is worth doing at all is 
worth doing well. He has another firm con¬ 
viction, which is that good land is worth a 
good rent, and he charged me $200 for the 
rent of that field for one season. 
Swivel Plows. 
The advantages of the swivel plow are not 
so well appreciated as they should be. A few 
years ago, desiring to test their value upon level 
ground, we did the whole of our spring and 
fall plowing with them. We used one of them 
which was. designed only for hill-side plowing, 
and by no means so well calculated for level 
work as some of the newer and improved 
plows, both for sod and stubble, and found it a 
great saving of time and labor. By returning 
upon the same furrow we went up there was 
no waste in going around the headlands, and 
the harrow could follow close up to the plow. 
Thus, in corn planting in the spring or in sow¬ 
ing wheat or other crops, eveiy foot of plowed 
ground at the close of the week could be fin¬ 
ished and sown or planted, and on Saturdays 
the week’s work evenly and neatly done up. 
Besides, the seed could always be put into the 
ground while the soil was mellow and moist, 
an advantage in some seasons of great import¬ 
ance. The annexed engraving shows one of 
these plows greatly improved and furnished 
with a coulter for plowing sod. It will be seen 
SWIVEL PLOW. 
that the character of the mold board is such as 
to insure easy draft, and as in using these plows 
each horse alternately walks in the furrow the 
labor of the team is greatly lightened. The 
efforts of plow makers have been industriously 
turned of late to the improvement of these 
plows with great success, and it needs only 
that the attention of farmers should be drawn 
to them to profitably extend their use. 
The 'Use of Steam on the Farm. 
stock. We are satisfied from our own expe¬ 
rience that it will pay with only ten head. 
Where there are less than ten head of stock 
upon a farm the use of steam will in most cases 
make it profitable and practicable to increase 
the number up to ten head without extra cost 
of food or labor in preparing it at all in pro¬ 
portion to the increase. As to the cost of the 
machinery, it is well worth considering whether 
if a five-horse power boiler and engine that 
could do all the inside work of the farm, cut¬ 
ting feed and steaming it, thrashing grain, 
hoisting and unloading hay or grain, sawing 
wood, and any other work needed, could be 
procured for $580, all complete and ready to 
run, and could be operated with safety from 
fire or explosion, it would not be a great econ¬ 
omy; the cost of fuel, too, being less than fifty 
cents a day for such an engine, and tha* only 
while it is working. The first cost of five 
horses, harness, etc., would be considerably 
more than the cost of such an engine and 
boiler, not to speak of the cost of maintenance. 
The boiler and engine we here specially refer 
to are made expressly for farm use, by Whitman 
& Burrell, of Little Falls, N. Y., and are known 
as the Anderson steam boiler and the Kipp 
engine. A sectional view of the boiler is shown 
at figure 1, and the boiler, water-tank, and en¬ 
gine at figure 2. The boiler is double, so that 
water completely surrounds the fire space. 
The large heating surface requires but little 
fuel, and the water-tank is so arranged that 
while the supply of water is kept up there is 
perfect safety. The engine is compact, and of 
very strong and solid construction, and is made 
as small as two-horse power. An engine of 
three-horse power needs no more fuel than an 
ordinary stove of common size. It is impossi- 
ble to doubt that there are thousands of farms 
The long continuance of cold weather this 
spring made it necessary for us to buy a small 
stock of hay, but our own supply, which was 
of excellent quality, lasted until April 25th, and 
we are fully content with the result thus far. 
One help we had from outside, it is true. We 
last spring hired two acres of clover which had 
been sown in 1872 with barley. It was intended 
for soiling, but we did not need to use the 
whole of it in this way, and made a part of it 
into hay. We weighed all that was brought to 
the farm. Allowing six tons of green clover 
to make one ton of hay, the crop of the two 
acres was equal to eleven and one half tons of 
clover hay. This heavy crop was due to the 
good management (good management in this 
case meaning heavy manuring) of the owner, 
who is one of our best farmers, with a firm 
As compared with other Industries the busi¬ 
ness of farming is not carried on economically. 
The cost of producing what there is to sell is 
too high, and the profits are reduced accord¬ 
ingly. Steam power is made useful in nearly 
every industry but farming, and in that horse 
power is the sole dependence. At some future 
time it is probable that much of our field work 
will be done by steam. At the present time a 
large share of the in-door work of the farmer 
may be. A great portion of his business and 
labor is in feeding stock and preparing their 
feed. It has been frequently shown that when 
feed is cut and steamed it is fed with the great¬ 
est economy. The great bugbear connected 
with it is the labor needed to cut and steam 
the feed. It is said that it will not pay to 
steam feed for less than forty or fifty head of 
Fig. 2.— ENGINE, BOILER, AND WATER-TANK. 
upon which steam power so cheaply procured 
would be a great advantage and its purchase 
an economical investment. 
