16 
THE CULTIVATOR 
Jan. 
down the slope. We have found our own brush drains 
to last many years, decay being, in a great measure, 
prevented by exclusion from the air. 
We have just had a quantity of two inch sole tile 
Weighed,, such as is manufactured at Palmyra, N. Y., 
and which is nearly half an inch thick, and find it to 
average a little less than two pounds to the foot, and 
consequently a ton would lay about 1100 feet. 
Stabling and. Feeding Cows in Winter. 
Can you inform me through the columns of the Coun¬ 
try Gentleman how I can prevent my cows from lying- 
in their manure when in the stable? I have tried 
every way that I can think of, but all to no purpose— 
for every morning their udders are so filthy that it 
would take five or ten minutes and one gallon of water 
to wash them clean. My stable floor is good, slopes 
hack three inches in ten feet. I clean it out every day 
and cover over with clean straw. Unless I can find 
some remedy I shall have to abandon stabling alto- j 
gether. 
Should cows be fed before or after milking, or does 
it make any difference in product of milk or butter? 
Ought cows to be subjected to long stripping, or not? 
I have a heifer with her first calf, that is disposed to 
strip a long time, and I do not wish to spend the time 
unless the product of milk is increased thereby. 
Also, which is the best straw and hay cutter for gen¬ 
eral use with which you aro acquainted; what is the 
price, and where can it be obtained ? Or will it pay 
at all to cut feed for two or three cows, when you have 
plenty of work to occupy your whole time, at 75 cents 
per day, and can purchase hay at seven or eight dol¬ 
lars per ton ? 
Please give me all the information you can on the 
above subjects, which will be thankfully received by 
A Subscriber. Connellsville, Pa- 
To keep cows clean during the period of their sta¬ 
bling, we have found it absolutely necessary to clean 
the stables at least twice a day, and more especially in 
the evening just before spreading their beds of straw 
for the night. They should also have room enough to 
select a clean place to lie in, and be tied so as to lie 
down and rise again without the least inconvenience. 
With these precautions, we have no difficulty in keep¬ 
ing them clean. 
The udder of some cows is more easily drained than 
of others. Where necessary for completely emptying 
tho udder, long-stripping must not be neglected. Cows 
which are not milked clean, diminish in quantity, and 
soon “dry up.” The process of stripping may possi¬ 
bly be continued so long as to be a waste of time, but 
we have never known an occurrence of this sort, for 
not one milker in twenty does the work thoroughly 
enough, especially towards the close of the year, when 
the supplies are given down more slowly. 
A cheap and perfect straw-cutter has not yet been 
made. Those manufactured by Emery, Ruggles, and 
others, consist of a cylinder of knives cutting on a roll¬ 
er of green hide, and cut with great ease and rapidity, 
and do not easily get out of order. They have but one 
serious defect—they will not cut shorter than an inch, 
which will do tolerably well for hay and straw, but 
to not for corn-stalks. The price is six or seven dollars, 
\£h and upwards. The cheaper ones do not cut so fast nor 
rA so short as those of higher price and more numerously 
'furnished with knives. Sanford’s straw-cutter, sold, if 
we mistake not, by Rapalje & Co., of Rochester, costs 
about 12 dollars, and consists of two cylinders of 
knives working into each other like the teeth of two 
cogwheels. It answers well- for corn-stalks, crushing 
and cutting at one operation, but from some cause, un¬ 
known to us, does not appear to have been extensively 
used. For cutting very short, we have not yet found 
a machine that is at once reasonably cheap, efficient, 
and durable for long use 
Cutting fodder has several advantages. Straw and 
hay may be intermixed and both eaten together, and 
mastication rendered more complete and perfect; com 
stalks, if cut finely enough , will be more thoroughly 
eaten, and the manure will be fine, instead of course, 
long, and unfit to apply till thoroughly rotted. We 
have no accurate experiments to show the precise 
amount saved by cutting;—an acquaintance informs 
us he finds the yearly saving in keeping a single horse, 
to he twenty dollars, out of fifty, formerly required; 
hut we think his estimate too high. The public very 
much needs more accurate experiments on this subject. 
The Reapers and National Prejudice. 
It is very natural for a man to like his own 
performance better than that of offers; to think 
his own home best, and to regard his own nation 
as the most wonderful in existence. A decent share 
of this feeling is a good thing, for it makes one satisfi¬ 
ed with his situation, and prevents complaint; but 
when carried to excess, so as to lead to inordinate and 
empty boasting, like that of too many Yankees, or to 
one-sided illiberality, like that of too many British, 
it becomes disagreeable and disgusting. The best way 
to improve"-is to keep our own eyes wide open to our 
own faults and defic.iences, and ready at all times to 
learn from the superiority of others. The London 
Times and its co-thinkers ridiculed at first the Ameri¬ 
can productions at the London Crystal Palace, but 
afterwards had the magnanimity to acknowledge their 
mistake—which acknowledgment the Americans re¬ 
ceived with such eager boasting and retaliatory taunts 
as eclipsed all the honor of their victory. We believe 
very few American editors would have shown as much 
magnanimity as the London Times. 
For the reasons above stated, we make it a rule to 
abstain from finding any fault with our trans-atlantio 
cousins, except to correct glaring errors. One of these 
glaring errors has lately occured in their attempt to 
claim all the credit of the invention of reaping ma¬ 
chines. They have lately ascertained that an individ¬ 
ual somewhere in Scotland, went to America many 
years ago, and took a model of a reaping machine, 
invented by Bell; from this, it is inferred that, as a 
matter of course, the American inventors obtained their 
first ideas of reaping machines, and that they only 
copied and put in operation this Scotch invention. 
Now the question naturally arises, How many of the 
American people would be likely to see a model, pack¬ 
ed away in a man’s trunk, and never used in practice ? 
It was not many years ago that an English nursery. 
