290 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
green clover to make a ton of hay; and that 
if these four or five tons of green clover were 
rotted in the yard, it would make three or four 
tons of manure. And yet the only difference 
between the green clover and the hay is that 
the latter has lost some sixty or seventy per 
cent of water in curing. Add that amount of 
water to the hay, and it will make just as much 
manure as the green clover from which the hay 
was made. This subject is an important one, 
and should be discussed till it is understood. 
- -m-, — ■»«>— i .- 
A Buckeye Boy on Wheat Growing.— 
W. G. Phelps, Granger Co., Ohio, sends us his 
father’s method of cultivating wheat. We al¬ 
ways like to hear from the boys, especially 
when they write as briefly and as much to the 
point as the following; “Our land is not con¬ 
sidered favorable for wheat. [You should have 
said why.] We use meadows that the grass 
has failed on, breaking up about the middle of 
August. Then roll and put on 10 or 12 loads of 
manure per acre, and drag once, twice in a place. 
Then sow the wheat, and drag once. Then sow 
Timothy seed, and all the ashes and hen manure 
we have on the farm. Then drag once and roll. 
This leaves the land in good condition for mow¬ 
ing, and we only lose one hay crop. By put¬ 
ting the manure on the surface we got 23 bush¬ 
els of wheat per acre last year, while our 
neighbors who plow it under, and do not roll 
their land, only got 10 or 12 bushels, and our 
meadows yield better for this treatment. In 
breaking up, we plow round the field so as to 
leave it as level as possible.” Where land is 
clean, and the object is to get it back into grass 
as soon as possible, as in the dairy districts, 
we presume this plan is not as objectionable 
as it would be in the wheat growing sections. 
Let us hear from the farmers’ boys oftener. 
Stacking Hay with Horse Forks. 
Stacking derricks are awkward things at best, 
and not a little difficult to set up and manage. 
The simple shears which we described last year, 
though they will do the work, are not nearly 
so convenient as those we now illustrate from 
the descriptions and m&lings of Ira B. Smith, 
tiou of the fork and rope connected with it 
when about to take a “grip” of hay. The 
rope is affixed to the top of the lower shears, 
then passes through the pulley block upon the 
fork, then through blocks at the top of the tall 
shears, and at the foot of one of the poles, and 
is attached to the horse. When the horse starts, 
the fork with its load rises nearly perpendicu¬ 
larly until the rope is taut; when it slides down 
the inclined plane made by the rope stretched 
between the shears, and as it comes directly 
over where the hay is wanted (see fig. 2), the 
trip cord is pulled by the man on the load, 
the hay drops. When the horse backs, the 
Fig. 1.— STACK: so -TAKING THE “ 
of Holden,(?). Any horsmfork may have a pul¬ 
ley attached to the top of it. Mr. Smith uses 
two 40-foot poles and two 30-foot ones. They 
are set up, forming two shears, one on each side 
or end of die stack, allowing room for the loads 
on toe side oi the taller shears. They are braced 
by a single strong pope, Fig. 1 shows the posi- 
STACKING—DROPPING THE FORKFUL. 
fork descends again to its starting point. Mr. 
Smith says: “I have stacked my hay for the 
last two years with it, and like this arrangement 
very well. It cost me only about five dollars for 
rope, and the cutting of a few poles, and does 
the work as well as any derrick I ever saw.” 
•----—io>»--- 
Barn Cellars for Manure Making. 
Animal manures, solid and liquid, are not 
only valuable to the farmer for the ingredients 
they contain, considered as food for his crops, 
but on many farms their value is perhaps chief!}' 
due to the fermentation 
which they incite in other 
substances. Thus, very 
much on the principle of 
yeast in a batch of dough, 
a small quantity of animal 
droppings will make good 
manure of a great quanti¬ 
ty of otherwise inert vege¬ 
table matter. Peat, muck, 
salt-mud, sods, swamp 
grass,weeds,chip-dirt, saw¬ 
dust, and similar sub¬ 
stances, are very common¬ 
ly used to increase the ma¬ 
nure pile, but with the 
impression that they add 
bulk rather than much 
value—that they act as ab¬ 
sorbents of urine and am¬ 
monia, and so save, rather 
GRIP - than increase the value of 
the manure. This is a grave error, as practice 
shows. The number of cattle and the quality 
of their feed are not so important as the manner 
in which their manure is treated, and the place 
where it is kept. Exposed in the open yard it is 
subjected to all unfavorable influences possible. 
The rains wash and soak it: the sun dries it; 
its own fermentation burns it up by internal 
heat. If water comes from external sources, 
from the eaves of the barns or from higher 
ground, as is the case on thousands of pretty 
good farms, it seems almost a wonder that there 
is any virtue left. The manure ought to be 
covered. Sheds are inconvenient and cost labor 
to move the manure into them, and they rapidly 
fill up, and the heaps are soon too bulky, too 
much in the way, and besides are exposed to 
the action of sun and wind, more or less. A 
well-arranged barn cellar obviates every difficul¬ 
ty. The manure is dropped from the stock floor 
directly into it; materials with which to mix it 
are easily added through 
trapdoors or shutes; the 
liquid manure is from the 
outset mingled with the com¬ 
post; the wftole is easily 
spread, worked over, and 
equalized; it is shielded from 
the influences of the weather;, 
its fermentation,which might 
be injurious, is easily con¬ 
trolled; and the system is 
applicable on every farm. 
Absorbents. — The recent 
promulgation of the fact that 
dried soil is one of the most 
efficient absorbents, deodo¬ 
rizers, and disinfectants, is 
not essentially new. John 
Smith, late of Holliston, 
Mass., a prosperous old farm¬ 
er, asserted twenty years 
ago, that he could keep his 
horse in first-rate condition 
through the year on hay and grain, and sell the 
manure made by simply mixing dry loam with 
the excrements, for enough to pay the whole 
cost of keeping. His plan was simply to gather 
a great quantity of loam in August or Sep¬ 
tember, when perfectly dry, so that it would not 
freeze in winter, and store it in a bin contiguous 
to the horse stall, and keep a large supply—say 
six inches or more deep—constantly under the 
horse,' removing all that was damp, morning and 
night, to the cellar below, and replacing it with 
dry. Besides the saving in manure, this plan 
is excellent, as it benefits the horses’ feet. 
Any common loam, even a sandy soil, makes 
an excellent material to mix with manure in a 
barn cellar, and either this, (raked over until 
dry, run through a coal screen, and exposed in 
a thin layer on a floor to the sun for an hour or 
two,) or fine dry peat or muck, ought to be con¬ 
veniently stored under cover in abundant quan¬ 
tity to last all winter, using from a peck to half 
a bushel to each animal each day on an average. 
One side of the cellar may be used to store it in, 
and there is no better month than August 
to get in a good supply to last all winter. 
Ventilation is most important in every good 
barn; and it is especially necessary when ani¬ 
mals stand over their own droppings. These, 
however, when properly mixed with a dry ma¬ 
terial, of which dry powdery peat, muek, or 
loam, constitutes a notable quantity, will emit 
no bad gases or odors. This fact does not in 
the least lessen the necessity for abundant 
provision for pure air for the stock. 
Decay of Timbers .—It is almost impossible to 
have cattle stand over a cellar, or on a floor of 
any kind, and not to have the timbers wet with 
the liquid manure. This tends to rot them; but 
so slowly does the decay progress, that we have 
heard persons soberly express the belief that the 
effect was rather preservative than otherwise. 
The amount of unavoidable wetting is very slight. 
