402 
[November, 
AMERICAN AGRA’ULTU RI ST. 
Fisk Ponds. —“S. E.,” Alexandervir ■ : hio. 
Trout will flourish in ponds supplied with spring „ater, 
and lime stone soil will not injure the water for their 
use. There are persons who make a business of selling 
fertilized eggs, and young fish, especially trout, which are 
most in demand. They would do well to advertise their 
stock. The eggs of trout are hatched during the winter, 
and the young fry are usually forwarded in the spring. 
They should be kept in a pond by themselves for at least 
a year, to prevent their destruction by other fish. Persons 
who make a business of raising trout for the market 
usually allow no other fish in the ponds, and turn In trout 
of the same age, so that they may not devour one c flier. 
This is the better course, for they are as easily ' sed as 
other fish, and always bear a much higher price. , -llow 
perch, black bass, and pickerel, are all good fish f ponds, 
and live together in the most amiable way, preyi alike 
upon their own, and their neighbors’young. T. Norris 
has just published a work on American Fish Culture, 
which contains the latest information upon the subject. 
For sale by Orange Judd & Co. Price $1.75. 
Esig'Iisk Sparrows, — “ H. G.,” Provi¬ 
dence, R. I. “Are the English sparrows a good invest¬ 
ment for cities?” Judging from their history in New 
York they are. They are wonderfully prolific, and clear 
out most of the smaller kinds of insects. Four pairs of 
these birds came to Union Square in the spring of 1866 
and built their nests. The measuring worms soon dis¬ 
appeared from the trees, so that it was a pleasure to walk 
under them. In one season they had become a flock of 
70, and they are now said to number over GOO, besides the 
multitudes that have gone to the country. They are found 
now 40 miles from the city. They will eat the farmer's 
grain, but do they not earn it in the multitude of insects 
they destroy? A city whose parks are infested with 
worms cannot do a better thing than to introduce these 
birds. If provided with houses, and fed and watered, they 
will abide through the winter, and make the streets 
cheerful with their incessant twitter and chatter. 
Breacky €®ws.— 11 F. C.,” Hampton, N. 
J. “ I have two cows that I find it difficult to confine in 
any pasture. Pokes and other contrivances do not pre¬ 
vent them from throwing down fences and leading the 
whole herd into mischief. Is there any remedy?” If they 
are good milkers it will pay to soil them or to tether 
them; if they are not, probably the best remedy is the 
beef barrel. We have never known this to fail in the 
most obstinate cases. 
Fattteaiiiig' Cattle In Winter.—“ L. 
D. H.,” Sutton, Mass. “Will it pay to stall feed cattle 
for market at the present prices of grain ?” We think not 
in the Eastern States. Most of the beef that supplies 
our markets is made from grass in regions remote from 
market. Your grain will pay better fed to other animals, 
or sold, if you wilt buy manure with the money. 
Garget and Bloody Milk.— The use 
of Tincture of Arnica in cases of garget, caked bag, and 
bloody milk, has repeatedly been stated in the Agricul¬ 
turist. These ailments aro very prevalent, especially at 
calving time, and many an excellent cow dies of milk 
fever, or loses one quarter of her bag for lack of timely 
attention and a little of this drug. It is in accordance 
with our principles to give “line upon line,” and so we 
publish a note received from J. E. Morrill, of Hampshire 
Co., Mass., who thus writes: “I keep a drug store in this 
town. A gentlemen who has purchased a great deal of 
Tincture of Arnica of me said a day or two since, “ Do 
you know that Tincture of Arnica is the best thing in the 
world for garget in cows ? I keep twenty-two, and by 
giving them a teaspoonful of the Tincture in bran, three 
times a day, and bathing the bag thoroughly with it as 
often, they are always cured in a very short time.” 
Treatment of* Calves.—“ A. N. R.,” 
Gaines, N. Y. “ What is the best winter treatment for 
calves, to make good milkers?” A plenty of good feed 
and shelter. The practice of keeping them at the stack 
yard on the poorest fare to toughen them is unprofitable. 
Put them up early, feed and water regularly, and if the 
hay be of poor qnality, supply the deficiency by corn 
meal, oil cake, or roots. They should be kept constantly 
growing, to bring out all their good qualities. The extra 
care will be certain to show itself in the pail in due time. 
Sending' Poultry to Market.—Im¬ 
mense quantities of poultry are sent to market this month 
and ignorance of the proper way to do it, and sometimes 
a desire to overreach, causes many serious losses. First , 
let the birds fast 12 hours. Foolish people often let them 
eat their fill of corn just before killing them, with the 
idea that they will weigh more. A fasted bird will keep 
a week fresh and "'urn if well ■handled, while one that 
has been fed within a-te-v hours will be sure to spoil, or be¬ 
come more or less tainted. One tainted bird in a case will 
cut the price on the whole down several cents per pound. 
So will one that is scrawny and looks blue and skinny, 
and as if it had been sick. Second , kill without dislocat¬ 
ing the neck or making a hole in the skin. The oper¬ 
ation is simple. When the fowls are caught, with a lad 
to hold, tie the legs of tay them down. When 
ready, hang them by 1 '-It" " 'few at a time, on long 
pins or nails; then with iharp knife passed into the 
throat, cut once or twice ar.r^ss, letting the knife bear on 
each side against the ba„k bone. This will sever the 
great veins of the neck 1 th'e bird will bleed without 
wetting its feathers at Third. Pick without scald¬ 
ing, and while the fowls a ? warm. Take great care 
not to tear or to bruise the Cash in spots bv too hard 
fingering to get all the pin feathers out. These maybe 
removed with a pair of pincers, if great pains is taken. 
Draw out the tail and wing fea'Vrs first and those of the 
back last. Fourth. Hang all in a cool, airy place over 
night, and pack in clean, strong cases of a size easily 
handled by one man, putting r50 to 200 pounds in one 
case. Take the cords from tlx legs and lay the birds in 
uniform rows, heads towards the sides of the box and 
breasts up. A very little clean wheat straw may separate 
the layers, but it is best to use nothing. Fill the boxes 
so full that it will require a little pressure to force the 
covers down. Address to a trusty agent or commission 
dealer. It would pay any one who markets much poultry 
to have a modest stencil plate made to mark his boxes, 
and to read thus: “ Poultry from A. B., well fattened , 
fasted 12 hours , and not scalded." 
Cooking- Pumpkins for 4 attle.— 
“ L. K. T.,” Ashfield, Mass. The utility of tl is practice 
depends somewhat upofi the feed used in Cdt p.ection with 
them. Fed raw they are a valu:' ’e addition to grass or 
hay, and greatly increase the flow of milk. If the cows 
were confined to the stable and there were conveniences 
for steaming we should prefer to steam the pumpkins with 
the cut feed and meal. Steaming dry food, as hay and 
the grains, pays much better than steaming vegetables. 
Infringing Patents. — “L. H.” A man has 
no right to make a patented article upon his own premises, 
for his own use. The patentee gets his right from the 
government, to prevent this very thing. When his patent 
expires the public will have the full benefit of his in¬ 
vention. This probably is the best course for the public, 
as well as the patentee ; for useful inventions are much 
more generally advertised and introduced through the 
enterprise of the discoverers, stimulated by the hope of 
gain, than they could be by any other method. The ex¬ 
clusive right enables them to command capital, which 
would otherwise be withheld. 
StSoodcd Stock Among Small 
Farmers. —“How can they be introduced where no 
one has capital enough to purchase suitable breeding 
animals?”—“A. K.,” Peru, Mass. The thing can be ac¬ 
complished by a joint stock company or a neighborhood 
effort without the formality of any organization. A half 
dozen farmers owning altogether fifty cows might unite 
in purchasing an Ayrshire or Jersey bull, and thus secure 
nearly all the benefits of individual ownership. If a good 
bull were thus secured in a neighborhood, and the supe¬ 
riority of his stock once established, cows of the same 
breed would soon be introduced, and the dairy stock be 
greatly improved. Fine stock, purely bred, of horses, 
cattle, sheep, and pigs, is now so greatly multiplied that 
it is within reach of every district, if farmers will unite 
to secure it. 
Rotary Spader. — “ J. K.,” Wyoming, 
Kansas, inquires for Comstock’s Rotary Spader. We be¬ 
lieve no satisfactory spader for horse or steam power has 
yet been brought before the public. Or if this be so the 
inventors have a very poor faculty of making the public 
see it. Something of the kind is very much needed, but 
for the present we shall have to put. up with the Michigan 
plow, as the best implement to make a good seed bed. 
Fail Plowing.— There are several advan¬ 
tages in plowing at this season. The soil, if left in a 
rough, loose state, is thoroughly exposed to the weather 
for several months. In the repeated freezing and thaw¬ 
ing, it undergoes chemical changes, and a larger supply 
of food is made available for the crops. Then if manure 
is spread broadcast and plowed under it is more evenly 
distributed, and incorporated with the soil, and the next 
crop receives more benefit from it. If plowii be deep, a 
multitude of grubs are brought to the surface i id destroy¬ 
ed. The seeds of weeds also germinate when the plow¬ 
ing is early enough, and thus another enemy of the crops 
is damaged by the frost. The teams are now usually ip, 
the best condition. They have had full feed in the sum¬ 
mer pastures, and arc strong for labor. In the cold, wet 
springs to which we are liable, it is of great advantage 
to have as much of the plowing done in the fall as pos¬ 
sible. Then no time is lost in waiting for the weather, 
and the seed can be put in, in due season. Care must be 
taken not to expose land liable to wash to currents of 
water, as serious damage is often done to stubble land in 
this way. Clay soils are most benefited by fall plowing. 
Stubble land, to be as much exposed as possible to the 
changes of heat and cold, is often thrown up in ridges of 
two furrows turned together. These are split in the 
spring and harrowed, to prepare for grain or potatoes., 
Small vs. Large Potatoes for Seed.. 
“ I. G.,” Thomaston, Me. “ Has it been decided which is. 
the better practice f” Perhaps not fully, but many good 
cultivators have decided and practice accordingly, some 
with large potatoes, and some with small. We have tried 
both, and think the result depends much more upon the 
quality of the soil and the cultivation than upon the size 
of the seed. We generally plant potatoes about one inch 
in diameter, on good soil, and give thorough cultivation. 
The yield is satisfactory. Dr. Hexamer’s experiments 
show an excess of large potatoes from large seed. See 
volume 25, (March, 1866,) page 98. 
Bill-dock Patckes.—“ N. T.,” Riverhead, 
L. I. “I have several plots of burdocks that grow with 
more uniformity than any garden crop. I have fought 
them for ten years and “they still live.” Is there any 
remedy ?”—Your patches are probably •well stocked with 
seeds, and it will take several years to eradicate them. 
Cut off the plants just below the surface of the ground 
with a sharp hoe in the fall, and burn the tops, and you 
will destroy the present season’s growth of burrs. Fol¬ 
low "his a few years and you will conquer. If the 
patches are enclosed, and can be cultivated, they can be 
destroyed much sooner. 
Value of Immigration. —We have an 
average of over 200,000 people coming to us from Europe 
every year. The statistics show that they bring with 
them an average of $70 per head, and they are estimated 
to add $1000 each to the producing power of the country. 
This is an addition of over 200 millions of dollars to our 
capital. Most of them are in the prime of life, and they 
proceed at once to the cheap lands of the West, where 
they carve out homes in the forest and upon the prairie. 
TUe Canada. Fair and tke Fair 
of the N. Y. State Ag’l Society. —A visit to the 
Provincial Fair at Hamilton, and, the week after, to the 
N. Y. State Fair at Rochester, suggests comparison. The 
first thing that strikes a visitor from the States is a cer¬ 
tain English cast in the implements. The plows are fre¬ 
quently made of iron, have almost invariably long han¬ 
dles, the point long with a narrow wing, a very convex 
moldboard set so narrow that while it is about twice as 
long as many American plows, it does not turn nearly ns 
wide a furrow. Next we notice a dozen or so different 
patterns of double moldboard plows for making ridges 
for turnips, all modeled after those used in England. 
The harrows are frequently made of iron, and sets of four 
harrows that would take a wide sweep are not uncom¬ 
mon. The cultivators have narrower and longer teeth, 
and strike the ground less abruptly than those in the 
States. Sometimes, too, they have two.sets of teeth, that 
can be changed, one flat and wide for cutting up weeds, 
and the other narrow for merely stirring the ground to a 
considerable depth. Turnip drills with rollers for sow¬ 
ing the seed on ridges are another feature. 
At Hamilton, as at Rochester, the horses were boxed 
up in a way admirably adapted to keep visitors from see¬ 
ing them. We should judge, however, that the tendency 
in Canada is for powerful, active horses, adapted for the 
heaviest kind of farm work, while ours run more to 
style and speed. In cattle the show in Canada was, on 
the whole, far superior, both in number and quality. For 
the Prince of Wales Prize, for the best herd of five cows 
and one bull of any breed, there were six entries—three 
Short-horns, two Herefords, and one Galloway. They 
were shown in a large ring where they could be seen to 
good advantage by thousands of interested farmers. We 
have rarely, if ever, seen as fine a lot of cattle together 
in one ring. At Rochester, leaving out the herds brought 
from Canada, we had a very slim show. The Short-horn 
Vanderbilt, of Geneva, James O. Sheldon, did not ex¬ 
hibit, as he has already taken all the honors. Hon. A. 
B. Conger and Hon. Ezra Cornell showed excellent 
Short-horns, and the Hon. Mr. Campbell, of New York 
Mills, as fine a herd of Ayrsliires as can be desired. W. 
B. Dinsmorc, and others, made a good show of Alder- 
neys, and there were some good lots of Devons. But on 
the whole the display would not compare with that at 
