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time in which to rest and recruit his faculties,
and where before anything it is necessary that he
should be furnished with the least cumbersome
and the most easily digested food which is at
tainable.
It is a well-known fact that hay cut too short
in the chaff-cutter gives horses indigestion, and
therefore nowadays inch and half-inch
preferred; but as the chaff-cutter, though cutting
the substances, docs not abrade and tear them, it
cannot act in the setting free of the hidden nour
ishment which the hay and straw contain.—Gar
dener's Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette .
SOt'THERX CIXTIYATGR—COKX PLASTER, kc.
Editors Southern Cultivator As one of
your subscribers, please let me thank you for
omitting in the last No. of the Cultivator, your
little tales. However short and beautiful, it
seems to me they are out of place. The planter
seeks an agricultural work—to know how to im
prove his farm and make money. Your barrel
roller and bull sweep have been of more impor
tance to me, than the lives of merchants, engi
neers, poets, and commissioners of agriculture,
I’ve read elsewhere.
Without the first, I could not have successfully
used the cotton planter, and without the sweep,
in all probability I should this day have owned
but one or, instead of 10 head 1 last spring
broke, with great case, some of them 5 and 0
year old bulls, and which have done most of my
heavy hauling since- March, without eating .any
grain. The account of the sweep was badly
given. lat first put the bows on top, instead of
under the sweep. They were too low—pine sap
lings broken. I felled oaks and put green black
gum sweeps on the tenon of the green oak
stump. Posts 5 feet in the ground even, did not
answer for some of the bulls and steers. If you
wish it, as soon as I have leisure, I will -write an
account of howl managed, for the Cultivator —
catching, handling, breaking, Ac., Ac.
We need corn planters about here veiy much.
Can you recommend any particular machine?—
If I can’t do better, I shall nail strips of leather
underneath and across the slits or opening in
Dow Law, and drop 1 and 2 grains, every 3 or
4 inches, and cross and cut out with Thill plows
at Ist working. R.
Graliamville, S. C., Oct. 1870.
We cannot agree entirely with our cor
respondent as to the propriety of omitting the
“ fire side department” of the Cultivator. Whilst
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR.
our leading object is to assist the farmer in the
practical opciations of the farm, we cannot ig
nore the wife or daughter and must contribute a
little at least to their entertainment —for at last
the farmer himself is working for this object.—
lie strives to make money that he may beautify
the home of his wife or adorn her person with
beautiful fabrics, or place within her reach the
treasures of art and literature. Disguise it as we
may, the fields and the workshops of the world
are all tributary to the comfort and pleasure of
woman.
We should be very glad to have your experi
ence with the sweep for breaking oxen ; it may
save others the trouble you had. The Whitners
Planter is said to drop corn well, we cannot
speak from experience however.— Eds. So. Cult.
SAVING SWEET POTATOES.
Editors Southern Cultivator.— lt is rath
er late in the season, but I will give you what I
consider the best method of saving sweet pota
toes. As soon as the leaves are a little bit with
frost they should be dug. The first thing we do
is to cut and pull up a good supply of corn stalks,
and prepare the beds for receiving the potatoes
as they are taken out of the ground. Raise the
ground a little for each bed and cover with
stalks. In ploughing out the potatoes and load
ing them in a wagon, take care to bruise or skin
them us little as possible. Put say from fifteen
to twenty-five bushels in a hill, build them up in
as sharp a conical pile as possible. Set corn
stalks around sufficient to keep the dirt from
them, and cover the hill with dirt tramping it
around tight a foot and a half deep on the sides,
two feet on the top. The grand object being to
make the hill air tight. Then no matter what
the weather is, don’t open them in less than three
weeks—then open if needed for use, but be care
ful to keep them well closed. The best plan is
take out enough to last a family two weeks at a
time. The plan of taking out every day as you
use them will not do, it gives them too much
air. If the hills are covered sufficiently deep and
smoothed off with the spade, they will not need
a shelter. By letting them remain in the hacks
until the fifteenth of April, and then taking them
out and putting in boxes and covering with dry
sand, they may be saved until the following
September, as sound as when dug. YORK.
October 18 th, 1870.
An agreeable person is one who agrees
with you.
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