rye, or buckwheat bran, or ground corn, or oat meal, and sprinkled with a little .salt. Some, however, are still of the old opinion that corn fodder is inferior to timothy or clover hay as a cow and cattle food, and it certainly is so when badly harvested and cured, as is often the case. The value of corn fodder is, in fact, greatly underestimated, but that value, it should be borne in mind, depends very much upon cutting it at the right time, and curing and housing it well before its strength or saccharine juices are washed away by our heavy autumnal rains. It should also be borne in mind that if cornstalks are cut too early, or while yet green, the saccharine matter or juices contained in them will turn sour, and become vinegar instead of sugar, and so lose their nutritive powers, hence they should never be cut until nearly or fully ripe.

Many careful experiments and comparisons have also proved most satisfactorily that corn itself fed to horses, mules, sheep, milch cows, and other cattle, and logs, in a raw, whole, or unground state, is from one-third to one-half less fattening than the same amount of corn ground into meal and well cooked or boiled; that corn boiled whole or soaked only in water until it is soft, is also more fattening than raw-fed corn, but less fattening than boiled or well-cooked corn meal. A considerable portion of the corn fed to cattle and hogs in a raw or unground state is always swallowed without being masticated, and passes through the animal whole, as we see from its excrements, and of course, being entirely undigested, has done no good whatever. Ground corn, on the other hand, particularly if cooked or boiled, not only nourishes but also relieves the animals from a large portion of that labor or action of the stomach requisite to the digestion of whole corn before contributing to the animal's blood or vital power. And when corn is mixed and chopped or ground up with oats or rye, it is still more valuable, because less heating to the animal, and also less productive of costiveness and colic than when fed raw or alone. Cows will also give more milk and hogs fatten sooner on scalded or boiled corn meal mixed with apples, pumpkins, potatoes, carrots, turnips, or other roots, or bran, or the common slop of our kitchens, slightly salted, than they will or can on corn meal alone. Even the cob of our Indian corn contains somo nourishment, a good deal more than most people are aware of; hence it may, and in times of high prices for corn ought to be, ground up with the grain to fatten hogs and beef cattle. This is not its only recommendation, for it also increases the bulk of the food, and thereby renders it more digestible and wholesome than the pure corn meal alone.

Indian corn has become so important and valuable a food in our country, both for man and beast, that it is fully equal and in some respects superior to wheat, as it grows well in all the States, and is a surer and more abundant crop; hence, more reliable as a source of revenue than any other of our cereal grains. It produces more bread, meat, milk, and butter than any other crop of grain. In our southern States it forms the constant and principal food for man and beast, and poultry of all kinds. It makes fat steers, fat bullocks, fat cows, fat hogs, and fat poultry, and these in their turn enrich the tables for the use of man; hence our people have great reason for regarding Indian corn as the "king of grains," "the staff of life," "the great stand-by of farmers," &c. And he who considers its excellence and cheapness as an article of food, and the many useful purposes to which its stalks and leaves can be applied, will certainly not deem this praise extravagant.

Southern people prefer the white corn for breadstuff, as it makes a sweet, white, and beautiful meal for bread, corn cake, and hominy, and their cooks have acquired great celebrity in making those articles; but northern people generally prefer the yellow corn for all these purposes, as it makes a richer colored and more nutritious food. The white corn of the south contains the most albumen and starch, while the yellow corn of the north contains the most oil and gluten; and the yellow is, on this account, deemed the best corn for shipping, as it is less likely to sour. But thoroughly kiln-dried white corn will also answer for shipping. The yellow corn makes a dry and hard bread, as its flour is oily

and not adhesive enough in its particles to rise and make soft bread. But if its flour is mixed with a sufficiency of wheat or rye flour to make the mixture adhe-. sive, it will make a light, soft, rich, and very superior bread and cake. It is usually mixed at the rate of about one-third wheat or rye flour to two-thirds of Indian corn mea! ·

VARIETIES OF CORN.

There are many different varieties of corn, which I have no time to describe, but that which, upon the whole, will be the best for the planter, depends entirely upon the nature of his soil and climate, as the kinds that do very well in some regions often fail in others. When you have obtained the variety that succeeds best upon your soil, you should be very careful to keep its seeds pure and unmixed with other varieties, or it will soon lose its distinctive character. In order to preserve this purity the better two or more varieties should never be planted together, or near each other, because experience has shown that they will intermingle and gradually assume a general conformity in appearance, habits, and quality, with the common standard sort of the neighborhood. The oil con

tained in our yellow corn is a most valuable part of its composition, as it renders the grain harder and less liable to mould or spoil in very wet weather, or when stored in a corn-crib. The meal or flour made from yellow corn is also less liable to ferment and turn sour, and is more nutritious for fattening cattle, hogs, and poultry, than the white and nearly oilless varieties of Indian corn, though it is not so easily digestible by man.

CALIFORNIA PRODUCTS.

It is but a brief period since California was regarded as a land of mining and uneasy adventurers, for whose subsistence during their migrations or temporary sojourn supplies would be required from other portions of the coast or from the States; yet in eighteen years from the date of settlement by its present population millions of bushels of wheat and millions of pounds of wool are annually sent to the States or to Europe; all kinds of farm products abound at reasonable prices, and the people are compelled to turn their attention to the manufacture of these surplus products of agricultural industry.

The average yield of wheat is estimated in California at 24 to 26 bushels per acre. If the estimate is not too high it is twice the average product of the Atlantic States. Excessive results are also reported in the culture of other cereals.

While thus surpassing the productive capacity of the older States in the substantials of agricultural production, the cultivation of semi-tropical products is not only assured, but is already affording freights to shipping and contributions to commerce. The grape crop, yielding wine and raisins, is attaining commercial prominence; oranges of fine quality are produced, (one tree, bearing 464 oranges on the first of January, 1867, 12 years from the seed, had withstood the winter's cold down to 210;) olives are grown and olive oil of excellent quality; and almonds, English walnuts, and other fruits are cultivated with success. As a fruit region, California evidently has in prospect a future of abundance and wealth.

IMPROVED FARM IMPLEMENTS.

BY S. EDWARDS TODD, NEW YORK CITY.

THE object of this essay is to advise the farmers of our country of improvements in some of the implements of husbandry, to facilitate the labors of the farm and garden. The developments in improved farm implements during the last ten years have been really wonderful, and the man who has not kept himself posted in regard to the new inventions of hand tools and horse implements is filled with astonishment when advised what ingenious inventors and skilful mechanics have accomplished, and what they are now doing to relieve farmers of the heavy and irksome drudgery of the farm. Indeed, the improvements in agricultural implements have been characterized by such eminent ability, that at the last international exhibition it was repeatedly observed that the Americans, by their superior ingenuity, had beaten the English on their own ground, in the exhibition of superior implements of husbandry.

My aim is to give illustrations and descriptions of the best hand tools and horse implements that are now manufactured throughout the United States. Of course there are many really meritorious horse implements that I cannot notice; and before publication there may be others brought out that will far excel anything illustrated and described in these pages. Skilful and experienced mechanics are not only surprised to see such a commendable spirit of invention among their fraternity, but they are astonished at the inventive ingenuity and skill of intelligent farmers, who aim to economize labor and appropriate the forces of the farm to the best possible advantage.

The exceedingly high wages required for manual labor in this country has prompted our farmers to bring out machinery with which they can perform the heavy labor with teams, which are far more capable of exercising muscular force than human beings. Only a few years ago a farmer was required to employ, feed, and pay a large gang of strong men to do a little work which could all have been performed in a shorter period of time by means of his idle, fat horses, if the necessary machinery had only been provided. But now we see one man and a boy, with a single team, accomplishing tasks which formerly required a score of faithful and strong laborers to perform; and by means of a team and/ improved machinery a given piece of work is accomplished sooner and in better order than when men performed the labor and fat horses stood idle in the cooling shade. Many of our implements, it is true, have not been brought to that degree of perfection which is desirable, yet they may be classed among our most efficient machines ever invented.

LABOR-SAVING IMPLEMENTS.

In agricultural dynamics, the effective force of a horse is computed to be equal to the power of five strong, active laborers. This fact furnishes a starting point with which to compare the efficiency of any farm implement. If a span of horses and one man can perform as much labor with a certain implement as could be done in the same period of time by the united force of eleven laborers, we feel warranted in pronouncing that implement or machine a triumphant success. the contrary, if a man and a team of two horses or two oxen are not able to accomplish as much labor as could be done by eleven active men, the machine needs further improvement.

On

Most of the improved farm implements that have come into general use are capable of performing all that is required of them. Indeed, many of them possess such wonderful efficiency that a single horse or mule and an active boy can perform more labor, and do it better, than twenty men would be able to do with hand tools.

Alden's horse-hoe, noticed in another part of this chapter, affords an illustrious example of a farm implement, the efficiency of which rises far above the common standard of merit. Our best mowers and reapers, horse-rakes, hay tedders, horse-forks, and threshing machines, possess wonderful efficiency, and in some instances so far exceed the standard of merit that comparison makes the standard appear insignificant.

Although there is a growing and almost imperative demand for improved farm implements, there is still a great lack of efficient labor-saving machines for performing many of the manual operations of the farm, now accomplished by tedious and expensive manipulation.

Our late civil war stimulated inventors to bring out improved implements to enable farmers to do almost everything in the field and in the barn with horses, oxen, or mules. Had it not been for efficient farm implements during that long and bloody war, our farmers could not have mowed their grass, gathered their hay, or harvested and threshed their extensive fields of grain. As thousands upon thousands of our young men were called to the field of mortal combat, it seemed almost like an interposition of Divine Providence that inventors were endowed with sufficient mechanical skill to construct implements with which horses could perform the labor of the absent son or father, who had gone to defend his country and to fight for his wife and children. Now, the infirm and the invalid, the lame and the lazy, who could never plough the fields, harvest the grain, or make the hay of a small farm, can ride to plough the land; ride when putting in the seed; ride when scattering their fertilizers; ride when cultivating the growing crops; ride when mowing or harvesting; ride when raking, and ride in an easy seat and accomplish more hard work in one hour than could be done in ten hours a few years ago, even by laboring with all the might of a strong

man.

When I revert to the days of my boyhood, when laborious manual drudgery seemed to be the destiny of the toil-worn farmer, and witness what has been wrought out in the line of improved farm implements to relieve the heavy labors of the tillers of the soil, I am cheered by the encouraging prospects which are looming up in the hopeful future, when mind, science, intelligence, and laborsaving machinery must emancipate the bondman of the farm, and lift him up to the true dignity of manhood. Mind must eventually triumph gloriously over matter; and it is incumbent on every farmer to tear away from these old practices of our fathers, in which our bodies were employed as mere machines for performing what the horse or a steam-engine should do.

AGRICULTURAL DYNAMICS.

It is of eminent importance that farmers should have a more perfect understanding of the strength of the materials of which their implements are made, and the most economical and effective velocity for the moving of different parts of complicated machinery. Manufacturers of all kinds of farm implements should understand well the laws of force and motion; and whether a given operation is performed, for the most part, by muscular force, or by the momentum of a machine, as the great efficiency of the working parts of a machine depends almost entirely on the proper weight, or the most economical velocity, of those parts that perform the operation required. I will illustrate my meaning: When a given operation is to be performed by machinery, if the work be light, it becomes necessary to increase the velocity in order to economize time, and to make a judi

cious appropriation of the force employed. When the work is heavy and the effective force limited, the velocity must be diminished. Were a person, when turning a fanning mill, to attach a crank to the journal that holds the wings or fans, and give the various parts of the mill the necessary velocity, the fatigue would be so great in a few minutes as to cause complete exhaustion. But by employing a system of wheels, so that the action of the muscles may be much slower, the labor may be continued for several successive hours with but little fatigue. This principle holds good in constructing almost all kinds of hand and horse implements. There is a certain movement, or velocity, of the various parts of almost every implement or machine which will render the working parts more effective than they would be with a slower or quicker motion, or with a higher or lower velocity.

THE NATURAL GAIT OF ANIMALS.

As we increase the velocity or speed of a team beyond a certain pace, we diminish their available force in moving a load. On the contrary, we may not be able to avail ourselves of one-half of their force, because they are not allowed to move at their natural gait.

Good teamsters, if they are as ignorant of science as the beasts they drive, understand that it is far better for their teams to take a load only as heavy as they are able to draw and move with their natural gait than to go twice with half a load, making two journeys in the same period of time. This principle is too frequently lost sight of in performing many of the manipulations of the farm and workshop where the force of man and animals is exerted.

There is a degree of rapidity in the action of the muscles of man, beasts, and birds, common to each, beyond which, if the action of the muscles be pressed, the fatigue will soon produce complete exhaustion. If a man were to attempt to move his extended arms with the rapidity of the wings of a dove, he would be very soon exliausted. If a man were to move his legs in walking or running with the rapidity of a very little lad, the fatigue would be so great on the muscles as to soon produce exhaustion. The idea to be kept in mind in adjusting the velocity of a team drawing an implement from place to place, or in propelling machinery, so as to give the correct velocity to the various parts of machinery, is to have every part move forward or revolve with a velocity which will produce the least fatigue on the muscles, and at the same time perform the operation desired with the greatest efficiency.

VARIABLE VELOCITY.

The proportion between the velocity of a body and its weight is a subject of vast importance to the tyro, particularly in practical agriculture and the affairs connected with it. In order to make the most economical disposition and appropriation of the force of his laborers and of his team, and to save the greatest amount of time, it is very important to know with what velocity both they and the machinery employed should move. There is a certain velocity necessary in almost every operation of the affairs of the farm and work-shop, from which if we increase or diminish, we do it at the expense of time, or labor, or of both. He who exercises the greatest economy in saving time, and makes the most judicious appropriation of his force in performing a given operation, will, unquestionably, succeed best in whatever he undertakes. When the force of either men or animals is employed to perform a certain operation the muscles are fatigued. The fatigue thus produced does not depend entirely on the actual force employed, but in part upon the frequency with which that force is exerted. In accomplishing every piece of work by muscular force, the exertion consists of two parts. One of these parts is the expenditure of the force required to drive the instrument of tool; and the other is the effort required in giving motion to the limbs of the mau