American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1880-02-21

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your advantage. The kind breath of
the owner is Il balmy breeze to all do
mestic animals-fowa State Register.
MECHANICAL SKILL AND FARMING.
Comparatively few farmers have
either mechanical knowledge or skill.
They can not make the simplest imple-
ments they are required to use. They
can lloi r+, III any of the machines tnrSoy
operate in their fields. Their houses
and outbuildings are often in very bad
condition because they afe unable to
use the tools used by carpenter, and
the employment of skilled mechanic
is attended with too much trouble and
expense. Their wagons and carriages
are rarely in thorough state of repair.
Something is ordinarily the matter with
their harnesses. Their srindstone does
not ruin true. Their pumps leak. The
handles of their axes, spades, shovels
and hoes are all in bad condition.
A large proportion OF the expense of
running farm Is caused by the erection
mechanical skill can not make a new
fence or properly repair an old one.
He will ruin the boards he attempts to
cut and break the nails he undertakes to
drive. He can not make gate. He
can not even hang one SO that it will
swing properly after it is made. AS
consequence, there are barns instead of
gates on his farm AS a further cohse-
quence, the fences afford poor protec-
lection to crops, while they disfgure the
premises they ought, by right, to orna-
ment. A farmer possessed of mechani-
| cal skill ordinarily has fences that are
ornate in appearance as well as those
that turn stock of all kinds. They are
also furnished with gates that do not
sag.
A farmer without mechanical skill can
| neither graft trees nor prune them.
| The trees in his orchard, the shrubbery
in his lawns and the vines in his vine-
yard always present an unseemly ap-
pearance He has no walks about his
ground, because he does not know how
to construct them. There is no scraper
on his doorstep. His hay-rack is al
ways out of order, and the like is true
of his field-roller, commander and cul-
tivator He can use few of his ma
chimes to the best advantage, while all
of them soon wear out under his man
agement. The use of machines and all
kinds of improved farm implements
calls for mechanical skill. Without it
their full value is never realized, while
their speedy destruction is insured.
Farm machinery is expensive, and every
effort should be made to make it last as
long as possible.
A very large proportion of farming
operations are purely mechanical. Me-
chanical skill is necessary to construct
good stack of hay or grain, or to prop
erly build load of hay. A lack of me-
chanical skin causes shocks of corn to
blow over Mechanical skill is neces-
sary to lay out land in blowing, and to
so gauge the burrows that the land will
come out even. The appearance of
many cultivated fields show an absence
of mechanical skill on the part of the
persons who manage them. The sides
are not even; at the end where the beam
turns in blowing there is often varia-
ton of rod or more from a true line;
the burrows are crooked in all parts of
the field; the rows of corn or potatoes
are not straight, and as consequence
many of the hills are injured by being
worked with cultivator.
A workshop is most valuable aux
iliary to the farm and garden. Its tell
dency is to make one careful and pre-
else in the use of tools of every descrip-
ton. 1t is good school-room for boys.
1t helps develop mechanical ingenuity,
which is as valuable to a farmer as to a
machinist. The more boys handle shop
tools the more dexterous they will be
with farming tools. With a good work
shop profitable employment may be
found during a large proportion of win
ter, and during rainy days at other sea-
sons of the year. To keep farm with
its numerous buildings, fences and tools
in repair requires mechanical skill,
which farmers may acquire if they will
set themselves and their sons about it
Chicago Times.