Jasper Republican, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 December 1875 — The Farmer’s Tool-House and Workshop. [ARTICLE]

The Farmer’s Tool-House and Workshop.

A farmer can never fully appreciate the usefulness of a good set of tools, and a workshop, in which he can on rainy days, or in the winter season, repair his farm implements in many cases, or make useful articles to be used on the farm, and become expert in the use of planes, saws, bits, drawing-knives, etc. On nine farms in ten in the United States, probably, all the edge tools to be found consist of an old saw, not filed within ten years; a rusty auger, with handle loose; one or two gim. lets, made half a century ago, and an ax, in pretty good order from sheer necessity, to be able to cut wood enough to keep from freezing in the winter season. Every good farmer should have a room in some outbuilding where a stove can be placedin the winter, in which he can do any little jobs that one may be able to do who is not a practical mechanic. After this workshop is provided he should purchase a fair assortment of good tools, as follows: Fine and coarse teeth saws, two or three augres of different sizes—bits of five or six sizes, with brace to be used in the place of gimlets, being much better; several planes, drawing-knife, files of different sizes, a vise, hatchet with a broad cut, nail hammers, large and small; a small sledge-hammer, weighing about two pounds, and other things that will occur to him when purchasing. A cooper’s shaving-horse is a very useful thing to have in such a workshop; also differentsized wrenches, with which any nut on the iron-work of farm implements may be removed.

Let any young farmer supply himself as above stated and in two or three years he will be surprised at his advance in the use of such tools and his ability to repair many things that are generally sent to the blacksmith or the wheelwright to mend. He should always provide in advance hard-wood timber, cut in the most convenient sizes for such uses as he may require it, so that if he wants to repair an implement he can instantly find just tiiq. piece of wood needed and seasoned. A man who accustoms himself to the use of good tools and brings up his beys to use them may frequently repair his farm buildings quite as well as a carpenter. Suppose that a roof is to be shingled—any man of tact who is accustomed to the use of a hammer and chalk-line can do it. So it is with clap-boarding—a little care in lapping and keeping the courses level, and any farmer can do it, or frame a small out-house, if he has suitable tools and has had some practice. Every farmer knows how very often something upon his premises becomes “out of order;” how frequently he has to go or send “ to the village,” from one to five or more miles distant, to have some little thing done that he could do in a few minutes if he were properly prepared for it. For instance, he commences haying; the weather is fine and he is anxious to cut all the grass he possibly can on that day. He works an hour or two, and a bolt in the machine becomes loose, a nut having come off, which is lost. He is not accustom ed to swear much, but on this occasion he uses pretty rough language, as the machine must be idle the rest of the day, in order to go to town and have a new nut made.

Now, suppose that this man had provided extra nuts and bolts for his mowingmaehine, as every«farmer ought to do—that is, those that are liable to break or get loose and be lost—in such cases his detention would have been but a few minutes. This provision of extra bolts and nuts,

extra plow-shares, hoe and hay-fork handles, etc., comes m as a consequence of forming the habit of keeping a good supply of workshop tools and looking ahead in regard to farm labors. Farmers can often on rainy days employ hired men in their workshops in helping repair some implement. It is very bad management or a farmer to have nothing for his farm hander to do in wet weather, and something should be prepared for them on such occasions. The good farmer will always look ahead, and have something that his help can do profitably when they cannot work out of doors. —N. Y. World.

Cathcftttxy caged in the dimly-lighted lower regions of the Central Park Museum are two young lion cubs. They are three weeks old, a pair, lion and lioness, fine, healthy little creatures, and in two weeks more will be old enough to be shown to the public. They are the progeny of the pair of beasts known as Lincoln and Jenny in the museum. But the mother being, from confinement or some other cause, unable to nurse them, they were at once given to a large terrier whose puppies were taken away and who plays the part of a foster-mother. She seems, indeed, as fond of the cubs as if they were her own offspring, and covers them with caresses, though they are already half as big as she is. It is a curtous fact that lions reared in captivity are not as gentle as those captured and tamed. The parents of these cubs, which were caught when wild and tamed, are very tractable, while some of the other lions, which were born and brought up here, arc sullen and ferocious.— New York Timet. —ln his speech at the Lotos Club in New York the other night, Lord Houghton said America was eminent for thebeauty of her women. At his time of life he was no fair witness on that subject, but he would offer the more valuable testimony of his son, a young man of some talent and perception, of seventeen years of age, who had gone home with this expression on his lips and this impression on'his heart. (Cheers.]