\ 



THK FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



coulter, and the double-action lever enables the 

 manure to be deposited to any depth, and covered 

 up previous to the seed being deposited.' The 

 visitor, in promenading through this great manu- 

 factory, will do well to notice the moveable steam 

 engines, for which Messrs. Hornsby and Son re- 

 ceived the preference at the Great Exhibition over 

 all their competitors ; and have taken the first prizes 

 in twenty-one out of twenty- three public competi- 

 tions. The services rendered to agriculture by 

 this little machine are invaluable. The necessity of 

 threshing corn under cover in barns is obviated by 

 this steam engine, the rick now being threshed in 

 the open air at once as it stands. ' Instead of three 

 or more barns clustering round the homestead, a 

 single building will now suffice for dressing corn 

 and chafF-cutting.' Besides these, there are many 

 uses to which the moveable steam engine may be 

 applied. The winnowing machines of the same 

 manufacturers elicited the following verdict of the 

 Judges at the York Agricultural Meeting: — 

 ' Several machines,' they say, * were tried, but could 

 not get through the grain, shorts, straw, and chaff, 

 as it came from the threshing machines, without 

 being choked, or requiring much more time than 

 Hornsby's, ivJdch did its work well, parting the 

 whole into best corn, good tail, tail, whites, screen- 

 ings, and chafi', at the rate of about fifteen quarters 

 an hour, and dressing over the second time at the 

 rate of about twenty quarters per hour, parting the 

 whole into six parts, as before, in a workmanlike 

 manner.' ' Such masterly mastication and diges- 

 tion, making the contents of our supposed wheat 



rick, forty quarters, in five hours ready for market, 

 must be appreciated by farmers.' 



" The whole of the operations in this establish- 

 ment are on a great scale, and will astonish the 

 uninitiated visitor. The plant is estimated at 

 £100,000. The number of hands employed is 500. 

 There are rooms and yards for every department of 

 implement manufacturing : — for carpenters' work ; 

 for testing engines ; a smithy, with thirty forges ; 

 a lathe-room ; draftsman's-room ; four joiners' 

 shops ; sawing-room, with six saws at work : im- 

 mense quantities of wood (oak) and iron lie about. 

 The timber-yard contains a stock of an average 

 worth of £6,000. Machines are here in readiness 

 to be sent to all parts of the world, especially to 

 New Zealand and Australia, Sweden, Austria, 

 France, and South America." 



It was only this last week that we ourselves had 

 the pleasure of inspecting the works ; but Christ- 

 mas is a busy time in the Strand ; and we can only 

 ofter our thanks to Mr. Measom and his Guide, 

 for a description that has served us so well. 



For the last few years declining health has pre- 

 vented Mr. Hornsby taking any very active share 

 in the business. He has, however, a worthy suc- 

 cessor in his eldest son, who, with two younger 

 brothers, now represent the firm. Under their 

 good stewardship the trade has been still increasing, 

 while the name, even in this age of competition, 

 more than sustains its pristine repute. " A good 

 name," says an old proverb, " is a precious oint- 

 ment ;" and that of Hornsby promises long to illus- 

 trate the adage. 



THE FOOD OF DAIRY COWS 



BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.U.S. 



The treatment of the cow in the early days of 

 EngUsh husbandry was evidently of a very rough 

 description. In times when the advantages derived 

 from feeding her well at all seasons was utterly 

 disregarded — when warmth and cleanliness were 

 deemed to be, for her, useless luxuries — when she 

 was only kept in good condition with the duration 

 of the grass of her pastures — when hay and straw 

 was her only winter sustenance — need we wonder, 

 in such days, that her breeding was equally neg- 

 lected, and her diseases ascribed to all kinds of 

 imaginary causes, such as the influence of the 

 witch or the shrew-mouse ? 



It is hardly more than two centuries since we 

 first find our English agricultural writers giving 

 any directions for the breeding of cows. It was 

 about the year 1669, that old Worlidge gives, with 

 commendations, his English translation of Virgil's 

 advice to the breeder of oxen — directions which 

 would rather startle a modern breeder. He says : 



" whoe'er breeds, 



To choose well-bodye'd females must have care. 

 Of the best shape the sour-lookt heifers are; 

 Her head great, long her ueck, and to her thigh, 

 Down from her chin, her dewlaps dangling lye; 

 Long-sided, all parts large, whom great feet bears, 

 And under crooked horns her bristling ears; 

 The whole cow fair, and visag'd like the male, 

 8weepiug the groi^nd with her long bushy tail." 



The large-boned, coarse-looking cows were evi- 

 dently in the highest favour with the farmers of those 

 days ; they perhaps were the best adapted to with- 

 stand the rough treatment they had then to endure. 

 When the cows were ill, they assigned the origin of 

 their complaints not to neglect or bad feeding, but 

 if the disease was in the slightest degree uncommon, 

 to very imaginary and evil causes. It was about 

 the year 1596, that Leonard Mascal, of Plumstead, 

 in Kent, gives evidence of what knowledge even a 

 cattle-doctor possessed in those days; for he came 

 to the farmer's aid in his book " On the Government 

 of Cattle." In this book, amongst other equally 

 wise observations, he gave them directions how " to 

 know the diflference between cattle bewitched, and 

 other soreness." Then, with a similar credulity, 

 the farmers of that time believed, it seems, that if a 

 poor little shrew-mouse ran over their cow, it ren- 

 dered her lame. So Mascal gravely propounds to 

 them the following remedy : — " You shall have her 

 to a briar growing at both ends, and draw the 

 beast under it, and so she will recover." Then he 

 proceeded to inform his reader that if the cow had the 

 bloody flux, then " ye shall take a frog ; cut off his 

 left leg, and so put him alive in the beast's mouth," 

 &c. 



With such abounding ignorance, we may rea- 

 sonably conclude what comfortless kind of home- 



