California Agriculturist and Live Stock Journal. 



3,400 by G. Van Winkle & Co., 3,200 by 

 Brooks & Gatteu, 3, OSS by Ilardeu, 3,000 by 

 King & Staples; several at 2,500 to 2,800, aiul 

 two as low as 350. This will illustrate fairly 

 the size of droves from Texas to Kansas. 



I have seen many statements of the size of 

 herds in Kansas. It is impracticable to at- 

 tempt to name all the large cattle ranches. I 

 will mention a few herds recently reported in 

 my correspoiideuce. On the Gulf coast a Mr. 

 Kennedy has inclosed the "Laureles" ranch 

 by running a fence fifty miles, costing $100,- 

 000, across a neck of a peninsula, thus inclos- 

 ing by fence and water 169,000 acres. The 

 Kockport and Fulton Pasture Company, on 

 Nueces Bay, incloses 115,000 acres, with a 

 few miles of fencing on one side. Rockport 

 is the great cattle-shipping port for Western 

 Texas. In Refugio county there are large 

 herds: John H. Woods', 17,500; John Lin- 

 ny'.s, 17,500; J. & R. Dnshel's, 9,000; B. F. 

 Gooch,in Mason, 20,000; Burrell Yol(]oron,of 

 Grayson, county, h.as 10,000 scattered 

 over several counties. In San Patricio and 

 other counties, Coleman, Mathes & Fulton, of 

 Rockport, estimate their cattle at 85,007 — 

 25,000 in pasture, the remainder on the range. 

 They have made a single purchase of cattle to 

 the amountof $130,000. The Peninsula Com- 

 pany have, near Rockport, a pastux'e of 35,000 

 acres, inclosed by a cypress fence. In Lime- 

 stone county Heaton & Harmer have 8,000 

 head. In Harris William McFadJon has 18,- 

 000, and George Butler 15.000. I have a 

 record of a large number owning 3,000 to 

 10,000, and there are many more that own 

 much larger herds, were there time to collect 

 and space to print them. 



Probably more than 2,000,000 of Texas 

 cattle have been driven into Kansas since the 

 war. The drive of last year was not so heavy 

 as those of the previous years, but has been 

 estimated as high as 175,000. The shipments 

 of cattle over four Kansas railroads, from Jan- 

 uary to August, 1873, consisting mainly of 

 cattle wintered over, was 102,426; and for the 

 same period in 1874, 122,914, with 115,000 

 remaining to ship. It was estimated that 

 50,000 more wintered cattle were taken by 

 government contractors. The drives of one 

 year are either kept on the Kansas or Ne- 

 braska ranges till late in the Fall, or wintered 

 over before sending east.* 



A detailed account of this cattle movement, 

 of the cost of driving and wintering, of the 

 contests with native stock owners arising from 

 fear of the Texas cattle disease, and of the 

 business generally of the cattle grower, would 

 more than fill the place alotted to this chap- 

 ter. It is a business of manifest importance 

 in the future of the American meat supply. — 

 J. li. Dodge, in Phrenological Journal for May. 



Souk Milk for Calves. — Farmers, as well 

 as other classes, have yet much to learn about 

 many of the common practices of daily lite 

 and experience in their respective callings, 

 and much also must be unlearned to make 

 way iox the advanced ideas which science and 

 practical experiments are constantly bringing 

 up for investigation. A few years ago, it was 

 the accepted opinion of the masses of the peo- 

 jile that the value of milk as an article of food 

 i^^t man or beast, was principally determined 

 by the amfmnt of cream it contained, and 

 skimmed milk was looked upon as being al- 

 most worthless for anything but for pig feed- 

 ing, and not very good for that. 



Later investigations have shown that the 

 greater part of the food material of milk is 

 contained in the skimmed milk; that skim- 

 milk cheese is poor, not because it is devoid 

 of nutriment, but because we have not learned 

 how to make and cure it so as to have it pal- 

 atable and digestible. Many farmers have 

 noticed that those cows which give milk poor 

 in butter, often raise extra fat calves; and we 

 occasionally find cows giving milk so rich in 

 fatty substances that their calves do not do as 

 well fed upon it as upon milk containing a 

 smaller proportion of cream. 



We have raised a few calves every Summer 

 for several years past, and have had excellent 



success with skimmed milk, both sweet and 

 sour, when judiciously fed. In kindness many 

 are quite apt to over-feed, and they do nut 

 feed with the regularity that would be best for 

 the calf. It always makes bad work to let a 

 calf get very huugvy and then give it an extra 

 amount of milk, and if the milk is very cold 

 it will be all the more harmful. 



Calves are taken from their mothers and 

 fed upon milk which is not only skimmed but 

 often cold, and perhaps given at irregular in- 

 tervals, and in two large quantities; and be- 

 cause they do not always do as well as when 

 fed in the natural way, the skimming is made 

 to bear all the blame. But it is a fact that 

 very fine calves have been raised on skimmed 

 milk, and sour at that. The subject of feed- 

 ing skimmed and sour milli to calves was dis- 

 cussed at a late meeting of the Vermont dairy- 

 men, and Mr. Stewart, of the Btiffdlo JAve 

 Stock Jounuil, spoke in the strongest terms of 

 the value of skimmed and sour milk for grow- 

 ing good calves. 



We also frequently receive letters from the 

 readers of the Farmer, giving accounts of very 

 satisfactory experiments in raising calves on 

 such food. We have before us now a letter 

 from a reader at Enosburgh, Vermont, who 

 has a calf, nine months old, that weighs seven 

 hundred pounds, half Jersey and half native, 

 it never having had anything but sour milk 

 and hay since it was old enough to do well on 

 such feed, which has been ever since it was 

 quite young. 



During a private conversation upon this 

 subject, with several gentlemen, at the Ver- 

 mont dairymen's meeting, Mr. Isaac T. Parris 

 of Fairfax, Vt. , informed us that he had had 

 the best of success in feeding sour milk to 

 some dozen calves per year. He begins to 

 feed it sometimes when the calves are but a 

 week old. He prefers to have it thick or lop- 

 pered, but not fermented. At six or seven 

 weeks old, he gives wheat bran with the milk, 

 and at ten weeks, adds oat meal. They learn 

 to eat hay very young, and are often chewing 

 the (Hid at ten days old. He finds that his 

 best butter cows give milk too rich for calves, 

 and that poorer cows fat the best veal. 



Mr. Stillman Stone, of Lunenburg, Mass., 

 is also a strong advocate of sour milk for 

 calves. He says they do not all take to it 

 alike, but when he gets a calf so that it likes it, 

 he has no more trouble with it. We find a 

 great difl'erence in calves about eating what- 

 ever is given them. Some calves will take 

 almost any wholesome food with a good and 

 constant appetite, while others are always 

 dainty and particular about what they eat. 

 The latter kind seldom make hardy cows, and 

 when one finds he has such an animal the 

 sooner it is disposed of the better. — .V. £. 

 Farmer. 



Thoroughbred Swine. 



Jjn HE theory has been advocated, and prac- 

 jIl tice has clearly demonstrated that it is 

 .Jl;[ impracticable for the general farmers of 

 oj/)|_ the country to become breeders of fine, 

 ^Vl or properly speaking, thoroughbred 

 stock, with the idea of disposing of it at fancy 

 prices. There may be many reasons ascribed 

 for this, the principal of which is that it takes 

 more time and more capital to start than most 

 of them are in circumstances to afford, to say 

 nothing of the business being a profession 

 which requires more study and experience 

 than most of them can give. The breeding 

 of any of the improved breeds of sNvine is, 

 however, quite different from horses, cattle, 

 or sheep, and we are fully convinced that ev- 

 ery farmer of the country can become a 

 breeder of thoroughbred swine, and make it a 

 remunerative business. Some may say we 

 cannot all sell them at fancy prices, which is 

 veiy true, neither do they need to do so in 

 order to make it profitable. The man who 



buys a Short-horn cow at $1,000 must neces- 

 sarily sell her calf at $300 or $400, or the 

 investment will not be a paj'ing one. Such 

 an animal will produce only one calf in a 

 year. 



The case is quite different with swine. A 

 farmer at the present day can buy a pair of 

 thoroughbred hogs ready to breed, or any of 

 our improved breeds, at from $35 to $50 per 

 p.iir, and with ordinary success will produce 

 twelve to eighteen pigs during the year. Thus 

 it will be seen that he only has to sell them at 

 $1 50 to $2 to be making as much on the 

 capital invested as the fancy breeder who is 

 imrchasing cattle and horses at $1,000 each 

 and disjiosing of thi^ produce at $500 per 

 head, 'then it is at once apparent to all that 

 the above prices are not as much as can bo 

 realized for the common scrub hogs of the 

 country at two or three months old. Then 

 should he find dilEeulty in disposing of them 

 at that age, it will pay him three-fold to keep 

 them to twelve to fifteen months of age, at 

 which time they will be hogs weighing up- 

 ward of 300 pounds, which are worth from 

 one and a half to two cents more per potmd, 

 than the scrub hogs brought to market. 



We ask the careful attention of the reader 

 to this matter; we are not writing from a the- 

 oretical standpoint, but from practice of what 

 we write, knowing that such are daily occur- 

 rences. These being the facta, why will so 

 many of our farmers persist in keeping a 

 stock of hogs so well known as prairie root- 

 ers? Some may say they cannot afford to buy 

 the stock to start with. This excuse will hold 

 good only in but few cases, while the prices 

 of all our improved breeds of swine are so 

 low. The experience of all who have tried it 

 full}' attest that the use of thoroughbred males 

 in horses, cattle, sheej), or swine, is one of 

 the best paying investments they can enter 

 into. And if it is so in cattle, then it must bo 

 doubly so in swine; and if those who do not 

 believe in thorough breeds will use thorough- 

 bred males of any of the improved breeds on 

 their common stock of cows, it will soon show 

 a marked improvement that wiU in a very 

 short time pay many hundred per cent, on 

 the investment. Surely no objection in re- 

 gard to cost can be raised from pursuing this 

 course while the best breeders of the country 

 are offering choice males at $15 to $25 each. 

 — Alex. Charles, m tSicine and Poultry Journal. 



White vs. Black Hogs. — A correspondent 

 of the Rural Southland writes: 



In my boyhood, some twenty-five years ago, 

 my father had several hundred fine white or 

 light colored hogs. He also had about thirty 

 black hogs of a new and different stock. The 

 cholera came — the first ever known in our 

 section of country — and it reduced his main 

 stock of white or light colored hogs from sev- 

 eral hundred to several hogs; while of the 

 black ones it killed only three; yet all had the 

 same showing, and were equally exposed. I 

 have since noticed something like the same 

 relative difference in mortality, from the same 

 cause. 



.\s to the respective merits of the several 

 black varieties, the two leading and rival 

 breeds are the improved Berkshire and Po- 

 land-China, each of which has great merit. 

 The Berkshire nuder certain circumstances 

 and raised in large numbers, may be the bet- 

 ter of the two; but for us, I think it only ne- 

 cessary to know both breeds thoroughly in 

 order to decide in favor of the Poland China. 

 We don't want woods or wild hogs. The 

 Berkshire is predisposed to wildness, and a 

 little neglect makes him as wild and fleet as a 

 buck; wherinis, the Poland China, though 

 thoroughly industrious, is the most docile, 

 tractable and intelligent of all hogs. 



Generally, we want grazers and not rooters. 

 The Poland China is natnraJly and essentisdly 

 a grazer, and the Berkshire a rooter. 



Everj-where endeavor to be useful, and you 

 are everv^vhere at home. 



