No. 12. 



Root Culture. 



363 



turned him amongst my common cattle, and 

 only housed and fed liim at night; he is now 

 one of tlie finest bulls in the state ; and his 

 present owner informs me, that upon the 

 common marsh-pastures he has kept fatter 

 and in better health, than any of his common 

 cattle. By this bull when but cijrhteon 

 months old, I got twelve calves ; the pasture 

 upon v.iiich they have fed is bad, and yet 

 they have grown to twice the size as calves 

 from other cows by a common bull, and many 

 of them at one year old were as large as 

 their mothers. I now own a white bull, 

 which I raised by the bottle until six months 

 old, and then turned to pasture, feeding him 

 as I did my other cattle ; at one year old I 

 put him to sixteen of my cows, and have, 

 this season, sixteen of his calves ; and though 

 from common cows they are remarkable for 

 size and beauty. One of these calves, from 

 a very inferior cow, I sent to the market with 

 two other calves from good cows, by a com- 

 mon bull — the calf by the Durham bull, al- 

 though four weeks younger, brought twelve 

 dollars, while the other two brought only 

 eight dollars apiece. I hesitate not to say, 

 the Durham cattle feed closer, live on coarser 

 food, grow larger, and give more milk than 

 any other cattle which can be produced in 

 our climate ; their butteraceous qualities, 

 like those of all other breeds, depending on 

 the quality of the food they get. I once 

 owned a Durham cow, which, by a particular 

 mode of feeding, I could make give thirty 

 quarts of milk a day, and yet the same milk 

 would not yield as much butter as when I 

 fed her to give but twelve or fourteen (|uarts. 

 I have also some calves from the most beau- 

 tiful Devon bull ever brought to this country, 

 but they are not equal to the Durhams. I 

 have a full-blooded Durham heifer, two years 

 old, which has been raised entirely upon one 

 of the poorest pastures in our low country, 

 ■which for size, beauty, and every other quali- 

 fication, I can place against any full-grown 

 Devon, Ayrshire, or other cow I have ever 

 seen ; and yet, from a calf, she has lived on 

 the common pasture, has scarcely tasted 

 corn or grain, and both she and the young 

 bull live on the same pasture with my other 

 cows, and are more thrifty. 



It is s lid, that to have this breed of cattle 

 in their fullest perfection, you must feed 

 high — S(- you must — but in the low country, 

 where we must have a large herd of cattle, 

 we cannot atl'ord to do this; must we then, 

 on that acccunt, have nothing to do with this 

 valuable breed ■? by no means, for if we can- 

 not obtain them in the perfection in which 

 they are found in Europe, we may, never- 

 theless, introduce them to improve our com- 

 mon breed, and any one who will do this 

 only, will obtain much. For one hundred 



dollars, a Durham bull calf of the purest 

 breed can bo obtained in Charleston ; at one 

 year old he is fit to put to cows, and from 

 what 1 have witnessed, I think the get of 

 bulls at this age the best: I have tried them 

 from one to five years of age, and find tho 

 calves of the former always the finest in 

 form and size, and have satisfied some of 

 the most skeptical upon this point, allliough, 

 when I first advanced this doctrine, 1 was 

 laughed at, because contrary to the crpcricnce 

 iif the country : and every one, who will pay 

 attention to the matter, will find, that even 

 amongst his common cattle, the finest calves 

 are by his youngest bulls, and my old cow- 

 driver, who has had forty years' experience, 

 vouches for this fact. I am opposed to 

 none of the other breeds of cattle, the object 

 of this being to prove, that the introduction 

 of fine cattle amongst us will improve our 

 native breeds, and that too, on our worst 

 pastures. From my own experi(!nce then, 

 as well as that of others, I am fully con- 

 vinced that calves bred from Durham bulls, 

 will suffer drought, inattention, and even 

 starvation, better than calves from the native 

 breeds. 



B. R. Carroll. 



Root Culture. 



The raising of roots for cattle and swine 

 is yearly becoming more common ; this is 

 an improvement in our husbandry. Taking 

 a succession of years, and a variety of kinds, 

 roots may be raised at an expense of twelve 

 and a half cents per bushel, perhaps for less. 

 As aids in working off the coarse kinds of 

 fodder, while the stock is kept in good con- 

 dition ; as means of increasing the quantity 

 of milk, beef, pork, and butter, on the farm; 

 and not least, as agents in enriching and in- 

 creasing the manure heap, they fully repay 

 the expense which obtains them. Taking 

 cost and worth into the account, perhaps 

 neither the ruta baga, sugar beet, or carrot, 

 is to be preferred to the exclusion of others. 

 Let them all be cultivated ; but for milk cows 

 the sugar beet will probably be preferred, 

 for horses and swine the carrot. One win- 

 ter's trial with two horses has proved, that a 

 peck of carrots per day is quite as good for 

 a horse as four quarts of oats ; and when 

 boiled, swine thrive well upon them. One- 

 eighth, and perhaps a larger portion of all 

 the land which a farmer cultivates, may 

 profitably be apportioned to the root culture. 

 — Franklin Farmer. 



The more pressing is the call, the more 

 ought we to be convinced of the necessity of 

 paying immediate attention to it. 



