S50 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 6 



stall or the co\v-hou.«e, and experience has langlit 

 us the proper averaire quantity ol'lood, liie little 

 one eats her share, and the larger one seldom eats 

 more, even when it is put before her. There are 

 occapional ditierences in the consumption ol' Ibod 

 by diHerent animals, but these arise liu' oliener 

 I'rom constitution, or Irom some unknown cause, 

 than from diflerence of size. Experience does, 

 however, prove beyond the possibility of doubt 

 that the larger cattle, tlie breed and other circum- 

 Btances being the same, yield the greatest quantity 

 of milk. 



Experience has also proved another tiling — that 

 (he good grazinir points of a cow, and even her 

 being in liiir store condition, do not necessarily 

 interiere with her milkiUiT (jualitie?. They prove 

 that she has the disposition to fatten about her, 

 but which will not be called into injurious exercise 

 until, in the natural process of time, or designedly 

 by us, she is dried. She will yield nearly as'much 

 milk as her unthrifty neighbor, and milk of a su- 

 perior quality, and at lour, live, or six years old, 

 miglit be pitied against any Kyloe, while^vve have 

 the pledge that it will cost us little to prepare her 

 for the butcher, when we have done with her as a 

 milker. It is on this principle that many of the Lon- 

 don dairymen now act, when they change their 

 cows so frequently as they do ; but whether this, 

 even allowing the rapidity with whicli the beasts 

 fatten, is the best and most profitable mode of 

 management, will be the subject of future inquiry. 



Some time after Mr. Walton's experiment, the 

 following observations were made by Mr. Calvert, 

 of Sandysike, near Branqoton, on the quantity of 

 butter yielded by one of his improved short-horns. 

 The milk was kept and churned separately from 

 that ol'the other slock, and the (ollowinfr is the ac- 

 count of the number ol pounds of butter obtained 

 in each week : 7, 10, 10, 12. 17, 13, 13, 13, 15, 16, 

 15, 12, 13, 13, 13, 14, 14, 13, 12, 12, 13, 11, 12, 10, 

 10, 8, 10, 9, 10, 7, 7, 7. 



From this it appears tliat there were churned 

 373 pounds of butter in the space of 32 weeks. 

 The cow gave 28 quarts of milk per day, about 

 Midsummer, and would average nearly 20 quarts 

 per day for 20 weeks. She gave more milk when 

 ehe was depastured in the summer than when she 

 was soiled in the house, inconsequence of the very 

 hot weather. She was lame during six weeks, 

 Irom "foul in the leet," which lessened the quan- 

 tity of afilk during that time ; and the experiment 

 was discontinued, because there was not a sufficient 

 sup|)ly of turnips, and the milk of the whole of ihe 

 herd was rapidly diminishillL^ For the first fort- 

 night after calving, she was allowed a little broken 

 corn ; and from that period to llip commencement 

 of the turnip-season, she lived entirely on grass, 

 with some cut clover, when it was necessary to 

 ehelter her from the inclement heat. Tiie pasture 

 was by no means of a superior quality. 



Af er such a record — and it is far fiom being a 

 singular one, — "there can be no doubt," to adopt 

 the language of the reporter, "of the possihiliiy of 

 raising a breed of milking short-horns, which will 

 surpass every variety ol cattle in the kingdom." 

 We may, perhafjs, salely add, that we have that 

 breed, and that it only requires a lit'le care in the 

 selection, and in crossing, to perpetuate it. 



mp:asurement of corn-cribs and grana- 

 riks. climatic op italy, and oftub val- 

 ley and i'ikdmont of virginia. 



To tlio Editor of tlic Farmers' Ri^gissr. 



Rockbridge Co.. June 9th, 1839. 



In an early iiuml)er of the Farmers' Register, 

 you published a communication from one of your 

 correspondents, containing an easy and convenient 

 method of calculating the contents of a corn-crib, 

 &c., in barrels. The method there given, will, no 

 doubt belound very useful to all those who are ac- 

 customed to count iheir corn, by the l)arrel; but we, 

 who live west of the Blue Ridge, are accustomed 

 to estimate our corn, as well as our wheat, by the 

 bushel. A rule, then, of convenient and ready 

 application, fur calculating the number of bushels 

 contained in a corn-crib will suit us better than 

 the one you have given. I have been in posses- 

 sion of such a rule more than thirty years. It is, 

 however, not one of my own invention. I found 

 it in some work on agriculture, I think, 'Bordley's 

 Husbandry.' It is very similar to the rule I have 

 alluded to for calculating by the barrel. They 

 are both founded on exactly the same principles, 

 I think. 



The rule for finding the content of a crib, gra- 

 nary, &c. in bushels, is the following. 



Find the content of the crib or granary in cu- 

 bic feet; then multiply the cubic feet by 8, and 

 fiom the product cut off one figure to the right 

 hand; the remainder is the content in bushels. 



Example. Suppose a corn-crib to be 20 feet 

 long, 8 leet wide, and 9 feet high; by multiplying 

 these numbers together we shall have the contents 

 in cubic lijet, viz. 1440; this number multiplied by 

 8 will give 11520. Cut off the nought on the 

 right hand, and the content in Itiishels will be 

 1152. If the crib be filled with corn in the ear, 

 lake one-hiilf of the content in bushels, and the 

 content in shelled corn will be 570. 



This rule is not precisely accurate. It is found- 

 ed on the supposition that a bushel contains a 

 cubic foot and a quarter; but our stalutary bushel is 

 somewhat less than a cubic foot and a quarter. 

 When Mr. Jeflerson was secretary of state of 

 the United States, he made an elaborate report on 

 weights and measures, in wiiich he recommended 

 to congress that a cubic lijot and a quarter should 

 be adopted as the content of the bushel for the 

 United States. No law was ever passed by con- 

 gress on the subject, but il Mr. Jefferson's recom- 

 mendation had been adopted, the rule 1 have 

 mentioned would be precisely accurate. It ap- 

 proaches accuracy, however, so nearly as to an- 

 swer all common purposes. The cubic foot and a 

 quarter contains 2160 cubic inches; the statutary 

 bushel 2150/0 cubic inches, which is 9/jy cubic 

 inches less than Jefferson's bushel; but 9j% cubic 

 inches is but little more than a gill, and would 

 make a diflerence of about a bushel in two liun- 

 dred. 



While I am on Ihe subject of measures, I would 

 remark that, until lately, I had never seen an 

 arithmetic in common use, which contained a 

 complete table of dry measure. They tell us how 

 many gallons make a peck, and how many pecks 

 make a bushel; but they do not tell us how many 

 cubic inches are in a gallon. If we lake the cu- 

 bic inches in a wine gallon as our standard, our 

 bushel will be too small; if we take those in a 



