36 



ari)e larmcr'0 i1Toittl)lij lligitor. 



tie or sheep, which feed without restlessness, and 



''"f ,li^oper"uention to the warmth of his cattle 

 or sheep, therefore, is of gre« practK^al conse- 

 quence 'to the feeder of stock. By keepmg then 

 warm, he diminishes the quantity of food whu:! 

 is neces-arv to sustain them, and leaves a laigei 

 proportion fo,. :he prodnclic; of beef or .nut.on. 

 Various experiments have been lately publish- 

 ed, which confine the opinions above de.luctcd 

 from theoretical considerations. Ol these 1 sha I 

 only .nention one by Mr. Childers, rn winch 

 twenty sheep were folded in the open field, and 

 twenty of nearly e.pial weight vyere placed un- 

 der a shed in a yard. Uoth >"'«"'=',''';''''"'; 

 three months (January, February, and Ma cl 

 upon turnips, as many as they chose to eat, lial 

 a po.md ol* linseed cake, an<l hall a pnit o ha ley 

 each shee|, per day, with a little hay and «»'•/''';. 

 sheep in the field consmned the same quantuy Qt 

 food-all the barley and oil-cake, an.l about nine- 

 teen pounds of turnips per day, from the first o 

 lust, and increased on the whole t nrty-six stone 

 eight pounds. Those under the shed consumed, 

 at firsi, as much food as the others ; but, after the 

 third week, they ate two pounds of turnips each 

 less in the day ; an.l in the ninth week, again, 

 two pounds less, or only fitteen pounds a day. 

 Of the linseed cake, they also ate about oue-tiiid 

 less than the other lot, and yet they increased in 

 weight fifty-six stone six pouiuls, or twenty stone 

 more than the others. . . , ^ , , j 



Thus the cold and exercise in the field caused 

 the one lot to convert more of their food into 

 dung : the other, more of it into inntton. 



The absence of light has also a material influ- 

 ence upon the effects of food in increasing the 

 size of animals. Whatever excites attention in 

 an animal, awakens, disturbs, or inakes it rest- 

 less, appears to increase the natural waste, anil to 

 diminish the effect of food in rapidly enlarging 

 the body. The rapidity with which fowls are 

 fattened in the dark, is well known to rearers ot 

 poultry. I" India, the habit prevails ot sewing 

 up the eyelids of the wild hog deer, the spotted 

 deer, and other wild animals, when netted in tlie 

 iunales, with the view of taming and speedily 

 fattening them. The absence of light, indeed, 

 however produced, seems to soothe and quiet all 

 animals, to dispose them to rest, to make less 

 food necessary, and to induce them to store up 

 more of what they eat in the form of fat and 



" An "^experiment made by Mr. Morton, on the 

 feedin" of sheep, shows the efll-ct at once of 

 shelter, of quiet, and of the alisencc of light, up- 

 on the quantity of food eaten,- and of mutton 

 produced fioin it. , . , r i 

 Five sheep of nearly equal weight were fed 

 each with a pound of oats a day, and as niucli 

 turnips as they chose to eat. One was fed in the 

 open air; two in an open slied— one of them be- 

 in"- confined in a crib: two more were fed in a 

 clSse shed in the dark, and one of these also was 

 confined in a crib, so as to lessen as iiiiich as 

 possible the quanliiy of exercise it should take. 

 The increase of live weight in each of the 

 five, and the quantity of turnips they respective- 

 ly consumed, appear in tli;.' following talile: 



iive weight. 



Unstleltcred 



In open slu-iU •_• . ■ • • • 



In " " butconfintdincnbs 



In a dose shed in tho dark 



In " " but confi'd iii cribs 



13J.7 

 1-39.8 

 i:lll.2 

 13-2.4 

 131.3 



lbs. lbs. 



23.7 191-1 



27.8 1394 



2-i2 

 28.4 

 ;20.3 



I23R 



ma 



886 



For the Farmer's Montfily Visitor. 

 Rich Milk. 



No error can be greater than that of believing 

 a cow can give rich milk upon a poor, lean, 

 spare diet. There must be in the fooil that which 

 will supply tho materials or ingredients of which 

 milk is composed, or i-lse it must ho impossible 

 for the cow to produce it. The better the food, 

 the better and richer the milk— the larger quan- 

 tity olcream, and the supply of butter made from 

 it. Many of our own cows, and most o( tlie im- 

 ported specimens, whose surprising products 

 have been spread before ns in oiir agricultiual 



papers and reports, have had the advantages of | 

 great care, and abundant and rich l(;eding, either 

 of tho pasture or the stall. It could not have 

 been otherwise ; the effects only followed known 

 causes. 



Great difference exists in cattle ; some cows 

 run to fat, and those are apt to he spare milkers ; 

 the lean and well formed are apt to be good 

 ones; some digest the food better than others, 

 and these do better upon the same pasture or 

 quantity of food ; some feed faster and more 

 constantly, and these are apt lo be the best milk- 

 er.s, which run with others upon the same pas- 

 ture. There appears to be as much diversity 

 among cattle in these particulars as among men 

 and women, who may daily sit together around 

 the same table : and why should it not be so— 

 ought we not so to expect it ? IIow often has it 

 not been the ca.se, that disappointment and un- 

 pleasant differeuees have arisen from the sale ol 

 cows to persons residing in cities? We are all ol 

 IIS apt to have relatives in the cities who are 

 being constantly supplied from the country.— 

 They come to visit us with their children— our 

 nieces and nephews— and most of all things they 

 seem to envy ns our rich milk and fine flavored 

 butter: "1 really think our milk is at least half 

 „,;,ter — yes, and skimmed before the water was 

 mixed." The cows are thus made the subject of 

 remark— the object of attraction, and to strength- 

 en the desire to pnrchasc and keep one ; the lov- 

 ing mother further remarks that " the children 

 would he as healthy and ruddy as their country 

 cousins, if they only had plenty of good rich 

 milk." City visiters are a sort of idlers in the 

 country, and during the milk fever they go out 

 to seethe dairy maid perform the office of filling 

 the bucket; if she is cheerful, and has music in 

 her soul, how they are delighted to see the pa- 

 tient animals chewing their cuds at sunset, and 

 in listening to the clear tones of the girl, beating 

 a sort of tunc with her efforts in tilling the pail. 

 " What is your price, brother, for that red cow, 

 that is now turning her meek countenance to- 

 wards ns?" Bargains are dry matters on pa- 

 per, except there lie some spice of a tpiarrel in 

 the relation, and so we will snpliose the uiifor- 

 tnnate cow iiiirchased and driven to the city, 

 with the fond'expeclaiion of plenty of rich milk 

 and fine butter, and the children to become saucy 

 and rosy cheeked. The poor animal has now 

 no fresh pasture to roam in, is surroimdeil by 

 brick walls, and made fiirther discontented lijr 

 want of company. She depends upon negligent 

 servants for water: the leavings of tlic horse are 

 deemed good food enough for the cow — is badly 

 milked, and if she happens to get into the street 

 from a desire to return to the country, the wick- 

 ed boys amuse themselves by setting upon her 

 all the fiirious dogs in the neighborhood. What 

 kind of a cow could it be that would furnish 

 plenty of rich cream and milk under sucii cir- 

 cumstances? At first the cow is not so good as 

 was exiiected : "brother seemed quite ready to 

 part with her— he never mentioned her kicking; 

 and then she does not give one fourth the milk 

 he mentiimed, and it is not even as good as we 

 used 10 get from the milk-man." 



The next visit between the parties is apt to 

 have a civil and polite quarrel in it, and cooled, 

 in this way the social intercourse between rela- 

 tives of town and country, which might have 

 been continued, is terminated altogether— and 

 all because a cow with poor, spare food, dirty 

 water, close penned, milked by a mad woman, 

 and worried by dogs, ceases to give as mncli 

 milk as she did in the country. There are all the 

 gradations of this picture found in the city cows; 

 the best cared for and fed, fiill short of those 

 which have the range of the pasture, and in fact 

 the people of the cities ought to think no more 

 of keeping cows and supplying their own milk, 

 than of raising corn and wheat in their flower 

 gardens to supply their own bread. Indeed, in 

 our sister Plate of Massachusetts, the railroads 

 have had the eftect to banish cow-keeping and 

 dreams of cream from paving stone pastures, 

 fi-om the i-esiilents of the thickly settled towns. 

 The milk-men can now reside thirty or forty 

 miles li-om Mosioii, and have their milk fresh ami 

 warm fiom the cow in two hmirs or less in the 

 dwelling of the consumer. 'I'he firmer finds a 

 new source of income in his milk, and as the 

 supply is more iduindant, the citi'/.en of Uostou 

 has it good ; he no longer suspects that it has 



5 3 



13 (T 

 r:. e^ 



been dilated with water. There is enough of 

 good milk to supply the demand, and bail would 

 find no customers. Town and city families no 

 longer jar in conseipience of trading in cows; 

 and they can much quicker, and oftener thau 

 ff)rmerly visit by means of the railroads, llieir 

 country friends, without those unpleasant com- 

 parisons between city and country cream and 

 butter. P- 



From tho Poughkeepaie (N. V.) Telegraph. 

 Macli. 

 1 read not long since in your paper an article 

 from the iMaine Cultivator on " Muck," which 

 made me an interested reader, having considera- 

 ble of the article on my own fiirm. 



The writer of the article alluded to says, that 

 its value as manure, is in proportion to the quan- 

 tity of vegetable matter contained in it. This is 

 no doubt, a fact, liar all will agree that decompos- 

 ed vegetable matter, contains more fertilizing 

 princijile, than dirt or mud. 



He says too, that Chemistry is indispensable, in 

 order to detect the presence of other suhstance.s, 

 injurious to the crop and soil. It is undoubtedly 

 very necessary in order to its proper application 

 — but this must he dispensed with by the great 

 mass of farmers fin- the present, because they ' 

 know nothin;; about it, and in all probability will 

 never learn. But I trust the day is not fiir di^stant, 

 when a thorough practical knowledge of Chem- 

 istry, will he considered as essential to the liirmer 

 as the statutes are to the lawyer. And here let 

 me say, that if half the money that is expended 

 in this State in getting up catlle shows, awarding 

 pi-emiums, &c., was applied to give farmers sons 

 a knowledge of Agricultural Chemistry, we might 

 see agriculture attain a perfection, which by the 

 present system of Fairs it can never reach. 



But to go hack to the Muck again. The writer 

 says, many farmers .say, they see no benefit re-- 

 sn'lting from its application, unless first saturated 

 with the juices of the yard. This is more labor 

 than farmers generally are willing to take ; and 

 experience has taught me, that it is not necessa- 

 ry. The juices of the yard may and should be 

 retained in other vegetable matter ; and the muck 

 when raised from the ditch, and pdaced in the 

 cart, should go to the field of its final destination. 

 And here 1 state my experience in us applica- 

 tion. My muck lauds (I hail been informed) 

 were forty years ago well timbered; but have 

 since been exclusively pastured. The first layer 

 is about two feet thick, a black rich looking sub- 

 stance, which is very light when dry. Directly 

 under, is another layer of the same thickness, 

 which appears not io have a particle of tarlh 

 with it ; hut to he composed of vegetable fibres 

 elosly knit together. In the fall of '-11 we drew 

 150 loads of these materials from the ditch, and 

 aiiplied it to about three acres of gravelly loam 

 ill oats stubble- dumping a fiill load in a heap, 

 spread it, jdoughed twice, and marked out to_ 

 sow. We then sowed about twenty bushels ol 

 slacked lime to the acre, after which the wheat 

 was sown, and harrowed in the usual ^ay. 1 he 

 result was a fine crop of wheat. The superior 

 growth and greenness over that adjoining, being 

 almost as great as yard uianine usually makes. 

 The lot was seeded down to clover-m the spring 

 of '42, and that part which Icul been ihus treated 

 produced a fine crop, and was free fVom weeds 

 which flourished in the other part of the lot. 

 The past season the lot was planted wilh corn 

 (bavin" laid to clover but one year) and the grub 

 worm'injured the mucked part very materially, 

 not doing much damage to the other— still the 

 result was an excellent yield, superior to that ad- 

 joining. How the next crops may be we can t 

 sav hut Proviilence favoring, we calculate lor 

 ..ood ones on that piece of land. It would be 

 proper to state here, that the three acres alluded 

 to, lie at the extreme end of the lot farthest Irom 

 ih'e barn yani, and rarely (if ever) received any 

 inannre. The other part has had its full share, 

 :.iid has always, till now, been considered much 

 the best. I w-oiild say too, that the hme was not 

 applied to neutralize 'the acids <-oiilaiiied in lhe_ 

 muck. It was applied solely for the purpose ot 

 advancing the wheat, ami its use was not confin- 

 ed to thai portion that had been mucked, hut 

 siiu-e i-eadiiii; the article alluded lo, I ihmk it 

 iMiilc probable the lime operateil as a refiner of 

 llie muck. Vou will .see by this, that 1 am nnni- 

 lormed in Chemistry, and I should be happy to 



