1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



159 



For the New England Farmer. 



BRAKES-SAWDTTST-MANURES. 



Mr. Editor : — Acting upon the suggestions in 

 your paper, I have "housed" all my manure. I bed 

 all my cattle liberally with brakes and sawdust. I 

 allow my bedding to remain in the stables one 

 week. By this process, the brakes are pulverized, 

 and with the sawdust, become perfectly saturated. 

 The knowing ones tell me my manure Avill be burnt. 

 What is your opinion ? (a.) How shall 1 manage 

 in the spring when I cart it out ? (&.) Permit me 

 to suggest to the readers of your paper the econo- 

 my of cutting brakes. I put under cover the first 

 year about seven tons of brakes ; with my oat straw, 

 and a few roots, and occasionally a little meal, I 

 have kept to the present time nine head of cattle. 

 In many pastures, grass grows with the brake ; the 

 cattle will not eat this in summer, but when made 

 into hay and fed out in winter, they readily eat 

 both grass and brake. By yearly mowing, the 

 cane brake gives way to a finer quality, and in 

 time, the pasture becomes entirely rid of them. 

 Yours truly, ' "INQUIRER." 



Buckland, February 1th, 1856. 



Remaeks. — (a.) When there is much coarse veg- 

 etable matter there is danger' oi Jire-fang, as it is 

 called. To prevent this, a good supply of peat 

 muck should be stored up and mingled with the ma- 

 nui-e; but if this, or loam, is not at hand, the heap 

 must be watched. As long as it is kept dry, there 

 will be little danger. (6.) A few days before using it, 

 throw it up lightly, wet it, and stick two or three 

 bean poles through it. When you find, upon draw- 

 -ing one of these poles out, that the heap is warmed 

 to blood heat and that it has remained at about 

 that temperature a few days, it will be ready for 

 use ; and if it has been covered with loam or muck, 

 will have retained nearly all its fertilizing qualities 

 Your good example ought to be imitated in cutting 

 the brakes. 



For the Neto England Farmer. 



WINTER IN VERMONT. 



Mr. Farmer : — As so much is said of snow and 

 cold weather from Maine to Louisiana, we fear our 

 friends abroad may suppose that in this hyperborean 

 region we are hopelessly frozen up and buried in 

 snow. To quiet such apprehensions, I will give you 

 a short sketch of our winter. 



We had snow early in December, and since, fre- 

 quent additions, so that now it is full 2^ feet in 

 forests. December was a fine winter month, no ex- 

 treme cold. January was uniformly cold ; 12.09'' 

 colder than 1855 — 8.55° colder than the mean of 

 the last 18 years, but warmer than 1840 or 1844. 

 The mean temperature of three observations daily, 

 — sunrise, 1 to 9 o'clock, P. M., — has been 13 9°. 

 The lowest points at sunrise was 5th, 13*^; 7th, 10°; 

 9th, 4°; 20th, 10«; 22d, 6°; 25th, 5°; 26th, 6°; 

 making seven days when the mercury has stood be- 

 low zero. 



You can judge of our snow drifts when I tell j'ou 

 that the trains on the Central Railroad, from Wind- 

 sor over Connecticut river to Burlington on Lake 

 Champlain, have never lost a trip, nor have they 



ever been delayed, so as to be more than fifteen 

 minutes behind, making time on this road some- 

 times late, caused by non-arrival of trains on con- 

 necting roads. From Burlington to Rouse's Point, 

 (57 miles) lat. 45°, the trains have not been de- 

 tained one minute by snow. We have had near 

 two months of uninterrupted good sleighing, and a 

 fair prospect of a month more. 



If you are buried in snow in Boston, I advise yo:i 

 to migrate to Vermont. Here you would at all 

 times have found wide paths on our side-walks 

 about town, made by snow-plows, except in the 

 business parts ; and no day so cold but you might 

 have seen our young ladies walking a mile or more, 

 "just for the fun of it ;" and — as to sleigh-rides — 

 in the city you can only imagine what sleigh-riding 

 is. C. Goodrich. 



Burlington, Feb. 11. 



For the New England Farmer. 



RURAL ECONOMY OF THE BRITISH 

 ISLES-No. 3. 



CATTLE. 



I shall now proceed to show how rich English 

 agriculture is in cattle as well as sheep. England 

 possesses the finest milch cow race in those beauti- 

 ful, intelligent, gentle-looking animals, which go un- 

 der the name of Alderney, and in the Scotch Ayr- 

 shire — that charming race of cows, whose graceful 

 forms, speckled hides, quiet dispositions, large ud- 

 ders, and rich luxuriant supply of milk, realize the 

 idea of pastoral life. She possesses also, the short- 

 horned Durhams — animals which may be fattened 

 as early as two years old, and attain, at that age, a 

 weight which no other breed can arrive at so soon. 

 Their heads, legs and bones, have been reduced to 

 such small proportions, and the more fleshy parts 

 of the body so largely developed, that nearly three- 

 fourths of their weight is meat. 



After the Durham short-horn, which, among 

 cattle, is what the Dishley breed is among sheep, 

 come the Hereford and Devon breeds, which, in 

 their turn may be compared to the Southdowns 

 and Cheviots. The Hereford breed follows closely 

 upon the Dui'ham, and is even more generally 

 sought after, as ofi"ering almost an equal precocity, 

 and the same aptitude for fattening, but M-ith great- 

 er hardiness. The county of Hereford, from which 

 it comes, lies at the foot of the Welsh mountains, 

 and possesses a soil of but indifferent fertihty. 



The English farmer looks upon cattle, with the 

 instinctive calculation, which distinguishes his class, 

 and argues that there are three descriptions of pro- 

 duce, which man may demand from cattle, besides 

 the manures the hide and the off'al — namely, their 

 labor, their milk and their flesh. Of these, he deems 

 their labor the least profitable, and therefore looks 

 chiefly to their meat and their milk. 



He demands of his milch cows the greatest sup- 

 ply of milk, and a good Ayrshire cow will give four 

 thousand quarts of milk in the year; and it is reck- 

 oned that the three million cows in Great Britain 

 produce three thousand millions quarts in a year — 

 an average of a thousand quarts for each cow. The 

 French cows, many of M-hich are worked, do not 

 average, as a whole, over five hundred quarts a 

 head. To get the greatest quantity of milk from 

 the cow, the English farmer has studied and la- 

 bored, till he has spread over his fields the finest 

 herds of milch cows in the world. 



