1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



225 



whole kind. Man, in this resocct, is the most fa- 

 vored «nd best fortitied; he is able, without much 

 degenerating, to inhabit any latitude, to ro with a 

 sort of impunity, if his railing require him to do 

 so, amiilbt the most pestilential emanations, and to 

 continue fur hours inhaling their baneful fumes. 

 We cnuld quote many striking examples of this 

 resistmg power in man. 



Next to man with respect to this power of vital 

 resistance come the omniverous animals, or those 

 that cat both flesh and vegetables ; then the car- 

 niverous, or tho^e that eat flesh only ; and last of 

 all, the hervivorous, or those that subsist on vege- 

 tables, in which this faculty is very feeble indeed. 

 If this theory is correct, if sheep, cattle and horses 

 oHeramuch weaker resistance to the causes which 

 generate infectious and epizootic diseases than 

 othtr animals it should certainly be understood by 

 farmers. The author of this work says : — 



All vfgetablcs and animals, with the exception 

 of adult men, whenever thi ir health declines irom 

 any cause (but more particularly from paucity of 

 fuod), spontaneously generate microscopic para- 

 sites, or very minute insects, the germs of which 

 are inherent in their system. A flock of fleecy an- 

 imals, wasted i\v dtficient food in dry and parched 

 meadows, becomes attacked in due time by a par- 

 asiiical cutaneous disea-e, known as the lUh, 

 which is enough, if not checked, to destroy the 

 whole. Nov/, all that is required is to remove this 

 flock to a more fertile soil, where there is plenty 

 to feed ihem, and th". disease vvi 1 di appear of it- 

 self without any treatment. Detieieiicy of food 

 destroys the health of animals, and abundance ot 

 food overcomes disease iu them. 



Wo selected six liealthy sheep, which we kept well 

 supplied with provisions; we covered these heal thy 

 sheep wiih parasites (ac;iri). On every one of these 

 sound, well fed sheep, the microscopic animalcula; 

 died olf without generating the cutaneous disease; 

 for ihe blood, the humors, and the skin of sound 

 and healthy sheep tfonstitute a soil unfavorable to 

 the ijropagation of these parasites, and actually 

 starve them to death. 



Alter this first; experiment, we subjected these 

 six sheep to a detieient diet; ihcy grew lean, their- 

 blood V, as impoverished, and then all we had to 

 do was to lay upon them not thousands and thou- 

 sands t f thete parasites— as we had done in the fir^t 

 instance— but one solitary female in a state of fe- 

 cundity ; and the para->)t[cal dl^tempe■r unfolded 

 itself to fiercely as to cause the death of three of 

 these sheep on which the test wa^ allowed to run 

 its course; whilst the other three sheep, having 

 been restored in time to a rcjovcrablo condition 

 just as they wereabouttodropoff, were thoroughly 

 cured, withoui any special treatment, by the sole 

 iutiueiicb of good lood and ordmary hy genie atten- 

 tion. 



We have copied these few extracts from the first 

 part of the book, not by way of a i-eview of the 

 work, but simply as illustrative of the author's 

 mode of treating his subject. We regard the work 

 as a very valuable addition to books on cattle dis- 

 ease. It contains many facts and suggestions that 

 may have a oearing on questions connected with 

 the Texas disease. 



—Warren Pereival, of Vassalborough, Me., has 

 a herd of 56 pure blood Durham cattle. His farm 

 is celebrated for the production of fine breeds of 

 cattle, liogs and sheep. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 "WHEAT MATTERS. 



As your correspondent, Wm. R. Putnam of 

 Danvers, savs he took the wheat fever from 

 readinij my at tides, and as he bought soirie 

 seed wheat of me, I was much interested by 

 his statements, and regret that liis experience 

 in wheat culture should have been so inil'avor- 

 able. Still I am pleased to learn th it he 

 raised twenty bushels f cm the single one he 

 obtained at Andover, which was certainly a 

 splendid crop. About the same time Hon. 

 Levi Bartlett of Warner, N. H., purchased ^eed 

 of me and for eleven yeirs he had only two 

 partial failures. But, JMr. Putnam tells us, 

 the next year not only bis whi-at ru t-d, but 

 his hop's wet e a! o blj,-ted ! Was this brave P 

 Have his potaioes never rotted? Have his 

 apple and other fruit trees always p oiuced a 

 large yield? How Ins it been with his pas- 

 lures, hi-i meadoi^'s, his oats, his rye, his beets, 

 his tuinips, his on ons, h-s cows, his ho'ses, 

 his pigs— are all these unifoimly productive, 

 uniformly healthy? If not. has he abanloneel 

 them all? Ate lust anel blight, mags it anel 

 Hy, drought and flood, po ent for evil to the 

 wheat crop alone ? • Had I failed the second 

 instead of the sixth year in the cultivation of 

 wheat, when the rust reduced my har\est to 

 twelve jjusbtls p^r acre, I might possibly have 

 been discou'aged, and, like friend Putnim, 

 have concluded that it was cheaper to buy 

 (lour than to raise wheat. But thirty years 

 ago the varieties of winter and spring wheat 

 — especially of the latter — were less in number 

 and inferiftr in quality to those we now have. 



Mr. P. says "it costs me twice as much to 

 raise my wheat as it does other crops and buy 

 wheat." Some Nev/ Hampshire farmers once 

 said to me, "we raise oats and buy our Hour. 

 We get forty bushels per acre and sell them 

 fjr eighty cents per bushel, and pay Sl8 a 

 barrel for flour." My answer was, land that 

 will give f Jrty bushels of oats will give tvven- 

 ty-tive bu-hels of wheit. Flour at $18 is 

 equal to $4 a bushel f jr wheat. The oats 

 give $32 per acre; the wheat $100. They 

 were "astonished at the doctrine," and wiih 

 one accord said "we will raise our wheat," 

 believing that wheat is a safer crops than oats 

 in a series of ten years, wtiich is undeniably 

 true. 



The farther answers that I would put in, 

 appear in the Farmer of Feb. 13, simuUane- 

 ourly with Mr. P.'s article, in the ex(;ell>'nt 

 and practical eomm inicati ns of Jacob Fuller, 

 Esq., East WalLn^ford, Vt., and from "J.," 

 Uak Hiil, N. Y. 1 need no better indor^rs. 

 I. thank these gentlemen for their timely res- 

 cue, and would urge f .rmers to read these 

 communications for themselves. 



With myself it has been a Vicksburc/fii/ht 

 Irom the beginning, and I hope the po vder 

 will hold out till the vict,ory is secured. S. 'in - 

 times an editorial "remark" may show a In tie 



