NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



93 



may, upside down, and vice versa, arc still found in 

 proper articulation ; and secondly', this shape fur- 

 nishes the key to the strengthening, on the most un- 

 deniably mechanical principle, of the fabric. Some 

 supply wedges to suit these spaces, but this is not 

 necessary ; a sprinkling of loose earth, sufficient to 

 fill up the triangular gaps which appear in the sec- 

 tion, is enough for all purposes. In proof of this, I 

 may state to you that I have walked along the top 

 of as many as twenty rods of peat drain, put in as 

 quickly as" the turfs eould be dug from the mass, 

 without any drying or preparation whatever, and I 

 did not break through, or effect more than a consol- 

 idation of the upper halves of the opposite turfs ; 

 and as you well know, I am no chicken in point of 

 weight. 



A moderate day's work of a man and boy will pro- 

 duce from five hundred to six hundred feet of such 

 turfs. I mean from one thousand to twelve hundred 

 single cuts, twelve inches in length, per day ; I have 

 known a man and boy produce twenty-seven hun- 

 dred. Tiles in this country, I conceive, would cost 

 somewhere about two dollars per hundred, in a well- 

 supplied market, and more where scarce. Tlic ad- 

 vantage of the aljove adaptation to farmers, will then 

 be specially obvious, as many in New England have 

 plenty of peat swamp to operate upon, and more land 

 which demands draining operations. The perma- 

 nency of peat is well known. Cultivators of such 

 land need not be told of the tenacity of this vege- 

 table mould to its original composition. I have seen 

 peat drains of sixty years' standing, which retained 

 excellent operative qualities, but the instance was 

 isolated, and purely incidental ; still it was sufficient 

 to test the lasting quality of peat as a medium for 

 draining. 



I find that I have presumed upon too much of your 

 valuable space already, and by your kind permission, 

 ■will take advantage of the next consecutive number, 

 and its successors, to follow out this subject. I 

 really hope I may interest and profit, foa: no other 

 motive lies at the base of the -wish of 



A FIRESIDE FARMER. 



Boston, Feb. 19, 1850. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 BONE DISORDERS IN COWS. 



Mr. Editor : Your correspondent Wm. R. l^ut- 

 nam, of Danvers, in his communications on this sub- 

 ject, in the N. E. Farmer of Nov. 24th and Feb. 2d, 

 adduces some facts in support of the theory that this 

 disorder in milch cows is owing to the want of a 

 sufficient supply of the phosphate of lime in their 

 food, which, as it seems to me, do not justify his con- 

 clusions. For example, in endeavoring to assign a 

 reason why this disorder has not manifested itself in 

 Hamilton, he says, " The farmers in that town are in 

 the habit of using a considerable quantity of hay 

 from the salt marshes of Ipswich and Essex. It is 

 the practice of many there to keep a portion of their 

 best salt hay till the time the cows go to pasture ; 

 they will often eat it then, when they will not eat 

 the best of English hay." This is all true — and 

 equally true is it that salt hay is then fed out to our 

 working cattle, and that they wUl eat it with bet- 

 ter relish than the best of English hay. Not that 

 palt hay is the sole feed for either cows or oxen at 

 this season, but a« a change of food. Now, if your 

 correspondent arrives at the conclusion, from these 

 facts, that salt hay supplies the waste of bones in 

 our cows, I ask if it also furnishes the bono material 

 to our oxen, when he states, too, that oxen arc never 

 affected with this disorder ? 



But I would inquire, what reason is there to 

 believe that salt hay contains more of phosphate of 



lime than other hay ? The only evidence brought 

 forward by your correspondent, is in the shape of an 

 inference : *' From the large quantity of lime in 

 the shells of clams and muscles found about these 

 marshes, the inference is, that it contains a largo 

 amount of phosphate of lime." With him I can say 

 that I have never seen an analysis of this kind of 

 grass ; but in Hitchcock's Geology of Massachusetts, 

 page one hundred and six, is an analysis of marsh 

 mud, by which it appears that the amount of phos- 

 phate of lime contained in specimens from three 

 localities, viz., Newburyport, Cambridge, and Med- 

 ford, is loss than one per cent. The inference then 

 would seem to be, that the amount of this ingredient 

 in salt hay must be very small — so trifling as hardly 

 to keep the bones of our milch cows from going the 

 same way as the bones of those in Danvers, providing 

 that this disorder is really owing to the want of a 

 sufeciont quantity of this same ingredient in the 

 food of milch cows. 



I have always supposed that cattle are fond of an 

 occasional foddering of salt hay, for the same reason 

 that thej' are fond of licking salt ; and I believe it to 

 be true that cattle of aU kinds, oxen as well as cows, 

 farrow cows and heifers as well as milch cows, are 

 equally fond of it. 



Another fact stated by your correspondent is, that 

 milch cows are liable to this disease " even while 

 they were well fed upon good English hay and 

 Indian meal." And again he asks, " Why is it that 

 oxen and dry cows do well, while milch cows fed 

 from the same haymow and meal barrel, become 

 poor and stiff, if it is not because they do not get 

 phosphate of lime enough to make milk and support 

 the bones ? " If your correspondent will consult 

 any analysis of Indian corn, he Avill find that the 

 third largest ingredient contained in it, is this same 

 bone-making pliosphate of lime, being indeed more 

 than seventeen per cent, of Indian corn. How he 

 will reconcile this fact with his theory, I am at a loss 

 to conjecture. 



Again, he says, "Those farmers in Danvers whose 

 cows have been aftected by this disorder, have not 

 been in the habit of raising stock, but have sold their, 

 calves to the butcher ; " and he then goes on to show 

 the probable amount of animal matter (meaning, as 

 you, Mr, Editor, say he means, jjhospliate of lime) 

 that has been taken in this way from the soil. Now, 

 it is a fact, I believe, that few, very few farmers raise 

 many calves in Essex county — nine tenths of the 

 calves in this part of the county are sold to the 

 butcher. If this exhausts the soil of phosphate of 

 lime in our part of the county, why should it not 

 exhaust it in another ? 



There are many more pertinent questions that 

 might be asked in reference to this subject. But it 

 is much easier to ask questions on a subject like this, 

 than to answer thera. I am free to confess that I 

 feel the want of a better acquaintance with the whole 

 subject — the diseases of animals and the analyses 

 of various substances, and with other matters out of 

 the range of ordinary experience and observation — 

 a want, indeed, of just that kind of knowledge which 

 an agricultural school would impart. This disorder 

 in milch cows, whatever it may be, is one of those 

 subjects which scientific men can best investigate and 

 treat of — showing the cause and the remedy, and 

 the reason of the remedy. All the facts in the case 

 are important ; but the inferences drawn from them 

 must be legitimately drawn, to command assent. I 

 am as yet unable to see that the (so called) bone dis- 

 order in milch cows is at all attributable to the want 

 of enough phosphate of lime in their food — or, in- 

 deed, that their bones are any more alfectcd than 

 other parts of their svstem, when suffering under 

 this disease. ' ALLEN W. DODGE. 



Hamilton, Feb. 23, 1850. 



