76 



NEW ENGLAND FAKIVIER. 



Feb. 



you a new interest in the butterflies, and their four 

 gaily painted wings, and in the barli, pith and 

 stem of the vegetation by which you are sur- 

 rounded. 



FAllMING. — TWIX HEIFERS. 



It requires considerable knowledge to carry on 

 farming successfully, and if we learn from others, 

 it will, as a general rule, cost less than to learn by 

 experience, which, accortling to the old adage, 

 sometimes charges high wages for tuition. The 

 suggestions iTceivcd througli the columns of the 

 Fakmeii arc of great value to some, especially to 

 young firmcrs like myself; and I hope people will 

 not be diflidc- t in imparting such knowledge as 

 they may possess. Those that receive benefit will 

 at least l)c thankful. 



I have a pair of twin heifers, and have been told 

 by some that both would not make good cows, or 

 that one would be inferior to the other. Did they 

 tell the ti nth ? H.G.Smith. 



West Mansfield, Nov, 18. 



Remarks. — Not of a certainty. "VVe have re- 

 cently seen two or three pairs of heifer twins, 

 which are being raised because they promise great 

 excellence. Our correspondent probably alludes 

 to the opinion which has prevailed among breeders 

 from time immemorial, that when a cow produces 

 two calves, one of them a bull calf and the other a 

 heifer calf, that the female, to which has been 

 given the curious name of Free Martin, will be 

 barren. The old Roman writers on agriculture 

 allude to them as tavree, intimating that they had 

 something of the bull about them. Mr. Youatt, 

 in his treatise on cattle says, that Mr. John Hun- 

 ter, of England, an accurate inquirer spared no 

 pains or cxjicnse to ascertain the I'cal foundation 

 of this belief; and he availed himself of the op- 

 portunity of examining three of these free-martins. 

 In all of them there was a greater or less devia- 

 tion from the external form and appearance of the 

 cow ; and in the head and the horns some ap- 

 proach to those of the ox ; while neither of them 

 had shown any propensity to lirecd. The teats 

 were smaller than is usual in the heifer; but the 

 outward a[)pearancc of the bearing was the same. 

 They were slaughtered, and he examined the in- 

 ternal stiuciurc of the sexual j^arts; he found in 

 all of them a greater or less deviation from the 

 form of the female, and the iddilion of some of 

 the organs peculiar to ihe male ; and he ascertained 

 that they were in fact hermaphrodites. It is not 

 then a mere vulgar error that the female twin is 

 barren. On the other hand, there are several well 

 auiheniiiatcd instances of these free-martins hav- 

 ing bred. An anonymous writer in the Farmer's 

 Matfazine, for November, 1806, describes a free- 

 martin l)clonging to Mr. Buchan of Killintring- 

 ham, that had a calf, and was a handsome 

 bea»t, with a well-placed udder, and was a good 

 milker. The same gentleman, however, had an- 

 other ft-cc-martin which never bred. Another 

 writer in tlic same Magazine, November, 1807, 

 says, "on the 11th of November, 1804, a cow ol 

 mine brought forth two calves, one a bull, and the 



other a cow calf; and in spring last the female 

 twin produced a very good male calf; yet a neigh- 

 bor of mine assures me that a female twin belong- 

 ing to him never would take the bull, and was sold 

 on that account to the butcher at the age of four 

 or five." 



It would hence appear that the rule is, and a 

 verj' singular anomaly in natural history it is, that 

 the female twin is barren because she is an her- 

 maphrodite ; but in some cases, there not being 

 this admixture of the organs of different sexes, or 

 those of the female prevailing, she is capable of 

 breeding. 



But in case both of the twins are heifers we are 

 not aware of any facts which justify the appre-. 

 hensions of our correspondent. 



BLANKETING HORSES. 



Many times I have taken my seat to pen a few 

 lines for your paper, but have as often deferred the 

 accomplishment of my purpose. The subject that 

 I now propose to write upon is the winter care of 

 horses. From what little experience I have had 

 in taking care of them, I have come to the con- 

 clusion that a team of horses is better off not to 

 be blanketed. Two years ago 1 had two horses, 

 and kept them blanketed all the time, save when 

 they were on the road. They both had frequent 

 colds, run at the nose, and shivered when coming 

 in contact with the cold air. When taking them 

 out of the stable, in the morning, to water, with 

 the blankets off, they would tremble like an aspen 

 leaf. Last winter I did not put a blanket on to 

 either of them, and I did not see any signs of a 

 cold, nor did I see one of them tremble after 

 drinking. Even when I came in with them quite 

 warm and sweaty, at night, I could see no incon- 

 venience from not blanketing them. Now. hoping 

 that some more abler pen than mine will take up 

 the subject, I submit the foregoing as the result of 

 my experience. c. 



Surri/, N. H., Dec. 1, 1867. 



MILKING ONCE A DAT. 



I would ask through your valuable paper, if it is 

 as well to milk cows only once a day, as twice, 

 through the winter months ? Whether yon can get 

 as much milk in milking once as twice, or whether it 

 ishurttul to the cows, or has a tendency to dry them 

 quicker ? If it is just as well to milk once, it will 

 save time and labor in cold weather. 



Franklin, Mass., Nov., 1867. J. Jordan. 



Rejiarks. — There is no doubt on our mind 

 that milking the cow only once in twenty-four 

 hours would have a decided tendency to dry her. 

 On the contrary, milking her three times would 

 have a tendency — it might be slight — to increase 

 the quantity of milk. Nature is usually generoub 

 in attempting to supply the demand made upon 

 her. By high feeding and frequent milking, many 

 cows can be made to yield for ten or eleven months 

 in the year. 



SITTING HENS AND STERILE COCKS. 



One of our correspondents at North Easton, asks 

 us several puzzling questions on the above topics. 



^Vhat we wish to say to him first is, "that sitting 

 hens have their ways as well as anybody ;" and that 

 some of these ways are just as much past finding 



