1857. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



143 



time has come when most of the farmers in New 

 England can raise at least a portion of their heifer 

 calves at a profit. By a judicious selection of the 

 best, both in physical appearance, and of the most 

 approved blood, and with careful feeding, they will 

 soon be likely to get a stock of cows surpassing any 

 that have yet grazed our New England pastures, 



M,a^P^|»ersons hesitate to rear the calf because 

 they^tilmot at the time spare the milk for it, and 

 oecause they are not acquainted with any mode of 

 rearing without using most of the milk. While 

 we confess our belief that the calf will grow more 

 thriftilj', and do better generally when allowed to 

 take in his own way the food which nature has 

 provided for it, we also believe a substitute may be 

 provided, in the main, which will answer very well, 

 if accompanied with careful attention on our own 

 part. 



The calf should be allowed to suck one week, 

 both on his own account, and that of the cow, 

 After this take two or three quarts of milk just 

 drawn from the cow, into which insert the hand 

 and the head of the calf, and place one or two fin 

 gers in the mouth. The milk will soon disappear. 

 When this has been practised a few days, take 

 sweet clover and Timothy hay, cut it, and put two 

 or three quarts into a kettle with water and bring 

 it to the boiling point — then allow it to soak or 

 eimmer, for two or three hours, but not hot. At 

 the next time of feeding the crilf mix a little of 

 this sweet hay tea with its milk, and gradually in- 

 crease the quantity — lessening the milk — until the 

 calf will take it as readily as it ever did the milk 

 alone. After a while a little meal of corn, oats, 

 barley or buckwheat may be added ; and when the 

 calf is disposed to eat, fine red-top hay or sweet 

 clover, or oats wet a little over night, will be par- 

 ticularly acceptable. 



As soon as the short, tender grass appears in the 

 spring, one or two calves may be tied out near the 

 buildings, on land that would otherwise be of little 

 profit, and by occasionally changing their position, 

 and feeding them a little beside, they may be car- 

 ried through the summer, with an expense so 

 trifling that almost any one may incur it ; and be- 

 side that, they will soon become great petG of the 

 family. The second year, if pasturage is short at 

 home, they may be sent away. 



By this course, in three or four years, Massachu- 

 setts, at least, may be stocked with the best cows 

 she has ever had, and produced upon her own soil. 

 The small farmer may adopt this method, and very 

 soon, without really feeling that he has incurred 

 much expense, find himself in possession of several 

 cows whose profitable qualities will scarcely admit 

 of a doubt, and whose ages he will know. We 

 find these opinions freely expressed by some of our 

 best farmers, and particularly by those engaged in 

 producing milk. 



HORSEBACK RIDING. 



N. P. Willis, in one of his "Invalid Letters," thus 

 speaks of the therapeutic virtues of horseback rid- 

 ing : 



It was a secret which I did not discover by 

 books ; that exercise, tvith the legs of a horse to do 

 the ivork, distributes the blood's fullness and fresh- 

 ness to the extremities ; but that t xercise t<;i/A_?/oitr 

 own legs to do the ivork, draws the fullness and fresh- 

 ness from the extremities to the centre. Life and 

 strength, that is to say, are centrifugal if you exer- 

 cise on horseback — centripetal if you exercise on 

 foot. To test this, you have only to do the two 

 things. But, look in the glass, when you return 

 from a ride in the saddle, and you will see that the 

 hollows under your eyes are filled out and freshen- 

 ed in color, and that the incipient lines in your face, 

 (for I presume I am addressing a middle-aged, 

 charming woman,) have disappeared wholly or be- 

 come indistinct. Then, look in the glass on your 

 return from a loalk, of equal exercise, and you will 

 see just the contrary — your eyes sunken and the 

 lines of your face deepened with the fatigue. Or, 

 still more demonstratively — compare the fresh-col- 

 ored fulness of your hands and fingers' ends, after 

 the one exercise, with their dragged and depleted 

 spareness after the other. 



A recognition of the same fact may be seen in 

 the advice given by medical books to literary men — 

 or men whose brains are overworked by prolonged 

 attention of any kind. 'Avoid walking as an exer- 

 cise.' And the reason given is, 'that the concentra- 

 ted exertion at the hips and loins of the pedestrian, 

 pull directly upon the forces of the spine which sus- 

 tain the brain.' And it is nature's rallying law — 

 or calling in of recruiting power from the extremi- 

 ties to supply the demand upon the centre of the 

 system — which equally robs the brain, the face and 

 the hands of their proportionate supply of fullness. 

 Your beauty, madam, merely pays its recruiting 

 tax with the rest. 



Value of Chemistry. — Chemistry has given 

 token of her powers by threatening to alter the 

 course of commerce, and to reverse the tide of hu- 

 man industry. Thus she has discovered, it is said, 

 a substitute for the cochineal insect in a beautiful 

 dye producible from guano. She has shown that 

 our supply cf animal food might be obtained at a 

 cheaper rate from the antipodes by simply boiling 

 down the juices of the flesh of cattle now wasted 

 and thr«\vn aside in those countries, and importing 

 the extract in a state of concentration. She has 

 pointed out that one of the earths which constitute 

 the principal material of our globe contains a metal, 

 as light as glass, as malleable and ductile as copper, 

 and as little liable to rust as silver ; thus possess- 

 ing properties so valuable that, when means have 

 been found of separating ii economically from its 

 ore, it will be capable of superseding the metals in 

 common use, and thus of rendering metallurgy an 

 employment, not of certain districts only, but of 

 every part of the earth to which science and civili- 

 zation have i^enetrated. 



Bethel Maine Fakmers' Club. — Josiah Brown, 

 President ; Isaac C. Cross, Vice President ; A. L. 

 Burbank, Secretary ; N. T. True, Librarian. 



