84 



SILK MANUAL, AND 



FARMERS' WORK. 



A TALUABLE BOOK ON Cattle. — We have been pre- 

 sented by the publishers, Grigg and Elliot, of Philadel- 

 phia, by the hands of Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 

 Booksellers, Boston, with a very useful and excellent 

 work, entitled " Cattle; their Breeds, JVIanagement,and 

 Diseases; with an Index. Published under the super- 

 intendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 

 Knowledge." 



Of the utility of a good work of this kind there can be 

 but one opinion among intelligent and reflecting per- 

 sons. "No man will deny the importance of the ani- 

 mal whose milk affords butter, cheese and various com 

 binaticns for his table — whose hide gives leather for 

 machinery, harness, shoes, &c. — whose hair supports 

 the plaster upon his walls — whose horn and bone are 

 converted into medicines, and articles constantly in his 

 use — whose tallow and fat are consumed in candles and 

 in soap, necessary to his comfort and health — whose 

 heels afford oil, valuable in many of his pursuits — whose 

 stomach even constitutes an agreeable repast — whose 

 tail is converted into a couch for his indulgence or re- 

 pose — and whose patient offspring, after having enabled 

 him to reap the harvest of his fields, yields the most 

 wholesome and nutritious food for his frame, and finnlly, 

 by his offal, enriches the soil." 



From a cursory perusal of this volume, (we have not 

 yet had time to give that attention whicii it deserve.s) 

 we have formed a high opinion of its merits. It gives 

 us the natural history of the ox, the different breeds of 

 British cattle, such -is" Polled Cattle, Irish Cattle, Long 

 Horn, Short Horn, Foreign cattle, including the Alder- 

 ny, Najore cattle, Buffalo and Indian cattle, structure 

 and diseases of different parts of the ox; Breeding, 

 Parturition, the diseases and management of calves," 

 «&c. and "a list of the medicines used in the treatment 

 of the diseases of cattle." A few extracts from this very 

 valuable book will give our readers some means of form- 

 ing a correct estimate of the whole treatise. 



In the introduction it is remarked, " If an ox is not in- 

 dividually so valuable as a horse, yet, in the aggregate, 

 cattle constitute a much greater proportion of the wealth 

 of the country ; for although Great Britain contains a 

 million and a half of horses, she has to boast of more 

 than eight millions of cattle unrivalled in the world." 



The author gives the items of a calculation, by which 

 he computes that the actual value of cattle, sheep and 

 swine in Great Britain U nearly one hundred and twenty 

 millions sterling, and continues, " Although much has 

 been done by agricultural societies to improve the breed 

 and the general treatment of these animals , and much 

 valuable instruction is to be found scattered in many a 

 Tolurne, nn one has yet attempted to collect these frag- 

 ments of" useful knowledge," and to add to them his 

 own experience ; and in one very important part of our 

 ' subject there has been the most unaccountable neglect, 

 for there is scarcely in the English language a work on 



the preservation of the health, and the prevention and 

 cure of the diseases of cattle and sheep on -which any 

 dependence can be placed. Although a tenth part of 

 the sheep and lambs die annually of disease, (more than 

 four millions perished o; the rot alone, in the winter of 

 1829-30,) and at least a fifteenth part of the neat cattle 

 are destroyed by inflammatory fever and milk fever, red 

 water, hoose, and diarhoea; and the country incurs a loss 

 of nearly ten millions of pounds annually, the agricultu- 

 rist knows not where to go for information on the nature 

 and the cure of the maladies of which they die . and is 

 either driven to confide in the boasted skill of the pre- 

 tender or make up his mind that it is in vain to struggle 

 against the evils which he cannot arrest, and lets mat- 

 ters take their course." 



" The parent race of the ox is said to have been much 

 larger than any of the present varieties. The Urus in 

 his wild state at least, was an enormous and fierce ani- 

 mal, and ancient legends have thrown around him an air 

 of mystery. In almost every part of the continent, and 

 in every district of England, skulls, evidently belonging 

 to cattle have been found, far exceeding in bulk any now 

 known. There is a fine specimen in the British Muse- 

 um : the peculiarity of the horns will be observed, re- 

 sembling smaller ones, dug up in the mines of Cornwall, 

 preserved in the wild cattle of Chillingham Park, and 

 not quite lost in our native breeds of Devon and East 

 Sussex, and thoseof the Wel«h mountains, and the High- 

 lands. The cumbatofGuy, Earl of Warwick, with the 

 dun cow, the skull of which is yet preserved in the cas- 

 tle of Warwick will sufficiently prove the comparative- 

 ly large size of some of the wild cattle of that day. We 

 have reason to believe, however, that this referred more 

 to individuals than to the character of the breed general- 

 ly, for there is no doubt that, within the last century, the 

 size of the cattle has progressively increased in England, 

 and kept pace with the improvement in agriculture.'' 



This work will be found amusing as well as useful, 

 and in our opinion ought to be found in every Farmer's 

 Library. 



Grapes.-— We hope that amidst all the new things 

 that are brought before the public, which have in their 

 success a tendency to contribute to our prosperity and 

 advance our coinfoits, some, which may now be consid- 

 ered as old, will not be entirely forgotten. While many 

 are engaging with such flattering prospects of reward in 

 the culture of the mulberry, the manufacture of silk, and 

 the making of sugar from beets, we hope that grapes for 

 wine and the table will not be entirely overlooked. For 

 a year or two the columns of the Farmer bore evidence 

 of the interest the raising of the grape excited : but for 

 some cause which remains to be explained, little or noth- 

 ing is now heard on the subject. 



Early' Snow. — Snow fell to the depth of one or two 

 inches on Wednesday, last week, in Ashburnham, N.H. 

 and its vicinity ; and in Ashby, Mass. 



