THE GENESEE FARMER. 





family, we shall be obliged to any of our readers wlio can put us on the track to find 

 any evidence to prove that the Galloway, Angus, and other hornless breeds, are 

 descended from a race that had horns ; or that any fossil hornless cattle have ever been 

 found i-n Great Britain, Ireland, or Eastern Europe. Sheep are known to lose and 

 acquire horns without any very long intervention of time. DomestieatGd swine without 

 any thing more than the rudiments of tusks, acquire them of formidable length when 

 they run wild a few years in the forests. An increase and decrease of length and 

 Aveight of horns are no uncommon occurrences. The cattle of Sicily carry more weight 

 of horns, according to that of the whole carcass, than any other that we have seen ; 

 and the small cattle of the pine woods in the Southern States come next to them. 

 When we said that fine specimens of Galloway cattle might be seen in "Augusta, 

 Charleston, and Washington," the word Charleston was by mistake printed " Charles- 

 town," which being a town in Massachusetts, might mislead the reader. We never 

 saw any Galloway cattle either in New York or New England, although they may be 

 kept. Native hornless cattle are not uncommon in the Northern States, but, as the 

 Boston Cultivator truly remarks, they are not Galloways. 



Beware of Cutting Wheat Prematurelv. — One of the larwst wheat orrowers in 

 the State of Delaware, who uses between fifty and sixty tons of guano a year, informs 

 us that he lost nearly three thousand dollars by cutting his v.'heat prematurely, and 

 thereby causing it to shrink badly, at the harvest of 1852. He was induced to deviate 

 from his usual practice by reading an extended article on harvesting wheat written by 

 Mr. Edmund .Ruffin, of Virginia, Avho is generally regarded as high authority, being 

 himself a pretty large wheat grower. Nothing is easier than to misjudge as to the 

 precise time when this important crop ought to be harvested. It has frequently been 

 asserted that so soon as the milk disappears, and the seed is in a " doughy state," the 

 grain should be cut. This, we believe, is a little too early ; as it is a little too late after 

 the seed is hard and dead ripe. 



* The farmer is seldom able to cut down his entire crop at the exact time when it will 

 yield the most weight of grain and flour ; and hence, as Mr. Ruffin suggests, it is often 

 deemed better to harvest a little too early than a great deal too late. By the use of 

 wheat-reapers propelled by horse power, farmers are able to cut large fields of wheat at, 

 or very near the proper time. The drying of the straw immediately below the head, 

 by which the ascent of sap is arrested, is one of the most reliable indications of the 

 maturity of the plant, and of the necessity of cutting and curing it. Many wheat grow- 

 ers, particularly in the tobacco and cotton growing States, permit their wheat to stand 

 too long in the shock, or in small stacks, before it is either threshed or properly housed. 

 Birds, vermin, and other animals destroy much of it; and sometimes protracted rains 

 cause the grain to sprout, and the crop is half wasted from sheer carelessness. 



Cheese Imported into Great Britain in 1852. — A return from the the oflSce of 

 the Inspector General of imports and exports, obtained by Sir P. Egerton, contains an 

 account of the quantity of Cheese imported iiito the several ports of Great Britain in the 

 course of the year ending January 5th, 185.3. The return shows the following figures: 

 — "Imported from the Earopean States, 278,179 cwt. ; from the United States, 11,275 

 cwt. ; from the ]3ritish colonies, 2 cwt. — making a total of 289,457 cwt. The quantities 

 of foreign European cheese ex]>orted from the United Kingdom during the same period, 

 amount to 5,694 cwt." By these figures it will be seen that the Continent furnishes 

 Great Britain about twenty-six times more cheese than the United States. These facts 

 are important, showing as they do that that market needs vastly more of this dairy pro- 

 duct than we are able to supply. Wo might increase our export five-fold, and then sell 

 to England less than a fourth of the foreign cheese which is now consumed there. 





