U6 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



see long lanes lined on e«ch side with beautiful 

 trees in bloom ? Tbe wild or crab apple also yields 

 a most delicious perfume, for many rods around, 

 when it is in bloom. And in the latter part of the 

 season, ho.v beautiful to see the trees bending un- 

 der their heavy loads of difterent hues, delicious 

 both to the eyes and palate. By thus improving 

 our highways, we might almost dispense with the 

 orcliai-d. wm. reno. 



2few Cn-gtlCf Lawrence Co., Pa. 



NOTES FOE THE MONTH. -BY S. W. 



Distillert-Slop-Fattkd Beef and Mutton. — 

 The best meat sold here is by an English butcher. 

 It is fatted on good hay, a very few roots, and still- 

 slop, lie gets 12i cents per lb. for the best cuts 

 of beef, and 10 cents for mutton; while the half- 

 fatted beef and lean mutton he buys from farmers 

 he sells at two cents a pound less. Yet we are 

 gravely told, by a committee of the New York 

 Academy of Medicine, if the Journal of Commerce 

 reports truly, that the " beef of swill-fed cows has 

 its cellular tissue filled with fluid to a great extent, 

 instead of solid fat." And what is still more 

 astounding, and a poser to analytical chemistry, is, 

 that the milk of still-swill-fed cows is " entirely 

 wanting in the phosphoric ingredient that is found 

 in pure milk ;" which necessarily implies either that 

 cereal grain, so rich in phosphates, contains less 

 phosphate of lime than grass, or that the phos- 

 phoric ingredient had been taken off by distillation, 

 which is a physical impossibility. 



In the report, last year, on the character of the 

 New York swill milk, it was contended that the 

 eows were kept in a state of semi-inebriation by 

 the waste alcohol that was run off with the slop ; 

 but now the reverse is comi)lained of by this 

 learned committee, to wit: that "the swill, from 

 the period it is drawn from the alembic, is highly 

 charged with acetic acid." Last year it was con- 

 tended that the milk of swill-fed cows would not 

 coagulate as soon by several boui"s as othei" milk. 

 Now this committee says that "it undergoes re- 

 markable transformations in less than four hours." 

 Interlarded as the report is with professional verbi- 

 age, assertions like these only sliow how well this 

 committee has been hoaxed ; for it appears that the 

 report is ex parte — made up on hearsay evidence, 

 fnrnished drawings, and bugbear reports, and with- 

 out any made analyses on the part of the commit- 

 tee, or other exact knowledge of their own in the 

 premises. But while a nursery story only fright- 

 ens children, this queerly elabor.ited indictment of 

 »will milk may frighten the mothers of children; 

 yet the excellent, savory, well-fatted meat, and 

 good milk and butter, that is daily made in the 

 country from distillery-swill-fed animals, scatters to 

 tiio four winds the pen-and-ink analyses and ex 

 parte report of this committee of the New York 

 Academy of Medicine. 



The Value of LEAcnED Ashes. — A western ag- 

 ricultural paper says " thoroughly leached ashes 

 contain no potashy I have noticed that ashes can 

 not be thoroughly leached of their potash, even by 

 the application of hot water, as enough of alkaline 

 •»alt8 has remained to affect the skin of my fingers. 

 The presence of acids, or the action of the roots of 

 growing plants, caa alone extract aU the potash 



from wood ashes. But as leached ashes contain, 

 beside potash, all the mineral elements of plants, 

 they can not fail to be an excellent manure for all 

 light and thoroughly exhausted soils. One of the 

 best farms I ever saw in Rhode Island was brought 

 up, from an exhausted barren sand that supported 

 no vegetation, to clover bearing, by the aid of 

 leached ashes alone. Milch cows and swamp muck, 

 afterward, with the aid of clover, induced great 

 fertility. 



The Value of Manure from well-fed Animals, 

 — Ilere is a farmer who had two acres of sandy 

 land, near this village, so thoroughly exhausted 

 that it would hardly support grass. He gave our 

 stall-feeding butcher the use of it one season, for 

 the benefit of the manure he was to put on it. He 

 put on 40 loads of stall manure, the basis of which 

 was distilled grain, and got a large crop of pota- 

 toes, leaving the soil so full of organic matter Aat 

 its color was changed from drab to a chocolate 

 color in many places. These forty loads evidently 

 improved this field more than twice the quantity 

 of the ordinary farm-yard manure, John Johns- 

 ton said he would not have bought linseed meal 

 this winter, at the present high price, but for the 

 extra value it gave to his manure. He also buys 

 lean sheep and cattle to fat on his large crop of 

 hay and corn, (punting on the extra value of the 

 manure as no small part of the compensation. At 

 this time he is selling sheep at eight to ten dollars 

 each, that cost him but two dollars last fall. Yet, 

 strange as it may seem, an Ohio farmer corres- 

 pondent of the last Ohio Cultivator attempts Xf 

 show his brother farmers the profits on porl; 

 growing, without adding a single penny to th. 

 credit side of the account for the manure made 

 So much for the Western obliviousness of org&ni. 

 manures; while in Rhode Island it is said tha 

 every breeding sow, if supplied with common ma- 

 terials, wUl half pay her board in the manure she 

 makes, 



A little Corn to Farm Stock. — A farmer who 

 has had much experience in wintering stock, says, 

 if you feed corn in the ear to cattle during the day. 

 they will not digest it well ; but a few nubbins fed 

 at night, after the animal has eaten hay and is 

 ready to lie down, will all be re-chewed with the 

 cud and thoroughly digested, adding profitably to 

 the keeping of the animal, 



A few Words on Hat. — Here is a practical 

 farmer who says he wants timothy to grow until it 

 is so ripe that it may be cut and hauled into the 

 mow the same day. Per contra., here is a cow 

 who will not eat such hay at all, if she can get 

 that which was cut before the seed had flUed, and 

 was well cured by sweating in cock. I take it that 

 it is the imperfect curing of early-cut hay that 

 brings it into disrepute. Some farmers allow it to 

 burn in the sun ; and because it does not cure cjisilj 

 they let it lie exposed to the night dew, if not to 

 light showers. Such hay loses all its sweetness. 

 I have seen hay well cured in cock in bad weather. 

 When the wind blew, and the air was partially dry, 

 the cocks were opened ; but always closed at night, 

 or before a shower. There can be no donbt that 

 hay cut before the seed has filled is twice as nutri- 

 tious, if well cured, as that which needs no curiag 

 after the seed is ripe. b. w. 



WaUrloo, N. T., March, 1869. 



