CORRESPONDENCE. 129 



for action about the time when your wheat is most in 

 danger of growing too fast and bursting open the stalk, 

 letting out the sap and forming rust, so as to prevent 

 the proper juices from passing into tlie head of the 

 grain. — Ed. 



Mr. BucKMiNSTER, — I havc a heifer calf from a 

 very good cow of tiie native breed. At eight weeks 

 old this calf will bring me ten dollars ; shall 1 sell it 

 and trust to luck for getting one from New Hampshire, 

 or Vermont, at one year and a half old, for eight or ten 

 dollars, or shall I rear it ? 



I set the whole cost of keeping the calf this summer 

 against the value of the milk that is required to fatten 

 it ; then my calf stands at ten dollars in the fall. It 

 will eat five hundred weight of good hay the first 

 winter, equal to four dollars. It may be kept twenty- 

 six weeks the next summer for about two dollars. 

 Then I have a calf of my own raising at ten, and four, 

 and two, equal to sixteen dollars, one and a half years 

 old. I can usually buy from the country at that age 

 for eight or ten dollars. They are now higher, but 

 not so high as sixteen dollars. I hesitate, and want 

 advice. P. 



Soiithborough, March 21. 



If cattle from the country should continue to beheld 

 as high as they have been, we may as well rear our 

 own stock, for we have some advantage in knowing 

 the race from which we breed. As times have been in 

 years past, we could usually buy, at one year and a half 

 old, a likely calf for the same money that we obtained 

 for one at eight weeks old, well fatted. In Vermont, a 

 calf eight weeks old is not worth three dollars, and 

 hay in many places not more than four or fiv^e dollars 

 the ton, and pasturing in proportion. It would seem 

 proper, in such a state of things, to purchase, rather than 

 to raise from calves our ordinary stock ; but there are, 

 12 



