1883. J 



THE LANCASTER FARMER- 



167 



Now, what is to be done in stocking a farm 

 where money is limited ? In the first place, 

 procure the very best common stock that your 

 means will allow. Don't be afraid of giving 

 double for a good one what you would for a 

 common or poor one. Then procure a bull 

 from the very best butter family within your 

 reach, and breed your cows to such animal 

 until you gel lieifers containing fifty, seventy- 

 five, and eighty-seven and one-half per cent, 

 of his blood. Don't be afraid of inbreeding 

 so long a your bull is strong, vigorous and 

 healtliy. Castrate the male calves, or dispose 

 of tliem as you woidd common stock ; but 

 keep your heifers, by all means, for your 

 future dairy cows. 



For the above purposes there is no strain of 

 cattle at all comparable to tlie .Jersey breed. 

 They have been bred for hundreds of years 

 for milk, cream and butter mainly, and, of 

 course, excel in every particular. The cas- 

 trated males will make as much beef in pro- 

 portion to the food they consume as any other 

 race. A bull can be procured of a reliable 

 breeder for from .$50 to $75. By getting a 

 thoroughbred, recorded animal, his gervice 

 fees in the neighborhood would pay for him- 

 self in a season. They are old enough for 

 service at about one year of age. Proper 

 handling is necessary to any race, if you would 

 have a gentle animal. The .Jersey bull is as 

 gentle, docile and easily handled as bulls of 

 any other race ; possibly they excel in docility. 

 Bred from such a bull your heifer calves at 

 birth are worth as much as a two-year-old 

 heifer of the common .stock, even at the first 

 cross. The tliree-quarter blood heifers, and 

 from that to the fifteen-sixteenths, are worth 

 double and treble as much. And when such 

 heifers come into milk they will almost equal 

 the thoroughbred Jersey herself in richness 

 of cream and butter product, while, if the 

 dam is a first-class milker they often excel the 

 thoroughbred Jersey in the quantity of milk 

 they yield. Tims, in ten years any man may 

 breed up a first-class dairy stock which would 

 be almost like a gold mine by a little care in 

 selecting a bull.— -B. L. Briggsin Dairy and 

 Farm Journal. 



HAVANA SEED. 



What It Has Done For BaldwinsvUle, N. Y. 

 When j'ou are in a tobacco region, the con- 

 versation turns on tobacco aud the prospect ; 

 when you are in a hop section, the people talk 

 glibly and perhaps intelligently about hops ; 

 when you are in a potato section, the all-ab- 

 sorbing topic is potatoes and potato seedlings; 

 and when you are among teasel growers of 

 Skaneateles, you are veiy much interested in 

 the fact that Skaneateles stands the highest 

 of any section in the United States in the pro- 

 duction of teasels and in their management. 

 "We are in the great tobacco section around 

 the fast growing livelv village of Baldwins- 

 ville, with its increasing industries. For 

 miles around our place is very much interested 

 in the numerous and growing fields of domes- 

 tic Havana tobacco. On every side j'Ou see 

 plots of this famous variety of leaf growing. 

 As you pass the fields j'ou smell the rich and 

 may saj' pleasant aroma of domestic Havana 

 tobacco, which has followed the original 

 Havana plant to the very doors of our ener- 



getic growers in the County of Onondaga, and 

 the sections adjoining our county. The 

 growth of Havana seed tobacco, as it is some- 

 times called, has become a veritable industry 

 with our farmers, and they are thriving as 

 the ox thrives on the iiroducts of the great 

 cornfields of Illinois. From the jjroceeds of 

 our tobacco fields our active farmer boys feel 

 glad to think they can sport a fine wagon, 

 horse and harness ; which, on the other hand, 

 • he merchant is happy to know that as the 

 pi'oduction of tobacco becomes greater, his 

 profits also become more satisfactory, and he 

 himself can afford a very pleasant life for his 

 family. 



" Yes," said a stranger, " your town is as- 

 stiredly growing, and may I in(itiire the 

 cause ?" 



"The thriving condition of our place is 

 owing to the tobacco interest in this section, 

 and the large amounts of money annually 

 paid out here for for domestic Havana tobacco 

 produced in this region." 



Such was the answer given a stranger. Our 

 village is increasing its population very rapid- 

 ly, because of the impetus given to it by 

 reason of the large receipts of tobacco by the 

 different warehouses here. 



Thrift, industry, life of an active character 

 — these things go hand in liand here, and our 

 go ahead people are, rest assured, very largely 

 interested in the growtli of tobacco, because 

 through its successful production their bread 

 and butter come. 



Baldwinsville receives its tobacco from 

 South Butler, Victory, Westbury, Red Creek, 

 Meridian, Cato, Hannibal Centre and South 

 Hannibal, Granby, Bowen's Corners, Fulton, 

 Lysander village, Caneville, Oswego town- 

 ship, Pulaski, Volney, Mexico, Hastings, 

 Schroeppel, Cicero, Chittenango, Clay, Ska- 

 neateles, Elhridge, Camillds, Marcellus, Mari- 

 etta, Van Buren, Ly.9ander, and numerous 

 other points, quite too numerous, in fact, to 

 chronicle here, [s it a wonder, therefore, 

 that our phice is growing ? Labor and in- 

 dustry makes a place grow. Our tobacco in- 

 dustry gives to the laborer in winter and in 

 summer labor — labor to help on the poor 

 man's family — to brace him during the long 

 winter months which we are certain to have 

 in this northern climate. We feel gratified 

 for the labor the assorting and packing of to- 

 bacco furnishes our laborers ; and we know 

 that whenever there is work going on, their 

 money is paid out, and the merchants and 

 grocers get a portion of it to build up their 

 trades. Thus we are moving on. Xew to- 

 bacco warehouses are being built here ; new 

 firms from abroad are coming among us to 

 buy our leaf, renewed interest is being taken 

 in our fine Havana tobacco, and the foreign 

 buyers covet it ; they want it ; in a word, it 

 seems to us that they must have our Havana 

 leaf for the manufacture of fine cigars and 

 still finer wrappers. — Syraciine (iV. 1'.) Jour- 

 nal. 



CORN, HOG, AND CHOLERA. 



However presumptuous it may appear in 

 one, a simple farmer, who spends his time at 

 home attending to the endle.ss duties and 

 routine of the farm, to exi)ress an opinion on 

 the vexed question of the cause and preventa- 

 tive of the dreaded swine plague commonly 



known as cholera, yet I shall venture an 

 opinion, which may or may not be of value. 



For years it has been contended that the 

 almost exclusive diet of corn, on which the 

 hogs of the West were reared and fattened, 

 was the primary cause of this dreaded scourge. 

 Yet this has lacked a successful verification, 

 as so many instances have occurred where the 

 crop of spring pigs, along with the sows, have 

 been swept away in tlie fall when they have 

 liad nothing, or very little, more than grass 

 through the summer. So, thus far, the sub- 

 ject seems to be left about where it was. For 

 years I have been watcliing for anything 

 which would throw light on the subject of the 

 swine i)laguc, and have gathered many 

 theories, the most of whicli have been dis- 

 carded, and a few still seem of enough im- 

 portance to retain for further consideration. 



One coincidence, if it be not cause, has 

 been so manifest during three years past that 

 it is worthy of farther consideration, and that 

 is, the relation between a big corn crop and 

 tlie ravages of the cholera. In 11^79 we had 

 the heaviest yield of corn per acre ever raised 

 In this country. Corn was cheap and plenty. 

 In 1SS<0 followed another good crop, increas- 

 ing its plentifulness. It was fed lavishly. In 

 18S0 and 1^81 was a remarkable scourge of 

 the hog cholera. In IKSl and 1SS2 the corn 

 through the hog-growing sections was light, 

 and, therefore, fed more sparingly ; more 

 grass and other food and less com was used 

 in pork production, and the cholera steadily 

 decreased during these years, till now, in 1883, 

 the Agricultural Department reported the 

 disease extinct. 



There is yet a lack of evidence to prove 

 that corn is the jirime cause of disease in 

 swine, yet there is enough to cause a further 

 investigation of the subject, lo my mind it 

 will not do to lay tlie blame on corn or any 

 one thing alone for the visitations of this 

 dread disease ; but, undoubtedly, overcrowd- 

 ing has had more to do with it than any other 

 one thing, and a region devoted to corn-raising 

 is more apt to lead to extensive hog produc- 

 tion, because of the enhanced profits in feed- 

 ing corn to the hogs over selling it. I have 

 often tried to find an instance where the 

 cholera has made its first appearance in a 

 neighborhood in a small herd, but so far liave 

 failed. So far as my ob.servation has gone, it 

 has always begun its ravages in the larger 

 herds, aud from there has spread to the 

 smaller ones, though the treatment of the 

 herds, to all appearance, has been the same. 



Long feeding in one place and unchanged 

 sleeping (juarters lead to an accumulation of 

 filth, and then, when certain meteorological 

 conditions which we do not understand occur, 

 the disease breaks out. As this accumulation 

 is more rapid in the large than in the small 

 herd the disease is more apt to break out 

 there ; and with the small herd the conditions 

 are so nearly perfect that it only needs the 

 contact of the taint given by the actual dis- 

 ease to perfect it, and so the disease spreads 

 to the small herds. 



This may all be theory, from ihe beginning 

 to the end, yet to me there is much of fact in 

 it, and I believe if we were to pay greater at- 

 tention to cleanliness in the care of our swine, 

 oftener change their eating and sleeping quar- 

 ters, and keep fewer together, we would ma- 



