168 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[November, 



terially lessen the startling annual loss from 

 the plague. It is folly to consider this indus- 

 try safe, even if our learned professors of 

 agriculture do declare the plague dead. We 

 know it is only sleeping and may become very 

 wide awake at any moment. — L. O. Mosher 

 in Dairy and Farm Journal. 



THE JERSEYS. 



Jersey is but a small island ; if it were 

 square, it would be just six and three-fourths 

 miles each way. Yet this little spot manages 

 to support about twelve thousand cattle — 

 that is, roughly speaking, one for every two 

 acres of its surface — rocks, roads, wastes, and 

 house-room for 60,000 people included And 

 it has done this for the la.st twenty years, at 

 least, for the census of 1861 gives tlie number 

 of cattle in Jersey as 12,037. What is more 

 remarkable, it exports every year above 2,000 

 head, the average export, by the customs re- 

 turns, for the last eighteen years, being 2,049 

 — nearly one for every ten acres. Now, the 

 total number of cattle in England only aver- 

 ages one head to ten acres. It therefore fol- 

 lows that, in proportion to its size, Jersey ex- 

 ports every year as many cattle as England 

 contains. In other words, if England were to 

 export cattle at the same rate, her whole 

 stock would be swept away in a single year — 

 not a hoof would be left behind. The system 

 that enables Jersey to do tliis must be worth 

 considering, particularly in these days, when 

 the English farmer is at his wit's end what to 

 do, as his sheet-anchor, wheat raising, lets 

 him drift upon the rocks. 



But another, and not less striking, result of 

 our management is the breed of cattle it has 

 produced. Hitherto, it has been the accus- 

 tomed fashion in England to look upon Jer- 

 seys as the curled darlings of fortune — pretty 

 playthings for the rich — lovely little objects 

 for the lawn — yielding a small quantity of 

 very rich milk, cream, and butter for those 

 wealthy enough to afford such extravagance. 

 That they are small, we admit ; beautiful, we 

 grant. Fitness for the work is the thing ; all 

 the rest, tinsel. The office of the Jersey is to 

 convert grass and roots into butter, not beef. 

 She is not bred to be eaten ; she is too valu- 

 able as a butter machine. Then why should 

 she be larger ? And, far from being the rich 

 man's luxury, she is, more than any other 

 breed, the poor man's necessity, the small 

 farmer's best help. 



We have seen that 12,000 cattle are here 

 kept, on a place six miles square ; where rent 

 averages £9 ($45) an acre ; where the farm.s 

 are smaller than anywhere else in the world ; 

 where every farmer works with his own hands 

 and is brought face to face with the wolf he 

 must keep from the door. What do we see ? 

 The island eaten up with cows and the farm- 

 ers beggars? On the contrary the whole 

 island is like a garden thickly strewn with com- 

 fortable well-to-do houses and homesteads; we 

 find ease and comfort everywhere, poverty and 

 want unknown, beggars none. I do not say 

 this is all the produce of cows ; but I do say 

 that our farmers (who have so close a fight, 

 and yet are so wonderfully successful) must 

 understand their business, and do not keep 

 12,000 cattle at a loss. If Jerseys pay here, 

 with land at £9 an acre, can they be un- 

 profitable in England, or anywhere else where 



butter finds a market? But we go much 

 farther ; we hold that the Jersey cow is the 

 most beautiful of her species, and the most 

 profitable. 



The Jersey does not claim to be the best 

 animal for producing beef or milk or cheese. 

 Her .specialty is butter, and here she stands 

 unrivalled for quality and for profit. All the 

 beef for our 60,000 people is im,,orted every 

 week from the neighboring coast of France 

 and from Spain ; and tliis has been the case 

 for the last hundred years, at least, as the 

 Acts of our island abundantly show. With 

 our 12,000 cattle we do not rear a single bul- 

 lock ; neither do we make a single pound of 

 cheese, and probably never did. As to milk, 

 that of the Jersey cow Is far too good for 

 the milkman, who would find a Holstein or 

 one of the deep-milking tribes of Shorthorns 

 much more profitable. Neither does the Jersey 

 claim-to be " a good all-round cow." The 

 " good all-round cow " is an anarehronism ; 

 she might have done very well when every 

 man was his own butclier and baker. Nowa- 

 days the farmer is obliged to consider what 

 particular line will be.st suit his circumstances 

 and surroundings— whether beef or milk, 

 cheese or butter ; and he must choose his cow 

 accordingly, for on thi.s depends his success or 

 failure. If he decided in favor of butter, 

 there is no cow will suit him so well as the 

 Jersey, for she is the only one that has been 

 persistently bred for butter alone, and she is 

 the accumulated result of some hundreds of 

 years' pei-severing effort in that direction. 



STORING SWEET POTATOES. 

 The most common and most successful way 

 of storing away sweet potatoes for winter 

 keeping in this latitude is to put up in dust. 

 There are other modes which have tlieir advo- 

 cates. In the summer, when the dust is very 

 dry, I take as many barrels or boxes as I shall 

 want to fill with potatoes and fill them with 

 road dust and put them away in a dry place 

 to keep until I dig my potatoes. I prefer dig- 

 ging before frost. I dig them and let them 

 dry in the sun a day ; then they are stored 

 away in a cool place ; they are spread singly 

 over the floor so as not to heat nor sweat ; 

 when cold weather sets in they are taken and 

 stored in the cellar ; cover the bottom of the 

 barrel or box with about three inches of dust, 

 then a layer of potatoes close as they can be 

 not to touch ; cover them with dust, the po- 

 tatoes, and so on until the barrel or box is 

 nearly full ; then fill up with dust. In this 

 way potatoes will keep tlirough most any win- 

 ter. I find tills the best way to keep sweet po- 

 tatoes in winter. Another way I have tried 

 with good success is to pile the potatoes in a 

 large cone-shaped pile. Thirty to forty bushels 

 keep better than less. Then take straw in 

 small handfuls and pack around, commencing 

 at the bottom, building it firm, eight or /ten 

 inches thick, until near the top, then insert a 

 flue near the top and build tight around the 

 flue. In a few days the potatoes will begin 

 to sweat and emit a steam ; after they go 

 through the heat and cold weather sets in 

 this flue can be stopped with straw. Now 

 this straw is covered with dirt thick enough 

 to suit the weather. I have very good success 

 with potatoes stored in this way, but prefer 

 putting up in dust. When I put up with 



straw I put up in the garden, putting a shel- 

 ter over them.— Farm and Garden. 



INCREASING LEAN MEAT IN PIGS. 

 We may well suppose that the habit of the 

 pig in laying on an excessive quantity of fat 

 has been caused by long and excessive feeding 

 of fat producing food, and it is not likely that 

 any sudden transformation could be brought 

 about ; but it is well known that the pigs of 

 different countries differ in respect to fat. We 

 have only to contrast fattened pigs of this 

 country with those in Canada. There pork is 

 fattened partly upon barley, but largely upon 

 peas, a highly nitrogenous food, yielding a 

 large proportion of muscle, and our pigs are 

 fattened almost wholly upon corn, an exces- 

 sively starchy and fattening food. The 

 Canadian pork has a much larger proportion 

 of lean meat and less lard. The difference is 

 very marked, so much so, that in a market 

 supplied with both kinds, purchasers easily 

 select the one or the other, as desired. Wild 

 hogs do not have such excess of fat, and the 

 Southern hog, which is grown much slower 

 than those in the Northern and Western 

 States, and fed much less corn, is compara- 

 tively lean. There can, therefore, be little 

 doubt that the habit of depositing this excess 

 of fat is caused by long-continued feeding 

 adapted to that end. The hog is naturally a 

 grass and root-eating animal, and so its 

 domestication is fed almost wholly upon con- 

 centrated food. Hogs fed upon skimmed milk 

 have a less proportion of fat than those fed 

 upon corn. If young pigs are kept upon food 

 that will grow the muscles and bones and de- 

 velop a rangy frame, they will possess so much 

 muscle when half grown that a moderate 

 length of time in fattening, even on corn, 

 will not pile on an excessive amount of fat. — 

 National Live Stock Journal. 



HEALTHY HOMES. 



Robert Rawlinson, C. E., London, says : 



The sub-soil beneath a house should be na- 

 turally dry, or it should be made dry by land 

 draining. 



The ground floor of a house should not be 

 below the level of the land, street or road out- 

 side. 



A site excavated on the side of a hill, or 

 steep bank, is liable to be dangerous, as ex- 

 ternal ventilation may be defective, and the 

 subsoil water from above may soak toward 

 and beneath such houses. Middens, cesspools 

 and ashpits, if at the back, must also taint 

 such basements. 



The subsoil within every basement should 

 have a layer of concrete over it, and there 

 should be full ventilation. 



Cesspools, cesspits, sinkholes, drains, etc., 

 should not be formed nor be retained within 

 house basements. 



The grounds round dwelling houses sliould 

 be paved, flagged, asphalted, covered with 

 concrete, or be graveled. 



Outside channels should be in good order, 

 and bej-egularly cleansed. 



House eaves should be guttered and 

 spouted. 



Swill tubs should not be near doors or win- 

 dows. 



Pigstyes should ever be at a distance, and, 

 where pigs are kept, there should be rigid 



