64 



THE LANCASTER FARMER. 



[April, 



The Evil of Check Reins. 

 There can be no doubt that many more carriage 

 horses became heavers than those that are used for 

 the saddle alone, and the explanation of this presents 

 itself at once in the continual and painful pressure 

 on the parts caused by reining in the carriage horse 

 and teaching him to bear himself well. I have seen 

 the larynx and that portion of the wind-pipe imme- 

 diately beneath it fattened, bent and twisted in a way 

 which could not have been produced by disease, but 

 by mechanical injury alone. The arched neck and 

 elevated head of the carriage horse is an unnatural 

 position, from which the animal is eager to be 

 relieved. Horse-breakers and coachmen should be 

 made to understand, if they persist in its use, ihat 

 when the horse's head is first confined to the check 

 reins, gentleness, care and caution are necessary. 

 Injury must be done if the throat is violently pressed 

 upon, and especially when it is exposed to additional 

 danger from the impatience of the animal, unused to 

 control and pain. The head of the saddle horse is 

 gradually brought to its place by the hands of its 

 trainer, who skillfully increases or decreases the 

 pressure and plays with the mouth. But the poor 

 carriage horse is confined by the check, which never 

 slackens. 



From the constant position of his head, the larynx 

 and the windpipe are materially injured, particularly 

 if the head be not naturally well set on, or if the 

 neck be thick or the jaws be narrow.— P. J.McLauch- 

 liii in Colorado Farmer. 



Shropshire Downs. 



Combining as they do a heavy carcass of choice 

 mutton with a fleece of good weight and that fine 

 medium staple that never goes but of favor, the 

 Shropshire Down sheep are rising in popularity with 

 American breeders. They are vigorous, hardy, and 

 stand close herding in large flocks without loss of 

 size or stamina ; the ewes are careful mothers and 

 good nurses, yielding plenty of milk; they are pro- 

 lific, flocks frequently producing 40 per cent, of twins; 

 they are hearty feeders, and have unusually great 

 powers of assimilation of food, therefore they attain 

 great weights at an early age; yet they kill well, 

 giving a large proportion of choice meat. The quality 

 of their flesh is such that, if it could be generally in- 

 troduced to our markets its use would quickly banish 

 the prejudice so many Americans have against 

 mutton. 



Almost a century has passed since the foundation 

 of the Shropshire Down breed was laid by crossing 

 the Cotswold and the Leicester on the original stock 

 found on Morie Common, a tract of some 600,000 

 acres in England. The original sheep had horns, and 

 brown or black faces they have retained, and the 

 leo-s are dark gray. In those parts of America where 

 wool alone is the object for which the flock is kept, 

 the Shropshires will be found profitable ; where both 

 wool and mutton find ready market, it may be 

 doubted if a better breed can be kept. 



Importations of Shropshires to America are in- 

 creaFing in volume and frequency. There are 

 in the vicinity of Chicago a number of flocks of 

 much merit, and other flocks are scattered 

 through the country from Canada to Texas. For 

 the good of a land, which in the first seven 

 months of last year paid more than $40,000,000 

 to other countries for wool and woolen goods, it is to 

 be hoped ihat every reasonable effort will be made to 

 extend a knowledge of the characteristics of this 

 breed, and to impress its value upon the minds of 

 our people. 



Breeders of the Shropshires in America are thinking 

 of takins measures for opening a register'in which, 

 under proper regulations as to proof of pure breed- 

 ing, etc. Shropshires in America may be 

 Practical Farmer. 



atered.- 



Literary and personal. 



The Weekly Ledger and Market Directory. 

 —Published by Wm. A. Halbach, No. 3 North Duke 

 street, Lancaster, Pa. An eight-page folio, devoted 

 to matters and things in general, a sort of vade 

 mecum of civil, political, agricultural, domestic, me- 

 chanical, commercial and literary affairs, including, 

 by way of variety, " wit and wisdom " and things of 

 " pith and point." A new enterprise, and a very 

 creditable one, both in mechanical make-up and in 

 literary details. We wish it the success it seems so 

 eminently to deserve, although there are so many 

 more books, magazines and papers now published 



than seem to be thoroughly read and properly di- 

 gested, that each new publication amounts about to 

 an additional "infliction," unless it is of unquestion- 

 able merit. 



Home Light.— "Devoted to Moral, Instructive 

 and Entertaining Literature." Chicago, March, 

 1884. An eight-page folio published at 8.5 cents per 

 year, with a book premium (perhaps, with a bribe 

 would read better). A good paper of its kind, and 

 ought not require a premium to make it "take." 



The Farming World.—" A record of experi- 

 ences," " a journal of to-day." Cincrnnati, Ohio. 

 76 cents a year, semi-monthly. A royal folio of eight 

 pages, with a respectable number of contributors, 

 and a very large number of advertisements, two 

 material elements that go a great way in sustaining 

 a paper. Edited by T. S. Gardner. Its mechanical 

 execution, and its agricultural and collateral litera- 

 ture are of no inferior order, and on the whole it is 

 worthy of the patronage of the public. 



Green's Fruit Grower. — Devoted to the fruit 

 farm, the garden and the nursery. Also an eight- 

 page folio, amply illustrated, published at Rochester, 

 N.T. Quarterly at .50 cents a year. Chas. A. Green, 

 editor. This journal is well and favorably known, 

 "both far and near," and continues to deserve the 

 reputation it established at its first inception some 

 four years ago. Although nothing that we could say 

 would add to its merits, still we are happy that we 

 have an opportunity to record it as a first class 

 Journal, and that we regard its place in journalistic 

 status A No. 1. 



Third Report of the United States Ento- 

 mological Commission, 1880, 1881 and 1883; by 

 Profs. Riley, Packard and Thomas, and Report of 

 the Commissioner of Agricnlture for the year 1883; 

 by Hon. Geo. B. Loring. We acknowledge ourself 

 under personal obligations to Doctors Riley and 

 Loring for complimentary copies of the above-named 

 works, and hereby tender our sincere thanks for 

 their kind recognition of us. These volumes com 

 prise 935 pages, royal octavo, with six folding maps, 

 112 full page plates, and 22 separate additional fig- 

 ures; besides hundreds of pages of tabulated statis- 

 tics. On the whole, they are the most elaborate 

 statistical, historical, analytical, physiological, 

 anatomical and descriptive works, perhaps, ever 

 issued by the Agricultural and Entomological 

 Bureaus of the Government, and favorably illustrate 

 the efliciency of the present heads of those depart- 

 ments. 



The third report of the Entomological commission 

 particularly, is an elementary work that ought to be 

 in the hands of every intelligent farmer and fruit 

 grower, as it methodically classifies, and treats in 

 detail on the history and habits of some of the most 

 noxious species of insects that infest the fruits of the 

 farmer's labors. It should not only be in his posses- 

 sion, but it should also be read and thoroughly 

 studied by him, if he desires to make that intelligent 

 progress against insect innovation which is so neces- 

 sary in protecting the work of his hands against in- 

 sect depredation. If the farmer suflers from insect 

 invasion it is not because of the paucity of practical 

 entomological literature, but because of his own 

 supineness or indifference. If every other man in 

 the community were a practical entomologist, and 

 daily published his researches to the world, it would 

 benefit the farmer nothing in his warfare against 

 noxious insects, unless he himself " put his hand to 

 the plow," and carried the practical teachings of 

 entomology into effect. A period has arrived in the 

 agricultural status of the country, and perhaps of 

 the civilized world, when it becomes the sheerest 

 folly for the tillers of the soil to regard the teachings 

 of the entomologist, and the depredations of insects 

 with impunity. Although the habits of insects, and 

 the best remedies for their prevention or extinction 

 are matters of primitive concern. Yet the discrimi- 

 nating knowledge involved in their anatomy, classi- 

 fication and nomenclature, are equally important. 



The Poultry Keeper.— A journal for every one 

 interested in making poultry pay. W. V. R. Porvis, 



publisher, Chicago, 111., 50 cts a year in advance, at 

 89 Randolph Street. A remarkably handsome 

 quarto monthly of IR pages, edited by P. H. Jacob. 

 This is an entire new candidate for public patronage, 

 and as every one who touches poultry at all, is inter- 

 ested in the po?/ question, there ought to be a gen- 

 eral rush for the subscription books ; for, we have 

 never seen the same quantity and quality offered as 

 such a low price. 



The material, the literary matter, and the mechan- 

 ical make-up are of the very best quality, could any- 

 thing he more excellent than the pair of " Wyan- . 

 dotts " that embellish the first page ? 



The limited area of France produces $100,000,000 . 

 worth of eggs and poultry annually. It seems very 

 clear that the poultry business pays in France, pays 

 anyways. There is little danger of the business 

 being overdone anywhere. We have been looking 

 these 30 years for eggs and poultry to "come down," 

 but instead, they are "going up." " Old hunkers " 

 can learn through the rich columns of this journal, 

 howto make it jmy. Mark that. 



Kansas. — Information concerning its agriculture, 

 horticulture and live stock, together with state 

 ments relating to vacant lands, schools, churches, 

 manufactures, wealth, mineral resources, etc., etc. 

 Prepared by the State Board of Agriculture, and 

 published as a guide to those seeking homes in the 

 West. Wm. Sims, secretary, Topeka, Kansas, 1884. 

 An illustrated octavo pamphlet of 60 pages, and a 

 most magnificent colored county map of the Slate, 

 embracing copious statistics of all the leading in- 

 dustries of the State, executed in the highest style 

 of the printers' and paper-makers' art, an 1 espe- 

 cially valuable to those who propose to make 

 Kansas their ultimate home. 



Report on the distribution and consumption of 

 corn and wheat, and the rates of transportation of 

 farm products. March, 1884. Washington, D. C. 

 From the Division of Statistics, Department of Agri- 

 culture, new series, Kept. 5. 44 pages octavo, 

 ULiform with the usual bulletins of that office, con- 

 taining a large amount of tabulated matter of inter- 

 est to the farming and indeed the whole community. 



PRINT BUTTER. 



In this issue we give an illustration of a Self- 

 Guaging Butter Print, and a Shipping Box, manufac- 

 tured by A. H. Keid, of Philadelphia, Pa. 



This plan of making butter into prints, and ship- 

 ping to market in boxes, is coming rapidly into favor. 

 In these days of imitation and adulteration, adairy- 

 man making a first-class article of butter, and prints 

 ing it with his own particular stump, using his 

 initials or monogram, will get and retain custon 

 who will have no other. A farmer's p.irticular stamp 

 on his butter becomes as fully a recognized proof o£ 

 its quality by his customer as his signature the genu- 

 ineness of his check by his banker. So we would 

 urge upon the farmer the importance of making a 

 uniform good article, putting it up in neat packages,, 

 with his own particular stamp printed on each lu 

 so distinct as to be recognized by even a table boarder 

 at a hotel on second sight, and thus command the 

 price. 



Gilt-edged prices are obtained only for butter put 

 up in fancy prints, and it is a fact that " gilt-edged '" 

 butter is recognized oftener by the stamp than by the 

 quality. 



This seems to be the one successful way of com- 

 peting with oleomargarine. The worst enemy the 

 dairyman farmer has to contend with is artificial but- 

 ter, either as oleomargarine, buttcriue or other 

 These are not competitors, as some suppose, but 

 enemies, for they do not compete in fair and open 

 market for the consumer's favor, but in disguis 

 real butler, thus robbing the farmer and defrauding, 

 the consumer. Of the immense amount of artificial 

 butter manufactured not one pound in five hundred 

 is used knowingly by the consumer, consequently 

 flourishes onlv as a deception and a fraud. If lieu 

 plan were adopted by creameries and dairymen, 

 would put the genuine article where it should standi 

 and put an end" to the competition with oleomargar 

 rine and imitation butter. 



