Nfi^V ENGLAND FARMER. 



ket the best lambs and sheep; and keeping; only 

 those unsaleable ; deteriorated the breed mo>-t 

 lamentably. My tenants, who had the charge 

 of my Hock, had their share in this culpable pro- 

 pensity. Several butchers posted breeders from 

 mv stock, in Jersey and Uelarfare. The pro- 

 s:eny were slaughtered for the market. This 

 also diminished the multiplicatikii of the breed. 

 Yet 1 was surprised by the information I fre- 

 quently received, at the numbers produced from 

 an original pair, even under circumstances not 

 -dhvay'\,^eourag'inar. 



1 know of no other importation of Darbary 

 sheep, contemporaneous with the sulvjects of 

 this account. Long after the arrival of the pair 

 mentioned ; I was inl'ormed that Capt. Baron 

 had brought some broacllailcd coast sheep into 

 Virginia. Hut from the accounts of them 1 had 

 heard, they were inferior to the Mountain sheep 

 ot' Tint is : anil so are all other African sheep 

 which have iallen \inder my notice. The sheep 

 of the Eastern countries, Asia and At'rica, are 

 generally (with some exceptions,) broadtailcd. 



Many years ago I saw, in England, in Die 

 King's tlock at Richmond, several of the Lati- 

 candcr. Some of them with cumbrous trailing 

 tails, borne on little wheel carriages, dragged 

 after them. None of them, in appearance, equal 

 to the Tunis Mountain sheep. In my old, learn- 

 ed, and valuable work, — Hcheuchzer's Pkijsicw 

 sacra, — there are plates, admirably executed, 

 of victims for the Jewish altars. Among them, 

 trailing Broadtails similar to those I saw at 

 Richmond. So that there are many varieties of 

 the Laticaudo; ; and the success of breeders 

 entirely depends on the selection of the valuable 

 kind". 



The name, (as you seem to require it) I gave 

 to the Ram, was Caramelli, that of the E^ve, 

 Setiina. They will, perhaps, become memora- 

 ble, as the first emigrants to our country, from 

 this branch of the extensive family of the Lali- 

 candce. 



Not knowing, exactly, the object of j'our que- 

 ries, I may have enlarged unnecessarily. But 

 vou may gather what you deem satisfactory, 

 for any purpose you contemplate. Yours truly, 

 RICHARD PETERS." 



John S. Ski.n'ner, Esq. 



From the New England Palladium of Xug. "23, 



RYE COFFEE. 



Messrs. Editors, 



A writer in the Palladium of the 16t!i inst. 

 who signs a '• Friend to Health,'' has ad\ anccd 

 a theory on the effects of Rye, which appears 

 so absurd, thai Tam almost inclined to think he 

 meant the article as a hoax ; be that as il mav. 

 the subject is of too much importance to the 

 community to permit such unfounded assertions 

 to pass without refutation. This writer attri- 

 butes the cause of ■weak limhs and ih.hUhaied 

 systems, which he says a vast number of [)ersons 

 have suffered from, to the use of •' a compound 

 of half Rye, and half im]icrted Coflee, ground 

 together;'' and that '■' Rije is peculiarly calcu- 

 lated to produce that effect." — Now, if he had 

 stated that a free use of the spirit distilled from 

 Rye produced such elTects, he might have found 

 but few to controvert his position. Rut, that 

 Rye, its outer coat or bran, by any preparation, 

 except by di.stillation, is deleterious to man or 

 blast, I pledge myself to prove to the satisfac- 



tion of every unprejudiced person, is an asser- 

 tion not founded on facts. 



If the writer will aiiply to the able and wor- 

 thy Professor of Chemistry at the University, 

 he will learn, that most of this outer coat, which 

 ho says produces those debilitating ciTects, is, 

 by the ruasting process, converted into carbon — 

 in plain English charcoal, which is insoluble, aiid 

 of course, if the decoction is well fined, no part 

 of it w ill be taken into the -system, and if it w as, 

 no injury could possibly result, as a little char- 

 coal is considered by most medical men as not 

 unhealthy, and tor some complaints is prescrib- 

 ed in large doses. 



This " Friend to Health" admits that ■' a per- 

 son may eat the fine meal, w'ithout witnessing 

 any ill eflects." Indeed ! 1 will go farther, and 

 say that it is a fact which can be fully substan- 

 tiated, that five, or perhaps more, that ten mil- 

 lions of men that have composed the armies of 

 Russia, S-xedcn, Denmark, Prussia, and the Ger- 

 man Powers, during the wars of the last centu- 

 ry, have subsisted upon little else than bread 

 made with Rye Bran, and which they consider- 

 ed a luxury if the bark of trees was not mixed 

 with it — for such compounds were often fur- 

 nished by Peter the Great and Charles the 12th 

 — yet history makes no mention of any com- 

 plaint of " -<veak limbs, debilitated systems, or un- 

 common inclination to sleep,'''' except what was 

 caused by the innumerable yorcct/ inarches those 

 wretched beings were harassed with ! 



But this writer's theory is overthrown nearer 

 home. The hardy yeomanry of Massachusetts 

 eat very little other bread than Rye, coarsely 

 sifted, mixed with Indian meal. The outer coat 

 of Rye in our climate lieing very dry and brittle. 

 is broken so fine in grindnig, that a great por- 

 tion passes through the sieve and is eaten. — 

 Moreover, the lovers of broivn bread, and 1 am 

 one of them, well know, that the finer the sieve 

 the less s-i'cct the bread. But we have no com- 

 plaint among our farmers of n-eakncss of limbs, 

 or that they are, like a parcel of Turks, under 

 the influence o( opium. 



1 presume that if the " Friend to Health"' 

 had ever been in Market-street, in the City of 

 Philadel[>hia, he would not have introduced 

 Horses to support his theory. He migdit there 

 have seen fine teams of that noble animal, as 

 large and powerful as Elephants, and as f;it as 

 Whales, just off a journey of 5 or 600 miles, 

 across the Allegh.iny mountains, with a load of 

 tour or five tons, that were fed the whole route 

 on Rye, outer coat, chaff and straw cut up to- 

 gether, and as much too as they wanted ; with- 

 out any other gi'ain, or scarce a lock of hay 

 during the whole journey ! He happens to be 

 equal!}' unfortunate with the Pigs lie has bro't 

 forward to prove that Rye Coffee is injurious to 

 the human system, for on this point I do speak 

 from the experience of near thirty years, and 

 from the use of more than n thousand bushels 

 of jK^c and Rye bran in roaring and fattening 

 Pigs. This writer says that after eating bran 

 they will "lie down and swell with weakness!'" 

 I have seen them lay down after being gorged 

 with this nutritious food, and they might have 

 appeared to the ej-es of some persons to " swell 

 u';(/t ^■eakness,'''' but 1 believe that it would ap- 

 pear on dissection, to have been caused by a 

 full belly of ihis poisonous slnff, and their dispo- 

 sition to sleep, from its fattening properties ! I 

 could cite many examples to shew tjic benefit 



of I'eeding animals with Rye and Rye bran. But 

 it is time to i'cturn to Rye Coffee, which ap- 

 pears to liave been extensively used in the 

 middle States, particularly in Pennsylvania, for 

 seveial years past, but no accounts of its debili- 

 taling cflccts have reached us ; on the contrary, 

 1 shall offer high Medical authority to prove 

 that it is a strengthening beverage for the sto- 

 mach. Gen. Cahin Jones, of North Carolina, 

 one of the most eminent Physicians in the 

 Southern States, and who stands in the front 

 rank of the philanthropists of our country, has 

 written a dissertation on Dyspepsia, the great 

 prevalence of wliich he attributes, in some ttc- 

 gree, to the use of strong imported Coffee, and 

 he s:iys that in order to induce some of' his pa- 

 tients to dispense with it, he has prevailed on 

 them to substitute Rye Coffee, and that the free 

 use of it has relieved them! — A letter from him 

 fo Mr. Skinner on the subject, was publislied in 

 the American Farmer, last March or April ; it 

 is not at hand now, or 1 would send it to yon. 

 I hope however to see it soon published in your 

 valuable paper. 



The goodness of Domestic Coffee depends en 

 its being proi)er!y prejiarod from sound Rye. 

 I look up'on the discovery and introduction of 

 it, as very fortunate and of great importance to 

 the country, as it lessens the expense of a very 

 considerable item in house keeping, and at the 

 same time is conducive to health. Its use there- 

 fore should not be discouraged till some better 

 proofs can be adduced of its ill effects, than 

 vague surmises and arguments, drawn from 

 Horses and Sivine. 



A MIDDLESEX FARMER. 



Mozi'ing Match. — There was a famous mow- 

 ing match in New Boston, on Saturda}', August 

 17th, between Mr. Daniel Andrews, of New 

 Boston, and Mr. Abel Hart, of Gotfstown. The 

 comjjetition was who should mow an acre of 

 meadow grass the quickest and best. The 

 ground was staked out and the work performed 

 in the jirescnce of numerous spectators. Mr. 

 Andrews completed his acre in one hour and 

 tucntj'-six minutes. BIr. Hart, in one hour and 

 twenty-eight and a half minutes. The victory 

 was oV course decided in favor of Mr. Andrews. 

 Amherst {JV. H.) Cabinet. 



A safe, easy and cheap cure. — A broken winded 

 horse had been kept in a field where there wa.s 

 not any water, excei)t in the boffom of an old lime 

 kihi, and had recovered his wind — The owner 

 ordered a stable shovel full of quick lime to be 

 renewed every five or six days, and the water 

 to be poured ofl", and a bucket of it to be given 

 every day to a broken winded coach horse, aged 

 eight years, which had almost a constant cough. 

 The horse was sup])lied with water thus prepar- 

 cd for about five weeks, and kept in the stable. 

 Me is now perfectly recovered in his wind, and 

 free from a cough. — Conn. Journal. 



We have seen a twig broken from a pe.rr 

 tree (says the last Newhuryport Herald,) this 

 season, scarcely two feet long, which, when 

 laken off, we are told contained upwards of 80 

 pears. On it was upwards of 60 hanging in 

 clusters like grapes, and of a size as large -a.s 

 hen's eggs. It came from the town of Essex ia 

 this couufv. 



