1870. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



391 



says that the Hereford cross on grade and common 

 cattle is becoming very popular. Mr. Stone in- 

 formed him that the butchers are always glad 

 to get these grades at extra prices. They 

 have very thick backs, and their flesh is firm and 

 rich-flavored. Those at Cambridge were sold at 

 the highest price paid that week for any cattle, to 

 W. E. Gowing, and we understand that their offal 

 was only 28 per cent, of live weight. 



Sale of Percheron Horses. — At the late sale 

 by the Massachusetts Society for the Promotion of 

 Agriculture, at the Buzzy Farm in West Roxbary, 

 the following stock was disposed of by auction : — 



Stallion Orleans, 10 years old, imported in 1864 

 by the Society, for $700 to A. H. Seabury of New 

 Bedford ; stallion Napoleon, 5 years, old, for $1000 

 to W. A. Woodsworth of Boston ; imported mare 

 Empress, 10 years old, in foal to Napoleon, for 

 $'630 to Francis Dame of Boston ; a three-year-old 

 filly, from Empress by Orleans, for $450 to the 

 same; a 2 -year-old, filly out of Empress by Con- 

 queror, for $380 to the Society; the mare Sultana, 

 in foal to Orleans, for §110 to J. H. Stone of Bos- 

 ton ; a vearling filly, out of Sultana by Napoleon, 

 for $360 to S. Boyd of Boston, and a gray mare by 

 Conqueror, owned by Mr. T. J. Coolidge, for $500 

 to Dr. Burnett. 



AG-RICTJLTITKAL ITEMS. 



—The State of Maine still owns 768,481 acres of 

 "settling and timber lands." 



— One load of grain, amounting to 100,000 bush- 

 els, was sent down the Mississippi from Dubuque, 

 Iowa, the other day. 



— Washington Territory boasts of an immense 

 cranberry marsh, yielding one hundred thousand 

 bushels in a single crop. 



— A correspondent of the Prairie Farmer, who 

 kept his hogs on floored pens, cured a Labit they 

 got into of biting each other by feeding them "stove 

 coal." 



— It is estimated that one-fifth of the meat sup- 

 ply of Paris is veal. At the commencement of 

 the present century the price of veal was half a 

 franc a pound ; it is now three times as much, or 

 one and a half franc. 



— F. Copeland, of West Dedham, Mass., sowed 

 a "liberal" mixture of two parts of lime and one 

 of salt on a cultivated field filled with sorrel, and 

 has also used it on a mowing field, and completely 

 killed out the sorrel. 



— The Commissioner of Agriculture has pre- 

 pared for publication a valuable work on the 

 Pleuro Pneumonia, or cattle disease, to be illus- 

 trated with miro photographic illustrations of the 

 diseased parts of the animals. 



— At a late meeting of the Lexington, Ky., Far- 

 mers' Club, Dr. Spurr said he had noticed recently 

 that his hogs were getting sick, and from circum- 

 stances, he is convinced that their sickness was 

 caused by sleeping in wet straw. He divided the 

 herd, placing some of them in a distant lot where 



they could make beds in dry ricks of straw, and 

 they are now healthy and vigorous. Dry dust 

 and chaff about the stables are about as injurioas 

 to hogs as is the wet straw. 



— To make a mare own her colt, J. L., in the 

 Rural New Yorker, says : — "Take some milk from 

 the mare and rub it on the colt's nose; then let 

 the mare smell it, and she will own her colt at 

 once." 



— An item recommending bells on sheep as a pro- 

 tection from dogs, is met by the Ohio Farmer 

 with the remark, a neighbor of oars had his sheep 

 chased by dogs when five or six cow bells were 

 borne by the flock. 



—The California Farmer, "to show what our 

 climate is for sheep raising," says a new thing 

 among;^heepmen is reported from Mercer County. 

 A flock of 1300 grade Cotswold lambs, dropped in 

 January and February, have been sheared, yield- 

 ing an average of 2:^ pounds, some few gave 5 

 pounds. 



— The Northwestern Farmer says that John 

 Tomlinson, Esq., of Shelby Co., Indiana, fatted 

 $1,200 worth of pork on potatoes last fall, and 

 pronounces potatoes a cheaper food for hogs than 

 corn. He cooked his potatoes, and the hogs were 

 exceedingly fond of them. It is well known that 

 the potato is rich in starch, and that is the chief 

 element of fat. New England farmers discovered 

 the value of potatoes for fattening hogs long ago. 



— H. I. Kimball, Esq., of Atlanta, Ga., has 

 offered to place in the hands of B. C. Yancy, Pres- 

 ident of the Georgia State Agricultural Society 

 one thousand dollars to be used as special premi- 

 ums as follows : — •$ .500 for the largest and best 

 yield of cotton on five acres ; two hundred for the 

 best wheat crop, and two hundred for the best 

 grass crop, both on five acres ; and one hundred 

 for the best collection of mineral from Georgia 

 soil. 



— At a recent meeting of the American Institute 

 Farmers' Club, N. Y., Clarkson Tabor, of New 

 York city, in reply to a correspondent calling for 

 the heaviest beef ever killed, said : "Reunion," 

 sent here in 1866, and fattened by T. H. Tripp, of 

 Dutchess county, weighed 3J95 pounds, and 

 dressed 2,575 pounds. I have been nine years in 

 the live stock market, and I never saw a larger 

 animal, and there is no tradition of a heavier one 

 among our New York cattle dealers." 



—The members of a Farmers' Club in Madison 

 County, 111., took the agricultural statistics of six- 

 teen sections of one town, comprising 10,240 acres. 

 On this land there were 1783 acres of corn, with 

 an average yield of a little less than 37 bushels 

 per acre; 3290 acres of fall -wheat, producing 

 nearly 17 bushels per acre. The average yield of 

 oats was a little less than 40 bushels; Irish pota- 

 toes nearly 100 bushels ; hay one and a half tons. 

 There were over 10,000 apple trees, j)roducing less 

 than one bushel each. There were only 188 milch 



