354 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



was not to be attributed to irrigation rather than 

 drainnr/f? J. L. Hubbaku. 



I'cabody, Mass., June 30, 1871. 



THE DIFFERENCE. 

 Jonea koeps t)u- roadsides clean and neat; 



Al)out his biiiklings too; 

 He s(t-< out trees, and on the street; 



And thinks it pays, — ck)n't you ? 

 Smitli 'has no time for chicken lixens, 



Ho very busy every day ; 

 Business driving like the dickens — 



Don't believe in such boy's play," 



Jone!i sells in season, at fair price, 



Whate'er he has to spare; 

 While Smith holds on to his for rise, 



And gets the fall— that's fair 1 

 He goes to market very often 



"To get the run of trade :" 

 Jones consults the weekly Fakmer 



And thinks a saving's made. j. w. L. 



Maine, July, 1871. 



AGE FOR HEIFERS TO COME IN. 



In the Farmer for June '24tb, W. H. W. inquires 

 at what age heifers should come in with first calf, 

 that they niay do best. The Editor very properly 

 replies, according to the writer's experience and 

 observation, by saying tlKit it depends upon the 

 heifer and her previous keeping. In our own ex- 

 perience we have had them come in at about two 

 years, and also at three years of age, and found 

 that the younger did equally as well as the older. 

 At the present time, we have one giving milk, 

 after her foiitth calf, which came in the spring she 

 was two years old, or about twenty-six months 

 old. She has given milk without a day's interrup- 

 tion since her third calf, and has now a tine heifer 

 calf being raised, about four weeks old. The cow 

 has always done well, and I think has nnproved 

 this season on fonner ones. She has always been 

 well kept; by which I mean has had what she 

 needed to eat of grass and hay, without being 

 panifiered, and with a little meal or shorts, — say 

 two quarts per day — a part of the time when giving 

 milk during winters. She was raised on the farm, 

 and is part Durham. I believe it is much better, 

 as a rule, to keep a calf growing by proper feeding 

 and have them come in at two, then wait another 

 j-ear. We get more profit from them, as on our 

 soil their teeth wear out and they fail when from 

 eight to ten years old. W. H. White. 



South Windsor, Conn., June 27, 1871. 



HOGS. 



In a recent article in the Farmer Mr. A. W. 

 Chcever makes a statement something like this. 

 lie can buy a pig for ten dollars, feed ten dollars 

 worth of grain, and sell the i)igf(»r twenty-tive dol- 

 lars, leaving a ])rolit of live dollars, tlie manure 

 being supposed to pay the labor. As I quote from 

 memory the language may not be quite accurate, 

 but Mr. C.'s idea is given. 



Now, Mr. Cheever is a btitter maker, and prob- 

 ably feeds sour milk, and butter milk, as well as 

 family waste, to his hogs. But I should like to 

 have -Mr. C, or any one else, tell me how much 

 profit can be iiuide in raising a hog from infancy to 

 any statre of growth where he may be proijcrl}- 

 made into pork, when round hogs are worth only 

 seven cents a pound, with meal, at retail, $\.l'i per 

 bag of 100 pounds, and good scraps two and three- 

 fourths cents a pound. 



Perhaps Mr. C. buys at wholesale and gets feed 

 cheaper. I do not ask the question in a critical 

 spirit, but simply for information. A farmer told 

 me that it used to be considered that money could 

 be made on i)ork with corn at .'jfil i)er bushel, and 

 round hogs at six cents a pound ; but whether this 



could be done without the feedinsr of waste, other- 

 wise valueless, is the question. I have heard far- 

 mers reck(m a hog as costing nothing, because they 

 had raised him on corn and potatoes, milk and 

 waste, produced by their work on their own land. 

 But if the products of a man's time and land are 

 worthless, then he had better change his business, 

 and reinvest his capital. How many pounds of 

 meal or of scraps are required, properly fed, to 

 make a pound of pork in an average hog ? 



Is there any better way to feed a hog while grow- 

 ing, than to let him have all he will eat, and retain 

 a sharp appetite at meal time, three times a day ; in 

 the absence of milk or waste, feeding corn meal, 

 with a few scraps for variety, and a daily feed of 

 clover or some other green vegetable substances, 

 whenever it may be had ? k. a. f. 



Franklin, Mass., July, 1871. 



JERSEY CATTLE FOR BEEF. 



As you solicit the experience of stock raisers in 

 regard to the fattening qualities of the Jersey cat- 

 tle, I would state that my experience corresponds 

 with the statement of Rev. W. A. P. Dillingham, 

 published in the Farmer of July 1. Good Jersey 

 cows when in milk will not take on flesh very much, 

 if they are fed ever so well, but will convert the 

 food into milk and still be thin in flesh. But when 

 dry, they fatten very rapidly if generously fed. 

 They are greedy feeders and not apt to cloy in fat- 

 tening. 



In an article on "Jersey Cattle," in John Mor- 

 ton's Encyclopedia of Agriculture, the author says, 

 "It is a fiict not generally kno\vu that Jersey cows 

 when too old to be kept longer for milk, if dried 

 off and fed up fatten very rapidly." And he re- 

 lates an instance of an old Jersey cow that was 

 considered of little value and offered at a low price, 

 that being "fed up" on turnips and meal, fattened 

 remarkably quick, made excellent beef and gave a 

 handsome profit to the feeder. I. R. Walker. 



Springfield, Vt., July 8, 1871. 



CrRRANT WORMS. 



I have three remedies which I can conscientiously 

 recommend to the club, if faithfully applied, viz : 

 crush them, burn them, or "poke" them. I have 

 Iried all of them, and know they will clear the 

 bushes. Bj' "poke" I mean white hellebore. You 

 can buy it at the druggists, and a little sifted on 

 the bushes when the dew is on, kills them. This 

 season, as everybody is more or less troubled with 

 carbolic, carbolate, or carbo-something else, on 

 the lirain, I bought some carbolate of lime and 

 sifted on m}' hushes. Results, — the worms like it, 

 or at least do not object to it when mixed with 

 currant leaves. Perhaps if fed on the carbolate 

 clear, it might kill them, but not otherwise, t. b. 



Addison County, Vt., July, 1871. 



Bad l'se of Sugar Beets. — An English paper 

 contains a notice of a distillery established on the 

 estate of a Mr. Campbell of Buscot park, near 

 Faringdon, which produced upward of 60,000 gal- 

 lons of beet-root spirit the past season, with such 

 satisfactory results that preparations were made 

 for sowing upward of 800 acres the present year. 

 The "spirit" from the beet is said to be superior to 

 that from grain, and the writer adds, the certain 

 but sure progress of beet-root cultivation is row an 

 ascertained fact in England, both for the produc- 

 tion of sugar and distillation, and many leading 

 agriculturists assert that in a few years there will 

 be many sugar factories and distilleries among the 

 agricultural population. 



