1871. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



565 



house, it would be to help his wife tend the 

 babies, or pick over beans, or anything but to 

 tt'll other ft)lks how to make a pleasant "door- 

 yard." Ten acres for a dooryard! No doubt, 

 if a fellow had plenty of capital, and no end 

 of income, to buy all the desirable and orna- 

 mental things, with hinidreds of acres of vir- 

 gin soil 1\ ing around loose, and plenty of help 

 to run this fabulous farm, it would be a great 

 comfort to have a ten-acre yard, or "rich 

 lawn," with the "fence'" all "torn away," so 

 that it can "run away" just as much as it 

 likes to, and then in this enclosure (f) a splen- 

 diferous lot of fruit-trees, from apple and 

 pear down to the small fruits, and no curculios 

 to bother ; but let this same chap buy a hun- 

 dred-acre farm for $3,000, and mortgage it 

 for two-thirds the purchase money, and then 

 attempt to support a growing family and pay 

 his interest and enough of the principal to 

 drive away the probabilities of speedy fore- 

 closure, striving as he goes along to stock the 

 farm and get tools enough of his own to culti- 

 vate it, and at the same time endeavoring to 

 appear in society respectably, and you will 

 find him singing a diiferent song from that 

 implied in the poetic strain quoted. He will 

 find that these "things of beauty" and "joys 

 forever," if they are "no waste," will go but a 

 mighty little way toward a barrel of tlour for 

 his family, or a new picjue dress for his wife ; 

 neither will they buy school-books nor pay 

 tuition ; while, if he leaves his corn and pota- 

 toes for beautifying his "rich lawn," he will 

 learn that, though "good taste and economy" 

 are "handmaids to each other," they will in 

 this particular case do but confounded little 

 for the pork barrel. 



The "home, sweet home" part is good: I 

 have great confidence in that. Our Mr. C. 

 would have us believe that all that is neces- 

 sary to do to obtain it is to lay out a ten-acre 

 door-yard, and "top dress it and cut the 

 grass," and then sit in it, i. e., the lawn, all 

 day and grin, and see the "children grow 

 contented and the "mothers grow old," and 

 the "neighbors emulate"! That part is all 

 fictitious ; but few of us are smart enough to 

 get good, pleasant homes without downright 

 hard work, and lots of it. We can't spend 

 much time sitting in the shade while the weeds 

 grow, nor throw out a great amount of money 

 for "joys forever," till that mortgage is paid 



Perhaps the painter of this glowing picture 

 is not like the majority of the gang of writers 

 on the beauties of country homes ; I hope he 

 isn't. I know some of them, and have visited 

 their "country homes," and wondered how 

 they managed to live among the rubbish that 

 accumulates and the thistles and brushes that 

 grow while they are getting up their voluptu- 

 ous essays ; and above all, I have questioned 

 how they could expect their wives and chil- 

 dren to inhabit such a place, and call it 

 "home, sweet home," unless consoled by the 



thought that husband and pa is smart and can 

 write for the papers. — Vermont Journal and 

 Watchman. 



CROSSING MERINOS AND COTS- 

 WOLDS. 



We have published several accounts of favor- 

 able experiments with crossing the merino 

 with cotsVolds. The following from the 

 Western Rural presents a different vi»w of the 

 subject : — 



In the fall of 1867, we bred fifty picked 

 merino ewes to an imported Cotswold ram. 

 The ewes were selected from a large flock, 

 and included only such as from their size and 

 form seemed best adapted to bearing large 

 lambs. Whether from this precaution or not 

 we can't say, but no unusual inconvenience 

 was ex})erienced by the ewes in yeaning. The 

 lambs when dropped looked fine ami healthy, 

 and for a week or two grew well ; but from 

 that time forward seemed to require more 

 nourishment than their fine-woolcd mothers 

 were able to furnish them ; and notwithstand- 

 ing the pasture was good — though probably 

 not what might be called first-rate — at wean- 

 ing time we had lost a third of the lambs, and 

 those that were still living were in poor con- 

 dition, and most of them died during the fall. 



As this was an experiment to test the pru- 

 dence and profit of a cross that had been often 

 recommended by gentlemen who handle live 

 stock mostly "on paper," no more attention 

 was given the mother or lambs than was 

 bestowed upon the remainder of the flock 

 that had been bred to merino rams. The ex- 

 periment with us was not a success, though 

 possibly under different treatment it might 

 have been made such. 



The conclusions arrived at were about these : 

 that the ewes of the cotswolds and other mut- 

 ton breeds are liberal milkers, much more so 

 than the merinos ; that nature is no more in- 

 consistent with herself here than elsewhere, 

 consequently this increased supply is to meet 

 the requirements of the lamb whose destiny it 

 is to mature at an earlier age than his fine- 

 wooled cousin ; hence the half-blood ofispring 

 of the cross we had made re(]uired more nour- 

 ishment than the mother was able to furnish. 

 No stock breeder needs to be told that a lamb, 

 or any other young animal, stinted during the 

 first three months of its existence, can only 

 with difficulty be afterwa d forced to medi- 

 ocrity, and never to the hi- best standard of 

 perfection in its particular type. Assuming, 

 then, the wool to be a secondary considera- 

 tion, and that the object of crossing a larger 

 breed upon the merino is to increase the size 

 and render more valuable for market purposes 

 the progeny of the latter, the effort defeats 

 itself when such increase in size can only be 

 secured by an increased cost in the items ot 

 artificial feed and extra care and nursing. 



