668 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Dec. 



The result fully came up to myexpectatlnos. 

 We haJ on the ten acres eighty loads of pro- 

 duce. The crop was pretty hard to thrash, as 

 the straw and haulm was very long, and we 

 raised the concave of the machine pretty high, 

 and probably did not thrash very clean. Still 

 we had 5G0 bushels from the ten acres, weigh- 

 ing 49 lbs. per bushel. Estimating the crop 

 as oats, at 32 lbs. per bushel, the yield was 

 equal to 88^ bushels per acre. I was fortu- 

 nate enough to get in the crop without a drop 

 of rain falling on it, and the straw will be ful- 

 ly as good as over-ripe or badly cured hay. 



Of course, I cannot say that there would 

 not have been just as good a crop if the ma- 

 nure had not been applied until spring, but I 

 am inclined to doubt it. And, at any rate — 

 and this was one of my objects — it gave an op- 

 portunity for the weed seeds in the manure to 

 germinate last fall, and the spring ploughing 

 destroyed the plants. The field is the one I 

 "fall-fallowed'" three years ago, and, for a 

 run-down, weedy farm, the land is now en- 

 couragingly clean, and I expect a good crop 

 of wheat on it next year, and a big crop of 

 clover hay, with the chance of a good crop of 

 clover seed the year following. — J. Harris, in 

 Am. Agriculturist. 



PORK RAISING- AT THE "WEST. 

 The great obstacle to success in raising pork 

 cheaply, is in feeding hogs that are more or 

 less diseased animals. The practice of feed- 

 ing hogs of different ages raw corn, shut up 

 in small lots or pens, at all seasons of the year, 

 is sure to produce disease and debility, from 

 which a stunted growth follows ; and a condi- 

 tion of system that induces cholera, and other 

 epidemic diseases. The hog, like most other 

 animals, is naturally, and should be made, a 

 grazing animal. Dry corn should not be ft- d to 

 hogs under any cin.-umstances, but should be 

 soaked in water, if fed raw, and plenty of salt 

 and wood ashes supplied at all times. 



Hog Cholera. 

 The prevailing disease called Hog Cholera, 

 confined to the corn district of the Western 

 States, I am satisfied is induced by feeding 

 corn without other vegetable food. The nat- 

 ural tendency of that kind of feeding is to pro- 

 duce worms and other animalcuUe that infest 

 the intestines of the hog, and from ther.ce 

 make their way through into the flesh, and in- 

 fest the whole system. The peculiarity of the 

 disease is that, if a hog becomes once infected 

 it will never entirel^' recover. Sows once in- 

 fected will never raise a healthy littler of pigs, 

 even if kept for years. The pigs will usually 

 show symptoms of the disease before they are 

 a week old, and some, or all of them, die 

 within one or two months. A large share of 

 the hogs of the Western country are more or 

 less infected in this way, and quite often where 

 there appears to be no visible signs of disease. 

 This kind of meat is not tempting to the pal- 



ate. All white hogs seem to be sooner af- 

 fected and die sooner than black or spotted 

 ones I find the Berkshire will resist it much 

 longer than any other hog. — Iowa Homestead. 



CO-W ■WITHHOLDING HER MILK. 



A cow will sometimes withhold her milk 

 when her calf is taken away, but usually only 

 fur a short time. The remedy in such cases 

 is gentle treatment, and a persistent effort to 

 draw the milk and bathing the udder with cold 

 water. The milking should be attempted at 

 short intervals — at least three or four times a 

 day. If the cow is treated kindly, and a con- 

 tinued effort be made to draw the milk from 

 time to time, she usually yitlds the point, and 

 in a few days will forget her (-alf and give 

 down her milk regularly. If harsh treatment 

 is resorted to, and the milking be neglected, 

 inflammation of the udder and garget may 

 set in, causing serious trouble and perhaps 

 loss of milk entirely, if not other and perma- 

 nent injury to the cow. It is not advisable to 

 puncture the teat under such circumstances — 

 at least, not until continued and thorough ef- 

 forts have been made to draw the milk by 

 hand in the usual way. 



In case of obstructions in the milk duct, on 

 account of coagulated milk or from some im- 

 perfection of the parts, a pro{)erly formed 

 milk tube may sometimes be used with advan- 

 tage. These tubes are constructed of silver, 

 with a smooth, round point, pierced with holes, 

 through which the milk may pass into the tube, 

 and so arranged as not to injure the milk duct 

 when introducing or withdrawing it from the 

 teat. When pointed wires, straws, or goose 

 (juills are used for the purpose, they are liable 

 to wound the parts and get up an inflamma- 

 tion in the teat, which may extend to the ud- 

 der and spoil the cow for milk, at least for the 

 season, if not permanently. This would be 

 very likely to be the case if the weather be 

 warm and the cow secrete a large quantity of 

 milk. 



We have seen wires, straws and quills used 

 in numerous instances, and in nearly all bad 

 results followed. In some cases the inflam- 

 mation was so rapid as to make the cow in a 

 few days almost unmanageable, and the final 

 result was a broken udder and consequent loss 

 of the cow. — A'. A. Willard, in Moore''s Ru- 

 ral New Yorker. 



Insects. — Some idea of the injury caused 

 by insects to agricultural products may be 

 formed from the statement that, from seventy- 

 four tons of Spanish wheat stored in a gran- 

 ary, ten hundred weight of beetles were 

 screened out in one instance, and in another 

 thirty five hundred weight were removed from 

 145 tons of American corn. The offender in 

 both cases was a weevil, known as Calandra 



