Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 471 



I observed from my youth in the dairy business up. What lack I 

 yet? Mr. Emerson will say, observe the seventh commandment. 

 The instinct of the cow is a better and safer guide for her in regard to the 

 quantity of salt she requires than Mr. Emerson's judgment and mine 

 combined, with the judgment of the whole human family added 

 thereto. If the cow gives as much milk as an ordinary goat, the milk 

 would contain more salt than Mr. Emerson allows, to say nothing of 

 the salt required by the cow for other purposes. Again, cows feeding 

 on salt marshes, or anywhere in Ireland, or on the shore of any body 

 of salt water, would never carry their young the full time, provided 

 salt produced abortion. I never knew a cow furnished With salt at all 

 times, so that she might eat it in just such quantities as she desired, 

 injured by it. I apprehend that neither Mr. E., nor any other man 

 living, fully understands the kind or cause of abortion we have in 

 central New York. We have cows here treated in the most brutal 

 manner, and fed on the poorest kind of food, which do not abort, and 

 we have others treated in the most gentle manner, with the best of 

 food and water, with air as pure as heaven sends it, with every want 

 supplied and every desire gratified, which do abort. Abortion pre- 

 vails in some of the dairies of Herkimer where no salt is given, and 

 has for years, and in some dairies which have had salt it has entirely 

 died out and disappeared, without any change of stable, food, care, 

 water or treatment. Years ago many dairymen in central New 

 York would turn off all abortive cows and purchase others ; but cows 

 which have aborted are no more liable to repeat it, than new ones 

 brought on from sections where the disease does not and has not pre- 

 vailed. I have expended a considerable amount of time and money 

 to ascertain the cause of abortion, and shall continue my investiga- 

 tions for some time to come, unless the cause is discovered. As the 

 case now stands, brother Emerson knows that salt will cause abortion, 

 and I know it will not. 



Inquiries from Puget Sound. 

 Mr. E. Meekes, Washington Territory, wrote : I wish to compost 

 stable manure for my hop-yard. The soil is sandy, alluvions bottom 

 land. I cannot get muck convenient, but there is plenty of clay within 

 half a mile. Will the clay answer as well as muck for an absorbent, 

 and, if so, what proportion is it advisable to use where water is applied 

 to the mass and the drainage returned, as recommended by"Waring? 

 Hops are at home in this climate and soil. One crop of two acres 

 three years ago yielded 5,000 pounds the second crop. The average 



