THE COUNTRY GENTLEMAN. 



when it is remonibered how frequently we wnnt U> 

 hack ft loBil, when we are at work with our oitllo, and 

 how conveniunt it is to have our c itlle buck woll, why 

 shoulil we not temsh them for iho time when wo want 

 them thus to layout Iheimlrength 1 Besi.lea, iloflen 

 saves blows and vexations, wbiih is considerable when 

 one is in a hurry. I never considered a pair of oxen 

 well broke until they will back well with ease any 

 reasoniible load, and I would give a very considerable 

 sum more for a yoke thus trained. 



Cooking food for Swine. 



A Kentucky farmer hiui been making experiments in 

 feeding several lols of hogs, changing them fiom raw 

 to cooked, and from ground to unground food. The 

 results of these several trials are communicated to the 

 N. Y. Tribune, from which we give the general es- 

 timate. 



One bushel of dry corn made five pounds and ten j only at 

 ounces of live pork. One bushel of boiled corn made ' 

 fourteen pounds and seven ounces of pork. One bush- 

 el of ground corn, boiled, made in one instance sixteen 

 pounds seven ounces, in anothe r nearly eighteen pounds 

 of pork. Estimating corn at ninety cents a bushel, 

 and pork al 8 cents a pound, wo have as (he result of 

 one bushel of dry corn. iH cents worth of pork ; of one 

 bushel of boileil corn, 81.15 worth of pork, and of one 

 bushel of ground corn boiled, SI 36 worth of pork. 



Foul Seed Wheat. 



Cotswold Sheep. 



Col. J. Vf. Ware of Va., writing on the question^ 

 " Are Sheep or Hogs the most Profitable Animal to 

 Fatten 1" to the Gcneset Farmer, says : 



" Of nil sheep, I prefer the Cotswold, from experi- 

 ence. They miiiure early, are large, hardy, and tnke 

 on fat easy. During the summer and fall that they 

 are one year old. (not fed on grain,) no mutton can be 

 more delicately flavored, juicy and lender. Over two 

 years old, many muttons are belter, as they then tal- 

 low too heavily for the appetite; but the butcher will 

 then give almost any price for them ; and what pru- 

 dent man wishes to keep muttons to' four years old, 

 when he can sell them at one year old at much better 

 prices than any other sheep at foutj I have rarely, 

 if ever, sold my muttons of this breed, the fall after 

 one vear old, under 810 each, and have soldolderones 

 much higher ; ami never s /Id them al the same age 

 under 88 each without haviog fed grain at all ; and 

 the fleece amply pays the keep. Can any breud of 

 hogs show such clear profit and in so short a time 1 

 and they have no wool to pay cost of keep." 



Training Oxen. 



Summer Care of Colts. 



The following practical hints on this subject we copy 

 from the Genesee Fnrmer: 



Maroa with foals by Iheir sides are always better to 

 kept in pasluro. even if they are worked occasionally ; 

 and it is desirable, whore tboy are to be worked, Ihit 

 they should be accustomed lo leave their foals in the 

 pasture while at work, allowing the foal lo get lo them 

 a, and after working hours. It is woll to 

 give the mare a feed of oals daily for a short time 

 previous to weaning the foal. Lot it he given lo her 

 in such a manner that the foal can be induced to par- 

 take of it, that the feed may be continued to him 

 when weaned, as it is then essential lo compensate him 

 for the loss of the milk of his dam. If the colt is ex- 

 pected to turn out a superior animal, and the maro is 

 not wanted to work, it will be conducive to that end 

 that he should bo allowed lo run with the dam till he 

 is a year old, before weaning, and then have a driak 

 of now milk, fresh from a cow, given to him daily dur- 

 ing the ensuing season. Two-year-olds are by no 

 means to be so much cared for. Give them good pas- 

 ture, plenty of room and water, and they are sure, if 

 healthv, to grow and become fat. If intended for 

 sale at the end of the season, they may be pushed 

 forward still more by a feed of oats given daily. 

 Young colls kepi al grass should bo placed in a pas- 

 ture among either cattle or sheep, but not older horses, 

 a.! they love lo graze those precise spots not well re- 

 lished by other stock, and from their playfulness Ihey 

 are apt to get kicked or bitten. 



The following sensible remarks upon this important 

 but neglected branch of farm operations, is furnished 

 to the N. E- Fiirmer by Charles A. Hubbard, of Con- 

 cord, Maps. It is better lo have a good team than a 

 poor one, and a good team depends upon good manage- 

 ment and careful usage. 



A word on training oxen. I have found that by far 

 the heft time to train steers is when they are cnlves, 

 say the first winter. Oxen that are trained when quite 

 young, are much more pliable and obedient, and this 

 adds much to their value. Slceis that run until they 

 are three or four years old, are dangerous animals to 

 encounter. They are always running away wilh the 

 cart or sled, whenever there is a chance for thcin, and 

 often serious injury is the result. 1 would not recom- 

 mend working steers hard, while young, as it prevents 

 their growth ; there is a rtilTeronce between working 

 them and merely training them. I have observed 

 that very litlle attention is paid by our farmers to 

 train their steers lo back, but as they become able to 

 draw a considerable load forward, they are often un- 

 mercifully beaten on the head and face, because they 

 will not back a cart or pled with as large a load as 

 they can draw forward, forgetting that much pains 

 has been taken lo leach theiu to draw forward, but 

 none to teach Iheiu to push backward. To remedy 

 the occasion of this thumbing, us soon us I have 

 taught my steers to be handy, as it is called, and 

 to draw forward, I place them on a cart where the 

 land is a little descending ; in this situation they 

 will soon learn to back it. Then I place Ihem on 

 level land, and exercise them. Then I teach them to 

 back a cart up land that is a liltlo rising, the cart 

 having no load in as yet "When 1 have taught them 

 to stand up to the tongue as they ought, and back an 

 empty cart, I next either put a small load in the cart, 

 or take them to where the land rises faster, which an- 

 swers the same purpose ; thus in a few days Ihey can 

 bo taught to back well, and to know how to do it, 

 which, by a little use afterward, they never forget. 

 This may ujipear of little consequence to some, but 



The Old Roman Ox Yoke. 



The ancient yoke, still in use in continental Europe, 

 is very light, resU) on tho oxen's heads, projects a flap 

 on their forehead, which is protected by a cushion ; 

 and is strapped round their horns. Its merits, na stated 

 by Prof. Mot, from France, in the 0. Cultivator, are : 



1st It brings the line of traction as low as required 

 by increasing difticulties ; cattle lower their heads when 

 force is to be applied— yokes on the top of the shoulders 

 cannot do that. 



2d. The head yoke cannot swing j it offers a steady 

 fulcrum upon which both oxnn act at once, their con- 

 tiguous horns being cross-locked if long, or in a juxta- 

 position if short ; consequently a lazy ox cannot stay 

 two feet behind its male. 



3d. When the weight of the body is to be thrown 

 against the point of resistance, all tho surfnce of tho 

 head-yoke is acted upon j whereas tho yoke resting 

 on the neck has an upward tendency to escape, is only 

 in contact with the ox by limited surfaces, is not fast ; 

 is too heavy." 



The Wheat Midge in Canada West. 



The Toronto Globe gives a letter from Mr. WADg of 

 Port Hope, C. W., in regard to the habits of the wheat 

 midgo, and tho best method of escaping its ravages, 

 especially with spring wheat. His theory, which has 

 been held for seven years, and is to his mind fully es- 

 tablished, is—-' that the ravages ol the midge are con- 

 fined to about 10 days ; and that fall wheat which has 

 shot before the 25th of June, has for all this time com- 

 paratively escaped j while both fall and spring wheat 

 shooting between the 25lh of June and the 7lh of July, 

 have been more or less injured ; and then the spring 

 wheat coming in after that time has escaped the 

 midge." 



Mr. W. adds, as the result of his observations for the 

 present season in that vicinity, the following facta : 



"The midge was first perceived on the wing on tho 

 27th of June, and in that shape till the 7ih of July. 

 All wheat in head before the 27th of June, was not 

 much injured ; while all which shot between the 27th 

 of June aud the 7th of July, has much of the maggot 

 in it. A neighbor has a field of Club wheat sown in 

 the second week of April, clear of insect ; while another 

 piece of land sown wilh Fife al the same time is full of 

 it. This is accounted for by the Club being ten days 

 earlier in maturing. I have visited several fields in 

 this neighborhood within tho last two or three days. 

 One field sown on the 3d of May, will bo damaged 

 nearly 25 per cent; another fown on the 8th will suf- 

 fer about 20 per cent. ; and all I have yet seen which 

 was sown after the 12tb, is clear altogether." 



Nbab OiiiETA, 2d Sept., 1850. 

 Messrs. EniTons — While at tho railroad depot tho 

 other day, I met with a prominent farmer of Ontario 

 county, who had just received two bushels of seed 

 wheal, (or what ho expected to bo seed wheat,) from 

 a noted farmer, some fifty or sixty miles west of this 

 place. After opening the bag, he asked mo to look at 

 it which I did, and to my utter astonishment I found 

 a great quantity of both chess and cockle mixed with 

 it and I assure you it made nie fool rather unpleasantly 

 to think that after what I have written, and you 

 printed for tho last twenty-eight years, that such a 

 noted farmer should have sent off such foul wheat to 

 any man. Could I have supposed that he had made a 

 mistake, and sent off a bag of screenings in place of a 

 bag of seed wheat, I should have been better satisfied ; 

 still, for a farmer like him, who has taken pupils to in- 

 struct in practical and scientific farming, to have no 

 more prido in or respect for farming, than to send out 

 such foul stuff for seed, astonishes me. I have attended 

 thoroughly to the cleaning up of 1500 bushels of wheat 

 since harvest, and I know there was not as much chess 

 in tho whole, before wo commenced cleaning, as there 

 was in four quarts of that wheat sent from ono of the 

 celebrated farmers of one of tho most celebrated town- 

 ships in western New York. The farmer who sent it 

 must be a reading farmer, as ho occasionally writes for 

 the agricultural press, and I never know a farmer tt 

 writer but who was also a reader, and you know, and 

 thousands of others know, that I have, lime after time, 

 published my plan of cleaning chess out of wheat, yet 

 that farmer, for one, had taken no notice of it, else he 

 would not have sent off such wheat. John Johnston. 

 In a P. S. to the above, Mr. Johnston gives us Iho 

 name of the gentleman from whom the foul seed wheat 

 to which he alludes, came, for which we are greatly 

 obliged, as it will save us the mortification of referring 

 applicants for seed wheat to him for the future, as we 

 have done in time past. 



Hetrospective Notes. 

 Sorghum fob Foddkr, p. 157.-I have tried this 

 crop thoroughly— it produces about twice as much fod- 

 der per acre as common com— and like the latter suc- 

 ceeds much tho best in drills throe feet apart. It will 

 give 12 to 16 tons of green fodder per acre, and half 

 that amount dried about as much as is usual for fodder, 

 which is not very dry. Sorghum is most valuable to 

 feed in autuinn when grecn-at which time caltle will 

 devour it stalk and all. In the winter, when it be- 

 comes drier, Celtic will not eat U, unless finely cut up 

 —which should be done by horse-power, and with a 

 machine culling but tho fourth of an inch long. Treat- 

 ed in this way, it is a most valuable food for milch cows, 

 whose milk I have found to increase considerably after 

 tho feeding was commenced ; and I believe when pro- 

 perly managed it will become by far the most profitable 

 and economical winter fodder for cattle. 



To CuiiK Kicking Cows, p. 160— Tho method de- 

 scribed in the New-England Farmer, has not enough 

 promptness, efliciency and system. X have cured cows, 

 which could only be milked by courageous persons, after 

 the legs were securely tied -cows that would compare 

 favorably with Uaroy's celebrated Cruiser,— by carry- 

 ing out simply tho following rules ; 



1 . Never allow the slightest degree of heat or passion, 

 or departure from perfect self-control. 



2. Never strike tho animal but once at a time— no 

 matter what the provocation may be— a single, sharp 

 out wilh a switch (kept under the loft arm,) excites fear 

 and alarm— two or more strokes produce a re-action and 

 cause rage but not fear. 



3. Adhere faithfully to tho principles of cause and 

 effect, and the animal will quickly understand these 

 principles, if the single, alarming stroke always insUnt- 

 ly follows every attempt to kick. 



4. Treat the animal in a firm, soothing, gentle man- 

 ner at all times,-only let tho blow always come quick- 

 ly after every kick ; whether it be merely an abortive 

 attempt, or tho whole pail of milk is upset- the i;i(en- 

 tion of tho animal was tho same. 



I do not wonder that so many fine cows are spoiled, 

 that are treated according to passion and caprice, and 

 not according to principle nor rule. If a cow kicks ma- 

 liciously, but happens to hit no ono, the milker takes no 



