1252 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[July, 
Kerry Cattle— "The Poor Man's Cow." 
I 1 onduded from page 2-11.) 
best types of the breed. The importation consist- 
ed of the bull "Paddy," the cow "Margaret," 
(both shown in the engraving), another cow 
"Honora," and a bull calf dropped on the 
passage. The animals were photographed by 
Fontayne, and the pictures copied upon wood. 
We believe that they present the characteristics 
of the breed as well as any can. The only other 
importations of Kerrys that -we are aware of 
are those made by Mr. San ford Howard in the 
years 1859 and 1860 for Mr. A. W. Austin, of 
West Roxbury. The descendants of these, now 
in possession of Mr. D. F. Appleton, Ipswich, 
Mass., some 12 or 15 head, have increased 
notably in size, and improved in form, but re- 
tain all their good milking qualities, ability to 
sustain themselves on coarse and scanty fare, 
and to hold out very long in giving milk. 
There are a few other cows in this country, 
owned by different parties, but all, so far as we 
can learn, traceable to one of the three importa- 
tions named ; and wherever tested, we believe the 
Kerry cow fully sustains her character as an ex- 
traordinary milker, considering her size and the 
quantity of food she requires, and demonstrates 
her right to the title, " the poor man's cow." A 
standard treatise on cattle saj's of the Kerrys: 
"They are found on the mountains and rude 
parts of the country, in almost every district. 
They are small, light, active, and wild. Tiie 
head is small, although there are exceptions to 
this in various parts, and so numerous, indeed, 
are those exceptions, that some describe Ihe 
native Irish cattle as having thick heads and 
necks; the horns are short compared with the 
other breed, all of them fine, some of them rath- 
er upright, and frequently, after projecting for- 
ward, then turning backward. Although some- 
what deficient in the hind quarters, they are 
high-boned, and wide over the hips, yet the bone 
generally is not heavy. The hair is coarse and 
long; in some places they are black, in others 
brindled; and in others black or brindled, with 
white faces. Some are fine in the bone, ami 
finer in the neck, with a good eye, and sharp 
muzzle, and great activity. They are exceed- 
ingly hardy ; they live through the winter, and 
sometimes fatten on their native mountains and 
moors; and when removed to a better climate 
and soil, they fatten with all the rapidity of the 
aboriginal cattle of the Highlands and Wales. 
They are generally very good milkers, and 
many of them are excellent in this respect." 
Youatt says : '• The Kerry is truly a poor man's 
cow, living everywhere, hardy, yielding, for 
her size, abundance of milk of a good quality, 
and fattening rapidly when required." Milburn 
observes : '"She is a treasure to the cottage farm- 
er; so hardy that she will live where other cat- 
tle starve. She is a perfect machine for con- 
verting the coarsest cattle food into rich and 
nutritious milk and butter." Prof. Low remarks : 
" The peculiar value of the Kerry breed is the 
adaptation of the females to the purposes of the 
dairy. In milking properties, the Kerry cow, 
taking size into account, is equal or superior to 
any in the British Islands. It is the large quan- 
tity of milk yielded by an animal so small which 
renders the Kerry cow so generally valued by 
the cottagers and smaller tenants of Ireland. 
She is frequently termed ' the poor man's cow,' 
and she merits this appellation by her capacity 
of subsisting on such fare as he can supply.'' 
We can hardly give these state: :uls from 
distinguished British writers upon cattle with- 
out expressing our own belief that the quantity 
and quality of the food have just as much to do 
with the milk a Kerry will yield as with a cow 
of any good milch breed — however true it may 
be that she will make more and better milk than 
another cow on a very inferior quality of fod- 
der, and on hard, rough, short pasturage. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 55. 
When James Caird visited this country he 
met at Niagara Falls a brother Scotchman who 
had resided here for thirty years. Said he: 
" Oh, man, they're meeserable farmers. It would 
break your heart tosee how they just scart the 
groon. It's no very guid, ony way, but they dinna 
gia't a chance." I am half inclined to think the 
old Scotchman right. We do not give the ground 
a chance. I am sure I do not. My wheat is 
full of red-root, and there are thistles enough in 
the barley and in the clover to " break the heart" 
of any one accustomed to the clean culture of 
the Lothians. I do not want better land or a 
better climate than we have here. All that is 
needed is to give the ground a chance. I was 
once on William Bennett's celebrated farm in 
Bedfordshire, and remarked that the land looked 
as though it was not naturally rich. "Yes," 
said he, "it's poor land, but it's very grateful." 
And so it is with our land. Drain and culti- 
vate it thoroughly, and give it a little good ma- 
nure, and it will overwhelm you with gratitude. 
I question if there is any laud in the world that 
gives such large and immediate returns for the 
labor expended upon it. This is due, probably, 
to our cold winters and hot summers. Only 
give the ground a chance. 
" If I wis a young man," writes an old friend, 
" I would go south and buy a farm." If I was 
young, I would stay just wbere I am. There 
is certainly work enough to be done here, and 
that is the place for a man who is able and will- 
ing to do it. Judged by a high standard, we 
may be " meeserable farmers," but the next 
twenty years will enable us to make a better 
show. The nurserymen and market gardeners, 
with here and there an enterprising farmer, are 
showing us what land will do if it has a chance. 
There is a slow but unmistakable improvement 
going on every year. Corn is cultivated oftener 
and more thoroughly— and that is one of the 
best criterions of good farming. The Deacon 
concluded to sell his farm, and was offered $140 
per acre, but wanted $150. He says now he 
will stay where he is, and will " see if he cannot 
find another farm under the present one." He 
has bought a new Michigan double plow, and 
came the other morning to borrow a three-horse 
evener. Mine were all in the field, and I told 
him he would find a rip-saw in the tool-house, 
and some two-inch elm plank under the shed, 
aud that he could make one in less time than he 
could go to the field and back. Man}' people 
think they must have hickory, but elm answers 
the purpose well enough. The Deacon made a 
capital one, sawing it wider where the strain 
comes. An elm evener in this shape is a good 
THE DEACON S EVENER. 
deal stronger than a hickory one of the same 
weight sawed straight. The Deacon, too, is go- 
ing to underdraw this fall, and I presume in- 
tends to make more from his fifty acres than I 
do from a hundred. He is delighted with his 
Michigan double plow, and put it in a couple of 
inches deeper than the land has ever been 
plowed before. He does not propose to "scart 
the groon." And I believe this is simply an in- 
dication of the improvement that is quietly tak- 
ing place all over the country. We shall not be 
"meeserable farmers" much longer. High 
prices have given agricultural improvement an 
impetus that cannot be stopped even should they 
not continue. 
Deep plowing, however, is not all that is 
necessary to produce good crops. Some farm- 
ers who plow deep "scart the groon" after- 
wards. This is one reason for the great differ- 
ence of opinion in regard to deep plowing. 
One farmer tries it aud finds great benefit; 
another tries it, and reports that it does more 
harm than good. Now if the former cultivated 
his land thoroughly and deeply afterwards, and 
the other merely scratched on the surface with- 
out breaking the lumps, it is easy to account 
for the difference. 
My old friend Dr. Adam does not agree with 
some of the remarks made in our free and easy 
Talks. He thinks I underrate the value of ni- 
trogen in food, because I contend that the amount 
of nitrogen in different foods is not the measure 
of their nutritive value. It is no use wasting 
words on such a point. Peas contain as much 
again nitrogen as Indian corn, and if he knows 
of a way of feeding them so as to produce 
double the amount of milk or beef, I would like 
to know it. He thinks, too, that the value of 
manure depends on the kind of animal it is ob- 
tained from, and not merely on the food. I do 
not recollect exactly what I said, but I was try- 
ing to show that it was a pity agricultural 
writers should waste so much time in discussing 
the value of manure from the different classes of 
farm stock, while they say little or nothing 
in regard to the food from which the manure is 
derived. I contended that it makes no sort of 
practical difference, so far as the value of the 
manure is concerned, which kind of stock a 
given amount of food is fed to. The Doctor 
thinks it does, and wastes his time in trying to 
prove that if the animal takes out a certain 
quantity of nitrogen, phosphates, and potash, in 
the form of wool, bone, flesh, or cheese, there 
will not be as large a quantity of these elements 
left in the manure as if none had been abstracted. 
Of course I never denied such a self-evident 
proposition. A cow that eats thirty pounds of 
clover hay and ten pounds of middlings a day, 
would consume during the year: 
Containing 
Nitrogen. 
Phosphates. 
Potash. 
Hay, 10/150 »s 
Middlings. .3650 lbs.. 
273 
94 
136'; 
2U1',. 
142 
81 
Total iu food 
307 
■1(11 
223 
In 600 lbs cheese. . 
27 
20 
8 
In manure 
340 
381 
215 
Now will the Doctor figure out how much 
one would lose from feeding the same amount 
of food to sheep that shear, say six pounds of 
wool a year, and how much from a growing 
steer, and how much from a fattening animal, 
and how much from a pig, and how much from 
ahorse? It would take me half a day to do 
it, and I do not propose to allow this class of 
speculative writers to rob me of time that can 
be much better spent in cultivating corn. Mr. 
Lawes has been investigating this subject for 
twenty years, and will shortly publish the results 
of his experiments. He writes me in reply to 
some inquiries: "The value of the manure de- 
pends entirely upon the food. The quantity of 
nitrogen stored up iu the animal is very small, 
audit is probable, front recent experiments at 
Rothamstead and in Germany, that but little 
nitrogen is evolved by respiration or by the 
