18S 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mat, 
ported Alderney whose bag indicated a capacity 
of from twenty-five to tliirty quarts, and this 
opinion -was shared by the owner, though he 
had never accurately measured the yield. Wm. 
brooks has testified in a published aflidavit, that 
during the summer of 1853, an imported Alder- 
ney, owned by Wm. C. Wilson, of Baltimore, 
in charge of Brooks, gave thirty-six (3G) quarts 
a day for some time. 
The milk of the Alderney is exceedingly rich. 
Five quarts of milk (on good feed), churned 
with the cream on it, will yield, I believe, a 
pound of butter. — My experiments in churning 
the milk with the cream have been very unsat- 
isfactory. Bridget has never been able to seize 
the moment when the milk is in the proper con- 
dition for churning. " They niver churned the 
milk in the ould country, sure, only the crame." 
Hence I have been able to get more butter from 
the cream of the milk, than from the cream and 
milk churned together. My imported cow 
made a pound of butter from the cream of less 
than six quarts of milk, speaking accurately, 
from the cream of five quarts and fifteen-six- 
teenths of a quart ; this in the latter part of 
November, upon the following feed: four lbs. 
of clover hay, and one peck of turnips in the 
morning; at noon, three pounds of cut cornstalks 
(in bulk one bushel), moistened and mixed witli 
one and-a-half pounds of wheat middlings — in 
the evening the same in substance and quantity 
as at noon. Last summer, an Alderney heifer 
with her first calf, then owned by me, while 
giving fourteen quarts of milk on ordinary pas- 
ture, made a pound of butter from the cream of 
six and-a-half quarts of milk. I mention these, 
not as exceptional cases or to vaunt my cat- 
tle as superior to other Alderneys, but as the 
result of exact experiments made to satisfy my 
own mind of the truth or fiilsity of the stories 
current as to the remarkable butyraceous prop- 
erties of Alderney milk. Let your readers try 
the experiment, and tliey will find that it is a 
good native cow, twelve quarts of whose milk 
will make a pound of butter. Zadock Pratt re- 
ports, as his first year's experience in the dairy, 
that it took twenty quarts to make a pound of 
butter. In the course of three or four years, by 
improving his herd and discovering the best 
kind and quantity of feed to give, and with the 
most complete appliances for making butter, to- 
gether with the skill acquired by practice in 
the business, he was able to make a poimd of 
butter from about eleven quarts of milk. 
The opinion of all I meet who have this stock, 
sustains me in the conviction of their great su- 
periority over all other cattle for the dany. My 
estimate of their great merits amount almost 
to an enthusiasm, yet I have tried to make my 
pen yield strictly to facts. I have occupied 
more of your valuable space than I intended, 
and will close my letter with my opinion, ex- 
pressed in brief, as derived from reading, obser- 
vation, and experience, of the comparative mer- 
its of the three following breeds of cattle. If 
you would grow beef, breed the Shorthorns; 
if cheese or milk for the city market be the pro- 
ducts you value most, the Ayrshire is the stock 
to keep, but if you would grace your table and 
the market with golden butter and secure a gold- 
ca .ining for your pocket, the deer-like Alderney 
steps forward and claims to be the cow par ex- 
cellence, to fill the full measure of your desires. 
Late Sown Clover. — It is commonly desir- 
able to sow clover and grass seed as early as the 
ground can be prepared for them — but this need 
prevent no one from sowing in May — for in this 
month the seed "catches" better, and on well 
prepared ground the plants get sufiiciently well 
rooted to bear a good deal of scorching in 
June and July, and do better than with grain. 
•_ ■■■ — .-» 
An Interesting Fact in Sheep Breeding. 
AN INCREASE OP 400 PER CENT. PER ANNUM. 
His Excellency, Senor Don D. J. Sarmiento, 
Minister of the Argentine Republic, widely 
known for his interest in the cause of Education, 
Arts and Agriculture, favors the readers of 
the American Agriculturist with a letter from 
his sister — the widow of a large land owner, 
whose estates lay in one of the interior Prov- 
inces of the Argentine Republic, S. A. — to whom 
he wrote for the fivcts concerning a remarkable 
flock of her late husband's. She responded as 
follows, under date San Juan, Nov. 9th, 1865: 
* * * ";[_ There wasa sheepfold of ewes 
in which all brought forth two lambs twice a year. 
"3. My husband, Don Mareos Gomes, formed 
the flock in this manner : He bought a small 
flock of about twenty ewes, and with them one 
very old breeding ram. When they began to 
multiply, one or two had twins ; the first male 
twin he destined for a breeder, and when he 
was serviceable, the old ram was killed ; the 
ewes then began to bring forth various twin 
ewes. Bj' this circumstance, he observed that 
it was because the ram was a twin, and he pro- 
posed to mark all the twin yearling ewes, and 
to set them aside for breeding, and every ewe 
that brought forth one lamb only was killed. 
" 3. There were many black ewes in the fold, 
and also white ones, though in less numbers, 
but both colors propagated themselves equally. 
" 4 At the end of four years, or less, not one 
of the original ewes of the fold remained. This 
being the case, he made another observation, 
namel)', that among these twin ewes, (products 
of a twin ewe and of a twin ram,) from time to 
time, some produced from one to three lambs, 
and that (in the case of having triplets,) they 
suckled two and discarded one, and it was nec- 
essary to bring in these deserted ones and raise 
them on cows' milk, till they were in a condi- 
tion to turn loose in the flock. 
" 5. Tliey continued bringing forth from one 
to two at each 5'eaning, during ten or more 3'ears, 
and no tendency to return 4o the primitive tj'pe 
was noticed, care always being taken that all 
the breeding rams should be twins. 
" 6. The sheepfold lasted until the death of 
Don Mareos Gomes, for after his death they 
were killed or sold until the fold was exhausted. 
" 7. The flock numbering, perhaps, from 400 
to 500 ewes, furnished meat for all the laborers, 
and he sold many lambs. They were not al- 
lowed to increase, because there were few pas 
tures upon the estate." In connection 
with these interesting statements, we can not 
forbear to enforce a parallel fact, viz. : That 
the bearing of twins is found inconsistent with 
the largest size of the sheep. Twins are, 
therefore, not regarded as desirable, by those 
who maintain any breed in perfection. 
Tlie application of the principle brought out 
in the flock of Don Mareos Gomes, which we 
would suggest, is, that for raising mutton sheep, 
or lambs, it would be well to employ twin ewes 
so far as practicable, and to use with them twin 
rams of some improved mutton breed. South 
Downs, Cotswolds, Leicesters, etc. Twin rams 
of these breeds, may, we think, often be bought 
at less prices than others, on account of their 
smaller size, and if it be found that they may 
be relied upon to produce a considerable num- 
ber more of twins than other rams, it would 
pay to use them in breeding for the shambles. 
» ■ ^♦^ >-» 
A Bit of Chemical History. 
The Working Parmer for February, contains 
a long obituary notice of the former editor and 
founder of that paper. Prof J. J. Mapes. Of 
course the present editor has a right to hold 
the services to agriculture of his predecessor in 
whatever estimation he chooses, and as long as 
it is an opinion, we have no fault to find. But 
when history is completely ignored, and state- 
ments are made which have not a shadow of 
foundation, we thinkit due to the cause of truth, 
that these errors — to use the mildest term — 
should not be allowed to go out without some 
notice. The following will serve as a specimen 
of the looseness of statement by which this ar- 
ticle is characterized : " He (Prof Mapes) was 
the first man to make known that plants take 
up Carbonic acid from the atmosphere, and that 
ammonia is valuable only in assisting inorganic 
constituents to become more soluble in water. 
These facts were subsequently confirmed by the 
investigations of Liebig, the great agricultural 
chemist." That is history according to the 
Working Farmer; now let us see what other 
people have done. In 1754, Charles Bonnet 
published a work, the translated title of which 
reads, " Researches upon the uses of the leaves 
of plants, and upon some other subjects relative 
to the history of vegetation." In this work is 
found the first notice of the fact that air was 
emitted from the surface of leaves, and this air 
was afterward recognized by Priestly to be oxy- 
gen. In 1779, J. InOTnhouz, in a work called 
" Experiments upon Vegetables, discovering 
their great power of purifying common air in 
the sunshine, and of injuring it in the shade at 
night," showed that the presence of sunlight 
was necessary to the liberation of air from 
leaves. In 1783, J. Senebier, of Geneva, proved 
that the oxygen eliminated by the leaves came 
from the decomposition of Carbonic acid. All 
this took place in the last century, and these re- 
sults were confirmed by the researches of De 
Saussure, published in 1804. As we learn from 
the same article that Prof Mapes was born in 
1806, we leave the Working Farmer to cypher 
out the age at which he must have made the 
discovery of the relation of plants to Carbonic 
acid. We dismiss the Working Farmer article 
with one more quotation: "A truth does not 
cease to be a truth after it appears in print," 
which would be applicable to some of its state- 
ments if it read : "an error does not become a 
truth, after it appears in print." 
About Seasoned and Unseasoned Wood. 
S, D. Newbro, of Ingham Co., Mich., Writes 
io i\\e American Agriculturist to the following 
effect: That by careful experiment, he finds 
green beech and maple wood cut in the winter, 
and kiln-dried, or thoroughly seasoned, to lose 
three-eighths of its original weight ; that a cu- 
bic foot of either kind in the green state, weighs 
about 60 lbs. on an average, there being a dif- 
ference between the butt end and top ends of 
a log, .and some trees are closer and firmer 
grained than others; that a full cord of such 
green wood, weighs about 7,680 lbs., but if 
1,680 lbs., i. e., a little over one-fifth, be deduct- 
ed for the open spaces in wood as usually cord- 
ed, it leaves 6000 lbs. as the weight of a cord of 
four-foot green wood, or 4500 lbs. for three-foot 
wood, or 3350 lbs. for 18-inch wood. Practically, 
