214 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. ' 
[JxmE r 
the other species here figured, and distinguished 
from them by its much narrower bill and its 
remarkably pointed tail. Its bill is black above 
and below, and on the side a deep blue ; the 
head and upper part of neck deep brown, with 
a green and purple gloss behind ; the lower 
side of the neck, breast, and body white ; the 
back and sides finely lined with black and 
white; there are sixteen tail feathers. This 
duck is common all over the country, and in 
the fall of the year is very common in the New 
York markets, which are principally supplied 
from the "West, large numbers are sent from 
that part of the country in the fall, and there 
is an irregular supply' all through the earl}' part 
of winter. The marketmen call it also Winter 
Duck. It is one of the prized varieties for the 
table. We have engravings of other species 
which must wait until another time. 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 126. 
" W. W.," of Fairfax Co., Va., who is raising 
early lambs for Washington market, asks if it 
is true, as he has heard, that Cotswolds are too 
slow in maturing fortius purpose. It depends 
on the kind of Cotswolds — or, more correctly, 
on how they have been bred. If the object of 
the breeder for several generations back has 
been to obtain the largest sheep, if the breeder 
has aimed at size and that only, then doubtless 
such sheep will not mature early. I am sorry 
to say that some breeders of Cotswolds have 
done this very thing. 
The last time I was in New York, Col. Weld, 
who has always taken much interest in the so- 
called Mapleshade flock of Cotswolds, re- 
marked : " They tell me you are reducing their 
size." — "I do not think it is true," I replied, 
" but it depends on what you mean by reduc- 
ing their size. If you mean that I am not aim- 
ing to breed sheep that at three and four years 
old will weigh 400 lbs., it is true. I do not 
want such sheep. But if you mean that I am 
reducing the amount of wool and mutton in 
my lambs and yearlings then it is not true. I 
am aiming to breed sheep that are intrinsically 
good — good for the purposes for which they 
are kept, and not good merely to attract atten- 
tion in the show-yard." 
"Thee writes," continues my Virginia cor- 
respondent, " in reply to ' R. P.W.,' of Nebras- 
ka, in No. 123 of Walks and Talks, that thee 
keeps about a half dozen Merino ewes to raise 
lambs for thy own use ; are not Cotswolds as 
good, or why does thee keep Merinos for that 
purpose ? " — For this reason : The Cotswold 
ewes cost from $75 to $100 each, and the 
Merino ewes I bought for $2.50 each. I have 
never killed a pure-bred Cotswold lamb, but 
imagine it would not be bad eating. The grades 
are good enough for a farmer, and much better 
than any lamb I can buy in market. With a 
little mint sauce and a dish of green peas 
picked fresh from the garden, a grade Cots- 
wold-Merino lamb that "will dress 40 or 50 lbs. 
is decluedly good eating after you have earned 
your dinner in the hay-field.—" This is all true 
enough," says the Deacon, " but ' W. W.' prob- 
ably means to ask if you would not get better 
lambs from common long-wooled sheep crossed 
with a Cotswold ram than you would from 
common Merino ewes ? " — You might get bet- 
ter lambs and you might not, It depends on 
the feeding. The Squire got a lot of long- 
wooled sheep in Canada, and bought a pure 
Cotswold ram from me. His lambs, now a year 
old, will not average over CO lbs. live-weight. — 
" That is so," says the Deacon, " but it does not 
say much for your pet theory about using 
thorough-bred male animals to improve our 
common stock." — " I will not argue that matter 
with you, Deacon," I replied, "and I do not 
want to make the Squire angry by telling how 
he has fed his sheep. I have scales in the barn, 
and if you will go with me we will weigh some 
of our grade ewe lambs, now (April 15th) from 
eleven to twelve months old." — " All right," 
said the Deacon, and we got the shepherd and 
drove the sheep into the barn. 
" Now then, Fred," I said, " the Deacon 
wants to see if your grade lambs will weigh as 
much as the Squire's. Pick out a good oDe." 
He did so and put her on the scales. She weigh- 
ed 118 lbs. " Now catch another ; " 119 lbs. 
The next weighed 101 lbs. " Now catch some 
of your thorough-bred Cotswold ewe lambs." 
The weights were 128, 122, 125, 135, 129, 137, 
125, 125, 109, 104, and 101 lbs. The last one 
had a magnificent fleece of fine lustrous wool, 
from 12 to 14 inches long, and though the 
lightest lamb in the flock is certainly not the 
poorest. " But tell me," said the Deacon, " did 
you not once say in the Agriculturist that the 
Cotswolds were the largest breed of sheep in 
the world, and that if a man had a small one 
it must be a grade ? " — " No. I never said any- 
thing of the kind. I should be much more 
likely to say if you have a sheep of great size 
he must be a grade or a cross-bred." 
" Won't you weigh the ram lambs ? " asked 
the shepherd, "it will not take long." He 
evidently wanted the Deacon to see them 
weighed. The first one weighed 145 lbs. ; then 
142 lbs. "How old is this one? "asked the 
Deacon. — " He was dropped May 3d, 1873, and 
is about 111 months old." — "He is a good 
one," says the Deacon. — " We have some 
bigger ones," remarks the shepherd, " and I 
was allowed to feed them only a little grain 
and no hay until the 1st of March." — "Bring 
on your next," I said; "the sheep never did 
better, though they have been wintered on pea- 
oat-straw, bran, and mangels. I am not 
ashamed of them." — " Here is a good one," 
said the Deacon. — " Yes, splendid fleece, but 
his long wool makes him look larger than he 
is." — He weighed 157 lbs. — " Now handle them 
and pick out the heaviest. How much ? " — 
"179 lbs."—" Try another."— 187 lbs.— "That 
will do ; if you get a heavier one the Deacon 
will think it is not thorough-bred." 
" How much will such a sheep dress ? " 
asked the Deacon. — "Divide the live weight 
by 7 and that will give you the dressed weight 
per quarter. 187h-7=2GJ lbs. per quarter. 
Now pick out your best yearling ram and that 
will do." — "He is a noble-looking fellow," re- 
marked the Deacon. — He weighed 253 lbs. I 
could put another 100 lbs. on to him by next 
fall, and make him dress 50 lbs. per quarter. 
But who wants such mutton? Tallow is cheap. 
"Don't you want to weigh 'fourteen- 
pounder ' ? " asked the shepherd. — I explained 
to the Deacon what he meant. "We weigh 
all our lambs as soon as born and keep a record. 
We had one pure-bred Cotswold ram lamb that 
weighed when dropped 14 lbs. He is now one 
month old. How much will he weigh ? But 
never mind guessing. Balance the scales accu- 
rately. Keep him still a second. How much?" 
— "33 lbs." — "Animals eat in proportion to 
live weight," say the authorities, and a gain of 
two per cent per week is fully up to the aver- 
age on a sheep over a year old. That is to say, 
a sheep weighing 100 lbs. will on good feed 
gain about two pounds a week. But this lamb 
has gained over 20 per cent per week on its 
average live weight. We then weighed a pair 
of twin grade lambs that will be a month old 
to-morrow. They weighed when dropped 
10± and 91 lbs. They now weigh 27 and 24 lbs. 
This is a gain of over 22 per cent per week 
average live weight. In another month these 
two lambs will together weigh more than their 
mother. Wc have another splendid grade ewe 
lamb that has two crosses of Cotswold blood 
in her. Weight when dropped 10J lbs. At a 
month old, two days ago, she weighed 29 Ibs. 
To-day, 30£ lbs. Her Merino grandmother, at 
four years old, probably weighed about 70 lbs. 
So much for good blood — "and good feed" 
added the Deacon. 
"Now weigh the heifer calf and we will 
stop." This calf was born August 7th, 1873. 
Small at birth, but pretty. Dam, a native ; 
sire, full blood Shorthorn ; weight, now at 
eight months and eight days old, 420 lbs. Feed 
during winter, clover hay and raw mangels, 
with a little skimmed milk when we had it to 
spare, and a liberal allowance of bran and oats. 
— " She will go ahead when she gets out to* 
grass," remarked the Deacon. — Yes, and that is 
one reason why I think, for me, it is better to 
have calves come in the fall than in the spring. 
We have been making butter all winter, and 
by the time the cows begin to slacken in their 
milk we shall have a good bite of grass to start 
them on again. In July and August, when the 
pastures are burnt up and the weather not 
favorable for butter-making, the cows are dry, 
and will calve in time to get the benefit of the 
rich fall feed. In winter you have time to give 
them the best of care. You can steam the 
food and not feel that your labor is wasted, as 
the full flow of milk pays handsomely as you 
go along. I do not cook the food, but we feed 
mangels liberally and give two quarts of bran 
and two quarts of corn-meal per day to each 
cow. If the cows will not stand such feeding 
you do not want them — but the butcher will, 
for they will be fat at a time when beef brings 
the highest price, say in May or June. 
"Now, Deacon, let us go into the house 
again and look over our letters." 
nere is one who writes from Virginia: "I 
would like to ask your opinion of a plan I have 
thought of trying with a portion of a field 
that is to be sown to wheat this fall. Instead 
of sowing it to oats, as is our custom, and 
hauling out the manure into a large heap to rot 
during the summer, I propose to draw out the 
manure this spring and spread it on the land, 
and then incorporate it with the soil by plow- 
ing and harrowing during the summer to kill 
the weeds." — " In other words," said the Dea- 
con, " he proposes to summer-fallow instead of 
sowing oats, and to apply the manure now in 
the fresh state in' tead of rotting it and apply- 
ing it to the fal! w in the fall. I think it is a 
capital plan." — If the manure could be kept in 
a properly managed heap, so that it would fer- 
ment without loss, I think he would get more 
wheat by sprcadiug the well-rotted manure on 
the surface of the fallow after the last plowing, 
and harrow or cultivate it well in. But with 
carelessly made heaps I have no doubt there is 
considerable loss of ammonia, and in such a 
case it would be better to adopt the plan he 
proposes. One thing is fully proved by Mr. 
Lawes's experiments on barley and wheat, that 
when barn-yard manure is plowed into rather 
heavy land it decomposes so slowly that we do 
not, for some years at least, get half the benefit 
from it that the plant-food it contains is capable 
