1869.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
15 
longer possible to get clean grass seed or wheat. 
The remedy for this unprofitable husbandry is 
a careful saving of manures, and a rotation 
adapted to the circumstances of the farmer and 
the character of his soil. We suggest a few that 
may be of service. I. 1, Corn on limed sod ; 
2, Oats ; 3, Wheat with manure ; 4, Clover ; 5, 
Timothy, cut; C, Timothy, pastured. II. 1, 
Corn on sod ; 2, Oats ; 3, Clover ; 4, Wheat ; 
5, Clover; 6, Timothy. III. 1, Corn; 2, Spring 
Wheat; 3, Clover; 4, Wheat; 5, Clover; 6, 
Blue Grass and other grasses ; 7, and 8, Pasture. 
IV. 1, Com; 2, Barley; 3, Clover; 4, Rye ; 5, 
Clover; 6, Timothy, and other grasses. In some 
places, where the laud is very foul, these rota- 
tions might be changed by planting corn two 
years in succession, with thorough cultivation 
four or five times in the season. Near cities or 
river ports, where there is cheap transportation 
to market, potatoes might come into the rota- 
tion advantageously. In some localities root 
crops, especially turnips and beets, can be grown 
to good advantage. In all cases particular at- 
tention should be paid to making manure, and 
it is applied with excellent effect either to corn 
the second year, or to wheat. The idea that 
the new soils of the West will never need ma- 
nure is already exploded among intelligent 
farmers. Lands that now produce but 40 bush- 
els of corn and 15 of wheat to the acre, maybe 
made to double their yield by the aid of manure. 
The increased profit of such crops needs no 
showing. With a good system of cropping, and 
the use of manure, the fertile soils of the West 
may be kept up to their early productiveness. 
■ i ■•» ■ — 
Management of Cows in Winter. 
A correspondent of the Agriculturist inquires : 
"When cows are stabled nights in winter, how 
long should they be allowed to remain in the 
yard during the day ?" This depends a good 
deal on the weather, and also on the food and 
whether the cows are expected to give milk or 
not. When the object is to obtain milk in 
winter, if water is supplied in the stable we 
would seldom turn them out at all. And if 
necessary to turn them out to water, we would 
let them out twice a day, say for ten or fifteen 
minutes. Cows like to be humored a little in 
regard to watering. They will not drink as 
readily as a horse. They should be allowed 
plenty of time. When cows are not giving 
milk and it is desirable to have them eat coarse 
fodder, they should be turned out for several 
hours during the day. They will eat this class 
of fodder much better in the yard than in the 
stable. Judgment, however, should be exer- 
cised. If the weather is stormy, they will 
be better in the stable, and at all times, if 
they seem cold and are not eating or en- 
joying themselves, let them be immediately 
tied up. Let the stable be well ventilated and 
cleaned out twice a day, and made as dry and 
comfortable as possible. The great defect in 
most stables is in not having sufficient ventila- 
tion. The ventilators should be so arranged that 
they can easily be adjusted to suit the weather. 
Make it a rule to visit the stable before retiring 
for the night, and see that everything is right. 
— — ♦— — — ■ 
Pig Nature.— " Walks and Talks " writes : 
" I was amused with the picture of the jealous 
hog in the Agriculturist for August. It illus- 
trates one of my pet ideas — that the more you 
can get an animal to eat, provided he will di- 
gest and assimilate it, the better. I would se- 
lect the "biggest eaters" I could find to breed 
from. I would not care how coarse they were. 
Cross them with fine-boned, thoroughbred 
males, and aim to combine the digestive powers 
of the mother with the refinement and early 
maturity of the sire. The main object of breed- 
ers has been to lessen the demand on the stom- 
ach by reducing the quantity of hair, horn, 
bone, and offal, and stimulating the growth of 
the most desirable points by an abundance ot 
highly nutritious food. I do not think they have 
given proper attention to the digestive powers. 
Conversion of Wagons into Sleighs. 
We can recommend to nobody, unless it be 
to the village store-keeper or butcher, to'attempt 
to use a wagon with runners placed upon the 
axles, or of the same width of track as the 
wheels, if he consults his pleasure and not his 
necessities. Such vehicles do very well to run 
\=yei 
Fig. 1. — RUXXEll FOR WAGOX AXLE. 
about in the streets of a town, but on country 
roads they are a nuisance. Still, many a man is 
caught fifty or a hundred miles away from 
home on wheels, when a fall of a foot or two of 
snow makes it next to impossible for him to 
proceed or return. The wagon body may be 
set upon runners, but this is an awkward 
fashion. If there is a half a day's time, 
and a carpenter shop is at hand, it is no 
very great job to fit out a wagon with four in- 
dependent runners to go on in place of 
Fig. 2. — OUTER SIDE PIECE. 
wheels. These may be made to fit upon almost 
any wagon, by the aid of a few wooden wash- 
ers, and are easily stored so as to be used at any 
time. Each runner is made of three pieces of 
inch board. Two pieces form the sides of 
each runner, and meet at the bottom, while they 
are six or eight inches apart at the top. The 
outer side piece is sawed 
full of kerfs at the front end, 
so that it will bend around 
snug to the other. The two 
side pieces are nailed upon 
the edge with clinch nails, 
and stiffened with battens, if 
necessary, and these battens 
Fig. 3.— section, enter mortises in the top 
piece, or the top piece is simply nailed down up- 
on the others. Two round holes are cut a little 
back of the middle for the axle. These should 
be level and exactly opposite; they need not be 
exactly of a size to fit the axle, but the snugger 
they fit the better on rough roads. A spring 
wagon thus arranged upon runners is the 
easiest running vehicle imaginable, (next to a 
boat or a balloon). Each runner moves inde- 
pendently, like a wagon wheel, and this motion, 
very easy of itself, is made still more gentle 
by the springs. The runners, if used much, may 
be shod with iron or steel, though if it be well 
to incur this expense, it is worth while to in- 
quire if it would not be best to have the runners 
made with care, light and handsome, upon 
regular hubs by a wheelwright or carriage 
maker. Figure 1 shows a single runner; fig. 
2, the inside of the outer side piece; while fig. 3 
shows the inclination of the sides, the top board, 
and the axle passing through the side pieces. 
Scrub and Grade Bulls Public Nuisances. 
We drive about through dairy regions and 
through those sections which supply our larger 
cities with milk, and, baring now and then a 
Jersey or an Ayrshire as rare exceptions, we see 
almost every herd of a dozen or more cows ac- 
companied by a little yearling bull — coarse- 
horned, big-headed, slab-sided, long-legged, and 
rough-haired. In the summer, after the time 
of year has passed when the bulls are especially 
useful, we often meet on the road droves of 
these bulls one and two years old — the sires of 
the next generation of calves. These, having 
reached an age when they require more care and 
are more expensive to keep than calves, are 
sold for a small price and slaughtered. The 
calf which is selected to be raised is usually the 
one that the butcher will not buy, or that is 
dropped in some "out pasture" or in the 
woods, and hidden by the cow until ten days 
old or more, when, as it seems a pity to " deacon" 
so old a calf, it is kept. This is not always the 
case, but we believe that it is very rare that a 
bull is raised because his mother was a famous 
milker, or for any real or fancied superiority of 
his breeding. 
This state of things prevails extensively. 
Farmers argue that they only need a bull in 
order to get fresh cows ; that the calves are of 
no value to them ; that they rarely raise their 
own heifer calves ; hence it makes no difference 
to them what sort of a bull they have. They 
argue very foolishly. The stock of every dairy 
region is, to a considerable extent, supplied 
from its own herds. There are now compara- 
tively few sections (and these are decreasing in 
number,) where it does not pay to raise veal, at 
at least until it is four weeks old. The use of a 
thoroughbred bull, not even excepting the 
Jersey, will greatly increase the size and 
value of the veal. Besides, however strange 
it may seem, it is true that thoroughbred bulls, 
even of breeds not famous as milkers, as the 
Short-horns, for instance, get heifer calves which 
are very likely to become great milkers. The 
use of such immature sires has, according to all 
observation and analogical reasoning, a bad ef- 
fect upon the system and functions of their get. 
We therefore have small cows, better calculated 
to eat and drink than to give milk, or lay on 
flesh and fat. There is not the least reason 
why any good animal should come of such 
sires, any more than a vine should bear figs. 
This state of things will continue as long as our 
milk raisers persist in using scrub bulls. 
The loss to the State in the item of taxable 
property is very great, not only as the live stock 
are of much less value, but the products of the 
herd, — milk, butter, cheese, veal, and beef, — are 
vastly less. But the loss to the State is as nothing 
compared with that to the farmers themselves. 
The use of thoroughbred sires for beef is 
pretty well appreciated, and in the great beef- 
raising districts Short-horns predominate, and 
the great mass of beef which comes from the 
West has the marks of this blood to a greater or 
less extent. The advantage to dairy and milk 
farmers is quite as real as to beef raisers, and 
ought to be believed in. The farmer who buys 
an Ayrshire or Devon bull, and before his own 
heifer calves mature exchanges him with a 
