41-i 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[November, 
Walks and Talks on the Farm— No. 95. 
Mr. J. W. Varney, of Ohio, says : " If you 
•will tell me liow to kill Ground Ivy, I will tell 
you how to kill Red-root or Pigeon-grass. I 
liad a field that was badly invested with Red- 
root. I cut and thrashed the wheat on the 
field ; then spread the straw evenly over the 
field, making sure to cover the parts well where 
the Red-root had nearly taken full possession ; 
then burnt the whole. This was done four or 
five years ago, and I have not seen a stock of 
the pest on that field since. Burning the straw 
and stubble on the ground made a clean sweep 
of the seed. If you find any better plan, please 
let us know." 
I am too short of straw to adopt this plan. 
In my case, it would be far better to prepare 
the land for winter wheat, and then not soto it. 
The Red-root would grow just as well as if 
"wheat was sown. Then, in the spring, plow 
Mnder the red-root, and sow spring wheat, barley, 
or oats. This would be just as effectual as the 
burning. The only difference in the two meth- 
ods is that one kills the plants before they go to 
seed; the other lets the plants go to seed, and 
then burns up the seed. When it is an object 
to get rid of straw, the plan is a good one. But 
I do not think I am obliged to give a recipe for 
killing Ground Ivy, as the Red-root recipe is of 
no use to me. Those readers of the Agricul- 
turist who can use this remedy for Red-root 
should, in justice to Mr. V., send us their meth- 
ods of killing Ground Ivy. 
John S. Bowles, of Hamilton County, Ohio, 
writes me a very interesting private letter, giv- 
ing the details and results of his farming opera- 
tions. There is nothing I like better than to read 
such letters. If farmers would talk less, and read, 
write, and think more, agriculture would make 
greater progress. Mr. B. says : " I still stick to 
hogs, in spite of low prices. I have now ex- 
actly 165 head. I endeavor to have a lot of about 
30 ready for market every three months all the 
year round. Horse-power thrashing machines 
are out of date in this neighborhood. Steamers 
have effectually driven them away. I should 
never have run a thrashing machine, but I 
wanted an engine to shell and grind and cook 
my corn, and I thought it might as well earn 
something at thrashing as not. In shelling corn, 
fuel costs me nothing, as the cobs alone run the 
engine. I am inclined to think that cooking 
food for young hogs has another advantage be- 
sides the mere saving of grain and saving of 
time in fattening them. I think they are less 
liable to disease. At any rate, I know that I have 
fewer hogs die, in proportion to the number 
kept, than any other fanner in this vicinity ; 
and I have fewer die now than before I com- 
menced to cook, four or five years ago, although 
I keep three or four times as many." . This is 
quite in accordance with what I should expect. 
Most of the swine diseases arise from indiges- 
tion. Clean and well-ventilated quarters, with 
regularity in feeding, giving no more than they 
will eat up clean, and then letting them have a 
comfortable bed, where they can lie down qui- 
etly and digest their food, and turn it into pork 
— these are the essential conditions in feeding 
pigs profitably. And anything that will facili- 
tate digestion will have a tendency to keep 
them healthy, and, provided they are of the 
right sort and have all the food they can digest, 
they will grow with great rapidity. I suppose 
cooked grain is more easily digested than un- 
cooked, and I regard this as the one great reason 
why it pays to cook grain for pigs. It is no use 
wasting money in cooking food for ill-bred, 
slow-growing hogs, that can digest food as fast or 
faster than they can assimilate it— or, in other 
words, faster than they can convert it into pork. 
Mr. B. proposes to fatten some sheep this 
winter and sell them in the spring. He says: 
"I can buy good, thrifty sheep, such as the 
butchers kill, weighing about 100 lbs. each, for 
$3.50 per head. Next spring they will sell for 
$6 and probably $6.50 per 100 lbs., gross weight. 
I think I can calculate with certainty on $6.50, 
as wool is rising all the time, and farmers next 
spring will hate to part with their sheep. Clover 
hay is, or will be, worth $18 per ton, and corn 
50 cents per bushel. What I want to find out 
is, how much hay a sheep will eat between 
December 1st and March 10th, or say 100 
days?" 
I think we may estimate that for sheep 
weighing about 100 lbs. it takes about 2 lbs. of 
hay per day, or its equivalent, to keep the sheep 
alive and healthy, without gaining anything in 
weight. Give them 1 lb. of corn per day in ad- 
dition, and a good sheep ought to gain 2 lbs. per 
week in live weight. The account with 100 
sheep would stand as follows : 
Dec. let, 1871— 
100 sheep, 100 lbs. each, @ $3.50 $350 
10 tons of clover hay, @ $18. 180 
180 bushels corn, @ 50c 90 
$020 
March 10th, 1872— 
100 sheep, 128 lbs. each, <<?. $0.50 $832.00 
Manure from 10 tons clover hay, @ $9.64 96.40 
" » 5 tons corn, @ $6.65 33.25 
$961.65 
This shows a very fair profit. On farms 
where there is plenty of good wheat straw, the 
sheep can be wintered at less cost. The profit 
does not come from the increase of weight of 
the sheep so much as from the increase in price, 
and provided the sheep are fat enough in the 
spring to bring the highest price, a few pounds 
less tallow on each sheep will make little differ- 
ence iu the result — certainly nothing like as 
much difference as that between the cost of hay 
and straw. So far as the amount of nutriment 
is concerned, corn at 50 cents per bushel is far 
cheaper than hay at $18 per ton. The most 
prevailing folly is iu wintering sheep on straw 
alone. A little com, in addition, to the straw, 
will keep the sheep in good health and vigor, 
and pay better than most agricultural opera- 
tions with which I am acquainted. 
" Cattle are very low," continues Mr. B., " and 
I shall feed a few that I raised myself, instead 
of selling them now. Beef cattle bring only 
$8.25 to $3.50 per 100 lbs. I propose to try a 
little cooked food for them, as I have a steam- 
engine and a power cutting box. I shall cut up 
corn-fodder and straw, and mix with corn-meal 
and hulled cotton-seed, and wet and steam the 
whole together. Hulled cotton-seed (not the 
cake, but the kernels containing all the oil) is 
worth in Cincinnati $30 per ton. Corn-meal, 
allowing '/ e for grinding, is worth $20 per ton." 
With labor so high and food so cheap, I do not 
see how it can pay to cook food for cattle that 
are worth only 3i cents per pound. Low prices 
and high farming are not profitable con- 
comitants. 
I have just got back from Chicago. Things are 
done there ou a grand scale. I expected to find 
them disheartened at the low price of beef and 
pork. Not a bit of it — or at least they are as en- 
thusiastic as ever. They believe in themselves 
— and in each other — and they have reason to. 
Standing in Dexter Park during the swine show, 
I heard a Chicago man talking to " Fighting Joe 
Hooker" and Gen. Logan. "This," said he, 
"just where you sit, is the' center of the coun- 
ty. Twenly years ago not a railroad came 
into Chicago ; and now see!" And truly it is 
marvelous. Close by was the great Union 
Cattle Yard, with long trains of cattle, hogs, 
and sheep coming in and going out every hour. 
The day I was there nearly 3,000 head of cattle 
were received, over 9,000 hogs, and not quite 
1,000 sheep ; and so it is every day in the year. 
There was to me a peculiar fascination iu watch- 
ing the discharge of these cattle from the .cars, 
speculating as to where they came from and what 
they had seen iu their short but eventful lives. 
" But," says the Deacon, in rather an impa- 
tient tone, "I came over to hear something 
about the Great Swine Show." 
I hardly know yet what to say about it. I 
think I was more interested in the cattle and 
hogs in the yards than in the prize pigs. The 
latter merely showed what could be done by 
men who raise pigs to sell at high prices. The 
former showed what was being done by the 
farmers of the West in raising cattle and hogs 
for the butcher. And I was perfectly astonished 
at the general excellence of the hogs iu market. 
It seems to me that a marvelous improvement 
has taken place during the last few years. 
Western farmers need say no more about the 
necessity of a breed of pigs that can get their 
own living and stand rough treatment. It is 
evident to me that thousands of these hogs had 
received better care and better food thau we at 
the East usually give our swine. We, if any- 
body, want a hog that will pick up his own 
living. We can not afford to stuff our pigs 
with grain at all times. We have to keep them 
on the slops of the house and dairy, and on 
clover and other cheap food, giving them only a 
little grain until they are shut up to fatten. If 
any one needs a large, slow-maturing breed, 
that will live on cheap food, it is the farmers of 
the Eastern and Middle States, and not the 
farmers of the West, where corn is cheap. These 
hogs iu the Chicago market have had all the 
corn they could eat. But they are not fat. On 
the average, they would not dress over 200 lb^., 
while they are capable of being made to dress 
400 lbs. and upwards. 
"I see what you are driving at," remarks the 
Deacon, " and I want to hear about the show." 
Well, it was the grandest exhibition of well- 
bred pigs, probably, that the world has ever 
seen. There were some five tlwusand pigs iu 
the show-yard. What interested me most, and 
what in fact I went ou purpose to see, was the 
Magie or Poland-China breed. They were 
there by the thousand. Judging from the few 
I had previously seen, I thought them a great, 
coarse, overgrown, flop-eared, rough-haired, big- 
boned kind of common hog, without style or 
comeliness, that, with an unlimited amount of 
food, would at two or three years old attain a 
great weight. 
There were a few of this breed at Chicago 
that nearly answer the above description — hogs 
that would weigh 1,000 lbs., with legs % as thick 
as those of a well-bred ox, and with great, thick 
ears that almost reached to the ground. But, 
on the whole, the breed is far superior to what 
I suspected. Many of th« specimens shown are 
nearly as refined as the Berkshires. Iu fact, a 
