456 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
At auy rate, it is a very useful tliiug to do, and 
by spring these lieaps will be all rotted down 
into fine, rich mold, which will make an excel- 
lent top-dressing to grass lands or young wheat. 
« ■ — •■ ■ ■ 
Large Cows, or Small Ones! 
It is a question much discussed whether large 
or small cows are the more profitable, and ex- 
periments on the subject have not thus far suf- 
ficed to decide it. It must depend very much 
on the purpose for which the animal is kept. 
Mr. Leander Wetherell publishes the result of 
Villeroy's experiments, as follows: 
Holland cows (Holsteius ?) gave 28.92 quarts per 100 lbs. 
of hay consumed. 
Yorkshire gave 27.45 qnan s per 100 lbs. of hay consumed. 
Devons " 19.13 " " " " " " 
Herefords " 15.97 " " " " " " 
Jerseys " 28.33 " " " " " " 
And he concludes that it lias been clearly de- 
monstrated, by careful experiments made at the 
agricultural schools on the continent of Europe, 
that the large breeds of cows are more profitable 
than the small breeds. 
Surely the table given above does not estab- 
lish this conclusion. The Jersey is mucli smaller 
than the Devon and Hereford, yet it gives more 
milk from the same amount of food. 
Then, again, if it is the purpose to sell milk 
only, the test given will do very well; but if 
butter or cheese is the object, it will all depend 
on the quality of the milk. For instance : Mr. 
C. M. Beach, of Hartford, Ct., made a careful 
experiment which showed that (the condition 
of the cows being the same, as to pregnancy, 
feed, etc.) he required to make one pound of 
butter 6 '/a quarts of Jersey milk, and 11 quarts 
of " native" milk. By this test, 100 lbs. of hay 
fed to a Jersey cow would (according to Ville- 
roy's estimate) produce 4.16 lbs. butter, while if 
fed to a Yorkshire (supposing her milk to corre- 
spond to that of our "native") it would produce 
but 2.49 lbs. Probably the Yorkshire would 
weigh fully fifty per cent more than the Jersey. 
In like manner the amount of cheese would 
depend less on the amount of milk produced 
than on the proportion of caseine it contained. 
The fact is that there is no rule by which we 
can judge from the size of the animal as to the 
economy of different breeds or of different indi- 
viduals of the same breed for any purpose. It 
will depend on the character of the animal and 
on the purpose for which it is kept. The best, 
almost the only standard of comparison will be 
the actual performance at the pail, at the churn, 
and at the cheese-vat, and in practice the deci- 
sion will be most safely made by an experienced 
dairyman according to the appearance of the 
cow, and his trained observation of her con- 
sumption of food and of her actual production 
A Farmer's Savings-Bank; or, How to 
Manage Manure. 
There is a very decided advantage in fer- 
menting manure, provided it is done without 
loss. It converts the woody fiber of the straw 
into ulmic aud humic acid and the nitrogenous 
matter into ammonia. In other words, it de- 
composes the manure aud renders it soluble or 
available. Chemistry aud experience agree on 
this point. Farmers and gardeners know that 
well-rotted manure acts more quickly than 
fresh manure ; chemistry tells us why, aud also 
teaches us that there need be no loss of ammonia 
during the process of fermentation. 
It is undoubtedly true that there is often 
great loss in keeping manure. This arises prin- 
cipally from leaching. The raiu washes out 
the soluble matter. If the liquid was run on 
to a meadow or otherwise applied to the land, 
there would be little loss. But when it runs off 
into drains or ditches, we unquestionably lose 
much of the best plant-food of the manure. 
The first thing to be done is to spout all the 
barns, buildings, sheds, etc., and carry off the 
water where none of it can come in contact 
with the manure. Some farmers seem to like a 
wet barn-yard. They think more manure is 
made. If the object is merely to wet as much 
straw as possible, there is some truth in the 
idea. But straw alone makes very poor ma- 
nure, and letting straw lie saturated with water 
is not the best way to rot it. We have, more- 
over, rarely been on a farm where all the straw 
could not be used up to advantage in bedding 
the cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs. 
Now for the Manure. — And we wish we 
could get all the farm boys that read the Ameri- 
can Agriculturist to try the plan we have to 
recommend. We have two boys who "boss" 
the job on our own farm— and do nearly all the 
work themselves — and they soon feel a real 
interest in what we call our "Savings-Bank." 
We have in the center of the barn-} r ard a 
basin, or hole, with sloping sides. Into this 
basin the old-fashioned plan was to throw the 
manure, promiscuously, anywhere, just as it 
happened, and the result was that for several 
weeks or mouth3 it would form only a thin 
layer, spread out all over the bottom of the 
basin. It was too thin to ferment, and had a 
slovenly appearance. Our plan now is to 
wheel or cart the manure into one corner of 
this basin, making a kind of hot-bed of it. 
Make it four or five feet high, and as you get 
more manure, increase the length and width of 
the heap, but always keeping it in a compact 
mass. It soon begins to ferment and to get 
warm and throw off steam. This pleases the 
boys, aud we, too, like to see it fermenting, be- 
cause we know, if the heap is properly man- 
aged, there is no loss of ammonia. That is an 
exploded notion. There is water in the form 
of steam or vapor escaping, mixed with a trace 
of volatile oils and carbonic acid, but these are 
of no manurial value. 
This little fermenting heap is the " nest-egg." 
It has an attraction for the boys. They seem 
to like to clean out the pig-pens and the cow- 
stables, in order to get manure to add to the 
heap. They have a horse aud cart, aud if they 
can find anything that will make manure, it 
is drawn to the saviugs-bank aud deposited. 
Now, is not this better than having a heap of 
horse-litter at the stable-door, where it gets so 
dry and hot as to " fire-fang " ? or better than 
having another heap or lieaps on the side of 
the cow-sheds, where the drippings from the 
eaves wash out much of the best substance 
from the manure ? or thau having the pig-sties 
reeking with filth ? or the sheep-yard so foul 
and damp that there is great risk of the foot- 
rot, and no possibility of the sheep doing well? 
The great point is to get the heap started. 
Many a rich man dates his wealth from his first 
deposit in the Saviugs-Bauk. Once get a little 
manure into the heap and start the fermenta- 
tion, and it will keep growing bigger and big- 
ger. Manure scattered about the premises is 
soon frozen solid, and remains in a crude state 
until spring. But this snug little heap will not 
only keep itself warm, but, like yeast, will in- 
duce fermentation in the fresh manure that is 
daily added to it. It will, as we can state from 
actual experience, keep fermenting slowly dur- 
ing the coldest weather in winter. But it 
would not commence in such cold weather; 
hence the importance of starting the heap now. 
What we gain by this fermentation, we will 
tell the boys at some future time. 
The Shad in Mississippi Waters. 
The stocking of the rivers that empty into 
the Mississippi and into the Gulf of Mexico 
has ceased to be a problem. We have received 
a photograph of a shad which was taken from 
the Ouachita River, near Hot Springs, Ark., 
April 18th, 1872. It measured 19i inches in length, 
and 12 inches in circumference around the dorsal 
fin. No one acquainted with the fish, we think, 
can doubt that it is a genuine Alosa prmtabilit. 
Dr. Geo. W. Lawrence, of Hot Springs, informs 
us " that shad were first taken in this stream, so 
far as he knows, in 1860. Three were caught dur- 
ing the month of April, 1860, in a small wooden 
trap, erected in the middle of the stream, a few 
rods below Fair's mill-dam. This dam obstructs 
the river about eight miles west of Hot Springs. 
It is the first obstruction found between the 
mouth of the Mississippi aud this place, a navi- 
gable distance of over 1000 miles. The Ouachita 
River empties into Black River, the Black into 
Red, aud Red River into the Mississippi about 
the eastern center of the State of Louisiana. 
Fair's dam is at least 60 miles above steam 
navigation. The trap was built for the purpose 
of supplying Hot Springs market daily with 
fresh fish and soft-shelled turtle. Above Rock- 
port the river has a rocky bed and barriers, and 
is protected in this mountainous part by forest 
margins. Tiie Ouachita affords shelter and 
good feeding surface for all kinds of fish. The 
shad are as delicate and fine-flavored as any 
that can be found in the Susquehanna River, 
or elsewhere in the Eastern States. The first 
fish-trap was destroyed in 1862, and was not 
rebuilt until after the war. The number of shad 
taken iu the trap has annually greatly increased. 
The present year shad commenced running 
early. The abundant rains that fell in April 
and May, about 7 inches in each month, kept a 
good volume of water in the river during that 
period. I was supplied with shad this year 
from April 5th until May 12th. Wagon-loads 
of these large, fine fish were brought into the 
village of Hot Springs, to supply visitors to our 
famed resort with the luxury of shad from the 
Ouachita River." 
How did this fish find its way into the 
Ouachita River ? It will be recollected by those 
who have followed the progress of fish-culture 
in this country, that Dr. Daniells, of Savannah, 
Ga., transplanted shad spawn from the Savannah 
to the head-waters of the Alabama in 1848, and 
that these fish were taken for the first time in 
the Alabama three years afterward, and that 
the Alabama and its tributaries are now abun- 
dantly stocked. They are also found in large 
numbers in the tributaries of the Escambia, the 
first large stream east of Mobile Bay, having, 
without much doubt, gone into that stream from 
the Alabama. It is highly probable that the 
shad of the Ouachita are a delegation from the 
Alabama. Their complete success in that stream 
is about as good evidence as we can have that 
the shad will flourish in all the tributaries of 
the Mississippi. If they will go a thousand miles 
through muddy water to reach their spawning- 
grounds, why will they not go two or three 
thousand ? If they reach Hot Springs in per- 
fect condition, why may they not reach Pitts- 
