1870.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
259 
-witli his best. Is it any wonder that this breed, 
naturally small, has been growing smaller under 
this long-continued process of depletion. Mean- 
while the breeders in England and in the United 
States, who have been getting the finest animals 
the island afforded, have been busy in improv- 
ing them. They have as much science and skill 
in breeding as Jersey can boast, with ampler 
fields and ampler means. Nothing that skill 
and money can do has been left undone to 
bring these animals to the perfection of their 
kind. They have lost something of their ragged 
points, and have grown handsome. Their 
weight has been increased without any loss of 
constitutional vigor. The quantity of milk and 
butter has been increased. Intelligent men, 
well acquainted with the history of the breed, 
have no doubt that belter Jerseys can be bought, 
either in England or in this country, than can 
be had on the Island of Jersey. They have all 
the good points of the breed, with greater 
weight and better form. They have been as 
carefully bred, though names have not always 
been given to the animals, and pedigrees record- 
ed. Some of them have come down through 
ten generations of thorough-bred ancestors in 
this country, yet they cannot go upon the herd- 
book, because they have not ancestors with 
names, and no records have been kept. If they 
were worse animals, and came from Jersey last 
year with the same oblivion of ancestry, they 
would find place upon the herd-book without 
question. Some very respectable breeders are 
imt able to see the wisdom of this partiality for 
recent importations and short pedigrees. They 
breed from the best animals if reasonably sure 
of their pedigree, whether a record has been 
kept or not. If "like produces like," U1C3' will 
have the best herds in a few years; and gentle- 
men, who are breeding from inferior animals 
because they are direct from the Island of Jer- 
sey, will wake up to their folly with a short 
purse as well as a short pedigree. * 
Second Clutches oi Turkeys. 
We have just eaten the last of a flock of fall 
hatched turkeys ; weight eleven pounds strong. 
They came off in September. Farmers gener- 
ally dislike these second broods, and are quite 
willing to sell them at very cheap rates, any 
time in October or November. They do not 
want to have the wee things peeping about in 
the cold, getting frost-bitten, and dying during 
the winter, and if they live, eating twice as much 
corn as the) - are worth. With turkeys at ten 
cents a pound, this may be the true view of the 
case; but when they are worth twenty-five to 
thirty cents a pound, there is another view of 
the question. We have tried these second 
broods for several years — and on the whole 
think they pay pretty well. Sometimes a tur- 
key that conies off with an early brood, if well 
fed, will lay a second time and want to set. We 
always let her. If the first setting is broken up 
by vermin or from other causes, they are sure 
to lay again. We always welcome the second 
broods if we can get them any time before the 
first of September, and do not object to them as 
late as the first of October. If we can get 
them in July or August, it is so much clear 
gain. They are much more likely to live than 
the early broods, of which a large per cent will 
die, without they have the greatest care and 
watching. But in the summer, the chicks Bud 
a warm atmosphere, and plenty of animal food 
in the pastures and woods. They need much 
less feeding, and grow more rapidly. If they 
reach two pounds' weight by November 1st, we 
always consider them safe, and a very good in- 
vestment. But July birds will sometimes 
weigh five or six pounds by Thanksgiving ; and 
need not be kept until spring before they are 
ready to slaughter. These late broods make 
an excellent market for small potatoes and 
corn nubbings all through the winter. The se- 
cret of raising them, and making them profita- 
ble, lies almost wholly in the regular and full 
feeding. When well fattened, they have the ad- 
vantage of coining to a bare market, and bring 
a high price. Most farmers kill off their flocks 
either at Thanksgiving or Christmas and New- 
Tear's. By February, turkeys are higher, and 
in March and April it is difficult to get them at 
an}' reasonable price. In the spring they are 
not only in demand for poultry, but for breed- 
ers. Men who ought to know better, will readi- 
ly buy an eight-pound turkey hen, for two dol- 
lars, when they would leave a twelve-pound bird 
at three dollars, much better worth four. This 
we do not eulogize, but as long as people buy 
such birds, and pay for them, we raise them. 
Will it Pay to Grow the Yellow Locust? 
I was down at the wharf the other day, where 
a cargo of Locust logs had just been landed from 
Long Island. I sat down upon a stick about 12 
feet long, and a little over a foot through at the 
but, and said I to the carpenter, " What do 
you have to pay for such timber as this ?" 
" It costs me,"' said he, " a dollar a foot by 
the quantity, and that stick would come to 
about eight dollars." 
" And in such a tree I suppose there would 
be at least two good posts above the but-stick?" 
"Yes, or what is better, a second cut for 
treenails, worth as much a foot as the but." 
" That must pay pretty well ?" 
"Yes, it does. I know a man that sold the 
timber on an acre for $2,700, standing." 
That was a pretty large story for an acre of 
thin, gravelly soil, but a little estimate will 
show that it is not extravagant. The stick 
upon which I sat had forty-four circles that 
could be counted, indicating as main' years of 
growth. It was worth, standing, at least $15. 
Six hundred such trees would not make a very 
thick grove upon an acre of land, and these 
would be worth $9,000 at the present price of 
the timber. But it takes forty-four years to 
grow such a crop. Land suitable for growing 
it can be had in any desirable quantity at, say, 
$25 an acre. It is generally calculated that 
money at interest doubles once in about ten 
years. Twenty-five dollars doubled four and a 
half times would be only $500 at the end of 
forty-five years. But, it is well known, that in 
making a locust plantation we should put out 
three or four times six hundred trees; and the 
thinnings of the plantation from time to time, 
with the pasturage, would pay the. expense of 
planting and cultivating for the first few years. 
At twenty years of age many of the trees arc 
large enough for posts and treenails, and might 
be cut for these uses with great advantage to 
the remaining timber. After the trees are once 
fairly started, there is no need of cultivation ; 
and the quality of the land is all the while im- 
proving, as the increasing crops of grass abund- 
antly testify. Can a farmer who has plenty of 
land, make any better provision for his old 
acre, or for his heirs, than to plant a few acres 
in Yellow Locust ? Witli all the deductions to 
be made from the figures there must still be a 
large margin for profit. Connecticut. 
Mules on th9 Farm. 
Mules are almost universal on the sugar and 
cotton plantations of the far South, while the 
favorite team on the Northern farm has always 
been the ox ; partly because his carcass is so 
valuable when cut into steaks, and partly from 
the rough character of the soil, which makes a 
slow team exceedingly desirable. The mule is 
much stronger than the horse, but not so fast as 
to endanger plows on stony soils, or carts on 
rough roads. The}' are more easily kept than 
either horses or oxen ; and will consume almost 
any rough fodder with relish. A serious draw- 
back to the ox team. is, that it demands pasture 
a part of the time, or its equivalent in green 
fodder. If kept up continually and fed wit h dry 
hay and meal, oxen will lose appetite after a 
while and fail in flesh. The mule can be kept 
up as steadily as the horse, without any loss of 
flesh or strength. This is a great advantage to 
those who have full work for their teams. It 
rather agrees with mules to have a daily task, 
and to be kept straight at it. A week's idle- 
ness seems to demoralize them, and they have 
to learn their lesson over again. They are not 
as liable to disease as either the horse, or ox, 
and are much longer lived. A well-used mule 
team will last thirty years; and that is about 
long enough. But it will be said, the mule is 
such an inveterate kicker that you never feel 
safe with him. Kicking is bis aptest mode of 
defence. It is so natural to return blow for 
blow that the mule receives a good education 
in the line of kicking rather than in forbearance. 
If we are persistently patient with him, and 
treat him with kindness, he will lose his fears, 
and his disposition to kick. If you want a good 
tempered, mule team, you must keep your own 
temper. You must join Mr. Bergh's society and 
come into good fellowship with brutes. Yell- 
ing, scolding, cursing, and blows will make a 
vicious team almost inevitably. A well-broken 
mule team is a great prize upon any tolerably 
smooth farm. There is more work in them for 
the amount of fodder they consume, than in 
anything else we have ever tried. As we are 
only to lose his carcass at the end of thirty years, 
it may happen in the progress of the world, that 
by that time mule meat will be in fashion, and 
the butcher will give as much for him as for an 
ox. Let us try the mule team, and wait doubt- 
fullv for the beef. 
Repairing Boakd Fences. — There are many 
dilapidated board fences that by a little atten- 
tion might be made to last many years with 
comparatively little expense. A few new boards 
should be provided and judiciously used to 
strengthen the weakest panels. The trouble 
with such fences is that the ends of the boards 
nailed to the posts are so weakened by decay 
that the nails will not hold. We should have 
some broad-headed nails ; but in the absence of 
these it is not difficult to make a few washers 
out of hoop-iron, that will enable the nails to 
fasten these partially decayed boards to the 
fence. Posts that are partly or wholly rotted 
off at the surface of the ground may be repair- 
ed without taking the boards from the upper 
portion, by digging a hole by the side of the old 
post and inserting a piece of an old oak rail or 
Other suitable wood, and spiking it on to the 
post. In some such way as this many old 
fences which arc rapidly becoming useless may 
he patched up so as to last until they can be 
replaced by new ones. If any readers have 
discovered a more excellent way of doing the 
work we shall be glad to hear from them. 
