216 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
sets will probably reacb.) Before proceeding 
further, four willows, (If, figure 4), are woven 
around once, and beaten together. Figure 4 
shows how this set is woven in. 
In topping off, one upright (3) is bent inside 
to the right, around two others. It is bent 
down hard up- 
on the weaving. 
The second, 
third, fourth, and 
fifth, are thus 
bent. Before 
bending down 
the sixth, the end 
of the willow 
within the basket, having passed inside around 
two and outside around three. (The course of the 
willows is shown in fig. 3, 4 being the first bent 
down, and 2 the sixth.) Then the sixth is bent 
down ; the second is woven in, and the seventh 
is bent down, and so on, until the top is finish- 
ed, when the ends are cut off, outside and in. 
first 
Fig. 4. 
bent down is drawn 
Fig. 5. 
To finish off the bottom, we again take 38 
willows, (N, fig. 3), and insert them in the bot- 
tom (as before, with the If and 1 willows). 
Then these willows are laid down and woven 
in precisely as the top was finished off. 
To make the handles, we take for each a stout, 
willowstick, (0), bend it, sharpen it at both ends, 
and insert it, as shown in fig. 5. Then take two 
long willows, (P and i2), and twist them. Pis 
inserted on one side, wound around three 
times, stuck through the rim, and drawn tight; 
it is then wound back around 0, again drawn 
through the rim and the end secured. B is pro- 
ceeded with in the same way, until the handle 
is finished. Beginners should have a good 
basket before their eyes to guide them." 
When to Sell Hay. 
The high price of this article, $30 a ton, and 
upward in the markets of the sea-board States, 
makes many farmers anxious to sell, and sus- 
picious of the wisdom of the old maxim, 
"Never sell hay, but feed it all out on the farm." 
This is the true policy for farmers who depend 
upon the resources of their own farms for ma- 
nure. But for those who are located near cities 
and villages, or near the sea, hay may be sold 
with advantage to the farm. The economy of 
selling depends mainly upon the facility of pro- 
curing good manure. After the land is in good 
heart, the making of this crop costs much less 
than most other farm crops. With improved 
tools, the mowing machine, the horse-rake, 
loader, and pitch-fork, it will not cost over $3 
a ton to cut, make, and store. It costs still less 
if the hay is sold to be delivered directly from 
the field, as the labor of one handling is saved. 
Hay shrinks about one-third in weight between 
harvest and the following spring, and the price 
may be regulated accordingly. The quantity 
of hay that may be produced upon an acre de- 
pends' chiefly upon the application of manure. 
With no very large outlay, the farmers indi- 
cated may bring up their fields from an average 
product of one ton to the acre, to two. The 
shore farmer has an inexhaustible source of fer- 
tility in the sea, and has no excuse for a small 
hay crop. Fish are a very cheap manure, 
whether applied fresh or after the oil is extract- 
ed. Rock weed, kelp, eel-grass, and mud from 
the creeks, will pay for carting a long distance. 
We have taken mud from salt water ditches 
and spread it, after a few weeks' exposure upon 
the bank of the ditch, directly upon mowing 
land, and seen nearly as good results from it as 
from a similar quantity of stable manure. 
The price of stable manure in cities and vil- 
lages varies from nothing to $12 a cord, accord- 
ing to location. It is highest, generally, where 
there is the most demand for it by gardeners 
and truck farmers. It will not pay for the hay 
crop at the highest price, perhaps not at $6 a 
cord, unless the price of hay remains very high. 
But in most places it can be had for less than 
that. Night soil can often be had for the cart- 
ing, and in manufacturing villages there are 
factory wastes that make excellent fertilizers. 
The farmer's market wagon or cart should 
never come home empty. Hay may be sold 
freely where manures obtained away from the 
farm are applied still more freely. One advan- 
tage of this crop is, that on most soils the land 
need not be plowed to keep up its fertility. By 
top dressing alone the grass may be maintained 
for years in the greatest luxuriance. Some 
farms are favorably situated for irrigation, and 
by this means alone produce satisfactory grass 
crops. As a rule, sell Jiay only when all the 
money you get for it maybe immediately re-invest- 
ed in good manures. 
Breeding Pure, Grade, and Cross-bred 
Stock. 
" Is a pure-bred female injured for the future 
bearing of pure stook by having half-blood 
young ?" It is certainly very undesirable, as a 
general thing, to lose the service of a valuable 
cow or other animal for one year — for by breed- 
ing a pure-bred cow to a scrub or grade bull, 
she is made for one year no better than any 
other cow. Her value above common cows is, 
in that she may bear full blooded calves, and as 
she can not ordinarily be expected to bear more 
than eight or ten in her life, the loss is consid- 
erable. Aside from this, there is a wide-spread 
opinion prevailing, strengthened by much that 
has been written on this subject, that if a heifer 
be covered by a bull of a different breed or by a 
scrub (or " native ") bull, not only will her calf 
be an inferior "grade," but she, liable to take an 
impression, which will never leave her, or which 
will last for many years, and will cause her sub- 
sequent calves to bear some resemblance to the 
first one, or to its sire. This is accepted by 
many people as true, and though it is very hard 
to prove a negative, we must say we have no 
evidence to convince us of its truth. We can, 
moreover, cite numerous instances, one of which 
occurred in one of the best Short-hom herds in 
the country, in which no such effect was ob- 
servable, though a well-bred Short-horn heifer 
had a calf by a little, dark, scrub bull, and her 
subsequent calves by superior sires were most 
closely scrutinized ; and another, in one of the 
best flocks of Merino sheep, — many pure ewes, 
young and old, being accidentally crossed with 
a South-down buck — equally without effect. If 
a single case can be named, which will bear 
investigation, in which it is shown that such 
an impression has probably been made on any 
cow or ewe, we would be glad to know it. 
There is another influence, which in the 
opinion of many breeders, effects the young — 
though very seldom operating disadvantageous- 
ly — or observably in any way. We refer to the 
effects of association, or those circumstances 
which act upon the mind of the dam, during 
pregnancy. Careful breeders are so suspicious 
of these effects that they advise keeping female 
animals of different breeds separate, allowing 
choice animals to associate only with fine speci- 
mens of their own kind, and especially advis- 
ing to keep breeding females from associating 
with deformed or crippled beasts of any kind. 
When a "grade" animal is spoken of, it is 
always inferred that pure males have been used 
upon females of mixed or uncertain or grade 
blood. Thus, the first progeny of such breed- 
ing is a half-blood ; the progeny of this half- 
blood with a male of the same breed as its sire, 
is a quarter-blood ; and so we may go on in a 
gradation, always approaching the pure-blooded, 
so that we often speak of grade animals of seven 
eighths, or fifteen sixteenths pure blood. By 
" crosses " or "cross-bred " stock, is meant such 
as result from breeding one full-blood upon 
another — thus inferior cows of one breed are 
frequently bred to bulls of another breed in the 
hope of uniting the good qualities of the two 
breeds. Thus, among the Short-horns, are often 
found deep milkers, and the Jerseys almost uni- 
formly give very rich milk, thus crossing the 
two breeds either by using the little Jersey bull 
with the big Short-horn cow (which would be 
most sensible, usually,) or the reverse, we might 
expect to raise a deep milker, giving rich milk. 
Such cross-bred animals, if males, are worthless 
for breeding purposes ; if females, should be 
bred to one or the other of the original breeds. 
There are many cows of pure blood and unex- 
ceptionable pedigree among even the best herds, 
which are not up to the standard of excellence 
which every good breeder adopts. Such are low 
in value, and very property subjects for experi- 
ments in cross-breeding. This explanation will 
satisfy those inquiries prompted in a recent arti- 
cle on crossing Jerseys and Ayrshires for milch 
cows. The breeder who experimented thus 
probably had cows of imperfect record or of in- 
ferior points which he chose to use in this way. 
♦-« — * fr^- »-• 
The Influence of Tobacco Upon Other 
Farm Crops. 
Many a farmer's golden visions from the to- 
bacco crop are growing dim. The crops of 1865 
and I860, in the Connecticut River Valley and, 
to a large extent, elsewhere, are mainly now on 
hand, and a proposition is made to the cultiva- 
tors to grow no tobacco this year, in order to 
sell the old crop at high figures. There has 
manifestly been an overproduction, induced by 
the high prices during the war. It is a good 
time for the growers to pause and consider both 
the moral bearings of the crop, and its influence 
upon other products of the farm. The current 
of opinion as elicited at the last meeting of the 
Connecticut State Board of Agriculture, at New 
Haven, was decidedly against the crop, on eco- 
nomical grounds. It is not denied that a large 
sum of money may be realized by it, from a 
small plot of ground. But the general confes- 
