1878.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
3 
be brushed out of the coat. The irritation by the 
brushing stimulates the skin, and assists this health¬ 
ful action ; but the irritation should not be too 
severe. A moderately hard brush is preferable to a 
hard, sharp curry-comb. 
Provide a Card for the Cows, and use it at least 
twice a week ; remove all adhering filth every morn¬ 
ing, and keep the feet clean ; else sores will very 
probably occur between the hoofs. 
Incoming Cows , more especially those that are 
high-bred and have been well fed, should be judici¬ 
ously starved for two or three weeks previous to 
calving, and for a week after it. Feed such cows 
only dry hay, or partly hay and partly cut straw, 
with a little bran and a handful of salt. The milk¬ 
ing of an incoming cow just previous to her calving* 
should be avoided, as tending to unduly stimulate 
the organs and produce the very trouble that is 
sought to be prevented. 
Calves and Yearlings, and cows and oxen as well, 
when infested with lice, should be freed at once by 
rubbing the skin with a mixture of sweet oil and 
kerosene in equal parts. During the winter young 
animals should be kept growing by means of 
nutritious food, good shelter, and cleanliness. 
Separate Stock into different grades ; or feed these 
at different times if separate yards are not provided. 
Strife and worry at feeding times should be pre¬ 
vented by these or some other means. 
Sheep require a plenty of fresh air. Their warm 
coat protects them from the cold, and if they have 
a dry yard, they are better out of doors in fine 
weather than in a close shed. 
Water should be provided in abundance for all 
the stock, and that drawn from a well is preferable 
to any other. It is not only purer, but—what is of 
importance—it is comparatively warm and does not 
chill the animals. No animal should be compelled 
to eat snow for drink If it is expected to thrive. 
A Pimp that will not Freeze , should be placed in 
every barn-yard. Blunt’s non-freezing, out-door, 
iron, universal pump, surpasses any other we know 
of for this use or for the house yard. It may be 
placed over a cistern or a well; however deep it may 
be, it cannot freeze, and it has an effective device 
for aerating the well. It can be used as a force 
pump, and by means of a hose, water may be 
carried into any of the stables, yards, or pens. 
Swine intended for pork should by this time have 
been fattened and disposed of. Store pigs, if well- 
fed and housed, will make good growth all through 
the winter. Nothing helps them to thrive more 
than slightly warm feed given often. Growing 
animals should not be gorged with food. A light 
meal, given four times a day, is better than two 
heavier ones. It is very easy to over-feed young 
pigs, and cause indigestion and stoppage of growth. 
Grade Pgs are preferable to any pure bred ones 
for the farmer. As a rule, it will be found a mis¬ 
take for a farmer to keep pure bred animals except 
males to produce grades. High-bred animals are 
nearly always smaller and more finely organized 
than their grade progeny. Their greatest value 
consists in producing an improved progeny from 
our common stock. This is large in size, and in 
every way more valuable for the market or for home 
use than the pure bred sire would have been. In 
no kind of stock is this fact more manifest than 
with swine. No matter what kind of breed of pigs 
is kept, this rule will hold good. 
Brood Sows, coupled this month, will have pigs in 
May, which is an excellent season for the pigs. 
The weather being then warm, and the clover in 
fine condition for pasturing, the young pigs will 
make a rapid growth, and will soon surpass those 
farrowed two or three months earlier, unless cared 
for in a better manner than is usual. By all means, 
procure a pure bred boar. 
Poultry. —The egg-basket can only be filled now, 
by giving warm feed and providing a warm, dry 
house. Clean out the roosting places every week. 
Disinfectants. —Deodorizers are not always disin¬ 
fectants, but nevertheless as many of these sub¬ 
stances absorb or neutralize what would—if neglect¬ 
ed—soon become infectious matter, they may be 
practically classed as disinfectants, and should be 
used as such. Those most easily procured, and the 
most useful, are ground gypsum, sulphate of iron, 
(copperas), and sulphuric acid, largely diluted. 
Any one of these should be used in every manure 
cellar, and is to be recommended for stables, pig¬ 
pens, cow-sheds, and poultry-houses. The gypsum 
may be scattered freely about the floors, or thrown 
upon the manure; the copperas should be dissolved 
in water, at the rate of 10 pounds to the barrel of 
the latter; the sulphuric acid mixed with water in 
the same proportion, and the liquid scattered over 
the floors or upon the manure. 
Leisure Time should be usefully employed. The 
winter is the time for study and reading. This is 
work of the most useful and profitable kind. Many 
of the most intelligent farmers set apart a certain 
portion of their yearly income for the purchase of 
books and papers, and certainly no money can be 
put to a better purpose. In chosing these, the 
necessities of the mother and daughters should not 
be neglected, but should be provided for. The 
success of the farm largely, and the comfort of 
the household almost entirely, depend upon 
women’s work, and the womeu should be provided 
with means for doing their work most effectively. 
Notes on Orchard and Garden Work. 
In whatever occupation one may be engaged, he 
is more ready at the beginning of a year, than at any 
other time, to look forward and lay plans for the 
future, and also to receive the suggestions of others. 
It is a good place here, at the beginning of the year, 
to answer numerous letters that have been written, 
and to anticipate others that no doubt are in con¬ 
templation, in reference to horticulture as a busi¬ 
ness. The horticultural novels of a few years ago, 
of which “ 10 Acres Enough ” was the forerunner 
and the type, have done a world of harm, by con¬ 
veying the idea that one, brought up to a city life, 
or to some mechanical trade, can, with great ease, 
drop into the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, or 
flowers, and at once reap large profits in the easiest 
and pleasantest manner possible. Such teachings 
are wrong, because they are false. If there is any 
money to be made out of cultivating the earth, whether 
the crop be wheat or strawberries, Indian corn or 
cauliflowers, without work, hard work, and a plenty 
of it, we have never happened to learn what the 
crop is, or where it can be raised. That orcharding 
small fruit culture, market-gardening, or raising 
cut-flowers may be made, in many localities, a pro¬ 
fitable business, we are fully persuaded, but each 
one of these requires not only physical labor, and 
much of it hard work, but one must bring to it, if 
he would succeed, just that mental activity, and 
that care and fore uought which are needed for suc¬ 
cess in any other business. If there is any “royal 
road to riches,” it does not lie through an orchard, 
a garden, or a greenhouse. We would say nothing 
to deter any one from undertaking any branch of 
horticulture as a business, but we would dispel tne 
notion that those who have not sufficient energy, 
skill, application, and tact, to carry on other kinds 
of business, are any more likely to succeed in these. 
“ Manuring with Brains ” has passed into a prov¬ 
erb, and, like most proverbs, conveys an important 
truth. The present is the season in which, of all 
others, the cultivator can best apply “ brain ma¬ 
nure.” Those of us who have kept the run of hor¬ 
ticultural and agricultural journalism,and literature, 
for the past quarter of a century, have seen a marked 
change in one respect. We rarely hear sneers now 
at “ book-gardeners ” and “book-farmers.” Ex¬ 
perience of real value is not thought to be worth 
any the less, if recorded in the type of a journal, 
and if the same matter is presented in the form of 
a book, if likely to be useful, it meets with ready 
purchasers, even from those formerly opposed to 
“ book-farming.” 
As editors, it becomes a part of our duty, if not 
to thoroughly read, at least to know something of 
the works published both at home and abroad, and 
leaving out of question some miserable pieces of job 
work, where matter is thrown together for the sake 
of “ making ” a book—we have rarely seen a book 
written by any one who felt that he had something 
to say, on any branch of horticulture, that did not 
contain some idea that was worth, to those con¬ 
cerned in the specialty, all the cost of the book. 
We look upon books, to those engaged in orchard¬ 
ing, in fruit growing of any kind, in vegetable or 
flower culture, as quite as essential implements, as 
much tools to be of use in their occupation, as 
spades, rakes, or other garden tools. 
The special works will be mentioned in their- 
proper places, but every cultivator, whether he has 
to do with acres in field crops, or pints of earth in 
flower-pots, is engaged with essentially the same 
materials; the plant, the soil, the air, and water. 
Every one should have an intelligent idea of the 
mutual relations of these. He should know what a 
plant is, how it grows, what helps its growth; what 
is in the soil, and what these constituents, the air 
and the water, have to do with the plant. We can 
not do a better service to every intelligent gardener, 
orchardist, or other cultivator, who would under¬ 
stand the first principles, which underlie all the rest, 
than to commend to him, whether young or old, a 
careful study of “ How Crops Grow,” and “How 
Crops Feed,” by Prof. S. W. Johnson. Not only 
for 6tudy—and whoever masters these works the 
coming winter will have made a great step towards 
a “ liberal education ” in his calling—but as works 
of reference, they will be found invaluable. 
But to the cultivator, in whatever branch, there 
is another kind of literature to which we would 
commend him. Works easily to be procured, and, 
as a rule, worthy of careful consideration—the 
Catalogues of those dealers in articles belonging to 
each line of culture, and of those who furnish 
needed accessories. Do you propose to water your 
garden ? Study the catalogues of the Steam and 
Hand Pump-makers, or those who furnish Water 
Rams. Does the stock of tools need replenishing ? 
One can not afford to ignore the improvements of 
even a single year, and the drills, cultivators, har¬ 
rows, and improved implements generally, may be 
a useful—as it will surely be au interesting study. 
So with fertilizers, the literature of which should 
be carefully considered. If one is to plant trees, 
vines, or other fruit-bearing plants ; if he is to sow 
seeds, if he is to be in the fashion with flowers as a 
business, or if he is to plant, sow, or cultivate any¬ 
thing, whether for profit or for amusement, on a 
large or a small scale, he will find the catalogues, 
each in its way, of the greatest help. 
“ Line upon line, and precept upon precept,” is 
as necessary in horticultural as in higher teachings, 
and though these Notes are always written afresh, 
without reference to what has been said in former 
years, we should be neglectful of our duty did we 
not repeat some things which have already been 
said, more than once, and which will be said again 
and again, by whoever may 6peak through these 
columns to his fellow workers. 
Each year’s experience shows that the only 
trustworthy label, is none at all. That is, every tree, 
vine, or permanent plant, should be so recorded by 
its position, that though labels may be lost, though 
the memory may fail, and what is quite as important 
in this changing world, though our place may come 
into the hands of another, the names of each tree 
or plant should be so recorded that one can readily 
refer to it himself, and that another will have no 
difficulty in finding the name. It is a very simple 
matter ; and for safety, there should be a perma¬ 
nent record, from which an abstract may be trans¬ 
ferred to a small book, to be carried in the pocket. 
Ours runs something thus :—“ Road from barn east 
to avenue.” “ First row south, beginning east end 
of row; ” 2, Beurre ’d Anjou; 4, Duchesse d’ 
Anjouleme; 1, Belle Lucrative, and so on. Then 
second row south, is recorded in a similar manner. 
By the use of a few permanent landmarks, all the 
trees are readily recorded. Strawberries with us, 
run in strips across the garden, and to prevent 
running together, are 10, 20, or more feet apart, 
wherever there is a convenient place. A record of 
the rows, counting from the bam road, tells the 
story. The vineyard is a square block, but it is re¬ 
corded in the same manner, by points of the com¬ 
pass. This matter of record is one of so much iro- 
