14 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[January, 
1,155 lbs.; Sept., 993 lbs.; Oct., 907 lbs. ; Nov., 794 
lbs. ; Dec., 788 lbs. ; Jan., 1877, 707 lbs. ; Feb., 
551 lbs. ; March, 371 lbs. Total, 10,700 lbs. On 
April 15, 1877, she calved again. The butter pro¬ 
duced within the year was 480 lbs. ; besides which, 
milk and cream were supplied for family use. A 
portrait engraved from a photograph of this ex¬ 
cellent cow is given on the preceding page. 
Among the Farmers.—No. 24. 
BY ONE OF THEM. 
Old Novelties. 
I wonder how many farmers feel as I do—a sort 
of repugnance to the very name novelties. After 
writing it above, to make it look less repellant I 
wrote old before it. In fact I have no thought of 
discussing new things, but only the fact that new 
things are all the time coming up, which, because 
their advocates claim too much for them, live the 
life of a nine-days’-wonder, and then die of over¬ 
exaltation. It generally happens that somebody 
has faith in them, and so they are kept alive in the 
warmth of some enthusiast’s fancy or kitchen gar¬ 
den, waiting a subsequent resurrection and the 
recognition of their virtues. Possibly, like Cleo¬ 
patra’s Needle, they may be thought more of at the 
antipodes than at home, and, in fact, that is the 
way with many of our most valued crops. I met 
with Mr. James Salter, the other day, he had 
A Chinese Yam 
as large and long as a man’s arm, nearly, which he 
had raised in the yard of his Brooklyn dwelling. 
He raises these yams regularly, and has done so 
ever since the plant was brought out with such a 
flourish of trumpets by Prince, of Flushing, fully 
30 years ago. They furnish an abundant, quantity 
of excellent food, of which the children are very 
fond—preferring it decidedly to any preparation of 
common potatoes. They are cooked by simply 
boiling—and of this they require very little before 
they become mealy and delicate, so that it is not 
alone the children who are fond of them. Mr. Sal¬ 
ter plants some every year, and they occupy the 
ground two years, at least, then, by digging a 
trench by the side of the row, the tubers are taken 
out, and are long and large in proportion as they 
have been long in the ground. Although Mr. S. 
makes a planting by sowing the small “ bulblets,” 
or little tubers, which form in the axils of the 
leaves, in rows like beans, and thinning out the 
row subsequently, by removing the plants if neces¬ 
sary, yet he saves a year’s time at least, by cutting 
oil the upper end of the long tubers when he digs 
them, and setting that out at once. The form of 
the tubers, as is well known, is peculiar. They are 
club-shaped, the big end being deep in the ground, 
and the long, slender handle end, so to speak, be¬ 
ing at the surface, and this is what is cut off and 
replanted. 
The vine of the Chinese Yam is highly or¬ 
namental, it being somewhat like the Madeira 
vine, which is so popular, but prettier. Mr. 
S. has a farm in Connecticut, where more or 
less of it is regularly raised. Most of the best seed 
stores furnish the little tubers, and any one may 
readily add a new vegetable, the raising of which 
will give very little trouble, to the list of those now 
cultivated, and of which we may become exceed¬ 
ingly fond when it is generally cultivated. [By 
“raising,” our correspondent evidently does not 
mean the lifting of the roots, or “tubers,” as he 
calls them. The greatest obstacle to the culture of 
the plant is the difficulty in digging it, and on this 
account it can never become popular or profit¬ 
able.— Ed.] 
Lung Murrain among Long Island and New 
Jersey Cows. 
It has been a well known fact that pleuro-pneu- 
monia has been lurking in the “ swill milk ” stables 
of Long Island and New Jersey for years, and that 
now and then it escapes from its legitimate haunts 
and decimates the herds in the surrounding coun¬ 
try, or in circumscribed districts. One of my 
friends among the farmers of the Island, called to¬ 
day to ask what he could do to protect his herd of 
cows from the “distemper.” 
“ Distemper,” said I, “ ‘ cow distemper,’ what is 
that ? ” 
“The milkmen call it so,” said he. “It shows 
itself by a cough, and by the cow standing with her 
back bowed up and her head down, and looking 
dull and stupid.” 
“ That is something terribly like the lung mur¬ 
rain, or cattle plague, the pleuro-pneumonia, which 
was so fatal in Massachusetts in 1860, and was so 
vigorously stamped out by the State authorities, by 
killing and paying for every animal that had been 
exposed. How near is the disease to you now? ” 
“I don’t know how near it is, but my neighbors 
have been inoculating their cows for it, by taking- 
little slices of the lung substance of a cow which 
had the disease, and inserting them in slits cut in 
the tails of their cows, binding the inoculated ends 
of the tails up with a rag for a few days. As soon 
as it takes, the rags are taken off, and it makes a 
bad sore, but the cows do not have the distemper. 
Now I want to know if it will not do just as well to 
take some of the matter from these wounds, and 
introduce that, as to get a piece of diseased lung.” 
I could not answer that question from previous 
knowledge, but imagine that from the fact that 
pieces of fresh lung are always used, that the re¬ 
sults are best when obtained in this way. The 
stump-tail cows of the swill milk stables gain their 
distinction from this cause, as the “distemper” 
travels up, sometimes involving their rumps more 
or less. I inquired if it were difficult to get the 
pieces of lung substance. 
“ No,” said he, “they can be got at the slaughter¬ 
houses ; the butchers know the animals that have 
the disease.” 
“What?” said I, “is it possible that this sick 
beef is killed and marketed ? ” 
“ Certainly. When an animal gets the distemper 
her owner turns her off before she gets it very bad.” 
In view of these facts do we not need 
A Vetcrinsii-y Inspector of l.ive ami Dead 
Meal J 
No doubt quantities of unhealthy and even badly 
diseased meat is sold annually in our large cities, 
and particularly in the group of cities around and 
including New York. 
It is a fact for which we cannot be too thankful, 
that several of the diseases which are such scourges 
to the cattle of Europe and Great Britain, are much 
less virulent here. There is some quality in our dry 
atmosphere in summer, or in the zero-cold of our 
winters, which seriously interferes with the vitality 
of this very disease (Lung murrain) as also of the 
“ Foot-and-Mouth ” disease. This should not, how¬ 
ever, lead us to be less careful, for some day a dis¬ 
ease might be imported which would sweep off our 
herds as the lung murrain did those of south Africa, 
where it was introduced in 1855, and in two years 
had traveled 1,300 miles, literally sweeping the im¬ 
mense wealth of neat cattle off the face of the 
earth. We need a 
Governmental Inspection of Incoming Cattle. 
The people are deceived by certain requirements 
of the Government. Orders are issued to our Con¬ 
suls abroad, as to certificates of health, etc., but 
so far as I know, and I certainly am in a way to 
know, a sick animal can be just as easily landed in 
New York as a well one, and I think easier. There 
is no barrier to the introduction of disease from 
foreign ports into the ports of the United States. 
We had a wholesome scare two or three years 
ago about the Rinderpest, but like soldiers uuder 
fire, though the danger is as great now as it was 
then, we have long since given up the idea of pro¬ 
tecting ourselves against it. What the results of 
an outbreak of the disease in this country would 
be, no one can tell. Like a fire in the woods, 
which now laps up the dry leaves, and stays only in 
some rotten stump or hollow tree, and again sweeps 
away miles of heavy timber, leaving nothing but 
charred stems and drifts of ashes, the coming dis¬ 
ease may go by doing us little damage, or it may 
well nigh annihilate our herds. Are we ready for 
the experiment ? 
Hitherto the American system has left the pro¬ 
tection of the people against the introduction of 
disease by water, to the several States which estab¬ 
lish more or less efficient quarantine regulations at 
their various ports. The natural dread of “ the pes¬ 
tilence which walketh in darkness, and the destruc¬ 
tion which wasteth at noon-day,” is such that peo¬ 
ple readily submit to any reasonable quarantine 
regulations. In fact, they submit to anything with¬ 
out questioning its reasonableness. It would not 
be so with regulations affecting the trade in cattle. 
Purely mercenary motives would be roused in men, 
and often no little expense incurred. Owners of 
cattle would evade the laws if they could, and the 
authorities in one State or another, to avoid ex¬ 
pense, would wink at infractions, trusting to luck 
that no wide-spread evil would be the result. It is 
not a matter for the different States, but clearly one 
for the general Government to control with a 
strong, firm hand, administering the same laws on 
the coast of Maine as on that of Florida—on the 
Canada as on the Mexican frontier. 
Money Made by Poultry Keeping, 
It seems to me that the interest in poultry is 
increasing, and that more poultry keepers, instead 
of being absorbed by the insane idea that every 
one is going to get rich by selling fancy eggs at 
S3 a dozen, or poultry ready to lay, at S3 to 85 a 
piece, are giving attention to raising eggs in winter, 
broilers in spring and summer, fat pullets in autumn, 
and capons in winter. In these products there is 
steady and sure profit. Of course a few will succeed 
as breeders of fancy fowls, but the number is limited, 
and they must have good judgment and keen 
perceptions, with persistence and perseverance. 
Capon Raising 
is a profitable branch of poultry culture which is 
not likely to be over done. The art of caponizing 
is easily learned. Mr. Ruslimore, President of the 
Eastern New York Poultry Society, learned to 
practise it a few years ago, and last year raised a 
large number of these delicious fowls. He in¬ 
formed me that he lost not more than two per 
cent, and that there is no need of losing any if the 
birds are empty of food, and the operator has suf¬ 
ficient light to do his work well. Good fat capons 
will bring fifty per cent-more per pound than 
other fowls will sell for, and very large capons 
much more than that. The conditions for success 
are the possession of hens of a large breed, and the 
use of judicious crosses to produce quick growth, 
with hardines of constitution and aptitude to lay on 
flesh. There is no doubt, I suppose, in regard to the 
Advantage of Cross Breeding. 
What breeds to cross, is a problem which has 
not yet been solved. I was much interested in 
learning of a series of experiments which Mr. 
Ruslimore is planning to carry out next spring. 
They were suggested in a measure by an experi¬ 
ment tried this year with marked results. Asiatic 
fowls were bred pure, and also mated with Ply¬ 
mouth Rocks, which itself is a recognized cross¬ 
breed, but an established one. The result is that 
the cross-breed pullets and cockerels are several 
pounds heavier than the Asiatic pure bred ones, 
which have had equally good care, feed and other 
conditions of growth. Those cross-bred chickens 
instead of making a great growth of stilts at first, 
and subsequently laying a modicum of flesh and 
fat upon them, are always ready for the table, and 
profitable to send to market, after they are as large 
as quails. The first cross makes, as a rule, the 
greatest improvement upon the parent breeds, and 
a number of practical questions come up, in regard 
to the subject of poultry raising, with the view 
simply to produce the largest amount of meat 
which will bring the highest price in the market. 
For instance, as in the crossing of Brahmas and 
Plymouth Rocks, or any Asiatics with games, 
should the hens be of the larger breed, or the re¬ 
verse? Which breeds crossed will develop the 
greatest early maturity ? The greatest weight at 
the most profitable ages ? The greatest weight and 
plumpness at the best market periods ? Which 
make the best capons ? There have been a good 
many half-made efforts to solve these and kindred 
problems, and I am glad to know that Mr. Rush- 
