Dorking Fowls—Wintering Stock—Threshing—Farm House—Sheep. 
we shall deem it unnecessary to make further 
introductions to his communications. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Dorking Fowls. —I have had frequent inquiries 
fi om persons at a distance, for pairs of the Dorking 
Fowls you brought me last year from England. As I 
ordered them solely for my own use, and not for sale, 
I take pleasure in giving them away as they can be 
spared, to any of my friends who feel the least desirous 
of obtaining them. In those raised this year, I have 
been unfortunate in the sexes; having at least three 
males to one female. I have now ten pullets, and se¬ 
veral cocks, and very beautiful they are too. The hens 
are Pheasant-shaped ; with a clean and beautiful head 
and throat; and a deep, heavy brisket, like a Durham 
heifer. The cocks are magnificent—variegated in co¬ 
lor, with a brilliancy of plumage I never saw surpass¬ 
ed, and rarely equalled. I had the curiosity the other 
evening to weigh a pair of them. The cock, now 17 
months old, weighed 8 lbs., and the hen, of the same 
age, 5 lbs., both in common flesh only. I have no 
doubt if fatted, the one would have weighed 10, and 
the other at least 6 pounds. 
A friend who is a great fancier of fine animals, and 
who possesses in his various breeds of horses, cattle, 
sheep, swine, dogs, &c. &c., as fine specimens as the 
country can produce, in a note to a letter recently re¬ 
ceived, observes: <e The Dorking Cock you sent me is 
a superb fowl—I shall hereafter make this my chief 
stock of hens. Cannot you send me a pullet in the 
spring ?” 
Although now in the depth of winter, with over a 
foot of snow on the ground, the hens lay daily, running 
out, in the severest cold. 
Wintering Stock. —You ask to know how my stock 
progresses thus far through the winter ? You shall 
have the whole story. You saw, last fall, my barn and 
what was in it, and noted the stacks in the field. Our 
stock now consists of some 110 head of neat cattle, and 
about 20 horses. Of these last, four are work horses 
for the farm, and the residue mares and colts; nearly 
all fine high blooded trotting animals. We cut last 
season some 110, or 115 tons of hay, mostly of good 
quality; and about 140 acres of wheat, oats, and bar¬ 
ley. On the 18th November the winter set in sudden¬ 
ly, with a furious gale and snow storm, extraordinarily 
early, even for this northern climate, which drove the 
cattle directly into winter quarters. Although illy pre¬ 
pared to receive them thus early, a shift was made, and 
they were at once attended to. The cows, 32 in num¬ 
ber, with two yoke, of working oxen, are all stabled 
nightly and fed with hay, and after being let out and 
watered about 9 or 10 o’clock in the morning, pick 
straw through the day in the yard. The young stock, 
composed of steers, heifers, and calves, have been fed 
with the coarser hay from the stacks till a few days 
since, when our thrashing having regularly commen¬ 
ced, they were driven to the barn, and are there fed on 
straw all they will eat. The calves, of which there 
are upwards of 30,1 have divided into two classes— 
the elder, and the younger, but all of this year’s pro¬ 
duce, and keep them in two adjoining yards and hou¬ 
ses, with ample mangers for hay. They go in and out 
at pleasure ; are watered once a day, (this is all they 
will drink,) and fed with hay night and morning, and 
pick considerable straw through the day. A very few 
oats are given them, and they are growing as rapidly 
as when on grass. All have salt once a week, and are 
in thriving condition and good health. 
The mares and colts range in the yard with an open 
shed to go under at pleasure, and feed mostly on straw, 
coarse hay, orts, and chaff; then, by turns, they do the 
thrashing, and when so employed, are stabled and bet¬ 
ter fed than when running out. They are salted and 
watered like the cattle, and are doing equally well. 
There is one peculiarity, and a very beneficial one I 
find, which all farmers do not understand in wintering 
horses and neat stock, on the same farm. Our work 
horses are stabled in a separate barn by themselves. 
The cows daily go to their dung heap, and pick out and 
devour most greedily every straw of bedding, or litter 
that is thrown out from the stables; and in return the 
colts go to the cattle heaps and work away there daily, 
gorging themselves with the litter almost to bursting. 
A lot of young shoats glean after all, and in this man¬ 
ner hardly a grain of anything is lost. 
A WORD OR TWO HERE OF THRASHING. —I have 110 
thrashing machine. Wheat farmers who grow large 
quantities of grain, and want it early in market, may 
find them necessary; but such as have stock to winter, 
I fancy will see little profit in them. It is certainly as 
expensive as either horse or flail thrashing, with more 
waste of grain. Cattle like horse thrashed straw better 
than any other ; and where it can be done daily through 
the winter, and fed out from the floor, a snug tidy job 
is made of it. Two men, with four or six horses or 
colts, will thrash and clean up 75 to 100 bushels of oats 
or barley per day, and throw the straw to the cattle. 
You may ask what labor is required for the attend¬ 
ance of this stock ? One thoroughly smart man can 
tend the whole of them ; but as some 20 of the cows 
are thorough bred short-horns, and Devons, a bull or 
two, See., of which I take a little extra care; one 
man has charge of the fine or blood slock, together with 
all the early calves, and 6 suckling besides—60 in all, 
and cleans the stables 3 cuts up a few roots for three or 
four of the nursing cows, young calves, Sec., and at¬ 
tends to their suckling twice a day. This man is no 
swifter, is going on 60 years old, but is methodical as 
a clock, and neglects nothing. The other stock, ex¬ 
cepting the work horses, is attended to by one man, 
who does the milking, cleaning of stables, and other 
little notions, which takes altogether about half his 
time. In what experience I have had in growing stock, 
I find there is no economy in neglecting one’s animals. 
It is £t saving at the spiggot and losing at the bung.” 
During the past year I have lost but one animal, and 
that by an accident. 
Farm Houses. —I have seen and read the designs of 
a great many farm-houses in the agricultural papers. 
Many of these are queer things; fit for any body but a 
farmer. Mr. Downing, of Newburg, has, I observe, 
published a book of designs which I think well of, and 
hope it will improve the taste of our people generally 
in this particular; for 1 honestly confess to you that I 
think our rural architecture in America is as uncouth 
as need be; oftentimes scandalously expensive, and 
withal comfortless, and inconvenient. I have been 
putting up a snug little affair of this kind which is 
hardly yet finished. It has cost but little, yet to my 
eye it is convenient, snug, and sufficient for all needful 
farm purposes. I will send you a drawing of it before 
long, which if you approve, you may publish. 
Mutton Sheep. —I often regret that I cannot keep 
sheep. You know how I have tried to keep these use¬ 
ful animals, and how my efforts have been thwarted. 
Were I again to attempt it, I should be disposed to fol¬ 
low the plan of my intelligent friend, William Garbutt," 
ofiMonroe county. He has a select flock of well bred 
Merino ewes, crossed by a thorough bred Bakewell 
buck. The lambs are large with astonishing fleeces ; 
woolled as profusely as the Merino, and nearly as long 
as the Bakewell; of a good quality—with a round, 
compact carcase, susceptible of extraordinary fatness. 
