346 
A PENNSYLVANIA DAIRY. 
Numerous other instances could be given equally 
conclusive. 
Although we may not be justified in using these 
somewhat expensive salts, so highly charged with 
nitrogen, there are sources of supply within our 
reach, especially rich in this material, and abound¬ 
ing in many of the other ingredients of fertility. 
These are animal manures of all kinds, but more 
particularly urine, human excrements, and the 
offal of animals, such as uncalcined bones, horns, 
hair, hides, flesh, blood, &c. All of these contain 
large proportions of nitrogen, and if carefully in¬ 
corporated into the soil, would tend largely to the 
increased production and value of the wheat crops 
throughout the country. An experiment was made 
in manuring wheat with cow dung, which con¬ 
tains the smallest proportion of nitrogen, and this 
yielded 11'95 per cent, of gluten. Another parcel, 
grown on land manured with human urine, gave 
35T per cent. Thus it will be seen, that the 
maximum of value in wheat, may be reached, by 
the application of an article, almost everywhere 
wasted in the United States. 
It is by skilfully feeding the wheat plant with 
all the nourishment that it can take up, that the 
crops may be indefinitely increased. Lord Hard- 
wicke stated, in a speech before the Royal Ag. Soc. 
of England, that the fine Suffolk wheat had 
produced 76 bushels per acre; and another and 
more improved variety had yielded the astonish¬ 
ing quantity, of 82 bushels per acre. There is no 
comparison between the capacity of an animal and 
seeds, to produce results; for while the former is 
limited to a definite growth, which no effort of 
science or skill can augment, a seed may multiply 
beyond almost any assignable limit. We have 
been shown a stool of wheat, originating from a 
single seed, the growth of the present season, with 
30 stalks, averaging from 100 to 110 grains on each 
head. Over 3,000 perfect grains, is thus the prod¬ 
uct of a single parent in one season. It requires, 
then, but the proper pabulum to produce good 
wheat, within the wheat latitudes, in every portion 
of the Union. Some of our worn-out eastern lands 
may be so totally unsuited to its growth, as not to 
justify the efforts of reclaiming or fitting them for 
this object, especially, while we have a region in 
the west, every way adapted by nature, to its most 
successful cultivation. But we can not for a mo¬ 
ment doubt, that when those western fields be¬ 
come comparatively full, industry and science will 
combine to clothe again those hills and valleys 
(now but partially robed with a scanty herbage), 
with teeming crops of wheat, such as gave to 
them, in their pristine days, a fame for fertility 
seldom exceeded. 
R. L. Allen. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
A PENNSYLVANIA DAIRY. 
Philadelphia , Nov. 8th, 1843. 
Noticing in your October number an account of 
a dairy on Long Island, I am induced to give you 
a description of one in this vicinity. Mr. Henry 
Charley has a dairy farm near Laurel Hill, where 
he keeps from 40 to 50 cows, consisting of Ayr¬ 
shire, Holderness, Alderny, Durham, and a few 
natives; but mostly crossed with a fine, thorough¬ 
bred Short-Horn bull, and is raising full bloods, 
and high grades of this breed as fast as possible. 
He makes veal of his bull-calves, and raises all 
his best heifer-calves from his best cows for his 
own use. I found the cows luxuriating in a rich 
clover pasture when I visited them last summer 
between 2 and 3 o’clock, the hour for afternoon 
milking, from which they were taken by the 
herdsman, and driven half a mile to the barn. 
This is a stone building 100 feet long, 46 feet 
wide, with a wing of 60 feet, the same width as 
the barn, high walls, and steep roof, which make 
it capable of holding a great quantity of fodder, 
consisting last year mostly of cornstalks, (some of 
which he bought very cheap of his neighbors, 
while others let theirs stand in the field and this 
spring raked them up and burned them,) rye 
straw, and oats unthrashed, all of which he cuts 
and steams—sometimes with a little hay cut also 
and mixed with the above articles. These are all 
steamed together, or each separately, (as best suits 
the appetites of the cows) in a large vat, connect¬ 
ed with a pipe through which the steam passes 
from the boiler, which stands in a room adjoining 
with stone or ground floor. The chimney is of 
sheet-iron running up through the roof, and coal 
used for fuel, renders the risk for insurance 
at a very low rate. The water is supplied 
from a spring running into the yard, and thence 
through a pipe into the boiler. The cows are also 
watered from the same when the weather is 
stormy in winter, and they are not allowed to go 
out. But to return from this digression. After the 
fodder is sufficiently cooked, which takes but a 
short time, it is taken out into other larger vats or 
troughs, with scoop shovels, and there left to cool; 
then a suitable portion of Indian meal or ground 
rye, buck-wheat, or oats, or any two or all four 
mixed and ground together, (which in my opinion 
would be better,) adding a portion of ship-stuff's, 
shorts, or even bran. This is the food for the cows 
at all seasons, except when there is a full supply 
of grass. They are driven to a woods pasture for 
exercise and air when there is little or no grass. 
Air and exercise are indispensably necessary for 
the health of cows, and without these, the milk 
will always be more or less unhealthy, according 
to the nature of their confinement. 
When the cows were brought into the yard, I 
was puzzled to know how they were to be han¬ 
dled ; but the stable doors being thrown open, each 
cow entered the door nearest her stall, and went 
to it with as much regularity as a young miss 
goes to her seat in a boarding-school. There is a 
drop in the floor immediately behind the cows, 14 
inches wide and 4 inches deep; into this all the 
excrements fall, the water running off immediately 
to a reservoir prepared for the purpose of receiving 
it; this, together with all the manure, was taken 
away daily, and put upon the land or crops or in a 
heap to make compost; so that the premises were 
kept perfectly clean and sweet. The floor was 
covered with a thin bed of cut straw, which was 
passed off with the manure as it became soiled, 
and by being cut, worked immediately into and in- 
