RUSSIAN FOWLS.—MEXICAN SHEPHERD-DOG. 
241 
applications must be on a large scale because of 
the great insolubility of the silicate. 
I take this opportunity of making a fact, recently 
discovered, known to your southern subscribers, 
which is important to the cotton-grower. That 
staple hitherto unexamined, is now found to con¬ 
tain a large quantity of phosphate of lime, (bone- 
earth,) so that 25 per cent of the ashes, which 
average 4 per cent, of the cotton consists of phos¬ 
phates. Moreover phosphates applied in manure 
have been seen directly to benefit the crops in 
South Carolina. Shell-marls, the more shelly the 
better, always contain some phosphate, sometimes 
as much as 2 per cent. Such will therefore be 
found invaluable in the cotton regions of Alabama, 
Louisiana, Mississippi, &c., and ought to be eager¬ 
ly sought for and even imported where amend¬ 
ments are wanting. Bones ground or reduced to 
a coarse powder contain about 50 per cent, of phos¬ 
phate and must not be overlooked. Guano some¬ 
times contains as much. 
I have not examined the specimen submitted 
for phosphates, there probably is but a small quan¬ 
tity; if, however, in any part of the formation 
whence it is derived, the mass is almost entirely of 
shells, a fair per centage may be expected. 
Yours truly, D. P. Gardner, 
Lecturer on Agricultural Chemistry. 
RUSSIAN FOWLS.— Fig. 50. 
A few of this very singular and unique 
variety of fowls, were imported in 1842 
from Moscow, by Dr. Wight of Boston, 
from which our portraits were taken. In 
a letter accompanying the portraits, the 
Doctor says, “I herewith send you a rough 
sketch of a cock and hen of the Russian or 
Siberian fowls. They came to hand a few 
weeks since, and are perfectly described in 
Dickson on Poultry. These were procured 
for me from Moscow and answer the de¬ 
scription well, except that the feathers on 
the legs are quilled, which they will prob¬ 
ably lose in the next generation, our cli¬ 
mate being so much milder than that at 
Moscow.” 
According to Latham this breed differs 
from others in having large tufts of brown 
feathers springing from each joint, and 
some longer and fuller, like a Jew’s beard, 
from the lower mandible. There is a tuft 
of upright feathers, of the same silky texture, 
springing from the backside of the head in the hen. 
The cock has a comb and wattles, the hen a comb 
only. This bird came from Moscow, and has fine 
variegated colors. The legs are covered with fine 
ordinary feathers; some have the plumage of the 
game-fowl, a fine tawney orange, spotted with 
black, and are highly esteemed in Scotland for 
prolific laying.— Bement's Poulterer's Companion. 
MEXICAN SHEPHERD-DOG. 
Although Mr. Kendall and some other writers 
have described this wonderful animal as a cross of 
the Newfoundland-dog, such, I think, can not be the 
fact; on the contrary, I have no doubt he is a genuine 
descendant of the Alpine Mastiff, or more properly, 
* Spanish shepherd-dog introduced by them at the 
time of the conquest. He is only to be found in 
the sheep-raising districts of New Mexico. The 
other Mexican dogs, which number more than a 
thousand to one of these noble animals, are the 
results of a cross of everything under the sun hav¬ 
ing any affinity to the canine race, and even of a 
still nobler class of animals if Mexican stories are 
?o be credited. It is believed in Mexico, that the 
countless mongrels of that country owe their or¬ 
igin to the assistance of the various kinds of wolves, 
mountain cats, lynxes, and to almost if not every 
four-footed class of carnivorous animals. Be this 
as it may, those who have not seen them can be¬ 
lieve as much as they like; but eye-witnesses can 
assert, that there never was a country blessed with 
a greater and more abundant variety of miserable, 
snarling, cowardly packs, than the mongrel dogs 
of Mexico. That country of a surety would be the 
plague-spot of this beautiful world, were it not for 
the redeeming character of the truly noble shep¬ 
herd-dog, endowed as it is with almost human in¬ 
tellect. I have often thought, when observing the 
sagacity of this animal, that if very many of the 
human race possessed one half of the powers of 
inductive reasoning which seems to be the gift of 
this animal, that it would be far better for them¬ 
selves and for their fellow-creatures. 
The peculiar education of these dogs is one 
of the most important and interesting steps pur^ 
sued by the shepherd. His method is to select 
from a multitude of pups a few of the health¬ 
iest and finest-looking, and to put them to a suck¬ 
ing ewe, first depriving her of her own lamb. 
By force, as well as from a natural desire she has 
to be relieved of the contents of her udder, she soon 
learns to look upon the little interlopers with all 
the affection she would manifest for her own natu¬ 
ral offspring. For the first few days the pups are 
kept in the hut, the ewe suckling them morning 
and evening only; but gradually, as she becomes 
