338 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[August, 
Sheep and Dogs.— We have many inquiries 
as to whether this or that State is adapted to sheep 
culture. The answer is generally favorable (as 
scarcely any State is not suited to the growth of 
some breed of sheep), but accompanied by the ad¬ 
vice to first ascertain what are the dog laws, in the 
State in question. No fact in agriculture is more 
fully established than the relations between sheep 
and curs. No matter what the climate or the 
pasturage, if miserable half-savage dogs roam at 
large, and the State provides no redress for the 
losses of the sheep owner, that State is not one in 
which sheep-raising can be undertaken with a fair 
prospect of success. We esteem a well bred 
respectable dog as highly as any one, and it is not 
against such that our remarks apply. But the 
sparsely settled States have a large shiftless popu¬ 
lation, and as a rule the more worthless the in¬ 
habitant, the larger number of curs does he keep. 
He does not feed his brutes, and as they are fond 
of mutton, he is quite willing that some one else 
should provide it. As bearing on this point, we 
quote from an address, made several months ago, 
before the Central Kansas Breeders’ Association by 
Mr. F. D. Coburn, the author of the excellent 
“ Swine Husbandry,” already noticed in our col- 
um.is. Mr. Coburn is terribly in earnest, as the 
following will bear witness : “ Reforms, like char¬ 
ity, should begin at home, and if each old shot gun, 
musket, and revolver, in Kansas, was brought out 
from its resting place, and for one time made to do 
service for the Lord and our people, by letting the 
blessed sunshine through some contemptible, cow¬ 
ardly cur, and then traded for a long-handled four- 
tined manure fork, to be kept bright with a reason¬ 
able application of elbow grease, the act would 
stamp the sons of the State as the most courageous, 
the most progressive, and highly civilized of any 
people of which we have record.” 
Son Stroke.—Those who have been so unfor¬ 
tunate as to be overcome by the heat, know how 
lasting the effects may be. Its most violent form 
is the “ sun stroke,” where death often follows, 
and if the subject recovers it is after along illness. 
All precautionary measures should be taken. Those 
obliged to work continuously in the full blaze of 
the hot sun should wear a light hat with a wet 
cloth within ; a cabbage leaf may be used instead 
of the cloth. If the slightest feeling of dizziness 
comes on, a cool shade should be sought at once, 
and cold water applied freely to the head. If Am¬ 
monia (hartshorn), is at hand, inhale it, but cau¬ 
tiously. Persons who have been without sleep, or 
are in any way debilitated, are predisposed to sun 
stroke, and should therefore be particularly on 
their guard. 
American Farming.— Dr. Lawes, in his re¬ 
cent work on “Fertility,” says, under the head of 
4 ‘ The United States ” : “ First of all, and this is an 
important point, the United States farmer him¬ 
self is usually well educated and intelligent; he is 
both owner and occupier of the soil, and does as 
much as possible of the work of the farm himself, 
employing for the purpose the most improved 
labor-saving machinery, he is lightly taxed, has 
cheap modes of transit, and above all is in posses¬ 
sion of an almost unlimited extent of untouched 
fertility. These circumstances all combined re¬ 
duce the cost of growing corn almost to a mini¬ 
mum, and the result enables him to deliver his 
wheat at the doors of the owner of the land in 
some parts of Great Britain cheaper than it can be 
raised in the adjoining fields. In a word, they enable 
him to regulate the price of grain throughout the 
world.” These are certainly advantages over 
which the American farmer may rejoice. 
Rye for Soiling. —Those who desire a good 
growth of green fodder for early spring soiling 
should not fail to sow a field of rye during the last 
of August or early in September. The soil, if not 
naturally rich, must be made so by an application 
of barn-yard manure, or an equivalent in some good 
fertilizer, afterwards plowed and made fine with 
the harrow. Such a crop, after being cut next 
spring, will grow up again and give three or more 
cuttings through the season. Last spring we saw a 
field that was pastured off, and it furnished an 
abundance of fine food to cattle and sheep ; it was 
afterwards plowed and planted to corn. The rye 
was sown on grass land, and was a “ stolen crop,” 
as nothing would have naturally come between the 
grass and the corn. The crop did so well that the 
farmer has concluded to have such a crop each year. 
Plow your corn ground early the previous autumn, 
and sow it to rye; feed this off and plow again— 
manuring, of course, and plant the ground to corn. 
American. Leeches. 
BY GEO. W. VAN SICLEN, ESQ. 
[Mr. Van Siclen, of the Willewemoc Trout Club, 
and a well-known member of the sporting frater¬ 
nity, having read in some journal an account of 
the cultivation of the European Leech as an arti¬ 
cle of commerce, sends us the following notes 
upon the American Leech. We may remark that 
Mr. Van Siclen’s observations apply to the leeches 
of certain waters only. Further south there are 
different species, and we are led to infer that some 
of these bite as readily as the European leeches, 
by the statement in the medical works that Amer¬ 
ican leeches are largely used in the Philadelphia 
hospitals, and as no mention is made of the fact 
that they are in any manner inferior to the Euro¬ 
pean leeches, we infer that they are able to make 
their own puncture. Mr. Van Siclen says that, in 
the article referred to, the use of American leeches 
is spoken of, and gives his experience with these 
creatures as follows.— Eds.] 
In the southern part of the State of New York, 
among theCatskill and Shawangunk Mountains, in 
Ulster, Sullivan, and Delaware Counties, are many 
small lakes, of 60 to 200 or 300 acres, fed by springs 
and mountain brooks, and which abound in leeches. 
In 1874, and again in 1877, an old man, named 
Gray, camped on Lake Willewemoc (in Ulster 
County), and spent more than a week each time in 
catching leeches with a hand net of muslin. He 
took away from 12,000 to 15,000 each time, and 
stated that he sold them to a firm, or rather com¬ 
pany, in Philadelphia; that he had followed the 
business for years during the summers, and at 
times got as high as $40 per thousand for them ; at 
others as low as $16. He used no “bait.” These 
leeches could not puncture a hole for them¬ 
selves ; the blood must first be started by pricking 
with a needle, after which they wilt take hold and 
gorge themselves. They will attach themselves to 
a man in wading or swimming, hut draw no blood, 
and do no harm, and drop off upon his coming out 
of the water. This I found out, to my great relief, 
upon hurrying out of the water, after attempting 
to fish in Fuvlow Lake, by straddling a log, with 
my pantaloons off, and throwing my fly as I .pad- 
died the log around with my feet. The leeches on 
my legs soon attracted my attention, and hurried 
me out of the water, feeling sick and frightened, 
but they were easily brushed off. Should one at¬ 
tach itself to a wound or sore, it would remain on 
until gorged. Mr. Gray kept his leeches in water 
until ready to start for home, then he would dry 
them as thoroughly as possible and put them in 
one mass in a large, coarse bag, and they would 
live and do well for two or three days while he was 
travelling. He said it was harder to keep them after 
he got home. I don’t know how he kept them 
there. The numbers of these leeches have cer¬ 
tainly diminished in Willewemoc Lake of late 
years. I do not know what they live on. I never 
saw one on any of the many trout I have caught 
in that lake during the last eight or nine years. 
“Hybrid” Cotton-Planters Beware.— 
A gentleman recently returned from Western 
Louisiana, where he had been on matters connected 
with the Census, informs us of a fraud of which 
the planters in that locality have been made the 
victims. A man was offering the seeds of “Worm- 
Proof Hybrid Cotton,” claiming that the seed was 
from a “ hybrid ” between the Cotton plant and “ a 
weed which no worm or bug would touch.” As 
our friend is a competent botanist, he was able to 
put some awkward questions to the man with the 
“ hybrid ” seeds, who, not liking the situation, left 
the town. The seeds were sold for 30 cents each, 
or $3 per dozen seeds, and the vendor claimed to 
have sold $15,000 worth of them last spring in 
Western Louisiana. Swindlers in seeds, like comets, 
have erratic orbits, and it is not at all likely that the 
“Hybrid Cotton” man will be heard of again in 
Louisiana, but our friends in other cotton-growing 
States should be on their guard against him. He will 
be quite likely to turn up at some of the fairs this 
autumn, and also to make his “ house to house ” 
visits during the winter. It is a well-known fact 
that Cotton or any other plant will not “ hybridize ” 
with any plant not of the same family. As none of 
the family to which Cotton belongs are known to be 
poisonous, it is safe to set down this remarkable 
“ hybrid ” as a poor fraud. 
Deatb of Cyrus J. Fay.— We were pained 
to learn, a little time since, of the death of Capt. 
Cyrus J; Fay, one of the most public-spirited and 
highly-respected citizens of New Jersey. Very 
many years ago Capt. Fay, leaving Maine, pur¬ 
chased a large tract of wild land in New Jersey, 
about thirty miles from Camden, erected numerous 
buildings, and laid the foundation of the present 
village of Hammonton, containing some three 
thousand inhabitants. He built, among other struc¬ 
tures, an extensive paper factory, and devoted his 
energies to various other enterprises. He acquired 
a high reputation as a straightforward business 
man among all with whom he came in contact. He 
died at Hammonton, at the age of 75 years. Capt. 
Fay had been a subscriber to, and a warm friend of, 
the American Agriculturist from its first issue. 
Preserving Eggs.— “R. F. S.,” Davenport, 
Iowa, and others, inquire about the methods of 
preserving eggs in a fresh state. There is a method 
by which the contents of eggs, after thorough heat¬ 
ing, are dried at a low temperature. The product 
is in a coarse powder, which, if soaked in cold 
water for a while, is restored to its original condi¬ 
tion. This process is, we think, covered by sev¬ 
eral patents, and were it not, it could not be made 
available on the farm, or otherwise than on a large 
scale. For family use, eggs have been preserved 
by dipping them, when placed in a net, in boiling 
water, long enough to form a cooked film just 
within the shell. They have also been preserved 
by coating them with some substance that will fill 
the pores of the shell, and thus exclude the air; 
butter, lard, drying oils, and shellac varnish have 
all been used for this purpose. But only one kind 
of preserved eggs is known in the city markets— 
“limed eggs.” The eggs are received at country 
stores, are placed in lime water, or rather milk of 
lime, which is kept in casks or large vats for the 
purpose. The eggs are placed as received in the 
lime mixture, and at the time when eggs are sca-ce, 
are washed, packed, and forwarded to market, 
where they are known as “limed eggs,” and usu¬ 
ally sell for about five cents the dozen less than do 
fresh eggs. The method is to prepare a milk of lime 
just, as ordinary whitewash is made. Some add 
salt, and others cream of tartar, the utility of either 
being doubtful. Eggs put down in lime during 
the summer keep in good condition until the sup¬ 
ply becomes abundant the following spring. 
The New York Horticultural Society- 
are doing excellent work. The monthly meet¬ 
ings have been well attended, the exhibitions 
have been attractive, and at each meeting there has 
been read an instructive essay, followed by in¬ 
teresting discussions. What we would especially 
commend is the Monthly Reports. Instead of 
waiting until the end of the year and presenting a 
bulky volume, an account of the monthly exhibi¬ 
tion, and of the business meeting, with the essay, 
and the discussion that follows it, are produced in 
a neat pamphlet within a few days after the meet¬ 
ing has been held. Thus absent members get the 
matter fresh. The whole present management of 
the Society shows good judgment and active work. 
