200 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[May, 
only four or five syllables, which are peculiar 
and not very pleasing. 
“Red” Berkshire Swine. 
There has been some inquiry about the 
‘ ‘Red” Berkshire swine. They are undoubtedly 
an off-shoot from the old Berkshire breed im¬ 
ported into tliis country early in the present 
century. Black Berkshire hogs at the present 
time are often “plum” colored, showing an 
inclination to red, while the “Red” Berk- 
shires often have black hairs mingled with 
the red, and sometimes black spots. The 
common origin indicated by these markings 
is sustained by the statements of Loudon’s 
Encyclopaedia of Agriculture (1825), which 
says :—“ The Berkshire breed is distinguished 
by being in general of a tawny, white, or 
reddish color, spotted with black ; large ears 
hanging over the eyes, etc.” 
The “Red” Berkshires vary a little in the 
size of the ears, the length of snout, and in 
the shadings of their color. The true type 
requires a long body and deep sides, hold¬ 
ing the width well out to the hams. The 
legs should be medium in length, well set 
under the body, and well apart; the head 
small as compared with the body; cheek 
broad and full; neck short and thick ; ears 
rather large and lopping over the eyes ; face, 
when aged, slightly curved, with the nose 
rather longer than some breeds ; medium and 
strong boned; hams broad and full, reaching 
well down to the shanks; tail hairy and 
strongly set; a good coat of hair, medium in 
fineness, inclining to bristles on the top of 
the shoulders, usually straight, but sometimes 
a little wavy ; color glossy red, varying from 
dark to light yellowish red, occasionally 
brownish hairs, and small flecks of black on 
the belly and legs. The darker reds are pre¬ 
ferred. In disposition the “ Red” Berkshires 
are mild, gentle, quiet, and easily confined by 
low fences. They are very prolific, and yield 
a large flow of milk. The offspring are large 
and strong at birth. The young pigs will 
bear heavy feeding and rarely get cloyed in 
their appetites. They possess the old Berk¬ 
shire characteristic of marbled flesh—lean 
mixed with the fat. It is common for pigs 
eight to nine months old to dress from 300 to 
350 lbs., and old hogs often weigh from 600 
to 800 lbs. On account of the greater pro¬ 
portion of lean meat, and the extreme length 
of body and depth of the sides, they are pecu¬ 
liarly bacon hogs. The hams are also fine 
and of large size. These hogs never blister or 
get scurvy in summer or winter, and are not 
liable to have mange or other skin diseases. 
They are valuable to cross upon the delicate 
and fine-boned breeds, imparting to the off¬ 
spring stamina and rapidity of growth. 
The engraving on the preceding page of the 
breeding sow, “Belle,” owned by Col. F. D. 
Curtis, is from a photograph taken soon after 
weaning a litter of nine pigs. “Belle” 
measures five feet and one inch from the end 
of her nose to the base of her tail. She is 
two feet and eight inches high from the loins 
to the ground, and has a depth of side of two 
feet. Her color is bright red. She had two 
litters of pigs the last season, and has never 
been fed to force her growth. 
Sliadina Pliints.— Newly transplanted 
plants often have a hard struggle under our 
hot sun. If they can have a little help until they 
“get hold of the soil,” success is more certain, 
whether with vegetables or flowers. What¬ 
ever will shield the newly-set plant from the 
direct sun will answer ; even a piece of paper 
will be of service. Shingles are exceedingly 
handy in the garden. One may be pushed 
into the ground to afford shade, or better, two 
may be placed over the plant like a roof. In 
the lack of anything else at hand, we have 
stuck up a blunt stake, put a newspaper over 
it tent-wise, placing earth on its edges to 
hold the paper in place. Of course it is bet¬ 
ter to transplant in a cloudy time, but some¬ 
times one cannot wait, and a little shade 
for a day or two will secure success. 
A Holder for Splitting Wood. 
Mr. A. R. Dixon, Lake Co., Ohio, has a 
simple and effective holder for use in splitting 
wood, which is shown in the accompanying 
engraving. A crotch is cut from a tree a foot 
in diameter, and a 
piece of heavy 
plank is nailed upon 
the two ends by 
large spikes, thus 
making an enclosed 
space in which the 
wood is placed while 
being split. Mr. D. 
writes that when a 
lad he split a great 
toe with an axe, 
and hopes this device, which has been of so 
much good service to him, will prevent 
others from suffering a like injury. 
Tightening Sieves. 
Mr. W. Strock, Bucks Co., Pa., sends us a 
simple, quick, and effective method of rem¬ 
edying grain sieves 
that have become 
sagged from use. 
He writes :—“Take 
a round piece of 
iron or wood—or a 
lead pencil will do— 
and bend the wires 
as shown in the 
sketch (see engrav¬ 
ing), going over 
every fifth row of 
meshes, both up and down and across. If all 
of a row is bent the same way, the meshes 
will not be enlarged. 
A SIEVE TIGHTENER. 
How are New Varieties of Potatoes 
Produced ? 
The above question is asked by “D. W.,” 
Lee Co., Iowa, who follows it with:—“Can 
you give the manner of fertilizing, the time 
to fertilize, and the time to plane the seed 
balls?” Many of the well-known varieties of 
potatoes have not been ‘ ‘ produced ” at all; 
that is not by any direct agency of the culti¬ 
vator. We must in the first place state that 
the potato is not a root, but a short, thick 
under-ground branch of the plant. We have 
several times seen, and no doubt many of our 
readers have also, the branches of the potato 
vine developed as potatoes above ground. 
We must start with the idea, then, that the 
potato is really a branch or stem. It is a 
well-established fact among fruit growers 
and florists, that a shoot or branch of a plant 
may produce very different fruits or flowers 
from the rest of the plant, and this occurs 
without any assignable cause, and without 
any human agency. These cases, by horti¬ 
culturists called “ sports,” are very numerous. 
A late peach has been known to produce a 
branch on which all the fruit was early. 
Other peach trees have formed branches 
which bore only nectarines—merely a sport 
of the peach. Certain branches on yellow 
plum trees have produced red plums, and 
shoots on purple grape-vines have borne 
white grapes. In flowers, especially roses, 
these variations are very numerous. We 
only cite these cases to show what may take 
place, indeed, has taken place, in the potato. 
The tuber being really a branch, it may, like 
a branch of peach, plum, or grape, vary. A 
notable example of this is the “Late Rose.” 
In a field of “Early Rose,” a single plant 
was found to be green, and still growing long 
after the vines in the rest of the field were 
dead and ready for the harvest. The owner 
had the good sense to save and perpetuate 
the product of this vine, and now, as the 
“ Late Rose,” it is one of our valuable kinds. 
Other varieties have been produced in a sim¬ 
ilar manner. We can not cause this varia¬ 
tion to take place, but as it may occur any¬ 
where, the careful cultivator should take 
note of any marked differences in the vines 
that may appear in his potato field. 
As to raising new varieties from seed, we 
doubt if much actual cross-fertilization has 
ever been done. To refer to fruits again— 
the seeds of the apples or the peaches from 
any one tree, taken as they are, without any 
attempt at fertilization, will give a great 
variety of seedlings, and we know it to be 
the same with potatoes. That greatest of all 
modern potatoes—greatest in itself and in 
the varieties it has given rise to—the “ Early 
Rose,” came from a chance seed ball, of the 
coarse, but prolific “ Garnet Chili.” A grower 
had picked this seed-ball from his patch with¬ 
out selection, and pinned it against his win¬ 
dow to ripen, and finally gave it to Mr. 
Breese — of blessed potato memory—who 
sowed the seeds. From the seeds in this 
chance ball, picked without any selection, 
came “ Early Rose,” “Breese’s Prolific,” and 
several others, all of excellent quality, but 
all very different, some being white, others 
red ; some long, others round, some early and 
some late ; indeed from that one, and now 
famous seed-ball, were raised potatoes differ¬ 
ing among themselves as much as potatoes 
can differ. In view of the results from this 
single seed-ball, we doubt many of the stories 
of direct crossing. Still, if one wishes to ex¬ 
periment in this, the flower of the potato 
affords an easy subject, as the anthers do not 
shed their pollen early, and if removed as 
soon as the flower opens, the pollen from 
another flower can be readily applied to the 
pistil. As to raising potatoes from the seed, 
the balls are kept until the time for sowing, 
when the seeds are removed and treated pre¬ 
cisely as tomato seeds. They are started in 
boxes in the greenhouse, the hot-bed, or in 
the kitchen window (Mr. Breese followed the 
last named method), and the plants treated 
exactly like tomato plants, save that they 
may be set in the open ground somewhat 
earlier. Mr. Breese informed us that the 
original plant of “ Early Rose” gave him 
several good sized tubers the first year, and 
stated that in his experience, if a seedling 
potato did not do this the first season, it 
was not worth while to continue to grow it. 
