TOREldff AGRICULTURAL NEWg* 
131 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
By the arrival of the Steamer Hibernia we are in 
receipt of our foreign journals to March 4th. 
Markets.— ‘■Aste, Pots have advanced 2s. pel* cwt., 
Pearls remain as per our last. Cation , a decline of £d. 
per lb., stock on hand at Liverpool on the lstof March, 
484,000 bales, against 808,000 same time last year. 
Flour and Indian Meal had fluctuated somewhat dur¬ 
ing the past month, but j ust before the steamer sailed 
a slight advance was established. Beef, ‘ an advance 
of 2s. to 4s. per tierce. Pork , 3s. to 5s per bbl. Lard, 
scarce and bringing extreme prices. Butter an ad¬ 
vance of 4s. to 6s. the cwt. Cheese a reduction of 3s. to 
4s. pr. cwt. Guano , a slight improvement. Rice, a 
decline of 4s. and 5s. the cwt. Naval Stores scarce at 
improved prices. Tallow firm. Tobacco large sales. 
Wool from the United States when put up in fair con¬ 
dition realizes good prices ; but so much of it is badly 
washed, ill cleaned, and containing the dirty thigh locks 
wrapped up inside the fleeces, that purchasers have be¬ 
come completely disgusted, and bid for it with great 
reluctance. It is disgraceful to the country that it is 
not shipped in better condition. 
The Manure Heap in Holland. —Great attention is 
paid to the dung, which is put up into neat heaps at 
the back of the house, consisting of alternate layers of 
turf and manure from the byre, and watered every now 
and then by the liquids previously collected from all 
the houses, in a cask sunk in the ground. 
Holland Cows.-^ The cows are beau iful, and kept in 
the finest order; indeed many farmers seeing them 
would be apt to consider them too fat to give milk. 
They are black and white, and many of them are 
marked like the sheeted breed of cattle, the colors 
being black and white instead of brown and white, as 
in the latter. They are very small in the bone, have 
small heads, thin necks, and capacious carcases, with 
large udders. This is the description of cattle found 
all over Holland. 
Handling as a Test of the Fattening Properties of 
Animals. —In all domestic animals the skin or hide 
forms one of the best means by which we can estimate 
their fattening properties. In the handling of oxen, if 
the hide be found soft and silky to the touch, it affords 
a proof of a tendency in the animal to take meat. A 
beast having a perfect touch will have a thick loose 
skin, floating, as it were, on a layer of soft fat yielding 
to the slightest pressure, and springing back towards 
the finger like a piece of soft thick chamois leather. 
Such a skin will be usually covered with an abundance 
of glossy hair feeling like a bed of moss, and hence is 
very appropriately termed a mossy skin. But a thick 
firm skin, which is generally covered by thick-set, hard, 
short hair, al ways handles hard, and indicates a bad 
feeder. 
Value of the H)ofs and Horns of Cattle. —The hoofs 
and horns of a hundred head of cattle are daily con¬ 
sumed in-Campsie Alum Works in the manufacture 
of that beautiful yellow salt, prussiate of potash, which 
Mr. Macintosh introduced among the calico-printers, 
who use it extensively to produce very showy blues 
and greens. It is prepared by burning the hoofs and 
horns in iron pots, along with potash and a requisite 
quantity of iron. The residue, after this combustion, 
is laxiviated with water, and when the solution is suf¬ 
ficiently concentrated, the prussiate of potash crystalli¬ 
zes. 
Nutritious Value of Bones. —It would be well if some 
good cook, acquainted with a little chemistry, would 
make some experiments upon the cookery of bone, 
which might be made to yield many soups and other 
palatable and nutritious dishes. Professor Brands ob¬ 
serves that “ Bone constitutes upon an average, a fifth 
part of the weight of an animal, and one-third of the 
weight of bone may be reckoned as good substantial 
food; The weight of butcher’s meat consumed in Lon¬ 
don annually is supposed to be 172,000,000 lbs., includ¬ 
ing 35,000,000? lbs. of bone, which would yield 11 ,- 
000,000 lbs. of dry gelatine, or real nutritive matter, 
which, at present, is so far wasted as not to be applied 
to the direct support of human life. The bones of pork, 
game, poultry, and fish, not included in this statement, 
must also be of great amount. From all or any of 
these, an excellent dry gelatine, or portable soup, might 
be prepared and sold for about 2s* per lb., equivalent to 
three or four tinies its weight of raw meat.” 
Tubercular Consumption, which is very prevalent 
among the cows which supply milk to the inhabitants 
of some large towns, is attributed by Sir James Clark 
to their being immured during part of every year in 
dairies, perfectly closed, and which being too small for 
the number of animals they contain, soon become 
filled with heated vitiated air, for the removal of which 
no contrivance is made. Recently there has prevailed 
in the dairies of London and its vicinity, a new dis¬ 
ease, which chiefly attacks cattle in the hinder extremi¬ 
ties. paralysing their limbs, and presenting many of 
the jrdinary symptoms of pleuro-pneumonia. 
Rearing Calves. —Calves may be reared without milk 
after a few days from their birth. Linseed porridge, 
made by boiling a quart of seed in eight or ten gallons 
of water, and further thickened by three pints or two 
quarts of flour: oats are perhaps best; but flour made 
of the large broad bean, or even the common field bean 
or barley, will do. This should be given new-milk- 
warm. 
Farming in Russian Colonel PochwissnefF farms 
his property on a four course shift; he has 400 acres in 
rye, 400 in oats, 400 in clover, buckwheat, peas and 
potatoes, and 400 in summer fallow. He employs 80 
men and 80 women, and turns out 80 sochas or ploughs 
with a horse and a harrow to each two ploughs, and 
sows, ploughs and harrows at the rate of 100 acres per 
day. Colonel Pochwissneff mentions, that the original 
invention of the socha is lost in antiquity, but it is 
known that they have remained unaltered for 400 
years. 
Cut Straw Litter. —Mr. Browne has about 50 head 
of young cattle in stalls, their food, whether green or 
dry, cut for them. They are all littered daily with cut 
straw, which effectually absorbs all moisture. The 
stalls are cleared out every second week, and the ma¬ 
nure thus obtained is fit for immediate use. The cat¬ 
tle are thus kept clean and do well. The straw is cut 
into pieces of from one to two inches in length, by 
means of a steam-engine (employed for the general use 
of the establishment), at an expense of one shilling for 
each 400 bushels. The manure, from its short texture, 
does not interfere with the working of the implements 
employed on the land; and in the spring may be ap¬ 
plied as a top-dressing for wheat, without obstructing 
the operation of the hoe. It may be applied to grain 
or root crops with great advantage. It may then be 
mixed with the soil by the hoe, and in dry seasons, on 
dry soils, such application of cut straw manure is at¬ 
tended with great advantages. Coarse salt is sprinkled 
occasionally on the manure-heaps, for the purpose of 
preventing their becoming over-heated. 
Substitute for Potatoes. —The Scottish farmers are 
substituting beans and turnips on the land hitherto em¬ 
ployed for potatoes. 
Importation of Seed Potatoes.— A large quantity of 
foreign potatoes, for seed, have been imported into 
London. 
Rise of Bread in France. —The price of bread in 
Paris has again been raised two centimes the kilo¬ 
gramme, or about |d. on the 41b loaf. 
Number of Horses in England. —There are 1,300,000 
horses in England, each of which consumes the pro¬ 
duce of as much land as would feed eight men. 
