FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
379 
FOREIGN AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 
By the arrival of the Steamer Acadia we are in the 
receipt of our foreign journals up to the 4th of Novem¬ 
ber. 
Markets. — Ashes is limited in demand. Cotton has 
fallen <jd per lb. Flour and Indian Meal in good de¬ 
mand at an advance. Beef, Pork, Butter, Cheese, Lard, 
and Naval (stores, a slight decline. Rice, firm. Tobacco 
steady. Wool somewhat depressed. 
Money was still in great demand at a rate of interest 
varying from 6 to 10 per cent. Many more failures 
had taken place to a large amount, although things 
were considered a little easier. 
The Potato-Rot begins to show itself in Great Britain 
and Ireland again, and large losses are anticipated. 
Sheep Affected with the Small-Pox. —A case was 
lately brought before the police of the Smithfield Mar¬ 
ket tor the sale of twenty Merino sheep affected with 
the small-pox, having eruptions on various parts, but 
particularly under the shoulder, which appeared to be 
similar in character to those of the same disease in the 
human subject. They were imported from Spain nine 
weeks before, and had been kept grazing until they 
were supposed to be in a healthy state. The salesman 
had rejected about 300 sheep from the same flock the 
morning of the sale, that were laboring under the dis¬ 
ease in the inflammatory stage. The officers very pro¬ 
perly ordered the sheep to be removed, on the ground of 
the offence of bringing animals laboring under conta¬ 
gious diseases into a public market to the danger of all 
the animals there. The matter was subsequently 
•brought before the faculty of the Veterinary College, 
who, after examining and testing the contagious pro¬ 
perties of the disease, decided that a perfectly healthy 
animal could, by mere approximation, be infected and 
die in the space of nine days; while by the process of 
inoculation, the disease could be conveyed in a much 
shorter period ; and that it is highly dangerous to per¬ 
mit animals so affected to approach those in health. 
Measures were accordingly adopted by the police to de¬ 
stroy all sheep in a diseased state that might be brought 
into the market, or offered for sale. 
A Valuable Manure. — It has been estimated that the 
'grease, or yolk obtained from the washing of wool in 
France, might be sufficient to manure 370,000 acres of 
land. 
Agricultural Lectures are about to be delivered in 
various parts of Ireland, at the suggestion of the Lord 
Lieutenant. 
Comparative Value of Food. —It has been stated that 
107 parts of wheat, 111 of rye, 117 of oats, 130 of bar¬ 
ley, 138 of Indian corn, 177 of rice, 895 of potatoes, 1335 
of turnips, are equal in nutritive power. 
Properties of Eggs. —Eggs are popularly supposed 
to be so much alike, that what can be said about one 
egg is thought applicable to every other laid by the 
same species of bird, the common hen for example; 
but there is nearly as much distinguishable difference 
between the units in every egg-basket which is carried 
to market as there is between the faces in a crowd of 
men, or the hounds in a pack. To every hen belongs 
an individual peculiarity in the form, color, and size of 
the egg she lays, which never changes during her whole 
lifetime,'so long as she remains in health, and which 
is as well known to those.who are in the habit of tak¬ 
ing her produce as the hand-writing of their nearest 
acquaintance. ' Some hens lay smooth cream-colored 
eggs, others rough, chalky, granulated ones; there is 
the buff, the snow-white, the spherical, the oval, the 
pear-shaped, and the emphatically egg-shaped egg. A 
farmer’s wife who interests herself in the matter, will 
tell ; you with precision, in looking over her stores, 
,f this egg was laid by such a hen”—-a favorite perhaps 
—“ this one by such anotherand it would be possi¬ 
ble that she should go on so throughout the whole flock 
of poultry. Of course the greater the number kept, 
the greater becomes the difficulty in learning the pre¬ 
cise marks of each. From a basket of 30 eggs, gather¬ 
ed in a farm-yard as they came to hand, 11, laid by one 
or two hens whose race we were desirous to continue, 
were selected in about two minutes by the friend who 
supplied us with them.— Gardeners’ Chronicle. 
Incubation. —From Fortune’s “ China,” vol. i., p. 80, 
you find the method of hatching the eggs of the duck 
in cotton wool. Reflecting upon that account it imme¬ 
diately occurred to me that a great error might have 
been committed both in the Egyptian and steam pro¬ 
cesses of incubation, by taking for granted that it was 
from the continued warmth of the mother, instead ot 
only its prevention of escape, which was necessary for 
the production of the chick. Acting upon this idea, and 
from the experiment now made, I think I am justified 
in saying that my surmise will eventual^ be found 
true, and that the heat is developed within the egg, pre¬ 
cisely in the same manner as our own animal warmth, 
from the union of its yolk with the oxygen of the atmo¬ 
sphere. Having mown over some pheasant’s.eggs, ap¬ 
parently only a few days sat upon, I caused them all to 
be inclosed accordingly in wool, and in due course the 
whole number of chicks were produced.— Loudon’s 
Magazine. 
Antidotes against the Potato Disease. —In the early 
part of this year I dug up, for a vegetable garden, a piece 
of old pasture, about 40 yards in length, and 30 in 
breadth, sloping iu its shorter line to the southwest, and 
every way open to sun and air. The subsoil is a stiff 
blue clay. Part of it I occupied with three patches of 
potatoes, respectively planted about the middle of 
March, the middle of April, and the very beginning of 
May, all of the sort known hereabouts by the name of 
Shaws, the first planted being of an earlier kind than 
the others. A previous dressing of about half a ton of 
quick-lime was bestowed on the whole of the ground 
The sets of the first planted potatoes were steeped in a 
solution of Kagenbusch’s Germinating Compound; the 
second potatoes were planted whole, in holes, at the 
bottom of which was placed a powder formed of cal¬ 
cined bones, soda, gypsum, wood-ashes, and lime, as 
recommended by some German professor. The third 
sets were imbedded in a pulp of mixed grease and pot¬ 
ash; in fact, a soft soap, according to an American 
suggestion, borrowed from your columns. The first 
crop proved scanty, and of poor quality, but free from, 
disease. The second and third patches, which I have 
taken up yesterday and to-day, give a plentiful and 
full sized produce, but at least two-thirds of the tubers 
are diseased. A few pink kidneys, springing from 
roots left in the ground last year, and transplanted, 
prove, for the most part, good. My inference, as far 
as the value of the preventive measures I have tried, is, 
that they are empirical and uncertain, and I am in¬ 
clined to the opinion prevalent among many, that 
stimulating manures are unfavorable. [From reports 
received from various sources it would seem that early 
planted and early harvested potatoes have escaped the 
prevailing malady, while those which have been affect¬ 
ed with the disease have been planted and dug late.— Ed.] 
— Gardeners’ Chronicle. 
Blue Hydrangeas. —Diluted chamberley will change 
Hydrangeas blue.— Ibid. 
Hoyse-Flesh Banquet cd Frankfort. —About 160 per¬ 
sons sat down yesterday to a- horse-flesh dinner, in the 
Adler Hotel, at Bornheim. The dinner was ordered 
by the Frankfort “ Society for the Protection of Ani¬ 
mals.” We are, enabled to state that horse-flesh affords 
a very palatable dish. The dinner was enlivened by 
many toasts and songs.— Frankfurter Journal. 
Substitute for Potatoes —A large importation of West 
India yams has lately taken place in consequence of 
the anticipated scarcity of potatoes. 
