306 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST.. 
without any further labor, pays for mowing and 
making into hay for from four to e'ght years af 
terwards. Where it becomes mossy, weedy, and 
thin, it is often improved by harrowing or plow¬ 
ing with a small “ bull-tongue,” or coult r, and 
meadows thus made and occasionally assisted, 
are considered permanent. The hay from 
them soon becomes in large part, however, 
coarse, weedy and bushy. Natural-meadows 
are formed on level land in the valleys, which is 
too wet for cultivation, by felling the timber and 
cutting up the bushes as close to the ground as 
practicable, in August. The grass is cut the 
following year in June, and again in August or 
September, at which time the new growth of 
bushes yield to the scythe. The sprouts cease 
to spring after the second or third year. Clover 
is a rare crop, but appears well, and is in some 
localities a spontaneous production. Hay is 
stored in very small quantities in barns, and 
the larger part is stacked in fields. The hay 
fields are pastured closely, and with very injuri¬ 
ous effect in the spring and autumn. 
Horses, mules, cattle and swine are raised 
extensively, and sheep and goats in small 
quantity throughout the mountains, and afford 
almost the only articles of agricultural export. 
Although the mountains are covered during 
three months of the winter with snow several 
inches in depth, and sometimes (though but 
rarely) to the depth of a foot or more, and the 
nights at least are nearly always freezing, I have 
never seen any sort of shelter prepared for neat 
stock. In the severest weather they are only 
fed occasionally, hay or corn being served oui 
upon the ground, but this is not done daily, as 
a regular thing, even by the better class o! 
farmers. One of these, who informed me that 
his neighbor had 400 head that were never fed 
at all, and never came off the mountain, in con¬ 
sequence of which “ heaps of them” were 
starved and frozen to death every year, said that 
he himself fed all his stock only “every few 
days,” and sometimes not oftener than once in a 
week or two. The cattle are small, coarse, and 
“raw boned.” They are usually sold to drovers 
from Tennessee when three years old, and are 
driven by them to better low-land pastures, and 
more provident farmers, by whom they are fat¬ 
tened for the New-York market. During the 
past two or three years, in consequence of the 
increasing competition, the drovers have pur¬ 
chased also the two year olds. 
No dairy products are sold. I have seen no 
cheese, but butter of better quality than I have 
found elsewhere at the South, is made by all 
farmers for their own tables. Mules are raised 
largely. The mares with foals are usually 
provided with a pen and shed, and ted with 
corn, cut oats, (the grain and straw chopped to 
gether,) and hay, daily during winter. This is 
done by no means universally, however. Sta¬ 
bling, and really comfortable shelter for a stock 
of mules, I have never seen prepared. The con 
sequence is that the mules raised here are infe¬ 
rior in size and constitution to those of Ken 
tucky, Tenessee and Missouri, and command less 
prices when driven to the plantations of South 
Carolina and Georgia—the market for which 
they are raised. 
The business of raising hogs for the same 
market, which has formerly been a chief source 
of revenue to the mountain region, has greatly 
decreased under the competition it has met with 
from Tenessee and Kentucky. It is now a mat¬ 
ter of inferior concern except in certain places 
where the chestnut mast is remarkably fine. 
The swine at large in the mountains, look much 
better than I have seen them any where else at 
the South. It is said that they will fatten on 
the mast alone, and the pork thus made is of 
superior taste to that made with corn, but lacks 
firmness. It is the custom to pen the swine and 
feed them with corn for from three to six weeks 
before it is intended to kill them. In some 
parts of the mountains the young swine are 
ailled a great deal by bears. Twenty neighbors, 
residing within a distance of three miles, being 
met at a corn-shucking, last winter, account 
was made of the number of swine each supposed 
himself to have lost by this enemy, during the 
previous two months, and it amounted to three 
hundred. 
Bears, wolves, panthers, and wild-cats are 
numerous, and all kill young stock of every 
description. Domestic dogs should also be 
mentioned among the beasts of prey, as it is the 
general opinion of the farmers, although wolves 
are very numerous, that more sheep are killed 
by dogs than by all other animals. Sheep 
raising and wool growing should be, I think, the 
chief business of the mountains. If provided 
with food in deep snows, a hardy race of sheep 
could be wintered on the mountains with com¬ 
fort. At present no sheep are kept with profit. 
[ have no doubt they might be, if shepherds and 
dogs were kept with them constantly, and they 
were always folded at night. Eagles are numer¬ 
ous and prey upon very young lambs and pigs. 
Many of the farmers keep small stocks of 
goats, for the manageable quantity of excellent 
fresh meat the kids afford them, when killed in 
summer. Their milk is seldom made use of. 
They require some feeding in winter, and the 
new-born kids, no adequate shelter ever being 
provided for them, are often frozen to death. 
Goats, in all parts of the South, are more gen¬ 
erally kept by farmers than at the North. 
There are but few slaves in the mountain re¬ 
gion. The farmers, almost universally, consider 
the institution of slavery as an unfortunate and 
dangerous one to the country, and slaves owned 
here, are reckoned to be unprofitable property, 
except by the sale of their increase. 
The agricultural implements employed in the 
mountains, are usually rude and inconvenient. 
A low sled is used in drawing home the crops 
of small grain. As it is evident that large loads 
may be moved with a sled across declivities 
where it would be impracticable to use a cart or 
wagon, hill-side farmers elsewhere, very fre¬ 
quently find it advantageous to adopt the plan. 
Yeoman. 
-e » - 
Larue Farm in Illinois. —Jacob Strachan, 
of Illinois, has a farm of ten thousand acres, 
and has upon it this year 2,800 acres of corn, 
which will probably yield him 93,000 bushels. 
The corn fed to cattle is not husked, but cut up, 
and given to them stalks and all. He owns 
another farm six miles long by four broad. He 
paid last year $10,000 for fencing. Besides these 
garden spots, he has large tracts of unimproved 
lands. 
Longevity. — If exercise promotes health, 
those who collect old bills of editors, should be 
among the longest lived people on earth. 
REVIEW. 
The Modern Horse Doctor, containing Practi¬ 
cal Observations on the Causes, Nature, and 
Treatment of Disease and Lameness in Hoi ses. 
By George H. Dadd, M. D., Veterinary Sur¬ 
geon. Published by John P. Jewett & Co., 
Boston, Mass. Pages 432, with illustrations. 
From the cursory perusal we have given of 
the above, we think it the best of the kind for 
popular use, of any yet published in America. 
Most of the works hitherto issued on Veteri¬ 
nary practice, are either too voluminous and ab¬ 
struse for the popular mind, or they are mere 
catch-penny abortions, got up by quacks, igno¬ 
ramuses, or by those who are bookmakers by 
trade, to gull the vulgar public, and put a few 
dollars into the compiler’s pockets. Dr. Dadd 
in a great measure, avoids the faults of the first, 
and of course has no affinity with the last, as 
he is an enlightened man, and both an English 
and American practitioner of considerable stand¬ 
ing. The volume under review, is the result of 
his own practice, combined with extracts, when¬ 
ever necessary to illustrate his subject, from the 
writings of the best English and French Veter¬ 
inary Surgeons. 
To give our readers an idea of the style and 
matter of the “ Modern Horse Doctor,” we copy 
the following article, which has the merit also 
of being appropriate to the season. 
Slavering. —( Augmented Salivary Secretion .* 
— Slavering horses are frequently met with in 
farming districts, where clover is used as an ar¬ 
ticle of fodder. There seems to be some pecu¬ 
liar proverty about the flowers of clover which 
renders them a source of great irritation to the 
mucous surfaces and salivary apparatus of the 
horse. Some horses, however, will partake of 
clover without the least inconvenience; in fact, 
they “ get used to it,” as the saying is, and, with 
the addition of other grain, grow fat and sleek. 
Lobelia and tobacco have about the same ef¬ 
fect on some green horses as clover, always in¬ 
ducing an increased flow of saliva. These arti¬ 
cles may induce an increased secretion of this 
fluid in two ways : 
1. By irritation ; the article coining in direct 
contact with highly sensitive secretory surfaces, 
which always pour out their fluids on the ap¬ 
plication of an irritant, so long as it remains an 
irritant, and provided the parts retain their nor¬ 
mal sensibility. 
2. Through the medium of absorbents ; thus 
calomel affects the salivary glands, and causes 
them to secrete and pour forth an amount of 
fluid at times almost incredible. Any irritating 
body placed within the horse’s mouth may pro¬ 
duce an increased flow of saliva. It is the cus¬ 
tom among horsemen in Hungary, to place on 
the horse’s bit a small piece of corrosive subli¬ 
mate, or arsenic, and very soon he begins to 
foam at the mouth, which is considered a mark 
of high temper; and, strange to write, his gen¬ 
eral appearance improves—he gains flesh; the 
coat lies smooth and sleek; he is all life and 
* Showing the abundance of the Salivary Se¬ 
cretion. — Mr. Charles Dickens, a veterinary 
surgeon of Kimbolton, has taken the trouble to 
ascertain the amount of saliva secreted by a 
parotid gland ; he was enabled to make the ex¬ 
periment on a horse which was the subject of 
fistulous parotid duct. He’ found that, while 
the animal masticated hay, from eight to ten 
drachms of saliva per minute flowed; but if the 
jaws were quiet, from six to eight drachms only. 
Now, if we take the medium at one ounce per 
minute, and suppose an equal secretion from 
the opposite gland, it will fall little short of a 
gallon per hour, in a comparatively small ani¬ 
mal. Adding to this, therefore, the submaxil¬ 
lary, sublingual, &c., secretions, the amount se¬ 
creted in a given time must be very great 
