AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
109 
Root Crops for Stock-—The other Side- 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist. 
There has been a great deal of theory expressed 
in our country about the profit of roots for stock 
feeding, together with some little practice; and 
thus far, the theorists have had the best of it; 
that is to say, they proved by Englishmen, that 
the turnip culture is indispensable for stock feed¬ 
ing “at home;” and thus recommend the root 
culture here, on English evidence of the results 
there. Now let us reason together, and see what 
practice has amounted to in America. 
Turnips, beets, even carrots, are uncertain crops 
here, for our Summer climate. Scarcely one 
year in three do we get a good crop of either. The 
carrot and beet are far surer than the turnip or 
ruta-baga, which is liable to be early destroyed by 
the fly, and, if not so destroyed, stunted by drouth 
afterwards. Such has been my experience for 
twenty years, and upwards, no matter how much 
the occasional crop may be, a full crop is the excep¬ 
tion, not the rule, in America. The great crops we 
hear of—the short ones we know nothing about, 
in the papers. These crops are not reliable for a 
yearly supply of stock food, even in case they were 
altogether desirable. I have seen, both in the 
fields of others, and in my own, excellent crops of 
sugar beet, carrot, mangold-wurtzel, and ruta-baga. 
I have also seen in the same fields, in other years, 
the same kinds of crop, cultivated with equal skill, 
and good husbandry, yields that were hardly worth 
the pulling. 
In England, the turnip crop (ruta-baga) is a “ pre¬ 
paratory ” crop for wheat or barley. It is largely 
fed to stock, with straw—the turnip to give sus¬ 
tenance and fat; the straw to fill up the stomach, 
and distend the intestines of the animal, with the 
additional object of increasing the manure. The 
climate of England is mild—scarcely colder in any 
part of the Winter than our November or March ; 
the turnips lie out in the fields all Winter, un¬ 
frozen, and constitute a green food for the stock. 
Hay is little used there in common stock feeding. 
Here, during cold weather, the turnip, beet or 
carrot, unhoused, is frozen stiff, and must be bur¬ 
ied in pits, earth covered, or put in cellars to keep 
at all. 
Fed in cold weather, except in moderate quan¬ 
tities to milch cows, they give no extra flesh, and 
from their cold, watery nature, scour young calves, 
and lambs. This I know, from several years trial, 
until obliged to abandon it, having adopted it from 
theory drawn from English practice. For early 
lambing ewes, moderately fed, they are useful; 
also for early calving cows. But one quarter the 
quantity of soaked oats is better; or one eighth 
the amount of Indian meal. All this I know from 
thorough trial. I once put up in the stable, a thrif¬ 
ty four year old steer, grass fat in October, and be¬ 
gan feeding him on ruta-bagas, and sugar beets. 
I had a fine crop, which my English herdsman had 
raised the previous Summer, and as he had all 
along boasted of their great excellence in “ fat¬ 
tening bullocks,” I determined to give him a fair 
trial. The steer was fed twenty-five pounds of 
good timothy hay daily, and began by eating half a 
bushel of roots. The latter were increased day 
by day, until he consumed four, five, six bushels 
a day, and one day, when a trial was made to see 
how many he would take, he swallowed eight well 
measured bushels ! The “ dung ” was enormous, 
to be sure, but neither the flesh, nor the tallow 
increased so much as a peck of Indian meal would 
have made; and after so keeping him, in perfect 
health and condition for two months, the steer 
was slaughtered, not having gained so much flesh 
and tallow as ten bushels of corn meal would have 
made 
I met, the other day, one of the best Scotch 
farmers in the United States. He owns a large 
farm, on which he has lived many years, got rich 
by farming alone, and has annually fed, for many 
years past through the Winter, large numbers of 
cattle and sheep for market. He feeds hay, straw, 
oil cake and Indian meal to the cattle, and un¬ 
ground corn to the sheep. I asked him if he ever 
fed roots 1 “ Never,” said he. “ Hoots would 
scour and freeze them to death. I tried them, and 
condemned them years ago. They’ll do in Scot¬ 
land, England and Ireland, but not in this country.” 
Such, then, is my story. It may strike many 
with surprise, after the repeated recommendations 
in all the agricultural papers of the value of “root 
crops ” for stock. I may be charged with revo¬ 
lutionizing “ backward.” I can’t help that; but 
such is my deliberate opinion, based on many 
years observation, and practice. L. F. A. 
Erie Co., N. Y., March 1858. 
--» -- -- —- 
Importation of Merino Sheep into the 
United States.II. 
The communication of G., in our March issue, 
page 71, has called out two responses, one from 
H. H. S., Sullivan Co , N. H.. the other from C., 
Dutchess Co., N. Y. They both send us the ex¬ 
tract below. The point at issue will be readily 
seen by comparing the following with the state¬ 
ment of G. in our last. 
Extract from an Essav on Sheep by Robert R. Living¬ 
ston, published in the year 1809, by T. & J. Swords, 
New-York, 1,000 copies of which were ordered bv the 
State Legislature, for its own use, and 500 additional 
copies by the Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts. 
On page 7 of the Preface, Mr. Livingston says : 
“ Knowing the United States to be peculiarly 
adapted to short wooled sheep, I was eager to put 
them in possession of this invaluable stock. And 
I shall not envy the glory of the Argonauts 
(which consisted in bringing the fine wooled 
Mingrelian sheep into Greece) if I can successful¬ 
ly plant the Merinoes of Spain in my native land. 
It unfortunately so happened that during a 
greater part of my mission, a number of my fellow 
citizens were suitors at Paris for debts unjustly 
withheld; for relief from embarrasments into 
which the perplexed and varying laws of trade, 
and in too many instances, their own imprudence 
involved them. As few days past in which I had 
not, either justice or favors to ask for others, I 
thought it improper to ask the latter for myself, 
but hoped to attain my objects (more gradually 
indeed,) by selecting two pair of the finest Meri¬ 
noes I could find, and sending them over under the 
care of one of my own servants; believing that 
so small a shipment would not be noticed, and 
intending to follow them by others. They arrived 
in safety in the Spring of 1802, and was, I be¬ 
lieve the first couples ever imported into the United 
States. I became the less anxious on the subject, 
because I had the satisfaction to learn that Col. 
Humphrey had succeeded, some time afterwards, 
in introducing a much greater number, direct from 
Spain, so that I believed a foundation was laid 
for their perfect establishment. After my return 
from Italy, being no longer an officer, I obtained 
permission to ship others that Mr. Chaptal allow¬ 
ed me to select from the best bred flock in France. 
I was astonished when I lound upon my return in 
1805, that the introduction of Merino Sheep had 
excited little attention, as that, although the Leg¬ 
islature of Connecticut had very properly noticed 
the patriotic exertions of Col. Humphreys, none of 
his sheep had been sold in this State. I had also 
the mortification to find that, notwithstanding my 
injunction, mine had been less extended than I 
•expected. Nay, I learned with surprize that a 
flock of near one hundred ofhalf and three-fourths 
breed Merinoes from a ram sent out by Mons. 
Delessort, to his farm at Rosendale, near King¬ 
ston, had been sold at Vendue, at a price inferior 
to that of common sheep, and that above half of 
them had perished from neglect the following 
Winter. 
I knew the importance of the object, and I re¬ 
solved to leave no means unessayed to convince 
my fellow citizens of it. I began by purchasing 
all I could find of the scattered remnants of Mons. 
Delessort’s flock. I picked up twenty-four ewes, 
and the price I paid for them attracted the notice 
of those who had seen and neglected them.” 
-- <5 -- 
Smoking Chickens—How a Dollar was 
Saved. 
An old subscriber, now in Norristown, Pa., writes 
that having moved into a place where ground is 
reckoned by feet instead of acres, and retrench¬ 
ment being the order of the day, lie allowed his 
subscription to run out....“ But our old friend the 
Agriculturist was much missed, and wife often 
regretted that I did not renew. I allowed it to 
pass on, however, until recently a trifling circum¬ 
stance occurred which has stimulated the enclosed 
remittance. Some time since I purchased four 
pullets and placed them in a coop to be fattened. 
In a few days one was taken with roup, and re¬ 
collecting to have read in the Agriculturist, that 
some one recommended corn cob smoke as a rem¬ 
edy, I turned to the article, at page 169, vol. 14 
with an editorial remark, that, “he did not tell 
bow often to smoke ’em.” The four pullets were 
confined in a coop, with a floor one foot from the 
ground, and half of this floor of slats. I did not 
separate the fowls, but made the smoke under¬ 
neath, once a day, keeping it there about half ar 
hour each time. The sick bird commenced to im¬ 
prove from the first smokings and the others fat¬ 
tened kindly. Now as the four pullets cost one 
dollar, and I would likely have lost them all with¬ 
out some remedy, and I knew of none, I calculate 
that this information saved me the dollar, and I 
accordingly invest this dollar in the Agriculturist, 
trusting that it will make a return in a similar 
way.” B. 
[The article referred to in Vol. XIV, states that 
in keeping COO to 1,500 fowls together, the writer 
found the roup to prevail badly, until he adopted 
the plan of collecting all his fowls in a hen-house, 
and building a corn-cob fire which produced a 
smoke so dense that only objects in a direct line 
with the window could be seen. The poultry 
seemed to enjoy the smoke exceedingly; the 
cocks crowed and the hens sung more than at 
other times. The smoke cured the chickens_ 
The writer further stated that he had himself been 
troubled with a throat affection (chronic laryngi¬ 
tis) for fifteen years, but this was cured by being 
much in the smoke with his poultry.— Ed.] 
Poultry Profitable in Cities. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
The query in your January number “ will poul¬ 
try pay,” induces me to send you my small ex¬ 
perience. I have for the past three years kept, 
in an iron yard of this city, about an average of 
ten hens, mostly of the common breeds. I have 
been obliged to buy all their feed at retail prices, 
i. e., by the bushel. I have kept a debit and 
credit, rating the eggs at retail store price. The 
balance on the 1st. inst., stood in favor of the bid¬ 
dies $23 68—If poultry with nothing but iron to 
scratch amongst will pay at this rate, what should 
it do in the broad fields'! It must be noted that 
this calculation is simply of the feed and eggs. 
A Rock Islander described a disease from which 
I have lost two old and two young fowls the 
past Fall, it proving fatal in every case thus far— 
The fifth subject attacked was a young pullet. I 
gave her from two to three Homeopathic pillets of 
Belladonna daily for four or five days; for the first 
day or two the contest was sharp, after which she 
rapidly recovered. This was my last case. 
N. W. S. 
New-York, 1858. 
