1884 .] 
AMEEICA]^ AGEICULTUEIST, 
285 
The Improved English Shire Horse. 
Our breeders are awake to the fact that there is 
much good material in the English Shire horse, 
inasmuch as they are importing descendents of 
this stock more largely than at any former time. 
Great ungainly brutes they were, but having been 
improved by judicious crosses and selections, they 
are no longer looked upon as mere elephantine 
masses of flesh and bone. When bred with care 
they rival the Clydes and Normans for form, style, 
nerve, power, docility, and endurance, while for 
size they are simply stupendous. They offer grand 
stock to build upon, having a relation to the finer 
and high-bred races 
the qualities, as it 
were, of a rich soil, 
abundant nutrition. 
The cross will “ nick 
well,” provided it be 
not too violent, and 
the foal has the best 
possible chance for 
full developement and 
vigorous grow’th, both 
before and after birth. 
How often we over¬ 
look the importance 
of a good dam. No 
breeder should ever 
breed from a poor one 
with any expectation 
of improvement. Her 
influence extends for 
generations, usually 
alternating with the 
S3X of the progeny. 
Thus the sons of a fine 
mare will be more 
likely to reproduce 
her good qualities in 
their daughters, than 
will the mare herself 
in her own daughters ; 
the latter will very 
likely reflect their 
sires’ rather than their 
dams’ good points. 
The improved horses, 
a superb example of 
which is shown in the 
engraving, are firm in 
bone and compact in every w’ay without deteriora¬ 
tion in weight. They are said to look like smaller 
horses, but to weigh much heavier than they look, 1 
and that is the secret of their excellence. It great j 
soft bones, flabby muscles, and fat be compared 
with fine, hard, solid bone and flesh, easily kept in 
condition, there will be found naturally greater 
weight, greater power, greater endurance, a better 
constitution, and greater value. The old style of 
mares have grand digestion and great capacity for 
turning hay and grass into flesh and milk. They 
were not easy keepers, but great producers, like 
the big milking cows. Their progeny are, there¬ 
fore, splendidly developed, share the finer and 
firmer qualities of their sires, their nerve power and 
willingness to work, as well as the strong muscles 
to do it. They inherit and transmit also to their 
daughters, the valuable qua.ities of their dams,’ 
weight, feeding capacity, constitution, etc., and so 
we have great improvement, and may look for still 
greater. The horse shown in the engraving re¬ 
cently won the first prize as a three-year-old at 
the Derby Royal Agricultural Show, and has twice 
been champion stallion at the Horse Show in 
London. In show order, he weighs two thousand 
five hundred and twenty-six pounds—a truly enor¬ 
mous weight for so young ahorse. He is seventeen 
hands and one inch high, ninety-eight inches in 
girth, one hundredand two inches around the belly. 
His fore-arm measures thirty and a half inches 
around, and the fore-leg below the knee twelve 
and a half, the hind-leg below the hock fifteen, the 
thigh above the hock twenty-four and a quarter, 
and his hight to top of quarters is sixty-eight and a 
half inches. He is the property of-Mr. Walter Gilbey, 
the President of the English Shire Horse Society. 
When this stock is acclimated in this country, and 
improved by breeding, we may expect it to become 
the foundation of a valuable race of work-horses. 
The North Carolina Phosphates. 
DR. CHAS. W. DABNEY, DIRECTOR NORTH CAROLINA 
EXPERIMENT STATION. 
The phosphates recently discovered in North 
Carolina will undoubtedly take an important place 
in the trade, and, in time, reduce the cost of all 
superphosphates. This North Carolina rock is 
very massive near the surface, and convenient to 
the lines of transportation. That it is found in 
sand and not in clay, as is the South Carolina rock, 
is a point very much in its favor. The latter rock 
is so porous and full of holes, as to require break¬ 
ing up and washing, to rid it of the clay. The 
North Carolina rock lies in a sand or loam, and can 
be dug out in large rounded lumps, from which 
the sand may lie brushed off without difficulty. 
In South Carolina, the rock is mined in open 
ditches, thrown out upon the bank with the ac¬ 
companying clay, and a large per cent of water, 
and wheeled 'lo the railroad, and shipped on cars 
to the w'ashing and drying works. At the washing 
establishment this rock is broken, run through a 
washing machine, fed usually by a large force- 
pump, and finally dried by artificial heat. The 
North Carolina rock is easier to mine from the 
loose sand or loam. It occurs at about the same 
depth, but the amount obtained per acre is much 
greater. In a number of trial pits, the yield was 
eight hundred tons per acre. This is a very re¬ 
markable output. The North Carolina rock can 
be delivered on the bank, and loaded on the cars 
with only four per cent of earth adhering to it. A 
simple brushing-machine will remove this. 
Rock in this condition, directly from the pits, 
contains not exceeding one per cent of water. 
South Carolina rock is always dried twice, once by 
the miner before it is sold, and again by the manu¬ 
facturer. The North Carolina rock would not 
need drying at all, except to make it grind better. 
The great saving in preparing the rock for market 
is thus apparent. While six dollars per ton is the 
lowest figure ever reached by South Carolina phos¬ 
phate rock, this North Carolina rock can be sold, 
delivered on the railroad, at three dollars and fifty 
cents per ton. When we recall how great the re¬ 
duction in the price of all fertilizers has been 
since the South Carolina phosphate mines were 
opened, the significance of this discovery for 
all farmers, who buy any manures, based 
upon superphosphates, will be apparent. The 
first North Carolina phosphate found was of 
low grade, containing from thirty to forty per 
cent of phosphate of lime. Recently extensive 
beds have been discovered, yielding rock fully 
equal to that of South Carolina, of which fifty-five 
per cent is the usual standard. The rock crushes 
and grinds well, as it is extremely brittle. Thia 
latter property is due to the small per cent of sand, 
which is the leading 
impurity, and of ail 
adulterating materials 
the one least objec¬ 
tionable. The South 
Carolina phosphate is 
mixed with carbonate 
of lime, oxide of iron, 
and aiumina, all of 
which combine with 
suiphuric acid, when 
the rock comes to be 
made into superphos¬ 
phate. Acid must be 
added for these as 
weli as to dissolve 
the phosphate, and 
when it has been dis¬ 
solved, they are the 
main cause of that 
retrograde action, 
knowm as reversion 
of phosphoric acid. 
The North Carolina 
rock contains very 
little carbonate, iron, 
or alumina, and re¬ 
quires one-fourth less 
acid than the South 
Carolina rock. The 
sand is entirely neu¬ 
tral toward the acid. 
This is another point 
in favor of the North 
Carolina rock, which 
farmers as well as 
manufacturers will ap¬ 
preciate. These phos- 
phatic rocks have laid in their beds for untold ages.. 
The virgin soil of a new country did not need them. 
Wasteful farming soon exhausted the soil, and when 
needed to return lost fertility, these pihosphates. 
came to light. So when whales became scarce, and 
oil dear, heretofore unsuspected stores were dis¬ 
covered. What else has nature in store for us ? 
Why the Potato Experiments DitFer. 
We have a great variety of experiments with 
seed potatoes, from experiment stations, model 
farms, and amateur farmers, showing the great ad¬ 
vantage of large and small potatoes, seed-end and 
stem-end, whole seed and cut, eyes with much 
flesh, and mere parings ; leading the reader to con¬ 
tradictory conclusions, and making of the seed 
question a muddle. In many cases the story is 
only half told, and the factors in the case, aside 
from the particular treatment of the seed, are 
overlooked. The condition of the soil, fine or 
lumpy, rich or poor, the character of the season, 
wet or dry; the cultivation, little or much, have 
quite as much to do with the success of the crop, 
as the state of the seed. Tlie contradictory results, 
so often reached by intelligent and fair-minded 
men, emphasize the great importance of a thorough 
preparation of the soil, making it well pulverized, 
well manured, and well drained. Maximum crops, 
three hundred to five hundred bushels to the acre, 
can only be had where there is this thorough pre¬ 
paration and suitable tillage, until the vines are in 
blossom. The average yield of potatoes in many 
farming districts with any treatment of seed 
is not much over a hundred, if it equals it- 
AN OLD ENGLISH SHIRE HORSE .—Engraved for the American Agriculturist, 
