372 
AMEEICA]^ AGEIOULTURIST. 
Eaising Early Lambs for the Butcher. 
JOSEPH HAURIS. 
So far as my experience goes, there is no more 
trouble in raising an early lamb than a late one. 
Ill fact, our earliest lambs are almost invariably 
our best lambs. I would rather have lambs come 
in January and February than in April and May, 
and if I could have them earlier, I should prefer it. 
Merino ewes will take the ram earlier in the au¬ 
tumn than the English breeds of mutton sheep. For 
this reason, if for no other, in raising early lambs 
for the butcher, I should select common Merino 
ewes, or at any rate ewes having more or less 
Merino blood in them. There are other reasons why 
I should select such ewes. There are more of them 
in the country, and they can be obtained cheap. 
They are healthy, hardy, thoroughly acclimated, 
and wid stand rougher treatment than the English 
mutton sheep. They are smaller, eat less, and oe- 
cupy less room in winter quarters. They will hear 
crowding better than the large English sheep—or 
rather, they suffer less, for it is a mistake to keep 
any sheep in too close quarters. Common Merino 
ewes, like Jersey cows, when well-fed, give rich 
milk, and if you want early, fat lambs for the 
butcher, the mothers, no matter what breed you 
may select, must have plenty of nutritious food. 
I do not say that common Merino ewes are, in 
themselves, the best for raising early lambs. They 
are not. I have had grade ewes, the offspring of a 
mixed Merino ewe, and a Cotswold ram, that would 
produce larger lambs, give more milk, and the 
lambs would fatten more rapidly, and mature 
earlier. But it is not always easy to find such ewes 
for sale. Those that you find in market are apt to 
be culls. The butcher, if he has a chance, gets 
the best lambs. A good plan is to go to some 
large market and buy a car load of sheep, or three 
or four times as many as you want. Bring them 
home, and pick out the best ewes, and then sell 
the other ewes and wethers to the butchers. Select 
out more ewes than you expect to want. Some of 
them may have been already served by a mongrel 
ram, and some of them will not take the ram as 
early as 3’ou wish. By painting or “ruddling” 
the ram on the brisket, you can tell each day what 
ewes are served, and all that are not served up to 
a certain date, can be disposed of. This will get 
rid of all that were served before you bought the 
flock. You can generally sell those which jmu 
reject for more than you have paid for them. 
I need hardly say that as soon as you bring home 
the sheep, you should give them the best of pas¬ 
ture, and if they have some extra food, such as 
cotton-seed cake, linseed cake, oats, corn, or mill- 
feed, you will get stronger, earlier and bettei' lambs. 
Every sheep in the flock, those already on the 
farm, and those which you buy, should have their 
feet pared and thoroughly washed with strong 
carbolic acid. The crude, biack acid is the cheap¬ 
est. I put it on with a common paint brush, being 
careful not to let much of the acid drop on the 
body of the sheep. But see that every part of the 
foot, outside and between the hoofs, is completely 
wet with the liquid. In a few days go over the 
flock again. It is little work, and is a safeguard 
against foot-rot. 
Dipping the sheep to kill ticks is also very im¬ 
portant, but the scent of the dip is supposed to in¬ 
terfere with the ram, and it is better on this ac¬ 
count, when early lambs are desired, to postpone 
the dipping until all the ewes are served. Meri¬ 
nos are not as liable to ticks as the long-wooled 
sheep and their grades, but all sheep should be 
dipped twice in the autumn, say at intervals of 
three or four weeks apart. 
As to the selection of a ram for early lambs for 
the butcher, opinions differ. There is a notion 
that the black-faced sheep afford better mutton 
than the white-faced. There is a certain degree of 
truth iu this, though the color of the head has 
nothing to do with the quality of the meat. South¬ 
down mutton is not so fat as Cotswold, Lincoln and 
Leicester mutton—and the Southdowns have dark 
faces, and the Cotswold, Lineoln and Leieester 
have white faees. Hence the popular notion. 
Cotswold mutton is too fat. Merino mutton is 
too lean, and there is not enough of it. There is 
too much tough skin, and bone, and tallow, in pro¬ 
portion to the nice, juicy, tender, lean meat. As 
a blacksmith once said, a carcass of Cotswold, and 
a carcass of Merino “ should be welded together.” 
A carcass of a nice, moderately well-fed South- 
down, affords better mutton than a large carcass of 
a fat Cotswold. And it has been supposed, there¬ 
fore, that to get the choicest of lambs for the 
butcher, we should use a Southdown ram. This 
may be true, but it does not necessarily follow. 
We never get young lambs too fat. The truth of 
this matter is, that it will probably make very little 
difference what particular breed of mutton sheep 
we select the ram from. The real point is to get a 
good, well-bred ram of any of the mutton breeds. 
The use of ram lambs is not desirable, except to 
a very limited extent, say a dozen or twenty ewes 
in a season. A vigorous j-earling ram, or one two, 
three, or four years old, can be allowed to run with 
sixty ewes. If the ram and ewes have some extra 
food, say a quart of oats each per day, you will be 
likely to get earlier, stronger and better lambs. 
Buckwheat as a Farm Crop. 
Buckwheat, though a grain, is not a cereal, and 
belongs to an order of plants that contains the 
various smartweeds, bindweeds, knotweeds, docks, 
sorrel, and the garden rhubarb. The name comes 
from the German buch-weizen —beech-wheat, the 
shape of the grain being three-cornered, like the 
beech-nut. The following table shows the chemi¬ 
cal composition in one hundred parts of buck¬ 
wheat flour as compared with that of wheat; 
Carbohydrates, 
Ash. Albuminoids. Fibre. Starch, etc. Fat. 
Buckwheat 1.22 7.47 0.32 89.46 1.73 
Wheat. 0.66 12.53 0.19 85.31 1.28 
The albuminoids are less in buckwheat than in 
wheat; in fact, not much more than half as abun¬ 
dant, while there is a greater amount of starch and 
fat. Buckwheat is, therefore, shown by analysis 
to be more fattening and less strengthening than 
wheat. It make an excellent feed for pigs and 
poultry. Many persons believe that buckwheat is 
not healthful, and causes skin eruptions. Several 
other members of the buckwheat family produce 
powerful vegetable principles, and this plant may 
possess one such, though it is probably not harmful. 
New York and Pennsylvania produce sixty-eight 
per cent of the twelve million bushels of buck¬ 
wheat now grown in the United States. Only 
twenty per cent is grown outside of New England 
and the Middle States. The great fertile prairies 
and the vast South with its warm climate, are not 
favorable for the growth of this crop. Buckwheat 
does well in the hilly regions, wdiere the soil is 
light and thin. It, in short, flourishes at higher 
altitudes, with a lower temperature, and under a 
greater rainfall than other grains. 
One great merit of buckwheat is its availability 
as a second crop, thus replacing another that has 
been destroyed by frost, drouth, insects, or other¬ 
wise. It is also valuable as a weed exterminator. 
The infested land may be tilled until mid-summer 
and sowed with buckwheat, wdiich by growing 
rapidly smothers the weeds. Another use is that 
of a green manure. It grows well on moderately 
poor land, and makes a large growth of straw, 
wdiich rots quickly wdien plowed under, thus 
adding much vegetable matter to the soil. The 
uses of buckwdieat are various, and the crop, 
though not a sure one, fills an important place iu 
the economy of many of the best regulated farms. 
-♦♦- 
•BcMni.E Foot in Fowls.—A wart-like substance 
sometimes appears on the ball of the foot, and if 
allowed to increase in size, it will produce lameness 
in the bird. This is caused by the fowls being eon- 
fined upon cement or other equally hard floors. The 
w'art should be removed with a sharp knife, and 
the cut surface touched with Lunar Caustic (nitrate 
of silver). Eemove fowls thus afflicted to a yard 
or a coop, wdth a soft earth floor. The Houdans 
and Dorkings are most subject to bumble foot. 
[Septembeb, 
A New York Farm-house. 
Very many of the readers of the American Agri¬ 
culturist are accustomed to think of our Metropolis 
as a vast block of houses. They will therefore be 
surprised perhaps to learn that New York City, or 
what is known as the limits, embrace many farms 
and gardens, and some of them of extensive pro¬ 
portions. Any one of our readers might start on 
this August afternoon from Central Park, and drive 
from morning until night among these farm homes, 
and still be iu New York City. Two or three times 
a week, one of our editors makes a circuit through 
this country portion of New York City', in search 
of facts and incidents for the readers of this paper. 
On the opposite page is presented an illustration of a 
fine old homestead, some twelve miles north of 
the City Park, through whose extensive grounds 
we drove the other day. They are situated near 
the Bronx River, and comprise a famous old 
mansion and many broad acres. The grounds 
and extensive gardens are maintained by the far¬ 
mer and gardener, just as they were left by the old 
gentleman, now deceased, w’ho laid them out very 
many years'ago. On coming, to New York to see 
the sights, it would repay our readers to visit this 
famous place. You must, however, use consider¬ 
able tact in gaining admittance to the grounds, as 1 
the overseer is very touch}', and wishes you to know 
that the old gentleman appointed him head man 
“sixteen year or more ago,” and that he is head 
man still. The engraving at the top of the page, 
which, like the other, we have reproduced for our 
readers from drawings made for the Park Com¬ 
missioners, presents another view not far away, 
and also within the limits of New York City. All 
these, and adjoining grounds, are soon to be em¬ 
braced in new parks. The authorities are appre¬ 
ciating more and more the importance of having • 
purer and better air, if the Metropolis of the New 
World is to be kept in a healthy condition. These 
additional parks, which are to be constructed, will 
not only furnish more pure air, but enable thou¬ 
sands of people to take physical exercise in driving 
and horseback-riding. 
Digging Early Potatoes. 
When jjotatoes are dug during hot weather, some 
care is needed in storing or pitting them. Farmers 
who wish to sow winter wheat after potatoes, are 
obliged to dig them early in September. The work 
is frequently done in a hurry, and the potatoes are 
drawn to the cellar, or placed in a pit in the gar¬ 
den or elsewhere. The potatoes are full of juice, 
are warmed by the sun, and the skin is broken 
and bruised—conditions, all of them, highly favor¬ 
able for fermentation and decay. We have rarely 
met a farmer, who has not at one time or other lost 
potatoes in this way. “And it served me right,” 
he would say, “ because I knew better, but 1 was 
in a hurry to get iu the wheat, and forgot to take 
the necessary precautions to prevent their heating.” 
Spread the potatoes out on a barn floor, or if you 
pit them, put plenty of dry sand with them, and 
only a few bushels together iu a heap. J. H. 
Do not Stack Corn Fodder. 
In nine cases out of ten, stacked corn fodder will 
heat and spoil. Sometimes corn fodder sown 
broadcast is so poor, yellow, and dried-up, that 
there is not enough sap iu it to ferment, and such 
fodder may be stored on a scaffold or even iu a 
small stack, or mowed away in the barn. But good 
corn fodder that has been sown in rows, and the 
land cultivated between the rows, can not be saved 
in this way. It must be either put into a silo, or 
tied into bundles and placed in shocks iu the field. 
A good self-raking reaper will cut the heaviest 
crop of corn fodder, and throw it into bundles. 
After they are well wilted, bind up with straw 
bands or corn stalks, or binding twine, and place 
the bundles in shocks at convenient distances, and 
and let them remain until October or November. 
Then make nine of these shocks into one large 
shock, and tie it with two bands on top. J. H. 
