1884.] 
AMEEIOAl^ AGEICULTUEIST. 
411 
Holland Cattle.—A Good Record. 
A few years since the milk records of Crown 
Princess (Echo’s dam), which was a little over four¬ 
teen thousand pounds in a year, and of Topsy 
forty pounds eight ounces in a day before she was 
two years old, attracted a great deal of attention 
among dairymen. About this time. Lady Clifden 
produced over sixteen thousand pounds of milk, 
and Maid of Twisk more than fifteen thousand 
pounds in a year. Among the highest daily lecords 
^vere those of Texelaar, Crown Princess, Fraulein 
.(Echo’s grand-dam). Lady Clifden, and Maid of 
Twisk, all of which ranged in the seventies. The 
greatest butter record published, as made by this 
breed, was seventeen pounds by Texelaar, in six 
days. Subsequently many dairymen and others 
became gradually impressed with the belief, that 
this breed of cattle (called Holstein, and imported 
from Holland), was superior to all others for the 
combined qualities of producing milk, cheese, and 
beef. The i-esult of this has been an increase in 
importation of from five to ten head in a year, to 
more than twice as many hundred. During the 
past four months about eighteen hundred head of 
cattle, imported from Holland, have been offered 
for registry in the Holstein Herd Book. 
The number of Holland cattle imported during 
the year beginning April 1st, 1884, will doubtless 
be over three thousand head. Many cattlemen 
and authorities assert, that a general-purpose- 
breed is an impossibility ; that one cannot have a 
Shorthorn and a -Jersey in one breed, or a Clydes¬ 
dale and English Thoroughbred in the same animal. 
That is not the question. Is there a breed of cattle 
which pays the farmer in the dairy, and also in 
producing beef? If so, which breed is best adapted 
for this purpose? The Holland has certainly prov¬ 
ed itself not only one of the best general-purpose- 
breeds we have, but a very remunerative invest¬ 
ment for milk, cheese, butter, and last, but not 
least, for beef. The advance made by this breed 
during the past ten years exceeds the anticipations 
of its ardent admirers. The young stock make a 
rapid growth. A gain of three to four pounds and 
upwards in live weight per day is frequently made, 
and one instance of five and a third pounds per 
day for thirty days is recorded. This is believed 
to be the greatest increase for the length of time 
ever made by a neat animal. Yearlings often 
weigh a thousand pounds and upwards, two-year- 
olds from a thousand to thirteen hundred, mature 
cows sixteen to twenty hundred, and bulls in pro¬ 
portion. About three years ago, Aaggie made a 
milk record in one year of eighteen thousand and 
four pounds, since which time this record has been 
excelled five times, viz : by the astonishing rec¬ 
ord of Violet of over eighteen thousand six 
hundred pounds, an Ohio cow over eighteen 
thousand seven hundred pounds, the imported 
cow Empress over nineteen thousand seven hun¬ 
dred pounds, aud twine, two years in succes¬ 
sion, by Echo, eighteen thousand one hundred and 
twenty pounds, and twenty-three thousand seven 
hundred and fifty pounds. Echo has given an 
average of over fifty pounds a day for more than 
two consecutive years. Two-year-olds have in¬ 
creased their daily records from forty pounds eight 
ounces to over sixty pounds, and in one instance 
Aaggie Con.stance is credited with sixty-seven 
pounds, and mature cows are recorded as giving- 
eighty to one hundred pounds and upwards in a 
day. Empress is said to have given in Holland 
forty-eight litres a day for twelve days in succes¬ 
sion, which is a trifle over one hundred and nine 
pounds daily. The cows Jamaica and Etclka have 
records this year of one hundred and twelve 
pounds and one hundred and one pounds of milk 
per day respectively. These are the highest rec¬ 
ords yet made in America. As butter producers 
these cattle have also taken the lead of all others. 
Mercedes’ record of ninety-nine pounds six and 
and one-half ounces of unsalted butter in thirty 
days, which has not been equalled, gave her the 
championship of the world. Jantje made ninety- 
one pounds of butter in thirty days. Nieltje Korn- 
dyke’s record for thirty days is ninety-five pounds. 
Princess of Wayne made ninety-one pounds eight 
ounces in thirty days. The owners of this animat 
have seven cows, all five years old and younger, ex¬ 
cept one, that have averaged over twenty pounds 
per week, four that have made over twenty-one 
])ounds, and tw'o over twenty-two pounds eight 
ounces per w'eek sinee January 1st, 1884. Are 
there any herds among the butter breeds which ex¬ 
cel this remarkable record ? Dculey Miller. 
Adobes as a Building Material. 
,1. L. TOWNSENU, UTAH. 
The early settlers of the Far West, although fresh 
from the woodland regions of the Mississippi Val¬ 
ley, and the New England 
States, were not slow in aban- 
doning the log cabin, and 
adopting instead the sun-bak¬ 
ed adobe houses of their Mexi¬ 
can neighbors. The old Mexi¬ 
can adobes are large and clum¬ 
sy, being twenty-four inches 
long, twelve inches wide, and 
six inches thick, and so heavy 
that both hands of the mason 
are employed to lift and place 
them, thus requiring the trow¬ 
el to be laid down in handling ' 
each jueee. This was too un¬ 
workmanlike for the brick-lay¬ 
ers, who demanded a more 
convenient size, and adopted 
a dimension which is still in use. A brick-shaped 
piece of moulded earth or clay, baked in the hot 
sun, two and one half inches thick, five inches 
Fig. 1.— A MEXICAN ADOBE. 
wide, aud ten and one half inches long, is now the 
common adobe of this country. There are blue 
adobes, white saleratus adobes, and common 
adobes (pronounced “dobys’’). Both the white 
and blue adobes are made from beds of clay found 
in the lowlands. These clay beds are more or less 
impregnated with an alkaline salt. The common 
adobes are made from any loamy or clayey soil 
with sufficient adhesive properties to permit the 
pieces being handled when dried or baked. 
Formerly adobes were made at the clay- beds, thus 
forming the adobe yards to be found everywhere 
near the towns and villages. These “doby yards ” 
bear some resemblance to the country brick-yards 
of the Middle States, but lack the debris of the 
kilns, the kiln-stacks, the piles of fuel, and the 
sheds of the yards that were made in rainy eli- 
mates. In some of these adobe yards the common 
pud-mill of the old-fashioned biick-yard is occa¬ 
sionally seen. The adobes made from clay mixed 
by these mills, are not considered nearly as strong 
as those made in the more primitive way of 
treading and mixing the material with the feet. 
Adobes are made at the yards as follows : Select¬ 
ing a place on the bed of clay convenient to water, 
or where water can be obtained by a small ditch 
reaching to the nearest irrigating ditch, the toji 
Fig. 2 .— A CONVENIENT ADOBE. 
soil is shoveled away where the clay iS to be exca¬ 
vated. A space is cleared of the salt grass and 
rabbit-brush, and leveled for a drying floor. The 
“ doby ” maker, with a boy to assist, digs out one 
or more yards of clay, forms a mound so shaped 
as to soak up water, throws or runs water upon it 
and leaves it to soak over night. In the morning 
this clay is mixed by treading into rather a stitfer 
mass thiin can be worked through a mill. 
The “doby” maker then commences to mould by 
forcibly throwing double-handfuls of the mud in¬ 
to the moulds, leveling them off with a sweep of 
the hands, and pushing the mould to the boy who 
empties it on the drying-floor. 
Another mould is tilled w'hile the carrier is emp¬ 
tying the first, and so on. An average day’s work 
is five hundred adobes, but from eight hundred to 
a thousand are frequently made by rapid and skill- 
Fig. 3. —AN ADOBE HOUSE. 
fill workers. A fterbeing partially sun-baked, they 
are turned up on edge, and when suftlciently dry 
are placed in convenient piles. It takes these adobes 
in dry summer weather, about one w'eek to dry. 
The loading, transportation, and unloading of 
these adobes made at the yards, damages a large 
number by knocking off the corners and edges, 
and it is now customary to have them made where 
the building is to be erected. The clay is piled at 
a convenient place, and water procured by digging- 
out a small temporary ditch. 
Common adobes are always made on the site 
where they are to be used, frequently from the 
earth excavated from the cellar. These are made 
either by foot or machine, aecording to the quan- 
Fig. 4. —ADOBE -WALL, THIRTY-NINE YEARS OLD. 
tity required. They are used either for the inner 
side of walls or for division walls, where they are 
not exposed to the weather. In the oi-der of dura¬ 
bility, when exposed to the weather, the “ white 
saleratus doby ” is all that could be desired. 
In examining carefully the wall of a house 
erected twenty-nine years ago, this variety shows 
no appreciable wear, while the blue adobes inter¬ 
mixed in the same wall are more or less weather¬ 
beaten and worn. This wall has a southern expos¬ 
ure, and has stood the beating rains from the 
soufh and west since first erected. In the same 
dwelling the walls facing east and north show no 
marks of weather wear, appearing smooth and in 
as good order as if but recently constructed. 
