80 
[March, 
* AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
What is the Value of Carrots! 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist, 
This question “ being still before the meet- 
mg,” I respectfully submit my views. I have 
raised this rout for feeding purposes for eight 
years, and have never sold my surplus crop for 
less than twenty five cents a bushel. I consider 
it the best of all roots for horses, and next to the 
sugar beet as a feed for milch cows. I feed daily 
from four quarts to a peck, with two quarts of 
Indian meal, or of oats, with as much cut 
hay as the horse can cat. More or less roots are 
given according to the amount of work done. 
The horse keeps in better condition on this feed, 
than when fed exclusively with hay and oats. 
They give a gloss to the skin which I have never 
noticed with any other feed that I have tried. 
I also used them for milch cows until I raised 
the sugar beet, which I find to yield more large¬ 
ly than the carrot, and to increase the flow of 
milk. Carrots improve the quality of milk, but 
do not add so much to its quantity as some other 
l oots. They are excellent for store pigs, and for 
more than half. With the requisite skill, car¬ 
rots can be grown and put in the root bin, ready 
for use, at seven cents a bushel. The white Bel¬ 
gian last year yielded at least 20 per cent, 
more than the Altringliam. I consider carrots 
well worth $12 a tun for horse feed, and should 
be willing to give that if I could not get them 
cheaper. At the same time, I should think them 
well sold at $10 a tun. They would pay much 
better than grain crops at that price. 
Connecticut. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Shanghai Creepers—Experiments in 
Fowl Breeding. 
Among the Asiatic fowls, the Shanghais have 
occupied a prominent position; it was the 
Shanghais which created such a furor in lien-, 
dom a few years ago, and it was the Shanghais 
on which the bubble burst. They have never 
been favorites with us; we have always consid¬ 
ered them the most unsightly birds ever intro¬ 
duced into the poultry yard. There is, to be 
half. In my recent experiments, I have found 
no reason to change my views. Of course, the 
progeny of the first year were half Shanghais, 
and about half the number were hatched with 
short legs—as short as their maternal ancestors. 
Pullets of this description were bred the next 
season, (1854,) to a thorough-bred Shanghai 
cock, with exactly the same result, and so con¬ 
tinued until the present Spring. It is very re¬ 
markable, that although the chickens of this sea¬ 
son lack only -Mj,h.part of being full blooded Shang¬ 
hais, they show as many short-legged birds as 
did the first cross, viz: one half. You will per¬ 
ceive by following up the years, that my calcu¬ 
lation is correct : 1853, 1—1854, 1—1855, -j— 
1850, jl-1857, H—1858, ££—1859, -]§]. 
“ I have three Creeper piTllets from last year, 
(|£), which weighed a month ago 9 lbs. 2 oz.— 
8 lbs. 4 oz.—7 lbs. 12 oz. The first is the heav¬ 
iest pullet of any kind I ever saw, and will doubt¬ 
less weigh 11 or 12 lbs. in a year or two. Pul¬ 
lets of 8 lbs. and less, have obtained this weight 
for me the third year, in February or March. 
Generally, however, the Creepers are not so 
heavy as their taller brothers and sisters, though 
young cattle, and ans¬ 
wer so well for all kinds 
of stock, that I am ex¬ 
tending the cultivation 
of them every year. 
They are also growing 
in favor with my neigh¬ 
bors, and I find no dif¬ 
ficulty in disposing of all 
my surplus crop to liv¬ 
ery stable keepers, and 
gentlemen who keep 
horses. I have grown 
them at the rate of 
twelve hundred bushels 
to the acre, and at a 
cost of ten cents a bush¬ 
el. A neighbor raised 
four hundred bushels in 
his garden, the past sea¬ 
son, at the rate of over 
2000 bushels to the acre. 
In the onion growing 
districts of Rhode Isl¬ 
and and Connecticut, 
it is quite common to 
raise them as a succession crop, with onions, 
sowing the carrots between the onions in June. 
With heavy manuring, this gives very large re¬ 
turns. The carrots are loaded in sloops, and 
sold in the seaport towns along the Sound, at 
about eighteen cents a bushel at wholesale. 
The value of the root is pretty well established 
in the minds of men who have tried it for feed¬ 
ing. John Merrill, of South Lee, Mass., raises 
them at the rate of COO bushels to the acre, and 
at a cost of four cents a bushel, exclusive of the 
manure. He considers 100 bushels of oats and 
100 bushels of carrots, worth as much as 200 
bushels of oats to feed to team horses. 
J. C. Cunven, of.England, after two years’ ex¬ 
periment with eighty horses used on the farm 
and in coal mines, came to the conclusion that 
carrots were worth as much, pound for pound, 
as oats, and that an acre in carrots, supplies as 
much food for working horses as 16 acres of oats. 
According to Josiali Quincy’s experience, at 
Quincy, Mass., charging labor at one dollar a 
day, it costs eleven cents a bushel to raise car¬ 
rots. Some other experimenters put them at 
nine cents a bushel. This is upon the supposi¬ 
tion that the hoe 
horse cultivation, this expense might be reduced 
exactly of the same 
blood. Another thing is 
to be observed. When 
Creeper is bred on 
Creeper, they will pro¬ 
duce quite a number of 
long-legged chickens. I 
have not tried them 
much in this way. In 
all their characteristics, 
but the legs, the fowls 
of this mixed breed are 
identical with their Asi¬ 
atic progenitors, except 
that they are more easi¬ 
ly confined; any place 
that will hold a pig, 
will hold them. A fence 
thirty inches high will 
hamper them, if in con¬ 
dition. Roaming, how¬ 
ever, is not in their line.” 
The writer tried a sim¬ 
ilar experiment last sea¬ 
son, With this differ¬ 
ence, a Scotch Dumpy 
(Creeper,) cock and a Cochin hen were used; 
the result was, that out of a clutch of thir¬ 
teen chicks, there were three full long-legged, 
and nine about medium between the two — 
being neither long nor short. C. K Bement. 
A Poultry Lecture in Few Words. 
Mr. Deforrest Wright, Warren Co., Pa,, writes 
to the American Agriculturist thus: Poultry will 
pay for warm quarters and suitable feed; the 
following account with hens for 1860 proves it: 
T)r. 
To lfi lions (mixed breed) at 25 cents.$.j on 
“ feed from mill. h gg 
“ 1 bushel corn meal. 75 
Total cost. $IsT38 
Cr. 
J!y (il Fowls, killed and on hand, at 25 cents.$15 25 
1933 eggs at 1 cent. 19 33 
Total return...$3T"58 
Deduct ebst. 19 38 
Profit.$15 20 
[The above is a model communication, plain, 
practical, and right to the point. The question 
is stated and proved in about a dozen lines. 
Let us have equally conclusive arguments on 
other subjects; they are worth whole pages of 
theoretical essays, — Ed.] 
Wit 
sure, considerable difference in the fowls called 
Shanghais; some are loose-jointed, long- 
legged, with crane-like necks, and are a dis¬ 
grace to the tribe. For the table, they were 
considered inferior to most other breeds, in con¬ 
sequence of the absence of breast-meat, and to 
their comparative superabundance of bone. 
That the Shanghai fowl can be improved in 
the two essential points—legs and breast — is 
evident, as may be seen by an inspection of the 
portraits illustrating this article. The originals, 
now in our yard, were bred by Judge Taggart, 
of Pennsylvania. In form, color, and general 
characteristics, they are Shangliais, with fuller 
breasts and 011 short legs. Let the author, Judge 
Taggart, tell in his own words, how this im¬ 
provement has been accomplished by him. 
“The experiment of grafting Shanghais on 
Creeper legs is a very interesting one, and has 
been eminently successful. The following is the 
modus operandi: I began in 1853 by crossing, a 
Shanghai cock on a common Creeper lien, 
called in some of the English books, Scotch 
Baltic or Dumpy. I had observed, when a boy, 
that in mixing (his variety with long-legged 
birds, the offspring would be either full long or 
full short in the legs— seldom or never half and 
