£94 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
Prospects of Farmers—Immense Sales of 
Flour, Wheat, and Corn. 
Scarcely had our September issue reached its 
readers, before a temporary downward turn oc¬ 
curred in the prices of breadstuffs. This was to 
be expected, in the natural course of trade and 
speculation; but a subscriber seized upon the 
occasion to send us a sharp lecture upon the 
hopeful prospects, we held forth last month. 
He complained that we had induced him to 
hold on to his flour, and “ now it was getting 
lower every day.” The only answer we have, 
is. to point him to the present “ prices current,” 
given on page 31G. And, by the way, every 
reader will be interested in our Market Review 
this month. In some respects it is the most im¬ 
portant one we have ever published in the 
American Agriculturist. The tables giving a sum¬ 
mary of the transactions in breadstuffs, both 
for a month past, and for the grain year ending 
Sept. 1st, are of the highest moment. 
The sales in this market alone have reached 
the unprecedented figures of 5,473,125 bushels 
during the past 27 business days. The sales of 
flour have been 533,812 barrels, equivalent to 
over 2,500,000 bushels of wheat—the total sales 
of wheat and flour being equivalent to about 
8,000,000 bushels of wheat. And a very 
large portion of this has been sold for export to 
other countries.—Do we need any better evi¬ 
dence of the correctness of the predictions of 
the American Agriculturist for months past, that 
foreign harvests would turn out greatly deficient 
this year? We say again, that there is, and is 
to be for some time to come, a heavy demand 
upon our markets to supply the deficiency in 
breadstuffs in Great Britain, and especially in 
France, and to some extent in other parts of 
Western Europe. This statement is founded 
not only upon the condition of the weather, 
at the time of the last Autumn sowing, and af¬ 
terward, but also upon our full information, 
private and otherwise, derived from various 
foreign sources. Were we now importing for¬ 
eign manufactures as freely as usual, the demand 
upon us for breadstuffs would be almost unlim¬ 
ited, and at high rates. As it is, all the surplus 
we can well spare at anything like the present 
prices, will be called for abroad, even if to be 
paid for entirely in gold. 
We have also prepared for the American Agri¬ 
culturist a summary of the exports for seven 
years past. (See page 31G.) Those tables show 
that during seven years we have exported 
62,816,478 bushels of Wheat; 9,132,593 bar¬ 
rels of Flour (equivalent to, say 45,GG2,965 
bushels of wheat), and 37,100,254 bushels of 
Corn. But of this there has been exported for 
the grain year just closed, 29,005,866 bushels 
of wheat, which, with the 2,703,790 barrels of 
flour, is equivalent to forty-two and a half million 
142,524,616) feushiiJs of whoa 4, at the 
usual estimate of five bushels of wheat for 
one barrel of flour. It will be seen that during 
the past year ive have exported 29,005,866 bushels 
of wheat, against only 33,810,612 during the whole 
of the six preceding years ! The exports of corn 
for the past year amounted to 11,800,179 bushels, 
against 25,294,075 for the six years previous. 
Reckoning the flour as wheat, our exports of 
Wheat and Corn, for the past year, have reach¬ 
ed over fifty million (54,330,995) bushels I And 
our Western granaries are by no means ex¬ 
hausted. The arrivals in this city since our last 
report (27 business days), have been 479,800 bar¬ 
rels of Flour, 3,401,000 bushels of Wheat, 
3,005,000 bushels of Com, 398,9G9 bushels of 
Oats, 45,159 bushels of Rye, and 65,925 bushels 
of Barley—equivalent to very nearly (10,000,000) 
ten million bushels of grain ! The amount 
brought forward has only been limited by the 
capacity of the canals and railroads. Much 
larger receipts would have found ready buyers. 
It seems very evident that Providence has 
kindly prepared our country for its present trials, 
so far as its material interests are concerned. 
Never before was there an equal surplus of 
breadstuffs; never before a greater foreign de¬ 
mand ; never before so much solid gold cur¬ 
rency on hand and available for moving the 
crops; and all these circumstances have come 
together. Our grain would be next to value¬ 
less, were not the surplus wanted abroad, while 
that demand would not avail us, had we not 
the. surplus capital to move the grain. It is a 
long road that has no turn. For four years past 
the farming interest has been much depressed, 
by poor crops and by financial difficulties. It 
would now seem that the upward turn is at 
hand. The vast addition made to the currency 
of the country, in the issue of so many millions 
of Treasury Notes, can not do otherwise than 
make money plenty, and this will gradually, if 
not at once, increase the money value of all 
kinds of farm produce. Let the cultivators of 
the soil then take courage, and go to their la¬ 
bors with higher hopes and renewed zeal. 
-«•-«- - 
Treatment of Diseased Animals. 
Mr. Editor : I have noticed that the Ameri¬ 
can Agriculturist contains very few recipes for the 
cure of diseased animals, and some of my neigh¬ 
bors think the paper is lacking on that account. 
One of them takes a journal that gives almost a 
column every week, telling how to cure every 
thing from a flea bite to a fistula, and he thinks 
these a great acquisition. In reading them I am 
reminded of the sweepings of an apothecaries’ 
shop, for they often contain the oddest and 
most nonsensical compounds imaginable; acids 
and alkalies, astringents and cathartics, are 
mixed up at a rate that would puzzle nature to 
know how to act on an animal that should 
swallow a dose of them. I tell my neighbors 
your journal is guided by common sense, which 
is worth any amount of uncommon nonsense. 
Many people have a notion that when an ani¬ 
mal is sick, something must be done; they are 
not satisfied until a pint of soap, or ashes and 
vinegar, or some other vile compound has been 
forced down the throat of the patient. I have 
no doubt that a regularly educated veterinary 
surgeon can often prescribe good remedies, but 
I don’t believe it safe for every body to dose 
animals according to their fancy, or according 
to recipes picked up from nobody knows where, 
and published in newspapers. If I have a sick 
cow, and can get no reliable medical man to pre¬ 
scribe, I generally let Nature have her own 
way, and I believe that is the best way in nine 
cases out of ten. It is the vital powers of 
an animal that must throw off disease. It 
takes long practice to know from the looks of 
a creature just what medicine will touch the 
right spot, and help nature’s wheels to work. 
In most cases I find that something else be¬ 
sides the animals need doctoring. For the hog 
cholera, for example, I should prescribe frequent 
doses of the manure fork and cold water in the 
pig-pen, with perhaps a surgical operation on 
the sides to let in light and air. Foot rot in 
sheep is best treated by digging trenches in 
the pasture, and putting in drain-tiles. A few 
“ plasters ” of clapboards on the old stable will 
cure a good many diseases in horses; and an 
operation with the hay cutter, the root slicer, 
and the steaming apparatus, will do more for the 
health of stock in Winter than all the balls and 
boluses ever dreamed of. In short I believe in 
curing disease by meeting it with proper reme¬ 
dies before it gets into animals. Jonathan. 
Remarks. —“Jonathan” is about right. We 
could publish from our own contribution draw¬ 
ers, any quantity of “ recipes ” for curing every 
real or imaginary disease of human or other ani¬ 
mals. But it would be worse than nonsense to 
do so; it would be holding up a false light to 
guide people astray. There are a few epidemi¬ 
cal diseases which require a general treatment, 
and rules for such treatment may well be pub¬ 
lished ; but for nineteen-twentieths of the ail¬ 
ments of man or beast, the best possible medicine 
is a very large, long continued dose of nothing at 
all. If a man, or horse, or cow, is troubled with 
irritation of the bowels, the best general treat¬ 
ment is to abstain from all food for a longer or 
shorter time, and let nature have a chance to 
exert her healing or recuperating powers. 
- -—»•*—-- —- 
About Improving our Animals 
Last month we recorded the fact that Mr. 
Taylor paid $1300 for a single sheep—a two- 
year-old South Down ram. The expense and 
risk of getting him from England to the New- 
Jersey farm will probably run the total cost 
above fifteen hundred dollars! Mr. S., a neigh¬ 
bor of Mr. Taylor, has a sheep that will yield 
more mutton and perhaps more good wool, for 
which he would be right glad to receive fifteen 
dollars.—Mr. Thorne recently sold from his 
large herd of improved cattle, a Bull to go 
back over the ocean, the price paid here being 
two thousand dollars! A neighbor of Mr. Thome, 
Mr. R., has an animal that out measures and out 
weighs Mr. Thorne’s bull, and which will do 
more work, and yield more beef, yet the 
owner would be very^lad to take $200 for him. 
Similar illustrations might be given in reference 
to horses, swine, and other animals. 
Every man who breeds an animal for his own 
use or for market, is concerned in the question: 
Why this difference in the value of animals that 
for present practical uses are apparently very 
nearly on a par. Let it be distinctly understood 
that the high money values set upon these ani¬ 
mals are not the mere results of whims or ca¬ 
prices. Mr. Thorne and Mr. Taylor, and others 
of their class, are men of too much good sense 
to throw away their money to gratify a whimsi¬ 
cal fancy—they are very far from belong! ug to 
the order of “ fast men.” Here is the secret r 
The bull owned by Mr. R., if used for breeding, 
would be quite as likely to produce a progeny 
inferior to himself, as one inheriting his own 
good qualities. He is a grade , or mixed blood, 
and the inferior blood of his immediate ances¬ 
tors will be likely to crop-out in his descendants. 
On the contrary, Mr. Thorne’s animal is a pure 
blooded, pedigree animal; that is, he has come 
in a direct known line of descent from a long 
succession of good animals, and the race or fam¬ 
ily to which he belongs has acquired the power 
of transmitting their good qualities. Others are 
anxious to get at least an infusion of this blood 
among their stock, and are willing to pay well 
for it; hence the value of the family. The 
same thing holds true of Mr. Taylor’s sheep. 
These animals are faultless n form and othej 
