330 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[NOVEMBER, 
Late Pasturing. 
Some farmers keep tlieir cattle out as late as 
possible in the Fall, and even into Winter. The 
pastures are gnawed very close, and even the 
after-math of the mowing fields, as if they never 
expected to get another crop of grass from them. 
This is very bad husbandry upon any land, and 
especially upon that recently seeded with lierds- 
grass. This grass, as is well known to all care¬ 
ful observers, has a bulbous root, and the fine 
fibers that shoot out from the bottom are not as 
strong as the roots of most other grasses. It is 
therefore exceedingly liable to be torn out by 
the roots by grazing cattle, especially if the grass 
is short. In a close cropped meadow, where 
this grass has been sown, nothing is more com¬ 
mon than to see thousands of these dried bulbs 
lying upon the surface. We doubt the economy 
of grazing a herds-grass meadow at any time. 
But if done at all, it should not be cropped af¬ 
ter the first of November, in this latitude. 
The roots of all the grasses are designed to be 
covered with their own leaves and stalks during 
the Winter. These and the snow protect them 
from the alternate freezings and thawings, and 
bring them out in good condition in the Spring. 
The farmer who undertakes to thwart the de¬ 
signs of Nature in this respect, will find it very 
expensive business. The little that he saves in 
feed now, he loses the next season in the di¬ 
minished yield of the pasture or the meadow. 
We ought always to manage so as to have Na¬ 
ture working with us, instead of against us. 
This is one of the evils of overstocking farms. 
The farmer is afraid that he has not quite fod¬ 
der enough for Winter, so he pastures till the 
ground is frozen. He cuts less hay for it the 
next season, and he is still more sorely tempted 
to pastime .ate. 
It is quite as bad for the cattle as it is for the 
land. If they have no fodder in the month of 
November, they lose rather than gain upon 
pasture, unless it is much better than the aver¬ 
age. Every animal ought to go into the stable 
in a thriving condition—if not fat, at least in full 
flesh. They are then easily kept thriving upon 
good hay, or upon hay and roots, straw and 
meal. After several years’ close observation di¬ 
rected to this particular point, we do not think 
any thing is gained by pasturing in this latitude, 
and north of it, after the first of this month. 
All the grasses must have time to cover their 
roots in order to make flush feed next season. 
Cattle foddered through a part of October and 
brought to the stable about the first of Novem¬ 
ber, in good flesh, are easily wintered. It is 
better management to buy hay or to sell stock, 
than to piuch the pastures by close feeding. * 
The Leaf Crop. 
This very valuable crop is too often entirely 
overlooked. Multitudes of farmers have yet to 
gather their first leaf harvest. Gardeners very 
generally appreciate the value of this article, 
and where it is accessible, it enters into their 
most valuable composts. Most farmers are so 
situated that they can gather leaves in large 
quantities and would readily do it, if they knew 
how well it would pay. 
Chemical analysis shows that the leaves of 
plants are rich in fertilizing matter, much rich¬ 
er than the wood. Eleven per cent of the leaves 
of the elm are ashes, while the wood only gives 
two per cent. Other trees show a still greater 
difference. The constant growth of forests even 
upon poor land, is doubtless owing to the annual 
deposit of leaves upon the surface of the earth. 
These having drawn fertilizing matter from the 
subsoil through the roots, deposit it on the sur¬ 
face where it is available. Every one has noticed 
the rank growth of grass, where leaves have been 
burned or allowed to decay. They are valuable 
to the farmer for bedding before they go into 
the compost heap. Nothing is better for the 
sty or the stable, than a good leaf bed. The 
time of rustling leaves has come in the garden, 
upon the lawn, in the orchard, and in the forest. 
Let them be gathered as the last of the harvest. 
--=»-<*-!-»- 
For the American Agriculturist. 
Save Cartage. 
A man who has two yoke of cattle, or a span 
of horses, seldom stops to think of the expense 
of carting muck and handling manure. The 
ordinary route of muck, from the bed to the 
field where it is to be used, is through the stable 
or yard, and privy. This will, doubtless, have 
to be the course for a large part of it. But 
we can use profitably more muck than we can 
afford to cart in this way, which makes at least 
two extra handlings. 
The writer is now carting a lot of ditch 
scrapings and muck, directly to the field where 
they are to be used for top dressing. It is put in 
heaps so near together, as to admit of easy 
spreading over the whole ground. During the 
Winter, as manure in the yard accumulates, it 
is carted out and mixed with these heaps of 
muck. It is made fine, and spread as soon as 
the frost is out of it in the Spring. The muck 
has the benefit of the freezing and thawing quite 
as much as it could in the yard; is ameliorated 
by the fresh manure, and makes an excellent top 
dressing. The same can be done in making 
compost heaps for corn, and other hoed crops. 
Use the strength of your teams to the best ad¬ 
vantage and save cartage. Connecticut. 
Chess—Instructive Experiment. 
Some persons go so far as to assert that all 
chess springs from wheat seed, and that chess 
itself is only a bastard wheat, which will not re¬ 
produce itself. Below is the result of an experi¬ 
ment which would seem to settle the question 
of reproduction. We have scores of letters on 
the chess question, and have, from necessity, de¬ 
cided not to publish more on this subject at 
present, as a general rule. The following letter 
may well form an exception: 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist : 
I wrote you about a year ago, stating that 
I was conducting an experiment with wheat 
and chess, and that I expected to prove to you 
that wheat would produce both chess and 
wheat. I acted on the belief that chess was a 
mongrel wheat, which could be produced by 
stinting the wheat, and that this mongrel wheat, 
(chess,) would not reproduce itself. To prove 
my theory I turned under two plots of sod per¬ 
fectly clean and free from weeds or seeds of any 
kind. On one plot I sowed clean Blue Stem 
Wheat, and on the other cleau Chess seed. Both 
came up finely. Fowls were allowed a free 
range over the whole plot during Autumn and 
Spring, and they picked it off close to the ground. 
Then on the 1st of May I cut off the tops of the 
plants, and repeated the cutting just as the 
stooling commenced. . But in spite of my strong 
faith that I should have some chess, it all came 
out pure wheat. On the plot seeded with chess 
I had a splendid crop of pure chess, and chess 
only, which was fully matured by the first of 
July. D. T. Wieland. 
Center CoPa., Sept . 17, 1861. 
---- 
Principles Regulating Breeding. 
The following extract from a prize essay on 
the above subject, by Henry Tanner, Member 
of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 
explains why so little success is attained in secur¬ 
ing good stock from animals of high excellence: 
“ In the breeding of all varieties of farm-stock 
—cattle, sheep, pigs, etc.—the results seem uni¬ 
formly to follow the same fixed but simple' 
laws. It is an old and approved maxim that 
‘ like produces likebut this rule, though gen¬ 
erally true, may be misapplied, when the error 
will be demonstrated by the contradictory evi¬ 
dence of practice and experience. If an animal! 
is capable of transmitting any character to its 
offspring, it must possess that which it conveys, 
although at times qualities may predominate in 
the offspring, which were almost latent in the 
parent. If, therefore, any quality or character is 
rendered hereditary, it must correspond with 
that inherent in the parent from which it de¬ 
scended. If, however, I breed from a female 
possessing certain qualities, and a male distin¬ 
guished by an opposite character, it is clear that 
the offspring can not perpetuate both of these 
characteristics, and the result appears antago¬ 
nistic to the maxim that ‘like produces like.’ 
This brings us at once to the consideration of 
one of the most important principles connected 
with breeding, namely, that although ‘like 
produces like,’ (for it can produce nothing else), 
still, when the parents possess opposing qualities, 
the preponderance is exercised by that one 
which possesses the hereditary tendency in the 
greatest strength. IfJ for instance, a cow hav¬ 
ing any special peculiarity of form, is put to a 
bull having the opposite character, the offspring 
will assume *the character of that parent which 
possessed the greatest hereditary powers in this 
respect, or, in other words, the greatest purity 
and unity of influence. If these hereditary 
powers are under our control, it is important to 
consider by what means they may be increased 
or diminished 
“ In breeding from a ram and ewe possessing a 
similarity of type, the produce of such a union 
will, of necessity, also possess the like character, 
but in a higher degree. Thus the result of 
breeding stock of similar character is that these 
peculiarities are not only perpetuated but inten¬ 
sified in the offspring. Provided that the pa¬ 
rents possess similarity of type in any given 
particular, every successive generation thus pro¬ 
duced acquires an increase of hereditary force, 
by which we mean the power of imprinting its 
own stamp upon its progeny. But in like man¬ 
ner as this power accumulates when there is a 
similarity of character, so also does it diminish 
when the parents have opposite or antagonistic 
characters. Suppose that a well-bred ram, by 
careful breeding through several successive 
generations, has acquired strong and valuable 
hereditary powers (which, for illustration 
sake, we will represent in figures), say equal 
to 100. If this animal be put to a ewe of a 
totally different character, say having heredi¬ 
tary power equal to 60, the result would be that 
the offspring would still possess the same char 
acter as the ram, because of his hereditary pow¬ 
er; but the hereditary capability of the off¬ 
spring would be reduced to say 100—60=40. 
Supposing the offspring to be a ram, at a subse- 
