140 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mat, 
Value of Dead Animals for Manure. 
It is no uncommon occurrence for the farmer, 
at this season of the year, to have “ spare meat” 
upon his hands. He undertakes to winter more 
stock than he can carry through in good con¬ 
dition without buying hay or grain, and he does 
not see the economy of buying food. Some of 
the stock, unreasonable beings that they are, see 
the economy of dying, and do it—without con¬ 
sulting the owner. Here a sheep caves in under 
the wall, or a cow dies in the pangs of labor, 
from sheer want of strength to bring forth. 
Here is a dead lamb, ornamenting the fork of an 
apple tree; there an old horse falls at the manger. 
It would be stating the case rather strongly to 
say that a dead sheep was worth as much for 
manure as for mutton, that is to say, five cents a 
pound. The facts might not warrant the state¬ 
ment which we have seen in an agricultural 
work, that a dead horse well composted was 
worth twenty loads of manure, that is to say, 
twenty dollars, though this would come nearer 
to the mark. Allowing the horse to weigh 1,000 
pounds, and the muck and labor to be worth 
$10. This would make the carcass worth $10, 
at one cent a pound. It might not be advisa¬ 
ble for a farmer to buy carcasses at this rate, 
while it would pay largely to save every thing 
of the kind upon his farm, or within his reach. 
According to the experiments of Messrs. Pay- 
en and Boussingault, three pounds of muscular 
flesh contain the same amount of nitrogenjis a 
hundred pounds of farm-yard manure. Soluble 
blood, and salted cod, had the same value. Two 
pounds of cow’s hair, two pounds of woolen 
rags, two pounds of feathers, two of horn-rasp¬ 
ings, were each equal to a hundred pounds of 
farm-yard dung. They are among the most 
valuable substances used for manure, according 
to these experiments. If a half cord of farm¬ 
yard manure, weighing about a ton, is worth a 
dollar, then hair, wool, feathers, etc., would be 
worth about two cents and a half a pound, and 
the flesh about a cent and a half, at the same rate. 
It is not necessary to attain results entirely 
accurate to show the economy of saving all 
these wastes. Above ground they are a nui¬ 
sance, and a source of disease. Buried, they are 
lost. But in the muck heap, and composted, 
they are a source of profit, and pay largely for 
the labor. We want the crows to prey on grubs 
and insects, and not on dead animals. We can 
put these to a better use. Every pound of flesh, 
rightly used, gives a peck of potatoes. Let them 
be saved. Jonathan. 
Jonathan’s hints are good, but he does not 
tell what to do with the carcass after we have 
it. Here is a plan we learned from Mr. Geo. 
H. Goodwin, of Hartford County, Conn.: The 
horse is bought as cheap as possible; of course 
better alive than dead, as a general thing, if he 
can walk. Four loads of muck or sods are 
placed in a convenient out-of-the-way place, yet 
within sight, so that dogs can be watched, and 
if they manifest too great a regard for the old 
horse, a well-directed bullet may introduce 
them to a still closer companionship. Then the 
horse is taken upon the heap, killed, $nd the 
skin removed, which more than pays for the 
job. Without further ceremony five or six 
loads of muck and soil are thrown over the car¬ 
cass, and. it is left six months or a year, accord¬ 
ing to the season, a certain amount of warm 
weather, being necessary, and it not being agree¬ 
able to overhaul the heap in the heat of Sum¬ 
mer. Then fork it oyer, throwing out the bones, 
which, will then be well freed from flesh, 
sprinkle over the heap a peck or two of plaster, 
and add perhaps a little fresh muck or soil upon 
the surface; let it lie a month, then fork it over 
again, and it is fit for use and an excellent ma¬ 
nure—worth more than an equal bulk of good 
barn-yard manure. The bones thrown into an¬ 
other heap, or into the stable manure, to be 
thrown out again when it is forked over, soon 
become so rotten that they may be pounded up 
and used with the manure, or by themselves. 
Tim Bunker on the “ Horn-Ail.” 
“What is the matter with your cow, Mr. 
Frink,” said Seth Twiggs, as he leaned his el¬ 
bow on the barn-yard bars, and looked benevo¬ 
lently at a very spare and hirsute animal, that 
Jake was milking. 
“ Can’t tell exactly,” said Jake, “ Guess she’s 
got the horn-ail, or some sich thing.” 
“ I thought the trouble seemed to be in her 
legs, when she come by my house last night. 
She walked kind o’ totlisli,” said Seth, knocking 
the ashes out of his pipe. 
“ Wa’ll that might be. Horn distemper gener¬ 
ally affects ’em all over. Had Tucker up here to 
doctor her last night; he said it was horn-ail.” 
“ What did he give her ?” 
“ He gin her a slice of salt-pork, split her tail, 
put in salt and pepper, and bored her horns.” 
“ Rather guess there was some squirming.” 
“Yes, it took three men and all the ropes in 
the barn to hold the old keow.” 
“Don’t you think horn-ail hurts the milk ?” in¬ 
quired Seth hesitatingly as he relighted his pipe. 
“ Wa’ll as to that, I can’t say. It’s all the keow 
we’ve got, as gives milk, and shouldn’t think 
any trouble in the horns would strike clean 
threw the beast. Milk is milk, I take it, no 
matter where it comes from. I never could see 
any difference in the taste.” 
“ I rather guess milk wont be milk out of that 
animal much longer,” said Seth ominously, and 
blowing a puff of smoke as blue as his prophecy. 
“You don’t think she’s going to die do you ?” 
asked Jake solemnly. 
“ The crows have already held a counsel on 
that animal. Tucker told me so last night.” 
“ The scoundrel! He told me he would war¬ 
rant her to get well, if I’d give him a dollar for 
his doctoring.” 
Two days after the above conversation I was 
called in to administer upon the carcass of said 
animal. Jake said he had human feelings, and 
he could not skin a cow he had milked, and he 
did not even want to put her in a muck heap. 
I gave my neighbor due credit for the feelings 
of tenderness which the death of his cow seem¬ 
ed to call forth. But I could not help thinking 
that a little more of that tenderness manifested 
to the animal while living, would have been 
much more wisely bestowed. 
To tell the plain truth, the animal died of 
starvation, just as many cows die every year in 
this land of steady habits and Christian civiliz¬ 
ation. I noticed the cow last Summer, and told 
Jake he would certainly lose her if he did not 
give her a better pasture. But he would, keep 
her with his young cattle in the old cow-pasture 
that has been grazed to my certain knowledge 
for fifty years, and probably for a hundred, 
without plowing or manuring except the drop¬ 
pings of the pastured animals, and these were 
yarded at night. He kept six animals where 
there was not grass enough for three. They 
came out of the Winter poor and thin, and this 
cow having the drain of milk upon her system 
grew thinner through the Summer. The winter 
diet of corn huts, bog meadow grass, and salt 
marsh hay cut short the work of starvation, and 
fulfilled Tucker’s prophecy. 
They have a great variety of names for this 
process of torture in Connecticut, and I sup¬ 
pose in other parts of the country. Sometimes 
it is horn-ail, or worm in the tail; again it is 
slink fever, or murrain, black leg, or black 
tongue, cattle disease, or pleuro pneumonia. It 
would not do for an intelligent civilized man to 
see and believe that he starved his cattle to 
death. Conscience might trouble him, and pos¬ 
sibly some of his neighbors might have him be¬ 
fore the courts under the statute which prohibits 
cruelty to brutes. If I were called to judge in 
such a case it would certainly go hard with the 
offender. It certainly inflicts more pain upon a 
brute to starve, than to beat it. The whip upon 
ribs well lined with fat is a sharp torture soon 
over. But to keep a cow at the stack-yard 
through the cold stormy nights of Winter, to 
give her poor food and not half enough of that 
is a lingering torment, more cruel than that 
which the savage inflicts upon his victim bound 
to the stake. The poor beast can only speak 
through the hollow ribs, and the bristling hair, 
and these signs of woe are usually attributed to 
disease rather than to a lean manger. 
This is an evil that legislation will not reach, 
and I suppose nothing but public opinion will 
set it right, and that probably not in our day. 
It would seem that there was no need of losing 
neat stock under ordinary circumstances. I 
have kept cows for over forty years, and they 
have all died by the knife, proving as useful and 
ornamental in their deaths as in their lives. 
The starving of animals is so unprofitable, that 
there is no apology for it. A half starved cow 
hardly pays her keeping. A well fed one pays 
a handsome profit. 
My recipe for the horn-ail is, one good warm 
stable well ventilated and well littered, one 
bushel of carrots or sugar beets daily, hay and 
water ad libitum, one card or currycomb, and 
gentle treatment. I have never known this 
dose to fail of preventing the disease. 
Hookertown, ) Yours to command, 
Apr. 10th, 1862. j Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
The Best Team for the Farm. 
We have three kinds in extensive and yery 
general use in different parts of the country: 
the mule on the cotton and sugar plantations; 
horses on the prairies and smooth farms of the 
western and middle States; and oxen in New- 
England and on rough uneven farms generally 
in the Northern States. 
So far as the plantation team is concerned, 
there is little room to doubt that the mule is the 
best animal. He is more hardy, and will bare 
that abuse which is inseparable from the forced 
labor of the South, better than the ox or the 
horse. Neat stock are short lived in the Gulf 
States, perhaps quite as much from scant forage 
as from the peculiarities of the climate. Tradi¬ 
tion says that “ a mule is never known to die 
upon the plantation,” which is probably a strong 
way of stating their longevity. They endure the 
heat as well as the negroes, and are well adapt¬ 
ed to slave drivers. It is a question if more mules 
might not be profitably worked upon north¬ 
ern farms. Most of the mules are raised in Ken¬ 
tucky, and in the States further north, and pos¬ 
sibly if there were not so great a demand for 
them on the plantation they would be more fre¬ 
quently seen upon the' farm. Pride probably 
has as much to do as profit with the general dis¬ 
use of the mule at the north. He does not look 
