1871 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
171 
is no home demand for milk (350 miles from 
New York). Would you recommend fixed 
stanchions where the cows are to be kept up 
most of the time, or would you have them tied? 
Is it best to feed the cattle in the stable or in a 
small lot? Perhaps you will tell us how to 
manage this thing most economically/or a poor 
man, commencing at the stages/ soiling crops; 
how cut; how fed; and how much exercise 
cows require to keep them healthy. We are 
near a creamery, and want to keep all the cows 
we can, and do them well.” The subjects cov¬ 
ered by this letter are.of sufficiently general in¬ 
terest to justify the devotion of a little space to 
their discussion. It being assumed that although 
too far away to send milk to the city, there is a 
sufficient local demand for cream (or for milk) 
to make it desirable to keep as many cows as 
possible; that the land (50 acres) is of fail- 
quality; and that the farmer has no means for 
rapid improvement; the question is: How shall 
lie proceed to make the most of his chances? 
Let us suppose that he has now 12 native 
cows of fair average quality. As it is too late 
to sow oats for soiling, and as rye should have 
been sowed last fall to be of any use this season, 
the best plan will be to sow 5 or 6 acres of the 
best of the hind to some gourd seed-corn for green 
fodder (put in in drills and heavily manured , 
even if it is necessary to borrow money to buy 
bone-dust or Peruvian guano), and to continue 
in the old way until this begins to show signs 
of tasseling out. At this time add to the herd 
C of the best cows to be found, and if cream is 
the object, buy a yearling Jersey bull. The 
corn fodder, if manure has been abundantly ap¬ 
plied to it, will support tiie herd until frost, al¬ 
lowing a good second cutting to be taken from 
i he meadows early enough for a good fall 
growth to protect them through the winter, and 
saving them from the great injury that pasturing 
ai ways causes them. Some of the pastures, too, 
may be made to yield a little hay at a late 
mowing. The extra hay made in this way 
would often be enough to feed the extra stock 
through the winter, but it will be the safest plan 
to raise a few hundred bushels of roots to make 
sure of having enough, and to convince the 
farmer that he can never afford to do without 
them. With their aid, the 18 cows should come 
out the next spring in better condition than the 
13 did this spring. This is not, it is true, a very 
brilliant showing, but it is best to “ make haste 
slowly,” and (as we are short of capital) to avoid 
the necessity for buying fodder. We have de¬ 
voted one year to getting ready, and the prepa¬ 
ration has included the sowing of 4 or 5 acres 
of good land to rye—in September—for our 
first soiling crop, and of a like quantity of oats 
to follow it (the gap, if there is one, being filled 
by grass cut from the meadows). During the 
year we will have studied “Quincy on Soiling 
Cattle,” and the articles on the subject in the 
Agriculturist , and shall have made out a system 
for soiling better suited to our purposes than 
any man writing without a' knowledge of our 
circumstances could make for us; that is to say, 
I Cannot tell any man whose farm I do not 
know, when, what, and how much to plant, 
one-lialf so well as he can find it out for him¬ 
self if he will make a serious study of it I can 1 
tell him one thing, however, that he may not 
already know, that is, that much of his success 
will depend on the improvement of his herd. 
As an illustration of the extent to' which the j 
product of a herd can be increased by careful j 
selection and suitable feeding, I quote from a 
letter recently'- received from Mr. C. D. Avery, 
of Syracuse, N. Y.: “Having just completed 
my Milk Report for 1870, perhaps a few items 
from it may be of interest to you, especially as 
farm statistics are not often obtainable unless 
guessed at. I will state that my farm of 80 
acres, one mile out of town, is kept for the pro¬ 
duction of milk sold in the city, and grain and 
fodder, particularly for the cows. I cannot af¬ 
ford to raise such stock as I would prefer; 
hence I have only a good selection of such 
cows as I can find about here. 
Average number of cows kept.... IS 
“ product of milk per cow. 5,359 lbs. 
“ price per quart. 4"/ioo cents. 
“ time of cows in milk 9 mos. 3 wks. 1 dy. 
“ number of cows in milk 
for the season. 14 2 / 3 
“ number of cows dry for 
the season. 8 l /s 
We estimate a quart of milk to weigh 2 lbs. 
My gain in milk for 1870 over 1809, was 164 
lbs. per cow; and in 1869, over 1868, the gain 
was 486 lbs. I am satisfied a better class of 
cows, and a better mode of feeding, will improve 
these results.” 
This is not only an example of rare precision 
in the keeping of farm records, but it shows a 
remarkable gain in money returns, still more in 
profit, for it is very doubtful whether it costs 
more for food for the better cows than for the 
poorer ones, while the cost of attendance was 
precisely the same. Taking the price of milk 
at 5 cents, the gain in 1870 over 1868 was $16.25 
per cow, being $392.50 for the herd. This, if I 
understand it, is what is meant by an improve¬ 
ment in our agriculture—an addition to the 
money profit of farming, without a correspond¬ 
ing increase of capital invested. 
Feed as we may, avc cannot make good and 
cheap butter from a poor coav. The more Ave 
improve our stock, the more money avc shall 
make; and improvement (for a butter dairy) 
must lie in the direction of a more complete 
extraction of the nutriment of the food and its 
more complete conversion into cream. We Avant 
the highest type of the Jersey—a butter breed 
almost exclusively—or as near an approach to 
it as our means Avili alloAV. A “poor man” 
cannot at once set tip a herd of Jerseys, but no 
farmer who oAvns 50 acres of fair land is so poor 
that he cannot afford to buy a thorough-bred 
Jersey bull from which to raise grade heifers to 
take the place of his present stock. The first 
cross Avili be much improved, and the heifers 
may be alloAved to breed at 2 years, so that in 4 
years there will be a good sprinkling of 3 1 4 - 
breds. This generation may be sired by the 
same bull that sired their dams, thus much of 
in-breeding doing no harm when the sire is a 
thorough-bred; but after this it will be neces¬ 
sary to change the bull. Of course good “ native ” 
coavs should be selected at the outset. All pom- 
milkers should be sold off and their places sup¬ 
plied Avith the very best that can be found. 
Such a plan, coupled Avith soiling, will enable 
any farmer to double his net income within five 
years if he is farming only so much land as he 
can properly take care of. 
As to stanchions, “I go agin ’em, that’s flat.” 
I think them an invention of the enemy—of 
comfort and thrift. It-is true, they are conven¬ 
ient and effectual. A .coav once locked in betAveen 
stout stanchions is as fixed as a man with his 
head in a pillory, and I think about as comfort¬ 
able. My coavs are tied Avith 3-foot chains and 
broad collars around their necks, and it is evi¬ 
dent that they are much more comfortable than .j 
. 
they Avould be in stanchions. When they finish 
their meals they lie doAvu and stay down, which 
stanchioned coavs do not, for when a single posi¬ 
tion becomes tiresome they must get up to 
change it, while my animals can loll about, lick 
their sides, and stretch themselves out at full 
length without rising. I sometimes find a coav 
lying flat on her side, Avith her head on the floor 
and all four legs stretched out, like a dead coav, 
but for the flirting of her tail; and if she don’t 
enjoy it, there is no enjoyment to be had in a 
coAV-stall. I would like to see a coav attempt 
this sort of luxury in stanchions. 
There is no other place Avhere a cow can be 
fed ,so regularly, nor so economically, as from 
her oavii manger, and no place where she will 
eat so quietly, for slieknoAVS that the “ master” 
coav is snugly tied in her own place, and cannot 
\ come to drive her aAvay from her feed. If peace 
of mind is important to a coav, Ave can but pity 
the poor brute -who is the butt of the yard, and 
is only able to snatch a mouthful here and one 
there, as she is driven from one pile of fodder to 
another, cheAving her plunder as she runs. 
Biding on Horseback.—Ho. 3. 
Major Francis Dwyer, an English officer in 
: the Austrian cavalry service, recently published 
; a work on “ Seats and Saddles, Bits and Bit¬ 
ting,” Avhich has the great advantage of being, 
in some respects,quite different from other books 
about horsemanship. 
The theory advanced Avith regard to seats is, 
that at a poiut of the horse’s back, directly over 
the fourteenth vertebra—that is, about half Avay 
betAveen the Avithers and the coupling (or top of 
i the hips)—there is located what he calls the 
center of motion and the center of strength; 
the central point from Avhich the forces of the 
horse, Avhen carrying Aveight, may be figur¬ 
atively said to radiate. In other words, this is 
the point—the middle of the back—Avhere weight 
can be most easily carried, Avhere the least mo¬ 
tion Avili be imparted to it, and Avhere its distri¬ 
bution will be most equal OA'er all four of the 
horse’s feet; consequently, it is over this poiut 
that the rider’s center of gravity should fall. 
As the rider should sit in the middle of his sad¬ 
dle in order that it may transmit his Aveight 
equally over so much of the horse’s back as it 
touches, t]io middle of the saddle should be 
over this center of motion. As the fastening of 
the saddle by the girths should be directly un¬ 
der the rider’s center of gravity, it follows 1 that 
they should be under this center of motion. 
And, again, as it is important that when the 
rider’s Aveight is transferred to the stirrups, it 
should not thereby be transferred to another 
point on the saddle, the attachment of the stir¬ 
rups should also be in the ceuterxff the saddle. 
The reasoning On which these directions are 
based seem sound; but they are so different 
from the practice in Which the writer has been 
trained, that he cannot fully indorse the recom¬ 
mendation without trial, though lie is quite 
ready to advise that-they be borne in mind, and 
that they be conformed to as nearly as the con¬ 
struction of our present saddles will admit. 
His own inclination .would be to set the saddle 
a little farther forward, and to place the stir¬ 
rups a little in jidvance of its center, adhering 
of course to the injunction that the rider’s 
weight should be placed in the middle of the 
saddle and the girths attached directly in its 
middle. Major Dwyer is undoubtedly correct in 
objecting to what is called the chair-seat, Where 
the rider sits far back on the saddle and sup- 
