AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
251 
1871.] 
tion, as compared with either whites or blacks, 
is well known; and if we are to carry the 
teachings of human reproduction into our 
stables, it seems to us that we find here a hint 
in favor of avoiding the admixture of dark and 
light Jerseys—which is probably an absurd con¬ 
clusion—showing only that we ought in our 
breeding operations to be guided, not by our 
fancies as to the influence of color—for this in¬ 
fluence is as yet a sealed book to us all—but by 
the well-known experience of successful breed¬ 
ers. If we put a dark bull to a light cow, or 
a light bull to a dark cow, we may or may not 
be able to guess at the color of the progeny. 
Farther than this, surely no man can yet go; 
and we advise all breeders, whether of Jerseys 
or any other pure race, to stick to the good old 
plan of having a good cow served by a bull that 
had a good mother. An adherence to this prac¬ 
tice would have a better effect on the future value 
of the breed than all the vagaries of all the 
theorists who ever owned a black-tailed bulk 
The Foot and Mouth Disease. 
BY JAMES P. SWAIN, lSRONXVILLE, N. Y. 
Gents :—In compliance with your request, I 
send you a history of foot and mouth disease as 
it occurred in my herd. Early in March last, I 
purchased at Bull’s Head, an ox apparently in 
good health and condition. He was put in my 
yard on Tuesday, and worked well until Fri¬ 
day evening, when he refused to eat. I exam¬ 
ined him on Saturday morning, when he seemed 
to be in great pain, nervously shaking his chops, 
drooling from the mouth, and shaking his feet 
as if endeavoring to throw something off. He 
was immediately removed from the other cattle 
and kept under a shed half a mile away from 
them. The next day a cow showed the same 
symptoms, and the day after, Monday, several 
others did the same. I then reported the case 
to the State Cattle Commissioner, Dr. Moreau 
Morris, who treated me with all the considera¬ 
tion that could be expected, gave me all the 
advice he could, and sent a Veterinary Surgeon 
to examine the animals. Several other Physi¬ 
cians and Veterinary Surgeons saw them, and 
all agreed as to the character of the disease, and 
the mode of treatment, but I had previously 
commenced an entirely different and exactly 
opposite treatment, and carried it out. I do not 
recommend this treatment to others, but I should 
myself try it again in preference to any and all 
others. I purchased five gallons of crude car¬ 
bolic acid at the suggestion of Dr. Morris, and 
should have used it for disinfecting my yards, 
for I think very well of it, but I chose to use 
more simple things that I more fully understood. 
My first operation was to cart fresh earth into 
my yards, and two or three times a day the dis¬ 
eased animals were driven into the mud and 
water where it was two feet deep, and were let 
stand there for an hour or more; after the first 
one or two trials they would go of their own 
accord, and stay longer than we wished them 
to. I let them drink freely of riley water, which 
they preferred to the pure water of the Bronx 
river. My cows averaged about one week, after 
showing the first symptoms, before they got to 
the worst. The blisters in the mouth and about 
the feet showed themselves in three to four 
days, and began to break in six to seven days. 
Either from the effects of the disease or from 
the difficulty and pain of masticating the food, 
or from both causes, the entire alimentary canal 
is irritated, some are costive, and others scour, 
discharging undigested food, and in bad cases, 
bloody mucous. This was in all cases corrected 
at once, by giving gruel made of Linseed oil¬ 
cake meal—cotton-seed is not so good for this 
purpose. In some cases I had common salt 
rubbed in the mouth, just as the blisters began 
to break, and apparently with good effect. 
Some of my animals that stood on board floors 
were much worse than others; in several in¬ 
stances the animal would seek the soft, moist 
earth, and lie down and try to bury its feet in 
the earth; iii such cases I threw on earth enough 
to cover them, and they would lie still for 
hours with it on their feet and legs. 
The last phase of the disease, -which is in the 
third week, is a mucous sweat which mats the 
hair, and the last appearance is scabs or scurf 
about the nose, and sometimes around the lips, 
and occasionally spots on the body. It is a 
painful and troublesome disease, but I do not 
think it dangerous; it leaves the animals in 
good heart, with improved appetites, and mine 
are in decidedly better condition than before 
they had it. I have twenty-four animals at 
home, all of which had the disease, and I had 
twenty-seven at another harp, half a mile off, 
attended by the same men, without any extra 
precaution, and none of them have taken the 
disease. I have now mingled these animals for 
over two weeks, and have had no new cases, and 
it has not extended to any of my neighbors’ 
cattle. I have been as singular in my mode of 
disinfecting my yards as in the treatment of the 
disease, but it is too soon to publish it, as it may 
not prove effectual, and I would not willingly 
lead any one astray by my peculiarities. I pre¬ 
sume there is nothing peculiar or different in 
my case than in others, except it may be that of 
one of my imported cows that was affected dif¬ 
ferently from the others, and my theory is that 
she had the disease in Europe, and was only 
relatively affected, much as a man has varioloid 
after small-pox, or kine-pox, or as he has the 
kine-pox the second time. If you wish my 
mode of disinfecting yards, you shall have it. 
Ogden Farm Papers.—No. 19. 
For once we are fairly up with our work; 
every thing, that it was planned to have done 
by this time (June 10th), has been done. The 
carrots were put in sharp upon time this after¬ 
noon, and a rain that is brewing, ought to make 
such a reaction in the 2,000 lbs. of Manhattan 
Co’s Dried Blood with which the 2 acres have 
been manured, that under such heat as we have 
a right now to expect, the carrots will be up 
nearly as early as the weeds remaining after 
the repeated harrowing of the land; and if the 
weather continues favorable for their growth, it 
will be a far simpler matter to nurse them until 
they are ready to “ lay-by,” than if they had 
been planted, as is the custom, a month earlier. 
In fact it has been amply proven by experience, 
that carrots sown at this time are more easily 
cared for and make quite as good a crop as 
those planted early in May. I shall have how¬ 
ever, from this field, no large crop to report as 
the variety grown is the Early Horn raised 
more for its color than its substance. Quantity 
can be more cheaply made up with Mangel 
and Ruta-baga. 
After all sorts of experiments in the color¬ 
ing of butter, I have come to the conclu¬ 
sion that the old-fashioned way is the best, 
that is, to color the cow. A peck of car¬ 
rots a day with other root feed, fed to Jersey 
cows, will keep up a sufficient color for the 
highest demand of the market. This will take 
40 bushels carrots, for a cow in full milk, all win¬ 
ter. With ordinary success they should be 
raised at a cost of 15 cents, per bushel; 25 cts. 
would surely leave a safe margin, and at this 
price the cost would be $10 for a cow. The car¬ 
rots are worth nearly if not quite this amount 
as food. With a good dairy, having a high- 
priced market, they would certainly make a 
difference, of 10 cts. per lb. in the price of the 
-butter, and this would amount fully to the ex¬ 
tra outlay, showing a fair arithmetical profit, 
and ensuring what is of the utmost of impor¬ 
tance to the permanence of high prices, a uni¬ 
form color and quality, especially during the 
spring. 
We got on very well this spring until the car¬ 
rots we had laid by for coloring began to grow. 
Their renewed vegetation turned their sugary 
juices into gall and wormwood and spoiled two 
makings of butter and more than two profitable 
customers. We had already commenced green 
feeding, but before the grass color can affect 
the butter, it has first to affect the whole cow, 
and it takes a couple of weeks of grass to bring 
the color to the right standard. 
There was another defect in our arrange¬ 
ments this spring that would not perhaps have 
manifested itself but for the prolonged drouth. 
We had too little soiling rye, only three acres, 
and we were afraid to commence cutting as ear¬ 
ly as we should have done, lest we should run 
out. As result, the drouth and heat of the lat¬ 
ter weeks of May threw the bulk of the crop in¬ 
to head and blossom, making it too hard and too 
bitter for the cows. As a consequence they have 
had to go to grass, where they will remain un¬ 
til the middle of next week when the oats will 
be fit for cutting. I am now adopting brother 
Harris’s recommendation to the extent of sum¬ 
mer-fallowing a full section of the farm (9 s f 2 
acres), to be laid down with rye this fall. We 
can safely commence cutting this in the spring 
when eight or ten inches high, and by keeping 
it cut short, will have a good supply, virtually 
of grass, until the middle of June. 
In seeding down over nine acres of meadow 
this spring, I had intended to sow grass seed by 
itself, but yielded to the entreaties of our good 
German foreman, and let him sow something 
less than a bushel to the acre of oats for a shel¬ 
ter to the grass. As it has turned out, the ven¬ 
ture has been an excellent one. Under the con¬ 
tinued drouth, the grass came up but slowly. 
While we were for weeks without rain, we had 
frequent heavy fogs which made the oats drip¬ 
ping wet and so gave the soil an amount of 
moisture, without which the seed would hardly 
have germinated at all. Now the grass has tak¬ 
en well, and owing to the good condition of 
the land, we have a good deal more than half a 
crop of well-stooled oats for soiling now ready 
for the-mowing machine. With this, and the 
crops that are to follow, we are morally certain 
of a superabundant amount of forage for the 
whole season; —• a condition which it was not 
predicted by my neighbors would arrive so soon 
as the year eighteen hundred and seventy-one. 
Contrary to our established rule, we are ex¬ 
perimenting a little in butter-making. A lot of 
cans have been procured about 18 inches deep 
and 12 inches in diameter; a supernumerary 
horse-trough has been scrubbed out and put in¬ 
to the summer milk-room (under ground). In¬ 
to this there runs a stream of water from the 
