1871 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
289 
box. Italians are disposed to fill their combs too full of 
honey in August, leaving too little room for brood. By 
using the mel-extractor room is given them, and conse¬ 
quently there will be plenty of young beea for winter. 
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Wool-Bearing Animals. 
At the International Exhibition now open in London, 
there is a collection of wool-bearing animals brought to¬ 
gether for the purpose of showing the origin of the ma¬ 
terial from which the fabrics exhibited are made. We 
give an engraving representing these animals upon the 
first page of this paper. With the exception of the Al¬ 
pacas, which belong to Lady Coutts, the animals are from 
the Gardens of the London Zoological Society. The 
animals placed highest in the picture are Moufflons, from 
the mountains of Greece, Corsica, etc. Those shown 
here are females, the males having much larger horns. 
The Moufflon is a very strong and agile animal, 
and is interesting as being, in the opinion of 
some naturalists, the original of our common sheep. 
Next, below the Moufflons, is a fine specimen of the 
Cashmere goat, which furnishes the raw material for the 
most costly shawls. At the left of the Moufflons are 
two Merino Rams, which do not call for especial com¬ 
ment, and at the left of these again, a Huanaco, or 
Guanaco, as it is sometimes written, and lower down are 
the nearly related Llama and Alpacas. These three va¬ 
rieties or species of animals, aside from their furnishing 
wool, are interesting as having long been under a rude 
domestication. When South America was discovered 
by the Spaniards, the Llamas and Alpacas were found in 
use by the natives as beasts of burden, and it is stated 
that in the time of the Incas, it was the custom to have 
large hunts and drive in the wild herds, when the ani¬ 
mals were shorn, and the old and imperfect ones were 
killed, in order to improve the race. The Llama and 
Alpaca are not known in the wild state, and those who 
have investigated the matter consider the Llama the de¬ 
scendant of the Huanaco, and the Alpaca as resulting 
from the Vicugna, an exceedingly wild animal found in 
the elevated mountains of Bolivia and Chili. The animal 
in the lower left-hand corner is the Fat-tailed sheep, 
which was fully described in June last, on page 213. 
Pasturing Meadows, or Young Clover. 
For want of sufficient pasture, cattle and horses are 
often turned into the mown meadows, or stubbles that 
have been seeded with clover. This is, to say the least, 
injudicious. Generally dry weather occurs after harvest, 
during which the clover and grass have a struggle to main¬ 
tain their existence, the young clover plants especially 
suffering from the heat and drouth. Possibly for some 
weeks the principal dependence of the meadows for 
moisture is the nightly dews. If the leaves are allowed 
to be eaten off, this mode of supply is arrested, by depriv¬ 
ing the roots of the shade which they would have afforded. 
Only a weak growth can then be made, many plants will 
be totally destroyed, and when the fall rains occur, fol¬ 
lowed by nightly frosts, the unsheltered uoots are thrown 
out by thousands. A promising piece of young clover 
may thus be completely ruined and the next year’s sup¬ 
ply of hay be seriously curtailed. The small quantity of 
feed thus gained is dearly purchased. The life of the 
meadows is consumed and their existence threatened. 
We are aware of the great temptation there is to turn 
stock on to the aftermath and stubbles, but, unless in the 
very rare cases where the soil is rich and the growth is 
too heavy to be eaten nearly bare, it would be a great 
saving of money in the end, to hire pasture, buy feed, or 
sell the surplus stock which can not otherwise be fed at 
home On many farms, had this course been adopted for 
one season, the resources for feeding in after years would 
have been doubled ; but by carrying too much stock on 
the fields during the fall months, they were eaten off too 
closely to stand the winter, and were too seriously in¬ 
jured to fully recover. It is becoming more apparent 
each year, that more stock must be fed on Eastern farms, 
nay, on many Western farms too, or their fertility can not 
be maintained; but it is bad policy to keep too many at 
the commencement, before the means of feeding have be¬ 
come equal to the demand. It is something Kke a man 
living upon his capital, instead of upon the interest of it 
each year; in the one case, he becomes poorer by mere 
ill-judged use of his means, which, by proper husbanding, 
in the other case would keep him by its income, and it¬ 
self remain intact. 
It is a question worth consideration, whether it 
would not be wise to largely reduce pasturing stock; 
whether money could not be made by selling off in the 
spring the bulk of the stock usually pastured, and mow¬ 
ing, or otherwise using the land to produce feed for keep¬ 
ing stock during the winter, which should be purchased 
in the fall, by which means more manure would be made, 
the difference in the values of stock at these different 
seasons saved, and all temptation to pasture mowing 
lands, or young grass or clover fields, removed. 
Tim Bunker on Paying Crops. 
“ Ye see, Squire, taters don’t pay, blamed if 
they du. Ye see, I’ve been raisin’ ’em nigh on 
to forty years, and I don’t git ahead a bit. 
When taters are high, ye see, I ha’n’t got any; 
and when I’ve got ’em, which seldom happens, 
they don’t bring any thing, if ye sell ’em. I’m 
gettin’ sick of raisin’ things that don’t pay.” 
“How do you know they don’t pay?” says 
I. “ Do you keep any account of expenses ? 
Do you know what it costs to plow, to manure, 
to plant, to hoe, to dig, and to store ? Do you 
know what the crop has cost when you have 
put it down where you get your money for it ? ” 
“ Well, no, I don’t keep an ’count in ritin’, but 
kind o’ keep the run on’t in my head, and what 
a feller knows, he knows jest as well as if it 
was ritten. Ef I raise taters forty years and don’t 
git ahead, it is pretty sartin ’taint a payin’ busi¬ 
ness. No amount of ritin’ would make it any 
plainer that they cost more than they come to.” 
“Well, neighbor Frink, has any thing paid on 
your farm ? You haven’t got ahead much.” 
“ You see, Squire, I’m here, gettin’ pretty well 
along in life; the farm is pretty much paid for, 
and the stock, and the clothes I stan’ in. Ef 
suthin’ hadn’t paid, I shouldn’t av been here, for 
I hadn’t a red cent to begin with.” 
Thousands of people are just in Jake Frink’s 
state of mind. They don’t'know what pays on 
the farm, and what brings them into debt. They 
keep no debt and credit with particular fields, or 
particular crops, or kinds of stock. They have 
a very indefinite notion that some things pay 
better than others, but they can not hole the fox, 
big or little, that eats up the grapes and de¬ 
stroys their profits. They keep on raising a 
great variety of things, some at a profit and 
some at a loss, on the whole getting a living, 
and that is about all. Now, I know just about 
what Jake’s potatoes cost him, and I will figure 
up a little for his beuefit and the public’s: Plow¬ 
ing 1 acre, two dollars; 10 bushels seed at eighty 
cents, eight dollars; planting, three dollars; 
cultivating twice, six dollars; digging and stor¬ 
ing, six dollars; 8 cords of manure, twenty-four 
dollars—forty-nine dollars. The crap is 50 
bushels of potatoes, of which 10 are small; 40 
bushels, at eighty cents, are thirty-two dollars, 
and the small potatoes are worth five dollars, 
total thirty-seven dollars; which, taken from 
forty-nine dollars, leaves twelve dollars as the 
loss on the operation. But if we take off one 
half from the cost of the manure as left in the 
land, the account stands even and Jake has his 
potatoes for his labor. They are all eaten in the 
family, and they cost in labor eighty cents a 
bushel. This kind of potato-raising does not 
pay much, as any one can see, and if the ques- 
tiou is between raising this crop in this way 
and abandoning it, we had better abandon it at 
once; the farmer makes nothing, and the land 
is not improved. As most Eastern farmers raise 
corn, it pays no better; the crop costs more 
than the price of Western corn brought a thou¬ 
sand miles, and put down at their doors. 
“ Lost twelve dollars, did ye say, Squire ? ” 
asked Jake, when I showed him the figures. “I 
guess it’s true as preachin’. Ye see, every tater 
in that swale rotted. I’ve been gwine to drain 
it ever sense you knocked the bottom out of 
that hoss-pond lot, but somehow I didn’t git up 
to it. Ef them bad been sound, I should have 
had 100 bushels strong. But that’s jest my luck. 
When taters are high I ha’n’t none to sell.” 
I got into the way of ciphering on my crops 
quite early, and I do believe the tallow candles 
and the slate and pencils that I have spent in 
this business, have been about as good a crop 
as I ever raised in Hookertown. It don’t take 
a great while for a common-sense farmer to tell 
whether a crop pays or not. I raised last year 
a crop of rye, on a little less than three acres of 
land. The cost was : Plowing, six dollars; 
seed, three dollars; harrowing, two dol¬ 
lars ; harvesting, three dollars; threshing, 
four dollars and fifty cents; total, eighteen 
dollars and fifty cents. Sales, forty-five 
bushels of rye, forty-five dollars; straw, 
forty-eight dollars and fifty cents; total, ninety- 
three dollars and fifty cents. Deduct eighteen 
dollars and fifty cents, cost of crop, and we have 
seventy five dollars as the profit. This is about 
twenty-five dollars an acre profit. Now, if I 
can get 15 bushels of rye to the acre without 
manure, and can add ten bushels to the yield 
by putting on five dollars’ worth of bone-dust, 
or fish guano, to the acre, I can afford to buy 
the manure. The bone-dust will not only help 
the present crop, but will add to the yield of 
grass for several years to come. It is a safe 
business operation for me to enlarge the rye 
crop on the old pasture. I can kill the briers, 
sweet-fern, bay-berries, and other brush, and in¬ 
crease the grass crop and get paid for the job. 
If I take up twenty acres, and get only twenty 
bushels to the acre, I shall have 400 bushels of 
rye, worth as many dollars to sell, or to con¬ 
sume upon the farm; and the straw will be 
worth as much as the grain, at the present 
market prices. It can be done with the present 
working force of the farm, and eight hundred 
dollars is an item worth looking at in the year’s 
receipts of any small farm. Rye pays in Hook¬ 
ertown ; it might not pay where the grain was 
worth only fifty cents a bushel, and the straw 
was considered worthless. 
Then there is another little crop that I have 
found out pays better than rye. In some districts 
there is a great outcry against sheep, and the 
farmers sell them for a song. Last February I 
bought ten ewes of a mongrel sort, having some 
South-Down blood in them. They brought ten 
lambs, and the sheep sheared thirty pounds of 
wool. My principal object in getting them was 
to help keep down the brush and briers in an 
old pasture. They ate before they went to pas¬ 
ture about half a ton of good hay. Their pas¬ 
turing I do not count, for it has not interfered 
with the other stock, and almost any pasture 
improves where well-fed sheep graze. The cost 
of the sheep was forty dollars; feed, ten dollars 
and fifty cents. The lambs average six dollars 
each, sixty dollars, and the wool sold for fifteen 
dollars—seventy-five dollars; and the ten sheep 
are in better condition than when they were 
purchased. Here, then, is a return of seventy- 
five dollars from an investment of fifty dollars. 
The labor of taking care of them I think was 
fully paid for in the manure they dropped. The 
grubbing they do among the briers will be clear 
gain. One of the lambs weighed 31 lbs., and 
sold for twenty cents a pound dressed, and the 
pelt sold for fifty cents. A business that pays 
as well as this ought to be extended. Now, sup¬ 
pose I go a little out of Hookertown, where the 
people think sheep a drug, and buy in the fall a 
hundred ewes at, say, two dollars apiece—two 
hundred dollars; add two hundred dollars more 
for cost of wintering—four hundred dollars. If 
I put a Cotswold ram with them in November I 
secure lambs that will weigh 40 lbs. each and 
average eight dollars a piece by next July. I 
shall then have with good care, which is the 
