1876.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
11 
Exportation of Cattle for Beef to Great 
Britain. 
This is destined to become an immense and high¬ 
ly profitable branch of business, as soon as arrange¬ 
ments are made for properly conducting it. The 
first of these, we think, should be the building of 
suitable steamships for the sole purpose of trans¬ 
porting cattle across the Atlantic. The model of 
such we leave to tbe shipwright; but in passing 
would say, that the greater the breadth of beam in 
proportion to tbe length of hull, the more com¬ 
fortably and economically the animals could be car¬ 
ried. The present class of freight and passenger 
steamships sailing from New York and other At¬ 
lantic ports, are entirely too sharp built and nar¬ 
row for the profitable transportation of cattle. 
In addition to an extra breadth of beam, we 
would make the ship somewhat wall-sided, as this 
would greatly tend to prevent rolling, which is a 
far more wearing and fretful motion to animals on 
a rough ocean, than that of pitching fore and aft. 
As live stock can be had in any quantity in 
America for transportation to Europe, the largest 
class of vessels may be built with a perfect certainty 
that they will always find plenty of freight at good 
paying rates. No country abroad can successfully 
compete with us in the breeding and rearing of all 
sorts of improved domestic animals, we can there¬ 
fore nearly monopolize the British market; for it 
is a superior quality of live stock which is most 
wanted there, and which not only commands the 
highest prices, but is invariably taken in preference 
to inferior sorts. 
The few shipments hitherto made to Great Brit¬ 
tain of cattle for beef have been so ignorautly and 
imperfectly conducted, as to result oftener in a loss 
rather than a gain. If proper arrangements are 
now made, they may be transported for two-thirds 
to perhaps one-half the present rates of freight, and 
still give the ship owners a fair profit on the trans¬ 
portation. This would enable the American farmer 
to offer his animals in the foreign market at a com¬ 
parative lower price, and thus more rapidly increase 
the demand for them. Another great advantage 
would ensue from adopting improved methods of 
shipment, and that is, the animals might gain in 
flesh during the whole voyage rather than lose, as 
they now generally do, and this on precisely the 
same kind of food, and at exactly the same cost. 
Great Britain and Ireland have been paying a ter¬ 
rible price for many years past on the importation 
of cattle from the continent of Europe, for it is 
these which have brought over the fatal diseases 
that have destroyed so many of their herds, and 
rendered cattle purchasing from abroad, as well as 
breeding and rearing at home, so hazardous and 
unfortunate. The losses from these foul fatal dis¬ 
eases may be reckoned up in a single decade at mil¬ 
lions of pounds sterling. From America the United 
Kingdom would have nothing to fear; our cattle 
are healthy, and will be kept so. This considera¬ 
tion alone would enable us to obtain the preference 
in the British market, and ensure us quick and 
profitable sales for any number not only of beef 
cattle, but of improved domestic animals of all 
kinds, that we might please to export. 
Mules vs. Horses for Two-wheeled City 
Carts or Trucks. 
We notice that some of the mule-breeders of the 
west are recommending mules for use in two¬ 
wheeled city carts and trucks, in preference to the 
horse. About twenty years since, being induced 
to try them for our own city cartage, we selected 
some of the largest we could find for this purpose. 
They ran 16'/ a to 17 hands high, and extra heavy 
bodied. We used them carefully and faithfully for 
several years, but were at last compelled to give 
them up, as far less suitable and enduring for this 
sort of work than horses. 
There were two essential reasons for their failure 
with us in two-wheeled carts. They were not heavy 
and compact enough in body to stand the rough 
jolting and swaying from one side to another of the 
cart shafts, when a wheel fell into a deep rut or 
hole, or had to pass over some obstruction in the 
street. Another difficulty was found in the fact that 
their feet were not sufficiently broad to clasp the 
round-topped cobble stones of a city pavement, to 
enable them to pull their load easily; they would 
often slip from the tops of the stones as they set 
them down, which added no little to the fatigue of 
their work, and both sprained and lamed them. 
Mules are generally tougher than horses, can en¬ 
dure worse treatment, and probably thrive on a 
coarser quality of food. They are also longer lived 
and less liable to disease. Harnessed to four- 
wheeled vehicles, working on smooth-paved streets, 
or McAdamized or ordinary country roads ; also for 
the general purposes of the farm, canal boat tow¬ 
ing, under the pack saddle, etc., they arc more 
economical than the horse, and for such usage can¬ 
not be too highly recommended. 
How to Get Eggs in Winter. 
We will not say that the farmer who leaves his 
poultry to roost in the apple tree at the corner of 
the barn, and to pick up their living at the pigs’ 
trough and in the barnyard, may not occasionally 
get an egg in winter. But as a matter of fact their 
is on mo6t farms a great dearth of eggs from No¬ 
vember to March. With a warm shelter, and suit¬ 
able feed, pullets that begin to lay in the fall will 
continue to lay through the winter. It is mainly a 
question of feed. The staple feed is Indian corn, 
especially in the west, because it is the most plenti¬ 
ful and the most convenient. It furnishes plenty 
of fat, and keeps up the heat of the fowls, but is 
poor in albumen and the phosphates. They want a 
variety of grains and vegetables, and, to do their 
best, one feed daily of warm cooked meal and vege¬ 
tables. Most farmers have milk, and if this can be 
added, it will be all they need. Butchers’ scrap 
cake is good, and may safely be kept in the poultry 
yard where the fowls can help themselves at plea- i 
sure. Boiled potatoes or turnips, mashed and 
mixed with Indian-meal, make an excellent feed 
for laying hens. Fowls are particularly fond of 
cabbages and turnips at all stages of their growth, 
and eat them raw greedily every day, if they can 
get them. We have found so good results from 
feeding cabbages to laying hens, that we always 
lay in a large supply for the winter. Refuse from 
the butchers, and offal from the fish-market, also 
furnish good material for making eggs. These are 
accessible to most villagers, and can be had at 
small cost. A hen is only a machine for producing 
eggs. If you want the finished product you must 
put the raw material into the hopper. It should 
not be forgotten that there is a liberal grinding 
going on in the gizzard, and the laying bird should 
have free access to gravel with sharp grit, broken 
oyster and clam shells, which assist in reducing the 
grains and forming egg-shells. With a plentiful 
supply of egg-producing food, hens will lay well in 
winter when eggs bring the highest price. 
Waste of Land. —If a farm of 160 acres is di¬ 
vided by fences into fields of 10 acres each, there 
are 5 miles of fences. If each fence now is one 
rod wide, no less than 10 acreB of land are occu¬ 
pied by them. This is equal to 61 per cent of the 
farm, and the loss of the use of the land is exactly 
equal to a charge of 61 per cent on the whole value 
of the farm. But nearly every fence row in the 
country is made a nursery for weeds, which stock 
the whole farm, and make an immense amount of 
labor necessary to keep them from smothering the 
crops. Much damage always results to the crop 
from these weeds, and if these expenses are added 
to the first one, the whole will easily sum up to 20 
per cent, or a tax of one-fifth of the value of the 
farm. To remedy this we would have fewer fences, 
or we would clean and sow down the fence rows to 
grass or clover, and mow them twice a year. Ten 
acres of clover or timothy would at least supply a 
farm with seed and a few tons of hay every year. 
We would in short consider the fence rows as a 
valuable part of the farm, and use them as such. 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 71 
BY GEORGIB E. WAltlNO, JR., 
The occupants of country and village houses are 
generally free from the great dangers that beset 
those living in towns, where the houses are in com¬ 
munication with poison-generating sewers, in which 
the accumulated wastes of large populations arc 
festering. But at the same time their domestic ar¬ 
rangements are often so much less complete, that 
there is a greater accumulation in and about the 
house, of matters which, by their putreraction, may 
generate disease. All who will adopt in some form 
the practice of using earth, or coal ashes, for the 
absorption and disinfection of water closets, will 
find that they can, in an extremely simple way, 
overcome one of the greatest annoyances, and ob¬ 
viate one of the greatest dangers connected with 
their mode of life. I say nothing about the advan¬ 
tage to a farmer of saving manure for profitable 
use, because I insist that this question is one which 
should be enforced on its own merits, as a measure 
of health and life. The manure is valuable of 
course, but any man who needs the argument of 
profit to induce him to purify and render more 
healthful the abode in which hjs wife and children 
are destined to live, may fairly fie presumed to be 
too dull to appreciate the economj’ of the practice. 
Hardly less important than the closet question, 
and so far as it relates to the production of fevers, 
not seldom, even more important, is the question 
of the kitchen drain. Nothing enters this except 
soap and grease, and the refuse of the cooking, all 
of which are in themselves comparatively inoffen¬ 
sive, and certainly not dangerous matter, but once 
accumulated and allowed time for decomposition, 
(usually covered from the light and where the cir¬ 
culation of air is imperfect), they enter a state of 
putrefaction in which they throw off gases that arc 
dangerous in themselves, and are often the vehicle 
of the seeds of disease. The trouble with the 
kitchen drain, however constructed, arises chiefly 
from the fact that it contains a large quantity of 
grease melted by the hot water accompanying it. 
This goes forward in a fluid form until the water has 
become sufficiently cold for it to harden, and then 
it attaches itself to the sides of the drain, or to 
crumbs of food or other organic matters which 
have attached themselves to previous deposits, and 
in this way, sooner or later, the drain becomes 
either so much choked that its flow is greatly inter¬ 
rupted, and thus decaying material gathers near the 
house, or that the greasy accumulation is in itself 
sufficiently large to produce the worst results on its 
decomposition at this short range from the kitchen. 
As a rule, the best made kitchen drains, as they 
now exist, are the worst. They have most of the 
inherent difficulties to which I have referred, arc 
permanently so hidden from sight that their condi¬ 
tion is not easily detected, and communicate with 
the inside of the house by a tight lead pipe that has 
often some sort of a trap, which is literally a trap 
to catch ignorant victims. As a means for prevent¬ 
ing the ingress of air from the drain, this trap is 
exceedingly defective, and the “bell-trap,” so 
often used, aside from having too little water to 
be of any effect, is constantly being lifted off to 
clean the sink, opening a still freer vent to the ac¬ 
cumulated air of the drain. 
It is not necessary here to go into the full ques¬ 
tion of the construction of sinks and drains, and 
their connection pipes, but it does seem worth 
while to describe the use of Field’s Flush-tank, of 
which I have before written, and which I have had 
for some time in use at my own house. Owing to 
the arrangement of my irrigating drains, and to the 
fact that my land is nearly level, the drain leading 
from the kitchen begins at a depth of only one 
foot below the surface of the ground, and only five 
feet below the level of the kitchen sink. The flush 
tank is about two feet and a half high, its outlet 
two feet below its top, therefore we could only 
bury it a little more than half its depth in the 
ground, and in order to protect it against frost, 
were obliged to house it in and pack it around with 
leaves, a protection that has been found amply 
