4 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
donment of almost every thing else for size. 
The best combination of the requisite qualities 
in the mule is not found in the production of a 
hot-bed policy, which by constant feeding, 
with every thing that will hasten growth, brings 
out a large, coarse, forced, overgrown, awkward 
animal, who decays as rapidly as he has been 
grown. If he were intended for the slaughter 
pen, this method of growing is correct, but 
when he is designed for the valleys of the South¬ 
ern rivers, where his service is active and his 
rations not very select, he wants more game, 
more spirit and action, more symmetry, and not 
too much size. Hence, our Tennessee mules, 
the produce of spirited jacks, are really more 
valuable to the Southern planters than the pro 
duce of Kentucky under her present system. 
This no doubt to some extent is the fault of 
the purchasers South, who have not generally 
discovered their error. They demand large size§, 
and pay in proportion to size ; and this, in 
part, explains the policy of Kentucky. My 
opinion is, that size in a mule is nothing after 
they reach fifteen hands high, and that many 
under that height come up to the standard 
value, fitted for cotton plantations. 
When compared to the blood horse, the mule 
is unfit for the saddle, pleasure carriage, or any 
harness requiring rapid motion. His sire is an 
animal of slothful tendencies, of slow motion 
generally, and hence the necessity of improving 
this quality in the jack. Give him spirit and 
action, and stamina rather than great height. 
One conforms to the laws of nature, and the 
other violates them. 
The Spanish and Maltese jacks have spirit 
generally, and for that reason are valuable as a 
cross; but they come to us without stamina and 
with a contracted chest. These faults must be 
remedied by proper crossing, before they will 
produce the mule best fitted for the malaria dis¬ 
tricts of the Southern rivers. 
It is our policy to grow the mule that will 
prove to be most valuable to the cultivators of 
the South, and rely upon their following their 
interest when explained to them, and proven 
upon trial to be true. 
What I have learned upon this subject is not 
from hearsay. I have purchased and grown all 
the mules which I have driven for twenty-five 
years in Mississippi. I have had that opportu¬ 
nity of knowing what they have done, and 
these opinions are the result of experience. 
This knowledge would have been of service to 
me in the commencement of my business, and 
I communicate it for the benefit of those who 
may adopt my opinion hereafter. 
Mark R. Cockrill. 
Nashville , Term ., June , 1854. 
- •- 
WEIGHT OF SEASONED 
WOOD. 
The following table shows the weight of a 
cord of seasoned wood : 
White ash, 
3450 lbs. 
Beach,. 
- 3236 
it 
Chestnut, - 
2333 
tl 
White elm, - 
Scaly bark hickory, - 
- 2592 
t< 
4469 
tt 
Pignut hickory, 
- 4241 
ct 
Red heart hickory, 
3705 
(( 
Iron wood, .... 
Hard maple, 
- 3218 
<< 
2878 
u 
Soft maple, - 
- 2668 
u 
White oak, 
3821 
tt 
Pin oak, .... 
- 3839 
<( 
Red oak, - 
Chestnut oak, 
3254 
it 
- 3030 
it 
Pine, 
1900 
it 
Lombardy poplar. 
- 1774 
it 
Thirty Thousand Pounds 
of Hops 
ON 
Twenty Acres of Land.— Messrs. T. A. & A. 
P. Smith, of this town, have the greatest crop 
of hops ever known in the country. It is es¬ 
timated by competent judges at 30,000 pounds. 
Hops are worth from 25 to 30 cents per pound. 
This crop grows on twenty acres of land. 
Eight or nine thousand dollars is a round sum 
to realize from only 20 acres.— Watertown (JU. 
Y.) Union. 
For the American Agriculturist. 
LETTER FKOM WATERLOO,'N, Y. 
Wheat after Corn.—Saving fodder early .— 
It would do you good to see the great breadth 
of corn in this county cut up, now standing in 
rows, while the farmer is busily plowing the 
field for wheat. The fodder thus saved with 
the leaves yet green and the sugar in the stalks 
intact, is worth double ordinary late cut corn 
fodder; thus some goo(l has grown out of the late 
trying drouth. Hay is short, corn ditto, and 
potatoes nothing; but we shall have more corn 
fodder by one-half than ever before, because the 
necessities of the farmer compel him to cut and 
cure it before its leaves and juices are wasted. 
When farmers have hay enough for winter, they 
let their corn stand until the advent of the early 
frosts, the result is, that the fodder has then lost 
much in bulk and most of its nutricious juices. 
It is supposed that one-third more corn was 
planted this year than last, but owing to the late 
spring, much of it being summer planted, it will 
be very light in the cereal yield; so that with 
all the good crops, and we shall have many, it 
is supposed that the general average will be only 
half a crop. 
Soiled versus Starved Cows. —In all good gar¬ 
dens corn has filled and ripened as well as ever, 
when planted as early as the 10th of May. 
Stowel sweet corn, being a late variety, has at¬ 
tained a height of ten and eleven feet; its ears 
did not fill as well as other earlier sweet corn, 
but the juices of its stalk were never before so 
rich in saccharine. Beets attain a large size, and 
are uncommonly rich in sugar—the mangel 
wurtzel as sweet as the sugar beet. This sea¬ 
son of hot weather and long drought has taught 
our farmers a salutary lesson, to wit: That un¬ 
less they tile drain so as to plant in the spring, 
they have no security against the drought of 
summer. I never had in any season corn yield 
better in my garden, the late planted excepted. 
Here is a farmer who makes the butter for his 
large family, and supplies three other families 
from five cows. There is another who says he 
milks five cows into one pail, and makes not 
butter enough for his family. The discrepancy 
in the luck of the two farmers is accounted for, 
from the fact that the farmer has a patch of In¬ 
dian corn, twelve rods square, sown broad-cast, 
adjoining his cow-yard, from which he soils his 
cows night and morning ; the other man’s cows 
starve in a burned up pasture. But the butter 
is nothing in compensation compared to the con¬ 
dition of the soiled animals; they will winter 
well, and be ready to give milk in the spring, 
while the starved cows will require the grass 
of a wet summer to make them whole. So 
much for a little patch of corn in a drouth. 
A great season for Lima Beans .— We have 
had Lima beans this season in full perfection, 
two weeks earlier than last year; other beans, 
seed onions, and cabbages, are reduced by 
drouth. I have heard many disputations of 
late among practical farmers as to the capacity 
of soils to stand drouth. I take it that soil 
bears drouth best which holds the most water 
by capillary attraction and its own porosity, 
neither a clay, nor sand, nor gravelly loam, but a 
combination of all, with a perfect intermixture 
of dark vegetable or carbonaceous matter. 
Wright's magnum bonum tobacco crop .— 
Joseph Wright has such a soil, thoroughly tile 
drained, on seven acres of which he has, so says 
a Kentucky planter, “ the best crop of tobacco 
a Kentuckyan ever saw;” had the season been 
less dry, the plants would probably have at¬ 
tained a more giant size, but the quality of the 
tobacco would perhaps have deteriorated in pro¬ 
portion. 
Still slop , &c. —I see that the New-York 
press, and Tray, Blanche & Sweet-heart to 
back them, are down upon still fed cows’ milk. 
Why is it that milk made like a Yankee’s bones, 
of Indian corn, is not wholesome, containing as 
it does, barring a little sugar and starch, all the 
elements of the corn itself. Methinks it would 
have been better and more humane, to give the 
cows a little marsh hay, more fresh air, exercise, 
and dryer and more cleanly lodgings, before 
the slop is so unphilosophically condemned. 
N’ Imports. 
Waterloo , Sept . 2,1852. 
DUCKS. 
I would recommend no one to keep ducks, 
who has not the means of separating them 
from his fowls. When fed together, the latter 
are much in the predicament of the stork when 
he was invited by the fox to take his dinner off 
a platter. Like Amine, the ghoul, fowls pick 
grain by grain, but the duck does his work like 
a navvy, by the shovelful. Their appetite 
being very great, they require a large range to 
enable them to pick up a fair proportion of 
their own keep, and if this space cannot be af¬ 
forded, they will generally be found an unpro¬ 
fitable investment. 
As regards rearing ducklings, I would simply 
recommend that they be kept from the water 
for at least a fortnight in fine, and a month in 
cold weather. If more than one brood is out 
at the same time, the old birds should be 
cooped, as a duck’s bite is almost certain death. 
If you wish to rear ducks for breeding pur¬ 
poses, do not hatch them under a hen. Many 
persons always clip the tails of ducklings as 
soon as hatched. It may be a beneficial opera¬ 
tion, and can certainly do no harm. 
There are three kinds of duck that perch, of 
which I shall proceed to describe the Musk, the 
only one on which I feel myself qualified to 
speak. The Pintail and Wood duck, with 
many other varieties, I must leave to abler 
hands. Speaking as a man rather than ornitho¬ 
logist, I must pronounce the Musk duck to be 
a beast. Where there is an absence of water, 
it might be worth while to keep them, as they 
are as little of aquatic birds as any thing with 
webbed feet can well be. They do not lay so 
well as the common duck, and their eggs are 
smaller. Instead of being white, or green, or 
pale blue, or blackish, they are buff colored, 
and, as well as I can remember, (for it is long 
since I kept them,) they seem to be affected 
with an outbreak of measles in the form of 
minute specks. Their color is in general black, 
or black and white, though I have seen them 
pure white. They seldom utter any sound than 
a low hiss, and are so lazy that it requires some 
strong excitement to induce them to quack. 
They are a type of quaint old Fuller’s dog, who 
was so indolent, that he used to support him¬ 
self against a wall when he exerted himself to 
bark. I do not know or care whence the Musk 
duck comes or goes, as he is of little use 
whether alive or dead. In the latter case, he 
tastes very strong unless killed at an early age. 
As they will cross with the common duck, it 
may be worth while to breed for the table; but 
the produce must be killed young, which course 
would anticipate the advantage to be derived 
from the addition to the size. Whether the 
cross is productive, I cannot say, as, though I 
have had them, I never attempted to perpetuate 
the breed. 
Here ends my gosip about ducks. 
The dinner’s waiting, I am tired, 
Says reader, “ So am I.” 
Alector, in Poultry Chronicle. 
Peas Growing in Potatoes. — At a recent 
meeting of one of the French Agricultural So¬ 
cieties a curious fact was related. A farmer 
stuck a pea in a potato, and planted them to¬ 
gether in March last. The pea produced a stalk 
which was covered with pods, and the potato 
gave eleven healthy roots. The farmer is of opi¬ 
nion that, by this system, it is possible not only 
to obtain a two-fold crop, but to prevent the 
malady in potatoes. 
