147 
AME 11 10AN A G B10 ULTUKIST. 
POINTS OF AN AYRSHIRE COW. 
-•- 
Would you know how to judge ;t good Ayrshire cow, 
Attend to the lesson you’ll hear from me now : 
Her head should be short, and her muzzle good size; 
Hei nose should be fine between muzzle and eyes ; 
Her eyes full and lively ; forehead ample and wide ; 
Horns wide, looking up, and curved inwards beside ; 
Her neck should be a fine, tapering wedge, 
And free from loose skin on the undermost edge ; 
Should be fine where’t is joined with the seat of the brain ; 
Long and straight overhead, without hollow or mane ; 
Shoulder-blades should be thin where they meet at the top ; 
Let her brisket be light, nor resemble a crop ; 
Her fore-part recede like the lash of a whip, 
And strongly resemble the bow of a ship; 
Her back short and straight, with the spine well defined, 
Especially where the back, neck, and shoulders are joined; 
Her ribs short and arched, like the ribs of a barge ; 
Body deep at the flanks ; and milk-veins full and large; 
Pelvis long, broad, and straight, and, in some measure, flat; 
Hook-bones wide apart, and not bearing much fat; 
Her thighs deep and broad, neither rounded nor flat; 
Her tail long and fine, and joined square with her back ; 
Milk-vessels capacious, and forward extending ; 
The hinder part broad, and to body fast pending; 
The sole of her udder should form a plane, 
And all the four teats equal thickness attain, 
Their length not exceeding two inches or three ; 
They should hang to the earth perpendicularly ; 
Their distance apart, when they’re viewed from behind, 
Will include about half of the udder you ’ll find ; 
And, when vie wed from the side, they will have at each end 
As much of the udder as ’tween them is penned ; 
Her legs should be short, and the bones fine and clean, 
The points of the latter being firm and keen ; 
Skin soft and elastic as a cushion of air, 
And covered all o’er with short, close, woolly hair ; 
The colors preferred are confined to a few— 
Either brown and white chequered, or all brown, will do; 
The weight of the animal, leaving the stall, 
Should be about five hundred weight, sinking offal. 
[Farmer’s Gazette. 
WESTERN CATTLE-PROSPECTS AND PRICES. 
In our reports of the cattle market here, 
we have frequently remarked upon the num¬ 
ber of beef cattle and swine, forced upon the 
market before their time ; and in the case of 
the bullocks, although the quotations by the 
pound indicated fair prices, the sums realized 
per head were often less than the cost of the 
animals last June ; leaving the interest, pas¬ 
turage, transportation, commission, attend¬ 
ance, risk, &c., all a total loss. This must be 
the case, in a great degree, upon all the 
droves sold in our market, composed of three 
and four year old steers, at $40 to $45 a 
head. 
The loss upon swine, at 4c. and 4ic. a 
pound, is quite as bad. The cause of this 
comes in a great degree from the drouth, 
and consequent failure of pasturage and 
cutting short of corn crops, so that owners 
were unable to fatten, and feared to risk 
buying feed at the advanced rates or holding 
over until another season. For the same 
reason a great many cows and immature 
two and and three year old steers and heifers 
have been sent to the shambles. This must 
affect the supply next season, so that the 
prospect of cheap meat is not at all flatter¬ 
ing. Independent of this, there is a very 
large local western demand, occasioned by 
the vast immigration constantly flowing 
that way. The Minnesota Democrat, St. 
Paul, October 25th, says : 
“ Cattle, both for beef and work purposes, 
are coming in rapidly, but the demand is 
greater than the supply. As an instance of 
what has been done, we may mention that 
our townsman, Charles Coulter, has since 
the opening of the season, brought up for the 
supply of this market, from Iowa, Illinois, 
and Wisconsin, upward of 1,000 head of 
beef cattle. There are a number of other 
persons engaged in the business, and they 
have been kept busily engaged all the time. 
The ruling price in the market is 8 cents, 
nett, for good cattle on the hoof. 
“Work cattle are scarce and very high. 
Those brought here, and they have come in 
great numbers, have changed hands rapidly, 
and scattered over the Territory, are aiding 
our farmers to till the generous soil. Every 
steamboat that arrives brings a number of 
them and they are driven here by land in 
droves.” 
The demand for Kansas settlers is also 
proportionably great; and every spring the 
number that is driven over the plains is al¬ 
most beyond belief. 
What, then, is our prospect for the winter 
or the next season 1 It is a subject of deep 
interest to farmers and all who feed cattle, 
and they should study it well, and thereon 
base their calculations. 
The Cincinnati Price Current of Novem¬ 
ber 1, says that prime beef cattle are scarce 
at $6 50 a $7 per cwt., nett, and are held firm 
at that price. Nothing but a short supply in 
the country, or short crops of beef-producing 
food, could induce such prices. 
The same paper says that hogs sold tire 
past week at $3 75 a $3 80 nett, but that was 
partly owing to warm weather. Of those 
cut up, the sides were rendered into lard, 
and the shoulders and hams sold at 3t a 5£c. 
The Examiner, Lexington, Mo., says that 
$3 50 a $4 for pork is all that can be calcu¬ 
lated upon in that country, though farmers 
generally anticipate high prices on account 
of the great deficiency in the corn crop in 
that State. These prices of pork and beef 
do not correspond, and show very plainly to 
us that scarcity of beef cattle has more to do 
with the price than scarcity of feed. On the 
other hand there is an ample supply of hogs 
—too great for the corn crop of the West, 
and hence their low prices, here and there. 
We have come to the conclusion that there 
is an alarming deficiency of horned cattle in 
the United States, and that this is the cause 
of high prices of beef—higher, as a univer¬ 
sal thing, than ever known in any former 
year; and unless some plan can be devised 
to stay the wastefully wicked destruction of 
calves and young cattle, we may never see 
the day again of cheap roast beef. 
One of the most feasible plans, perhaps, 
that could be devised, would be a law to pre¬ 
vent the killing of calves. Not exactly to 
prevent the owners from killing—for any 
man may destroy such property belonging to 
him—but a law to forbid the sale of veal 
calves under six weeks’ old. 
What if all the money now annually ap¬ 
propriated to agricultural societies should be 
given, pro rata, to the counties rearing the 
largest number of calves, or else divide it 
per capita, upon all that may be raised to the 
age of two years'? It would do more good 
to the State in two years than has been done 
by all the money wasted upon State and 
County shows. 
We are now killing off the calves, gener¬ 
ally at less than a week old, aud importing 
from the Western States all of our own beef 
cattle, working oxen and cowsi The conse¬ 
quence is, we have exhausted the supply. 
The Western farmers, tempted by the enor¬ 
mous prices that have been offered them, 
since the railroads have been completed so 
as to bring cattle cheaply and rapidly into 
market, have sold off their unripe crop of 
beeves, and now they can not fill our orders, 
at such prices as beef could, would, and 
should be produced in this country, if a ra¬ 
tional course was pursued. Our present 
policy is as foolish as killing the goose that 
lays the golden egg. 
Shall-we allow it to become a historical 
fact, that America can not produce beef 
enough for her own use, when we shall be 
able to sell at a fair profit to the farmer, and 
still undersell every other northern section 
of the world ; for we certainly have the 
means of making, not only the most, but the 
best beef cattle at the least cost, of any other 
country; and yet we are consuming the 
meanest quality of cattle ever eaten by any 
civilized people ! 
A great good would be done, if our City 
government would prohibit the sale of all 
cattle, that would not pass inspection, and 
positively forbid any person to bring two 
days’ old calves, or their meat within the 
City limits. 
The prospect of any material reduction in 
the price of beef, for the next year, need not 
be indulged in ; and unless something can be 
done to put a stop to the universal destruc¬ 
tion of the raw material out of which beef is 
made, the prospect for future years is indeed 
a gloomy one. [Tribune. 
EXPERIMENT IN GUANO. 
-——O—— 
Mr. Editor : An experiment, which I have 
just completed with guano in a small way, on 
peas, has resulted so favorably that I feel 
disposed to send the details for publication. 
On a spot of sandy loam, having a rapid 
descent, and a southern exposure, I planted 
one quart of large marrowfat peas, on the 
20th of March. The ground was in grass 
the preceding year, and was broken up in the 
autumn, previous to planting. In the spring 
I gave it a good harrowing, and sowed the 
peas in double drills. The quantity of guano 
was, as nearly as I could calculate, at the 
rate of one barrel per acre. It was deposited 
in the drills, by hand, before sowing the 
seed, and covered the same day, almost the 
same hour, it was dropped. The piece thus 
manured, consisted of six double rows. Im¬ 
mediately in contact with these rows—the 
soil of the entire piece being precisely of the 
same construction and character—I planted 
six others, which were manured liberally 
with old compost, and another six rows on 
the other side, manured with poudrette. 
The whole eighteen rows were treated pre¬ 
cisely alike, in every respect, from the com¬ 
mencement ; all being planted on the same 
day, and hoed, stuck and harvested on the 
same days. From the time the peas made 
their appearance—and they all emerged 
from the soil simultaneously, or nearly so, 
those manured with guano took the lead, and 
this superiority they maintained till the 
period of maturity arrived. The vines were 
not only much more vigorous in their devel- 
opement, but of a darker and more luxuriant 
green. When the fruit set, there was near¬ 
ly double the number of pods on the six mid¬ 
dle rows that there were on the others, and 
at harvest the excess of yield was found to 
be in nearly the same ratio. The six rows 
dressed with the stable manure, out-stripped 
the six dressed with poudrette, in the relative 
degree of five to four, and produced a fairer 
and plumper grain, but less stalk, by weight. 
The season was for the most part dry, with 
only occasional showers, and those not suffi¬ 
ciently copious to wet down to the roots. 
There was but one storm of any duration 
from the period of planting, till harvest, and 
that occurred at the time the crop was in 
blossom. You are at liberty to do as you 
please with this—publish, or not. 
Germantown Telegraph. 
Cattle Market. —The largest market ever 
known was held at Smithfield, on Monday. 
From the returns furnished, it appears that 
the beasts were 5,688 in number, and the 
sheep 46,950. The supply, even at the 
“ Grand Christmas Show,” has never been so 
large. Beside these, there was a large num¬ 
ber of calves and pigs. At a very moderate 
calculation, the value of the animals offered 
for sale would amount to a quarter of a mil¬ 
lion sterling. [English Paper. 
Never listen to loose or idle conversation. 
