196 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
STABLING CATTLE IN SUMMER. 
The common practice of allowing cattle 
to remain in the open yard, or in the pas¬ 
ture, over night, is a wasteful one. If in 
the pasture, the most valuable part of the 
droppings are wasted. If our pastures were 
in fine condition, with a loose permeable 
soil, the liquid manure would be retained and 
absorbed by the soil before it had time to 
evaporate. But most of our pastures are 
hard, for want of plowing for many years, 
and some of them have never been plowed 
at all. The solid and liquid manure dropped 
upon them, is mostly lost in the air. 
That which falls in the barn-yard is lost 
in the same way, unless great pains be taken 
to keep it well coated with muck, and to 
plow the muck as often as once a w r eek. 
Fifteen or twenty cows confined in a small 
vard, very soon tread down the earth into a 
solid hard-pan, like a traveled highway. In 
many a yard well supplied with muck, this 
hard-pan is not broken from the time it is 
carted in, in May, until it is carted out the 
following Spring. The most precious part 
of the droppings is evaporated in a constant 
cloud of ammonia, during the long Summer 
months. It is forgotton that muck is com¬ 
paratively worthless in the yard, unless it be 
intimately mixed with the manure. In the 
hurry of the Summer work, the frequent 
plowing and harrowing of the yards are ne¬ 
glected. Meanwhils the farmers’ riches 
take wings, while he works in the field by 
day and as he sleeps at night. 
But if the muck is supplied, and the plow¬ 
ing is attended to, in the most thorough 
manner, it does not save the manure so ef¬ 
fectually as stabling the cattle at night. In a 
barn properly constructed, the manure falls 
through trap doors into the cellar beneath, 
upon a bed of muck always light and spon¬ 
gy. Here no sun can reach it, nor winds to 
waste its gases. The process of fermenta¬ 
tion is held in check by the cool temperature, 
and the intermixing of the manure with the 
muck. Where a herd of cows is trained to 
this treatment, they go readily to their stalls, 
and are at once secured, and ready for the 
milkers. They are less troubled with the 
Hies than in the open yard, and the milker is 
never disturbed by a run-away cow. The 
animals, too, it is claimed, are more com¬ 
fortable in the cooler temperature of the 
barn. They are also ready for the extra 
fodder which many farmers are beginning 
to find it profitable to give to their cows, in 
the dry weather of August and September. 
There are few pastures so flush with feed, 
that there is not a pinch at some period of 
the Summer. A cow, to do her best and 
yield the largest profit, should have a full 
supply of food continually. The corn that 
has been sown for soiling now comes in to 
meet the deficiency of grass. It is cut and 
drawn to the barn floor as wanted, and fed 
out to the cattle. The flow of milk is kept 
up, the quantity of butter increased, and the 
swelling heap of compost in the cellar be¬ 
neath tells a good story of the profit of sta¬ 
bling cows in Summer. It is a little more 
trouble, but the labor is abundantly rewarded. 
FARM SURROUNDINGS. 
NUMBER VI.-TURKEYS. 
In our last (at page 148), we discoursed of 
poultry—hens, commonly called. We now talk 
of the turkey, a weightier, if not more useful 
creature ; fur next to chickens, we consider them 
the greatest luxury of the farmer’s table, and the 
most attractive for the market. The policy of 
keeping and rearing turkeys will depend much on 
your farm or homestead, its proximity to neigh¬ 
bors, the liability to depredations by vermin and 
birds of prey—a dozen things, in fact, which y.our 
own observation or experience must decide. We 
presume, however, that your facilities for both 
keeping and rearing them are good, and there¬ 
fore we go on. But we will say in starting, that 
if you have valuable grain fields of any kind near 
the farm buildings where your poultry is kept, and 
you cherish the grain crops more than the tur¬ 
keys, by all means let the latter alone, unless you 
confine them till after harvest, for they are an 
uncontrollable pest in standing grain. Grass 
lands are best for them, for the young ones will 
not injure it, if the broods, with the mothers, are 
confined while the meadows are growing, and 
hay-cutting is usually over by the time the chick¬ 
ens are in “the road,” up to which time they 
should be confined ; and when the crop is se¬ 
cured, the grass-hoppers are large enough to give 
them all the food they need, except a slight meal 
at night, when they return from foraging, and to 
call them into their usual roosts for the night. 
Even in grain fields they are capital gleaners ; 
and as with grass feed, they may be kept close till 
grain is cut, when they then turn out, and in open 
column spread over the stubble, picking up the 
scattered kernels, and devouring insects alike, 
a beautiful sight they are, and we have stop¬ 
ped hours in our saunterings over the shorn 
fields to watch with what alacrity they spy and 
chase, and gobble down the depredators on the 
fruits of our toil and solicitude. So, let the 
country dweller and the farmer weigh well his 
choice, whether he will be spoiled by noxious in¬ 
sects, or spare a little wholesome toll to his 
young turkeys, who are sure, at the close of the 
season, to reward him richly for all his pains 
with them, coupled with a little depredation—on 
our own lands, be it understood—but not on our 
neighbors. 
Turkeys, usually, are not of any particular 
breed. They are all of one original race—the 
wild bird of the American forests. In their nor¬ 
mal state, they are of one color, as described by 
Wilson, Bonaparte and Audubon, in their books 
of ornithology. Their color is a bronze brown, 
of great glossiness, with a metallic coppery lustre, 
glittering beautifully in the sunshine ; a plumage 
of exceeding brilliancy. Seldom are their pris¬ 
matic colors equalled by those in a state of do¬ 
mestication, and were the wild bird easily brought 
into subjection, and so retained in its purity, we 
should greatly prefer its uniformity of plumage, 
and the erect gait and imperial habit which it 
brings from the woods. But these are counter¬ 
balanced by its shy disposition and propensity to 
ramble abroad, secreting its nests in the' woods 
or groves, and by the casualties they are prone 
to suffer in the indulgence of such vagrant hab¬ 
its. Commend us, then, for domestic uses, all 
things considered, to the best kinds of domesti¬ 
cated turkeys. The wild bird is no larger in size 
than the average of tame turkeys, although some 
people think so. Though not of different breeds, 
there is quite a variety of style and size in the 
domestic turkey, according to the treatment they 
receive at the hands of their breeders, and the 
soils and food on which they are reared. The 
largest and finest birds we have seen are those of 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the primitive 
soils of Eastern and lower New-York, New- 
Jersey, and Eastern Pennsylvania. Dry, graveliy 
soils are proverbially healthy for them. They 
are reared usually by small farmers, on mixed 
food, such as milk, boiled potatoes and Indian 
meal, when young, and fed off on corn and 
cooked mush in preparing for market. They thus 
acquire a weight of several pounds larger at 
maturity than when reared on moist or clayey 
grounds, and left to shift for themselves in in¬ 
fancy. We have seen many a full-grown gobblei 
at two or three years old, that would weigh 
thirty to thirty-five pounds alive, at his fattest, 
and hens of equal size, that would kick the steel¬ 
yard beam at eighteen and twenty pounds, while 
the neglected ones, at their very best, would 
hardly reach twenty or twenty-five in the one, 
and a dozen to fifteen pounds in the other. The 
turkey is like every other animal, in fact, im¬ 
proved or deteriorated as they are treated, cared 
for, and acclimated. 
As to color, it is chiefly a matter of taste in the 
selection. We have kept them of all shades, 
from a jet hlack to a snow white. But on the 
whole, we prefer colors other than pure white. 
As a variety, the whites are fanciful, but we 
never saw them so large as the others ; nor are 
they usually so hardy ; and their skin is paler, in¬ 
dicating less flavor in flesh than the darker ones. 
The white ones have white legs also, which is 
objectionable. The true color of a turkey’s leg is 
a deep pink or reddish j that of the wild bird is 
always so ; yet the coal black ones have usually 
a dark leg, but redeemed by a gold-colored skin, 
covering a rich, high-flavored meat. The dark- 
colored birds, also, are more hardy, and require 
less nursing than white ones. Any color, in fact, 
which has a black or dark edging to the feathers, 
even if the body of the feathers be white, is good, 
and if the birds themselves bear our description, 
we would not object to them. If a variety of 
color be desirable in your flock, you have but to 
select your breeders of different hues, and every 
probable shade, between a crow black and a pure 
white will be among the offspring. 
In selecting your breeding birds, a perfect 
form and a stout healthy body should be the first 
objects. The cock should be proud, full of gob¬ 
ble, and strut,—domineering and pretentious. 
These characteristics indicate constitution, hardi¬ 
ness, and stamina. The hen should be quiet in 
habit, full in body and feather, and domestic in 
her attachments. We do not here propose to lay 
down directions for the treatment and rearing of 
turkeys, as it would occupy more space than we 
have to give, and as we have already alluded to 
the excellent treatise of our friend Bement, in his 
Harper’s Edition of the “ Poulterer’s Companion,” 
shall turn our reader over to him for full details on 
that subject. We have bred turkeys from our 
eaily boyhood, have had varied success with 
them, keep them now of a size and weight the 
largest and heaviest that we have named, and 
think that we can almost beat the world in the 
excellence and prowess of our birds, which, by 
the way, we care not to tell of, as a whole army 
of our pains-taking subscribers would besiege us 
for specimens. We therefore give them due 
notice that we are not a turkey merchant, and for 
their wants in that line commend them to an 
examination of the various flocks in tneir own 
neighborhood and elsewhere, from which either 
to commence their own stock, or invigorate and 
improve it, if needful. One or two items in man¬ 
agement, however, we will name, by an adhe¬ 
rence to which we have been uniformlv success¬ 
ful. These are, first : Have a kind, faithful, ex- 
