248 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
of new things. Tlie Jersey cows are small, 
thin, and their milking qualities are fabulous. 
The general opinion is that they come from the 
pine barrens of New Jersey, and are a new de¬ 
vice of speculators to humbug farmers. Jake 
Frink’s experience in Tafeu and other boughten 
manures is still remembered, and the old birds 
in these parts are not to be taken a second time 
with chaff. Meanwhile, Ossipee and his mates 
have gone to pasture, and must stand upon 
their own merits. It is somewhat unfortunate 
that the claims of the Jersey breeders are mis¬ 
understood. An old-style farmer breeds natives 
for beef, for working cattle, for calves, milk, 
butter, and cheese, and a breed doesn’t amount to 
much with him unless it meets all these ends. 
He sees a Jersey cow, weighing five hundred 
or less, and a yearling bull that he could put in 
his lumber wagon about as easy as he could a 
calf. He exclaims, “It is all nonsense to have 
such trash upon the farm. They won’t make 
oxen; the calves are no bigger than wood¬ 
chucks, and they arc worth nothing to fat, for 
there is next to nothing of ’em when made into 
beef.” The Devon breeder, with his sprightly 
team, walking off almost as fast as horses, turns 
up his nose at the Jerseys. They will never 
make working cattle. They are homely in color, 
lacking in size, and can’t endure much. “What 
fools men are to buy Jerseys !” The admirer 
of Short-horns is still more disgusted with our 
little favorites. He can make a thousand pounds 
of clean beef on one of his frames in two years. 
“Why should sensible men bother themselves 
with such paltry rats! If you are going to 
make beef, take something that will make it, 
and see it grow.” 
Now, I do not see why we may not breed 
cows for butter just as well as for beef, or for 
large quantities of milk, or to give us sprightly 
red working oxen. There is certainly need 
enough of it, for butter is about the dearest 
among farm products. If I wanted everything 
in one animal, I should not breed Jerseys, 
though I have seen very fair grade Jersey work¬ 
ing oxen ; and I have eaten as good beef of this 
stock as ever came to market. I want good, 
rich milk for my coffee, cream for my straw¬ 
berries and other fruits, and golden butter for 
my johnny cakes and lima beans. If there is 
any animal that can equal the Jersey cow in 
giving rich milk, I have not found it. Just how 
this breed came by this quality I may not be 
able to tell. Titus Oaks maybe right or wrong 
in laying it to the buffalo of America. It shows 
a pretty keen scent to smell a buffalo track 
after two centuries. But of the fact that this 
breed gives richer milk than any other, there 
can be no doubt. They will make more rich 
cream and butter out of a given quantity of 
fodder than the Durhams or Devons. There is, 
indeed, a difference among them, as there is 
among other breeds. But they as uniformly 
give rich milk as the Short-horns give large 
carcasses of good, juicy beef. There are multi¬ 
tudes of men, and the number is steadily in¬ 
creasing in our cities and villages, who keep 
but one or two cows for family supplies. They 
do not want to sell milk. They do not want 
skim milk for the pigs. They want good milk 
for the baby, plenty of cream, and butter of the 
best quality for the table. They have fastidious 
tastes, it may be, but they have them very de¬ 
cidedly, and are willing to pay for them. Now, 
I claim that it is a farmer’s business to supply 
the market with those articles in his line that 
are most in demand. If scrub cows are going 
out of fashion, and nobody wants them who 
can get anything better, what is the use of my 
raising them ? If men who can afford to pay 
for it want their milk condensed, the Jersey 
cow will do it about as well as Gail Borden, 
and it won’t cost half so much. I don’t mean 
any reflection upon that gentleman, or the rival 
milk condensers, but I rather guess if the Jer¬ 
seys had been better known, their occupation 
would, have been gone. These folks, too, who 
want family cows, haven’t a great deal of barn 
room, and they want the cow put up in the 
smallest compass. The Jersey hits this nail 
exactly on the head. You can’t put her in a 
hen-coop exactly, but you can put her and the 
coop into a common stall without overcrowd¬ 
ing. They want something, too, that is just a 
little handsome, and fond of being petted, to 
keep company with the well-groomed horses, 
and to share the attentions of Levi, when he 
has put the last touch upon his sleek team. I 
know there are some very bad looking Jerseys, 
with ugly heads, sharp bones, and thin, lank 
carcasses. But take them as a race, they are fair 
to the sight, and an ornament to the farm-yard. 
A little oil-meal inside and the brush outside 
improve their looks, and help the butter won¬ 
derfully. Their mealy mouths, perhaps, indi¬ 
cate the want of meal. At any rate, it is a 
pretty safe rule to follow. There are several 
different styles of Jersey cattle. I like the wild 
Jersey type the best, which is very popular with 
some of our best breeders. They have black 
tongues, black noses, and mealy muzzles. The 
horns are black, small, firm, pointed, brown 
near the head, but not waxy. In shape, the 
horns have but one curve (except that the horns 
of females turn back a little at the very end), 
standing high—as high as at right angles with a 
line drawn from the mouth to the ear, forming 
a curve of nearly half a eircle. The foundation 
color of the females is chocolate, dark brown 
or olive along the back, and a brownish gray 
between the horns and eyes. The hair is soft, 
silky or woolly on the bodj', through which 
there project, after the calves are four to eight 
months old, long, coarse hairs, often tipped with 
white or brown, sometimes all black, or other 
color. The males are much darker, nearly 
black, but neither males nor females have any 
white spots, and both change color. The skin, 
udder, teats, and inside of the ears, are olive 
brown, with a brown stripe in the ear, and the 
ends of the tail terminate in a brush, like the 
American buffalo. There is no coloring matteron 
the end of the tail, but it is dry and scaly. Then 
they have a wild look and action, not easily de¬ 
scribed, which I suppose Titus would say smelt 
of the buffalo. Cattle of this type are as hand¬ 
some as deer, and will long be in demand at 
high prices, for folks will buy them as they do 
pictures—just to look at. 
Iloolcertoivn , Conn., i Tours to Command, 
Jane 15,1SG9. j Timothy Bunker, Esq. 
--<0-3- '■ TT3 O0 g l — » **-- 
How to Make Good Pastures. 
Many an acre grazed will not carry a sheep. 
Other acres will give full feed to a cow, each, 
all through the summer, and be pretty good 
mowing when frost comes. Both kinds pass 
under our observation every day. The differ¬ 
ence is not in the original character of the land, 
for it is found on adjoining farms, with the 
same formation, and with the surface and sub¬ 
soil looking just alike. There is a big pasture 
of 50 acres, where fifty sheep would lose rather 
than gain flesh during the summer. The oldest 
inhabitant docs not remember when it was plow¬ 
ed, seeded, or top-dressed. It has always been 
[July, 
pastured—generally by cows—until it ceased 
to yield feed enough to support them. There 
is some grass upon it now, but more mulleins, 
five-fingers, and moss. The grass is nearly 
choked out. But the soil was originally good. 
The trees that still stand on the borders are 
heavy oak and chestnut timber, which do not 
thrive on poor, thin soils. Yonder is a field of 
five acres, that pastures five cows, and has done 
it for several years. The grass is luxuriant, 
and grows much faster than the cattle can con¬ 
sume it. It was stocked down five years ago, 
after several years of heavy cropping, with 
vegetables and tobacco. Of course it was ma¬ 
nured heavily, and very thoroughly cultivated. 
The land will feel that treatment, and make 
grateful returns, for a vdiole generation to come. 
It is far within the limits of truth to say, that 
one acre of this five is worth the vdiole fifty of 
the other for the purpose of sustaining animal 
life and making salable products. The one does 
not pay taxes; the other pays them and a hand¬ 
some profit. Now we do not believe there is 
any royal road to thrift with these run-down 
pastures. Top-dressing will not answer, for the 
grass seed is not there to vegetate. Seeding will 
do little good, for the grass already there is 
growing small by degrees. If the soil is fair, 
arable land, plo.w, plant, manure, and cultivate, 
and you give it a new start. That old sod of dead 
grass roots and moss rots, becomes plant-food, 
and sends up joyful harvests. But this will cost 
money, spent in manure, seeds, and labor. You 
say, Of course it will, and if you get your money 
back again, principal and interest, you ought to 
be satisfied. If by spending $50 upon a worth¬ 
less acre of pasture you make it pay you the in¬ 
terest on $G0 above the working expenses, you 
are doing a good business. We must use our 
capital in farming just as we do in other enter¬ 
prises. We must bury it as we do our wheat, 
that it may live and bear fruit. If we buy 
stock in a railroad, or in almost any enterprise, 
the capital dies for a time. We do not lose 
faith if it does not come back the first or second 
year. Spent in renovating old pastures by plow¬ 
ing and manuring it usually gives full interest 
the first year, and puts us in the way to secure 
dividends for years to come 
--.SOB—-- «-■ 
The Intermixture of Seeds. 
BY AN OLD SEED GROWER. 
Varieties of beets, cabbages, turnips, and all 
other kinds for seed, should be set as far apart 
as possible, to avoid intermixture, especially 
cabbages, no two varieties of which should be 
seeded within half a mile, certainly never nearer 
than eighty rods. 'Beans may be planted nearer 
together, with less danger of mixture, than 
most other seeds. Any varieties may be grown 
close together, free from mixture, if they do not 
flower at the same time. Cucumbers, melons, 
and squashes, will not mix, as is supposed by 
many, neither will the watermelon mix with 
the muskmelon. The large, thick, white seed¬ 
ed squashes, with fleshy stems, like the Boston 
Marrow and Hubbard, will not mix with the 
flat, drab seeded ones, with angular stems, like 
the Winter Crookneck, Summer Squashes, or 
common yellow pumpkin; but these latter will 
mix together. Whatever mixture takes place 
in the seeds of cucumbers, melons, and squashes, 
tomatoes, egg plants, and peppers, will not ap¬ 
pear in the fruit the first year. It is in the 
crop from the seeds of different varieties of 
these which have been grown near together 
that the mixture will show itself the next year. 
