AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
809 
knows how to get home in season, and little 
Morgan doing a little more —to keep up. His 
long, lank legs soon gets tired; his footing is 
unsure; his bellows gets out of order; he is 
overheated ; he lays the foundation of troubles 
that are perfected in the full-grown horse. 
For the first six months of this life, the chief 
food of the foal is “ mother’s milk,” although he 
will pick up now and then a little else with all 
the pride of incipient horsehood. If the marc be 
insufficiently fed during this period, or over¬ 
worked, (which lessens her yield of milk,) the 
foal is, in either case, half-starved; and a half- 
starved colt is almost never well made when 
he arrives at maturity. He is always a weed. 
He should be well fed from, and before the time 
of his birth. 
At one year old, though the colt has by no 
means attained his fulness of form, it may be 
decided whether or not to retain him as a Stal¬ 
lion. If at this age, however many good points 
he may possess, indications of contracted feet, 
founder, or any other diseases heretofore men¬ 
tioned as transmissible, be seen, geld him at once. 
He ought not to serve as a stallion. 
At three years old, a horse may be allowed 
very moderate service. Over-taxation of his 
powers at this age—or at any age for that mat¬ 
ter—is short-sighted policy for the owner. As 
a four-year old, he will be more natured and full 
of vigor, and at five he is still more able to do 
service. It is a too common fault—this over¬ 
taxation of a Stallion’s powers; and it tells both 
on himself and on his get. The English limit 
for a prize horse “ that travels his district,” is 
sixty mares in a season ; but eighty are often 
covered without prejudice. What shall we say 
of horse-owners, who boast of having had double 
these numbers served in a season by their horse 
—sometimes three a day! 
A noble instance of the evils of over¬ 
taxing a horse’s procreative powers, occurred 
in England many years ago, in the case of 
a celebrated stud belonging to H. R. H., the 
Prince of Wales. The groom was permitted 
to pocket a half guinea fee from all comers; 
and it may well be guessed that no appli¬ 
cants were refused. The consequences were 
serious to the horse, and to very many of his get. 
Another instance is within our knowledge. A 
Stallion of some repute in England, was allowed 
to serve one hundred and forty-three mares in a 
season, and was then sold to go to Virginia. 
Most of his colts of that year proved to be miser¬ 
able creatures; and in Virginia, in the year fol¬ 
lowing, he himself proved perfectly impotent. 
The small size of very many, I may say, of a 
large majority of our horses, is an evil that is 
great, and growing (like a cow’s tail) downwards. 
This may be attributed to a poor selection of 
breeding-mares, the scant feeding of the dam 
before and after foaling—thus half-starving the 
foal; bad usage of colts by stinted food or un¬ 
sheltered exposure to cold and storms, and the 
general over-taxation of the powers of Stallions. 
We are well aware that some persons who 
pass for wise men in matters of horse-flesh, con¬ 
tend that this smallness of size is no objection 
to a horse; and cite for proof the fact that some 
of the fleetest Arabian coursers are but lh|- 
hands high. Admit that these Arabian light¬ 
ning streaks are of so small a size, and What 
does it prove? Nothing. When the American’s 
horse has nothing to do, but to bear a hirsute 
and pinguid vagabond over sand-deserts, on hen¬ 
roost-robbing expeditions, 14£ hands will be high 
enough (until the rider rivals Haman.) But so 
long as the farmer has sward-land to plow, cord- 
wood to draw, and a stout wife and half-score of 
stalwart sons and buxom daughters to be driven 
to meeting, or to the State Fair; so long as our 
city carriages are ponderous, and trucks weighty, 
so long shall we need a little more height in our 
in our horses, and that not all in the legs. 
The subject of increasing the size of our 
horses will more properly be discussed by the 
Committee on Breeding Mares; for it is with the 
mare that the improvement must commence. 
To subject small mares to large-sized Stallions 
will not effect the desired change. It will give 
us, as it did to the Yorkshire farmers, who tried 
a similar experiment, “a race of long-legged, 
small-chested, worthless animals.” Such also 
was the ill-effect, said our lost friend, J. S. 
Skinner, of the cross by a large “Cleveland Bay” 
Stallion, imported and sent to Carroll’s Manor, 
Maryland. 
“The proper method,” says Professor Cline, 
of London, “ of improving the form of animals, 
consists in selecting a well-formed female , pro- 
portiondblxj larger than the male. The im¬ 
provement depends on this principle; that the 
power of the female to supply her offspring with 
nourishment, is in proportion to her size, and to 
the power of nourishing herself from the excel¬ 
lence of her own constitution.” 
“ The size of the foetus (he continues) is gene¬ 
rally in proportion to that of the male parent, 
and therefore, when the female parent is dispro¬ 
portionately small, the quantity of nourishment 
is insufficient, and her offspring has all the dis¬ 
proportion of a starveling.” 
“ To produce the most perfect-formed animal, 
(adds the same high authority,) abundant nour¬ 
ishment is necessary from the earliest period of 
its existence, until its growth is complete.” This 
sustains the view that we have herebefore ad¬ 
vanced. 
We here conclude the Report on Stallions; 
not that we have said all that we have to say on 
the subject; but because we wish what we write 
to be read; and long stories find few listeners. 
At some future time, another opportunity may 
be afforded us of discussing the subject further. 
For the Committee, 
William S. King, Chairman. 
VENTTLLATION OF FARM BUILDINGS. 
Tnn epidemics amongst cattle, the diseases of 
farm horses, the losses from all classes of con¬ 
fined animals, show that there is something rad¬ 
ically bad in the internal arrangements of a 
great number of our farmsteads. In many 
cases appearance is the sole object of the archi¬ 
tect. In others, convenience is studied, to the 
disregard of every thing else ; but in some, bare 
economy, or rather sheer parsimony, is the sole 
ruling principle in deciding their construction. 
There are few buildings, indeed, where the whole 
are put up at once and entirely new. They are 
usually patched up one to another in the most 
heterogeneous and inconsiderate manner, and 
no system whatever is regarded in their con¬ 
struction. A few—very few indeed—are all that 
can be desired. The model-form is not yet even 
decided. Changes in management, in modes of 
feeding, will make serious differences in the plan 
of a farmstead. A farm-yard arranged for 
horse-power- will be all wrong when steam be¬ 
comes the means of converting the raw material 
of farm produce into meal, chopped or sliced 
turnips, of separating the corn from the straw, 
and of removing the straw to the shed. To have 
all the different houses for each approachable 
with facility, to have them convenient for the 
cow-shed, the stable, and the piggery, to have 
the barn and stack-yard, the machine and straw- 
shed in close proximity, are points too desirable 
to need the slightest consideration. But to 
have the whole arranged on sanitary principles, 
to have them made fit for the healthy occupation 
by the stock, are points of vast importance, and 
these are too often neglected. 
Mr. James D. Ferguson, in a recent lecture, 
before the Hexham Farmers’ Club, instanced 
the sad want of ventilation sometimes observable 
in the most costly buildings. He alluded to 
some recently erected at Nafferton, which mea¬ 
sured 509 feet from east to west, and from north 
to south 261 feet, without the corn-barn. The 
cost was about £7000. “Yet,” Mr. Ferguson 
says, “ notwithstanding that immense sum, and 
the good arrangement generally of the various 
houses, no attention whatever seems to have 
been observed in affording sufficient ventilation 
or light to either stables or feeding-byers, and 
the consequence has been that the respected 
tenant of the farm has from time to time suffered 
much loss in his horses, which I believe has 
been greatly occasioned by the absense of suffi¬ 
cient access for obtaining good supplies of fresh 
air to his stables, as well as proper apertures for 
the escape of the vitiated air from them, and 
moreover I have no doubt, occasioned partly also 
by the negligence of the farm-servants, in not 
carefully removing the dung and urine every 
morning.” 
Bad lighting of farm buildings often operates 
in promoting dirt and negligence, which light 
would enable a master more readily to detect 
and shame a servant into care to prevent. Bad 
drainage will cause damp and impure exhala¬ 
tions, and operate most fearfully against the 
health of the animals; whilst imperfect ventila¬ 
tion will prevent these gases from escaping. 
But cannot something quite new be adopted 
in farmsteads? Why should expensive build¬ 
ings be added square to square ?—Why should 
they not be hexagonal or cruciform—the shapes 
clearly the most convenient of access, and the 
most economical of space ? But who ever saw 
a farmstead attempted either circular, cruciform, 
or hexagonal? 
Another possible mode of adapting farm build¬ 
ing to the changing circumstances of improved 
modes of feeding, is the erection of a complete 
shell, like the shed of a railway-station, capable 
of being opened and closed at both ends, and 
this well drained and trapped, with the drains 
carried entirely out of the area, thoroughly ven¬ 
tilated, capable of being opened or closed at 
pleasure, according to the necessities of the 
case. 
The great principle always to keep in view, in 
constructing farm buildings, and, indeed, all 
other kinds of building requiring ventilation, is 
that provision be made for the admission of pure 
air.— Mark Lane Express. 
MAKING BUTTER IN WINTER. 
As butter making is considered often a very 
great difficulty, and churning day is often the 
day dreaded in a farmer’s family—we having 
been plagued in like manner—I was determined 
to find out the difficulty if possible, and two 
years since I undertook to churn myself, and 
found by putting hot water in the cream the 
butter would come sometimes after one to three 
hours’ churning. I then tried placing the cream, 
which we kept in a yellow earthen pan, upon 
the stove, and stirring it up after repeated trials 
when the thermometer indicated 63° to 65°. I 
found this to be the true temperature for the 
cream, for the butter came and gathered to a 
charm in five minutes. And butter making in 
ever so cold weather by proper management of 
the cream can be made in quite as short a time 
as from grass-fed milk. The true secret in this, 
and it never fails if the cream is from 63 to 65 
degrees Fahrenheit. But talk about a thermom¬ 
eter in churning cream for butter, and more than 
half the folks will be frightened. Now every 
woman that churns, if she will place the pan of 
cream on the stove, and keep it stirred from the 
bottom, so that when she puts her fingers in to 
try its warmth, which to be right should be a 
very little warmer than the finger, then this is 
the heat to churn it, and in from five to fifteen 
minutes the butter will have come; more under 
ten than over. We churn once a week in win¬ 
ter, and the whole operation is more often com¬ 
pleted, butter-milk washed out and every thing 
done in thirty or forty minutes.— James Hough¬ 
ton, in Ohio Farmer. 
Uncle Sam’s Farm. —The last census showed 
that Uncle Sam is a thrifty farmer. The value 
of the crops of the United States for 1850 was 
as follows :—Wheat, 143,000,000 dollars; Indian 
corn, 391,200,000 dollars; hay, 190,275,000 
dollars; oats, 70,840,000 dollars; potatoes, 
73,125,000 dollars; cotton, 129,000,000 dollars; 
the whole crop being, 1,752,583,042 dollars. 
The animals slaughtered are worth 183,000.000 
dollars per annum .—English Paper, 
