1875.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
9 
Not the least useful is a monthly calendar, especially for 
the Southern States. Also a wholesale price list. 
Seed Catalogue op George. S. Haskell & Co., 
Rockford, Ill. A well illustrated, very full, and remark¬ 
ably neat business document. 
Miller & Sievers, San Francisco, Cal., send their 
list of California tree, shrub, and flower seeds, with 
others from Australia aud Chili. 
Charles Huber & Co., Hyeres, France, send an 
enormous catalogue of seeds of all kinds, including 
many novelties offered for the first time. 
The Bellevue Nursery Co., Paterson N. J. Henry 
E. Chitty, Sup't., send us the first catalogue of florists’ 
plants for 1875, that has yet come to hand. This estab¬ 
lishment. always manages to have some choice novelties, 
and that it sends out well grown plants, we can testify 
of our own knowledge. 
Bird Bros., Kearney Nursery, P. O. address, New¬ 
ark, N. J., offer a well considered selection of fruit trees, 
and shade, and ornamental trees, including evergreens. 
Malltnckrodt’s Nursery Catalogue., C. T. Mallin- 
ckrodt, St. Charles, Mo. This is quite as much a treatise 
on fruits and fruit culture, as it is a catalogue. A selec¬ 
tion of the better varieties of each fruit is given, with 
full descriptions and general directions for their manage¬ 
ment—A model catalogue. 
R. S. Johnston, Georgetown, Del., sends his price¬ 
list of peach and other fruit trees at low rates. 
See Pa^e US® 
“Walks and Talks” Correspondence. 
Fattening Pigs. —“ I have 40 pigs, about 8 months’ 
old, and weighing about 100 lbs. each. I can get 5 cents 
per lb. for them now. Corn is worth 80 cts. per bushel. 
Had I better sell the corn and the pigs, or fatten them ?” 
I suppose it will take 10 bushels of new corn, fed in the 
ear, to make those pigs weigh 200 lbs. each. If the pigs 
are worth no more per lb. when fat than they are now, it 
will not pay to feed out the corn. If the pigs should be 
worth 6 $ cts. per lb., the account would stand even. If 
7 cts., which is not improbable, the pigs would then be 
worth $14 each, and you would get 80 cts. a bushel for 
the corn, and $40 and the manure for the trouble of feed¬ 
ing. You ought to have good grade pigs, and feed them 
liberally, and have them weigh 200 lbs. each now. They 
would be much better worth 7 cts. a pound than thin 
“grassers” are worth 5 cts. Three or four bushels of 
corn each, in addition to what they have had. would have 
paid better than 10 bushels will now. As matters now 
stand, 1 should winter them over as store hogs, and fatten 
them early next fall, when pork is likely to be higher. 
Shipping Apples to England.— The charges from 
New York to Bristol, by the Great'Western Steamship 
Line, are “five shillings sterling and five per cent ” per 
barrel. The freight need not be prepaid. The freight to 
New York and cartage to steamer at pier 18, E. R., must 
be prepaid. You are probably correct in thinking Bristol 
a better point to ship apples to than Liverpool. But I 
have had no experience. You should be very careful to 
select the best winter apples, free from specks, and well 
grown. Give this matter your personal attention. Shake 
the barrel well as each basketful is put iD, and when full 
press down very firmly, and head the barrel carefully. 
Put your name and address on the barrels and consign 
them to your friend as you propose. The advantage you 
have over the dealers lies in your ability to select the best 
fruit from your orchard, and to pack it carefully. Too 
many of our farmers injure themselves and the dealers 
by shipping poorly assorted fruit. The freight from your 
farm to Bristol will be more than the fruit is now worth 
at your farm, and it will not pay to send poor apples. 
“Which is the Best Horse Rake I cannot tell 
you. I have used several, and they are all good. The 
Ithaca is a very good and popular rake. It is worked by 
hand and by the foot. For raking stubbles, I would just 
as soon have it as one of the “ self-delivering rakes.” 
But I frequently use my rake for turning clover—lifting 
it up every five or six feet. In this case we want the 
work of lifting the rake to be done by the horse. I have 
used such a rake for eight years. I have forgotten whose 
patent it was. It has done me good service, and I would 
speak of it with respect, though I have now discarded it, 
and got a new Wisner rake, made in Ohio. I bought it 
from an agent, and forget the name of the manufactur¬ 
er. It is a capital rake. At the N. Y. State Fair I saw 
a Wisner rake, made by the Glen & Hall Manufacturing 
Co., of Rochester, N. Y., which appears to be a decided 
improvement. The “self-delivery” apparatus is on an 
entirely new principle. It is well worthy of examination. 
Mangel-Wurzel and Potatoes in Illinois.—D. B., 
of Champaign, HI., writes, (diet. 12,) “As you are doubt¬ 
less aware, our season has been remarkably dry, and 
nearly all crops are very light. Lane’s Imperial Sugar 
Beet is about the only thing that has done well with me. 
I planted a bushel of Extra Early Vermont potatoes, 
seed from Bliss, on a quarter of an acre, gave it the most 
approved culture; used ashes, hen-manure, plaster, etc., 
as directed by the experts, kept the land very clean, and 
got 16 bushels from the patch. Shall not compete for 
the premium.” 
It would seem that the rich soils of the West should 
bo highly favorable for the production of mangel-wur¬ 
zel. I have supposed that on ordinary farms at the West, 
this crop could not compete with corn in producing food 
for fattening cattle and hogs. In Champaign, Ill., the 
corn is a failure this year. The mangels are a good crop. 
Now if this should prove to be a general rule ; if a poor 
corn year is a good mangel year, then it -would certainly 
be wise for the farmers to sow a few acres of mangels 
every year. The mangels cannot compete with corn at 
25 cts. a bushel. But in a season like this, when corn is 
a comparative failure, and is -worth from CO to 75 cts. a 
bushel on the farms of the West, a few acres of mangel- 
wurzel would prove very advantageous to the breeder 
and feeder of good stock. It is not well to have all our 
eggs in one basket. 
In regard to potatoes, I suppose an extra early variety 
rarely gives a large yield. I live in a great potato grow¬ 
ing section. Many of our farmers have made themselves 
rich in growing potatoes. But I think it is rare that we 
get more than 16 bushels of potatoes from 1 bushel of 
seed. It is true that 16 bushels from a quarter acre is a 
poor yield—but where a large yield per acre is desired, 
we should, especially with an early variety, use three or 
four times as much seed as my correspondent did. In a 
dry season the ashes and hen-manure, especially if used 
with the seed, may have done more harm than good. 
On the 28th of June, we planted half a peck of Extra 
Early Vermont. Dug them Oct. 5th ; produce 13 pecks— 
or 26 from 1 of seed. No manure was used, and nothing 
done to get a large yield except to keep the land clean. 
On the same day we planted 1 lb., (or 3 potatoes), 
Compton's Surprise. Dug Oct. 14th—produce 34 lbs. 
One lb.. (3 potatoes), of Snowflake, planted same day, 
and dug Sept. 29th, produced 29 lbs. 
One l’o., (3 potatoes), Brownell’s Beauty, planted same 
day, and dug Oct. 14th, produced 51 lbs. All the men on 
the farm, and there are several “ old fogies ’’ among us, 
regard Brownell’s Beaut}' with great favor. The pota¬ 
toes were of a good uniform size. It bids fair to prove 
a valuable variety for this section. 
Malt-Combs for Pigs and Sheep.—A correspondent 
writes that ho can get malt-combs for 124 cts. per bushel, 
and asks if they are worth it as food for stock. For 
food and manure they are well worth what you arc asked. 
They make very rich manure. I buy all I can get at 15 
cts. per bushel of 40 quarts. They weigh from 20 to 25 
lbs. per bushel. I feed them to sheep and pigs. For 
fattening pigs, we mix 2 bushels of corn-meal and 5 
bushels of malt-combs, with 80 gallons of water, and 
cook it thoroughly. We cook with a steamer ; allowing 
for the condensed steam, I calculate that the cooked feed 
contains about 75 per cent of water. The pigs eat it 
readily, and seem to thrive remarkably well on it. I 
should say, however, that after the fattening pigs have 
eaten all they will of this cooked feed, we give them, af¬ 
ter each meal, two or three ears of corn each, or about 
half a pint each of dry peas. The object is to get them 
to eat all they can digest. I calculate that the manure is 
worth all that I pay for the combs. We feed them dry 
to the sheep—say 1 lb. to each sheep per day. At first the 
sheep do not eat them readily, but soon learn to like them. 
“What are Malt-Combs?” 
In answer to this question “ Walks and Talks on 
the Farm ” writes as follows: In malting barley, the 
barley is soaked in water for two or three days, until it 
has absorbed about half its weight of water. It is then 
placed in a “couch” about a foot thick, and kept at a 
temperature of about 60°. Here the barley grows or ger¬ 
minates. Much heat is evolved by this process from the 
conversion of the carbon of the starch into carbonic 
acid, and it is necessary to turn the growing barley fre¬ 
quently and spread it out in thinner layers. When the 
barley has grown sufficiently, it is thrown on wire screens 
and dried by artificial heat. These screens allow a por¬ 
tion of the shoots to fall through. These shoots are 
mixed with more or .less ashes from the kiln, and are not 
considered fit for food. The Rochester Malt House re¬ 
cently gave me about five hundred bushels on condition 
that I would he at the expense of removal. 
The malt-combs proper are obtained from the brewers, 
or from those who grind the malt. Before grinding, the 
malt is run through the screen, which removes all the 
shoots, roots, and dust. It is this refuse, removed by the 
screen, that goes by the various names of malt-combs, 
malt-dust, or malt-roots. It is sold in Rochester for 124 
to 15 cents per bushel of 40 quarts. The milk-men who 
buy the “grains” usually take the malt-dust also. In 
fact, many of the brewers mix them together and sell 
them at the same price. I think the malt-combs are 
worth more than the grains. At any rate they have one 
advantage, they are dry, and can be kept any length of 
time, while it is necessary to feed the grains out imme¬ 
diately, or they sour. Lawes & Gilbert, in their experi¬ 
ments on feeding sheep with barley and malt, found that: 
Dry barley contained.1.78 percent of nitrogen. 
“ malt “ .1.70 “ “ “ 
Malt-dust and kiln dust “ 4.38 “ “ “ 
During the process of germination, a portion of the ni¬ 
trogen is removed from the barley, and is found in the 
malt-dust. I was with Lawes & Gilbert when these ex¬ 
periments were made. It was found that the sheep 
gained faster on the barley than on the same amount of 
malt which the barley would make. A well-known Nor¬ 
folk farmer and Member of Parliament visited Rotliam- 
stend while the experiments were going on. It so hap¬ 
pened that a few days before he came, the barley, malt, 
and malt-dust, had been analyzed, with the results given 
above. It was found that the malt-dust was exceeding¬ 
ly rich in nitrogen. In fact, 38 lbs. of the refuse malt- 
dust contained nearly as much as 100 lbs. of malt. We 
weighed the sheep every week, and there was no mistak¬ 
ing the fact that the sheep having the barley gained fast¬ 
er than those having the malt. After studying the fig¬ 
ures for some time, the Norfolk farmer and Member of 
Parliament, who was an earnest advocate for the repeal 
of the malt-tax, on the ground that farmers wanted to 
use malt for feeding their stock, exclaimed, “I do not 
understand this. I have used malt-dust for sheep and 
find it capital. And if malt-ifMsf is so good, what must 
the malt itself be.” After he was gone, Dr. Gilbert 
quietly remarked, “ that kind of logic may do for the 
House of Commons, but will not pass at Rothamstead.” 
I have told the story before, but may perhaps be allowed 
to repeat it in connection with this question of the value 
of malt-combs. In conclusion, I may say that if any 
readers of the American Agriculturist live near a brew¬ 
ery, where they can get malt-dust at from 10 to 15 cents 
per bushel, they can feed them to cows, sheep, or pigs, 
with advantage. They are by no means as valuable for 
food as corn-meal, but make exceedingly rich manure. 
Botanical Instruction at Harvard. 
It is not many years ago that a young man, who would 
be a chemist, felt that he could only find the proper 
schooling abroad,but all that is bravely changed. Harvard, 
Yale, the Wesleyan, and other Colleges, offer the most 
thorough chemical instruction in their schools of science. 
The same may be said of zoology and some other natural 
sciences, for which ample laboratories and museums are 
provided. It is only recently that Botany has been 
placed on a par with its sister sciences in respect to 
educational facilities, and though the leading colleges 
have had a single professor, there has been nothing cor¬ 
responding to the School of Botany now in operation at 
Harvard. It has been our pleasure to make occasional 
visits to Cambridge, and note the gradual growth of 
this department. At the meetings of the American As¬ 
sociation (there is more to the name), and those of the 
British Association, botany formerly stood in the back¬ 
ground, and a paper was now and then tolerated; but. 
botany lias, within a few years, come to .the front. 
The president of the American Association two years 
ago was Prof. Asa Gray, a botanist, whose address, upon 
purely botanical matters, has been read by the whole 
world of science, and only a few years ago Dr. J. Hooker 
was president of the British Association, as he is now of 
the Royal Society. We may trace this change to the fact 
that the first botanists have written most popular works, 
and by their aid intelligent people now look upon botany 
not as a mere study of stamens and pistils, and giving of 
hard names to plants, but as a science which regards every 
phenomenon of plant-life and every relation of plants to 
the earth, the air, and to animals, including man. Tak¬ 
ing this view of botany, it is not to be wondered at that 
it has risen in public estimation, and that instead of be¬ 
ing dismissed with, “ it is a beautiful study for ladies 
a doubtful compliment to both ladies and the science—it 
has come to be thought worthy of the serious attention 
of our educators, and Harvard has provided ample facili¬ 
ties for all who would study botany as ah essential part 
of a liberal education, or take up some department of it 
as a special pursuit. The botanical department of Har¬ 
vard is of course at the Botanic Garden ; and the writer 
cab contrast the single combined dwelling house and 
study, the swampy, rubbishy garden and dilapidated 
greenhouse of 20 years ago, with the handsome range of 
botanical buildings, conservatories, and well arranged 
garden, of the present. With the advantages here offer¬ 
ed, there is no need that the botanical student go abroad, 
for at the head of the whole is Professor Asa Gray, not 
