AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[February, 
50 
probably be better for them to buy sheep at half 
the price and worth but half the money, rather 
than buy nothing at all, and keep on in the okl 
routine. In so broad a district as that lying be¬ 
tween Alexandria and Gordonsville, there are not 
only different grades of sheep, but different prices 
for those of the same intrinsic value. Lands are 
higher, and the cost of production is greater, near 
good markets than in remote districts. The esti¬ 
mate of $1.50 for sheep in the season when second- 
rate animals are cheapest, was made by our inform¬ 
ant for the benefit of that class who have small 
capital and little enterprise. It is a great thing for 
a land-poor, discouraged, farmer, to show him that 
there is a way out of his difficulties, and that he 
can hope to improve his condition. It is not likely 
to mislead men of larger intelligence and capital, 
who know that the best stock at any reasonable 
price pays much better than inferior stock at the 
market price. Mr. Walsh is right in choosing the 
best lands and the best stock at high prices near a 
good market. The poor fellow in the back country 
may not be altogether wrong, who buys a poorer 
article at low prices, and tries his hand at sheep- 
husbandry. We cannot speak too highly in com¬ 
mendation of Cotswold rams in a flock of mutton 
sheep.— Ed.] 
Mr. Walsh writes: “I saw in the November 
nnmber of the Agriculturist an article on sheep- 
raising in Virginia, and knowing the influence add 
wide circulation o? your paper, I thought it might 
lead some person astray in regard to land and sheep 
in that part of Virginia. First, yon can not buy 
any land for five or six dollars an acre worth own¬ 
ing. It would be cheaper to pay twenty-five. The 
writer paid $80 an acre on the same road, two miles 
from Alexandria, and bought 281 acres, and he 
would not sell it to-day for twice the amount. 
Next, no man can buy any sheep worth having for 
$1.50 a head one hundred miles from here. I tried 
it, and came hack to Alexandria and paid $3.50. 
It is far better to pay $3 or $4 for good young ewes 
than to buy poor old ones for $1.50 or $2. The 
lambs will he better, and when the lambs arc sold 
it will be easy to fatten the ewes. I paid $4 each 
this fall for 70 ewes, and I consider them cheap. 
Good ewes will have lambs early, and there is where 
the profit lies. Good lambs sell in Washington in 
the spring for $5 to $6 at ten weeks to three months 
old. I got $6 for lambs the first of last April, at 
nine weeks old. I have two fine Cotswold rams, 
and also a Leicester ram. They are fine; I paid $30 
apiece for them. As the writer says, I believe 
sheep-raising is the only thing that will pay at 
present. Unless you have a very large flock, say 
500 or 600 sheep, it will not pay to have a shepherd. 
I have 110, and take care of them mostly myself. 
In winter I feed principally bran and ship stuff, 
occasionally corn. In early fall I sow a field of 
rye, so as to have it for my ewes and lambs early 
in the spring. I keep ray sheep out every day in 
the winter, unless the snow is deep. At nights I 
keep them in open sheds. This is my third year 
with sheep, and I have lost none so far, by dogs. 
Sheep do well here ; I sell the old ones in May and 
June, and buy afresh in the fall. Being a new 
farmer, and a resident of Brooklyn for 21 years be¬ 
fore I came here, your valuable paper has been the 
means of giving me these last five years a great deal 
of useful information which I needed, and am 
thankful for. 
Farming Without Manure. 
The remarkable results obtained by two English 
farmers, Messrs. Prout and Middleditch, were 
recorded and commented upon by the various 
English papers, especially those devoted to agricul¬ 
ture. In December last, wo gave under the above 
title, an abstract of the first accounts which came 
to hand, but journals received later, showed that 
the article upon which our comments were based, 
was not as full as it should have been, and we 
were about lo make a revised statement of the case, 
when there came to hand a letter from J. R. Dodge, 
Esq., the capable statistician of the Department of 
: Agriculture, who will, we trust, excuse us for mak¬ 
ing use of a portion of a private letter, for the 
good of the public. Mr. Dodge says: “Lastsea- 
i son I visited the farm of Mr. Prout, at Sawbridge- 
| worth, Essex, saw his more than three hundred 
acres of growing wheat, and the piles of super- 
, phosphate and ground bone that are anually 
applied to the soil, and took abstracts of statistics 
from his record of the farm, which corroborated 
the statements from his own lips, that his average 
annual expense for fertilizers, was fifty shillings, or 
$12.50 per acre, for 4 or 5 previous years. It is true 
that lie does not use manure of cattle to any great 
extent, as lie keeps none for fattening, but has a 
few horses and pairs of oxen for hauling, and all 
light cultivating not done by steam. He plows 
eight or nine inches in depth, stirs the soil six or 
seven inches deeper, cultivates his crop once or 
twice in the spring by liorse-plowing, and afterwards 
weeds by hand. 
“ The reported gross income of the present year, 
§23,141, is about the average shown by his books 
for the four previous years, and while the annual 
cost of fertilizers is about §5,090, the net profit 
averages $6,000, after allowing eight per cent on 
£50 per acre in lieu of rent. 
“The wheat crop is always disposed of by auction, 
grain and straw, as it stands in the field. This 
practice, disregarding turnip culture and cattle 
feeding, is indeed anomalous in England, but Mr. 
Prout is willing to continue it while it brings 
annually 35 to 65 bushels of wheat per acre, and a 
net profit of $12 to $15.” 
---— ■ i -e» — 
Ogden Farm Papers—Ho. 80. 
BY GEORGE E. WABINO, JB., 
I have long thought that a part of one paper of 
this series might be advantageously directed to 
some of the details of the sanitary arrangement of 
farm-houses as to any other winter topic, and sure¬ 
ly no other is of nearly so great importance. 
Health, so far as it is affected by proper arrange¬ 
ments for disposing of refuse or organic matter, is 
more dependent upon the direct intervention of in¬ 
dividual householders in the country than in towns. 
On a farm, the circumstances and conditions under 
which the family live are entirely, or almost en¬ 
tirely under the control of the farmer himself, 
while in towns every one is more or less affected by 
the circumstances attending hisneighbor’s mode of 
life ; therefore, while calamities befalling those in 
towns may he to a certain extent beyond their indi¬ 
vidual control, much of the death and disease from 
which the farmer’s family suffers, results from 
causes for which he alone is responsible, and which 
he might have removed. Nothing is more common 
than for every death and every case of sickness to 
be ascribed to the workings of an inscrutable 
Providence. By far the greater proportion of the 
affliction to which mankind is subject, comes not 
by the act of God, but by the act of man himself. 
The range of what is called preventable diseases is 
now known to be very wide, and all such diseases 
it should he the first duty of man to prevent. 
Much of this—that to which I especially wish to 
ask attention—is not only preventable disease, but 
is disease that is called into existence only by the 
act or by the neglect of man, and it is not too much 
to say, (after the thorough investigations of the 
subject that have been made by sanitary authori¬ 
ties), that there has never been a case of typhoid 
fever that was not almost directly caused by the ig¬ 
norance, or by the criminal neglect of some person 
whose duty it should have been to prevent it. 
Such disease never comes without cause, and its 
cause is never anything else than organic poisoning 
arising from decaying organic matter, or from the 
spread of the infection directly from a patient suf¬ 
fering from the disease. 
Typhoid fever has many names, all of which are 
suggestive of its origin. It is called “drain-fever,” 
“sower-fever,” “cess-pool fever,” “ foul-well-fe- 
ver,” “ night-soil-fever,” etc., and it is never caused 
except by the introduction into the system of the 
germs of the disease—which can originate only ] 
I through the operation of neglected organic wastes, 
or by communication through the lungs or stom- 
I ach by means of foul air or foul water, or of germs 
arising from the persons or from the excreta of ty¬ 
phoid patients. So far.as its contagion is concerned, 
ample ventilation of the siek-room, and the imme¬ 
diate removal or disinfection of the faeces are am¬ 
ple preventives. It is not contagious as small-pox 
is, but its spread is caused by the action of germs 
which infect the locality of the patient, and extend 
more or less widely according to the precautions 
used to confine it. There is not necessarily the 
least danger that the disease will attack even the 
constant attendant of the patient, if proper care is 
taken. This part of the subject may, perhaps, be 
left to the control of the physician who has charge 
of the case ; hut with the farmer himself must rest 
the entire responsibility of the origin of every first 
case breaking out in his household. This is a cer¬ 
tain and thoroughly well-established fact, and there 
attaches to him the full measure of guilt for every 
such ease. This is a responsibility for which the 
community should hold him strictly accountable. 
It would really be as correct to ascribe a red-band¬ 
ed murder to Providence as to attempt in this way 
to console ourselves for a fatal attack of typhoid 
fever. We are taught that we shall not cleave our 
child’s skull with an ax, and that if we do, death 
will surely result, but we are no less absolutely 
taught that we shall not poison our child’s blood 
with the foul emanations of onr house-drains, and 
with the contamination of our drinking-water 
wells, lest the same fatal result follow. We may 
ignorantly load the water with which our families 
are supplied with lead-poison, and so be without 
the guilt of intention ; or we may ignorantly poison 
our wells by the infiltration of infected organic 
matter, and in this case, as in the other, be acquit¬ 
ted of the charge of criminal intent. But in these 
days, when so much has been published concerning 
the origin of diseases of this class, however free 
we may be of all criminal intent, the serious charge 
of criminal neglect must surely lie at our door. 
Now, all this may seem very savage talk to put 
into a paper intended for the perusal of the intelli¬ 
gent farmers of an enlightened country, but any 
one who will give attention to the subject, will con¬ 
fess that it is precisely the sort of talk which is 
most needed, and which, if well heeded, will pro¬ 
duce the most beneficial results in every quarter of 
the country. There are other diseases, resulting 
some in death and some only in illness and its con¬ 
sequent loss of service, which come more or less 
under the same head, but typhoid fever is so uni¬ 
versally prevalent in country-houses, is 60 fatal in 
its effect, and is so readily prevented, that it con¬ 
stitutes the most conspicuous type of its class, and 
is most entitled to consideration. It may be as¬ 
sumed, without hesitation, that whenever a pro¬ 
nounced ease of typhoid breaks out in an isolated 
country-house, or when any form of low fever oc¬ 
curs, though it may fail to assume a distinct ty¬ 
phoid character, there is in that house, or about it, 
or in connection with its supply of drinking-water, 
some accumulation of neglected filth, some pile of 
rotten vegetables in the cellar, some overflow from 
a barnyard, some spot of earth saturated with the 
slops of the kitchen, or some other form of impu¬ 
rity to which the origin of the disease may be dis¬ 
tinctly traced. The spread of typhoid is very gen¬ 
erally occasioned by germs contained in the bowel 
discharge of fever patients, hut the disease is con¬ 
stantly originating itself where no such cause ex¬ 
ists, and every first attack is a plain indication that 
either at home, or in some house at which the pa¬ 
tient has visited, one or two things has occurred : 
(1) there has been an exhalation of poisonous or¬ 
ganic gases from a privy-vault, from a kitchen- 
yard, from a neglected cellar, or from some other 
source of bad air, which has entered the lungs and 
planted there the germs of the disease; or (2), 
either in the food or in the drink of the patient, 
these germs, originating in the same organic putres¬ 
cence, have found their way to the stomach. In 
either case the blood is attacked; the subject may 
have been sufficiently robust and vigorous, or suffi¬ 
ciently unsusceptible to infsetion to have avoided a 
