10T5.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
51 
serious or fatal illness, but in every instance the 
danger has been incurred, and, when incurred, the 
risk must be the same as in taking any other fonn 
of slow poison. This is not theory, but simply a 
•well established fact demonstrated by long, careful, 
and frequently repeated investigation. The precise 
character of typhoid infection, and the exact man¬ 
ner of operation when introduced into the blood, 
are not known, but that it always originates in the 
way described, and that it may invariably be pre¬ 
vented by the use of proper sanitary precautions, 
is absolutely known. 
This being the case, it lies perfectly within the 
province of every farmer, (and if the farmer will 
not attend to such matters of his own accord, his 
wife has a way of urging him into it), to remove 
while it is yet time, any source of infection to 
which his house may be liable. Vegetables, in any 
considerable amount, should not be kept in the 
house cellar, and at least once a week the floor of 
the cellar should be swept, and every shred of waste 
vegetables removed. Even when this is done, 
the cellar should be ventilated by a window or other 
small opening toward the quarter least exposed to 
cold winds, (and in summer on every side); the 
privy, if a privy is used, should be well away from 
the house, and especially far from the well, unless 
its contents are received in a tight box, and entirely 
absorbed by dry earth or ashes, and even then fre¬ 
quently removed ; the chamber-slops of the house 
should never, under any circumstances, be thrown 
into the privy vault, nor into a porous cess-pool, 
from which they can leach into the ground, and 
through the ground for a long distance into the 
well, and into and around the foundation of the 
house; the same disposal of the liquid wastes of 
the kitchen is desirable, but not so absolutely im¬ 
portant. It is, however, important that this should 
be led by an imperviable drain to a point well away 
from the house and from the well; swill, and all 
manner of nondescript refuse material, such as is 
sloughed off by every household in the ordinary 
course of its living, should be removed at least 
daily from the near vicinity of the dwelling, and 
the vessels in which it accumulates should be fre¬ 
quently cleansed and aired; manure heaps should 
not be left to ferment and send off their exhala¬ 
tions at a point whence frequent winds waft them 
toward and into the dwelling, nor should the barn¬ 
yard be allowed to drain, (either over the surface 
or through a porous soil,) toward the house or well. 
If all these precautions are taken, the well will be 
tolerably safe, and, in most cases, absolutely safe, 
but if there is any doubt on the point, then let no 
well-water be drank except after boiling;-or the 
drinking-water of the house may be taken entirely 
jfrom a filtering cistern, of which the filtering bed 
is sufficient to hold back all organic matter. If all 
these points are well attended to, and if the or¬ 
dinary rules of cleanliness be observed in the house¬ 
hold, the members of the family may be consider¬ 
ed as safe against attacks of typhoid fever. 
I might readily, in this connection, show that in 
carrying out the various details given above con¬ 
cerning the disposal of household wastes, the far¬ 
mer would only be consulting his pecuniary inter¬ 
ests, by increasing the value of his manure, and the 
economical use of his kitchen wastes, but I do not 
propose to weaken the argument by any question of 
dollars and cents. The fact that by an observance 
of these simple sanitary rules, one may save those 
he loves and cherishes, and for whose well-being he 
is accountable, from the assaults of our most wide¬ 
spread and our most nearly fatal disease, and that 
by neglecting them, he brings upon his own head 
the responsibility of their illness, their suffering, 
and their premature death, ought to be a sufficient 
appeal to any conscientious, civilized man. 
During the last half of the past year our sales 
of Jerseys were 21 animals, which sold for $4,370, 
being an average of $208.09 ; 4 males sold for an 
avenge of $78.75, and 17 females for an average of 
$238.53. 
Gen. William S. Tilton, the Deputy Governor of 
.the 8ol^ieys ? Home, near Augusta, Me., continues 
his careful experiments concerning the yield of 
milk and cream of his herd. During the year end¬ 
ing Oct. 20, 1874, he had 2 Dutch cows, 7 natives, 
and 9 Jerseys. One of the Dutch cows was far¬ 
row, and is not to come in until next May ; for this 
fact due allowance must be made in comparing the 
record ; she gave only about one-half as much as 
the fresh one. One of the Jerseys was in the same 
condition, and similar allowance must be made for 
her. The yield of the whole herd per day, would 
be 33 per cent greater than it was the preceding 
year, if the two farrow cows were counted as fresh 
ones—if the herd had been kept for milk, and not 
for breeding, they would have given place to fresh 
cows. Gen. Tilton ascribes the increase of milk 
to improved feeding last winter, namely : “2 quarts 
of meal and 2 quarts of bran per day, to each 
animal, mixed with cut hay, and all steamed 
together ; while the previous winter they had only 
long hay during the same months, Nov. 1st to 
April 1st. * s * We had no abortion, so that 
steamed food may be acquitted of causing that 
trouble.” The summing up of the tabular state¬ 
ment is as follows, for the average of the whole year: 
The Dutch were 335 days in milk, producing 
during this time a daily average of 7.23 pounds ; 
the average percentage of cream was 9.03; the 
total production of milk was 4.7 times the live 
weight; the yield of cream per annum was 42 per 
cent of the live weight of the animals. 
The native^ averaged 303 days in milk, with a 
daily product of 19.1 pounds, and 9.82 per cent of 
cream ; they produced 51 times their live weight in 
milk, and 52 per cent of their live weight in cream. 
The Jerseys were in milk 327 days, producing an 
average of 13.25 pounds per day, with 16.16 per 
cent of cream; they produced 4.9 times their 
weight of milk, and 78 per cent of their live weight 
of cream. 
If others who are so situated that they can make 
careful experiments, would take the trouble to do 
so, and to report the results, they would not only- 
benefit the readers of agricultural papers generally, 
but would find their own practice of feeding, and 
their selection of animals for the different uses of 
the dairy, very much modified by the information 
such a record would give them. 
Science Applied to Farming.—II. 
By Prof. W. O. Atwater, Wesleyan University, 
Middletown, Conn. 
How Science is Saving Money and Increasing 
the Profits of Farmers—More About Euro¬ 
pean Experiments. 
As cattle are ordinarily fed, there is apt to be a 
waste of some of the nutritive part of the food. 
American farmers are often in doubt not only as to 
what materials will, at current prices, make the 
most economical fodder for their stock, but also in 
what proportions they should be mixed and fed to 
secure the greatest benefit. As yet they are with¬ 
out careful and accurate experiments to settle 
these questions. In the German Experiment Sta¬ 
tions, a large number of men, fitted for the work 
both by the fullest scientific knowledge and by 
practical skill, devote their whole time to making- 
feeding trials. Farms, stables, cattle, chemical 
laboratories, assistants, and everything needful are 
at their disposal. The systematic way these ex¬ 
periments are planned and carried out, and the care 
used to make them accurate and thorough, would 
astonish any one who has not looked into the matter. 
Take, for instance, an experiment on feeding 
cows for milk. Of different food materials, what 
amounts and proportions shall be mixed in the 
daily ration, to obtain the largest and best yield of 
milk at the least cost ? From the cows in the 
stable of the Station a number are selected and fed 
for two or three weeks with clover hay, then dur¬ 
ing another period with clover and straw, during 
other periods bran, or meal, or oil-cakes, or turnips, 
or two or three of these together, are mixed with 
the hay. The fodder given and the milk obtained 
in each period are carefully measured, and are alsQ 
analyzed. Thus the effect of the different kinds 
and mixtures of food upon the yield of milk, is ac¬ 
curately learned. Such an experiment often re¬ 
quires the hard labor of three or four men for as 
many months in overseeing the work in the stable, 
and making the analyses in the laboratory.’ No 
one can fail to see how valuable must be the ap¬ 
plication of the results of such experiments to 
practice. Information, just such as hundreds of 
thousands of American cultivators want, is obtain¬ 
ed at these Stations, and spread abroad among the 
German farmers. And this is done at a cost ex¬ 
tremely small in comparison with the money saved, 
and still smaller when compared with the increas. a 
certainty and enjoyment which they bring to the 
work of tilling the soil. The average annual ex¬ 
pense of one of the German Stations is less than 
the salary often received for merely nominal ser¬ 
vices by a single party favorite in this country. 
Hundreds of such feeding trials have been made 
in the European Stations during the last 15 years. 
They indicate, as a general result, that the dealing 
out of fodder is not properly a matter of so much 
hay, or turnips, or meal. It depends rather upon 
the amounts of starch, sugar, fat, fiber, albuminoids, 
salts and water, of which the hay, turnips and 
meal are composed. Chemical analysis tells us 
that all our common fodder materials contain es¬ 
sentially the same ingredients, but in very different 
proportions. Again, the animal is nourished only 
by that part of the food which it digests. The un¬ 
digested portion passes off as excrement, and is 
useless, except as manure. A great many feeding 
trials have been made to determine how much of 
the starch, fiber, albuminoids, etc., of ordinary 
food materials are digested by oxen, cows, sheep, 
and other animals. It is found that unless the in¬ 
gredients are mixed in proper proportions, only a 
part of the digestible material will be actually di¬ 
gested, while the rest will be wasted. By such in¬ 
vestigations we leam also which of the food in¬ 
gredients, (as starch, albuminoids, etc.,) are made 
over into fat, or into muscle or lean meat in the 
body ; also which ones supply the fat (butter) and 
casein (curd) of the milk ; which ones are con¬ 
sumed in producing the heat which keeps the ani¬ 
mal warm, and which ones in yielding muscular 
force or working power. In short, these investiga¬ 
tions show how the nutritive value of different fod¬ 
der materials can be learned from their chemical 
composition, and in what proportions they should 
be mixed and fed out to the animals, in order that 
all the valuable nutritive material will be digested 
and utilized, and none wasted. But do the farmers 
in Germany turn these experiments to much prac¬ 
tical use ?... .1 have here a German Farmer’s Diary, 
or “Agricultural Calendar.” Tens of thousands 
of German farmers carry copies of this little work 
in their pockets, and consider the information con¬ 
densed between its covers as invaluable. Fifteen 
pages are devoted to the practical application of 
such experiments as we have described. First 
come tables giving the composition of nearly 200 
different fodder materials, with directions for cal¬ 
culating their nutritive values. Then come Fodder 
Tables. These give the amounts of the food in¬ 
gredients required per 1,000 lbs. live weight by 
oxen when at rest, and when at work, by milch 
cows, horses, sheep, etc. Then follow no less than 
126 tables of fodder mixtures. These are calculated 
to contain the different materials in such propor¬ 
tions as to supply the animal’s needs, and at the 
same time to secure the most complete utilization 
of the food. In this great variety of tables, any 
farmer can find just the information he needs to 
guide him in mixing and dealing out to whatever 
stock he may have to feed, the fodder materials 
which he may produce upon his farms or buy. And 
this is all expressed so plainly that he can under¬ 
stand it without any special scientific knowledge. 
I asked a great many of the farmers in Germany 
what they thought of these tables. The reply gen¬ 
erally was, that it would be vain to follow them 
blindly, but that as aids in mixing and dealing out 
fodder they were extremely useful. 
The work of these Experiment Stations, then, 
results in the definite knowledge of the principles 
