291 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
1870 .] 
more room for the earying and the birth of the 
foal. The back, too, should be of a little more 
than the average length, giving plenty of bed 
for the foal and strength for the support of its 
weight. She must have four good legs under 
her and those legs standing, as a foundation, on 
four good, well-shaped, large feet, open at the 
heels, and concave underneath. “ She should 
have a good, lean, bony head, small-eared, broad- 
fronted, well set on, upon a high, well-carried 
neck, thin at its junction With the head; high 
withers, thin, and, above all, long, sloping 
shoulders. A straight shoulder is an abomina¬ 
tion ; it renders speed impossible, and gives a 
rigid inflexible motion,, often producing the bad 
fault of stumbling. She should be wide-chest¬ 
ed and deep in the heart-place. Her quarters 
should bo strong, well let down, long and siclde- 
shaped above the hocks. It is better that she 
go with her hocks somewhat too wide apart, 
than too near together; the former indicating 
power, the latter weakness of a bad kind.” 
The brood mare’s health should be as nearly 
perfect as possible; This is the most important 
point of all. Accidental defects may be passed 
over, unless they indicate a constitutional weak¬ 
ness of the affected part. Spavins, ring-bones, 
and all bony enlargements are constitutional 
and may be perpetuated. Bad feet should be 
especially avoided, unless they have obviously 
arisen from bad shoeing. Broken-winded mares 
are out of the question, as they seldom breed. 
“Blindnessmay or may not be hereditary. * * * 
Simple cataract without inflammation undoubt¬ 
edly runs in families, and when a horse or mare 
has both eyes suffering from this disease with¬ 
out any other derangement of the eyes, I should 
eschew them carefully. * * * * Nor should we 
breed from a mare which has any affection of 
the eyes, unless it be the direct result of an ac¬ 
cident, such as a blow or a puncture.” 
Any farmer who has the natural eye of a 
breeder and a fondness for good horses, will 
recognize a marc coming up to this standard if 
he is fortunate enough to find one, and he will 
be wise not to breed from an animal which has 
much falling off from these points. 
A California correspondent asks the following 
questions: “1. In a span of horses, ought the 
quicker one to be put on the off-side or on the 
near-side? 2. When they are hitched up, 
should the manes be toward the outside or the 
inside? 3. Are horses permanently injured by 
having had the colt distemper? 4. Are the 
Gad-flies that sting horses on the nose the same 
as those that lay their eggs on the horses legs?” 
1. The quicker horse should be on the near¬ 
side, bringing the duller one nearer to the whip. 
2. It is the custom to train the manes toward 
the pole. 3. The colt distemper is not perma¬ 
nently injurious, unless, from neglect, it is allow¬ 
ed to leave such an enlargement of the parts as 
to interfere with respiration. 4. We arc not 
aware that the Gad-fly stings the horse. It is a 
different fly from the one which deposits its 
eggs upon the legs. 
A Delaware correspondent accepts without 
question our statement that we should breed 
only to thorough-bred stallions, but maintains 
that the high price charged for service, some¬ 
times $200, acts, in the case of the ordinary 
farmer, as a prohibition. The very high prices, 
from $100 upward, are charged only for the 
most celebrated horses. Very good thorough¬ 
breds that are a little too slow for the turf may 
be bought for from $300 to $500, and if they 
were sure of being well patronized, they could 
be profitably kept at a $10 fee. The only diffi¬ 
culty is that the farmers themselves do not 
realize the superiority of thorough blood, and 
unwisely take their mares to trotting stallions or 
to low-priced animals that have no other merit 
than cheapness. Let there be created a general 
demand for thorough-bred stallions, and it can 
be cheaply supplied. 
■-- ^1 * ■ n-i aO tCT ». > 9 * -- ■ - — 
Ogden Farm Papers—No. 8. 
How easy it always is to raise a crop of corn 
before the seed is planted ! Up to the day when 
the planting was completed, the prospect was 
as fair as could have been desired, and it was 
comfortable to look forward, over the easy cul¬ 
tivation, and the good time generally that was 
to attend the raising of the crop. No sooner, 
however, had the corn begun to sprout than the 
skies began to lower. While much of the coun¬ 
try has been suffering from drouth, we have had, 
for a month after corn planting, such a succes¬ 
sion of rain and fog,—and fog and rain, as is 
known only along the Naragansett shore. It 
has been the loveliest weather for weeds and 
grass; and the condition of the ground has been 
all that crows and pigeons and other lovers of 
sprouted corn could ask. On trying the smooth¬ 
ing-harrow, I found that we had so many loose 
clumps of turf on most of the field, that the 
teeth became filled with rubbish that did con¬ 
siderable harm if they happened to come in the 
line of a row of corn,—though it is but fair to 
say, that the small piece on which the experi¬ 
ment was made as the corn was coming out of 
the ground, has been the cleanest and the best 
looking part of the field ever since, in spite of 
the tearing out of a good many plants. Where 
the land was plowed last year,—the harrow ha3 
worked well, and has done great service. But 
for our very shallow plowing, we might have 
covered the sod deeply enough to leave smooth 
work over the whole field. The harrow having 
failed me, and my force being rather small, the 
bad weather got decidedly the better of me, and 
tilings looked 'rather desperate by the 20th of 
June. Either the corn must be given over to 
the choking grass and weeds, or the turnip 
planting and tiie last planting of corn fodder 
must be too long deferred. My neighbors who 
had planted in hills, and could cultivate both 
ways, were badly enough off, but their condi¬ 
tion was happiness as compared with mine. If 
Ogden Farm were in a thinly settled neighbor¬ 
hood, one or other of our crops must have been 
finally swamped. Fortunately, at this time, 
the landscape-gardeners in Newport had just- 
got through with their rush of work and I was 
able to call in the temporary assistance of twen¬ 
ty men and three double-teams. The way weeds 
have been cleared away, manure hauled out, and 
plowing done, has been decidedly cheering, and 
we can now go ahead with clear consciences and 
light hearts. The heavy spring work being 
fairly over, it will be easy enough, with any 
tolerable weather to keep the farm in order. 
This work, though requiring a considerable 
outlay within a short time, has cost no more 
than if few men had been hired for a longer 
time, while the cost and bother of superintend¬ 
ence were decidedly less; and there is no ques¬ 
tion that it is cheaper to hoe with a dozen men 
in one day than with one man in twelve days; 
for we save on a part of the field, eleven days 
growth of weeds. 
Later.—A few days after the hoeing was fin¬ 
ished, just as the weeds began to take a fresh 
start, I brought out the smoothing-harrow again 
for a final cleaning of the ground. Alas for my 
hopes ! A single bout over corn 8 or 10 inches 
high, showed plainly enough that, in our case 
at least, the implement was a failure for the cul¬ 
tivation of corn. It destroyed too many of the 
plants for its continued use to be thought of. I 
have no doubt that the fault lay greatly with 
myself, and that more knowledge of the anglo 
at which the teeth should be bent to suit the re¬ 
quirements of our particular soil would have 
rendered its use a success. But a fairly started 
corn crop is a costly thing to experiment with, 
and I have concluded to stick to the good old 
back-breaking way and hoe out the drills once 
more by hand,—letting the crop take its chances 
thereafter. This smoothing-harrow is a capital 
tool for many uses, and will prove a good invest¬ 
ment without reference to the corn hoeing. Here¬ 
after, however, I shall not be easily tempted to 
plant in drills. The saving of labor by cross-cul¬ 
tivating among hills is too important to forego. 
It is getting to be a question with me, indeed, 
whether it will pay, on a farm where much la¬ 
bor is employed, to raise corn at all at the East. 
If there are too few hands to admit of root cul¬ 
ture then corn may do very well; but if roots 
are to be raised, much of the work that the first 
hoeing of corn demands will pay better if ap¬ 
plied to the preparation of land for roots, and 
the work of the second hoeing had better be 
spent in cleaning and thinning the ruta-bagas. 
This question, though, is by no means answer¬ 
ed by our experience thus far, nor is it very 
definitely answered by the communications on 
the subject that one sees in the agricultural pa¬ 
pers. It should have the more careful atten¬ 
tion of all farmers with whom hay and live¬ 
stock arc important items. 
The case may be stated in this way. A good 
crop of eastern flint corn (GO bushels) is worth 
$75. It will cost that to buy its equivalent in 
other corn at present rates. The fodder will be 
worth about $10. This makes a total yield of 
$85 per acre. Now, an acre of good grass, re¬ 
ceiving as a top-dres#ng applied during the win¬ 
ter, the manure necessary to produce 60 bushels 
of corn, will produce during the season (in three 
cuttings) three tons of dried grass. I use this 
expression in order to convey an idea of a very 
different and much better article of fodder than 
the fully developed hay that it is almost univer¬ 
sal to grow,—grass cut when it begins to show 
its first sign of blossom, and when not more 
than two-thirds grown. Cut at this stage, it 
may be cut three times during the season; and 
the total quantity may easily be made to exceed 
my estimate. When the quality is considered, 
it is safe to fix its value at $G0, while it will cer¬ 
tainly cost $25 less for labor than the corn. In 
addition tp this, the land will usually be in bet¬ 
ter condition as to richness than after the corn 
crop, and the danger of a fresh seeding with 
weeds will be lessened. In the mere matter of 
profit, the advantage seems to rest with the 
grass. And then, there are other things to be 
considered. First, the preparation of the land 
for roots and their cultivation, is much more 
likely to be well done if there is no big corn¬ 
field to require attention; second, haying can 
be commenced while the grass is in the condi¬ 
tion indicated above, when, if postponed until 
after hoeing time, the growth is almost certain 
to be too strong, the stalks of the grasses too 
coarse, and the transformation ol the nutritious 
juices into indigestible woody fibre, too far pro¬ 
gressed. This last consideration alone may be 
enough to settle the point of “corn,” or “no 
corn,” while it is not to be forgotten that one 
who buys his feed in the market can often get 
