[December, 
4:4.2 
AMERICAN AG-RICULTURIST. 
clear that lie didn’t wait for an answer,but walked 
off in his usual cloud of smoke. Tins evening, 
Mrs. Bunker took up the Hookertown ’ 
and read “ Shadtown victorious ! the White 
Oaksnoudierel! The score stood 27 to 9. Grea 
interest has been taken in this match fioin tli 
well-known fact that both parties had been 
training for it for a month past, and large sums 
had been staked upon the result. It is said that 
the White Oakers practiced by moonlight while 
they were burning their coal pits, and the pick¬ 
ed nine of the Shadtown Club have made a busi¬ 
ness of playing ball six days in a week for the 
last month. Of course, they bore off the 
honors.” 
“Honors!” exclaimed Sally, lifting her gold 
bowed spectacles to the top of her forehead, and 
looking over to me. “ When we were young, 
Timothy, it used to be an honor for a young 
man to lay a straight furrow, or to mow a wide 
swath. But now they’ve beat their plowshares 
into ball clubs, and the loafers that can play 
ball best carry off all the honors. It seems to 
me, Timothy, that we are getting considerable 
ahead of the days of prophecy. The plowshares 
and pruning hooks is the Bible ideal of a per¬ 
fect state of society. When grown up men ex¬ 
change plowed fields and orchards for the ball 
ground, and make a bat stick their coat of arms, 
I think they are progressing the wrong way.” 
This set me to thinking about this base ball 
business. For it has ceased to be a mere amuse¬ 
ment, and, with some people, has got to be as 
much of a business as catching fish or making 
brooms. I believe in the division of labor and 
in new kinds of business, but it is a question 
whether this is going to add anything to the 
common wealth or happiness. I believe in ath¬ 
letic sports and games of skill, and have no 
doubt that there is a place for them in every 
well-regulated society. Base ball, as we used 
to play it when I was a boy at school, was a 
very healthful recreation. It was a change 
from sedentary habits that the boys needed. I 
should think it might be a good thing for col¬ 
lege boys and clerks in the city. But what do 
people want of it whose lives are already full 
of labor ? It can only add to their weariness, 
and detract from the interest and pleasure that 
every man should take in his daily toil. After 
a man has spent three or four hours in a game, 
he is pretty .well used up for the day, and is in 
rather poor trim for work next morning. Base 
ball, as it is played now, is getting to be a great 
nuisance. 
It seriously interferes with the business of life. 
Seth Twiggs’ case is just what has happened to 
me a dozen times this summer, and is hap¬ 
pening all over the country. When I get a 
gang of men into the hay field, and have the 
hay all ready to go into the barn, I do not want 
to have half of them quit at three o’clock in the 
afternoon for a ball match. It breaks up all my 
plans for the day, and necessarily leaves a part 
of my hay to stand out over night. Over in 
Shadtown, they build ships, and when a man 
gets a contract to drive his ship through in a 
given time, it’s a great vexation to have a part 
of his force absent two or three days in a week 
to attend a ball match. Many kinds of mechani¬ 
cal labor are done by contract, and it subjects a 
contractor to very serious loss if he cannot de¬ 
pend upon his laborers. 
It is a great waste of time and money, and 
few men can afford it. Most laboring men need 
the avails of their six days’ work for the sup- 
^rt of their families and for the accumulation 
of capital enough to carry on business for them¬ 
selves. One day in the week is a serious loss 
to them. But if a man joins a base ball club, 
the loss of time is only a small item. He must 
have a suit expressly to play ball in, costing, 
say twenty-five dollars. Then, there must be a 
club-room, nicely fitted up, where the members 
meet for business, and on state occasions, when 
they receive guests from abroad. Then they 
must have their entertainments—which means 
sprees. Then they must, of course, accept all 
invitations to attend matches, no matter at how 
great a distance. Come to foot up the invitia¬ 
tion fees, taxes, traveling expenses, sprees, and 
lost time, a young man finds himself three or 
four hundred dollars out of pocket at the close 
of the year. This may be all very agreeable 
pastime, but how few can afford it even in the 
city I And if they could, there are still more se¬ 
rious objections to it. 
It leads very naturally to bad company. I 
know the young men that make up the ball 
clubs of Hookertown, Shadtown, and the White 
Oaks, and I have seen their guests. They are 
not such men as I should want my John to asso¬ 
ciate with. Some of them are what they call gen¬ 
tlemen’s sons, with plenty of money and no 
business, which is very bad. Others have busi¬ 
ness, and neglect it to play ball, which is still 
worse. Some are average farmers and mechan¬ 
ics, rather green at the play, not yet spoiled, 
but in a fair way to be. Others are confirmed 
loafers, rather seedy, and far on the downhill 
road. They are vulgar and profane; but 
pitch, bat, and catch ^splendidly, for the game 
is their only business. It can’t do a young man 
much good to be brought in contact with such 
characters. The manners and morals of the 
ball ground are much more likely to mar than 
to mend him. The tendency of the game, as 
now managed, is toward idleness, gambling, and 
dissipation. It makes good ball players, but 
bad farmers and mechanics, bad husbands and 
fathers. I am not ready to have the plow beams 
whittled into ball clubs just yet. 
Then it is rather a low aim in life. There is 
something noble in making a first-rate farmer. 
That means cheaper bread and meat for the na¬ 
tion. To be a good mechanic is praiseworthy. 
It means better homes for the people, and better 
tools to do their work. But to be a first-rate 
ball player, or to be one of a champion nine, 
—what does it amount to ? If Shadtown beats 
the White Oakers all hollow, who is the better 
for it? General Trowbridge came through 
Hookertown last week in his splendid turn-out, 
and when opposite the widow Taft’s, a little 
noisy cur came out, and barked at his carriage, 
as if he thought he could stop it. He succeeded, 
and the general jumped out, and Avalloped the 
cur soundly, and sent him yelling through the 
gate. This brought the widow to the door in a 
somewhat excited state ; “Wall, gineral, that’s 
a big victory for you! You’ve’whipt a one- 
eyed cur.” It strikes me that the base ball vic- 
toiies are about on a par with the general’s. 
Shadtown is triumphant, but the White Oakers 
still live. Yours, to command, 
Timothy Buheer, Esq. 
Hookertown^ Oct. 25th, 1867. 
The Kidney Vetch.— The Kidney Vetch, 
{AnthylUs Vulneraria,) one of the -wild plants 
of England, having been proposed as a valuable 
forage plant, was analysed by Prof. Voelcker. 
The plant was examined in the form of hay, 
with the result that it was found to contain 
scarcely half the amount of fatty matters, was 
poorer in flesh-forming compouud.s, and had a 
great deal more indigestible woody fibre than 
either clover hay or good meadow hay. Prof. 
V. thinks it might be more valuable if fed green. 
--- ^-0-lw ' -» -— 
Walks and Talks on the Farm.— No. 48. 
{Centinved from page 440.) 
We have a cheese factory in successful opera¬ 
tion here in the wheat district, and another is 
about to be established. This is what I have 
always wished. I do not see why w'e cannot 
make as good cheese here as is made in Her¬ 
kimer County or the Western Reserve. We can 
raise just as good grass, and more of it. With 
plenty of wdieat, barley, and oat straw, corn 
stalks, pea and bean haulm, and clover hay so 
abundant that many farmers still plow it under 
for manure, we can winter our cows much 
cheaper than in the dairy districts. On my farm 
I can winter three times as much stock as I 
keep , through the summer. In the dairy dis¬ 
tricts, where the farms are devoted almost ex¬ 
clusively to grass, and where, consequently, the 
cows must be wintered principally on hay, the 
number of cow^s to be kept must be determined 
by the ability of the farmer to carry them 
through the winter. 
The cost of feeding a cow on hay through the 
winter must form a large item in the expense 
of keeping a dairy, and yet it is strange that 
nearly all our writers on dairying say little on 
this point. They give us very minute directions 
as to feeding the cows in the spring, after they 
come in, but say nothing in regard to feeding 
them during the winter. And yet it seems to 
me the latter is, if anything, the more important 
point. The cow needs to accumulate strength 
during the winter to enable her to stand the 
great strain on her constitution during calving, 
as well as through the long period of milking. 
A cow will eat 3 pounds of hay a day to each 
100 pounds of her live weight. If she weighs 
800 pounds, she will eat 24 pounds of hay, or 
168 pounds a week. If fed on hay alone from 
December 1st to May 1st, (22 weeks,) she would 
consume 3,696 pounds. A cow weighing 1000 
pounds would eat in the same time 4,620 pounds, 
or a little over 2’| 4 tons. Horsfall, the best author¬ 
ity we have on feeding dairy cows, says it re¬ 
quires 20 pounds of hay a day for the mainte¬ 
nance of a store cow. In other words, it takes 
this amount merely to support the vital func¬ 
tions—the cow will give no milk, nor increase 
in weight. She -will merely live. According to 
this, it requires a little over a ton and a half of 
hay to keep a cow from December to May, with¬ 
out getting anything in return. When cows are 
fed three per cent, of their live weight, of good 
hay, per day, we may reasonably expect more 
or less milk, or an increase in flesh or fat. 
If it takes 20 pounds of hay a day to keep a 
cow alive, we should never forget that all our 
profit comes from the food the cow consumes 
over and above this amount. Mr. Horsfall had 
a cow that, for the sake of the experiment, he fed 
on hay alone. She was a rather small cow, but 
noted for her usefulness as a good milker. At 
the time of calving her third calf, November 
12 lh, she was in ratlier high condition, and gave 
17 quarts of milk a day. On the 1st of Jarwiary, 
at the commencement of the experiment, she 
weighed 980 pounds, and was giving 15‘| 3 quarts 
of milk a day. She was allowed all tlie hay 
she would, eat, and consumed, on an average, 
28 pounds per day. On March 5lh, her yield 
had fallen off to 9' I 2 quarts per day, and the cow 
then weighed only 896 pounds—a loss of 84 
pounds. On the average, during the experiment 
of nine weeks, she gave 12 'quarts per day. 
