REVIEW OF THE JUNE NUMBER OF THE AGRICULTURIST. 
251 
seven of them and received prices for them 
varying from $200 to $300. One of them he 
has been offered $400 for and refused the offer. 
Although I did not see the whole of these sheep 
sheared, and the fleeces weighed, I have the 
above facts on authority upon which I place 
implicit reliance. I certainly would not give 
them to the public in this shape unless I had 
the fullest confidence of their truth. For a part 
of them I can vouch from my own personal ob¬ 
servation. Can these sheep be beaten in the 
United States 1 I believe not, though I do not 
profess to be “ booked up ” so perfectly as some 
others in these matters. At all events, if they 
can be beaten, this statement may serve to call 
forth the proof.” 
Nothing gives us more pleasure than to see a 
growing disposition among our farmers to get 
up similar festivals of one kind and another 
among themselves. By seeing what each other 
are doing, they enlarge their minds, promote 
agricultural improvements much more rapidly 
among themselves than can be done under the 
isolated, and we add, somewhat niggardly and 
selfish spirit that has been too long prevailing 
in our country. English farmers have ever 
been noted for these kinds of festivals, and this 
is one reason why they are so enlightened and 
prosperous men. They not only have their 
sheep shearings, but sheep shows and sales; 
they also have festivals for examining each 
other’s grain, grass, and vegetable crops, and va¬ 
rious other things. 
After the shearing was over, all present sat 
down to a capital dinner, where most of the deli¬ 
cacies and substantials of the season were served 
up evidently to the gratification of the company. 
Our only wish is, that we could have been pres¬ 
ent to enjoy the festival. 
REVIEW OF THE JUNE NUMBER OF THE 
AGRICULTURIST. 
Virtue.s of Milk. —Here is a short article reit¬ 
erating the old saw—“milk is a most perfect 
diet—nothing like it;” because chemical sci¬ 
ence finds the necessary constituents of human 
food in its composition. And yet, notwithstanding 
the truth of science, the truth of experience 
proves it is not healthy in a country affected 
with bilious diseases ; in many places,' it is ab¬ 
solutely poisonous, producing disease and death. 
The writer says it is necessary it should be 
pure, or it will prove a curse rather than a 
blessing. Very sound doctrine, that; and equal¬ 
ly sound to say one half at least consumed by 
the human family is impure, and consequently, 
unfit for human food. I am aware of the unpop¬ 
ularity of refusing to allow milk all the virtues 
claimed for it; but, nevertheless, I believe it 
occasions more sickness than any other single 
article of food. 
A Jaunt in Ohio, No. 3.—This article is not 
so interesting as the previous ones. The writer, 
whoever he is, is most evidently not in love 
with Ohio farming. The description of Colonel 
James’ “grand prairie farm,” which “ Visitor” 
rode half a dozen miles to see, is entirely lost 
sight of in his poetical picture of an Ohio prai¬ 
rie under an October sun. After gazing him¬ 
self full of it, (I hope he afterwards found room 
for that “substantial lunch,”) he rides away 
and leaves us to imagine all sorts of things we 
please, about this grand prairie farm. 
Brown Corn .—The writer thinks it desirable 
for every farmer to raise a small quantity of 
this corn for early feeding. This may be de¬ 
sirable at Poughkeepsie, but not much further 
south. All corn from as far north as where 
this variety came from becomes quite worth¬ 
less when planted in the Carolinas. 
Value of Sewerage Water. —This is the very 
point I have always contended for, that we are 
sending ships to Peru to bring the very article 
which we daily waste in such immense quanti¬ 
ties, not only in all the cities, but upon almost 
every farm of the country. How many farm¬ 
ers save the vast amount of fertilising matter 
formed from human food ? How many save 
bones, blood, hair, horns, hoofs, and other offal of 
butchered animals for manure ? Who ever 
thinks of manuring a hill of potatoes with an 
old pair of boots, or an old coat or hat ? What a 
laugh my neighbors had at the old Captain and 
his book notions, when I planted a wheelbarrow 
load of brick bats and old mortar under each of 
my young fruit trees. “ That’s queer manure,” 
said they. Yes, it was queer to them, but it 
made the trees grow; and so would a thousand 
wasted substances double our farm products, if 
saved and applied, not forgetting the sewer water 
from every farm kitchen, which should be con¬ 
veyed in pipes to a tank filled with loam and 
all sorts of scraps and garbage generally wasted. 
German Agriculture and German Economy .— 
It is idle to expect either to be practised here 
while land is so cheap, so abundant, so fertile, 
that the owners have no inducement to econo¬ 
mise to the extent which necessity compels 
them to in the “Faderland.” But the time is 
coming. 
The Purik Sheep. —Why cannot these domes¬ 
tic animals be substituted in place of dogs ? If 
people must have pets let us encourage them to 
