148 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
dairyman to be an essential requisite; as the power in 
animals to prepare the greatest quantity of nourishment 
from a given amount of food, depends much upon the 
size of the lungs, the organs of digestion being subordi¬ 
nate to them. The cow must have room enough in the 
girth for a predominance of vital apparatus, for the lungs 
and heart to play, o-r suiRcient nourishment will not be 
furnished for a fluency of milk, and to supply the mus¬ 
cular system with strength to endure the frequent and ex¬ 
treme changes of weather in this climate without being 
subject to disease. A large sagging paunch or belly and 
small loin, with a comparative small and flat girth, is a 
disproportion in the shape of the cow, and indicates a 
general weakness in the constitution, providing her with 
a large store room for food and a lack of sufficient appa¬ 
ratus to digest it without a waste. 
With these views, I have made the girth the first point 
to be considered in the purchase of a cow; the chest is 
capacious in proportion to the girth, and its cavity di¬ 
minishes with the increase of its conical or flattened form. 
This may be simply demonstrated by flattening a ring or 
cii'cle till its diameter is reduced to nothing, without di¬ 
minishing its circumference; thus proving the girth of 
an animal no certain proof of its comparative size, with¬ 
out particular reference to its elliptical form. The chest 
of a cow should be conical, widening backward to the 
last rib, with broad heavy loins, heavy bind quarter, ud¬ 
der set well forward, teats of good length and well sepa¬ 
rated, with large milk veins, which indicate a strong 
vascular system; with a flat loose shoulder, neck if thick 
not deep, clean head and horns, with bones in the frame 
uniformly flat and wide, strong muscles not closely con¬ 
nected with the bone or skin, the skin good thickness and 
mellow, hair soft if not fine. These are the qualities 
which I have endeavored to find in cows that I have se¬ 
lected for my dairy, as best calculated to keep up a uni¬ 
form fluency of milk early and late, and bear a drift with¬ 
out disease or excess of feed. 
Breeding heifers with a view to improve the milking 
qualities of our dairy cows, is a matter of no small im¬ 
portance to the dairymen of this county. Frequent at¬ 
tempts have been made to improve our native breed of 
cows, by mixing them with high fed overgrown bulls of 
foreign blood. But to accomplish the desired object by 
such a practice, would be reversing the order of nature; 
as the fcetus of such sires requires more nourishment to 
perfect the form and constitution of the offspring, than 
our common dairy cows can furnish them. 
I will not go further into detail of this matter now, but 
will invite the attention of the enterprising dairymen and 
breeders, to the more thorough investigation of this 
branch of agriculture, in hopes that we may have more 
light shed upon the subject at our next annual Fair. 
I submit these imperfect views for examination, not 
from the pen of a learned, but thinking farmer. 
Litchfield, Oct. 19, 1842. A. L. Fish. 
PLATT’S PREMIUM PORTABLE MILL, 
For Grinding all kinds of Grain, Spices, Drugs, Paints, ^c. 
Messrs. Gayi.ord & Tucker —^We take the liberty 
of sending you this communication, knowing that you 
take a warm interest in any really valuable improvement 
of machines or machinery calculated to benefit the ag¬ 
riculturist. We deem it too, an act of justice to the pub¬ 
lic, to make known any improvements of the kind which 
are of general interest. 
The above machine accidentally came to our notice 
last winter, through the medium of a southern corres¬ 
pondent. We became apprised that Mr. Josiah Platt of 
Weston, Connecticut, was the patentee, and had exhibi¬ 
ted the mill at the American Institute in this city, last 
autumn, and received the first premium; since which 
time it has been most successfully introduced into seve¬ 
ral of the states, and the demand for them promises to 
be almost unlimited. 
We have, within a few days, had the pleasure of see¬ 
ing this mill in operation; and we are convinced, as are 
all who see it, that it is a machine much needed by, and 
will be in general use among farmers and millers, wher¬ 
ever it is once introduced and known. 
It is admirable for grinding Indian corn and horse 
feed. Grain of all kinds is ground with equal facility. 
Also cofiee, and all kinds of spices; also salt, drugs, &c. 
and it is easily adapted for grinding paints. Its durabili¬ 
ty is equal to any other mill, the stone being composed 
of French Burr; and its efficiency with its simplicity is 
remarkable, as aie also its other desirable commenda¬ 
tions for compactness, porlableness and low price. 
There are four different sizes now made of these mills, 
viz: 12, 15, 18 and 24 inch stone; prices from $40 to 
$110. The smallest may be used by hand power and 
turned by a crank, and either of them are readily worked 
by horse, steam or light water power. 
Wherever water pow'er is scarce, and grist mills for 
grinding corn or grain of any kind are consequently 
scarce, these patent mills will be almost invaluable; for 
with one of these mills with horse power, any person 
could grind all that could be ground by any other mill. 
It is at once admitted by all who have seen this mill 
perform, that it is truly a labor saving and economical 
machine; as with it more work can be done with less 
power (by about half,) than any other mill, and it will 
do the work at least as well and as fast, and the price is 
less than for any other. 
Being so well satisfied of the superior excellence of 
these mills, we have accepted the general agency for the 
sale of them, and also for the patent rights in the patent 
for the state of New'-York. We would ’therefore take 
PLATT’S PREMIUM PORTABLE MILL.—(Fig. 69.) 
this occasion to invite the attention of those who feel in¬ 
terested in valuable improvements Ir these mills. 
Permit us also to say that “ Warren’s Improved Horse 
Power,” for one, two or four horses, are now made and 
completely adapted to driving these mills. (See adver¬ 
tisement.) L. Bostwick & Co., 58 Water st. 
NeW’York, Aug. 13, 1843. 
BREEDING. 
Messes. Editors of the Cultivator —Taking up, 
a few days since, that usually inoffensive and harmless 
paper, the American Agriculturist, published by your 
amiable co-laborer, A. B. A., I saw with astonishment, 
(I cannot say with regret, for where an individual is so 
evidently overcharged with bile, the sooner he is reliev¬ 
ed from his perilous burden the better,) a most furious 
onslaught upon an article on breeding, published in the 
Cultivator for July. I read that article at the time with 
no little interest, and, thanks, perhaps, to my having a 
thicker skull than A. B. A., without dreaming of the 
traps and spring guns it contained for the bloody mur¬ 
der, or to say the least, for the driving back to the 
place whence they came, our herds of beautiful Dur- 
hams, animals in which I have a special and particular 
interest. I read the really “ fire-eater” article of A. B. 
A., and then turned to my file of the Cultivator, and re¬ 
perused the paper which gave occasion for such a vo¬ 
lume of hard words; and I must say that a more down¬ 
right dogged determination to be hard of understanding 
than is here shown, has rarely fallen under my notice. 
I know not whether you will deem the tirade worthy 
of your notice; but with your leave, I wish to give 
you some of my New-England notions of the matters 
at issue. As I understand them, they are resolvable into 
two points: 1. The best means for the improvement of 
the great mass of cattle in the country; and 2. The 
continued improvement of the Short Horns themselves; 
for as to the bugbear inferences attempted to be drawn 
by A. B. A., there is not a sane man in the United 
States will believe a word of them. 
As to the first point, you recommend the extensive 
dissemination and breeding from pure blood bulls, con¬ 
tinually recurring back to such blood, and never using 
cross bred bulls where it is possible to avoid it. In 
this way, by constantly breeding upwards, selecting the 
best of our native cows to breed from, and using none 
but pure blood bulls, you think, and so will every re¬ 
flecting man, that a vast and rapid improvement in our 
common herds might be made. What A. B. A. thinks 
on this subject, he has not seen fit to inform us. The 
improvement of the millions of our native stock is to 
him apparently not worth a thought. 
As to the 2d point, it seems a mere question of fact, 
whether the Durhams as a breed are perfect and incapa¬ 
ble of further improvement, and whether a breed in a 
high state of perfection can be improved by crossing it 
with one which, as a whole, is inferior. That the 
Short Horns, great as is their improvement and supe¬ 
riority, are perfect, no one, not even A. B. A., will be 
silly enough to affirm. They can be improved; and now 
must all the means of advance be derived from this 
breed alone, or cannot crossing with a breed inferior as 
a whole, but superior in some respects, be justifiable 
and successful? A. B. A. says improvement must come 
from this breed alone; you say they maybe improved 
by the engrafting of good qualifies, wherever you can 
find them. A. B. A. denies that any improvement can 
be made by crossing with a breed inferior in any re¬ 
spect; you admit the possibility of improvement in that 
way; and now I will go farther, and affirm that many. 
if not most of the real and permanent improvements 
in our domestic animals have originated in that very 
way. By taking the best of two distinct breeds and 
skillfully breeding from them, better animals have been 
obtained than could have been obtained from either, se¬ 
parately. What are the facts? 
In that very number of the American Agriculturist 
containing the strictures of A. B. A., are some remarks 
illustrative of some London toy book engraving, in¬ 
serted to represent the Arabian horse. From these re¬ 
marks, I extract the first and last sentences; “The 
Arabian is acknowledged to be the foundation of all im¬ 
provement in the breed of horses, either bred pure by 
himself, in other countries, as for example the English 
thorough bred, or by crosses, as is shown in the stocks 
of different nations. * • * It is generally sup¬ 
posed, now, that the Arabian horse can no longer im¬ 
prove our own or the English stock of horses, and we 
are rather inclined to that opinion.” What is in effect 
affirmed here? 1. That the Arabian horse was origi¬ 
nally the best breed, the very base of all improvement 
in horses—a fact indeed generally known. 2. That by 
crossing with other, and of necessity inferior breeds, 
new breeds have been produced so superior to the 
original stock that it is no longer useful for the pur¬ 
pose of improvement. Here he has conceded the 
whole argument. The Arabian, the Short Horn of 
horses, has been so improved by skillful crossing, which 
conferred points or qualities in which the original was 
deficient, though on the whole superior to all other 
breeds, that the base of the improvement has been 
thrown into the shade, and for breeding rendered com¬ 
paratively valueless. I hope A. B. A. will not object to 
the authority I have here used; for however doubtful it 
might be in other cases, it must be good against him¬ 
self. He may perhaps console himself by reflecting 
that he is not the first engineer that has been “ hoist 
with his own petai’d.” 
And now, as to cattle, can an instance be given in 
which an “ improvement has been effected by a cross 
of a superior with an inferior breed?” There can be 
a most striking and unanswerable one, and this A. B. 
A. well knew, or he would not have penned this sen¬ 
tence : “ We suppose we shall be told of Countess, that 
sold for 400 guineas, the Galloway cross, and all that 
sort of thing.” Ah! that Galloway cross is “ the d—1 
that will kill our Ned;” a stubborn thing not to be 
moved out of the way, and of course to be met with 
a sneer. But a sneer is not an argument, and the fact 
of the Galloway cross must stand, unless it shall ap¬ 
pear that A. B. A., while in England, made some won¬ 
derful discovery respecting it, equal to that which ena¬ 
bled him on his return to announce his manufactory of 
Ayrshires. What is the truth respecting this Galloway 
cross? Mr. Charles Coifing, who did so much to im¬ 
prove and to bring the Short Horns into favor, crossed 
his celebrated Short Horn bull Bolingbroke with a fine, 
red, polled Galloway cow, and the result was a most 
happy one. In the language of one well qualified to 
give an opinion in the matter, “He (Mr. Colling) re¬ 
sorted to this cross to obviate the deterioration pro¬ 
duced by in-and-in-breeding, which was slowly but 
surely leading to a hercditaiy debility of constitution. 
He not only renovated the blood of the Short Horns by 
the new infusion, without injury to them otherwise, but 
with masterly skill, he improved a breed already 
near perfection, by engrafting upon it the peculiar excel¬ 
lencies of another breed, in the main far inferior.”* 
* For further particulars, see the Essay of H. S. Randall, 
Esq., vol. Vll. Cultivator, page 94. 
