774 
THb RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Wife expressed her joy in a very fitting~way*(we 
have been married going on 15 years) and then in a 
few days, an order for a $3 collection of bulbs and 
seeds was speeding on its way to the publisher of one 
of those aforesaid, fascinating, tantalizing catalogues. 
They are now here and safely buried in the bed, 
tenderly and lovingly covered according to directions 
with forest leaves, weighted down with evergreen 
boughs, awaiting the magic touch of the springtime 
sun to awake in a beauty and magnificence that should 
gladden the heart of any being who loves the true and 
beautiful—and that’s my wife. 
Figuring on the basis of common day wages, the 
bed cost me $4.50, and the bulbs and seeds that went 
into it nearly $3 more. But if wife and I should never 
be permitted to gaze on its loveliness in bloom, we 
shall be none the poorer, as we have already got more 
than our money’s worth in the pleasant anticipation 
of its future splendor and beauty. A. R. Phillips. 
Ohio. 
PRIME ROAST BEEF ON FOOT. 
A TALK A K O U T II K R P: F O R I) C A T T I. K . 
Why That Breed Was Chosen. 
Not long since, I had a talk with Thomas W. Her¬ 
ron, whose farm is about two miles north of Free¬ 
land, O. “ Why did you select Herefords in prefer¬ 
ence to other breeds ? ” I asked. 
“ Well,” said he, “I had visited several fairs where 
the Herefords were exhibited, and 1 was impressed 
with the neatness of their shape, and the uniformity 
of their color ; this impression was very naturally 
followed by a desire for more information, and I se¬ 
cured some Hereford literature and thoroughly in¬ 
vestigated the history of the breed. I found that they 
had kept the characteristics of a breed from time out 
of mind, and I sold out my scrubs and invested the 
proceeds, and considerable more, in the Herefords. 
Time seems to have vindicated my judgment then, 
for at the World’s Fair, Clough’s herd ranked second 
in competition with all breeds, and many of my best 
are direct descendants of Clough’s cattle.” 
“ I presume that you would not be ashamed to give 
yours an airing on the fair grounds, would you ? ” 
“ In the matter of showing, we have been very suc¬ 
cessful so far as premiums are concerned. But, you 
know, red ribbons don’t pay one’s current expenses.” 
“ Did you find it profitable to show your cattle at 
the fairs ? ” 
“ I can’t say that I did, beyond the advertising it 
gave them. The management of most fairs, put about 
all the gate receipts into the racing premiums, and 
Herefords, you know, can’t trot. It seems to me that 
there might be a little better way of distributing pre¬ 
miums, or equalizing them so that a man might make 
enough to pay his expenses, at least.” 
“It is not claimed for the Herefords, that they are 
good milkers, is it ? ” 
“No, not the pure bloods ; but in crossing we some¬ 
times get some excellent milkers. A neighbor had a 
Short-horn cow bred to one of my purebred bulls, 
and the offspring, he claims, is the best milker he has 
on his place. Yet neither the beef Short-horns nor 
the Herefords are claimed to be very great milkers. 
In breeding stock, as in everything else, there are 
some prodigies, which run ahead of the average of 
their kind, and so far as I have been able to observe, 
there is no accounting for it any more than by environ¬ 
ment and care. Once in awhile you get something 
extraordinarily good, and sometimes you get some¬ 
thing extraordinarily bad, but the ma-kir point is, to 
keep up to, and improve on, the average.” 
“ Are you trying to improve on the average for 
milk, or for weight?” 
“ The average is scarcely improvable for milk, for 
the simple reason that if you try to improve it for 
milk, you will soon deteriorate it in weight. Weight 
is the one thing to be bred for ; but my herd is too 
precious to breed for beef cattle. I always sell the 
calves for breeding purposes ; it would be foolish 
to sell purebred cattle for that purpose. I have 
crossed with my neighbor’s for beef cattle, and they 
say they get better prices for those bearing the Here¬ 
ford characteristics, than for others.” 
Why the Herefords are Valuable. 
“ They are light-boned, fine, solid fiesh, and don’t 
lose much in offal.” 
“ Are the Herefords as weighty as the Short-horns?” 
“ No.” 
“ What do you consider the average weight ? ” 
“ Cows about 1,400 ; full-grown bulls from 2,000 to 
3,000 pounds.” 
“ What cross would you use to increase the weight 
and rapidity of growth ? ” 
“I would breed purebred Short-horn cows to Here¬ 
ford bulls.” 
“ Why not breed Hereford cows to Short-horn 
bulls ? ” 
“ For several reasons ; a calf will resemble its sire 
in texture of hair and color; the Short-horns are not 
so good winter cattle as the Herefords. If you turn a 
purebred steer of each kind out in the winter winds, 
it will be found that the Short-horn will lose fle.sh 
while the Hereford will continue fat and sleek on the 
same rations. I am not trying to disparage the Short¬ 
horns ; I think that they are the best stock cattle you 
will find outside of the Herefords. Another thing in 
which a calf will resemble its sire, is its appetite ; 
Herefords don’t eat as much as Short-horns.” 
“ How do you account for the fact that the Here¬ 
fords eat less than the Short-horns ? ” 
“ I don’t know how to account for it; but you can’t 
account for the fact that a little consumptive, dried 
up man will eat twice as much as a strapping big fel¬ 
low ; but you don’t doubt it when you see it, do you ?” 
The Farm and the Cattle Business. 
‘ ‘ What rotation do you follow to keep plenty of 
pasture ? Corn, wheat and grass ? ” 
“Yes. I have a peculiar .soil, and it is difficult to 
keep Timothy and clover from freezing out; in fact, 
for pasture, I use Orchard grass with a light sowing of 
Blue grass. In course of time, the Blue grass crowds 
the other out. and we then have excellent pasture. 
The soil is black limestone.” 
“ How long can you use a pasture without breaking 
it up ? ” 
“ Eight or ten years.” 
“Do you think it would be profitable to .ship in 
Western yearlings to stock up for beef cattle when 
they are three years old ? ” 
“ That would depend somewhat on the part of the 
West from which they come, and also on the kind of 
yearlings you purchased. If the cattle had been 
accustomed to unlimited ranges of pasture, they would 
do but little on our inclosed Eastern pastures. They 
would be ever on the move, and would run all the fiesh 
off themselves as fast as put on. But, if you could 
get cattle already accustomed to inclosures cheaply 
enough, I see no reason why it would not prove profit¬ 
able if you had plenty of feed.” 
“ Does the extra manui'e made by mongrel stock 
offset the extra amount of feed it takes to keep them 
in shape ?” 
“Not by any means ; the average scrub at three 
years old is a large steer if he weighs from 1,400 to 
1,600 pounds. If you keep two steers of this type, you 
feed them enough to raise three of the Hereford and 
Short-horn cross, and you lose about 200 pounds on 
each steer, besides losing the third steer altogether ; 
a loss which would more than pay for the manure 
made by all ; besides, the three good steers would 
make very nearly as much manure as the two poor 
ones.” 
“ Do you recommend dishorning ?” 
“ For stock cattle, yes. Of course I can’t disfigure 
mine in that way, as it would spoil their record at 
the fairs ; but for those who have to feed considerable 
out-of-doors it is the most effective way of stopping 
the ‘ ‘bossing. ” Cattle treated in this way, eat together 
like sheep, if old enough when the operation is per¬ 
formed. If it is done while they are very young, how¬ 
ever, there will be some scuffling for supremacy ; but 
they can’t hurt each other very badly if they do.” 
“ Will dishorning conquer a vicious bull ?” 
“ Not if he has become chronically so. I have never 
dishorned a bull on that account, because 1 have no 
business with a vicious bull, horns or no horns. I 
wouldn’t keep one if he were the most valuable 
animal in my herd ; I wouldn’t allow the risk of losing 
one of my children for all the cattle I ever saw, and 
when a bull is vicious, the slaughter house is the 
best place for him.” 
“ Are the Hereford bulls as liable to be cross as the 
Jerseys ?” 
“ I don’t know. I have handled several Herefords 
and I never had a cross one.” j. d. 
BREEDING UP A DAIRY HERD. 
HOW TO AVOID BREEDING DOWN. 
I believe that a man who understands it, could, in 
time, breed up a herd of cattle having any desired 
peculiarity. Twenty years ago, the Poland-China hog 
had too fine bone. His legs were small and weak, and 
he had great fiabby ears. At first, breeders tried to 
breed away the waste, and secured small bones. The 
result was that a fat hog would break down. These 
two defects have been changed to stout legs and ears 
with simply lopping tips. 
Over 20 years ago, wife and I came to Iowa almost 
invalids, broken do%vn in professional life. We had a 
50-acre farm to operate upon. We began the culture 
of small fruits and the breeding of fine poultry, 
Poland-China pigs, and a small dairy. As we were 
both inexperienced, we took two or three of the best 
farm papers, and with these and practice, in a few 
years we excelled in every line mentioned. 
We began making butter in a small way, from one 
or two cows. To save expense, we bought young 
heifers that had never had calves. These were all 
common stock. In the beginning, our cows would 
give eight quarts of milk at a milking, and make 
three or four pounds of butter a week. But as we 
read of the cows that would fill 12-quart pails, wife 
became ambitious to have a cow that would come to 
the 12-quart standard. At last, a cow of our own 
raising with which we had taken pains, came in, and 
soon, to the joy of wife, she filled the pail to foaming 
over, and before five weeks, it took a 16-quart pail to 
hold the milk ; we had won, and created a standard. 
At the end of 15 years, we expected our cows to pro¬ 
duce about eight pounds of butter per week, and 
nearly every two-year-old heifer, after her first calf, 
would fill the 12-quart pail. How did we do this ? 
First, by selection. We .saved the calves from the 
best cows, and we soon learned to judge a heifer pretty 
well from her make and style. Such as did not come 
up to the .standard were sold to the cattlemen. 
Second, we soon learned that there was more in the 
feed than in the breed. We learned that the cow is 
only a machine, or a mill, to grind out what is put in, 
and, to drop the figure, the more a cow will eat, the 
more milk and butter she will yield. For milk, we 
fed wheat bran ; for butter, plenty of corn. 
Third, in two ways we learned how to make the 
form of a profitable cow. She must not be like a 
deer, but like a .sheep. I remembered that 40 years 
before, my father always let the calves suck the cows. 
He said that to feed them from the pail made them 
pot-bellied ; and I remembered how neat and slick 
and slim our calves always were at home. At first, 
we adopted this plan, and found that we produced 
the neatest heifers po.ssible. They were as slim as 
deers. They would have been excellent to put on the 
track as trotters ; but when it came to milk, they 
would not give enough for their calves. We saw that 
we did not want these trotters, but cows that would 
eat. So we took to feeding the calves. At first, we 
gave new milk to make them grow, but soon gave 
them all the pure, sweet, skim-milk they would drink; 
besides, they run in a fine pasture. This, of course, 
made them pot-bellied and bunchy, but that was only 
a development of paunch, and such calves made ani¬ 
mals that would eat. As machines, we poured the 
feed into their hungry maws, and they ground out 
milk and butter. 
One other thing we noticed : When a heifer calved 
in early spring when feed was poor, and she was thin, 
she failed to develop an udder, and, as she began her 
first year, so she would continue. For this reason, we 
tried to have young heifers calve in June, when the 
rank grass would develop large udders, and thus make 
them, from the first, large milkers. To keep them 
long in milk, we were careful the first year to milk 
the young cows almost up to the time of calving. The 
first year of a cow, settled many of her forms and 
qualities. 
A few years ago, we came to town and selected, to 
bring with us, one of our best cows. This cow would 
give her 30 quarts of milk a day, make 10 pounds of 
butter per week, and never go dry. We had one dis¬ 
advantage : We drove our cows to the neighbors for 
mating, and as Short-horn bulls were generally kept, 
this was against our success. Had I selected and kept 
males as we did heifers, the success would have been 
much more marked, and more permanent. A. d. f. 
Indianola, la. _ 
HILL CULTURE OF STRAWBERRIES. 
FRUIT NOTES BY M. CRAWFORD. 
My opinion is that all strawberries may be grown 
successfully in hills, and many do well in no other 
way. As a rule, all foreign varieties must have the 
runners cut. The Triomphe de Gand was once very 
popular, but I never saw it do well when allowed to 
run. The same may be said of the Jucunda, Kitley’s 
Goliath, Trollope’s Victoria and others. Some varie¬ 
ties require so much attention that they are likely to 
be neglected. Few people will ever raise the Michel’s 
Early in hills, for two reasons : it sends out so many 
runners, and the fruit is too small to pay for close at¬ 
tention. It is much the same with the Crescent. The 
Jewell was easily grown in this way, as it made so 
few runners. The Parker Earle is another. No 
variety is likely to become popular unless it makes 
lots of runners. Nurserymen will not push it, and no 
one else is likely to do so. This is why the Jewell is 
seldom heard of, although of great merit. Parker 
Earle is likely to go the same way. I received last 
spring, a seedling of the Parker Earle that makes no 
runners. The single plant sent me was divided into 
six, and now each of them would make as many. 
Every leaf that came out during the season, is green 
and fresh yet. I am exceedingly anxious to see the 
fruit which, I understand, is very fine and produced in 
great abundance. 
If more people would grow strawberries in hills, 
we would become better acquainted with the large 
and delicious varieties that are grown in Europe. A 
