ROCHESTER, N. Y.-FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, OCTOBER n, 1864 
WHOLE NO. 771 
MOOBE’S BUBAL BEW-YOBKEB, 
AN ORIGINAL WEtlKI.T 
RUSAL, LITERAEY AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE. 
OIIAULES IK KKAGDON, ^^oclate Editor. 
WESTERN PRAIRIE SHEEP LANDS, 
HENRY S. RAJTO AT.T, r.T.. D„ 
Editor Department of Sheep Husbandry. 
W E are getting many replies to our inquiries 
in regard to sheep lands on the western prairies 
that we can not publish more than abridgments 
of them. We have just received an excellent 
letter on the subject from A. A. Snow of Mar- 
shallton, Marshall Co., Iowa. He says that six 
miles north-east, at Green Mountain P. 0., is a 
settlement of inteUigent Vermont farmers, and 
he proceed? to answer our questions, in ?ub- 
-tanee, thus:—There is any amount of unoccu¬ 
pied pasturage, the land being settled only along 
the rivers. The wild lands can be bought for 
S3 to $5 an acre—improved lands near the tim¬ 
ber from $1.) to $20. The "ounfy is almost des¬ 
titute of timber and surface stone —though 
abundance of iimu-stoue c m be taken from the 
quarries. T iers is coal for fuel within a day’s 
drive. The surface soil i> of i; dark, rich loam, 
and from one to three feet deep, resting on a yel¬ 
lowish clay. It stands drouths remarkably, and 
wiU not. sutler bauly if no rain frills* from corn- 
planting to wheat-barve s:. The country is very 
rolling near the streams, and less so back from 
them. There is abundance of wacer n almost 
all of the sloughs—wells are from 12 to 25 feet 
deep, with “first rate hard water.” 1 The 
streams are all of hard w (<_r. it is believed to 
be a riue sueep country. v 'fori or t .eh ,, thou¬ 
sand sheep, generally from hair to three-fourths 
Merino, have been drawn in from the Western 
States, and all appear trfbe doing well. Nine 
hundred were in one iu.-t mce wintered together 
on prairie hay without any grain, and yielded 
from four to six pounds of wool a head. The 
prairie grass usually starts from 15th of April 
to 1st Of May, anti is goo.1 feed to the fall frosts, 
which usually occur between the middle and 
Last of October—then it is *'done for,” for the 
sheep and cattle will aot eat it afterwauls. 
Prairie hay, to make good fodder, must be cut 
green, and it may be obtained from the first of 
July to the last of September, if no freeze 
occurs, but it is better to cut it immediately 
after wheat harvest. Prairie hay, corn fodder. 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS* 
P. BARRY. C. DEWEY, LI,. D., 
H. T. BROOKS, L. B. LANGWORTHY, 
Tub Rural Nkw-York.br Is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed in Value, Purity, aud Variety of Contents, and 
unique and beautiful in Appearance. Its Conductor 
devotes tils personal attention to tbe supervision of Its 
various departments, anil earnestly labors to render 
tbe Rural an eminently Reliable Guide on wtl the 
Important Practical, Scientific and other Subjects inti¬ 
mately connected with the business of those whose 
Interests it zealously advocates. As a Family .journal 
it is eminently instructive and Entertaining—being so 
conducted tlial It can be safely taken to the Homes of 
people of Intelligences taste and discrimination. It 
embraces more Agricultural, Horticultural, Scientific, 
Educational, Literary and News Matter, Interspersed 
•vlth appropriate Engravings, than any other jonrua!,— 
renderin'., it tin most complete Agricultural Ltrit- 
RARY AND Family Vijwsi’APKB in America. 
G. S, Center of South Butler, YVayne Co., 
N. Y.. incloses us the foUowing pedigree of his 
ram, a cut of which accompanies this: 
East Hubbardton, Rutland Co , V:., I 
July 4,1SG4. \ 
This certifies that in tue latier part of Nov., igtjg, I 
sold G. S. CaNTfR, Esc., of So. Bailer, a back lamb 
raised by me, dropped iLe first of April preceding, 
which be calls 14 Golden -0«*ece.“ Said iamb was sired 
by Roxxar Gleason's stock bock, . Benson, called 
‘•Old Greasy," be by a buck bred by R. IV Hail of 
Cornwall, and sired by a buck bred by Edwin Ham¬ 
mond of Middlebtiry, Vt, known as tie “ Wooster 
Buck." Tbe dam of “ Golden Tic ec-a' w as from a full 
blood Atwood ewe, and sired by my stock buck which 
was sired by aback bred by ?:>id Hammond, known 
S3 his “ Little Greasy Buck” 
M. At Dikeman. 
Mr. Center writes us that his ram on the 
30th day of May, 1803, yielded 17 pounds 12 
ounces of unwashed wool— that on the 8th day 
of June, 1861, he was publicly sheared at the 
Sheep Shearing Festival at Scipio Center, and 
yielded 23 pounds and 9 ounces of unwashed 
wool. 
STATE FAIR DISCUSSIONS. 
W eth krbll. —In response to tins, gentleman 
who accuses me of being more t heoretical than 
practical. I wish to say that I have given the 
practical experiments and experience of others 
and their result?, not simply my own theories. 
And it should he remembered, in comparing the 
effect of cooked food upon man with other ani¬ 
mals, that man is not a ruminating animal—that 
the stomachs of a man and an ox differ. 
Lewis F. Allen —The same rule wiU not 
apply to all kinds of stock. I think cooked food 
of more value to feed to milch cows than any 
other animal. The more you can assimilate the 
food to the condition of the animal's stomach 
the better. A large amount of animal power is 
expended in grinding and assimilating food. 
The cow chews her cud because her food goes 
into the first stomach unprepared to yield nutri¬ 
tion and milk. Further preparation is necessa¬ 
ry; and if this further preparation is made by 
artificial means, I can not conceive why it 
should bo any disadvantage to the animal. I 
have fed a milk dairy with cut food, adding 
water, and letting it get up to blond heat, and 
found this food to increase the fiow of milk, 
with no apparent injury to the animal. 
T. C. Jones of Ohio.—Grinding and cooking 
food for cattle was once practictxl with us, but 
it was found that the expense of preparation by 
grinding and cutting food was unprofitable. So 
we returned to the Illinois mode of feeding 
stock corn in the field, from the shock, and let¬ 
ting the hogs foUow the cattle. And we find, 
too, that there is little or no waste. It is true 
cattle void com fed in this way, but it is also 
true that hogs do better on com that has been 
voided thin on that fed direct. We feed corn 
to sheep in this way—feed one and a half bush¬ 
els of corn in -hock daily to one hundred sheep, 
they eating com and foliage. Our people geu- 
erallv believe that grinding corn and feeding it 
to hogs as a mash is an advantage, but that it is no 
advantage so to prepare it for cattle. I suppose 
tbe exercise of chewing the eiul on the part of 
a cow or an ox healthful, and es.-tntial to health. 
I do not suppose it to be exhausting to the vital 
forces at all. We find handling cattle more 
profitable with us than selling grain. And we 
find it profitable to grow grain to feed. If we 
‘•half feed" stock in winter—that is. keep them 
only in a good, thriving condition —and let 
them get fat on grass the following season, we 
find grain feeding profitable. But if we try to 
put llesE on poor stock by grain feeding in win¬ 
ter, it is not so profitable. 
cutting and steaming food—concluded. 
Geddes, —I do not wish to be understood as 
speaking against cooking food for other stock 
than sheep. I find if I take ten bushels of meal 
aud wet it in cold water, and feed twenty-five 
hogs with it, that they eat it well; but if I take 
the same amount aud cook it, it will take the 
same number of hogs twice as long to eat it up, 
and I think they fatten quite as fast in the same 
length of time. L5y cooking you double the 
bulk. But I have learned better than to feed 
an ox or a hog for market. There is no money 
to be made from it. If you cut poor hay, wet 
it, mix with meal, and let it lie twelve hours; it 
is a good way to coax stock to eat it. We feed 
cut hay aud ground oats wet to our teams. 
Oats ought always to be grouud before feeding, 
I think. 
Geo. Thurber, —This question of steaming 
lood Is a broad one, It ought to he discussed 
with reference to a particular kin d of food. 
What good does it do to steam food ? A plant is 
made up of cells, like a honey comb. The 
walls of these cells consist of woody matter, of 
little value to animals. The contents of these 
ceUs differ in value. The cells of the potato are 
filled with starch, aud the walls are thin. It 
requires less cooking to prepare them for use. 
The advantages and profit of cooking must of 
course depend upon tho character of the food to 
bo cooked. If you mean hay feed, that is one 
thing, and should be considered separately; or 
straw Iced, that is another thing; or bran, the 
cells of which are very hard, that is another 
thing. 
Fax TON,— It has been assorted here to-night 
that cooked food injures the animal — affects 
health and constitution, and longevity. Man is 
uu animal; why is his food cooked ? \Vhy do 
you cook flour, beets, *tc.So Car us my expe¬ 
rience goes, it is m favor of cooking all kinds of 
lood for animals, 1 have worked three hundred 
horses a day, and found it necessary to economize 
food. I have found it an advantage to cut hay 
and grind grain, and mix equally. Horses were 
healthier so fed. It is a mistake many make to 
feed a hoi'se the same rations, whether he is at 
work or not. 1 feed according to the work 1 
have for tho horse to do, ami I have found my 
teams to be more healthy and to endure more 
when fed on out and ground feed. 
Stewart.— t wish to say a word about cooked 
food injuring animals. I have steamed food for 
bricks from 87 to $10 per thousand, lime last 
summer from 18 cents to 25 cents per bushel— 
it Ls now worth 50 cents or 60 cents. Thera is 
a great want of woolen machinery. There is a 
carding machine at Marshall ton and a small 
woolen factory on Cedar rrier 50 miles East. 
Marshall ton would be an excellent place for a 
woolen factory. 
The best mede of going there is for 8 or 10 
families to go together, drive on their sheep and 
stock, and then go out on the open prairie and 
form a settlement of their own. They can plow 
and raise their crops without any fence by yard¬ 
ing stock nights, and could grow their hedge 
fences as they wane them. With decent incus- 
try and limit it is a land of teeming abundance, 
and is specially adapted to the wants of those 
who have muscle and enterprise and little cash 
capital. 
We suppose here is a pretty well drawn pic¬ 
ture of innumerable localities in the State of 
Iowa. 
quite as respectable as it appears 'Ir. Petti- 
BuNe does, to palm off sheep of tj %. same va¬ 
riety for these of different vacifi.. I have 
taken the trouble to correct his untruthful 
statements in regard to myself: and I hope that 
you or some of the sheep breeders of Vermont 
will treat as they deserve the slurs cast by him 
ou the latter and on their sheep. 
Respectfully yours, George Brown. 
Remarks. — It is very proper that Mr. 
Brown should publicly contradict a statement 
which he regards as injurious to himself, which 
was new to the large audience before which it 
was made, and which was made by an individ¬ 
ual unknown by the great body of that audi¬ 
ence. But we consider it wholly unnecessary 
for any sheep breeder of Vermont to reply to 
Mr. Pettibone's ** slurs.’’—and most assuredly 
we shall not do so ourselves. The pedigrees 
which he attacked have been matters of public 
record, and, so far us we know, have been un¬ 
disputed through nearly the lives of a genera¬ 
tion, until disputed by hiruself. And he has 
neither disproved any of the recorded testi¬ 
mony, nor brought any new testimony into the 
case. His attacks on some of the leading breed¬ 
ers of Vermont, were commenced last spring in 
the Country Gentleman, over the signature of 
" A Wool Grower." They were contained in 
two articles, published April 7th and May 26th. 
They were replied to in the Rural New- 
Yorker, April 23d mid June ISth, over the sig¬ 
nature of “ A Breeder,” by a well known and 
very able gentleman. Those who wish to know 
how far Mr. Pkttibone is able to sustain his 
“slurs" on Vermont breeders— aud how he 
fared generally in that brie! but decisive contro¬ 
versy—wiU do well to turn back to it. We 
will not dietate any course to the Vermont 
sheep breeders, or their friends, on this occa¬ 
sion ; but it would be our decided preference not 
to be called upon to waste any uu ther space on 
individual assertions which can not, from any 
point of view, be regarded as of any importance. 
In our article on the *• Sheep Exhibition at 
the State Fair," (Oct. 1,) we omitted to state 
that Mr. Brown drew the first and second pre¬ 
miums on best pen of five tine wool ewes ami 
fleece. He has repeatedly drawn premiums at 
preceding Fairs ou bis Merino sheep.— Ed. 
MISSTATEMENTS CORRECTED. 
Whitnky‘3 Crossing, Allegany Co, N. Y.,} 
Sent. ) 
Dr. Randall:—A t the discussion which 
took place on the evening of Sept. 21st, at the 
N. Y. State Fair in regard to the proper mode 
of classifying line wooled sheep, a Mr. Pktti- 
bonk of Manchester, A'ermont, declared in sub¬ 
stance that no distinct families of Meriuos 
existed in that State — that the assertions made 
by yourself and the great body of Vermont 
breeders to the contrary, are without founda¬ 
tion—and he said that he was ready to seU In- 
fantados or Paulars out of his own and the s une 
flock, according to the wishes of the buyer, or 
words to that effect. To give an illustration of 
the fraud that he had jnst intimated his own 
willingness to practice, he said that a Mr. 
Brown purchased some sheep at the sale of 
Mr. Haswkll of this State, and afterwards 
exhibited them at tho State Fair at Elmira, 
although all of the same stock, in both the 
Merino and Saxon classes. I am the Mr. 
Brown who purchased sheep at Mr. Has- 
WHLL’s ^de, and who showed sheep at the 
Elmira Fair, and I pronounce the cove state¬ 
ments wholly destitute of truth. 1 showed 
pens of “Merinos’’ from my own old flock at 
that Fair, aud also some cross-breads of fine 
wool,” which were got by a Silesian ram 
which I purchased of Mr. Chamberlain of 
Red Ilook, out of “Merino” ewes. I arew 
premiums in both those classes. By consulting 
the Transactions of 1860, you will tin these 
facts, and you wiU further find lhat there were 
no sheep exhibited by myself or others as 
“Saxons” on that occasion! Not regarding it 
The Fall has thus far been quite favorable 
for the maturing of spring crops, fruit, &c., 
though the first half of October was wet and 
unpleasant iu this region. We anticipate fa¬ 
vorable weather for securing crops yet unhar¬ 
vested, uml thiuk that, taken altogether, the 
season will prove a prosperous oue for farmers, 
not withstanding the severe drouth experienced 
in June and Julv. 
DOGS AND DGG LAWS 
