t \ > Y 
its nativity. it is a fertile breeder, and at a 
short distance is frequently mistaken lor the 
curlier pigeon. Bar Ira are often found of a 
Jet black color, which comprises the most 
beautiful variety; although the duns, which 
are sometimes met. with, are not without 
merit. The commonest color is pied, mot¬ 
tled or fowl-feathered. 
A French writer says that the eyes of the 
Burl) should be crocus-colored, while fanciers 
in lliia cuuntry and England much prefer 
them pearl, surrounded by a broad cere of 
miked, red skin—the broader, cvener and 
redder it is the more highly are the birds 
esteemed; the neck long and thin; the chest 
full; the body long; the feet rather stout, 
and the pinion feathers very long. It is 
asserted that the Mahomet or Maromet 
pigeon is nothing more or less than a wliite 
or cream-colored Barb, with a cross of the 
Turbit, which is undoubtedly true—it having 
been produced by a cross of the two latter 
birds. 
ference, take the white Dorking and black 
Poland, u - a mixture. If fowls can be crossed 
in the old country with such good effect as to 
bring out a distinctive breed, under a new 
name, and prove remunerative to the breed¬ 
er, why is not Yankee genius equally well 
qualified to compete with the shrewduess of 
our Atlantic cousins, and reap as rich a har¬ 
vest in this country ? 
Creasing Poland* and Gray Dorking'S 
We have experimented somewhat during 
the past yeur in crossing fowls and seen 
t hem crossed at our suggestion. Placing a 
Silver Poland cock with gray Dorking pul¬ 
lets has resulted iu a breed not dissimilar to 
that of the Houdans, in nearly every particu¬ 
lar, only that the spangled markings are 
greatly reduced in size from those of the Hou¬ 
dans, showing off the pencilinga to much 
finer effect. 
Crossing Hilvrriiud Golden Poland*. 
We have also experimented during the 
past, season with crossing the Silver and 
Golden Polands—placing a Silver Poland 
cock with Golden Poland pullets. The pro¬ 
duct, of this cross is a splendid top-knot muf¬ 
ti ctl-chopped fowl, with the line pencilinga of 
the Silver Poland—the spungles being much 
smaller and more beautiful in appearance 
than the markings of either of the original 
stock. Whether they will prove a superior 
quality of birds, we leave for time and pa¬ 
tience to more fully demonstrate. One thing 
is morally certain, they present to the eye a 
distinctive breed of fowls from their parent¬ 
age, and under some outlandish foreign 
name, wo don’t doubt but that they would 
make a great furore in this country among 
poultry fanciers. It. O. Cuester. 
Monroe Go., N. Y., 1S60. 
ttbttstrial 
arm leroncrmti 
COOKING FOOD FOR STOCK. 
AGRICULTURAL PAPERS. 
Not one family in four engaged in agri¬ 
culture in the United States take a paper de¬ 
voted to their calling. The circulation of 
agricultural papers is very limited indeed in 
proportion to the number of people engaged 
in the culture of the soil. Some of the old- 
established and worthy papers only circulate 
from live to fifteen thousand copies each. 
Some, which are considered very successful, 
only circulate from twenty to thirty thou¬ 
sand copies. One or two publications are 
considered as Immensely successful by hav¬ 
ing attained a circulation of from seventy to 
one hundred thousand copies. The probable 
aggregate circulation of all papers specially 
devoted to cultivation *f soil, is not half a 
million of copies weekly—only about one 
paper to fifty persons who should be, and 
are, interested in earth culture! If each 
family averaged five persons, only one of 
ten families would have its agricultural in¬ 
structor. 
New Bceds, new fruits, new methods of 
culture, new economies and improvements 
are the order of the day. The Agricultural 
Newspaper is the special harbinger and de¬ 
pository of all these useful things. Yet not 
one family in ten seems aware how indis¬ 
pensable and how necessary has the Agricul¬ 
tural Press become to their interests and 
welfare. They even claim they canuot af¬ 
ford the two or three dollars subscription 
asked by the publisher. You waste time 
and argument when you endeavor to con¬ 
vince them that they are losing tens and 
hundreds of dollars yearly by neglecting to 
post themselves in flic agricultural experi¬ 
ences recorded in papers devoted to the pur¬ 
suits in which they are specially interested. 
Occasionally one more shrewd thun the rest 
in watching his neighbor’s progress, divines 
that his success is owing to the agricultural 
literature that he sees him taking from the 
post-office. Ilis interest and curiosity lead 
him to try a year’s subscription. If he is a 
reflective man, when lie counts up the results 
of the year’s labors, he cannot fail to see 
wherein he has been the gainer from his in¬ 
vestment. 
Let me particularize some items as I heard 
them from my neighbors. “ A sheep rack 
that 1 found described in my paper has 
saved me several times its cost this very 
year.” Another says:—“ The comments on 
the cattle market saved me fifty dollars on 
one yoke of cattle.” Still another says:—“ I 
never yet took a paper but what 1 saved 
more by its suggestions than the paper cosY 
me.’' Yet another:—“ That swindling agent 
would have taken mein slick for fifty dollars 
if I had not been forewarned in my farming 
paper.” Again, another: — “That list of 
hardy apple trees given by our State Horti¬ 
cultural Society and published in the Farmer 
secured to me a very thrifty young orchard, 
while my neighbors, who did not. read the 
papers, bought tender varieties and have lost 
nearly all.” Here is another:—“ I was read¬ 
ing about salt, ashes and plaster in ray paper. 
I tried them on a part of my wheat land. I 
got about four bushels per acre more on 
the land thus treated than I did on land oth¬ 
erwise equally good.” Lastly, one more: “ I 
purchased some of those new seed oats 1 saw 
advertised in my paper. My crop is one- 
third larger and very much superior to the 
crop from ordinary seed.” 
Occasionally, In view of all these facts, I 
meet a man having some brains who says 
that agricultural papers do more harm than 
good—“ that he has taken them, read them, 
and followed their suggestions, and that 
moreliarm than good was the result; that 
their teachings, followed out, would ruin any 
man.” Did the man’s common sense desert 
him ? Does he adopt every suggestion and 
idea dropped by liis neighbors or acquaint¬ 
ances? Has he not learned, when lie eats 
chicken or fish, to piclt out the bones and 
cast them aside ? Where was his judgment ? 
Agricultural papers arc the records of the 
thought and experience of the writers 
thereof. There is no sensible man but what 
runs the grain they yield through his sieve 
and takes out the liuils and chaff. Y r uur 
brains should sift out the kernel from husk 
and shucks. Blow' out the chaff and garner 
iu the golden grains. Human knowledge is 
imperfect. It is idle for imperfect beings to 
expect infallibility. It is with papers and 
with writers as with other men and things— 
they sometimes err. It is human. He, then, 
lacks wisdom who expects perfection in the 
Agricultural Press. But the world moves on, 
and so do the spheres of knowledge, and ho 
is not wise who does not avail himself of thv> 
means of knowledge laid at bis door to insure 
success in his profession. L. L. f. 
Rolling- Prairie, Wis., 18fi9. 
Improved methods of feeding animals 
work their way slowly into practice among 
farmers. Old habits “stick closer than a 
brother.” Many are so satisfied with their 
traditional ways as to be averse to finding 
better. We have often sought, through the 
Rural, to recommend this most economical 
and healthful way of feeding stock, and have 
had the pleasure of knowing that many have 
adopted it, and found it, after long trial, 
every w r ny satisfactory. An article of ours 
was published in the Rural last November, 
giving a description of the apparatus neces¬ 
sary to cook food for forty or more head of 
cattle. It did not attempt to go into all 
branches of the subject, but referred to other 
articles giving the needed details. Yet a 
flippant correspondent of the Rural Ameri¬ 
can from Missouri, imagining the expense of 
labor in the process of cooking for forty head 
of cattle, for four months, to be five hun¬ 
dred dollars, runs a most gallant tilt at this 
spectral five hundred dollars, and succeeds 
in making it, or himself, ridiculous. He 
thinks it would require " one man and team 
four months to haul the grain (1,200 bushels) 
to the mill and the fodder to the cattle—two 
men to prepare and cook the food, and an¬ 
other man and team to furnish fuel! ” 
Let us sec what it would cost in any Bet- 
tied country. At the longest, twelve days, 
or one-tenth of his estimate, would take the 
grain to mill, &c.. which he calls $15,—one 
man would cook for and feed fifty head (the 
labor of one man did this for forty-eight 
head of cattle and six horses for us) at his 
estimate, $100,—it would require ten cords 
of two-feet hemlock, or other soft wood, 
costing from $15 to $1J0, according to locali¬ 
ty. Say the cost of labor or fuel -would be 
$140, instead of $500. 
In order to make all ho can in favor of the 
wasteful system of Western cattle feeding, 
he estimates that hogs, following and eating 
the offal of the cattle, will make five pounds 
feed animals. We have fed twenty steers, of 
about equal weight, ten on three bushels of 
raw corn meal, and ten on one and one-half 
bushels of cooked meal, and found, after 
three months’ trial, those on cooked meal to 
come out best. We have fed five head on 
sixteen pounds of cooked hay, and five other 
head on twenty-four pounds of uncooked 
hay, and found those on the cooked hay to 
thrive as well. We have tried numerous 
other experiments, all tending to the same 
result. 
Mr. William Birnie of Springfield, Mass., 
has cooked, he tells us, for a herd of some 
fifty Ayrshire cows since 1858, with con¬ 
stantly increasing confidence in its economy, 
and thinks the saving more than one-third. 
We could refer to many who have practiced 
it for several years, and arc more zealous in 
its prosecution than at the beginning. Steam¬ 
ing all dry, starchy and fibrous food is in 
harmony with nature, and approximates it 
to tlio natural succulent state. As man pro¬ 
gresses in civilization, he gives more atten¬ 
tion and consequence to cooking his own 
food; and as he shall become more convers¬ 
ant with the laws of the animal economy 
and the chemical nature of food, he will pay 
more attention to the preparation of the win¬ 
ter food for his animals. 
We are pleased, also, to see that lively 
and many-sided New York Farmers’ Club 
taking a rational and practical stand in favor 
of this improved mode of feeding—so strong 
that, iu a late discussion, a fbssilifferous 
Doctor, after reiterating Ids solemn opinion 
that it is “ undignified to cook food for, ani¬ 
mals,” says;—“ 1 sec 1 ant in a mean minority 
here!” and turning his eye lovingly but 
sadly, it rests only upon the ancient Solon 
for consolation amid the general defection. 
Was dignity ever driven to such straits 
before ? 
Fermenting Food. 
There have been, of late, many inquiries 
as to the comparative benefit of fermenting 
instead of cooking food. Fermentation will 
soften woody fiber and render it more easily 
masticated and digested. But. when we con¬ 
sider the nature of fermentation, that it pro¬ 
ceeds only by a series of changes, in which, 
if continued long enough, the material fer¬ 
mented is formed into various gases and 
salts, and that the food constituents are les¬ 
sened by every change, we readily see that 
it is to be practiced with great care. 
The malting of barley for feeding was, at 
one time, in favor iu England, as the con¬ 
stituents of the malt were more soluble and 
therefore more easily assimilated. But Dr. 
Thompson of Glasgow, under a commission 
from the Government, made a report in 1844 
on feeding cattle with malt, which was un¬ 
favorable to the malt; and Mr. Lawks more 
recently experimented and made the same 
report. Barley in malting loses about twen¬ 
ty-five per cent, of its weight, and this loss 
falls severely upon the flesli-lbrming constit¬ 
uents, and the extra solubility does not. com¬ 
pensate for this loss. If hay or straw, in 
considerable bulk, be moistened with warm 
water and left twelve or fifteen hours, the 
nitrogenous constituents will act as a fer¬ 
ment and cause the escape of carbonic acid, 
and this carbon will decrease the heat-form¬ 
ing elements of the hay and there will be 
also some loss of its gluten, but the process 
will soften the fiber of the hay and be bene¬ 
ficial if fed while sweet. 
Fermentation can proceed only at a low 
heat. Any fermenting mass raised to the 
boiling point ceases, at once, to ferment. 
Every housewife knows that if her yeast 
gets too hot it loses its fermenting power, 
and if her preserves begin to ferment, she 
boils to sweeten them. 
We may then sum it up thus .•—Fermenta¬ 
tion is change, decay; cooking is renovation, 
preservation. 
Cooking, therefore, is much superior to 
fermentation, and should be adopted where- 
ever practicable. It will pay the whole ex¬ 
pense of apparatus in wintering twenty-five 
cows. — e. w\ s. 
Thn Owl. 
As stated of the Turbit, this pigeon very 
much resembles that bird, and we are free 
to confess our doubts us to its being a dis¬ 
tinctive breed, although the description given 
of it is somewhat, dissimilar. Still fanciers 
concur iu the opinion that the owl should 
have the sumo short round head and stunted 
beak as the Turbit. 
Mr. Brent, in his description of this bird, 
sa}'s:—“Although blue and silver are the 
chief and best colors of the owl pigeon, yet 
other colors, as white, black, or even yellow, 
are sometimes met with, and I have seen 
white with black tails.” It is recommended 
that breeding places for these birds should 
be private and secluded, as from their wild 
nature, the most trivial thing is liable to 
disturb them and cause them to leave their 
nests. 
ABOUT FANCY PIGEONS.—IV. 
The Jacobiir 
Is a peculiar kind of pigeon, and one much 
sought after. Its beauty consists in its frill 
of inverted feathers, termed a “ hood; ” the 
closer and more compact this grows the 
greater the bird is prized. The back of the 
head resembles, to an imaginative mind, the 
cowl of a monk—hence its name. The lower 
part of the hood-leathers is called the chain; 
these leat hers should be long enough to lap 
over in front, aa shown in the engraving, 
which gives the birds a very dignified and 
pret ty appearance when they are seen strut¬ 
ting around the dove-cot. These birds are 
very rare, and it is not often good specimens 
can be found. 
The Jacobins are variously colored,—white 
and blue, and white and black, and mottled. 
Breton says: — “ To be considered hand¬ 
some, they should have a wliite head, a 
white tail, and white flight -feathers; the 
head should be very small and the beak short 
and spindled, with lent feathered to the toes.” 
These pigeons are considered very tender to 
rear—still they are a pretty house bird and 
readily domesticated. They are known also 
under the name of “ruffs,” "jacks,” “ca¬ 
puchin,” and are called by the Dutch, by 
whom they are much prized, “ cappers.” 
Ism. 
The Turbit. 
This pigeon very much resembles the Jaco¬ 
bin, but inis not the hood, or head-covering, 
of the latter—still it boasts of lino-frilled 
front feathers. The Turbits are classed much 
the same as the Nuns are, according to the 
color of their shoulders. The color predomi¬ 
nating in the Turbits is blue, and blue and 
yellow; they should have a short bill, a full 
frill, not unlike a fine-frilled shirt front, and 
small, round head. 
There is a species of Turbits which are 
wholly white; this kind, however, are rarely 
scon. The most note-worthy Turbits are 
those which are termed "black-shouldered” 
or “ blue-shouldered ”—the body being al¬ 
most of a snowy whiteness. These pigeons 
have been termed, by English writers, as 
“ owl pigeons,” from their close resemblance 
to the bird of that name. 
of pork for every bushel fed to the cattle, 
making the hogs pay more than three-fifths 
of the price of the corn. This is as much, 
into a small fraction, as S. H. Clay, in 
several accurate experiments, could make 
from a bushel of raw com led to the hogs 
direct. Perhaps this writer claims a benefit 
from the cooking the corn receives in passing 
through the cattle ! Certainly the cattle can¬ 
not have appropriated much of its nutriment. 
He estimates hay as necessary in his way 
of feeding, but this would not be required 
where good corn fodder can be had. “ Dry, 
hard com stalks,” he says, “ are worthless. 
He evidently takes corn stalks that are not 
harvested, but left to dry on the hill, as a 
sample. Whereas a series of analyses by J. 
H. Salisbury, in this State, proved com 
stalks, when harvested at the proper time, 
very little inferior in nutrition to hay. 
When steamed with corn meal they are 
every way suitable for fattening cattle. This 
we have proved by many experiments. 
Twenty-five bushels of corn ground and 
cooked with good corn stalks, will fatten a 
steer better than sixty bushels fed after the 
Western plan; and whether, on this basis, 
cooking will pay in the West, must depend 
upon the price of corn. If corn is worth but 
thirty cents, probably not; but if worth fifty 
cents, it certainly will pay. 
Mi, A. E. Trabue, in the Journal of Agri* 
Having written thus much upon the sub¬ 
ject of pigeons—the characteristics of the 
different breeds, their beauties, &c., we can¬ 
not close our remarks without alluding, as 
briefly as possible, to the “ Crowned Goura.” 
This bird is said to be a native of the Indian 
and Molluoca Islands, and is the hugest and 
most unpigeon-like of the whole pigeon 
tribe. Still it is easily tamed, and is said to 
be found frequently in the farm-yards of 
East ludia, cohabiting with ducks and geese. 
M. Bougainville says of the original 
Crowned Goura, that, they measure nearly 
or quite two and a half feet from head to 
tail; the beak is black and two inches long ; 
thehcad surmounted by a large semi-circular 
compressed crest, which is always expanded, 
of narrow straight feathers,of a delicate light 
blue color; light blue, or rather gray blue, 
marks the under side of the bird’s plumage. 
The feathers of the back, scapulars, and 
smaller wing-coverts, black at the base, and 
rich purple-brown at the tips; greater cov¬ 
erts of the same color, but barred with white 
in the center, so that, when the wings are 
closed, a single transverse band appears 
across them. Their walk is stately and 
majestic, showing the bird off to good ad¬ 
vantage. The Goura lays but, two eggs— 
the young are. easily domesticated and should 
have tire dove-cot quite low. It is said the 
flavor of its flesh is exceedingly sweet, and 
delicious. “ J, Brace, 
Large vs. Small Farms.—It is becoming more 
and more generally acknowledged tlmt large 
farms are not so remunerative, comparatively, 
as small ones. The smal 1 ones are better woi-ked 
in all cases; and it is an established fact that the 
best worked land pays best. 
ftelf- Acting Carriage Gate. — Wm. A. COIT, 
Hillsboro, Ark., asks us to refer him to some 
person from whom he can get a plan of a self¬ 
acting carriage gate. We do not happen to re¬ 
member the address of any such person ; if any 
of our readers do, let them communicate with 
Mr, Co it direct. 
(■ ) The Barb. 
<• A 
l This is a pretty little pigeon, which 
derives its name from Barbary, the place of 
