tuiy other single effect of injudicious farm¬ 
ing is a fact which multiplied instauoes 
moat clearly prove. 
“ It. Is stated that the Genesee and Mo- 
gienic informal 
abortion among cows. 
What is the Cause, and What is the Remedy 1 
I have Riven this subject ft great deal of t 
earnest thought during the past few years, c 
aud my opinion differs from that of others i 
who I have heard discuss this important t 
subjeot. In driving our cows from the pas- r 
ture, I have often seen some of them sepa- 1 
rate from the herd and start on the run to < 
get to a quantity of bones that they knew " r 1 
in the highway, in a fence corner. They i 
would get one and chew it a long time. It i 
caused me to think that there must be a 
deficiency of bone-making material in their 
pasture feed. 
Now, I wish to digress indirectly from < 
this subject, to quote from Geo. Waking's ' 
“Elements of Agriculture.” Speaking of 
phosphoric acid, under the head of manures, 
he says" One principal source from which 
this can be obtained is found in the bones 
of animals. These bones contain a large 
proport ion of phosphate of lime. They are 
the receptacles which collect nearly all the 
phosphates in crops which are fed to ani¬ 
mals, and are not returned In their excre¬ 
ments. For the grain, &o,, sent out of the 
country, there is no way to he repaid, except 
by the Importation of this material; but 
nearly all that Is fed to animals may, if a 
proper use be made of their excrement and 
of their bones after death, bn returned to 
the soil. Phosphoric acid forms about one- 
half the ashes of wheat, rye, corn, barley, 
peas, beans, buckwheat, oats and linseed, 
an important part of the ashes of potatoes 
and turnips, and one-quarter the ash of 
milk. The bones of animals often exist in 
the soil in the proportion of only one or two 
pounds in a thousand, and but a very small 
part, even of this amount, is in a condition 
to be taken up by roots. The cultivat lou of 
our whole country has been such as to take 
away the phosphorio acid from the soil, 
without returning it, except in very minute 
quantities. Every one hundred bushels of 
wheat sold contain* (and removes perma¬ 
nently from the soil) about sixty pouuds of 
phosphoric acid. Other grains, as well as 
root crops and grasses, remove likewise a 
large quantity of it. 
“ It has been said by a certain writer that 
for each cow kept on a pasture during the 
summer there is taken off in veal, butter and 
cheese not lesB than 50 lbs. of phosphate of 
lime (boue earth) on an average. This would 
be one thousand pounds for twenty cows. 
That this removal of one of the moat valu¬ 
able constituents of the soil hay been tho 
cause of more exhaust ion of farms and more 
eh nf fert ilo districts, than 
Agricultural Society have expended thou¬ 
sands of dollars during the past few years 
in investigating the cause of the extensive 
abortion of cows in many of the dairy dis¬ 
tricts of the State, aud as yet it has not 
come to my knowledge that tho Commis¬ 
sioners of Investigation have ever been able 
to render a satisfactory report of the true 
cause of this prevailing scourge. Did they 
not overlook entirely the important fact 
that cows during pregnancy require a great 
quantity of bone making material in their 
food ? Consider for a moment what a large 
quantity of bone material a cow must col¬ 
lect from her food to develop such a frame 
as a perfect calf possesses at its birth. W hen 
every part of bone material In a cow’s feed 
is appropriated to the development of the 
bones of the calf (and a large portion is re¬ 
moved in milk) aud the supply fails to be 
equal to the requirement, the growth of the 
calf will be arrested, the development is 
incomplete and abortion is the result. 
Tt appears from Waking, and other au¬ 
thorities, that grain growing and dairying 
arc about the same in their results in ex¬ 
hausting the soil of phosphorio acid, Al¬ 
lowing their calculations to be correct, and 
one cow kept annually on five acres of cul¬ 
tivated land, which is a fair average in thts 
locality, ten pounds of phosphorio acid per 
acre, is every ye.ar taken from our dairy 
lauds. In the dairy scotions of our country, 
could the great quantity of bones from the. 
calves and other animals t hat arc killed each 
year, bo ground, or otherwise rendered 
available as food for plants, this evil of ex¬ 
haustion of our soil and abortion of our 
cows could in a great measure (in m) opin¬ 
ion) be remedied. 
In the absence of any machinery adapted 
to a farmer’s use for putting the bones lying 
around the premises of every dairy larm in 
unavailable condition, should we not ptir- 
ohaso bone meal, boue ilour or bone tilings 
to apply to our dairy lands aud feed to our 
dairy stock ? 
I hope to hear from others who have had 
, the advantages of a greater field of obser- 
• v&tion and more practical experience on 
[ tills most important subject, 
S. S. Gardner. 
f Watertown, N. Y„ Jan., 1872. 
cJrnim (Bjflwmiw. 
TO EXTERMINATE WILD ONIONS. 
What method of cultivation will extir¬ 
pate this pest aud nuisance? The question 
is frequently asked, but 1 have never seen a 
satisfactory response. Nor do T believe it ' 
Is within tiie range of human power to solve 
tho problem by manual labor, strip the 
sod completely from a lawn in which the 
“ garlic” has once gained a footing, and de¬ 
spite your utmost, care, a sufficient supply of 
almost infinitesimal “ sets” to recrop the 
whole at an early day will sift their way 
Into the remaining soil. 
Having tried tho experiment, 1 speak 
from sad experience. But when all else bad 
failed I inclosed ft piece of lawn and turned 
a hungry litter of pigs in upon it and left 
there several days to root for a living. 1 hey 
made clean work of the garlic, in short 
order. Mot a vestige of (lie highly Havered 
esculent escaped their detective and Insin- 
I uating proboscis. True, they tear up the 
sod badly in their hunt, but a good subse¬ 
quent harrowing, succeeded by a hiind- 
vaking, and a week or two of growing spring 
weather, restored the lawn to more than its 
original condition of thrift. 
Why should not the remedy work as well 
on a large scale ? G iven ft sufficient number 
of poroino laborers, confined within a cer¬ 
tain limit until its onions are all rooted out 
and then transferred to a new field, is it not 
clear that the work of extirpation can be t t- 
fected at slight cost. w - 9< 
ECONOMICAL NOTES. 
Graham or bran bread may be good enough 
for an idle man if he likes it; but my advice 
to a laboring woman is—eat good, nourish¬ 
ing food, aud plenty of it, before the stom¬ 
ach feels weak,aud tired. If the stomach 
will not bear a full meal, eat oftener,—beef 
and mutton, with potatoes and good bread, 
are none too hearty for a laborer; and rest 
while eating, or before, if possible. If tho 
, bowels are constipated, be very regular in 
I your habits, aud never slight tho demands 
of nature. Ripe fruit, oaten after meals, is 
a good preventive, aud I have known severe 
eases of this disease to be cured by the prac¬ 
tice of eating apples after meals. 
An old English lady of my acquaintance, 
takes one teaspoon of sugar, half a cup of 
hot water, fills the cup with milk, and drinks 
this soon after rising, that the stomach may 
bo in a good state for breakfast. Sho says 
the women in England eat hearty food like 
the men, and that is Why they are strong, 
ami have such red cheeks, which Amorioaus 
so much envy. 
How many men will say, “ Humph! what 
is a woman's work? It la very light com¬ 
pared with ours.” I don't believe there is 
one man in ten who could endure what many 
women do, if they had to do the work in 
close room* and on the food that ft man 
i thinks is hearty enough for a woman. 
A. R. II. 
I A. R. R. is no doubt quite right about 
’ generous and abundant food, but labors 
■ under a mistake in regard to (1 raliam bread, 
which is preferred by moat people, cspeclal- 
1 ly in cities, on account of its being more 
- wholesome and nutritious than bread made 
from bolted wheat. To eat when very tired 
is not only exceedingly unwholesome, but 
dangerous. 
NOTES FOR HERDSMEN. 
A Preventive for Lice on Cattle.— 
If the readers of the Rural New-Y ohkek 
will sow their stables and cattle with wood 
ashes every Ash Wednesday, (which occurs 
in February of each year,) tin# will not be 
troubled with lice on cattle. Tills I have 
practiced for twenty years with success.— 
II. S. B., Catshlll, N. Y. 
Cows Eating Wood. — I would like to 
.. i. <fi,« f'nlumiis of vour paper, if 
Making a Manure Yard.—P. F. Rich¬ 
ter writes the Rural New-Yorker that 
he is about building a barn and asks if we 
would advise him to have tho yard where 
the stock is to run dishing towards the cen¬ 
ter, so os to retain the soak lags, or so locate 
it that these soakings may run off into a 
meadow? in reply, we would have as few 
“soakings” aa possible. We would not 
allow the water from the caves of the barn 
to flow into the yard. We would not, have 
it so dishing it should not be dry; if it is 
dishing we would till the dish with absorb¬ 
ents; muck, loam, straw.&c. There are great 
objections to a muddle in the center of the 
yard. There are no objections to a hollow 
provided it is filled up as we have suggested. 
And such a dish so filled is far preferable to 
allowing the yard to drain into a meadow or 
pasture. _ 
To Deodorize Sinks and Out-IIouse.— 
Almus Butterfield says use copperas. 
He does not say bow. He should have been 
specific in the detail of the mode of using it. 
ton. 
hawk vauuyK, wuiun uuwc immuwv. -. 
age of thirty-five or forty bushels of wheat 
per acre, have since been reduced in their 
average production, to less than twenty 
bushels. Hundreds of similar cases might 
be slated; and in a large majority of these, 
could the cause of the impovishment be as¬ 
certained, it would be found to be the re¬ 
moval of the phosphoric acid from the soil. 
Many suppose that soils which produce good 
crops, year after year, are inexhaustable; 
but time invariably proves the contrary. 
They may possess a sufficiently large stock 
of phosphoric acid and other plant consti¬ 
tuents to last a long time, but when that 
stock becomes so reduced that there is not 
enough left for the use of full crops, the 
productive power of the soil will yearly de¬ 
crease, until It becomes worthless. It may 
last a long time—a century* OI ’ even more- 
hut as long as the system is to remove every - 
thing and return nothing the fate of the 
most fertile soil is certain.” 
From the statements of Mr Waring 
may we not accept as an established fact 
that our old dairy farms are becoming ex¬ 
hausted of this bone making substance in 
their grasses. Wo hear complaints from 
Herkimer county that their dairy product 
Is gradually decreasing, when we know the 
reverse should bo their record. Why is 
It? Widespread abortion among their cows 
is the principal cause, and as yet, they have 
no remedy. Herkimer county is one of the 
oldest dairy districts in this country, and is 
not a lack of bone making material lu their 
soil and grasses the principal came of 
abortion among tbeir cows? In localities 
where cows graze on land recently deprived 
of the forest, and are supplied with grass 
aud hay that grows on a soil rich in phos¬ 
phates, I never heard that abortion pre- 
TmIB 
The authorities of the New York State 
get W* »» JU1U I*'* ' • 
remedy?— H. T. YVshells, Denton, MM. 
Pumpkin Seeds aud Milch Cows. 
_Tell your correspondent, Washington 
IItlls, Jr., of Long Island, (see Rural 
New-Yorker, Nov. ‘25, page 330) to remove 
the seeds from his pumpkins before feeding 
the pumpkins to milch cows, and there will 
be no decrease in the flow of milk. The ac¬ 
tion of the seeds on the kidneys causes the 
disease.—O. W. C-, Parksville, Term. 
Cooking Food for Stock.—Your corre¬ 
spondent, W. II. Wilcox, makes inquiries 
in regard to the use of a steam engine for 
cooking feed, &c. Allow me to answer him, 
based upon ray own experience: 
1. A steam engine is too expensive in cost 
of purchase and the use of an engineer, ex¬ 
cept where there Is other work to do than 
to cook feed. An ordinary farm hand can¬ 
not run It. 
2. Bv the use of a Priudle Agricultural 
Boiler, 1 have cooked all kiuds of food, in¬ 
cluding refuse hay, straw, salt hay and even 
to hard, crook necked squashes, corn stalks, 
butts aud all, and everything has been eat¬ 
en clean, and not a pound of waste in all 
winter. . . 
3. All the stock on Beacon Farm has been 
fed with cooked feed by Mr. Wm. Crozucu, 
amounting, in all, to over 300 hoad 'jf cattle 
horses and hogs, exclusive of the fowl crea¬ 
tion there, with one iVmdle Agricultural 
Boiler, and it was run by any ordinary farm 
hand. This shows the capucity of work that 
can be done; and added to the cooking of 
feed there arc many other useful things 
about the farm or faotory that cun ie done 
with it. It will pay to use them, even with 
a small amount of stock, when hay is T™ rt ^ 
oyer eighty cents per 100 pounds. Try it. I 
think the economy in cooking feed is fully 
forty per cent., and stock in better condi¬ 
tion at that.—J. C. Brown. 
DYSPEPTIC WOMEN. 
A ROUSED WOMAN’S REPLY TO I. V. W. 
I happened to pick up the Rural New- 
Yorker of July 22, and again reading tho 
replies to the dyspeptic's inquiry, would 
like to say that f do not exactly coincide 
with the theory that dyspepsia comes only 
by over-eating. The article by I. V. W., 
notwithstanding his professed gallantry, 
has a vein of 111 humor running through it. 
Quo would take him for a dyspeptic bache¬ 
lor, or a man who had just quarreled with 
his wife. Ho says, “ few people are inclined 
to overwork/’ Many people are so situated 
that it is not a question of Inclination, but 
of necessity. How many farmer’s wives, 
with families of children to cure for, often 
do the work alone, or with such help as they 
can get? And just think of the amount, of 
work such women perform before breakfast, 
then sit down to the table, and instead of 
resting a few moments and then eating ft 
good meal, as they should do, pour tea or 
coffee for the rest, assist in waitIngoil table, 
prepare food on the children’s plates, and 
swallow a few mouthfuls at intervals; they 
are not very apt to over-cat. ill this way. 
Many laboring women do not eat in all day 
as much food as the system would require 
at one meal, and when this is eaten the 
stomach is in a weak, tired state from over¬ 
work. This is the great cause of dyspepsia, 
as I look at It, from years of observation 
and experience, although most, people de¬ 
clare it all comes from eating too much, aiul 
too fast. This talk always puts me In mind 
of the Irishman’s horse; “just as he got 
| him learnt to live without eating he up and 
died." A sensible man will feed a horse 
higher when hard at work. Why not keep 
him on straw ? 
(dfieli 0}voj)8. 
FIELD NOTES AND QUERIES. 
Preparing Seo<l Wheat.— Almus Hut- 
tkrfield writes the Rural New-Yorker 
that washing seed wheat In a solution of 
blue vitriol will prevent smut; and wash¬ 
ing it in lime water will destroy the eggs of 
parasites that prey ou young plants. 
Preparing Corn for Seed.—An Illinois 
correspondent of the Ritual New-Y orker 
gil y 3 ;—** Soak doubtful seed corn in chloride 
of lime and it will come. If you soak seed 
corn iu tar water in which a little copperas 
has been dissolved, tho gophers and crows 
will give it a wide berth.” 
Nitrogenous Substances and Malt for 
Wheat.— J. J. Mechi of Tlptree Farm, In 
England, supplements the manuring of his 
wheat field bv sowing nitrogenous sub¬ 
stances and salt between the rows of the 
growing wheat in the spring and hoeing it 
into the soil; thus he obtains thirty-five to 
sixty bushels of wheat to the acre.—a. w. 
Rye for Summer Pasture.—I desire to 
know if any of your Rural New-Yorker 
friends have over tried rye sowed iu the 
spring with timothy and clover for summer 
pasture. If so, what time should it be 
sowed, and in what proportions per acre? 
I am a dairyman, and I would like to pre¬ 
pave some pasture for the coming spring 
and summer on a place I have just come 
in possession of, and any information in re¬ 
gard to such pasture will be thankfully 
received by—T. P. L., Sedulid, J/o. 
Peerless vs. Prolific Potatoes.—With 
us, Brescc’s Prolific, like the Hanson, sets 
too many tubers iu tho hill. With a rich 
soil and good cultivation we cun get a pro¬ 
digious yield; but, as in the majority of 
cases, when the season, -oil and culture are 
not all favorable, the result is a largo number 
of small potatoes. The Peerless, like the 
Garnet Chill, sets but few tubers In a hill, 
which at tain to agood marketable size, even 
under unfavorable circumstances. 1 he dif¬ 
ference in labor iu digging is great, also; for 
while the Prolific grown so scattered that we 
have to dig to find them, the Peerless lie so 
snug and close together that it is easy to 
find ancl fun to roll them out,.—A. G. I il- 
li ngiiast, Wyoming CO., Po, 
English Heed in France.—A British 
committee having in charge the French 
Peasant Farmers’ Seed Fund, sent, an agent 
to France this last full to distribute the 
balance of it. and report upon the agricul¬ 
tural and economic effects of thei spring dis¬ 
tribution. lie found that the English bar- 
lev, oats, potatoes, vetches aud garden seeds 
inid generally produced more abundant 
crops than the native kinds, but that the 
1 F.uglish wheat hud failed in most cases. 
This was partly due to the want of proper 
preparation of tho land, to an unfavorable 
1 sotOsou and to the variety. The English seed 
that seemed most like the French variety, 
known as “Blede Mars,” succeeded best. 
What the name of that (English) variety is, 
we are not informed. 
