I 
I 
M 
Si 
3 
and think I could for $20 per 100 at nurseries 
near home. There seems to be too much ex¬ 
pense attached to selling things after they 
are made or raised. See the amount those 
wholesale houses pay to their traveling 
agents, and still they h've. I have merely 
writ ten this to draw out some more able pen. 
Calhoun, Co., Mich. John McLean. 
We give the above as an index of the way 
some of our subscribers think. Had we 
space here, we should like to commeut upon 
it, but cannot. We like to have our corre¬ 
spondents say what they think whether we 
agree with them or not. 
dence cannot be placed in pedigree.—Prairie 
Farmer. 
BINGING A BULL 
A NATIONAL BAILBOAD, ETC 
BHEEDING TEOUT IN ILLINOIS, 
In the London Farmer a plan is suggested 
for putting a ring through the nose of a bull 
worthy of the attention of stock-breeders. 
A ring is undoubtedly the safest mode of con¬ 
trolling the bull. Clamp rings having two 
knobs which press into the nostrils, may be 
useful for occasional use—but a good stout 
copper ring should be put through the carti¬ 
lage of the nose of every thorough-bred bull 
before he is a year old. This will last him 
for hia lifetime—and whether tied up in the 
stable or out for exercise, it will effectually 
control him. 
The old-fashined plan of inserting the ring, 
was by burning a hole through the cartilage 
with a hot iron—but this was a cruel and 
difficult process. The plan suggested by the 
Farmer is to use a weapon styled a Iron liar, 
similar to tho surgical instrument employed 
for "tapping” in cases of dropsy, and for 
"hoover’* ill cows. It is a sharp-pointed 
round dagger (the point three-sided), carrying 
a silver-plated shield reaching from the upper 
part of the point to the handle. Here it is : 
I noticed a suggestion, or hint, for govern¬ 
ment to build a railroad from the sea board 
t,o the West. As this government is a repre¬ 
sentative one it might lie a benefit to the 
people at large. Such a move, however, 
would seem to me to have many objections. 
First, the mode the National Government has 
for taxation. It must issue bonds and sell 
them, and tax the people to pay the interest 
until siioh times as the railroad will pay it 
from the proceeds of the road. The way the 
railed States tax is assessed, it falls entirely 
on the consumer, or nearly so. Our constitu¬ 
tion should he so amended that a direct tax 
could be levied on capital of the several 
States, instead of tariffs, stamps and licenses. 
There should bo no tariff only for protec¬ 
tion, and that as light as possible and secure 
the end intended. A tax, for instance, on 
tobacco is laid for more than the cost of rais¬ 
ing and manufacturing. The merchant adds 
the same per cent, on the duty as on the first 
cost; that, is, he bought a pound of tobacco 
for S3 cents and sold it for 50 cents ; now he 
pays 66 cents, government 33, and sells for 
*1 ; therefore the merchant gets one-third 
and government two-thirds ; whereas, if a 
direct tax is levied it should not cost more 
than ten per cent. It don’t matter whether 
it is on tea, coffee or tobacco, so long as it 
falls directly on the consumer. 
Second, there never has been a public en¬ 
terprise run as successfully by government 
as by private companies. The freights that, 
railroads ask now, if run by government, I 
fear would rim us in debt. While independ¬ 
ent companies are making fortunes out of 
them, incompetent persons would be put In 
charge of the roads, because they belonged 
to the dominant party, or because they had 
helped some one to an office, &e. 
The West has made corn a leading article 
for complaint. We have been here some 30 
years, and yet there has been but two or 
three times in that time that it paid to ship 
corn. Now we are about half way between 
Chicago and Detroit, and were, until tltree 
years ago, 25 miles from a railroad. Then it 
would cost from 8 to 14 cts. to take a bushel 
of coni to the railroad — more than half 
the cost of raising it. We find it more prof¬ 
itable to convert our coni into pork, beef, 
butter or wool, than to sell the corn; 10 bush¬ 
els of corn, fed with any economy, will make 
100 pounds of pork, live weight. This saves 
over four-fifths of the freight, provided the 
same rates are asked for one as the other, A 
bushel of corn will make a pound of wool, 
and, I feel satisfied, SX pounds of butter. 
So we see that, we can send the pork, wool 
and butter East at a great deal less freight 
than the corn. The local demand for corn 
here has been from two to ten cents lifgher 
An Elgin, Ill., correspondent of the West- 
ert Dural says :—Any good, cool spring water 
which does uot get warmer than sixty-five 
degrees in Summer is suitable, and it makes 
no difference il' it be hard or soft. The water 
used by Seth Ore.cn, the celebrated piscicul¬ 
turist, is hard, and 1 have visited many fisher¬ 
ies in the East and find the trout doing ns 
well in hard na in soft water. It should not, 
however, be too strongly impregnated with 
iron or sulphur. I have trout in many places 
in Illinois and they arc all doing well, [and, 
comparing these with trout of equal age in 
the East, I find them fully as large as any I 
examined, the water we use being hard lime 
water. 
In building ponds, care should betaken not 
to build them too large for the amount of 
water. For example with a one Inch pipe of 
water, a pond ten feet wide, thirty feet, long, 
from three to four foot, deep is large enough. 
If made out of earth and the 'ground is so 
porousthat it has to be curbed, then five feet 
wide, thirty long, and three to four feet deep 
will be ample. If there- be sufficient fall, say 
one or two feet, another pond of equal size 
could be built.and the water would be puri¬ 
fied and aerated by the fall so that the last 
pond would be equally as good as the first,. 
A pond of this size would support from three 
to five hundred trout, until they reach the 
age of two years, when they would weigh 
from one-half r.n one pound each, and would 
require but little feeding the second year. 
Trout grow to weigh from three to four 
pounds at four years old, and commence lay¬ 
ing eggs the second year after being hatched. 
The spawning season is from the first of No¬ 
vember to the first of March. The best time 
for moving trout is when the weather is cool, 
or say up to the last of May. It requires 
seventy days for trout eggs to hatch. Our 
eggs are all hatched for this season and f 
Shall take the young trout from the hatching 
house and turn thorn out into the pond 
before the first of J une. 
The natural food of trout is insects a nd other 
living animal matter. No vegetable food is 
taken, but in artificial ponds, they are usually 
fed on hashed liver and lights, and other 
cheap animal food. 
IN-AND-IN BHEEDING 
There is not the slightest foundation for 
the strong pre judice which exists in the pub¬ 
lic mind against in-and-in-breeding. On the 
contrary, within certain limits, this plan is 
highly advantageous. Many of tho best 
liorses, as well as the best short-horned cattle, 
we have ever had, were very much and 
closely in-bred. To a certain extent this was 
unavoidable when the studs and herds were 
first formed; but it makes little difference 
whether it was the result of necessity, or of 
choice. It has fully established the immense 
advantages of breeding in-and-in, when the. 
stock is of the right sort; indeed, we can see 
no other possible way of retaining the per¬ 
fections of any particular strain than that of 
returning frequently to the same blood. 
When the out-and-out crossing is strictly 
pursued, the tenth generation contains only 
the one-thousand-and-twenty-fourth part of 
the original stock, which is a mere nominal 
affair. 
1st cress contains...,... g 
2nrt cross I'untuins. u 
3rd cross contains. ^ 
4t.h cross contains. i-ifi 
6th cross contains.. 1^32 
tith cross contains. Htl 
7th cross contains. t—JJSft 
Hth cross contains. 1-2,‘iti 
Slth cross contains. 1-M2 
Kith cross contains.I-IOM 
The practical result may not always corres¬ 
pond precisely with tho arithmetical ratio, 
because the sire may stamp his form so com¬ 
pletely on his offspring, that it will not be 
easily got. rid of ; but still it will unquestion¬ 
ably run out in the course of time ; and the 
more complete and violent the cross, the 
sooner will the peculiarities disappear. They 
can be retained only by frequent, returns to 
the same blood ; and by this plan wc can 
reap all t.he advantages of good stock, with¬ 
out. running in-and-in so very constantly and 
closely as to run any hazard of ever deterior¬ 
ating the constitution of the animal. We 
must be careful, however, to observe that 
the individuals we select to breed from are 
as near perfection as possible, both in them¬ 
selves and their ancestors. We shall thus 
secure the transmission of their good qual- 
tiea. 
On the other hand, if there is any special 
defect, it will be sure to pass down, when it 
is thrown in-arul-in, and will hardly ever be 
got rid of. We think it i3 owing, in a great 
measure, to want of attention to this rule, 
that there is so much prejudice against close 
breeding. It will succeed only when the 
good qualities bear an immense preponder¬ 
ance over the bad ones. 
Experienced breeders very properly place 
great reliance on "blood.” In short, this 
just, amounts to the fact, that good and bad 
qualities are all hereditary. "Like begets 
like.” No person ever saw a Fercheron foal 
got by a blood-horse out of a blood-mare, or 
a short-horned calf by a long-homed bull out 
of a long-horned cow. Such a tiling is never 
expected. If, then, these general character¬ 
istics are invariably transmitted, have we not 
some reason at least to conclude, that all 
things are hereditary? In fact, that the off¬ 
spring will inherit, either in whole or in part, 
the ;most trifling peculiarities of the ances¬ 
tors, sometimes taking more after the one 
parent, and sometimes mure after the other, 
or being a mixture of both. 
Whatever the peculiarities are—whether 
soundness, disease, form, temper, softness, 
strength, durability, speed, wind, or any¬ 
thing—they pass down from generation to 
generation. To take an illustration from a 
very long line of the purest breeding, we may 
refer to the hereditary color of Hereford and 
Devon cows. Who ever saw a Hereford 
without a white face, or a Devon of any 
other color than a rich red ? Here we see 
that the veiy color of the animal runs in 
blood. While good blood is indispensable, it 
is not everything. Above all things it is 
necessary, in order to secure success, to con¬ 
sider closely the old crosses of blood, and to 
cross judiciously, without which full confi¬ 
The sheath being on the dagger when the 
operation is performed, the whole is easily 
pushed through the nose, the sharp point of 
the dagger piercing the nostril with so little 
pain that one man can easily hold the head 
still. The dagger is then withdrawn, leaving 
the sheath in tho hole. The ring is then 
inserted into the end of the sheath, which is 
slowly withdrawn, leaving the. ring in place. 
This is then closed and fastened with a screw. 
These rings should be so well made that, both 
the hinge and the screw should bo perfectly 
smooth, and so fitting as to take a practiced 
eye to notice the joining. The manner in 
which the operation in performed, will be 
seen at once from this engraving : 
STOCKING SOUTHERN RIVERS WITH 
SHAD. 
A Washington telegram, dated April 21, 
says :—Prof. Baird, United States Commis¬ 
sioner of Fish and Fisheries, has just dis¬ 
patched Mr. Seth Green of Rochester, N. Y., 
and four assistants, to Augusta, Ga., for 
the purpose of stocking the Savannah River 
with shad. Spawn will also be hatched in 
other streuma in the vicinity, after which Mr. 
Green will spend some time at VVoldon, N. C., 
stocking the Roanoke River and neighboring 
streams, and will complete his labors in the 
South on the Potomac and other Virginia 
streams. Mr. Green’s method is to take the 
eggs from the fish and hatch them in boxes, 
by which means about 95 per cent, of them 
are saved, while if not cared for about 98 per 
cent, are lost. Mr. Green expects that his 
labors hi the South will he as successful as 
they have been on the Hudson, Connecticut, 
and Mcrrfmae Rivers. The catch of shad in 
the Connecticut River, which was stocked 
about seven years ago, had decreased annu¬ 
ally ever since 1802, when the fish were more 
plenty than at any subsequent time. During 
the last two years, 00 per cent, more fish 
have been caught in hauling a seine of given 
size than wore taken in 1802. 
The ring should turn finely round in the 
incision, which having been made with a 
three-cornered cut, will be more sensitive 
against a pull than the smooth-burned hole. 
Indeed, it is sometimes necessary, with the 
latter cruel operation, to take the ring out 
after a time aud resort again to binning, in 
order to make the cart ilage sufficiently sensi¬ 
tive for the ring to he effective in managing 
the animal. 
experience goes, it is as cheap, or cheaper, 
than eastern cloth, for I have exchanged my 
wool for and worn it for the past six or seven 
years, and it has given good satisfaction ; 
hut 1 think there is not one in twenty who 
has worn a bit of these home-made cloths, 
for the merchants have brought from the 
Last something that looked about as well, 
that, was ready-made, and could make more 
profit on, but in reality was not near as good. 
Another thing: when we have got a notion 
of traveling one road, it is hard to take an¬ 
other, even if it is nearer. 
Different localities can produce certain 
commodities cheaper than others. We could 
raise three bushels of corn as cheap here 15 
years ago, as one could be raised in Broom 
Lo. N, \ , that is, one acre, or the amount 
0 aiL<1 t0 raise a given number of bushels 
loi n. w niild sell or rent for three times as 
much as it would here ; and it would take 
three times as much labor ; therefore we 
could give the railrnpH --._,___ 
NOTES FOR HERDSMEN 
Cows Cleansing .—In the Rural New- 
Yorker, May 17th, O. Curtis asks the cause 
of a cow not cleansing after dropping her 
calf. There may be va rious causes ; but a 
preventive i- the most important point. I 
have had some trouble in that particular in 
the last forty years, which has always oc¬ 
curred in winter. Now I will give my pre¬ 
ventive, for the last eight or ten years, which 
has never failed to answer the purpose :—A 
good bran mash, morning and evening for, 
say, fourteen days before calving with a pint 
of rye mixed in every other day. If you see 
proper to give the above a place in your 
columns you can do so, as I have unflinching 
confidence in its virtue.— j. e. m 
A Big Calf from a Young Heifer.— Dem- 
cetJohnson writes'—I have a heifer that 
gave birth to a calf the dav she was 18W 
months old. The calf at 16 days old weighs 
96 pounds, and has had nothing to eat but its 
mother's milk. Both cow and calf are doing 
weffi Who can beat it ? It is proper to say 
that I did not intend the heifer should breed 
so young, and did not expect such an event 
until she began to make bag. She ran witli 
a bull that would weigh from 1200 to 1400 lbs. 
Oet a Thoroughbred Bull. — Saw Harding 
is advised to buy a thoroughbred bull “ to 
cross on liis stock with a view to increase 
their value for feeding for the shambles.” 
We should never think of using a cross-breed 
bull on any kind of stock, no matter how 
"fine an animal” he might be. It will not 
pay. 
WHITE FISH IN CALIFORNIA WATERS 
The Lake Co., Cal., Bee., April 5, says :—The 
experiment to stock Clear Lake with white 
flBh from Lake Erie is under way. Two hun¬ 
dred and fifty t housand of the white fish eggs 
have arrived in good condition, and now are 
in process of hatching at the hatching house 
provided for them by tho State, on Kelsey 
Greek. Large quantities of eggs of various 
kinds of fish are yet to be brought from the 
East, among them black bass, silver eels, 
Schuylkill catfish, perch, lobster and shad. 
The catfish will be placed in Clear Lake. 
PISCICULTURAL NOTES, 
Aquarium. —E. P. Parker asks our readers 
to tell how to start and manage an aquarium. 
If our correspondent has the Rural of March 
4, 1371, he will find what he asks for on page 
143. 
