to remedy the defect. Of course, -without 
seeing the farm, and its situation, -we can 
only offer suggestions as to the cause. 
In the first place, the pond hole and stag¬ 
nant water of which he speaks may have 
had much to do in the matter. If the well 
from which the cows obtained a part of 
their water was so located that the cows 
must, of necessity, make a considerable 
journey from the pasture to it, and the pond, 
or oilier stagnant water was nearer, they 
would be likely to slake their thirst at the 
nearest point. The fact has been abundantly 
proved that bad water makes bad milk. 
But surface water is not at all seasons bad. 
In rainy seasons, or after heavy rains, it may 
be comparatively good. On some days the 
cows may drink largely of the stagnant 
water, and other days not. This would ac¬ 
count for variation in condition of the milk 
from time to time. 
Again, lias there been care in driving up 
the herd? If the animals have been over¬ 
driven or overheated, there is reason to look 
for bad milk. If the pastures are on low 
wet lands, hero we could look for a cause of 
bad milk, 8wch lands have been known to 
produce bloody murrain in neat stock; but 
on draining the lands, that and other dis¬ 
eases affecting the cattle disappeared. Milch 
cows should always be pastured upon up¬ 
lands or lands that are well drained. 
Again ; Die cows in heat should be sepa¬ 
rated for the time, from other cows in the 
herd. 
There is another 
When the animal is fleshy, or of full habit, 
and the weather is hot, she should be taken 
from the pasture during the clay and placed 
in a cool, well ventilated stable, and kept 
there until evening on little or no food, and 
if any food be given, a little dry hay to pick 
at will be sufficient. And this treatment 
should be commenced for at least a week or 
more before calving, and continued for a few 
days after the calf is dropped. In the even¬ 
ing the animal may he turned into pasture. 
What is sought by this management is to 
reduce in some degree, flesh, and to exclude 
from the hot sun. Wo have had cows drop 
their calves at all seasons of the year, and 
favorite Silver-Duns. The Blue variety 
shows a beautiful clear blue plumage, with 
exquisitely metallic neck, blue rump and jet 
black glossy bars. The Bed Checkered, 
with their gray heads and deep purple-red 
necks, show a very marked contrast when 
At the show of the Columbarian Society of placed beside eit her of the other colored 
New York City, last fall, a cage of these birds, and as a whole there is no other dis- 
beautiful birds was on exhibition, which tinctive breed of birds that is attracting so 
were valued at $300 the pair, and to which much attention in England as the Antwerp^ 
we called especial attention through the col- ate at the present time. We hope to see 
umns of the Rural New-Yorker. These them largely bred in this country, 
birds were indeed among the finest looking The Chronicle says this variety of pigeons 
specimens of the feathered tribe on exhibi- uras originated from the celebrated Short 
lion, and their fine carriage and beautiful j Belgian Antwerps of the Leige tribe; that 
they are perfectly hardy, and can 
be reared with as little trouble as 
common varieties of pigeons.— l. 
Hslmnbrg 
turn 
X. A. WILLARD, A. M., EDITOR, 
Or Littix Fails, IIliucimkb Coukty, New Yoek. 
THE ANTWERP PIGEON 
A BAD CASE: 
A Few Itemeilie* »SiiKSfe8ted. 
POULTRY NOTES 
Feat-Bound Fowls. 
S. P. Blair, Lima, N. Y. —Your 
hen is undoubtedly egg-bound, of 
which, with a little attention on 
your part, she can easily be re¬ 
lieved. Take a feather and strip 
it until near the tip and then dip 
it in sweet oil, and let it remain 
until it becomes thoroughly satu¬ 
rated, then pass the feather up the 
egg-passage till it meets the egg, 
which you will find will relieve 
the hen at once, and enable her 
to proceed with her duties, if she 
experience any further difficulty, 
repeat the operation, getting the 
feather well tilled with oil when¬ 
ever you make an application. Do 
- not attempt to help nature, in the 
way of pressure, for in that case 
^ ^ the egg may become broken and 
|5Sr~f^ prove fatal to the hen. After you 
have made the application, as di- 
_ rectcd, let nature take her course, 
and all will be rigid.— l. 
How in Itlnke Hen* I.ny tiny 
=r Shaped Ee». 
A. B. Whrelock of Wisconsin 
writes the Rural New-Yorker: 
“ One of our neighbors is a great 
hen man. He says he can make his 
hens lay when he wants them to, and 
just such a shaped and sized egg as lie 
wishes, hut lie won't tell how. [But do you 
know that ho ran do what he says he can?— 
Eds. Rural ] He is from New York State. 
If there are any more such men in that 
State, or any other, who understand how 
this is done, we would like to hear from 
them.” 
StrmiKC Fowls. 
Some time ago I wrote a brief notice of a 
fowl said to be half guinea and half chicken. 
Its singular appearance in color, shape and 
movement, attracted my attention us I passed 
the road near the yard in which it was walk¬ 
ing about with the other fowls. Since then 
the owner, a colored woman, carried it into 
the town of Hillsboro, N. 0., with the pur¬ 
pose of selling it. The Recorder, published 
in the town, gave the following description 
of it.:—“It was a finely formed fowl, steel- 
mixed color, two feet one inch high, two feet 
two inches long, two feet eight inches from 
tip of wing to wing, and its head and neck 
nine inches long. It had the foot of a guinea 
and cackled very much like that fowl. She 
said that a lien hatched it from a guinea egg. 
It. excited a good deal of curiosity.” Ti was 
stated that she was offered only one dollar 
for it, and declined selling, hoping to obtain 
a better price. 
Several years since there were some fowls 
in my neighborhood, which were half chick¬ 
en and half peafowl. They were hatched 
from eggs laid by a common lien which broke 
her good faith with chanticleer, and yielded 
unlawfully to the gaudy attractions of the 
peacock. Strange as her fancy, it was by no 
means the first instance in which the femi¬ 
nine gender has betrayed admiration of 
bright colors and rich decorations. When 
quite young, the novel progeny appeared 
and twittered like partridges. When larger, 
they uttered sounds that might be called a 
mixed language, composed of the chicken 
and peacock dialect. In form and appear¬ 
ance, the body and back were like the pea¬ 
fowl, and the wings, neck and head were 
like the chicken. The crowing of the cock 
was very much like the usual alarm of the 
peacock.—w. m. 
Jittlo. -Then we draw purl, of iho wliey and ooitj 
thoroughly, and then drainwrul sail one pound 
of Aslunn to thirty-six pounds of curd, and put 
to pros?. We dm- the screw press; turn In the 
press at night tun) Like out the next morn ilia. 
We use colon, or prepared, Vorlt State si) Ic. nitli 
the best of ammtto. The house where >ve keep 
our cheese i« sixteen hy twenty. When we com¬ 
mended making cheese lust spring we had trou¬ 
ble with it> conking; we could uot cook it; and 
aflor a while, it cooked until about the lath of 
June, and then it refused to cook again, nod we 
could not cook it. We. lot. it stand nil it soured, 
and then ii would not cook. For about a month 
we were troubled In this way. 
In IStiH we had a handsome dairy ol cheese, 
very Jittlo huffy or porous cheese; but it was 
Strong;and rank, and bud odorimHJ the. iflrst of 
Sopioiuber; after that time wo had no poor 
cheese. In 1888 wo had more holly and porous 
cheese, tail not so much strong-, rank, and had 
odor; Siill it extended Ihrmigh ilia year. Home 
days th« cheese would be tip-top, and the next 
it would be poor: milk thoroughly coded and 
made Liu? same. We have taken groat pains to 
remedy this defect, but have tailed. There is 
more or less pour eliecsc made in almost every 
dairy In this locality. 
I am a Massachusetts man; kept a dairy for 
several years more; made Mo. l cheese; sold it 
for the highest market price; never lost n cheese 
until I came here. .Vow, if it is something; the 
cows got to eat or drink, or in the making, made 
every day .dike, why is it good one day and ha i 
the next? We are very particular in keepingult 
the ulcus- v clean and dry. 
One thing more I will mention: fo 186b, in t lie 
fore part of the season, while inditing in the 
burn, I noticed a disagreeable smell to tic urine 
of the nows like that ol a skunk: and when I ho 
cheese vv is cured we could dated the odoi about- 
the cheese. Our cheese, with the exception of 
those that huff, look nice and smooth, and do 
not crack at all. Now if you can give ns any 
light on this subject., or any advice or rule tor 
the coining season, it would lie very gratefully 
received. Our cheese in Oeeombnr, and Janu¬ 
ary, 1889, was salvy and bitter. We fed hurley 
and wheal meal. What is vour opinion m re¬ 
gard to putting bandage all over the cheese? 
Some do in ibis locality, oil UOOUUilt of flies.—S. 
L. Oahu, ttarlviUe, lUinoto. 
We print the above letter in full, because 
such cases doubtless exist in other localities, 
and particularly at the West. If the details 
of manufacture are given correctly, we 
should not expect, that good, healthy milk 
would turn out so badly. It is true t here are i 
some faults in manufacturing, Os, for instance, 
the heating to 110 ’. In no part of the pro¬ 
cess should the mass be raised above 100 . 
Still, with the extreme care taken in dairy 
utensils and the careful handling of the milk 
by one who has long been engaged in dairy¬ 
ing, it seems evident that the real source of 
the trouble lies beyond the process of man¬ 
ufacture. As a further evidence that the 
milk is in had condition when drawn from 
the cow — a condition either inoculated 
with or susceptible of entering quickly upon 
a state of putrefactive fermentation—the dis¬ 
agreeable odor of the urine noticed in the 
stable would seem to indicate. Again,some 
of the troubles complaiued of—the difficulty 
of scalding, the rank and had flavor of the 
cheese—are peculiar characteristics of taint¬ 
ed milk. 
The management of tainted milk, we may 
remark, is always attended with difficulty; 
and, although the best cheese cannot be 
made from it, still it may often be manipu¬ 
lated so as to make a tolerably fair article. 
In the first place, for tainted milk a larger 
quantity of rennet should he used than for 
good milk, and, in addition, a quantity of 
sour whey may be added with the rennet. 
A good coagulum being obtained, cut the 
curds and heat up more rapidly Ilian usual, 
say to 98°. The whey should he got olT 
early, and the curds exposed to the atmos¬ 
phere a long time for the odor to pass off. 
They should then be run through a curd 
mill, which will tear the particles apart and 
allow the offensive gases to pass off. If 
acidity has not progressed far enough in the 
vat in the proper time, the whey should be 
drawn and acidity allowed to develop in the 
curds alone. 
Our correspondent probably injured bis 
cheese materially by allowing it to steep a 
long time in the whey, and in trylug to scald 
it when, as he says, “it refused to cook.” 
The pulrofiictive element in the whey not 
only retarded the cooking, hut was contin¬ 
ually adding and developing a putrid condi¬ 
tion in the curd. 
| We have no space in this article to dis¬ 
cuss the manipulation of tainted milk in 
cheese manufacture, and can only allude to 
some of the general features of management 
5 for such milk. It is a subject which do- 
(v mauds a separate article, which we shall 
reason given by some 
persons at the West for bad milk. They 
say that at certain seasons of the year the 
grass of the low lands is filled with swarms 
of innumerable insects, and that, cows feed¬ 
ing on such grass consume these with their 
food, which causes tainted milk. From our 
observations while traveling in certain sec¬ 
tions of the West, we have been led to sus¬ 
pect that such a condition of things might 
he possible. 
We have presumed that the dairy house 
of our correspondent is located out of the 
reach of odors from cess pools, hog pens, or 
other decomposing matter, that would taint 
the milk, and that pure clean water is used 
about the dairy. 
If none of our suggestions touch the case 
we should look closely to the pastures to see 
if there was not some objectionable plant 
that the cows feed upon; and finally, we 
should advise Ihe feeding of sulphur In 
small quantities to the cows. The sulphur 
should he mixed with the sail,—say a table- 
spoonful of sulphur to a quart of salt—and 
thoroughly mingled together. Let the mix¬ 
ture he placed in boxes before the rows in 
the stable, or put the boxes in some place 
out of the weather, but so that the cows can 
have daily access to them and take what they 
desire. We should have remarked, that, in 
the spring and fall of t he year, when there 
is difficulty of cooking the curd on account 
of the milk being made up too sweet, it can 
be corrected by (lie use of sour whey. 
In regard to the bitter flavor and salvy 
texture of cheese in December and January, 
the bitter taste may come from t lie milk 
being kept too Jong before making up, or 
from the cheese not being cured properly. 
We do not advise covering the cheese en¬ 
tirely over with bondage to keep off flies. 
Keep the ranges clean, and give the cheese 
proper attention, and there will lie no trouble 
from flies. 
plumage attracted much attention. They 
were said to be the only ones then in this 
country. 
Our engraving of the Silver-Dun Antwerp 
pigeon, herewith given, is taken from a late 
number of the Poultry (English) Chronicle. 
The specimen was awarded the first prize by 
the Birmingham (England) Columbarian 8o- 
ciety at its last show. The Chronicle says 
the engraving represents a ftiUy-dev eloped 
bird of the Silver-Dun species, which is con¬ 
sidered the most favorable color by English 
amateurs, on account of its being so dissimi¬ 
lar to that of any other class of pigeons, and 
is highly prized for its spirited action and 
splendid plumage. The ground of its body 
and head is of a bright silver color, with a 
very deep purple-red neck and hackle, and 
well defined red bars across the wings. 
Those shown at the Columbarian Society of 
this city last fall were not dissimilar in their 
markings to the description here given. 
The Silver-Dun Antwerp carries its head 
high and very dignified, aucl has a most in¬ 
telligent look; its head is rather oval from 
the back thereof to the root of its beak, and 
well arched; forming an arch also across 
the eyes, and having no indentations what¬ 
ever. The skull, though oval, is broad and 
rather prominent from the eye to die root of 
the beak, causing the oval-shaped head. The 
beak should tie short and thick, with pro¬ 
portionately wai ted nostrils, slightly rising 
close to the head ; the under mandible of 
the beak, with the exception of the wart, 
should he similar in formation to the top 
mandible, possessing a small portion ol 
horny substance, as the feathered skin ex¬ 
tends within an eighth of au inch of the end 
of the mandible, which appears quite as thick 
as the top waned mandible. The eye of this 
bird is most remarkable; it expresses dig¬ 
nity and great resolution. It is of a bright 
red color, with a large black pupil, and it 
should be encircled with a fair portion of 
lash, raising on the upper part, so as to equal 
the height of the center of the arched head, 
causing the eye to be very prominent and 
conspicuous. 
CANADIAN DAIRY MATTERS, 
A letter from the Secretary of the Cana¬ 
dian Dairymen’s Association, dated Inger- 
soll, May 5th, states, among other things, 
that factories in the Dominion are now gen¬ 
erally in operation, but the make of cheese 
so far is light, as a rule. We are sorry to 
learn, also, from the same source, that, “ hoof 
disease” is quite prevalent among the Cana¬ 
dian horde, and that some slock has been 
lost by it. The weather is reported favora¬ 
ble and summer-like, and the herds are just 
getting out. to pasture, which, we should say, 
is remarkably early for Canada. 
There is a very considerable increase of 
the dairy business in Canada, this year over 
last and, some sixty new factories have gone 
into operation. Fall wheat in the Ingersoll 
district is reported badly injured by the 
winter, and in many cases the fields are be¬ 
ing plowed up and re-sown. 
COWS CALVING IN HOT WEATHER. 
Cows “coining in milk” late in the sea¬ 
son, when they have been several weeks at. 
pasture, are often quite fleshy, and are liable 
to he lost from an attack of “milk lever.” 
Tim disease is sometimes called “ dropping 
after calving,” because it, follows that, pro¬ 
cess, and one of the prominent, symptoms of 
the complaint is loss of power over the mo¬ 
tion of the hind limbs, and consequent ina¬ 
bility to stand. 
Youatt says, “there are few diseases 
which the farmer dreads more, and that for 
two reasons; the first is that, the animal now 
labors under a high degree of excitement, 
ami every local inflammation, and particu¬ 
larly near the parts in which the sudden 
change of circulation and of function has 
taken place, assumes a peculiar character, 
and an intensity, obstinacy ancl fatality, un¬ 
known at other times. The second reason 
is, that from his inattention to the animal, 
or his ignorance of the real nature of the 
diseases of cattle, he does not recognize this 
malady until its first and manageable state, 
that of fever, lias passed, and the strength of 
the constitution has been undermined, and 
helpless debility has followed.” 
Youatt recommends bleeding and physic 
in treating this disease, but we have not pro¬ 
posed so much to speak of the treatment of 
animals afflicted with “milk fever” as the 
means to be taken to avoid the disease. Our 
experience in the management of dairy stock 
leads us to believe that in most instances 
“ milk fever” may he avoided simply by pay¬ 
ing attention to the diet of the cow and 
keeping her sheltered from the rays of the 
Hot sun for a few clays before and after the 
period of dropping her calf. 
CRACKED TEATS IN COWS. 
herd, during spring, from cracked teats. 
These should be attended to at once, for 
when neglected they often develop into ugly 
sores from the daily irritation of milking, 
putting the animal in much pain and not 
unfrcquently resulting in making the cow 
“ a confirmed kicker.” 
On the first appearance of a crack on the 
teat, it should lie cleansed from dirt by 
washing in a suds made with Castile soap 
and tepid rain water, and then oiling with a 
little whey butter, or fresh butter containing 
no salt. A better way is to bathe the af¬ 
fected parts in suds from Castile soap as 
above, and then thoroughly anoint with 
glycerine twice a day, or immediately after 
milking. This will often cure stubborn 
cases in a few days. 
In carriage this bird equals, 
if it does not surpass, any of the other va¬ 
rieties. It. stands high, is wedge-shaped, and 
quite clear of any superfluous feathers near 
the legs. It. lias a most graceful neck, mod¬ 
erately arched below the head, and possesses 
a very broad and expansive chest, enveloped 
by the powerful butts of its wings, which 
have strong, broad and long flights, the 
longest of which reach the end of its tail. 
Though the birds of this breed appear large, 
on examination they will be found to be of 
very moderate size, as it is the length of 
their feathers which makes them appear 
otherwise. 
It is said there are but two other colors of 
the Antwerp pigeons recognized by bird 
fanciers — the Blue Checkered and Red 
Preference is often expressed for Ashton’s and Checkered, which, when bred in good colors, 
;her foreign salt for flutter, though Onondaga , . , - ,, 
lit proves more pure by analysis. command quite as much admiration as the 
Brine for Eggs. 
A correspondent writes:—“We would 
like to know how to make a brine to keep 
eggs through the summer.” In Rural New- 
Yorker, May 31, page 836, in leading edito¬ 
rial, our correspondent will find what we 
ask for. If our readers have any better 
recipe we shall he glad to print it. 
Diphtheria—A Chicken Saved. 
Benjamin Hammond, Jr., writes: — A 
week ago a neighbor gave me a chicken—a 
supposed gone case, sick with diphtheria. 
It is now apparently in good health, cured 
with the remedy giveu in Rural New- 
Yorker of April 3. 
