gairji liusbanbrtj. 
X, A. WILLARD, A. M., EDITOR, 
Oi I.ini.r F.ixs, Hkkkimke Colwty, Nkw Yoek. 
DAIRY MATTERS-GRASS CROP, &c. 
It is pretty evident that the cheese crop 
this year is to be short. Drouth is prevail¬ 
ing over a wide extent of territory, ami 
from all accounts that reach us, we have but 
one expression, that pastures arc “brown 
ami dried ill*,” ami that COWS have in couse- 
quence fallen off in their milk, and are 
making but poor returns. On light, thinuish 
soils, in some sections, cows must be fed 
from the meadow to eke out the scanty pas¬ 
turage. The season is so far advanced that 
we cannot expect much improvement in the 
flow of milk until cows are turned to the 
after-feed, and unless we have copious show¬ 
ers, this, too will be meager. 
When we lake into account that the early 
make of cheese was below the average in 
the great central cheese districts oi New 
York—that there has been in this region, at 
no time during the season the usual “ llush 
of feed” in pastures—the conclusion, it 
would seem, is well founded that the Ameri¬ 
can cheese product will fall considerably 
short of that of lasl year. Hut the English 
product also is below an average. We have 
accounts from Derbyshire, from Somerset¬ 
shire and from other purls of England of 
drouth and the scanty herbage in pastures. 
In Somersetshire a correspondent says, on 
the middle of June, that “ Pastures are very 
bare—artificial grasses wasting with half a 
crop. Excepting the deep pasture land laid 
up for mowing, not half a crop; thinner 
soils not yet fit for cutting, and doubtful if 
worth mowing.” 
A letter from J. J. Mechi— the noted 
farmer of Tiptree Hall, near London — 
printed in the Mark Lane Express of June 
13th, says :—“ Since 1 wrote on May 15th, 
there lias been scarcely a shower, conse¬ 
quently, there is no bottom to the pastures, 
and on the uplands the few heads of early 
ripened grasses are being brushed down, 
with the hope that the after crop may be a 
good one. On some lauds the spring crops 
lire showing unmistakable signs of suffering 
from want of moisture. I fear our Eastern 
counties have been less fortunate in regard 
to rainfall than others in the West and Mid¬ 
land. Late plowed and late sown spring 
crops are in a critical condition, owing 
to the dry weather," <fcc. 
These facts must indicate pretty clearly 
that the yield of dairy products in England 
will be below" an average, mid that Ameri¬ 
can cheese will be in demand for export at 
better prices than it has been bringing dur¬ 
ing the month of June. 
We are now (July 9th) in the midst of the 
hay harvest in llcrkimer Co., N. Y., and the 
crop is fully one-third short of that of last 
year. Old meadow s especially are light, but 
the quality is excellent. During a recent 
tour through the Eastern Slates, we found 
the universal complaint, among fanners t hat 
the hay crop was short this year, and that in 
some sections drouth was more severe than 
in Central New York. 
- 4 -*-*- 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE VERMONT 
DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
Some time since we gave in the Rural 
New-Yorker a pretty full account of the 
proceedings at the winter meeting of the 
Vermont Jiairymen’s Association. The Sec¬ 
retary, Mr. O. S. Buss, Georgia, Vt., has 
now embodied the speeches, discussions, 
and papers presented at the meeting in a 
neatly-printed pamphlet of 118 pages. Mr. 
Buss has done his work in a very creditable 
manner, and the Report is one of the most 
valuable of the kind that has yet been issued. 
Besides the discussions, the pamphlet con¬ 
tains the follow ing addresses and essays, viz.: 
Opening address by Hon. E. I). Mason, 
President of the Association ; Essay on 
Cultivation of the Sugar Beet, by Hon. 
Henry Lane; Address on Dairy Farms 
and Dairy Management, by X. A, Willard; 
Address of Dr. .Middleton Goldsmith on 
the Objects and Methods of Investigation ; 
remarks by lion. T. H. AlvorD; Essay on 
Grasses, by R. Goodman ; Address on But¬ 
ter Making, by 0. S. Buss, together with an 
abstract of the addresses before the Ameri¬ 
can Dairymen’s Association, by Professors 
Caldwell and Prentis. 
Seeding Womb Grass Lands, &e. 
In the paper by Mr. Goodman, we find 
the following plan of seeding down grass 
lands which will perhaps surprise some ol 
the advocates of light seeding. He says: 
“ We occasionally seed down with rye in the 
fall, with timothy, throwing the clover on 
in the spring, and we find the practice con¬ 
venient and successful. Timothy aiul red- 
top, half a bushel each to the acre, and eight 
quarts of clover. Rarely roll the seed in, 
but ensuing year go over tlie ground with 
a roller, having a box on it, and as we roll, 
pick up all the stones and carry them off to 
the ends of the field and put in heaps, which 
are removed in the full or winter on to the 
roads.” 
Mr. Goodman says the farmers in his vi¬ 
cinity—Lenox, Mass.—manure for grass by 
applying the manures to the corn field. The 
land is plowed in the fall, and the manure 
drawn out during winter, the earlier the bet¬ 
ter. It is spread evenly on the ground, and 
harrowed in the spring. He prefers to put 
on the coarse manures and plow them under 
in the fall, using Hie finer manures in the 
spring, and barrow them in. 
Fiue bone dust and broken bones are re¬ 
garded as the best substitute for barn-yarcl 
manures in laying down lands to grass. 
Meadows are top-dressed every fall with ma¬ 
nures made from keeping the cows up sum¬ 
mer nights. Muck exposed to the atmos¬ 
phere one whole summer, and put in large 
quantities behind the cows to absorb the 
urine, is also used. He says it is a great er¬ 
ror to suppose that anything is lost by 
spreading manure on the land, whether on 
the earth or grass, as the earth absorbs all 
the best portions, and the rains wash all that 
is not so absorbed into the soil. Top dress¬ 
ings act the best on drained land. Plaster is 
used In spring. Saltpeter, potash and lime 
have been found, from the experiments of 
years, to be useful for grass crops. He says 
the great reason why our meadows run out 
so soon is that the manure is thrown out¬ 
doors, where it lies until all the salts are 
washed out, and when applied is mainly 
straw or coarse matter. 
Uniting UraM lor Hay. 
Mr. Goodman gives some excellent sug¬ 
gestions in regard to cutting and harvesting 
the grass crop. He says the best farmers 
are now beginning to cut grass early, com¬ 
mencing in June and finishing up before 
August. The mowing is done in the morn¬ 
ing from nine o’clock till noon—immediate¬ 
ly after dinner rake, cock and cap. The 
hay cap he considers of the next importance 
to the mower. Caps are now made from 
the shelter tents used in the armies, and are 
for sale in the cities at fifty cents each. 
They are of the best canvass, with eyelet 
holes in each end. If the weather is good 
the cocks are opened next day, spread and 
tedded, and hauled in during the after¬ 
noon. Hay should never be sailed in the 
mow. By the use of caps it rarely gets wet. 
Mr. G. says lie has had clover lie in codes 
under caps for the better part of a week, dur¬ 
ing heavy rains, and come out well cured 
and not in the least injured. When the hay 
is all in, close the barns tight and keep them 
so. In feeding, the mows should be cut 
down and used in sections. 
The hay cap we notice is in much more 
general use throughout Massachusetts than 
in New York. It should bo introduced upon 
every dairy farm, and would annually save 
immense quantities of hay that, without its 
use, is injured, and often spoiled entirely 
during wet weather. 
Butler iUultitiK. 
The essay on butter making by Mr. Bliss 
was not read at the annual meeting, but is 
appropriately added to the report. The 
subject is very thoroughly treated, from the 
feeding of the cows to the packing and 
marketing of the butter. We have now 
room only for a few quotations, but may re¬ 
fer to some of the topics discussed in the 
essay hereafter. 
The Dry Vault. 
Mr. Bliss says the dry vault for setting 
milk is the best substitute for the spring- 
house, and is believed by many to be quite 
as good. The construction docs not differ 
essentially, except that the necessity foi 
heavy walls well sunk in the ground is 
more absolute in this case. The floor should 
be flagged or cemented, and the pails or 
pans set upon it. If shelves are vised at all 
they should be of stone. In very warm 
weather it may be necessary to wet the floor 
daily, but generally tbc temperature may be 
kept very nearly uniform throughout. If 
practicable, a slmdy site with a northern ex¬ 
posure should be" Rejected. In a moist, 
springy soil, though a supply of water can¬ 
not be depended on, it may be well to put 
narrow sluts on the ground on which to set 
the milk vessels, instead of making a close 
floor. Of course, in this case, drainage must 
be provided for, so that there may not be an 
undue accumulation of water. 
Butter Packages. 
After referring to the heavy return pails 
for transporting butter, Mr. Bliss says the 
best form of package for shipping is the 
oak firkin, well headed up and strongly 
hooped. For small packages he considers 
the piggin, or small round box with a cover, 
as not much better than a sheet of brown 
paper. As a substitute for the piggin, be 
suggests that “The very neat, square, ve¬ 
neer package, used by some of the Chicago 
houses for putting up lard, is much prefer¬ 
able to the piggin, us it is impervious to both 
air and moisture. These packages put up 
in large boxes, with all the interstices filled 
with fine salt or charcoal, will keep good 
butter for years in any climate," and lie adds, 
“No package that he has seen will‘keep’ 
poor butter very long." 
Some very useful suggestions arc made 
in regard to marketing butter, and the 
Grange county plan of freighting a car and 
employing a regular salesman oi r “ captain,” 
is recommended. 
icrbsman. 
TENNESSEE CATTLE BUYERS. 
Wliat they Learned at the McMillan ?*ale. 
We find the following good hot-weather 
reading for herdsmen in the Nashville Union 
and American. If it is not so instructive as 
it might be, it is exquisitely touching : 
For some time past two of our prominent 
citizens have had a hankering after fine 
blooded cattle. In fact they lmd bovine 
blood badly. Sundry and divers conferences 
they had between themselves as to how they 
would procure the finest specimens of blood¬ 
ed cattle to be had, and astonish their neigh- 
bom by a sudden display of their selections. 
They kept up a close scrutiny us to where 
and how this stock was to he procured. 
From the papers they learned that there was 
to he a show and sale of blooded cattle at 
Xenia, Ohio, and to Xenia they went. They 
left the city one morning during lust week, 
and arrived safely at Xenia aforesaid. They 
are both wealthy, and they looked compla¬ 
cent like upon the unpretentious Western 
Buckeye town. On the first morning of the 
fair and sale they sallied forth to the grounds, 
having, as they thought, “ rhino” enough to 
bid for every cow and calf and specimen of 
horned stock that would be there. On 
reaching the ground they discovered if “ the 
cattle of a thousand hills” were not there, 
the cattle of several valleys were. There 
were Durham and Devonshire and English 
tborough-breds, and cows, and calves, and 
bulls of every size, grade and color. Stock 
men, and judges, too, were there from sev¬ 
eral States. Lucky men wore our heroes. 
They hud been led by green pastures. 
Wouldn’t they surprise their neighbors? 
Our friends took their places In the front 
rank of the steepest buyers. Instantly it be¬ 
came whispered through the crowd that two 
of the wealthiest men of Tennessee were 
tjicrc with immense sums to liny “ blooded 
stock." Those having stock for sale chuckled. 
The buyers were crest-fallen at such formi¬ 
dable competition. All eyes were upon the 
Tennesseeans. Aye, Tennesseeans, “ forty” 
cow-buyers looked upon you. The sale com¬ 
menced. A fiue, blooded bovine was brought 
forward, and the auction commenced. Our 
friends were ready to bid—in fact, they were 
going “to go for it.” They thought, how¬ 
ever, that they would wait for somebody to 
“ start” the animal, when they would come 
down with such bids us would astonish the 
natives and slop competition at once. The 
cow was put up. 
“Two thousand dollars!” bid an Ohioan. 
Our friends stretched their eyes. “ Three 
thousand dollars! ” said a Iloosier. 
Our friends dropped their chins. 
“Four thousand dollars M! ” bid a West¬ 
ern Reserve man. Tennesseeans were aghast. 
The auctioneer looked at them; Hie people 
looked at them. Nairy a bid came from 
that quarter. They had never heard of such 
prices for cattle as that. And though they 
could command thousands at home, and are 
liberal, they had not provided themselves 
with funds enough oil this particular occa¬ 
sion to hid for a suckling calf of Short-Horns 
of the McMillan herd near Xenia. Here 
was a dilemma. They looked at each 
other; they looked at the stock ; they looked 
far away, and looked in all directions at 
once. They were evidently out of the ring, 
and a short time found our speculators iu 
the outskirts of the crowd. After casting a 
few furtive glances at each other, one of 
them exclaimed in mournful tones, “ Let us 
go home.” 
“ Agreed,” said the other. A few minutes 
after they were back in Xenia and were 
soon on the train homeward bound. Few 
and short were the words that they said un¬ 
til the Ohio river rolled between them and 
the sale of the Sliort-IIorned, blooded cattle 
of the McMillan herd, near Xenia. 
Our frieuds reached home in safety after 
an absence of fifty-four and a-half hours, and 
all that is necessary to excite in the boeom 
of either of them all the wrath of Achilles is 
to ask them if they bought any Short-Horns 
of the McMillan herd, near Xenia. 
--- 
BATES. — SHORT-HORN BREEDER. 
In the Edinbugh Farmer, we find the fol¬ 
lowing from the pen of Mr. James Fawcett, 
concerning the famous Short-Horn breeder, 
Bates, who died in 1849, but with whose 
successes as a stock breeder, all Short-Horn 
men in thi3 country are familiar. The fol¬ 
lowing will interest such of our readers, at 
least:—“I have endeavored to recall from 
the depths of memory some of the bygone 
days spent with my old friend and tutor, Mr. 
Bates of Kirklevingtou. Having studied at 
the Edinburgh University, he was well up in 
the chemical and scientific part of his busi¬ 
ness, and far beyond his neighbors iu that 
respect. The chief enjoyment, however, of 
his life, was in iiis cow pastures, which were 
generally visited once or twice a day, and 
the history and points of eacli animal made 
known to any visitor, as it came up to have 
its head rubbed. I well remember the in¬ 
terest and pains he took to initiate me into 
the mysteries of ‘ handling.’ What he termed 
quality, he considered the most essential 
point in cattle, and under this designation he 
included aptitude to fatten, early maturity, 
symmetry, firmness of bone, and, above all, 
the covering of the frame evenly with flesh 
of a delicate fiber, and well intermixed 
with fat. 
“ Iu those days be had very few pure 
Duchesses and Kettons, but a number of 
beautiful cows by Ketton and Ketton 2d, 
from choice Argyleshire heifers, which he 
had selected with the view of rearing an 
original herd like Charles Colling, whose 
success he attributed to the judicious blend¬ 
ing of that blood, obtained through Grand¬ 
son of Bolingbroke, with the best Short- 
Horns of the day. From some cause or 
other, he lost the Argyleshire tribes after 
leaving Northumberland, and steadily culti¬ 
vated the Duchesses, and one or two other 
tribes, among the best of which were Red 
Rose and Fairy, two splendid cows, from 
Mr. Hustler. From the former lie bred 
2d Ilubback, by the Earl, which be consid¬ 
ered the best bull he ever had, and destined 
to become quite a regenerator of Short- 
Horns. He was a light red bull, with a 
lemon muzzle, and as perfect in bis points 
as could be desired, at the same time evenly 
covered with flesh of the best possible 
quality. 
Mr. Bates considered Mr. Charles Col- 
1 , ing to have been the most thorough judge 
of cattle of his day, and, in fact, the origina¬ 
tor oft he improved Short-Horn, having im¬ 
bibed this knowledge from Mr. Bakewell 
of Disliley, with whom he lived sometime 
in statu pupillari. He thought that his 
brother Robert's fame as a breeder was en¬ 
tirely due to the superior judgment of 
Charles, whose bull, Favorite, was the un¬ 
doubted fountain-head of pedigrees, and the 
source of their distinction, being the sire of 
Comet, Ketton, &c., as well as of the famous 
old cows Princess and Duchess. 
Mr. Bates used to describe Favorite as a 
very rich roan, robust and massive animal, 
with a very fine, long, and downy coat, and 
superb handling, but by no means so ‘ pointy’ 
u bull as his son Comet, although a much 
better sire. He thought him so much better 
than the other, that he did not scruple to 
breed in-and-in with him several times, and 
with success. He was an advocate for that 
mode of breeding, and at last preferred it to 
having recourse to impure blood, ns there 
was apparently (in tlmt day at least) no bad 
result from it in his cattle, which were dis¬ 
tinguished by their vigor and healthy ap¬ 
pearance. To dairy properties, too often 
overlooked, ho paid great attention, and 
very few of his cows were deficient in this 
respect.” 
iggitnic Information. 
TOBACCO: 
Cliewlutr, Smoking aud Snuffing — How to 
Break the Ilabit. 
Dr. Dio Lewis has been lecturing upon 
tobacco, aud this is the way he talks: 
Tobacco, iu its ordinary state—the “ plugs” 
which you have in your pockets—is a pow¬ 
erful poison. It will do what no Other poison 
will do. 1 do not speak of the oil of tobacco. 
I do not speak of nicotine, a single drop of 
which, put upon the tongue of a cat, will 
kill her in t wenty seconds; three drops of 
which, put up the tongue of a hull-dog, 
will kill him so quick that he will hardly 
get out of your arms in his struggles; and 
ten drops of which will kill a cow inside of 
ten minutes. I am not talking of these 
things at all, although they are in tobacco, 
lain talking of tobacco iu the form of the 
original “ plug.” 
Now let me suppose an experiment. I 
call from this audience a boy ten years old, 
who has never used tobacco. “ Charles, 
will you help us to make au experiment here 
to-night?” “Yes, sir.” “I will give you 
fifty dollars if you will go through it like a 
plucky man.” “ I will, sir.” “ The experi¬ 
ment is thisThere is a piece of tobacco, 
as large as a pea. Put that in your mouth; 
chew it; don’t let one drop go down your 
throat; spit every drop of the j nice into that 
spittoon; but keep on chewing; don’t stop; 
just chew steadily.” Before he has done 
with that piece of tobacco, as large as a pea, 
simply squeezing the juice out of it, without 
swallowing a drop, he lies here upon the 
platform in a cold, death-like perspiration; 
he vomits the contents of his stomach; put 
your fingers upon his wrist, there is no 
pulse; aud so he seems for two or three 
hours as though he were dying, or, perchance, 
dead. 
Now, gentleman, go to your drug stores, 
begin with the upper shelves, and take down 
every bottle, and then open every drawer, 
and you cannot find a single poison (except 
some very rare ones that you never heard 
of) which taken into the mouth of that ten- 
year-old boy, and not swallowed, will pro¬ 
duce these effects. Tobacco, then, I repeat, 
in its ordinary state, is an extremely power¬ 
ful poison. 
Look into a man’s mouth who dunes to¬ 
bacco, and see how red it is. The tongue is 
so red that the doctor no longer appeals to 
it to determine the condition of the man’s 
stomach. He can learn nothing of it by ex¬ 
amining his patient’s tongue, if he be a 
chewer of tobacco. That congestion which 
produces the redness, extends a little further 
down than you can see, and affects the 
speech. Dr. Cole and Dr. Waterhouse 
affirm that they are never mistaken in under¬ 
taking to determine whether a public speak¬ 
er be a chewer of tobacco or not, so peculiar 
is its influence upon the articulation. But 
let that pass. 
Smoking injures the teeth; it produces 
decay in the teeth. It produced decay in 
two of my upper teeth, aud one under tooth, 
before I had any other decayed tooth iu my 
mouth, by holding my pipe or segar between 
them. It is not remarkable that with the 
heat of the tobacco smoke and its acrid poi¬ 
son, this injurious influence should be exert¬ 
ed upon the teeth. But. that is nothing com¬ 
pared with its influence upon the lungs. 
Pul your hand over your eyes, fill your 
mouth with smoke, and then blow that 
smoke up under your hand. Now look in 
the glass. How red the eye is. The tears 
run down the cheek; wlmt is the matter? 
There has been a powerful poison in the 
eye. Aud yet, men whose fathers and 
grandfathers have died of consumption do 
not, scruple to sit down in a room where 
there are a dozen smokers, and smoke until 
it is all bine, taking in lungful after lungful 
of that deadly poisou. 1 believe with Dr. 
Waterhouse, that if young men would 
abandon cigars, consumption would be con¬ 
fined almost exclusively to women, and iu 
them be produced by their unhappy state of 
dress. 1 believe the great Liebig, who says 
that of the German males who die between 
fifteen and forty, many die of smoking to¬ 
bacco. 
Pass on to snuffing. In the first place, 
snuffing spoils the voice. How’ strange it is 
that any man should willfully change his 
voice, the richest music this side of heaven, 
into a nasal snarl by taking snuff into his 
nose! 1 tell you a man who doubts the 
doctrine of total depravity must he staggered 
by that fact. Besides, it produces headache 
and disease of the stomach which nobody 
can cure. 
I know I do not echo the voices of the 
wise ones of the w orld when I say that the 
use of tobacco paralyses and deadens the 
moral sensibilities almost more than any 
other habit in which civilized men indulge. 
Gentlemen, 1 advise you to clean yourselves 
aud quit. I would give it up, It is a nasty, 
disgusting, ruinous habit. But somebody 
says: — “I can’t give it up; 1 w’aut to, and 
have tried, but I can’t do it.” Can't you ? 
Then 1 wouldn’t. But if you really are so 
enslaved that you cannot get out of your 
chains, I will help you a little. Stop to¬ 
night; don’t use any to-morrow. The first 
day will not be so very hard. You can get 
on pretty well the first day, as everybody 
knows who has been through the mill, as I 
have been. The second day is pretty bad. 
Iu the afternoon of the second day your 
memory is a little doubtful; you can’t ex¬ 
actly say whether it was two brothers or 
three brothels that came over; you can’t 
exactly say whether your grandfather came 
from the East or the West when be settled 
here. But be patient the second day. The 
third morning comes the tug. Now go and 
take an old-fashioned alcohol sweat. Place 
an alcohol lamp under your chair, put a 
blanket over your shoulders, and sweat un¬ 
til your skin is fairly parboiled. Then you 
will be just as comfortable for one day as 
you could wish. There is no dryness of the 
mouth, no disturbance of the secretions. 
You are perfectly comfortable for one day. 
The next day you are in trouble again, but 
not so bad as the day before. Take another 
sweat; take even a third or a fourth one. 
Sweating does not hurt people ; sometimes it 
is good for them. Take three or foiu- 
thorough sweats, and then you will go off 
under easy sail, and will have no further 
trouble from your enemy. 
SUNFLOWERS AS*DISINFECTANTS. 
Experiment in France and Holland have 
shown that sunflowers, when planted on an 
extensive scale, will neutralize the perni¬ 
cious effects of exhalations from marshes. 
This plan has been tried with great success 
in the fenny districts near Rochefort, France; 
and the authorities of Holland assert that 
intermittent fever has wholly disappeared 
from districts where the sunflowers have 
been planted. It is not yet determined what 
effect the flower produces on the atmosphere 
—whether it generates oxygen, like other 
plants of rapid growth, or whether, like the 
conifers, It emits ozone, ami thus destroys 
the organic germs of miasms that produce 
_...- 
Our Headers are invited to send us contribu 
tions oi practical experience lor this Depart¬ 
ment. 
