proved a great blessing to me. It threw me 
on my own resources, such as 1 had, Which 
was only a yoke of oxen, to do all the work 
that was to do on the farm ; and they flid it 
and did it cheap. Nothing better in winter 
to keep them upon than a plenty of corn 
shucks with a few nubbins if the work is 
very heavy. When grass grows in spring, 
no feeding at all if the pasture is moderately 
good. I worked the team I here mentioned 
1 ill they wore seventeen years old, and then 
made good beef of them. .Results. 1 have 
made us good crops, and, in many instances, 
better ones than my neighbors that used 
horses and mules and better force. I have 
corn to sell every year, while most of them 
have to buy. I sell all the oats that I raise. 
I only mention these two crops because in 
oorn and oats is the greatest saving ; both 
crops sell higher with us. From a small 
head of cattle there ure generally ft super¬ 
abundance of young steers, and when one is 
needed for work a good plan is to yoke with 
one that is broken ; no necessity of trading 
the old one off and lose a good conscience, 
as many -must do in trading their old horses. 
I have proved to my entire satisfaction after 
an experience of eight years the truth found 
in the fourth verse of the fourteenth chapter 
of Proverbs. T. T. Carter. 
Halifax C. II., Va. 
--*-*-*-- 
PACTS IN FATTENING CATTLE. 
Boubsingault estimates that an ox weigh¬ 
ing 748 pounds, fed upon forty pounds per 
diem, will increase in weight about two 
pounds daily. According to Mr. Low, an ox 
weighing 770 pounds and consuming 2,223 
pounds of turnips per week, If hotnrives, 
will gain in the same time nearly a stone, 
fourteen pounds in weight. Allowing 100 
pounds of hay worth 070 pounds of turnips, 
the increase is still about two pounds a day. 
Mr. Dubois says the quantity of green 
fodder consumed by an ox during the eight 
mouths when he is fattening, is equivalent 
to 0,600 pounds of dry hay. The average 
ration of green forage per diem, he calcu¬ 
lates, therefore, as equivalent to about twen¬ 
ty-seven pounds of hay. 
But this average i:> evidently too small, 
particularly for cold weather, which was 
proven in the valley of Auge in Normandy. 
Mr. Stephenson estimates that 67 per cent, 
of the whole animal will be butchers’ meat; 
8 per cent, tallow ; 0 per cent, hide ; and 29 
per cent, entrails. This of course depends! 
upon the. condition of the. beef—a fat one will 
yield a greater per cent, than a lean one. 
Others give the per eent. of meat at 53 to 
62 per cent. 
-- 
NOTES FOR HERDSMEN. 
■ 
A Cure Wanted for a Sick Cow. —She has 
been sick three months or over. She cannot 
keep down but very little of what she eats. 
I have tried a good many things and differ¬ 
ent sorts of feed, but of no avail. fc5hc will 
eat one turnip and t hen throw it up. I ha ve 
seen her throw up as many as three t imes in 
drinking one bucket of water. She appears 
to bo In pain when throwing up, as she don’t 
stand still but stumps her feet and appears 
to be very uneasy. She chews her cud but 
very seldom. I will bo willing to pay any 
one for a cure, as it puzzles all around- here 
to know what is her disease,— Wat. Dickson, 
Lynxville, I Vis. 
Remedy for Lousy Slock.—Having seen in 
the Rural New-Yorker various inquiries 
of what was good to kill lice Mi calves, cows 
and horses, I would just say, that sour but¬ 
termilk will do the work effectually, without 
any of the deleterious effects of lard and 
tobacco, Scotch snuff, train oil, &e. Try it. 
One or two washings is all that is necessary. 
It docs not weaken and debilitate the stock, 
but rather gives strength. Try it, ye who 
have lousy stock, and report through the 
columns of the Rural, the best paper pub¬ 
lished in the world—W m, H., Lumberport, 
Harrison Co., IFcsi Va. 
Gain in Cattle. —It takes eleven pounds of 
milk to add one pound of live weight to a 
pfPf • and an ox that weighs one thousand 
three hundred pounds will consume twenty- 
two pounds of hay in twenty-tour hours to 
keep from losing weight, if ho is to fatten, 
he must have just twice that quantity, when 
he will gain two pounds ri day. This is one 
pound live weight to eleven pounds good 
hay. To obtain lift}' cents a hundred for his 
hay, a farmer must sell fat steers at five dol¬ 
lars and fifty cents per hundred pounds.— 
Canada Farmer. 
Steamed Food Producing Abortion in 
Cotes.—This has been more than once inti¬ 
mated in agricultural papers, and it is as¬ 
serted that some dairymen have ceased feed¬ 
ing it on that account. Who can give us 
facts that will throw light on the subject 
pro or con. 
afield (Cqap. 
COMPTON’S 8URPRISE AND POTATO 
PRIZES. 
The article on “Compton’s Surprise and 
Other Surprises,” which was published in 
your excellent number of January 3, was 
rather amusing reading, and I presume that 
the only surprise which it gave to a majority 
of your readers was that Mr. S. Folsom of 
“ Eureka Place” should be so poorly read in 
potato literature. Mr. F. lias produced 400 
hills from one pound of Compton Surprise 
Potatoes, and lias had a very narrow escape 
indeed from being made famous. The mys¬ 
terious process by which this amazing mul¬ 
tiplication of lulls was accomplished isthrffci- 
ly withheld, but if only Mr. Blips or any 
other party, having the welfare of the agri¬ 
culturist at heart, will guaranteo to Mr. F. 
SI per pound for all the Compton potatoes 
he can raise from one pound of seed in a 
single season, then a waiting and admiring 
world shall have his secret! 
Now, a Yankee has always the privilege of 
guessing, and L v/iil hazard the guess that 
Mr. Folsom did not produce his 400 hills of 
potatoes by means of “ordinary farm cul¬ 
ture,” as he should have done in competing 
for the generwus prizes offered by Messrs. 
Bliss & Sons, but by the well-known pro¬ 
cess of removing sprouts from the tuber or 
slips from tho growing vine. Or possibly 
Mr. Folsom was up to tho pretty dodge of 
first paring liis seed, somewhat as the 
Emerald Bridget does for our tables, dis¬ 
dainful of economic considerations, and re¬ 
moving the best of the potato with the skin ; 
then snipping off each eye, and afterwards 
dividing the remainder of the potato into 
from ten to twenty pieces, many of which 
will grow and produce good hills. The eyes, 
too, after Vicing sliced off, may have been 
divided Into two, three or even four pieces, 
and each one, with proper planting, have 
made a separate hill. 
I wonder if tdl the happy premium takers 
under the Messrs. Bliss’s offer are prepared 
to assert that they did not practice either of 
the last-mentioned modes ? For my own 
part I confess that l was sorely tempted, in¬ 
firmly wavered,but finally decided that, such 
process, though cute, would liardly come 
under the head of “ ordinary farm culture,” 
and so, finally, with an “eye single” to my 
own conscience, planted the usual single eye 
and came out No. 12 in the strife, with only 
five and one-third bushels. 
Some six years ago, when the Early Rose 
sold at such impressive prices, a gentleman 
near Boston actually raised over 150 bushels 
from a single potato in one long season, with 
till' arid of his greenhouse, simply by means 
of sprouting and slipping, as mentioned 
above. Now, it seems to me, that the true 
way to offer prizes in potato culture is not 
for the greatest weight of potatoes raised 
from a single pound, for the size of seed 
potatoes received makes the conditions too 
unequal. One purchaser may have three 
potatoes containing, say forty eyes; his 
neighbor four, with seventy eyes, and, best 
of all, that trailquil conscience which allows 
him to run them through his sausage cutter 
before planting. 
Neither is the plan pursued by most of our 
agricultural societies much fairer or particu¬ 
larly calculated to promote agriculture. The 
good-natured, crop-viewing committee 
comes, and, after as good a dinner as the 
somewhat flurried farmer’s wife can spread 
at a hasty notice, they proceed to the half¬ 
acre entered for premium, books, basket, 
scales and tape-measure in hand. The crop 
is almost surely unequal; the hone3t farmer 
cannot conduct them to the poorest portion 
cf the field ; tliat well-fed committee cannot 
stretch the accommodating tape over an un¬ 
thrifty-looking row, sou “good-looking” rod 
in length is dug. Never mind about brush¬ 
ing off the adhering soil. Ah I forty pounds I 
Six rows to the rod (almost) gives us four 
bushel per square rod, at the rate of 040 
bushels per acre. And very shortly we read 
in our local or agrieultm*al journal that 
“ Aiujaii Smith raised 640 bushels of Cap- 
Sheaf Potatoes on an acre of ground !” Very 
good. Only the hired man is heard to say : 
“I and Bije got an uncommon lot of taters 
tills year. We dug most a hundred bushel 
from that air liaf acre.” 
Now, let B. K. Bliss & Sons offer $500 in 
premiums for the greatest weight of pota¬ 
toes actually raised on a measured acre, or 
half-acre of ground, subject to no condi¬ 
tions as to variety or treatment of seed, or 
mode of culture, only guarding against fraud 
by requiring several witnesses to the meas¬ 
urement of land and weighing of crop, and 
stipulating for a careful record of methods 
of planting and culture and manuring, to¬ 
gether with the cost of product. What a 
wide and keen interest would be felt in the 
contest by farmers all over the country ! 
What anxiety to procure the most prolific 
seed potatoes at any cost! What a 4 strife 
there would lie not only between individuals 
but between States for the honor of bearing 
off the first premium ! What tirelessly 
tended potato fields would be seen in every 
county I And, better than all, might not a 
real gain to agriculture result from the in¬ 
formation thus gathered in regard to the 
best variety, soils, fertilizers, and cult ure for 
producing a large and profitable field of 
potatoes V H. S. Goodale. 
Sky Farm, Mt. Washington, Mass. 
--— 
FIELD NOTES. 
Protecting Cotton by Jute. —Dr. A. Lan¬ 
dry, New Orleans, publishes the following 
in the Carillon, regarding that special exper¬ 
iment :—“Wo have seen on tho farm of the 
Ramie Planting Association, Gentilly R,oad, 
a cotton field surrounded by a Jute growth. 
On the first of October the cotton was still 
green, flowery, loaded with holies ; no insect 
had touched one leaf ; while cotton fields 
of adjacent plantations were partly or en. 
tircly destroyed by tho worms, according to 
the distance over which Lad circulated the 
noxious odors of the Jute flower.” 
Wool Cotton. —A correspondent of the 
Rural Carolinian says :—' 1 A friend of mine 
ia growing a crop of cot ton called here Wool 
Cotton. The lint feels very much like lamb’s 
wool, and is of a creamy color. The bloom 
is unlike common cotton bloom, resembling < 
the hollyhock blossom. The lint is much 
stronger than other kinds of cotton, and be¬ 
ing made into cloth is more durable. It 
makes more per acre than any other kind.” 
Roots vs. Hay .—Mr. John Bridgman re¬ 
ports to the Ebnira Farmers’ Club, that fear¬ 
ing a short hay crop, he planted four acres to 
turnips and beets, getting 2,400 bushels, 
which he is selling and buying grain there¬ 
with to feed his stock. 
Yield of Alfalfa Seed. —According to a 
California paper a farmer in the vicinity of 
Mussel Slough has three acres of alfalfa, one 
crop of which was this season allowed to 
seed. From the three acres 2,500 pounds of 
seed were gathered, which were sold for 25 
cents per pound, or at the rate of $208.33 
per acre. 
Clover Seed, it is said, is used for coloring 
calico, delaines, &e. 
«Jai|m (Bconomir. 
FARM ECONOMY IN TEXAS. 
The following advice by a Texan with 
reference to keeping out of debt is sq good 
and so applicable to all localities (modified, of 
course, according to circumstances) that we 
gladly copy it from the Texas Farm and 
Home and commend it to our readers 
everywhere; 
Let each man who proposes to live by 
farming preempt, or buy a little piece oh 
land, before he promises to take cere of any 
man’s daughter. When- this Lome is pro¬ 
vided, it is always soon enough to pop the 
question. Duiid a shanty, open a little field, 
plant fruit trees ; they grow best on fresh 
land. They' grow as rapidly and yield as 
heavily' around a small log cabin as on the 
sunny side of a ten thousand dollar mansion. 
If you are short of funds, make you a bed¬ 
stead of boards and pine scantlings. Do not 
promise your merchant $10 for one of those 
Yankee patent poplar-sided bedsteads. Just 
wait two years, and be able to hand him the 
cash, and lie will just say $7.50 is enough. 
Make ymu a dining table of pine lumber. 
Don’t buy' a 815 washing machine, uoIces 
vou can pay cash ; if cash. $12.50 will buy it, 
sure. Don-1 buy a stove the first year. Tell 
Miss Jernsha Ann you cannot go in debt, and 
to wait one year, and $40 a sh will buy that 
splendid new American, which Squire John¬ 
son, your village merchant, now offers you 
at $50, on twelve months’ credit. Save that 
ten dollars, it will buy a barrel of elegant 
flour. Buy just as little as possible the first 
year, and live on bread and milk, or even on 
bread and water, rather than buy bacon on 
credit at 18 cents, which, for cash, can be 
had at 12 y, cents. 
After using the utmost economy in this 
direction, comes another road that points to 
success. Make everything at home that the 
soil and climate, or your skill, or Jerusha 
Ann’s skill, can possibly make. 
Through the center of your five-acre eotton 
field plant one row of broom corn. Make 
your wife about half-a-dozen brooms some 
rainy day. In this you save $3, and are out 
say only 50 cents. Plant one-quarter of an 
acre of Cliiuese cane, or say one acre. Grind 
it nejt summer, when other work is slack. 
Sell your neighbor ten dollars’worth, which 
really has cost you about $5. Plant you 
one-fourth acre of tobacco; cultivate and 
manufacture it of mornings while Jerusha 
gets breakfast. Sell old Aunt Dinah a few 
pounds to pay for helping your wife scour, 
wash, or weed the garden.’ Plant at least 
half of nil your land in com. Sell some to a 
new comer, and buy you a bedstead. Sell 
the old one to Uncle Ned. for helping you 
clear a new turnip patch. Gather all your 
corn fodder while your credit-system neigh¬ 
bors are fanning themselves,’ or talking 
about paying 15 cents for calico, which your 
own cash will buy for 12 X cents per yard. 
Sell a siack of fodder to Smith for that sow 
and pigs of his. Put her pigs up ; give them 
turnips, slops, potatoes—anything you do 
not need ; aud you will find In January next 
they will net yon at least 100 pounds each. 
Do all this, and you will be more loved and 
respected by good men and good women 
than he whose Jerusha Ann wears $4 bal- 
morals and $8 bonnets, which stand on the 
merchant's books, thu3 :—1 pair balmorals, 
$4; 1 lady’s hat, $8. Besides this, by tho 
time little Minnie and little Johnny arc of 
proper age, you can buy them a good saddle 
horse each for cash. 
NUTRITIVE VALUE OF FEED. 
The proportionate values of the following 
materials used for feeding farm stock are 
gathered from the published analyses by the 
most emineut agricultural chemists, and 
have been corroborated by the results of the 
practice of many eminent English feeders. 
They include the relative flesh-forming, fat¬ 
tening, and total feeding values of the dif¬ 
ferent articles mentioned, and axe, probably, 
the most trustworthy information that can 
be gathered from all sources at the present 
time. They are as follows, equal weights of 
each being considered : 
Flesh Fat 
Pro- pro- 
Food. Cueing. Cueing. Total. 
Turnips. 15 7 
ItutaoagBS.1 7 9 
Carrots.,..,..,..,...1 7 10 
Mangels and Kohl Rati.2 8 12 
Straw.3 IS 22 
Potatoes. 3 17 22 
brewers’ grains.CK 13 25 
Rice meal. .. 77 83 
Locust beans. 7 73 82 
llav (early cut)........8 Q) 64 
Mill.-t (sueC). 8 76 tv 
Rucliwhout. 9 60 6) 
Molt-. 9 76 81 
Rye.11 72 60 
Oats.12 63 ;0 
Cvrn. 12 68 80 
XV heat nnC barley.12 67 
Dried brewers’ grains.*16 r *0 87 
Palm-nut weal.16 9S 83 
Eartli-nut cake.20 40 61 
Bourns (English flolO)......22 id 71 
Reas.22 00 TV 
Linseed.23 112 82 
Cotton-seed cako.24 46fi 
Malt spiouls....20 CO 87 
'J’aro« (seed)...27K 67 70 
Linseed ouko.28 60 
Rrau and conroo miUstiill..31 51 74 
Rape cake.. —.31 63 ’,8 
Dpcortieated eartli-nut cake...'.ill 15 ' 72 
Decorticated cotton-seed cuk<Mi 57 82 
In these estimates, tho flesh-forming value 
is in proportion to the nitrogenous elements 
contained in the food. The rat-formers con¬ 
sist of starch, oil, and fat, and an oil and 
ready-formed fat is estimated as double the 
value of starch in feeding, the. total feeding 
values in different articles vary in somewhat 
different ratios to those of the fat-forming 
elements. For instance, while bran contains 
more carbonaceous matter—viz,; starch and 
oil together—than rape-cake, and exactly, 
the same flesh-forming material, vet its total 
feeding value is less than that of rape cape, 
because the fifty-three parts of ft arch and 
oil in the rape-cake have more oil md leas 
starch than the fifty-four parts of starch and 
oil in the bran ; and tho oil being, as we Lave 
said, more valuable than the starch, therefore 
the rape-cake is worth more than the bran 
as feed. 
-<»-►*- 
SUBSOIL PLOWING. 
The Rural New-Yorker has repeatedly 
advocated subsoil plowing ot stiff soils in 
the fall especially. I have been slow to adept 
its recommendations, wl.i* h J ne w exceed¬ 
ingly regret; for an experiment 1 he past two 
seasons has taught mo that the advice was 
good. I do not mean that trench-plowing, 
either in spring or fell is desirable. I am 
opposed to it; but the use of the subsoil-plow 
in the fall, especially on stiff soils, no matter 
how deep it jS run, is profitable—at least, it 
has been so to me. 
Two years ago last fall I subsoiled a piece 
of loam with a stiff subsoil—indeed it was 
almost “haid-pan.” It had never been 
plowed over six inches deep. Plenty of 
manure had been put upon it the previous 
spring when I broke it up for potatoes. The 
crop of potatoes had been very light. 1 re¬ 
solved to subsoil it, and by plowing it. not 
long after a soaking rain, I was enabled to 
lift and stir the hard subsoil six inches 
deeper than it had ever been stirred before. 
This was done late in October and early in 
November. 1 got on to it a month eailier 
than usual the succeeding spring and seeded 
it with spring wheat, it producing for me 
twent y-five bushels of good wheat per acre. 
I could not have grown fifteen bushels per 
acre on it had I not tubsoiled. it; nor has my 
crop nor that of my neighbors produced over 
ten to fifteen bushels per acre the past ten 
j years. 
I In the fall of 1872 I again subsoiled it; in 
spring gave it a dressing of fine compost, 
which was carefully spread over the surface. 
Then I went over it with a two-horse culti¬ 
vator, sowed clover and orchard grass seed 
on it. want over it with a light barrow, 
rolled it. and this fall 1 had one of the finest 
stands of grass it was ever my fortune to 
I secure. 
Be sure, sir, that I now believe in subsoil 
plowing in stiff subsoils'm the fall. 
John Weston. 
