FEB. 5 
THE BUBAL fiEW-YOBKEB. 
85 
through dealers, and for this tradesman pack¬ 
ages are required. I use three kinds—one of 
25 pounds, measuring 9| inches in depth and 
11^ in width at the top ; one of eight pounds, 
5J inches deep and 7£ wide at the top, and one 
of six pounds, 5J inches deep aud wide at the 
top. These are made of white oak hooped with 
two galvanized iron or brass hoops and pro¬ 
vided with a handle and cover, as shown at 
Fig. 47. The cover is made double of thre«- 
sixteenths inch stuff, with the grain crossed, 
to prevent warping and splitting. When filled 
and protected as above described, the cover is 
tied down with twice and the pail can be car¬ 
ried in the hand very conveniently. After 
many trials of various kinds of packages, 
these have been found the best for supplying 
grocery slotes and private families, who can 
have a 6ize to snit their wants and can have a 
supply lasting one or two weeks, as they may 
desire. 
The 25-pound pails are liked by persons 
who desire a supply to last two or three 
months, and are haudy for family dairies where 
two or three months’ supply is required ahead 
while the cow is dry. These pails should all 
be sand-papered and varnished on the outside, 
which fills the pores of the wood and makes It 
air-tight; as the varnish wears off it should 
he renewed. For a family dairy a desirable 
manner of putting up the butter is in quarter, 
>,aif or whole pouud cakes pressed in a mold, 
as shown at Fig. 4S. This iu turned out of 
beech, birch or soft-maple wood and made of 
different sizes. A convenient dairy table is 
shown at Fig 46 This is provid' d with a pair 
of scales and a foot-press for making the cakes. 
The butter, weighed, if necessary, is put into 
the mold, which is first dipped in cold water 
and placed on the plunger of the press; the 
foot placed on the step presses the butter in 
the mold and forms the cake. Molds may be 
made of any shape, round, oyal, square, ob¬ 
long. hexagonal or octagonal, and any device 
may be cut on the block or plunger. A good 
deal of first quality butter is put up for mar¬ 
ket in this way. Cakes put up in this way are 
wrapped in paraffine paper and packed in 
boxes for shipment, the boxes being divided 
into compartments or ue6ts to prevent damag¬ 
ing the cakes, and Ice receptacles are required 
to keep the butter cold in hot weather. The 
packing-box should be made of sceutless wood, 
such as spruce, or of well-seasoned ash or 
white wood. 
ter's food ; this is peculiarly noticeable in the 
warm days towards SpriDg. As a rule, not 
one-tenth the length of the staple in wool is 
made duriug the cold of Winter, while, prop¬ 
erly honsed and fed, a larger proportionate 
length should be made than during Summer. 
My sheep are placed in peus or yards about IS 
feet squares 20 in each, and 1 have never yet 
seen any •• ill effects of idleness,” and 1 should 
be glad to he told wbat they are. My greatest 
desire is to keep them as quiet as possible, to 
make them eat as much food as they can prop¬ 
erly digest, and nuke the largest gain of mut- 
tou and wool for the food eaten. We should 
realize that all exercise takes muscle, that 
muscle costs food, and food costs money. The 
pertinent question, the one that must deter¬ 
mine whether we keep sheep or not, is whether 
we make or lone money by so doing. 
Again, we should remember that all exercise 
tends to haiden muscle; in other words, to 
make meat tough and dry. If we keep sheep 
healthy, the less exercise they have the finer 
is the grain, the higher the grade of the 
meat, and the more money it is worth if de¬ 
signed for the shambles. There is no trouble 
iu keeping sheep healthy in close quarters if 
properly fed. No man in these Eastern Slates 
should attempt to winter sheep unless he has 
provided plenty of roots for winter feeding. 
If he has these, aud will carefully try the ex¬ 
periment uf close housing in warm stables or 
barns, well ventilated, he will find it to pay 
much better, and will be very tinlikely to go 
back to the old barbarous way of lettii.g them 
roam over the fields during Winter ; nor will 
the trees and fences be half as likely to be 
ornamented with dead sheep and lambs. 
J S. Woodward. 
with part of the slops from the kitchen, more 
to keep them in the habit of coming to the 
house than because they are needing it, and 
they are doing first rate, are as fat as I want 
them, and although the ground has been 
covered with snow for nearly four weeks 
they get all the mast they want to eat. At the 
ame time I have a pig that I am keeping up, 
and trying to fatten—which I confess is slow 
work in cold weather—aud with all the corn 
and slop he can eat he is really in uo better 
condition than the sows that are allowed to 
run, while what I feed him in one day would 
feed the two sows for three days. 
Buyers also claim that mast-fed hogs do not 
yield so much lard in proportion to weight as 
those that are corn-fed, and that the meat will 
fry up more, or lose more in cooking, than 
that of corn-fed hogs, and this is another 
reason they give for not paying so much for 
them. It seems best, however, to do as a 
large number have done this year, when corn 
is scarce and high ; but with a good cora crop 
I prefer fattening my hogs with corn, only 
giving the stock ,hogg that! purpose to keep 
the benefit of the mast. 
Miller Co , Mo. N. J. Shepherd. 
are too small for a field crop. D t fiance Wheat 
is doing splendid ly. If it does as well every¬ 
where as the Rural seed has for me, it will be 
the coming wheat. I shall try it as a Winter 
wheat next Fall, I planted five seeds of Cuzco 
Corn and raised three nubbins, one having 
grains about half-grown when fro 3 t came. 
Atlantic, Cass Co., Iowa. w. c w. 
ers claimed for it. Uninterested parties who 
have used it testify strongly as to its simplicity, 
durability and ease of draft, and that it cuts 
the entire ground, leaving it ligut and smooth. 
The harrow is made of the best seasoned oak, 
the teeth are fastened on the front side of the bar 
by an iron clamp, and are madeof Bessemer steel 
shaped (-imilar to a cultivator-*ooth in front) 
under furnace heat, ami oil-tempered. They 
are so attached to the bur that with a common 
wrench they can easily be adjusted to cut any 
depth from two to six inches, and are so set 
to the bars that they must cover all the 
ground. The bars making the frame are con¬ 
nected by heavy wrought-Lron hinges, which 
give it a vibratory motion when cutting hard 
ground, dead furrows, back furrows, cradle 
knolls, etc ; and each bar being independent 
of the others, causes it to clear iiself and 
avoid clogging. It has draw irons on each 
end, and when drawn backwards makes an ex¬ 
cellent and effectual smoothing harrow. It is 
spoken of very highly for covering email 
seeds, harrowing wheat, etc , and it combines 
iu this respect the cultivator and smoothing 
harrow in one tool. It is very compact, as the 
flic Italian 
LIGURIAN HONEY BEES 
In the Rural of Dec. 11. 18S0. under “ What 
Others Say.” we read, uuder the above head¬ 
ing, that ‘‘a year or two siuce many of ourapi- 
aiiunswere quite enthusiastic in regardtothe 
merits ol Ligurian houey hces.as it was claimed 
that they were more industrious thau either 
the common bee or the Italians," etc. This, I 
believe, was taken from the New York Sun. 
As it conveys a wrong impression I wish to 
say that Liguria i9 simply a province in Italy, 
and therefore Ligurian bees aud Italians are 
one and the same thing. The correspondent 
of the Sun farther states, giviug Mr, Taylor’s 
bock as his authority, that these bees gather 
more honey by robbing the hives of common 
bees. This is contrary to the testimony of all 
practical apiarists—not apiarians as the cor¬ 
respondent of the New York Sun would have 
it. Practical experience In the apiary shows 
that the Italians are not as likely to rob as the 
hlacksor hybrids, while they will defend their 
stores as Joug as there is a haudful of them 
left. That they gather more honey is a fact, 
and their chief value is in their perseverance, 
in a poor honey season, iu toiling on day 
after day for the little honey they can obtain, 
while the common bees seem to think that 
little is not worthy of notice. To illustrate In 
1872, at the close of the season for basswood 
blossoms, from which our main honey crop 
is obtained, we did not have a single box of 
honey finished. At this lime we had both the 
Italian aud common, or black bees. Soou the 
seed crop of red clover commenced to bloom, 
on which the Italians went to work at once, 
but not a black bee was to be seen. As a 
constquence we took from some of our Italian 
swarms 60 pounds of box honey, while the 
black hoes had eaten up half their stores trom 
the basswood aud h id to be fed for Winter. 
After this we were not slow in introducing 
Italian queens to all our st ick. We now have 
in the United States Cyprian and Holy Land 
bees, which were brought from the Islaud of 
Cyprus aud Palestine, last season, by D. A. 
Jones, of Canada, aud some predict that 
these will be superior to the Italians. Time 
will prove which are the best. 
Borodino. N.Y. G. M. Doomitle. 
CORN vs. MA8T FOR HOGS 
Here, where we have plenty of wood range, 
a number of farmers are in the habit of rely¬ 
ing to a considerable extent upon the mast to 
fatten their hogs. They feed corn enough only 
to induce the animals to come home regularly 
at night, aud perhaps give some a few days 
before selling, and that is all. Whether this 
style of feeding pays or not is still an open 
question. Whether the amount of corn saved 
is sufficient to cover the difference in the price 
of hogs fattened on mast aud that of those fat¬ 
tened on good corn we are not able to deter¬ 
mine fully. This much vre know—that hog 
buyers make a difference between the two, and 
oftentimes when the hogs are to be driven a 
considerable distance the difference is such as 
to make quite an item iu the aggregate amount. 
Buyers also discriminate betweeu hogs that 
have been fed in a pasture and allowed to run 
and those that have been confiued. In case of 
these and the mast fed hogs they claim that 
both kinds will not stand driving, that the loss 
in weight of these two classes is considerably 
more, in driving the same distance in the same 
time, thau iu hogs that have been fattened on 
good corn or on a good pasture. 
In a year like the present there is no ques¬ 
tion that there is a great saving of feed in al¬ 
lowing hogs to run at large. We had a good 
heavy mast, aud as corn was a poor crop and 
the price ruled high, there seemed adisposition 
among farmers to make the most they could 
from the mast, and in that way economize in 
their corn. Iu fact, some farmers raised no 
corn at all, and depended almost solely upon 
the mast to fatten their pork: these cases, 
however, were isolated, the majority deeming 
it better to feed corn at least once a day. Just 
how much this affected the profit is hard to 
determine. Buyers made a difference of be¬ 
tween 20 and 80 cents on 100 pounds between 
mast-fattened and closely-penned hogs and 
those that had been fattened by feeding corn 
in pastures. 
Of course, in the case of stock hogs that are 
to be kept over, it no doubt pays to let them 
run in the woods as much as possible. They 
are healthier and seem to do better thau when 
Important Patent Decision.— After five 
years' litigation the barbed wire fence suits 
have at last been decided in favor of the Wash¬ 
burn & Moen Manufacturing Co., the decision 
fully protecting them in all their patents and 
also protecting the Thorne Wire Hedge Co., 
of Chicago. who have been manufacturing 
under the Kellv patents. This decision com¬ 
pels all other manufacturers of barbed wire or 
band wire with barhs, to either discontinue 
manufacturing them or obtain licenses of the 
above firms. This celebrated suit has been 
hotly contested and has caused a great deal of 
trouble. Farmers and parties who use barbed 
wire fencing will be glad to hear that it is at 
last ended. w tt k 
CLOSE CONFINEMENT OF SHEEP, 
jure them, especially breeding ewes. I am 
quite sure G G. has never tried the experi¬ 
ment of housing his sheep, breeding ewes and 
all, in warm, well ventilated stables or barns, or 
he would huvu no such fears, nor would he 
have given such bad advice. How can sheep 
be injured by being kept housed and warm ? 
Wbat are the ill effects of idleness? Does 
“Satan find some mischief still for idle" sheep 
as well as "hands to do?” 
I am keeping this Winter over 500 sheep- 
wethers, breeding ewes, and last Spring lambs. 
Without an exception they were all placed iu 
pens on November 12, and not one of them has 
been out-of-doors since, nor will they go until 
they go to market, or until such as are kept 
over are turned to pasture at the proper time. 
They are all liberally fed on corn, bran, oil 
meal, mangels and plenty of good bright straw 
that has been kept in the barn since it was 
thrashed. Hay being scarce and high, they 
have uot tasted it this Winter sofar. Now, if 
G. G , or, any other Rural reader wilt call, I 
will he happy to show him aroimd, and a health¬ 
ier, more contented lot of sheep he never saw, 
or one that looked “ more bright and happy 
jkinitifir auli Useful 
EXPERIMENTS IN CATTLE FEEDING 
The object of this bulletin is to call the 
attention of the intelligent farmers of this 
State to a rational system of stock feeding. 
For illustration a ration for milch cows has 
been computed, its cost estimated aud its prac¬ 
tical value shown by a feeding trial which has 
now lasted over fllty days. 
A farmer feeding a good quality of clover hay 
will find that neatly thirty-live pounds per day 
will be necessary to maiutain the flow of milk 
and prevent loss of tl jsh in a cow of about 
1000 pounds live-weight. Now, according to 
an analysis recently made at the Station, 
thirty five pounds of second-growth clover hay 
from the College Farm contained 4.6 pounds 
protein; .9 pound fat; 18.9 pounds starchy 
matter; 10 0 pounds woody; 1.7 ash; 8 9 
water. These constituents, however, are not 
all digestible. A chemical examination of the 
solid excrements of the cow would show that 
1.S5 pounds protein ; 40 pounds fat; 10 70 
woody and starchy matter had passed through 
the animal undigested, and, as far as nutrition 
is concerned, had been lost. 
If now we subtract from the food eaten, the 
amount of indigestible matter found in the 
manure, we shall know how much digestible 
food there is in thirty-five pounds of clover 
hay. It will be found to be 2f pounds protein, 
| pound fat aud 13 2 10 pounds starchy matter. 
The cow then which consumes thirty-five 
pounds of clover hay daily, lives, increases 
perhaps a trifle in live-weight, aud produces 
its milk from 2J- pounds protein, } pound fat, 
and 13 8 10 pounds starchy matter. German 
agricultural chemists have shown that an 
ordinary milch cow ol 1.000 pouuds live-weight 
does not require more thau 2$ pounds digesti¬ 
ble protein, 4 10 pounds digestible fat, and 12-J 
pounds digestible starchy matter daily, ana 
Experience with Cereals. 
I see the Rural says Chester County Mam¬ 
moth Corn has only one ear per stalk. I have 
raised it two years and find about one-'.euth 
with two ears. Last season there were three 
stalks with three ears each, all growing at dif¬ 
THE VIBRATOR HARROW 
closely confined, while the saving in food is 
considerable. This I can 6ee perceptibly in 
case of my own hogs. I have two sows I am 
keeping for breeding purposes, that have had 
the run of a very large wood pasture all the 
Fall and so far this Winter. 1 have fed them 
ferent points. It yields better than any other 
variety raised here, but about one-half of it 
has been caught by frost both seasous. I 
would therefore consider this as far north as it 
would be safe to plant it for a field crop. I 
raise Blount Corn to cut up, it making more 
and better fodder than other corn. The ears 
