1404 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
JUNE 48 
viding a heat-3upporting food. Be that as it 
may. our better grasses analyze only approxi¬ 
mately one of albuminoids to ten of carbby- 
drates. This for our warmer barns is certain¬ 
ly not the best ration for a growing young ani¬ 
mal. So that for the bust results, even with 
good hay. additional grain is needed. This 
grain must be nitrogenous, not corn-meal, al¬ 
ways so tempting to use, for even if fed wholly it 
would fnruisl} a narrower ratio than is r* quirt d 
for the younger animals; hence it conld not 
afford the best theoretic ration, nor the beet 
practical ration either. This I have demon¬ 
strated hy the careful feeding of sets of steers 
with weighed hay and grain for two Winters. 
The question of profitable feeding does not 
hang 60 heavily upon the hay supply as form¬ 
erly supposed, as it is lathera question of so 
much albuminoids, carbhydrates, fats and 
ash. We are left free to get these materials 
from such sources as we may find cheapest 
I have tried, by the scales, many combinations 
cheaper than hay, made up from > otton seed 
meal, blood, meat, fish, bran, clover hay, or 
rich nitrogenous foods with straw, corn fod¬ 
der and swale bay. Thus 1 have just ended an 
experiment with four heifers, weighing, in 
round numbers 000 pounds each, for a period 
of 06 days. They have gained 97J pounds 
each, only a fair gain, but it required a ration 
of corn fodder and straw, of which 12^ pounds 
each were eaten, two to three pounds being 
left for bedding, and three pounds mixed cot¬ 
ton-seed and corn-meal (had the corn-tneai, 
and the common weakness to use It), ra- 
tio, one to eight; cost of corn fodder, $7$ pet- 
ton (say for 14 pounds, charging for om-half 
of fodder left for bedding), and meal at $25 
per ton, making a total of 8 8 cents per day. 
For a growth of 06 pounds in 66days, 15 pounds 
of hay per day would have been rtquired, at 
$15 per too, Ilf cents, or if the comparative 
value of the Btruw or corn fodder by the side 
of hay is sought, these fodders would briug 
over $11 per ton and make better growth. 
I can give from my record of experiments 
abundance of similar results. 
I will add that in several experiments clover 
and straw have given as good results as good 
hay. The best of clover hay is nearly twice as 
rich in llesb-makers as Timothy hay, and 1 
find when I mix three parts of clover hay to 
two of oaL-straw, that the mixture is as effica¬ 
cious as all clover hay or all good hay. This 
fact alone, when properly used, should make 
very much difference in the case of steer 
growth. Both foods are home-grown aud 
withiu the reach of all. 8o valuable have 
these coarse foods proved with mo, that I am 
entirely changing my system of farm manage¬ 
ment and introducing a broader system of til¬ 
lage crops, aud can commend it to Eastern 
farmers; for laige results only come of large 
operations. 
Recurring to hay rations, or hay and corn- 
meal rations, for the purree of a suggestion, 
I note that careful inquiry will reveal the fact 
that for the growing steer neither much of our 
hay alone nor hay and corn-meal will furnish 
phosphoric acid available in sufficient quan¬ 
tities lor a rapid-growing animal. Under such 
ciicumstances the best results canuot be ex¬ 
pected. Almost any olher grain or meal with 
the hay would furnish enough of phosphoric 
acid for bone construction. 1 am confident of 
the statement—but for the present 1 must rest 
on assertion—that beef can be grown in the 
East and pay market rates for foods, except 
round the centers of high prices, and that the 
farm animal is our cheapest source of plant 
food. 
College Farm, Hanover, N. H. 
-- 
Management of Working Cattle In the Spring. 
Do not turn them out to grass till all the 
heaviest part of the Spring and early Summer 
labor is finished, as it is more necessary to 
keep working oxen strong and in good condi¬ 
tion at this season than at any other throughout 
the year. The only way to do this is to keep 
the cattle in a stable or in a dry yard with 
good shed shelter, and feed them, as during 
Winter, on hay and meal. There is little nu¬ 
triment in grass at this season. It is so suc¬ 
culent it scours cattle and otherwise weakens 
them, rendering them unfit to do a fair day’s 
work, even if their ration of meal is continued 
to them. 
After the heaviestlabor is over, and the grass 
has become more nutritious, cattle may be 
turned on to it by degrees, say a half hour or 
so the first three or fonr days, then gradually 
increase the time daily till they can remaiu 
entirely at pastnre. It is advisable to also con¬ 
tinue the meal with a gruclual dally diminution 
or not, according to the work required. In 
the course of a few weeks, if the labor is light, 
cattle will do well enough on pasture alone, 
provided there iB plenty of it and of a good 
quality. 
Thk Pheaknbss Farm Thoroughbred Sale. 
—The annual sale of yearlings at Preakness 
Farm, owned by M H. Sanford, near Lexing¬ 
ton, Ky., on May 26. resulted in the sale of 88 
head of the get of Virgil, GleneJg, Monarchist, 
Ten Broeck and other good sires. Eighteen 
colts sold for $17,050, the average price per 
head being $947. Of these 18, there were 6even 
by Glenelg, and they brought $9,240; five by 
Monarchist sold for $2 600; two by Virgil went 
for $4 200; two lepresentirg the great Ten 
Broeck went under the hammer aggregating 
only $810 and lastly a Biywood and a King 
Lear declined to $100 each. The average on 
fillies was a fractiou over $400, the full amount 
for 20 of these disposed of being $8 025. It ap¬ 
pears that three out of the 20 in question were 
by Glenelg, and they sold for $995; the seven 
by Virgil sold for $3 550, and the ten by Mon¬ 
archist for $3,470. The amount received for 
THE GARDEN APPLE.— 
the 38 head disposed of was $25 075. Most of 
the purchases by Col. Bruce were for James R. 
Keene. 
- »-+-* - 
That Anti-self sucking Device referred 
to in the Ruhal of May 21, is an old contriv¬ 
ance. In a late issue our esteemed contempo¬ 
rary. the Country GentlemaD, says that It was 
described in its Illustrated Aunual Register 
ten years ago, and very naturally objects to 
our crediting its origin to Professor Shel¬ 
don’s Dairy Farming, where It was described 
as a device employed in the neighborhood of 
the writer. 
We have just received a note from T. B. 
Garoutte, of Fannin Co., Texas, who says: 
" That device for a nose-piece is not at all 
recent: I have used it for 50 years and my 
father U6ed it in New Jersey long belore.” 
♦ » » - - 
Relief fob Choking Cattle. —Apropos of 
several ways of relieving choking cattle, men¬ 
tioned in a late Ruhal, our friend, C. A. R., 
writes us from Perrysburg, N. Y„ that a safer 
and better way than any there alluded to, is 
to ponr from half a gill to a gill of oil—sweet 
oil, castor oil or linseed oil—down the throat 
of the afflicted animal, having first turned its 
head up to facilitate the operation. As soon 
as it reaches the obstruction, relief is instan¬ 
taneous, as the apple, potato or whatever it 
may be, can be easily swallowed or ejected 
along the oiled passage. 
gairj g^ttjtaUrg 
THE DAIRY COW. NO. 34. 
HENRY 8TEWABT. 
Care of Pregnant Cow*. 
(In the preceding article by some over¬ 
sight some errors were made which should be 
corrected. Ib the second column, 4th line 
from the top, page 367, the word bull was in¬ 
tended to be male. A few lineB further down, 
in the summing up of the results of breeding 
in the second flock mentioned, the aggregate 
should be 54 (not 55) males, and 31 (not three) 
females. How the one should have displaced 
itself and played such tricks with the matter 
is a wonder beyond explanation. As regards 
the diagram of the bull yard, the following 
references were omitted. The bull yard ia at 
A with the stable connected, having a feed 
trough aud partition five and half feet high 
and a feed passage opening from without; so 
that the bull may be fed and watered without 
the attendant being obliged to enter the stable 
or yard. The cow stable is at B; the cow yard 
at C, the water trough at D; this smaller yard 
iBseparated from the larger one by a gate; 
g, g, g, are gates for driving in or out of the 
yard.) 
The greatest and most frequent troubles in 
dairy herds are with the in-calf cows; and 
special care and management are required to 
carry the cows through this period. Soon af¬ 
ter a cow has become pregnant the milk yield 
generally begins to fall off, and it has been sup¬ 
posed by some persons that the escutcheon 
hus something to do with this habit; or the 
habit haB something to do with the escutcheon ; 
which Is which, however, has not been made 
very clear. The dairyman has to deal with 
matters of fact and not of fancy, and the whole 
business regarding the escutcheon in this con¬ 
nection mav be discarded as not of practical 
value to him. 
Feeding has much more to do with the milk 
yield than the direction which the hair upon 
a cow’s hind legs may be apt to take, and it is 
beyond reasonable doubt that much of the de¬ 
creased milk yield is due to a neglect to in¬ 
crease the cow’s ration of food in proportion 
to the new demands upon her productive pow¬ 
ers, or the new direction which they are made 
to lake- How much food the condition of 
pregnancy exacts is not hy any means certain 
and varies very much in different cows; but I 
am inclined to believe that it is very consider- 
FKOM LIFE.—FIG. 302. 
able and more than would be needed if only 
physical requirements were to be met. But 
net vous force consumes a much larger propor¬ 
tion of food than mere vital or muscular force, 
and as the nervous condition of a cow is 
greatly modified by her state of pregnancy, 
the more food will be required to maintain the 
flow of milk while in this condition. Recent 
careful experiments with two cows have con¬ 
vinced me that the continuance of the full 
milk yield in pregnant cows is greatly a mat¬ 
ter of feediug. Two cows whose records 
were strictly kept last year and the present, 
and which gradually fell off in their milk 
yield last year from their becoming in calf, 
have this year not yet fallen off at all and one 
has considerably increased under more liberal 
feeding. The increased consumption of food 
is from 25 to 50 per cent and the latter increase 
has enlarged the milk product a little more 
than ont-flfth. The cow which gave 26 pounds 
of milk daily very steadily for three nionthB 
after calving, has increased to 82 pounds after 
having been a month in calf, with an increase 
of three pounds of meal and 15 pounds of 
grass. Some of the increase may be supposed 
to be due to the better condition of the grass, 
but the increase of butter is still larger in pro¬ 
portion, and the effect of the grasB seems to 
have been exerted chiefly in the production of 
cream. Another cow six months in calf still 
gives more milk than immediately before ser¬ 
vice at which time she had been nearly six 
months milking. Her extra allowance of feed 
is also three pounds of meal and 15 ponnds of 
grass : when on dry feed the extra hay given 
was five pounds, an addition of 50 per cent on 
the previous quantity, which was but 10 pounds 
dally, with eight pounds of meal. As this 
cow progresses in her pregnancy her eager¬ 
ness for food is quite remarkable, and although 
before a very quiet cow she is now very noisy 
until her feeding is attended to. These cows 
are fed in the barn wholly and their food is 
accurately measured to them. 
It seems to be reasonable that a pregnant 
cow should require more sustenance than in 
her previous condition ; and while from want 
of sufficient experience in this direction, hav¬ 
ing but recently given close attention to this 
matter, I cannot as yet determine with any 
precision what the amount demanded may be, 
yet 1 feel confident that dairymen will find it 
to their interest to study this subject with 
some degree of carefulness, as it is of much 
pecuniary importance to them. The family 
cow especially should be studied in this re¬ 
spect. because a steady flow of milk is very de¬ 
sirable where but one cow is kept. 
The general management of a pregnant cow 
should be such as to keep her free from ex¬ 
citement ; safe from violent accident; to give 
her ample exercise when not at pasture and 
in Buck cases to provide a yard in which she 
may spend a portion of her lime. The greatest 
risks of danger are from falls, from sudden 
attacks by dogs, from exposure to infection 
from aborting cows; from congested and in¬ 
flamed udder caused by chills from exposure 
to Budden rain Blorms after severe heats, and 
from exposure to the suu's in tense heat with¬ 
out the protection of some shade. The great 
bugbear of the dairymau Is abortion, which 
iB becoming seriously prevalent, and which 
may be produced by auy of the causes above 
mentioned. One more source of danger may 
be referred to, and that is the use of stanch¬ 
ions. A cow confined in stanchions can rise 
only with a great effort in which Bevere strain 
is thrown upon the muBcles of the loins and 
abdomen. If a cow thus confined, is watched as 
she struggles to rise when hampered and held 
down by the stanchion, the dangerous charac¬ 
ter of the muscular strains will be readily seen. 
It will be a safe and profitable arrangement in 
every dairy to provide a few separate pens 
for the accommodation of cows about to calve, 
to which they mav be removed as soon as they 
are no longer milking; and to either provide 
a separate yard attached to these pens or to 
let these cows into the general yard only when 
it is vacated hy the others. 
ontological. 
THE GARDEN APPLE OF WESTCHESTER 
CO., NEW YORK. 
PETER B MEAD. 
Size, medium lo large. Form, oblate-conl- 
cal. Color, pale yellow when ripe, occasionally 
with a pale pink cheek in the sun, and small 
red dole at intervals over the surface. As ap¬ 
ples are usually described, the skin would be 
said to be a little clouded; hut as this clouding 
is usually done by (lies, it is just as well to 
omit it, Calyx closed, iu a moderately Binall, 
6lighliy wrinkled or corrugated basin. Stein 
very short and stout, inserted in a small cavi¬ 
ty, which occasionally Bbows a distinctly for¬ 
med nipple. Flesh, yellowish white, exceed¬ 
ingly tender, nearly sweet, with a peculiarly 
agreeable flavor, which is rather spicy than 
otherwise at the begluning of the season. 
Qualiiy nearly or quite best. Season from 
October to the beginning of March. 
This is a valuable, addition to a small class 
of apples which are too much overlooked, and 
of which the Primate Is an excellent example. 
1 allnde to those apples which, besides being 
agreeable to the palate, are also tender-fleshed 
and easy of digestion, and might very well be 
designated food apples. They are peculiarly 
acceptable to those whose mastication aud 
digestion have become more or lees impaired 
bv age, and who find it difficult to eat or digest 
such high-flavored but tough-fleshed apples as 
the Newtowu Pipplu or the SpiUenberg. By- 
and-by we shall come more and more to regard 
the apple and other fruits from the stand-point 
of food, and a greater aud juster value will 
then bu put upon tenderness aud digestibility. 
The Garden Apple is not only excellent as 
a deesert fruit, but is one of the best for baking 
and other domestic uses. I know of no apple 
of its season that I prefer, and 1 seldom eat 
any other when 1 can get it; aud its local rep- * 
utation is such that very little of it finds its 
way to the open market. The tree Is a vigor¬ 
ous grower, of an upright rather than a spread¬ 
ing habit; but the growth being rather slen¬ 
der, the branches become somewhat pendulous 
from the weight of the fruit. 
There are two or three apples kuown by the 
name of the Garden Apple, but they are quite 
distinct from the ouo under consideration, 
which thus far is a local apple, now for the 
first lime described. It la a native of West¬ 
chester Co., N. Y , and its origin goes back 
more than a hundred years. Lt is an apple 
well worthy of cultivation. 
The Kleffer Hybrid beedllug I*ear. 
I was very much surprised by the statement 
in a late Rural to the effect that the last se¬ 
vere Winter had not harmed the peach blos¬ 
soms In the least at the Rural Farm, and that 
“the Kieffer Hybrid Pear was killed to the 
ground.” This Is just contrary to to mv ex¬ 
perience. Here and aluiOBt over the whole 
peach region of the United States t he peach 
buds were frozen In the Winter except only on 
elevated ground or hills. With me not a 
peach or an apricot flower was seen, yet my 
Kieffer pear t»ee was not Injured in the least. I 
have had the Chinese Sand Pear, or “ Ska Lea,” 
off and on for about48years, having lost it three 
times by cold Winters, but as I had given 
grafts to several friends who live on high 
ground, I have each time been able to recover 
it. Thus I now have the original “ShaLea,” 
aud six crosses of it; not one of them was in¬ 
jured further than having their flower buds 
killed, and ail are now growing vigorously. 
My Kiiffer Hybrid is only a graft of last 
Spriug, aud so is the “LeCoule," the “Japan ” 
and the “Cinciuci," but the Japan variety 
even had some flower buds uninjured and now 
has a few pears. _ J. a. a. 
Kieffbk Hybrid Seedling Peak, obtaiued 
from Mr. Parry, Cirmaminson, N. J., was 
S lanted here a year ago, and is doing well, 
[o pears ou the premises look better, j. 0. 
Matapan, Mass. 
--- * » ■ ■■ - 
Best Time to Prune Fruit Trees. —Var¬ 
ious opinions exist us to the proper time for 
this work, bnt I wish to give Rural readers 
the result of my experience and observation. 
A few years since I began pruning a large 
orchard of young trees in February, and got 
through with about one-fourth of the orchard 
during that month- Owing to a pressure of 
other work the remainder of the orchard was 
neglected until a year from the next June, 
when I finished the whole. Now at the end of 
two years from the latter time, the trees which 
were pruned in June are more nearly healed 
over where Jlmbs of from three-fourths of an 
inch to two inches in diameter were tukeu off, 
than those trimmed in February, more than a 
year earlier, and I have noticed similar con¬ 
ditions at other times, proving conclusively to 
me that June pruning is preferable. 
Croton, N. Y. E. J. Brownkl. 
