Vol. XL. No. 1659.} 
NEW YORK, NOV. 12, 1881. 
/PRICE FIVE CENTS 
\ S2.00 PER YEAR 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1881, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
------—- 
<l\)t ljcvl>smart. 
OUR ANIMAL PORTRAITS. 
Dutch-Friesian Cow, Sjoerd. 
The success that attends the introduction 
to general notice of a breed of cattle or other 
domestic animals, that has previously been 
prized only within a limited area, depends 
very largely, at the outset, upon the skill with 
which the introduction is effected. It is a 
trifle doubtful whether the Short-horns would 
have stepped to the foremost place in the front 
rank of neat cattle so rapidly had not special 
attention been called to the fattening capacity 
of the breed by the peregrinations of the en¬ 
ormous “ White Heifer that Traveled,” just at 
the time when the labors of the two Collings 
and of the other early breeders of the race 
were bringing to general notice the tine qual¬ 
ities of the choicest developments of the cattle 
formerly highly valued locally along the banks 
of the Tees. The “Heifer’s” wanderings 
quickly attracted wide attention to the great 
merits of the breed to which she belonged, and 
a few yeans won for these merits a general 
recognition which it might otherwise have 
taken as many decades to obtain. To secure 
rapid popularity, and consequently high ap¬ 
preciation a*’'t high prices fcrgvny breod of 
stock, not oidy are great merits necessary, but 
skill and enterprise are also essential in bring¬ 
ing these to the favorable notice of the people. 
The visitor to English agricultural shows 
and cattle fairs, or the reader of English agri¬ 
cultural papers, cannot fail to notice the fre¬ 
quent appearance of the same herds or single 
animals at the chief exhibitions in different 
parts of the country. With¬ 
in the narrow boundaries of 
England this is a j natter of 
comparatively little diffi¬ 
culty or outlay, but in this 
country, where vust dis¬ 
tances intervene between 
the points at which our 
chief agricultural fairs are 
held, to incur the trouble 
anil expense necessary to 
make such frequent appear¬ 
ances speaks well for the 
spirit and enterprise of the 
exhibitor, and for his high 
opinion of the excellence of 
his exhibit. 
The Unadilla Valley Stock 
Breeders’ Association has 
lately successfully accom¬ 
plished such a venture, Mr. 
Langworthy, their agent, 
having just returned from 
exhibiting a herd of 13 
choice Dutch-Friesian cattle 
at the four leading Western 
fairs. At the Minnesota 
State fair, at Minneapolis, 
they were awarded six first 
and three second premiums, 
including the first and sec¬ 
ond prizes In the Holstein 
class, and the first herd 
prize in the sweepstakes 
class, composed of all the 
dairy breeds, six herds com¬ 
peting for the Holstein and 
twelve for the sweepstakes 
dairy premium. After this the herd was di¬ 
vided, five animals going to the Northern Wis¬ 
consin fair and seven to the Chicago fair. At 
the latter they were awarded five first prizes 
and one second, including the sweepstakes in 
the class Hulsteins, for which five herds com¬ 
peted. At the Illinois State fair, at Peoria, 
the herd was reunited and carried off eight 
first and two second premiums, including the 
sweepstakes for dairy breeds, for which 13 
herds competed. Finally, at the St. Louis 
fair, the last they attended, they were award¬ 
ed nine first and four second premiums, in¬ 
cluding the first and second herd prizes in class 
Holsteins, and the sweepstakes on single bull 
and on single cow. Altogether the premiums 
won by the herd at. these four shows foot up 
$3,645—a sum that will go a long way towards 
paying the expenses of the trip. By this suc¬ 
cessful series of exhibitions this breed, pre¬ 
viously little known in this country, has been 
widely introduced to public favor, and doubt¬ 
less the high reputation and sales of this herd 
will well reward the enterprise that planned 
the journey and the skill that has brought it to 
a prosperous close. At the various fail’s the 
protests made against the admission of these 
Dutch-Friesians into the Holstein classes were 
overruled. In all fairness this decision could 
be justified only on tbe understanding that 
the Dutch-Friesian and Holstein cattle are sub¬ 
stantially identical—the Dutch-Friesians being 
merely a tribe of the Holstein breed, or vice- 
versa, so that the reputation won by these 
cattle in competition with other breeds should 
be shared by the Holsteins generally, while 
their triumphs over the latter merely reflect 
credit on the herd or tribe. 
In the Rural of October 23 we presented to 
our readers a likeness of tbe bull Mooie, a fine 
specimen of tbe males of this herd and of the 
Dutch-Friesian breed. We now place before 
them an excellent likeness of one of the cows 
which has lately contributed to the Western 
success of the herd, Sjoerd, No. 71 in the 
American Dutch-Friesian Herd Book and No. 
83 in the European Friesian Herd Book. She 
was bred by Albert S. Heeg, West Friesland, 
Holland•, calved February, 1875; sire, Gerber; 
dam, Sjoerd. She was imported by her pres¬ 
ent owners, the Unadilla Valley Stock Breed- 
eSt 7 day; 
Average yield 
31111c per pouiv 
^>er day. 
2.61 
of butter. 24 
In the Herd Book she is described as follows: 
“ Black predominating, shield, white throat, 
spot on shoulders, white left hip and loin; head 
large but well formed; horns short, curved in¬ 
ward and slightly downward, black-tipped; 
neck fine at throat, well set to shoulders; chest 
capacious; shoulders thin at top; chine 
straight; hips very broad; rump very broad 
and level; handling best; escutcheon best, 
with thigh ovals. Length, 69.21J^; width, 
33%-20hight, 56-56^; girth, July 
7, 1880.” 
CORN-FED STOCK. 
B. F. JOHNSON. 
The com crop in Central Illinois is, you 
may be sure, in a bad way, though probably 
the damage done by sprouting and rotting in 
the field, is a good deal over-estimated. Com¬ 
pared with last year, there will not be, for 
the whole State, over a third of a crop of 
merchantable com; but the unsound corn, that 
is, the portion though t to be good enough for 
stock and particularly hogs, w ill be larger than 
for several years, sav, since the crop of 1875. 
But the feeding of unsound corn which disas¬ 
trously affects the health of some swine, will not 
be so much seen or felt this Fall as in course of 
next Summer, when hog cholera will probably 
play as conspicuous a role as when consum¬ 
ing the damaged portions of the crops of ’75 
DUTCH-FRIESIAN COW, $JOERD.—FROM AN INDISTINCT PHOTOGRAPH..—Fig. 512. 
ere’ Association, of West Edmeston, N. Y. 
Before her importation she had won first prize 
at tho West Friesland fair, held at Lenwarden, 
Holland, in 1779. Her milk was subjected to a 
four weeks’ test for butter last March, commen¬ 
cing on the 6th, with the following results: 
lb s. 
Milk for 38 days.1,757 
Average per day. 62 
Butter or 28 days. 78 
Average 7 days’ yield. 18 
oz. 
8 
12 
JS 
’76 and ’77. While probably hog cholera poison 
is not directly derived from unsound com, 
the feeding of it so lowers the animal’s vitali¬ 
ty as to invite the attacks of all maimer of 
disease, whether epizootic, infectious, conta¬ 
gious or otherwise. But that certain forma of 
disease in the human subject do arise from a 
nearly exclusive diet of unsound, unripe or 
damaged com is notorious, chief among 
which is the pellagrue of the French and the 
pellagra of the Italians, common to the half- 
fed and half-paid peasantry of the south of 
Europe. Tbe physiological and anatomical 
structure of swine and that of man, having 
more points in common than that of any other 
domesticated animal, it is neither illogical nor 
unreasonable to suppose a nearly exclusive 
diet of the same article would produce 
diseases of a similar or related character. 
The corn crops of ’78 ’79 and ’80 were 
not only remarkably large, but very sound 
ones and so were those of winter wheat. 
While these crops were being consumed, 
hog cholera nearly disappeared, and the 
fanners of the country were not called upon 
to adopt the heroic remedies recommended by 
the veterinary commission, appointed by 
the chief of the Department of Agriculture. 
This commission reported with considerable 
unanimity that hog cholera was nearly as in¬ 
fectious, contagious and dangerous to swine, 
as pleuro-pneumonia to neat cattle and 
should be treated accordingly; that is, all 
affected and infected swine should be slaugh¬ 
tered and the premises occupied by such, 
thoroughly disinfected. Luckily the report 
was received with public derision and incre¬ 
dulity and the country was saved an enor¬ 
mous sacrifice. 
There is no manner of doubt but an ex¬ 
clusive, or nearly exclusive, corn diet not 
only lessens the vitality, invites disease, and 
finally destroys the constitution of the pro¬ 
geny, but also produces butchers' meat of an 
inferior quality compared with that made 
from more nitrogenous foods. If the sole ob¬ 
ject of feeding swine were to produce the 
greatest amount of lard, and if bone, nerve, 
muscle and fiesh were of small account and 
the health of the animal of still less, then 
an all-corn diet would be a proper one. 
But if sweet and juicy lean 
flesh is wanted and fat 
meat which wont shrink 
away to a rag in the pot, 
or fry to a mere scrap in 
the pan, and these to come 
from an animal of sound 
health and good digestion, 
then something beside corn 
must be provided—and that 
something must be more 
or less nitrogenous food 
like peas, barley, oats, milk 
or the product of milk in 
any form, and, last but no t 
least, animal food. 
I suppose 1 will be likely 
to astonish many and dis¬ 
gust not a few, when I say 
the best pork, that is, the 
sweetest, the juiciest and 
the tenderost, is often made 
in a slaughter-house yard, 
where in addition to un¬ 
limited com, the swine 
have equal opportunity to 
satisfy their craving for 
animal food. The next best 
pork is made on grass and 
unlimited sour milk and 
butter - milk, while hogs 
eating mast and ruiming at 
large, make remarkably 
sweet and juicy lean 
meat, but the fat is 
very oily, and when dry 
cured, becomes nearly 
transparent, and wheu 
aged, rancid. 
But all this is so contrary to the gen¬ 
erally accepted idea, that some explanation 
seems necessary. Carbonaceous foods, like 
corn, produce fat, and nitrogenous foods, like 
oats, produce flesh, therefore, when we-wish to 
put fat on an animal we feed the former, and 
when flesh and muscle, the latter. But even 
the most carbonaceous foods contain a cer¬ 
tain portion of nitrogenous matter, and the 
most nitrogenous, other certain portions of 
