£)oxticuitmai 
and Shropshire Downs in England and the 
Cots wold-Merino in Germany. For crossing 
on the common grade Merino, it cannot be 
surpassed. Our illustration is reengraved from 
the Agricultural Gazette of England, 
young the wickedness and wrong of taking 
or keeping so much as a pin which belongs to 
any one else. 
A good illustration of what Dr. Warder so 
eloquently says of the irrecoverable and fa¬ 
tal loss of the native arboreal covering of 
mountains as well as plains, would be sup¬ 
plied by contrasting pictures of scenes in 
Greece or Palestine or any of the early abodes 
of men when first metal axes and knives were 
used, showing in one the ancient groves and 
fountains—the Academiae which the early 
writers tell of so much and so admiringly—and 
in the other the forlorn, sterile, and hopeless 
waste into which the greater part of that 
once lovely and fruitful landscape has de¬ 
generated. 
COTSWOLD SHEEP 
The directions generally given for making 
an asparagus bed require more labor than 
most people are willing to give. Twenty-two 
years ago I settled on a new place, and had 
no time to spare or manure to use to make 
an asparagus bed, but having some old as¬ 
paragus roots, I set them out on a piece of 
new ground in the Fall. The land had been 
Plowed the previous Spring about three inches 
deep aud planted to some crop that was culti¬ 
vated with a hoe. The next Fall I covered 
the bed with cow manure some two or three 
inches deep. The following Spring I cut 
about half a crop of fair-sized asparagus, the 
bed not being large enough. Some few years 
after I enlarged it by trenching the ground 
about 15 inches, first digging a ditch to the 
depth I wanted, and putting on a layer of 
manure and then a layer of earth three or 
four inches deep; then manure and then earth 
until the bed was about one foot higher than 
the ground that was untouched. I then plant¬ 
ed seed that was saved from the old bed. It 
came up well in the Fall, I covered the old 
and new beds with manure three or four 
inches deep, and occasionally they had a 
dressing of salt, and about every second year 
the beds had a dressing of manure, and salt 
three or four times a year. I was on the 
place 21 years, and the new bed did not yield 
one bit better than the old—soil a gravelly 
loam. The bed 12 by 20 feet yielded enough 
to supply a family of four persons and some 
was left for the neighbors. The first bed I 
set out on common garden soil—a sandy loam 
without any hard pan. The land had been 
manured so ns to grow a good crop of vegeta¬ 
bles, using old roots from a bed that had been 
established 20 years in the Fall. I gave it a 
top-dressing with well-rotted manure, and in 
the following Spring I began cutting the 
shoots, which w ere about as large as a man’s 
finger, and as long as I staid on the place the 
bed yielded a good crop by giving it top-dress¬ 
ings of manure and salt. J. McLean. 
Calhoun Co., Mich. 
[It is our impression, from careful observa¬ 
tion, that the old story that asparagus needs 
great quantities of manure is erroneous. We 
know of hundreds of acres growing on the 
sandy soil of Long Island, that for 20 years 
have received but one or two dressings of ma¬ 
nure. One plantation of 20 acres, 12 years 
old, has never received any manure, and the 
asparagus grows freely and produces large 
crops, ‘ * " 
So extensively have sheep of the Cotswold 
breed been bred in this country, without fresh 
importations, that they may now be almost 
considered a native breed. They are very 
hardy, capable of enduring hardship and ex¬ 
posure, and are at home on all sorts of soil. 
Like the Short-horn, however, the Cotswold 
thrives most satisfactorily on rich pastures 
and with careful and abundant feeding, for 
without these neither the carcass nor the wool 
reaches perfection. It matures at an early 
NOTES ON BACK NUMBERS, 
Mr. Dahlgreen’s apple trees spoken of on 
p. 43, most likely died of frozen sap, or rather 
of bursted cells. He does not say anything 
of the soil they stood in. If rich and not well 
drained, the trees were probably forced into a 
Where tobacco stems are plentiful enough 
to use as mulch upon the surface round young 
fruit trees (page 43), not only is this waste 
rich in elements most needed, but its odor is 
repellent and its leaching destructive to in¬ 
sects that infest the collars of the trees. See 
Mr. Fowler’s article on quince growing, p. 2S, 
A similar use of the stems would greatly bene¬ 
fit peas or cabbage by keeping the soil cool 
and moist, and save the trouble of hoeing and 
weeding almost entirely. w. 
A ,--■31-' 
Berkshire Sow r ‘ Clarice Clermont ”—Fig. 88. 
age, and produces a carcass of excellent mut¬ 
ton, to which the only objection is that there 
is apt to be an excessive quantity of fat. The 
wethers are sometimes fattened at 14 months, 
and then weigh from 15 to 24 pounds a quar¬ 
ter 8nd at two years of age the weight has 
increased to 20 or 30 pounds. There are re¬ 
cords of much larger animals, one killed at 
Christmas, in England, having turned the 
scales at 344 pounds, dressed, or 86 pounds per 
quarter. The mutton is considered superior 
to that of the Leicester, as there is less tallow 
and a greater development of muscle and 
flesh. This sheep yields a heavy clip of valua¬ 
ble combing wool adapted for a class of goods 
of wide consumption. This kind of wool, 
however, though it fetches an extra price in 
the large markets, is often hard to sell in 
country places, for the shorter wool, like that 
of the South-Down, is much preferred by the 
country carding mills, as combing wool is too 
long to be carded. 
The weight of the Cotswold fleece should 
average eight pounds for a flock of all kinds, 
and the clip of some of our naturalized flocks 
surpasses this. The fleeces of some ewes weigh 
from 11 to 16 pounds, and those of some rams 
as high as 20 pounds. The wool is usually 
from six to eight inches long, though it some¬ 
times reaches a length of nine inches, and 
though coarse, it is soft and mellow. 
The following Is a description of the Cots¬ 
wold:—Head hornless, strong and massive, 
with sometimes a Roman nose, and always a 
thick forelock of wool on the forehead. Neck 
and fore-quarter moderately square and 
heavy, hind quarters square, full and broad 
with solid, heavy thighs; back straight and 
broad, with well-sprung ribs, giving a round 
a late second growth, and were caught by se¬ 
vere November frost before the whole of the 
new wood had hardened. By cutting some 
of the dead stems through he can see whether 
this was the case, and can judge of the ripe¬ 
ness and soundness of the wood of each year’s 
growth since they made their first maiden 
stem. As the trees lived three years in the 
orchard, the poison does not seem to have 
come from the soil but from the souring of 
the sap tsca ed from the broken cells. 
cided preference for steel plows. A good one 
is better than a cast-iron plow. The price of 
his was $22. They are cheaper now, but a good 
plow is always cheaper at a high price than a 
poor one at any price. 
Mr. Rhodes asked if our plows were not too 
heavy generally. He thinks it is not weight 
that keeps a plow in a furrow—it is the right 
shape. 
Mr. G. S. McCann thinks that large potatoes 
for seed give a greater yield than small ones, 
that is, when planted whole. He thinks it is 
due to the fact that a large potato furnishes 
sustenance to the sprout in its early growth, 
making it vigorous and strong, while the shoot 
from a Bmall potato has less support. It does 
not hold true that a large potato has more 
eyes than a small one, but if not more eyes it 
has not more seed. Tho fact is, the eyes are 
better, stronger and more vigorous in early 
growth; there is more vitality. He was re¬ 
minded of a report made last Fall by Mr. 
Robinson, who recommended keeping seed po¬ 
tatoes so cold during Winter and early Spring 
that sprouting would be prevented. The ad¬ 
vice was good, for sprouting weakens vitality 
in large potatoes. But, he asked, how shall 
sprouting be prevented ? 
G. S. McCann answered, by keeping the po¬ 
tatoes as cold as possible without freezing and 
by excluding light. Mr. Robinson buries his 
in pits. He covers in Fall scantily and 
leaves so until frost penetrates nearly through 
when he puts on moie covering to keep the 
frost from going out. That is a good way. 
One season Mr. Banfield’s potatoes were 
buried with scanty covering , until frost had 
penetrated nearly through, when he covered 
deeper. In the Spring, when he took the po¬ 
tatoes out, they were as smooth as when they 
went in—not a sign of a sprout. He sold 
some of them, and they excited comment, for 
they had the appearance of new potatoes. 
In regard to that greatest hindrance to 
the free growth of abundance of fruit—its 
liability in our free and enlightened country 
to be stolen, year after year, to the utter 
disheartenment of producers, as Horticola 
shows, p. 38—the law used to be preposter¬ 
ously absurd in holding that taking fruit 
from an orchard was no crime but mere 
trespass unless it had first been gathered, and 
so taken personal possession of by the owner. 
Even then the owner’s evidence was not re- 
This field, previous to being set to as¬ 
paragus, was cultivated as the farms of Long 
Island are usually cultivated—corn, oats, 
wheat—the corn and wheat (seeded to grass) 
receiving the manure.— Eds.] 
CRANBERRY - GROWERS’ 
TION. 
The Winter meeting of this Association was 
held as usual the other day at Trenton, N. J, 
One effectual method of destroying injurious 
insects, Mr. French stated, was to let off the 
water from the plantation in the Spring, and 
after a few days the eggs hatched, then let the 
water on again and it would kill them. But 
this cannot be repeated to kill the second 
brood of insects. A solution of copperas 
should then be applied. But how this can be 
effectually done over a plantation above a 
few acres we are at a loss to understand. 
Capo Cod viues were recommended for new 
plantations as superior to all others, as they 
give a darker red to their berries, are not so 
likel to rot, and are more certain to escape 
frost, which is so destructive to the late-ripen¬ 
ing fruit. Bone dust and potash had been 
found partially effective in changing the nat¬ 
ural light color of the fruit to a deeper red. 
Other fertilizers had been used for this pur¬ 
pose, and also to increase the crop. 
The estimate of the cranberry yield for the 
whole L nited States for ten years past is set 
down for 1872-3, each year, 275,000 bushels; 
1871, 250,000; 1875, 230,000; 1876,108,000; 1877 
400,000; 1878, 205,700; 1879, 883,000; L880, 
492,630; 1881, 461,025. Last year’s crop was 
divided as follows: New Jers«v f*rnn fur Iftttl 
f,M i&M&m 
}m r . 
Pres. McCann would plant in hills because 
better cultivation can be given than in drills. 
Mr. Fell, an extensive potato raiser, re¬ 
plied that he preferred drills and that it was 
easy to cultivate one way and keep the rows 
clean. Another advantage of drills over hills 
is that they save labor in digging. He covers 
with the plow which again saves labor. Then 
when the shoots come through he runs over 
the ground with a harrow crosswise of the 
rows. This keeps weeds down and mellows 
the soil. 
Mr. Banfield saw Mr. Rhodes planting a 
crop and the seed was covered so deep that he 
thought there would be a poor chance for 
growth, yet he gets good crops. 
A Cotswold.— (From the Agricultural Gazette, London.)— Fig. 89. 
body. Flanks deep; legs clean, of moderate 
length, with bone a trifle coarse. The gen¬ 
eral appearance indicates a vigorous, active, 
hardy animal. Old and young, the Cotswolds 
are uctiva and hardy. The ewes are prolific 
and excellent mothers, yielding abundance of 
milk. For crossing no breed is more valuable 
than this, which has helped to establish several 
permanent cross breeds, such as the Oxford 
ceivable, although he might, by some rare 
chance, have plainly seen the thieving and 
recognized the thief. The law is greatly 
amended, but what is wanted is an improve¬ 
ment in the prevailing moral sense of the 
community. It should be one express duty 
and requirement formally demanded of all 
teachers of our primary schools to impress 
upon the tender, receptive minds of the very 
Mr. Joseph Harris grows acres of beets of 
all varieties, in rows 21 inches apart, cultiva¬ 
ted with a horse-hoe. This is the true plan for 
the market gardener. In a garden where the 
horse-hoe is not used beets can be sowed In 
rows 15 inches apart, but the soil must be 
made very rich and the land be kept scropu- 
