252 
APRIL 45 
United States bonds. [Our friend should re 
member that taxes are much heavier in some 
States than in others, and in some sections of 
the same State than in others. All are not 
“ blessed ” with taxes so light as those levied 
on him. Then again, we heartily wish that 
interest on mortgages on land were the same 
as that on money advanced on security of 
U. S. bonds, but money can readily be ob¬ 
tained at from three and-a-balf to four per 
cent, on security of U. S. bonds. Can it be 
obtained on laud mortgages at that rate 
where our friend lives?— Eds.] Again, he 
says five acres of pasture and two acres of 
hay and other Winter feed are required for 
one cow. I will pasture three cows and win¬ 
ter two cows on wbat he estimates for one. 
If Stockman’s theory is correct, every far¬ 
mer in our State is losing money by keeping 
cattle, which we kuow by experience is not 
the case. I never made any money farming 
until I quit raising grain to sell, some eight 
or ten years ago. 
And yet Stockman makes some good hits, as 
in the Rural of last January 28, page 57, in 
the remarks be puts into the mouth of a West¬ 
ern hog farmer. Now I am one of those farm¬ 
ers that have always made a little money by 
keeping cattle and raising hogs, and I have 
made money especially on the hogs. I never 
raise more than one litter from a sow’, and 
then fatten her at 20 months old to w’eigh 
from S50 to 450 pounds. A few days ago 
14 sow’s that had produced 73 I sold at $5.90 
per hundred. They weighed 5,000 pounds, or 
an average of 400 pounds. Of the pigs I saved 
18 of the best, and sold 55 for $290. I think 
that does pretty well for a small farm of a 
quarter of a section. As to cattle, 1 raise 
high-grade Short horns. My calves generally 
bring about $12 per head in the Fall without 
wintering. I usually let others do the feed¬ 
ing for market, except in case of the old 
cows, which I fatten for the home market. 
I find “ cattle ” beets the best of Winter feed 
for milch cow’s. For gx-ain feed I give one- 
third corn and two thirds oats, ground to¬ 
gether, and good clover hay. I give five 
quarts of the ground feed morning and even¬ 
ing, wet up with water from the well. I 
think scalding would be better. 
Grundy Co., Iowa. Elias Macy. 
The Polled Cattle Question. 
In the paragraph from which Stockman 
quoted two or three sentences, in Rural for 
Jan. 28, I w’as giving my impressions of the 
value of the Polled Angus or Aberdeen 
bx-eed. Of the beef-producing value of this 
breed I have a high appreciation. As a class 
I do not count them of much merit for the 
dairy, although some cows of the breed are 
heavy milkers. 
I would be sorry to be understood to class 
all polled or hornless cattle together. The 
fact that a cow has or has not horns can, in 
itself, have no appreciable influence on her 
milking qualities. The polled cattle differ in 
this regard as much as do horned cattle. I 
have no reason to doubt that the Polled Nor¬ 
folk cattle are often excellent for milk. 
The fact that a cow or bull has no horns 
probably is directly connected with its mani¬ 
festations of temper. An animal with sharp 
horns has greater power to injui’e others or 
men than a hornless one has, and will the 
more readily use this power. That there are 
vicious polled cattle is certainly true; but a 
lot of hornless cattle can be kept in smaller 
yards, shipped in cars better and will be less 
likely to seriously injure each other when they 
do fight. 
I comnt the hoi’n question, however, a 
minor one. In the article from which Stock- 
man quotes this sentence appears : “ The 
writer has never seen a breed with w'hich he 
was before comparatively unfamiliar that so 
favorably impressed him as did these cattle 
two years ago at sundry British shows.” This 
good impression was chiefly made by their evi¬ 
dent good beef qualities. This recognized, the 
absence of boras was counted a desirable, but 
comparatively unimportant point. It would 
be a misfortune if we should come to select or 
reject such breeds as the Polled Angus or the 
Polled Norfolk simply or chiefly because 
they lack horns. G, E. Morrow. 
University, Champaign, Ill. 
TREATMENT OF HOG CHOLERA. 
When I have an animal taken (as I seldom 
do, for I act upon the axiom that an ounce of 
prevention is better than a pound of cure), I 
mix one ounce of powdered sulphur, half an 
ounce of salt, half a tea-spoonful of capsicum, 
and 10 or 15 grains of copperas in half a pint 
of water or three gills, and give this mixture 
as a drench, taking care not to strangle the 
hog with the liquid. If, however, the animal 
will eat, the better way is to mix the material, 
well dissolved and finely pulverized, in a pin^ 
of meal and bran, half and half, and let the 
hog eat it at leisure. In the latter case, omit 
the capsicum. With this treatment I have 
never yet failed to effect a cure. 
As a preventive when the disease is prev 
alent, I get my hogs all up over night and 
keep them fasting until about 10 o’clock next 
morning; I then measure out a heaped table¬ 
spoonful of sulphur for each large hog and a 
table-spoonful of salt and about 20 grains of 
copperas, and about half as much of each for 
each shoat, throwing in a proportionate 
amount for pigs. The salt and copperas I dis- 
The “Emperor” Gooseberry— (After 
solve in water. I then take a sufficient amount 
of mill offal to give each hog a quai’t, and 
shoats and pigs in proportion, stii’ring it all 
well together. I put it out in troughs or on 
clean hard ground and turn the hogs to it. 
This I do once a week or once in two weeks as 
long as the disease is prevalent in the neigh¬ 
borhood, and I very rarely have hog cholera. 
Another good preventive is charcoal. The 
disease is caused by violent inflammation of 
the duodenum and the ducts which connect 
the liver and intestines, and the inflammation 
rapidly extends to the liver, stomach and 
bowels, and if not speedily checked mortifica¬ 
tion ta kes place, and death soon closes the 
scene. Charcoal will, if given in time, neutral¬ 
ize this tendency or prevent it altogether. 
Clark Co., Aik. H. M. Youngblood. 
fUrkuitmrul. 
GARDEN LILIES. 
[For Illustration see page 253.] 
In country gardens, next to roses, lilies stand 
in favor, and deservedly; for they are not only 
k e autiful and showy, but hardy and need vei’y 
little care; indeed, once planted they had bet. 
ter be left alone for yeai*s together. There is 
such a numerous variety of them now to select 
from and the bulbs are so cheap, that those 
who love a garden need not be without some 
lilies; and when we consider that they are 
among the vei’y finest, showiest and most per¬ 
manent of hardy herbaceous perennials, we 
the more especially urge their presence in our 
gardens. The little scarlet Siberian lilies— 
tenuifolium and pulchellum, come into bloom 
about the first of June and are soon succeeded 
by the Martagon and Orange Lilies; our com¬ 
mon White Lily blooms a fortnight later; then 
the Canada Lily, and the Wood Lily, and the 
White Trumpet Lily, and American Turk’s Cap 
or Great Swamp Lily, and the Japanese specio- 
sum Lilies, in the order named, till now we 
reach into August when we also have the Tiger 
Lilies, They need no very especial cai-e—a 
porous soil, deep, rich and somewhat moist for 
most kinds; a warm sandy soil for the little 
Siberian and Wood Lilies; a peaty soil or one 
“ Illustrated Garten-Zeitung.”—Fig. 123. 
with swamp muck mixed in it for our Canada 
and Great Swamp Lilies; still they grow well 
enough in common garden soil. The common 
"White Lily, and the Trumpet Lily, also the 
common white and red and white Japanese 
Lilies ai’e so often grown in our open garden 
borders that it is needless to say that place is 
good enough for them. But one of the main 
points to be observed in growing lilies is this: 
while lilies may appear to thrive apace in 
open borders and full sunshine, yet they have 
a decided preference for shaded gx-ound such 
as is afforded by a mulching of rough littery 
material, half-decayed leaves, close-growing 
plants, like periwinkle, or low-growing bushes, 
like Doutzia gracilis. Ground that is exposed 
ami bakes in the sun is not a happy home of 
lilies. Where lilies are grown among shrubs, 
as deutzias, weigelas, and roses, the taller kinds 
should be planted towards the middle of the 
bed and the shorter ones near the fx-ont, an l 
they should be liberally fed by surface mul¬ 
chings. 
How many times, when passing through 
some old settled portions of the country, we 
come upon such a charming lily pictui’e as 
that which our engraving shows! We see the 
Tiger Lilies as they have escaped from the 
gax-den—been cast out perhaps—and have made 
themselves a home among the wild fiowei’s and 
the grass by the side of the ditch. Indeed, the 
Tiger Lily is one of tho»egarden plants which, 
when cast outside or left neglected in some old 
and forsaken yard, will not only hold its own, 
but grow in thrift and spread. And is it not well 
to encourage this naturalization of rank and 
showy garden plants along the roadsides and 
the ditches, in half-shady places, in odd nooks 
here and there and iu patches anyw’here to 
suit our taste, even in the neighborhood of the 
best kept places? Surely no shearing of the 
bushes and shaving of the grass in the out¬ 
skirts of our gardens and the by-ways of our 
homes, can equal the fascinating effect of col¬ 
onies of lovely flowers native or exotic. In 
out-of-tho way places had we not better re¬ 
place the useless, unbecoming weeds with 
pretty flowers when we can do so convenient¬ 
ly? Often do we find dumps of irises aud 
other free-growing, old-fashioned plants cast 
from the gai'den to the rubbish heap, there to 
die and rot, which, if set out by the roadside or 
the edge of the meadow, would hold their own 
among the weeds and grass, grow on and 
bloom on year after year, and add another to 
the many pleasurable links that should b nd 
us to our homes. In these wild places along 
with the Tiger Lilies, wo might associate our 
own Canada and Swamp Lilies, also Day 
Lilies aud Plantain Lilies, herbaceous Pmonias, 
Monkshood, the ranker perennial Bellflowers, 
Yuccas, Curtisias and the Rosc-colored New 
England Aster, Rudbeckias, Bouncing Bet, 
Coreopsis, Globe Thistles (Eehinops), Solomon’s 
Seal, Virginia Lungwort, Spiderwort, Musk 
Mallows, Loosestrife (Lythrum), Bocconia, 
the better kinds of exotic Meadow Rue, the 
Maryland Cassia, Butterfly Weed, Tall Bngs- 
bane, red and white Baneberry, Willow Herbs 
(where there would be mo danger of their be¬ 
coming weeds), Creeping Milkweed (Euphor¬ 
bia corollata), Goatsbeard, Bee Balm, Daffo- 
dills, Poet’s Narcissus, Ten-o’clock, Snowdrops 
and others. 
(£ucrt|u- l]CU;\ 
NEBRASKA NOTES. 
The good crop3 of last year and good prices 
of grain have put our farmers in good heart 
for the greatly enlarged work of this year. 
The great fall of rain the past Fall put the 
ground in excellent condition, and with the 
usual fall of l’ain in Summer there is no fear 
of damage by drought. In the comparatively 
new western counties of the State, the aver¬ 
age yield of wheat last year was 16 bushels; 
some fields near the 100th Meridian, yielded 
27 bushels of wheat, from 40 to 00 of com. and 
50 of oats. Notwithstanding the high prices 
of grain, thousands of cattle were fed in 
Eastern Nebraska. Some farmers sold their 
corn and bought oil-cake at 26 dollars 
per ton. They claim one pound of grain cake 
is equal to three of corn. [Careful experiments 
in feeding by Dr. J. B. La we a, Professor 
Sanborn, etc., contradict this supposition, 
Eds.] Hitherto this product, of which one 
mill in Omaha produces seven million pounds 
annually, has been shipped direct to Liverpool. 
This j’ear much of it is finding a market at 
home. Sheep ai’e being fed in large numbers 
along the line of the Union Pacific for 300 
miles west of here. In Dodge County alone 
35,000 are feeding. Offers have ali’eady been 
made for Chicago delivery at six cents in April. 
These cattle and sheep were raised on the 
native grasses of the western plains, and then 
driven eastwai’d ior feeding on our grains. 
The great inci’ease of the stock growing inter¬ 
est is a most important item in the growth of 
the material wealth of Nebraska. The ship¬ 
ments received here lastFall by the Union Pac¬ 
ific were 170,000 cattle and 200,000 sheep. The 
cattle association of Wyoming and Nebraska 
represents 500,000 cattle and a capital of 12 
millions of dollars. Several capitalists in 
New England are each investing $20,000 to 
$30,000 in 6heep growing for the export 
trade. There is a great stretch of country 
now unoccupied, covered with a great growth 
of rich grasses which are admirably’ adapted 
for sheep grazing. This is a great opening for 
men with model ate means, who can take lands 
by homestead or timber claims, costing only 
$18 per quarter section—the land office fees. 
At the end of January I took a three day’s 
ride on the Laramie plains 700 miles West of 
the Missouri River. Hero w ere herds of cattle, 
flocks of sheep and bands of horses feeding on 
the Buffalo Grass or lying down on the sunny 
slopes, at midday. One day, 20,000 sheep 
w ere passed at intervals in flocks of I 000 each 
with one man and a dog to watch them. After 
the Spring “rounds-up,” when the young 
stock is branded, horses and cattle are turned 
out and not seen again till the following 
Spring. Large tracts are being fenced,one man 
haying six sections. On this land are twelve 
miles of ditches bringing water from the 
Laramie River for irrigation. So far the 
crop has been hay which brings $20 per ton in 
Denver and at government posts. The pro¬ 
duct is 1}4 ton per acre. Several men will 
break ground for wheat this Spring. Wher 
ever these lands can be irrigated from the 
streams or artesian wells, there will be some 
of the most productive wheat lands of the 
continent. Coming eastward, Jn Nebraska the 
growth of the country during the past two 
years is very apparent and wonderful. Groves 
