SEPT 16 
635 
bed,'’ was opened by Mr. Bourne. He recom¬ 
mended early p’owing and rolling and har¬ 
rowing, so as to produce a solid seed-bed. If 
the plowing must be done late he would plow 
shallow as the roots of the wheat needed to 
reach hard soil. He thought the farmer never 
made a mistake by spending extra labor in 
harrowing and rolling. 
Mr. Pugh had been very successful in wheat 
growing, and his success was largely due to 
extra pulverizatiou. He had grown a crop 
that more than doubled that of his neighbor 
in the field adjoining, and he thought the 
difference was due entirely to thorough 
preparation of seed-bed. 
The question was asked, " Why" this fine 
seed bed gave such good results, and was 
variously answered by different members. 
One said, “The peed all grows;” another, 
“The soil remains moist;” still another, “A 
fine soil is enriched by the atmosphere.” 
Mr. Murphy.—“ I find my wheat does much 
better if sown after a rain than if sown be¬ 
fore. 1 would rather wait two, or even three 
weeks later and sow after a rain than to sow 
iu a dry soil and have a heavy raiu fall and 
make a crust on the land before the wheat 
comeB up.” 
Mr. Schultz—“ I agree with Mr. Murphy. 
It is of great importance to have the land in 
the right condition and have our wheat start 
at once into a vigorous growth so it can 
resist enemies.” 
Mr. Brown.—“I think I can illustrate the 
value of a fine soil. Two hundred pounds of 
bones ground flue will manure an acre of laud 
and often increase ihe crop teu bushels, but 
a ton of shin bones spread over an acre would 
hurt rather than help the crop. A dry clod 
is as iuert as a shin bone, and can neither be 
fertilized by the atmosphere nor give up its 
nutriment to a crop.” 
The second sub-topic, "Fertilizers, when 
and how to apply th. mwas opened by Mr 5 
Brown. He would, from his own experience, 
put clover first; stable manure second, and 
commercial fertilizers last. He put clover first 
because it was cheapest, and because he 
always grew htavy wheat on a clover sod. 
He would either cut the first crop for hay or 
would pasture till the middle of July. He 
had growu 30 bushels of wheat to the acre on 
clover stubble on land which, two years be¬ 
fore, produced less than eight bushels. He 
used all the stable manure he could get for 
wheat, and always as a top dressing, and ex¬ 
pected an extra bu-hel of wheat for every 
load he applied. He did not find commercial 
manures certain in their action on our lime¬ 
stone soil, but was experimenting with them 
each year, and found that they generally paid 
him. 
Mr. Schultz. "1 am in favor of top-dress¬ 
ing with stable manure. I think I average 
an increase of eight bushels to the acre from 
it and enrich the land for succeeding crops. 
If we save all our absorbents and manage our 
stock as we should, the farm can be kept in a 
high state of productiveness without buying 
commercial manures. Mauy of our farmers 
do not make one-fourth the manure they 
might.” 
Mr. Miller Sr., asked how to manage strawy 
manure to make it rot and get it fine 
He was answered to make flat piles not too 
high and to turn and mix when wet. 
The third sub-topic, "Seed, variety, amount 
per acre, when and how to sow,” was opened 
by Mr. Pugh, The list of varieties was too 
large to be enumerated. A hard red wheat 
suited the millers best now, as the white wheats 
were generally soft and contained more starch 
and less gluten. The "patent process” flour 
was made from hard red wheats. His first 
thin seeding was by mistake; he got a new 
drill and found after he had finished sowing 
the field that he had only put on a half bushel 
to the acre. The result was 35 bushels to the 
acre, and he had never since sown over three- 
quarter bushel to the acre. Wheat sown thin 
will stool more than w hen sown thick. 
Mr. Brown: “I sowed, iu 1677, two acres of 
good land well prepared with a half bushel on 
one acre and a bushel on the other. I could 
see no difference in the wheat; I had 51 shocks 
on one acre and 52 on the other and 70 bushels 
of wheat on the two acres. Have sown from 
three pecks to one bushel ever since and have 
averaged from 1(5 to 30 bushels to the acre. 
Mr. Schultz said, "Many of my neighbors 
use one-aud-a half to two bushels, but with 
good land well prepared and good seed one 
bushel is undoubtedly su111 dent." 
The fourth sub-topic, “ Sowing on corn 
land” was opened by Mr. Browu. "I sow 
more o r less wheat on corn land every year. 
Have grown as good crops as on stubble 
ground and often better. The corn sLould 
be kept clean and I would always cut it up. 
Would rather sow a month later than to sow 
In standing corn. Do not replow the land 
but work the surface mellow with cultivator, 
harrow and roller and drill in. 1 had a neigh¬ 
bor who sowed part of a field in standing 
corn and cut the corn up on the remainder 
ni the result was 12 bushels to the acre from 
THE BUM!. MEW-TORKIH. 
that sown in standing corn and 28 where the 
corn was cut off. My theory is that the 
wheat is injured by the shade of the com.” 
B. F. Miller, "I had poor success with wheat 
as long as I sowed in standing corn, but I have 
for some years cut up the corn before seeding 
and have grown better crops than on fltx stub¬ 
ble even, and flax is considered the best crop 
to precede wheat. I shall sow no more wheat 
in standing corn.” 
The fifth sub-topic, “Enemies and how to 
combat them,” was opened by Mr. Murphy 
who said: “I do not fear any of the enemiesof 
the wheat plant, such as rust, winter-killing, 
fly and cbinch bug, if 1 have a thrifty, vigorous 
plant, and I know no other way to combat 
them except by manure and that tillage which 
will produce a strong, thrifty plant. All the 
members agreed that this was the truth in a 
“nut-shell” and that good farming was the 
remedy for all the preventable evils to the 
wheat plant. 
The last sub-topic, "Harvesting and market¬ 
ing,” was hurriedly discussed for want of time* 
Two of our members bad bought twine bind¬ 
ers and were pleased with them. Mr. Murphy 
thought the extra wheat saved more than 
paid for the twine and he got rid of the hurry 
and anxiety and large force of help that 
usually accompanied harvest. A. N. Miller 
had cut 90 acres, averaging 13 acres a day, 
although some fields were quite remote and 
the time in moving from one field to another 
was included. 
-♦-*-*- 
NEW WHEATS. 
In some recent issues of the Rural I notice 
several correspondents give their experience 
with new varieties of wheat. Being an enthu¬ 
siastic wheat experimenter myself, I take the 
present opportunity to let Rural readers 
know what varieties I consider best. After 
carefully examining and comparing the dif¬ 
ferent kinds from the time of sowing to the 
time of harvesting, not one of the whole has 
so many marks of superiority as the new 
White Lovett Winter Wheat. Before going 
further, I wish it to be understood that it is 
Winter wheat I am writing about. The new 
Lovett wheat grows more rapidly in the Fall 
than any other. It stools out better and by 
the time Winter comes on the ground is en¬ 
tirely covered with strongly-rooted plants. 
It is undoubtedly the hardiest wheat in culti¬ 
vation. It has the strongest straw of any 
of the 22 varieties which it was tested with, 
having stood up for weeks after ripening. For 
exhibition purposes this wheat is unrivaled; 
in fact, there are very few of the Pacific coast 
varieties that can be compared with it for size 
and color, and I venture to say that there is 
no wheat that will surpass it for plumpness 
and flouring qualities, and I think it will out- 
yield any varieties in cultivation here at the 
present time. Farmers on the Western prai¬ 
ries, this is what you have been waiting for. 
Farmers in the East, this is the wheat to grow 
on your laud that has b a en cropped so long, 
and whenever an opportunity presents itself 
don’t fail to give this variety a trial. Of 
the general varieties grown here the Empo¬ 
rium Scott is undoubtedly the best, Clawson 
and Reliable second, and Fultz and Treadwell 
third. Robert Bell, Jr. 
Ont., Canada. 
[On September 1st we sowed a small plot to 
this wheat which we have entered in our note 
book as " Bearded, large grains, white, semi¬ 
transparent. Seed from Robert Rose, Glen- 
morris, Ont., Can.” It seems not to have done 
remarkably well with us.— Eds ] 
-- 
HYBRIDIZING THE PEA. 
I regret that the season is so far advanced 
as to make impossible the experiment sug¬ 
gested in a late Rural, viz: to remove the 
stamens from the blossoms as soon as the pe¬ 
tals are visible, and see if the blossom will not 
form a pod without artificial fertilization I 
shall endeavor to try this experiment another 
season. 
I will mention, however, what seems to me 
to be additional evidence in favor of the hy¬ 
bridization. I castrated 25 blossoms of the 
sweet p a (Lathyrus odoratus) and fertilized 
them w’ith pollen from the common pea. Not 
one of them produced a pod. 
With the common pea, however, fertilized 
with pollen from another variety, pods were 
produced of all shades of development, from 
the perfectly filled pod down to the pod with, 
out a pea, and many blossoms did not even 
produce the pod. 
I deduce from this that the sweet and com¬ 
mon pea cannot be hybridized, but that the 
different varieties of che common pea may be 
crossed. The best answer of the question will 
be the result obtained by planting the peas 
from these castrated flowers. 
I have made many attempts to cross two 
varieties of^the tomato, but for along time 
was unsuccessful. The flowers invariably 
dropped off the third or fourth day after the 
stamens had been removed. At last I was in¬ 
formed by a botanist friend that in the genus 
to which the tomato belongs the pollen is con¬ 
tained within the anther, and can only come 
out through a small slit near the top. On 
further examination I found by inserting the 
point of the tweezers into the anther at the 
bottom on the inside, and, raising it upward, 
pollen may be obtained in abundance. Since 
then, 1 have found no trouble in getting fruits 
from the castrated flowers. E. S. Goff. 
Ag. Exp. Station, Geneva, N. Y. 
<T I) c Ijcrjjsmam 
NOTES BY A STOCKMAN. 
When Mr. Sullivan, of Boston, met bis 
friend from England, Tug Wilson, Esq., at a 
public place in the City of New York, the Bos¬ 
ton gentleman undertook to " knock out” his 
friend in fifteen minutes by giving him sundry 
raps upon the sconce. But at the end of the 
fifteen minutes, although he had been knocked 
down several times, Mr. Wilson wa9 not 
knocked out, but came up smiling from his 
last roll in the dust and shook the gloved fist 
of his Boston friend. Likewise do I come up 
smiling and shake hands with my friend 
Goodman in token that his efforts to " knock 
me out” have been unsuccessful, and I claim 
the stakes. And yet he has given me some 
hard raps. But, then, like Mr. Tug Wilson, I 
like to be hit hard, because 1 don’t spare when 
it is my turn. _ 
And it is my turn now, as friend Goodman 
says. Now I have been acquainted with 
Guernseys and Jerseys for about thirty years, 
and met them first on their own islands, where 
I studied them with interest. Then the Chan¬ 
nel Island cattle all went under the common 
name of Alderueys, and the islands were 
known as the Alderney islands, at least in 
England, where I saw at the steam packet 
office, at Southampton, posters bearing this 
name. But the Guernseys were then much 
more like what they are now than the Jerseys 
were like what they are. Indeed, the Guern¬ 
seys were considered better than the smaller 
Jereeys for milk and butter, but the fawn-like 
Jerseys were preferred because of their slen¬ 
der gracefulness. I have been in the way of 
knowing something of both of these breeds 
since then, and I claim as my belief not only 
that I think an average Guernsey is better 
than an average Jersey—not the creme, de la 
ermine, of course—but the Guernsey breeders 
think so too. 
I call upon the owner of " Fernwood,” a 
perfectly trustworthy gentleman, who says 
one of his cows on six quarts of bran and two 
of corn meal, and no new milk to drink, gave 
of dry and unsalted butter 2% pounds per day; 
which is 193i pounds per week. Another cow, 
on one-fourth less feed, gives 14 pounds 3>s 
ounces per week. His herd averages 80 per 
cent, of cream, which is equivalent to two 
pounds of butter daily on the small milking of 
lft quarts a day. On that evidence, in addition 
to that I have given previously, I think I am 
justified in “ calmly remarking” as I did. And 
further, I quote the following from the Lon¬ 
don Agricultural Gazette to the same effect: 
" Although little or no grain is fed, the yield 
of butler from a mature Guernsey cow is ex¬ 
pected to average one pound a day for the 
year, and there are many trustworthy state¬ 
ments of cows making 14 and 15 Guernsey 
pounds of butter, equal to 1(5 pound and 18 
pound of our weight, per week, without the 
forcing food that in this country has ruined 
many a fine cow by unnatural stimulation for 
the purpose of making a great butter record.” 
Moreover, my opinion is that the Jersey but¬ 
ter is neither remarkable fot- Its firmness nor 
its color, as compared with Guernsey butter. 
Indeed, I know it, and know that the butter 
of my Ayrsbires is harder at this season, and 
has been the last month, and also in the Win- 
ter, than that of my Jerseys. And I find the 
mixture in my dairy very convenient, because 
in the Winter the Jerseys 3ofteu the Ayrshires 
butter, and in tho Summer the Ayrshires 
harden the Jersey butter. But I confers I 
have no Alphea, nor any Rex nor Coomassie 
in mine, my Jerseys not even being recorded, 
although eligible, because they are kept for 
butter only, and that won’t pay the expense of 
the recording even, much less to pay ( 1,000 or 
(2,000 for a cow. Therefore I like " farmers 
prices.” _ 
Let us take the Jersey as a class—the 12 or 
20 thousand or more of the common ones with 
the 100 or so of phenomenal cows, and average 
the lot and I think and believe that i here are 
enough of wretchedly poor one9 among the 
crowd to obliterate the whole record of the 
fancy ones. I look at this from the farmers’ 
point of view, and I dare maintain that the 
farmers are not favorably inclined to the 
Jerseys as a race. And this is reasonable 
when a 10-pound-a-w«ek cow is valued at (300; 
a 14-pound oow at $600 or (1,000, &c., and a 
20-pound cow at (8,000 or (4,000. 
Perhaps Mr. (loodman and I can now have 
a round in which we may Both calmly smile, 
when I say that the highest value of the Jer¬ 
sey breed is for its bulls used for producing 
grades; and that, used for this purpose, a 
high-class bull may very easi y ba worth a 
large sum even to a farmer, who may produce 
during the 10 years of his serviceable life, 500 
cows, each averaging (20 more in value 
than its dam. This 1 take it is a much more 
tangible and effective good than n si eg that 
bull on a few 14-pound cows to try and get one 
20 pound cow in the course of five years. And 
that is why I like the Jerseys and not because 
an occasional cow, gorged with gram lo burst¬ 
ing, gives three pounds of batter iu a day and 
then dies of mdk fever, or is only saved by 
quickly shutting off the pressure. 
I don’t like to give, perhaps, an unwelcome 
prominence to the name of a highly esteemed 
gentleman or “to drag him in,” but for the 
sake of consistency 1 would like to “calmly 
remark” that when that gentleman in nis 
advertisement meutions “ farmers’ prices are 
the rule” ho means it, and this 1 know not by 
investigation but from his own lips. At the 
same time that gentleman has a full share of 
wisdom and common sense, and “ farmers’ 
prices” do not mean that he will sell for (100 
or (200 au animal for which he paid (2,00U, nor 
that he would sell to a breeder or dealer or 
speculator, to be sold agaia au animal worta, 
in the market, as that now is, (2,5UU, for any 
less sum. If I am mistaken, then I don’t un¬ 
derstand the English language, or human 
nature, or what common sense is. But Mr. 
Goodman must admit that the calf of a (1,000 
cow by even a (2,000 bull does not necessarily 
cost the owner (L,000, although he may ask 
(2,000 for it; and it may not even be worth 
more than (100. 
This is a speculative time, no doubt, and a 
man who has the money to spare, and to lose, 
may as well take "a flyer” in Jerseys as in 
Wall Street, with the odds of winning in favor 
of the street. Some must lose in tht-ir Jer¬ 
sey speculations, as hundreds of breeders (?) 
—men who bought and soli, not bred, their 
stock—of Short-borus, lost money heavily, 
and many were ruiued at the collapse of tnat 
speculation; and the last in are tne ones to 
get squeezed. 
In regard to the query of Professor Morrow, 
I am at a loss to perceive its pertinence or its 
appositeness to anything I have said in these 
notes. Excepting so far as I have objected to 
the exess-ive fatness of breed iug sheep, rams, 
ewes and lambs, and the latter especially, that 
have been exhibited at the English ihows. 
Or, I should rather say, that I have objected 
to the importation of such sheep to this coun¬ 
try and their sale by dealers to persons here 
who intend to use them in breeding. Tbis 
early forcing destroys their usefulness and is 
the greatest reason why this class of sheep fail 
here so disastrously; and, as I am inclined to 
believe, is the chief cause of the continual and 
sometimes enormous losses among the Kng- 
li=h sheep. In a wet season these forced sheep 
die by thousands of the rot, which is a disease 
of the liver, &c., and caused by over feeding, 
as much as by the fluke ; and it is only reasona¬ 
ble to connect cause and tffect in such a case. 
Calves Weighing 1,200 Pounds when 
12 Months Old. 
By some accident I did not receive the 
Rural of July22d, and consequently I did 
not know anything of the article of Mr. Tal- 
cott s in that number, referrit g to a previous 
article of mine iu which I stated that at a 
farmers’ meeting a gentleman had said he had 
“many" calves that weighed 1,200 pounds 
when a year old, As I have just seen Mr. 
Talcott’s letter 1 hasten to answer his request 
to give the name of the gentleman referred to. 
His name is William Brown Smith, of the firm 
of Smiths & Powell. Mr. Talcott says, " I 
should like to know who the man is who 
raises all his calves so that they will weigh 
1.200 pounds when 12 months old." If by this 
Mr. Talcott implies there is anything in what 
Mr. Smith 3aid, as represented in my article, 
that warrants the idea that his calves all 
weigh 1,200 pounds at 12 months old, he is 
very much mistaken, as any one can see by 
reading ilie article. Mr. Smith says, “lhave 
many of them." He does not say “All of 
mine do it.” I believe the same idea is ex¬ 
pressed in Smiths & Powell’s catalogue of 
their Holstein stock. A. M. Williams. 
Syracuse, N. Y. 
Remedy for Stifle Ailment.— For the 
benefit of horse and cattle owners please pub¬ 
lish the following: it is an infallible cure for 
stifle. One-half tea cupful of alum powdered 
fine; the whites of three hen’s eggs: beat to a 
stiff froth; mix together; apply freely; rub in 
thoroughly. Warm in with a hot iron. In 
8 ix hoars the leg will be all right, w. B. N. 
