pared and the seed planted under the superin¬ 
tendence of our editorial correspondent now 
traveling in the Southern States.— Eds.] 
- +-+-* - 
CORN. 
In the discussion of this subject it is very 
evident that much more than is now known is 
to be learned about corn, its habits, culture 
and improvement. Every season develops 
some very important facte heretofore un¬ 
known. Scientific men and many farmers who 
do not pretend to know much about the physi¬ 
ology of vegetation, are continually discover¬ 
ing something of great value to the corn- 
grower. He that can grow most corn per 
acre at the least cost, stands at the head of the 
many successful competitors. 
It is so easily adapted to the latitude of every 
State and to any locality, that there is no 
question as to its being the most profitable and 
useful of all the cereals. The flinty varieties 
do best in the North, while in the Southern 
States the soft Dents only can be successfully 
raised. • 
It appears that soils, full of alluvial elements 
—those we call the richest—do not produce 
the largest yield or the best grain. On the 
streams in the Southern .States the soil has so 
much alluvial matter in it that too much 
stover is grown and not enough grain, while 
the uplands of some of the Middle and Western 
States, with not half so rich a soil, possess the 
happy medium of soil and climate, skill and 
culture which go to make the right proportion 
of stalk and grain. 
According to the report of the Commissioner 
of Agriculture, Nebraska heads the list of 
average yields; Vermont, Maine and New 
Hampshire come uext, while Florida, South 
Carolina and Georgia are last. A difference 
of 33 bushels per acre between the maximum 
and minimum States is certainly surprising. 
I have been satisfied for years that this dif¬ 
ference does not arise from soil or climate. 
1 have in past years visited every Southern 
State east of the Mississippi, except three, and 
found the climate and soil in each much better 
adapted to corn raising than any one of the 
Eastern States. Alabama, whose average is 
12 bushels, has farmers who have raised 200 
bushels of corn per acre. South Carolina, too, 
boasts of a number who have made special 
yields of over 200 bushels per acre. If by a 
little sdeuce such large yields cau be made iu 
those States whose average is 60 low, there 
must be room for improvement, for skill and 
for advancement. Prof. E. A. Blount. 
——-♦ ♦- 
THE COW PEA AS A WEED EXTERMINA¬ 
TOR. 
When I came upon the farm, two years ago, 
like every other novice iu farming, I was 
looking out for “new fields to conquer.” 
Seeing an article in a western agricultural 
paper upon the Cow-pea, written by a man 
living in Kentucky, I thought that this would 
giyc an opportunity tointroduce something new 
into this part of the country. Owing to various 
causes of delay, however, I did not get seed 
until the first of June. I sowed a portion of 
them bi oadcaet, at the rate of a bushel to the 
acre; drilled some iu rows, and planted some 
in hills about three feet apart, with the rows 
one way—soil, a fair silieious loam well seeded 
with cockle-bnr and fox-tail. The peas came 
up nicely, and bid fair to make a good crop. 
But, alas for human expectations! the cockle- 
bur and fox-tail grew also, and swallowed up 
the peas that were sown broadcast, leaving 
here and there a solitary one to mourn the 
loss of its companions. Had I depended 
wholly upon this method of cultivation, I 
should have lost ray geed; but those planted 
in rows, which only received two plowings, did 
better. By the laborious method of hand¬ 
picking, (uo other would answer, as the 
cockle-burs were so thick in the rows). I suc¬ 
ceeded in saving “ right smart" of seed. 
Last season, thinking that I would be a 
“wiseacre” and profit by the experience of 
the past, still lingering under the impression 
that the Cow pea would smother out all 
kinds of weeds, except the invincible cockle- 
bur, which it had failed to overcome in an 
equal “tussle,” as soon as I thought all dan¬ 
ger of frost was over, I sowed them iu the 
orchard, some thick and some tbiu, at the 
rate of from one to two bushels to the acre— 
the orchard was very weedy, being infested 
chiefly with Spanish needles. 
As before, the peas came up splendidly, and 
started off as though they intended to have 
their own way about it on tbat plot of ground. 
Here, surely, with the aid of the Cow-pea, I 
was going to “ clean out,” that orchard with¬ 
out much trouble. Daring the next harvest 
when I sent a hand into the orchard, at odd 
spells, to cut down the giant weeds, I thought 
that the Cow-pea might succeed in the South 
as an eradicator of weeds, but in this latitude 
—on the line between Iowa and Missouri—it 
would have to be cultivated as well as corn, 
or sown upon a clean piece of land. 
Although the Cow-pea has not met my high 
expectations, I intend to give it another 
trial this season; whether I shall gain anything 
from past experience, or not, the sequel will 
show. At least I will have a clean piece of 
land to experiment on. My peas are mixed 
—mostly Whip-Poor-Will, which are recom¬ 
mended as the best variety for a Northern 
climate. w. e. p. 
®jjf |)fr&stnait. 
STOCK NOTES. 
Water for t'own in Pasture. 
For milch cows it is very uecessary that the 
water for them is pure, otherwise it taints the 
milk, and from this neither good butter nor 
cheese can be made. Where there is not abun¬ 
dance of clear running water in yard or past¬ 
ure, itshould be supplied from wells or cisterns. 
If druuk from standing pools or small poods, 
the water is always more or less foul, or so 
stagnant as to be unpalatable, and at times 
even unhealthfnl. In order to obtain a full 
flow of milk cows must have all the water 
they will naturally drink at morniog, noon and 
night, otherwise they will uot give full mes¬ 
ses of milk, nor will it be of so good a quality. 
But a running stream, more especially when 
at pasture, where they can go and drink at 
pleasure, is still better thau that drawn from 
wells for them three tim n s per day, at regular 
intervals. Nece&Bitv, however, often compels 
the latter course. Some dairymen, iu order to 
increase the flow of milk, stimulate their cows 
to drink an extra quantity of water, by extra 
salting their food or stirring a small quantity 
of bran or meal in it. But this is objection¬ 
able, inasmuch as it tends to lessen the rich¬ 
ness of the milk. This also fills up the 
stomach so much as to dilute the gastric 
juice and thus injure digestion, and more or 
less of the food is consequently voided whole. 
If there be a gain in milk, then a loss in food 
follows bi stimulating to an excess of drink. 
The Patriarchs outdone in Oregon.— 
Aherd of nearly 24,000 head of cattle wcrelately 
started from Oregon for Montana. It required 
120 men, mounted ou horses, to do the driving. 
Provision wagons and outfits required 800 
horses to draw them, and for assistant guards 
and stirring up game en the route40 dogs were 
taken into the cavalcade. 
A Large Foreign Stock-breeder.— Eaiq 
Dunmore, a very wealthy 8eoteh nobleman, 
recently crossed the Atlantic aud has gone 
to Montana with the intention of starling 
a cattle rauche on a large scale. He de¬ 
signs purchasing several thousand Texas cows 
and to cross these with the best sort of bulls— 
Short-horns and Herefords, we presume, al¬ 
though to them he may possibly add some 
others. We would suggest the Polled Angus 
of his native country. He intends to become a 
large shipper of beef to Great Britain. 
Side-Bones. —As many do not know the 
meaning of this term as applied to horses, we 
will explain, for it la not as carefully guarded 
against as ring bone, spavin or curb; but it is 
about equally injurious to the service of the 
horse, aud is apt to be as hereditary. A side- 
bone is formed by the conversion into bone of 
the cartilage or gristle, just a hove and ou each 
side of the hoof. In its natural state it is a 
smooth, solid, elastic substance, softer than 
bone. It most often occurs on horses with 
thin, fiat feet, which characterize so many of 
the larger breeds of Europe, except those bred 
on the chalky or limestone soils of Normandy, 
La Perche, and some of the neighboring dis¬ 
tricts of France. This is why our best Ameri¬ 
can breeders have lately preferred to import 
their large horses for the formation of their 
studs from the above districts, rather thau 
from Flanders and Great Britain. The feet of 
those latter horses are so fiat and thin that 
they are soon used up ou hard roads, and es¬ 
pecially city pavements, while the former will 
work on them without injury to old age, if 
kept properly shod. 
Angora Goats. —A superior importation of 
Angora goats has just been made from Gere- 
deh, Asia Minor, by Col. C. W. Jenks, for the 
Hon. Richard Peters of Atlanta, Georgia. 
These goats are of greater size than any here¬ 
tofore imported, aud yield much larger fieeces, 
usually weighing 8 to 12 pounds. The staple 
is a fine silky mohair. It will not cost over oue- 
third as much to produce this as raw silk aud 
it will make a kind of goods equal to it in 
strength, lustre, and fineness. The mountain 
and hilly climate of our Southern States, is 
qifite like the district of Asia Minor where 
these goats are bred, and there is uo reason 
why they should not succeed iu this country 
as well as in their own native domain. 
Merino Sheep-breeding in England.— 
The 13 Merino sheep shipped from Australia 
to England, for the Duke of Manchester, to 
form a flock there, have arrived safely. Merino 
6heep breeding has been tried several times in 
England during this century, but was soon 
given up. The climate of the whole United 
Kingdom iB too humid to breed Merinos suc¬ 
cessfully ; they can endure any reasonable 
amount of severe dry cold, though not a long- 
continued dampness. But land is too dear in 
Great Britain to rear sheep merely for their 
wool—mutton there is the paying thing, and 
wool only secondary. The mutton breeds of 
English sheep give far superior flesh to that of 
the Merino, and the animals themselves, with 
their fine points and full, round, smooth out¬ 
line, are such a contrast to the thin, angular, 
ungainly Merino, that an Englishman only 
looks upon it with disgust, Ib comparison 
with his own handsome native sheep. 
Turnips for Milch Cows. —In the Rural 
of Feb. 21st, page 119, Henry 8tewart lu wfit- 
ing of " Bitter Cream," says :—“ If turnips are 
fed, I defy any person to escape bitter cream 
and ill-flavored hntter." My experience is 
quite the reverse of this. I have fed turnips 
(White French) for three winters to five or six 
cows giving milk, and no turnip flavor could 
be detected in the milk or butter. I have never 
had any hitter cream. My butter brings the 
highest market price. I have fed about six 
quarts per day to each cow at mllkiug time. 
Vernon, vt. a. c. a. 
A Chicken-eating Cow. —One evening as 
the cows were being driven from the pasture 
into the barnyard, a little ehicken sat peeping 
in the gateway. As the cows passed through, 
a yearling heifer, putting down her head, took 
the little thing up and, giving it a bite or two, 
swallowed it, and passed on nodding her head 
and smacking her lips, as it were. We have a 
horse, too, that seemed to be trying to eat our 
young pig the other day. Are horses and cows 
becoming carnivorous ? Jennie Watson, 
Prolific Swine Breeding. —Six sows of a 
fiue white English breed, recently produced 
90 pigs, which in onr opinion, was 42 more 
than they could well nurse. Eight pigs to a 
sow is as ruauy as can be propefly suckled, and 
only six may be still better to insure a rapid 
growth, which is the main thing required for 
profit from birth to slaughter. 
Sairi) jgusbaniirj]. 
COUNTERFEIT BUTTER. 
A more unblushing aud dangerous swindle 
has not been palmed upon the world for many 
a year, thau the oleomargarine which nobody 
ever sees under its own brand, but which 
everybody is in danger of eating under the 
false name of butter. The American people 
are known as the greatest butter eaters, con¬ 
suming a larger amount per capita, than any 
other people. When capital and apparent re¬ 
spectability combine, and through bogus scien¬ 
tific opinions and editorial advertisements in 
our large Dailies, seek to impose this counter¬ 
feit of butter upon the people, it is time that 
the agricultural press should conie to the 
rescue of the legitimate dairy product, and 
stamp this vile counterfeit and those who are 
knowiugly concerned in its sale under an 
honor able name, with the public condemnation 
they deserve. 
The loss of money in buying the fraudulent 
article is unimportant compared to the danger 
to the public health. The examination of this 
oleomargarine under the microscope clearly 
proves that it often contains the genus of liv¬ 
ing organisms, which have survived the tem¬ 
perature (120 o) used iu its manufacture. 
These living germs may be of many kinds, 
trichina beiug among them. The original 
French patent for making it, Prof. John 
Michels asserls, gives directions lor using the 
stomachs of pigs and sheep, so that trichina is 
likely to be found in it. 
The letter of Dr. Dalliuger, given in the Amer¬ 
ican Journal of Microscopy, shows that these 
organisms, even in their lully developed living 
forms, are uot killed by 142 degrees of heat, 
aud tbat the germs of the waole septic series 
of organisms require at least 212 to 235 de¬ 
grees of heat to kill them. Then it is evident 
that whatever germs this refuse fat aud the 
stomachs of pigB and sheep may contain, are 
carried through uninjured into oleomargarine 
butLer. And what real doubt can any one have 
that these materials contain these germs, when 
some of the best microscopists have declared 
that they have repeatedly found them ? Prof. 
Michels, of New York, first described them ; 
then Prof. Smith of Cleveland, aud since, Prof. 
Thomas Taylor, Mleroscopist to the Depart¬ 
ment, of Agriculture, gives hia experiments, iu 
the Scientific A merican. He says when dairy 
butter is examined, merely oil globules and a 
few ehryslals of Balt appear; but when a 
specimen of oleomargarine is examined in 
the same way, the field is speckled all over ; 
and in using a power ol 25U diameters, ani¬ 
mal tissue is seen more or less over the whole 
field. One specimen wa9 highly charged with 
animal tissue. 
There cau be no doubt of the absolute danger 
in the use of this spurious butter. Its manu¬ 
facturers well know that if they comply with 
the laws, and Btamp every package plainly 
with the name “ oleomargarine,” it will have 
no value in the market. They now resort to 
the cheat of compounding with it from 15.to 
30 per cent, of creamery butter, and then prin- 
cipallj sell it under that name. It is to be 
hoped that the efforts now making by Boards 
of Trade and dairymen, will result in compel¬ 
ling these men to drop their false pretenses and 
sail under their own colors. e. w. s. 
THE TRUE PRICE OF MILK. 
JONATHAN TALCOT. 
Let ns take another view of the milk and 
butter question as presented by Mr. Richard 
Goodman in the Rural New-Yorker for Feb 
14th, page 104. In the arguments advanced by 
Mr. Goodman on the subject of furnishing city 
customers with pure milk and good butter, and 
the manner of doing it, I should probably not 
differ much from him ; but his reasonings on 
the cost of making a pound of butter from 
the stand-point from which most dairy farm¬ 
ers are obliged to look at it, is not correct. 
Mr. Goodman says: “ Now, if milk is worth 
from six to eight and ten cents a quart, 
how can the consumer expect to get good 
butter for 25 to 30 cents a pound, when it 
takes, oa the average, 12 quarts of milk to 
make a pound of butter, from ordinary cows 
12 to 20 quarts of milk are required to make a 
pound of butter. The milk of some of the 
thoroughbreds is much richer, and that of the 
Jersey cow, noted for her special butter- 
makiug qualities, is capable of occasionally 
producing a pound of butter from five quarts 
but a fair average is about eight quarts. At six 
cents a quart, such butter would be worth 48 
cents at the minimum cost, and, as a matter of 
fact, good fresh butter cannot be put into the 
market, except, perhaps, for a short season iu 
the early summer, at less than 50 cents a pound, 
and give the careful aud cleanly farmer a liv¬ 
ing profit.” 
The word, if, used before milk, ia the rock ou 
which Mr. Goodman stumbles, consequently 
his argument as to the price of butter is value¬ 
less,—and just such arguments are used by a 
great many writers who wish to make a show, 
or to grind their ax on somebody’s griudstoue, 
and have the owner of the grindstone turn it 
for their benefit, while they are telling him it 
is for his benefit to do the turning and fiud the 
griudstoue also, and sometimes it seems they 
inuke him believe it. Mr. Goodmau’e error is 
in the valuation of the milk. In all candor I 
wou'd ask Mr. Goodman—can you sell your 
milk at your farm for six cents a quart, all 
you can produce the year through ? If so, cau 
New Euglaud farmers generally do so ? Gan 
they sell their milk at their respective farms 
for three cents a quart during the entire 
year—all they cau produce ? If these questions 
can be answered in the affirmative; then the 
farmers of New England ought to be the most 
successful in America. 
It seems to me that the true price of milk is 
what it will net the majority of the dairy 
farmers at their farms, and the manufacture 
of cheese and butter is tbe only way it cau be 
disposed of, tbat is accessible to all producers 
of milk, except a favored few who live iu the 
vicinity of cities to which their milk can be car¬ 
ried by railroads and be thus disposed of to 
better advantage, than by making either cheese 
or butter, as tbe majority are compelled to do, 
iu order to dispose of their milk at all. Let us 
see what milk has netted some of our dairy 
farmers in Central New York :—Statement of 
Armstrong Cheese Factory for 1879, cotainenc- 
ingApril23d and closing Oct. 31st:—ratio foroue 
pound of cheese 10 21 pounds of milk; value of 
one pound of milk, six mills 27-huudreths. 
Statement of Fabery CheeBe Factory, com¬ 
mencing April 10th 1879 aud closiug Nov. 7tli t 
milk for one pound of cheese 10.22 pounds; val¬ 
ue of milk per pound, six and a half mills—both 
of tbe above statements are signed officially by 
the respective treasurers. Allowing one piut 
of milk for a pouud, which is a little more, theu 
from those factories the dairymeu who supplied 
the milk, got a fraction over oue and a quarter 
eeutfor a quart of milk furnished, instead of six 
cents, the basis of Mr. Goodman’s estimate iu 
regard to the value of a pound ot butler made 
from milk, as quoted from tbe above-named 
letter to the Rural New-Yorker. 
Take another factory that is considered one of 
the bestiu its patrons aud the person who makes 
the cheese, and this paid its patrons for 1879 a 
fraction over seven mills for a pouud of milk, 
which would be about oue aud a half cent to 
the quart, whieh is only a quarter of the price 
at which Mr. Goodman based his estimate, 
thus showing conclusively that Mr. Goodman 
has not based his estimate ou the true value of 
milk as produced by our dairy farmers, there¬ 
fore bis estimate eaunot be correct Therefore, 
if all dairy furmers should make a first-class 
article of butter aud cheese, in seasons like 
1879, they would not get for their milk but about 
one-quarter tbe price of what Mr. Goodman 
based his estimates ou, ancl iu the best of sea¬ 
sons that may bo likely to favor the dairy 
farmer iu the near future, less than one-half 
of the price that Mr. Goodman puts upon milk 
per quart, will be likely to be realized by all 
dairy farmers who are obliged to have their 
milk manufactured into butter and cheese, 
even where a first-rate article is made. 
Rome, N. Y. 
