JUNE 12 
TIH £ 
MEW-YOBKEB. 
The bran chine and creeping stems help to 
hold the loose sands in place, Gould says :— 
“We are assured that it is identical with the 
Durva or Doorba grass of Hindoostan, where 
it is the most common and valuable fodder 
grass of the region.” The seeds rarely ripen. 
The grass may be easily distributed by chopped 
root-stalks or short cuttings sown and har¬ 
rowed in. Prof. Killebrew says :—“It will 
throw its runners over a rock six feet across, 
and soon hide it from view, or it will run down 
the sides of the deepest gully and stop its wash 
ing.” It will stand heat and dry weather re¬ 
markably well. 
Japan Clover —Lespcdeza striata. In the 
report of the United States Department of 
Agriculture is given a good figure with some 
explanation of this clover. Our cut is copied 
from that report. It Is a low plant which 
lives on from year to year—a perennial. The 
flowers are very small and the fruit also. It 
has a clover-like look, as will be seen by the 
leaves, which are trifolialate. Professor Kil¬ 
lebrew. of Tennesee, is quoted in the report 
named above. This clover was first noticed 
in 1849, in the vicinity of Charleston, South 
Carolina, the seeds having probably been 
brought from China or Japan in tea boxes. 
After this it spread rapidly and grew with 
great luxuriance on the poorest soils, retaining 
its vitality in the severest droughts. Sheep 
are very fond of it? cattle will eat it. It is 
spoken ot highly by several writers in the 
Southern States for pasture and for plowing 
under, but it is said that it does not flourish 
north of the 86th degree of latitude. 
glair# §uskniirg. 
THE HOME MARKET FOR CHEESE. 
A WESTERN FARMER. 
England imported last year four pounds ot 
American cheese for every individual of the 
population. Estimating on the usual basis of 
five persons in a family, this would give an 
average consumption of 20 pounds of foreign 
cheese for each family. If we estimate the na¬ 
tive production at l'onr times the quantity im¬ 
ported (a very low estimate), this would give 
100 pounds of cheese in the aggregate to each 
family per annum, or 20 pouuds to each indi¬ 
vidual. If the consumption here were equal to 
that in England, we should use very nearly 
1,000,000,000 pounds of cheese yearly, which, 
with the amount exported, would require a 
production of 1,150,000.000pounds. Our present 
total product is lc6B than 800,000,000 pounds. 
The question then occurs, how can we in¬ 
duce our people to out half a pound of cheese 
per week per head. This seems to be a very 
6inall requirement and a very moderate allow¬ 
ance which any person with a moderately good 
appetite could very easily and very profitably 
consume. It is certainly not the capacity that 
is wanting, but the desire. How thou can this 
desire for cheese be stimulated up to the point 
required for the consumption of six or seven 
times as much cheese as is now eaten? There 
are some ways and methods that, occur to a 
person of practical business acquirements, 
and of these the principal ones are: first, to 
make a really good and attractive article; aud 
second, to acquaint the public with the fact 
that it can be procured at a reasonable price. 
It was said of old that “the children of this 
world arc wiser than the children of light.” 
It is equally true in our days, aud we. “ the 
children of light,” the honest, upright, indus¬ 
trious. skillful, but modest aud retiring dairy¬ 
men, may take a lesson from “the children of 
this world,” the quacks, the humbngs, the con¬ 
fidence-men, and all those whose individual 
possession of “ cheek ” would supply the whole 
world of dairymen with a stock in trade and 
leave a large surplus to draw upon for emer¬ 
gencies ; the Barnums, the Wall Street sharks 
and others “who draw all men unto them.” 
They simply put their light, not under a bushel, 
but upon a hill, where it can be seen, and set 
forth their business so that every man, woman 
and child may know of it. Let us take a line 
and a precept from the lightning-rod man, the 
“strawberry tree 1 ' peddler, and others who 
canvass from lionae to honse and find custom¬ 
ers wbereve,r they call. Why should not those 
who have a legitimate business, and whose 
mission is to do good and ^ ve a rueful pur¬ 
pose, use those, rncaus which, made to serve a 
good end, are honorable aud effective? Let 
dairymen send out samples of their product to 
every village store and even canvass the towns 
aud cities, making arrangements with grocers 
and others to retail their goods. If these are 
well made—of whatever quality they may be, 
and whether full cream, hall cream, or skim— 
once they are introduced the work is done, the 
demand has been created, the desire has been 
evoked, flu: want has been made known 
The value of cheese as au article of food 
needs no elaborate demonstration; it speaks 
for itself, aud if once the children even could 
be made acquainted with it they would “cry 
for more” aud the parents would soon join in 
the demand. But It will not do to send out to 
our foreign customers the best cheese, and 
supply home consumers with the skims, the 
off-flavored, the huffy and the tainted refuse. 
To find a really good cheese at a grocery store 
is very difficult, and the wonder is that the 
mean stuff there retailed finds any sale at all. 
The fact, indeed, that it sells, argues that good 
cheese would go off with great rapidity and 
that the required increase of 600 per cent, on 
our present home consumption would soon be 
reached. 
This business is in the hands of the dairy¬ 
men themselves, and if they will first reform 
their practice and offer no poor cheese to the 
consumer (except a pig), and, in fact, make no 
poor cheese, be thoroughly honest to them¬ 
selves and do themselves perfect justice, not 
bedying their own skill and business capacity, 
and use the ordinary business methods of at¬ 
tracting customers and of keeping them when 
they have been secured, the result will surpass 
their most sanguine expectations and prove 
to them that the ancient adage to the effect 
that “ a man is not without honor save iu his 
own country and among hi6 own people ” is in 
no wise applicable to them. 
DEER’S HORNS EATEN BY CATTLE. 
PROFESSOR F. H. STORER. 
The observations on this subject communi¬ 
cated by Mr. Wilson, in the Rural of May 
29th, corroborate fully those made In Scotland 
6ome years since, as set forth by Dr. Laukester 
(in bis “ Lectures on the Uses of Animals ”) in 
the following terms:—“ The question has been 
asked, what becomes of stags’ boms after they 
are cast, and there is a very prevalent notion 
that the deer eat them. This has arisen from 
the few which are found compared with the 
numbers which are known to be thrown off. 
That both stags and hinds occasionally gnaw 
the herns is beyond doubt, and the yearning 
for a supply of phosphate of lime is probably 
the inducement to partake of this kind of food. 
Not only do the deer eat horns, hut all the 
bones they meet with in the forest. It may 
also be added lhat where deer are, there are 
generally other animals, to whose welfare 
phosphate of lime is necessary, and who would 
assist iu the same way in the destruction of 
the fallen antlers.” 
Since some slight misapprehension seems to 
have arisen in respect to the notes on bone- 
chewing which were published in the Rural of 
May 15th, I would remark that the opinion that 
grass-eating animals gnaw bones for the sake 
of the phosphates contained iu them, has long 
been held and is familiar to most students of 
agricultural literature. It is referred to in 
several well-knowu elementary treatises on 
agriculture. I had never bad any doubt that 
the common opinion that bones are eaten by 
cattle for the sake of the phosphates is correct 
as regards many localities, where lime-com¬ 
pounds are naturally so abundant iu the soil 
that there is rarely, if ever, any lack of this 
substance in the plants upon which the cattle 
feed. I urged only that when phosphates are 
lacking in fodder, the administering of doses 
of bone-meal is hardly the best way of supply¬ 
ing the want. 
On the other hand, it is perfectly well-known 
that the food of cattle is often deficient in lime 
rather than iu phosphates, as, for example, 
when the animals get comparatively little hay 
or grass, but large quantities of grain, pota¬ 
toes, roots, distillery slop, the residue from 
beet-sugar making, or the like, together with 
some straw; and in such eases chalk can be 
used to better advantage tban bone-meal to 
supply the deficiency. 
This second conception, that lirne is needed 
in certain cases, is unquestionably of equal 
importance with the old familiar notion of giv¬ 
ing phosphates as food, which is, in its turn, 
doubtless true iu some special instances. As 
was just now intimated, it may often happen 
that the belter the cattle are fed, in the ordi¬ 
nary sense of the word, the greater will be the 
risk of their not getting lime enough in their 
food ; bnt at the same time the less sense will 
there be in giving them bone-meil when they 
need chalk. 
The instances of bone-chewing cited in the 
Rural of May 10th were specially interesting 
in that the persons reporting them were in¬ 
clined to believe that the auimala craved lime 
in those special cases The observations 
tended to show that even iu some poor pas¬ 
tures, as well as in the special cases of rich 
feeding just now alluded to, it may be well to 
place lumps of chalk where the cattle can lick 
them. A still stronger statement of this view 
of the matter will he found iu the following 
abstract, taken from Volume 18 of the Jour¬ 
nal of the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng¬ 
land. “The cattle iu some mountain vales 
in the county Cumberland are liable to an 
affection of the stomach, provineiully called 
“ Crobbek ” or “ Orovek," exhibited in a fond¬ 
ness for chewing bones, leather and clothes. If 
this disease is suffered to go on unchecked, 
the bones of the legs make a rattling noise in 
walking, the joints swell, the auimal loses its 
appetite, and spends its time in hunting round 
the field for bones, etc., instead of depasturing 
and ruminating, and eventually dies. A change 
to rich keeping for a few weeks in the earlier 
stages, is the ordinary and effectual cure. It 
is remarkable that limed land is not liable to 
WHAT ARE THE M08T PROFITABLE 
SHEEP 1 
HENRY STEWART. 
With wool at 50 to 60 cents for fine and 
combing, sheep are in the ascendant; “those 
want them now who never did before, aud 
those who alwaj s had them want the more.” 
The question is asked. “ Which is the most 
profitable sheep to keep ?” Those who ask 
this question are acting very judiciously, be¬ 
cause, Dot knowiug much about sheep, they 
are very apt to go astray at the start aud lose 
their time and their money, unless they start 
aright. It is a popular opinion that there is 
most profit in the largest and most attractive- 
looking breeds and in growing long wool, 
which is greatly in demand and of which a 
heavy fleece is produced. Unfortunately this 
opinion leads many into trouble; for they pro¬ 
cure sheep at a high price and which need 
costly keeping, that are unsuitable and run 
down very fast, and finally fail entirely. 
COTSWOLD-MERINO EWE.—FROM A 
PHOTOGRAPH. — FIG. 206. 
At the outset it may be stated concisely that 
there is no one sheep lhat is the best under all 
circumstances; that sheep must he chosen with 
regard to the circumstances under which they 
are to be kept, and that, as a rule, there is 
the most profit In the kind which costs least. I 
will show this by figures. Let a person begin 
with a llock of 50 ewes and one rain. The cost 
and income of the flock will be about as 
follows: 
Good Pnre-bred 
natives. sheep. 
Paid for 60 ewes.... $200 $l,25u 
One pure-bred raiu. 25 100 
f eeding' and cure for one year.15o 300 
$380 $1,660 
Value of lambs at $3. $150 $2io 
200 pounds of wool at 40c. so — 
400 pounds utfrie. - 220 
50 ewes sold fat. 250 — 
Value of sheep on hand (4-5 of cost). 1,080 
$4H0 $1,510 
The natives will have paid back their cost 
with $100 profit and $100 more in manure, 
while the pure-bred sheep will have lost about 
10 per cent, of their cost under the most favor¬ 
able circumstances. For no one who keeps a 
flock of costly pnre-bred sheep can expect to 
6ell the lambB for more thau their actual mar¬ 
ket value, aud the profit from the extra price 
paid for the flock inu6t come from the wool, in 
greatest part. The experience of nine out of 
ten persons who have been misled into keeping 
ilioroughbred long-wool or even fine-wool 
sheep has been even worse than the example 
here given. 
Let us follow the fate of the native flock. 
The owner who picks out a lot of good, sound 
grade Merino ewes and selects a pure-bred 
Cotswold ram, one or two years old, of com¬ 
pact build, broad-loined, with deep brisket, 
short legs, fine head, broad forehead and a 
close fleece of long, silky wool, and crosses 
him on his ewes, will soon have a flock which 
in every respect will be as good as the pure¬ 
bred flock which would have cost six times 
as much, and in five years it will probably 
greatly surpass the pnre-bred llock in quality 
and appearance, under equally good manage¬ 
ment. The difference in profit is very readily 
seen. 
Pure-bred sheep are for the breeders. Farm¬ 
ers must have purc-bred rams to use with their 
common sheep to improve the produce; but 
tbe keeping np of a llock of high-bred sheep is 
a work that requires special skill In manage¬ 
ment, aud knack as well as knowledge in 
breeding; and there is no profit In it to ouo 
who is uot already an adept in the manage¬ 
ment of a lloek. Perhaps the best sheep under 
any circumstances for a farmer to laise, is the 
cross of the native grade Merinos with pure 
Cotswold rams. The second cross have all the 
hardiness of the dams and some of the excel 
leneles of the sires. The wool Is In demand 
and always will he. The lambs are the best 
market lambs, will reach a weight of 00 or 70 
pounds at six months, and when two years old 
will make the best of mutton and a carcass 
weighiug 100 pounds, dressed. The fleece will 
weigh double that of the dams, and the third 
or fourth cross cannot be distinguished from 
pnre-breds. These facts have been proved by 
experience. The cross of Cotswold-Merino is 
a favorite one in Germany, Austria and Hun¬ 
gary, aud fine specimens of this cross were 
shown at the last Paris exhibition. In our own 
country Mr. Harris, of Rochester, N. Y., aud 
the Gerrish Bros., of Webster, New Hamp¬ 
shire, have been breeding in this way for seve 
ral years. The portrait of au ewe given here 
with is one of the Messrs. Gerrieh’s iloek. She 
is 12 years old, aud is a cross of Cotswold on 
Merino; she has all the appearauee of the 
Cotswold, and her age speaks for her consti¬ 
tution. 
As a matter of course, the cross-bred sheep so 
nearly approaching the character of the pure¬ 
bred race, require better feeding than the origi¬ 
nal smaller ewes. One cannot have a fleece and 
a carcass doubled in weight without providing 
the requisite feed. But we have the haidinesB 
and the vigor of constitution of the cross-bred 
races, which confer a greater adaptability to 
the ordinary circumstances of the farm and 
our exacting climate, aud these are the attri¬ 
butes of a sheep which is really the farmers’ 
sheep—the one for profit uudor the widest 
range of circumstances. 
But some may have a faucy for other breeds. 
South-Downs, for instance, whose mutton is 
the choicest in the market, and whose lambs 
are the fattest and most desirable ; or the 
Shropshire, differing only from the Soutli- 
Dowu in its longer wool, larger body and 
heavier fleece; or the Hampshire or Oxford- 
Downs, all dark-faced sheep, but cross-breds 
having Cotswold blood in them. If so, there 
is no objection. It is a matter of liking only, 
excepting this . that the Cotswold is a pure 
breed as is also the South-Down, and that the 
others are cross bred sheep, of thirty years 
standing, it is true; but still cross-bred; and 
I would choose an old-fashioned pure breed 
for the crossing on our natives rather than one 
of the newer cross-bred races. These cross 
breeds are very popular and profitable in Eng¬ 
land. but it does not follow that they would bo 
so here. In this country, with our different 
climate and methods of agriculture, we should 
produce our own cross-bred races which 
should have all the hardiness of natives, as 
iudeed they will be, aud no longer depend 
upon importations. Wo have an excellent basis 
iu our native grade or mixed Merino sheep, 
and those who can or will, may very soon have 
a thrifty and profitable Iloek with the expen¬ 
diture of very little money : and an investment 
which pays three dividends in the year, iu the 
shape of wool, lambs and a valuable manure 
heap; and which is always available in the 
shape of mutton. 
^rborirultural. 
THE RECENT DROUGHT. 
People talk of the late drought as if. simply 
as a drought, it was a very remarkable occur¬ 
rence. We have not heard it qualified as the 
most severe within the memory of the oldest 
inhabitant, although it would not surprise us 
if we met such an expression, because it would 
be nothing more than wc have heard remarked 
of a drought several times during the last 
twenty years. Nevertheless, if as a drought it 
is uot ultogell/er unprecedented, there certain¬ 
ly are features pertaining toil which are well 
worthy of consideration. For instance, it has 
occurred at a season when droughts are little 
noticed. About this time, bright, clear, spring 
weather is looked on as a godsend. Work 
goes on merrily. Walking is good. Early 
plowing is done promptly and the outlook is 
cheerful for a long season of prosperous work. 
It is true thero is the fear of late frosts, that 
always goes with an early spring, but we have 
had nothing of the kind that has done us harm 
this year. Spring lias come on slowly aud 
steadily, so slowly and steadily that sometimes 
wc were tempted to call it, for any earliucss it 
showed, au ordinary spring after all- Yet 
such is the insidious and almost Imperceptible 
iullueuce of a long succession of warm days, 
interspersed though they may be, among many 
cokl ones, that the spring has proved, after all, 
an unusually early one. The first of June, in¬ 
stead of displaying only theearly spirants, lilacs, 
etc., offered the mere remnant of rhododen¬ 
drons ana azaleas, and scarcely as much as 
the remnant of most flowering shrubs. Roses 
were in bloom at least two weeks earlier than 
usual, doubtless also, unnaturally forced by 
extreme heat aud dry weather. 
Lack of wutur has produced lack of richness 
and durability of texture among the petals of 
all classes of flowers. Indeed, the peculiarities 
