681 
THE BUBAL flEW-YOBKEB. 
Jiairj fpslraitlim 
THE DAIRY COW-NO. 6. 
HENRT STEWART. 
flow to Lodge n Family Cow. 
Tre proper lodging of a cow, that is the 
character of the stable and its arrangements, 
is worthy of serious consideration. Uoon 
it depend Ihe economy in labor and expense 
of feeding, convenience, cleanliness, the com¬ 
fort and health of the cow and the saving of 
manure—the latter being by no means the 
least of all these: for bv good management 
the owner of one cow and a garden may be 
able to regain in the value of manure ai least 
one half of the cost of the feed, I have done 
this myself and know that it can be done any¬ 
where and everywhere. The stable may be 
located conveniently near the house it desired, 
because a well-kept stable will never be disa¬ 
greeable in any way to the most fastidious 
housekeeper. Therefore I would have the 
stable tor a family cow near the house, and 
not a hundred feet distant. It may be made 
to include a wood-bonse, a store-room, a dairy 
room and a garden tool house. It shou'd 
be located upon jisiug ground, or so that 
water fl >ws every way liom it. The water 
from the roof ebould ti -w into a cistern, which 
long or sufficient to permit the cow to lie down 
without the possibility of getting her foot over 
the fastening. 
The utensils required for the stable are a 
smallest-size copper strip or other fodder cutter 
costing $7; a scythe, a coru knife, a box in 
which to mix the feed; a water pail; a card 
and brush; a shovel and a hoc for the manure, 
a stiff broom and a wooden hay fork. The 
card and brush are indispensable, and should 
be used upon a family cow for two or three 
minutes before milking, twice a day. Any 
owner ot a cow, who is considerate of her 
comfort., could not neglect to card and brush 
her after having once discovered the gratifica¬ 
tion she experiences from the service, and I 
have found no other way so effective to induce 
a wilfnl cow to let down her milk, when she 
holds it up for a newly arrived calf, as to give 
her a gentle and thorough card'ng and brush¬ 
ing, especially about those parts which her 
serviceable tongue cannot reach. While en¬ 
joying the brushing she forgets her troubles 
and gives her milk readily. 
Cbt poultry Jart. 
ARTIFICIAL CHICKEN HATCHING, 
L. S. HARDIN. 
will t-npplv all ih*- wuicr *’i eded. 
Cow STABLE.— FIG. 274. 
The stable should have an upper loft for 
hav and a store-room below for feed. The 
plan beregivm will be fonnd convenient and 
may used for a cow stable only or for the 
wood-shed and other purposes. A building 24x 
16 feet ai d 16 feet high will be roomy aud con¬ 
venient. The cow stalls should be three arid 
a-half feet wide and 12 feet long iuall. It is 
well to have two stalls; the extra one may be 
wanted, if not tor a cow for some other pur¬ 
pose. To preserve cleanliness the floor 
should slope backwards a trifle, to a shallow 
diich placed four aud a half to five feet from 
the inside edge of the feed trough, in which 
ditch the droppiugs may fall. This will leave 
room behind for a broad passage from which 
a door leads into the barn. The manure gut¬ 
ter should drain into a mauure tank outside. 
This is bast made with a brick wall and cov¬ 
ered with a tight trap-door to keep out flies 
in the Summer time. For this purpose, too, 
some powdered copperas may be liberally 
sprinkled over the manure and in the gutter. 
This will absorb all the smell and destroy the 
larva; of house and dung flies which would 
otherwise gather by thousands in the mauure. 
The feed trough should be two feet from the 
floor to the top, 16 inches wide, 12 inehes 
deep which is sufficient to hold a full mess 
of cut grass or corn fodder. In front of the 
feed tronglr is a partition four feet high, and 
in this a falling door is made across the whole 
front of the stall on a line with the top of 
the feed trough, bv hanging one of the boards 
upon hinges and securing it by a cord, so 
that it can fall only to an augle of 45 degrees 
and so make a slide by which to put the feed 
into the troughs. The feed passage will be 
three feet wide and in front of the stall or 
stalls. It should be provided with a neat, 
covered, leed bin at the end. 
The remainder of the building may be used 
for various purposes, for a carriage house if a 
horse is kept, or for wood, coal, storage, etc., 
etc. A stairway may be made in one corner 
hading to the upper floor, and the puenp and 
cistern may be conveniently placed under it. 
Where only one cow is kept, a very cheap shed 
with no upper floor will be sufficient and &40 
will be amply' sufficient to ledge a family cow 
with every comfort and convenience. The floor 
should be of cement or brick, or ot hard- 
rammed clay. Wood is the least dcsirabLe 
floor. A cement floor is the best, aud if well 
made, it is vermin-proof. It should be made 
of one part of Rosendale cement and three 
parts clean sand, mixed dry aDd then with 
water into a thin mortar aud then with seven 
parts of coarse gravel. This Bhould be laid 
three inches deep and have atop coat of half an 
inch of the clear mortar for a finish. A wash¬ 
ing with a few palls of water occasionally will 
clean off such a floor and keen it sweet. The 
safest mauoer o) tasteuing for a cow is with a 
broad Itaiher s'rap around the llrek, with a 
ring in it. and a short rope fasiened to an 
augcr-h' le near the lop ot the front of the 
trough, having a snap hook attached to the 
free end. Tne rope need only be 18 inehes ' 
In a late issue the Rural published an inter¬ 
esting article from the pen of Mr. Henry 
Hales, ou the subject of artificial incubation. 
There were a freshne66 and courage about the 
article that pleased me—it is so hard to find a 
writer who dares to tell the disagreeable 
truths about farm machinery of a'*y kind. For 
months I have beeu tryiug to find out the 
bottom facts about incubators with the inten¬ 
tion of buying one if I approved of it; but all 
1 could see was unlimited praise. Chicken 
papers devoted to the business occasionally al- 
lowiddark hints of artifici dly h itched chick¬ 
ens failing to reach maturity. Tttis was ab¬ 
solutely all I could learn against the plan. Yet 
it did not seem to grow in popularity a» it 
should, if only one-half the claims of incuba¬ 
tor makers were true. There is evidently a 
dark t-pot somewhere, and we will never find 
it until 6ome man with the courage of Mr. 
Hales tries the best machines, and tells the 
whole truth about them 
To approximate this resnlt in as great a 
measure ae the time and circumstances would 
permit, after reading liis article, I took train 
for Coney Island where the managers of a 
new hatcher have two large sized machines 
In full operation. The house is a simfile one- 
story frame, with large doors and wiudows, 
leaving the machines with scarcely auy pro¬ 
tection against the rapid changes of temper¬ 
ature peculiar to a 6and island in the ocean 
where it is as hot as tophet in mid-day and 
very cold at evening. Each machine holds 
1,500 eggs or 3 000 eggs in all, hatching at the 
rate of 100 chicks a day. The machines hav¬ 
ing glass sides, realize the claims of the hand¬ 
bills in these woids, “The full process of 
hatching, from the first pip of the egg until 
the chick emerges in triumph from the shell 
is all exposed to full view.’’ 
Remembering Mr. Hales’s failure in that the 
chicks did not get out of the shell readily, I 
marked this point particularly. Something 
like a dozm eggs were pipped when 1 first 
arrived, and the chicks from about one half of 
these got out of the shell before I left, in 
something like two hours. The others had 
made fair progress. J did notnote any failure 
on the part of the chicks lo make some pro¬ 
gress in this time toward freciug themselves 
from the shell. Those that had dried off before 
I left were as strong as any chicks of their 
age I had ever seen, and my experience in this 
line is pretty extensive with the old hen, 
The next Btage—chicks under twenty-four 
hours old—I watched and criticised with close 
attention, for here could be seen any inherent 
weakness due to the “ bringing up,” as we say 
of children; but of the “ bringing out ” as we 
should say of these chicks. Tbe managers use 
small glass cases, such as are used in making 
aquariums, to put the young chicks in. Here 
they nestle together aud have the appearance 
of a fine brood that have just lost their mother, 
but are not conscious of their misfortune. 
Sleepy the little things certainly were until 
somebody rapped on the glass with a pencil, 
when each little head was wide-awake, and the 
little things scrambled over one another to get 
to that side of the glass—this, too, before they 
were old enough to care to eat. In fact, they 
were the liveliest lot of little chicks 1 had ever 
seen. 
These hatchers had been in operation only 
about nine weeks, so that the oldest chicks in 
the artificial mother were under two mouths 
of age; but the largest were well grown and 
apparently as Well leathered and as active as 
chicks of that age ever are. I bought some 
aud took them hum;, and the above was the 
universal veid.ct of my neighbors. All the 
chicks in the " mother” were in fine condition 
and very active. I noticed but one out of * 1 * * * * * * 
several hundred, that was out of sorts. Ther 
was no appearance of languor or weakness 
that I was so much on my guard to detect, 
since reading Mr. Hales's article. He says .- 
“ in assisting the little creatures to freedom, I 
round the shells of the hatching chicks In a condi¬ 
tion entirety different from that ot an egg hatch¬ 
ing under a hen; that from the Incubator was a 8 
hard as a newly-laid egg. while that from under a 
hen was quite soft and easily broken, having a 
rotten appearance, as it yielded quite easily to the 
pressure of the young chick.” 
To test this we took from the drawers an 
egg just pipped and with a pencil point broke 
pieces from the shell. They were very brittle, 
resembling very closely the rotten sbell of an 
egg hatched under a lieu. 
Was uot the great cause of Mr. Hales’s 
want of success the cheapness of bis ma¬ 
chine—not that high price alone add-i to the 
efficiency of machinery, but we all know that 
the art of hatching chickens artificially has 
uot reached that point of perfection where 
the greatest skill can be omitted to secure suc¬ 
cess. The want of perfect uniformity of tem 
per a tu re may not kill the chick in the egg 
while rendering it so weak that it cannot break 
the shell. Imperfect supply of moisture may 
cause the egg to dry up too much or rot from 
excess of moisture. These points are so vital 
that none hut the best of machinery will meet 
their req tiremen's and only tbe best of skill, 
coupled with long and patient experience, will 
supply their omission. I wish Mr. Hales would 
trade that cheap machine off for one of the 
most approved patterns, and give ns his expe¬ 
rience with it; for it is the other side that we 
are now most anxious to learn about. 
-- 
THE DORKING BREED OF FOWLS. 
Notwithstanding all attempts at rivalry 
for the past half century, especially with the 
large Asiatics, the Durkins still maintains its 
ascendancy amoug the fowls of England. We 
may attribute this to its possessing the same 
superiority of qualities ammg its kinds, as 
Short hums have among cattle, and because it 
is the best for general purposes. Fowls of this 
breed are of a size sufficiently large to suit the 
most fastidious for the table; tfeeir flesb is 
superior to ibat of any other breed except the 
Game fowl; tbe hens lay fairly, and are 6leady 
sitters and good nurses ; while their chickens 
are hardy, grow rapidly, and mature early 
Lastly they are fine-looking, of noble presence, 
and excel all other breeds for crossing. 
The nearest approach to a Dorking is the 
Houdan ; but I have not. found the chickens so 
hardy or easily raised ; aud tbe top-knot is ob¬ 
jectionable as it occasionally blinds them. 
Both these breeds excel in giving plenty of 
meat ou the breast aud other parts of the body 
where most desirable. They are not made up 
mostly of rump and legs. 
1 wish the fifth toe could be bred off, as it is 
a mere ugly excrescence. A Dorking occa¬ 
sionally comes without it, and such are fully 
equal in size and all other qualities to tbe best 
of the five-toed. If these could be kept and 
bred from to the exclusion of others, the ugly 
fifth toe might be got rid of almost entirely in 
a few generations. a 
t 
THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF FRUIT 
BY GIRDLING. 
Mr. W. I. Chamberlain gives in the Rural 
New Yorker ot July 24 an interestingaceouut 
of the girdling method of inducing apple trees 
to fruit readily as practised by Mr. J. B. 
Spaulding, Illinois. Butheauggests aperlinent 
reflection when lie queries what would be the 
effect of thus girdling trees on sandy or stilt 
clay laud. While I agree that the gird¬ 
ling progress is to be heartily recommended 
under certaiu conditions, I feel, with Mr. 
Chamberlain, that such radical treatment 
should be carefully studied as to its ulti¬ 
mate iff -ct under various conditions. The 
process, I must confess, suggests too much the 
‘■panacea” idea. It apparently applies one 
method to a host of individuals just us our 
public school system is supposed to turn out 
ported scholars by the application ol like 
methods of education to each and every child. 
There is, however, a system of gtrdliug or 
checking the sap which Is, 1 believe, closely 
related to that described by Mr. Chamberlain, 
but at the same time more logical. The 
French have practised it for aL least fifty years 
aud perhaps in modified forms for ages, while 
the Switzer can show you apple orchards that 
have been similarly treated and fruited for 
generations. 1 eauuot give aname lo the op¬ 
eration, but it consists simply ot Jong or short 
incisions made in the bark above any given 
leaf to make the growth woody, and to pro¬ 
duce fiuit-beating wood below. By varying 
the length and depth ot the incisions and ap¬ 
plying them on any brrnch or even twig, 
the movement of the sap can be checked and 
guided at will. Early and abundant fruitful¬ 
ness comes by this method at least as well as 
by any other. Besides, it is more scientific. 
Its girdles or, more properly, incisions, are 
long or short, few or many, as the ease may be, 
aud applied at just the best points instead of 
being limited to a strict line around the trunk 
of tbetree, which may or may not do violence 
to its health aud longevity. Unfortunately 
we do not value the longevity of a tree properly, 
in thiscountry, but simply want immediate aud 
immense results; hence, perhaps, the special 
charm of Mr. Spaulding's girdliuginethod. Soil, 
climate, character of growth each year aud 
conditions of the bark must he considered un¬ 
der this system more carefully perhaps than 
under any other. The balance of force is so 
completely upset by euch a system of girdling 
that good management is necessary to continue 
steadily healthful action, if, indeed, ultimate 
unhealthy conditions can be really prevented. 
1 b -lieve it should be evident that while the 
girdling process produces early and continued 
crops under certain conditions of soil and 
climate, the incision process is the more truly 
scientific, because it is not violent, but ad¬ 
justs itself in skillful hands to every reasona¬ 
ble environment. Mr Spaulding’s work is found¬ 
ed on sound natural laws and works well in his 
case, but the value of the incision process has 
been proved by long years of successful prac¬ 
tice in many countries. S. Parsons, Jr. 
♦ ♦ » 
WATERLOO PEACH. 
The multitude of new, very early peaches, 
which have been, for the last few years, claim¬ 
ing the attention of fanciers of this fruit, has 
forced upon planters the necessity of caution, 
in the selection of the varieties to be planted. 
Tbe Alexander and the Amsden were eagerly 
caught up, and are already making their mark 
in the markets. But when, with the advent 
of the Saunders, Wilder and Downing, we be¬ 
gan to hear rumors of others, some of them 
claiming to be still earlier than these, the con¬ 
viction begau to force Itself upon us, that it 
was beet to wait aud see what would be the 
outcome of all this. Under this state of af¬ 
fairs, when the first notices of the Waterloo 
fell upou the public ear, they were little 
heeded, nothwithstanding the authority that 
the reputaliou of Elhvanger & Barry may 
be assumed to carry with it; but when its act¬ 
ual performances had come to warrant the 
indorsement of such high and conservative 
authority as Chas- Downing, the Horticul¬ 
tural Editor of the Conntry Gentleman, and 
others, the proof of its worth became in 
some sense irresistible, and as a consequence 
this peach seems to be coming to the front- 
more prominently, perhaps, than auy other 
of the new, very early sorts. It is yet too 
soon for me to have fruited this peach, which 
I understand to have originated quite recently 
near Rochester, N. Y., It is said to have the 
general qualities of tbe class to which it be¬ 
longs ; all of which are semi-clings, with, the 
general qualities of Hale's Early; which is, 
with much apparent reasou, supposed to be 
the parent ox the race. Its season, in the 
latitude of its nativity, may be set down as 
about the third week in July ; or about, a week 
in advance of Alexander and Amsden. After 
making all reasonable allowance for the over¬ 
estimation of novelties, 1 have the impres¬ 
sion that the Waterloo will, very probably, 
take a prominent place as an amateur, aud 
possibly even as a market peach. T. T. Lyon. 
-- 
The Japuu Uuliico. 
Allow me to add to your commeudationo 
the fruit of Cydonia Japonica in the Rural of 
August 7, that it is not only very palatable 
when cooked, either separately or to add 
flavor to other fruits, but that it cooks very 
qtihOkly, and that it does not even require to be 
pared, since tbe skin breaks down in cooking 
as readily as the flesh. Iu fact, to my appre¬ 
hension, it is iu all respects as desirable for 
this purpose as our common quince with the 
single exception of its lack ol productiveness. 
Iu this particular there seems to be a remark¬ 
able difference betweeu varieties, aud even be¬ 
tween plants of tbe same variety—a circum¬ 
stance that may warrant the hope that its 
productiveness may be improved by reproduc¬ 
tion with this object in view, very possibly 
without in auy respect diminishing its attrac¬ 
tiveness as an ornamental plant. I regard 
this as a promising field for experiment, aud 
the more so because this plant is so eminently 
hardy, aud so entirely free from the various 
casualties to which our common quince is so 
generally subject. t. t. l. 
Diiupri), 
Specimen Grape*. 
We have received from Mr. John Burr, of 
Leavenworth, Kansas, some specimen bunches 
of fine grapes. Of them he says: “ No. 1 
is a Btuall buuch of a very early grape ; it was 
ripe July 20 ; but is now so shriveled as to be 
nearly worthless, except as showing excep¬ 
tional earliness. No. 2 is not quite ripe- 
