5 
JAN S 
THE RURAL NEW- 
is the most impure air iu the apartment. 
Again, placing the perches high admits of the 
use of inclined tables or shelves beneath them 
to facilitate the cleaning of them from the out¬ 
side, a very considerable advantage both to 
the fowls and to their keepers. It also saves 
floor room. 
£l)e i)erDsmarc. 
PEDIGREES AND REGISTRY. 
! 
A pedigree is of no value unless it is regis¬ 
tered in the books kept by the constituted 
authority for such registration, according to 
the breed. Why? Because investigation into the 
correctness of the pedigree gives it the stamp 
of proper authority; the authority to which all 
must go to establish identity. In the earlier 
ry of pedigrees they were necessarily 
made by individuals of established reputa¬ 
tion as breeders, and for their own benefit. 
Gradually associated books were kept, then 
National registries. It is ouly within the 
last two years that the dual consummation 
was made by which all the Short-horn Herd- 
books and Records were consolidated into one 
under the ausi aces of the American Short-horn 
Association, now the sole authority for the 
publication of Short-born registry tn Ameri¬ 
ca. Other associations, each for particular 
breeds of animals, 
exist, so that the 
necessity for dis¬ 
tinct registry uo 
longer exists. 
The value of ped- 
jgreo consists sole¬ 
ly in the ability to 
trace the progeni¬ 
tors of au animal 
in certain well de¬ 
fined lines for a 
longer or shorter 
period of time, or 
to the first authen¬ 
tic formation of a 
breed, or to some 
real and well es¬ 
tablished valuable 
animals. In the 
case of Devons and 
other fine breeds 
there should have 
been no departure 
by crosses of or 
through o t h e r 
breeds. In the ease 
of thoroughbreds) 
the original foun¬ 
dation crosses 
must be adhered 
to. This adherence gives prepotency in 
sires and dams, from a well known 
law in heredity, intensifying the character¬ 
istics of progeuy, and this in proportion to 
the length of time since the establishment of 
a breed. Hence the well known prepotency 
of Devon sires, and of Hereford sires upon 
their progeny, the Herefords. and especially 
the Devons, having long been known in Eng¬ 
land us distinct breeds. The Berkshires 
among swine may also be cited, and. as show¬ 
ing the comparatively sbox-t time—only about 
50 years—since when they were distinct iu 
many respects, especially that of color, from 
what they are to-day. The reason for this 
rapid improvement iu swine is principally 
that they breed twice a year, and there are 
many animals to select from out of each litter. 
To come now to the value or pedigrees. A 
pedigree does not necessarily make an animal 
excellent. A pedigreed animal may be essen¬ 
tially inferior. Too close inbreeding may give 
delicacy of constitution, including weuklnugs 
and liability to disease. If a pedigree com¬ 
mences with an animal, excellent generally, 
and runs back through lines so distinguished 
for many generations, it is a good one, and it 
is bad just, iu proportion to the weak point 
clustered in the ancestry. Hence the breeder 
of thoroughbreds, or of pure breeds, must 
have studied these points critically and thor¬ 
oughly, to insure accuracy of judgment . 
The mistake the average purchaser makes 
is iu accepting au animal with a long pedigree 
or with fashionable top crosses as most excel¬ 
lent. In the case of beef cattle, for instance, 
it is the record the steers make on the butch¬ 
er’s block, as well as feeding qualities aud 
early maturity that constitutes excellence. 
In dairy cattle the milk, butter, aud cheese 
produced for the food consumed are the essen 
tials. Swine must be excellent iu ham aud 
bacon products. Sheep must bo prolific in 
wool or mutton, or both, and of the precise 
quality in either case desired. The ancestors 
of horses must be noted for swift running, 
trotting, pacing, stoutness on the road, or the 
power to stand a loug dead pull without dis¬ 
tress, as the ease may be. The line of descent to | 
1 
the stock of some particular breeder counts 
but for little, in itself, comparatively, with 
the practical man. and may safely he left to 
the few aristocratic sticklers who are willing 
to sacrifice all else so their animals may be 
purr Booth or Bates, or animal; of any other 
celebrated breeder of auyanimalsof the long 
ago. In this light the registry of performances 
of horses on the turf, the road, and the draft 
ring; the milk and butter records of cows; the 
killing capacity of beef cattle; the mutton 
and wool of sheep; the hams, bacon and 
other valuable parts of swine; these will count 
more witii the practical maxi than the name 
of any breeder however many generations 
ago he may have lived; or the fashionable 
“ top crosses” of some sticklers for style in 
stock solely intended (or their products) fox- 
human consumption. Fortunately the regis¬ 
try of late years of performances is already 
beginning to simplify these investigations 
fox-the practical man, who has not made the 
intricate study of pedigrees a fine art. The 
record of pex-formances may well be extended 
in the case of sheep, swine and beef cattle. 
Chicago, Ill. JONATHAN PERIAM. 
•JttisccILancoiis. 
ITEMS OF PORTUGUESE HUSBANDRY. 
From accounts published by Mr. C’rawfurd, 
years, the result being that so much manure is 
obtained, even on small fai*ms, that the amount 
of it sti*ikes a foreign observer with something 
akin to amazement. The predominant plant 
in this litter is gox-se, which together with 
heather, aud various other plants, is cut or 
rather scraped up with a broad hoe so that 
moss, creeping plants, pine-needles, the 
ci-owns and x-oot-stocks of ferns and wild 
grasses all find their way together to the farm¬ 
yard. 
Perhaps the most curious fact of all is that 
the Pox-tugnese farm-hands, like those ofYan- 
kee-land in days not long since past, habit¬ 
ually eat “rye aud Indian-bread;” and an 
abundance of salt cod-fish, also Not only do 
the Portuguese, like other Southern nations, 
cook the salt fish in oil, but veritable '“ fish- 
balls" are esteemed a delicacy: and so are 
shreds of raw salt fish—the “Cape Cod 
Turkey" of our ancestors. Accox-ding to Mr- 
Crawfurd, the bread-food universally eaten 
by field laborers in Pox-tugal is hroa , “a 
strong, wholesome, and not unpalatable bread 
composed of maize and rye.” He dwells on 
the manifest advantage, for poor people, of 
using a “double broad food,” composed of 
two different cereal grains, for since the pro¬ 
portion of maize and of rye can be altered 
almost ad libitum, without much change in 
the quality or appearance of the loaf, the la¬ 
borer is insured against such famines as occur 
in India and in Ii-eland whenever rice or 
Mayflower Potato, from nature. Fig. 17. See page 2. 
English Consul at Oporto, it appeax-s that 
there are several curious pax-allels between 
the farming practices of Pox-tugal, of all 
places in the world.and those of this country. 
The introduction of the cultivation of Indian 
corn, iu particular, which was bi-ought from 
America in the middle of the Sixteenth cen¬ 
tury, was a great gain for the farmers both 
of Pox-tugal aud Spain, and it has had a very 
marked influence on the agriculture cf these 
countries; an influence comparable, for ex¬ 
ample. to that exerted by the introduction of 
clover to Germany, of the potato to Ireland, 
or of turnips to some parts of England. The 
growing of Indian corn is, indeed, the chief 
feature of the agriculture of the lowland dis¬ 
tricts of Portugal. All other crops are made 
subservient to it. It is gx*owu year after year 
upon well-mauux-ed and irrigated land, and 
the whole system of farming turns on the 
grain and fodder produced oy the corn crop. 
Pumpkins, also, aud beaus, which, like maize, 
come originally fx-om America, are grown 
with the corn, and they play Very utueh the 
same partin the Portuguese farming as they 
do in our own. The Portuguese system of ir¬ 
rigating Indian corn seems to be well worthy 
of being imitated iu this country, at least iu 
certain cases. They have, also, an interesting 
practice, applicable in their warm climate, of 
growing among the corn, a great six-feot- 
tall, fodder cabbage, which is planted in rows 
12 or 15 feet apart. In the heat t>f Summer, 
wbeu shaded by the growing corn, the cab¬ 
bage plants make little progress, but when 
the corn has been harvested and the field 
manui-edaud plowed, the cabbages grow rap 
idly aud afford a large supply of leaves which 
are picked off week after w-eek for a long 
period, for feeding cows, pigs aud sheep. 
As a means of procuring manure, much use 
is made of litter raked and scraped from 
woodland and waste places. Indeed, the 
practice of wood raking seems to be carried 
out moi-e systematically in Portugal than in 
any other couuti-y. Most farms have attached 
to them a strip of forest or wild land often a 
mile or two distaut from the fai-m yai-d, from 
which the littei- is cut lvgulaidy evei-y three 
potatoes fail. In Pox-tugal as in New- England 
formerly, it happens that the rye and corn 
crops usually supplement one another. A cold 
Summer unfit for corn mav suit the rye crop 
very well, while hot dry yeax-s are favorable 
for the low-lying, irrigated corn fields. When 
coi n is scarce and high, less of it can be used 
in the loaf, and vice versa; and, in point of 
fact, this adjustment of the proportions of the 
two grains takes place uearly every year. In 
the corn-growing, lowland districts the usual 
proportions are eight parts of Indian meal to 
oue of rve, while iu the rye lands among the 
mountains these proportions are almost re- 
vex-sed. It is not a little remarkable to find a 
diet such as this iu a country where the olive 
thrives, and the orange, aud the fig tree, and 
theloquat, and the camellia, and where “the 
gum tx-ees of Australia have positively altered 
the aspect of the more inhabited parts of the 
Country within the last tw enty years." 
THREADS RE WO YEN. 
It w-as a little singular that a gx-ape seed 
should pi-ove fatal to a human being just the 
week following Dr. Hoskins’s depreciation (p. 
770) of the physician's admonition about swal¬ 
lowing gx-ape seeds, (p. 6761. The fact remains 
that there is a depression at a rwdimentax-y 
appeudix of the lax-ge intestine, into which 
seeds sometimes fall, causing fatal inflamma¬ 
tion. Such accidents must be classed among 
the rai-est happening to man. All people, as 
a rule, swallow the seeds, though some have a 
habit of chewing aud crushing them. It seems 
reasonable that the danger may be reduced 
by swallowing the skins too, which is, more¬ 
over, the right course, if w-e wish to avoid 
any extra laxative effect from constantly eat¬ 
ing grapes. Delawares, Isabellas, Iouas, Adi- 
rondacs, aud Prentiss, may be swallowed, but 
Concords and Rogers’s Hybrids cannot be dis¬ 
posed of so well in that way. 
Some efficacious and practical way of catch 
tug or destroying the apple worm moth is vex-; 
much desired; but all devices whose efficac; 
depeuded on lamps or toi-ches have alway 
proved futile. With iegai-d to Mr. Hill’s de 
vice mentioned on page 688, though it des¬ 
troyed great numbers of niglxt flies, it is not 
too much to assert that not a single apple 
moth came to the flames. A member at a re¬ 
cent fruit-growers’ meeting asserted with great 
confidence that he had caught many Codling 
Moths in a pail of water hung in an orchard 
under a lamp. He had also used torches, and 
obtained fair fruit, free from worms, in the 
vicinity of lamps. His description of the moth 
betokened some mistake, and on being shown 
specimens of Codling Moths, he acknowledged 
he had not caught any like them. It is a 
fact that not over five per cent, of orehardists 
are able to identify the moth, nor have they 
even seen one. Codling Moths ai-e able to steer 
clear of even the electric light, and there is no 
reason to believe that lamps and torches pro¬ 
tect orchards from their incursions—driving 
them away. 
“Elm,” on page 745of the Rural, x-ightly 
states there is evidence enough showing that 
many of our named varieties of tomatoes and 
potatoes are identical with each other, and he 
asks how many varieties could the exhibitor 
of 300 varieties of potatoes at the State Fair 
restore, after the whole lot had been mixed. 
There w-as an exhibitor at the New York 
State Fair several years ago, who, as well as 
his son, was able to, and did x-estore a collec¬ 
tion of 120 potatoes after they had been mixed. 
Among potatoes there ai - e twenty nr more 
cleai-ly marked classes of varieties; but numer¬ 
ous varieties of each class are so closely alike 
in appearance, though not always in foliage 
and growth, that a specialist is required to 
identify them. 
Nurserymen acquire a surprising knowl¬ 
edge of apparently undiscernible diffex-ences 
in appearances of fruit trees. It is said Mr. 
Wm. Smith, of Geneva, N. Y., when person¬ 
ally filling an order for a customer, never 
consulted the labels or stakes among the nu¬ 
merous varieties of peaches, pears and apples 
in the rows of his extensive nurseries. And in 
grape-vines my own experience leads me to 
believe an extensive expert grower of varieties 
could easily recognize at least 100 kinds, on 
sight, at the most allowing him a sight of the 
foliage, that is, the growing vines in June. 
The Hands Farm Truck can be converted 
into an excellent hand post pullei-—a lever on 
wheels. Back the truck neai-ly up to the 
post, and then tip it up so that the pole is in a 
vertical position, with the top of the standard 
toxichiug the ground at the foot of the post, 
where a little cable chain is fastened tightly 
around and to the top hole of the standard by 
a small clevis. By bearing down on the lever 
(pole) the post will be easily raised out of the 
ground. Sometimes two adjustments are re- 
quix-ed. In removing 30 rods of picket fence, 
I extracted the posts in a remarkably short 
time with this truck. Wet weather is the time 
to take up poets. The Farm Truck is an ex¬ 
cellent thing by means of which to attach a 
team to a stone boat, especially when there is 
snow on the ground. But for attaching on to 
a plow or hai-row. it becomes little more than 
a farm toy. w. l. devereaux. 
THE EYE-OPENER. 
The Royal New Brunswick Distribution 
of Cash Gifts, St. Stephens, N. B., Canada, 
offex-s such liberal terms to gx-eenhox-ns that 
many of them are pretty sui-e to be swindled. 
We have received specimens of its circulars 
from three Canadian Provinces and fx-om five 
States and one Territory ou this side of the 
line. Some of the cix-culars are yellow, othex-s 
white, some relate to drawings already over, 
others to drawings yet to take place, so that it 
is very evident the concern has been a liberal 
patron of the Canadian and United States 
mails for some time—ever since 1876 it says 
itself Among other things this shows that 
there must be on both sides of the line a great 
number of gulls whose money has supported 
the swiudle for so loug a time. The latest of 
the circulars received tells of a “distribution" 
of px-izes to take place on January 15, when 
an offer of $128,500 ‘‘in cash gifts” will be the 
bait. Tickets 50 cents each halves) will give 
a chance of winning $50,000, while “evei-y 
packuge of ten tickets is sure to win one 
prize, which umy be the Capital, and may win 
ten.” Of course the thing is a barefaced 
swindle; and that it has been black-listed as 
such by the Post-Office is shown by the warn¬ 
ing in the circulars, “Do not send P. O. Order 
nor Registei-ed letter.” 
“Dear Friend-.— Your name having been 
given to us as that of a reliable person * * * 
whose word would be believed if they (sic) 
recommended an ax-ticle, we desire to make 
you a special offer regarding" our gudgeon 
bait, is the affectionate way in which the Gal¬ 
vanic Girdle Company of this city opens its 
correspondence with those whose patronage 
it seeks. The “bait” is worth five dollars; 
