THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JAN 26 
50 
£()* |)onlli:i) JflriJ- 
WHICH IS THE BEST FOWL? 
It is easy to ask a question, but it may not be 
*o easy to answer it. For instance, one may 
ask which is the best fowl to keep. But if the 
inquirer will cast his eye over our first page 
illustration he will have some faint idea of 
how little he can expect a satisfactory answer 
to his question. Here are a large number of 
breeds and varieties, but by no means all that 
are kept, and an owner of any one of them 
would say with the greatest confidence. “The 
kind I keep is the best of all.” There are books 
of 500 pages written to describe all the good 
points of these fowls, and not one kind has a 
bad w ord cast up against it. To begin with 
the lowest rank (in the picture), we have the 
White Cochins, large, handsome, clean 
birds and good layers. The next are the Dark 
Brahmas, just about as good; the Buff Coch¬ 
ins and the Partridge Cochins are last on the 
row _ we must not say “rank’' again or there 
might be a row'—and these are fine birds, with 
fine feathers too. Just above the last is the 
Plymouth Rock, staudiug alone with his hen 
at the other end of the row, the second one; 
and next to the Plymouth Rock is the beauti¬ 
ful and popular Light Brahma. Next to these 
are the China Geese, with their coarse “honk,” 
good substitutes for watch dogs; and above 
them the popular but not very profitable 
Pekin Ducks, pure white, large and “eggy, ’ 
but ravenous enough to “eat their heads off. 
Then comes the Bronze Turkey, which, as the 
great Thanksgiving roast, has more to do with 
the thankfulness sometimes than "the day we 
celebrate.” Then come the Guinea fowls, 
the “saw-filers” which “harrow up the bouI” 
with their horrid squawk. Then comes the 
gallant Golden-spangled Hamburg, a fowl 
that has many friends and never deceived 
“ary one,” 
The next row brings us to the Black Ham- 
burgs, beautiful birds to the fancier, and 
above them are the Brown Leghorns which 
have the reputation of producing more 
eggs than any other kind of fowl, and 
have kept at work until 10 years old and then 
died laying, and not lying. Next to them are 
the Black Spanish, with their broad, white 
cheeks. These were the pride and pleasure of 
our boyhood, when our little flock of seven 
hens used often to fill a large dish with four 
dozen of large white eggs in a week, for 
which “a dollar of our daddies” was the regu¬ 
lar reward, Then, to go back, we fiud the 
“peart and chipper and sassy” little Silver 
Sebright Bantam, with a soul too large for its 
little body, and so it overflows with pluck 
and fight. The Duck-wing Game stands next, 
and next the Black Game, made like an ath¬ 
lete and gladiator, as he is. Going along, we 
see the Goidan Sebright BaDtarns, perhaps the 
moBt beautiful of all these little fowls in 
feather and torm; and then the Golden Polish. 
Above these are the Silver-epangled Ham- 
burgs, and next the White and the Golden- 
penciled Hamburgs, all good birds for those 
who like “neat but not gaudy” and useful 
fowls, which lay good eggs in very fair quan¬ 
tity. Then there are more Polish, with their 
great hoods, and of these kinds we have the 
Silver, the White, the White-crested Black 
and the Bearded Golden and Silver. These 
are all desirable fowls, and especially quaint 
when in their babyhood—and “ baby-hoods ” 
too—dreeeed like the old ones, like a very little 
baby girl in her grandmother’s great turban. 
Over these Poles are the White Leghorns, most 
prolific layers, and tough as horns to eat; and 
the Houdans, with their hoods, and fleroe- 
looking as the French grenadier with his 
shaggy shako of bear’s skin. Along the top 
are tne slender Games, and to the right the 
horned and bearded Crfeve-Cceurs. large, 
black fowls, very popular in France, but little 
known here, and said to lay eggs of question¬ 
able flavor. Above tbese are the Sultans, 
said to be favorites in the Sultan’s harem in 
Turkey; and in the extreme corner are the 
Silver-penciled Hamburgs, and under them 
the American Dominiques, a kind that uo one 
would regret keeping, early Winter layers, 
good mothers, quiet, docile fowls, but having 
“ agile heels.” 
And now, after going through the whole 
list, if one should ask which is the best fowl, 
we say, candidly, we cannot tell; “you pay 
your money and you take your choice, and 
if you treat your fowls well they will do just 
as well by you. And out of the list we can 
have fine feathers, beautiful forms and figures, 
good and pleutifnl eggs, tender, sweet and 
juicy chickens, and plump and savory fowls. 
But if one will do his duty, he may succeed 
with anyone of all these if he will only know 
his own mind. If he wants large chickens, he 
must have large fowls, and the same is the 
case if he want* to keep them inside of a low 
fence. If he wants eggs, he should keep the 
smaller fowls, the Leghorns, the Spanish, the 
Hamburgs, Polish or Games. If he wants the 
choicest eating of flesh and eggs, the Games 
will supply it; and if he wants to please the 
children, he will keep the natty little Ban 
tarns. But whatever kind of fowls he keeps 
he will have no luck at all unless he provides 
comfortable, dry, clean quarters; provide® 
good food and pure water, aud treats them 
kindly, and either gives them a large yard 
that cau be plowed up occasionally, or per¬ 
mits them to range abroad in a grass field or 
on a grain stubble. 
farm Ccanotm). 
DISTRIBUTION OF FAT IN THE BODIES 
OF ANIMALS—V. 
PROFESSOR F. H. STORER. 
The opinions of one practical farmer, living 
in the vicinity of Boston, with whom I have 
conversed, may be summed up as follows: 
rhe marbling of meat depends largely on the 
breed of the animal; but the kind of food 
given has likewise a great influence. Some 
foods tend to make marbled meat from the 
first, while others, like Indian-meal, for ex¬ 
ample, do not at all. Grass and turnips will 
give marbled beef where Indian corn would 
give hard kidney fat. Something may de¬ 
pend too on slowness in the process of fatten¬ 
ing. He once fattened a cow slowly on pump¬ 
kins, and her beef was super-excellent—juicy 
aud marbled. When fed to hogs Indian corn 
gives hard fat and very dry, lean meat, while 
house swill gives a juicier meat aud meat that 
is i>etter interspersed with fat than the meat 
which was corn-fed. Turnips also give good 
bog flesh. According to English observation, 
which I take at second hand from a German 
journal, Yorkshire bops, fed from tne first 
chiefly on milk, or milk products, gave the 
best and the tenderest flesh, and were finished 
off in a comparatively Bbort time. Next in 
order were hogs of the same breed, fed on 
barley. Their fie^h was fine-grained and of 
excellent flavor. Hogs fed on a mixture of 
oats and peas yielded good flesh of rather 
coarse grain and good firm bacon. Those fed 
exclusively on Indian corn had soft flesh and 
fat, though they acqaired a great, weight in 
the process of fattening. Those fed exclu¬ 
sively with potatoes hail a light, spongy, taste¬ 
less flesh that shrank very much on lsoiling. 
Those fed chiefly on lied l lover had a peculiar 
yellow, insipid flesh. Some hogs that were 
fed heavily on oil cake and linseed, tog'ther 
with cracked barley, gave a loose, greasy flesh 
that had a strong, unpleasant flavor. Hogs 
fed on beans alone gave a firm flesh that was 
difficult of digestion and of not specially 
agreeable flavor. 
It may here be said that the hog is in some 
respects perhaps better suited than either oxen 
or sheep for studying the influence of food on 
the production of marbled meat. As Lawes and 
Gilbert have shown, the proportion of ali 
mentary organs in a given amount of live 
weight of hogs is much smaller than it is in a 
similar weight of neat cattle or sheep. One 
consequence of this fact is that the hog, with 
bis comparatively small alimentary organs, 
carries a much smaller proportion of the in¬ 
ternal “loose fat” which surrounds these 
organs than o:«*i and sheep do. While oxen 
gave Lawes and Gilbert, on the average, four- 
aud-a-half per cent, of the internal loose fat, 
with its connecting membrane, and sheep 
seven-and-three-quarters per cent., the hogs 
studied by them had little more than one aud- 
a-half per ceut. Moreover, the food com¬ 
monly given to hogs is much more concen¬ 
trated than that given to ruminating animals. 
The hog actually consumes more uutritive 
matter in a given time; the construction of 
his digestive organs is such that he cau better 
bear to be fed with rich foods, whether albu 
minous or carbobydrated, and as a natural 
consequence he increases rapidly in live 
weight, so that there is much better oppor¬ 
tunity to observe the results of different 
modes of feeding than is usually the case with 
oxeu aud sheep. Multitudes of hogs have 
been fattened at one time and another on 
peas, for example, on the one hand, as they 
have been on Indian corn or rice upon the 
other, and it is by the accurate comparison of 
many samples of pork obtained from foods so 
conspicuously different as these taken, 
withal, from animals of various ages and de¬ 
grees of fatness—that we may hope to gain 
sound information as to the manner in which 
flesh becomes marbled. The hog differs again 
markedly from other agricultural anim Is in 
that he carries a thick layer of fat under the 
skin which is, so to say, distinct and not ad¬ 
mixed with the flesh. This external hog fat 
is rather soft, withal, as compared with the 
much firmer fat of the ruminating animals. 
Sometimes it is actually oily. 
The facts that so L.rge an amount of outside 
fat is stored up by hogs, and that these ani¬ 
mals prosper bettor thau others upon concen¬ 
trated earbohydrated foods, accord well with 
the idea that much of this kind of fat is 
probably derived from carbohydrates rather 
than from albuminoids. Aud so, conversely, 
we may readily believe that the albuminoids 
are specially important for the production of 
marbling fat, as they are known to be for tne 
production of milk. The enormously fat 
“bacon hogs” obtained in Hungary and New 
Jersey by the use of Indian corn, well illus¬ 
trate the special significance of earbohydrated 
food; and 1 would here recall the vigorous 
protest by Mr. 13. F. Johnson, of Illinois, in 
the Rural New-Yorker of November 12, 
1881 , against the too exclusive use of Indian 
corn for feeding hogs Mr. Johnson has no 
hesitancy in insisting that, when fed to hogs, 
Indian corn produces butcher's meat of an 
inferior quality compared with that made 
from more nitrogeneous foods. He argues 
justly enough that if the sole object of feed¬ 
ing swine were to produce the greatest 
amount of lard, and if bouc, nerve, muscle 
and flesh were of small account, then an all¬ 
corn diet might he a proper one; for. ns he 
says, a very l’at corn-fed hog is little more 
than a ball of lard and grease. But if sweet 
and juicy lean flesh is wanted, aud lat meat 
which will not shrink away to a rag in the 
pot or fry to a mere scrap in the pan, then 
something beside corn must be provided, aud 
that something must be more or less nitro¬ 
genous food. like peas, barley, oats, milk, or 
products from milk, aud last, but not least, 
auimul food. He goes on to say that the best 
pork, the sweetest, juciest and teuderest, is 
often made iu a slaughter-house yard, where 
in addition to unlimited corn, the swine have 
equal opportunity to satisfy their craving for 
animal food. The uext beat pork, he holds, 
is made on grass and unlimited sour milk and 
buttermilk. Hogs running at large and 
eating mast, also make remarkably sweet and 
juicy lean meat, but the fat is very oily, aud 
when dry-cured becomes nearly transparent, 
aud when aged rancid. 
A good deal of evidence beside that pre¬ 
viously offered might be cited iu support of 
the idea that the fat formed from carbohy¬ 
drates. as well as that which has lieeu eaten 
as such, tends to come to rest in the adipose 
tissue, cither around the internal organs or 
under the skin. The ordinary experience of 
feeders that tangible fat may be laid <m heav¬ 
ily by means of Indian corn, iu the sense just 
now deprecated by Mr. Jobnsou, is a case in 
point. Mr. Lawes insisted, long ago. that the 
maturing or ripening of hogs in the fattening 
process depends largely on the presence in the 
food of an abundance of easily digestible, uou- 
nitrogenous constituents, and' Heuneberg. 
starting with a number of wethers that were 
fairly fattened and feeding some on a ration 
comparatively rich in carbohydrates, while 
others got a more albuminous food, found 
that the animals that got the carbohydrates 
were soon finished off aud came almost to a 
standstill as regards any increase ot weight, 
while the others continued to gain slowly and 
to store up small quantities of fat during a 
period of uearly two months longer. Now it 
is known from the experience of European 
feeders, that sometimes while a fatting ani¬ 
mal is actually gaining little or nothing as re¬ 
gards its Hve weight, the quality of its flesh 
undergoes distinct improvement in that fat is 
deposited therein, while the proportion of 
water in the meat is diminished, in a corre¬ 
sponding degree. 
A point worthy of being studied in this con¬ 
nection Is the relatiou of the quality of the fat 
to the kind of food that has produced it. Sev¬ 
eral instances of the influence of food on the 
quality of the fat have already been cited. 
They are for the most part of the same order 
as the following citation from Rarkeek: 
“Neither the fat nor the muscle of potato fed 
pigs can be compared to the pork of pigs fed 
on grain and peas,—the fat having a tallowy 
appearance, and both fat and muscle shrink 
iug for want of firmness when boiled.” Muntz 
has recently shown by experiments on the 
fusing points of fatty acids obtained from ani¬ 
mals of different degrees of ripeness that, “in 
accordance with popular belief,” as he says, 
“the fatter the animals were, so much the 
softer w as their fat.” He states as a fact that 
the tallow of very fat animals is held to be 
worth less money’ in France, than that from 
leauer animals. Careful experiments, such as 
these, must of course be accepted as true as 
against other evidence of* manifestly inferior 
merit, but it would have been well perhaps to 
inquire into the meaning of the old German 
notion that unthrifty oxen and those that have 
not been fattened uniformly are apt to yield a 
softer tallow than animals that have been fat¬ 
tened equably aud abundantly. Possibly this 
idea may have been originally derived from 
the examination of the tallow of animals that 
bad failed to become fat because they were 
ailing or diseased. 
Liural (Topics. 
Experiment (Smtnrts of the $ural 
itfw-Uotfeet. 
TESTS of new varieties of potatoes con¬ 
tinued. 
Blush. Test 88 e.—The following test was 
made on light, poor, sandy soil; The pieces 
were cut as usual to two eyes each aud placed 
in drills four inches deep, one foot a part—the 
drills three feet apart They were first lightly 
covered with soil upon which potato fertilizer 
was strewn. This was covered with soil, and 
another spreud of the fertilizer given. Then 
another spread of soil and fertilizer, until the 
trench or drill was filled. The fertilizer thus 
sowu altogether amounted to 1,200 pounds to 
the acre. The yield was 01 bushels to the 
acre. There were of large aud small potatoes, 
PI,880 to the acre—a small average. 
Crawford’s Early. Test Site.—This was 
tested beside the Blush, with a single applica¬ 
tion of the same potato chemical fert ilizer, at 
the rate of GOO pounds to the acre. The yield 
was at the rate of 388.17 bushels to the acre. 
Of large aud small there were 142,025 to the 
acre. Eaten Sept. 5 aud Nov. 25, they were 
judged to bo dry and mealy. The flesh is 
w hite. The shape is not. uniform. 
Pride of the West. Test W)r.—'This, as 
well as Crawford’s Early, was sent to us by 
Cole& Bro., of Pella, la. It was treated the 
same as Test 8»r, and. like it, cultivated flat. 
The yield was 382 30 bushels to the acre Of 
large and small there were at the rate of 
125,000 to the acre. It was eateu Oct 5, aud 
thought to be quite flaky outside, but rather 
solid within. Eaten Dec. 18, it was dry and 
mealy. The flesh is white 
heavy soil tests. 
Pride of the West. —This was tested in a 
soil inclining to clay which rarely suffers from 
drought. They were planted and treated in 
every way the same as iu Test IlOr., the same 
quantity of Mapes’s Potato Fertilizer being 
strewn over the seed pieces which bad fiist 
been lightly covertd with soil, ’lbe yield was 
at the rate of 700.40 bushels per acre. The 
best five weighed four pounds six ounces. Of 
lartre aud small there were at the rate of 157.- 
520 to the acre or 10 6-7 to a hill. Several 
hills were filled with many small potatoes 
which greatly increased the no ml er to the 
acre, while reducing the average size which 
would otherwise have been very large. It is 
an Intermediate potato of a light buff skin of 
a round, somewhat flattened shape. There are 
few eyes which are not deep. .411 this is w ell 
shown in our two Illustrations lFig*. 31 aud 
32) of the same potato by different artists. 
Eaten October 28 the flesh was not particu¬ 
larly dry or mealy. As a rule we note that 
potatoes vary in dryness and mealiness ac¬ 
cording to whether they are raised in light or 
retentive soil. 
Crawford’s Early, Test 046.— Conditions 
as above. The yield was 428.50 bushels to the 
acre. Best live weighed two pounds 15 ounces. 
Large and small 103,714 to the acre, or 7 % to 
the bill. It is an early potato of the general 
appearance of Early Rose. 
tomatoes. 
The Cardinal. —This rvas sent to us by the 
firm of W. Atlee Burpee & Co., of Philadel¬ 
phia, I J a. The young plants were set iu very 
rich garden soil, aud made so great a grow th 
that few fruit se‘ in the early part of the sea 
sou. The stems and leaves formed a perfect 
entanglement so that we were at length 
obliged to cut the vines back so as to admit 
the sun and air. Late in the season fruit 
formtxrtn great quantities, but it was then too 
late for them to ripen. We ment ion this lailure 
to show our readers that rich soil is not tavoi - 
able to fruit or early maturity. Our largest 
crop of tomatoes the past season was grown on 
light, poor soil, on w hich 300 pounds of chem¬ 
ical fertilizer had been sown. 
Sibley’s “ Rochester,” also a new tomato 
from D M. Ferry (not namedi, Hereford's 
cross between Acme aud Trophy, a “wild” 
tomato from D. W. Bbirely of Ohio, were all 
carefully grown and observed during the 
season, but we saw no improvement in tin ui 
over older kinds 
For seven or eight years past we have en¬ 
deavored to save seeds from those tomatoes 
which, when plucked from the vine ripe, 
would keep the longest in a sound condition. 
From such selections we have a strain, a 
specimen of which is accurately shown id the 
engraving, Fig. 88, page 53. It averages lai ge 
size, is generally free from prominent seams 
or lobes, and the skin aud flesh beneath are un¬ 
usually s’olul. 
