FES S 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
very little in form and appearance from those 
bred anywhere in the best parts of the coun¬ 
try. This animal is one of a herd kept on a 
farm which is worth as a usual value of val¬ 
ley land in the locality, over $500 an acre, 
and where the adjoiningmounta in pastures sell 
for about half this price. It is evideut that 
the owner of a farm of t his kind must neces¬ 
sarily have the best, cows that, can possibly be 
procured And this may l>e taken as the gen¬ 
eral character of this breed of cows. 
These cows, which go uuder the general 
term of Sehwitz, have beeu carefully bred 
for 00 or 70 years, until a marked character¬ 
istic type has been produced. This is an 
animal of rather solid, heavy build; hardy 
and aetive to suit its valley and mountain 
home; gentle, docile and kind from its thor¬ 
ough domestication and close personal contact 
with itsowners and attendants; a large milker, 
and yielding rich milk suitable to the manu¬ 
facture of choice butter and cheese, as well as 
of condeused milk for export; with light bone 
covered with the bed of meat, and iu such 
quantity as to make it a desirable animal for 
the butcher, as well as a capacity for produc¬ 
ing the best of working cattle. The general 
figure is somewhat coarse but well formed, 
and showing an excellent adaptation for the 
dairy by its well-developed udder aud teats. 
Perhaps there are no better general purpose 
cows than these. The color is red, red and 
white, aud sometimes pale red. verging into 
orange aud yellow. A very common yield of 
milk is: 10quarts and over. It is ou the whole 
a cow that is well adapted to rough pastures 
and mountain meadows, and when our moun¬ 
tain districts, as that of the Blue Ridge, espe¬ 
cially iu the southern portions, are brought 
into use for the purposes of the dairy, for 
which they are admirably designed, this breed 
will find a place for which it is specially fitted. 
NOTES BY A STOCKMAN. 
“Good wine needs no bush,' is an old adage 
which may be applied just at present to live 
stock, as good animals need no boom. It is 
very certain that booms are built up upon 
questionable foundations. Lies are told by 
the score; “ways that are dark and tricks 
that are vaincheats and deceits of all pos¬ 
sible kinds are used to advance prices and cre¬ 
ate enthusiasm by which the public are in¬ 
duced to pay exorbitant prices for animals. 
It is not enough that we have good animals. 
As soon as oue kind is boomed successfully 
and the boomers have pocketed their gains, 
another is trotted out and the process of 
booming' this is gone through. Some “wash 
sales, that is, sales in which the real elements 
of buving aud selling are wanting are made, 
and the fact is spread far and wide. Perhaps 
there are really few victims, because those in 
the boom business usually deal with each 
other, or with people who practise precisely 
the same tricks; but few farmers are caught, 
and so perhaps there is but little harm done. 
~ Au effort is now making to bring into noto¬ 
riety the miserable little cattle which find 
their homes in the Florida savannahs, under 
the uame of Guinea cattle. These are really 
a very poor race of animals, and. like all such, 
when a cow is found to milk a little more than 
the average, the milk is exceedingly rich. A 
Southern paper recently had an account of 
this “new breed,” which was said to lie re¬ 
markable for the quantity of milk, cream and 
butter yielded by the cows, and of course 
without any food to amount to anything. A 
friend iu Florida who investigated the stock 
at tny request, says these cattle are merely the 
common uative Florida stock aud have no 
right to any other name. 
It is said that it is au old-fogytem to goon 
rearing three-year-old steers when a two-yeai - 
old can be made to weigh as much on half the 
food consumed bv the older animal. If, is also 
an old fogyism in these days to tell (he truth, 
aud the truth is that there is no gain iu this 
early feeding, because what is gained in time 
is made up by feed. I am glad to indorse 
Mr. A. B. Allen's remarks ou this point. No 
beef animal can be made mature at t wo years. 
I( is precisely what it is called, “baby beef 
soft, flabby, flavorless flesh, plastered over 
with fat. We may enlarge the growth of au 
animal, as we oau of a licet, or pumpkin, by 
excessive feeding, but it is done at. the expense 
of quality and also of profit. We have suit, 
watery stuff iu both cases. There is a way 
of making haste too fast.. 
Just now is a seasonable time to consider 
that a sheep cannot, produce wool without 
feed. The wool grows rapidly during the cold 
weather, being a provision of nature made up 
for the purpose of protecting the sheep against 
the cold. But its growth is arrested at once 
when the food is not sufficient. Food is used, 
first, to promote the animal heat, then to sup¬ 
ply the muscular waste: then to make fat. 
wool. etc. I f food is supplied iu quantity only 
sufficient to keep a sheep alive, the wool will 
not. grow and there Isa break iu the fiber. The 
fleece is uot only deficient in quantity but the 
quality is so inferior as to greatly reduce the 
value. 
There is a prevalent fashion for investiga¬ 
ting. especially as regards diseases of animals. 
Many years ago Prof. Garngee investigated 
Texan lever and pleuro-pneumoma; several 
years ago some native veterinary surgeons in¬ 
vestigated these diseases and others; aud 
every year since there have been investiga 
tioas aud investigations: but to what purpose' 
Nothing practical has come out. of it. The re¬ 
sult seems to be that these diseases cannot lie 
prevented because they are contagious; that 
there is no cure lor them; that they are pro¬ 
duced by bacteria in the blood; and that it is 
possible a system of inoculation may b? de 
vised that will keep them in check. But. still 
more investigation is promised. When is this 
investigation to he completed and something 
done to arrest, the diseases < 
But when auy ordinary non-professional 
man applies common sense to this subject of 
cattle diseases ami shows how they are pro¬ 
duced aud encouraged by bad sanitary systems, 
he is “sat down upon,” so to speak, very hard 
and heavy, aud told he knows uothing about 
it. And so the doctors go on investigating 
year after year while the animals keep on 
dying, waitiug for a cure for inclinable dis¬ 
eases which cannot, be prevented. 
DEVON BEEF THE BEST IN THE 
WORLD" AGAIN. 
I am very glad to have your highly intelli¬ 
gent aud fully credible and experienced con 
tributor, “B. F. J.,''of Illinois, liear me out 
in my strictures upon our present vicious 
manner of feeding beef cattle. It is an un¬ 
popular thing to do to object to a prevalent 
fashion, especially when it is a foreign one, 
but I am in no way thin-skinned as regards 
criticism and am not. afraid to speak my mind 
when 1 believe 1 am right, aud I rejoice to 
know that “B. F. J.” believes as I do, and 
will help to oppose this wasteful and injurious 
fashion— wasteful because it spoils good food, 
and injurious because it helps to advance in 
popularity breeds of animals whose chief ad¬ 
vantage is that they very easily take on au 
enormous quantity of useless fat and so create 
an undeserved prejudice against other meri¬ 
torious breeds of cuttle which make bettei 
and more profitable meat. 
An excellent idea may be gathered from the 
way of the French farmers with their dogs. 
They extract the fangs and the cutting teeth, 
those with w hicb the mischief is done, and so 
render the dogs harmless. Now there is no 
excuse. A man who loves his dog may love 
him all the more without his teeth. 
I have occasionally made some notes iu re 
gard to photographs of animals, and it may 
be useful to call attention to the portrait of 
the South Down rain on page S3. At first 
sight some objection might, be made to the 
pic ture as a portrait of a ram. But it. is very 
useful as a means of pointing out how photo¬ 
graphs arc to be studied. A photograph is a 
one-eyed view of anything. There is only one 
lease to the camera, and of course the view 
taken must appear precisely as it would to a 
person looking at it with only oue eye open. 
Now if the hand is bent to form a tube, or a 
piece of paper is rolled up to make a tube, 
and this animal is viewed through this with 
oue eye, the picture will appear wonderfully 
different. It will stand out quite solid and 
life-like, and the breadth of the massive body 
will he seen in a striking manner. As a mat¬ 
ter of course the head is exaggerated, as it is 
necessarily out of focus, but yet. it will appear 
(allowing for the change by the engraving, 
which is unavoidable) just as it really would 
when seen by one eye. The head turned a 
little, forces the thick fleece together and causes 
it to become more prominent than it would lie 
otherwise, and so seems to disfigure the face. 
Upon close study, and notiug these points, the 
picture is found to be very much more natu¬ 
ral than the ordinary drawings from life, 
which are very unlike a living animal. And 
the truth distorted a little ft better than a 
“falsehood out.ot whole cloth.” 
Every stockman or fanner who ever did. or 
does, or may feed an animal for market, 
should read, mark, learn and inwardly digest 
those painstaking and excellent articles upon 
distribution of fat in the bodies of animals, 
by Prof. Storer. The thorough manner in 
which Prof. Storer does all his work and the 
very clear way in which the gathered infor¬ 
mation is given, are very well exemplified iu 
these articles. I hope Prof. Storer will favor 
the readers of the Rural, before he concludes 
these articles, with whatever information he 
may have upon the d stribution of fat in the 
bodies of milking cows, especially in regard 
to the deposition ot the fat in the milk glands. 
This is a vexed question and an important 
one. 
No one has a higher estimation than myself 
of the excellent quality of Devon beet, for i 
have repeatedly had it on inv table. In addi 
tion, I have raised this sort <>t cattle on my 
own farm both for the shambles and the daii \, 
aud have beeu long familiar with their breed¬ 
ing on the farms of my friends. Never! Iieless. 
1 am not ime who believes that “ Devon beef 
is the best in the world :” and when 1 call 
upon “ Stockman" for pi >of as to his assertion 
of this being so, he lias nothing to otter, save 
his “ Opinion and belief. However good 
these may be, they carry neither weight nor 
Conviction to my mind; and I suspect they 
will not to those of the RdrajAs readers, for 
whom he professes so high a rega rd, and whom 
he is anxious to instruct. What we want are 
facts, like the following report of the beef of 
the grade Khort-horn aud Hereford steer, 
Roan Boy, which won the grand sweepstakes 
prize of $100 as the best animal of all in the 
late Chicago Fat-Stock Show, this show 
ranks second ouly to that held annually in 
London, England, just before Christmas. 
Here were butchers who gave their judg¬ 
ment as to the beef of Roan Boy, after 
slaughter, also the largest restaurant caterer of 
Chicago, aud the veteran carver of meats at 
his table for many years. The latter pro¬ 
nounced the beef as decidedly the finest, he 
had ever seen cut np; the best colored, juciest, 
and most tender ever cooked. The fatty parts 
when broiled were more like rich butter than 
tallow. The meat did not shrink like ordin¬ 
ary beef, the fatty parts uot melting out, but 
the whole piece retaining its form. The nutrb 
bag mix the most perfect," he emphatically 
adds, “ 1 ever saw.” The caterer, the butcher 
and the partakers of this beef, I understand 
fully agreed with the veteran carver in opin¬ 
ion as to its very superior quality. 
Those experienced in fattening animals 
aud fowls of all kinds, know well that the 
quality of their flesh when slaughtered, de¬ 
pends a good deal ou the kind of food they 
have been fed, something also on the water 
they have drunk, the ail'they have breathed, 
and the amount and kind of exercise they 
have had dtiriug the fattening process.* 
I have bred various improved sorts of cat¬ 
tle for a considerable time, seen them slaugh¬ 
tered. partaken of their meat, aud found little 
or no difference in its quality, where all had 
been raised and fattened alike. 1 do uot be¬ 
lieve that if Devon. Hereford, and Short horn 
steeis; were grown up and fed ofl for the 
shambles alike together ill America, their beef 
would differ much if any. as to quality. That of 
the Scotch Kyloe I West Highland) and Polled 
might be a little superior; but it is asserted in 
England that the finer quality of their meat 
is owing to the aroma of the Highland pas¬ 
tures where they are raised: and that the 
same excellence of flesh characterizes the 
choice-bred cattle from the Welsh mountains. 
We know that is the case with the sheep raised 
there—their mutton is quite superior to that 
of auy in England, not even excepting the 
famous South Down. Wealthy gourmands 
engage all this Welsh mutton of the bleeders, 
privately, in advance at a high price; it is 
rarely if ever sold in the public market. 
As to the manner of laying ou fat by the 
Short horns “like icing on the cook’s cake," 
and in “large chunks,’ as quoted from the 
London Agricultural Gazette, it refers solely 
to the beeves which are grossly and inor¬ 
dinately led to be exhibited at. the Christmas 
Fat-Stock Show annually held in London. 
Here cattle and sheep are shown so fat they 
can scarcely walk, and pigs so loaded they 
cannot stand on their feet. They resemble a 
mass of blubber rather than good, eatable 
meat. Those 1 spoke of as being on sule at 
the Londou weekly cattle market, were fat¬ 
tened for healthy every-day consumption, not 
pampered, bloated beasts, whose feverish car¬ 
casses are often too fat for savory and profita¬ 
ble cooking and eating. Public* opinion is 
rapidly rising against, the exhibition of such 
animals. In some instances they have latter¬ 
ly been ruled out of the show as mere blubber; 
and the time, it is hoped, will soon come 
when nothing of so gross a kind will lie ad¬ 
mitted. 
“Stockman” now says that the Devon is “the 
Pest cow of all the beef breeds.” It' he bad 
added for a hilly country and rather scant 
lowland pastures, I should agree with him. 
But. for rich pasture, the Short horn is pret 
arable. The cows of both these distinguished 
breeds were formerly almost uni versely bred 
to excel alike iu the dairy, and when dried 
off and fattened, also at the shambles. Lat- 
l terly in the hope of making a finer daily 
fleshy show of them, their dairy qualities have 
been neglected to some extent by breeding 
more particularly for beef. There are ex¬ 
ceptions, however, to this, and many families 
are still reared which excel both for beef aud 
the dairy 
“Three fingers thick on a mutton chop or a 
saddle”—of fat I suppose he meauS—“are ac¬ 
counted the supremity of excellence in Eng¬ 
land.” I can assure him so far ns my own ex¬ 
perience and knowledge go, that he is egregi- 
ously mistaken in Ibis opinion. The mutton of 
the various Downs aud some other breeds which 
like them produce tender, lean, well-mar- 
blcd, juicy muttou. is greatly preferred to this 
gross sort aud this fetches the highest price in 
market. The very fat muttou of the Leices¬ 
ter aud cognate breeds was never preferred 
by those who could afford to purchase the ten¬ 
der, leaner sorts. Formerly, and I presume 
this may still he the case tu some extent, this 
very fat mutton used to be salted down for 
consumption among the poor people, and in 
derision it was called the “poor man’s pork.” 
But the poor, now, are rapidly learning the 
superior value of Down mutton over that of 
Leicester and other long-wooled sheep, aud 
ftnd it most economical for their consumption, 
even at a considerably higher price. The 
hind leg of the t ‘otswold sheep 1 have usually 
found lean, bonder and juicy; but as to the 
rest, of the carcass, it is entirely too fat for 
civilized, human food, or auy economical 
household purpose. If one has a fancy to 
grace his table with a much greater propor¬ 
tion of mutton fallow than savory meat, the 
long-wooled sheep are the animals for him. 
Iu making the above reply to “Stockman, 
I have not done it for the sake of argument, 
but simply to give the readers of the Rural 
what 1 conceive to be correct information; 
and if mistaken, like him I will frankly add 
that I am open to conviction on the English 
aud American side of the water; for I cannot 
accept, as lie asserts, that the United States— 
though a pretty big country—constitute the 
whole world. ANGLO. 
1 
THE BLUSH AND BURBANK POTATOES. 
I planted last Spring, in addition to the 
Blush Potato the Rural sent me, one bushel 
procured of a New York seedsman, aud 1 am 
more than pleased with the result. Many of 
the subscribers report good yields, but this 
does uot show the productiveness of this va¬ 
riety as compared with other sorts. To test 
this* 1 planted two rows of Blush iu the center 
of a patch of Burbank, our standard market 
variety. The soil, culture, time of planting, 
etc., were the same in every respect, and at 
harvest time I dug five bushels of the Blush 
from the two rows, while from two rows of 
Burbank (one on each side of the Blush) I got 
just three bushels. The Blush are very even¬ 
ted and of the very best quality, aud l think 
the fact of their yielding t’ri - 3 per eeut. more 
thaudhe Old reliable Burbauk. entitles them to 
be called very productive. 1 find the fertility 
aud condition of the soil have much to do with 
the amount of seed required. Ordinarily I 
prefer about two eyes every 10 to 15 inches 
apart, accenting to the variety, although if 
the soil is in very line condition oue eye to a 
piece at that distance will answer. 
Waterville, 0. w - w - 
----— 
THE WHITE STAR POTATO—A RE¬ 
MARKABLE YIELD. 
In the Spring of 18S2 I planted 33 pounds of 
White Star Potatoes, aud gave them no extra 
care whatever, yet ou ground very poorly 
prepared, I dug therefrom bushels, and 
the season was a poor one for potatoes. 
Last season I raised of this variety 385 
bushels. I planted them in three separate 
fields. In one of the fields the soil was so poor 
that for two previous years it would not yield 
hay enough to pay for euttiug, although new¬ 
ly stocked; and yet, in that field, with about 
two tablespoonfuls of compost iu each hill, 
and AT apes's Manure “ A” brand sprinkled on 
the hills at the rate of about 400 pounds per 
acre, the White Star Potatoes yielded at the 
rate of 450 bushels per acre ou a part of the 
planting, and lesson the remainder, averaging 
about 805 bushels per acre, or 137 bushels ou 
tio rods of ground. Thera were very few 
small oues. aud all were of the finest quality, 
either baked or boiled. H. w. s. 
Speaking of sheep. “Stockman” says: 
tiural (Tapirs. 
^xprriwent (Svomula of the $uv»t 
other. 
TESTS WITH NEW VARIETIES CON¬ 
TINUED. 
North Star. Test No. 38, a.—Received from 
Thos. Archer, Falkland, Canada, aud said to be 
a cross between Ohio aud Mammoth Pearl. The 
seed pieces (two eyes to a piece) were planted 
