NEW YORK, MARCH 29, 1884 
PRICK FIVE CENTS. 
*2.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1884, by tlie Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
pounds more.” “But what small bones and 
corresponding muscles he has, not larger than 
those of a good 900-pound horse ” “And what 
incongruity in his make; an animal weighing 
1,800 pounds, with legs for a horse of 900 
pounds, and feet to one of 1,500 pounds. If his 
legs were as good as his body he would be 
worth $200, and if his whole make-up were as 
good as his feet, I would be glad to take him 
at #250, without any increase in weight.” The 
trouble with all these large graded is that the 
bone, muscles and nerve development do not 
correspond with their weight of body, and they 
break down under the least hardship, and die 
before reaching the age when a horse ought to 
be at his best. 
ak. ak 
sfc 
But th e deficiency in bone, muscle and nerve- 
force is by no means confined to horses. It is 
common to all kinds of high-blood animals 
bred and fed in countries and sections having 
a fertile soil and producing large crops of 
corn, hay and forage. Next to the horse, the 
hog shows the deficiencies in the most marked 
manner—deficiencies clearly illustrated in the 
cuts which crowd and ornament the columns 
of agricultural papers. Here, for example, is 
These facts account for the sudden appear¬ 
ance of new breeds and the early popularity 
they acquire. The Victoria swine were com¬ 
paratively unknown and unheard-of a few 
years ago, as were also the Red Berkshires, 
the long-haired, strong-constitutioned hogs of 
the southeastern coast. And how quickly the 
Clydes succeeded the irruption of the Nor¬ 
mans, and how soon after the Clydes the 
Shires appeared on the scene! The Russian— 
or the Tartar horse—is likely to appear soon, 
and breeders will do well to take note of it, and 
govern themselves accordingly; for, he is made 
to meet the large demand for power and speed 
which neither the light weights, nor the heavy 
weights are capable of doing. The same facts 
account for the Hereford boom, now at its 
hight, and for the boom of the polled breeds, 
black and red, which threatens to develop into 
enormous proportions. There never were bet¬ 
ter breeds of swine than the Berkshire and 
the Poland-China; no heavy weights are supe¬ 
rior to the Normans; and the Short-horns were 
originally all their friends ever claimed for 
them: but each and all of these have been 
“pampered” for almost the sole purpose of 
making fat or flesh. The result is, as we see, 
ant point of these notes, to which the above 
is but a preliminary: American breeders of 
full-blooded cattle, horses and hogs, within 
the limits of the fertile soils of the corn and 
cattle States, will find they cannot maintain a 
race in its purity or strength unless they make 
a radical change in food rations by following 
the example of the French, who have taken 
the initiative. 
OUR ANIMAL PORTRAITS, 
JERSEY COW LAURA OF F, 10571. 
J HIS handsome animal wasdrop- 
r ped June 1, 1877. At the last 
J&. Virginia State Fair, in 1883, she 
won P r iz e in the class 
M L.^1 I fl/. for Jersey cows over three years 
aU( i also the sweepstakes as 
the best Jersey cow of any age 
JjgiraL at the fair. She was exhibited 
by Mr, M. B. Rowe, of the firm 
of Messrs. Rowe & Co, of 
1 rederieksburg, Va., who own the largest herd 
of registered .Jerseys in Virginia. Laura of 
F, shown at Fig. 96, traces her descent directly 
from the old importations of Taintor, Wilson, 
Norton, etc., etc , and to Pansy 8th, so that 
she belongs to a prize-winning family. Her 
dam received first prize for two years in 
succession at the Virginia State Fail-, and 
her half-sister—Martha of Roxbury, 5016— 
from the same dam, after¬ 
wards earned oil the first 
premium for two successive i 
years as the best Jersey cow ' 
over three years old, and as the 
best dairy cow of any age or 
breed. When the photograph 
was taken from which our en¬ 
graving was made, Laura was 
five months advanced in preg¬ 
nancy, and not in full milk. 
She is an abundant yielder of 
milk, that her owner says is so , -' 
rich that it would be certain 
death to her calves to allow \ 
them to suck to satiety. He 
also claims that she has a vel- \. 
lower skin than any home-bred .' 
or imported Jersey in the 
United States, and this color 
extends to her horns and 
hoofs. Indeed, so certain does 
he feel with regard to this ^ 
point—one of great pride am- , C A «v/. 
oug owners of the most aristo¬ 
cratic Jersey families—that he 
challenges competition with 
any Jersey cow in the United 
States, and tells us he will al- 
low the owner of the compet¬ 
ing animal to be the judge, 
the losiug party to forfeit a 
Hon. Cassius M. Clay, of Kentucky, is re¬ 
sponsible for this statement, or something like 
it: that the Jersey cattle originated in Rus¬ 
sia, and belong to the common native stock. 
They are so abundant and cheap that ship¬ 
loads, having all the main Jersey points, may 
be bought for $5 a head. The traveler through 
the Southwestern States, from Virginia by the 
C4ulf Coast to Louisiana, sees only one class of 
native cattle, and all these more or less resem¬ 
ble Jerseys neglected and run wild. The same 
general conformation, with a good deal more 
bone and horn, the same colors and the same 
diminutive size are common all through “the 
piney woods region” and the swamps. In the 
Attackapas, a prairie region of Southwestern 
Louisiana, where there is a rich soil and abun¬ 
dant herbage consisting of 
Bermuda, Blue Stem and Gaz- 
on grass, the native cattle have 
the same Jersey characteris¬ 
tics, and are scarcely superior 
to the cattle of the pine woods 
region. The oxen of all these 
tire remarkable for the vigor 
and strength of their constitu¬ 
tions and their capacity for 
long and laborious service 
under the doubly adverse con¬ 
ditions of what we would call 
insufficient food, and, for the 
working portion of the year, 
extreme heat. 
The explanation of the pos¬ 
session of these strong consti¬ 
tutional qualities, which are, 
of course, shared by the fe¬ 
males, is probably that the 
large development of bone is 
paralleled by nerves of corre¬ 
sponding size, and what the 
muscles lack in size they make 
up in strength, as in case of 
the half-wild horses of the 
South-west, which possess phe¬ 
nomenal vigor and powers of 
endurance. That the abund- 
first-class Herd Record Jersey 
heifer calf. 
JERSEY COW LAURA OF F, 10571. From a Photograph. Fig. 96. 
ant grasses of the Attackapas 
prairies do not change the eat- 
STOCK NOTES. 
War. kino up from the post-office the other 
day, I saw uear a blacksmith shop ayouug 
man about t,o take away a pair of heavy, 
weight grade Norman horses, but he had been 
halted by a couple of well known horse buyers 
who were asking if the animals were for sale. 
The reply was that they had been sold to an¬ 
other well knowu dealer, aud then there 
arose some interesting and instructive ques¬ 
tions, comments and criticisms, a oart of 
which 1 was responsible for. “How old were 
they?” “Past throe, going on four.” “What 
did the buyer pay?” v A hundred aud seventy- 
five dollars each.” “They are in high flesh, 
what do they weigh?” “Nearly 1,300 pounds 
each.” "Have their shoes been taken off?” 
“Yes; they are to be shipped this afternoon.” 
Theu followed comment on the price and 
criticism on the good and bad points of the 
team: 
“What excellent feet this one has, large, 
round, solid aud black: they are big aud solid 
enough to carry a horse weighing 800 to 500 
an engraving of a Poland-China of great repu¬ 
tation for size and fine points, he weighing 800 
pounds. He is as round as a log and as fat as 
butter, but with bone so small that his ankles, 
if not as delicate as, are not larger than, the 
wrists of a blue-blood young lady of 20. These 
weak points, which breeders too often regard 
as strong points, arc, no doubt, a good deal 
exaggerated in this and similar cuts; but they 
afford conclusive evidence of gross mistakes 
in breeding—mistakes which foreign go ,r eru- 
ipents take advantage of when they point out 
to consumers that hogs so notoriously weak 
iu bone and muscle must necessarily suffer, 
sicken and die in transportation to market— 
hence the uuhealthiness of pork products from 
America. But this is not all. nor the worst 
of it. Deficiency iu bone, muscle aud nerve- 
force is only another name for constitutional 
weakness. Constitutional weakness shows 
itself iu lack of power of resistance to adverse 
conditions and poor food. Hence, when the 
corn crop is bad and hygienic conditions un¬ 
favorable, disease appears, and sometimes be¬ 
comes epizootic, aud the result is a boom for 
the hog doctors. 
deficient bone, muscle and nerve force, con¬ 
stitutional weakness, a disposition to barren¬ 
ness iu both sexes, ami a predisposition to dis¬ 
ease. W hv, 1 am told that of the total num¬ 
ber of mares bred to draft stallions during 
tho season of 1883, not over 25 in 100 proved 
to be in foal, aud that that is an improvement 
over 1882, when an epizootic prevailed. 
V 
The extraordinary demand for Norman 
horses bred in the north of France, the ad¬ 
vance in price aud the consequent profits have 
induced breeders there to adopt a system of 
high feeding, but with the same results as on 
this side of the water. The colts, while uiak- 
iug rapid growth aud large size in flesh aud 
fat, are showing deficiency in bone, muscle 
aud nerve force. These facts intelligent breed¬ 
ers have already recognized, aud scientific men 
have come to their rescue, suggesting, if not 
advisiug, a suppression of a portion of the 
averuge rations, and an addition to them; 
this to consist of the bi-basic phosphate of 
lime aud some form of a highly concentrated 
nitrogenous food, like cheap flesh, or fish in a 
dry state. And here we come to the import- 
tie for the better: that they do 
not starve on the sparse and coarse grasses of 
the piney woods or the swamps; that in Russia 
they have held their own for centuries, demon¬ 
strates how fixed the type is which results 
from feeding on natural grasses and an entire 
absence of graiu iu their rations. It would 
appear then, that the constitutional strength 
and vigor, nerve-force and power of endur¬ 
ance in these half-wild cattle, are due to their 
food, which is the wild grasses alone; that 
these grasses, judging from the development 
of bone, must be rich in phosphate of lime; 
and, judging also from the muscle aud nerve- 
force accompanying the bone, there is no se¬ 
rious lack of nitrogenous matter in them. On 
the other side of the subject, we have seen 
that the loss of constitutional strength, vigor 
and nerve-force, is commensurate with the 
development of fat and flesh, resulting from 
excessive graiu rations; and we are therefore, 
in conclusion, led to infer that in order to 
restore the lost vitality, we must either go 
back to au exclusive grass ration, or supple¬ 
ment the grain eaten, by something which 
will produce the same, or nearly the same, 
results. 
