Ays 46 
626 
discussed at the Conference. Papers of much 
value were reud, on the Selection and Breed¬ 
ing of Cattle, by Mr. Tisdall and Mr. Collin- 
son Hall, two well-known milk purveyors, 
cattle ow ners and dairy men in London. These 
gentlemen, who arc practical formers and 
men of great experience in the London men 
trade, both declared in favor of Short horns 
as the most prolitable dairy cattle, all things 
considered. Farm Buildings und Covered 
Yards formed the subject of very instructive 
paper* from Mr. Gilbert Murray, Mr. K. 
Waite ond Mr. W. P. Price, each of whom is 
specially qualified to expatiate on this all-im¬ 
portant subject for England. Ensilage and 
Cattle Foods formed the subject of two useful 
papers by Mr. James Long and Professor 
Kincb. The ensilage fever, which has been a 
sort of contagions epidemic, is abating some¬ 
what in England, and a lew fine Summers 
would probably cause it to die out utterly. 
Milk from the Consumers’ Point of View and 
Milk Testing, formed the basis for two capital 
papers by Prof. DeChaumont; and Mr. M. 
Williams gave a most amusing as well as in¬ 
structive axldreas on Milk and Cheese in Rela¬ 
tion to the Art of Cooking. Mr. H. M. Jen¬ 
kins. the indefatigable and able Secretary of 
the ltoyal Agricultural Society, contributed a 
suggestive paper on Dairy Schools; and the 
broad topics ol cheese and butter making, 
cheese factories and creameries, were treated 
by various persons, of whom 1 had the honor 
to be one. A volume containing the pupers 
ami discussions has been issued, und it forms 
a notable and most welcome addition to the 
dairy literature of this country. The Confer¬ 
ence, we hope, will be held annually. 
Surrey, England. 
(Tlje £»iinnc-l}en). 
DU ROC-JERSEYS. 
FALSE CLAIMS, HISTORICAL FACTS AND 
CONCLUSIONS. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
It seems strange that one or two breeders of 
red hogs in New Jersey still persist in putting 
into their advertisements statements which 
have been shown to be untrue. They have 
been called upon to prove their assertions by 
historical facts, but have never responded. The 
truth is, historical facts are all against them. 
In a strict sense there is not a thoroughbred 
red hog in America. There is not a reputable 
breeder who would guarantee that his stock 
will breed free from marks which show that 
they are to some extent cross-bred. The 
American Duroc-Jersey Swine Association, 
which completed its organization last Novem¬ 
ber in Chicago, recognizes this fact in its 
standard of characteristic*. This association 
is composed of both Duroc and Jersey Red 
breeders, and recognizing that both of these 
families of red iiogs are descended from the 
same original stock (Red Berkshire), they 
united the two families under the name of 
Duroc-Jersey. A majority of the breeders in 
the association were interested in and were 
breeding Jersey lteds; but they were con¬ 
vinced mat the Duroc family had the oldest 
authentic history, and that this name was 
also the oldest; and, in fact, red hogs in New 
Jersey were called Duroc for years before 
the nume of Jersey Red was thought of. 
1 have often stated thut the name Jersey 
Red originated with the late J. B. Lyman, 
formerly agricultural editor of the New York 
Tribune. 1 distinctly recollect hiscomiug into 
New York one morniug from New Jersey, 
w here he then resided, and asking me how I 
liked the name of “Jersey Reds’ - for the red 
hogs of Now Jersey. He said bethought that 
would be a good nume. This was about 15 
years ugo. Mr. Clark Pettit now claims to 
have “ the original stock” of Jersey Reds, and 
places great emphasis on now breudiug from 
“imported stock,” aud “The Dou.” Mr. 
Pettit has been called upon several times 
to tell where “ The Dou” aud his other “im¬ 
ported stock" came from, and where they, or 
he, landed. It seems never to have entered 
the prolific mind of Mr. Pettit that his talk 
about ** The Don” and other imported stock 
is ridiculously inconsistent with his other 
statements thatthe Jersey Reds are pure-bred. 
If this is a New Jersey breed, as lie claims, 
any importation whatever would result in 
making it a cross-breed. What, then, becomes 
of his claim that only his red bogs are puref 
Let me suggest to Mr. Pettit, that it is hard 
to reconcile his statements iu his Authentic 
History of Forty rive Years, his crosses of im¬ 
ported stock, aud his eburges in his Authentic 
History that the breeders of Duroc hogs are 
frauds, with the statement of David Pettit iu 
a letter to me, thirteen years ago, that he 
could not give the origiu of the red hogs of 
New Jersey. David Pettit was an uncle of 
Clark, lived in his immediate neighborhood, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
was well advanced in years, aud was known 
all over New Jersey as a gentleman of high 
character. Neither Mr. Pettit nor any other 
breeder has any right to claim exclusive puri¬ 
ty of blood: the most any of them have done, 
has been, for comparatively a few years, to 
select t,he best specimens of red hogs in their 
respective localities, breed them together and 
select from the offspring such as suited their 
fancy. They have also obtained breeding 
stock from each other, and in some instances 
exchanges have been made between New 
York and New Jersey. The Duroc breeders 
were the first to agree upon astandurd, which, 
with some slight changes, was adopted by the 
American Duroc-Jersey Association, and was 
first printed in the Rural New-Yorker 
several years ago. Previous to the first meet¬ 
ing of the National Swine-Breeders’ Conven¬ 
tion in 1871, the Poland-Chinas were known 
by several names aud were not uuiforin iu 
appearance, neither were they pure bred, os 
a breed. The adoption of a standard by this 
convention, led to a uniformity of name and 
breeding in the difl’ereut families and to an 
improvement in the blood; this is precisely 
what the American Duroc-Jersey Association 
has undertaken to do with the red bogs of this 
couutry. In their hands, they will soon be 
bred so uniformly and lie so perfected that 
they will not only become thorough bred, but 
they will be recognized as having sujierior 
merits, and all the attempts to stop the tide 
will be fruitless. Their strong blood is needed 
to give additional stamina to the swine of this 
country, to finable them the better to resist 
diseases. The standard means a perfect hog, 
and sozealouB and faithful have been some of 
the breeders, that already their hogs conform 
to it iu a marked degree. 
BONES AND RIND, OR MEAT. 
Tastes do differ, and no mistake; and I 
never saw a man exhibit worse “taste” iu try¬ 
ing to sustain a bad position tlmn Dr. Hos¬ 
kins (p. 462), when be says “Early maturity 
and good meat do not go together,” aud that 
the Southern “landpikes” make superior pork. 
1 expect next to hear him advocating Texan 
“Long horns” and Mexican "Jumpers” as su¬ 
perior to the finest Short horns and South 
Downs as beef and mutton producers. Men 
usually pay a price something in proportion 
to the extent, to which their taste is pleased, 
and when they pay a cent per pound more tor 
Berkshire meat than for the coarse boned, 
rind-growing “laud-pikis,” or from half to 
one cent per pound more for Essex than 
Berkahires, it must lie because their taste pre¬ 
fers thin-skinned, fine-grained, juicy moat, to 
bones, gristle and skin, and the Doctor is al¬ 
most old enough to know it. The panegyric 
of the Yankee Editor reminds me of Hor¬ 
ace Greeley, who, when going to California 
“overland” in pro railroad days, found a 
grape which to his taste was most delicious. 
But when at great, trouble aud expense he had 
procured and planted a vine iu his garden, 
and it had borne fruit, to his great surprise he 
found it utterly uneatable, his only explana¬ 
tion was, that when eating it in the mountains 
he had been half starved. rustic. 
A PRACTICAL EXPERIMENT. 
I wish Prof. Sanborn would make this ex¬ 
periment:—Put two Essex or Small Yorkshire 
pigs iu one pen and one Duroc Jersey of the 
same age in auother,and give the last as much 
food as the other two. When nine months of 
age, kill them all, and see what the difference 
will be iu the weight of offal, hams, lard, suet, 
pork, etc., as well as the entire weight of the 
carcasses. The pigs should be taken from the 
sows before being weaned aud when four to 
six weeks of age. F. d. c. 
farm Ccxmoimj. 
SORGHUM: 
its growth and the manufacture of 
SUGAR AND SIRUP—THE WHOLE STORY.—IV 
PROF. H. W. WILEY. 
REMOVAL OF IMPURITIES FROM JUICE. 
SIRUP. 
The purification of the expressed juice is 
accomplished iu two ways—mechanical aud 
chemical. The juice, as it flows from the mil), 
should be passed through a wire gauze strainer, 
the meshes Of which are about three-quarters 
of the diameter of the cane seed. This kind 
of strainer is better than bags, or barrels of 
straw or any of the other numerous devices in 
use. A little attention to a sieve of this kind 
will preveut its clogging, and it is always easy 
to clean or repair it. As the juice leaves this 
strainer it is free from seed, fragments of 
blades, aud bagasse, and any other particles 
of matter larger than the meshes. 
The apparatus of the factory should be so 
arranged that the juice will not have to be 
kept more thau an hour before it is brought 
in contact with the heat. Where sulphur is 
used, as hereafter described, the juice can be 
left longer without danger. It is well to have 
the mill placed on higher ground than the 
tanks and evaporators, so that the juice will 
not have to be pumped or lifted until it runs 
from the evaporator into the cooling tank. 
This disposition of apparatus is easily made by 
taking advantage of a convenient hill-side. 
The exit valve from the receiving tank 
should lie placed an nich-and a-halr above the 
bottom, aud the tank should slightly incline 
towards the exit, so that all matters heavier 
than the juice, such as sand, clay, etc., will 
sink to the bottom, carrying much of the 
organic impurity which the juice may contain, 
and there remain. At the end of each day’s 
work the operator should dean this tank, and 
he will l>e surprised to find the large amount 
of matter in the bottom, which otherwise 
would have passed into the sirup. From this 
point two methods arc generally followed: 1. 
the juice Is purified by the aid of heat, and, 
2, by the aid of heat aud chemicals. 
Beforp discussing these two methods of pro¬ 
cedure, it is advisable to state what the sub¬ 
stances are. which should be removed, in order 
to secure the best sirup. The juice, as it flows 
from average ripe cane contains, about 12 per 
cent, of sugar and 88 of water and other sub¬ 
stances not sugar. The excess of water is re¬ 
moved by evaporation, but the “substances 
not sugar” will be fouud in the sirup, unless 
removed before or during the process of con¬ 
centration. These substances arc vegetable 
acids, free and combined; starch, soluble and 
insoluble; gums; coloring matters; and bodies 
containing nitrogen (albuminoids). The small 
amount of mineral matter in the juice may 
be neglected. As far as sirup is concerned, 
the starch and gums are not injurious, and, 
therefore, they may be considered a* giving 
us no further trouble. 
Let us consider the method where no chemi¬ 
cals are employed. The juice is run from the 
receiving lank into a “defecator.” This is a 
vessel which should hold all the juice the mill 
can express in an hour, it is liest to have it 
over the hottest part of the fire, or, in larger 
works, to have a separate furnace for it. 
When the proper amount of juice lias been 
admitted, it should be heated as rapidly as pos¬ 
sible, uutil the boiling point is reached; but it 
should not In’ allowed to boil. To avoid this 
the defecator should bo double, aud the appa¬ 
ratus be so arranged that one can be lifted 
from the furnace by a pulley and the second 
one put III its place. After the pan has been 
removed from the fire, it should be allowed to 
stand for five or ten minutes. By this time its 
contents will have separated into three distinct 
layers—a thick blanket of scum above; the 
purified juice in the center; utida slimy, dirty 
deposit on the liottoin of the pau. The im¬ 
portance of not ullowing the contents of the 
defecator to boil is now uppareut; boiling 
thoroughly mixes the three layers just des¬ 
cribed, and their separation thereafter is ex¬ 
tremely slow and imperfect. The defecator 
should have an exit valve arranged as in the 
receiving tank, so that after the scum has been 
carefully removed, the clear juice can be 
drawn oft without, disturbing the deposited 
matter at the bottom. 
Hence the juice passes to the evaporators. 
It would be useless to discuss here the merits 
of the huudi-eds of different evaporators now 
on the market. Nearly all of them have points 
of excellence: but I have little faith iu the 
claims of any which ‘propose* to make good 
sirup, unless the preliminaries which I have 
just described are rigidly carried out. 
Oue thiug. however, the evaporator should 
do— i. e.., work rapidly— boil as fast as pos¬ 
sible without scorching the sirup. This is a 
rule which is always good with every kind of 
apparatus. The old-fashioned Cook evapo¬ 
rator. which now can be made and used with¬ 
out, payment of royalty, will, l think, be found 
as good as any; aud will certainly, with proper 
care, make excellent sirup with well defecated 
juices. But used as it generally is, with the 
undefecated juice running in.and the sirup run¬ 
ning out, the product is utterly vile, however 
fair in appearance it may be. Sirup made as 
above is light iu color and nice in appearance, 
and for cooking purposes is excellent. Gen¬ 
erally, too, on account of its appearance, it will 
command a good price in the local markets. 
But, it still contains, now in a concentrated 
form, all of the acids which were present in 
the juice, which give it an unpleasant flavor, 
known as the “sorghum taste." It also con¬ 
tains much of the albumen which is not coag¬ 
ulated by heat, aud this causes it to ferment 
easily iu warm weather. To obtain a sirup 
free from these objectionable qualities, it is 
necessary to use certain chemicals in the act 
of purification, and this brings us to the con¬ 
sideration of the second method. 
Long experience aud scientific investigation 
have shown that there are only two chemicals 
which are worthy of attention here: lime and 
sulphur. These may be used separately, but 
the best results are obtained by combining 
them. 
A SIMPLE CORN-SLICER. 
Mr. n. W. Davis, who operates a large 
evaporating establishment at Lapeer, Mich., 
and whoso evaporated coni commands the 
highest price in the market, presented at the 
summer meeting of the Michigan Horticultu¬ 
ral Society a slicer for cutting com from the 
cob, which, he said, he had found far superior 
to any of the elaborate and expensive slicer.? 
he had tried. We have prepared a cut of it 
for the benefit of the readers of the Rural 
(Fig. 200). In the figure, a represents a 
board seven eighths of an inch thick, and b 
one half an inch thick. These are fastened 
into the sides c, so that the ends will be one 
inch apart. In the sides are cut two openings, 
d, about oue half inch wide and long enough 
to receive an ordinary butcher's knife e, 
whose upper edge is level with the board a. 
In this is inserted a knife e, level with, 
and its back resting against the board a, 
being held iu place by wedges inserted in be¬ 
neath it. A spud, f, consisting of a piece of 
one-fourtli inch iron, one foot long, sharpened 
at oue end and provided with a handle, com¬ 
pletes the slicer. In using it. the box is held 
over a pan or nailed to a receiving box and an 
ear of corn stuck on to the spud aud pushed 
against the knife. In this way the corn can 
be cut very perfectly and rapidly. 
Mr. Davis believes that better dried corn 
can be produced by inserting two knives, one 
above the other, so as to divide the grains into 
smaller pieces. 
tlurfll (Topics. 
FALL FALLOWING. 
It is singular a fanning process should be 
so little understood aud practiced, that is so 
thoroughly efficient in ridding land of all per¬ 
nicious weeds, und which so perfectly fits it 
for the production of a profitable spring crop, 
and especially is this true if the fall-fallowing 
succeeds the cuttiug of the grass on meadow 
land. 
By fall-fallowing. I mean plowing in July 
or August, and from that time forth keeping 
the surface so well cultivated as to kill all 
weeds that vegetate, and to keep bringing 
fresh seeds within vegetating distance of the 
surface This, with the warm weather and 
the “ latter rains,” causes nearly all weed seeds 
within four or five inches of the surface to 
grow, aud destroys the product. 
Few weeds ripen their seeds before the 
proper baying rime, and after they are cut 
off and removed in the hay, very few will 
make sufficient growth to blossom and mature 
seeds before the middle or last of August; at 
or before which time the ground should be 
plowed, care being taken to see that every 
green thing is turned under and covered with 
soil. Even though a seed be sufficiently 
matured so that if the plant be cut and left 
to dry on the surface, it would germinate, by 
being covered together with the mass of suc¬ 
culent growth und the roots, the fermentation 
that take? place will destroy its vitality and 
cause it to decay with the rest. 
Iu case of the summer-fallow, we have to 
plow early and plow several times, besides 
the very many harrowing? aud cultivatiugs, 
taking the whole Summer and involving a 
loss of one crop aud great labor; but with the 
fall-fallow, we first get our hay crop and then 
plow only once, and have no more labor with 
harrow and cultivator thau in the same 
length of ti me with the summer-fallow. No pro¬ 
cess can be so perfectly destructive to peren¬ 
nial weeds; by cutting thehuy early,tbe weeds 
are cut before maturity, and most growth of 
top up to that time ouly serves to exhaust the 
vitality of the roots: if then taken off, but 
feeble growth is afterward made, and the 
subsequent plowing and continuous cultiva¬ 
tion are sure destruction to all. Fall-fallow¬ 
ing not ouly cleans the land, but it enriches 
it; by allowing the clover to attain full size, 
the largest root growth is secured, aud in a 
short time after haying, if not pastured (and 
it should not be), in favorable seasons a large 
second growth is secured to be turned under 
