£arm (ionics. 
DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN AMERICAN 
AND AN ENGLISH FARMER. 
American.—I have been told, sir, that you 
have been very successful in growing wheat; 
and that for forty years in succession you 
have grown on the same field a crop that 
yielded 30 or 40 bushels per acre. 
Englishman. —The information you have 
received is quite correct. 
American. —I farm in the Slates, and my 
land does not yield such good crops as it did 
formerly; what between the rapid increase of 
our population and the vast Immigration pour¬ 
ing into our country, we shall have a great 
many mouths to feed by the end of this cen¬ 
tury, and I don’t quite see what is to become 
of us if we exhauat our land. My own view 
is, that every farmer in the States is bound to 
keep up the fertility of his soil; I should like 
to put back to mine all the fertility that has 
been taken from it, and to cultivate it after¬ 
wards in such a way that no further losses 
should take place. I have been informed, sir, 
that you know a good deal about manures, 
and I thought you might be able to tell me 
how I could best carry out my views. 
Englishman. —Your remarks with regard 
to the restoration of the fertility of your soil, 
and the keeping of it np in the future do you 
great credit, as they show that the welfare of 
yonr country is of more importance to yon 
than any question of profit or loss in the 
transaction. I am sure that all British land- 
owners and farmers would highly approve of 
your views, and be very glad to hear that 
they were shared by the majority of those en 
gaged in agriculture in your country. May I 
a 9 k how long yonr land has been under cul¬ 
tivation ? 
American. —Well, perhaps 100 or 150 years; 
tbe district in which I reside was settled 
pretty early. 
Englishman. —I suppose the early occu¬ 
pants did not spare the land? 
American. —They did not; they grew what¬ 
ever paid them the best—corn, tobacco, wheat- 
potatoes or hay—and they sold everything 
and put nothing back. 
Englishman (after a pause of a few seconds 
during which he made some mental calcula¬ 
tions)—The cheapest plan that you can adopt 
for restoring the lost fertility to yonr soil, 
would be to purchase from the nearest town 
barnyard manure: eaeh acre wmld require 
an expenditure of about five hundred dollars. 
American (interrupting).—Five hundred 
dollars! Do you know, sir, that I could pur¬ 
chase twenty acres of land for that sum— 
first-rate land, with all its natural fertility 
untouched. 
Englishman. —I quite believe it: of course 
the operation I recommended would be both 
costly and unprofitable; but 1 thought that 
the object you had in view was rather the 
benefit of your country, than any considera¬ 
tion of your own interests. 
American.— It was so, but I thought that 
somehow I could not very well benefit my 
country without doing good to myself at the 
same time; besides, why should I spend so 
much money on town manure when I could 
restore the fertility at one-quarter of the 
price by artificial manures? 
Englishman. —I am afraid you would find 
that artificial manures would cost you more 
than the manure I recommend. 
American.— How so? We have plenty of 
Carolina phosphate, and wood ashes are 
cheap enough; I know a little of chemistry, 
and have read Ville's book; he is the greatest 
authority that we have in all matters relating 
to manures, and he tells us that some plants 
take all their ammonia from the atmosphere, 
while others only require just one taste to be 
given them and they become so fond of it 
that they set to work and get all the rest they 
require from the air. 
Englishman. —Our English plants may pos¬ 
sibly be more dull and stupid than the plants 
of other countries, but at all events on my 
farm, so far from finding that by supplying 
them with a little ammonia, the 3 r return a 
good deal more, onr experience is that we 
give them a great deal and get comparatively 
very little back. In any case, I can hold out 
no hopes to you that wood ashes and phos¬ 
phates will restore to your soil all its lost 
fertility. 
American.—M ay I then ask you, sir, what 
you would advise me to do ? 
Englishman.— If you will be advised by 
me you will give up the idea of restoring the 
lost fertility of your farm; it has done its 
work, and by means of it several generations 
of farmers have been enabled to lead healthy, 
industrious lives, clearing the ground, fencing 
and, as a matter of fact, doing much work 
which you are not required to do, receiving, it 
is to be hoped, in return a fair remuneration 
Cor their labor. 
American. —No doubt that is so; but what 
ft 
I want to know is, what had I better do now 
for my own interests ? 
Englishman. —You may study economy in 
the nse of your fertility; in all probability by 
far the larger portion of the fertility which 
yctur soil originally possessed is still there, but 
it is not now so easily got out as it was at 
first. You say that you possess books which 
relate to the chemistry of agriculture; if you 
examine the chemical composition of the va¬ 
rious animal and vegetable products you will 
find it to be generally the case that the sub- ! 
stances which command the highest price in 
the market are those which contain the least 
amount of, what may be called, the constitu¬ 
ents of tbe soil. 
American. —Excuse me, sir, but I don’t 
quite follow you. 
Englishman. —I will give you an illustra¬ 
tion of what I mean. I will assume the case 
of three farmers, one of whom sells hay, an¬ 
other milk, and the third butter. The first 
grows one ton of Timothy which he. sells for 
$30. In order to avoid any question relating 
to the amount of food required to produce 
milk or butter, Iw r ill assume that the second 
farmer sells the same money value in milk, 
and that the third sella the same money value 
in butter. Taking the New- York prices for 
these three products, I will now ask you to 
look at the following figures: 
_ , Soil constituents 
For *20 in har a farmer carries to market. ...1S7 lbs 
ForSOOln milk. ‘.13 <• 
For $30 In butter. 0 11 
He can, therefore, in various ways economize 
his stock of fertility. 
American. —But how about the cost of pro¬ 
duction ? 
Englishman. —The cost of producing $20 
in butter is no doubt much greater than the 
cost of producing the same value in hay, and 
this is a point which the farmer will have 
to take into account in considering the ques¬ 
tion of profit and loss. In a number of oper¬ 
ations labor and capital are employed 
either in separating soil products from the 
atmospheric products,’ or in increasing the 
atmospheric constituents and the value of the 
products at the same time, 
American. —Again, sir, I do not quite fol- j 
low you. 
Englishman. —Well, as an example of the 
former I may mention the manufacture of 
sugar from sugar-beet; and of the latter the 
manufacture of pork from corn, or the con- 
vertion of lean stock into fat stock. 
American. —I think I see what you mean; 
but to come back to my point, may I ask now, 
sir, in conclusion, what you would advise me 
to do as ragards artificial manures ? 
Englishman. —In most cases soils are une¬ 
qually exhausted, that is to say, they may 
have a surplus of one or more ingredients of 
plant food and not enough of another. It is 
to meet such wants that artificial manures 
become useful, and I think you will find that 
tbeir profitable employment will be in this 
direction, rather than in that of furnishingall 
the food necessary to grow a crop. 
JOTTINGS AT KIRBY HOMESTEAD. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
" Imported.” 
While it is proper to nse the word “im¬ 
ported ” when we speak of goods or merchan¬ 
dise brought from one State into another, it 
tends to mislead when the term imported is 
applied to animals which have been bred in 
the United States and are simply purchased, 
and conveyed from one State to another. In 
all herd books where this term is used it is 
understood to mean that the animal to which 
it applies has been brought from a foreign 
country. I see it is quite a common thing in 
Western papers to speak of animals as im¬ 
ported when brought from the older States 
to the W est. This form of expression leads \ 
to confusion and tends to mislead readers. I 
recently saw a statement that a lot of Chester- 
Whltes had been “imported’’ by some person 
in the West, which might lead to the con¬ 
clusion that this was a foreign breed of hogs, 
which is not the case, as they are an Ameri¬ 
can breed originating in Chester County, Pa. 
They used to be known as Chester County 
Whites, but of late years the “ County ” has 
been dropped and the abbreviated name 
Chester-Whites is generally used. 
USING OLD BRINK SALT. 
It is an old custom to nse year after year 
the same brine in which pork has been pickled. 
Some farmers have followed this practice for 
years, supposing it to be economical to do 6 o. 
They boil the brine and skim off the particles 
of meat and other impurities which rise to 
the surface in the form of a scum. I do not 
like the plan, but prefer to pack the pork 
every year in new salt. Unless the brine is 
free from taint, which is more than likely 
not to be the oase, the meat will not keep as 
well and it never is so sweet and natural in 
its appearance as when paoked with new salt. 
Salt is so cheap that it does not puy to run 
the risk of using old brine, especially when 
the labor of boiling and all the muss are taken 
into the account. There is a great deal of 
prejudice against using Americau salt for 
packing meat. I have used American salt 
for a number of years with perfect success. 
It is considerably cheaper than the foreign 
sort, and so long as it answers the purpose 
just as well, why not use It, and so sustain an 
American industry ? 
BRINING 8 TRAW—ABORTION. 
Another practice quite common with far¬ 
mers is to utilize old brine by sprinkling it 
upon straw for the cattle to eat. Cattle are 
fond of straw when thus salted, and will eat 
a great deal of it. The excess of salt which 
they eat when it is thus prepared causes an 
unnatural thirst, and, as a result, they drink 
a large amount of cold water, which chills 
their stomachs and injures them. This is not 
all. Miogled with the brine there are consid¬ 
erable grease and particles of meat which are 
liable to produce abortion. For these reasons 
the practice should be abandoned. There 
is no economy in it. Tbe proper place for 
old brine is the manure heap or on the 
asparagus bed. 
SPASMODIC SALTING OF 8 TOCK. 
I do not like the occasional or spasmodic 
feeding of salt anyway, especially in Winter, 
for the reason that stock get salt-hungry and 
are apt to eat too much. A better plan is to 
allow animals to follow their instincts and eat 
it when they like. This can be done by keep¬ 
ing salt constantly in a box under a shed 
where they can have access to it and then 
they will take a lick every day. When this 
is done there is no excessive desire for it or 
excessive thirst caused by eating too much. 
A steady and uniform appetite is desirable in 
all animals and this is the way to maintain 
it. Drinking too much cold water in Winter 
is also liable to produce abortion bj r giving 
the foetus a sudden chill. Every closely ob¬ 
serving farmer has noticed that, after drink¬ 
ing a considerable amount of cold water dur¬ 
ing advanced stages of pregnancy, the young 
animal is disturbed and shows it by active 
movements which are perceptible. These con¬ 
ditions should always be avoided, as they are 
liable to produce spasms in the womb which 
are liable to be fatal and are always dan 
gerous. 
JERSEY CATTLE M UST BE HOUSED. 
Breeders of Jersey cattle should always re¬ 
member that these animals have been bred in 
a warmer climate than ours, and consequently 
are more tender than natives. They are not 
so inured to rough usage and consequently to 
our cold climate. They require a warm 
stable and should not be left in the barn¬ 
yards to be chilled by the cold winds. The 
farmer who undertakes to winter Jersey cat¬ 
tle with the same treatment—leaving them in 
the barn-yard exposed to the oold—which he 
may have practiced with native stock will 
find that they will rapidly deteriorate if they 
do not die. Tbe same is true with grade Jer¬ 
seys which are proportionately tender. The 
stable is the proper place for all stock in 
Winter. The plea that cattle need to be kept 
in the barn-yard to get “ exercise ” will be 
effectually npset, if a little attention is paid 
to them, wheu it will be observed that all tbe 
“ exercise ” they usually take is to find the 
most sheltered place where they will stand 
anxiously waiting to be put back into the 
stable out of the oold. Their hair is thinner 
than that of natives, and this fact should 
teach its lesson. 
<Tl)c 
FEEDING AND RAISING HOGS. 
To begin, we must have a good breed of hogs, 
perfect in make and blood; that is, they 
should be thoroughbred, for graded Btock will 
always more or less breed back, and of such 
it is impossible to tell what kind you will have, 
good or bad. Always select good pigs to 
breed from; and if yon want good, healthy 
pigs, never breed from a male too young or 
too old. I think that fully three-fourths of 
all the pigs in the country are from males 
from six to nine months old—mere pigs. This 
is contrary to the laws of breeding, and cer¬ 
tainly is a fruitful source of epidemics, such 
as cholera, etc.; the constitution of the prog¬ 
eny of such sires being weakened, till they 
can’t resist ill-treatment. Pigs for breeding 
purposes should have good length, with small 
heads and necks, thin ears, be short in the 
shoulders back to the “middling” or sides, 
and deep from the back down, with short legs 
and strong bones. The sides or “middlings’’ 
should be well spread out from the back-bone 
so as to give the lungs free play. They should 
be thick through the region of the heart, long 
from tho shoulders back to the ham; the ham 
should be thick and long from the back to the 
coupling; they should be Kquare behiud; 
JAN 43 
straight on the back, with a nice, smooth coat 
of hair. 
The sows should be bred from the 10th to 
the 30th of November, as this will bring the 
pigs from tbe 1st to the 30th of March; then, 
by careful feeding, they will be good bogs by 
the 1st of January following. Always have 
a warm shed or house for your sow to have 
pigs in. if they come in March, to protect 
them from tbe cold and changes of weather at 
this time of the year. The sow should not 
have too much bedding at one time; make 
fresh beds every few days. The sow should not 
be too fat when bred, but be kept in a thriv¬ 
ing condition during pregnancy. When the 
pigs come tbe sow should not be disturbed, 
and she should be fed but little for a few days. 
After she is clear of fever, then feed her all 
she will eat up clean. The best feed »s a little 
corn; most of her feed should be ground and 
steamed or cooked, as it will cause her to give 
more milk. Ground corn (not cob and corn, 
but clear corn) is the best, given to her 
about as thick aa thin mush. Alwavs feed 
sweet food a little warm in cold weather, and 
cold in warm weather. 
Tbe pigs should have a separate trough in 
a pen as soon as they will eat, and then be 
given all they will eat as near the same 
time each day as possible, and never less than 
three times a day. Feed all tbe milk and 
offal from the kitchen to the pigs; the stuff is 
a great bone-making substance and gives flesh 
and fat. Give the sow and pigs a good Blue 
Grass pasture—it is the best. If you let your 
pigs run in clover, they are apt to get sore 
ears. They should have access to plenty of 
good fresh water. As soon as you get your 
grain off turn the pigs into the stubble-field; 
but don’t quit feeding, as it takes too much 
labor for tbe pigs to get feed enough to keep 
giowing; they should be picking up all the 
time, and as soon as the fields are gleaned, 
they should be fed all they will eat until 
butchering time. Feed while it is warm, as 
it takes less food to keep up animal heat, and 
more strength of the food goes to flesh making. 
Pigs that are intended to be wintered over 
should come the last of May or first of June, 
and by that time the stubble is ready for 
them and there will be no risk of bad weath¬ 
er. Remember to keep you pigs growing, 
whether 3 'ou intend to kill them in the Fall or 
winter them over, for every day you keep a 
hog without its gaining anything you are los¬ 
ing both time and feed. And in the Spring, 
when the stock hogs are turned into clover, 
feed twice a day for about two weeks, then 
once a day during the remainder of the Sum¬ 
mer on ground corn-meal made into thick 
mush. Feed in the evening, and the hogs will 
lie down and be quiet till morning, and there¬ 
by get the strength of the feed: and in the 
morning, being huugry, they will go to tbe 
clover and be no trouble till feeding time. 
Feed at least once a week some bran and ash¬ 
es, with a little salt. Always have a good 
dry shed for stock hogs to He under during 
the Winter season, and it iB better to have it 
laid with good plank floor, as the ground is 
apt to “sweat” them and cause them to take 
cold. The above is not theory, but the lesson 
of actual experience of J. h. f. 
THE PRINCE OF WALE8 ON THE 
SOUTH DOWN COMMITTEE. 
In the Rural of December 16th, “ Stock- 
man” passes, I think, an unjust criticism upon 
the American South Down Association, which 
lately met in Chicago, for having appointed 
the Prince of Wales as one of their commit¬ 
tee men on the pedigrees of South Down sheep 
in England. Now the “ toadyism” of Ameri¬ 
cans in general regarding foreign nobles is 
worthy of the contempt of all true men every¬ 
where Noblemen ore, like other classes, good 
and bad; but I think I can say with safety 
that the best of noblemen are the most appre¬ 
ciative of other men of merit, whatever may 
be their social position, titled or untitled; and 
no class of nobles In the world iB more thus 
appreciative than tbe English. The Prince 
of Wales is a breeder of South Down sheep 
himself, and contends, not unsuccessfully, 
with others of Her Majesty’s subjects, at the 
Royal Agricultural Shows. Many of his 
sheep, I learn, are now being brought to this 
country with his private mark “H. R. H.;” 
and though, like other wealthy men, he does 
not do the personal offloes In the case of his 
sheep, he is a practical man and takes personal 
interest iu his flock. Besides, the English of 
all aristocracies is the most productive and 
economical; and hence they loan money whilst 
most others borrow; hence comes their su¬ 
premacy in the world. They are, besides, 
like the Greeks and Romans, eminent agricul¬ 
turists and stock-breeders, and iu this the 
