4 
Vol XLII. No 1728. 
NEW YORK, MARCH 10, 1883. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS 
$2.uu PER YEAR. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1888, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
their want of horns makes them more safe; then existing—I abandoned the breed. 
OUR ANIMAL POETRAITS. 
POLLED ANGUS HEIFER CLARISSA 
AND BULL SIR EUSTACE. 
The boom for polled cattle, especially for 
the polled beef breeds, the Scotch Angus- 
Aberdeen and Galloway, as yet shows no re¬ 
laxation. A large share of the foreign cattle 
destined for the United States, last year came 
t hrough Canada, owing to the superior quar¬ 
antine arrangements among our neighbors, 
and it is stated that among the European cattle 
imported into the Dominion in 1882 for home 
use and for this country, the number of Scotch 
polls exceeded that of any other breed. Tins 
week wo present to our readers the likenesses 
of u couple of excellent [wiled beasts, for an 
account of which we refer them to pages 81 
and 82 of the Rural, separate portraits of the 
animals appealing on pages 81 and 89. 
IMPROVED STOCK. QUALITY OF 
FLESH, ETC. 
HON. C. M. CLAY. 
1 made a grave omission in my last in saying 
that the best breeds add “fat” to the best 
points, I should have said flrxh also; for this 
mixture of fat aud 
lean on the best 
points is one of the 
chief characteris¬ 
tics of the best beef 
bearer, the scrub 
and some others 
“patching” as the 
butchers term it; 
that is, taking on 
fat unmixed with 
lean on some 
points. 
HOGS AND HAMS. 
For many years 
I have not fattened 
my hogs in close 
pens but in the 
grass pastures, tie- 
cause they are 
there more 
healthy; and be¬ 
cause exercise im¬ 
proves the muscles, 
or lean parts, aud 
makes the hams 
liave less fat aud 
more juice. Nor 
have 1 found that 
they were more 
difficult to fatten: 
for exercise im¬ 
proves their appe¬ 
tite and green feed 
their health. When 
1 was younger, 
tiaras were regard¬ 
ed as more of a 
luxury than now: 
and some students 
at Yale, from Old 
Virginia, brought 
on hams from 
home as a special 
addition to a Hams were also 
brought from 'Westphalia in Europe where 
range in the forests was said to give them 
special flavor. They were small with enough 
loan; but not better than mine, if as good. I 
regard the immense hugs now offered to 
breeders as a groat mistake. It doesn’t fol¬ 
low that the larger the animal the more the 
profit; and such stagnant masses of fat must 
be anything else but healthful for the eaters. 
All the breeds now in vogue are too large for 
family use, and 1 have hunted up a breeder of 
the small Essexes, and propose to try them. 
VARIOUS BREEDS. 
It is my purpose to confine myself rather to 
principles than to commend any special breed 
of cattle and sheep. But, as I said in my last 
article, some breeds are more valuable than 
others for special qualities. The Short-horns 
I think the best beef-bearera These I bred 
for sale as breedere once, but have of late 
years only bred for beef—grades or pure- 
bloods without pedigree. I have had no ex¬ 
perience with the Herefurds, the rivals of Short¬ 
horns; but in St. Petersburg 1 have eaten for 
years the Jerseys which seem to lx* the original 
race in all Northern Europe. And better beef 
was never found in any market—not showy 
like the marbled, highly fatted meat of the 
bullocks of London and New York, but juicy 
and gamey and tender like wild meats. These 
small cattle getting very poor in consequence 
of the long Winters are rapidly brought into 
good flesh by the next development of glass 
matured by the light and heat of northern 
Summers, And though all my life a breeder 
of Short-horns, I always preferred, for my 
own use, the mountain cattle (some of which 
are certainly of Jersey descent) treated in the 
same way as in Russia. So one breed, as the 
Short-horn, is the best beef-beast for sale; an¬ 
other. as the Jerseys, is preferred for milk-. 
aud the Devons for work-oxen, etc. The 
Short-horns are heavy feeders and the attempt 
to keep them should never be made on sparse 
pasturage. And so the Jerseys and Devons 
would lie a failure here in Kentucky and simi¬ 
lar sites. The polled cattle of Scotland ore 
coming more aud more iuto favor, because, 
beiug hardy aud, u the main, heavy-bodied. 
for it cannot lie denied that confinement 
and pampering any breed of cattle make them 
dangerous at times; and human life is too 
valuable to lie rashly jeoparded. 
PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING. 
Having shown the value of improved stock. 
I say something upon the principles of breed¬ 
ing and cross-breeding. The best breed of any 
genus or species should be kept pure, but it 
does not follow that its blood may not be im¬ 
parted to inferior breeds. The South Down, 
“the Short-horn” of sheep, of fine form, hardi¬ 
ness and early maturity, makes a fine product 
upon the native or scrub sheep. For many 
years there was but little demand for these 
bucks ; they were crossed upon the scrubs, and 
then the half-bred bucks were used: and the 
consequence was a return to the scrub in time, 
often going down with a mixed, nondescript 
breed, unfit for perpetuation. 
But now the laws of breeding are better un¬ 
derstood. and the pure South Down is used 
every year, and all the products sent to mar¬ 
ket, as these half-breds make early, heavy 
lambs of line mutton, which begins to be ap 
preciated in all the large cities here as it has 
been for long years in England and on the 
Continent. But if a stock-flock is to be re¬ 
tained then also all the time a full-blooded 
South Down should lie used. Let us see: the 
first cross is a half blood, then three-fourths, 
then seven-eighths, then fifteen-sixteenths and 
then thirty-one-thirty-seconds, and so on ad 
infin itum. But this is only an approximation 
to the truth: for there is not, in fact, an equal 
division of the blood or quality in each cross, 
as age, health, temperament, etc., change the 
result. But this ia uear enough for practical 
purposes, I once had an Irish Grazier crossed 
on my hogs; but, finding the progeny unfit for 
travel to our distant markets—no railroads 
But. 
after all the marks of that hog had disap¬ 
peared from my herd, an exact but very puny 
Irish Grazier was born, with short legs, white, 
pendant ears and drop body; the other pigs 
were entirely different. So the mixed breeds 
are ever uncertain in their results, as time will 
show in many new breeds with which the pub¬ 
lic is now humbugged. 
PREPOTENCY. 
The breeder's of pure-blooded races of live¬ 
stock have attempted to enhance their value 
by a claim of "prepotency”—that is. superior 
power of generating their like over common or 
scrub stock. I regard this as a delusion; for 
in my opinion that animal has the most prepo¬ 
tency which has the hardiest constitution: and 
I think with equal hardiness, if the reverse 
crosses wore allowed, the sequence would be 
the same—that is, if the scrub was bred to 
South Down ewes successively, always using 
the pure scrub male, the flock would just as 
soon result in a scrub flock as the other process 
would result in a South Down flock. 
fieli) Crops. 
SOMETHING ABOUT OATS. 
WALDO F. BROWN. 
I wish to recommend to Rural readers 
who are expecting to sow oats the coming 
Spring that they 
try the experi¬ 
ment, with a part 
of their land at 
least, of pulveriz¬ 
ing the surface in¬ 
stead of breaking 
up the land. I 
have practiced this 
plan for several 
years, and have al¬ 
ways been pleased 
with it, and I find 
that it is being 
adopted by many 
of our best farm- 
era The great ad¬ 
vantage of it is 
that it enables us 
to pulverize the 
surface so as to 
give a better seed- 
lied, and grow a 
heavier crop. 
There are other 
advantages also, 
one of which is 
that we can put in 
much more land in 
a day. To plow 
an acre of land 
for oats and har¬ 
row and roll till it 
is in the right con¬ 
dition, will take a 
fail* day’s work for 
a hand and team, 
while from three 
to four acres a 
day can be put in 
by the new meth- 
ixL All that is 
necessary is to get 
three inches of the 
surface fine and mellow, aud this may be done 
with a Disk or Acme Harrow, or, if you have 
neither of these, use either the double or single 
corn cultivator. If the land is level, sow the 
oats first; but, if very uneven, sow after culti¬ 
vating. If the cultivators are used to stir with, 
you will have to cross-harrow with a good 
heavy harrow; but with the Disk or Acme 
DOLLED ANGUS HEIFER AND BULL.— From Life—Fig. 98. 
