470 
Sheep Iqtsbmwmp 
SOUTH DOWN SHEEP. 
Thebe is no country where more attention 
has been paid to the improvement of the 
breeds of sheep, or where more success has 
been attained than in Great Britain, and of 
the British breeds of sheep there is probably 
none more valuable thau the South Down, 
whether we take into consideration the supe¬ 
riority ot its flesh, the fineness of its wool, its 
capability of early maturity, its hardiness and 
activity, its prepotency in improving other 
breeds or its general excellence. The im¬ 
proved South Down is without cavil the finest 
mutton sheep in the world. As a yearling it 
yields from 70 to 80 pounds, dressed, of the 
choicest meat, and a superior flock will aver¬ 
age six or seven pounds to the clip of wool al¬ 
ways in demand for flannels and soft goods. 
The staple is fine and curled, with spiral ends, 
well adapted to carding, and in a good flock 
the fleeces vary from six to nine pounds. In 
the improvement of other strains the South 
Down has been preeminent, so that there is 
hardly a cross-bred race of sheep in Europe or 
America which has not been indebted to the 
South Down for some of its points of excel¬ 
lence, The lambs from a cross between a 
South Down ram and a grade or pure Merino 
ewe are the fattest that come to market. The 
ewes are prolific breeders and excellent moth¬ 
ers. often producing from 120 to ISO lambs to 
a flock of 100 ewes. The sheep are hardy and 
active, and readily accommodate themselves 
to any district or style of fanning where mod¬ 
erate pasturage is afforded. The South Down 
has become thoroughly naturalized in this 
country, and has left its impress on our “na¬ 
tive" sheep to a greater degree thau any other 
breed except the Merino. 
South Downs are hornless, with dark-brown 
or black faces and legs. They are medium in 
size, with round, deep bodies; wide and deep 
fore-quarters; broad, level backs; square, full 
rumps, and full, massive thighs. The legs are 
short; the bone fine; the form smooth and 
symmetrical. On our first page we preseut to 
our readers a group of excellent specimens of 
the breed, belonging to our contributor Gen- 
C, M. Clay, of Kentucky. On the left is buck 
No 8; facing us in the background is ewe 
No. 1. while in the foreground, presenting a 
side view, is ewe No. 10. All are two years old. 
THE CULTURE OF SHEEP. 
GEN. CASSIUS M. CLAY. 
Washing Wool 
has not been practiced on live sheep by me 
for more than 30 years past and I think it 
should be abandoned everywhere. It is a 
dangerous and disagreeable thing to man and 
sheep; and then the wool is at best but im¬ 
perfectly cleaned. It seems best to send the 
clip to the manufacturers in the grease w'hen 
one operation by machinery closes the affair. 
The very great weight of grease and dirt in 
the Merino fleece, might, perhaps make that 
an exception, to avoid the great loss in freight. 
THE TIME OF LAMBING 
varies in the different latitudes Here the 
time of March to the middle of April is 
preferred, because then the lambs commence 
at once eating the young grass. The sheep 
takes five months in gestation, and naturally 
here would drop lambs in the midst of Win¬ 
ter; and these lambs seem the best as they en¬ 
ter upon the Summer well advanced and are 
less injured by flies and laxity of the bowels. 
But more lambs are lost by the cold. My 
habit is to turn in the bucks on the first of 
October and not to allow any ewes of the 
first year to breed: though many of the South 
Downs will bear lambs at one year of age_ 
This, however, stunts them, and many lambs 
are lost or put on hand feeding {which is nearly 
as bad) by the young ewes. 
THE FEEDING OF LAMBS 
is not necessary here as they commence well 
on the tender grass, and the earliest will crack 
the grains of corn and feed with the mother 
as long as they are fed. They need no more 
feed till cold weather when they are fed here 
in the open fields on grass and maize sowed 
broadcast, a half-gill being enough where 
grass or early rye is plentifuL Rye may well 
be used much further North as a substitute; 
for I have remarked elsewhere nothing is so 
good for sheep as succulent herbage. 
CASTRATION AND DOCKING 
should take place early; yet there is danger 
when the lambs are too young; when suppura¬ 
tion will not take place, there will result gan¬ 
grene and death. Hence 1 always use lard 
and salt on the wounds which excites the ac¬ 
tion of and lubricates the parts. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
JULY 26 
In cutting the tails the skin should be pushed 
towards the rump to allow a flap to cover the 
bone when the healing is easier. 
THE W EANING 
of lambs should be deferred late in the sea¬ 
son. South Downs well kept are always fat 
enough for the buck, and the milk is of great 
service to the lambs, and, as milking the ewes 
is rather out of the question, the udders of the 
ewes dry up with more safety. After the 
lambs are weaned they had best be put to¬ 
gether with an old ewe to direct their move¬ 
ments to salt and water. 
THE NUMBER OF BUCKS 
to the ewes should be as large as practicable, 
say one buck to 20 or 26 ewes. Two should 
not be turned into the same squad as they 
will lose much time in fighting and at times 
disable one or both. I am inclined to 
think that the more the bucks the better the 
lambs: certainly there may be great failure in 
quality and numbers by allowing too many 
ewes to the buck. 
White Hall, Ky. 
<Tl)c 
NOTES BY A STOCKMAN. 
The term “ hog cholera " seems to be much 
misunderstood, it is no wonder. The human 
cholera was at one time equally misunder¬ 
stood. People used to pray against it in the 
churches and have public fasts and humilia¬ 
tions to avert it, just as the heathen Chinee 
used to make a rumpus with gongs and fire¬ 
crackers to save the moon from being eaten 
w’hen it was eclipsed. And the first man who 
advised the people to leave off praying and 
remove the filth from the streets and houses 
was looked at as a wicked and profane person. 
We know better now. and when we hear of 
cholera, we go to work cleaning up and disin¬ 
fecting and so preserve ourselves from it. It 
is the same with yellow fever. Asiatic chol¬ 
era has its w ell-known source, w’bich is at the 
holy well at Mecca. A million of fanatical, 
ignorant, foul, and filthy pilgrims go there 
every year to drink this water. The country 
all around is poisoned by their filth, and the 
water of this well is many times worse than 
the sewage of New York or Chicago. The 
cholera begins there. It is carried borne by 
the pilgrims and spreads far and wide from a 
thousand centers. It is carried by ships, in 
merchandise, but it spreads only by contagion. 
The germs of contagious diseases are fer¬ 
ments similar to the yeast plant. The yeast 
plant introduced into the blood will produce a 
disease similar to enteric fever. which is hog 
cholera. All that is wanted is to bring the 
germ into the blood, where if it finds suitable 
conditions to midtiply, it increases with great 
rapidity. The effect of hot weather, dust, foul 
water, corn feeding, crowding in filth, as de¬ 
scribed by Mr. btabl, (page 429,) is to produce 
the suitable conditions for this increase, and 
w’beu the disease begins it spreads like a fire in 
a kerosene oil manufactory or a powder 
magazine. There is no secret about it. And 
it is the merest folly to have United States 
commissioners fussing over it for yeai-s, at a 
great expense, and making work for them¬ 
selves to stop an irresistible thing, which is 
utterly beyond the power of man to stop. 
But it might never be set in motion, if the 
owners of hogs could only be taught the 
simple precautions by which the disease 
might lie prevented. 
But it won’t pay. Just as it won’t pay for 
Stockmen in Montana or Wyoming to shelter 
their cattle and feed them in the Winter time 
to save two or three per cent, of them from 
starvation aud miserable deaths by exposure. 
I am glad to have Mr. Stahl, with his level 
head and sharp pen to help set this thing right. 
How funny, not to say ridiculous, some 
things turn out. Here is the great State of 
New York permitting the dreaded pleuro¬ 
pneumonia to remain alive here and there, 
just now in Staten Island, where all the cattle 
imported and exported come in and go out, 
and the United States Treasury Commission 
cannot take any notice of it because the 
United States cannot coerce New York, nor 
interfere with its pleuro-pneumonia. But 
when the yellow fever was ravaging the South- 
era Cities, the United States National Board 
of Health was welcomed and aided in every 
way to put a stop to it and prevent it coming 
again. It is said that when a rich man’s 
house was on tire the gardener saw the fire but 
it was not bis business; the butler saw it but 
it wasn’t liis duty; the coachman went to take 
care of the stable; and nobody having special 
authority to interfere, the house burned down. 
When this cattle disease gets all over the coun¬ 
try as it may do any day, and the live stock 
industry is ruined, we may see a repetition of 
this old story. 
It is amazing bow much law and how little 
government we have. A large importation of 
Dutch cattle was recently made. There was 
the new quarantine station with six poor Swiss 
shut up iu it; but these 120 Dutch cattle were 
not sent there, but were sent on to Syracuse, 
N. Y,, and put in quarantine .'?) there—per¬ 
haps such a quarantine as that in St. Louis, 
recently, which was a barn, where a dairy 
was kept and the cows were driven to and 
from pasture along the public road twice a 
day. It was Dutch cattle which brought pleuro¬ 
pneumonia here at first; what if a new install¬ 
ment should be brought, in this way and 
started spreading in a new place? 
The aggregate losses of cattle on the plains 
every year is enormous. The pecuniary loss 
is made up by the profits upon what are saved, 
but what a vast amount of animal suffering 
is included in this loss of three or five per 
cent. There are probably five million cattle 
kept on the plains. Four per cent, of this is 
200,000 The cruelty which is concentrated in 
the deaths of all these cattle by starvation or 
thirst, is sufficient to make one mourn. If a 
farmer were to deliberately starve one of his 
cows to death by turning the animal out with¬ 
out food or water, he would be very quickly 
meet with adequate punishment, but as is the 
fashion just now, the greater the crime, the 
less it becomes amenable to the law aud the 
less reprehension it meets with. 
Not long ago extra cattle sold in New 
York market at 17 cents a pound. Now, sales | 
at e slow at 12 cents for the same quality. The 
average is now’ about 10 cents against 15 a few | 
weeks ago. The boom is over. It is a neces¬ 
sary result of certain causes. There was a 
speculative mania in live stock. The old 
stockmen sold out their cattle and land which 
they did not own, and only had a possessory 
claim to as squatters, for just such enorm¬ 
ous sums as they asked, and the foolish pur¬ 
chasers bought on estimate without counting 
boras lest some other buyer should get ahead 
of them. Daring the transferring of these 
herds no cattle were sold and of course prices 
of beef went up, because of the scarcity. 
Now the new owners are selling sonic stock 
to realize profits and tbey grasp at the 
shallow, while the other dog has run off with 
the bone. 
It is alw’ays thus, and it suggests the ques¬ 
tion how soon may not farmers be buying 
Jerseys for reasonable prices, which have 
been selliug for thousands? As soon as their 
rich owners are tired playing with them. 
Some time ago an article was published in the 
Rural w'ritten, I think by Mr. Stewart, 
showing by figures that a 400 or a 000 pound 
cow’ even could not be worth so much as 
6500 as a business investment. I have never 
seen those figures questioned, or any reason 
shown why any cow could jiossibly be worth 
$1,000, although she might produce three 
pounds of butter a day. I should like to see 
it figured out by some Jersey breeder. 
NEEDED CHANGE IN THE RULES OF 
THE A. J. C. C. 
For many yearn the American Jersey Cattle 
Club has held an unchallenged monopoly of 
recording the pedigrees and transfers of Jersey 
cattle, besides occupying much of the atten¬ 
tion of agricultural writers throughout the 
country. Its membership has increased to 
about three hundred breeders who live in 
Canada and every State in the Union. 
The rules of eutry, methods of election and 
other points of management that were origin¬ 
ally convenient aud suited to the limited wants 
of a few members living in the extreme east¬ 
erly States, have proven to be cramped and 
galling to many of the new members who live 
elsewhere, and the consequence has been that 
an uneasy feeling has grown into many com¬ 
plaints and been crystalized into organized 
movement, with the purpisc of correcting 
some of the old troubles and widening out the 
hitherto contracted principles upon which the 
club lias been governed- 
As usual, the first evidence of this uneasi¬ 
ness made its appearance in the columns of the 
agricultural papers of the country, and sub¬ 
sequently found expression in the meetings of 
the club. There was then a called meeting of 
Western breedei‘8 held at Chicago, where 
some pretty vigorous action was taken looking 
to u more liberal and enlightened administra¬ 
tion of the club’s affairs. The conclusions 
arrived at by this Chicago meeting were well 
championed at the annual meeting of the club 
by that highly conservative Southern breeder 
Maj. Campbell Brown, of Tennessee. 
Subsequent to this joint movement of the 
Western breeders, the Jersey breeders of Ken¬ 
tucky—not a very numerous but a highly in¬ 
fluential class—decided to organize in behal f 
of their own interests. What their final uc- 
t ion hasbeeu we are not informed, but we pre¬ 
sume it has resulted iu bringing the Kentucky 
breeders more nearly in Sympathy with each 
other, and has prepared them to take con¬ 
certed action for the better protection of their 
interests. 
Following these several movements, we 
now see iu the Breeder and .Sportsman, of 
California, a note to the effect that a move¬ 
ment has taken place in Ban Francisco with a 
view to the formation of a Jersey Cattle Club 
aud the production of a Jersey herd book for 
the Pacific Slope. The cause stated that led 
to this action is that it. lias been “ almost im¬ 
possible for the local breeders of Jersey cattle 
to get their stock recorded in the A. J. C. C. 
H. B." It is claimed that the existing rules 
are a “vexatious and almost unendurable 
nuisance.” Many special items of complaint 
are named and it is claimed that many rules of 
the club, that prove only au annoyance to 
Eastern breeders, amount to an actual prohi¬ 
bition to those living on the Pacific Slope. 
The interest in Jersey cattle is liecoming so 
large iu this country that vexatious and an¬ 
noying rules relative to registratiou and im¬ 
portation of cattle, that are not absolutely 
essential to the preservation of correct records, 
will not be submitted to without an opposi¬ 
tion so vigorous aud backed by so large a 
number of wealthy and influential breeders 
as to threaten the well-being and high 
authority of flic Club, The members should 
recognize the fact that what a few years ago 
was but a play-thing aud a mode of recreation 
to a few wealthy gentlemen with pastoral 
tastes, has grown into a commercial interest 
of national importance, aud, as the Cali¬ 
fornians say. rules that were but an annoyance 
to a score of breeders amount, to a prohibition 
to many hundred breeders scattered over the 
length and breadth of our wide domain. 
Pertinent to t uis matter, we are glad to see 
that the committee of thirteen appointed at 
the last annual meeting of the club to propose 
amendments to the constitution and rules of 
entry, has recommended liberal amendments, 
including a larger representative body— 
twelve ineuiliers for the former four that con¬ 
stitute the Board of Directors—with power to 
appoint the Secretary, etc. If the members 
of the club pursue the only policy open to 
them by a fair and honorable adjustment of 
the rules of the club to the growiug needs of 
the numerous and rapidly increasing number 
of breeders of the country, they will promptly 
adopt, the amendments suggested and thus 
allay the preseut growing spirit of discon¬ 
tent. For it must be remembered that these 
Western, Kentucky and Pacific Slope move¬ 
ments have not been undertaken by a few 
jealous outsiders who are anxious to break 
down the authority of the club, but so far as 
we have been able to learn, the active movers 
in these agitations are members of the club, 
who are known to have its best in¬ 
terests at heart, but who recognize the Miss- 
Nancy notions of the members who originally 
invented and put these foolish restrictions into 
practice. The common objections are that 
the present rales militate against a wise selec¬ 
tion on the Island and a liberal intercourse 
between buyer and seller, while the ollice of 
Secretary being elective leaves the incumbent 
absurdly autocratic. The club cannot afford 
to be wrong in these points, and every fair- 
minded man who is familiar with its work¬ 
ings, knows that the rules are not what they 
should be, and we confidently look for a 
prompt adoption of the proposed amendments 
that will in a great measure remove all cause 
for complaint. 
-- -♦♦♦■ - 
fjarrn (Economy. 
TILE DRAINAGE.—No. 11. 
SEC. W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Laying the Tiles. 
When the field is all laid out, and the mains 
and laterals dug with team aud plow to the 
full depth of a foot, and the bottoms of these 
trenches have been brought to a uniform 
grade, so that no water will stand In any por¬ 
tion of them, as described in the previous ar¬ 
ticle; then the work may go on in a mild 
Winter (latitude 88 to 41 degrees) with occa¬ 
sional interruption all Winter long. But 
cei’taiu precautions must be taken more 
thoroughly than would be necessary iu early 
