DEC IS 
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Bmral 3Ud)itff turf. 
COUNTRY SCHOOL-HOUSES. 
We again present to our readers in Figs. 
701 and 702, illustrations o£ the building and 
ground plan of a country school-house. The 
plan is a very excellent one, and clearly ex¬ 
plains itself to the reader. It consists of two 
school-rooms, which are well ventilated and 
well arranged, each room 
€\)t 
NOTES BY A STOCKMAN. 
Dr. Hoskins (page 770) has an unfavorable 
opinion of soiling. No wonder. He says, 
“but with even only three cows it made too 
much work altogether to pay.’’ Of course it 
did. Fancy a hotel-keeper getting disgusted 
with his business as an unprofitable one and 
which have made it profitable to import 
American mutton. 
A moderate-sized animal is more easily fed 
and is generally hardier and more profitable 
in every way than the over-grown, forced 
ones. It will sell for as much per pound. The 
quality of mutton is its highest recommenda¬ 
tion, and the South Down stands first in this 
respect, so that I would choose a South Down 
cross on the Merino, w hose mutton is of ex¬ 
cellent flavor, and quality as well; and so a 
carcass of the very best mutton, although no 
[ unknown; 10 acres of land will support a 
steer without any feeding excepting for about 
two months in the year, when Winter pasture 
and some little corn or turnips, which grow 
excellently, will fatten the beeves for markets 
which are within 300 miles of it. And land is 
about as cheap as it is in the West, and large 
tracts can be procured. 
Perhaps your readers may think this rather 
fishy for a stock note. But look at the fig¬ 
ures. Grass calves can be bought by thou¬ 
sands in the New York 
having four rows of seats, 
The rooms are well lighted, 
and instead of the windows 
being placed directly in 
front, they are at one side, 
thereby giving light in the 
best manner possible. In 
country places, where the 
subject of the sanitary ar¬ 
rangement of the school 
building has never attract¬ 
ed much attention, the idea a 
of bringing the light before 
the. eyes of the pupils upon 
well defined principles, 
might be greeted with a 
sneer; nevertheless, it is a 
well settled fact admitted „ 
by all good opticians and ^ 
skillful physicians, that de- < X IIP— 
fective eye sight, and par- ‘ Hh 
tieularly near - sightedness - > JJj 
are largely on the increase ' , m 
in all civilized countries. W 
The cause of this can often 
be easily traced to the im- 
proper manner of lighting ‘ v 
the school-room; and eini- 
nent authorities claim that 
defective eye-sight is very 
common in school-rooms, iu the planning of 
w hich no regard has been paid to the position 
of the windows as likely to affect the eyes of 
the children. Much light, or not enough, 
cross-lights, or light falling at a low angle 
across the rooms, and also the reflections of 
various colors, are all injurious to the pupils 
and teachers. Light from above a pereon's eye 
is the most natural, and is accepted by all as 
such, while light from below is the most un¬ 
natural. 
For a person that is writing or working, 
light from the left-hand side is almost indis¬ 
pensable, while that from the right hand side 
is unfit, for use except for reading or study. 
Light from tbo back and left-hand side toge¬ 
ther is not injurious, though at times it may 
be inconvenient for the teacher. From the 
back and right-hand side together, and from 
the front, light should never be tolerated. 
Therefore, considering the important part 
which light plays iu the school-room, it will 
be wise in those engaged in erecting school 
buildings, to be careful that proper light is 
furnished. 
The ventilation of the school-room is also a 
most important subject for consideration. 
Too many persons who have long since grad¬ 
uated from the schools of learning, cannot 
well forget the long, weary hours spent in the 
close, ill-ventilated, dusty school-room. The 
ventilation of the room must depend largely 
on the teacher; but to some extent it must be 
made to act independently whenever it is 
necessary to have fire for heating the bouse. 
To accomplish this a square brick chimney 
should be built from the ground, with a 
smooth flue not less than 90 inches square. In 
the center of this flue, and extending its entire 
length, should be placed a galvauized irou 
pipe two inches greater in diameter than the 
pipe from the stove. At n suitable bight, by 
means of a T, this pipe should lie connected, 
through u timber in the chimney, with the 
pipe from the stove. An elevated hood of 
galvanized iron, above the chimney, will be 
necessary for the protection of the interior 
pipe. The heat of the pipe will worm the sur¬ 
rounding air iu the shaft, and it will only be 
necessary to conuect this column of air with 
the air qf the room to produce an upward cur¬ 
rent through the flue. By muking an open¬ 
ing in the flue, within the room and on a level 
with the floor, the air will escape from that 
part nearest the chimney, but no change will 
take place at the remote portions of the room. 
To allow the passage of foul air from the 
lower portion of the room to any one place of 
exit, provide means for it to escape at several 
points between the rows of seats. Openings 
one foot aquure and four or six in number, 
distributed over the space occupied by the 
pupils, should be made through the floor, and, 
by means of conductors made of boards planet! 
on t he inside, or, what is better, tin, connected 
with the ventilating flue. The opening in the 
floor should be iu the aisles, auil across the 
same should be placed gratings, which should 
be taken out when necessary to remove arti 
cles that huve fallen through. The plans we 
produce have been re-drawn and re-engraved 
from the Transactions of the Michigan State 
Teachers 1 Association. 
markets for three cents a 
pound (see market prices). 
They can be loaded on cars 
in the stock-yards and sent 
direct to this locality and 
delivered on the ground for 
about $ 10 per a 250-pound 
calf. 
One year’s feeding will 
cost, including all expenses, 
about $5 per head; that 
makes a three - year - old 
steer cost $25, and it is 
worth, on foot, $50. It is 
clear the profit is 10 per 
cent. Lest your readers 
may get impatient to know 
where this land of promise 
lies, I will say without 
" ’ - more parley, that it is in 
7 the valleys of the Blue 
5 Ridge, and in the latitude 
% ■> ‘ of Atlanta, Charleston and 
f"* Chattanooga, and is des- 
fined to be, before many 
years, one of the most pro¬ 
ductive districts in the 
country. Now it is practi¬ 
cally a wilderness. Per¬ 
haps there is nowhere un¬ 
der the sun a better opportunity for those 
whose tastes incline to stock-keeping and 
dairying to go in and grow up with the 
country than here, especially for associated 
stock-keeping and dairying. And the South¬ 
ern towns and cicies afford a market even bet¬ 
ter than the great Eastern cities. 
- XU *</>/»'■ 
saying, “With ouly three guests it made 
altogether too much work to pay.” The 
work is about the same for three as for thirty. 
The man has to go to the field with a horse 
and wagon to bring in the feed twice a day, 
and do other work just the same for three as 
for thirty. I am rather surprised so shrewd a 
man as Dr. Hoskins does not see this. Now 
as all the labor iu soiling 30 cows need not 
cost more than three cents per head per day, 
and the saving of manure alone will pay 
nearly the whole of that, and the saving of 
land and feed will pay it three times over, it 
is clear that soiling will pay whenever land 
is worth more than $50 an acre. It won’t pay 
on laud worth only $5 to $10 an acre, or on 
poor land; but on rich and costly land it is 
the only way to make it pay, and for the one- 
cow dairy of a village it is the very thing. 
As a rule, cross-bred animals are the most 
profitable for the fanner, shepherd and dairy¬ 
man : first, because they cost less than pure¬ 
bred; second, because they are quite as pro¬ 
ductive of beef, mutton and milk and butter 
as the average pure-bred, and. third, because 
they are not so exacting in their require¬ 
ments. 
It has been stated that since Jersey cat¬ 
tle have been introduced into a certain dis¬ 
trict in an Eastern State, the production of 
butter has doubled. A short-sighted objector 
remarks upon this to the effect that as there 
are only a very small number of Jerseys in 
the locality, this cannot be true. This may 
be so and yet the other statement be quite 
trtie too; for there is not a Jersey bull in the 
country that is not well patronized by the 
farmers, and this is simply because they know 
the value of the grades for butter-making. 
A noted Jersey breeder gives his neighbors 
the service of his bulls for $o per each cow. 
One neighbor reared a handsome half-bred 
heifer, which, when she came in at two years 
old, gave him as much butter as his other 
NOTES ON BACK NUMBERS, 
Rural, Nov. 3, —The “ Evolution of the 
Berkshire Pig' 1 is an interesting picture (p.717). 
But can the changes that take place in our 
domestic animals by crossing and high feeding 
be properly called evolution? The wild hog 
is the work of evolution, or adaptation to his 
environment—a perfect type of the survival 
of the fittest. How long would the improved 
Berkshire survive if left to nature; He is a 
useful abnormality, but an extremely perish¬ 
able beast. 
Mr. Periam’s recommendation to cross 
Merino ewes with South Down rams is very 
good. But he forgets the Hampshire Down, 
which is the best of all. The Cotswold cross 
is played out. The wool is hard to sell and 
the innttou is too fat. The Leicester and the 
Lincoln sheep are nowhere, as I said years 
ago they soon would be. But the Hampshire 
The ten prizes offered by the Rural for 
essays (p. 718) ought to call out a strong com¬ 
petition, and I have no doubt the judges will 
have their hands full. I look for some valu¬ 
able instruction as the result of these pre¬ 
miums. 
I am glad to see the Rural insist upon flat 
culture, (in light soils) for corn and potatoes 
(p. 718). But without faith and the proper 
implements it is impossible to practice this 
system. 
It is astonishing to note the difference in 
the keeping quality of apples raised only 
short distances apart. Thus, Mr. Eli Nui-ieh 
says (in Farm and Garden) that while in 
Northern New Jersey the Baldwin is a good 
keeper, iu the southern part of the State it is 
an August and September fruit. The two 
Russian apples illustrated on page 720 (Arab- 
skoe and Titouka) are reported by Messrs. 
Budd and Gibb to be long keepers in Russia. 
A specimen of the former, obtained by Mr. 
Gibb from Ellwanger Barry, was, when 1 
saw itiu Montreal late in September, “as hard 
as a brick.”’ I think TVealtky is only a Fall 
apple at Rochester, but with me it beeps as 
well as the Baldwin. 
Country School - House 
Down isiu every respect a larger South Dowu, 
aud there is no violent antagonism in the 
cross. The Oxford Dowu is a Cotswold cross 
iqion the Hampshire, and has too much of the 
coarseness of the Cotswold. 
Ground Plan. Fig. 702. 
three cows, all older. Previously he was dubi¬ 
ous about the wisdom of breeding his cows iu 
that way, but now he is enthusiastic about the 
little Jerseys. This is how the butter yield 
becomes doubled. 
“Far-off fields are often green.” It is the 
great Western Plains that attract the atten¬ 
tion of stockmen, who think it is not worth 
while to go into the stock business excepting 
just there. But it is a fact that within 36 
hours of the city of New York there is a great 
undeveloped stock region where more mouey 
can be made out of stock aud more easily than 
iu the West. For instance, the climate is cool 
iu Summer and mild in Winter; water is on 
every hand, pure, cool aud fresh. The air is 
of the most healthful ami invigorating char¬ 
acter; mosquitoes and flies of all kinds are 
Prof. E. W. Stewart presses the import¬ 
ance, to the farmer, of early maturity in 
meat production, no further than the facts 
justify, in his article on page 720. But un¬ 
questionably there is another side to the ques¬ 
tion. “ Soon ripe soon rotten” is an old 
proverb. How long will these early-maturing 
breeds preserve their vitality and stamina ? 
Aud again, what is the value of meat as 
human food from such quick-growing beasts, 
compared with that from those maturing more 
slowly l _ _ 
The success of the sorghum sugar makers 
It is a mistake to cousider size as of first 
importance iu mutton. This is where the 
English farmers made a mistake for which 
they have paid very dearly. They have forced 
the size of the sheep to the ruin of the consti¬ 
tution, and when a bad season comes, as one 
did two or three years ago, the sheep die by 
thousands. The English farmers have made 
money, uo doubt, out of sheep, for years 
past, but it has been by selling the animals for 
breeding, and because of the scarcity of sheep 
for market and the consequent high prices 
