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Vol. XLIV. No. 1874. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 26, 1885. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
31.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, In tbe year 1835, by the Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
Itotf* from the Sural'* W.U.l. J#rm 
FEEDING LAMBS. 
PEED A LITTLE GRAIN DAILY, 
commencing as soon as the lambs are separat¬ 
ed from the ewes, when raised; and as soon 
as brought home, wheD purchased. No mat¬ 
ter bow early this may be, or how good the 
pasture, a little extra feed in the shape of 
corn, oil meal and bran, will keep up a 
growth and thrift, that, with the increase in 
fleece produced, will pay well for ail the food 
consumed. The practice will, at the same 
time accustom the lambs to the presence of 
the feeder, making them tame, and at the 
same time it will get them used to the dry 
food so they will not so much mind the 
change when taken from the pasture to the 
barns. For convenience in feeding, troughs 
should be provided; they can be made of 
boards of auy convenient length and eight 
inches wide nailed together, and to V-shaped 
end pieces. They are to be supported on legs 
made of l^inch planks 10 luches wide ami 10 
inches long, having notches cat m the upper 
edge into which the troughs ure to be nailed. A 
trough 16 feet long, if placed where the lambs 
can eat from either side, will afford room for 
feeding 25 A good food is made by mixing 
two parts of corn, one part of oil meal and 
four parts of bran, by measure; one hushel of 
this to 100 lambs is a fair ration while at grass. 
They should be fed bat once a day, and the 
best time is jast at night, or after a day’9 
run in the pasture; but whatever time is se 
lected as “feeding time," it should not be 
changed, but should remain the same, day 
after day, otherwise, not knowing when to 
expect their food, they will be conf«ntly 
watching, iustead of grazing as they should. 
HOUSING LAMBS DURING STORMS, 
In the Fall, pays well for the little trouble; 
cold weather, or even cold winds, do them 
but little harm so long as they have dry coats; 
but a cold rain, or even a heavy shower, wets 
them to the skin aDd saturates their wool, 
and with the heavy fleeces which they have 
at this seasou, several days elapse before they 
become dried; meanwhile, with their wet 
shirts, every cold wind affects them, and 
they take cold, run at tbe nose and eyes and 
are almost certain to lose flesh. It is also a 
good plan to house them at night, as soou as 
the nights are uniformly cold aud heavy frosts 
cover everything in the morniug. This is 
but little trouble, aud if tho feeding hour has 
been fixed at night, by transferring the 
troughs to the stables or barns, oue or two 
nights feeding in these quarters will make 
them only too ready to rush in as soon as they 
have a chance. 
PUTTING LAMBS INTO WINTER-QUARTERS 
should not be delayed too long After a few 
severe frosts, the grass loses its nutritive 
value largely and, although with a little in 
crease iu tbe grain the iambs may be lert at 
pasture until the ground freezes up without 
much, if any, loss of flesh, yet the danger of 
being caught in storms is increased, the grass 
is eaten too close for the good of the pasture, 
and tho lambs do not make as much growth 
as Is desirable. It is, therefore, better to put 
them permanently into their winter quarters 
as soon as the nights become so cold that the 
grass is frozen so solid as to be broken when 
trodden on by stock or men. In Western 
New York this is not far from the middle of 
November in average years. 
TO INQUIRING FRIENDS. 
A good friend at Orient, N. Y., wishes to 
know if a covered pen on the south side of a 
barn can, by sheeting it with tarred paper 
and matched boards, be made warm enough 
for sheep. It could be easily if standing on a 
good wall or if tbe soil be so banked against 
tbe sides as to make it tight. The tarred pa¬ 
per should bB put inside tbe weather boarding 
with the edges lapped so as to be air-tight. 
On the paper should be nailed inch strips so 
as to hold the matched boarding away from 
it so as to leave a dead air space of one inch; 
if well done this should keep tbe cold out. 
The place should also be made tight overhead 
and should be furnished with ventilators, so 
that by opening and closing these more or 
less, the temperature can be controlled. 
This and another friend ask if we recom¬ 
mend the shearing of store sheep particularly 
ewes. Where sheep are kept as storesotily, 
and only moderately fed, we would not 
recommend winter shearing either of ewes or 
wethers. It is only when feeding large quan¬ 
tities of rich foods, especially those rich in ni¬ 
trogenous matters, thus stimulating the pro¬ 
duction of wool as well as of meat, that we 
advocate this method of shearing. Of course, 
sheep that are shorn must have much warmer 
quarters and more and richer food than those 
unshorn, but, as we have said, w here the sheep 
are properly cared for, it pays. 
Another asks what do we do with our males 
daring Winter. Wnen housing our sheep we 
put the rams all together in a pen by them 
selves, being Shropshires, Hampsblres or 
South Downs, they have no horns in the way 
or with which to annoy or injure each other. 
They do not have enough room to light, and 
we feed high enough so they will come 
through the Winter in good order; in fact, 
quite fat. They are shorn too. 
Some three or four ask if they can afford to 
pay 15 to 18 cents per bushel for carrots as a 
food for sheep, and. if so, how many should 
be fed per day. Fifteen cents per bushel is 
$5.00 per ton, and 18 cents per bushel is $G.OO 
per ton, aud as a principal article of food, In 
competition with grams at present prices, we 
think one can not afford to bay them. But as 
it is utterly impracticable to raise winter 
lambs without succulent food, and as even 
fattening sheep do much better with one or 
two feeds of such food each week, we should 
say pay that price for euough for this purpose. 
It is not safe to attempt to feed any sheep on 
dry food and grain alone, if Ted high, over 90 
days; but wuh not more than two feeds of 
green food per week, the feeding can be con 
turned to almost any length, and thesheep will 
do better, even while they are fed. While we 
would advise buying a few at the prices 
named, we would urge every sheep feeder to 
prepare a piece of ground, and, next bummer, 
put in and grow an abundance, not of carrots, 
but of mangels and turnips. There is not the 
least trouble, with the preper preparation of 
ground and culture, iu raising mangels and 
putting them in the cellar or pit at rot more 
than five or six cents per bushel, and at this 
price they are a very cheap food. 
JOTTINGS. 
We have had the worst Fall for closing up 
the worn for many years. It has rained in¬ 
cessantly and the carting off of apples has cut 
up tho roads uutil they are almost impassable, 
aud then the ground is so tilled with water 
that a team could not haul halt a load of corn 
or corn-stalks. 
So much rain has also greatly damaged the 
cornstalks. Whereas they are usually worth 
two-thirds as much as the best Timothy hay 
and half as much as -lover, this year they are 
not worth more than 75 per cent of this 
estimate and are hard to save in stack or mow. 
Dainj £)usharu)ni. 
SALT AND SALTING BUTTER.-NO. 2. 
T. D. CURTIS. 
Must be free from mechanical impurities; 
causes of these; improper handling and 
storing of salt; an absorbent of taints and 
odors. 
S\alt for dairy purposes should not only be 
free from deleterious substances, and be of 
fine and even grain and easily dissolved; but 
it should also be free from all mechanical 
imparities, such as black specks, which are 
quite common In some, at least, of the Amer¬ 
ican salts, and pan-scales or lime flakes, 
generally found in some of the foreign makes 
of salt. It should be clean as well as pure. 
Tbe impurities in the brines from which 
different kinds of salt are made may be about 
tbe same in kind; but there is a wide differ¬ 
ence in the proportions and quantities of the 
foreign ingredients, and a still wider differ¬ 
ence in the processes and degrees of skill used 
in manufacturing salt, purifying it, and 
securing tbe best possible condition of the 
product for use in so common yet delicate 
and delicious an article as butter—one so de¬ 
pendent for fine flavor on the quality of the 
salt, on skillful manipulation, so as not to lose 
the delicious flavoring oils, and on almost 
every condition observed In Its manufacture, 
from the drawing of the milk from the cow’s 
udder to the last touch in preparing the pro 
duct for market—aye, •mdon the conditions 
under w hicb it is kept after the manufacturer 
has given it the last finishing stroke. 
Mechanical impurities are often introduced 
into salt by careless handling. Dust and dirt 
will penetrate a sack thrown down and tum¬ 
bled carelessly over a dirty floor or passage¬ 
way, and jolting ov r a rough road for miles 
in a lumber wagon box that is not strictly 
clqaD, may pound Girt through tbe sack and 
injure, if not absolutely spoil, the salt' for 
dairy purposes. Indeed, I consider any salt 
spoiled that contains these mechanical im¬ 
purities, from whatever source they may 
come. An instance was lately pointed out to 
me where a fa rmer bought a sack of the best 
dairy salt made, but when he got home with 
it his good wife found it so full of black specks 
that they could not use it. “But,” said she. 
“they had drawn coal in the wagon box, and 
it was coal dust that worked through the sack 
aud rendered it impossible to get the salt out 
of the bag without the dust on the surface 
mixing all through it.” Haudling and shak¬ 
ing up tbe bag have the same effect at every 
move. Much salt, no doubt, is spoiled in this 
way, and the manufacturer is accused of send¬ 
ing out dirty salt. 
Another source of injury to salt is the stor¬ 
ing or transporting of it in conjunction with 
articles of a malodorous character—such as 
codfish, kerosene, etc. 
Salt is very sensitive to all kinds of odors, 
and readily absorbs them when in their pre¬ 
sence Witness the lady’s borile of “smelling 
salts,” which is salt impregnated with am¬ 
monia, because itso effectually retains the pun¬ 
gent smell for convenient use. Fttis, of w hich 
pomades and ointments are made, are ready 
absorbents of odors, and the modern dairy¬ 
man has learned—at least he has been often 
enough taught—that he must manufacture 
and keep his butter in an atmosphere free from 
foul odors. But he has not been so thoroughly 
taught that the salt be uses in batter may be 
highly charged with these same objectionable 
odors. Let him, in future, look well to this 
source of taint, and not only see that his salt 
is pure and sweet when he buys it, but keep 
it in such a way chat it will remain dry, pure, 
and sweet. If he does, he will not hear com¬ 
plaints about “fishy flavors," unknown 
taints which puzzle the expefJSiif'cut the pres¬ 
ence of which cannot be dented. Meet dealers 
handle aud store salt in a reprehensible man¬ 
ner. They toss and tumble it about as if it 
were of no consequence, and often store it in 
damp, moldy, musty smelling places, that 
cannot fail to destroy its delicate sweetness, 
aDd put it in a condition to pack hard, and 
give the dairyman needless annoyance and 
work to break it up when he uses it. 
-*♦«- 
A GOOD COW W1THQUT A PEDIGREE. 
Our friend. Frank Fogle, of Sc. Joe, Mo., 
has a common bred cow that deserves Dotice. 
On a diet of millet hay, with a daily feed of 
bran and ground wheat screenings made into 
a mash, she makes on an average lots pounds 
of well-worked, salted butter weekly. Such 
cows are not common, even among those with 
very long pedigrees. 
With this I send greeting to f-j Editors of 
the Rural and all their helpers, and.wish them 
one and all, a Merry Caristmas and a Happy 
New Year; and this salutation I also extend 
to all the readers of the Rural, including the 
little ones over at Uncle Mark’s. May Santa 
Claus visit them all, and fill their stockings 
to overflowing with just such things as will 
gladden their hearts and make life the better 
worth living. 
* * * 
This is peculiarly the season for thoughtful¬ 
ness; and I have just been thinking how 
much I, in common with all Jthe readers of 
the Rural, am indebted to the Editors for 
their faithful and fruitful labors during the 
past year, which have been so useful to all, 
youog and old alike. An agricultural paper 
can only be made useful by unremitting at¬ 
tention to all its details, and the exercise of a 
nice discrimination and a sound and impartial 
judgment Briefly, it seems to me that we 
owe the Editors something more than thanks, 
grateful as these ate to the man who feels 
that he has performed his duty. In addition 
to all the good things that appear weekly in 
the Rural, the Editors offer subscribers 
many valuable presents as the end of the year 
comes roupd. Suppose we, in return, make 
them a present, which we can well afford to, 
as they give us much more than we pay for. 
Many of ns might give them so muon of oar 
time as would secure them at least one new 
subscriber, which would make us happy, and 
them too. 
♦ * * 
Speaking of presents “reminds me” Johnny 
Preston lives up in the Greeu Mountains in 
Vermont. Three years ago Johnny’s father 
gave him a line young colt, which, by careful 
handling, has developed into a handsome and 
fleet animal. Johnny now wants a new buggy, 
and thinks he eau get the one offered by the 
Rural, aud says he is going to try for it, any 
how. This is a good example for other boys 
to follow. I wish him success, and all the 
other boys like-minded, 
* * * 
I have thought of another way: If you 
have no time to cauvass for subscribers, some 
of you, doubtless have a cousin, au uncle or a 
friend to whom a year’s subscription to the 
Rural would be a very acceptable Christ¬ 
mas or New Year’s present. Send it to him. 
Whoever gets it once will be quite sure to 
keep on taking it. I have tried this way, and 
it acts admirably. 
* * * 
A very bo autiful climber for a warm green 
