4087 
THE RURAL HEW-YORtff*. §i? 
©)< ijfr'Dsm.au, 
DEVON COW MOSS ROSE. 
• - 
There is no doubt that while no attempt is 
made to “boom” the Devons, they are steadily 
gaining in public favor wherever they are 
known. Handsome, hardy, the best of work 
oxen, excellent beef cattle, rich though not 
very deep milkers, maturing early and fatten¬ 
ing readily, their intrinsic merits deserve a 
front place in popular regard. Not so large 
as the Short-horn or Holstein, the Devon is 
more active, hardy and a much better forager 
than either, while its beef in the London 
market fetches a higher price than that of the 
former, and its milk is richer, though less 
abundant, than that of the latter. What form 
of a beef beast, can be produced better tbau 
that of the Devon cow Moss Rose, Fig. 291, 
re-engraved from the London Live Stock 
Journal? Yes, the Devons are pretty sure to 
make friends wherever they are known. 
LIVE STOCK NOTES FOR AUGUST. 
HORSES. 
Field work at this season is extremely hard 
upon the teams. It will be found a great re¬ 
lief to change the hours of work, so as to give 
horses three hours’ rest at least iu the middle 
of the day. Eight hours’ work is enough for 
horses in the harvest field, if the work is done 
from 7 a. M. to 0 p. m. If work-begins at six, 
and ends for the forenoon at 10:30, then begins 
at three and continues until 8:30, with a rest 
at six for a luuch, twice as much can be done 
as in 10 hours, from seven to six, 
and with more ease to animals and 
men. 
Salt should be given daily dur¬ 
ing the warm season, ltencourages 
digestion and avoids the dangers 
incident to green feeding. Never 
give horses saltpeter or resin, ex¬ 
cept under competent advice. Auy 
slight muddiness of the urine 
should he corrected by giving a 
bran mash but not by tLese too 
often abused remedies. 
To keep flies nt arms’ length rub 
over the skin a mixture of crude 
petroleum and oil of pennyroyal 
applied by means of a sponge or 
folded cloth to the outside of the 
coat. Bruised leaves of tansy, 
black walnut, wild iudigo or 
pennyroyal rubbed over the hair, 
will keep the pests at a distance for 
a time. 
We find the zinc collar pads very 
useful to prevent the collar chafing 
the neck and they prevent wearing 
the mane. They are cool and no 
doubt comfortable to the horses. 
Keep the harness soft by means of 
neats’-foot oil well rubbed in after 
a thorough washing with warm wa¬ 
ter and while the leather is moist. 
Mares with colts should have 
good pastures and a liberal bran mash every 
evening. This is best made by steeping two 
quarts of bran in two quarts of hot water in 
the morning and leaving it to cool slowly. 
Some mares drive their colts from them when 
feeding; iu such cases the colts should be fed by 
themselves a small ration of ground oats and 
corn twice a day. This is all the more needed 
when the mare Is in foul aguiu. 
Yearlings should be fed liberally. Oats or 
barley fed alone, should lie part of the daily 
ration of grain, and the rest may be bran and 
corn meal. Good pasture or abundant green 
fodder of peas and oats or tares and barley 
sown late, should be specially provided where 
a few colts are reared. 
CATTLE AND COWS. 
This is the most exacting period with cows. 
If these machines are not well provided with 
material their products will surely fall off. 
Young corn fodder, especially from early 
kinds of sweet corn,will now keep the pail well 
filled. If the ears are given with the stalks 
the milk will be rich in cream. A dark, 
well-aired, and clean stable will be grateful 
to cows during the midday hours. Protec¬ 
tion from heat is indispensable if good butter 
is expected, and is spocially needful for good 
milk that will keep sweet until sold. If (lies 
are troublesome at milking, cover the cow 
with a cotton sheet and sponge the legs with 
crude petroleum, or a soapy, moist sponge upon 
which a few drops of kerosene oil have been 
sprinkled. 
SHEEP. 
On dry pastures sheep may be troubled with 
sore feet and go about on their kuees. This 
is to be attended to at once. Pare the crust 
of the hoofs and clean out gravel from the 
elefts of the feet. Keep the sheep clean and 
rie iron filth and keep a close watch against 
blow flies. This is the active season of the 
sheep bot-fly, and whenever the flock is seen 
running with their noses to the ground and 
pawing with the feet, their enemy is torment¬ 
ing them. Then is the time to grease or tar 
the noses and bring them into the shade dur¬ 
ing the day, leading them out to feed atnight. 
Some green corn fodder or oats and peas will 
be greatly relished by fattening sheep and 
ewes nursing lambs. Ewes from which lambs 
have been taken should be kept up for a few 
days until the udder has dried and trouble 
from the milk is past. Do not neglect to 
supply pure water. To drink from swamps or 
sluggish, grassy streams is to court danger 
from lung and liver parasites, which at times 
are exceedingly destructive. 
SWINE. 
This is the breeding season of tbe fatal 
cholera, the germs of which are being sown 
in these hot, dry, dusty days, when the thick- 
skinned, fat-laden hog suffers from the 
heat and becomes weakened in vital vigor. 
Every comfort should be provided for the 
pigs. Fresh, juicy, clean food; cool, clean 
beds; shade and pure, clean water will great¬ 
ly help to keep them in good health and 
hasten fattening in the cool weather by and 
by. 
BUCEPHALUS BROWN’S NOTIONS AND 
IDEAS. 
No Short-Horns for New England.— 
Nothing marks the advance of sound agricul¬ 
tural knowledge more plainly than the im¬ 
possibility of selling blooded stock of any 
breed in localities to which they are not adapt¬ 
ed. There was a time when Short-horns, 
Herefords and Dutch were tried on farms all 
over New England. Generally this was by 
more or less fancy farmers; yet mauy others 
were induced to invest hard-earned money iu 
them, which they never got out again. They 
were all weighed in the balance and found 
too heavy for a hilly country. The force ex¬ 
pended in moving their big bodies up grade 
had to come out of their food, their milk or 
their meat, and the balance was universally 
the wrong way. The only man who went in¬ 
to Dutch stock “big” in my county, though 
he started with the best farm in it, is now 
growing wheat for the railroads on 160 acres 
iu Dakota. Another went into Short-horns 
as heavily and if his father had not left him a 
fortune would be no better off. He had sense 
enough, however, to go out of them some 
time ago. 
Devons —The first well-bred cattle that 
ever took the eye of a genuine Yankee farm¬ 
er were the red Devons; and if they bad been 
better at the pail they would have been to¬ 
day almost the only horned stock east of the 
Hudsou River. They are fur superior to any 
of the other small breeds in everything but 
dairy points. They are all right for beef, and 
the best work cattle the world ever saw. But 
New England does not take to beef farming, 
for natural reasons that have so far seemed 
conclusive; while horses have supplanted cat¬ 
tle for draft. Though their intense and long 
thorougb-breediug makes it difficult, I believe 
that the patient, persevering and scientific 
work, such as an agricultural college farm 
might afford and give, would put Devons on 
an equality ,or nearly that, with Jerseys for 
butter. Their milk is of extra quality, bub 
there is not enough of it, and, more to the 
point, it does not hold out well. But they are 
lovely cattle, and worth a good deal of work 
to perfect them. 
Ayrshires, —It must be conceded that 
Ayrsbires have been a disappointment in 
America,, A study of their history furnishes 
the reason. They are not a race, like the 
Devons; they are not even a breed, like the 
Short-horns; they have, iu truth, scarcely 
risen out of mongrelhood, and though there 
are among them some wonderfully good milk¬ 
ers, and a good many more that much excel 
the average of common cows, they are almost 
as uneven and uncertain as the latter are, now 
that they are so carefully bred, aud better fed 
so long by good fanners. Their comparative 
inferiority for tbe butter dairy, and their 
short teats, which are absolutely held to by 
breeders as essential concomitants of a square 
udder, add to their unpopularity. 
Jerseys. —Without a shadow of doubt the 
Jersey is the popular thoroughbred cow 
amoDg the business fanners of New England. 
It Is the Jersey which is in use everywhere to 
grade up the native stock; and as these na¬ 
tives have a great deal of Devon blood in them 
giving a well-favored body, and are generally 
good feeders, the cross makes excellent cows. 
Picking our best natives, the first cross on 
them of a well-selected Jersey bull produces a 
very large proportion of dairy cows that, 
when properly kept and treated, will aver¬ 
age all around better than pure Jerseys. 
Jersey Crosses. —Of course these cross¬ 
bred cattle cannot be perpetuated among 
themselves. Like cross-bred plant species, 
they “fly in all directions,” in the next and 
succeeding generations. No doubt long and 
patient work with them would bring out a 
straight thing at last, but the conditions of 
country are not at present favorable to success 
m this line. We have few or no permanent 
agricultural families attached to ancestral 
acres. The only American perpetuity is the 
corporation, and the only enduring agricul¬ 
tural corporation is the agricultural college. 
Stock Breeding at Agricultural Col¬ 
leges.— I say “enduring” because I hope and 
believe so. I will say, too, that the surest 
thing these colleges can do to make them¬ 
selves “solid” with their natural constituency, 
the common farmers, is to take up jobs like 
this, impossible for their patrons, and carry 
them out to successful results. Let it once be 
well recognized in a State that the farm of its 
agricultural college is breeding the best stock 
for the State, and doing it in the best manner, 
and agricultural colleges will need no other 
booming. A caviler will say, “Would you 
have the college sacrifice its fauction as a 
teaching body to such a thing as stock-breed¬ 
ing ■" l would reply that the best way to 
teach is by example. The agricultural college 
teacher who can show in his college garden, 
orchard, grass-field, grain-field, root field, in 
his sheep, pigs, fowls, horses and cattle, ac¬ 
knowledged examples of genuine scientific 
work, justified in its practical results, will 
have the boys of the farm tumbliug over one 
another to come under his instruction. “No¬ 
thing succeeds like success.” How is it with 
the best analogue of au agricultural college, 
the medical college ? Who is it that gives 
fame and calls in the big classes but the great 
surgeon, the great specialist in any branch, 
whose good work is seen, ami can be studied 
as illustrating and justifying his teaching ? I 
would give a good deal..to^know one agricul¬ 
tural college professor with the combined 
skill, zeal and teaching talent that I have seen 
in many teachers of the healing art. But I 
believe that time is developing them. 
DOES IT PAY TO RAISE HORSES AT 
THE EAST ? 
Shall we raise or buy onr horses ? In 
some sections of the Eastern States, where 
trucking or fruit-growing is the chief indus¬ 
try, it maybe cheaper to buy; but in a gen¬ 
eral farming section, all things considered, it 
Is cheaper and more satisfactory to raise 
them. Supposing a fanner to have pasture 
and hay, as any good farmer will, the cost of 
keeping a colt till it is throe years old is mere¬ 
ly nominal, being so little that it never will be 
missed; and the care that it requires ought to 
be a pleasure to any farmer. But let us figure 
a little: the first cost of a colt is for service 
from some good-blooded horse, (Scrub-stock 
had better be left alone). This will be from 
$15 to $30, using a mare that is known to be 
possessed of good blood and good qualities. A 
cross between her and a horse selected with an 
eye to the purpose for which a colt is wanted, 
ought, and generally will, produce a colt of 
value to its owuer, and few will ever miss 
what it has cost them. On the other hand, 
one will have to buy from the dealer nt a high 
figure, and take his chance of getting what he 
wants, and my experience has been that West¬ 
ern horses are not what we want here. What 
every farmer wants is a horse of 
good pedigree, and the surest way 
to obtain it is to grow it one’s self. 
A horse that has grown upon the 
farm, and that one has cared for 
from colthood up, will be prized 
much more than one that has been 
bought, and it will love its owner 
like a child if it has been treated 
in a humane manner. 
Vice is seldom born in a colt, 
being generally acquired, and usu¬ 
ally the owner is more to blame 
than the horse. I have heard some 
say that a colt is so much bother 
that they could not afford to raise 
one. This class of men generally 
find it too much bother to look 
after a horse of any description as 
it should be; so any old worn-out 
city plug is good enough for them 
—generally too good. What we 
require in this State is a general- 
purpose horse: i. <>., a tough, wiry 
animal that will weigh from 000 
to 1,200 pounds, a good worker on 
the farm and an easy ilrawer on 
the road, either loaded or to a light 
rig. Experience has taught us that 
the best we can get is one of our 
own growing and training, and it 
would be hard work to make the 
farmers of this State think other¬ 
wise. A. G. S. 
Dover, Del. 
Caw. 
“Every Man is presumed to know the. Law. 
Nine-tenths of all Litigation arises from Ig¬ 
norance of Law."” 
Selling Adulterated Milk.— The Court 
of Appeals of this State (from which there is 
no appeal) has just decided a case of consider¬ 
able importance—that of the People i’s. Kib- 
ler. The latter was indicted for selling milk 
adulterated with water, aud it was proved 
that the milk he sold did not reach the stand¬ 
ard of purity required by statute. For the 
defence it was shown that the defendant had 
bought the milk from a wholesale dealer and 
supposed it was pure; that he had acted in 
good faith and, therefore, that he should not 
be convicted. The Court of Appeals, how¬ 
ever, affirming the decision of the State 
Supreme Court, held that the plea of absence 
of knowledge or inteut is uo defense to the 
charge of violating the statute, and that a 
person who sells milk or butter is bound under 
the law to know what he is selling. 
Poultry Sales in Massachusetts.—O ne 
of the last Acts passed by tbe Massachusetts 
Legislature, at its last session, was one repeal¬ 
ing the old law prescribing the manner of 
dressing poultry for market and the penalties 
for non-compliance therewith. The new law 
reads as follows: 
Section 1.— No poultry, except it be alive, 
shall be sold, or exposed for sale, until it has 
been properly dressed by the removal of the 
crop aud entrails when containing food. 
I Section 2.—Whoever knowiugly sells, or 
exposes for sale, poultry contrary to section 
