462 
JULY 44 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
separately in the Barrel churn at the same 
temperature. The cream from the Ferguson 
Creamer gave 5% pounds of butter, and that 
from the Cooley 6% pounds. Of course, these 
experiments should be tried a number of times 
before any definite conclusions can be drawn 
as to the difference in the values of the cream¬ 
ers or churns; but the above are the facts in 
regard to these particular churnings. 
During the noon hour some of the Holstein 
and Jersey cows, the two bulls (Valentine and 
Robinson Crusoe), and all the horses on the 
farm, including Spartacus, the imported Per- 
cheron, were led out for inspection, and were 
photographed by a local artist. 
Lunch was furnished in the barn. In the 
afternoon Mr. W. H. Gilbert, of Richland, 
spoke on “Butter Making," and illustrated 
his subject by actual churning. He began by 
speaking of the necessity of testing each cow 
in the dairy to see which paid for their board 
and which did not. He said that it was pos¬ 
sible to make as much butter in August as in 
May or in June, even though there is much 
less milk. He spoke at some length of the im¬ 
portance of feeding proper food to produce 
butter, and told of his experience with cotton¬ 
seed meal. He feeds one quart of cotton-seed 
meal to three quarts of bran He said he had 
made 7% pounds of butter from 100 pounds of 
milk. He believes in churning sweet cream; 
he says he has kept accurate accounts of many 
trials with sweet and ripened cream, and 
knows that he lost money every time he let 
the cream partially ripen. 
Owing to an oversight on the part of the 
men at the factory, the Backstrom Cream 
Separator which was sent for trial was lack¬ 
ing in an important point which could not be 
corrected till too late in the day to admit of 
testing it in comparison with the different 
creamers. It seemed to do good work, how¬ 
ever, when finally ready to run. We are in 
hopes of giving it a thorough trial later. 
J. M. D. 
A SHEEP TALK. 
A South Down cross the best; care of sheep; 
feed; docking; castrating; breeding ewes; 
annual culling. 
Fon the general farmer’s sheep the South 
Downs (or grade South Downs) are surely 
No. 1. They come nearer having all the good 
qualities than any other breed, at least such 
has been my experience. I have been raising 
sheep for 30 years, and have tried the scrub, 
Cotswold, Merino and South Down. I find 
the scrub and Merino both do very well to 
cross with a South Down buck. They make 
good mothers, and drop hardy lambs. The 
Cotswold and Leicester I think require more 
attention and better grass and feed than any 
others, and their lambs are delicate and hard 
to raise. The Merinos are too small and their 
lambs do not get the right size in time to 
pay for early marketing. I have been breed¬ 
ing from South Down bucks for the last eight 
years, and have now as fine a lot of sheep as 
can be found in this county. Sheep require 
more care than most farmers think they 
should have; consequently a man says: “I had 
very poor luck with my lambs,” whereas every 
sheep raiser makes his own luck according to 
the care and attention he gives his flock. 
Sheep should not be penned with cattle. They 
should have pens with plenty of room and 
good shelter, so as to go in or out at pleasure. 
Give them good corn fodder or hay, mornings 
and nights, and a feed of grain of some kind 
at noon. I do not like corn alone for sheep. 
I make a feed of bran or ship-stuff and crushed 
corn mixed about equal parts—about one bushel 
to 35 head. I mean, of course, through the feed¬ 
ing season. Sheep kept on good pasture during 
the grazing season, and fed as above, wil 
have plenty of milk at lambing-time, and al 
ways raise one or two lambs. I do not ex! 
pect to lose any lambs that come all right. 
Sheep also require plenty of good water at 
least once a day, and should have free access 
to salt. In feeding I give them the corn fod¬ 
der scattered over the pen in clear weather ; 
in stormy and wet weather I feed them with 
hay in a rack under the shed. In feeding the 
bran and meal I have used troughs made 
about six inches deep, set on blocks or feet 
about ten inches high. A trough so made, 
16 feet long, will be sufficient to feed 20 sheep 
As soon as the lambs are large enough to eat 
the grain feed, I make a pen for them (so that 
the old sheep cannot get in) and feed them 
also on grain. They will generally begin to 
eat when four or five weeks old. When the 
lambs are about two weeks old I cut their 
tails off. I generally lot the buck go with the 
ewes about September. Then the lambs come 
in February and will be ready for the market 
by the last of May. The buck lambs that 
come in March or April should be castrated, 
so that they will not cause any trouble in 
case one has to keep them until fall, and 
they will fatten much better than if they 
have not been castrated. I keep from 25 to 35 
ewes on a farm of 75 acres. I select five or six 
ewe lambs every year for breeders and sell off 
about the same number of old ewes, always 
selling off those that do not do well. With 
this system I do not keep the ewes more than 
six or seven years at the most. I find that 
they begin to fail at that age. I never keep 
poor stock to breed ; but sell them for what¬ 
ever they will bring. If a man keeps good 
ewes and a thoroughbred buck, I will venture 
to say he will have good lambs, and can make 
his sheep pay 100 per cent. 1 have done so, 
and others can do the same with the same 
care and attention. e. 
Newcastle Co., Del. 
;i 
£l)f Poult tm JJorti. 
EXPERIMENT WITH YOUNG TUR¬ 
KEYS. 
Liberty not a necessity ; dampness and lice 
the causes of mortality among young tur¬ 
keys ; how to avoid them. 
It has always been claimed that young tur¬ 
keys must be given full liberty, and that suc¬ 
cess is best obtained when they are wholly con¬ 
fided to the turkey hen. I tried two experi¬ 
ments with the view of determining if it was 
absolutely necessary to give young turkeys 
liberty to forage. The first experiment was 
last year. In the month of May a brood of 
young turkeys were batched and placed under 
a brooder. The brooder was in an apartment 
5x7 feet, with a yard attached 5x16 feet. They 
were not allowed the privilege of the yard 
until they were four weeks old, and not one 
of them drooped or showed any dissatisfaction 
with the confinement. In fact they grew 
rapidly, and were twice as large, when 10 
weeks old, as turkeys at liberty. All went 
well until one day, as they were sitting in a 
row on the window-sill, the sash fell and 
killed every one sitting there, but as three re¬ 
mained I still kept them up. They were a 
gobbler and two females; the gobbler weighed 
30 pounds the day he was a year old, and the 
hens have laid this season. They are as gentle 
as kittens, and have, since they were three 
mouths old, been kept in a yard 12x50, and 
they seem to have plenty of room. 
This season eggs from the above hens were 
used. A brood was hatched by a hen (chicken) 
and kept in a yard 2x4 feet until they were 
one month old, when they were transferred to 
a yard 8 x 16 feet. They are now five weeks 
old, and have never been outside of the yards 
assigned them. They wore fed in the manner 
usual with young turkeys—stale bread and 
milk, curds, chopped onions, clipped grass, etc. 
My conclusion is that dampness and libe are 
the causes of the great mortality among young 
turkeys. I never allow them on a damp place, 
and they can drink only from a small aperture. 
The old maxim that “a wet blade of grass will 
kill a young turkey” is nearly true, and it is 
the same with chicks and ducklings. Keep 
them dry. The lice that do the damage are 
not the little mites, but the large tick lice, 
which prey on the heads and throats. They 
pass from the hen to the young ones. By rub¬ 
bing a few drops of warm lard on the heads, 
throats and vents, close to the skin, once or 
twice a week, the young turkeys will be safe. 
The hen, too, should receive an application. 
They love to dust, and are kept supplied with 
clean, dry dirt at all times. A few chicks are 
raised with the turkeys, as the chicks teach 
the turkeys to obey the hen. 
Thousands of young turkeys are lost annual¬ 
ly, but if they were given extra care until 
they reached the age of two months, the loss 
could be avoided. The down is no protection. 
Warmth and dry quarters are essential until 
they “shoot the red,” and by promptly de¬ 
stroying the large lice there is nothing to kill 
them. So far, I have not lost a young tur¬ 
key except by accident, and they will have no 
range whatever. p. h. j. 
YELLOW-LEGGED DORKINGS. 
I notice that mention is made of these in 
a late Rural, but the color of the legs of true 
Dorkings is invariably what is called white, or 
more properly, a light drab. Some years ago 
a few poultry-men in England began to cross 
the Dorking with Asiatics, Games, and other 
breeds, and the produce of these crosses were 
exhibited now and then as pure-bred at the 
shows, and passed by judges ignorant of the 
true characteristics of pure Dorkings. When 
this was brought to the attention of genuine 
breeders, they made complaint of it in the 
agricultural papers, and soon put an end to 
these false exhibitions. 
I was the first porson, according to my 
knowledge, to import Dorkings from England. 
Being there in the summer of 1841, I was 
struck with the superior form of these birds 
for the table, and was informed that their 
flesh was also quite superior. I determined 
then on taking a choice lot of them back with 
me to America. I particularly admired their 
long, round, level bodies and extra-full 
breasts, loaded with fine, tender, white meat; 
and I at once pronounced them among fowls 
what the Short-horns were among cattle. On 
returning home, I took pains to make their 
merits well known to the public through our 
agricultural press, and a considerable number 
of importations were rapidly followed by 
others, most of which, I believe, found favor 
among those who bred them. 
I will confess, however, that I have heard 
occasional objections to Dorkings,some saying 
that they are rather delicate, and not great 
layers ; but I believe these complaints come 
entirely from their being interbred too closely. 
At first there was a necessity for this, in con¬ 
sequence of there being but few families here 
to select from, and it is not unlikely that 
those imported from England were related, 
the importers not haviug taken the precaution 
to inquire as to this when they made their 
selections in the town of Dorking, to which 
place the breeding was then chiefly confined, 
reducing the flocks to a rather limited boun¬ 
dary of territory. But latterly this has been 
much extended, and I hear of them as being 
kept now in many different parts of England; 
and I see no complaints at present of want of 
hardiness, or of their not laying a sufficient 
number of eggs. 
The only cross I have used with them is that 
with the Light Brahmas. The offsprings of 
this were hardy, and of rather greater 
size thau the Dorkings; but their flesh was 
not equal to that of the latter. The best cross 
is said to be that of the Game cock on the 
Dorking heu. This is a favorite one in Eng¬ 
land, but I have never tried it with my own 
fowls. _ _ A. B. ALLEN. 
POULTRY NOTES. 
All corners and waste places about the 
yards or around farm buildings where rank 
weeds grow should be cleaned up. This pre¬ 
vents hens from hiding their nests and bring¬ 
ing off broods of chicks when they are too late 
to be of any use. It also prevents the loss of 
many eggs, too many of which are often lost 
on a farm in summer and autumn. When 
chickens get large and abandon their coops, 
see that they do not sleep on the ground at 
night. By so doing they fall an easy prey to 
marauding vermin. Either drive them into 
buildings or let them take to trees. 
When soft food is discontinued give grain 
in variety. Wheat and buckwheat are good 
with corn. 
In growing stock should any appearance of 
weakness manifest itself with debility and 
wasting, give Douglas Mixture in the drinking 
water. 
Some advocate setting hens in August and 
September. I have never found this profita¬ 
ble. The cold comes on before the chickens 
are properly feathered, and they usually suc¬ 
cumb to the weather or drag out a miserable 
exigence engendering disease that extends to 
older poultry. 
Farmers will find it pays better to feed 
hens well oven during summer than to have 
them peck at tomatoes, melons, cucumbers and 
vegetables, or fruit. 
Break up sitting hens by putting them un¬ 
der small coops for a few days, without per¬ 
ches. HENRY HALES. 
fulfr Ct*0|)0< 
GROWING CLOVER SEED. 
A. C. GLIDDEN. 
An uncertain crop; Medium clover; why is 
seed produced only on the second growth? 
Conditions most favorable for such a 
growth; cutting the crop for seed; Mam¬ 
moth clover; how to obtain a good second 
growth; hulling the seed; soil and seed; 
yield of seed per acre; land suitable for 
the growth. 
As a branch of farming entered upon with 
some degree of ‘•expectation,” growing clover 
for seed is often disappointing. It is generally 
a subsidiary crop, a sort of voluutary gift 
of naturo to heap the measure of prosperity. 
MEDIUM CLOVER. 
This variety is often called June clover to 
distinguish it from Mammoth clover. It is 
most generally grown by farmers, and is pre¬ 
ferred to the other variety because it is earlier, 
makes better pasture and hay, and is not so 
ikely to be killed by hard freezing. No plant 
blooms more freely with the first growth 
in spriug, but it does not seed with this first 
flowering, while it seeds profusely in the heads 
of the second growth. There has been much 
speculation from Darwin down to account for 
this. The great naturalist and thinker attrib¬ 
uted it to non-fertilization, and non-fertiliz¬ 
ation to the absence of bumble bees as a factor 
in nature’s process. 
However this may be in some other coun¬ 
tries, or in other sections of our own, here in 
Southern Michigan, bumble bees are in suffi¬ 
cient numbers at the first flowering to perfect 
some of the flowers by distributing pollen, 
but the clover plant still insists upon growing 
its seed upon the second growth, which gives 
the first and largest growth to the farmer for 
hay, and holds out the hope of a bounty to 
follow. 
The farmer who desires to grow a crop of 
seed, begins to cut the first crop as early as 
possible, so that the second growth may start 
quickly and vigorously. The conditions most 
favorable to the second growth are, heavy 
rains immediately following haying to soak 
the ground and promote vigorous growth, to 
be succeeded by dry, cool weather. If the after 
growth is too sappy and rank, infertility will 
result as before, whethor the bees pump out 
the honey or not. The seeds ripen here dur¬ 
ing the latter half of August, and the crop 
should be cut when a little moro than half 
of the heads are turned brown. If it is left 
standing too long every rain beats off the seed 
from the earliest and ripest heads and there is 
more waste from this cause than there is gain 
in waiting for full maturity in the later ones. 
The cutting is usually done by someone of the 
side-delivery harvesting machines, setting the 
sickle-bar to take the greater bulk of the 
heads and top foliage and deliver it in gavels 
each at regular intervals beside those dropped 
at the previous round. The team is then 
driven along this row of gavels and they are 
thrown on the load with a barley fork to pre¬ 
vent scattering the chaff from the shelled 
heads. The Eureka mower is a good imple¬ 
ment to cut clover seed,as the clover is left un¬ 
disturbed as it falls and shells less then w hen 
beaten back upon the table of the harvester 
by the revolving rake heads. The crop can 
be raked after the Eureka, while the dew is 
on with little loss from that cause. 
MAMMOTH CLOVER. 
This variety requires different treatment 
from June clover. Like the latter, it will not 
seed at the first flowering; but it is so late in 
coming to blossom that the second crop af¬ 
ter this is very small. It seems to receive a 
greater shock when a mature crop is cut off 
than the June variety. I know of one suc¬ 
cessful grower of this kind who uses a mow¬ 
ing machine on the field when the first crop is 
two-thirds grown, and cuts off one-third to 
one-half, and lets it drop down to mulch the 
surface soil while the second growth springs 
up through it and makes an excellent crop. 
Most growers pasture it until the middle of 
June, and then turn off and let the seed crop 
mature. It is no disaster to clover seed if 
severe rains fall after it is cut. It seldom 
sprouts, and if the fiber of the seed-pod is 
partially rotted, it hulls more readily, and the 
yield is increased: for hulling, at the best, is 
quite imperfect, and much seed is usually left 
in the chaff. The makers of ono kind of hull- 
er have gained a cheap though unstable 
notoriety, by running the chaff from rival 
machines through their bullers, and getting a 
bag or two of seed, which was quite a send-off 
until their rivals returned the compliment in 
kind. 
Soil has much to do with the yield of seed. 
A load from strong, gravelly loam will yield 
as much as two loads from a lighter sandy 
soil. The growth is no indication of the 
yield, and it is difficult to determine the prob¬ 
able yield before thrashing. Greater yields 
have been reported from the Mammoth var¬ 
iety than from June clover. Five bushels to 
the acre are often grown of the former, while 
two to three bushels are very satisfactory 
from the latter kind. Not every farmer who 
grows clover cuts it for seed. I may say that, 
on an average, not more thau one in ten does 
so. One who can spare the field for the pur¬ 
pose may grow this year, and his neighbor 
who cut a crop last year have none. As a 
rule the farmers on light soils do not grow 
clover seed, while they may have excellent 
crops of clover hay. Timber-land soils are 
usually better than Oakland. I think Michi¬ 
gan rather more thau supplies its home de¬ 
maud, while some States farther west make 
it quite a commercial crop. There is still quite 
a supply in the country towns left over from 
the spring sales, which will probably be used 
in the fall seeding. 1 shall not bo surprised 
if the season is very favorable for clover 
seed production, and the small area left in 
clover still yields sufficient for the wants of 
farmers. 
Van Buren Co., Mich. 
