VOL. XLVIII. NO, 2055 
NEW YORK, JUNE 15, 1889. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS, 
$2.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the Year 1889, by the Rural New-Yorker, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.] 
A*WISE MUTTON-HEAD. 
HOSE who know least about 
the sheep are emphatic in call¬ 
ing it the most stupid of our 
domestic animals. Shepherds 
well know that some sheep 
possess plenty of sense and 
cuteness, and that the sheep’s memory is gen¬ 
erally better than that of any other farm 
animal. It requires a study of the animals to 
learn these facts, however ; to most people 
sheep will always be known as small-headed, 
stupid, cowardly, selfish animals, fit models 
for that disagreeable 
type of humanity— 
the mutton-head. 
While looking 
about the stock- 
yards not long ago, 
the R. N.-Y. artist 
came upon the lamb 
whose head is pic- 
tuied at Figure 148. 
We consider it about 
the most intelligent 
“ mutton-head " we 
Lave ever seen, and 
the R. N.-Y. hopes 
that those who see it 
will admit that sheep 
are not all the dull, 
woolly-brained ani¬ 
mals that prejudice 
has pictured. This 
lamb ought to be an 
intell igent-1 o o k i n g 
animal. He was en¬ 
gaged in a work that 
will, if carried out, 
bring profit to Arner- 
ican farmers. 
Though he died for 
the cause the flavor 
of his flesh may help 
to stimulate the de¬ 
mand for good 
American mutton to 
such a point that 
farmers will see their 
way clearer to meet¬ 
ing it. This was a 
“spring” lamb — a 
cross of a South- 
Down and a common 
ewe. - He was one of 
a choice lot from 
Virginia that 
brought first prices 
and gave such excel¬ 
lent satisfaction that 
the dealers want 
“more from the same 
place.” 
There is a demand 
iu all our large mar¬ 
kets for good mut¬ 
ton, but it is impos- 
possible to supply 
this demand for the 
reason thatfirst-clasi 
mutton cannot be 
obtained at anything 
like a reasonable 
price. The mutton 
that is sold in the 
markets does little 
la sides ruining its 
own reputation. 
Parties who have 
eaten Canadian mut¬ 
ton wonder why 
such meat cannot be found here. The fact is 
that too many American farmers have utter¬ 
ly neglected the breeding of mutton sheep. 
They have bred entirely for wool, and the 
result is that they have well-nigh ruined a 
very profitable meat industry. It is high 
time that steps were taken to stop this retro¬ 
grade movement. 
ftuml &oyic$. 
BUCEPHALUS BROWN’S NOTIONS AND 
IDEAS. 
Farm Wastes.— There is a cause for every¬ 
thing; and there must he some sort of a cause 
for the general wastefulness of manure on our 
farms. It is not a mere occasional,accidental 
thing. On the contrary, if I may judge from 
long observations, a careless indifference,even 
in our oldest States, causes the practical loss 
to the crop of not less than one third of all 
the manurial matter—plant food—which is 
furnished in the excrements of our farm ani¬ 
mals. 
Saving at the Spigot.— I know pretty in¬ 
telligent farmers who will lose more time 
than it is worth in fussing with the manure 
of a small flock of hens, while the whole liquid 
evacuations of forty head of cattle run to 
waste upon their property. 
Hen Manure.—Do I think hen manure has 
no value ? Not at all. It is a very good fer¬ 
tilizer, more or les3, according to the food the 
fowls get; but always better than we get from 
L+' 
0 * 
AN INTELLIGENT MUTTON-HEAD. Fig. ITS. 
cattle fed the same,because it always contains 
the urine of the fowls. That is what gives hen 
manure its excellence. I save all the hen ma¬ 
nure I can, and throw it into the manure 
shed, along with the rest. I do not fuss with 
it at all, or mix it up to use for any special 
purpose, because I get all the good there is in 
it that way, and save time, which is money. 
The Lesson of Hen Manure is the lesson 
of saving the urine, and I wish some of these 
fussers with fowl dung would learn it. But 
it seems as impossible to make an American 
farmer saving of manure, as it is to make 
him liberal in building roads and improving 
school-houses. If one-tenth of the money 
that might be saved in the manure were to be 
expended on the roads and the schools, and 
the rest worked into the crops, the condition of 
the American farmer would very rapidly im¬ 
prove. He might 
even pay off that 
mortgage, about 
which we hear so 
much. 
’Prentice Work. 
—The great bulk of 
our farming is neith¬ 
er more nor less than 
’prentice work. I 
mean by this that 
most men engaged in 
farming are not half 
educated to the busi¬ 
ness. As a rule, they 
know less about prin¬ 
ciples than Euro¬ 
pean farmers, and 
not one-quarter as 
much about sound 
practice, it is too 
much to ask that the 
average farmer 
should be familiar 
with the science of 
farming. There is 
no provision yet for 
teaching it, even to 
the young. But I do 
say that there is no 
excuse for ignorance 
of sound routine 
practice, because we 
have enough good 
practical farmers in 
almost every town¬ 
ship or county to 
teach that. 
The School of 
the Farm. —Every 
well-managed farm 
is, or ought to be, a 
school for the young 
men employed upon 
it. The ill-worked 
farms are certainly 
schools of bad farm¬ 
ing; and it is at 
such schools that the 
great majority of 
our young farmers 
are being taught 
“ how not to do it.” 
If they were wise, 
they would offer 
themselves to work 
with the best prac¬ 
tical farmers three 
years for board and 
clothes rather than 
go to farming with 
the little knowledge 
they possess. They- 
would be 200 per 
cent, better off, at 
least, in 15 years, by 
doing so. Besides 
