484 
JULY 27 
Ans.— Messrs Miller & Sibley of Franklin, 
Pa., are reported to be breeding with this 
special end in view. They write the R. N.-Y. 
the following account of their methods : 
“We can give no formula for breeding large 
and rugged Jerseys. We have believed from 
the first in strong constitutions being neces¬ 
sary to the success of any herd. Without 
constitution as the first requisite all else will 
fail. With that end in view, we purchased 
many individuals that would have been re¬ 
jected by fanciers who were seeking typical 
lawn cows. The points in Jerseys which pre¬ 
judice us against individuals are those ex¬ 
ternal evidences of lack of constitution as 
indicated mainly in thin, mellow skins, 
or what has been termed paper skins. 
We object to fine, delicate limbs and 
small, crumpled, waxy norns. Although 
our herd is nearly solid-colored, fawns and 
grays predominating, yet in our opinion color 
should never be recognized as a point of mer¬ 
it. [Its chief ' value is as an indication of 
purity of strain or breed. Eds.] Our prac¬ 
tice is to turn our herd out every day in the 
year for exercise. This rule is not deviated 
from except in cases of cold sleety winter 
rains. In the management of bulls our prac¬ 
tice has been to put them on a tread-power 
properly arranged with a governor, and ex¬ 
ercise them half an hour each day. This, in 
our judgment, tends to increase lung capacity 
and to strengthen bone and sinew, and under 
this treatment Stoke Pogis 5, now over 10 years 
old, is as ready and active as a yearling. In 
all probability the preferable method would 
be to have paddocks built where the bulls 
could have constant liberty in half-acre or 
acre fields. For the last few years to in¬ 
crease size and vigor we have made it a prac¬ 
tice never to breed a heifer until she was two 
years old or upwards. Time enough has not 
elapsed to determine fully the value of this 
plan, but such limited observation as we have 
had convinces us that it is one of the most im¬ 
portant factors in breeding for size and consti¬ 
tution. We believe in liberal but not high feed¬ 
ing with as great a variety of forage as can 
readily be obtained, and with’an abundance 
of light and fresh air in the stables. In win¬ 
ter our stables are never allowed to get 
warmer than 45 Fahrenheit or colder than 
from 38 to 40 degrees. We believe our stables 
are cooler in the winter than the majority of 
stables from tte fact that the ventilators are 
always open, no matter how cold the outs’de 
temperature may be. 
FEEDING FOR EGGS. 
H. D. T., Phillipsburgh, Mont. — What 
quantity of Indian corn will fully feed 150 
choice White Leghorn cocks and hens for one 
year, on a grassy range of several acres? If 
the hens are fully fed on corn, potatoes and 
pumpkins, and well housed and cared for, 
how many eggs can be reasonaby expected 
from them in a year? 
ANSWERED BY P. H. JACOBS. 
Ans. —Corn is an unsuitable food for laying 
hens, being deficient in lime, and containing 
an excess of carbon, which promotes the lay¬ 
ing on of fat, which is not favorable to egg- 
production. If the hens have a range they 
should be fed no grain at all in summer, but 
may be allowed eight pounds of chopped lean 
meat (liver or other rough portions will an¬ 
swer) at night. In winter they should have 
all the chopped clover hay they can eat, in the 
morning. About three pounds of hay will 
answer for 150 hens. The chopped hay is 
scalded at night, in a tub, a cloth being 
thrown over the tub, and m the morning a 
mixture of five pounds of bran and ground 
oats may be incorporated with it, the mess 
salted to season, and fed in troughs. At night 
a pint of wheat may be fed to each dozen 
hens. Twice a week give a pound of linseed 
meal for the 150 hens in the clover, and twice 
a week feed a pound of chopped meat to 20 
hens. On such a diet the hens should lay 
well if kept warm. The object should be to 
keep the hens at work scratching. Exercise 
is the best egg-promoter. 2. Corn, potatoes 
and pumpkins will answer also, provided the 
clover and meat are added. To produce eggs 
the hens must have nitrogenous food. If 
cared for, and not over-fed, each hen should 
lay 10 dozen eggs per annum. Some will lay 
140, and soms will lay 100 or less. Much de¬ 
pends on individual characteristics,'as no two 
hens are alike in every respect. 
Miscellaneous. 
C. W. D., Terrell , Texas. —Is the Taylor 
Blaekberry earlier than the Kittatinny ? 
Ans. —No, it is later than the Kittatinny. 
A. H., Archer's Fork, Ohio. —The R. N.-Y. 
hopes to give a full description of fish ponds 
and fish culture with good photographic il¬ 
lustration*. 
J. C. M., Pleasanton, Cal. —1. Where can I 
get a corn-husking machine* 2. Is there a self- 
feeder and band-cutter manufactured for 
husking bound grain ? If so, where ? 
Ans. —1. The Keystone Manufacturing Co., 
Sterling, III. 2. We do not know of any. 
“A Reader," Hagaman's Mills, N. Y .— 
What is the weed a specimen of which is in¬ 
closed ? 
Ans. —The specimen sent is Echium vulgare 
—Viper’s Bugloss. It is a most pernicious 
weed. Being a biennial, it can be extermin¬ 
ated by hoed crops. 
H. A. S., Rock City Falls, N. Y. —1. What 
proportion of nitrogen should go with wood 
ashes for potatoes? What would be the cost? 
2. With about 25 loads of manure per acre 
for wheat, would it pay to put 10 to 12 bush¬ 
els of wood ashes? 
Ans. —1. To every acre use one bag of nitrate 
of soda or sulphate of ammonia or half of 
each. Any fertilizer firm will furnish either. 
The cost will be about $5 per bag. 2. Yes, 
decidedly, unless the land happens to be al¬ 
ready well supplied with potash and phos¬ 
phoric acid. Our friend should guard against 
such an application of manure as would be 
likely to causb the grain to lodge. 
IF. L. K., Westmoreland County, Pa. 1. 
What is a good plan for attaching three 
horses abreast to a wagon so that the tongue 
will be properly adjusted between two of 
them? 2. Is there any danger that hay put into 
the barn green will burn by spontaneous com¬ 
bustion endangering the barn? 3. What does 
the Rural think of Buckingham and Prince 
Edward Counties, Va., as places where a 
Northern young man with limited means but 
a liberal education could settle with fair pros¬ 
pects of success? 
Ans. —1 On page 158 you will find two ex¬ 
cellent devices for three-hone eveners. 2. 
This was answered last week. 3. We do not 
know much about the chances in those coun¬ 
ties. Unless one has some capital he may be 
able to do as well at home. 
J. W. IF, Ont., Canada. —I send the Ru¬ 
ral a bunch of roses cut from a bush of Hy¬ 
brid Perpetual Moss Roses which always bore 
white flowers until last summer when they 
began to sport. Some of the flowers would 
have from one to two rose-colored petals, in 
others from one-third to one half would be of 
that hue, while in the same cluster some 
would be of a deep rose color and others pure 
white. At present there is in one of the clus¬ 
ters of buds one that is larger than the rest 
and there is absolutely no moss on it. W hat 
is the cause? 
Ans. —It is no doubt a case of what is call¬ 
ed “ sporting ” for want of a better word. 
This is very common with roses and some of 
our finest varieties have been obtained by pro¬ 
pagating the sport. It is known that most of 
our garden roses are the results of crossing or 
hybridization. Under peculiar conditions it 
would seem that the blood of some ancestor, 
previously impotent, becomes Dotent and as¬ 
serts its potency in growth. That is the best 
explanation the R. N.-Y. can give. 
DISCUSSION. 
“IS CREAM, CREAM ?” 
“A Cooley Man.”—I n the Rural’s discus¬ 
sion on the subject: “Is Cream, Cream ?” I see 
that the correspondents don’t keep to the 
main question, with the exception of Prof. 
Babcock. The question is not whether cream 
raised in all sorts of apparatus is the same, 
but it is whether the cream raised in the 
Cooley is the same, and the man who asked 
the question, should have put in, “when rais¬ 
ed according to the prescribed rules.” The 
density of the cream varies with the tempera¬ 
tures at which it is raised. W hat Prof. Collier 
says, that “the art is a good deal ahead of the 
science,” is true. I know that cream from 
various sorts of milk raised in the Cooley, 
when run according to rule and the divisions 
made by the spaces, comes nearer to yielding 
all the contents of butter fat in it than that 
raised by any other device. Anybody who 
has bad any experience, knows that it is not 
practical to make a division by the chemical 
test, for every chemist of any experience can 
tell that more butter always comes out of the 
churn than the chemical test calls for. The 
chemical test shows only the butter fat, while 
butter takes the butter fat, water, a small 
portion of caseine, etc., and the proportion of 
this part of raseine depends upon the appara¬ 
tus in which the cream is raised. In all the 
analyses made lately cream raised in the 
Cooley has less caseine than that raised in 
any other apparatus. The object is to exclude 
from the cream as much caseine as possible, 
as caseine is what spoils butter. 
Prof. Cooke has written an article on the 
question of a cream-raiser £and where its 
offices end and where the offices of the churn 
and of the butter-maker begin. This question 
arose from the fact that the Cooley Creamer 
in the New Hampshire test got the fat out of 
the milk cleaner than any other apparatus; 
but Prof. Whitcher insisted on having the 
Cooley cream churned before it was ripe, and 
consequently by Whitcher’s own analysis 
there was about 15 per cent of the fat that 
went off in the butter-milk m the Cooley, 
and Whitcher claimed that it was the fault 
of the Cooley Creamer, while experienced 
men, like Prof. Cooke and Mr. Philbnck, the 
Chairman of the Committe at Hanover, claim 
that it was not the fault of the Cooley but the 
fault of the manipulator of the cream. 
In discussing this question the disputants 
got mixed, one claiming that Prof. Cocke 
said that the cream was cream, while one 
who reads his article can see that he says 
nothing of the kind. What Prof. Cooke said 
was that success in handling the cream and 
getting the greatest amount of butter fat out 
of it after it had been taken from the milk, 
depended upon the skill of the manipulator, 
and not upon the cream-raiser; but the super¬ 
ficial fellows have got it mixed with the idea 
that one mess of cream will make as much 
butter as another mess per space, or gauge or 
gallon. Prof. Cooke was not discussing that 
matter at all. 
R. N.-Y.—This correspondent sends news¬ 
paper clippings of articles written by A. W. 
Cheever and Prof. W. W. Cooke, of Vermont. 
Prof. Cooke has this to say: 
“ In the course of our work we have tested 
cream from several different processes and 
from the same process under various con¬ 
ditions. All our results have tended to show 
that after the skimming is done, that is the end 
of the influence of the skimming device, and 
that the cream can be churned thoroughly, 
that is, without much loss of fat in the butter¬ 
milk, no matter what the system of creaming 
was, provided the persmi in charge handled 
that cream properly. The cream from each 
system of skimming will require its own in¬ 
dividual treatment to get the best results. 
And the butter-maker will have to study the 
conditions and treat each cream according to 
its needs, and not think because a certain 
method ot mixing, ripening and churning will 
get the best results from one cream that 
therefore it should give equally good results 
on the cream obtained from other systems. 
It might be added that the system used in ob¬ 
taining the cream must be properly used and 
not abused in order that it should not have an 
effect on the churning qualities of the cream. 
Milk may be spoiled before the cream is taken 
from it, and then no method of churning 
can get good results. I"should lay this down 
as a general principle: The percent, of fat 
in the skimmed milk is the result of the sys¬ 
tem used for obtaining the cream. The per 
cent, of fat in the buttermilk is a measure of 
the skill of the butter-maker.” 
Mr. Cheever thinks Prof. Cooke’s “general 
principle ” is correct. Mr. C. says he does 
not often trust himself to say that he knows 
anything about dairy matters, yet he is pre¬ 
pared to stand by the following: 
“ I know that when a dairyman changes 
from one method of creaming to another 
method there must be changes in the method 
of churning in order to obtain equal results. 
I know that cream taken from scalded nnlk 
set in small open pans requires very different 
treatment in the churning room from cream 
raised on milk poured into deep pails and set 
in cold water. I know that some cream re¬ 
quires to be thinned with milk or water before 
it is churned in order to retard the separation 
and prevent loss of butter fat in the butter¬ 
milk, and that other cream requires a ripen¬ 
ing process before going into the churn, and 
also requires a larger churn for the amount of 
butter obtainable, and that without the rip¬ 
ening and the large churn there will be a loss 
of butter, and very likely a serious impair¬ 
ment of quality.” 
Mr. C. also says that an “inch”or a 
“ space ” is a measure of the relative quantity 
of different samples ot cream exactly as a 
“ dozen ” is the measure of the quantity of dif¬ 
ferent samples of eggs or as a “ quart ” is the 
measure of different samples of milk. The 
space method of measuring cream is not per¬ 
fect, but it seems as fair and just as any yet 
devised. Buying and selling eggs by count is 
not equitable, yet eggs continue to be sold in 
this way. It is the same rule as that em¬ 
ployed by towns, railroad companies and 
manufacturers in paying even rates fora 
day’s work when everybody knows that work 
Dy one man may be worth a good deal more 
than that by another. The system may not 
be quite just, but it seems as just as any other 
could be. Cream sent to a factory should be 
treated as nearly alike as possible by all the 
patrons. 
This cream question is evidently of vital 
importance to creamery patrons. This dis¬ 
cussion will be continued next week. 
SAND FOR BEDDING; KILLING CATERPILLARS. 
M. C. A., Egypt, Maine.— In the R. N.-Y. 
of June 29, a quotation is made from Dr. 
Caldwell, as follows: “Any bed of muck is 
worth trying, for it may be a small mine of 
wealth.” Less than a year ago I bought a 
piece of property which bad been seeded with 
grass. It lies flat. Last March it w’as con¬ 
cluded to use “sand” for the bedding of one 
of the horses that had been addicted to eating 
litter of various kinds. I was delighted with 
the results. The two white stockings of the 
horse were kept perfectly clean and he did 
not get soiled like horses bedded on yellow or 
red sand. The sand was frozen, so 1 had to 
be very sparing in its use and all sorts of 
schemes were indulged in to get the requisite 
amount of bedding. In order to get the frost 
out quickly we put a large, shallow panful in 
the oven. The odor of sulphurous gas was so 
pungent that I thought I was poisoned by the 
fumes, and had recourse to aconitum, the an¬ 
tidote in such cases in homoeopathic practice. 
The silver on the table in the room was dis¬ 
colored. A large pan of water standing on 
top of the stove formed enough sulphuretted 
hydrogen to blacken two silver spoons which 
lay on the bottom of the pan. So very black 
were they that it required the best silver 
polish to remove the discoloration. This goes 
to prove that the sand must have contained 
alluvial deposits largely charged with sul¬ 
phur. The roads were in such a horrible con¬ 
dition after the snow, that it was impossible 
to get sand up, and the bedding that had been 
used w r as washed and the water thrown on the 
grass. Now the places where the 
water was thrown are very luxuriant 
with a dark-green grass; while manure, 
liquid and solid, fails to bring out 
the vivid green that the sand washings do. 
Would it pay to haul it over bad roads, as a 
top-dressing for agricultural purposes? Phos¬ 
phates that ccst $2 a hundredweight, have 
been thickly applied to the grass by the side 
of the sand-washings, and I cannot see any 
difference in the sward, either as to thickness 
or color, while the horses will go straight up 
to graze on the grass on the sand-washing 
spots, of which there are several, so that the 
grass there must be sweet. I have tried 
liquid hen manure, also stable manure, 
from horses and cows, and cannot see enough 
difference to make one remark a change on 
this run-down land, while every one will ex¬ 
claim at the “greenness” of the different va¬ 
rieties of grass grown on the land on which 
the sand-wasbiDgs w ere thrown. 
I have not seen in the Rural any account 
of the ingenious method resorted to by a 
Franklin man for killing Tent-caterpillars. 
On fruit trees, especially apples, it is said to 
be very effective by all who have tried it. 
He loads his gun with powder alone, holds 
the muzzle about two feet from the nest, and 
the concussion and effects of the powder in¬ 
stantly kill all the worms, and destroy the 
nest, etc. The limb of the tree is uninjured. 
The torture of the old methods which are less 
effective in ridding the trees of these pests, is 
dispensed with. I think such a quick and 
easy death to these very annoying insects, 
should commend itself to the Daughters of 
the King. For nests high up on branches not 
otherwise accessible, he ties his gun to a pole 
or a piece of wood, and discharges it by 
means of a string to the trigger. The method 
is not very expensive; as a light charge of 
powder and common caps are used. The cost 
is about half a cent a discharge. 
R. N.-Y.—Our correspondent should send 
a sample of this sand to Director W. H. 
Jordan, of the National Experiment Station 
at Orono, Maine, for analysis. 
DOES INFECUNDITY OF THE STRAWBERRY 
SEED AFFECT THE BERRY? 
M. A. Beckwith, Agricultural Exper¬ 
iment Station, Newark, Del.— Mr. Proctor’s 
article on this subject on Page 385, is evident¬ 
ly based entirely upon theory. Possibly Sume 
of the so-called imperfect-flowering varieties 
of strawberries will, under favorable circum¬ 
stances, produce a sufficient number of stamens 
to fertilize the ovules and insure a full crop of 
fruit; but such instances are rare. It is a 
well known fact among strawberry growers 
that among the pistillate varieties every third 
or fourth row must be planted with a variety 
which produces an abundance of polleu; other¬ 
wise the small amount of fruit that is pro¬ 
duced will be very knurly and imperfect. I 
have spent considerable time among the fruit¬ 
growers of this State and the above opinion 
has been corroborated by many of our largest 
growers of strawberries, who have practically 
demonstrated its truth. During the past four 
years I have artificially polleuized a large 
number of the blossoms of different varieties 
of strawberries as well as other fruits. In no 
instance where the blossoms were protected so 
that pollen could not reach the pistils were 
any fruits formed. While connected with 
the New York Agricultural Experiment Sta¬ 
tion at Geneva, N. Y., I conducted several ex¬ 
periments to determine whether the pistillate 
flowers of the strawberry would produce fruit 
without the aid of pollen from other blos¬ 
soms. The flowers in every case were pro¬ 
tected by covering them with thin paper or 
with cloth, so that pollen could not reach the 
pistils. In one instance a number of plants 
of the Crescent Strawberry were grown in 
V 
