VOL.. XXXVIII. No. 14. 
WHOLE No. 1323. 
MEW YORK CITY, APRIL 5, 1879. 
(PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
I 82.00 PER YEAR. 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by the Rural Publishing Company, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.! 
Fattening Sheep for Market. —An article 
appeared in the issue of January 18th on the 
above subject, that, I think, takes a wrong 
view of stock-raising. If it ever pays to keep 
onr best stock, it is when prices are low ; and 
instead of selling off the well-formed and best 
stock at poor figures, I would keep them at 
proved, small-boned, early-maturing breed, 
like the Berkshires, Essex or Chester Whites. 
They can be kept and fattened on little be¬ 
sides the waste from the kitchen and dairy. 
The best way is to have the pigs come early 
in the spring and turn them off in the fall. 
It will not pay to keep them longer. A litter 
OUR ANIMAL PORTRAITS 
TURNING COWS TO GRASS 
In continuation of our series of portraits of 
distinguished animals, we this week present to 
our readers two excellent likenesses of beasts 
that have won for themselves a wide reputa¬ 
tion and for their owners no small amount of 
prize money and eclat. That of the cow Gaily, 
is a full representation of the animal of which 
u partial view only was given in our issue of 
February 15, as she stood nearly fronting the 
spectator on the extreme left of the group of 
Mr. McCombie’s polled Angus cattle from the 
Paris Exposition. She Is four years old and a 
fine specimen of a breed which has lately been 
attracting a great deal of attention in this 
country, as being specially adapted, owing to 
their hornless 6tate and their fattening quali¬ 
ties, to the exigencies of our foreign and do¬ 
mestic cattle trade. 
The portrait of Empress represents a fine 
specimen of the admirable Hereford breed, 
which are daily gaining popularity, especially 
as beef animals, wherever they are known 
in the United Slates. Empress is barely 
two years old, and was bred by Mr. John 
Morris, of Ludham, Madlev, Hereford, Eng¬ 
land. Her sire was Sir Charles (4959), 
dam, Cowslip 3d, by Bangus (3fit>7), etc. Em¬ 
press took the first prize in a large, class of 
yearliug heifers at the last Bristol Show of the 
Agricultural Society, and it is rarely that an 
animal so closely approaches the form of the 
ideal parallelogram, which it is the ambition 
of all breeders of beef animals to produce. 
Both likenesses were engraved from photo¬ 
graphs for the English Agricultural Gazette, 
from which they have been transferred to these 
pages as very flue portraits of famous auimals. 
T. H. HOSKINS, M. D 
Wintering Slock badXy a cause of “ accidents” 
in spring; other ill effects from it ; running 
dairies the year round ; treatment of emes in 
spring; using the card and brush; repairing 
of pasture fences ; supplying sail. 
Cows that have been well wintered are half 
summered. Under the old method, unhappily 
not yet altogether extinct, cattle lost so much 
in flesh and condition during the winter that 
half the grazing season was required to put 
them where they ought to have been when 
they left the barn. Cows bo weak in April that 
they have to be ‘'tailed up’’are not yet un¬ 
known in New Eugland, while our newspapers 
find many a local item in which we are told of 
the “misfortunes” of this and that farmer 
who have lost more or less of their horned stock 
in the spring of the year “ most unaccountably.” 
But the old regime is dying out, and with great¬ 
ly accelerated speed in consequence of the low r 
prices of dairy products. “ Scrub-farming,” if 
it ever paid, has now ceased to pay. Scrub- 
stock goes out with the scrub-farmer, and the 
dairyman who adheres to the customs of the 
past, finds that “Jordan’s a hard road to 
travel.” 
The large majority of onr farmers, how r ever, 
yet follow the practice of drying off their cows 
early in the winter, and having them “come 
in” from March till May. Cows that have 
been fed, under these circumstances, with lib¬ 
eral rations of good hay and corn-fodder, 
without giain, ought at calving time to be in 
sufficiently good condition. But if after they 
become dry, straw is put before them as their 
main diet, and no grain-feed is allowed them, 
there will necessarily be a great loss in condi¬ 
tion ; the calf will be small, the cow in danger 
of serious trouble at calving, and the flow of 
milk will be so much less in quantity and poor¬ 
er in quality than it ought to be, that profit is 
out of the question. 
In the uew dairying which is being, in a 
manner, forced upon us, both by the decline 
of prices and the changed taste of consumers, 
especially in butter, good winter-feeding 
aud care are above all essential. With 
the necessity for these comes upon us, in 
a pressing manner, the inquiry whether 
we shall not be also forced to run our 
dairies through the year. If we must 
feed well during the eold weather, have 
light, warm, clean and airy stables for 
our cows, and devote much of our time 
to them all through the winter, must we 
not also arrange things so as to have a 
continuous iucome from them ? Then 
comes a careful study of the feeding ques- 
i tiou, and how we shall not only make 
winter butter, but how we shall man¬ 
age to make U resemble as nearly as pos¬ 
sible the butter of Juue. When this 
point is reached by the larger portion of 
our dairymen, writers upon dairy topics 
will have but little to say upon the sub¬ 
ject which forms the title of this article. 
Or if they still continue to write upon 
it, will be from a different stand-point 
altogether. 
- A cow should come out in the spring 
in as good condition as she went to the 
barn in the fall. She ought rather to 
gain than to lose in flesh after drying off. 
If she will not do it upon hay,’she should 
have grain-feed of some sort. Though it 
is possible that a cow may be too fat at 
calving, it very rarely happens that she is 
so. Immediately after ealviug, her rations 
should be light but nourishing, aud as 
soon as the danger of fever is past, her feed 
ought to be increased continuously until she 
has reached a full flow of milk, and maintains 
Wm 
POLLED ANGUS COW, GAILT, 
home until they are fully ripe, while I would 
get clear of all poor stock just as soon as pos¬ 
sible. When stock is low, it will only pay to 
keep the best, and I think the best always re¬ 
turns the most profit. I do not mean by this 
that we must buy fancy stock; for that will 
never pay, to any great extent, in the hands of 
the ordinary farmer. The farmer that keeps 
sheep, will, by selecting the best ewe lambs 
and coupling them with a good buck of good 
stock, soon raise a flock that he need not be 
ashamed of. I. J. b. 
of pigs can be kept in good growing condition 
through the summer on the waste from the 
kitchen, together with a little skim milk, if they 
have the run of a good pasture. In the fall 
they can bo easily fattened on pumpkins 
aud a little corn. H you waut nice pork, don’t 
confine your pigs in a pen, but give them as 
large a run as possible. 
Some people object to giving pigs a large 
range for fear that they w'ill uot fatten so fast 
as if confined. I thiuk that this is a mistake. 
None of the small, improved breeds will roam 
enough to work off much fat. But even if 
they did, the quality of the pork is so much 
improved by having a large range that the 
improvement would compensate for the slight 
loss of fat. The nicest pork that I ever ate, 
was made from a hog that had the. free range 
of a thirty-acre field. Now all cannot give 
their pigs as much liberty as that, nor is it 
necessary; but give them as much as possible. 
LATE MILKING A CAUSE OF ABORTION 
Jottings. —The cows from the Blissville 
stables have all been sacrificed to the public 
appreheusious with regard to pleuro-pueu- 
mouia. Some of the buildings have been de¬ 
stroyed, and all disinfected. Hogs, instead of 
cow's, will in future be fed on the distillery 
swill, at least until more peaceable days. . . . 
Vigorous measures have at length been adopted 
The last number of the Rural was received 
by this morning’s mail. Iu perusing it I find 
an article on “Abortion in Cows,”—a matter 
of great importance to stock raisers and dairy¬ 
men. Ou this subject I would like to give au 
opinion, however little it may be worth. Sev¬ 
eral years ago, I was in Herkimer Co., N. Y., 
when dairymen were suffering serious 
loss by the trouble above referred to, aud 
could discover no cause or remedy. 1 
visited and examined a number of sta¬ 
bles, made many inquiries, and formed 
an opinion and told the dairyman how . ' 
I believed it could be avoided. VJ 
The cows laid becu well fed, and were $ 
in good condition. The water furnished 
them was the best well or spriug water. 
They were well eared for—only large 
numbers were stabled together in well 
and eloscly-built barus. But I found 
that the cows were milked very late be¬ 
fore calving, and 1 reasoned that, no 
matter how well cows were fed or kept, 
sufficient nutriment could not be sup¬ 
plied to nourish the foetus and furnish 
milk at the same time. Acting on this 
hiut, the trouble was stopped. While the 
statements made by the Ruual’s corres¬ 
pondent may have weight, and may be 
true, none of the conditions he men¬ 
tions were found in the region I refer to. 
Hammonton, N. J. It. E. Bowles, M. 1). 
DOES IT PAY TO KEEP HOGS! 
That depeuds upon circumstances. If 
your hogs are the long-legged, slab-sided, 
long-nosed " elm - peelers,”—no. Such 
hogs will uot pay at auy lime, still less when 
pork is 3J- to 8} cents per pound, dressed. Be¬ 
sides, such hogs are a nuisance to you and 
your neighbors. They are hard to fatten and 
their meat is of inferior quality. But it will 
pay any farmer to keep a few pigs of some im- 
HEREFORD COW, EMPRESS. 
for stamping out pleuro-pneumonia iu New Jer¬ 
sey. Infected auimals will be remorselessly 
slaughtered, exposed animals rigidly quaran¬ 
tined, and inoculation, as a preventive, pro¬ 
hibited. Farmers should be paid well for 
beasts slaughtered for the puplic good. 
Above all, don’t keep your pigs too near the 
house, especially if they are confined in a 
small yard. Hogs of a good breed, well eared 
for, will always pay as well or better than any 
stock ou the farm, and they can be kept with 
less trouble and expense. V. J. Emert. 
