v« mfif 
Yol. XLV. No. 1901. 
NEW YORK. JULY 3, 1886. 
PRICE FIVE CENTS. 
82.00 PER YEAR. 
Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1886, by the Rural New-Yorker in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
cy—its power of transmitting its special char¬ 
acteristics to its offspring by any other breed— 
due either to its superior natural vigor or to 
wise breeding for many years in one line by 
those who originated it, or to a combination of 
both. Hence it soon impressed its own char¬ 
acteristics on its offspring by the Hamjwhire, 
and in a few generations entirely changed the 
characteristics of the breed. The horns disap¬ 
peared, the face and legs became dark, the 
frame grew more and more compact, the bones 
smaller, the back broader and straighter, the 
barrel rounder, the legs shorter and the flesh 
of better quality: while the offspring retaiued 
the superior hanliuess and greater size, as well 
as the massive head and Roman nose of the old- 
time Hampshire. There seems to be no doubt 
that the present Hampshire Down has also iu 
it a dash of Cotswold, and consequently of 
Leicester blood, as the Improved Cotswold has 
a large admixture of Leicester. 
The present Hampshire Down sheep mature 
“boomed” breeds have come across in greater 
numbers. It is still quite popular in England, 
however. 
The specimen Hampshire Down ram shown 
at Fig. 272 is from the herd of James Wood, 
Mt. Kiseo, N. Y. 
sense. No man with a head on his shoulders 
need be led astray by theories or blunders be¬ 
cause of their number. My observation is 
that we have too many self-conceited and 
stupid dairymen, who always misunderstand 
and misapply what is taught them, if they pay 
any attention to it, and then blame the source 
of their information. Comparatively few 
people have imagination enough to compre¬ 
hend and apply correctly oral or printed in’ 
structions. The few who have are the lights of 
the world, teaching the great mass by exam¬ 
ple. Most men have the imitative faculty. 
HAMPSHIRE DOWN SHEEP, 
« HE word “down” or “downs,” 
as applied to land, is used iu 
. England to indicate a large, 
I open tractof poor,untilled land, 
• generally of a dry, hilly, sandy 
nature, covered here and there 
* with heath or furze, and econ¬ 
omically used only for pasture 
—almost exclusively for sheep. Probably the 
largest tract of this kind is a range of low hills, 
underlaid with chalk, extend ing or rather crop¬ 
ping up almost continuously, though Sussex, 
Hampshire and Dorset, in the extreme south 
of England. The hills slope gradually to the 
English Channel on the south, and merge into 
rich, cultivated lauds on the north. Though 
unprofitable for till¬ 
age, they are covered 
with a rich sweet, 
short, dense herb¬ 
age, affording an ex¬ 
cellent pasture to the 
large flocks of sheep 
which have been rais¬ 
ed there for many 
centuries. On these •£' 
“downs” originated - 
three of the best 
breeds of native 
sheep in England— 
the South Down in 
Sussex, the Hamp¬ 
shire Down in Hamp¬ 
shire, bordering on 
Sussex on the west: •.•A* . - ■ 
and the Dorset, in the _ v,;L’ . A 
comity of that name .' * J 
adjoining the west¬ 
ern boundary of 
Hampshire. The ; ^ 
sheep of the entire re¬ 
gion were, doubtless, • A ■, A 
originally horned, 
through atavism, it 
is not, even now, a v,, -a " i • 
very unusual thing 
to find a lamb with '• J 
short horns among * v 
male South Down . .* ilk' 
lambs. 23y/?S " 
The Hampshire 
Down originated 
about HO years ago 
by a cross between the honied, white-faced 
sheep t or ages native of the district, and pure¬ 
bred South Dowu rums. From time imme¬ 
morial the South Downs had dark-brown or 
black faces and legs, aud at the time of the 
cross Mr. EJlmati, of (llyudo, had, by .“>0 years 
of careful breeding, done as much for them, in 
the way of Improvement in form, wool, and 
quality of mutton,as Mr, Bakowell, of Dishloy, 
had done for the Loieesters. The original 
Hampshire was larger and coarser, but hardier 
than the South Down, slower to mature, and 
inferior in the quulity of flesh; for oven then 
the South Down had generally won the repu¬ 
tation which it enjoys more widely to-day— 
that of being the best mutton sheep in the 
world. Another characteristic in which it 
surpassed the Hampshire, as it surpasses all 
other English breeds to-day, was its prepoten- 
DAIRY NOTES. 
BY T. D. CURTIS. 
Milk for a Pound of Butter.— Some one 
says “the quantity of milk necessary to make 
a pound of butter varies greatly, ranging 
from nine to fifteen quarts.” He might have 
said, ranging from five to twenty-eight quarts 
—for counting a pint a pound (it is a little 
more) according to the old woman’s rule, it 
takes from 10 to 50 pounds of milk fora pound 
Extreme Niceness.—I see it stated that a 
Massachusetts dairyman requires his milkers 
to wash and comb their hair before milking. 
This may be very nioe, but all depends on 
what they work at before milking. It might 
demand washing and combing, and then fail 
in cleanliness if the milkers did not put on 
clean clothes. It is to be inferred that the 
cows are to be wash¬ 
ed and combed. 
Ti'he Average 
Herd. — A Western 
exchange describes 
the average herd as 
follows: 
‘•Two extra, live very 
good, five good, five poor 
milkers, one kicker, two 
jumpers, and one that 
milkssobard that it costs 
all that it Is worth to get 
it; of the remaining four, 
one has lost a teat and 
three are too old. Look 
to It that this paragraph 
does not describe your 
dairy.” 
There is no ques¬ 
tion but that most of 
the herds of the coun¬ 
try would be improv¬ 
ed by a judicious 
weeding out — and 
now is a good time 
to do it. 
>, ; ; : The Best Breed. 
0 A • —I c o u s i d e r the 
V -r A search for the best 
' V 7/,': ' . breed of dairy stock 
A ’ to be about as sensi¬ 
ble as the search for 
^ • Ay the philosopher’s 
stone or the fountain 
of youth. All the 
published experi¬ 
ments that I have 
seen bearing on this 
subject, are partial 
and unsatisfactory, 
showing only the re¬ 
late e value of the 
individual animals 
experimented with. 
It is a ver\ r diffi¬ 
cult, if uot impossible thing to get any one 
animal of a breed, that can properly stand 
as its representative and determine its rela¬ 
tive value—so much depends on conditions. 
The same animal will not always give the same 
results. To determine the relative value of 
breeds would require many experiments, not 
with individuals, but with properly selected 
and kept herds. I very much doubt if such an 
experiment would pay, if it were ever so care¬ 
fully aud thoroughly tried. 
Y ks, it Can be Done, —I have often beard 
the question asked if we could not select 
foimdation stock from our best so-called 
"natives” and develop a valuable breed. Yes, 
it could lie done, but would it pay 1 Our 
“natives” were once imported, but have become 
mixed, mongrelized and degenerated by hard 
fare aud lack of care in breeding. Such 
* k-Atfv.’-' 
HAMPSHIRE DOWN 
early and fatten rapidly. The lambs are of 
large size, aud are usually dropped early and 
feil for market lambs, or kept over till one 
year old, the following Spring, when, if pro¬ 
perly treated mcauwhile, they will weigh HO or 
100 pounds, and sell readily at a profitable 
figure. They dip from six to seven pounds of 
wool suitable for combing, longer than South 
Down wool, but uot so flue. The mutton has 
a good proportion of fat and lean, and is juicy 
and fine-flavored. This breed has been uses! 
considerably for crossing on other breeds, and 
w hen crossed on Cot-swolds the wool is more 
valuable for worsted than that of pure Cots¬ 
wold. Its chief use here, however, would lie 
to cross on native sheep to improve the pro- 
geuy. Large numbers were formerly import¬ 
ed, especially for the South before the war, 
but of late years more fashionable and better 
of butter. Prof. Henry, of the Wisconsin 
University Farm, found it took the latter 
amount of milk from his Holland cow to make 
a pound of butter, and the milk of some of the 
Jerseys requires only nine or teu pounds. 
These, of course, are extremes. Some of the 
Holland cows give milk of which only IS or 
20 pounds are required to make a pound of 
butter. The herds of the country will aver¬ 
age 33 to 25 pounds of milk for a pound of 
butter for the entire season. The general 
average is 20 to 25 pounds. 
The Trouble in Dairying.— It is asserted 
by some one that “the great trouble iu dairy¬ 
ing is the multiplicity of theories aud the 
flood of advice offered by shallow persons who 
are not practical dairymen.” Such an asser¬ 
tion does not show a great deal of practical 
