so much assists in keeping the farm free from 
noxious weeds as a flock of sheep. 
WILL THE ADVANCE BE PERMANENT? 
I am asked this question daily and many 
times each day. Of course, everybody will 
now rush into sheep, and likely many will re¬ 
fuse to sell even the older and those that for 
other causes should be sorted out and fatten¬ 
ed. The tendency of such a course is to rap¬ 
idly increase the flocks; but it will take several 
years to make up the numbers lost by drought 
in the various sheep countries and those 
slaughtered, and before such time we are 
likely to have better times through a general 
revival of business, so that I firmly believe it 
will be many years before prices will again 
be as low as in 1885. 
I have the ewes now all home and the males 
put with them, and some of them have been 
together for more than a month. I am great¬ 
ly in hoi>es of being able to send some lambs 
this year in time for Christmas dinner. 
Through the solicitation of Mr. James 
Wood, of Mt. Kisko, N. Y., who has one of 
^ 
DAIRY NOTES. 
The same trouble exists among dairy farm¬ 
ers in England as in Wisconsin, according to 
Prof. Arnold. They, too, are struggling to 
make milk and beef from the same auimal, 
and many of them eschew all the advantages 
they might reap through co-operative dairy¬ 
ing. He says: ••The idea of beef in a dairy 
cow appears to be inseparable from the minds 
of English dairymen generally, as well as from 
the minds of many dairymen in the United 
States; but beef dairymen, wherever met 
with, are the men most generally found strug¬ 
gling at the wrong end of the car of progress." 
He further says that be listened to an essayist 
who bad for his subject the “Selection ami 
Management of Dairy Cattle,” and after des¬ 
cribing 18 breeds of dairy cattle, in his inno¬ 
cence and hide-bound prejudice he outlined 
the pedigreed Shortehorn as the model dairy 
DEWEY STRAWBERRY. From Nature. Fig. 308. (See first page.) 
political issues have died out, or have been 
settled. Industrial questions are now pressing 
strongly to the front, aud are attracting the 
attention both of practical and scientific poli¬ 
ticians, of legislators arid political economists. 
The greatest of all industries is agriculture, 
and the greatest of all public questions is the 
question of agricultural prosperity. It should 
be the foremost subject of discussion, but it is 
hardly discussed at all. Eveu our best agri¬ 
cultural journals do not. haudle the political 
relations of agriculture with any mastery of 
the subject, while elsewhere in the press and 
the forum it is all but utterly neglected. What 
American political economist has made him¬ 
self noted, or even known, as an educator of 
the fanners in the matter of their public-rights 
and duties? Our greatest of industries, the 
fundamental industry of all, attracts the least 
intelligent attention, the least thoughtand the 
least activity of all. Are we going to do any¬ 
thing about it? Probably not until we are 
absolutely compelled to do so. 
Orleans Co., Vt. 
COOLING JACKET, A SUBSTITUTE FOR ICE. 
The hot weather is now upon us, and many 
have no ice to cool the drinking water. If 
they had ice-water, it is not a safe drink for 
perspiring harvest-hands, aud on the other 
hand, warm water is not pleasant. Cool well 
or spring water is the ideal drink, ami how to 
keep it cool in the far-away hot field, is the 
problem the cooling jacket solves. 
Procure a large jug, and cover it to a thick¬ 
ness of half-au-ineh with one or more layers 
of any kind of coarse cloth, carpet or other 
material. When filling the jug, saturate the 
jacket with water. Keep the jug in a windy, 
shady place, aud the evaporation of the water 
in the jacket will absorb enough heat to keep 
the water in the jug pleasantly cool. 
A tin pail, fitted with a very fine wire 
gauze lid, and a heavy saturated jacket, set in 
a raised, shady window, furnishes afar better 
place to keep milk pure aud sweet than nine- 
teuths of the household refrigerators, which 
usually contain a little of everything else but 
sweetness. i. p. Roberts. 
Sl)frp Ijusbantinj. 
Notes from the Western New York Farm. 
BETTER PRICES FOR SHEEP. 
In a recent trip into and through Central 
Michigan for the purchase of ewes for my 
winter lamb raising, I found sheep scarce, 
the market very strong and few for sale 
at auy price. Those people who last year 
heeded the Rural’s advice to hold on to the 
sheep for better times are uow happy. Such 
sheep as ouo year ago were sold for #1 (many 
less) thousands of which were slaughtered for 
pelts, hams and tallow, are now quickly taken 
at from #1.50 to #2 each. 
As might have been expected, the very per¬ 
sons who sold their sheep last year at these ri¬ 
diculous prices are now eagerly paying double 
the money for sheep no better than those sold, 
and can hardly get what they want eveu then. 
The immediate causes of this change are the 
real scarcity of sheep, and the rise of five or 
more cents per pound in the price of wool. 
The scarcity of sheep is caused by the insane 
slaughter of thousands, as before mentioned; 
the loss of millions of sheep in Texas, caused 
by the protracted drought aud also by the 
neglect, of hundreds of farmers to breed their 
ewes last Fall. The advauce in the price of 
wool is caused by the short clip in this country 
due to the decreased Humber shorn aud also by 
the diminished Australian supply due to the 
loss of millions of sheep by the excessive and 
long continued drought. It is needless uow to 
preach u sermon on the folly' of being dis¬ 
heartened aud going out of sljoep every time 
there is a depression in the prices of sheep 
aud wooL Every cue can now see the folly of 
sueU a course. 
Those most badly discouraged last Fall are 
now most eager to buy, and as a result I 
think the prices of sheep likely to go unrea¬ 
sonably high, aud unless men are very care¬ 
ful about what they buy, aud how they care 
for what they buy. they nmy find that they 
have again made a mistake. It is a safe rale 
to keep steadily on with the flocks, carefully 
weeding out the poorer and breeding with a 
view to increasing the size, improving the 
form and securing increased length and fine¬ 
ness of staple and freedom from an excessive 
amount of gi-ease, and the lurgest quantity of 
cleaused wool. Even in the worst years if 
the lambs are well cared for and sold, with 
wool even at the past low prices, sheep will 
pay as wi ll as any other product of the farm, 
and sooner or later the change will come, as 
now, and then the profits will be beyond those 
from anything else. Besides all this, nothing 
the finest flocks of Hampshire Downs in this 
country, I shall try' a male of that breed on 
one bunch of my ewes. The Hampshire has 
more size than either the South Down or 
Shropshire, and it may' be that 1 shall find 
this cross superior to the Shropshire, I have 
just received a ram from Mr, Wood's flock, 
and shall try him carefully as a guide for the 
future. 
Wheat is now all cut. and is a correct index 
to the character of the fanners on those farms 
on which stock is fed and plenty of manure 
made, or on those farms ou which plenty of 
fertilizers have been applied. The crop is 
good; on some very', very good. The field of 
hand-picked Diehl-Mediterranean is very r 
stout aud would not take second place in the 
very best wheat years. I think it will thrash 
out awuy above 40 bushels per acre. It has 
come very time and yet I have found a half 
dozen or less heads in every way like the 
other, except that they have no beards. I 
shall moke a further selection, as this is with¬ 
out doubt the best wheat in this county, and 
is worthy of Wing perfected. 
I have several of the Rural’s crosses, aud 
among them a cross between Fultzo-Clawson 
and Landreth; also one between Diehl-Medi¬ 
terranean and Landreth. Each of these has 
already broken up into mauy very distinct 
types, some of which are wonderful in their 
promise. I shall be greatly surprised if from 
one or other of these crosses a wheat is not 
produced that will repay this country a thou¬ 
sandfold for all the Rural ever cost. Few 
realize what its editor is doiug in systematic, 
honest experiments. J. s, woodward. 
cow, and gave her points and curved lines, so 
as to put in as much “beef and beauty'” as her 
skiu would hold! No doubt the old Professor 
gasped, and wondered whether he had crossed 
the oeeau to be thunderstruck with such wis¬ 
dom! * * * 
I hear of one sensible dairyman in Dodge 
County (W. T.), who, finding his pastures 
“brown and bare”from the parching drought, 
instead of lamenting that all was lost and pro- 
SEEDLINO NO. (A From Nature. Fig. 309. 
(See first page.) 
eeeding to starve or sell his 40 good cows at 
half price, put them into the bam to keep 
them out of the burniug sun’s heat, aud fed 
them all the bran-slop aud old forage they 
would eat, aud thus, in a sense, he defies the 
drought to dry up his cows. The result will 
be the milk will pay for the bran iu cash dowu 
and he will have made a deposit of about 80 
per cent, of the cost of the bran in the bank of 
the farm—the manure—which he has increased 
in value so much, and which he can draw 
checks on next y r ear in increased crops. Be¬ 
sides, it is going to rain some time, and when 
it does, and his pastures are again green, he 
will have rollicking, well-fed cows to earn big 
money at making butter and cheese in the 
Fall, when the prices are higher. Why don’t 
farmers who can add figures correctly and 
reason a little, see it, and save theircows? No 
matter what may be the price of butter and 
cheese to-day, if a mau owns a good cow, it 
would be as stupid for him to let her starve, 
or half starve, as it would be to let his pro¬ 
perty burn for the sake of saving the water it 
would take to quench the flame. It doesn’t 
take any long-invested capital, either, to save 
the cow; for her milk, if kept flowing, will 
pay every day in cash for what she eats. Un¬ 
like an unemployed horse, she works every 
hour of her milk-giving life at earning money; 
and to feed her is only to lend her money on 
the shortest of time and ou the best of security. 
* * * 
I disagree with the cheeseman of the Chicago 
Live Stock Journal, in imputing fine pin-holes 
in cured cheese to tainted milk. They are 
present in the sweetest aud cleanest flavored 
cheese, and are the result of putting the cheese 
to press with the curd not acidified enough to 
take them out. A badly tainted curd can be 
held till the cured cheese resulting will be as 
solid as butter. It is all a question of acid de¬ 
veloped; though it is admitted it takes longer 
to eliminate the gas from sweet tainted milk 
than from that clean-flavored. Probably nine- 
tenths of the fine cheese of the world are not 
entirely free from fine pin-holes; and to teach 
the novice that when he sees them, he is to 
draw the conclusion there is rotten milk pres¬ 
ent, is to slander the cheese, and excite his dis¬ 
gust without cause. 
* * * 
M ith regard to the action or rather inaction 
of the dairymen of the country in relation to 
oleomargarine legislation, the Chicago Live 
Stock Journal says that dairymen and farmers 
generally are a wonderfully slow and imprac¬ 
ticable class when it comes to defending them¬ 
selves or their calling from assault. Scattered 
and unorganized, they stand with folded hands, 
wondering what is to be done, while the enemy 
goes on doing. Somehow, they expect some¬ 
body will rise up and defend them, or they 
will be saved by some sort of miracle. "Wit¬ 
ness the fight that has been going on for 
months against the counterfeit butter gang. 
What, are the dairymen and farmers, as a 
body, doing- The whole brunt of the battle 
has been thus far borne by a few men, who 
have not only done the fighting, but furnished 
“the sinews of war.” 
The enemy is alert and energetic, while the 
dairymen take no active interest, and appar¬ 
ently expect somehow to be saved by a sort of 
miracle, or fortuitous turn of events. Let 
them remember the adage; “God helps those 
who help themselves,” and come to the front 
and report for duty. 
* * * 
The truth is they are unorganized and part¬ 
ly dazed by the audacity of the assault upon 
the solid old industry the cow stands at the 
base of. They are like the mighty North be¬ 
fore Fort Sumter was tired on—their wrath 
not yet kindled into a sweeping flame. But if 
betrayed uow they will be like what the Massa¬ 
chusetts Captain said the North was—“Hard 
to start, but a sight harder to stop after they 
got to going.” 
The truth is the case is so plain that the 
mighty mass of farmers and consumers assume 
their representative Congressmen and Sena¬ 
tors need no urging to pass the laws outlined 
by the House BilL If these want to learn 
what scorn and wrath mean, they will have 
a chance if the bill fails to become a law. In 
such case there won’t be any skepticism about 
there being a “hereafter” for such of the poli¬ 
ticians in the dairy districts aud dairy States 
as help to defeat or fail to stand up for it. 
“He who is not for us is against us," and will 
have to drain the political “hemlock” to the 
dregs. “BADGER.” 
Wyoming Co., Wis, 
DOING THE “ODD” THING. 
Many times it pays to do the “odd” thing,, 
or that which others in the community neg¬ 
lect. A friend of mine went “out West” 
aud located iu a cheese-making distinct. He 
found that farmers sold all their milk to the 
factories and got rid of the calves as soon as 
they could. My friend had a little ready 
money to be used as capital. Instead of sell¬ 
ing his milk to the factory, he went to raising 
heifer calves. He bought a fine Holstein bull 
and offered his services for a very low price 
on condition that the calves should be his if 
he wanted them. It kept him busy picking 
them up aud bringing them home. The steers 
and the poor heifers he kept a few weeks and 
then sold them to the butchers. The best 
