Dehorning Cattle. -Mr. Hanff, in the 
RURAL of Oct. 30, rides his hobby en this sub¬ 
ject too hard. Dishorning' eat lie is a pain- 
iul process. W lien he writes as he does so in¬ 
correctly about horns, intelligent persons will 
lose confidence in his judgment. Any book 
ou anatomy gives a clear description of t he 
horn of an ox, and shows that the inner core 
of it is a continuation of the frontal sinus, and 
is lined with the periosteum, a most sensitive 
membrane and full of nerves and blood-vessels. 
Further, when he says if the horn is cut fibove 
a certain point the animal will bleed to death, 
but will not if cut lower flown, he states an 
absurdity, for there can be no blood above a 
point if there is no artery below it. Cutting 
with a saw prevents bleeding because it tears 
and does not divide the blood vessels smoothly. 
4886 
W°WM 
silo. What we want to know quite as much 
is what changes occur in the curing of hay 
and com fodder, that we cannot get equally 
good butter and cheese as from the green fod¬ 
der. 
When* to Spread Manure.— Dr. Hoskins 
is always sound,and his statement that animal 
excrements are never worth any more than 
when they are fresh from the animal, is sound 
common sense and fact, and should stop the 
flow of the abundant nonsense written about 
the increased value o" litter and manure by 
decomposition. If this could happen some¬ 
thing eon Id be got. for nothing; and the chem¬ 
ical action of decomposition—which is a force, 
because heat Is developed by it—would occur 
without any cause that, could produce it. 
It is of great importance that this fact stated 
by Dr. Hoskins should be clearly understood 
by every farmer. 
The Muzzling of Dogs is a safe and rea¬ 
sonable practice, and should be universally 
adopted. I have a large flock of sheep which 
require my care day and night to preserve 
them from roa rning dogs. I have lost 20 the past 
Summer, without counting the injury to the 
others by the chasing and fright. If one of 
my sheep should trespass ou my neighbor’s 
field or garden, there would be a howl of dis¬ 
approbation; hence I beep the flock inside of 
safe fences. But when my neighbors’ dogs 
trespass upon ruy pastures and kill and man¬ 
gle mj* sheep it is considered a matter of 
course. If a man will keep a dog, why should 
he not lie compelled by law to keep him on his 
own premises. If this were done, there would 
be an end of the dog uuisanee, and the owner 
could have all the hydrophobia to himself. 
Mr. Baxter’s six-pound sweet potato, dug 
in Kansas, is a poor thing compared with a crop 
I have seen taken up in North Carolina : 
where a heap of 20 or 40 bushels of selected 
potatoes were all over six pounds each, and 
some weighed more than eight pounds. 
Macon Co., N. C. 
Dfrinj iptsbnntirij 
them and give it to the cows? A flock of hens 
are as valuable as a cow, if not more so, and 
should be equally well cared for. The plan of 
having two yards for a flock a d each sown 
with a green crop alternately, T believe was 
first introduced by me, and I found it indispen¬ 
sable when my flocks numbered nearly a 
thousand In all. 
Ensilage —Sir J. B. Lawes has done Amer¬ 
ican farmers invaluable service by his oeca- 
bedding that can be procured. This is the 
season when they should be gathered in abun¬ 
dance and stored for use during the Winter. 
They will thus become an excellent substitute 
for straw and lea ve this for use as fodder, 
along with some meal and bran, which will 
make it as good as hay. 
For gathering leaves one wants a heavy 
rake with strong, wooden teeth, and a head 
three feet long. This is necessary to resist 
the snags and brush In the woods. A peculiar 
and very effective contrivance for taking up 
the leaves is made of two light poles four or 
five feet long, having a sheet of common bag¬ 
ging. four feet wide, stitched to them ns here 
shown (Fig. 430). 
sharp as daggers, the owner of a Devon is al¬ 
ways on the brink of sudden death from these 
weapons. I kept Devons once, but a young 
cow once turned upon my wife, who was 
petting her ealf, threw her down and thrust 
the long, sharp horns completely through her 
clothing, tearing the skin quite across the 
breast. It was done in an instant, and but 
for a hay fork standing near by both my wife 
and I would have fallen victims to those 
CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL BUT¬ 
TER. CHEESE AND EOO ASSOCIA¬ 
TION. 
(RURAL SPECIAL REPORT.! 
The Thirteenth Annual Convention of the 
National Butter, Cheese and Egg Association 
closed on the 12th instant, in D Battery, Chi¬ 
cago. after a three flay s’ session. The first day 
was devoted to the reception of delegates, 
from the leading cities of the country, at the 
Columbia Theatre, speeches of welcome from 
the President of t he Board of Trade, President 
of the Produce Exchange, who presided, Gov¬ 
ernor of the State, Mayor of the city, an ad¬ 
dress from Hon. W. H. Hatch, of Missouri, 
and the annual address of the President of the 
association on taking the chair for business. 
Instead of a regular newspaper leport it will 
be more satisfactory to report by topics and so 
boil the whole down into a few paragraphs. 
BOOTS BUTTER. 
This topic was introduced by Mayor Harri¬ 
son, who declared himself a butterine man be¬ 
cause he is a Chicagoan, and called butterine 
the poor man’s butter. This fell like a wet 
blanket over his hearers, and a voice twice 
shunted “No.” while he responded “Yes, 
Chicago has the floor-” Hon. William H. 
Hatch, of Missouri, declared that bogus butter 
“is not the poor man’s friend, but the rich 
man’s fraud.’ Ho had eaten more dry bread 
in the last two years than in all his previous 
life,because he was afraid when he dined at ho¬ 
tels, restaurants and in dining cars, that some 
of the abominable compound would be smug¬ 
gled down his throat He did not touch the 
so-called butter in Chicago. It is safe to say 
that consumption has in this way been greatly 
reduced, as the writer and thousands of others 
share in the repugnance of Mr. Hatch to the 
bogus stuff. In fact, no one of any refine¬ 
ment or sensibility will knowingly eat, it. 
The sentiment of the convention was strong 
against it. and the determination was ex¬ 
pressed to see that the national statute is en¬ 
forced, and any needed amendments to ren¬ 
der it more efficient be demanded of Congress. 
A committee of three from each State was 
provided for to secure .State legislation 
against the manufacture of bogus butter “in 
semblance or imitation” of the genuine, as in 
New York. Mr. Hatch declared there is not 
the least danger of the present Congress re¬ 
pealing or doing any thing to weaken the 
present national law; that its constitutionality 
is undoubted, and the law will be found strong¬ 
er before the end of the first year than either 
the dairymen oi bogus butter men are aware. 
He thinks that only a small amount of the 
counterfeit article will be sold, and that al¬ 
most wholly to caterers for restaurants, ho¬ 
tels. boarding-houses, steamboats and dicing 
topics. 
Milking Kwks,- AY linn l w&s&t Roquefort 
25 years ago, I saw a given 1 deal of cows’ milk 
made into the celebrated cheese of that place, 
ami the keeping of ewes for the milk has been 
gradually falling off as less profitable than 
keeping cows. The New Zealanders will he 
going backwards if they go to keeping ewes 
for making cheese. 
The Horns ok the Devons are a serious 
•bjeotion to this excellent breed. Long and 
MARIE LOUISE GRAPE. From Nature. Fig. 435. (Sec first page.) 
“cruel horns.” If Mr. Haaff would adopt the 
practice of dehorning young calves before the 
horns are grown—a simple operation—I will 
aid him as far as I can. 
A Green Crop for Fowls.—I t is an excel¬ 
lent plan to have a yard sown with some green 
crop for the fowls; but why take it from 
sional contributions to the pages of the Ru¬ 
ral, the first American paper for which he 
ever wrote. The summary* of the Rotham- 
sted experiments with ensilage given ou page 
721, puts this subject in a very deal* light. 
We can understand how all vegetable sub¬ 
stance suffers loss during fermentation in the 
lima 1 
Fig. 430. 
The leaves are raked up in heaps: this sack 
grip, or grijpsaek, as it might be called, is 
turned down over the heap; the handles are 
brought together, gathering a lot of the 
leaves, uml these arc lifted up and emptied 
into the rack or the wagon. Another con¬ 
trivance is made nt a light hoop-pole about 12 
feet long, or a light hickory rod, to which a 
piece of bagging is fastened loosely, so as to 
make a sort of basket (Nee Fig. 44U). A large 
% 
quantity of leaves may be picked up with one 
of these, laid on the ground and the leaves 
raked in a large pile on it. Several bushels 
may be taken up at once with this leaf lifter. 
HENRY STEWART. 
