1898 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
399 
and bird. There is a slight difficulty to be met in 
inoculating the tubercle bacillus from man to the ox, 
yet this is, as a rule, easily accomplished as compared 
with its transference from man to the bird. The 
danger, therefore, of infection passing from man to 
ox, and from ox to man, is much greater than when 
the transfer is to be made from man to bird or from 
bird to man. james law. 
DEVON COWS AND CLOTTED CREAM. 
A FARMER FROM THE OLD COUNTRY TALKS. 
[The following personal letter was sent to Prof. H. H. Wing 
shortly after The R. N.-Y. printed the interview which appeared 
on page 50.] 
My wife and I (Devonshire folks resident in this 
country nearly seven years) have read with much in¬ 
terest the interview reported by Mrs. Fisher. In the 
same paper, page 63, is a condensed report of the New 
York State Stockmen, in which Mr. Frank D. Ward 
holds different views as to Short-horn cattle, from 
you. I should say that he has not been in England, 
while you have, which makes, and marks, the differ¬ 
ence in the point of view. The point which interested 
my wife most was in the description of the way to 
make Devonshire cream. She is a capital dairy hand, 
and can turn out Devonshire cream, in texture and 
quality, in Ohio, as perfect as can be done in the val¬ 
leys of the Taw or the Exe. Devonshire cream can be 
made in shallow tin pans, but in that case, the pan 
must be put in another larger pan which holds water 
brought nearly to the temperature of 180 degrees F. 
This requires a good deal of care, and is not the best 
when the finest quality is demanded. 
The best method is to use the earthenware crock— 
salt-glazed—the milk to he not more than three inches 
deep, and to stand in a temperature of about 45 de¬ 
grees till the cream has about all risen, which will be 
in from 18 to 24 hours. Then suspend 
the crock over a bright charcoal fire, or 
stand it on the kitchen range. Watch it, 
and the instant it is all crinkled over, 
or one air bubble rises, remove and set it 
in about the same temperature as before 
till wanted for packing or other use. In 
Devonshire and east Cornwall, it is never 
warmed up and set aside, and rewarmed ; 
but as you go farther east, and get along 
in Somerset, and northeast into Glou¬ 
cester, the practice is modified to suit the 
different environment, by which I mean 
the difference in the quality of the grasses, 
and the methods of feeding in Winter. I 
would undertake to tell blindfolded the 
difference between “ scalded ” cream made 
in north Devonshire and that made in the 
vale of Gloucester. It is wonderful what 
a difference, even with the best of care, 
the change from the valley of the Taw 
to the vale of Gloucester makes in the 
quality of the cream from a Devon cow. 
It is really most marked. I wish that I 
had been with you in the country around 
Harnstaple, and then along the valleys 
leading to I lfracombe and Lynton, for instance. I could 
have shown you readily where, within my recollection 
of 40 years even, two distinct qualities of the old 
breed of Devons have been developed through careful 
selection. I mean the milking habit as opposed to 
the beef habit. Forty years ago (I confine myself to 
that time) all the Devons were good milkers, a little 
above the average of any cattle except the Jerseys, 
but the differentiation had already begun, and the 
milking habit in suitable localities, near a good mar¬ 
ket, was cultivated. Dairymen bred carefully, and 
developed the habit, while others stuck to and bred 
for beef. Three bulls, all of which I knew well, and 
two of which I handled as boy and young man, oper¬ 
ated wonderfully along the former line. The dam of 
one was a most prodigious milker, of capital quality, 
shaped in her later years almost like a wedge. 
The very same thing which Mr. Ward falls foul of 
in his discourse has been done with the Short-horns, 
done in the very localities which I have named above. 
I have seen it done, and my father helped it along 
and did it. You can do it inside of 10 generations, by 
accurate judgment in selection and painstaking care 
in feeding, perhaps in less time. But right here comes 
a somewhat puzzling fact. Fed on the same food in 
Winter, grazed on the same pasture in Summer, the 
Short-horn (i. e., the developed milker) does not yet 
approach the Devon in the quantity or quality of the 
butter or cream. It must be in the cow, perhaps on 
the same lines as the capacity of a jar which won’t 
hold more than its cubical content. 
Quality^ —Here my wife finds something to criticise. 
She says that Devonshire cream is never lumpy, and 
you couldn’t have gone where it was perfectly made. 
I laugh, because when we came to Ohio from Devon¬ 
shire, many Americans didn't like her butter, and 
neither of us liked the butter we bought. That opens 
up another tale, viz., catering for the English market. 
I want to see that done, with all the power of the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture, and get back that which this 
country has lost within the last 25 years, both in but¬ 
ter and cheese. Study us and our peculiar tastes and 
wishes ; send us of your best, put up in proper shape, 
and guarantee the purity, and you can capture our 
tables. Only bear this in mind : We like to do our own 
adulterating, if any, and don’t want Uncle Sam to do 
it for US. JA8. L. WAI.DON. 
Ohio. 
R. N.-Y.—We show at Fig. 176, the picture of a 
typical modern Devon, reengraved from the Mark 
Dane Express. Somehow, the Devon has never proved 
very popular in this country, having been crowded 
aside by the larger beef breeds or the smaller dairy 
animals. 
NORSE SHOE FARM NOTES. 
FEEDING HENS AND HANDLING INCUBATORS. 
Mixing up hen feed with a shingle, paddle or stick 
of some kind is a hard thing to do, and made the kid’s 
wrist ache. The different kinds of grain were not 
evenly mixed, and the poultry meat was in chunks. 
The pail and ground around it were covered with the 
spilled grain, and he dreaded the job. After the fol¬ 
lowing directions were learned by him, he had no 
further trouble : Pour the meat into the pail, and fill 
it half full of water. Sift in the ground grain, and 
mix with a hoe. By turning the hoe over, it will push 
down easily and will slide to the opposite side of the 
pail, so as to bring up considerable grain from the 
bottom. There is no other way of mixing, quickly 
and easily, small quantities of feed equal to this. 
Unless well mixed, some kinds of food may make the 
fowls sick. A large box and a shovel are good things 
to have for mixing dry ground grain, but try a hoe 
for the mash. 
After testing the eggs at five days, thei’e will be a 
vacant spot. We cannot help wishing it were full, 
and dislike to see good room wasted during the whole 
hatch, especially if, as sometimes happens early in 
the season, the machine is only half full. There are 
no sitting hens to use as starters, early, or where 
Leghorns and Minorcas are kept. I simply could not 
stand it, and filled up the incubator full, 275 eggs in 
a 200-egg machine. The temperature was kept as 
before, 103 degrees on the first layer of eggs, and at 
testing time, all but five of the extras were started 
but had died. It had been too hot for them, there 
being in our Prairie State, one or two degrees differ¬ 
ence in each inch up from the bottom. The next 
time, I placed the thermometers on the upper layer 
of eggs, and kept them at 103% to 102%, which made 
the bottom of the lower layer 101 to 102. At five days, 
they tested out equally well on both layers. They 
were all marked, and hatched well from both. I 
think now that I need not have any empty rows. The 
matter of temperature is important, and some par¬ 
ticular spot in the machine should be selected for a 
standard by which all others should be judged. A 
thermometer lying on the surface of the eggs at one 
time, standing against the moisture pan next time, 
and on the bottom of the tray next time, will 
not give accurate results. I believe that success in 
hatching is secured by proper heat and ventilation, 
“ other notions being mostly whims.” Too much heat 
and too little ventilation will give large growth, and 
the chicks do not have room to turn in the shell. 
One of our turkey hens, just hatched, did not come 
off from her nest but three or four times in the four 
weeks. Nine died in the shell, full grown, and com¬ 
pletely filled the shell. 103 to 104 degrees for the 
whole hatch gave 65 dead in the shell out of 180 fertile 
eggs; 102 degrees the first two weeks and 103 degrees 
the third, with excessive ventilation, gave 140 chicks 
which were strong-framed, scrawny and only filling 
the shell two-thirds full. Only 15 died in the shell, 
and every one that pipped got out alone, none drying 
to the shell. In the two hatches, no moisture or cool¬ 
ing off the eggs was used or practiced, and not much 
turning. Watch the air chamber and keep them dried 
out according to the chart, by opening or closing the 
ventilator, and keep the heat at 102 to 103 degrees for 
fat, strong and large clutches of chicks. Our moisture 
pans were not removed for a time, and the eggs under 
them always hatched first. If the heat was just right 
under them, it was too low in the other parts, and the 
hatch was uneven. Since removing them, the hatch 
is uniform in numbers and time. 
Did you ever see a chicken get out all right that 
pipped in the small end of the egg ? Mine do not, but 
since I adopted the practice of keeping the large end 
of the egg the highest the first eight days till they 
were anchored, none of them is wrong end to. Do they 
anchor fast in any number of days ? Under some cir¬ 
cumstances, they are hard to kill, while in others a 
trifle works ruin. Being called away suddenly, the 
incubator doors were left open at 6 p. m. and remained 
so till 6 A. m., when the thermometer stood at 65 de¬ 
grees. The eggs were as cold as a stone. I turned 
the lamp down and warmed them slowly, getting them 
back to 103 degrees by night. The hatch was 107 
strong chicks from 160 eggs, and they have proved 
very healthy. 
A neighbor had 180 fertile eggs at the fifth day, and 
at the tenth, all but 30 were dead. The only cause 
which could be found was a very strong smell of vine¬ 
gar from five barrels in the cellar. The vinegar was 
removed, and the second hatch was all right. It does 
not seem reasonable that the smell would 
affect them, neither does it seem as though 
vinegar mixed in the mash fed chickens 
would affect the Gape-worms in the wind¬ 
pipe, but still enough to give it a good 
sour taste does seem to relieve and cure 
the birds. I say seem, for all are not 
yet cured, but all are 99 per cent better, 
and I do not know any other reason. I 
have taken Hope Farm Notes’ account of 
the egg-laying qualities of Black Minorcas 
with a “grain of salt,” as they seemed 
away behind the Leghorns, but they are 
business when they get at it, and regular 
world beaters in the size and appearance 
of the eggs. A neighbor’s 37 pullets laid 
32 eggs yesterday, and 25 to 30 every day 
for the last month. c. e. chapman. 
AN OUTBREAK OF C0WP0X. 
IS THE DISEASE DANGEROUS? 
The newspapers rexiort an outbreak of cowpox 
in New Jersey dairies. Is there any particular 
danger in this disease ? 
An outbreak of cowpox like the above 
is not likely to prove dangerous, or to 
spread to any extent if the movement of infected 
stock be restricted, and attendants who care for the 
diseased cattle be not allowed to come in contact 
with healthy cattle. Cowpox is not readily carried 
on the air, as is the case with smallpox, but isually 
requires the actual contact of the infected animal or 
its products with the healthy animal, oris transmitted 
by inoculation. The hand of the milker is one of 
the most frequent means of inoculation, the virus 
being carried from the diseased to the healthy in 
milking. Even the milker himself is liable to become 
inoculated if he has any sores upon his hands, and has 
not been previously vaccinated. 
While cowpox is a specific, contagious disease, it is 
not a dangerous disease, and with a little care and 
attention, rarely, if ever, proves fatal. The allied 
disease of the horse, the horsepox, is, also, a mild dis¬ 
ease ; but the sheeppox, like smallpox in man, is a 
dangerous disease which often terminates fatally. 
Cowpox is recognized by heat and tenderness of the 
udder and teats, followed in one or two days by the 
eruption of little, pale-red nodules the size of small 
peas, which continued to increase in size until the 
eighth to the tenth day, when a blister is formed 
having a breadth of three-fourths to one inch. The 
blister, or pock, as it is called, usually has a depressed 
center with a raised margin, and contains several dis¬ 
tinct cavities or sacs which are filled with a clear, 
straw-colored liquid. After a day or two, this clear 
liquid changes to a yellowish, thicker liquid from the 
formation of pus, and then soon dries into a brownish 
yellow crust, which is gradually detached and shed 
about the 20th day, leaving one or more characteristic 
pits in the skin. 
Medicinal treatment is rarely required for cowpox. 
Good nursing, with a light laxative diet, is all that is 
necessary. The cows should be milked as carefully as 
AN ENGLISH BRIZE-WINNING DEVON. Fig. 176. 
