788 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
December 4 
boring village at $4.25 each. The first one weighed 
70 pounds, and went May 17. All were off by the last 
of July. One ewe, mother of the single lamb, was 
sold to the same butcher at 4% cents a pound; she 
weighed 150 pounds, bringing $6.75. She cost $3.50, 
leaving an increase of $3 25. She was sold because of 
a defective udder. I do not part with a good ewe so 
long as she will raise good lambs. I have one which 
I have had six years, that invariably has twins. These 
are only common, open-wool sheep, picked from 
droves bought often for feeders. The ram used for 
the past season was a spring lamb of South Down 
lineage, ugly and misshapen, a common drove sheep ; 
yet his lambs were beauties. One of the rams—we 
never castrate our lambs—was thought by the butcher 
too nice to kill, and was sold to the keeper of quite a 
flock for breeding purposes. 
Our sheep have an open pen under a shed for night 
shelter and inclement weather, but are invariably 
turned into an acre lot on all good days during cold 
weather. We feed them corn and hay all winter, and 
they are always fat—too fat, I am often told, but I 
do not get alarmed. The lambs have access to a 
trough of ground corn and bran, sometimes oats, till 
they are old enough to eat whole grain, when they 
get the same ration as the mothers. Since I began 
keeping sheep, about 40 years ago, I have never 
bought a “high-toned” ram, but just such as I could 
find among the droves, and have sold my lambs as 
low as $4 and as high as $7 each. The latter were 
from a grade Bakewell ram, costing $7 in the early 
Sixties. I have much faith in good, strong, heavy 
ewes, with open wool, and good feeding and care. To 
recapitulate: 
Nine lambs at $4.25 each.$38.25 
Thirty pounds wool at 18 cents per pound. 5.40 
Increase on ewe sold. 3.25 
Total.$46.90 
Or $9.38 each from the five ewes. w. f. s. 
Pennsylvania. _ 
BREEDING AND SELLING BELGIAN HARES. 
My experience with Belgian hares extends back a 
little over two years. I have, in that time, taken in 
$425 and some odd cents, besides the hares we ate. 
What I could have sold is an unknown amount, as I 
had but a small per cent of grown stock to supply the 
demand. For instance, last spring, the second spring 
I offered hares, I sold the last pair of grown ones in 
February, while the greatest call is during March and 
April. I spent a little over $200 for feed, stock and 
advertising, and have a lot of valuable stock on hand ; 
besides, I made a blunder that took $50 out of my 
pocket. 
The Belgian hare is a true rabbit. The young are 
born helpless. The color is a foxy red, ticked over 
the back with black, white on the belly. They are 
hardy if bred from strong, unrelated stock, and are 
easily and cheaply kept. My product has all been 
sold as breeders, at good figures, and anybody, 
whether raising for food or stock, will always have a 
call for stock to breed from, if he or she has good 
standard stock. It will pay to buy good stock. One 
should not save $5 and lose $10 in consequence be¬ 
fore the year is up. 
Housing. —I raise my hares in a house 12 feet wide, 
24 feet long and 2 stories high, or 16 feet. It is 
divided into four rooms 12 x 12 feet. There are 19 
hutches built in the lower rooms, three tiers high. 
Those for the does are 20 inches high, 26 deep, and six 
feet long, making four hutches in the 24 feet space. 
Some may think the hutches large, but when they 
contain six young and the mother, they are none too 
large. Don’t crowd. The hares are too difficult to keep 
clean. The lower space is divided into pens for bucks. 
These need not be over four feet long, unless one 
have plenty of room. 
Breeding. —If the doe is seven to eight months old, 
take her by the nape of the neck, and put her gently 
to a buck; if she be in season, she will take him at 
once, and may be put right back in her hutch. If 
she refuse his attentions, try every two days until she 
takes him; then in ten days, put her in again, or 
seven days will do. If she is with young, she will 
fight the buck, if not she will take him. In 25 or 27 
days, put a good bunch of soft hay in her hutch for 
her nest; she will arrange it to suit herself. Fifteen 
inches of the six feet must be partitioned off for a 
nest, with an opening for the doe to go in. Leave the 
opening large. The doe must have water in a fast 
cup at all times, and especially when young are about 
to be born. Don’t disturb them for about five days. 
Then take her out and put her in a box. Look over 
the young, kill the runts, if any, and all over five or 
six at most. This beginners will seldom do, until, 
when about five weeks old, the young begin to slob¬ 
ber and die, and when at eight weeks, they have two 
or three left, they see the wisdom of killing. The 
doe cannot furnish milk for so many. They grow 
fast, and although they eat at the age of three to four 
weeks, yet the main living is the mother’s milk. If 
one wishes extra fine breeders, kill the young down 
to two ; they grow wonderfully fast then. 
Feeding. —The feed of the doe is oats and clover, 
cabbage, etc.—green food whenever it can be had ; it 
makes more milk. If one has cows, and can give 
them milk, it helps wonderfully. I find a feed of 
bran and a little corn meal, and enough middlings to 
make it stick together, wet with water or milk, the 
best grain feed for the mother or to grow young. I 
give more corn to fatten. When the young are eight 
to ten weeks old, I put them on the floors of the house, 
and have yards for them to go out in. In the one 
upper room, is stored clover hay. To raise for market, 
one must have land and raise clover, oats and plenty 
of cabbage. They will live and grow on what can’t 
be sold. If one manage to have a lot of young in mid¬ 
summer, he can raise them for quite a small sum. 
They can be raised just as well in a dry box out in the 
open, only not in the sun. They can stand cold, but 
get very warm if in the sun. I built my house to the 
north of two large apple trees, and have the hutches 
on the southwest side ; then a window on the north¬ 
west and southeast ends, so the air goes right by the 
hutches. The house is very cool in summer, and 
warm enough in winter. After the young are weaned, 
if the doe is not too thin, breed her again. She must 
be fleshed up again if she run down, before the young 
come again. 
At Pottstown, the hotel pays 10 cents a pound live 
weight for Belgian hares. The breeder then kills 
and opens them for him. He sells to private cus- 
A “ BALED ” PEACH TREE. Fig. 334. 
tomers at the same rate, and sells all he raises. If 
we have any left, we sell in Philadelphia, sending 
with what we call hucksters. The latter live here, 
gather up butter and produce, go to Philadelphia and 
sell it to retailers for 10 per cent of the sales. 
If the food is managed right, I think Belgian hares 
fully as profitable as poultry for market, and much 
more so if one can work up a home trade at 10 cents 
a pound. They are fine eating ; the meat is all pure 
white. w. w. kulp. 
Pennsylvania. _ 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
A Talk About Drppsy. —It is quite common to 
hear dropsy spoken ot as a distinct disease. This is 
a mistake. Dropsy is a result of a number of different 
diseases. Dropsy may come on as an effect of a 
disease of the heart. Disease of the liver will occasion 
it. Bright’s disease of the kidneys causes it. You 
have it in the last stage of consumption. In some 
cases of dropsy, anaemia is the actual disease. A 
variety of means are practiced for getting rid of the 
swelling, as for instance, hot-air baths, medicines 
that act on the bowels causing watery stools, medi¬ 
cines that increase the flow of urine, and the purely 
mechanical means known as tapping. Some one or 
other of these means may be demanded for the relief 
of the patient’s discomfort, or the prolongatioa of his 
life ; but they cannot properly be regarded as cures. 
So long as the disease that caused the dropsy remains 
uncorrected, the swelling will come back again. An 
actual cure is, in some cases, impossible, because the 
underlying disease consists in an organic change of 
one of the vital organs that no medical treatment 
can remove. You might about as well attempt to 
make an old man young again. Nevertheless, if the 
doctor be skillful and the patient be amenable and 
judicious, much may be done, even in these cases, to 
relieve distress, and keep the insatiate monster, 
Death, at bay. Some forms of dropsy are really 
curable, or I should say, the diseases that give rise 
to it. w. o. E. 
Forcing Raspberries. —The forcing of raspberries 
and blackberries under glass has never been under¬ 
taken in this country on a large scale. If any fruits 
are to be forced commercially in this country, the 
strawberry will, probably, be the most important, as 
there is more demand, and new light has lately been 
thrown on methods of culture. All that is known 
about the forcing of raspberries is that the thing is 
possible. This was proved by Fred W. Card, at the 
Cornell Experiment Station, in the winter of 1892-93. 
His experience is recorded in the Cornell Bulletin 57, 
page 210, but the bulletin is now out of print. The 
tempera ture of a lettuce house was too low, and the 
fruits were not matured until April. Hand pollina¬ 
tion is nece ssary, but easy. Probably the best plants 
for the purpose would be young plants started out¬ 
side in sp ring in boxes or large pots, which could be¬ 
come well-established by fall when needed inside for 
forcing. wilhelm miller. 
Let the Horns Be Bred Off.— I have bought a 
great many dishorned cattle, ard although I thought 
the operation a draught on the nerve force of the 
animal, and that consequently animals so treated 
were not so energetic in feeding or hustling after¬ 
wards, still I was almost persuaded that the advant¬ 
ages favored the practice. In fact, I thought that, if 
the humane agent would establish a clear case of 
cruelty out of the innovation, the train of progress 
would not get through on schedule time. But this 
last view has been changed. The dishorner has been 
here. By a smooth partition, an ideal fastening—so 
the operator 6aid—was arranged. The first subject 
was duly prepared for the ordeal. The keen blades 
clicked, the horn obeyed gravitation’s laws, but a jet 
of the life current mounted eight feet toward Him 
who gave man dominion over the beasts of the field. 
The subject fell, and then and there was hustling 
lest strangulation might ensue. The blood-lettmg 
went on until the gruesome place was strewn with 
nine pairs of horns and soaked with blood. Then 
barbarity gave way to merciful feeling, and the dis¬ 
horner was told to cease warring against Nature, and 
that the others would go to the shambles unbrutalized. 
As I passed the family cow—a particularly gentle 
Jersey that was not intended to be operated upon— 
her neck was stroked, her head patted, and a promise 
given her that she should have perpetual immunity 
from the tortures of the dishorner. When I see the 
subjects languid from the operation, when I look on 
their cheeks coated with an incrustation of their 
blood, when I notice that stiff gait, that check-reined 
holding of the head, and that tucked-up appearance 
of body that subjects wear for some time afterwards, 
and when the operator tells me that he has looked 
clear through the heads of some dishorned, I denounce 
the practice as cruel. ’Twould be scarcely any more 
cruel to restrain the persistent fighter by amputating 
his arms. The supporters of dishorning who quote 
the castration argument use false persuasion. The 
power of procreation cannot be left out of breeding. 
The horns can be bred off. Let it be done. s. j. p. 
Selling the Ben Davis Apple. 
The Baldwin apple is not good enough for those Vermont grow¬ 
ers, page 737. What will our western growers say to that ? 
Our friend, Benj. Buckman, of Illinois, in reply to 
the above question, sends us the following note from 
The R. N.-Y.’s market report: 
FRUITS—GREEN. 
Apples, fancy red, hand-picked, d. h., bbl.. .$2.50(^4.00 
Greening, per bbl. 1.506/3.00 
Ben Davis, per bbl. 1.75@3.00 
Baldwin, hand-picked, per bbl. 1.50@2.75 
20-oz. Pippin, hand-picked, per bbl. 1.75(5,2.00 
Northern Spy, per d. h. bbl. 1.50@3.00 
King, per bbl. . 2.25@3.50 
Common, per bbl.75@1.50 
This is his comment : 
Say 1 Let your New York market answer. Dessert quality 
counts nothing. The “fancy red, hand-picked—$2.50@$4.00,” 
means Ben Davis or anything else large and showy, and it will 
always be so. I have argued on the other side for 10 years, but I 
give it up. 
The following verses were printed in the Illinois Hor¬ 
ticultural Society’s report for 1893 : 
RHYME TO THE “ BEN DAVIS ” APPLE. 
EEV. ABRAHAM H. BATES, SPRINGFIELD. 
Once lived a man, no matter where (unenvied was his fame), 
And planted he an apple tree; Ben Davis was his name. 
His seedlings were as small and sour as one could wish to see, 
’Till on a time a pumpkin vine embraced his apple tree. 
From this embrace there came about the hybrid known so well, 
A cross, you see, twixt vine and tree, a story strange to tell. 
Some say it was the common squash the apple tree embraced, 
Since they can tell the squash quite well, mixed with the apple 
taste. 
At all events, the thing was named Ben Davis. It was grown 
Where pumpkins thrive, where snowstorms drive, or ’neath the 
torrid zone. 
So large it could be seen a mile, so dry ’twas ever sound, 
And hence ’twas made to be conveyed the spacious earth around. 
’Mid many dark decaying things within a cellar placed, 
Ben sound remained, and only gained more vegetable taste. 
With vegetables scarce, they sold him as a substitute, 
And when their show of fruit was low,they palmed him off for fruit. 
With profit still dry Ben is raised, and we will not deny 
Large crops are his, and still there is a crop of fools to buy. 
