64o 
SEPT. 27 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
“IF I COTTLD BE YOUNG AGAIN I” 
Education, Economy, Choosing a Calling. 
G. F. TOWLE. 
Well, I should not care to live the last 30 years of my 
life over again, although I am still buoyant and hopeful 
and full of fight. But I would esteem it an unspeakable 
boon to be allowed to live over again the years of training 
between 10 and 22; for I am sure that if I had used the 
opportunities of that period according to my present con¬ 
victions, I should have more than doubled the productive¬ 
ness, the worth aud the satisfaction of all the years that 
were to follow. 
1. If I were to start anew, I would attend carefully to 
the ground-plan of my education. I would select a few of 
the more important subjects for study and then make my¬ 
self a master, at least, of the elements of those few. The 
teachers would be against me, of course, and the School 
Committees, for they all want a boy to “ take the regular 
course,” no matter what his convictions or aptitudes may 
be. But I would accomplish my purpose in some way; for 
it is a daily agony with me now that I am obliged to at¬ 
tend to the duties of a calling for which I have had no 
adequate preparation. I am constantly applying principles 
of which I am not sure. I am hazarding experiments all 
the while because I know next to nothing of the laws of 
chemistry, and of the properties and possibilities of differ¬ 
ent soils. It is like a man practicing medicine when he 
knows almost nothing of hygiene and materia medica. 
The thing is to know something positively, and to know 
that we know it as well as any living authority, and so 
have the mastery of some practical field. Therefore, if I 
were young again, I would draw carefully the ground- 
plan of my education, as I have said. It is not the proper 
time to lay the lower tiers of an edifice after the roof is on. 
I would demand fundamental instruction. I would put 
myself under teachers who cared more for elements and 
loan the government: that the French were the richest 
people on the globe, because every man, woman and child 
had something laid by. “ Every child,” said he, “ has it 
drilled into him from his earliest days, that, as soon as he 
has an income, he must hoard 10, 20 or 30 per cent., and 
compel himself to subsist on what remains.” This is not a 
characteristic habit of Americans; but it is admirable 
nevertheless. Here I would put my foot down, if I were 
young: $100 should be saved out of every $500 earned, and 
the percentage should Increase year by year as I earned 
more. The basis for a fair competence would thus be laid 
early in life. I would not do this with the expectation of 
becoming rich ; for riches are generally a delusion aud a 
snare. Rather would I do it that I might have something 
to give to him that needs, and might possess a modest 
“ unexpended balance” for use in future contingencies and 
in old age. 
8. In choosing a calling, I would consult chiefly my 
natural aptitudes. What one wants to do, and feels that 
he must do, that he will always do with enthusiasm and 
success. Drudgeries, rebuffs, and unsuccesses never 
daunt such a one. But the heart grows faint and the 
hands droop where one is always inwardly protesting 
against his vocation. A neighbor of mine says he is a 
farmer simply and solely because his father entreated him 
not to leave him, and promised him the estate after so 
many years. Such a man consents to be a slave for his 
father’s sake. It is a hard lot. An aptitude for a partic¬ 
ular work is God’s call to do that work, and that call 
should be heeded. 
FOUR YOUNG HORSES. 
The business of breeding fine horses has been greatly 
stimulated ot late by the introduction of superior breed¬ 
ing animals from abroad and the earnest study which 
breeders and farmers have made of the leading established 
mistake in breeding these heavy stallions to light mares. 
Such a course is seldom satisfactory, the colt being usually 
fit only for horse car work. 
Percheron Colt Nixie 6550.—This colt was two years 
and 11 months old when the picture was taken. He 
weighed 1,500 pounds and stood 16 hands and two inches 
high; a little older, a little higher and a little heavier than 
the Clydesdale. The Percherons are great favorites in 
many localities and they certainly fill a place that cannot 
be filled by any other breed of horses. They are more ac¬ 
tive than the Clydesdales, better trotters and better suited 
for general farm work. Indeed, the Percheron grade is 
about the best farm horse that can be imagined. Many 
heavy Percherons are used in the city, the lighter ones 
making excellent horses to drive singly on express or other 
delivery wagons. 
French Coach Colt, Floquet.— This colt was not 
quite two years old when the picture was taken. He 
weighed 1,130 pounds and stood 15 hands and 2)4 inches 
high. His sire is Franconi 189, whose picture was given in 
The R. N.-Y. of last year, and his dam was Fanny, by an 
imported Cleveland Bay horse. At present there is more 
money in breeding good coach horses than in any other 
class of stock. There is an unlimited demand for hand¬ 
some, high-stepping horses suitable for carriages. The 
French Coach is the best representative of the ideal 
carriage horse, and horses of this breed are very successful 
in transmitting their good qualities to their offspring 
when mares of spirited and suitable shape are selected to 
breed with them. At the present time this breed rightly 
finds great favor with the farmer who keeps a few mares 
of good breeding and likes to raise one or two good colts 
every year. Good coach horses are always salable. 
Trotting Bred Colt Gen. Lamar 8889.—This colt was 
foaled April 30, 1887, and is therefore a few months 
younger than the Percheron. He weighs 1075 pounds and 
fyl 
HBI ;/ 
VjSrf * i 
CLYDESDALE COLT EMPIRE 4398. Fig. 278. 
PERCHERON COLT NIXIE 6550. Fig. 279. 
principles than for details—more for the outlines than for 
the filling up. Where is the sense of studying just enough 
to get a smattering of grammar and rhetoric and logic and 
algebra and astronomy, and a dozen other branches, while 
diving deeply into none ? Where is the sense of giving, as 
I was made to do when a boy, four years to Latin, which 
I hated, and only 11 weeks to chemistry, which I loved, 
and not even a single week to botany, physical geography 
and zoology ? Will some one rise up and show us the wis¬ 
dom of keeping a boy poring over dry text-dooks for 15 
years, when he knows next to nothing of common things 
—of the trees, shrubs and grasses about his home, of the 
birds that nest in his father’s trees, and of the rocks al¬ 
ways under his feet ? So I say the boy should study so as 
to become familiar with the earth, the soil, the forces, the 
life, animal and vegetable, that, in after days he will have 
to deal with. 
2. Most young men think the possession of certain things 
indispensable. They must have their tobacco, their suits 
of fine clothes, their summer outings, their “ larks,” and 
their horses or bicycles. And they spend freely for these 
things, and then, at the end of the year, if there is a small 
per cent, of their earnings left, it is laid by. A young man 
at present in my employ has been his own master for 10 
years ; he is sober, industrious aud earns good wages, but 
has only 50 dollars to show for his 10 years’ work. If I 
were to start anew, a certain fraction of every month’s 
wages should be set apart sacredly for investment, and I 
would oblige myself to live on the remainder. I was in 
Paris not long after the Franco-Prussian war. The French 
government was at that time engaged in raising the huge 
sum needed to induce the Germans to relax their iron 
grasp. At the call of the Finance Minister, money poured 
in faster than it could be counted. Astonished as every¬ 
body was, I asked an American, long resident in the city, 
for an explanation. He replied that every man in the 
country, from the prince to the rag-picker, had money to 
breeds. There are a few simple rules of breeding that 
have not always been recognized by farmers who like to 
have one or two good colts on the farm. The better the 
sire the better the colt. The sire contributes but one-half 
the colt’s value; the mare must be suitable. No sire is 
good enough to insure a first-class colt from a broken- 
down, disabled old mare “ good for nothing but breeding.” 
To a great extent, horses are made by the country they 
are raised in. A big, heavy draft horse does not 
require the exercise needed in climbing steep and rocky 
hills, while such exertion may be just what is needed by 
the light roadster or trotter. In a general way, it may be 
said that the best draft horses are bred and raised in the 
level, corn-growing countries, while lighter and more 
active horses are more successful in hilly or rougher 
sections. These things must be considered by the farmer 
who asks himself, “What breed shall I try?” In order to 
help answer this question which we know is being asked 
by hundreds of farmers, we have secured pictures of good 
colts, of nearly the same age, of the four leading breeds. 
The pictures are given side by side in this issue. These 
colts are owned by Smiths, Powell & Lamb, of Syracuse, 
N. Y., who kindly loan the photographs from which 
our engravings were made. The photographs were taken 
during the latter part of June; by remembering this, the 
reader can easily compute the ages of the animals. 
Clydesdale Colt Empire 4398.—This colt was foaled 
January 14, 1888, being therefore about 2)4 years old. 
His sire is Strathmore 2163, and his dam Princess 783. He 
is a bay colt standing 16 hands and half an inch high, aud 
weighing 1,430 pounds. The Clydesdales are highly es¬ 
teemed in England as heavy draft animals. They are very 
strong and heavy, fast walkers, intelligent aud kind. 
Clydesdale grades from|large, heavy mares are in active de¬ 
mand in this and other large cities for use on heavy trucks 
and drays. The demand is for matched teams, large single 
horses not being so salable. Farmers frequently make a 
stands 15 hands and two inches high. He was sired by 
Cortland Wilkes 4715, a son of the famous George Wilkes. 
His dam Is Instate, by Indianapolis 517. Few farmers are 
fitted by nature to succeed as breeders of trotters. That 
there is money in producing well bred trotters, for those 
who understand the business, cannot be denied. The 
trotter and roadster is the typical American horse. There 
is a growing demand for him all over the world. England, 
Germany, France, South America all want him, and 
within a few years our export trade in trotters will exceed 
our imports of draft or carriage animals. 
A HOLSTEIN DAIRY IN KENTUCKY. 
For making really good butter, the excellence of which 
can be depended upon week after week, through the ever- 
changing temperature of successive seasons, we must learn 
to be guided not by our own feelings but by the right use 
of the dairy '.thermometer. That never varies, while per¬ 
sonal contact is always a mere matter of comparison and 
guesswork. But when once we have learned the intelligent 
use of the thermometer then there is no more guessing, 
for we know that milk cooled to a certain temperature 
will give us sweet, rich cream, which when ripened prop¬ 
erly and churned at the prescribed temperature will give 
firm, sweet butter. There will be no more white, frothy 
mixtures of butter-fats, milk and water; which, when 
worked over, yield only a small amount of firm, solid but¬ 
ter, and even that of an inferior quality, iuterspersed with 
white specks, or possessing an insipid, unpleasant flavor. 
As I said in a former article, we keep two creameries, 
into one of which the morning’s milk is strained, aud into 
the other that brought iu the evening; fresh well water at 
a temperature of 50 deg. being pumped into the tank of 
each creamer twice daily during the warm weather. To 
accelerate the separation of the eream from the milk, cold 
water is put into the fresh milk, usually in the proportion 
