858, 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
61 
Inquiries and Answers. 
Propagating Grapes. —I have some wild grapes 
that we find valuable for vinegar. Wishing to bring 
them under cultivation, I would like to be informed 
through The Cultivator of the mode of removing or 
propagating the vine—also the right season of the year 
to do it in. S. W. H. Rossie, St. Lawrence Co., N. 
Y. [Prune the vine severely this winter or very early 
in spring, to induce a young, stout, and vigorous growth 
of shoots—layer these shoots by midsummer or sooner, 
by bending them to the ground, and covering them 
with five or six inches of earth at the middle. A small 
excavation should be made to lay them in, as a matter 
of great convenience in covering them with the earth. 
In autumn these layers will be rooted, and they may 
be then cut off, removed and planted out. This is the 
easiest and most certain way of propagating them. 
Kinging Pigs. —Will you or some one of the numer¬ 
ous correspondents of The Cultivator, inform me of 
the best way to prevent hogs from rooting in clover sod, 
or any other sod. My hogs are so bad to root, I have 
to keep them out of the fields, and that when they 
have as much corn as they can eat. M. Plank. [The 
old remedy of ringing their noses, is efficient. A per¬ 
foration is made between the snout bone and the pro¬ 
per nasal, and a short annealed iron wire thrust through, 
and the ends twisted together with pincers so as to form 
a small ring. It is a painful operation to the animal, 
of which he informs the whole neighborhood. The 
ring often breaks off after a time, and requires renew¬ 
ing. A pig will not root with such a ring. It is said 
to be a much better way, when the pig is young, “to 
cut through the cartilaginous and ligamentous prolonga¬ 
tions, by which the supplementary bone is united to 
the proper nasals.” The divided edges of the cartilage 
will never unite again, and the snout will always re¬ 
main powerless for rooting.] 
Pumpkins for Much Cows.—Farmers do not seem 
to be agreed here, as to whether pumpkins fed to cows 
increase the richness but diminish the quantity of milk, 
or whether the quantity is lessened without any im¬ 
provement in quality. Have no experiments been 
made by eastern farmers with sufficient accuracy to 
determine the matter ? During the drought of our fall 
months, when the pastures are short, pumpkins are a 
cheap and convenient food for milk cows, but are they 
an improper one 7 T. B. St. Matthews , Ky. [Expe¬ 
rience has shown that pumpkins are good feed for milch 
cows, adding both to the quality and quantity of the 
milk. The seeds, which are sometimes injurious, from 
their diuretic qualities, should be taken out before the 
pumpkins are given to the cows.] 
Dover Potatoes. —In answer to several subscribers 
of your valuable paper, I beg leave to say that I have 
no Dover potatoes to part with. The color of the Do¬ 
ver is red; it is of a roundish form, but a little fiat on 
one side; quality for the table, white and mealy; in 
fact as long as there is a Dover potato to be got rid of, 
you can not sell any other around here. Peter Side- 
botham. Valley Falls, R. I. 
Falling off of Milk. —I have a cow which has 
given a regular quantity of milk all this summer and 
fall. On Monday morning she gave but about a pint 
of milk, and has given about that quantity at her sub¬ 
sequent milkings. She is in a yard, and can get at 
nothing to injure her; so I am sure she has eaten no¬ 
thing which has caused the diminution. She still eats 
well and and seems healthy. Can you give me an ex¬ 
planation of it, or suggest a remedy 7 A. D. R. 
Gas Lime. —Will you inform me through your val¬ 
uable journal, whether gas lime is as good as lime in 
its original state, to be used on the same ground—if not, 
what qualities are lacking! We can buy gas lime for 
five cents per bushel, and other lime for six and a 
quarter and six and a half cents per bushel out the 
boats, and then we have to draw it about four miles. 
Now which will be the most profit to us in the end 7 D. 
D. Blauvelt. [Our correspondent’s question can only 
be answered by careful experiment. The farmers in 
this vicinity will not buy gas lime at any price, while 
in Philadelphia there is a great demand for it at five 
and six cents per bushel, and atNew-Haven it sells for 
a cent a bushel more than fresh lime. See several ar¬ 
ticles on this subject in our last year’s volumes ] 
Cut Feed, and Tar, for Horses. —Is cut feed good 
for a mare with foal 7 or would dry hay and oats be 
better 7 [We know of no objection to cut feed.] Is 
tar good for horses '! My mare had the horse distem¬ 
per last spring, she coughed badly, and was swollen 
some on her belly ; one of my neighbors advised me to 
give her tar, saying that it was the best thing for horse 
distemper and a cough he knew of. I gave her tar two 
or three times, and then wound the bit with tar, and 
as it was during spring work, and having no team but 
my horses, I kept her at work, and in one week her 
cough was nearly cured, and she got along and did well. 
But she was with foal, and foaled the second of July, 
and her colt was very poor and his legs very crooked. 
The mare was worked through the winter and spring 
until the first of June—not very hard, but was kept 
busy during good sledding and spring work. She was 
fed in part on cut feed. Now what made the colt so 
poor and crooked legged 7 An answer to the above will 
much oblige your humble friend. D. S. Springfield, 
Vt. [The colt was probably injured by the disease of 
the mare, and not by any cut food, nor by the remedy 
which assisted the cure of the disease.] 
Farm Mills. —Please let-me know if there is agrist 
mill, to run by horse power, manufactured in Albany, 
and the price. J. F. S. Kossuth, Pa. [Such a mill, 
called the “ Excelsior Farm Mill,” is manufactured by 
R. H. Pease in this city—price $50. 
Diseased Calves. —About the middle of August 
we had a fine steer calf taken with all the symptoms 
of being choked. He had his tongue stretched out, 
breathed very short, coughing at intervals, with a 
wheezing kind of a cough. As he was in an orchard, 
we supposed that he was.choked with an apple, and 
treated him accordingly. In course of a half of an 
hour, he ceased his hard breathing and coughing, and 
to all appearances was as well as ever. We then turn¬ 
ed him and two heifers of the same age, into a field 
where they could get nothing to choke them ; but he 
continued to have such spells of coughing until the lat¬ 
ter part of September, when we found him dead in the 
field. We opened him, and found his lungs very much 
enlarged, weighing eight pounds twenty-four hours 
afterwards. We have inquired of a great many of our 
neighbors, but none can tell us anything about it. One 
of the heifers was taken in the same way a short time 
before the steer died, and the other a short time after. 
They eat nearly a bushel of ears of soft corn per day, 
