1858. 
THE -CULTIVATOR 
245 
bles near by, we visited Mr. Jackson’s Devons, of 
which breed he has conceived a high opinion. 
The sketch I have been giving of Mr. Jackson’s 
operations is rendered very much more imperfect than 
it would otherwise have been, by the length of time 
that has elapsed since my visit; and I should not close 
without according him the credit of being a much bet¬ 
ter farmer than would perhaps appear from anything I 
have yet said. His cash accounts afford testimony to the 
correctness of the principles upon which he acts; and, 
as the world goes, there are few better tests of one’s 
business faculties. It may serve as an illustration of 
these principles, as well as of their success, to add that 
Mr. J. has been a constant reader of The Cultivator 
and Country Gentleman , and one of the most promi¬ 
nent members and an active mainstay of the Agricul¬ 
tural Society of New-Castle County. 
Cure for Hog Cholera. 
Mr. Jackson gave me a bit of his experience with 
this troublesome complaint, including a remedy which 
proved beneficial, and at length affected an entire cure. 
This was to put tar in the bottom of the trough—say a 
pint in one twelve feet long, and a couple of ounces of 
flour of sulphur; then one ounce of dissolved saltpeter 
was put with the swill into the trough once a day, and 
chloride of lime was sprinkled about their sleeping pla¬ 
ces. They seemed cured, but after running to pasture 
about a month were again attacked, when a second 
trial of the same means finally drove off the disease. 
Marsh Manor. 
. Through the rain, steady and dispiriting as it was, 
my friend and his son kindly drove out with me to see 
what we could of the country. Continuing for some dis¬ 
tance on the turnpike, and then turning off toward the 
river, we came to the residence of William Reybold, 
Esq., not far from Delaware City, who here occupies a 
fine estate of 460 acres, and has another farm within a 
short distance, of 375 in addition. His orchards for¬ 
merly sent five, six, or seven thousand baskets of peach¬ 
es a night to New-York for a period of about six weeks, 
employing several steamboats for the purpose ; and 70 
acres, 30 of them in three year old, and 40 in four year 
old trees, one year netted their owner the handsome 
figure of $12,000. But the days of the peach in all these 
coasts, seem to be numbered; their glory and profit 
have departed. Some mysterious disease has for five 
years past kept them declining, and for the last two 
they have not paid. The ax has been laid at the root 
of their once fruitful and money-bringing boughs, and, 
trunk and branch and twig, they are now being cut 
down and hewgd to pieces for firewood! Is it not to the 
reflective pomologist, a melancholy fate 1 —to the lover 
of fruit, a sad misfortune'? Newly planted orchards 
on land where a peach tree never grew, seem to fare 
no better; they sicken, lose all their thrift, and appa¬ 
rently die by inches. 
We hazarded wet feet and backs to see such of the 
stock as were pastured near the house, and to glance 
at the extensive and commodious barns which shelter 
them all in winter, and many of them during the nights 
and heavy rains at other seasons. The Cotswolds are 
of course the main attraction—a flock that contests the 
palm with those of Col. Ware of Virginia, and Henry 
Carroll, Esq., of Maryland, at all the Southern exhi¬ 
bitions at which they appear—sometimes one winning, 
I believe, and sometimes another, but together making 
as grand a show of the breed as one would wish to see. 
Mr. Reybold’s flock is very extensive, numbering I 
think 200 head, and they have been bred on the place 
for some 30 years, in the hands of his father, brother, 
or himself. Mr. R. gave me a photograph of a sheep 
raised by him in 1853, and shown at the U. S. Ag. So¬ 
ciety’s Philadelphia exhibition when four years old, at 
which time the portrait was taken. He had been fat¬ 
tened for the butcher, and when slaughtered his live 
weight was 362 pounds, and weight when dressed 269£. 
His length from nose to insertion of tail was 60 inches, 
from heel to heel, over the shoulders, 72| inches, and 
the circumference around the body, behind the shoul¬ 
ders, 51 inches. He was weighed at home before the 
transportation to Philadelphia and a week’s exhi¬ 
bition there, and then weighed 374 pounds. The 
weight of his wool for each of three years had been 
from 17 to 18 lbs. well washed, and its length from 8 to 
12 inches. This remarkable animal will justify a high 
opinion of the Cotswolds or New Oxfordshires, for feed¬ 
ing for market, as well as for the production of large 
quantities of a wool particularly valuable for worsteds 
and similar manufactures. 
Quite a curiosity here, too, are the Holstein Cattle — 
a breed which our farmers at the north know little of, 
as they are seldom seen at our shows or discussed in 
our journals. It is a kind of great value as milkers, 
and Mr. R.’s herd must be the largest if not nearly the 
only one of unmixed blood. He has 12 head of aged 
animals, and 20 of young stock—mostly or entirely from 
importations made many years ago by his father and 
brother, Messrs. Philip and Clayton Reybold. 
Mr. R. does an extensive dairy business, having on 
both his farms about one hundred milking cows. He 
purchases for the purpose mostly heifers, partly from 
droves that not unfrequently come along from the eas¬ 
tern states, and partly from those bred at the west. It 
is thought preferable to purchase heifers to cows, as 
good cows are seldom sold to go away from home, while 
an experienced eye can judge pretty well of the prom¬ 
ise a heifer affords. We looked over one of the ranges 
of sheep barns—the main building being a fine struc¬ 
ture 115 feet by 40 ; finding everything arranged as 
might have been anticipated, with a view to economy 
of space and labor, and the comfort and ventilation of 
the sheep-rooms. 
Mr. John Reybold’s fine hay farm we could not 
visit in the rain—as worthy as it must be, from what I 
heard, of some effort to see it. 
The hedges along the roads are mostly of the Virginia 
thorn. When taken care of, it does well for a consid¬ 
erable series of years, but has been found in time to 
become imperfect, and show signs of dying out. Many 
are now experimenting with the Osage Orange ; and, 
as far as I could learn, the result had been very satis¬ 
factory, and it will doubtless soon become the great 
hedge plant of this region. Many of the roads under 
brighter skies must be very beautiful, lined as they 
are with these living fences. 
Milking Young Cows. —It is said that young cows, 
the first year they give milk, may be made, with care¬ 
ful milking and good keeping, to give milk almost any 
length of time deemed desirable ; but that if they are 
allowed to dry up early in the fall, they will, if they 
have a calf at the same season, dry up at the same 
time each succeeding year, and nothing but extra feed 
will prevent it, and that but for a short time. 
