1872.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
211 
production of cream rather than fat that is 
characteristic of the race in warmer climates. 
Great importance is attached to the “ escut¬ 
cheon” or milk-mirror, and he has one family 
of ten or twelve females in which every heifer 
born lias a perfect escutcheon. I state this fact 
without pretending to decide whether it has 
any certain influence on the product or not. It 
is my belief that it has a great deal to do with 
it. Whatever may be the incidental causes of 
Mr. Mackie’s success, it is unquestionably such 
as he would find it impossible to secure with 
any other than Jersey or Guernsey cows. 
During the past twelve months he has milked 
an average of eleven cows and heifers of all 
ages—these and no more. He made in that 
time 2,547 lbs. of first-quality butter—an aver¬ 
age for each animal of 231 k lbs.—and this from 
cows of which four can be kept on the food 
needed for three of the larger native cows. Mr. 
Mackie sells his butter in Boston for 75c. peril)., 
but of course only a few farmers could get such 
a price. They could, however, get an advance 
on regular market rates, and the increased 
amount of the product would of itself be a great 
item. So much for the result. Concerning the 
methods of treatment, we quote the following 
from a recent letter from Mr. Mackie : 
“I can not lay claim to any superior method 
of feeding. During the winter, good, moder¬ 
ately early cut hay is fed, morning and evening, 
after having been cut, moistened with cold 
water, and sprinkled over with equal parts of 
Indian meal and wheat bran, at the rate of one 
quart of the mixed grain for each cow. After 
the cut-feed in the morning, each one has about 
a peck of sugar-beets, also a little salt. A feed¬ 
ing of long hay is given in the middle of the 
day. The cows are let out into the yard for 
water after their morning and mid-day meals. 
They are carded and brushed every morning. 
In the stable they stand in stanchions and on a 
platform. They have the liberty of a warm, 
sunny yard for several hours every day when 
the weather permits. On this regimen —they 
are pastured and fed with sowed corn, pump¬ 
kins, or sugar-beets in summer and autumn— 
the cows are kept in good store or breeding 
condition. 
“The calves are taught to drink milk when 
they are two or three days old. When about a 
month old, they are put on skimmed milk, with 
a trifle of wheaten shorts. The skimmed milk 
is sometimes continued for a year. The calves 
do remarkably well on it, being neither over 
nor undergrown, and well shaped. Almost 
without exception, I have found the heifers an 
improvement on the dams. I do not feed my 
cows with the aim of making the greatest pos¬ 
sible amount of milk or butter, but mainly with 
reference to maintaining a good state of health, 
in order to raise healthy and improved calves. 1 ’ 
Haying Tools. —Thousands of farmers un¬ 
der whose eyes this item will fall will find it 
peculiarly addressed to themselves. Its object 
is to induce them to make use of the first 
stormy day to overhaul their mowing machines, 
tedders, horse-rakes, and forks; see that every 
worn part is renewed and every weak part 
made strong, and that everything connected 
witli them is in first-rate running order, dupli¬ 
cates being provided of such pieces as are liable 
to break in the field. A dollar spent now may 
gave many dollars in lost time and damaged 
hay. There is no more unpromising sight than 
that of a farmer driving five miles to town in 
the higbt of the haying season to repair last 
summer’s damages to his hay-rake. 
Ogden Farm Papers.—Ho. 29, 
I think I have nothing more useful to say this 
month than to give an account of my experience 
with the use of wind-power. Four years ago, 
after a careful survey of the whole field, it 
seemed evident that the best way to get water 
for the stock was to force it up from a never- 
fading spring well, 800 ft. distant, and 35 ft. 
lower than the foundation of the barn. The 
well was the best in the neighborhood, and the 
only one on the place which could be depended 
upon in very dry seasons; its depth 17 ft., over¬ 
flowing, except in very dry weather, when the 
water recedes to the depth of about 5 ft., and 
there stands. I went over the whole question 
of motive power as carefully as I could. A 
steam-engine at that distance from the buildings 
was out of the question, and there was never 
flow enough for any sort of water-power. A 
caloric engine was advised, but the interest on 
cost, and the expense for fuel and attendance, 
made it desirable to avoid it if possible, though 
its use was not impracticable. I had always 
had a fancy for self-regulating windmills, and 
knew enough of the various kinds previously 
in use to doubt their stability. Just then the 
Empire Windmill was brought to my notice, 
and it seemed to obviate one very serious diffi¬ 
culty by the fact that it exposes to the wind in 
no one piece more than about half a square 
foot, thus dividing the strain, and by its frequent 
spaces allowing free passage for the wind. 
Still, I had never seen one at work, had never 
heard of its success except from its interested 
friends, and had generally the consciousness 
that if I adopted it I should be trying an experi¬ 
ment for the success of which I should get few 
thanks, while its failure would bring down upon 
me yet one more “I told you so,” and “I told 
you so” is a form of vituperation of which I 
had heard enough to have grown slighlly weary. 
However, to water a big barnful of stock in 
the ordinary way looked so formidable, that I 
concluded to try the windmill and take the risk. 
Its original cost, delivered at Newport, was 
$200. The building on which to place it cost 
$50 more. With the help of a common me¬ 
chanic and of the printed directions that accom¬ 
panied it I put it up myself. The rest of the 
arrangement — pipe, tank, watering-troughs, 
etc.—are the same that would have been used 
with any other power. It is only necessary to 
say of them that they enable us to Avater all the 
stock in the barn almost entirely without labor. 
The regulating machinery of this mill was 
rather crudely arranged, and weakened my faith 
in its durability; at the same time it did its 
work remarkably well. Neighbors and friends 
foretold its downfall with every storm, and I 
have never yet quite outgrown the habit of 
looking doubtfully as I go over the hill toward 
the farm to see whether it is still standing, 
although the great gale of September, 18G9, 
which uprooted large trees, unroofed houses, 
and did more damage than any storm for fifty 
years, left the apparatus entirely uninjured, and 
satisfied all who saw it of its substantial utility. 
Through carelessness in attending to such 
little details as screwing up loose nuts, tighten¬ 
ing brace-rods, etc., the mill began, after three 
years of use, to grow shackly and to rock on 
its turn-table, so that finally a gale did it serious 
damage, which it cost over $50 to repair. Then 
it ran a year longer without, material injury, but 
the seeds of disease had become deeply seated 
with it. Loose bolts rattled and loose gudgeons 
ground away in spite of oil, until finally, after 
four years of utility, my Empire Windmill went 
by the board, nearly a total wreck. Our confi¬ 
dence in its merits had become so great, and 
such radical improvements in its construction 
had been made, that we did not hesitate to order 
a complete new mill to take its place. This has 
now been in operation for some weeks, and 
there is every indication that it is safe against 
all injury except that of tlie ordinary wear and 
tear to which all mechanism is subject. The 
practical question now is, whether Oirden Farm 
has received a full return for the $300 its wind¬ 
mill has cost ? 
To begin with, we have learned how to take 
care of such machinery, and even the old mill, 
if we had it new again, would surely last us 
twice as long as it did. In addition to this, the 
actual work done has been prodigious. There 
has been on the place during the whole time an 
average of seventy head of stock in winter and 
thirty-five in summer, or an average for the 
whole time of over fifty head. How much it 
would cost to pump by hand the water that 
this number of animals would require in four 
years my readers can judge as well as I. How 
much is lost all winter long by turning milking 
or fattening animals out into a cold barn-yard 
to shiver over a tub of ice-water few of us 
rightly understand. In addition to what the 
stock has required, we have had an ample sup¬ 
ply for a large steam-boiler, and for moistening 
all the cut fodder that has been steamed for the 
stock. For a year past there has been an almost 
constant flow of water, fresh from the under¬ 
ground spring, to keep the deep milk-cans warm 
in winter and cool in summer. Before this, we 
had all summer a fresh and cooling flow over 
the concrete floor of the milk-house. This is 
the water that we have used; besides this, a 
large amount has run to waste, and the mill has 
not been working more than two thirds of the 
time when there was wind enough for it. It is 
not easy to compute the value of all this in dol¬ 
lars and cents; but when we consider the con¬ 
venience of watering a whole line of cattle, 
standing in their stalls, by simply turning a 
faucet, the economy of not turning them out to 
water in severe weather, and the advantage of 
having water always before them at the tem¬ 
perature of the stable; and when, in addition 
to this, we fairly estimate the benefit of the 
deep-can system in making better butter, and in 
making it more easily in winter and in summer, 
we shall see that a yearly tax of $1.50 on each 
animal kept is really of small moment. 
At the same time, I believe that this is much 
more than will hereafter lie necessary, for the 
construction of the new mill is so much more 
simple—avoiding so many of the objectionable ^ 
features of the old one—lhat the chance is very 
much better that the present machine will last 
eight years than was the chance of the old mill’s 
lasting four years. 
Occasionally, when our water-works have 
been out of order, making it necessary to haul 
our water from an adjacent pond or from the 
house-well, we have been made to realize the 
importance of the saving they constantly effect. 
I have made no other application of wind- 
power, and am not prepared from my own ex¬ 
perience and observation to say anything very 
definitely in its favor, but I am not at all sure 
that the economy of a large windmill, con¬ 
suming nothing but a little oil, would not be 
sufficient to justify one in substituting it for a 
steam-engine, costing more at the outset, con¬ 
suming more oil and lots of fuel besides, and 
addiug somewhat to the rate of insurance. If 
food is to be steamed, the extra cost of fire to 
