1874.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
44 9 
autumn. He then carries them through the 
hight of milking on high winter feed, and finds 
that when they are five or six months gone, and 
wouffr naturally begin to fall off in their yield, 
the flush of the May and June pastures gives a 
fillip to their production, and carries them up 
pretty nearly to their full yield again,—by the 
time the summer drouth pinches the pasture, 
they are ready to be dried off for their next 
calving. This, in connection with the fact that 
the winter market is best for butter, makes his 
course seem judicious, and worthy the attention 
of others. Cows coming in in the spring give 
more during May and June than autumn calv- 
ers do at any time, but when they begin to feel 
the effect of their next pregnancy, there is only 
winter feed to be given them, and this does not 
sustain their productiveness as grass would do. 
A very large item on this farm is the feeding 
of pork. Shoats are bought in fair store-hog 
flesh, are very highly fed on skimmed milk and 
corn, and are drafted for the market when in 
good selling condition. There is generally a 
profit of about one cent per pound on the origi¬ 
nal purchase, and the average increase of 
weight is 30 pounds. 
The following experiment shows the profit 
of the operation, and indicates the care with 
which business details are attended to on this 
farm: June 12th, 10 average hogs were bought, 
weighing 1,850 lbs. They cost $87.87£ ($4.75 
per hundred pounds). Corn cost 56 cents per 
bushel; skimmed milk, 20 cents per hundred 
lbs.; meal and bran, 1 cent per lb. August 3d, 
after 52 days feeding (the cost of feed being 
$41.81), they had gained 975 lbs.—the increase 
costing $4.29 per hundred lbs. They were 
then sold at 6 cents per lb., making a profit of 
$39.82, to say nothing of the manure. They 
feed every year about 1,500 hogs, to which they 
add about 90 tons weight of pork. 
I was enabled to see the whole operation of 
skimming, churning, working, salting, re-work- 
Ing, and packing the butter, the whole being 
done in a most systematic and business-like 
way, and the product being of first-rate quality 
for a dairy of common cows. The butter is of 
capital flavor and of good color. It lacks the 
firm texture of Jersey butter, and they are now 
considering the question of buying a Jersey 
bull, and raising the heifer calves from the best 
twenty of their own cows. If this course is 
carried on for a few years, there will be at 
Marengo a butter dairy herd that will be hard 
to equal. 
The following account, received from Mr. 
It. Q. Tenney, of Colorado, is gratifying as 
confirming a theory which I have proved in 
practice to be a sound one, and have earnestly 
recommended: 
“ I wish to thank you for your article pub¬ 
lished in the winter of 1871, on transplanting 
mangels and sugar beets. I have probably 
saved to myself from $150 to $200 in the past 
three seasons, by following your directions. 
The first two seasons one of my neighbors, an 
old Iowa farmer, ridiculed the idea, but he was 
compelled to “ acknowledge the com ” when 
he saw the result. This year a late frost killed, 
say three-fourths of the plants in my seed bed, 
and being so far from a base of supplies, had 
not time to send for more. 
“ Another' time I will not be in so great a 
hurry to plant, as I find that they do not re¬ 
quire a very long season. 
‘ ‘ I transplanted from the 15th to the 22nd of 
July, and have fine beets, although the grass¬ 
hopper’s hurt them some. 
“We are getting a good number of Jersey 
cattle into the Territory. I think I imported 
the first, and now have a fine bull, three years 
old Feb. 11th last.” 
FINE HERDS AT THE WEST. 
While at the West I visited some of the 
principal Jersey herds in my line of travel, 
and, indeed, extended my journeying for the 
purpose. I was less gratified by the condition 
of my own animals in Illinois, than I hoped to 
be. The protracted early drouth drying up 
the pastures, and reducing all farming in 
southern Illinois to a very difficult pass, had 
the effect of pulling down their condition until 
I regretted having exhibited them at St. Louis. 
Their plight at least had the advantage of 
proving that with Jersey cattle, as with all 
others, good keep is necessary to good condi¬ 
tion and good yield. Realizing the state of 
affairs, I turned on more steam, and had the 
satisfaction of seeing them at once improve, | 
and I hear that they are now in much better 
order than at any time since June. 
At the large and splendid blue-grass farm of 
Major Campbell Brown, at Spring Hill, Tenn., 
where a wide range had made up for the effect 
of the drouth, the Jerseys, (of which he has a 
very fine herd), were in excellent condition, and 
were yielding largely. Mr. Hardin, of Louis¬ 
ville, who has very little land, and depends 
mainly on purchased food, has his animals in 
fine order. Several breeders in the immediate 
neighborhood, have capital herds, and it is 
evident that here, as well as about Cincinnati, 
the Jersey is as great a favorite, and is as 
adundantly distributed about summer resi¬ 
dences, as even about Boston or Philadelphia. 
The best cow I saw during my travels, is 
“ Dinah,” owned by John L. Stettinius, of 
Cincinnati, whose whole herd is quite worthy 
to be in the same pasture with her. 
I advise all Eastern farmers who desire to 
remain content with what they have at home, 
and to bear with equanimity the six months of 
winter feeding that our climate makes neces¬ 
sary, to keep away from Mr. Alexander’s 3,000- 
acre farm, of Woodburn, in the blue-grass 
region near Lexington, Ky., where animals can 
graze during nearly the whole winter; where 
the pastures are greener and more beautifully 
wooded, than any which we know; where the 
rarest animals, representing hundreds of thou¬ 
sands of dollars, are kept under circumstances 
of ideal perfection; and where our most en¬ 
thusiastic dreams of pastoral life and profit¬ 
able farming, are blended in a tantalizing 
reality. Whoever visits Woodburn, buys a few 
hours of delight at the expense of months of 
unsatisfied longing—tempered, however, with 
the influence of an example that is full of sug¬ 
gestive details, which cannot fail to have an 
effect on his future plans and aspirations. 
I receive from all parts of the country, 
reports of success with Jersey cattle. Mr. F. 
M. Churchman, of Indianapolis, writes, that he 
has a heifer, only two years old last spring, 
which made in the flush of her milking, 12 lbs. 
3 oz. of butter per week, and now, seven 
months after calving, is making over 7 lbs. 
per week. She is probably one of a small 
herd, and well kept, but this report is only a 
specimen of those frequently sent me, and they 
indicate that success with Jerseys, is by no 
means confined to the older breeders of the 
Eastern States; they seem perfectly adapted 
to all parts of the country, and they are doing 
everywhere, all that could be desired to sustain 
the commendations which have been bestowed 
upon them by their admirers. 
Of home news we have little worth report¬ 
ing. The season has been exceptionally co®l 
and moist, and we have had much dark 
weather. The grass crop was large, but the 
grass has been less nutritious than in warmer 
and brighter seasons. The cattle have shown 
the effect of this in their production of butter, 
although in as good condition as usual. We 
have more bay than ever, and for the first time 
I think, although our herd is large, we shall be 
able to go through the winter without buying. 
Our butter throughout the season, has been, if 
possible, better than ever before, and the 
quantity and flavor hold out remarkably well, 
as we have at this writing (Nov. 2nd) had no 
frost, and the grass is very fine. 
It will be impossible this year to report the 
I amount of our production per cow, with any 
approach to accuracy, for the reason that the 
sale of skimmed milk has become a very 
important item of our business, and we have 
frequently skimmed after twelve hours’ stand¬ 
ing, in order to supply the demand ; being 
sure of a profit on our purchased milk, even if 
only partly skimmed, we have made more or 
less butter, according to the requirments of 
our market for butter or milk, and the butter 
product per cow for the year, would probably 
make a less favorable showing than in the 
report for 1873. We have recently sold five of 
our most important cows, and, pending the 
selection of good Herd Book successors to 
take their places, we shall be fresh native 
cows, and force them to the greatest possible 
extent with corn meal, getting all the butter 
from them we can, and turning them off fat in 
the spring for the butcher. 
Heavy Shorthorn Grade Cattle. 
In the Agriculturist for March 1870, there 
were published portraits of four heavy fat 
steers, raised bv Mr. George Ayrault, of Pough¬ 
keepsie, N. Y. On the first page of the present 
number will be found portraits from life, of 
two heifers and two steers, which re even 
more remarkable than those of 1870. These 
are also raised and owned by Mr. Ayrault. 
The two heifers are shown in the upper part 
of the engraving; that upon the left hand is 
the “ Queen,” said to weigh 3000 pounds. Of 
the two steers below the heifers, the one in the 
foreground is the “ Champion,” said to weigh 
not far from 4000 pounds. All these cattle are 
high grade Shorthorns. As to their pedigree, 
or the particular strain from which they orig¬ 
inate, no particulars have been given. They 
are all six years old, and for the first three years 
were not forced in any way. They were not 
suckled by a nurse, nor did they suck two cows. 
Indeed, they were weaned at less than a week 
old, and after the first two months, received 
only skimmed milk, with a handful of wheat 
shorts per day. After four months they were 
weaned from milk, and were, fed upon pasture, 
with a sufficient quantity of grain in the win¬ 
ters to keep them constantly growing. Since 
then they have been fed upon pasture, with 
hay from early cut grass, in summer, and in 
winter, the same kind of hay with 8 to 10 
quarts of corn and oat meal per day. Sugar 
beets and. sweet apples have been given to th<*m 
occasionally, but only in such quantities as 
