THE CULTIVATOR. 
151 
MAXIMS. 
The passions act as winds to propel our vessel—our reason, is the pi* 
lot that steers her;—without the winds she would not move;—without 
the pilot she would be lost. 
I should prefer being indisposed, to being idle.— Seneca. The evil of 
a slight fit of sickness is transient, while the bad effects of idleness are 
permanent, and lead to vicious habits. 
The most sure method to be deceived, is to consider yourself more 
cunning than others.— Rochefaucault. 
Moderate things last long.— Seneca. All the blessings of Providence, 
all the possessions of this world, may be exhausted by excess, or turn- 
ed into evils by misapplication or abuse. 
Good fortune and bad are equally necessary to man, to fit him to 
meet the contingencies of life.— French. Few men, who have not ex¬ 
perienced the vicissitudes of fortune, know how to bear them with 
firmness—are fit to meet them. 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
DON PEDRO. 
Mr. Duel, —I now redeem my pledge, in the last number of the 
Cultivator, of giving a representation and history of “ Don Pedro.” 
The cut* was executed by Mr. Hall, a young artist of great promise, 
now a resident of this city. It is copied from a copper-plate engrav- 
ingby Murry, and published in the “ Archives of Useful Knowledge ,” 
at Philadelphia, in 1810, from which the following history is extract¬ 
ed. 
Several gentlemen have promised to have correct drawings made 
of superior cattle, sheep and swine now in their possession, which 
the editors have proposed to have engraved on wood, (of which the 
above is a specimen,) and published in the next volume of the Culti¬ 
vator, with an account of their usefulness and superior qualities, &c. 
&c. AMATEUR. 
Don Pedro was imported into the United States, in the year 1801 
and is believed to be the first full-blooded Merino ram introduced in¬ 
to North America. 
Mr. Dupont de Nemours, then in France, had persuaded Mr. De- 
lessert, a banker of Paris, to send to this country some of those va¬ 
luable sheep, and he having been at the head of a commission ap¬ 
pointed by the French government to select in Spain, 4,000 Merino 
sheep out of the number of 6,000, which, by the treaty of Basle, the 
Spanish government had stipulated to present to France ; it is natu¬ 
ral to suppose that those which he selected for his own flock, were 
among the best. Four fine young ram lambs were accordingly ship¬ 
ped, two were intended for Mr. Delessert’s farm, called Rosendale, 
situated near Kingston, on the Hudson river; one was intended for 
Mr. Dupont de Nemours, who was at that time settled in the vicini¬ 
ty of New-York, and the other was to be presented to Mr. Thomas 
Jefferson. Mr. Dupont embarked in the ship Benjamin Franklin, on 
board of which ship the four lambs were shipped, and was unfortu¬ 
nately detained upwards of twenty days in England ; his subsequent 
passage to the United States was long and boisterous, in consequence 
of which three of the sheep died, and it was with the greatest diffi¬ 
culty that Mr. Dupont preserved the fourth. The ship arrived at 
Philadelphia on the 16th of July, 1801. 
In 1801, Pedro tupped nine ewes at Mr. Dupont’s place near New- 
\ork ; he was then sent to Mr. Delessert’s farm, and served a large 
flock during the years 1802, 3 and 4. In the course of 1805, Mr. 
Delessert having determined to rent his farm, and to sell all his 
stock, the progeny of Pedro were sold at public sale, at reduced pri¬ 
ces, to the neighboring farmers, who had no idea of the treasure 
which was offered to them ; being unacquainted with that breed of 
sheep, they neglected those valuable animals, great numbers of which 
have perished in their hands, or were sold to butchers; the rest 
would probably have shared the same fate, had not Chancellor Liv¬ 
ingston become acquainted with the existence of those sheep, and 
purchased at advanced prices some of the ewes, which he put to his 
fine Merino rams of the Rambouillet stock. Pedro, like the rest of 
the flock of the Rosendale farm, was sold at vendue, and Mr. Du¬ 
pont’s agent bought him for sixty dollars. 
In July, 1805, Pedro was removed to E. 1. Dupont’s farm situated 
in the state of Delaware, near the borough of Wilmington. That 
gentleman had a very small flock at that time, but was anxious to 
see that valuable breed propagated in the country, and with a view 
to attain that end, he offered the farmers of his neighborhood the use 
* Since the first edition of the Cultivator was printed, the cut above re¬ 
ferred to has been lost or destroyed. 
of his ram, gratis ; they could not be prevailed upon to think much 
of what was offered to them iree of cost; the consequence was, that 
very few ewes were sent to Pedro during three seasons, and only 
by way of experiment. 
In 1808, however, Mr. Dupont, with a view of increasing his own 
flock, purchased from the farmers, his neighbors, as many half or 
three-quarter blooded ewes of Pedro’s breed as he was able to col¬ 
lect, which measure raised his character among the farmers. Since 
that time, Pedro has served every year, from sixty to eighty ewes; 
the vicinity of Wilmington will therefore be supplied with a large 
stock of fine vvoolled sheep, and as Mr. Dupont & Co. are erecting 
works for the purpose, cloth of any fineness may be made. 
Pedro is now (1810,) ten years old, but very strong and active : 
he is stout, short and woolly, and of much better form than Merinos 
commonly are ; and even better than that of a ram figured in a su¬ 
perb engraving lately received by the Agricultural Society of Phila¬ 
delphia from Paris. His horns are large and spiral; his legs short, 
and he weighs 138 pounds; his fleece carefully washed in cold wa¬ 
ter, weighs eight and a half pounds, is extremely fine; the staple 
one and three-fourth inches long, and lying very thick and close up¬ 
on his body ; it is entirely free from loose coarse hairs called jarr. 
Every part of his fleece, moreover, is nearly of equal fineness; even 
the woo] of the hind legs and thighs, which is long and coarse upon 
many Merino sheep, is short and fine upon Pedro. This point, which 
in the case of wool so valuable as that of Merino sheep is of great 
consequence, will be transmitted to his progeny, and proves the va¬ 
lue of stock derived from him. 
Owego, Tioga co. Dec. 29, 1834. 
J. Buel, Esq.—Dear Sir—Will you please give to the public, 
through your valuable agricultural paper, (the Cultivator) the follow¬ 
ing recipe for the cure of that formidable disease of the horse, call¬ 
ed 
THE POLL EVIL. 
As soon as the tumor appears, make a strong decoction of the 
root of the meadow plant or vine, known by the name of jwison ivy, 
and sometimes by that of mercury ; bathe the tumor with this de¬ 
coction every day, as hot as the horse will bear it; and heat it in 
with a hot iron. In a short time it will begin to diminish, and in 
six weeks it will wholly subside. A very valuable horse of mine 
was attacked with this disease last summer, and two months, after 
we first discovered it, were consumed in experiments of various 
kinds, when I became discouraged, and gave up the horse as lost. 
The tumor became appalling, so much so, that the best of our farri¬ 
ers declined to undertake a cure, and advised me to sell my horse 
for the best price that 1 could get; when shortly afterward, I acciden¬ 
tally heard of the above remedy, I tried it, and with complete suc¬ 
cess. No trace of the disease remains, although when I commenc¬ 
ed the application, the horse was so bad that he could not drop his 
head low enough to drink, unless he was driven into deep water. I 
have no doubt the remedy is a specific, if applied in time. How 
long, before the tumor breaks, the application, to be successful, must 
be made, I am not able to say—but the tumor on my horse must 
have been three months advancing, before we commenced our ap¬ 
plication : 
As I am ignorant of veterinary nosology, I hope you will give the 
technical name of the disease, and for the same reason, I hope you 
will give the botanical name of the plant which effected the cure.* 
I have the honor to be, your obedient servant, 
IRA CL1ZBE. 
A NEW MATERIAL FOR MAKING PORK. 
We have long known that apples would fatten hogs, but until we re¬ 
ceived the following communication, it had never entered our mind, 
that apple pomace could be successfully employed for this purpose. 
The statement of our correspondent would have been more satisfac¬ 
tory, if the weight and value of the hogs, in the spring, or previous 
to their having been put up to fatten, had been stated. There is 
little doubt, however, that the apple pomace contributed essentially 
to augment the quantity of pork, and the more so in consequence of 
the cooking process, and so far as it did so, was manifestly a clear 
gain. 
“ While addressing you, permit me to give you an account of my 
experiment on hogs this season. On the 15tli October last, I shut 
* The technical name of the disease is Poll Evil — the botanical name of the 
plant It Inis toxicodendron, var. radicans. 
