270 
THE) RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
February 22, 
Fowls for Meat and Eggs. 
I have become interested, after several 
years of refraining from the chicken raising 
disease, in the idea of starting in again on 
a different plan from that 1 followed sev¬ 
eral years ago, when I had excellent results 
with 20 or 30 S. C. White Leghorns. The 
Leghorns laid well and laid a good-sized 
egg, but it was terrible discouraging to at¬ 
tempt to convert birds of any age into table 
poultry—tough and little meat. I should 
like to keep two breeds that lay respective¬ 
ly very large brown (or tinted dark) and 
white eggs. Then I should like to locate 
a strain that has been bred to lay with lit¬ 
tle attention, possibly to Standard points. 
1 don’t want any good lookers but good 
layers. In getting two breeds I should be 
prepared to have one of poor table quality 
but the other (say the brown or tinted 
egg strain), should be good for the table. 
I have especially in mind for the latter 
Wyandottes, Plymouth Rocks or Rhode Is¬ 
land Reds. Which lay the largest eggs? 
For the lighter, egg purposes only, I have 
Black Minorcas and S. C. W. Leghorns es¬ 
pecially in mind. I do not expect a 200- 
egg strain flock to produce 200-egg layers 
necessarily every time or often. I want to 
start right, however, and breed carefully 
to get results. G. e. c. 
Windsor Conn. 
For seme inscrutable reason, nature 
seems averse to permitting any one 
breed of animals to possess all the good 
points of the genus; the trotting horse 
is of little use on the plow, dairy 
cows make poor showing at the block, 
and the fowl can feed a family with 
her carcass will be a long time filling 
the egg basket. While it will be per¬ 
fectly practicable to keep two varieties 
of fowls, one for eggs and one for 
meat, I think that this is seldom done 
THE COSSET LAMB. 
on a large commercial plant. There 
seems to be more profit in selecting the 
breed that most nearly fills the require¬ 
ments of the market at hand, and mak¬ 
ing the best of their less desirable char¬ 
acteristics. Where brown eggs com¬ 
mand a premium, as they do in some 
New England markets, the American 
varieties of fowls would seem to meet 
the poultryman’s needs, as the somewhat 
fewer eggs laid should be counterbal¬ 
anced by the greater value of the car¬ 
cass. Where egg production is the chief 
feature of the plant, however, there 
seems to be no question that some one 
of the Mediterranean Varieties, like the 
Leghorns, are more profitable, despite 
their inferior table qualities, and on 
commercial plants I believe that this va¬ 
riety will be found to easily lead all 
others. For the family flock, my pref¬ 
erence is for one of the large breeds 
like the Wyandottes, the R. I. Reds, or 
the Plymouth Rocks; any discrimination 
against their eggs because of their color 
is pure nonsense, and their quiet dispo¬ 
sition, their good laying qualities and 
motherliness when a few chickens are 
to be raised, and their superior value 
when one entertains the minister at din¬ 
ner, offset, in my opinion, their greater 
broodiness, the slightly greater cost of 
feeding them, and the possibly fewer 
number of eggs to be obtained from the 
same number. M. b. d. 
“ Breaking ” a Yoke of Steers. 
'On page 108, I note the inquiry of P. 
C. J., relative to the "breaking” of oxen. 
As I have broken and trained several 
pairs of cattle I will state the manner in 
which I have done it. First, I trust P. C. 
J. does not for a moment imagine that 
oxen are "broken” after they have become 
grown or matured ! I would like to see the 
man who could “break” a five-year-old 
7% or eight foot ox. 
Get a pair of bull or steer calves six 
to 12 weeks old; make for them a miniature 
yoke to suit their size, after the same pat¬ 
tern as a large ox yoke. Get your calves 
so they have no fear of you; then yoke 
them up together. The “off,” or right 
hand one is placed under the yoke first, 
then the “nigh,” “near,” or left hand one 
is yoked beside him. Tut a short light rope 
about the neck of the “near” one and take 
your little goad stick and begin your les¬ 
sons. Never allow them to get away from 
you, or they will always be “runaway cat¬ 
tle,” the same as a “runaway colt.” Swing 
your goad stick above their heads and be¬ 
gin talking to them—“Heisch, come to !” 
motioning to the left or toward yourself 
with stick. Get them so they will “come 
to” handily; then begin the “Gee off” train¬ 
ing in same way. Do not keep them yoked 
more than half an hour at a time for 
several lessons; then gradually extend the 
time but not to weary them too much. 
When your steers handled this way are 
a year old they should be quite “handy.” 
After you have gotten your calves or 
yearlings “handy” to the “goad” or stick, 
you can hitch them to a tongue and the 
forward wheels of a cart and let them 
learn to pull it about, or to a drag or 
stone boat; anything that does not overtax 
their strength. Never allow them to become 
overloaded at any time, and when your 
steers are four years old and onward you 
will have a pair of finely trained cattle 
that will pull a heavy load almost any¬ 
where. Otherwise, buy a pair of tame, 
kind, thoroughly trained three or four-year- 
old steers, or a pair of old oxen if you 
don’t want to keep them long. 
Although you may have to do a little 
mild hammering at times till they are fully 
trained, yet never abuse them and never let 
them get the idea that you are other than 
their friend as well as master. When a 
p. ir of oxen are properly broken or trained, 
the off ox will permit you to place the bow 
under his neck and lead him to the yoke; 
when you shove the bow up through the 
yoke and put in the pin that holds it there 
and drop the other end of yoke on the 
ground and proceed to place the bow of 
the “near” ox under his neck and he will 
lead quietly to the yoke where the other 
ox is standing yoked waiting for him. I 
have had them so well trained that when 
I would hold up the bow and call them 
they would come and get into the bow 
under the yoke themselves. Oxen are yoked 
out of doors, as few ordinary tie-up doors 
are wide enough to allow a pair of cattle 
yoked to come through together. Despite 
the talk to the contrary, I believe in more 
oxen on the farm. 
Of course, for heavy beef and draft oxen, 
the Durham, Hereford or Holstein make the 
best oxen, but for a “trappy,” “snappy,” 
active, quick-walking and highly intelligent 
yoke of cattle give me a yoke of Jersey 
steers. One of my neighbors had a yoke 
of Herefords two years ago with which he 
did all his haying alone; got right on the 
mowing machine and rode and they would 
go along the edge of the grass as well as 
horses, guided too, only by the word. A 
man not far from here has a bull he keeps 
for service and he has trained him to go 
in a buggy same as a horse and 1 am in¬ 
formed on good authority it takes an extra 
good road horse to take the road from 
him. That is much better than having 
him tied up in the barn all the time with 
a copper ring in his nose. 
G. H. WILLIAMS. 
R. N.-Y.—This is good advice for handl¬ 
ing steers, but knowing of several accidents 
(bad ones) from trusting a bull without 
staff and nose-ring we ivould not advise 
dr'”ing them in this way. 
Mangles and Silage. 
No matter whether he is right or wrong, 
O. W. Mapes is always entertaining. 1 
have been much interested in a discus¬ 
sion he has been having with Prof. Minns 
of the Ithaca Experiment Station. Mr. 
Mapes criticised the bulletin of the Sta¬ 
tion in which the value of mangels for the 
dairy was compared to that of corn silage. 
The station proved that silage as a succu¬ 
lent feed was much better and cheaper 
than mangels. I say proved, but I n.ean 
to their own satisfaction, but not to that 
of Mr. Mapes, so be comes with his usual 
vigor to the defense of the mangels. It 
seems to me that Prof. Minns and Mr. 
Mapes each make the mistake of only 
seeing one side of the matter. They need 
both silage and mangels. Prof. Minns to 
prove his contention need not try to decry 
the value of the mangel leaves as a dairy 
feed. On our farm we have last Fall fed a 
great many bushels of leaves with great 
satisfaction. On the other hand Mr. 
Mapes should remember that as he has 
never fed silage he knows little of the 
ease with which it can be fed and what 
a wonderful feed it is. While it may not 
be the best way to feed, yet some of the 
dairies in this part of the country have 
no other roughage than silage, and are 
doing very well indeed. Mr. Mapes must 
agree that this would be impossible with 
only mangels as a roughage. Prof. Minns 
should not try to influence dairymen to 
neglect growing mangels, because of the 
station’s expensive way of growing them 
and the small yield obtained, when any 
farmer with good land can do so much 
better. 
We all have to thank Mr. Mapes for 
his clear description of how he raises his 
mangels. I would like to suggest to him 
that he try the Danish Mammoth Yellow 
mangel. We were much pleased with it, as 
it equaled or surpassed the Long Red. We 
find the mangel a very valuable feed in 
connection with silage. It seems to have 
somewhat of a tonic effect when so fed. 
I do not think the cows eat less silage 
when fed the mangels, but if anything they 
eat more. But one thing is certain; you 
can see the effect in the milk pail. We 
run the mangels through a root cutter and 
feed after the silage and grain. We fed 
quite a quantity of Soy beans as a soiling 
crop last Fall, and the mangels went nicely 
with them. We put several large loads of 
Soy beans in the silo. To conclude, let 
me advise, whether you have a silo or not, 
trying at least a small field of mangels, 
provided of course you will take the neces¬ 
sary time and labor to grow them properly. 
There are so many new crops for the 
farmer to try that we are apt to neglect 
some of these old ones, george w. rogers. 
Oswego Co., N. Y. 
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