848 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 3, 
SHEEP IN NEW ENGLAND. 
The high price of all meat products dur¬ 
ing the past few years and the large amount 
of available rough lands, is turning the at¬ 
tention of many New England farmers 
toward sheep raising. Breeds best suited 
for mutton are found most desirable. The 
type represented by the Down breeds, such 
as the Soutlidowns, the Shropshires and 
the Iiampshires, are most grown. Few 
farmers, except near some of the largest 
markets, have started the business of rais¬ 
ing “hothouse” lambs. In most localities 
the most profitable lambs are those that 
will dress 30 to 40 pounds during duly or 
August. A fine grade of lamb of the best 
mutton type of sheep is in strong demand 
in the Summer resort towns of western 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. Lambs of 
this type sell as high as 20 to 22 cents per 
pound by the whole carcass. If lambs can 
be fattened almost wholly on cheap pasture 
lands and “turned off'’ at such prices when 
less than five months old, there is certainly 
a fair profit in sheep. 
The chief drawbacks to the sheep industry 
in New England are the poor fences and 
dogs. The stone walls, which were once 
good sheep barriers, are now sadly dilapi¬ 
dated, and few are being rebuilt. The low 
woven wire fence, with one or two strands 
of barbed wire on top, is proving to be one 
of the best sheep fences. The mongrel 
dogs that roam the fields, apparently with¬ 
out home or ownership, are the most serious 
menace to sheep raising. These are gener¬ 
ally most destructive in the vicinity of 
manufacturing towns. The new Connecticut 
law is proving very effectual in hunting up 
and destroying this class of dogs. This law 
provides for a dog warden in each town, 
whose business it is to see that the law 
is enforced and that all dogs are kept 
licensed. It also provides for a fair compen¬ 
sation for all damage done by dogs to 
live stock. Wherever sheep are kept the 
pastures are much improved, as low brush 
and foul weeds are destroyed. The in¬ 
creasing interest in the growing of Alfalfa 
and clover in New England will help to 
develop a greater interest in sheep and these 
feeds w ill prove most valuable to the keep¬ 
ing of sheep. chas. s. phelps. 
DAIRY INSPECTION—THE SCORE CARD. 
Standards of purity and wholesomeness 
J of market milk have been advancing of 
late years. With advancing standards have 
come changing requirements on the part of 
health boards, and new-fangled forms of 
inspection. The score card system has 
proven the best that has yet been devised 
because it produces results with a minimum 
of friction. A certain number of points is 
assigned to all of the topics requiring at¬ 
tention and the inspector rates each item 
according to the conditions which he finds. 
For instance, two points are assigned to 
cleanliness of the stable tloor; this means 
that a floor kept clean by sweeping and 
scrubbing gets two points out of a hundred, 
and the inspector rates the cleanliness of that 
particular floor all the way from 0 to 2 ac¬ 
cording to the relation which the conditions 
he finds bear to perfection. The personal 
equation must come in somewhat, but still 
there will after all be considerable uni¬ 
formity of opinion as to whether a place is 
half clean, quarter clean, or so dirty as to 
be entitled to no credit. On some matters 
on the score card there is no chance for the 
exercise of any individual judgment; three 
points are allowed for using a small top 
milk pail, and if the pail is there in the 
dairy with indications that it is used the 
three points must be given. The different 
matters concerned in the production of san¬ 
itary milk are so divided and subdivided 
with the assignment of points to each spe¬ 
cifically stated, that as one authority has 
stated, “an inspector with but a meagre 
understanding of dairying can do well 
toward giving an accurate estimation of a 
dairy.” Of course the more the inspector 
knows the better. 
Now this modern inspection is so new 
and it has sometimes been pushed, with 
lack of tact and without good judgment, on 
people who had not been fully informed as 
to its importance and what it meant that 
it has become unpopular among some farm¬ 
ers, although many milk producers heartily 
approve of it. In the hands of competent 
men the producer not only gets an accurate 
rating, but the inspection is helpful, not 
harmful ; the inspector becomes an instruc¬ 
tor. (.'rowjng out of the unpopularity of 
the inspection is misunderstanding and mis¬ 
conception, and as a result criticism and 
bad feeling which could be avoided, as they 
are based on wrong ideas. 
In The R. N.-Y. of July 23 is a com¬ 
munication from a milk producer who says 
“Borden’s inspector gave us a good score, 
but the board of health inspector cut the 
score nearly one-half.” It seems to me 
there must be some misunderstanding here. 
I cannot understand how it is possible for 
such a variation to exist. In fact I know 
that with everything clearly understood 
such a difference would be impossible. I 
have known repeatedly of two persons scor¬ 
ing a place independently of each other and 
coming out within a point of each other. 
I recently scored a dairy in Marvland and 
gave it a score of 8.I. After I had finished 
I was told that a New York city inspector 
had scored the same place previously and 
had given it 88—the two scores were very 
close. There was no possibility of one in¬ 
spector cutting nearly one-half the score 
of the other. The statement of the corre¬ 
spondent involves some misunderstanding, 
which ought to be cleared up in the interests 
of milk producers and in the interests of 
the inspection service. If the correspond¬ 
ent could get a copy of each score and print 
them he would be doing a favor to the 
cause of sanitary milk. 
In the same issue of The R. N.-Y. the 
paper tells editorially of a milk producer 
“who is very particular about his stables, 
they are kept whitewashed, and the con¬ 
crete floors are washed.” The writer then 
tells _ of. the visit of an inspector "who 
was inclined to give the dairy a low score.” 
This might be possible and for good rea¬ 
sons. In this way : Clean floor, walls, ceil¬ 
ing, mangers and windows give a score of 
six. . Concrete floors would give two more— 
or eight in all. Now with these conditions 
perfect other conditions might be only med¬ 
iocre. 'Pile milk might not be promptly re¬ 
moved from the stable after milking, it 
might not be promptly cooled, it might not 
lie efficiently cooled, the cows’ udders might 
not be wiped before milking, there might be 
no small-top milk pail, hay and silage might 
be fed just before milking so as "to have 
dust and odors hi the stable air at milking 
time. These and other possibilities might 
cut down the rating on the items which 
give 94 points, while the six might be per¬ 
fect. 
It is very desirable that this question 
of milk inspection should be looked at fair¬ 
ly, reasonably and accurately. When this 
is done I believe conservative producers will 
welcome it. Some writers and speakers 
ridicule it, sometimes talking about all 
sorts of absurdities. 1 have seen a cartoon 
of a cow in a bathtub, saying to another 
cow who is looking into the room, “Where’s 
my tooth brush, Maud7” Of course that is 
funny, and all right for raising a temporary 
smile. But no one ought for a moment 
to take it seriously as a type of health re¬ 
quirements, and hold up modern milk in¬ 
spection to ridicule. When we study the 
different kinds of inspection that are pos¬ 
sible we will find that the score card sys¬ 
tem has more merits than any other. It 
is open and above board ; every statement 
is down in black and white and can be veri¬ 
fied if its accuracy is questioned; if the 
inspector works with the producer and ex¬ 
plains each mark and the x-easons for it 
his visit is helpful; the score card system 
protects the producer against injustice. 
When misunderstandings arise let us be 
specific and give copies of the scores and 
point out just which item was wrong and 
why. The actual figures of a case of this 
kind will lie much more helpful than a lot 
of generalities, with a critical squint, yet 
telling nothing in particular. 
geo. m. wiiitakeb. 
THE “ BLENDED ” BUTTER WORKERS. 
We have paid our respects to the butter 
merger or blender on several occasions. 
These “respects” are not always couched in 
what the manufacturers call respectful 
terms, but we offer them nevertheless. The 
“blender,” so called, is a machine somewhat 
like a strong egg beater. You put a pound 
of butter and a pint of milk together in this 
machine and turn the handle ; as the result 
you will get a mixture which the manu¬ 
facturers say is two pounds of butter, and 
they have been selling the machine on the 
proposition that money can be made by 
selling such stuff or saved by using it in 
the family. We have shown that such stuff 
is not butter at all. Under the United 
States law legal butter cannot contain more 
than 1G per cent of water, while this blend 
contains 30 to 40 per cent. Just as we 
expected, the people who used this merger 
are getting themselves into trouble. In 
Pittsburg, the inspectors are after them. It 
seems that keepers of hotels and boarding 
houses have been playing a pleasant little 
trick on their guests. They use this 
blender to mix butter and milk and served 
the mess on their tables. The revenue col¬ 
lectors are after them for selling illegal 
butter, and the chances are that some of 
them will get themselves into trouble. It 
appears that part of them tried to be extra 
smart, and added a pint of cotton-seed oil 
to the mixture, and then turned the handle 
of the blender. They made a stiffer mess 
than when they used the milk and butter, 
but they are now sorry they oiled the 
milk. Under the oleo laws for manufactur¬ 
ing and selling a butter substitute they 
must pay a tax. We warned our people 
long ago that this is what they would get 
if they undertook to sell the stuff which 
comes out of this blendei - . It is a pretty 
profitable business to buy a pint of milk 
for four cents and sell it as butter for about 
33 cents or more. It is also profitable to 
put your hand in your neighbor's pocket 
and get hold of his money, provided he does 
not catch you at it before you have safely 
“blended" it by putting it in your own 
pocket. All these schemes of getting some¬ 
thing for nothing will come in the end to 
something, and that is, loss to the people 
who undertake to work them. 
VETERINARY INSTRUMENTS 
(Trocars, Hopples, Impi-egnators) 
for Horses, Cattle, Swine, Poultry, 
Etc. Received only award World’s 
Fairs Chicago, St. Louis. Write for 
Illustrated Catalogue HAliSMANN S 
DUNN CO., 392 So. Clark St., CHICAGO, ILL. 
DEATH TO HEAVES 
UCUf Tflll’C Heave, Cough, Distemper 
IV k VT I U IV w and Indigestion Cure. 
an cures heaves. The third 
is guaranteed to cure or 
moneyrefunded.$l percan 
at dealers, or express pre¬ 
paid. Send for booklet. 
THE NEWTON REMEDY CO. 
TOLEDO, OHIO. 
That’s the wav to keep 
? -our horses. It’s easy 
o do it with Kendall’s 
Spavin Cure.Thousands 
of other horsemen have 
done it in past 40 years. 
Cured Spavin 
“Two years ago, I bought a pair of fine black 
mares. In about six months one had a Spavin. 
I simply used your Spavin Cure, and cured 
her entirely, which mystified all tho horsemen. 
Yours truly, 
M. S. Culver, Union City, Conn.” 
Letters like the above are received by us 
daily from grateful horsemen. 
Kendall’s 
Spavin Cure 
is the only safe, sure cure for Spavin, Curb, 
Splint, Klugbone, Pony Growths and all 
Lameness. Save your horses with the old 
reliable cure. Leaves no white hairs or scars. 
It Is tho w orld's best liniment for man and 
beast. At druggists, $1 a Bottle; 6 for $5. 
Ask your druggist lor book, “Treatise on the 
Horse,” or write to 
Dr. B. J. Kendall Co., Enosburg Falls, VL 
You can cover two acres in the same 
time it takes the other fellow to cover one, 
and do it with less work for the team and 
with less help if you use a 
MANURE 
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That’s because the Fearless spreads a strip of 
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thick or thin—as thick on the edges as in the center. 
The manure can be thrown where other machines 
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and, because of the special front truck, into remote 
corners of the field. 
SEND FOR OUR CATALOG 
and learn all about these exclusive features of the Fearless that 
mean such a big saving for you in time, money and labor. Send 
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Walter A. Wood 
M. & R. M. Co. 
Box 231 
Hoosick Falls 
New York 
Not connected with any Trust 
or Combination 
Our big 112-page book is free to every man who 
owns a silo or is going to own one. 
We want to tell you how to save work, time, 
money and worry, this year and every year on 
your ensilage-cutting and silo-filling. 
Send a postal now to learn about the world 
famous line of 
"OHIO 
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endorsed by most progressive Farmers 
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Silver Mfg. Co. 
Salem, " Ohio 
THE UNADILLA 
SILO 
The sensation of the agricultural world 
Write for our “TWENTY- 
FIVE REASONS" why it 
is in a class by itself. 
Extra discount for early orders. 
Agents wanted. 
UNADILLA SILO € 0 ., Inc. 
Unadilla, N. Y. 
A0s 
Cures Strained Puffy Ankles.Lymphangitig, 
Poll Evil, Fistula, Sores, Wire Cuts, Bruis¬ 
es and Swellings, Lameness, and Allays 
Pain Quickly without Blistering, removing 
the hair, or laying the horse up. Pleasant 
to use. $2.00 per bottle at dealers or de¬ 
livered. Horse Book S D free. 
ABSORBINE, JR., (tnankind.fl.OO bot¬ 
tle.) For S train s, Gout, Varicose Veins, Var- 
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W. F. YOUNG, P. D. F., 88 Temple St., Springfield, Mass. 
MINERAL. 
HEAVE 
REMEDY 
NEGLECT 
Will Ruin 
YourHorse' 
Send today for 
only 
PERMANENT 
SAFE 
CERTAIN 
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$3 PACKAGE ^ 
Will cure any case or 
money refunded. 
$1 PACKAGE 
cures ordinary cases. 
Postpaid on receipt of 
price. Agents Wanted. 
Write for descriptive booklet. 
Co., 461 fourth Avenue, Pittsburu. Pa 
V OtiP 
FREE 
BOGI& 
FOR FAST, PERFECT, 
ECONOMICAL WORK 
you must use Gale-Baldwin cutters. The only 
perfect, successful cutter lor ensilage and dry 
fodder. Does the work with less power, in less 
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Gale-Baldwin 
ENSILAGE CUTTERS 
are best after careful investigation. They are tho 
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The Belcher A Taylor A . T. Co. 
Box 75, 
Chicopee Felt*, 
Mass. 
