THE CULTIVATOR. 
79 
have good catlle, it is necessary not only to have an abundance of food, but 
that much, in the economy of the fattening process, depends upon having it 
of suitable quality, and properly fed out. The grasses should be sweet 
and nutritious, the hay well cured, and the grain and roots broken or 
cooked. The man who should leave his cattle food exposed to waste, till 
it had lost half of its value, would hardly merit the name of farmer. Eve¬ 
ry one would say, that man is going down hill. Cattle, say they, must 
eat, and if wedont feed them, they will give us neither meat, milk, nor wool. 
And so must plants eat—they have mouths, and elaborating processes, and 
transform dung into grain, roots and herbage, with as much certainty and 
profit, as cattle convert grain, roots and herbage into meat, milk, &c.— 
Hence the farmer who disregards dung, or suffers it to waste in his yards, 
is as reckless of his tiue interest as he would be to neglect or waste his 
grain, hay and roots. Dung is the :basis of all good husbandry. Dung 
FEEDS THE CROPS; CROPS FEED THE CATTLE; CATTLE MAKE 
dung. This is truly the farmer’s endless chan. Not a link of it should 
be broken, or be suffered to corrode, by indolence or want of use. Once 
broken, and the power it imparts is lost. Preserved, and kept bright by 
use, it becomes changed into gold. It is to the farmer the true philoso¬ 
pher’s stone The man who wastes the means of perpetuating fertility 
in his soil, may be likened to the unfortunate sons of opulence, who waste, 
in habits of indolence and dissipation, the hard-earned patrimony of their 
fathers. 
THE HARVEST PROSPECT, 
Has brightened surprisingly within the last six weeks. In the valley of 
the Mohawk, through which we have recently passed, we never saw the 
crops look more propitious to the hopes of the farmer, than they now do, 
considering the backwardness of the season. The wheat, there, stands 
pretty well, and were it not for apprehensions from the grain worm, the 
prospect would be that of a good crop. Many of our readers abroad iden¬ 
tify this insect with the hessian fly, and others with the wevil. It is nei¬ 
ther. The hessian fly preys upon the stock of the wheat; the wevil up¬ 
on the ripened grain, in the barn or in the bin; the grain worm destroys 
the wheat in the germ or milk. The spring grain and grass look very 
well, where any attention has been given to draining; and even Indian 
corn, though got in late, has come up well, and is of a good color. There 
has been an abundance.—an excess of rain; and although “ spring linger¬ 
ed long in the lap of winter,” yet the warm weather in the last of May 
and first of June has caused such a luxuriant growth, that if the coming 
month is favorable, and the nipping frosts of autumn are delayed, the corn 
crop will yet be a tolerable good one. The prospect of the crops farther 
west, we are happy to learn, is equally flattering. Abundant crops will 
do more to mitigate present evils, than a hundred banks. The truth is, 
that as a national family, we bought sixty-four millions of dollars more last 
year than we sold—and the sixty-four millions balance must be paid be¬ 
fore we can have easy times —must he paid from the profits of agricul¬ 
ture. Banks enrich individuals—good crops the country—the whole coun¬ 
try. Then let us “ speed the plough,” and honor and instruct those who 
guide it. 
ROOT CULTURE. 
The root, and particularly the turnip culture, which has been extolled 
as the basis of improved husbandry in Great Britain, is rapidly extending 
among us; and we confidently anticipate frojn it the best practical results. 
Five years ago there was not probably two hundred pounds of ruta baga 
seed sown in the state; this year tons of this seed have been sown; and 
the culture of mangold wurtzel and carrots, has been also greatly extend¬ 
ed. One seedsman has imported 26 cwt. of ruta baga seed, and this pro¬ 
bably has not been more than a quarter, or a third, that has been sown. 
The supply has become exhausted, from Baltimore to Boston, and yet the 
demand has not been supplied. Our neighbor, Thorburn, has sold this 
season 1,500 lbs. ruta baga seed; 150 lbs. carrot do.; 100 lbs. parsnip do.; 
and 150 lbs. mangold wurtzel do.; and, as indicating the extended culture 
of roots, and the advance of agricultural improvement, we add, that he has 
also retailed seventy cultivators; eighty drill-barrows; and seventy-five of 
Green’s straw-cuttere. We record these facts as affording, in our mind, 
substantial proofs of a propitious change, and of the efforts to improve, 
which are now being manifested in our agricultural community. And 
from the spirit of inquiiy which is abroad, and the general circulation of 
agricultural periodicals, we hazard little in saying, that the rising genera¬ 
tion will be better farmers, and more enlightened men, than their fathers 
have been. Let every young farmer ponder upon these facts, and to sti¬ 
mulate him to honorable exertion, let him remember, that he who aims to 
excel, will at least attain mediocrity; while he who aims at mediocrity 
will generally fall short of it. Cultivate the mind, as the sure means of 
increasing the profits of the hands. 
DISEASES OF NEAT CATTLE. 
Diseases in cattle, lil^e those in man, are more easily prevented than 
cured. The best preventives are a plenty of wholesome food, dry pastures 
in summer, dry and clean sheds or stables, or well littered yards, in win¬ 
ter, and an ounce of salt per diem to cattle and horses, and a quarter of 
an ounce to sheep. Salt augments the nourishment of the food eaten, im¬ 
proves the wool, and prevents disease. 
But disease will come. Many cattle die annually among us; and such 
is our ignorance of the causes and nature of their diseases, that in our at¬ 
tempts to cure, we often kill. Instruction in the anatomy and diseases of 
horses and cattle, constitutes a distinct branch of education in Europe; 
and the veterinary surgeon holds there an important rank in the scale of 
science and of usefulness. Here the business has lew practitioners above 
the grade of quack cattle doctors. We profess but little practical know¬ 
ledge in the matter; but as we have been often applied to for advice, we 
have turned to our best authorities, and shall now give the symptoms, and 
mode of treatment, of some of the piominent disorders to which neat cat¬ 
tle are incident. 
Remarking on t! e analogy between men and brute animals, Lawrence 
observes, that regular medical men can be alone qualified for the cure of 
diseases in our domestic animals; and he declares that all “ infallible re¬ 
ceipts are infallible nonsense. , '‘ The “ receipt of prevention,” he adds, 
“ is worth more than all the infallible cordials and medicines ever adver¬ 
tised. It should be considered, that animals living in a state of nature, 
regulated by the reason and experience of man, would be almost exempt 
from disease. That their appetites, unlike our own, may be held under 
a constant control. That their diseases result purely, even in the case of 
hereditary defects, from the negligence or erroneous treatment of their 
owners. They are either exposed too much to the rigors or changes of 
weather, or they are gorged with food, denied a sufficient quantity, or 
supplied with such as is unwholesome. Here we have the chief causes of 
their maladies. Learn to prevent them, instead of undertaking the tedi¬ 
ous, unsuitable and hopeless task of learning to cure them.” 
Omitting the no'ice of ordinary fevers and colds, produced by over exer¬ 
tion, sudden changes of weather, and exposure to cold winds—-for which 
bleeding, warm stimulating drinks, and stabling are prescribed, we pass 
to 
Peripneumony—Pleurisy—Inflammation of the Lungs. 
— Symptoms. —Dry, painful cough, hot breath, laborious perspiration, 
sometimes a ropy discharge from the mouth, the hide feels hard, con- 
stringed and burning hot. This is another variety of disease from sup¬ 
pressed perspiration, generally occurring in the autumn or early spring, 
in hilly or exposed situations, on a sudden change from heat to cold, or 
during a long continuance o*' northeast winds. The cure consists in bleed¬ 
ing and cooling medicines, administered in the house [stable] where the 
animal may be kept from the weather, the original cause of the disease.— 
See Lawrence on Cattle. 
The Yellows. —This disease in cattle usually originates in hepatic, 
or liver obstruction, from cold; however, always from obstruction, which 
is most effectually opened by mild mercurial purges, notwithstanding the 
beast may appear weak and hide bound. Symptoms .—A general tremor 
over the animal in the morning, particularly in the hinder legs, loins and 
thighs; the eye-lids appear hollow; the whole body assumes a yellow cast; 
the nose is dry, and the ears often hang down; the dewlap, shoulders and 
loins swell; the udder of cows becomes tumefied, and produce little milk, 
which, in a few days, acquires a peculiar yellow tinge, coagulating when 
boiled; and lastly, the fore teeth become loose. The disease, if not spee- 
the barn, the earlier the better, and if he remain weak after two or three 
purges, give steel beer, milk warm, a pint twice a day, and good keep, 
ji One gallon of good beer, three or four ounces of iron filings, infuse in a 
! stone bottle corked up three or four days, shake daily.—[ Lawrence .] 
Purge two or three times with calomel and jalap, 40 grains of each.— 
[Cooper.] 
Murrain.— This term corresponds with that of the plague, in the hu¬ 
man species, and the diseases have a similar origin, namely, in putrid mi¬ 
asmata, or vapors inspired or drawn into the noses or mouths of animals, 
which animals being infected, acquire the power of infecting others by 
their breath or perspiration. The regular exit of the disease is in the 
eruption of suppurating biles or buboes, and the care of the physician is to 
prevent a fatal result the while from mortification. Symptoms —Decrease 
of appetite; poking outofthe neck from difficulty of deglutition or swallow¬ 
ing, shaking the head, hanging down of the ears and deafness; dullness of 
the eyes, moving about restless. About the fourth day, stupidity, unwill¬ 
ingness to move, great debility, total loss of appetite, running at eyes and 
nose, sickness, throwing up bile, husky cough, and shivering. Head, 
horns, breath very hot, body and limbs cold. Fever continual first three 
days, now rises; pulse quick, contracted, uneven. Constant diarrhoea, or 
scouring of foetid green dung, stinking breath, nauseous steam from the 
skin, infecting the surrounding air. Blood florid, hot, frothy. Urine high 
colored. Roofs of the mouth and barbs ulcerated. Tumors or balls are felt 
under the fleshy membrane of the skin; eruptions all along the limbs, and 
about the bags of the cows. Milk dries up suddenly. Purging more vio¬ 
lent. These symptoms continue increasing until the seventh day, on 
which, generally, although sometimes protracted till the ninth, the crisis, 
or turn, takes place.— [Lawrence.] The murrain is occasioned by vari¬ 
ous causes, but principally by a hot dry season, or a general corruption of 
