1868.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
289 
Mr. Thorne says lie lias no doubt that “any 
of the improved mutton breeds, crossed with 
common Merino ewes, will produce lambs that 
will pay a handsome profit.” His plan is “to 
buy good, strong ewes in the latter part of 
August, selecting those that have the appear¬ 
ance of being good milkers. They are coupled 
the first of September, so as to bring the iambs 
in February. The ewes are kept on good hay 
during the winter, and as they near the time of 
lambing, one feed of roots a day is given. After 
lambing they’ - are removed from the flock, the 
supply of roots increased, and bran mashes and 
some grain added. The object now is to create 
as great a flow of milk as possible. The lambs 
soon show a disposition to eat, and a place is 
then set apart for them where bruised oats and 
cracked oil-ca^e, with t lie best clover hay, are 
given ad libitum. If the lambs do well they are 
all sold and delivered by the 1st of June, and 
the ewes then have the summer in which to get 
reaifly for the butcher in the fall. Near any 
city or large town where early lambs command 
an extra price, there can bo no doubt of the 
profit to be made by raising them. As soon as 
the lambs reach CO lbs. they may be sent off. 
Mine usually brought me from $5 to $8 each. I 
paid from $2.50 to $4.50 for the ewes, and sold 
them fat the next fall for from $5 to $7, and I 
had the fleece besides.” 
This looks like a profitable business, and as 
June is rather a dry time financially on the farm, 
the money from the lambs would be very 
convenient to pay the laborers for hoeing. 
I have just returned from a visit to the Mich¬ 
igan Agricultural College at Lansing. It is 
doing a great work, not only in educating the 
students, but in making experiments. Dr. 
Miles, the Professor of Agriculture, was made 
for the position, and has accomplished wonders. 
The whole farm is admirably managed, and 
does great credit to the students, who perform 
nearly ail the labor. During the morning they 
attend to their various studies. President Abbot 
took me into the rooms where they were,recit¬ 
ing, and a finer set of youffg men I never saw 
together. Most of them are farmers’ son3. In 
the afternoon they put on a working suit, and 
for three hours are employed on the farm, or in 
the garden or tool-house. They are allowed 
from 6c. to 7|c. per hour. Some were hoeing 
corn; others, pulling out slumps with a machine; 
others were helping the sheep-shearers, tying 
up the wool, weighing the fleeces of the differ¬ 
ent breeds and their grades, and entering the 
weights in a book, with appropriate remarks in 
regard to length of staple, fineness, etc. One 
active young fellow was pushing a hand-garden 
cultivator through the cleanest and best crop of 
onions I ever saw growing; another was cultiva¬ 
ting a young apple orchard ; others were in the 
hay field where a new mower had just started. 
And the foreman told us that, before working 
hours, there had been quite an animated dis¬ 
cussion as to whether the clover was ripe 
enough to cut; the freshmen, as a rule, taking 
the ground that it was too green, and the 
seniors that while there might not be as much 
bulk, the hay would be sweeter and more nutri¬ 
tious than if allowed to stand longer. Another 
question discussed was whether it was or was 
not best to use a tedding machine in making 
clover hay. A horse was attached to a tedder, 
and though the clover was hardly wilted at all, 
and was very heavy, worked to perfection, and 
an opportunity was thus afforded of testing the 
matter. A two-horse cultivator was at work in 
the corn field, the young man riding and steer¬ 
ing. It was light work, and though the day 
was very hot, neither man nor horse needed to 
stop to rest every few bouts, as is so generally 
the case with an old-fashioned one-horse “corn 
scratcher.” Now, you need not tell me that a 
young man will not learn a good deal at such 
an institution. Leaving science entirely out of 
the question, what he sees of good cultivation, 
good implements and machines, improved breeds 
of cattle, and sheep, and pigs, will go far 
towards making him a good farmer. Success to 
the American Agricultural Colleges, and may 
the day soon come (and it is coming very fast), 
when trained minds and skilled hands shall 
banish drudgery from American farms. Mark 
you, I am no advocate for ease and indolence. 
I believe in work; but I want work to tell. As 
I came home I saw more than one case where 
a man was cultivating corn, with a boy riding 
the horse. Tire poor horse doubtless wished 
the boy was at college. Near Detroit I saw 
two men cultivating potatoes, one leading the 
horse, and the other holding the cultivator! 
Prof. Miles has been making some experi¬ 
ments in feeding grade Merino sheep, grade 
South Downs, and grade Cotswolds. The Me¬ 
rinos and Cotswolds were lambs, and the 
South Downs, yearlings. The former two, 
therefore, give results that are strictly compara¬ 
tive; the latter, not. These grade lambs were 
from common Merino ewes crossed in the one 
case with a thoroughbred Vermont Merino ram, 
and in the other with a thoroughbred Cotswold. 
“What do you mean,” I asked Prof. Miles, “ by 
common Merino ewes?” “ The ordinary kind 
of sheep in this section, such sheep as could 
have been bought here last fall for 75c. to $1 
a head.” The lambs were shut up in pens Dec. 
13, and were fed corn and clover hay for 23 
weeks, or till the 15th of May. At the com¬ 
mencement of the experiment, the two grade 
Merino lambs weighed 1251 lbs., (one 70 lbs.; 
the other 551 lbs). The two grade Cotswolds 
weighed 158 lbs., (one 86 lbs.; the other 72 lbs.) 
The Merinos eat 325 lbs. of hay, and 249 lbs. 
of corn, and gained SO’lo lbs. The Cotswolds 
eat 398 lbs. of hay, and 369 lbs. of corn, and 
gained 67'| 2 lbs. A little figuring will show 
that it took 1,572 lbs. of hay and corn to 
produce 100 lbs. of increase with the Merinos, 
and only 1,136 lbs. with the Cotswolds. 
Prof. Miles has figured up the amount of food 
consumed for each 100 lbs. of live weight. In 
the 22 weeks, the grade Merinos, for 100 lbs. of 
live weight, eat 231.81 lbs. of hay, and 168.13 
lbs. of corn, and the grade Cotswolds, 212.82 
lbs. of hay, and 186.43 lbs. of corn. The Cots¬ 
wolds eat more corn and less hay in proportion 
to live weight than the Merinos; but the total 
amount of food consumed in proportion to live 
weight is almost identical. Thus the Merinos 
consumed 399.96 lbs., and the Cotswolds 399.25 
lbs.; or a little over 2’| 2 lbs. of food per day for 
each 100 lbs. of live weight. 
It is very evident, therefore, that for the pro¬ 
duction of mutton the grade Cotswolds are far 
superior to the Merinos. It is equally clear, 
too, that by the use of thoroughbred Cotswold 
or South Down rams we can soon get a very 
useful class of mutton sheep from common 
Merino flocks. And at present the wool from 
these grade Cotswolds is worth full as much as 
ordinary Merino, and a good deal more than 
that of fleeces which are more than half yolk. 
Mr. Geddes writes me: “I am at a loss to 
understand what you mean when you say (May 
Agriculturist , page 179), that a ton of straw 
will make in the spring of the year four tons of 
so-called manure. If you had said that four 
tons of straw would make one ton of manure, 
I should have thought nothing of it. But 
how you can turn one ton of straw into four 
tons of anything that anybody will call manure 
I do not see. In a conversation I had with 
Hon. Lewis F. Allen, of Black Rock, more than 
a year ago, he told me he had enquired of the 
man who furnished hay for feeding cattle at the 
Central Yards in Buffalo, as to the loads of 
manure he sold, and though I cannot now say 
the exact quantity to a ton of hay, I remember 
that it was very little—far less than I had before 
supposed. Mr. Allen could give some impor¬ 
tant information on this point. Please explain 
this slraw manure matter.” 
Boussingault, the great French chemist- 
farmer, repeatedly analysed the manure from 
his barn-yard. “The animals which had pro¬ 
duced this dung were 30 horses, 30 oxen, and 
from 10 to 20 pigs. The absolute quantity of 
moisture was ascertained by first drying in the 
air a considerable weight of dung, and after 
pounding, continuing and completing the dry¬ 
ing of a given quantity.” No one can doubt, the 
accuracy of the results. The dung made in the 
Winter of 1S37-S, contained 79.0 per cent of water. 
“ “ 1S38-9, “ 77.8 “ “ “ 
Autumn of 1830, “ 80.4 “ “ “ “ 
Fresh solid corn dung contains, according to 
the same authority, 90 per cent of water. 
I have frequently seen manure drawn out in 
the spring that had not been decomposed at all, 
and with more or less snow among it, and with 
water dripping from the wagon while it was 
being loaded, It was, in fact, straw saturated 
with water, and discolored by the droppings of 
animals. Now„ how much of such manure 
would a ton of dry straw make ? If we should 
take 20 lbs. of straw, trample it down, and from 
time to time sprinkle it with water and snow 
till we had got on 80 lbs.; and then put on 
20 lbs. more straw, and 80 lbs. more water, and 
keep on until we had used up a ton of straw, how 
much “ so-called manure ” should we have to 
draw out ? 
20 lbs. of straw and 80 lbs. water — 100 lbs. so-called 
manure. 
2,000 lbs. of straw and 8,000 lbs. water — 10,000 lbs. so- 
called manure. 
In other words, we get 5 tons of such manure 
from one ton of straw. This is, perhaps, an 
extreme case, but there can be little doubt that 
a Jon of straw trampled down by cattle and 
sheep in an open barn-yard, exposed to snow 
and rain, would weigh four tons when drawn 
out wet in the spring. 
Yes, it is quite an argument in favor of 
manure cellars. I have always had a prejudice 
against them—probably because the first one I 
saw was badly managed. There is, however, 
no necessity, even in an ordinary open barn¬ 
yard, with more or less sheds and stables, of 
having so much water in the manure when 
drawn out. The real point of my remarks 
whicli so surprised Mr. Geddes was this : We 
have to draw out so much water with our 
manure, under any circumstances, that we 
should try to have it as rich as possible. It is 
certainly true that if the manure from a ton of 
straw is worth $3.00, that from a ton of clover hay 
is worth $10.00. And it costs no more to draw 
out and spread the one than the other. I have 
never yet found a farmer who would believe 
that a ton of clover hay rotted down in the 
barn-yard would make three or four tons of 
manure; but he would readily assent to the 
proposition that it took four or five tons of 
