PRACTICAL PAPERS—FARM MANAGEMENT. 221 
This advice partakes too much of the natuie of the counsel 
that bankrupts are able to give business men. 
One agriculturist, writing from New England to the depart¬ 
ment, assumes with boldness that the west cannot make butter 
or cheese ; that the grasses and climate are both unfavorable. 
We have conceded for some time that this was to some extent 
true, but careful farming has demonstrated that every variety 
of tame grass succeeds well here; that cattle are free from all 
splenic diseases, and under like treatment excel the eastern 
cattle. All that we now require to take the first position in 
cheese-making, is a few eastern, pains-taking, careful, intelli¬ 
gent farmers, to adapt this branch of agriculture to the differ¬ 
ent conditions found at the west. 
There is one trouble that it seems difficult to dispose of in 
cattle raising connected with a dairy farm, if we desire to ob¬ 
tain the full benefit of our plans for bringing out an improved 
grade of cattle from the selection of best animals, and caring 
for their progeny, and that is raising the calves. 
The raising of calves the first year is a delicate proceeding 
without plenty of milk. To supply the proper elements re¬ 
quires a critical chemical knowledge. To use hay, water, oat 
and corn meal does not always bring the same result; there is 
a want of starch saccharine matter, alkali or acid, or they are in 
improper chemical proportions to assimilate, no one has yet de¬ 
termined which. There is a difficulty somewhere that makes 
the calve’s bones very sharp, and like Victor Hugo’s gamin, their 
bellies very large, in which condition they ever after remain. We 
think the trouble is in forcing the animal to take too large a 
quantity of highly nutritious food to start with; as we 
have noticed that calves that eat but little at first, soon come 
into a thriving condition, and can in a short time be taken from 
the cow. 
A herd of sixty head of cattle is the number we would un- 
_ I 
dertake to keep on a 160 acre farm. The increase of fifteen 
head of cows would soon secure this number, with a small 
outlay, and the time that would elapse from the commencement 
of farming until the maximum number was reached, would ena- 
