JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
iMarch  1,  1900. 
'■’‘’"190 
a'paying  price  as  pedigree  stock.  There  are  thousands  of  cows  being 
milked  at  the  present  time  (on  British  farms)  which  do  not  pay  for 
their  keep,  and  in  many  cases  where  several  cows  are  kept  on  one 
farm,  the  farmer  or  his  wife,  even  if  they  milk  the  cows  themselves, 
have  very  vague  ideas  as  to  the  actual  butter  return  of  the  several 
animals.  The  results  of  tests  of  the  produce  of  individual  cows  both 
in  England  and  in  the  United  States  have  been  very  startling,  and  in 
many  cases  have  led  to  the  discarding  of  favourites  and  the  advance¬ 
ment  of  bovine  Cinderellas  to  the  vacant  stalls. 
Much  of  the  misconception  as  to  the  value  of  dairy  cattle  is 
traceable  to  the  hands  who  dojthe  milking.  Many  of  the  best  butter 
cows  are  what  is  called  “  hard  to  milk.”  The  milk  does  not  come 
down  readily,  and  especially  the  stroppings  which  generally  contain 
the  largest  proportion  of  fat.  It  is  too  often  the  interest  of  the  milk¬ 
man  or  maid  to  neglect  such  a  cow  and  to  give  a  high  character  to  one 
which  lets  the  milk  down  easily  and  gives  a  fair  quantity  though  of 
very  poor  quality.  The  milk  from  the  two  is  mixed,  and  the  owner 
's  deceived  as  to  the  capacity  of  his  animals  ;  the  only  way  to  obviate 
such  a  result  is  a  careful  test  every  month  under  personal  supervision. 
An  accurate  knowledge  of  the  amount  of  money  expended  in 
labour  on  the  several  crops  of  the  farm  is  indispensable  if  the  farmer 
is  to  be  quite  certain  where  his  profit  comes  from,  or  to  know  the  real 
cause  of  his  losses.  For  instance,  the  Potato  crop  when  successful  is 
a  profitable  one,  but  it  demands  a  large  expenditure  of  labour,  often 
more  than  is  sufficiently  realised,  and  if  an  exact  record  were  kept  of  the 
daily  occupation  of  each  farm  hand,  showing  in  what  way  his  or  her 
time  had  been  spent,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  arrive  at  a  fairly 
accurate  estimate  of  the  cost  of  producing  any  crop.  By  such  means 
the  returns  from  such  a  speculative  crop  as  the  Potato  throughout  a 
series  of  years  could  be  balanced  up,  the  loss  deducted  from  the  profit, 
and  the  net  value  of  the  crop  be  ascertained. 
The  same  system  should  apply  to  the  Carrot  and  Celery  crops, 
which  are  of  an  equally  speculative  nature.  Then  there  is  the  food 
consumed  by  the  cattle,  sheep,  and  poultry  !  Unless  the  food, 
whether  purchased  or  of  home  production,  is  charged  to  the  particular 
variety  of  live  stock  which  consumes  it,  how  is  the  farmer  to  know 
which  stock  pays  him  best  ? 
It  is  the  practice  on  thousands  of  farms  to  sell  the  Wheat  and 
Barley  after  being  properly  dressed,  but  to  give  no  credit  to  tbe  grain 
crops  for  the  tail  corn  which  is  ground  up  for  the  pigs  or  used  by  the 
housewife  for  the  hens.  Even  small  shrivelled  grain  has  its  value  in 
£  s.  d.,  and  when  valued  should  be  paid  for  by  the  department 
consuming  it. 
The  practical  begging  of  good  and  useful  food  for  pigs  and  poultry 
without  the  same  being  taken  into  account  properly  is  often  the 
cause  of  very  mistaken  ideas  as  to  the  profitableness  of  these  two 
kinds  of  farm  stock.  The  gross  return  from  such  sources  may  appear 
to  be  all  profit  and  highly  satisfactory,  but  fail  corn  and  offal  Potatoes 
possess  a  saleable  value,  and  ought  to  be  accounted  for. 
We  do  not  suggest  that  a  balance  should  be  struck  every  year  as 
between  the  several  products  of  the  farm,  but  that  such  records  ought 
to  be  kept  that,  when  any  item  is  in  a  doubtful  position,  and  it  is 
thought  desirable,  means  may  be  available  to  solve  the  doubtful 
question. 
WOEK  ON  THE  HOME  FARM. 
Professor  Wrightson,  writing  for  the  “Agricultural  Ga2ette,”  has 
started  a  very  interesting  discussion  on  the  coat  of  keep  of  farm  horses, 
one  point  in  dispute  being  whether  attendance  to  the  horse  and  feeding 
should  be  charged  to  the  keep  of  the  horse  or  the  labour  bill.  The 
Professor  says  that  attendance  to  the  horse  cannot  be  dissociated  from 
the  labour  bill,  and  we  quite  agree  with  him ;  but  we  would  go  further, 
and  charge  the  whole  maintenance  of  the  horse  to  the  labour  account ; 
for  to  what  purpose  is  the  horse  kept  except  for  purposes  of  labour  ?  in 
fact,  what  man  cannot  do  the  horse  or  steam  power  is  introduced  to 
perform,  and  where  the  horse  is  not  made  full  use  of  for  purposes  of 
cultivation  the  bill  for  manual  labour  is  proportionately  excessive.  The 
labour  bill  should  include  all  charges  for  manual,  horse,  or  steam 
power. 
The  heavy  fall  of  snow  last  week,  followed  as  it  has  been  by  heavy 
rains,  has  left  the  country  in  a  parlous  state.  Thousands  of  acres  of 
land  are  under  water,  and  farm  work  is  at  a  standstill.  Turnips  are 
all  finished,  or  we  hardly  dare  say  what  the  condition  of  a  Turnip  fold 
would  now  be.  During  the  blizzard  hundreds  of  sheep  were  reeked  up 
with  snow,  and  had  to  be  dug  out. 
■  Every  farmer  we  speak  to  has  finished  all  his  roots  except  Mangold, 
and  we  see  waggonloads  of  sheep  going  to  market,  the  empty  waggons 
returning  with  cake  for  the  animals  left  in  the  “  wilderness.”  During 
an  experience  of  thirty -two  years  we  have  never  seen  anything  so  like 
a  Turnip  famine  before. 
What  is  worse  is  the  bad  state  of  the  young  Clover  plants;  the 
only  well-set  fields  we  have  heard  of  are  on  strong  land  very  early 
sown.  Here  we  have  a  hint  for  next  season  ;  but  farmers  are  so  afraid 
of  harvesting  difficulties  that  they  are  chary  of  early  sowing.  Does  the 
string-binder  enter  into  their  calculations  here  ?  If  so  it  has  much  to 
answer  for. 
It  appears,  from  a  statement  in  the  “Dublin  Farmers’  Gazette,” 
that  a  new  disease  has  been  discovered  among  Potatoes.  It  is  termed 
the  yellow  blight  or  root-rot  disease.  Yellow  blotches  appear  on  the 
leaves,  occasioned  by  the  interception  of  nutriment  by  the  fungus  in  the 
stems  and  roots.  We  shall  probably  hear  more  of  this  new  disease. 
We  hear  that  the  farmers  of  the  United  States  are  about  to  set  us 
an  example  in  the  way  of  combination  on  a  large  scale.  Efforts,  we 
are  told,  are  being  made  to  induce  both  Wheat  and  Maize  growers  to 
form  numerous  combinations  among  themselves  for  the  purpose  of 
building  and  controlling  elevators  and  doing  their  own  commission 
work. — (“  Agricultural  Economist.”) 
Records  of  the  Dairy  Herd. —  On  all  well  conducted  farms  where 
milk  is  produced,  one  point  always  seen  to  is  the  keeping  of  an  accurate 
record  of  each  animal’s  milk-producing  powers.  In  some  instances 
each  cow’s  milk  is  measured,  and  the  quantity  recorded,  or  more  often 
it  is  weighed.  Now  the  latter  system  may  be  considered  much  pre¬ 
ferable,  as  being  decidedly  more  accurate,  for,  as  is  well  known,  good 
milkers,  by  reason  of  the  fast  flow  of  milk  into  the  pail,  cause  a  head 
or  froth  to  collect  on  the  surface,  which  very  much  interferes  with 
measuring  ;  therefore  to  weigh  is  the  better  plan.  On  most  farms  visited 
where  the  milk  is  weighed  the  ordinary  weighing  machine  (as  used  for 
weighing  cake,  corn  and  wool)  also  answers  the  purpose  for  milk,  a 
special  bucket  (previously  weighed)  standing  on  the  machine.  The 
milker  empties  each  cow’s  yield  separately  into  this,  and  records  the 
weight,  deducting  from  each  of  these  the  known  weight  of  the  pail. 
— (“  Farmer  and  Stock-breeder.”) 
Cattle  Foods. — Oat  chaff  is  better  than  straw,  is  relished  by  cattle, 
and  may  be  used  raw,  mixed,  or  boiled.  Oat  straw  is  a  most  useful  food, 
containing  large  quantities  of  starch  and  digestible  fibre,  and  ought  to  be 
better  taken  care  of  than  it  usually  is.  Used  with  8  lbs.  or  10  lbs.  of 
linseed  cake,  or  14  lbs.  to  16  lbs.  of  grain  or  bran,  cattle  of  1000  lbs. 
will  get  quite  fat  on  it.  Compared  with  other  foods,  good  Oat  straw 
is  worth  35s.  to  40s.  per  ton  for  feeding,  while  for  manure  it  is  not 
worth  5s.  per  ton.  The  farmer  who  wastes  it  in  litter  or  otherwise 
loses  30s.  to  35s.  per  ton.  Wheat  and  Barley  straw  are  usefnl,  although 
inferior  to  and  less  relished  than  Oat  straw.  Turnips  are  relished  by 
all  cattle,  and,  where  possible,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  wash  and  pulp  them, 
and  to  add  to  the  pulp  the  extra  food  to  be  given.  The  washing  clears 
the  roots  of  superfluous  mud  and  sand,  which,  when  in  quantity,  induce 
irritation  of  the  bowels  and  scouring,  and  pulped  Turnips  are  relished, 
and  save  young  beasts  the  labour  and  pain  of  cutting  the  roots  when 
shedding  the  incisor  teeth.  Cattle  from  eighteen  to  twenty-four  months 
are,  says  a  ivriter  in  an  agricultural  contemporary,  difficult  to  make 
fat  with  Swede  Turnips,  unless  these  are  either  sliced  or  pulped,  and 
with  water  power  available  and  proper  arrangements  the  extra  labour 
involved  is  insignificant. 
Tew  Tree  Poisoning  and  How  to  Treat  It. — It  is  during  weather 
such  as  the  present,  when  snow  is  on  the  ground,  and  animals  are 
unable  to  obtain  the  natural  green  food  upon  which  they  so  largely 
subsist  when  allowed  an  outrun,  that  the  risk  of  poisoning  from  the 
consumption  of  the  leaves  of  the  Yew  tree,  and  other  poisonous  plants, 
becomes  specially  pronounced.  It  is  well  known  that  animals  which, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  would  pass  by  a  Yew  tree  without 
touching  it,  very  often  commence  nibbling  at  its  tempting  green  leaves 
when  deprived  of  their  ordinary  green  food  in  the  shape  of  grass. 
Wherever  such  trees  are  growing  in  the  neighbourhood  of  places  where 
cattle  are  kept,  special  precaution  should  be  taken  to  guard  against  the 
animals  getting  acc  ss  to  them  while  snow  is  on  the  ground.  There  is 
still  much  uncertainty  regarding  the  manner  in  which  the  Yew  tree 
poison  acts,  bat  it  is  well  established  that  the  leaves  or  twigs  are 
specially  dangerous  when  taken  on  empty  stomachs,  and  that  they  are 
also  much  more  dangerous  in  a  semi-withered  state  than  if  consumed 
when  quite  green  or  in  an  actively  growing  condition.  In  case  of  an 
accident  through  which  an  animal  may  have  obtained  access  to  a 
plantation  or  lawn  and  partaken  of  the  leaves  of  Yei/  trees  growing 
thereon,  the  best  course  of  treatment  is  to  administer  at  once  about  two 
glasses  (say  four  ounces)  spirits  of  ammonia,  and  half  a  pint  of  brandy 
in  a  quart  of  linseed  or  flour  mucilage.— (“  Farmers’  Gazette.”) 
