IS'2 
JOUl.WAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
February  5,  1903. 
that  the  expense  is  less  even  when  taking  into  account  the 
cost  of  conveyance.  Naturally,  some  pains  is  taken  to  place 
the  chief  school  in  a  really  central  place,  and  the  route  for 
the  waggons  is  carefully  planned.  These  waggons,  in  many 
instances,  serve  another  purpose,  and  carry  mails,  parcels, 
messages,  and  such-like.  Nature  classes,  too,  have  been 
started,  but  the  difficulty  here  is,  first,  to  find  suitable 
teachers  ;  and  second,  to  impress  upon  parents  the  benefits 
resulting  from  such  studies.  Both  these  difficulties^  we 
venture  to  predict,  will  soon  be  surmounted. 
From  rural  schools  to  timber  planting  and  preservation 
is  a  long  step,  but  timber  planting,  especially  in  Nebraska, 
seems  to  be  undertaken  quite  as  an  adjunct  to  agriculture 
proper.  Firstly,  shall  we  say,  that  the  timber  is  planted 
near  and  about  the  homesteads,  to  give  a  little  necessary 
shade  from  sun  and  protection  from  wind  ;  to  give  the  house 
a  more  finished  look  ;  to  relieve  the  monotony  of  the  wide, 
bare  prairie  ;  to  protect  orchards  ;  and  to  give  shelter  to 
stock.  Then  secondly,  when  w'e  think  that  in  Nebraska  there 
are  no  coal  measures,  and  that  coal  may  have  to  be  brought 
500  miles,  we  can  see  the  importance  of  wood  for  fuel  ;  also, 
no  farm  can  be  profitably  worked  without  the  use  of  much 
wood  for  sheds,  fences,  and  the  like — indeed,  here  at  home, 
where  the  buildings  are  generally  of  bricks  and  mortar,  there 
is  always  a  demand  for  wood  for  many  miscellaneous  pur¬ 
poses.  How  much  greater  must  be  the  demand  when  the 
house  and  all  the  buildings  are  of  wood.  It  has  been  fully 
proved  that  the  sand  hills,  which  are  of  no  good  for  cultiva¬ 
tion  as  the  word  is  usually  understood,  will  give  excellent 
returns  if  planted  with  Scotch  and  Austrian  Pines.  There 
are  some  beautiful  plates  of  natural  forest  and  plantation. 
It  seems  strange  to  turn  up  the  pages  of  the  article  on 
cotton-growing  and  then  to  consider  that  cotton  is  quite 
as  much  right  to  be  called  an- agricultural  crop  as  Wheat. 
We  Britons  do  not  quite  grasp  the  extent  first  of  tlie  States* 
secondly  of  their  multifarious  industries.  We  have  just 
to  read  how  cotton  is  knocking  out  all  other  fibres  in  all 
countries  of  the  world,  and  then  we  may  draw  our  own  con¬ 
clusions  as  to  the  immense  importance  of  this  production. 
Cotton  is  cheap,  is  very  adaptable — in  other  words,  will  lend 
itself  to  any  treatment — it  can  be  made  to  look  and  feel  like 
wool,  it  will  imitate  silk,  it  can  be  used  for  almost  all  and 
any  purpose  ;  in  the  cottage  and  in  the  palace  there  is  a 
growing  distaste  for  linen,  and  the  depression  in  the  manu¬ 
facture  of  “  all  wool  ”  fabrics  is  felt  not  only  here,  but  in  all 
the  civilised  countries.  Dare  we  say  that  cotton  growing, 
like  wool  growing,  is  a  twofold  industry?  Perhaps  that  is 
making  too  much  of  the  cake  manufacture,  but  still  we  know 
of  no  farmers  who  do  not  annually  use  large  quantities  of 
cotton-seed  cake. 
From  cotton  to  mohair  is  not  a  long  step.  How  many 
people  would  answer  off-hand  the  question  as  to  what  ia 
mohair,  the  fleece  or  hair  of  the  Angora  goat?  To  what 
purposes  is  mohair  applied  ?  is  not  so  easily  answered.  It 
IS  woven  into  the  finest  materials  for  ladies’  dresses  ;  into 
that  warm  and  lovely  stuff  known  as  plush,  which  is  so  largely 
used  for  all  upholstering  purposes  ;  and,  in  fact,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  say  for  what  it  is  not  adapted.  It  has  made 
Bradford,  or  at  least  done  a  great  deal  towards  that  end. 
Bradford  is  the  centre  of  the  mohair  manufacture.  But  the 
Angora  goat  is  kept  for  quite  another  purpose  besides  its 
fleece,  and  of  that  purpose  we  find  a  full  account  in  the  annual 
report  of  the  “American  Animal  Industry.” 
There  are  still  in  the  States  thousands  of  acres  of  land 
that  up  to  now  have  grown  nothing  but  brush  or  under¬ 
growth.  This  is  most  difficult  and  expensive  to  clear  by 
means  of  hand  labour.  However  carefully  the  ground  is 
cleared  by  man,  the  young  brush  has  a  habit  of  springing  up 
again.  Labour  is  scarce,  and  hence  expensive.  Goats  of 
the  Angora  breed  have  been  introduced  for  the  purpose  of 
clearing  these  tracts  of  brush,  and  they  do  if  most  effectively, 
charging  the  owner  no  wages,  nor  looking  to  him  for  aiiy  food, 
but  rather  in  return  supplying  him  with  their  fine  fleeces  and 
their  young  flesh.  Angoras  will  graze  by  preference  on 
that  vegetation  which  all  other  live  stock  reject,  and  they 
will  eat  weeds  and  bushes  that  are  considered  as  poisonous 
to  other  ruminants.  Two  hundred  goats  on  forty  acres  of 
brush  will  make  it  in  two  or  three  years  as  clean  as  a  garden. 
After  they  have  been  over  the  land  all  the  best  of  the  natural 
grasses  spring  up  as  if  by  magic.  There  ai’e  plates  of  brush 
land  before  the  goats’  visit — thick,  impenetrable  mass. 
During  goating,  at  the  end  of  twelve  months,  a  skeleton 
forest  in  miniature,  and  the  same  land  after  two  years,  with 
clumps  of  fine  forest  trees  and  covered  with  the,  best  of  blue 
grass.  A  scene  vei’y  like  some  of  our  best  and  most 
picturesque  parts,  though  probably  with  better  grass.  The 
better  bred  the  goat  (i.e.,  pure  Angora)  the  better  the  brush 
cleai’er,  the  better  the  fleece,  and  the  better  the  venison¬ 
like  flesh.  It  is  not  often  w’e  meet  with  animals  who  will 
thrive  and  do  well  on  refuse  food,  and  it  is  even  less  seldom 
that  we  meet  with  animals  who  are  such  efficiently  useful 
servants  to  man. 
.  Shall  we  turn  for  a  moment  to  one  aspect  of  the  great 
cattle  raising  industry  of  the  States  ?  Here  again  we  forget 
if  we  can  that  we  are  not  counting  stock  by  the  100,  but  rather 
by  the  1,000,  and  as  these  herds  so  far  outnumber  ours,  so 
when  plague  or  pestilence  appears  the  ravages  are  propor¬ 
tionately  large.  We  often  hear  of  trouble  resulting  from 
“  black  leg,”  a  fatal  disease  which  attacks  young  stock,  and 
although  in  some  districts,  and  on  certain  farms,  it  causes 
much  loss,  yet  it  is  by  no  means  a  complaint  that  touches 
every  owner. 
Scientists  have  found  a  cure  (or  shall  we  say  rather  a 
preventive?)  in  inoculation,  and  the  American  Government 
provides  vaccine  matter  free  to  any  applicant.  There  was 
not  much  trouble  with  “  black  leg  ”  till  what  we  may  call 
the  native  herds  began  to  be  improved,  graded  up,  and  some 
attention  paid  to  blood  aird  pedigree.  Then,  as  the  class  of 
stock  became  better,  we  hear  of  more  serious  attacks  of 
disease,  till  some  of  the  statistics  tell  of  12,  25,  30,  and  up  to 
50  per  cent,  of  death  from  black  leg. 
There  is  always  a  prejudice  against  new  untried  remedies, 
especially  if  the  remedy  costs  much.  The  Government  circu¬ 
lated  (gratis)  the  most  particular  and  minute  information 
respecting  the  new  remedy,  the  mode  of  application,  and  the 
treatment ;  and  also  offered  to  supply  the  vaccine  free.  Those 
who  conquered  their  prejudices  and  listened  to  reason  have 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  they  are  annually  saving 
themselves  from  much  loss,  for  we  find  the  percentage  of 
deaths  from  black  leg  have  gone  dowji  as  low  as  0.55.  On 
hundreds  of  stock  ranges  it  is  now  the  custom  to  annually 
vaccinate  all  young  stock,  and  this  custom  is  happily  spread¬ 
ing.  Prevention  is  better  than  cure,  especially  in  cases 
where  cure  is  practically  impossible.  Those  territories  most 
subject  to  outbreaks  of  this  disease  are  to  be  found  in  the 
vast  area  between  the  Mississippi  on  the  east  and  the  Rocky 
Mountains  on  the  west,  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
After  the  frost  broke  up  the  land  was  very  sticky,  but  the 
weather  has  kept  fine,  and  strong  winds  have  dried  the  surface ; 
so  now  land  work  is  again  in  full  swing.  We  are  ploughing  the 
Turnip  land,  which  was  getting  somewhat  in  arrears,  and  shall 
commence  crossing  fallows  directly  if  the  Aveather  holds  fine. 
We  fear  there  is  no  immediate  prospect  of  rolling  Wheat.  The 
frost  has  made  the  land  very  light,  and  the  young  Wheat  looks 
brown  and  shows  signs  of  losing  root.  We  are  speaking  of  Wheat 
after  ley.  As  not  much  Wheat  is  grown  on  that  system  here¬ 
abouts,  and  no  farmer  has  more  than  one  or  two  fields,  he 
generally  has  a  chance  to  roll  it  early,  if  he  grasps  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  ;  but  we  want  more  Avind  to  give  us  a  chance  before 
Valentine’s  Day. 
We  spoke  of  cross-ploughing  fallows.  This  operation  may  be 
rendered  unnecessary  by  the  use  of  the  spring  cultivator  used 
across  the  autumn  ploughing.  It  saves  expense,  and  where  there 
is  any  couch  pulls  it  up  without  cutting  it  into  small  pieces ;  but 
it  does  not  leave  the  land  so  open  and  rough  as  cross-ploughing, 
and  if  heavy  rain  should  intervene  before  the  land  can  be 
harrowed,  the  AA'ork  Avdll  need  doing  again.  As  it  can  be  done 
for  less  than  half  the  cost  of  ploughing,  av'c  could  afford  to  do  it 
twice.  For  cross-ploughing  we  always  use  the  chilled-breasted 
digger. 
The  sheep  are  comfortable  again,  but  they  have  been  on  grass 
more  than  A\e  cared  for  lately.  W’e  could  have  easily  spared 
them  the  Turnips  if  the  lair  had  been  good  enough.  Roots  are 
still  unsaleable,  prices  being  quite  nominal ;  but,  nevertheless, 
sheep  sell  very  badly — they  are  4s.  per  head  lower  on  the  w’eek. 
Our  City  friends  should  be  paying  |d.  per  lb  less  than  a  month 
ago.  The  farmer  has  one  consolation — his  sheep  are  very  healthy 
and  losses  are  very  small.  The  last  twelve  months  have  been 
very  favoui'able  to  the  shepherd  and  flockmaster. 
-The  Potato  trade  has  been  slow;  the  frost  did  little  to  revive 
it,  and  Ave  see  feAv  Avaggonloads  moving  stationwards.  There 
is  more  movement  amongst  Clover  and  hay,  and  good  quantities 
are  being  sent  aAvay  by  rail.  Prices  are  but  moderate,  and  Ave 
doubt  if,  after  delivery  is  reckoned  in,  the  ordinary  farmer  gains 
anything  by  selling  hay  and  buying  cake.  Cattle  are  doing 
well.  Beef  keeps  a  fair  price,  and  the  farmer  Avith  a  good  milk 
cow  to  sell  Avill  soon  find  a  customer.  Eggs  are  a  little  more 
plentiful,  fowls  scarce,  and  ducks  and  turkeys  unobtainable. 
