154 
:  JOURNAL  OF  HORTICULTURE  AND  COTTAGE  GARDENER. 
February  18,  190^. 
good  train  service  forwards  them  quickly  to  their  destina-  ■ 
tion.  But  more  than  that  ;  they  start  from  a  better  founda¬ 
tion.  They  are  learning  the  art  in  Ireland  of  breeding  first- 
rate  stock,  and  the  way  they  are  doing  it  is  this :  The 
Board  of  Agriculture  has  come  to  the  help,  not  by  leaflets 
and  instructions,  but  by  solid  gifts  of  money  for  a  specific 
purpose.  Thousands  of  pounds  are  being  spent  per  annum 
in  pure-bred  rams,  bulls,  stallions,  boars,  and  poultry. 
The  way  part  of  the  money  is  allotted  is  thus :  In  April 
there  is  held  in  Dublin  a  great  show,  where  as  many  as  300 
bulls  will  be  exhibited.  The  judges  are  instructed  to  select 
those  bulls  which  the^^  consider  good  enough  to  improve  the 
stock  of  the  country,  and  if  sold  (under  certain  conditions) 
the  Government  allows  £15  towards  the  price.  Thus  a  man 
selecting  a  bull,  say,  value  £35,  the  beast  would  only  stand 
him  the  very  moderate  sum  of  £20.  The  conditions 
attached  are  that  this  (partly)  Government  bull  shall  be 
available  at  a  moderate  fixed  fee  for  cows  in  the  immediate 
neighbourhood  of  his  home.  To  compensate  a  farmer  who 
is  taking  a  bull  from  Dublin  to  his  distant  holding:,  Govern¬ 
ment  again  steps  in  and  arranges  with  the  ‘  railwa-v  com¬ 
panies  to  take  these  animals  at  a  reduced  cost.  The  only 
things  that  railways  take  at  reduced  cost  here  are  the 
foreign  dumpings  that  are  almost  (freely)  put  on  to  our 
market.  Truly,  our  Irish  friends  with  their  persistency 
have  got  something  out  of  the  unwilling  hands  of  their 
alien  rulers. 
There  are  in  some  neighbourhoods  private  enterprises 
very  much  akin  to  what  we  have  been  describing  in  Ireland. 
An  expensive  bull  is  too  much  for  the  purse  of  one  farmer, 
so  clubs  are  formed  and  good,  sound  sires  are  either  bought 
outright  or  hired  for  the  general  good  of  the  committee. 
This  is  public-spirited,  and  the  system  deserves  to  be  ex¬ 
tended.  The  breeding  of  good  horned  stock  is  attended 
with  less  risk  and  possibly  less  expense  than  the  breeding 
of  horses.  There  is,  for  the  expert,  money  to  be  made  in 
both  ;  but  we  want  to  see  the  cottager’s  cow,  the  lane  cow, 
the  small  farmer’s  cow  all  improved.  These  “small  ”  men, 
by  close  personal  attention,  make  quite  the  best  of  what 
they  have  to  do  with  ;  but  nlace  a  good  bull  within  their 
reach  at  a  low  figure,  and  they  would  build  up  some  really 
valuable  stock.  Yes,  that  is  if  we  could  persuade  them  to 
use  only  their  best  cows — for  good  stock  requires  a  good 
dam  as  well  as  a  good  sire. 
But  the  fault  with  most  people  is  the  inferior  sire.  If 
milkers  are  wanted  he  must  come  of  a  milking  stock,  how¬ 
ever  fine  he  may  look  otherwise  ;  it  is  his  milking  forebears 
that  are  wanted  now.  There  is  another  thing.  There  is 
always  a  demand  for  good  milch  cows.  Times  are  bad, 
money  scarce,  prices  tempting,  and  the  poor  man  parts  with 
what,  well  managed,  would  be  a  veritable  gold  mine.  This 
would  not  so  much  matter  to  the  country  at  large  if  the 
good  cow  got  into  a  breeder’s  hands  ;  but  alas !  she  goes 
to  that  man  who  feeds  her  well,  milks  her  well,  fattens  her 
well,  and  then  her  end  is  the  butcher  without  a  chance  of 
further  reproduction.  This  hapnens  not  once  or  twice,  but 
time  and  time  again.  We  believe  if  we  rightly  recollect 
the  figures,  20,000  fat  cows  are  annually  slaughtered  in 
Edinburgh  alone.  They  go  in,  say,  after  their  third  or  fourth 
■calf,  just  at  thoir  prime,  heavy  milkers,  quite  up  to  the 
Government  requirements,  and  they  are  seen  no  more  till 
they  emerge  as  beef.  This  seems  a  wicked  waste  of 
material. 
In  the  days  following  the  first  terrible  attacks  of  rinder¬ 
pest  in  this  country,  stock  rose  to  a  maximum  price,  and 
for  a  season  veal  disappeared  from  the  max'kets.  Veal  is 
very  good,  and  we  eat  it  with  satisfaction  if  we  know  it  is 
•young  bull  calf,  but  it  seems  too  great  a  sacrifice  if,  it  is 
“  quey  ”  calf.  One  would  tbiuk,  too,  those  good  towh 
milkers  might  breed  again,  and  homes  found  for  the  calves 
in  the  country.  There  is  many  a  cow  quite  able  and  com¬ 
petent  to  rear  three  calves.  We  have  known  a  good  cow  do 
four,  and  with  all  the  appliances  of  science  in  the  shape  of 
calf  food  and  calf  meals,  we  think  there  ought  not  to  be 
any  question  about  adopted  calves,  being  properly  reared. 
But  they  must  have  a  certain  amount  for  the  first  month 
at  least  (we  should  like  to  say  longer)  of  good  new  milk 
that  has  not  known  the  separator.  ,  From,  w'hat  we,  heard 
the  other  night  at  an  agricultural  dinner  from  our  would-be 
member — an  Irishman— that  the  industry  of  Devonshire 
cream  is  so  growing  in  Ireland  that  there  is  a  danger  that 
the  best  pail  of  milk  finds  its  way  into  the  little  brown  jug 
instead  of  into  the  hungry  calf’s  stomach.  If  this  be  so, 
there  is  a  danger  that  the  lesser  industry  may  ruin  the 
greater.  A  calf  never  forgets  a  stinted  youth.  It  is  im¬ 
possible  to  make  up  in  after  months  for  the  meagre  diet  of 
calfhood.  A  good  deal  of  this  white  scour  among  Irish 
calves  is  undoubtedly  owing  to  our  sanitary  arrangements 
and  food  other  than  that  Nature  provides.  Perhaps  one  of 
the  greatest  difficulties,  or  perhaps  the  greatest  that 
breeders  have  to  contend  against,  is  abortion,  which  has 
really  assumed  the  character  of  a  plague  in  some  parts. 
That  it  is  highly  infectious  there  is  not  the  slightest 
doubt,  and  a  bull  may  do  as  much  harm  in  the  spread  of 
disease  as  a  cow  who  persistently  slips  her  calf.  There  are 
means  advocated  by  the  faculty  which  appear  to  be  fairly 
successful — injections  of  carbolic  acid  and  antiseptic 
remedies — but  these  are  of  no  earthly  use  locked  up  in 
the  closet  of  the  vet.  .  The  farmer,  as  a  rule,  moves  so 
slowly  to  grasp  any  new  idea  that  we  suppose  the  trouble 
must  go  on  unabated  till  men  have  their  eyes  opened  to  the 
terrible  annual  loss  they  are  sustaining. 
Milk  fever  hapoily  is  a  tangible  complaint,  the  preven¬ 
tion  of  which  really  rests  with  ourselves.  We  know  the 
cause  and  we  know  the  preventive  remedy.  It  does  not 
steal  upon  us  with  such  deadly  uncertainty  as  does  the 
abortion  trouble— that  we  can  often  trace  to  the  source — 
but  milk  fever  is  a  good  bit  attributable  to  our  own  laxity 
in  cow  management.  There  will  be  cases  just  to  prove  the 
rule,  but  in  many  big  dairy  farms  the  disease  is  practically 
unknown. 
We  wish  we  could  impress  our  friends  with  the  desir¬ 
ability  of  getting  a  few  more  winter  calvers.  There  is  such 
an  outcrv  in  this  village  at  present,  both  for  butter  and 
milk,  one  man  pathetically  remarking  he  was  sick  of 
dripping  and  bread.  What  bit  of  butter  there  is  is  spoken 
for  well  beforehand,  and  an  extra  pint  of  milk  is  not  to  be 
had  save  in  a  tinned  form,  and  this  is  a  purely  agricultural 
part.  One  man  told  us  with  glee  he  had  five  cows  to  calve 
in  March,  but  by  that  time  other  people  will  be  in  the  same 
case,  and  down  tumbles  the  price. 
We  are  not  surprised  that  with  scantily  supplied  dairies 
the  managing  housewife  prefers  to  churn  only  once  a  fort¬ 
night.  We  don’t  blame  her,  but  we  do  eschew  her  butter. 
The  factory  system  would  alter  all  this.  All  these  “  little 
sups  ”  would  be  gathered  freshly  and  blended,  and  freshly 
worked,  so  that  a  good,  oleasant-favoured  article  would 
adorn  our  tables  instead  of  the  highly-flavoured  one  that 
now  turns  the  stomach  of  the  most  ardent  butter  lover. 
Work  on  the  Home  Farm. 
Pastime  is  a  more  suitable  term  than  work  on  the  farm  to-day. 
We  have  a  wet  (very  wet)  day ;  then  a  fine  morning,  a  wet  after¬ 
noon,  and  a  fine  day  to  follow;  then  another  downpour.  We 
are  at  our  wits’  end  to  find  useful  work  at  all  for  the  horses,  and 
the  work  the  men  are  engaged  in  is  chiefly  manufactured  for 
the  occasion.  The  most  useful  work  for  the  men  lately  has  been 
that  of  keeping  surface  drains  open  and  creating  new  ones  where 
necessary.  No  ploughing  or  similar  land  work  has  been  possible 
during  the  week,  and  there  is  little  likelihood  of  its  being  possible 
for  another  week  to  come;  and  the  best  advice  to  farmers  just 
now  is  to  leave  the  land  alone. 
We  have  been  carting  manure  out  into  “hill,”  which  under 
different  conditions  would  have  been  left  in  the  yards  some 
weeks  and  then  spread  directly  on  the  land,  thus  saving  much 
labour. 
The  threshing  which  we  spoke  of  last  week  is  still  undone, 
as  it  would  have  been  madness  even  on  the  finest  day  to  thresh 
barley  from  stacks  the  sides  of  which  avere  soaking  wet.  There 
you  find  the  best  of  testimonials  for  Dutch  barns,  for  with  your 
grain  well  housed  in  them  you  are  independent  of  weather  on 
threshing  days. 
We  hear  great  comnlaints  of  the  unthriftiness  of  straw-fold 
cattle ‘this  winter^  and  the  cause  is  probably  not  far  to  seek. 
Much  of-5t'he'  straw  which  is  being  used  for  foddering  purposes 
is  almost' uerl,0«.S.  as  food,  yet  the  animals  are  expected  to  feed 
•on  it,  orp;at  anyl’ate,  oiSe  it  as  their  chief  article  of  diet.  Good 
straw  is  most  useful  for  .such  a  purpose,  but  not  half-rotten  stuff 
iir  a  .state  apnroaching  that  of  manure.  If  such  straw  is  used 
at  all  it  should  only  be  bi  a  cut  state  and  in  conjunction  with 
pulned  roots,  treacle,  salt,  and  condiments.  Malt  culms  or  dried 
grains  are  a  great  help  in  using  up  damaged  straw,  but  the  pro¬ 
portion  of  cut  straw  must  be  limited  and  the  mixture  made  three 
or  four  days  before  it  is  required  for  use.  '  . 
Sheep  on  limestona  soils  tread  through  mud  to  the  rock  every 
sten  they  take,  and  it  is  almost  impos.sible  forlhem  to  lie  down 
and  rest.  It  is  cruelty  to .  Iceep  them  on  the  turnipS'  wIth  the 
land  in  its,  present  state.  A  butcher  tells  us  that  his  skins  are 
unsaleable  until  they  have  been  washed.  ; 
