to be preserved in a room in which sulphur is burned, and which is closed as far as possible against the admission of fresh air. The process has been repeatedly tested within the last few weeks, and always, we are informed with the most satisfactory results. A sheep's head was kept fresh for thirteen days; a crab, which is well known to be a peculiarly perishable edible, was kept perfectly sweet for eight days; and a lamb's head and pluck, after having been kept four days and a half, was prepared for the table, and pronounced to be in excellent condition. The plan succeeds quite as well with fish-haddocks which had been fumigated two or three times, having been found quite fresh after seven days. It is evident that a process so simple and so easily practiced will confer a great benefit even upon private households, while, if found equally efficacious on a more extended scale, it is calculated to produce an entire revolution in the preparation and preservation of what are now known as salted provisions.-Scottish Farmer.

The Science of Agriculture. Among the many branches into which the advance of civilization has divided the pursuits of mankind, there is none more important in its relations to the welfare and existence of the human race than that of agriculture; yet there is scarcely one to which the term "science" is less generally applied. The practitioners of medicine, chemistry, and even of law, and students and devotees of the countless systems which are evolved by the constant attrition of modern ideas, claim the term as belonging to their distinctive professions, while that of the farmer is often spoken of, and, in fact, regarded merely as an occupation requiring little more than manual labor and a steady adherence to methods already established by usage and experience; but no belief could be more fallacious or more injurious to the true interests of the art of husbandry.

To gain, directly or indirectly, the greatest return from the soil, for the least outlay of labor, is the primary object of farming; and this object can be perfectly obtained only by a judicious use of natural and organic forces, the knowledge of which constitutes "science" in its broadest sense. From the first bursting of the seed to the yellowing of the harvest, the plant is subjected to the active agencies of heat and moisture, as well as to that exerted by the character of the soil; and the influence of these agencies can be fully understood and made available only by an acquaintance with some of the greatest of modern discoveries. So, in like manner, the care of stock involves some of the most important axioms of

physiology; to effectually remedy the ravages of insects there is required a knowledge of entomology; while the almost universal introduction of machinery into farming operations necessitates a by no means inconsiderable familiarity with the principles of mechanics. Not only these, but many other branches might be enumerated, a knowledge of which is requisite to the most successful farming; and which, molded into a whole and directed to a common object, constitutes the science of agriculture-a science which, like every other, has grown up by slow gradations from comparative rudeness, and is still capable of indefinite progress. That this progress must result directly from the efforts of the farming community itself is undeniable, and that it must arise from the careful and extended application of scientific truths to the every day affairs of farm life is equally beyond a doubt, for there is no more potent or unerring agent than hard, practical common-sense, guided by a competent understanding of the laws of nature; and the most obvious field of improvement is not more in the adaptation and employment of the best known methods of performing the varied duties of the farm and the use of the most favorably known machinery, that in the improvement of such methods and machines in their details and minor points, so as to adapt them more perfectly to particular purposes and to the special wants of different localities; and such improvements are far more likely to arise from the active brains of the scientific farmer than from that of one who regards his profession as a simple and unpretending occupation. None are so likely to adapt their crops to the quality of the soil as he who has made the nature of that soil a study; and none so apt to apply the proper manure at the proper time and in the proper manner as he who has made himself familiar with the composition of fertilizers and their effects upon differerent plants. No man is so likely to make a really valuable improvement in an agricultural machine as the farmer who, while using it, sees its defect, and possesses the mechanicsl skill and training to originate and construct. It is, in fact, from the efforts of men like this that the real advancement of agriculture must be derived; and by further improvements in the management of crops and of stock, in machinery and in manure, farming will be brought to claim its true dignity, and become in name as it is already is in fact-a noble science.-American Artisan.

A horse has been imported into New Jersey from Belgium, which is said to weigh 2368 lbs., and to be twenty hands high.

Beef.

Our prospects of meat supply for the winter have been damaged, so far as they depend on home sources, by the protracted rains of August, and especially of September, which have seriously reduced the root crops for winter provender. We have learned, however, from experience to look abroad, and to fill our larders from the shiploads which the Dutch, Belgian, Baltic, and French ports are ready to discharge upon our coasts. It will be remembered how, in 1866, when the rinderpest was at its height, and, owing to the then absence of efficient regulations, the panic which it inspired was greatest, the price of meat was by importation reduced as low or lower than it had been in 1865, save for the finer qualities of mutton. There seem to be some reasons for now reopening the question, which, owing to the extortionate prices of butchers in London, reached a paramount interest last year. In taking stock, however, of home resources, or, indeed, of the resources of any grazing country, there is a point of economy to which we wish to direct attention. The common practice of butchers, and probably graziers, is to charge high for lamb, and proportionally low for mutton. Lamb, being esteemed a luxury, is charged according to the price which people are willing to pay, rather than in proportion to the cost of keep and outlay on the animal. A lamb which has been let grow six months has perhaps cost 6d. per week, or 13s. has gone into his carcase during the half year. He will then weigh, say, six stone (butchers'), and sell for 6s. the stone; that is to say, the outlay of 13s. has produced a return of 368., or a profit of 23s., being 177 per cent. Let him go, on the other hand, for three months more, and his keep will have risen from 6d. to 9d., or 10d. per week. He will have cost in all about 24s., will weigh nine stone, and sell for 54s., or 125 per cent. profit. Under these conditions it will be seen that the profit has fallen 50 per cent. by grazing the animal three months longer. In the same way, calculating his keep after nine months at Is. per week, if that expense let run on for nine months more, the animal slaughtered at 18 months will have cost a little over 62s., and may be estimated to weigh 112 lbs., and to fetch 848., yielding a profit of 21s., or hardly more than 30 per cent. These figures seem to show that, viewed as a matter of avoirdupois and hard cash, the creature has been simply "eating his head off" ever since he was six months old. The same reasoning will hold good as regards veal as compared with beef,

three years old. Veal, however, seldom differs from beef in price so much as lamb differs from mutton. The prices at which we have set the stone of lamb or mutton are indeed "topping" prices, but they are equally so all along, and therefore that consideration does not affect the result arrived at on the whole. The proportion of profit will be manifestly the same.

As a set-off against the apparent advantage of consuming lamb instead of mutton, there should be taken into account the value of the fleece in

shearing. Putting this, however, as high as it can reasonably be put, it can go but a little way to balance the exceedingly rapid rate at which the expenses of grazing tend to diminish the grazier's profits on the adult animal. Some would perhaps contend that there is a greater incidental value in the manure of the adult animal than in the case of the lambs which under the system of slaughtering would represent him. The experiment has not probably received sufficient attention, or been tried on a scale sufficiently extensive, for any opinion to be confidently pronounced upon the question. Assuming, however, that from the value of the fleece, and from any supposed advantage in manuring, the profits on the sheep of 18 months were doubled, or that 60 per cent. profit were realized upon the whole results, yet even this, which, we think, must be allowed to be a tolerably liberal margin, falls far below the 177 per cent. at 6 months, or the 125 per cent. at 9 months, which we have shown may be expected on an exclusive system of lambgrazing.

The conclusion at which we arrive, then, is that a pound of lamb can be produced for very much less cost than a pound of mutton, and that the continued grazing by which a lamb of 48 pounds is transformed into a sheep of more than double that weight, would be far more economically applied in producing another lamb, or rather a lamb and a half, in the same time. The grazier's problem is simply to produce the maximum of meat from the minimum of food, and he finds his account in bringing to market the greatest weight of edible flesh for the expenditure which he is obliged to make in grazing. If there is any truth in the figures which we have adduced, our sheepmasters go out of the way to diminish their own profits. Instead of "following nature the best guide," as a wise ancient habit, they adopt an artificial standard and neglect a truly economic system; and the result is the same as if so much herbage, root crops, &c., as represents the difference between the profits on a sheeep and the profits on two-and-a

half lambs were burnt, or thrown into the sea. It further follows that we habitually pay the butcher for lamb and mutton in something like the inverse ratio of the cost of their production. | It is old meat which should be dear and young meat which should be cheap, if the value expended upon the animal ruled the market price demanded. It may, of course, be answered that, by taking one with another, the total result of the transactions upon a whole flock balances any such seeming disproportion in detail. And if the question were merely as to the relative adjustment of prices, the existing system remaining as it is, this might be a sufficient answer. But it is further obvious that the consideration of the comparative scarcity of lamb in the market enters into the question of the fancy price which is put upon, and paid for it. That which might be plentiful and cheap is made artificially scarce, and consequently dear: and the artificial price thus kept up for lamb is therefore worth dwelling upon as a specimen result of the whole artificial system. As regards the figures themselves we feel some confidence in their accuracy, as they are based on the experience of some of the largest Wiltshire sheep-masters. And although they might probably require some correction for other districts, yet we cannot think that any such allowance on this score would be required as seriously to invalidate the conclusion to which they point.-London paper.

Oxen and Horses.

The comparative value of oxen and horses for farm labor is not so well understood as it should be by our Western farmers. We were brought up among the granite hills of New Hampshire, where little or no agricultural labor is, or ever has been imposed upon the horse. The ox is the universal beast of burden for farm labor, while the horse is, in the main, only used as a roadster. We have seen enough, both East and West, to establish the economy of a more general use of oxen on the farm, here at the West.

A farmer friend gives us some statistics in regard to the labor performed by a single yoke of oxen, which should interest every farmer. His experience is conclusive, that the ox, well taken care of, is equal to the horse for the purpose named. He says:

"I am satisfied that such is the fact, from the amount of labor performed by a yoke of oxen I have had during the past summer. They plowed 53 acres of land, only six of which were old, or land in crop the previous year, the balance being heavy sward land, broken deep, nine t

The dragging

twelve inches, and well laid over. was, most of it, performed by them, with a 32 tooth harrow, being assisted, a part of the time, by a pair of three year-old steers. The breaking was done with two and three-year-old steers to assist the oxen (one pair of each) and sometimes with a pair of horses instead of the steers. The oxen, however, travelled every furrow with the plough, and did more than three-fourths of the whole dragging, much of it being done in hot weather. They now weigh 3096 pounds. In addition to all this work they drew all the hay and grain, and performed much other work.

The keeping, during the spring months, was hay and three pecks of rutabagas each per day; after the roots were gone, twelve quarts of oats with hay fed regularly, and watered three times per day. They were tied up in the stable with as much regularity as the horses, and the yoke taken off at noon to rest them. When grass became of good size, so they could fill themselves in an hour or so, no grain was given, and they continued in good health and spirits. Whereve and whenever oxen are used, they generally do most of the hard work, while the horses get the lion's share of the grain. I am well satisfied that the ox, for agricultural labor, is underrated, because he is unfairly dealt with."-Iowa Homestead.

Dutch Cows.

The editor of the New England Farmer recently visited the farm of Mr. Chenery, near Boston, where he saw some of the Dutch cattle imported by Mr. C. He gives the following account of what he saw in the stables:

Entering the stalls we found a man milking one of the Dutch cows. She had been milked twice before during the day, and while we stood by he filled a common water pail and commenced upon another, the milk still flowing as freely as it did into the first pail! A cow stood near that had dropped a calf a few days before, which weighed. at birth 113 pounds! And another brought twins which weighed at birth 153 pounds! A three or four-year-old heifer stood by for which Mr. C. had been offered $1200 and declined it! All were as splendid specimens of

cows as we ever saw. Two noble bulls of the same breed, large and of most exact symmetry, were also present. Their weight must be some 1700 pounds each.

WHAT is the difference between a summer dress in winter and an extracted tooth? One is too thin and the other tooth out!