out any previous design, it occurred to him that the milk business was carried on in a way open to many objections, and he began to make experiments and plans in the direction of entering upon it in a more systematic and thorough-going way. At the same time other business having been deranged by the war, he disconnected himself with former undertakings, and was at liberty to devote his time to the subject. The system at present adopted has thus been the gradual outgrowth from four or five years of constant experiment. I must speak of generalities just now, but have prepared some sketches to appear with fuller details hereafter. And, first, as regards the land: that this purpose has been subserved; and though, as we shall see, in itself a satisfactory undertaking, Mr. Winans has now passed the limits of three score years and ten, and naturally desires to avoid for himself and household the superintendence and labor involved in the proper management and daily sale of 400 to 425 gallons of milk in the various lots demanded by custom ers. The fact that one chief end of the stock was to contribute, as just stated, toward the recuperation of the farm, did not induce so close a thinker to neglect their welfare, or content himself with other results of an inferior or even mediocre character. While they were to be in his hands, he determined to solve the problem of combining their highest comfort and largest productiveness -two objects, indeed, in his opinion, as in that of good farmers generally, that are indissolubly connected. And as he proposes soon to go abroad for some time, and, just now, beef is relatively higher than milk, he is gradually working off his stock, and it is thus the more desirable that the experiments he has carried out should be placed on record for the benefit of othAnd while, as I said, the sale of milk is believed to be remunerative under the management we are to describe, I must, in sincerity, add that, as a business for one who is accustomed to the high standard of complete integrity in all his ers. In early life Mr. Winans was himself a farmer, and from experience then, as well as reasoning, he had full confidence in the power of liberal manuring to compel the land to give up its stores of plant food at man's bidding. There was a double object to be accomplished-the production of a better sod which would make a crop of hay worth the cutting, and the destruction of the weeds with which the land was overrun. Both these ends were to be brought about, he thought, by such a liberal application of manure, accompanied by abundant seeding, that the ground would yield its utmost product of valuable herbage, while valueless intruders would be stifled out through the greater strength of the grass, and its ability to thrive under repeated cut-dealings, this has one serious and very untings which they cannot bear. I have before me a schedule of cash payments for stable manures purchased of the various railways and express companies and others, including items of from $1000 to $2500 at a time, and aggregating an amount which would frighten most beginners. Bought in so wholesale a way, of course the cost price was lower than it would have been for smaller quantities, but the cash thus paid out was less than the transportation and labor of getting it on to the land, so that the sum total, together with expenditures for plaster, lime and ashes, altogether amounts to more than the original price paid for the farm. This was, on an average, not quite $75 per acre. It was not sufficient to buy--Mr. W. perceived the importance of making a heavy stock of manure beside. When, therefore, the project of keeping a milk dairy on a large scale came up, it was embraced as the best means offering, and as a temporary expedient in bringing the land up as a hay-farm, which was believed to be the best purpose to which it could ultimately be devoted, involving the least personal supervision in future years, and ensuring a reasonable return for the outlay required. And I may say here' pleasant drawback. The custom of diluting milk is so universal that the honest man is, as it were, driven out of all connection with a dishonest traffic. Mr. Winans, for example, disposes of his milk, of course, to retail dealers, and he has never sold to them at less than 30 cents per gallon. They can buy of others at 25 cents, but have preferred to pay him his price, because they could water a pure article more than one that was already somewhat diluted. No responsibility for their acts can rest on his shoulders, it is true; but when any pursuit is carried on, at least partially for mental and physical recreation, one likes to avoid all connection, however remote, with anything that is not open and above-board. This unsavory reputation does adhere to the trade in milk, and to that reason in all likelihood, we may ascribe the fact that it is in the hands of a class of dealers in very low position, both morally and pecuniarily. I said that though rendered somewhat familiar by correspondence, with what Mr. Winans has done, I did not realize it as I have come to do by personal examination for a few days past. Let me illustrate by a few figures I am permitted to copy from his books: It is only since the first of May, (and therefore not included in the foregoing statement,) that Mr. Winans has begun to reduce his stock, and the sales given only include the usual surplus of the year. Moreover, although no count or inventory was taken at the two dates referred to, it is estimated that the number of cattle on hand was 15 or 20 greater May 1st, 1867, than May 1st, 1866. Their value is to be added to the above figures, as is also that of 100 tons hay sold at $38 per ton. ($3,800,) and about 220 tons estimated now on hand-so that it is easy to see that the aggregate production of the year may be safely put down at $50,000. The cost of feed, mainly bran or shorts and Indian corn, and that of labor on the farm and in the stables and dairy, are of course to be deducted. If we add the value of the manure produced, and charge it over to the cost price of the farm, it will somewhat increase the latter, and so much enlarge the yearly profit. Indeed the present value of the 700 acres may be fairly rated at $200 per acre, and this is just about what has been invested-say $50,000 in the cost of land, $67,000 in manures and fertilizers, purchased and produced, including transportation and labor, $20,000 in buildings, and $3,000 in fencing. these are round numbers, but will serve the purpose of illustrating the scale on which the operation has been conducted. On visiting the two farms, we found them in excellent condition. The standard grass crop, though backward, (mowing begun May 20th in 1866,) bids fair to exceed that of last year. And as to last year's crop, I can only say that it filled forty-five barns, rated at 40 tons each, being an aggregate of eighteen hundred tons-the largest hay crop I remember to have seen on record cut by an individual in a single year! The estimate can be tested in this way: 300 head of cattle and 30 horses were fed on hay all the year round, and 320 tons were sold or left over-which would account for an average consumption of less than 25 lbs. hay per head per day. Now, as to the surface on which this crop was grown: The two farms together have about 760 acres, of which there is one considerable patch that is still wet and not in order, leaving, with other deductions, less than 700 acres to mow-probably not over 650-so that the crop, at the lowest figures, was over two and a half tons to the acre. So much for liberal manuring! This year three more barns are to be put up, and it is hoped that the crop will be nearly or quite two thousand tons. The stables are in the city, and contain stalls for 220 cows. I shall give a drawing and description hereafter, but cannot forbear sending on a few figures now, in order to draw attention to what may follow. The number of cows actually milked has varied from 180 to 200 for two years past, while nearly 100 more are kept at the farm to draw upon as circumstances require. The average yield of milk per cow per day, when tested, has been about two and one-tenth gallons, but no record has been kept showing the average number of days in the year which each cow has been milked. It may be computed from the facts that are satisfactorily ascertained, however, to be very nearly 315 days; and, upon this basis, we shall make an average yearly yield of 2,637 quarts per cow, which for an establishment of such extent, I need not say is exceedingly large. Most of these calculations, I should add, are my own, from the data furnished by Mr. Winans' books, and they are not made up with any other view than to get at the exact facts of the case. Many of the cows very much exceed the average, and I copy the following from the records of number which attracted my attention as we passed through the stalls : Average daily yield of milk of several cows, from a record kept of the amount they gave at intervals of about three times per month-in quarts and hundredths: to each cow. A third list might include 14 heifers, with their first calves, which have now been in milk from one to six months, and have averaged 13 quarts per day each. I must drop the subject here for the present. But it should be stated that all Mr. Winans' farming, the construction of his buildings, and the selection of his cattle, have been done with a purely practical aim, nothing is any where spent for ornament or effect, but everything for utility, and the design has been to adapt one thing to another, so as to yield the best return from a given source. As to his stables, I have never seen cows apparently in better health and condition, and more thoroughly at their ease, even in our best herds of breeding cattle; as to his farm, I do not recall a case in which I have found an equal area more free from weeds, or yielding a heavier product. DUNN'S ROCK, N. C., June 13, 1867. Editor of American Farmer: DEAR SIR: Your experience is necessarily of that kind which may be termed "reliable," and I should be glad to avail myself of it for myself and one or two friends, on the subject of Texas. Would it be presuming too much to ask you to insert a few lines in the July number of the "Farmer" with special reference to the following particulars: The most healthy part of Texas. The price at which a desirable tract of land could be bought, with improvements or without. If the country is in as depressed a condition as the South generally is. Straw for Feeding. We find in the papers the following paragraph, attributed to Dr. Dadd, the veterinary surgeon of Boston: "I have often noticed," he says, "that sick horses will eat oat straw in preference to any other kind of fodder. Oat straw contains a vast amount of nutrimental matter, and some phosphates, and when converted into a sort of bran, by means of millstones, is a very nourishing diet. This sort of aliment is very useful when combined with ground oats, for animals whose systems lack the requisite amount of phosphates, &c." What the doctor remarks of sick horses he might have extended as well to horses in health, and to other animals; with all of which, without exception, so far as we know, it is a favorite fodder. Both oat straw and wheat straw are much too commonly slighted as articles of fodder, and thought to be fit only for litter. This observation was forced upon us many years ago when inspecting the beautiful short horns of Mr. Beltshoover, near Baltimore, which many of our readers may remember. With racks well filled with the best timothy, they might be seen to turn to the clean oat straw thrown under them for litter; indicating to the host of the Fountain Inn, that as he, at his own table, as we noticed the same day, even in the presence of turkey and beef, did not despise the bacon and greens, so did not they despise the change made by the straw from their daily dainties of best hay and steamed grain. We think it very extravagant to say that oat straw contains "a vast amount of nutrimental In a word, any information that would be use- matter." No working animal can be maintainful to families contemplating a permanent settle-ed on it for any length of time without grain; ment in Texas. Would sheep farming be profitable? but with a due amount of grain, it furnishes, with some nutriment, the bulk required to make I have examined carefully the back numbers the best food a horse can have. We know good of the "Farmer," and can find little or no in-horse-masters, too, who, feeding moderately on formation on the subject of Texas, and think that you may not, perhaps, object to the introduction into your columns of a few remarks, that I know will be acceptable to some of your subscribers. MELROSE. As we are not sufficiently informed to make a satisfactory reply to the above, we refer it to our friend, Thos. Affleck, Esq., or some other Texan, who may favour us with the information sought. -Editor Farmer. The Fair of the New Hampshire State Agricultural Society is to be held at Nashua, Sept. 10, 11 and 12. corn in winter, do not care to have other long food than clean wheat straw. The suggestion of grinding the straw "into a sort of bran" is very absurd, and based, we suppose, on the extravagant estimate of the nutriment it is designed to develop. It does not appear that either horses or cows fail to digest the straw in its natural state. The act of mastication so essential to digestion, seems quite sufficient for its proper reduction. If it were not, the cost of grinding would, under no ordinary circumstances, be compensated by the increased power of nutrition. It would be worse than the extravagance, which some years ago sacrificed thousands of dollars in the purchase of machines for grinding corn-cobs. Corn-cobs show, on analysis, some nutriment matter, but not enough to pay for grinding. Some gold mines do not pay the cost of working them. As to Dr. Dadd's remarks on "animals whose systems want the requisite amount of phosphates," it seems to us far too learned for the occasion. We have heard a great deal of this scientific talk of the need of phosphates, and supplying this or that particular article of diet to cure the deficiency. Plain people should learn that a cow, whose system "wants the requisite phosphates," is a poor beast, that has not had a sufficient supply of any good food known to cows or cow-keepers. Then they will not need Dr. Dadd to tell them that oat straw and ground oats would be very good aliment. So would corn blades and corn meal be excellent aliment; or even good wheat straw and a daily supply of bran. In summer, any good grass lot would supply all the phosphates her system might require. All articles known to us as good food for animals furnish, if given in proper quantity, enough of this essential ingredient. This fact is sufficient for our guidance under ordinary circumstances. The cow, besides the phosphates she may require in common with other animals, yields a large quantity in her daily flow of milk. It is a proper subject of scientific inquiry whether the variety of food which is found in experience to be most productive of milk is that which contains the largest percentage of phosphates. The Power of a Growing Tree. Walton Hall had at one time its own cornmill, and when that inconvenient necessity no longer existed, the mill-stone was laid in an orchard and forgotten. The diameter of this circular stone measured five feet and a half, while its depth averaged seven inches throughout; its central hole had a diameter of eleven inches. By mere accident, some bird or squirrel had dropped the fruit of the filbert tree through this hole on to the earth, and in 1812 the seedling was seen rising up through that unwonted channel. As its trunk gradually grew through this aperture and increased, its power to raise this ponderous mass of stone was speculated on by many. Would the filbert tree die in the attempt? Would it burst the mill-stone, or would it lift it? In the end the little filbert tree lifted the millstone, and in 1863 wore it like crinoline about its trunk, and Mr. Waterton used to sit upon it under the branching shade.—English Paper. Too Rich for Wheat. rience lies in one of the finest districts of MaryWe were told lately, by a farmer, whose expeland, that the most uncertain portions of the lands of his neighbornood, for wheat, were those which were richest, viz, the bottom lands. He spoke of the clover fallow of a neighboring farm which averaged forty-two bushels of wheat to the acre, on a fifty acre field, and thought that this would not be an unusual thing but for the uncertainty of the bottom lands. When they yield well the result was always a heavy crop, but the average was often greatly reduced by their failure. The hills and hill-sides very seldom failed. This result as to the bottom lands did not take place when corn was the crop with this there was rarely a failure. Our friend had formed the opinion that land might be too rich for wheat but not for corn. When we called to mind how often crops of this grain had, elsewhere, even exceeded the heavy average named, and that sixty and even seventy bushels have been often reached, we could not concur in this opinion. But the fact may be well accounted for, we think, by imperfect drainage. There is always, as is very apparent, excess of moisture, even in the driest of such lands. In the summer season there may not be more than sufficient for a heavy crop of corn, but in winter of the wheat in freezing and thawing, and esit will be very likely to cause the throwing out pecially subject it in summer to destruction by rust. It will be remarked that what is here vacant is not land in any degree swampy, for no one would think of putting wheat in such land. It is quite dry enough, in all ordinary seasons, to plow well, and sufficiently drained to draw the water readily from the surface, but there is too much moisture in the subsoil, and when the sun gets much power in the early summer, it makes just the condition of things favorable to rust. Moreover, the wheat is always more succulent here and keeps green longer; both circumstances favoring the attacks of rust. We should be glad to see experiments made in draining these bottoms. Mr. John Johnston said, some years ago: "I did last year what I never did before; that was plowing up wheat stubble and sowing again with wheat. It is a respectable looking crop now, but if you saw the half of the field that I sowed salt on, say a full barrel to the acre, I am almost sure you would order forty or fifty barrels of second quality of salt to sow in September or October. The salted wheat stands much thicker on the ground, is considerably taller, came in ear fully four days before the other, and altogether looks richer every way; and as I had not salt enough to sow the whole field, I sowed the half that has hitherto brought the worst crop, and latest in ripening. Now it is much the best. I can stand in the middle of the field and look forty-five rods each way, and see distinctly how far the salt came; or I can ride or walk down the side of the field not salted, and see the line as plainly as if on the one side was corn and the other wheat. If this won't make men experiment with salt I don't know what will." Salt may be made very useful in economising manures, as directed in the Gardener's Chronicle: Dissolve common salt in water, sprinkle the same over your manure heap, and the volatile parts of the ammonia will become fixed salts, from their being united with the muriatic acid of the common salt; and the soda, thus liberated from the salt, will quickly absorb carbonic acid, forming carbonate of soda; thus you will retain with your manure the ammonia that would otherwise fly away, and you have also a new and most important agent introduced, viz, the carbonate of soda, which is a powerful solvent of all vegetable fiore. It is matter of surprise that opinions among scientific as well as practical men should be so unsettled as to a substance so familiar as common salt. It would be well to have it freely experimented with, and we especially wish to see its effects tested on the bottom grounds considered too rich for wheat. Why Scalded Meal is More Nutritious than Raw. The nutriment afforded to animals by seeds and roots depends upon the rupture of all the globules which constitute their meal flour. These globules vary in different roots, tubers and seeds. Those of potato starch, for instance, are usually from fifteen ten-thousandths to the four-thou sandth part of an inch; those of wheat really exceed the two-thousandth part of an inch, and so on. From experiments made on these globules by M. Rapsail, the author of "Organic Chemistry," and M. Boit, of the French Academy of Sciences, the following conclusions have been drawn: 1. The globules constituting meal, flour and starch, whether contained in grain or root, are incapable of affording any nourishment as animal food, until they are broken. 2. That no mechanical method of breaking or grinding, is more than partially efficient. 3. That the most efficient means of breaking the globules is by heat, by fermentation, or by the chemical agency of acids or alkalies. 4. That the dextrine, which is the kernel, as it were, of each globule, is alone soluble, and therefore alone nutritive. 5. That the shells of the globules, when reduced to fragments by mechanism or heat, are therefore not nutritive. 6. That though the fragments of these shells are not nutritive, they are indispensable to digestion, either from their distending the stomach or from some other cause not understood; it having been found by experiment that concentrated nourishment, such as sugar or essence of beef, cannot long sustain life without some mix. ture of coarser or less nutritive food. 7. That the economical preparation of all food containing globules or fecula, consists in perfectly breaking the shells, and rendering the dextrine contained in them soluble and digestible, while the fragments of the shells are at the same time rendered more bulky, so as the more readily to fill the stomach.-Selected. Necessity for More Reliable Experiments. We have had theories of agriculture without end, propounded for our consideration; innumerable guesses have been hazarded upon every conceivable topic; inclusive of experiments, which no man can number have been made, and yet, to our shame be it spoken, there is scarcely a single question which has been mooted in American agriculture, that can be said to be settled on the sure basis of reliable experiments. Many of our indigenous grasses have never been analyzed. There is a hopeless discrepancy between the analysis which have been made in Europe and America. Thus, by the analysis of Mr. Way, in England, the ash of timothy gives 11 per cent. of the phosphates and 24 per cent. of potash. According to the analysis of the same grass, made by Mr. Salesbury, under the direction of Prof. Emmons, at Albany, it contains 16 per cent. of the phosphates and 36 per cent. of potash. COMPARATIVE VALUES OF FOODS-ACTUAL TRIALS AT THE MANGER. The theoretical value assigned by Boussingault to rye straw, in comparison with English hay, was 479 lbs. That is, 479 lbs. was equivalent to 100 lbs. of English hay. Fresenius, as the result of his analysis, gave 527 lbs. of straw as equivalent to 100 lbs. of hay. Boussingault makes 319 lbs. of potatoes, 70 lbs. of Indian corn, and 60 lbs. of oats, each equivalent, in nutritive principles, to 100 lbs. hay. Fresenius |