Difference in Food for Cows. If the milk is to be sold without being manufactured into butter or cheese, there are many kinds of food which may be given to force the quantity, that would injure the butter. For instance, oilcake is not right for making nice sweet butter, nor flaxseed, nor is swill, or any oily, greasy feed. Straw is altogether out of the question; hay, cut after it has been in bloom and the seed commencing to ripen, is only a few degrees better; thresh out the seed and knock off the leaves, and it is about equal.

A gentleman sent a communication or two, somewhere about this time last year, or it might have been earlier in the season, in which he clearly proved by his experience the vast difference between hay cut when the grass was quite young, and when in the state usually mowed in America. He formerly gave meal, &c., to help force milk, but since making his hay from grass so young and tender, his cows greatly increased their milk, and he recommended giving nothing but this fine quality of hay. However, though he was quite right with regard to the extraordinary superiority of such hay, yet where sweet, fresh bran and pollards can be bought by weight, and oats to be ground up and mixed, they are cheaper and better than the other articles enumerated by our Canadian correspondent; but pumpkins in the autumn, carrots through the winter and spring, after which successions of young forage crops till kins come round again, will admit of corn meal being given to the great addition of richness; and no matter what any one says to the contrary, if these things are given with no sparing hand, our Canadian neighbor will find this to be reliable information for the production of

rich milk.

pump

The well-digested and sensible remarks following the Canadian's quest for information, make it unnecessary to say more on the subject; perhaps there was no need of alluding to the subject at all, but having, ever since a child, been intimately connected with good dairies, some of which have been very extensive, and all of them being profitable ones, I think forty years' experience ought to be some authority. Linseed cake is the most fattening feed; the seed, boiled to a jelly, I have used, too, with good results; but either, though it increases the quantity of milk, and adds exceedingly to its richness, imparts an unpleasant flavor to but

ter.

If a man buys food for cows, he will not be

able to get pumpkins or roots at a price to pay, though some now and then would add to the health of the cows-that is, I am supposing in this case they are stabled in or near a town where they have no fields to roam in and get grass in fall, and I am thinking of milk being retailed to the inhabitants. In this case there would be no objection to mixing ground cake, &c., with bran, and brewers' grains (ale) will be found cheap to mix also.-Country Gentleman.

Profits of Farming.

At a recent meeting of the New York City Farmers' Club, it was announced that the farmers of the celebrated Orange county did not make over seven per cent. on capital invested; and Horace Greeley replied that he had no of calculations based on double what the farms doubt that this small figure was in consequence were worth. Mr. Greeley is probably wrong. We recently made some calculations on what many of our Montgomery county farmers realized, basing the value of the land on what it would probably bring at a forced sale, and found the average profits only two per cent.

We believe the trouble to be too much land

for too little capital, as stated in our columns last week.-Weekly Press.

This is a poor showing indeed-seven per cent. in the "celebrated Orange county" of New York, and two per cent. in the equally well known Montgomery county of Pennsylvania. We should be glad to know whether in the latter estimate Mr. Meehan, who we believe is responsible for the agricultural columns of The Press, has given the farm credit for the home furnished the owner, and the thousand articles of consumption which a family is provided with.

The farm, as an investment, should have credit, too, for an average yearly increase in value. A great deal of the wealth of those who have held real estate in Maryland, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, during the twenty-five years past, consists in the gradually enhanced value of such property. This is not indeed wholly creditable to the farming, but should be always considered in estimating the value of an investment.

The increased value in

Maryland averages for that period of time, we suppose, one hundred per cent.-equal to four per cent. per annum.-ED. AM. FARMER.

Sleep brings our childhood back again.

Destroying Tobacco Suckers. Under this heading we have another item of practical instruction, which, starting from so high a source as the monthly report of the Agricultural Department at Washington, is making its way without question among the journals. It is furnished for the monthly report by a Kentucky tobacco planter, for the benefit of "tobacco-growers who would save the labor and trouble of suckering their plants several times during the season." It is as follows: "At the time when suckering is about necessary, provide yourself with a small tin oil-can, the tinnner making the spout of it with a sharp point, similar in shape to the blade of a penknife; then filling your can with a solution of crude potash, go through the motion of suckering by breaking off such as you see, and then, with the point of your can, make an incision down obliquely into the stalk, just at the spot between the stem and the stalk, where the sucker would grow, dropping into the incision so made one drop of the potash. This is the whole secret: It will not injure the valuable leaf, check its growth or hurt the plant, but it will kill the germ of the future sucker. With practice a person can doctor a plant, as above stated, with as much celerity as one can do the suckering, and will thus save the trouble of going over and suckering millions of plants every year."

We do not suppose there is one person familiar with the practice of "suckering" tobacco, except the curious inventor of this method, who will be tempted and misled by it; but there are a great many novices just now in tobacco cultivation, and it is unfortunate for them that there is no word said against this fancy method of getting rid of suckers.

Supposing this operation of depositing a drop of fluid in an incision made at the foot of each leaf to be perfectly successful when done, which we very much doubt, the tin spout of an oil can is to be made "with a sharp point," like the blade of a knife, for the purpose of making an incision for the deposit, how long is so thin a slip of tin, "cutting obliquely into the stalk," likely to work well? Supposing no difficulty here, imagine the operator who, ordinarily, will put one hand to the lowest leaf and running it around as he ascends, clear out every sucker-imagine him, with his oil can in one hand and the other lifting each leaf to show him where to

make the stab with his blade, does any one who has ever suckered a plant of tobacco believe that, with any amount of “practice,” "a person can doctor the plant as above stated with as much celerity as one can do the suckering?"

But supposing this possible, where is the great advantage? The paragraph winds up with a flourish about the trouble saved "of going over and suckering millions of plants every year." Now, of course, the inventor of this notion designs to operate at every leaf— that is, wherever a sucker will grow, going over the whole crop. How much more is done by the common process? Each plant is topped in due time, and shortly after, the suckers begin to grow, starting at the bottom leaves and coming, one by one, in regular order, up the plant. There need be none taken out till the last one shows itself, and the plant suckered then, every one is destroyed, and destroyed so short a time before the crop is cut as to leave little chance of further trouble. All the saving proposed, however, is in this last clearing off of such as may start again, and are usually got rid of when the cutting commences. We prefer the old ways. - Weekly Sun

Improved Cattle--Ayrshires.

Within a period of about seventy years the leading breeds of cattle have been vastly improved, with respect to appearance, size, and productive powers. The precise period when this improvement commenced is not material, though tolerably distinct traces of it are found in records of a hundred years back, more or less.

Previous to that time the prevalent breeds of cattle on the Continent and the British Islands, were noticeable rather from the incompleteness of their make up, the dimi nutiveness of their bodies, and the paucity of their products, whether for the dairy or for slaughtering purposes. The peculiar distinctive divisions are Long-Horns, Middle-Horns, Hornless or Polled and Short Horns. There are several intermediate varieties differing, in some characteristics, but still retaining a general family resemblance to one or the other of the leading classes.

Whether it has been by crossing, on the part of breeders, or from improved manage|ment and keeping, certain it is that all the leading stocks have shown marked improvement within the last thirty or forty years.

Among the most noticeable of these improved breeds, and marked favorites with cattle breeders and dairymen, is the Ayrshire, supposed to be an improved development of the old Teeswater, once in high repute in various parts of England. Flint, in his treatise on milch cows and dairy farming, devotes considerable space to this breed, and concludes that for dairy purposes purely or mainly, the Ayrshires deserve the first place. In consequence of the cow's small, symmetrical and compact body, well formed chest, and capacious stomach, there is little waste through the respiratory system; while at the same time, there is a very complete assimilation of the food, and thus she converts a large proportion of her food into milk. It is the verdict of many dairyman that, for the quantity of food consumed, the Ayrshire cow gives a larger return of milk, and of a better quality, than any other breed.-Ex.

sense.

Hay, Corn and Roots Compared. It is not to be hoped that in the mass of matter now published on agricultural topics we may escape without a good deal of nonEven the best of your journals sometimes supply us with absurdities, through their correspondents; how much more when the editorial chair is assumed by such as, being themselves blind, can be only blind guides. It is plain to see, by the careful reader of our agriculturial journals, that there are too many who think it a small matter to fill

the place of editor; and a small matter it is, indeed, when the work is made to consist only of clippings and gatherings, with none of the discrimination which only good judgment, guided by experience, can give.

In illustration of what we say, we copy here from an exchange, which ranks deservedly with the ablest of our agricultural periodicals, the following estimate of the "comparative value of hay, corn and roots," in which it will be remarked, by the way, that the comparison is confined to hay and roots:

"An acre of ground retained expressly for hay, yields on an average not more than one and one-half ton of vegetable food; an equal space planted with carrots or ruta-bagas will yield from ten to twenty tons, say fifteen tons, which is by no means a high average, and has often been attained without any extraordinary cultivation. It has been ascertained, by care

ful experiment, that three working horses, fifteen and one-half hands high, consume hay at the rate of two-hundred pounds per week, or five tons and one thousand and forty-eight pounds per annum, besides one and one-half bushel of oats per week, or seventy-eight per annum. By a repetition of the same experiment it was found that an unworked horse consumed hay at the rate of four and onequarter tons per annum.

"The produce, therefore, of nearly six acres of land is necessary to support a working horse for one year, but half an acre of carrots, at six hundred bushels per acre, with the addition of chopped straw, while the season for feeding them lasts, will do as well, if not better. These things do not admit of doubt, for they have been the subject of exact trials, as some of your agricultural friends can testify." It is to be regretted that, much as has been written on the matter of feeding roots, and their value as compared with other articles of food, there have been, so far as we know, no experiments of such character as can at all determine the question, which is one of very real importance. Here is a writer, however, who is described in commendation, as an "old correspondent" of a journal, which is very often quoted, and is entitled to the reputation of being generally sensible and practical.— This "old correspondent" settles such a question with the mere assertion that "these things do not admit of a doubt," and that somebody can testify" to their truth; and his article is passed around as a wise thing, for no other reason than that an “old correspondent" of such a journal is presumed to be wise, and a good many persons want to believe that it is a part of improved husbandry to substitute roots for hay.

In further illustration of the reasoning of the "old correspondent" it will be seen, that in the first lines of the paragraphs he compares the product of hay from "an acre of ground retained expressly for hay" with “an equal space planted with carrots or ruta-bagas," without any reference to the cost incurred in the due preparation and manuring for a crop

of roots.

Again, he compares one and one-half ton of dried hay, the yield of an acre, with fifteen tons of roots, without reference to the great percentage of water of which their weight is composed.

In another place he compares again with