The Portland daily press., 1877-02-26
THE PRESS.
THE FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Vermont Agriculture.

In the Vermont Farmer:
SELECTION OF DAIRY COWS.
The old method was 10 select such COWS
as appeared well, without testing their value
for tie butter dairy. Recent experiments
have shown that there is a great difference in
COWS in this respect, and by careful selec-
ton the product of butter could probably be
doubled, even if the number of cows was re-
duced twenty-five per cent. A dairyman
who formerly made only 100 lbs. per COW,
now has an average of 300 lbs. as the result
of careful breeding, and an income of at
least 800 each, or $50 above expense of care
and feed. Another made 164 lbs. in one
week and over 400 lbs. in a year. A farmer
who tested his cows, found that five of them
only paid aprofit of S. each; while five others
made loss each of the same sum, so that he
was keeping ten cows year after year without
any profit.
Jerseys should be selected for butter max
ing, as they have been long bred for butter
production. Their cream rises quicker, but
ter is Follower, and comes sooner. While
actual trial is the surest test of milking quail
ties, there are certain signs which are usually
reliable as guide as follows: Soft, velvety
skin, large, open eyes, wide apart, slim neck
and tail, clean limbs, large, crooked milk
veins, large udder, welcomed teats, wide
apart with good sized orifces at the end.
In open pans, large or small the milk room
should be kept as near $50 as possible all the
time. The white specks so annoying are
dried cream, caused by currents of air going
over the milk. unless it is in cases of cream
standing till the whey separates, when some
of the sour milk gets so hard as not 10 break
up in churning. Most cream will rise in
twelve hours and all the time the cream is
left after that is for it to mature. The tenn
perature of the cream when put into the
chnrn, and kept at that temperature while
churning, should be $50 in summer and about
65o in winter. The churning should stop as
soon as the butter globules are large as shot,
and any churning beyond that will destroy
the bright gloss which can never be restored
by any process He soaks his tubs in brine
till the wood is saturated.
CARE OF DAIRY COWS.
Calves should be reared en- good milk, and
special care taken that their growth be not
retarded by lack of good food at the time of
weaving and during the first fall and winter.
A heifer should come in at two years of age,
and then 60 farrow the third year, and she
will be not only more profitable that year but
ever afterward, as the farrow year more fully
develops the vessels for tactical secretions.
The Evergreen corn sowed in drills furnishes
good crop OF fodder for cows. In winter
peck of beets per day should be given each
cow. Lanes sugar beets are most easily
raised and very productive; they should be
sown the last of June in drills thirty inches
apart and one inch deep. The plants should
stand about foot apart. Ashes may be
used heavily for dressing. The sweet Ger
man turnip is good variety and may be
raised on poorer land by the use of about
3OOlbs. of phosphates per acre. The Cum
berland phosphate Ia Maine MANUFACTURED is
highly recommended. as it proves more uni
formly reliable than the Bradley brand
THE POTATO BUG.
To prevent its ravages mix one part Paris
Green with twenty parts Plaster of Paris, and
sift it on the potatoes in the morning when
the dew is. on them. Put it on when the
potatoes are first up if the bugs appear;
then when the second crop of bugs are seen,
and again when the third crop comes, and
the potatoes will be secure. Make sieve by
tying coarse cotton over an old tin pail turned
bottom up and held by wooden handle
three or four feet long, so as to prevent in
halation of the poison.
unRGN- nIarEarp1zRe,
II horse steps short and carefully, the
difficulty is from Inflammation of the shuttle
bone. The middle finger fairly represents the
foot of the horse; the knee corresponds to the
human wrist. The human hand has two sets
OF muscles, one to extend and the other
10 bend or hook up the finger, and the
When inflamed, the shuttle bone is dry
and irritates the muscles as they
move over it, hence the horse bends up
his heel and stands on his toe. The only
remedy is prolonged rest, and this should be
either in moist pasture or in a stable where
the stall is we'll bedded with moist earth sew
eral inches in depth so that the horse can
rest his foot without straining the infamed
parts. Another disease is where a horse
steps along and rests on his heel with the
ZOE up. This is founder in the feet, or in
ttammation of the lGminoe, that sensitive
portion of the foot which lies in corrugated
folds between the internal bone and external
she'll or hoof. This disease is caused by
putting up the horse, after hard driving and
heating, giving it grain and other feed, with
out proper rubbing and blanketing, and this
neglect leaves the legs to cool quickly, con-
tracing the blood vessels of the legs SO that
the blood with which the feet are gorged can
not get back to the body where it belongs.
In this state Inflammation ensues, and if not
speedily cured effusion takes place in the
tdminR, which in time may become foul
matter or pus, and work itself out near the
heel in what is known as thrush. To cure
this founder the horse should be taken into
warm room and with aconite or other REM
edies be gwen ga sweat" If effusion has
taken place, as the swollen, rounded appear
ance of the under surface of the foot will
show, take fine saw and make an opening
into the toe as though you were going to
split the foot like that of an OK, and saw just
through the shell or hoof and the watery
effusion will escape and the foot may be
healed. A foundered horse should be shod
with the heel calks low and that on the toe
high, while the shoe on one with infamed
shuttle.bone should be high at the heel and
low at the toe.
The wolf-tooth is milk tooth which was
not shed with that set. 1t is in the hog un-
der year old and is in the COW Just the
same, and is shed in most cases in all these
animals. 1t is usually pulled to cure blind
ness, but 1t has no connection with the eye;
it has no nerve or nerve cavity. But pulling
or jerking the bit irritates the gum, and so I |
pull them. A Michigan physician took pains
to examine one thousand cases of wolf tooth
and found no connection with blindness.
Never burn or cut out the lampass, but
feed shelled corn or some thing of that kind.
RAINFALL IN VERMONT.
The rainfall decreases as we 90 north,
though the number of rainy days is greater.
In Europe the rainfall averages 80 inches
per annum. while in Vermont it is about 40
inches. In Orleans county it is Al; about
Thetford it is 40; near the Massachusetts
line it is AZ inches; in the central part of the
state it is 80, while in Burlington and south
along the lake it is hardly over SO inches. By
rainfall he meant snow and rain together. |
Cutting off forests has had a very important
influence on The rainfall, so that the storms
are more irregular and severe at times. The
old conditions of the Indian summer, that
season of fair heautifIIl weather. no longer