The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1877-08-16

There may be something in this. Can
any of our readers corToborate it from
their observation? p. seas y.
1t is said that the color of the inside
of the cows ear affords an infallible
guide to the selection of good butter
COW. If the skin on the inside of the ear
is of rich yellow or orange color and
the lining of the ear is covered with an
oily secretion, the COW will be sure to
give good quality of milk, rich in but
ter. Cows that produce high-colored
butter have large amount OF the secre-
ton, the inside of the ear being of an
orange tint. On the other hand, light
colored butter-makers present a scanty,
thin, and pale yellow secretion, in some
cases found only at the bottom of the
ear, while the inside lining is of a cor
respondingly pale, underlined color
Every female of the bovine family has
the power of secreting certain amount
Of this oily matter. If the quantity be
normally large, secretion will take place
freely in the mammary glands, the ear,
and the skin. As the test is simple and
costs nothing, it cannot fail to prove a
useful auxiliary to the dairyman and
farmer in their selection of rich mixers.
Keeping Up the Soil.
The agricultural mind is gradually un-
dergoing a change upon this subject. 1t
was once believed that cultivating the
soil and raising crops therefrom, must
necessarily exhaust it, and in accurate
account with the farm it was believed
proper allowance should be made for the
deterioration or wearing out of the soil,
Just as allowance should be made for the
wearing out of work animals and machin-
cry. But the conviction has gradually
been gaining ground that the system of
husbandry which raises the largest crops
rather improves than exhausts the soil !;
that a man may 60 on for series of
years making money from farm, and at
the same time increasing its productive
capacity and value. CO., 80. ~.
We were led into this train of thought
by looking over the farm, recently, of
Mr.. Edmund Reynolds. in Ontario
county. We knew this place forty years
ago, and for the following twenty years
were quite familiar with the crops it
produced, and we saw better wheat, bet
ter oats, and better grass growing on the
same land, the other day, than it pro-
duced from twenty-five to forty years
ago. And this is not an exceptional
year in this respect, but the crops have
been gradually improving during the
last ten and twenty years.
This improvement has been brought
about by judicious rotation of crops, by
blowing under clover, by keeping more
stock, by deeper and more thorough pull
verization of the soil, and, to some ex-
tent, by drainage. During this time the
Improvements have been paid for in the
increased productions of the soil. We
are inclined to believe that NATURALLY good
soil is inexaustible under wise tillage
that q bountiful and economical Provi-
dence so locked up the elements of plant
food in the soil that mans improvidence
cannot exhaust them entirely. The
food of plants in the soils is so chemically
combined with the other minerals of
which it is composed that it requires
time, the gradual action of the forces of
nature and of art, and the growth of
plants, to dissolve and remove it, and
thus God has so entailed the earth that
man is unable to spend his rich inner
itance, but is forced to hand it down
from generation to generation.-RW
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