Ijyg StocL
Por the Indiana Farmer.
HOG FEEDING 15 WINTEB,
BY J.  J. ty.  BILLINOSLEY.
As farmers and feeders in the West,
fe know lesa about what it costs to produce grain and the gains in feeding it
out to our stock under different circumstances, than Eastern farmers. Yet we
ought to know the exact cost of production and the gain in feeding. There are
thousands of hogs fed every winter in
the West, some few of which are provided with neoessary shelter, and floars
to feed upon, hut the greater number are
fed in open lots without shelter, in thc
mud, piling up in the fence corners or
against logs to shield themselves against
the wintry blasts, and all night long they
may be heard squealing as for life. Yet
thousands of men in the West have
made money feeding hogs, but whether
they made on fall feeding or winter
feeding they do not stop to inquire.
The cost of producing corn on prairie
land is so small that the gain in feeding
it out is a matter of so little importance
that they do not stop to inquire after it.
- But in this State, or at least the more
densely populated portion of it, where
the lands have been cleared some forty
years or more, the question of cost in
production and gain or loss in feeding,
are of vital importance.
In the fall of 1870 I provided myself
with a hog house, fifty by thirty, on thc
eastsideof a hill near aspring; built a
shed upon the south side of tho house.
Under the shed, at one end, I put in a
pair of Fairbanks' six ton scales, with
the weighing beam coming up in the
cook room of the main building; After
..pu'.ting in the scales, I had-'thirty-five
• feet of shed room left. This was floored
by laying oak plank on the earth, then
the shed room was divided equally in two
parts, and lots of the same width of one
hundred feet in length crossing the
spring branch south of the house.
From the shed_ room they passed into
feeding rooms in the main body of the
house. These rooms were ten by fifteen,
floored tightly. The shed rooms I kept
a foot deep with dry wheat straw,
changing once a week. The hill on the
west was a secure wind-break and the
shed room and lots being on the south,
with a bountiful supply of fresh spring
water within seventy feet of the feed
rin, made it a desirable place to feed,
procured one of Anderson's Universal
Steamers, (cost one hundred and fifty
dollars.) and provided myself with barrels. Having had a well dug in the cook
room and a pump put into it, and other
necessary fixtures, I felt prepared to test
fully the mysteries of hog feeding. I
took twenty hogs and divided them as
nearly equal as my_judgment enabled me,
all things taken into account, drawing
for those I would feed, with cooked food,
then turned each lot into their quarters,
each having the same amount of feed
room, shed room, range and water, the
only difference being that one lot was
fed on cooked feed and the other on
corn in the ear.
The following table exhibits the result:
would eat up clean. The feeding pens
of each lot were cleaned out daily. I
cooked fresh for them each day, except
Sabbath days, cooking a sufficiency on
Saturday to last over Sabbath.
In the fourth week ofthe last lot, No.
1, was annoyed by a barren sow. The
same occurred with lot No. 2 the sixth
week.
After selling the above hogs, I bought
ten head of hogs weighing, on an average, one hundred and lorty-five pounds,
putting them in one pen. They had
starved through the summer and the
winter before, were long haired and in
thin order, about eighteen months old.
In the other pen I put ten head of
hogs, six months old, averaging one
hundred and sixty pounds, which had
been liberally fed from pigs and were
eatable then.
Each lot was fed alike, partly on oooked
feed and corn in thc ear. Cooking the
meal to the consistency of thick slop,
giving each party, night and morning,
what cooked feed they seemed to relish,
giving them at tho same time, corn in
the ear, feoding to each party what they
would clean up well, cleaning their penn
out every day. The hogs that had oeeh
liberally fed consumed about a fourth
more feed than the others and gave mo
a fourth greater gains in proportion to
what I fed them. The weather was more
favorable for feeding than with tho first
hogs, and my engagements otherwise
were such that I was not able to keep as
accurate account of the last as of thc
first hogs, but calculating as closely as
the circumstances would allow, I have
the following result:
The part that had '.been liberally fed
gave me twelve pounds per bushel. The
other part that had been illiberally fed
gave me nine pounds per bushel.
Since feeding the above hogs, I have
fed others in the summer with cooked
feed (as a slop) corn in the ear letting
them run to clover, with very favorable
results. I am fully persuaded from past
experience, that hogs should be fed all
they will eat from the time they are pigs
until sold for market. In buying stock
hogs to feed, buy only those that have
been well fed, their digestive'Organs are
able to assimilate more food and better
than those whose organs havo been
dwarfed for want of feed.
Raise our hogs from the best stock
we can procure, and keep no more than
we can feed well. As to the profit of
shelling our corn and taking it four miles
tomill, paying eight cents a bushel for
grinding, and after cooking it, those
interested can make their own calculations.
I feel confident in sayingthat the hogs
were fed under favorable circumstances,
with the above result. Those who feea
is open lots without shelter, on the
ground in winter, I am fully persuaded
do not (except in very favorable winters)
realize more than five or six pounds to
the bushel of corn fed. It is true that
the latter sum will bring some money,
but I would greatly prefer ten or twelve
pounds to the bushel for winter feeding.
PLAN OP HOUSE AND GROUNDS.
It takes some time, patience and money to fit up our grounds handsomely,
but the pleasure and enjoyment we take in the beautiful lawns compensate us
for all these, and they also add to the value of our farms very greatly. Let us
cultivate the beautiful. *,
THE TEXAN FEVEH.
The Value of High-Priced Cattle and
Sheep.
Ten Bogs.
LotNo.l.
weight.
Deo.  1,1870	
Deo. 10,1870.	
Dee. 17,1870-	
Dec. 24,1870.	
Dec. 31,1870	
Jan. 7,1871	
Jan. 14,1871	
Jan. 21,1871	
Total	
Ten Hogs.
Dec. 1,1870-
Dec. 10,1870...
Dec 17,1870...
Dec. 24,1870...
Dec. 81,1870...
Jan. 7,1871_.
Jan. 14,1871..
Jan. 21,1871...
Total	
2110 lbs.
2310 lbs.
2400 lbs.
2170 lbs.
2340 lbs.
261011)8.
2670 lbs.
2780 lbs.
Gain.
Meal
cooked
by
weight
581b«.Der
bushel.
200 lbs.
90 lbs.
70 lbs.
70 lbs.
70 lbs.
60 lbs.
110 lbs.
10 bu.
8 ba.
8«bu.
7 bu.
bu.
bu.
bu.
670 lbs.
L«tNo.2
weight.
22)0 lbs.
2340 lbs.
24o0 lbs,
2590 lbs.
2650 lbs.
2750 lbs.
2840 lbs.
2960 lbs.
Own.
Corn fed
ln the
ear 68 lbs.
per bu.
140 lbs.
110 lbs.
140 lbs.
6) lbs.
100 lbs.
90 lbs.
120 lbs.
760 lbs.
57 bu.
12 bn.
lOMbu.
11 bu.
8>ibu.
»>Jbu.
9 bu.
11 bu.
71 bu.
Average gain per day.   lst lot 115-52 lbs; 2nd
ot, 1 24-52 lis.   Aversgf
1143-57, tts; 2nd lot, 10
lot, 1 24-52 lEs.   Aversge gain per bushel, 1st lot
 ) 50-71 a*.
The hogs would be called good fair
hogs for this county. (Marion), being
crosses of Chester, White Poland and
Berkshire. Had be.en fed four week on
corn before they were lotted for the
test. The scales being under the same
roof, by thc help of my little boy we
could pass them into the scales byopen-
ing a gate and pass them back without
any excitement. During a considerable
portion of the time the weather was
cold.
I cooked the feed for lot No. 1. so as
to make much of it, well done, taking a
tcoal oil barrel, filled it over half full of
j water, let it come to a boiling heat, then
J stirred in the meal and cooked it an
'.hour or more, feeding them what they
Those high-bred and high-priced
Short-Horns which have of late come in
for a considerable amount of abuse at
the hands of certain agricultural journalists, cost perhaps too much money, but
that can't be helped ; but to say that
breeding entirely from certain strains is
a mistike is open to question. Take two
representative bulls, the Duke of Devonshire's Duchess bull and Lord Irwin;
say nothing about pedigree, the latter
may in a sense be the best beast; there
is no man half a judge, not to speak of
pedigree, would prefer him to the
Duchess bull.
Lord PoIwarth's_ rams are the Bates
ofthe Border Leicester sheep. Look
what they make every year! There is
no man who has done anything in the
show-yard in Border Leicesters but has
drawn more or less from Lord Pol-
warth's stock. Are they themselves
show-yard sheep? Whydoes a practical
hard-workimj farmer give Lord Pol-
warth 195 guineas for a tup? He could
buy one at 20 guineas that would beat
him in a show-yard. The latter would
beat the former in a show-yard;_ but the
practical farmer knows that his stock
would not, and that makes all the difference. It is well known that Lord Pol-
warth has bred from the best of his own
stock for a great number of years. They
are close bred, but they improve the
stock wherever used. If he were to follow _ thc advice of thc writers in the
Agricultural Gazette he would not stick
to high-bred ones, but would select a
thick-fleshed well-woolled sheep from
" A painstaking breeder," and would, I
have no doubt, spoil his own flock, and
thereby also injure the breed of Border
Leicesters throughout the country.
So it is with Bates and Booth cattle
of high descent. The big prices are tho
very thing that keeps the stream pure
and helps to fertilize the whole Short-
Horn world. There is a certain potency in a small quantity of this highbred blood—latent it may have been in
the original—but when mixed with that
of more plebeian origin it finds its way
into those thick-fleshed animals which
"painstaking breeders" like to see.—
North British Agriculturalist.
The recent occurrence of many cases
of splenia fever, otherwise known as the
Texan fever, renders the following extract from Prof. Granger's report upon
this disease interesting and timely:
t. "The-history of aphraic~fever_;w<):il4fr
seem to indicate its complete isolation
from every disease, and especially every
form of plague hitherto described. But
a careful study of its progress and development, with the light afforded by a
knowledge of other cattle diseases, enables us to demonstrate points of great
resemblance, and_, indeed, of identity
with maladies which annually recur in
various parts of the world. It is, moreover, important in a practical point of
view, to show how it differs from maladies which spread from country to country; and from the east westward, devastating broad tracts of land, and calling
for the most decisive and energetic
means for their suppression. Splenic
fever is not an epizootic, properly so
called. It is not propagated through
time and space by contagion._ The true
plague of animals or epizootics, such as
the Russian murrain or rinderpest, the
lung plague or contagious nleuro-pneu-
monia of cattle, the foot ana the mouth
diseases of all warm-blooded animals,
variolus fevers, hydrophobia, and the
like, spread by direct or indirect transference of an animal poison, a virus,
from sick to healthy animals; and the
sick, as a rule, indicate, by very manifest
outward symptoms, in the Old World,
the disease under which they are laboring. The poisons take effect without regard to seasons, and are alike developed
in the systems of sick animals. It is not
contact between Texan and Southern or
Western cattle that induces the malady;
and, so far as recorded observations and
my own inquiriesat present extend, thc
animals contaminated by feeding on
Texan trails have not in a single instance propagated the disease to other
animals. Indeed I have not met with
one instance where sucking calves have
caught the affection from their dams, or
from other cows which they have been
made to suck. Many cases have come
under my observation of cattle in Illinois. Indiana, and elsewhere, coming in
contact with Texans through a fence, by
drinking the_ same water, and even being housed in sheds with sick natives,
and yet escaping the disease. We must,
therefore, distinguish it from the contagious maladies alluded to, and refer it to
another group. Splenic fever is an enzootic. It originates in various parts of
the Gulf States. Florida cattle driven
north are as dangerous as Texans, deriving the same deleterious properties from
the soil on which they are reared, and
in all probability the vegetations on
which they feed. In the South, splenic
fever is distinctly indigenous, and so far
as Texas is concerned, I have satisfied
myself that the disease is universally
prevalent in that State.
The conclusions, therefore, which I am
disposed to draw from all the facts and
arguments, adduced in relation to the
causes and nature of splenic fever, are:
First—That Southern cattle, especially from the Gulf coast, are. affected with
a latent or an apparent lorm of the disease.
Secondly—That they become affected
in consequence of the nature of the soil
and vegetation on wliich they are fed
and the water which they drink.
Thirdly— That their systems are
charged with poisonous principles, which
accumulate in the bodies of acclimatized
animals that enjoy an immunity.
' Fourthly—That Southern cattle may
be driven so that they improve in con-1
ditiou; and yet for Borne weeks, and I
probably not less than three months.'
they keep excreting the deleterious
principles which poison the cattle ofthe
States through tv'hich the herds arc
driven on their way north or west.
Fifthly—That all breeds of cattle in
_/lc?^iorth of those on thc Gulf coast,
without regard to age or sex; if "they
feed on grass contaminated, by Southern
droves, are attacked by thesplenicfever;
that tho disease may be, but is very
rarely, propagated through the feeding
of hay.
Sixthly—That the disease occurs
mainly during the hot months of Summer and Autumn, and never after the
wild grasses have been killed by frosts
until the mild weather in Spring returns ; that then the grasses are healthy,
and continue healthy, unless fresh
droves of Texan or of Florida cattle are
driven over the land.
Seventhly—That heat _ and drought
aggravate the disease in individual
animals.
Eightly—That there is not thc slightest foundation for the view that the
ticks disseminate the disease.
Ninthly—That the splenic fever does
not belong to that vast and deadly group
of purely contagiousand infectious diseases of which the rinderpest, the lung
plague, and eruptive fevers are typical.
Tenthly—That it is an enzootic, due to
local iafluenccs, capable of only a limited
spread, and analogous or identical with
the black water of various parts of
Europe.
Eleventhly—That however warm the
weather may be, cattle affected with the
splenic fever have not developed in their
systems any poison like the anthrax
poison; and that the flesh, blood, and
othertissues of animals are incapable of
inducing any disease in man or animals.
| Iwelflhly—That splenic fever is not
malignant typhus or typhoid fever. That
itjhas no analogue among human dis-
e ises; but is, however, developed under
c inditions which_ prevail where the so-
c illed malaria injuriously affects the
human health.
Short-Horn Bloo^fn America.
The following comments from the
Canada Farmer will be read with interest :
Just  before  the   sales   of    Messrs.
Coffin, Parks and King, last spring, one
or   more of the   English   agricultural
journals, in noticing the  catalogues of
the herds to be offered, plainly intimated
that English buyers might be in better
business than purchasing  Short-Horns
in the United States.   The home supply
was ample—their readers were informed
—and   the result of these distant  purchases would be, at best, but  problematical.   In  response (say9 the  Country
Gentleman, from  which we quote), we
took occasion to express the belief that
the Short-Horns  thus   far   carried   to
England from this country had   invariably brought a very large profit to their
buyers, and that the English bidding at
New  York Mills was  due  "almest  as
much to  the great success of  previous
importations  from  America, as   to the
demand for Duchess blood."   If such
was not the case, we asked for a correction—which haB never come.
In lieu of a reply in words, however,
we have the response afforded by Mr.
Cheney's recent sale—"the first occasion," says tho .London Field, "on
which the offspring of the recent re-importation of fashionable Short-Horn
blood from beyond the Atlantic constituted the main feature of the day." Of
27 lots, the sires of 24 and the dams of
11 were bred in America : general result,
an average, throughout, nearly £50
higher on each animal than had ever
been reached before in Great Britain—
even at  the very extraordinary sales  of
the preceding fortnight 1
Don't Feed Ripe Hungarian Hay to
Horses.
An Illinoisan writes: "I have had
quite an experience in feeding ripe un-
threshed Hungarian hay to horses. In
every instance, if continued long, the
results were bad, in somecases rendering the hoTsennfit for service ever afterwards. I have always supposed too that
millet would produce the same effect.
My plan is to let either variety get first
ripe for the seed to grow. I then cut
with self-raking reaper, set low. I bind
up like grain and let it lie in sheaf a
few days. Then it is stacked, and
threshed when convenient. When
threshed, the straw is stacked again
carefully, and fed out to stock through
the winter."
MAMMOTHS AND MASTODONS.
Promthe Denver {Col.) New.
' Some ofthe results accomplished, and
in the process of accomplishment, by the
Wheeler expedition, during its  present
campaign in the interests of science, arc
of a character to be appreciated  by scientists abroad as well as at home, and to
exercise a material change in more than
one branch of knowledge, as at present
constituted.   Last year, it will  bc   remembered, Prof.  Cope, the   paleontologist, set the scientific world on  fire  by
the discovery of an   "elephant's   gravc:
yard," containing the   bones   of mammoths, and the extinct elephantine genera that flourished thousands   of years
before the days of Adam ; and this year/
again he is likely to cause a similar mun<
dane conflagration by an even more extensive discovery of the same sort.   lie,
in conjunction   with his    conscieptfous
coadjutor, Dr. Yarrow, has une^^il in
the valleys of the San Juan a^y^e number of vertebrates   of enox^ou»   sizo,
some of which are entirely new   to   science, and those that are not, of a  very
rare  and    unknown   species.     Among
them are several very perfect skeletons
ofthe mastodon race, and a   very   large
variety of mammoths cousin German to
that elephant of the past.   The discovery has not yet been arranged and classified, so that a complete list ofthe different specimens embraced in  it cannot be
given; but this work already is in pro-
fress, a number of the specimens having
ecn forwarded to Washingten soon after their discovery, whero competent
persons at once set to work upon them,
and Dr. Yarrow left for the East Monday with a largo proportion of the remainder in tow. >
Besides this very valuable variety of
vertebrates, as many as a hundred additions to the known list of invertebrates
have been made, while also a large number of "old friends with new faces" hajve
been found; in other words, familiar
specimens have been rediscovered in ,ciin.-.
IA
Treatment of Horse Distemper.
Stewart's American Farmer's Horse
Book says: The treatment in its general features resembles that for glanders. Bleed in the neck vein, taking
about three pints of blood; then take
and thoroughly mix together one tablespoonful of gunpowder, one of lard, one
of soft soap, two of tar, and one of pul-
\ verized gum myrrh. Put a spoonful of
i this down the horse's throat as far as
you can with a paddle or spoon. Do
this twice a day. At the same time
make a strong decoction of tobacco, as
hot as the horse can bear it, with which
wash his neck two or three times a day.
In connection with the above, give the
animal as much sulphur aud rosin as he
can be induced to eat—a quarter of a
pound each day at least—proportion,
two parts sulphur, one part rosin. Food
light, such as mashes, boiled oats and
cut feed; or, if in season, grass is better.
No corn till after recovery. No work
while suffering. Keep stable well fumigated.        _   	
Itching Tail
Artichokes as Stock Food.
A correspondent of the Kansas Farmer
relates the following experience with
artichokes:
I planted about one-fourth acre with
snout one-half bushel, cut very small.
c ropped in furrows two feet and a half
a part, and about eleven inches apart in
nws; gave them about, the same atten-
t on as potatoes.   Early in September I
(at   them, before   frost, and  used   the
I'alksto roof my stable, thinking they
i ere good for nothing else: but I found
i;very difficult   to keep my horse from
i ating himself out of doors.   He would
] ;ave corn   and hay for   these  stalks I
] ad   about   fifty bushels   on   the  one-
( uarter  acre, but tbey were very small,
rhich made it tedious  gathering them.
think they were   too thick.   I  shall
>lant again  this year.   Top the  stalks
i nee  or   twice   a year  to make  them
i tocky; cut them before frost; shock as
orn; when cured, stack and cut them
n thc machine ;  mix with bran, steam
>r cook them if convenient.
I think they will furnish a large
imount of valuable feed. I think the
•oots or tubers will grow all winter,
vhen the ground is not frozen. Dig in
he spring, or turn your hogs in todig
for you. They are choice feed for milch
bows, and coming as they do early in the
spring, when succulent food is scarce
help the yield of butter.
tirely new formations. The effect lit'
this latter will be to revolutionizje many
ofthe conjectures of science, nowonly aw
to thc age of the animals in question,
but also as to that ofthe formations they
are found in. The entire discovery,
taken as a whole, Lieut. Wheeler regards as the most valuable contribution
to paleontology made since that study
became a branch of scientific research.
,/.
. /
The Canada Farmer says upon the
subject of horses:
If the itching arises from a mere
affection of the skin, as is most likely
the case, an application of kerosene, injected through the nozzle of an oil-can,
will allay all irritation,_ and ultimately
effect a cure. The application need only
be used in one or two places, as, being
ot a spreading nature, it will speedily
extend over all the parts affected.
The Live Stock Journal says the late
sales of sheep in different parts of Great
Britain have averaged for Downs and
long-wools from $25 to $50 per head in
large flocks, sometimes 1,000 head. At
a sale of 80 Southdown rams and 150
ewes, tho rams sold at nearly $60 per
head, and the ewes at $12. At a sale of
Mr. Aylmer's long-wools, 100 ram lambs
averaged $30 per head, and 80 yearlings
$60.
 SOS	
The Live Stock Journal says that a
strictly thoroughbred horse must show
an unbroken line of descent from the
Turkish Barb, or Arabian horse.
Eapid Pickling Meat.
The following is an English recipe :
Roll the meat in a mixture of 16 oz. salt,
* oz. of saltpetre, and 1 oz. sugar, so that
all parts may bo completely salted; then
wrap closely in a piece of cotton cloth,
previously well scalded and dried, and
place in a porcelain or other vessel. The
cloth is essential with small pieces, to retain the brine formed in contact with the
meat. After about sixteen hours.however,
some brine will drain off into the bottom
of the vessel, and it will be necessary
then to turn the meat, still wrapped up,
daily. A piece of six pounds, treated
in this way for six days, then unwrapped and boiled, will be found
quite palatable and sufficiently pickled.
For larger quantities the cloth may be
dispensed with, since the brine formed
will be sufficient to cover the mass, provided the pieces arc closely packed, and
auy unavoidable cavities filled with
stones.
 .   m>   »	
The Benton Connty (Ind.) Lion.
The Brookston Reporter gives this
rather startling incident: "About two
and a half miles north of Fowler, A. L.
Hays, J. Elmore and sister and another
gentleman, while on their way from
William Elmore's to Robert Trett's, to
attend a party on Tuesday, tho 10th,
while driving a two-horse wagon, going
in a fast trot, the Benton county beast,
emerging from a corn field, pursued
them. They put the team to the top of
its speed. Several times it bounded for
the wagon, and as often they fought it off
with the seat board, frequently with
heavy blows, with little effect upon tha
beast. It never ceased its efforts to
reach them until they arrived at an intermediate house on the way. A heavy war
expedition went for the enemy in tho late
snow, and she is closely pursued, perhaps
taken before now. The people hardly
dare to go out of doors."
A    CORRESPONDENT   tells
The Clinton (111.) Register chronicles
the extraordinary yield of three hundred
and forty-tour bushels of first-class oats
from five acres, being at the average of
sixty-eight and four-fifths bushels per
acre. They were grown on the farm of
Mr. Jeremiah Kelley, of DeWitt
county.
    the   Bucks
County Intelligencer that he thinks he
increased his corn erop ten bushels per
acre by " working the field over about
wheat harvest." He believes farmers
generally "commit a great mistake by
not working their corn late in tb<»
season." He adds, for " the benefit ,,f
poor, afflicted buskers," that the follow
ing is a "sovereign remedy" for soro
hands: ' In the evening rub them well
with wheat flour, put on a pairof gloves
and go to bed. Try it. and you will b7>
surprised at the result."
A Fabulous Yield.—A California
farmer claims to have grown ninety?
bushels of wheat to an acre, for eleven«'
acres, the past season, of clean white ^
Australian seed, from sixty pounds of'
seed to the acre—one pound thus pro
ducing ninety pounds.
sss:
F*<5"3