ordinary, was thought to weigh from 500 to 525 pounds. When killed and dressed, the red cow weighed 651 pounds, had 4 pounds more rough tallow, and the beef looked best; while the red and white, when dressed, weighed 630 pounds.

Raising and fattening three-year-old cattle, or cows, costs about $4 per hundred pounds; average weight, 600 pounds. Rearing oxen Costs about $5 50 per hundred pounds; average weight, 950 pounds. Cost of conveyance to Boston market by railroad, $3 per head. Driving them on foot costs less, but wastes more.

Statement of WILLIAM SMOOT, of Boone Court House, Virginia.

Our cattle, like our horses, are not of the improved or imported kind; though I might remark, that we have a slight mixture of Durham, and other English blood, infused in our stock.

Cattle, at three years old, cost $9 to raise them, and are worth from $16 to $18 at that age.

Statement of RALEIGH W. DYER, of Prillaman's, Franklin county, Virginia.

We have but few improved cattle. We give them the range until harvest; from then until Christmas they are pastured; then fed on shucks, straw, and top-fodder until spring, when they are again let into the range. Beef is worth from 2 to 4 cents per pound at home-from 5 to 6 cents in market. Cows and calves are worth from $10 to $18. each; working oxen from $20 to $50, according to quality. The cost of raising I have never yet calculated.

Statement of HENRY M. PRICE, of Nicholas Court House, Virginia.

Cattle command the chief attention of our farmers. They are chiefly raised by "browsing," having little attention given them besides regularly salting during the summer. In winter, if kept over, they are fed with hay upon the meadows and open grass lands, which serves to enrich them without other manuring. The farmer here but seldom sells his hay, which is decidedly a wise policy. The fall before the cattle are four years old, they are usually sold and driven off to other counties to be grain-fed. The usual price is from $17 to $20.

Statement of GUSTAVUS DE NEVEN, of Fond du Lac, Fond du Lac county,

Wisconsin.

Much attention is given in this region to the raising of neat cattle and the products of the dairy. The butter produced in Fond du Lac county is of excellent quality, and the pasturage, particularly on the prairies and openings, could support several times the stock of cattle that graze upon it. Fat beef is produced on the wild pastures, which would not unfavorably compare with the stall-fed beeves of the Eastern markets. In view of the facilities afforded by railroads, some feeders have begun to fatten for the New York market. Common cows produce, on an average, about 150 pounds of butter a year. Value through the season

13 or 14 cents per pound. The cost of raising neat cattle till three years old, is about $15 each.

Introduction of the Asiatic Buffalo, the Brahmin Ox, and the Cashmere, Scinde and Malta Goats into South Carolina, by JAMES B. DAVIS, of Columbia.

The want of calcareousness in nearly all of the soils of the Southern States, together with the heat of our sun, makes an inaptitude to perrennial grasses for grazing animals; hence more suitable for browsing, as both tend to originate shrubbery and weeds. In 1836, having had some experience in the importation of short-horned, Devon and Ayrshire cattle into this State, I then summarily advanced an opinion, "that all cattle brought from a Northern to our Southern climate must necessarily degenerate to the peculiarities of our location, and that it would be easier to improve cattle already acclimated, or import animals from a still warmer region." In my late sojourn in Asia and the East, I had reference to this observation in importing Cashmere, Scinde and Malta milking-goats, as well as the Brahmin ox, or Nagore, of India, the Asiatic buffalo, or water ox, and other animals.

The Cashmere, Persian, Angora and Circassian goats are one and the same animal, changed in some respects by altitude, though but little by latitude. They abound in all this inaccessible territory, and are the eating, milking, cheese and butter-making and clothes-making animal .of the whole country. They are finely developed for the table, much disposed to fatten, very white and beautiful, with long fine wool or curly hair, yielding about 4 to 4 pounds to the fleece. They can be easily procured by an energetic man acquainted with the peculiarities of the population, and at a cost of $4 to $6 each on the spot. I brought to the United States, in 1849, seven females and two males. They have kids only every spring, usually two at a birth. The full breeds have increased only to about thirty, from the accidental circumstance that in nearly every instance the issue has been males.

In locating these animals in different sections of South Carolina, I can see no difference between those reared here and the imported, with the exception that those reared in this State are finer and heavier fleeced than those imported.

On my arrival, I immediately procured a number of our little diminutive native female goats, and crossed them upon a Cashmere buck. Their progeny had hair very fine, but little longer than that of the does. I again crossed the females of this progeny upon the other Cashmere buck, and it was difficult to distinguish these from the pure breed, and the subsequent cross cannot be detected. In the spring, I contemplate effecting still another cross.

I consider this a most valuable and useful experiment, as I made an arrangement with amateurs to sell pure bucks at $100, and to exchange annually, so as to furnish them with the advantages of different crosses. In ten days all the pure breeds were taken, with a demand for many more. Even the mixed kids have been readily taken by those determined to infuse their blood with their stock. In these arrangements, however, I have located them from the top of the mountains to the sea

board, both in Carolina and Georgia. Apart from their manifest practical aptitude in all these particulars, there is this ultimate value to be considered: a Cashmere shawl is worth from $700 to $1,500. Why is this difference, except in their intrinsic value from durability as wearing apparel? I have socks which I have worn for six years, and are yet perfectly sound.

No naturalist has yet been able to assign a systematic law regulating the acclimatization of animals. The Merino sheep, whenever it has been removed, has generally changed, and in most cases for the worse. Even when first crossed upon the best Saxony sheep, it was a deterioration, but when crossed upon a coarse-wooled animal it improved the fleece; and the cross fixed both the character of the wool and the carcass. This fact is observed in many other instances, demonstrating that the constitution of animals must be connected with location to fix the characters of the wool or the carcass. ture, but modified by altitude instead of latitude, does not produce the In fact, the same temperasame results. On all of the table mountain and valley plains between Persia and Turkey in Asia, all the animals have fine, long, silken hair, as the Angora cat, greyhound, and rabbits, and I have seen the same in some specimens of the Koordistan horse. To a considerable extent this is the fact on the western part of South America.

In connexion with this part of the subject, I will now introduce the Thibet shawl goat, belonging to the coldest regions. I accidentally came in possession of a pair of these animals, but lost the male. I have a considerable increase from the female, bred with a Cashmere buck. The Thibet goat has, under a long, coarse hair, a coat of beautiful white wool, which, when combed, makes about a pound to a fleece. I had these specimens with me at the Zoological Gardens in London, and in comparing them with a stuffed specimen of a Rocky Mountain goat, I could not discover the slightest difference; nor do I yet see any change of the fresh cross of the Cashmere buck upon my Thibet doe; but in the third cross upon the Cashmere, we may expect a valuable experiment by changing the fine under-wool, or down, into a conjoint and uniform covering of wool.

In regard to the Scinde goat, so called from the province at the mouth of the Indus, he is a gigantic animal, with pendulant ears twentytwo inches long, is used for the table and dairy, and is very similar to the Syrian goat. The Malta milking-goat is also only for the dairy, giving about a gallon of milk in a day. It may not be uninteresting for me to state a fact observed by me in the malarious sections of the United States and Mexico. In all the similar sections of Asia and the East, they regard cow's milk as being an exciting cause to bilious fevers, as well as to liver complaints, and hence use only goat's milk. The modus agendi I see has been a matter under discussion by the faculty of Paris.

Having given thus much on the subject of goats, I now hasten to the cattle. In referring to the Nagore or Brahmin cattle of India, in Youat's work on British cattle, it will be perceived that they are organized to undergo the fatigues of the hottest climates known, and will carry a soldier six miles an hour for fifteen consecutive hours. I brought but one pair to the United States, and, as far as I can learn,

my crosses of them upon other cattle are the first known in this country. I crossed this bull upon Ayrshire, Devon and Durham breeds, as well as upon our common cattle. The offspring is considered, by all who have seen them, far the handsomest animal of the cow kind. They are symmetrical and active, and can keep fat when any other cow would starve. I had this half-breed crossed again upon our cattle, but am not yet sufficiently experienced to report of their milking qualities. As evidence, however, that our agriculturists confide in the appearances, my half-breeds readily sell for $1,000 a pair, and the second cross, or half Brahmin, at from $100 to $300 each. Preferring the mixed breeds to the pure, I sold to Mr. Edes, of Kentucky, the original pair for $4,000, as that State would prove a better place to breed and disseminate the stock. As Kentucky is the dependence of the South for beeves, they needed an animal that could come to us in the hot months of summer and remain healthy and sound. They have from this animal a progeny that will travel thirty miles a day in August, and the further south they go the better suited-the great desideratum to the Northern breeder and the Southern consumer.

The Asiatic buffalo, or water ox, is a large, ugly, hardy animal. The cows are good milkers, making fat and good-flavored beef, though coarse-grained, and precisely suited to seacoast marshes, where no other animal can venture, as well as to lands subject to inundation.

I am unprepared to say anything practically of my other importations, but will continue to report my experiments, and believe many of them will become matters of history.

DAIRIES.

CONDENSED CORRESPONDENCE.

Statement of T. L. HART, of West Cornwall, Litchfield county, Connecticut.

The average quantity of cheese per cow in this region is about 300 pounds; of butter, about 200 or 250 pounds. Much care is requisite in the amount of salt given to cows, as it has lately been found that large quantities eaten at any one time will prevent the milk from coagulating. This is a fact known to but few, and was discovered by trying good rennet upon milk which had failed to coagulate on the first trial. A second trial had the same effect, and the cheese did not come. If milk fails to coagulate, the dairy woman suspects at once that the fault is in the rennet, whereas it may be in the milk.

Butter has sold this year in New York from 17 to 25 cents per pound, and my cheese brought, in Philadelphia, from 10 to 12 cents per pound.

Statement of ANTHONY M. HIGGINS, of Wilmington, New Castle county, Delaware.

A large quantity of butter is annually made in this county and sent to the neighboring cities, especially Baltimore, where it has for a long time maintained the highest reputation as to quality, bringing from 25 to 371⁄2 cents per pound. Our dairies comprise from fifteen to seventyfive cows each. The Holstein, Durham, and Devon infusion makes an excellent grade with our common stock, as respects size and milking properties. The first named is preferred by Major Reybold, who kept a large dairy for many years, as they have larger frames, a greater depth of udder, and yield more milk; they require, however, good keeping. A son of this gentleman informs me that he has two dairies of fifty cows each, and that he annually manufactures about 15,000 pounds of butter. The stipulated price the year round is 25 cents per pound. He calculates that the net revenue from his two dairies amounts to $3,600 per annum.

Some proprietors of dairies rent their cows to a dairyman, at the rate of from $22 50 to $25 each cow per annum-the former furnishing the provender. There is not enough young stock here to keep up a supply. Western heifers are annually brought in at a cost of about $22 a head.

Statement of MICAJAH BURNETT, of the United Society of Shakers, Pleasant Hill, Mercer county, Kentucky.

The dairy business, though much favored by soil and climate, has not been put forward with a view to export its products. Every farmer liberally supplies his own family with milk and butter, and has enough to spare to supply the home demand. The business, however, is receiving increased attention, and may, with proper care and management, be made, a source of great profit when we have better facilities for getting to market. The Durham cows, which have been gradually increasing in number since the year 1817, are, by those most familiar or conversant with them, acknowledged to be better adapted to the dairy than those of any other breed ever introduced into this section. The dairy cows of this society, about one hundred and fifty in number, being all Durhams-some thorough bred, others with a slight strain of the Patton breed-are unsurpassed in the quantity and richness of their milk. They will give for the first three or four months after calving, while on grass alone, from 30 to 68 pounds of milk daily; and from experiments made in the early part of October, 18 pounds of milk will make a pound of butter. Some of these cows do not go dry during the year; others are dry a longer or shorter time, but rarely exceeding eight weeks.

We never soil our milch cows, but believe it much better to have them run at large in the pastures day and night, except in the winter season, when they are kept in the stable, tied each in her own proper stall, from five o'clock in the evening until eight in the morning. They are driven up, however, and stabled morning and evening during the balance of the year while they are milked, and then turned out to