5000 parts of atmospheric air, a quantity too minute to exercise any injurious action upon animals.

Ill ventilation, therefore, produces a two-fold injury the life-giving oxygen is withdrawn, and not returned in sufficient quantity, and the poisonous carbonic acid is substituted for it.— The agriculturist must, therefore, pay particu

lar attention to the sheds and houses where his

South Down Sheep.

MR. EDITOR-I am in frequent receipt of letters of inquiry concerning my South Down Sheep, advertised in the FARMER'last fall. In order to save from disappointment, as well as unnecessary correspondence, permit me to say

cattle are kept, and have them so constructed that I sold the greater portion, retaining only that they will admit of a plentiful supply of a few select animals as the nucleus of another fresh air, without, at the same time, there being flock. I have disposed of an interest in these any unnecessary draughts, which, by cooling the animals, would increase the quantity of to Mr. James Davis, of Waukesha, who now food necessary to maintain their animal heat. has them upon his farm, some two miles West There are many other points of much prac- of the village. Mr. Davis is well known as a tical importance, as, for example, the particular breed and formation of the animal, its age most excellent farmer and successful stock and condition, and the purposes for which it breeder. I feel confident the stock in his is fed, which exercise a considerable influence on the kind of treatment and food required; hands will maintain its reputation for superior but these I must pass over.

Care of Cows before Calving.

The following extract from a Prize Essay on the " Rearing of Calves," by Thomas Bowick, published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, (Eng.), is applicable to all latitudes :

excellence.

There are none now for sale, unless possibly a buck might be spared. I expect, however, to be able to furnish lambs by another fall. A. G. HANFord.

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 1862.

How to Feed Out Roots.

"The health and condition of the cow before As root culture is greatly upon the increase calving, greatly influence subsequent results. in this country, and many are trying their first A late milked, lean, raking, ill-cared for beast experiments with them this winter, we will has oftentimes an easier parturition than those drop a few hints upon their economical use. that are better furnished in these respects. But Nothing is more common than for beginners in her after milking has a tale to tell of neglect the business to confine an animal entirely to somewhere; and the scraggy, "set" condition the use of roots. They go upon the principle of the calf throughout its after course, often that you cannot have too much of a good thing, arises more from this cause than from any oth- and give one to three bushels of turnips in a er. Hence, we would say, dry the cow a fair day. The change in diet probably sets the time before calving, and see that she has some- animal to scouring, and turnips are voted a thing better than barley straw to live on, else humbug, when the humbug lies altogether in the calf and its owner will assuredly lose by ignorance of the feeder. All animals like a it. But what is regarded as a fair amount of variety of food in their diet, and hay or straw time for being dry? If a cow brings her first should always form a part of their daily fodcalf when from two to three years old,-which | der, no matter what else may be added. This the majority probably do, though all will ad- course should be followed, whether we are seekmit that it is too early-we should not care to ing to make milk or beef, or merely to keep milk her more than five or six months after an animal in thriving condition. In fattening calving. By this means she will grow and in- a bullock, a bushel or so may be given, accordcrease in size and value her second calf. Buting to size, making out the rest of the feed in a cow from the fourth to the eighth year, if in hay, with some kind of grain or meal. good condition, need not be dry more than six feeding milch cows, the same quantity may be weeks or two months before calving; i. e. if given, mixing the sliced roots with the cut hay, fed with a thoroughly liberal hand throughout at three meals daily. The meal will add more the year. If more sparingly fed, or if the cow to the quality than to the quantity of the milk. exceeds the latter age, then we should prefer Stock cattle with plenty of hay and roots will her being dry three months before calving.- not need meal to keep them thriving. A good But, of course, there are exceptions to be met root cutter is indispensable in feeding out roots. with, which cannot come under any general Then, as to the order in which the various rule, such as the case of animals whose flow of roots should be used up, we always begin with milk is so strong as to continue almost up to the white, or soft turnips. These grow quickthe time when a new lacteal secretion com-ly and remain in their best condition but a few mences." weeks. By the first of January they begin to

In

sprout, and lose something of their value. The a box, covered at the top, with a backside ruta bagas and white French turnips keep well aperture for light, and a side door by which through the winter, and may be used at any she can escape unseen. A farmer may keep time; carrots and sugar beets may be used as one hundred hens in his barn, and allow them soon as they are dug. The mangel wurzel free liberty to trample over his hay-mow, and needs to undergo a curing process, and should set where they please, and lay if they please— not be used before February. They are excel- and get fewer eggs than one who has a departlent keepers, and will hold on until June. If ment especially for his fowls, and keeps but fed out the first part of the season, they make half as many, and furnishes them with corn, the bowels loose, and lead to a false estimate lime, water and gravel, and who takes care of their value. Analysis shows that the man- that his hens are not disturbed about their gel has nearly twice the nutritive matter con- nests. tained in the Swedish turnip, and experiments in feeding confirm the results of the laboratory. They will yield from fifty to a hundred per cent. more in quantity, under ordinary circumstances, and are much the more profitable root to raise. We find our root crops enlarging from year to year, and that, perhaps, is the best testimony we can give of their value. Our list this year embraces several varieties of the white turnips, rock turnips and ruta bagas, yellow and white carrots, sugar beets and mangel wurzel.-Am. Agriculturist.

BOTS IN HORSES -The editor of the Indiana Farmer says he publishes a recipe for the third time, by special request, of those who have used it with perfect success. It is as follows: "Take a tablespoonful, a little heaped, of alum, and the same quantity of copperas, pulverize them fine, and put them into a pint of vinegar. Pour it down the horse's throat. It will generally afford relief in five or ten minutes."

THE POULTERER.

Something about Hens.

But

"Three chalk eggs in a nest are better than a single egg. Large eggs please them. Pullets will commence laying earlier in life when nests and eggs are plenty, and other hens are cackling around them. A dozen fowls, shut up away from the means of obtaining other food, will require something more than a quart of Indian corn a day. I think fifteen bushels a year a fair provision for them; but more or less, let them always have enough by them— and after they have become habituated to finding enough at all times, they take but a few kernels at a time, except just before retiring to roost, when they will fill their crops. just so sure as their provision comes to them scantily, so surely will they raven and gorge themselves to the last extremity, and will stop laying. One dozen fowls, properly tended, will furnish a family with more than 2,000 eggs per year, and 100 full grown chickens.The expense of feeding the dozen fowls will not amount to eighteen bushels of Indian corn. They may be kept as well in cities as in the country, and will do as well shut up the year round as to run at large-and a grated room well lighted, ten by five feet, or larger if you can afford the space, partitioned off from the stable or other outhouse, may be used as a henhouse. In the spring, (the proper season,)

fifty or sixty chickens give to one hen. Two hens will take good care of one hundred chickens, until they are able to climb their little stick roosts. They should then be separated from the hens entirely. They will wander less, and do better, away from the parent fowls.Chickens put in the garden will eat up the May bugs and other destructive insects; but for my own part I much prefer four or five good sized toads; for they are not particular about their food, but will snap up ants and bugs of any kind, and will not, if a good chance offers, refuse the honey bees, but will down them in a hurry. In case of confining fowls in summer, it should be remembered that a ground floor is highly necessary, where they can wallow in the dirt, for they like it as well as the hog likes muck."

A correspondent of the N. H. Journal of Ag-five or six hens will hatch at the same, and the riculture says: "It is a pleasant recreation to tend and feed a bevy of laying hens. They may be trained to follow the children, and will lay in a box. Egg shells contain lime, and In the winter when the earth is bound with frosts or covered with snow, if lime is not provided they will not lay-or if they do lay the eggs will of necessity, be without shells. Old rubbish lime from chimneys and buildings is proper, and only needs to be broken for them. They will often attempt to swallow pieces as large as a walnut. I have often heard it said buckwheat is the best food for hens; but I doubt it. They will sing over Indian corn with more animation than any other grain.The singing hen will certainly lay eggs, if she finds all things agreeable to her; but the hen is such a prude, as watchful as a weazel, and as fastidious as a hypocrite-she must, she will have secresy and mystery about her nestall eyes but her own must be averted-follow her, or watch her, and she will forsake her nest and stop laying. She is best pleased with

Of all domestic fowls the common chicken is the most agreeable and profitable. Turkeys, Guinea and pea fowls are, in our way of thinking, "more plague than profit."

THE BEE KEEPER.

Random Thoughts Upon the Bee---No. 4.

DESCRIPTION OF THE QUEEN BEE.

and feeble wings for flight, and short and feeble teeth for labor, fitted only for her own feeding, together with a feeble sting and a mild temper, to shield her from exposure to violence In our last, we noticed the character of the and death. The Queen not only governs the swarm by their affections, but she leads them bee, and the instinctive character of a swarm, or community, with its queen bee, the moth-wherever she goes, and is their rallying point, er and ruler of the family, as an elective both in and out of the hive, whenever she ventures abroad. All this, together with every monarchy upon the death of the Queen, and a monarchy with a community of property, and movement and operation of the bee, is the renature's immutable instinctive laws as their sult, not of their particular municipal laws, only guide. This number describes the Queen but of that general law of instinct, derived Mother, as not formed by nature for labor, but from God, their Creator, at their first formation Much visionary speculation has infested formed only to rule and to breed. Her teeth the minds of Apiarians upon the fecundation and her wings are unfit for labor, being much shorter than the common bee's and the drones. of the Queen Bee, but all are agreed in this, The body of the Queen is much longer and that the cell in which the Queen Bee is born, is perpendicular and circular, whereas all the others are hexagonal and horizontal; and the

slimmer than the other bees'; her belly of a bright yellow, and her back and wings of a brighter hue. The Queen possesses an astonishing fecundity, unequaled by anything in nature, except the fish; her body is replete with eggs. arranged in two ovaria, and prepared for the breeding season. These she deposits in her cells, so long as a cell is vacant, and thus lays the foundation for the young swarm. I say lays the foundation, but whether perfect or imperfect, is yet a question; the fecundity of the bee, after all the elaborate research of man, is yet a mystery unsettled by Apiarians, I am fully inclined to the opinion that the Queen knows no coition, that she is a virgin mother; and that her eggs are impregnated by the drones, after she has deposited them in the cells; but a whole host of Apiarians are opposed to the sentiment. Yet all agree in this, that the act of coition has never been discovered.* The Queen is not only the mother and Queen of the hive, but the soul of the hive. All is order whilst she lives, and all is confusion the moment she is dead; hence the reason why she seldom, if ever, ventures abroad, and why the whole swarm so cheer

Queen Mother knows what will be the offspring
of the egg that she lays in the circular cell.—
The cell of the drone is different still, being
neither circular nor hexagonal, but irregular;
this has again led Apiarians into much hypo-
thetical disquisition, without demonstration,
and all fraught with more theory than profit.
LITTLE PRAIRIE, Wis.
W. H. MORRISON.

PROFITS OF BEE-KEEPING.-Mr. R. H. Da

vis, a practical farmer, and one of our subscribers, who has a large and well managed farm at Larone, in Somerset county, furnishes us with the following notes relating to the profits of his small apiary during the year of 1860. In the spring of that year, Mr. Davis had four swarms, which being wintered through, he valued at five dollars each, or twenty dollars. These four swarms sent out during the season ten new swarms, eight of which were worth in the fall four dollars each, or thirtytwo dollars. The other two swarms had not honey enough to winter on. It was, therefore, strained and sold, (thirty pounds), at ten cents per pound, which amounted to three dollars.— From the eight new swarms Mr. Davis sold two hundred and fifty-eight pounds of box honey, at twelve and a half cents per pound, amounting to thirty-two dollars and twenty-five cents. There was also some wax made, not taken into account. The old stocks of bees were reckonfully and affectionately support and protected at four dollars each in the fall, the same as her in the hive. Thus nature provides for their the new swarms. This gives a clear profit of Who peace and order, by giving the Queen bee short $67.25 from four swarms in one season. can give a better account from so small a lot of *Several apiarians claim to have observed this act.-ED. bees ?-Maine Farmer.

A Successful Wintering of Bees.

As the season has come round when the careful apiarian looks well to the comfort of his little busy friends, the writer is reminded of his success last winter, and gives his experience for the benefit of those who have as yet no settled plans for the better preservation of their bees during the cold weather.

Ants-To Keep Away from Hives.

When hives are properly constructed, ants cannot get into them to propagate their young. They frequently, however, get into hives in consequence of not being properly constructed, and do much injury, as they annoy the bees, injure the hive by eating into the wood, and will eat the honey if accessible. It is very The writer's hives have movable combs.- little trouble to drive and keep the ants away The size is 14 inches every way on the outside, from the hive, although much trouble has been and each one is placed by itself upon a small experienced by many, for the simple reason platform, close to the ground. On the top of that they knew no remedy. To drive the ants each hive are four holes for supers. The cover away from the hive, or out of their retreat, diwhich goes over the supers, is large enough rect upon them a small quantity of the smoke (say 14 inches in the clear) to slip over the of wood or tobacco. Each one will usually hive, and when the supers are off, covers the shoulder a number of their young, and " sehive completely, and still leaves two or more cede" instanter ! To keep e ants away from inches space between the top of the hive and the hive, apply, as soon as they have mostly the top of the outside cover. (In summer, this disappeared, thinly in places where they fresame cover is raised sufficiently to place supers quent, with the feather part of a quill, the under, and rests upon cleats, which are screw-spirits of turpentine; they will not be seen ed on to the four sides of the hive at any height desired.) Last winter, the writer opened one of the holes in the top of the hive, and tacked wire-cloth over it, and then put on the cover (or surtout, I call it). The opening made in the cover, to correspond with the entrance to the hive, when slipped wholly down, is not more than 1 inches long, and inch high. Thus, no great current of air can blow into the hive, and the moist atmosphere rises through the hole in the top, instead of collecting dampness in the hive.

The writer was never so successful in wintering his bees as the last season. Upon raising the covers in the spring, instead of a damp mass of debris, and large quantities of dead bees, the floor was dry, and the caps of the cells lay along in regular order under the spaces between the combs-showing that the bees had not moved much.

The number of dead bees was much less, and evidently those which had died a natural death -not the sleek, whole winged ones, but dark, jagged-winged, hard workers-perhaps a half tumbler full in each hive.

Though the size of the hive is here given, it is not necessary that it should be adopted for the better preservation of the bees. The principle can be followed out by using the square box hive, common among farmers. Another advantage in connection with this arrangement is, that if the bees fall short of honey, they can be readily fed.

One of my hives (about February) had not a drop of honey in it. I filled a tumbler full of plain barley candy, and inverted it over one of the holes, and the bees leisurely consumed it all. One pound (cost 25 cts.) carried them through till the time of fruit blossoms, when (the weather being favorable,) they laid up sufficient to last till the white clover came. -APIS, in Bee Journal.

3660 workers will fill a quart measure.

again, in general, during the remainder of that season; but should they return, repeat the application. This preventive is very simple as well as efficacious; try it.-M. M. BALDRIDGE, in Bee Journal.

GET YOUR HIVES READY.-We trust that

many of our readers who have been denying themselves the greatest luxury in the whole world of sweet, good honey, have made up their minds, ere this, to do without no longer. In the matter of bee culture, as in many other things, there is more in dreading than doing. Get your hives ready, look out for the bees, and when another autumn comes, your tables may be loaded with the fruits of their labors.