Se p. poraz of H

At Dorset Herma Ram

A stundu Butats, and the Voli hu s at the

THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1862.

PLATE I.

A DORSET HORNED RAM.

THE PROPERTY OF MR. THOMAS DANGER, OF HUNSTILE, BRIDGEWATER, AND A FIRST PRIZE SHEEP AT MEETINGS OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL AND OF THE BATH AND WEST OF ENGLAND SOCIETIES.

This ram is a very famous one of his breed, although he has never been exhibited but on three occasions. At the meeting of the Bath and West of England Society at Dorchester in 1860, he took the second prize in the shearling class of Somerset and Dorset Horns, when the whole entry was commended. At the Truro Show of the same Society in 1861,,he took the first prize in the all-aged class, where he beat Mr. Bond's ram, to which the judges had given the preference in the year previous. And, at the Battersea meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society this summer, he again took the first premium as the best horned ram of any age. Out of seventy prizes offered by the Bath and West of England Society for this breed, during a period of eleven years, Mr. Danger has won thirty-three, twenty-seven of which were first prizes, and at the Royal Agricultural Society's Show this year his sheep carried off all the first and all the second prizes, amounting to £75 out of £90, offered for this description of sheep. On

the land he occupies Mr. Danger has tried several other kinds, but has found none to answer so well as the Dorset Horns. They are very prolific and hardy, giving less trouble to the shepherd during the lambing season than any other, while they drop their lambs earlier, and, where care has been taken to improve their fattening properties, graze quite as well as Leicesters or Downs. The mutton is of a fine quality, and in the market fetches the very best price per pound. One peculiarity is the extraordinary quantity of rough fat they carry, and on this acount the butchers are always anxious to have them. There is another kind of Dorset sheep, large and coarse, and, although valuable in many respects, not so suitable for fattening purposes.

The Dorset Horns have always been an attractive feature in the West Country shows, and there is no breed that has developed more successfully under the encouragement of the Bath and West of England Society.

PLATE II.

CALLER OU; A THOROUGH-BRED FILLY,

THE PROPERTY OF MR. W. I'ANSON, OF SPRING COTTAGE, MALTON. Caller Ou, or Caller Oui, as some write of her, was bred by her present owner Mr. W. I'Anson, in 1858, and is by Stockwell out of Haricot, by Mango or Lanercost, her dam Queen Mary, by Gladiator-by Plenipotentiary out of Myrrha, by Whalebone.

Stockwell, bred by Mr. Thellusson in 1849, is by the Baron out,of Pocahontas, by Glencoe. He himself won the Leger in Lord Exeter's colours, and is already the sire of two St. Leger winners in two years following-of St. Albans in 1860, and of Caller Ou in 1861, a fact altogether unprece

OLD SERIES.]

dented in the history of so young a stallion. On the decease of Lord Londesborough, to whom the horse had passed from Lord Exeter, Stockwell was sold to Mr. Naylor, for 4,500 guineas. His stock first appeared in 1858, and he is the sire of Drapery, Emily, Thunderbolt, Vesta, Stockade, Comforter, Little Nat, May Queen, Loiterer, Asteroid, Audrey, Caller Ou, Doncaster, The Drake, Jacintha, Lady Ripon, Norman, Prologue, St. Albans, Suburban, and some younger things, his stock having been running famously from the first. Haricot, also bred by Mr. Ï'Anson in 1847, was VOL. LII-No. 8.

Ο

the first foal of Queen Mary, the dam of the famous Blink Bonny. Haricot, herself a very good runner, is credited in the Stud Book with Canty Boy, Cramond, and Caller Ou. Her first foal in 1855, to Longbow, died when a foal, and after producing the Leger winner Mr. I'Anson sold the mare, curiously enough, to Colonel Towneley, who, however, has had but little luck with her so far, as she was barren both in 1859 and 1860, but threw a filly to Orlando this spring.

Caller Ou is an odd, old-fashioned filly, standing fifteen hands three inches high. She is a bad

mealy or more rusty-brown in colour, with wonderful depth of girth, and fine shoulders as her chief points. Her thighs are also good, while otherwise she is a short common-looking mare, and never was there a truer word written, than when characterising her as "hacky" in appearance. Indeed, what with her swish tail and her mean quarters, her plainish head, and her quick vulgar walk, we remember being especially impressed with her, or rather against her. Her renowned aunt Blink Bonny had much the same hack style about her.

THE SOILS ADAPTED FOR IRRIGATION WITH IMPURE WATER. BY CUTHBERT W. JOHNSON, ESQ., F.R.S.

The necessity for providing for the sewage of our densely populated places is at present a question of national importance. The difficulty of accomplishing this has become more considerable, as sanitary efforts have so beneficially increased. Sewers are now constructed, or forming in most towns, far more copious supplies of good water are secured. The bulk of the town sewage by this larger supply of water and the removal of cesspools is very largely increased. The adjacent stream or the sea-bathing is hence rendered more impure, other outfalls have to be sought for, or means for deodorizing the sewage obtained.

This has led, almost as a natural consequence, to our taking another leaf out of the great book of nature. There we find that the vegetable world well and rapidly deodorizes the excreta of animals. What is noxious to the one great class of organized beings is the food of the vegetable world; each class in fact, absorbs what the other rejects, whether as excreta or from their leaves or lungs. From Nature's book, then, we have, very slowly it is true, taken the hint. Scotland set the first example at Edinburgh, in successfully using the town sewage in the irrigation of grass land. Nottinghamshire, after a long interval followed the example at Mansfield; Croydon has recently succeeded in the same way in the Valley of the Wandle; two or three of the towns on our southern coast are preparing to follow the example. It is, therefore, of considerable importance that we should clearly understand the kind of soil the best adapted for being irrigated with these impure waters, since some lands are very little suited for the purpose. We must indeed always remember that in the use of foul waters in irrigation the two equally essential objects to be obtained are-1, the purifying of those streams of sewage, and 2, the increased productiveness of the grass land to which they are directed.

Now, the light porous soils combine these two properties in the greatest degree, and the heavy retentive lands to the smaller extent. In almost all successful trials with liquid manure on clay lands the bulk of liquid absorbed by the soil was small, the quality of

the fluid strong. In those of Mr. W. Dickenson on the Middlesex clays, the liquid was a mixture composed of two parts of the urine of the horse and one part water, this being applied by a water-cart to Italian rye grass (Journal Royal Agricultural Society, vol. vi., p. 576.) In the trials of Mr. Alderman Mechi on the stiff clays of Thurstable Hundred, the artificially prepared liquid manure annually applied was by the hose, and at the rate of only say 200,000 gallons or about 800 tons per acre. For grass land this would be but a very inadequate supply to produce the maximum advantage, and such an amount would consume the sewage of a town far too slowly for such extensive deodorization purposes.

It is, in fact, pretty well proved by the result of the irrigation at Edinburgh, and by the trials of the Royal Commissioners at Rugby, that at least from 6,000 to 9,000 tons of sewage per annum are needed to produce the greatest amount of produce in irrigated grass. Now, this is equal to an artificial rain-fall of from 60 to 90 inches per annum, an amount which, even if it was clear water, would

be very slowly drained from a clay soil, and the difficulty is considerably increased when we have to em. ploy impure water surcharged with mechanically sus pended matters, and this remark not only applies to town sewage, but to the matters contained in the liquid manure of the homestead. Professor Voelcker some time since carefully sxamined these farm-yard liquids (ibid, vol. xix., p. 522).

And

"He analyzed six specimens of liquid manure. They all had a dark colour and disagreeable smell. what is a very useful fact to remember, their specific gravity corresponded with the amount of solid matters which each kind contained. So that this affords a very easy way of ascertaining the value of decomposing liquid manure, since to a certain extent the specific gravity of these liquids may serve as an indication of their relative fertilizing power. The solid contents, in grains, of the liquids examined by the Professor, and their specific gravity, will be found in the following table, viz., that from