118 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



weighed a niimLer of stocks, supposing them to be about an 

 average. From that weighing we averaged the quantity, 

 and we got a ton and a half or a ton and three-quarters to 

 the acre, which I estimated to be worth ten dollare a ton. I 

 am not quite sure as to the quantity ; but I think we had 

 about twent3'-four tons on the sixteen acres. The result 

 was, assuming ten dollars a ton as the value of the fodder, 

 that my corn cost me twenty-two cents and three-tenths a 

 basket of ears. We did not get a hundred baskets to the 

 acre on this land. It is not very rich land, but pasture-land 

 that lias never been well cultivated ; but I am satisfied that 

 the land is in much better condition to-day for future crops 

 than it was three years ago. I have not seen much difference 

 in the crop of corn whether I have used the Stockbridg'e 

 fertilizer or the Bay-State phosphate. I charge against the 

 corn the entire cost of the phosphate, without any allowance 

 for the benefit that may come to the land. 



In regard to the use of corn-fodder, with great diflS- 

 dence, I am obliged to say that I do not agree with Dr. 

 Sturtevant about that. I have been in the habit, for manv 

 years, of having my corn-fodder cut (it is harvested, of 

 course, Avhen it is in a good condition for fodder) in a power 

 machine into pieces about an inch long. I have now forty- 

 eight cattle of various sizes, — about thirty cows, some heifers 

 two years old, and some one year old ; being equal, perhaps, 

 to about forty milch cows. We give them about a third of 

 a ton of corn-fodder a day in two feeds, one at morning and 

 one at night. The cut feed is put dry into a feed-box, 

 water-tight and nearly air-tight, with a close-fitting cover. 

 Upon that feed we put a hundred pounds of cob-meal corn. 

 The whole is saturated with boiling water (not having 

 steam), mixed thoroughly, and covered as tight as an ordi- 

 nary cover will fit to the box. One feed is prepared in the 

 morning, and another at night ; and of course it stands, one 

 feed from morning until night, and the other from night until 

 morning. Now, I have this to say practically : I have no 

 scientific knowledge as to the value of this food ; but we use 

 it until it is exhausted, which is generally somewhere from 

 the 15th of March to the 1st of April ; and when we put 

 our cows upon good hay, giving them an equal number of 

 pounds, they do not give any more milk, nor look any better, 



