462 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



cine is good feed given sparingly. Cattle turned out to grass in the spring 

 should at first be left only a short time each day, and be supplied with hay 

 or good straw, which will prevent Hoven or bloat, or scours, and sheep are 

 also benefited by same care. 



The best way to salt animals is to keep it where they can get it when they 

 want it, and they will never eat too much after they have been prepared for 

 it. But I believe as generally given it is a damage rather than a benefit. A 

 spoonful is enough for a cow or a horse, and more is worse than none, as it 

 is a rank poison. Stock should have access to pure water at all times. 



No man is fit to care for stock who cannot gain their friendship, or who 

 prefers to toast his shins to caring for his stock. 



To make stock profitable, they should be like good Christians — fit to live, 

 or fit to die. Have them ready for beef, pork or mutton. They keep easier, 

 grow faster, give more milk, beef, pork, mutton or wool, and bring their 

 owners more money, more satisfaction, more self-respect and more respect 

 from others, for we can hardly respect a man who keeps a lot of stock 

 around him at starvation point. 



I should say farmers do not raise enough stock. I think I hear some one 

 exclaim, "I raise all the stock I can feed." Well, if you do, the general 

 farmer of St. Joseph county does not. Their plan is grain, grain, The 

 West is a vast grain field. A piece of land lying in grass seems to be thought 

 a field lying in waste. For over fifty years the farmers of St. Joe county 

 have been following the depleting process, till even in grain-raising we 

 stand at the foot, or near it, as compared with other counties of the State. 

 I have been trying to profit by the experiences and facts gathered by these 

 professors, and from these facts I find the more stock kept on a given area, 

 the more grain and grass per acre does the land produce, and the more 

 money they make and the more valuable their farms become. Some one says 

 St. Joe county is not a grazing county. I don't know about that ; I have 

 seen more stock kept on a given area, and well kept, than in any other 

 place I know of. 



It is true we have been having a series of dry seasons, in which our pastures 

 were dried up, but I never saw it so dry here, or our cattle suffering so much 

 for feed and water, as I did in the west two years ago ; and we have never had 

 a summer in which a farmer could not raise a heavy growth of corn fodder 

 on well improved land. There is no plant that will yield more feed than 

 corn, that I ever had any experience with. Corn fodder green, corn fodder 

 dried, or made into ensilage, or all together, will enable farmers of St. Joe 

 county to compete with farmers in any other section of our country. At 

 least one-half of the money produced from the farm should be from animal 

 products. 



One thing more and I am done. Your stock generally, except hogs, are 

 not of the most profitable kinds, cattle especially, and as good cattle were 

 never so cheap as now, to my knowledge, now is the time to get rid of scrubs 

 and get good grades or thoroughbreds. You cannot afford to raise any but 

 the best. Let the cheap lands of the West raise the scrubs, and let us raise 

 better stock. 



H. G-. Reynolds: The rule given by the writer to skim twelve hours after 

 milking, and give the skim milk to the calves, is one that would work differ- 

 ently for the calves with different breeds of cattle. Thus Jersey milk would 



