THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



303 



hogs are grazing animals. But hogs can- 

 not be turned into pastures for the stock 

 law has spoiled all our fences for hogs. 

 There seems to be no other way so they 

 think but to feed corn and water. There 

 is no money to buy slop stuff. All the 

 money is needed for something else. Last 

 year a man had no pasture for his hogs for 

 it had been overstocked and the grass was 

 all killed out. Something must be done. 

 He penned up his twelve sows and let his 

 forty-five pigs run free. He sowed oats 

 and rape on one three-acre lot and disked 

 them in as early as the ground would work 

 well. His hogs were turned into this lot 

 about May 15-20 and they had plenty of 

 green feed till late in July. His small 

 lots were shoveled and sown thickly to rape. 

 How the pigs enjoyed the sweet, tender 

 rape as the lots were successively opened 

 to them! Now he added shorts slop and 

 continued it. Another lot of three acres 

 was plowed and fined. Early potatoes and 

 sweet corn were planted. At the last 

 plowing rape seed at the rate of three 

 pounds per acre was cultivated in. The 

 potatoes were dug and the pigs were turn- 

 ed in in August. The sweet corn lasted 

 them a month and they had no care save 

 being watered. The rape continued grow- 

 ing till heavy frost, and the pigs ate it un- 

 til December Twelve calves were turned 

 in for two weeks to help save the rape: and 

 then much of it froze down. This man 

 got out of the old rut of feeding corn only, 

 and thinks it paid him $50 to $100. He 

 never had pigs do better. They had all 

 the corn they could eat quickly. My 

 clover all killed out. Plans for pasturing 

 a .carload of calves were seriously disturbed. 

 I wanted my farm to pasture them so that 

 Iwould not have to hire pasture as I had 

 often done before. Twenty-eight acres of 

 pasture had been prepared for them; four- 

 teen acres were old meadow of clover and 

 timothy, and fourteen were new in clover. 

 The clover was all killed and the part in 

 clover was bare ground. One peck of 



timothy and clover seed and two bushels 

 oats were sown to each acre and disked 

 in. The old meadow was left to itself- 

 The young cattle were turned in the latter 

 part of May and they staid over five months. 

 I cut six tons of timothy hay. This was 

 not big pay, but it beat six per cent and 

 the cattle were at home. Farmers would 

 do well to experiment more. Profit by the 

 experience of others. Few of us do as well 

 as we can, nor as well as we might if we 

 turn more of the things we read into 

 practice. 



THE MATTER OF POTATO PLANTING. 

 Nearly every farmer is interested, to a 

 more or less extent, in the matter of grow- 

 ing potatoes, whether he grows merely a 

 sufficient amount for home consumption, 

 or wheather he grows a large acreage for 

 the purpose of marketing. It is interest- 

 ing to note the results of experiments made 

 by many potato growers in the method of 

 planting, For instance, in the planting at 

 different depths in rows from two to three 

 feet apart and twelve inches apart in the 

 rows. It has been ascertained that this 

 method of planting produces large yields, 

 and the crop can be cultivated with ease. 

 Level cultivation is recommended, and 

 but very little soil is thrown on the po- 

 tatoes. Potatoes will develop more rap- 

 idly in warm soil than in that which is 

 colder, consequently as the soil for the 

 first three or four inches of the surface is 

 warmer than in tLe three or four inches 

 lower down, the condition of shallow plant- 

 ing are more favorable, and it has been 

 demonstrated that level cultivation and 

 shallow planting is the best for many soils- 

 On the other hand, much of the success of 

 shallow planting will depend upon the 

 moisture of the soil. If the season is very 

 dry the first two inches of soil may be so 

 dry that the potato will not take root 

 rapidly, and the season of growth will thus 

 be shortened, but such a season will not 

 occur more than once in five years. From 



