172 HOW TO MAKE THE FARM PAY. 



it, and it should be done at once, as both straw and grain lose 

 by every day's delay. It can be mown, cradled, or cut with a 

 reaper. When the straw is short, it can be raked and housed 

 without binding. Barley is excellent food for stock, but it is 

 mostly used for making beer. Some is exported for that pur- 

 pose. The straw is worth more for fodder than wheat straw. 



Buckwheat will grow upon a very poor soil, with very poor 

 cultivation; but should have a little more manure and a little 

 more cultivation than it usually gets. It makes an excellent 

 green fodder for milch cows ; for which purpose, three pecks 

 should be sown in June, which will be fit for cutting in August. 

 If plowed under green, it makes an excellent fertilizer for 

 wheat. It can be sown as late as August 15th, and if it does 

 not ripen before frost, can be turned under, so that nothing is 

 lost. In sowing for a grain crop, two pecks is an average 

 quantity of seed. The straw, if not touched by the frost, is 

 good fodder, and the grain is very nutritious. We could never 

 do without our '■'• buckwheat cakes J^ The grain should be stacked 

 as soon as harvested, as it will cure better than in the swath. 



Oats, being the best known feed for the horse, form a very 

 important crop, and we are quite sure they can be made a very 

 profitable crop in all our thickly settled districts. We allow 

 that twenty-five bushels per acre, weighing twenty-five pounds 

 to the bushel, may not be very profitable— but thirty-fivo bush- 

 els, weighing thirty-five pounds to the bushel, on the same land, 

 with only one extra plowing (subsoil) and one extra harrowing, 

 is profitable. The first great necessity of this crop is the 

 selection of a new variety for seed. The common oat may be 

 improved, but there are already in the market several most 

 excellent varieties, which it will pay for the farmer to procure, 

 Vrovided he will thereafter keejo them pure. We recommend every 

 farmer to make a trial of some of these oats. AVe have no 



