KEEPING ONE COW. 69 



fed to the cow until the oats are sufficiently advanced. The oats 

 are then used as long as they are fit for the purpose, cutting them 

 a second time as far as practicable, and the residue, if any, is 

 cured for hay before it gets too ripe for that purpose. The 

 same course is pursued with the rye in the following years. The 

 clover should be cut for hay rather early, in order to get it in 

 the best possible condition, and to insure a good second, and per- 

 haps a third crop. All the aftermath not used in soiling, should 

 be converted into hay. When the oats are exhausted, clover is fed 

 until the corn fodder is large enough for use. This is fed until the 

 ears make their appearance, and what is then left is cut and cured 

 for dry fodder during winter. After the green corn fodder is all 

 consumed, there will be a growth of new clover in the oats 

 stubble the first year, and in the rye stubble in after years, with 

 which the cow is soiled until the artichokes are ready to feed, and 

 if any of the new clover is left by that time, it is made into hay. 

 The artichokes are fed raw ; in winter, with hay and other dry 

 fodder, and as long as they last in spring. 



In the second year soiling begins with rye, and continues after- 

 wards through the season the same as the first year, and a like 

 course is followed hi succeeding years. 



FEEDING ARTICHOKES. 



The artichokes will grow until frost kills the stalks, and a 

 patch of one-quarter of an acre, when the soil is in good condi- 

 tion, will yield a yearly average of between two hundred and fifty 

 and three hundred bushels of them. They can be fed before 

 they are quite ripe, in which case the cow will eat up the whole 

 plant root, stalk, and branch. She must not have access to a 

 heap of the tubers, lest she surfeit and seriously injure herself. 

 As long as the whole plant is fed, she should not be allowed more 

 at a time than she will eat up clean, for if she gets more she will 

 eat the tubers, and refuse the stalks. In fact she will prefer these 

 tubers at all times to any other food. She should therefore receive 

 a certain allowance, say a peck or a little more, three times a day, 

 so that she will eat up the stalks, and also a small portion of other 

 forage with them. In winter and spring she will consume a 

 bushel or more of the raw tubers a day, together with eight or ten 

 pounds of hay or other dry food. Her ration of artichokes should 

 never be so large that she will reject other food. 



Artichokes can be fed for about eight months of the year, say 

 from the first of October to the first of June, during which time 



