164 



QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 



Manure. 



Swede. 



Fig Food. 



A. The Gourd Seed has starchy matter covering the entire top or crown 

 of the grain, the bony and oily sides of the grain not extending up as high 

 as in the Dent nor entirely up to the top as in the Flint. This starch of 

 the Gourd Seed when the grain becomes hard and dry shrinks down, 

 leaving the top portion of the skin or cuticle of the soft grain to dry and 

 curl, which it does, in the form of a sharp or rough tooth-like projection, 

 something like the end of a seed of a gourd or squash. 



Dent corn has less starch on the crown of the grain, and the horny or 

 oily sides extending almost to the top, the small amount of starch on the 

 crown when shrinking seems to draw down with it the skin or cuticle, 

 forming a depression or dent, hence the name applied to this type of corn. 



The Flint corns, like the Pop, have the horny or oily sides running 

 clear over the top ; they possess little starch and consequently there is no 

 shrinkage as in the others to cause a collapse, as it were, of the skin or 

 cuticle. 



933. Q. Can I purchase everything which vegetable crops require as 

 food? 



A. Yes ; so far as can be determined by the analytical chemist and veg- 

 etable physiologist, but you cannot get the component parts in just that 

 condition in which they are most assimilable. There are unknown soil 

 influences always at work, influences of heat, of cold, moisture, light, de- 

 composition, combinations all the while changing the character of sub-, 

 stance natural to or applied to the soil, and fitting or unfitting them as 

 plant food. 



924. Q. Are the leaves of the Bloomsdale Swede the same as those of 

 table turnips ? 



A. No ; the foliage of a Swede turnip is smooth, a blue green, and 

 glossy like that of a cabbage, while the leaves of table turnips and some 

 round cattle turnips, both white and yellow fleshed, are yellowish green, 

 rough and fuzzy. These are styled rough-leaved turnips, while the 

 Swedes are spoken of as smooth-leaved turnips. 



925. Q. As you advise market gardeners remote from stable-manure 

 supplies to keep pigs to make manure, I ask in what way does pig food 

 differ from cow food ? 



A. The food for horn-cattle or sheep, ruminant animals, consists largely 

 of grass, hay, straw, roots, all containing considerable woody fibres. 

 Pigs want very little of foods containing indigestible woody fibre. They 

 require foods largely composed of grain, or other seeds, seed oil-cake, 

 tubers, all containing starch, sugar and nitrogenous matter, all very con- 

 centrated and digestible substances. Nevertheless the pig is a ravenous 

 eater and consumes a much larger proportion of dry substances, compared 

 with his weight, than the ox or sheep. The investigation of Dr. Lawes 

 shows that for each 100 pounds of live weight per week, the fattening ox 

 consumes over 12 pounds of dry substance, yielding Ij^^, pounds of in- 

 crease ; the sheep consumes 16 pounds of dry substance and yields 1^^ 



