FARMERS' MONTHLY 



OF HAMPSHIRE COUNTY 



Vol. X. 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS., APRIL, 1925 



No. 4 



STEER FEEDING STUDIED 



County Agent Visits Lancaster 

 County, Pa. 



Tobacco growers in the past few years 

 have come to feel that manure would 

 raise the quality and quantity of the 

 tobacco grown in this County. Stable 

 manure from cities, once easily and 

 cheaply obtained, is now high in price 

 and difficult to get. The question as to 

 the advisibility of feeding steers to get 

 manure has been raised quite frequently 

 in the past few months. Because of the 

 interest in this method of obtaining 

 manure, the Trustees of the Extension 

 Sei-vice sent the County Agent to study 

 steer feeding as practiced in Lancaster 

 County, Pa., to see if the practices so 

 successfully used there would apply to 

 Hampshire County. A report of this trip 

 follows : 



Lancaster County has no tobacco farms 

 as we know them. Tobacco is grown in 

 a rotation with other farm crops. A com- 

 mon rotation is Corn, Wheat, Hay, To- 

 bacco. The Tobacco always follows hay 

 and is never grown several years in suc- 

 cession on the same land. The tobacco 

 also is a different type from ours. It is 

 used entirely for "filler." Their problem 

 is to get high yields per acre at as low 

 a cost as possible. The total cost of pro- 

 ducing an acre of tobacco in Lancaster 

 County is about .$140 and its value about 

 $250. " 



The following approximate values of 

 farm products for 1923 gives a clearer 

 understanding of the relative importance 

 of the various sources of farm income in 

 Lancaster County. Tobacco $9,000,000, 

 Com $4,800,000, Wheat $3,000,000, Hay 

 $2,700,000, Potatoes $1,000,000, Poultry 

 Products, $3,000,000, Dairy Products 

 $2,800,000, Steers $1,760,000, Hogs 

 $1,000,000. While the above list is not 

 complete, it shows that tobacco is the 

 main money crop. Wheat and potatoes 

 are the other crops sold directly from 

 the farms for cash. The corn and hay 

 crops are fed to cows, steers, hogs and 

 poultiy, while the wheat straw is used as 

 bedding. 



Years of experience have proven that 

 the net cash return to the farmer is as 

 great when the corn, hay and straw are 

 marketed through livestock as when sold 

 for cash. In addition the farmer has a 

 large amount of manure left for his 

 Continued on page 8, column 1 



SAVE JUNE 11 



Hampshire County homemakers 

 will want to keep in mind the date 

 of June 11 and begin planning to 

 attend the annual summary meet- 

 ing at Laurel Park. It will be an 

 outstanding day with a chance to 

 see what other towns have done in 

 extension work, to examine some 

 good exhibits and hear some worth 

 while speakers. 



Watch for detail plans in the 

 next issue of the Farmers' Monthly. 



BETTER LIVING FOR 



LESS MONEY 



Home Gardens an Important Asset to 



the Family Health as Well 



as Pocketbook 



"More money can be saved by making 

 a Home Garden than by working any 

 other piece of land on the farm" said 

 Mr. Ray M. Koon, Extcn.sion Specialist in 

 Vegetable Gardening, when talking to an 

 interested group of Chesterfield women. 

 But the pocketbook is not the only thing 

 to think of, the family's health is even 

 more important, and we find that that 

 is better if we have our Home Garden. 



You ask why that is? Every magazine 

 you pick up has at least one article writ- 

 ten by an expert, telling you to eat more 

 vegetables. If we have a Home Garden 

 our New England thriftiness will insist 

 we eat the vegetables rather than let 

 them go to waste, and if we cannot eat 

 them fast enough, we will can them and 

 eat them during the winter months. And 

 we find in the end we are really better 

 for it. 



The trouble with a great many vegeta- 

 ble gardens is that they do not contain 

 the right vegetables in sufficient amounts 

 to meet the family needs. The following 

 table is intended to show the quantities 

 of foods needed to supply a family of five 

 with its daily allowance of two servings 

 of vegetables, for one year. All of these 

 products may be grown in Hampshire 

 County. Still it may not be practical for 

 some home gardeners to attempt to raise 

 all of these different products. When a 

 choice must be made, we would advise 

 that the following vegetables be given 



Continued on page 4, colunm 3 



SEEDING DOWN IMPORTANT 



Hay Crop Determines Profit or Loss in 

 Dairying 



Cost of production figures secured 

 from farmers in Connecticut indicate an 

 average cost per ton in the neighborhood 

 of $25.00 for emergency hay crops, $20.00 

 for average yields of grass hay from old 

 mowings and only about $15.00 for clover 

 and alfalfa. The conclusion is obvious. 



Conditions this year are such as to 

 force the production of an unusual 

 acreage of emergency hay crops, or, what 

 is even more expensive, the purchase of 

 an unusually large portion of the ration; 

 but it is the poorest kind of poor manage- 

 ment to allow that state of affairs to con- 

 tinue. The future holds no hope of bet- 

 ter conditions unless, along with grow- 

 ing the necessary emergency hay crops, 

 steps aie taken toward production of the 

 cheaper and more permanent hays in fu- 

 ture years. That means seeding down as 

 much land as is practicable and doing it 

 in such shape that it will produce hay at 

 low cost in future years. 



Low cost in this case seems to be cor- 

 related principally with high yield. Even 

 though the high yield is secured at a con- 

 siderable initial expense for fertilizer, 

 lime and seed, it takes only a little of the 

 crop at present values of feed to repay 

 that investment and the rest is velvet. 



On the other hand there seems to be 

 no possibility of low cost feed or profit- 

 able production in the case of low yields. 

 The over-head expenses (taxes, interest, 

 etc.) go on anyway whether the yield is 

 one ton per acre or three and movring 

 and raking necessarily cost more per ton 

 in the case of low yields. 



If it is true, and it is, that high yields 

 of the permanent hay crops mean low 

 feed costs and a real possibility of prof- 

 itable milk production, then it follows 

 that there is no more important operation 

 on the dairy farm than seeding down in 

 such a way as to get those high yields — 

 weather permitting. That limitation is 

 always understood. 



Adequate fertility to produce high 

 yields is fundamental. Of course a man 

 can get a field "off his hands" for a few 

 years by merely sowing some grass and 

 clover seed on it, even if it isn't in a good 

 state of fertility, but he will not get prof- 

 itable hay crops that way. One or two 

 applications of manure during the years 

 Continued on page !>. column 2 



