No. 4.] CxiTTLE FOODS. 55 



Professor Cheesman. Have you always used as heavy 

 seeding ? 



Mr. Sargent. Yes ; I think I have never used less than 

 a bushel of peas to the acre. My object in sowing all these 

 crops is to get a soiling crop for my cattle ; and I commence 

 cutting just as quick as I can cut a good swath, and feed this 

 until I think it is getting too hard to be used in that way, 

 or something else comes in. 



In answer to the first question asked by the gentleman, I 

 will say that oat and pea crops are very liable to lodge, and 

 invariably lodge towards the east. So I sometimes find it 

 necessary to cut them from the east towards the west. In 

 that way the machine will cut them very clean, and I have 

 very little trouble from the stubble that is left on the ground. 



Mr. Ware. I should judge, from the amount of seed that 

 you sow, that the oats and peas would l)e very liable to 

 lodge ; and in lodging do they ever rot underneath ? 



Mr. Sargent. Not to any extent ; they will a little. 

 Now, I speak in regard to curing the crop dry rather than 

 putting it into the silo. The oats are in the milk or in a soft 

 state, and the peas have pods with small peas in them. The 

 dried fodder which I am feeding at the present time has peas 

 as large as buckshot in the pod. After cutting this fodder 

 it was raked into windrows, and the third or fourth day was 

 put into a stack out-doors. I put this fodder into a stack, 

 because I was short of barn room. I think it is a most 

 excellent idea to stack it before putting it into the barn, 

 which can be done with very little expense. My experience 

 this year is that it does not hurt in the stack. I covered 

 the top with a canvas, and it is coming out bright and nice. 



I will say just a word on the matter of corn and corn fod- 

 der. My farm being small, all the ripe corn I raise is my 

 surplus from the soiling crop. I have planted now for two 

 years nearly all of my fodder corn in hills with a planter, 

 the same as I would field corn that is to be ripened and to 

 be used as a grain. I cut up corn this year with ears twelve 

 or fourteen inches long. The cows like it just as Avell as if 

 there were no ears upon it. I think when a person sows 

 more than one bushel of seed to the acre for fodder corn his 

 fodder is likely to depreciate in value. 



