110 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



SPIRIT OF THE AGRICULTURAL PSESS. 



Horse Radish for Cattle. — The Homestead says horse- 

 radish is good for cattle and horses when appetite fails, 

 and good as a medicine in various diseases in either. It 

 is to be cut fine and mixed with potatoes or meal, or both. 



Large Hog.— The Boston Cultivator says John Cooper, 

 of New Hampshire, killed a hog last December that 

 weighed 733 lbs. He was nineteen months and twelve 

 days old. Up to the 20th of June, he received no corn, 

 and after that eat 27i bushels. 



Hogs Packed in the West. — The Cincinnati Price 

 Current has returns of the number of hogs packed at one 

 one hundred and thirteen points in the West, which foot 

 up comparatively as follows: in 1861, 1,568,083; in 1862, 

 1,868,782— increase, 300,699. The complete report will 

 show an excess of fully 400,000. The crop will be the 

 largest ever packed in the West. 



Application of Manure. — N. Reed, of Duchess Co., N 

 Y., say.s in the Count?']/ Gentleman, that farmers in that 

 Section are becoming more in favor of applying their 

 manure to grass land. The immediate effect is a dimin- 

 ution of the crops of corn and other grain, but in a few 

 years the whole farm is increased in fertility. He ad- 

 vocates applying manure to grass land at the time of 

 seeding. A heavy crop of grass is the result, and this, 

 fed off by stock, he says, "is the best preparation for 

 corn." 



A Thousand Plow Patents. — The New York World 

 Bays: "It may surprise many of the multitude who use 

 plows, as well as those who do not, to learn that about 

 one thousand 'patents have been issued for alleged im- 

 provements in plows since the foundation of the Ameri- 

 can government. About two-thirds of these patents have 

 been granted since the year 1847. Some curious investi- 

 gator will doubtless mount this hobby, and give us a 

 book about the origin and progress of the implement 

 which the farming world is now trying to discard— if it 

 can find anything better to use in cultivating the soil." 



Questions for Farmers. — A correspondent of the N. 

 H. Journal of Agriculture asks the following questions : 



Are raw potatoes wholesome food for an idle horse? 

 Are they profitable to feed to a horse when they can 

 be purchased at one fourth the price of corn ? 



Is corn fodder good feed for sheep? Will they winter 

 well on coin fodder without hay? Can corn sown broad- 

 cast or in drills, and cut up while green and cured, be 

 raised as feed for sheep' at a less price than hay? What 

 is the process jiid what ttie expense of curing an acre? 



What, amount of turnips will a sheep eat dailv and 

 prolitably ? 



Would straw and coarse hay be more valuable as food 

 for stock if made as fine as meal? By what means can 

 hay and straw be ground ? 



Superphosphate of Lime for Turnips.— For the last 

 dozen years we have repeatedly recommended superphos- 

 phate of lime as a manure for turnips. When drilled 

 with the seed the effect is most astonishing. We have seen 

 numerous instances where it has doubled and tripled and 

 quadrupled the crop, and even more. There is no manure 

 equal to it for turnips. In the last number of the Massa- 

 chusetts Ploughman, A. J. Aldrich states that he put a 

 little of Coe's superphosphate of lime on an eighth of an 

 acre of French turnips, and left a small piece without 

 any to see the effect. " The result was," he says, " that 



I had a good crop of turnips where the superphosphate 

 was 'used; but the turnips were hardly worth pulling 

 where it was not used. The proportion would be about 

 one pouud of turnips where there was no mauure, [super- 

 phosphate,] to eight pounds where there was mauure." 

 In other words, the superphosphate increased the yield 

 eight-fold. 



Save the Manure. — " Recollect," says the Ohio Farm- 

 er, " that every shovelful of manure wasted is a loss to 

 your crops, and consequently to your pocket." 



Sitting Hens. — The Ohio Farmer says, " always choose 

 the evening hour for sittiug a hen." The reason assign- 

 ed is that the hen, having a natural desire for roosting 

 and resting at this time, will take to her duty more con- 

 tentedly than if set in the morning. This is new to us, 

 but there may be something in it. 



Sawdust as a Manurial Absorbent.— F. J. Kinney, of 

 Wayland, Mass., gives in the New England Farmer, an in- 

 teresting account of his use of sawdust for bedding, as a 

 fertilizer and absorbent. In January, 1859, he commenced 

 hauling sawdust and fine chips from a clothes-pin manu- 

 factory. There were two horses, seven head of cattle, 

 and several swine ou the farm, and in course of the year 

 he used 100 cords of this material as bedding for these 

 animals. The stable floois were covered with it about six 

 inches deep, and as fast as that under the swine and cattle 

 became saturated with urine, it was removed with the 

 solid excrement to the manure cellar. The horse-bedding 

 and manure was piled under a shed. In both cases it 

 soon began to burn or firefang — this was remedied by 

 running water upon it, mostly from the eaves of the barn 

 and sheds, by wooden troughs from the conductors, and 

 by keeping it as solid as possible until drawn out for use. 



Under a pair of steers kept for two months in the fall 

 of 1859, at night, in a yard 14 feet square, he put one- 

 third of a cord of sawdust three times a week. This laid 

 until the next spring, when it yielded four cords of No. 1 

 mauure. There was but little loss in bulk by decompo- 

 sition — an increase in weight — a good deal of rain having 

 fallen during the autumn. In his opinion, it can not be 

 kept too moist, up to the point of leaching. 



The stock which made 15 cords of No. 1 manure in 



1858, made from 80 to 100 cords of No. 2 mauure in 



1859. The average time employed per cord was about 

 three hours — in drawing, distributing, trampling and 

 watering. The effect when applied to the soil, in com- 

 parison with barn manure, was fully equal, though not 

 quite as lasting, and after the sawdust had lain two years, 

 so as to become fully decomposed, it was considerably in- 

 creased in value. 



In closing his communication, Mr. Kinney remarks: 

 " Wherever I have examine'd the roots of a vegetable 

 groWn where sawdust, chip or leaves and stable manure 

 had been used, I found them embracing with their deli- 

 cate fibres every atom of the vegetable matter within 

 thejr reach, and drawing their natural sustenance from 

 them ; and there is nothing I have ever tried as an assist- 

 ant fertilizer that holds so much liquid or retains it so 

 long, where only the air and sun operate upon it, as hard 

 wood sawdust; and nothing that yields up this embryo 

 vegetable so readily to the petitions of the rootlets." 



