CORRESPONDENCE. 



181 



MTT.T.'R T CULTURE 



Mr. EniTOR : — Being a reader of your valuable 

 paper, aud of late having seen many articles in diBer- 

 ent papers on the value and manner of cultivating 

 millet, I will give you my experience and the re- 

 sults. In 1851 I had a dairy of forty-five cows, and 

 having been obliged the year before to buy most of 

 my fodder for a dairy of about the same number, 

 I cast about to see if I could not find something that 

 I could raise in the place of hay that I could keep 

 my [cows on, and keep them in good condition, and 

 at the same time get a good supply of milk from 

 them'for market (as milk dairying was my business 

 I sowed corn and found it an excellent substitute ; 

 but to keep so many cows on it required too much 

 labor, and after mid-winter it became too dry and 

 harsh, and did not give much milk. In '51 I sowed 

 four acres of millet (four quarts per acre) the 10th 

 of June, and had as much fodder as from any eight 

 acres of grass that year — and it was a good year for 

 hay. I have raised from four to eight acres every 

 year since, and have invariably had good crops of not 

 only fodder or hay, or straw equal to as many tons 

 of the best timothy hay, but from twenty to thirty 

 bushels of seed to the acre, equal to as many bushels 

 of corn to feed to any kind of domestic animals. I 

 feed the most of my seed, after having it ground, to 

 milch cows, preferring it to Indian meal, as making 

 more milk and of as rich quality. The last season I 

 had six acres of millet which has been worth more 

 than .S50 per acre, or S300 for the six acres. I have 

 fed thirty-five cows on the straw since the 25th of 

 January, and have enough left to last until the 1st 

 of May, and got 120 bushels of seed from the lot. 

 The ripest of the seed, some sixty bushels, I have 

 sold for seed, and the balance I am now feeding to 

 ray horses, and find they do as well on the meal put 

 on cut hay and straw as they did when I fed an equal 

 quantity of corn and oat-meaL 



Now for the manner of raising it: — I have raised 

 it on green sward, turned over at my convenience any 

 time late in the fall or in the spring up to the time 

 of sowing; I then harrow until mellow, then put on 

 from twelve to eighteen quarts of seed per acre, and 

 as much fine manure as I can spare, from five to fif- 

 teen good wagon loads per acre, and sow about the 

 middle of June, and I am sure to have double the 

 amount of hay that the same land in similar condi- 

 tion would produce in meadow. It will stand the 

 drouth better than any other crop I ever raised ; in 

 fact, it wants hot, dry weather for it to grow in; if 



it is moist enough for it to come up, there is but little 

 danger, as the last two years have proved. After the 

 seed is sown and well dragged or cultivated, the 

 ground should be well rolled, as we get a good deal 

 of dry weather about that time, and if not rolled it 

 may be too dry for the seed to grow; but after it is 

 once up, I think there is but little daugsr of a failure 

 of a crop. The time of cutting that 1 have practiced 

 is, as soon as I get through with my oats — say the 

 last of August, or when about half of the heads have 

 seed matured enough to grow. The stalk will be 

 green and full of juice. I cradle it, let it lay one or 

 two days to wilt, aud stack it up as I do oats, put on 

 a cap, and let it cure in the stack; it will then be as 

 bright as the best toppings of corn, and any animal 

 will eat it as readily as any other forage. 



Buffalo, N. T. T. B. Shepard. 



Mr. Shepard has our best thanks for his very prac- 

 tical and timely communication. In most parts of 

 our pretty large country, millet may be sown as late 

 as the first of July, for the purpose of making hay, 

 and yield a profitable return. If seed is scarce, a 

 peck to the acre will do; although finer forage may 

 be grown by applying more, as suggested by Mr. S. 

 Millet is much more grown at the South than at the 

 North, and is highly esteemed. 



EXTRACT FBOM COBBESFONSENCE. 



Grain is scarcer here than was ever before known; 

 corn has sold as high as 86.50 per bai-rel, and flour 

 at $9 or SlO per barrel; and people fear there is not 

 enough grain in the country to last until harvest. 

 The wheat crop looks very promising now, and the 

 spring has been beautiful, but rather dry. The earth 

 has worked better than ever before known. Farmers 

 are now finishing planting corn. The prospect for 

 fruit is very flattering. A large number of hogs and 

 cattle died for want of food; hogs will be very scarce 

 in Kentucky for the next two years. Yours, 



Chesuer's Store, Ky. A. G. M. 



To Keep Bugs frok Vines. — For the benefit of 

 your numerous subscribers, I will send you what I 

 have found to be the best method to keep the yeUow 

 striped bugs from vines. I have used it for more 

 than thirty years, and have never known it to fail. 



Take the feathers from a hen's wing, and dip them 

 in spirits of turpentine, and stick one or two in a hill, 

 and after every shower they will want to be dipped 

 over again. — Hojvard Sayre in Country Gentle- 

 man. 



