APPLES FOR STOCK-FEEDING. 17 



objections, we would have no barren years with our orchards, 

 with certain unavoidable exceptions, and we would use the 

 surplus in plentiful years for feeding our stock. Because an 

 occasional surfeit has dried up the cows, or a case of choking 

 has occurred, and there are men very fond of cider, we are 

 continually reminded of the danger of allowing cows to range 

 in orchards, and that little good can result from feeding them 

 to stock in any manner. Prof. L. B. Arnold, in a recent 

 article, estimated the value of apples for milch cows at twelve 

 and a half cents per bushel. This is when they are fed with 

 prudence. 



From my own experience in feeding thousands of bushels, 

 not only as falling from the trees, but gathered in the barn- 

 cellar for winter stores, for neat-stock, horses, sheep and 

 swine, I would place their value nearly as high as does Mr. 

 Arnold. The sweet and firm-fleshed varieties would of 

 course be preferred, but a mixture of sour ones need not be 

 feared. In the extreme drought of the past autumn, the range 

 of an orchard, where the cattle could gather the falling fruit, 

 has been found a most valuable addition to the scanty herbage 

 of our parched fields. The possibilities of yield of an orchard 

 are such as to make its value for stock-feeding alone take 

 the very front rank among cattle foods. At the very moder- 

 ate yield often bushels per tree, forty trees per acre, we have 

 four hundred bushels, at one shilling per bushel, amounting to 

 fifty dollars per acre, as an addition to the crop of grass for 

 pasturage. 



To prevent choking, we cut or crush the apples fed to cows 

 in the manger ; but with some twenty acres of orcharding, and 

 scattered trees in all our pastures, with nearly one hundred 

 head of neat-cattle, we have not in thirty years had a case of 

 choking from apples. Beginning to eat them when calves, 

 they never forget how to eat apples. I will now give, in 

 brief, my opinions on orchard-culture ; and first, as most 

 important, — 



LOCATION. 



Any good strong soil, adapted to corn or grass, is 



suitable for an apple orchard. In those sections where 



there is a hardpan, a tenacious subsoil, it should be dry, 



either from natural or artificial drainage ; and from the 



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