782 Transactions of the American Institute. 



hog have a j^ood range during tlie summer, and if fed, let it be with 

 oat meal or Avlieat shorts in sour milk. Then as soon as corn is hard 

 the fattening begins. The question of cooking for hogs is one that 

 each farmer must cipher out for himself. It depends on circum- 

 stances. 



This Illinois farmer must tell us the full price of corn, of potatoes, 

 and also of coal or wood, and labor. Three bushels cooked go as far 

 as four fed raw. He saves a bushel. But in saving that bushel, 

 how much time does he consume, how much fuel, and whose time ? 

 If he has a lad or an old man on the place that can't make a full 

 hand in the field, but can do chores as well as a full hand, that must 

 be considered. The same remark applies to the cob. There is some 

 nutrition in it, but how much will it cost him to get that nutrition 

 out ? Every farmer must settle a great many such questions for him- 

 self. What is thrift for Warren Leland, on his farm twentj^-five 

 miles from New-York, may be unthrift on a farm 2,500 miles from 

 New York, and any saying in this Club must be taken with the salt 

 of due allowance. 



GRrBS. 



Mr. D. M. Fisher, Perch Spring. — Last Summer they desti-oyed 

 millions of bushels of corn, wheat, rye, oats and potatoes, and from 

 present appearances they threaten to be as plenty this season. The 

 weather is open, and we are plowing sod in an orchard. Part has 

 trees and part has not. Wherever there are trees we find but few, 

 but where there are none they can be counted by thousands. Now 

 can any member of the Club say why this is the case, or do you know 

 of any remedy to kill them. Fall or winter planting will not 

 answer; I once tried this, and they eat all of my corn. 



Mr. F. D. Curtis. — If I had such a piece of ground I think I should 

 summer fallow it, or, what is pretty much the same thing, make a 

 hog and hen pasture of it, and plow it twice. Perhaps I should 

 scatter a peck or two of corn, some on the furrow and some under, 

 to bait the hogs, and get them in a way of industrious rooting. 



The hogs will clean them out if they once get in the way of root- 

 ing for them, and the hens M'ill help. 



Birds — Blue Jay and Woodpecker. 

 Mr. Charles Carlisle, Woodstock, Vt. — Small fruit men think it 

 pays to feed and befriend the blue jays ; they mimic and mock other 

 birds' talk, scare and deceive with a screech like a hawk. I have 



