214 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Mat 



For Vie New Ennland Farmer. 

 THE WHEAT CHOP. 



Mr. Editor : — I would like to see more wheat 

 grown in New England, knowing it can be done 

 with profit, it being much better to seed down 

 ■with than oats, even if it grows only straw. The 

 land I have worked is a gravelly and sandy loam, 

 the soil from six to twelve inches deep, with grav- 

 elly bottom. Crops had been taken off until 

 the moss had so covered the green sward that all 

 it would yield was about half a ton of wire grass 

 to the acre. I begin by turning the sod under 

 nine inches, in the fall ; in the spring I haiTow 

 in five cords of manure, made up of muck, oak 

 leaves, hog and stable manure, and plant potatoes, 

 with a hand full of ashes and plaster in the hill. 



The next spring I plow the same as before, the 

 average depth of the soil, and plant corn, manur- 

 ing in the hill, and no more. The next spring I 

 spread broadcast two to three cords of coarse sta- 

 ble manure, plow under the same, and sow spring 

 ■wheat, two bushels to the acre. My average crop 

 has been twenty-seven bushels to the acre. 1 do 

 not speak of this as a large crop, but what may 

 be done on almost any farm in New England, 

 considering the quality of land and quantity of 

 manure applied. 



Spring wheat should be sown as early in the 

 spring as the ground will admit, but not so early 

 as to need more than one good harrowing each 

 way, as too much tramping packs much of it, 

 causing it to start uneven. If ashes, unleached, 

 are handy, they will be valuable spread on and 

 harrowed in with the wheat, giving the plant a 

 more vigorous start, and with a healthier, deeper 

 color. This crop can be doubled by a liberal sup- 

 ply of ashes in this way. 



Plaistow, N. II. , March, 1861. 



Remarks. — A sample of our correspondent's 

 wheat came with his letter. It is very clear and 

 handsome. We rejoice that the cultivation of 

 wheat is finding favor all over New England. 



For the New England Farmer, 



KETEOSPECTIVE NOTES. 



Cobs and Cob Meal. — In the N. E. Farmer 

 of Feb. 2d, asd again in the monthly edition of 

 the same for March, Mr. Silas Brown gives us 

 some facts and opinions intended to throw light 

 upon one of the several questions which have 

 been agitated for some years past, in regard to 

 the use of cob meal, along with corn meal, as a 

 feeding stuff for stock. Of the several questions 

 to which the practice of grinding corn and cobs 

 together has given rise, Mr. B. confines himself 

 to the one which inquires whether or no cobs 

 have any nutritive value, and, if any, how much 

 either absolutely or comparatively with oth'^r 

 feeding stufls. The two more important ques- 

 tions which have been raised and discussed in 

 reference to this prastice of grinding and feeding 

 corn and cobs together, namely, that which re- 

 lates to the safety of feeding an article which con- 

 tains so many sharp, flinty scales or shells, and 

 that which inquires whether it is economical, or 

 more probably wasteful, to pay millers for grind- 

 ing a substance of so little nutritive value. As to 



these two more important questions, Mr. B. is, at 

 least on the present occasion, entirely silent. As 

 however, all the three questions, which we have 

 above named, are more or less connected, and as 

 the current volume of this journal could scarcely 

 confer upon its readers a more useful service than 

 that of helping them to ascertain what is true, 

 and what is not true in regard to either or all of 

 these questions, I propose to continue the dis- 

 cussion commenced by Mr. Brown, hoping that 

 some other of the members of the great New Eng- 

 land Farmers' Club, which is composed of the 

 several thousands of readers of this journal, 

 wherever scattered abroad, will continue and 

 keep up the discussion, until the questions named 

 shall be settled as nearly as can be. 



First, then, as to whether there is any nutri- 

 ment in cobs, there is quite a diversity of opinion 

 among feeders and farmers generally; some re- 

 garding them, as Mr. Brown says, as no better 

 than sawdust, and others thinking that they con- 

 tain considerable nutriment, enough even to 

 make it a paying business to get them ground at 

 the mills. That there should be such a diversity 

 of opinion among practical men, while unassisted 

 by the analyses of scientific men, or agricultural 

 chemists, is not at all to be wondered at, for none 

 of the attempts that ever we have read or heard 

 of to determine whether cobs contained any nu- 

 triment, or how much, were made with exactness 

 or accuracy enough to decide this question, and 

 some of the observations which have been taken 

 as proofs that cobs contain more or less nutri- 

 ment, (such as the fact that cows and horses will 

 eat them greedily, while soft, especially such as 

 have been thrown out of a pig-pen,) are by no 

 means proofs of sufficient validity or conclusive- 

 ness. 



This uncertainty, and consequent room for di- 

 versity of opinion among practical men, has been 

 removed ta some extent by the scientific investi- 

 gations of such chemists as Drs. Salisbury, Chas. 

 T. Jackson, Sec. By the help of the analyses they 

 have made, the opinion seems now quite preva- 

 lent with competent judges, that cobs are capa- 

 ble of affording to some animals, ruminating ones 

 especially, about as much nutritive matter as the 

 same amount of good wheat straw. Mr. Brown 

 has expressed this prevalent opinion quite cor- 

 rectly and pithily when he says, "On the whole, 

 I have made up my mind that cob meal is very 

 good for cattle, but worthless for hogs. Cobs, 

 by the pound, are probably of equal value to 

 butts and stalks, and when ground with the corn, 

 are a substitute for chopped fodder for cattle and 

 horses. 



The second question about grinding cobs re- 

 lates to the economy, or the wastefulness of pay- 

 ing millers for reducing to a coarse meal a sub- 

 stance containing no more nourishment than 

 good straw or the butts and stalks of corn. — 

 Here, again, ojjinions differ. Some, we have 

 found, had never counted the cost, or had ever 

 supposed that it cost any more to grind the cob 

 along with the corn, than it did to grind the corn 

 alone ; and these men, of course, had never had a 

 thought of the possibility of grinding cobs being 

 a wasteful, uneconomical operation, or one which 

 could not pay, save in a few rare cases when all 

 kinds of cattle food were scarce and deai-. There 

 seem"* to ho littlo rlifRpultv in convincing those 



