1864. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



223 



but little natural hay. He mows his lands six 

 years, and stocks with herds grass and clover. 

 The former will run the latter out in three years. 

 He never mows when the dew is on, nor latterly 

 uses salt in packing hay. Thinks he injured sheep 

 formerly by salt. Cuts clover in the afternoon, 

 and carts it if the weather is good the next day. 

 The hay sweats if housed too green, and six or 

 eight inches of the top of the mow spoils, but has 

 had no hay mould during the last thirty years, 

 unless it was unnaturally damp. The second crop 

 or rowen is more apt to smoke than the first crop. 

 Hay free from dew and rain is not much in dan- 

 ger of spoiling if housed rapidly after one begins. 

 Herds grass is apt to be dried too much, and he 

 often, particularly in the last of the season, carts 

 •it the same day he mows it. Considers clover 

 well ripened the best hay for sheep after an expe- 

 rience of sixteen years. Hay will shrink 15 to 

 20 per cent, in the barn, and when moved never 

 spends like that kept in the solid»mow. Thinks 

 a mowing machine is as necessary to a farmer as 

 a plow. 



EAKLY CUT HAY FOB MXLCH CO"WS. 



What is the best time for cutting hay for dairy 

 cows ? — should it be cut at the same time for all 

 kind of stock ? — are practical questions which 

 every dairyman must consider at each season. 



The state of the maturity to which grass should 

 arrive before it is cut, is a point about which men 

 difi'er materially. The different dispositions which 

 are to be made of the hay doubtless modify to 

 some extent the conclusions at which they arrive. 

 Some think it should stand till the seed is full and 

 the stems get pretty well ripened, because it is 

 then heavier than before. Others think it should 

 be cut when in full bloom or before. 



There is quite a difference in the kind or quali- 

 ty of hay cut before and after it is in blossom. 

 Before it is in bloom its extractive matter, which 

 is used as food, contains a greater percentage of 

 starch, gum, sugar and fat, especially yellow fat ; 

 and after it has passed the bloom it has a greater 

 per centage of flesh-forming material along with 

 woody fibre and mineral matter. In the former, 

 it contains more elements of respiration, the 

 source of animal heat and fatness ; and in the lat- 

 ter, the foundation of muscle. 



These different qualities have their uses. The 

 horse, by his vigorous exercise maintains his prop- 

 er warmth, to a considerable extent, by the rapid 

 waste of tissue and muscular fibre, and hence, es- 

 pecially in warm weather, can labor and travel 

 Better on the less heating, late cut hay. 



But in the young animal, the calf, the heat de- 

 rived from the waste of tissue is comparatively 

 but little, and hence the early cut or more heat- 

 producing hay is wanted ; and, besides, the green 

 food is more easily digested. 



A cow when giving milk does much the best 

 upon the same kind of food preferred by the calf, 

 because she derives her warmth not by exercise, 

 but by her food directly. To maintain her condi- 

 tion and give milk, a cow must be fed on food rich 

 in the elements of fatness. It is impossible for a 

 cow to give a large quantity of rich milk on late 

 cut hay, without growing poor rapidly ; because 

 it does not contain the material from which the 

 milk can be formed, and is, withal, so slow of di- 



gestion, that she can do but little more than di- 

 gest enough to support herself. 



There is, I know, but little use in showing by 

 argument when hay is best cut for any purpose. 

 It IS a point that must be settled by practice rath- 

 er than philosophy. I have experimented till I 

 am fully satisfied that I have suffered annually a 

 serious loss by letting my grass stand too long be- 

 fore I commenced cutting. I have done as a ma- 

 jority still do, waited till I supposed it had reached ' 

 its full size before I begun. I have had too much 

 regard to bulk and weight rather than quality. 



If any reader is sceptical about the greater val- 

 ue of early cut hay for producing milk, especially 

 clover hay, let him try it ; let him cut some late^ 

 and some early, and fodder it out any way that 

 will satisfy him conclusively as to the value de- 

 rived from each from a given area of ground, and 

 my word for it, if he has been in the habit of wait- 

 ing till his grass has reached its full weight, or 

 even its full size, before he begins, he will start 

 earlier next year. — Dairy Farmer. 



APHIS ON APPLE TREE BUDS. 

 Those who have noticed on their own trees the 

 "New Insect," described by our correspondent of 

 last week, will be interested by the following arti- 

 cle written for the Albany Cultivator by the En- 

 tomologist of the New York State Agricultural 

 Society — a gentleman who has done and is still 

 doing the agricultural community valuable service 

 by his unwearied labors in the sphere which he 

 so ably occupies : 



The fore jj^rt of the present month J. J. Thom- 

 as sent me some opening flower buds of the ap- 

 ple tree, thronged with young plant lice, nestling 

 close down among the pubescence. He finds 

 these insects, 100,000 to 1,000,000, on every ap- 

 ple tree in his vicinity, every expanding bud be- 

 ing crowded with them. And I find the same 

 aphis common though less excessively numerous, 

 on the opening buds of the apple trees in my own 

 neighborhood. They are the young of the com- 

 mon aphis which infests the leaves of the apple 

 trees during the summer — t\\e aphis mali. These 

 insects end their annual career late in the autumn, 

 by depositing their eggs, crowding therewith all 

 the crevices under and between the scales of the 

 bark of the apple trees, as full as they can hold. 

 Most of these eggs are swept away by the storms 

 of winter and perish. Those which remain hatch 

 with the first warm days of the returning spring, 

 just as the flower buds are beginning to open. 

 Thus the young plant lice all become crowded up- 

 on these buds, nourishing themselves thereon un- 

 til the leaves become sufficiently developed to 

 sustain them. 



No Weeds to Pull. — Stir the ground oflen, 

 and they will never get big enough to pull. A 

 loose top-soil can be stirred up a half-dozen times 

 with a hoe in the time required to go over it once 

 in the pulling process. The growth of all plants 

 will be greatly promoted by stirring the soil often. 



It is said that warts on the udder and teats of 

 cows may be easily removed by simply washing 

 them in a solution of alum and water. 



