416 



NEW ENGT.AOT) FARMER. 



Sept. 



above the ground and set on end in round I 

 shocks. There it stands till needed in the 

 winter. 



It is then hauled on sleds or wagons and | 

 soa'tered on the ground among the t-attls. 

 Hogs follow the oatile and get a good living 

 as scavengers. But hogs are not fattened for 

 market in this way. 



If the crop is designed to make pork, a 

 portion of the field is fenced off for a hog lot, 

 where it can be readily supplied with water, 

 and the hogs turned into the stanfling crop. 

 The remainder of the corn is jerked from the 

 stalk, hauled in wagon'' and scattered among 

 the hogs as they require it. This fattening 

 process commences in August or early Sep- 

 tember, and should be completed by cold 

 weather. At any rate, not later than the mid- 

 dle of December. 



Good thrifty hogs fatten very fast on new 

 soft corn, during the usually fine weather of 

 our long western autumns. 



The best hogs used for this wholesale man- 

 ag*-raent are grade Berk.-«hires, and similar 

 Lardy breeds. They should be from fifteen 

 to twenty months old at the end of the process ; 

 should have fallowed cattle the previous win- 

 ter, and lived on clover and the small grain 

 stubble field through the summer. They 

 should consume the kitchen and other slops 

 and offal, with a little corn from time to time 

 during their early days. 



Our best beef cattle are grade short-horns, 

 and bhonld be sold in spring or early summer 

 when full four years old. They are often 

 turned off sooner, but it is not considered the 

 mot-t profitable. Some of the graziers and 

 feeders have experimented largely with Te.xas 

 catfle a few years past. Th<'.y did it on the 

 principle that "cattle is cattle ." The experi- 

 ment, however, is seldom tried twice by the 

 same man. It is readily perceived that there 

 is a "vast difference in cattle." Burnt fingers 

 are splendid reminders in such cases, and the 

 lesson is seldom forgotten when learned 

 through heavy losses. These old ways of 

 using up the corn crop are gradually giving 

 place to a direct sale of the crop, for shipment 

 to the markets of the country. 



On thi.-3 plan it is hulked from the stalk in 

 the fall and thrown into temporary cribs and 

 covered from the weather. Here it awaits 

 the convenience of the owner to be hauled to 

 the railroad station or boat landing. Tt, is 

 then shelled by steam or horse power, sacked 

 and shipped ; sometimes by the farmer, but 

 oftener by men who deal in grain as a busi- 

 ness. 



The harvested confields, containing the 

 gtalks, husks and refuse or neglected corn, is 

 depastured through the winter by cattle and 

 other farm stock. 



Box 50, Decatur, 111., June, 1870. 



— A horse is fond of hay, and he chews it better 

 when he has not a bit in his mouth. 



EXTRACTS AND REPLIES. 



SALTPETRE, AND TTTRNHfO IN OKEEN CROPS. 



I was hiehly interested in your editorial con- 

 cernina; saltpetre. 



I experimented somewhat on a compound, 

 meant to be a perfect fettilizer — i. e.,to contain all 

 the elements of plant food, last year, — and am still 

 doing so this year. It contains saltpetre or sal- 

 ni're, (crude nitrate of soda). Also nitrate of pot- 

 ash ; — is not the latter also saltpetre ? I suppose 

 it is nitrogen in one of its forms, reduced to, or 

 confined with, a salt or mineral substance — pot- 

 ash — as the former is nitrogen combined with the 

 salt of soda. Bone, gypsum, and salt, (chloride of 

 sodium) were also contained in this manure. As 

 far as I have experimented, it seems to be proving 

 satisfactory. Instead of costing me onlv five cents 

 a pound, however, saltpetre cost me $9..50 a hun- 

 dred in Boston. Nitrate of potash cost 12^ cents 

 a pound. 



If there is any form in which it can be had at a 

 rate much lower than I paid, or any place where it 

 could be thus had, I would like to know it. 



Used above, it would (would it not?) cause a 

 growth of vegetation of a rank nature, but lacking 

 silica; and grain thus raised would lodge, just as 

 a strip in a fine acre of wheat on mv place, ma- 

 nured from the barn cellar, lodges, while the rest, 

 fertilized with this compound, ashes, bone dust, 

 &c., alternately, stands upright. (Thanks to Mr. 

 Henry Poor's advice for the wheat.) It would 

 also cause the exhaustion of the other elements of 

 plant food from the soil. How have you been in 

 the habit of using it? Must it be dissolved? It 

 so, how should it be applied? In combination 

 with an absorbent, or in a liquid form ? In the 

 latter way, an H. H. D. on a wagon, with a hole 

 near the bottom, and a furrowed board to cause 

 the liquid to spread out in different directions, 

 would be a cheap mode of facilitating the business. 

 Or can it be applied dry, broadcast, and dis- 

 solved by rain ? I have a field of grass land so 

 far from any barn as to make it inconvenient to 

 cart manure, which I want nearer home, to it. I 

 shall top dress it with something this fall, and for 

 this reason, make these inquirie-*. 



What would be the difference in the eflFect of 

 nitrate of soda, and nitrate of potash ? Contrary 

 to the rule, I used wood ashes in my compound. 



What kind of a fertilizer would old bog hay, 

 ploughed in, make ? 



A neighbor of mine sowed the different parts of 

 a field, last year, with buckwheat, and with oats, 

 and ploughed them under for a fertilizer; he then 

 sowed to winter wheat. The wheat looks by far 

 the best where the oats were turned in. I have 

 heard it stated that buckwheat had a poisonous 

 nature to other crops following it on the same soil, 

 and for this reason it was condemned as a green 

 fertilizer. 



Several years since a prominent nurseryman 

 and fanner near Philadeluliia, advanced the opin- 

 ion that the southern field pea was by far the best 

 gr< en manure crop that could be raised, espe- 

 cially on light soils ; that it exhausted the soil but 

 little, obtaining a large part of its nourishment 

 from the atinohphere. I think the pea is al-o fitted 

 to draw the inorganic element from the soil in a 

 more crude state than many other crops. A mar- 

 ket gardener told me he could gai as good results 

 from ground hone as a pea fertilizer, in a crude 

 state, as after it had been reduced to a finer condi- 

 tion with sulphuric acid— and that this was the 

 case with few crops. The coarse particles thus 

 appropriated would become suffieiently refined by 

 passing through the vegetable organs of the pea 

 vine, to fit them for food for any other plant. 



Bone is peculiarly adapted to fertilize the pea 



