556 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Oct. 



usually throw them about a pint of shelled 

 corn, well scattered, so that each one can get 

 a few kernels. If your hens don't incline to 

 eat this feed at first, sprinkle a little Indian 

 meal on top. I would like all who complain 

 of not getting eggs to try my plan, and I think 

 they will never be sorry." 



CORN vs. HAY. 



There is no doubt that the hay crop of New 

 J^ngland is very small. In many sections of 

 Maine it is nearly a failure. Take it as a 

 ■whole, it may be as small as in the scantiest 

 years hitherto. In most places the price of 

 hay has advanced beyond precedent, and al- 

 most a panic prevails. I was lately told of 

 ■three cows being given for one to be returned 

 next spring, and of cattle being sold for $10 

 and S20 which would have commanded five 

 times as much within a twelvemonth ; cases are 

 of daily occurrence where they are sold at 

 prices ruinously below the cost of growing 

 ^em. 



Such being the facts of to-day, I beg to of- 

 fer through your columns, a few suggestions ; 

 and the first is, that this calamity, like others 

 permitted by a AVise Providence, has its com- 

 pensations. Among them a very large one is 

 the promised abundance of the corn crop. 

 The prospect is such that the price has been 

 receding rapidly for some time, and corn can 

 now be had in Chicago for about forty-two 

 cents per bushel. To this twenty or even 

 thirty cents can be added for transportation, 

 and yet a ton can be laid down in Maine for 

 less than the current price of a ton of hay. 

 At seventy cents per bushel of 56 lbs., 2000 

 lbs. would cost $25. What may be the com- 

 parative value of hay and Indiaii corn we will 

 not attempt to sate with precision. There is 

 more difference in the feeding value of what 

 is called "hay" than there is in that of mar- 

 ketable corn. Some hay is worth a great deal 

 more than some other hay. It is held by our 

 farmers generally that a pound of corn is as 

 good as two pounds of average hay ; that 

 twenty bushels of Indian meal, weighing 1000 

 lbs., will go as far in wintering cattle as a ton 

 of hay ; some think twelve or fifti^en bushels 

 to be as good as 2000 lbs. of English hay. If 

 these estimates be near the truth, it would ap- 

 pear that the equivalent of a ton of hay can 

 be had in Indian corn for $10 to $15, while 

 the hay is held at twice as much, or more. 



My ne.Kt suggestion is that instead of sell- 

 ing cattle at the prices they now bring, they 

 be kept over till spring, using, if need be, as 

 little hay and as much purchased concentrated 

 food as will answer a good purpose ; and in- 

 stead of barely carrying them through alive 

 winter them so well that when put to pasture 

 next spring they will begin at once to thrive, 

 and keep on steadily thriving, and not lose a 

 considerable part of the season in making up 

 winter losses. There is small danger of so 



many following this method as to glut next 

 year's market. The prospect is fair that the 

 operation would pay handsomely. Indeed it 

 would if every farmer in the State should 

 adopt it. I am aware that the mass of Maine 

 farmers are not in the habit of buying com- 

 mercial manures for their hungry lands, nor 

 commercial articles of cattle food for hungry 

 stock, except to a very limited extent ; but the 

 suggestion is offered that the present is a par- 

 ticularly favorable opportunity to break up 

 the habit which has prevailed extensively, of 

 depending so exclusively upon hay. This is 

 an age when old notions and old practices 

 upon many matters are being broken into as 

 never before, and I believe that one part of 

 the design of a wise and loving Father in dis- 

 pensing so scanty a crop of hay this year is to 

 teach us much needed lessons, one of which, 

 if we learn it well, will be of more profit to 

 us than any two crops which were ever har- 

 vested in the State. 



The idea that a farmer can, and may with 

 advantage, as often as the years come round, 

 buy materials to be manufactured into crops 

 and cattle, is novel to American farmers, but 

 it is an old one to farmers in old countries ; in 

 fact, it is the method by which British farmers 

 make the business of farming so profitable. 

 They do not live upon what they earn so much 

 as upon the profits of their business trans- 

 actions. They buy manure and sell grain ; or 

 they buy grain or linseed or cotton seed cake, 

 or Carob beans or any cattle food which the 

 world will sell at paying prices, and sell meat, 

 butter, cheese, &c. 



Another thing ; when the English farmer 

 buys cattle food, he does not, ordinarily, ex- 

 pect to get back all the purchase money di- 

 rectly. He knows very well, as an every 

 year's transaction, where competition is as 

 close as what he has to encounter, that this 

 can be expected only in rare cases ; but he 

 does expect to get the balance, together with 

 all the profits, in the means of increased fer- 

 tility for his own lands. 



The manure question is one which is much 

 talked of and much thought of, but too little 

 done about. One way, and under given cir- 

 cumstances, the best way to buy manure is in 

 the form of cattle food. Poor fodder makes 

 poor manure ; scanty fodder poorer still. 

 Poor manure insures poor farming ami short 

 crops. Lean, hungry, run-out fields feel 

 drought and all other drawbacks, as well-fed 

 fields do not. 



Honesty is good policy in dealing with 

 neighbors. It is e(jually good policy in deal- 

 ing with one's self and one's own possessions. 

 Our lands have long been drawn upon for 

 what goes to make bone, and hides, and mus- 

 cle (and these are far more exhausting than 

 what makes fat) and we have made small re- 

 turns, greatly insufficient to make good the 

 draft. We have sold and sent away that 

 which constituted the virgin fertility of Maine 



