AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 435 



appearance. As soon as you can discern the rows, plow lightly 

 among them, and loosen the crust on the top of the hill by the 

 use of a hoe. In about ten or twelve days I plow the other way 

 and hill up, making low, fiat hills, and there let them rest until 

 digging time, which is about the fore part of October. Potatoes 

 planted in this way, you will find, are dry in the hill at digging 

 time, in wet as well as in dry weather. The straw decomposing 

 while the potato is growing, seems to regulate and keep it from 

 all harm from the effects of changeable weather, keeping it dry 

 in wet weather, and at the same time keeping moist in a drouth." 



CUT FEED FOR CATTLE. 



Solon Robinson read a letter from John Mauross, of Hillsdale, 

 Mich., upon the subject of cut feed for cattle, which, after speak- 

 ing of the discussion held by the Club some weeks since upon the 

 subject, in which it was stated that portions of the straw and 

 corn stalks were found to have passed undigested into t]ie lower 

 intestines, the writer says : 



" This may be true in part, and yet the practice may be good 

 to a certain extent. Corn in the ear may make very good beef, 

 though part of it may pass the animal undigested, to be devoured 

 by some other animal less fastidious; and the practice may be 

 not very economical, but that depends somewhat on the price 

 and ripeness of the grain, and the convenience of grinding. 

 Whether corn is seventy-five cents or fifteen cents per bushel is 

 an important question in disposing of the crop. It was further 

 said in the discussion alluded to, that woody fibre contains no 

 nutriment, that nothing but worms can live on it. The fact that 

 worms and grubs do live and get fat on wood might seem to 

 admonish us that it does contain nutriment. Our corn stalks 

 here were cut rather green, and our little Wolverine children 

 are frequently seen sucking the sacharine matter out of them. 

 Our pigs, though in good condition, do the same. Feed is plenty 

 here; meal and buckwheat flour can be bought for a cent a 

 pound, and beef and pork four cents per pound. But molasses 

 is fifty to sixty-two cents per gallon, and sugar in proportion, 

 and so the children extract it from the corn stalks, which are 

 said to be unfit for food for stock. It is true that very ripe stalks, 



