Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 555 



twenty feet apart, and clearing out the loose earth with shovels, so 

 that the surface water will flow away early in the spring. "When 

 barley and oats are sowed together, equal quantities of each kind of 

 seed may be put in. But it will be always more satisfactory to raise 

 the two kinds of grain separately, unless the grain is raised expressly 

 for home consumption. Barley and oatmeal are excellent for milch 

 cows or for feeding teams. 



Winter Feed of Cows. 



Mr. W. T. Place, Kipley, Huron county, Ohio, asks information 

 on this subject. 



Mr. J. B. Lyman. — It depends on whether you want quantity or 

 quality from your animals. If you sell yowr milk by the quart, feed 

 roots and wheat shorts, stirred into hot water, so as to make a rich 

 warm gruel, clover hay cut in June and rowen. If rich milk is your 

 end and yellow butter, feed the blades of corn and sorghum, gathered 

 green and sweet, upland hay, cut and wet vv'ith hot corn meal gruel. 

 For roots, use carrots and parsnips or sugar beets, about a peck a 

 day. Feed fire times ; Avater often. Keep the animals warm and 

 dry. INTever speak a loud or cross word to a cow, and carefully 

 abstain from j)ounding her hip-boue with the milking stool. 



SuisiAC. 



Mr. Milton Barrett, Keysville, Charlotte Co., Ya. — Will some 

 member of the club kindly inform me what part of the sumac plant 

 is required in commerce, how it is cured, treated, and packed ? This 

 plant grows in luxuriant wildness in Lunenburg Co., Ya., and might 

 be cultivated to advantage. Good lands may be bought here, with 

 or without improvements, at from three dollars to ten dollars j^er 

 acre. The present owners are anxious^for emigration from the north, 

 and will treat them as friends. This I can vouch for, having held a 

 Federal ofhce here for the past three years. 



Dr. J. Y. C. Smith.— In reply to this gentleman I will say that 

 when traveling in Sicily, from which island we receive a great deal 

 of sumac, I observed the way in which it was gathered. The leaves, 

 twigs, and bark are beaten or stripped from the shrubs, dried on the 

 ground or on platforms, and the whole ground to powder and shipped 

 in bags or boxes. In this country the bark and twigs are less used, 

 I believe. 



Mr. D. B. Bruen. — The sumac leaves are gathered in the months of 



