374 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



order that farmers, with small capital for improvements, may try it. Can 

 the Farmer's Club tell me whether there is such a machine ?" 



There are several machines that are aids to the work of ditching, but 

 none that supersede the pick and spade. Page's ditching- machine works 

 well in soft soil, and there arc two or three patent ditching plows, with 

 which the earth can be loosened so as to make the hand labor easier. But 

 after all, it is a simple question of cost of machine-work compared with 

 hand-work, and, so far as we have been able to judge, the advantage has 

 generally been with the spade and pick. 



A Fibrous Weed. 



Mr. J. W. Bennett, near Terre Haute, Ind., sends a sample of a fibroua 

 weed that abounds in corn fields, and wants to know if it could be utilized. 

 He does not know its nume. It has a rank sickening odor, while growing, 

 and where standing single, branches out, and makes a large bushy weed, 

 with a j^ellovvish blossom, and seed grows in a boll or pod, simply, at the 

 end of branches. 



The sample of fiber from one stalk is four feet long, not strong as hemp, 

 but as abundant on the stalk, and it is just barely possible, would be worth 

 cultivating. We have no faith in anything yet discovered, to supersede 

 flax and hemp. 



Cut Corn Stalks for Cows. 



Mr. Harmon Allen, Milan, Monroe Co., Mich., says that he has had much 

 experience in feeding cut corn stalks to milch cows. He says " I have 

 never found anything better in the fall than cut corn stalks, nor anything 

 poorer in the spring. Take the stalks immediately after husking the ripe 

 corn, and commence cutting them for the cows, and they will eat them with 

 avidity, and give as good a yield of milk and a better color than any other 

 food I ever used, until the natural juice of the stalk has become dried out. 

 After that, cows will reject them, unless starved to it; and I consider them 

 perfectl}' worthless. What is left after they become dry — I agree exactly 

 with a farmer who wrote for the Club some weeks since — stack them in 

 small stacks, salt them, and feed once in a day or two, so the cattle will 

 not get too much salt, and they will eat all that is worth eating. Nor has 

 my plan of feeding ever produced ' mad itch.' In regard to feeding stalks 

 green, I have been in the habit for years of sowing a small piece of corn to 

 cut up green for teams, and never found any food superior "to it for oxen, 

 and never saw any ' mad itch' from that source. I have tried rutabagas 

 for cows, but discarded them on account of the rank flavor produced in the 

 milk. And now let me beg a favor of the Club. Some one wrote, a few 

 weeks since, that saltpetre will neutralize the rank taste produced in milk 

 and butter by feeding rutabagas, and gave the amount necessary to use. 

 If any member of the Club can give the amount, or if the writer will give 

 it again, I promise them I will experiment with it, and give the result to 

 the public tlirougli the Club." 



Mr. Solon Robinson — Dissolve an ounce of saltpetre in a pint of boiling 

 water, and put a tablespoonful in the pail when you go to milk. Por 

 less than a pailful use a less quantity. 



