THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



691 



In your reply you requested ine to write 

 for publication in your papers, my mode of 

 preparing cow feed in v;inter, and how I 

 feed my cows in summer; and now, after 

 some delay, I will endeavor to comply 

 with your request. 



Tn summer, I turn them to pasture, hav- 

 ing a plenty of rough lancLthat is good for 

 little else. 



In winter, their feed consists of corn, 

 oats and hay. I bring in a portion of my 

 corn in the stout, without husking, when 

 sufficiently dry, and mow it away for win- 

 ter use. I then cut the corn, together 

 with oats in the sheaf, and tread the mix- 

 ture down in a large feed tub, or a hogs- 

 head witli one head, and turn on fifty or 

 sixty gallons of boiling water, which sof- 

 tens the corn so that the cows can eat it 

 without making their teeth sore, and the j 

 oats will be perfectly cooked through, so 

 that they will all digest. | 

 I have one of Daniel's patent feed cut- 1 

 ters, which I purchased about three years! 

 ago at R. L. Allen's agricultural ware-! 

 house and seed stqre, at 189 and 191 Wa- j 

 ter St., New York — cost, twenty-five dol-j 

 lars. It is calculated to go by horse power, j 

 but is the best hand power cutter I have i 

 ever seen, and when in good order, two; 

 men will cut feed enough in one hour for| 

 my thirty coW'S one day, or two feedings.' 



One hogshead full of feed, well trod; 

 down, will make about thirty pailfuls, orj 

 one feeding for my cows. I feed them 

 twice a day with this feed, and they have 

 what hay they want besides. ; 



The advantage that I find in preparing 

 my feed in this way, over that of thresh- 

 ing and grinding, is — 1st. It is cheaj)er to 

 cut my oats and corn than to thresh and 

 husk the sauie — 2d. I save the trouble of 

 carrying my coin and oats two miles to; 

 mill, and bringing it home again — 3d. I 

 save the toll whicli is something of anj 

 item — 4th. The whole of the oats, straw,! 

 chaff, &c., and the whole of the corn,! 

 stalks, husks, cobs, silk and all, is eaten, 

 except some of the largest butt ends of the 

 stales are left, which I consider no loss, as 

 they are not fit for any animals to eat — 5ih. 

 I get more milk than I can make out of 

 dry feed ; and although I have tried no de- 

 finite experiments, I am satisfied that the 

 same quantity of corn and oats prepared 



the straw and cIiafF, which, fed dry, (in 

 case a cow can be coaxed to eat it,) will 

 only have the effect to dry up her milk. 



My cows eat their feed greedily, and 

 with two heaping pailfuls a day to each 

 cow, it requires less hay to fill them up, 

 and as each cow gets three or four gallons of 

 water in her scalded feed, night and morn- 

 ing, while standing in her stall, she will not 

 crave so large a quantity of cold water 

 w^hen let out in the morning, as she would 

 if fed on dry provender and hay ; and the 

 chilling effects of cold water taken in large 

 quantities, cannot be very favorable to the 

 making of milk. 



Corn, to be fed in this way, sliould be 

 planted not over three feet apart each way, 

 so that the stalks will not be vv.ry coarse 

 and the more leafy, and although the ears 

 will not be very large, yet they will pro- 

 bably yield as much weight by the acre as 

 when planted three and a half or four feet 

 apart, and particular care should be taken 

 to have it secured and brought in in good 

 order. 



The objection to this mode of preparing 

 food, is the trouble and expense of heating 

 water, which I think might be greatly ob- 

 viated by bringing into use some of the 

 newly improved boilers that are advertised 

 for heating houses, &c., with very little 

 time and fuel, and have them so construct- 

 ed as to adapt them to our use. 



I believe this to be the true w^ay to feed 

 oats to iriilking cows, but corn prepared in 

 this way does not perfectly digest, and 

 ought to be put into a large boiler, and by- 

 standing a few hours over the same fire 

 that it requires simply to boil the water, 

 the kernels will crack open and become 

 perfectly digestible. I have practiced the 

 latter course for two winters past with good 

 success, by using a wooden box with a 

 sheet iron bottom, but it takes rather too 

 much wood, and the box gets dried up and 

 out of order every summer. 



The object of my former inquiry was to 

 find some kind of a boiler to meet my par- 

 ticular wants, and any information in rela- 

 tion to the subject through the columns of 

 The Cultivator, will be thankfully received 

 by a subscriber. H. H. 



Wassaic, DutcJiess Co,, N. Y. 



in this way will go about as far agam as to 



thresh and 



grind 



them, and throw 



away 



Apples which huno- on the trees should be 

 knocked off, as they are fruitful sources of rust 

 aad other cryptogamic diseasos. 



