180 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
ton ,* as the clover and wheat-growers of New York do, we 
should recommend the sowing of 100 pounds of this fer- 
tilizer to the acre, with peas. The high price of all com- 
mercial manures at the South is a serious hindrance to 
agricultural progress and improvement ; but the cheap- 
ness of land greatly favors the home production of the food 
of plants. We are disposed to labor in this direction, be- 
lieving it to promise the most satisfactory results. L, 
ECONOMY IN FEEDING HOESES AND MULES. 
When corn sells at a dollar and a quarter a bushel, a 
planter has pretty strong inducements to study economy 
in feeding this grain to his horses and mules. The writer 
has recently been experimenting a little in the way of test- 
ing the relative value of boiled and dry corn for the nour- 
ishment of a v/orking horse. The result is a gain by boil- 
ing varying from 20 to 25 per cent. We had rather feed 
four bushels of soaked and partly cooked corn than five 
bushels of the grain dxy, particularly where one has very 
little hay, straw, blades, or other “roughness,” to give with 
the corn. 
It is well worth while to heat water boiling hot, and 
pour it over cut feed and ground grain to facilitate the ex- 
traction of their alimentary properties in the stomachs of 
working animals. It is not enough to fill the digestive ap- 
paratus with coarse forage, or the seeds of cereals, if we 
would secure the best attainable results for the food con- 
sumed, It must be so prepared as to yield up its life-sus- 
taining virtues in a speedy and perfect manner. As a 
general thing, grain fed to horses is quite impej-fectly di- 
gested ; so much so, indeed, that not a few hogs and cows 
in and near villages and cities, subsist mainly on the drop- 
pings of horses that travel the streets. 
Over 60 per cent, of coim is starch, which is insoluble in 
cold water, and not very soluble in juices of the stomach. 
By boiling or baking, starch is transformed into a kind 
of gum which dissolves rf'adily in water, and is easy of 
digestion. If grain keeps up to anything like its present 
market price it will soon be as common to bake bread for 
horses as for men. Unlike the ox, the horse has a small 
single stomach ; and there is not one argument in favor of 
cooking food for persons that does not apply to its equal 
preparation for horses. Scotch farmers have been some 
years in the practice of baking bread for their plow teatns 
when hard at work. It is soon eaten, agrees well with 
the stomach, and gives a fatigued animal the maximum of 
time to lie down on a good bed and rest. This kind of 
feed, designed to make good blood, and a plenty of it, does 
not supersede the necessity of cut hay, fodder or straw, 
whose bulk is important for the due expansion, and vigor- 
ous action of the digestive organs. 
Our .practice is to boil corn some three or four hours, 
and salt it about as much as for hominy or bread. It 
swells to nearly twice its original volume, which is no 
inconsiderable advantage. Horses fed mostly in green 
rye, barley, corn, clover, or lucerne,, do best when a part 
of the water in such succulent plants is dried out before 
they are eaten. Even cows giving milk, like half cured 
new hay better than perfectly green grass. A young corn 
plant two feet or so in height, has about 90 parts of water 
in 100 ot its stem and leaves. This fact does not prevent 
its being nutritive at that early stage of its growth, for it 
has very little wood, or woody fibre, which is indigestible 
Dry matured plants yield their nutrient elements sparing- 
ly to horses, as compared with oxen and other ruminants. 
Corn alone is too heavy feed for both horses and oxen; 
and among the thousand and one inventions for crushing 
and grinding corn in the ear, we doubt whether there is 
anything equal to the Little Giant Corn a/nd Cob Mills, 
advertised by Messrs. Carmichael & Bean, in the 
pages of this journal. Large experience in feeding corn 
and cob meal has demonstrated its economical value. The 
cobs do not yield any notable amount of positive susten- 
ance ; but they serve to render all the nutritive elements 
in the corn available for the support of animal life, and 
where fodder is scarce as it now is, crushed cobs, if sound 
and not weathered, mix admirably with pure meal. 
To work poor mules, oxen and horses, or waste their 
expensive food, is bad economy ; and one way to keep 
teams poor is to use dull, worthless plows and harrows, 
which require both man and beast to go three times oyer 
a field to effect a degree of tillage which, with really good 
implements, might have been better done at one plowing 
or harrowing. Every step in agriculture ought to tell ; 
but it can not, with bad tools, and badly kept working 
cattle and servants, L, 
BUENING CLAY, OE MUD!~THE “ EIEMAMENTUM.” 
Many or most of our readers are, doubtless, aware that 
some genius in New Orleans, claims to have suceeded in 
making an excellent article of fuel from common clay, or 
earth. We perceive, by the Nev) Orleans True Delta, 
that an experiment has been made in the furnace of that 
establishment testing the capacity of this material for rais- 
ing steam. It is made into balls, which, on being thrown 
into a common grate or furnace like common coal, can, it 
is said, be easily ignited. The True Delta says ; 
“From what we have seen of the Firmamentum, previ- 
ous to the public test of yesterday, and viewing the latter, 
as conclusive, we give it as our unbiassed and deliberate 
opinion that it will answer all the purposes of coal, so far 
as producing heat and generating steam are concerned, 
and the only point, in our mind, at issue, is the simple one- 
can it be furnished to consumers at such a price as will make 
it an object for them to use it I The proprietors of the in- 
vention say they can furnish the article — can deliver it at 
any point, for twenty-five cents a barrel. If they are 
rit^ht in their calculation, then the matter may be con- 
sidered as settled, for it will be used in every case in pre- 
ference to coal. It is infinitely preferable for use in pri- 
vate dwellings and hotels, as it produces no smoke. For 
locomotive purposes, we think it would be used, in pre- 
ference to wood or coal, from the fact that however strong 
the fire, no sparks are emitted from it. This feature alone, 
of the Firmamentum, had it no other to recommend it,, 
would bring it into general use for locomotive purposes.” 
The New York Tibune (itself a promulgator of vagar- 
ies and isms') thus quietly goes to work at the demolition 
of the “clay fuel” enterprise: 
The march of mind in our day is gi'eat, but the march 
of gullibility would seem to be yet greater. The wonders 
achieved in the last half century have prepared the public 
mind for believing that almost anything is possible, and 
hence there exists a readiness to accept the promises of 
the wildest projectors, even when conflicting with prin- 
ciples of philosophy usually recognized as true. But a 
little while since Mr. Paine was enabled, by his plausible 
statements, sofar to influence thepublic mind as material- 
ly to affect the value of Delaware and Hudson stock, and 
other coal property ; and the accuracy of those statements 
was certified by some of the most respectable names in 
New England. Yet, all he taught was opposed to very 
simple philosophical principles — a knowledge of which 
would have saved many persons from heavy losses incur- 
red in the effort to carry into effect the views of the cIku'- 
latan by whom they were guided. 
*It costs from ^14 to $17, delivered in Augusta. 
