A. B Allen, Editor. 
SUBSTITUTES FOR A SHORT HAY CROP. 
It is indisputable, that the long and almost.unex¬ 
ampled. drought throughout all save the most northern 
part of the United States, has cut short the crop of 
hay.. Clover is hardly half as heavy as it was last 
year, and timothy and red top have suffered more or 
less. Many fields are represented as not worth 
mowing. Now a hard winter and late spring may 
possibly follow ; and if they should, there will be a 
great want of fodder to carry stock through them, 
and much suffering must necessarily ensue, unless 
substitutes are provided for at once by the prudent 
husbandman. 
For this we know nothing equal to oats and corn. 
There is plenty of time for these to mature sufficiently 
for fodder, if sown immediately on good ground well 
plowed and harrowed. We should select the earliest 
varieties of corn, and sow it in drills six inches apart, 
in preference to broadcast, as it grows better and 
faster, and ripens soonest in drills. Both the oats 
and corn should be steeped three days previous to 
sowing, in water nearly blood warm, with saltpetre 
dissolved in it, at the rate of an ounce to a gallon ; 
then rolled in ashes or piaster, and immediately sown 
and well covered. This will accelerate their coming 
up, and add much to the rapidity of growth. If 
guano, at the rate of 300 lbs. per acre, made into a 
compost of one part to twenty of rich fine soil, or any 
other fertilizing material, could be given for a top¬ 
dressing, it would add to the early maturing and 
burthen of the crop. 
Nothing is superior for horse feed to oats cut when 
the berry is in the milk, and then chopped up with a 
broad axe, or in a straw cutter. We have sown oats 
as late as the loth July, and got good crops for this 
purpose. They may be mown with the scythe, and 
cured and stacked like hay. Caution should be used 
in drying them well before stacking, and as they are 
Saxton & Miles, Publishers, 205 Broadway. 
put away it is a good thing to scatter 4 to 6 quarts of 
fine salt per ton, on the straw. If cradled and bound 
in sheaves, these should be made small, otherwise, 
owing to the lateness of the season, there is great lia¬ 
bility to mould and mow burning. The corn may 
be left till frost comes, in hopes of getting young ears 
Tt must then be cut up close to the ground, and bound 
in small shocks, and a few of these only set up to¬ 
gether and as openly as possible, so as to let the air 
circulate freely through them. The stalks must be 
well dried before stacking, and 4 to 8 quarts of sail 
per ton to these would not be amiss when housed 
We say nothing about buckwheat, as it is a grain so 
commonly sown at this season it is not necessary to 
mention it. Its straw is as valuable for fodder as that 
of the oat, being rated at 195 to 100 in comparison 
with good hay. For an excellent article on this, see 
Vcrl. ii., page 193. 
Millet is an excellent crop sown broadcast like oats. 
Its straw for fodder in comparison with good hay is 
as 250 to 100; oat straw is as 195 to 100. 
Turnips may be cultivated as a substitute for hay. 
It is too late to sow any other than the common white 
field variety. Ashes is the best manure for these, 
and plaster at the rate of two to three bushels per 
acre will have a partial effect if the season be tole¬ 
rably moist, otherwise very little. A top-dressing of 
rich vegetable earth, guano compost, and well rotted 
stable manure, is good ; sowing, however, in a newly 
cleared piece of ground, with sheep folded on it a 
week or two previously, is the best preparation that 
can be devised for a turnip crop. They ought to be 
fed out early in the season, otherwise they become 
pithy and are nearly valueless ; besides, it is difficult 
to keep them during sevefe weather, and being of a 
cold watery nature, they are not near so beneficial in 
our fiosty winters as in England, where the weather 
is so much milder. 
