1882.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
519 
Winter Care of LiTe«§tock. 
There are a few general rules for the care of live 
stock in winter, which are of universal application : 
First .—They should lie dry, whether bedded or 
not. A dry floor is far better than wet bedding. 
Spar or slat floors, through which urine will 
quickly pass, and which give the animals a level 
standing place, are especially to be advised. A 
good degree of comfort may be had on such floors, 
but a full supply of dry litter—straw, leaves, 
swamp hay, etc.—certainly makes all kinds of 
stock more comfortable. 
Second .—Shelter saves fodder, wherever lumber 
can be easily obtained, to a degree which few prac¬ 
tical men are aware of. The warmer the stables 
are, the better, except perhaps for sheep. But 
with close, warm stables, it is essential that the 
manure heap should be where it wdll not contam¬ 
inate the air, and that there should be perfect ven¬ 
tilation, so arranged as not to cause drafts of air. 
Third .—As to feed. This should be given with 
the utmost regularity and uniformity—never more 
than will be all eaten up long before the next feed¬ 
ing time. Then the animals have an appetite for 
their food, so that coarse fodder may be first given, 
to be followed with better, and by grain in some 
form, if this be a part of the daily ration. This is 
no doubt the most economical system, securing 
the least waste and best digestion of all kinds of 
fodder used in the ordinary way. 
Fourth .—Grooming and care of the animals are a 
most valuable means of keeping them in health as 
well as of saving feed. The skin of an animal ex¬ 
isting in a state of nature is washed by every 
shower, brushed and carded by every bush, licked 
by its mates, rubbed by the ground in rolling, and 
in various ways kept free from accumulations of 
its own exfoliations, from the stoppage of its 
pores by sweat, and from its own inherent dirt. A 
healthy skin means warmth, health, life, and vigor, 
other things being about right, and we can se¬ 
cure this in horses and cattle only by grooming. 
A straw brush, made by twisting up a thick rope 
of straw until it becomes very hard and inclined 
to kink, then doubling it and twisting it into a 
still mass a foot to 18 inches long perhaps, with 
the ends tucked and fastened, will do a deal of 
rubbing before it goes to pieces, and is for pur¬ 
poses of friction, rubbing off mud, etc., better 
than any other brush. Clean skins are just as im¬ 
portant for cows as for horses, and the use of the 
brush is recommended in the cattle stalls. 
Fifth. —Sunshine. Fresh air and sunshine are 
health-giving and invigorating principles and not 
one of our living dependents should be without 
them. In the thorough ventilation recommended, 
good air has been provided for, nevertheless all 
w ell fed animals enjoy and are the better for air 
breathed out of doors even on our coldest days, 
and a sun-bath of an hour or two is of the highest 
value. Stables should be constructed with refer¬ 
ence to sunlight , and long narrow wings for stables, 
both for horses and cattle, have in this particular 
a great advantage over basement stables under the 
whole barn, as the former may have windows for 
the admission of sunlight and air throughout their 
entire length. 
Sixth .—Give all animals free access to salt. 
With plenty of feed, horses and sheep will stand 
any degree of dry cold incident to the climate of 
the United States and Canada. Neat cattle need 
more orotection, and it is really cruel to expose 
them unprotected to winter weather. Swine need 
thoroughly warm dry quarters in winter, and will 
hardly survive exposure such as other domestic 
animals will bear perfectly well. So with poultry— 
while turkeys will bear the severest storms and 
cold roosting in the most exposed positions, fowls 
seek shelters either of thick evergreens, or houses, 
and ducks and geese the protection of the manure 
pile or the hay stack. In sheltering all animals and 
poultry, which we do from motives of economy, it 
is well to bear in mind their natural instincts, that 
those which need it most are best protected. 
Slmt Out llic 
The temperature of the living animal body can¬ 
not vary greatly, and therefore when the weather 
grows colder there is an increased demand for food 
to be consumed in keeping up the natural heat. 
A low temperature is an expensive condition, as 
every farmer who has wintered his stock well 
knows. There are two general methods of over¬ 
coming the wearing or exhausting effects of severe 
cold weather ; giving the animals an abundance of 
rich and palatable, heat-forming food, and se¬ 
curing them from exposure in warm and com¬ 
fortable stables. A happy combination of these 
two methods is the one to be provided by every 
stock raiser who looks both to the comfort of his 
animals and their profitableness. 
If stables generally could be warmed with safety 
by stoves, there is no doubt that a saving in the 
amount of fodder would result. Much can be done 
in this direction by keeping the animals in well- 
built stables, and free from all chilling currents of 
frost-laden air. The writer has in mind a stable, 
where a long row of milch cows suffered, almost 
to the point of freezing, on many winter nights', 
because the stable was full of large cracks, and 
the doors only partly shut out the drifting snows. 
A few hours of patching the walls, flooring, and 
doors, with very little expense for lumber, would 
have made its good effects evident within a single 
week at the dairy-room. A cow is not at her best 
when she must shiver with the cold and have her 
rough coat covered with the frost and snow of a 
severe winter night. Looked at in simply the 
pecuniary light, this method of keeping farm stock 
does not bring the best returns. There is no far¬ 
mer who, being able to own a herd of cattle or a 
flock of sheep, can afford not to house them well. 
He may let them eat at will from the stack of the 
best hay that is made, but if they have no more 
shelter than the stack affords, he may come to the 
conclusion common to all bad agricultural prac¬ 
tice, that farming does not pay. Let this be a word 
in season for all those who may profit by it. Stop 
the cracks in the stables, and save pain for your 
animals and money for yourself. Take special care 
not to have the farm stock exposed to the chilling 
winter blasts; in short, shut out the cold. 
BFiilVivmees in Crops. 
The order of succession in a rotation of crops, 
depends upon a number of important differences 
in the nature of the crops grown. Some kinds of 
plants require more of one food than another. 
Thus mangles need several times more nitrogen 
than clover, and clover requires over twice the 
quantity that the wheat plant demands. Some crops 
are called exhaustive of potash, because they make 
large drafts upon the soil for this element of plant 
food, and some take up relatively much phosphoric 
acid. It is therefore important that the crops be 
so arranged, that the demands for the then leading 
food elements, be distributed, as much as possi¬ 
ble, throughout the whole series. The amount 
of any of these substances required to produce a 
crop, does not fully determine its exhaustive na¬ 
ture, as a large portion of each plant composing it 
maybe left on the field, to be of benefit to the suc¬ 
ceeding crops. This is the case with clover, which, 
though taking much nitrogen in its growth, leaves 
a good part of it in the surface soil, to feed other 
plants. Some crops are known as ameliorating, and 
are put into the rotation largely for their effect up¬ 
on others. A corn crop, though in itself profit¬ 
able, offers a good opportunity to bring the soil 
into a better condition for the production of other 
grains. The expense of tillage, the killing of the 
weeds, etc., should not be all charged against the 
corn crop, but spread over the whole series in the 
rotation. Roots help to clean the land, and indi¬ 
rectly are of much value as a regular crop in a well- 
planned rotation. 
Cleaning up Fence Kows. 
Many of the fence rows in the older parts of the 
couatry are in a dreadful condition, and are seed¬ 
beds for weeds for all the land that they enclose. 
The writer remembers very well a farm that “ came 
into the family ” twenty years ago, and with it 
some of the foulest fence rows that could be 
found. The first thing done was to clean these 
broad strips of briars, young saplings, stumps, 
stones, and the remains of what was once a rail 
fence. The work was not an easy one, but with 
the aid of a yoke of oxen, and burning heaps at 
frequent intervals, the rubbish was cleared away, 
and what before was an almost impassable barrier 
of wild growth and accumulations, became a strip 
Fig. 1 . — AN OLD FENCE ROW. 
of the richest and most productive land on the 
farm. In some cases the fences were not replaced, 
and the lines of the old ones were plainly visible 
for years in the heavy growth of grain and grass. 
In some places these “wild hedges” had so far 
encroached upon the fields, that they Were more 
than a rod wide, and the loss of acreage was there¬ 
fore considerable upon the whole farm. There is 
no objection to an occasional tree along the line 
of the fence, and vines, like the Virginia Creeper, 
Fig. 2.—A GOOD FENCE. 
climbing upon a fence, especially if of stone, adds- 
to the beauty of the farm. But there are positive 
objections to letting the division lines of the farm 
become propagation .beds for briars and weeds, and 
the receptacles for stumps and stones. Clean out 
all unsightly rubbish fences, as they cumber the 
ground to the exclusion of better things. The 
fence rows should be as neat and clean as the 
middle of the field, and if they are not so, this is a 
good time of year to put them in a proper condition. 
Plows si is <F Plowing. 
Good plowing depends both on the implement 
and the plowman. A good plowman cannot do 
good work without a fair sort of a plow, and the 
best plow, in the hands of an unskillful laborer, will 
not do satisfactory plowing. Plowing a moderately 
stiff sod, with a growth of grass several inches high 
upon it, is a good test of both plow and plowman 
(especially if trees, rocks, or other obstructions 
occur). Plowing is generally judged by the straight¬ 
ness and evenness of the furrows, and if the furrow 
slice as turned over is smooth throughout its 
length, people are all the better pleased. This 
ought not to be the test of the quality of the work. 
In plowing fiat , the kind of plowing usually 
done in this country, a good plow ought to turn a 
furrow to which it is adapted so that the floor of 
the furrow shall be flat and the land side moderately 
cut under, while the furrow-slice is laid well away 
from the furrow, unbroken, but crumbly, the grass 
side perfectly covered, and laid as nearly as possible 
flat in the bottom of the furrow. This is called 
“flat-furrow” plowing, and is the kind of work 
adapted to spring and summer culture, because the 
sward thus laid flat is less likely to grow and trouble 
the crop. The same plow may be used for lap-furrow 
plowing, which result will follow setting the plow- 
