42 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
their means in purchasing farms in the West, and 
expended their time and labor in cultivating the 
land, would it not have been a better policy 1 In 
gold seeking, one has a hare chance of acquiring 
wealth ; in farming he has a mural certainty of ob¬ 
taining an independence for life—and that without 
die sacrifice of home, health, friends, morals, and 
all that is most valu-able in life. A great ado is 
made, because the annual yield of the California 
gold mines amounts to forty or sixty millions of 
dollars. A nice little pile, surely ; but the hay 
crop of New York State, or the v^heator the corn 
crops ol Ohio, are no less valuable. Yet no ado 
is made over these facts. Where are the shoals 
of discontented young men rushing to the mea¬ 
dows and grain fields of these States 1 Alas for 
them ! in their blindness they are rushing in 
every other direction. By and by, perhaps, a 
good farm, and contentment therewith, will be 
found one of the best things under the sun. 
Dry Wood vs. Green. 
Now is the time to secure the annual supply of 
wood for fuel. Now, the labors of the field are 
suspended, and men and teams are mostly unem¬ 
ployed. The wet and quaking hog will now' hear 
up the wood chopper and his sled, and heavier 
loads can be drawn over the roads than in Sum¬ 
mer. The cold weather, too, braces up the farm¬ 
er with a superfluous strength, which makes the 
severest labor pleasant. Now, then, is the time 
lor gathering this Winter harvest 
We do not mean, however, that the wood now 
cut, should be used this Winter : let it be secured 
now, and dried for consumption next Winter. It 
pains us to see the wasteful and barbarous custom 
of burning green wood still prevalent in many 
parts of the country. The very poor man, we 
suppose, can not lay up a stock before hand; lie 
must buy at market price from month to month, 
g een or dry ; but the farmer, at least, is under no 
such necessity. He can and he should fell his 
trees in Winter, haul the logs sled-length to his 
back-yard, arid then chop or saw, and split them 
into stove-wood; and by the time farm work in 
the field begins to press, his wood should all be 
neatly stored away under cover. 
Yet there are some who look on this as un¬ 
necessary trouble ; they have always used green 
wood and got along very well; what need of so 
much ado in drying and shrivelling up wood before 
burning it! Oh, plea of laziness ! Will such per¬ 
sons please exert themselves enough to look at a 
few figures, illustrating the economy of this thing. 
A log of unseasoned wood weighing, say one 
hundred pounds, will weigh, when dry, only sixty- 
six pounds. What now has it lost! Any com¬ 
bustible matter 1 anything that will warm your 
house or cook your food ! No : it has lost 34 
pounds of water. That won’t burn very well in a 
log of wood or anywhere else. Nay, it has got to 
be driven out ofthe log belbre the wood will burn. 
And how must that be done 1 Solely by a waste 
of the heal necessary to convert that water into 
vapor and steam. And where is the economy of 
this 1 If about one-third of the weight of green 
wood is water, then there are 1,443 pounds of 
water in every cord, which have got to be made 
into steam before the wood can be burned. In¬ 
stead of using up our heat in the steam-making 
business, and so throwing it away, had we not bet¬ 
ter save it to warm our houses ! At least, if there 
is economy in that business, we are too dull to see 
it. Will some sharp wilted advocate of green 
wood please enlighten us. 
Bui aside from the question of economy, good, 
well seasoned wood has much to do with domes¬ 
tic happiness. It is no light matter to he com¬ 
pelled to kindle fires every day and several umes 
a day, with green wood. Especially so in Winter. 
And the man who provides nothing for his house 
but green wood, is just the man to lie abi-o Winter 
mornings, and compel his wife to make the fires, 
dress the children, and prepare breakfast belbre 
his lordship bestirs himself. A wife must be a 
miracle of patience, energy and physical endurance 
to bear such treatment a long while cheerfully. 
No wonder that such families are often scenes of 
discord and gloom. No wonder that the wife and 
mother in such households breaks down prema¬ 
turely, and that the children grow up rude and 
lawless, and with no love of home. If matters 
go wrong in the kitchen, they are quite sure to go 
wrong elsewhere. Well says an indignant cotem¬ 
porary : “ Green fire-wood should be rejected as 
the demon of discord in the family; while it 
smokes, and steams, and sputters, and refuses to 
toast or roast, or bake or boil, it makes the chil¬ 
dren sulky and tart, the husband gloomy and 
severe, and the poor wife anxious and disheart¬ 
ened. Many a scene of domestic felicity has been 
smoked and sizzled out of existence, by the use of 
green fire wood." 
Why use cut feed ? 
An intelligent farmer asks for the philosophy of 
cutting hay. He can understand that it is useful to 
cut corn stalks, and coarse fodder, because the cat¬ 
tle will eat them better. But when cattle will eat 
up good English hay perfectly clean, why should it 
be passed through the hay cutter! 
Our friend evidently supposes, that the stomach 
does its work upon everything that passes into it, 
w'ith equal facility, and without any tax upon the 
rest of the system. This is manifestly an error. 
All food has to be ground up before it can be as¬ 
similated, and pass into the circulation of the ani 
mal. If food is not artificially prepared by cutting, 
grinding, or steaming, the animal has to prepare it 
himself, so far as he is able. Certain kinds of food 
will pass through the system, imparting to it only a 
part of their nutriment, because the teeth of the 
animal have not perfectly masticated it. Whole 
kernels of corn or of oats are frequently seen in 
the fceces of an old horse. 
The more perfectly food can be prepared, the 
more completely will the system appropriate its 
nutriment. If the whole labor of grinding up the 
food is thrown upon the animal it is a serious tax 
upon the vital energy, which every good farmer 
wants for other purposes. In the case of the horse 
and the ox, you want the strength applied to loco¬ 
motion and to draft. Whatever strength is ap¬ 
plied to grinding food, is so much taken away from 
their capacity for labor. If three or four hours of 
strong muscular labor are spent in working up hay 
and straw into a pulp, there is a great loss of 
strength and of time. 
In the case of fattening animals, you want the 
aliment to go to the formation of fat, and flesh. 
This process goes on successfully, just as the animal 
is kept quiet, and comfortable. No useless labor 
should be expended in the grinding up of food. 
The straw-cutter, working up the hay into fragments 
of half an inch in length or less, performs a good 
part of the work of the jaws, and makes the feed¬ 
ing of the animal a light matter. If the hay could 
be ground up into a fine meal, it would be still bet¬ 
ter ; as it would make the work of the animal still 
lighter, and would more completely yield up its 
nutriment. If it could be steamed it would be best 
of all as it would then be wholly appropriated. 
We have no doubt that it pays quite as well to 
pass hay through the machine, as the coarsest lodder. 
A root-cutter is also an indispensable adjunct to the 
barn, and the more perfectly it comminutes the roots 
the better. 
The farmer who has ever experimented with 
these machines, and marked the results of feeding 
with bay, and roots prepared in this way, can have 
no doubt of their utility. Laziness, we apprehend, 
has quite as much do with the neglect of these ma¬ 
chines as ignorance. It is work to turn the crank 
to cut up hay enough to feed twenty head of cattle, 
and in prospect of spending the elbow grease, it 
is very convenient to believe that it will not pay. 
Sloth, however, is a poor counsellor in this case, as 
in all others. We should as soon think of feeding 
cattle in the open field in this bleak Winter weather, 
as of feeding them with uncut hay. A warm sta¬ 
ble and a straw cutter are both good investments. 
Carrots for Stock 
Can anything be better as Winter food for all 
kinds of animals, than this familiar root 1 We 
have used it for several years with most gratify¬ 
ing results. It is not only useful as a “ relish” 
with other fodder, as apples and vegetables are 
for mankind in the Winter, but it contains valuable 
nourishing properties, and may be used as an al¬ 
ternating substitute for other food. We are not 
surprised to learn that the keepers of livery sta¬ 
bles in cities are beginning to use carrots 'or 
horse food. They hold that a peck of carrots and 
a peck of oats are better for a horse than two 
pecks of oats. All animals require for their health, 
and comfort green food to mix with their dry fod¬ 
der, and their winter bill of fare is deficient, il ii 
does not include carrots. 
We have the report of an experiment made by 
a careful farmer to test the relative value of se¬ 
veral kinds of food for milch cows, with the 
following general result; three pounds of car¬ 
rots equal to one pound of hay. This would 
make three tons of carrots equal to one ton ol 
hay— i.e., for producing milk ; .but for fattening 
purposes, we should place the carrot nearer upon 
a par with hay. This also is true of it, that it 
yields larger crops than the potatoe, is more nu 
tritious, is better adapted to this climate than ru- 
ta-baga or turnips, can be more readily and better 
kept through the winter, and is more easily pre¬ 
pared for feeding, as it does not require boiling or 
steaming, unless it be for swine. We sometimes 
meet in our exchanges, with various recipes for 
coloring Winter-made butter a rich golden hue, 
like grass-made butter ; but we believe the besi 
way to accomplish this is by feeding the cows on 
good orange carrots, and leave to them the work 
of coloring the butter. 
The Culture is not difficult. Give the grouno 
a liberal manuring with well decomposed dung, 
and if to this is added a mixture of muck or chip 
dirt, it will help the matter. Of course the plow¬ 
ing and harrowing must be thoroughly done. 
Sow in drills two feet apart, if for horse tillage ; 
if done with the hand, at less distance. Sow 
when the soil is a little moist, and press the earth 
firmly over the seed. 
As carrots germinate slowly, look out for the 
weeds as soon as they appear, or they will get 
the start of the carrots and overshadow them. 
If this seed is drilled in, two pounds to the acre 
will be sufficient; if sown by the hand, three or 
lour will be needed. Thin the plants at each 
hoeing, until they are four or five inches apart. 
By good management, a crop of 500 to 700 bush¬ 
els to the acre may be expected. The Long 
Orange is generally considered the best variety ; 
though the White Belgian is very nutritious and 
is most easily harvested. 
