374 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[October, 
Theie is a chicken room, 12x20 ft., in the west 
end up-stairs, where I keep a stove for the comfort 
of my winter chicks. Stairs are at the east end, 
and the 2nd story is divided in the middle by a 
walk, 3 ft. wide, with rooms 8 ft. square on each 
side; these will each accommodate 12 breeding hens 
in winter, and 6 in summer. For laying purposes, I 
should keep more. The upper story, or attic, 
makes a very comfortable pigeon loft, and my 
Homing Antwerps, and English Carriers, enjoy 
themselves there, and breed to my entire satisfac¬ 
tion. My Calcutta Fans are kept in another build¬ 
ing with the rabbits. People, wise in some things, 
are constantly saying and writing that hens must 
have abundant room out-doors, or they will not do 
well. It is not so with my Brown Leghorns. I 
have a score of hens over 6 years old, that never 
have run out an hour in their lives, and are hearty 
and well, and lay nearly every day for 10 months of 
every year. Their average, for two years past, being 
over 200 eggs each a year, and most of the eggs 
they have laid have been set and hatched. 
Among the Farmers.—No. 21. 
BY ONE OF THEM. 
Green Fodder Crops. 
. The subject of green fodder crops, and the al¬ 
most identical one, of how to keep up the flow of 
milk during our hot dry summers, when we have 
them—and we do have them four years in five— 
comes up at this season, and is an interesting one 
at all times, and to people in all parts of the world. 
In so exceptionally moist a summer as the one we 
are just bidding farewell to, everything grows most 
rampantly, and we can not so well judge of what 
the new things will do in dry times. The breadth of 
Fodder Corn 
put in last spring, was unusually great, because so 
much of the grass and clover sowed last year was 
burned out, and we were obliged to make provi¬ 
sion for hay. On this account the problem is pre¬ 
sented with peculiar force, how to cure and pre¬ 
serve it. I hope very much that 
Tlie French Silo, (Tanking System), 
will be thoroughly tried by many farmers this sea¬ 
son. This has been repeatedly described in the 
American Agriculturist. Goffart’s experiments, or 
rather his experience in France, demonstrate that 
in that climate there is no reason for failure, either 
in tanks or trenches, if, as he says, the fodder is 
only cut fine enough and well tramped down. I can 
not believe that the experiments which were made 
by some of the members of the Elmira Farmer’s 
Club, or at least promulgated by the Club, were 
conducted on a fair understanding of the neeessi- 
ties of- the case. It is perfectly clear-to my mind that 
nearly, or quite, water tight pits or tanks, (silos), 
by means of which the air may be almost perfectly 
excluded from the contents, will preserve corn-fod¬ 
der as well, to say the least, as barrels will preserve 
kraut. The cases are very similar. To make sauer 
kraut, (and a most delicious way this is of prepar¬ 
ing cabbage for the table), the Germans slice the 
firmest cabbage heads very fine, and pack the fine 
cut cabbage in barrels,, sprinkling a little salt over 
it in layers, with sometimes a few caraway seeds. 
A weighted follower, fitting as closely as possible, 
is put on, and the barrel covered up. Fermentation 
sets in ; this, by the formation of carbonic acid gas, 
excludes the air, and soon nearly arrests the fer¬ 
mentation. The very little air which may be pres¬ 
ent after the general exclusion of air from the 
mass, which follows the first working, is sufficient 
to equalize the action, and render the whole homo¬ 
geneous—that is, about equally acted upon. 
Mr. Goffart’s pits were six feet wide, and of equal 
depth; they were dug in a tenacious water-tight clay 
soil, lined on the sides and bottom with bricks laid 
in cement, although this brick lining was found not 
to be essential. These tanks or pits were of indefi¬ 
nite length,and at the proper time,before the forma¬ 
tion of the grain, the corn-stalks, or, as we should 
say, the fodder-corn, was cut and run through a 
powerful stalk cutter, operated by steam-power, 
cutting the corn in pieces about one-third of an inch 
thick. This was of course quite juicy and wet, so 
much so that it could not be trampled down well 
without an admixture of straw to absorb the water. 
He used rye straw, and the quantity never exceeded 
one-fifth of the whole mass. Thus mixed, it was 
trampled down as hard and level as several men 
could tramp it, filled 20 inches higher than the top, 
the upper layer being well salted. Then a covering 
of straw was placed over it, and 20 inches of earth. 
If not cut fine, the fermentation and steaming is 
tremendous, as also the settling of the mass in 
spots. When sufficiently finely sliced, however, 
the action is gradual, every particle of the material, 
rye straw, and the coarsest buts, become fit for 
food, and are greedily eaten ; virtually supplying an 
abundance of nutritious green-fodder, equal, if not 
superior, to corn-fodder in its best estate. I am not 
situated so as to try this very well, but hope that 
farmers who can do so, will give it a thorough trial. 
We have had so much rain up to the middle of 
August, which is the date of writing, that very lit¬ 
tle of the corn-fodder has been cut for summer 
use, and the growth of it has been superb, leafy, 
succulent, and green, even on poorly prepared 
ground, and the same is true of field corn, so that 
we may well anticipate a supply of fodder 6uch as 
we rarely have to store. My own preparation for a 
dry summer, consisted in sowing 
Golden Millet 
as well as fodder-corn. This was sowed in May and 
in July. Some upon good ground, other upon 
quite poor land, with and without manure. I am 
much pleasfcd'With the crop, my anticipations be¬ 
ing fully realized oh good ground; It is a strong 
growing crop, from a very feeble beginning. The 
seed, no bigger than “a grain of mustard seed,” 
needs more careful sowing than we gave it; on 
6ome parts of the field it came very thick, on others, 
though apparently evenly sowed, it came very 
sparcely, giving too good a chance for the weeds 
to come between. It does not tiller or sucker; 
where thinly sowed, or where it comes sparsely, so 
it stands. After it gets a start, especially when it 
begins to feel the hot weather, it sends down strong 
feeding roots, which become very fibrous, and 
brace, or rather “stay” the stem on every side, 
holding it erect through the hardest blows we have 
had so far. The principal leaves measure an inch 
to an inch and a half in breadth, and 16 to 20 inches 
long, when the plant has attained its full growth in 
good soil, and the burden of green-fodder at the 
time I write, seems fully equal to that of sowed 
corn. Everything eats it, and yet it is not sweet 
like com. I am afraid, besides, that the 6traw will 
prove very hard, and will be refused by stock. It 
seems so now, though green and not over one-fourth 
to one-third of an inch thick. Hungarian grass 
never made a stand at all equal to it for weight of 
:crop, though no doubt the quality of the Hungarian 
is decidedly superior for hay. 
Prickly Comfrey. 
Of course I made a little trial of this new forage 
plant last spring. The troublesome thing with it, 
thus far, is the starting. The root cuttings were 
quite small, and many were somewhat dried. I 
think the parties dealing in them, lacked experience 
as to how best to transport and deliver them,and that 
those receiving them needed more definite instruc¬ 
tions how to handle them. I am confident that any- 
scraps of root, even those not worthy the name of 
root cuttings,and of course any pieces of root such 
as it would be proper to sell, if simply thrown, 
when fresh, upon the ground, and covered with a 
little damp litter, will every one of them start and 
make a plant. If once dried, a great many are lost; 
only the fleshy ones, which do not lose the fresh¬ 
ness of the surface, live. The cuttings, therefore, 
ought to be kept damp. But, if fresh cuttings are 
put up so as not to dry at all, such succulent things, 
in which the tendency to bud and grow is so strong, 
will surely heat, and that is just as fatal as drying ; 
so the dealers are in a straight, and they must find 
their way out of it. The only way which suggests 
itself to me is, that started cuttings be shipped up¬ 
on long journeys, for there is more tenacity of life 
in a plant with such a store of nutrition as the cut¬ 
ting affords, than in the cutting in which no indi¬ 
vidual life has as yet asserted itself. As fodder I 
can only say of the Comfrey that cows seem very 
fond of the leaves, and there certainly are plenty of 
them. Pigs eat it also, and the amount of forage 
which will grow upon an acre of land, seems to be 
limited only by the amount of manure which can 
be brought within feeding distance of the roots. 
Cow Jockeying. 
“ There is cheating in all trades but ours,” so 
runs the ancient saw. H one wishes to buy a trotting 
horse, he expects to hear him extolled as taking a 
three-minute gait as a natural jog—and trotting 
“low down in the thirties,” if urged—as being 
able, with training, .to “ do his mile in thirty,” or 
“ twenty-two and a half,” as the case may be, but 
the test is easily applied. The horse is hitched up 
to the road-wagon, and made to show his speed on 
the road, or on the track, by the watch. That settles 
the matter of speed. If every other point could 
be determined as accurately, there would be little 
complaint of the jockeys. I am led into this train 
of thought from a talk I had with a gentleman, 
who has gained no little fame among horsemen 
from his study and comparison of pedigrees and per¬ 
formances of trotting stock. He is perhaps better 
known as “Hark Comstock,” than as P. C. Kellogg. 
Mr. K. has taken quite a fancy to Jersey stock, 
and would probably buy a few good cows, if he 
could know what he was buying. Said he, “ I want 
a well pedigreed cow that somebody has held a watch 
on.'\ That puts it in a nutshell. In horse-dealing 
nobody thinks of getting a big price for a trotter 
that has not been timed, but our cow-dealers brag 
about their milk and their butter, about the pedi¬ 
grees of their cows, and they test their entire herds 
together, or make some positive tests, and publish, 
not the weights, but an estimate. Now, a horse 
never gets “ a record ” by his owner’s watch, and 
it is not fair that a cow should. It is time for us 
to stop talking about jockeying, as if it were some¬ 
thing peculiar to horse-dealers. I am beginning 
to think that the cow-jockies can give the horse- 
jockies several points, and beat them at that. They 
certainly could, if horse buyers were as credulous 
as those who pay the big prices for milk and butter 
cows—especially for Jerseys. Now and then a 
cow is brought to a fair test. In a few herds, cows 
are systematically tested, and the whole process is 
open to the inspection of those who are curious. 
A few dealers are really anxious that a buyer should 
know all about a cow which he buys, and will have 
her milk weighed, her cream exhibited, and sev¬ 
eral milkings saved, to be churned before the buyer, 
and to his satisfaction, but they are far between. 
A curious case came to my knowledge the other 
day. A gentleman was anxious to buy two or three 
Jersey cows, and went about among the breeders. 
In one herd he found a heifer to suit him, and her 
owner readily consented to have her milk weighed, 
and set by itself for a week—or perhaps for 6even 
milkings. She yielded some nine pounds and over, 
