AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
86 
apprehended might prove injurious to the 
hay, especially as I designed it for calves and 
young cattle. I commenced feeding it to 
the latter immediately on their being taken 
from the pasture—the hay being chaffed and 
mixed with rasped roots—principally car¬ 
rots and ruta baga turnips, with a small 
quantity of corn and cob meal. The feed 
was prepared the day previous to feeding it 
out, until the weather became so cold as not 
to admit of it, when warm water was added. 
I never yet have seen a more rapid develop¬ 
ment of flesh and muscle than was induced 
by this method of feeding, nor have I seen 
animals kept in better health. The calves— 
eight in number—did equally as well, and its 
effects upon cows, though perhaps not so 
markedly apparent, was yet very favorable. 
Whether, on the whole, the cutting of af¬ 
termath, and its appropriation as a means of 
sustenance for stock, is more economical, 
and permitting it to decay on the soil, is a 
question as yet rather problematical. The 
quantity of decomposable matter contained 
in the produce of an acre of well-set grass, 
would no doubt greatly augment the humus 
of the soil, provided it were allowed to re¬ 
main on the ground, though it would be far 
more effectual could it be put beneath the 
surface. The presence of a large mass of 
undecayed vegetable matter on the surface 
of a mowing field, is certainly not desirable, 
and although it may act beneficially by keep¬ 
ing the soil light around the roots, and pro¬ 
tecting, to a limitsd extent from cold, dur¬ 
ing winter, its removal is nevertheless to be 
recommended when the crop can be applied 
as above.— An Old Farmer, in Germantown 
Telegraph. 
Peas and Sweet Potatoes eor Fatten¬ 
ing Hogs. —Mr. Nathan Winslow, of Perqui- 
mons county, fattens his hogs for slaughter 
and sale, as well as for his own consumption, 
almost entirely on peas and sweet potatoes. 
Fi*om the 1st to the 15th of September, the 
hogs are turned on a pea field. At the same 
time, a small portion of sweet potato ground 
is close at hand, and the hogs are turned 
therein every day. This is done because he 
deems it better for the health of the hogs. 
Every night alternately the hogs are turned 
into the pea field and the potatoes—new por¬ 
tions of the latter being brought in as the 
first enclosed are exhausted. Thus kept on 
the peas and potatoes alone (for he supposes 
they get very little from the woods) the hogs 
become very fat. For change of food and 
late in the fattening, swill is added to the 
food, made of turnips boiled with a little corn 
meal and seasoned with salt. Mr. Winslow 
is confident that all the corn consumed dur¬ 
ing the whole time of fattening does not ex¬ 
ceed the average of a peck for each hog. 
Therefore the fattening is due in a very 
slight degree to corn, and almost entirely to 
he peas and potatoes. Peas alone will fat¬ 
ten very considerably, but not enough to 
make good pork. But with potatoes the 
hogs are not only made very fat, but their 
fat is even more firm and white than of hogs 
fattened on corn. After cold weather re¬ 
quires that potatoes should be dug, they are 
boiled before being fed to the hogs. Mr. 
Winslow is a very large and successful 
raiser of hogs and seller of pork. I learn 
from others that this pork, fattened as above 
stated, is deemed the best in the markets.— 
Southern Planter. 
OXEN VERSUS HORSES. 
An enthusiastic admirer of oxen, in plead¬ 
ing their claims in the Stock Register, says : 
Oxen are much better in many respects 
for working than horses; some of which ad¬ 
vantages may be summed up as follows. 
They cost much less in the first instance, 
and are therefore more within the reach of 
men of moderate means. They are less 
liable to disease, and if an accident occurs 
which disables them from labor, they may 
be converted into food. If a horse should 
happen to break a leg, a bullet might as well 
be put through his head at once, for he is 
worthless ever after ; but if the same acci¬ 
dent happens to an ox, he can be converted 
immediately into beef, provided he is suffi¬ 
ciently in flesh ; or if this is not the case the 
wound can generally be so far cured as to 
enable the animal afterwards to fatten. 
The ox will eat less food and of a coarser 
kind than the horse, and needs less attention 
in order to thrive. He will work in locali¬ 
ties impossible for the horse, and go for¬ 
ward patiently with labors which would 
chafe the other into utter intractibility. 
No man who has ever witnessed the two 
kinds of animals at work around a saw-mill 
yard, for instance, can fail to have been 
struck wth this difference in their character. 
Hitch a span of horses to a log which is too 
heavy for them to start at once, and in nine 
cases out of ten after one or two efforts 
they will either break their harness, splinter 
a whiffletree, or balk, and refuse to draw at 
all. Now try it with a yoke of well broken 
oxen, and they will lay out their utmost 
strength with the same gentleness and good 
will for the twentieth time, as they did at 
first. 
TRUE VALUE OE A FARM. 
There is something in the owning a piece 
of ground which affects me as do the old ruins 
of England. I am free to confess that the 
value of a farm is not chiefly in its crops of 
cereal grain, its orchards of fruit, and in its 
herbs, but in those larger and more easily 
reaped harvests of associations, fancies, and 
dreamy broodings which it begets. From 
boyhood I have associated classical civic vir¬ 
tues and old heroic integrity with the soil. 
No one who has peopled his young brain with 
the fancies of Grecian mythology but comes 
to feel a certain magical fancy for the earth. 
The very smell of fresh-turned earth brings 
up as many dreams and visions of the coun¬ 
try as sandal-wood does of Oriental scenes. 
At any rate, I feel, in walking under these 
trees and about their slopes, something of 
that enchantment of vague and mysterious 
glimpses of the past which I once felt about 
the ruins of Kenilworth Castle. For thou¬ 
sands of years this piece of ground hath 
wrought its tasks. Old slumberous forests 
used to darken it; innumerable deer have 
tramped across it; foxes have blinked 
through its bushes; and wolves have howled 
and growled as they pattered along its rust¬ 
ling leaves with empty maws. How many 
birds; how many flocks of pigeons, thou¬ 
sands of years ago; how many hawks dash¬ 
ing wildly among them ; how many insects, 
nocturnal and diurnal: how many mailed 
bugs, and limber serpents, gliding among 
mossy stones, have had possession here be¬ 
fore my day! It will not be long before 1, 
too, shall be wasted and recordless as they. 
H. W. Beecher. 
THE FARMERS’ FUTURE. 
An English correspondent of the New- 
York Tribune, expatiates on the prospective 
introduction of steam power as an aid in agri¬ 
cultural operations, as follows: 
“ The Farmer’s Future will be found in the 
application of steam to the cultivation of the 
soil! We are rapidly coming to the conclu¬ 
sion here that the good old plow is a hum¬ 
bug. We begin to think that spade husband¬ 
ry applied by steam, is the right thing; in¬ 
deed, there are some among us of the opin¬ 
ion that a machine may be invented which 
-should, in effect, plow, sow, harrow and roll 
together—a machine, in fact, which should 
make a seed bed and sow the seed all at one 
operation. There has already been one 
steam engine exhibited in this country which 
will walk anywhere, and do anything it is 
required to do. It has feet about the size of 
yours, sir, and puts them down upon the 
ground, one after the other, very much after 
the fashion of a dandy going up Broadway, 
only the feet of the machine are fixed on 
wheels and revolve regularly, instead of 
moving up and down awkwardly, like his. 
This machine will go through a plowed field 
very comfortably, and rather quicker than a 
good hunter will get over it; and as it will 
drag a dozen plows after it, I do not see, for 
my part, why it should not be made to carry 
as part and parcel of itself, a mechanism that 
will readily convert the untilled ground into 
a seed-bed. Well, then as to drainage. I 
saw a machine the other day that would dig, 
drain and lay down sixteen and a half feet of 
piping per minute, the pipes being rather 
more regularly and satisfactorily laid than 
any skilled workman can lay them. The 
machine labored under the disadvantage of 
being cumbrous, and of being made to be 
worked by a stationary engine. But having 
got thus far, it seems to be only one step 
further to give us steam application to the 
soil, so as to enable twenty times the quan¬ 
tity of land to be put under cultivation by the 
same amount of labor, and at no^reater cost 
than now. Then we may hope for a produce 
of cheap corn, the great desideratum in this 
land of sweat and toil, where it depends 
upon a shilling or two, more or less, in the 
price of food, not only whether a man can 
reap the advantages of his labor, but abso¬ 
lutely, too often, whether he can continue to 
exist. 
Yes, to the application ol' improved ma¬ 
chinery to the earth must we look for an ae 
cession of home comforts, of world-wide 
prosperity, of universal happiness! To 
