36 
January  16 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
the  winter  if  required  to  be  kept  so  long.  Our  lambsl 
fed  in  this  way  last  winter  made  a  gain  of  from! 
eight  to  eleven  pounds  per  month,  and  continued  to] 
make  this  gain  until  they  were  sold  at  the  end  of  April. 
“Chemicals  and  Clover.” 
MUST  SMALL  FARMS  USE  STABLE  MANURE  ? 
In  my  vegetable  culture  I  am  handicapped  by  a  lim¬ 
ited  area.  If  I  had  a  sufficient  acreage  to  enable  me  to 
keep  a  certain  proportion  seeded  down,  I  should  rely 
upon  the  so-called  fertilizers  almost  exclusively.  I  am 
convinced  that  with  a  proper  sj'stem  of  rotation  I  could 
keep  up  the  fertility  of  my  soil  more  cheaply  and 
easily  with  fertilizers  and  sod  than  in  any  other  way. 
1  have  grown  first-class  cabbage  crops  on  sod  land 
with  the  help  of  1,500  pounds  per  acre  of  Mapes  Cab¬ 
bage  Fertilizer  applied  broadcast,  where  the  plants 
were  set  30  inches  apart  each  way.  My  leading  crops 
are  early  cabbage  and  celery,  with  beets  and  onions 
for  bunching,  to  be  followed  by  late  celery.  On  my 
soil  celery  seems  to  be  more  partial  to  a  liberal  appli¬ 
cation  of  well-rotted  stable  manure  than  some  other 
crops.  Our  manure  is  obtained  from  the  mines,  where 
the  mules  are  fed  exclusively  on  cracked  corn  and  oats 
with  plenty  of  hay,  and  no  bedding  of  any  kind  is  used. 
It  is  probably  worth  one-half  more  than  the  average 
farm-yard  manure.  I  usually  contract  for  200,  300  or 
500  loads,  according  to  my  needs,  cash  on  demand,  and 
the  folks  like  my  custom.  Counting  the  hire  of  my 
team  and  its  driver  at  $4  per  day,  my  manure,  ready 
to  be  plowed  under,  costs  SI. 00  per  long  ton. 
I  keep  no  stock,  grow  no  grain  and  very  little  grass, 
and  as  my  whole  area  is  almost  constantly  under  the 
plow.  I  have  to  furnish  humus  from  some  source.  I 
use  about  25  good  loads  of  stable  dung  to  the  acre, 
supplemented  by  probably  half  a  ton  of  a  good  High- 
grade  Complete  Fertilizer,  and  frequently,  as  in  the 
case  of  celery,  a  still  further  addition  of  500  pounds  of 
nitrate  of  soda,  applied  after  the  plants  have  got  well 
started.  It  must  be  remembered  that  this  practice,  in 
the  main,  is  repeated  every  year.  I  suppose  I  could 
grow  farm  crops  on  this  land  for  the  next  10  years 
without  manure  of  any  kind,  but  land  here  in  Kings¬ 
ton,  Pa.,  is  worth  $6  per  acre  for  surface  use  and  .$25 
for  the  minerals.  To  sum  up  then  :  if  I  had  60,  in¬ 
stead  of  30  acres,  I  would  keep  20  in  clover  all  the  time, 
employ  two  men  and  possibly  one  team  less  most  of 
the  time,  go  to  Gotham,  buy  fertilizer  by  the  car-load, 
have  less  worms,  less  fungus,  and  a  world  more  fun. 
As  the  case  stands,  a  man  couldn’t  put  in  any  more 
time  if  he  went  to  State  prison.  m.  g. 
R.  N.-Y. — A  man  does  make  work,  worry  and  worms 
in  farming  with  stable  manure.  There  ought  to  be 
“  humus  ”  enough  in  your  soil  to  raise  a  good  many 
crops  with  the  use  of  fertilizers  alone.  If  clover  is  out 
of  the  question,  we  would  advise  you  to  try  some  other 
green  manure  crops  in  a  small  way  and  see  how  they 
pay.  Rye,  millet,  buckwheat,  rape,  or  possibly  Crim¬ 
son  Clover  might  be  grown  in  the  late  summer  and  fall 
and  turned  under  in  Autumn  or  left  to  decay  on  the 
surface  and  be  plowed  under  in  the  spring.  These 
plants  are  well  worth  trying,  though  it  is  doubtful 
such  crops  would  answer  as  well  as  clover. 
Can  Beef  be  Made  at  a  Profit  in 
Western  New  York  ? 
Is  it  cruel  to  keep  steers  tied  ?  Why  not  exercise  the  baby  ? 
Cheaper  to  balance  the  food  ;  pick  out  your  animals  ; 
get  the  most  fat  out  of  the  food  ;  pure  corn  meal  for  a 
sow;  the  best  feeding  ratio.}  \  ^  i 
Since  the  appearance  of  my  paper  in  The  Rural  of 
Dec.  5,  a  friend  has  taken  me  to  task  for  advocating  so 
cruel  a  thing  as  keeping  steers,  when  feeding  for  beef, 
constantly  confined  in  the  stables.  He  says  :  “  It  is  cer¬ 
tainly  contrary  to  Nature  and  must  result  in  making 
them  diseased,”  and  he  doesn’t  see  how  I  can  be  so 
inhuman  as  to  confine  my  steers  so  cruelly  for  the  sake  of 
making  them  gain  a  few  pounds  more  beef.  Now. 
this  is  all  sentiment,  and  he  who  lets  sentiment  govern 
him  to  the  loss  of  only  a  few  pounds  of  growth  each 
week,  will  never  compete  successfully  with  his  brother 
farmers  of  the  M  est  with  their  free  ranges  and  cheap 
foods.  Doesn’t  everybody  know  that  the  keeping  of 
cattle  in  this  latitude  is  contrary  to  nature  ?  They  are 
natives  of  a  much  warmer  country,  and  he  who  would 
keep  them  here  most  profitably  must  make  the  con¬ 
ditions  as  nearly  like  those  of  nature  as  possible. 
This  fallacy  about  exercise  is,  I  firmly  believe,  the 
great  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  stock  owners 
everywhere,  and  doubly  so  in  New  York  State.  How 
much  exercise  is  absolutely  necessary  and  on  what 
does  it  depend  ?  Take  the  human  infant  as  an  illus¬ 
tration.  It  is  the  most  delicate  and  fragile  of  all  ani- 
Imals  for  the  first  few  months  of  its  existence,  and  how 
much  exercise  does  it  get  ?  See  how  assiduous  the 
careful  mother  is  that  it  shall  be  kept  perfectly  quiet. 
She  is  almost  afraid  to  show  it  to  admiring  friends  lest 
it  should  be  disturbed,  and  she  moves  it  as  little  as 
possible  when  bathing  and  dressing  it,  and  how  foolish 
she  would  be  thought  were  she  to  shake,  jump  and 
jolt  it  merely  for  exercise.  The  fact  is  that  when  the 
food  and  the  milk  of  the  mother,  living  properly,  are 
perfect,  very  little,  if  any,  exercise  is  necessary.  Ex¬ 
ercise  is  useful  just  in  proportion  as  the  food  is  badly 
balanced  or  improperly  compounded.  While  exercise 
helps  to  correct  the  harm  done  by  ignorance  in  com¬ 
pounding  rations,  it  consumes  energy,  and  as  this  is 
but  another  name  for  waste  of  food,  it  is  expensive. 
Not  only  this,  but  exercise  hardens  muscle  and  makes 
it  tough,  the  very  condition  not  wanted  in  the  best 
beef.  So  I  reiterate  what  was  said  in  the  former  paper  : 
give  no  more  exercise  than  is  absolutely  necessary  for 
the  health  of  the  animal,  for  whatsoever  is  given  more 
than  this  is  at  a  loss  in  growth  and  in  the  value  of  what 
is  produced. 
Selecting  Animals  for  Feeding 
is  a  very  essential  matter.  Not  all  animals  have  the 
same  aptitude  to  lay  on  flesh,  or  flesh  of  the  same  qual¬ 
ity.  There  is  not  only  a  great  difference  in  breeds,  but 
an  almost  equal  difference  in  individual  animals  of 
the  same  breed.  There  is  not  only  a  difference  between 
animals  in  their  ability  to  digest  food  and  to  convert 
it  into  meat,  but  different  animals  put  the  gain  on 
their  carcasses  in  different  places.  While  one  will 
store  it  on  the  most  undesirable  parts,  like  ribs  and 
forequarters,  another  will  put  the  bulk  of  its  gain 
upon  loins  and  hindquarters,  and  as  a  pound  of  loin  or 
ham  is  worth  more  than  twice  as  much  as  a  pound  of 
the  forequarter  or  inside  tallow,  too  much  attention 
cannot  be  given  to  the  selection  of  animals  for  beef 
making,  not  only  of  the  best  beef  breeds,  but  also  of  the 
best  beef  types  of  these  breeds.  With  a  little  experience 
and  close  attention  one  needs  make  but  very  few  mis¬ 
takes.  By  selecting  Short-horns  or  Here  fords  or  their 
grades  and  those  with  heavy  hindquarters  with  a  large 
development  of  hams  and  broad,  strong  loins,  small 
heads,  fine  horns,  mellow  skin  and  fine,  silky  hair  and 
a  general  thrifty  appearance,  one  will  not  be  often  dis¬ 
appointed  in  the  result. 
The  Largest  Gain  With  Least  Food 
is  also  essential  to  the  largest  profits.  To  secure  this 
very  desirable  result,  great  attention  should  be  given 
to  the  selection  and  proper  combination  of  foods.  In 
feeding  animals,  the  young  especially,  the  food  must 
contain  all  the  elements  of  growth,  otherwise  they 
become  diseased  or  improperly  developed.  It  is  pos¬ 
sible  to  feed  a  young  animal  on  such  foods  as  to  force 
an  abnormal  development  of  fat  while  at  the  same  . 
time  the  animal  is  starved  to  death.  In  my  own  ex¬ 
perience,  before  I  had  become  informed  on  this  point, 
I  had  a  breed  of  pigs  of  which  I  was  very  proud,  and  I 
fed  a  sow  with  a  litter  upon  corn  meal  and  fine  flour 
mixed  with  water,  and  although  the  pigs  were  of  a 
large  breed,  they  did  not  make  much  growth,  but 
became  exceedingly  fat  and  plump.  One  morning  I 
found  one  dead  and  during  that  day  another  which  I 
had  examined,  died.  The  bones  were  very  small  and 
brittle,  while  it  had  very  little  muscle  and  scarcely  any 
blood.  I  immediately  let  them  out  of  the  pen  and 
began  to  feed  skim-milk  and  wheat  middlings  with  no 
corn-meal  and  they  were  soon  all  right. 
But  even  were  it  possible  to  so  feed  an  animal  for 
fat  and  preserve  its  health,  it  would  not  be  desirable 
to  do  so.  The  time  has  gone  by  when  people  eat  very 
fat  meats.  Any  excess  of  fat  is  now  a  waste  product 
and  goes  to  the  rendering  kettles.  The  demand  is  now 
for  lean  meat  and  only  fat  enough  is  wanted  to  nicely 
marble  it.  I  took  dinner  to-day  at  a  friend’s  table  on 
which  was  a  very  nice,  but  quite  fat  roast.  I  took 
notice  how  many  ate  the  fatty  parts,  and  not  one  in 
five  failed  to  cut  all  of  them  out  and  leave  them  upon 
the  plates,  even  when  they  were  merely  the  marblings 
of  the  lean  meat. 
Now,  if  people  will  not  eat  this  fat,  why  produce 
more  than  sufficient  to  make  the  meat  tender  and 
juicy  ?  It  is  also  true  that  by  feeding  a  nitrogenous 
diet,  we  can  force  a  large  development  of  lean  meat  or 
muscle  and  common  sense  should  dictate  that  as  long 
as  this  is  the '  meat  wanted  and  for  which  consumers 
are  willing  to  pay ,  we  should  strive  to  produce  it. 
Animals  of  different  ages  and  kept  for  different  pur¬ 
poses  require  rations  differently  compounded.  Milch 
cows  and  young  animals  should  receive  foods  differ¬ 
ing  widely  from  those  for  animals  of  maturer  age 
intended  only  for  fattening.  Thus,  in  feeding  four 
and  five-year-old  steers  in  the  open  fields,  the  Western 
feeder  very  properly  throws  out  corn  to  them  by  the 
wagon  load.  They  have  already  all  the  growth  of 
muscle  that  can  be  put  upon  them,  and  he  can  only 
add  in  solid  fat,  and,  besides,  he  must  keep  them  warm 
amid  the  rain  and  snow  and  in  the  cutting  wind,  and 
corn  having  a  nutritive  ratio  of  1  :  11,  is  just  the  food 
for  his  purpose  But  in  New  York  the  case  is  very 
different.  We  can’t  afford  to  heat  “  all  out-of-doors” 
by  feeding  corn  to  stock ;  nor  have  we  large,  old 
steers,  and  we  can’t  afford  to  grow  them.  Our  steers 
must  be  got  to  market  when  not  over  two  years  old, 
and  should  have  a  very  large  development  of  lean 
meat,  and  their  food  should  be  so  mixed  as  to  contain 
a  nutritive  ratio  of  from  1  :  5,  or  1 :  6  at  the  outside. 
J.  8.  WOODWARD. 
Wintering  Farm  Horses. 
How  to  get  the  farm  horses  through  the  winter 
without  feeding  them  all  the  coarse  grain  that  has  been 
raised  on  the  farm  the  previous  summer,  is  a  problem 
most  farmers  have  been  trying  to  solve,  and  upon  its 
correct  solution  depends,  in  a  great  measure,  the  profits 
of  farming.  The  cow  in  milk  pays  for  her  keeping  as 
she  goes  along  ;  the  dry  cow  promises  to  foot  all  the 
fodder  bills  with  interest,  in  due  time ;  the  young 
cattle  are  paying  their  way  by  increased  growth  ;  but 
the  idle  horse  is  allowed  to  “  eat  his  head  off.”  For¬ 
merly  in  northern  Pennsylvania  lumbering  could  be 
done  in  the  winter,  so  that  the  farmer  earned  wages 
for  himself,  and  made  his  horses  pay  for  their  keeping 
and  more  besides.  When  at  this  heavy  work  in  cold 
weather,  I  found,  as  stated  by  Mr.  H.  Stewart  in  a 
late  Rural,  that  corn  was  an  excellent  feed.  Athough 
my  father  owned  a  water  mill  not  10  rods  from  the 
barn,  in  the  morning  I  fed  corn  in  the  ear,  whole, 
because  the  horses  liked  it  better  in  that  shape.  Each 
horse  had  about  a  peck  of  ears,  which  was  as  much  as 
he  would  eat.  Of  course  it  would  be  difficult  for  old 
horses  to  masticate  whole  corn  ;  but  horses  under  10 
years  of  age  will  grind  it  up  about  as  fast  as  a  water 
mill  can,  and  faster  than  some  old  cast-iron  farm  mills. 
Our  horses  never  ate  the  cobs  any  more  than  hogs  do — 
they  bit  off  only  the  corn,  so  I  concluded  that  they  did 
not  consider  cobs  of  much  value  as  horse  feed. 
Mr.  Stewart  recommends  that  the  corn  should  be 
coarsely  ground  and  mixed  with  cut  hay.  According 
to  my  experience,  corn  meal,  coarse  or  fine,  will  not 
stick  to  cut  hay  even  when  moistened,  and  the  horses 
will  root  the  mess  over  and  a  good  deal  of  it  out  of  the 
feed  box  in  trying  to  get  the  meal  without  the  hay.  It 
is  better  to  give  it  by  itself,  and  the  hay  by  itself  with¬ 
out  cutting.  At  noon  I  fed  each  horse  about  six  quarts 
of  oats  ;  it  was  easily  masticated,  and.  being  a  change, 
was  very  agreeable  to  the  team.  At  night  I  fed  to 
each  horse  cut  hay  (or  cut  straw  if  hay  was  scarce  or 
dear)  moistened  with  water,  and  about  six  quarts  of 
meal  mixed  with  it.  The  meal  was  made  from  equal 
quantities  of  corn,  rye  and  oats  ground  fine  together. 
The  rye  meal  furnished  the  glue  to  stick  the  mess 
together  so  that  it  could  not  be  separated  and  had  to 
be  eaten  together.  The  horses  received  a  little  dry 
hay,  but  would  not  eat  much,  as  the  cut  feed  satisfied 
their  hunger. 
Good  hay,  with  an  occasional  mess  of  raw  potatoes  as 
a  relish  and  laxative,  is  all  idle  horses  should  have  in 
the  winter.  They  should  have  salt  as  often  as  three 
times  a  week  like  cattle.  This  recommendation  is  based 
on  the  supposition  that  hay  is  relatively  cheaper  than 
grain,  as  is  usually  the  case  on  the  farm  :  but  should 
it  be  worth  $20  per  ton,  and  corn,  oats  and  rye  but  a 
cent  a  pound,  I  would  feed  no  hay  at  all,  only  cut  straw 
and  meal,  with  just  enough  meal  to  make  them  eat  the 
straw,  and  I  would  sell  the  hay  instead  of  the  grain. 
The  farmer  who  regards  his  interest  will  sell  whatever 
product  is  the  most  salable  and  profitable.  At  the 
prices  mentioned  for  hay  and  grain,  a  farmer  should 
sell  his  hay,  even  if  he  had  to  buy  meal  to  be  put  on 
the  cut  straw.  That  horses  with  but  light  work  can 
be  kept  in  good  order  on  hay  alone,  has  been  proved 
by  Mr.  Terry,  who  has  not  fed  his  horses  any  grain 
for  years.  j.  w.  Ingram. 
Two  Views  on  Free  Rural  Mails. 
What  about  free  postal  delivery  for  farmers  ?  Mr. 
Wannamaker  says  that  where  it  has  been  tried,  the 
increased  postal  revenue  has  paid  the  extra  expenses, 
or  nearly  so.  By  all  means  let  us  have  it,  then.  As 
the  case  stands  now  I  doubt  if  ten  per  cent  of  the 
farmers  in  any  part  of  the  United  States  take  any  kind 
of  an  agricultural  paper,  or  any  standard  magazine  or 
first-class  literary  or  political  newspaper.  I  know  that 
in  some  of  our  most  enlightened  farming  communities 
this  is  the  case,  and  I  do  not  know  of  any  place  where 
it  is  not.  I  believe  such  an  extension  of  postal  facili¬ 
ties  would  be  the  most  powerful  agent  in  extending 
the  work  of  the  press,  and  be  a  blessing  to  all.  4  — i 
I  notice  that  C.  F.  C.,  of  Elgin,  Mich.,  is  opposed  to 
it  “so  long  as  the  present  infamous  system  of  raising 
