1892 
83 
THE  RURAL  NEW-YORKER. 
cobs.  I  should  think  not!  They  didn’t  have  room  for 
them.  Verily  I  should  not  like  to  be  obliged  to  keep 
a  team  very  long  that  devoured  feed  at  the  rate  they 
did.  They  would  eat  not  only  their  own  heads  off  in  a 
few  weeks  but  mine  too.  Ten  ears  of  corn,  or  three 
quarts  of  oats  a  day  and  a  good  stack  of  straw  to 
nibble  at  are  considered  magnificent  winter  fare  for  an 
idle  horse  here.  And  if  he  did  not  keep  in  good  work¬ 
ing  condition  on  such  rations,  we  should  think  there 
was  something  wrong  with  his  digestive  apparatus.  I 
have  seen  men  feed  idle  horses  30  good  ears  of  corn  a 
day  and  all  the  hay  they  would  eat,  and  then  wonder 
why  they  didn’t  look  better,  and  why  they  went  to 
pieces  so  rapidly  when  set  to  work  in  the  spring.  The 
trouble  was  that  the  horses  were  overworked  while 
standing  idle.  Their  strength  was  used  up  in  digest¬ 
ing  the  surplus  food  given  them.  Give  a  horse  a  warm 
stable  and  he  can  be  wintered  on  less  than  half  the 
grain  usually  given.  It  is  not  the  quantity  of  food 
eaten  but  the  quantity  assimilated  that  counts.  If  you 
want  to  make  a  man  or  a  horse  unfit  for  work,  and 
unable  to  stand  it  when  spring  comes,  keep  him 
stuffed  with  rich  food  and  give  him  nothing  to  do. 
I  have  used  vaseline  for  colds,  as  mentioned  on 
page  24,  for  years,  applying  it  as  there  recommended, 
and  have  found  it  an  excellent  remedy.  It  seems  to 
allay  the  heat  in  a  measure,  soothe  the  irritated  lining 
of  the  air  passages,  and  to  relieve  one’s  suffering  im¬ 
mensely.  I  have  found  an  application  of  it  particu¬ 
larly  grateful  after  hauling  coal,  working  about  a 
thrashing  machine,  or  among  dusty  hay.  For  the 
grippe  or  a  very  bad  cold  1  have  found  the  carbolized 
somewhat  the  best.  For  ordinary  uses  the  plain  is 
good  enough.  fred  grundy. 
The  Ash  Pan  Must  Go  ! 
In  this  section  (Vermilion  County,  Ill.)  nearly  all 
burn  soft  coal  in  grates  ;  hence  the  affliction  of  ashes, 
which  make  everything  in  a  room  dusty.  The  remedy 
is  simply  a  grate  <>x(> 
inches  in  the  hearth, 
as  shown  at  Fig.  (53. 
The  ashes  drop  down 
to  the  base  of  the 
chimney  which  forms 
an  ash-pit  to  which 
there  is  a  sheet-iron 
door  through  which 
the  ashes  are  scooped 
out  once  a  year.  The 
flue,  or  chimney,  is 
made  double,  so  that 
the  ashes  from  a  grate 
upstairs  fall  down  be¬ 
hind  the  grate  and  fire 
on  the  first  floor.  Not 
a  breath  of  air  is  ad¬ 
mitted  at  the  base  of 
the  chimney,  which 
forms  the  ash  pit  in  the 
cellar  or  basement,  so 
there  is  no  dust.  Did 
you  ever  open  a  door  in 
a  high  wind  to  carry  ashes  out  ?  The  brick  ash  pit,  or 
base  of  the  chimney,  is  fire-proof,  and  about  6x(5  feet 
square.  o.  k.  lane. 
Delaware  Corn  Fed  to  Idle  Horses. 
THEY  DON’T  “  EAT  THE  IB  HEADS  OFF  ”  IN  WINTER. 
Considerable  has  been  said  about  the  cost  and  care 
of  horses  during  the  winter.  Here  are  my  rules  for 
such  feeding  :  1,  plenty  of  exercise ;  2,  warm,  dry 
stabling ;  3,  all  the  sunshine  possible  ;  4,  a  small 
amount  of  grain  and  plenty  of  feed  of  some  kind  that 
is  not  too  readily  eaten  up,  to  keep  them  out  of  mis¬ 
chief.  In  this  section  ( Delaware)  the  farmer  who  keeps 
his  horses  closely  stabled  with  little  exercise  does  them 
an  unkindness,  if  not  an  actual  injury.  It  costs  me  but 
little  more  actual  money  to  winter  my  horses  than  the 
same  number  of  sheep  or  yearling  calves,  and  they  are 
fat,  sleek  and  in  good  condition,  and  if  we  are  working 
them  one  hand  is  needed  to  keep  them  still  and  out  of 
mischief  while  another  loads  or  unloads  the  wagon. 
Last  fall  we  cut  10  or  12  loads  of  what  is  called  Cow 
Grass  in  a  salt  marsh  12  miles  distant.  It  was  cured 
and  what  was  not  hauled  home  at  once  was  stacked  up 
on  firm  land  ;  what  was  hauled  home  was  made  into  a 
long,  narrow  rick  outside  of  the  yard  fence  so  that  the 
horses  can  help  themselves. 
The  first  thing  in  the  morning  they  get  four  or  five 
ears  of  corn  and  from  a  third  to  half  of  a  bundle  of 
porn  fodder,  then  they  are  turned  into  the  yard  to  roll, 
play  or  eat.  At  9  or  10  A.  m.  they  are  watered  and  take 
care  of  themselves  till  feeding  time  in  the  evening  ; 
then  they  are  watered,  stabled  and  the  morning  ration 
is  repeated.  They  are  not  haltered  ;  each  has  a  large 
stall  to  himself  (not  a  regular  box)  so  that  they  can 
change  around  if  they  want  to,  and  as  they  were  raised 
to  it,  they  do  not  hurt  each  other.  All  the  stalks  that 
accumulate  in  the  mangers  are  put  under  their  feet 
and  enough  straw  is  used  to  keep  everything  clean  and 
dry.  We  clean  out  about  once  a  week  and  then  bed 
up  knee-deep  with  straw.  It  is  astonishing  how  much 
stuff  horses  will  tramp  up  and  make  into  manure  in 
this  way. 
Any  farmer  can  save  one-third  in  feed  if  he  will  build 
a  rick  of  straw  outside  his  yard  fence  and  let  his  horses 
have  the  run  of  the  yard  during  the  day.  A  horse  will 
eat  in  the  yard,  with  apparent  relish,  feed  it  would 
make  him  sick  at  the  stomach  to  look  at  if  placed  in 
his  manger  in  the  stable. 
I  think  too  much  is  said  against  corn  as  a  regular 
grain  ration  for  horses.  In  this  State  it  is  fed  almost 
to  the  exclusion  of  all  other  grain,  and,  as  a  rule,  the 
horses  are  tough,  hardy  and  as  free  from  sickness  as 
are  those  anywhere.  My  experience  is  that  more 
horses  are  hurt  from  lack  of  it  than  by  the  regular 
use  of  it.  A.  g.  s. 
Bran  Vs.  Grain. 
Under  the  heading  “Forkfuls  of  Facts,”  in  The 
Rural  for  January  9,  the  Indiana  Station  is  mentioned 
as  giving  the  feeding  value  of  wheat,  rye  and  barley 
compared  with  that  of  bran,  as  follows  : 
Bran,  per  ton . $13.00 
Rye,  ground,  per  ton .  13.06 
Wheat,  ground,  per  ton .  12.80 
Barley,  ground,  per  ton .  13.80 
Does  the  station  mean  to  say  that  a  ton  of  bran,  fed 
to  fatting  cattle,  will  make  within  one-thirteenth  as 
much  gain  as  an  equal  amount  of  ground  barley  fed 
to  the  same  animals  ?  Well,  will  it?  Do  these  propor¬ 
tions  hold  good  for  cattle  only  ?  The  tenor  of  the  article 
seems  to  imply  that  they  have  a  general  bearing.  Does 
The  Rural  believe  that  these  “  values  ”  are  depend¬ 
able  outside  the  laboratory  ?  If  these  facts  of  the  study 
are  also  facts  in  the  stable,  the  feeders  of  the  country 
are  plainly  much  in  the  fog.  What  a  boon  it  would  be 
to  them  if  the  station  would  demonstrate  that  actual 
as  well  as  hypothetic  creatures  will  verify  its  formula, 
by  feeding  each  of  the  foods  named  separately  to  a 
bunch  of  cattle,  hogs  and  sheep  (not  to  just  one  animal 
in  a  trial,  as  the  manner  of  such  institutions  too  often 
is),  and  repeating  the  experiments  till  the  average  of 
the  results  obtained  in  each  case  could  be  taken  as  ap¬ 
proximately  correct.  Is  the  station’s  formula  safe  to 
lean  on  till  its  correctness  is  so  demonstrated  ?  Having 
fed  a  considerable  amount  of  bran,  and  some  of  each 
of  the  other  foods,  I  should  be  remarkably  interested 
in  learning,  as  a  thing  not  to  be  unlearned,  that  wheat 
meal  for  hogs,  for  example,  was  worth  less  in  fact  as 
well  as  theory  than  bran. 
A  farmer  who  farms  is  frequently  startled  by  what 
he  reads  about  farming.  And  the  idea  that  bran,  how¬ 
ever  constant  its  chemical  elements,  has  a  constant 
value  as  a  stock  food  I  should  suppose  ran  counter  to 
the  common  observation  of  feeders.  It  is  my  impres¬ 
sion,  for  instance,  that  its  value  for  milch  cows  is 
greater  than  for  fattening  bullocks.  I  think  I  have 
observed  that  it  is  worth  more  for  colts  than  for  work 
horses.  That  sheep  make  better  returns  from  it  than 
hogs  I  have  no  doubt.  Did  anybody  ever  feed  bran  to 
hogs  as  an  entire  ration  with  satisfactory  results  ?  Rut 
how  they  thrive  on  barley  meal  which  the  Indiana 
scientists  pronouuce  only  a  small  fraction  better  than 
bran !  edwin  taylor. 
R.  N.-Y. — The  point  we  wanted  to  make  was  that 
there  is  profit  for  many  farmers  in  selling  their  whole 
grain  and  buying  the  wastes  or  by-products  for  stock 
feeding.  This  year  there  is  less  demand  for  barley 
than  for  wheat  or  rye — consequently  stock  food  in  the 
former  is  more  economical.  The  point  about  the  value 
of  different  foods  for  different  animals  is  well  taken, 
as  the  complete  bulletin  would  show.  The  object  of 
the  bulletin  was  simply  to  show  the  difference  in 
analysis  between  different  grains  and  by-products  and 
how,  in  a  year  like  this,  it  was  cheaper,  in  many  cases, 
to  let  the  miller  divide  the  whole  grain  into  human 
food  and  stock  food.  Proper  combinations  of  these 
foods  and  their  peculiar  adaptability  for  different 
animals  are  very  important  topics  to  discuss,  but  the 
analyses  of  the  foods  are  at  the  basis  of  the  whole 
thing.  One  would  have  to  feed  a  good  deal  more  than 
a  ton  of  bran  to  obtain  the  fats  contained  in  a  ton  of 
barley — analysis  shows  that  it  would  require  over  2,500 
pounds  of  the  former  to  provide  the  fattening  elements 
found  in  2,000  pounds  of  the  latter,  and  yet  the  ton  of 
bran  contains  more  of  the  muscle-making  elements  and 
has  a  good  feeding  value,  though,  as  Mr.  Taylor  says, 
it  will  not  put  as  much  fat  on  an  animal  as  will  the 
barley.  Rut  we  believe  that  a  small  feed  of  bran  with 
the  barley  will  enable  the  animal  to  better  eat  and 
digest  the  latter  grain.  To  feed  grain  to  stock  on  the 
single  basis  of  the  comparative  values  figured  out  by 
the  chemists  would  be  folly ;  because  these  values  are 
for  comparison  and  for  little  else,  but  we  think  all  will 
admit  that  food  analyses  are  useful  to  any  intelligent 
breeder.  In  most  grain  rations  there  is  too  much  fat. 
It  is  fed  at  a  loss  because  the  animal  cannot  digest  it 
all.  It  goes  to  the  manure  pile  where  it  is  of  no  value. 
Analysis  affords  the  only  way  of  checking  this  loss. 
Feeding  Fodder. 
Throwing  the  bundles  upon  the  ground  for  the  cattle 
to  trample  under  foot  while  the  feeder  is  descending 
the  steps  or  coming  around  the  back  way,  is  the  ordin¬ 
ary  method  of  feeding  fodder  from  the  two-story  or 
“  bank  ”  barn.  Those  who  have  been  pursuing  this 
plan  will  greatly  appreciate  the  improvement  repre¬ 
sented  at  Fig.  (54,  and  as  its  cost  is  comparatively  small 
it  comes  within  reach  of  all.  A  platform  12  to  I4*feet 
long  and  as  wide  as  the  small  double  doors,  seven  feet 
or  more,  is  hung  to  the  rear  of  the  barn.  Out  upon  this 
the  fodder  is  carried  and  dropped  into  a  feeding  rack 
placed  on  the  ground  just  below.  The  side  beams  of 
this  hanging  platform  are  made  of  light  wood,  pine  or 
poplar,  three  inches  by  eight  inches,  connected  below 
by  four  cross-pieces  of  stouter  material,  three  inches  by 
four  inches,  all  firmly  bolted  together.  Boards  nailed 
down  upon  these  cross-pieces  form  the  floor.  A  bolt 
having  a  hook  above  is  inserted  near  the  outer  end  of 
each  side  beam  of  the  platform  ;  and  in  each  door  post, 
about  four  feet  from  the  floor,  a  sirailiar  hooked  bolt  is 
placed,  upon  which  are  hung  the  brace  rods,  made  of 
five-eighths-inch  round  iron  furnished  with  a  ring  at 
each  end.  Through  the  sill,  just  back  of  each  door 
post,  two  half-inch  holes  are  bored  and  an  iron  loop 
(C)  inserted,  having  an  inside  measure  slightly  greater 
than  three  inches  in  width,  and  extending  half  a  foot 
or  more  below  the  surface.  These  receive  and  hold  the 
beams  at  the  back  end  of  the  platform.  To  prevent 
straining  these  loops  by  any  horizontal  thrust,  a  board 
(R)  is  placed  just  behind  them,  against  which  the  ends 
of  the  beams  may  rest.  This  board  is  supported  by 
others  (A  A)  nailed  against  the  sleepers  in  the  position 
shown  in  the  drawing.  When  the  season’s  feeding  is 
For  Feeding  Corn  Fodder.  Fig.  04. 
done,  the  platform  is  taken  down  and  stowed  away 
until  again  needed.  The  feed  rack  is  placed  just  below 
the  outer  end  of  the  platform,  and  parallel  with  the 
ban  .  In  this  position  it  may  be  10  feet  long  and  yet 
easily  reached  from  the  platform.  Ordinary  fencing 
boards  and  scantling  are  used  in  its  construction.  The 
bottom  of  the  rack  is  formed  of  boards  lying  upon  the 
three  strips  nailed  from  post  to  post  across  it  below. 
It  is  set  upon  the  ground  without  sinking  the  posts  into 
the  soil,  and  when  the  feeding  season  is  past,  may  be 
lifted  out  of  the  manure  which  has  accumulated  around 
it,  and  carried  aside.  8.  p.  siiull. 
When  to  Brush  off  Muddy  Legs. 
“  Should  we  wash  the  mud  off  a  horse’s  legs  or  let  it 
dry  on  and  then  brush  it  off  ?  Good  horsemen  differ 
on  this  point.  What  do  you  say  ?” 
When  your  clothes  become  splashed  with  mud,  on 
entering  the  house  the  “  gude  wife”  will  prevent  you 
from  touching  the  mud  until  it  is  thoroughly  dry.  Then 
it  is  more  easily  brushed  off,  leaving  no  stain.  It  is  not 
rubbed  in.  Now,  that  would  at  first  sight  look  like  a 
hint  to  the  proper  way  of  dealing  with  muddy  hocks. 
It  would  be  if  we  had  some  means  of  drying  off  the 
mud  as  quickly  on  horses  as  on  humans.  Rut  how 
often  does  not  the  mud  actually  freeze  on  the  hocks  ? 
especially  when  these  are  hairy  ?  If  the  mud  could  be 
quickly  dried  off,  the  best  way  would  be  to  let  it  dry 
and  then  brush  it  cleanly  off.  But  if  that  is  not  possi¬ 
ble,  it  is  evident  that,  so  long  as  it  remains  there 
undried,  it  keeps  the  skin  of  the  hocks  wet — the  very 
thing  to  be  avoided.  Hence  apparently  the  best 
thing  to  do  is  to  get  rid  of  it  in  the  quickest  possible 
manner.  That  is  attained  by  washing  and  sponging. 
Rut  if  this  is  done  it  must  be  folio  wed  up  by  a  thorough 
drying.  If  this  is  not  done  the  seoond  state  will  be 
worse  than  the  first.  To  avoid  grease,  have  dry  hocks 
in  the  stable,  free  from  the  lodgment  of  dirt. 
The  hairy  hocks  of  the  British  draft  horse  are  really 
a  detriment ;  not  on  account  of  the  hair  itself,  but 
owing  to  improper  stable  supervision  in  drying  them 
off.  The  liking  for  “  feathers”  of  this  sort  is  not  due 
to  any  notion  that  the  hair  is  a  protection  against  dirt, 
though  it  is,  in  a  degree,  the  occurrence  of  grease 
