1891 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
721 
the ground froze last fall, and there it remained ready for 
spring use. So I have seen a hay tedder left out until its 
owner took the wheels to make a hand-cart, and sold the 
iron for 40 cents per hundredweight. 
In traveling about a mile and a half from here I can 
see three mowing machines left out, not for lack of room 
to store them, but out of pure negligence; two of them have 
remained out so long as to become worthless, and their 
owners bought new one3 a year or so ago. So it is with 
wagons and sleighs. 
It is not economy where there is a mud hole which the 
cows have to pass through every time they go to the milk¬ 
ing place to leave it in that condition ; it should be filled 
up with stones pounded fine, and covered with a coat of 
gravel. This may save some cows from becoming lame, or 
keep them from having the hoof rot. It is not economy 
for a man to use up his earnings for the nasty, filthy stuff 
called tobacco, and then cry “ hard times,” and this we see 
too often. I think there cannot be too much said against 
this indecent habit. frank j. tuttle. 
Cnenango Co., N.JY._ 
The Farmers Club. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
I Evprr querr musr be aceo-noanleri bv the name anti aldress of the 
writer to Insure attention. Before asKlng a question please see if it is 
not auswere l In our ad vertlsimr eolamns. 4s* ontv a few questions at 
one time. Put questions on a separate piece of paper.l 
SHALL WE CUT DRY STALKS ? 
THE QUESTION. 
One of our subscribers in New York State sends us the 
following questions: 
What is the amount of gain (if any) between feeding dry 
corn stalks whole, or the same cut to half inch lengths ? 
Is there gain enough to pay for cuttiug the fodder for 15 
head of cattle with a first class hand power ? Have you 
ever tried cutting and feeding stalks ? Does the cutting 
pay f If so, in what way ? Is it necessary to moisten or 
steam the stalks ? Some farmers claim that when the 
stalks are cut the cattle do not masticate them sufficiently, 
and so do not do so well; have you noticed this ? 
Two Inch Pieces Pay Well. 
There is no gain whatever but a positive loss in cutting 
dry corn stalks to half-inch lengths by hand power for 15 
or any number of cattle, for the reason that the butts of 
stalks cut to half-inch lengths, being broader than long, 
are taken endwise between the teeth in masticating and 
cut and lacerate the gams, while the same stalks cut to 
two-inch lengths will not make the mouth sore, while they 
are cut easily and quickly by the bull in a tread power, and 
fed with convenience and satisfaction in the stable where 
whole stalks are an abomination. More of them is eaten, 
and the refuse is more easily disposed of as an absorbent ; 
while in the work the bull will retain vigor and acquire 
docility which will be transmitted to his offspring, and 
the owner and his help will be relieved of the tedious job 
of cutting food by hand. I have practiced this way of 
handling dry corn fodder many years and regard it as a 
great gain over feeding it whole. I have never steamed or 
moistened the stalks, but since I have built my silos, I 
have alternated the dry feed with ensilage with good re¬ 
sults. I am convinced that a tread power or small engine 
is the most practical power for farm use, occupying but 
little space, always under cover and ready for use at a 
moment’s notice, and no stock farm should be without 
one. In my own practice the tread power is used more 
days in the year than any other tool or machine on the 
farm. P. H. munboe. 
Will County, Ill. 
It Depends Upon The Stalks. 
I have no experience in cutting corn stalks. My cattle 
always eat them up clean without cutting. The sub¬ 
scriber neglected to s ate what variety of corn he grows, 
but this has an important bearing on the question. In 
trials at the Wisconsin Experiment Station—see Fourth 
Annual Report, page 38-it was found that the saving by 
cutting in the case of yellow dent field corn was 36 aud 3L 
per cent, while in the experiment with Stowell’s Ever¬ 
green sweet corn, the gain was only nine per cent. If I 
had to cut fodder by hand, I would cut only what coarse 
stalks the cattle would not otherwise eat. Alter these 
had been cut, I would wet and sprinkle some water and 
meal on them. If stalks are quite dry and hard, cattle 
will not eat them as well a3 those tnat are damp and even 
moldy. J. w. newton. 
Lamoille Co., Vt. 
Not a High Opinion of Stalks. 
The practice of cuttiug dry corn stalks—shock fodder, It 
is called here—has been tried repeatedly and exhaustively 
in this locality, and tne emphatic decision of ail who have 
experimented witu it is that it does not pay. Four years 
ago a leading farmer and stock raiser living in this neigh¬ 
borhood became qui.e enthusiastic over this method of 
feeding through reading a pamphlet on the subject, and 
purchased an expensive feed cutter aad went at it in a 
wholesale and thoroughly practical manner. One season’s 
experience satisfied him, however, that he was on the 
wrong track, and he gave it up. He declared that it was 
a fraud and a snare. Cattle and horses will pick the cut 
fodder over, but they will eat no more of it than they will 
ot the uncut. They might be starved to it, but there 
would be neither profit nor sense in such a proceeding. 
Young cattle will rustle through the winter in good 
shape on uncut corn fodder with one good ration of corn a 
day. Young hordes will do the same, but their grain ra¬ 
tion should be oats and corn in equal proportions. If the 
corn is cut just as the grain is glazing the animals will 
strip the stalks clean, and also eat three or four joints off 
the upper end. Occasionally they will find a stalk that is 
sweet or contains something they like and they will eat 
the whole ol it. Give it to a milch cow that is fed a good 
grain ration twice a day and she will pick off only the ten- 
derest leaves. Cutting and mixing it with bran or meal 
doesn’t help the matter. She will eat no more of it. 
Corn fodder cut when the grain is ripe is no better than 
wheat straw. Steaming the stalks has never been tried in 
this neighborhood. It might possibly be made to pay on 
a small seal®, but I doubt it very much. 
I have tried feeding good cut corn fodder to work horses 
when the hay crop was short, and I know of no sort of 
feed that will give them a dry, staring coat and generally 
rough appearance quicker than that will Dry corn fodder 
may be a nutritious food—Prof. Morrow is reported as 
saying that it is equal, pound for pound, to the best Tim¬ 
othy—but the trouble is that the greater part of it is not 
in a form that cattle and horses like, or that agrees with 
them, and consequently it eannot be utilized. The testi¬ 
mony of all careful, practical and closely observing farm¬ 
ers and stock feeders who have fairly tried It, is that shock 
fodder makes good "roughness” to feed with corn, and 
that is all it does make. For milk or beef it is not worth 
half as much as good Timothy hay, and cutting does not 
Increase its value in the least. The long stalks are a 
nuisance among the bedding and in the manure pile, but 
if they are placed where they are constantly trampled by 
catfle and horses they will soon be broken up. Cut stalks 
make very fair bedding in the absence of straw, but it will 
hardly pay to cut them up for that purpose alone. I think 
it is probable that the only method by which the full feed¬ 
ing value of corn fodder can be secured is through the silo. 
Christian Co , Ill. FRED. GRUNDY. 
Does Not Pay as Hand Work. 
My experience in cutting corn stalks for a dozen cows 
convinced me that it did not pay to do it by hand. Wnere 
it can be done to advantage by horse or steam power it, 
no doubt, pays, especially if a good deal of the butts would 
otherwise be wasted. One of my neighbors lately told me 
that his cows considerably increased their yield of milk 
because he cut green corn stalks for them instead of feed¬ 
ing them whole, but I do not think this is an established 
fact. E. L. BASS. 
Worcester Co , Mass. 
The ‘‘Next Cow” Spoils the Food. 
I may not be called orthodox in my belief, but if fed in 
small quantities at a time so that it will be eaten up clean, 
I doubt if cutting dry corn fodder pays. I have cut corn 
fodder, and fed it whole by way of comparison, and when 
the latter was fed in small amounts at a time, I could not 
see the gain in a way that showed any return for my 
labor. I found, however, that I could induce a cow to 
eat more stalks up clean at a feeding by cutting them in 
half inch lengths ; but on dividing the uncut stalks that 
would represent the cut fodder into two feeds, the amount 
rejected was very small. I found it a better way to cut 
up what was left of the rejected stalks, put a little meal 
upon them, and feed them now and then as a luncheon, 
and so I am cutting nine tenths of the fodder. One of the 
chief reasons why so much fodder is wasted In feeding 
stalks out-of-doors, and also where the mangers are 
crowded with fodder when feeding in the barn, is the muss¬ 
ing of it by the ‘‘next cow.” It Is nearly impossible to 
get a cow to touch an ear of corn that has, even moment¬ 
arily, been in another cow’s mouth ; and I have noticed 
that the same was nearly the case when stalks are fed in 
the manger; so when I fed stalks—before the silos were 
built—I put partitions in the mangers so that two cows 
could eat together, and If about ‘‘so much” was fed, the 
stalks were eaten up clean. One winter I tried cutting 
stalks for two cows ; after feeding them all the whole 
stalks they would eat up clean, I fed them all the cut 
stalks they could consume in the same way without chang¬ 
ing the grain ration, and after a week’s trial they had not 
increased the yield of milk an ounce, and after this I let 
them cut their own stalks. In cooking or soaking the 
stalks 1 have had no experience, nor do I recall any experi¬ 
ment that shows that altar the natural juices have been 
dried out of a plant, any plan of steaming, cooking or 
soaking has showed better feeding results than does the 
slower mastication of the food In a dry state, adding the 
water, as drink, a few hours later. That cutting iood adds 
to its feeding value is doubtful; beyond this—the cutting in¬ 
duces an animal to eat more and reject less. Where 
dry stalks are readily consumed, and very little is left, 
my vote would be against cutting. If the cattle will re¬ 
ject more than eight per cent of the food, if bright and 
good, I would then say that possibly it might pay to rig 
up a power cutter. JOHN GOULD. 
Gallia Co., Ohio. 
Are Wood Ashes Worth Hauling? 
W. E., Garner, Ark.—Will it pay to haul unleached 
wood ashes two miles to be put on land, and about how 
much are tney worth a load ? I can get all I want for 35 
cents a load one mile away. 
ANS.—You are a fortunate man if yon can get unleached 
wood ashes at that pnea, aud you can make better wages 
hauling them than you can at any other farm work we 
know of. We do not know what wool these ashes are 
from, whether from soft or hard wood, how long they have 
been exposed to rain and storms, and whether your soil is 
inclined to stiff clay or sand. All these things must be 
considered In estimating the value of wood ashes. Few 
fertilizing substances give such varied results as ashes. 
This is due to the fact that they not only act as a direct 
fertilizer, but also change the mechanical condition of 
the soil, making light, porous soils more compact and bet¬ 
ter able to hold water, and loosening up some stiff clays. 
Ashes from pine wood are, as a rule, worth from 35 to 5i) 
per cent less than than those from hard wood. When the 
wood is covered with much dirt and sand the value of the 
ashes is reduced, and when the heat is intense some of the 
potash unites with lime and silica to form glass. All 
know that powdered glass is a poor fertilizer, though some 
of it contains twice as much potash as wood ashes. These 
facts show how difficult it is to state the value of ashes 
without having an analysis made to show how much pot¬ 
ash and phosphoric acid they contain and how much of these 
is soluble in water. A ton of ashes as they are usually 
sold in the markets, will contain about the following sub¬ 
stances in pounds: 
Water. 
Lime. 
Potash. 
Phosphoric acid... 
Sand and earth.... 
Unleashed. 
21 ) 
1,220 
110 
83 
892 
Leached. 
600 
1,020 
22 
23 
830 
The potash is worth 4>^ cents a pound in the fertilizer 
markets, while the phosphoric acid is worth eight cents. 
You can figure the value of the lime in your market. 
Let us now compare these ashes with other manures. 
The four substances given above are found as follows in 
pounds per ton: 
Ho'se Cow Hog 
manure, manure, manure. 
Water. 1,426 1,5.0 1,500 
Lime. 4 6 
Potash. 10 )^ 8 12 
Phosphoric acid. 5>^ 3J^ 4 
Sand, etc. 85 17 22 
It is hardly fair, however, to measure the value of ashes 
by the amount of fertilizing substances found in them, be¬ 
cause they are useful as “ amendments,” or for making 
changes in the character of the soil. This has been well 
explained by Dr. Jenkins, of the Connecticut Station. Fine 
ashes of all sorts ‘‘draw water’’—that Is, they render loose, 
open soils better able to absorb and retain the water that 
falls upon them. Water runs through these coarse, open 
soils as through a sieve, and it will not rise readily from 
below when the surface dries out. The fine ashes fill up 
the spaces between the particles of soil, aud thus make it 
more of a solid mass—more capable of retaining and ab¬ 
sorbing moisture. This is a purely mechanical action, but 
there may be a chemical action as well. We can mix clay, 
wood ashes and water to form a very tough cement for 
mending water pipes. In the same way, when too much 
potash is put on a very stiff, wet clay, a lye is formed like 
that from the leach in old-fashioned soap making. Instead 
of combining with fat to make soap, the lye in the soil 
may combine the clay panicles and make the whole more 
compact and sticky than before. On stiff, clay soils this 
would not be an advantage, and it is probable that leached 
ashes might give better results, but on the great majority 
of well drained, upland soils this compacting process 
would be very desirable. Ashes also hasten the processes 
of decay and oxidation in the soil, and are hence valuable 
to u»e with coarse or inert manures. 
A Beginning in the Milk Business. 
A. A.., New York.. —I am in the dairy business in a small 
way aud need advice, preparatory to going in more largely 
as a milkman. 1. What Is the proper way to care for the 
milk from the cow to the milk-can, so as to make it keep 
fresh as long as possible ? 2. How can I raise calves ? I do 
not want to knock the little things on the head as soon as 
they come into tne world, as is the usual custom ; neither 
can I afford, with milk at six cents per quart, to feed 
them on it. 1 can, aud will, feed for six days, as 1 do not 
consider the milk fit for sale for six days after the calf has 
come. Now alter the six days’ start on the milk, can 1 feed 
them on hay tea, with flax seed jelly, so as to make veal— 
second quality, of course ? If so, how ? I am aware that 
I cannot expect to make first-class veals without the milk, 
but can 1 make any veal fit for sale in a not very particular 
market ? 
Ans.— 1. The most economical and practical way of 
treating milk in order to “ add to its life” is to aerate it or 
force pure air through it as soon as possible alter milk¬ 
ing. This process was very clearly explained by Mr. James 
Cheesman, on page 573 of The R. N.-Y. It consists simply 
in blowing pure air tnrougu the milk as soon as possioie 
after it is drawn from the cow. This removes animal 
taints and leaves the milk sweet and wholesome. If it is 
then put in cans at a temperature below 50 degrees it will 
keep long enough to suit any ordinary trader. Mila, may 
be aerated or aired by stirring it violently with a big spoon 
or dipping It up and pouring it baca imo the can or pail. 
Various machines are made to do chid work. One forces 
air in at the nottom and makes it bubole up through the 
milk. Another lets the milk drip througu tubes where it 
meets the air. The simplest device Is a vessel like an in¬ 
verted colander with very small holes. This is forced down 
to the bottom of a deep can and the air slowly buobles up. 
One objection to this Is that the air Is not forced hard 
enough. 2. We do not believe it will pay you to try to keep 
the calves If you have ready sale for ail your milk. Alter 
six days you can raise the calves on bkim-milk, hay tea, 
linseed, eggs, etc., but we do not believe it can be done 
without some skim-milk. If you want to raise calves we 
advise you to make some butter aud use the skim milk for 
feeulng in connection with oatmeal, linseed aud eggs. 
Thid will heal your tender fteliugd, but will prooably not 
fatten your pocKet-book. Suppose It taxed 18 poundd of 
your milk to make a pound of butter—this is better than 
the average. When you sell at six cents per quart you 
make aoout 54 cents. If you sell tne pound of uuttor lor 
25 cents, in order to come out even you must put 29 cents’ 
worth of flesn on the calf with tne sklm-milk—wnlch is 
impossible. _ 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Early Peas and Tomatoes.—A. A., Holyoke, Mass.- 
Most of the strains of sniootn early peas are really Dan 
O’RourKe, but sold under individual names. Greater 
pains, however, are taken in their selection. For example, 
Smith’s Earliest of All or Jones’s First and Rest would be 
raised, rogued and selected with more care for tne reason 
that Jones and Smith make them specialties. We think 
the Essex H> brid and Camax Tomatoes firmer and freer 
from cracking tuan th9 Acme. They are also less liable to 
rot Yes, they are good sorts for growing for market. We 
snould prefer any one of the following: Long Keeper 
(probably the bebt early tomato in cultivation;, New Jer¬ 
sey, Optimus. 
