786 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
NOV. 7 
Effect of Food on Butter Product. 
H. Stewart, Macon County, N. C.—The 
remark in connection with the portrait of 
my cow, Nellv, that it would have been de¬ 
sirable to have tested the effect of feeding 
on the butter yield, leads me to say that I 
have exhausted that question during sev¬ 
eral years of careful experiments in feed¬ 
ing cows for making butter. The results 
are given in extenso, in the Dairyman’s 
Manual. In feeding cows I have for years 
past been contending for the important 
fact that the feed given influences the rich¬ 
ness of the milk, and hence tLe quantity 
of the butter without regard to the quantity 
of milk, and have had the burden of the 
discussion on my shoulders against the 
almost united opposition of the scientific 
writers on the subject. But being con¬ 
vinced from accurate knowledge, I have 
persevered until now it is an accepted prin¬ 
ciple of feeding, and the leading experiment 
stations have all come into ine in admit¬ 
ting the facts. The late bulletin of the 
Iowa Station puts this matter in the clear¬ 
est light and without any ambiguity, when 
it says, “ The fat product was increased 
to a larger extent by the feeding than the 
milk product.” I don’t think there is any 
more need of the discussion of this matter, 
which is no longer a doubtful question, 
after the admission of the facts by so many 
of the scientific authorities, and that they 
have been so exceedingly conservative in 
regard to it renders their present position all 
the more conclusive in the settlement of it. 
I might have given the information in this 
respect as regards my cow, which has 
a remarkable ability In enriching her milk 
by rich feeding. Since writing that re¬ 
port I have begun the regular winter 
feeding, giving four quarts of corn meal 
daily (as the pasture is now pretty closely 
eaten down), and the help of some hay to 
make up the d-flciency. The milk has 
increased one-fifth, but the butter has in¬ 
creased nearly one-third, and as the latter 
is all weighed and the former measured, 
and I milk the cow myself, there is no mis¬ 
take about the results. I have found that 
the use of rich food always has a greater 
effect than might be expected from the 
grain food alone. There is a larger con¬ 
sumption of the rough feed, and this I 
think may be attributed to the known 
effects of such food on the digestion. More 
of this food is digested as the result of feed¬ 
ing the richer food. Thus when I feed cut 
hay with the corn meal, the cow will eat 
rather more of the hay than before, and 
thus more fat may be given in the butter 
than the meal may contain. My cow will 
eat, clean, 100 pounds of cut grass and 
clover, when nothing else is given, and with 
20 pounds of cut hay will get six p lands of 
the meal. How much more I have not 
learnt by trial as yet. But in the case of 
other cows previously kept, I have found 
that as the richer food was given the but¬ 
ter increased up to the full ability of the 
cow to eat and digest it healthfully. And 
I have fed corn and cotton seed meals up to 
the point when gajget was caused. This 
is reported fully in the book referred to. 
In regard to the statement that the fats 
from the food are increased by the feeding 
of the more fatty substances, I might ex¬ 
plain that my belief is supported by the 
analogous case of the larger butter yield 
when the various kinds of cream from sev¬ 
eral cows are mixed than when they are 
churned separately. It is a property of fat 
globules to agglomerate, the larger ones 
attracting and gathering together the 
smaller. This may occur in the digestion 
of the food, tne fats from the meals taking 
up those from the fodder, and so gathering 
them into the whole. No doubt we may 
not be able to get all the fat made from hay 
or grass, but when the richer foods are 
used these may gather the other fats that 
might otherwise escape. I have long 
thought that good feeding pays in this way 
by making the coarser fodder more avail¬ 
able. 
The Use of Old Barns. 
A. A., Rockport, Mass. —An otherwise 
attractive looking farmstead is often mar¬ 
red by the presence of an ancient barn. Such 
barns were built by ancestors who consid¬ 
ered a barn situated near the house and 
road very “ handybut grandpa forgot 
that the disagreeable barn-yard smell and 
noise would also be too near the house for 
the comfort of the family, and that the 
quiet country road might be a general 
street some day. Thus the pile of manure 
and slimy pool are made sadly conspicuous 
to the passing public, to say nothing of the 
temptation offered by those old gray boards 
to bill posters to cover them with advertise¬ 
ments, sometimes startling, if of the com¬ 
ing circus. What can we do with such a 
barn t It is still in general use by the 
farmer, and if it will not fall to pieces dur¬ 
ing the removal I think it should be placed 
in some other part of the farm, where, if 
possible, a separate drive way may lead to 
it and a cellar be dug under it. Wouldn’t 
it greatly improve the looks of the premises 
to see graceful cucumber vines, or some¬ 
thing else, growing where the old barn once 
stood T A lawn or flower garden would 
look better yet. Some time the place will 
be a nice present for the oldest boy when 
he wants a house lot. The old stone wall 
in front is not to be despised. Turn those 
stones topsy turvey and cement them so 
that they will stick up in points on the top 
row and an elegant, substantial fence is 
made. If the old barn must remain a fixt¬ 
ure, make the best of it with a carpenter’s 
help, whitewash and paint. Don't let it be 
used for advertisements. The barn-yard 
should b8 kept as neat as possible and be 
separated from the house-yard by a fence 
so that the cows will not stray over flower 
beds or under clothes lines. 
Pennsylvania Sheep Ranches. 
Edward F. Dibble, Livingston Coun¬ 
ty, N. Y. —I can see no good reason why 
this is not an excellent opportunity for the 
young man whose inquiries are answered 
in the last Rural to enter into the sheep 
business, provided he is naturally adapted 
to the care of sheep. Somehow or other I 
feel that no one can be successful in any 
one branch of farming unless he has a 
special fondness for, and adap ation to it. 
If the land described is comparatively free 
from heavy undergrowth and fairly well 
seeded, it certainly is very cbeap, and any 
one would bo very foolish indeed to go 
farther west than Pennsylvania to start a 
sheep farm. As to the breed, I would rec¬ 
ommend, above all otherp, the large, smooth 
Delaine Merinos, as they possess the two 
great desiderata of wool and mutton, besides 
having hardy constitutions and a capability 
of being herded in large flocks without in¬ 
jury to their growth or development. A 
friend near my home has 700 of these sheep 
that shear 7,000 pounds of wool a year and 
the lambs are large enough to bring a fancy 
price in the city markets. Possibly the 
breed could be improved for some localities 
by breeding the Merino ewes to a hardy ram 
from any of the large Down breeds. 
Barbed wire would be a very unsatisfac¬ 
tory fencing. The best possible fence for 
such a farm—and the best is always the 
cheapest—would be the “ Page ” or “ Mc¬ 
Mullen ” woven wire fence, either of which 
can be purchased for 50 cents per rod, and 
with firm, well set posts 33 feet apart, the 
rancher can always feel sure of finding his 
sheep in the fields. With good winter 
quarters, clover hay and a small grain ra¬ 
tion during the cold months, there ought 
to be a substantial balance on the right side 
of the ledger. 
We Are “Talking Fertilizers.” 
M. G., Pennsylvania.—I t has passed 
into a proverb that everybody knows how 
to edit a paper better than the editor, and 
with this fact in mind I hope The R. N. Y., 
will accept the following criticism in the 
spirit in which it is made, for in common 
with many others I heartily appreciate its 
efforts, and realize that it has a lofty ideal 
before it. The criticism is this—speaking 
to some friends about The R. N.-Y., they 
unanimously gave it as their opinion that 
the editors, in view of the advertising pat¬ 
ronage afforded, were constantly “ talking 
fertilizers.” Our people have been deceived 
with fertilizers, and are suspicious. 
R. N.-Y.—That our “ talking fertilizers” 
is due to advertising patronage is nonsense. 
The farmers of the country pay out, each 
year nearly 145,000,000 in cash for fertiliz¬ 
ers. A good deal of this money is lost and 
wasted because poor or unsuitable goods 
are used. One reason why such mistakes 
are made is because the fertilizers are not 
“ talked about” half enough. The R. N.-Y., 
has fully convinced itself that on a good 
many Eastern farms grass sod and chemicals 
make a better and cheaper " dressing” than 
stable manure. On many other farms 
smaller quantities of fertilizers added to 
the present stable manure will pay a double 
profit because they might be used to supply 
what the soil needs and what the manure 
lacks. It is our belief that some farmers 
are making stable manure at a loss—that 
Is, the hay and grain fed to stock and the 
labor spent in feeding them cost more after 
the resulting meat, milk or wool is sold, 
than the same amount of “ fertility” would 
if bought in the form of fertilizers. We do 
not say that this is true of all farms, but of 
some farms, and nothing but “talking fer¬ 
tilizers” will ever make clear which these 
farms are. There are thousands of farmers 
who spend all the way from $500 to $1,200 
in cash for fertilizers each year. They are, 
almost without exception, highly success¬ 
ful, making money at farming while their 
farms are of good heart and constantly 
growing heartier. These men have but 
little stable manure and keep but little 
stock. They add chemicals to grass sod 
and get a better mixture than they can 
haul out of the barn yard. How did they 
learn to farm in this way ? By " talking 
fertilizers” and thinking fertilizers. They 
made many mistakes and failures and 
might, several times, have stopped and said, 
“ fertilizers don’t pay.” They stuck to the 
use of them long enough to learn that the 
way to use fertilizers with profit is to have 
them in a rotation in which grass sod plays 
a prominent part. The fertilizers represent 
the grain and the sod the hay from which 
stable manure is made. We shall continue 
to “talk fertilizers” because we believe 
that such discussion is the only way to 
bring out the truth. 
Prof. Morrow Explains. 
1. Prof. G. E. Morrow, Champaign, III.— 
The statement in the notice of the Illinois 
Agricultural Station Bulletin No. 17 in a 
late Rural, that the use of commercial fer¬ 
tilizers on corn and wheat reduced the 
yield is, perhaps, too sweeping. In some 
cases we have had slightly less yields on 
plats to which manures have been applied, 
but we have not felt certain the use of the 
manures caused the lessened yield. In ex¬ 
periments with wheat on light-colored clay 
soils further south we have found an in¬ 
crease of yield in a number of cases, though 
there was sometimes no Increase. On the 
fertile, dark-colored prairie soil of the sta¬ 
tion grounds, none of the artificial ma¬ 
nures we have tried on corn or wheat has 
with certainty Increased the yield. 
Bulletin No. 15 of the Massachusetts 
Station (Amherst) gives some surprising 
Information as to raspberries. It names 
Hansel first as of the best quality and most 
desirable for home use. The quality is well 
known to be inferior to that of most other 
reds. It is under size. Its sole merits are 
earliness and firmness. The bulletin men¬ 
tions the Superb In this same category. 
The mealiness of the berry and its dull 
color are serious objections to this variety. 
It calls Early Cluster, Early Chester 
and spells Lucretia Leucretia—trifling 
oversights, of course, if one does not con¬ 
sider the scholarly people who make them. 
In writing to advertisers please always 
mention The Rural New-Yorker. 
Catarrh 
Is a constitutional and not a local disease, and there¬ 
fore cannot be cured by local application. It re¬ 
quires a constitutional remedy like Hood’s Sarsa. 
parllla, which, working through the blood, effects a 
permanent cure of catarrh by eradicating the im 
purity which causes and promotes the disease. 
Thousands of people testify to the success of Hood s 
Sarsaparilla as a remedy for catarrh when other 
preparations had failed. 
Hood’s Sarsaparilla 
also builds up the whole system, an i makes you feel 
renewed in health and strength. All who suffer from 
catarrh or debility should cert*inly try Hood’s 
Sarsaparilla. 
Highly concentrated. Dose small. In quantity costs 
less than one-tenth cent a day per hen. Prevents and 
cures all diseases. If you can’t get it, we send by mail 
r ost-paid. One pack. 25c. Five $1. 2 1-4 lb. can $1.20; 
cans $5. Express paid. Testimonials free. Send stamps or 
caslu Farmers’ Poultry Guide (price 25c.) free with $1.0# 
orders or more. I. S. JOHNSON & CO., Boston, Mass. 
/>7 . LAST A BEAR like WHOLE' 
yVx; tXv OjPjfJ BOOT Trees; see '“Fruits and, 
T ’-"“ Trees ”—Free. Am ,\ 
Garden zzys: Novel, USEFUL, to the point. Orange JuddS 
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Fruit Grower: Surprising LOW prices I Apple, Pear,Cher-. 
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Ydrieiie5 l VINES, PLANTS, Etc. 
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