52 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
Jan. 28 
enough small fruits for their own family, and I think 
if they once tried them, they would never again be 
without enough, even if it cost twice what it does to 
raise them ; for what is better than a dish of fresh 
berries in their different seasons? What a help, too, 
to the good wife to have a nice patch of berries to 
which she can go instead of scouring the woods and 
pastures for miles around in order to get the few she 
loves so well, and any woman on a farm has enough 
to do without scouring the country for berries of 
which some one else is certain to get the lion’s share. 
Hebron Maine. c. l. B. 
THE BAYAZIT SHEEP IN CALIFORNIA. 
The recent importation of a number of sheep from 
Asia, has attracted much attention. They appear to 
be well adapted to the California climate, where most 
of them were sent by the Department of Agriculture, 
and Minister Beale, United States representative at 
the court of the Shah of Persia. The photograph 
(Fig. 19) represents two of them on the grounds of 
the Coast Range Experiment Station, near Paso 
Robles, San Luis Obispo County, California. They 
reached the place in perfect condition last summer, 
after an almost continuous journey from their native 
region. The sheep raisers of California think they 
can cross the Bayazit breed of the famous broad-tailed 
sheep of Asia upon the ordinary mutton breeds and 
so obtain larger and better spring lambs. The sheep 
is popularly called the “ Astrachan,” but there are 
several varieties differing in size and quality of wool, 
so that the comparative value of this importation is 
not yet determined. c. u. shinn. 
CULTIVATING A TASTE FOR STRAW. 
The best way I have found to induce stock to eat 
straw is to cut and wet it and mix meal with it. The 
next best way is to mix cut straw with cut hay, and 
the less straw in the mixture, the better 
the stock like it. Cattle fed heavily for 
the production of milk or meat will 
voluntarily eat a good deal of straw be¬ 
tween meals if they have free access to 
it. I have never fed straw with ensilage; 
when I used to feed the latter I either 
fed it alone or mixed the meal with it, but 
should think that if the straw were 
mixed with the ensilage and allowed to 
stand long enough to get softened and 
absorb some of the flavor of the latter, 
that would be a good way to feed it. 
Can We Afford to Steam ?—If I in¬ 
tended to make a business of feeding 
straw, I think steaming it would pay ; 
this would render it more digestible 
than any other process I could use. Next 
to steaming comes wetting it, and, after 
mixing the meal with it, letting it stand 
till it begins to ferment. There have been 
many attempts to profitably use steam 
for preparing feed for stock, but, somehow, they seem to 
have been given up, with perhaps the exception of cook¬ 
ing feed for hogs. I never could understand why it 
wouldn’t pay, and believe the time will come when it 
will be more successful than it is now; and probably that 
time will be when cattle foods become more costly than 
they are at present; feeders can then afford to steam 
so as to get all the nutritive value there is in them. 
When that time comes, we won’t see cattle droppings 
thickly covered with the flinty portion of corn as we 
do now ; and the straws may then show, in feeding, 
somewhere near the feeding value they now only show 
in the tables of analysis. Stewart, in his book, “ Feed¬ 
ing Animals,” gives the money feeding value of wheat 
straw as 37 cents per 100 pounds, and of Timothy hay as 
70 cents. That may be so according to the chemist, but 
it certainly is not so according to the cow. Will steam¬ 
ing the straw make the latter more nearly agree with 
the chemist ? If so, will steaming the Timothy hay 
make the two as divergent as they now are ? 
As for the best grain to feed in connection with 
straw, I don’t believe I would try very hard to “ bal¬ 
ance ” the straw because, according to my way of 
thinking, there is too little nutriment to be got out of 
raw straw to warrant the attempt to balance. I should 
depend on the grain to do the work and on the straw 
to assist as “ filling.” As a “ filler,” straw is useful ; 
as a change—even from good hay—it is good ; as a 
feed, pure and simple, I have little faith in it unless 
specially prepared by steaming or otherwise. 
The best kind of stock to feed it to ? Any kind that 
is well fed ; my experience is that the higher the stock 
are fed the more straw they will eat. When I used to 
feed cattle for beef—and I fed them all the good hay 
and grain they would eat—I noticed that when the 
box stalls were freshly bedded with straw they would 
eat it as though it were something extra good ; when 
I would feed at night—the bedding having been put in 
in the afternoon—many of them would not, for some 
little time, leave the straw to get the meal. Why was 
this ? Not because the straw was the better feed ; not 
entirely, I think, because it was a change of feed ; not 
because it was a filler—I took care that they had 
plenty of a richer filler—but it was because, well, be¬ 
cause there may be more in straw than is dreamt of 
in our (present) philosophy of cattle feeding. Ratio 
1: 45 .8. A. L. CROSBY. 
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CO-OPERATIVE POTATO PLANTING. 
DIVIDING MACHINE WORK AMONG NEIGHBORS. 
THE BULL'S EYE. 
Have you ever used a potato planter either In connection with your 
neighbors or for doing planting for others on the principle of sawing 
wood or thrashing grain? If so, 1, Will you tell us how you and your 
neighbor clubbed together for buying and bow you divide up the use 
of the planter? 2. If you work for others, how much do you charge 
per acre or dav, and what does the farmer have to provide for you? 
3. What Is a good day’s work? 4. In ordinary planting, what proportion 
of “ missing hills ” do you And! 
THE SHOTS AT IT. 
A Season’s Work is Fifty Acres. 
1. Two of my neighbors and myself bought an Aspin- 
wall potato planter, each paying one-third of the cost, 
and each using it in turn as his ground was ready. 2. 
We have planted some potatoes for the neighbors at 
$1 per acre, they furnishing the teams, seed and phos¬ 
phate ready for use. 3. Five acres are a fair day’s 
work where phosphate is used. 4. Not more than one 
hill is missing out of 15 or 20. 
We find that a machine should not be expected to 
plant more than 50 acres, as bad weather may interfere 
with the work, making some too late. If we have any 
time after getting ours done, we can find more than 
we can do for the neighbors. There are three machine* 
within two miles of us, all bought in the same way 
and all give good satisfaction. e. d. p. 
Hermitage, N. Y. 
Pennsylvania Prices for Potato Planting. 
1. I have an Aspinwall potato planter with a corn 
planter attachment, which I run myself. 2. When I 
hire out the potato planter alone I charge $1 per acre. 
If I go with it, the hirers furnishing the team, my 
charge is $1.50 per acre. If I furnish the team, 
planter and myself I expect $2 per acre. The parties 
must furnish a hand to help me do such work as to put 
the potatoes and fertilizer into the box and plant out 
the ends of the rows, as it is impossible to drive so 
close to the fence. 3. Six acres on ordinary ground are 
a good day’s work of 10 hours. 4. In ordinary plant¬ 
ing with fair-sized cuttings and a planter properly 
adjusted, missed hills will not exceed half of one in 
100 hills. With small cuttings the planter will occa¬ 
sionally drop two pieces in one place. I am not in 
favor of the cooperative use of a planter for the fol¬ 
lowing reasons : There is always more or less conten¬ 
tion for the use of the machine on certain days ; then 
there is the liability that the machine will be injured if 
left standing in the field from one day to another and 
when hauled over rough, stony roads without being 
loaded in a wagon. I think the planter is one of the 
best agricultural tools ever introduced for planting 
potatoes, beans, peas and corn for a crop or ensilage. 
I make use of it for various other things also, such as 
furrowing out and distributing feitilizers in rows for 
such plants as cabbage, beets, strawberries, etc. 
Fallston, Pa. Jos. t. 
Big Demand in Late Seasons. 
I have used an Aspinwall planter for five years, and 
consider it as nearly perfect as I think it possible to 
make one. When not using mine myself, I let it out 
to my neighbors. At first, when I could spare the time, 
I went and drove it, they finding the team and taking 
the machine to the field and home again. I charged 
them $1 per acre. I do not do that any more, as I 
haven’t time enough, but I tax them 75 cents an acre 
for the use of it. I plant the potatoes about 32 inches 
apart from row to row. At that distance a good walk¬ 
ing team will put in about four or five acres a day, 
according to the length of the rows. With good seed 
cut as chunky as possible, that is, not in thin slices, 
the planter plants with very few misses or vacant 
places. I think the seed, if in good condition, stands 
a better chance of coming up evenly when put in this 
way than when planted by hand, for the reason that 
it is dropped in fresh soil and immediately covered. 
The planter is as durable as any other piece of farm 
machinery, the shoe or plow being the only piece 
that wears perceptibly. I consider the planter a good 
investment. I paid for mine the first year within $13, 
just by letting my neighbors use it, not counting what 
it was worth in planting my own crop of 20 acres. 
Last year, when the weather was so wet during plant¬ 
ing time, I could have work for four planters a good 
part of the time. If I had to go back to hand planting, 
I would stop raising potatoes. A. h. p. 
Lexington, O. 
Three Cases of Copartnership. 
I know of two or three potato planters, each owned 
by two parties. The first is the property of two 
farmers living about two miles apart. The one who 
has a piece ready to plant first uses the machine, and 
then the other takes it, and plants the ground that he 
has ready ; but both of them say that they live too far 
apart to use the same planter to good advantage- 
Another is owned by two neighbors liv 
ing across the road from each other; 
each tries to use the planter half of each 
day if the weather is good and the soil 
ready for planting. The farm of one of 
the owners of the third planter is, I 
think, a little earlier than the others, so 
that he is through by the time the other 
wants to use the machine. All three of 
the planters are hired out to the neigh¬ 
bors when the owners do not need them. 
2. The common charge for the use of a 
potato planter is $1 per acre. The only 
charge I have heard of for planting pota¬ 
toes with a planter has been $2 per acre, 
the farmer to have the seed and fertilizer 
in the field and a man to put both into 
the planter as the driver turns around 
at the ends of the rows. 3. When 
fertilizer is used for the crop, and the 
rows are less than three feet apart, as is 
the case here, five acres are a good 
day’s work. When little or no fertil¬ 
izer is used, and the rows are further apart, a greater 
area can be planted. I know one man who worked 8% 
days in planting 45 acres of potatoes with a fertilizer ; 
that is the only instance I know of where a man could 
tell just the average time of planting his crop. 5. The 
number of missing hills depends mostly on the quality 
of the seed. A planter in good condition, with 'good 
seed, will very seldom miss a hill, but if the seed is 
bad, the machine cannot make it grow. I know noth¬ 
ing of the cooperative use of planters, but all machines 
are apt to get out of order when used by everybody. 
Mineola, Long Island. t. a. 
An Old Method of Co-operation. 
I purchased an Aspinwall potato planter with a fer¬ 
tilizer and corn planter attachment in the spring of 
1891, mine being the first and up to date the only one 
in this county. That season I planted six acres of 
potatoes and seven of corn with it, and the past season 
seven acres of potatoes and the same of corn. The 
only kind of cooperation in farming machines here at 
present is for me to buy them and the neighbors to 
borrow them. 
1 and 2. I own my planter individually and have 
never done any planting for others, owing mainly to 
the fact that I have more work of my own than I can 
do properly, and, furthermore, all the potatoes raised 
in this section are planted in hills. Nearly every 
farmer raises from one to four acres each year, but 
few of them raise any more. They do not take kindly 
to the drill or trench system, as no one has the 
improved machinery necessary to successfully culti¬ 
vate the crop in drills and land is proportionately 
much cheaper than labor, which is the mam reason 
why farmers still continue to follow the hill system. 
3. I have never worked a whole day at once, but 
where the rows are from 30 to 40 rods long and the 
potatoes and fertilizer convenient, I can average half 
Bayazit or Broad-Tailed Sheep in California. Fig. 19. 
