486 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
August 4 
dies, unless an even distribution of the manure is 
wanted, and the same is true of turnips, providinpf 
the sheep are fjiven time to (?lean all the food before 
the approach of winter. We usually put the sheep on 
rape when they are not hungry, and leave them on it. 
They will usually make clean work of it, and without 
any waste. But it is an advantage to have a grass 
pasture near by, into which they may go at will. 
They seem to crave some pasture, even when the rape 
is sown so abundantly, on the principle, it may be, 
that the system asks for a variety of food. We may 
imagine some objections to such a course, as, for in¬ 
stance, the less even distribution of the manure than 
would be secured by hurdling; but the disadvantage 
resulting is not enough to counterbalance the greater 
cost of the hurdling system. For soiling sheep in 
summer, hurdles are absolutely necessary. The hur¬ 
dles may be moved from time to time to bring them 
near to the crop cut and fed to them. Movable racks 
will, of course, be required in which to place the food. 
The sheep should be kept in these enclosures only 
when the sun is not warm. In the hot portion of the 
day, they should have access to a grass paddock or 
field with ample shade. [pkof.J thos. shaw. 
Guelph, Canada. 
A Light Wooden Fence. 
I have never raised field crops of rape or turnips, 
but only small patches for feeding a few show sheep, 
and have not always been successful. Insects and 
droughts have frequently spoiled the crops. I use a 
light, portable fence (which we call sheep hurdle) for 
dividing fields or keeping different lots of sheep apart, 
and find it very handy. I make the hurdles of 1 by 4- 
inch dressed pine boards, nailed six inches apart to 
IK hy 2-inch oak posts. It is made four boards high 
and 12 feet long. The posts extend six inches below 
the boards and are sharpened ; also six inches above 
the boards, so that they may be ham¬ 
mered without injuring the boards. An 
upright strip is nailed across the hurdle 
at the middle, and braces fit in from 
the bottom at the end posts to the top 
at the middle strip. If made of good, 
clear stuff, and well put together, this 
makes a hurdle strong enough for sheep, 
and light enough to be easily moved. 
In setting the hurdles, I tie them at each 
end with small rope or strong twine, to 
stakes driven in the ground, and settle 
the pointed posts in the ground enough 
to stiffen the fence. I do not aim to 
keep more than 100 sheep together, but 
for convenience sometimes keep 200 in 
one flock ; smaller flocks do better. 
Middletov9n, Ohio. w. A. SHAFOit. 
COLORADO BEEFMAKING. 
ALFALFA AND SUGAR REKTS. 
The Colorado beef steer is a product 
of evolutionary development. Year by 
year his horns have been growing 
shorter, year by year his legs are be¬ 
coming less elongated, his hips are 
broader, his brisket fuller and his gen¬ 
eral corporosity more capacious. He is growing 
away from his speedy built predecessors, whose 
agility came in good requisition in chasing down 
that one proverbial spire of grass which, as yet, 
had not been replaced by two. On one side his pedi¬ 
gree traces to the long-horned, woolly Texan ; on the 
other to the Durham, Boiled Angus, Galloway, Devon 
or Hereford, or to a mixture of two or more. His an¬ 
cestry is various ; but he is no would-be aristocrat, 
and doesn’t care. He inhabits the mountainous dis¬ 
tricts and the yet unfenced plains the first two or 
three years of his life, perhaps spending the winters, 
if feed is short, in some corn-stalk or grain stubble 
field with access to straw stacks. He may get a little 
hay if his ribs show too plainly. The mountain sec¬ 
tions, which receive more rain, hence produce more 
grass, and are also better watered and sheltered, pro¬ 
duce the best specimens. 
The third or fourth fall of his life usually ends his 
pastoral wanderings. If he weighs 1,000 pounds, he 
usually sells to the farmer for $25, sometimes a trifle 
more, rarely a little less. Ordinarily he changes to 
the farmer about October 1, and stops on good after- 
math pasture for a month. Sometimes the green, suc¬ 
culent fourth growth of Alfalfa is a little too easily 
obtainable, and he ends his career ingloriously, much 
to the chagrin of his new owner, who “didn’t know 
it was loaded.” Feeding usually begins about Novem¬ 
ber 1. When the whole crop of hay is to be turned 
into beef, the third crop, having less substance than 
the others, is fed first while the weather is warm. 
It is often advantageous to have two or more yards, 
so that the more timid cattle may be separated from 
the others. Especially is this to be recommended 
when the bunch contains hornless cattle. It has been 
proved by abundant evidence that cattle confined in 
comfortable, spacious yards, which are well protected 
from winds and shedded jn the north and west sides, 
do better and produce a more satisfactory gain than 
if allowed to run about the fields during the day. 
Water should be in the yards and accessible at all 
times. 
Well-cured corn stalks and third cutting Alfalfa, 
make a good starter, and the steers,«though wild at 
first, soon become docile if handled with quiet kind¬ 
ness. During the first two weeks of yarding, the 
cattle will barely hold their weight, but after this 
they gradually settle down to business. If fed Alfalfa 
that has been properly cured, retaining its full feeding 
value, a well selected, well handled bunch of steers 
should average IK pound gain per day for three or 
four months. If fed Alfalfa alone, they will eat and 
waste about 50 pounds each per day, or 2K tons in 100 
days. After February 1, such steers seldom sell for 
less than $3.40 per 100 pounds. We have then 1,150 
pounds of beef at $3.40, or $39.10, less $25 the cost of 
steer, leaving$14.10 to pay for 2K tons of Alfalfa or 
$5 04 per ton. Thus one acre of Alfalfa, producing 
four tons per year, returns in cash $22 56, not estimat¬ 
ing the manure from the pens which, if handled in¬ 
telligently, will swell the profit considerably. 
It is becoming a custom with some feeders to supple¬ 
ment the Alfalfa with a few pounds of corn, thus 
making a better balanced ration. This saves a little 
hay, and produces a little better beef, but, with corn 
chop at 80 cents it would seem to be somewhat doubt¬ 
ful as to profit. Thirty pounds of Alfalfa and 30 to 40 
pounds of sugar beets, make a fairly well balanced 
ration and one that is now attracting considerable 
attention. It is reported that on one farm near Denver 
last fall, a bunch of 1,400-pound steers fed on Alfalfa 
and sugar beets made an average gain daring 100 days 
of three pounds per day per head. I understand this 
to be well authenticated. With our cheap albuminoids 
in the Alfalfa plant, we need some other product rich 
in carbohydrates, which can be raised with profit. 
Corn is not the desired crop in northern Colorado. It 
fairly fills the bill in the southern portion of the State, 
often yielding 40 or even 50 bushels per acre. Perhaps 
we may yet find the sugar beet to be, with the improve¬ 
ments in methods of growing and handling, the much 
sought “ nigh horse” to make a team in which 
Alfalfa is such a stanch “ off wheeler.” 
FRANK L. WATROUS. 
STACK-FRAME FOR CURING COW-PEA HAY. 
The Arkansas Experiment Station has made many 
experiments to determine the value of cow-pea hay for 
forage. The value of this forage when well cured, 
has been easily recognized; but it has always been 
difficult to dry the vines by ordinary methods. Field 
curing requires several days and with the chances of 
ordinary weather this means damage to the vines, and 
loss of pods. To obviate this difficulty, the station 
devised the plan of stack curing, illustrated at Fig. 
128. We are enabled to print it through the courtesy 
of the station. The construction is easily explained 
by the picture. Two poles are driven into the ground 
the desired length apart. To these, five horizontal 
planks are spiked as shown in the figure and at each 
end, two 2x4 strips are nailed for supports. To fill 
the stack they begin at the bottom and throw in hay 
enough to fill up to the top of the first plank. Rails 
or poles are then laid along from one end to the other 
so as to form a second floor. More hay is put on this, 
then more rails or poles and so on until the stack is 
filled. The whole thing is covered with weeds, straw, 
canvas cloth or a permanent roof of boards. The 
result is that the vines cure perfectly as there is ample 
ventilation and no chance for the hay to spoil. In 
taking out the hay we are told to begin with the lower 
floor and take out from the bottom thus leaving the 
top for protection till the last. 
THE VALUE OF PURE BLOOD. 
One great money loss on the farm comes from not 
using pure blood in the males used for breeding ; the 
absence of this pure blood always means the absence 
of the most profit. It is very hard for some farmers 
to realize this fact, and they go on year after year 
breeding to the male that costs the least for service— 
if they hire him—or the scrub they have grown at 
home, I have seen the value of pure blood in the 
male in all the kinds of stock I have handled, but in 
none more than in dairy cows. One of the farms 
across the road from mine was formerly run as a milk 
dairy to supply milk to the largest hotel in Baltimore ; 
the manager of the hotel was also manager and part 
owner of the farm. The cows were bought of the 
dealers, and were of very ordinary appearance, the 
method of management being to buy fresh cows, milk 
them so long as they gave a fair yield, then send them 
to the dealers and get fresh ones to take their places. 
With very liberal feeding, the milk was up to the 
average of city milk, perhaps a little above it because 
the treatment of the cows was so good. The manager 
of this dairy bought a registered Jersey bull and, 
among other cows, he was bred to a brindle mulley a 
cow of the pure scrub class that gave a good yield of 
milk which was, according to the overseer of the farm, 
“ as blue as the sky.” The calf this cow dropped 
proved to be a heifer, and the manager gave it to the 
overseer who raised it, and it is one of the finest cows 
of which I know. Her owner says she 
will make 12 pounds of butter a week, 
she is a persistent milker, and keeps 
up a very even flow. Here is a case 
where the first cross showed very clearly 
the value of pure blood in the male. 
In my own herd, when it was averag¬ 
ing 300 pounds of butter per cow, there 
were in it nearly as many grade as 
purebred Jerseys'; but these were high 
grades, and so more certain to show the 
effect of pure blood. With such evidence 
as this—and every farmer can find just 
as strong, if not stronger—it does seem 
strange that so many will go on in the 
old rut breeding to scrub males. In these 
times, purebred males of all the kinds of 
stock kept for profit on the farm, can 
be purchased for a tithe of what they 
are worth for grading up common stock. 
Breeders of purebred dairy cattle are 
nearly always overstocked with bull 
calves which they would be glad to dis¬ 
pose of at very low prices, but the veal 
butchers are their largest customers, 
while farmers living within a short dis¬ 
tance are keeping dairies that average 
3,000 pounds of milk or 125 pounds of 
butter. Is it any wonder that so many complain that 
“ dairying doesn’t pay ” ? 
Once in awhile a farmer does awake to the fact that 
there may be something in this “ fancy stock,” and, 
without considering the matter any further, goes off 
and buys a Holstein bull to grade up his butter herd. 
It is as hard to teach some men that purebred stock is 
special-purpose stock, as it is to teach them that pure¬ 
bred stock is far superior to common stock in every 
particular. But when you see a farmer who begins to 
read and think about the matter and then, say, buys 
a J ersey bull to improve his stock for buttermaking, 
you will see a man who is starting right, and you will 
hear from him later on as a prosperous dairyman. 
The Special-Purpose Man. —We read a good deal 
about the special-purpose cow, horse, or other kind of 
stock, but the special-purpose animal, to do its best, 
must be owned by a special-purpose man. The man who 
starts right by buying a special-purpose bull to grade 
up his herd of common cows, will soon become alive 
to the fact that there has been a large amount of 
science put into that bull by breeders who, for many 
years, have been perfecting the breed. He will find 
that the calves sired by that bull will, when they be¬ 
come cows, eat more feed, richer feed, than common 
cows, and that they will put a far greater per cent of 
the feed into profitable milk. This man will improve 
in his feeding and in every part of his dairying ; he 
will become a special-purpose man or, I should say, 
he will develop his special-purpose qualities, for we 
are all born with special-purpose proclivities, but so 
few of us cultivate them—it is so easy to go in the gen¬ 
eral-purpose ruts with the crowd. 
But the man will not stop his improvement with the 
