1895 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
743 
GREEN FOOD FOR FALL FEEDING. 
IS THERE ANYTHING BESIDES ENSILAGE? 
1. What besides ensilage can be used for green fodder in the 
fall, after frost and before roots are ready to feed ? 2. How would 
it answer to sow rye in July and cut it in October for green food ? 
These questions refer more particularly to cow feed. 
Nothing Better Than Corn. 
1. Barley and peas sowed like oats and peas, August 
10 in this region—southern shore of Connecticut—will 
be ready to feed about October 15 and will keep green 
to November 15 and stand frost well. This crop is an 
excellent milk producer, and a valuable crop if you 
can make it grow. The if, however, is so big that 
after five or six years of trial and only one or two 
successes, we have this year fallen back upon corn 
fed, ears and all, out of stacks in the field in a semi- 
green state and run through the cutter. Corn needs 
to be planted two weeks or a month earlier than the 
former, but by July 15, the early crops are out of the 
way, and corn sowed at that time will give more per 
acre than anything else, although it may be more im¬ 
mature at first than millet or some like catch crop. 
We planted in hills, five kernels, July 3 after oats and 
peas, \ X A acre of medium white corn, which was cut 
and stacked October 5 to 9. This corn was nearly 
glazed, and we estimate that there are 10 green tons 
per acre. Another 13 i acre planted in the same way 
after Timothy without manure, June 22, gave us seven 
tons-of greenJodder, which 
also stands in the stack to 
be cut and fed before the 
silo is opened, or to be cut 
and mixed with ensilage. 
We have over 50 green 
tons of corn standing in 
stacks, because the silo is 
full. We should have put 
it all in if we could, so that 
all I have said comes to 
this, that nothing besides 
ensilage is so good as en¬ 
silage. However, if I had 
closed my answer with 
the mention of barley and 
peas, I should have uttered 
but a half truth. 2. I never 
sowed rye in July, and as 
it is a cold weather plant, 
I should fear a spindling, 
imperfect growth. 
E. c. 
Barley, Cabbage, Pump¬ 
kins and Rape. 
1. Barley is one of the 
best green fodders that can 
be grown for autumn feed¬ 
ing. It may be used for 
some time after light frosts 
have put in an appear¬ 
ance, but, of course, will 
not stand severe freezing. 
It grows rapidly. The time 
for sowing wfill range 
from, say, June 1 to July 1, 
or even a later period, ac¬ 
cording to locality. Fall 
turnips sown in drills and 
cultivated, make an excellent food for cows, so far as 
milk production is concerned. They need not be 
thinned if sown with discrimination, but simply cul¬ 
tivated sufficiently. They are fed roots and tops to¬ 
gether, and in favorable sections, will give many tons 
per acre of food. Unless fed with discretion, they 
will taint the milk somewhat. Cabbages also furnish 
an excellent green food. On prairie soils, they may 
be grown in fine form in drills like rutabagas, if the 
seed be but thinly sown. They stand the warm 
weather better than rutabagas, but nowadays they 
frequently suffer from attacks of the cabbage 
worm. The late varieties stand the cold well, 
even until the advent of winter. Pumpkins may be 
made to extend from the season before frost 
comes until freezing-up time, if they are piled 
in a sheltered place, and covered with straw be¬ 
fore any severe frosts have been felt. As is well 
known, they agree well with the dairy cow. Rape is 
also an excellent food for milk production, and it 
may be on hand from September 1, onward. It may 
be cut and fed to the cows after they have been 
milked. It will produce from 20 to 30 tons of green 
food per acre on very rich land, and half that amount 
on ordinary land. In the East, it will withstand frost 
right up to the advent of winter ; but the severer 
frosts of the West are too much for it, sometimes 
weeks in advance of the final closing in of winter. 
2. I do not think it would answer well to sow winter 
rye in July to be cut in October, as it is not natural 
for it to head out in the fall, or even to push up vigor¬ 
ously preparatory-to heading <out. I imagine that it 
would be prone to stool out and lie somewhat closely 
on the ground, turn somewhat yellow in dry weather, 
and some of it would, probably, head out later, but 
not as it ought to. I have not tried it, but am 
reasoning from general principles. 
Minnesota Ex. Station. [prof.] thos. siiaw. 
AN AMERICAN “HORSELESS CARRIAGE." 
The American carriage horse may well shake his 
head in disgust at the scene shown at Fig. 235. This 
is what we are coming to—the time may still be a 
long way off, but it is on the way. The carriage here 
pictured is the invention of J. B. West, an American 
inventor and manufacturer. This is a side issue with 
him—he says that he has worked at it from time to 
time instead of taking - a summer vacation. The drive 
wheels to this carriage are 30 inches in diameter, with 
(>3£-inch pneumatic tubes, a web being formed of steel 
plates, and no spokes. They will carry a ton each. 
The steering lever is similar to that used on ordinary 
cheap tricycles, but is connected to both front wheels. 
The engine is of Mr. West's own invention and manu¬ 
facture ; it develops from five to six horse power from 
gas made as it is used, and it weighs only 135 pounds. 
The carriage, entire, weighs about 600 pounds, and 
the inventor thinks that it can make a mile on the 
track in two minutes. 
Mr. West says that some points about the carriage 
are not fully satisfactory yet, though it has been run 
to some extent. lie says about this : 
You must know that the full solution of the problem is, iudeed, 
very difficult, as has been proved by the large number of failures, 
within the last 100 years or more. I nearly ended my existence, 
about 12 years ago, when, while experimenting with an electro¬ 
gas engine, I got an involuntary explosion down my throat, so 
gave it up for awhile. I have tried the electric plan with storage 
batteries, but there is too much dead load to carry, and until the 
batteries can be materially lightened, the electro-gasoline engine 
with various modifications, is the best yet known. 
It will certainly be a great day when one can sit in 
such a conveyance, and go rolling over the road with 
more than twice the speed of the average carriage 
horse. There are many who feel saddened to see the 
horse retiring from view as man’s indispensable friend; 
but the coming generation will get over that. There 
are young men and women now who have real affec¬ 
tion for their bicycles. 
One good thing about this carriage is that the seat 
is wide enough for a whole family. The picture shows 
that Mr. West sets a good example to other American 
citizens by taking his women folks to ride. Lots of 
farmers will look at that and remember how they 
have driven off to town leaving wife and daughter to 
finish up their work. By the way, don’t wait to cor¬ 
rect that fault until these horseless carriages are 
found on every farm ! You will wait too long. It 
will be many years. Good roads must come first. 
The good roads are coming, too. A11 over the coun¬ 
try, people are awaking to the fact that they have 
been for years feeding extra horses to create the 
extra power needed on bad roads. They have done 
enough of it! 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
New Things I Know. —This is the best year we 
have had, to miss our calculations; while our crops 
have entirely failed in some ways, there has been un¬ 
expected success in others. Wheat has done better 
after corn than after oats, at about one-fourth the ex¬ 
pense of fitting the soil. This year I put in 12 acres 
of wheat after corn and potatoes. A man with team 
would fit and drill two acres per day. In very dry 
seasons, wheat will come better after potatoes than 
corn ; that seems to be the worst trouble. While the 
corn shades the ground, it seems moist; but as soon 
as it is cut, the ground seems to get drier and drier. 
We had a larger yield of marketable potatoes where 
we plowed the sod over them, than either where we 
planted with a planter by the side of them—fertilizer 
and all other things being equal—or where rye was 
turned under with a larger application of fertilizer. 
It would have been more profitable to seed the rye to 
clover and cut for feed or seed, than to plow under 
for 20-cent potatoes. w. H. g. 
Palmyra, Ohio. 
That Front Lawn. —About 12 years ago, I read the 
statement from J. B. Lawes, that weeds could be 
manured off from grass. I tried it at once on some 
Broom sedge that had completely overrun the Blue 
grass. It was a very heavy application of stable 
manure, probably 75 or more tons per acre. The 
manure was made in six or 
eight months by allowing 
it to accumulate where 
dropped under shelter and 
had been repeatedly satur¬ 
ated with urine and dried 
out as often. It was a com¬ 
plete success. Every sprig 
of'Broom sedge to the line of 
application, disappeared — 
choked out by the dense 
Blue grass. 
1 had a stock lot in which 
there was a washed, clay 
spot of one-sixth of an 
acre. It was dry, hard and 
sterile. Two heavy applica¬ 
tions of the kind of manure 
alluded to, caused a vigor¬ 
ous growth of grass to cover 
it. There are yet weeds 
enough on it to use the 
mower. The grass is ex¬ 
cellent, the weeds cannot be 
beaten. I know that the 
poor spot can be so manured 
that not a weed or an an¬ 
nual, can grow. 
1 had two cows last win¬ 
ter in a Blue grass lot 
with a dense windbreak 
on the north side—good 
protection ; they chose this 
sheltered spot to lie on 
every night. There are 
areas there where the Blue 
grass is so dense that not 
a weed appeared. The 
cows were fed four pounds 
of cotton seed, 10 pounds of 
corn with the best early-cut, well-cured clover hay. 
VVe have a bulbous flowering plant here called 
“Star of Bethlehem.” It grows up before winter is 
gone and dies at the approach of hot weather. When 
the tops die, the ground is left full of bulbs the size 
of a small onion. It crowds everything else out. and 
when its tops die the ground is left bare. I tried 
manure on them, but the ground was so loose, made 
so by this bulbous plant, that the chickens kept the 
ground cultivated and scattered the bulbs over a great 
deal more ground until the infested area is doubled. 
I quit manuring and the chickens quit scratching, and 
the Blue grass crept over the ground. When the flow¬ 
ers are gone, a Blue grass sod takes its place. The 
R. N.-Y. removes all coarse material from the lawn 
that may be in the manure. It would not look well, 
if looks are the object ; but coarse material, by con¬ 
serving moisture and breaking the force of the sun on 
the soil, would conduce to the grow+h of grass. Hav¬ 
ing a four-acre lot that I was anxious to seed to clover 
last spring, I covered the ground with German millet 
straw that had been thrashed, and thereby broken 
into short lengths. I thought that I was certain to 
get a good stand. I did get it. What is the objection 
to leaving coarse litter on the soil ? Keep the lawn 
manured ; and littered in the summer. w. u. A. 
Thompson, Tenn. 
Steam vs . Gasoline.—I was surprised to read on 
page 712, the indorsements of steam engines for farm 
uses. I well remember the days when we used steam 
on this farm. First there was the water to haul, then 
the fires to build and the careful management of 
A FAMILY RIDE IN AN AMERICAN “HORSELESS CARRIAGE.” Fig. 235. 
