Vou LIV. No. 2396. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 28, 1895. 
GOOD HAY FROM CORN STALKS. 
THE HUSKEB AND SHREDDER AT WORK. 
What It Will Do for Corn Farmers . 
It is remarkable how rapidly the husker and slired- 
der becomes popular when introduced into a com¬ 
munity. Last year there was only one within 10 
miles of this locality, while now there are several 
“ right in our midst.” And what is still more remark¬ 
able is the fact that they have more work than they 
can do before winter sets in. Well-informed stock- 
feeders and farmers in this State have long known the 
value of well-cured fodder, and they have used mil¬ 
lions of tons of it every year ; but its many objection¬ 
able features have heretofore prevented it from tak¬ 
ing the place of that soil robber, Timothy hay. It is 
so bulky that it takes up too much room to be stored 
under shelter, and, unless protected from the weather 
after the corn is husked, it deteriorates rapidly, and 
soon becomes next to worthless as fodder. It is diffi¬ 
cult to handle and feed in stables, while the long 
stalks are a veritable nuisance among the bedding 
and in the ma¬ 
nure pile. The 
cutter reduces 
the bulk and 
makes it pos¬ 
sible to store 
the fodder in 
medium- sized 
buildings, and 
to feed it in 
ordinary man¬ 
gers, but the 
short pieces are 
hard, and their 
ends sharp, and 
they soon make 
the mouth of 
any animal 
feeding on 
them sore. 
The shredder 
was designed 
to overcome all 
of these objec¬ 
tions, and it 
does it to per¬ 
fection. It cuts 
and crushes the 
big, hard stalks 
into a mass of 
soft feed that 
is as easily 
stored and fed as hay. It does this, and at the same 
time husks the corn as cheaply as it can be done in 
any other way. It loads this corn into wagons ready 
to be thrown into the crib, or hauled direct to market, 
and elevates the shredded fodder into the barn or 
hay shed at the same time. 
I have watched these machines work, and done 
some emphatic thinking at the same time. We can 
hire a shock of corn husked by hand for 10 to 15 cents. 
We can hire the same shock husked, reduced in bulk 
one-half or more, converted into a fodder that is 
vastly better in every way than whole fodder, and 
pitched into the barn or hay shed by the shredder for 
the same sum. When husked by hand, the fodder 
must be hauled in and fed to stock or stored in a dry 
place at once, or it will spoil. When husked by the 
shredder, it is at the same time compactly stored 
where we wish it, and where, with common-sense 
care, it will keep until fed out. 
This shredded fodder is equal in feeding value to 
good Timothy hay only when it is cut, cured and 
stored in an intelligent manner. It can be spoiled as 
easily as clover hay, and while some farmers will 
always make first-class feed of it, others will make 
only musty, rotten trash not fit even for bedding. It 
will be several years before the average farmer learns 
just how to manage this new material for the best 
results. Tons on tons of it will be spoiled through 
ignorance, and it will be disparaged and condemned 
time and again ; but its excellence and cheapness, 
when properly cured and handled, will prove an un¬ 
answerable argument in its favor, and it will finally 
become as much a staple article of feed as hay 
now is. 
Fig. 277 shows how this machine looks when at 
work. The husker had filled the mow in the little 
barn with the shredded fodder, and just commenced 
running it into a rail pen, which was to be raised to a 
height of 12 or 15 feet, and covered with boards The 
husked corn was being run into a temporary rail crib 
close by. It was a miserably cold, windy day, and 
everybody about the machine was working at an 
extra lively rate to keep warm ; but the feeder kindly 
stopped about five seconds to avoid blurring the pic¬ 
ture. The farmer managed to get his family and a 
couple of friends in, and was much pleased thereat, 
though the cold made their teeth chatter. 
Illinois. FRED GRUNDY. 
What the New Departure Means. 
Eastern farmers who grow but a few acres of corn 
at most, and that of a small-growing kind, are accus¬ 
tomed to haul the crop to the barn, where it is husked, 
and stover and all are kept under shelter until fed. 
To them, it is a constant wonder when they visit us in 
the Middle West, how we can bear to waste so very 
great a percentage of the fodder after husking. They 
do not realize the difficulties that confront us when 
we undertake to shelter the very bulky fodder that 
our corn makes. I well remember the amusement 
that it gave me when I was a school boy sent back to 
an Eastern city for a few terms, and I had roamed 
out of town and miles over the hills one sunny Satur¬ 
day, when I stopped to chat a while with a farmer’s 
boy who was husking his father’s crop in a snug little 
barn. It seemed such tiny, “play farming ” to me, 
and I have often wondered whether my transient 
acquaintance believed me, or thought that X was 
“ drawing the long bow ” when I told him of the large 
corn and great crops that we grew in Ohio. 
Yet that we have been too careless and too wasteful 
of corn fodder in Ohio, I have long been convinced. 
Year by year, we have bundled and stacked the fod¬ 
der, sometimes putting as much as we could into the 
barn, and feeding it there after running it through a 
cutter ; or putting it into as good shape as possible in 
large shocks, and leaving it in the field. We could 
not store very much of it bundled. It is so very 
bulky that it takes a large barn to hold 25 acres. 
Stacking it is only partially a solution of the problem, 
and leaving it in the field is no solution at all ; for 
no matter how well it is put up, there are sure to be 
winds that will scatter it around or that will drive it 
full of snow to melt again and spoil the fodder. Then 
there is the everlasting job o£. hitching up a team 
every morning to go down int& a corn field and dig 
out feed from under snow banks, while the keen wind 
chills one to the bone ; or, what is worse, to fish it up 
from the depth of bottomless mud, which is not seldom 
the condition of our Ohio fields in winter. Then there 
is the very 
great i n j u r y 
that we do to 
our fields by 
going on to 
them when 
they are wet ; 
I am sure that 
we do not at all 
realize how bad 
that is. Again, 
I would like to 
know how 
many bright 
boys have been 
driven away 
from the farm 
by the irksome 
task of winter- 
long “feeding.” 
When first 
the husking 
machine was 
invented, years 
ago, it was a 
most worthless 
and impractical 
machine. It 
husked the 
corn tolerably 
well, but not 
so well as it 
could be done by hand, and not nearly so cheaply 
while the stalks were left in a tangled heap nearly 
impossible to do anything with. Next there was at¬ 
tached to the machine a cutter, like the familiar 
ensilage cutter ; that was a step in the right direc¬ 
tion, but it did not answer yet. The fodder when cut 
into short lengths was hard to handle, could not be 
stacked or baled, and there was trouble by the sharp 
ends of the outer shell of the stalk getting into the 
mouths of animals and making them sore. It was 
not until the shredder was attached to the machine 
that it could really be said to be a machine of gen¬ 
eral usefulness. Now, that that is done, I feel that 
the problem of caring for the corn fodder, is solved, 
and that a new era in our agriculture is begun as de¬ 
cided as that which the self-binder opened. 
Yet farmers are slow to see the advantage. Thou¬ 
sands of acres of corn will be left standing near me 
this year of drought and failure of the hay crop. In 
my own immediate neighborhood, we have caught on 
to the idea pretty well, and there are, to-day, six 
machines within a radius of five miles. As I write, 
the uuichiue is husking our eoro, the golden ears 
