rr/\GR!CULTUR> 
MOOKE’S EUEAL EEW-YOEKEE, 
AJJ ORKirtfAL WEKKLT 
rural, literary and family newspaper. 
CONDUCTED BY D. D. T. MOORE, 
CHAS, D. JiltAGDON, Associate Editor. 
product by the manipulation of the soil. The 
most valuable cultivator is that, other things 
being equal, which adds the greatest number of 
bushels of grain to the crop per acre. 
Manifestly then, the trial of seeding and-culti¬ 
vating implements cannot he contemporaneous 
if these effects are to be considered. And we 
think no one will dispute that trials that do not 
look to effects as well as modes are little less than 
useless. It is also apparent that harvesting im¬ 
plements eaunot be tried at the same time with 
the above named classes. And yet, with each 
of these three distinct classes may be grouped 
other implements of Importance, and in suffi¬ 
cient numbers to make any Executive Commit¬ 
tee, with sub-committees, all the work they 
will care to do inside of two weeks. 
It is far better for the country, for farmers, 
for manufacturers, and for the good name of 
the Society, that it attempt the trial of one of 
these classes tills year, with such other imple¬ 
ments as may he grouped with it, and make that 
trial thorough and complete, than to attempt a 
grand implement exhibition in the midst of a 
busy season without being able to test more 
than a fraction of such as are exhibited. Let the 
exhibition be at the State Fair; let the work be 
done in the field and in its season. The Society 
will gain influence with the people in justsnch 
proportion as it labors to promote their inter¬ 
ests faithfully and impartially. It will loose 
influence in just such proportion as it attempts 
what it cannot accomplish, and neglects to do 
what it is manifestly its province to do. 
I take nothing out of any of the mangers 
except one, where seven lambs are fed, which I 
sometimes over-feed, when it is taken out and 
mixed with the cows’ feed. 
Before it became too cold I wet the feed as it 
was cut, piling it up; it would heat in 34 hours. 
But lately it gets over heating and freezes before 
all is fed out, one day’s feed making too small a 
pile to heat good. I had not thought of the bin 
as Mr. P. does till I saw his letter. 
As near us I can estimate I save by cutting, 30 
per cent.; for it saves all waste; and by wetting, 
20 per cent, more in the amount consumed, 
making 50 per cent, over feeding whole and dry. 
Now, to do this, it takes me one-hall - day per 
week with my horse. Now, will it pay to ent 
feed? I say most certainly it will pay me, and, 
I think, any one else when hay is $25 per tun, 
and coarse fodder in proportion. 
My figuring may seem to some rather tall, as 
it did to a neighbor who came into my barn a 
few days since, but if they think so just come 
and pay me a visit, and I will gladly show them 
my stock, and show them that they can get np 
alone now, whether they can next spring or 
n °b L. D. Stilson. 
Manila, Erie Co., N. Y., 1S65. 
HENRY S. RANDALL, LL. D., 
Editor of the Department of Sheep Husbandry. 
To Correspondents.— Mr. Ra.vdai.l's address is 
Cortland Village, Cortland Co., N. Y. All communica¬ 
tions intended for this Department, and all inquiries 
relating to sheep, should be addressed to him as above. 
SPECIAL CONTRIBUTORS: 
P. BARItV, C. DXWET, IX. D., 
H. T. BROOKS, L. B. LANOWOTUY, 
T. C. PETERS, EDW1UO WEBSTER. 
HOW UTTLE HAY WILL DO FOR SHEEP ? 
Tub Rural New-Yorker is designed to be unsur¬ 
passed in Value, Purity, and Variety of Contents, and 
unique and beautiful in Appearance. Its Conductor 
devotes bis personal attention to Uie supervision of Its 
various departments, and earnestly labors to render the 
Rural an eminently Reliable Guide on all the importunt 
Practical. Scientific and other Subjects Intimately 
connected with the business of those whose interests It 
zealously advocates. As a Family .Joubx.il It is emi¬ 
nently Instructive and Entertaining—being so conducted 
that It can be safely taken to the Homes of people of 
Intelligence, taste Hud discrimination. It embraces more 
Horticultural, Scientific,, Educational, Literary and News 
Matter, Interspersed with appropriate Emrravlngs, than 
any other Journal,-rendering It far the most complete 
Agricultural, Literary and Family Newspaper In 
America. 
D. Rtther, Pontiac, Erie Co., N. Y., writes: 
“I have forty breeding ewes, and am short of 
hay. How little hay can I winter them on from 
now till spring, by feeding them corn ? ” 
Mr. R.’s case is that of thousands and thou¬ 
sands of farmers throughout the State of New 
Y ork. Again and again, even before the winter 
commenced, we uttered our cry of warning on 
this subject. On the 17th of September we 
declared in these columns — “ there can be no 
possible doubt, in our judgment, that the usual 
fodder crops, hay, oats, com, corn-stalks and 
straw, will be at least one quarter less than 
usual throughout large regions. In some lim¬ 
ited ones, it will be found from a third to a half 
less than usual." In view of these facts we 
offered the following advice to every sheep 
tanner in regions where the crops were short, 
and we repeat it here because it may still be of 
benefit to some persons : 
“1. Let him save every available kind of feed. 
2. Let him economize every kind of feed. Let his 
r trnw all bn preserved for fodder n« r.'irri'iilty as httr 
f fed without oittlng. let it be *hwf>h«-d by hand and 
fed out fresh several times in a day in small’quantities. 
It will go still further if cut: and even dry pea vines 
and the ripest straw w ill be eaten clean, if cut np with 
a small quantity of hay or bright corn stalks. It 
would be the most saving way io si ' ' ' ‘ 
with water and lh>-n tnix it with raca 
IBfFor Terms and other particulars, see last page, 
GLEANINGS FROM LETTERS AND PAPERS, 
To Clean a Field of Canada Thistles. — A 
writer in the Canada Farmer says, give the 
field a good summer fallowing—plowing three 
to five times—then seed to grass, cut for hay 
»-n-o or *>., it-nes, tn.sj pas-tare one or two 
years. We happen to know that snch a course 
will kill the thistles if the plowing is done well 
in hot and dry weather. 
Bloat in Cows .—At a recent meeting of dairy¬ 
men, one said when a cow was bloated from 
over-feeding, bleeding would relieve the animal 
in a few moments; as a last resort he would tap 
her and let out the gas. Another said he gave 
lime-water as a remedy—a teaspoouful of chlo¬ 
ride of lime dissolved, and applied from a bottle, 
absorbed the gas and gaye relief. 
How to Fatten a Horse.— H. K. Smith, Woos¬ 
ter, O., writes the Rural : — " In answer to the 
inquiry as to the best method to fatten a horse, 
one of your subscribers here wishes me to reply 
that corn meal with ten pounds of hay. and an 
exercise equal to a brisk trot of two miles twice 
each day, is the best treatment he ever tried. 
The quantity of meal should be graduated to the 
size, age and feeding capabilities of the horse." 
About Goose Fanning .— D. of North Bend, 
O., writes in the Country Gentleman: — “Many 
an intelligent farmer will pay forty to sixty dol¬ 
lars for a bullock, to secure one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty pounds increase from summer 
grazing, who would hoot the Idea of growing as 
much meat with less pasturage and the agency 
of an old goose, costing, perhaps, fifty cents. 
March goslings, with access to grass and a 
trough of water, will eat their way withont 
much trouble up to six or eight pouuds by 
Michaelmas. Extra trouble in marketing is 
A GRAND IMPLEMENT TRIAL 
the state society wotild probably arrange for 
snch a trial the coming season. Wc suppose, 
indeed wo know, that the plana are not per¬ 
fected. From a few words dropped by the 
President elect, wc are led to suppose that an 
attempt, will be made to test more than one 
class of implements at the same time. It is on 
this point that we have something to say. 
An Important objection to most implement 
trials is, that too much is attempted in too short 
a time-that the tests made are Inadequate, if 
attempted to he made complete, or too much 
encumbered with red tape if only luteuded to be 
popular field exhibitions for the benefit of those 
who may attend them. And we fear that if the 
Society attempts a grand exhibition and trial of 
Farm Machinery at any one time and place, it 
will fail In practical results no matter how grati¬ 
fying the exhibition may he. 
It is our firm conviction that each class of 
implements should be tested in its season. True, 
plows, harrows, and all Implements Intended 
only for the mechanical preparation of the soil 
lor crops, may be tested at any time — Spring, 
Summer or Autumn. But Drills, Seed Planters 
STOCK AND GRAIN FARMING, 
tinkle the on: feed 
-.. — —.1 instead of 
feeding the cu* feed and whole grain separately. If 
well cut up and thus mixed, rho Ixwm-st corn stalks 
or dover, or hog or other inferior hay. would be en¬ 
tirely consumed. Good brow -e drawn into the vards 
for the sheep to pick, would not be unhealthy, and 
wroold muptesiiotiably produce some saving rf feed 
Leaves should be collected from the fnnsru for bed¬ 
ding, so that nothing eatable shall V used for that 
purpose. Well sheltered and bedded -Ucvu will re¬ 
quire much Ices feed and winter better than exposed 
ones. Every spare turnip, apple, potato, beet, &c., 
will make good feed, and should oe carefully pre¬ 
served for that purpose. 
3. Clear the farm so far as practicable of unprofita¬ 
ble consumers, such as surplus horses, inferior milch 
cows, and the cattle and wethers which are readv*to 
turn off. If there are cattle or sheep eu the ftnn fit to 
slaughter for winter provisions, make use of them for 
that purpose, and fatten less pork, in order to save the 
grain for the sheep. Make Arrangements to winter 
tlio necessary farm horses and cows as well as Uio 
sheep as cheaply as possible. !t is mow -afe to ok • v 
the former than the latter, 
"If the above suggestions 3re faithfully acted on 
and we have a favorable winter for sheep, like that 
which followed the great drouth of 1 -h?, sheep will in 
most parts of the country, go through xhs u inter just 
as well as >mtal. If the winter is a hard one the sheep 
will suffer more or less—but probably not to a very 
serious extent. Without provident arrangement, the 
sheep in many parts of the country will suffer even if 
the winter Is a tnild one, and will suffer fatally should 
11 prove to be a severe one. • Forewarned, forearmed, ’ 
is the motto of wise men. - ' 
We have not heard what the character of the 
winter is, through the different States, but up 
to this time, (Feb. St.It, - ) it has been very severe 
in those parts of New York from which we have 
obtained information. The cold has not been 
specially intense, but it has been remarkably 
steady; there has been no January thaw; and 
the snow has been and continues much deeper 
than usual. Sheep and all kinds of farm stock 
which have been fed plentifully, have thus far 
wiutered well. Indeed such winters are much 
more favorable to stock thuu those in which the 
changes of weather are great and frequent. But 
the stock consume far more feed during the 
former—and therefore in a winter of very scarce 
feed, the steady cold is regarded as unfavorable. 
It remains to he mentioned that, as a general 
thing, the hay is good this winter—and goes 
much further than it did last winter. 
We come now to our correspondent’s ques¬ 
tion : “ how little hay will do for sheep ? " We 
cannot do better than again quote from our 
article ot September 17th: 
•In the‘famine winter’ In Vermont, in 1S60, per¬ 
sons in considerable regions did not probably have 
near‘half enough hay' to winter their sheep. We 
have MWvcTsed with various intelligent dock-masters 
of that. State on the subject. They usually had or 
bought enough hay or straw lo give some distension 
daily to the stomachs of the sheep—■ ;o give them a 
cud, in farmers' phrase—and then fed them about a 
pint of corn, or a quart of oars each, per diem, ou the 
average. Wheu thus fed and properly sheltered, they 
wintered unU; and we believe generally yielded un¬ 
commonly heavy fleeces. 
“Avery severe dromh prevailed throughout New 
York in the summer of lKfci. and was followed by a 
winter of great scarcity in fodder. William Bard. Esq., 
records in the Memoirs of the Board of Agriculture 
of the btate of New York, fVol. 2, INKS.) that he fed 
100 wethers that winter as follow- tie gave (5 quarts 
of ent straw and half a pint of Indian meal, mixed 
together with water, to each sheep per day, in three 
feeds. Now and then they had an armful of hay 
thrown to them, perhaps SOO pounds in the course of 
the winter.’ They came through rather gaunt, but ho 
lost none of them, 
CUTTING FEED FOR STOCK, 
Editors Rural New Yorker: — In these 
times of high prices and 1 ttle help, it becomes 
the intelligent farmer to ty to make his horses 
and machinery do all t 1 J it is possible for them 
to do. Impressed with t is view I set myself 
at work to find a machine rith which my horse 
could be made to cut ay feed. But every 
horse-power which I s»u* advertised was so 
expensive t hat I nearly gave,up the idea of using 
anything but the old rickety thing which my 
father purchased in 1S59, aid which had been in 
nsc nearly ever since. Bm when I thought of 
the many hours hard work ' Inch it must take to 
cut all my feed this winter,—as cut it I must, for 
my hay crop was injured bn the late frost and 
drouth, my sowed corn, wh at and oats pinched 
by dry weather—I detemiin d to try and build a 
horse-power which would co for me. Accord¬ 
ingly I procured a pair of cog-wheels, one a 
driver to be placed upon an upright shaft, and a 
pinion to go on one end of .. horizontal; on the 
other end of which is a large drum or band- 
wheel, some gudgeons, lands, Ac. I then pro¬ 
cured the help of two cnrpeitcrs oue day to help 
me get started. I set my upright shaft outside 
the barn so as to use a ninctect sweep; the hori¬ 
zontal shaft, runs into the vmrn lengthwise of the 
floor aud on one side. I then built a shed over 
that port out doors which I ust for stable for one 
flock of sheep, and my horse is under shelter so 
that I cut my feed rainy and stormy days. 
After getting this part of mv machine in 
working order, I traded off iu\ old machine and 
bought one of J. D. Sanborn's large cutting 
machines, made for heavy business, using two 
cranks; but I had no use lor ‘hem, so off they 
came and wore replaced by : six-inch pulley 
