i¥)OOR£ 9 S BUBAL NEW-YORKER. 
JULY 
afield flfrfljra. 
GREEN CROPS FOR THE DAIRY. 
Now that some green crop to feed during 
Summer iu case of drouth is considered by a 
majority to be absolutely necessary, may it 
not be well to inquire “What isthe best crop 
which cau be raised for that purpose J' ’ The 
fact that it is profitable to raise and feed 
sowed corn, aud that is the crop, nine cases 
out of ten, raised for that purpose, may 
seem to Indicate that it is the most avail¬ 
able crop; but it does not prove positively 
such a proposition. 
At various times during the last few 
years several of our best fannerB and some 
practical scientific men have pronounced 
against the use of sowed oorn, and have 
tried to show that from its composition it 
could not be well adapted to the production 
of milk, but that it merely helped the cow 
as a flesh-former aud su&tuiner of animal 
life, leaving the flow of milk to be supplied 
by tho other food consumed. This may or 
may not be true; still, if nothing bettor can 
be found, it will pay to raise aud feed this 
crop, for it takes a large proportion of what 
the ordinary cow cuts to sustain life. 
Some of those who have opposed tho use 
of fodder corn have offered nothing to sup¬ 
ply its place; and some have proposed an¬ 
other crop which. It is claimed, is its supe¬ 
rior for green soiling, viz., clover. Now, 
allow me to state briefly wherein, after 
thorough trial of the latter crop, i believe 
it to be much better for the purpose named 
than sowed corn:—First, sowed corn, it is 
well known, requires very rich land, and is 
a very exhaustive crop. It is quite cus¬ 
tomary for farmers to have a small piece of 
suitable land which they will keep exclu¬ 
sively for sowed corn, giving it a liberal 
dressing of manure every year. I presume 
that few have ever considered how unjust 
to the rest of the farm such a course is; and 
how expensive it really makes such a crop. 
Now, clover is well known to be just the 
reverse of this. Of course, to raise a heavy 
ci’op the land must bo in good condition; 
but sucb laud is not impoverished by the 
heaviest growth of clover, if cut green—the 
roots making good for all that is taken off. 
This I think will not be disputed. 
2d. It can be raised with less labor. If a 
farmer follows a rotation of crops, which is 
done by most, of tho best farmers, ho will 
have enough for soiling every year with no 
extra labor of raising. To illustrate this: 
On a farm where thirty cows are kept there 
will rarely be less than five acres to break 
up every year, and the same amount to 
seed dowu, thos giving live acres of clover 
every year. If the land is rich, this will 
give two crops, the first of which should bo 
cut early, before it lodges; and then the 
second crop, t reated with plaster if tho sea¬ 
son is very dry, will be up so as to mow a 
good swath early in August, about the time 
feed will be needed for the dairy; and it 
will be enough to feed thirty cows a good 1 
moss daily until killed by frosts, after which 
time corn is the only available orop. It may 1 
be said that the sowed corn can be included 1 
in the regular rotation of crops, the same as * 
the clover, and tho expense of raising thus * 
be avoided. But, as a rule, only two crops * 
of grain should betaken iu succession; the u 
farmers need to have the first a regular oorn c 
crop, and tho second must bo a crop with 11 
which the land can be seeded to grass. v 
8d. It is much more easily and cheaply f 
cut aiid fed. Green coru is a very bad crop l> 
to cut and handle, especially In wot weather, ** 
when it is impossible, or nearly so, to cut ^ 
and handle it without getting one's clothes u 
completely saturated with water. Clover, k 
however, can be mowed with a hand scythe ^ 
into “ backswatlis,” and then pitched on to 
a wagon between two of these, with a three- if 
tiued fork, easily aud rapidly; and iu wot 
weather a rubber coat can be worn, aud as 
the clover does not have to be taken in one’s 
arms, as In handling corn, a person can 
keep dry, besides doing it much easier. pi 
If now to these three reasons can be ad- tl 
ded the fourth, that it will produce more gl 
milk, it will be clear to ail that it is the better u* 
crop of the two. On this point I do not so 
claim auy scientific knowledge, and but tli 
slight experience, but the little experience In 
1 have had with the two crops would lead wl 
me to give clover the preference as a milk 
producer; aud “ I know whereof I speak” ba 
in regard to the labor of cutting and feed- is 
iug clover. Furthermore, every scientific ke 
opinion I have read is that clover very much ra 
exceeds sowed com as a milk producer. th 
Cattaraugus Co., N. Y. u.'b. w. Ai 
WHEAT FOR HOEING, 
A CORRESPONDENT of the RCBAL NEW- 
YOKKEli inquires as to the q uant ity of wheat 
to use, and the distance apart to put the 
drills, for hoeing. As 1 have had a little 
experience in that line, I thought I would 
uive him tho method and the result for what 
they are worth. 
Last .Spring, my brother and myself each 
got ono pound of wheat of D. W. Ramsdell, 
and, wishing to make the most wo could of 
it, wo oonoluded to plant in drills and cul¬ 
tivate it. Accordingly, we prepared a rich 
piece of ground, and marking out In drills 
from 13 to 14 inches apart, the wheat was 
dropped, one grain in a place, about six 
inches apart in the drill, and properly cov¬ 
ered, aud it was hoed twice during the sea¬ 
son. I believe that, in t he manner iu which 
we planted, it will take about 12 pounds to 
the acre. 
It made a rapid growth, and stooled out 
wonderfully, making from 5 to25good stalks 
to the stool, so that by the time it headed 
out, the ground was completely covered, 
and the heads stood as thickly as they gen¬ 
erally do in fields of grain. But the ground 
iu which wo planted was too rich; for it 
made so rank a growth that a hard storm, 
whish wo had shortly after it headed and 
[ before it bud filled, laid it almost fiat on the 
ground, and, in consequence, it filled very 
imperfootly. Notwithstanding this, how¬ 
ever, my brother threshod, from his one 
pound of seed, four aud a half bushels, good 
heaping measure; but, as mine was planted 
several days later, and was, consequently, 
less advanced at the time of falling down, I 
received but three and u half bushels. 
This 1 consider an extraordinary yield 
from the quantity of sued sown; but lest 
Mr. I). W. Ramsdeel should humbug others 
with his wheat, us he already has some, and 
as he has thousands with his Norway oats, 
permit me to state in connection that the 
wheat Is utterly worthless, as it is so ex¬ 
tremely hard and flinty that It will not 
make flour. That people may be ou-fheir 
guard, 1 w ill state he culls it “Ramsdell’s 
Green Mountain Wheat.” 
Cedar Falls, Iowa. S. S. Bozarth. 
as high as 160’, to euro stalk and stem. The 
whole time occupied iu curing a barn of to¬ 
bacco, stalk and stem, should not be more 
than four days. 
In cutting tobacco, we split the stalk to 
within a few inches of where it is cut off at 
the ground aud straddle across a stick about 
four aud a-half feet in length, putting six or 
eight plants to the stick. 
Halifax C. H., Va. Thos. T. Carter. 
FISH CULTURE AS A SOURCE OF 
SUPPLY. 
FIELD CROP REPORTS. 
It is wonderful to see, when we lake time 
to analyze thorn, how few of the statements 
that wo hear made iu ordinary conversa¬ 
tion are supported by facts; they are gener¬ 
ally tho result of prejudice alone. This 
was forcibly suggested to me tho other day 
by a conversation that I had with an old 
man, a farmer, and a representative of a 
pretty largo class, too, from Iowa. We 
were talking of coru. lie spoke In a deroga¬ 
tory maimer of our Alleghany hills, and 
said that ho could raise corn more profit¬ 
ably in Iowa at twenty cents a bushel than 
I could here at seventy-live; a pretty 
general impression, l believe, but a mis¬ 
taken ono. As I, too, might be accused of 
prejudice, I will, if any one desires it, give 
figures to “ buck my opinion." 1 would like 
to suggest to all tho farmers in the country 
who think that farming will justify them iu 
applying their know ledge of double entry, 
that uu accurate account of their corn orop 
bo kept, aud, iu November, sent to the 
Rural Nmw-Yo uu eu, (and l ask the Rural 
to publish as many suoh reports as it deems 
advisable), (live the value of laud, the price 
of labor, horse time, aud the implements 
used; also, the cost of plowing, planting, 
working and harvesting, and the value o t, 
the crop, coru and fodder ou the farm at 
regular market price. Such a system as 
this, generally adopted and persevered in 
for a few years, would come nearer giving 
us the true centers of the profitable corn- 
growing region than Mr. Walker has.—A. 
R. K., Charleston , W, I'a. 
Wh will gladly give space to such reports, 
If they are furnished us. 
--- 
TOPPING AND CURING TOBACCO. 
As one of your readers wishes to know the 
proper time to top tobacco, and another 
the best plan of curing, 1 have concluded to 
give you a common way of doing each with 
us. For topping, wait until the button is 
seen, and t hen break out the top, leaving 
tlm top leaves on the plaut four or five 
laches long. Prune off the ground leaves 
when the tobacco is hilled, clear of the dirt. 
For curing yellow tobacco, put it in the 
burn as soon as out, and begin to cure (which 
is called, steaming) with a heat of about 90’; 
keep at that heat thirty-six hours; then 
raise the heat slowly every few hours until 
t he leaf is cured, not going higher than 120“. 
After the leaf Is cured, the heat may range 
(CONCLUDED FROM PAGE 11.] 
When men tell us they have raised a 
hundred pounds of trout from fifty pounds 
of chopped liver, we may be pardoned for 
, 8 smiling incredulously. 11 is true that they 
may actually have produced a hundred 
j pounds of fish; but it is certain that if this 
* be so, they have omitted some very impor- 
^ taut elements iu the calculation. Indeed, 
■ t most of these alleged cases of large results 
( obtained by the consumption of a small 
j amount, of food are really due to causes 
which never enter into the calculation of 
_ tho narrator. Thus some person encloses 
a portion of a running stream and stocks it 
with trout. He feeds them with a known 
j weight of animal matter, aud obtains, as 
( j the result of his efforts, a weight of fish 
that far exceeds the actual amount of food 
j consumed. In this case it is very obvious 
that the fish have drawn their supplies, not 
j from his hands alone, but from the whole 
t extent of the stream above him, and every 
s suoh enclosure that is made iu the upper 
j part of tho stream will diminish his re¬ 
ceipts. When fish are kept in the open 
! stream they never become so numerous as 
to give the results obtained by these exper- 
t 1 mentors, the reason obviously being that 
the enclosed portion of the stream presents 
to us, iu a concentrated form, the results 
due to the productive power of all that part 
of the stream that lies above it—a part that 
may be miles in extent. 
These obvious facts lead us directly to the 
weak point of artificial fish culture. So 
long ns the fish are led on the natural pro¬ 
ductions of the stream it will be profitable 
1 to raise them, but whenever the additional 
food that they require exceeds in amount 
that which can be procured as waste, their 
culture must fail to yield a profit. A cer¬ 
tain amount of cheap food, such as the offal 
of slaughtered cattle, und the curd of milk 
used for making butter, can always be ob¬ 
tained, but if we attempt to go beyond this 
and raise cattle and milk for the mere sake 
of the fish, the process cannot pay. Except 
in very peculiar situations, a gallon of milk 
is worth a great deal more thuu the amount 
of fish that it will produce. And yet in the 
face of these almost self-evident proposi¬ 
tions we hear the most extravagant ac¬ 
counts of the weight of trout that have 
been raised from the milk of one cow. 
The production of cheap fish depends, 
then, primarily upon the production of 
cheap animal food for them. Of course we 
now speak of such fish as trout, bass, porch, 
pickerel and other carnivorous fish, which, 
however, form the great bulk of the fish 
that are consumed by man us food. There 
are a few, such as carp, that feed partly on 
animal and partly on vegetable food, and 
fortunately for the fish culturut, there are 
numerous species of small fish that thrive \ 
well and multiply freely on a purely vege¬ 
table diet, though they all eat insects, \ 
worms and small fish when they get the 
chance. The trout is the most important 1 
fish on the list of the pisciculturist; its food ' 
consists chiefly of insects, small fish and \ 
worms. Of these, insects seem to be the < 
most fattening, aud worms the least so; the i 
following experiment, which to our mind is 1 
not conclusive, however, being adduced in { 
support of the proposition;—Equal num- l 
bers of trout were confined for a certain l 
time by gratings to three several portions 
of the same stream. The fish in one of „ 
the divisions were fed entirely upon flies; a 
in another upon minnows; and in the third i 
upon worms. At the end of a certain peri- 11 
od those which had been fed ou flies were ^ 
the heaviest and in the best condition; p 
those fed on minnows occupied the second t 
place; while those fed on worms were In J 
much the worst order of the three. 
Francis, who gives the details of this ex- c 
periment iu bis work on “ Fish Culture,” h 
says that the probability is that had auoth- 01 
er pen been set off, and the fish fed with a ^ 
mixture of all these species of food, they tl 
would have far exceeded auy of the others I J. 
. The in weight and condition. We are not told, 
of to- however, whether or not tho different lots 
more of fish were arranged one above the other; 
if this was the case, it is probable that the 
slk to relative positions of the fish had more to do 
off at with their condition than had the character 
ubout of the food supplied to them. Fish gener- 
six or ally depend for their supplies upon the food 
that is carried down the stream, and if the 
ter. several pens had been arranged one before 
■ the other, the fish in the upper pen would 
have taken all the best food for themselves. 
If, then, we exclude artificial feeding, ex¬ 
cept in tiie case of very young fish, we must 
__ ~ depend upon the following sources of food 
FOOD for tbe support of our stock1, the insects 
bred iu the water; 2, the small fish that feed 
chiefly on vegetables and insects; 3, insects 
blown on the water from tin- laud. The first 
sed a named source of food is altogether the most 
junds important. Insects are either vegetable 
id for feeders or they live upon dead animal mat- 
they and those microscopic aniinalcuhue that 
id red from their very minuteness escape the 
f this vision of larger animals, and. consequently, 
npor- I do not serve as food for ordinary fish. Aud 
deed, we risk nothing iu saying that tho key to 
esults successful fish culture will be found iu such 
small discoveries as will enable us to propagate 
UUS68 and raise large quantities of water insects 
ou of of ah kinds. To attain this end their habits 
doses must be observed, the kinds of food best 
cks it adapted to them must be studied, and 
nown everything that may tend to aid us In 
is, as raising them in largo quantities must be 
f fish carefully investigated. It will probably 
food then be found that an essential accessory of 
vioue every trout pond or stream is a series of 
i, not small pools In which are grown such vege- 
vhole tables as best promote the growth of these 
ivory peculiar insects that form the special food 
ipper of the trout. To these insect-breeding 
s re- places the trout should never be admitted, 
open lest they should so thin the stock that 
us as breeding would proceed too slowly. If kept 
eper- free from the intrusion of the trout, they 
that will mult iply very rapidly, and means should 
tents be provided for sending occasionally through 
suits I their inclosure a stream which will wash a 
part small quantity of them Into the main pond, 
that It is well known that it is owing to the mar¬ 
velously abundant insect life with which it 
i the supplied that the famous Caledonia ('reek 
So i* so well adapted to the raising of trout, 
pro- Ono cannot lift a stone or pull a weed in 
able that stream without finding it alive with in- 
onal sects or their larva*. 
ount In their native streams small fish form a 
heir considerable item in the bill of fare of every 
cur- good sized trout; but iu ponds and culti- 
offal vated streams tho raising of these small fish 
nilk is too expensive a process. Every otie of 
> ob- them will probably consume as many insects 
this as would have raised a trout of equal size, 
sake and after all they form but a mouthful for a 
sept large fish. It is well known that iu Scot- 
nilk land many lakes have been seriously injured 
uut by the introduction of minnows, from the 
the fact that these pigmies can follow the lu- 
losi- sects into the shallowest, water, and they 
ac- consequently destroy not only the surplus 
are that escape into the deep waters of the lake, 
but the breeding insects as well, 
ids The insects that fall into the water, or 
t f) f are blown iuto it from the shore, form an 
wc important part of the food of most fish iu 
"ch ponds and streams. It therefore becomes 
j c lj’ a serious question whether or not the injury 
g s l| inflicted by the falling leaves of deciduous 
ere trees is not more thau made up by the 
on insects which are attracted by those trees, 
l|t( j and which, in their fiutterings, fall into the 
are water. In all cases, however, low bushes 
,j ve are to be greatly preferred to tall trees. 
The particular species that should be 
^ * selected has not as yet, we believe, been 
ta ’ determined. 
the Iu its purely scientific aspect, fish culture 
:mt presents one of the most beautiful of those 
>od wondrous cycles which we find so constantly 
occurring iu nature. The sun-light falling 
ll,d on u sheet of water, starts into life myriads 
the of microscopic vegetable organisms which 
the not only absorb the deleterious organic 
I j 8 matter, such as the soluble parts of dead 
plants and animals, and thus purify the 
lu water and prepare it as a habitation for 
m- living animals, but they decompose the 
iin poisonous carbonic acid und replace it with 
ms life-giving oxygen, These minute plants, 
f most of which are visible only under pow- 
1,1 erful microscopes, and are therefore useless 
as food not. only to fish, but to the larger 
ird insects, become the prey of minute ani- 
,.j. maloules, most of which are themselves too 
small to be available as food to trout or even 
re lo minnows. But they are eagerly devoured 
n; by minute insects and crustacea which fat- 
ud ten rapidly upcm them, aud form in their 
j n turn admirable food lor the smaller fish and 
for those insects that are most valuable to 
the pisciculturist. And thus the circle is 
x- completed, unless where broken by the 
i," hands of man, for when these larger fish 
die a natural death they ultimately beoome 
food for the very microscopic plants from 
111 which, through" a long chain of changes, 
ey their substance was originally derived.— J 
irs I j. p. A 
