to a premium yield, it being 23>£ ounces. 
His best hill, the product of a kernel which 
he expected to take the prize, was broken 
down by a heavy wind just before the ears 
matured. Had it not been for this accident 
his corn would doubtless have been among 
the very best. The mutilated hill which he 
exhibited with the main stalk broken off, 
showed that it would have been a bard one 
to beat. W. H. Van Sickle of Hills Branch, 
Cayuga County, sent in a sample. It was 
cut off from the roots, and he, therefore, en¬ 
tered merely for exhibition. But the yield 
was very large—43^ ounces. Geo. Cham¬ 
berlain of Southport, exhibited several spe¬ 
cimens, He showed single stalks yielding as 
high as 10J^ ounces. These were where the 
suckers bad been kept hum growing. Be 
treated one acre of his field in this way, lak- 
ing off the suckers after they were large 
enough to feed to stock. He found this to 
be the best acre he had ; the corn was all 
sound, ar.d the ears large and well filled. 
Among the varieties shown by Mr. Cham¬ 
berlain were the red blaze and Hoffman dent. 
The first premium corn was grown in Brad¬ 
ford County, Pa. It was an eight-rowed va¬ 
riety and well matured. The second pre¬ 
mium corn was the large red Ohio, not suited 
for general production in this locality. The 
stalks were nearly fifteen feet long. Some 
of the ears yielded a pound of shelled corn 
each. The third premium corn exhibited by 
Mr, Lain was a small variety. Mr. Luin’s 
corn had more stalk than any ot her entry, 
and indeed it troubled the committee to de¬ 
termine whether it- was all the prodHct of a 
single kernel. The young man who raised it 
deserved great credit for the spirit shown in 
the work. 
The various premium lots were differently 
treated with fertilizers. The fourth premi¬ 
ss easily worth twenty to twenty-five dol¬ 
lars. Something must be sold from the land. 
Why not prefer those crops which bring the 
most, income with the least exhaustion of 
the soil ? 
But the wheat and oats sold has mainly 
come from the soil, and from the valuable 
surface soil at that. Clover is a renovating 
crop, mainly because it derives a large por¬ 
tion of its growtli from the air, while its 
long, deep roots strike into the subsoil, ad¬ 
mitting light and air, and heat, and also 
bringing from the subsoil mineral elements 
of fertility, which other plants would he un- 
During the second growth of 
This is nearly, or quite, impossible, as the 
strongest will chase all over the ground, 
driving the weaker ones away. I am of the 
opinion that treading food under foot does 
not in the least improve ifcs eating qualities. 
Syracuse, N. Y. Nelson Bitter. 
secondly, give them varied food and plenty 
of it. 
I feed principally com through the win¬ 
ter, but vary it with wheat, oats, buckwheat 
and meat scraps. Part of the com I feed 
whole, and a part I have cracked or ground 
into meal, I prefer the cracked. I feed 
whole grain at night and the ground in the 
morning, on the principle that through the 
long night they need something that- will 
stand by them ; that having digested all 
their night’s feed by morning, they need 
something that Ithey can act upon quickly. 
For the same reason, in the very coldest 
weather, when I go out to give them their 
morning’s feed 1 carry a basin of warm 
water from the tea-kettle and wet up their 
dough with that. It wifi warm them quickly 
and make them feel comfortable—an essen¬ 
tial, as I have before said, to a supply of 
eggs. The wheat I feed is screenings, which 
can be had at any feed store or grist mill. 
Meshed potatoes, fed warm, are just the 
vegetable food they need, and were I on a 
farm 1 should carefully husband a few bush¬ 
els of the small potatoes for this purpose. 
The meat scraps I buy of the butcher in 
large cakes, and 1 believe it to be as cheap as 
corns, while it answers a purpose like that 
of the bugs and worms in summer. 
FRENCH HEN’S NEST 
The care bestowed by the French upon 
their poultry amounts to devotion. An il¬ 
lustration of it is to be seen in the nests for 
hens, which are artistic and cosy enough to 
tempt Biddy to lay on forever. Any one 
clpv.r enougli u> 
fastening them 
to the wall. Too great care cannot be ob¬ 
served in keeping them sweet and clean, and 
fit for the repose of so matronly and tidy a 
creature as Madame Poulet. Fresh hay 
should be often added, and during the sum¬ 
mer the nests should be taken down at least 
once a month, thoroughly beat en and scald¬ 
ed, if whitewashed all the better, and French 
poultriers pprfnrae them with vinegar, or by 
holding them over the fumes of aromatic 
substances, like juniper-tar or mint. 
Parts, France. MAky A. E. Wages. 
able to reach 
clover, from June to September, on which 
its seed is perfected, its roots strike deeper, 
and make a larger growth than if the clover 
ts eaten or mown down. The advantage of 
a dense shade over the ground during the 
hot summer months is also considerable, and 
probably this in itself offsets the fertility 
removed in the clover seed. No doubt the 
gain would be still greater if clover were 
allowed to seed, and then were all plowed 
under, or left to fall back into the ground. 
But tills could be said quite as truly of any 
other crop as of clover seed, and with more 
propriety of crops which are more exhaust¬ 
ive, and whose seed is not so valuable. It 
seems almost laughable to hear newspaper 
writers complaining of farmers for not using 
clover seed, worth six dollars a bushel for 
manure, when any such use of far less ex¬ 
pensive grains would bo universally con¬ 
demned as wasteful. It would be truer 
economy to save the clover seed, and lest 
the soil should become sterile sow two or 
three bushels of wheat per acre as manure. 
To such nonsense, and worse, will theorizing 
on practical subjects lead writers for the ag¬ 
ricultural press. 
Wc do not underrate the importance of 
clover seed, which we believe the cheapest 
and best manure American farmers ever 
used ; but in saving it ever so carefully, much 
of it will fall upon the ground. This scat¬ 
tered clover seed is by no means lost, but 
will help the clover-catch in after years 
whenever the field is leseeded. This is, pos¬ 
sibly, another reason why fanners who grow 
clover seed, and sell large amounts every 
year, arc always becoming rich. No man 
can grow and sell clover seed without giving 
his own farm a good seeding. He cannot get 
clover to seed without having the largest 
growth of clover root s of which the soil is 
capable, nor without having considerable 
clover hay, fortunately, worth but little for 
selling, but excellent food for stock and 
making rich and good manure. 
THE POULTRY-KEEPER.—NO. 31 
PLUMAGE OF CUCKOO TOWLS. 
The Cuckoo feather is so called on account 
of the resemblance in the coloring and ar¬ 
rangement of the tints to those which cover 
RESULTS OF A CORN TRIAL, 
Fig. 44.—Hen’s Feather, 
the bird of this name. The feathers are 
bluish-black, more or less dark, softening by 
half tints on a white ground, and coming 
again at little intervals nearly equal, and 
because of the length of the feathers from 
the down, which is of a clear greyish-blue as 
far as their ends. 
The Elmira Advertiser report the history 
and conclusion of an interesting competition 
in growing corn as follows : 
Some time since Mr. Conrad Wilson, a 
member of the New York Farmers’ Club, 
presented to the Elmira Farmers’ Club a 
portfolio of pictures valued at over one hun¬ 
dred dollars, to be given in four premiums 
to the most successful four competitors in 
growing large yields of corn from a single 
kernel. The Husbandman added to the pre¬ 
miums a Ricker corn sheller. The Farmers’ 
Club a steel plow. Chemung Valley Grange 
a corn cultivator and for the fourth premium 
in addition to the five pictures, a self sharp¬ 
ening hoe was offered. The pictures have 
been on exhibition at the Club Hall for the 
past six months, and have been greatly ad¬ 
mired as fine works of art, reflecting great 
credit on the donor, Mr. Wilson. 
The Husbandman states that the trial was 
an affair of much interest. It attracted to 
the Farmers’ Club Hall many prominent 
corn growers of Chemuag County, and some 
from quite distant counties. There were 
Judge Balcom and Charles Balcom of Steu¬ 
ben CouDt.y, James Miller of Yates County, 
and other friends of the Club who came to 
the city to witness this exhibition, some 
of them bringing samples of their products. 
Entries for the show were made from many 
different States in all sections of the coun¬ 
try. Entries were made from Canada, even. 
But many of them were not. received on the 
day of trial, owing, perhaps, to a failure to 
develop expected growth. Mr. Samuel 
Thompson of Kensington, Conn., sent a sam¬ 
ple of New England corn. It was a large 
variety, the yield was ounces. Com 
was planted May 17. Bam yard manure 
used. Milton Rude of Weedsport, Cayuga 
County, was one of the competitors, but did 
not carry off a prize. Charles Balcolm of 
Painted Post, exhibited a very fine sample of 
corn, which yielded well for the Dumber of 
ears. S. M. Carr of Elmira, showed an ex¬ 
cellent variety ; and the yield was very close 
KEEPING SWEET POTATOES 
The cultivators of sweet potatoes in the 
South do not find it very difficult to keep the 
tubers through winter in very much the 
same manner as our northern farmers do 
their Irish potatoes. But the climate of the 
two regions of country is so widely differ¬ 
ent that a method of preservation which an¬ 
swers admirably for one maybe totally un¬ 
suited to the other. In addition to this, the 
maturity of the tubers has much to do with 
their keeping qualities, and thisis ju&t where 
the northern grown fall short of the proper 
conditions for making a good and safe be- 
giDDiDg. The tubers are very likely to be 
halt ripe when frosts and cool weather hast¬ 
en the digging, consequently, they are more 
or less biuised and broken in handling, de- 
CLOVER SEED NOT AN EXHAUSTING 
CROP. 
It is well understood that most plants ex¬ 
haust the fertility of the soil more in per¬ 
fecting their seed than in growing their other 
portions—leaf, stems and roots. This is true 
of wheat, rye, barley, and probably of all 
the grains, as also of timothy and other 
grasses. The experience of farmers accords 
with the deductions of science in this partio 
ular : but a correspondent of the N. Y. Her¬ 
ald, doubtless reasoning from analogy, makes 
the same statement respecting clover, 
and cautions farmers not to grow too much 
clover seed lest their land should be impov¬ 
erished. We do not, of course, dispute that 
clover seed takes from the soil some import¬ 
ant fertilizing elements; but their loss is 
more than compensated for by other advant¬ 
ages, and clover, even when grown for seed, 
possibly chiefly when grown thus, is one of 
the best ameliorating and renovating crops. 
The caution to farmers not to grow clover 
seed is contradicted by universal experience, 
and may safely be set down as bad advice. 
A crop of clover seed is rarely more than 
three to four bushels per acre, often not 
more than two bushels. The one hundred to 
two hundred pounds of seed thus abstracted 
from the soil is not any more exhaustive of 
fertility than the same weight of wheat, or 
even of oats. Four bushels of wheat would 
possibly sell, on an average, for from 5 to 6 
dollars. Four bushels of clover seed are just 
FEEDING POULTRY. 
Mt experience agrees most emphatically 
with “Daily Rural Life” in the Rurajl of 
Sept. 25 upon the subject of feeding poultry. 
I have kept from 80 to 300 hens for the past 
ten years, aud have fed from hoppers most 
of the time, being well satisfied that hens 
will eat and waste less, as well as thrive 
better, than by the broadcast system of feed¬ 
ing. I have been somewhat ashamed of this 
way of feeding, it being so different from 
what the books advise; but now, when we 
have such high authority as “ Daily Rural 
Life ” for this practice, 1 can continue it and 
hold up my head among my fellow-men. 
Perhaps if we knew just how much our 
chickens should eat, and how often ; if we 
could feed at stated times, throwing out feed 
to them would be the better way. I find 
this difficult and prefer to allow poultry to 
eat as they choose, and have been reasona¬ 
bly successful. 
People require different quantities of food 
at different times. Why should it not be so 
with our poultry ? 
One writer says, “ Scatter the feed so 
widely that all can get an equal chance.” 
