22 
APRIL 2 
THE 
times to the verge of raehnesB, but in this 
matter it must still advise caution. 
We certainly add nothing to the corn fodder 
by tanking it, and we lose very little by drying 
it. We may certainly consid r to advantage 
the different ways of treating and feeding corn 
fodder. 
To those who feed either store cattle or 
milch cows in the Winter, corn fodder offers an 
article of forage too valuable to be neglected. 
It iB much more valuable than what we com¬ 
monly call " corn-stalks "—that is, the straw 
or stover of corn which has ripened. 
Corn-stalks are always well-cured if handled 
in the usual way ; that is, cut up just before 
frost; “6tooked ” at once and left to diy and 
cure in the stook exposed to all vicissitudes of 
weather. By the. time the ears are fit to husk, 
the stover may usually be bundled and stack¬ 
ed ; at any rate, if left a few weeks in larger 
stooks. it will be well-cured with veiy little 
labor. 
It is exactly so with corn fodder. It should 
be sown so late that it will not be over-ripe by 
the time we expect frost—say the 15th of Sep¬ 
tember. Then it should be cut up and stooked, 
without binding, in bundles, so that the air 
can go through it, the stooks being bound at 
the top. Later it may be bundled and stacked. 
There will be no molding, the leaves will be 
bright and green, the odor sweet. 
The fact that corn fodder, when it is cured 
and secured for Winter use among common 
farmers, sells for about the same price as corn¬ 
stalks, i6 no evidence of the comparative value 
of the two articles. The corn fodder is cer¬ 
tainly much more valuable. We have few 
analyses of corn fodder, and no comparative 
experiments in feeding by which its feeding 
value has bsen accurately determined. It is 
recognized as good fodder for milch cows, 
especially if fed with corn-meal, bran, or oil- 
meal of some kind, and it has the reputation 
of exciting a flow of milk. 
When well-pitted or " ensilaged" it is wholly 
eaten, and. if fed with suitable additions of 
grain-feed, is fattening and gives a good yield 
of milk. The disadvantages connected with 
"ensilaging” maize are, 1st, the handling of 
enormous quantities of water and, 2nd, 
considerable loss of nutritive elements, and 
the danger of very great Iqrs if the process be 
imperfectly done, or the fodder (ensilage) be 
exposed too much to the air after the pit is 
opened. 
An admirable system of feeding corn fodder 
has for several years been followed at the 
Michigan Agricultural College, and it seems to 
give quite as good results as "ensilage.” It is 
this: the fodder is cured in the ordinary way, 
and, when fed, is cut by horse power into 
pieces two or three inches long. It is 
spread out over the floor in a confined space 
about six inches thick. Over it, to the depth of 
about three inches, pulped mangels or sugar 
beets are spread. These are " pulped " as fine 
as apple pomace, by an English machine called 
a "root-pulper —we know of none manufac¬ 
tured in this country. 
These layers of corn fodder and pulped roots 
are repeated until the mass is several feet in 
thickness, when it is compacted somewhat by 
tramping and covered with a piece of canvas 
or similar covering. A heat soon come6 on 
and after two or three days, according to the 
weather, it is ready to feed, and is giveu to the 
cows steaming. The quantity made at once 
Bhould be enough to last three days; for if 
kept longer it may become over heated or too 
sour. Meal or bran, or any provender of the 
kind, may be added when the heap is made, 
and very little loss takes place if the mass is 
fed before it heats too much. The whole is 
eaten, and, so far as we can see, a better con¬ 
trol of the fodder is had, with less expense of 
labor arid apparatus than is required for "en¬ 
silage." The practical question as to. which 
system gives best results can not be discussed 
—for we have no comparative results. 
But manifestly, in so far as flavor is on 
cerned, that may be got in other ways than by 
steaming. Animalsmay be made toeatlargeiy 
both by incorporating appetizing flavors with 
their rougher food and by feeding out to them 
daily a varielyof foods, the lees palatable being 
placed before them first and the more palatable 
later, after tbeir appetites have begun to flag. 
It has long been recognized, In some of the 
best agricultural districts, that in fattening 
animals it is good economy to give them so 
much and so palatable food that they shall be 
induced to eat the largest possible amount of 
it. The long-continued success of the English 
and Scotch systems of fattening neat stock, 
which have only recently been crippled by the 
importation into Great Britain of American 
cattle, seems to have been largely dependent 
upon bountiful feeding, much in the same 
sense that the methods of fattening boge in our 
Eastern and Middle States depend on ample 
rations. The idea is illustrated still more for¬ 
cibly by the custom of cramming foo l down 
the throatB of geese and other poultry, which 
prevails in some parts of Continental Europe. 
And this custom is specially interesting since 
the successful results obtained by it go to 
show that the powers of digestion in an 
animal must be greater than its natural capac¬ 
ity of eating food. If animals can be safely 
crammed with food by actually forcing it down 
tbeir throats, there would seem to be no great 
risk in tempting their appetites to the utmost, 
for, let us do our best, we are not likely to 
reach Id this way the limit of their powers of 
digestion. It is important to remember, in 
this connection, that, as regards any one single 
fodder, t^ch as hay for example, the percen¬ 
tage amouut of it digested remains essentially 
the same, no matter whether the animal re¬ 
ceives much or little of it. 
11.47 pounds of food and gained 0 21 pound 
of flesh per day; and when fed upon 31.9 
pounds of clover hsy and 0.11 pound of salt, 
he digested 14 32 pounds of food and gained 
0 84 pound of flesh. For every 100 pounds of 
albuminoids digested. 11 pounds of flesh were 
deposited from the smaller and lopoundefrom 
the larger ration. In all these trials, the deposi¬ 
tion of flesh was larger when the ration was 
most liberal and the gains obtained by increas¬ 
ing the rations were got in a highly advantag¬ 
eous way, economically speaking, since the 
rate of gain of flesh was larger than the rate at 
which the food was expended. 
The use of "relishes," in conjunction with 
ordinary food, is plainly justified by the facts 
above stated, since by means of them animals 
may be induced to feed more freely and profit¬ 
ably than they would otherwise. In this sense 
itonight be possible to improve to an appre¬ 
ciable degree the quality of hay or straw by 
diffusing through it the flavor of oil-meal, 
corn-meal, carrots, shorts, or the like, although 
the actual amount of the addition, when re¬ 
garded merely as food, might be well-nigh in¬ 
significant. In the same way as these relishes, 
ensilage, steamed hay, and sweated hay un¬ 
doubtedly do good service by provoking the 
appetites of animals. Some farmers have been 
not a little pnzzled, at one time and another, 
to account for the fact that better results are 
often obtained on feeding out hay which has 
undergone some slight fermentation by cur- 
ingin cocks, than can be got from the same 
sort of grass cured quickly and to all appear¬ 
ance as nicely as possible in the swathes where 
it is freely exposed to air and sunlight. Of 
course there is a liability of losing a larger 
proportion of the better parts of the hay, by 
the crumbling of delicate leaves, in the process 
of sun-drying, and particularly with clover 
through the latter part of Summer. Valuable.’’ 
According to the best information we can 
glean, it succeeds well in Massachusetts, Mich¬ 
igan, Louisiana, and fairly well in Maine, New 
Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York. Ontario, 
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, 
Indiana, Illinois, Nebraeka, Missouri, Utah, 
California and Mississippi.—See first page. 
MORE ABOUT THE EARLY TILLOTSON 
PEACH. 
In the Horticultural Department of the 
Country Gentleman, of the 10t,h of March, the 
Editor takes occasion to criticise my remarks, 
in the Rural New-Yorker of February 5th. 
respecting the Early Tillotson Peach. 
I freely admit the undoubted ability of the 
critic to communicate rare and valuable in¬ 
formation on this, as well as on most other 
subjects pertaining to horticulture; and that, 
in the article alluded to, he communicates 
some facts not generally kuowu. I do not 
attempt to discuss the matter through the 
editor’s own columns, for the reason that I 
long since learned the futility of attempts to 
meet such a dignitary ou his own "stamping 
grouud." My reason for giving it attention 
will be found in the fact that the criticism 
seems to proceed upon the assumption that I 
have spoken hastily, and even incorrectly npon 
the subject. 
I intentionally left the date of the introduc¬ 
tion of this peach indefinite, fixing it about 
1845 or 1850. Exception seems to be taken to 
the remark that this peach came before the 
public "with quite a flourish of trumpets." 
To this I reply that, in January. 1848, (Genesee 
Farmer, pages 58 and 50,) David Thomas, re¬ 
plying to a query of the previous month, says: 
" In onr heavy loam the fruit has always been 
very fine, when the ground has beeu well cul¬ 
tivated ; and earlier than any other valuable 
sort in my collection, except the Early Ann 
which ripens tbr .e or four days before it.” * * 
* "Had I only known of its excellence iu 
time, and planted it as extensively as I might 
have done, it would have yielded me, this sea- 
s n, a large sum " This was practically In¬ 
dorsed, at the lime, by P. Barry, who was at 
that time the conductor of the Horticultural 
Department. The only other notice of this 
peach of any special import in this connection, 
is the description supplied by Mr J. J. Thom¬ 
as, as he states, to A. J. Downing, forinsertion 
In the first edition of hie "Fruits and Fruit 
Trees of Americaand which appears on page 
475 of that work. This edition is dated 1S46; 
the date of the preface being May, 1845 in 
this description, Mr. Downing (In introducing 
it) remarks: "The Early Tillotson is unques¬ 
tionably one of the most desirable of all the 
very early freestone peaches.” And Mr. J J 
Thomas, in his description, says: "It is much 
higher-flavored than any peach that ripens 
previously, nr for some days after it, and as a 
garden variety, is entitled to universal favor.” 
Although, as I well knew, this peach had 
been long known locally, it was assumed, as 
I still believe, that up to the period named, it 
had not become generally and favorably known 
away from Central New York. I also take 
occasion to remark that the era of extended 
advertising and extravagant puffing had hard¬ 
ly yet dawned upon the horticultural world; 
hence I claim to be warranted in the remark, 
as applied to that period, that this was, in 
fact, " quite a flourish of trumpets.” 
Facts possibly may not warrant the assump¬ 
tion that the period named is properly that of 
the introduction of the variety to the porno- 
logical world; but I am not yet convinced of 
error in this particular. T. T. Lton. 
PLAN OF A SILO 
The foregoing systems of forcing the process 
of fattening are not only justified by tbeir 
practical results, but scientific investigations 
go to show that there is sound sense in the 
idea of inducing fatting animals to glut them¬ 
selves with food. That is to say, it has been 
shown by experiments that the gain of flesh in 
the process of fattening is relatively larger 
when animals are luxuriously fed than when 
their rations are merely liberal. For example, 
the German chemists Henneberg and Sr.ohmann 
fed a 1400-pound ox on a ration composed of 
11 pounds of clover hay, 11 pounds of wheat 
straw, 10.34 pounds of crackc-d horse beans, 
3 41 pounds of sugar, 0 44 pound of rupe-seed 
oil. and 0 105 pound of salt, and found that 
0 68 pound of actual flesh (albuminoid mat¬ 
ters) was deposited within the animal every 
day. They then increased the ration so that it 
consisted of 11 pounds of clover hay, 11 pounds 
of wheat straw. 12 87 pounds of cracked beaus 
3 08 pounds of starcb, 0 66 pound of rape seed 
oil, and 0 165 pound of salt; but as a conse¬ 
quence of this change the daily gain of actual 
flesh rose to 1 31 pound. The ratio of albu¬ 
minoids to carbohydrates in the two rations 
was almost precisely the same, viz. 1 to 4 3 
and 1 to 4 2, respectively. The real dif- 
ereuce between the two rations was that the 
amount of digestible food was considerably 
larger in the second than in the first. The 
animal was found to have digested 19 65 
pounds of food per day in the one case and 
21.41 pounds in the other. Yet for every 100 
pounds of albuminoids digested, only 18 pounds 
were deposited as flesh in the first instance, 
while 82 pounds were deposited as flesh in the 
second instance. 
The same thing was seen in some experi¬ 
ments where nothing but clover hay wub fed 
out, in larger and smaller quantities. An ox 
fed upon 22 44 pounds of clover hayand0.il 
pound of salt, gained 0.132 pound of flesh 
per day; but when fed upon 27 5 pounds of 
the clover hay and 0.11 pound of salt he 
gained 0.275 pound of flesh pei day. In the 
one case the animal digested 9.87 ponndo of 
food, and in the other 12 84 pounds. For each 
100 pounds of albuminoids digested there were 
deposited 14 pounds of flesh from the more 
abundant ration and nine pounds from the 
more moderate allowance. 
Yet again, an ox fed on 26.51 pounds of 
clover hay and 0.11 pound of salt, digested 
THE PRIMATE APPLE 
The Primate Apple is the best Summer 
apple we have. It is of medium to large size; 
skin yellowish-white, often with a handsome 
blush on the cheek exposed to the sun; flesh 
very tender and crisp, of a pleasant sub-acid 
flavor, excellent for dessert or cooking, and 
ripens gradually for a long time. Last season 
it ripened as early as the middle of July, and 
was in use for at least two months. The 
tree is a stont, vigorous grower, a good and 
early bearer. If any one has but a single tree 
it should be the Primate. Its origin is, accord¬ 
ing to Downing, unknown. ;it must be over 30 
years since I obtained and set grafts of it 
under tbe name of Sour Harvest, and not until 
I had grown and fruited the Early Harvest did 
I learn the difference. I suppose in this counly 
at least, and I think in the State, nine out of 
ten, if not 99 out of 100, who know it at all, know 
it only as the Sour Harvest, and if they were 
ordering a Irec of a nursery they would order 
this by that name; and if they got an Early 
Harvest, which the nurseryman would be jus¬ 
tified in Bending, they would pronounce him 
a fraud when the tree came luto bearing. 
It is not an uncommon thing to And a 
fruit attain greater celebrity under a wrong or 
improper name than under the rightful one. 
For instance, the White Doyenne Pear was 
long and widely known in this State as Vir- 
galieu, and thousands of old resUeuts know it 
by no other name to this day. The New Rochelle 
Blackberry attained its greatest notoriety under 
the name of Lawton, and the Pine Apple was 
the popular name for the Scotch Runner and 
Crimson Cone Strawberries. E Williams 
Montclair, N. J. 
PrImate —Mr. J. J. Thomas says of this 
applethatitis ’.'medium in Bize, light-green, be¬ 
coming light-yellow, often with a slight blush; 
fine-grained, very juicy, with a very agreeable 
mild sub-acid flavor. Ripens for several weeks 
TOBACCO CULTURE.-NO. 5 
ECONOMY OF USIHG APPETIZING FOOD 
FOR FATTENING ANIMALS, 
G. A. GOFF, JR 
" Worming.” 
Very soon after tobacco plauts commence 
growing in the Add they are usually attacked 
by the tobacco worm—Sphiux Carolina. This 
woim, which is so well known by tobacco 
growers, is the larva of a dusky, brown- 
wiDged miller, nearly as large a6 a humming 
bird, which may be seen flying through and 
about tobacco fields ou warm nights in July 
and August, depositing its small, greenish 
eggs on the surface of the tobacco leaves. The 
worm, when first hatched, is very small—Dot 
more than an eighth of an inch in length; but 
it commences its work of destruction imme¬ 
diately and iu five or six days has gained 
such a size as to be readily Been. Up to this 
time the damage done to the tobacco is small; 
but at this stage of its existence the worm un¬ 
dergoes a change, throwing off its old coat or 
skin and coming out in a new dress, From this 
date on its growth in very rapid and unites 
something is done to prevent its ravages on the 
plants, the damage to the crop will be very 
serious. A*large worm will sometimes render 
a plant utterly worthless In a few days, hence 
PROFESSOR F. H. STOKER 
It is not a little interesting to observe how 
the gradual introduction into this country of 
the European process of preserving green 
fodder in pits Is likely to direct renewed atten¬ 
tion to the real significance of palatable food, 
just as was the case some years since when the 
idea of steaming fodder was prominent. It 
was thought, indeed, at one time that the pro¬ 
cess of steaming fodder increased its digest¬ 
ibility and that a part of the merit of Bteaming 
depended upon this supposed fact as well as 
upon the palatableness of the steamed food; 
but now that it is known that the digestibility 
of the components of hay and Btraw is not in¬ 
creased by steaming, the true significance of 
the appetizing character of the steamed food 
has become all the more apparent. The chief 
merits of Bteamed food consist clearly in its 
softness, warmth, and especially in the 
agreeable flavor which is easily imparted to It 
by additions of meal or the like and because 
of which animals are induced to eat it freely. 
