res 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
§?(Rg& 
cost in most places 10 ct#its per day, but not 
more than seven to eight cents in ordinary 
years; whilst 25 pounds of hay, at $12 per ton, 
would cost 15 cents per day, and produce a 
much less favorable result in feeding, showing 
that hay is dearer at $12 per ton than new- 
never goes much below 50 deg., or, better still, 
if kept pretty eveuly at 55 degrees, or a little 
more than 10 degrees below Summer temper¬ 
ature—when the food consumed to keep up 
animal heat will be reduced to a minimum for 
Winter. But if the stable boarding is full of 
broud cracks, giving only about the same pro¬ 
tection from cold winds as a high board fence, 
allowing the manure to freeze solidly—then all 
the heat carried off l;>y these numerous cur¬ 
rents of cold air must be balanced by chem¬ 
ically burning just so much more food in the 
stomach. This is an extravagant way to pro¬ 
duce the warmth which a good stable will fur¬ 
nish. Food is an expensive fuel. But some 
of our Western feeders think that corn is 
cheaper than shelter. Yet 1 think a few years 
of high prices for corn, like the present, w ill 
soon lead them to doubt this philosophy. 
When corn is only worth 15 cents a bushel it 
may, perhaps, come into competition with 
anthracite coal at $8 and $10 per ton, but not 
at 50 to 00 cents per bushel. But these feeders 
do not consider the whole case. Food is not 
given to growing or fattening animals simply 
to keep them warm and in their present con¬ 
dition, but also to make them grow and lay on 
flesh and fat, and increase in weight und value. 
From this increase must come all the possible 
profit. Yet in very severe Winter weather 
the best feeders under this system can only 
make the cattle hold their own. All the coni 
they can consume goes to furnish fuel and to 
supply w aste of the system, und therefore this 
heavy feeding is lost—no profitable result 
comes from it. In mild Winters fair progress 
may be made in the open air with heavy feed¬ 
ing, but February aud March often swallow' 
up all the progress or profit made in December 
and January , aud that must Lie called a very 
poor system which is liable to prove unprofit¬ 
able oftener than successful. Time must work 
a revolution in Western Winter feeding, as 
tw o bushels of corn are required to produce the 
6ame result as one in a good system of Eastern 
barn feeding. Can the feeder afford to double 
the amount of food to save the expense of 
good shelter—good stables < W arm aud per¬ 
manent stables may be built almost anywhere 
for $10 pel- head of cattle protected. The in¬ 
terest on this investment would be 00 cents 
per lioud per y T ear. Can all this extra corn lie 
t mashed for 60 cents t 
8ome of the best W estern feeders on a large 
scale, prominent among them Mr. Uiilett, of 
Illinois, wisely do their principal feeding in 
warm weather, In Mr. Giliett’s magnificent 
Blue Gross pastures will be found, placed at 
short intervals, troughs of abumiaut corn, 
which is eaten ad libitum by the steers, so that 
they are ready for shipment in the Fail, or, if 
kept into Winter, are in such superb condition 
that the weather has less apparent effect upon 
them. This plan assists in disguising the 
losses of open-air feeding in Winter. Barn- 
feeding lias never had a lair trial ill the West 
because the cattle are t here so Unaccustomed 
to handliug and restraint that when put m a 
barn they chafe under confinement so much 
as to neutralize all the benefits of warm shel¬ 
ter. They must be brought up to barn-ieediug 
and handling from calf-uood Oefore the bene¬ 
fits of good shelter can be appreciated. 
REPAIRING COJ,L> DARNS. 
Great improvements may be made in cold 
barns at very little expense. The part devoted 
to the stable may lie tui red out on the inside 
with inch-und-a-half by four-inch stuff, and 
then boarded horizontally on the Innings. 
This will leave a space of tour inches lietw een 
the boardings, to be tilled with sawdust, tan- 
bark, shavings or cut straw , w ell rammed in. 
Inclose a cold stable in this way on the inside 
and it will make it very comfortable for cattle 
in the coldest weather. This will cost the far¬ 
mer much less than its advantages lor a single 
Winter. This is one of the first economies to 
be considered and adopted. 
FEEDING STRAW, ETC. 
In many parts of the country the hay crop 
was under an average, and then the drought 
drew upon this stock of hay, making the VV in¬ 
ter supply stiff less, it w ill therefore be nec¬ 
essary to study the use of all the accessory 
fodders, such as the different kinds of straw, 
corn fodder, etc. Many people think straw 
has no feeding value except to give bulk in the 
stomach, etc. Let us see what chemistry says 
ou this point. We wall find how they compare 
with hay in the German experiments. And as 
tins journal circulates over sucu a w ide terri¬ 
tory, 1 will give a pretty luff list of straws, so 
us to be adapted to all parts of the country, i 
give only the proportion of digestible matter 
as found by actual experiment, giving meadow 
hay and clover for comparison:— 
will teach much. It shows that the poorest 
straw, Winter rye. is worth 55-100 as much as 
good meadow hay, and barley and oat 
straw 68-100 and 60-100, or more than two- 
thirds as much as hay. But all the straws, 
except pea and bean straw, are very poor in 
GOLDEN- SPOTTED PAD UAS, 
muscle-forming matter; but they all have a 
fair amount of digestible carbohydrates, or 
hef.tr-and-fat-forming food. The skillful feeder 
must, therefore, combine other foods rich in 
albuminoids with straw, and thus balance the 
constituents in the mixed food. The nutritive 
ratio of Winter wheat straw, it will be .seen, is 
very wide—1:45.8—whilst for feeding grow- 
process linseed meal at $25 per ton, and if the 
reader will turn to the table he will find it es¬ 
timated at 2}*' times the feeding value of hay. 
This table is intended to be supplementary to 
the table on page 699, and if the reader will 
turn back to the latter be will find most of the 
refuse grain foods explained, which can be 
used to feed with different kinds of straw, A 
Digestible 'A 
uuiilcmb. {j 
Malt sprouts ... 
cum meat. 
Wfuter wheat straw. 
Winter rye " . 
barley •• . 
Oat M . 
Pea •• ... 
beau “ . 
Seen clover *• . 
Corn stalks... 
Nicely-curej corn 1‘udUer... 
Curn-LobK... 
Sait marsh bay, good..... 
cmarse salt trass. 
Fresh marsh hay, cut ui June.. 
..August 
i To those who have not studied the compara¬ 
tive value of grain with hay the above table 
terial extent reduced in value over that trod 
down in the yard; for the principal part di¬ 
gested by the cattle consists in carbohydrates, 
which have no manurial value, as, if these 
were burned, no asb would be left. Stra w has 
an important quality of furnishing carbohy¬ 
drates to keep cattle warm, and the nutriment 
is sought in the other foods fed with it. Those 
foods rich in albuminoids aud in mineral ele¬ 
ments also produce the most valuable manure, 
so that the farmer who feeds bran, new-pro- 
eess linseed meal, cotton-seed meal and such 
kinds of food, gets back a large part of their 
cost in the enriched manure. 
CORN FODDER. 
It will be seen by our table that ordinary 
corn-stalks are not as good as barley r or oat 
straw, yet a ration made of these and a small 
amount of corn is generally considered ade¬ 
quate to the wants of cattle. Indian corn, as 
will lie seen by the table, is quite too poor in 
albuminoids to be used wholly to make up the 
deficiency of corn-stalks. Suppose 20 pounds 
of corn stalks are fed with eight pounds of 
corn meal, it would only give 89-100 of a 
pound of albuminoids; 12.34 pounds of carbo¬ 
hydrates and 40-100 pound of fat. This is quite 
inadequate in muscle-forming matter. But if 
four pounds of cotton-seed meal be substituted 
for four pounds of the corn meal, it will make 
a better balanced ration. Such poor fodder 
must be balanced by food very rich in albu¬ 
minoids, and those most usualty found in 
market are linseed meal, cotton-seed meal, 
malt sprouts and the various kinds of bran. 
If we take nicely-cured com fodder, cut 
when it fii-st, tassels—the case given in the ta¬ 
ble was a sample of fodder corn raised by Mr. 
Webb, of Connecticut, aud analyzed at the 
Connecticut Experiment Station—we find it 
very much better thau common corn-stalks. 
If we take 25 pounds of such cured corn fodder 
aud feed with it four pounds of linseed meal, 
the ration will have a nutritive ratio of 1:6— 
a very good ration for w intering stock—or five 
pounds of wheat bran may be fed instead of 
the linseed meal. This will bring stock through 
the Winter better than hay. 
By examining our tables the reader will see 
how he may feed all kinds of straw, marsh 
hay, iri fact, all kinds of farm refuse, by judi¬ 
ciously mixing in a little grain. Farmers 
should not sell off the regular amount of stock 
their farms can keep, because they happen in 
a year like this to bo short of hay. Sales, un¬ 
der such circumstances; must be made at a 
low figure, and, if they will purchase some of 
tue foods mentioned in the table, aud feed 
upon their coarse fodder, they will find their 
stock to come through the Winter in such 
fine condition that they will be well compen¬ 
sated for the outlay. I must not omit to 
say that a good cutter ought to be found ou 
every considerable stock farm. Straw, corn 
fodder and poor hay are much increased in 
value by running t hrough the cutter. In this 
condition, the ground linseed meal, cotton¬ 
seed meal, and ail the various kinds of bran, 
can he mixed with the short-cut fodder, and 
the meal and straw or the fodder must bo 
eaten together and tell raised and re-mastica¬ 
ted together—thus greatly aiding digestion. 
(L\)t Poiiltn) J) axtj. 
SOME STRANGE BIRDS. 
It should be gratifying to our poultry 
fanciers to know that there are yet other 
worlds to conquer and that the American 
Standard may in time enlarge its borders and 
its bounds and tike in some strangers as yet 
unknown to the American public. Every 
new accession to the ranks of the faucy 
poultry should have some distinguishing and 
valuable characteristic; otherwise it is not 
deserving of notice. One of the most remark¬ 
able of fowls, which l beg leave to introduce 
to notice, has a peculiarity differing from any 
other known breed. We have fat and fleshy 
fowls, some with plump breasts, some with 
long shanks, and some with rotund rumps, 
and some again are made up inside wholly of 
eggs. But there is a fowl that is said to 
possess all these qualifications, with one more 
that is as valuable ns all these together, viz., 
in that it offers to the smiter a neck already 
bare of feathers all ready to be twisted or to be 
amputated at a blow'. This is the Transylvan¬ 
ian fowl of which the accompanying portraits 
are taken from the new German Illustrated 
Iluud Book on Poultry Farming. How 
thoughtful is nature and how the fowl is 
evoiuting towards the bare possibility of an 
entirely feathexTess bird that is always ready 
plucked for the pot. The specimen before us 
certainly seems an approach in this direction. 
As a contrast to this ungainly bird may be 
mentioned the Sultan fowls which are nearly 
all feathers axul in which the plumage boils 
over, as it were, at every extremity. Its toes 
and legs are feathered profusely; the head is 
a complete ball of feathers and the tail hasn’t 
