up while green, and their loss by shelling be 
avoided. 
Bean Straw is excellent feed for sheep, and 
shonld be carefully saved for that purpose. 
When fed with beans or other grain, it mak^s a 
very rich warm manure, quite as good as. if not 
better than clover. I know a farmer who every 
winter fattens a considerable number of sheep, 
tised with you, and sold plants to a number of 
your readers. To allay any suspicion which they 
may possibly have, let me give the following 
testimonial from Chas. V. Mosler, and A. J. 
Smith, which is affirmed to, before a notary. 
“ By request of Mr. Wilson, on the 17th day of 
May, we selected throe plants of Oomfrey in his 
field ; we cut the tops and weighed them. A gain 
fatten any animal, while it costs little trouble to 
grow it. Few animals will voluntaiily eat it at 
first, as it has what is to them a disagreeable 
odor. Before feeding them to stock, the leaves 
should be run through a cutting machine, or cut 
with a knife, wetted and mixed with bran or 
meal, with u little salt, added. The animal to be 
initiated into their nse, should be confined after 
fasting one night; then after breakfasting on 
Comfrey. bay should be fed at noon, and at 
night more Comfrey, and when this has bean 
eaten, more hay. gradually decreasing hay and 
ground food, and increasing Comfrey. in three 
or four days the trouble is over, and your stock 
will grow to like it better daily, I have demon¬ 
strated to my satisfaction that it increases the 
flow of milk in cows, and improves the flavor 
greatly. Pigs will thrive nicely on Comfrey and 
plenty of water. I have several thousand plants 
growing under large apple trees. Those that 
the sun has never shone on, thrive as well as 
those exposed to his rays. I think they will do 
well in a wood where the growth is not too dense. 
There are readers of the Rural who have plants 
enough to make a fair test, will they make it 
and give the result before winter ? a. a. w. 
Niagara Co., N. Y. 
THE CULTIVATION OF SORGHUM 
The continued high price of Bugar coupled 
with the fact that the United States import 
$75,000,000 worth annually, gives importance 
to any effort which may, in part or whole, tend 
to supply this deficiency. One of the means 
of increasing the supply of syrup, if not 
of sugar, is the cultivation of the sorghum 
plant, Sorghum saocharatum, now extensively 
introduced all through the central Western 
States. Two species of this cane have been in¬ 
troduced, the true sorghum from China, and 
another from Africa, called Imphee; bat 
this is of less value for cultivation. 
Sorghum was first introduced into France in 
1851 and into the United States in 1856, since 
which time its use has extended quite rapidly ; 
machinery for grinding it has been provided, 
and tbe process of cultivation and evaporation 
has beoome well understood. Sorghum grows 
on any ground suitable for corn, but well repays 
high fertility. The plant resembles Indian corn 
before its seed-clusters come out, and grows to a 
bight of from eight to eighteen feet. The cul¬ 
tivation is the same as for corn ; the stalks are 
cut just before frost, the leaves stripped off for 
fodder, and tho stalks pressed. 
Well-ripeued stalks yield half their weight in 
juioe, and from five to ten gallons of juice are 
required for one gallon of syrup. The yield of 
syrup averages from 150 to 175 gallons per acre. 
CHAMBER 
CHAMPLAIN AND DEFIANCE, 
Crittenden Co., Vt., Sept, 18. 
Excessive wet daring seed-time, a drought of 
a severity never before experienced in onr 
Champlain Valley when wheat was filling its 
heads, and at harvest frequent, almost daily 
rains, combined to mako the past season very 
trying here for wheat, yet wilh onr growers the 
Champlain and Defiance hold their reputation 
for superiority. To sow cereals thinly in de¬ 
tached plots and fertilize the crop liberally is to 
invite tho attacks of rust, midge. &c. When the 
weather became bad, I expected I should hear 
reports of many failures with my new varieties ; 
but I still hope their dissemination will do agri¬ 
culture some good. C. G. Pringle. 
CHAM BE R 
iPJUA.N OP SECOND 
who finds profit in feeding not only his own 
bean straw, but as much more as he can buy at 
low rates from farmers who grow beans but, 
keeping no Bheep, have no use for the straw. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. W. j, Fowler. 
STORY.—[See 1st pago.J 
on the first day of July, 1878, we cut the same 
plants and weighed them. The total amount of 
the two cuttings of the three plants was 61J*j 
pounds. We believe there were many other 
plants fully as large. We witnessed stock eating 
the plants with apparent relish, and Mr. J. 
Craine, president of the Niagara Farmers Club, 
was present at tbe second cutting, and thinks the 
plant a valuable one for its intended purposes.” 
At 3 feet apart there are 4820 plants on an 
acre. There were 20% lbs. for each plant, for 
the two cuttings, which would make at the rate 
of 49 810-2000 tons to tbe acre, to July 1st. 
Both cuttings should have been cut one week 
earlier. Five weeks will mature a growth. As 
it grows early and late in the season, six cuttings 
may be made in this latitude. My plants had 
no fertilizer from the time they were pat out, a 
year before, till after the first cutting. If any 
JOTTINGS AT KIRBY HOMESTEAD, 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
A CHAMPION OF PRICKLY COMFREY 
In regard to escutcheons, we are willing to 
admit that a good cow generally has a large or 
w. 11 developed escutcheon, but that the theory 
is without exceptions is a mistake. A nicely de¬ 
veloped escutcheon is a handsome feature in a 
cow, and also in a bull, and with stock-breeders 
it is considered a valuable point, and in the 
scale of points of the Jersey Cattle Club it is 
considered important. It is, however, more 
fanciful than a woli developed and well shaped 
udder, or prominent milk veins. The shiipe of 
the body we should consider a more important 
feature, and we should prefer a cow with a poor 
escutcheon, and properly formed in the body, to 
one with ever so much width and outline of 
escutcheon, and a beefy and unmilk-hke form. 
It may be urged that a cow with a fine escut¬ 
cheon would not have such an inconsistent 
form ; but, nevertheless, such is frequently the 
case, and all cows of this style are poor milkers. 
morns OI j/riciuy uomfrey, and our reasons 
therefor, but as our only interest in the question 
is to discover the truth and to guard onr readers 
against a possible imposition, we deem it only 
just that they should be placed In possession of 
both sides of the question, so as to be in a posi¬ 
tion to form an intelligent opinion upon it. Ac¬ 
cordingly we readily place before them the fol¬ 
lowing communication from Mr. Wilcox, whose 
first letter on the same subject, inauy of them 
A patch of orchard-grass in the door-yard is 
now being mowed for the third time this season. 
The blades will average 16 inches in length. 
Now and then a tussock has sent up a few 
stalks, which have headed out. The young pigs 
get a feeding twice a day of this green grass or 
the BtalkB of the sweot corn, after the ears have 
been plucked off for cooking. This green feed 
keeps the pigs healthy, and helps out where 
there are more pigs than cows. The old rule. 
“ a pig to a cow," we never could live np to, as 
we invariably have several pigs to a cow, and so 
the orchard-grass and all the weeds about the 
garden help very much to keep the pigs grow¬ 
ing. 
HARVESTING BEANS. 
The work of harvesting beans is slow, tedious 
and laborious. If bad weather comes while the 
crop is exposed, there is the additional danger 
of its making the beaUB unsalable. A dry time 
is important, but at this season we cannot al¬ 
ways be sure of dry weather. Beaus left on the 
ground after pulling are easily injured by wet. 
It is not so much tho water as the mixture of 
earth with it which rots the pods and discolors 
the beaus. 
To keep the Beans from the ground la 
therefore the first requisite to success. I know 
nothing better for this than to take a couple of 
fence boards or rails, place them side hv 
Mann's, .a few days ago. It was made from 
Clawson wheat. Miss Mann, who made the 
bread, said, ut first the Hour was so poor she 
could not mako good bread out of it, but the 
miller had learned how to grind it, and now 
there was no difficulty in making nice bread. 
We suspect it will not bear too close grinding 
and sifting. In other words, canaille, the coarser 
part, must be kept out of the floor. 
To-day the thermometer, hanging in the shade 
on the north side of tfie house, marked 80 de¬ 
grees. An hour afterwards the same instru¬ 
ment, having been removed to the cellar, indi¬ 
cated 65 degrees, a difference of 16 degrees be¬ 
tween the outside and inside of the cellar. This 
was at 1 1 o’olock. At 65 deg., the butter comes 
firm and solid in a half-hour. This was the 
natural cellar temperature, caused by keeping it 
closed. We do not open tbe windows any more 
nights, as sufficient change of air comes in 
thiough one of the outside doors, which is left 
open all the time. This door does not open out- 
of-doors but into on outer room where there is 
a screen door, through which the air can pass at 
plan of first 
will probably remember having seen in the Ru¬ 
ral last spring. 
Editor Rural New-Yorker:—S ome time 
since, I saw an editorial in your paper, saving 
nothing would eat tho Prickly Comfrey.’ I 
wished to answer it at the time, but was ill, and 
could not. Last spring I gave in the Rural my 
experience ^with this plant, afterwards adyer- 
8TORY.-[S*e 1st paso.] 
reader of the Rural, who has Comfrey and can 
get no animal to eat it, and is suspicions that ho 
has au elephant on his bauds—just as I felt about 
a year ago—will follow directions, before winter 
he will agree with me that, takiug everything 
into consideration, there is no plant known that 
is one-fourth as valuable as a forage plant. It 
affords a daily supply of nutritious food that will 
