and bright, wheat straw can be fed with profit. 
It is well worth housing. When wet and musty 
it is of little value. Many farmers,particularly 
those who do not house their straw, do not be¬ 
lieve in feeding it out, but use it for bedding. 
It is a good absorbent particularly when 
chopped. Animals kept in box-stalls soon 
tramp it into a good fertilizer. Many farmer’s 
dig their barnyards iuto a dishing shape and 
keep straw spread upon the bottom. The wa¬ 
ter and liquid manure that run iuto the yard 
keep the straw moist and cause it to rot into 
a form suitable for application to the fields. 
The process described by Mr. Perkins is quite 
general in some parts of Europe. It was 
ofteu employed in Sweden, on farms belong¬ 
ing to the crown. Legal restrictions prevent 
the sale of straw, so that the excess of this 
material is disposed of in what are known as 
“straw composts. 7 The straw is put in heaps 
six or eight feet high and well drenched with 
water in which powdered rape cake has been 
soaked. The heap is then covered with earth 
four or five inches deep, and left to ferment a 
mouth. It is then forked over and again 
drenched with the rape-cake water. Iu 2% 
months fair “manure 77 can be obtained in this 
way. Prof. Btorer in his “Agriculture" 
quotes from Bergstand an analysis of this 
straw compost. As compared with ordinary 
farm manure the composition was as follows: 
Straw Compost Farm Manure 
P“r cent. per cent. 
Water, 74.86 79.8U 
Organic matter, 15 (58 14.01 
Ashes, 10.01 6.69 
Nitrogen, 0.23 0.41 
Phosphoric acid, 0.10 0.20 
Potash, 0.17 0.50 
It is thus evident that a farmer with a quan¬ 
tity of musty or damaged straw that is unfit 
for feeding can turn it into a very fair man¬ 
ure by composting it. There should be a 
basin or cistern into which the urine and the 
water that, has washed over the } r ard manure, 
could drain. This liquid should bo pumped 
over the straw heap. A good fertilizer would 
result. 
Dr. Jenkins, of the Connecticut Experiment 
station, has prepared an elaborate table of the 
“manurial values” of various fodders. He 
t'lkes the averages of many analyses to deter¬ 
mine the amounts of nitrogen, phosphoric 
acid and potash contained in the fodders. 
Then figuring the amounts of these three ele¬ 
ments at the regular prices at which they are 
quoted in fertilizers, a fair comparative value 
can be placed on the manure from each. Fig¬ 
ured in this way the following values are ob¬ 
tained, stated in pounds to the ton: 
Nltro- Phos- Potash. Value, 
gen. pliorlc 
Acid. 
Timothy Hay 19.2 7.2 29.6 £4.95 
Buck wheat Straw 12.4 12.8 42.2 4.64 
Oat Straw 10 8 5.6 326 8.56 
Rye Straw 14.0 7.4 20.2 3 66 
Wheat Straw 16.0 4.2 17 4 3.71 
Thus it appears that if the manurial elemeuts 
contained in a ton of wheat straw were to be 
bought in the form of chemical fertilizers, 
they would cost £3.71. When the straw is 
burned, the nitrogen, valued at £2.71, escapes, 
leaving hut 99 cents as the value of the potash 
and phosphoric acid. 
STRAW AS A FODDER. 
The straw from any grain cut when the 
grain lias passed the milk stage and is com¬ 
mencing to harden, but is yet soft enough to 
mash between the thumb and finger, if 
well secured and dried without storm, rfiakes 
an excellent fodder to be mixed with any of 
the different kinds of grain. We find that 
well-cured, not over-ripe oat straw is equiva¬ 
lent to three-quarters of the value of good 
Timothy hay for any kind of stock. There 
certainly is no more economical way of dis¬ 
posing of all our good, bright straw than to 
run it through the cutting-box and mix with 
it ground feed of corn, oats, barley, rye or 
some other grain, moistening the whole with 
scalding water and leaving it to cool before 
using. With the average small farmer most 
of the straw is used as fodder or litter for sta¬ 
bles and sheds, where it absorbs much of the 
liquid from the stables and soon rots, forming 
a good fertilizer. 
Where large quantities of straw are to be 
converted into manure, I know of no better 
way than to make the young stock consume it 
with a little grain, and leave them to produce 
from it oue of the most economical high-grade 
fertilizers there is. Several years ago I win¬ 
tered four horses upon wheat straw with a 
little grain. I mixed it with boiling water and 
left it to cook from one feed to another with 
good results, giving me a good quantity of as 
rich a fertilizer as one could desire. Through¬ 
out Western New York very little straw is 
allowed to go to waste. Nearly all is used as 
fodder or litter for the different domestic ani¬ 
mals. When straw can be bought at £6 a 
ton and hay at £10 a ton, there is more econo¬ 
my in the straw than in the hay, and fast 
driving or road-horses fed upon straw and 
grain show better coats and are as enduring 
as the best hay and grain-fed horses, and the 
manure is equal to a high-grade fertilizer, as 
it is fully as rich in nitrogen. 
Chautauqua Co., N. Y. h. a. whittemore. 
from e; d is made from apiece of 2 J£x 23 ^ sev¬ 
en inches long; c, the lever, is 27 inches long. 
The length of a must be according to the bight 
of the wagon axle; b, the catch, is hung to e 
by a hinge. The lifting is to be done with the 
foot. H. c. M. 
sance, pure and simple. There is no reason 
why he should live. After Dr. Merriam’s ex¬ 
haustive report, printed in the last report of 
the Department of Agriculture, nothing 
should be permitted to stand in the way of 
the total extermination of this pest except the 
extreme difficulty of doing it. Dr. Merriam 
suggests various methods of attacking it. It is 
a cunning, wary bird and must be fought with 
caution. In the winter time, food placed in 
some convenient place at the same hour for a 
week will attract the sparrows in large num¬ 
bers. They can be killed by firing into 
them with small shot. In States where boun¬ 
ties are offered, sparrow-killers make good 
wages. They use poisons quite successfully. 
The systematic destruction of their nests, eggs 
and young will prevent increase. Raids may 
be organized in the nesting seasons. Men and 
boys armed with long poles and hooks can 
destroy most of the nests in a neighborhood, 
and thus preveut breeding. By a combined 
effort tbe pests can be exterminated. If some¬ 
thing is not done, the consequences will be 
serious. 
Disposing of Carcasses of Dead Ani¬ 
mals. —The bodies of animals can easily be 
disposed of by burying them near a fruit 
orchard, and in spring or fall setting out a 
fruit tree over the body. This prevents the 
bones from reappearing upon the surface, and 
the roots penetrating to the body readily de¬ 
compose It, and find an exceedingly rich 
material upon which to grow. Burning has 
been practiced somewhat, but this is too ex¬ 
pensive as no farmer can afford to waste any 
material which will contribute to plant 
erowth. a. e. hart. 
Ingham C’o., Mich. 
—There have been many com¬ 
plaints from those who practiced this method. 
Instead of growing thriftily,the vines or trees 
placed over such bodies made but a sickly 
growth. In some cases investigations showed 
that the roots in immediate contact with the 
decaying body were injured by the corrosive 
action of the strong manure. They were 
“burned’’ or “eaten up' 7 as roots sometimes are 
when running too close to strong chemical fer¬ 
tilizers. In most of such cases, however, the 
bodies seem to have been buried at the time of 
planting the vine or tree. When deeply 
buried some mouths before the vines are 
planted there will usually be but little 
trouble. Where one can obtain muck handily, 
or even old sods, it will pay to cut the flesh of 
dead animals from the bones, and use it with 
night-soil, to ferment the muck. This will 
make a valuable compost. This does not ap¬ 
ply to the bodies of animals dead from some 
infectious disease like hog cholera or glanders. 
All such should lie burned at once. It is folly 
to treat them in any other way. There has 
always been a discussion as to the most eco¬ 
nomical method of reducing bones to the con¬ 
dition of an available fertilizer. So far as we 
can see the plan of burning described by Dr. 
Hoskins is least expensive, counting cost and 
result. 
CORN CRIB VENTILATOR. 
I use the ventilator shown at Fig. 348. At 
the bottom of a crib a plank a foot wide is 
nailed. Then pieces of joist four or five feet 
long are spiked to it, as shown in the picture. 
At the top a six-inch plank is placed and laths 
are nailed at tbe sides. My crib is eight feet 
wide. This ventilator suits me well. 
Lamong, Ind. a. h. b. 
a water system. 
At Fig. 347 I show the plan I have adopted 
for providing water for my creamery and 
stock. Out here on the Illinois plains it has 
couuuion, wunouc tne aid ot animals, mois¬ 
ture, heat and earthy masters are necessary. 
Where these are properly applied, straw, hay, 
stalks or weeds may be very rapidly rotted 
down. My mode of operation is to construct 
a pit or basin where it will receive all 
washes from the barn-yard and hog-pen and 
other waste water. Over this pit 1 place a 
course of logs so close together that nothing 
can fall through A pump runs down iuto 
the basin to the baru-yard water. About two 
feet of straw are piled on the logs and then 
the pump is started. The liquid is pumped 
out and with a piece of hose thoroughly ap¬ 
plied all over the straw. This piling and 
wotting is continued until the heap is as 
high as desired, and it is then covered with 
a la} r er about six inches thick of muck, coal 
ashes, plaster or common loam—the plaster is 
the best. To hasten decomposition, after the 
first heat has subsided, a hole can be made 
iu the heap with u crowbar, and another 
wetting given. A quautity of ground bone 
scattered through the heap when it is made, 
adds to the manure wonderfully. 
Somerset Co., N. J. jakes perkins. 
IImhk p 
[[TANK 
Growing Seedling Fruits and Flowers. 
—Is it not time that our American profession¬ 
al and amateur florists and cultivators should 
pay more attention to originating choice new 
seedling trees, fruits, shrubs and plants f Why 
are so many content with second-hand 
varieties' Y\ by is there not more reach¬ 
ing out for high-class originals.- In roses, 
for instance, there ought to be millions 
of seedliugs grown in this country every year. 
Will not the Rural give us oue of its splendid, 
thorough articles on growing roses from seed 
—how, when, where, what classes and sorts 
for us common people to sow seed of for the 
best results { p, P 
Walworth Co., Wis. 
R. N. Y.—We will endeavor to do so. 
Thanks for the suggestion as to roses. The 
Rural has done its best by precept and ex¬ 
ample to induce our readers to raise seedlings 
of all kinds. 
worked satisfactorily. My buildings stand on 
the highest point of my 160 acre farm—about 
iu the center. The well is between the huose 
and barn. Ten feet from the well I dug a cis¬ 
tern 10x10 feet and tive feei deep. The cis¬ 
tern walls are stone laid iu lime mortar. At 
the bottom I pouuded iu stone solid and plas¬ 
tered with two coats of cement and sand—two 
parts sand to one of cement. Over this I put 
a coat of thiek cement wash. Three-fourths 
inch pipes run from the cistern to the barn 
and pasture. These are laid below the frost. 
A building for a creamery is built over this 
cistern, 16 feet square. A tank for milk cans 
is made in oue corner. This is built of stout 
plank, zinc-lined, 20 inches deep. At the up¬ 
per part of the tank a pipe runs down to the 
cistern below, so that when the water in the 
tank reaches a certain bight it is sure to run 
back into the cistern. The water is pumped 
from the well by a windmill and runs iuto the 
tank and from that through the upper pipe 
iuto tbe cistern. So there is a constant change 
of the water about the cans iu the tank. 
W hen the mill does not run, which is very sel¬ 
dom, a small haud pump is run down into tbe 
cistern and the water is raised to the tank. 
At the farm the water runs iuto old kerosene 
oil barrels provided with automatic valves so 
that they will not run over. a. s. h. 
Folo, Ill. 
STRAW AS AN ABSORBENT. 
All kinds of farm stock need bedding of 
some kind, aud straw, especially that of 
wheat, makes the best and the cleanest. If 
the cattle and horses are kept iu box stalls— 
as they should be—an enormous quantity of 
straw can be used up for bedding. The stalls 
ueed be cleaned out only when they get so full 
that the animals get too high up from their 
troughs or are tempted to jump out Straw 
used iu this way will absorb all tho liquid ma¬ 
nure and will not heat enough to in¬ 
jure the stock or fire-fang the manure. It is 
some work to clean out these box stalls after 
heavy cattle have been tramping down the 
beddiug for a mouth, but it cau be douo on 
stormy days when more important work is 
not pressing. 
1 have tried cutting the straw for bedding, 
but do not think it pays on account of the 
extra labor required to handle so bulky an 
article. If the straw was stored in the barn 
aud the stock was all in the basement, then if 
power was convenient I think it would pay to 
cut it. The labor of cutting iu such case 
would be more than overbalanced by the labor 
saved in handling the manure. If straw is in 
excess of the demand for inside, or stall bed¬ 
ding, then the yards should be heavily bedded 
and fresh straw added as fast as needed. I do 
not like the plan of letting cattle run to the 
straw stack, as the manure so made is, neces¬ 
sarily. very uneven in quality and is very slow 
iu getting iuto condition for field use. 1 have 
tried spreading straw on the ground to plow 
under, but if enough is put on to doauy good 
it is difficult to turn under, and, besides, the 
all-important item of labor is iu the way of 
this plan ou tho score of economy. Iu short, 
bedding it is the only economical way I know 
of turning straw into manure. 
Baltimore Co., Md. a. l crosby. 
Alas ! ! 1 Agi’ieulture,the oldest occupation 
of man, is perhaps the most backward. There 
is as yet no systematic science of agriculture. 
Controversies handed down from distant ages 
in regard to such simple questions as the 
proper rotation of crops, or the amount of 
seed to the acre, are still continued. If they 
are ever to be solved it must be by experi¬ 
ments properly conducted. In ibis way only 
were the facts pertainiug to other industries 
discovered. But agriculture is peculiar in 
that great obstacles stand in the way of the 
experimenter, even when he eudeavorsto find 
out primary principles. jayhawker. 
Kansas. 
A Helpful Daughter.— By giving the 
spare hours to studying and trying a little at 
first, l have fouud that a farmer's daughter 
has been able to add a full supply of fruit to 
the dearly beloved childhood home. As father 
has aged, I have shared with him the care of 
CORRESPONDENTS 7 VIEWS. 
Exterminating the English Sparrow — 
Let us join in getting up a raid ou the English 
sparrow. e. p. powell. 
R. N.-Y.—The times are ripe for such a 
movement. Ihe Euglish sparrow is a uui- 
e is a hollow tube, made of hard wood inch 
stuff iuside of which a slides up and down, e 
is mortised into a base two inches from the end 
aud D is mortised into the base five inches 
