THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
SEPT S4 
our little farm until I am quite a farmer my¬ 
self. Where there is no boy a gir can see 
that the old home is kept up as well as auy 
other thing, aud many an aged parent would 
be made happier than if the work of their 
hands was left, to neglect as their strength de¬ 
clines. The training of a vine or tree is nei¬ 
ther rough nor degrading work, but rewards 
us in health and happiness. 
Merrimack Co., N. H. hattie b. colby. 
R, N.-Y.—Would that there were more wo¬ 
men who could see such things as you see 
them! There is nothing unwomanly in thus 
beautifying and improving the old homestead. 
It is a most womanly woman who can do such 
work. 
ENSILAGE IN MILK PRODUCTION. 
T. D. CURTIS. 
Effects of silage dependent on its quality and 
the quantity fed; injurious conditions; 
good silage beneficial in moderation; too 
much corn silage always injurious; ill ef¬ 
fects; corn an imbalanced ration; a model 
ration; two frequent mistakes. 
I am asked to state the effects of silage in 
milk production. The question admits of a 
manifold answer, depeuding upon the quality 
of the silage,and the manner aud extent of feed¬ 
ing it. An answer based on any one feeder’s 
experience would be very partial indeed. The 
effect of silage upon the quality of milk is good 
or bid according to the condition of the silage 
and the amount fed. I speak more especially 
of corn silage, which is the great silage crop 
of the Northwest. It may be grown too thick, 
it may be immature, or it may be imperfectly 
or improperly prepared. Any one or all of 
these conditions are detrimental to the quality 
of the silage. Then, if fed excessively, the ef¬ 
fect on the quality of the milk would be detri¬ 
mental. If fed when in the alcoholic stage 
of fermentation, it would give to the milk a 
decidedly alcoholic taste, as was the case in 
Major Alvord’s early experience with silage. 
It would also have an alcoholic effect on the 
cows. If immature or grown too thickly, it 
would afford but little nourishment and serve 
little but the purpose of diluting the milk with 
water; and if, iu such case, it is fed heavily as 
a main dependence for food, as many foolishly 
feed it, the cows would be imperfectly nour¬ 
ished aud tha milk would be imperfect, as it 
is in all cases of lack of the required elements 
of nutrition—of some or all of them. The 
poorer the silage, from any cause, the poorer 
and more unsatisfactory the results from feed¬ 
ing it. But poor silage, like any other poor 
food, if fed sparingly, would not produce any 
perceptible injurious effects; hut the cows 
would need to be well nourished with other 
food. 
Good silage, properly fed, is nourishing, 
relishable, aud produces good results. The 
milk from it is sweet and rich, and it im¬ 
proves the cburniug quality of the cream, 
while it does not injure if it does not 
actually improve the quality of the milk. 
It may also be justly claimed to increase 
the production of both milk aud butter. 
But the best of silage may be fed to excess 
and thus become Injurious. This is specially 
true of corn-silage, which is highly carbon¬ 
aceous aud a one-sided and imperfect ration 
of itself. It will soon cloy the cow kept ex¬ 
clusively on it, but she may be starved into 
eating it. As a consequence, it will be eaten 
to excess with great avidity, because of the 
starved condition of the cow’s system, which 
will crave the nitrogenous elements, and 
these can be obtained to any satisfactory ex¬ 
tent only by eating an excessive amount. 
The surplus carbonaceous elements will cloy 
the system and go to waste in the manure, 
while the cow, if she can get it, will All her¬ 
self to a distressing extent with the silage. 
This creates a feverish condition unfavorable 
to the production of perfect or wholesome 
milk, aside from any effeet which che quality 
of the food may have ou the milk product. 
This abnormal craving for the nitrogenous 
elements no doubt is sometimes mistaken by 
feeders for a normal relish of silage with 
avidity. Fifty and sixty, and even forty 
pounds of silage a day fed to a cow 
are too much, aud it is wasteful to feed 
it to this amount. Feeder’s, at this late 
day in the discussion of the feeding ques¬ 
tion, ought to know that corn iu any form af¬ 
fords a very unbalauced ration, atrd so exer¬ 
cise a little common sense by supplementing it 
with good clover hay and grain, or something 
else that is correspondingly nitrogenous. 
There is all the more necessity for doing this 
if the silage is poor; aud the poorer it is the 
more of other and better food should be fed 
with it. If all would feed as Hon. Hiram 
Smith, of Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, does, 
they would practice wise economy, and their 
customers would have no cause to complain of 
injury to the milk from feeding silage. He 
feeds only 25 pounds of corn silage a day to 
each cow, with eight pounds of early-cut. hay 
—clover and Timothy mixed—making up the 
balance of the day’s ration with a mixture of 
corn-meal, wheat bran and middlings—in all 
not exceeding 40 pounds a day. His cows 
keep in good condition, and the results other¬ 
wise are satisfactory. Yet many dairymen 
feed 40 to 60 pounds of silage a day to each 
cow. It is, to say the least, a wasteful mis¬ 
take to do this. Silage, like any other food, 
needs to be fed with discretion. 
Two mistakes in growing corn for ensilage 
are almost universal. The first aud more gen¬ 
eral is that the largest and most succulent va¬ 
rieties of corn are the best. Some of the 
smaller varieties coutain more nutriment. Iu 
one instance, at least, it was found that 15 
tons of common Northern field corn contained 
as much nutriment as 25 tons of the large 
Southern corn, such as is generally grown for 
ensilage. The 15 tons of the first cau be as 
easily grown on an acre as 15 tons of the lat¬ 
ter, while there is a saving in the handling of 
10 tons in favor of the common variety. The 
second great error is iu planting corn for en¬ 
silage too thick, on the assumption that more 
fodder will be grown, and by some that it 
will be of better quality if forced to grow up 
spiudliug. Both assumptions are false. Ex¬ 
perience has shown that corn must have room 
in which to grow, if the best possible yield is 
to be secured. The same is true of the ensi¬ 
lage crop; and the condition most favorable 
to the production of each is the one that pro¬ 
duces the most and the best quality of silage. 
The weight of ears should equal the weight of 
the stalk when dried. The corn should not 
be cut for ensilage before it is fully in the 
milk, nor after it has passed the dough state. 
Before, the uutriment is not fully stored up; 
after, there is a loss of nutriment in the stalks 
aud a corresponding increase of woody fiber. 
The silage must also be prepared so as to se¬ 
cure what is known as “ sweet silage,” al¬ 
though it is mildly acid iu both taste and 
smell. Such silage, if properly fed with other 
more niti’ogenous foods, will not injure the 
milk, but, ou the contrary, prove a valuable 
aid in the production of first-class milk and 
first class butter. Poor silage is an abomina¬ 
tion, and all silage ted excessively is injurious. 
The same may be truthfully said of all other 
kinds of cattle food. 
Cfye tKimjatiJ. 
pests, and the struggle now is who shall har¬ 
vest the most of the crop? One of the “dear 
little creatures” will alight on a cluster aud 
burst every berry at one sittiug. He thinks 
they have destroyed a ton of grapes already. 
They don’t scare worth a cent: as well try to 
scare a fly from a plate of sirup. Vineland 
wine makers are importing grapes from N. Y. 
E. WILLIAMS. 
inn. 
FEEDING BEES FOR WINTER. 
EMPIRE 
STATE AND 
GRAPES. 
NIAGARA 
I am more favorably impressed with the 
Empire State than ever, though I have had 
two or three complaints from different sour¬ 
ces, that young vines were injured by severe 
cold last winter. 1 left several vines up on 
the trellis, perfectly exposed all last winter, 
but the coldest weather we had reached only 
13* below zero. This they endured entirely 
unhurt and all are bearing as finely as I could 
wish; and, as the case has always been here¬ 
tofore,the foliage is free from mildew, and the 
grapes are untouched by rot. I have no 
more healthy vine on my place; and I believe 
that wherever auy of our native grapes can be 
profitably grown, the Empire State will be 
entirely successful. 
The Niagara has done well this season, and 
has made a fine growth. My vines were all 
laid down and slightly protected. I thmk the 
buds were injured by frosts iu the spring, aud 
they are not bearing much; but the fruit is 
healthy and doing well. We have had a very 
dry season, which is favorable for grapes 
generally. geo. w. Campbell. 
Champion Grape.—I find the Champion 
Grape the earliest this year of the 80 varieties 
fruited, and among those are Early Victor, 
Jessica, Moore’s Early, New Haven, etc. As 
there are so many contradictory opinions about 
the quality of the Champion, some consider¬ 
ing it, “nearly as good as the Concord,” and 
others as “not lit to eat,” and also as my 
vines seem to show two distinct ripenings and 
qualities of grape, I have nearly come to the 
conclusion that the Talmau aud Champion 
may not be identical after all. b. b. 
Farmingdale, IU. 
■ mi 
Grapes and Sparrows. —President Pear¬ 
son has about the only grapes iu Vineland, N. 
J.,ou his vines. This is due to the fact that 
he does not confine himself to one or two vari¬ 
eties, and to the sulphate of copper remedies 
applied. He finds the Gironde mixture most 
effective in preventing mildew. The spar* 
rows and “chippies” have found out he has 
grapes and are raidiug them by the thou 
sands! They are nearly as bad as the other 
Best substitute for honey; mode of prepara¬ 
tion; amount per colony; when to feed ; 
treatment of robber bees ; feeders ; how to 
feed. _ 
All promineut apiarists agree that the best 
substitute for good honey for bee food is pure, 
granulated caue sugar, and some experiment- 
ers—notably James lledden and Professor 
Cook—claim that caue sugar is superior to 
good honey, if the latter has much pollen in 
it. Those who find it necessary to feed their 
bees need apprehend no serious results if they 
use the best quality of caue sugar, while a food 
of poor quality is almost sure to result disas¬ 
trously. 
To prepare the food, dissolve the sugar in 
one-third of its weight of water. Where a 
small quantity is needed it can be easily made 
by heating on an ordinary stove, but this 
method is slow and tedious if a large quantity 
is needed. Iu the lat ter case, if one has ac¬ 
cess to a jet of steam, the food can be pre¬ 
pared very rapidly by the following method: 
Weigh out the sugar and water and place 
them in a barrel or milk can. Get a piece ot 
gas pipe through which to conduct the steam. 
It is necessary to have an elbow or joint of 
hose so the pipe may have a right angle iu it. 
Thrust the pipe to the bottom of the vessel 
aud turn on the steam. Iu a very few min¬ 
utes the sugar will be dissolved and a sirup oi 
the right consistency formed. By this meth¬ 
od a barrel of sugar cau be converted into 
sirup in less than half an hour. 
It is necessary that the sirup be as thin as 
the above formula makes it, so that the bees 
may store it rapidly. It will be seen that it is 
a cheap food, the weight of sugar being in¬ 
creased by one-third its weight of water, mak¬ 
ing a composition worth two-thirds the price 
of sugar. 
The amount of stores sufficient to winter a 
colony of bees is quite variable iu different 
seasons, aud also iu different colonies iu the 
same yard. If the conditions of temperature, 
moisture, food and quiet are just right, a 
strong colony will winter on 15 pounds, and I 
have known colonies to winter on much less. 
I have heretofore aimed to have 80 pounds of 
good food iu each colony, but have been 
obliged to remove a portion of it iu the spring 
to give the queen more room to lay. 1 have 
decided that 35 pounds per colony is plenty 
when they are otherwise well cared for. 
If the hives iu an apiary are nearly uni¬ 
form iu style and weight, when empty, the 
apiarist can, by comparing the weight of a 
hive containing sufficient stores, with the 
other hives, tell how much food each will need 
without opening them. If hives are not uni¬ 
form in weight, or it is not practical to weigh 
them, the amount of stores can be ascertained 
by examining each comb. After one has 
looked over a few colouies he can, by a care¬ 
ful examination, tell withiu a very small 
amount how much honey a hivo contains. 
Often by an exebauge of combs in different 
colonies, one of which has more houey than is 
needed, the other less, both can be given the 
right amount of stores. In feeding for win¬ 
ter the required amount of food should be 
given as fast as the bees cau store it. If the 
feeding is prolonged brood reariug will begin, 
and au additional amount of food will be re¬ 
quired to feed the young bees reared under 
the abnormal conditions. Strong colonies will 
store from six to 10 pounds per day, aud often 
more. 
The ]troper season for feeding for winter is 
during the warm days of autumn,as soon as the 
houey flow for the season has ceased. Feed¬ 
ing should be done after suuset, so it cau all 
lie stored during the night. If fed during the 
day when the bees are flying, robbing is liable 
to result. I would put especial emphasis, on 
the caution to prevent robbing. 
No one but those who have experienced it 
can form any idea of the perfect bedlam which 
au apiary presents when the bees get to rob¬ 
bing in earnest. At such times it requires 
prompt action and the best skill aud thought 
of the apiarist to prevent heavy losses. If by 
auy means colonies should get to robbiug, put 
a good bunch of hay or grass tight aguiust 
the entrances of all the colonies which seem to 
be affected. The robbers will become con¬ 
fused in trying to pass through the hay into 
the hive, and the bees will be able to make a 
more successful defence of their home. Per¬ 
haps a more effectual remedy is to completely 
cover the affected hives with sheets or clothes 
of auy kind, thus barring either egress or iu- 
gress. When the robbers find themselves 
cornered they are quickly subdued. 
Most of the feeders offered by supply deal¬ 
ers are too small for whiter feeding. The 
Page Feeder is, perhaps, the best. It permits 
of little loss of heat from the brood chamber, 
is easily reached by the bees aud quickly filled 
by the operator. The regular size, holding 
about one and a half pound, is too small for 
rapid whiter feeding, but could be made large 
if so ordered. 
D. A. Jones, of Beetou, Out., has for many 
years practiced feeding quite extensively. He 
has a hive with a tight bottom-board, and 
pours the sirup into the hive after tilting it ' 
back to preveut leaking at the entrauce. Be¬ 
fore beginning to feed he contracts the brood- 
chamber with a division board, leaving only 
frames enough for the bees to cluster ou, and 
to hold the food. Paint is daubed on auy 
open joints or cracks around the bottom to 
preveut leaking. When all is in readiness the 
operatiou of feeding is quickly performed. 
Auother good and cheap method is to re¬ 
move from the brood-chamber one or two 
frames containing the least houey and no 
brood and replace them with a division- 
board, which is narrow enough to leave a space 
of three-eighths of an inch between its lower 
edge aud the bottom of the hive. There 
should bo a space of at least three-eighths of 
an inch between the division-board and the 
wall of the hive. This space may be enlarged 
according to the amount of vacant room* 
Fold back the quilt or cloth-cover of the 
brood-chamber tightly upon the division- 
board, to allow the bees to pass upward. 
Now put a heavy piece of duck or enamel 
cloth, of the same size as the brood-chamber, 
over the cover to the latter. Make this basin¬ 
shaped by placing sticks along the under-edge 
of each side, and pour the sirup into this 
basin. 1 have practiced this method in my 
own bee-yards for several seasons aud have 
had the best of results. It has the advantages 
of beiug cheap, is adapted to all styles of 
hives with tight or loose bottom-boards, per¬ 
mits of no loss of beat from the brood-chamber, 
while the receptacle is easily and quickly filled 
by the operator, and the capacity can be 
made of suitable size. 
Bees will winter better on six or seven 
Langstroth frames thau ou a greater number, 
as the food is within easy reach of the cluster 
aud there is loss space to keep warm. 
O. L. HKRSHISER. 
THE SUPERIORITY OF THE LEG¬ 
HORNS. 
P. H. JACOBS. 
Injustice has been done the Leghorns in 
the past by giving them the credit of being 
only first-class summer layers. It is some, 
thing to be a persistent layer of eggs, even in 
summer when the poultry house is left iu a 
filthy condition and myriads of lice are at 
work, but, in justice to the little Leghorn, it 
possesses other good qualities which should 
not be overlooked. It has been repeatedly 
demonstrated that when kept in a warm place 
in the winter season, in order to prevent the 
frosting of their combs, they will luj r as many 
eggs as will any other breed of fowls. The 
difficulty with those who have attempted to 
keep Leghorns in winter is that they did not 
take into consideration the active habits of 
the breed. If givcu a good, warm scratching 
placed so as to be kept busy, they will greatly 
assist themselves to ward off cold by exercise. 
This is a great point in the keeping of all 
breeds iu winter, but more especially so with 
the Leghorn, as idleness is fatal to the breed, 
causing the hens to pull feathers, and also 
gradually become dissatisfied and worthless 
If there is danger Of frosted combs, and the 
show room is no object, they may be 
“dubbed,” the same as is done with Games, 
by cutting off the combs and wattles close to 
the head, with a sharp knife or shears, and 
dipping the head iu strong alum water. It is 
not cruel compared to the torture Of slowly 
being punished bv the frosted combs rotti'jg ^ 
off, while every precaution should be used sous 
not to permit them to drink from any ves¬ 
sel that allows of the head being wet while 
drinking. This beiug done they will be safe 
from frosted combs or wattles, and will other¬ 
wise endure the cold os well as the larger 
breeds. 
As broilers they will weigh as much, and ou 
the same kind of food, up to the ago of eight 
weeks (or about pound each), as the 
Brahmas. This has boeu demonstrated by 
actual tests, aud they present a far more at¬ 
tractive appearance when dressed than the 
