1888 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
HUSKING CORN BY MACHINERY 
The only redeeming feature about husking 
corn by hand, has been that it could be done 
at a season when help would otherwise be 
idle and also that the period of husking could 
be extended indefinitely, with little loss to the 
value or the amount of the crop. Yet with 
these modifying features attending the har¬ 
vest, the husking is the one disagreeable part 
in corn growing most dreaded by farmers, and 
the one for which machinery has, until re 
cently, done nothing. Corn planting and 
cultivating are now done with little or no hand 
abor. Other grains are handled from the 
drill to the bin or bag entirely by perfected 
machinery, so now a machine is already in 
operation that husks the corn and delivers it 
in the wagon, cuts and crushes the stalk, and 
elevates the prepared fodder to the top of the 
mow. Such a machine, made at Sterling, Ill. 
was shown at our State Fair and at the Van 
Buren Co. Fair. The machine was pur¬ 
chased here, set up at my barn, and husked 16 
acres of corn to my entire satisfaction. To 
show that it is no visionary experiment, it 
has been at work for six of my neighbors and 
has still more work than it can perform before 
winter sets in. 
The machine is built on trucks and weighs, 
with fodder and corn carriers, about 2,000 lbs. 
It is run by a steam thrashing engine employ¬ 
ing about half the power required to run a 
grain separator. The corn is fed from the 
load through the machine, butts first,as fast as 
one man can hand it to the feeder. The 
stalk is engaged by a couple of rollers about 
three inches in diameter, about 20 inches 
long (I have measured none of the parts) 
which under the pressure of heavy springs 
cannot open far enough apart to allow the 
ear to pass through. The upper one of these 
rollers is corrugated in such a manner that 
the raised surface bites off the ear from 
the stalk and lets it drop, while the stalk 
passes on, and is cut by a large cylinder cut¬ 
ter, as it emerges crushed, on the other side. 
The ears pass on to the sets of rollers working 
at right angles to the first two, and inclining 
to the rear. In these rollers, which are about 
three feet long, and three inches in diameter, 
are set steel pins that mesh into holes in the op¬ 
posite ones, and these grasp the husk and silks, 
pull them down through, and drop them on a 
carrier which delivers them to the cut-feed 
run, and they pass up along with the other 
feed in a covered carrier to the mow. 
I set the machine in my barn-yard at the 
gable end of the barn, knocked off a couple of 
boards from the upper siding, and ran the 
carrier above the big beam, 14 feet or more 
from the ground, where the machine was 
standing. This entered the top of a bay 14x 
28 feet and 13 feet deep to the top of the beam. 
In this I ran the stalks from the 16 acres 
which made it full to the eaves of the barn, 
but it has now settled to level full even with 
the beams. This space would not have held 
half the stalks bound in the ordinary way 
after husking. I used two wagons to haul the 
corn from the field, and two for the husked 
corn. One team did all the work. The field 
was the one nearest the barn, and the loads 
were hauled on an average, perhaps, 60 
rods. Three men did the loading—two on the 
ground to hand up the shocks ; one to hand 
the corn off the load to the feeder, and one to 
level off the bay and shovel out the husked 
corn over the stables on the opposite side of 
the barn floor. Three men came with the 
machine, making eight men in all. The first 
day, beginning at eight o’clock, we husked 
nine acres, and finished the seven acres the 
next day in about a corresponding time. I had 
husked four acres of the 20-acre field before I 
saw the machine. I think if we had got an 
early start the first day, there would have 
been time enough to have husked the whole 
20 acres in the two days. 
Since husking time, the corn nas been drier, 
and the machine has not done as clean work 
—the ears seeming to lie up looser above the 
rollers and the grasp of the working pins has 
been less effective. But this difficulty can 
be remedied by some device to hold the ears 
down. The machine leaves nothing to bo de¬ 
sired in its preparation of the fodder. The 
crushing force of the rollers cracks the shell 
of the stalk, and the force of the cylinder 
shatters the pieces, so that the shell is separated 
in a large measure from the pith, making the 
best kind of absorbent of parts not eaten. 
I have been feeding now two weeks from this 
fodder. Stock of all kinds eat it freely and 
and almost entirely. Every farmer who has 
been talking silo says this will do him. There 
will be no converts to that practice here now 
that the crops of corn can be so well prepared 
for stock _ food without it, and to occupy 
so little space The advantages over the old 
process are so numerous and evident that they 
hardly need to be noticed. I sowed my 20- 
acre field of corn to wheat after the corn was 
cut, but the rows of shocks were quite a 
hindrance. I might have waited a little 
longer before sowing, or until the fodder 
would have been dry enough to keep, and 
then husked the whole field, and put in the 
wheat with no obstructions or vacant places 
where the shocks stand. The fodder is very 
much better if sent to the barn before ex¬ 
posing the inside to the weather, as is the case 
when husked and bound in the usual way. 
The price asked for doing the work is now 
too high—four cents per bushel of corn—but 
all these difficulties will adjust themselves, as 
they have with the binders, so that the 
farmer can better afford to have his corn 
husked by machinery than to do it him¬ 
self. The problem of machine husking is 
©ertainly solved, and the husker will follow 
the thrasher as certainly as the thrasher now 
follows the binder, and do as effective and 
satisfactory work. a. c. glidden. 
Van Buren Co., Mich. 
APPLES FOR MILCH COWS. 
PROF H. H. WING. 
An unsettled question ; are apples beneficial 
to milcli cows? “Doctors differ ,” and dif¬ 
fer widely ; some old experiments renewed ; 
an interesting question. 
The feeding value of apples for milch cows 
has been more or less discussed pro and con 
for some time. Numerous writers have been 
strongly in favor of their use. All agree that 
they should be fed in small quantities at first, 
and the amount gradually increased up to 
three pecks or a bushel per day according to 
the size and appetite of the cow. Nearly all 
report gains both in the quantity and quality 
of the milk under such feeding; and the cases 
of lessened flow seem nearly always to be due 
to the sudden feeding of large quantities. On 
the other hand, the watery nature of the 
apple together with its known percentage of 
the albuminoids has led others to believe that 
milk produced from such food, if richer, 
must be so at the expense of the flesh and fat 
of the cow; and that in the end, the extensive 
use of apples as a milk-producing food was 
injudicious to say the least. 
The matter has been recently discussed in 
some of the farmers’ institutes, two dairymen 
of high standing taking directly opposite po¬ 
sitions and one making the statement that 
feeding apples .even to the amount of a peck 
per day, was disastrous to the production of 
butter-fat in the milk. 
As throwing some light on this subject, I 
give the results of some experiments that 
were made several years ago, and which 
have never been published. It was thought 
that by feeding apples in varying amounts 
in connection with other food, and then with¬ 
holding the apples entirely, their real effect 
on the quantity and quality of the milk could 
be ascertained. At the beginning of the ex¬ 
periments, in October, the cows had for some 
time been receiving about 25 pounds of apples 
per day. They were fed, besides, eight quarts 
per day of a mixture of three parts corn 
meal and five parts wheat bran. During the 
earlier part of the experiment, the cows were 
running at pasture, and were fed corn fodder 
in the field. After they were taken from 
pasture they were fed 27 pounds per day of 
cut and moistened corn fodder. Four cows 
from the Cornell University herd were select¬ 
ed for the experiment. Three of them had 
been in milk about seven months, the other 
one month. The four were divided into two 
lots and the milk of each lot was analyzed 
separately. The changes in feeding were 
divided into three periods as follows: 
Period I28 pounds of apples per day per 
cow, together with the rest of the ration as 
given above. This period extended through 
10 days. 
Period II;—56 pounds of apples per day, 
per cow the rest of the ration remaining un¬ 
changed. This period extended through 13 
days with lot No. 1 and through 18 days with 
lot No. 2. 
Period III.— No apples at all were fed; but 
no other change was made in the ration. This 
period extended thi ough 13 days. 
The apples fed were at fiist mainly King of 
Tompkins County, Seek-no Further, and 
Greening; afterward a considerable amount 
of natural fruit, both sour and sweet, was fed. 
As the cows had for some time been fed 
apples when the experiments commenced, 
samples were taken from the first period of 
feeding after the cows bad been receiving 
that ration for a day or two. In all the other 
cases the cows were fed from the given ration 
for a full week before any samples of milk 
were taken for analysis. Each milking was 
weighed separately and the milk of the two 
cows in the same lot mixed. The mixed milk 
was then analyzed. 
Some experiments on this same matter had 
been made at the University the year before. 
They differed from our experiments in that 
another period of feeding in which the cows 
received 14 pounds of apples per day was in¬ 
troduced; in that but two cows were experi¬ 
mented with; and in that the cows were run¬ 
ning at pasture and fed com stalks in the 
field during the whole course of the experi¬ 
ment. The results of all are given below: 
NOTES FROM ILLINOIS. 
B. F. JOHNSON. 
THE NORFOLK TROTTER. 
The purchase, in England, of a troop of 
Norfolk trotters destined for Illinois for breed¬ 
ing purposes, and with the object in view of 
bringing them mto competition with other 
breeds for fashionable, hard and fast work, for 
which large importations of Cleveland Bays, 
French and Hanovarian coach horses have 
Experiments of 1880. 
— 
-L( 
)t 1- 
-Lot 2.- 
« 
—Exp’ts of 1879 
— -“N 
Period. 
No. of 
days. 
Milk lbs 
per day. 
Solids 
per cent 
Fat per. 
cent. 
No. of 
days. 
Milk lbs 
per day. 
Solids 
per cent 
Fat per 
cent. 
No. of 
days. 
Milk lbs 
per day. 
Solids 
per cent 
Fat 
percent 
5. 
43.3 
3.90 
I. 
10. 
33.2 
13.65 
4.33 
10. 
33.7 
12.61 
3.45 
7. 
39.7 
12.62 
3.41 
II. 
18. 
26.2 
13.56 
4.12 
13. 
23.4 
13.09 
3.85 
14. 
38.3 
12.68 
3.75 
III. 
13. 
24.6 
13.69 
4.63 
13. 
30. 
13.06 
3.66 
17. 
41. 
11 93 
3 41 
While there is nothing marked in the above 
been made, lends an unusual interest to 
an im- 
results, the experiments certainly show that 
no loss of butter fat need be feared from feed¬ 
ing a moderate quantity of apples, and from 
such feeding there is quite sure to be a gain 
in the flow of milk. 
farm (Topics. 
UNITS FROM THE INSTITUTES. 
The best time to draw out manure is in the 
winter time every day as it is made. 
Black knot of the plum is not a bad disease 
if you will follow it up and cut out and buim 
the affected parts as soon as the leaves drop 
in the fall. 
Hop-vines will well repay the labor if they 
are spread thinly on pasture fields instead of 
being burned. 
Teach your daughter that good butter Is 
better than poor music. 
I know of families where money is very 
scarce, that have all the leading magazines 
and many of the new books through the sys¬ 
tem of neighborhood book and magazine 
clubs. 
Success in life for other animals as well as 
man depends on good blood and careful 
training. 
The improvement in the blood of our domes¬ 
tic animals in the last 50 years has been enor¬ 
mous. We should see to it that the improve¬ 
ment in ourselves should keep pace with the 
improvement in our farm animals. 
The question was asked: “How many farm¬ 
ers keep farm accounts?” Not a hand was 
raised. “Then” said Sec’y. Woodward, “it is 
the only business in the world that will main¬ 
tain the person carrying it on without keep¬ 
ing accounts of receipts and expenditures. 
What a good business it would be if farmers 
would only adopt the methods that persons 
in the most ordinary business are forced to 
pursue in order to make their .business success¬ 
ful.” 
Growing colts and young stock should 
never be fed for fat. 
It is not the farmer who feeds the most 
grain, but the one that adapts it to the pur¬ 
poses desired, that has the best stock. 
Care and kindness to the brood mare will 
bear fruit in the coming generation. 
Undoubtedly three-fourths and, in all prob¬ 
ability, seven-eighths of the calves that will be 
born in this State next spring will have been 
sired by scrubs or, at best, by bulls of mixed 
blood that will not transmit with any certainty 
to their offspring whatever desirable qualities 
they may themselves have. 
The value of a thoroughbred lies in the pro¬ 
duction of grades; for it is to grades and to 
grades alone that we shall long look for profit¬ 
able production of all the various products 
for which live-stock is kept. 
Scrub care given to thoroughbreds or 
grades is a hundredfold worse than leaving 
your binder out-of-doors all winter; thorough¬ 
bred care given to a scrub is money and labor 
thrown away. 
The “scrub” farmer will always have scrub 
cattle, no matter in what herd book they are 
recorded. 
While the scrub animal will always remain 
a scrub, and while the grade may never tech¬ 
nically become a thoroughbred, the “scrub” 
farmer has it in his power to lift himself from 
the ranks of the “scrub” into|those of the 
‘grade” and,the “thoroughbred”. unit. 
portation that is about to appear on this side 
of the Atlantic for the first time. The Norfolk 
trotter is by no means an ancient breed, but 
rather a variety originating in the present 
century, aud obtained by making the best 
common stock mares of England, the founda¬ 
tion, and infusing sufficient racing blood to 
give activity, energy and endurance to the 
progeny. According to a competent foreign 
authority on horses, the Norfolk trotter is the 
ideal of force united to activity. He is uni¬ 
form in shape, compact in substance, large, 
broad, corpulent and strong-limbed. With¬ 
out having a distinguished and striking ap¬ 
pearance, like the Thoroughbred, he is by no 
means common-looking. His very breath de¬ 
notes energy, his movements are free and 
rapid, and he is endowed with great power of 
resisting fatigue. He is an excellent servant 
and a capable workman, always ready for 
any reasonable task that may b put upon 
him, and at the same time, he demands 
neither oxtra feed nor superior care. Nearer 
than any other, the Norfolk trotter is the gen¬ 
eral purpose horse, and whether attached to 
the carriage of the rich, the wagon or the 
cart of the farmer, or whether before the 
plow or under the saddle, he meets afi reason¬ 
able requirements. In short, he is amoug 
English horses what one time the Morgans 
were to New England, and the light-weight 
Percheron to France. 
ALFALFA FACTS. 
In some experiments I have been making 
with Alfalfa the present year, I have been 
struck with the fact that several of the leading 
good qualities of the plant appear, and really 
are, in excess of what I expected of them. 
First, I thought the growth would be so 
moderate there would be little forage to be 
obtained from a field the first year. I har¬ 
vested the first crop, a rather light one, the 
18th of August. I began feeding a milch cow 
the 28th of August on the second; finished 
early in October and now, November 15, 
have the third crop from thr^e to six inches 
high on the ground. Second , I supposed Al¬ 
falfa to be impatient of frost; but I find little 
traces of injury to the foliage after fall frosts 
severe enough to strip deciduous trees of their 
leaves. Third, I knew its roots ran deep into 
the earth, but I did not know then what I 
have learned since by digging into the ground, 
that Alfalfa roots, on strong, deep soils, pene¬ 
trate fully five feet downward the first six 
months of their existence. Fourth, it has 
been a surprise to me to learn that Red clover 
develops most of its feeding radicles between 
the 10th and 20th inches of the soil and subsoil; 
the same organs on Alfalfa shoot out 
from the main stem of the root most numer¬ 
ously below the 40th inch of the soil and 
subsoil. This latter fact shows that Alfalfa 
may be quite successfully grown on lands 
that have become, bv over-cropping, what is 
known as “clover sick” and that any rich but 
now barren tobacco field may be set in Alfalfa, 
with the reasonable certainty of great crops, 
always provided, of course, a right start is 
made. 
THE ENGLISH SPARROW AND THE CABBAGE 
WORM. 
The English sparrow is credited with having 
nearly exterminated the foreign cabbage 
worm in the very extensive cabbage fields in 
and about Chicago. At any rate, the ravages 
of the worm are hardly to be recognized on 
the cabbages seen in the Chicago markets, or 
on those now going South by train-load after 
train-load. It is not certain that the sparrow 
