332 
■AY 48 
exclusively. It is deservedly popular. It is 
strictly a bunch pea, which is quite an ad¬ 
vantage at harvest time, as the vines do not 
intertwine and become tangled, as all the run¬ 
ning varieties certainly do. It is likewise the 
earliest variety, so that it is adapted to a 
much wider territory than any of the others. 
It can be raised farther north than any other 
cow-pea and its earliness adapts it to be plant¬ 
ed as a second crop, following oats. Oats are 
harvested here in June. As soon as they are 
dry they are hauled to the barn, and as soon 
thereafter as convenient the stubble is laid 
off and bedded in rows three feet apart; the 
beds are opened witn a shovel plow: peas are 
dropped four to six in a place; 18 to 34 
inches apart in the drill, and covered with a 
harrow. Planted in this way, and with one 
plowing after they are in full leaf, (if planted 
by July 1, in this latitude) they will ma¬ 
ture a full crop of ripe peas before frost. In 
regard to “when to cut,” those wbo have 
written on this subject say, “Cut when 
the first pods that appear are about full- 
grown, but still greer.” As far as my own 
opinion is concerned, I would certainly save 
my seed first, before cutting them for hay. 
To do this they would necessarily have to be 
fully ripe. My reasons for waiting until then 
are tvto-fold:—first, for economy’s sake, as I 
would not wish to purchase seed every yiar; 
secondly, w'hen they are cut while full of sap 
and covered with a large number of green 
and very succulent pods, the weather would 
have to be extremely favorable to enable 
one to save them, if they could be saved at 
all, as it is necessary that they should be cur¬ 
ed in the shade; for if they were cured in the 
sun, the leaves would all crumble and tumble 
off before the stems and pods were dry. My 
own practice (and it is likewise that of the 
farmers of this section generally) is to wait 
until the peas are ripe, but not dead; gather 
as many as we want for seed, feed, and sale; 
then save the vines; wheu they are gathered 
at this stage there is not much sap in them and 
as a natural result they are easily cured. 
Are they as nutritious and as easily digest¬ 
ed when cut at this stage ss they would be 
were they cut green —by green I mean imma¬ 
ture? To this I would answer I have a large 
amount of well cured pea-vine bay with 
from 30 to 30 bushels of dry peas thrown in, 
and as to their digestibility, cattle, sheep and 
horses will eat every morsel even to the roots 
(if they have been pulled up, and they often 
are). Moreover,they will thrive upon the feed, 
and would winter well upon it exclusively. I 
believe this kind of cow-pea hay is the best 
and strongest fodder saved in the South. 
As to curing, there are several plans in 
vogue. The one generally practiced in this 
section is to pile the vines in rail pens (raised 
a footor more from theground) with the floor 
as open as the sides to allow a free circulation 
of air. Fill in to a depth of 18 inches or two 
feet,then lay some nicely dressed poles across, 
filling in again with vines; then more poles, 
and more vines alternately till the pen is 
filled as high as required; then cover it with a 
good roof. I said “nicely dressed poles” be¬ 
cause when smooth they may be drawn out as 
the vines cure, letting the latter down, there¬ 
by economizing space, aBd putting more un¬ 
der one roof. Another plan is to bang the 
vines as fast as cut, on poles, under a good 
shelter. Still another is to trim up saplings 
with the limbs projecting, say, three to six 
feet at the bottom, tapering in a pyramidal 
form to the top; put an open floor at the base 
of the saplings (which should be firmly fixed 
by letting the ends into the ground 18 inches 
or morel—even brush will answer as a floor; 
then stack the green vines on the limbs and 
floor, around the saplings. The limbs will 
keep them sufficiently apart to allow a free 
circulation of air, which is absolutely essen¬ 
tial to cure them successfully. A plan I have 
practiced successfully,[and one I am partial to, 
is to place a layer of vines on the floor of an 
out-building to a depth of two or three feet— 
fodder or hay lofts answer a good purpose- 
letting them stay there till cured,always rec¬ 
ollecting that the floor must be an open one. 
Other plans could be followed or suggested, 
but the general principles may be summed 
up in few words: Never cut or house the vines 
when they are wet with either rain or dew. 
Always let them wilt in the field, but never 
let them stay there until they are dry. Keep 
in mind that with a good roof over them, and 
a free circulation of air among them, you 
can hardly fail to succeed in curing pea-vine 
hay, always providing the weather be moder¬ 
ately dry. 
Those who have no place to put them should 
cure them as soon as they are a little wilted, 
by putting them in small, high but narrow 
shocks. These should be very carefully made, 
pressed on tbe sides so as not to spread out, 
and rounded and dressed off qttbe top to shed 
rain. I^et the vines remain in these shocks 
till they are about half cured; then make one 
larger shock out of epvpral of the smaller 
OOes, building them up iq life I-^t 
THE RURAL WEW-YORRER. 
the vines remain in these till well cured; then 
house. Another plan is to rake up a portion 
of the vines, and roll tlum ever and over the 
others until a gcod-sized, compact cylinder is 
gathered; these can be readily handled and 
set on end under shelter to cure. Whatever 
plan is pursued, always bear in mind tbe 
above general principles. 
USE OF THE HARROW IN CULTIVATING 
CROPS. 
A. T. T., Franklin Park, N. J.—In read¬ 
ing tbe variety of opinions expressed in the 
Rural of April 37th under “Cultivating 
Young Crops,” “ Harrow s as Hoes,” let no 
man allow his heart to die within him or be 
stimulated to urdue hilariousness on account 
of the assertions made. He me y rest assured 
that if his soil be light and sandy, the barrow 
will work him sorrow and tribulation; but if, 
on the contrary, it be heavy and inclined to 
clay, the barrow will not only help in fitting 
the soil, but will aid immensely in hurrying on 
the work ana in saving time. For years I 
have run a smoothing barrow of 73 teeth over 
corn-fields, and the proportion of stalks torn 
up was simply infinitesimal. On drilled fod¬ 
der corn or on field corn that had been 
drilled in, the harrow in crossing the rows 
most effectively and satisfactorily yanked out 
the youthful weeds, leaving the corn un¬ 
harmed, and, to all intents and purposes, un¬ 
touched. The whole secret of this apparent 
partiality in the harrow to the destruction of 
weeds and the saving of corn lay in the fact 
that the soil was heavy and compact enough 
about the corn roots to hold them fast. Of 
course, the roots of the corn were much larger 
than those of the weeds, and during the first 
harrowing they probably still clung to tbe 
original kernels that were deposited as seeds, 
thereby offering much greater resistance to 
being displaced or drawn out of the ground 
than the young weed roots could do. Re¬ 
sides, the corn sprouts started from under a 
considerable depth of soil, while the weeds 
started from the surface or would have done 
so if the ground were properly cultivated at 
tbe start by the sod being entirely inverted. 
Convinced of the utility of the barrow at tbe 
outset, I became, in an unguarded moment, 
enthusiastic enough to communicate the good 
news to a friend who was accustomed to 
planting largely and also accustomed to 
mourning grievously over the burdensome 
expense which the price of labor necessarily 
entailed upxm him in cultivating this 
large crop. Without inquiring about the 
quality of his soil, I gave him the de¬ 
tails of the “mothod of procedure,” and he at 
once provided himself with the necessary im¬ 
plements. Fortunately, he had passed be¬ 
yond a maximum state of indignation and 
had nearly reached his normal condition of 
good nature before I saw him next. He was, 
however, still eloquent in his denunciation of 
harrows, slanting, str light or of any other 
form,for corn. He stated that he had ordered 
his man, in accordance with my instructions, 
to run as nearly at right angles to the rows as 
practicable, and the man had done so. After 
going across the field a number of times, the 
destruction of corn apparently increasing at 
every bout, the man came to the conclusion 
that the rule to “obey orders if you break 
owners” would be better observed in the 
breach than in the practice. 
A boy was therefore despatched for his em¬ 
ployer. On reaching the field and looking 
over the destruction of the corn that had gone 
on in his absence, my friend said his opinion 
regarding tbe plan of harrowing corn was at 
once expressed in very emphatic language. 
He told his man to pitch the harrow over the 
nearest fence, and at once fell back on his old 
method, concluding it was better to lose his 
labor than to lose labor and crop both. His 
soil was a light sandy loam with an abun¬ 
dance of small cobbles and large pebbles. 
There was nothing compact or weighty 
enough around the young corn roots, to bold 
them down,so they bowed their heads meekly 
and were scratched out quickly as the harrow 
passed along. 
UTILIZING STRAW. 
K. M. T., Quincy, III—An article ap¬ 
peared in the Rural, some time ago, in regard 
to tbe burning of straw, and in the issue of 
April 37th, I note that J. A., Vincennes, Ind., 
rather favors the idea. My mode of taking 
care of tbe straw may assist some of my 
brother wheat raisers in different localities to 
care for their straw and at the same time 
reap more benefit than is to be derived from 
burning it. When our stacking is being done 
I get a thrasherman who has a “stacker” 
with bis thrashing outfit. With the assistance 
of this stacker two men at a cost of $3 per 
day will take care of all the straw a machine 
can thrash, which is probably on an average 
15 tons per day. As soon as our fall work is 
slack, my mep bale the straw. With some 
presses three tpen and a boy can bale eight 
tons qf straw & thus balipg the day’? 
thrashing in—to make even figures—two days, 
which makes tbe total cost of stacking, and 
baling 15 tons of straw $7.50, not including 
the labor of my team. The expenses may be 
itemized as follows:—Two men one day stack¬ 
ing straw, $8; three men baling at $30 per 
month, two day's, $4; one boy two days at 35 
cents per day, 50 cents—$7.50. I now have 
my straw haled and can place what I want 
for barn use in a very small place where I can 
get it handy, and the remainder I haul to the 
railroad and ship to the paper mills, from 50 
to 150 miles away, and I hardly think there 
can be any good wheat-growing districts 
where paper mills are located at a greater 
distance. Thfy pay me $5.50 to $6.50 per 
ton for my straw at the mill. Now let’s see 
what I get for these 15 tons of straw. It cost 
me 50 cents per ton to haul it to tbe cars and 
load it; $1 per ton freight, total $23.50, plus 
the cost of baling, a total expenso from the 
thrasher to the paper mill door, of just $30. 
1 receive from the mill never lower than $5 50 
per ton—$82.50, less expenses, $30, which gives 
me $53.50 for my straw, interest on the money 
invested in my baler (a portable horse-power) 
and my work which probably does not exceed 
two days’ time. 
If one does not want to buy a baler to take 
care of his straw, let him hire one for a week 
or 10 days at 35 cents per ton. I feel sure if 
some who now burn their straw will try the 
above method, they will not feel like burning 
straw any more than they would green-backs. 
A Massachusetts correspondent of the 
Country Gentleman writing of sweet-corn 
silage, states that after a trial of two 
years he is so well satisfied with it that he 
will plant no other kind this year. The past 
season he put in one acre ot it. When cut 
into the silo, nearly every stalk had one or two 
well-matured ears. It made a solid section 
three feet in depth across the silo, with several 
feet of other corn above and below it. It kept 
equally well with the other. When he came 
to feed from this section the flow of milk at 
once increased on a diminished ration of meal, 
and it kept up till he struck the poorer com. 
He intends to plant Marblehead Mammoth 
this season, which is a week or 10 days earlier 
than Stowell’s or Egyptian, and, on good 
land, will grow seven feet high, and produce 
two large ears to every stalk 
Silos and Silage.— The Michigan Agri¬ 
cultural College has had seven years’ experi¬ 
ence with ensilage and the result is given by 
Prof. Johnson in a bulletin lately issued. He 
has endeavored to be temperate and conserva¬ 
tive in his claims for the silo and not to jump 
at conclusions; for he fully believes that the 
half-digested statements of many enthusiasts, 
without practical knowledge, have been as 
much of a hindrance to tbe introduction of 
the silo, as the persistent opposition of somo 
scientists, who have ignored practical results 
because they did not conform to their precon¬ 
ceived tneories. 
As a matter of convenience and economy 
in handling the silage, the silo should be as 
near the feeding room or stable as possible, 
and on the same level. It may often be eco¬ 
nomically located in the bay of the barn, or in 
some adjacent building. The carting of tbe 
silage from the silo to other buildings is not 
only expensive, but there is more or less waste 
from the exposure. 
To determine the size of the silo, estimate as 
a daily ration for each animal to be fed about 
six per cent, of its live weight. This amount 
of good corn silage, with a few pounds of 
wheat bran, oats, oil-meal or clover hay will 
keep animals in fine condition, and also will 
be found a good milk ration Take this es¬ 
timate, to illustrate: ten cows, weighing 1,000 
pounds each, will consume 600 pounds of 
silage daily, or 18,000 pounds per month, or 
108,000 pounds in six mouths. 
Professor Johnson has found by actual 
weighing that a cubic foot of silage, two 
feet from the surface of the silo, under moder¬ 
ate pressure, weighs 36 pounds; eight feet be¬ 
low, 48 pounds; 10 feet below, 50 pounds. It 
is safe to estimate about 40 pounds as the 
average weight of a cubic foot. 
We must also make calculations tor the set¬ 
tling, in our estimates. If well packed this 
will be found one-sixth to one-eighth of the 
depth of the silage; 108,000 pounds would 
require 2,709 cubic feet of space; add one- 
sixth for settling, and we have 3,150 cubic 
feet A silo 22 feet deep, 10 feet wide and 14 
feet long will give this capacity. 
How can the same storage capacity be se¬ 
cured so cheaply as in this small silo? And 
lvbeu we add that these 54 tops of yilage ftre 
sufficient almost to keep, with a grain ration, 
the 10 cows six months, and may be grown 
from three acres of good land, it opens up and 
emphasizes the possibilities of the silo as one 
of tbe main reliances of the stock-man in 
these times of low prices. 
It is better to build too large, than too 
small; have good bight, avoid the deep silos 
or caverns from which the silage must be 
raised by machinery. 
With a large silo Professor Johnson prefers 
a partition; it is often more convenient in fill¬ 
ing, especially if different crops are to be 
grown for this purpose. In feeaing, so large 
a surface is not exposed, and consequently 
there is less liability of injury and waste. 
Estimating three tons of silage equal to 
odo of good hay, has been founa in actual 
feeding a fair comparison. 
While very large yields per acre of ensilage 
corn are frequently reported, an experience 
of some years leads him to infer that these 
large yields are based on estimates rather 
than actual weighings. Professor Johnson is 
of the opinion that 20 tons to the acre are an 
exceptionally large yield. He has bad some 
very good crops but has never exceeded that 
weight per acre. From the 10th to the 30th of 
May is the best time for planting in Michigan. 
The practice among those most succtssful 
with the silo, is to cut when the grain is be¬ 
ginning to glaze. 
Professor Goessman says that the amount of 
vegetable matter in a given weight of green 
fodder corn, cut at the beginning of the glaz¬ 
ing of the kernels, is known to be not only 
nearly twice as large, as compared with that 
contained in an equal weight of green fodder 
corn when just showing the tassels; but it is 
also known to be, pound for pound, more nu¬ 
tritious; for it contains more starch, more 
sugar, more of valuable nitrogenous matter, 
etc. Professor Johnson has put corn into the 
silo when the stalks were partially dry and 
sometimes after they had been frosted, and 
while he cannot doubt that there was some 
loss in nutrition, tbe silage was fairly good 
and he is confident the corn so injured could 
in no other way have been as cheaply and eco¬ 
nomically stored for winter use. 
TRUE INWARDNESS. 
A Writer in the Kansas Farmer says: “lam 
at this time paying the First National Bank 
of Peabody 18 per cent, on borrowed money, 
and during a portion of the year have paid 24 
per cent, on a part of the same money. The 
town of Peabody, with 2,000 inhabitants, has 
four banks; Walton, with less than 300 souls, 
has one, and Newton, with a population of,«ay, 
8,000 has six with the seventh nearly ready 
for usurious occupancy.” 
Commenting upon the above the O. C. Far¬ 
mer says that it seems to be high time that 
Kansas had a law limiting the rate of inter¬ 
est and not only Kansas,butall Western States 
where the matter is not now restricted within 
reasonable limits. 
These Shylocks are slowly but surely eating 
up the substance of the people. They are an 
ulcer on the body politic. “They toil not, 
neither do they spin,” but they live on the 
sweat of other men’s brows and wax fat. 
Our interesting contemporary above quoted 
mentions that not long since some boys were 
torturing a dog in the street, when a young 
lady passing along interceded for the dog and 
persuaded them to desist from their cruelty. 
She walked away, satisfied that she had done 
a humane act—and so she had. But on her 
hat were a beautiful specimen of a stuffed 
humming bird and a pair of wings from some 
other bird, both of which had been killed in 
order that her hat might be adorned to suit 
her fastidious taste. 
Our respected friend Dr. W. J. Beal of the 
Michigan Agricultural College, says that for 
the past 10 years or more the lumber cut in 
Michigan has boon steadily on the increase, 
and during this time the great waste has been 
without a parallel in the history of nations. 
In the southern counties of the State, people 
are already beginning to be more careful 
about wasting the timber. Of the three great¬ 
est interests ot our country, manufacturing of 
all kinds ranks first, agriculture second, aud 
forestry third. 
Congress has appropriated large amounts 
for investigating and encouraging the grow¬ 
ing of oysters, crabs, lobsters aud fish and the 
money already appears to be giving large re¬ 
turns. Michigan for some years has done a 
little by way of experiment to foster the pro¬ 
duction of fish in our lakes, ponds and streams. 
We legislate to protect birds aud wild game 
and appropriate money to encourage a large 
number of worthy objects,but for our forests, 
from which we are drawing a larger amount 
in natural wealth than from any other source 
of supply, or from all other sources together, 
we have so far done practically nothing (;o 
protect op cultivate,... T 
