608 
SEPT U 
vesting of grass—which alone is left—is phe¬ 
nomenally cheap compared with the cost of 
harvesting other crops. Again, Timothy 
yields more nearly as much as do the tillage 
crops than is generally supposed. A soil 
fitted for grass with available fertility 
enough to give good hoed or grain crops, 
would easily yield three tons of Timothy, or 
at least it does with me. The trouble is that 
we grow corn and grain and take the cream 
off of the soil, and then follow with grass. 
Three tons of bay would give 5,400 pounds of 
dry matter per acre. To furnish this amount of 
dry matter in green fodder-corn would re¬ 
quire 13% tons. Without collecting the data 
reported, I judge that 16 tons per acre are 
more than the average yield of the country. 
Now 16 tons of fodder-corn would give but 
6,400 pounds of dry matter. Furthermore, the 
hay will be more completely eaten in the barn 
and will be more cheaply handled. 
I do not wish to prove that grass should 
hold sway in dairy farming, for in my own 
practice Timothy occupies two years only in a 
six years’ rotation, but I insists that its physical 
and chemical effects on the soil and its econ¬ 
omy of growth should make it a welcome 
crop in a rotation and indeed retain for it an 
honored place. The reasons above assigned in 
a general way would appear stronger when 
reviewed in the light of critical detailed data 
drawn from the close work of investigators. 
Having said this much in defense of Timothy, 
I will express my favorable opinion of corn- 
fodder and clover; in fact, I use in practice 
one year of clover and one year of corn-fod¬ 
der for every two years of Timothy in the six 
years of rotation. I will get, it is my belief and 
within my knowledge, more nutrition in the 
two years of corn and clover than in the two 
years of Timothy, yet these increased amounts 
will be greater than they would have been 
had Timothy not been grown, and, on the 
other hand, the Timothy crop will be heavier 
than it would have been had not clover and 
corn been raised. 
I take it for granted that the questioner 
makes a distinction between corn-fodder and 
fodder corn, and that in the use of the former 
term, stover, the husked corn plant, is meant, 
although fodder-corn is more often advocated 
for the dairy. 
I am inclined to think—indeed I have to 
some extent practiced it—that I should plant 
my corn just a little—but not much— 
thicker than in ordinary field practice, and 
then harvest and feed it with the nearly per¬ 
fected ears on it, allowing hogs to follow the 
cows and use any undigested corn that may 
have passed through the cows. This saves 
the great cost of harvesting and grinding corn, 
and in my opinion involves little waste. 
By the phrase, “feedit with the nearly per¬ 
fected ears on it,” I do not by any means de¬ 
sire to convey the idea that I would harvest 
it before it had matured. I hold firmly to 
harvesting only after the plant food ceases to 
enter from the ground. When the crop has 
been planted more thickly than in the field- 
corn system, the ears will not be the full, 
large, hard ears that occur in field corn, and 
a larger proportion of the nutrition of the crop 
will be in the stalks than in the ears, than 
would occur in the field corn system; yet ears 
would be there approximating the matured 
state of field corn. The nutrition thus grown 
on two acres—one in clover and one in corn— 
would be, as said, greater than that from 
Timothy; but each in its way would perform 
in the rotation valuable functions that are in¬ 
dispensable to good farming. 
Touching the intimation that an acre 
each of clover and corn would produce more 
butter than two acres of Timothy, I take it 
that no proof need be adduced. All highly 
tilled farms very rarely fail to give two crops 
of clover, and a greater yield per acre than 
of Timothy; while corn is well understood to 
be our most productive crop. The particular 
significance of these two crops when consid¬ 
ered together is their remarkable efficiency 
when fed together. This is true not only when 
they are fed to steers, as I have frequently 
shown, but it is true for the dairy cow. Corn 
either in the ear or the fodder, is a good 
butter maker, and palatable, provided that it 
is saved in fine condition. 
If we measure the problem by the popular 
fancy for the standard of Wolff, we find that 
100 pounds of clover give of protein. 12 26 lbs. 
100 “ stover “ “ “ 15.47 “ 
200 “ Timotny.12.32 “ 
12.32 27.73 
The analysis of stover is from the Missouri 
College Farm. 8o far as we may attach any 
importance to the great ado made over pro¬ 
tein in foods, it will be seen that the combina¬ 
tions are most fortunate and that the two 
most important cattle foods of the country— 
grasses excluded—seem made for each other. 
Witb.these two foods alone, coupled with good 
pasture, it would be possible to economically 
maintain good, productive dairies. In my 
list of old experiments in New Hampshire,jit 
will be found that a substitution of Timothy 
—where the very nicest grade was grown— 
for clover and stover, did not result in a gain 
of milk and butter yield. When stover is cut 
and crushed (I have used a Lynn crusher) it 
will practically be all eaten. A shredder was 
being put on the market in New Hampshire 
some years ago, that shredded the fodder up 
somewhat like excelsior, and left it in a most 
admirable condition for consumption,— 
better than I have ever seen it. What be¬ 
came of the enterprise I do not kno w. There 
is a machine now made in Illinois that husks 
the corn and crushes and elevates the fodder 
into a shed or loft. 
The time has come when the enormous and 
wretched waste of corn fodder now going on 
will largely cease. The country is now get¬ 
ting ready for its use. No food will be found 
so available and cheap, to supply the needed 
protein and to bring it into economical use, as 
clover. 
Bulletins 7 and 8 issued by me, will show 
our flock that must either be raised by band 
or allowed to perish for lack of nourishment. 
This arises from a variety of causes; some¬ 
times a ewe will disown her lamb from its 
birth, or, if she has twins, she will devote her¬ 
self to one of them and refuse to have any¬ 
thing to do with the other; while another ewe, 
perhaps, will appear to be very fond of her 
offspring, but, unfortunately, will not be able 
to give it a drop of milk; so that rather than 
see the lamb perish we feed it with milk from 
a bottle, allowing it to stay with its mother 
for awhile to see if she will not eventually be 
able to raise it. We never take one away 
from its mother when it can possibly be help¬ 
ed, for its natural food is much more whole¬ 
some than any substitute. 
When a ewe can raise her lamb but refuses 
to do so, a great variety of influences may be 
brought to bear upon her. Sometimes if she 
is cot fined to a stall away from the rest of the 
flock, she will make friends with her lamb for 
the sake ot its company. One spring, I re¬ 
member, we tied a ewe with a rope iu order to 
prevent her from running away from her lamb 
GAYNOR BLACKBERRY 
From Nature. See page 606. Fig. 231. 
that I do not find ensilage the best means of 
utilizing corn fodder, altnough I do not pre¬ 
tend to prophesy as to what improvements in 
the silo may yet accomplish. At points in 
the East where land is high and chemical fer¬ 
tilizers economically available, and where the 
dairy is made a specialty, especially where 
the soil is not favorable to grass, possibly 
Timothy would not become as necessary as 
here. In that case, we should be met with 
the fact that clover will not thrive in short 
rotations, and that some crop would have to 
intervene between the corn and clover. Borne 
more profitable market crop might be used to 
extend the rotation. Market demands, soil 
and location would have to determine the 
problem. But even then it would not be a 
dairy crop. 
Columbia, Mo. 
Every year there are a number of lambs in 
entirely. For weeks afterward she went about 
the grass lot with several yards of rope trail¬ 
ing after her, and at intervals somebody had 
to go out and take hold of the rope to make 
her stand still. The lamb soon came to under¬ 
stand this, and when he saw us coming would 
run to his mother, though he well knew that 
at any other time she would butt him over 
and over on the grass. The unnatural mother 
finally became reconciled, and the rope was 
removed. 
Often where there are twins, the stronger 
will push the weaker one aside until it almost 
dies of starvation; then if the feeble lamb be 
fed for awhile it will gain strength and be able 
to stand up for its rights. One can always 
distinguish a lamb that is insufficiently nour¬ 
ished by its drawn-up, miserable appearance, 
and its plaintive cry; and frequently its life 
can bo saved by feeding it for a few days until 
its mother’s milk is more abundant. In such 
cases, it should remain with its mother, and 
the bottle should be carried out to it several 
times a day. Last week I noticed a beautiful 
little lamb in this condition, and, after it had 
been fed for several days, it grew so gentle 
that, as I passed by it while it was lying down 
in the yard, I held out the bottle which was 
intended for another little fellow, when, with¬ 
out rising to its feet, it seized the rubber and 
began drawing away. If a young lamb ob¬ 
jects to the taste of the milk, it should be 
slightly sweetened for a few times, as that 
seems to make it more palatable. 
Some years ago, when we began to take 
charge of the mo;herless lambs, we killed one 
or two from over-feeding; their appetites are 
insatiable and are no guide whatever. Now 
we have found that for a very young lamb, a 
scant half pint at intervals of about two und 
one-half hours is sufficient. 
They should be fed the first thing in the 
morning and the last thing at night. As they 
grow older, the intervals between meals should 
be lengthened, and the quantity of milk in¬ 
creased, until, when they are one month old, 
they can take one pint four times a day; aud 
when two months old, they can drink one and 
one-half pint three times a day. Lambs cau 
live on a much smaller quantity than this, but 
if they are stinted, their appetite prompts 
them to graze too freely before their digestive 
organs are developed, so they fill their stom- 
a:hs full of grass, and, beiug unable to assim¬ 
ilate it, their bodies assume that distended, 
unnatural appearance so common to pet lambs, 
while their growth aud true development are 
checked. Until lambs are a month or six weeks 
old, the milk should be warmed, aud. if any 
indications of scours appear, it should be boil¬ 
ed tor a few times. Boiled milk should not 
be given them constantly, however, for it has 
a tendency to produce the opposite effect, 
which habit will surely prove fatal if allowed 
to prevail for any length of time. A small 
quantity of white sugar or molasses put in the 
milk will have a laxative effect, and, in ex¬ 
treme cases, a tea-spoonful of castor-oil admin¬ 
istered in milk once or twice daily will gener¬ 
ally prove a corrective. 
So well have we learned to manage the 
lambs, that now the pets are often considered 
the handsomest and the healthiest lambs in 
the flock; and last fall a buyer came aud se¬ 
lected one to keep, saying he was the fiuest 
sheep he ever saw. 
By this time so many of the lambs have been 
raised as pets that the whole flock has become 
gentle, for, seeing the pets come and eat from 
our hands, emboldens them to come too. This 
makes them more easily managed, for when it 
is necessary to change the flock from one field 
to another, we call the pets, and the rest of 
the flock follow them. Last spring we con¬ 
cluded it was too much trouble to fix the bot¬ 
tle every time the lambs had to be fed, so we 
taught them to. drink milk from a shallow 
pan, as the milk-man teaches his calves to do, 
but, unfortunately we never could get them 
to drink the milk unless a certain person’s 
hand was in it, and that was very inconven¬ 
ient, for when the favorite individual was ab 
sent, the lambs refused a substitute, and would 
bleat most piteously for half a day at a time. 
This year we went back to the old method, 
and now anyone can feed them, for the bottle 
and rubber are always the same. 
When the weather was very cold and the 
lambs were young, they were k^pt in a big 
box iu a corner of the kitche"; now they are 
out in the garden on a pile of straw in the sun¬ 
shine. a farmer’s daughter. 
Logan County, Kentucky. 
RURAL SEPC1AL REPORTS. 
Canada. 
Victoria Square, Ont. August 21.—The 
potato crop in this neighborhood is poor ow¬ 
ing to continued wet weather after plant¬ 
ing. A number planted the second time. No 
appearance of rot so far. The crop will prob¬ 
ably be about half an average one. w. s. 
Connecticut. 
Weston, Fairfield County, August 16.—The 
potato crop is rotting badly. Some of my 
neighbors say they will not have enough for 
their own consumption. I should say there 
will not be more than one-half an average 
crop. Of course, there is nothing accurate 
about this, as they may continue rotting. 
Enough has not been dug to demonstrate 
to what extent they are rotting. The general 
opinion is they are doing badly. c. e. 
Delaware. 
Kenton, Kent County, August 19.—I have 
talked with my neighbors on the probable 
yield of potatoes: they say they have an aver¬ 
age crop aud that there is no rotting except 
on low land. I dug some of mine 10 days ago 
and found them in good condition. Farmers 
do not grow potatoes very extensively here, 
they go in more for grains, peaches, etc. 
B. P. M. 
