represents that cut in full bloom. When left 
till ripe, it is slightly less nutritious than the 
above. Economically considered, red clover 
hay consists of— 
Flesh-formers.22.66 
Fat-forxuers.44.00 
Accessories. 24.00 
Mineral matter. H.45 
Total...... . 100.00 
The value of clover hay depends not only on 
the time it is cut. but also on the manner iu 
which it is cured. A slow process of curing 
makes a better quality of hay, while a thor¬ 
ough curiug, so that the large stems may be 
well dried out before it is put in the stack or 
mow. is of great importance to the future ex¬ 
cellence of the hay. The great difficulty in 
growing clover in this part of the country, is in 
.getting a catch, as every season is not favora¬ 
ble to the germination of the seed and the 
growth of the plants while very young. The 
locusts also prove very destructive to thegrow- 
ing clover, eating it down to the crown of the 
roots and thus killing it. This is seen iu the 
decrease resulting from their visitation in 1874. 
The report of the ac reage of clover meadow 
on the first of March in that year, shows 13,907 
acres, while the report for the next year, 1875, 
shows but 0,303 acres in this crop, a falling-off 
of more than half. The severe injury caused 
by the young brood that hatched out in the 
eastern part of the State in the spring of '75, in 
connection with the discouragement resulting 
from their ravages, resulted in reducing it in 
1876 to 4,973 acres. But since that year there 
has been a steady improvement, 1877 showing 
an area of 9,797; and ’78, 12,429 acres. 
The amount of clover pasture for these two 
years is set down at 1445 acres for '77, and 
3770 for ’78, making the total area devoted to 
this crop for the two past years, 11,242 for ’77, 
and 16,199 acres for ’78, being an increase of 
4957 acres or over 44 per cent. 
Another hay crop that is considerably culti¬ 
vated here is 
MILLET AND HUNQARIAN-GRASS. 
These are annuals. The advantages of their 
cultivation are. they may be 6own at almost 
any time during the spring or forepart of the 
summer, and produce good crops; they nour¬ 
ish on almost all the soils of the Slate; they 
produce large crops and, when well saved, 
they make a very nutritious and palatable hay. 
The area devoted to this crop the past two 
years was, for 77, 164,529 and for 78, 144,081 
acres, beiug a decrease of 20,448 acres, probably 
owing to the extreme wet that prevailed dtir- 
ring last June. 
OTHER FORAGE PLANTS. 
Corn fodder i6 little used lime on account of the 
dryness of the winters, that makes it impossible 
to handle it without crumbling it well-nigh to 
dust. Wheat straw, of which we have millions 
of tons, is largely used as rough feed by farm¬ 
’77 
’78 
’77 
•79 
. 4,202 
8,820 
26.212 
40,121 
. 1,445 
8,770 
9,797 
12,429 
— 
— 
104,529 
144,081 
21,299 
27,877 
— 
— 
55H.li.57 
701,421 
603,612 
667,460 
ers, and is fed with good results. 
As u pasture grass, the Kentucky blue-grass, 
(Poa pratensis), is meeting with considerable 
favor. It prefers a rather moist, rich, lime¬ 
stone soil, aud iu a light, porous soil, it is apt 
to suffer from heat aud drought. It is quite 
difficult to get a “catch" of this grass iu our 
loose soils ; but when once established, so far 
as my observation has gone, it succeeds quite 
well. There are some other grasses that are 
being tried to some extent, but those I have 
named constitute the principal part of our 
cultivated forage plauts. According to the 
latest reports at hand, the following area was 
devoted to these crops in the State during the 
past two years r 
Pasture. Meadow. 
71— - 
Timothy.. . 
Clover. 1,445 
Millet, etc, 
Blue-u-rass. . 
Prairie (fenced).658,667 
The last item explains the comparative mea- 
geruess of all the others. 
Where a majority of the people have access 
to prairies heavily clothed with grass for cither 
pasture or hay, and where hay can be put in 
the 6tack for from one to two dollars a ton, 
and in the barn for twice that sum, it is hardly 
to be expected that very general attention will 
be given to the cultivation of the tame grasses. 
But their adaptability to the soil and climate 
is being tested, and when the time comes for 
them to be a general necessity, the people will 
know just what they can do with them, and 
experience so far shows that when needed, 
they can be depended upon. 
Reno Co., Kan. 
- » - » - 
CALIFORNIA REPORT ON FIELD CORN. 
The small farmers in our richer valleys are 
each year planting more corn. Fields which, 
under a steady wheat culture were failing, are 
thus renovated, and the farmers find a more 
constant employment. In Alameda and Sono¬ 
ma counties, in the Pajara valley, which lies 
partly in Monterey county aud partly in 
Santa Cruz county, iu the Lompoe valley, 
Santa Barbara county, and around the city of 
Los Angelos, the com crop is very large und 
appears to be each year increasing. In almost 
every neighborhood of this State the local de¬ 
mand is good, and corn and hogs have secured 
many a farmer’s prosperity. 
Only three kinds of field corn are planted to 
any great extent-—the large white Flint, the 
small yellow Flint, and the large yellow Dent. 
For several years past the white lias brought 
the highest price. The yellow Flint is popular 
among our Portugese farmers, aud they plant 
it almost exclusively. In our rich river bot¬ 
toms the yellow Dent holds its own, being, ou 
such soils, the most productive. This variety 
cannot be shelled as soon ns husked, aud cribs 
must be provided in which to store it for some 
months ; but we have seen both the while Flint 
and the yellow Fliut shelled in the fillet without 
injury, the autumn being so dry. Late-planted 
corn seems to do best, on aeeonut. of not tassel- 
ing out until the early summer beats arc over. 
The rule we used to follow in Alameda county 
was, “plant iu May-day week.” Last year 
coru planted as late as June 20th made a fine 
crop, and wc hear of even later plantings else¬ 
where. In dry seasons, a common practice is 
to plant with a spade, thrusting it down aud 
forward, and dropping the corn behind. 
Hardly one farmer out ul ten thousand makes 
any pretense of manuring his corn land. In a 
few cases bafn-yard manure is used. There 
arc sigDs of a revival in this direction. It used 
tube said that “ manure ruined the. laud here ;” 
that “the climate wasso different that it would 
not assimilate.” and various other absurdities. 
But our progressive farmers now admit the 
absolute necessity aud profit of properly ap¬ 
plied fertilizers, of which coru will come in for 
itB share. Chas. H. Shinn. 
Niles, Alameda Co., Cal. 
Jfarnt 6c o no mu. 
MORE ABUUT PEAT MUCK. 
Gen. Noble is altogether wide of the mark 
in regard to muck iu his remarks on page 100 
(March 15). Lest some farmer, guided by 
those remarks have the experience which I 
have had, aud lose his time by spreading fresh 
muck on his land, I beg to give a cautiou aud 
a reason for it 
First, muck that is “muck” aud is not 
mixed with a large portion of sand, is nearly 
all vegetable matter and, as such, is no more 
fit lood for plants than gravel or other mineral 
matter would be food for au animal. The 
nitrogen contained in it even, is not fit for use 
uutil liie muck is decomposed aud mineral¬ 
ized and the ammonia formed in the decom¬ 
position is set free. The mere fact that the 
muck is disintegrated aud reduced to a fine 
powder is of no effect further than (hat it can 
be spread the more easily. I have been hand¬ 
ling muck for years, and know a good deal 
about it. Of course, there are different kinds 
of muck, but I refer to that kind which cuts 
out in solid blocks and consists of a dark, 
brownish or black fibrous vegetable matter. 
Now only to-day I have been passing along tbe 
banks of ditches which were dug a year ago, 
and tbe blocks of muck which were thrown 
out then are now almost as solid as at first, 
and for a vAry good reason. They have dried 
or have frozen, and when dry oi* frozen they 
do not rot; in fact, dry peat is next to imper¬ 
ial iable. 
T* decompose, any vegetable substance must 
be kept moist and warm, or it must be sub¬ 
jected to a chemical process by a means of 
some, caustic alkali, as lime or ashes. When 
piled in heaps, vegetable matter w ill be kept 
moist aud will ferment aud become warm 
and the presence of lime or ashes iu the heap 
will greatly hasten this fermentation aud heal¬ 
ing. Borne years ago I spread hundreds of 
loads of muck upon a 10-acrc field during 
the winter and lost a whole winter’s work of 
two men and four horses. The muck remained 
in lumps for years and seemed to resist water 
and keep as dry as it it were as well protected 
as a duck's back. It was plowed in aud out 
and tom up and dragged here and there with 
harrows, and was, in fact, of no use whatever. 
And such I am sure will be the effect any¬ 
where, of spreading fresh muck upon laud in 
the manner advised by Geu. Noble. So, too, 
it will be useless to heap it in piles and expect 
it to be available as a fertilizer within cme 
year, unless a liberal portion of lime or wood 
ashes is mixed in with it. Further, I would ex¬ 
plain that thuyellow deposit seen in the ditches 
in peat swamps is not. by any means always 
iron. When it is, it is generally carbonate or 
oxide, and useful; aud not the sulphate (cop¬ 
peras) and hurtful. The sulphate is very rap¬ 
idly oxidized, aud iron ores or iron rocks are 
generally impregnated with oxides aud not 
with sulphates, so that, except where alum 
shales are present, or near-by, copperas iu the 
soil is very rare indeed. But most often the 
yellow mud consists of infusorial growth, as 
may bo seen by an examination under a mi¬ 
croscope of not very high power; and this 
matter contains considerable amount of ni¬ 
trogen. A Western Farmer. 
•-- 
BEET SUGAR. 
tages thereof. Allow me to ask how far these 
discussions are based on practical experience 
and how much has its basis only in speculative 
theories. It may seem very illiberal, but this 
is a matter of too great practical importance to 
be let pass without some comment. If my 
memory serves me, every at tempt in this coun¬ 
try to make beet sugar on a large scale has 
proved a failure. Such, ait least, was the re¬ 
sult in tile extensive works in Illinois a few 
years ago. The failure was attributed in part, 
I believe, to inferiority of the heel roots, those 
grown ou prairie -oil containing less than the 
average amount of sugar; but, as there have 
been failures under oilier circumstances, I sus¬ 
pect that there must be some inherent diffi¬ 
culty. The loss iu the Illinois experiment was, 
I believe, borne iu part by tbe farmers of the 
vicinity, who had been led by Uuttering pros¬ 
pectuses to iuvest in the enterprise. It may 
be that the projectors of uew experiments have 
obviated difficulties heretofore encountered. 
If this be so, they will do well to explain what 
new grounds they have for expecting success. 
So far as I have seen, the project seems vision¬ 
ary aud the details arc scarcely referred to. We 
have been treated to essays on the great im¬ 
portance of the beet-sugar industry and the 
success of the French therein; but the fact is 
ignored that the French Government imposes 
a heavy—almost prohibitory—duty on foreign 
sugar, and this alone compels its extensive 
manufacture at home. In France, also, labor 
is cheaper than here, and with dear sugar and 
excessively cheap labor, French success is no 
criterion for us. 
It is nothing to me how much money large 
capitalists may choose to invest in beet-sugar 
making, but until we hear of some absolute 
successes, instead of promises of success, farm¬ 
ers will do well to keep their hands over their 
pockets. It is not even safe, as some Illinois 
farmers learned, to make contracts for grow¬ 
ing beets, as the experiment may fail before 
the crop can be sold. 
My own belief is that beet sugar, uuless with 
uew and expensive apparatus for refining, is 
inferior to cane sugar; that the best sugar- 
beets contain a smaller percentage of sweet 
than cane, and that less valuable, aud finally 
that the cost per poundis such that the 
product can never be sold here profitably unless 
our government imposes much higher duties on 
sugar than at present, or than it i6 ever likely 
to do. I shall be very glad to be convinced of 
error on either of these points. 
Monroe Co., N. Y. W. J. Fowler. 
Jmut ®ojm 
JOTTINGS AT KIRBY HOMESTEAD. 
COL. F. D. CURTIS. 
There is a very general discussion of late of 
beet sugar, its manufacture and the advan¬ 
Auts for Planting. 
The fall of the year is the time to save nuts 
for planting. They are too dry now to grow. 
Noue of ours which had become dry, grew last 
year. They should be planted In the autumn 
as soon as ripe, or covered with a mulch on the 
ground, or put into a box with sand, and left 
out of doors. Last year was a very poor nut 
3 r ear, und nuts were scarce. These remarks 
are for inquirers. 
hwainps Not Necessary. 
It had always been a swamp and stood, the 
year round, full of water fed h^prings in the 
banks. We saw it thirty ydR ago, worth¬ 
less ; now it cuts three tons of excellent hay to 
the acre. Au open ditch, all around it, with a 
good outlet, made it a meadow, aud two hay 
crops paid the cost. You who have worthless 
swamps, do likewise. 
To Make Rich Milk ami Manure. 
The cream from the milk, when the cows 
were fed a peck of buckwheat bran, each, was 
light-colored and thin. Now, when they are 
fed four quarts of corn meal, tbe cream is 
thicker and more yellow. This means more 
butter. Bran of all sorts is better for young 
animals, as it makes muscle ; but meal is best 
for cows, as it makes fat, and milk is fat; that 
is, milk which will make good butter, contains 
a large per cent of fat. The bran will make 
tbe best manure, because there is more of it 
which goes into the manure pile, and this fur¬ 
nishes a supply of nitrogen. The farmer, then, 
who feeds plenty of bran, will have a rich 
manure heap, and so it is cheaper to buy bran 
and feed it liberally than to stint one’s animals 
and buy commercial fertilizers. Commercial 
manures do not furnish much nitrogen. This 
must come largely from grain, and the bran is 
Ihe nitrogenous part, aud without nitrogen 
there will not be a perfect plant growth. The 
lesson wc would teach, is to save all of the 
bran for the growing animals, and the meal 
for the fattening ones and the cows. To 
make them all healthy and to utilize and 
asfcimulate both bran and meal perfectly, roots 
should always be fed. This is an important 
part of the system, and helps to make perfect 
digestion, Good digestion insures health and 
vigorous appetite. These are the foundations 
of profit. 
Prlckley Comfrey. 
We have had an experience on Kirby Home¬ 
stead with Comfrey of the common sort, for 
almost a hundred years. We suppose the 
Prick ley is ibe same so far as habits, taste, etc., 
are concerned, only perhaps more so; and if 
it is, it is all the worse for it, for the Comfrey 
without the Priekley is a pest. We never 
knew an animal to taste of it, and they have 
often run iu the lot where it grows when the 
feed was very short. The roots arc excellent 
for a tea, or to make into a sirup by steeping 
them and extracting the mucilage contained in 
them. Tins is what it was planted for by an 
old slave Woman at her cabin door, It is an 
old-fasbioued medicinal herb, and that is its 
only value. 
On the other hand, it is a nuisance, for its 
propensity to spread taxes the patience and 
skill of any oue who has it; for, once rooted, 
it is almost impossible to get rid of it. Every 
bit of root or fragment of a root will grow, 
aud the more it is mutilated, the more Com¬ 
frey. The old slave woman has been gone 
almost a century, but the Comfrey “ goes 
marching on,” and lias reached far out into 
the field. A more lasting memento could 
scarcely be. 
- *■•*-*■ -- 
LUGUBRIOUS EXPERIENCE WITH CHUFAS 
AND ANGORA GOATS. 
Mrs. T. L. Lamb, in a late Rural, seems to 
murmur much at the manner in which C. H. 
Spaulding disappointed her in the piano trade; 
aud then goes right on to inquire where she 
may find “some things in which she may be 
dealt honestly by.” First, she asks where she 
may procure some of the 
Clnifas 
she saw spoken or in the Rural of December 
28. Permit me to offer the tubers of the chufa 
gratuitously, if your fair correspondent will 
employ a cheap hand to dig them. 
I think it was iu 1851 that I procured a pack¬ 
age of ehufas from tbe Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment, Washington, D. C. I was particularly 
careful to select the best place iu my garden 
aud put it in the best possible shape for the 
valuable seed. The seed was put in aud care¬ 
fully “watched and tended” during the sum¬ 
mer. In the season of digging I attended to 
that job myself, and from the half pint plant¬ 
ed, I harvested about eight quarts of inferior 
nuts or roots, which in lasle resembled, a very 
little, a poor almond ; but in size and shape 
they were so nearly like the root of what is 
here known aa Lake grass (which grows from 
the muck drawn from the shores of our Lake 
Chautauqua onto our up, or dry, land), that it 
took an expert to tell them apart. I dug them, 
as I supposed, clean, getting every oue it was 
possible to find. 
The next season 1 fouud that hundreds of 
plants made their appearance where they were 
grown the year previous. I hoed them, weed¬ 
ed them, pulled them, but they thrived beyond 
my desires, and the surface covered was nearly 
double the space sown the year before. I exer¬ 
cised all my wits to eradicate them. I salted; 1 
used the Hot suds from the washings; aud 
finally seeded the ground to clover; but it was 
ehufas all over. When I built my house, I 
covered this spot at least two feet deep, iu 
gradiug, with earth taken from the cellar, and 
yet the last season I had about one rod square 
of ehufas. Oue thiug is a certainty—I am a 
miserably poor eradicutor of nuisances, or the 
chufa is very tenacious of life; aud in my 
opinion a very worthless pest. 
Next, our friend desires a pair of fancy pets 
—in the form of 
Angora bloats. 
A few years ago, a dear friend of mine sent 
me a pair of pure-bred Angora goats—the 
goat “ Billy ” and mate—the famous goats 
which produced the fiber from which the cele¬ 
brated dress was made and woru, all complete, 
iu 13 hours 8 minutes. They were beauties— 
if oue can call such creatures beauties. They 
were manageable if confined inside a fence six 
feet high, made of tight boards or sharpened 
pickets. But let them loose among your shrubs 
or young trees, and if you do not execrate tho 
very shadow of an Angora goat, you are more 
philosophical than your humble servant. Leave 
a gate open, or a bar down, und they will be 
through before you can say “Jack Robinson,” 
and then you may call “ Ca mm! C'a nan!” 
and run until you arc weary, and yet they will 
remain at liberty. 
T had a very fine row of 12 pear trees of about 
six years’ growth in a yard next to the goats, 
and a friend went into tho yard to admire the 
the goats, when Billy, uot Liking the intrusion, 
paid his “ kompliments ” in a beany butt, which 
sent Mr. Inspector out of the gate and the gate 
wide open, and, though hobbling on as fast 
as he could, William harked the entire 12 
pear trees before our friend could obtain as¬ 
sistance to cage the “bird.” With his horns 
he would give one scrape and bark,and straight¬ 
way' go for another, serving it in the same 
way. Two years’ experieuce taught me they 
