464 
i[ it. It must be cut before the spring rams 
ire over, and almost always gets caught iu 
me of them. The second crop is always light. 
If grown with Red Clover it ripens before the 
clover is fit to cut. The seed is expensive and 
a good stand requires thick seeding. At the 
age of two years tussocks begin to form, with 
bare spots between on which no other grass 
can grow. It seems pleased to let weeds of all 
kinds grow with it and share the manure you 
have given it. It has some good points, I ad¬ 
mit, As a farm lawn grass it is early to start 
in Spring, and a few days after being cut 
presents a green surface. Alter the second 
crop is out it will keep green until very hard 
freezing weather. Sow Orchard Grass for 
looks rather than for profit. Horses and cat¬ 
tle will eat wheat straw on the same terms 
they eat Orchard Grass, viz.: if you give 
them nothing else. Tables of analysis give it 
a high rank, but it is about like the ammonia 
that chemists fiud in “leather scraps.” They 
must have keener instincts than plants, for 
the latter never find it. Animals search hard 
and long for the nutriment in Orchard Grass 
but they seldom find it. 1 would advise 
farmers to try Orchard Grass in a very gentle 
manner. Put in an acre and keep account of 
its value, aud at the end of four yearn see 
what it comes to. Dear experience prompts 
me to say this. I have had 30 acres of the 
grass. I have now got it all plowed under 
but one acre. That is now cut aud mostly 
those on potatoes, and I propose to give you 
the results of my experiments on a small scale. 
I am much disappointed, in examining your 
rating of potato fertilizers, to find that your 
list does not include one that has given me 
very good results, viz. the refuse of glue fac¬ 
tories known as hair manure. On the 3rd of 
April I planted a half bushel each of the Van¬ 
guard aud Pearl of Savoy and two bushels of 
the Mayflower, adopting the flat surface cul¬ 
ture and mulch system recommended by the 
Rural About half of the patch was fertili¬ 
zed in the trenches with hair manure, and the 
other half with wood ashes, the ground having 
received last Fall a good dressing of stable 
manure which was plowed under in the 
Spring as soon as the frost left the soil. It 
occurred to me that the hair manure might be 
used to serve both purposes of fertilizer and 
mulch, and one trench was therefore treated 
in this manner, the potatoes being covered in 
without any fertilizer and a coat of hair man¬ 
ure spread over the top. Iu using hair man¬ 
ure as a mulch iu this way, the application 
should not be made until the shoot® have fair¬ 
ly broken the ground, as if it once receives a 
wetting it cements iuto a mat which it is 
almost impossible for the plants to penetrate. 
Not being as familiar with the nature of the 
material as I should have been, I did not ob¬ 
serve this caution in my practice, and was 
means of the heavy point on them on uneven 
ground they hug the surface and take the hay 
clean. The rake, he also claims, is the most 
40 per cent, of butter or pure fat; l>i to ^ 
per cent, of mineral matter; 40 to 65 per cent, 
of water, and five to seven per cent, of caseine 
and sugar. It varies very much in accordance 
with the manner in which it is separated from 
the milk and with the quantity of milk which 
is held among the globules of which it is form¬ 
ed by what is known as molecular attraction. 
Butter consists usually of 85 per cent, of fat, 
one-half per cent, of caseine; three-fourths 
per cent, of sugar, 13 per cent, of water and a 
small quantity of mineral matter. Uhen 
tyi 1 rrt 111 and butter are both entirely 
deprived of a large portiou of its carbo¬ 
hydrates; but it is still an exceedingly valu¬ 
able food, especially for young animals which 
are not taking much exercise, and which do 
not need so large a supply of carbon as ani¬ 
mals which expend much heat in the process 
of respiration which is greatly accelerated 
by exercise. Skimmed milk contains 90 V per 
cent, of water, per cent, of caseine; 
per cent, of sugar, aud aboutone per cent, of 
mineral matter and about one-half per cent, of 
fat. It is seen to be deficient only in fat, and 
still coutains all the sugar of the milk, which 
supplies the carbon needed by the young ani¬ 
mal to a large extent. When milk is sour a 
change has taken place. A part of the sugar 
has been changed to lactic acid, and the acid 
has precipitated the caseine before held in 
solution and made it solid. The acid of milk 
aids digestion somewhat, so that while soui 
milk is not so digestible as sweet milk, yet 
digestion of the solid caseine is helped by the 
acid of the milk. The nutritive value of the 
sour milk has been lessened somewhat by the 
change of a part of the sugar into acid, and 
also by the change of the soluble caseine into 
solid matter, which is more difficult of diges- 
Buttermilk is considered a better 1 ood than 
skimmed-milk, and probably because it con¬ 
tains IK per cent, of fat and the caseine is so 
thoroughly beateu up that while it is really 
precipitated aud solid, yet the particles are 
broken up very finely and so much mixed up 
with the fluid portion, that it is more digest¬ 
ible than the ordinary sour skimmed-milk. 
The larger portion of lactic acid contained in 
it also improves its digestibility. Hence fresh 
buttermilk is often recommended by physi¬ 
cians as a healthful and nutritious food for 
persons of weak digestion, and if this is true 
of it, it must also be a good food for calves and 
Fig. 388. 
economical in cost and in using. Any farmer 
with good tools can make one in less than two 
days. Materials cost from $9 to $11. A boy 
14 or 15 years of age can handle one with ease. 
The rake teeth are eight feet long, made of 
ash two inches wide, two inches thick at the 
Fodder Materials. —Prof. Goessman, in 
a late bulletin, says that the peculiar charac¬ 
ter of our home-raised fodder articles is apt to 
conceal their special deficiency for the various 
purposes they are used for in general farm 
management. They ull contain the three 
essential food constituents, yet iu widely vary¬ 
ing proportions, and they ought, therefore, be 
supplemented in different directions to secure 
tbeir full economical value. To resort to more 
or less of the same fodder article to meet the 
special wants, may meet the case as far as an 
efficient support of the animal is concerned, 
yet it can only in exceptional cases be consid¬ 
ered good economy. To satisfy the craving 
of the stomach and to feed a nutritious food, 
are both requirements of a healthy animal 
diet, which, each in its own way, may be com¬ 
plied with. The commercial fodder substances, 
as oil cakes, meal refuse, brans, and our stead¬ 
ily increasing supply of refuse material from 
breweries,starch works, glucose factories, etc., 
are admirably fitted to supplement our farm 
resources for stock-feeding; they can serve in 
regard to animal growth, aud support in a 
similar way as the commercial fertilizer in the 
growth of farm crops, by supplementing our 
home manurial resources. To feed au excess 
of fodder materials, as roots, potatoes, etc., 
which contain a large proportion of non- 
nitrogenous substances, as starch, sugar, 
digestible cellular substance, etc., means direct 
waste, for they are ejected by the animal and 
do not even materially benefit the manure 
heap. In case of an excessive consumption of 
nitrogenous constituents, a part of the ex¬ 
pense is saved in au increased value of the 
manure, yet scarcely enough to recommend 
that practice beyond merely exceptional 
cases. The aim, therefore, of an economical 
stock-feeding must be to compound our vari 
ous fodder materials in such a muuner that 
the largest quantity of each of the three 
groups of fodder substances which the animal 
is capable of assimilating, should be contained 
iu its daily diet to meet the purpose for which 
it is kept. To compound the fodder rations of 
our farm stock with reference to the special 
wants of each class ol' them, is au essential re¬ 
quirement for a satisfactory performance of 
their functions; to supply these wants iu au 
economical way controls the financial success 
of the industry. From these aud similar con¬ 
siderations it will be apparent that the devel- 
ODiuent of a more rational, and thus more 
HOME-MADE RAKE. Fi; 
HOME-MADE RAKE. 
Mr A. F. Morse, of Audriau Co., Mo., 
uses the rake shown at Fig. §87, and calls it 
the best in use. He says it takes the hay from 
the swath to the stack or puts it iu shock rows 
much faster and with less horse power, and 
leaves the windrow cleaner and works no dust 
into the hay. The teeth are so limber that by 
EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES. 
I have been following the Rural experi¬ 
ments with considerable interest—especially 
