THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
April 21 
292 
THRASHING C 0 R N A'N D SMALL 
GRAINS. 
A Good Mixture for Cattle. 
Mr. O. H. Smith, of Cattaraugus County, 
N. Y., has followed the plan of thrashing 
corn and mixed small grains in the ordi¬ 
nary thrashing machine. The following 
•conversation shows how this operation 
was done: 
“We understand that you have had ex¬ 
perience in tnrashing field corn and 
other grains together?” 
“Yes, last season (1899) was the second 
season. My practice has been, for sev¬ 
eral years, to sow two bushels of oats, 
one-half bushel of barley and one-quar¬ 
ter bushel of Canada peas to the acre. 
Last season I added one-quarter bushel 
of Spring wheat to the acre, making the 
amount as before, 2 % bushels per acre. 
The result was a fine lot of heavy grain 
per acre.” 
“How did you manage with the corn?” 
“I cut and shocked the corn in small 
shocks, which matured and dried very 
quickly. Then I got a macfhine, and 
told the thrashers that I wanted them to 
thrash the corn with the other grains. 
They hesitated, and seemed to dread un¬ 
dertaking the job, but consented when 
paid by the day, though prophesying 
that it would be a failure.” 
“How did the thrashers prepare their 
machine?” 
“They shelled some corn and placed it 
on what they called their round cut-lip 
sieve, and bent the lips up until the corn 
would freely fall through. They took one 
concave, and left the rest the same as 
foi oats, putting on the tailboard to car¬ 
ry the cobs over from the smut ele¬ 
vator.” 
“What proportion of corn to the other 
-grains did you thrash?” 
“We hauled the corn directly from 
the field, and thrashed about one-quar¬ 
ter corn to three-quarters of the other 
grains. The grains being in the barn, 
coming to the feeder on one side, the 
load of corn was placed to the feeder on 
the other side." 
• 
“Did the machine make a good sepa¬ 
ration?” 
“Yes, perfect. The cornstalks, cobs, 
straw and chaff were all elevated to¬ 
gether into the mow. The stalks were a 
good deal torn, or shredded and broken, 
and the cobs came from the machine in 
pieces about an inch in length, the corn 
completely shelled from the cobs.” 
“Is there not danger of the water in 
the stalks and cobs spoiling the whole 
mass?” 
“Not as a cattle food; it seems to be 
just what the straw needs. The dryness 
of the straw completely absorbs the 
water from the stalks and cobs, and as 
a fodder the cattle seem to relish it very 
much beter than if each were fed sep¬ 
arate.” 
“Where t'he farmer has not. barn room 
for his straw and stalks, would it be 
policy to thrash in this way to stack?” 
“Certainly; although I have not had 
experience, I should not hesitate in the 
least to put it into a well-made stack.” 
“What is your object in sowing so 
many different grains together?” 
"My observation is that oats, barley, 
wheat and peas grown together give a 
very decided increase of animal food per 
acre. If I were to drop either out, it 
would be the barley, on account of its 
getting ripe a little too soon for the 
oats; if to drop another it would be the 
wheat, although wheat ripens perfectly 
with oats and peas. I would wish to 
sow Canada peas with oats; if oats and 
peas alone, I would always sow one-half 
bushel peas per acre. That amount of 
peas will not interfere with cutting and 
binding with a reaper.” 
“Suppose there was soft corn, or soft 
ears, at the time of thrashing, What 
would become of that?” 
“All that had any body or heft to it 
would go through the sieves with the 
grains; all the lighter parts would go 
with the stalks and straw.” 
“How do you manage to get the damp¬ 
ness out of the grain, so that it can be 
stored in bulk?” 
“That is a very important thing. 
Spread the grain 15 inches thick on 
floors, and move it by shoveling or rak¬ 
ing, thoroughly to stir the whole mass 
once a day for five or eight days, then 
once in two days, until one can judge 
by handling when it is dry and ready to 
put in storage. I had excellent success 
in filling bags and sacks, two-thirds full 
of the grains, tying the sacks close at 
the ends, and for six days changed ends 
night and morning, then once a day un¬ 
til ready for storage. This made much 
less work than to have moved the whole 
of it spread out.” 
“Are you sure that the machine did 
not carry a lot of grain into the mow 
with the straw and stalks?” 
“Yes. The thrashers watched that 
part very close, and now, April 4, the 
whole mow has been fed to stock the 
past Winter. I don’t think that one 
peck of grain could have been gathered 
in all that went into the mow.” 
“Then you claim it’s an advantage to 
thrash field corn with other grains?” 
“Yes, especially for farmers who feed 
all the grain, and more than we can 
raise. I am a thorough convert to the 
silo, both for corn and clover, but the 
farmer, especially the dairy farmer, who 
has no silo, and raises corn to some ex¬ 
tent, will readily see the saving of hand¬ 
ling in husking and cribbing; then 
again, handling from the crib and shell¬ 
ing to prepare it for stock food. I be¬ 
lieve it is a saving in expense and labor, 
and the fodder, for cattle food, very 
much improved.” 
DISHORNING CATTLE. 
Little Opposition to the Practice. 
There has been so little said about dis¬ 
horning' in the papers of late that some 
farmers begin to think the practice is fall¬ 
ing off. The following letters show that 
this is not true, it has become so gen¬ 
eral that few oppose it, and, in the West, 
probably 80 per cent of the horns are cut 
off: 
In every neighborhood, so far as I am 
able to learn, those who practiced dis¬ 
horning, when such practice was un¬ 
popular, still continue to remove, in one 
way or another, the horns from dairy 
cattle. I do not know a single person 
who in former years practiced dishorn¬ 
ing who 'has abandoned it. I think the 
facts are that it has become so common 
that no one says anything more about it. 
I am also satisfied that a large number 
of dairymen are practicing the caustic- 
potash method of preventing the horns 
from growing on calves. Where but few 
animals are kept, and they do not have 
to be restricted to small areas, the prac¬ 
tice of dishorning is not followed, and in 
some cases I find that where but few 
animals were kept and the man became 
enthusiastic 'to have the horns removed, 
he was careless, and the result is that a 
part of the herd are hornless and a part 
have horns. It is a matter of careless¬ 
ness rather than objection to dishorning 
wherever the practice has been aban¬ 
doned. I. P. ROBERTS. 
Cornell Exp. Station. 
The reason you do not hear anything 
of dishorning in Kansas is that the prac¬ 
tice is so general that no one thinks 
anything about it. Most of the dishorn¬ 
ing is done when the animals are a 
year old, though tnousands of calves are 
dishorned when a few weeks old. Cattle 
that are shipped in from the West and 
Southwest usually have horns, and it is 
an almost universal rule among our 
stock feeders to dishorn these cattle be¬ 
fore beginning to feed them. Wild 
range steers, after being dishorned, will 
feed as quietly at a rack as sheep. I do 
not know of any feeder who has fed 
dishorned cattle in Winter who would 
be willing to feed them with horns. 
The only objection to dishorning cattle 
comes in the Summer, when the flies are 
bad. The cattle then will bunch to¬ 
gether, and do not gain well. A man 
who fattens several thousand steers 
yearly told me that he put 1,000 steers 
in a pasture early in the Spring to be 
fed grain while on grass. The Steers 
made good gains until the flies became 
bad, then they bunched up together so 
much that they kept themselves heated, 
and did not gain. This feeder bought 
1,000 horned cattle and turned them in 
with the dishorned ones. The horned 
cattle kept the herd spread out so they 
made good gains. This same feeder al¬ 
ways dishorns cattle that go into Win¬ 
ter feeding lots. h. m. Cottrell. 
Kansas Exp. Station. 
Those opposing dishorning have stop¬ 
ped agitating against it because the cat¬ 
tlemen were insistent upon its advan¬ 
tage. Dishorning is now a recognized 
practice among all feeders, and there is 
not the slightest reason to suppose that 
it will ever grow less. The advantage 
of dishorning has without doubt stimu¬ 
lated the desire to remove the horns by 
breeding. Some are taken off from 
calves, but so far as I know, the bulk of 
dishorning is done with the saw when 
the animals are comparatively young, 
that is, before they enter the feeding 
pen. Do not for a moment suppose that 
the practice has failed or that i't has 
been discontinued. e. davenport. 
Illinois Exp. Station. 
What Killed the Lice ? 
I bought four pigs last Spring, and 
they were full of lice. Wife and I tried 
all Summer to kill the insects, but could 
not do it. We tried lard and kerosene, 
Deadstuck and Shoo Fly, but to no pur¬ 
pose; we could kill the old insects, but 
not the eggs; they would hatch out and 
get the best of us every time. I dressed 
iwo of the hogs in the Fall; two I kept 
over for breeders. They went into Win¬ 
ter quarters full of lice. I worried over 
it, and thought I would have to go out 
of the hog business entirely. I have a 
good lioghouse and I bedded the animals 
with planer shavings from pine boards. 
The hogs ran in and out at pleasure. 
They were very gentle, and got so used 
to us looking for insects that they would 
lie down anywhere for any length of 
time for us to catch them. This Spring, 
when the days began to grow warm, I 
looked them over well, and was sur¬ 
prised to find them entirely free from 
lice. What did it, I don’t know, but 
believe that there was turpentine 
enough in the shavings to exter¬ 
minate the lice. The hogs would go 
out and get wet, come in, bury in the 
shavings, and the steam from their 
bodies extracted turpentine enough to 
kill the insects. I hope others will ex¬ 
periment on same lines. H. s. h. 
Connecticut. 
At the recent auction sale, in England, 
of the race horses belonging to the late 
Duke of Westminster, Flying Fox, winner 
of the Derby in 1S99, sold for 37,500 guineas 
(about $196,900). The total realized for the 
19 horses sold was 70,400 guineas (over 
$350,000). 
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