Vol. LIX. No. 2656. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 22, 1900. 
II PER YEAR 
THE DRY SIDE OF CORN FODDER. 
CUTTING AND CRUSITING THE STALKS. 
How to Feed and Handle. 
Part IV. 
THE FEEDING KNACK—It would seem, from the 
letters of inquiry received since writing these articles, 
that the dry side of the corn-fodder question proves 
quite succulent to R. N.-Y. readers. As with every 
other business, there are many hard, disagreeable 
things about farming, and the handling of butts all 
Winter from a crop of big corn, takes its place pretty 
near the head in this class. In explaining the process 
of preparing and feeding crushed corn fodder, it is 
very much like one woman asking another how she 
makes such lovely biscuits, and receiving the reply: 
“Oh, I don’t know, I never measure the ingredients; I 
dump in about what I think will be right; a pinch of 
salt and soda according to the amount of sour milk 
I use; a little shortening to make them palatable, and 
add flour according to the way they mix.” The in¬ 
quirer tries making biscuits the way her friend told 
her, and the result is usually a disappointment, for 
her friend could not impart the knack in the mixing. 
Thus in cattle feeding, despite scientific 
formulas and balanced rations, some 
men have a “knack” in managing. A 
man who can’t bear to be “tied to a 
cow’s tail” will never be a successful 
dairyman. Better be tied to a cow’s tail 
than to a cracker-barrel in the corner 
grocery. 
HOW ARRANGED.—We claim to 
have a good measure of success with dry 
fodder, but we have no fancy mangers, 
stanchions or paraphernalia. Our barn 
was burned several years ago, and in 
rebuilding on the old wall, the basement 
was fixed temporarily and left for a 
more convenient season. We stranded 
on that rock. When you build your 
barn, begin in the basement and never 
leave it until it is finished. Machinery 
for shelling corn, grinding, cutting and 
crushing stalks, etc., can be successfully 
operated on the barn floor, especially if 
one has a mounted tread power, which 
is very easy to move. After using the 
barn floor one year we put up a build¬ 
ing 12x18 feet, attached to the barn at 
one side of the driveway. This contains 
the mill, cutting machine and tread. A 
shaft with pulley inside and outside 
makes it convenient to use the sheller and bagger on 
the barn floor, with plenty of room for cobs and bags 
of corn. The mill and cutter are in one end of the 
building, where the barn siding removed lets the 
power room and barn floor together; the tread in the 
other end, with a band-wheel on each side, so that we 
cut stalks or grind by simply changing the belt from 
one side to the other. A wide door is at the side, 
where the horses go in and out, and a good-sized door 
directly in front of the tread to give the horses plenty 
of air, for we must remember that horses are not ac¬ 
customed to working indoors. The cutting machine 
sets halfway on the barn floor, where the stalks come 
from the mows, and are easily placed on the feed 
table. A box two feet long, with one end removed, 
as wide as the machine and high enough to cover the 
cylinder, is pushed up tight against the machine, bot¬ 
tom up, directly over a trap door in the floor. 
FEEDING THE STALKS.—The stalks are thrown 
with considerable force from the cylinder inside the 
box, and fall into the basement room beneath the 
power house prepared for their especial reception. In 
order to do good work the knives on the machine 
must be kept sharp, and set close to the leger plate, 
which is removable and reversible, and should be re¬ 
placed by a new one when both edges are worn round¬ 
ing. To operate this machinery successfully, a man 
should be somewhat of a mechanical turn of mind, 
that when it does not work just right he will at once 
hunt up the cause and apply the proper remedy, for 
it is not the best mariner who sails on the smooth 
sea, and if things do not work right one may be sure 
tnere is a cause for it. Dry stalks cut one-half inch 
and run through the crusher will be light and feath¬ 
ery, so that a firm light bushel basket is the best 
thing to handle them in feeding and a wood-tined 
barley fork about the best thing to move them with in 
bulk. Stalks remaining in the mow through the se¬ 
vere cold Winter will become very dry, and we have 
sometimes moistened them while cutting, using a 
sprinkling pot to put the water on the cut stalks in 
the basement, and feel sure that the cattle ate them 
with a better relish. 
CLEAN FEEDING.—In my younger days I remem¬ 
ber that Father always sent me to the house to get 
the broom on such occasions as thrashing, wheat¬ 
cleaning, etc. Now this “woman’s weapon” is a very 
essential tool in the dry-fodder business, and one al¬ 
ways hangs in the power house to clean up with, and 
another below to sweep the mangers. A cow is mighty 
particular about eating anything nosed about by her 
neighbor at the table, and it is a good plan to parti¬ 
tion the manger for each cow with a board about 
eight inches wide, and raised three or four inches 
from the bottom, that one may sweep the refuse 
lengthwise of the manger underneath the partitions. 
It also prevents the cattle from “rooting” the feed to 
one side, a trick which they are not slow to learn in 
searching for stray kernels of corn. It needs no spe¬ 
cial form of manger, but good tight bottoms and 
sides. A cow will eat whole cornstalks with consid¬ 
erable dirt and trash in the manger, but when cut and 
crushed stalks are put on her plate you will find it 
to your advantage to see that it is clean to start with, 
and the leavings thoroughly cleaned up from the last 
meal. If your stalks are good, and properly handled, 
there will be no cleaning up to speak of until late in 
the Winter, and then the waste will not exceed five 
per cent. In feeding grain it is not advisable to put 
it on the stalks; it is much like giving a small boy 
his custard pie when he first sits down to his meal; 
the second course being “bread and grease” he will 
leave it and cry for more pie. Our grain ration is fed 
in connection with small potatoes night and morning 
in small boxes placed in the manger, and removed 
when the cattle are done eating; and here the parti¬ 
tion comes in again, for it prevents the cows from 
pulling the boxes away from each other. The mangers 
are swept after each meal, and the refuse cut stalks 
make a good absorbent behind the cattle, on account 
of their spongy nature, but we do not have enough 
waste to amount to much in this direction, but straw 
is used very liberally. h. s. weight. 
Onondaga Co., N. Y. 
COVER CROPS IN THE APPLE ORCHARD. 
On page 798 Prof. Craig mentions several cover 
crops, and especially recommends legumes for the 
orchard. Judging from personal experience anyone 
who persists in the annual use of cover crops of the 
legume order is liable to suffer from too much nitro¬ 
gen. The importance of humus as a factor in every 
branch of agriculture can hardly be overestimated, 
and in many depleted soils a poor mechanical condi¬ 
tion of the earth is more to blame for unsatisfactory 
crops than is the absence of plant food 
My experience leads me to believe that 
few farm crops will stand more abuse 
along this line than apples; and for this 
reason it is hard to awaken the average 
farmer to the requirements of his apple 
trees. There are few crops that more 
quickly and harmfully respond to an ex¬ 
cess of nitrogen than apples, and the or- 
chardist must be quick to recognize a 
normal amount of wood formation if he 
would get the most out of his trees. 
There is no other method that so cheap¬ 
ly and conveniently furnishes the neces¬ 
sary humus and nitrogen to an orchard 
than does some vigorous-growing crop 
of the clover type. While any orchard 
that stands in fertile soil is liable to suf¬ 
fer from an overdose of nitrogen when 
legumes are freely used, yet a case of 
too much humus resulting from a free 
use of cover crops is indeed rare, even 
if such ever occurred; hence, the im¬ 
portance of annual late Summer crops to 
mix up with the surface soil the follow¬ 
ing Spring cannot be overestimated. 
I have used as a cover crop in the or¬ 
chard Mammoth, Medium and Crimson 
clover; cow and Canada peas and rye 
oats and barley. Whenever a large growth of any of 
the above legumes has been worked into the soil, a 
marked effect on the growth of the trees has been 
noted. Where trees under cultivation are inclined to 
form too much wood, barley makes a good cover crop. 
It makes a more vigorous growth than oats, and is 
not checked by frosts as early in the Fall. In the 
Spring a Cutaway or disk harrow will incorporate 
such a crop in the soil in the best possible condition 
and thus are eliminated the injurious effects of the 
plow. A word as to why the thinking farmer may 
not act on the advice of the college man with alac¬ 
rity—it is the exception to find a college man who can 
do justice to his college class and laboratory duties 
and at the same time keep thoroughly in touch with 
the business side of agriculture. Even the average 
man who devotes his time to the horticultural de¬ 
partment of an experiment station has a tendency to 
drift into principles and investigations of a general 
nature, and while such work is of inestimable worth 
to the specialist yet it must be greatly changed to 
make it adapted to his local conditions, often peculiar 
and exceptional. It is not a detailed plan for the 
farmer blindly to follow that does him the most good, 
A GROUP OF SATISFIED SHROPSHIRE SHEEP. Fig. 336. See Page 858. 
