1902 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
755 
Hope Farm Notes 
Soft Food.— The following question is 
asked by a Connecticut reader. It will 
stand some discussion: 
“Can you tell me how much one could af¬ 
ford to pay for apples to feed to cows, 
either the natural or the imperfect grafted 
fruit? Also, how many it would be best 
to feed at a time, and would they be good 
for a horse?” 
There has always been much discussion 
over the values of what I call the soft 
foods found on the farm. In order to get a 
fair chance to figure let us see what such 
foods contain. Here we have the pounds 
of food in average samples: 
Pounds in 100. 
Muscle Fat 
Pure 
fat. 
O.l' 
0.1 
0.1 
0.2 
0.4 
1.5 
3. 
0.3 
0.4 
Value 
100 lbs. 
.13 
.08 
.19 
.15 
.29 
.17 
.77 
$ 1.01 
.16 
makers, form. 
Apples .0.3 13. 
Pumpkins .0.4 7. 
Sugar beets.1. 17. 
Yellow turnips..1.3 10.6 
Potatoes ..2.1 22. 
Cabbage .1.8 8. 
Clover hay.7.8 40. 
Wheat bran.10. 48.5 
Green corn:. 1.19 11. 
Pasture grass...2.50 10. 
These figures are tak^n from Stewart’s 
tables, and are useful only for comparison. 
I do not mean to say that apples are worth 
13 cents for 100 pounds or about 20 cents a 
barrel. The figures merely show that as 
compared with wheat bran at $1.01 per 100 
pounds the actual food in 100 pounds of 
apples will cost 13 cents. That is about as 
far as you can get—and it is not very far, 
because the apples cannot take the place of 
the bran. Suppose you are feeding six 
pounds of bran per day to a cow—that 
means over 9% ounces of muscle makers. 
In order to supply that in apples you must 
feed 200 pounds! I am something of an 
apple advocate myself, but a cow tnat 
would eat that weight of apples in a day 
would be thrown out of the Apple Consum¬ 
ers’ League on moral grounds! 
Why so? 
Because she would be drunk—no other 
word will describe her condition. Besides 
that, her teeth would be put so much “on 
edge” that all other food would have a flat 
taste. It is true that a cow can begin with 
a few quarts of apples, and gx-adually in¬ 
crease the quantity until she eats with 
safety over a bushel per day, but in our 
experience we have not found that the 
apples save much grain. 
WTiat grain do you find best to feed with 
apples? 
Either cornmeal or cotton-seed meal. 
Cornmeal really seems to prevent injury 
from gorging upon apples. Where cows 
are fed the meal with the apples they do 
not seem to bioat so badly as they do when 
bran is fed. I am not able to explain the 
reason for it, but I have been told the same 
thing by observing dairymen. Cotton-seed 
meal is good because it is naturally consti¬ 
pating in its action, and will correct the 
opposite tendency in the apples. 
Do you feed apples to horses? 
Yes, though we have had several cases 
of colic resulting from it. Two quarts at 
a feed for horses is plenty. 
What animal has given you best results 
on apple feeding? 
I should say that the hogs do best on 
them. A farmer should try to have as few 
feeding apples as possible. By spraying the 
trees and caring for them properly and 
thinning them we encourage the fruits to 
hang on and make something out of them¬ 
selves. When they do fall from a low- 
headed tree upon a soft mulch they just 
save you the trouble of picking them. There 
will surely be some fruit that is not fit for 
selling, and I would feed most of it to the 
hogs. 
Will they not get drunk on the apples? 
I never knew one to. The trouble with 
the cow is that her stomach will hold near¬ 
ly a barrel at one time. When this fer¬ 
ments she becomes a walking distillery. 
The hog’s stomach is comparatively small, 
and he is not likely to eat too much! 
Really, a hog turned upon unlimited food 
will be much less likely to hurt himself 
than a horse would in spite of the reputa¬ 
tion for gluttony which man has fastened 
upon the pig! 
Would you buy apples for feeding? 
No! Not as we are situated now with an 
abundance of pumpkins, beets and turnips. 
I regard'sour apples as the poorest “sauce” 
for farm stock, in spite of the fact that 
most humans like a little vinegar on their 
food. If the apples could be kept until the 
stock must go upon dry fodder or hay, and 
I had no other soft food for them, I might 
pay 25 cents a barrel! 
What soft food are you feeding now? 
Pumpkins. We have a big crop, and all 
stock get them. As shown in the table 
printed above, the pumpkins do not contain 
a large amount of muscle makers—unless 
they are made into pumpkin pie. I have 
known a boy to be led through hours of 
hard toil by a piece of pie! A pumpkin 
weighing 20 pounds contains less than an 
ounce of muscle makers, while a little over 
three ounces of cotton-seed meal, which 
you can hold in one hand, will give the 
same amount! One trouble about feeding 
pumpkins is that they seem to the eye 
richer than they really are. The pumpkin 
looks like solid food; yet there is nearly 90 
per cent of water in it, while ordinary 
cow's milk will average about S7V£ per cent. 
The trouble often is that farmers expect 
this soft food to supply all that the animal 
needs. They get this idea from the fact 
that pasture grass will not only sustain 
life, but make a fair gain for the animal. 
A glance at the table will show where they 
make their mistake. The old king who got 
down on all fours and ate “the grass of the 
field” was in no great danger of starving, 
while a continued diet of pumpkin pie 
would have ended him! 
If pumpkins are so watery and thin, why 
do you raise them? 
They cost little to grow, and help out be¬ 
tween October 1 and Thanksgiving. While 
the tables given above show the actual 
food in various products there are other 
things to be considered. “Soft food” is 
soluble and easily digested. It also pro¬ 
motes digestion—that is, enables the sys¬ 
tem to absorb more from the other foods 
connected with it. Feed a horse on ear 
corn and hay with a fair amount of pump¬ 
kin or carrots and he will “do better” than 
when he has the grain and hay alone. His 
digestion is better and the food “does him 
more good,” not so much because of the 
muscle makers in the soft food, but be¬ 
cause these are active and lashed up those 
in the other food to better service. Base¬ 
ball playing never produced a crop of 
strawberries, but I have found that 10 min¬ 
utes of play may quicken whole hours of a 
boy’s work. Fun and frolic and good feel¬ 
ing may not remove mountains, but they 
may often raise one out of the valley of de¬ 
spondency. Let us not despise the soft 
food of life—only remember that it must 
be well mixed with the hard. 
How do you feed the pumpkins? 
Break them open and scoop out the seeds. 
Farm Notes.— I am much interested in 
watching the apple trees this Fall. The 
leaves on some of them turned yellow and 
began to fall before November 1. Others 
hold their foliage thick and green much 
longer. One orchard near us had a crop of 
oats taken from it. Another had two crops 
of hay, with nothing put back. The leaves 
in these orchards are yellow and feeble. 
The trees have been robbed. Their fruit 
buds have had no chance, and they cannot 
produce a good crop next year! The best 
trees we have this Fall are those with a 
thick mulch rotting upon the ground 
around them. 
But what advantage is it for a tree to re¬ 
tain its leaves? 
What advantage is it for a man to have 
sound lungs? The leaves are the lungs of 
the tree. I feel sure that the most import¬ 
ant growth of the fruit buds is made dur¬ 
ing the late Summer and Fall, and it is of 
the utmost importance that the leaves re¬ 
main on the tree all through the possible 
growing weather. I have heard people say 
that they liked to see the leaves fall early, 
because it showed that the wood had ripen¬ 
ed fully. I take no stock whatever in any 
such theory, but want my own trees to 
grow as long as they possibly can. . . . 
. . Corn husking time is here. I shall not 
have all the corn husked in the field this 
Fall, but haul a good share in for barn 
husking. I know this is called “bad prac¬ 
tice” by some farmers, but there are some 
situations where it pays. It we have good 
weather we expect to do our first shredding 
about the middle of November. I have 
learned that if we are to feed dry fodder 
at all, it is much better to feed it in the 
early Winter rather than to hold it until 
February or March. The hay is much bet¬ 
ter for early Spring feeding. . . . There 
will be less bare ground at Hope Farm this 
Winter than we have had since we began. 
Everything except a few small strips will 
be covered with rye. This is still our 
stand-by for late seeding. The rye in the 
cornfield is sprouting beautifully. We set 
the apple trees right in the rye. Early next 
May we expect to cut the rye and pile most 
of it around the trees as a mulch. By all 
means cover the cultivated land with a 
cover crop! We let the squashes stand un¬ 
til the vines were dead. Then they were 
hauled and spread out in a dry, sheltered 
loft. Before very cold weather they will be 
put on open racks in a dry airy cellar 
which can be warmed if need be. We want 
to keep some of them for the Christmas 
trade. We also want to keep about 50 big 
pumpkins. There will surely be some one 
who wants a piece of pumpkin pie in his 
stocking! There are some people who en¬ 
joy baked squash! They cut a good-sized 
Hubbard in two and bake it slowly in a 
hot oven. Those who know how to do it 
will pay well for a good squash. Speaking 
as squash growers we wish such knowledge 
could be spread.The celery is 
under cover. It makes a big showing. 
Philip put it on the ground in the cellar 
and in several outbuildings where there 
is an earth floor. The roots were dug with 
some soil stuck to them and the plants 
were jammed up close together and banked 
with soil. There will be some to sell, but 
a good share of it will be eaten at home. 
You should see our old horses gobble down 
the surplus leaves or culled plants! Old 
Major fairly smacked his lips over one good 
head that he stole out of the crate! I feel 
sure that a little celery fed with the corn 
will help a hog take care of his dinner—if 
he ever needs help! . . . Pork is high 
this Fall. We are offered 10 cents a pound, 
and have decided to fatten several large 
sows which are not satisfactory as breed¬ 
ers. Their litters are too small, and it will 
cost too much to winter them. Among 
others marked for slaughter is old Hugha, 
the mother Berkshire. She will make a 
barrel of pork. One of her daughters—bet¬ 
ter. I think, than her mother—will take her 
place in the Hope Farm herd! h. w. c. 
I Will Cure You of 
Rheumatism 
Else No Money Is Wanted. 
After 2,000 experiments I have learned 
how to cure rheumatism. Not to turn 
bony joints into flesh again; that is im¬ 
possible. But I can cure the disease al¬ 
ways, at any stage, and forever. 
I ask for no money. Simply write me 
a postal and I will send you an order on 
your nearest druggist for six bottles of 
Dr. Shoop’s Rheumatic Cure, for every 
druggist keeps it. Use it for a mour.h 
and, if it succeeds, the cost is only $5.50. 
If it fails, I will pay your druggist my¬ 
self. 
I have no samples, because any medi¬ 
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must be drugged to the verge of danger. 
I use no such drugs, and it is folly to 
take them. You must get the disease 
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My remedy does that, even in the most 
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know it and I take the risk. I have 
cured tens of thousands of cases in this 
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cures them. That is all I ask. If I fail 
I don’t expect a penny from you. 
Simply write me a postal card or let¬ 
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rheumatism, and an order for the medi¬ 
cine. Take it for a month, as it won’t 
harm you anyway. If it fails, it is free, 
and I leave the decision with you. Ad¬ 
dress Dr. Shoop, Box 570, Racine, Wis. 
Mild cases, not chronic, are often 
cured by one or two bottles. At all 
druggists. 
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Asphalt 
Ready Roofing 
can be laid on 
top of old 
shingles with¬ 
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the old roof. 
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