Vol. LYIII. No. 2601. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 2, 1899 
$1 PER YEAR. 
NEW WRINKLES IN FEEDING. 
NOVELTIES FROM EAST, WE8T AND SOUTH. 
Grinding Corn Fodder in Kansas. 
I cut and shred all my corn fodder. The stover thus 
handled is eaten the cleanest by horses, cattle next, 
and sheep last, the latter wasting about 30 per cent. 
Horses waste or refuse 20 per cent. Several years' 
tests of our experiment stations show that ensilage 
gives a waste of a little over 20 per cent, and the 
man who is hankering for a silo, having an idea that 
the ensilage is all eaten, should 
disabuse his mind of that error. 
Well-cured corn fodder, properly 
thrashed and handled, is eaten 
just as closely as ensilage, and at 
far less expense. 
In feeding shelled corn or corn 
meal to fattening cattle here in 
the West, it has been found neces¬ 
sary also to feed some bran to 
offset the evil of a too-concen¬ 
trated fattening ration. The feed¬ 
er who feeds 100 steers pays out 
about $40 per month for bran, and 
it has been proved that this addi¬ 
tion saves about $40 worth of 
corn a month, and gives mucn 
better gain than when corn meal 
alone is fed. The 20 per cent of 
the corn stover refused by stock, 
when properly ground with 
shelled corn, forms a perfect sub¬ 
stitute for the bran, and thus is a 
saving of $40 on 100 steers per 
month, and also gives better re¬ 
sults than corn meal alone, and a 
saving of $40 worth of corn per 
month, or $80 per month on 100 
steers on full feed. It is this fact 
that is causing cattle feeders all 
over the West to look around for 
the proper mill to do this grind¬ 
ing. I have, attached to my 
thrasher, a blower that drives a 
blast of air through a spout to the 
end of the 40-foot carrier, and all 
light fine stover is blown to one 
side, while the heavy parts, con¬ 
sisting of the pieces of cut cobs 
and stalk below the ear, drop 
through the blast and are caught 
in a trough or chute that conveys 
it just over the hopper of my mill. 
The shelled corn is also elevated 
to a bin holding 50 bushels, just 
over the mill, so that by opening 
the spouts, a mixture of shelled 
corn and refuse cut stover is let 
directly into the crusher of the 
mill, where it is thoroughly 
mixed, sized to % of an inch, then 
elevated into the mill-hopper, and 
ground at the rate of 30 bushels 
by measure in an hour. Cut 
clover can also be ground with 
the corn, using 20 per cent by weight of clover to the 
shelled corn. This merl is a wonderful Winter ra¬ 
tion for hogs and poultry, young lambs and all kinds 
of stock, especially very old stock devoid of teeth. 
A mill that will do this work well is a great bless¬ 
ing, and is what we are all looking for. Mine is made 
by the Marvin Smith Company, of Chicago, and 
known as the Wolverine. It is all steel and iron, 
weighs 400 pounds, and is two machines in one, as 
the crusher is independent from the grinder, and 
does not force the grinder. The crusher rends, tears, 
mixes and crushes everything to a size of a large ker¬ 
nel of corn, and then delivers 'it into the hopper of 
the mill, which holds a bushel, and from this hopper 
the burrs are fed automatically, and the ground pro¬ 
duct delivered through an elevator into the sack. One 
of the peculiar things about this mill is the style of 
the grinding burrs. They are made of white metal, 
and tempered so that no known tool will scratch 
them, and are so made that the more they rub to¬ 
gether the sharper they get, until they are all worn 
out. This is hard to believe, and harder to explain, 
NEW HYBRID CLIMBING ROSE, RUBY QUEEN. Fig. 303. See Ruralisms, Page 832. 
but raised lands on the burrs ground perfectly level, 
will rub together without injury, while the furrows 
between these lands hold the stuff to be ground, and 
as the burrs travel against each other, the sharp 
edges of the lands must grind everything in the fur¬ 
rows before it gets to the outer side of the burr. 
Heads of Kaffir corn can be ground in the burrs if 
they are first run through a cutter and cut short, but 
grind much better if mixed with shelled corn. The 
grinding of the refuse corn stover and the economy 
derived from it is bound to make it popular at an 
early day. The refuse corn stover left in the feed 
troughs cannot well be ground, as the cattle have 
dampened it, and the slobbering over it makes it un¬ 
palatable to other stock. A simple fanning mill can 
be used to separate the cut stover, and a hand cutter 
can be employed to cut it, but of course, when used 
on a large scale, large power machines should be 
employed. I regard the grinding of corn stover as one 
of the coming events, and of the greatest importance. 
Kansas. j. c. Norton. 
R. N.-Y.—This use of the grinder for utilizing the 
coarser parts of the fodder will 
strike many farmers at once, as a 
very economical process. It is a 
good illustration of the way farm¬ 
ing is changing, even in the West. 
Even now, in many parts of Kan¬ 
sas, but little, if any, of the fod¬ 
der is cut. It is left standing in 
the fields to be eaten down 'in part 
by cattle. What a contrast be¬ 
tween this method and Mr. Nor¬ 
ton’s plan of not only cutting and 
shredding the fodder, but grind¬ 
ing part of it. Such methods 
enable a man with only a small 
farm to conduct quite large op¬ 
erations in feeding stock. 
Rape, Crimson Clover & Co. 
I send you to-day a package 
containing one Dwarf Essex raps 
root, some Crimson clover, and 
some vetch, or tares. The last was 
a sample sent me from Canada, 
and was sown in rows three feet 
apart, and the other two were 
sown broadcast at the same time. 
As near as I can judge, the vetch 
is worth just as much, pound for 
pound, as the clover, and it makes 
a much larger growth. If any¬ 
thing, the vetch has the more 
nitrogen nodules on its roots. The 
rape is much larger, but for any¬ 
thing except for feed, it does not 
compare with the vetch or clover. 
Sheep and stock eat all three, but 
I think that horses like clover and 
vetch better. claric allis. 
Orleans County, N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—The rape measured 26 
'inches in length, the vetch 22 
inches, and the Crimson clover 
eight inches. All were somewhat 
dry and withered—not so large as 
when green. Think what this 
means as a late pasture for sheep. 
The fodder supply is scant this 
year, and in many parts of north¬ 
ern and western New York the 
pastures were nearly ruined by 
the drought. Now the sheep must 
be fed on the fodder intended for 
Winter feeding. What a wonder¬ 
ful saving it must be to have this 
mixed pasture crop for the sheep to eat down. It 
will feed them until late in December, and then 
leave the soil better able to produce any crop 
next Spring than it was before this seed was used. 
Both the vetch and the clover add nitrogen to the 
soil, and to some extent, as with Red clover, take 
the place of grain food. Mr. Allis sows Crimson 
clover in the bean crop at the last cultivation, and 
thus provides a sheep pasture after the beans are 
pulled. There are always men who say that “them 
scientific theories look well on paper, but you can’t 
