3 I 2 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER, 
April 23 
SOWS FED ON ENSILAGE. 
WILL. THEY DO WELL ? 
A reader in New York State has just asked if 
it is practical to feed sows on ensilage all the 
year ’round. He wishes to keep 15 sows, and 
feed a combination of ensilage and some other 
grain to keep them in good condition. He has 
only four acres of pasture, and does not wish to 
break into his farm rotation to provide - more. 
His plan is to raise sweet corn, pick off the ears 
for sale, and cut the stalks into the silo. Do you 
consider this plan practical ? Do you think that 
sows can be kept in this way so as to do well ? 
Half a Ration of Ensilage. 
There is no reason tvhy good ensilage 
should not form about one-half of the 
ration of breeding sows. For several 
years, the brood sows at the Cornell Uni¬ 
versity farm have been fed more or less 
ensilage, with so far, no ill effects. The 
plan of raising sweet corn, removing 
most of the ears, ensiloing the rest 
with the stalks, is a most excellent one 
where land is restricted. By supple¬ 
menting this ensilage with suitable food, 
I have yet to learn of any ill effects from 
the practice of this system of keeping 
swine. Of course, if ensilage contain¬ 
ing a goodly amount of corn could be 
used, less supplemental food would be 
required. In our experience, we find 
that not only brood sows, but pigs from 
three to six months old and above, great¬ 
ly enjoy this green food, and while it 
would not be wise to make ensilage the 
exclusive diet, if it is judiciously fed, it 
forms a most excellent substitute for a 
part of the grain ration usually fed. 
I. I>. ROBERTS. 
Other Food Much Cheaper. 
There were a few trials of ensilage for 
feed for swine in 1890, but the results 
were not favorable. One lot fed wheat 
bran, middlings and ensilage made some 
growth, but the pork cost from four to 
five cents per pound, when ensilage con¬ 
stituted 70 per cent of the ration. Corn- 
and-cob meal and a 40 per cent ration of 
ensilage, just about paid for the cost of 
the food ; not all was eaten, but it was 
“ chewed over.” The ensilage was valued 
at $1 per ton, which I think is too low. 
Where swine are fed turnips or beets, as 
mine are, they will not eat anything but 
the corn (grain) in the ensilage. It will 
not harm them, but I think much would 
be wasted. A silo would have to be 
small, as 15 sows would eat so little per 
day that the contents would heat ahead 
of them. 1 do not think the plan prac¬ 
tical, neither do I think sows could be 
kept in this way. so as to do well, if 
enough ensilage was used to make a 
good reduction in the cost of the grain 
ration. I have had no experience except 
trying to get them to eat it, which they 
refused to do. I have not tried “ educat¬ 
ing ” them to eat it, but presume that I 
could starve them to it, and in time, they 
might learn to like it. 
I think that 15 sows might easily be 
kept in good vegetable food on the four 
acres by having one acre of grass pas¬ 
ture, one acre of oats and peas, one acre 
of beets, one acre of sweet corn, and one 
acre of flat turnips sown after the oats 
and among the beets. One experiment 
showed a decreased cost per pound of 
pork when beets were added to a grain 
ration. A ration of 80 per cent of beets 
and 20 per cent of grain gave a profitable 
gain. I have proved to my own satisfac¬ 
tion their value for brood sows. They 
were valued at $3 per ton, which is more 
than the cost of growing. The beets 
would keep in Spring until grass started 
if the root cellar were a good one, and 
they yield enormous amounts of food. 
The oats and peas and corn fodder would 
be removed and fed green, and the 
ground, as fast as cleared, would be sown 
to flat turnips. c. e. chapman. 
Green Rape Would Be Better. 
We have frequently fed hogs ensilage ; 
in fact, we have been doing so the past 
Winter, and though they will not eat it 
as clean as sheep or cattle, as they will 
not eat the cobs or larger butts of the 
stalks, they will do very well on it for 
roughage. Store hogs and breeding 
sows will eat it very much better, and 
not leave nearly so much as will fatten¬ 
ing hogs. Of course, ensilage is a suc¬ 
culent food, very wide in its nutritive 
ratio, lacking in bone material for a 
breeding animal, and with it should be 
fed fine wheat bran or coarse middlings 
as a grain ration. We are wintering 20 
brood sows on ensilage, wheat middlings 
and skim-milk with three feeds a week 
of mangels. We would feed more man¬ 
gels, only that we have not enough. 
Last Summer was so dry that our man¬ 
gels did not do first-rate, and we have to 
be economical in feeding them ; but our 
sows are doing very nicely. Of course, 
when feeding largely on any succulent 
food, the hogs must be kept in a warm, 
dry place, entirely out of the cold winds. 
I pity any hog that has to sleep in a snow 
bank or wet straw, and live on ensilage 
or roots, no matter how much grain it 
get Our sows are in a nice, roomy, 
warm basement where no frost ever 
shows inside the walls. I have never 
fed hogs on ensilage in the Summer, but 
can hardly see how he could manage to 
keep a silo from molding where so little 
is fed as the hogs would eat; but were 
he feeding ensilage right along to cows, 
I have no doubt that it would be good 
hog food. 
If I had that four-acre pasture, I would 
fence off one acre and sow it to Dwarf 
Essex rape as early as the ground would 
work nicely, sowing two pounds of seed 
in drills 28 or 30 inches apart. In five 
or six weeks, 1 could commence to cut 
the rape for the sows, and before I got 
all over the acre, it would be fit to cut 
again, and 1 would be sure of an abund¬ 
ant supply of the best kind of hog food 
for the 15 sows all the Fall. This fed 
with wheat middlings, would insure me 
healthy sows and fine litters of pigs. 
' .1. s. WOODWARD. 
FEEDING VALUE OF MALT SPROUTS. 
I. I can get malt sprouts uncleaned, for $6 
per ton. Are tliey a cheaper feed at that price 
than bran at $12 per ton ? 2. Should they be 
dampened if fed with ensilage ? 3. Will one per 
cent of protein in malt sprouts produce as much 
milk as the same per cent in gluten or other 
food ? 4. In figuring the value of an article as a 
cattle food, what values are given to the per cent 
of the protein, carbohydrates and fats? 5. How 
much nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash is 
there in 100 pounds of malt sprouts ? a. s. r. 
Marion, N. Y. 
ANSWERED BY PROF. C. 8. PHELPS. 
1. Dried malt sprouts are a valuable 
feed for dairy cows when rightly used. 
They should not make up more than 
one-tliird of the total grain ration. They 
have been very successfully used for milk 
production, and may be used in feeding 
for butter, although I know of no ex¬ 
periments that would indicate what 
would be their effect on the quality of 
the butter. At $6 a ton, malt sprouts 
would be relatively cheaper than bran 
at $13. 
2 . Unless the ensilage is quite moist, 
it would be wise to dampen the malt 
sprouts before feeding with such fodder. 
3. The question of whether a given 
amount of digestible protein or other 
food nutrients has the same value re¬ 
gardless of its source, is now understood 
better than formerly. A pound of di¬ 
gestible protein from grain feeds is, 
without question, of higher nutritive 
value than a pound from most, if not 
all, of the coarse fodders, owing to dif¬ 
ferences in the labor required to digest 
these two classes of feeds. Whether the 
same is true between malt sprouts and 
gluten is, perhaps, doubtful, as the 
amount of labor required in their diges¬ 
tion would be quite similar. There are 
two forms of protein compounds in feed¬ 
ing stuffs, the true albuminoids or those 
made up of albumen, gluten, fibrin, etc., 
and the non-albuminoids, compounds 
commonly classed as amides. These 
compounds are more nearly related to 
ammonia than to true albumin. They 
have been shown by experiment to have 
a lower nutritive value than the true 
albuminoids. Malt sprouts contain quite 
a proportion of these amides, and for 
this reason a pound of total proteih 
would, probably, not have as high a 
nutritive value as the pound of total 
protein from gluten feeds. 
4. It is difficult to give any value per 
pound to the protein, carbohydrates, 
and fat of cattle foods, owing first, to 
the fact that the market values of feed¬ 
ing stuffs change frequently; second, 
because it is almost impossible to arrive 
at a value based upon the results of feed¬ 
ing, because the prices of dairy or other 
animal products vary so largely, and 
third, because the palatability of a food 
as well as its composition, modifies its 
nutritive value. 
5. Director Armsby, of Pennsylvania, 
gives the following as the fertilizer com¬ 
position and valuation of malt sprouts : 
Nitrogen, 3 55 per cent ; phosphoric acid, 
1,43 per cent: potash, 1 63 per cent; total 
valuation, $11.30 per ton. The valuation 
is, of course, based upon the valuation 
used for commercial fertilizers, and is 
only of use relatively. About three- 
fourths of the total fertilizing value of 
a feeding stuff is returned in the manure 
in feeding milch cows, so that the total 
value should be reduced by one-fourth 
to get the value of the portion returned 
as manure. 
Egg-Eating Hens. —Since we stated not long 
ago that one of the hens at Hope Farm had ac¬ 
quired a habit of eating her eggs, we have re¬ 
ceived a perfect whirlwind of advice from those 
who have been troubled in this way. There 
seem to be two ways of curing a hen of the 
habit. One is to blow the contents out of an egg 
and then fllldt with some bad-tasting substance 
like paint, oil and red pepper, and urge the hen 
to pitch in and have a good time. Another is, 
with a very sharp knife, to cut the point off the 
beak above and below, until it is just ready to 
bleed, but not quite. This makes it a little ten¬ 
der when it is struck against any hard substance. 
Then fill two or three shells with soft plaster of 
Paris, let it harden and leave them in the nest for 
the hens to try their beaks on. They will find 
that this hurts them, and will soon give it up. 
By the time the beak has grown out, they will 
have forgotten all about it. Mr. J. E. Stevenson 
says that he has frequently thrown eggs tested 
out from the incubator, right into the henyard 
for the hens to eat, always breaking them on the 
ground. The hens will devour such eggs with a 
relish, but he has never known them to contract 
the habit of egg eating. We are certain that 
our own hen was well fed, and that she distinctly 
started the habit of breaking and eating her 
own eggs. She has now, however, apparently 
given up the practice of her own free will. 
A GOOD CHEAP FARM WAGON. 
In order to introduce their low metal wheels with 
wide tires, the Empire Mfg. Co., Quincy, Ill., have 
placed upon the market a farmer’s handy wagon, 
sold at the low price of $1H.95. The wagon is only 25 
inches high, fitted with 24 and 30-inch wheels, with 
4-inch tires. This wagon is made of best material 
throughout, and fully guaranteed for one year. Cata¬ 
logue giving full description will be mailed upon ap¬ 
plication to the manufacturers, who also furnish 
metal wheels at low prices, made any size and width 
of tire to fit any axle. 
Weak Lungs 
Recent Progress of Medical Science. 
Extract from Dr. Robert Hunter's lectures on the 
lungs have been published from tinte to time in thik 
paper for the purpose of Informing the people of the 
real nature of lung diseases and the discovery of a 
successful treatment of the lungs by Antiseptic 
Medicated Air Inhalations. No truth of medical 
science has been more conclusively proven and estab- 
lished than that Bronchitis. Asthma and Catarrh of 
the Lungs have been and are being radically cured 
by this treatment, while even Consumption, the most 
dreaded of all lung complaints, is arrested and en¬ 
tirely eradicated by Dr. Hunter’s most recently dis¬ 
covered germicides, which kill and expel from the 
lungs the bacilli of tuberculosis. From all parts of 
the Union come the grateful acknowledgments of 
patients whose lives have been saved by Dr. Hunter. 
Mr. Lambert Miller, of H. B. Clafiin & Co.. Ne\t 
York City, says: " My trouble began with La Grippe, 
my throat was raw and sore, and I suffered with 
severe pains in the lungs, coughed almost constantly, 
and could get no relief from any source. At last I 
was persuaded to go to Dr; Hunter; and that very 
night was the first I had slept through for months, 
without coughing. I am now fully recovered and 
cannot too strongly praise the success of Dr. Hunter’s 
treatment.” 
Any subscriber of The Rural New-Yorker who 
Is interested, can obtain this book free by addressing 
Dr. Hunter at 117 West 45th St., New York.— Adv. 
F urnished and Unfurnished Summer Residences in 
the suburbs of Newburgh-on-Hudson for rent. 
Apply to SHIPP & OSBORN, Newburgh, N. Y. 
F OR SALE.— Farms and farm lands in Morrison 
Co., Minn. Wanted money to loan on farm security. 
Lyman 8iSNOR.Clerk Dlst.Court.Little Falls. Minn 
How's Your S 
Spring. 
Avoid mistakes and secure the 
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Use Sykes “Old Stylo" 
It Is made In a var- IKON ROOFING. 
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Black, painted or galvanized metal ROOFING 
and siding; (brick, rocked or corrugated) 
METAL CEILINGS AND SIDE WALLS 
Write for Catalogue. 
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Headquarters for ™| t 
dukpingHORSE carts 
ft pc at hardwood. 
VJ I STEEL AXLES. 
VARIETY "'-^r ow 
TWO AND FOUR WHEELS. 
Low T% of freight from our works, TATAM Y, PA., to »ll points. 
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m Old Wa gons 
We make Steel Wheels to fit any 
size and width tire. Staggard and 
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out. We also manufacture Steel 
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Havana Metal Wheel Co.. Havana, III. 
4 Buggy Wheels, with tire on, $5.60 
With Axles and Boxes Set, $8.00 
I make all sizes and grades 1898 Bicycles, 
$18.50, *27 and *35. 
Carriage and Wagon Hardware of 
every description. Catalogue free, 
WM. W. BOOB, Centre Hall, Pa. 
GENERAL AGENTS 
wanted to superintend local 
agents selling the Combination 
Lock-pin Clevis to farmers and 
others. Self locking ; always 
secure ; sells at sight; exclus¬ 
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CORMANY MFG. CO. 
225 Dearborn StreeL Chicago 
LANE’S CARRIAGE JACK 
Best in the world. All 
steel. Unbreakable. Oper¬ 
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adjusted to any height. At 
all hardware dealers’* or 
write manPrs. LANE BROS., Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
FRAZER 
AXLE 
BEST IN THE WORLD. 
Its wearing qualities are unsurpassed, actually 
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affected by heat. tW GET THE GENUINE. 
FOR SALK BY DEALERS GENERALLY. 
WEHAVENO AGENTS 
but have sold direct to the con¬ 
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Everything warranted. 
118 styles of Vehicles, 
55 styles of Harness. 
Top Buggies, $36 to $70. 
. Surreys, $50 to $125. Carria- 
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No. 77. Surrey Harness. Price, $16.00. Wagons. Send for large, free No. 606 Surrey. Price, with curtains, lampB, sun. 
As good as sells for $25. Catalogue of all our styles, shade, apron and fenders, $60. As good as sells for $90. 
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