334 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 7 
Sometimes, does it not prove fatal to the animals to 
which it is administered ? ” 
“ Sometimes, but rarely, if intelligently used. Horses 
stand it better than cows, but horses will have a bad 
attack of colic if it be given on a full stomach. It is 
very dangerous on fowls, and somewhat so on pigs. It 
is risky on dogs, because they are so subject to heart 
disease. A dog may be apparently sound so far as 
size and good appearance would indicate, and still 
have a weak heart, which will violently palpitate at 
the sight or approach of its master, or in hunting, or 
any one of the things that excite him. Overfeeding 
brings on heart disease in dogs.” 
“ Do animals, like humans, have what may be termed 
childhood diseases ?” 
“ Yes. and no. They do have diseases, which if once 
suffered, are not likely to recur, and some of these do 
usually occur in early life.” 
“Apropos of parasites, what animals suffer most 
from them ? ” 
“ Parasites are most common in dogs, cats and 
chickens. Sheep suffer from them very much, and so 
do pigs. It depends upon what they eat and drink. 
The sheep takes its food close to the ground. Horses 
get them mainly from water. It is very important 
that water for all domestic animals should be pure. 
Shallow wells, and gravelly or sandy soil, 
become perfect cesspools for worms and 
eggs.” 
“Can a horse obtain good restand sleep 
in a standing position ? ” 
“It is not natural for the horse to sleep 
standing. One reason why he does not lie 
down, is because the joints in his back be¬ 
come fixed, this condition being wholly pro¬ 
duced by domestication, from a variety of 
causes resulting from his labors. The cow 
cannot sleep standing. The horse requires 
more food if he cannot lie down.” 
“ In some fine stables, I have noticed that 
the horses are fed from the floor or ground. 
Is there good reason for that?” 
“ While it is natural for the horse to eat 
from the ground, domestication has so short¬ 
ened his head and face, that it is quite a 
strain, in many cases, for him to get his head 
down. Sometimes the jugular vein becomes 
inflamed from too much strain on the neck. 
‘Poll evil’ will return if a horse is turned 
out to pasture. It is injurious, in inflam¬ 
mation of the eyes, for the horse to have 
his head down in eating.” 
“ As animals are like us in so many ways, 
would it not be better if they had a greater 
variety in their food ? The dietary of the 
horse and cow seems very limited.” 
“It is not so limited as you may think. 
Think of the variety of grasses and plants 
they get ! For this reason, an old pasture, 
with its many kinds of grasses, is very much 
better for cows than one entirely of Timothy 
or clover, and improves greatly the yield of 
milk and butter. It is equally advantageous 
to the horse. But the transition from limited 
food to greater variety should not be made 
too suddenly, or the health of the animal will 
be affected. Yes, sometimes a horse will 
eat animal food, particularly fish. Some¬ 
where among the Tartars, travelers have in¬ 
formed us their horses are trained to eat animal food. 
One day, I noticed a kindly-faced drayman feeding 
a horse at a grocery from the vegetables standing 
about, and I asked him how many different fruits, 
etc., horses would eat. He said that he had known 
them to eat apples, potatoes, all the underground root 
vegetables, cabbage, onions, oranges, lemons, and raw 
beef. 
“ Are horses subject to climatic diseases ? ” 
“In the low country north of the Pyrenees, in 
France, horses suffer generally from recurrent inflam¬ 
mation of the eyes, and after being removed to the 
high, clear, dry air of the mountains, recover. Cold 
climate produces coarseness of skin and thickness of 
hair. This may be one reason why the warm climate 
of Arabia produces horses of such fine, close texture. 
Climate affects all animals in a marked way. Short¬ 
horn cattle have long hair and thick skins.” 
“ Are larger animals proportionately stronger than 
smaller ones ? ” 
“ No, indeed they are less so. They are more open 
in texture, and lack in endurance. It is a common 
remark that no one ever had a bad pony—in the health 
sense. Giants in any animal life usually suffer from 
disease of the bones.” mart wager fisher. 
(To be continued.) 
THE SOJA BEAN IN MASSACHUSETTS 
AS COMPARED WITH THE COW TEA. 
We prefer the Soja bean to the cow pea, either as a 
fodder crop to be fed green, or to be put into the 
silo, for the following reasons : 
The Soja bean, a suitable variety being selected, will 
ripen in this locality, while the cow pea will not. 
This enables the farmer to produce his own seed, and 
further, the plant can be allowed to reach a degree 
of maturity sufficiently advanced to make the fodder 
less watery, and richer in the most important constitu¬ 
ents of plant food than the cow pea in the immature 
condition in which it must be cut. 
The Soja bean is a considerably richer fodder than 
the cow pea. This will be evident from the following 
table: 
Composition or Green Fodders. 
Soja bean Soja bean 
Cow pea. (average.) (tned. gr. va.) 
Number of analyses. 
Water, per cent. 
Woody matter, per eent. 
Fat, per cent. 
Flesh-formers, per cent. 
Heat-producers, per cent. 
It will be noticed that two sets of figures are given 
for the Soja bean. The former is the average of all 
the analyses which have been made here, among 
3 
14 
1 
82 
76 
70 
3.9 
6.5 
5.9 
0.7 
1.1 
1.2 
3.1 
4.2 
5.8 
8.6 
9.7 
12.0 
Foods and Feeding.— By Prof. W. A. Henry, is by far 
the best work on feeding live stock that has been writ¬ 
ten. It is complete and exact in every tvay. Every stock- 
keeper should try it. Price $2, Sold by The R. N.-Y. 
FEEDING GROUND OF A GREGG RASPBERRY. Fig 144 
which are several analyses of late varieties which 
were very immature at the time they were taken for 
analysis. The figures for the Medium Green variety, 
which I believe is the very best sort for this latitude, 
constitute the better basis for comparison with the 
cow pea. It will be noticed that this variety gives 
us nearly twice as much fat, more than 1% time the 
amount of flesh-formers (protein), and about 1 % time 
the amount of heat-producers (carbohydrates) that is 
given by the cow pea. 
When, in the light of these facts, we consider fur¬ 
ther that the Medium Green Soja bean has, upon an 
average as grown here, produced as large yields as the 
cow pea, its superiority becomes strikingly evident. 
The crop of both usually averages from 10 to 13 tons 
per acre green weight. With a yield of 10 tons, the 
cow pea will give us the following number of pounds 
of the different nutrients per acre : Fat, 140 pounds ; 
flesh-formers, 620 pounds; heat-producers, 1,720 
pounds. The Soja bean with the same crop gives us : 
Fat, 240 pounds; flesh-formers, 1,160 pounds; heat- 
producers, 2,400 pounds. These facts make the appar¬ 
ent superiority of the Soja bean as a fodder crop very 
clear. 
As is well known, however, the value of a fodder 
does not depend entirely upon composition, but is af¬ 
fected in a marked degree by the digestibility of the 
nutrients which it contains. There is some evidence 
that the digestibility of the Soja bean is not quite so 
great as that of the cow pea, but sufficient experi¬ 
ments have not been made to enable us to form a final 
judgment upon this point. In the light of such evi¬ 
dence as we have, I may say, in conclusion, upon this 
point, that there is no doubt that; after due allowance 
for a lower rate of digestibility, the Soja bean is still 
shown to be superior as a fodder crop in nutritive 
value. There is no marked difference in the degree of 
palatability of the two fodders, and such evidence as 
we have indicates that the effect of the Soja-bean 
fodder upon the quality of the milk produced from 
cows fed with it, is excellent. 
The Soja bean, being less watery than the cow pea, 
keeps better in the silo. We have made excellent en¬ 
silage by mixing either corn or Japan barnyard 
millet with the Soja bean in the proportion of two 
parts of either of the former to one of the latter. Such 
ensilage is palatable, and in composition approximates 
closely the German feeding standard for milch cows. 
I have no doubt that cows fed exclusively on such en¬ 
silage would give a satisfactory yield of milk, al¬ 
though, of course, in most cases, it will be preferable 
to use some grain and concentrated food stuffs such as 
cotton-seed meal, gluten, etc. One peck of seed will 
plant a little more than one-half acre. If sown for 
seed, I would drop about eight seeds per running foot 
in the row ; if for fodder, from 10 to 12 seeds. The 
distance between the rows on good land should be 
about 2% feet. If the land is poor, the rows 
may be somewhat nearer together. The crop 
does well on any good corn land, and should 
be planted about the same time that corn is 
planted. The seed can be very satisfactorily 
put in with any corn planter which plants 
in drills. 
These beans are edible, and are the richest 
known natural vegetable product. I do not 
believe, however, that they will be as well 
liked for table use as some of our older varie¬ 
ties of beans ; they are too rich and oily to 
suit most tastes. They are not much used 
directly as food, even by the .Japanese, but 
are largely employed in the manufacture of 
a table sauce known as Shoyu (Soy), whence 
probably, the names Soja, Soya, and Soy. 
They are, also, largely used for the manu¬ 
facture of a bean cheese, which is a favorite 
and largely used article of food. A great 
many of the beans are, also, used as food for 
horses and cattle. 
I have never seen the name German Coffee 
beans applied to the Soja beans, but some of 
the early white and yellow varieties are ad¬ 
vertised by some of our seedsmen under the 
name American Coffee berry. 1 am too fond 
of coffee to take kindly to any substitute 
therefor. I have, however, found Soja-bean 
coffee as satisfactory as any of the grain sub¬ 
stitutes for coffee which are to be found 
uDon our markets. If it be used as coffee, 
the beans should be first roasted just as the 
coffee berry is, and then ground and treated 
in all respects like the true coffee. 
There are a great many varieties, and 
these differ from each other widely in respect 
to the season required. The earliest varie¬ 
ties will mature in about the same length 
of time as our early garden beans. The 
Medium Green variety spoken of in this 
article requires about the same length of 
time as Longfellow’s or Sibley’s Pride of the 
North corn. Some of the latest varieties require so 
long a season that they will scarcely more than reach 
the stage of blossoming in this locality. 
Mass. Ag’l College. [prof.] wm. p. brooks. 
WHAT THEY SAY. 
Roots of the Raspberry. —Two weeks ago, we gave 
a picture of the roots of a strawberry plant, showing 
how limited is the feeding range of this fruit. It will 
be remembered that strawberry roots all feed close to 
the main plant, so that the fertilizer must be put 
within a foot of the plant in order to be directly avail¬ 
able. This week, we show at Fig. 144, a photograph 
of the roots of a blackcap raspberry (Gregg). This 
picture is taken from Prof. E. S. Goff’s article in the 
Fourteenth Report of the Wisconsin Experiment Sta¬ 
tion. The soil in which these raspberry roots grew 
was the same as that in which the strawberries were 
grown. The roots extended horizontally a distance 
of four feet, and five feet down into the soil. It will 
thus be seen that the raspberry may be fertilized by 
broadcasting the fertilizer over the entire space be¬ 
tween the rows, for the feeding range of the roots is 
very much greater than that of the strawberry. We 
also called attention to the shallow growth of the 
main roots. It will be seen that these run out close 
to the surface of the ground. This seems to be a, 
warning against the free use of the plow between the 
rows. The method of running a plow in early Spring 
close up to the row, throwing the dirt away and apply¬ 
ing fertilizer \n the furrow, is evidently desirable for 
