THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
754 
different samples of ensilage which were sent for experi¬ 
ment. Dolly has always eaten them readily, but Billy is 
inclined to view them with suspicion. 
In the picture the horses are shown wearing the Sher¬ 
wood steel harness. We use this entirely for a work har¬ 
ness, both before the plow and on the wagon. With the 
lightest size our little horses have been able to do all our 
plowing without any injury. Herman says: “Dot iron 
harness he make dem little horses stouter dan dey vas,” 
and certainly bringing the horses close up to the work 
and reducing the angle of draft seems to increase the 
“leverage.” Billy.it should be said, is a heavier eater, 
and far more of a glutton than Dolly. It is a common 
saying among our old farmers that a spavined horse needs 
more food than a sound one, just as a cold horse needs 
more food than one that is comfortable. We feel sure 
there is truth in this, and that the pained and feverish 
horse demands most food. 
A serious problem which confronts all kind-hearted 
people is the disposal of old family horses. What can we 
do with these old pets when their days of usefulness are 
over ? We could not think of selling little Dolly or of giv¬ 
ing her away to any one who would abuse her. It would 
be a sad day at our house to see Dolly beaten and abused 
as some horses about us are. It seems sad enough to see a 
faithful old horse turned over to the clutches of brutal and 
ignorant masters. We could hardly do that. Could you ? 
FATTENING CATTLE ON SMALL POTATOES AND 
OTHER REFUSE STUFFS. 
The practice of feeding cattle for the spring market is 
well-nigh abandoned in many parts of the Eastern and 
Central States. Every one says that it does not pay, and 
their figures easily substantiate the statement. But “a 
condition, not a theory ” confronted the writer. It is held 
that cattle cannot be profitably grazed on our Ohio River 
bottom farms that are rated at $70 to $80 per acre for taxa¬ 
tion, and this is doubtless true. Just as soon as it was 
decided to be unprofitable to buy cattle in the fall and feed 
for the spring market, it became necessary to sell off all 
the hay, straw and other feeding stuffs not required for 
the horses, and consequently the annual supply of manure 
was reduced to small proportions. Our reliance was placed 
in clover alone. We soon found strips through our fields— 
ridges and slight breaks—growing steadily poorer. The 
clover would be thinner on these strips each year and 
oftentimes freeze entirely out. The remainder of the 
ground maintained its fertility fairly well when the young 
growth of clover was properly cared for ; but the time was 
at hand when one acre out of every four barely paid the 
cost of cultivation. Instead of the old question, whether 
it paid to feed cattle, the new question arose: Can we 
afford not to feed cattle, and farm without manure ? Right 
here let me say that while there is no doubt that com¬ 
mercial fertilizers are a boon to agriculture, yet on my 
farm and those of my neighbors they do not seem to pay. 
On the clay soil in the hills back from the river, their ap¬ 
plication is profitable, but our soil does not respond to 
their use. 
With this condition of gradual impoverishment of parts 
of our fields staring us in the face, the outlook was not 
bright. Evidently enough stock must be fed to work our 
straw and other refuse matter into manure. Sheds at 
each end of the barn were utilized, and as we regard our 
arrangement as both very inexpensive and handy, I will 
describe it, even at the risk of having it regarded as 
“shifty ” by Northern owners of basement barns. 
The surface of the barn floor is two feet higher than that 
of the clay floors of the sheds at each end of the barn. 
The siding of the barn was removed sufficiently to make 
the shed rooms and main barn practically one room. Feed- 
boxes were made on the edge of the barn floor, and stall 
divisions 2>£ feet long extend back into the shed, and the 
stalls are not quite three feet wide. The cattle are tied to 
a cross-timber in front and above their heads, and are 
never untied. Water is furnished them where they stand, 
and they are heavily bedded with straw. The idea is to 
keep them perfectly quiet, as comfortable as possible, 
allowing no horning and robbing of feed, and exclude the 
light as much as possible. Under these conditions the 
requisite feed is reduced to a minimum, and almost every 
particle of the manure is saved. The stables are cleaned 
out once or twice during the winter, and are kept comfort¬ 
able with an abundance of straw. 
In the consideration of the feeding question, let it be re¬ 
membered that the primary object in feeding the cattle is 
to work all the refuse matter, such as straw, corn-fodder, 
small potatoes, turnips, etc., into manure. In gathering 
the corn, all the chaffy and immature ears are thrown 
asid^for this feeding. My record shows that 18 head of 
1,000-pound steers, costing $500.00, were tied up December 
20, and fed till April 1—100 days. Each steer was given in 
that time 111 9 bushels of corn, much of which was not 
good; 50 bushels of small potatoes and turnips, and the 
corn-fodder from an acre of ground, about 32 shocks. The 
potatoes or turnips are fed raw, one peck in the morning, 
one at noon, and corn is fed at night. The fodder is fed 
on the barn floor in front of the feed-boxes, and there is no 
stuffing of stalks into mangers, or disagreeable work in 
cleaning out the refuse. The butts of the stalks left by 
the cattle are easily pushed out at a side door into a basin 
scooped out of the clay and there rotted with the surplus 
straw. 
The cost of the feed given to the 18 head of cattle is haid 
to estimate. Last year practically none of it had a mar¬ 
ketable value. Potato culls sold at five or six cents per 
bushel, turnips were unsalable, and fodder sold at five 
cents per shock. Estimating the fodder at the usual price 
here—ten cents per shock—the potatoes and turnips at six 
cents per busbe), and the damaged corn at 25 cents per 
bushel, the feed was worth $161.60. Thirty-three shotts 
were kept after the cattle without other feed, ready for 
clover pasture in the spring. This was an estimated credit 
of $50 to the cattle, reducing the cost of feed to $111.60. The 
cattle gained 133 pounds in the 100 days they were fed, and 
were worth $3.75 per 100 on April 1, making a gain over 
cost price of $265. The cattle were pastured a while on 
frosted clover and other grass before I was ready to tie 
them up, and they appeared barely to hold their own on it, 
so I estimated their weight to be the same as it was when 
I received them. This is the only guess-work connected 
with the feeding, and is close to the mark. My cattle the 
preceding winter gained 138 pounds in about the same 
length of time. The gain was not large, but the feed was 
not costly, and the profit was on the right side. I do not 
claim that 18 head of 1,000-pound steers can be kept 100 
days for $111.60 under ordinary conditions; but it is true 
that if cattle are warmly housed, kept quiet in the dark 
and comfortable, and are fed damaged corn at 25 cents per 
bushel, and small potatoes at six cents per bushel, and are 
followed by hogs, and can be sold at not quite one cent ad¬ 
vance in price over cost, the cost of feed need not be over 
$1.11 per day for 18 head, and the profit will be over 
$150 for the entire period—not counting interest, labor or 
value of manure. Water was given regularly, and a close 
watch was kept for lice ; all warbles were taken out and 
enough straw was furnished to make a load of manure for 
each steer every 30 or 40 days, besides the accumulation of 
rotted stalks in the basin. The ration was thoroughly un¬ 
scientific, and, in a sense, wasteful. Potatoes and ensilage 
differ very little in analysis; turnips are much poorer. 
Rutabagas have given me good results. In stall feeding 
the cattle have never choked, although the potatoes and 
turnips are fed whole. I thoroughly believe all waste 
stuffs should be made into manure on every farm. 
Gallia County, Ohio. ALVA agee. 
THE USE OF ANTISEPTICS. 
HENRY STEWART. 
There can be nothing that is more worthy of reprobation 
than the use of antiseptics in food, other than salt. “ Salt 
is good,” as was declared by a high authority. It forms an 
essential part of the animal system, and is indispensable 
to health. Consequently salted meats, butter and other 
food are innoxious except when used to excess or without 
sufficient fresh vegetables, the acids of which neutralize 
the effects of the too abundant salt. The acid of salt too 
Raising a Grain Crop. 
(hydrochloric acid) forms a part of the gastric fluid and 
hence provides for an actual need of the system. But all 
other antiseptics have the effect of retarding the digestion 
of food and are consequently injurious, if there were no 
other objection against them. Most of them, howe\er, 
possess medicinal properties which render them in jurious 
to persons who use them unnecessarily, and even poisonous 
when used in larger quantities than would be taken even 
medicinally. The so called preservatives of meat and butter; 
the fruit preserving powders, and the sulphuring process 
applied to fruits, are all dangerous to health, and may be¬ 
come in many cases deadly. 
The meat and butter preservatives consist chiefly of 
boracic acid or compounds of it. They have been in more 
or less use for several years; but more recently have been 
vigorously pushed here under the claim that they are use¬ 
ful and safe. I investigated them several years ago, when 
they were first introduced foruse in thedairy.and although 
they were certainly effective as antiseptics, I found them 
to be decidedly injurious as food. They were used in milk 
and butter and for keeping eggs. In every way they acted 
injuriously upon the system. The eggs absorbed so much 
of the solution that the yelks became hard and shriveled, 
although the albumen was not changed. These prepara¬ 
tions did not become popular and disappeared from notice, 
chiefly, no doubt, because of the reluctance of respectable 
journals to indorse them or even advertise them. They are 
the same now as then and deserve the same reprobation ; 
and this, all the more, as they may be employed for the 
preservation of milk to be used for the food of infants and 
young children. It should go without saying that if any 
article in use should be strictly pure and free from every 
kind of adulteration, milk thus used should be. 
This applies to all kinds of food, and thus to the preserv¬ 
ing of fruits, especially of peaches and plums These are 
frequently put up in water in which preserving powders 
are dissolved. These consist of salicylic acid, a still more 
injurious substance than boracic acid. The peculiar action 
of this drug is to reduce the action of the heart and of the 
nervous system. Five grains of it is an extreme dose as 
used in medicine. Such a drug should never be mingled 
with food, for a much smaller quantity might easily be 
fatal to persons suffering from functional disease of the 
heart or of the lungs, as one of its effects is to paralyze 
respiration. In very small quantities it affects the optic 
nerves so as to cause persons “ to see stars” in abundance 
when the eyes are shut, and its effect ou the brain is to 
produce delirium. Not a nice thing to take in food even 
in the smallest uantity ! And yet housewives by 
NOV 8 
thousands are putting up fruits in solutions of this drug 
in total ignorance of its qualities. 
The sulphuring of dried fruit is another matter for 
serious objection. When sulphur is burned it produces 
an exceedingly acrid, poisonous gas, known as sulphurous 
acid. This gas has such a corrosive effect as to destroy the 
vegetable colors, and hence when applied to dried or dry¬ 
ing fruit it discharges the dark color and leaves them clear 
and white. This effect is, however, show and nothing 
more, except, indeed, that in case of some fruits—apricots, 
for instance—the gas is absorbed to such an extent that by 
process of slow oxidation sulphuric acid is produced to a 
dangerous amount. Prunes absorb still more of the acid, 
equal in some cases to a third of one per cent., or 25 grains 
of commercial oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) in each pound 
of dried fruit. In the use of this exceedingly objection¬ 
able process not one useful thing is done. The appearance 
only is improved, or supposed so to be, and this regard for 
appearances (which so often deceive) is one of the popular 
evils of the day. 
All these antiseptics impair digestion to a serious extent. 
Our habits of eating and drinking are bad enough in this 
respect, without adding more serious dangers to those 
already too prevalent. 
MORE SEEDLING APPLE TREES WANTED. 
The following questions were asked by a subscriber in 
Wisconsin : 
1. Do seedling apples in bad apple years outbear grafted trees? 
In this vicinity this year I should have to say, yes. Why 
then should not every apple grower raise a few seedlings 
for cider and fruit in such off years ? . . 
2 . Have not amateur experimenters in sowing apple and other 
fruit seeds, and growing and testing seedlings therefrom 
with the hope of getting improved new varieties, often 
Erred in preferring seed exclusively from our best cultivated 
varieties? Would they not presumably have succeeded 
better had they sowed more seed of choice natural or seed¬ 
ling fruit ? 
Improved Varieties are Cases of Disease. 
1. It is not an uncommon circumstance in an unfavorable 
fruit season to see a fair crop of “natural fruit” upon 
seedling trees, while there may be a very general failure of 
improved varieties. The cause of such difference is ob¬ 
vious. Nature strives to perpetuate the species, not by 
improving the pulpy inclosure of the true fruit (the seeds), 
but rather by producing perfect seed from which to renew 
the plant. Any departure from this, by improving the 
pulpy texture or flavor of this fleshy inclosure, is in some 
sense a disease, resulting in a greater or less deterioration 
of the seed and, since like produces like, in similarenfeeble- 
ment of the resultant tree. All improved varieties, there¬ 
fore, may be assumed to be cases of disease, in which the 
fruit, so-called, is abnormally developed, accompanied by 
more or less extensive enfeeblement of the tree itself, and 
with a consequently diminished ability to resist unfavor¬ 
able conditions. 
2. It is true, beyond doubt, that experimenters do, to a 
greater or less extent, fail to realize the real necessity of 
the health and vigor of the tree, even to Its value as a pro¬ 
ducer of fruit. But there is yet another circumstance 
which especially complicates this second problem in such 
trying climates as that of Wisconsin as well as of the 
entire Northwest east of the Rocky Mountains—that of 
the sufficient hardiness of the tree, and, consequently, its 
ability, in such a climate, to survive and bear fruit at all. 
The experience of the Northwest has already determined 
the fact that the hardiness of a seedling, or of a newly in¬ 
troduced variety, cannot be fully determined till, after the 
enfeeblement consequent upon full bearing, it shall have 
been subjected to the adverse influences of severe frost and 
drought, one or both. The ability, therefore, of even a 
seedling tree to realize the conditions suggested in the sec¬ 
ond query, involves the same lengthened trial needed in 
testing improved varieties generally—precisely the prob¬ 
lem, as I understand the matter, upon which the pomolo¬ 
gies of the West, and especially of the Northwest, have 
been engaged almost since the first settlement of those 
regions—that of evolving a list of fruits, whether old or 
new, whether seedlings or improved varieties, capable of 
withstanding the occasional severities of their climate. 
Van Buren County, Mich [PRES.] T. T. LYON. 
Seedlings are “at Home;” Grafts are Visitors. 
1. There is, perhaps, some iuvoluntary self-delusion in 
this view of the subject. As all grafted apples were origi¬ 
nally seedlings, the question resolves itself into whether 
grafting Impairs the productive power of fruit trees, or 
their hardiness against climatic variations. There is no 
certain evidence that it does. Trees are grafted for their 
meritorious qualities, and these qualities are continued in 
the grafts. Still, there are reasons why appearances should 
give rise to the question asked. Let us look into them a 
little. Seedling fruit trees grow where they sprang up, or 
were transplanted. They are at home, while the graft 
may have originated thousands of miles away. It is reason 
able to suppose that each seedling is in some degree re¬ 
lated to its environment, through its parentage at least. 
A great many seedlings are utterly worthless ; but those 
which man has preserved usually have some merit, and 
that merit is “all there;” but may not all be conveyed 
unimpaired to a distance. The merits which have caused 
the preservation of seedlings are thrift, hardiness, produc¬ 
tiveness and the quality of the fruit. Hundreds of other 
seedlings starting in the same locality might have shown 
merits that would have secured their preservation; but 
they were not granted the opportunity. I hey were cut 
down or uprooted. Those that are left have a probability 
of doing better where they are than other seedlings 
brought from a distance. To the extent of that probability 
is the percentage in favor of seedlings over grafts, and in 
very unfavorable years that advantage may show itself iu 
some conspicuous manner, such as producing a crop of 
