67o 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
October 10 
the rate of 1,000 quarts per acre, some quarts having 
but from 14 to 16 berries per quart. The six quarts 
of Marshall exhibited by me at the Oswego County 
Strawberry Show this season were grown upon this 
bed, and were said to have been the largest ever 
grown in Oswego County. f. g. tice. 
Oswego County, N Y. 
A WORD ON THE HORSE QUESTION. 
I have read carefully the correspondence in regard 
to horse breeding in The R. N.-Y. of September 26. 
I am a general farmer, and grow fruit, grain and 
stock. I endeavor to have my horses a source of 
revenue, as much as my hogs or cattle, and think 
that the breeders have brought much of this depres¬ 
sion upon themselves, as the farmers have bred every 
mare that would breed, regardless of conformation or 
defects, to an entire horse with a pedigree, anticipat¬ 
ing a Maud S, Sunol or Fantasy. It is not my inten¬ 
tion to depreciate breeding, for I am a firm believer 
in any well-bred animal, providing he has a stylish 
conformation, and reproduces it. It has always been 
my observation that style will outsell speed, gen¬ 
erally speaking, and style combined with strong con¬ 
formation, will draw a plow, or wheat to market, 
while speed is, usually, in the box stall (many times 
for repairs). In other words, a farmer should breed 
something he can work and drive light besides. 
When the season comes for fitting the horse for 
market, put a $2 stable blanket on him, trim up his 
ears, cut his whiskers, wash out his tail occasionally, 
and make him presentable or, more appropriately, 
marketable. You don’t have to tell the horse buyer, 
“ He never had a blanket on him,” or “ He was run¬ 
ning to the straw stack yesterday,” or “ He will make 
a beautiful horse when in shape.” But put him in 
shape, have him led out as if alive, and look at the 
shingles rather than the foundation of the barn ; 
hitch him up and show him for action and style, and 
drive him no faster than he can go, and show a clean, 
smooth gait. “ Three-minute ” horses are very com¬ 
mon in the country, if information is reliable ; but 
that is too fast for an ordinary carriage horse to show 
well, unless one know that he can go that fast, and 
go smooth. First impressions go a great ways in the 
mind of the prospective buyer, so have him look well 
at the halter. 
I usually, during the winter, shape up a few horses 
for market, work them on the farm during the sum¬ 
mer, and have them well broken to show if necessary. 
A pair of this kind, I sold, last spring ; they took the 
first prize in the Victoria class, in the Chicago horse 
show in June. One was a grade Percheron, the other 
by a son of Lakeland Abdallah. They were sold for 
a fancy price, and have size and style. 
The horse question to the farmer, at present, is to 
get either a stylish coacher or extra heavy draught 
horse. Village Farm, Palo Alto, Woodburn, etc., will 
furnish the speed. We must begin breeding; the 
supply is short, and always will be, for a high-class 
carriage horse, and the farmers can afford to raise 
that kind, but trotters a’-e not farmers’ horses. Be as 
choice of the selection of the mare as of the stallion. 
Have the individual horse in mind first, and the pedi¬ 
gree last. Breed to a stallion that reproduces himself, 
and have a mare that “ always raises a good colt.” 
Watervliet, Mich. r. h. s. 
BUTTERMAKING ON THE FARM. 
THE MANAGEMENT OF THE HERD. 
Strictly speaking, the dairy farmer has just this 
use for a cow, viz., as a machine for converting the 
different cattle foods into butter fat. He is a manu¬ 
facturer, and it is a law of economics, that the pro¬ 
duction of a manufactured article is better rewarded 
than is the production of crude, raw material, and 
that this is true just in that proportion to which time 
and skill and training enter into the manufacture. 
Take an example of what are, perhaps, two of the 
most primitive types of agriculture, wool-growing 
and wheat raising. These can both be done by men 
of low intelligence. Wheat is sold in the world’s 
markets by the serf of Russia, by the ryot of India, 
by the fellah of Egypt, by the Spanish half-breed of 
Argentina, and by the uncivilized black (under white 
supervision) of Australia, while a native Kaffir or 
Australian tends some thousand sheep for less per 
day than an American mechanic would receive per 
hour. Both wool and wheat are about as near raw 
material as it is possible to get on the farm, and both 
(barring exceptions) are raised only at a loss in the 
eastern United States. But when there comes a 
trained, skilled man, and manufactures this grain 
into choice butter, or grows an Easter lamb at 10 
cents per pound, then the half-civilized man cuts no 
figure, and there still remains some profit in agri j 
culture. 
And so we db not keep cows for their society, or 
frotn any sentiment*.! reasons whatever, bn* because 
they are the only machines the world has yet dis¬ 
covered, for producing real butter fat. The dairy 
barn where we shall shelter our machines is just as 
much a butter factory as the place where the separa¬ 
tor and churn stand. We feed into the mangers (the 
hoppers) of our machines, rough, crude materials 
worth from .$6 to SI 2 per ton, and after many manipu¬ 
lations, we carry to the express or freight office, a 
product worth from $300 to $600 per ton. I often 
think of this when I drive down on a light buck- 
board wagon with the equivalent of two or three tons 
of hay and grain, packed in pound prints. 
Experience has shown how other classes of factor¬ 
ies should be built, and I think that we are coming to 
have a pretty generally accepted type of cow stable. 
It is the half basement of a building from 32 to 36 
o’vvow To mu- 
n 
nuit 
1 
1 
V 
' 6 2 C cC -n C 
A HOMEMADE MARKER. Fig. 210. 
feet wide and as long as may be necessary to accom¬ 
modate the desired number of animals. This width 
allows for two rows of cows facing the outside, with 
a feeding alley in front of each row, and a driveway 
through the center for removing the manure. The 
stable should be Hooded with sunlight through 
numerous windows, and be well ventilated. This 
matter of ventilation is, perhaps, the most difficult 
problem about the whole design. Probably what we 
may call the typical dairy barn should take the form 
of a cross, in the ground plan, as shown at Fig. 212 . 
Our own barn, built last year, has precisely these 
essential features, and I see no reason for changing 
them were we to rebuild. This style of barn can be 
either two or three stories high (in our own case, 
three). Grain can then be spouted from the wagons 
to bins on the second floor, and thence to the lower 
floor as needed. The silo can be filled from the third 
floor, a 14-foot elevator being all that is required to 
PLAN FOR ROOTING STRAWBERRY PLANTS. Fig. 211. 
fill a 30-foot silo. The shortest arm of the cross is the 
main entrance and bridge house, which contains the 
granary on the second floor, and the cut-feed room, 
grain box, and engine room beneath the granary. 
The longer arm of the cross piece is a hay mow 
above, sheep on the second story, and calf pens and 
horse stalls in the basement beneath. I consider that, 
with modifications to meet individual conditions or 
fancies, this may be, perhaps, the best general shape 
for a dairy barn. 
Probably, a cow should rest from her labors for 
from six to eight weeks each year. Most of them 
will insist upon such an annual vacation, but many 
cows of pronounced milking type, will, if not dried 
up, milk “ from calf to calf.” Some good cow keepers 
advise this practice, but I believe that the oldtime 
idea is best. When a cow is milked continuously, 
the amount given after calving is small, and never 
reaches the “flush ” of a cow which has gone dry a 
few weeks, and recuperated and increased her milk¬ 
giving or mammary apparatus. In other words, the 
cow needs time to “ make up bag.” 
Probably there is no longer much question but we 
want our cows to “close for repairs” in July and Aug¬ 
ust. Between the usual drought, flies, short feed and 
rush of other farm work, they are the hardest months 
in the year to make milk. Some recent Danish ex¬ 
periments show that cows freshening in the fall, gave 
25 per cent more milk during the next milking period, 
than those coming fresh in the spring. The cow that 
calves in the fall, just begins to fall off in milk when 
the May pasture comes, and the wonderful stimu¬ 
lating effect of this best of all rations, makes her 
milk pretty well for six weeks more. On the other 
hand, the spring cow which begins to decline in 
November, simply goes right on declining. 
Between cold storage and the rush into Winter 
dairying, the old-time difference between the winter 
and summer price of butter is growing less marked ; 
but that does not alter the fact that the most success¬ 
ful dairymen are those who have been doing their 
largest business when the summer pasture fields were 
deep under the snow banks, jared van wagknen jr. 
A TALK ABOUT TUB SILOS. 
Since writing my recent notes about tub silos, I 
have visited a farmer near Batavia, N. Y., who has a 
large “tub” built outside the barn, with no protection 
save its round roof. “ How long have you been using 
your tub silo ?” I asked. 
“ I am now filling it for the third season, and have 
been furnishing milk to village patrons during that 
time, which has evidently, given good satisfaction.” 
“ While the tub silo may, under ordinary circum¬ 
stances, preserve your ensilage in a perfect manner, 
is it not liable to give you trouble on account of 
freezing during periods of extreme cold ?” 
“That question is often asked, and I will admit 
that, during the past winter, when for several days 
the mercury dropped to 20 and 25 degrees below zero, 
the ensilage was found slightly frozen near the out¬ 
side ; not sufficiently, however, to cause any percept¬ 
ible loss, as it was all utilized as food, apparently 
with no injurious results. But were I to build 
another silo, it would be on the same principle, only 
I would first line the inside with tarred paper, and 
then, for a second lining, use %-inch matched pine or 
good hemlock, nailing the uprights to horizontal 
strips about one-half inch in thickness. Thus 1 would 
secure an air chamber which, I think, would effectu¬ 
ally prevent freezing in the coldest weather. But we 
don’t often look for as cold weather as that experi¬ 
enced last winter, in this latitude.” 
“ Is this the only tub silo in this vicinity ? ” 
“ No, there are several others, and all are giving 
excellent satisfaction. Some farmers locate them 
inside their barns, utilizing a portion of the bay, if it 
is one of the -ordinary grain barns. Silos, thus pro¬ 
tected with the usual single outside covering of the 
barn, with an inch or %-inoh thickness of pine or 
hemlock boards, are proving a great success.” 
In a subsequent conversation with the man in charge 
of the engine, it was learned that cutting ensilage 
and filling silos is a business he has followed for sev¬ 
eral seasons. 
“ What have you learned, during that time, of the 
relative merits of the tub silo, as compared with the 
square ones now in general use ? ” 
“It is only necessary for me to state that I have 
filled a great many round or ‘ tub ’ silos, some of them 
for years in succession, and have never heard any dis¬ 
satisfaction. They are, undoubtedly, all right.” 
New York. _ irying d. cook. 
HORSE SHOE FARM NOTES. 
EXPERIMENTS in grass seeding. 
Last season, thousands of dollars were paid out for 
grass seed for which not a spire of grass can be 
shown. Any method which will insure a good seed¬ 
ing, is invaluable. A failure to secure a catch not 
only breaks up the rotation and the owner’s plans, 
but makes the risk of a second failure much greater 
by taking a second crop from the land, and what is 
still more detrimental, clears the land of humus. 
I have been much interested in the account of Mr. 
Clark's hay in a recent Rural About 14 years ago, 
I plowed a stony, steep, thin-soiled, hillside in the 
fall. It never gave a quarter of a crop of anything 
in those days. In the spring, it was plowed again. 
In August, it was covered with daisies and weeds of 
all kinds which were then plowed under. I noticed 
that the soil had turned darker, seemed moister and 
finer in texture, in fact, looked as though something 
might grow there. After several harrowings, I 
sowed one-half bushel of Timothy seed, and har¬ 
rowed it in with a peg-tooth harrow. The Timothy 
came up quickly and grew finely ; but my neighbors 
joked considerably about the smallness of my wheat, 
not knowing that I did not sow any. Late the next 
season, I cut more hay from that piece than I ever 
had before. The field has always given better crops, 
since the trial, and it was a paying investment to give 
up a year's use of the land. No fertilizer was used. 
We can not all cut such grass as Mr. Clark did, on 
account of the location of our fields, and would be 
better paid to sow wheat and get a crop while waiting 
for the grass to grow. 
Since adopting the plan of sowing both clover and 
Timothy at the same time with the wheat, I have 
had very good success. As grass is the main object, 
I give a light seeding of wheat and a heavy one of 
grass—not over two bushels of wheat and 10 quarts of 
a mixture consisting of six quarts of Timothy and 
four quarts of clover. It is not usual to sow clover 
in the fall for fear of winterkilling, but I obtain 
better results from this seeding than from a half 
bushel sown in spring. After repeated trials, I now 
sow all grass seed ahead of the drill teeth or, if sown 
