1858 . 
THE CULTIVATOR 
117 
Substitutes for Hay, &c. 
Indian Corn — Millett—Chinese Sugar Cane — Expe¬ 
riments in Feeding Cows. 
Messrs. L. Tucker & Son —A. B. Reynolds, (page 
29,) wishes to know the best substitute for hay. My 
experience in that line is at his service, and if it is of 
any benefit to him or others, I shall consider myself 
well repaid for the time spent in writing these lines. 
Indian corn of the large southern variety, will pro¬ 
duce the largest amount of fodder per acre, of any ar¬ 
ticle which I have tried. On the 5th of June I plant¬ 
ed one acre of corn. The soil, a warm sandy loam, 
which would have produced fifty bushels of shelled corn 
per acre—plowed and harrowed—then furrowed out 
eighteen inches between the rows—the corn strewn 
thickly in the furrows, (three bushels per acre)—har¬ 
rowed across the rows, and rolled—cleaned out wheD 
small with the hoe. It soon covered the ground so 
so thickly as to prevent the weeds from sprining up 
to rob the corn of its food. 
Cut it up (Sept. 5th,) with corn cutters, laying it in 
rows spread evenly, so that the sun may wilt it. Let 
it lay one or two days; then put it up in stooks ; bind 
them well at the top, spreading the bottoms well apart, 
so as to permit the air to pass through them. Let them 
stand until winter sets in. Don’t stack or draw them 
into the barn before cold weather; if you do they will 
be damaged by mould or rottenness. They may ap¬ 
pear perfectly dry, but my experience has taught me 
their looks will deceive you. When cold weather has 
fairly set in, you may stack or put them in a barn, and 
you will have an article of fodder upon which your 
stock will thrive, if properly protected from the cold 
and wet. 
From the produce of said acre I fed thirty cows for 
twenty days, giving them all they needed of fodder, 
and a small allowance of roots. As I found from ex¬ 
perience that my cows require about 26 pounds of fod¬ 
der each per day, this will show that about seven and 
a half tons of dry fodder must have been consumed in 
the 20 days. From the above your correspondent can 
estimate how to make up his defficiency of hay. I have 
sown corn broadcast, but it is less productive, not so 
convenient curing it, and requires more seed. 
Oats cut when in tho milk is a good fodder, but ex¬ 
pensive. Rye, wheat and oat straw answer the pur¬ 
pose of filling up, but a liberal supply of roots or 
ground feed must be supplied or the stock will become 
poor very fast. 
Millet is next best to corn on good soil. Sow any 
time in June, 1 bushel per acre—harvest when the seed 
is in the milk, and it makes good fodder. Produce two 
to four tons per acre. 
Chinese sugar cane may answer for soiling; but is 
too full of juice to cure for winter fodder. Roots are 
valuable to feed in conjunction with fodder, but must 
not be relied on as a substitute. 
I have now mentioned all of the substitutes, but 
where land and labor are high, I might suggest anoth¬ 
er—that is, exhaust all the resources of the farm to 
make manure, and if a sufficiency cannot be thus ob¬ 
tained, then sow plaster, ashes, or Peruvian guano, on 
his mowing grounds, and thus cause two blades of 
grass to grow where but one grew before, and in many 
eases the latter will be found the cheapest and most 
satisfactory plan. Remember, also, that good warm 
stables, and feeding so that the stock cannot waste 
any, are also helps to a short hay crop. 
By reference to my experiments, I find that ruta 
baga and sugar beet were worth ten cents per bushel 
for cows when hay was worth ten dollars per ton, and 
carrots and parsnips 15 cents. 
I give you the result of experiment, hay and feed 
vs. cut straw and feed. I fed in the winter to milch 
cows, 28 lbs. good hay and 5 lbs. feed to each cow, 
weighing the milk of ten cows for ten days. I then 
changed, giving 26 lbs. cut rye and oat straw, and 10 
lbs. of feed, wet and mixed well together, weighing 
the milk for ten days. Then changed to hay, contin¬ 
uing for three trials of each. The result was no dif¬ 
ference of any amount in each experiment, and the 
account balances as follows : 
28 pounds hay at $10.00 per ton,_ 14c. 
25 pounds corn, oats and buckwheat, 
ground,. 7£c. 
——- 21sc. per day. 
26 pounds cut straw, $5 per ton,. 6|c. 
10 pounds same feed as above, lie.,.. 15c. 
Cutting straw, &c., extra,. —..-I_ lc. 
- 22^ c. per day. 
On a less amount of feed, I found a decrease in the 
quantity of milk when straw was fed. I have the 
above, the average of a number of experiments. I 
have tried cutting and steaming hay, &c., for cows, 
but could not make it pay for the extra labor and fuel. 
I have experimented some with various kinds of ma¬ 
nure, ditching, &c., &c. Should the above prove ac¬ 
ceptable, I will write out some more for you. J. J. 
Dolsen. New Hampton , Orange Co. t N. Y. 
Mr. D. has our thanks for the above, and we shall be 
glad to receive the details of any other experimens he 
has made. 
Prince Albert Potatoes. 
The New-York Tribune, in an article on potatoes, 
has the following notice of the Prince Albert potato: 
“The Prince Albert is a seedling imported from 
England, and introduced into Massachusetts a few years 
ago by an Englishman, whose name we are unable to 
learn. They were introduced to this market for seed 
by Messrs. Steers & Edwards, some four years since, at 
very high prices. The demand for them for seed has 
kept pace with the supply, and we learn that S. & E. 
have just sold fifty barrels to one of our seedsmen at $5 
per barrel. They are an oblong shape, a little flatten¬ 
ed, entirely white, very few eyes, which lie upon the 
surface, scarcely indenting the thin, smooth skin, being 
one of the most beautiful potatoes ever grown. They 
are an early variety, ripening with the Mercer, and 
grow to a handsome size, sometimes very large, and 
yield largely, and have never rotted. They have not 
yet come in market for general consumption, but are 
highly praised by many that have tried them as a ta¬ 
ble potato.” 
This is the variety grown by our correspondent, Mr. 
How att of New-Jersey, who, for his crop of 238 bush¬ 
els per acre, received the first premium of the New- 
Jersey State Ag. Society, at its late winter meeting. 
They are a large and productive variety, of first-rate 
quality, as we had occasion to state last fall, in ac¬ 
knowledging the receipt of a barrel of them from Mr. 
How ATT. 
About a fortnight since, we received a bushel of the 
Prince Alberts, (frozen solid) from (we presume, as no 
letter accompanied them,) Mr. Gr. McMahon of New 
Milford, Conn., an account of whose crop was published 
in our last vol., p. 410. Mr. McM. informs us that he 
