THE CULTIVATOR. 
IS 
will not raise more than half a crop of grass; notwith¬ 
standing, clover and timothy are very tenacious and next 
to impossible to remove from the land, after becoming 
once well soded. What, in your opinion, would be the 
proper course of treatment, to make them yield a good 
burden of grass ?” 
CARE OF ANIMALS IN WINTER. 
In the cold climate of the northern section of our 
country, buildings, of some kind, are required for shel¬ 
tering all domestic animals, and in general we think all 
should be fed under cover, or in yards attached to barns 
and sheds. There is much less waste in this way, 
and the animals are much more quiet and comfortable 
than when the food is thrown out in the dirt, and they are 
forced to eat under the exposure of wind and storm. In 
dry, cold weather, when the air is still, sheep may be 
sometimes foddered on clean, hard snow to good advan¬ 
tage—they will eat fodder here which they would refuse 
any where else. But it is only in dry weather that they 
can be fed in this way—as soon as the snow softens, or 
the weather becomes mois*, they will not eat their fodder 
clean, out of doors, and they must be fed from racks or 
mangers in the house. Sheep do not like ivet —they al¬ 
ways prefer to keep both their food and their bodies dry. 
Large flocks of sheep should be divided, putting the 
bucks and wethers together, the ewes in another lot, and 
the lambs and w'eak sheep in another. Subdivisions of 
these may be necessary, for too many must not be kept 
together. Some very good sheep-farmers think not more 
than a hundred should be allowed to run together—others 
allow more—but much depends on the room given them, 
the facilities for feeding, sheltering, &c. A hospital 
should be provided—self-interest, as well as humanity, 
demand it—and attention to the sick and feeble will be 
well repaid. A* little nursing at the proper time often 
has such a magical effect on the invalid, that he comes 
out in the spring as brisk and hale as the best of the flock 
—a much more gratifying sight, truly, than to see his 
carcass hanging on a tree for the crows to pick. 
If it is designed to raise early lambs for market, the 
ewes should be at once provided with warm, dry shelter, 
and fed with a little grain, and some roots, such as pota¬ 
toes, turneps, or beets. This will ensure a strong, heal¬ 
thy lamb, with plenty of milk to feed him. 
Cold weather gives cattle and other stock sharp appe¬ 
tites, and this is the best time in the winter to feed out 
poor fodder. Give it to the stock in small quantities at a 
time, replenishing the mangers as often as they are clean¬ 
ed, till the animals get their fill. It is not good policy 
to make milch cows eat too much poor fodder—it had bet¬ 
ter be fed mostly to the young cattle—such as steers and 
two-year-old heifers. 
Considerable advantage is sometimes derived from cut¬ 
ting fodder with a machine. Clover hay and straw, cut 
fine and mixed together, may be fed in this way with¬ 
out waste. Corn-fodder, if the stalks are small and well 
cured, will all be eaten if it is cut pretty fine. But it is 
not so with large stalks, which are very coarse and fib-, 
rous, and the sap of which becomes sour before they can 
be cured—cattle will not eat such much sooner than they 
would eat their hoofs. It is of but little use to cut stuff' 
for cattle to eat which is absolutely uneatable. It is true 
that animals will sometimes reject long fodder which is 
really nutricious, and which would be eaten if passed : 
through a cutter; but the idea should never be taken 
from this, that cutting substances which are little else 
than woody fibre, will convert them into proper food for 
animals. 
In the western section of the country, where large 
herds are kept, sheltering and feeding under cover is 
attended with more inconvenience; but we are satisfied 
that the extension of the practice even there, would be 
followed by advantages more than counterbalancing the 
trouble. There is a great difference in the management 
of farmers in that region—the contrast between good and 
bad farming being as strikingly shown there as anywhere 
else—but it is often the case that the stock is permitted to 
range at will over the whole farm. The loss which is 
sustained from the waste of food, the injury done to the 
land by the treading of the cattle when it is wet and soft, 
and, as a matter of course, the great waste of flesh in the 
animals, is incalculable. The practice of feeding cattle 
almost entirely on corn-fodder, which in that country is 
very long and coarse, is quite an obstacle to barn or yard 
feeding; but where this cannot be adopted, the stock 
should be fed on dry lands, with, if possible, a strong, 
blue-grass sod, and by all means sheltered from the bleak 
and cutting winds, by a forest or belt of trees. 
IMPROVEMENT OF FARMS 
The Middlesex (Mass.) Ag. Society awarded the firs! 
premium for the best managed farm to Oliver C. Rogers, 
of Woburn. It appears from the account given by the 
chairman of the committee, Nahum Hardy, Esq., appoint¬ 
ed to examine farms, that when Mr. Rogers came into 
possession of his farm, about seven years ago, it was 
much out of order—the fields were unproductive, and in 
many places so wet that they could not be plowed in 
spring early enough for planting. He dug deep ditches 
to drain the land, stoned them up, and covered over with 
flat stones-—leaving the covering from sixteen to eight¬ 
een inches below the surface. He has dug, stoned, and 
covered over 360 rods of these “ blind” ditches. The 
committee say—“ the crops speak well for the improve¬ 
ments in these fields.” In most of this swampy land, 
there is a hard subsoil, in others a deep mud. Mr. Rogers 
has reclaimed within seven years, more than forty acres, 
which was very rough and unproductive, when he took 
possession of the farm. He has also built more than nine 
hundred rods of stone wall, sixty rods of which is heavy 
faced wall, “beautifully pointed with cement.” He has 
made various improvements in his buildings, and the 
committee add, “ has constructed a good cellar under his 
barn for the manufacture of compost manure, being, 
convinced that no good farmer should be without one.” 
Besides these improvements, Mr. Rogers has set ou! 
peach and apple orchards, and has carried from his fields 
and buried in low places and mud holes, about two thou¬ 
sand loads of stone, within the seven years. 
Compost Making. —The same committee which 
made the above award, made a report in relation to the 
manufacture of compost manures. They mention that 
one of the competitors, Mr. Fay of Marlborough, burns 
hussocks from bog meadows, and mixes the ashes with 
loam and barn-yard manure. Another man, Mr. Chaffin, 
of Acton, is in the habit, every morning in summer, 
of throwing a mixture of sand and muck, over the ma¬ 
nure dropped by the cattlelhe preceding night. 
Mr. Moore, to whom the committee awarded the pre¬ 
mium for the best mode of manufacturing composts, sta¬ 
ted that his attention was first particularly called to this 
subject about five years since. About that time he buik 
a barn, 80 by 40 feet, with a cellar under the whole of 
it, and began making compost. He keeps seven cows, 
one bull, two yoke of oxen, and two horses, which are 
tied up in the barn every night to save the manure. In 
addition to the above, he winters from twenty to twenty- 
five head of young and fat cattle. He keeps hogs in his 
barn cellar. The method which he prefers, is, to keen 
always at hand plenty of good loam and peat mud, both 
in the cellar and barn-yard. This is placed in the cellar 
under the holes where the manure from the cattle is pm 
down, and after remaining there aboyt a week, it i < 
spread over the hog-sties in the cellar, which are 80 fe<- ; 
long by 24 feet wide. Before spreading the loam or 
mud, corn is sown over it, which induces the hogs t > 
root and turn the whole over. Mr. Moore thinks the 
urine of cattle is as valuable, when properly applied, : ; 
their dung. He thinks urine of so much consequent 
that he places barrels in his sheds to receive that from 
the house, which is afterwards emptied on the manm 
heaps. Plank troughs, set on runners, are placed under 
the privies, and -when they are partly full, are draw n 
away and mixed with loam and mud. 
The committee, in conclusion, suggest that there is jm 
necessity of going to France for poudrette, or to thel\ 
cific for guano, as farmers can manufacture these, < 
their equivalents, at less than half the cost of import 
tion. 
