Plymouth advertiser. [volume] (Plymouth, Ohio) 1853-1988, 1853-12-03
agricultural.
Rules for Winter.

10 be prepared for winter, and few sim.
pie rules may be useful as remembrancers,
especially 10 young and inexperienced
farmers.
4. Keep no more stock than you can
keep really well. If you have more,
pick out the most inferior and sell them.
Better to winter ten head we'll, and have
them in fine condition in the spring. than
10 keep twenty half-stsrved, which it will
require all the next summer 10 put into
condition.
>. Heat and shelter are equivalent TO
food. Is it best to spend hundred dol
lars in putting up good shed, which will
last for years. save half your fodder
and preserve your stock healthy and com.
Portable or to spend this hundred dol
lars in hay and other fodder in wasting
manure, and diseased and dying stock !
IL IS fully proved that well-sheltered ami
mails, with racks 10 eat from, can be win
tered and kept in fine condition, en- one
half the food necessary where stock is
fed out OF doors on the ground, with the
lea side OF a rail fence for shelter, and this
without taking into consideration the
saving OF manure, and many other items
of profit.
o. You cannot make your young ami.
mails too comfortable, or feed them too
we'll during the first winter. If they are
once stunted, or starved, they will never
recover it This applies to all kinds of
stock, but especially TO calves and colts
4. Make provisions not only for their
shelter, but also for their food. Hay
alone will not do for them. If YOU have
no roots, feed them on bran, and crushed
oats, and corn. The secret of having
hne stock, is to keep them always in a
growing condition. This they do in sum-
mer on the best grass, and the cold of
"iii'er consumes great proportion of the
1000 eaten in producing heat, which in
summer goes to constitute flesh and fat.
1t is morally impossible that a Young an.
lthai can continue 10 grow during our win.
'ers Oh the same food which keeps it in
summer. Both the size and health of
your animals, and the milk producing
power of your cows, will depend upon
their being well-fed during winter
3. 1t has been fully proved that il your
sheep are shut up all winter, with sufli.
cheney of water, they can be kept fat on
wheat and oat straw alone, and make
vast quantity of manure, though a few
roots or a llttle grain once or twice a week
IS better. Thus, by having a proper
building, you can turn all your straw into
wool at 40 cts. a pound, and the richest
manure, instead of burning it, or letting
1t ret, as is often done. Would not this
soon pay for shed!
q. Remember that you raise cattle in
or'er to make profit on them. Lcos,s
about So year to raise common COW.
IN the common way, TO maturity, at four
years old,-and then you barely get $50
for it. 1t may cost you 81 year 10 raise
fine grade TO maturity, at three wears
cid; and you will get $50 for it. In one
case you barely get what the beas. costs
Eoa; IN the other you make $50 profit.
As regards horses, the difference is great,
er still, Depend on it, no one ever made
money by halfstarving and neglect bu,
you cannot fail to make money, if YOU
breed Judlciously, and feed and shelter
literally.
7. If you would grow profitable crops,
and prevent your land from being mpov-
erished, you must manure HberalIy. Thi,
manure you must either buy, if you can
md any one to sell it, or make it: for
our Western lands must have vegetable,
as well as mineral nanures. Now if you
allow your cattle and sheep to run loose
all winter, you will make no mar.ure. If
you keep them up all winter, YOU will
make great deal of ii. The annual diff.
ference is, probably, on common farm,
~ bushels of wheat, or this year. $40.
mat would pay I2 per cent interest on
$500 invested in buildings. But as you
can keep 20 head Of stock shut I'D. on
the same food that ten would consume
running loose, We may call the difference
OF profit far greater than that.
8. Rotten straw is not manure. Ma
sure is OF no use TO aplant, until it can be
dissolved in water Keep your cattle shut
up and have cheap rough shed outside.
INTO which you daily pitch your dung, YOU
save all this loss; you save the urine, I,
WhIch Is lar more valuable, as well as
the dung, you have it dry, One load
OF such maure is estimated as fully worth
five Of the best saved without cover: and
worth very great number of loads of
the rotten washed stuff too often applied.
Now, here, the saving and profits are very
great.
9. But if you are afraid of the trouble
t cleaning your stables daily. have you
loors altered to MIR. Mecbi's plan: that is,
instead of plank, have the floors made OF
cantling few inches apart-there is
ixed rule for the diiferen, kinds ofstock-
and shollow vault, water tight beneath.
The dung and urine will fall in, ard be
"savld I'LL you need them. Another bene.
ut OF this system is. that you need no bed.
ding, and con feed out all your straw
1t has been tried in Michigan with great
success. The urine of cattle is far rich
er manure than than the dung; and every
possible pains ought to be taken to save
it. Leibig says that all the ammonia
which renders guano SO valuable, and
which is so greatly needed by ou. wheat,
is derived from the urine.
10. These rough hints may serve for