The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1853-11-24
Rules for Winter.

Now is the time, in the Northern States
to be prepared for winter; and a few sim
plerules may be useful as rememberances
especially to young and inexperienced
farmers.
/. Keep no more stock than you can
keep really well. If you have more, pick
out the most inferior and sell them. Bet
ter to winter ten head well, and have them
in fine condition in the spring, tkan to
keep twenty half starved, which it will
require all the next summer to put into
condition.
III. Heat and shelter are equivalent to
food. Ask yourself whether it is best to
spend a hundred dollars in putting up a
good shed which will last for years; save
half your fodder: and preserve your
stock healthy and comfortable; or to spend
this hundred dollars in hay and other
fodder;in wasting manure and diseased
and dying stock! 1t is fully proved that
well-sheltered animals, with racks to eat
from, can be withered and kept in fine
condition, on one-half the food nccess ary
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.
Ill. You cannot make your young
animals too comfortable or feed them too
well 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.
Nv. Therefore make provision not only
for their shelter, but also for their food
Hay alone will not do them. If you
have no roots, feed them on bran, and
crushed oats and corn. The secret of
having fine stock, is to keep them always
in growing condition. This they do dur
) ing summer on the best grass; and the
cold of winter consumes great proper
tion of the food eaten in producing heat,
which in summer goes to constitute flesh
and fat. 1t is morally impossible that
young animal can continue to grow dur
ing our winters on the same food which
keepsit in summer. Both the size and
health of your animals, and the milk pro-
ducing power of your cows, will depend
on their being well fed during winter.
". Il has been fully proved, that if
your sheep are shut up all winter, with
sufficiency of water. they can make a
vast quantity of manure, though few
roots, or a little grain once or twice a week
is better. Thus, by having "a proper
building, you can turn all your straw into
wool at so cts. a pound, and the richest
manure, instead of burning it, or letting
itrot, as is SO often done. Would not this
soon pay for a shed?
vi. Remember that you raise cattle in
order to make profit on them. Il costs,
on an average, SIS a year to raise a com.
mon COW, in the common way, to maturi-
ty. at four years old, and then you bare
ly get $50 for it. 1t may cost you 81 a
year to raise fine grade to maturity, at
three years old; and you will get $50 for
it. In one case you barely get what the
beast costs you; in the other, you make
S29pro6t. AS regards horses, the differ
ence is greter still. Depend on it, no one
ever made money on stock by half star,-
ing and neglect; but you cannot fail to
make money. if you breed judiciously,
and feed and shelter literally. F ~"
VII. If you would grow profitable
crops, and prevent your land from being
impoverished, you must manure liberal
ly. This manure you must either buy, if
you can find any one to sell it; for our
Western lands must have vegetable, as
we'll las mineral manures. Now, if you
allow your cattle and sheep to run loose
allwinter, you will make no manure. If
you keep them up all winter, you will
make agrcat deal of it. The annual diff
ferenceis, probably, on common farm,
20 bushels of wheat, or, this wear, 800.
That would pay IL per cent. interest on
5000 invested in buildings. But as YOU
could keep so head of stock shut up, on
q
the same food that ten would consume
running loose, we may call the difference
OF profit far greater than that. -.
VII. Again, every heap of dirty, rot
ten straw is not manure, though it is of
ten called SO by courtsey. Manure is of
no use to plant, until it can be dissolved
in winter. Now if you leave heap of
straw and dung exposed to the rain and
sun nearly all that makes it useful to a
plantruns of, or escapesinto the air. AT
ter time, nothing is left but hunus, or
rather, woody fibre. 1t true that rot
ten wood may do some good in some
lands; but why wash your manure clean
of every thing else before you apply it?
The best preserved and richest barn-yard
manure, consists Of
Water, Il. IS parts.
n L I