The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1853-12-08
agricultural.
Rules for Winter.

10 be preparing for winter; and few
SIMPLE rules may be useful as remem-
braneers, especially to young and mex
perienced farmers.
1. 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, than
to keep twenty half starved, which it will
require all the next summer to put into
condition.
IL. Heat and shelter are equivalent
to food. Ask yourself whether it is best
to spend hundred dollars in putting up
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 wasted manure, and diseased
and dying stock? 1t is fully proved that
we'll sheltered animals, with racks to eat
from, can be wintered and kept in fine
condition, on one-haB the food necessary
where stock is fed out of doors on the
ground, with the lea side of a il.fence
for shelter, and this without taking into
consideration the saving of manure, and
many other items of profit.
III. You cannot make your young an
finals 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.
". Therefore, make provision not on
" for their shelter, but also for their
food. Hay alone will not do for them
If you haze no roots, feed them on bran,
and crushed oats, and corn. The secret
of having fine stock, is to keep them al
ways in growing condition. This they
do during summer on the best grass; and
the cold of winter consumes a great pro-
portion of the food eaten in producing
heat, which in summer goes to constitute
1eSh and fat 1t is morally impossible
that young animal can continue to grow
during cur winters on 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 on their being well fed during
winter.
Y. 1t has been fully proved, that if
your sheep are shut up all winter, with
suficiency of water, they can be kept fat on
wheat and oat straw alone, and make avast
quantity of manure, though few roots,
or little grain once or twice week Is
better. Thus, by having proper build
ing, you can turn all your straw into wool
al 50 cents a pound, and the richest ma
nure, instead Of burning it, or letting it
rot, az is often done. Would not this
soon pay for shed!
VI. Remember thut You raise cattle in
order to make profit on them. 1t costs, /
on an average, So year to raise COM d
mon COW; in the common way, to maturi-
ty, at foar years old and then you bare
y got so for it. 1t may cost you 81 a
year to raise a fine grade to maturity, at
three years old! aud you will get $50 for
it. In one case you barely get what the {
least costs you: in the other, you make :
S99 profit As regards horses, the differ
ence Is greater still. Depend on it, no
5ne ever made money on stock by half =
starving and neglect but yon cannot fail 9
o make money, if you breed judiciously, u
md feed and shelter literally. 5
VII If you would grow profitable {
.rops, aad prevent your land from being
impoverished, you must manure literally.
This manure you must either make or /,
,uy, if you can find any one to sell 1t; o
or our Western lands naalSt have vegeta- W
lie. as well as mineral manurcs. Now, "
you allow your cattle and sheep to run a,
pose all winter you will make no manure. !.
{ you keep them up all winter, you will st
laae great deal Of it. The annual diff "
srence is, probably, on a common farm, in
. bushels of wheat, or, this year, $50 BY
hat would pay 10 per ceut. interest on IN
;290 invested in buildings. But as ci
ou could keep 20 head of stock shut up
q the same food that 10 would consume r.,
aiming loose, we may call the difference pi
profit far greater than that. ior
VIII. Again, every heap of dirty rot oh
N straw is not manure" though il is ne
ften called so by courtsey. Manure is W W
DO use to a plaut, until it can be dis co co
olved in water. Now, if you leave
cap Of straw and dung exposed to the la
hin and sun, nearly all that makes it USE of
Il to plant runs off or escapes into the io
n. After time, nothing is left but e.
t0aIs, or rather, woody fibre. 1t is true ". w
lat rotten wood may do some good in ~ ~
,me lands: but why wash your manure -
can Of every thing else before you apply tel
The best preserved and richest barn th'
lrd manure, consists n
Water 65 parts ar
Organic, or vegetable matter 243 raj
Inorganic salts 10 I"
ow these last ten parts are worth all the pa
st; and vet they run with few show 10