The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1870-08-18

for bushel, and, if sown in September, makes
the best possible winter pasture, which, how
ever, milch COWS should never be allowed to
taste, as the peculiar flavor of the rye is COM
municated to the milk. Rye straw is valua-
BILE winter food for cattle, and when cut up and
sprinkled with the rye meal, makes most nu-
tritious food for any kind of animal; Ihe
poorest land will produce two or three bqshels
of rye, and good land from eight to ten. once
harvested thirteen and half bushels from ma a
half acre cow-pen. The coolest winter has but
little effect upon this grain.
OATS
are the most valuable of all the grains, because
they furnish an economical substitute tor corn
in feeding all kinds of animals. The seed of
the common white oat of yore seems to have
been destroyed by rust.
The black oat is the heaviest, and a very val.
liable grain though Objectionable, because when
ripe enough to cut is a perfect taNch-me-not;
one-fourth the crop is lost by ailettering out
while handling.
The red oat will repay the planter on every
kind of land, and is not subject to disease. 1t
is very prolific, often yielding forty bushels per
acre on fair land. The straw is short and ten
der, and if cured without being too often wet
is equal to fodder, pound for pound, as winter
forage for cattle or mules. once threshed four
hundred and eighty dozen bundles of. red oats
that yielded three hundred and ninety-six heap
ing bushels of beautiful clean oats. At another
time threshed thirty dozen, and cleaned up
thirty-six bushels. Its capacity of production
would be reached at one hundred bushels to
the acre. Red oats may be sown at any time
from first of September to the following March;
this year oats sown in January were better
than those sown last fall or this spring, in
consequence of the unusually dry spring. Oats
sown on cotton land at the last plowing of the
crop, or in September after the first picking,
and plowed IN with the shallow sweep furrows,
will make an abundant crop, and if the land
was horizontalized for the cotton crop, the oats
will grow as if, drilled horizontally, and thus
protect the land from washing as stated above.
The cotton stalks can be hacked down in the
winter,
Of the celebrated Norway Oats, know but
little. I bought bushel last fall at 5000, and
sowed them the third week in November on
good land, highly manured with cotton seed.
Every oat.seemed to germinate, but in January
about one-fourth the Stand" was frozen out.
They stood the dry spring we'll, grew about
three feet high, and have peculiarly crowded
heads nine inches long, with thirty to eighty
grains to the head. They were perfectly green
Wu6u lllc ICu OdlS NClC ildl NCotCu. Lucy WCAO
not cut until the 9th of July, and if they are
thus late in maturing will be Objectionable.
Their stock is very large, coarse, and strong.
BARLEY
is also most valuable crop, but more uncer
tain, perhaps, than any small grain crop. The
best land should be stimulated to grow fine
barley crop. Thin land will not produce it.
Cow-pens are the best spots to SOW this grain
upon. If sown in September, it may be cut by
the 1st of January; and, unless the winter is
unusually severe, it will be high enough to cut
again in March, and then grow up and pro-
duce fair crop of seed to be harvested when
ripe. When used in this way it should never
be grazed, but cut with reap-hook as soon as
it is high enough to grasp with the hand and
cut below, between the hand and the roots or
ground The March cutting may be knee-high.
The effect of green barley upon work animals
is most astonishing. The planter who sows
half acre of barley on land well prepared and
thoroughly enriched for each mule, will never
own poor, diseased, hidc-bound plow-stock.
Ripe barley is very hard grain, and should
never be fed until soaked for twenty -four hours.
I usually SOW one bushel of wheat, three
pecks of rye, two bushels of oats, or two BUSH
els of barley to an acre of land.
d. WYATT AIKEN.