Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-10-18
sTArE FAlR pIscussI0Ns.

We regretted the absence of all discus
sions by farmers at our State Fair near
this city. Such an opportunity for learn
ing from one another many useful things
by free and easy public talk between the
owners and cultivators OF the soil, should
not be allowed to pass unimproved. In
New 7 ork, farmers manage these things
differently. Every day during State or
county fair, they meet in some convenient
hall or room, choose chairman and dis
c1ss By the hour practical questions Of
great interest and importance in farm econ
omy. They state plainly what they have
done within the last twelve months, and
exactly how they did it. Thus, Mr.. James
Miller, of Yates county, raised thirty bush
els Of Soule's wheat to the acre. The soil
was good, the ground top-dressed with
manures well plowed, and narrowed with
Thomas smoothing harrow. Seed sown
Sept is. aF
Mr.. Miller drilled in two bushels of corn
for stock feed per acre, on twenty acres,
and harvested an average of five tons OF
good corn fodder per acre-giving him one
hundred tons in all, well cured. tsEsE
Mr.. Lewis, of Hermiken county, "a dis
tinguished dairy MANI did not regard corn
fodder fair equivalent for grass and hay.
To get the best grass, Mr.. Miller ought to
have seeded in the fall, using an abundance
Of seed of different varieties maturing about
the same time, so that the ground would
be fully occupied. A grass crop grown in
this way, on such land as Mr., Miller had
used for his corn field, would have been
worth as much more than corn as corn was
worth more than starvation.
Br. E. L. Sturtevant, of Massachusetts,
had tested some acres Of Hungarian grass
with an equal area Of corn fodder, and had
found the latter better than the former.
. He found the forage from an acre that
produced eighty bushels of corn was 5000
pounds, and equal in nutriment of 1000
pounds Of good English hay. --ii
Mr.. Tomlinson, CT Pennsylvania, had
tried both corn forage and grass, and re-
garded the cultivation of the latter as pay
ing better than the former. Manuring grass
land improved it by the sod formed; where
as tillage in corn-culture tends TO impo7er-
ish the SOIL. Mr.. Lewis remarked the dairy
business would be failure wherever the
natural grasses would not succeed; neither
corn nor any other substitute viii make
amends for the deficiency. The great dairy
grass was Kentucky blue grass or June
grass. Nothing else was so well relished
by cattle; and il was that which had made
Hefkimen county. He had tried corn-stalk
feeding five years, and knew every cent of
the cost, and he was satisfied it was worth |
almost nothing as compared with hay or
grass.
Mr.. Bonfoy of Herkimen said Mr.. Lewis |
had peculiar advantages for raising grass
which enabled him to dispense with corn. /
All dairy men are not so fortunately situat-
ed. He had been feeding dairy COWS on
corn fodder since June with satisfactory
results. Green oats fed to cows had in
creased the flow of milk.
At the Merimac County IN. H. Fair one
hundred and twenty-five yoke of matched
oxen were exhibited ready for " TX; nine
,enths of which were dark-red North Dev-
'ns. New England farmers prefer to use
lively oxen rather than horses OF mules for
arm work. When an OK is too old for labor
ne sells readily in fat beef. A worn out
morse or mule has not this advantage. A
,armer in Tennessee who will raise first
lass, deep-red oxen for work, break them
we'll oplow, and do other work, can always
'sll them at profit.