Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1873-08-02
FARM AND HOME.


Care OF Horses.
All horses must not be fed in the
same proportions, without regard to
their ages, their constitutions, and their
work. The improperly of such prac-
tice is self-evident; yet it is constantly
done, and is the basis of disease of every
kind. Never use bad hay on account
of its cheapness, because there IS no
proper nourishment in it. Damaged
corn is exceedingly injurious, because it
brings on inflammation of the bowels
and skin diseases. Chaff is better for
old horses than hay, because they can
chew and digest it better. Mix chatf
with corn or beans, and do not give the
latter alone, because it makes the horse
chew his food more and digest it better.
Hay or grass alone will not support a
horse under hard work, because there is
not sufficient nutritive body in either.
When a horse is worked hard its food
should be chiefly oats-if not worked
hard its food should be chiefly hay-be-
cause oats supply more nourishment
and flesh making material than any
other kind of food hay not so much.
For a saddle or coach horse half a peck
of sound oats and eighteen pounds of
good hay are sufficient. If the hay Is
not good, add quarter of peck more
oats. A horse which works harder may
have rather more of each one that
works little should have less. Rack
feeding is wasteful. The better plan is
to feed with chopped hay from manager,
because the food is not then thrown
about, and is more easily chewed and
digested Sprinkle the hay with water
that has salt dissolved i'll it, because it
is pleasant to the animals taste, and
more easily digested. A teaspoonful Of
salt in bucket of water is sufficient.
Oats should be bruised for an old horse,
but not for young one, because the
former, through age and defective teeth,
cannot chew them properly; the young
horse can do so, and thus properly mixed
with saliva and turned into wholesome
nutriment.
Ma1ims for the Farm.
l. Only good farming pays. He who
sows or plants without reasonable as
surancc of good crops annually had
better earn wages, of some capable
ncighbor, than work for so poor pay
master as he is certain to prove himself.
2. The good farmer is proved by the
steady appreciation of his crops. Any
one may reap an abundant harvest from
fertile virgin soil the good farmer
alone grows good crops at first, and bet
ter and better ever afterward.
3. 1t is far easier to maintain the pro-
ductive capacity of farm than to re-
store it. To exhaust its fecundity, and
then attempt it's restoration by buying
costly commercial fertilizers, is wasteful
and irrational.
4. The good farmer sells mainly such
products as are least exhaustive. Ne
cessity may constrain him for the first
year or two to sell grain or even hay
but he will soon send off his supplies
mainly in the form of cotton, or wool,
or meat, or butter and cheese, or some
thing else that returns to the soil nearly
all that is taken from it. A bank ac-
count daily drawn upon, while nothing
is deposited to its credit, must soon re-
spond, "no funds" SO with farm
similarly treated.
5. Rotation is at least MIGHT'VE fer
tilization. 1t may not positively enrich
a farm it will at least retard and post
pone its impoverishment. He who
grows wheat after wheat, corn after
corn, for twenty years, will need to emf
CRATE before the term is fulfilled. The
same farm cannot support (or endure)
him longer than that. All our great
wheat growing sections of fifty years
ago are wheat growing no longer, while
England grows large crops thereof on
the very fields that fed the armies of
Saxon Harold and William the Con
queror. Rotation preserved these as
the lack of it ruined those.
Cabbage stuffed.
A stuffed cabbage makes good dish,
but many who like cabbage do not cook
any on account of the smell it evaporates
while cooking. This is easily prevented
by putting in the pot or pan with the
cabbage piece of charcoal wrapped up
IN rag, and by simmering the cabbage
instead of boiling it, Clean and blanch
the cabbage in boiling water and salt
for about ten minutes take off, and
drop it into cold water, and drain re-