The Portland daily press., 1878-01-07
FARM AND HOUSEHOLD.
Grain Raising and Stock.

Inc progress OF AGRICULTURAL 6QucatlOn IN
practical direction, is shown most conclusiv-
ely in the great economy manifested in the
use of refuse products. A few years ago
straw was considered useful only as bed
ding or litter for stock, and the manure de-
rived from its decay. When Mechi, during
this generation, proposes to make it valuable
in growing stock and thus enable the grain
raiser to feed more animals, and fertilize the
land for more grain, he was laughed at in a
meeting of wise English farmers, as vision
airy, who knew more of trade and city affairs,
than of agricultuer. But he was intensely
practical, and demonstrated his visions by
making straw an important auxiliary in
feeding steers most acceptable for the butch
er. He presented his ideas worked out into
practical results, and thirty years have
brought great change in English opinion on
the value OF straw, as will appear from read
ing frequent articles in their agricultural
journals. The London Live Stock Journal,
in late number, called attention to the
steady advance in the price of straw, and
notes the fact that where wheat growing was
improbable for the grain itself, it hads now
become profitable from the value of the
straw. 1t says; "The fact can now almost
be maintained, that the true arabic farmers,
who produce corn alone, are disappearing,
and the real aim and object of the arabic
farmer is the growth Of stock. 1t is for the
UutCutI budb uc plOMo dEu oOWSS anu uOU IOr
the miller. The price OF straw shows the
way the wind blows.
"There was a time-not many years since
when if man was known to feed his cattle
straw, he was looked upon as either in bad
way pecuniarly, or extremely misery. Now
the use of straw is nearly universal, though
in conjunction with other Materials
1t also speaks of the aid the Short-Horn has
been in rendering stall-feeding profitable, and
;viv
In fact, there seems to be great change in
reference to connecting grain raising with
meat production. There, as in this country,
grass was considered prerequisite to stock
feeding and grain-farming as excluding
stock to any profitable extent. Farmers
have been wont to consider grain as too ex-
pensive for beef production, aud they have
not been quick to see that straw, although an
imperfect food in itself, when mingled with
a small portion of grain becomes as well bal
anced food as grass or hay. The agricultural
chemists have assisted them to understand
the value of different kinds of food, and the
propriety of mixing those of divers elements.
1t is most appropriate that much titled
land should be largely MANFRED, and the gen.
eral farmer must rely, for this manure, upon
stock.
Let US see what is required, chemically,
to make straw equal to hay. The average
food 50 per cent, including about 50 per
cent, of albuminoids. Wheat straw has 25
per cent, barley So per cent, oat A per cent
corn fodder AZ per cent.-an average of SO
per cent. of digestible food /; but they are de-
icient in albuminoids, having, on an average,
about per cent. 1t we suppose fair crop
of oats to be 40 bushels of grain (1,2S0 lbs. J,
and once and half that weight Of straw
1920 lbs. J; then, if ten bushels of oats 1920
lbs.), be mixed and fed with the straw, we
shall have 2,240 lbs. of food equal to hay, and
have 80 bushels of oats left; or, if we mix SIC
lbs. If wheat bran, we shall have $500 lbs. of
food equal to good hay. Take the wheat
crop of 25 bushels Il 500 lbs to the acre, and
there will be about $500 lbs. of straw; now
the wheat being ground into -four, there will
be about 40 lbs. of flour and 20 lbs. of offal
lbran, middlings, &C., to the bushel. This
will give 500 lbs. of refuse to be used as cattle
food, and if the 500 lbs. of bran &C., be mixed
with $500 lbs, of straw, we shall have 5000
lbs. to the acre of food about equal to hay.
Thus conducted, wheat raising and cattle
growing work nicely together, and the fertil-
ity of the soil is not much reduced; for the
largest proportion of the heterogeneous or
muscle-forming elements, and the phosphate
of lime, &C., of the wheat crop. go back to
the soil in soluble form, ready to grow more
wheat or grass. So of the other grain crops
-theSstraw may all be utilized by the addi-
ton of small amount of concentrated food.
Cattle and other stock-raising is the natural
complement of grain raising; keeping up a
natural equilibrium between the deposits and
the drafts of agriculture.
Some farmers will answer to this, that it
requires too much labor, is too complicated;
that farmers are obliged to follow a simple
system and cannot go into SO much COM
pounding of materials for feeding. We an
swer that the farmer is manufacturer, and
that he should exhibit as much skill and per-
severance as other manufacturers. There
are many of our manufactures that would
cease, or the price of the product be greatly
raised, if the refuse was not utilized. The
refuse of the distillery, of the starch factory,
of the corn-sugar manufacture, and hundreds
of others, pays large part OF the expenses
of the manufacture. 1t behooves the farmer
to study his materials and use them to the
best advantage, as much as the miller, the
manufacturer of beet-sugar, of glue, OF lin
seed oil, of gas, of any other product. The
successful agriculturist of the future will
study all his resources, use every thing,
waste nothing. The recuperation of the
Middle and Eastern States must depend large
ly upon judicious stock farming in connection
with grain farming Each acre in grain will
represent. in materials for feeding animals,
three-fourths of a acre in good grass, besides
three-fourths OF the grain for market. Every
grain farm ahould keep animals in proportion
to the grain raised. Then it will be-the
more grain the mole stock, the more stock the
greater prosperity.