The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1883-01-26

ing stock. The first money i ever
had of my own / invested in two
yearIing heifers. Father had plenty
OF feed, and did not mind the little
drain which was made on his ample
stores. He encouraged my liberal
feeding, SO long as nothing was vast
ed, and when my little herd was
ready to sell, was willing that the
money they brought should be invest
ed in more cattle, which he allowed
me to fatten from bis hay mows and
meal bins. My taste for stock was
thus wisely fostered and made profit
able to me, at least. BY and by,
when l had farm of my own, it was
always ':overstocked" as the farmers
used to say, and l was put to my wits
end to get them through the winter
and keep them growing. There is
nothing like necessity to learn econo-
my and to turn everything to the best
account Every spear of fodder had
to count. The first lesson learned
was not to waste fodder by feeding in
the barnyard. This had been the
mode offoddering generally practiced,
farmers arguing that what was not
eaten would make manure. A great
many of them had an idea that straw
was good for nothing else, and it was
no waste to strew the barnyard with
it and let the cattle tread it down
and mix their droppings with it. AS
grain was generally harvested dead
ripe, it certainly did not make good
fodder. This notion of letting grain
get over-ripe grew out of the fact that
it threshed easier, and so it did, and
considerable portion used to get
threshed out in the fields in cutting
and handling it. When threshing
was done with fail, there was some
sense in this practice, but after thresh-
ing machines became plenty the cir
cumstances were changed, and there
was no longer any necessity for the
stems which held the grains to the
stalks to be rotten to part easily, or
for the bulls to be loosened to allow
the kernels to readily fall out. Farm
ers' ideas did not keep pace with the
improvements in the dressings, and
so they slowly changed their manage
ment of the harvest whereby they lost
both in the grain wasted in the fields,
and in the straw, which had all the
jucies dried out of it, and the nutri-
ton which it would have contained
changed to woody fiber, which made
it both unpalatable and Improbable.
1t is strange how slow farmers are, as
q class, to make changes in their
modes of doing things. The grain
which will be wasted by Smelling out
in the field, if the crop is left to get
overripe, will often-gene rally-pay
for the harvesting, and the straw is
almost worthless for fodder and not
as valuable for manure. Why? Be-
cause everything which is no more
than woody fiber has no more value
for manure the ash it may contain,
except. perhaps, when put on the
land in bulky form it has mechan.
ical value to tighten the soil, acting
as a mulch. This mechanical value
is quite often damage, as it causes
the land to dry out faster, and un-
'rotted straw will absorb the moisture
in the ground. which otherwise would
feed the growing plant. Every
close observing farmer knows that
coarse manure. such as unrotied
straw, in dry season, is q damage
to any crop. Not so when it has been
eaten and is put on to the Ian d in the
form of animal excrement. The les
son is plain, then-straw, to be util
lied in the best manner, should be
consumed by the stock on the farm
and returned back to the soil. Anoth
er thing, straw, in the form of coarse
manure, which is simply straw sat.
urated with water, is most decidedly
in the way in blowing and cultivating
a field. In the proper manure state
it is not SO in these particulars, and