The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1884-11-14

much fodder to the acre on strong, moist
soil Most farmers in seeding with this
variety use too small a quantity. Two
bushels to the acre is little enough.
If beans are quite dry when pulled or
gathered, the best way is to thresh i'm
mediately, leaving them in the chat,
and that spread thinly on the barn floor
till well cured. If they are put in mows
or stacks some moisture will gather, and
more of the beans will be discolored and
unstable.
Where stubble is left long, and has not
been beat down by pasturing, it affords
a very considerable protection to young
clover. 1t prevents the snow from being
blown off by winter winds and is thus
worth probably more to the farmer than
an equal amount of straw in his stacks
or barnyard.
More and better feed for chickens can
be grown by planting sunfowers than
corn on equally rich soil. The sunfower
seeds should not be given as an exclusive
diet, but once a day in alienation with
other feed. The fowls that soonest learn
to like them will be marked by their
bright combs, and will begin laying fast.
No grain gives better returns for the
number of pounds than oats as feed for
young pigs. Oats are now in most
places cheaper by the pound than corn.
Oats will also fatten pork, but not so
rapidly as corn, nor will they make so
large proportion of laid and fat meat.
Their chief advantage is in furnishing
more bulk in the feed
In good fruit growing localities, where
bare yet fertile land is worth 800 an
acre, fields set with fruit ready to bear
are worth twice to four times that
sum. Considering the increased value
of the land, the care which farmer be-
slows on his newly-sct orchard till it is
ready to fruit pays him better than any
other work done on the farm.
Few animals will eat barley heads,
but after the grain is threshed the straw
makes palatable feed for change during
the winter if kept in good condition, 1t
is usually, however, so broken up by the
thrcshing machines that the stacks are
soon spoiled unless topped with the
sitter straw of wheat or rye, that will
make a more compact covering.
After an orchard begins to bear all
that can be got from the ground by
cropping costs IN labor more than It Is
worth, beside an indefinitely larger
amount sacrificed in the productiveness
of the orchard itself. Some farmers
allow their orchards to lie in grass and
be used only as a run for the pigs. This
is very good way, but it will not do to
leave all the cultivation to the pigs, as
the ground will soon be so filled with
weeds that the trees will be injured as
much as by grain crop. Worthless as
weeds are, they are nearly or quite as ex-
haustive as grain.
The richest grass grows on the mos
fertile soil. 1t is this which makes the
good grazing lands of river bottoms an
nually overlooked. 1t is true the grass
around clump of fresh manure will be
avoided, but if evenly distributed, and
well dtcomposed, the manure can hardly
be spread too thickly. On old fields
where grass grows thin it is equally poor
in quality. Cows fed in such pastures
will gnaw bones freely, thus indicating
the need of phosphorc acid in the soil.
This poor feed is also sometimes the
cause of abortion IN cows, as it does
not supply the right kind of nutrimcnt
to perfect the embryo animal.