Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1892-06-23
THE FARM AND HOME.
COB MEAL ABANDONED BY
WHOLE COMMUNITIES.
Cobs Have Too Little Feeding Value to
Pay for Grinding-Transplant
Trees - Poultry Picking
and Home Hints.

John NJ Stahl. who is practical
farmer. us we'll as an able writer
says: Il have fed cob meal-made
three trials of it-and have not been
able to get much feeding value from
it. !" Waldo +. Brown is an advo-
cate OF cob meal but he admits that
at one institute in Ohio he found but
few advocates for it in large audi
ence. and found many who considered
it unfit to feed"
There was cob.mcal craze about
forty years ago. 1t broke out sud-
denly. like the smallpox or measles
attracted q good deal of attention i. the
time. says the Country Gentleman
ran its course and died out. In ! -53
my father who owned a grist-mill at
the suggestion Of his miller and the
solicitation of his customers built an
addition to his mill pu, in an extra
water wheel. and procured the neces-
sary machinery for grinding corn and
cobs together. The expense was i've
or six hundrSd dollars and for a time
it seemed to be a profitable invest
ment He ground the corn for his
regular customers, and attracted Gus
tom from other mills to such an extent
that they too had to put in machinery
for grinding corn in the ear. The adj
ditional toll charged for grinding corn
and cobs together was not much the
mil! was kept in good order and the
meal was ground as fine as possible
which lowing to the moisture in the
cob) was not always very fine and
the miller was honest; but gradually
the corn-cob custom fell of. and in
less than three years had ceased
entirely, and the spiders spun their
webs unmoested over the cob-mllL
1t was the same with every mill in
this part OF the country that pu, in
the Improvement" and do not
know Of d single mill that now has the
machinery for grinding corn IN the
ear.
What was the cause OF such a sur
prising downfall in the popularity OF
cob meal and cob mills First. be-
cause farmers having given the meal
fair trial. became fully convinced
that the actual value of cobs was sc
little that it did not pay to have them
ground, and that corn in the ear
could not be ground so fine as The
shelled grain. Few farmers keep any
old corn over. Most of them com
mence feeding the new crop as soor
as it is husked. aud continue feeding
until spring, and it is not possible to
grind corn and cobs as fine as they
should be ground at the season the
farmers want TO feed the larges,
amount The cobs retain moisture
much longer than the grain. winch
makes them grind hard. and if an at
tempt is made to grind fine. the mill,
stones will begin to rumble and
'grumble, gla over go slower ant
slower. and unless they are raised ant
allowed 10 grind coarse will choke
up and stop, with full head of water
on the wheel. Then they mus, b,
taken up and the glazing picked OF.
No class OF men were ever NOR,
happy than millers when the cot
era was over. and cob meal wen
out of fashion. There was no prof
in grinding it, and milers wcr,
blamed for not grinding finer wher
they did the best they could.
Let q person take a cob ana Try
whiting i, with a knife; he will fine
that on each side OF the cavities whcr,
the kernels stood extending TO tn,
pith. it is full OF small thin. circular
plates hard as hemlock knot lie
him examine the dung of animals fet
on the cob meal and he will see ,hes,
hard. sharp plates have not digestcd
and could not be digested by the stcm
ach OF an ostrich. and he will be ;,p
TO have doubts whether such stubborn
substances could pass through tn
long tortuous route OF the intes,ine
without producing irritation. if no
laceration Inflammation and diarrhe;,
My experience in feeding cob meal i
probably as great as that Of some o
the directors at the experiment sta
ton but not like theirs favorable t
its USE Every animal to which i
was fed endeavored to separate tn
cob meal from the kernal meal an
leave the former.
] would not think OF putting my owl
individual experience in opposition t
tne learned men. were u not support
ed by the testimony OF hundreds G
intelligent and observing farmers i
this countr... who years ago made
fair trial OF cob meal and abandone
its use. The experience OF the man
is more likely to be right than tn
experience OF the few.
If farmer has hundred dollar
he does not know what TO do with
and does not want to give it to tn
foreign missionary society. he nigh
put it into cob mill. 1t would al
ways stay there. and he would kno,
Just where it was.
The Time to Transplant Trees.
a writer in recent issue OF tn