Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1895-10-24
How to Feed Potatoes.

Although Girard favored cooking for
steers and sheep, general experience
goes to show that they can be most
economically used by feeding raw to all
farm animals excepting hogs and fowls.
For horses, sheep and dairy COWS,
potatoes should be sliced in root
cutter or chopped in box with sharp
spade. Mich COWS may be fed with
advantage as much as twenty-five
pounds Of sliced potatoes per day; if a
greater weight than this is fed the
potatoes will have an unfavorable
influence on the quality of the butter
produced.
For sheep three or four pounds Of
potatoes daily to each member Of the
flock will prove highly advantageous;
fattening sheep may be fed as much as
eight pounds per day.
Work horses may be fed ten or twelve
pounds per day of sliced potatoes; more
than this should n5v'Je fed because this
food is too ''softening" Idle horses
and breeding stock can get a somewhat
larger amount with advantage.
Hogs do not thrive on raw potatoes.
The writer has found that in cooking
potatoes for hogs only little water
should be placed in the kettle so as to
leave the potatoes almost free from
water when the cooking is finished;
then by Withdrawing the fire the
potatoes can be mashed in the kettle
and meal mixed with them, making
thick mush or pudding. A thick
pudding was found to be more accept
able to the hogs than a thin mush or
slop.
FEED THE POTATOES AND SAVE TIE GRAIN.
Experience shows that unusually
large crops over large areas may work
harm to the farmer because the very
low prices which often,follow cause him
to become ca1less and wasteful Of what
he has raised. This threatening fault
should be carefully avoided by our
people at this time. II should be
remembered that potatoes are perish
able and will soon waste and disappear,
while the grain now on hand may be
saved in the bins for some years to
come without material loss. The
farmer with a large stock of potatoes on
hand should feed these to his stock as
rapidly as they can be judiciously
handled in order to conserve the grain.
While potatoes may not be worth more
than ten cents a bushel for feeding, they
may effect a saving of hundreds of
bushels of grain which at some later
time may bring higher price than is
now offered. By feeding part Of the
potatoes on hand, the remainder may
bring better prices, or at least this
action will tend in that direction. Our
potatoes may be worth as much for
feeding as an acre Of corn yielding from
fifty to seventy-fve bushels of grain
per acre; viewed in this light, the
potato crop IS after all not necessarily
losing one.
POTATO RAISING STILL \ PROFITABLE
INDUSTRY.
No state in the union grows better
potatoes than Wisconsin, and our
reputation in this direction is already
established. Unlike wheat, our great
crop of potatoes will all have dis
appeared by July next. They cannot
| be carried over to affect next years
market. The present season is one Of
overproduction because the crop has
been generally large everywhere. Our
! farmers should arrange to plant
reasonable acreage of potatoes next
year and every year. They should
know the feeding value of potatoes
and how to feed them, so that when
prices rule low in the future they are
prepared to utilize them to the best
advantage on their own farms In this
way the present season may prove an
opportunity for a most valuable, lasting
! lesson.
w. \. HENRY, Director,
! Wis. Agricultural Experiment Station.
! nSSO IT Houuen N n Office over