The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1897-09-01
AGRICULTURAL.
What Crops for SOiling 2

If corn is not at its best until 1t is
mature, if from the time corn gets into
the early roasting stage until it is ma
ture its value nearly doubles, and this
certainly seems to be the case, then we
ought to be looking for some substitute
for immature corn. The common plan
is to begin feeding corn as soon as the
cows shrink noticeably in their milk.
Often this corn is only just well tas-
seled out, but corn cut at this time is
worth only about third as much as
when nearly ripe. There is very
great waste in cutting corn before it
begins to ripen. But we must give the
cows something to keep up the flow of
milk, and what shall it be7 We have
several times spoken of peas and oats;
they can be sown so as to be available
for feeding from the last of June till
the first of August. For the month of
August second crop clover is very good,
in fact there are few if any better soil
ing crops than clover rowen. Another
good hot weather crop is Hungarian
grass, and in fact any of the millet fam
lily will make good soiling crops for
August. They are all hot.weather
plants, they need the heat, while the
common grains need cooler weather
to grow in. Now to plan Alright for
helping out the pastures we would sug-
gest that as early as possible a piece of
peas and oats be got in next spring.
Then in about two weeks put in another
piece and make three sowings of these.
Plant corn as early as you dare, and use
for the first planting as early kind as
you can get. Put in pieces of Hunga-
rian or millet according to the size of
your herd cattle. But some claim with
good show of reason that the summer
silo is by far the best method of solving
the soiling problem. For one thing it
saves good deal of work. 1t takes
lots of time to cut any kind of soiling
crops, draw them up to the cattle barn
and feed them to large herd of cows.
The silage is right at hand, requires
only few minutes to throw out of the
silo and when we'll kept and made from
properly matured corn is the best of
summer feed for cows. A man con-
nected with dairy farm where sixty
COWS are kept says that their silage this
year lasted until August, and the cows
never did better. In this case the COWS
are not pastured at all, but kept in
small pasture a few hours and fed in
the stable, as is the custom among all
milkmen near the cities. The only OBJ
lection to the summer feeding of silage
that we have seen is that COWS do bet
ter on variety of feeds, and that too
much silage is not good for them. The
man who made this objection fed a
mixture of late sown oats, grass seed
and turnips with most excellent re-
suits.
For feeding after the frosts have
killed the corn mixture of barley and
peas is now recommended. Some
would add oats and say these mixtures
are improved by the frosts. AS to
when they should be sown the month
of July is the proper time, but we are
sowing up to the latter part of August
partly to see how it will work and
party to get something which will make
green manuring crop, if it does not
make one for soiling. We have sowed
peas and oats, and intend to put in peas,
oats, and barley together. The oats
got so ripe that they shelled in harvest
ing, 30 we sowed on more and worked
up the soil with cutaway harrow, lap
ping it one-half and then cross harrow
ing with lap. This thoroughly pull
verified the ground to the depth Of four
or five inches and buried the grain
Later we hope to report results.