The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1897-10-12

they would PROBABLY De operated part
OF the time, and where it would not be
necessary to keep any account in par
ticular for labor, as only part Of the
labor, if any, would be cash. But
when the value Of the stoVer is taken
into consideration it is very clear that
the economy of the husker is very con-
siderable, and I think they will come
largely into use by single owners or by
groups of farmers, or by persons who
will take them to busk corn as they
thresh grain. Good, well cured stover
at 81. so or 90 ton, and as good or bet
ter than prairie hay, is certainly cheap.
1t is as cheap as the cost of hay to q
man who rents hay land and puts up
the hay himself. Another advantage
is the cutting of the corn stalks and
leaving the field in better shape for an
other crop. AS soon as the value of
hay rises above the low figure of 50.
the value of this product increases very
fast, as am quite able to appreciate,
having fed hay to cattle that has cost
anywhere from So to $13 a ton. wish
l had now a good many thousand of
dollars that have been paid for high
priced hay. AS far as original prairie
hay land is concerned, am utterly
unable to agree with those persons who
consider that land should be left in this
condition. To my mind it indicates a
sordid conception of agriculture. en-
tirely unworthy of a good farmer. Put
ting land into timothy hay and clover
is all right, of course, for purposes OF
rotation, but to leave land in wild
prairie hay is inexcusable, if it is only
for the purpose of hay. Possibly
ought to qualify that by saying that
this is true in case the same person en-
tirely neglects to use his corn fodder.
Our fodder has been almost entirely
fed directly from the shock and cut
ting machines, and we have not at
tempted to store any fodder to speak
of. We had some SO tons in stack out
side for g couple of months or so in the
winter of 1894-95, but it did not keep
particularly well. I think that it can
be kept very well in stacks outdoors il
it is not shredd until rather latein the
season, say November 10 to December
1, if the stacks are properly topped out
with hay. think without any ques
tion it can be handled as q marketable
commodity and stored in barns OF
storad on stacks as I describe, il it il
not cut or shredded until thoroughly
we'll cured in the shock. There will
probably be more difficulty in storing
it in any of these ways in Kansas thar
in Nebraska, for cur climate is some
what dryer.
The main point of this article is, thai
on so large a scale as 1875 acres We
actually did get 4O.6 bushels Of corr
per acre and ore and onehalf tons Oi
fodder, better than hay, from the esame
land. This is really the most important
question, as storage is only a detail
and as to this point our figures are re
liable. In harvesting and feeding corr
as have described, Of course we are
not able to weigh our corn, but we re
serve in every field certain number
OF sample shocks TOR testing the yielC
of each fiald. These shocks are huskeG
and carefully weighed. This method
of deter mining the yield might not bt
thoroughly satisfactory on a small
scale, but on large scale it is doubt
less good enough. Besides this method
of computing the siz9s Of the crop, the
different fields are constantly estimated
over and over again throughout thC
season, and are harvested by skillfu
men, who can very closely estimate thC
yield at harvest time even without
testing.
The results of our experiment make
it very clear that it is entirely unneCes
sary that we should ever be a position
where rough fodder or hay should be
scarce and very dear. Within the last
few years have known farmers to the
west of us to buy hay for spring work
costing them 81 or $8 ton. The econ
omy of this use of corn stalks applied
to the entire area of several States is 90
enormous that it will doubtless be gen
orally applied, as has been predicted
by those who have looked into the
matter.
A correspondent of The PROGRESSIVE
FARMER gives the following as sure
uookhod 0f kaeninO nni0na from cnro11t