Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1898-11-07

NAO@AOAAA6 I4AC O1OOu, ndh1nS
and giving health and vim to mans
energy. So, fellow farmer, 1 say raise
more onions. Put out an acre or half
acre-fOr experiment you might say
but | say you need not experiment,
for if your soil is mellow enough to
produce about 300 bushels of onions
to the acre, that will bring you from
one to two dollars per bushel The
implements won't cost more than $40,
and say about $50 will pay for your
labor on them. Don't tell me onions
don't pay! I have tried it and know
what l am talking about. If you wish
you can make arrangements with
some buyers for your crop at certain
price before you raise it, and so be
always sure of good money.
Corn Fodder.
It is a common thing to see large
fields of corn that the owners have no
intention of saving anything but the
ears. Now this looks to me very
wasteful and no doubt in a few years
we will see a great change in this
practice. In some cases the fields
are pastured during the winter, which
is damaging to the land. How much
better it is to cut the corn while the
fodder is green, making fine feed
accepted by all stock. A good way,
when one wants to pillow in the fall
and hasn't very good place in the
barn to save fodder and is obliged to
leave it in the field until used, is to
have two men with corn knives cut
and lay aside two rows where shock
row is to be made. Then with your
pillow throw these two stubble rows to-
gether to begin your shock row on. AS
you cut and shock your corn you can
plow right along and when you are
done with your corn you are done
blowing. If the weather is dry at
husking time and fodder is too dry to
husk you can overcome this by simply
mOistening as many shocks in the
evening as you intend to husk the
next day A pail of water poured on
top of shock will be plenty. Now don't
leave fodder in the field and have to
haul out through mud, but have one
wagon with box for corn and one
WdSOu Will udJ 1dChs D1nu uOuuGI Ill
large bundles, load on rack as
husked and haul to stack yard and
set in rows five feet wide and any
length that is desired. When a rick
is finished run a wire on either side
and bind through and through with
short pieces of wire and you have
it secure until you are ready to feed
nm
on the ends in this way than if
ricked up by laying down fiat. Of
course, the stalks would be worth
something to the land if let stand in
the field and plowed under but it is a
better way to save the fodder to feed
it to your stock and return the manure
to the field, keeping all stock off land
while it is wet enough to pack.
Silage.
We wonder how many readers have
this year made preparations to put up
silage for the first time? There are
many things to be said in it's favor as
reliance for the dairyman, and one
of the strongest is that nobody who
once prepares himself for the work
and gets a good supply of well made
silage one year, ever aband0ns it.
Another advantageous feature of the
silo for the west, where the pastures
largely fail during the summer, is
tnat when a sufficient quantity is
made, it answers we'll to tide over the
period of shortage in succulent food,
and it thus prevents the failure of the
milk yield so common at this season
and so hard to restore later on. The
distinctly dairying districts are fast
coming to be of the opinion that they
could not get on without the silo, and
they are pretty nearly right about it.
In some of the older districts where
the silo has been used longest and is
most esteemed, there have been
numerous efforts to make 1t more
valuable by putting up balanced
silage," by which is meant adding
highly heterogeneous plants to corn so
as to make it as nearly as possible a
balanced ration. All these efforts,
however, have met with but very lit
t4e success. There is, in the first
place, no plant that can be generally
cultivated that contains enough nj
trogen in it's green form to make much
impression as a balancer on the car
bonaceous corn. The soy bean, which
is one of the most promising plants of
the kind, and one which should be
grown by dairy feeders wherever it
will thrive, only contains about two
and half pounds of nitrogen in 100
pounds of silage made from it. and
hence if cow ate 100 pounds of pure
soy bean silage per day, which would
be impossible, she would only get
about the amount OF nitrogen she
should have. The reliance for nitro
gen as ba1ancer must, therefore,
continue to be concentrated feed
stuffs in which a large amount of the
element is contained in a small bulk.
Another objection to the preservation