The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1899-08-16
Fodder Curing.
Farmer Knots Tells His Fellow
Farmers the Best Way.

Farmers tie Best Way.
To the Editor Of the Dispatch:
The time for fodder pulling will
soon be on hand and bit CT expert
ence from your fellow farmer may be
helpful to some one.
The practice Of pulling fodder |
have for the past several years seen
very alearly did not pay me, and |
am fully convinced that our farmers
will soon see that there is actual loss
to any one that continues the prac-
tice.
In the first place it is very costly
way of procuring forage for horses.
In the second place, it is very dam
aging to the ear Ct corn and in the
third place it is getting very infe-
rior forage out of what would if
differently treated make first class
feed.
We have farmers who think it a
sin to do different from our venerable
progenitors, and in whose eyes it is
criminal to change the condition OF
the fathers. These mems prejudices
are too steep grade for the engines
of progress and around whose
minds there is an armor of steel too
thick to be penetrated by the balls
of this revolutionary movement. To
such of course ideas appeal in vain
and the reasons for a change can
never break through the siuil in
which they live contented with the
petri6ed orthodoxy of the past. I am
glad to believe and do rejoice that [
have genuine, we'll grounded reasons
for the belief that the great majority
of lexington farmers do not breathe
this stagnated air, and do not live in
region whose nativity generates
and fosters such idle dreams and
where the citizens will externally hug
such a deluding phantom to their
bcsoms. With the most of US the
curtains of the past have dreams and
with the associations of former days
there will linger recollection Of re-
spect and the responsibilities Of the
future should reconcile with our duty
to ourselves and families and to our
country. Let US lay aside all weights
which may beset US in our journey
and press forward to the mark f o
greater remuneration for our labor
and higher and nobler success in
our undertaking.
Corn fodder, when properly cured,
is a good feed for stock but sun dried
for several hours and exposed to both
dew and rain renders it only second
rate forage. 1 find that about one
hundred pounds Of fodder for each
ten bushels OF corn is a very fair
average yield in an average year,
That will usually cost one day ;
work and the risk CT losing from rain
TO still enhance the danger ard cX-
pcnse.
! II you will strip several rows alter
nately leaving each alternate row IN
stripped, then weigh carefully the
corn and fodder from the rows st!lp-
/ red and also from the rows not mo
! Tested YOU will find that the corn Oh
the rows not stripped will weigh as
much as the corn and fodder on the
stripped rows. That will tell TO any
reasoner that it is a costly forage that
robs the corn pile Of as much in
pounds as the fodder weighs. l. i
giving up a pound Of corn Tor a
round If fodder, besides throwing
away the wolk Of one band fox q day
to accomplish this destructive end
He will see that the grain Of com cl
one stalk is full and the corr
grain on tie other has perisLel away
somewhat, or as We farmers say gen
orally 1T has swivcilcd somewhat.