The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1907-01-03
THE WASTE OF THE cANNERY.
The Husts and Rejected Sweet Corn
Ears Used for Feeding Mules

E&TS OSCQ TOT TCCOlUA INVITES.
Illinois farmers who can the product
OF three thousand acres of sweet corn
have successfully utilized the shucks
and rejected ears by feeding them to
big herd of Missouri mules. Here.
tofore the shucks and other offal
have been a waste product. The
mules eat them greedily, fatten on
them and in the course Of a few weeks
almost double their price. The farm
er Gamers buy the mules at prices
ranging from $40 to $135. They sell
them at prices ranging from $3.50 to
$3.50.
One of the canneries at Hoopeston,
ILL.,, now has a herd OF four hundred
mules. They are quartered in a great
barn that is $50 feet long and 104 feet
wide, resting on solid concrete
foundation. The cost of the barn
alone was $4,000. The corn farmers
for they do all Of their own farming
in producing sufficient sweet corn to
put up $4,000 contemporaries
$4,000 to buy the mules and build
the barn.
They commenced buying mules last
winter. All were bought in the ST.
Louis market and were shipped di-
rect to the yards of the canning
plant at Hoopeston. When the can
ming season opened this year they be-
gan feeding the mules with the
shucks, rejected ears and offal from
the shocking room, where all of the
corn is shucked by hand and the i'm
perfect ears removed. The mules
were fed three times a day and cen
sumed about 4,50o pounds daily. The
feed had the effect of physicking the
animals at first, but they soon got
over it, and especially when ration
of hay was fed. The feed will fatten
a mule in from five to six weeks. In
the big barn none Of the mules are
over six years old, many of
them are three year olds,
and the younger ones par
ticularly are as fine looking a lot Of
sleek coated creatures as one would
care to see. The fat mules are sold
as fast as they are ready for the mar
ket. Some of them came to the can
merry little more than skin and bones.
They eat the stuff greedily and hee
haw for more. AS fast as carload
is shipped back to ST.. louis-for the
bulk of them go back whence they
&c IN,
It is proposed to keep on feeding
mules all winter. The big barn is
provided with granary that will
hold ten thousand bushels and mows
that have a capacity OF one thousand
tons of hay, so when the shucks give
out the long cared, high priced fellows
will be we'll taken care Of.
AS has been said, the canning peo-
pie do all of their own farming, for
by this plan they are able to control
the ripening of their crops to suit
them. All of the work of three thou
sand acres is done by mules. There
are fifty-two teams. There isn't a
horse about the place. When the can
ming season is over the thirty-five
hands that are employed on the big
farm commence hauling manure and
they plough the corn stalks under,
thereby returning much of the ferti-
lily that has been taken from the soil.
In the canning season the plant en-
ploys an army of men, women and
children, and this feature of saving
a great deal of stuff that formerly
was waste and in preparing for the
market some of the most useful ami
mails of the country will render the
enterprise still more valuable to the
town and country people alike. L.
Graft, Ravenswood, Ill.