Norwich bulletin., 1917-01-20

only take thought 1n time and make intelligent plans.
 To keep stock, if one has to buy any considerable portion of his grain, etc., at present prices, is to work for noth ing and pay a good round fine for the privilege of doing 1t. As I've said, a good many times I am not a stock man. I keep one cow-a good little Jersey; twenty-five or thirty hens-all sing1e-comb White Leghorns; and us- ually a pig or two.
 If had to buy all that cows feed I couldn't pay for it with her milk and butter. not if ] get ten cents quart for the milk and forty cents If I had to buy all those chicle 5 &ations the eggs they lay in a month wouldn't pay their feed bill for a week, not if sold all the eggs at fifty cents a dozen cash and got my pay on the nail.
 If I had to buy all that the pig con- sumes couldn't get my. money back if should sell every pound of the and front teeth, and charge myself with the hog manure at the rate of q load.
 CTS find themselves in much that same quandary. They have the stock; they can't sell it satisfactorily; they've got to keep it. They have grown into the
  and concentrated feeds. because, at comparatively recent prices, they felt they could buy them cheaper than they could raise them.
 But the prices of such feeds which, until the last year or so have kept within reaching distance of the ground, are now aeroplan;ng through the raref1ed atmosphere, miles up and out of sight.
 Nor do they show any signs of vol blaming downwards. Their noses are still tilted upward.
 We've got to keep most of our stock, for the present, even at a daily loss. But I don't believe we need all of US. face the hopeless prospect of another years continuance of that loss.
 If we have to continue buying fod- der. we shall have to continue bear ing loss.
 Why not raise our own fodder? All of it?
 ."Rut ! can't raise eottonseed meal" complains one. Naturally not: n the latitude of Connecticut, anyway. Don't feed it, then.
 You can raise buckwheat. And did you ever trv buckwheat middIings? Years ago, when I had a small dairy and when I could buy cottonseed meal without having to mortgage my inn mortal soul to raise the price, I de- lfberatelY gave it up after compari- son in actual feeding tests for buck wheat middlings, which in my case proved cheaper. safer, and quite as ef- fective. I know of other farmers who are feeding them with satisfactory re- suits. Even if you don't think them quite as good, you can't help admit ting that they're a tolerable Substi- tute. And you can raise buckwheat l. generally speaking. about as easily as any crop except hay.
 
 So with almost every one of the concentrating foods which you've got accustomed to buying but which now are depopulating your pocketbook. You TaIents for all of them, but, if your farm is anything like the ordinary one. you can produce on it substitutes which, if not entirely satisfactory, will vet carry you through. Labor, among other things, is so high that you finch at the thought of trying to raise crops which require much of it. That's what should set you thinking of clover. I don't doubt that alfalfa is good, if you can raise it. but I'm referring now to common every day c1over-the kind father used to raise and the kind you've also raised. We farmers don't half appreciate the food value of clover. It can be and has been used successfully as the l sole rouEhage for milk herds, in which l case the supplementary grain ration can safely be reduced to the minimum 1 sole ration for working horses, with 1