EXPERIENCE DEPARTMENT
Roughing Horses and Stock Through
Winter--Name a Very Cheap
and Yet Practical Plan.
1st Premium. The first and most essential thine; in wintering horses and othor
stock is a warm and comfortable stable
to shelter them from the winter's cold.
The second thing is to keep them in this
shelter, except when getting water which
is twioe a day with . me; with some it is
only once a day. While they are getting
j a drink I bed the stables, so they can go
[ back again as soon as they drink. Some
> one has said that one hour of cold winter
'.rain is as injurious to a horse or cow as a
day without feed or drink. We are giving our horses two ears of corn and a
small bunch of clover hay each and they
are in good condition; yet they have
some work to do I know some men who
keep their horses through the winter on
clover hay alone, and they come out in
the spring as fat and sleek as moles. The
hay does not make them sleek altogether;
ihey use the currycomb and brush occasionally, and it is said that a good currying is worth a quart of oats to a horse. I
think without doubt that it would be a
great help to our cows if they were curried occasionally. But few of them get it
Corn fodder and oats straw make a good
change for horses Wheat and oats straw
l*wEich"*is let "go to waste or burned hy
some farmers in this county, when run
through the cutting box and a little bran
mixed with it, make a cheap and yet
very good feed for both horses and cattle.
We have crushed corn and oats ground
together and mix bran with this for our
cows, adding cut up corn fodder. Their
roughness is composed of clover hay, fodder and oats straw. Apples, turnips, potatoes and carrots ground up and a little
salt and bran mixed with them make a
very good green ration for stock during
the winter. Horses and cows stouldnot
be beaten, kicked, cuffed, and banged
around, as if they had no feeling; but we
should be kind to them, and should not
take a pitch fork when we go to stable
our cows. We should remember that
actions speak louder than words.
•t Corydon. Ben.t. W.
warm  stables,  but the  most usual plan
with my  neighbors, is to let  the  stock
stand out and hump up in the fence corner. C. M. Patterson.
Brown Co.
3d Premium. I think a very good plan
for other stock through winter is to feed
fodder. The fodder should be cut, before
it gets too ripp, and put in shocks, and
when it gets fairly cured, haul it in and
have it shredded. If a little salt is sprinkled over the fodder when it is shredded,
it will keep it moist, and horses and
other stock will eat it with great relish-
They will fatten on nothing but fodder
to'eat. Horses will undergo 'a great
amount of hard work on this kind of
food. I think this is a very cheap and yet
a practical plan of feeding stock.
Boone Co. H. Isenhotjr.
Y 2d Premium. The first thing for a good
farmer to consider in the fall of the year
is the number of stock and the amount
of roughness on hands. If he thinks his
toughness will fall a little short for his
stock, he should dispose of his surplus
stock, that which he can spare the best
and find a market for. Sometimes the
farmer thinks it difficult to get satisfactory prices, but it usually pays to sell at
some price and have a surplus of feed
rather than stock. [A. very good point
Kd.] Always have as much rough feed
In the dry as possible, and next have
good racks or mangers to feed out of so
the feed wont be wasted.
11 have mules rather than horses and
mostly feed them timothy hay, but frequently change oft on to corn fodder and
oats straw, both being nice and bright;
putting oats straw in barn as thrashed,
and fodder as soon as husked.
;|,I have a barn with stalls for my cattle,
and have clover and timothy hay and
corn fodder, especially for the milk cows.
Change, their feed every few days and
give the [milk cows slop of bran, night
and morning. Feed the calves dry bran
twice a day and teach them to drink skim
'inilk and slops from the dishes. Give
your stock from four to six hours exercise in middle of day, when weather is
nice, and less when weather is bad and
• very cold.
Attend to the feeding yourself or oversee it, and see that every animal gets its
right portion. When very cold feed more
nitrogenous food, to maintain animal
heat.   The cheapest plan is to  have good
I don't think it right to try to take
stock through the winter too cheaply. If
they are taken through too cheaply, in
the spring they will look and also be
cheap. I try to take my stock through
the winter just as cheaply as t can to
bring them out in the spring looking
sleek and hearty; the horses able to work
and also looking in such a manner that I
will not be ashamed to drive them to
town or to church on Sunday. With the
proper shelter horses that do not have
steady work in the winter can be taken
through on good hay and corn fodder,
with but very little grain, if they have
enough of the hay and fodder. As to the
cows, I think they should have plenty of
grain with their roughness to keep them
fat until they are marketed, to make the
most money out of them, and that is what
most farmers raise them for. Timothy
hay is good for horses, but try to have
clover hay and good corn fodder for the
cows. The clover hay is as good for some
horses, but some cannot eat it. As to
hogs, I think they ought to have all they
will eat, not to over-feed, to waste any
feed. Stock of no kind should ever be
fed any feed so as to waste. Sheep will
live at less expense than any other stock
and are so nice to have on a farm. They
eat much of the weeds and trash that
come, up on the farm, and in the fence
rows in the spring. I sold my entire
ilock a few years ago because the dogs
got so numerous in my neighborhood
that it kept me looking after my sheep
all the time, but they are nice to have.
Harrison Co. David.
It is my aim to have my stock in good
order at the beginning of winter. If I
have not I give them extra feed until they
are in goad order, for I cannot take poor
stock through the winter with the same
care and feed that I can fat stock. I feed
my stock in a manger under my barn.
The manger is made with a floor six feet
wide, with a 12 inch plank on each side.
Twelve inches from this plank are 2x2
stakes every eight inches. This makes a
space four feet wide to feed in. Stock
can eat from both sides. I fill this manger by shoving the feed off of the barn
floor into the manger below. I fe6d, for
roughness, fodder and straw. Occasionally I change the feed to millet, clover or
some other feed I may chance to have.
This plan enables my stock to be in shelter, as well as to feed them regularly.
My stock always come out iu spring in
good shape, without costing but very little for feed or help. J. M. P.
Shelby Co.
REVIEW.
The correspondents are surely right in
saying not to starve stock of any kind.
Bat there are.mauy farmers who are short
of feed each year. The fodder and corn
were ruined last summer on thousands of
acre'3 of bottom land. I almost gave a
load of straw to a Tlver farmer, a tonant,
the other day, who had a large crop of
corn ruined and black by water.
I hat e been surprised to see how some
men keep a horse or two while their
barns seem empty. Last year a renter
near me kept a horse, and I could see
through his barn any time for months.
So I went in one day to see what he was
feeding.
He "snapped his corn, and as he shucked
out corn for the sow and pigs and horse
he gave the horse the shucks. His horee
was always slick and fat. We were feeding good clover hay to sixhorses. He fed
about two bushels of corn a month, say
50 cents worth. Think of keeping ahorse
a month for 50 cents!"
I was visiting among the Quakers near
Pendleton,"and was surprised as we went
to the barn, to see well-to-do farmers
feeing bright straw to their horses in
mangers like hay. A great mow full of
hay hutg over them. They said a ration
of bright straw with a little corn (two or
three ears twice a day) kept them in good
condition, and that when spring come
they seemed to do better on hiy than if
fed it all winter.
This is a very one-eided ration, however, as straw contains scarcely more
than a trace of muscle-forming elements.
Its ratio is given by Armsby as 1. to 67.,
this is about 10 times too rich in fat-forming elements. Adding corn would bring
down the ratio some, but corn is 1. to 8.f
which is too high. Clover or bran or linseed meal would make straw bearable.
Of course tbis is only fed in co.d weather,
when much carbohydrate is needed
in keeping up the heat of the body. Straw
should not be fed largely to young animals.
I have a neighbor who brought 6ightor
ten head of two year-old steers over to a
straw stack near me, and left them for
weeks in winter weather, 1 noticed he
came over about twice a week, and I
asked him one day who fed his steers?
O nobody, he said they eat straw. I come
over and salt the stack twice a week. I
confess I was surprised to see those cattle live there a month and drink from the
creek and look fairly well. They certainly didn't lose any. And the maintenance ration didn't ccst much. I asked
a large cattle grower yesterday if he cuts
his fodder. I suppose he feeds 1,000
shocks a year. He said: "No, I feed
whole." Labor and machinery are high,
and prefer sacrificing part of the feed to
paying out so much cash.
I keep a man shucking corn for hogs
all the time that men are cutting fodder.
So a part, say half of my fodder is ready
shucked. I feed cattle in a lot, giving
part with corn on, after they eat it fairly
clean, I change them into another stock
lot and let sheep clean up every scrap.
Then hogs come on and pick up every
grain of corn. One man will do a good
deal of farm work and feed 40 head of
steers and as many hogs and a lot of
sheep. He claimed that the waste of
butts went back to tho land, and the loss
wonldn't half pay the cost of expensive
fussing with it. '
I have a neighbor who not only cuts his
fodder but grinds the chips, the same as
he grinds corn and oats. He feeds cattle
in stanchions, in a warm barn and says
he would be eaten out of feed in "no
time" if he fed it uncut. Yet this man is
breaking up and was compelled to sell
his farm lately, while the men who feed
whole fodder around straw stacks are
building up.
The wholesale advice to build warm
barns with silos, shredding machinery,
manure gutters, etc, may be the ideal
way, but many farmers do not have the
business capacity and training to catry
it out. Su:h men often need stock and
they should by all means make sheds of
straw, or weeds, or cheap lumber and
keep stock, to turn into money the many
little waste products that occur in farming. Don't do the ideal farming till ■you
can reach it. There are two sides to the
1 question  of  cheap  feed   for   stock.   A
neighbor passes my door often who
"makes money out of stock." He controls over 300 acres of good land, and will
turn the use of two eighties and then
some into his cattle and|hogs. He buys
cattle at "twos" and sells at "threes" fast,
selling 15 or 20 head a year and some 75
hogs.
Contrast this with Mr. Billingsley's soiling. Last summer he drilled ono acre of
orange cane with a wheat drill. He cut
it daily, as needed, and it fed 15 head of
grown slock two months. This would
bo equal to feeding one cow two years
and a half from one acre. Of course they
had some grain feed. Bnt at this rate six
acres would furnish roughness for 15
head of cattle a year, and with 14 acres of
corn you would have a'man with 20 acres
actually feeding the same number of
cattle that these two eighties feed; not
including the full number of hogs.
We are in the transition stage in farming. Modern improvements come so
thick and fast that everything is rather
unsettled. One thing is well established,
that is, that stock should be shelter, d. It
pays; it pays anybody. But many are
building barns cheaply by spiking them
together and are feeding cattle in herds
loose, like calves. Of course they are dehorned. Manure is well saved by heavy
bedding, and not removed till spring.
Such a barn is built around and over a
hollow square.
As to cutting fodder, we have that to
learn. Let these experiment with harvesters and shredders who aTe able to do
so. There will be a time when land is
dearer and the population denser, when
every kind of feed will be used with
greatest care and economy.
Sorry no one has spoken of silage as a
cheap feed for stock. It is probably the
cheapest all round food, if a little bran or
linseed meal is added, that we have-
cheaper than clover hay. Corn silage
will yield twice as much feed per acre as
clover hay.
We speak of roughing stock over winter. This is not so successful with growing young stock as with work horses and
and dry cows, etc. All you care for is to
carry these through in good condition,
while it is more profitable with young
cattle to idd a nice growth.
E. H. Collins.
POSTAL 0AED 00BBESP0HDEN0E.
LaPorte Co., Jan 1.—We had a little
snow, just enough to cover the ground
and the wheat on Christmas day, and 18°
above zero in the morning and pleasant
through the day; not a "green Christmas;" to-day (New Years' day) quite
warm, 51° at 8 this morning and 57° at
noon; rain at night; roads were smooth
as a floor till the 27th of Dec, then fog for
three days and warmer and now we have
mud; wheat not looking very well; much
said about fly; times bad.
Mrs B. A. Davis,
Potwin, Kan — No cold weather yet;
corn about all gathered; a very large
crop and quality good; a great many cattle being fed here this winter and prices
fair; fat, $3 75@4; feed of all kinds plentiful here; a fine country for cattle and
hogs; hogs worth, fat,$2 80 per 100 pounds;
a fine country for poultry raising;
peaches do well here; early apples do
well; not so good for winter apples.
J. J. II,
Putnam Co, Dec. 22—December has
been a fins month so far for work; hog
cholera has left us; wheat is damaged a
little by the freeze in November; stock is
looking well on grass yet; corn about all
in crib, and the cribs are all full; stock
hogs are selling at 3Kc and scarce at that;
prospect of going higher; cattle, good
ones scarce; selling at3K@4i.
J. Ii N.