Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1874 — Pumpkins as Cow Feed. [ARTICLE]

Pumpkins as Cow Feed.

We do not hear or read so much as formerly about the necessity of having one's lands analyzed by some professing chemist before we can possibly know its value for farming purposes, though at one time this was very much insisted on by those who supposed farming as a science was but just iu its infancy. The Tact soon came out that there was something in plant life which chemistry could not reach, and which seemed to set all chemical rules at defiance. It is the same in animal as in plant life. The chemist takes the dead animal, aud finding the structure made up of certain elements lie examines the food, aud those articles in .which lie finds the greatest mbuddance he regards as the best for food. * But experience, our great teacher, does fiot always find these conclusions come out true. Agassiz told us that fishesymatained more of the elements required to make brains than any other kind of animal food; and, by inference, he taught that tihose who would be bright aihl inteil«Haa , l should eat largely of fishy food; yet we„are quite sure if a~ hundred men were taken at/undom from those who use fish largely and a hundred from Aose who never or rarely touch them we would find litjle difference iu Thi sinartaesixff either class. We might jn|he !simfliari|omparfsotfs between people who eat more animal food than others; of those who eat mostly vegetables • and fruits ; and so on of many other distinctions. A tolerably large acquaintance with human beings has told us of how little value all t)iese special considerations on various foods are as a general thing. So, when these principles hre brought up in our management of farm animals, we regard them afe of little value. Experience we regard as ot far more value than chemical analysis, no matter how carefully tnadeC /14JI I We are moved to these remarks just now by reading a statement that some chemist has been analyzing the pumpkin,. and finds that it contains no nourishment; whatever; aud so it is not worth while ito grow it as food for stock. We are quite sure that those who have ever grown them for cows would nut care to be without them if it were at all possible to have them grown. For the writer's part, he does noWihinw a stock of dairy food I eomplete’W4tbou t the root-cellar is full of 1 pumpkins. It may be that it is only | that it is vegetable food and that it is I ouly the watery juice that is relished by i the cow. Whatever it is, there is as- ! suredly something in it which renders it an article of much value as a winter cat- | tie feed. The fact that chemical.analysis ! cannot find out what that something is j does not lessen the value of every-day : experience.— Forney's Press.

A few days ago an interior journalist f came to Detroit on business, and in some ‘ wsr Was induced’ to leave the straight and narrow path and take more liquor j than he could carry. He fell among bad people,.was robbed of his all, and was i found in an alley next morning •by a j policeman. As he was roused up he i looked around him, got his bearings and i started off. “Here, where are you’ ! going?” shouted the officer. “ Home,” ; replied, the edi or, as he halted. “But you haven't. a cent in your pocket. ! You’d better g 6 around to some of your I friends and raise something.” “Friends be hanged!” replied the editor. “ It’s only sixty miles, good going, and I bree days before my paper comes out!” and he started off at a pace which made the ■dust jump up in little cloudy ancTHoat over the fences.—Detrot? Free Press.