Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1878 — Dairying and Grain-Raising. [ARTICLE]

Dairying and Grain-Raising.

The temptation during the first fifty years of the settlement of all our States has been to raise constant crops of grain, and, making no use of the straw for feeding, it has been burned to get it ont of the way. If the straw were evenly distributed over the field on which it grew and burned, it would return a large proportion of the mineral constituents removed in the grain crop, but this is never done except when the header is used. It is necessary that some compensation should be provided for this great draft upon the fertility of the soil. The only permanent compensation to the soil for the losses in crops is in stock feeding. Every country that has held a respectable position in agriculture has done it by feeding stock to its full capacity. England has doubled her wheat production during the last fifty years, and has also doubled her stock feeding. She has besido shown her wisdom in using immense quantities of bones and guano. This country is becoming the grain producer for a large part of Europe, and is no doubt destined to greatly increase this surplus of breadstuff's; and is it not high time that our farmers had entered upon the practice of a settled system of compensation for their depletion of the soil by cropping ? Our dairy products are finding new and wider markets, year by year, and I believe are yet destined to”reach as high figure as in meat exports. Dairying is admirably adapted to be the complement of grain raising. Its product is marketable at all limes of the year. The returns may be had from month to month, or even weekly, and this assists the farmer in paying expenses between the annual crops. The cowgives a better return for the food consumed than tho steer—that is, her product brings a much larger sum than the growth of the steer. The average cow produces 4,000 pounds of milk, which will make 400 pounds of cheese or 180 pounds of butter. This cheese will bring during any series of ten years, at least S4O, and the butter $46 to SSO, whilst the growth of an ordinary steer will not reach more than half these sums. The best cows, as also the best steers, will just about double these figures, but there is generally a large balance in favor of the cow over the steer; beside the return for steers only comes once in two and one-half to four years. I advocate the propriety of keeping only the best steers, for the profit must be very small on the poorer classes of stock, kept for any purpose; but our comparison is drawn between the averages of such as aro generally kept Grain-raising produces' a large amount of straw, which, by a little study of the combination of foods, will enable the farmer to carry his cows through the winter. A little grain mixed with straw will give a proper balance of constituents. The grainfarm may have plenty of land nea,r tho barn in condition to raise those annual summer crops adapted to feeding milch cows. These are winter rye for early spring soiling or pasturing—rye makes good pasturing —oats* oats and pease; vetches and oats; Hungarian grass, millet and Indian corn. The oat and pea crop (one of oats to two of pease) makes one of the most desirable combinations of food for the production of tailk. It should be out when the pea is in blossom. Hungarian grass on a light and fine soil produces a large growth of excellent food for feeding green, or even for pasturing, if nqt fed too close, and also makes excellent hay, if out and cured before blossoui. It becomes too woody if allowed to ripen. Tlie same may be said of millet. But for profitable stock feeding or dairying, much reliance should be placed upon clover, both for pasture and winter feeding. Clover fed with straw In winter—an equal weight of each—makes a well-balancers food. Grainland should have clover every third yeAt 'in the rotation. The clover penetrates deeply and brjj}gs up the dormant fortuity of the subsoil. The roots ramify so extensively and furnish Such a body of vegetable matter to decay in the soil as to furnish an important; manuring. Clover, being freely raised and feu to cows in connection with straw and surplus grain, will not

only produce milk profitably, Wit will Compensate the soil for t- Rural New Yorker.