is another very valuable crop for fodder in soiling, or to cure for winter use, but especially to feed out during our usual periods of drought. Many varieties of millet are cultivated in this country, the ground being prepared and treated as for oats. If designed to cut for green fodder, half a bushel of seed to the acre should be used; if to ripen seed, twelve quarts, sown broad-cast, about the last of May or early in June. A moist loam or muck is the best adapted to millet; but I have seen very great crops grown on dry upland. It is very palatable and nutritious for milch cows, both green and when properly cured. The curing should be very much like clover, care being taken not to over-dry it. For fodder, either green or cured, it is cut before ripening. In this state all cattle eat it as readily as green corn, and a less extent will feed them. Millet is worthy of a widely-extended cultivation, particularly on dairy farms. Indian millet (Sorghum vulgare) is another cultivated variety.
Rye
, as a fodder plant, is chiefly valuable for its early growth in spring. It is usually sown in September or October, from the middle to the end of September being, perhaps, the most desirable time, on land previously cultivated and in good condition. If designed to ripen only, a bushel of seed is required to the acre, evenly sown; but, if intended for early fodder in spring, two or two and a half bushels per acre of seed should be used. On warm land the rye can be cut green the last of April or first of May; and care should be taken to cut early, as, if allowed to advance too far towards maturity, the stalk becomes hard and unpalatable to cows.
Oats
are also sometimes used for soiling, or for feeding green, to eke out a scanty supply of pasture feed; And for this purpose they are valuable. They should be sown on well-tilled and well-manured land, about four bushels to the acre, towards the last of April or first of May. If the whole crop is to be used as green fodder, five bushels of seed will not be too much on strong, good soil. They will be sufficiently grown to cut by the first of July, or in some sections earlier, depending on location.
Chinese Sugar-Cane
The Chinese Sugar-Cane also may deserve attention as a fodder plant. Experiments hitherto made seem to show that when properly cultivated, and cut at the right time, it is a palatable and nutritious plant, while many of the failures have been the result of too early cutting. For a fodder crop the drill culture is preferable, both on account of the larger yield obtained and to prevent it from becoming too hard and stalky.
The Potato (Solanum tuberosum)
is the first of the root crops to be mentioned. This produces a large quantity of milk, though the quality is inferior. The market value of this root is, at the present time, too great to allow of feeding extensively with it, even in milk-dairies, where it is most valuable as food for cows; still, there are locations where it may be judicious to cultivate this root for dairy feed, and in all circumstances there is a certain portion of the crop of unmarketable size, which will be of value fed to milch cows or swine. It should be planted in April or May, but in many sections in June, on good mellow soil, first thoroughly ploughed and harrowed, then furrowed three feet apart, and manured in the furrows with a mixture of ashes, plaster of Paris, and salt. The seed may be dropped in the furrows, one foot apart, after the drill system, or in hills, two and a half or three feet apart, to be covered with the plough by simply turning the furrows back, after which the whole should be rolled with the field roller, where it can be done.
If the land is not already in good heart from continued cultivation, a few loads of barn-yard manure may be spread, and ploughed under by the first ploughing. Used in this way, it is far less liable to cause the rot than when put in the hill. If a sufficient quantity of wood-ashes is not at hand, sifted coal-ashes will answer the purpose, and are said to be valuable as a preventive of the rot. In this way one man, two boys, and a horse, can plant from three to four acres a day on mellow land. I have planted two acres a day on the sod, the manure being first spread on the grass, a furrow made by a yoke of oxen and one man, another following after and dropping, a foot apart, along the outer edge of the furrow on the grass. By quick work, one hand can nearly keep up with the plough in dropping. When arrived at the end of the piece, a back furrow is turned up to the potatoes, and a good ploughman will cover nearly all without difficulty. On the return-furrow the man or boy who dropped follows after, covering up any that may be left or displaced, and smoothing off the top of the back-furrows where necessary. Potatoes thus planted came out as fine as I ever saw any.