Harvesting Kaffir Corn

Kaffir coru has the valuable proporty of remaining green after the seed matutes until killed by frost. This enables the farmer to get a ripe crop of grain and still secure a flrst class article of fodder. The proper time to cut Kaffir corn is, therefore, as soon as the grain has matured or whea it becoraes hard, brittle and mealy to a degree. In Kansas and Oklahoma it is quite common to cut the heads off with a header, curo them - that is, cause them to be dried out thoroughly - and then thrash them, while the forage is left in the field to be fed off by cattle daring winter. In practice it is found difficult to adjust the header to cut off the heads without taking too much of the green forage, which impedes the drying of the heads. To overeóme this difficulty special Kaffir corn headers have been devised and are now on the market. It is extremely wasteful of good food to let the stalks remain in the field to be killed by frost and devastated by the elements. The stalks should be cut and curod as corn fodder is cut and cured. If grown on a small scale, cut it by hand with corn knives. If this is too slow, use auy improvrd corncutter or corn harvester with binder attachment. Professor Georgeson, writing from the Kansas Agricultural college station to Prairie Parmer, tells, in addition to the f oregoing, that on the college farm they use a corncutter that cuta two rows at a time. When the shocks are thoroughly cured, the heads should be cut off and the fodder housed or stacked in some place convenient to the feed yard. The heads can be chopped off very rapidly by laying a large armful from the shock with the necks across a block of wood and using a corn knife, or, better still, a broadax. Many western farmers do not cut the heads off at all, but feed fodder, heads and all, from the shock. This plan, too, is to be condemned as prodnetive of too much waste. Nevertheless there are situations in which it is the more eeonomical method of procedure. When food ia cheap and the thrasher comes high, or if a mili on which to grind the grain after it is thrashed is not available except at too great coat, it may be cheaper to allow some grain to go to waste than to incur the necessary expenses of thrashing and grinding. But when the crop is to be utilized to its fullest extent the heads must be thrashed and the grain ground. The thrashing is readily done on an ordinary machine. It is not desirable to run the whole stalk through the thrasher, as is sometirnes done. The fodder suffers too much by it. Thrashing is useless unless the seed is ground before it is fed. The grinding enhances its feeding value. If it is not ground, a very large per cent of the seed will fail of mastication and pass through the animal undigested. Labor Saving Arrangement. For economy in feeding as well as in labor, when much stock is kept under shelter, it will be wise to have a feed car or truck to run along the feeding floor and through the feeding alley. Country Gentleman illustrates a good design. It is arranged to hold a goodly quantity of ensilage to be carried to the cribs of the cowa and has a shallow, watertight box fitting inside the top, which can be put in place when the less bulky grain ration is to be fed. A handy car can also be construoted f or wheeling out the mamire to the nianure room, making i t of a f orín to be easily dumped, though a wheelbarrow will answer the purpose very well. Wheat Fertlllzers ín Ohlo. The statistics eollected by the township assessors of Ohio indícate that the total expenditure by the farmers of the state for commercial fertilizers rose from $41G,000 in 1S81 (the first year of collection) to $693,000 in 1888 and $1,297,000 in 1891, theuce falling to $1,163,000 in 1894. The greater portion of these fertilizers has been used on the wheat erop, at least during the earlier part of this period, the ordinary practice being to use 200 to 300 pounds per acre of a fertilizer costing $25 to $30 per ton. While large quaiitities of plain superphosphates or superphosphates with potash have been used it is reported from the Ohio station to Rural New Yorker that there is good reason to believe that the great bulk of the fertilizers sokl in Ohio have been mixtures of slaughter house tankage and acid phosphate, with occasioual sprinklings of muriate of potash. Nt-ii and Notes At the meeting of the Society For the Promotion of Agricultural Science in Buffalo Professor W. R. Lazenby of Columbus, O., was re-elected president; Professor Charles S. Plumb of Lafayette, Ind. , secretary-treasurer, and Mr. h, O. Howard of the national departmeut of agriculture third member of the executive committee. The Argentine farmers have mado havoc with prices of wheat and meat, and now it is said that they purpose raising potatoes on a large scale. Mr. W. B. Snow, formerly assistant statistician of the department of agriculture, estimates the total number of eheep now in the country at about 82,000,000. If this estimate is correct, the number of sheep has declined o?er 15,270,000 in three years.