Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their CureJennings, Robert
Science
Cattle and Their Diseases: Embracing Their History and Breeds, Crossing and Breeding, and Feeding and Management; with the Diseases to Which They Are Subject, and the Remedies Best Adapted to Their Cure
Jennings, Robert
Cattle -- Diseases
The CARROT is somewhat extensively fed, and is a valuable root for milch
cows. This, like the potato, has been cultivated and improved from a
wild plant. Carrots require a deep, warm, mellow soil, thoroughly
cultivated, but clean, and free from weed-seed. The difference between a
very good profit and a loss on the crop depends much upon the use of
land and manures perfectly free from foul seeds of any kind. Ashes,
guano, seaweed, ground bones, and other similar substances, or
thoroughly-rotted and fermented compost, will answer the purpose.
After plowing deep, and harrowing carefully, the seed should be planted
with a seed-sower, in drills about eighteen inches apart, at the rate of
four pounds to the acre, about the middle of May. The difference
between sowing on the fifteenth of May and on the tenth of June in New
England is said to be nearly one-third in the crop on an average of
years. In weeding, a little wheel hoe is invaluable, as with it a large
part of the labor of cultivation is saved. A skillful hand can run this
hoe within a half an inch of the young plants without injury, and go
over a large space in the course of a day, if the land was properly
prepared in the first place.
The American farmer should always plan to economize labor, which is the
great item of expense upon a farm. By this is not meant that he should
strive to shirk or avoid work, but that he should make the least amount
of work accomplish the greatest and most profitable results.
Labor-saving machinery on the farm is applied, not to reduce the number
of hours of labor, or to make the owner a man of leisure--who is,
generally, the unhappiest man in the world--but to enable him to
accomplish the greatest results in the same time that he would be
compelled to obtain smaller ones.
Carrots will continue to grow and increase in size late into the fall.
When ready to dig, plow around as near to the outside rows as possible,
turning away the furrow from the row. Then take out the carrots, pulling
off the tops, and throw the carrots and tops into separate heaps on the
plowed furrows. In this way a man and two boys can harvest and put into
the cellar upwards of a hundred bushels a day.
The TURNIP, and the Swedish turnip, or ruta baga, are also largely
cultivated as a field crop to feed to stock; and for this purpose almost
numberless varieties are used, furnishing a great amount of succulent
and nutritious food, late into winter, and, if well-kept, late into
spring. The chief objection to the turnip is, that it taints the milk.
This may be remedied--to a considerable extent, if not wholly--by the
use of salt, or salt hay, and by feeding at the time of milking, or
immediately after, or by steaming before feeding, or putting a small
quantity of the solution of nitre into the pail, and milking upon it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account