Keeping one cow: Being the experience of a number of practical writers, in a clear and condensed form, upon the management of a single milch cowVarious
Science
Keeping one cow: Being the experience of a number of practical writers, in a clear and condensed form, upon the management of a single milch cow
Various
Cows; Dairying
I have now given my instructions for keeping a cow, and it is evident
from what I have written, that the Jerusalem Artichoke is my main
dependence for her support. The other points that I have touched upon,
are of minor importance, when compared with the value that I have
attached to this plant. My own experience with the plant satisfies me
that I have not overstated its merits. On rich land a single stalk will
produce from a peck to half a bushel of the tubers. Last year was an
exceptionably unfavorable one in this locality, on account of drouth in
summer and fall; and yet the artichokes that I planted between the trees
in my peach orchard yielded abundantly. I have fattened cattle on them
without any additional food excepting a little hay, until they were fit
for the butcher; and my horses thrive on them when fed in connection with
hay, doing full work without grain. A brother of mine planted artichokes
in a field that had been in cultivation for more than a century, and yet
in spite of the drouth, of indifferent culture without manure, and of an
early frost that prematurely killed the plants, the yield amounted to
between five hundred and six hundred bushels to the acre.
RURAL ECONOMY.
Boussingault in his “Rural Economy,” pp. 159-160 says: “The Jerusalem
Artichoke rises to a hight of from nine to ten feet; it flowers late,
and I have not yet seen it ripen its seeds. It is propagated by the
tubers which it produces, and which are regarded, for good reason, a
most excellent food for cattle.... There are few plants more hardy and
so little nice about the soil as the Jerusalem Artichoke; it succeeds
everywhere with the single condition that the ground be not wet.... Of
all the plants that engage the husbandman, the Jerusalem Artichoke is
that which produces the most at the least expense of manure and manual
labor. Kade states that a square patch of Jerusalem Artichokes in a
garden was still in full productive vigor at the end of thirty-three
years, throwing out stems from seven to ten feet in length, although for
a very long time the plant had neither received any care or any manure.
I could quote many examples of the great reproductive power of the
Helianthus; I can affirm, nevertheless, that in order to obtain abundant
crops, it is necessary to afford a little manure.... Schwertz estimates
the mean quantity of dry leaves and stems at three tons, one cwt., one
quarter and fifteen pounds per acre.”
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