I have found that two acres of land is the least possible area that will
provide cow-food for the entire year, and that should be divided thus:
One acre for hay, the other for fodder and mangels. If you have no land
already seeded down, plow up your acre, sow clover and timothy, six
pounds, of each. In May, when the grass has fairly started, top-dress
it with two bushels of land plaster; if you can apply it just before a
rain it is the best time. The first year you will have all clover hay,
and it must be cut before the second blossom comes; if not cut early
enough, the stalks become tough and woody, and are wasted by the cow.
The second year, if top-dressed in the fall with the manure collected
during the summer, you will have a fine crop of timothy, and if the land
was good for anything you can cut hay from it for three years by giving
it a little manure every fall. As early as the ground will admit, sow
some peas and oats; one bushel of each will plant one-third of an acre.
Peas do well on old sod, and are the best crop to plant on new ground.
In about six weeks you can commence cutting it for fodder, and it should
give the cow two good meals a day until corn comes in. L. B. Arnold, in
“American Dairying,” says of corn: “When too thickly planted its stems
and leaves are soft and pale, its juices thin and poor. If sown thin or
in drills, so that the air and light and heat of the sun can reach it,
and not fed until nearly its full size, it is a valuable soiling plant.”
Now Mr. Waring, in “Farming for Profit,” says: “It is a common mistake
when the corn is planted in drills to put in so little seed that the
stalks grow large and strong, when they are neglected by the cattle, the
leaves only being consumed. There should be forty grains at least to the
foot of row, which will take from four to six bushels to the acre, but
the result will fully justify the outlay, as the corn standing so close
in the row will grow fine and thick.” My experience tells me that Mr.
Waring is right; any way, my cow will not eat the coarse stalks which
will grow when the corn is planted too thin.
The one-third acre reserved for mangels, must be the perfection of
richness, well drained, and manured. If the soil is deep, you can plant
them on the flat, but if the soil is shallow, plant them on ridges, the
ridges thirty inches apart (I always plant them in that way); then thin
out the plants to fifteen inches apart. Ten to twelve hundred bushels may
be grown on an acre, but the ground must be properly prepared. In storing
them, they require to be very carefully handled, as the least bruise
hastens decay, and we want to keep them fresh and good until April, when
our cow ought to give us a calf.