Allow me, Messrs. Editors, to give you notes of what I see, and hear,
and learn, and cogitate, and endeavor to inculcate, from my snug little
home in my Tub--will you not?

Well--having your assent, I begin by wishing you all--editors,
correspondents, typos, and "devils"--a Happy New Year, and your
excellent paper unlimited success in 1884, and a long life thereafter.
Next, permit me to advert to the contents of some

RECENT NUMBERS.

First, to the pro and con of pasturing corn-stalks. That is a subject,
like many others, on which much can be said on both sides. Mr. Stahl (in
No. 50) quotes Prof. Sanborn as saying that a ton of corn fodder,
"rightly cured and saved," is worth two-thirds of a ton of good timothy
hay. That may be true; but to be rightly cured and saved it must be
protected from the rains and snows as the hay is; otherwise it will be
as worthless as the corn left standing in the field. Most people who
have cut their corn and left it standing in the shock during the fall
rains, know by experience that large portions of it are rendered
useless. And if we deduct the waste of corn by wet, and by rats and
mice, and the waste of fodder, added to the cost of cutting, it would
seem that a "Subscriber" (in No. 52) has at least a strong side of the
argument. But these men are both right, in a degree. In the East in
cases where the crop is not large, or in the West, and where the
producer has large barns or sheds in which to store his fodder, it had
doubtless best be cut and utilized in that way. But where no such
facilities exist and the crop is large, as usual in the West, I can
conceive of no better way to utilize the product than to feed it where