Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1878 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

Around the F*rm. Salt is very important for animals. Large pieces of rock salt put into the mangers and feeding troughs are recommended. One-half the ash of animal Mood consists of salt; without the latter the blood cannot be natural or in a healthy state. The Peach-Tree Borer.—Placing leached ashes around the base of trees was recommended as a means of preventing the beetle which lays the eggs from depositing them. The ashes were first applied as a manure, and this effect was accidentally discovered.—Afoore’s .Rural. Valuable Manure. —It is estimated that fifty head of poultry will make more than enough manure for an acre of land—seven cwt of guano being the usual quantity applied per acre, and poultry manure being even richer than guano in ammonia and fertilizing salts. No other stock will give an equal return in this way, and these figures demand careful attention from the large farmer. Shelter Youb Farm Implements.— Every farmer not only wants shelter for his hay, corn and other grain—for his cattle, horses, mules, sheep and swine but he wants shelter for his plows, harrows, cultivators, reapers and mowers, wagons, carts, eta. Has the farmer good shelter for all these? If not, now is the time and now is the hour to provide this shelter. Lose no time in doing it The snow and the cold rain-storms are here. Make comfortable everything you have. For Discussion. —Sanitary laws for our homes. What farmers’ gardens are and what they should be. Small fruits for family use. Trees for the lawn, the farm, the roadside. The adaptation of fruits to soils. The best evergreens for home decorations. The best trees for small grounds. The value of experiments in the farm and garden. The value of botanical studies to country children. These are topics which we think worthy of discussion at our farmers’ clubs, agricultural and horticultural conventions, and in the family 'circle.—Rural New Yorker.

Selecting Seed Corn.—There is a difference, if we notice it, in the ears, which can be seen when husking, some ears being much harder to break off than others. And herein lies the secret: Those with the large, tough stems are the male or bastard ears, which I never take for seed, no matter how large the ear; but those which are somewhat hollow and small in the stem end are the female, and the only kind that should be taken for seed. This being the true way of picking out seed-corn, it is of no matter whether it be the top or bottom ear, as it is all one. We very well know that mixture or fertilizing between the male and female stalks takes place in the later stages of their growth.—Germantown Telegraph. How to Build a Poultry House.We advise every man to build a hennery on the same principle that a farmer would build a barn: first for comfort, second for convenience, and then add as much for elegance and style as he is willing to pay for. The plan we would adopt for a poultry house is this: Build on a southerly slope, if you can. Dig out for a back wall, to be cemented up; then lay upon it a shed roof, the roof and sides shingled, with tarred paper between the boards and shingles. It should be ten feet high in the front and five in the rear. On the inside have a walk three feet wide running the whole length, high enough from the ground to let the fowls under, to scratch and go out into the yard. Lay a floor over the rest with the roosts on the back part, with the shelves under them to catch the droppings, so arranged as to be removed find nloQTxocl oiioo <x wook. Tko ncoio fox large hens should be a foot high, and small at the entrance, running back two feet. With such nests as these hens seldom learn to set eggs. Fasten the nests on the partition which separates the walk fjpm the coop. A building thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide may be separated into three rooms, large enough for twenty-five fowls to a room. Such a building can be put up for SSO, and is worth as much for all practical purposes as the most elegant building, while everybody that can afford to keep good fowls can afford such a hennery.—Boston Transcript.