Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1878 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

Around the Farm. Cobbbtt said “ soft hands are indicative of soft brains.” If you would have the cow do well with you, you jnust do well with her. The golden text is: “ The world’s best crop is tame grasses, and the best animal to utilize it is the cow.” Washing with fresh buttermilk—a second time, if necessary—is highly recommended as sure death to lice on cattle. A Missouri orchardist protects young trees from sun and sheep by gathering the branches together and dropping a headless barrel over each. Naturally enough, Mr. A. G. Chase, of Millwood, Kan., don’t seem to think so highly of ground feed for hogs as he did before he took 211 pounds of shelled corn to the mill and got back 156 pounds of meal. , A New Jersey farmer is credited with the statement that he “ knows by actual experience” that “Lima beans planted on the edge with the eye down will come up a week earlier than if planted haphazard.” Every intelligent boy on the farm should learn to graft. It is a very simple operation. Many frauds have been practiced by tree peddlers. Many trees in the orchard are seedlings or worthless fruit. Now is a good time to graft them, and thus change the tree to good fruit. In answer to many questions—What varieties of strawberries shall I buy ? we answer as for grapes : As many as you can afford to buy, and you will then be enabled another season to answer the question better than any other person can answer for you. We believe that such experiments cost less, generally, than taking the advice of others.— Moore's Rural. The National Live Stock Journal gives a volume of good advice in the following paragraph: Breeding for speed alone is, at best, an uncertain business ; and when to this uncertainty we add the expenses of training, the chances of profit are so slight that we would not advise any general fanner to engage in the business, either with trotting or running horses. This is the season farmers should pay especial attention to their horses and their drivers. Many new and untried hands are commencing on the farm. High-spirited horses (and this is the kind to own and work) are easily ruined by ignorant, careless and vicious men. The first ill-treatment to a noble horse should be cause sufficient and irrevocable for a hand’s dismission. —Des Moines Register.

The neglect of farmers to grow grapes would be astonishing did we not consider the great amount of mystery that has been thrown around the training, pruning, and culture generally by some writers. There is no reason why every farmer’s family should not have all the grapes they can eat; and there is scarcely a town or village lot so small but at least one vine may be grown.— lowa State Register. The Hon. 0. E. Whiting, of Whiting, Monona county, who, Mr. Suel Foster says, “has done more real successful timber planting than any other man in lowa,” and who has twenty years’ experience back of him, became convinced that Bxß feet (with a row of com each way between the trees) gave too low and spreading tops, thuslpsing much growth by sending out limbs instead of forming tall, upright trunks, and now he plants “ as close as 2jx4—one tree to every ten square feet.” There are many who do not greatly relish blackberries. But this need not deter them from raising all they can find room for, since blackberry wine is of much value for medicinal purposes, and its value increases with age. Mr. Parry’s recipe for a gallon is : “ Add three pounds of sugar to three quarts of blackberries and a little water. ” The Kittatinny is still the best variety for this if not for every climate where this fruit thrives. — Exchange. Some time since I purchased a 3-months-old pig that had become covered with a thick, black scurf, caused probably by sweating, for there were several in the pen together ; or perchance it might have been from eating buckwheat, with which it had been fed occasionally. During the warm days, I have poured buttermilk over its back, and the scurf is all removed and the pig doing finely. The remedy is simple, yet I have never known it to fail, even when the disease was of so long duration that the animal’s back was raw with sores.— Rural New Yorker. An Ohio husbandman tells the Practical Farmer that in the field he can always move a heavier load, under all circumstances, with his broad-tired wagon, with much less danger of upsetting on hillsides, and without making any ruts, than with the wheels of ordinary width, but that on the common roads over which he travels it is just the reverse. A slight shower of rain makes an extra team necessary to overcome the extra width of tire, and he finds that the wheels go nearly an equal depth, le the tire be narrow or broad. “An experience and observation of nearly thirty years” has convinced a Western agriculturist that the sure way to raise merchantable potatoes is to leave only a single stalk in a hill. “Of course,” he says in the Prarie Farmer, “ this does not pay in ordinary culture, but too few sprouts are far better than too many. One goodsized potato is far more valuable than ten small ones, and the way to produce them is to give all the room in the hill that they need to develop. Cut your seed to a single eye, and plant one iu a hill. ” About the House. Scotch Cake. One pound brown sugar, one pound flour, one-half pound butter; two eggs, one teaspoonful cinnamon; roll very thin and bake. Graham Muffins. —A penny’s worth of yeast, three pints warm water, salt, half a cupful molasses, and Graham flour enough to make a thick batter; set it in a warm place to rise; have your muffin-pan hot, and bake in a hot oven. To Use Up Cold Meat. —Prepare your meat as for hash; fill a deep dish with boiled macaroni; on top of that place the hash; cover it with tomatoes, over which sprinkle bread crumbs, with a little butter; bake until nicely browned. Buttermilk Muffins. One quart buttermilk, two eggs, butter the size of egg, two flat spoonfuls soda mixed in a little water, or one spoonful saleratus, two teaspoonfuls salt, flour to make a thick batter. Bake in rings in a quick oven. Graham Gems. —Mix your Graham flour in a thick batter with warm water; a table-spoonful of lard to about a quart of water; one-half a cupful of molasses with one-half teaspoonful of soda beaten in; stir the mixture briskly, put in a hot pan, and bake jn a very hot oven. Rat-Proof Paint.— Mix powdered glass, finely broken, with pitch or coaltar and resin, and paint the outside of your grain-bin with two coats* and it will be too much for rats’ teeth. They don’t like the tar, and the sharp glass is still more disagreeable.— Live Stock Journal. Graham Bread. —To a pint bowl of wheat sponge raised over night add nearly a quart of warm water, half a cupful molasses, salt, and stir in as much sifted Graham .flour as you pan with a spoon. Do not knead it, brit put each

loaf in a separate pan. When raised, bake in a quick oven. Adhesive Plaster. —The following recipe conies to ns well recommended: One ounce of French isinglass, one pint of warm water; stir till dissolves; add 10 cents’ worth of pure glycerine and 5 cents’ worth of tincture of arnica; Iffy a piece of white or black silk on a board and paint it over with the mixture. Permanent Ink. —lt is said that an ink that cannot be erased, even with acids, is obtained by the following recipe To good gall ink add a strong solution of fine soluble Prussian blue in distilled water. This addition makes the ink, which was previously proof against alkalies, equally proof against acids, and forms a writing fluid which cannot be erased without destruction of the paper. The ink writes greenish blue, but afterwards turns black. Airing Pillows and Feather Beds. --Do not put your pillows or leatherbeds, if yon are so unfortunate as to have feather-beds, into the sun to air, but in a shady place, with a clear, dry wind blowing over them. If it is cloudy, but yet not damp, and the wind is strong, all the better. This will keep well-cured feathers always sweet. Bad-ly-cured feathers cannot be made sweet A hot sun on the best feathers will turn them rancid.— Practical Farmer.