Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1878 — Around the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Around the Farm.

The coming industry, the production of beet sugar. Fbesh clover is good for little chicks that are confined. Do not put a mortgage on the farm unless you are sure the soil is strong enough to raise it. Interbogatk your soil experimentally, and thus learn what is needed in the form of fertilizers to produce thereon remunerative crops. The composition of clieese, as found in our markets, is stated thus : Good kinds contain from 30 to 35, and inferior kinds 38 to 45 per cent, of water; rich sorts include from 25 to 30 per cent, of fate, and about the same proportion of albuminates. Poor cheese often contains only 6 per cent, of fats, and 40 to 50 per cent, of water. The amount of ash varies from 3 to 10 per cent. Mb. Charles Downing says in the New York Tribune that, as a rule, no variety of apple can bear large crops annually, except on rich, deep soils, or where made so by enriching materials annually, and even then, he thinks, at the expense of the life or age »f the tree; that is, trees bearing large crops annually will not live as long »b trees bearing moderate crops annually, or full crops alternate years. God Almighty first planted a garden, and indeed it is the purest of all human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks, and a man shall ever see that when ages grow to civility and elegance, men come to build stately sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening were the greater perfection.Lord Bacon. Marking sheep, Moore's Rural says, is best done with Venetian red, a pound of whioh, costing only a few cents, is sufficient for 1,000 head. ‘ ‘ Take a p inch of the dry powder and draw the inclosing thumb and fingers through the avool at the spot you wish to mark, loosening tho powder as you do so, and it will combine with the oil in the wool and make a bright red stain that the rains will never wash out, and whioh, without injuring the wool, will endure from one shearing to another, while it can be readily cleansed by tlie manufacturer. ” I have been very much interested in wliat has been published in youi columns about applying plaster or gypsum to clover fields. There is no doubt whatever of the profit aud advantage of the process, and by applications like this, with proper rotations of crops and pasturage of stock, the fields of the Northwest may be constantly enriched and made better every year. By the simple rotation with clover alone, and drain tile combined, that eminent farmer of Geneva, N. Y., John Johnson, constantly made his land richer and more valuable, instead of the reverse, as is too often the case in the West.— Cor. Prairie Farmer. A correspondent of the Detroit Pos remarks that one who notices the horses for sale through the country will be surprised at the number of young animals offered at prices evidently less than the cost of raising them. They are generally fair-sized animals with some good blood, but of no particular shape, aud fit for uo particular work, and so bring no particular price. The great sums realized for a few trotters has fired the imagination of many farmers, and led them a jack-o’-lantern dance through the “lottery” of breeding. They sometimes stumble iuto a prize, but more often pay dearly for a blank.