Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1878 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

Around the Farm. Give the poultry shade. Tomatoes are good for chicks. Elmira (N. ¥.) farmers have proved by repeated experiments that “ thorough summer fallowing ” is a sure way to rid fields of Canada thistles. When commencing your agricultural life, remember that industry, economy and integrity will insure success, and form the best capital that can be employed. The soil of a garden for the growth of common species of shrubs, perennials and annuals, should be a rich loam. If any plants require sand it can easily be supplied. Experience teaches us that the way to raise turkeys successfully is to give the whole charge of the flock to the mother hen, giving her fiee range to go and come at will. Shear your sheep at the season when you shed your coat for the season. Then be careful that some smart “ traveling agent ” does not pull the wool over your eyes and shear you. If you have convienent trees by all means let your young chickens roost in them during the summer and early fall. Their condition when cold weather comes will repay your trouble. The average chemical composition of the flesh of poultry, when fit for the market, in 100 parts is 74 parts water, 21 parts nitrogenous or flesh forming, 3.8 parts fat and 1.2 of salt. Dr. E. Lewis Sturtevant expresses the opinion that the growing of wheat in drills and cultivating by horse-power in the spring will be found of such marked advantage as to justify attention to this crop, even in New England and other sections where its general culture has long been discontinued.

Mr. M. B. Bateham, of Ohio, not having any soft soap at hand, cut a quarter of a pound of hard soap in thin slices, dissolved it in warm water, added an ounce of crude carbolic acid (costing a dime), stirred the whole into half a pail •! water, sprinkled it over infested currant bushes with a whisk-broom, so as to wet all the worms visible, and the next day scarcely a live one could be found. John T. Henderson, of Fulton, Ark., writes to the Republican to say that he has discovered a certain cure for hog cholera. He gets an ounce of strichnine, divides it into eight equal parts and adds to each part one-half teaspoonful of calomel, and puts the mixture into sweet milk, or anything that hogs will eat. One part will serve for twenty hogs, and will cure them, Mr. Henderson says, in any stage of the disease.—St. Louis Republican. Wheat-Growing Extraordinary—. Some specimens of wheat have been handed us by Mr. W’. H. Foster, of Brookline, Mass., and they are of unusually fine growth. Mr. Foster planted the seed singly one foot apart each way, and when the plants matured as many as forty-eight well-headed stalks five feet eight inches in height were found growing from a single seed. Mr. Foster estimates that if he had seeded an acre he would have required but 3| pounds of seed, while if the seed had been sown broadcast 120 pounds would huve been needed. He used common manure, and the variety of seed was the common Western wheat. This interesting experiment demonstrates, in the opinion of Mr. Foster, that thin seeding of wheat is much preferable to the ordinary broadcast sowing. Certainly the experiment is worth trying on a large scale, and, if the result is satisfactory, it will bean important fact towheat growers.— Massachusetts Plowman, Noxious Insects and Worms.—Frequent cultivating, if thoroughly done, will destroy millions of cut worms while in the larva state. Cut worms do not come into the world already grown, just as our corn i§ getting well to growing, but they have been living for weeks upon the weeds and grass which we allow to grow in our fields early in ‘the spring. If one would keep his cornfield thoroughly cultivated, and the weeds and grass from growing, before planting and hoeing time, he would find fewer worms to eat his corn during the summer. So, if he can destroy the eggs of grasshoppers and crickets before they hatch, by exposure to the elements, or if he can make his fields barren of vegetation for a few days just as they are hatching, he can check them very materially. The white grub is another insect which can be starved or otherwise destroyed by repeated cultivation. Kill every green thing in and on the ground by a week or ten days of plowing and cultivating, and every insect that depends upon leaves or roots must die. The parent insect deposits her eggs just where the young larvae can find suitable food as soon as hatched. If we take this away, we as effectually kill the young as we would a new-born calf or lamb by taking it away from its mother, and not otherwise providing for it.— New England Farmer.