Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 November 1878 — AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND DOMESTIC.

Around the Farm. One acre of land will produce 1,000 bushels of sugar beets, which, made into sugar, will yield 4,800 pounds of sugar; or into vinegar, 5,000 gallons; or into proof spirits, 1,000 gallons. Such are the possibilities of an acre of ground, with proper skill and cultivation. Fattening Pigs. —Fattening pigs should be pushed on as rapidly as possible before the cold weather. A pound of fat made now costs less than that made next month, and the latter costs less than the same amount made in December. Remember that the cold weather wastes fat. Ground for Oats.—Ground for oats should be fall-plowed and left ridged, so that the cultivator or harrow may fit it for seeding in the early spring. The land for early potatoes should also be plowed and manured. Spread the manure upon the plowed ground and leave till spring; then plow it under. Preserved Apples.—Weigh equal quantities of good brewn sugar and ©f apples; peel, core, and mince them small; boil the sugar, allowing to every three pounds a pint of water; skim it well, and boil it pretty thick; then add the apples, the grated peel of one or two lemons, and two or three pieces of white ginger, if you have it. Boil till the apples look clear and yellow. This pre- j serve will keep for years. I believe, from experience and observation, that well-improved grass lands, with many kinds of grass, not overstocked in the dry season, and a liberal supply of bay, cut early and well cared for, will produce as good if not better cattle than too much stuffing with grain, which has a tendency to contract the inwards and prevent thrift when confined to grain alone.—Spanglar. In speaking of the necessity of landdrainage, Mr. Mechi says: “The want of a hole in the great agricultural plantpot during the last wet winter has caused many an agricultural purse to be only half filled. How strange it is that no farmer would have a plant-pot in his green-house or home without a hole in the bottom, while the same individual often does not consider one to be necessary in the big plant-pot outside.” Farming is a business similar, in its broad features, to all other trades and manufactures, and should be managed on the same principles. It is unpleasant, therefore, to observe that, while manufacturing and commercial interests have attained a distinguished position in this country, agriculture has not met with that consideration which its importance demands. Whatever the material prosperity of the country may be, it must be based on that which supplies ths resources of natural life and vigor to the nation.

A very simple process is employed for freeing woodland newly brought into cultivation from the stumps of trees. A hole about two inches in diameter and eighteen inches in depth is bored in the stump about autumn, filled with a concentrated solution of saltpeter and closed with a plug. In the following spring a pint or so of petroleum is poured into the same hole and set on fire. During the course of the winter the saltpeter solution has penetrated every portion of the stump, so that not only this, but also the roots, are thoroughly burnt out. The ashes are left, and form a valuable manure. No other crop gives as large an amount of easily-digestible food for cows, young stock, sheep or hogs, as the sugar beet, while the manure from feeding the beet is of much greater value than when animals are fed upon almost any other kind of root. France grows one-lialf more wheat upon an acre, fattens a much greater number of cattle than the same territory in America, from the fact that that country raises enormous quantities of sugar beets for making sugar, and has the rich manure from the refuse which is fed to the stock. To have the full value of the raising of sugar beets we should have the sugar manufactory as well, but until that conies no more profitable crop can bo raised and fed out upon the farm than beets. The ground for beets, like that for any other crop, should be mellow, tilled deeply, and rich. The seed should be sowed as early as possible, in rows from two and a half to three feet apart—so as to allow the use of the cultivator between—and the seed should be sown at the rate of three to four pounds to the acre, and the plants thinned out, and, if need be, transplanted, so as to stand from twelve to fifteen inches apart; this will give large roots, and a crop of twenty-five to thirty-five tons to the acre. —Kural New Yorker. The bandage system, which we were the first to suggest some twenty-five years ago, and have often referred to since, is the only effectual protection we have yet seen against the operations of the worm in fruit trees. We repeat again that in not a single instance have we ever had a worm in our dwarf pear trees where this was properly attended to. It is simply to bandage the bottom of the tree with any kind of muslin or cloth, and tie it, letting the bandage be about six inches above ground and two inches below. It should be applied as soon as the ground is in a fit condition to go upon. These bandages should be removed at the end of October, but it will do no harm to let them alone, only that they remain in good condition for another season. As long as this is continued we defy the worm. The beetle lays its eggs an inch or two above the ground early in the spring, that is, as soon as the warm days in March will admit of its coming forth from its winter quarters; the eggs are soon hatched by the sun, being laid on the sun-side of the trunk, and the young grub finds its way down to the soft bark beneath the soil, where it gradually works its way in. The bandage prevents both the laying of the eggs and the descent of the grub. Let doubters try it. One man will bandage 200 trees in a day. It may also protect the peach tree in the same way. —Germantown Telegraph.