Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1879 — FARM NOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM NOTES.

An apple-tree in ex-Gov. Palmer’s yard at Springfield, Hi., has borne two crops of apples this year. ' Quite a number of horses have been poisoned in Kansas by being fed raw castor beans. The Agricultural Bureau of North Carolina does not cost the citizens of that State anything. The Bureau of Georgia has a surplus fund of over $19,000. Do you feed your cows nothing but hay and straw in winter, and keep them on a short pasture in summer? Then you neglect to put $1 into the expense scale that might put $2 or $5 into the other scale. The joint in a sheep of the best breed and in fair condition, which contains the least proportion of fat, is the leg, and next to that is the shoulder, while the loin, neck and breast have the largest proportion. , As a rule it will not pay to winter poor stock of any kind if the food they consume costs anything, besides all animals are in better condition at the beginning of winter than at any other season of the year. During the winter most kinds of stock lose flesh unless they are bountifully fed and warmly housed, and it does not pay to take this trouble and incur this expense for anything but the best. The weeding process is, therefore, in order. Winter is the time for reading and study also. No reason why a fanner shouldn’t take time for intellectual culture as well as anybody else. It freshens his mind for more active duties. No fear of being a “ book farmer.” If he don’t read up, he’ll soon find himself falling behind the times. Nor will it do to forget or neglect the social duties altogether. None of us can avoid them without positive detriment to ourselves. Cultivate neighborly feelings, therefore, and do something for the comfort and happiness of others as well as yourself.— Exchange. Raw-hide horse-shoes are not fashionable on prairie land. In fact, the natural hoof does better, and really well, except on rocky roads. The raw-hide shoe is really more valuable, if valuable at all, on dry hard roads than on wet or muddy roads. So on frozen roads, where there is no ice, they may wear tolerably well. Nevertheless we do not suppose they will soon supplant iron, where shoes are necessary at all. In the “ prairie region ” farmers are fast finding out that shoeing is not so essential as has been generally supposed, except where the team is to be driven on ice or stone roads, and the latter are not at all common in “ prairie land.”— Prairie Farmer. The now so famous, is only the lucerne of England, acclimated in Chili, and from thence transferred to California. In England it had the advantages of a very humid climate; in Chili, the disadvantages of a very dry one. But, when it had been made to thrive there, it was just the grass for the dry climate of California. It would not flourish everywhere. It is very sensitive to frost in the early stages of its growth. Yet in England, and in Pennsylvania, where it is produced, we hear little about its being killed by frost. In Chili its character was changed. It did not make the battle against frost, but against drought. It bears the same character in California. — San Francisco Bulletin. Apples in Sand.—A writer in the London Garden says that he finds fruit to keep best in perfectly dry sand. He keeps fruit this way all the year round. He has had French crabs two years old. The Catelac pear has remained sound for twelve months. The fruit must be sound when stored, and the sand must be quite dry. The chief advantages of packing in sand are the exclusion of air currents, the preservation from change? of temperature, and the absorption of moisture, which favors decay. Much will depend on the apartment in which the experiment is tried, a dry or cool one being best. This is not a new discovery. The Pennsylvania Dutch farmers have long practiced this way of keeping apples.