Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1879 — FARM NOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM NOTES.

Treat the family oow to a little oilcake meal every day, and she will quickly respond in more and much richer milk. Parsnips contain about twice as much dry matter or real food as turnips, and this of a superior quality. Carrots, again, contain about as much dry substance as mangolds, but are richer in sugar and of better feeding quality. Potato water, or water in which potatoes have been boiled, is now recommended in various quarters as not only an effective but an immediate remedy for lice on cows and other cattle, also of ticks. The affected parts are to be bathed with the potato water; one application is generally sufficient. This remedy (if remedy it proves) has the merit of being exceedingly simple, easily employed and without danger of injury to the cattle. Fighting the Potato-Bug. —The forthcoming report of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture will contain a valuable paper by Dr. Jabez Fisher, of Fitchburg, on “ The War with Insects.” The paper is especially devoted to discussing the best method of fighting the potato-bug, and the essential parts of it are as follows: “It is an insect that has brood after brood in the same season. As soon as the young have time to hatch, you will find them at all times and stages of development during the whole season. There is, in my view, but one remedy, and that is what some of you are afraid of; but you have to come to it—Paris green, arsenite of copper. I have tried two or three modes of applying Paris green, and have settled upon one. I think the best way is to use 100 pounds of plaster (the finer ground the better) to one pound of Paris green. One pound is ample for 100 pounds of plaster. lam not sure but that proportion of green is too much. Most of you have applied it very much stronger. The great point is to get a single particle of Paris green upon the potato-leaf. Now, Paris green is an impalpable powder ; it is exceedingly fine. It is necessary to apply but a single atom of it in one spot; but you want to apply it evenly over the whole foliage of the potato, and to do it, the best dilutent, the best thing to dilute it with is plaster. I apply it by means of a dredg-ing-box, after the form of the ordinary flour dredging-box used in the kitchen. I have one that holds about a quart, with a cover pierced with holes, which is on the end of a handle about three feet long. All that is necessary when it is filled is to give a slight turn to the handle, and you can apply it to the potatoes as fast as you can walk beside a row. It is not necessary to cover the whole potato leaf with the green; but it is better to put it on pretty thoroughly. You will find that the green colors the plaster even in this proportion—l part to 100. It colors it quite distinctly, and you can see it on the potato vine very readily. You do not want to put much on; it is a waste of the poison and a waste of time to do so. All you want is the slightest possible dusting; nothing more nor less than that. I will say a word about mixing. A great many people have trouble in mixing Paris green. They are terribly afraid ©f it; it is poison, and they do not like to handle it at all. The best way I have found is to take a large wrapping paper (heavy brown paper), as large as you can conveniently handle. Your plaster should be sifted to get all the lumps out of it. Spread a layer of plaster on the paper, and then spread the green as thoroughly over it as you can carelessly; then take your paper (one end in each hand) and move it from side by an alternate rising and falling motion, rolling the mixture from side to side until you cannot see a particle of plaster nor a particle of green. It does not take a great while to do it. You should not- take too much at a The ripxaixtitj will dtJptJllCl UII the size of your paper. When it is perfectly homogeneous in color, then it is in a condition to use. The plaster will be washed off by the first rain, more or less; but the green is more persistent than most people suppose. Being a very fine, inpalpable powder, it remains on the somewhat-even surface of the foliage of the potato; after the plaster is washed off, the green is still there, and will continue to kill the larvae of the potato-bugs that eat it. The theory of its action is, that the larva? eats the green; and it must eat it in order to produce any result. It does not hurt the larva to put Paris green upon him; it does not kill him; must enter into his circulation to do that. One atom of the green, as I have said, will kill him, and is just as good as a pound. The same effect will be produced on any worm that eats leaves in the same way. The currant-worm and the gooseberryworm eat the leaf in the same way; their mouth takes both sides of it, and, wherever the green is, it will kill them the same as it does the potato-worm. You may say that it will not do to put Paris green upon the currant or the gooseberry, because we are going to eat the fruit. I would not use it upon currants or gooseberries, except for the first crop of worms, which generally comes before the fruit has formed, or when it is very small; and ordinarily it will all be washed off the smooth skin of the berry before any of the fruit is eatable; or, if you should chance to eat any of it, the quantity would be so infinitesimal, in the way I advise it# application, that no harm would be likely to arise in consequence. I should have no fear in applying it to the currant or the gooseberry early in the season, before the fruit has grown, but after that I should use something else.”