Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1880 — FARM MOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM MOTES.

Pigs need dry beds as veil as other animals. F jsed the sheep well, give them fresh, pure water, and keep them ont of the wet. American honey in the comb has become a popular article of diet in England, and very large shipments are made.

Soils which are heavy and contain much inert vegetable matter are in England called deaf, which is a good and poetic characterization. England is the only country in which, for the most part, the land is owned by one mao, farmed by the second and tilled by a third. Mb. William Nolen, of Convenience, Fayette county, Ohio, sold a calf weighing 739 pounds. He was only 8| months old, a cross between Galloway and Devon.

Mb. Sewabd, of Marengo, HI., has learned, by actual and careful experiment, that it costs about $5 more to to make a 600-pound animal of a spring calf than it does to bring a fall calf to that weight. Chopped vegetables, such as cabbages, turnips and onions, may be fed to poultry during the winter with profit, especially if a larger supply of eggs is desired. Chopped onions are excellent for all kinds of fowls, and quickly drive all kinds es vermin away. . As 600 N as I have my poultry houses closed I take the manure and spread it over my wheat field or on a poor spot on my meadow, and a man with one eye can soon see where I put it. To put hen manure in a barrel and keep it a year before placing on a crop is, according to my experience, a wrong way. - -D.N. Kerr, Lehigh Co., Pa.

Last spring I sowed an ounce of sage seed, costing 20 cents, from which I now have 1,000 good strong plants. I transplant in rows about three feet apart and two feet in the row; use the plow and hoe freely, with good mulch late in fall to prevent freezing out during winter. I know of no crop more easily managed or more profitable in a small way. — O. Moffit.

The St. Patrick, one of the new varieties of potatoes recently introduced to the attention of our formers, is said to be a most excellent and well worthy of extended cult uro. It has a smooth, white skin, few and shallow eyes, producing but few small tubers, maturing early and very compact in its habit of growth. Ii bids fair to become a popu ar market variety. Waldo says in the Ohio Farmer that he remembers one year making a very large profit from an acre of land, managed in this way: He first grew a crop of Tom peas, which matured in time for cucumbers, for pickles, and then he grew 500 bushels of turnips, sowed broadcast among the cucumbers. He found that these crops will mature without crowding each other, if properly managed. A new and valuable variety of celery which originated near Newark, N. J., is attracting considerable attention among market gardeners. It is called the golden dwarf, and in size and habit of growth is much the same as the dwarf white kinds, except that when blanched the heart, which is large and full, is of a waxy, golden yellow, rendering it a most striking and showy variety, for either market or private use. It is entirely solid and of most excellent flavor, and one of the best keepers during winter we have ever known. The habitual daily use of this esculent cannot be too highly recommended. It is said to promote digestion, quieting to the nerves and 1* highly recommended in connection with good nutritions food as a sort of vegetable tonic.

The tendency of agricultural refinement is to make a good deal of expense about butter-making. The movement is meant for the benefit of those who can afford it, however. People who pay a large price for butter will not fling away their money so long as they make certain that it is really as much better, on the average, than other butter as the price would indicate. That sort of management paying merit, and merit only, will, in the end, elevate the standard of our but ter-making as nothing else will. The man who puts capital into dairying and works it there intelligently, employing the best help, and keeping the best stock of cattle in the best manner, should have his reward. After a while, be sure the good of his methods will not die with—him.

Every farmer, says the Country Gentleman, has noticed that about the time of wheat harvest, if tire fowls are allowed the run- bf the lields and barnyards, there is a material increase in the egg supply. I think the second fact is the natural result of the first. I have fed corn, oats, barley, buckwheat, flax, and sunflower seeds, and have found nothing equal to whole wheat as food for fowls. For young chicks it seems especially adapted. After two or three days of feeding on soft food the young chickens will pick up the whole wheat cjuite greedily, and will thrive on it as on nothing else. Growing chickens have a large demand for lime, and especially bone material, and this is more nearly supplied in whole wheat than in any other grain. If wheat were $2 per bushel it would still be the cheapest food for young chicks. Farmers can, however, economize by feeding wheat screenings and damaged wheat, which, though unsalable, is nearly as good for chicken feed.