Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1880 — FARM NOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM NOTES.

Do not allow your manure to burn or scald in the winter; turn it over occasionally and it will be prevented. With all the pretensions of the cow to sobriety she generally insists on having a horn or two before breakfast. Various plants affect milk. Horse radish has a tendency to prevent coagulation, and wood sorrel will hasten £ An advance of 1 cent a pound in the price of butter means nearly $10,000,000 to tfie total value of production of the country for one year. Turnips are healthful for horses. They should be cat in slices, or what is better, pulped finely and mixed with a little meal and salt. Rutabagas are better than white turnips. Rye straw is as valuable as the gram in Pennsylvania in the manufacture of paper. With the increased acreage of the season just closed (3,500,000 bushels) the yield is not equal to the demand.

* A great deal of superior tobacco was raised in the hilly portions of Ohio and Kentucky last seasoD, and the cheap lands of those districts are rapidly coming into request for growing the Aveed. Some of the roughest hills produce the finest tobacco.

A cellar that is cool, dry and dark, and yet well ventilated, is the best place for preserving potatoes in large quantities. When smaller quantities are to be preserved there is nothing like dry sand. Tliq same may be said of fruits and roots of all sorts.

Plant tansy at the roots of your plum-trees, or hang branches of the plant on the limbs of the trees, andyoa will not be annoyed with curculio. An old and successful fruit-grower furnishes the above, and says it is the most successful curculio preventive he ever tried.

Mr. J. G. Edavards, of England, remarks : “Any man who has seen a turnip deems liimself qualified to advise the farmer, and though each man sings to a different tune the burden of the song is the same—that the farmer is in fault and needs setting right.”

A contemporary thinks if farmers would avoid suddenly cooling the body after great exertions, be careful not to go with wet clothing and wet feet, not to over-eat when in an exhausted condition, and would bathe daily, using much friction, they would have little or no rheumatism.

E. M. Washburne, in speaking of the care of dairy cattle, says: “In the best dairies of North Holland there is but a very small amouut of grain fed to the cows or young stock, and of ail I have imported I iiave never had one that Avouid eat grain without teaching, by mixing with hay or roots, or some root they were accustomed to eat.” The first year a sheep’s front teeth are eight in number, and all of equal siae. The second year the two middle shed out, and are replaced by two much larger than the others. The third year two very small teeth appear ou either side of the eighth. At tlie end of the fourth year there are six large teeth. The fifth year all the front teeth are large. Ttie sixth year all begin to show signs of wear. An Illinois agricultural writer says: “ The East and West railroad lines, hoping to get their share of the benefits of the ‘ boom ’ in business, have raised freight charges to nearly the old-time formidable proportions. In consequence of this a growl, low and sullen, has begun to make itself heard, and there are those who see the specter of the Granger figured on the dark clouds of a storm now apparently rising in the distant political horizon. With all its follies, and its inconsequential management, it the means of reforming great abuses in the matter of transportation; and it is possible that it or some similar organization may be needed to force the railroads again into respect for the constitution and obedience to the luavs.”