Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1880 — FARM NOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM NOTES.

A stock-keeper reports curing many bad warts on cattle and horses, during several years, by application to each of “one good daub of tar.” California cultivates Brazilian artichokes, which yield 400 bushels to the acre. They are fine for stock, but are difficult to get out of the ground when once established. A writer in the Gat den says that if potting soil is placed for a day or two in the hen-yard every particle of it is dug over, and all grubs and eggs of insects are picked out Buckwheat-straw, which heretofore has been considered of little value, has of late been utilized by some of the Western farmers by chopping it fine and adding meal to it. A small quantity fed to stock occasionally would be relished, no doubt. Prof. Shelton, of the Kansas Agricultural College, favors September calves, because, dropped in that month, they escape the trying heats of summer, can be pushed during the winter with grain, aud in spring are ready for grass as soon as it appears. A good test of tbe hardiness of any variety of fo*est treee is fouDd in the ripening of its seeds (Knit). If a tree does not perfect its seeds in a given locality, it is good evidence that it is not sufficiently hardy to be generally cultivated in such sections. Bees Wintered on Summer Stands. —“I have wintered on summer standu ten years and have not lost a colony. My plan is to drive stakes around and. within six or eight inches, then fill iu hay or straw, and cover over to keep rain out.”— E. D., Godfrey, Io ,r a.

Seeding Clover with Millet.— “ln June, 1778, I mixed two quarts of clover seed with four to six quarts of millet, as near as I can recollect, and sowed it on about one-fourth of au acre, from which I had taken a crop of potatoes the previous year. The ground was plowed and harrowed before sowing, and the millet and clover dragged. I not only obtained a good crop of millet, but a perfect catch of clover.—l?. M. Potter, Kalamazoo, Midi. To Keep Wells Pure. —A correspondent of the Inter Ocean, writing from Battle Creek, Mich., says that lie purified his well of water, which was so subject to many worms, bugs and other insects as to render it almost unfit for drinking, by placing in the well a couple of good-sized trout. They have kept perfectly healthy, and have eaten up every live thing in the water. In the winter season crumbs of bread or crackers are thrown in. The water is perfectly pure and sweet. Green Manure. — “My success has been very gratifying in sowing corn, oats, buckwheat or rye for plowing under instead of clover. For this purpose I use one or the other of the crops according to the time of the year for sowing, and taking into the calculation the length of time the crop could occupy the land. All these crops, however, could be grown and plowed under within the time required for growing the one crop of clover. Iu this contains the main advantage ot their use over clover as a renovating crop." —Henry Ives, Batavia, N. Y. Dry Cows. —lt is a common practice among some dairymen to give their cows, when dry, but scanty living. When a cow ceases to give milk, or is dried up, any feed is considered enough for her. I think this is a great mistake, and the result is a diminished product of milk, both in quantity and quality, when she does come in. There is a large draught on the system to sustain the calf while the cow is carrying it; and to keep the cow in a good condition good feed is as important as when she is giving milk. It is my opinion that one dollar’s worth of feed when the cow is dry is worth one and a half dollars after she comes in. An animal in poor condition cannot digest as much food as an animal in good condition. If the cow is poor when she comes in she will not digest enough foo 1 to support the system, and, at the same time, to make a large quantity of milk. —Monthly Bulletin of the American Jersey Cattle Club.

Farmers Who Are Wide Awake.— Farmers who are wide awake and given to investigation don’t sow so muck wheat to the acre as they formerly did, and they don’t sow it so deep. The great, heavy harrows of ten or twenty years ago are not now employed by them in covering seed, and the drill, which can be depended on better, is becoming universally popular. In broadcast sowing, after the ground is thoroughly prepared, the Thomas smoothing-harrow covers the seed deep enough. A Wisconsin writer gives the result of an expeiiment in planting at different depths—on the surface, onefourth inch, one half inch, threefourths inch and so on to several inches. That on the surface lay two weeks before sprouting; that one-fourth to three-fourths inch deep came npin four or five days, and so on, getting later as the depth increased. The last to come up was planted three and a half inches deep, and was fourteen days in reaching the surface. At the end of six weeks that planted one-fourtli to onehalf inch deep stood far ahead of the vest.—Michigan Farmer.