Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 April 1880 — FARM NOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM NOTES.

One of the most useful implements that can be used on the farm is the field-roller. It crushes the clods, levels and smooths the ground, and presses the earth firmly upon and around the seed, which causes them to sprout and grow much earlier. Of course the ground should be dry when the roller is used. Tn very dry weather the good rolling of the ground will frequently cause seed to grow whjpn otherwise they would not have germinated. It is said that an extensive breeder of Angora goats in Texas considers it a much more profitable business than sheep-raising. This persons owns 1,119 goats. It costs SI,OOO per annum to provide for them, and his profits last year he estimates at $2,000. The meat is claimed to be better than mutton, and each goat yields about two pounds of hair annually, which is worth 55 cents per pound in this country and 75 cents in Flngland, Prof. L. B. Arnold advises skimming the milk as soon as sourness is perceptible, and to churn at sixty degrees instead of seventy, before the cream gets sour. When the butter comes in. granules, enough cold water or brine should be put in to reduce the mass to about fifty-five degrees, when, after a little slow churning, the granules will become hard and distinct, and the butter be in a condition for washing out all the buttermilk. The salt should then be worked in with as little labor as possible, and after standing awhile it will be ready to pack. Some time ago a number of Canadian agriculturists met in convention and adopted for themselves the following creed: We believe the soil lives to eat as well as the owner, and ought, therefore, to be well manured. We believe in going to the liottom of things, and therefore deep plowing, and enough of it. All the better if it be a sub-soil plow. We believe in large crops which leave the land better than they found it, making both the farm and the farmer rich at once. We believe that every farm should own a good farmer. We believe that the fertilizer of any soil is a spirit of industry, enterprise and intelligence; without these,, lime, gypsum and guano would be of little use.

After an orchard begins to bear, the Hural World says it is a good idea to pasture it with calves, hogs and sheep. They pick up all the decayed fruit containing injurious insects, and thus prevent a rapid increase of these pests. Their droppings help to enrich the ground, and orchards need fertilizing as other crops. Few realize the necessity of manuring orchards. When once planted, the trees are to, remain on the same soil thirty or forty years at least. They in a few years exhaust the food in the soil that they are most fond of, and then they will cease to be productive and thrifty unless properly fed. It requires skill and judgment_to properly care for an orchard. It may be useful to some enterprising American gardeners to know that the following experiment has been tried successfully in England: Beds extending across the garden four feet wide were planted in spring with strawberries. On the outer sides of these beds three rows of early potatoes were planted. The potatoes were dug about the end of June, the ground cleared and raked level, where the strawberry runners could establish themselves and form a new row. The next spring rows of potatoes were planted, one row farther off, or on the borders of the runners. The gardener thus made a traveling strawberry bed, which became wider each year without planting. The third year the first plants were exhausted and were dug up, the beds thus moving slowly sidewise. A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer says: “On good ground I have raised from 900 to 1,200 pounds to the acre of good broom corn, and if the season is favorable will give you about fifty to seventy-five bushels of good seed to the acre. It is good for stock, hogs, sheep and young cattle. It is best to tramp it with horses and run it through a windmill. I have known it ground with corn, and it makes good feed in this way; have known it to bring from 30 to 40 cents a bushel for feeding milch cows, and have known it to be used for making whisky. It makes a very fiery whisky. If left to get ripe on the stalk, the brush is red, and does not sell for nearly as much, and that is the reason there is not more of it left to ripen, and use the seed for feed; have known it fed to sheep all winter, and in the spring the sheep looked well; have kept stock-hogs on it all winter, without giving them any corn. Mr. Ainsworth, as reported in the American Cultivator, says: “There are usually a few weeks during each season when butter is so plenty in our small markets that it is almost impossible to sell it at any fail* price, when it may be packed in earthen jars, and be kept in good condition for family use. Take the butter in as good condition as I have described; press it into the jar compactly in a layer three inches in thickness; cut a piece of cloth of the size of the jar, wet it in strong brine, spreading it over this first layer; repeat the process with each layer until you have reached the top or within three-quarters of an inch. Now make a strong brine, to which add three table-spoonfuls of granulated sugar, one teaspoonful of powdered saltpeter; set in a cool, dry cellar; keep it covered with the brine until wanted, and it will cut out smoothly. But if butter is to be kept for a better market, I would recommend putting it up in any sweet package or jar, direct from the churn in the granulated form, covering it with strong brine, and when wanted take it up and work it over like new butter.”