Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 March 1883 — FARM NOTES. [ARTICLE]

FARM NOTES.

The object of an advanced education should be to develop, if possible, a taste for good reading, so that instead of whiling away his long winter evening smoking his pipe behind his neighbor’s stove, or in some shop, or roosting on a meal bag or nail keg telling big stories, he will stay at home and read. Of late years, those so unfortunate as not to have liberal educations conclude that it is useless for them to attempt to compete for honors or distinction against those more fortunate. FrankIm, Washington, Jackson and Lincoln, though deficient in the education of the schools, did not quail before educated competitors, but marched boldly forward to honor and renown. The British Quarterly Journal of Agriculture says: “The horses of Normandy are a capital race for hard work and scanty fare. Have never elsewhere seen such horses at the collar. Under the diligence, post-carriage, or cumbrous cabriolet, or on the farm, they are enduring and energetic beyond description. With their hecks cut to the bone they flinch not. They keep their condition when other horses would die of neglect and hard treatment.” There are many qualities essential to constitute the model hog—and although he is not permitted by the laws of nature to laugh or even smile, he enjoys the next blessing of humanity—the disposition to grow fat. He is a happy fellow; when well bred and cared for, he lives like a gentleman of leisure, free from all the trials that disturb this busy world. He has no mortgage on his farm, no notes in bank maturing in the next ten days; yes, he is happy as a hog in clover; when he can’t stand up he lies down. — A. Failor.

We say to two-tb’rds of the farmers of lowa—-knowing what we say, and saying it with our teeth clinched and our nerves strung, that if you expect to successfully compete with your more enterprising neighbors, there must be a more thorough system rigidly enforced to increase the productiveness of your farms. Your situation imperatively demands that you improve your stock by the introduction of better blood. You must cease scattering the corn in the mud or the snow to stock sheltered in these bleak days on the north side of a wire fence. You must cease the practice • which makes you send your 10-months-old hogs to market weighing 150 pounds each when your neighbors’ hogs of the same age weigh 400 pounds. You must understand your business better so that you will know what your crops cost, and what the food is worth which your hogs and cattle have consumed. The reason why you are behind your more prosperous neighbors is that you have not yet waked up to your duties or your possibilities. You have not lived to know your business. For a quarter of a century we have been with you in lowa fanning—have watched your operations—seen wherein you failed—know whereof we write—and feel the full force of our words when we say you must wake up to a full realization of your situation, or drag out your life and that of your family in poverty and obscurity. And all we regret is that we cannot arouse you with our words as with a forty-horse-power galvanic battery.— Des Moines Register.

We notice frequently outlandish recommendations, agriculturally and horticulturally, which must result in failure and discouragement. We have now before us one of these for stimulating the growth of trees, by boring holes in the ground and pouring in liquid manure about the roots! How the roots are generally to be got at in this way we cannot see. What better can be desired than applying the same liquid uniformly over the ground and let it soak in ? If the surface is very hard it.should be loosened; or, what we contend is still better, top-dress the surface as far as the branches extend with good manure, and the substance will soon find its way uniformly to the roots with the assistance of the rains. Our own judgment and practice has always been to treat the soil in which the trees, fruit and ornamental, grow, as far as can be done, the same as soil that is cultivated for vegetables or general farm crops, and we have always been'- satisfied with the result. As some evidence of the effect of such application we will mention this instance: Some years ago a hemlock spruce had a rusty appearance and at last fell much behind the others in depth of color. It was about 12 feet in height, and must have been set out in a spot where the soil 'Was not as affluent as that where others were planted. At any rate two wheelbarrow loads of good manure, spread out as far as the extremity of the branches, restored it perfectly the ensuing year, and it was one of our handsomest trees.—Germantown Telegraph. In early life (sixty years ago) we were taught that it was important in order to have a strong and hardy horse that.the colt must be allowed to shift for himself, live out doors through the winter and support himself by gleaning in the stock-fields. And this doctrine is believed, or at least practiced, at the present day, not in solitary cases, but the instances can be found all over the State. There is no doctrinemore Inl-

lacious, and no practice more detrimental to the future usefulness of the horse or more injurious to the interests of the owner of the colt. The first year of a colt is all important to his future usefulness, and no item in his care and treatment is as essential as plenty of good nourishing food. He needs as much, if not more, than a fully matured horse. Just as a boy’s appetite and the demands of his growing system require more food than the man of mature age, so the colt needs more at the period he is building up his flesh and bones than any other period. So give the colts plenty of good food, not in proportion to their size in comparison to the horse,.but feed in -proportion to the appetite and the use thev have in building up their system; Wallace, in his monthly, says colts need more food than an ordinary horse. Give the colt pure water, not too cold; good air, clean quarters, plenty of room, backed by an abundance of strong, nourishing food. Then he will add growth and strength, a solid constitution, and valuable powers. And, during this solid winter, l§t the men and the boys on the farm recollect the difference in the appetite of a boy and a man, and treat the noble little colt, whose appetite is keen as a boy’s who has been, all day fishing, and he will repay it in efficient work when he wears the collar.— lowa State Register.