Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1885 — AGRICULTURAL. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL.

An Eastern fanner recently announced his conversion to ensilage, and announced his intention of immediately building a “cyclone.” —Chicago Journal.

The chemist of the Agricultural Department at Washington says that the soil liest adapted for the growth of sorghum for sugar appears to be a sandy loam. An authority says there are $1,900,00' i,OOO invested in the 0,000,000 miles of fences in the United States, and that they liave to be renewed on an average once in fifteen years. Thomas 11. McConnell, of Scott county, lowa, soaks his wheat in vitriol water for twenty-four hours before sowing as a cure for smut. He u-es one pound of vitriol to twenty bushels of wlieat. Very careful experiments made in New York last season, show that the flat culture of potatoes produces the finest tuber and the largest yields. The best results followed the Dutch method of planting, which consists in keeping the surface level, planting a single eye in a place, covering it six inches de.-p and allowing but a single stalk to grow in a hill, which are a foot apart each way,

A correspondent of the Farmers’ -Review lias practiced during several winters the plan of keeping apples in «dry sand, poured into the filled barrels after storing in the cellar, and finds it a “decided improvement” on any other •ever tried, the fruit remaining till late spring “as crisp and apparently as fresh as when first gathered. ” He does likewise with potatoes, and uses the same sand year after year. , The practice of some of the best farmers new is to keep pigs through the summer onrgreeu food, cut and carried to the pens, with a little grain,and what milk can he spared after butter making. Spring pigs are thus made to weigh 200 pounds at 7 mouths old, and, except in the last, mouth, they get little graiu. The Ix-st time to sell such pigs is at the beginning of cold weather, usually in October. The Indiana Farmer says one of its subscribers kept a record of the time employed iu cultivating fourteen acres of corn last season in the old-fashioned way, and finds he gave about two days to the acre. The yield was 800 bushels, over fifty-seven bushels to the aere. He estimated the value of his crop .at $320, and the lalior expended on It at $l2O, and, deducting expenses, She claims a profit<of sl4 per acre.

President Ohmeb, of the Dayton Horticultural Society, says he knew a man who made,a great success with an acre or two of strawberries, gathering from twenty to thirty bushels a day, .and he was so <elated with his sueeess .that, on enlarging his fields, he «aid “he would gather 100 bushels a day or i bust.” He “busted.” His single atcie I was well attended to; his five acres were necessarily more or less neglected. ’ 'This scrap of history has been many' (times repeated- —Chicago Journal. A farmer vouches for the following ais a prevention of chicken cholera: ““Take a tight barrel, saw it in two in ihe middle, then .wash it out good with hot water, so that there is not a particle <s£. bad flavor in it. Then take two quarts of fr,esli lime and slack it, filling the tub or half barrel full of fresh water; when slacking, add one pound of alum to it .and stir it good; let it stand until the sediment lias settled and the liquor is clear, and it is ready for use. When using it, take one pint of iihe clear liquor and add it to one paal of fresh water, .aiul give your fowis to drink during summer months.”

An exchange, speaking of the Central Ohio farmers, says-. I Ley aqandoiie.i our .chi-fogy, antiquated, wav of allowing ievery farmer to work out and fool away his own tax according to lii.s own uo’tknv There :« it money tax, and the money is used by tin* io.wesi responsible biudei wlio agrees to jc« ep tbe roads iu lepnir. At one tiiue tiere were a good many troll roads, hut the -people are gradu&lSy buying them m 4, so that nil roads* shall be free.. They go much further. They often tax tli jkmd a mile or more back from a eei-hln road up to as high a* #8 an acre, and make a good pike. This tax is in most .gases very willingly paid. Several men assured me that it raised the -price of land from 1 i->,,!> per cent., .i.ney *- •u..? : be !.,, .h .v vd t.» ii.niic i U rfc . • i.jg a foot or so «f gravel o:i a weii-gj.-aded foundation. It is certainly .a great treat to live whqre the, roails are good the year round; and a farmer is thereby brought much nearer his neighbors, nearer market and the rest of the world.”