Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1885 — AGRICULTURAL. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL.

To remove warts on horses, take a piece of concentrated lye as large as a walnut, put it into a bottle with rain water enough to dissolve it and apply with a feather. An Illinois correspondent states that experience has taught him that cattle will thrive better on good, bright flax straw than on oat or wheat straw, and he never knew cattle to be injured from eating it In selecting potato seed two things should be kept in mind; first, plant only such seed as may be expected to produce smooth, fair-sized potatoes; second, plant -only when the seed is in full vigor.— JL W. Cheever. Basswood trees are urged for planting by the roadside, as they serve the double purpose of attractive shade and abundant forage for bees. They also make excellent timber whenever it becomes desirable to fell them. One of the best disinfectants, says the Poultry Bulletin, is Gandy’s fluid, which is made by putting one ounce of potass, permanganate in a pint of cold water. For use, one ounce of this fluid should be added to half a pint of water. The cause of club-root in -cabbage is claimed by a German experimenter, Woronin, to be a parasitic vegetable, which lives and feeds on the healthy tissue of different cruciferous plants. All weeds <df that order (producing pods, like turnips, mustard, radish, etc.) should be eradicated while land is being rested preparatory to a renewal of cabbage-growing. 'The Indiana Farmer says the Ben Davis apple is «o poorly flavored that even the coddling moth generally passes St by for some better variety, and the consequence is that but few of these apples are wormy, and, being of high color and handsome shape, they ;are a very popular apple at the city fruit stands, where they outsell other Ikinda about two td one on the average. Trefoil is said to be extensively used in England for alternate husbandly, but it is reported not suitable for permanent pasture mixtures, except in very small quantities. A writer states that this plant is well deserving of .cultivation on light, dry and high, elevated inferior soils, and on such will yield a greater bulk of herbage than any of the cultivated clovers. It is highly nutritious, and eaten withiavidity by cattle. From the great depths to which its roots penetrate, it is not liable to be injured by.drought, and is thereby enabled to retain its verdure after the grasses and other plants are burnt up, a fact worthy of notice by Western farmers. Farmers who burn green wood are probably not aware of the waste of heat. The sap .uses up—that is, .carries off in a latent state—a very large portion of the heat produced by its carbon, or its dry material. As much man and team power is require'd to haul three or four cords of green wood as for six or eight cords of dry wood. The lesson is: cut the fuel and split it as finely as it is to be used, in the grove; haul it home when well dried, and keep it in a dry place for use. It will be worth far more for heating purposes than ifburned green, or wet, or damp even. The only exception to this advice is, when by reason of easier hauling on snow, and on account of the leisure of men and teams in winter, it may be expedient to haul home the green wood then; but in all cases let it be well dried before it is used. To stop a colt from pulling back on ’his halter in the stall, take a sufficiently ■long piece of half-inch rope. "Fut the .center of it under the tail like a crupper, cross the rope on the back, and tie the two ends together in front of the breast, snugly, so there is no s ack, otherwise it would drop down on the tail. Put an ordinary halter on (a good one), and run the halter strap, or rope, through a ring in the manger or front of the stall, and tie it fast in the rope on the front of the breast; then slap his face and let him fly back. He will not choke or need telling to stop pulling back. Let him wear this awhile, and twice or thrice daily scare him back as suddenly and forcibly as possible. After one or two trials,he cannot be induced to pull back.— Chicago Evening Journal.

An apple in perfect preservation, although ‘Jtj years old, is in possession of a gentleman, in Ulster county, N. Y. As it round -I up from the blossoms of the parent stem in the early summer of , 1787, a bottle was drawn over it and I attached to the branch, and after the apple had ripened the stem was severed and the bottle sealed tightly. It looks as fresh as when first plucked. , Black raspberries may be planted either in autumn or early spring, using only tips of the fall’s growth, planting no deeper than they grow; and, if set in autumn, cover well till spring. These should be planted about three feet apart, where plants are not too expensive, etter P ut two Plants in the same hill, or very near, so as to secure a stand. The same is true of red raspberry and blackberry plants. Evebt flock-ewner should improve his flock year by year by the use of good bucks, and keeping the best ewe lambs, and disposing of the oldest sheep in the flock. It is very poor economy, indeed, to sell off the lambs every year and keep the old sheep until i they are 10 or 12 years old, because the flock by this method will not yield as much profit as by a judicious system of weedmg out annually, —Chicago Jour’ nal. I

The water which can be gathered from the roofs of barns and sheds needed to shelter stock will, if carefully •sved, be sufficient for the stock through | the year. To accomplish this the cistern should be a large one, to hold the surplus of a wet season till a time of scarci y. With a basement barn the cistern should be in the corner, where ! the bank of earth against the wall is deepest, to prevent freezing. Then, with a faucet in the lower part of the cistern, a continuous small stream can be kept running, adapting the flow to the number of animals, so that the tub shall never be empty, and never, or very seldom, run over. This plan is a great convenience in winter, and more tljan repays the expense by saving manure, besides the greater thrift of the stock. — Chicago Journal. Early Potatoes. —Beside commanding a high price, there are other considerations that come in to make the early crop of potatoes valuable. The Early Rose continues to be as good as the best, not only for the early but the late crop, and always fetches a remunerating price in the market. But there is this additional advantage in the early crO p—it can be harvested and removed and the ground put in good order for fall crops. The best turnips we have ever known camo out of a piece of ground cle. red of early potatoes. Indeed, we do not know of a more Erofltable arrangement of crops than to ave turnips follow potatoes. The ground usually has to be pretty good' for potatoes, but it is not essential that the manure be very much decayed. Some, indeed, contend that long, strawy manure is all the better for a potato crop. The turnips, on the other hand, must have the manure very well decayed, in order to give out its best results. Hence, after the potato has done with its fertilizer, there is enough left for the turnip to thrive upon. Wheat and rje also thrive very well on land which has been previously wellmanured for potatoes. In all these cases the early potato has a great advantage over the late one. They allow of a much-earlier preparation of the ground tor the subsequent crop. There is still another advantage in an early potato. Tn this part of the country at least the plant is subject to the attacks of the Btem-borer. They usually commence their ravages about the end of June. They bore out the whole center pith of the stems, and before the end of July the plants are all dead, being dried up before the potato is matured. In such cases there are not often fifty bushels of potatoes to the acre, and of these half of them are too small to be salable. By getting the potato early in the ground and using varieties which mature early, the tubers are of pretty good size before the insects get to work, and thus there is a great gain. It seems to us wa can almost do without any more late kinds. We say nothing here of the depredations of the beetle, as it has been so completely met and overthrown as hardly any longer ; to be considered as a serious injury to the crop, early or late. > vtlogTapK