Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1887 — AGRICULTURAL. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL.

Onk school district in Maine, containing eighteen farms, received ovex SIO,OOO for apples last year. Investigation shows that of the fibei in hay and straw, from 40 to 60 per cent, is generally digested by ruminant ani- , mals. Corn is thought to grow better if th« rows run north and south, so that the sun will shine equally on each side oi the stalk. There are more than 200 breeders of Short-horn cattle in Michigan, owning at least 4,000 cattle that are worth $1,000,000. Mr. H. C. Pearson, of Pitcairn, N. Y., grows eight bushels of seed from three-fourths of a pound of seed, having only twenty-nine eyes. The only paying sugar-beet manufactory in the country now is in California. It has done a paying business for three years, and shows no signs of giving out. In Ireland the sod cut on boggy , ground is piled up in heaps until dry, i then burned into a species of charcoal. . This is then pulverized and mixed with ! well-rotted stable or hen-house manure or night soil in equal proportions. Placed in drills where turnips or carrots are to be planted, it is said to make them attain a monstrous size. The experiment is worthy of a trial by farmer; who can get the bog mold without f ? much labor or expense. Db. Johnson, of Indiana, says: “In dairy products we in the West, with our method of using five acres of highpriced land to keep one dairy animal a year, can not compete with the intensified farming of the East, where they keep one animal a year on one acre of land, and that, too, of a natural fertility much inferior to ours, and, fcaore than that, where by means ol •ilos and ensilage now they are keeping two animals to a single acre.” Prof. Arnold says the points in favor of dairying are: First, a dairy farm costs 10 per cent, less' to operate than grain-growing or mixed agriculture. second, the annual returns average a little more than other branches. Third, prices are nearer uniform and more reliable. Fourth, dairying exhausts the soil less. Fifth, it is more secure against changes in the season, since the dairyman does not suffer so much from wet, frost and varying seasons, and he can, if prudent, protect against drought. The hog, like the horse, has no extra stomach to store away food, therefore if fed but twice a day and what he will eat, he overloads his stomach, and it the food is not pushed beyond the point where it will digest, the stomach is filled so full that a considerable portion of the food fails to oome in contact with the lining of the stomach, and thus a very large proportion of the nutriment in the food is lost. Experiments prove that a hog thus fed wastes more than one-half of the meal given him. We have no doubt the same is true of the horse, when fed large quantities of hay and grain, aud fed but twice a day.— Massachusetts Plowman. We do not say this hastily, but with the conviction derived from feeding late-cut timothy and bright oat straw. With four feed racks in your yard—two well kept with timothy, one with prairie hay and one with bright oat straw—the latter was consumed first, and the others neglected until the last vestige of the oat straw had disappeared. It was the instinctive act of the urchin ifpeated. He took his cake, pudding and pie first, and reluctantly finished oil his dinner on the drier and less-palata-ble bread and butter. Our late-cul hay was merely a “fill-up,” to give their digestive apparatus the necessary distention so necessary to ruminants, and that is about all late-cut hay is good for anyway.— Chiottgo Herald.