Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1889 — HE SHOULD SEVER. [ARTICLE]

HE SHOULD SEVER.

A fariue. s&oulu never ne so no* mersoJ in political matters as to neglect doing his v&yious kinds of work in due season, and s o snug up matters and things for winter; nor should he be so inattentive to politics as to remain ignorant of those great questions of national and State policy which will always agitate more or less a free people. A farmer should not be continually borrowing his neighbor’s newspaper, while he can easily save money enough, by curtailing some little extravagance, to subscribe and pay for one or more of his own. A farmer should never refuse a fair price for anything he wishes to sell. I nave known men to refuse $1.50 for a bushel of wheat, and after keeping it five or six months they were glad to get $1 for it. I have known farmers to refuse to take a fair marketable price for their dairies of butter, and after keeping it three or four months they concluded to sell the butter for only twothirds of the price which they were first offered. “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

A farmer should not allow his wood pile to be reduced down to the “shorts” merely drawing a little by piecemeal, and green at that. He must expect to encounter the sour looks of his wife and family, and perhaps bo compelled (in a series of lectures) to learn that the man who provide green wood to burn in winter has not mastered the first rules of domestic economy. Nor should he employ some “bloteh” mason to build his chimney “upside down” so that his family will be nearly smoked out of the house, and the walls of the room become as yellow as saffron. A farmer should not let his buildings look as old as the hills, and go to decay, while he can easily afford the means to keep them in good repair; nor should he allow tattered clothes and old hats to be stuffed in the windows, in the place of glass. If he dors, he need not be alarmed if he acquires the reputation of a mean man, or one who tarries long where liquor is sold by the glass. A farmer should not be contented with dilapidated-looking fences on liis farm, so as to tempt lvs cattle to become unruly and destroy his crops, while he has plenty of opportunities to make or keep them in repair.

I arm Notes. In answer to inquiries .why hens lay soft-shell eggs, it may be stated that the difficulty is caused by a lack of lime. Pounded oyster shells should be within easy reach of the fowls at all times. In selecting fruit trees look rather to getting good roots than a large top. A small, well-shaped tree, with good roots, will soon outstrip a large one with an insufficient root, and will make a thriftier tree all the way along. Where the bark has been gnawed or scraped off from a tree the new bark may be made to grow again by covering the denuded place with clay. It has been made to grow in this way without leaving a scar even. — Chicago Journal. To every barrel of flour (196 pounds) there is about forty pounds of bran. If is too light to ship except at high rates, and there is an opportunity for some inventor to devise » method for compressing it into bales, as is the case with hay.