Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 41, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1890 — DOMESTIC ECONOMY. [ARTICLE]

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

HOUSEHOLD AND AGRICULTURAL TOPICS DISCUSSED. A Budget of Useful Information Relating to the Farm, Orchard, Stable, Parlor and Kitchen. THE FARM. $ Numbered Houses. The new system of numbering country houses, invented by Mr. J. B. Powell, the well-known horse breeder and proprietor of the Shadeland Stock Farm, has much.to recommend it. The plan is to name every road in a county and divide every mile into ten imaginary blocks. Each block has two numbers, one on each side ’of the road. Each house is given the number of its block. There are but few blocks that contain more than one house each, but when such cases occur, the extra houses have letters added to the block number, as 136 A, 1368, and so on. In fact, the principles which have so simplified the matter of finding people in cities are to be applied to the rural districts. Such a plan will greatly help the matter of taking statistics of any sort and will be a great step toward a country postal delivery system such as already exists in England and on the continent. Part of the plan is to have the names of the road ut every corner and the house-number on the fence in front of every farm, When a stranger desires to find a certain farm-house lie is not told to drive three or four miles until he sees a red barn, and then take the second beaten road to the right, follow it until he comes to a rise of ground with a wire fence on the other side of it, turn to the left, go along until he secs a big tree in a pasture and then ask the first man he meets where to go next. All that he has to know is that the house he is after is No. 248 Laurel road. His map tells him where Laurel road is, and as there are two numbers to the block, and ten blocks to the mile, he knows that No. 248 is 12.3 miles from the beginning. The idea has been well received wherever presented before farmers’ organizations and has already been adopted by Contra Costa County, California. The latter county, however, instead of giving the credit of the idea to Mr. Powell, to whom it belongs, ascribes it to a San Francisco newspaper man. It is always the fate of people with ideas to have !hem stolen or counterfeited. Farm Notes. Horses may bo wintered profitably on clover hay and corn meal. Whenever a horse is worked or driven to exhaustion or anywhere near it, the animal is in the yery best possible condition to be attacked with disease. A Delaware County, New York, dairy farmer has a 4-year-old bull which he keeps busy, and so out of mischief, by putting him to work in a horse-power tread mill, and making him do the churning for the establishment. It seems that Yankee farmers get caught sometimes. The following warning tells the story. Several Connecticut farmers have been up against a new game, says the American Cultivator. A man comes around and writes a harmless looking agreement with one end of a double fountain pen and gets his victim to sign with the other end. The ink witli which the agreement is written soon fades away completely. The signature ink holds its color, and comes around by and by at the bottom of a note the sharper has got discounted somewhere. There is an increasing demand for young men to take charge and oversee the farms of wealthy owners. To fit oneself to such a position, which always jtays well, says the Germantown Tele. graph, industry, sobriety and honesty must be first, then a good knowledge of all the points of farming, as such owners are sensible, thinking men, as much scientific knowledge as possible must be at command. Books on farming, gardening, horses, cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, soils, fertilizers, etc., must be thoroughly studied. Such positions are honorable, profitable and highly respectable. Here is a chance for many a man to get out of his “depression'” Let him obtain a position and sell out his unprofitable farm.

THE PIGGERY.

Tlin Brood Sowa, Disease of pigs can frequently be traced back to the brood sow. Food that may not affect the health of the sow very materially may be the means of killing the young suckling pigs, or at least of implanting into their system germs which in the course of time will develop and injure their health and consequent growth. The brood sow is in such poor health that the suckling pigs soon make such a heavy drain on her system that the milk becomes poor, weak and unwholesome. Lacking nourishment the suuMjngß never attain a strong, vigorous growth. Therefore, the sow should be well rotinded up with good, healthy fat before farrowing time, and this can be done only by a varied diet of nourishing food. , Corn is too heating for anything like an exclusive diet for the brood sow, and a great mistake is made in adopting it. Food that will not produce so much heat and fever must be fed to the sow, and this can be done by giving bran, oats, shorts, and similar food. Corn can come in for its share, for it has its good office to perform, and it is greatly liked by the sows. The after treatment of the sows is almost as important as the young. Her health and strength are essential to the good growth of the young until they have attained an age when they can be separated from the mother. For twelve hours after farrowing, the sow should not receive anything to eat, nor even rich swill to drink. It is safe to give her a drink of water, greasy water preferred, with a handful of light shorts in it. There is more danger in overfeeding than under feeding the sow after farrowing. After the first two weeks, the diet must be regulated according to the appearance of the young pigs. If they are lean the diet of the sow should bo increased, but if they are getting fat the feed should be held back from them and the brood sow. The individual pigs should also be watched. Some will be weaker than others, and they will not get their share of food from the sow. They need special looking after, and by careful watching and helping, they can be made to grow as rapidly as the others. They need a little private help and encouragement. When they are once weaned, there will not be, much trouble In keeping them strong and fat, but up to this period this is an important matter about

their life. Diseases of swine will frequently be averted if the brood sow, and the young during their weaning period, are thus carefully attended to- Their after diet also needs careful atuqition. with some iutolligenee, such as varying it with clover, rye and grass, and not confining them exclusively to corn and swill, but the most important crises of their lives are during their early days. Give them a good strong constitution to start with, and they will almost laugh disease to scorn the remainder of their existence. — E. P. Smith, in American Cultivator.

THE DAIRY.

Raising Cream without Ice. We have always hold that every man is better satisfied with the results of an experiment if lie has found out that result himself than he is when some one else finds it out for him. Also that there is an assurance that makes a man positive that a thing is so if lie has found out himself. In proof of this we hero cite the experience of J. C. Stribling, South Carolina, as given In Hoard’s Dufrgman. He says: It has been about a year since I commenced a series of experiments in my dairy to determine how to obtain all the cream from milk, and the cost of t hings in general, for my own information. I used both the Stoddard and Cooley creamers, and the shallow pans. I used ice witli water at 45 degrees to set milk in, and diluted the milk with water, ranging in temperature from 00 to 130 degrees. Measured the cream lines at first and then weighed the butter. I found that the first cream line —say two or three hours after sotting in deep cans —would shrink about quarter of an inch in twelve hours. That is, it would not measure as much at twelve hours after setting as it would at two or three hours in some instances. So 1 quit the measurements of cream and wont to the butter scales for results. These experiments were alternated several times before final conclusions were set upon, which, when summed up in results to my satisfaction, amount to about this: 1. The only advantage in using Ice is that it keeps Che mil keool and thin longer, and affords a longer period for cream to rise in, before the milk becomes too thick for the cream to rise. 2. The skim-mllk, where ice is used, is better for table use, or feeding purposes: .and (or making skim cheese than dilutee! milk. 3. There Is no advantage in warming milk above the heat of the animal, and sotting in water at. a low temperature, except that it hastens the cream to the top in about from two to four hours. 4. Just, as good results are obtained in twelve hours by diluting the milk witli sixty per cent, of water at 60 degrees and setting in water at sixty degrees. 5. The setting in shallow pans in open air at 60 degrees gave a perceptible gain over deep cans in ice water at 50 degrees, but none over diluted milk in deep cans, water 60 degrees. 6. There is no advantage to mo in raising the cream in one or two hours, as the cows are not ready to be milked before ten or twelve hours. My cows uro all registered Jerseys, and are fed on cotton meal in addition to good pasture in summer and hay and green rye and barley part of the winter.

THE APIARY

Hoe Notos. The scieneific management, of bees, and the use of the honey-extractor, make extracted honey soabundant that all may use it. Honey is one of Nature’s purest sweets, valuable both as food and medicine. It has always been estimated a luxury—the food of kings; eaten in small quantities with other food it is very nourishing, and favors the cure of pulmonary diseases and colds. Honey is very diversified in its color, taste, odor, and disposition to become candied, or granulated, depending mainly on the variety of bloom it Is collected from, and the weather In which it is gathered. Cold weather favors speedy granulation; its becoming granulated is one of the best evidences of its purity, yet some of the best California honey requires two seasons to become candied. — Earm, Field and Stockman. A bee-line is frequently spoken of, and its origin no doubt can be traced to the bees themselves; as they are vbry strong, and can fly very fast and fora long time without taking a rest. Their eyes are made to see a great distance, and when away from their habitations they mount up in the air until they see the place where the hives are situated, and then fly toward it in a straight Hue with great velocity; hence the shortest line between two given points is often referred to as a “bee-line.” — American Bee Journal. Dr. Southard, of Kalamazoo, one of the brightest and most expert bee-keep-ers of the day, used to doubt the utility of honeydew. Several years ago, however, when everybody’s bees all over the country gathered so much "Tidney-dew, and were all going to perdition withit in the winter, the doctor thought he would like to know something positive about it; so he saw to it that five or six colonies had nothing but honey-dew. He winters them,out-doors, and usually loses but one or two out of a hundred, and. sure enough, the five colonies having honey-dew exclusively, wintered as nice as a pin. It has been demonstrated that diarrhea among bees (tiie one only cause of winter losses), is not caused by honey-dew nor eider, nor anything of the kind, but by the consumption of nitrogen from bee-bread or floating pollen. Wellripened buckwheat honey is as good stores for winter as any in the world.— Exchange.