Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1891 — OUR RURAL READERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OUR RURAL READERS

WILL BE PLEASED WITH THIS DEPARTMENT. Do Buy Capa Pay?—A Wagon-Tire Land Drag—Short Kotos lor the Farmer— Dropping Wool—Points in Wool Growing— Geeso on the Farm-Cater to the Public—Two Convenient Devices. THE FARM. Do Hay Caps Pay?

IN 1862 I bought and made 100 hay caps yards square, which cost me 50 cents each, making a total of l SSO. They have \ been In use yearly \ sinco then with ft] but littlo repairJ ing. In a recent L overhauling for » repairs I find a £ loss of only six r caps in twenty- » eight years’ serJ vice, and this sert vice has not been confined to the hay field,for I find 3 them very handy

for other purposes. The other ninetyfour wore put in good order by one day’s work. I havo just made twenty-seven more, and it cost per cap 2334 cents each for the cloth, which is good unbleached cotton yards wide without oil or any other preparation, and was bought at 13? cents per running yard. One person made them all in half a day with a sewing machine, averaging ten minutes to each. They wore hemmed on two sides and the corners turned and stitched to hold the strings. The strings arc a single strand bag string cut 23 inches long to run through the corners of the cap and the ends tied together in a square knot. Another knot is made about twoinches from the cap, which gives two lengths of string to fit different sized heaps. Experience proves this to be a good arrangement. The sticks arc of straight grained, hard wood, 3 feet long and half an inch square, and planed smooth with a long tapering point. In putting on the caps two can work to better advantage than one. They should be put on as tight as the cloth will bear without a strain. The sticks should bo pushed into the heaps withtho inner or point end the highest. When I think of the amount of hay my caps havo saved mo, 1 do not ask myself whether they havo paid or not. Last year I bought some unbleached cotton 2 yards wide and mado a sheet wide and long enough to protect a large stack of hay. It more than paid for itself and is good for twenty years to come. It is very handy to throw over a load in an emergency. It is a good failing to have it too largo rather than too small. This sheet was made with eylet holes in the sides and ends in which to tie strings and cords. To these cords weights are attached to hold the sheets in place. —Farm and Home. A Wagon-Tire Land Drag. A very cheap and serviceable drag can be made by wiring firmly together three wagon-tires as shown in the engraving. It is best to have the tires of one size, though the hind one can be smaller if you canr.ot get them alike. The larger they are the more ground

they will cover, of course, and tires from hind wheels are to be preferred to fore wheel tires. Additional weight can be supplied by laying green poles across the tires and tying them firmly with wire The drag is especially useful in smoothing dowu cotton and corn ridges, and is easily made. — Farm and Flrarlde. Short Note* for th« fanner. Even the tramp is willing to work tomorrow. Put polish on your work—it looks better for it. Looks make value. . What legislature can ever permanently help the idler and the spendthrift? Thunder terrifieth not the deaf man. nor doth it keep him awake o’nights. Heat is needed for food digestion; why then pour ice cold water into the digester? Isn’t the man who is behind the times rather apt to backbite or speak ill of them? Tell us how you would make a boy understand that little chickens need something besides corn meal. Give the reason why the maker of a patent medicine should not print an analysis of his stuff on the outside of the package. Now then, how much butter fat have you been giving away? It’s high time you either found out or stopped keeping cows. If people talked only of what they knew, wouldn’t there be so many lapses of silence that deafness wouldn’t be so grievous a misfortune? Retirement fiom active business while one is still hale and hearty should mean plunging into more important work. Retirement from business never means cessation of work to a well balanced mind. Is a smart, industrious, ambitious foreman on a farm justified in discouraging, curtailing or embarrassing the work of other smart and industiicus hands in order, by contrast, to selfishly enhance the value of his own labor in the eyes of their conimon employer? One truth about irrigation in the arid regions is that many private individuals are investing their money in plans for utilizing the river water so that the now barren soil will produce crops. They are not asking the Government to help them, but are doing the worn themselves, and have as much right to do it as Eastern farmers have to make cranberry bogs. An lowa farmer says that the best disposition he can make of the poultry is to turn the whole stock over to the girls! As a result of this? arrangement, he says: “We find it very profitable, for we have all the poultry and eggs that the family can use, and I am not called on for pin money.” Some six or seven years ago—the date is not legible on the stake—a single plantof Magnolia hypoleuoa was sent to the Rural Grounds by the Parsons’ Nursery of Flushing, L. I. It is now blooming for the first, the tree boing some sixteen feet in height. It resemnles the Tripe

tala or Mactophylla in every way except that the leaves often assume a brownish color. The perianth consists of nine yellowish-white eliptical petals five inches long and three greenishwhite sepals. Tho odor is of a resinous kind not agreeable. It blooms in late May with M. macrophylla.— Rural New Yorker. Around the *- arm. A sharp hoe hung in the barn will not kill weeds. If feeding pays at any time it is during the first year of a colt’s existence. Put the plows, planter, and checkrower under shelter as soon as the corn is in. Keep the harrow going in tho corn till it is large enough to stand the cultivator. Transplant tho tomato plants before they are spindling—likewise the cabbage plants. Don’t give a young horse a chanco to run away; for if ho runs away once ho is apt to run again at tho slightest cause. Some good flock masters claim a frequent change of pasture, say every week or ten days is conduetivo to thrift, and should bo regularly attended to. * Accustom a horse to all kinds of noises and accidents by gently but firmly restraining him when frightened, and he will in time become almost incapable of fright. C. L. Ali.kn, before tho Massachusetts Horticultural Society: “The gardner who has charge of a plaeo where flowers are grown only as oxtonul evidences of wealth, is to be pitied.” Give your boy a chanco to do some business for you. Let him understand the particulars and then send him off to conduct the bargain and see what sort of a trade ho can make. When made carry out the terms of his bargains without fault-finding or sneoring—no matter if you could have done better yourself. Get him started on tho road to business —he must walk before ho can run. You can’t mako up in manhood for tho inis takes of early training.