Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1891 — REAL RURAL READING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

REAL RURAL READING

WILL BE FOUND IN THIS PARTMENTfarmers Should Make Money—Value of Ensilage as Fodder—A Hint to House Builders—How Cows and Calves Should be Fed—The Poultry Yard, Household, Etc. Reducing Farm Expenses.

1 .FARMERS have | always been more noted for their ~ carefulness about small expenses than for prodigI Their /•AT business is one so r full of detail that ;! if the 1 i 111 e a things are not —ip' looked after, even /'•' the largest crops dp and best prices V . will notsavefrom loss. It is the lack of the close attention to de-

tails that farming requires that has caused the failure of schemes of bonanza farming. What is done by hired help, not under personal supervision of the employer’s eye, is apt to do only eye service. It is as true practically as when first uttered, that the hireling flecth because he is a ijjrgling. The workman in any ocwho alwHvs makes fiis employer’s interest his own is invaluable. Yet if he woukVbv.t reg'”’' l rightly that interest Is identical with his, The keen competition for intelligent, reliable help insures it what it can earn, for if one employer will not pay for faithful service, another will. It is therefore not likely that farm wages will soon, if ever, materially decline. The demand for young men, in city employments has for many years taken the most active and enterprising—more than it will, we believe, in the near future. Business life in cities is precarious. Few merchants can go through life without a failure at its middle or at the close. The fact is becoming recognized that equal executive ability on the farm will, on the average, produce as much wealth and more comfort than it can in average business and commercial city Except in the item of farjp help, and possibly also in that, the cost of getting farm work done bus declined, the aggregate expense is greater, but it is or may be offset by still larger results. One man with improved machinery can do so much more work that not- only does he earn better pay, but something is or ought to be left over for the farmer if he tloes his part. There is also great reduction in the prices of most improved agricultural machinery. As various patents run out the cost from the manufacturers will be greatly lessened. This is to a greater extent than is thought true now in machinery where there is rightful competition of firms manufacturing under different patents. Any one now can buy reapers, mowers, drills and cultivators 20 to 30 percent, cheaper than was charged for them a decade ago. The greatest reduction of farm expenses, however, must be relative by increasing amount and value of its products. Rich and well-drained land produces so much more than that in poor condition as to give the farmer who owns the best farm a great advantage. He and his hired help may work no harder, and possibly not so many hours, but they accomplish more, and thereby produce at less cost. This is the only practical way to make farming pay. The man who does not improve his farm, and waits for a high price to help out his poor farming, will learn when the good prices come that he has so little to sell that it does not profit him much. On the other hand, if he conducts his business so as to produce large crops these can usually be sold at some profit in any condition of the market. —American Cultivator.

How to Fumn Brush Scythe to Snath. Here is the most substantial way of fastening a sythe to the snath I have ever seen or tried, says a

Practical Farmer correspondent. The patent devices always give way when cutting brush or striking stumpsand rails in the fence corners.

I took a piece of an old square, cut it about five inches long, drilled four holes, fastened it to the snath with three strong screws, and to the scythe with the old-fashioned heel ring. Drive the stump of an old nail behind the shank of scythe, and the trouble is ended. I can cut off bushes as large as the snath and the scythe is always there. . You can get the scythe adjusted or hung to suit yourself before putting in the screws to fasten the plate. The Value or Ensilage. The Maryland agricultural experiment station reports the best method of preserving forage and the comparative value of the same plant, harvested and stored in different wavs, form part of the general problem of forage and feeding. The system of silosand ensilage, is no longer an experiment. Practical farmersand dairymen in all parts of the country have demonstrated the direct profit and the incidental advantages of preserving a portion of their forage crops in the form of ensilage, so as to give their animals, of all kinds, a fair proportion of succulent food, throughout the year. Ensilage is found as profitable for supplementing pasturage in times of drought, as for giving stock “a green bite” in the winter. Indian corn is the favorite crop of ensilage, the most productive, the easiest to raise, and, all considered, the best. But Clovers, the cow-pea and the soja bean, make a more nutritious article of ensilage, and may be advantageously mixed with corn, in the silo. Other plants and waste products, some unpalatable in other forms, make fairly good ensilage. Ensilage is no better food for stock than good roots, but in nine case out of ten, ensilage can be produced and handled easier and cheaper than roots, and is just as good for stockfood. A good many pointe regarding silos and ensilage remain unknown or

uncertain. Consequently ensilage of different plants is yearly made at the Station, managed in different ways,' fed to different classes of stock, in various combinations, and the observations made are duly recorded.

LIVE STOCK. Age Testa. A heifer has net rings on her horns until the is 2 years of age, and one is added each year thereafter. You can tell the age of a cow with tolerable accuracy by counting the rings on her horns and adding two to the number. The bull has no rings, as a rule, until he is 5 years old, so to tell his age after that period, add five to the number of rings. The better way to tell the age is by the teeth, which is of course the only way with polled cattle. What are called the milk teeth gradually disappear in front. At the end of three years the second pair of permanent teeth are well grown, at four years the third pair, and at five the fourth.andlast pair have appealed, and at this time the central pairT~o qt f!;ll £i.ze. At seven years a dark line, caused bythe wearing of the teeth, appears on all of them, and on the central pair a circular mark. ’At eight years this circular mark appears on all of them,and at nine years the central pair begins to shrink, and the third at eleven. After this period the age can only be determined by the degree of shrinkage generally; At fifteen the teeth are nearly all gone.

Horse Breeding. The special demand for certain classes of horses is oroughtto be well known by everybody, but judging from the fact that so many scrubs are yet bred is evidence enough, says the Rural and Stockman, that this demand is either not known or not appreciated. There is a demand for good horses of all breeds. The market is not overstocked in any direction whatever. The heavy draft horses are always in demand; the Hambletonian sells readily enough; the Morgan is always in demand; the Coacher is not imported or bred largely enough to satisfy the demand for that class of horses. What. then shall we breed? From what we have said the proper answer would seem to be: “Breed anything but the scrubs.” There are horses at work in Chicago that cost only from ten to forty dollars; and they do the work at which they are put. Some of them are not very old horses either. But they are scrubs to begin with and perhaps having been bred from defective sires or dams have been good for nothing' from the beginning. They are not the kind of horses that the public in general want. Looking over our weekly horse sales it is not difficult to see what kind of horses we ought to breed if we want to make anything from horse breeding. Horses are like all other kinds of stock in the matter of profit, they must be the best to be profitable.