Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1891 — HOME AND THE FARM. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME AND THE FARM.

A DEPARTMENT MADE UP FOR "SUR RURAL FRIENDS. Reoretarr Rusk on the Nctdi of Fannwrs— Invast Your Surplus on the Farm- Largo Profit, from One Cow—About Poultry— Uouieho d Hints and Decorations. Needs or the Farmers. Now, as to the ignorance of American citizens not farmers regarding the needs of agriculture and the conditions of the farmer, says Secretary Rusk in the North American Review, I must in this respect ask my readers to take my statement on trust, as that of a man who has had special opportunities for judging and who is conscientiously convinced of the necessity for absolute sincerity on this subject. I ask the reader to take my word for it that, great as is the ignorance of the average farmer in regard to business matters and city life, it is no greaterthan thatof his city brother in relation to things agricultural, nor indeed is it so great. This being the case vc find ourselves confronted in thepresentgrave economic emergency with a serious condition of affairs. We have a patient sick with a disease our physicians do not understand; as a result the side man and his friends, blinded a little, perhaps, by suffering and sympathy in their efforts to arrive at a true diagnosis, yet endeavor to secure relief from suffering by such means as they can command or devise; and who shall blame them if, in the absence of physicians who know something about the case, they are perhaps misled into the adoption of certain nostrums? The farmers at least know their own condition; and of what use is it to decry the remedies they suggest if ignorance of their true condition and of their needs makes it impossible for you to suggest one? For the last twenty-five years you have been giving the farmer and his needs little or no thought; you have been letting agriculture take care of itself and him. All other classes, all other interests and industries, existing though they do only by reason of the fact that agriculture has called them into existence and supports them, have received your consideration, have been the objects of your special study. Is it surprising then, that, as the re--suit of your selfishness, the farmer should be indisposed to trust any one but himself? Even when you talk to him fairly, he detects at once that, while you talk well and know much about many things, you know little or nothing of him and his surroundings. If, on the one hand, the farmer lacks business training and experience in affairs, you, on the other hand, who have both, lack to an even greater extent, and in a most pitiful degree, knowledge of agriculture, acquaintance with its followers, and famailiarity with their needs and conditions.

luvest Your Surplus on ths Farm. When a thoroughbred or a highgrade cow will make SIOO worth of butter in a year, and a scrub cow only makes S4O worth, while it costs buu little more to feed one than the other, money invested in improved breeds of cows, or in a pure male from which to raise up a herd of grades, will pay better returns to the dairyman than can be obtained from bank stock or railroad shares or Western Farm mortgages. When a small extra investment in better seeds and more liberal manuring will increase the crop without increasing the labor of cultivation, or when extra cultivation will make an increase in the money return four times as great as the expenditure; when better tools will save their cost in one season’s labor, while with care they will do good work for five or ten years, then is the time when the farmer can make money by spending money. When the expenditure of $25 or $35 per acre for tile drains will enable a Held that now yields less than $lO worth poor grass a season to produce $35 worth of the best, and fit it for the growth of any crop that will yield profitable returns, it is economy to spend money, and so it is when a similar sum or a smaller one will so renovate an old pasture which now only feeds about one cow upon six acres, so that it will give more feed and better for six times that number.—American Cultivator Handy in Hatcherlng Dogs* Chester J. Broen, of Grinnell. lowa, illustrates in The Stockman a simple and very easily made device

for scalding and lifting hogs. With the lever as shown one man can handle a large porker with comparative ease.