Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1891 — HOME AND THE FARM. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME AND THE FARM.

A DEPARTMENT MADE UP FOR OUR RURAL FRIENDS. Bow to Sow Clover Seed—Drop Cultivation Adds to the Fertility of Laud—Working Three Horses Abreast— Nolrs About Live Stock Dairy. Household and Kitchen. _ .aderdral uage.

/"|'\he question of 1 underdrainage is one that the farmers of the fcjX We-t are beginning to study |ra with considerJ VT able interest. A /. great are irj prevented from V A taking hold of ■ it by reason of // its great cost. A Ly ' remark made by a Racine County farmerin a farm fj&r institute at at Union Grove,

Wis., is pertinent to this point. He said he had fifteen miles of tile drain on his farm and every rod of it had been paid for by the extra production of the farm in consequence of underdrainage. Every farmer who has land calling for drainage should make a trial. Let him commence with a small outlay at first, near the outlet of the ground. Watch the effect, and If favorably impressed try a little more next year. A great many never make any trial whatever. They may have lots of sour, unproductive land, but it stays so year after year. This is not good business farming. Money is never lost that is prudently invested in making the farm more productive. For Three Horses. It is very easy to use three horses abreast in farm work with the proper evener. The one shown is easily made and very simple. The twohorse evener is used as usual so that, besides the third whiffletree, only one

extra piece is required, the back evener to which the load is attached. This is made long enough to give the usual interval of about six inches between the middle and third whiffletree. The hole to which the chjyis for the load is attached should be one-third of the distance from the hole for the twohorse evener and that for the extra whiffletree. This gives the third horse but one-third of the load. To

bring the third whiffletree up even with the other two a couple of chain links may be inserted. The reins for three horses are very simple and we show a pattern, says the Farm and Home, which has had practical use. It is seen that the two reins go straight over the middle horse. The side reins are adjusted so that one pull adjusts the other two. Another method sometimes used is to use double reins and have a third one attached to the extra horse, a short tie rein bringing him into the other two when necessary. Deep Plowing. It has been demonstrated by repeated experiments, that deep cultivation of land and thorough.y pulverizing it adds greatly to its fertility. Of course this result is not attributable to the merely mechanical operation of deep ploughing, but to its opening of the soil to a free circulation of the atmosphere and increasing Its capacity to absorb those elements of fertility which the air contains and which are precipitated to the earth by every shower that falls. The ceaseless decay of vegetable matter furnishes a constant supply of carbolic acid gas, and the decomposition of animal matter supplies the ammonia, so essential to vegetable growth. Both are, to a great extent, lost to the farmer, unless his soil is so deeply pulverized as to enable the rain to carry them far enough below the surface to prevent their ready escape and fix them in the soil. Sowing Clover Seed, A farmer who always has success in growing clover, tells us that he has no trouble in getting it to catch and start growth. This has frequently been the trouble with those sowing. He says his land has considerable sand, which in dry seasons is the worst to catch upon. His method is to soak the seed a day or two, and then a bushel of land plaster is mixed with each bushel of seed. The seed plaster is mixed thoroughly and then sown on fine friable land, and lightly harrowed. In this way he gets a good catch, and the clover grows rapidly. He thinks that plaster thus used is of great value to the clover crop, and may always be relied on to bring it on rapidly.