Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 April 1892 — AGRICULTURAL TOPICS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AGRICULTURAL TOPICS.

A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR OUR RURAL READERS. How Corn Should Be Planted—Selecting Seeds —Combined Koller and Marker— Flea lor the General Horse— Machine for Greasing Poultry. i About Corn.

THE number of stalks in the hill unusually regulates the size of the ear. Ordinarily there are \ 3,240 hills in an \ acre of checked jjjfcl corn. Allowing I I for about 7 per K / cent, of loss, iw 3,000 hills, with two stalks each (counting 100 ears to a bushel) produced sixty .jT bushels to the acre. This is the best way to plant

if one expects to she.l the corn for for feeding or for market, providing one is sure of good seed and that the ground Is not so foul as to require harrowing during ’he first two weeks after the young corn is out of the ground to keep down the'weeds. If the corn is to be cut'and shocked into fodder and fed to cattle without husking, three stalks in the hill are more satisfactory. Three thousand hills would produce sixty bushels of 150 ears each to the acre. The stalks would be finer, too, and would furnish a greater quantity and better quality of fodder for feeding purposes. There are cases where the unsoundness of seed and foulness of'the ground, with insufficient time to harrow it thoroughly before planting, necessitates persistent harrowing to suppress the weeds while the young stalks are shooting from the ground, and this makes it advisable to plant three grains to the hill for growing corn for shelling, and four grains for production of fodder corn. —Orange Judd Farmer.

A Preventive ot Cut Worm*. At the planting season we were badly troubled with the cutworm on our tomato fields. Of the plants put out in the day we lost 25 per cent in the night. We tried hand-picking every morning, but with unsatisfactory results. To wage successful war we Look tobacco stems, cut in halfinch lengths. After the soil had been cleared away from the stem of the plants to a depth of half an inch, a small quantity bf tobacco was taken between the fingers and thumb and placed ’round the stem of the plants and the soil replaced over the tobacco to the depth of from one-fourth to one-half an inch. The juices of the tobacco, saturating the soil, made it very obnoxious to the cutworm, and thus protected the plants from its ravages. Out of "00 plants so treated only one was destroy’d by the worm after the tobacco was applied. But whenever the leaf of the plants touched the ground at a distance from the tobacco it was attacked by the cutworm and cutoff. The amount of tobacco placed around each plant was about one-half ounce. The total cost of the experiment on the 768 plants was 50 cents for tobacco and $4 for labor. Altogether the experiment was entirely satisfactory, it will lie understood that the treatment was not pursued with a view of destroying the worm, but simply to protect the plants. This method is highly recommended.—Bulletin 15, Oregon Experiment Station.