Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1893 — AGRICULTURAL TOPICS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AGRICULTURAL TOPICS.

k FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR OUR rural readers. With Proper Manaifemeiit Hens Will Lay Nearly all Winter—A Plea lor Central Schools—Device lor Teaching a Calf to Drink—Storing Ice. Winter Management of Poultry. If young and vigorous hens are provided with a nice, dry, comfortable house in winter, and not crowded too much, tney will lay almost as well as in summer, writes Fred Grundy In the American Agriculturist. This fact I have demonstrated time and

again. Futhermore, I have learned that if pullets are induced to lay steadily during their first winter, they will sit early, moult early, and, with a little encouragement, lay steadily every winter for at least three years. I have kq'pt pure Plymouth Hocks, pure Light Brahmas, and u cross between Plymouth. Rocks and Leghorns, and each lot averaged the same number of eggs for the winter, beginning with November and ending with February. I fed them twice a day regularly. In the morning they had cracked corn, wheat bran, and oats, in equal quantities, mixed and dampened with boiling hot water. In this mixture were thrown the potato and apple parings and scraps from the table, all chopped with a common chopping knife. Twice a week a pint of animal meal for each twenty hens was added. In the evening they were fed corn on the ear. I feed it on the ear to make them work for their supper. When it is shelled for them, they gobble down all their crops will hold, or all that is supplied them, almost without taking breath. To get a meal oil the ear they are obliged to scratch and dig for about an hour, and it not only gives them beneficial exercise, but also prevents wholesale gulping. A hen not used to shelling corn does not feast very sumptuously at first, but she soon learns the trick, and*gets the grains off the cob quite rapidly. I have learned that when housed or varded hens get plenty of exercise they lay well. When they have nothing to do but stand and mope, they lay irregularly and are constantly getting Into such mischief as feather pulling and egg eating. My hens have the run of the place In winter, but when a snowstorm occurs they never come out of tne house until the snow is thawed. At such times I get a quantity of tough, gristly scraps from the butcher, a nd d rop one or

CHICKS. two in the house as 1 pass occasionally during the day. The hens get as much exercise, chasing and rushing about with these, as lots of boys can get out of a game of foot-ball. When I first began feeding soft foods in the mornings I used troughs, but the hens would persist in jumping into them and soiling the food. I put covers on them, raised so the hens could get their heads under, but they would grab a few mouthfuls, jerk their heads out and spill a third of it on the floor. After experimenting some time I devised the trough shown in the sketch, and it to be just the thing. The box is twelve inches high in front, nine inches at the back, seven inche§ wide, and as long as desired. The top is hinged so that it can be raised. In the front, wires are fastened two and one-half inches apart, as shown In the sketch. The trough for the feed is four inches wide and is placed along the farther side of the box. In front Is a platform eight inches wide. The hens get their heads between, the wires, and stand there eating. All that drops from their bills falls on the clean floor of the box and is picked up afterward, There is less food wasted about this trough than any I have ever seen, while both box and trough are easily kept perfectly clean. For making a poultry house warm and comfortable l know of nothing equal to newspapers, two or three thicknesses, pasted all over the inside walls. Add a little glue and a few drops of carbolic acid to the paste, and lay the papers smoothly. Batten the cracks outside to keep out rain and snow, and the house will be as comfortable as a dwelling. A house with no drafts in it is the best preventive of roup and kindred diseases.

- Prl<le In Farm Work. One of the surest signs of decay In good farming is the growing lack pf pride in whatever pertains to' the' farm. There are very few now who boast either of large day’s works or of the skill and neatness of the completed job. The kinds of work that involve extra labor often now do not get done at all. When all mowing was done with the scythe the corners of fences were cut out as a matter of course. Now that th£ horse labor does the bulk of the work, fence corners are left to grow up to weeds and bushes, which are the first symptoms of neglect Wastes In Hutchertng. These little wastes at the farm butcherings become items of imporance in the hands of large packers. In establishments for killing and preparing meats, that which is usually allowed to lie where it falls at a larm killing is all saved in the most careful manner. In dressing a hog the blood, hair, bristles, and hoofs, together with contents of stomach and entrails —everything, except the squeal, is utilized to the fullest extent. Who is there among us farmers that can testify to a$ close economy as the millionaire practices? Central Schools In Country Towns. Which would be the harder, to get into a nice covered vehicle with plenty

I • P • V of robes and blankets to wrap around them and ride that distance to school, or walk half a mile to school with such roads as there generally are in the winter in country districts. I have yet to see the children who would willingly go back to the old plan of going to the out-disirlct school. Instead of taking away the schools, this system gives the scholars all the advantage of the center school longer terms and better teachers. For more than sixty years, I have heard how much better the center schools were than those of the out-districts. When i was 13 years old my father sent me from home to work for my board and attend the center school; he hired a man to work at home. I believe I learned more in those two terms than all I ever learned before or after at the school in the out-district —A. D. Hubbard, in Farm and Home. To Teach a Calf to Drink. A correspondent has adopted an ingenious and effective method to teach a calf to drink. Ho has a frame made something liko that to shoe oxen in, but adapted to the size of a young calf. In front is a raised box just large enough to place in it a milk bucket The calf is ushered into this narrow “stall,” his head pressed down so his nose will nearly roach the milk, and the head is secured there by a sliding pin which works in the frame just over the calf's neck The opening for the animal’s nock, both vertical and horizontal, is so

narrow that It can not move its head much, only in a downward direction, and that forces its noso into the milk. The stall is so narrow that the calf can move only a little from side to side, and the closed gate behind it prevents any backward movement. Tho animal is literally “in the stock,” and any considerable effort to move only causes it to poke its noso into the milk. It soon gets a taste of it, and then sins away until all is gone. Thus far every calf has learned to drink the first time placed in this novel “box.” Well Repairing. A bit of experience in repairing a well may *be suggestive to some reader: Through some cause a well curbed with boards began to fill up with silt. The well being about eighty feet deep, and having plenty of water, tho pipe was shortened onco or twice, in hopes that the trouble would cease when the source of tho silt was reached. As this did not settle the difficulty a new plan had to be adopted. The well was cleaned out. and after filling it a foot deep with coarse gravel, a six-inch iron pipe was let down. The space between the wooden curve and iron pipe was filled with gravel to the depth of thirty or more feet. The water now leachos through this gravel —which, by the way. is of varying coarsenesc—and no trouble has since appeared.

Storing Ice, The great secret of successful ice keeping is to put it In the ice-house in good condition, and In excluding all air from It by compacting sawdust so closely that no air can penetrate it. Even snow covored with sawdust where the winter’s wood has been cut in huge quantities is of ton found unmelted long after all the snow and lee of the fields has gone. Tho Ice blocks should be regular in shape, and as closely compacted with sawdust in their interstices as It can be worked. Notes About Boos. Unprofitable colonics should be done away with. * The best time to transfer bees Is before the frames become too heavy with honey. Wiien combs of honey are to be given to bees, cracking of the comb does co harm, for the bees will fix it up during the next season. The raspberry is one of the best honey producing plants, and the only one on which bees are known to work in dull weather or Immediately after a rain storm or heavy showers. The blossoms are drooping and the rain cannot wash out the honey as it does from flowers that are upright Its period of bloom Is brief, lasting only a few days, but yielding an excellent quality of pure, white honey, which is quite valuable

Hints) to Housekeeper*. A teaspoonful of borax added to cold starch will make clothes very stiff. In packing gowns they will bo found to crease very little if paper is placed between the folds. Put fresh fish in salted water for half an hour before cooking it It hardens the llsh and improves the flavor,. . . Coffee grounds can be used to fill pin cushion*. They should be put In a bag and hung up back of the stove until they are perfectly dry. When threading a needle, always put through the eye of the needle first the end which came off the spool first. You will wonder why the thread doesn’t knot To clean carpets, go over them once a week with a broom dipped in hot water, to which a little turpentine has been added. Wring a cloth in the hot water and wipe under pieces of furniture too heavy to be moved. Hot alum water is the best insect destrover known. Put alum into hot water and boil until dissolved, then apply the water with a brusn to all cracks, closets, bedsteads, and other places where insects may be found. Ants, cockroaches, fleas, and other creeping things are killed. There is nothing that proves such an economizer of strength ana time in the cleaning of windows as the us< of alcohol instead of water. Il cleanses with magic Vapidity, and it not an extravagant substitute, as I prudent person is able to wash agreal many windows with a small bottle o: alcohol.

IMPROVED FEEDING TROUGH FOR POULTRY.

HOUSE AND COVERED RUN FOR EARLY

“IN THE STOCKS.”