Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1894 — DOMESTIC ECONOMY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

TOPICS OF INTEREST TO FARMER AND HOUSEWIFE. A Notable Illustration of What May Bo Accompitahed from a Small Acreage— The Outlook la Bee Culture-Keeping Uraaa Out of Corn—Farm Notes. A Profitable Three-Aire Farm. A notable Illustration of what may be accomplished at a comparatively small cost from a small acreage is presented In the very successful experiment performed by Mr. .7. R Porst of Greentown, Ohio, the owner and mauager of what i 9 claimed to be the largest celery farm under a single control in the United States. His home, however, is on what he is pleased to call his “ThreeAcre Farm.” From these three acres, he modestly says, he believes he secures quite as good returns as do some farmers from ten times the acreage, and that, to ■. wl h an expenditure of labor which amounts to little more than that required by ordinary morning and evening chores. One of the three acres is occupied by the home, the outbuildings, poultry yard, vegetable, and fruit garden. From the remaining two acres three Jerseys are fed from the time the clover is large enough to be cut in May until vegetation stops growing in the fall; and at times a considerable surplus Is fed to the horses and hogs. Every fall one plot of twothirds of an acre is seeded to wheat This supplies a family ot four with bread during the year. In the spring the remaining two plots of the twoacre tract—each two-thirds of an

acre—are in clover, one giving its first year’s crop, and the other its second. The latter is cut first, and from it the cows are daily supplied with fre-h green food. When this plot ha* been gone over once, and the cutting of the second plot has com nen ed, the mowed patch is covered well with a compost of muck from the celery farm and with stable manure, and at once plowed. This is not later thon the ni ddle of June, and the plot is sowed to corn. By the time, the second red clover patch has been cut the first time, the new crop at the side first mowed is again ready.

The last of August the corn Is right for feeding. From this, three horses and the hogs, as well as the cows, are fed until the ground is again cleared, about the middle of September. After giving it a dressing of the compost, winter wheat is planted. In the spring the wheat plot is seeded to clover, and l.y the time the sowed corn has all been led the young clover has attained a strong growth. Besides providing food, which is greatly relished by the stooK, the fall cutting of the young clover frees the grouud from the wheat stubble, which, if left until the following season, would be moldy, and, therefore, injurious to the feeding qualities of the clover. By his plan of soiling, Mr. Borst claims, a superior quality of butter is made. The clean clover and pure water cause a longer, more abundant and more wholesome flow of milk than is possible with cows which are given the run of large pastures, pestered by fliesin summer, grazing close for grass which has been tramped under foot, and quenching their thirst at slimy, pools of stagnant water. On the acre of land on which the house and other buildings are located there are fruits of many varieties, an abundant garden, and a poultry yard in which nearly one hundred chickens and more than a dozen ducks run—and all this without marring the beauty of the home, for the smoothly mowed lawn about the comfortable farm-house is dotted with well kept ornamental shruis, and roses and other lowers in profusion From the dairy, the poultry, the garden and the orchard, says Mr. Borst. the family of four s provided with all the necessaries of living, save the single one of wearing apparel; and quite often there is a very considerable surplus. Danger in Moldy Hay. iess than a week ago the horses in a city stable died suddenly, as S" lie investigators said, of poison, v bile others, Dr. Glass among the rest, pronounced the disease cerebrospinal meningitis, the post-mortem showing e\ery indicatiqn of this disease. Had there been a single case, nothing would have been thought of It, hut to have all the inmates of the stable taken down at once pointed to a common condition and a local cause.

Dr. J. Cheston Morris seems to have hit the nail on the head when be gives moldy hay as a direct cause for this disease. He says: months since I was present at the slaughter of a herd of cattle supposed to have been tainted with tuberculosis. While waiting for an opportunity to make certain investigations a gentleman told me that some gypsy boys, with whom he had played in his youth, had shown him a bottle which they said container a poison prepared from moldy hay, capable of producing a fatal sickness. “In speaking of this to I>r. Dickson, the bacteriol gist, I found him fully alive to the possibilities of truitful results from investigations into the transplanting of fungoid and actinomycoid growths from a vegetable basis to animals. And I was reminded that during the late war tbe very fatal epidemic of coiebrospinal meningitis broke out among

#- scldJera who were supplied with moldy hayfor bedding. This disease among horses, lam informed, is directly traceatle to moldy hay. Among the Dutch farmers at Lancaster it is called putrid sore throat The tendency of investigation during the past twenty years has been more and more j toward the Intimate casual relations between many Diseases, not formerly recogni ed as zymotic, and correspon ing fungi or bacteria. We too often forget that the?e are only terms for microscopic fungi or molds, and the same law of propagation and ; growth gov<rns them as their larger | congeners. A large step in advance i will have been made if we shall be | able to trace them from the r comparatively innocuous vig table horn s to the r dangerous migration to animals.”—Philadelphia Le .ger. Bee Keeping. G. W. Demaree, writing in the “American Bee-Keeper,” concerning the outlook in bee culture, says; “The business is settling down in more permanent form, agicultural goods and supplies are becoming moie uniform and staple in character, and less excited by doubtful and worthless invention. And ‘fitness of person’ is taking the highest rank in the bee business, in place of honeyproducing hives and fixtures. This is the most hopeful feature of our times pertaining to the future bee business." The Off Yeap with Apples. A writer in an exchange thinks that high culture and pruning wll cause apple trees to bear all crops every year. But if he had ever noted attentively the apple trees in wellmanured and cultivated gardens, says T. H. Hoskins in “Vermont

Wat hman,” he would not have been so absolute in his statement. T e truth is that it is very hard for a var ety which is even naturally an annual bearer to give a good crop of fruit on the off year. The insect enemies of the fruit are concentrated on the few bearing trees and either cause their fru.t to diop, or disfigure it so that 1 ttle of it is perfect, or would be salable, were it not for the scare ty of better.

Early Harrowing. A slight raking or har, owing given the land early in the season will be more effectual in destroying weeds and grass than ten times the labor that may be given after the weeds are established. Labor is an item of i expense, and should be used economically, by applying it at the right time and in the right place. If every farmer would consider labor as something which should he used cautiously and with judgment, according to its value, a better system of cultivation would be the result.. Wheat for Hogs. An Ohio farmer says: “Last September I had twelve fine shoats which had been on the clover all summer : and were in fine condition, weighing 1,800 pounds when putin the Den. I fed those hogs fifty bushels of wheat, soaked twelve hours before feeding. I sold those hogs at $5.00 : per hundred, and they weighed 3,000-| pounds. Again of 1,200 pounds at $5.00 per hundred would give me ! *‘m.2o for fifty bushels of wheat, I which I would have sold at s:c per ! bushel, S2O. itfow, can any farmer say it doesn’t pay to feed wheat?” \ Farm Notes? An exchange says that if a cow I gets choked w.th an apple or potato, holding up its head and breaking an egg in its mouth is a suie cure. The same remedy is Recommended for horses under similar circumstances. As to scare-crows, some one says that “the regulation dummy has become only a sign to the crows that the crop is in and to come on down to it. A few dry goods boxes in the cornfield will give all the protection necessary.

Any lator saving appliance lessens the cost of production and affords a larger profit. The enterprising larmer will keep himself well informed on this point, and always be on the lookout for labor-saving implements in every department. The dwarf Lima beans, though they are smaller in si/.e of seed than the pole kinds, are much earlier, and are also much surer under adverse conditions of rain or drought* as well as requiring no poles. They are a valuable acquisition to the list of garden cro a Good butter can be spoiled with poor salt, as well as by poor handling. They are plenty of good grades of dairy salt, and it is a great mistake to use a poor salt because it is cheap. Many creamery men have found this out to their sorrow. A medium grain is more desirable than a salt in which the grain is very fine. Quitting field work enough earlier to get the milking done by the usual time for quitting work on the farm is the best and about the only way, says a writer, to keep good help on a dairy farm. Hired help cannot he blamed for not wunt'ing to nut in a full day’s work in the field, and tnen put in an hour or more after dark milkiug and doing chores.

Sweet corn should be j refe red for /ensilage. It contains more sugar than field corn, and is more highly relished by stock. Even the hcgswill eat it when ;t is prepared properly lor i he silo, and comes out succulent In the winter. Western farmers also use it fnr supplying poultry, with &reen food during ter.ods when no other bulky material can be had.

VIEW OF J. B. BORST’S THREE-ACRE FARM.