Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 November 1894 — HOME AND THE FARM. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOME AND THE FARM.

TOPICS OF INTEREST TO FARMER AND HOUSEWIFE. How to Interest the Boys tn the WorkCombined Poultry and Pigeon Hoose— Device tor Splitting Wood—General Agricultural NewsHow to Make Money on the Farm. Do not look beyond your reach for wealth when it lies all about you. In this wonderful age of improvement you must move in the line of march, or let your next door neighbor dig the jewels from the soil. Many of our young men are not content with the beautiful old homestead, the green fields, and much that makes one so independent on the farm, but in their anxiety for gain, push out to large cities or some distant land, when, in nine cases out of ten, they would have been happier and wealthier men had they put that same life and energy on the farm. The world demands men who will work. The curse of our country to-day is the multitude of idle ones, who demand not only a living, but even luxuries thrown in. Nothing in this life can be gained without hard work. Be careful in choosing an occupation, start right, the outcome will be fruitfulness. If you are interested in your vocation and are industrious, your work, even though hard, will be a pleasure. Try to interest your boys in your work. To do this, you must encourage them in their small beginnings. Stake out one acre of land for your boy for his own use. By this I do not mean the poorest land on your farm, but the very best, and see, also, to commence with, that it is well enriched. Start the boys right, as the first y ear’s trial will be apt to decide their future. Put In something that is in demand, and thatalways commands good prices. How many farmers have first-class seed corn that will test 95 per cent, when planting time arrives? A fine grade of seed corn that your neighbors know is all right in every respect will prove a very profitable investment for you. When you have an article to sell, give your customers something that is value received, and your trade is established. The same hints may be applied to all varieties of grain. There is a good Income awaiting you at your very doors; seize your grand opportunity. Poultry and Pigeon Honan. A poultry house with a loft especially fitted up for the accommodation of pigeons is shown in the accompanying Illustrations from the American Agriculturist. The poultry quarters have an addition fitted with wire netting in

front in summer, as seen in Fig. 1, and windows in winter which serves as a scratching and dusting room, communication being had with it from the main poultry room. The diagram Fig. 2, shows the inside arrangement when the building is used for two breeds. Such an arrangement secures exceedingly warm roosting quarters for both flocks, as the recesses occupied by the roosts can be shut off from the main

room to some extent by placing partitions in front of the roosts, extending from the ceiling, but not reaching to the floor. The warm air from the bodies of the fowls is thus kept around and above the birds while on their roosts. Cutting Corn Stalks. The season for cutting corn stalks is at hand for the large class of farmers who do not put them in silos. Almost every farmer who feeds com stalks to cows has them cut It is not always safe to feed horses the cut stalks, as their digestive apparatus is different. The hard, woody stalks, cut in small pieces, may injure a horse’s intestines before the gastric juices have time to soften them. The feed when eaten by the cow goes more in a mass and is brought up and rechewed in her cud. For this reason cut corn stalks ought not to be fed to horses unless first wet with warm water to soften them, then the hard portion of them will be left uneaten. A horse will not eat much more of the corn stalk after it is cut than it will before. If cheap, bulky food is to be used to mix with the grain for horses it had better be cut straw or hay than cut corn stalk. But the coru stalks for cows ought always to be cut before feeding. If they are wet with hot water or steamed and mixed with grain meal scarcely anything will be rejected. A little clover hay per day with this will make a complete ration cows.—American Cultivator. Rotation of Crop* Tested. To determine the exact effect of rotation, a series of experiments have been conducted by the Indiana station. Of the plots upon which grain crops are grown continuously a portion are devoted exclusively to wheat, while upon others wheat is grown in alternation with corn and oats. In the plots devoted exclusively to grain growing the average yield of wheat for seven years, closing with 1893, was 15.80 bushels per acre, and in 1894 the yield was 12.74 bushels per acre. On the plots upon which grain and grasses are grown in rotation the average yield for the seven years was 21.61 bushels per acre, and in 1894 it was 22.67 bushels. The difference in favor of rotation for the period of seven years averaged 5.72 bushels per acre, and in 1894 it amounted to 9.93 bushels per acre. Thus it is shown that wheat produced

over a third more when grown in rotru tion than when grown continuously in the land year after year. For Splitting Wood. A holder for splitting wood is a nice convenience, and one like that here illustrated is often at hand or can i»e secured. When a device of this kind is used it saves trouble and even some danger from splitting wood. It is not always understood that much advantage may be taken of hard labor when splitting wood by slabbing off the sides of the block instead of splitting through the center. When a log is sawed into

short cuts, for example, to be split into firewood, two iron wedges and a beetle may be necessary to open a cut through the heart But by taking off thin slabs all of the splitting may be done with only an ax. After a log is split into slabs the labor of splitting the slabc the other way will be comparatively light. Spreading Manure In the Fall. It is a good plan to spread manure upon the fields in the fall. Experience shows that manure applied in the fall to the surface, either of plowed or grass land, will become so thoroughly pulverized and distributed through the soil by the action of frost and rain as to act more quickly and be in better condition for plants to assimilate than the same fertilizer would be applied tn the spring. The loss from drainage, unless upon very steep surfaces, will probably be less than from the washing if left in open yards. The loss from evaporation is likely to be much less than that from fermentation, if the manure is allowed to accumulate in cellars or sheds. The Horne's Foot. The Rev. W. 11. 11. Murray, who understood horses as well as Adirondacks, once laid down a rule in regard to trimming a horse's foot that every horseman in the world should cut out and paste in his hat. “Never,” he says, “allow the knife to touch the sole of your horse’s foot, nor the least bit of it to bo pared away, because nature needs the full bulk of it and has amply provided for its removal at the proper time. Secondly, never allow a knife to be put to the frog, because nature never provides too much of it to answer the purpose for which the Creator designed it, and the larger it is the more swiftly, easily and safely will your horse go.” Railing Vegetable, in Winter. Lettuce, radishes and like small vegetables are cultivated all winter long in Southern Georgia by a simple device that would be effective in mild winters much farther north. A frame of wood Inclosing rich earth is placed in the garden, and seeds arc sown from time to time. When a cool night comes, a frame bearing a sheet of coarse muslin is placed over the growing plants, and thus they are protected from frost. Now and then ice the thickness of a cent forms in the night, but the vegetables so covered escape injury. . Irrigation Improve. Fruit Irrigation is claimed to Increase the sugar in fruit aud improve its quality. In California it has been found that Irrigated fruit has less shrinkage when dried, and was also worth more in its green state. This is due to the greater proportion of mineral matter being taken up by being- dissolved with a plentiful supply of water. The greater foliage permits the plants to derive more carbonic acid from the air, and thus contribute a greater proportion of sugar to the fruit

Keeping the Stable Snug:. Ventilation in the stable does not mean a draught of air coming iu on the animals. It is useless to make a stable warm with tight roof and walls, and then haye cold "air holes,” misnamed ventilators, to allow the warmth to escape. The night Is the time when cold currents are felt. The stable should be ventilated during the day by leaving the doors and tho windows open, which should be closed at night. Attention must be given to the direction of the wind, and bedding should be plentiful. Tobacco Plant.. A lady in Lancaster, Pa., as an experiment, planted carefully in her garden last summer six Havana plants presented to her by a friend in the country. Under her care the plants grew to be 6 or 7 feet high, and quo of them showed 36 inches in length and was 22 Inches wide. What can be done in a garden can be done in a field, if the field is enriched and cultivated like a garden.

False Support, for Beam, anti Sills. Frequently in erecting farm buildings, the posts are of such slender dimensions that the owner and carpea-

ters do not care to cut a shoulder lu them for tho support of die ends of beams, sills or girts. In

roa buppobtino beams such cases these important parts of the structure are left with only such support ns is afforded by the strength of the tender, i which is usually cut away to less than | one-third the breaking strength of the j stick of timber. By fittfiig in a piece of ; plank or scantling between the lower ■ side of the beam or sill and the upper 1 side of the lower portion ot the brace, | as shown at a, a, in the illustration, aiul i nailing them to the part c, the building 1 will be quite as strong aud firm as if I tho post had been two inches greater in ; diameter. This improvement may be i added at any time at very Uttje labor ' aud expense. i i The Cow that Pay.. If a cow gives milk 300 days in the 1 year, and her capacity exceeds another j cow only two quarts daily, which sells i at 10c per gallon, she will produce I milk exceeding the Cess-productive cow as much as sls per year. With only two quarts difference, and at only 2%c a quart, the comparison is largely in

favor of choice cows. Yet a well-bred cow may give twice as much milk as one that has no breeding. It is cheaper to raise good cows thau to buy fresh ones that are unknown. Start v of Horticulture. Every farmer should understand horticulture. It enables him to grow a larger variety and to rotate his crops to the best advantage. There is no reason for confining the farm to three or four crops. The soil will be improved when the same crop is not grown oftener than one year in five. Smail fruits should be grown, »s well as grain aud vegetables. Ugtng Up Honrs. If bones cannot be reduced to a very fine condition pound them, or break them to pieces in some manner and place them around the grapevines, about six inches deep in the soil. They may also be used around trees. But little benefit will be derived from coarse pieces of bone for a year or two, but it is better to utilize them than to allow them to accumulate into unsightly heaps. Note*. Grub up the sassafras growing In the fields and keep the young bushes down until the fields are cleared of them. At the recent fruit show at the Crystal Palace the Queen took first prize for 100 varieties each of pears and apples. Carrots, turnips and beets, if fed raw to cattle, should always be sliced and not cut up into Irregular pieces. Cattle are much more liable to be choked than any other class of stock. When a horse Is doing no work It should receive less grain and given more hay. There is no time of the year, however, when the horse should not be given exercise In some manner, A ranchman in Uie Big Horn oasln, Wyoming, raised 11,000 onions on a patch of ground 35x1)0 feet during the past season. Eight of the onions, selected for size, weighed twenty-two pounds. When blackberrying, many a large fruited sort is met with, which, If transplanted to the garden, would be as good as any of the cultivated sorts. Some of the best known varieties were introduced In this way. Winter oats are extensively grown tn Virginia. They nre" sown about a month before the usual time of sowing wheat, or from Sept. Ito Sept. 15. The claim is made that winter oats will grow wherever crimson clover succeeds. The New York Milk Exchange fixed the net price of milk from the first to i he middle of October at 3>4c per quart; after Oct. 17, 3c a quart. The price of cream was reduced from sti to |5.75 a can. This Is said to be the first instance on record of lowering prices of milk and cream In October. The Earl of Aberdeen has urged the people of Nova Scotia to develop their fruit culture. At present there nre 33,000 acres of orchards In Nova Scotia, and the apples can be delivered in England in good condition. The Nova Scotians claim that their apples are tli« best In the world.

FIG. I.—PERSPECTIVE VIEW.

FIG. 2.—GROUND PLAN.

DEVICK FOR SPLITTING WOOD.