Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 September 1898 — AGRICULTURAL NEWS [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL NEWS

THINGS PERTAINING TO THE FARM AND HOME. Cheap and Rapid Way to Get Rid of the Pestiferous Chinch Bns—Proper Feed for Milch Cows—Value of Bees to Fruit. Proper Feed. The class of feed fed to such cows should be w’ell balanced and not be overcharged with starchy substances in the form of carbo-hydrates, the range of which should not be too wide nor too narrow; for summer, would suggest that one pound of protein to six pounds of carbo-hydrates, and one to seven in winter. June grass is almost a balanced ration, yet we find that a small quantity of bran and gluten meal seems to stimulate the flow of milk, and at the same time add texture to the butter that aids it in standing up while carrying to market. For winter we feed a ration of grain of from six to ten pounds of ground, and mixed as follows: Fifteen hundred pounds of corn, 1,500 pounds oats, 1,000 pounds bran and 500 pounds of gluten meal mixed. In the absence of gluten meal use 350 pounds of oil-cake meal and as much cut corn-stover in the evening and clover in the morning .as the cow’s will clean up. Salt liberally three times each week and water twice s day and keep indoors as much as is practical. Good Money for Choice Lambs. The markets for early lambs have not been too heavily supplied, and the demand at good prices, seems to be increasing every year. It is not eVery farmer who gets the best prices for his early lambs, however, because they do not ship them lu the best condition. The choicest lambs are not produced by turning the ewes out to forage and provide for the lambs, but the young animals are carefully watched and given ground oats as soon as they will eat it, the ewes also being -provided with grain and plenty of clover hay at night, whether the pasture is good or not. What are termed "hot house” lambs are not the very earliest always, as they are frequently stunted in growth in their first stages, but the ones that are pushed from the start and kept warm uutll the milder weather comes. Late lambs must also be looked after, as they can be gotten into market in a condition so as to command extra prices. Lambs pay a large profit if they are given care from birth to market. The Popular Leghorn. The Leghorn has the well-earned reputation of being able to shell out more eggs from a given amount of food than any other breed. The eggs are of fair size, light in color. The hen is a splendid forager and should have wide range, although she will do well Iff confinement if kept at work. Leghorns mature very early, sometimes at fifteen weeks of age. For poultry are Inferior to the larger kinds, but the breed is best adapted for the egg specialist. They are hardy and vigorous. Skin and legs are yellow. The comb Is large, but in a properly constructed house will give little trouble from freezing. If yarded in summer their wings must be clipped or they will fly over any ordinary fence. As to color of Leghorn there is little to choose between the varieties. The whitens sometimes called the best layer, but the brown. If no>t equal, is at least a very close rival. Home-Made Water Hose. Take a piece of heavy ducking thirty feet long; cut it lengthwise into three strips; bring the edges together, double over once, ami with a sewing machine 3?w through the four thicknesses twice. When sewed, dip it in the mixture of five gallons of boiled linseed oil and half a gallon of pine tar melted together. Put the hose in a tub, pour on the hot oil (about 160 degrees) and saturate the cloth well with the mixture; then tie one end of the hose and blow into the other until it has air enough to keep the sides from sticking together; hang on the clothes line and it will be dry in a few days. Your hose is now in three sections, thirty feet long. To join these use a tin tube two and onehalf inches in diameter by oue foot long. Keep it tied to on? eml of the hose all the time; to connect, draw the open end over the tube ami tie securely. Connect with the tank by using tic.* hose over the end of pipe projecting from water butt, and then turn the water on. To Destroy Chinch Bugs, The ravages of the chinch bug have become so great iu some localities that the farmers are experimenting with every device that gives promise of destruction to this pest. The latest method is nothing more than an ordinary gasoline blow-lamp, such as is used bj’ painters to burn off old paint. When the bugs leave the wheat and oats to go to the corn a mail with a blower can go up aud down the first few rows and kill a million bugs in a short time. The flame from the lamp destroys the bugs, and strange as it ir,ay seem, does not injure the corn. < The Plague of Flies. Flies are always a product of filth. They cannot be bred where matter offensive in some form is not present. They Jielp to purify the air wherever miasma is present from decomposing anhnal or vegetable matter. Uusually it is either an open slop sink by the side of the house or the manure from the horse stable or pigpen in which flies are bred. Neither of these should be allowed (near the house. All the waste matter from the house should be conducted to an underground receptacle, where It can be purified and thence taken to the fields and plowed under as a fertilizer. Merely freeing animal matter from offensive odor does not de-

’ tract from Its fertilizing properties. Tn the strongest of all fertilizers there need be no offensive smell. Stained Barley aa Feed. Whenever barley is badly colored by rains It is greatly injured for brewers’ uses, and If the barley has gone to the point of germinating It is completely ruined, as this barley will never sprout again. But Such stained and sprouted barley after being fully dried can be ground, and its meal makes an excellent feed for either pigs or hogs. Sometimes this Injured barley is fed to horses, but caution is needed not to give large feeds of It, as barley, being a heavier graifi than oats, is more apt to cause colic. The barley feed is, however, better than feeding corn. If barley is used for hog feed, mix with It some fine wheat middlings, which are much more palatable to hogs than bran is, and which are needed to counterbalance the excessive imount of starch in the barley meal. Value of Bees to Fruit. There are very few complaints now about the injury bees do to fruit in Southern California. At the farmers’ institute praise is almost always given to the bees. This Is a very wholesome change. Recently I w’as where I had an admirable chance to observe bees on fruit, especially peaches. The wasps would wound the fruit, and then the bees would swarm on the sweet, juicy peach and save the juice. I looked long, and never saw a bee alight on a ’w'iaole fruit. They do not do things that way. At the dryers they were much around the soft fruit, but I did not see them on the fruit on the trays. I suppose that the sulphuring keeps them away, though the sulphuring Is done for purpose. It Is likely ever to come thus—any evil that Is necessary will soon find a cure.—American Bee Journal. Renewing Raspberry Patches. A raspberry patch, of the black-cap varieties, needs to be renewed every four or five years, as the red rust comes in and will injure so many of the plants that the plantation will cease to pay. The black cap raspberry will nqt last so long as this if it has been ghiwn from suckers. Those grown from the tip ends of this year’s shoots will keep free from disease longest. But aftefc four or five years it is too much labor to keep the plantation free from weeds, and a new plantation, after the first year, will give more fruit, with less cost of labor in caring for it. China Nest Eggs. It is never a good plan to allow a freshly laid egg to remain in the nest to induce laying in the same place. A china nest egg can be cheaply procured ami will last forever. A hen’s egg is liable to break and teach the bad habit of eating eggs. Even if the china egg should be broken, Its shells contain no lime and will not be eaten. In the heated season the china nest egg should always be used. A Dairy Hint. It is very poor management to have the cows yielding milk liberally while on pasture, but when on hay in the winter season to be mere strippers. Give them warm stables, the right kind of food and water in abundance, and the income from them will be greater than that in the summer. Milk them early in the morning and feed them, that the interval may not be so long as to make them hungry and reatless. All this pays well, indeed. Hogs in Hot Weather. During the very warm weattfer no animal suffers more than the hcg. To feed corn to hogs at th is, season is to really torture them. The pen should be well supplied at all times w’ith fresh water. Stvill rapidly undergoes decomposition If the weather is warm, and should only be used when it is a, fresh as possible. The best food for hogs in summer is plenty of green clover. Notes. Do not cut asparagus until the second year. Dried apples find a very good foreign market. Sweet peas must have plenty of sunshine and water. We prefer smooth to the wrinkled varieties of peas. The soil that is loose is the ideal soil for the potato If the orchard Is barren try pruning and apply fertilizers to the ground. Some orchards do not bear because the land is too wet, aud drainage is the remedy. There is no better remedy for cabbage worms and lice than .water At a temperature of 130 degrees. Buy asparagus roots of the nurseryman and set in rows five feet apart and two feet apart iu the row.

If the roots of the grape vine or any other fruit bearing plant get out of the ground, and are not covered, the plant will droop and likely die. if you can’t build a silo it would pay you to grow mangels, carrots or rutabagas for your stock. Soak scabby seed potatoes before cutting, in a solution of an ounce of corrosive sublimate to eight gallons of water. Remember, it is a poison. Commercial fruit growing requires more attention than the general farmer can give it. But for home consumption every fanner should produce fruit Giving plenty of room between the plants Is in line of preventing gooseberry mildew. So is thorough cultivation. In addition the leaves may be sprayed every fifteen days with a half ounce of liver of sulphur in a gallon of water. Kerosene emulsion is made as fol--10 ws: Hard soap, one-half ponud; kerosene, two gallons; boiling soft water, one gallon. Dissolve the soap in the boiling water, then add the kerosene, and churn thoroughly together. Dilute with from five to twenty parts of water.—Ptowman.