Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1906 — FARM AND GARDEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM AND GARDEN

NEW WINTER LETTUCE. A Large Type of Plant Able to With. stand Diaeaae. The bureau of plant industry recently reaped its harvest of excellent lettuce seed from a large plot which it had under cultivation in close proximity to its chief’s offices in the grounds of the department of agriculture. The interest attached to this particular yield Is that it is seed of a type of lettuce sturdy and strong and able to withstand the diseases to which forced lettuce is heir. From $2,500,000 to $3,000,000 worth of lettuce alone is forced in the United States each winter. Greenhouse gardeners in an endeavor to get rich quick

[Six weeks old and three feet high.] have failed to note that this forcing was weakening their stock until now the weak lettuce often becomes so diseased in the hothouse that It is by no means rare for a gardener to lose an entire crop of greenhouse lettuce by a disease to which these overstrained plants are particularly liable. Dr. B. T. Galloway, chief of the bureau of plant industry, in order to correct this evil has been working for two seasous on this subject and has at last succeeded in obtaining a crop of winter lettuce plants immune to the lettuce disease. At the same time the plants are of large size and capable of developing as early as the most specialized winter lettuce. From these extra large early and fine heads another crop was raised and the seed sown. The seed from successive crops, carefully examined and selected from time to time, was planted during the past summer in the departments’s experimental plot and the seed finally secured carefully guarded and later distributed to greenhouse men and state experiment stations. It is believed, concludes American Cultivator, that through this work will be saved from ruin the winter lettuce industry, which for the last three years has been threatened with extinction. WHEN SLAUGHTERING. An Arrangement For Raising and Hanging a Hog. Here is a butchering device that may be of Interest. By its use any one can hang a hog or small beef or, in fact, several of them at a time if you make a long top stick and several

clevis hooks to operate hook A into. Spread stick and wind up rope, then lower spread stick into clevis hook and slide out of the way. When not in use remove the two lower bolts and fold up like a jackknife. The gear wheel and worm can be had at any machine shop.—Ohio Farmer. Care of Proteu Tree*. There Is a saying among nurserymen that "it is the thawing and not the freezing of thewoots of trees that injures them.” If trees arrive in a frozen condition the thing to do with them is to plant them at once or imitate the process aB near as possible by packing the roots in soil or sand without exposing them to thawing. Let them thaw out slowly—the slower the better. It is not a good plan to throw the roots Into water. If the roots are allowed to thaw in a cellar without cover or if exposed while frozen to warm air they will be seriously injured.—Country Gentleman. The Democrat bandies Farm Leasee, Mortgagee, Deeds and other legal blanks. Also prepared to do all kinds of fine ioh work.

THE NEW STURDY LETTUCE

BUTCHERING DEVICE.