Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1912 — NOTES from MEADOWBROOK FARM [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

NOTES from MEADOWBROOK FARM

By Willam Pitt

Groom your cows. The silo is a time saver. Attend to the horse’s feet Grow strawberries for home use. Let the young calves have plenty of sunlight. We cannot longer raise paying apple, crops unless we spray. Seed grain of all kinds is scarce and high priced again this spring. The cleanly dairyman keep the dirt out of the milk rather than strains it out. Whale oil soap may be used to destroy Tice, scale,. insects and mealybugs. Clover and grass seed always do best when they can be started to early growth. Profitable beef production in the future means that better gains must be made. In a gallon of 30 per cent, cream there are two and one-half pounds of butter fat. When butter refuses to “gather” the cream may be too sour or the temperature too low. Lack of thorough cleansing of the separator is one cause of flavor in. butter being off.

It is a good plan to give a cow a bucket of scalded bran as the first feed after calving. !■■ - j The shoe should fit the foot. Don’t , let the blacksmith cut bars or frogs ■ to make the horse’s foot fit the shoe. Field mice been at the young trees? , If the bark is knawed to the wood the ; trees may be saved by bridge graft- , ing. ; Satisfactory results were obtained J last year at the Kansas Agricultural : college from the use of Kaffir as silage. Potash, as a constituent of fertilizers, exists in a number of forms, but chiefly as chloride or muriate and as sulphate. After starting to shed their hair in spring cows are very sensitive to sudden cold snaps. That is when stabling pays at night. Clover and grass seed may be grown and a good stand secured, on oat ground during the last of April and the first of May. Narrow doors in the sheep barns are a mighty poor thing. Broken down hips and early dropped lambs are some of the results. A colt wants to be kept eating and growing and exercising, and anything but fattening, as long as he has a time assigned him by nature to grow. Any kind of fruit tree will die when planted in ground that is all the time saturated with water. The tile ditch is a necessity In some places. Early peas may be followed by celery or cabbage or potatoes, followed by late beans or corn, thereby getting several crops from the same ground each year. A horse must have feet and legs beside weight to be any good at heavy work. Flat bone in the cannons and large, round feet should be looked for in picking horses. • ■ Just now Is the time to get the start of the lice and a good first move Is to thoroughly clean out the hen house then squirt some kerosene around pretty lively over the walls, roosts, and nest boxes. Young mares will sometimes refuse to allow their foals to nurse at first. The mare may be tied in the stall and the colt helped to milk; As soon as It has sucked each teat the mother will usually allow It to continue. A good liniment for all kinds of swellings on dairy cows, as well as on all other farm animals Is made, by mixing equal parts of turpentine, sweet oil and spirits of camphor. Apply liberally and frequently to the swollen parts. If your stable floor is of plank and in need of repairing, the laying of a thin coat of cement over the old and then putting a new layer of planks on It will serve to make the floor watertight and at the same time, to pre- • rent dry rot