People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1895 — FARM MISCELLAMY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FARM MISCELLAMY

Stock or Grain. As wheat has become cheaper Enlish farmers raise less wheat and more stock. Wheat has declined from 57 shillings per quarter in 1855 to 47 shillings in 1875 and 29 shillings in 1894, and the production in England has, as steadily declined from 14,876,328 quarters in 1855, with only 4,000,000 quarters imported, to 8,000,000 quarters home-grown in 1834, and 21,000,000 quarters imported. English farmers find stock raising more profitable than wheat, and let the cheap labor of India, Russia and South America produce their wheat, while in all the higher civilized countries improved stock has increased as graingrowing becomes less profitable. American farmers have a bright future in the production of high-class stock of all kinds, and the markets of the world are giving the most profitable returns. Our lands have become too high-priced to raise cheap grain and scrub stock. It takes enterprise and energetic determination to get out of these old ruts, but we must progress and improve to keep up with the changed conditions of this new era. Raise only such grain and crops as can be profitably fed out to the farm stock and keep only such stock as can be matured on the farm, and be sure that the stock is of the high grade or improved breeds that will give a profit on the raising. Look now, more than ever before, to pure bred sires. The destiny of American stock breeding depends upon the class of stock we breed for our home and foreign markets; to improve will hying prosperity, to decline is to lose the brightest hopes of American agriculture.—Ex.

Mules. The Southern Farm in speaking of the growing of mules and their value for plantation work says that good teams of young mules can be made to do considerable work for from 18 months to two years, just at a time when they will, under ordinary circumstances, bring the best prices. With good care, mules can be broken and worked easier than horses, and farmers who cannot keep several teams profitably at work all the time, and yet find it necessary to keep several, will find it will pay to keep two or three mares, the number to be proportioned to the number of teams considered necessary to keep up with the farm work, and then breed them to a good jack and raise good mules, keeping the mares in a good thrifty condition so that a good growth can be secured. Then they can be used for some time on the farm while they are growing fully sufficient to pay their feed, and at the same time have them gradually increasing in value and selling at an age when they usually bring the highest figures. Of course, care must be taken of them so that a good, thrifty growth can be secured. Some breeders make the claim that raising mules can be done only on a scale sufficiently large to pay the farmers for making extra good fences in order to keep them confined. The difference in the cost between good mules and poor ones is the difference in the cost of service. It will usually cost more for the service of a real good jack than it will cost for a poor one, and all other things being equal, the difference in them is a small item in comparison with the value of the mules when they are ready to sell. If they are fed so as to be kept growing steadily, in a good, thrifty condition, the cost is the same, or nearly the same, whether the animal is a good or poor one, and to secure the most profit the best must be raised, and if the best is raised it is very essential to have the mares bred to good jacks.

Selling Ashes Too Cheaply. Mr. A. Stevenson, principal of the Arthur High School, says: “Opportunities for giving the teaching of botany a practical turn come frequently if one is on the look-out for them. Let me illustrate from personal experience. In my district the ash-man is a common sight. We learn that the ashes he gathers are shipped to dealers in the United States, and we see them extensively advertised in American agricultural journals as 'Canada Unbleached Hardwood Ashes.’ In seedmen’s catalogues they are quoted at |2O a ton, and are recommended as tne best of fertilizers for certain erops, as fruits, potatoes and corn. We now learn that these ashes contain plant food which the original trees obtained from the earth. We also learn that the most valuable elements of plant food present in ashes are potash to the extent of about six per cent and phosphorus about two per cent of the whole quantity of ashes. Now, it does not take a very sharp boy to see that If it pays the Americans to give a dollar a hundred for our ashes to fertilize their, crops, it certainly is folly for us to sell them at ten cents a hundred, so long as we have anything that needs fertilizing.” —Canada Educational Monthly. Hens as Weed Destroyers.—ls a hen and chicks are placed in a yard or confined on, a small plot, every blade of grass, as well as every weed, will be destroyed, and in a few days the plot will be as clean as If burned over. When hens are confined in yards, the yards are clean and bare of vegetation. When |he hens are on a range, they also destroy thousands of young weeds, which is not so noticeable, but which is nevertheless the ease.—Ex. *