Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 April 1898 — THE FARM AND HOME [ARTICLE]

THE FARM AND HOME

MATTERSOF INTEREST TO FARMER AND HOUSEWIFE. Value of a Fast-Walking Team—More Attention Should Be Given Green Crops—How to Grow Celery Best Varieties of Potatoes for Seed. The Walking Horse. We hear a great deal about the running horse and nearly as much about the trotting horse, but very little about the walking horse. The first two are valuable In their way, but neither of them Is as much needed In this country as the last. A slow-walking team makes work drag In spite of every effort, of the driver. Farm work must be done with the horses at a wallj, and a slight difference In the rate at which the team gets over ground makes a great difference In the amount of work accomplished. The great trouble with most farm teams is that they are allowed to get into the habit of dragging along at the rate of about two miles an hour, even when going unloaded, and this habit becomes fixed and impossible to remedy, for the farm horse that gets in the notion of going slowly will poke along In spite of ally urging that may -be used. There is much farm work tbgt Is very light on the team. Cultivation is not heavy work, and drawing a mowing machine does not call for more than a small fraction of the power a horse may exert without injury. Haul ing loads to market is not heavy work, when the roads are good, and all these kinds of work should be done with the team walking at a rate that would keep a man on a-comfortable dog-trot all the time. The fast-walking horse is made in breaking the colt. He usually wants to go too fast, and is held down until he comes to believe that his gait is to be a dragging walk. If the coP is trained to walk up briskly, but not trot; if he is never allowed to trot uutil he is thoroughly trained to walk as fast as he can without trotting, there will be no trouble about his walking In after life. When the colt that is being trained begins to lag, touch him gently with the whip to let him know that he must move up a little more briskly, but do not strike him hard enough to hurt and excite him. Make hint keep on walking as fast as he can, and the habit will soon become a fixed one, and his value will be increased,— Farmer's Voice.

> Green Crops. Farmers should give some attention to green crops, whether they use the •entire pasture or not. Green crops afford a large variety and cost less than any other foods, giving large amounts •of forage and assisting in keeping the land in good condition. Rye, crimson •clover, ret! clover, cow i>ens, green •corn, rape and oats are all suitable lor .producing green food in abundance, •and, as rye and crimson clover give a supply in the spring, before grass has made growth of any consequence, they should always be in the line of rotation. Oats and peas, broadcasted together, may be seeded now if the ground is not frozen, and they will give a larger amount of green food on the acre than can be secured from three or four (times that area of pasture, and the forage may be cut off and given to the ' animals at the barn. When the green food Is no longer suitable for cutting, sheep may be turned on the remainder, and will find a fair proportion of food. Later cow peas may be sown, and they will leave the land in better condition than before. It is not too soor. to sow Essex rape, and, as many farmers have not given it a trial, those who will make the experiment with rape as .green forage will not fail to g|ve it a place on the farm hereafter. It can be cut or eaten off several times during the year, and yields enormously, sheep being very fond of it, while cattle and hogs also relish it highly.—Philadelphia Record. ;•••" ' i r ® How to Grow Celery. Dr. S. B. Partridge*, of East Bloomfield, N. J., is raising celery on a large scale on the bed of a reclaimed swamp. He set 125;000 plants last year of the dwarf Goklen Self-Blanching, and produces from 1,500 to 1,800 dozen branches of celery per acre, marketable at from 20 cents to <SO cents per dozen. His celery kept for winter market Is placed in trenches made by means of a crib, 10 feet long and 14 Inches wide, which Is placed in the row and filled, with celery. Then a deep bank of earth is thrown up on either side to the top of the celery, after which the crib is taken up and moved forward its length, and the same process Is repeated. The trenches are left open at the top until the approach of eold weather, when they are covered with straw and earth. —New England Farmer. Selecting Potato Seed. In choosing varieties of potatoes for spring planting it Is advisable to select those that have been recently produced from seed, provided, of course, that their quality and productiveness have been tested and are generally known. The variety that is newly produced from seed Is generally more vigorous then than it Is likely to be after a few years’ contest with potato bugs and the blight and rots, which all help to decrease potato vigor and productiveness. But It is not advisable to jplant potatoes, however good, which are very: unlike standard sorts, and whose good qualities are not generally known. There Is so much difference In potatoes that the mere fact that a potato Is a potato Is not enough with most consumers to secure a market for It until after they have given It a trial. The Food of Hairy Cattle. With the advent of the growing seaton begins a lessening of the cost of

food for stock. Dairymen have less la* bor to perform in spring and summer; as the cows can be put on pasture, and consequently feed themselves. Nevertheless, there are many points from which the matter of producing milk and butter at the lowest cost may be viewed. Every dairyman should first know the characteristics of the cows in the herd. With the aid of the scales he should be able to estimate the amount of food consumed by each individual, and by the use of the milk tester he can keep himself Informed of what each cow Is doing. Unless he uses these precautions he will be operating in the dark. There is a wide difference in the capacity of cows, even when of the same breed, and this difference may be sneh as to cause a loss from one cow, while the other gives a profit. In a herd of from twenty to forty cows there may be some excellent animals, and the entire herd may give a profit, yet among them may be some that entail a loss, and at the same time increase the cost for labor. In a recent test at the Pennsylvania Experiment Station it was found that a cow in a herd that produced 200 pounds of but-ter-in a year only gave a profit of S3O, while another cow that produced only 276 pounds in the same period gave a profit of SOO. The capacity of one cow was to digest and assimilate the food better than the other. The profit was not In the quantity of butter produced, but in the reduction of the cost. Straw as Mulch. In grain-growing localities farmers have a cheap supply of excellent mulch in the straw of the grain crops they raise. In most cases no better use can be found for this than to use it as a mulch for trees sot recently. If the ground is plowed the soil under the tree should be covered with at least enough straw to keep the surface from becoming compact. By keeping the surface soil loose and friable, air is enabled to enter it, and this is absolutely necessary to give vigorous growth to the roots. Quite often in planting trees deep holes are dug into the subsoil, and earth without any vegetable matter is thrown to the surface. Some mulch around the tree so far as the subsoil extends will prevent it from becoming hardened and excluding air.

Food for Young Chicks. It 1s useless to attempt to raise young chicks on corn-meal dough, as such food is not sufficient. Very young chicks should lie fed three times a day, and millet seed should be scattered so as to Induce them to exercise in seeking the seeds. An excellent food for yoting chicks is bread, made of the following substances: Sifted ground oats, 1 pound; corn -meal, 1 pound; bran, % pound; middlings, % pound; ground meat.JL pound; ground clover, 1 pound; salt. 2 ounces; bread soda, I'ounce. The bread should be crumbled, given dry, ami on clean board!?, allowing no food to remain, as it will become sour if uneateu. The Cream Separator. Recent German trials indicate that the separator removes from milk and cream not only the dirt .and slime which pass through the strainer, but the greater portion of bacteria. As cows are usually oared for and handled there is always some dirt and dandruff from the cow’s udder gets into the milk. This cannot always l>e caught in a strainer, but if any passes through it is included with the slime .which remains in the separator bowl. The German trials indicate that most of the bacteria remain with It. Grape Vine Fertilizing. Grape vines usually need very little manure other than mineral, and that chiefly potash. In European countries it is'.the habit of vineyardists to burn the primings each year, and apply the ashes. No other fertilizer is used. In fact, stable manures are objected to, as they--makethe vines grow rank, and tlie fruit will lack the flavor that belongs to fruits whose vines are only manured with the ashes. Much of the excell'ciice'of French wines is possibly due to this sparing use of manure.

Productiveness of Strawberries. As many its 10,000 quarts of strawberries have been grown on afi acre. A plot 50 feet square will produce oyer (500 quarts—iu the same proportion. It is not every grower who receives 5.000 quarts per acre, but,a garden plot can be made to give larger proportionate yield than a field.

Hints to Beekeepers. Adjusting boards should be used in hives of all weak stocks. Colonies having defective queens are always the foundation of trouble. Colonies selected for breeding should contain a good supply of drone comb. Little wooden troughs holding about % pint of sirup are good for feeding bees. The supply of drones depends entirely on the amount of drone comb fur-; nished. Colonies selected for breeders should be pushed by early feeding to their utmost limit. . Do not feed In the morning, as It tends to cause robbing and to make the bees restless. It Is just as necessary to select for the production of drones as for the production of queens. Pollen Is always stored iu or near the brood nest, and here is the place where the bees will cluster. Bees are not apt to attach comb to cloth, so cloth divisions between frames serve as a gtilde. Queen cells should never be retained In any colony except one that is In a natural, healthy condition. Be sure that the entrances to the hives are-kept open. The bees want good, fresh air to breathe. Confine each colony to only as many combs as the bees can conveniently cover, giving more combs as needed.

SILVER SENTIMENT. It Btill Has a Strong Hold on the People who Think for Themselves. War talk has not diverted the attention of the people from the consideration of the political battle which was fought between the forces of gold monometallism and bitmetallism in the autumn of ISIHi. William J. Bryan has been given a most enthusiastic reception in the South, and has demonstrated, to the dismay of the gold clique, that silver sentiment is deeper and broader and wider, more enthusiastic and. more earnest than ever before. In discussing the triumphant tour of Bryan, the Washington Post, a newspaper devoted to the gold cause and opposed to the Democratic candidate for President in 1890, says: “Those eminent mugwumps and cuckoos who are trying to ma£e themselves believe that Mr. Bryan is a dead issue will do well to take careful note of the manner in which the people receive him everywhere along the route of his present journey. There can be no sort of doubt that Mr. Bryan received in New Orleans a welcome of unparalleled warmth and enthusiasm. Those Democrats who refused to accept the Chicago platform in 18UU were as zealous and as cordial in their attentions as the other Democrats—a vast majority—who stood by the party and its candidate.” Under the circumstances it would, perhaps, be just as well for the gold clique journals to restudy the theory that “silver sentiment Is dead.” Differences of opinion among Democrats are being harmonized, and Secretary Gage lias been forced to admit that the-Wttle of standards will have to be fought over again in 1900, This is not a propitious time to discuss political questions, but it is just as well to call attention to the fact that rumors of war. or even war itself, cannot divert the thoughts of the people front the,vital question of bimetallism. —Chicago Dispatch. Michigan and Lumber Duties. The furniture manufacturers of Michigan are turning against the Dingley law. They point to the disappearing forests of that State and then to the new $2 duty on lumber, which shuts out the Canadian product, upon which they are coining to depend. It is a duty excellently designed to stimulate forest slaughter in the United States, but the trouble in this case is that there are few more forests left to slaughter. So a united protest against the Dingley duty goes to Washington from the very State which, next to Maine, was supposed to be a chief beneficiary of the imposition.—Springfield (Mass.) Republican.

Incalls ns a Populist. It would lx> a sight for gods and men to see ex-Seriator John J. Ingalls of Kansas running for Congress as a Populist candidate for the purpose of overcoming a big Republican majority in the tirsjt Kansas district. If Ingalls can really down his former party in such a struggle—and is willing to do so—the opportunity should certainly be given. And whether iie can or not. it might be well to encourage the effort. The example would be valuable to many persons not yet fully awake to the versatility of politicians of the Ingalls type or to the wild and weird possibilities'of Kansas politics.—St. Louis Republic. The Boodler’s Pet Stronghold. Republican and mugwump spoolers love to talk of the depravity of New York under Tweed and other Tammany bosses, but they never refer to Philadelphia, where boodle!sm and all sorts of knavery have flourished for years, and where the people are worse governed and more shamefully plundered than those of any other great city in the country. The developments, now making of rascality in the Council of Philadelphia are only in line with similar, revelations which have been made from time to time for many years past. In Philadelphia boodling has been a fine art for more than a generation.—lndianapolis Sentinel. Sordid Commercialism Scored. Boss Hanna’s insolence was fittingly rebuked by Senator Thurston. The high priest of sordid commercialism, ready to sacrifice every thing to gain, stands for a group which is struggling to make itself a class and a caste, a group already laden with iniquity, and which is now bent upon turning an ignoble penny out of national perplexity. Senator Thurston <liid well to rebuke these men, and his words will be cheered by”every honest heart, by every true patriot, by every man who hates wickedness and, loves the Tiglit.—St. Ixniis Post-Dispatch.

Begun Under Democratic Auspices. The Philadelphia Press speaks of “the development of the modern navy as begun uuder President Harrison.” These are times when even party organs can afford Jo* be fair." The “development of the modern navy” was begun under the first Cleveland administration, and the credit for the inauguration of the good work is due to William C. Whitney.—Washington Post.

Disgusted Republican Organ. Tfiepersistent interference of the proSpauishparty, represented in Washington chiefly by Secretaries Bliss and Gage, is having a disturbing effect both on Congress and ou the people. American citizenship cannot endure the thought that a question of principle and duty can be determined or considered by the profits or loss of stock speculators or of anybody else.—New York Tress. - * Patriotism of the Highest Order. I The attitude of the Democratic party, from the inception of the Cuban crisis to the present moment has been In the highest degree patriotic. Mere considerations of partisan advantage have been utterly lost sight of, and the Democratic party has stood as one man in favor of a policy which would maintain the hatlonal honor and be worthy of the best traditions of the American people.—lndianapolis Sentinel. ,