Rensselaer Democrat, Volume 1, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 June 1898 — THE FARM AND HOME [ARTICLE]

THE FARM AND HOME

MATTERSOF INTEREST TO FARMER AND HOUSEWIFE. How to Succeed with a Butter Dairy —Caring for Bees in the SpringHints on Beet Sugar Raising—Keeping Old Cows Is Unprofitable. Good Butter. To succeed with a butter dairy it is necessary to have good butter cows—not some good ones and some poor ones —and these cows must have good butter cow feed and care. One bad butter cow will eat up the profit on several good ones; therefore, all unprofitable cows should be tested out and sold to the butcher; a dairyman can’t afford to keep them if he is dairying for profit. Then the cows must be treated with the consideration due to their importance as a factor of success; and the milk and cream must be properly handled from cow to churn, add those who don’t know precisely how this should be done should stay out of tlie business. He must know how to make butter. There is absolutely no profit in any other grade, because people don’t want bad butter at any price. Then, good butter being made at least possible cost, it must be properly presented to the market It must not only be good, but must look good. Marketing requires some good, sound business sense. Some people could hardly sell good butter at a profit if it was given to them. It requires an all-round man to make a successful dairyman.— Breeder and Horseman.

First Food of Bees in Spring. After bees have safely wintered they first gather propollis, a reddish substance. which they procure from the buds of trees, and whose use is not clearly known, though part of it seems to be to close up cracks which the winter has made in their dwelling. Then they set to work to gather pollen, the fecundating dust from the stigmas of flowers. They get a great deal of this from the blossom of the maple, and it is this rather than sweet sap that the bees frequent maple trees in bloom to obtain. Of course there is no sweetness In maple sap after the trees have leaved out. The taste is rather bitter than sweet Nature is an expert chemist, and can change in a week’s time all the sugar In a maple tree Into the material for depositing fibre in the branches and the new foliage that the tree then puts on. A good substitute for the pollen of flowers is found In very fine rye or wheat flour, kept where it will be sheltered from rain, and where the bees can readily get at it. Hundreds of bees in early spring will visit a dish that has a little rye flour sprinkled on its bottom and exposed to the sun. The bees use this pollen as feed for young bees when newly hatched. Therefore the queen bee does not begin laying until a supply of pollen has been obtained. The earlier the queen bee begins to work the sooner the hive fills with bees, and new swarms are ready to Issue.

Beet Sugar Raisins;. Beet sugar experts saj’ that the beet, in order to be rich in sugar, must have a chance to send its tap-roots down into the subsoil. The factory wants smooth roots, not those that are all “fingers and toes.” Thus they expect the grower to subsoil his beet land in the fall, by following with some sort of subsollBtirring plow In the furrow made by the ordinary plow. Many farmers will consider this quite a task, and possibly be a little slow to bind themselves to grow sugar beets under these corditions. For most soils this subsoiling will not be so difficult as it may look at first glance. The work can be done in the fall, and should be done with greatest care. All manurlal substances should be applied in the fall. Stable manure should be well rotted and applied in moderate doses. Superphosphate may be used quite freely without detriment. Close planting is absolutely necessary. The individual roots should weigh from one to three pounds only. Larger roots are deficient in sugar. The rows are made about twenty inches apart, and the plants left about five to eight inches apart in the rows.

Food for Young Chicks. More toan half the young chicks that dle.jyhfte very young do so because they are improperly fed. Even the most dreaded of all pests, lice, will never trouble the chicken that is fed as it ought to -be, and has free range to scratch In the dirt. But proper feeding does not mean pampering the chick, and still less does It mean feeding with soft, indigestible food, that gives nothing for the chick’s gizzard to work on. We never failed to have good success with chicks after they were big enough to eat whole wheat. After a while we took the hint and cracked the 4 wheat, and they would eat this cracked wheat the second day. The chick needs nothing the first day. Its last act in the shell is to store up the remainder of the yolk and white. It is these which make Its body, boues, bill and feathers. In picking its way out of the shell the chick instinctively swallows some of the shell, and this supplies its first grit for its gizzard. But the egg shell is Itself dissolved and furnishes bone for growth. ScFthe first thing is to put cracked wheat among coarse sand or vety fine gravel. The chick will eat some gravel with its fobd, and thus be put In a fair way to live, and soon learn to take care of itself American Cultivator. * Keeping Old Cow*. One of the small compensations for the great injury done to farmers by the tiiberrmlqsls scare Is that it has led to a weeding out of tfie.old cows. These are always most subject to become diseased, as the cow after iong mllk-

Ing usually has her health and at some- one of these periods, it there are any tuberculous germs in the air, the cow is very liable to take them. Young, vigorous cows, not pampered, can resist the germs even if they do get some into yieir systems. It Is curious that the commission pleading for its life tells of the increased knowledge that the farmers have on this subject over what they bad before the commission began its labors. It is true; they do know more than they did, and so we may add do the veterinarians! It has been knowledge very dearly paid for, and at the cow owners’ expense exclusively. The Wind Blew in the Wheat. A sickle moon hung low and white, in the edge of a golden west, With clanging bells the herd came home; and mother birds on the nest Trilled to the song that is never sung—so soft! so wildly sweet! The whippoorwill in the .marshland called, and the wind blew in the wheat. High summer had broken to hedge-row waves with a foam of elder bloom, By waste and wayside the sweetbriar stars showed faint in the tender gloom, And nibbling bares crept out to play on silent velvet feet. As waxing dewdrops timed the chant, the wind blew in the wheat. “Benison to each bearded head, in the land of golden grain! Ye shall drink of the sun, in strength and power, nor lack the grateful rain. In the bursting mills, in the ocean pressed with the keels of a laden fleet, Ye may read the smile of the Lord of Hosts,” the. wind blew in the wheat. —Harper’s Weekly. Cauliflower. There Is no good reason why the farmer should not grow cauliflower if he or his family like them better than cabbage. They require no stronger soil, no heavier manuring and no more labor until the time comes for tying up the heads, and even then the labor is but little, only that they need looking at almost every day to see when they are just right to tie up for blanching and when they are ready for cutting. If the garden is where It should be — near the house —this extra care Is but a little task, to be done after supper in a small garden. Market gardeners do not need to be told that cauliflowers are much more profitable usually than cabbages.—American Cultivator.

Manvc on Hogs. John Cruze writes to the Rural World as follows: “Have just had some interesting experience with mange or scab on pigs. Lost fourteen out of thirty-six from dosing them with everything I heard or read about. Was in despair until common sonse came to my aid. I figured it out that it was a parasite under the skin, and to cure the pig the parasite must be destroyed. So I mixed up some turpentine and coal oil, and added quite a bit of sulphur. Then, while the pigs were at the trough, I squirted the mixture all over them from nose to tail by means of a machine oil can. Have not lost a pig since, and have not been obliged to repeat the dose.”

Controlling Plant Lice. Plant lice are among the most important of the injurious insects. As plant lice suck their food, paris green and similar poisons cann&t be depended upon when used In the ordinary manner. -Some external irritant must be used instead. Numerous insecticides of this nature are recommended. One of the most Important is good whale oil soap. Experiments during the past season show that one pound of whale oil soap to seven gallons of water will kill plum and currant lice. The solution should be applied in a fin. spray to the under surface of the leaves. — Orange Judd Farmer. The Choke Ball. Cows will often get choked with a small potato or other nr tide of food. The following peculiar.remedy is sometimes employed: Take of fine-cut chewing tobacco enough to make a ball the size of a hen’s egg. Dampen with molasses so that it adheres closely. Lift up the cow's head, pull the tongue forward and crowd the ball as far down the throat as possible. In fifteen minutes it will cause sickness and vomiting, relaxing the muscles so that the object will probably be thrown out.— Kansas Farmer. Feeding Steer*. A cattle breeder who has experimented in various modes of feeding states that he estimated the cost of the food according to flie value of the land and the crop, and with a bunch of steers on a pasture from May to September he cleared ?6.80 an acre. As no labor was required, the steers securing the food from the pasture, the gain was an addition to that which the pasture gives ordinarily, while the manure is also an item of profit. Let Well Enough Alone. Novelties in fruit growing serve to keep growers on the alert for something better every year, but the majority of the novelties pass out of sight after the first year’s trial with them. Many of the so-called novelties are old varieties brought to the. front again. In venturing upon new kinds let It be done experimentally. Never discard a satisfactory kind for another until certain that a change will be of advantage. Teat* in Feeding Chicken*. After making repeated tests in feeding, the New York Agricultural experiment station says: “The ground grain ration proved considerably more profitable than (he whole grain ration with the growing chicks; and the same was true of capons of equal .weight from these chicks, and from others of equal weight and age; fed'alike before capouixing. No difference was noticed In ► health or vigor of chicks or capons fed either ration.