Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1859 — AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER ITEMS. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL AND OTHER ITEMS.

Now is the time to set out evergreens. A few have been tried in Jasper county and nearly all with eminent success. Pine, Spruce Arbor-vitaO, and Fir arc all beautiful trees, natives of the country and stand our climate well. Raise them from the ground just at the time the buds start, keep the roots from getting dry un'il the trees are re-set. Place them in the g r onnd at the depth they grew naturally. Drive down a stake to keep them from being moved by the wind, until they take root. Il too dry in the summer throw a pail till of water around them, which has stood in an open vessel in the sun during the day Grafts or cions cut from fruit trees now , and packed away in damp moss or siwdust from green hard wood logs, will keep good and sound a whole year and may be inserted at any time, you please during the summer. Cions cut from the trees in July and August’ and kept in the shade a day or two, where they may wilt, and then grafted in, grow readily and with good success. Currant sprou s, or brush, cut oft and stuck in the ground, will begin to bear in three years. If the twig is cutso as to leave some root on, it will bear next year. I have never heard of any one attempting to raise a crop of Marrow fat Field Peas in Jasper couty. This sort of pea yields a fair profit in many places, why not here! Besides the abundance produced for family use while green, they may be fed to hogs n the field without gathering, at hall the expense of a crop of oats, and are worth, acre for acre, as much as corn. Beets, sowed on new, freshly turned sod land, in June, are the very best for Fall and Winter use. I have tried this several times, in this county, and know. If you will look at your young peach trees near the ground, it is possible you may see a lump of gum oozing out. There is a white w rm, with a yellow head, nearly an inch long between the bark and wood. Cut him out, you can thus save an orchard of fifty trees in an hour. If that worm is left there, it will breed more next year and the tree will die.

Osage Orange, for fences, has been tried here under the most unfavorable circumstances, dry summers and cold winters —winters and summers which destroyed nearly all kinds of fruit trees, throughout the United States. But the fruit trees’will be gradually replanted, and abundance of apples, I peaches, cherries, pears, and other fruits will be raised here yet, why may not the next trial be successful for hedges! To keep Eggs, pack them tin layers, the small end down, in a barrel, mix one peck of good lime, with four quarts of salt in eight gallons of water and pour it on so as to cover them. If sound when packed they will no* rot. The yolks will harden in hot weather. They will do for use, but are hardly fit for marketing. y Manure.—One can not open an agricultural paper that is not. full of this article, little advantage has been derived from it, no necessity felt for it on the virgin soil and rich alluvial lands of this county. _ The* future may develop its use here. Hungarian grass should be sown in June. R its in J isper,‘tbe p ist year, have been more plentiful and more destructive than ever bo'ore. How they came here in such vast numbers, is a mystery, or win re they came from is equally as strange. They must be 'a northern horde migrating south. Since they came here they have constantly been found in every stage of growth and propagation summer and winter, from the magnitml • of a half grown cat to the size of a small piece of red chalk. How long they are going to stay, or what they are here for, or wh re they are going to, many would like to know. Their skins, when dressed are tough fine, elastic and beautiful, and make elegant gloves, and may be manufactured into a variety ofuseful articles. 'Pile fur, ot the larger ones, is rich, dine and durable. Tim dressed skins will take every variety of color, and the fur a brown or glossy jet black. Remedy for rats; strychnine, dogs ami men. Sheep have done well here for several years, but the past winter has been extraordinary fora weekly succession of rains, commencing in October, attended with occasional thunder and lightning the whole time. From these storm-', many sheep h. ve i.ot been well sheltered, either while feeding or at rest, and have not done w ell. Experience however suggests a remedy. Smailei flocks must Im kept togetherj with proper si elter and better care. The spring lambs and feeble sheep siieuld be fed apait from the Strenger ami more robust. Isiiri 11 fresh \v ite pike or other fish are wa-hcd and thiowp into a keg in layers, ith four quarts of salt to a bushel of fish, they will in three days be salt enough t’’ -moke. I’u-h a small stick throng i their eves, and A. * hang them up In the smoke house. Keep up a smud ic of em u cobs, hickory or ap.pfe tree brush, constantly for three days more. Then let them dry a week or so, am! you will hive a fine lot of herring that do not cost five cents a hundred.