Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 January 1881 — FLRM ANE HARDEN. [ARTICLE]

FLRM ANE HARDEN.

Calves in winter need good feed, lietter than yearlings. In purcliasing bulbs buy mixed varieties of the hardy sorts. Never breed from a vicious sire; temper is hereditary in animals as well as in man. The presence of the red spider in a hot-house is an indication that the air is too dry. Pure milk condensed to one-third, will remain sweet from five to ten days in warm weather. It is said that 20,000,000 bushels of the present year’s wheat crop will be exported in the form of flour. The Massachusetts Ploughman asks if oxen Have not l>een abandoned for horses too much in doing farm work. Add a little wood ashes to the flower pots of favorites, and see how quickly it will nourish and improve the growth. The old adage which says lime applied to the land will enrich the father but improverish the son, contains much truth. A correspondent of the Ohio Farmer writes to that journal that he has raised three heads of cabbage on one stalk, by pinching oft' the first one which appeared. The chinch bug passes the winter in the perfect or bug state. It hides under bark, clods, rubbish, leaves, stones, about sheds, and wherever it can find safe dry quarters. The National Live Stock Journal thinks that wildness and bad temper in a mare»may be remedied by breeding them, and cites several instances where this has succeeded.

The washing of the seed wheat to avoid smut is to lie commended. A solution of bluestone of the strength of one pound to a gallon of wtjtep is used by many. Others use a strong brine, and some dust alr-slaeked lime over the seed, which are previously moistened. To cure slobbers in horses, take alum four ounces; ground ginger, four ounces hliHMlr<M>t, flour of sulphur, black antimony, sulphate of iron of each two ounces. Dose, one teaspoonful three times per day in chop,’or mill feed. Rub the swollen nose with tincture once or twice daily. A. corresiKindent of the Gbrilner'a Monthly sgys the Catawba is not “played out,” and that the fault with it is that we do not know how so grow It; that it is unless to try toget good fruit fn in it without the vine is trained high enough to havje the fruit at least ten feet from the ground, and that in all cases in his neighborhood (Madison, Ind,,) such high training has given good fruit and plenty of it. Almost the only demand In our large city markets is for new butter. New butter in January and Febuary’ as well as in June and September, and so far as the dairymen of 4he country cater to this want, they seem to be successful. Probably twice as much creamery or imitation creamery butter is now splfl during winter as of all other sorts put together, and it brings the highest price because of its fresh flavor.

How some plant lice pass the winter is known, but with reference to species living <m it is a subject yet Involved in great doybt. The wheat plant-louse lives through the winter on the roots of fall 1 wheat. I have found them during winter in all stagesof growth, from the very young larva to thp R inged individual. This species, sometimes a| least, continues to increase by generation through the winter. Mr, Adamßcott, a prominent Maine sheep-breeder, last winter fed 330 wethers, and to discern how rapidly they were gaining In flesh secured two which he weiglie<l every month. On the 12th of January’ they weighed respectively 120 and 135 iiounds, and continued to gain steadily up to the 12th of April, when they weighed 150 and 170. They were fed IJ* pounds of corp daily with all the hay they could cat, Tlie total post fqr feed being estimated at 17 Gents per month-=-ap. increase of about 20 cents j»er month for each sheep over the value of food eaten. •

A reason for the application of salt as a fertilizer for growing crops is that it pontyins both soda and chlorine. Nearly ail piaflUj cqntaiii these substances to some extent, and qepd so be supplied; sonie plants contain more than PlhcFSi »S, for instance, white clover Bontains ,5 lbs of pf soda and 2 lbs of chlorine in 1,000 pounds 1 beefe, cabbage, and turnips contain from 4 to 6 pounds in 1,000; tobacco contains 7 pounds of soda and 9 ponnds of chlorine; beet seeds contain 8 pounds of soda and 5 of chlorine, and all these arp greatly benefitted by an applicaMany fannets why use common sense in caring for their horsas, cows, sheep, and swine, exhibit a wonderful amount of ignorance and stupidity when it comes to managing poultry, and the flocks of twenty or thirty pens instead of*being a source of “revutiU¥>< barely pay their way in summer, and eat' Uwir “peads oft'” in winter. Whose fault is Not the hens’ surely. A hen cannot run an egg machine without a supply of raw M.: work on any more than farmAW IP. Inh 9f M° sn,entered his cow in ft HllWh wl let her go without growled because she did not j/rodyce as much milk as when on clover pasture in June?’To put it mildly they p all him a “fool.” Draw your own pQftcpiMufts,

Eighteenyillftgeu are flooded in Holland by the breaking 9f tfee dikes. The damage by the inundation is immense. Aid is being-solicited for the Wflfcfg. It is feared that the steamer Qscftr Dickson, on exploring party, hae been lost in the Siberian Polar seas.