Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1882 — AGRICULTURAL. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL.

Buy none but the best variety o fruit trees. Good feeding is the secret of success in she p husbandry. The best and surest way to get a good cow is to raise her yourself. There is less excuse for feeding a milk cow stingily than any other animal. Separate all breeding ewes from the other sheep in the flock now until after lambing. Orchard grass is certainly second to timothy as a hay grass, and preferable as a feeding or temporary pasture grass. Kill the dog first and hunt for the owner afterward, is the methodof certain Georgia farmers who mean to make sheep raising profitable. In Hampden, Mass., there is an apple tree which was grafted by Robert Sessions 100 year? ago. He was one of the men who pitched the tea overboard in Boston harbor. It is a mistake to allow sows |o breed before they are at least a year old, as they are not then matured, and pigs from such are sometimes too weak to live. It does not require heavy pastures for sheep. They are great foragers, and weeds, leaves and even stubble enters in their bill of fare. They equal the goat in that respect. Nearly all kinds offruit do well on a mixture of superphosphate and wood ashes. Lime is not suitable for strawberries, but excellent around apple, peach and pear trees. By training a pet lamb to come at the call, and aferward putting it with the flock, the owner can call his sheep wherever they hear him, as the pet will come, followed by the other sheep. Fine flow ers require thoroughly rotted manure and wood mould mixed and tomato or other early plants can be grown in boxes,' and afterward transplanted with better results with such a mixture. A trial has been made in Scotland to test the value of an acre of cabbage compared to the value of an acre of Sweedish turnips for fattening sbeep, and it was found that the cabbage was worth very near S2O the most. A. few sheep could be kept on every dairy farm with profit, and would be a benefit to the pastures* eating that which the Cows reject, and when in winter quarters they would eat much the cows refuse, and so would be of very small extra cost. a For ordinary work a horde of average size should be fed 12^poundsof oats or other grain food, and 15 to pounds of good hay; but, it driven on the road, 2 or 3 pounds of hay, morning and noon, and 8 or 10 at night, with the same quantity of grain. Prof. Brov/n, special*census agent, says that 5,585 patents have been issued on plows in this country. On harrows and diggers, 1,746 haVe been granted; on harvesters, 6,235. of which about 400 are.on self binders; on threshing machines the number is 1,722. In Lancaster county, Pa., last season one farmer sold his two acre yield of tobacco for $1,111;. cost of labor, qto.. $212; net profit, 9Q0., Another farmer realized $430 an acre from three and a half acres, and anothS ssbo an acre from one and a half acres. They think it pays. Animals often show their excellence through their offspring in one sex alone. Imported Glencoe, one of the grandest thoroughbreds the world ever produced, was a total failure with his sons, but his daughters made good runners and brood mares, one of them being Pocahontas (in England,) dam of Stockwell, King Tom and Rataplan, and in this country his daughters were the dafns of Kentucky, Asteroid, Norfolk, Gilroy and hundreds of other good one«. An itinerant teacher of agriculture has been appointed for Corinthea, Austria, in the person.of Herr Earnest Kramer, formerly a master in the High School of Agriculture, and assistant master in the agricultural chemical laboratory at Vienna. The said gentleman will give the peasant population lectures on agriculture, will inspect nursery gardens, and will be ready to instruct the village school master In the principles of agriculture. The Cincinnati Tobacco Journal, hi order to answer the question of how much seed Is necessary to plant an acre of tobacco, has pursued an investigation and found this: In one grain we found by actual count 1,494 seeds. This would make by multiplying by 480, the number of grains in an ounce 717,170 seed to the pound. Estimaiings,ooo pounds to the acre and supposing every seed will make make a f riant every half ounce will plan neary72 acres, an ounce 144 acres and one pound 1,721 acres. As'many farmers are contemplating planting largely this season we recommend a careful study of these figures. A Quebec French paper is responsible for the story that a night or two ago a huge rat jumped upon a bed in which were reposing two young girls of tlilsoity, one three the other thirteen years of age. The youngest had two bites upon her finger ana her sister was bitten upon the elbow. Thetr cries awakened their parents when the chaee after the intruder occurred. It was finally entrapped behind a piece of -furniture ana killed with heavy blows from a stick. So large was the animal “thatrlt "Was thought worth while to. wel gh» it. and accord - .lag Jo the authority above inentlohltd the weightwaa fopnd nto ibe-twenty-four pounds.