Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1882 — FARM AND GARDEN. [ARTICLE]

FARM AND GARDEN.

Poland China swine carried off the main prizes at the last great agricultural fair in Denmark. The demand for farm productions should be carefully studied, like the demand for the product of looms and machine shops. The production of small fruit is often very profitable in the vicinity of small villages. The cost of marketing is small, and good prices are obtained. There is the reverse of economy in using honey for ordinary cooking purposes when one pound of it will purchase three pounds of pure white sugar. Every farmer and gardner should know how to do his own grafting. It is the easiest thing in the world to do, after paying a little attention to one who is at work. The reports of the condition of live stock on the great Western plains are very favorable. The supply of food and water was ample during the winter, and the grass )s taking an early start. In selecting land to raise onions, a sandy loam should be chosen. Clay should be avoided, or a soil that is very gravity. A light mixture of clay on a sandy loam is regarded as the best, when it can be had. Physiologists are agreed, says the St. James Gazette, that the worst form of cruelty to animals Ib to starve them. Fiom an unsufflolency of food they suffer longer, and there is good ground for supposing, far more intensely, than from wounded or broketi bones. The best soil for radishes is one that is light and rich. They should be grown quickly, in order to be tender and crisp. They may be raised by preparing the ground and sowing the seed broadcast. They will generally grow so quickly that they will not be troubled by the weeds; a better way, however, is to sow the seed in di ills. To have a succession, a row should be sown every week from the time the frost leaves the soil in the spring till late in the fall. An education, even in taste, is not only well, but sometimes important; ana yet if a farmer, struggling hard to “get along” in the world, can’t appreciate tne difference between giltedged and common butter, is it not an advantage from the standpoint of personal economy? He may miss an educated enjoyment, but, uuderthe circumstances, may he not rejoice that the balance of good Is so slightly against him ? Butter is only a luxury at best, and as such might wisely be banisned from many a table. Havana seed tobacco should always be grown on a dark, rich loam, since the leaf is apt to be thick and leathery, without much grain, so that it is hardly fit for wrapping cigars, while it is almost of light sod by the Connecticut and Massachusetts growers, some ten or twelve years ago, when its culture was first begun, nearly resulted in an entire return to culture of tne seed lea f . Now, however, dark soil is chosen, and the leaf is now regarded as the finest cigar wrapping leaf grown in the country, and the demand is greater than the supply.

The “land reform” most uneeded in this country is that which reforms the land itself and makes it grow more productive under annual culture. On the other hand, a reform which would stop capitalists from investing in farm lauds and conducting operations ou a scale of common sense and vastuess which dwarfs ordinary farm operations, is just uo reform at all, but is much like the bowlings of ignorant laborers against machinery or most modern improvements, because those things “take the bread out of their mouths!” Two cases of pleuro-pneumonia recently occurred in YVest Manheim township, Pa., whLh is the third.outbreak of the kind during the past vyear, all tbe cases originating, as we are informed, in Maryland. Complaints come to us that the State of Maryland takes no pains whatever to suppressor keep this disease in check, and that the farmers and dairymen about Baltimore habitually take diseased cattle dnto the Baltimore markets and sell them, and this is the way the disease is dissemmina-t ed.

Some one asked some questions about cherry grafting, recently, but we have mislaid them, We will say, however, for his benefit, that the grafting should be done vety early, before tbe buds begin to swell. It ought to be done before the fro.-t is out of tbe ground, but this is impossible in most sections this spring. The process is the same as in other grafting, and can best be learned by seeing it done and doing it under directions of one who knows how. If you are grafting trees of some size, use the old-fashioned cleft-grafting. If graft aud stalk are nearly of same size, whip or tongue-graftine is perierabie. Last spring I was absent from home a few days, and found upod my return that one of my horses bad killed one of my Cotswold lambs, and as I bad another sheep that bad twins, I conceived tbe idea of washing one of the twins thoroughly in warm water aud then robbing it with tbe dead lamb’s skin. After I had done this I put the sheep on the barn floor by herself aud gave her the lamb, which she smelled of all over, and from that time on sbe was one of the happiest mothers X ever saw. - Her own iamb had been dead five days, but as her miik had been drawn out twice a day, her udder was not inj «red. If you have occasion, brother farmers, try it and see if it does not give entire satisfaction.

N. MARKS.

Cuyahoga Co., O.