Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1882 — Page 7

AGRICULTURAL.

How to Hoed Bran. The Live Stock . Journal says that bran or ground feed is best fed to cows upon moistened hay; it being mired with the hay, all -will be eaten together and raised and masticated. Bat if it is not fed with cut hay it shonld be fed dry and in a small quantity each time, for if fed alone it is not raised and m isticated, bnt goes on to the third and fourth stomachs.* If fed in slop it is swallowed without any mastication and mixed with little or no saliva, but if fed drv it cannot be swallowed until it is mixed with saliva, and the saliva assists in digestion.* When food is masticated the act of rumination causes the saliva to flow and mix frith the food. We have experimented and find that when • fed alone dry ground feed is better digested than when fed wet. Seed Potatoes. The Rural New Yorker gives the following yields per acre as the result of experiments with different seed potatoes : Whole potatoes, large, yield: table potatoes, 149.2 bushels; small potatoes, 105.8,bushels; total, 255 bushels. , Whole potatoes, small, yield: table potatoes, 127.8 bushels; small potatoes, 65.15 bushels; total, 193.3 bushels. One eye to a hill, yield: table potatoes 60.1 bushels; small potatoes, 24.9 bushels; total, 85 bushels. Two eyes to a hill, yield: table potatoes, 83.9 bushels; small potatoes, 39.9 bushels. Three eyes to a hill, yield: table potatoes, 105.7 bushels; small potatoes, 48.4 bushels; total, 154.1 bushels. Seed end yields: table potatoes, 114 bilshels;, small potatoes, 68.7 bushels; total, 182.4 bushels. Stem end yields: ta ■le potatoes, 90.7 bushels; small potatoes, 61.8 bushels; total, 152.5 bushels. i Pumps. The patience of nearly every one has been so severely tried by pumps that the sight of the word nearly brings on paroxysms. It matters not whether iron or wooden, there is a radical defect in nearly all of them. The least defect in bucket or valves causes the water to run down, and. the pump has to be charged before it will operate. * It is often t)ie case that a pump in a stockwater well, at probably the extreme corner of the farm, needs, every time it is visited to water stock, to have a pail of water carried a half or three-quarters of a mile to charge it. If one happens to be at work on that part of the farm he has to go to the barn /or house before the pump will work. The same trouble has existed with pumps about the house and bam for sixty-five years, to our recollection. Pumps are nearly always out of order. They are poorly and cheaply made, and sold at stiff prices. The ouly way to have pumps, and prevent good men from violating some of the commandments, is to have the cylinder and lower valve down in the water of the well or cistern. Then your pump is always primed, even if there is a leak. In < this way the water is lifted, not depend- ’ ing upon the pressure of the air to raise it. And with the knowledge and experience the* w f orld now has with cheap and worthless pumps it is time for sensible men to refuse to buy any other kind, wood or metal. With the cylinder in the water, pumps will last four times as long, and so long as there is a good fragment of them left they are ready to raise water. Buy only such pumps as have at all times the cylinder at the bottom of the well in the water.— Des Moines Register. Tile Drainage. There is no rule which will apply to all kinds of soil to determine the distance drains should be apart. The nature of the soil and man’s good sense must determine this matter. A loose, porous soil, the deptli the tile is sunk, and the fall, enter largely into the question. Into a drain in loose soil, or if it be a little sandy, the water collects from a long distance. In a tough, compact clay soil, impervious to water, drains are required to be much nearer. Generally in our lowa prairie soil, with good fall, ten rods apart will do pretty well. But if it is stiff clay, or on black, sticky soil, the drains will have to be from four to six rods apart. An eight-inch tile is considered large enough to carry off the water from fifty acres. It will discharge about as much water as an open ditch four feet wide and two feet deep. In an open ditch the water is frequently impeded bv grass and weeds. But a tile, if laid deep enough and each end well protected, is clear and the water is discharged with great rapidity. We recollect some years since visiting a farmer who said his tile drain was obstructed. He ascertained as nearly as he could the location and he set his hands to work to dig down and ascertain the trouble. He found that the bottom of the ditch was uneven in the hardness of the soil, that the end of one section of tile had dropped down past the eild of the other. This gave the muskrats access into the tile, and several of them had crowded in and died there, and thus obstructed it. This impresses the importance of having the tile laid on a solid foundation, and of the ends being crowded close together. When thus placed one end cannot fall without the other end drops at the same time. Trees should not stand near the ditch, as the roots, instinct with vegetable life, will seek water drains, and if the roots grot large will obstruct or displace the tile. What is oalled horte-shoe tile is worthless, as the crawfish will soon fill it up. The longer the sections of tile the better. The old length was twelve and one-half inches. The fifteen-inch

tile is far better. If it could be suocessfylly made and buried twenty inches long it wonld be better still, as then it could bte laid with a tolerable oertainty of being permanent It will not pay to employ an engineer to grade the drain. A man of practical Reuse ought to be able to do it better himself. Water is a good leveler, and witu the simplest implements the drain can be laid on a gentle incline according to the fall of the ground. It should not have any place where it will have stagnant water, as in such case the sediment will settle, and in times of drought may bake and become immovable by water, and thus gradually fill up. Have at least a little fall for every foot of the drain. It is well for the farmer to do this himself, and thus probably make him begin to think and study, and thus awaken an intellect that would afterward bless the world. — lowa State Register.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

Pudding Sauce.—Two oups of sugar, one cup of butter, two table-spoo fuls of vinegar, two eggs. Let it scald, but not boil. t Raisin Tarts. —Take pie crust and out out with a biscuit cutter. Use two crusts to each tart. For inside one cup of chopped raisins stewed with one-half cup of sugar. Egg Plant. — Peel, slice and boil till tender; mash and season with pepper and salt; roll crackers and stir into it until very thick; make into little patties and fry in hot lard. Flannel Cake. —Two ounces of butter, one pint of milk, hot; pinch of salt, two table-spoonfuls of yeast. Melt the butter. Add flour. Let it rise jn a warm place. Fry on a hot griddle. Fruit Pudding. One cup of molasses, one cup of milk, two eggs, one teaspoon ful of soda, three cups of flour, one-half cup of melted butter, one cup of raisins, one cup of currants. Boil or steam three hours. Fried Cabbage. Cut very thin a head of cabbage, salt and pepper it well. Have an iron kettle smoking hot; drop one table-spoonful of lard into it, then the cabbage, stirring briskly until tender. Send to table immediately. Fricasseed Potatoes.—Peel and slice the potatoes very thin, and let them stand in cold water one houre. PI ice them in a dish with salt, pepper and milk, and let them bake one hour. Then scatter over them small pieces of butter and serve. Eggless Cake.—-One-half cup of butter, one and one-half cups of sugar, one cup of sour milk, three level cups of flour, two teaspoonfuls baking powder, one-half teaspoonful each of cinnamon and grated nutmeg, one cup chopped raisins. Vinegar Cookies.—One cup of molasses, one-lialf cup of sugar, one tablespoonful of ginger, one table-spoonful of vinegar, salt, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Bring the molasses to a boil, adding the other ingredients gradually, then flour to roll thin. Mustard Sauce. —Take two tablespoonfuls of white sugar and mix thoroughly with one table-spoonful of pepper, two hard-boiled eggs, one cup of vinegar. Place on the stove, then add two well-beaten eggs. It is now ready to pour over the cabbage or lettuce. Baked Cauliflower. Soak the cauliflower in salted water for one hour; look over carefully and remove the hard stalks and leaves; scald for five minutes-; cut into pieces and put into a pie dish; add a little milk and season. Cover the whole with dry, grated cheese and bake. Tea Cakes,—Add to a quarter of a pound of butter a quarter of a pound of sugar and three eggs, well beaten, and sift in enough flour to make a thin batter; stir til 1 the batter is perfectly smooth and so light that it will break when it falls against the sides of the bowl; bake in muffin tins and serve hot. Fig Pudding.—One pound of figs, chopped fine, one pint of grated bread crumbs, one cup of chopped suet, onehalf cup sugar, one cup of sweet milk, three eggs, one teaspoonful each of cinnamon aivl nutmegs. Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water and dredge it with flour; tie up tightly, leaving room to swell. Steam three hours.

The Moles at Pord Said.

The northern harbor of the Suez Canal is formed by two mighty artificial moles or dams reaching 5,130 and 700 feet into the blue waters of the historic Mediterranean Sea. These moles are made from tho “rocks of the desert,” mixed with quicksand and lime, and, after being cut into blocks of thirty-two cubic feet dimensions and dried, were sunk to their places A peculiarity of these moles is that *'iey act like a sieve, through which the waters can penetrate, yet at the same time the power of the surging waves is broken upon them. The current of the sea flowing from the mouth of the river Nile in an easterly direction along the Egyptian coast,‘and carrying the eject-, ed sands and mud of the aforesaid against the west of the moles at Port Said, was the means of forming what now is known as Quai Eugenie. Facing this quai, northward, are long rows of houses—Port Said. The lighthouse is at the mouth of the Suez Canal. “Yes,” said the gilded youth of his friend. “Jack has a passion for proposing to girls. Why, I've known of nis proposing to Bix girls in a week, not one of whom he’d ma ry for a farm.” “Doesn’t he run a terrible risk of be ng accepted by somebody he doesn’t want ?” “Not a bit. He isn’t worth a dollar!” Boston Post.

ALLIGATORS

Some Stories About the Reptiles. [From the 8u Louis Globe- Democrat. 7 Mr. Will Smith, who was for a long period keeper at the jetties when they were in course of construction, tells some-curious stories a about alligators, which were very numerous there and through the marshes. The men became so accustomed to them that they would hardly turn aside to avoid the largest, and on Sunday it was quite a common amusement to shoet them, sometimes half a dozen or a dozen being secured in an afternoon. It is a mistake to suppose that a rifle ball will not penetrate an alligator’s hide, as one from a Winchester striking it in the head, the toughest part, will generally take the whole top of the skull off. Northern people visiting the jetties were anxious to see alligators, and one immense fellow, apparently seventeen feet in length, was encouraged to stay in the river in the vicinity, and was known as Col. Andrews’ pet. The Colonel was quite incensed at one time by the fact that one of the men fired at his favorite with a revolver, and by discovering on another occason that Walker, who is said to have hooked a whale, had made preparations to capture the alligator by meai/s of a rope, a huge shark hook and twelve pounds of beef. Although the bait was shoved invitingly under the reptile's nose as he lay on the bank in the sun, he was too shrewd or not hungry enough to be tempted. “The pet” remained about a year or two, and may still be there. One evening as somh men were unloading a barge of rock a huge alligator arose out of the water alongside, and one of the men pitched a fifteen-pound stone at it, which, from a height of twelve or fourteen feet, landed directly on its head. The- head must have been smashed, hard as it was, for the saurian, after turning half a dozen somersets and going through a number of antics, sunk slowly, and seemed dead. Mr. Smith was coming down the river one Sunday in a perogup with another man, a late arrival, when they saw an enormous alligator asleep on the bank Smith proposed having some fun with him, and, without disturbing his slumbers, pulled up alongside, and, crowding the boat ashore, stood up in it and began a vigorous attack on the sleepez with paddles. Contrary to their expectations, the sluggard started toward them in his hurry to reach the water, and, crawling over the boat, upset them in the mud knee deep and filled the boat with, filth and water. Their clothes were ruined, and they were pretty thoroughly disgusted on asceiv taming that the alligator had lost an eye. They had attacked him from the blind side, and he had rolled over them before he found where the trouble started. There are numerous individuals in the South who make a living by killing and catching alligators. The hide of a large one is worth from $1 to $2; but it is very hard work to take it off, and is almost a day’s task. From the flesh a very strong and quite valuable oil ismade, which is used for many purposes, but principally as a remedy for rheumatism. It has, however, a most unpleasant smell unless properly treated. Many fishermen have been known to eat portions of the meat, that of the tail being said, when cooked, to have much the appearance of veal and taste something like pork. Quite a lucrative business is that of capturing alligators alive to send away for exhibition. Col. Williams, when Spanish Fort was made a summer resort, made a contract with a fisherman to fill the hole known as the alligator pond for him, and in the course of a couple of weeks he had it stocked with thirty or forty, r inging in length from six inches to seven or eight feet. The man who caught them showed no fear in handling the huge reptiles, and for $5 offered to gdt into the hole and throw the largest one out over the paling by which it was surrounded. They are said to exhibit wonderful alacrity in “going for” a colored person, and dogs are their favorite diet, while they will, as a general thing, endeavor to avoid a white man. The man who supplied the pond and his companion have been known to bring into camp in a small skiff an aligator sixteen feet long and furious with rage. The manner of accomplishing this feat was, as he explained, quite simple. The old are savage and will fight for # their young, and this fact is taken advantage of. Borne of the young are caught out of the spot in which the old one is lying, and a stout-noosed rope is then placed where to emerge she must tnrust her head through it. When all is ready the young are allowed to cry out, and the old lady thrusts out her head to have her neck caught in the noose. .She is dragged around in the water until prettv well ohoked. when another noose is secured on her tail, and she is firmly strapped, stomaoh downward, on a wide board, which she cannot break, as her powerful muscles in the tail act only in a lateral direction. Her head is then fastened to the boat, the noose about her neck is removed, ana shq is towed away after her young have been placed in the skiff. Young ones are bought by dealers for from $2 to $4 a dozen, if not over a foot in length. When they sell them they get a much higher price, as they are hard to preserve alive. The large ones are sold differently, there being an increase in price of 50 cents to $1 for every additional foot over a certain length. Alligators sixteen or eighteen inches long are frequently found by the dozens in shallow water, and oan be handled without trouble providing the old one, who is generally near, does not take the alarm. Most alligator fishers are usually turtle hunters also, and searoh along the shores of bayous and lagQpps for the holes of the oni-

mats. \v nep the hole is discovered it is. explored with a long pole with a by; hook set in the end, and if the unfortunate resident is at home hois promptly dragged out in spite of his s rugglcs and quickly appears in market. The eye of a young alligator, when closely examined in a strong light, is a queer and rather pretty sight, having all the fire and much "the appearance of an opal of a similar size.

The Malarious Mormon.

Our esteemed Mormon contemporary says: “It is often charged that the ‘ Mormons ’ are under bondage to their ecclesiastical leaders. The truth is that there is, if anything, too much laxity of discipline among us. The lines are very loose." This is true. We have heard little remarks going around through our best circles to the effect that in the Mormon church there was too much laxity and that the lines were loose. This is a state of affairs that is bound to exist in a society where a man has a different sized corset hanging on each of his bedEosts and a new style in each chair in is boudoir; and is proud of it. We hope we may be pardoned for speaking with some degree of freedom of the condition of affairs in Zion, because our mission on earth is to make men better. That is why we burn the midnight cigar and aim our wormwood-soaked pen at sin wherever it shows its unblushing face. And we are not making a rule which we are not willing to abide by. We have worried along now for several years with only one wife, and although we have added many household attractions to our palatial home we have never sighed for variegated collections of home ties. We never pined to make the marriage record of our family Bible look like a hotel register. 'One country, one flag and one wife, is the platform we stand on and it would be a pretty good motto for other people who are not in the cannibal business to adopt. Uncivilized nations, of course, are supposed to be more reckless and a little more extemporaneous and offhand in their marital relations, but here in the home of enlightenment, with the statutes in such case made and provided, we want to see the lines drawn somewhere. It has been urged that the Mormons took, the desert and made it blossom as the rose, and therefore they ought to get a corner on the home-tie business; but we disagree with this statement. The Mormons took the most fertile valley in tne universe and after a good many years got the watermelon, the grape, the mulbery and the camelhair kid to grow luxuriantly in the valley of the Jordan; but they nave planted i? that delightful vale, a large and vigorous smell which it will take $75,000,000 worth of legislation and perhaps hogsheads of choice gore to disinfect. There are thousands of stirring, active, intelligent American citizens of Yankee descent who are waiting till their families will hav6 a homo in Utah protected by the local laws and Caucasian social customs, and then they will iqake the modern Zion get up and hump itself with teeming industries that will make Utah think she has been slumbering for twenty years. In the language of that illustrious bard whose name has at this moment escaped our memory, we don’t believe a polygamous community ought to boss the government with so much impunit v.—Boomerang.

Two Sweet Girls.

Two girl-friends sat together on the sofa with their arms aronnd each other’s waists. The head of one reposed upon she shoulder of the other. “You tell me my faults and I will tell yon yours,” said Mabel, slipping a caramel into her rosy mouth. “You haven’t a fault in the world,” said Katie, chewing on a marsh-mallow. “That’s too sweet,” murmured Mabel, referring to her friend and not to the oandy. “I know I’m just full of faults, and I want yon to tell me so I can correct them. Now what do you think is my worst one?” “Well, dear, since yon ask me—-now mind you are to tell m? all of mine, too —I think you are —you are sure you won’t be vexed at it?--just a little proud!” said Katie. “Proud 1 n’m—l am sure I don’t know how any one can call me proud!” pursued Mabel. . “Well, dear, yod asked me to tell you your greatest fault, now you tell me mine; I know I’ve got one, you see,” and Katie leaned carelessly on her friend, who straightened up. “ Oh, I suppose we all have faults, and, if I must tell yours, it is that you are just the least little bit selfish, my dear.” “Selfish! mo selfish?” ejaculated Katie, regardless of her syntax; “well, I must say you’re a very disagreeable gild, Mabel!” “Thank you, Miss! when I tell you anything for your own good again. I’d like to know it, that’s all.” “Oh, you had better practice on improving yourself. I’m sure I wish you a very good morning,” and the two who had been aH one flounced out at separate doors and h ive not spoken since. A Cincinnati society reporter has mysteriously disappeared, and foul play is suspected, although it is possible thqt he is hiding somewhere in the Rocky mountains, as he was well supplied with railroad passes. His last art cle was an account of the marriage of a pork-packer’s daughter, in which report he used the term “swell wedding.” It oame out in the papers “swill wedding.” —Philadelphia News. Camp-meetings were held in this country as early as 1779.

PITH AND POINT.

Homeward bound—The tethered goat. It is the late cat that catches the early bootjack. ' Wanted —An artist to paint the very picture of health. Go to the butoher’s if yen would hear joint debates. When 10-cent pieces again become fashionable as artioles of jeweby every man can wear a dime-and-pin. Julia Ward Howe says women do not fall in love any more. Perhaps not, but they contiuue to have all the symptoms. * Some men wear their beat trousers out in tho knees in winter getting religious, ami jt he seats of their pants out in summer backsliding. Though the telephone has superseded the telegraph to a certain extent, yet the average woman still continues to faint away upon receipt of a telegram. A stranger in a printing-office asked the youngest apprentice what his rule of punctuation was. Said the boy; “I set up as long as I oan hold my breath, and then I put a comma; when I gape, I insert a semi-colon; and when I want to Bneeze, I make a paragraph.” “Why do they call him a brakeman ?" asked the child, after that excellent official had looked in at the oar door and “hollered” one of the lamps out. “What does he break?” “He breaks the silence.” said the father, and the train rolled on, laden with truth.— Burdette. A little boy was once charged by his father, who was a carpenter, to grind his edge tools during his absence. The little fellow worked like a dutiful son, and on his father’s return said: “Pa, I have ground all the tools, as you told me to do, and have them all in good Order except the handsaw. I have not yet quite got all the gaps out of it.” A philosopher inadvertantly remarks: “Waiting for a man to come home from a lodge is dull business for a lively woman.’’ This is important, if true; but a lively woman is too sensible to do any such foolish thing. She just bolts the front door before retiring, and lets the man wait until she gets ready to let him in. We speak advisedly, brethren.— New York Commercial Advertiser. The boy stood near the mole’s hind legs, With utmost confidence— Although no more he’ll look M sweet, He’ll nave a deal more sense. THE LITTLE KAIBBN. Her feet were exquisitely sash (How wildly my heart used to beat, When I was a passionate bey, At the sound of her dehiiate test#-; Her hand was exquisitely small (And I, her blind slave to oonunand. Would have died had she only ordered With a wave of her little white hand 1); Her lips were exquisitely small (Their cold words yet rankle and smart), Exquisitely small was her head. But smaller than all was her heart! —New York Sun. A little Austin girl, about 10 yean of age, attended a child’s party not long since. When she came home her mother asked her how many little girls there were at the party. “Guess how many.” “Ten?” “Guess again.” “Twelve?" “No. you are off your feed, nia, entirely. There were bo little girls (here at all, but there were quite a number of young ladies present,” replied “the young lady,” scornfully. The climate is said to be to blame for the excessive precocity which has become epidemic among the babes and sucklings. —Texas Siftings. “Hello! coming out of a pawnshop? What have you been doing there?” The party accosted, with confusion—“O, you see, I thought I’d go in and haye "my watch—ah—valued. You see yon can get a more accurate estimate in that way than in any other.” About three weeks later the same parties meet under similar circumstances: “Ha, been getting yonr watch valued again?” “Well —a—yes 1 I saw from the stock-market news that there has been a readjustment of values, and so I thought I’d see how it affected my wateh.” “No, am,” said a Comstock (Nev.) barber to a suspicious-looking transient customer, who affably remarked, as the lather was being laid on, that he supposed there were a great many men who failed to pay their shaving scores. “No, sir, I used to give credit, but I never do it now—in fact, nobody ever asks for tick any morp.” “How’sthat?” “Well, you see,” said the barber, trying the edge of his razor on his thumb nail, “I had a set of stiffs who used to ask me to chalk it down. I got tired of keeping books, and I adopted a new system. Whenever I shaved one of these old standbys I put a Hick in his nose with mv razor, and kept tally in that way. They got so they didn’t want to run bills.” There was a tremor in the customer’s voice, as he asked from beneath the lather: “Do von object to being paid in advance?*^

The Use of Toads.

Toads have been used by entomologists for the acquisition of minute nootnrnal insects difficult to catch. A number are turned oat at night in a district where rare or desired insect is known to exist. In the morning the reptiles .re recaptured, and either deprived of their spoils by a little gentle pressure, or killed and ransacked. If they conld also be made subservient to anatomical science b,v providing oar cabinets with osteologies! preparations of the minute vertebrate, so difficult to set up, the poor amphibians would prove of greater value to students than if they really wore that mythic precious jewel in their head which the exiled dtike ascribed to them.— The London Field. A Milwaukee clock stopped at the moment Guiteau was hanged, and nobody con make it go again.