Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1883 — Farm Notes [ARTICLE]

Farm Notes

them. It is the best preserver of all wood ■nd iron expoeedtythe weather, and oosts but little. No inveatmmt pays batten Poultry per pound, let the breed be what it may, will oost vmy near the same. One bushel of oornwill produce nine to eleven pounds of poultry. It makes no difference whether Leghorns, Plymouth Bocks or Brahmas est the oorn. Many farmers in northwestern lowa use hay as fuel cut from the prairie, dried, and twisted up nutoake fashion. It is even used in brick-kilns, end economically. It oan be gathered and etaoked for 60 oentsa ton, and thus is said to be cheaper than wood at $2 a oord. The sudden changes in the weather, common this month, are herd oa the young lambs and pigs, and both if exposed to ■»- vere storms are liable to beoome diseased, or, at most, so stunted in their growth that they never fully reoover from it It is good economy to provide warm and oomfortable quarters. Muoh siokne9s is oaused by the odor aris ing from deoaying vegetable matter in cellars beneath living-rooms of the house. It should be removed at onoe, and the wind owb and oellar door be thrown open daily when the temperature is above the freesing point It is oheaper to do this than to pay doctor bills. There are said to be 60 injurious inserts in our vegetable gardens; 60 in our vineyards, while 75 attack our apple treat and more than 60 our grain fields/Seven-ty-five million dollars is estimated as the damage done to the wheat in Illinois in one season, and nearly 10 years ago the annual lose in the United States from Insect depredations aloaewas estimated at nearly $400,000,000. The Natonjal Tribune says: “It is not generally known that sorghum is valuable for grazing purpose. It grows quickly after being eating down, and branches oat in to a number of suooulent shoots, whioh are highly relished by live stock of all kinds. Witha patch of rye sown in the fall will afford good grazing until midsummer, supplement by a sowing of sorghum in Ma/ a supply of suooulent pasture may be secured equal in value to any mixture of other kinds of grasses and clover*. The selection of suitable stocks for grafting is a matter still required much scienfio experiment The object of grafting is to expedite and increase the formation of flowers and fruit Strong-growing pear?, for instance, are grafted on the quince stook in order to restrict their tendency to form “gross” shoots and a superabundance of wood in place of flowers andffrait Apples, for the same reason are “worked” .on the “paradise” stocks, which, from their influence on the scion, are known as dwarfing stocks. Scions from a tree , whioh is weakly or liable to injury by frosts, are strengthened by engrafting on robust stocks, lAndley has pointed out that while in Persia, its native country, the peach is probably best grafted ou the peach, or on its wild type, the almond. In England, the summer temperature of whose soil is much lower thaa that of Persia, it is most successful on.stooks of the native plum. /