Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 May 1884 — AGRICULTURAL. [ARTICLE]

AGRICULTURAL.

Plums thrive best on soil which is rich and naturally moist, but which has also been well drained. A Nsw York dairyman says that at 84 cents per quart milk is more profitable than butter at 28 cents a pound. It oosts, as estimated, S4OO per acre to transform a swamp into a cranberry meadow; the profits of the business, however, justify even this heavy expense in getting the land into bear.-, ing condition. 1 Different opinions are expressed by fruit-growers as to the best time for cutting ont the old canes of raspberries after they have done bearing. Some prune out as soon as the crop is gathered; others wait till the leaves have fallen, while a third class do all the pruning early in the spring. Sweet potatoes raised in moist parts of the West the past season are of very poor qnality. The flesh is extremely soft and watery. The season doubtlessly kadmuch to do iri~iriffriericlng their quality. The best sweet potatoes are produced during hot and dry summers. The past one was moist and cool. To keep off mice and rabbits wash trees with a mixture of quicklime, sulphur and whale-oil soap. Make the mixture of the same consistency as whitewash for walls. A tablespoonful of sulphur is enough for twenty trees. If you object to a whitewash, add enough lampblack to color the mixture. A correspondent of the New York Tribune recommends a tub largest at the bottom and tapering at the top, of sufficient size to contain a year’s supply, as the best package in which to store pork; If packed property the meat will not rise in the tub, being held down by the slant of the side. It should be put doivn edgeways in laying as solid as possible., „ The different varieties of potatoes were discussed at a meeting of the Ohio Horticultural Society. Mr. Campbell had grown the mammoth pearl for two years, and found them healthy and handsome, but lacking in qnality. Co). Innis had raised/twenty acres of them and regarded them excellent. They sold freely in Columbus. Mr. Pinkham intended to discard mammoth pearl and raise only snowflake, which he found better and superior to early rose. G. H. Miller fouifd mammoth pearl a tine yielder, but not quite of the best quality. Mr. Iniiis had tried snowflake, but never got anything valuable from it. So the doctors disagreed, as to taste, treatment, soil, time of planting, etc. The Swiss qow is large bodied, but fine boned, of the style of a shorthorn; the horns are large, short, clear and tipped with black; tlie color is chestnut brown, mixed with white; the nose, tongue, hoofs and switch are black; a mealy-colored band surrounds the black nose; the udder and teats are large and well formed, and while they differ to a great extent from our common notions about the right form which a cpw should have, yet they are excellent and profitable cows, yielding twenty or twenty-five quarts daily, and the milk is rich in butter of an excellent quality. The skin is yellow, soft, elastic and covered with soft silky hair; they carry remarkable escutcheons and are extremely even in appearance, showing careful and good breeding, for a considerable length of tirndi^*. Seed Corn. —The Germantown Telegraph says It is nut sufficient that seed will merely grow. There are degrees of vitality. Some will grow when the conditions are all favorable, but perish or have a sickly growth if vicissitudes occur*, Seed corn should be so fall of vitality that cold or wet will not prove fatal. A good practice for largo corn raisers is to plant a small piece with the very best type of seed and under

the very best conditions of ground, preparation, and culture. From this select seed for the main crop, and again select from this the approved type and the best for the next year’s patch for seed. This practice continued may be expected to secure a uniform type of corn and more constitutional vigor. The great American crop is worthy of our most careful study, in order to achieve the best possible results. Hints on Poultry Raising. —Mr. A. M; Halstead, an Eastern poultry raiser and the author of a recent work on artificial incubation, gives the follow in g s uggestioii®-<9S’-tite«'iocai£?ab.olsa« yard and the construction and tho arrangement of the buildings: -la the first place, the site of the yard should be a dry situation, with a southern or southeastern slope.' If on the bank of a lake or pond, well; but a small running stream is preferable. A reugh piece of land, with some underbrush or rocks, is not objectionable, unless the rocks are broken or piled up, so as to make a harbor for rats or weasles. Some underbrush is desirable for shade. Currant bushes make good shade, and their fruit is good for the fowls. . In the buildings to shelter the fowls it is better to have a number of small houses rather than one of large zize for the breeding stock. A convenient as well as an economical wav is to build each house double, that is to shelter two yards of fowls, lettiDg the dividing fence join the house in the center. Houses twelve feet long by six feet wide will moke two apartments, each large enough to accommodate fifty hens and four cocks, which are many as should be kepT togetlier. Ventilation must not be overlooked, and in hot weather should be ample. The yard for this number of fowls should not be less than one-eighth of an acre, twothirds of whieh should be in grass; the remainder should be in bare earth and should be plowed or spaded in alter nate portions every week. A small she*!, not necessarily oyer three feet high should be constructed, and under this prepare the dusting ground on fine sand, wood ashes and a little tobacoo dust In another part of the yard place a trough or shallow box, in which keep a supply of fine grovel. Incase however, the soil of tho yard is gravelly this is not necessary. In fencing the yards the height of fences will have to be regulated by the breed of fowls kept The Asiatic fowls will stay in side of almost any sort of mclosure while tho Leghorns and other lightbodied fowls will readily fly over a

fence six feet Light. In addition te the building for the breeding stock, there will be required a setting or hatching room, a nursery for the young chicks, which shqnld be partially covered with glass, and a second building into which they can be removed when five or six weeks old. The size of these buildings is of course to be governed by the extent of the business.